^n*
 
 IT IS NO WONDER 
 
 I 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 I'lioto bv Ddahaizc. 
 
 FITZGERALD MOLLOY
 
 IT IS NO WONDER 
 
 % <§t0rg i)f §0lj^mmn ^if^ 
 
 BY 
 
 J. FITZGEEALD MOLLOY 
 
 In robe and crown the king stept down 
 To meet and greet her on her way ; 
 ' It is no wonder,* said the lords, 
 ' She is more beautiful than day.' " 
 
 Te^tntson's Beggar Maid. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1882. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/itisnowonderstor01moll
 
 8S5 
 
 rO 
 
 C 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 c 
 
 MRS. EDWIN ELLIS
 
 IT IS XO WOXDEPt 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN MARCUS PHILLIPS* STUDIO. 
 
 " "XTOW, Capri, sit quiet," said Marcus 
 -^^ Phillips, holding his brush in the 
 
 air and looking meditatively from his canvas 
 
 to the girl's face before him. 
 
 **Ah! that is easier said than done, 
 
 Marc," she answered, familiarly, calling him 
 
 by an abbreviation of his name. " You 
 
 know I can seldom stay still — unless when 
 
 1 am thinking deeply." 
 " Then you do think ?" 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " Such a question to ask. Do you be- 
 lieve I am always the child I appear ?" 
 
 " I should be sorry if you were not," he 
 said, dashing in some reds on the canvas. 
 
 " Ah ! Marc," she said, after a slight 
 pause, "there are times when I think and 
 think until my head aches, and I lie awake 
 at night wondering how my life will go 
 on." 
 
 She tossed her head back as she spoke, 
 and gave a quick, impatient sigh. 
 
 " There, you have moved again. You 
 would test the patience of Fra Angelico 
 himself, Capri. Turn your face more this 
 way ; that's better." 
 
 And, nothing loth, the artist went, and, 
 taking her face between his hands, set it in 
 the required position. 
 
 "Now about your life, Capri," he com- 
 menced. "Every man and woman has a 
 destiny to fulfil ; w^ould it not be better to
 
 IN MAECUS PHILLIPS' STUDIO. 3 
 
 permit Fate to work the riddle of your life 
 
 out r 
 
 " I don't know, Fate seems so slow." 
 
 *' And you are so young," 
 
 "Not so very young," she answered, 
 thoughtfully. ''I am just eighteen ; and 
 besides, we who are born in the south 
 mature quickly. I shall soon be what is 
 termed a young lady, have to wear a long 
 dress, brush my hair, and call you Mr. 
 Phillips." 
 
 She laughed merrily as a child at this 
 verbal picture of herself. 
 
 " I can never imacrine vou looking like a 
 stolid piece of English humanity," said 
 Marcus. 
 
 '• From which may all the saints preserve 
 me," she answered. Then, after a moment, 
 she continued, in a lower and more serious 
 tone, " I often wish. Marc, I was not such a 
 Bohemian as I am. It's all very well and 
 
 b2
 
 4 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 pleasant when you are young, but here in 
 England one must grow respectable and 
 rich when one leaves one's teens, especially 
 women." 
 
 " Must one ?" 
 
 " Yes ; not that I care so much about 
 respectability, it always seems to make 
 people dull and heavy and stupid ; but then 
 I do care for money." 
 
 *' There are better things than money, 
 Capri," he answered, laying down his brush 
 suddenly and looking at her seriously. 
 
 " I don't know what they are," she re- 
 plied, looking down. 
 
 *' Perhaps not now, but you will some 
 day." 
 
 ''No, Marc, I never shall. Women are 
 often older than men in thought and ex- 
 perience ; believe me, there is nothing so 
 good in life as gold." 
 
 She moved her head deliberatelv and
 
 IX :\rARCus phillips studio. o 
 
 crazed out through the attic-window. Over 
 the roofs of the opposite houses she could 
 see the tops of a few green trees that grew 
 in the neighbouring square. 
 
 " Few have known or know the want of 
 money more than I, Capri ; but I have not 
 lived until now without discovering where 
 its power stops short. It can buy many 
 valuable things, I grant you, but never 
 honest friendship, never true love." 
 
 He looked at her as he spoke, but her 
 eyes w^ere turned from him, and refused to 
 meet his. 
 
 "You can live without these, you cannot 
 without gold," she answered, shortly. 
 
 " And what a hard, cold, sunless life it 
 would be without them," he said, going 
 over to the chimney-piece and filling his 
 pipe with bird's-eye. Then he struck a 
 light, came back, and took up the brushes 
 once more.
 
 -6 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ** Money attracts friends, just as flowers 
 attract bees," she commenced, *' and money 
 buys love every day." 
 
 This time she laughed a little bitterly, 
 and looked the painter in the face. 
 
 " I wish the man joy of his bargain who 
 buys love." 
 
 ''Do you?" she asked, curtly. ''But 
 then such strong phrases as buying or sell- 
 ing are not used ; ' marriage settlements ' is 
 the correct phrase. Cupid, perhaps, has 
 grown old and wise now-a-days, and thrown 
 off the bandage from his eyes At all 
 events, he sees sufficiently well to fire the 
 heart of a woman with love only for men 
 with heavy rent-rolls and good balances at 
 their bankers." 
 
 " You are unjust." 
 
 "No, I speak the truth. We no longer 
 live in Arcadia, Marc; I wish we did. The 
 poor, dear old gods and goddesses fell in
 
 IN MAECUS PHILLIPS STUDIO. 7 
 
 love much as they pleased, without any 
 thought of money, or carriages, or clothes, 
 or things, and a happy time they had of it, 
 I suppose." 
 
 The artist made no answer for a few 
 minutes. Then he took the pipe from his 
 mouth and said, 
 
 " Something has gone wrong with you 
 to-day, Capri, or you would not speak so 
 bitterly," 
 
 Her face flushed in an instant. 
 
 "Perhaps; there would be nothing new 
 in that." 
 
 "Tell me all about it; that will relieve 
 
 vou." 
 
 «/ 
 
 " And bore you." 
 
 "Cannot you trust me? You know you 
 promised to look on me as your friend." 
 
 She jumped up suddenly and flung her 
 arms impetuously round his neck, knocking 
 the palette from his hand, which descend-
 
 8 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ed, paint-side downwards, on the floor. 
 
 " You are the best and dearest friend 
 man or woman ever had," she said, and, 
 with the freedom and impulsiveness of a 
 child, she kissed him heartily on the fore- 
 head. 
 
 The warm blood came into the young 
 man's face, a bright, yearning light dawned 
 in his eyes. 
 
 " Now, Capri, what is it ?" he asked, 
 when she had released him from the pleas- 
 ant burden of her arms, and hastily resumed 
 her seat once more. Then, while waiting 
 for her answer, he took the palette up, 
 washed off some of the colours which, in 
 their fall, had got confusingly mixed. 
 
 She did not speak, and he went on, 
 
 '' You can tell me while I put in these 
 few touches. We must take advantage of 
 the light we have ; then you shall make 
 some coffee. I have got a French roll, a
 
 IX :MAECUS PHILLIPS STUDIO. 
 
 chicken and ham sausage, and we will be 
 
 as jolly over them as " 
 
 ** As Bacchantes. Ah! Marc, I sometimes 
 think you must have been a fawn, and have 
 lived in old Arcadia. The air and freshness 
 of the glad golden age seems to cling about 
 you. I feel quite satisfied you danced in 
 the cool, sweet, fragrant woods to the 
 sound of Pan's pipes, and sported with the 
 dryads bound in chains of sacred myrtle 
 and roses, and rollicked with mad glee at 
 the revels of Silenus." 
 
 " How happy I must have been !" 
 "And would be still, but that you fell in 
 love with one of the daughters of men, for 
 which offence you were turned out of 
 Arcadia, made human, and sent into this 
 matter-of-fact, beef-and-plum-pudding-eating 
 
 age." 
 
 " I wish I could go back," he replied, 
 
 lausfhiDCf at what she had said.
 
 10 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " I fear it would be no use your going 
 back, now you have lived among the chil- 
 dren of men and tasted the fruit of know- 
 ledge. Once having been human, you 
 could never again regain your old fawn-like 
 simplicity ; just as those who have once 
 sinned, repent as they may, can never regain 
 a something they have lost." 
 
 "Perhaps 1 could. I might remember 
 my humanity as a dream." 
 
 "And do we never long for things we 
 have seen and known in dreams ?" she 
 asked, thoughtfully, and sat there silently 
 whilst the artist put some touches here and 
 there on the canvas. 
 
 At last he looked up and said, 
 
 *' You have not yet told me what it was 
 that put you out of humour to-day." 
 
 *' Oh ! it was nothing new, the same old 
 thing over and over again. Pa has had a 
 quarrel with his landlady for rent ; he has
 
 IN maecus Phillips' studio. 11 
 
 not a penny now, and won't be paid his 
 pension until the end of next week." 
 
 *'And meanwhile " 
 
 " Meanwhile he lives on his wits or bor- 
 rows from his friends. I'm getting sick, 
 terribly sick, of it all. I have known it 
 for years and years, until I have come to 
 believe it is like Tennyson's brook, and will 
 run on for ever." 
 
 " And how do you manage, Capri ?" 
 
 " Oh I I always come right somehow. 
 Pa says Mrs. Fum's bark is worse than her 
 bite, and I know she must have been ' put 
 out,' as she calls it, or she would never 
 have spoken to him as she did to-day. I 
 teach her two daughters singing, and I have 
 made them like me — I never have much 
 trouble in doing that with anyone — and 
 their hearts are safe passports to their 
 mother's, so for my sake Mrs. Fum will say 
 no more to Pa. But it's miserable to have
 
 12 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 a father who is always on the watch to take 
 ill a friend or borrow from a chance ac- 
 quaintance, and wretched to live in a back 
 pair for which 3^ou are always in debt. I 
 often steal up and down stairs like a cul- 
 prit. I know I cannot bear it much 
 longer ; some last straw will break my 
 back one da}^, and then I'll " 
 
 "You'll what?" 
 
 " God knows ; I do not — I wish I did : 
 go on the stage if I can, but Pa will not 
 allow that. Besides, I do not quite want 
 to leave him yet; if I did, I suppose he 
 would go to the bad — not that my staying 
 saves him much as it is." 
 
 " But then he is your only relative, 
 Capri ; you often told me so, and you must 
 not leave him until you give some one the 
 right to protect you for life," he said, look- 
 ing at her wistfully. 
 
 " I suppose you mean until I marry
 
 IN MARCUS PHILLIPis' STUDIO. 13 
 
 some one. That may be a long time — 
 lonp^er than I can afford to wait," she 
 answered. 
 
 They were both silent for a while after 
 her last words. Capri was thinking of 
 her future life, and the painter was wish- 
 ing to heaven he was not so poor. 
 
 " Pa is so foolish, I cannot respect him 
 if I try ever so hard," she said, after a few 
 minutes. "Last quarter, when he got his 
 pension, he ordered a supper and half a 
 dozen of claret without ever letting me 
 know, and asked Lord Harrick — for next 
 to a good dinner he best loves a lord — 
 and some young men, mere acquaintances, 
 with good names and bad manners, whom 
 he met at the gymnasium where he gives 
 fencing lessons, and he never asked j^ew- 
 ton Marrix or dear old Pallamari, who 
 have often proved his best friends." 
 
 " You see, your father is not Bohemian
 
 14 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 enough to care for the society of a music- 
 teacher or the company of Newton Marrix, 
 an author still at the foot of Parnassus." 
 
 " Perhaps not, but he appreciates their 
 occasional loans. Yesterday he asked one 
 of his gymnasium friends with the good 
 name and bad manners for a sovereign 
 in advance of his fencing lessons, and he 
 blankly refused." 
 
 She laughed, half bitterly, half amused- 
 1}^, at the thought. 
 
 " I often wonder at Captain Bankers 
 having such a Bohemian daughter," said 
 tbe artist. 
 
 " I will tell you my history by-and-by, 
 Marc, in confidence, just as actors did in 
 old dramas, when they brought their chairs 
 down to the footlights, and discoursed to 
 the audience of their bosom secrets." 
 
 ''Very well, now I have done for to- 
 day," he said, holding his brush up in mid-
 
 IN MAECdS Phillips' studio. 15 
 
 air, and looking at the canvas critically. 
 
 Capri came, and, standinor behind him, 
 looked over his shoulder long and anxi- 
 ously at the half-finished picture. 
 
 "You have made me look very beauti- 
 ful," she said to him, softly; "but why 
 didn't you paint me as some other charac- 
 ter than Cophetua ?" 
 
 ''' I don't know. I thought it suited you 
 best. Whom would you have me paint you 
 as — Ophelia, Desdemona, Cleopatra ?" 
 
 " No, Marc, none of these. I suppose, 
 w^oman-like, I am hard to please. Ophelia 
 and Desdemona were foolish creatures, who 
 suffered for their love, and I am not suffi- 
 ciently majestic for Cleopatra. After all, 
 the beggar maid may suit me best. 
 
 In robe and crown the king stept down 
 To meet and greet her on her way ; 
 
 ' It is no wonder,' said the lords, 
 ' She is more beautiful than day.'
 
 16 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Beauty, after all, does a good deal in this 
 world of ours, Marc." 
 
 "And is often a fatal gift." 
 
 " That depends, my friend," she answer- 
 ed, looking at the canvas again, and then 
 at the reflection of her face which she 
 caught in a little mirror that hung on the 
 wall of the attic studio. 
 
 She saw that hers was the divine gift of 
 loveliness. A smile of satisfaction came 
 into her face, and made it beam with 
 pleasure. Her features were "Grecian in 
 their cast; the forehead low and square, 
 the brows straight and well marked, the 
 nose delicate as chiseled marble, the mouth 
 full and ripe, at once indicating sensitive- 
 ness and love of pleasure. Her complexion 
 was of a clear olive tint ; her dark, almond- 
 shaped eyes, liquid, tender, and bright ; her 
 hair, almost black, was relieved by an 
 under-tone of dusky gold.
 
 IN MAECUS PHILLIPS* STUDIO. 1 7 
 
 Marcus Phillips gravely watched the 
 almost child-like delight she exhibited at 
 her reflection, as she stood gazing at it in 
 the little square of mirror. With an 
 artist's instincts he loved all that was 
 beautiful, but he never told or hinted to 
 the girl how much she owed to nature. 
 
 " Beauty often gains much in life," said 
 he, removing the easel, and placing a little 
 table in the centre of the room. " It gains 
 much, but its power falls short oftentimes. 
 It is like money, there are some things it 
 cannot give." 
 
 "Ay, but there are many good things it 
 obtains for one. Xow get me some coffee, 
 Marc, and don't philosophise. Besides, I 
 have not lived so Ions; in the world without 
 seeinor and knowino^ its value. Human 
 nature is human nature, and a woman's 
 lovely face has often ruled the wisest, 
 bravest, and best man before now. ' It is 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 IT IS NO WONDER, 
 
 no wonder, said the lords.' Now I'll boil 
 the water, and you lay the table as well as 
 you can, for all men are awkward at such 
 things." 
 
 She knelt down on the hearth, fanned 
 the smouldering embers to a flame, boiled 
 the water and made coffee. 
 
 The artist tidied the room, picked up a 
 palette-knife from the floor, removed some 
 paint-brushes from the chairs, placed the 
 canvas against the wall, laid the table, and 
 finally produced a fresh French roll and a 
 chicken and ham sausage from a little 
 black-looking cupboard set high up in the 
 wall. 
 
 Then they sat down as light-hearted as 
 two children. 
 
 " It's a pity you are poor. Marc ; no, I 
 mean that you are not rich, which is al- 
 most the same," the girl said, suspending a 
 morsel of sausage between her Hps and the
 
 IN MAECUS PHILLIPS' STUDIO. 19 
 
 plate, and looking into the artist's hand- 
 some face. 
 
 " Why is it a pity ? I am quite happy, 
 Capri." 
 
 ''Ah ! you do not understand the pomp 
 and grandeur of wealth." She answered 
 him half jestingly. 
 
 " So much the better, say I." 
 
 " If you were rich, you would have a 
 studio with ruby velvet curtains, a stained 
 floor, and Persian rugs, statues of old gods 
 and graces, Italian engravings. Queen 
 Anne furniture — have a little more coffee, 
 there's plenty in the pot, Marc — quaint 
 carvings, and sketches on the walls. Ah ! 
 would not all that be beautiful ?" 
 
 " Then I am certain I would not be half 
 so jolly as I am now. And I could never 
 sit down to a table I laid myself, and drink 
 tea alone with you." 
 
 "It's not tea, but coffee. But, if you 
 
 c2
 
 20 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 were ricb, I'd come and see you, and we would 
 drink tea out of six mark china cups, and 
 have it brought in by a page ; and you 
 would have a new velvet coat, and get 
 your hair cut — though that would be a 
 pity — and wear a tall, shining hat " 
 
 " In the studio ?" 
 
 " You interrupt me. No, not in the 
 studio, of course. Then I would come 
 dressed in silks, and you would paint me 
 like one of Rubens' women, in rich-hued 
 velvets and with braided hair." 
 
 She sighed as she spoke and looked 
 round the studio, which had a small square 
 of very threadbare carpet, looking like a 
 little island in a great ocean of room, a 
 sofa and a few chairs mercifully covered 
 with cheap chintz. 
 
 ''What is the use for sighing for the 
 moon when one must stay down on the 
 earth ?" he asked.
 
 IN ilAECUS PHILLIPS* STUDIO. 21 
 
 *' "Well, the moon will come down to you 
 some day : I mean you will be rich. Pal- 
 lamari says you have genius, and he knows 
 a great deal about art." 
 
 " Pallamari is an indulgent friend." 
 
 ** But his criticisms are honest. Besides 
 in your work I know there is that name- 
 less something that makes one look at it 
 twice and remember it lono^ afterwards." 
 
 ^' I am sorry the hanging committee at 
 Burlington House does not think so." 
 
 " But you know well enough that the 
 committee's opinion is worth nothing. An 
 honest Royal Academician sent in a pic- 
 ture anonymously last year, and it was re- 
 jected. "When you become famous and 
 daub, you will get fifty times the price 
 you do now for the careful work you call 
 pot-boilers," 
 
 " When did you turn prophetess ?" 
 
 ^* Never mind when. You will become
 
 22 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 famous, I know ; but, my dear Marc, you 
 will have to wait." 
 
 " If I had anyone to wait with me, I 
 should not mind," he began, in a low, ear- 
 nest voice. 
 
 " You are but twenty- four, and a mere 
 boy yet," she replied, with a merry little 
 laugh that had a sweet silvery peal in it. 
 " Why should you want anyone to wait 
 with you and be a drag on you for years, 
 perhaps half starve on love in a London 
 attic. Now don't frown at me in that 
 way or I will cry. I am only cruel to be 
 kind." 
 
 He did not answer her, a troubled look 
 came into his face, he turned his eyes away 
 from her. 
 
 " Now, it's different with a woman," she 
 went on again, after a few seconds' pause ; 
 "men toil through the best days of their 
 lives for fame or independence ; a woman
 
 IN MARCUS Phillips' studio. 23 
 
 with a pretty face, and without an ounce of 
 brains in her head, gets some one to fall in 
 love with her in an hour or a day and she 
 secures both at one stroke. '^ 
 
 *' Capri," he said, suddenly, and her 
 quick ear detected that his voice was harsh 
 for once, "you are preaching down your 
 heart — your better self." 
 
 His frank, blue eyes looked at her ques- 
 tioningly ; she lowered her head and made 
 no answer, for she knew he had spoken 
 what was true. 
 
 " Take some sausage, Marc, I am not 
 saying anything wrong. Circumstances 
 make us all what we are. I often think 
 my whole life, so far as it has gone, has 
 been a mistake. I cannot see why I came 
 into existence at all ; but, once being here, 
 I must do the best I can for myself, yet 
 it takes such a time waiting before the best 
 comes."
 
 24 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 '* Time is woman's greatest enemy." 
 
 *' Don't get epigrammatical," she said. 
 Then, changing her voice to a softer key, she 
 went on. " Since my earliest days I have 
 known what the want of money means^ and 
 it made existence hard for me. Indeed I 
 think I never really was a child." 
 
 "If so, I am sorry, very sorry for you, 
 Capri. A happy childhood is the best 
 part of life ; no period afterwards, no mat- 
 ter how bright, can make up for its loss." 
 He was thinking, as he spoke, of his own 
 earlier days. 
 
 *' Perhaps not," she said, tapping her 
 spoon against the empty tea-cup. " One 
 cannot shape one's earlier life any more 
 than one can help being born. If my 
 darling mother lived, I think I should 
 be happier than what I am now, and 
 better." 
 
 "And so should I if mine lived," said
 
 IN MAECUS PHILLIPS' STUDIO. 25 
 
 the artist quickly, for he was glad to have 
 this bond of sympathy between them. 
 
 ** My mother," said Capri, and a thought- 
 ful light came into her great dark eyes, 
 " sang in the opera at La Scala in Naples. 
 She was a lovely woman, too handsome to 
 live long, people said, and they were right. 
 Even as* I remember her in her last days, 
 she was wonderfully beautiful, and had a 
 pale, patient look in her face which I shall 
 never forget. Pa, who was in the English 
 arm}^, was staying at Naples on sick leave 
 when she was young. She fell in love with 
 him." 
 
 Capri paused a moment. She was never 
 certain as to whether the church had pro- 
 nounced a benison on her parents' union, 
 so on this point she wisely held her tongue. 
 
 *'My mother continued on the stage," 
 the girl went on, " and I was born on the 
 island which gave me its name and little
 
 26 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 more. Then she lost her voice and fell 
 into a consumption, and was able to earn 
 no more money. Pa was always, I am 
 afraid, a scamp and selfish. "When she 
 could hold her engagement no longer at 
 the opera, his love for her grew cold. He 
 had to go back to England ; this broke her 
 heart and hastened her death." 
 
 The girl's voice was soft and plaintive, 
 her eyes liquid as if with tears. 
 
 " My remembrance of my mother brings 
 to my mind the face of a woman who 
 suffered much with great patience. Some 
 friends of hers were kind and good ; they 
 were humble people, but they loved her, 
 and afterwards loved me for her sake. 
 She was unwilling to die ; she wanted to 
 live for my sake. She often clung about 
 me, kissing me passionately, her pale face 
 wet with tears. One day she lay white and 
 cold ; some one said she was at rest, and
 
 IN MAECUS PHILLIPS STUDIO. 27 
 
 that her heart was broken. I had never 
 seen death before. Then I learned that I 
 was left alone in life, and all the world 
 seemed a blank. I stayed with mj friends. 
 Brow^n-faced Teresina, who said her rosarv 
 by day and night, loved me as if I had been 
 her child. God had sent me to her, she 
 said : the old padre taught me to read and 
 write ; it was all he could do for me. Be- 
 fore I was eight years old I knew Dante 
 and Tasso from cover to cover. Old Bap- 
 tista, with eyes as black as coals, gave me 
 lessons in music and singing; he played 
 the organ of our little church where I sang. 
 He said I had the voice of an angel." 
 
 Capri paused for a while ; the artist was 
 looking into her eyes and listening to 
 every word she said. 
 
 " I think I could have lived happily for 
 life with those good, simple people. Marc, 
 and I often wish I had been allowed to
 
 28 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 remain there. But it was not to be. 
 When I was about ten years old, Pa came 
 to Naples and said I should return to 
 England with him. I cried as if my heart 
 would break. I begged and prayed of him 
 to let me remain with my good old friends ; 
 it was no use. "We came to England : Pa 
 had lost his money, and had to retire from 
 the army. After a while he commenced 
 giving fencing lessons, which he soon 
 found to add considerably to his means, 
 and so that is my early history," she added. 
 " I sometimes wonder if I shall ever see 
 Capri again. It is a beautiful place, Marc," 
 she said, a wistful look coming into her 
 face. " I think the sun never shines so 
 bright as there, and then the sky is so 
 clear and blue. It haunts me some days 
 like a dream. I see the little cabin where 
 I used to live up on the beach, see the 
 bare-legged fishermen in their red caps.
 
 IX MARCUS PHILLLPS' STUDIO. 29 
 
 the brown-sailed fisliing-boats drawn up 
 on the sands, the great yellow nets out 
 drying in the sun ; see Naples lying asleep 
 in the light, and further on Vesuvius, and 
 hear the sea beating in for ever on the 
 coast like eternal music." 
 
 "It has made you a poetess." 
 
 " It would have done the same with 
 anyone living there." 
 
 " But if vou had never come to Eng^land 
 I should not have seen you." 
 
 "Perhaps not, perhaps yes. I believe 
 in Fate. If we were destined to meet we 
 should do so, though I never left the island 
 and you never wanted a fencing lesson." 
 
 "Who can say?" 
 
 " And now, Marc, the dearest delights 
 come to an end, you know, in this weary 
 world, and so have your sausage and roll 
 and my talk, and so I must get home," she 
 said, rising up from the table.
 
 30 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ^'When will you be able to give me 
 another sitting?" he asked, willing to keep 
 her as long as she would stay. 
 
 " I cannot say. I may be able to look 
 round to-morrow. I will if I can. I al- 
 ways like to have a talk with you ; it's the 
 next best thing to having a chat with 
 myself. I must talk to some one, and 
 you understand me better than anyone 
 else." 
 
 *' Try to come, if you can." 
 
 " I shall; but perhaps it would be better 
 for you to finish up that pot-boiling land- 
 scape in the corner." 
 
 *' Oh ! that is only a couple of hours' 
 work, and 1 shall put it on the easel when 
 you are gone." 
 
 *' What will you do with the * Beggar 
 Maid,' when it is finished ? Shall my face 
 adorn the picture-dealer's window ? Per- 
 haps some rich gentilhomme may take a
 
 IN MAliCUS PHILLIPS* STUDIO. 31 
 
 fancy to my face, and ask who I am, and 
 come and make love to me." 
 
 ** I hope not," said the artist, knockiag 
 the ashes out of his pipe slowly and 
 deliberately. 
 
 " Thank you for your kind wishes, Mr. 
 Phillips," she said, at first assuming an air 
 of indignation, and then breaking into one 
 of her bursts of rippling laughter. " How- 
 ever, there is no fear of the geniilhomme 
 coming. Kings never marry beggar maids 
 now-a-days, and Lords of Burleigh are 
 few and far between ; alas ! for the ud- 
 romantic days upon which I have fallen." 
 
 *'I will send the ' Beggar Maid ' to the 
 Academy on chance, I think." 
 
 ''Ah! to be huuor on the walls of 
 Burlington House, and have admiring 
 crowds before me all day long from May 
 to August, would not that be glorious?" 
 she said, clasping her hands delightedly,
 
 32 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 and looking at the young artist rapturous- 
 ly. A bright light came into her eyes 
 at the prospect, her face beamed with 
 smiles. 
 
 " I shall send it in, Capri." 
 
 "Do," she said. "But I am afraid it 
 will be of little use." 
 
 She was thinking more of herself than 
 of him. 
 
 " Never venture, never win," he said. 
 
 " True, Marc ; and now I must really 
 go. Thank you for your pleasant after- 
 noon. Help me on with my ulster — don't 
 tear it, for it cost but thirteen shillings, and 
 is very tender. Addio, caro mio, oh ! how 
 you press my hand," she cried out, comic- 
 a%. '^ Good-bye, dear old Marc," she 
 added, and in another second she had 
 gone.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 NEWTON MARHIX GIVES ADVICE. 
 
 npHE room seemed robbed of its briglit- 
 -*- ness when Capri had gone. All the 
 pleasant colouring vanished, all the grace 
 and picturesqueness which her figure had 
 lent the room departed, and the attic 
 studio stood out in its unlovely, realistic 
 bareness. 
 
 Marcus Phillips looked round him once, 
 then placed the pot-boiler on the easel 
 before him, and sat down before it to 
 work. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 His bead was as handsome as a young 
 god's, and the dreaminess of genius lurked 
 in his blue eyes, that deepened to violet in 
 the shade. His features were clearly cut 
 and handsome, his hair was bright brown. 
 
 For all his bright hair and the soft, 
 dreamy light of his eyes, Marcus Phillips 
 was thoroughly a manly man. He was 
 almost six feet high, and made in propor- 
 tion, his shoulders broad, his limbs well 
 formed and supple. 
 
 So far as kindred and friends went, he 
 stood quite alone in all the world. If he 
 were to die in the morning, leaving behind 
 him ten thousand pounds and an unsigned 
 will, he knew of no relative who could lay 
 claim to his wealth. 
 
 His was a case of isolation. Such siu- 
 srular instances sometimes occur, and form 
 marked contrasts to other members of the 
 human race whose sisters, whose cousins,
 
 NEWTON ilAP.PJX GIVES ADVICE. 35 
 
 and wliose aunts spread themselves like a 
 vast network over half a country, and in 
 turn knit themselves into other prolific 
 families, until the chain of relationship 
 bids fair to include the j)opulation of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Marcus Phillips was alone in life. His 
 father died while he was yet quite a lad ; 
 his mother married again, and he was sent 
 to school. He still remembered, as if it 
 but happened yesterday, how the news of 
 his mother's death had been broken to 
 him by the head-master — recollected his 
 journey to the house, which was from that 
 time his home no more. 
 
 At the age of eighteen he was battling 
 with the world. It was a hard struQ^orle, 
 for he was almost penniless, and was 
 minus experience. His mother's husband 
 had children of his own to provide for, 
 and had neither the desire nor intention 
 
 d2
 
 36 , IT IS TsO WONDER. 
 
 of adopting him. He left tlie liousebold 
 which had once been his home, and came 
 to London. Our great capital has ever 
 had strong attractions, sometimes fatal, 
 for the young. There is something in its 
 noise, its commerce, and its eternal bustle 
 that stimulates to action ; it looks so 
 mighty, so far-stretching, that they im- 
 agine there must be room for yet another 
 life within its vastness. Its broad tho- 
 roughfares are bright and pleasant, its 
 grimy, narrow streets offer a refuge and 
 hiding-place in times of misery, and its 
 river looks dark deep and silent if the 
 worst comes at last, and all hopes die 
 within young hearts. 
 
 Marcus Phillips came to London, and 
 for the first time learned how terribly 
 selfish is the great world. The crowd 
 ignored his existence ; not one individual 
 in the vast throng heeded him, or reached
 
 NEWTON MAERIX GIVES ADVICE. 37 
 
 him out a helping hand. Not fitted by 
 special training for any pursuit, he was 
 utterly helpless, and was seemingly flung 
 among his fellow-men as weeds are cast 
 upon strong currents to sink in a helpless 
 struoforle. Alone and unknown amono^ 
 millions, his lot was sad ; but fate one day 
 took pity on him, and threw a vagabond, 
 otherwise an actor, in his way — a man 
 with a tender heart and a disreputable 
 character, for tenderness is not at all con- 
 fined to respectability. This man, hearing 
 the lad's story, proposed that he should, 
 as a general utility member, join his com- 
 pany, which was just then going into the 
 provinces. So he commenced life as an 
 actor, and communicated the intelligence 
 to his step-father ; not that he cared in 
 the least for that individual's opinion ; he 
 flung the news at him as a gauntlet; it 
 would be sufficient to part them for ever,
 
 3S IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 he knew, and this was what he most 
 desired. 
 
 In good time an answer came. Marcus 
 Phillips' father declared that, as a religious 
 and upright man who sought salvation, he 
 could hold neither bond nor fellowship 
 with one who had become a strolling 
 player, and whose soul, he was candid 
 enough to admit, was on the straight road 
 to eternal perdition. Puritan prejudices 
 still linger in provincial breasts, and mem- 
 bers of the profession theatrical are yet 
 looked on as the children of one who shall 
 be nameless. 
 
 For three years Marcus Phillips made 
 tours through the provinces, north, south, 
 east, and west. Among a fraternity of 
 Bohemians he passed a very happy time, a 
 free and merry life that knew few cares 
 and fewer responsibilities. When one is 
 young, and can earn enough to keep body
 
 NEWTON MAEEIX GIVES ADVICE. 39 
 
 and soul together, the world looks fair 
 and pleasant, and the young actor found it 
 so ; moreover, the experience of men and 
 women which his profession afforded was 
 one of the most valuable lessons he could 
 learn. 
 
 Among one of the companies with 
 which Marcus Phillips travelled, was a 
 scene-painter, who took a fancy to the 
 young man, and for love of art taught 
 him to mix colours and handle a brush. 
 
 " It will do you no harm, my boy, to 
 learn all trades," said the artist, who, 
 though the mildest of men, was the villain 
 of the company, who invariably wore a 
 black beard, jack boots, and a slouched 
 hat, and nightly died at the end of the 
 last act in a most agonizing manner within 
 eighteen inches of the footlights. " It 
 will do you no harm," he repeated. " I 
 once travelled with a manager who painted
 
 40 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Lis own scenes, played tlie piano in the 
 orchestra between the acts, took the lead 
 in the piece every night, and altered the 
 company's costumes." 
 
 And then this mild man, whose chief 
 pride lay in the enactment of nightly vil- 
 lany, went on with the painting of a cottage 
 interior. 
 
 Marcus Phillips was soon found to have 
 an eye for colour and design, and that in- 
 tuitive love for this new art which is often 
 the best test of the direction in which a 
 man's genius lies. In a short time the 
 pupil's works were before the master's, 
 and one day his friend said to him, 
 
 " Phillips, my boy, if I were you, I 
 should leave the stage, and go in thorough- 
 ly for painting. Nature intended you for 
 an artist instead of an actor. You may 
 have a bit of up-hill work at first, but, 
 when I see a bit of good painting, I know
 
 NEWTON MAEEIX GIVES ADVICE. 41 
 
 it; and some day you may^vrite E. A. after 
 your name, I bet my life/' said the scene- 
 painter, with all the glowing hopefulness 
 of friendship. 
 
 " ' A bird in the hand is worth two in the 
 bush/ oldman, "replied Marcus. "You know 
 I have very little put by — we actors are 
 not provident people. And then, I dare- 
 say, there are dozens of men in town and 
 out of it who could cover a square of 
 canvas better than I, and who are yet 
 more out of elbows than your obedient 
 servant. If I went to London and set up 
 as an artist, I should probably starve/' 
 
 "I know a trick worth two of starving.'*' 
 
 '•' What's that r" 
 
 " Don't give up the stage yet for a while, 
 but get an engagement in town, and take 
 lessons in painting. Be an actor by night, 
 an artist by day." 
 
 "That would certainly be a glorious
 
 42 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 tiling, and I have a mind to try it, old 
 man." 
 
 '' If you take a friend's advice, you 
 will." 
 
 " I can always come back to the pro- 
 vinces, if I don't succeed." 
 
 " Leave out the ' if,' and say there is no 
 such word as fail," said the scene-painter, 
 dramatically waving his right hand. 
 
 " You are right," said Marcus. 
 
 ^' Erase such a word from the bright 
 lexicon of your youth," said the scenic 
 artist, in a lofty tone. Then he added, 
 more gently, 
 
 "I wish I had life again before me^ but 
 you see I am married to the leading lady, 
 and have children four." 
 
 Marcus gave him his hand in sympathy, 
 the scenic artist pressed it affectionately. 
 
 Marcus Phillips came to town, got an 
 engagement to play a small part at the
 
 NEWTON MARRIX GIVES ADVICE. 43 
 
 Ophelia Theatre, hired an attic in Fitzroj 
 Street, and set up an easel. He worked 
 hard and fast. He had enersfy and per- 
 severance, for he knew he had much to 
 learn. Labour, however, is said to over- 
 come all things. He took lessons in figure- 
 modelling from an artist in Kensington, and 
 learned fencing as a branch of his theatric 
 cal profession from Captain Bankers. 
 
 After three years of hard work, he began 
 to paint pictures which commanded a 
 reasonable price at the dealers', and in 
 order to devote himself entirely to paint- 
 ing he gave up the stage. One cannot 
 burn the candle at both ends. 
 
 On the afternoon on which the chapter 
 opens, when Capri had gone, the young art- 
 ist stood before the pot-boiler in silent con- 
 templation and idleness, for his thoughts 
 followed the girl to her home. He was 
 loth to believe her so mercenary as she
 
 44 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 declared herself ; her character had many 
 sides ; she was so much a child of impulse 
 that it was difficult to say when she really 
 spoke from her heart, and she probably did 
 not always know herself. Her life was 
 not cast in pleasant lines ; she was almost 
 alone in the world. True she had a circle 
 of literary and artistic male friends who 
 learned sword exercise and fencing from 
 her father, and who were all more or less 
 poor and had the advantage of commenc- 
 ing life with strong hopes of achieving 
 great things in the future. 
 
 Capri was a favourite with them all, and 
 they were ever ready to give her passes 
 for the theatre or tickets for concerts or 
 picture-galleries when they had them ; they 
 lent her their books, too, and sometimes 
 would come and read her a chapter or a 
 poem in manuscript hot from the feu sacre 
 of their souls.
 
 2CEWT0X MARPJX GIVES ADVICE. 45 
 
 Yet Marcus pitied her ; the outward view 
 of her life was brio^ht enouofh, but the 
 seamy side was not over-pleasant. We 
 have all two sides to our daily lives, separ- 
 ate and diverse from each other as heaven 
 from hell. 
 
 Capri was a stranger to the simple, home- 
 ly pleasures of domestic life, which so often 
 tend to briuo* out all that is best in our 
 natures and cast our characters in happy 
 and useful moulds. None of those home 
 influences which sweeten and protect the 
 lives of most girls were hers ; she had few 
 female friends, her opportunities of meeting 
 them were limited, and there was little sym- 
 pathy between her and English girls of her 
 own age with whom she happened to come 
 in contact. 
 
 So Marcus Phillips pitied her, not sus- 
 pecting just then that his feelings were of 
 a deener kind. Love often comes in the
 
 46 IT IS NO WONDEE. 
 
 guise of pity ; between sympathy and love 
 there is only half a step : one is the re- 
 flection of the other. 
 
 Capri, on the other hand, knew that the 
 artist was in love with her. Women's per- 
 ceptions regarding matters of affection are 
 quick indeed. A woman knows a man is in 
 love with her before he has dreamt of the 
 existence of his passion. Capri fathomed 
 his heart, and read his secret with strange- 
 ly opposite feelings. She was proud of 
 winning his love : it was a gift for which 
 any woman might feel grateful ; yet she 
 felt unworthy of the gift, knowing herself 
 incapable of valuing it at its proper esti- 
 mate. 
 
 Whilst the artist was yet thinking over 
 what the girl had said to him of the value 
 of money and beauty in the world's eyes, 
 he heard a tap at the door and in came his 
 friend Newton Marrix.
 
 NEWTON :MAERIX GIVES ADVICE. 47 
 
 " Ah, New," be said, giving him his haud. 
 *' You have just come in time to give your 
 advice — always valuable, old man — about 
 this pot-boiler. Do you think the sky too 
 yellow?" 
 
 " Call it golden." 
 
 " Well, golden. You see the public likes 
 a good sunset, something between Turner 
 and eggs and bacon." 
 
 "No, not too golden," replied Newton 
 Marrix, who was a rising author, and in- 
 clined to be severely critical on art matters, 
 as became a literary man. 
 
 ** ril deepen the yellow — gold, I mean." 
 
 "Don't you think a line of crimson 
 light " 
 
 '* Otherwise carmine." 
 
 "Down near the sea would be an im- 
 provement," said the young author, stand- 
 ing a little way off, with his right hand
 
 48 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 shading his eyes, and gazing hard at the 
 canvas. 
 
 " Very well, I will put it on while you 
 are here, until you see the effect. You 
 will find some cigarettes on the little table 
 beyond ; there is tobacco in the jar on the 
 chimney-piece, if you have brought your 
 pipe." 
 
 " Capital idea." 
 
 '' The pipe or the sunlight?" 
 
 " The sunlight, of course. You must 
 have a reflection down in the waves, which 
 I fear are terribly green." 
 
 " Nothing like plenty of colour for my 
 friend the British public." 
 
 " The waves must beat round the sun's 
 feet," said Newton Marrix, poetically, 
 whilst he filled his pipe. Pipes and poetry 
 harmonize capitally. 
 
 " The sun's feet ?"
 
 NEWTON MARRIX GIVES ADVICE. 49 
 
 '' Yes. Don't jou remember what Swin- 
 burne says? 
 
 ' Break again like waves that beat 
 Eouncl the sun's feet.'" 
 
 " Very well. I will put the sun's feet in 
 water — give them a bath." 
 
 "I protest, Marc," he said, raising both 
 his hands melodramatically. 
 
 '^ This bit of canvas is a stunner now," 
 said the artist, as the brush moved nimbly 
 in his hand. ''Red sun, golden clouds, 
 green sea, white-sailed boat, yellow sands. 
 The British public will have its money's 
 worth of colouring, or know for what." 
 
 "'Pon my life, Marc, it's a charming 
 little picture, for all its glare, and ought 
 to fetch thirty guineas." 
 
 " It will bring me ten." 
 
 ''Well, never mind, in a dozen years a 
 canvas of the same size will fetch you a 
 hundred." 
 
 VOL. T. E
 
 50 IT IS NO WONDEE. 
 
 ''I hope you may turn out a prophet in 
 your own country." 
 
 ''I hope so, for your sake, old man." 
 " How is your new novel getting on ?" 
 " Oh ! slowly. I have killed one man 
 to-day in poetic justice ; and some of the 
 other people may well tremble in their 
 shoes, for I shall certainly murder a couple 
 more of them !" 
 
 " Cold-blooded monster." 
 " Then my heroine has two husbands 
 living, and she elopes from the second, 
 and all the characters fall in love with 
 those they should not a la elective affini- 
 ties. For if a young author wants to get 
 a hearing, Marc, my boy, he must make 
 his books fit for nobody to read, in order 
 that everybody may read them." 
 '* Is that the secret of success ?" 
 " One of them. The melodramatic 
 villain, with an evil face and dark eyes.
 
 NEWTON MAEEIX GIVES ADVICE. 51 
 
 and the sweet ingenue^ have gone out with 
 the last generation. The villains of to- 
 day in real life and fiction wear spotless 
 linen, look as innocent as angels, and smash 
 the decalogue in kid gloves as a sort of 
 mild pastime. The heroines are no longer 
 dear innocents, fresh from Arcadian 
 schools, but are wise in their generation, 
 like the children of darkness." 
 
 " It may be so in fiction, not in real 
 life." 
 
 "Ah! Marc, my boy, fiction is but a 
 reflex of the time, a portrait of domestic 
 history. The colours are true. Every 
 day you walk through E-egent Street, the 
 Seven Dials, or the Strand, you pass by 
 men and women, the story of whose lives, 
 if published, would read stranger than 
 all fiction, and wilder than romance has 
 ever p)ictured. It is the improbable which 
 is always probable, some one has said, and 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 truly. At least, this is how we moralists/' 
 continued the young roan, smiling, and 
 throwing the mighty ^' we " into his con- 
 versation with a careless self-satisfaction, 
 *' reconcile ourselves to the use of incidents 
 that seem wild in our pages." 
 
 " Human lives are often strange mys- 
 teries which we cannot understand, and 
 human hearts are stranger still," said the 
 painter, philosophically. 
 
 *' Better live without them," answered 
 JSTev/ton Marrix. *' They are luxuries we 
 cannot afford in these days ; a man is 
 much jollier sans heart." 
 
 " Not better." 
 
 *' Yes, in pocket," said Newton Marrix, 
 speaking lightly, and without the malice of 
 cynicism . 
 
 ** However, in fiction you authors have 
 a certain advantage over us artists." 
 
 " I cannot see it."
 
 NEWTON MAHRIX GIVES ADVICE. 06 
 
 *' Well, we cannot paint wives running 
 away from tlieir husbands, and so Eortb, 
 or people falling in love with an utter 
 disregard to common-place morality." 
 
 "No, but you can paint studies from 
 the nude ' sweet, white bodies,' you know, 
 and a few ' lean, lithe limbs ' with never a 
 shred to cover them. That is what will 
 bring you before the public in a short 
 time, and make more money for you in six 
 months than all the pot-boilers you could 
 paint in as many years. Only try that 
 style, old man." 
 
 Marcus Phillips only laughed as he bent 
 over his canvas to fill in the green waves 
 with his palette knife. 
 
 " Only try it, Marc," his friend went on. 
 "■ Then you can get Mervyn of the Telegram 
 to write an article running down the nude 
 in art generally, and your pictures in par- 
 ticular, with a few telling sentences about
 
 54 IT IS IsO WONDER. 
 
 pandering to vicious tastes of the present 
 day: that bait always fetches the honest 
 Britisher and his spouse the indignant 
 matron, who knows as much about art as 
 the King of the Cannibal Islands, and 
 imagines nudity means nastiness." 
 
 " Then you would have me damned at 
 once and for ever." 
 
 ''Dear boy, you mistake. Mervyn's 
 article would be answered by a dozen 
 writers every day for a week ; you could 
 write a score of them yourself under dif- 
 ferent names, and by the time you have 
 been denounced and defended, your name 
 would be in all men's mouths and your 
 fame established." 
 
 "The nude in art is never profane to 
 me," said the artist. 
 
 "Nor to anyone of taste, culture, and 
 education ; but to the Philistines abroad it
 
 NEWTON MAERIX GIVES ADVICE. 55 
 
 is a red rag. These asses bray as loud as 
 lioDs roar, over a new step in high art 
 which means civilization, and the world is 
 full to overflowing with such donkeys." 
 
 '* They are useful in their way some- 
 times." 
 
 " Yes, I grant you. Their noise at- 
 tracts, they roll themselves over and over 
 in the roadway of public opinion in parox- 
 ysms of passion about some advancement 
 in thought or art, now over a picture, 
 again over a poem, a new era in music, or 
 the announcement of strange psychological 
 facts ; the dust they raise causes the world 
 to look. In this way they unconsciously 
 fulfil their mission." 
 
 "And benefit those they sought to make 
 their victims." 
 
 " Just so. But, Marc, I came to take 
 you to Mrs. Stonex Stanning's afternoon
 
 56 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 at home ; so come on, old man, and you 
 can talk of high art there until you are 
 blue in the face." 
 
 ''An unartistic colour for the features. 
 However, I do not know Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanniug." 
 
 " That does not matter ; you soon will. 
 I will introduce you. She is very kind, 
 and she will be glad to see you, for she 
 takes an interest in all artists." 
 
 '* Well, I had better change my coat." 
 
 '' Not at all. She has a weakness for 
 velvet coats, especially if they are daubed 
 with paint. You will look all the more 
 artistic as you are ; and don't attempt to 
 brush your hair, that would be monstrous ; 
 you would never be forgiven. Let your 
 scarf flow with Byronic carelessness and 
 grace." 
 
 " It looks deucedly untidy." 
 
 *' No matter. To look as picturesque as
 
 XEWTOX MARPJX GIVES ADVICE. 57 
 
 possible is the first duty we owe to our- 
 selves and to our neighbours in artistic so- 
 ciety. You know, Marc, women's eyes are 
 the true mirrors in which men see them- 
 selves ; if a man's personal appearance suc- 
 ceeds in pleasing a woman, he has achieved 
 a victory of which he may feel proud. 
 They are the best judges of what befits a 
 man outwardly." 
 
 " Are they as wise concerning the inner 
 man?" 
 
 "The inner man is never considered in 
 society, my dear boy. Morals or brains 
 are only secondary considerations to dress. 
 A well-fitting coat is better any day than 
 a good character. If a man only dresses 
 to please us, we care little about what his 
 soul is like; we are generous enough to 
 leave that to himself and Providence. 
 Come along, old man." 
 
 " One moment, Xew."
 
 58 IT IS NO WONDEK. 
 
 " You will make an impression in Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning's rooms, I'll swear." 
 
 "I hope she wdll allow clean hands," said 
 the artist, running to his bed-room to wash 
 off the paint stains from his fingers. 
 
 " Hurry up," was the only answer he re- 
 ceived. 
 
 In a few moments the author and artist 
 were on their way to Mrs. Stonex Stan- 
 ning's afternoon at home.
 
 59 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE TENCIXG LESSON. 
 
 i^APTAIN DANKEPtS rented two back 
 ^-^ rooms, comrQonly called "a back 
 pair," of a house in the Euston Road, 
 " convenient to 'bus and rail,*' as he an- 
 nounced in the advertisements in which 
 he offered to teach sword exercise and 
 fencing. 
 
 By this profession, as he was wont to 
 term it, he added considerably to his in- 
 come, meaning his half pay as a retired 
 captain of an infantry regiment. The
 
 60 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 captain was not a man who invariably 
 called things by their proper names, when 
 he imagined other names added in re- 
 lative proportion to his dignity or impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Now that the days of duelling are over, 
 a fact the captain deeply regretted, there 
 exists no great thirst for a knowledge of 
 sword exercise and fencing ; at least not to 
 the extent which the captain desired. 
 His pupils were principally actors, amateur 
 and professional, and young men given to 
 climb horizontal bars, winding themselves 
 eel-like round poles, boxing and other phy- 
 sical exercises. 
 
 Among this latter class was one to whom 
 the captain paid considerable deference 
 and attention. This was Lord Harrick, 
 who was just two and twenty years old, 
 the inheritor of a rent-roll valued at 
 seventy thousand per annum, and the in-
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 61 
 
 heritor of a large fortune whicli bad ac- 
 cumulated during tlie fourteen years of 
 his minority. 
 
 Eichard, sixth Viscount Ilarrick in the 
 peerage of Great Britain, and Baron Jes- 
 son in the peerage of Scotland, was a 
 young man remarkable for nothing in par- 
 ticular. He was quite a different person- 
 age from his immediate predecessor. The 
 last peer had been a remarkable botanist, 
 and a naturalist of great renown, who had 
 spent his days in hunting for rare speci- 
 mens of insects ; moreover he was a little 
 crabbed -looking man, who wore thread 
 gloves and read religious tracts with great 
 attention. 
 
 The present peer was quite a different 
 man. Diversity of character between 
 father and son is the commonest thino- 
 possible now-a-days. The sixth Viscount 
 Harrick did not care a button for all the
 
 62 IT IS NO WONDEE. 
 
 insects in Europe, so long as they left him 
 in peace ; and ho had never written a line 
 in his life since he left school. 
 
 He had a certain amount of respect for 
 money, as became one who daily experi- 
 enced its market value in the world, and 
 all that his possession of the filthy lucre 
 ensured him from his fellow-men. Yet he 
 was liberal in a measure, and was known 
 to lend money without security; he had 
 pensioned his last mistress handsomely, 
 and had once paid the debts of a kinsman 
 who had appealed to him, a young cornet 
 in the Guards, who had the extravagant 
 tastes of a duke and the income of a parish 
 beadle. 
 
 The Jews had never had Lord Harrick's 
 name on bill or bond during his long 
 minority; he never gambled or bet, save 
 at the request of his acquaintances, for 
 their pleasure and profit. He was what
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 63 
 
 is commonly called a good-natured fellow 
 in his way ; his manner was often genial 
 with his fellow-men, and he was generally 
 liked, even by his friends. 
 
 It was scarcely possible for anyone to 
 have less character ; his general bearing- 
 was common-place, and natural grace was 
 a thino^ of which he was utterlv o-uiltless. 
 
 O I/O 
 
 He never offended society by any attempt 
 at originality, or made his friends envious 
 by the brilliancy of his humour or the 
 keenness of his wit. When he talked, he 
 spoke the greatest nonsense outside the 
 range of idiocy, but he made an excellent 
 listener, a fact that gained him consider- 
 able appreciation. He was a very neutral 
 individual indeed, whom his tailor dressed 
 well, and who looked exceedingly harm- 
 less. He had no talents of any kind, not 
 even for horse-racing or politics, the two 
 ofreat attractions of Enelish life.
 
 64 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Nature, in sendiDg liim into existence 
 as the sixth viscount of his line, and the 
 inheritor of a goodly rent-roll, had perhaps 
 come to the kindly consideration that talents 
 would bore him, and had therefore with- 
 held them ; or perhaps Providence foresaw 
 they would prove a burden of which he 
 would far better be rid. As it was, he 
 had less imagination than his groom, and 
 was not so accomplished as his valet, who 
 was a genteel young man, that played the 
 English concertina and read Byron to the 
 upper housemaid. 
 
 He would have been considered dull but 
 for the variety his money afforded his 
 friends, and foolish but that he was wise 
 enough to please them. He had no ideas, 
 for those who are born to wealth never 
 require any. They buy their thoughts on 
 current subjects in the daily press, just as 
 one buys bread from the baker. Their
 
 THE TENCING LESSON. 65 
 
 minds are made up for them by the editor 
 of their favourite organ. The -wisest 
 thoughts clad in the best language, spark- 
 ling wit, and sound sense can be bought 
 for a penny any morning in the year. It 
 is only your needy man who has ideas, 
 sent him by Providence that he may coin 
 them into sovereigns. It is his mission. 
 
 Altogether, Lord Harrick was looked 
 on as a model member of society; he was 
 all that a peer should be, and matrons 
 regarded him generally as a man who was 
 destined to make as excellent a husband 
 as any girl need desire, for his income 
 could afford a magnificent settlement, and 
 his dulness would be certain to secure his 
 wife from any interference with the pleas- 
 ures of her life. 
 
 When Capri went home from the studio 
 in Fitzroy Street, she found her father 
 was still out, and her landlady's youngest 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 66 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 daughter waiting for her music-lesson. 
 
 '* Come along, dear," said Capri to her 
 pupil, who was fully as big as herself ; 
 and Capri, quick in all her movements, 
 went up side by side with her to what she 
 was pleased to call the salon, and set the 
 girl down before the wiry piano, and com- 
 menced the lesson at once. 
 
 Capri usually lavished affectionate ca- 
 resses and terms of endearment upon her 
 two pupils, which all bore fruit, as she 
 intended, in various ways. Her landlady 
 was never unkind to her even when the 
 rent was due a month, and the delicate 
 little presents the landlady's wooden- 
 figured daughters presented in the shape 
 of pretty ribbons, articles of cheap jewelr 
 lery, and an occasional pair of gloves were 
 all thoroughly acceptable to Capri, who 
 had more than an ordinary woman's love 
 for finery.
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. ^7 
 
 On tills evening Capri was more affec- 
 tionate than usual, and took greater pains 
 in the training of her pupil's voice, and, 
 when the music lesson was over, kissed 
 the girl more aifectionately than ever, 
 remembering all the while the captain's 
 debt for rent. 
 
 Then, when the pupil had gone, Capri 
 sat down to the piano, and, striking a 
 few chords that gave back a feeble, wiry 
 sound, she half sang, half hummed snatches 
 of opera airs and parts of serenades and 
 homely songs she had heard in her childish 
 days long ago ; she sang them very sweet- 
 ly and with a slight touch of pathos, 
 remembering the island that had been her 
 early home, the honest, kind-hearted, 
 brown-faced peasants who had been her 
 first and best friends. Sitting there alone, 
 the memory of the place rose up before 
 her : she saw the fishing-boats drawn up 
 
 f2
 
 68 IT IS NO WONDEE. 
 
 on the yellow beach, the high cliffs look- 
 ing white and scorched in the sunlight^ 
 the blue sea sparkling out beyond and 
 rolling in upon the sands with a voiceful 
 music which yet often echoed in her ears 
 through the quiet hours of the day and in 
 the silent watches of the night. 
 
 She was so lost in thought that she 
 did not hear a rap on the half-open 
 door and a footstep enter the room. Sud- 
 denly she stopped, and looked round. 
 
 " Miss Capri," said Lord Harrick, bow- 
 ing, " I fear I disturb you;" he laid down 
 his hat on a chair, and walked across the 
 room to where she sat. 
 
 *'No, you don't," answered Capri, turn- 
 ing round from the piano. 
 
 " If I don t, pray play on." 
 
 " Oh ! by all means. I thought you did 
 not care for music. I was afraid it would 
 bore you."
 
 THE PENCING LESSON. 69 
 
 Capri was nothing if not laconic. Lord 
 Harrick let his eye-glass drop suddenly 
 from his eye and smiled ; he was used 
 to her manner, and flattered himself he 
 got on thoroughly with her. 
 
 In appearance he contrived to make 
 himself as much like a groom as possible, 
 and probably in this respect fell in with a 
 design which Nature had originally intend- 
 ed before she changed her mind and sent 
 him into existence as the heir to a peerage. 
 ISTow-a-days, however, our modern lackeys 
 dress so much like gentlemen that it 
 becomes excusable for gentlemen to dress 
 like lackeys. 
 
 Lord Harrick's red hair was cut perfect- 
 ly close to his head ; he had no whiskers, 
 but wore a slight moustache. His eyes 
 were very round and blue, and had a 
 continued look of wonder in them. His 
 face was oval and full, his complexion of
 
 70 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 that ruddy tint which often accompanies 
 red hair. On this occasion he wore a coat 
 at once short and tight, a coloured corded 
 waistcoat, with many brass buttons, and 
 trowsers that, clinging to his legs, betrayed 
 an anatomy not at all like Apollo Belve- 
 dere's in its symmetry of form. 
 
 *' I always like to hear you sing or 
 play," he said to Capri, sitting down on a 
 chair near the piano, whilst he tapped 
 his chin with the tortoise-shell handle of 
 a cane which he held in both his hands. 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 " Yes ; but it is not often you allow me 
 that pleasure," he said, looking at her 
 steadily with his round, blue eyes. 
 
 " I had no idea you were musical," she 
 answered, and then, with sweetness and 
 very great feeling, she commenced a 
 song which her friend, old Pallamari, had 
 just composed.
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 71 
 
 " Thank you," he said, when she had 
 finished. "It is very charming, 'pon my 
 word," and he smiled at Capri as if he 
 were well pleased. 
 
 "Do you like it, Lord Harrick?" 
 
 " I do indeed. It's — it's capital." 
 
 "Well, an old friend of mine, Signer 
 Pallamari, who is a music-teacher, compos- 
 ed it. He wants to have it published, but 
 that would cost him five pounds, and he 
 cannot afford five shillings, so he must 
 only resign himself to his fate." 
 
 "Indeed," he said, uneasily. 
 
 He would willingly have given Capri the 
 money there and then to please her, yet he 
 did not know in what words to shape his 
 desire. 
 
 " The publishing of this song might 
 serve him very much, and it would give 
 him much pleasure, and perhaps profit." 
 
 " Where does Pallamari live ?" he asked.
 
 72 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 The girl's eyes brightened and flashed 
 on him with almost childlike delight. 
 
 " He only lives a few doors away, quite 
 by himself, in an attic that is all the world 
 to him. He teaches music. It was he 
 who taught me when I came to England, 
 and never charged a penny ; and he plays 
 the violin like Paganini. It almost makes 
 me wild with a thrilling, strange sensation 
 when I hear him." 
 
 Capri spoke hurriedly, her face chang- 
 ing in expression with every thought, her 
 dark eyes full of light, her hands clasped 
 close together. 
 
 Lord Harrick put his hand into his 
 breast-pocket. 
 
 " Will you do me the favour of giving 
 this to Signer Pallamari, and say it came 
 from a friend of yours who admired his 
 song, and wishes to see it published ?" he 
 said, handing Capri a note.
 
 THE FEXCIXG LESSON. 73 
 
 The girl glanced at him gratefully, and 
 gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. 
 She took the note, and held it daintily, 
 almost reverentially between her fingers. 
 Tt was a privilege rare to her. 
 
 ''How good you are, Lord Harrick," 
 she said, looking at him with a light and 
 pleasure in her eyes that repayed him for 
 his generosity. *' You are so kind. I 
 shall always like you for this," she said, 
 frankly holding out her hand. 
 
 He took it in his, and pressed it quickly, 
 his blue eyes grew rounder, the ruddy 
 colour of his complexion deepened. Capri 
 withdrew her hand. 
 
 After this little sentimental scene, the 
 viscount looked slightly confused, his right 
 hand fumbled at his watch-chain, and then 
 drew out his watch. 
 
 ''It is after six," he said. 
 
 ''Is it? Then Pa is late again. He
 
 74 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 will not be long though. He has been 
 busy to-day," she went on, drawing a little 
 on her imagination, for she had not the 
 faintest idea of what her military parent 
 had been doing all day, and she more than 
 suspected that he was imbibing a convivial 
 glass with some boon companion at that 
 moment, forgetful of his remunerative 
 pupil. 
 
 " Since you are so fond of music/' she 
 went on, ''I will play to you till he comes 
 in." 
 
 '* You are awfully good, you know — but 
 I am rather in a hurry this evening. And 
 I wish Captain Bankers would keep his 
 appointments," he blurted out, and then 
 looked red and confused because of his 
 uugallant speech. 
 
 ''Ah, Lord Harrick, you are scarcely 
 complimentary," she said, good humoured- 
 ly. " Now, you ought to be glad, or at
 
 THE FENCIHG LESSON. 7D 
 
 least to saj you were glad, even if you 
 did not mean it, that Pa is not in just 
 yet, in order that I might talk or play to 
 
 you." 
 
 "Ought I? Well, so I am," he said, 
 recovering himself, "only I never like to 
 be kept waiting, you know." 
 
 " Not even when I am here to talk to 
 you ?" she asked, archly, smiling at him 
 merrily. 
 
 Lord Harrick looked conscious-stricken 
 and a little foolish. Women had never 
 spoken to him in this way before, as Capri 
 did. He liked it coming from her lips, 
 for there was a mixture oF the child and 
 coquette about her which pleased him. 
 
 " I did not mean quite that," he went 
 on, not very well knowing what he meant. 
 
 She interrupted him. 
 
 ^*As a just judgment here comes Pa," 
 she said, hearing the parental steps ascend-
 
 76 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 iDg the stairs, and, as she ended, Captain 
 Bankers entered the room. 
 
 You saw at once he had been a soldier. 
 He was now the remnant of a handsome, 
 well-built man, carefully preserved and 
 brushed, rather dissipated of aspect, but 
 with something of the gentleman clinging 
 to him yet. His cheeks were unpleasantly 
 streaked with red, though they had not 
 yet arrived at the blotchy stage ; his eyes 
 were rather uncertain in their gaze, and 
 had a general watery appearance; his nose 
 assumed a pale, pinkish hue. His face 
 was closely shaven but for a heavy military 
 moustache which was dyed and waxed 
 with considerable care ; his hair, rigorously 
 parted at the back, was brushed with al- 
 most painful force over each ear. His 
 waist, however, was the captain's great 
 pride. It was slim as a boy's, and seemed 
 a pivot on which his body turned and
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 77 
 
 swayed with every gesture and movement ; 
 his coat, buttoned tightly and without a 
 crease over this part of his frame, sug- 
 gested the idea of a corset. His frock 
 coat, fastened high at the throat, was a 
 trifle threadbare and glassy about the 
 sleeves and elbows, and no vestige of shirt 
 was visible on the black horizon of his 
 breast. His tall hat had acquired an un- 
 naturally brilliant polish, as if it had been 
 carefully black leaded in the morning 
 along with the grate. His boots shone 
 like reflectors, and in one hand he dangled 
 a glove, from which all colour had long 
 since faded, with the grace that had some- 
 thing in it of an antique fop. He bowed 
 ceremoniously to Lord Harrick, raising his 
 hat in one hand with a gesture slightly 
 theatrical, whilst he arranged his hair with 
 the other. 
 
 *'Fear I am late, my lord/' he said^
 
 V8 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 laying down his hat and holding out his 
 hand a little timidly, as if he were not 
 quite certain Vv^hether it would be taken in 
 a responsive grasp or not. ''I have just 
 been giving some sword exercise lessons at 
 pupils' houses. Capri, my love, where are 
 the foils ?" 
 
 " In the corner," she answered, pointing 
 to the spot, but without offering to fetch 
 them. 
 
 Then, as Captain Bankers went for them, 
 she cast one look at Lord Harrick, half 
 comic, half sentimental, and, kissing her 
 finger tips to him, noiselessly slipped out 
 of the room. 
 
 He looked after her pleased, amused, 
 and half bewildered ; then smiled to him- 
 self. 
 
 "Ton my word, she is an awfully nice 
 girl ; I am sorry the captain has come in," 
 he said, mentally.
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 79 
 
 Then the two men took off their coats, 
 rolled up their sleeves to the elbows, put 
 on the gloves, and took up the foils. 
 
 "Now, my lord," said the captain, 
 falling into position at once, ** right 
 foot forward, right knee slightly bent; 
 that's it — rest on your left leg so — very 
 good." 
 
 Lord Harrick followed his instructions. 
 
 " Xow thrust at my right breast," said 
 the captain, preparing to defend himself 
 heroically against so cold-blooded an on- 
 slaught. "Strike harder. Bravo! Now 
 defend yourself," he continued. 
 
 The foils struck each other vigorously 
 for some moments, with a sharp, quick 
 sound, then they paused awhile for breath. 
 
 " This always reminds me of poor 
 Byron," said the captain, with an assump- 
 tion of tender melancholy, as if speaking 
 of some close friend. *' TThen we were
 
 80 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 stationed in Corsica, I fenced with him one 
 day for a wager, and lost." 
 
 '•'He fenced well?" 
 
 " I never saw a man handle the foils 
 more gracefully, and he was vain of the 
 accomplishment." 
 
 "And he boxed well, did he not ?" 
 
 "Yes ; but he got beaten by one of our 
 men, a stout Yorkshire fellow, whom he 
 rewarded with a bottle of brandy for beat- 
 ing him black and blue. After that he 
 never mentioned the subject before us 
 again." 
 
 They had rested by this time, so the 
 captain said, 
 
 " We will now try the quarter parade," 
 and the foils struck each other with some 
 force once more. Once Lord Harrick 
 suddenly lowered his foil, and, the cap- 
 tain's foil grazing his arm somewhat 
 roughly, blood appeared.
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 81 
 
 ''Damn it!" he said, hastily, smarting 
 from the slight pain. 
 
 " I am sorry," commenced the captain. 
 
 " Oh ! it's nothing ; it was my own 
 fault," he said, ashamed of his impatience, 
 and he took out his handkerchief to stop 
 the blood. 
 
 '' Stay, I will have it properly bound for 
 you," said Captain Bankers. 
 
 " Don't trouble, thanks." But the cap- 
 tain, not heeding him, had opened the door 
 and called out, 
 
 '^ Capri, Capri, come down, my love." 
 
 Captain Dankers invariably used terms 
 of endearment in addressing his daughter 
 before s transfers. 
 
 She came downstairs at once, and stood 
 in the doorway a moment with a look of 
 inquiry on her face, and then went over 
 to Lord Harrick. 
 
 " Are you wounded ?*' she said, with an 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 IT IS NO WONDEK. 
 
 expression more like amusement than 
 anxiety. 
 
 ''I am/' he said; '*but there is no 
 necessity to trouble you, Miss Capri." 
 
 '' But then you are bleeding. How 
 terrible !" she went on, in a tone that per- 
 plexed him; he could not tell whether she 
 was joking or in earnest. 
 
 " My dear, bring a basin of water and 
 some linen," said the captain. 
 
 She left the room, and in a moment re- 
 turned with some tepid water and a strip 
 of linen cloth. Then she dexterously 
 rolled his shirt-sleeve higher up, took off 
 the handkerchief which he had bound 
 round his arm, and commenced to bathe 
 the spot from which the blood yet con- 
 tinued to flow. 
 
 *' You are awfully good," he said, feehng 
 it very pleasant to have his arm taken hold 
 of by her soft, delicate fingers.
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 83 
 
 '* I think Nature intended me for a nurse," 
 she replied. '* A nurse on the battle-field, 
 you know, like Florence Nightingale, or a 
 Sister of Charity." 
 
 " I should like to be one of the lucky 
 
 soldiers who " 
 
 '' Who would get shot at in order that I 
 might attend him." 
 
 "Exactly, Miss Capri." 
 She looked round the room to see that 
 her father was not within earshot. 
 
 " I think I should scream if I saw you 
 shot, or stabbed, or anything dreadful that 
 way," she said, coyly. 
 '^ Would you really?" 
 '' You just try," she answered. 
 Sut Lord Harrick did not see the utility 
 of going so far to test her nerves. 
 
 It took some time to stay the blood that 
 would come to the surface of the skin 
 again and again, until the water in the 
 
 g2
 
 84 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 basin was crimson ; and all the while her 
 fingers, touching his arm lightly, and meet- 
 ing his fingers, sent a thrill of pleasure 
 through his veins. 
 
 When the blood was almost stayed she 
 bound his arm with a soft linen cloth. 
 The pleasant sensation kept tingling in 
 his veins every time she touched him in 
 fastening the bandage round. 
 
 He was sorry when the operation was 
 over. It was agreeable to have her face 
 so near his, that now and then, as she 
 bent down, her hair touched his cheek 
 softly, to have her plump little hands grasp- 
 ing his thick arm, to have her laughing 
 eyes looking into his half earnestly, half 
 quizzingly, yet with almost childlike 
 vivacity, and without a sowpqon of boldness 
 in their look. 
 
 '' Now," she said, when the tying was
 
 THE FENCING LESSON. 85 
 
 quite complete, " I have healed the wound- 
 ed ; is not that one of the corporal works 
 of mercy ?" 
 
 " I know from experience it is." 
 
 " Then I begin to feel quite heroic, and 
 to learn for the first time that I have not 
 lived in vain." 
 
 " Thank you very much," he said. 
 
 The captain coming over to them at 
 that moment, Capri took up the basin to 
 depart. 
 
 "I am sorry to have given you all 
 this trouble," he said, looking at her 
 steadily. 
 
 " It has given me something to do," 
 she replied, "and that is always a pleas- 
 ure," and, smiling frankly at him, she 
 departed. 
 
 *' Now, captain, let us continue." 
 
 " Very well ; we will get on to
 
 86 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 tierce ; let your thrusts be quick and 
 strong." 
 
 And once more the fencing lesson was 
 continued.
 
 87 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAECUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 
 
 MEANWHILE Newton Marrix and his 
 friend Marcus Phillips were travel- 
 ling toivards Kensington in the Under- 
 ground Railway, on their way to Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning's afternoon at home. 
 
 " How frightfully hot it is !" said the 
 painter. 
 
 " Yes, travelling in the Metropolitan in 
 summer is equal to taking a trip to Hades. 
 In one's flight underground one has all 
 the elements for dashing up an epic of
 
 88 IT IS NO WO.SLDER. 
 
 regions infernal : stifling heat, intense 
 darkness, odours of sulphur, and shrieks, 
 though the latter come from engines, and 
 not lost souls." 
 
 " Your imagination is vivid. New, my 
 boy, you begin to make me feel uncomfort- 
 able." 
 
 " N^othing like a good imagination com- 
 bined with common sense ; then it does 
 not run away with one and make life a 
 dream." 
 
 " To most of us it is a great reality." 
 
 ''It comes as one takes it, I find; to 
 some it is a very serious thing, to others a 
 great joke. One looks on it as a tragedy, 
 another as a farce ; but we are too hot 
 to trouble our heads about such things 
 now, old man, and here we have come to 
 our destination, the High Street, Kensing- 
 ton Station. There, that is rhyme, is it 
 not, ' destination and station ' ? I shall
 
 MARCOS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 89 
 
 discover some clay that I was born a 
 poet." 
 
 " And then you shall die one." 
 
 "Perhaps. Some Greek philosopher 
 says no man can say he has a happy life 
 nntil death comes. I will reverse that 
 piece of philosophy, and say no man 
 can say he has had a miserable exist- 
 ence until the end arrives. I may be- 
 come a poet and miserable ; for misery 
 is essential to a true poet so far as 
 I can judge. Ah, Marc, to die in the 
 odour of poetic sanctity I would give 
 up " 
 
 " Your ticket, sir," said the collector, as 
 they reached the top of the stairs leading 
 from the station. 
 
 '' There, that prosaic man has completed 
 my sentence. I can say no more." And 
 they passed out from the station into the 
 street towards Mrs. Stanning's house.
 
 90 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Mrs. Stonex StanniDg had by her ver- 
 satile talents gained a certain fame that 
 bade fair to exceed the limits of dilettante 
 circles. She had composed a song, " The 
 Blade of the Green Grass," which was 
 sung in many drawing-rooms during the 
 season, and at one or two fashionable con- 
 certs ; had written a volume of poems that 
 caused considerable attention in the liter- 
 ary world on account of their almost classic 
 purity, and to which the Athenceum devoted 
 a column and a half, whether in praise or 
 blame no man might say; had written a 
 societv novel in three volumes, of which 
 the Contemporary spoke well, and which 
 was largely demanded in the lending li- 
 braries, and ran through two editions in 
 twelve months ; had exhibited a water- 
 colour sketch in the Grosvenor Gallery, 
 which was hung beside Mr. Burne Jones's 
 picture of " The Golden Stair."
 
 MAECUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 91 
 
 Her talents were well-nigh as versatile 
 as Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt's ; she 
 might almost be called a genius, but, for- 
 tunately for herself, perhaps, she stopped 
 short upon the threshold of that mystic 
 porch which leads to supremacy over fellow- 
 beings or starvation, fame or a garret. 
 
 Her name was inseparably connected 
 with art in all its branches. Her home 
 was the rendezvous of all young actors, 
 authors, artists, and musicians. Her word 
 carried weight in all matters of vital im- 
 portance in Eestheticism, such as the con- 
 trast of certain shades, the arrangement 
 of a fold of drapery, the tone of a picture, 
 the sufi6ciency or insufficiency of grace in 
 a pose, the harmony or discord necessary 
 in a symphony. Her opinion was an 
 authority which was never questioned, and 
 ever scrupulously respected. 
 
 She was a young and wealthy widow,
 
 92 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 who could afford to indulge her fancies 
 much as she pleased, and enjoy that un- 
 trammelled liberty which only a widow 
 can command. Moreover, Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning was beautiful. Her complexion 
 was clear and fair ; her eyes, large, grey, 
 and tender, had a yearning, almost spiritual 
 expression in their depths ; her lips were 
 most delicately shaped, the upper one 
 short ; her chin slightly protruded ; her 
 well-shaped forehead was crowned with a 
 wealth of brown hair of a warm shade, 
 like the colour of an autumn leaf. She 
 looked about twenty- three years old, her 
 actual age numbered four summers more. 
 Her face was singularly handsome, not 
 so much from form or colour as from 
 expression. It was her mind's mirror, 
 not her soul's mask. It had great gentle- 
 ness of repose, and often the sadness 
 which deep thought imparts. In conver-
 
 MAROUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 98 
 
 sation it reflected every varying tliouglnt 
 and humour that crossed her mind, as 
 seas reflect the yellow sunlight and purple 
 shadows of the skies. 
 
 The gossips of society wondered among 
 themselves who was to have the honour of 
 sharing her hand and heart, and many a 
 Bohemian looked into her calm grey eyes 
 for some encouraging glance, for some 
 ray of dawning love-light, and looked, 
 alas ! in vain. 
 
 Lady Everfair and society at large were 
 much concerned reo^ardino- Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning's choice of a second husband. 
 Next to the news of an approaching 
 divorce, Lady Everfair delighted most in 
 the tiding^s of a marriao^e, 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning was too young, 
 and fair, and wealthy to go through life 
 without a protector, society said, as if 
 husbands were a kind of Ulster coat to
 
 94 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 wrap young women in against the storms 
 of the world. A year ago it was whis- 
 pered in every drawing-room that a certain 
 marquis, who had had two wives, and who 
 wears a wig and takes snuff, had offered 
 to raise her to the peerage, an honour she 
 had promptly declined. It was well 
 known too that Falmore Eastwing, the 
 famous English baritone, had sent her a 
 proposal secreted in a bouquet, and all the 
 world could tell that honest John Gray- 
 worth, who was madl}^ in love with her, 
 asked her to marry him, and on being 
 refused had left England and gone to 
 Palestine, where he studied religious art 
 and painted his last famous picture. 
 
 If Mrs. Stonex Stanning's heart was 
 ever touched, she made no sign or motion 
 which the outer world, ever carefully on 
 the watch, could discover. Society indeed 
 thought it was very doubtful if she had
 
 MAECUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 95 
 
 ever loved, ever been stirred and tempest- 
 tost by a great passion. 
 
 Mr. Stonex Stanning, when he married 
 her, was more than twenty years her 
 senior. She was eighteen, he was forty. 
 She was the daughter of an unsuccessful 
 artist who had married for love, poor fel- 
 low. brouo;ht tliree dausfhters into the 
 world to half starve and harass themselves 
 throughout the brightest days of their 
 young years. 
 
 Felice was the vouno-est, and with her 
 ]\Ir. Stonex Stanning, a successful financier 
 of great wealtli and some culture, fell in 
 'love. The young girl, who had learned 
 the benefit of gold by lacking it all her 
 life, and who had but too wide an experi- 
 ence of the straits and shifts of shabby 
 gentility, and the recourses to which the 
 want of a sovereign or two will reduce a 
 household, and knew the bitterness of that
 
 96 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 humility pill wliicli hard circumstances 
 will force down the throats of the bravest, 
 sensibly accepted her wealthy suitor, and 
 showed him so much gratitude that he 
 mistook it for love to his death day, and 
 was all the happier for his illusion. 
 
 They lived for six years without a hasty 
 or unkind word passing between them, 
 which is very much in married life. Felice 
 Avas surrounded by all the luxuries that 
 wealth could purchase or taste suggest. 
 She had introduced her sisters into society, 
 and they in return paid her the compliment, 
 and did themselves the justice of marrying 
 well. The world went well with her ; she 
 made an exemplary wife, and, when her 
 husband died, he showed his appreciation 
 for her in the most sterling way by leaving 
 her an income of a clear six thousand a 
 year. 
 
 During the three years of her widow-
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 97 
 
 hood, lovers had come and gone at her 
 bidding. She was yet free. 
 
 Society grew impatient and tired of 
 speculating as to whether she would again 
 enter the holy bonds of matrimony. It 
 believed her previous experience of that 
 state had been sufficiently fortunate and 
 happy to warrant her risking a second 
 venture in that most uncertain of all lot- 
 teries. 
 
 But Mrs. Stonex Stanning considered 
 liberty a boon, and she had as yet seen no 
 man for whom she would forfeit it, or with 
 whom she could walk hand-in-hand through 
 all her future days. 
 
 Her home in Kensington was a pleasant 
 retreat, and her weekly five o'clock teas 
 wxre social reunions to be long remember- 
 ed. Her drawing-room was long and nar- 
 row ; through the bay-window at either 
 end a pleasant vista of flower-beds, smooth 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 cut grass, and foliage was to be seen; 
 within the room a bewildering yet grateful 
 view of all things artistic and beautiful 
 met the sight. In the centre, a grand, 
 square piano stood ; on the up-raised cover 
 was a picture painted on a golden back- 
 ground, of Alcestis, rising weird and fair 
 from Hades, with the light of a great hope 
 in her eyes, and the lustre of a new dawn 
 gleaming on her fair spiritual face. 
 
 Chairs of every period and design, from 
 the gilt-back, crimson-satined gim-crack 
 of to-day to the massive Elizabethean, rich 
 in figured velvet and carved oak, were 
 scattered about. Pictures of all kinds and 
 sizes, not one corresponding in design or 
 shape with the other, covered the walls 
 except where the brackets rested ; a water- 
 colour sketch beside a chalk study by 
 Landseer, an old Florentine engraving 
 next a modern chromograph, an etching
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 99 
 
 of Charles Meryons beside a painting in 
 oils by Ettje, a pencil sketch by Hogarth 
 close by an early English print. Many of 
 the pictures were the gifts of their painters, 
 all of them had some interest connected 
 with them. Carved naiads, the work of a 
 famous artist in wood, supported brackets 
 on which antique vases were set, each one 
 of which had an historical legend of its 
 own. Altogether, the room had a most 
 artistic effect, the ensemble was considered 
 delightful. 
 
 When Marcus Phillips and his friend 
 arrived it was full of people, not one of 
 whom the artist knew. jSTewton Marrix, 
 on the contrary, seemed acquainted with 
 everyone, shook hands, and nodded, and 
 smiled with easy familiarity as he pushed 
 his way through the crowd. 
 
 '• Come along, Marc," he whispered, 
 ''there is our hostess, in pale yellow, 
 
 H 2
 
 100 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 talking to that tall man over there. His 
 name is Mr. Freake." 
 
 The tall man had piercing grej eyes 
 and long, yellow hair, and stooped a little. 
 He was a personal friend of Mr. John Rus- 
 kin, and as such was a high authority on 
 art, whose words were usually treasured by 
 admiring young ladies who thought they 
 painted, and who, after listening to Mr. 
 Freake's discourse on art, went away bear- 
 ing in their breasts the conviction that they 
 were likewise authorities in themselves, 
 only separated from the great art-critic by 
 the thin wall which Mr. Freake represented. 
 
 When the disciple of art delivered him- 
 self of his ideas, he frowned so terribly 
 and spoke so dogmatically that even the 
 most advanced of the vouns: ladies never 
 dreamt of contradicting him. He had 
 commenced life by taking very serious 
 views of it, and thinking, as he believed,
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 101 
 
 of the grave responsibilities of existence. 
 His thoughts indeed were so heavy as to 
 render him so likewise ; he was very much 
 in earnest concerninor all thinors. 
 
 Young men often set out in life with 
 such views, as others of another class 
 launch out into verses that overflow their 
 friends' albums, and plague their mistresses 
 by most pathetic appeals to their hearts or 
 sonnets to their eyebrows. These are 
 stages through which they graduate, just 
 as children pass through whooping-cough 
 and measles. 
 
 When Newton Marrix approached Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning she held out her hand to 
 him very cordially. 
 
 " Allow me," said the author, " to intro- 
 duce a friend of mine, Mr. Marcus Phillips, 
 artist, at your service." 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning smiled and bowed 
 gracefully.
 
 102 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ''Do you exhibit, Mr. Phillips?" she 
 asked, opening a handsomely painted fan 
 covered with quaint Egyptian figures 
 worshipping at the shrine of Osiris. 
 
 " I have not yet been fortunate enough 
 to please the hanging committee at Bur- 
 lington House," he answered. 
 
 "Which is almost a merit," said Mr. 
 Freake, who never waited for an introduc- 
 tion, or indeed thought one necessary when 
 he wished to speak to men and women. 
 *' Paint for art's sake," he continued, " not 
 for the mere sake of exhibiting, not for a 
 popularity, which means degradation in 
 these days, not for the sake of having your 
 name on men's lips ; paint for all that is 
 divine and true in your vocation." 
 
 As Mr. Freake concluded he looked se- 
 riously into Marcus Phillips' eyes, and then 
 sighed. 
 
 " At present I paint pot-boilers for the
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 103 
 
 sake of the dealers," said tlie painter, pro- 
 saically, •'! have not yet time to think of 
 the ends to which art tends." 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning gave him a sharp, 
 sudden look. She was quick to read men's 
 minds. 
 
 '' But what he calls pot-boilers, are really 
 gems," said Newton Marrix. 
 
 " Or seem so to the enthusiastic criticism 
 of a friend," said Marcus. 
 
 " His last canvas, a little sea-bit, is 
 charming," said the author to his hostess. 
 
 *' It is most dijB&cult to paint the sea," said 
 Mr. Freake, turning his eyes on the artist's 
 face once more as if to look him throuo^h 
 and through. " The sea is a special study 
 in itself, not merely a back or foreground 
 for a wide stretch of green or blue space 
 on which to place a yellow-sailed boat. 
 The sea is an inspired element, in turn it 
 should inspire the true artist."
 
 104 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ^'Nature should always do that," put in 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning. 
 
 ** Yes, but especially the sea," responded 
 Mr. Freake. *' The sight of it even on 
 canvas always fills me with a sense of 
 liberty and freshness, if it is well- paint- 
 ed ; but I have seen sea-bits like strips of 
 blue glazed calico, which look much less 
 like the real thing than a gilt paste-board 
 crown does to a royal coronet. Give me the 
 seas Claude painted," Mr. Freake said, and 
 when he had finished he ran his long fin- 
 gers through his auburn hair, and gazed 
 before him as if he were addressing some 
 invisible individuals. 
 
 " Canaletto's seas are all beautiful too," 
 said Mrs. Stonex Stanning, looking at the 
 art-critic. 
 
 '* He was untrue to Nature," replied Mr. 
 Freake, shaking his head sadly. 
 
 *' And Nature is ever so beautiful, it
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 105 
 
 seems a sin to rob her of her due," said the 
 painter, " I find I can never do her suffici- 
 ent justice." 
 
 "Who can?" asked Mrs. Stonex Stan- 
 ning, examining the figures prostrate be- 
 fore Osiris ; then she raised her grey eyes 
 and continued, '' What more fair and love- 
 ly sight does all the world contain than a 
 ray of sunlight on a lily leaf ?" 
 
 Mr. Freake clasped his hands and smil- 
 ed delightedly. 
 
 "None!" he exclaimed, ''none; a violet 
 in a hedge-row holds a glimpse of heaven 
 for us. Why cannot we have towns now," 
 he went on, as some disconnected thought 
 struck him, *' as the early Florentines had, 
 with garden strips and trees between each 
 house, with here and there wide spaces 
 where men miofht behold clear skies and 
 pure." 
 
 "But just think," said Newton Marrix,
 
 106 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 in a most commonplace manner, ^' over 
 what a space London would necessarily be 
 stretched in that case ; it would take us as 
 many hours then to get from place to place 
 as it does minutes now." 
 
 "But is time our only object?" 
 
 ''It is a great object to most people. 
 Now-a-days we hurry from week to week, 
 and from month to month, breathless 
 through all our days." 
 
 *' Is this wise and well ?" said Mr. Freake, 
 in a pathetic tone. 
 
 *' It may not be, but it is a necessity." 
 
 " Alas ! we grow more and more like 
 soulless machines." 
 
 " Not while art remains to us," said Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning. 
 
 " Mr. Phillips is painting a study which 
 he calls the 'Beggar Maid/" said Newton 
 Marrix, when Mr. Freake had wandered in 
 a hopeless way down the room, and stood
 
 . MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 107 
 
 finally before one of Charles Meyrons' etch- 
 ings of old Paris. *' I wish you could see 
 the picture." 
 
 " Perhaps Mr, Phillips will let me some 
 day." 
 
 ''I shall be delighted," said the artist, 
 blushing and stammering, for he wondered 
 if his hostess would very much mind 
 climbing up four pair of stairs to his attic 
 studio. 
 
 As Mrs, Stonex Stanning spoke, she saw 
 that a child of genius had just entered the 
 room. This was Lucius Martyn, the poet. 
 Nature had certainly endowed him richly, 
 even if the Muses had not, as some of his 
 friends hinted. He was tall and lithe, his 
 face was handsome, yet pale and wasted. 
 He wore a velvet coat and ruffles. 
 
 He was a protege of Mrs. Stonex Stan- 
 ning's, to whom his last volume, " The 
 Death of Dear Days," was dedicated. The
 
 108 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 book had produced a sensation in the 
 iBsthetic circles, and caused attention of a 
 certain kind in the literary world. He 
 was certainly a genius, stranded, perhaps, 
 on the sands of a fashionable morbidness, 
 but one who would come all right in a 
 decade of time. 
 
 "Ah! Mr. Martyn," said Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning, when the poet approached her 
 slowly, for he never was guilty of a quick, 
 ungraceful movement in his life. " We 
 have just been having a discussion on 
 pictures. This is a young artist, Mr. 
 Marcus Phillips, who is painting the 
 ' Beggar Maid.' I am going to see his 
 studio some day." 
 
 The poet bowed. A faint smile crossed 
 his wasted face. 
 
 *'I should like to share the pleasure of 
 your visit," he said.
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 109 
 
 "I will be liappj to see yon," replied 
 Marcus. 
 
 '' Poets," said Mr. Freake, who rejoined 
 the little group at that moment, ''are not 
 always the best critics of pictures. Too 
 often their imaginations run riot with their 
 judgments. Some item, let us say a ruddy 
 leaf in a landscape, or a moss-grown bough 
 by the pathway, or a wild flower hid among 
 the grass in the foreground, produces in 
 their minds an illusion which they are in- 
 capable of subduing, but which gives to 
 the painting they criticise an undeserved 
 value which overlooks grave faults and 
 inharmonious blemishes it may possibly 
 contain." 
 
 This speech was not at all apropos^ but 
 Mr. Freake never took such matters into 
 consideration for a moment. He always 
 expressed the thoughts which came to his
 
 110 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 mind, it was quite immaterial whether the 
 subject was suitable or not. Anything he 
 had to say at any time was always worth 
 hearing, he considered. 
 
 '' We are children of emotion," said 
 Lucius Martyn, in reply to Mr. Freake's 
 remark. 
 
 " And so, in judging a picture, attribute 
 your own feelings to the artist's inspira- 
 tion, which is a total mistake." 
 
 "Perhaps," said the poet, a little wearily. 
 
 "And painters seldom have poets for 
 critics," Marcus Phillips remarked. 
 
 "Nor have we novelists either," said 
 Newton Marrix. " Oar reviewers are the 
 dry bones of the profession — men who 
 have magnificent pasts before them, as 
 Heinrich Heine once said, and who consider 
 it their duty to sacrifice young authors as 
 holocausts upon the altars of their ven- 
 geance."
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. Ill 
 
 " I never read reviews," said the poet. 
 ^' What does it matter what the outside 
 world thinks of one's work ? It cannot 
 understand it. When mv friends, fulfil- 
 ling their true office, tell me of unpleasant 
 things which the press has said, I always 
 think of poor Walter Savage Landor's words, 
 ' The worms must have eaten us before it 
 is rightly known what we are. It is only 
 when we are skeletons that we are boxed 
 and ticketed, and prized and shown.' '' 
 
 *' How well and truly said !" replied 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning. 
 
 *' Yes," said Lucius Martyn ; " it has the 
 sad, sweet beauty of decay in its lines." 
 
 He had raised both hands in speaking, 
 and then let them drop suddenly, with a 
 gesture expressive of utter abandonment 
 and weariness. 
 
 Just then Miss Raven, the violinist, 
 came up to Mrs. Stonex Stanning.
 
 112 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " I have just been having my music- 
 lesson," she said, '' and then I came in to 
 you for some tea." 
 
 She was a fair-faced girl, with hair of 
 dead gold, and eyes that were bright 
 from the exuberance of youth and joy- 
 ousness. 
 
 " I am so glad you did," replied the 
 hostess ; " and how has your lesson pro- 
 gressed ?" 
 
 " Oh, very well ; I have just been going 
 over Chopin's funeral march ; it is very 
 delightful. Ah, how do you do, Mr. 
 Marrix ?" she continued, recognising the 
 young author. 
 
 *' Where have you left your violin ?" he 
 asked — " your soul, you used to call it." 
 
 ^^n the hall." 
 
 " May I bring it up by-and-by ? If you 
 are not too tired, perhaps you will play us 
 something."
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 113 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning looked at lier 
 entreatiDglj and smiled. 
 
 " Yes, I shall ; I will play your favourite 
 movement from Pacini," she said, turning 
 to her hostess. '' Did I tell you I am 
 going to play at one of the dilettante circle 
 concerts? You will all come and hear 
 me, of course ?" 
 
 " Of course," they answered in chorus. 
 
 The drawing-room had grown more 
 crowded ; some one had sat down to the 
 piano, and was playing the '* Qui Tollis " 
 from Mozart's Twelfth Mass, and several 
 notables had come into the room. Eccinia, 
 the Greek conspirator, who wore a crimson 
 velvet skull-cap crowning his long blue- 
 black locks, had entered with old Lady 
 Snarebrook, around whom gossip threw a 
 halo of interest and faded romance from 
 the fact of her knowing Louis Philippe, 
 " not wisely, but too well," as Lady Ever- 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 fair whispered. The Dowager Lady Snare- 
 brook was yet a handsome and dignified 
 old woman. Nature had done much for 
 her, and where the kindly mother stopped 
 art took up the work. 
 
 Count Basano had come too, for Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning loved foreigners. He 
 was an old Eoman noble, with a merry 
 twinkle in his dark eyes ; he bowed with 
 the grace of a past generation, and invari- 
 ably carried a pinchbeck snuff-box, pre- 
 sented him by Pio Nono ; he wore a faded 
 velvet coat with the air of a senator's toga. 
 He was a connoisseur in all things relating 
 to art, and from his general air of decay 
 and age might have been mistaken for an 
 object of virtu. 
 
 A fashionable authoress and editoress 
 was present, and one or two young actors 
 of the new school, the priijia donna of 
 English ballad-singers, and a dramatic
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 115 
 
 reader. It was altogether a goodly group, 
 and decidedly picturesque. 
 
 As it was the first West End " at borne " 
 Marcus Phillips assisted at, he was de- 
 lighted to look upon so many celebrities, 
 and charmed with all of them. 
 
 "What a noble head that Greek has!" 
 said Marcus Phillips to the poet. " I 
 should like to paint him. You would re- 
 cognize his nationality in any crowd." 
 
 " Probably," replied Lucius Martyn, 
 wearily. 
 
 He had sunk into a low chair in an 
 attitude of languor, and passed his hand 
 across his brow as if seeking to rouse him- 
 self from a dream. 
 
 " Are you not well ?" said the painter. 
 
 " Well ! How can anyone, possessing 
 as I do the nervous and artistic tempera- 
 ment, be well, while the world lies aweary." 
 
 "What is the matter with him and the 
 
 i2
 
 116 IT IS NO WONDEE. 
 
 world now, I wonder ?" thought the artist, 
 but he discreetly held his peace. 
 
 " I am sick of the bitterness of things 
 too sweet," said the poet, presently; an 
 absent, flickering smile played upon his 
 pale face, his eyes fixed themselves in 
 dreamy vacancy. 
 
 ^' I am sorry," said Marcus, sympathetic- 
 ally, not very well knowing what else to 
 say, and beginning to think, from all he 
 heard during the afternoon, that the world 
 was wrong, and certainly in a bad way. 
 
 '' I am glad that you are sorry," said 
 Lucius Martyn, in a desponding tone, 
 "though I do not know why you should 
 be ; but I rejoice, because sorrow mellows 
 the heart, and subdues the juvenescence 
 of youth, as time softens and harmonises 
 the glaring colours in a fresh canvas." 
 
 " But don't you think it a pity the fresh- 
 ness of youth should go ?" asked Marcus
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 117 
 
 Phillips, wondering still more at what he 
 heard. 
 
 " Certainly not. If one but thinks deep- 
 ly on life, no freshness can remain to the 
 thinker. Freshness is but ignorance. Hap- 
 piness comes from the inexperience of life." 
 
 The poet sighed very sadly indeed, and 
 laid his head back on the soft cushions of 
 the chair with languid grace. 
 
 *' Who is that foreign-looking old man ?" 
 asked Miss Eaven of her hostess, both of 
 whom were now at the far end of the 
 room. 
 
 " That is a dear old friend of mine, 
 Count Basano." 
 
 " Ah ! he is dressed so badly, I thought 
 he must be some one in particular. How 
 he talks and gesticulates ! He looks to 
 me all hands and eyes." 
 
 *' He is the last representative of an old 
 line."
 
 118 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 *' He looks ancient enough for the 
 purpose." 
 
 " Come over until I introduce you. He 
 is a great musical critic. I am sure you 
 will be delighted with the old man." 
 
 **I£ so, I hope the delight may be 
 mutual." 
 
 *' Can you doubt it for an instant ?" 
 
 And the ladies went up and spoke to 
 Count Basano. 
 
 '' Shall we go, Marc ?" said Newton 
 Marrix, joining his friend just then. "• Let 
 us get away, and have a long walk and a 
 smoke, and come home in the gloaming." 
 
 " Wait a moment, old man. Miss Raven 
 has just taken up the violin ; don't let us 
 go yet. See, who is that playing the piano 
 accompaniment ?" 
 
 " That is Hal Vector ; a very good fel- 
 low. You must know him ; a genius, too. 
 We are all geniuses here, Marc. You
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 119 
 
 breathe the atmosphere of the gods." 
 
 '' Listen," said the artist, interrupting 
 his friend's flow of eloquence, and looking 
 down the crowded room to where the 
 young violinist stood. 
 
 The first notes of Pacini's weird, sweet 
 music sounded through the room ; the 
 great hum ceased suddenly, all heads turn- 
 ed to w^here Miss Eaven stood by the 
 great, square piano, on w^hose upraised 
 lid the picture of Alcestis rising from the 
 shadows of Hades glowed in gorgeous 
 colours. 
 
 When the music ceased, there was a 
 faint clapping of hands, and a general out- 
 burst of admiration. Count Basano ran 
 over to Miss Eaven, and whispered some- 
 thing to her. She smiled, nodded, and 
 took up the violin once more. Then she 
 commenced Chopin's "Ave Maria." 
 
 Clear, full, and sweet the notes rang
 
 /• 
 
 120 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 above the heads of the listeners ; then 
 came a few wild, plaintive chords like the 
 cry of a soul in darkness for help and 
 light ; there was no sound or movement in 
 the room, the notes rose and fell with a 
 wondrous charm, a spell had fallen on 
 all; then the amen came like a fare- 
 well prayer, and the last chords trembled 
 into breathless silence. 
 
 " Ah ! brava," Count Basano called out, 
 
 "bella, bellisima; brava, signora mia," 
 
 A 
 and," going up to Miss Raven, he took hold 
 
 of her hand and kissed it with the air of a 
 
 courtier. 
 
 **Itis divine," murmured Lucius Mar- 
 tyn, from his low chair. '* It is the breath- 
 ing of a soul new-born, and all lovely in 
 its nudity," and he closed his eyes and 
 sighed heavily. 
 
 Marcus Phillips looked at him with 
 sympathy ; there was something in the
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 121 
 
 poet which, in spite of his languor, inter- 
 ested the artist much. 
 
 '* I think we had better go now, Marc," 
 said !N^ewton Marrix, once more ; " it's 
 getting so decidedly hot." 
 
 The two friends made their way slowly 
 through the room until they came to 
 where Mrs. Stonex Stanning stood. 
 
 '' We are going," said Newton- 
 
 " Must you really go so soon ?" 
 
 ^' I fear we must." 
 
 '^ I am always at home on Thursdays 
 through the season, Mr. Phillips." 
 
 " And what day may 1 hope for the 
 pleasure of your visit to my studio ?" 
 
 '' Oh ! let me see — say Saturday after- 
 noon ; will that be convenient ?" 
 
 " Thanks, quite convenient." 
 
 The hostess reached out her hand, and 
 gave one brief glance into his eyes ; then 
 they passed on.
 
 122 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 When the door of Mrs. Stonex Stan- 
 ning's house closed upon them, New- 
 ton Marrix took his friend's arm, and 
 said, 
 
 " I congratulate you, old man ; this is a 
 red-letter day in your life." 
 
 " How so ?" 
 
 " VYhy, because Mrs. Stonex Stanning 
 has promised to come and see your pictures, 
 of course." 
 
 " It's very kind of her." 
 
 *'It's a piece of luck many a young 
 artist would give a year of his life for. If 
 she likes them, and mentions them to her 
 friends, and perhaps gets one of them 
 exhibited at some gallery, you may bid 
 good-bye to your pot-boilers for ever and 
 a day. She is the patron saint of all 
 young artists ; her father was a painter — 
 I may add an unsuccessful one — and she
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 123 
 
 understands all about the craft and the 
 drudgery of its ways." 
 
 "She is very kind, I am sure," replied 
 Marcus, and then he thought once more of 
 the four flights of stairs to be mounted 
 before the attic studio could be reached ; 
 and then the memory of its general bare- 
 ness came on him unpleasantly. 
 
 "Will you come on Saturday, New, 
 and help me to make all things square 
 before Mrs. Stonex Stanning comes ?" 
 
 " All right, I will," replied the rising 
 author. "We shall both do the honours, 
 then. I hail Saturday as an auspicious 
 day in your career ; we shall have a burnt 
 offerino^ of cio^ars to invoke the favour of 
 the gods. Try a weed, old man." 
 
 They smoked in silence for some time, 
 walking down the old Kensington Road in 
 the gathering twilight of this soft April
 
 124 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 evening, Marcus Phillips with his head 
 raised watching the purple shadows steal- 
 ing across the sky, drinking ii\ pleasure 
 from the freshness of the budding trees 
 and the sense of early spring that came to 
 him in the soft, fragrant air, Newton Mar- 
 rick with his eyes down, thinking out the 
 plot of a novel on which he had been 
 working for six consecutive hours that 
 day. 
 
 "Well, Marc," he said at last, " what do 
 you think of Mrs. Stonex Stanning's at 
 home ?" 
 
 " I enjoyed it much. There were sev- 
 eral faces there that interested me. I do 
 not know. New, if you study physiognomy. 
 I have all my life, not theoretically, you 
 know, but naturally," replied the artist. 
 
 'indeed 
 
 ' His only books 
 "Were women's looks, 
 And foUj is all they taught him.' "
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 125 
 
 *^ No, I don't mean women's looks in 
 particular, and not at all in the sense you 
 mean. But I know of notbinor more in- 
 teresting than to watch the faces of peo- 
 ple, it always gives you the index to their 
 true personality. Words may deceive you, 
 but faces never." 
 
 '' Ah ! my boy, there are some people 
 who go about through life with masks, 
 painted masks no more like their true 
 faces than heaven to Hades." 
 
 " That may be, yet the mask must and 
 does slip off occasionally, and when we 
 catch but a glimpse of the real face we are 
 startled into recognition of it by the con- 
 trast it presents to its covering." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right; but again, 
 there are some people with features as 
 impenetrable as those of a sphinx, hard 
 and cold as a piece of grey stone." 
 
 "Even so they do not cease to be repre-
 
 126 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 sentatives of characters and minds. To 
 ray thinking every face is a book. Some are 
 not worth reading, others are poems full of 
 a heart-sweet melody, others sad and full 
 of yearnings they can scarcely express or 
 understand, others are fraught with violent 
 passions or full of a miserable story. 
 Some have their life-histories printed in 
 large, clear type so that all who look may 
 read ; with others it is written in a lan- 
 guage that few can understand, and takes 
 time and patience to study. I being an 
 artist am quick to feel and see these 
 things. A sudden glance, the turn of an 
 eye, an expression come and gone in a 
 second serves me as an index and synopsis 
 to the whole volume." 
 
 " Are you never misled?" 
 
 " I have never been yet. I suppose it 
 is a gift I have of translating expressions 
 as some have the gift of languages."
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTEES SOCIETY. 127 
 
 " I must say," said the author, " I have 
 never minded visages much. I find that 
 a handsome face is always pleasant to look 
 at of course." 
 
 " There I cannot agree with you, if you 
 mean by a handsome face perfect features ; 
 on the other hand, I have seen the plainest 
 faces become perfectly lovely under the 
 influence of certain feelings. The beauty of 
 a face all depends on the reflection of the 
 mind. Had you watched Count Basano's 
 face this evening whilst he listened to the 
 * Ave Maria,' you would better understand 
 my meaning ; every chord gave it a fresh 
 meaning, each beautiful, with a childlike 
 simplicity and full of emotion. Take 
 another face we know, Capri Bankers', her 
 expression is never the same for three con- 
 secutive minutes. That is what makes it 
 so difficult to paint. I no sooner strive to 
 catch one expression than it is gone before
 
 128 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 I look up from the canvas again, merged 
 into another and different look as thoughts 
 blend one with the other in unconscious 
 harmony. But a face which interested me 
 much this evening was " 
 
 " Mrs. Stonex Stanning's ?" 
 
 " No, Lucius Martyn's. There is a story 
 under that cover which it will take time to 
 read." 
 
 " He is a good sort, I daresay," answered 
 Newton Marrix, carelessly, '' but he always 
 seems to me as if he were playing a part ; 
 he poses on the stage of society. Ever 
 ready for his role, and never forgetting for 
 a moment that the eyes of an audience are 
 upon him. There is too much art about 
 him, yet it has become to him almost nature. 
 He does not know, I'll swear, when he is his 
 real self, and when he is but the person- 
 ation of some ideal to whom he strives to 
 live up»"
 
 MARCUS PHILLirS ENTERS SOCIETY. 129 
 
 " Do you remember what Eabian de 
 Franci says in the ' Corsican Brothers ' ?" 
 asked the artist falling into an Irving-like 
 attitude, and raising his right arm he let it 
 fall suddenly and stiffly. '' ' What you in 
 cities gain in art, you lose in nature ' " 
 
 '' Lucius Martyn has." 
 
 "Do you know, Xew, what he meant by 
 saying he was ' sick of the bitterness of 
 things too sweet '?" 
 
 " It's some set phrase meaning nothing 
 in particular." 
 
 "When I expressed sympathy for his 
 sad state he declared he was glad I was 
 sorry. I like him somehow, though I do 
 not quite understand him." 
 
 ''My dear boy, these are set phrases made 
 up and rehearsed weeks before with corre- 
 sponding expressions and attitudes prac- 
 tised before a glass." 
 
 " No, you must not say that," replied the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 author. " You take away the flavour and 
 freshness with one fell blow." 
 
 ^' Do I ? Oh, you will soon get enough 
 of that. You will hear the same words and 
 phrases used again and again on every 
 available occasion until you feel that it be- 
 gins to pall." 
 
 *' Yet it amuses one while it is fresh." 
 
 " His phrases are very much like his 
 book, and that was awful rubbish ; each 
 page a little island of letter-press in a wide 
 sea of toned paper. Didn't the reviews 
 rub their hands in glee over the opportun- 
 itv it 2:ave them of hacking: him to 
 pieces ?" 
 
 Evidently the poet's misfortune was a 
 cause of enjoyment to Newton Marrix, who 
 laughed agreeably as he finished the last 
 sentence. 
 
 ** He is an awfully good fellow, you
 
 MARCUS PHILLIPS ENTERS SOCIETY. 131 
 
 know," he said, presently, " an awfully good 
 fellow, but a great idiot." 
 
 And taking out another cigar he lit it 
 and smoked in peace. 
 
 k2
 
 132 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE. 
 
 rpHE day appointed for Mrs. Stonex 
 -*- Stanning's promised visit to Marcus 
 Phillips' studio came at last. The young 
 artist counted the days : Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning and her friend would be the first 
 visitors who honoured his studio with what 
 he might call a private view. 
 
 ."N^ewton Marrix arrived early on that 
 Saturday afternoon to help his friend " to 
 do the honours," as he said, in his attic 
 studio.
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 133 
 
 " Now tlien, Marc," said the practical 
 young author, as he entered the painting- 
 room, " let us see what is to be done," and 
 immediately he divested himself of his coat 
 as a preparation for labour, flung it on a 
 chair, and put his hat on top of it. Then 
 he folded his arms and gave a sharp, quick 
 glance round the room. 
 
 " I will clear away all these palettes and 
 paint-pots in a second or two," said the 
 artist, looking down at the mess which 
 surrounded him ; for he had been working 
 -at the " Beggar Maid " picture until his 
 friend came. 
 
 " It is almost time for you to have 
 finished, old man, they may come early." 
 
 " We must place the ^ Beggar Maid ' in 
 the best light," said Marcus, waving a 
 brush which he held in his right hand in 
 ihe air. 
 
 " Here she is in her own proper person,''
 
 134 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 said Capri, who had come up the stairs 
 three steps at a time, and dow stood like a 
 picture framed by the doorway. A flush 
 brightened her cheeks, her dark eyes 
 sparkled with animation, her black hair, 
 with its shade of dusky gold, crowned a 
 face that an early Greek sculptor might 
 have given to a goddess. 
 
 " Here I am, Marc, and I have come to 
 help you to clear up the studio before the 
 visitors arrive. A woman's eye can work 
 wonders sometimes, Mr. Marrix." 
 
 She had heard from the artist that Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning and Lucius Marty n were 
 to come and view the " Beggar Maid " 
 picture. 
 
 " Certainly a woman's eye can do more 
 work than two men's hands," said the 
 author. 
 
 " It is very good of you to come," said 
 Marcus Phillips, his face lighting up with
 
 THE BEGGAR MATd's PICTURE. 135 
 
 pleasure at sight of her; then he looked 
 from her back to the canvas. 
 
 He had succeeded in painting almost a 
 perfect portrait, yet there was a subtle 
 look in her face which escaped him ; he saw 
 this, and sighed impatiently. 
 
 " I cannot paint you as you really are," 
 he said, regretfully, touching the picture 
 lightly with his brush. 
 
 '* You are ungrateful to your muse," she 
 answered him. " I am satisfied with it, 
 and, when my woman's vanity is appeased, 
 it should be the best criterion that your 
 work is genuinely good." 
 
 She came over and stood beside the 
 artist. He looked into her face and 
 smiled. 
 
 ** You are right, Capri," he said. 
 
 "It's the best thing by a long way you 
 have ever painted, old man," said Newton. 
 Marrix; "but you are too much of the
 
 136 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 true artist ever to feel satisfied with your 
 work." And, so saying, the author came 
 over to where Marcus Phillips and his 
 model stood, and all three stared in silence 
 at the picture for some time. 
 
 Capri was the first to speak. 
 
 " I wonder what I shall think of it in 
 forty years to come ?" she said. " It is 
 my living, breathing self now. Perhaps 
 then I shall put as much paint on my 
 cheeks as there is now on the canvas, and 
 sigh for the youth I have left behind with 
 as much regret as I feel impatience with 
 it now." And she laughed merrily, show- 
 ing her even rows of white teeth. For an 
 instant a serious look came into her dark, 
 liquid eyes. 
 
 " Why trouble about the future ?" said 
 Newton. 
 
 " Just so," answered Capri. " Adieu to 
 moralizing. Let us commence to work."
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 137 
 
 " "What shall we do?" said the author, in 
 shirt sleeves. " Command your most 
 humble subjects, Queen Cophetua." 
 
 '' "Will you obey me in everything ?" 
 
 ^' Most willingly." 
 
 ^' First remove the ^ Begfofar Maid ' to 
 Marc's sanctum, out of the dust, and all 
 the pot-boilers and studies must follow." 
 
 *' Yes, your majesty." 
 
 '' I have spoken to the landlady, and she 
 has graciously consented to lend a square 
 of Turkey carpet, positively its first ap- 
 pearance in this room, and for one after- 
 noon only." 
 
 "A Turkey carpet!" said both the 
 friends at once, and Newton Marrix gave 
 a long, low whistle. 
 
 " Yes, and a new one, too ; and here it 
 comes," she continued, as the maid came 
 toiling upstairs with a roll of carpet. 
 
 ^' Capital idea !" said Newton, seizing
 
 138 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 hold of it, and dragging it into the room 
 as anxiously as if it were a half-drowned 
 body he were pulling in from the sea. 
 
 "Now clear away the palettes and pots," 
 commanded Capri. " Ah ! Marc, how un- 
 tidy you are ! You are walking on your 
 palette-knife and best brush." 
 
 Newton Marrix took the pictures into 
 the bed-room, whilst the artist cleared the 
 floor of all the paraphernalia that lay about, 
 and then the three lifted the carpet into 
 the centre of the studio, and commenced 
 spreading it out. 
 
 *^It covers a multitude of stains and 
 blemishes," said Marcus Phillips. 
 
 "And stains are deadly sins to eyes 
 polite," answered Capri. 
 
 "Now where is that broken vase. I 
 have got some primroses to fill it with. 
 Ah! here it is; but it is filled with tin- 
 tacks, buttons, and shirt-studs, and sleeve-
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 180 
 
 links. Ah ! you poor baclielor. How 
 helpless and untidy the best of you lone 
 male creatures would be, only you have 
 the fairer portion of humanity to look after 
 you. Every one of you would go to rack 
 and ruin." 
 
 *' So he would," said Newton. *' I shall 
 forswear bachelor life, now that I have 
 heard that homily." 
 
 " None of your irony, Mr. Author. You 
 literary men always make the worst of 
 husbands. I only wonder women can ever 
 have anything to say to you." 
 
 '^ Your majesty is severe." 
 
 " Truthful, you should say. Now this 
 piece of terra- cotta looks antique," she 
 said, dusting the urn-shaped vase. 
 
 In a moment she bad arranged the 
 bright, fresh primroses in it, and fixed it 
 skilfully on a bracket against the wall so 
 that the side which was cracked and bro-
 
 140 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ken was completely hidden. Then Capri 
 got down from the chair on which she 
 stood to arrange it, and stood contemplat- 
 ing the effect of her work. 
 
 " It looks stunning," said Newton Mar- 
 rix. " How bright the primroses look in 
 that old red vase 1" 
 
 '^ Yes, it will be all right, if Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning does not ask to examine it, and 
 find it has a broken back, poor thing. You 
 see there are two sides to everything, my 
 friend." 
 
 ^' I will take care of that." 
 
 " Now, Marc, where are your chalk 
 studies ?" she asked. 
 
 *'In the portfolio," answered the artist. 
 " What are you going to do with them ?" 
 
 " I am going to hang ' Hercules,' ' Yenus 
 de Medici,' and some others of them on 
 the wall. It will look artistic, you know." 
 
 "Good idea. You are full of them this
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 141 
 
 afternoon," said the author. " Come, 
 Marc, my boy, produce the studies. Why, 
 by-and-by we shall not recognize your 
 den." 
 
 " I shall have transformed it to a place 
 of delight," said Capri. 
 
 " Your presence is sufficient to do that,"" 
 answered Kewton. 
 
 " So now you are paying compliments ; 
 a minute ago you were ironical. Oh ! 
 perfidy, thy name is man." 
 
 " That is a new reading of an old 
 phrase." 
 
 "And a more correct one. Because 
 Shakespeare was a man, he said, ' perfidy, 
 thy name is woman,' and pandered to the 
 base prejudices of his sex." 
 
 " I am silenced." 
 
 *'If such a thing was possible, it would 
 be a boon." 
 
 " Now that is unkind. Let me hang the
 
 142 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 chalk studies for you," he said, handing 
 them to her. 
 
 Capri, however, jumped ou a chair, and 
 with some tin tacks, which she held between 
 her red lips, commenced to hang them with 
 an artistic regularity. 
 
 "There," she said, '*I shall place the 
 * Dice Thrower ' next Apollo Belvedere, and 
 Venus beside the Theses. How do they 
 look?" 
 
 " Very well," said the author from the 
 other end of the room, where he was dust- 
 ing a plaster cast arm and foot, and bring- 
 ing them from their obscurity into a more 
 prominent position. 
 
 Marcus Phillips did not speak, but stood 
 closely watching the subtle grace of Capri's 
 limbs as she raised her arms above her 
 head, or turned her face round to address 
 a question, or bent her shapely neck. 
 Whatever movements she gave she fell
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 143 
 
 into poses classic and tender in their 
 grace. 
 
 "Now, Marc, bring out your pictures 
 and we have done," she said. 
 
 The two young men carried out the easels 
 and set the pictures on them in the best 
 light. There were two sea-scenes intend- 
 ed for pot-boilers, but reserved for exhibi- 
 tion this afternoon. Also an interior 
 sketch of Canterbury Cathedral, which the 
 artist was loth to part with even when his 
 shillings were few, because the painting 
 was from a sketch he had made whilst his 
 old theatrical company stayed in the ca- 
 thedral town. There was a view of the 
 lonely Yorkshire moors abloom with purple 
 heather, tinged here and there with ruddy 
 gold from the rays of an autumn sun go- 
 ing down in crimson glory behind a crag 
 that suddenly rose bare and grey in the 
 midst of the wild loveliness of the scene.
 
 144 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 This was also a recollection of his thea- 
 trical days. There were some minor 
 studies too of river scenes and spring 
 mornings on the mountains, and twilight 
 on the hills, and sunsets on the sea, all in 
 various stages of development, and all 
 more or less touched with that subtle beauty 
 which was destined to make them live. 
 
 Last of all came the picture of the ^' Beg- 
 gar Maid " fresh from the brush. It lent a 
 glow of beauty to the whole room, this 
 portrait of Capri, with its dark, liquid eyes, 
 its pale olive complexion, and its black 
 hair with an under-shade of dusky gold. 
 
 The studio indeed seemed transformed : 
 the deep rich colours of the Turkey carpet 
 brightened the place wonderfully; the 
 great bunch of yellow primroses in their 
 terra cotta vase glowed against the back- 
 ground of faded wall-paper; the chalk 
 studies, fixed where they looked to best ad-
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 145 
 
 vantage in a spot sure to attract the first 
 glance of the visitor, looked wonderfully 
 artistic. 
 
 The two sea-scenes rested on the chim- 
 ney piece, with the plaster cast arm be- 
 tween them, the other pictures hanging 
 against the walls ; altogether the studio 
 presented a most picturesque effect. 
 
 The three friends stood at the far end 
 of the room, surveying it critically, Newton 
 Marrix with his head on one side . like a 
 meditative canary, Capri's quick eyes tra- 
 velling from spot to spot, striving to see 
 what she could suggest or change, Marcus 
 looking steadfastly at the picture of the 
 " Beggar Maid." 
 
 " I think we cannot do any more," said 
 the author, " except to burn some pastilles ; 
 it is the perfection of art to minister to all 
 the senses at once." 
 
 "Ah, Marc," said Capri, leaning against 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 the wall, with her arms hanging down- 
 wards, in an attitude of listless repose, ^* I 
 wonder, when you become a respectable 
 artist — that is, of course, when you have 
 plenty of money, and are famous, and 
 have a Persian carpet, not lent by any 
 obliging landlady, but all your own — will 
 your studio give you half the pleasure this 
 one does now?" 
 
 She had turned her dark eyes question- 
 ingly to his face. 
 
 " I doubt if it will, Capri," he answered 
 at once, smiling at the earnestness with 
 which she put the question. " I am quite 
 happy now in my present state." 
 
 *' And we all are hopeful for the future," 
 put in the rising author. 
 
 " There is pleasure, after all, in struggl- 
 ing — don't you think so, Marrix?" Marcus 
 asked his friend. 
 
 " Yes, when it is not prolonged ; but a
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 147 
 
 continued struggle, my boy, is exhausting 
 and death-dealing in its hopelessness. 
 Once the heart gets overcharged with the 
 bitterness of life and disappointment, no 
 after-success can give it its old health and 
 viofour aofain." 
 
 " I think you are right," said Capri, a 
 thoughtful, serious expression coming into 
 her eyes, that now looked black under the 
 down-turned lashes. 
 
 " I know all about struggling," said the 
 young author, folding his arms across his 
 breast in a pose that would have suited 
 a hero, whilst he laughed bitterly, yet 
 triumphantly, like one who had conquered 
 much. " It makes me shudder to think 
 of the petty hardships, and worries, and 
 cares gone by, the weary task of trying to 
 force your name under the eyes of a public 
 that wishes to remain blind to it because 
 it has no interest in you or your existence, 
 
 l2
 
 148 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 tlie articles and papers declined, without 
 thanks very often, from newspaper and 
 magazine editors, the weary, patient wait- 
 ing on the decision of publishers, the un- 
 kind criticism of reviewers because one is 
 young and unknown ; it makes me sick 
 to think of it. I only wonder how one 
 can survive it all ; but I suppose young 
 shoulders are made to bear much." 
 
 *' One thing they don't bear is a load of 
 patience," Capri put in, a saucy, merry 
 look coming into her face. 
 
 '' Patience only comes with age," said 
 Marcus Phillips, sagely. 
 
 ^' Then I wish I were old," said Capri, 
 with one of those sudden changes which 
 formed the most interesting trait in her 
 character. '' I have no patience with 
 myself or fate, and sometimes I hate 
 both. Fate is so slow about bringing 
 me what I want, or I am so slow about
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE, 149 
 
 obtaining it, that I grow sick of waiting." 
 
 "And what may your particular need 
 be ?" asked Newton Marrix, half amused, 
 but wholly interested by her earnestness. 
 
 '* Mine is the want common to all men 
 and women — money. Metaphorically speak- 
 ing, I have cried out to Dame Fortune 
 until T am hoarse, and I supplicate in vain, 
 for she is often deafest when we cry loud- 
 est," Capri said, holding out both her 
 hands and gesticulating as she frequently 
 did in moments of excitement. " The 
 fickle jade is deaf and blind to me," she 
 went on, "and yet " 
 
 "And yet?" repeated the author, inter- 
 rogatively, as he watched her bright eyes 
 flash and her face glow with expression. 
 
 " I know 1 shall be rich some day," she 
 answered. " All things come to those who 
 wait." Mvvv^lM/v»<^^i*A >v*^ JIm*^ t*- 
 
 She dropped her arms suddenly with a
 
 150 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 melodramatic movement that had much 
 grace in it, and walked straight up to the 
 easel on which her portrait lay, and smiled 
 at it with a pleasure and vanity that had 
 something childlike in its simplicity. 
 
 " There," she said, changing her tone 
 again in a minute and facing Marcus 
 Phillips, ''it's four o'clock." 
 
 " The clock downstairs is fast." 
 
 '' Well, your guests may arrive any 
 minute, and you have to wash your hands 
 and put on your best coat. I am off." 
 
 '' Not so soon." 
 
 "Yes, I must go. Your landlady will 
 send you up tea at five o'clock, she told 
 me. She seems quite proud of having 
 distinguished people calling on her lodger ; 
 but I think she will never forgive them if 
 they do not come in a carriage with pranc- 
 ing horses for the edification and benefit 
 of her neighbours. Carriages don't come
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE. 151 
 
 every day to Fitzroy Street, you know." 
 
 " Cannot you wait ?" asked Marcus. 
 
 The girl shook her head in answer. 
 
 *'Do, Capri; I should like you to see 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning and the poet Lucius 
 Martyn." 
 
 ^'No, I think I had better go. I should 
 certainly like to get behind some curtain 
 and hear all they had to say about my 
 appearance, like Peg Woffington in ' Masks 
 and Faces.' Do you remember ? But then 
 they would be sure to discover me, and it 
 would be all like the screen scene in the 
 ' School for Scandal.' " 
 
 " A listener would be sure to hear some- 
 thing good of herself in this case," said 
 JNewton Marrix, gallantly. 
 
 *' Would she? I am doubtful of that," 
 cried Capri, not the less pleased with his 
 compliment for all her pretended want of 
 faith in its sincerity.
 
 152 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 "You had better wait and learn from 
 experience." 
 
 ''I would like to borrow a cap and 
 apron from the maid and bring in tea, 
 only I fear they would recognize me," she 
 said, laughing at the suggestion; "but it 
 would not be safe to try it, I fear." 
 
 " I wish you would give them the chance 
 of comparing you with the picture. Will 
 you not stay ?" asked the artist once more. 
 
 "No, I must really go; but will you 
 both come to-night and tell me all they 
 say?" 
 
 "We shall," said Newton Marrix, readily 
 promising for both. 
 
 "Very well; a rivederci, miei amici," she 
 said, making a graceful little gesture and 
 extending a hand to each. " Recollect, 
 Marc, the foundation of your fortune, like 
 my own, depends on my face." 
 
 "Then," said Newton Marrix, "he is
 
 THE BEGGAR :\rAID's PICTURE. 153 
 
 sure to liave luck," and, bending down half 
 playfully, lie kissed her finger tips. 
 
 "What a pretty speech !" she answered, 
 well pleased, and she gave a peal of rippling 
 laughter. 
 
 ''Now, Marc, you may kiss the other 
 hand, or they might grow jealous." 
 
 The artist bent down his head and 
 touched her delicate little hand with his lips. 
 As he did so a pleasant thrill ran through 
 her frame, and the blood came quickly into 
 his cheeks. 
 
 Newton Marrix let go the hand he held, 
 and went over to the opposite end of the 
 room to move the easel nearer the light, a 
 proceeding which it suddenly dawned on 
 him was necessary to the picture : and he 
 found the canvas required so much re-ad- 
 justing that he had not settled it until he 
 heard Capri's quick, light tread descending 
 the stairs.
 
 154 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 The street door bad scarcely closed upon 
 the girl when a handsome Victoria drove 
 up, and Mr. Freake, Count Basano, Lucius 
 Martyu, and finally Mrs. Stonex Stanning, 
 got out. 
 
 The footman gave a terrific ring at the 
 bell, which warned the friends upstairs 
 that the guests had arrived, and the peal 
 was followed by a resounding knock that 
 was heard half-way down the street, and 
 had the effect of making the maid-of-all- 
 work, who was endowed with a nervous 
 temperament, jump balf a foot off the 
 ground-floor, and smash a china plate she 
 happened to have in her too sensitive 
 fingers at that " very percise moment," as 
 she afterwards said in describing the acci- 
 dent to her mistress, who was unsympa- 
 thetic enough to scold. 
 
 " Here they are, old boy," said Newton 
 Marrix, in a whisper, as Mrs. Stonex
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE. 155 
 
 Stanning, followed by hev three friends, 
 ascended the fourth flight of stairs. 
 
 Marcus went out to receive them. It 
 was a trying moment for him. 
 
 '^Ah! Mr. Phillips," said Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning, in her soft, musical voice, as she 
 extended her hand to him, "I am come 
 to play the critic, and I have brought three 
 friends with me." 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning acted as the ad- 
 vance guard ; Marcus could hear the foot- 
 steps of the others ascending. It seemed 
 to him at that moment as if a dozen critics 
 had come to sit in judgment on his 
 *' Beggar Maid." 
 
 "I am very glad to see you. It is kind 
 of you to come," said the artist, frankly ; 
 a pleasant light came into his honest blue 
 eyes, a light that did not escape Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning's sharp glance. 
 
 "If we are formidable in numbers we
 
 156 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 are not in judgment," said Mr. Freake, as 
 he entered the room, and looked into the 
 artist's face, as if he could see through and 
 through him. 
 
 " Ah ! bless me," Count Basano gasped, 
 as he shambled into the studio, breathless, 
 after his ascent ; he put his right hand 
 on his heart, and sank into the chair 
 nearest him. 
 
 *' Ah ! my children," he said, after a 
 second or two, as he extended his hand 
 first to the artist, and then to Newton 
 Marrix, " I do grow old every day." 
 
 " Time mellows the soul and sweetens 
 the fruit of wisdom," Lucius Martyn re- 
 marked, to no one in particular, as he 
 slowly, calmly, and with a totally unruffled 
 air, strode into the room some moments 
 after his friends. 
 
 " Ah ! grazie, grazie, mio amico," said 
 the count, rising and bowing, for it
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 157 
 
 seemed to him something polite had been 
 said regarding his advanced years, though 
 he could not tell very well what it was. 
 
 The poet took no notice of the count's 
 florid bow whatever, but walked, without 
 looking to his right or left, straight to the 
 easel on which the picture of the "Beggar 
 Maid " hung, and, putting his long, lean. 
 lithe arm half way round his slender body, 
 he rested his head upon his left hand, 
 and stood before the canvas in a critical 
 attitude. 
 
 " The picture is quite fresh ; I have 
 been working at it until an hour ago — nor 
 is it quite finished yet," Marcus said to 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning, placing a chair for 
 her before, but at some distance from, the 
 easel, in the best position. 
 
 Lucius Martyn drew aside, and Count 
 Basano came over and stood behind Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning's chair, putting up his
 
 158 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 double-barrel eye-glasses with delibera- 
 tion and care, as if he expected them to 
 do their duty on this occasion. 
 
 Mr. Freake viewed it from different 
 parts of the room. No one yet spoke. It 
 was a critical time for the youug artist. 
 He thought the silence would never end, 
 yet he did not dare to break it, but stood 
 there mentally counting the seconds and 
 hazarding guesses as to what was passing 
 through their minds. At last he ven- 
 tured to look at Mrs. Stonex Stanning s 
 face, hoping to read her judgment there. 
 
 A calm, thoughtful expression rested in 
 her eyes ; as they met his, a new light came 
 into them which he yet scarce understood ; 
 the first faint dawn of a radiance which 
 might brighten and warm her whole life. 
 She lowered her lashes, and her mind went 
 back to the picture before her, from which 
 it had evidently strayed for the moment.
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE. 159 
 
 '^Mr. Marrix, this is a finished picture," 
 she said, decisively, with the air of one 
 whose opinions were invariably accepted, 
 '' the face is life-like, the colouring very 
 lovely." 
 
 She had given the cue, then they all 
 spoke. 
 
 "It is most beautiful to look upon," said 
 the poet, as if he were continuing some 
 remarks previously addressed to his hearers. 
 A faint smile crossed his weary face, and 
 his friends, watching him, knew that the 
 picture gave him pleasure. 
 
 " The drapery reminds one of the earlier 
 manner of Giovanni di Masaccio," remarked 
 Mr. Freake, critically, shading his eyes with 
 his outstretched hand. 
 
 The count was last to speak. 
 
 Said he, " This is no fancy sketch ; it is 
 alive ; it is a portrait ; she is beautiful ; 
 where is she ?" He raised both his hands
 
 160 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 gesticulatively, and looked around the 
 room, as if expecting to meet the fair 
 original of the picture before him. 
 
 *' Look at the eyes," said Newton Mar- 
 rix, promptly, to save his friend the 
 trouble of replying to Count Basano's 
 question. 
 
 *' They are most sweet and tender," 
 replied Lucius Martyn ; and then he sigh- 
 ed, and let his right arm fall to his side in 
 a helpless, listless way, as if that limb were 
 minus bones. 
 
 There was another pause. Mr. Freake 
 gave a preparatory cough, ran his fingers 
 through his long hair, and commenced in 
 a tone that left no doubt of the high repute 
 in which he held his own opinions on art. 
 
 " Of course, Mr. Phillips, this picture 
 shows promise," he commenced, ^* I must 
 say great promise, yet there are some evi- 
 dences about it which mark it as the work
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE. 161 
 
 of a young man ; for a modern canvas 
 there is too close a following of Annibale 
 Caracci's style in the posture of the arms 
 and the general contour. iN'ow-a-days we 
 look in vain for the soft, sweet outline 
 which renders Correo-mo's works thinors of 
 glad beauty, in vain for the harmonious 
 tints that consecrated the canvases of the 
 great Veronian master." 
 
 Mr. Freake, as he concluded, extended 
 one hand towards the " Beo^ojar Maid " 
 picture, and the other towards his hearers, 
 at whom he looked as if expecting them to 
 second his learned opinions. For the first 
 time in Mr. Freake's experience Mrs. 
 Stonex Stanning paid no attention what- 
 ever to his remarks. 
 
 " The hair is wonderfully managed ; the 
 undertone of gold is beautiful," she said, 
 fixing her eyes on the picture. 
 
 She felt quite well, though she did not 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 see him, that Marcus Phillips had his eyes 
 turned to her face ; she knew that her last 
 words had given him gratification and 
 pleasure. 
 
 " It is all good," said the count, in bro- 
 ken English. He had been staring at the 
 work all the while through his double- 
 barrel glasses. ^' For a young artist, it is 
 good, very good. You will have success," 
 he said, turning to Marcus Phillips. " I 
 know the work of what you call genius 
 when I see it, for I have lived a long time, 
 and I have seen many young men begin, 
 and I always know if they will do good 
 work in the world." 
 
 " You give me great hope, count," said 
 the artist, watching the old man's animated 
 face, and seeing his dark eyes bright \vith 
 animation as he spoke. 
 
 " There was one young man in E-ome 
 ten years ago," the Italian went on. " His
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's PICTURE. 163 
 
 name was Paolo Contadini. His maestro 
 said he never would do anything, for 
 he dreamt all day, and would only draw 
 things from what he called his mind, 
 his brain. But I say, ' Let him have his 
 dream, he will wake some day ;' and at 
 last it came. It was but Endymion ; but 
 ah !" said the count, raising his eyebrows, 
 and shrugging up his shoulders, ^' that 
 Endymion. I shall never forget it as long 
 as ever I live. He was there again that 
 shepherd, Endymion ; he was divine. He 
 would be great man, but he died, that boy," 
 and the old man sighed. 
 
 " To make room for other great men, I 
 suppose," said Newton Marrix, in his mat- 
 ter-of-fact way. " It is a wise law of 
 Nature that some of us must go to the 
 wall, or under ground, to make room for 
 
 others. Consoling, is it not ?" 
 
 m2
 
 164 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Count Basano slirugged his shoulders. 
 He did not understand. 
 
 ^' I always think," commQnced the poet, in 
 a dreamy tone, while a weary expression 
 gave a strange look to his weird face, 
 " that death in the bloom time is littlej 
 less than divine. There is a grandeur in\ 
 bidding farewell to earth whilst the pur- 
 ple blood beats rapturously in the veins 
 of youth ; whilst the fragrant freshness of 
 life's morning crowns the earlier days, and 
 promises a vista of unknown delights 
 which the mid-day can never realize ; 
 whilst love, and hope, and ripening life, 
 and wakening passions make all things 
 sweet to sight and sense, this sudden pass- 
 ing into a labyrinth of dark, cold shadows, 
 this rest, wrapped in the heaviness of 
 brown clay, is a joy which but the blest 
 can know ; a fate which men thought,
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID S PICTURE. 165 
 
 / in the earlier days, came alone to those 
 beloved of gods." 
 
 Thej listened to him gravely, for there 
 was some subtle force in the poet's words 
 that always compelled attention from his 
 hearers, whether they were willing or not 
 to give it, and irrespective of their private 
 opinions. At last Marcus Phillips, who 
 was interested in the poet, said, 
 
 " But those expressions are against all 
 preconceived ideas." 
 
 " And preconceived ideas are mere pre- 
 judices. Too often fatally false." 
 
 Then he paused, looked round him, 
 sighed once, and continued — 
 
 " What is more glorious in history than 
 the voluntary life sacrifice to the Eumenides 
 of Cratinus and Aristodemus in the dead 
 days ? Triends whom love had bound 
 soul to soul ; youths with god-like limbs,
 
 166 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 and features perfect as Praxiteles' dream 
 of loveliness, who went to death in their 
 prime for the weal of Athens and the pre- 
 servation of her people ; and in later times 
 the early deaths of that trinity of divine 
 singers, Shelley, Byron, and Keats before 
 any had matured, and one had even blos- 
 somed, seem to make us think the gods 
 have not forgotten their favourites even 
 now." 
 
 " Had Byron lived, who knows what he 
 might have done ?" said Mr. Freake, specu- 
 latively. 
 
 "Ah," said Newton Marrix, catching up 
 the same tone, " he might have suppress- 
 ed ' Don Juan ' in his old days, and taken 
 to write homilies in verse." 
 
 " What do you think of this moorland, 
 Mrs. Stanning?" asked Marcus, taking 
 the picture from its place on the wall, 
 and holding it up before her for inspection.
 
 THE BEGGAR MATD's PICTURE. 167 
 
 The four visitors fixed their eyes on the 
 view of the Yorkshire moors, looking 
 mutely at the prospect it presented of 
 a wide sea of purple heather in the fore- 
 ground, ruddy-tinted where the sun rays, 
 breaking from excess of light through the 
 clouds, fell upon it in slanting rays of 
 glory. 
 
 *'It is full of peace," said Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning ; " the freshness of a moorland 
 breeze seems sweeping over it : it is de- 
 lightfully fresh." 
 
 " It brings one face to face with Nature," 
 Mr. Freake remarked. 
 
 *' Nature is the reflection of God's face," 
 said the poet, clasping his white hands. 
 
 "That is why it is ever so happy and 
 eternally peaceful," Mr. Freake responded. 
 
 "You have not exhibited, Mr. Phillips?" 
 said Mrs. Stonex Stanning. 
 
 "No," answered the artist. "I have
 
 168 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 not been fortunate enough to get hung 
 yet." 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stanning thought for a 
 moment, and then said, 
 
 " Would you like to exhibit at the Gros- 
 venor Gallery this season ?" 
 
 Newton Marrix, who overheard the 
 question, could scarcely contain his delight, 
 or restrain himself from answering for his 
 friend. Here was a prospect for Marcus 
 Phillips of which he had scarcely dared to 
 hope. 
 
 " There is nothing which I would like 
 better — nothing that would serve me 
 more," the artist answered, readily. 
 
 The colour came to his face at the mere 
 thought of this piece of unexpected good 
 luck ; the prospect that it would open 
 up for him. the service it would assuredly 
 do him, flashing on him suddenly. Was 
 it possible that this realization of his
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 169 
 
 ambition could come so soon, that his 
 picture would hang before the public, his 
 name be echoed by the critics and spoken 
 of by the press, his canvas hung among 
 the best masters of a new school ? 
 
 " I may be able to get you an invitation 
 to exhibit," said Mrs. Stonex Stanning, 
 quietly—-" I shall try." 
 
 " How can I thank you — how can I tell 
 you all that it may mean for an artist 
 commencing life ?" said Marcus Phillips, 
 gratefully. 
 
 " I know it all," she answered, remem- 
 bering her past days, and her father's pic- 
 tures returned year after year to the hope- 
 less man whom fame had ignored, and 
 fortune mocked to his death-day. 
 
 " How easy it is to do a little good 
 sometimes !" she reflected, as she watched 
 the young artist's face, and saw there 
 a bright, hopeful expression, that sought
 
 170 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 to thank her more than his words. 
 
 Then she cast her eyes round the studio, 
 and for the first time noticed the general 
 bareness of its aspect. It brought back 
 memories of her past life, and spoke to 
 her forcibly of her father and his patient, 
 struggling existence. How he would have 
 regarded anyone who could get his pic- 
 tures sold or exhibited ; he would have 
 blessed him as a heaven-sent messenger. 
 There, in Marcus Phillips' studio, she 
 thought of her early days of deprivation, 
 of the miserable efforts made to support 
 the shabby gentility of life, of the weary 
 struggle to keep up what was called ap- 
 pearances in the eyes of the world, until a 
 man came who offered her his name and 
 fortune, and she became a wife whose 
 heart-love had never once been touched, 
 whose days were hollow and fruitless. 
 
 Fate had left her free once more ; rich^
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 171 
 
 fashionable, still young, and fair, but no 
 man's love was sacred and dear to lier, no 
 life had yet touched hers with that secret 
 sweet affinity which renders existence one 
 long dream of delight. 
 
 With all her talents, her wealth, her 
 troops of friends and acquaintance, she 
 felt herself solitary. Not one of all the 
 throng which daily surrounded her had 
 ever yet moved her, had ever woke her 
 heart from the cold thraldom that held it 
 as a spell, had ever stirred her nature to 
 its depths by that subtle power which 
 men call love. 
 
 Some one speaking startled her from 
 her reverie, a voice that seemed to her 
 just then like the key-note to her thoughts, 
 perhaps an answer to the hope just dawn- 
 ing within her. 
 
 " It was good and generous of you to 
 come here and see my pictures, Mrs. Stan-
 
 172 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ning," said the artist, in a slow, musical 
 voice that somehow filled her with an un- 
 wonted pleasure, and I am most sensible 
 of the kindness of your criticism, believe 
 me." 
 
 "I am pleased with your pictures." 
 
 "The knowledge of that will help me 
 to do better work," he said, not with the 
 tone of a man who implies a compliment, 
 but with that simplicity which is ever a 
 guarantee of truth. 
 
 She looked up at him as he said the last 
 words, a faint colour coming into her 
 cheeks ; she made him no reply. 
 
 "I think," continued Marcus Phillips, 
 sitting down beside her, " helping young 
 people on is one of the best actions man 
 or woman can do in life." 
 
 '' A slight service often seems of great 
 magnitude to them." 
 
 *' Because it is the beginning which is
 
 THE BEGGAR IMAId's PICTURE. 173 
 
 most difficult. When once a firm footing 
 is made, the remainder of the pathway is 
 comparatively easy; a single success is 
 rare; like begets like," he said, speaking 
 earnestly. His blue eyes were lit with 
 animation. 
 
 '' But does success mean the end of all 
 things, is there nothing else left to be 
 desired?" she asked hire, softly and slowly. 
 
 The question came unexpectedly, but he 
 was fortunately saved the trouble of reply-- 
 ing, for just then the maid-of-all-work 
 entered the studio with a shining face that 
 spoke volumes for yellow soap, and ar- 
 rayed for the occasion in a fresh apron 
 and dainty tongue-shaped cap placed on 
 the extremity of a head which nobly dis- 
 dained a more pronounced badge of serf- 
 dom. 
 
 She placed a tea-tray on a little three- 
 legged table lent by the landlady for the
 
 174 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 evening. Mrs. Stonex Stanning took off 
 her gloves and made tea, and the artist 
 thought the studio had just then a com- 
 fortable and, what common-place folk 
 would call, a home-like appearance. 
 
 '' If only Capri were here," he thought, 
 *' how she would enjoy it all !" But none 
 of those present, except Newton Marrix 
 and himself, knew of her existence ; they 
 had never even asked who was the original 
 of his " Beggar Maid." 
 
 The picture lay on the easel opposite 
 where Marcus Phillips sat, so that when 
 he raised his eyes and looked at it now 
 and then it almost seemed to him as if 
 Capri were with them. Thinking of the 
 girl with her Greek face, her hair of dusky 
 gold, and her ruddy, luscious lips, he forgot 
 the presence of the woman before him, 
 and was silent and utterly heedless of Mr. 
 Freake, who held forth on the abomina-
 
 THE BEGGAK MAId's PICTURE. 175 
 
 tions of modern machinery and the general 
 batefulness of the days on which we have 
 fallen, and was sighing pitifully for the 
 honest barbarity of past ages. 
 
 Mrs. Stonex Stauning having made tea, 
 and said many agreeable things, stood up 
 from the little table, and the whole party 
 rose at the same time. The pictures had 
 been viewed, Mr. Freake and the poet had 
 each ventilated tlieir ideas, the fragrant 
 tea Marcus's landlady had sent up had 
 been sipped, and there was nothing else 
 for them to do but depart. 
 
 The artist and Newton Marrix went 
 down with them to the door, where the 
 Victoria was drawn up in readiness, and 
 the horses prancing, impatiently tossing 
 their heads np and down, so that the 
 silver-mounted harness glistened, and made 
 a pleasant jingling sound. The artist's 
 landlady felt her heart throb with pride as
 
 176 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 she looked from behind the curtains of the 
 first-floor windows at the sight. It was 
 something to have lodgers visited by people 
 who came in their own carriages ; it was 
 not a thing which happened every day in 
 Fitzroy Street. 
 
 " You will remember that I am always 
 at home on Thursdays," said Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning, as Marcus handed her to the 
 
 carriage. 
 
 " Thanks, I will remember it with 
 pleasure." 
 
 Then she gave him her hand, smiled 
 pleasantly, and in another second had 
 gone. 
 
 '^ Wei], old man," said Newton Marrix, 
 when they gained the studio, after racing 
 upstairs like schoolboys, '* I congratulate 
 
 you." 
 
 " Do you think I shall be asked to ex- 
 hibit at the Grosvenor, New ?"
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's PICTURE. 177 
 
 " Think ! A word from Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning is enough. I am as sure of see- 
 ing a picture of yours hanging on the walls 
 of the Grosvenor Gallery this season, as I 
 am that January will follow December." 
 
 " How will Capri like it if I send the 
 'Beggar Maid'?'' said Marcus, stopping 
 before the picture meditatively. 
 
 " She will be half mad from joy ; for, 
 Capri, thy name is vanity ! She is a true 
 woman, Marc/' said the author, with the 
 air of a sage. 
 
 " It is a great chance for me, !N'ew. I 
 cannot say how glad I am, but I feel it all 
 the more," said the artist. 
 
 ''It is luck, my boy. I know you have 
 genius, but what is it without luck? A 
 dull, dead weight that prevents a fellow 
 getting his bread like his less gifted but 
 more happy fellow-mortals. It is all hum- 
 bug about genius forcing its way to the 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 front wherever it exists ; impudence is more 
 apt to do that." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" 
 
 "I am sure of it. Ask the successful 
 men and women before the public to-day 
 if they owe their fame to some chance or 
 accident — which is nothing but luck, or to 
 their genius, and they will tell you it is 
 due to the former ; for the genius starves 
 oftentimes in a garret, and is huddled 
 into a pauper's grave, now just as in the 
 olden days. What would Chatterton have 
 been had Horace Walpole given him a 
 helping hand when asked ? Would the 
 world have ever heard of Moliere or Lully, 
 but for Louis the Fourteenth ? Let us 
 have a cigar, Marc, my boy, my nerves are 
 unstrung with all the jargon Freake and 
 the poet talked."
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BEGGAE MAID's EATHEE. 
 
 TT was almost nine o'clock when Marcus 
 -^ Phillips, accompanied by liis friend, 
 ascended the somewhat dark and narrow 
 stairs which led to the rooms occupied by 
 Captain Bankers and his daughter. 
 
 The artist knocked at the door when 
 they reached the landing, and heard Capri 
 call out, 
 
 " Who's there ? — come in," all in one 
 breath. 
 
 " We have come to tell you — " Newton 
 commenced as they entered the room. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 "All about the critics," interrupted 
 Capri, anxiously. 
 
 " Not all," answered the author, laugh- 
 ingly, *' for it would be impossible to remem- 
 ber the magnificent things Mr. Freake and 
 the poet said. Like most of the best say- 
 ings in daily life, they must be lost to the 
 world for ever." 
 
 " They are what you call great guns on 
 art topics, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, great pop-guns," answered the 
 author, flinging himself down on a chair. 
 
 Then all three laughed. 
 
 ** Pa is out," said Capri, as if that fact 
 was far from being disagreeable, and, so 
 saying, she drew a lovv footstool before the 
 fire, and sat down, clasping her hands 
 across her knees with the air of one who 
 was about to make herself thoroughly 
 happy. Her two friends drew their chairs 
 at either side of her.
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. J 81 
 
 The artist was not at all sorry that Cap- 
 tain Dankers was out just then; he felt 
 very comfortable as he lay back in a great 
 arm-chair, the seat of which sank under 
 his weight until it left him in a hollow 
 from which it would be no easy matter to 
 extricate himself by-and-by. 
 
 The room looked very cosy seen in the 
 merciful, unsearching light of a dim lamp. 
 The rusty, crimson marine curtains, which 
 it made one cringe to touch, were drawn 
 across the v/indows ; the wide-seated, high- 
 backed, antique sofa, which was a snare 
 and a deception to all who ventured to sit 
 on it, had its favourite chintz covering 
 carefully smoothed out; and though the 
 carpet was sadly thread-bare and showed 
 as much pattern as a piece of over-used 
 blotting-paper, it fell into harmony with 
 its old companions, the horse-hair chairs,
 
 182 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 whicli would have made a tender-limbed 
 child shriek if placed upon them. 
 
 Yet, with Capri sitting on a low stool 
 by the hearth, the room had a pleasant and 
 home-like look. The firelight flickered on 
 her dark hair, and turned it to bronze here 
 and there ; the ruddy blaze reflected itself 
 on the yellow keys of the open, old- 
 fashioned piano in the near corner, and 
 now and then flashed dimly on the brass 
 bars of the canary's cage hanging between 
 the windows. 
 
 Capri had lowered the lamp and placed 
 it at the end of the room on a chefEonier, 
 black with time, that contained many 
 mysterious-looking drawers. On the wall 
 above it hung an old engraving of Arthur, 
 Duke of Wellington; and beneath this 
 picture were two crossed foils, rusty and 
 bent from long service. 
 
 *' I have good news to tell you, Capri, '^
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 183 
 
 said Marcus Phillips, looking down into 
 the lovely mobile face, noting with an 
 artist's eye the graceful curving lines into 
 which her dress had naturally fallen, and 
 marking the long delicate fingers that 
 interlaced each other as she clasped her 
 knees. 
 
 '* Good news ?" she said, quickly, with 
 one of those childish impulses that gave 
 its greatest charm to her manner. " Tell 
 me all about it, Marc." 
 
 '* I wish you had been there, Capri." 
 
 "So do I," she answered, unclasping 
 her hands and resting her chin upon her 
 palm. 
 
 " Mrs. Stonex Stanning was pleased with 
 my pictures, especially with the * Beggar 
 Maid,' and said many kind things about 
 them, praising all." 
 
 " And the poet, the real live fashionable 
 poet, what did he say ?"
 
 184 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " Ob," said Newton Marrix, intertwining 
 his fingers in a weird clasp, and looking 
 dramatically wild, " he said the ' Beggar 
 Maid ' was all beautiful to look upon." 
 
 **Did the poet actually say that ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " He did indeed." 
 
 '' Oh, you will make me too proud ; per- 
 haps he will write a poem about me." 
 
 " Ah, who knows indeed ? then you would 
 live for ever," said the author ironically. 
 
 " Count Basano, who came also, praised 
 your picture, Capri, and said it was alive," 
 said the artist. 
 
 " I am so glad," she answered, her face 
 lighting up with excitement and pleasure. 
 " I often told you. Marc, my face should be 
 the beginning of your fortune. Am I not 
 a prophetess even in my own country ?" 
 
 *' And with such a good beginning what 
 may not the end be ?'* the artist asked.
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 185 
 
 " I hope and trust very fair and bright 
 for you," she replied, with a half abstract- 
 ed air, looking straight before her into the 
 fire. A little blaze jumped up just then 
 from the smouldering embers and showed 
 a wistful look in her dark eyes. 
 
 " And your future ?'' he said, hesitating- 
 ly, and then paused. He would have 
 added, "will it not be bound up with mine?" 
 but the words died on his lips, and Capri 
 repeated after him. 
 
 "And my future; I am not at all sure 
 what it will be. I am sometimes half afraid 
 to look forward to it ; and yet, and yet I 
 wish these slow days of ray present life had 
 passed, and that 1 had really commenced 
 to live," she said, impatiently beating one 
 of her little feet upon the floor. 
 
 '* It will all come time enough, believe 
 me, Capri ; you are now standing on the 
 brink ' where the brook and river meet.
 
 186 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 "And looking down I can only see my 
 face shadowed in the rippling waters near 
 me ; the tide beyond shows no reflection of 
 any future." 
 
 " I hope it may always be as happy as it 
 is now," said Marcus Phillips. 
 
 The girl smiled, but made no reply, 
 and Newton Mannx said rather impa- 
 tiently, 
 
 " Don't let us speculate about the future 
 whilst we have good fortune to think of in 
 the present. You have not told all the 
 news, Marc." 
 
 ** Oh, is there more to be told ?" said 
 Capri, starting up, her whole expression 
 changing in a minute. '* Tell me the news, 
 the whole news, and nothing but the news, 
 Marc." 
 
 '* The best was kept for the last," he 
 said. 
 
 *' How could you sit there moralizing, as
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 187 
 
 is your wont, poor boy, while you had 
 good news to tell me ?" 
 
 "It was not I who moralized." 
 
 '' Have you sold a picture ?'' 
 
 "No." 
 
 ^^ Then " 
 
 " Then the news is this. I shall pro- 
 bably be asked to exhibit in the Grosvenor 
 Gallery this season, and if you or the Cap- 
 tain have no objection I shall send the 
 * Beggar Maid ' picture." 
 
 Capri jumped to her feet in an instant 
 and flung her plump arms above her head 
 in demonstration of her joy. It was a 
 graceful natural pose ; she looked like a 
 Greek figure on a sculptured urn. 
 
 " Oh, dear Marc," she cried, aloud, " I 
 could dance for joy, I am so glad. This is 
 good news indeed. How could you have 
 sat there so long, you undemonstrative 
 youth, and never told me this ! How
 
 188 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 did it all come about, tell me quick ?" 
 
 She asked both questions in the same 
 instant, and only from want of breath was 
 it that she paused to listen. 
 
 '' Mrs. Stonex Stanning liked the pic- 
 ture," Marcus commenced. " It was your 
 face, I think, that pleased her. She has 
 great influence in art circles ; she asked 
 me if I would exhibit, and said she would 
 probably get me an invitation to contri- 
 bute to the Grosvenor Gallery." 
 
 " Eead certainly for probably," said 
 Newton Marrix, drily. 
 
 *' Oh ! to think of it," Capri went on, 
 demonstratively. *' Mrs. Stonex Stanning 
 must be an admirable good woman ; I feel 
 she must, though I know nothing about 
 her. She must be your patron saint, 
 Marc." 
 
 " Perhaps she is." 
 
 " To think of your picture hanging in
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 189 
 
 the Grosvenor Gallery, and your name in 
 the catalogue ; and imagine all the world 
 of London staring at my face, and all the 
 people whispering my name ; why, it is 
 just as good as being a fashionable beauty 
 and having my photograph selling in the 
 shop-windows between a bishop and a 
 ballet-girl." 
 
 " Just as good," remarked ISTewton Mar- 
 rix, a smile breaking over his face. 
 
 " And to think that it has come so soon, 
 for I knew it would come sooner or later." 
 
 " What ?" 
 
 " Publicity." 
 . *' For you or me ?" 
 
 *' For both." 
 
 '* Will your father have no objection to 
 my sending the picture?" said the artist, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 *' Objection ! I should think not, especi- 
 ally when it will cost poor Pa nothing.
 
 190 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 But I would not listen to bim even if he 
 did," said the girl with determination, and 
 with a firm, decided tone that the artist 
 had never heard in her voice before. 
 
 After a slight pause, she commenced 
 once more. 
 
 " This will be the first step in my life," 
 she said, with anxious eyes, and an absent 
 smile on her lips. 
 
 '' What will be ?" 
 
 " Having my portrait hung before a 
 London crowd. I may call it a portrait ?" 
 
 " But how will the public know whose 
 face it is ?" 
 
 " Everyone will know it in a short time. 
 Trust the gossips and the society papers 
 for finding that out." 
 
 " We shall see, Capri." 
 
 " I know it will be the first step, Marc," 
 she said more gently. " The curtain may
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 191 
 
 go up and the play begin sooner than I 
 thought, after all, my friend." 
 
 She sat down again, this time on the 
 threadbare hearth-rug, hugged her knees 
 with her arms and looked gravely into the 
 fire. All traces of her late excitement had 
 died away from her handsome face. Her 
 dark, almond-shaped eyes looked almost 
 black, and beamed with light and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 " It makes me feel almost wild with de- 
 light to think of this prospect," she went 
 on as if speaking to herself. '' Already I see 
 the eager crowd before me. And you have 
 made me look so lovely on the canvas, dear 
 old boy — I see their critical, speculative 
 gaze ; I hear the whispering of my name 
 passing from mouth to mouth ; I see my- 
 self engraved in the weekly papers, photo- 
 graphed, spoken of in the reviews, sought
 
 192 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 for — oh! it is all too mucli happiness." 
 Then she stopped, adding quickly, after a 
 moment's pause, "And it will be so good 
 for you, too. Marc. It will bring you so 
 much before the public. Ah ! my friends, 
 the gods are good after all, and mortals 
 not half so bad as we sometimes think." 
 
 She gave a low rippling laugh that left 
 a musical echo in the ear long after she 
 had ceased. 
 
 There was so much childlike exultation 
 in her vanity that in the artist's eyes it 
 screened the latent selfishness lying be- 
 neath. Marcus Phillips and the author 
 listened to her, pleased with her vivacity, 
 watching the fitful changes of ber bright 
 face as the firelight fell upon it, and noting 
 the happy light shining in her dark eyes. 
 
 The artist had never seen her so bright 
 and fascinating as to-night, and with a 
 keen sense of pleasure he watched her
 
 THE BEGGAR .AIAId's FATHER. 193 
 
 olive face crowned with its hair of duskj 
 gold, and every moment saw fresh beauty 
 in her features and the graceful outline of 
 her delicately moulded limbs. 
 
 Once she laid her hand on his shoulder, 
 her fingers touched his neck softly, and 
 the artist felt the blood coming through 
 his veins in a hot, quick surge, and he 
 could scarce restrain himself from clasping 
 her in his arms. 
 
 " From all you have said, I am sure you 
 could write a novel," said Newton Marrix 
 to her in his business-like manner. "Why 
 don't you try? — you have plenty of imagin- 
 ation." 
 
 " Perhaps I may some day. It would 
 do me no benefit now. I should get very 
 little for it, even if I were lucky enough 
 to get it accepted, and it would never make 
 my name ; women have a quicker way of 
 making it than by writing books, and I 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 cannot afford to have frowns in my fore- 
 head from thinking out three-volumed 
 novels, and reading the criticisms, Mr. 
 Author," she replied, quickly. 
 
 They all laughed at the girl's answer, 
 and then Marcus Phillips stood up to go. 
 
 " What !" said Capri, ^' are you thinking 
 of leaving me on such a night as this 
 without staying to supper ? I will not hear 
 of it. We shall make a sacrifice of tripe to 
 the gods, and you two youths shall drink 
 libations of beer. Sit down again, sirs." 
 
 In a second she had vanished and ran 
 downstairs to speak to her landlady about 
 some supper, and to send one of her pupils 
 round the corner for a pint or two of that 
 grateful, filling, and comforting beverage 
 known as Burton. She tripped downstairs 
 quite briskly, and then, calming herself and 
 smoothing down her hair and dress, she 
 knocked demurely at Mrs, Fum's sitting-
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. 195 
 
 room door, and entered the apartment 
 where that good lady was darning some 
 household linen, while her daughters 
 learned their lessons for the coming day. 
 
 In a moment or two Capri's manner had 
 changed completely ; she was no longer 
 the impulsive vivacious child ; when she 
 crossed the threshold of her landlady's 
 sitting-room she became a demure, re- 
 spectable, and eminently proper young lady. 
 
 "Ah dear, how are you getting on with 
 your French ?" she said to one of Mrs. 
 Fum's daughters in a tender, affectionate 
 tone, bending over the girl and looking 
 into the book, which bewildered her with 
 the confusion of its most irregular verbs. 
 " Don't forget to come and ask me to ex- 
 plain an3^thing you cannot understand," 
 Capri said ; then stooping down she kissed 
 the girl's round ruddy cheek and passed 
 on to where her admiring mother sat, 
 
 o2
 
 196 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 looking at Capri's winning, affectionate 
 ways approvingly from under her spec- 
 tacles. " Mrs. Fum," commenced Capri, 
 without further hesitation, " two of Pa's 
 friends have come to see him ; one of them 
 has some good news to tell him about a 
 picture, and as I knew Pa would like to 
 see them I have asked them to have some 
 supper." 
 
 Capri spoke as if she were but half 
 satisfied with herself for asking them 
 to stay, and in the same tone continued, 
 
 '•' So if you would kindly cook the tripe I 
 have got in, and send out for a pint or two 
 of Barton for them it will very much oblige 
 me," she concluded, laying an emphasis on 
 the pronoun, and giving motherly Mrs. 
 Fum an appealing little smile which that 
 good woman had not the heart to resist. 
 
 *' Well, if it weren't that you asked me 
 1 shouldn't do it. Miss Capri, at this time
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 197 
 
 of niglit, that I shouldn't," slie said, " for 
 there, the captain has had my bill sent up 
 to him twice this week, and he has never 
 took no more notice of it than if it was 
 never asked from him," said good Mrs. 
 !Fum, indignantly. 
 
 " He said to me this morning," replied 
 Oapri, drawing on her imagination, and 
 assuming a regretful air, ''that he felt 
 quite sorry and put out about it, he did 
 indeed ; but that you should surely have 
 the amount next week." 
 
 '' Ah ! well, if he had only come and 
 said as much to me I would have been 
 satisfied," said the landlady, whose wrath, 
 like that of most good-humoured people, 
 was easily pacified. 
 
 " You know he never likes saying any- 
 thing to you about the bills until he is 
 able to pay them," said Capri gently, in her 
 softest tone, and Mrs. Fum, who knew
 
 198 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 no such tiling, but was in too amiable a 
 mood to contradict her just then, rose up 
 to prepare the tripe at once. 
 
 " I'll send it up to you, my dear," 
 she said, almost sorry now that she had 
 made any reference to the captain's habits 
 of disregarding her bills. 
 
 At which speech Capri very sweetly 
 smiled her thanks, and, without saying 
 any more on the subject, she bent down 
 and kissed the other red-cheeked daughter 
 and glided softly out of the room, confident 
 that this last stroke of policy would have 
 its due weight in Mrs. Fum's maternal 
 and ample bosom. 
 
 When Capri got outside the door she 
 laughed softly to herself. 
 
 '' Good, silly old woman that you are, 
 with your two wooden-figured, apple- 
 cheeked daughters, you make me tired of 
 this miserable, petty life I have to lead,"
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 199 
 
 she said, and then she ran upstairs quickly 
 to her guests. 
 
 " Dear young soul, she do love children," 
 soliloquised Mrs. Fum, as Capri left the 
 room, " and she has such nice ways with 
 them, and anyone as do is sure to have a 
 good heart, and I'm sure she has one, poor 
 young lady. Ah, me ! it's only a pity she 
 hasn't a better father," she concluded. 
 
 Capri had often thought so too ; but 
 then unfortunately parents are not left to 
 the selection of children, any more than 
 children are sent into the world according 
 to the desires of parents. "We are all at 
 odds with each other. 
 
 " Now," said Capri merrily, as she re- 
 gained the sitting-room upstairs, where 
 Newton Marrix and the artist were having 
 a quiet chat in her absence, '' while supper 
 is getting ready I shall play you some music 
 if you like."
 
 200 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " If you please," said Marcus Phillips, 
 placing the music-stool for her at the 
 piano. 
 
 *' What shall I play ?" she asked, totally 
 abandoning her demure air, and returning 
 to her natural vivacious manner. 
 
 Without waiting for an answer she sat 
 down to the piano and struck a chord that 
 made the wires vibrate and echo along the 
 sounding-board. 
 
 " Improvise," said JSTewton Marrix, for 
 improvisation was one of Capri's gifts. 
 
 "Tes, improvise," repeated the artist, 
 ''and we shall sit quieter than mice behind 
 a wainscoting and listen." 
 
 "After such an offer you cannot resist 
 I'm sure," said the author, poking the fire, 
 that had fallen lower and lower, until he 
 succeeded in making a blaze spring up 
 that threw its warm light on Capri seated 
 at the yellow-keyed instrument.
 
 THE BEGGAK MAId's FATHER. 201 
 
 '' So be it," she said. '' I must hope for 
 inspiration." 
 
 '^Nayj it must come T^hen Tve are here," 
 cried out the author. 
 
 '' True ; I had forgotten that." 
 Then she struck the keys with firm, 
 resolute fingers bringing out a melody 
 full and clear that had a triumphant ring 
 in its measure, which suddenly changed 
 into a slower, softer harmony, deep and 
 sweet, that gave but a bare suggestion of 
 an air through which weird minor notes 
 sounded now and then in strange contrast 
 to the full melodious chords, like a sudden 
 sob in the throat of a singer. 
 
 Under the influence of the music Marcus 
 Phillips closed his eyes, laid back his head 
 on the chair, and thought strange things. 
 Then most abruptly once more Capri 
 chano-ed the time and went back to the 
 stirring march-like measure she had start-
 
 202 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ed with, and then under some sudden 
 impulse she quickly glided from one key 
 into another, from sharps to flats, from 
 flats to naturals, from naturals to minor 
 chords, sounding strange, inharmonious 
 groups of notes that by-and-by unwound 
 themselves in scales as if seeking escape 
 from the thrall of discord. Then suddenly 
 she ceased. 
 
 It was very characteristic playing, and 
 the girl's hearers felt and knew it was. 
 Indeed there are few things to those who 
 care for or understand music which so 
 quickly reveals the mind and character of 
 a player as his or her playing. 
 
 " I am afraid," said Capri, standing up 
 quickly as she finished, '*that I can give 
 you no more music to-night, for I feel if I 
 were to go on much longer I should laugh 
 or cry, or do both at once, and it is better 
 to eat one's supper than do that."
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. 203 
 
 Thougli she made an effort to laugh 
 after her last words, yet the tone of her 
 voice was almost pathetic. 
 
 "Do you know, dear Marc," she said, 
 presently, " such a night as this may never 
 corae again ; all your later triumphs, and 
 I hope and trust you may have many, will 
 have the freshness rubbed off them ; to- 
 night you enjoy an experience you may 
 never know again ; you have unexpected 
 success in the present, and all the future 
 before you." 
 
 " I believe I shall always remember this 
 night," said the artist, and turniug his 
 head to where she stood in the dim light 
 he could just see that her sweet dark eyes 
 were filled with an expression that touched 
 him deeply and made him happier than he 
 could say. She lowered her lids until the- 
 long lashes touched her cheek ; not ven- 
 turing to return his gaze.
 
 204 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Presently she raised the lamplight, and, 
 taking out a tablecloth from one of the 
 mysterious drawers, commenced to pre- 
 pare for supper. 
 
 ''I don't think we shall wait for Pa," 
 she said, knowing that her father's habits 
 were far from regular, " and indeed I 
 think we shall be more comfortable with- 
 out him," she ventured to add, looking at 
 Newton Marrix as if to challenge his 
 opinion on the subject. 
 
 The author quite agreed with Capri 
 mentally. He had no love for the captain, 
 but he held his peace, wonderful to be told. 
 
 In a few minutes supper, in the shape of 
 a dish of tripe, exhaling a very savoury 
 odour, came, and they were all about to 
 sit down when a foot was heard upon the 
 stairs. 
 
 *' It is Pa," said Capri, looking at her 
 friends, and her face fell in an instant.
 
 THE BEGGAK MAID S FATHER. 205 
 
 However, she was equal to the occasion. 
 
 " Oh ! Pa, we have been waitinof for 
 you," said Capri, as the military man en- 
 tered the room. Looking up at him quickly 
 as he came within the radius of the lamp 
 she noted that his nose seemed a trifle too 
 red, and his manner had that bearing of 
 solemn and weighty dignity about it which 
 the captain always assumed when he drank 
 more than was good for him. 
 
 The more he imbibed the more his sense 
 of respectability increased ; with every 
 fresh glass he drank came back keener 
 recollections of past dignities ; with every 
 bottle demolished his importance swelled. 
 
 " Have you waited for me, my love ?" he 
 said, going over and kissing her forehead 
 affectionately ; for in the presence of 
 others he invariably played the part of a 
 fond parent. 
 
 When he approached Capri, the odour
 
 206 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 of his breath gave evidence that he had 
 met some kindred spirit on his homeward 
 way. 
 
 "Ah! gentlemen, how do yon do?" he 
 «aid to Marcus Phillips and the rising 
 author, as if he suddenly became aware of 
 their presence in the room for the first 
 time just then. 
 
 He bowed with stilted ceremony, and 
 then shook hands with both. His entrance 
 seemed to have rather a damping influence 
 on the spirits of all three, and to have 
 brought with it a chilling effect that at 
 first made itself disagreeably felt. 
 
 The captain's manner, in its usual bear- 
 ing towards Marcus Phillips and his friend, 
 was one of mild and tolerant patronage, 
 except on sundry occasions when he found 
 it necessary to borrow small sums of them, 
 which he had no sooner received than all
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER 207 
 
 count of them immediately left his memory 
 for ever. 
 
 On these various occasions when the 
 gallant captain was, as he termed it, ^'hard 
 up," and found it expedient and profitable 
 to pay private visits to Newton Marrix's 
 rooms, or Marcus Phillips's studio, his 
 character and manners underwent a sud- 
 den change ; he became, verbally, the 
 victim of a hard-hearted, unfeeling, and 
 ungenerous world : he assumed a meek 
 patient bearing under the weigbt of pe- 
 cuniary trials and troubles ; he suddenly 
 became a solicitous parent, weighed down 
 with anxiety for the future welfare and 
 happiness of his dear child, the sole hope 
 of his life ; and finally acted as a judicious 
 adviser to his young friends, whom want 
 of experience of the world had left ignor- 
 ant of its ways ; and would then dwell
 
 208 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 with considerable feeling on the changes 
 which time brings about; of the past 
 splendours he had known, of the import- 
 ance in which he had been held, and which 
 somehow, though through no fault of his, 
 but merely a caprice of fortune, had de- 
 serted him in his latter days, and placed 
 him in a position in which a temporary — 
 merely a temporary loan would be of 
 service to him, and relieve him from those 
 difficulties which might fall upon the best 
 of men at any time. 
 
 "I have made them stay to supper," 
 said Capri when her father had shaken 
 hands with the young men, and told them 
 with the air of a grand goigBio r, that he 
 was pleased to see them."^^^'^^^^ 
 
 "I have made them stay to supper," re- 
 peated Capri, hoping her father for once 
 would say something pleasant. 
 
 "I am delighted that you have, my
 
 THE BEGGAR MAIb's FATHER. 209 
 
 dear," he replied in a tone of severe po- 
 liteness. 
 
 " You are very kind," said Marcus Phil- 
 lips bowing, and the captain was pleased 
 at the deference the iQOvement of the 
 artist's head showed him. 
 
 After this favourable beginning Capri 
 made a desperate effort to revive her good 
 spirits again, and when her father was 
 seated and had helped them all to some 
 savoury tripe, and she had poured out her 
 guests some beer, she commenced : 
 
 "Marcus has some good news to tell you." 
 
 She thought it better to give the artist 
 his name in full instead of lapsing into the 
 familiar abbreviation before her father. 
 
 ** I shall be glad to hear any good news 
 Mr. Phillips has to tell me," he said, loftily, 
 taking care not to use the artist's Christian 
 name. 
 
 Capri mentally resented having him called 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Mr. Phillips ; she therefore said abruptly, 
 
 *' I am going to be hung." 
 
 ''My love!" said the captain, throwing 
 back his shoulders and staring at her with 
 astonishment. She did not heed him. 
 
 " Yes, it is all settled," she went on 
 calmly, " I am going to be hung." 
 
 " And all through Mr. Phillips's exer- 
 tions," put in Newton Marrix slily. 
 
 The captain, pretending not to hear him, 
 looked over at Capri and addressed her. 
 
 "My love, explain yourself; you trifle 
 "with my feelings." 
 
 "Oh, do I?" she answered flippantly, 
 half amused and half tired of his assump- 
 tion of affection and surprise. 
 
 " My dear ?" 
 
 " Well, I am really going to be hung — 
 on the walls of the Grosvenor Gallery." 
 
 "With Captain Dankers' permission," 
 said the artist conciliatingly. Then he
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. 211 
 
 added, " I shall be invited to exhibit at the 
 Grosvenor this season, and I thought of 
 sending the ' Beggar Maid ' picture." 
 
 "Which is my portrait," added Capri. 
 
 The captain laid down his knife and fork 
 slowly, and after an impressive pause of a 
 second or two put out his hand, which 
 shook somewhat, to Marcus, and com- 
 menced. 
 
 *' My dear sir, in the first place I con- 
 gratulate you heartily, most heartily as a 
 friend — I may say an old friend." 
 
 For once in a way there was some truth 
 and little affectation in his words. If the 
 struggling artist had lent him a guinea 
 when they were few and far between in his 
 coffers, surely the amount in times of need 
 would increase to a threefold proportion 
 when success would render loans matters 
 of greater ease to the young man. 
 
 " And are you not pleased at the pros-
 
 212 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 pect of having my picture before the world ? 
 You have seen the * Beggar Maid/ have you 
 not ?" said Capri from the opposite side of 
 the table. 
 
 " Yes, yes, my love," replied the captain, 
 remembering the cause of his visits to Mar- 
 cus Phillips' studio, and not wishing to 
 have the recollections of them brought up 
 at the present moment. " I have seen it 
 in its early stages, and considered it even 
 then an admirable, even a wonderful pic- 
 ture, I may say." 
 
 "Indeed you may," said Capri shortly, 
 for she thought by the captain's manner 
 there was something disagreeable about to 
 follow, and she wished to show him she 
 was on her guard. 
 
 Capri was right in her apprehensions^ 
 for presently the captain commenced 
 gravely. 
 
 *' I cannot as a parent set my face too
 
 THE BEGGAE MAId's FxVTHER. 213 
 
 strongly against the modern craze for 
 the exhibition of female beauty. It is one 
 of the unwholesome signs of the times," he 
 said slowly, with a magnificent air. 
 
 IS'one of his hearers thought well of an- 
 swering him, and after a slight pause he 
 continued : 
 
 " This craze, gentlemen, invades and 
 destroys the sacred sanctity of home life." 
 
 He made an impressive gesture with his 
 riofht hand as he concluded, and looked at 
 the two young men to see what effect he 
 had produced. 
 
 Capri could scarcely restrain herself from 
 making some sharp reply to this speech of 
 her fond parent's, knowing as she did that 
 he merely spoke for the sake of giving 
 some opposition, and to exert a more effect- 
 ive patronage over the artist when by- 
 and-by he was prevailed on to give con- 
 sent to the exhibition of the picture.
 
 214 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " Cut me some bread, Marc, and give 
 Pa some too ; lie has none," she said, as if 
 by this common-place remark after the 
 late outburst of eloquence she sought to 
 relieve her mind. 
 
 " The ' Beggar Maid ' can scarcely have 
 the dreadful effect you refer to," said New- 
 ton Marrix a little sarcastically, ''as it is 
 not solely a portrait, and few of those who 
 see it will know the original." 
 
 " They will suppose it some model who 
 sat for two shillings an hour and a cup of 
 coffee," Capri said quickly. 
 
 " My dear," said the captain reproving- 
 ly, '' you speak too fast." 
 
 His dignity was slightly offended at the 
 idea of anyone mistaking his daughter for 
 a professional model. 
 
 " Have some more tripe, Pa ?" 
 
 " I referred to a fashion in these days," 
 said the captain, taking no notice of
 
 THE BEGGAR MAId's FATHER. 215 
 
 Capri's kind invitation, " which bids fair 
 to make every woman who can lay any 
 claim to beauty an exhibition, and render 
 her face familiar to a vulgar crowd, and 
 her name a — a — a byword in men's 
 mouths," said the captain with the lofti- 
 ness of severe virtue. 
 
 " These sentiments would bring down 
 the gallery of a transpontine theatre," said 
 the girl, who had now lost all patience. 
 
 For a time, the captain made no reply, bub 
 stared at her with o-atherino- wrath in his 
 watery eyes, which, by a sudden transition, 
 turned to pathos when he remembered the 
 presence of his guests. For a moment 
 none of them spoke, then the captain said, 
 
 " Do you insult your old father, Capri ?" 
 and sought for his ex-white handkerchief, 
 which was hidden in the recesses of his 
 coat-tail pockets. 
 
 " No, Pa, no," she said, sorry that she
 
 216 IT IS NO WONDP]R. 
 
 had spoken so hastily. *' Don't let us have 
 a scene. I was out of patience ; that was 
 all. Don't mind your handkerchief for 
 this time, Pa dear." 
 
 Getting up she glided softly round 
 the table until she got behind his chair, 
 then she put one arm round his neck 
 tenderly and set her lips lightly on his 
 forehead. But he did mind his handker- 
 chief notwithstanding what Capri said, for 
 it was indispensable to the character of an 
 injured parent, which he was playiug just 
 then. After much fumbling he found it, 
 and applied it to his eyes judiciously. 
 
 " I can well understand your sentiments 
 about the exhibition of portraits," said 
 Marcus, anxious to sooth him. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he replied, his voice some- 
 what muffled by the effects of the hand- 
 kerchief yet applied to his face, "but that 
 my daughter should make such remarks,
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. 217 
 
 should be so lost to the sense of duty due 
 to a parent, touches mj feelings quickly, 
 sir." 
 
 " A slip of the tongue, Pa dear ; you 
 know women will say foolish things some- 
 times — you know I am too voluble," she 
 said with an air of cheerful self-reproach. 
 " Don't say any more about it." 
 
 '' No error of the heart, I am sure, my 
 love," he replied, now quite conciliated 
 by these handsome apologies of Capri's, 
 which he was quite unused to receive. 
 
 " Of course not," said the girl. 
 
 " And I am sure, in this particular 
 case," he went on, not only quite pacified, 
 but anxious to harmonize with the feelings 
 of Capri and her friends, '' no matter what 
 objections I may privately entertain to the 
 exhibition of faces whose charms should 
 be kept sacred to the home circle, on this 
 occasion I say I waive all such private
 
 218 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 feelings, no matter liow strong they may 
 be, in the interests of my young friend — 
 I may say my gifted and talented young 
 friend." And so saying he put forward 
 his hand and grasped the artist's across 
 the table. 
 
 Matters were beginning to take a more 
 cheerful and comfortable turn. The artist 
 thanked the captain for this little speech, 
 and in return the military man helped him 
 to some tripe, and took some himself ; and 
 Newton Marrix, who had finished, began 
 to tell them the plot of a new play which 
 would be jDut on the boards of the Ophelia 
 Theatre for the first time on Saturday 
 night, and to which performance he was 
 going with a friend of his who knew Mr. 
 Damington, the manager, and who could, 
 do a good thing for him in the press. 
 Then the captain, who became more and 
 more genial, sent for another pint of Bur-
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER 219 
 
 ton, and told some old anecdotes of Charles 
 Kean that they all had heard fifty times 
 before, but which they now laughed at 
 heartily, from sympathy with and to please 
 the narrator. He told them what Phelps 
 had said to him at supper one night. 
 
 "Captain," he said, ''relinquish the 
 sword, take to the buskin, and you will 
 make your fortune." 
 
 He was a young man then — a gay young 
 spark about town, he might say — and he 
 liked a red coat too much to throw it off, 
 " because, sir, the colour had such an 
 attraction for the ladies." 
 
 Newton Marrix insinuated slily it was 
 not the colour of the coat, but the man, in 
 which the great attraction lay ; at which 
 the captain was yet more pleased, though 
 he made an attempt to deny the soft 
 impeachment. 
 
 He then went on to tell them of the
 
 220 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 charming Helen Faucit, and recited for 
 them, with manj wild gesticulations and 
 wreathed smiles, an ode which he himself 
 had composed about the bewitching actress, 
 and had had printed on white satin, sir, with 
 his initials signed, and which he carefully 
 hid in a bouquet which he flung from a 
 box to her feet when she played Lady 
 Teazle, and how, by gad, the poem after- 
 wards found its way into The Keepsake, 
 though upon his honour he never knew 
 how ; and after a while it came to be 
 whispered at White's Club, sir, that he 
 was the writer of the verses, and didn't 
 he get quizzed about them right soundly, 
 he could tell you, until his name at last 
 reached the lady's ears ; and one night, 
 sir, she smiled her thanks to him as he 
 was in his usual box at the theatre, to the 
 chagrin of his brother officers who were 
 with him at the time.
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. 221 
 
 " I have gone through it all, my dear 
 boys," he said, by way of conclusion, as he 
 helped himself to some beer, " and a gay 
 young dog I was too, I can tell you, in 
 my time ; but I am only an old fellow 
 now, and good for nothing," he ended, 
 with a pathetic sigh. 
 
 The two young men assured him he 
 underrated himself, and was good for 
 much yet and comparatively young, after 
 which courteous speeches on their part he 
 brightened up once more, and, with a half 
 empty glass in one hand, stood up to 
 propose Marcus Phillips's health. 
 
 " It is my privilege on this occasion," he 
 commenced, with as much ceremony as if 
 he were at a Lord Mayor's dinner, putting 
 his left hand on his slender waist, and so 
 making a curve of his arm like the handle 
 of a teapot, " and on the eve of what, I 
 trust, may prove a great success to my
 
 222 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 youn^ and gifted friend, to propose his 
 health and wish him that celebrity, that 
 fame of which, by his industrious efforts 
 and superior talents, he has proved him- 
 self so eminently deserving. 1 trust that, 
 having up to this time been so favoured 
 by the Muses, Fortune herself may attend 
 him, that Venus may throw her flowery 
 fetters about his heart, and — and — and I 
 wish you every success in life, my dear 
 boy," he suddenly finished, lapsing into a 
 more common-place but honester strain. 
 
 Marcus said a few words of thanks, and 
 told him he felt far more than he could 
 express, and he would always remember 
 his kind wishes. 
 
 So the night grew old, and it was almost 
 twelve o'clock when Marcus and his friend 
 got up and said good night. 
 
 ''I think," said Capri, who had been a 
 long time silent, not because she paid
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID's FATHER. 223 
 
 attention to what was passing, but because 
 she thought much — "I think that is the 
 prologue of the play Pa has spoken of." 
 
 '' Why do you think so, Capri ?" asked 
 the artist softly. They were standing 
 apart from Newton Marrix and the captain, 
 who were lighting cigars which the former 
 supplied in a most amicable way. 
 
 "I do not know; only I feel that the 
 curtain may go up at any moment and the 
 performance commence for you and — me.'' 
 
 " I hope, then, it may be a pleasant 
 comedv," said the artist, lookingr into her 
 pale face. 
 
 " So do I with all my heart," she an- 
 swered earnestly. 
 
 She gave him her hand, and he let it 
 rest in his palm for a few seconds. 
 
 Newton Marrix came over just then ; 
 they were ready to depart. The captain 
 hid them good night again and again de-
 
 224 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 monstratively. Capri said little more, and 
 was thoughtful. 
 
 As the two friends went down the narrow 
 stairs she held the lamp with a light, 
 graceful grasp above her head as she stood 
 upon the lobby watching them descend. 
 
 The faint rays fell upon her bowed head 
 and turned her hair to burnished gold, and 
 flickered on her pale olive face. 
 
 Looking up for the last time from the 
 dark stairway to where the girl stood like 
 a saint in a shrine, the deep shadows 
 behind her, the pale yellow glare of the 
 lamp lighting the angles of her delicate 
 figure, Marcus Phillips thought he read a 
 new meaning in the depths of her dark 
 liquid eyes.
 
 225 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 IN THE GROSVENOB GALLEEY. 
 
 rriHE first days of May arrived, bringing 
 -*- with them breezes so deliciously 
 fresh and invigorating that they seemed 
 to have travelled all the way from the 
 Yorkshire moors, the Devon lanes, or the 
 Norfolk coast. They swept over the close 
 London streets, greeting the poor, pale- 
 faced toilers, and bringing them back in 
 the midst of their work remembrance of 
 the peaceful country lying fair and placid 
 in the early spring sunshine. 
 
 Great heat had come suddenly in those 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 days of early May ; it was close and heavy 
 in the city ; the streets looked white and 
 bleached in the sun ; the few trees in the 
 squares put on their greenness once more, 
 and after long months of cloud and 
 fog the sky looked wondrously clear and 
 blue. 
 
 At the street corners baskets of lilies 
 of the valley that had come up from the 
 cool shelter of their native woods, and 
 purple violets, that grew wan and faded 
 exposed to the heat and glare, and yellow 
 primroses fresh from the leafy hedgerows, 
 and rich-hued wall-flowers that looked 
 sadly defected and crushed, and leaned 
 against each other for support in this their 
 hour of trial and death, were all being sold 
 for a penny the bunch. 
 
 There were other signs, too, that spring 
 and the London season had commenced. 
 Bond Street was lined with a double row
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 227 
 
 of carriages in the afternoons ; the opera 
 season was announced, and rumour had it 
 that a new tenor was engaged for Covent 
 Garden Theatre who had never before sung 
 out of Italy ; the Row was filled in the 
 mornings with riders, and all the celebrities 
 and beauties and people worth seeing in 
 London were on view in the afternoon ; 
 three new plays liad been produced at 
 three different theatres ; and the picture- 
 galleries in all their attractions were open- 
 ed, and filled with well-dressed bustling 
 crowds all day long. This year the 
 Grosvenor Gallery was the special attrac- 
 tion. 
 
 The painters of tHe pre-Eaphaelite school 
 were strong in number in Sir Coutts Lind- 
 say's gallery ; their selections of subjects 
 and general treatment were remarkable, 
 and caused wide attention ; many of their 
 canvases were considered by some as 
 
 q2
 
 228 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 masterpieces, by others as so much waste 
 of labour and good paint. 
 
 One picture which a young artist had 
 given to the world and the Grosv.enor 
 Gallery was a vision of Jephthah's daiighter, 
 standing against a background of flame- 
 coloured sky, her blue-black hair bound 
 round her shapely head and filleted with 
 dead gold, her round dusky breasts, 
 half covered with a robe of- pale green^ 
 was caught at the lithe waist by a white 
 girdle that, falling over the outer garment 
 almost to her naked feet, marked the con- 
 trast of one brown limb, nude and divinely 
 shaped. 
 
 This picture was the great success of 
 the season, and next in popular favour 
 came the " Beggar Maid." 
 
 The public who plumed itself on know- 
 ing all particulars about painters and 
 pictures, wondered they had never heard
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 229 
 
 of Marcus Phillips before, and for this 
 reasoD it was almost inclined to leave his 
 canvas unnoticed. 
 
 The world will seldom allow itself to be 
 taken bj surprise ; it is a liberty which it 
 rarely lets pass without resentment ; yet 
 an artist who could paint a face like the 
 " Beggar Maid's " was not to be neglected, 
 and so, after a slight debate with itself, it 
 consented to take this picture and the 
 young painter into its favour. 
 
 Whose was the face he had painted, 
 people asked each other ; not a professional 
 model surely, or it would have been seen 
 in many disguises before from Iphigenia 
 to some common-place Mariana in a 
 moated grange. 
 
 It was a lovely face, the people agreed, 
 one that haunted you with a subtle, half 
 hidden look in its eyes long after it was 
 passed by, that made people return again 
 and again to gaze on it afresh.
 
 230 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Marcus Phillips fixed an afternoon in 
 the first week of the exhibition on which 
 to take Capri to the gallery. 
 
 " I am dying with impatience,'' said the 
 girl. " and yet I half fear to go. I am 
 sure the sight of the picture hanging there 
 in all its glory will make me cry, Marc." 
 
 *' Nonsense, Capri." 
 
 ''It's not nonsense, sir. It sets me into 
 a fever when I borrow a paper from the 
 news shop round the corner and read 
 what the critics have to say about me." 
 
 " They have said nothing upleasant?" 
 
 **]Srot that I know of, Marc. Do you 
 know I should like to stand by the picture 
 all day, wrapped in an invisible cloak, and 
 hear the people's remarks as they passed 
 by me," she said. Her eyes brightened, 
 and a glow came into her pale olive 
 cheeks that deepened the rich tint of her 
 skin.
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 231 
 
 " You would soon tire of that, I fancy," 
 said the artist. 
 
 " We never tire of hearing others talk 
 of us, if they say pleasant things." 
 
 *' Well, you shall sit before the ^ Beggar 
 Maid ' as long as you like when we go," 
 replied Marcus Phillips, looking down at 
 her fondly, and half dazzled by the sight 
 of the girl's beauty. 
 
 " Well, I shall prepare my wardrobe for 
 the occasion," she said, wondering if she 
 could make her father give her a guinea 
 for a new dress ; for it was long since she 
 had had one. 
 
 " Is there any way I could help you ?" 
 asked the young man timidly, looking away 
 from her as he spoke. 
 
 " No, my dear Marc, there is not," she 
 answered gratefully, quickly divining his 
 meaning. *' I shall make the best of my 
 resources, trust me," she said, with a
 
 232 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 saucy laugb, and no more was said on the 
 subject. 
 
 At last Wednesday came, the day on 
 which Capri was to see the picture hanging 
 in the gallery, and early in the afternoon 
 Marcus Phillips called for her. 
 
 " Come up," she shouted from the top 
 of the stairs as he entered the hall. 
 
 She had been anxiously expecting him, 
 and was waiting. 
 
 When he went into the sitting-room, 
 however, there was no one to be seen. 
 He remained quite quiet for a moment, 
 and then Capri sprang from behind the 
 door, where she had been hiding, with a 
 joyous little trip, stopped short as he held 
 out his hand, made him a grave bow, and 
 said, "How do you like me now?" with 
 emphasis on the last word, to mark the 
 difference in her appearance between the 
 past and present time.
 
 IN THE GROSVEXOK GALLERY. 233 
 
 " Oh !" said Marcus, holding up his 
 hands in astonishment, and then was 
 silent. 
 
 " That is all you men ever say. How 
 do you like my new hat ? Isn't it aesthetic ? 
 I trimmed it myself. I hope you admire 
 me," she said, all in one breath. 
 
 She was much changed surely, and 
 though in one sense she looked handsomer, 
 yet the alteration seemed to take away 
 some of her old charms. 
 
 Her dark hair, with its undershade of 
 gold, was brushed low upon her forehead, 
 underneath the wide leaf of a Rembrandt 
 hat that cast a softening shade upon her 
 lovely olive face. Her shoulders were 
 covered by some soft grey material that 
 clung to the shape of her maturing figure, 
 and her dress of the same colour touched 
 the tips of her shoes. 
 
 " I told you, Marc, I should grow quite
 
 234 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 respectable some day," she said, looking 
 down at her dress admiringly. 
 
 *' And you have kept your word," he an- 
 swered her with a merry laugh. " I 
 should scarcely have known you." 
 
 ^' Look at my gloves. Six buttons ! not 
 one less. Old Pallamari gave them to me 
 when he heard I was going to the gallery." 
 
 '* And the silver bracelet ?" said the 
 artist, noticing on her wrist a handsome 
 silver bangle. 
 
 ''Oh! the bangle," she said carelessly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Lord Harrick gave me that the other 
 day." 
 
 " Lord Harrick ?" he said, in surprise. 
 
 ''Yes; I bound up a cut he got here 
 while fencing with Pa, and next day he 
 sent this. Pa said I might accept it. 
 Don't look so cross. Is there anything 
 dreadful in that ?"
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 235 
 
 A shadow passed across the artist's face 
 for a moment, but the girl either did not, 
 or pretended not to see it, and turned 
 away her head to stare into a little square 
 of mirror that hung against the wall. 
 
 Marcus Phillips made no answer. The 
 incident displeased him, but he felt he had 
 no right whatsoever to object, and he was 
 anxious that this afternoon should not be 
 clouded by any words of his that could 
 cause her annoyance. 
 
 '' They will never recognize the * Beg- 
 gar Maid ' in a Eembrandt hat," said Capri 
 lightly as they drove to Bond Street. '' I 
 wonder if the place will be full ?" 
 
 " It is sure to be," answered the artist, 
 from whom all signs of displeasure had 
 now departed. 
 
 " I hope I may hear what they say of 
 me. Marc." 
 
 " That is hardly fair to them. Though
 
 236 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 walls are said to have ears, I never heard 
 that pictures had." 
 
 When they came to the hall, and Capri 
 saw the flight of white steps, and the two 
 servants in blue livery behind the check- 
 gates, and the crowds of people coraing up 
 and going down, she felt somewhat awed. 
 She had never been before to the Grosve- 
 nor Gallery, and it was all delightfully 
 new and fresh to her to-day. She felt as 
 if she were a part of all this imposing 
 display, as if it were all more or less con- 
 nected with her, or she with it; for did 
 not the crowd come to stare at her por- 
 trait, and talk about it, and criticise it? 
 was not her face one of the great attrac- 
 tions of the Grosvenor ? She thought that 
 all those who passed stared at her as she 
 and the artist pushed their way to the 
 centre room, where the picture hung. 
 
 Capri sank down before it on a low
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 237 
 
 velvet couch, and could not speak for some 
 time. There was the picture of the *' Beg- 
 gar Maid " in all the glory of its gorgeous 
 frame, hanging among many other pic- 
 tures which she could not look at just 
 then, and which had not the slightest 
 interest for her. 
 
 Here was the realization of one of her 
 ambitions face to face with her now ; here 
 was one of her dreams turned to fact in 
 the broad light of sober day. Had any- 
 one told her a month ago that her portrait 
 would be exhibited in a Bond Street 
 gallery, she would have laughed incredu- 
 lously at the words, yet here was the 
 picture hanging in a prominent position, 
 with all the London art-world talking of 
 it ; and here she sat quietly, as if all that 
 had come to pass was a matter of course, 
 and not at all a fact to be wondered at. 
 
 The greatest events of our lives, which
 
 238 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 oftentimes we scarcely dared to anticipate, 
 when they happen assume the most com- 
 mon-place aspects ; the anticipation, we 
 find, far exceeds the realization. So Capri 
 thought. She was almost surprised at 
 herself resting so calmly before the picture 
 hanging there in all its wonderful charm 
 and beauty. 
 
 *' Oh, Marc," she said at length under 
 her breath, ^' it looks beautiful. I think 
 it looks far better here than in the studio." 
 
 '' Probably its surroundings add to the 
 effect," said the artist. 
 
 " I cannot help saying it looks very 
 lovely ; and then what a splendid room, 
 and those servants in livery, and the flight 
 of white steps. Do you know it all seems 
 a part of my belongings to-day." 
 
 They both laughed at this opinion. 
 
 '' But your picture looks better than all
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 239 
 
 the others," she continued ; '* you have 
 made me look so beautiful." 
 
 "It is Nature who has done that, not 
 I," he answered honestly. 
 
 She felt the colour coming into her face, 
 and a wonderful happy sensation filling her 
 young heart. 
 
 After this they did not speak for some 
 time, but sat starino- at the " Bes^gar 
 Maid." It was so familiar to them in 
 every shade and line that it seemed like 
 an old friend ; for all that they examined 
 every inch of it over and over again, and 
 looked at its various effects seen from 
 different points of view. 
 
 Then, after a while, Capri let her eyes 
 wander to the other pictures by way of 
 contrast ; not that any of them had much 
 interest for her, or in her eyes could 
 compare with Marcus Phillips' works, but
 
 240 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 she glanced at them patronizingly, believ- 
 ing that her inspection of them would but 
 heighten her appreciation, if that were 
 possible, for the " Beggar Maid." 
 
 After a time she looked from the pic- 
 tures to the visitors at the gallery. It 
 was always interesting to the girl to watch 
 people : it was a study and a lesson, she 
 told herself. One often learns much by 
 the observation of trifles. 
 
 The gallery was well filled, the sofas 
 and chairs were all occupied, and groups 
 of people kept coming in and out con- 
 tinually. One old lady went round the 
 room, spectacles on nose, and catalogue 
 in hand, paying far more attention to the 
 latter than to the pictures, satisfied with a 
 mere glance at each, but determined to 
 see all, after the manner of Cook's excur- 
 sionists visiting the lions of a Continental 
 town.
 
 IN THE GROSVENOPv GALLERY. 241 
 
 Another ladj, who was determined to 
 see nothing in the gallery, sat in a corner 
 of one of the crimson velvet lounges, read- 
 ing '' A Man's Mistake," which she had 
 just got from the library below-stairs ; she 
 was so much engaged by the novel that 
 she did not deign to raise her eyes to the 
 pictures around her. 
 
 A stout country clergyman walked 
 slowly round, wondering in his mild way 
 at the eccentricity of the talent which had 
 produced many strange pictures, and paus- 
 ing now and then to examine more closely 
 some studies from the nude, which the 
 collection plentifully supplied. Some young 
 ladies came in dressed in brick-coloured 
 gowns of coarse flannel, which hung about 
 them in a fashion supposed to represent 
 high art — very high art indeed — and whose 
 great hats, the wonderful combinations of 
 many styles and periods, served to make 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 their wearers as odd, and certainly as ugly, 
 as possible. They were rather sad of as- 
 pect and angular of figure, and they 
 paused and posed continually in attitudes 
 which, though carefully studied from the 
 antique, lacked its old grace utterly. 
 
 The girls in question came along slowly, 
 catalogues in hand, making various com- 
 ments on each picture. 
 
 "Look at these oddly-dressed girls with 
 satchels hanging by their sides ; let us 
 hear what they say," said Capri. 
 
 The girls in brick-coloured flannel were 
 just before them then. 
 
 " Seventy-seven," one of them said. 
 
 " ' What a Soul did Dream/ " answered 
 the other, referring to her programme. 
 " It is taken from a poem. The treatment 
 is supremely lovely." 
 
 " It is too divine." 
 
 They both sighed.
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 243 
 
 " Seventy-eight," said the first speaker. 
 
 '•'The Sleeping Hermes,'" she bearing 
 the cataloofue said, lettino^ her left arra 
 droop by her side, whilst she laid her right 
 hand, with her fingers well apart, against 
 her cheek. 
 
 " Seventy-nine." 
 
 ^'The ' Beggar Maid.' " 
 
 They went over with a slow, sage air to 
 the picture, as if to examine it critically, 
 and then drew back to get the different 
 effect which distance might afford. 
 
 " Does it please you ?" asked number 
 one, clasping her hands together and rest- 
 ing them against her left shoulder. 
 
 Capri held her breath to catch the 
 reply ; she thought the answer would 
 never come. 
 
 " Yes," replied number two ; " but it is a 
 face sublimitized, idealized." 
 
 " One can readily see that at a glance." 
 
 r2
 
 244 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " The eyes are very wonderful ; 
 
 ' Love-lights witliin their shadows dwell, 
 What your heart holds may no man tell,' " 
 
 she said, gravely addressing the " Beggar 
 Maid." 
 
 " The face is too lovely for real life," 
 the plainest of the girls remarked. 
 
 *' Eighty. What is that?" the other 
 asked, and they passed on their way. 
 
 Capri's face flushed with pleasure ; her 
 vanity was satisfied for the moment, for 
 had not her own sex, who are ever the 
 most critical in their examination of 
 female beauty, declared her too beautiful 
 for real life ? The words were like sweet- 
 est music to her ears. 
 
 A family group, consisting of a stout 
 mother, provincial paterfamilias, two fat 
 boys in short jackets, evidently tortured 
 by gloves and the stiffest of white collars, 
 and three girls in the shortest permissible
 
 IN THE GROSVEXOR GALLERY. 245 
 
 dresses came next and stood between 
 Capri and the picture, with all that 
 charming politeness which may be wit- 
 nessed every day in an English picture- 
 gallery. 
 
 She did not care much to hear their 
 criticism ; she noticed that the stout 
 matron gave a blank stare at the '' Beggar 
 Maid," as if the picture personally offended 
 her virtue because the paterfamilias had 
 looked at it a minute longer than at the 
 other canvases, and had pointed to it with 
 his catalogue as he murmured, 
 
 " Pretty face that, my dear." 
 
 '* Was she a beggar, mother ?" one of the 
 stout-limbed boys in the short jackets 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she replied, for all her 
 information on the subject came from the 
 catalogue. 
 
 " I never saw a beggar like her before,"
 
 246 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 said the boy, who evidently belonged to 
 the realistic school. 
 
 " No, of course not, because the police 
 takes them up, you know," said the other, 
 and this explanation settled the question 
 satisfactorily for the youthful and inquir- 
 ing mind. 
 
 They passed on, and their places were 
 soon taken by two of our jeunesse doree 
 with hay-coloured hair and foolish faces, 
 who knew as much about pictures particu- 
 larly and art generally as the heathen 
 Chinee. 
 
 On they came arm in arm, with sticks in 
 their hands, whose handles continually 
 found their way to their mouths. 
 
 " Fine girl that, Algy." 
 
 " Yes, if she were properly dressed." 
 
 " What is the picture called ? let us see." 
 
 They opened the catalogue and found the 
 number.
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 247 
 
 " Seventy nine : the ' Beggar Maid,' " 
 read out he that was named Algy. 
 
 ''What beggar maid?" asked his friend. 
 
 " Oh, some one that Cophetua was sweet 
 on ; I forget the story." 
 
 " Cophetua — was he a foreigner ?" 
 
 " Yes ; of course he was. It's only those 
 foreigners -who are spoony enough to fall 
 in love with beggar maids, and that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 *' Pretty girl, though she is rather dark ; 
 she was a foreigner too, I suppose." 
 
 " Of course. Look at the next picture." 
 
 *' Eighty : the ' Sleeping Hermes.' " 
 
 ''Poor little beggar, how cold he must be." 
 
 They grinned and passed on. 
 
 Capri caught snatches of their conver- 
 sation and could scarcely restrain herself 
 from laughing aloud. 
 
 " These are some of the patrons of the 
 fine arts, I suppose," she said.
 
 248 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 *' Certainly, we are all artistic now-a- 
 days ; it is the fashion." 
 
 " Their knowledge is not too profound," 
 she said smiling, and showing her rows of 
 white teeth, all the whiter for the contrast 
 to her cherry-coloured lips. 
 
 " Knowledge is not at all necessary to 
 those who patronise, as our friend Newton 
 would say." 
 
 " Oh, Marc, there he is at the end of the 
 gallery, and there is some one with him, a 
 tall, stout lady ; look what a dress she has 
 on." 
 
 '' You are a true woman, Capri." 
 
 "Why, sir?" 
 
 "You notice the dress almost the first 
 thing." 
 
 " No, it is not feminine so much as artis- 
 tic perception ; I have an eye for effect," 
 she answered with a pretty assumption of 
 indignation that made her look very child-
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 249 
 
 like and winning as she pouted her lips, 
 knit her straight dark brows, and looked 
 saucily out of her bright eyes. 
 
 " Who is she ?" she asked, presently. 
 
 " I'm sure I do not know." 
 
 " Not Mrs. Stonex Stanning ?" 
 
 " No, certainly not," said the artist quick- 
 ly, as if comparisons were doubly odious in 
 this case. 
 
 Newton Marrix and his companion came 
 along slowly, he explaining the subject of 
 each picture and telling anecdotes of the 
 artists, in a very voluble manner, she lis- 
 tening attentively. 
 
 When they were within a few yards of 
 where Capri and the artist sat, Newton 
 Marrix recognized them, and saying a word 
 or two to thelady with him they both ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 "Ah, Miss Capri," he said, extending his 
 hand, " this is a surprise ; and, Marc, old
 
 250 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 fellow, you did not tell me you were com- 
 ing to-day. Mrs. Lordson," he continued, 
 turning to the lady who stood beside them, 
 " let me introduce to you my friends Miss 
 Capri Dankers and Mr. Marcus Phillips." 
 
 " Pleased I'm sure to meet them," said 
 Mrs. Lordson, with a nasal accent which, 
 though slight, betrayed her transatlantic 
 nationality. 
 
 The artist stood up and asked her if she 
 would not take his place on the sofa ; and 
 she sank down at once with that luxurious 
 sense of rest after fatigue which only a 
 corpulent person can thoroughl}'- enjoy. 
 
 " Thank you, I'm glad to sit awhile," 
 she said, arranging her ample skirts of 
 dark ruby satin, trimmed with a profusion 
 of old point lace that would have realized 
 a small fortune. 
 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson was an 
 American widow, who had come over to
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 251 
 
 England with the avowed purpose of enter- 
 ing London society. To force such an 
 entrance, to see herself surrounded by the 
 upper ten thousand, to rub shoulders with 
 men and women known to the world ab 
 large, or with beings whose names were 
 inserted in De Brett's ''Peerage,''* was the 
 great ambition of this daughter of the 
 Eepublic. 
 
 The late W. Achilles Lordson had been 
 in his day an enterprising pork-butcher in 
 Brooklyn, and had died two years ago, 
 leaving his childless relict the mistress of 
 a large annuity, which was more than 
 sufficient to cover her most extravagant 
 desires. 
 
 After her grief had been partially as- 
 suaged, she started for Europe in company 
 with a large party of her own country 
 people, of whom, however, she soon tired. 
 
 She had wintered in Florence, gone on
 
 252 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 to Rome, come back to France, remained 
 four months in Paris, but '' not liking them 
 foreign people, that one never knew what 
 they were saying, in their own foolish way 
 jabbering like monkeys," as she told New- 
 ton Marrix, she came over to London and 
 settled herself in a pretty house situated in 
 May Fair. 
 
 She had not been a fortnight in town 
 when chance threw her in Newton Marrix's 
 way. They were introduced by a common 
 friend who was about to start for Norway, 
 and Newton was asked, as a favour, to 
 show the sights of the great show to Mrs. 
 W. Achilles Lordson ; a task he readily 
 consented to undertake. 
 
 In the smart young author who flutter- 
 ed in and out of society in butterfly fashion, 
 who knew everybody worth knowing, and 
 whom in turn everybody knew, Mrs. W. 
 Achilles Lordson saw a man who would
 
 IN THE GROSVEXOR GALLERY. 253 
 
 probaby prove most useful and agreeable. 
 On the other hand ISTewton Marrix recoo^- 
 nized in the widow just stranded in a town 
 quite foreign to her, a woman with social 
 ambitions which he might help to gratify, 
 and great wealth, whose friendship might 
 afford him many advantages. 
 
 With such a mutual though unexpressed 
 understanding, they had commenced an 
 acquaintanceship which offered to flow on 
 pleasantly for both. 
 
 Mrs. TV. Achilles Lordson was tall, and, 
 like most of her countrywomen, her jBgure 
 was erect and well shaped ; it was a trifle 
 stout, perhaps, and rounded, but this gave 
 her a more imposing appearance. Her 
 face, which in warm weather was apt to 
 become singularly glossy, was a great 
 blank upon which Nature had written but 
 two words — capital ones in their way — 
 ^'good nature."
 
 254 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 Sbe was a showy and what most men 
 would call a fine-looking woman, whom 
 one could not help noticing in a crowd. 
 When she walked she flung back her head, 
 thrust her ample bosom forward, and 
 swung her right hand. If her gait was 
 not graceful, it was certainly far from 
 being awkward. Altogether her appear- 
 ance had an air which, even if pronounced, 
 had a freedom about it not unpleasant, and 
 decidedly refreshing. 
 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson evidently had 
 an eye for colours and jewellery, two points 
 of taste in which she lavishly indulged, 
 and which invariably marked her appear- 
 ance ; moreover she had a passion for old 
 lace. In the first place it was expensive, 
 in the second it was especially associated 
 in her eyes with respectabilty. 
 
 " I am glad to sit down really," she 
 said, accepting Marcus Phillips' offer.
 
 IN THE GROSVEXOR GALLERY. 255 
 
 Her skirt half covered poor Capri, who 
 had never before sat alongside of ruby 
 satin, and now for the first time had a 
 nearer approach than a shop-window to 
 old point lace. 
 
 " Mr. Phillips is the painter of number 
 seventy-nine," said Newton to Mrs. Lordson. 
 
 "Really, now," she said, looking with 
 something like awe at a live artist, who 
 stood beside her with a pleasant smile on 
 his fair face, and a frank look in his blue 
 eyes that pleased her. 
 
 " And," continued the author, when he 
 had given her sufficient time to recover 
 her surprise, " Miss Dankers is the original 
 of the ' Beggar Maid.' " 
 
 " La, you don't mean it ?" she said with 
 evident surprise in her eyes ; and she 
 stared at Newton Marrix, and then at the 
 picture, and back again at Capri, who was 
 beginning to enjoy the scene.
 
 256 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " Well, I'm sure," she exclaimed, when 
 she had compared the girl's face with the 
 ^' Beggar Maid's," and had apparently satis- 
 fied herself that Capri was truly the 
 original. Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson 
 thought that after these announcements she 
 should, not feel surprised if one of the fat- 
 limbed boys in the short jackets belonging 
 to the paterfamilias group, was presented 
 to her as the original of the " Sleeping 
 Hermes." 
 
 She rose with an effort from the sofa 
 and went up to the " Beggar Maid " 
 picture, and came back again and stared 
 at Capri, who took it all good-humour- 
 edly. 
 
 " Is it not like me ?" asked Capri. 
 
 '^ Like you ? I should think so." 
 
 *' A fact which nobody can deny," said 
 Newton Marrix. 
 
 *' It would not be complimentary to me
 
 IN THE GROSVEXOR GALLERY. 257 
 
 if" they did," said Marcus Phillips. *'It is 
 as much a portrait as a picture." 
 
 " La, it is beautiful," said the Aruerican, 
 "and so is the young lady too," and once 
 more she sat down, highly pleased with 
 her chaperon for having introduced her to 
 two such remarkable persons at once as the 
 young artist and the original of a picture 
 of which she had heard much. 
 
 Capri's eyes fell on the thick gold chain 
 suspended from her cameo brooch to her 
 waist, with its wealth of massive orna- 
 ments ; and then looked into the matron's 
 good-natured face, and smiled with a child- 
 like look of delight. The smile, sunny and 
 winning, went straight to Mrs. Lordson's 
 heart, and warmed it like a ray of light. 
 
 " How lovely you are," she said, blunt- 
 ly, in a motherly kind of way, looking 
 straight into Capri's face with a steady 
 gaze of admiration. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 '' Mr. Phillips has idealised my picture, I 
 suppose," answered Capri, suddenly drop- 
 ping the familiar " Marc," and pretending 
 not to know that the good woman's re- 
 marks were made regarding herself, and 
 not her picture. 
 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson wondered 
 what she meant by idealise, and took a 
 mental note of the word in order that she 
 might ask Newton Marrix its signification 
 when they were alone, for already she had 
 come to regard liim as her Mentor. 
 
 "We are going to the end of the room 
 to look at ' Jephthah's Daugliter,' " said the 
 author, speaking for himself and Marcus 
 Phillips. 
 
 " Yes, 'tis fine," said Mrs. W. Achilles 
 Lordson, who had just seen it and heard 
 the details of its merits enumerated by her 
 friend. 
 
 The American and Capri were left alone.
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 259 
 
 •* Have you seen 'Jephtbah's Daughter'?" 
 sbe asked. 
 
 " No ; we have not been long here." 
 
 " It's fine, I can tell you." 
 
 " I should like to see it. by-and-by," 
 said Capri. 
 
 ''You must. It's in the per-Eaphaelite 
 school, you know," said the American, who 
 had a strong desire to air her knowledge 
 of art. 
 
 Capri maintained a very serious face. 
 
 "Is it some one's portrait?" the girl 
 asked ; for she thought every face in 
 the gallery must be like hers, a por- 
 trait. 
 
 " Like enough," replied Mrs. W. Achilles 
 Lordson. " I should never have known 
 that picture was a likeness of you only for 
 meeting you here ; so it may be the same 
 with ' Jephthah's Daughter.' But I will ask 
 Mr. Marrix. He will be sure to know, he 
 
 s2
 
 260 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 is such a clever young mau. He knows 
 everything." 
 
 *' He is very agreeable," said Capri. 
 
 *' And has a lot of intelligence," said the 
 widow. 
 
 She took up an enormous black and 
 gold fan that hung by her well-proportion- 
 ed side, and fanned herself energetically. 
 Capri looked at the fan that sparkled and 
 flashed and half dazzled her sight, and 
 wondered how much it had cost. 
 
 *' YoM like my fan ?" she said, noting the 
 girl's admiring glance. 
 
 " It is very handsome." 
 
 *' Isn't it fine ? It cost me twenty 
 dollars, that it did," and she opened and 
 shut it with evident gratification. 
 
 *' Where did you buy it ; in America ?" 
 
 '' No, my dear, in Paris. That's tlie 
 place for gloves, and boots, and fans !" 
 
 Capri wondere^ why it was that people
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 261 
 
 like Mrs. Lordson bad plenty of money, 
 while she, who had taste and was refined, 
 had not a penny in the world to bless 
 herself with. It was strange ! 
 
 A gronp of young girls in faded blue 
 and olive-green robes, cut in a fashion 
 partly Greek, partly Japanese, partly early 
 English, passed in front of them at that 
 moment. 
 
 "La ! how queer they dress," solilquised 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson. '' They do 
 look frights, some of them. It makes 
 one think they are not in their right minds 
 until one gets used to them. They re- 
 mind me of the poor young thing, Ophelia, 
 that I saw last night at the theatre, who 
 w^ent out of her mind, and got on in a 
 dreadful way that quite gave me a turn." 
 
 " It is fashionable to dress in this way," 
 said Capri, smiling at the American's 
 remarks.
 
 262 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 '' Yes. Mr. Marrix says it's 'sbhetic." 
 " So it is," said Capri. " It is high art." 
 " Do you like artists and writers and 
 poets, and all that lot r" she asked, turn- 
 ing round to Capri. 
 
 *' Yes," answered the girl, " they are 
 very nice people." 
 
 " We have few of them in the States," 
 she said confidentially, " and they seem a 
 little odd in their ways to me." 
 '' They are all Bohemians." 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson did not uu- 
 derstand. She made another mental note, 
 in order to have her Mentor's opinion by- 
 and-by. 
 
 " I adore art myself," she said, presentlj^ 
 She had privately made up her mind 
 that she would become a patroness of art ; 
 for she had a just, sensible, and popular 
 idea that money can do anything and 
 everything now-a-days.
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 263 
 
 " Do you stay long in town ?" Capri 
 questioned her timidly. 
 
 "Yes, I think I'll settle down in Lon- 
 don. I have taken a house in May Fair, 
 a small place, but large enough for one : 
 for I have neither chick nor child belong- 
 ing to me in life." 
 
 " How lonely you must be." said Capri, 
 sympathetically, in a low, sweet tone, and 
 she looked into the widow's good-natured 
 face with her most trusting child-like 
 expression. 
 
 " Yes, I am lonely sometimes," said Mrs. 
 W. Achilles Lordson, with a sigh that made 
 her capacious bosom heave like a billow ; 
 " but then, when one lives in the world and 
 goes about, one has not much time left for 
 thinking." 
 
 As she spoke she looked into Capri's 
 face, and thought how sweet and beautiful 
 it was.
 
 264 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " And you, my dear," said the American, 
 familiarly, '^ I suppose you have a lot of 
 brothers and sisters at home ?" 
 
 " Oh ! no," the girl replied wistfully, as 
 if the possession of those relatives was the 
 one thing in life she most desired. 
 
 " You are an only child?" 
 
 "Yes, I live all alone with Pa. My 
 mother has been dead many years. I 
 barely remember her." 
 
 Capri cast her eyes down. Mrs. Lordson 
 thought they were full of tears. 
 
 ''My !" she ejaculated, and put up her 
 heavy gold-rimmed glasses, to take a 
 keener look at Capri's slender figure, clad 
 in its quiet grey colour. 
 
 Just then Capri lowered her arm, and 
 the silver bangle, which was too large for 
 her, fell to the ground. The girl bent 
 down to pick it up. She had thought it 
 handsome and valuable, but now, from
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 265 
 
 contrast with the massive bands of gold 
 that clasped Mrs. Lordson s fleshy wrists, 
 it looked almost shabby. 
 
 '' What a pretty bangle," said Mrs. 
 Lordson, wishing to make herself agreeable 
 to the girl. 
 
 "It is simple," said Capri. ''It was 
 given to me by Lord Harrick." 
 
 " Lord Harrick !" said the American 
 lady, on whom the viscount's name had the 
 due effect which Capri intended. 
 
 " Yes, he is a friend of Pa's," she remark- 
 ed, as if peers of the realm were common- 
 place, every-day acquaintances of hers. 
 
 "My ! Do you go much into society?" 
 she asked, after a slight meditative pause. 
 
 ** No, we live very quietly. See, here 
 are our friends back." 
 
 At that moment the artist and Newton 
 Marrix opportunely returned, before Mrs. 
 W. Achilles Lordson could ask any further
 
 266 TT IS NO ^YONDER. 
 
 questions of Capri coucerning her borne. 
 
 " Come and see me soon, dear," said the 
 American, turning suddenly to Capri. 
 
 "With great pleasure," answered the 
 girl, quite pleased at the prospect. 
 
 " Some morning when I am quiet, say 
 Monday next, if that will suit you." 
 
 *' It will suit me very well." 
 
 " Come about twelve, and we will have a 
 quiet chat." 
 
 "I shall be very glad," said Capri, 
 eagerly, for the proposal filled her with a 
 delight she could scarcely contain. 
 
 She had accomplished a move in the 
 right direction, and was pleased at the 
 impression she had made on the wealthy 
 American's mind. She had not wasted the 
 first opportunity to advance herself which 
 fate had thrown in her way. 
 
 When the two young men returned Mrs. 
 W. Achilles Lordson stoocl up and rustled
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 267 
 
 her ruby satin dress that caught the light 
 in its luminous folds, and jingled her 
 lockets and charms and bracelets noisily, 
 and folded her gorgeous black and gold 
 fan. 
 
 "I think we will go now," she said, 
 turning to Newton Marrix. "I am half 
 dazed like with all these pictures. Don't 
 you think they give one a headache ?" she, 
 who adored art, asked of Capri. 
 
 *• No," said the girl, who had but little 
 experience of galleries, but who spoke as 
 if she were a veteran picture-hunter. 
 
 '' We shall come some other day and look 
 at the rest," said Mrs. Lordson. Then she 
 turned round to where Marcus Phillips 
 stood, and said, in a most gracious man- 
 ner, " Mr. Phillips, yours is the picture 
 that pleases me best in the gallery," and 
 she smiled at him good-naturedly, as if to 
 encourage him. Already she had com-
 
 268 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 menced to play at being an art-patroness. 
 
 "You give me great pleasure," said the 
 artist, bowing to her. 
 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson thought he 
 made a finer bow and looked better, 
 though only an artist, than Senator B. 
 Woulfetone Flannigan, who was known to 
 possess some six or seven million dollars, 
 or even than J. Washington Mangletor 
 himself, who ran for the presidency last 
 fall. 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear," she said to Capri, 
 seizing her hand and giving it a grasp 
 which the girl feared would burst her new 
 glove that was a size too small. "You 
 will come on Monday ?" 
 
 '* I shall with pleasure." 
 
 " I hope to see you again, Mr. Phillips," 
 she concluded, giving the artist's hand an 
 honest, vice-like grip. 
 
 Then she jangled all her jewellery and
 
 IX THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 269 
 
 rustled her ample skirts once more, and 
 swept out of the gallery beside Newton 
 Marrix. 
 
 "Oh, Marc," Capri said eagerly, when 
 they were gone, " why did you not speak 
 more to her ? She has taken a house in 
 Mayfair, and adores art, she says." 
 
 " Well ?" 
 
 " Well, of course, if she takes a house 
 and adores art, she will want to buy pic- 
 tures, and she has plenty of money," said 
 the girl sagely, looking up at the tall, fair- 
 haired man beside her. 
 
 ''What a wise little woman you are in 
 your generation," he said. 
 
 "" And what a dreamer you are in yours, 
 dear old Marc," she replied, imitating his 
 tone. 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " You should cultivate that woman's 
 acquaintance. If I were you, I would
 
 270 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 invite her to my studio — she would be 
 delighted witli the idea — and then I should 
 sell her a pot-boiler for a good round sum." 
 
 " What a mercenary creature !" 
 
 " I always told you I was." 
 
 *' And I never believed you." 
 
 " But you will some day." 
 
 " I hope not, Capri." 
 
 " Well, about Mrs. Lordson : she knows 
 as much about art as a cat, but she will 
 fill her house with it to make up for her 
 ignorance. People like her always do 
 that." 
 
 ^'Well?" 
 
 *' You save her from collecting a lot of 
 rubbish." 
 
 ''How can I do that?" 
 
 " How dull you are ! Why, by selling 
 her some of your own pictures ; she will 
 make a better purchaser than your hard- 
 hearted bargaining old dealers. You will
 
 IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. 271 
 
 serve her and yourself at tlie same time." 
 
 A shadow passed over the artist's face ; 
 he did not answer the o-irl immediatelv, 
 but looked away from her. 
 
 *' What are you thinking of, Marc ?" she 
 asked after a pause. 
 
 " Shall I tell you ?" ' 
 
 "Certainly: you must, now you excite 
 my curiosity. TVhat is it?" 
 
 " I am thinking it is a pity you are so 
 fond of money." 
 
 " Perhaps it is," rephed Capri, not dis- 
 pleased with him, but softened at his un- 
 expected answer. 
 
 " Now, in turn, will you tell me of what 
 you are thinking ?" he asked, watching the 
 half regretful look that came into her dark 
 eyes. 
 
 "I am thinking it is a pity that the 
 world renders it necessary for us to think 
 of money."
 
 272 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " It is a pity if it does, for it takes away 
 much of the pleasure and freshness from 
 life." 
 
 ''Maybe," she answered, with a sigh; 
 " come, let us go round the gallery."
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A MORNING CALL. 
 
 ON the day Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson 
 had appointed, Capri punctually pre- 
 sented herself at the little house in Mayfair, 
 dressed in her quiet grey costume, with a 
 band of dark crimson velvet round her 
 throat, the only spot of colour visible in her 
 whole attire. 
 
 Though her dress was as simple as well 
 could be, and its hue as neutral as the se- 
 verest British matron could desire for a 
 young girl, yet there was something, not so 
 much about its shape and colour as about 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 the indescribable way in which it was worn, 
 that at once gave it an unstudied grace, 
 which made the plain material and its quiet 
 colour almost picturesque. 
 
 Capri had smiled at her reflection in the 
 little square of mirror hanging on the wall 
 in her bed-room with a complacent, gratified 
 air, when she had completed her toilette, 
 and fastened the bright-coloured satin round 
 her neck by way of artistic contrast. 
 
 She had told her father of the meeting 
 with the wealthy American widow in the 
 Grosvenor Gallery, and of the invitation she 
 had given her to go and have a quiet chat 
 with her; and that judicious parent was 
 pleased that Capri should keep her appoint- 
 ment with Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson, for he 
 considered a closer acquaintance with that 
 lady might prove . of advantage to either 
 Capri or himself, though in what way he 
 could not exactly define.
 
 A MORNING CALL. 275 
 
 The captain was a man who was fond of 
 glancing into the future in search of any 
 bright spots its horizon naight probably con- 
 tain. Moreover, he had a speculative mind, 
 like many others with little to engage them. 
 He was ever ready for any change or good 
 luck that could possibly befall him. 
 
 If he woke up any morning in the year 
 to receive a telegram declarinor him lieir 
 to a title and estates, by sixteen sud- 
 den deaths at one fell blow, he would 
 not have been much surprised, and would 
 have regarded the sixteen deaths but as the 
 timely interposition of Providence on his 
 behalf 
 
 He was ever waiting for fortune's favours, 
 yet for all his readiness they never came, 
 and so the captain learned patience. 
 
 In the present case he was interested by 
 Capri's account of Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson. 
 She was an American ; she was wealthy ; 
 
 t2
 
 276 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 she had asked his daughter to visit her. 
 With such materials to commence with 
 in the present, what might not the future 
 promise? 
 
 The captain filled his pipe, for cigars were 
 luxuries only to be enjoyed in the even- 
 ing, and had a quiet smoke thinking over 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson while Capri pro- 
 ceeded towards Mayfair. 
 
 The clocks of the neighbouring churches 
 were striking midday in a wonderful jangle 
 of different tones as she gave a timid rap at 
 the great brass knocker of the little door, 
 which represented the head of some animal 
 as yet completely unknown to the most 
 learned naturalist. 
 
 In order to rap one was obliged to get 
 hold of the two fierce-looking front teeth, 
 and strike them against the grizzled chin of 
 the monster ; the mouth was a receptacle for 
 letters.
 
 A MOKNING CALL. 277 
 
 The grotesque animal had eyes that 
 glared as fiercely as it was possible for 
 bronze to glare. Capri thought they sought 
 to rivet her to the doorstep by a sullen 
 malignant glare which, if she but looked 
 away for a moment, might develop into a 
 half comic wink. 
 
 She had not long, however, to wait ; 
 the door was flung open by a page in 
 spick and span new livery, the buttons of 
 whose jacket from chin to waist far out- 
 numbered his years. 
 
 His hair was light, and sleek as brush- 
 ing could make it ; his face shining and 
 rosy, so that altogether he was so dapper 
 and new of aspect that he looked like an 
 automatical boy that had been just sent 
 home to order from the stores. 
 
 " Mrs. Lordson ?" said Capri, who grew 
 more timid in the presence of this glittering 
 specimen of humanity.
 
 278 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 "What name?" he asked, with a sudden 
 snap-like manner, and then looked impene- 
 trable. 
 
 "Miss Bankers." 
 
 "Walk up to the drawing-room, please," 
 he said, as if repeating a lesson, and look- 
 ing at Capri from head to foot. 
 
 He showed her upstairs, flung the door 
 open and announced her. 
 
 "Miss Bankers." 
 
 Capri stood in the majestic presence of 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson. 
 
 That lady was seated in a low square- 
 backed arm-chair, which she amply filled, 
 arrayed in a flowered yellow damask morn- 
 ing wrapper, trimmed with many and man}^ 
 a bow of olive-hued satin ; a lace cap just 
 rested on the back of her head, and a thick 
 gold chain, from which a massive locket was 
 suspended, was fastened round her full 
 throat ; her stout fingers were littered with
 
 A MORNING CALL. 279 
 
 rings, and even at that early hour she was 
 resplendent with jewellery. 
 
 The windows of the drawing-room were 
 raised, and admitted the fresh, sweet odour 
 of plants and flowers that crowded the little 
 balcony outside, around the ornamental 
 metal work of which vine tendrils were 
 trained. It was shaded by a pretty awn- 
 ing of pink and white lawn, which threw a 
 delicate shade into the room. 
 
 It was deliciously cool after the heat of 
 the morning outside, Capri thought ; but the 
 blaze of colour the apartment presented, 
 and the costly objects with which it was 
 filled, almost dazzled her. 
 
 Never before, except on the stage of the 
 Lyceum Theatre, had she seen such furniture. 
 The chairs and couches were upholstered 
 in yellow figured satin, which was fully 
 thrown into relief against their ebony backs ; 
 the window-curtains were of the same gor-
 
 280 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 geous colour, somewhat toned down by the 
 costly lace which overhung and half covered 
 them. The carpet had a background of 
 orange, over which purple passion-flowers 
 and plants, such as never grew in terrestrial 
 gardens, twined themselves into bright-hued 
 garlands. 
 
 An upright piano, resplendent in ebony 
 and gold, stood in one corner of the room ; 
 a huge Corean jar in the other ; and be- 
 tween the windows a pedestal surmounted 
 by a Greek double-headed vase, bearing 
 the faces of Hercules and Omphale, which 
 Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson had bought for 
 its weight in gold, and which she fondly 
 imagined made good her claim as a lover 
 of art in all men's sight. 
 
 Old china and many quaint, delightful 
 specimens of porcelain stood on shelves and 
 brackets about the walls. 
 
 The eifect of the room, taken for all in
 
 A MORNING CALL. 281 
 
 all, made one inclined to feel rather sea- 
 sick on this bright morning, but it was all 
 new to Capri, and the great glare had not 
 yet time to act upon her nerves. 
 
 *'How do you do, ray dear?" said Mrs. 
 W. Achilles Lordson, smiling with that 
 good-natured expression which compensated 
 for much that her face lacked or lost, as 
 Capri entered the room. 
 
 The stout lady did not rise from her 
 chair, fur that would prove an exertion she 
 was not prepared to undergo in the 
 morning. 
 
 '' Very well, thanks," said Capri, a little 
 shy at feeling herself suddenly in the midst 
 of such splendour. 
 
 "I am glad to see you, my dear," said 
 the matron kindly, pressing the girl's hand. 
 
 '' How delightfully cool it is in here !" 
 
 " It is. My blinds are well managed." 
 
 Capri looked out at the pink and white
 
 282 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 awning and the bright flowers outside. 
 
 '* Are you hot, my dear ?" 
 
 "Just a little/' 
 
 '' Well, take off your hat and jacket ; for 
 I hope you are prepared to spend a couple 
 of hours with me at least," she said pleas- 
 antly. 
 
 Capri readily declared she would be de- 
 lighted, and laid down her jacket, not with- 
 out some hesitation, on one of the yellow- 
 satin-covered chairs. 
 
 '* Why, child, you look twice as well 
 without your hat! How handsome you 
 are !" and the matron gazed at Capri as if 
 she were a picture or a statue. 
 
 A warm hue came into the pale olive of 
 her face, and light into her dark eyes. 
 Mrs. Lordson's words gave her a keen pleas- 
 ure, which she was quick to show, and for 
 which she felt grateful. 
 
 These complimentary words prepared her
 
 A MORNING CALL. 283 
 
 to like the American. A little word fre- 
 quently means so much, though it is often 
 spoken so lightly. It is a pity we do not 
 think more before we speak, it would often- 
 times render us so much more agreeable to 
 others. 
 
 ^' Come and sit by me," said Mrs. W. 
 Achilles Lordson. 
 
 The girl took a little stool, and placing it 
 at the matron's feet sat down there, and 
 looked, with a winning, child-like glance into 
 the broad, coarse, good-natured face above 
 her. 
 
 " That's right/' she said when Capri had 
 settled herself " What is your first name ? 
 I have made up my mind that you and I 
 are to be friends, and I shall not call you 
 Miss Bankers, my dear." 
 
 " I am glad of that," replied the girl. 
 *' Almost everyone calls me Capri." 
 
 "Capri?"
 
 284 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " Yes ; I am called after the island where 
 I was born." 
 
 "La ! child, who ever heard of the like?" 
 asked Mrs. Lordson, smiling. 
 
 "Very few, I believe." 
 
 " And where is the island, my dear ? It 
 is not a desert one, I hope, for your poor 
 mother's sake." 
 
 " No," answered Capri, who could not 
 restrain a smile. " It is near Naples." 
 
 " Oh ! you are a foreigner then. That is 
 the reason you are so dark," she said with 
 charming natural bluntness. 
 
 "My mother was a foreigner, a Neapoli- 
 tan, whom my father married when he was 
 abroad." 
 
 " Is he a foreigner, too ?" 
 
 "No, he is an Englishman; they lived in 
 Capri when I was born, and for some time 
 after. I came to England some years after 
 my mother died, when Pa retired."
 
 A ^rORXING CALL. 285 
 
 "Retired from what?" asked Mrs. Lord- 
 son, already interested in what she heard. 
 
 " From the English army," replied Capri, 
 looking up to see the effect of her w^ords. 
 
 "Oh! I see. Is he a colonel?" 
 
 Colonels were as plentiful in Mrs. W. 
 Achilles Lordson's land as blackberries are 
 in September in an English lane, and famili- 
 arity with those gallant countrymen of hers 
 had bred a contempt in her bosom for their 
 rank. 
 
 However, during her short acquaintance 
 with European life, she was just beginning 
 to see there was some contrast between the 
 military men yclept colonels on the other 
 side of the Atlantic and men of the same 
 title in England. 
 
 Still she liked the sound of the word 
 colonel. It was fine, she thought, and 
 miorht have ever so manv orlorious and 
 heroic associations connected with it; in-
 
 286 IT IS XO WONDER. 
 
 deed she might, had she chosen, now be 
 Mrs. Colonel H. Johnson Walworth, but 
 the colonel kept a fruit-stall and swore 
 dreadfully when his apples got bad, and 
 was utterly ignorant of art. 
 
 She was rather disappointed when Capri 
 said her father was but a retired captain, 
 but she reflected that a captain in the 
 English army was a good thing after all. 
 
 *' And where do you live, my dear ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 ''In the Euston Road," replied the girl, 
 without hesitation. ''Pa is not very well 
 off now ; we live very quietly." 
 
 " I see," said Mrs. Lordson, grasping the 
 situation at once, and remaining thoughtful 
 for some little time. 
 
 '' Well," she said, after a slight pause, 
 with the air of one about to give confidence 
 for confidence, ^' last fall but one I came to 
 Europe."
 
 A MORNING CALL. 287 
 
 "Last fall?" 
 
 "Yes; last autumn, as you say in Eng- 
 land." 
 
 '*I beg your pardon." 
 
 " My husband had died in the previous 
 spring, so I wanted to knock about to cheer 
 myself up and get lively again, and I went 
 to Italy and France." 
 
 " How delightful that must have been !" 
 
 " I can't say it was. I did not care for 
 them foreign places much. What is the use 
 in staying among people that do not know 
 one word of what you are saying, and only 
 make frightful signs at you when they 
 jabber away in their own tongue as if they 
 sought to make themselves understood in 
 that way. Not that they can help their 
 language, poor things ! but it always annoyed 
 me, and I left the Continent, though some 
 of the places were fine, to be sure ; and they 
 have plenty of art, my dear. They live for
 
 288 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 art, and the money they can make out of 
 travellers." 
 
 " And you got tired abroad ?" 
 
 *' I did, I assure you, and I made up my 
 mind to come to England, though I was 
 told it was dreadful slow and old-fashioned, 
 and the people were that stand-off and 
 knew nothing about surprise parties and 
 hops ; yet I rather like them, and intend to 
 stay for some time." 
 
 She ran her hand through Capri's hair 
 that shaded from dark to russet gold as it 
 caught the light in falling through her 
 fingers. 
 
 Then turning the conversation suddenly, 
 she asked, 
 
 *' How do you like my room ?'^ 
 
 " It is beautiful," said Capri. 
 
 " It cost a pot of money, I can tell you," 
 and she smiled, pleased and gratified by the 
 girl's response.
 
 A MORNING CALL. 289 
 
 " I suppose it did," answered Capri, try- 
 ing to make a mental calculation of what 
 the sum might amount to. 
 
 "There is a cabinet there I bought in 
 Italy. It belonged to Catherine de ]\Iedici : 
 do you know about her ?" 
 
 ''A little." 
 
 " There is a statue in the ducal palace in 
 Florence to Venus de^ Medici, who was 
 a shameless thing, for she is carved without 
 anything to cover her, though a fine woman, 
 I admit ; but I never saw one of Catherine ; 
 there may be one in some of them galleries 
 abroad, but they confuse one so with their 
 queer names that no one can remember the 
 half of them." 
 
 The cabinet that had belonged to Cathe- 
 rine de^ Medici w^as a gem of ebony, inlaid 
 with ivory marquetry. Capri rose to exam- 
 ine and stare at it with homage. 
 
 " I have never seen anything half so 
 
 VOL. 1. u
 
 290 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 lovely," said the girl under her breath, and 
 she wondered how much it had cost, and 
 thought that there must be no limit to Mrs. 
 Lordson's wealth. 
 
 That lady smiled complacently. 
 
 " T have always had a taste in that way," 
 she remarked in a cool self-satisfied man- 
 ner. "You know, I adore art — I live for 
 it," she went on, turning her eyes from the 
 Corean jar to the costly porcelain lying on 
 the brackets ; '' but I have something much 
 finer to show you here," 
 
 She turned to a coffer, which Capri had 
 not noticed before. It was shaped like an 
 ancient sarcophagus, and quaintly carved 
 exteriorly, but worn and almost black with 
 age. 
 
 " It is not much to look at outside." 
 
 Mrs. Lordson opened the lid, and Capri 
 uttered an exclamation of delight, and fell 
 back a step or two reverentially. Inside,
 
 A MORNING CALL. 291 
 
 on a background of rich crimson, were 
 painted cherubs swinging wreaths of golden 
 roses, and purple fruits, and yellow leaves ; 
 the fillets of the moulding were in dead 
 gold, heavily ornamented with arabesques 
 of palest pink, and bordered with a row of 
 beading in dark green. 
 
 It was a gorgeous-looking piece of work- 
 manship, a triumph of art. 
 
 "What do you think of that, my dear? 
 There are some of your English connoisseurs ^w 
 would give one of their eyes for that. It 
 formerly belonged to the Sechan collection. 
 That will show them how I love art," slie 
 concluded triumphantly, for the good wo- 
 man measured the beauty of art by the sum 
 it cost her. 
 
 " It must have cost so much money," said 
 €apri, looking up at her. 
 
 '•Money! — 1 should think it did. I 
 boucrht it at a crreat sale in Paris. An arch- 
 
 o o 
 
 u 2
 
 292 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 duke and a. French marquis bid against rae, 
 but I carried it off in spite of them, for I 
 had set my heart on having it, and have it 
 I would, at any price ; but it did cost me 
 some dollars," she replied, looking at Capri, 
 who was duly impressed with her magnifi- 
 cence. *' The girl is very beautiful," Mrs. 
 Lordson thought, as her eyes turned towards 
 her new acquaintance. 
 
 Capri stood in the subdued light, her 
 dark hair contrasting the purity of her 
 complexion, a look of wonder, mingled with 
 longing, in her great eyes. 
 
 " She is like a picture," Mrs. Lordson said 
 mentally, looking at her again, "or like one 
 of tliem statues in the foreign galleries, only 
 far more lovely, from the warm colour and 
 life that lights her face." 
 
 *' Do you sing?" the matron asked aloud 
 presently, and she pointed to the open 
 piano.
 
 A MORNING CALL. 293 
 
 •' Yes," the girl answered, without hesita- 
 tion, going over to the instrument. " What 
 shall I sing you ?" 
 
 " Anything you like, my dear. I am 
 fond of music. I delisht in it, for it is in 
 itself an art, you know." 
 
 Capri had never sat down to such a hand- 
 some instrument before. It had just come 
 from the maker's hands, and was brilliant 
 in its ornamentation of bright gold, the 
 notes were white and stiff, and when she 
 struck them they sounded deep, clear, and 
 ringing. She sat down quietly, struck a 
 few chords, and began Schubert's ''Song 
 of Miriam " in a voice at once plaintive 
 and full of rich, tender melody. The sound 
 rose higher and higher like a beseeching 
 prayer, and then settled down into a sub- 
 dued hush, so sweet, so low and lingering 
 did the last note end. 
 
 Capri had insensibly the power of touch-
 
 294 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ing others by her voice ; it seemed to find 
 an echo in the hearts of those who heard 
 her, and stir within them their most subtle 
 and best emotions. 
 
 When Capri had finished she left the 
 piano, and, seating herself on the stool by 
 Mrs. Lordson's feet, laid her head upon the 
 matron's knees with a pretty child-like 
 action, as if she were seeking for protection 
 and love. Mrs. Lordson did not speak for 
 some time. She laid her plump hand kind- 
 ly upon the dark head and stroked it softly. 
 The glossy hair was soft and silken to the 
 touch, and the pale, clear face looked very 
 gentle, and winning, and loveable just then. 
 
 " I suppose you have plenty of friends, 
 Capri ?" Mrs. Lordson commenced, after 
 some time. 
 
 "Friends? No," said Capri, making no 
 mention of her visits to Marcus Phillips' 
 studio, or her occasional pleasant chats
 
 A MORNING CALL. 295 
 
 with her father's pupils, who frequently 
 were not only punctual to the hour fixed 
 for their fencing lessons, but came half an 
 hour in advance, to have a friendly gossip 
 with her. 
 
 " No ?" 
 
 " You see I live quite alone with Pa, and 
 see very few persons — one cannot be too 
 particular in a city. Pa is nearly always 
 out, and I don't see much of him either, so 
 I am left a good deal to myself," she said, 
 finishing her words with a little sigh. 
 
 " That is not well for a young girl like 
 
 you." 
 
 '* Perhaps not; but I have always been 
 used to it, and I do not much mind 
 now." 
 
 After this Mrs. Lordson was silent again 
 for some time, as if thinking, and kept 
 stroking Capri's head gently meanwhile. 
 Suddenly she said,
 
 296 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ^' Would you like to come and live with 
 me?" 
 
 It was the question which all the time 
 Capri had been hoping and praying she 
 might ask her ; a desire which she feared 
 was too great a boon to have fulfilled, yet 
 here were her wishes granted, her hopes 
 gratified. 
 
 Capri felt her heart give a great throb, 
 and she mentally acknowledged that for- 
 tune had been very good and gracious to 
 her indeed. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Lordson, I should be de- 
 lighted," she said, her eyes sparkling with 
 pleasure at the mere prospect. " It is the 
 one thing which I would most desire in 
 life." 
 
 '' Well," said the matron, " you see I live 
 all by myself; and, though I shall probably 
 go into society a good deal, yet I feel it 
 lonely to have no one to speak to now and
 
 A MORNING CALL. 297 
 
 then. I begin to feel dull, so I thought I 
 would get a companion, and I took a fancy 
 to you, my dear, when I saw you in that 
 gallery." 
 
 '*I am glad you did. It was a lucky 
 visit for me," said Capri, raising her dark 
 eyes to Mrs. Lordson's face. 
 
 " So, if you are willing, and your father 
 satisfied, I will give you a hundred a year, 
 and you can come and live with me as soon 
 as you please." 
 
 Poor Capri could scarcely believe she was 
 not dreaming. A hundred a year, and live 
 in Mayfair, not in two or three rooms in 
 a dingy road, noisy with the sound of cabs 
 and busses, and a hundred distracting street 
 cries, from early in the morning until late 
 at night, but a house in an aristocratic 
 quarter, and such a house too ; it was like 
 a prospect of Paradise. 
 
 If she were alone she would have jumped
 
 298 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 for joy and danced about the room ; the 
 mere thought of the exchange almost over- 
 came her. She was dazzled with the idea 
 of living this new life ; the full glory and 
 benefit of the change flashed across her 
 quick mind in a second, and made her 
 breathless for a time. 
 
 ^' Oh ! dear Mrs. Lordson," she said, when 
 she had calmed herself sufficiently to give 
 an answer, " how can I thank you?" 
 
 '* By coming to me as soon as you possibly 
 can; that is, always providing the captain 
 does not object." 
 
 Capri remembered her father with a little 
 chill. However, she resolved that nothing 
 should prevent her accepting this wonderful 
 offer. She had her way to gain in the 
 world, and this would be the first step in 
 the right direction. She made up her 
 mind there and then that her father should
 
 A MORNING CALL. 299 
 
 exercise no influence over her in this 
 matter. 
 
 " I think Pa will not mind when he knows 
 it will be for my advantage," she replied, 
 though she entertained lurking doubts in that 
 direction. 
 
 " Very good, Capri." 
 
 "To-day is Monday. I shall prepare 
 and come to you on Saturday. Will that 
 suit ?" 
 
 ''Yes, child, it will, if you cannot come 
 sooner. But I suppose you want to make 
 some preparations. Let it be on Saturday." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 " Oh ! I almost forgot to ask you," she 
 said suddenly, " if you know much about 
 art." 
 
 " Yes." said Capri boldly, for she knew 
 Mrs. Lordson could never sit in judgment 
 on her in that direction.
 
 300 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 ''That is all right." 
 
 "Mr. Phillips, who painted my picture, 
 has taught me a good deal about art ; and 
 so has an old friend of mine, Signor Palla- 
 mari, who discovered some urns in Pompeii, 
 and who knows every monument and statue 
 in Rome; and he has talked of them to 
 me over and over again until I fancy I 
 know them all." 
 
 "The girl will be a perfect treasure," 
 thought Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson, but she 
 said aloud, 
 
 "I am glad of that, my dear. It is the 
 duty of every one of us to have a good 
 knowledge of art," she went on in an elo- 
 quent tone. *' It ennobles and raises our 
 minds, you see — at least so I am told, and 
 you know I adore art." 
 
 " It is delightful," said Capri, trying to 
 keep the conversational ball rolling. 
 
 "Try to remember all about it, and
 
 A MORNING CALL. 301 
 
 them statues and urns and things, and we 
 shall have a talk over them all when we are 
 together." 
 
 Capri resolved to gain as much informa- 
 tion on the subject, and make the best use 
 she could of old Pallamari's sources of 
 knowledge, by becoming as familiar with 
 the names and localities of statues and 
 pictures as possible ; she trusted the rest to 
 her fertile imagination. 
 
 " Signor Pallamari," she said, for the 
 title of courtesy sounded less familiar and 
 better than the habitual " old " applied to 
 her friend, '' has lived half his life in art 
 galleries and among artists; it is always a 
 pleasure to me — one of the greatest pleas- 
 ures — to listen to his explanations and anec- 
 dotes concernini^ art and artistic life." 
 
 "Mrs. W. Achilles Lordson said she was 
 glad of til at ; that to make art popular 
 would be the object of her life, a scheme in
 
 302 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 which she hoped Capri would aid her. 
 
 Capri readily declared it was the ambi- 
 tion of her life to make its true value known 
 to the lower class ; she only longed to com- 
 mence the good work at once. 
 
 The American was of opinion that in 
 England it was not only the lower classes, 
 but even the higher, and, if she might say 
 so, even the educated classes, which required 
 to become more familiar with the true 
 principles of art, and it would be to them 
 her exertions in the future would first 
 appeal. 
 
 Capri was pleased to hear this ; so far as 
 she could see, the class to whom Mrs. 
 Lordson made reference thought too much 
 of mere physical pleasures of life, leaving 
 the higher, more ennobling pursuits to lie 
 neglected. 
 
 Just then, when Mrs. Lordson had warm- 
 ly expressed lier approbation at the girl's
 
 A MORNING CALL. 303 
 
 sentiments, they heard a loud ring and knock 
 at the door, and Capri rose to depart. 
 
 " You need not stir, my dear, just yet ; 
 it's Mr. Marrix, I think, I expect him at 
 one o'clock," and she consulted a little 
 jewelled case watch the size of a florin. 
 
 In another moment Xewton Marrix 
 entered the room. The first tiling Capri 
 noticed was that he was carefully dressed, 
 and looked remarkably bright and well. 
 
 " You did not expect to see Miss Bankers 
 here, I suppose?" said Mrs. W. Achilles 
 Lordson when the young author had 
 shaken hands with them and sat down on 
 an ottoman opposite. 
 
 " I scarcely expected such a pleasure." 
 
 ''Well, I asked her to call and see me 
 this morning, and the result is that we 
 like each other so well that we are going 
 to live together in future. She will be 
 my companion."
 
 304 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 '' I offer my congratulations to you both," 
 he said ; " I am very o;lacl." 
 
 '^ Well, that is pleasant," said Mrs. Lord- 
 son, as if it were a relief to her to find he 
 had approved of her action. 
 
 " I have secured stalls at the Lyceum for 
 Saturday night," he said. "There is a re- 
 production announced for that night, and all 
 the best people will be there." 
 
 " You are very good," said the matron, 
 delightedly. 
 
 " And Mrs. Stonex Stanning has asked 
 me to leave you her card, and say she will 
 be pleased to see you at her at homes on 
 Thursday afternoons during the season." 
 
 He handed her the card which, as a 
 special favour to himself, Mrs. Stonex 
 Stanning had consented to let him have. 
 
 " My ! How kind she is," said Mrs. 
 Lordson. "You will call for me next 
 Thursday, and we shall go."
 
 A MORNING CALL. 305 
 
 Newton Marrix accepted the order and 
 promised obedience. 
 
 " Mrs. Wilson Farrer, the authoress, will 
 call on you on Wednesday and have lunch, 
 and so will Count Bassano. I have asked 
 both, using my carte blanche, and knowing 
 you had no engagements for Wednesday." 
 
 " I am delighted." 
 
 "The count is a great connoisseur. I 
 have told him of your coffer " 
 
 " And the Medici cabinet ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 *' La, I am so glad." 
 
 "So is the count?" 
 
 "And Mrs. Wilson Farrer, is she agreeable?" 
 
 " Most agreeable ; but she does not care 
 a straw for art." 
 
 "My! What a pity!" 
 
 " She only lives to write." 
 
 " I hope she won't put me into one of 
 her novels." 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 " No danger of that." 
 
 " I am afraid of those people." 
 
 " Not of me ?" 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " I must get some of her books to-morrow 
 from the Grosvenor Library and read them 
 before she comes ; one always knows authors 
 through their books, and besides," she add- 
 ed, turning to Capri with an air of superior 
 wisdom, '' it always flatters them to show 
 by some reference that you are familiar 
 with their writings and know some of their 
 characters by name." 
 
 *' You know our weak points," said New- 
 ton Marrix, smiling. 
 
 " I have studied human nature." 
 
 "Then be merciful in your judgments." 
 
 " I alwaj^s am," said Mrs. Lordson with a 
 gentle sigh. " By-the-way, does the count 
 speak English ?" 
 
 "He does."
 
 A MORNING CALL. 307 
 
 " Well, that is pleasant. Have you asked 
 anyone else to luncheon ?" 
 
 " No, unless my friend Marcus Phillips ; 
 he knows the count." 
 
 ''Very good. I shall be happy to see 
 him." 
 
 Capri heard the artist's name mentioned 
 with pleasure as among those who were to 
 lunch, and thanked the author with a glance 
 of her bright eyes which did not escape 
 him. Marcus would see the house, and 
 would be able to call on Mrs. Lordson and 
 see her, Capri, at the same time, when she 
 was settled as the matron's companion. 
 
 " Where do we go to-day ?" Mrs. Lordson 
 asked of her guide, philosopher, and friend. 
 
 "To Windsor. We shall start after 
 luncheon." 
 
 Capri stood up to leave. 
 
 " Come, my dear, you must have some 
 lunch before you go," and she took the girl's
 
 808 IT IS NO WONDER. 
 
 arm and led her into the dining-room. 
 
 By the time she had finished she felt 
 quite familiar with the place ; she was cer- 
 tain she would get on well at her new 
 duties. Her spirits rose. 
 
 When she at length left, she went down 
 the handsomely-carpeted steps with an air 
 of perfect complacency. The page opened 
 the door for her ; she passed out without 
 seeming to perceive that miniature man, and 
 with as much dignity as if she had been 
 used to the attendance of pages all the days 
 of her life. 
 
 The sense of a coming change was already 
 upon her. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN ALA.CDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSB. 
 
 H
 
 30112052938740 
 
 
 
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