^OLET 
 
 ^SES 
 
 ax 
 
 Leonard Merrick
 
 'L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N I VLR51TY 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 V. \
 
 1. 
 
 
 
 i%vW2../^(
 
 VIOLET MOSES,
 
 VIOLET MOSES 
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MR. BAZALGETTE'S AGENT ' 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON 
 IpulrUsjjfrs ht ©riinaro ia %£r ^a\zsiv tIjB C|u£eit 
 
 189I 
 
 \_A\l Rights Reserved.']
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/violetmoses01merr
 
 V. I 
 
 ^ VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 \^ CHAPTER I. 
 
 The occupant of tlie room was a young man. 
 
 He liad once been a very fortunate young 
 
 man, but lie was not fortunate now, as 
 
 liis clothes denoted. The suit lie wore 
 
 t^Tiad left Bond Street four years since, 
 
 before tlie crash came which had heralded 
 
 ^Ms majority, and to-day the mother who 
 
 ^liad paid for it subsisted on infinitesimal 
 
 dividends in a London boarding-house, and 
 
 the shabby young man was fighting the 
 
 world alone. 
 
 YOL. I. 1
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 Of tlie numerous methods of combating 
 a coward wlio truckles to a few and bullies 
 tlie remainder, the way Allan Morris had 
 chosen was liis pen. He was the " A. M." 
 whose initials appeared in a third - rate 
 society paper beneath the tales which 
 brought their author in a guinea each, 
 and at his elbow a pile of MS. proclaimed 
 that he was further engaged upon a novel. 
 
 The pages on which the ink was still 
 wet, however, pertained neither to the 
 periodical nor the book : they constituted a 
 letter. It was an exceptionally long letter, 
 designed for \\\q lady in London, and it was 
 chiefly remarkable for the recurrence of one 
 name: "Miss Dyas." The pith of it all 
 was that the Fates had smiled when two 
 strangers from Chester, staying a fortnight 
 in the Earl's Court boarding-house, had 
 instanced their town as a place adapted to
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 his requirements. He liad said tlie country 
 was much cheaper than the metropoHs, and 
 declared how welcome Mrs. Carroll and her 
 niece made him when he called. That was 
 the pith of it ; but four sheets were filled 
 by a description of the niece, and five in 
 asserting how thankful he was that he had 
 met her. 
 
 " My friend is discovered ! " he had 
 written. " The friendship' I have always 
 pictured with a woman who should under- 
 stand me, and point out my faults, and yet 
 see more virtues than failings, all is now an 
 accomplished fact. She writes as well — you 
 know my ideal friend was always to write — 
 and though her productions have not, up to 
 the present, attained the dignity of print, 
 they are brimful of imagery and talent, and 
 when she has had more experience will make 
 her famous. This brings me to the point
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 where slie differs from my fancy sketch : 
 she is so much younger than I expected my 
 confidante to be. Indeed, in age I admit she 
 is only a girl, and the female mentor of my 
 hopes was to be my senior. On the other 
 hand, though she may have seemed no more 
 than her actual seventeen-and-a-half years 
 to you during a couple of weeks, the 
 individuality of this child-woman upon 
 deeper acquaintance is astonishing. She is 
 like no one I have ever known, like no 
 character I could have conceived," et cetera. 
 There followed an allusion to his accom- 
 panying Mrs. Carroll and Miss Dyas to tlie 
 Cathedral on Sundays ; annoyance was 
 expressed at having been unable to suggest 
 taking them on the river while the summer 
 lasted, because " I am such an awful duffer 
 with the sculls," and at the end, dashed in 
 under the signature, as by one who has
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 omitted to mention an all-important fact, 
 came the statement : " I am going round to 
 them to tea as soon as I have posted 
 this ! " 
 
 Mr. Morris directed the envelope and 
 then leant back in his chair, wondering 
 vaguely how much of what he had scribbled 
 he would have uttered by word of mouth. 
 There arose the unpleasant doubt that has 
 come to most of us after inditing an epistle 
 in which we have been more than usually 
 explicit about ourselves, our opinions, and 
 our weaknesses — the doubt whether it would 
 be quite understood at its destination when 
 read. The majority of mankind are apt to 
 display their idiosyncrasies in parlance with 
 their fellows, but there are others of whose 
 natures their letters are the truer indication, 
 and whose speech reveals little of their inner 
 minds. Allan Morris was one of these;
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 confidences instead of springing to bis lips 
 liad a tendency to flow from liis pen's point, 
 and often, where the fear of ridicule would 
 have kept him silent on a topic in conversa- 
 tion, he would expound theory after theory, 
 to be recalled with an agony of misgiving, 
 on a sheet of note-paper. 
 
 He had been writing with his back to 
 the stove, at an end of the table that 
 extended along the middle of the room. 
 Facing him, at the opposite extremity, stood 
 a cheap sideboard, on which were ranged 
 a quantity of shell boxes, some decanters, 
 the cruet-stand, and a number of mugs 
 of the " Present from Margate " type. The 
 apartment was on the first floor, and to his 
 right two Avindows, each adorned with a red 
 and a white curtain suspended from a piece 
 of tape, looked out into a narrow street. A 
 couch occupied the remaining wall, and at
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 its foot was tlie door. The upholstery was 
 red also, and of the dilapidated reps which 
 landladies especially affect, while the mantel- 
 shelf, destitute of a mirror, and void save 
 for a collection of memorial cards and a pair 
 of those variegated vases in which the lower 
 classes find their compensation for paying an 
 ordinary price for inferior tea, contributed 
 its quota of melancholy to the whole. 
 
 Presently he rose, and arranging the 
 litter in readiness for his return, prepared to 
 depart. He was, as a rule, a trifle afraid of 
 presenting himself too punctually at his 
 hostess's, deeming such precision might be 
 construed into the desire to be asked for an 
 earlier hour next time ; but to this invitation 
 Mrs. Carroll had added, as an after-thought, 
 " Do not be late," and he had been thank- 
 fully recalling the postscript all the day. 
 
 Powis Lodge was at no great distance
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 from tlie General Post Office, and when lie 
 liad despatched his letter a feelmg of 
 exhilaration set in which steadily increased 
 until the house was gained. The blinds 
 were not yet lowered, and in crossing the 
 road he could see the reflection of the fire 
 shining pleasantly behind the glass as if 
 to forecast the Avelcome that awaited liim. 
 Lonely as the boy was ; deprived of a liome, 
 as he had naively acknowledged to his 
 mother, ever since he had reached an age to 
 appreciate one, sensitively anxious, moreover, 
 to be liked — in common with most persons, 
 who, owing to some defect of temperament, 
 form few intimacies — his heart always beat 
 a shade more quickly when he mounted the 
 three tesselated steps of the vilhi wherein 
 he knew his presence was no longer regarded 
 as the mere "calling" of a visitor; and it 
 was with a sensation of real joy he was
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 given to remember liow fnllv tlie old hope 
 had been realized at last, making him — most 
 delicious thouo'ht — someone's "best friend." 
 He could hear Dandy barking defiance to 
 his summons, and imagined Miss Djas 
 quieting him with a playful reprimand. She 
 was saying, " Xaughty dog, that's Mr. 
 Morris ! " he thought, and smiled happily 
 where he waited, to the entertainment of 
 the grocer's lad, who grinned response. A 
 moment later he was in the house. 
 
 "Find yourself a chair, and come and 
 tell us the news," said Mrs. Carroll, as 
 soon as greetings had been exchanged. 
 "How is the book?" 
 
 "And how is the author?" said ]\Iiss 
 Dyas. 
 
 She was sitting on a low stool before 
 the fender, a favourite habit of hers in the 
 gloaming, and it is descriptive of the girl
 
 lo VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 to say she could do these things without 
 appearing poseitse, although the fact that 
 she was slightly below the medium height 
 may have accounted for the ability in some 
 degree. 
 
 " The book is quite well, thank you," 
 he answered gaily; "and the author is 
 rather satisfied with himself this afternoon." 
 
 He was thinking what a study she 
 made just then, with her lustrous eyes 
 upraised, and the delicate oval face flushed 
 faintly by the heat. She had soft curling 
 hair, too, which fell loose about her neck 
 and shoulders and over the deep lace collar, 
 and the play of the flames brought out the 
 gold that lurked amongst the brown very 
 prettily. 
 
 " Have you been working hard ? " she 
 pursued ; " and what are the events of 
 the day ? Confess ! "
 
 VIOLET MOSES. ii 
 
 " Imprimis, I got up " . . . 
 
 "What time?" she interrupted, with 
 mock authority. 
 
 " Xine o'clock." 
 
 " J was haying breakfast by then I All 
 right — go on." 
 
 "And when I went into the next room 
 I found Mrs. Carroll's note on the coffee- 
 pot." 
 
 " To which you said, ' Oh, bother those 
 people 1 I wish they would let me alone.' " 
 
 "Don't you mind her, Mr. Morris," 
 interposed the widow ; " she is fearfully 
 ill bred." 
 
 "I wrote steadily till one, and then I 
 took my usual walk till two. I was in 
 Eastgate Street and the Rows generally, 
 but I could not see you "... 
 
 " We were not out : I was painting." 
 
 "And then I went back to dinner.
 
 12 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 After dinner I finished my story for tlie 
 ' Society Echo,' revised the eighteenth 
 chapter of my novel, wrote to my mother, 
 and I believe that's all. Have I been 
 good?" 
 
 "Pretty well," she assented, pursing 
 her lips ; " I think you are entitled to be 
 idle now. But didn't you say ' Bother 
 those people ' ? I want to know — didn't 
 you?" 
 
 "I decline to reply to such a question. 
 Mrs. Carroll, am I justified in declining to 
 reply ? " 
 
 "Perfectly justified, Mr. Morris. Don't 
 encourage her, or she will become absolutely 
 unbearable. As it is, I am not allowed to 
 have the lamp brought in, you perceive, 
 but have to sit in the dark to humour 
 her." 
 
 "I see my 'pictures,'" rejoined Miss
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 13 
 
 Dyas, gazing earnestly into the glowing 
 coals ; " you wouldn't bring in the lamp 
 and send away my pictures : the angels, 
 and the demons, and all the human beings 
 there behind the bars ? Such comedies 
 and tragedies as go on in that Abbotsford 
 stove if you would only learn to look for 
 them, you people ; you don't know what 
 you miss ! This half light is the time I 
 enjoy the most: some of my tales are 
 born in it. Oh ! I forgot : I shall not 
 give you any information — I am offended. 
 I'm not worth being answered, I sup- 
 pose ! " 
 
 "Mrs. Carroll, make my peace with 
 her," he beseeched. 
 
 " Yiolet, you are not to tease." 
 "No; I am offended," she insisted. 
 " Some gentlemen — I mention no names — 
 but some gentlemen can be very rude ! "
 
 14 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " What do you want me to do ? *' he 
 queried. "You should have seen that 
 letter I sent to my mother ! " 
 
 "Did you say what a nuisance we 
 were ? '' she responded. 
 
 "I said how kind you both were, how 
 glad I was when you asked me to come 
 here ; and I told her I had a friend, a real, 
 true friend, just like the one I had always 
 wanted to meet!" 
 
 "Ah," she turned to him frankly, with 
 a quick, pleased smile, and when she 
 smiled her child-like beauty was bewitching, 
 "forgive my shamming! I wasn't really 
 cross. You knew that, didn't you ? 
 Yiolet's ashamed ! " 
 
 These two words had been from her 
 babyhood her usual form of apology for 
 any omission or misdemeanour, and when 
 she felt at all deeply she maintained the
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 15 
 
 fashion of speaking of herself in the third 
 person still. It was another illustration 
 of the faculty she had for doing naturally 
 what in ninety-nine girls out of a hundred 
 would have seemed infantine and affected. 
 Now she laughed outright as she caught 
 her aunt's expression of amusement, for 
 'Violet's ashamed* had long since passed 
 into a stock quotation. 
 
 " Tell us where you have left your 
 heroine," she continued. "Is she con- 
 tented or miserable, and — awful thought — 
 are you describing her dresses ? Oh, 
 auntie, won't he make a fiasco of the 
 dresses ! " 
 
 " I shan't," he retorted, sapiently ; 
 " she has only worn one up to now." 
 
 "Poor creature," murmured Mrs. Car- 
 roll, " at the end of the eighteenth 
 chapter ! Is she in the workhouse ? "
 
 1 6 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " I mean I liave only expatiated upon 
 one. As a rule, I allude to the 'cliarm, 
 yet simplicity, of lier costume ' ; it sounds 
 well, and prevents any danger of brain 
 fever. I was quite safe in the solitary 
 instance where I did venture into details, 
 for her frock was copied from Miss 
 Dyas's ! " 
 
 " Mine ! What, this — serge ? " she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "No; the pink one you used to wear 
 when I first came down here — ' 'Nun's 
 Veiling .' ' " he added, triumphantly. 
 
 " The ' nun's veiling ' was ' zephyr ' — 
 but that's a detail ! Don't stop, this is 
 too lovely ! How was it made ? " 
 
 "It was made," he proceeded, with the 
 calm assurance of a man who is aware he 
 is not committing himself, " in a style 
 admirably adapted to the youthful form."
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 17 
 
 " Thank you ; ' admirably adapted to 
 the youthful form,' is good and vague." 
 
 "She also wore a collar" — he Tvas not 
 so sure of his ground here, and could not 
 recollect how the difficulty had been sur- 
 mounted in the manuscript sufficiently well 
 to fall back upon an extract — "a filmy 
 collar, that came a long way down, and 
 went all the way round, so that it joined 
 behind, the same as the one you have on." 
 
 " Aunt Bertha, he is ' booing ' at my 
 collar." 
 
 " What is ' booing ? ' " he demanded. 
 
 "Present participle of the verb 'to 
 boo,' otherwise 'to ridicule,'" she averred 
 with dignity. 
 
 "Of Miss Dyas's own and particular 
 vocabulary, ]\Ir. Morris. It is scarcely 
 slang, since I believe it is her own inven- 
 tion; but it's none the less objectionable 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 on that account. Now, you have passed 
 your examination very nicely, and we'll 
 have tea." 
 
 "And your heroine looked a sight," 
 said the girl, conclusively. " No, she 
 didn't; I'm a little horror. Bring the 
 page to auntie, and she will tell you if 
 it's all right. Friends?" 
 
 " Friends ! " he declared, taking the 
 hand she extended. 
 
 Then twilight was banished, and, as was 
 always the case after these pretended mis- 
 understandings, she was more than ever 
 gentle and sympathetic to make amends. 
 They dined early at the villa, and presently 
 she was attacking muffins and cake in a 
 manner that betokened a thoroughly healthy 
 appetite and a complete unacquaintance with 
 that young ladies' accomplishment known 
 as "trifling with food." In fact, Violet
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 19 
 
 Dyas was accustomed to do everythmg as 
 she T\'aiited to do it ; it Tvas fortunate her 
 impulses were so often graceful. In his lodg- 
 ings the boy frequently thought of the two 
 as they were now : the niece with the urn 
 before her, her hanging hair half screening 
 her cheek on either side, and the debated 
 collar falling softly from her throat upon 
 the full dark bodice; while the widow, 
 never too strong, reclined in her arm- 
 chair, biting her toast slowly and listening 
 to her companion's eager chatter. He had 
 no poetical fads about the sex; he did not 
 feel with Byron that it was "a real pain 
 to liim to see women eat," nor reo-ard his 
 friend's laugh with Lamartine as " a defect 
 of youth ignorant of destiny"; and at the 
 moment he was occupied in trpng to 
 fix the cheery scene indelibly on his me- 
 mory, that he might reproduce it with
 
 20 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 greater vividness when lie was lonely 
 again. 
 
 " A penny ! " 
 
 "Not for sale," he returned; "besides, 
 yon never pay." 
 
 The jesting reference to his abstraction 
 roused him, nevertheless, and then it struck 
 him what a vapidity it was to have dis- 
 pelled the sudden cloud that had begun to 
 shadow his happiness at the remembrance of 
 the solitude to which he must go back. " A 
 penny," why, where the coin would have 
 been impotent the offer had been efficacious. 
 She must have grown a very dear friend, in- 
 deed, he decided, when the mere sound of her 
 voice was as magical as this. And next came 
 a little rush of mental congratulation at his 
 own capacity for rapid induction ; he argued 
 well, he was delighted to observe, recog- 
 nizing both cause and effect as an author
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 21 
 
 should. He ^ras encouraged. Again, liow 
 lovely slie was, and lie was not good looking 
 — on that point he was not given to flatter 
 himself. Was it not a jDroof that he must 
 be clever — more, that his cleverness could be 
 discerned even in the trivial amenities of 
 social intercourse, that she with her attrac- 
 tions of mind and feature should have been 
 drawn towards him ? The " superior " sex 
 are every whit as conceited as the " weaker," 
 and they hide their vanity ^vith less adroit- 
 ness; the chief difference lies in the 
 circumstance that an imjDrepossessing girl 
 is apt to deceive herself about her appear- 
 ance, and a plain man will concede he is not 
 handsome, but sustains himself by a com- 
 pensatory belief in his " ^ay." Men, too, 
 are always ready to attribute an abundance 
 of brain power to the women who coun- 
 tenance their egotism ; it is a compliment by
 
 22 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 implication to themselves, and where the 
 confidantes are fools the discovery is 
 generally made late, and with much reluc- 
 tance. It is to be noticed an undergraduate 
 will speak of "the intellect" of the young 
 person he is competent to fascinate at the 
 " Cherry Tree Arms." 
 
 In this case, however, neither of the 
 pair was a fool, and the sympathy that had 
 sprung up between them was founded on the 
 most solid of bases — kindred tastes ; it 
 might, therefore, be deemed permanent. 
 There had been thrown together a boy 
 verging upon manhood, talented and am- 
 bitious, and a girl whose nature was that 
 rare blending of the imaginative and the 
 practical, which means in a woman the 
 possibility of inordinate influence over the 
 most opposite of temperaments. Her sway 
 over one was manifestly established now,
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 23 
 
 and already slie was stronger than lie, more 
 immutable of purpose, more self-reliant. 
 Only the " inductive ratiocination " on which 
 the novelist was priding himself had not 
 brought him so far as this as yet, and 
 meanwhile the muffins were getting 
 cold. 
 
 By-and-by, leaning across the piano at 
 which she had been singing, he owned to 
 her what his thoughts had been. It was 
 typical of the place each had in the other's 
 life that she made reservations, and he told 
 her all. 
 
 "I don't know that you were wi^ong," 
 she answered, reflectively. "I liave given 
 you my friendship, and the word means so 
 much ! People have said to me, ' Miss 
 Dyas, will you let me be your friend ? ' and 
 I have offended them by not replying 'Yes.' 
 But I couldn't ; how can one truthfully say
 
 24 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 * yes ' if there is any need for tlie question 
 to be asked ? " 
 
 " And tliere is no need for me to ask, 
 is tliere ? " 
 
 " None ! " slie responded, briglitly. " Ah, 
 don't you know it ? There is something . . . 
 it has come . . . perhaps it was your stories 
 first, but we were almost friends from the 
 beginning, weren't we ? " 
 
 " At the beginning you disliked me : 
 didn't you tell me you Avere sorry your aunt 
 suggested Chester that evening ? " 
 
 " Oh, then ! I meant when you came 
 here, not in London. Yes, that evening I'm 
 afraid I didn't like you much. Auntie, 
 wasn't he stuck-up that evening in London 
 when he was introduced ? " 
 
 " I remember you objected to the way he 
 did his hair, my dear," rejoined Mrs. Carroll 
 gently from the fireside; "as well as I
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 25 
 
 could make out, it seemed to be your only 
 ground for complaint." 
 
 "It was tlie barber," lie asseverated, 
 struggling desperately not to blusli ; "lie 
 liad cut it so sliort I looked like a convict. 
 It was not fair to make me accountable for 
 a blunder of tlie barber." 
 
 "You were stuck-up," Miss Dyas reiter- 
 ated. " It was your air, not your hair 
 I found fault with. Can you manage this 
 accompaniment ? " 
 
 He read music very fairly at sight, 
 avoiding the usual mistake of the amateur 
 insomuch as he followed the singer and 
 did not attempt to lead her. The girlish 
 contralto, too, was sufficiently developed to 
 be agreeable, so they continued trying over 
 ballad after ballad from the pile upon the 
 rack pleasurably enough. And then Mrs. 
 Carroll played Chopin's "Marche Funebre,"
 
 26 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 played it in a fashion tliat few non-pro- 
 fessionals could — never slurring the rhythm 
 or undervaluing the time, and as the great 
 solemn chords swelled and sank, Mr. Morris 
 saw the girl's face turn white and her eyes 
 glow. It is a curious term to apply to the 
 human eye, but it is precisely what they 
 did; tears very, very seldom came to her, 
 and, instead, the light of the pupils seemed 
 to deepen into a sombre red till they glowed 
 like sullen fire. 
 
 " Is it not grand ? " she murmured when 
 it was over. " It takes me up to heaven, 
 that march. '* 
 
 "You know that not two people in- 
 terpret it alike," said Mrs. Carroll. 
 " Everybody renders it with more or less 
 different intention." 
 
 " The ' Prayer Movement ' is what I love 
 best," from Miss Dyas ; " the ' Service.'
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 27 
 
 Cannot yon liear the minister speaking, and 
 fancy the hush of the weeping bystanders ? 
 "When that melody comes in I can see the 
 sunshine bursting through the clouds and 
 stealing across his pitying face." 
 
 " Little Yi ! " whispered the widow, with 
 a caress to the pet name. 
 
 "I can, auntie, just as clearly as if 
 it were all taking place before me. Some- 
 times it is a mother who is dead ... a 
 mother buried young, the same as mine 
 . . . and then I am in the group in a 
 black frock, crying. And sometimes it is 
 ' Little Yi ' herself who is lying under the 
 flowers hi the coffin . . . and when I'm 
 gone you are very miserable, and I imagine 
 you coming back . . . and sitting here 
 alone, thinking of me." 
 
 " My child, you mustn't talk so ! " said 
 Mrs. Carroll. The mention of " the mother
 
 28 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 buried young, the same as mine," brought a 
 throng of memories of the sister who had 
 been so much to her ; " it is morbid, you are 
 giving us the horrors ! " 
 
 " Peccavi, don't be sad, dear ! Shall I 
 tell you a story, Mr. Morris?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered with ready ac- 
 quiescence, " tell me a story ; what is it 
 about ? " 
 
 " It's about a little girl," she began 
 slowly, " and she lived with her parents in a 
 big house in London. . . . But this little 
 girl's father was a great deal abroad, such a 
 great deal, that when he came home he was 
 like a stranger to her, ... so, you see, she 
 didn't quite live with her parents, although 
 I said she did : she only really knew and 
 loved her mother." 
 
 She paused for a second in her narrative, 
 her gaze riveted upon the burning coals as
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 29 
 
 if she were searcliing among tliem for 
 her words; and, watching lier where she 
 leant forward upon her improvised seat/he 
 understood she was telling him the story of 
 her own life. 
 
 " One day God took her mother away, 
 and Violet's heart was full of grief. She 
 was just eight years old, and she thought 
 peace would never come to her any more. 
 Her father was going away again soon . . . 
 he had been unfortunate, . . . and he was 
 poor. So it was settled she was to go with 
 her aunt, whose house was in Chester, and 
 who had no children of her own to kiss and 
 care for. This aunt had lost her husband 
 not long before, and she was more wretched 
 then even than A^i, I think . . . weren't 
 you, dear ? " 
 
 " I was very unhappy, indeed, little 
 maiden, and you came to comfort me ! "
 
 30 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " That's how it is," she went on, 
 her head resting in the widow's lap, 
 " that Aunt Bertha and I are more to 
 one another than people expect to see us. 
 We have suffered together, and together 
 learnt to find our hope in Him ... It 
 isn't much of a history, only I am glad you 
 know it ; I wanted to tell you the [other 
 night when you had told us yours ! " 
 
 "Thank you," he said softly; "and 
 your father," he asked, "is he never in 
 England ? " 
 
 " He came once to Chester about two 
 years afterwards; he had just returned 
 from the Cape. That was when poor 
 grandpapa was alive and staying with us." 
 
 " Some time before my father's death, 
 Mr. Dyas went to America," added Mrs. 
 Carroll ; " he has been out there ever since. 
 From a letter I had from him last month.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 31 
 
 tliougli, it isn't unlikely lie Tvill shortly be 
 in London once more." 
 
 A brief silence followed the last sentence, 
 during which all three were thoughtful. 
 Then: 
 
 "Don't you think there is something 
 mournful in having a father one scarcely 
 knows ? " said A^iolet. " To me it always 
 carries a sting, a reproach for having no 
 affection to give him ! " 
 
 " I think you are being terribly gloomy, 
 and that you ought to beg our pardons," 
 said Mrs. Carroll. " Mr. Morris, will the 
 great work allow you time to come and see 
 us Thursday afternoon ? Mr. Finlason and 
 Ms son are coming ; you haven't met young 
 Mr. Finlason, have you ? " 
 
 Xo, Mr. Morris had not met young Mr. 
 Finlason, only the father, and he would be 
 very glad. And conversation hencefor-
 
 32 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 ward flowing into more lively channels, it 
 was close upon ten o'clock when, declining" 
 to remain any longer, on the grounds of 
 duty, he found himself saying good-night. 
 
 Entering his lodging the room looked 
 bare and dismal ; a scoopful of slack was 
 smouldering in the grate ; the gas had been 
 lowered, pending his arrival, with such an 
 eye to economy that he extinguished it 
 altogether in meaning to turn it up. He 
 swore a little, and, discovering the matches 
 on the supper tray, commenced to write. 
 He wrote rapidly and almost without 
 cessation for perhaps an hour, merely 
 stopping once or twice to avoid tautology, 
 and then, to make use of a colloquialism, 
 he "stuck." He waited awhile, and next 
 lighting a cigarette began to pace the floor 
 impatiently, irritated at his own stupidity. 
 The position of affairs was so simple: his
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 33 
 
 heroine witli miicli compassion for the 
 distress she was occasioning, had just 
 declared her inability to love a man who 
 had been imploring her to be his wife, and 
 the rejected suitor, carried away by an 
 imgovernable impulse, had begged her once, 
 for the first and last time, to let him kiss 
 her "good-bye." That she could consent 
 was out of the question ; but in what words 
 was she to refuse ? 
 
 Presently it occurred to the author that 
 he knew a girl equally gentle, high-minded, 
 tender, in real life, and he strove to 
 stimulate his powers of composition by 
 imagining Miss Dyas in the situation of 
 his heroine, and endeavoured to conceive 
 the answer Miss Dyas would have made. 
 He smoked a good deal more tobacco under 
 the influence of this new conjecture, and 
 considering how vast a field for surmise 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 the substitution had opened up, it was 
 remarkable how little it advanced him. He 
 wrote "How dare you?" and immediately 
 scored it out; she would be pitying, not 
 passionate. He tried " Ah, not that ! " but 
 this was worse, for it looked as if she 
 wished her wooer to suggest an alternative. 
 It was certainly surprising, he told himself, 
 remembering the insight to her character 
 which he possessed, that he could not so 
 much as divine her answer to the petition 
 for a kiss. At length, thoroughly disgusted, 
 he tossed the manuscript aside, resolving to 
 trust to morning to bring a solution, and 
 attempted by the perusal of an old magazine 
 to divert his thoughts before turning in. 
 The question, however, continued to ob- 
 trude itself, and he was still wondering 
 what Miss Dyas would have answered when 
 he went to bed.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Theee are some women who go tliroiigli 
 
 life "with such straightforward simplicity of 
 
 thought and purpose that the philosophy of 
 
 the world touches them not at all, and they 
 
 are nearly as innocent at maturity as they 
 
 were when, as children, they were taught 
 
 the earth was a place merely intended for 
 
 humanity's schoolroom, and the greatest 
 
 ambition of everybody on it was to be 
 
 " good." These women, it will be noticed, 
 
 are generally beautiful : they, moreover, 
 
 make reverenced mothers and worthless 
 
 chaperones, and in the ball-room science 
 [35]
 
 36 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 of regulating their daughters' programmes 
 with a nice appreciation of pounds, shillings, 
 and pence, they are beneath contempt. 
 They were at no time too numerous, and 
 at the fag-end of the nineteenth century 
 they are few indeed, but there are still 
 some left, thank God ; though in view of 
 the cynical indecency, which is the dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the age, it is not 
 improbable they will soon be extinct — like 
 the art of staining glass, the English 
 summer, and many other excellent and 
 delightful things. 
 
 Had Mrs. Carroll been a woman of 
 narrower sympathies and wider experience, 
 had she, in fact, been one of the matrons 
 who say, " Y-e-s, a very gentlemanly young 
 fellow, . . . what is his position ? " before 
 they blandly murmur, "We shall be 
 pleased to see you," it is quite certain Mr.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 37 
 
 Morris's daj-dream of a great and recipro- 
 cated friendship would never have attained 
 fruition in Chester. She was, however, a 
 very affectionate, simple-minded soul, and 
 if it pleased her niece and this boy — who 
 was staying in their quaint old town while 
 he ^Tote a novel — to swear eternal 
 friendship under her smihng eyes in the 
 drawing-room of Powis Lodge, why, she 
 was the very last person going to object 
 to it. She was rather glad of the dis- 
 traction it afforded Yiolet, truth to tell. 
 She herself was not the most suitable 
 companion for a girl still in her teens, she 
 remembered, sometimes, with a pang of 
 dismay, as she glanced in the mirror at the 
 streaks of grey marring the smooth fair 
 hair " Ae " had been used to praise so — the 
 best of women are not above their harmless 
 human vanities — and they lived so quietly
 
 38 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 and saw so few people, save the little old 
 lawyer, Mr. Finlason, and his son, that 
 really the child could scarcely be said to 
 have any intimate acquaintance of her 
 own age. 
 
 The Finlasons had already arrived when 
 Mr. Morris was announced on Thursday, 
 and, as he came forward, he was instantly 
 conscious the evening was going to be less 
 agreeable to him than usual. Strangers 
 were a mistake, he felt, in a circle as small 
 as this, forgetting that if there were any 
 stranger here it was he, and he tried to 
 discern whether his friend held a similar 
 opinion, and hoped she would utter it when 
 they were gone. 
 
 Mr. Finlason, junior, was a very lanky 
 young man, who spoke a great deal, chiefly 
 of his own pursuits, and that in a silly 
 fashion certainly; but he was, nevertheless,
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 39 
 
 perpetually speaking, and, as liis father and 
 Mrs. Carroll were conversing together, the 
 onus of being interested fell on Yiolet, 
 and Mr. Morris gradually drifted into the 
 unenviable position known as " odd man 
 out." 
 
 These situations to] a keen-sighted 
 onlooker are full of amusement ; they 
 abound with opportunities to make mental 
 jokes, anent which the only regret to the 
 joker is the impracticability of uttering 
 them, and there is occasionally a trans- 
 parent device, a deadly resolution on the 
 part of the " odd man " to get the lead and 
 play trumps, which makes him as comic 
 as Coquelin in " Les Surprises du Divorce." 
 The fun, notwithstanding, resembles that 
 typified to our youthful comprehensions 
 through the eloquence of a fabled frog, 
 insomuch as it is all on one side, and.
 
 40 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 whatever humour there might be about 
 the present arrangement, it was quite 
 imperceptible to Mr. Morris. Indeed, this 
 onus of being interested had been accepted 
 by the girl so admirably — women being 
 always more patient than men — that while 
 she was inwardly exclaiming, " Oh, duty, 
 duty," and imagining that Allan was 
 sympathizing with her, he had in truth 
 begun to decide she was perfectly content, 
 and to blame her for the very virtue she 
 expected he would applaud. 
 
 As a rule, he was happy to see Mr. 
 Finlason there; the little solicitor chatted 
 to the widow, and, on that account, Yiolet 
 and he were the more free to exchange 
 confidences; but, until now, Mr. Finlason 
 had come alone, not accompanied by a 
 long-legged son, with a strident laugh and 
 a faculty for monopolizing everybody's —
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 41 
 
 well, Violet's — attention to tlie exclusion 
 of an older, or, at any rate, a hetier friend ! 
 He thought it would liave been more 
 comfortable than this in his lodgings, and 
 wished himself back there — almost ! 
 
 From time to time Mrs. Carroll turned 
 in their direction with some trivial 
 comment or inquiry, but the trio were 
 sitting close together, and she did not 
 remark that anything was amiss. She did 
 observe Walter Finlason was doing the 
 greatest part of the talking, but concluded 
 that Violet and Mr. Morris were being 
 entertained by his experiences. 
 
 " Yes," he was saying, by way of en- 
 tertaining them, "I've only been back a 
 few days ; been in London for the governor, 
 and had a run over to Paris for myself, 
 jolly ! You've never been in Paris, have 
 you, Miss Violet ? "
 
 42 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 "No, I have never been on the Con- 
 tinent in my Hfe." 
 
 "Ah, you ought to go; put your foot 
 down — not that it would take up much 
 room, by Jove — and make Mrs. Carroll 
 agree! I tell you Paris is very 'firm,* 
 when you know it. That's where fellows 
 make the mistake: they go to the opera, 
 and the Eden, perhaps, and then they come 
 back and fancy they know their Paris ! " 
 
 It had been his first visit to the French 
 capital, and he had been there precisely 
 three weeks, but he had read something 
 like this lately in a novel. 
 
 " Have ijou been in Paris, Mr. MoitIs ? " 
 said Miss Dyas. 
 
 " No," he answered, " I haven't ! " He 
 was annoyed at her asking him ; he would 
 have liked to answer " yes," and be able to 
 lure Mr. Finlason into pitfalls and destruc-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 43 
 
 tion. If it had been Brussels, now, lie 
 knew every corner of it ! 
 
 "Been in Chester long, Mr. Morris? 
 Not a bad little town while it's fresh to 
 you, is it ? Strangers are generally 
 'mashed' on Chester, but it's too dull for 
 this boy, thank you ! I clear out of it as 
 often as I can, and leave the governor to 
 mind the ' shop ! ' " 
 
 " I think it is one of the most beautiful 
 places I have ever seen," Allan responded 
 quietly ; " one gets rather tired of the bustle 
 of big cities when one is used to them." 
 
 "Mr. Morris is a novelist," explained 
 the girl; "what you think dull he finds 
 refreshing." 
 
 " Oh, Avrite novels, do you ? Wonder if 
 I've read any of them ! Kot that I do read 
 much, you know ; you aren't to be offended 
 if I haven't, ha, ha. Novels are mostly
 
 44 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 patronized by the ladies, aren't they ? I go 
 in for cycling, myself. But I picked up 
 one the other day, awful rot, the book I 
 mean, not the machine — you do chaff. Miss 
 Violet — a lot of sentimental bosh that made 
 me sick ! What are the titles of yours ? 
 There's nothing like a scorching title, is 
 there?" 
 
 "Miss Dyas is mistaken," said Allan. 
 " 1 am a journalist, not an author. My 
 articles and stories appear in papers." 
 
 " Do any writing for the ' Pink 'Un ' ? " 
 
 "I do not; the staff of the 'Pink 'Un', 
 I believe, is complete." 
 
 He leant back in his corner of the sofa, 
 and became engrossed in the contemplation 
 of the lire, as if he had suddenly developed 
 Violet's ability for seeing pictures there, 
 and Finlason continued to address himself 
 to her.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 45 
 
 Well, Allan was displeased, she saw tliat 
 now, but it could not be helped. Slie had 
 done her best, she reflected, to bring him 
 into the conversation, and to make him shine 
 in it. It was not her fault that he had 
 never been in Paris, and was too young to 
 have written for the "Pink 'Un ! " She 
 supposed the " Pink 'Un " was some high- 
 class magazine of the " Xineteenth Century '* 
 type, to contribute to which was reserved 
 for authors who were already famous, Hke 
 Mallock or Marion Crawford. Still he was 
 being very unkind, and she listened and put 
 in her mechanical rejoinders with a growing 
 pain in her heart which was new to her. If 
 she had been older she would have construed 
 the ungraciousness of his mood into a sign 
 of her power, and been flattered ; as it was, 
 she merely saw the injustice of it, and was 
 hurt.
 
 46 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 He was making lier obvious duty hard 
 for her instead of lending her assistance — 
 he, her friend, that was the bitter thought ! 
 It would have been such an easy thing to 
 have been amiable and polite to her aunt's 
 guest, and looked forward to a cosy afternoon 
 another day if Mr. Morris had only smiled 
 and understood as he should have done — as 
 she would have done if their positions had 
 been reversed. On how many occasions had 
 she not cheered him when he was discouraged 
 and needed strength — it was the mutual 
 obligation of friendship, surely? He himself 
 had often said it, and thanked her for her 
 goodness so earnestly in a hurried undertone 
 she solely heard, or just when their hands 
 met sometimes as he went away, that she 
 had been sorrier for his loneliness than 
 before, and more than ever grateful they 
 had met. And now, for the very first time,
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 47 
 
 she liad wanted lielp from liim, and he had 
 failed her — oh, it was cruel ! 
 
 And so, being able to act a great deal 
 better than he, because she belonged to the 
 sex who are at once stronger to endure and 
 more patient to bear, more potent to soothe 
 and more difficult to comprehend than the 
 deftest, brawniest, wiseacre of a man God 
 made since Adam, she laughed bravely at 
 young Finlason's anecdotes ; and Allan 
 Morris, on the sofa, employed himself by 
 manufacturing sarcasms to be launched as 
 innocently as might be if either of them 
 gave him the chance. 
 
 The recreation proved waste of intellect. 
 Yiolet, sore at the coolness rather of manner 
 than actual words with which her attempts 
 had been received, ceased to refer to him, 
 and Finlason was regarding him as a well- 
 meaning fellow without much to say for
 
 48 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 himself, whom his hostess must probably 
 find rather a bore. He therefore remained 
 gloomily silent till they all rose to go to the 
 table, when his fancy sadly darted to their 
 customary teas, minus the two extra cups 
 and saucers, the additional confectionery, 
 and the unfamiliar element. 
 
 " Where am I to go. Miss Violet,'* 
 demanded Walter Finlason, as they joined 
 the others, " which is my seat ? " 
 
 "What chair am I to take, Miss Dyas ? " 
 
 Allan had never called her anything but 
 " Miss Dyas " in the whole course of their 
 intimacy; but all the same, following the 
 other appellation as it did, he could not 
 avoid placing the slightest stress upon it 
 now, and ridiculously hoped she would be a 
 trifle wounded by the difference. 
 
 The droll and the serious were inter- 
 mingled very closely in the pleasant draw-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 49 
 
 ing-room of a country villa that evening, 
 and, as is frequently tlie case, only two out 
 of tlie five personages in it had the faintest 
 perception of what was going on. Pain had 
 entered into the friendship that hitherto had 
 flowed so placidly between the pair, and 
 the new emotion had been begotten by the 
 introduction of an empty-headed young 
 gentleman with an objectionable style and 
 loud checked trowsers. It is really often 
 interesting to note the remarkable effects 
 a fool is able to produce. 
 
 Later on: "Well, Mr. Morris, how is 
 the work progressing ? " said the solicitor, 
 cheerily. " Come and tell me all about it ! " 
 
 Mr. Morris was delighted; he would 
 ensconce himself by Mrs. Carroll and the 
 old man until it was sufficiently late to 
 make his adieux, and, what was more, he 
 would be extremely loquacious, to let Yiolet 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 see she was perfectly at liberty to devote 
 herself to whomsoever she pleased, and to 
 manifest how complacently he could accom- 
 modate himself to her choice. There would 
 then be two groups, if she and the idiot 
 could be said to constitute a "group" — for 
 that they were all within arm's length of 
 one another did not affect his theory an 
 atom — and he would have been ill-treated. 
 
 There is in human natvire a certain con- 
 tradiction, which may be described as an 
 exultance of grief. It consists in knowing 
 oneself a "victim." 
 
 " Mr. Morris is going to astonish us all 
 one day," said Mrs. Carroll. " We shall be 
 quite proud to have met him before he was 
 celebrated, and always be reminding him 
 of it ! " 
 
 " That's very likely," rejoined the law- 
 yer. " When you're * somebody,' Mr. Morris,
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 51 
 
 jou will be amazed to discover Tvliat a 
 number of persons there were wlio always 
 went about prophesying your success ! Still 
 in Lady's Lane ? " 
 
 "Yes, I'm still there, Mr. Finlason. I 
 don't know that I could do any better. 
 Apartments are all much of a muchness, are 
 they not ? The chief variety is to be found 
 in the landladies." 
 
 " Ah, landladies ! The one who is tearful 
 when you mention that you thought a leg 
 of mutton would have served you for three 
 dinners, eh ! and the other one who bullies 
 you ; they might be classed with servants 
 as necessary evils ! And yet I remember 
 one — I was living in Camberwell, I recollect, 
 and my employers had promised to raise my 
 salary twenty pounds a-year if I mastered 
 shorthand, and smashed as soon as I'd learnt 
 it — who refused to send up her bill when 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS
 
 52 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 T lost my billet, and offered to lend me a 
 couple of sovereigns until I got something 
 else. She was a little "Welshwoman, and 
 her name was all double I's. I wonder if 
 she's alive now, and still letting lodgings 
 to impecunious clerks mastering * Pitman's 
 System.' Well, well, God bless her, any- 
 how ! " 
 
 " And what did you give her when you 
 obtained another situation ? " asked Mrs. 
 Carroll, laughing. 
 
 " Give her ! madam ? I gave her 'notice'; 
 my next berth was for fifteen shillings a 
 week, and it would not run even to a ' two- 
 pair-back ' in Camberwell. So is virtue re- 
 warded ! " 
 
 "Who was the 'virtue,' sir," said Allan, 
 " you or the lady whose name was all double 
 I's?" 
 
 " Both, my young friend, judging by
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 53 
 
 results ; it lias become sucli a general axiom 
 that virtue plays second fiddle in life, tliat 
 when an old man has failed to fulfil all his 
 juvenile aspirations, he can alvrajs say, 
 ' behold, I am virtuous ! ' " 
 
 " I've often thought," Allan pursued, 
 "I should like to write a thing — or has it 
 been done — called ' The Book of Land- 
 ladies : their Portraits and Peculiarities ; ' 
 and if you have stayed in lodgings often, 
 Mr. Finlason, haven't you sometimes been 
 filled with a wild desire to purchase 
 (discriminatingly) their works of art ? 
 What a maddening collection could be 
 made : ' The Black Brunswicker's De- 
 parture,' and 'The Black Brunswicker's 
 Return ; ' the adipose baby (in oils) with 
 water on the brain reclining on pheno- 
 menal grass, and cuddling a dog, in the 
 execution of which the artist was evidently
 
 54 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 ■undecided whether he should make it real 
 or Berlin wool ; ' England, Farewell/ with 
 the spectre mother and triangular infant, 
 all sash and pantaloons, watching the 
 receding vessel; and then the companion, 
 ' Welcome Arrival,' — the spectre mother, 
 much improved in appearance during her 
 husband's absence, scanning the horizon 
 through a. pepper-castor, and the trian- 
 gular infant archly holding up one finger, 
 and looking the wrong way ! " 
 
 " Buy them up, and send them to your 
 worst enemy ! " Mrs. Carroll suggested. 
 
 " Should I have to beware of an action, 
 Mr. Finlason ? " 
 
 " I think it would be a capital offence ! " 
 said the lawyer. 
 
 "A capital revenge, at any rate," rejoined 
 Allan; "if I had an enemy I would con- 
 sider it. But, really, landladies with their
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 55 
 
 ornaments and peculiarities are very funny, 
 only one can never appreciate tlieni till tliey 
 are over. Sala's reminiscence is good; do 
 you know it ? The landlady gave him notice 
 to quit because lie objected to having in 
 three pounds of bacon at the time, and didn't 
 like it 'streaky.' She said she had let 
 lodgings for five-and-twenty years, and 
 wanted to know if he called himself a 
 gentleman ! At least those are the words 
 he tells the story in somewhere." 
 
 They both laughed, and the young man 
 blessed Mr. Sala for having made the joke. 
 Yiolet gave him one long reproachful look, 
 and slowly moved, so that her face was 
 hidden from his view. She regretted she 
 had shown he was wounding her at all, but 
 her heart was big within her just then, and 
 she had done it almost unwittingly. 
 
 Thus this comedy went on, played to an
 
 56 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 unappreciative audience, for an hour or more 
 when Mr. Finlason declared that he must go. 
 Everybody got up, and it was while the men 
 were struggling into their overcoats, and 
 somebody was being facetious about some- 
 body else having taken the wrong hat, that 
 the boy and girl drifted together for a 
 moment, and stood side by side in a little 
 strained unhappy silence. Each one waited 
 for the other to speak, and felt desperately 
 that the opportunity was flying by. 
 
 " I'm afraid I have been in the way ? " 
 he said at length, abruptly. 
 
 " How ungenerous you are," said she 
 under her breath, " how ungenerous ! " 
 
 They looked into each other's eyes : she 
 was very white, and he was longing to say 
 how miserable she had made him. 
 
 " Are you ready, Morris," cried the 
 lawyer ; " you go our way, don't you ? "
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 57 
 
 Tlie cliance was past. "Yes, I'm ready, 
 Mr. Finlason, I'm coming now ! " he said. 
 " Good night, Miss Dyas ! " 
 
 "Good night," she answered coldly; 
 " anntie, Mr. Morris is waiting to say ' good 
 night ' to you ! " 
 
 They passed out into the moonlight, he 
 and the two other guests, and the world 
 seemed over to him. AVhen they reached 
 Mr. Finlason's house, the widower asked 
 him if he would come in and smoke a 
 cigar, but he declined with some muttered 
 explanation about a forgotten letter with 
 which he must go to the railway station, 
 and cursed himself for not having made 
 the excuse of " work " directly the son 
 offered to stroll there too. He wanted to 
 be alone ; he wanted to think. He had 
 not lived long enough to be master of the 
 accomplishment that Talleyrand denominates
 
 58 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 le grand art de plaire, and which may 
 be translated as the ability to disguise one's 
 antipathies, and the voice of the companion 
 whom he was accusing of having wrought 
 this breach was detestable to him. Her 
 fingers had scarcely touched his hand in 
 their farewell, and what had he done ? 
 Nothing ! She had assigned him a position, 
 and then was aggrieved when he accepted 
 it. That was her youth; lie might have 
 known so young a girl would fail to prove 
 as sensible as a woman always ! At the 
 earliest test of her savoir faire the in- 
 experience had been apparent ! He wished 
 Mr. Finlason, junior, had stopped in London 
 or in Paris, or gone to the bottom of the 
 Channel before he returned to Chester to 
 bring him disillusion, and to add insult to 
 injury now by wearying him with inanities 
 about the weather !
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 59 
 
 "Yes, it Tvas a very fine niglit, indeed," 
 lie replied, " ratlier chilly for September, 
 but very fine, indeed ! " 
 
 Perhaps she was sorry, though, he 
 continued, mentally, and had begun to see 
 how wrong she had been. Perhaps . . . 
 
 " Pretty girl, Miss Dyas, isn't she ? jolly 
 hair and eyes ! Have you got a cigarette, 
 I've left my case at home ? " 
 
 " I've the materials if you like to roll 
 one," he said; "you'll find the papers in the 
 pouch ! " 
 
 " Thanks ; what do you do with your- 
 self here, been on the river much ? " 
 
 " I'm busy, you know. I came down to 
 be quiet, so I haven't been about to any 
 great extent ; I go to Mrs. Carroll's some- 
 times, and that's all ! " 
 
 " Good sort, Mrs. Carroll ; used to be 
 a dev'lish pretty woman too. 1 can re-
 
 6o VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 member lier wlien she was worth turning 
 round to look after. She's fallen oiffi soon, 
 that woman has ! " 
 
 " I suppose you've known them a long 
 time ? " remarked Allan, indifferently. 
 
 " Years ! Eemember Yiolet Dyas when 
 she was a kid; the ancient one — Mrs. 
 Carroll's father — used to be a client of the 
 governor's. How that girl's altered, she 
 seemed to grow up all at once ; and, I say, 
 can't she use those eyes of hers, just ! By 
 Jove, girls do know a thing or two, don't 
 they? Can't imagine where they pick 
 'em up ! " 
 
 " Here we are," interrupted Allan with 
 a sigh of relief, " excuse me a second ! " 
 
 He was glad to slip aAvay ; to hear his 
 friend, her Avho to him was something 
 different from anybody in the world, 
 discussed in this strain sickened and
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 6i 
 
 offended liim. It was suddenly revealed 
 to liis perception that tlie way in which 
 very young men were wont to talk of the 
 opposite sex was coarse. He reviled him- 
 self for having previously been blaming 
 her in his own mind ; he said it had put 
 him more on a state of equality with Mr. 
 Walter Finlason. He appeared to have 
 less right to feel indignant. 
 
 The platform was besieged by a troop 
 of Irish peasants, perhaps half-a-hundred, 
 men, women, and children, bound for the 
 Emerald Isle after the English harvest, 
 all vociferous in their demands for the 
 Holyhead train, and launching furious 
 imprecations at the officials. The Chester 
 railway station is its most crowded spot at 
 night, and several loiterers and passengers 
 with nothing to do, were amusing them- 
 selves by chaffing the infuriated mob, while
 
 62 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 Finlason, thoroughly in his element, had 
 commenced to favour them with " The 
 Wearin' o' the Green '' in an improvised 
 brogue, and was entreating them "to be 
 strong in the chorus." Even when Allan 
 rejoined him, and he comprehended that the 
 epistle had been despatched, it was some 
 time before he would consent to abandon 
 the recreation, and Morris, for whom this 
 kind of schoolboy imbecility held no amuse- 
 ment, withdrew a few paces and fumed with 
 impatience. 
 
 Presently he noticed an old woman with 
 a child, standing apart from the rest; she 
 was not swearing — had finished probably — 
 nor was she at the instant exclaiminsr 
 "Holyhead," but she wore a wistful ex- 
 pression that was very touching, and the 
 child had tears on her grimy face. Obeying 
 an impulse he stepped forward and gave
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 63 
 
 her a sliilling. He had once when mthout a 
 shilling in his pocket, gone in to a pawn- 
 broker's and borrowed half -a-cr own on his 
 umbrella to satisfy an importunate beggar, 
 because he thought he heard a sob in the 
 man's petition ; and now his spirits mo- 
 mentarily rose as she called down bene- 
 dictions on his head. He knew Violet would 
 have liked his action if she had witnessed 
 it, and — he was conscious it detracted 
 from the merit — he could not quite help 
 wishing she had. 
 
 " Come along," said Finlason at his 
 elbow, " it isn't eleven o'clock ; if you hurry 
 up I'll show you the finest woman in 
 Chester. 'Jam,' my boy, and ' yours truly' 
 is on it ! Oh, no. Tommy rot, we must have 
 a drink before we turn in, come on ! " 
 
 So remembering the hotels would be 
 closing shortly, and hardly seeing an
 
 64 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 alternative, lie suffered himself to be 
 piloted through the peaceful streets into 
 a third-rate bar, where they encountered 
 two acquaintances of his escort's, both in 
 covert coats and brown billycock hats, 
 lolling across the maple, and being brilliant 
 for the admiration of a divinity with dirty 
 fingers and orange-coloured hair. And he 
 said, " How d'ye do ? pleased to meet 
 you," to each of this pair in turn, neither 
 of whose names he caught, and was intro- 
 duced to the " fine woman " in familiar 
 address as " Mr. Thingamabob, Miss Clara." 
 
 " What are you going to have ? " said 
 Einlason. 
 
 " I'll have ' Scotch.' " 
 
 " Two of the ' usual ; ' and what^s yours, 
 Miss Clara ? " 
 
 Miss Clara would take "a port wine," 
 being a divinity with an eye to business.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 65 
 
 and reflecting tliat it represented a larger 
 profit to tlie house tlian was accruing from 
 whiskey. She said, "Well, my bes' respex!" 
 when she sipped it, and observed, further- 
 more, that Master Finlason was a very bad 
 boy for not having been to see her all day, 
 and that she did not know if she meant to 
 speak to him at all. This playfully, with 
 a toss of the orange-peel tresses and a 
 feinted retreat. Then Finlason the reck- 
 less possessed himself of the dirty hand, 
 and inquired where she thought she was 
 going, to which she replied (with a 
 redundance of negatives) that she was 
 not going anywhere, but it was not to be 
 expected she should stop there all night 
 and talk to parties who had passed the 
 window a dozen times that morning and not 
 come in; whereat he guffawed loudly, and 
 winked at Allan, though Allan thought the 
 
 VOL. T. 5
 
 66 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 liumoiir of tlie retort obscure ; and tlie two 
 young gentlemen in billycock hats, having 
 emptied their glasses, were convulsed also, 
 and speculated whether they would be invited 
 to partake in the next " round." 
 
 The place was uncommonly close, and 
 it reeked of stale tobacco. In contradis- 
 tinction to the beauty of tlie night outside, 
 they were surrounded by gaudy lithographs, 
 the flare of gas-jets, and stupid laughter; 
 and Allan loathed the weakness that had 
 prevented his refusal to come; he loathed 
 the jests and the babble ; he loathed Walter 
 Finlason for flirting with a barmaid half- 
 an-hour after he had been in the society of 
 Yiolet; and then he tried to determine if 
 he could be exaggerating this liorror for 
 his own approval, in order that he miglit 
 feel less unworthy of her friendship 
 himself.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 67 
 
 He paid for what was designated "the 
 same again," and, reminding Finlason that 
 their destinations lay in opposite localities, 
 went out alone. He was gi^ateful for the soli- 
 tude; he could think of her more fittingly 
 in the pure fresh air. The reproachful eyes 
 which came before him were no longer so 
 incongruous with his situation ; he could — 
 anomaly of pain — abandon himself more 
 completely to his unhappiness. " Un- 
 generous," she had termed him — "How 
 ungenerous you are ! " It was their first 
 difference, and caused by the greenhorn he 
 had left pressing a barmaid's hand. He 
 was disappointed, hurt, and angry all at 
 once ; and to last him for pocket-money until 
 Monday he had just sixpence. But rankling 
 through his mortification, one thought was 
 uppermost : she had " defended " this fellow 
 against himself, against liim — her Friend.
 
 68 
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 And lie dogmatized like another Mr. 
 Tupper in his feuilletons for a society paper, 
 and was writing a novel analyzing the 
 infinite emotions of the soul !
 
 CHAPTER III, 
 
 Probably few social questions have been 
 more extensively debated tlian tlie pos- 
 sibility — but should it not be rather the 
 durability — of Platonic attachments. The 
 majority of persons, chiefly women, too, 
 which is noteworthy, hold the notion im- 
 practicable altogether, and pronounce its 
 trial flirtation, its name an alias, and its 
 "intellectual affinities'' all bosh. This, 
 however, is sheer nonsense ; there have 
 been many instances of Platonic attachment 
 since the world began, but the force of 
 the theory expounded by the Athenian 
 [69I
 
 70 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 philosoplier has seldom been strikingly- 
 illustrated by either young men or beau- 
 tiful girls, and Allan Morris slowly realized 
 the fact that he was "in love." He did 
 not say, in the popular phrase, he had been 
 " deceived in his own feelings ; " he said 
 his feelings had changed. Nor did the 
 truth suddenly come upon liim in the 
 traditional blinding flash ; lie awoke to it 
 very gradually, so gradually that he could 
 never rightly tell when he was conscious of 
 it first, and admitting that Miss Dyas had 
 grown a great deal dearer to him than a 
 friend could ever be, he was not by any 
 means exhilarated by the discovery. 
 
 He had known love's counterfeit before 
 his majority, and more than once — a less 
 uncommon thing than it may sound for only 
 sons who are no saints and whose fathers 
 provide them with liberal allowances; but
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 71 
 
 tliere had been no tliouglit of marriage in 
 these cases, and, indeed, marriage was an 
 event he had never considered, excepting as 
 people think of death — not as an equal 
 calamitv, nor as a calamity at all, but as 
 something very indefinite and remote. On 
 those rare occasions when his fancy had 
 assumed a sort of vao-ue outline he had 
 always seen himself with gi^ey hair in a long 
 dining-room, such as his parents had had in 
 Kensington, and there had been a good deal 
 of lamplight on silver, and children made 
 their appearance presently in white frocks 
 with blue ribbons, to be amusing at dessert, 
 and were removed, as soon as they cried, to 
 the nursery upstairs. 
 
 Having come to give the matter more 
 attention, he perceived he had taken it for 
 granted his would be a prosperous marriage, 
 and he recollected what a long way from
 
 72 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 being prosperous he was. " In love ! '* 
 "What was the use of being in love when he 
 had not even enough money to pay for the 
 wedding-ring ? Of course, there were 
 couples who did not have mahogany tables 
 and crystallized fruits for the children to be 
 brought down to, or nurseries either — hus- 
 bands and wives who lived in outlandish 
 districts like Islington or Peckham, and 
 cut up their babies' dinners for them before 
 they ate their own ; but their existence 
 occurred to him rather in the manner of a 
 revelation, and he certainly had no desire 
 to be one of them. Moreover, he was 
 doubtful whether he could care for a 
 woman deeply under conditions like these. 
 His aspirations as regards matrimony were 
 those of a visionary or a millionnaire ; his 
 wife, Yiolet — he wanted Miss Dyas for his 
 wife — ought to move through a kind of
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 73 
 
 Eaton Hall (lie had lately been over to see 
 it) arrayed in the most exquisite toilettes. 
 For accessories there should be pictures 
 and statuary, or flower-banks and spreading 
 trees ; there was the plash of a fountain in 
 his reverie, and sometimes the fountain 
 widened into a lake. Her days should be 
 passed in an atmosphere of luxury and art — 
 and then he would love her as no woman 
 had been loved before. But — there was the 
 "but" — to own her poor and shabby would 
 destroy his illusions about her, and hurt 
 him. Alone, he could bear privation 
 stoically enough ; at a pinch he could 
 himself purchase the steak for his dinner, 
 and take it away in his pocket with little 
 more than a natural reluctance, but he was 
 far from sure he could kiss the hand of the 
 wife he had seen sorting chops at a 
 butcher's, and carrying them home after-
 
 74 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 wards wrapped in a piece of newspaper, be 
 lier selection made never so tenderly with a 
 view to his own satisfaction and en- 
 joyment. 
 
 He was no hero ; that is a title few men 
 can claim. For every hero who blazons 
 his name on history there are a thousand 
 heroines who go down to tlieir graves 
 wheeling perambulators; and had the ty- 
 pical six-roomed house in Peckham been 
 attainable, he would still have hesitated to 
 propose, less from the knowledge of how 
 little she would gain than from dread of 
 the discomfort to himself which might ensue 
 from her acceptance. 
 
 All this, thougli, pertained to the primary 
 stage, and must not be confounded with 
 the development. Not many of us rise 
 from comparative indifference to the un- 
 selfishness of a great love at a bound.
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 75 
 
 although we all pretend we do ; and most 
 Imman beings happily betrothed can look 
 back with wonder to detect how mildly they 
 really loved at a period when they thought 
 they adored. In scarcely more than a 
 week, Mr. Morris's ideas had suffered con- 
 siderable modification, and in a fortnight he 
 was assured that three hundred a year, and 
 Violet, would fulfil every worldly ambition 
 in his heart save fame, which was a sur- 
 prisingly rapid descent from the expanding 
 fountain and the stately trees, and argued 
 that he was becoming fonder of her every 
 hour. 
 
 In truth he was ; the temporary 
 estrangement had long since been for- 
 gotten. On the Sabbath following that 
 memorable Thursday he had gone to 
 Morning Service at the Cathedral, and in 
 lieu of makinor direct for the seat next those
 
 16 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 Mrs. Carroll and her niece always occupied, 
 liad sneaked guiltily by, and Bunk into a 
 chair close to the choir-screen. Presently, 
 amid the rustle of arrivals, during that 
 scarcely perceptible murmur which is the 
 prelude to the simultaneous hush which falls 
 directly the choir and clergy enter, some- 
 thing had seemed to tell him that Miss Dyas 
 and the widow were near, and, although 
 unobserved himself, his heart had given a 
 sudden leap as, turning slightly, he saw 
 them advancing towards their accustomed 
 places up the nave. Once — it was when 
 the " Te Deum" was being sung — he turned 
 again, and for a single instant Violet's and 
 his own eyes met. There was no longer the 
 reproach he was recalling in hers; they 
 were dimmed merely by a shade of sadness 
 that shamed him through and through, 
 and then they were lowered to her book
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 77 
 
 once more. The solemnity of tlie great 
 edifice, tlie pure exalted look upon the 
 childish face, brought there by the hymn of 
 praise her whole soul seemed offering, and 
 glorified and deepened by the sunlight 
 streaming through the pictured glass aboye 
 their heads, made his grievance appear 
 unworthy and insignificant ; and joining 
 them outside when Chester was greeting 
 Chester with its friendly commonplaces 
 about the sermon, the pair had been re- 
 conciled with half-a-dozen words and a 
 clasp of the hand. 
 
 "Can you forgive me ? " he had 
 whispered, and she had answered — 
 " Oh, so freely ; I am so glad ! " 
 And then he had walked home with 
 them, and they had had some music in 
 the afternoon, and the renewed fami- 
 liarity sundered for just two days had
 
 78 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 seemed more sweet to the boy and girl 
 than ever. 
 
 It was a pity it did not last, lie thought 
 now, with its placidness and peace. For 
 what could he hope, even if her friendship 
 had altered to something warmer too ; could 
 he ask her to wait for him on prospects as 
 sorry as his ? And, also, if he did succeed in 
 winning, not the imaginary park and mansion, 
 but, say, a modest competence, was not his 
 first duty to his mother, spending her old age 
 amid the dreariness of an Earl's Court board- 
 ing-house — the mother whose affection he 
 had known all his five-and-twenty years, and 
 who in her ill-fortune had only him to count 
 on to redeem the vagaries of those injudicious 
 investments of \\\q past ? It was she who 
 should spur him to exertion, her for whom 
 he should tax his brain and strain each 
 nerve, not Violet. And yet Violet was so
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 79 
 
 dear, so dear ! He was pursued by a 
 feverish unrest, liis novel vas almost aban- 
 doned : it was sufficient effort each week to 
 turn out the necessary four columns for the 
 " Society Echo ; " and after his customary 
 stroll, he returned either exuberantly joyful 
 because of an invitation to go round to 
 Powis Lodge, or in a state of funereal 
 depression because neither aunt nor niece 
 had been encountered. He simply went out 
 to see them — his solitary promenade was 
 bounded by the corners which he knew they 
 must pass ; and if he jDaused, it was to inspect 
 a jeweller's window and decide what present 
 he would like to buy for Violet, or to credit 
 himself with an account at the London and 
 Westminster, and conceive his sensations 
 were he about to astonish her with a necklace 
 of pearls — pearls were more adapted to her 
 than diamonds. Yes, the jeweller's windows
 
 So VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 had a strong attraction for liim, and when a 
 young man takes to staring dreamily at a 
 display of brooches and bracelets, it always 
 means one thing. 
 
 The " Rows," those double lines of shops 
 one on top of the other, baffled him ; when 
 he was on the pavement he was afraid she 
 might be walking over his head unknown to 
 him, and when he was on the wooden way 
 above, he trembled with the fear that he was 
 missing the sight of her below. He said it 
 was a crack-brained town, specially designed 
 for the perplexity of people who were 
 anxious to meet without appointments. 
 
 But iL'as she anxious — in the sense in 
 which he was ? That was the point; he would 
 have preferred to see the greeting smile he 
 had formerly found so charming in its frank- 
 ness a trifle less frank now ; to have heard 
 the welcoming w;ords which three weeks ago
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 8r 
 
 had seemed so perfect, more hesitating, and 
 not quite so gay. He did not think a girl 
 Tvho had fallen in love with him would have 
 been so unembarrassed as Violet was ; and 
 then he reminded himself his acquaintance 
 with young girls was limited, and said pro- 
 bably they were not incessantly blushing and 
 faltering outside the pages of the "Family 
 Herald." 
 
 One unsettled morning, after he had been 
 pacing his " beat " for nearly an hour, 
 alternately scanning the sky and scrutin- 
 izing the forms of distant pedestrians, he 
 discerned the familiar little figure approach- 
 ing. She was a long way off, but there was 
 something in Violet's carriage that pro- 
 claimed her before one could distinguish her 
 features, her dancing hair, or even the colour 
 of her dress ; and to Allan, the watery sun 
 which had been filling him with misgivings 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 immediately beamed divinely. She was not 
 alone, although she sometimes was — Mrs. Car- 
 roll being no great walker and easily tired — 
 but accompanied or not she liad come, and 
 he could saunter beside her and shake hands 
 with her twice before tliey parted, and if, 
 prior to the moment of leave-taking, he were 
 able to devise some suggestion for her re- 
 moving her right glove, why, he would feel 
 her dear hand still more. 
 
 And so, presently, he was hearing how 
 they had nearly remained indoors altogether, 
 " it looked so showery," and saying calmly 
 he was glad they had changed their 
 minds. 
 
 " Only auntie had some sliopping to do, 
 you see; that was the inducement," ex- 
 plained Violet, provokingly. 
 
 " I wasn't, you mean. Mrs. Carroll, will 
 you kindly command your niece to be nice
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 83 
 
 for the space of twenty minutes," lie 
 said. 
 
 " Don't, auntie ; I can't be nice to order. 
 Haven't you found that out yet, Mr. Allan 
 Morris ? I must be taken just as my moods 
 are : if I want to tease, you must be lively 
 and let me ; and if I'm serious when you're 
 cheerful, then you have to become serious 
 too ! " 
 
 " Is that your idea of friendship ? " 
 laughed the widow. 
 
 " Xever mind, I always tease the people 
 I like best the most," she added. 
 
 " Tease me a lot," he begged, under his 
 breath, " will you ? " 
 
 "Now we have to go to the stationer's," 
 she continued, " and the draper's, and the — 
 what is it ? the butterman's. Are we going 
 to take him to buy butter, auntie ? And if 
 you're good — not properly good, of course,
 
 84 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 I'm not unreasonable, but good for you 
 — you shall be allowed to * shop ' with 
 us." 
 
 " What a treat for Mr. Morris. Do his 
 spirits rise ? " 
 
 "They do, they're at the top of the 
 barometer, thermometer, the — what do you 
 measure spirits by ? the ..." 
 
 "Pint," said Violet, "we shall have to 
 send you to school again ! How dare you 
 try to write a novel ? No wonder you say 
 you are not getting on." 
 
 How silly it was ; just as silly as ordinary 
 everyday conversation is with the tones that 
 give it warmth and life frozen into printers' 
 ink. There were none of the epigrams 
 with which the dialogue in fiction always 
 "bristles," and their jokes were not even 
 funny enough to commend themselves to a 
 " lion comique."
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 85 
 
 How sweet it was ! Sweet because lie 
 was with her, because he could watch the 
 sudden smiles stealing over the girlish lips 
 and have her appeal to him now and again 
 for his advice anent some trifling outlay. Be- 
 cause, vdi\\ a tinge of shyness that made his 
 pulses quicken, she would perhaps offer him 
 one of her tiny acquisitions to carry, exactly 
 as he had so often begged her to do before 
 he could proffer his services in a polite 
 formula ; and this, indeed, was the sweetest 
 of all, since it permitted him to feel she was 
 learning to regard his assistance as her 
 right. 
 
 Empty pleasures, without a doubt ! The 
 sort of unsubstantial happiness we sneer at 
 in others when we are at an age at which it 
 takes so much that is practical to make us 
 happy. We mutter "boy and girl" disdain- 
 fully, and toss aside the novel that treats of
 
 86 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 them when our own youth is so long gone 
 by, it almost seems like somebody's else. 
 But is there not a dash of envy in our jeer, 
 men and women ? 
 
 Sometimes, while Mrs. Carroll went in to 
 match that particular shade of silk, or to 
 settle the newspaper bill, they waited for her 
 together outside, and on one of these 
 occasions : 
 
 " You wanted me to be grave to-day," 
 Violet said. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " I could see it ; yours is a very copy- 
 book face, your sentiments are written 
 on it for all to read ! You were disap- 
 pointed?" 
 
 " No, not disappointed ; I was dull 
 rather. I thought I should have met you 
 earlier, for one thing, and, besides . . .
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 87 
 
 I am discouraged. What on earth have I 
 got to look forward to ; what can I ever 
 expect to attain ? " 
 
 It was characteristic of her that she did 
 not retort that he was no worse off this 
 morning than he had been yesterday or the 
 morning before. She replied, " Every man 
 can carve his own career if he only idll, if 
 he is only resolute, and steadfast to the end 
 in view I If I were a man " 
 
 " Oh, yes, if you were a man you 
 think you would work miracles, every 
 girl does ! How can you tell how much 
 or how little I may have to dishearten 
 me?" 
 
 " Is it . . . may I ask you ? Is it a 
 money trouble more than " 
 
 "More than usual? Well, I hardly 
 know. I ... I haven't lost a fortune 
 overnight, I couldn't very well, could I ?
 
 88 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 But I'm getting older ... I think more 
 and . . . and everything's wrong ! " he 
 concluded, comprehensively. 
 
 " I wish " she exclaimed. 
 
 " What do you wish, Miss Dyas ? " 
 
 " What a long time Aunt Bertha is ! '* 
 she said. 
 
 "I wish," he remonstrated, irritably, 
 "you wouldn't perpetually begin remarks, 
 and break off after the first two words ! 
 It's tantamount to saying, * I did propose to 
 honour you with a confidence, my good sir, 
 but, on consideration, you're not worthy of 
 it ! ' You are continually doing it, and it 
 hurts ! " 
 
 " How easily you do let the clouds 
 come ! " she said, half sadly, half amused. 
 " Your temper is like April weather, without 
 the slightest warning the sun goes in, and 
 it's pouring with rain ! "
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 89 
 
 " I beg your pardon I Don't be angry, 
 are you ? " 
 
 " JSTot tliat ; * angry,' oli, no ! Only you 
 hurt sometimes, and you never think so ; 
 you are so quick to find a grievance, you 
 don't say, 'Might not my friend have a 
 reason ? Might there not be a motive, an 
 explanation, that I don't see ? ' You are 
 not always kind ! " 
 
 ''I am sorry," he murmured; "I'll be 
 more careful for the future, I promise you 
 I will. I am trying to please you. Miss 
 Dyas, hard ! " 
 
 " And I have faults, too," she went on 
 humbly, " I am arbitrary ; I never look at 
 the other side of a question, but always 
 imagine my own is the golden one . . . 
 I am going to tell you what it was I 
 intended to say ! " 
 
 " Thank you, very much. Oh, here is
 
 90 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 your aunt already. Well, Mrs. Carroll, 
 are tlie lease and good- will obtained ? " 
 
 "Have I been long, the place was so 
 full I could not get served ? What have we 
 to do next, Yi ? " 
 
 " Chintz ! " averred Yiolet, brightly. 
 " He shall come in there with us, and help 
 us choose a j^retty pattern. Aren't you 
 flattered, my lord ? Cross the road ! " 
 
 And he did enter with them, remem- 
 bering how impatient he had been when 
 condescending to dawdle through Peter 
 Robinson's in the wake of his mother, and 
 comparing those past emotions in a draper's 
 shop with the present. 
 
 " Not that there are any pretty patterns 
 to choose," commented the widow, as she 
 turned over the specimens submitted, "and 
 they generally have such good ones here I 
 How do you like this, Vi ? "
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 91 
 
 " This," Avas a jumble of infinitesimal 
 flowers, very yiyicl and Tritli a good deal of 
 scarlet and yellow about it, but ^^iolet 
 accommodatingly declared it would do, " slie 
 wanted something small, you know," and 
 then, while the elder woman was calculating 
 quantities, beckoned Allan to come closer, 
 and told him to guess what it was for. 
 
 " Curtains," he hazarded brilliantly. 
 
 " ' Curtains ' ! listen. Isn't he getting in- 
 telligent ? Quite beginning to ' take notice.' 
 Xo, it isn't for curtains — a yard and a 
 quarter will be plenty, thanks — nor is it for 
 a tea-gown." 
 
 " Well, I'm glad it is not," he rejoined ; 
 '*it may be dazzling, but it isn't beautiful." 
 
 " Don't you presume to ' boo ' at my 
 cretonne, sir, but find out what it's for." 
 
 Then Mrs. Carroll threw back her head 
 to afford a cue, and though Violet, catchina
 
 92 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 her in the act, indignantly called them a pair 
 of " mean conspirators,'* he cried, " Pillow," 
 without fear of contradiction; and directly 
 the hint had been supplied marvelled he 
 could have forgotten how often he had heard 
 her speak of re-covering that shabby little 
 bag of feathers which was one of her pet 
 belongings. 
 
 '' Mine own familiar sofa-cushion," she 
 said, " and I'm going to make it a new 
 frock." 
 
 " Were you fond of dolls ? " asked Allan, 
 and then burst out laughing, the question 
 was so ridiculous. 
 
 " No, I never was ! Why ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; I was wondering, that's all." 
 
 But he had just been fancying her as a 
 child, and wishing they had encountered one 
 another when he could have kissed her as 
 often as he liked. It appeared so strange to
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 93 
 
 reflect slie liad once run about with a dirty 
 mouth and been smacked, and that he might 
 not have wanted to kiss her if he had had 
 the chance. 
 
 " You are being so extremely enter- 
 taining, you two," said Mrs. Carroll, " that I 
 do not even mean to offer an excuse. I am 
 going to order some Gruyere and things, and 
 you may both adorn the doorstep. In point 
 of fact, you reminded me of it, Mr. Morris ; 
 ' Were you fond of dolls ' was faintly sug- 
 gestive of the query, ' Does your brother like 
 cheese ? ' Do not run away." , 
 
 They stood for a moment looking after 
 her, and then : 
 
 "Now! " said Allan. 
 
 The girl was silent. If she preferred to 
 confess what the unadmitted thouo^ht had 
 been to him when they were alone, it was 
 solely from respect for his own feelings.
 
 94 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 and that "now" jarred upon lier ^lightly : 
 it sounded disloyal to the absent, and it 
 struck liim as an error, too, directly it was 
 spoken. 
 
 He looked an apology, and she looked 
 away. 
 
 "Will you tell me ? " he said, gently. 
 
 " It was very stupid : I was going to say, 
 ' I wish my age ... I wish I had already 
 reached my majority.' Now you are no 
 wiser than you were ! " 
 
 " Not much," he owned. 
 
 " Listen : you would do plenty for me, 
 wouldn't you ? If your friend said to you, 
 * I want a sacrifice,' you would make it. 
 Not, oh, not because your self-esteem would 
 suffer by a refusal, but because you would 
 really and truly be glad to help ? " 
 
 " You know I would," he asserted, " you 
 know I w^ould do anything to make you
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 95 
 
 liappj, and count it a privilege — you kno^ 
 it!" 
 
 " Yes, I do," slie answered, " and the 
 knowledge is very precious ; a friendship 
 like tliat . . . Oh, it is beautiful ! " 
 
 "I would give you my life," he added 
 huskily, after a pause. 
 
 They were outside the provision stores 
 as he uttered this assurance. Somebody's 
 servant had just run in for a pound's 
 worth of silver, and an errand-boy was 
 coming out whistling with a basket over 
 his arm. Allan stood in a little sprinkling 
 of sawdust that had fallen from a newly- 
 opened egg-box, and the girl's face was 
 turned towards five flitches of " Our own 
 cured bacon" suspended on hooks, and 
 ticketed "Mild." They, liowever, noted 
 nothing incongruous in their surroundings : 
 they were both in deadly earnest.
 
 96 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 "Therefore, on tlie other hand," she 
 pursued, " you ought to be equally willing' 
 to accept, and if I were one-and-twenty — 
 I wish I had never begun this; you won't 
 be offended — I could say to you ... let 
 me lend you some money." 
 
 The middle flitch had become an object 
 of the deepest interest: there was a fly 
 on it, and she watched the insect travelling 
 along the bones. Each second seemed a 
 minute, and when at length she glanced 
 at him, the change in his expression 
 startled her. 
 
 " You have money ? " he ejaculated, 
 "Good Lord!" 
 
 He would sooner she had told liim she 
 had a wooden leg. It was the final 
 obstacle between them, he felt ; there were 
 difficulties enough in the way without this. 
 Scarcely three weeks ago he had been un«
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 97 
 
 certain whether his love couhl survive the 
 continual sight of her in soiled collars 
 and cheap boots ; but, at least, he had 
 always been positive he would prefer an 
 existence typified by gruny tablecloths and 
 three-pronged forks, as long as he lived, 
 to being indebted for luxury to the woman 
 he married. It may not have been a 
 virtue, it may have been a false pride ; 
 but the feeling was there. Something of 
 what was passing in his brain was com- 
 municated to her by his voice, though not all. 
 
 " It is very little — about a hundred 
 and twenty a year," she said, deprecatingly. 
 " I can sympathize with you just as 
 fully." 
 
 " Where did you get it from ? " In 
 the astonishment caused bv her avowal 
 he had assumed an air of authority which 
 was new to liim. 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 "My grandfatlier left me all lie had,** 
 slie murmured. " We always knew he 
 meant to." 
 
 " Her father ? I should have thought 
 he might have left it to your aunt." 
 
 " She had bought an income, a — what 
 do you call it ? — an * annuity,' when Uncle 
 Edward, when her husband died. She 
 did not need it ; she and Mr. Finlason 
 are the trustees ... It is hardly nice of 
 you to be sorry.** 
 
 " ' Nice ! * ** he echoed, passionately. 
 "How is it possible you can be so wise 
 in some respects and so young in 
 others ? * Nice * of me ! I fervently wish 
 you had kept the information to your- 
 self.'* 
 
 " And so do I," she exclaimed, " more 
 fervently ! You are unjust — you are 
 rude . . . and I meant so well to you. I
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 99 
 
 was sorry for you. You — you have taught 
 me a lesson." 
 
 " The sooner your aunt obtains lier 
 cheese ' and things ' the better, I think," 
 he said, doggedly, the more doggedly 
 because he was contrite. " I suppose it is 
 my fate to anger you every quarter of an 
 hour ! . . . Oh, no I I can't bear to quarrel 
 with you; I can explain. Miss Dyas " 
 
 "I forgive," she said, softly. "Ah, 
 don't grieve like that, jjJease ! I for- 
 give." 
 
 "How good you are I " he whispered; 
 and Mrs. Carroll came out. 
 
 She had had to say " I forgive " very 
 frequently of late, he reflected mournfully 
 as he accompanied them as far as their 
 house, and he was incessantly showing 
 himself to the worst advantage. How 
 could he avoid it when she was ignorant
 
 loo VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 of his unliappiness, and expected him to be 
 as light-hearted as herself. 
 
 "Are you going to honour us by-and- 
 by ? " asked her aunt, pulling the bell. 
 
 "May I? Thanks, awfully. I'll be 
 round about six, then. An revoir!^^ 
 
 " Ati revoir,'' said Violet, cheerfully. 
 " Why not at five ? " 
 
 He had wounded her acutely, but she 
 liked him very much, and she knew lie had 
 regretted his ill-humour on the instant. It 
 was the way of her. If a person had in- 
 sulted her, and she had seen his lip quiver 
 in self-reproach directly afterwards, the re- 
 sentment within her would have melted 
 immediately, and instead slie would have 
 experienced the most pitiful compassion, as 
 if he had been the victim and she the 
 aggressor. Still, it had been an ugly 
 termination to a pleasant morning, and she
 
 VIOLET MOSES. loi 
 
 could not lielp deeming Allan unreason- 
 able. 
 
 In liis fit of chagrin lie had declared 
 she was in many things far older tlian her 
 years, and in others no more than seventeen 
 and a-half, and perhaps even less. She 
 attributed her "friend's" mortification to 
 the notion that her possession of a little 
 money must prevent her entering absolutely 
 into his struggles and pursuits, must divide 
 them insomuch as it made their stand- 
 points dissimilar, and again dull her 
 comprehension of the difl&culties he had 
 so often confided to her with those bitter 
 allusions to their difference from the ease 
 in which he had been brought up. 
 
 Many men would have asserted she was 
 flirting with Allan ; almost all women 
 would. But if, indeed, she had been, 
 then the tendency towards flirtation is an
 
 I02 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 inherent quality in every feminine organi- 
 zation, Avhicli, unlike all other appetites, is 
 capable of flourishing and being fed without 
 recognition from the mind; for the accusation 
 would have at once startled and dismayed 
 her : she would have averred with flaming 
 cheeks she liad never " flirted " in lier life, 
 and the term " coquette " would have con- 
 veyed such cruel reproach to her ingenuous 
 nature, and the somewhat grave simplicity 
 of her ideas, that — rare occurrence with 
 her — it might even have made her cry. It 
 may be concluded, therefore, either that the 
 judgment of the vast majority would have 
 been wrong, and Miss Violet Dyas right 
 against the host, or that this propensity for 
 flirtation is an implanted instinct in the 
 purest flesh and blood a Divine Hand ever 
 mxOulds into innocent girlhood, and may be 
 indulged unconsciously.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 She was painting, when Allan was shown 
 in, a mirror for a bracket. 
 
 "Tm not going to leave off," she said, 
 " am I ? " 
 
 "Why, certainly not," he answered, 
 relieved to find there was to be no restraint ; 
 " I'll come and watch I " 
 
 He liked her to continue her occupation 
 whenever she was busy at the time he was 
 announced ; any omission of ceremony, as 
 in that other instance when, unsolicited, she 
 gave him something to carry for her, always 
 delighted him. As he wheeled a chair to 
 her side, Dandy, her aunt's " King Charles," 
 just lying in her lap, sprang to the ground 
 and would have run to his mistress. Allan 
 stooped down, lifting him to his knees, and 
 thence to his face, and laid his cheek against 
 the curly coat. 
 
 It was an effeminate action, but the dog
 
 I04 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 had come direct from lier ; at odd moments 
 lier liand had been fondling him, and, to 
 the boy's excited fancy, the httle breathing 
 animal seemed for a second warm with her 
 own life. 
 
 When twilight made painting imprac- 
 ticable any longer, "You shall help me wash 
 my brushes ! " she said, and Mrs. Carroll 
 rang to order the essentials. As chance 
 would have it, the servant, misunderstanding 
 her instructions, prepared them to be used 
 in the next room, where the operation was 
 always performed, and after waiting some 
 time, surprised at the delay, Violet dis- 
 covered the mistake. 
 
 " Never mind," she said, " I'll go in 
 there!" 
 
 " Am I to come, too ? " asked Allan, 
 ostensibly of her, bat glancing af the elder 
 woman.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 "Yes, go on," said Mrs. Carroll, "and 
 make haste, both of you." 
 
 It was a sanctum of the girl's own they 
 went into, where she amused herself by 
 writing tales, a small apartment sparsely 
 furnished, its most noticeable features being 
 a rocking-chair and a low table without a 
 cover. Another door opened on to a flight 
 of stairs, and, at Allan's suggestion, she 
 ran up to fetch an apron to protect her 
 dress. He had never been alone with her 
 in a room before, excepting now and then 
 for a minute, and when she reappeared with 
 it, and he helped her to put it on, he was 
 surprised to perceive his hand was shaking. 
 It was because he had hoped to help her 
 that he had advised her to wear it, but he 
 had not known the process would affect him 
 so deeply as this. She stood still ; and he, 
 tenderly pushing the hair that framed her
 
 io6 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 face, aside, passed the straps gently across 
 her shoulders. 
 
 " Thanks," she said ; " come along ! " 
 She ensconced herself in the rocking- 
 chair, and Allan, to lower his height to the 
 desirable level, knelt upon a hassock. For 
 a while they stirred the brushes silently : he 
 because a myriad emotions hitherto un- 
 dreamed of seemed surging to his throat 
 and choking him ; she because some germ of 
 his agitation had reached her childishness, 
 and was puzzling her by its novelty. He 
 felt his lieart thumping violently, and won- 
 dered if slie could hear it; she abandoned 
 herself to this new sensation that she could 
 not analyze, but which stole through her 
 being like ii current, bringing neither 
 warmth, nor joy, nor peace, only an un- 
 accustomed tremor tliat perplexed her by 
 its strangeness.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 107 
 
 " Do you know what I am tliinking ? '* 
 lie said, hoarsely. 
 
 " What ? " she asked. 
 
 " I was thinking I told you I could 
 explain . . . that there is so much I have 
 been wanting to say to you; and now that 
 I've got the chance I am washing paint 
 brushes and saying nothing. I . . ." 
 
 He could not, for the life of him he 
 could not find phrases to express himself — 
 the words would not come, and he was 
 generally so fluent ! 
 
 "Why should you explain at all?" she 
 murmured. "I have forgiven you; it is 
 over, isn't it ? " 
 
 She was acting. This girl, with her 
 high concei^tions of truth and honour, she 
 who would have scorned the meanness of a 
 lie as she would have shrunk from the 
 stigma of a sin, was acting now. She
 
 io8 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 knew ! The knowledge of his love, which 
 had not penetrated her simplicity in the 
 morning, when it would have been apparent 
 to the intelligence of any boarding-school 
 miss by his passion, had contradictorily been 
 borne upon her by — what ? It had rushed 
 in upon her all at once; she knew his 
 feelings had changed, and she knew her 
 own had not. And from tliat instant the 
 girl of seventeen and a-half was older 
 than he. 
 
 " Why should you explain at all ? " she 
 said. 
 
 The air was strong with the smell of 
 turpentine. As long as he lives, tlie un- 
 romantic odour will always bring before him 
 the remembrance of that mite of a room, in 
 the gloaming, overlooking a backyard, and 
 the figure of a girl in a holland apron 
 nestling against tlie cushion she had re-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 1 09 
 
 juvenated with the vivid chintz. He was 
 feigning to scrape the palette. She leant 
 forward to take a brush from the basin, and 
 as she did so a drop of the hot water 
 splashed upon his hand. It called him to 
 himself. He looked up, and she smiled ner- 
 vously. In another moment the 25alette and 
 knife had clattered to the floor, and he was 
 grasping her paint-stained fingers in his 
 own. 
 
 " Miss D3'as I ... I love you I I used 
 to be your fi^iend, but I'm not any more ; it 
 has altered, somehow. ... I don't know 
 . . . but it has altered, it . . . oh, my dear, 
 I love you so I I oughtn't to have told you, 
 I know. I have no position, and, besides, 
 you have money — you may think it is your 
 money I want. Ah, if you were in rags 1 
 That was it when vou told me this morninor 
 that made me look so ungrateful — such a
 
 1 10 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 boor ; but I wasn't ungrateful — I wasn't 
 ungrateful, Violet. Only your offer to . . . 
 to . . . lend me money . . . Oh, darling, 
 can't you guess wliat it made me suffer ? I 
 oughtn't to liave said this to you — I ought 
 to have kept it to myself and never let you 
 know I loved you, but I wasn't able. Don't 
 think badly of me because you make me 
 weak ! I want you to understand what I'm 
 feeling ; I want to make you know what is in 
 my heart just as I do myself, but I can't — 
 I can't ! I always thought I could if I only 
 dared. I thought there wouldn't be a 
 thought left you didn't know, but now all 
 the words are gone, and I can only say, ' I 
 love you ! ' Violet ..." 
 
 He had spoken because he was bound to 
 speak, because he felt he could contain him- 
 self no longer ; but his mouth was dry, and 
 the English language in its entirety had
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 appeared to be fading away from liim more 
 irrecoverably every second. Xow tliere was 
 a pause. 
 
 "I am sorry," she said. (He noticed, 
 regretfully, how much more self-possessed 
 she was than he.) " Many girls might be 
 proud to hear what you have told me. I 
 am not; excepting, of course, as every girl 
 must be proud to have won such . . . such 
 a love. I mean, it does not flatter me ; it 
 makes me sad." 
 
 It was his answer. They both rose, and 
 he did not protest at all. If you come to 
 think about it, the scope for argument in 
 these matters from a man with nothing 
 a-year to a girl who does not love him is 
 limited. 
 
 "Shall we go back to the drawing- 
 room," she suggested; ''Aunt Bertha will 
 be waiting."
 
 112 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " Yes," lie replied, " let us go back ; I 
 am quite ready ! " 
 
 Both spoke in tlie low constrained tone 
 one adopts when there is a death in the 
 house. 
 
 "Miss Dyas . . . may I remain your 
 friend ? " 
 
 " Oh, if you will ! " she said. 
 
 " I will try ; I promise I will try ! " 
 
 In confirmation of the promise, he made 
 an impulsive movement towards her, and 
 half held out his arms. Her eyes met his 
 fully, without wavering, and she drew back 
 the very smallest step to be conceived. 
 
 That was all ; only he had asked her 
 to let him kiss her, and she had said " No.'* 
 He had begged it of her; he had hungered 
 to kiss her at that crisis with the whole 
 intensity of the hunger which, in his great 
 dumb pain, seemed gnawing and tearing
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 113 
 
 inside liis breast, like some maddened 
 creature struggling to get free; and she 
 had refused. 
 
 Afterwards he remembered how for the 
 purposes of art he had once speculated on 
 the terms in which such a refusal would 
 be couched, and then he knew the pas- 
 sionate petition and dignified denial of his 
 book were alike false and unreal. What 
 he did not know was that the love he 
 believed to already fill his heart, in fact 
 scarcely occupied one corner of it, but that 
 it was ordained to grow, and would one 
 day be precisely as big as his soul. His 
 prospects as a novelist were improving : 
 he had begun to discover what love is. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Three agreeable events are distinguislied 
 in the ordinary life feminine : tliey are 
 tlie debut, the earliest " declaration," and 
 the wedding'. After the wedding, pleasure 
 has its alloy of responsibility, and events 
 are no longer to be characterized as 
 "agreeable," but may be either joys or pain, 
 according to the way you look at them. 
 In this case, however, a girl had missed 
 the sense of elation usually connected 
 with the second epoch of maidenhood, for 
 Allan's confession had been no triumph to 
 Violet at all. There is no rule without 
 
 [ -4]
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 115 
 
 exceptions, and sometimes it is like this ; 
 sometimes the verbs to "come out," and to 
 listen, and to wed, are all three irregular, 
 and there is no enjoyment at the root of 
 any one of them. The " life feminine " may 
 wait three consecutive valses as a con- 
 tribution to the floral decorations, or she 
 may be compelled to decline the suitor she 
 wants to accept, or she may accept the 
 man she would do better to decline, and, in 
 consequence, be sworn at and neglected 
 until a beneficent providence enables her 
 to buy crape for her release and a tablet 
 to his virtues. 
 
 Violet considered it a great pity the 
 friendship between Allan and herself had 
 been disturbed ; it could never flow so 
 evenly again, she felt that, although she 
 had not sufficient worldly wisdom to be 
 aware that on his side at least it could be
 
 ii6 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 nothing henceforward but the poorest 
 pretence. She had spoken the truth, she 
 was unfeignedly sorry, and, naively enough, 
 she almost wished her own feelings had 
 changed too, because it seemed unkind of 
 her to have won so much and to be unable 
 to give equally in return. Then, tempering 
 her regret, came a little glow of com- 
 plaisance at recalling the composure she 
 had contrived to counterfeit, followed by 
 a quick self-reproach that it should be 
 possible for her to discover any food for 
 gratification, even the slightest, in a 
 situation which to Mr. Morris must of 
 course have meant a grief. She did not 
 attempt to decide how the existence of his 
 love had dawned upon her, by what in- 
 dication or influence the premonition of 
 what was coming had occurred ; not being 
 psychologically interested it had not struck
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 117 
 
 lier there was anything remarkable about 
 it. What she did say was : "I suppose 
 I must be an awful simpleton for my age ; 
 I wonder I didn't see he was" (blush) 
 " in love with me before I " After that 
 she laughed rather feebly, and then she 
 sighed a little, and finally rumpled the 
 wavy mass of hair upon her forehead most 
 ruthlessly, which was a certain sign she 
 was perplexed and thinking her hardest. 
 Marriage! She was thoroughly heart- 
 whole, but she had a higher conception 
 of its duties and its sweetness than Allan 
 had possessed even when he had already 
 begmi to fancy himself the prey to a 
 consuming passion. It would mean Love; 
 the love that would go ragged and ill-fed 
 for the other's sake, and find reward in a 
 hand- clasp or a smile. It would mean a 
 great and tender reverence for her
 
 ii8 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 husband ; on liis side the strength to 
 guide her and direct ; on hers tlie 
 strength to soothe him and console. It 
 would mean, alas, parting from Aunt 
 Bertha who was as much as \\\^ dearest 
 mother to her, and — oh, she hoped Mr. 
 Morris did not mind particulai'ly, but he 
 was not the least bit in the world like 
 the man she could ever . . . marry ! ANHiy 
 could he not have been content as things 
 were ? She dared say it was not exactly 
 his fault, but he had disappointed her, 
 nevertheless, their friendship had been so 
 perfect ! 
 
 Not very deep emotions, perhaps, for 
 a girl whose face in repose hinted at the 
 latent potentiality to love like a Juliet, 
 but the reflections of a thoroughly good 
 one at any rate, and an exceptional one, 
 too, for vanity had scarcely a part in
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 119 
 
 tliem. Moreover deep emotions are not 
 apt to be stirred in the breast of a girl 
 under eighteen by a condition of aSairs 
 she cannot comprehend, nor, for the matter 
 of that, in the breast of anybody else, 
 comprehension , being the key to the 
 emotions ; and the most this " conquest " 
 had done for Violet Dyas was to confi'ont 
 her with the first social problem of her 
 experience : slie could not determine 
 whether she ought to confide in Mrs. 
 Carroll or lock Allan's disclosure in her 
 own keeping. Child-like, she longed to 
 unbosom herself to her aunt ; woman-like, 
 she was loath to betray his secret, and in 
 her conflict between the impulse of 
 delicacy and the horror of concealment, 
 she did not fall asleep till two o'clock, 
 when she slumbered quietly, and dreamed 
 of the most irrelevant frivolities. Allan
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 Morris at two o'clock being seated before 
 the remnants of a lodging -house fire, 
 miserably reviewing the scene of the 
 afternoon with the additions of what he 
 ought to have said. 
 
 Next day, as w^as natural, the impulse 
 of delicacy went down before the force of 
 habit, and her revelation was made. It was 
 in the morning, and aunt and niece had 
 remained at home, for Mrs. Carroll was 
 ailing again, and now lay back in an easy- 
 chair, with what in the feminine vocabulary 
 is termed a " woolly " about her shoulders. 
 The girl crossed the room to arrange it for 
 her, lingered a little over her task, and next, 
 dropping on her knees beside her, whis- 
 pered suddenly : 
 
 " Auntie, Vi has something to tell you ! " 
 
 " Yes, dear ? " 
 
 " I want to tell you my friend doesn't
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 121 
 
 tliink of me any longer as lie used to do ; 
 but lie is going to try to, auntie; lie lias 
 promised lie will try to, altliougli lie is 
 unhappy ! " 
 
 " My little Yi ! " 
 
 "It has changed," she said, wistfully, 
 " ' little Yi's ' friendship has been broken ! " 
 
 Then her face drooped in the elder 
 woman's lap, and for awhile neither spoke. 
 
 " Do you love him, dear ? " asked Mrs. 
 Carroll, presently : 
 
 She did not say, " Are you fond of him ? '* 
 nor " Do you care for him ? " nor employ any 
 of the euphemisms current in that refined 
 section of society where young ladies assure 
 you they " love tennis passionately," and "like 
 their fiances very much." She said, " Do 
 you love him ? " purely and simply, and Yiolet 
 shook her head under the hand that rested 
 on her curls, and answered softly, " No."
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " Tlien, baby, it is better tliat you and 
 he should not see so much of one another in 
 the future, do you understand ? I am afraid 
 I have been unwise, for things might have 
 been still worse. I am not sorry you do not 
 love Mr. Morris, little maiden, although I 
 am sorry for him." 
 
 " But we have settled to remain friends, 
 Aunt Bertha ; you wouldn't have me break 
 my word ? " 
 
 "I do not think a friendship that has 
 once grown to love ever can become friend- 
 ship again, however well Mr. Morris may 
 mean and try in his case. Such love 
 sometimes burns to hate, dear, oftener to 
 indifference, but it very seldom goes back 
 to friendship any more. If God had put 
 a love for him into my baby's heart, and 
 you were both willing to bear the delay that 
 must have been before you could have come
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 1 23 
 
 together, I for one would have made no 
 objection; you are both young, and you 
 could have afforded to wait until he was 
 making his way, and the two of you had 
 had time to find out if you were in earnest. 
 Indeed," pursued Mrs. Carroll, musingly, " I 
 have never been able to see any meaning in 
 that expression of a girl ' wasting her best 
 years,' waiting for the poor man whom she 
 loves : surely no years can be ' wasted ' of 
 which each day is a step towards the 
 greatest happiness life holds I All the same, 
 it is far, far better as it is, and you will not 
 meet so often now ; and . . . and give me a 
 kiss, sweetheart, and don't be a little goose I" 
 " I feel so guilty," said Violet, brokenly ; 
 " he looked so wretched, and his lips were 
 . . . tr . . . tr . . . trembling ! Auntie, 
 you won't stop inviting liim, will you ? oh, 
 he is all alone."
 
 124 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " I shall not forbid him the house, you 
 may be sure," rejoined the widow with a 
 caress ; " I shall merely invite him less often 
 during the rest of the time he is in 
 Chester ! " 
 
 " But you Avill not be left together out- 
 side shops, and you will not wash paint- 
 brushes by yourselves on future occasions ! " 
 she added in a mental addendum. 
 
 So in the ensuing fortnight Allan spent 
 only two evenings at Powis Lodge. The 
 former was to a certain extent an ordeal to 
 all three of tlie personages concerned, and 
 even he scarcely regretted the advent of 
 the hour when he could rise to say "good- 
 night." They had laughed and chatted as 
 they always did, undeniably, but directly 
 there was a lull in the conversation some- 
 body had been impelled to strike in with a 
 commonplace obviously improvised to avoid
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 125 
 
 a pause. This, be it observed, is equally a 
 feature of the social gathering where people 
 have really nothing to say to one another, 
 and of the gathering where they have 
 actually too much. On his second visit, 
 though, the restraint had mostly worn off as 
 restraint so speedily does between persons 
 who have been very intimate, and, besides, in 
 the meantime, the encounters outside had 
 recurred. 
 
 His hostesses, notwithstanding, did not 
 fail to remark — albeit silently — the weari- 
 ness of his appearance, for weak and 
 sentimental as it may seem, he was in truth 
 suffering intensely, and two weeks of misery 
 had left their trace on him. Xor is there 
 any doubt that if Violet's liking had been 
 a shade less cordial than it was, his presence 
 would already have become an infliction 
 greater than she chose to endure. His very
 
 2 6 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 attempts at pleasantr}' were pitiable iii their 
 insincerity, and the mute petition in his 
 eyes hannted and depressed her. Once 
 when slie and her aunt had returned after 
 one of these fortuitous meetings — " fortui- 
 tous " insomuch as they had ceased to be 
 avowedly designed — she rushed upstairs, 
 and violently locking her door gave vent to 
 an outburst of indignation against herself 
 and him. It raged for ten minutes. What 
 had she done that he should distress her 
 so ? he had promised to remain her friend, 
 and his every glance was an appeal or an 
 accusation ! Could she help it if she could 
 not give him Avhat he asked ? did he imagine 
 she could find the feeling among the bushes 
 in the garden, or capture it in the air, or 
 dig for it in the earth ? was he mad, or only 
 unjust ? he was making her ill with his 
 agony ! How was she to blame ? She
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 127 
 
 would not submit to it ; it was cowardly of 
 liim ! . . . Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow. 
 "AYliat are you made of, you piece of 
 stone ? " She leant her elbows on the 
 toilet-table and gazed at the reflection of 
 her dark passionate face, out of which all 
 the childishness had for the moment 
 vanished, with lowering brows. " ^^J 
 cannot vou o^ive it to him, why — why? 
 Are you always going to be like this, is 
 there somethino- missinof in you, somethinof 
 forgotten ? . . . Oh, Heavenly Father, make 
 me like other girls, don't let me be hard or 
 unwomanly ! The pain . . . the pain I '* 
 Her bosom heaved with sobs, but the tears 
 refused to come, and then the servant 
 knocked to tell her that dinner was ready, 
 and she went down to roast mutton and an 
 apple-pie, and even ate a little, because we 
 do eat roast mutton and apple-pie in real
 
 128 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 life while our souls are in a tumult, and, 
 though novelists do not appear to recognize 
 the fact, it is not our appetite we lose in 
 affliction so readily as our sense of taste. 
 Also girls with aunts to be anxious are 
 chary of complaining of headaches, and 
 having " strong tea sent up to their 
 darkened chambers," in the style of the 
 obsolete romances, although it is just 
 possible they may feel as acutely to-day as 
 in the age when they were presumably 
 given to exclaim (as the late Mr. G. W. M. 
 Eeynolds so tenderly expresses it) that 
 " The rose of love had been poisoned by 
 the slime of the snail passing over it," and 
 to conduct themselves in a much more 
 idiotic manner generally. 
 
 It was not strange Violet should have 
 been barely moved by Allan's words awhile 
 ago, and wrung by a look from him now,
 
 VIOLE T MOSES. 1 29 
 
 for she was beginning to understand ; and 
 if there had been even a glimmer left of 
 her earlier hope that " Mr. Morris did not 
 particularly mind," a circumstance which 
 occurred at this period must have effect- 
 ually extinguished it. 
 
 She was walking, and, in accordance 
 with her recent custom whenever forced 
 to go out alone, had quitted the house 
 shortly after breakfast, a time when she 
 could rely upon his being at work. The 
 savoir faire which springs up in the brain 
 of the most unsophisticated of demoiselles as 
 soon as a man is attracted by her has, in the 
 rapidity of its growth, never been equalled 
 by any other product of Nature, except the 
 toadstool. However, she had failed to take 
 into account how much Mr. Morris did mind 
 — ^for he was far too restless to write or 
 even to remain indoors — and they met. 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 He strolled along beside her. Both re- 
 membered the last occasion on which they 
 had conversed without the presence of a 
 third party, and a little embarrassment was 
 inevitable at first. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Carroll not so well ? " he asked, 
 lamely. 
 
 " She had a bad night," replied the girl, 
 " nothing serious. She is never very strong, 
 you know." 
 
 " No, I know," he said. 
 
 " Is not this unusual for you ? You take 
 your ' constitutional ' later, as a rule, do you 
 not ? " she inquired. 
 
 " Generally, yes ; somehow I wasn't in 
 the vein this morning, and I thought 
 exercise might sharpen my wits. Don't put 
 it down to laziness." 
 
 " Am I walking too slowly for 
 
 you?"
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 131 
 
 " Not a bit, thanks, if I'm not in tlie 
 way ? " 
 
 " You are not 'in the way' at all," she 
 said. " I did not mean that." 
 
 Nevertheless she quickened her pace. 
 This exchange of conventionalities with him 
 who had been so dear a friend hurt her. 
 
 " Miss Dyas ... we didn't talk to each 
 other like this once. . . . Not three weeks 
 ago we should have been speaking freely, 
 you and I." 
 
 " Who has made the difference ? " she 
 answered, hastily. " Do you suppose it is 
 a pleasure to me either ? Oh, it is your 
 own fault ! Why do you say anything about 
 our friendship with its sweetness and its 
 peace now that you have ended it ? " 
 
 "My 'fault!'" he echoed. *' Do you 
 think I have not battled against caring for 
 you ? do you imagine I am enjoying myself ?
 
 132 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 My life is a torture ! If you knew — if you 
 could see what I am going through, you 
 would pity me, any woman would pity 
 me ! " 
 
 " I do pity you," she said, gently, " but 
 I cannot help it. If I could prevent it I 
 would. Can't you understand w^hat this 
 means to me — the responsibility, the re- 
 proach ? " 
 
 " You have nothing to reproach yourself 
 with, you have never encouraged me. But 
 I have striven and struggled so to put you 
 out of my thoughts, to be to you what you 
 wish, and I can't. I didn't want to love 
 you — what had I to do with falling in love, 
 a beggar like me ? I didn't want to bring a 
 grief to you and to myself — why should I r 
 But I do love you with my whole force and 
 my whole soul, and I always shall ! ' Love,' 
 it is a worship ... a religion ... a faith.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 133 
 
 You are more to me than a girl to be won — 
 you are an ideal to be reached ! When I'm 
 with you I am better and purer than any- 
 where else. You ennoble me, you raise me 
 nearer to your own level ! Oh ! my con- 
 fidante ! my comrade ! you have done so 
 much for me with your liking, won't you 
 try to complete the good work by your 
 love?" 
 
 " Put yourself in my place ! " she cried, 
 suddenly facing him. " Suppose a woman 
 had given such a love as this to you, and 
 you had nothing to give her in return, how 
 would it make you feel ? " 
 
 " I should be very sorry." 
 
 "* Sorry,' " she repeated, " ' sorry!' I am 
 only a girl, and I daresay, as you once told 
 me, I am * young ' in many things, but to 
 me it is anguish — just anguish — that's what 
 it is ! If I were a Avoman perhaps I should
 
 134 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 not care so deeply. I miglit think it a 
 compliment, something to be pleased about, 
 but I'm not clever enough to look at it in 
 that way, and you are simply breaking my 
 heart with your entreaties ! " 
 
 " What can I do ? " he said, " what can 
 I do?" 
 
 " I don't know what you can do. You 
 promised you would be still my friend ; now 
 you say it is impossible. But weren't we 
 happy, weren't we content, in those days, 
 think ? There was no trouble then, none of 
 this w^retchedness, . . . and mine is here, my 
 friendship for you, the same as ever, in full, 
 only w^aiting for you to ask for it honestly 
 again ! " 
 
 " 'Friendship ! ' " he exclaimed, "you are 
 killing one of the most beautiful words in 
 the language for me — you are killing it ; I 
 am growing to hate the sound of it from
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 135 
 
 you or anybody else. I beg to you for 
 bread, and you offer me a stone ! Some 
 author vows no living creature is so abso- 
 lutely cruel as a woman to the lover for 
 whom she does not care, and it is true. 
 You are cruel unconsciously ; your very 
 kindness is cruel. Friendship is the shadow 
 of what I have given to you, and you com- 
 plain because it does not satisfy me. You 
 might have known I should get fond of you, 
 you must have known it. ' Young,' you 
 are not a baby ! But did you keep away 
 from me, did you do anything to avert it ? 
 No ! You even saw what I was going to 
 tell you that afternoon before I spoke ; you 
 could have stopped it then, only you didn't 
 choose ! Ah ! your eyes look as though 
 you could love as not one woman in a 
 million can love, and the rest of your face 
 is like a saint's, but everything is in your
 
 136 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 face. You are exactly tlie same as any 
 other girl in your disposition." 
 
 " Just now you said I had never en- 
 couraged you," she retorted, piteously ; 
 " you are not consistent." 
 
 "And you haven't; I am a liar. You 
 never have encouraged me ! I didn't mean 
 it, Yiolet, I didn't mean it. You couldn't 
 guess what it was all leading to — I didn't 
 guess myself. Don't hate me for that taunt; 
 I ought to be horsewhipped for it. I could 
 tear my tongue out ; I know I am damaging 
 my chance with every word . . . Oh, little 
 Yi, why did I ever see you? " 
 
 She did not refer to his use of her 
 Christian name; it seemed a small matter 
 in the midst of all this, and they walked on 
 swiftly in silence. Her very endeavour to 
 escape an encounter with him had prolonged 
 his opportunity, for, to make assurance
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 137 
 
 doubly sure, she had avoided the town, 
 and been a considerable distance from home 
 when they met. She wondered despairingly 
 what she was to say ; wondered if he had 
 any conception of the agony he was in- 
 flicting by these irrational, perpetual sup- 
 plications for a gift it was not in her 
 command to grant; questioned what this 
 mysterious power was, given to a girl — 
 unprayed for and unsought — by the Creator 
 of the sexes, to render her thus potent to 
 sway another human life, to fill another's 
 being ; and wished mutely, miserably, de- 
 voutly, she could turn to him and admit that 
 the feeling for which he was hungering had 
 come. How speedily she might transform 
 his pain to joy. In a sentence, with a 
 smile, why could she not do it ? — it was not 
 there! "Oh! am I made of stone?" she 
 asked herself again.
 
 138 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 " Listen," lie said, humbly ; " I forgot 
 myself, and I ask your pardon. You must 
 consider me unreasonable, stupid, to keep 
 on craving to you for what you haven't got, 
 and I should be if I didn't want it so — so 
 intensely — if I could do without it. Re- 
 member, I didn't plead in this way before, 
 I was much more manly and much less 
 fervent; I didn't love you as I do now. 
 It has become part of me, my love for you. 
 I can't take the heart out of my body, and I 
 can't take the love out of my heart. If the 
 people passing could overhear what I am say- 
 ing, they would laugh, they would think I was 
 either acting or deceiving myself, because I 
 am still what is called a * boy,' and the love 
 of a boy is never believed in. Perhaps you, 
 without any experience, are more clear- 
 sighted in this case than all the men and 
 women of the world would be put together ;
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 139 
 
 for, at any rate, you don't doubt my sincerity, 
 though you can hardly realize that I am 
 begmning to wish myself dead. I am as 
 proud as you are, and to sue and sue to you in 
 this helpless fashion is terrible : it is as though 
 I were beating my hands against a wall ! I 
 may beat I I can go on till I am all bruised 
 and bleeding, but the wall doesn't move an 
 inch .... It is far better for you that you 
 don't care for me, I don't attempt to deny it ; 
 there are so many obstacles between us, 
 more even than you know, and it would be a 
 very weary waiting for you at the best, but 
 from morning to night I am thinking of you, 
 it is a fact, from morning to night ! I can't 
 write, I am not able to settle to anything ; I 
 think, and think, and think, until my brain 
 goes round and I am half mad : it is 
 generally daylight before I fall asleep, and — 
 yes, you fancy I am going to say, ' and then
 
 I40 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 every one of my dreams is about you ? ' I 
 am not romancing, I am telling you the 
 literal truth : I don't dream of you at all — I 
 wish I could, I try to ! and when I wake the 
 very first thought that enters my head (it is 
 instantaneous) is, * shall I see her to-day ? ' 
 I don't want to exaggerate, I don't want to 
 be high-flown, but my life is becoming a 
 veritable hell upon earth, Violet, it is, 
 indeed!" 
 
 The great secret of love-making is to 
 know where to leave off, and Allan might have 
 paused at one or another of his previous points 
 with greater advantage. He was not an 
 adept in the *' accomplishment," and he was 
 too thoroughly in earnest to be artistic ; he, 
 therefore, committed the egregious blunder 
 of working in a circle, and had come back 
 to the insistance that he was unhappy, a 
 melancholy truth, but a termination which
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 141 
 
 suggested no reply. He looked at her 
 wistfully, and receiving no response : 
 
 "It was dreary enough before," he 
 pursued ; "I am not going to assert I was 
 contented, but I was, anyhow, resigned. I 
 don't assure you I have never imagined 
 myself in love at any other time ; it is 
 because I have, that I am certain of the 
 reality of my love now — the very difference 
 shows it to me I I can't sham to you, I 
 can't feign carelessness and gaiety to lull 
 you into a false sense of security, although I 
 am perfectly aware it would be the wisest 
 course I could adopt ; I would as soon think 
 of deliberately playing a part or telling a lie to 
 you as I would think of smoking in a church, 
 there would be precisely the same feeling of 
 sacrilege ! I have said you are more than a 
 beautiful girl to me, you are something holy ! 
 I believe it was your goodness first attracted
 
 142 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 me, it wasn't your appearance; I didn't 
 consider you so particularly beautiful at the 
 commencement — I never had admired dark 
 women to any great extent. I recollect 
 when I saw you in London I said you were 
 very * pretty ! ' I ought to swear you realized 
 my idea of feminine perfection from the start, 
 but I am not going to do anything of the 
 kind — I Avon't say a syllable to you I do not 
 mean. I can say you are the loveliest, as you 
 are the best, of all girls God ever made, to 
 me to-day, for God Himself knows that I 
 am speaking the truth. And another thing, 
 a confession — you will despise me for it very 
 probably, but I want you to know every 
 thought of my mind : I tried to avoid caring 
 for you before you told me to ; it was for my 
 own sake ! I have always ridiculed poor 
 men marrying, even men who were getting 
 on. I have cried * On what ? ' When I have
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 143 
 
 heard of a young man's triumph in any 
 profession — a clever picture, a book that has 
 been well reviewed — I have always asked, 
 
 * Is he married ? ' and if the answer was 
 
 * yes,' I have . . . pitied him ! I doubted 
 whether I should be willing to handicap 
 myself in my struggle for success by asking 
 jou to be my wife, even if I had a small 
 income to do it on. Oh ! my dearest, how 
 could I have doubted ; how ? * Mv wife,' I 
 could go in rags for you ! I wouldn't long 
 for fame unless you longed for your husband 
 to be famous. I wouldn't wish for riches, if 
 you only wished for comfort. I should have 
 no ambition and no desire throughout exist- 
 ence but the desire to make you happy, and 
 the ambition to be worthier of your love ! 
 Violet, I would work to win you as no man 
 ever worked to win a girl before. Give me the 
 vaguest hope, and I will tell you exactly how
 
 144 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 I stand ; every difficulty in the way sliall be 
 made clear to you. Am I to have nothing 
 to look forward to but to forget you ? Our 
 introduction might be the turning-point in 
 my career; it might be a Heaven-sent 
 blessing ! If you are human, if you have 
 any compassion, any tenderness, if you have 
 the heart of a woman in your breast, don't, 
 in mercy's name, my darling, don't let it be 
 my curse." 
 
 " What can I answer ? " she demanded, 
 desperately, " what can I answer if you 
 won't understand ? It isn't that I object to 
 love you — merely that the love is not here ! 
 Can I force it to come in order to save you 
 misery ? If I can, say so, and I will do it. 
 You could not ' sham to me,' would you have 
 me sham to you ? Shall I give you dross 
 for gold, accept your love, and flirt with you 
 in return? Don't tempt me to sully the
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 145 
 
 memory of our friendship by such a paltry 
 act, because I won't ! If this love is sent 
 to me I will not fight against it, I will 
 welcome it." 
 
 " Yi ! " 
 
 *' Yes, you may think little of a girl for 
 owning it, but you wring the admission from 
 me by your pain. I will welcome it gladly, 
 to spare you suffering, and to spare suffering 
 to myself. Your poverty is no terror to 
 me; if you believe it is, you do me an 
 injustice." 
 
 " You would share discomfort, hardships, 
 for my sake ? " 
 
 "If I loved you," she said, "I would 
 share starvation ! " 
 
 " Oh, my good angel," he murmured, 
 brokenly ; " oh, my Ideal." 
 
 There was a mist before his eyes and he 
 trembled. In imagination he had already 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 won lier, and was acliieving great things to 
 reap the harvest of her praise. 
 
 "Violet," he said, "there is another 
 obstacle between us besides the poverty ; you 
 must know everything now." 
 
 "Besides?" she asked, "besides your 
 position, my . . . my want of love ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied, huskily, " a third ! 
 Stop for a minute, will you, don't walk on. 
 I want to tell you, I . . . stand here." 
 
 " Some other time will do," she sug- 
 gested, " surely ? " 
 
 " No, no other time," he said, with a 
 gulp ; . . . " I am a Jew ! "
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 They were leaning over tlie Suspension 
 Bridge with their faces to the livelier 
 section of the river. It was very near the 
 end of October, an anomaly of an Oc- 
 tober, upon which Chester residents dilated 
 long afterwards, for whilst the earliest 
 days of the month had been cold and cheer- 
 less, fulfilling the menace of a raw Sep- 
 tember and a showerv Aug^ust, towards 
 the close of the first week King Sol had 
 suddenly condescended to blaze with the 
 greater vigour for his tardiness, and sun- 
 shades had once more been called into 
 [ 147 1
 
 148 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 requisition, and the streets were full of 
 good looking young fellows in flannels, 
 and people were saying it seemed as if we 
 were rapidly acquiring the climate of the 
 antipodes. 
 
 Below, to their left, the boats were 
 drawn up upon the bank beneath the trees, 
 and on the Dee itself there were more 
 boats, with here and there a crimson 
 parasol dotting the perspective, and now 
 and again among the gliding couples and 
 the laughing parties, a pretty woman came 
 by paddling a canoe. They watched it all 
 dreamily for a moment or two in silence ; 
 somehow the light and colour of the scene 
 appeared incongruous ; then : 
 
 " Was this quite fair ? " she said. 
 
 "It makes me look very culpable, I 
 know," he returned, gloomily ; " but if you 
 had given me a different answer that day,
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 149 
 
 I meant to have told you all at once. You 
 don't doubt that, do you ? It was because 
 you said you didn't care for me, and that 
 we were merely friends, that there did not 
 seem to be any necessity." 
 
 "There was . . . before," she reminded 
 him. 
 
 "I have never acted to deceive you, I 
 swear I haven't! If the conversation had 
 ever turned upon religion, I would have 
 declared what mine was without hesitating 
 an instant; it never did. You wouldn't 
 have me go about advertising my faith 
 with a board round my neck as if I 
 were blind ! . . . Perhaps you consider I 
 am ! . . . Miss Dyas ! " 
 
 "What is it?" she faltered. She felt 
 fearfully wretched ; it struck her that he 
 was standing there beside her like a prisoner 
 in the presence of his judge, and every
 
 150 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 instance of lier power over him was a fresh 
 pang to her, since she did not desire any 
 tribute to her sovereignty which implied 
 pain to the subject. Had the love been 
 mutual she would have wanted her power 
 to be greater still ; but that she did not 
 know. 
 
 "Miss Dyas, I have gone with you to 
 hear beautiful music and clever sermons, 
 but I have been in churches over and over 
 again before I ever met you. I went to 
 this very Cathedral for the first time alone ; 
 it was the Sunday after I came down 
 here . . . Do you think I have been guilty 
 of — what shall I call it — ' tacit deceit ' in 
 ignoring my own Sabbath ? Well, I have 
 ignored it no more here than anywhere 
 else. I write on Saturdays ; we are not 
 supposed to write. I liave not kept the 
 Sabbath rigidly at any period ! my people
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 151 
 
 never did. Since I was born I do not 
 suppose I have been in a Synagogue a dozen 
 times. I have said my prayers at home 
 Saturday and Sunday, and every other day, 
 and I have tried to be good. Besides," he 
 went on, "I won't deny it, there is a 
 difficulty about admitting oneself a Jew. 
 It sounds very cowardly to say so, but one 
 is always afraid the genial faces will harden, 
 and the cheery smiles grow chilly, and 
 fade away — we have seen it so often. You 
 Christians aver that your prejudice against 
 us has grown less ; we Jews endeavour to 
 persuade ourselves it has, but it is all 
 rubbish : you are as bitter as ever. There 
 is more than a joke in the anecdote of 
 the sailor who indignantly knocked down 
 a Jewish pedlar in the East India Road 
 because 'you Jews crucified my Saviour,' 
 and explained that he had * only heard about
 
 1 5 2 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 it yesterday.' How can we help feeling a 
 reluctance to cry, ' We are Jews ! ' when 
 you never forgive ? The very name is ugly, 
 too ; ' Christian,' ' Catholic,' ' Mahommedan,' 
 even, they have a touch of music, they are 
 at least euphonious, but ' Jew,' it is a jerk, 
 the word itself sounds like a gibe . . . 
 Are you ever going to say anything ? . . . 
 Am I a heathen in your eyes ? " 
 
 " ' A heathen ? ' " she murmured. 
 " Surely, ' to be good ' is the most ! " 
 
 "Violet," he exclaimed, eagerly, "is 
 this obstacle going to be the end of every- 
 thing, or will you still welcome the love if 
 it comes ? My dear one, are not the sects 
 and distinctions of religion accidents of 
 birth ? We are what our fathers and 
 mothers have been before us ; we are not 
 consulted as to our choice of a religion as 
 we are in the selection of our career. If
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 153 
 
 you had been born of Jewisli parents, do 
 you imagine you would have become a 
 ^ Protestant from conviction ? Yours appears 
 the one faith to you because you have been 
 brought up in it ; if you had been brought 
 up to say your prayers to Buddha, Budd- 
 hism woukl have appeared the one faith. 
 Oh, my darling, my darling ! think what we 
 have still in common : our notions of right 
 and wrong are the same, dear, our hopes of 
 heaven are the same, our God is the same 1 
 Is all this too little to make a bond be- 
 tween a man's and a woman's life ? Is the 
 story of the creation, the history of His 
 earliest word to man insufficient for you 
 and me to hold and believe together ? or 
 does it need two books to hallow a union 
 upon earth, though in the union of eternity 
 all creeds are equal ? " 
 
 " I am not unkind," she said, earnestly.
 
 1 54 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " don't imagine I am unkind ; you as- 
 tonished me, that was all. ^l[f face has 
 not hardened, has it ? 1 haven't turned 
 away ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," he replied ; " you are 
 always gentler to me than I deserve." 
 
 There was a nursemaid crossing the 
 bridge with her charges, coming from the 
 park, and the hoop belonging to one of 
 them, escaping control, rolled in among 
 the folds of Violet's dress. Allan picked 
 it up, and restoring it to the stolidly ex- 
 pectant child with a forced smile, came 
 back to her side, a trifle closer than 
 before. 
 
 "It will make no difference between 
 us ? " he questioned. 
 
 "I do not know — I mean, I am not 
 sure. But, at least, I thank you for your 
 confidence."
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 155 
 
 "What will she say?" he asked. He 
 referred to Mrs. Carroll. 
 
 " That is what I am wondering ; you 
 do not mind my telling her ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; she knows what has taken 
 place, of course ? " 
 
 The girl nodded. 
 
 "And she is sorry, naturally?" 
 
 "Yes, she is sorry; not . . . Ah, don't 
 think she objects simply because you are not 
 rich. She is sorry because the change has 
 brought a grief to us." 
 
 "But why should it bring a grief," 
 he said, wistfully, "if your feelings alter, 
 too ? I do not beg for much ; I do not 
 want you to be engaged to me as I am 
 now — a beggar ! You are not eighteen : 
 under any circumstances you would hardly 
 be engaged until you were twenty. If the 
 love is born give me a year's grace, wait
 
 156 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 till you are twenty-one ? Let me have 
 three years to get on in, and if at the end 
 of that time I can come to you and her 
 and say, ' These are my prospects,' and you 
 both deem them sufficiently fair, promise to 
 be my wife then. In the meanwhile you 
 would be as free as air, I only should be 
 pledged to you. I can't make a fortune in 
 three years; I'm not such a fool as to 
 suppose I can. But I may make a con- 
 siderable stride, and even if our engagement 
 lasted another two, you would still be under 
 twenty-three when we married. ' When we 
 married,' — oh, my heart's heart! I would 
 take yoTi as a gift from God . . . ' Wlien we 
 "married .' ' " 
 
 " Don't ! " she whispered, thrilling. " Oh, 
 what do you see in me to care for me like 
 this?" 
 
 "You don't know how I do care for
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 157 
 
 you — you never will I Even if you were 
 my wife, my cherislied, worshipped wife, 
 with me day after day, sympathizing and 
 sympathized with — if we were together till 
 we died, you and I, there would always 
 be one secret from you : you would never 
 realize how dear you were to me ! I could 
 find no language to express it to you, and 
 my life would be too short to witness the 
 eternity of my love ! " 
 
 Her hand was resting on the rail, and 
 he covered it for an instant with his own. 
 She drew it away. In his exalte condition 
 the prohibition appeared needlessly cruel, 
 and again a little silence fell between 
 them, which was broken by her. 
 
 " Let us go on," she said, "it is getting 
 late." 
 
 " You will remember this morning's 
 conversation, Violet ? "
 
 1 5 8 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 Would she remember it ? Tlie big, 
 stupid, adoring boy ! Had lie not been 
 stripping the last vestige of her childish- 
 ness from her by his every sentence, 
 completing her education with every sigh, 
 and teaching her the magic of her woman- 
 hood each time their eyes met ? Would 
 she remember it ! 
 
 "And I shall pray for this tenderness 
 to come to you, and that I may be made 
 worthier of sucli a blessing if it does ! 
 Should the j)rayer be answered, well, then 
 you will lend me some of your own patience 
 to be brave with, will you not ? because, 
 you see, mine may be nearly exhausted — 
 only my love will be always the same, no 
 probation in the world can ever exhaust 
 that ! And by-and-by, who knows ? my 
 misery and your indifference may belong 
 to the past, and we shall look back at
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 159 
 
 them with a jest, and laugli at the re- 
 collection together." 
 
 Oh the music of those words " Always " 
 and " Together " when one loves ! the 
 Heavenly melody that finds its echo in 
 the soul ! and every syllable a wedding 
 chime ! 
 
 " Ours could not be such a house as 
 you ought to have right off," he continued; 
 " we should have to win the luxury later. 
 Indeed, there might be only two or three 
 rooms just at first; still, they should be 
 pretty and quaintly-shaped — Chelsea way, 
 perhaps, with a tree showing from the 
 window. But you would stay in town 
 beforehand with Mrs. Carroll, and in the 
 cool of the day we would visit the 
 pleasantest suburbs ; and while we strolled 
 and talked, you and I would choose the 
 quarter that should be our home. . . . And
 
 i6o VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 we would have a piano ; we might have to 
 hire the piano at the beginning, but it 
 should be a good one, and we should forget 
 it was not our own. And we Avould have a 
 few water-colours, and a screen, and some 
 china; and in the twilight, when the 
 shadows were creeping in with the scent 
 of the flowers, you would sing to me . . . 
 and, oh, my beloved ! I would write great 
 books, that you might be proud of me ; 
 and you would write, too, if you were my 
 wife; and in the evenings we would read 
 our work aloud and help each other." 
 
 He had gone on speaking rather to 
 himself than to her, shaping his vision into 
 broken phrases; and she listened apathe- 
 tically, his enthusiasm totally unshared. 
 He already saw the branches of the 
 imaginary tree swaying in accompaniment 
 to her song, heard the rustle of the leaves
 
 VIOLET MOSES. i6i 
 
 trembling on tlie stillness of the summer 
 niglits wliile she lay pouring her love out 
 in his arms. She hurried toT\'ards the 
 haven of Powis Lodge as ignorant of 
 passion as a Galatea in the marble^ 
 mshing she had been walking with her 
 aunt instead. 
 
 He bade her good-bye, and sought his 
 lodgings, intoxicated by the fancied future 
 whose brightness tinged the present and 
 dispelled its cares. There was no mother 
 in his reverie now; previously, as though 
 she had stood with outstretched hands 
 upon the mountain of the difficulties in 
 his jDath, she had been ^4sible through all, 
 the highest duty and the summit of 
 ambition. The girl who did not care for 
 him had displaced her; and this is the 
 manner of youth which is as selfish as 
 old age, although it owns more generous 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 1 62 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 impulses. How we boast in the college 
 period of tlie things we intend to do for 
 our "people" when "business begins to 
 go ! " the boxes at the theatre, and the pre- 
 paratory little dinners we will give them 
 as soon as the briefs come in; the j)orier 
 honheur we will buy for " mother " when 
 Chrysos purchases our first picture; and 
 the cigars — we will show him what cigars 
 can be — which shall be sent in a case that 
 blocks the hall, to the dear old governor, if 
 we only do as well as a broker in the first 
 six months as we expect ! And we mean 
 it, too, whether our munificence is to be 
 fulfilled from Fitzroy Square, Garden 
 Court, or only from Throgmorton Street. 
 And then one fine day — just about the 
 stage when we are beginning to keep 
 ourselves without the " dear old governor's " 
 cheques — a young woman comes along, and
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 163 
 
 her eyelashes have a heaveiiTvard tendency, 
 and her lips look so soft ^e want to kiss 
 them. So the parents ttIio have watched 
 over us from om^ birth, and paid for the 
 education which assists us to make love to 
 her effectively, go to the wall in favour of 
 a stranger who has done nothing for us at 
 all, and who probably has no inclination 
 that way either; and the ])orie honheur 
 adorns the vounsr woman's wrist, not 
 mother's; and the boxes for the theatre 
 go to her mother, not our own; and that 
 very substantial sum designed for cigars 
 eventually settles a Piccadilly florist's 
 bill, being expended throughout the sea- 
 son in lilies and poinsettias to bring a 
 light pleasurable to see under the eyelashes 
 which turn up. But had our people, who 
 foresaw all this, hinted at such a con- 
 tingency earlier, while we were still
 
 1 64 VIOLE T MOSES. 
 
 bragging about our liberal intentions, we 
 should have been much hurt, indeed, and 
 lamented the defect in their dispositions 
 which prevented them from being grateful 
 in anticipation. 
 
 Allan was temporarily happy, and 
 Violet told her aunt he was a Jew — a 
 tardy announcement on his part, which 
 surprised the widow not a little, and made 
 him appear more culpable in her estimation 
 than in the girl's, whereas the avowal of 
 his feelings had contrariwise seemed to her 
 of less importance than it did to Yi. 
 
 Before they saw him again, however, 
 a certain event had banished the thought 
 of his concealment from the minds of both ; 
 the event was a trouble, and it was brought 
 by the postman, who in the course of the 
 year brings us the majority of our troubles 
 — which is the only adducible explanation
 
 VIOLET MOSES. i6 
 
 of his theory that he is entitled to a Christ- 
 mas-box at the end of it. The epistle was 
 addressed to Mrs. Carroll ; it was short, and 
 it ran thus : — 
 
 "Beooklyx, U.S.A. 
 " Dear Bertha, 
 
 " I cannot swear whether you 
 or I wrote last, but neither of us is 
 offended, eh? I have quite decided to 
 return to Europe, and shall, of course, see 
 you and the child on my arrival. I shall 
 start soon. How is she ? In that photo I 
 thought she resembled poor Xellie very 
 much, but photos are such frauds ! I want 
 her to come and live with me ; I shall most 
 likely open a business in London, and we 
 shall be company for one another. I sup- 
 pose you will be a trifle cut up at parting 
 from her, but Chester is not a thousand 
 miles from town, and it will not really make
 
 1 66 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 much difference, excepting that I shall not 
 be lonely. The change, too, should be a 
 good thing for her at her age, and, indeed, 
 the only sufferer by the arrangement, so far 
 as I can see, will be yourself, unless (and 
 this seems probable) a young girl frisking 
 about the place is rather a nuisance to you 
 at times, in which case my suggestion is 
 positively brilliant for all three. Am not 
 aMe to state definitely by what boat I leave, 
 but let her get ready as soon as you like. 
 I cannot write sentiment, because I am 
 always afraid it will look as if it had been 
 cribbed from a novel, but I am anxious to 
 have her with me : she is my daughter, your 
 sister Nellie's baby ; need I say any more ? 
 Excuse haste, I have only ten minutes to 
 save the mail. 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 
 " Robert."
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 167 
 
 " Auntie ! " 
 
 "Little Vi!" 
 
 Then they stared at one another dumbly ; 
 it was as if a bombshell had been de- 
 posited between them, and the roses of the 
 carpet and the frames upon the walls swam 
 before " JSTellie's baby" in dizzying confusion. 
 
 " Give it to me ! " she said under her 
 breath. 
 
 She read the letter slowly through, and, 
 mechanically folding it, restored it to its 
 envelope without a word. 
 
 " Little Vi ! " exclaimed Mrs. Carroll 
 again. She held out her arms, and the girl 
 crept to them, and laid her head upon her 
 breast. 
 
 " Kave I been a ' nuisance to you,* 
 auntie ? " 
 
 " Oh, my darling, hush ! A ' nuisance/ 
 you ! "
 
 1 68 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 So tliey sat quite mute for minutes, 
 rocking to and fro, contemplating the 
 parting that was to come. 
 
 " He is your father, darling," the widow 
 murmured at length, surreptitiously drying 
 the tears she had been powerless to force 
 back, " and he loves you, too ; you mustn't 
 cry ! " 
 
 " My tears are all here, in my throat, 
 dear," said the girl; "it is you who are 
 crying ! " 
 
 " Is it ? I am a very silly woman then, 
 for there is nothing to cry at, you know, 
 nothing at all; as he says, it will not 
 actually make much difference ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, not much difference, really not 
 much difference ; I shall see you once in 
 three months instead of all day, only that ! 
 And I shall sit in a hat and jacket when I 
 come, and you will offer me the easiest chair
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 169 
 
 like a visitor, and ask me if I'll take a 
 glass of w — w — wine ! " 
 
 "Violet!" 
 
 " Yes, that will be it ! At first we sliall 
 liave so mucli to tell each other that we 
 shall both want to talk at once, but by- 
 degrees we shall stiffen ; a strange servant 
 T\411 open the door to me, and ask 'What 
 name ? ' and you will admire my new check 
 to make conversation, and it will be an 
 ordeal to you, my coming, an ordeal ! " 
 
 She broke into an hysterical laugh that 
 was worse to hear than a sob. 
 
 " The strange servant will be the last 
 straw," she said, trying to smile naturally; 
 " and if she does ask who I am, I shall 
 faint ! " 
 
 " Aggie will still be here, she will stop 
 with us always . . . with me, I mean ! '* 
 said the widow, correcting herself feebly.
 
 1 70 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " With ' you^ all, yes, we can't say with 
 ' us ' any more, can we ? And she won't 
 stop, I know she won't. Aggie wants to 
 marry the butcher, it is hateful of her ; 
 auntie, you will have to forbid the banns ! " 
 
 " I am going to give you a glass of wine 
 now, before you are a visitor," declared her 
 aunt rising ; " pull down the middle blind, 
 this glare is horrible ! " 
 
 She rang the bell, and they sipped a 
 glass of sherry apiece with attempted cheer- 
 fulness, and made little choky jests about 
 "flying to drink." 
 
 " I ought to love him, and I don't, that's 
 what is hurting me so," Violet said with a 
 gasp ; " he'll expect me to hug him, and how 
 can I feel like hugging a man I haven't seen 
 since I was ten ! " 
 
 '* ' A man,' sweetheart, he is your 
 father ! " Mrs. Carroll repeated.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. lyi 
 
 " Well lie is a man, isn't he ? I suppose 
 you'll introduce us . . . 'Allow me: Mr. 
 Dyas, Miss Dyas, your daughter 1 ' And I 
 shall bow so, no, without the glass of sherry, 
 and he will say he is ' delighted,' or ask for 
 the * next valse,' or . . . oh, this stu:ff is 
 going to my head, auntie, I am getting 
 stupid ! " 
 
 "You will soon learn to know him; your 
 mother loved him dearly, and you ought to 
 grow fonder of him than you are of me ! " 
 
 '' Don't," Violet cried, " don't say that, 
 or you will make it all worse still ; you are 
 the first, always the first to me ! Dearest, is 
 it a fact that I am like her ? " 
 
 " Your poor mother was fair, but there 
 is a resemblance, I think, something about 
 the mouth; your face, though, is stronger 
 than hers was." 
 
 "And everything is in my face!" she
 
 172 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 responded, unconsciously quoting. *' Where 
 is the will I fancied I possessed ? Could any 
 girl be a greater coward than I am now ! 
 No, I will not give Avay like this ; there are 
 several weeks yet, and they shall be peaceful 
 ones ; we will put the thought of our sepa- 
 ration aside!" 
 
 " I should like to go down and see Mr. 
 Finlason, if you don't mind being left alone 
 for half-an-hour," Mrs. Carroll suggested; 
 " or would you rather we sent a message 
 asking him to call round in the evening ? " 
 
 " No, dear, go now if you wish, I shan't 
 be dull ; and when you come back we'll have 
 one of our cosy afternoons just as if nothing 
 had happened. Don't ring again, I'll fetch 
 your things for you, and button your boots, 
 .... I shan't be able to do it much longer, 
 you know ! " she added, brightly. 
 
 But when she had closed the front door,
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 173 
 
 the feigned composure vanislied. She might 
 have been physically tired, so weakly did 
 she drag herself back through the passage, 
 and sink into her seat once more. She was 
 enduring the greatest blow that had fallen 
 on her since the mornino* she had stood a 
 child of eight behind the nursery window 
 of the silent house in Eussell Square, and 
 watched a funeral cortege drearily winding 
 its way around the green enclosure in wliich 
 she had played '* while mother lived," only 
 a week ago. 
 
 It has been said elsewhere, she Avas 
 already more self-reliant than Allan, and 
 tliis was precisely the reason why his love 
 was powerless to subdue her, but for 
 ^'already" read "as yet," and the disparity 
 is understood. When a girl has a strong 
 character, her strength is generally more 
 manifest than a young man's of correspond-
 
 1 74 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 ing age, for while he in his buffets with the 
 world has his confidence shaken, and his 
 vanity diminished, she, tilting at windmills 
 only, and sheltered by a home, is liable to 
 over-estimate her hardihood, since she is not 
 confronted with so many opportunities for 
 having it tested. Had Allan remained in 
 the luxury to which he was born, or had he 
 at length attained success by his own efforts, 
 her feeling for him would have been 
 different, not from any mercenary considera- 
 tions, but simply because in prosperity he 
 would have been less subject to fits of 
 despondence, a species of weakness which 
 in her lover often attracts a courageous 
 woman, but invariably repels a brave girl, 
 to whom the ideal wooer is never her slave 
 but her master. Again, strong as she was 
 if her situation had been similar to his 
 own, she would have insensibly turned to
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 175 
 
 liim for encouragement, and speedily dis- 
 covered, not merely tliat she was not quite 
 so independent as slie . was apt to deem 
 herself, but that a man may be prone to his 
 gusts of self-depreciation, and still be 
 capable of sustaining a girl whom circum- 
 stances have never caused to doubt herself 
 at all. 
 
 Studying to please her as he was, Allan 
 had perceived that the more resolution he 
 contrived to simulate the more chance of domi- 
 nating her he possessed, but he had averred 
 a fact — he could not act to her. Such a 
 method seemed so pitiably below its object. 
 He might in one remark pretend to regard 
 the goal of fame towards which he was 
 working as assuredly vdthin his reach — he 
 might vow where there was a will there was 
 a way, and positively assert, in her OT\'n 
 words, that any man could carve his own
 
 176 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 career if lie had only sufficient determina- 
 tion; but in liis next sentence lie would 
 contradict himself, and unwittingly appeal 
 to her for support, and then the ground he 
 had gained would be lost. Indeed, at this 
 period he was yearning for sympathy most 
 desperately. His life was a very lonely one, 
 and what he wanted was to be able to speak 
 the truth to her when he was depressed, and 
 be understood; whereas, if he had been an 
 egotist, and talked about the laurel wreath 
 of immortality as if it had been growing 
 in the backyard, and all he had to do was 
 to go out and put it on, she, clear-sighted 
 enough to have ridiculed such conceit as it 
 deserved in a woman, would, in a man, have 
 found it admirable, and, allowing for her 
 temperament and inexperience, might have 
 been subjected and, very possibly, won. In 
 his castles in the air he customarily saw him-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 177 
 
 self leaning liis head upon lier slioulder, and 
 confiding liis disappointments in lier ear. 
 The fanciful position typified his mental 
 attitude, and it is not the lover who kneels 
 at her feet and kisses her finger-tips who 
 storms the heart of such a girl, but the 
 suitor who takes her boldly in his arms and 
 salutes her on the lips. 
 
 While she was still brooding over the 
 farewell that was in store, Allan was an- 
 nounced. 
 
 It was no coincidence that he had 
 arrived when she was alone. He had 
 noticed Mrs. Carroll in St. John Street 
 and known she was out before he inquired 
 for her. Her absence from the house had 
 shown him his chance of securing a tete-d- 
 tete with Violet, and — well, he was in love ! 
 
 As he came over to her, she lifted her 
 mournful face and welcomed him more 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 gently than she had been wont to do of late. 
 With that singleness of idea which pertains 
 to the boyish adorer, he immediately attri- 
 buted the woe upon her features to her 
 meditation on his own pain. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " he asked. 
 " I am in trouble," she said. " Aunt 
 Bertha has gone to Mr. Finlason's office ; sit 
 down, she won't be long." 
 
 "What is the trouble about, not . . . 
 may I know ? " 
 
 He had been going to say " Not me ? " 
 but substituted another query instead. 
 
 " I am going away," she answered, 
 stonily ; "I am going to live in London 
 with my father." 
 
 The colour ebbed from his cheeks, and 
 he gripped the velvet of the chair. He 
 gripped the velvet because a sudden tremor 
 tingled upward from his wrists so that he
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 179 
 
 ached to take liold of lier. She was going 
 to London to be guarded by tliis fatlier 
 wliom lie liad never met. Vliat likeliliood 
 could there be of him seeing her hence- 
 forward ? London sounded as bad as Hong 
 Kong! 
 
 "I am so sorry," he said in a strained 
 voice; "it will be a sad leave-taking for 
 you." 
 
 The clock ticked with phenomenal loud- 
 ness, it might have been a locomotive in 
 the room. Wlien one of her own sex longs 
 to comfort a woman, and the phrases are 
 hard to find, she caresses her; a man who 
 is neither her relation nor her fiance can- 
 not do this, so he watches her awkwardly, 
 thinking he looks unfeeling, and suffers too. 
 
 She was standing on the hearthrug, and 
 Allan got up and leant against the mantel- 
 piece beside her, she had seemed such a
 
 i8o VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 long way off from where lie had been sit- 
 ting. As liis arm hung, his fingers just 
 brushed the folds of her skirt, and he 
 lingered over the contact as if it had been 
 a caress, yet touching the gown furtively 
 and softly, for fear she should detect his 
 foolishness and move. 
 
 " I am so unhappy," she murmured, with 
 the instinctive submission in her tone a girl 
 always adopts when she is in distress to 
 a man who is fond of her, whether she 
 is tender to him as a rule, or not ; " the 
 letter came just now ; he will be in England 
 soon, and then it will be ' good-bye ' ; and, 
 oh ! I ought not to grieve when he is my 
 father. Don't blame me for it, but I 
 can't help it, I can't, indeed; I shall 
 never, never, see Aunt Bertha properly any 
 more ! " 
 
 "* Blame you for it,' Yir'
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 1 8 1 
 
 It was a cry ratlier than a response. He 
 made an imgovernable gesture that would 
 have appeared dramatic if it had not been 
 so chimsily natural, and his compassion 
 stirred her blood, and bore his misery in 
 upon her as his supplication had never done. 
 She snatched his hand as it fell and covered 
 it ^4th both her own. 
 
 " Don't," she whispered, _" don't give 
 way through me ! " 
 
 At that moment the love was in her 
 breast, the woman was awake in her, and 
 for perhaps ten seconds they stood looking 
 into each other's eyes, their two hearts 
 beating as if they would break. She 
 was as pale as he, and he was white as 
 death. Their hands clung together in a 
 clasp neither ]iad kno^-n before, and their 
 gaze was fixed as though they sought to 
 penetrate the workings of each other's
 
 i82 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 brain. The permission that had leapt into 
 her look — the new, the heavenly meaning in 
 the dark wide-opened eyes that glowed into 
 his till her pupils seemed to distend and 
 dazzle him, bewildered the boy so that he 
 wondered breathlessly and could not speak. 
 Every pulse beat " Kiss her ! kiss her ! '* 
 There was a singing as of the ocean in his 
 ears. If, instead of wrestling against the 
 temptation, he had caught her to him as he 
 craved to do — if he had crushed her mouth 
 to his in such a kiss as must have been the 
 outcome of their emotion then, in another 
 instant, she would have been sobbing her 
 soul out on his neck. He did not because 
 he was a fool. He forbore because he knew 
 her agony of mind, and was far too truly 
 fond of her to risk misreading and making 
 it worse. She drew herself apart from him, 
 and the opportunity was over. She felt a
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 183 
 
 blank, a sense of something wanting. He 
 sustained himself by the erroneous reflection 
 that her mood would be the same to- 
 morrow or in a week. Too much delicacy 
 is sometimes a mistake. 
 
 There are occasions when a man may 
 curse himself more terribly than he curses 
 the liar who has defamed him — the thief 
 who has defrauded him — or the villain who 
 has despoiled his home ; and for many and 
 many a day, remembering when happiness 
 seemed within his reach, Allan Morris 
 cursed the consideration which prevented 
 his plucking it at the danger of mistaking 
 the feeling and doubling the desolation of 
 the girl he loved.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Mrs. Carroll was in a dilemma, and if 
 tlie intimacy between Violet and Allan 
 miglit not liave been expected to be brouglit 
 to a termination at any week now by the 
 girl's departure, there is little doubt but 
 what she would have extricated herself 
 from it by an immediate "No." 
 
 Mr. Morris had invited the widow and 
 her niece to tea. 
 
 Perhaps it was her knowledge that the 
 
 cordiality with which she had been used 
 
 to treat him had suffered some diminution 
 
 of late which spared him the mortification of 
 
 [ 184 ]
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 185 
 
 a definite refusal, for his earnest petition 
 had struck her as implying she had made 
 the boy feel himself indebted for her hos- 
 pitality, and stung him into an effort to 
 return it. Perhaps, too, Yiolet's evident 
 delight at the notion had something to do 
 with it ; anyhow, she said she would " think 
 about it," and the uncertainty ended in a 
 genuine acceptance. 
 
 That Yiolet should be unfeignedly 
 pleased was by no means the compliment 
 to him which Allan was inclined to hold it. 
 She liked him as she had always done, but 
 that spark of love which he had omitted 
 to kindle into a blaze had never returned, 
 nor, indeed, had she so much as admitted 
 to herself that it had once come. In self- 
 communion she would have averred there 
 had been " something " in her heart that 
 afternoon, but what it was she did not
 
 1 86 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 know, and declared, moreover, that if lie 
 liad embraced her lier whole soul would 
 have cried out it was a wrong. To the 
 majority of women this description will 
 sound absurd and unnatural, but if there 
 is any subject of which women might be 
 reasonably supposed to have a fair ac- 
 quaintance and are profoundly ignorant, 
 that subject is young girls ; they might 
 have been boys twelve years ago so abso- 
 lutely have they forgotten at thirty those 
 inexplicable contradictions of their minds 
 which made them enigmas to us when they 
 were eighteen. It may surprise them also 
 to be informed that they are much easier 
 to be won in the beauty of womanhood than 
 in the charm of extreme youth. Not many 
 men find this out either ; possibly because 
 few men fall in love with very young girls, 
 yet the explanation is quite simple : the
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 187 
 
 longer a woman lives, tlie greater know- 
 ledge of men she derives; insensibly slie 
 begins to think more as we think, our 
 companionship colours her ideas, her 
 philosophy is an adaptation of our own 
 cynicism, and we consequently understand 
 her better. But a girl, wayward, un- 
 practical, in her teens, is as God made her, 
 and to this riddle we have no key. 
 
 Yiolet would go with her aunt to the 
 lodgings of the suitor she had "rejected" 
 — if his avowal could be termed an "offer " 
 — and she would be neither deliberately 
 encouraging him nor retracting the assertion 
 he was only her friend ; and you, mesdames, 
 would have acted just as " remarkably " 
 (as it seems to you now) if you had been 
 in the guardianship of a relative equally 
 unworldly, and thought no harm of it 
 either. Of the trio, the only one who
 
 1 88 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 failed to compreliend tlie motive exactly 
 was, of course, the man. Mrs. Carroll, 
 who would not willingly have hurt the 
 feelings of a cannibal, was aware she had 
 been brought to consent partly because she 
 was conscious she had wounded him, and 
 chiefly because it no longer much mattered. 
 Yiolet, who had no misgivings as to the 
 propriety, looked forward to the Aasit — 
 firstly, because in depression one welcomes 
 any novelty ; and, secondly, because in the 
 tenderness with which one quits a city 
 which has been one's home, every attendant 
 circumstance on the farewell is grateful, 
 and doubly so when connected with some- 
 body whom in one's period of happiness 
 one has grown accustomed to associate 
 with it. 
 
 Never had his lodgings worn a more 
 poverty-ridden aspect to the young man
 
 VIOLET MOSES 189 
 
 than during the days which intervened 
 between that ^besonght-for promise and 
 its fulfilment ; never had the dilapidated 
 rep appeared to shriek so loudly for the 
 upholsterer's aid, nor the red and the white 
 curtain, hanging stiffly from each window, 
 irritated him as more abominably odd. 
 And yet — though this was a personal com- 
 pensation, since the subsequent condition 
 of the apartment would not in the slightest 
 detract from the view presented to lier — 
 it seemed to him it could never be dismal 
 again, must be beautiful and glorified in- 
 deed, for " She " would have been in it. 
 There is one taste the scientist has in 
 common with the flaneur; the gentleman 
 shares it with " Alf " and '• Bill : " it is to 
 see the girl he wants to marry under the 
 roof that shelters himself. Xo matter 
 whether the roof covers a Park Lane
 
 I90 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 residence or a couple of furnislied rooms 
 leased at a weekly rental of eight shil- 
 lings ; never mind whether he greets 
 her in the salon or the basement ; imma- 
 terial whether the refreshment he sets 
 before her is the masterpiece of a clief^ 
 the cup that cheers but not inebriates, or 
 the flowing porter and the savoury cheese 
 with which 'Arry does honour " Jine." 
 The taste is an ingrained instinct in us 
 all, and when she takes off her hat we 
 thrill. 
 
 Would not the hopelessly shabby fur- 
 niture be eloquent of Violet in the future ? 
 Would not her soft hair have rested against 
 an antimacassar, which would be hence- 
 forth hallowed, never to know the sacrilege 
 of the wash-tub if he could prevent it — a 
 whim his landlady was not likely to dispute. 
 Why, the walls, the tablecloth, the whole
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 191 
 
 place would speak her name ; and could he 
 not always look at the chair she had occu- 
 pied, and picture her in her last attitude 
 still, in fancy re-live the afternoon till the 
 memory of it brightened every other after- 
 noon that was to come ? As a child who 
 at night obliterates the record of the latest 
 date which has elapsed to accelerate the 
 advent of dear Santa Claus, so did this 
 yoimg man who had been ten years older 
 than his age until love dispelled the pre- 
 mature sedateness, inwardly exclaim a 
 hundred times a day, " A^iolet, Yiolet, 
 Yiolet is coming to tea ! " Then, because 
 at a corresponding stage of his career 
 every man of imagination does it, just as 
 inevitably if his feeling is serious as if the 
 attraction is a passing one, he Avrote poetry. 
 His poetry was very bad, it was in truth 
 not poetry at all. He had been informed
 
 192 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 of this, and like many more popular authors 
 with talent for fiction, would sooner have 
 been able to turn out pretty verses than 
 great novels. He composed eight lines, 
 which at first satisfied him as a prelude to 
 the climax that floated vaguely through 
 his brain, and entitled it : 
 
 ONE DAY IN CHESTER. 
 
 On Chester's Wishing Steps we loiter — 
 Linger as the sun goes down — 
 Where folk-lore vows no wish is idle, 
 Poet's wreath, or sov'reign's crown ; 
 On Wishing Steps beside the river, 
 Stones the lapping waters lave. 
 You smiling turn with gay reminder, 
 Jesting, ask me what I'd have. 
 
 Here, however, the muse forsook him, 
 taking flight at the unpleasant remembrance 
 that the Wishing Steps were not "beside the 
 river," and the " lapping waters " failed to 
 realize the course described, because there
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 193 
 
 did not happen to be any water in the 
 vicinity. He therefore tore the effort up, 
 and essayed a more passionate effusion : — 
 
 Oh, Love, my Love, I want your soul, 
 
 And not youi* friendship ; want the whole 
 
 Of that great heart of which I own 
 
 A corner that but comes as stone 
 
 Instead of bread to one who hungers for it all. 
 
 I want . . , 
 
 He came to a full-stop again ; in point 
 of fact, he was not quite sure that he 
 knew what he did want, if his requirements 
 had to be expressed in rhyme ; and, by the 
 way, if none of us could form a desire 
 without the achievement of rendering it 
 into decent verse, what a vastly more con- 
 tented population the world's would be. 
 
 But farcical as such incidents always 
 
 seem when unconnected with ourselves, it 
 
 must not be forgotten that the border-line 
 
 dividing the sublime from the ridiculous 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 is very tliin, nor is there probably any 
 subject so fully capable as this same Love 
 of being treated humorously, or an grand 
 serieux, according to the bent of the 
 narrator. We were convulsed with mirth 
 — at least some people were — ^at the in- 
 tensely human tragedy of " Faust," when it 
 was burlesqued at the " Gaiety," and behind 
 the footlights the situations and social 
 positions of the characters were changed; 
 in print, the precise story which has 
 impelled our tears when recounted in one 
 fashion, might, by the simple device of 
 bringing the comic side into prominence 
 be told so as to make us laugh instead, 
 and without altering a single occurrence. 
 JFor invariably the comic side is there, 
 only sometimes it is hidden deftly in the 
 shadow of the picture, and at others arrests 
 attention in the foreground.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 195 
 
 To Allan's perception, this period of 
 probation had no light comedy, it was 
 often well-nigh nn endurable, hence his 
 ludicrous, yet pathetic anticipation of the 
 visit. Occasionally when, as he had said, 
 he dreaded that the visionary scenes, 
 wherein the joy he hankered after was his 
 at last, that the mental conversations in 
 which he indulged till their deleterious 
 sweetness fired him as if it had been 
 real, would, if continued, affect his reason, 
 he tried to calm himself by reading one 
 of the tattered novels he found lying 
 about the premises. But novels aggravated 
 rather than interested him now : the 
 obstacles between Edwin and Angelina 
 never met his o^m case, which was, 
 scarcely surprising, seeing that it is the 
 misfortune of few men to be handicapped 
 at once by religion, such absolute poverty
 
 196 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 and indifference on the part of tlie girl 
 who fills their thoughts. Nevertheless the 
 income of five hundred a year which was 
 insufficient for the "younger son," and the 
 long-standing engagement to his cousin, 
 which tied the tongue of " the heir," annoyed 
 him, and he flung the history of their woes 
 aside. Judging by the interminable proces- 
 sion of five-hundred-per-annum heroes who 
 marched through volumes, dependent for 
 advancement upon bachelor imcles, one 
 would think that no man with less than 
 five hundred a year had ever fallen in love 
 before ! Once he did encounter variety ; 
 it was a short tale by John Strange 
 Winter, and yearning to see something of 
 his own predicament related, it appeared 
 to him midway the cleverest he had read : 
 they could not get married, the sweet- 
 hearts of this sketch, because the man was
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 197 
 
 too hard up even to pay liis bootmaker. 
 Thrice blest John Strange Winter! After 
 being so delightfully true to life what 
 possessed you to be still truer ; why, oh 
 why did you let the gentlemanly beggar 
 with whom Allan identified himself at the 
 beginning marry another woman for her 
 money at the end ? 
 
 The " Society Echo " in its feuilletons 
 was now the antithesis of the convention- 
 ality which exasperated him elsewhere. His 
 original instructions had been to eschew 
 commoners whenever convenient and to be 
 lavish of his peers, for the " Society Echo " 
 circulated in the Society that, although it 
 never meets one, " dearly loves a lord; " but, 
 latterly, he was disregarding the editor's 
 mandate with a dogged persistence which, 
 had his " copy " been less full of literary 
 merit than it was, would have assuredly
 
 198 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 procured Lim liis dismissal. His heroes, 
 in three numbers out of four, were authors 
 starving in garrets; his heroines inevitably 
 had fair brown hair, which curled naturally 
 about their shoulders ; and if once a month 
 he did vouchsafe to introduce a suitor with 
 a title, the bankrupt and luckless personage 
 was in such abject straits as would have 
 gladdened the readers of " Reynolds' " to 
 the core. 
 
 On the Wednesday destined for the 
 Great Event, Mr. Morris rose with an 
 unaccustomed sense of exhilaration. He 
 ate his breakfast hurriedly, and requested 
 the dishevelled child who took away the 
 tray, to inform her mother he would feel 
 favoured if she " stepped upstairs " ; the 
 tardy sample of a summer Avas long since 
 over, and jorevious experience on the point 
 had given him misgivings anent the fire.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 199 
 
 Mrs. Sliaper was a withered little 
 woman, with a watery smile and a chronic 
 deafness. She spoke in a subdued voice, 
 and had an apparently inexhaustible family 
 of diminutive and dirty daughters all the 
 same size, who had inherited in equal 
 shares the parent's vacant look. She 
 herseK was seldom visible, but her lodger's 
 meals were laid in instalments by a selection 
 of the offsprings, who after the meat had 
 been uncovered made their appearance sepa- 
 rately, and at lengthy intervals bearing the 
 knife, and the fork, and the plate. Those 
 of the Chester folk who are in search of 
 " Comfortable Apartments at most Moderate 
 Terms " will regret to learn Mrs. Shaper 
 is no longer among the attractions of their 
 dear old city, but she has removed to 
 another cathedral town, where she may 
 be found letting lodgings to which the
 
 200 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 description of Allan's correspond. Slie 
 entered presently, and stood by tlie door, 
 an elbow supported by lier right palm, 
 and her left hand held to her mouth, as 
 if she deemed the female mouth a portion 
 of anatomy it would be indelicate to 
 expose. 
 
 "Mrs. Shaper," he said, and his tone 
 w^as important, for this was no matter to 
 be lightly discussed, "I have two ladies 
 coming here to tea this afternoon; will, 
 you see that there is a clean cloth, please, 
 and that the coal-scuttle is filled — with 
 lumps ! And you might set the table 
 yourself, if you will, instead of leaving it. 
 to the children ? I am going out, and I 
 will order in a cake and some biscuits 
 and things, and all I shall ask you to do 
 will be to toast the muffins. Oh, and 
 Mrs. Shaper, I shall be bringing in some
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 flowers, will you wash a few of tlie . . . the 
 ornaments to hold them ? " 
 
 She came nearer to him and looked 
 perplexed. 
 
 "Yes, well?" he remarked encourag- 
 ingly, " what is it ? what is the trouble ? " 
 
 '' I thought," she murmured meekly, " 1 
 understood from Mariar that there was 
 something you wished to say to me ? " 
 
 It was then borne in upon him that not 
 a s.yllable of his instructions had reached 
 her, and she was still waiting for him to 
 begin. He, therefore, repeated the direc- 
 tions, and when the partial intelligence with 
 which she had been endowed had ascended 
 to an adequate height she withdrew, and he 
 was able to meditate in undisturbed re- 
 flection what the " things " he had vaguely 
 expressed an intention of ordering had 
 better be.
 
 202 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 Excepting tlie watering-places and two 
 or three others, a man may live in the 
 country on a guinea a week with a facility 
 which in London w^ould recall a miracle 
 extraordinary for the expansive properties 
 of certain loaves and fishes. He will not be 
 a voluptuary, but he may fare both decently 
 and sufficiently, and not leave himself with- 
 out silver after defraying the bill. 
 
 Allan had amassed eight or nine shillings 
 to expend in the entertainment of her whom 
 he " delighted to honour." It was a draw- 
 back that the prospect of this unwonted 
 outlay all at once should intensify the 
 recollection that his position was scarcely 
 such as justified his hope of becoming a 
 husband and father. 
 
 Why was he not rich ? He would have 
 written to Duclos, and Charbonnel, and 
 Covent Garden, to render his queen's recep-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 203 
 
 tiou worthy of lier — Chester would have 
 boasted nothing good enough I He would 
 have purchased a Sevres service — that the 
 cup, at least, might be fit to touch her lips if 
 he were not ! Oh, why was he not rich ? 
 how differently he would plead ! Xo, " I 
 would," and "I should like," but "'I will," 
 and " I can do I " And it is surprising how 
 much more valuable the indicative mood is 
 to love speeches than the subjunctive. He 
 would win her were he prosperous, he was 
 assured of it. She would not sell herself 
 for the wealth of Crcesus, but in prosperity 
 he could evince his sincerity by a thousand 
 actions, while, as a beggar, he could only 
 depend upon a million words. 
 
 Money cannot buy love ? Xo, but it can 
 prove it I and a love thoroughly compre- 
 hended is three parts returned. Moralists 
 and idiots would have us sneer at the
 
 204 VIOLET MOSES 
 
 potentialities of gold ; it cannot, buy health 
 either, they dogmatically declare — these 
 philosophers in a feather-bed — and " no, 
 indeed," we piously concur, "of course it 
 can't." Yet, when we see some tiny cripple 
 shifting his twisted limbs in torture for lack 
 of the proper appliances to give him ease ; 
 see the poor stricken by disease in a foetid 
 alley and subsisting on cold tea and hard 
 bread in cases where you and yours would try 
 old port and the south of France, until they 
 die less of their sickness than their penury, 
 it looks uncommonly as if it could. 
 
 It cannot buy happiness ? True again, 
 most reverend seigniors ; one cannot go into 
 Mr, Whiteley's emporium and be served 
 with a pound's worth of happiness at any 
 counter in his establishment ! Nor can an 
 income in five figures bring back the hand- 
 clasp of Charlie, whom those black devils
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 shot "out there." It cannot restore to us 
 her " voice that is still," with its human 
 music hushed for ever under the broken 
 column and yesterday's roses in God's Acre. 
 But if we are artists, it can spare us the 
 indignity of prostituting our art to the 
 exigencies of want, allow us to devote 
 the gift that Heaven has granted us to 
 highest work, and save us the agony of 
 "pot-boiling." If we are bibliomaniacs, it 
 can procure us rare editions ; if we are fond 
 of our " people," it can brighten all their 
 homes ; and if we chance to be philan- 
 thropically inclined, it can invest us with 
 a well-nigh unlimited power for doing 
 good. 
 
 It cannot buy purity of thought ? It 
 cannot transform a sensualist into a Saint 
 Anthony ! But what about the slums where 
 mother and sons, and brothers and sisters.
 
 2o6 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 herd like pigs between tlie walls of one 
 cellar, cursing together, undressing together, 
 and shivering together, till girls to whom 
 such terms as " modesty " and " corruption " 
 are meaningless, grow old enough to seek a 
 nearer approach to refinement in the streets. 
 Money, do not disparage it, for not merely 
 does it purchase comfort, but, alas, so 
 sovereign is its sway, that virtue and honesty 
 may be bought as well. 
 
 Some day a new songster will arise, and 
 he will chant the fame of Money. With the 
 fervour of a Swinburne will he sing its 
 praises, and before this great man all the 
 world will bow down and listen. How vast 
 will be his scope, how justified his hyperbole 
 of adoration, since to the acquisition of what 
 desideratum upon earth can we assert his 
 mistress may not be instrumental, unless it 
 is to procure for the ugly ones amongst us
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 207 
 
 anotlier cast of countenance? And then — 
 oh, mighty monej — it can buy us beauty, 
 too — the beauty of somebody else ! 
 
 Glancing around, Allan decided in detail 
 what improvements might be effected, even 
 at seven hours' notice if he had been be- 
 queathed a fortune and the solicitors had 
 apprised him of it, and forwarded a 
 preliminary cheque by the post which had 
 brought him no letter at all. "When he had 
 in fancy disbursed bank notes recklessly and 
 experienced a keen disappointment at the 
 calculation that his telegrams (if he could 
 send them) would fail to secure the dainties 
 from the Metropolis in time, he descended 
 once more to the practical and considered 
 how he could best lay out his nine 
 shillings. 
 
 He took a walk, and patronized the 
 confectioner to the extent of a " Dundee " —
 
 2o8 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 an over-rated cake, adorned with sugar 
 bullets, each of which is apt to startle the 
 unwary consumer into tlie hideous impression 
 that a tooth has dropped out — an airy crea- 
 tion in " sponge " and apricot jam, and a se- 
 lection of biscuits beautiful with birds nests. 
 He would have preferred 'petiU fours, but 
 ^etits fours are three shillings a pound, and 
 delicacies only for the noble. He stipulated 
 that the things should be sent to Lady's 
 Lane without delay, because it was now 
 half -past ten and they would be required at 
 five. After this, there remained to him four 
 and sixpence, and he thouglit he would have 
 some chrysanthemums and a dish of grapes. 
 But the man who has sauntered through 
 nursery gardens and spent no more than he 
 intended has yet to be immortalized, and 
 Allan gaily suggested tlie addition of that 
 blossom and the other spray till grapes had
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 209 
 
 gone ^Xh j)et\is fours to swell tlie catalogu3 
 of the impossible, and lie made his exit 
 rattling three-lialfpence. 
 
 N'importe, fruit would have been a 
 mistake, perhaps, and though he had for- 
 gotten the muffins the omission oppressed 
 him not, since Mrs. Shaper should be told 
 to get them in, and he would thus escape 
 settling for them until her bill came up on 
 JVTonday. 
 
 As he did not encounter Yiolet or Mrs. 
 Carroll, he went back to his rocms, and 
 smoked cigarettes complacently while he 
 watched the bags arrive. Xext he borrowed 
 a pair of scissors, and arranged the flowers 
 in the least objectionable of the " Present 
 from Margate " mugs, which he stood on the 
 mantelpiece in place of the memorial cards. 
 To see a man arrange flowers is very funny, 
 they seem specially born for women, like 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 niglitingales and butterflies, and no male 
 being was ever known to meddle with a 
 butterfly after lie left school, excepting, 
 indeed, to run a pin through it. 
 
 Somehow, in surveying the result, Allan 
 was displeased with his efforts ; there was a 
 defect, although he could not determine 
 what it was. Ah ! he had it : there were 
 flowers in plenty, but — imbecile that he had 
 been — not a vestige of green ! 
 
 He collapsed helplessly, and contem- 
 plated his three halfpennies with a fixed 
 stare; he felt that he could scarcely de- 
 mand credit from Mrs. Shaper for ferns. 
 It is in crises that the financier is dis- 
 cernible, and Allan rose to the occasion. 
 Again he trod the pavements of Chester — 
 less majestically, but again. His destina- 
 tion was conspicuous by the sign which has 
 been the epitaph alike of flannel petticoats
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 and diamond rings, and wlien he reached 
 it he made a diye. 
 
 He left a silver lever in exchange for 
 a ticket and five shillings — a small loan, 
 which would bear small interest — and re- 
 entered his lodging carrying a bundle of 
 maiden-hair fern that might have sufficed 
 for a medium-sized grotto. The mantel- 
 piece was now a bower of beauty, and the 
 improvement he had effected delighted him 
 so much that he was still admiring it when 
 "Mariar" came in with the steak, which 
 she deposited on the sideboard to get cold 
 while she went down in search of the 
 potatoes and the bread. 
 
 From three to four he paced restlessly 
 to and fro, the door and windows open lest 
 the odour of those earher cigarettes might 
 be still offensive. Wlien tobacco was in- 
 dispensable, henceforward he smoked in
 
 212 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 the bedroom. There was no clock in his 
 apartments, a deficiency which necessitated 
 frequent inquiries from the top of the 
 kitchen steps; and he trusted devoutly 
 Mrs. Carroll would evince no curiosity as 
 to the progress of "the enemy," since the 
 ticket in his pocket would not be useful as 
 a reference. At a quarter to five he seated 
 himself between the curtains, commanding 
 a view of the street, and hated every 
 strange woman who turned the corner. 
 After he heard the hour chime in the 
 distance, the eagerness of his attitude 
 threatened impending suicide. 
 
 •• The red rose cries * She is near, she is near ; ' 
 And the white rose weeps, ' She is late-'." 
 
 This was awful; ten, fifteen minutes 
 past five and his guests were not visible. 
 It was really not considerate of Violet; 
 she affected to commiserate with him, but
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 213 
 
 was she taking mucli pains to make liim 
 happier wlien slie could? She had under- 
 taken to be punctual, and she must be 
 perfectly aware of his sensations now. 
 Those of Dean S^\'ift, in the ''Yacht Inn" 
 of the same town, glaring at his banquet 
 which no one had come to eat, were not 
 dissimilar. It would be too dark to 
 distinguish her Vv'hen she did appear at 
 the corner — perhaps he should say "if* 
 she did ! He would not willingly see 
 faults in her : but v:a8 this kind ? was it 
 amiable r He ... It was not too dark ; 
 could the blackness of Erebus have veiled 
 that one dear figure from his gaze ! They 
 were crossing the road — ^lie looked up at 
 him and smiled ! Of course, they must 
 have been detained, and he had been 
 inwardly reproaching her ! Oh, the angel ! 
 what a brute he was ! !
 
 214 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 "I am so glad; I was afraid you had 
 forgotten ! " 
 
 "We are so sorry: tliere was a visitor 
 at tlie last minute ! " 
 
 And tlien lie helped them off with 
 their things, and " She " had a marten 
 tail cape on; and the woman who is loved 
 can never wear anything more bewitching 
 in her sweetheart's eyes than fur : it is so 
 delicate and soft, and when he touches it, 
 its warmth seems imbued with some]|_of the 
 magic of her personality.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "Take tlie arm-cliair, Mrs. Carroll," said 
 Allan. "Miss Djas, don't sit tliere : I'll 
 wheel tlie coucli closer. And you got rid 
 of tlie visitor at last ? " 
 
 "At last site went," declared Violet; 
 "I don't think an earthquake could have 
 ' got rid ' of her. How dense she was ! we 
 were ready to leave when she was shown 
 in, and as she said she was 'afraid she'd 
 called inopportunely,' and we only said 
 'not at all,' in a mutton-brothy manner, 
 we didn't imagine she'd stop long — but she 
 
 did ! " 
 
 [215]
 
 2x6 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 " She was afraid to get up," the widow 
 explained; "I don't suppose she has ever 
 made a call by herself before ; she is a 
 very good girl." 
 
 "Mr. Morris, she sat like this," cried 
 Violet, " ' the good girl ' — just like this ! 
 And she twiddled her sunshade and stroked 
 her mufE all the time, and her 'conver- 
 sation' was a series of questions and 
 monosyllabic replies; she never ventured 
 a remark once ! And auntie inquired after 
 her little niece, and asked her if she was 
 fond of babies, and she said, ' Y-e-s, 
 rather . . . thanks,' as if we were offering 
 her one, and she glanced furtively at 
 the cabinet to see if there w^ere any 
 inside." 
 
 " And what did you do at length ? " 
 
 "Oh, at length she observed she really 
 muBi go, * Mother would be thinking she 
 
 1
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 217 
 
 was lost/ and departed, twiddling lier sun- 
 shade to the end." 
 
 "Young girls always carry a sunshade 
 when they pay visits," said Mrs. Carroll; 
 "it is something for them to clutch at if 
 they are nervous." 
 
 "What a caution to me I " exclaimed 
 Violet. " I believe it was meant for 
 one." 
 
 "My dear," averred her aunt, truth- 
 fully, "there are times when you seem to 
 me every day as old as I am I Do you 
 know I like your sitting-room, Mr. Morris; 
 it doesn't realize your awful description a 
 bit, and it miglit be very nice, indeed." 
 
 "Yes, the shape is all right, isn't it?" 
 he answered — "a trifle stiff, but not bad; 
 only it wants entirely refurnishing. If I 
 bought everytliing it requires, it could be 
 made to look very jolly; but then if I
 
 21 8 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 could buy everything it requires, I should 
 take a sitting-room somewhere else." 
 
 There was none of the restraint which 
 the elder woman had vaguely dreaded; the 
 host was resolved no allusion on his part, 
 not even a smothered sigh, should temper 
 the pleasure of the afternoon with em- 
 barrassment, and Violet had long since 
 determined she would put every depressing 
 thought aside. 
 
 Thus the moods of all three were in 
 harmony, and had the pair been brother 
 and sister, they could scarcely have chatted 
 more frankly. They talked of music, of 
 books, and of the theatres, of pieces jDro- 
 duced and forgotten that they had mutually 
 admired. Sometimes they fancied they 
 made the discovery that they had been in 
 the stalls of the same house on the same 
 night, and said how funny that seemed
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 2 1 9 
 
 now. Tliey talked as if their lives were 
 indissolubly linked, and tlie severance 
 which any week might bring was neither 
 anticipated nor possible. And meanwhile 
 Mrs. Shaper pottered about the table, till 
 nothing remained to be done but to 
 brighten it with a mug or two of the 
 chrysanthemums, and really it presented a 
 cheery aspect enough under the gaslight, 
 with its shining cups and saucers (though 
 they were thick), and the bowl of boiling 
 water, keeping the muffins hot (though 
 they were crumpets), and the feathery 
 masses of green contrasting pleasantly 
 with the bunches of pale pink bloom and 
 the whiteness of the cloth (albeit, there 
 was one bio- darn in the middle which 
 none of the dishes hid). 
 
 "Will you pour out the tea, Mrs. 
 Carroll?"
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 He noted, nevertheless, that the most 
 fascinating of the " birdsnests " were absent, 
 and felt, beneath the smile of hospitality, 
 that he was indebted to the depredations 
 of the idiot family. 
 
 So Yiolet and he sat opposite to one 
 another, and Mrs. Carroll was ensconced 
 behind the tray, and it struck the boy what 
 rapture it would have meant could he have 
 said : " Will you pour out the tea, Miss 
 Dyas," and seen her darling little hand 
 hovering over the sugar-basin, and adding 
 the milk, for all the world as if she had 
 been his wife. And presently when nobody 
 would have any more, they resumed their 
 places before the fire, and — well, there was 
 never a face that looked so lovely in the 
 firelight as Yi's, that was certain ! And 
 sometimes with that long big sofa all to 
 herself, her chin would drop on tlie Valen-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 221 
 
 ciennes collar, and lier eyes grew softer yet 
 and dreamier, while slie saw pictures in the 
 red-hot coals exactly as she might have done 
 if she had been at home. '* At home," oh, 
 the dear, if this had been her home ! If 
 Mrs. Carroll had merely dropped in to spend 
 an hour, and would be going directly, to 
 leave him and Violet tog^ether ! He would 
 be her husband in that case, and she would 
 be waiting now to beckon him to her side, 
 and to draw his arm tightly about her 
 Avaist, and by-and-by those full sweet lips 
 would be lifted to him for a kiss, and with 
 her curls nestlino: on his shoulder . . . 
 " Yes, he trusted to have his book out by 
 Christmas, and hoped Mrs. Carroll would 
 accept a copy ; he would have one specially 
 bound for her I " 
 
 " I do wish it may be successful," she 
 continued, "it would be such a splendid
 
 2 2 2 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 thing for you ! Does your youth ever make 
 you doubt yourself ? " 
 
 " Horribly ! " he said ; " but then look at 
 ' A Nile Novel,' they say George Fleming 
 wrote it before she was twenty, and that's 
 clever enough, isn't it ? it has the style of 
 a man of the world. I was never more 
 astonished than when I read somewhere that 
 the writer was a woman. She does not tell 
 you ' The spot was very beautiful,' and 
 describe it so, that you cry, ' What a capi- 
 tally constructed paragraph ; ' the scene 
 lies there in front of you, actually painted 
 in printer's ink ! " 
 
 "I should say," Violet suggested, 
 "an author's youth ought to be an en- 
 couraging remembrance rather than a 
 depressing one, he has the more time to 
 get on in ! " 
 
 "The longer future to anticipate, of
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 223 
 
 course," lie agreed; "but, yousee, Tve always 
 want our happiness in the present ! " 
 
 '* And would not confidence in the future 
 imply happiness in the present ! " 
 
 " Patience, scarcely ' happiness,' I should 
 fancy ! And, besides, if he were already 
 contented by the prospect of success, do you 
 think he would labour as indefatigably to 
 make the prospect a reality ? I am not 
 dogmatizing, I simply ask the question ! " 
 
 " Does the man work better who is con- 
 vinced he will achieve his ambition, or the 
 man who has misgivings ? " said [Mrs. Carroll, 
 "it resolves itself into that." 
 
 "The man who is convinced!" cried 
 Violet. 
 
 " The man who doubts ! " said Allan. 
 
 " Xo, I am sure I am right, Mr. Morris. 
 The man who is convinced is impervious to 
 disappointments; slights and sneers do not
 
 2 24 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 sting him, liis self-reliance is a kind of 
 armour ! " 
 
 "It is the armour of egotism, and it 
 weighs him down ! " retorted Allan. 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " I must confess, Mr. Morris, the point 
 of the remark is obscure to me too ! " said 
 her aunt. 
 
 " I may be wrong, it is merely my idea ; 
 egotism also, because I have misgivings, and 
 therefore would like to prove them desir- 
 able for distinction ! But I should imagine 
 the ambition of him who is quite certain it 
 will be attained cannot be a very lofty one 
 to begin with ; it may be money, but no one 
 can be assured of fame ! " 
 
 " Ovid ! " instanced Mrs. Carroll, 
 classically. 
 
 " Objection admitted,'' he laughed ; 
 then, with convenient ignorance : " but
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 225 
 
 Ovid liad to contend against less competi- 
 tion ! " 
 
 "He has withstood all competition 
 since ! " 
 
 " He sang on a permanently attractive 
 subject : he was the minstrel of Venus, and 
 love is everlasting ! " 
 
 "Doctor Johnson said," observed the 
 widow, hastening to avoid a discussion on 
 the eternity of love, " that the possession of 
 genius together with unconsciousness of 
 the gift on the part of the possessor was 
 not possible ! " 
 
 " Doctor Johnson likewise opined that 
 the fairest view on God's earth was im- 
 proved by a good hotel in the foreground ! " 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh," exclaimed Violet, "don't 
 quote Doctor Johnson, auntie ! " 
 
 "Although," added Allan, charitably, "I 
 don't suppose the poor man is really 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 responsible for half tlie idiotic utterances 
 that are attributed to him ! Anyhow, is the 
 knowledge one has genius synonymous with 
 the knowledge one will be great? " 
 
 '' If coupled with the gift of persever- 
 ance, yes ! " 
 
 " If coupled with the gift of opportunity, 
 Mrs. Carroll ! " 
 
 "'Opportunity,'" she echoed, gently; 
 "the man of mettle makes his opportunity !*' 
 
 " Then he must have a double genius — 
 the literary and the commercial ! " 
 
 "It seems to me," said Violet, "we 
 were not talking of genius at all, but of 
 ' success ; ' are we not forgetting the war- 
 ranted to wear quality of talent ? " 
 
 " There was once a great lawyer," Mrs. 
 Carroll began. 
 
 " ' Once upon a time,' auntie." 
 
 " Yes, ' once upon a time,' it is nice and
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 227 
 
 vague, and I don't recollect wlio lie ^as ! 
 But lie wrote a Tvork wliicli filled up slielves, 
 in the odd moments tliat liis wife kept liim 
 waiting; ten minutes Monday niglit wlien 
 she was not down to dinner, and a quarter 
 of an hour on Tuesday when she was still 
 at her toilette after the carriage had come 
 round; and that book is one that every- 
 body has heard of, like 'Coke on Lyttleton,' 
 and .... and 'Helen's Babies,' . . . and 
 this is a j^rojws of opportunities ! " 
 
 Allan flushed uneasily; to be reproved 
 in the presence of the object of one's 
 affections is as severe a test of one's savoir 
 /aire as may be conceived, and fortunately 
 a test which seldom occurs, at any rate to 
 heroes in fiction, who are always right, and 
 therefore remain authoritatively calm to the 
 end of the third volume. It is a matter 
 never to be sufficiently regretted, that in
 
 228 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 real life one cannot regulate one's acquaint- 
 ance with the consideration shown to these 
 heroes by the lady novelists who create 
 them, and not only is one not always right, 
 but it frequently happens there is somebody 
 else on the scene — quite a minor personage 
 bearing no relation to the plot — who knows 
 better. There was a little pause during which 
 Mrs. Carroll experienced the uncomfortable 
 sensation of having evinced a shade less than 
 her usual tact. It was broken by Violet. 
 
 " I should think," she said, " there must 
 have been one person who never admired 
 that work much — the wife who was late 
 for dinner. You may depend her indus- 
 trious husband arranged copies of it to glare 
 at her from the walls of every room she 
 went into, and shortened her life. Nobody 
 but a lawyer could have plotted such a 
 diabolical revenge ! "
 
 VI OLE T MOSES. 2 2 9 
 
 " If you destroy the moral, mj dear, 
 I shall tell no more improving anec- 
 dotes." 
 
 But tliougli the argument terminated in 
 a joke, Allan ^ould sooner he had not been 
 rescued from defeat by Miss Yiolet Dyas 
 against what were avowedly her own 
 convictions. It was distinctly amiable of 
 her, but hardly the opening he would 
 have chosen for her amiability to be dis- 
 played. 
 
 Then they talked twaddle, more un- 
 adulterated and absolute even than the con- 
 troversy had evoked, but gay and purposeless 
 twaddle withal, in which no one got the 
 worst of it. And Allan confessed that the 
 mantelpiece was customarily hideous with 
 memorial cards, and that he had hidden 
 them away, and when Mrs. Shaper cleared 
 the debris of the feast Yiolet declared he
 
 230 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 was trembling lest their disappearance 
 should be noticed. Mrs. Carroll, too, vowed 
 she felt heartless as they rose to say " Good- 
 night," for wlio was to protect him from 
 the householder's indignation when they 
 were gone? "And see," the girl cried, 
 *' see how frightened he is in advance ! " 
 
 It was all too quickly over. He walked 
 to their own door witli them, which pro- 
 tracted his enjoyment somcAvhat, but the 
 leave-taking his insistance had postponed 
 was made on the villa steps, and, strolling 
 back alone, the distance from Powis Lodge 
 to Lady's Lane was far longer than it had 
 been from Lady's Lane to Powis Lodge. 
 The furniture which greeted him grouped 
 around his hearth wore a melancholy aspect 
 now in its untenanted disorder, the cosiness 
 of the semicircle had vanished. It seemed 
 as much out of place as the carpet on which
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 231 
 
 we have valsed does liimg out of tlie first- 
 floor window at a sale. It was eloquent of 
 Yiolet, certainly, as eloquent as lie had been 
 promising himself it would be, but with a 
 depressing kind of eloquence for which he 
 was not thankful. 
 
 He enlivened the hours that had to 
 elapse before he could go to bed by medi- 
 tating a novel to follow the one at which 
 he was supposed to be at work, for he 
 thought he would like to immortalize the 
 situation of Yiolet and himself in print, but 
 abandoned the idea at the remembrance that 
 the love affairs of men of twenty-five are 
 not deemed interesting in fiction, because 
 the world declines to put faith in them in 
 life. He said the world's scepticism was 
 unjust, but it is natural. A young man's 
 " eternal" fidelity of the spring is generally 
 an amusing recollection by the autumn, that
 
 232 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 is, if it ends well ; if it does not end well, 
 it becomes, in tlie majority of cases, the 
 rock upon wliicli his career is wrecked — the 
 wedding bells are the prelude to the storm. 
 Girls, on the contrary, frequently marry at 
 the period of the debut, and make good, 
 sensible, and affectionate wives, for they are 
 not only more constant than men, they are 
 far less apt to be mistaken in their feelings. 
 A woman gives herself for love, or she sells 
 herself for money, and the love or the 
 money is there ; but men dupe themselves 
 every day into regarding their animal pas- 
 sions as the highest form of true devotion, 
 and pay their whole lives for the gratifi- 
 cation of a madness which fades in the sa- 
 tiety of the first six weeks. Phryne's frock 
 sometimes seems in better taste than Pene- 
 lope's; the paste occasionally looks finer 
 than the gem ; and this same animal passion
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 233 
 
 makes so brave a sliow and creates so sur- 
 prising a ferment in the breast of him it 
 masters that it needs experience to distin- 
 guish the spurious from the pure ; and while 
 all men are more liable to the mistake than 
 women, the young man is most liable of 
 all, since he has not as vet detected the 
 plausibility of the sham sufficiently often to 
 discriminate. 
 
 The objection applies to nine adolescent 
 adorers out of ten ; the tenth is the 
 exception, and the exception is never be- 
 lieved in, whether it is a broken heart or 
 a patent medicine. Indeed, there is nothing 
 on this earth of ours flouted with such per- 
 sistent incredulity as "the exception." It 
 is the martyr that is sacrificed to prove the 
 faith, the unheeded wolf which demolishes 
 the shepherd boy, the grain of truth in the 
 bushel of fact, which may be concealed, but
 
 .234 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 wliose existence we refuse to recognize be- 
 cause it is not apparent to the cursory view. 
 Allan was tlie exceptional tenth, nay, more, he 
 was the exception in a thousand, for his love, 
 besides being sincere, was well placed. A 
 well-placed love at twenty-five years old, 
 think of it ! To discover, amidst the millions 
 of Avomen, the millions of possibilities for 
 blunder, that one individuality Avhich accords 
 with the one God has given to you, and to have 
 your own go out to it ! Before your ideals 
 are blunted, before the demands of the soul 
 are moderated, to meet with her who satisfies 
 them ; and at twenty-five, when the greater 
 part of life is still to be lived ! Is it not 
 wonderful, is it not briglit and beautiful, 
 this thing, if she loves you back again? 
 My brothers, it is such a blessing as makes 
 the poor man rich, and widens the narrow 
 roadway up to Heaven. But if she does not
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 235 
 
 care for yoii in return, if you cannot win 
 lier, if your loneliness is augmented by the 
 sight of the promised land you cannot reach 
 — at twenty-five, when the greater part of 
 life has still to be lived through I — the 
 hopelessness of it then, the misery, the mis- 
 fortune — aye, misfortune — for which you 
 will get less sympathy than if you broke 
 your leg ! Knowing as he did the subject 
 would be an unattractive one, the temptation 
 to essay some exposition of his suferings, 
 to pour out and analyze some of this pain 
 in print, still recurred to Allan, and would 
 not be wholly put aside, for the attempt 
 would be a relief, he felt, although it might 
 not be a success. It even recurred to him 
 the following;' mornino- while he sat manufac- 
 turing an uncongenial tale for the periodical, 
 forcing himself to de^ase repartees for the 
 " Hon. Honoria Majoribanks," and envying
 
 136 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 the mecliaiiic and tlie cobbler, whose labours 
 are independent of their moods. 
 
 He was in his accustomed place, his back 
 to the stove and his face to the cheap side- 
 board ; outside the rain was blowing lightly 
 against the windows. So a few months 
 earlier he had sat in the sunshine when he 
 wrote to his mother that thanksgiving for 
 the meeting with his friend. 
 
 It was a wretched day, a dreary, drizzly 
 day, which, to a man alone in lodgings, 
 appears a week, and causes him to count 
 the hours to bed-time as the only respite 
 from depression it is reasonable to expect. 
 Who can interest himself in the telling of 
 a story of which each sentence is taking 
 him ten minutes to invent? The author's 
 gaze roved among the mugs and the dying 
 flowers. He tried to imagine Yiolet and he 
 were married, and she was sitting just out
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 237 
 
 of sight by the hearth matching him, and 
 about to ask, " How are you getting on, 
 dear ? " What was that ! He paused with 
 his pen suspended above an uncompleted 
 word, and listened intently and held his 
 breath. It had been a ring at the front- 
 door bell, a shrill peal that resounded 
 through the house. It often jarred upon 
 him, that bell, it made such a clang, yet 
 this was probably the sixth time it had rung 
 since breakfast, and the other five had not 
 disturbed him; why did he notice it now? 
 Who can say ? There are no such things as 
 presentiments we are told, but there he was 
 alert on the instant, with lifted head, every 
 sense quickened in the breathlessness of sus- 
 pense, waiting as if immediately aware 
 that it concerned him. Why did not some- 
 body answer ? What a delay there Avas ! 
 He got up, and looked out between the
 
 238 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 red and tlie white curtain into the sloppy- 
 street . Oh, God ! there was a cab drawn 
 up beside the curb, and on the roof of the 
 cab, with the rain running down it, there 
 was luggage. For a moment his heart 
 seemed to sink like lead, and then to beat 
 so wildly that it must prevent him hearing 
 whether the door was opened or not. He 
 stood rooted to the spot, and argued with 
 his own terror, and persuaded himself he 
 had been for a second most ridiculously 
 alarmed, and now was thoroughly composed 
 again. He said next time he saw Violet he 
 was going to tell her about this, and meant 
 to make her laugh by an account of his 
 unwarranted dread. Unwarranted ? Oh ! 
 no, no, no. Heaven help him, it was not 
 unwarranted, it was all too horribly true ! 
 One of the portmanteaux was imperfectly 
 closed, and visible between the straps a bit
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 239 
 
 of colour cauglit liis eye — it ^as a scrap 
 of vivid cliintz ! It stamped tlie luggage 
 directly, as if it had been lier narae upon 
 it. He remembered liow lie bad been 
 with her when the stuff was bought, saw 
 again in a flash the shop, the three high 
 chairs, and Mrs. Carroll signalling to him 
 the purpose it was to serve, and knew those 
 unfamiliar boxes on the cab belonged to 
 Violet, and that they meant that she was 
 going away. There were voices in the 
 passage, steps upon the stairs. He walked 
 dizzily to meet them, and she and Mrs. 
 Carroll were in the room. 
 
 " I have come to say ' good-bye ' ! " 
 
 " You are going to London already ? " 
 
 "Yes," the girl responded in uneven 
 
 tones, "there was a letter from my father 
 
 when we went in last night ; he has 
 
 arrived, and wants me to join him at once."
 
 240 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 They made a group on tlie tliresliold ; 
 Violet had purple rings under her eyes, 
 and the prevailing shade of the clothes she 
 wore was grey, and she had been the 
 first to speak. These things he recollected 
 afterwards, quite distinctly. 
 
 "I am so sorry," he said, "so terribly 
 sorry! You will let me go to the station 
 with you ? " 
 
 " I think it will be better not," an- 
 swered Mrs. Carroll, " if you don't mind ? " 
 
 No, he did not mind ; curiously enough 
 he felt the refusal come rather as a relief 
 although he had proffered the suggestion 
 in all earnestness and sincerity. Anoma- 
 lously also he felt it was unkind of her 
 not to accept it, though he was glad she 
 had declined. 
 
 It was like a brief nightmare, and then 
 it was all over. He had turned the handle
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 241 
 
 of the cab upon tliem, and told tlie cab- 
 man where to drive. As the wheels went 
 round, he had caught a glunpse of Yiolet 
 in the further corner, through the misty- 
 glass, and now the vehicle was rattling 
 along over the pebbled road. The rattle 
 was a rumble, it would soon be out of 
 sight. He stood desolate on the pavement, 
 staring after it, as the noise grew less. 
 
 Presently, because he was trembling 
 so, he drank some neat brandy at the bar 
 of a neighbouring inn, and observing a 
 tobacconist's, procured a cigar, fancying it 
 would pull him together a bit. The first 
 whiff disgusted him, and he threw it in 
 the gutter. He re-entered the house, and 
 shut himself in his bedroom. The sense 
 of a great blank was upon him, as if all 
 that was bright in his life had been 
 suddenly torn away, leaving him nothing 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 except an empty future. He leant liis 
 foreliead against tlie window-panes, and 
 gazed up among the blackened chimney- 
 pots of the opposite buildings, wondering 
 if there were many people in the world 
 so companionless and forlorn as he. Sobs 
 shuddered through him, and shook him 
 where he leant, though they were silent 
 and tearless. Being as poor a bundle of 
 nerves as any maiden in her teens, he, of 
 course, created his lieroes of cast-iron, and 
 he was bitterly ashamed of himself, and 
 felt, moreover, Violet would despise him 
 for such womanishness if she Avere here 
 to see. It was a hideous thought to come 
 to a man at such a moment, that the girl 
 he loved would despise him for the very 
 abandonment of anguish she had caused, 
 but when he strove to master his weakness 
 he was startled to discover he was not
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 243 
 
 literally " giving way" at all, and that these 
 convulsions were as uncontrollable by liis 
 will as the throes of any bodily illness. 
 They continued until he was iDliysically 
 exhausted. 
 
 When he opened his eyes, the room 
 was dark ; how long he had slept he did 
 not know : it must have been some hours. 
 He groped his way into the sitting-room, 
 to find that in darkness too. Shivering, 
 he lit the gas, and looked about him ; 
 the fire was out ; at the end of the table, 
 by the dirty cruet, lay a cold chop stiffening 
 in a layer of grease, which he knew was 
 his neglected dinner. The absence of re- 
 finement, the cheerlessness, the apartment 
 where Yiolet had uttered the " good bye " 
 sent his loneliness home to him in one 
 despairing rush, and now he did give way 
 indeed. He struck at the wall with the
 
 244 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 hysteria o£ a woman, and the force of a 
 man, and claspmg his head in his hands, 
 flung himself face downward on the couch, 
 where she had joked and teased him the 
 afternoon before.
 
 CHAPTER YTII. 
 
 When Eobert Dyas married Miss Xellie 
 Ebden, lie committed one of tlie few 
 important actions of liis life from wliich. 
 he was not likely to derive any pecuniary 
 advantage. Tlie younger daughter of a 
 struggling country practitioner, lie liad 
 met her at a dance in dotting Hill, where 
 she had been chaperoned by the wife of 
 another professional man equally obscure, 
 and not even the jealousy of the little 
 provincial town, where the doctor's two 
 daughters were disliked, because they were 
 better -looking than the heiresses of the 
 [MS ]
 
 246 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 retired pork-butchers, wlio were his pa- 
 tients, was able to accuse the bridegroom 
 of mercenary motives. This was un- 
 fortunate, since, when Bertha, the ekler, 
 had married. Spite immediately declared 
 she had made a " dead set " at Mr. Carroll, 
 and now Fathampton would have preferred 
 some variety in its aspersions. He was 
 undeniably well-off also, " enormously 
 wealthy," rumour said, being a diamond 
 merchant, a vocation that in those days 
 had a semi-mysterious-Monte-Cristo-like ring 
 about it, which a closer acquaintance with 
 the habits and customs of Hatton Garden 
 has removed. It was without doubt a 
 most wonderful stroke of luck for the 
 minx, the Fathampton mammas allowed 
 grudgingly — with a glance at their own 
 " unappropriated blessings," or a remi- 
 niscence of the latest cheque forwarded to
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 247 
 
 dear Greorgina, whose liusband had been a 
 last resource — "so much higher, you know, 
 than she coukl possibly have looked," and, 
 truth to tell, Mr. Dyas had not been wholly 
 unconscious of a kind of King Galahad 
 nobility himself, when he proposed and 
 was accepted by a girl whose "yes" meant 
 a no more substantial acquisition than a 
 deep and trustful loye. As for his sisters, 
 who worshipped him as blindly as — by 
 some inexplicable law — only bad men with 
 a pleasant manner are worshipped, his mar- 
 riage was always cited by them as an 
 incontrovertible instance of the generosity 
 of " Bobbie's " disposition ; and if to a 
 stranger it may have seemed a somewhat 
 remarkable illustration, in defence of the 
 Misses Dyas' perspicacity let it be said 
 they might have examined their brother's 
 career for a long while without alighting
 
 248 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 on any otlier. Their opinion to the con- 
 trary, hoAYever, the offer was neither 
 magnanimity nor love, but a very excellent 
 example of his natural tendency to self- 
 indulgence, for while Mr. Dyas never 
 missed an opportunity of making money 
 without exertion, with impartial promptness 
 he never denied himself a pleasure because 
 it would involve the spending of it. He 
 wanted Nellie, and he paid the essential 
 price, as recklessly as he would have paid 
 eighteen shillings out of his last sovereign 
 for a supper, and took a wife as he would 
 have ordered an entrecote. 
 
 Three months after the ceremony he 
 stumbled home in the small hours help- 
 lessly intoxicated ; six months after it he 
 was systematically false to her; and had 
 he ultimately been compelled to expiate 
 his "nobility" in the Divorce Court, the
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 249 
 
 diso:nsted ffirl would liave had everv ex- 
 cuse in the world for finally separating 
 from him. 
 
 Nellie Dyas, though, was of the stuff 
 of which faithful wives are made, and 
 she was staunch to her broken idol to 
 the end. Mrs. Carroll, j^erhaps, when she 
 saw her, may have divined by her quieter 
 tones, her paler cheeks, that the husband 
 had not 23roved quite so heroic as the 
 fiance had been painted, but the disillusion 
 was never avowed, and he did not throw 
 the crockery at her to leave bruises. The 
 bruise was in her heart, and in addition to 
 her disenchantment she had money trou- 
 bles, for the fortunes of men of Mr. Dyas's 
 calibre are never represented by anything 
 so prosaic as five per cent, securities, and 
 the jewellery he had given her during the 
 engagement was the veriest sop in the
 
 250 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 pan of tlie difficulties wliicli beset them 
 before they had been wedded a year. The 
 elegant furniture from Gillow's was mort- 
 gaged, and the tradesmen — that section of 
 one's creditors wlio are the avenging angels 
 of the Avhole lot — had to be interviewed 
 and appeased when they were clamorous 
 by the young wife, because, as Robert 
 testily explained, a man's head does not 
 stand for trifles, and " take his word for it, 
 he had more important matters to con- 
 sider." 
 
 It was in consideration of them, pro- 
 bably, that lie took to going out at night 
 alone in dress clothes, and coming home 
 dazed and insolent at dawn or even later, 
 when the neio'hbourhood was astir and 
 
 o 
 
 watchful. Once when he returned he woke 
 her up to get half-a-crown to discharge 
 the hansom, and she only had eighteen
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 251 
 
 pence, a dilemma wliich necessitated an 
 application to the housemaid, who subse- 
 quently waited on them at the three p.m. 
 breakfast, an impromptu repast he par- 
 took of very red about the eves, and 
 where Xellie sat opposite her lord upon 
 the elegant furniture, assisting him to tea 
 in a soda-water glass, and anchovies on 
 toast, of which thino's the o'lass was the 
 only one they did not owe for. 
 
 She learnt he could use very hideous 
 language, too, when ruffled, this man with 
 the pleasant manner, such language as she 
 had heard from the mouths of excursionists 
 when she had ventured abroad in Fathamp- 
 ton during the race week, though the full 
 significance of two or three of his phrases 
 was happily lost upon her. He cursed if 
 the claret was " corked," and if the oysters 
 were not "natives," while she, economizing
 
 252 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 in lier solitude, and rehearsing a merry 
 smile of welcome for liis entry, more often 
 than not liniclied off a bloater on the 
 pretext that she was not hungry. 
 
 He was not always a beast, but he was 
 improvident and thoroughly unprincipled. 
 Now that as his Avife she was told his 
 schemes and speculations, she was appalled 
 to discover that honesty and honour had 
 no meaning to him at all. He regarded 
 them as terms useful to the poet and 
 dramatist, but having not the faintest 
 relation to the affairs of daily life. He 
 would not have felt in the least insulted 
 at being called a rogue, but it would have 
 offended him extremely to have called him 
 a clumsy one. On the subject of a smart 
 swindle that had lately come to his ears 
 he would wax eloquent, amiable, and even 
 sprightly, displaying again that bonJwmie
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 253 
 
 which commended him to chance ac- 
 quaintances and had fascinated herself so 
 in the period of their courtship. After a 
 harrovving account ol a new worry, also, 
 a stranger who had just dropped in would 
 have deemed him an ideal husband, mated 
 to a melancholy and uncongenial woman, 
 for as his recital finished, the woe was 
 no longer his own, but his confidante's. 
 He put it totally aside, suggested drinks, 
 and was cheerful, like Harold Skimpole ; 
 only the wife who had to listen and contrive 
 was depressed, calculating, while the ex- 
 martyr discoursed with gay philosophy, on 
 how much she could scrape together or what 
 she could pawn. 
 
 When he was left a widower, and his 
 child, just eight, had been disposed of to 
 her Aunt Bertha, Mr. Dyas went to the 
 Cape. He did badly, bethought himself of
 
 254 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 liis family, to wliom liis attentions when 
 in England liacl been as rare as angels' 
 visits — though less unmercenary — and re- 
 turned, a veritable prodigal son. After 
 partaking of several fatted calves, he 
 sighed and was downcast. Solicitously 
 questioned by the long-suffering sisters, 
 Sophie and Emilia, whose faith years had 
 not impaired, he told them wearily the 
 inducement for such a man as he to go to 
 the States just now was simply marvel- 
 lous, and that if he had possessed even 
 a hundred pounds he could have turned it 
 into a fabulous amount in a twelvemonth. 
 The particular branch of industry to which 
 he yearned to devote his intellect did not 
 transpire, but the general tenor of his 
 communication was to the effect that the 
 American continent was waiting for him. 
 He had not the desirable hundred, and —
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 255 
 
 here lie sigliecl more heavily than ever, 
 and paced the floor, struggling with despair. 
 By the time he had completed his third 
 stampede from the flower-stand to the 
 dinner- waggon J Sophie and Emilia were 
 reduced to the verge of tears, and every- 
 body felt that " something must be done." 
 " Something," nevertheless, was vague, 
 wherefore did Mr. Dyas's distraction en- 
 dure for many days, and seek resource in 
 much Martell and little seltzer, a beverage 
 his sisters hastened to pour out for him 
 (tumbling over each other in the rush of 
 rivalry), and which his mother and 
 father began to regard as an expensive 
 panacea. 
 
 They discussed the affair solemnly and 
 sadly in their joint bedroom, the Misses 
 Dyas, weeping to think of Bobbie's com- 
 mercial brilliance being allowed to waste
 
 256 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 in Westbourne Park, and exhorting one 
 another between their sobs to simulate 
 extra liveliness downstairs that the "poor 
 boy " (he was then four-and-forty) might 
 be saved from brooding more than was 
 compatible with his health. These conseils 
 en deshabille continued long after parents 
 and daughters had dispersed to their 
 respective apartments, and while two 
 middle-aged women sat in their dressing- 
 gowns meditating ways and means, or 
 alternately disturbing each other's rest 
 by a luminous inspiration that was not 
 practicable, the object of their anxiety 
 would be stretched across two chairs in 
 the dining-room, serenely perusing a " Prin- 
 cess's Novelette." 
 
 It may seem an anomaly that he could 
 still retain the trust of two hard-headed, 
 sensible sisters, when he had so speedily
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 257 
 
 shattered the belief of an inexperienced girl ; 
 but it is explicable thus : firstly, in the 
 bosom of his family Mr. Djas Tvas wise 
 enougli to comport himself a great deal 
 more decently than he had done in the 
 presence of his wife ; secondly, when he 
 had married he was thirty-three, and now, 
 at forty-four, it took a great deal more 
 to make him drunk. A fact, of which the 
 explanation is wonderful, indeed, is that he 
 was rather popular than the reverse in the 
 circle where they moved. Socially, when 
 sober, he could render himself distinctly 
 agreeable, but that alone does not account 
 for it ; his unscruj)ulousness merely tended 
 to flavour his casual conversation with a 
 tinge, of cynicism which people found rather 
 piquant and refreshings but this again would 
 have been insufficient to counteract the 
 influence of a preceding reputation, which 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 2 58 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 was, to say tlie least, not unsullied. No ; the 
 wonderful explanation comes in here : In his 
 early manhood a beneficent fairy, still as ex- 
 quisite as in the days when Hans Andersen 
 chronicled her triumphs and immortalized 
 the nobility of her actions, appeared to Mr. 
 Dyas, — her diadem, three stars gleaming 
 in the background of a blue label, and 
 delivered herself to the following effect. 
 She said : 
 
 "You are bad, core through; you are 
 selfish, deceitful, a gambler, and a thief ! I 
 have no wish to be impolite, but your dis- 
 position is a treacherous one, wherefore, up 
 to the age of thirty-five, perhaps, you will 
 betray tlie honest and the friendly to benefit 
 your pocket ; from thirty-five up to the age 
 when the earth shall be liappily rid of you, 
 you will betray them without any motive at 
 all, merely because you are a wretched
 
 VI OLE T MOSES. 2 5 9 
 
 creature, and by that period, it is pretty safe 
 to conjecture, will liave drunk away lialf 
 your brains. Mucli of tliis you have not 
 discovered yet, you will perceive it as you 
 get older ! Xow, I propose to endow you 
 with a couple of gifts ; I cannot make you 
 good, it is beyond my power." This state- 
 ment the fairy uttered without diffidence, as 
 one of us might say, "I am not strong 
 enough to shift the Albert Memorial," — "but 
 I will present you with any two attributes 
 you decide to name. If you select judici- 
 ously, they will very likely blind the world 
 to your real character, and convey an 
 altogether mistaken impression about you : 
 they shall, in a word, be your ' top straw- 
 berries ' — choose ! " 
 
 He chose Tact and Sentiment ; the tact, 
 which he owned in a degree surprising in 
 masculine nature, henceforward preventing
 
 26o VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 his saying anything in cool blood to a per- 
 son's face calculated to wound or anger, and 
 hinting always the possibility for gratifying 
 a monkey -like malice by the infinitely safer 
 expedient of saying it to somebody else ; and 
 a thick veneer of sentiment — albeit, it never 
 deterred him from committing a black- 
 guardism when a blackguardism was adapted 
 to advance his interest — yet attracting 
 women and very young men to repose their 
 secrets in him until they found him out. 
 This, with many apologies for prolixity, is 
 the true and authentic history of how Mr. 
 Robert Dyas attained his popularity. N.B. 
 The fairy's motive for her singular course 
 of procedure has never been ascertained. 
 
 As soon as he observed his distress had 
 been adopted, Mr. Dyas publicly recovered ; 
 the concern was now his sisters', and he was 
 cheerful and bland. He told them funny
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 261 
 
 stories, and rallied tliem plajfullj on tlieir 
 abstraction, prophesying "good times ^^t'' 
 He insisted on having up the solitary bottle 
 of champagne out of the cellar one evening, 
 to raise their drooping spirits ; and then, 
 said Sophie and Emilia, in the ensuing 
 petticoat parley, " How considerate Bobbie 
 was, how nice about a house ; " the pair 
 being as touched by this burst of "liberality" 
 as if he had paid for it. 
 
 By degrees the " something " assumed 
 definite proportions, and he prepared to 
 depart. The family was not in affluent 
 circumstances, but the matter had been 
 managed, and, to give him his due, he was 
 not ungrateful for their tenderness either. 
 He kissed them affectionately, really moved, 
 and it hurt him to know a five -pound note of 
 Emilia's had been a portion of the sacrifice. 
 He declared, and he meant it, he would make
 
 262 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 tliem a recompense one day wliicli should 
 be worthy of their unvarying goodness to 
 him, only — it was characteristic — it never 
 occurred to him the five-pound note might 
 be declined, and an instalment of the re- 
 compense made at once if he were willing 
 to suffer the personal inconvenience of tra- 
 velling to New York a second-class passen- 
 ger instead of a first. 
 
 It was literally because such abatements 
 of his dignity never did occur to Mr. Dyas 
 that they never occurred to the spinsters ; he 
 had, as it were, educated them up to re- 
 garding him from his own standpoint. He 
 could have loafed at home for years, waiting 
 for a large business to offer itself to a shady 
 adventurer without any capital, before it 
 would have entered the mind of either of them 
 that he might have replied to an advertise- 
 ment for a city clerk. They would have
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 263 
 
 shrieked derision at tlie idea. A pound or 
 thirty shillings a week to Bobbie ? Why, he 
 was a merchant ! So merchants with neither 
 merchandise nor the means of getting any, 
 not being in requisition, he had lived upon his 
 relatives, and now was quitting the parental 
 ark the object of as many hopes and prayers 
 as the Scriptural dove — to come back to it, 
 they were certain, l^earing the verdant spray 
 which should signify to them a land of pros- 
 perity and two hundred per annum houses. 
 
 He remained in the United States seeking 
 something green for a period of eight years, 
 and Emilia remained five pounds to the bad. 
 He was mostly unlucky, always extravagant, 
 and generally drunk ; but in his intervals of 
 sobriety contrived, under the promise of 
 marriage, to ruin a silly girl in ^ew York 
 whose father had befriended him, and one 
 fine morning, when the eighth year was
 
 264 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 drawing to a close and discovery was im- 
 minent, took a cab to Pier 40, and sailed 
 for England without remembering to wisli 
 her good-bye. 
 
 He had changed his last quarter, and 
 been for a spell reduced to beer which he 
 took at a different bar each day, because he 
 ate so ravenously of that institution of the 
 American bars, the free lunch, that he was 
 ashamed to patronize the same establishment 
 twice, when chance had thrown this ignorant 
 storekeeper across his path to restore him to 
 cocktails and credit once more. The man's 
 pity had actually rescued him from destitution, 
 and the girl was the apple of the old man's 
 eye. But they were left without a pang, only 
 the genial assurance that he would be "round 
 as usual in the evening," thoiigh he knew 
 that in the evening he would be at sea. 
 
 " I must confess ... oh, my dear, you
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 265 
 
 know I sliall have to confess ! " tlie terrified 
 girl liad whispered, clinging to liim for an 
 instant in the passage. 
 
 "Yes, little woman, I know," he replied, 
 soothingly, and he patted her on the arm as 
 he spoke, " don't be frightened, I'll talk to 
 yonr father to-night as soon as I come in, 
 and make it all rig^ht. I shan't be late ! " 
 
 And he was not. His Inggage had been 
 sent on the afternoon before, and he caught 
 the boat nicely. It was an occasion where 
 Bobbie's sentiment was subordinate to 
 Bobbie's advantage. 
 
 He was held " charming " on board by 
 the women — he brought them a rug on 
 deck instead of asking them if they wanted 
 one — and arriving at Liverpool, won golden 
 opinions at an hotel dinner, from a mamma 
 whose six-year-old daughter, separated from 
 her by two or three seats, had been casting
 
 266 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 ardent glances at a disli of biscuits without 
 having the courage to request it should be 
 passed. Mr. Dyas smiling at her shyness, 
 rose from his chair, regardless of the stares 
 the act provoked, and procuring the dish, 
 emptied about a third of its contents before 
 a delighted gaze. " That young lady had 
 to ask for the biscuits three times," he said 
 calmly to the scowling waiter ; " you should 
 attend to your duties better ! " 
 
 " Did you not like the strange gentleman 
 to-night, Maudie ? " questioned the mother, 
 as her pet was undressed. 
 
 " Yes ! and oh, mamma, he gave me such 
 a lot, did you see ? " 
 
 " He was very kind to you, dear, very 
 thoughtful ; add a prayer for the good gen- 
 tleman who took notice of a tiny mite." 
 
 " Dod bless the dood gentleman who took 
 notice of a tiny mite ! " lisped the child.
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 267 
 
 And at the same moment, over there in 
 Xew York, a father was crying for eternal 
 vengeance on the villain who had betrayed 
 his daughter. 
 
 Things in eight years have an unpleasant 
 knack of changing, and Mr. Dyas foimd they 
 had not stood still in Virginia Square, AYest- 
 boume Park. Everybody was eight years 
 older, to commence with. The two spinsters 
 — Emilia very tall, and Sophie very squat, 
 like feminine editions of Robert Macaire and 
 Jacques Strop — were less active, though 
 they rejoiced over him on the doorstep as 
 if the rook had been a dove, indeed. His 
 mother had grown much shakier, and his 
 father was even more of a nonenity than 
 formerly, which was saying a good deal ; 
 of course, in the far distant past it was 
 he who had earned the income which sup- 
 ported the household now, but Dyas i^ere
 
 268 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 did not count for all that. " Father " kept 
 the family, and "mother " kept tlie purse. 
 
 That which affected Robert most deeply 
 was not the diminution in the spinsters' 
 sprightliness, however, nor the consciousness 
 that, regarded as a dove, he must be pro- 
 nounced a failure. He was chiefly concerned 
 by a newly developed and very apparent 
 parsimony on the part of his mother, and 
 the intelligence that the investment in 
 which their capital was sunk was paying 
 poor dividends, the strictest economy being 
 consequently the order of the day. That 
 they were not so easily situated as when he 
 had lived upon them last, he had been made 
 aware by letters, and had accordingly paved 
 the way for a certain step, if it should prove 
 unavoidable, by that carefully-considered 
 composition to Chester, but he had fervently 
 trusted to hit on some alternative, and had
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 269 
 
 not understood the liinted economy in tlie 
 sordid sense in wliicli it was presented to 
 him. It was only when Mrs. Dyas began ta 
 lock up the brandy bottle when she went to 
 bed, and to put the key in her pocket, that 
 he grasped economy's full significance, and 
 saw that if he proposed to resume anything 
 of his earlier position in the menage, the 
 companionship of a daughter to whom his- 
 father-in-law had bequeathed four thousand 
 pounds, would be the one method of doing it. 
 He calculated silently, and perceived that 
 between what the extra mouth would actually 
 cost and the sum he could pay for it, his 
 maternal parent would put away an ample 
 profit, since the tradesmen's books which he 
 had surreptitiously perused, showed the rate 
 at which the family was subsisting to aver- 
 age about ten shillings a week each, and out 
 of the hundred and twenty per annum of
 
 2 70 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 which he would get command, he could 
 pretend to estimate the expense of the girl's 
 maintenance at a sovereign, thus leaving a 
 tolerable margin for outside expenditure for 
 himself and an occasional dress for her, 
 besides gaining importance by the assistance 
 her advent would imply. In the meantime, 
 Mrs. Dyas was making nasty observations 
 when he demanded a second drink in the 
 course of the evening, and indignation 
 meetings had taken the place of the old 
 time conseils en deshabille. Sophie . and 
 Emilia vowed it was disgraceful " the boy 
 should be begrudged " before he had been 
 home a week ; and he confidentially declared 
 that, but for " the girls " the house would 
 be unbearable. They still preserved the 
 habit of speaking of each other and them- 
 selves, as if they were all " sweet seventeen." 
 " You want a suit of clothes, Robert ! "
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 271 
 
 said Sophie in one of tliese conferences ; 
 "doesn't he, Emilia?" 
 
 " He wants a suit of clothes badly ! " 
 said the tall Emilia, ponderously ; she had a 
 bass voice that rumbled like thunder, and 
 caused people to jump when they were 
 introduced. 
 
 "Very well, then, if he wants a suit of 
 clothes, he must have it I " rapped out 
 Sophie, whose delivery was, on the contrary, 
 shrill and rapid, the ends of her spoken 
 words being like those in the writing of a 
 literary man — generally to be guessed at. 
 " Have you got any money, Bobbie ? " 
 
 " I've got about five pounds," he said. 
 
 He had, in point of fact, five ten dollar 
 bills, having won a little at euchre on the 
 voyage, but he always told a lie on principle. 
 
 " You can't do much with that ? " 
 
 " I must go to a cheap tailor, and get a
 
 272 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 hat for half-a-skiv somewliere. I daresay I 
 can manage ! " he said, wearily. 
 
 '^sn't it awful?" growled Emilia, "isn't 
 it horrible?'' 
 
 " What he has come to ! " moaned 
 Sophie; "our Bobbie in cheap clothes ! " 
 
 So they sold a flimsy relic of a fifteen 
 carat chain which had been lying for years 
 in their wardrobe, and while the proceeds 
 lasted, slipped two-shilling pieces into his 
 overcoat on the sly, that his feelings might 
 be spared the pain of direct acceptance. 
 For a few days he discovered one each time 
 he went out, and resorted to a bar in the 
 vicinity where Hebe said what a liberal gent 
 he was. 
 
 The domestic storm which brought dis- 
 content to a crisis broke some nights later, 
 and was born of the debated suit itself. 
 When the package was delivered, the ser- ^
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 273 
 
 vant took it into the dining-room where 
 they all sat after dinner, and uttered five 
 ominous words : 
 
 "A parcel for Mr. Robert ! " 
 
 There was a temporary hope that Mrs. 
 Dyas was asleep, but it was doomed to 
 disappointment. She had only been cogi- 
 tating, and slowly disclosed her eyes with 
 exasperating vigilance. 
 
 " A parcel ! " she echoed. " TTliat 
 is it ^ 
 
 "It's all right, mother," he said, in- 
 gratiatingly. " Get the bill receipted, 
 Susan, that's all 1 " 
 
 ** Four 23ounds ten ! " muttered Mrs. 
 Dyas, forsaking her chair, and jDeering 
 at the coins through her spectacles. 
 " Four pounds ten ! "Wliat's four pounds 
 ten ? " 
 
 " Ninety shillings," retorted Sophie, 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 2 74 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 sharply. " Go on, Bobbie, take it up- 
 stairs." 
 
 " What d'ye mean ? " exclaimed the 
 old woman, now prodding the brown paper 
 viciously. " What's inside — what's it for — 
 whose money is it he's throwing about like 
 that ? " 
 
 " It's his own money," said Emilia, 
 dwelling on each syllable with the ex- 
 aggerated enucleation of annoyance : "it 
 has procured a coat, a Avaistcoat, and a 
 pair of trowsers, and they were ordered 
 because he was not in a fit condition to go 
 outside the door ! " 
 
 " Don't talk to me like that, you long 
 fool I " exclaimed her motlner, in a rage. 
 " Don't croak at me, you raven ! Not in 
 a fit condition ? What am I, with my 
 rags tumbling off me, denying myself to 
 keep a roof over your heads ? Let him go
 
 VI OLE T MOSES. 2 7 5 
 
 and better his condition . . . four pounds 
 ten ! " 
 
 There was a gasp from tlie sisters, 
 and tlien — 
 
 "I think, mother," said Eobert, with 
 the air of a man who has solved a problem, 
 " that I am one too many here ! Grood 
 night ! " 
 
 He walked from the apartment, be- 
 stowing a comprehensive bow, and Emilia 
 followed, carrying the parcel, which he had 
 instinctively felt would detract from the 
 stateliness of his exit. The little servant 
 had had scarcely time to vanish from the 
 mat. 
 
 Smoking cigarettes at the foot of his 
 sisters' bed till two a.m., he casually mooted 
 the scheme for Violet's coming to them, and 
 had his mental arithmetic confirmed. 
 
 "If I paid a quid a week for her,
 
 276 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 mother would featlier lier nest, wouldn't 
 slie ? " lie inquired. 
 
 " Just half that is what each person's 
 food amounts to," answered Sophie — "just 
 half, I know. I should say she would 
 jump at the proposal, though, of course, 
 you can make up your mind that she'll 
 swear she loses by it. I call it a brilliant 
 idea for everybody ! I'm sure you'd better 
 have the benefit of Dr. Ebden's money 
 than that widow in Chester." 
 
 " It was well enough," added Emilia, 
 " when the girl had to go to school, and 
 that sort of thing ; but now . . . what 
 expense is the girl now ? And I daresay 
 she'll bring plenty of frocks with her, the 
 widow is certain to get her a lot of new 
 ones to show she didn't stint her, and she 
 must make them last ! " 
 
 "Well, I shan't hurry down to-
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 277 
 
 morrow ; one of you broach tlie subject 
 first," he suggested, " and if mother 
 doesn't say anything about it when she 
 sees me, I'll pack up — ostentatiously 1 " 
 
 But IVIrs. Dyas did say something 
 about it. She was alone when he 
 descended, and opened negotiations by 
 asking him if he would like " The Tele- 
 graph," after which amenity Violet's 
 instalment was settled while he ate an 
 Qgg^ quite affably, neither making any 
 allusion to the disturbance of the night 
 before. 
 
 "I am the last woman," she murmured, 
 with a display of pocket-handkerchief, " to 
 stand between a father and his child. Such 
 as my means allow I do ; there is a pie for 
 dinner to-day ! A pound a week will be 
 something towards her keep, at all events; 
 and when Sophie hinted you wanted your
 
 2 78 VIOLET MOSES, 
 
 daughter with you my heart forbade me 
 to consider the expense." 
 
 " You're very good, mother," he re- 
 joined. " I'll drop a line to Bertha 
 Carroll as soon as I've finished breakfast. 
 Perhaps it will be best to write as though 
 I had only just arrived ; I don't think I 
 need go down there. I can say some- 
 body's too ill for me to leave, and I shall 
 tell her to let the girl start at once." 
 
 This was on the Wednesday which had 
 also witnessed Allan's tea-party, and the 
 evening following Susan was despatched 
 to the station to meet the traveller whose 
 departure from Chester had been announced 
 by telegram. She might shortly be ex- 
 pected back. Sophie and Emilia were 
 knitting stockings beside the fire, Mrs. 
 Dyas meditated upon the sofa, and Eobert 
 himself stood between the spinsters on the
 
 VIOLET MOSES, 279 
 
 lieartlirug, carefully dressed in liis new 
 suit. He bore his age well ; tliere was 
 very little grey in his hair, though the 
 brown was getting wofuUy thin, and a 
 slightness of build, coupled with an upright 
 carriage, lent him the appearance of one 
 greatly his junior until he turned his 
 haggard face. It was not an ill-featured 
 countenance, nevertheless, but it was 
 bloodless-looking, and, in the manner of 
 the traditional villain's, the shifty blue eyes 
 seldom fairly met your gaze. It demanded 
 no keen examination to conceive that this 
 man could once have looked a gentleman, 
 only no gentleman would ever have mis- 
 taken him for one to-day. At fifty-two 
 one's face is the register of one's career, 
 and Mr. Dyas's — to men, at least — pro- 
 claimed him rascal. His sisters were 
 addicted to blaming that big drooping
 
 28o VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 moustache of his to account for the cynical 
 expression "the boy" always had, "like 
 one of Ouida's guardsmen, exactly;" but, 
 again, the Misses Dyas were at fault, for 
 the drooping moustache was an advantage, 
 since it hid a bad mouth. 
 
 He lit a cigarette, somewhat nervously, 
 and as he did so the drift of Mrs. Dyas's 
 reflections was made clear. She said 
 querulously — 
 
 " Of course, there is ' washing ' to be 
 thought about, the 'washing' mustn't be 
 forgotten. It's all very well, but I can't 
 afford to include another laundry -bill in a 
 pound a week ! " 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " ejaculated Emilia, 
 glancing up from the heel, " when every- 
 thing's arranged ! " 
 
 " I know I did not mention it yester- 
 day," admitted her parent. "I wasn't
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 281 
 
 given time to collect myself, you all rushed 
 me so. I am entitled to require twenty- 
 three shillings, Bobbie ! " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no," said her son, decisively ; 
 "there are clothes to be bought with the 
 balance. I can't go above the pound ! " 
 
 " And I don't see where the ' rushing ' 
 came in," interposed Sophie. "I'm sure 
 we talked about the matter enough before 
 you settled it with Bobbie; it's ridic'lous 
 to want more now ! " 
 
 " I am an old woman," said Mrs. Dyas, 
 " pinching to keep a roof over your 
 heads" — they had been anticipating a 
 reference to the roof, and the spinsters 
 sneered — ."an old woman, Bobbie, and, 
 upon my word, it's as much as I can 
 do." 
 
 " I can't manage more than a sovereign, 
 mother."
 
 282 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 " If you saw my books every week 
 you'd be astonished ! '' 
 
 " Yes, I daresay I should ! " he re- 
 sponded. 
 
 " It isn't fair on me," she continued, 
 her voice rising to a squeak; "I am not 
 going to be imposed upon ! There are 
 Sophie and Emilia, who couldn't get 
 married, and have to be supported all 
 their lives; then you coming here when 
 you're broke; and now a granddaughter 
 invited to eat me out of house and home ! 
 Do you think I'm made of money, the lot 
 of you?" 
 
 "'A father and his child'!" he re- 
 minded her with a sneer. 
 
 " We were idiots," rattled Sophie, whilst 
 Emilia jumped up with ashen cheeks. " If 
 we'd married crossing-sweepers it would 
 have been better than stopping with you \
 
 VIOLET MOSES. 283 
 
 What do you want ? Won't you save enough 
 out of the girl already ? You ought to be 
 thankful she is coming ! " 
 
 " A fine father," said Mrs. Dyas, ignor- 
 ing this thrust, "a fine father, who never 
 so much as recollected his child till it suited 
 his convenience. Don't you try to humbug 
 me, Mr. Robert." 
 
 "And don't you try to humbug me," he 
 cried, passionately, " because you're wasting 
 your time. A pound a week ! Do you 
 suppose I'm such an ass as to imagine she'll 
 cost you a pound a week ? Do you suppose 
 you take me in by your rot ? You scrape 
 and hoard, and watch every mouthful we 
 eat, and agreed to her coming because a 
 quid '11 pay for her food and mine as well ! 
 I'm sick of your manoeuvres, that a baby 
 could see through, sick of your miserly 
 house, and if I'd got any business you
 
 284 VIOLET MOSES. 
 
 wouldn't be troubled with either one of us, 
 believe me ! " 
 
 " I never was. You come here for what 
 you can get ! " she almost yelled. 
 
 ''And dam little it is!" 
 
 " Hush ! for Heaven's sake be quiet/' 
 exclaimed Emilia, " there's the bell." 
 
 The women dropped into their seats 
 breathless and trembling ; Robert attempted 
 to simulate something of paternal eager- 
 ness against the mantelpiece; nobody felt 
 equal to going out into the hall. 
 
 There was a brief pause ; then the cook 
 opened the door, and, pulling himself 
 together, Mr. Dyas went forward with 
 outstretched hand as Violet entered the 
 room. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 6IMM0N6 4 EOTTEN, PAINTERS, LONDON. St, Sf H]/.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIN0I9-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 051397492