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 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS 
 
 AT ALL THE LIBRARIES 
 
 HILARY ST. JOHN. By Mrs. A. Price, author of 'A 
 
 Rustic Maid,' ' A Wilful Young Woman.' ' Who is Sylvia?' 2 vols. 
 
 WITH EVERYTHING AGAINST HER. By Colonel 
 
 CuTHBEKT Laeking, author of ' Bandobast and Khabar.' 3 vols. 
 
 IRIS DACRE. By Alice Mangold Diehl, author of 
 
 ' The Garden of Eden,' 'Eve Lester,' &c. 2 vols. 
 
 DEVERIL'S DIAMOND. By Adeline Sergeant, author 
 
 of ' Jacobi's Wife,' 'No Saint,' 'An Open Foe,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 A SOCIAL HERETIC. By I. Asbworth Taylor and 
 
 U. ASHWOKTH TaTLOK. 2 VOlS, 
 
 HURST & BLACKETT, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. OLIPHANT 
 
 IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS,' 'THE LAIRD OF NORLAW,' 
 'AGNES,' 'ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 ktoxiii 6biti0n. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1889. 
 
 All Rights Reserved.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/poorgentleman01olip
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAI>TEK 
 
 PAGB 
 
 I. 
 
 The Two Families 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 Penton .... 
 
 20 
 
 III. 
 
 Penton Hook 
 
 36 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Young People .... 
 
 53 
 
 V. 
 
 A Winter's Walk .... 
 
 71 
 
 VI. 
 
 Rich Mrs. Penton and Pooi: Mrs. Pento> 
 
 91 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Young and the Old . 
 
 110 
 
 vm. 
 
 The Proposal 
 
 129 
 
 IX. 
 
 Family Counsels .... 
 
 149 
 
 X. 
 
 An Adventure .... 
 
 170 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Girls' Opinion .... 
 
 193 
 
 XII. 
 
 A New Factor 
 
 209 
 
 xm. 
 
 JkLvN AND Wife .... 
 
 224 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A Transition Period 
 
 238 
 
 XV. 
 
 The In^^itation .... 
 
 260 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Primrose Path .... 
 
 - 278
 
 4 
 
 \ 
 
 A 
 
 ?;?3 
 
 vj 
 
 A POOR GENTLEMAN, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 The house of Penton is one of the greatest in 
 
 c the county of which it is an ornament. It is an 
 
 old house, but not of the kind which is now so 
 
 generally appreciated and admired. It is not 
 
 Elizabethan nor Jacobean, nor of the reign of 
 
 Queen Anne. The front is Grecian, or rather 
 
 ■^ ralladian, in heavy stone supplemented by 
 
 plaster, with the balustrades of a stony teiTace 
 
 surmounting the level frontage of the single 
 
 ^ storey, lofty, yet flat, which stretches like a 
 
 . screen across the higher cluster of building 
 
 ^ VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 which forms the body of the house. When 
 you turn the corner from this somewhat blank 
 and low but imposing line you come upon the 
 garden front, which is of the livelier French 
 order of architecture, with long windows, and 
 many of them. The gardens are the pride of 
 the house. These are arranged in terraces and 
 parterres, brilliant with flowers, and there is 
 even an elaborate system of waterworks, a httle 
 out of order now, and a few statues here and 
 there, half covered with licliens, yet not un- 
 worthy of better preservation. The rooms in- 
 side are lofty and sumptuous, intended for great 
 entertainments and fine company, but the 
 gardens are such as Watteau would have de- 
 lighted in, and which he might have made the 
 scene of many a fete champetre and graceful 
 group of fine ladies and fine gentlemen in cos- 
 tumes more brilliant than are now thought of. 
 The grounds at Penton, indeed, are still filled at 
 times with parties of gaily-dressed people, and 
 the lawns brightened by maidens in muslin and 
 young men in flannels ; but Watteau would have 
 had no sympathy with the activities of lawn-
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 3 
 
 tennis. That popular game, however, was not 
 pursued with any enthusiasm at Penton. It 
 was permitted rather than encouraged. 
 
 There was no youth in the house. Sir Walter 
 Penton was an old man, and though he had, 
 like most old gentlemen w^ho figure in romance, 
 an only daughter, she was not either young or 
 fair. She was a lady of somewhat stern aspect, 
 between forty and fifty, married, but childless. 
 The household consisted of her father, her 
 husbandj and herself, no more. And there were 
 many circumstances w^hich combined to make it 
 anything but a cheerful house. 
 
 Three or four miles from Penton, but on a 
 lower level, lay the house of Penton Hook. It 
 was on the banks of the river, planted on a piece 
 of land w^hich was almost an island in conse- 
 quence of the curve of the stream which swept 
 round it. The great house stood high on the 
 brow of the bank, an object seen many miles 
 off, and which was the distinguishing feature of 
 the landscape. The smaller one — so small that it 
 was scarcely worthy to be called a country place at 
 all — lay low. When the river was in flood, which 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 happened almost every winter, Penton Hook stood 
 dismally, with all its little gardens under water, 
 in what seemed the middle of the stream. And 
 though the Pentons all protested that the water 
 never actually came into the house, which was 
 raised on a little terrace, their protest was re- 
 ceived by all their neighbours with shaking of 
 their heads. Everything was green and 
 luxuriant, as may be supposed. The house was 
 so covered with creepers that its style was un- 
 definable. A little glimmer of old red brick, 
 dehghtfully toned and mellowed, looked out 
 here and there from amid the clusters of feathery 
 seedpods on the clematis, and below the branches 
 of the gloire de Dijon in winter. In the brighter 
 part of the year it was a mass of leaf and 
 flower : but during all the dark season, when 
 the water was up, when the skies were dark, 
 damp and dreariness were the characteristics of 
 Penton Hook. The rooms looked damp, there 
 was a moist look about the tiles in the little 
 hall. The paper was apt to peel off and the 
 plaster to fall. There were many people who 
 declared that the house was a very fever-trap,
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 5 
 
 and everybody was of opinion that it must be 
 unhealthy. It ought to have been so indeed, 
 by every rule of sanitary science. A kind Pro- 
 vidence alone took care of the drainage. Mr. 
 Penton did not know much about it, and took 
 care not to inquire: for had he inquired it would 
 probably have been necessary to do something, 
 and he had no money to spend on such vanities. 
 Neither, indeed, did there seem much occasion, 
 for, notwithstanding what everybody said, eight 
 young Pentons, tall and straight, and ailing no- 
 thing, with appetites which were the despair of 
 their mother, grew up and flourished among the 
 mud and damp, and set all prognostications at 
 defiance. 
 
 Nothing could be more unhke than the two 
 families who bore the same name, and lived 
 within sight of each other. The one all gravity 
 and importance and severe splendour ; the other 
 poor, irregular, noisy, full of shifts and devices, 
 full of tumult and young life. Mrs. Penton, Sir 
 Walter's daughter (for her husband, who was 
 nobody in particular, had taken her name), went 
 from time to time with the housekeeper through
 
 6 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 the ranges of vacant rooms, all furnished with a 
 sort of sombre magnificence, to see that they 
 were aired and kept in order ; while her name- 
 sake at the Hook (as it was called) schemed 
 how to fit a bed into a new corner, as the hoys 
 and girls gi-ew bigger, to make room for their 
 lengthening limbs and the decorums which 
 advancing years demanded. It was difficult to 
 kill time in the one house, and almost impossible 
 to find one day long enough for all the work 
 that had to be done in it, in the other. In the 
 one the question of ways and means was a 
 subject unnecessary to be discussed. The ex- 
 chequer was full, there were no calls upon it 
 which could not be amply met at any moment, 
 nor any occasion to think whether or not a new 
 expense should be incurred. Mr. Russell Penton, 
 perhaps, the husband of Mrs. Penton, had not 
 always been in this happy condition. It was 
 possible that in his experience a less comfortable 
 state of affairs might have existed, or even 
 might still, by moments, exist ; but, so far as 
 the knowledge of Sir Walter and his daughter 
 went, it was only mismanagement, extravagance.
 
 THE TWO FA^LIES. 7 
 
 or want of financial capacity which made any- 
 body poor; they could not understand why 
 their relations at the Hook should be needy and 
 embarrassed. 
 
 'So long as one knows exactly what one's 
 means are,' said Mrs. Penton, *what difficulty 
 can there be in aiTanging one's expenditure ? 
 There are certain things which can, and certain 
 things which can't be done on a certain income. 
 All that is necessary is to aiTange one's outgoings 
 accordingly/ 
 
 ' You see that, my dear,' Sir Walter would 
 reply, 'for you were born with the spirit of 
 order : but there are some people who have no 
 sense of order at all.' 
 
 The 'some people Mvere the poor people of 
 Penton Hook. These remarks were made on a 
 day in winter, when the family at the great 
 house were together in the library. It was a 
 veiy comfortable room, nay, a beautiful one. 
 The house was warmed throughout, and in 
 December was genially, softly, warm as in May, 
 no cold to be got anywhere in corridors or 
 staircases. The fire in the library was a wood
 
 8 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 fire, for beauty and pleasantness rather than for 
 warmth. The walls were lined with books, dim. 
 lines of carved shelves with gleams of old gild- 
 ing, and an occasional warm tone of mellowed 
 Italian vellum here and there giving them a 
 delightful covering. The large windows looked 
 across the country, commanding the whole 
 broad plain through which the river ran. This 
 landscape fell away into lovely tones of distance, 
 making you uncertain whether it was the sea 
 or infinitude itself at which you were gazing, in 
 far-away stretches of tender mist, and blueness, 
 and dimness,' lightly marked with the line of the 
 horizon. Over the mantel-piece there was one 
 picture, the [portrait [of an ancestor of whom 
 the Pentons were proud — a veritable Holbein, 
 which was as good, nay, far better, than the 
 most finely emblazoned family pedigree. There 
 was no room for other pictures because of the 
 books which filled every corner : but a portfolio 
 stood open upon a stand in which there was a 
 quantity of the finest old engravings, chiefly 
 historical portraits. 
 
 Amid this refined and delightful luxury it
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 9 
 
 would be most foolish to mention the mere 
 furnitm-e, though that was carved oak, and 
 very fine of its kind. Sir Walter himself 
 sat surrounded by all the morning papers, 
 which, as Penton was not very far from town, 
 were delivered almost as early as in London. 
 Mrs. Penton had a little settlement of her own 
 between the fire and one of the windows, where 
 she made up her household accounts, w^hich she 
 did with the gTcatest regularity. Mr. Russell 
 Penton was the only member of the httle party 
 who seemed at all out of place. He had no 
 special corner which he made his own. He w^as 
 a restless personage, prone to wander from the 
 fire to the wdndow, to look out though there was 
 nothing particular to look at, nothing more than 
 he saw every day of his life, as his wife some- 
 times said to him. He ran over the papers very 
 quickly, very often standing before the fire, 
 which was a favourite trick of his ; and after he 
 had got through that morning duty he would 
 lounge about disturbing everybody — that is, 
 disturbing Mrs. Penton and Sir Walter, who 
 were the only people subject to be affected by
 
 10 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 his vagaries. He never had letters to write, 
 though this is one of the first duties of man, of 
 the kind of man Avho has nothing else to do. A 
 man who has no letters to write should at least 
 pretend to do so, assuming a virtue if he has it 
 not, in the leisure of a country house ; or he 
 should have some study, if it were only the 
 amount of the rainfall ; or he should draw and 
 expound art. But none of all these things did 
 Mr. Russell Penton do. And he had not the 
 art of doing nothing quietly and gracefully as 
 some men have. He was restless as well as 
 idle, a combination which is more trying to the 
 peace of your housemates than any other can 
 be. 
 
 Sir Walter was essentially well bred, and the 
 carpets were very thick, and the panelling of 
 the floors very solid ; but yet there is always a 
 certain thrill under a restless foot, however 
 steady the flooring is, and however thick the 
 carpet; and Mrs. Penton could not help seeing 
 that her father now and then stopped in his read- 
 ing and fixed his eyes and contracted his eyebrows 
 with a consciousness of unnecessary movement.
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. It 
 
 But after all it is difficult to find fault with one's 
 husband for nothing more serious than walking 
 from the fire to the window and from the window 
 back to the fire. 
 
 Yet it was this rather detrimental and un- 
 meaning personage who chose suddenly, without 
 any reason at all, to cross the current of family 
 feehng. 
 
 * The spirit of order is a very good thing,' he 
 said, all at once, making his wife hold her 
 breath, ' but, in my opinion, when you have a 
 large family a little money is still better.' This 
 speech was launched into the domestic quiet Hke 
 an arrow from a bow. 
 
 'Better I' said Sir Walter, letting his news- 
 paper drop upon his knees, and pushing up his 
 spectacles upon his forehead the better to see 
 the speaker, who was standing, shutting out the 
 pleasant blaze of the log on the fire in his usual 
 careless way. 
 
 ' Gerald means,' said his wife, ' that it is 
 easier to keep things in order when there is 
 money. I have heard people say so before, and 
 perhaps it is true — to a certain extent. You
 
 12 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 know, sir, that when oue has money in hand one 
 oan buy a thing when it is cheap ; one can lay in 
 one's provisions beforehand. The idea is not 
 original, but there is a certain amount of truth in 
 it, I daresay.' 
 
 *■ No one supposed there was not truth in it,' 
 said Sir Walter ; ' for that matter there is truth 
 in everything, the most paradoxical statement 
 you may choose to make ; but these people are 
 not without money, I suppose. They have an 
 income, whatever the amount may be. They 
 are not destitute. And so long as you have cer- 
 tain means, as you were yourself saying, Alicia, 
 you know what you can afford to spend, and 
 that is what you ought to spend by every law, 
 and not a penny more.' 
 
 ' Nothing could be more true,' said Mrs. Pen- 
 ton, with a look from under her eyelids to her 
 husband, who was fidgeting from one leg to 
 another, restless as usual ; * and speaking of 
 that,' she said, with curious appropriateness, 
 * I have been anxious to ask you, papa, about 
 the tapestry chamber, of which, you know, we 
 have always been so proud. Mrs. Ellis and I
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 13 
 
 have made a very unpleasant discovery — the 
 moth has got into one of the best pieces. We have 
 done all we could, and I think we have arrested 
 the mischief, but to put it right is beyond our 
 powers.' 
 
 ' Dear me ! the tapestry I' cried Sir Walter ; 
 * that's serious indeed — the moth ! I should 
 think you might have done something, you 
 and all your women, xllicia, to keep out a 
 moth.' 
 
 ' One would think so, indeed,' she said, with a 
 smile, ' but it is not so easy as it seems. It is 
 an insidious little creature, which gets in im- 
 perceptibly. One only discovers it when the 
 mischief is done. Gerald, who is so very clever 
 in such matters, thinks we had better get a man 
 over from Paris, from the Gobelins. It would 
 be a good deal of trouble, but still it is the best 
 way.' 
 
 ' 1 was not aware that Gerald knew anything 
 about such matters/ said Sir Walter. ' As for 
 the trouble, it is only wrriting a letter, I suppose. 
 But do it, do it. I cannot have anything happen 
 to my tapestry. A man from Paris wall be a
 
 14 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 nuisance — they're always a nuisance, those sort 
 of fellows — but get it done, get it done.' 
 
 * I will write at once,' Mrs. Penton said. 
 
 ' I remember that tapestry as long as I remem- 
 ber anything,' said the old gentleman, mnsing. 
 ' In the firelight we used to think the figures 
 moved. It used to be in my mother's room. 
 How frightened I was, to be sure I One night 
 I recollect the hunters and the hounds seemed 
 all coming down upon us. There was a blazing 
 fire, and it was the dancing of the flames, don't 
 you know? I was no bigger than that,' he 
 said, putting his hand about a foot from the 
 ground. The recollection of his infancy pleased 
 the old man. He smiled, and the expression of 
 his face softened. There was nothing cruel or 
 unkind in his aspect. He was a little rigid, a 
 little severe, very sure that he was right, as so 
 many are ; but when he thought of his mother's 
 room, and himself a little child in it, his ruddy 
 aged countenance grew soft. Had there been 
 another little child there, to climb upon his knee, 
 it would have melted altogether. But Provi- 
 dence had not granted that other little child.
 
 THE T^YO FAMILIES. 15 
 
 He gave a wave of his hand as he dismissed 
 these gentle thoughts. ' But get the man from 
 Paris, mv dear ; don't let anything go wrong 
 with the tapestry,' he said. 
 
 Mr. Russell Penton went out as his wife 
 turned to her writing-table, and at once began 
 her necessary letter. It was true that it was he 
 who recommended that a man from Paris should 
 be procured, but he had done it without any of 
 that cleverness in such matters which his wife 
 attributed to him. He was not, perhaps, a man 
 entirely adapted for the position in which he 
 found himself. He had occupied it for a long 
 time, and yet he had not reconciled himself to 
 that constant effort on his wife's part to make 
 him agi'eeable to her father. 
 
 For his own part he had no desire to be dis- 
 agi-eeable to Sir Walter or any man; he had 
 married with a generous affection if not any 
 hot romantic love for Alicia : for they were both, 
 he thought, beyond the age of romantic love. 
 She had been thirty-five, very mature, very 
 certain of herself ; while he, though ahttle older 
 and a man who had, as people say, knocked
 
 16 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 about the world for a long time, and undergone 
 many vicissitudes, was not at all so sure. She 
 had picked him up ont of — not the depths, per- 
 haps — but out of an uncomfortable, unsettled, 
 floating condition, between gentility and beg- 
 gary ; and had taken him into the warmest 
 delightful house, and made everything comfort- 
 able for him. He had been very willing to 
 make himself agreeable, to do what he could 
 for the people who had done so much for him, 
 and yet so unreasonable was he that he had 
 never been able qu.ite to reconcile himself to the 
 position. He could scarcely endure those warn- 
 ing glances not to go too far, not to say this or 
 that, or her pretences of consulting him, of 
 being guided by his counsels, the little speeches, 
 such as had been made to-day, about Gerald 
 being so clever — which was his wife's way of 
 upholding her husband. He was not clever, 
 and he did not wish to pretend to be so. He 
 was not cautious, and he could not take the 
 credit of it. He had been thought to be a for- 
 tune-hunter when he married, and he was sup- 
 posed to be a time-server now ; and yet he was
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 17 
 
 neither one thing nor the other. He was fond 
 of Ahcia and he hked Sir Walter well enough ; 
 yet there were moments when he would rather 
 have swept a crossing than Hve iu wealth and 
 luxury at Penton, and when the sacrifices which 
 he had to make, and the advantages which he 
 gained in return, were odious to him, things 
 which he could hardly biud himself to bear. 
 
 This was perhaps the reason why, as he went 
 out, without anything to do or to think of, and 
 looking across that wide, bare, yet bright wintry 
 landscape, losing itself in the wistful distance, 
 caught the chimneys of Penton Hook appearing 
 among the bare trees, there occurred to his 
 mind a contrast and comparison which made 
 his sensations still less agreeable. It was no- 
 body's fault, certainly not his, not even Sir 
 Walter's, that the Pentons at the Hook were so 
 poor, that there were eight children of them, 
 that it was so difficult for the parents to make 
 both ends meet. Could Sir Walter have changed 
 the decrees of Providence by any effort in his 
 power, it was he who should have had those 
 eight sturdy descendants. He would have ac- 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 cepted all the responsibilities gladly ; he would 
 have secured for those young people the best 
 of everything, an excellent education, and all 
 the advantages that wealth could give. But the 
 children had gone Avhere poverty not riches was; 
 and to Sir Walter and Alicia it was a wonder 
 that their parents could not keep within their 
 income, that they could not cut their coat 
 according to their cloth, as it is the duty of all 
 honest and honourable persons to do. 
 
 Alicia in particular was very clear on this 
 point ; and then she had turned to her table, and 
 written her letter, and ordered the man to be 
 sent from Paris from the great Gobelins 
 manufactory to mend the damages made by 
 the moths in the old tapestry ! How strange it 
 was! Russell Penton could not tell what was 
 wrong in it. Perhaps there was no conscious 
 wrong. They had a right to have their tapestry 
 mended, and it was pretty, he could not but 
 confess, to see the old man forget himself and 
 talk of the time when he was a child. What 
 was that about, a treasure, which rust or moth 
 could not corrupt ? It kept haunting his ear.
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES. 10 
 
 yet it was not applicable to the situation. It 
 would be a thousand pities to let the tapestry 
 be spoiled. And as for taking upon his shoulders 
 the burden of Mr. Peuton's large family, no one 
 could expect old Sir Walter to do that. What 
 was wrong in it ? 
 
 But, on the other hand, he could not find it in 
 his heart to blame the poor people at the Hook 
 who had so many cares, so much to do with their 
 income, so many mouths to feed. It was not 
 their fault, nor was it the fault of Alicia and her 
 father. And yet the heart of the man, who was 
 little more than a looker-on, was sore. He could 
 do nothing. He could not even find any 
 satisfaction in blaming one or the other : for, 
 so far as he could see, nobody was to blame.
 
 20 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PENTON. 
 
 The family at Penton bad not always been so 
 few in number. Twenty years before the open- 
 ing of this history there were two sons in the 
 great house ; and Alicia, now so important, was 
 though always a sort of princess royal, by no 
 means so great a personage as now. She was 
 the only daughter of the house, but no more ; 
 destined apparently, like other daughters, to pass 
 away into a different family and identify herself 
 with another name. The two brothers were the 
 representatives of the Pentons. They were hope- 
 ful enough in their youth — healthy, vigorous, 
 not more foolish than other young men of their
 
 PENTON. 21 
 
 age, with plenty of money and nothing to do : 
 and it was a surprise to everybody when, one 
 after the other, they took the wrong turn in that 
 flowery way of temptation, so smooth to begin 
 with, so thorny at the end, which is vulgarly 
 termed ' life.' 
 
 No such fatal divergence was expected of 
 them when Walter came of age, and all the 
 neighbourhood was called together to rejoice. 
 They were both younger than their sister, 
 who was already the mistress of the house and 
 a very dignified and stately young lady, at 
 this joyful period. Their mother had died 
 young, and Sir "Walter was older than the father 
 of such a family generally is. He had, perhaps, 
 not sufficient spnpathy ^yith. the exuberance of 
 their spirits. Perhaps the quiet which beloved, 
 the gravity of his house, repelled them, and led 
 them to form their friendships and seek their 
 pleasures elsewhere. At all events, the young 
 Pentons • went wrong,' both of them, one after 
 the other. 
 
 Edward Penton, of the Hook, a young 
 relation of no importance whatever, was much
 
 22 PENTON. 
 
 about the house in those days. He was the 
 son of Sh' AValter's cousin, who had inherited 
 the house at Penton Hook from some old aunts, 
 maiden sisters of a far-back baronet, so that the 
 relationship was not very close. But the bonds 
 of kindred are very elastic, and count for much 
 or for nothing, as inclination and opportunity 
 dictate. Edward was much more about the 
 house of Penton than was at all for his good. 
 He fell in love with Alicia for one thing, who 
 naturally would have nothing to say to her 
 poor relation ; and, what was still worse, he was 
 swept away by Walter and Reginald in the 
 course of their dissipated career into many ex- 
 travagances and follies. 
 
 They drew him aside in their train from all 
 the sober studies which ought to have ended in 
 a profession ; they taught him careless ways, and 
 the recklessness which may be pardonable in 
 a rich man's son, but is crime in the poor. It is 
 true that there was something in him — some 
 gleam of higher principle or character, or per- 
 haps only the passive resistance of a calmer 
 nature — which held him back from following
 
 PENTOX. 23 
 
 them to the bitter end of their foolish career ; 
 but all the same they did him harm — harm 
 which he never got the better of, though it 
 stopped short of misery and ruin. They them- 
 selves did not stop short of anything. 
 
 There are some sins hke those which made 
 the heart of the Psalmist burn within him — sins 
 which seem to go unpunished, and in the midst 
 of which the wicked appear to flouiish like 
 a green bay-tree. And there are some which 
 cany their own sentence with them, and in 
 which the vengeance does not tany. Even in 
 the latter case, ruin comes more slowly to the 
 rich than to the poor. They have more places 
 of repentance, more time to think, more possi- 
 bihty, if a better impulse comes to them, of re- 
 deeming the past ; but yet, in the end, few escape 
 who embark their hopes and prosperity on such 
 a wild career. 
 
 There were ten years in the history of the 
 Penton household of which the sufferings and 
 the misery could not be told. Sir Walter and 
 his daughter lived on in their beautiful house 
 and watched the headlong career towards
 
 24 PENTON. 
 
 destruction of these two beloved boys (still 
 called so long after they had become men) with 
 anxiety and anguish and despair which is not 
 to be told. There are few families who do not 
 know something of that anguish. Of all the 
 miseries to which men and women are liable 
 there is none so terrible. In every other there 
 is some alleviation, some gleam of comfort, but 
 in tliis none. The father grew old in the pro- 
 gress of these terrible years, and the proud Miss 
 Penton, the handsome, stately young woman, 
 who looked, the neighbours said, ' as if all the 
 world belonged to her,' grew old too, before 
 her time, and changed and paled, and turned to 
 stone. Not that her heart was turned to 
 stone — on the contrary, it was a fountain of 
 tears; it was a well of tenderness imfailing; it 
 was the heart of a mother, concentrated upon 
 those objects of her love for whom she could do 
 nothing, who were perishing before her eyes. 
 The Pentons were proud people, and they kept 
 up appearances; they entertained more or less, 
 whatever happened. They had parties of 
 visitors in their house ; they kept up the old-
 
 PENTOX. 25 
 
 fashioned hospitality, aucT all that their position 
 exacted, and never betrayed to the world the 
 agonised watch they were keeping, as from a 
 watch-tower, upon the proceedings of the young 
 men who would have none of their counsel, 
 and who returned more and more rarely, and 
 then only when help, or nursing, or succour of 
 some sort was wanted, to their home. Latterly, 
 under the excuse of Sir Walter's health, there 
 was a certain withdrawal from the world, and 
 the father and daughter accomph^hed their 
 miserable vigil with less intrusion of a watchful 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 First Reginald and then Walter came home 
 to die. Death is kind : it sheds a light upon 
 the wasted face even when it is sin that has 
 wasted it, and wrings the heart of the watchers 
 with looks purified by pain, that remind them 
 how the sinner was once an innocent child. 
 Through all this the father and daughter went 
 together, leaning upon each other, yet even 
 to each other saying but little. They were as 
 one in their anguish, in their lingering hopes, 
 in the long vigils by these sick-beds, in the un-
 
 26 PENTON. 
 
 iitterable pangs of seeing one after another die. 
 Ten years is a long time when it is thus told 
 out in misery and pain. Alicia Penton was a 
 woman of thirty-five when she walked behind 
 the coffin of her last brother to the family 
 burying-grouod. She was chief mourner, as 
 she had been chief niu'se and chief sufferer all 
 through, for Sir Walter had broken down alto- 
 gether at the deathbed of his last boy. 
 
 This double tragedy passed over with little 
 revelation to the outside world. Everybody, 
 indeed, kuew what lives the young men had 
 lived, and how they had died. And people 
 pitied the father to whom it must be, they felt, 
 so great a disappointment that his baronetcy 
 and his old lands should go out of the family, 
 and that in the direct line he should have no 
 heir. If only one of them had married, if there 
 had been but a child to carry on the family, the 
 kind neighbours said. It was thought that Sir 
 Walter was far more proud than tender, and 
 that this would be his view. As for Miss 
 Penton, it was believed that she must find great 
 consolation in the fact that her position and her
 
 PEXTOX. 27 
 
 impoi-tance would be so much in creased. A 
 few years' quiet (such as was inevitable in their 
 deep mourning) would make up for all the 
 sacrifices Sir Walter had made for the bojs; 
 and then Alicia would be a great hehess, not- 
 withstanding that a considerable portion of the 
 estate was entailed. People thought that, when 
 she realised this, Alicia Penton would dry her 
 tears. 
 
 She had not in any case made very much 
 show of her tears. Her father and she went on 
 living in the gi'eat, silent house, where now 
 there was not even an echo to be listened for, a 
 piece of evil news to be apprehended; where 
 all Avas silent, silent as the grave. She had 
 been courted as much as most women in her 
 younger dajs ; she had been loved, but she had 
 listened to no one. Her youth had glided away 
 imder the shadow of calamity, the shadow which 
 had stolen away all beauty and freshness from 
 her and made her old before her time, and, lest 
 they should express too much, bad turned her 
 features to stone. She had always been state- 
 ly, but she was stern now that all was over,
 
 28 PENTON. 
 
 and there was neither terror for tbe future nor 
 sound of the present to keep her tortured heart 
 aUve. 
 
 But naturally, after a while, these intense 
 emotions, which no one suspected, were calmed, 
 and life began again. Life began even for Sir 
 Walter, who was nearly seventy, much more for 
 liis daughter, who was thirty-five. They could 
 not die, nor could they darken their windows 
 and shut out the sunshine for ever because two 
 poor wrecks, two dismal, ruined lives, had come 
 to an end. 
 
 It must be such a relief, people said, 
 even though no doubt it was a grief in its 
 way. And though the ending of anxiety in 
 such a way seems almost an additional pang, an 
 additional loss to obstinate love, yet after all it 
 is a dismal relief in its blank and stillness. And 
 life had to be carried on. When Miss Penton, 
 Sir Walter's only child and heiress, came out of 
 her long seclusion there were still men to be 
 found who admired, or said they admired her, 
 and who were very eager to place themselves 
 at her disposal. Amongst these was Gerald
 
 PENTON. 2^ 
 
 Russell, a man who had once been kind to one 
 of * the boys,' and who was known as the most 
 good-natm-ed, the least exacting of men. He 
 was poor ; he had no particular standing of his 
 own to confuse the family arrangements ; and 
 the two liked each other. Truly and honestly 
 they liked each other ; he had been almost a 
 suitor of her youth, kept back only, both of 
 them were willing to believe, by his poverty. 
 Gerald was not unaware that there would be 
 sacrifices to make, that he was accepting a posi- 
 tion, not without drawbacks, in which, indeed, 
 there might possibly be a good deal to bear. But 
 he had not made much of his life hitherto, and 
 he made up his mind to nsk it. And they 
 married, and he was not unhappy. 
 
 This was the present position of affairs. 
 He was not unhappy, and she was more 
 nearly happy that she could have been had 
 he not been there. Had ' anything hap- 
 pened,' as the phrase goes, to him — that is, had 
 he died — the world would have become blank 
 to Alicia. Had she been the victim, Mr. Russell 
 Penton would have been truly grieved, and
 
 30 PENTON. 
 
 would have mourDed honestly for his wife, but 
 the sense of freedom might perhaps have been 
 something of a compensation to him. Thus 
 they were not equal any more than two human 
 creatures ever are equal. She seemed to have 
 the best of it upon the surface of affairs. She 
 was the head of the house. Both without and 
 within she was the pivot upon which everything 
 turned, and he was by no means of equal im- 
 portance ; but yet he would have been to her a 
 greater loss than she to him, which perhaps 
 made the balance equal once more. 
 
 He returned to that question about the 
 tapestry when they set out, as was their custom 
 in the afternoon, to take a walk together. They 
 went through the wood which covered the crest 
 of the high river-bank upon which Penton stood 
 and which defended the house from the north. 
 Everything, it is needless to say, was beautifully 
 kept, the woodland paths just wild enough to 
 preserve an aspect of nature amid the perfec- 
 tion of foresting and landscape gardening on the 
 largest scale. Wherever there was a point of 
 view the openings were skilfully arranged so as
 
 PEXTOX. 31 
 
 to get its finest aspect, and the broad valley, or 
 rather plain, stretched out below with village 
 spires and scattered clusters of houses, and a red 
 roofed town in the distance, with a light veil of 
 smoke hanging between it and the sky. The 
 river flowed full and strong in its winter volume 
 at their feet, reflecting the grey blueness of the 
 heavens, the deeper colours that began to blaze 
 about the west, and the grey whiteness of the 
 vapours overhead. It was when they had 
 tui-ned, after a momentary pause at one of these 
 mounts of vision, that Russell Penton turned 
 suddenly to his wife with a smile. 
 
 'Did you send for the man from the Gobelins? 
 he asked. 
 
 ' Yes. But what put that into your mind now V 
 
 ' Nothing ; the chimneys at Penton Hook,' he 
 replied. 
 
 ' x\nd why the chimneys at Penton Hook ? 
 Your mind jumps from one subject to the other 
 in the strangest way. What connection can 
 there be between two things so unlike V 
 
 ' Nothing,' he said, with a faint smile ; ' and 
 yet perhaps more than meets the eye. There is
 
 32 PENTON. 
 
 no great volume of smoke arising from those 
 chimneys. A faint blue streak or so and that is 
 all. It does not look as if there was a fire in 
 every room or a jolly blaze in the kitchen.' 
 
 ' AVhat are you aiming at, Gerald ? I think 
 you mean mischief. No ; probably they have 
 not fires in all the rooms ; but what has that to 
 do with us or with the man from Paris ? I don't 
 follow you,' she said. 
 
 ' My dear Alicia, what does it matter ? My 
 ways of thinking are jerky, you are aware. If 
 you had as many children as poor Mrs. Penton, 
 you would have fires in all the rooms.' 
 
 ' Ah ! if — ' she said, with a sigh ; then, in a 
 tone of impatience, ' Poor Mrs. Penton, as you 
 call her, and T — would probably not in any cir- 
 cumstances act in the same way.' 
 
 ' No, because you are rich Mrs. Penton, my 
 dear. I think you were a little hard upon them, 
 upon the duty of keeping within their income, 
 and all that. I daresay the children have blue 
 little hands and cold noses. If they were mine 
 they should have fires in their rooms whatever 
 my income might be.'
 
 PENTOX. 33 
 
 ' They would have nothing of the sort — that 
 i8, if I were your wife, Gerald,' said Mrs. Pen- 
 ton, with composure. She made a little pause, 
 and then added, with a momentarily quickened 
 breath, 'Perhaps under these circumstances I 
 might not have been so.' 
 
 He felt the blow; it was a just one, if not 
 perhaps very generous. And if he had been a 
 man of hot temper, or of very sensitive feelings, 
 it would have wounded him. But he was pacific 
 and middle-aged, and knew the absolute inutility 
 of any quarrel. So he answered quietly, 
 
 ' As I cannot conceive myself with any other 
 wife in any circumstances, that is not a possibihty 
 we need consider.^ 
 
 Mrs. Penton's mind went quickly, though her 
 aspect was rigid. She had begged his pardon 
 before these words were half said, with a quick 
 rising colour, which showed her shame of the 
 suggestion she had made. 
 
 ' I was ^vrong to say it ; yet not wrong in 
 what 1 said. If you had been a poor man, 
 Gerald, your wife would have known how to cut 
 her coat according to her cloth.' 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 PENTON. 
 
 * You mean if she had not been a rich woman. 
 It is ill judging, they say in Scotland, between 
 a full man and a fasting. I have a proverb, 
 you see, as well as you. You were quite right, 
 my dear, to send for that man from the Gobehns ; 
 but I would say nothing about my poor neigh- 
 bours and the coat that is not cut according to 
 the cloth.' 
 
 ' If you think I am wrong, you should say so 
 plainly, Gerald.' The colour still wavered a 
 little upon her cheek. She was perhaps not so 
 patient even of implied blame as she thought 
 she was. *It is perhaps wrong,' she added, 
 quickly, ' but I should not wonder if I shared 
 without knowing it my father's feeling about the 
 heir. Oh, you need not say anything ; I know 
 it is unreasonable. It is not Edward Penton's 
 fault that he is the next in the entail. But 
 human creatures are not always reasonable, and 
 they say no man likes to be haunted with the 
 sight of his heir.' 
 
 ' Poor heir !' said Russell Penton, very softly, 
 almost under his breath. 
 
 *Poor heir? I should say poor possessor,
 
 PENTON. 35 
 
 poor old man, who must see his home go into 
 the hands of a stranger I' 
 
 They had come to another point where their 
 accustomed feet paused, where the bare winter 
 boughs, with all their naked tracery, framed in 
 a wide opening of sky and cloud and plain, and 
 where once more those clustered chimneys of 
 Penton Hook, with their thin curls of smoke, 
 seemed to thrust themselves into the front of the 
 landscape. The house lay almost at the gazers' 
 feet, framed in with a cluster of trees, encircled 
 with a glowing sweep of the stream, which 
 looked hke a ribbon of Hght full of shimmering 
 colour, round the brown settlement of the half- 
 seen building and wintry branches. Mrs. Penton 
 clasped her hands together with a sudden quick 
 suppressed movement of strong feeling, and 
 turned hastily away. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 80ON after the day on which this discussion 
 was carried on among the woods of Penton 
 over their heads, the family at Penton Hook 
 held a sort of committee of ways and means 
 in their damp domain below. The winter after- 
 noon was clear and bright, and the river ran in 
 deceitful brightness round the half-circle of the 
 little promontory. It was not of itself at all a 
 disagreeable house. If it had not been that the 
 mud and wetness of the garden paths, where 
 the water seemed to well up even through the 
 gravel, made every footstep mark the too bright 
 blue and brown tiles in the hall, and gave it
 
 PENTON HOOK. 37 
 
 a sloppy and disorderly look, the entrance it- 
 self might have been pretty enough ; but no 
 attempt had been made to furnish or utihse it, 
 and there were tracks of ghstening steps 
 across it in different directions to the different 
 doors, all of which opened out of the hall. And 
 the drawing-room was a well-sized, well-shaped 
 room, with three or four windows ; a room of 
 which, with a little money and taste, something 
 very pretty might have been made. But the win- 
 dows were turned to the north, and the furniture 
 was bare and worn ; the walls and the carpets 
 and curtains had alike faded into a colour which 
 can only be described as being the colour of 
 poverty. The pattern was worn and trodden out 
 upon the carpet; it was blurred and dull upon the 
 walls ; everything was of a brownish, greenish, 
 greyish, indescribable hue. The pictures on the 
 walls seemed to have grown grey too, being 
 chiefly prints, which ran into the tone of the 
 whole. 
 
 The table at which Mrs. Penton (poor Mrs. 
 Pent on) sat with her work was covered with a 
 woollen cover, the ground of which had been
 
 38 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 red with a yellow pattern ; but it (perhaps 
 mercifully) had faded too. And, as for the lady, 
 she was faded like everything else. Her dress, 
 like the room, had sunk into the colour of 
 poverty. There was nothing about her that 
 was above the level of matter-of-fact dulness. 
 She was darning stockings, and they were also 
 indefinite in hue. Her hair, which had been 
 yellow or very light brown, bad lost its gloss 
 and sheen. It was knotted behind in a loose 
 knot, and might have been classical and graceful 
 had it not suggested that this was the easiest 
 way possible to dispose of those abundant locks. 
 Her head was stooped over her work; her 
 basket on the table was overflowing. She 
 paused now and then and looked up to make 
 an observation when it was her turn, but not 
 even for the sake of the family consultation 
 could she intermit her necessary work. Nine 
 pairs of stockings, not to speak of her own, are 
 a great deal for a woman to keep in order. Her 
 own were not much worn, for she walked very 
 little. She was one of those women who are 
 indolent by nature, yet always busy. Once
 
 PEXTON HOOK. 39 
 
 seated at her work, stocking after stocking 
 went through her hands, and holes as big as a 
 half-moon got deftly, swiftly, silently filled up ; 
 but it cost her an eflfort to rise from her seat to 
 go about her domestic business. She was indo- 
 lent in movement, though so industrious; apiece 
 of still life, though her hands were never idle. 
 This was the kind of woman to whom, in his 
 maturer judgment, the man who had once been 
 Alicia Penton's adorer had turned. 
 
 He was not far from her, seated in an elbow- 
 chair, not an easy-chair, but an old-fashioned 
 mahogany article with arms, upon which he re- 
 posed his elbows. His hands were clasped in 
 front of him, and now and then, when he forgot 
 himself, he twirled his thumbs. He bore a family 
 likeness to Su* Walter Penton, having a high nose 
 and long face ; but he was not the same kind of 
 man. Old Sir Walter at nearly eighty was firm 
 and erect still, but Edward Penton was limp. 
 He was prone to tumble down upon himself, so 
 to speak, like a crumbling wall ; to go sinking, 
 telescoping into himself hke a shppery mass of 
 sand or clay. There was an anxious look in
 
 40 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 his coTintenance, contradicting the pretensions 
 of that prominent feature, the nose, which looked 
 aristocratic, his family thought, and did its best 
 to look strong. It was the mouth that did it, 
 some people thought, a mouth which was mani- 
 festly weak, with all kinds of uncompleted 
 piteous, curves about it, and dubious wavering 
 lines. His lower Hp would move vaguely from 
 time to time, as though he were repeating some- 
 thing. He was dressed in knickerbockers and 
 gaiters and a rough [coat, as if he had a great 
 deal to do out of doors. He might have been a 
 gentleman farmer, or a squire with an estate to 
 look after, or even a gamekeeper of a superior 
 kind ; but he was nothing of all these. He was 
 only a man who lived in the country, and had 
 nothing to do, and had to walk about, as it were, 
 for daily bread. 
 
 On the corner of the table, not far from Mrs. 
 Penton, sat, with his |legs swinging loosely, a 
 younger, a quite young man ; indeed, poor Wat 
 did not know that he was a man at all, or realise 
 what he was coming to. He was the eldest 
 son. That did not seem to say very much, con-
 
 PEXTON HOOK. 41 
 
 sidering the character of the house, and the 
 manner of life pursued in it, but it sounded a 
 gi'eat deal to them, for young Walter was the 
 heir in tail male. He was the representative of 
 all the Pentons, the future head of the family. 
 He thought a great deal of his position, and so 
 did the rest. In time Penton would be his, 
 the stately old house, and the title would be his 
 which his ancestors had borne. The young man 
 felt himself marked out from his kind by this 
 inheritance. He Avas humble enough at present, 
 but he had only to go on living, to wait and 
 keep quiet, and he must be Sir Walter Penton of 
 Penton in the end. He felt a greater confidence 
 in this than his father did who came before him. 
 Mr. Penton did not look forward to the baronetcy 
 for his part with much enthusiasm. It did not 
 rouse him from his habitual depression : perhaps 
 because care was so close and so constant, per- 
 haps because he had come to an age which ex- 
 pects but little from any change. He did not feel 
 that to become Sir Edward would do much for 
 him : but even he felt that for Wat it was a 
 great thing.
 
 42 , PENTON HOOK. 
 
 The other two people in the room were the 
 two girls ; that was all that anybody ever said 
 of them. They were scarcely even distinguish- 
 ed by name the one from the other ; you could 
 scarcely say they were individuals at all ; they 
 were the two girls. The children were apt to 
 run their two names into one, and call them in- 
 discriminately — Ally-Anne. Whether it was Ally 
 or whether it was Anne Avho came first did not 
 matter, it was a generic title which belonged to 
 both. And yet they were not like each other. 
 Ally had been called Alicia, after her relation at 
 Penton, who was also her godmother, bat at 
 Penton Hook life was too full for so many 
 syllables. They never got further than Alice in 
 the most formal moments, and Ally was the 
 name for common wear. Anne bore her 
 mother's name, but Mrs. Penton was Annie, 
 whereas the girl preferred the one tiny syllable 
 which expressed her better ; for Anne, though 
 she was the youngest, had more fibre in her 
 than all the rest put together ; but description 
 is vain in face of such a little person. Her 
 sister, though the eldest, was the shadow and
 
 PENTON HOOK. 43 
 
 she the substance, and no doubt it Tras one of 
 the subtle but unconscious discriminations of 
 character which the most simple make unawares 
 which led the little ones to call whichever 
 individual of this pair appeared by the joint 
 name. 
 
 ' 1 shall always say, Edward, that you ought 
 to have your share now,' said Mrs. Penton, in a 
 soft even voice, never lifting her eyes from her 
 work, but going on steadily like a purling stream ; 
 ' you have more to do vdth it than Mr. Russell 
 Pentou, who can never succeed to anything ; 
 you ought to have your allowance like any 
 other heir.' 
 
 ' I don't know why I should have an allow- 
 ance,' said Mr. Penton, with a voice in which 
 there was a certain langaiid iriitation ; ' I have 
 always held my own, and I shall always hold 
 my own. And besides, Sir Walter does not 
 want me to have the land ; he would rather a 
 gi-eat deal that it went to — Russell Penton, 
 as you call him, though he has no nght to our 
 name.' 
 
 ' But that can't be,' ciied young AVat, ' seeing
 
 44 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 that I — I mean you, father, are the heir of 
 entail.' 
 
 ' It might be,' said Mr. Penton, going on with 
 his tone of subdued annoyance, ' if the law was 
 changed ; and one never knows in these revolu- 
 tionary times how soon the law might be 
 changed. It has been threatened to be done 
 as long as I can remember. Primogeniture and 
 the law of entail have been in every agitator's 
 mouth ; they think it would be a boon to the 
 working man.' 
 
 * How could it be a boon to the working man ? 
 What have we got to do with the working man ? 
 What does it matter to him who has the pro- 
 perty ? it could not come to him anyhow,' cried 
 AVat, with great energy, colouring high, and 
 swinging his legs more than ever in the vehem- 
 ence of personal feeling. It is all very well to 
 talk of political principles, but when the question 
 involves one's self and one's own position in the 
 world, the argument is very much more urgent 
 and moving. Youug Walter was rather a 
 revolutionary in his own way ; he was of the 
 class of generous aristocrats who take a great
 
 PEXTOX HOOK. 45 
 
 interest in the Avorking man : but tliere is 
 reason in all things, and he did not see ^vhat 
 this personage had to do ^vith his affairs. 
 
 * Oh, I don't know, there is no telling : they 
 might be made to think it would do them good 
 somehow. It has always been a favourite 
 thing to say. At all events, you know,' Mr. 
 Penton continued, with his mild disgust of 
 ever}i;hing, * it could not do them any harm. 
 Primogeniture has always been a sort of 
 thing that makes some people foam at the 
 mouth.' 
 
 'My dear Edward I' cried Mrs. Penton; she 
 almost looked up from her work, which was a 
 great thing to say ; and when this mild woman 
 said * My dear Edward,' it was the same thing 
 as when a man says ' By Jove,' or 'By George.' 
 In the gentle level of her conversation it 
 counted as a sort of innocent oath. ' My dear 
 Edward I how could they abolish primogeniture ? 
 which so far as I know is just the Latin way of 
 saying that one of your children is bom before 
 the others. Isn't it, Wat? AYell, 1 always 
 thought so. The Radicals may get to be very
 
 46 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 powerful, but they can't make you have your 
 children all in a heap at the same time.' 
 
 * But they can make it of no importance 
 which is born first ; that is what it means,' said 
 Mr. Penton. 'They would have the children 
 all equal, just the same; whether it is little 
 Horry or Wat there who thinks himself such a 
 great man.' 
 
 ' Well, so they are all the same,' said the 
 mother, a little bewildered. ' I often wonder 
 how it is that people can make favourites, for 
 I am sure I could not say, for my part, which 
 of them all I liked best. I hke them all best 
 — Horry because he is the littlest, and Wat 
 because he is the biggest, and all the rest of 
 them for some other reason, or just for no 
 reason at all. And so, I am sure, Edward, do 
 you.' 
 
 ' In that way AVat would be no better than 
 any of the rest,' said Anne. 
 
 ' I should have no call to do anything for 
 you,' said the young man, with an uncomfort- 
 able laugh. * It would be. everyone for himself. 
 There would be no bother about little sisters or
 
 PEN'TOX HOOK. 47 
 
 brothers either. On the whole, it would be 
 rather a good bargain, don't yon think so, 
 mother? Horry and the others must all shift 
 for themselves when there is no eldest son — ' 
 
 This time Mrs. Penton really did lift her soft 
 eyes. 
 
 'Don't say such wicked things !' she said ; 'it 
 is going against Scripture. As if anything 
 could change you from being the eldest son I 
 Who should look after the children if your 
 father and I were to die ? Oh, Wat ! how can 
 you speak so ? — when it is just my comfort, 
 knowing how uncertain life is, that the eldest is 
 grown up, and that there would be some one to 
 take our place, and take care of all these little 
 things !' 
 
 Mrs. Penton had no mind for politics, as will 
 be perceived, but the vision of the little orphans 
 without an elder brother struck her imagina- 
 tion. This picture of unnatural desolation 
 brought the tears warm to her eyes. She took 
 another view of primogeniture from that which 
 is familiar to discussion, and it was some time 
 before they could explain it to her and get her
 
 48 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 calmed and soothed. Indeed, as to explaining' 
 it, that was never accomplished ; but when she 
 fully knew that her first-born did not cast off 
 all responsibility in respect to little Horry she 
 was calm. 
 
 ' I don't pretend to understand poHtics,' she 
 said, with great truth, 'but I know nature,' 
 which perhaps was not quite so true. 
 
 Mr. Pentonwas not at all moved by this little 
 digression, he took no notice of the argument 
 between the mother and the children. He was 
 a man who inclined to the opinion that things 
 were badly managed in this world, and that 
 those who meant to do well had generally a 
 hard fight. He thought that on the whole the 
 Avorst people had the best of it, and that a man 
 like himself, struggling to do as well as he 
 could for his children, and to live as well as he 
 could, and do his duty generally, was surround- 
 ed by hindrances and drawbacks which never 
 came in the way of less scrupulous people. 
 
 Such an opinion as this often fills a man with 
 indignation and something like rage, but it did 
 not have this effect upon Mr. Penton. It gave
 
 PENTON HOOK. 49 
 
 him a general sense of discoTiragement, a feel- 
 ing that every thing was sure to go against him : 
 but it did not make him angry. Instead of 
 pointing, as the Psalmist did, with wonder and 
 indignation to the wicked who flourished hke a 
 green bay-tree, he was more disposed to regard 
 this spectacle ^^ath a melancholy smile as the 
 natural course of affairs. One might have known 
 that was how it would be, his look said. And 
 he was rather apt perhaps to identify himself as 
 the righteous man who had no such good- 
 fortune to look for. He had followed his own 
 train of thoughts while the others talked, and 
 now he went on continuing the subject. 
 
 * We never can tell,' he said, ' one day from 
 another what changes may be made in the 
 law. Sir Walter is an old man, and it doesn't 
 seem as if there could be any changes in his 
 time ; but still a craze might get up, and the 
 thing might be done all in a moment^ which 
 has been threatened ever since I can recollect. 
 So I hope none of you will fill your heads with 
 fooHsh thoughts of what may happen when 
 Penton comes to me : for you see, for any- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 thing we know, it may never come to me at 
 all.' 
 
 Having said this, he ceased twirling his 
 thumbs, and rising up slowly cast a glance 
 about him as if looking for his hat. He never 
 brought his hat into the drawing-room, yet he 
 always did this, just as a dog will try to 
 scrape a hole in a Turkey carpet; and then 
 Mr. Penton said, as if it was quite a new idea, 
 
 ' I think I'll just take a little walk before tea.* 
 
 It was from an unusual quarter that the con- 
 versation was renewed. Ally, who was so like 
 her mother, who had the same kind of light- 
 brown hair shading her soft countenance, knot- 
 ted low at the back of her head, the same fragile 
 willowy figure and submissive ways, lifted up 
 her head after the little pause that followed his 
 exit, when they all instinctively listened, and 
 followed him, so to speak, with their attention 
 while he walked out of the house. Ally raised 
 her head and asked, in a voice in which there 
 was a little apprehension, 
 
 * I wonder if father really thinks that : and 
 what if it should come true !'
 
 PEXTON HOOK. 51 
 
 « Your father would not say it,' Mrs. Peuton 
 replied/ahvays careful to maintain her husband's 
 credit, 'unless he thought it, in a kind of a 
 way. But, for all that, perhaps it may never 
 happen. Things take a long time to happen,' 
 she said, with unconscious philosophy. * We 
 just wony ourselves looking for changes, and 
 no change comes after all.' 
 
 * But such a thing might happen suddenly/ 
 said Wat, thinking it necessary., in his father's 
 absence, to take up the serious side of the 
 argument, « father is quite right in that. With 
 all the extensions of the suffrage and that sort 
 of thing which you don't understand, Ally, a 
 change in the law that has been long talked 
 about might happen in a moment. It all 
 depends upon what turn things may take.' 
 
 'Then we may never go to Penton at all,' 
 said Anne, jumping up and throwing her work 
 into her mother's large basket. ' I have always 
 been frightened for Penton all my life. It's a 
 honid big chilly place that never would look 
 like home. I like the little old Hook best, and 
 I hope they will abolish primogeniture, or what- 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLfNOIS
 
 52 PENTON HOOK. 
 
 ever you call it, and so Wat will have to do 
 something and we shall stay at home.' 
 
 ' Anne ! do you wish that your father should 
 never come into his fortune,' her mother said, 
 in a reproachful tone, ' when you know his 
 heart is set upon it ? I am frightened myself 
 sometimes when I think of the change of living, 
 and having to give dinner-parties and all that ; 
 but when I think that Edward has never yet 
 been in his right element, that he has never had 
 the position he ought to have had — ah! for 
 that I could put up with anything,' she said.
 
 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 The youug people at Penton Hook were good 
 children on the whole. They respected theh* 
 father and their mother, and though they did 
 not always agree in every domestic decision, 
 with that holy ignorance which distinguishes 
 childhood, they were not much less ducile than 
 the little ones in respect to actual obedience. 
 At seventeen and eighteen, much more at 
 twenty, a young soul has begun to think a little 
 whether it reveals its judgment or not. Anne 
 hadher own opinions on every subject by perver- 
 sity of nature; and Wat, who was a man, and 
 the heir, took on many points a very independ-
 
 54 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 ent view, and could scarcely help thinking now 
 and then that he knew better than his father. 
 And even Ally, who was the quietest, the most 
 disposed to yield her own way of thinking, still 
 had a little way of her own, and felt that other 
 ways of doing things might be adopted with 
 advantage. They were quite friends all three, 
 each other s chief companions ; and among 
 themselves they talked very freely, seeing the 
 mistakes that were being made about the other 
 children, and very conscious of much that might 
 have been done in their own individual cases. 
 Wat, for example, had much to complain of in 
 his own upbringing. He had been sent for a 
 year or two to Eton, and much had been said 
 about giving him the full advantage of what is 
 supposed to be the best education. But it had 
 been found after awhile that the infallible re- 
 currence of the end of the half, and the bills 
 that accompanied it, was a serious drawback, 
 and the annoyance given by them so entirely 
 outbalanced any sense of benefit received, that 
 at sixteen he had been taken away from school 
 under vague understandings that there was to
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 55 
 
 be work at home to prepare him for the Univer- 
 sity. But the work at home had never come to 
 much. Mr. Penton had beheved that it would be 
 a pleasant occupation for himself to rub up his 
 Latin and Greek, and that he would be as good 
 a coach as the boy could have. But his Latin 
 and Greek wanted a great deal of rubbing up. 
 The fashions of scholarship had changed since 
 his day, and perhaps he had never been so good 
 a scholar as he now imagined. And then it was 
 inconceivable to Mr. Penton that regularity of 
 hours was necessary in anything. He thought 
 that a mere prejudice of schoolmasters. He 
 would take Wat in the morning one day, then 
 in the afternoon, then miss a day or two, and 
 resume on the fifth or sixth after tea. What 
 could the hours matter ? It came about thus by 
 degrees that the readings which were to fit the 
 young man for matriculation failed altogether, 
 and no more was said about the University. 
 
 Wat had no very strong impulse to work in his 
 own person, but when he came to be twenty 
 and became aware that nothing further was 
 likely to come of it, he felt that he had been
 
 56 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 neglected, and that, so far as education was con- 
 cerned, he had not had justice done him. Had 
 he been a very intellectual young man, or very 
 energetic, he would no doubt have been spurred 
 by this neglect into greater personal effort, and 
 done so much that his father would have been 
 shamed or forced into taking further steps. But 
 Wat was not of this noble sort. He was not 
 fond of work; he had always seen his father 
 idle ; and it seemed to him natural. So that he, 
 too, fell into the way of lounging about, and 
 doing odd things, and taking the days as they 
 came. They kept no horses, so he could not 
 hunt. He had not even a gun, nothing better 
 than an old one, which, now he was old enough 
 to know better, he was ashamed to carry. So 
 that those two natural occupations of the rural 
 gentleman were denied to him. And it is not 
 to be supposed that a boy could reach his 
 twentieth year without feeling that an education 
 of this kind — a non-education — had been a mis- 
 take. He knew that he was at a disadvantage 
 among his fellow-boys or fellow-men. Whether 
 he would have felt this as much had he been
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 57 
 
 under uo other disadvantages in respect to 
 horses and guns and pocket-money, we do not 
 venture to say; but, taking everything together, 
 Wat could not but feel that he was rnanqu^, 
 capable of nothing, having no place among his 
 kind. And if he felt doubly in consequence the 
 importance of his heirship, and that Penton 
 would set all right, who could blame him ? It 
 was the only possibility in that poor little dull 
 horizon which at Penton Hook seemed to run 
 into the flats of the level country, the mud and 
 the mist, and the rising river, and the falhng 
 rain. 
 
 The girls had their little grievances too, but 
 felt Wat's grievance to be so much greater than 
 theirs, that they took up his cause vehemently, 
 and threw all their indignation and the dis- 
 approval of their young intelhgences into the 
 weight of his. It was impossible that they could 
 be as they were, young creatures full of hfe and 
 active thought, without feeling what a mistake 
 it all was, and how far the authorities of the 
 family were wrong. They subjected, indeed, 
 the decisions of the father and mother, but
 
 58 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 especially the father, as all our children do, to a 
 keen and clear-sighted inspection, seeing what 
 was amiss much more clearly than the wisest of 
 us are apt to do in our own case. A little child 
 of ten will thus follow and judge a philosopher, 
 perhaps unconsciously in most cases, without a 
 word to express its condemnation. The young 
 Pentons were not so silent. They spoke their 
 mind, in the perfect confidence of family inter- 
 course, to their mother always, sometimes to 
 their father too. And no doubt, in pure logic, 
 this criticism and disapproval should have dealt 
 a great blow at the discipline of the house, and 
 destroyed the principle of obedience. 
 
 But fortunately logic is the last thing that 
 affects the natural family life. Wat and Ally and 
 Anne were in reality almost as obedient as were 
 the little ones to whom the decisions of papa and 
 mamma were as the law and the gospels. It 
 had never occurred to them to raise any standard 
 of rebellion ; they did what they were told by 
 sweet natural bonds of habit, by the fact that 
 they had always done it, by the unbroken senti- 
 ment of filial subjection. The one thing did
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 59" 
 
 not seem to affect the other. It never occurred 
 even to Wat to stop and argue the point 
 with his father ; he did what he was told, though 
 afterwards, when he came to think of it, he might 
 think that his own way would have been the 
 most wise. 
 
 The conversation which is set down in the 
 last chapter did not give any insight into the 
 family controversy that had been going on — 
 being only, as it were, the subsiding of the 
 waves after that discussion had come to an end. 
 The subject in question was one which greatly 
 moved and excited all the young people. 
 Oswald, the second boy, who came next iu 
 the family after Anne, was the genius of the 
 house. He was not much more than fifteen, 
 but he had already written many poems and 
 other compositions which had filled the house 
 with wonder. The girls were sure that in a few 
 years Lord Tennyson himself would have to 
 look to his laurels, and Mr. Ruskin to stand 
 aside ; for Oswald's gifts Tvere manifold, and it 
 was indifferent to him whether he struck the 
 strings of poetry or the more sober chord of
 
 60 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 prose. Wat's fraternal admiration was equally 
 genuine and more generous, for it is a little hard 
 upon a big boy to recognise his younger brother's 
 superiority ; and it was dashed by a certain con- 
 viction that it would be for Osy's good to be 
 taken down a little. 
 
 But Wat, quite as much as the girls, was 
 agitated by the question which had been, 
 so to speak, before a committee of the whole 
 house. It was a question of more impor- 
 tance at Penton Hook than the fate of the 
 ministry or the elections, or anything that might 
 be going on in Europe. It was the question 
 whether Osy should be continued where he was, 
 at Marlborough, or if his education should be 
 suspended till ' better times.' Behind this lay a 
 darker and more dreadful suggestion, of which 
 the family were vaguely conscious, but which 
 did not come absolutely under discussion, and 
 this was whether Osy's education should be 
 stopped altogether, and an ' opening in life ' 
 found for him. 
 
 Nothing that had ever happened to them 
 had moved the family so much as this ques-
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 61 
 
 tion. The ' better times ' to which the Pen- 
 tons looked forward could be nothing other 
 than the death of Sir Walter, and Mr. Penton's 
 accession to the headship of the family ; and it 
 was in the hill of exhaustion that followed a 
 long discussion that Mrs. Penton made her sug- 
 gestion about the propriety of an allowance 
 being made to her husband as the heir of the 
 property, which had led him into the expression 
 of those general but discouraging ideas about 
 entails and primogeniture. It had not perhaps 
 occurred to Mr. Penton before : but, now he came 
 to think of it, it seemed just of a piece with the 
 general course of affairs, and of everything that 
 had happened to him in the past, that new laws 
 should come in at the moment and deprive him 
 in the future of the heirship of which he had 
 been so sure. 
 
 When Mr. Penton went out for his walk after 
 the statement he had made of these possibihties, 
 Wat and the girls went out too, on their usual 
 afternoon expedition to the post. There was 
 not very much to be done at Penton Hook, 
 especially at this depressing time of the year.
 
 -62 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 when tennis was impracticable, and the river 
 was not to be thought of. The only amuse- 
 ment possible was walking, and that is a pleasure 
 which palls— above all, when the roads are 
 muddy and there is nowhere in particular to go 
 to. It was Anne, in the force of her youthful 
 invention, who had established the habit of 
 going to the post. It was an ' object,' and 
 made a walk into a sort of duty — not the mere 
 meaningless stroll which, without this purpose, 
 it would turn to; and, though the correspon- 
 dence of the household was not great, Anne also 
 managed that there should always be some- 
 thing which demanded to be posted, and could 
 not be delayed. When there was nothing else, 
 she would herself dash off a note to one of 
 the many generous persons who advertise mys- 
 terious occupations by which ladies and other 
 unemployed persons may earn an income without 
 a knowledge of drawing or anything else in 
 particular. Alas ! Anne had answered so many 
 of these advertisements that she was no longer 
 sanguine of getting a satisfactory reply ; but if 
 there was no letter to be sent off, nothing of
 
 THE YOUXG PEOPLE. 63 
 
 her father's about business^ no post-card con- 
 cerning the groceries, or directions to the 
 dressmaker, or faithful family report from 
 Mrs. Penton to one of her relations, such as, 
 amid all the occupations of her life, that duti- 
 ful woman sent regularly, Anne could always 
 supply the necessary letter from her own re- 
 sources. 
 
 It was on a similar afternoon to that on 
 which the Pentons at the great house had dis- 
 cussed and thought of the poorer household ; 
 and a wintry sunset, very much the same as 
 that on which !Mr. Russell and his T^-ife had 
 looked, shone in deep lines of crimson and gold, 
 making of the river which reflected it a stream 
 of flame, when the three young people, far too 
 much absorbed in their own affairs to think 
 of the colours in the sky or the reflections 
 in the river, or anything but Osy and his pros- 
 pects, and the state of the family finances, and 
 the mistakes of family government, came down 
 the hill from the level of the Penton woods 
 towards their own home. The western sky, 
 blazing with colour, was on the left hand ; but
 
 64 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 even the sky towards the north and east shared 
 in the general iUumination, and clouds all rose- 
 tinted, concealing their heaviness in the flush of 
 reflection, hung upon the chill blue, and seemed 
 to warm the fresh wintry atmosphere before it 
 sank into the chill of night. The girls and 
 their brother kept their heads together, speak- 
 ing two at once in the eagerness of their feel- 
 ings, and found no time for contemplation of 
 what was going on overhead. A sunset is a 
 thing which comes every evening, and about 
 which there is no urgent reason for attention, 
 as there was upon this question about Osy, 
 which struck at the foundations of family credit 
 and hope. 
 
 ' When I left Eton,' said Wat, with melan- 
 choly candour — ' I had not much sense, to be 
 sure— it seemed rather fine coming away to 
 work at home. Fellows thought I was going 
 to work for something out of the common way. 
 I liked it— on the whole. When you are at 
 school, there is always something jolly in the 
 thought of coming home. And so will Osy feel 
 like me.'
 
 THE YOUXG PEOPLE. 65 
 
 ' But YOU were never clever, Wat,' said the 
 impetuous Anne. 
 
 This was perhaps a httle hard to bear. 
 
 * Clever is neither here nor there,' said Wat, 
 with a little flush. ' It does not make much 
 diflerence to your feelings ; I suppose I can 
 tell better how Osy will take it than one of you 
 girls.' 
 
 * Oh, no ; for girls are more ambitious than 
 boys, I mean boys that are just ordinarj^ like 
 the rest. And Osy is not Hke you. He is full 
 of ambition, he wants to be something, to make 
 a gi'eat name. I have the most sympathy with 
 that. Ally and you,' cried the girl, with a toss 
 of her head like a young colt, 'you are the con- 
 tented ones, you are so easily satisfied ; but not 
 Osy nor me.' 
 
 'Contented is the best thing you can be,' 
 said gentle Ally. 'What is there better than 
 content 1 Whatever trouble people take, it is 
 only in the hope of getting satisfaction at the 
 end.' 
 
 ' I wish I was contented,' said Walter, ' that 
 is all you know. What have I got to be con- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 tented about ? I have nothing to do ; I have 
 no prosjDccts in particular, nothing to look for- 
 ward to.' 
 
 ' Oh, Watty— Penton !' 
 
 ' Penton is all very well : but how can we tell 
 when Sir Walter may die ? No, I don't want 
 him to die,' cried the young man. ' I wish no 
 harm to him nor to any man. I only say that 
 because — Of course, so long as Sir Walter 
 lives Penton may be paradise, but it has no- 
 thing to say to us. And then, as father says, 
 the law may be changed before that happens, 
 or something else may come in the way. No, 1 
 don't know what can come in the way ; for after 
 Sir W^alter, of course, father is head of the 
 family, and I am the eldest son.' These words 
 had a cheering effect upon the youth in spite 
 of himself. He turned back to look up where 
 the corner of the great house was visible amid 
 the trees. The Pentons of the Hook knew all 
 the spots where that view was to be had. He 
 turned round to look at it, turning the girls 
 with him, who were like two shadows. No 
 prospects in particular ! when there was that
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 67 
 
 before his eyes, the house of his fathers, the 
 house which he intended to transmit to his 
 children ! He drew a long breath which came 
 from the very depths of his chest, a sigh of 
 satisfaction yet of desire — of a feeling too deep 
 to get into words. ' I say, what a sunset I' he 
 cried, by way of diverting the general attention 
 from this subject, upon which he did not feel 
 able to express himself more clearly. 
 
 They all looked for the fii'st time at the gi-and 
 operation of nature which was going on in the 
 western sky. The heavens were all aglow with 
 lines of crimson and purple, the blue spaces of 
 the great vault above retiring in hght ineffable 
 far beyond the masses of clouds, which took on 
 every tinge of colour, preserving their own 
 high purity and charms of infinitude. The 
 great plain below lay silent underneath like a 
 breathless spectator of that great, ever-recuning 
 drama, the river gathering up fragments of the 
 glory and flashing back an answer here and 
 there in its windings wherever it was clear of 
 the earthly obstructions of high banks and trees. 
 Something of the same radiance flashed in 
 
 f2
 
 08 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 miniature from the young eyes that with one 
 accord turned and looked — but for a moment 
 and no more. They noted the sunset in a 
 parenthesis, by a momentary inference ; what 
 they had sought was Penton, with all its human 
 interests. And then they turned again and 
 faced the north, where lay their poor little 
 home and the lowliness of the present, to 
 which neither the sunset nor any other glory 
 lent a charm. 
 
 ' You are the eldest son,' said Anne, resuming 
 without a pause; 'that's all about it. That 
 makes everything different. Suppose it is 
 right — or at least not Avrong — for you to loaf 
 about. But Osy hasn't got Penton ; he has got 
 to make himself a name. If he is stopped in 
 his education, what is he to do ? You ought 
 to speak to father ; we all ought to make a 
 stand. If Osy is stopped in his education it is 
 quite different. What is he to do?' 
 
 * Father would never stop his education if 
 he could afford it. It is the money. If we 
 could only give up something. But what is 
 there we can give up ? Sugar and butter
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 69 
 
 count for so little,' said Ally, in soft tones of 
 despair. 
 
 'I slionld not mind,' said Anne, ' if we did not 
 get anything new for years.' 
 
 ' We so seldom have anything new,' her sister 
 said, A^-ith a sigh ; there was so little to econo- 
 mise in this way. All the savings they could 
 think of would not make up half the sum that 
 had to be paid for Osy. Their young spirits 
 were crushed under this thought. What could 
 they do ? The girls, as has been said, had 
 answered a great many of those advertisements 
 which offer occupation to ladies ; they had tried 
 to make beaded lace and to paint Christmas 
 cards. Alas I that, like the butter and sugar, 
 counted for so little. They might as well try to 
 make use of the colours of the sunset as to make 
 up Osy's schooling in that way : and Wat was 
 even more helpless than they. It was so dis- 
 couraging a prospect that no one could say a 
 word. They walked down with their faces to 
 the greyness and dimness from whence night 
 was coming, and their hopes, hke the light, 
 seemed to be dying away.
 
 70 THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 It was Anne, always the most quick to note 
 everything that happened, who broke the 
 silence. 
 
 ' What is that,' she cried, ' at our door ? 
 Look there, wheeling in just under the lime- 
 trees !' 
 
 ' A carriage ! Who can it be ?' 
 
 ' The Penton carriage ! Don't you see the 
 two bays ? Something must be up !' cried 
 Walter, a flash of keen curiosity kindling in his 
 eyes. 
 
 They stopped for a moment and looked at 
 each other with a sudden thrill of expectation. 
 
 ' No one has been to see us from Penton for 
 years and years.' 
 
 « The carriage would not come for nothing !' 
 
 ' It has been sent perhaps to fetch father !' 
 
 They hurried down with one accord, full of 
 excitement and wonder and awe.
 
 71 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A WINTER S WALK. 
 
 Mr. Penton went out to take his walk in a 
 depressed mood. He was familiar with all the 
 stages of depression. He was a man w^ho 
 thought he had been hardly dealt w4th in the 
 com-se of his life. In his youth there had been 
 a momentary blaze of gaiety and pleasure. In 
 those days, when he had shared the early follies 
 of Walter and Reginald, and fallen in love with 
 Ahcia, it had not occurred to him that the path 
 of existence would be a dull one. But that was 
 all over long ago. When the other young men 
 had fallen into dissipation and all its attendant 
 miseries, he had pulled himself up. Pleasure
 
 72 A winter's walk. 
 
 was all very well, but he had no idea of paying 
 such a price for it as that. He was not a man 
 who had ever been brought under any strong 
 religious impulse, but he knew the diiFerence 
 between right and wrong. He pulled himself 
 up with great resolution, and abandoned the 
 flowery path where all the thorns are at first 
 hidden under the bloom and brightness. 
 
 It was no small sacrifice to descend into the 
 grey mediocrity of Penton Hook, and give him- 
 self up to the dull life which was all that was 
 possible; but he did it, which was not an 
 easy ^ thing to do. It was true that he was 
 still in those days a young man, and might 
 have made something better of his exist- 
 ence : but he had no training of any special 
 kind, no habit of work, no great capacity one 
 way or other. He settled down to his dull 
 country life without any feeling that he could 
 do better, leaving all excitement behind him. 
 It was perhaps a more creditable thing to do 
 than if he had been able to plunge into another 
 kind of excitement, to face the world and 
 carve a fortune out of it, which is the
 
 A wixter's walk:. 73 
 
 alternative possible to some men. And as 
 there had been no illusion possible when he 
 accepted that neutral-tinted life, so there had 
 been no unexpected happiness involved in its 
 results. 
 
 He had married a ^ood woman, but not a 
 Hvely one. His children had been pleasant and 
 amusing in their babyhood, but they had brought 
 innumerable cares along with them. Before 
 their advent Penton Hook had been dull, but it 
 had not been without many little comforts. He 
 had been able to keep a couple of horses, which 
 of itself was a considerable thing, and to hold 
 his place more or less among the county people. 
 But as the young ones gi-ew, it made a great 
 difference. Just at the time when life ought to 
 have opened up for their advantage, it had to 
 be narrowed and straitened. He was com- 
 pelled to give up his own gratifications on their 
 account, yet without any compensating con- 
 sciousness that he was doing the best he could 
 for them. Indeed, there seemed no possibiHty 
 of doing the best that could be done for any- 
 one. To keep on, to do what was indispens-
 
 74 A winter's walk. 
 
 able, to provide food and clothing — the mere 
 sordid necessities of Hfe — was all that was 
 within his power. In the early days after his 
 raarriage nothing had been saved; the neces- 
 sity of education and provision for the children 
 seemed either ludicrous in presence of the tiny 
 creatures who wanted nothing but bread-and- 
 milk and kisses, or so far off as to be beyond 
 calculation. But by gradual degrees this 
 necessity had become the most important of all. 
 And with it, unfortunately, had come that 
 depreciation in the value of land which made 
 his little estate much less productive exactly at 
 the time when he wanted money most. 
 
 One of his farms was vacant, the others were 
 let at low rents — all was sinking into a different 
 level. And, on the other hand, the w^ants of 
 the family increased every day. It is not to be 
 supposed that Mr. Penton liked to take Osy 
 from school. He had been indifferent about 
 Wat for various reasons, first because he 
 then quite believed he was really capable 
 of 'reading' with his boy, and would rather 
 like it than otherwise, and then it would
 
 A winter's walk. 75 
 
 be a good thing for them both ; .and second, 
 because Wat was the heir, and no great educa- 
 tion is necessary (Mr. Penton thought with Mrs» 
 Hardcastle in the play) to fit a man to spend a 
 large income. But with Osy no such argument 
 told. Osy was heir to nothing. He was the 
 clever one of the family ; and, as for reading 
 with Osy, his father knew that he was not 
 capable of any such feat, even if he had not 
 proved that to keep settled hours and gi\'e up 
 a part of this day to his son's instruction had 
 come to be a thing impossible to him. He knew 
 very well now that to take Oswald from school 
 would be to do him an injury. But what could 
 tlie poor man do ? 
 
 All that the young ones said in their warm 
 partisanship for Osy, in their indignation at the 
 idea of making him suffer, had more or less 
 affected their father. He was not very sensitive 
 to anything they could say, and yet it wounded 
 him in a dull way. It made him more depressed 
 and despondent. To battle with the Avaves, to be 
 tossed upon a great billow which may swallow 
 you up, yet may also throw you ashore and
 
 76 A winter's walk. 
 
 bring you to a footing upon the solid earth, is 
 less terrible than just to keep your head above 
 the muddy tide which sucks you down and 
 carries you on, with no prospect but to go to 
 the bottom at last when your powers of endur- 
 ance are spent. This last Avas Mr. Penton's 
 state. There was no excitement of a storm, no 
 lively stir of winds and waters — all was dull, 
 dreary, hopeless ; a position in which he could 
 do nothing to help himself, nothing to save him- 
 self — in which he must go on, keeping his head 
 above water as he could, now and then going 
 down, getting his eyes and throat full of the 
 heavy, muddy, livid stream. Poverty is little to 
 the active soul which can struggle and strive and 
 outwit it, which can still be doing ; but to those 
 who have nothing they can do, who can only 
 wait speechless till they are engulfed, how bitter 
 is that slowly-mounting, colourless, hopeless, all- 
 subduing tide ! 
 
 There Avas very little for a man to do at 
 Penton Hook. He had tramped about the 
 fields of the vacant farm, trying helplessly to 
 look after things which he did not understand.
 
 A ^YINTER'S ^YALK. 77 
 
 and to make the fallow fields bear crops by 
 looking at them, in the morning : and he had 
 come away from them more depressed than 
 ever, wondering whether, if he conld get 
 money enough to start and work the farm, any- 
 thing might be made of it ; then reflecting dole- 
 fully that in all likelihood the money for such 
 operations, even if he could raise it, might in 
 all probability be as well thrown into the river 
 for any good it would do. 
 
 In the afternoon he did not attempt any 
 further consideration of this question, but 
 simply took a walk, as he had been in the habit 
 of doing for so many years. And though in 
 some circumstances there are few things so 
 pleasant, yet in others there is nothing so doleful 
 as this operation of taking a walk. 
 
 How much helpless idleness, how many 
 hopeless self-questions, miserable musings, are 
 summed up in it ; what a dreamy commonplace 
 it turns to, the sick soul's dull substitute for 
 something to do or think of. It was in its way 
 a sort of epitome of Edward Penton's wearisome 
 Hfe. He knew every turning of the road ; there
 
 78 A winter's walk. 
 
 was nothing unexpected to look forward to, no 
 novelty, no incident ; when he met anyone he 
 knew, any of his equals, they were most pro- 
 bably riding or driving, or returning from a 
 day with the hounds, splashed and tired, and 
 full of talk about the run. He took off his hat 
 to the country ladies as they drove past, and 
 exchanged a word with the men. He had 
 nothing to say to them nor they to him. He 
 was of their sphere indeed, but not in it. He 
 knew when he had passed that they would say 
 * Poor Penton !' to each other, and discuss his 
 circumstances. He was happier when he came 
 now and then upon a solitar}^ poor man break- 
 ing stones on the w^ay, with whom he would 
 stop and have a talk about the weather or how 
 the country was looking. When he could find 
 twopence in his pocket to give for a glass of 
 beer he was momentarily cheered by the en- 
 counter. It was a cheap pleasure, and almost 
 his only one. It gave a little relief to the dul- 
 ness and discouragement which filled all the rest 
 of the way. 
 
 There was, however, one incident in his walk
 
 A WINTER .S WALK. 1\) 
 
 besides the twopence to the stone-breaker. 
 There was no novelty in this. Every day as he 
 came up to the turning he knew w^hat awaited 
 him ; but that did not take away from its peren- 
 nial interest. This incident w^as Penton, seen in 
 the distance, not the terraced front, which he, 
 like all the Pentons, thought a monument of 
 architectural art, but a high shoulder of red 
 masonry, which shone through the trees, and 
 suggested all the rest to his accustomed eyes. 
 Penton was the one incident in his walk, as it 
 was in his life. He was poor, and the waters of 
 miseiy w^ere almost going over his head. Yet 
 Penton stood fast, and he was the heir. He had 
 said this to himself for years, and though the 
 w^ords might have w^orn out all then- meaning, 
 so often had they been repeated, yet there was 
 an endless excitement in them. 
 
 Twenty years before he had said them wdth a 
 sense of mingled exultation and remorse, which 
 was when the last of *the boys' died, and he 
 became against all possibility the next heir. Sir 
 Walter had been an old man then, and it seemed 
 probable that these recurring calamities would
 
 80 A winter's walk. 
 
 end his life as well as his hopes. Edward Pen- 
 ton had nothing to reproach himself with ; he 
 had never been hard upon his cousins, though 
 he had abandoned their evil Avays, and he had 
 been shocked and sorry when one by one they 
 died. But afterwards he had looked forward to 
 his inheritance ; he had believed that it could not 
 be far off. He had come to this turning when 
 first he began to feel life too many for him, and 
 had looked at the house that was to be his, and 
 had taken comfort. But twenty years is a long 
 time, and waiting for dead men's shoes is not a 
 pleasant occupation. He looked at Penton now 
 always with excitement, but without any ex- 
 hilaration of hope. It did not seem so unlikely 
 as before that Sir Walter might live to be a 
 hundred ; that he might live to see his younger 
 cousin out. As he had outlived his own sons, 
 he might outlive Edward Penton and Ids sons 
 after him. Nothing seemed impossible to such 
 an old man. And Mr. Penton did not feel that 
 his own powers of living, any more than any 
 other powers in him, were much to be reckoned 
 upon. He stood on this particular day and
 
 A winter's walk. 81 
 
 gazed at the house of his fathers with a loug 
 and wistful look. Should he ever step into it 
 as his own? Should he ever change his narrow 
 state for the lordship there ? This question did 
 not bring to him the same quickening of the 
 breath which he had been sensible of on so 
 many previous occasions. He was too much 
 depressed to-day to be roused even by that. 
 He turned away wath a sigh, and turned his 
 back to that vision and his face homeward. 
 At home all his cares were awaiting him — as if 
 he had not carried them with him every step of 
 the way. 
 
 As he walked back towards Penton Hook his 
 ear was caught by the chip of the hammer, 
 which sounded in the stillness of the wintry 
 afternoon like some big insect on the road. 
 Chip, chip, and then the little roll of falling 
 stones. The man w^ho made the sound was 
 sitting on a heap of stones by the roadside, 
 w^orking very tranquilly, not hurrying himself, 
 taking his occupation easily. He was grey- 
 haired, "with a picturesque grey beard, and a red 
 handkerchief knotted underneath. He paused 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 62 A winter's walk. 
 
 to put his baud to his cap when he saw Mr. Pen- 
 ton. The recollection of past glasses of beer, 
 or hopes for the future, or perhaps the social 
 pleasure, independent of all interested motives, 
 of five minutes' talk to break the dulness of the 
 long afternoon, made the approach of the way- 
 farer pleasant. 
 
 ' Good afternoon, sir,' he said, cheerfull3^ 
 
 Old Crockford, though he was a great deal 
 older than Mr. Penton, and much poorer abso- 
 lutely, though not comparatively, was by no 
 means a depressed person, but regarded every- 
 thing from a cheerful point of view. 
 
 ' Good morning, Crockford,' said Mr. Pen- 
 ton. ' I didn't see you when I passed a little 
 while ago. I thought you had not been out 
 to-day.' 
 
 ' Bless you, squire, I'm out most days,' said 
 Crockford ; * weather like this it's nothin' but 
 pleasure. But frost and cold is disagreeable, and 
 rain's worst of all. I'm all right as long as 
 there's a bit o' sunshine, and it keeps up.' 
 
 ' It looks like keeping up, or I am no judge,' 
 said the poor squire.
 
 A winter's walk. 83 
 
 Crockford shook his head and looked up at the 
 sky. 
 
 ' I dou't hke the look of them clouds,' he said. 
 * When the}^ rolls up like that, one on another, 
 I never likes the look of them. But, praise the 
 Lord, we's high and dry, and can't come to no 
 harm/ 
 
 ' It is more than I am,' said Mr. Penton, testily. 
 *I hate rain I' 
 
 ' And when the river's up it's in of the house, 
 sir, I've heard say ? That's miserable, that is. 
 "When the children were young my missis and 
 me we lived down by Pepper's Wharf, and the 
 fevers as them little ones had, and the coughs 
 and sneezin's, and the rheumatics, it's more nor 
 tongue can say. Your young ladies, squire, is 
 wonderful red in the face and straight on their 
 pins to be living alongside of the river. It's 
 an onpleasant neighbour, is the river, I always 
 do say.' 
 
 ' If you hear any fools saying that the water 
 comes into my house you have my permission to 
 — stop them,' said Mr. Penton, angiily. ' It's no 
 such thing ; the water never comes higher than 
 
 g2
 
 84 
 
 the terrace. As for fevers, we don't know what 
 they are. But I don't like the damp in my 
 garden ; that stands to reason. It spoils all the 
 paths and washes the gravel away.' 
 
 ' That's very true,' said Crockford, with con- 
 viction ; ' it leaves 'em slimy, whatever you do. 
 I've seen a sight to-day as has set me thinking, 
 though I'm but a poor chap. Poor men, like 
 others, they 'as their feelings. I've seen a lady 
 go by, squire, as maybe once upon a day, years 
 ago, you, or most of the gentlemen about — for 
 she was a handsome one, she was ' 
 
 ' Ah, an old beauty ! " Even in our ashes 
 hve their wonted fires." And who might this 
 lady be r 
 
 * Many a one was sweet upon her,' said Crock- 
 ford. ' I ain't seen her, not to call seeing, for 
 many a year. I don't know about ashes, squire, 
 except as they're useful for scouring. And they 
 say that beauty is but skin deep ; but when I 
 looks at an 'andsome lady I don't think nothing 
 of all that; 
 
 ' I didn't know you were such an enthusiast, 
 Crockford.'
 
 A winter's walk. 85 
 
 '1 don't ahvays understand, squire,' said 
 Crockford, ' the words the quality employ. Xo^' 
 and then they'll have a kind of Greek or Latin 
 that means just a simple thing. But I sits here 
 hours on end, and I thinks a deal ; and for a 
 thing that pleases the eye I don't think there's 
 nothing more satisfying than an 'andsome 
 woman. I don't say in my own class of life, 
 for they ages fast, do the w^omen ; they don't 
 keep their appearance, like you and me, if I may 
 make so bold. But for a lady as has gone 
 through a deal, and kep' her looks, and got 
 an air with her, that goes with riding in her 
 own carriage behind a couple of 'andsome bays 
 — I wall say, squire, if 1 was to be had up before 
 the magistrates for it — and you're one your- 
 self, and ought to know — and what I say is 
 this : that Miss Aliciar from the great house there 
 is just as fine a sight as a man would wish to 
 see.' 
 
 ' Miss AHcia !' cried poor Penton, The name 
 was one he had not heard for long, and it seemed 
 to bring back a flush of his youth which for a 
 moment dazzled him. He burst out into a tre-
 
 86 A winter's walk. 
 
 mendoTis laugh after a while. ' You old block- 
 head !' he said. ' You're talking of Mrs. Russell 
 PentoD, my cousin, who hasn't been called by 
 that name these twenty years !' 
 
 ' Twenty years,' said old Crockford, ' is nothin', 
 squire, to a man like me. I knew her a baby, 
 just as I knowed you. You're both two infants 
 to the likes of me. Bless you, I hear the bells 
 ring for her christening and yours too. But she's 
 a fine, 'andsome woman, a-wheelin' along in her 
 carriage as if all the world belonged to her. I 
 don't think nothin' of a husband that hain't even 
 a name of his own to bless himself with, nor a 
 penny to spend. It's you and her that should 
 have made a match ; that's what ought to have 
 been, squire.' 
 
 ' Unfortunately, you see,' said Mr. Penton, ' I 
 have got a wife of my own.' 
 
 ' But you hadn't no wife nor her a husband in 
 the old days,' said Crockford, meditativelyy 
 pausing to emphasise his words with the chip^ 
 chip of his hammer. ' Dear-a-me ! the mistakes 
 that are in this life ! One like me, as sits here 
 hours on end, with nought afore him but the
 
 A winter's walk. 87 
 
 clouds flyiug and the w^nd blowing, learns a- 
 many things. There's more mistakes than aught 
 else in this life. Going downright wrong makes 
 a deal of trouble, but mistakes makes more. 
 For one as goes wrong there's allays two or 
 three decent folks as suffers. But mistakes 
 is just like daily bread ; they're like the poor as 
 is ever with us, accordin' to the Scripture ; 
 they just makes a muddle of everything. It's 
 been going through my mind since ever I 
 see Miss Ahciar in her chariot a-driving 
 away, as fine as King Solomon in all his glory. 
 The two young gentlemen, that was a sad soii; 
 of a thing, squire, but I don't know as t'other 
 is much better, the mistakes as some folks do 
 make.' 
 
 'Crockford, you are growing old, and fond of 
 talking,' said Mr. Pent on, who had heard him 
 out with a sort of angry patience. * Because 
 one lets you go on and say your say, that's 
 not to make you a judge of your betters. 
 Look here, here's twopence for a glass of beer, 
 but mind you keep your wisdom to yourself 
 another day.'
 
 88 A winter's walk. 
 
 ' Thank ye, squire,' said Crockford. ' 1 speak 
 my mind in a general way, but I can hold my 
 tongue as well as another Avhen it ain't liked. 
 Kemarks as is unpleasant, or as pricks like, going 
 too near a sore place ' 
 
 ' Oh, confound you I' said the squire ; ' who 
 ever said there was a — ' But then he remem- 
 bered that to quarrel with Crockford was not a 
 thing to be done. ' I think, after all,' he said, 
 ' you're right, and that those clouds are banking 
 up for rain. You'd better pack up your ham- 
 per, it's four o'clock, and it will be wet before 
 you get home.' 
 
 ' Well, squire, if you says so, as is one of the 
 trustees,' said Crockford, giving an eye to the 
 clouds, he swung himself leisurely off his hard 
 and slippery seat upon the heap of stones, — ' I'll 
 take your advice, sir, and thank ye, sir : and 
 wishing you a pleasant walk afore the rain comes 
 on.' 
 
 Mr. Penton waved his hand and continued 
 his walk down hill towards his home. The 
 clouds were gathering, indeed, but they were 
 full of colour and reflection, which showed all
 
 A winter's walk. 89 
 
 the more gorgeous against the rolling back- 
 ground of vapour which gradually obliterated 
 the blue. He was not afraid of the rain, though 
 if it meant another week of wet weather such 
 as had already soaked the country, it would also 
 mean much discomfort and inconvenience in 
 the muddy little domain of Penton Hook. But 
 it was not this he was thinking of. His 
 own previous reflections, and the sharp re- 
 minder of the past that was in old Crockford's 
 random talk, made a combination not unlike 
 that of the dark clouds and the lurid reflected 
 colours of the sky. Mistake ? Yes ; no doubt 
 there had been a mistake — many mistakes, one 
 after another, mistakes which the light of the 
 past, ^vith all its dying gleams, made doubly 
 apparent. 
 
 His mind was so full of all these thoughts 
 that he arrived at his own gate full of them, 
 without thinking of the passing vision which 
 had stirred up old Crockford, and his own 
 mind too, on hearing of it. But w^hen he 
 pushed open the gate and caught sight of the 
 tw^o bays, pawing and rearing their heads, with
 
 90 A winter's walk. 
 
 champ and stir of all their trappings, as if they 
 disdained the humble door at which they stood, 
 Edward Penton's middle-aged heart gave a sud- 
 den jump in his breast. Alicia here ! What 
 could such a portent mean ?
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 RICH MRS. PEXTON AND POOR MRS. PENTOX. 
 
 Mrs. Russell Pexton had not come to the 
 Hook for nothing. It was years since she had 
 visited he:* cousin's house — partly because of 
 repeated absences — for the family at Penton 
 were fond of escaping from the winter, and gen- 
 erally spent that half of the year on the Riviera 
 — partly from the feeling she had expressed to 
 her husband, which w^as not a very Christian 
 feeling, of repulsion from her father's heir : and 
 partly, which was perhaps the strongest reason 
 of all, because they were not, as she said, 'in 
 our own sphere.^ How can the wife and many 
 children of a poor man living in a small muddy
 
 '92 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 riverside house be in the sphere of one of the 
 great ladies of the district ? Only great quali- 
 ties on one side or another, great affection or 
 some other powerful inducement, would be 
 enough to span that gulf. And no such link 
 existed between the two houses. But there had 
 come to light between her father and herself in 
 one of those close and long consultations, to 
 Avhich not even her husband was admitted, a 
 plan which required Edward Penton's concur- 
 rence, and which, they concluded between them, 
 had better be set before him by Alicia herself. 
 This might have been done by summoning the 
 heir-at-law to Penton. But Russell Penton's 
 veiled remonstrances, his laugh at her inconsis- 
 tency, his comparison of the importance of the 
 moth-eating tapestry and poor Mrs. Penton's in- 
 ability to cut her coat according to her cloth, 
 had not been without effect on his wife's mind. 
 She was not incapable of perceiving the point 
 which he made ; and though she confessed to 
 nobody, not even to herself, that her visit to 
 Penton Hook had a little remorseful impulse in 
 it, yet this mingled largely with the evident
 
 AXD POOR MRS. PEXTON. 93 
 
 business which might have been managed in 
 another way. 
 
 Many recollections rose in her mind also as 
 she went along, not exposed even to such in- 
 spections as that of old Crockford, all by herself 
 with her own thoughts, remembering in spite of 
 herself the 3'outhful expeditions in which the 
 Hook was so large a feature, the boating par- 
 ties that * took the water ' there, the anxious 
 exertions of poor Edward to make his forlorn 
 little mansion bright. Poor Edward ! She re- 
 membered so clearly his eager looks, his desire 
 to please, the anxious devices with which he 
 sought to gratify her tastes, to show how his 
 own followed them. She had not seen much 
 of his older aspect, and had no distinct image 
 in her mind to correct that of the eager young- 
 man reading her face to see if she approved or 
 disapproved, and having no higher standard by 
 which to shape his own opinions. She saw 
 him in that aspect ; and she saw him as by a 
 lightning flash of terrible recollection, which 
 was half imagination, as he had appeared to her 
 by the side of her last brother's grave^ the chief
 
 '94 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 mourner and the chief gainer, concealing a new- 
 born sense of his own importance under the 
 conventional guise of woe. 
 
 Alicia was half-conscious that she did poor 
 Edward wrong. He was not the sort of man 
 to exult in his own advantage as purchased by 
 such a terrible family tragedy. But even now, 
 when the passion of grief and loss was over, 
 she could not surmount the bitter suggestion, 
 the knowledge that he had certainly gained by 
 what was ruin to her father's house. When she 
 drove past the old stone-breaker on the road 
 without taking any notice of him, without even 
 remarking his presence, this had been the recol- 
 lection with which her soul was filled. But her 
 heart melted as the carriage swept along by all 
 the well-remembered corners, and a vision of 
 the happy youthful party of old, the sound of 
 the boats at the Httle landing, the eager delight 
 of the young master of the place, seemed to 
 come back to her ears and eyes. 
 
 But Penton Hook did not look much like a 
 boating-party to-day. The water was very near 
 the level of the too green grass, the empty
 
 AND POOR MRS. PENTOX. 95 
 
 damp flower-beds, the paths that gleamed 
 Avith wet. A certain air of deprecating help- 
 lessness standing feebly against that surround- 
 ing power was in everything about. Alicia, 
 as she was now, the active-minded manager of 
 much property, full of energy and resources, 
 one of those who, like the centurion, have but 
 to say, ' Come, and he cometh ; do this, and he 
 doeth it,' cast her eyes, awakened out of all 
 dreams, upon the sweep of river and the little 
 bit of weeping soil which seemed to lie in its 
 grasp appealing for mercy to the clouds and 
 the skies. The sight gave new life to all her 
 scornful comments upon the incompetency of 
 those who, knowing what they had, could not 
 take the dignified position of making it to do, 
 but sank into failure and helpless defeat. She 
 planned rapidly io a moment what she would 
 do, were it but to keep the enemy at bay. 
 Were it hers she would scarcely have waited 
 for the dawn of the morning, she would have 
 sent in her workmen, prepared her plans, learned 
 the best way to deal with it, long ago. She 
 would have made herself the mistress, not the
 
 96 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 slave, of the suiTounding stream. In whatever 
 way, at whatever cost, she would have freed 
 herself, she would have overcome these blind 
 influences of nature. It was with a little scorn, 
 feeling that she could have done this, feeling 
 that she would like to do it, that it would be a 
 pleasure to fight and overcome that silent, 
 senseless force, that Mrs. Russell Penton, rich 
 Mrs. Penton, swept in through the weeping 
 gardens of the Hook, and with all the commo- 
 tion of a startling arrival, her bays prancing, her 
 wheels cutting the gravel, drew up before the 
 open door. 
 
 The door was always open, whether the day 
 was warm or cold, with an aspect not of hos- 
 pitality and liberal invitation, but rather of dis- 
 order and a squalid freedom from rule. The 
 hall was paved with vulgar tiles which showed 
 the traces of wet feet, and Mrs. Russell Penton 
 sank down all at once from her indignant half- 
 satisfied conviction that it was a sign of the 
 incompetency of poor Edward in his present 
 surroundiogs that he had never attempted to do 
 anything to mend matters, when brought thus
 
 AXD POOR MRS. PENTOX. 97 
 
 face to face with poverty. The traces of the 
 wet feet appalled her. This was just such an 
 evidence of an incompetent household and care- 
 less mistress as fitted in to her theory ; but it 
 was terrible to her unaccustomed senses, to 
 which a perfection of nicety and propriety was 
 indispensable, and any breach of absolute clean- 
 liness and purity unknown. The maid, who 
 humed frightened, yet delighted, to the door, 
 did not, however, cany out the first impression 
 made. She was so neat in her black gown and 
 white apron that the visitor was non-plussed as 
 by an evident contradiction. 
 
 ' Can you tell me if Mr. Penton is at home V 
 she asked, leaning out of the carriage and 
 putting aside the footman with a momentary 
 feeling that this, perhaps, might be one of 
 poor Edward's daughters acting as housemaid. 
 
 ' No, my lady ; but missis is in,' said the hand- 
 maid with a curtsey which she had learned at 
 school. Martha did not know who the visitor 
 was, but felt that in all circumstances to call a 
 visitor who came in such a fine carriage my lady 
 could not be wrong. 
 
 VOL. 1. H
 
 98 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 ' Missis is in !' 
 
 Rich Mrs. Penton felt a momentary thrill. 
 It was as if she had been hearing herself spoken 
 of in unimaginable circumstances. She paused 
 a little with a sense of unwillingness to go 
 further. She had met on various occasions the 
 insignificant pretty young woman who was poor 
 Edward's wife. She had made an effort to be 
 kind to her when they were first married, when 
 the poor Pentons were still more or less in one's 
 own sphere. But there had been nothing to 
 interest her, nothing to make up for the trouble 
 of maintaining so uncomfortable a relationship, 
 and since that period she had not taken any 
 notice of her cousin's wife, a woman always im- 
 mured in nursing cares, having babes or 
 nourishing them, or deep in some one of those 
 semi-animal (as she said) oflSces which disgust a 
 fastidious woman, who in her own person has 
 nothing of the kind to do. A woman without 
 children becomes often very fastidious on this 
 point. Perhaps the disgust may be partly 
 born of envy, but at all events it exists and is 
 strong.
 
 AND POOR MRS. PENTOX. 99 
 
 Mrs. Penton hesitated as to whether slie would 
 turn back and not go in at all, or whether she 
 would wait at the door till Edward came in, or 
 ask to be shown into his particular sitting-room 
 to wait for him : but that, she reflected, would 
 be a visible slight to Edward's Tvdfe. The un- 
 expressed, unformulated dread of what Russell 
 might say restrained her here. He would not 
 criticise, but he would laugh, which was much 
 worse. He would perhaps give vent to a certain 
 small whistle which she knew very well, when 
 she acknowledged that she had been to Penton 
 Hook without seeing the mistress of the house. 
 She did not at all confess to herself that she 
 was a coward, but as a matter of fact rich Mrs. 
 Penton was more afraid of that whistle than 
 poor Mrs. Penton was of anything, except 
 scarlatina. 
 
 Ahcia hesitated ; she sat still in her carriage 
 for the space of a minute, while simple Martha 
 gazed as if she had been a queen, and admired 
 the deep fur on the lady's velvet mantle, and 
 the bonnet which had come from Pans. Then 
 Mrs. Penton made up her mind. 
 
 II 2
 
 100 RICH MRS. PENTOX 
 
 ' Perhaps your mistress will see me,' she 
 said ; ' I should like to wait till Mr. Pentou 
 comes in.' 
 
 * Oh, yes, my lady,' Martha said. Though 
 she had been carefully instructed how to 
 answer visitors, she felt instinctively that this 
 visitor could not be asked her name as if she 
 was an ordinary lady making a call. She 
 then opened the drawing-room very wide and 
 said, * Please, ma'am !' then stopped and let the 
 great lady go in. 
 
 Mrs. Penton, poor Mrs. Penton, was sitting by 
 the fire on a low chair. There was not light 
 enough to work by, and yet there was too much 
 light to ask for the lamp. It was a welcome 
 moment of rest from all the labours that were 
 her heritage. She liked it perhaps all the 
 better that her husband and the older ones, 
 who would talk or make demands upon her to 
 be talked to, were out and she was quite free. 
 To be alone now and then for a moment is 
 sweet to a hard-worked woman who never is 
 alone. Indeed, she was not alone now. Two 
 of the little ones were on the rug by her feet.
 
 AND POOR MRS. PENTOX. 101 
 
 But they made no demands upon their 
 mother, they played with each other, keeping 
 up a babble of little voices, within reach of her 
 hand to be patted on the head, within reach of 
 her dress to cling to, should a wild beast sud- 
 denly appear or an ogre or a naughty giant. 
 Thus, though they said nothing to each other, 
 they were a mutual comfort and support, the 
 mother to the children and the children to the 
 mother. 
 
 And if we could unveil the subtle chain 
 of thinking from about that tired and silent 
 woman's heart, the reader would wonder to 
 see the lovely things that were there. But 
 she was scarcely aware that she was thinking, 
 and what she thought was not half definite 
 enough to be put into words. A world of gentle 
 musings, one linked into another, none of them 
 separable from the rest, was about her in the 
 firehght, in the darkness, the quiet and not 
 ungrateful fatigue. She was not thinking at all, 
 she would have said. It was as though some- 
 thing revolved silently before her, gleaming out 
 here and there a recollection or realisation. The
 
 102 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 warmth, the dimness, the quiet, lulled her in 
 the midst of all her cares. She had thought of 
 Osy till her head ached. How this dreadful 
 misfortune could be averted; how he could be 
 kept on at Marlborough ; until in the impossibil- 
 ity of finding any expedient, and the weariness 
 of all things, her active thoughts had dropped. 
 They dropped as her hands dropped, as she 
 gave up working, and for that moment of still- 
 ness drew her chair to the fire. There was 
 nothing delightful to dwell upon in all that was 
 around and about her. But God, whom in her 
 voiceless way she trusted deeply, delivered the 
 tired mother from her cares for the moment, 
 and fed her with angels' food as she sat with- 
 out anything to say for herself, content by the 
 fire. 
 
 It was a moment before she realised what 
 had happened when the door opened and the visi- 
 tor swept in. She was not clever or ready, and 
 her first consciousness that some one had come 
 in was confused, so that she did not know how 
 to meet the emergency. She rose up hastily, 
 all her sweet thoughts dispersing ; and the chil-
 
 AND POOR MRS. PENTON". 103 
 
 dren, who saw a shadowy tall figure and did 
 not know what it was, shuffled to her side 
 and laid hold of her dress with a horrible 
 conviction that the ogre who eats children on 
 toast had come at last. Rich Mrs. Penton 
 sweeping in had command of the scene better 
 than poor Mrs. Penton had who was its principal 
 figure. She saw the startled movement, the shm 
 figure rising up from before the fire, in nervous 
 uncertainty what to say or do, and the sudden 
 retreat of the little ones from their place in the 
 foreground, lighted by the waiTu glow of the 
 fire, to the shelter of their mother's dress. The 
 whole group had a timid, alarmed look which 
 half-piqued and half-pleased Alicia. She rather 
 liked the sensation of her own imposing appear- 
 ance which struck awe, and yet was annoyed 
 that anyone should be afraid of her. She had 
 no doubt what to do ; she went forward into the 
 region of the firelight and held out a hand. 
 
 ' You don't remember me,' she said, ' or per- 
 haps it is only that you don't see me. I am 
 Alicia Penton. May I sit down here a little till 
 my cousin comes in ?'
 
 104 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 ' Mrs. Russell Penton ! oh, sit down, please. 
 Will you take this chair, or will you come nearer 
 the fire? I am ashamed to have been so stupid, 
 but I have not many visitors, and I never 
 thought — will you take this chair, please V 
 
 ' You never thought that I should be one % 
 Oh, don't think I blame you for saying so. It is 
 my fault ; I have often felt it. I hope you will 
 let bygones be bygones now, and look upon me 
 as a friend.^ 
 
 ' Horry,' said Mrs. Penton, ' run and tell 
 Martha to bring the lamp.' She did not make 
 any direct reply to her visitor's overture. ' I am 
 fond of sitting in the firelight,' she said. ' A 
 little moment when there is nothing to do, when 
 all is so quiet, is pleasant. But it is awkward 
 when anyone comes in, for we cannot see each 
 other. I hope Sir Walter is quite well,' she 
 added, after a momentary pause. 
 
 It was in the rich Mrs. Penton's heart to cry 
 out, 'Don't ask me about Sir Walter; you don't 
 hope he is well ; you wish he was dead, I know 
 you must, you must !' These words rushed to 
 her lips, but she did not say them. There was
 
 AND POOR MRS. PEXTOX. 105 
 
 in this mild interior no justification for such a 
 speech. The absence of hght threw a veil upon 
 all the imperfections of the place, and there 
 was something in the gentle indifference of the 
 mistress of the house, the absence of all feeling 
 in respect to her visitor except a startled civility, 
 which somehoAv humbled and silenced the proud 
 woman. She had been, in spite of herself, ex- 
 cited about this meeting. She had come in 
 with her heart beating, making overtures, 
 which she never would have made to a stranger. 
 She did not know what she expected: either 
 to be received with warm and astonished grati- 
 tude, or to be held at arm's length in offence. 
 But this mild woman in the soft confusion of the 
 firelit gloom did neither — had not evidently 
 been thinking of her at all — had no feeling 
 about her one way or another. ]\Irs. Russell 
 Penton felt like one who had fallen from a 
 height. She blushed unseen with a hot sensa- 
 tion of shame. To feel herself of so much less 
 consequence than she expected, was extra- 
 ordinary to her, a sensation such as she had 
 rarely felt before. She felt even that the pause
 
 106 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 slie made before replying, which she herself felt 
 so much, and dming which so many things 
 went through her head, was lost upon the other, 
 who was pre-occupied about the lamp, and an- 
 xious lest it should smell, and concerned with a 
 hundred other things. 
 
 ' My father is quite well,' said Alicia, with a 
 little emphasis ; ' I never saw him in better 
 health. It is not thought necessary for him, he 
 is so well, to go abroad this year.' 
 
 The maid was at the door with the lamp, and 
 there came in with her, exactly as Mrs. Penton 
 feared, an odour of paraffin, that all-pervading 
 unescapable odour which is now so familiar 
 everywhere. She scarcely caught what her 
 visitor said, so much more anxious was she 
 about this. And in her mind there arose the 
 anxious question, what to do ? Was it better 
 to say nothing about the smell, and hope that 
 perhaps it might not be remarked ? or confess 
 the matter and make a commotion, calling Mrs. 
 Penton's attention to it by sending it away? 
 Even if she did the latter she could not send
 
 AND POOR MRS. PENTOX. 107 
 
 away the smell, which, alas ! was here, anyhow, 
 and would keep possession. She resolved des- 
 perately, therefore, to take no notice, to hope, 
 perhaps, that it might not be remarked. This 
 presumption, though poor Mrs. Pent on was so 
 far from suspecting it, completed the discomfi- 
 ture of the great lady who had made sure that 
 her visit would be a great event. 
 
 'I am very glad,' said the mistress of the 
 house at last, vaguely ; ' Edward has gone out 
 for a walk, he will be in directly, and I am 
 sure it will give him great pleasure to see you. 
 The girls are out too ; there is not very much 
 for them in the way of amusement at this time 
 of the year.' 
 
 And then there was a pause, for neither of the 
 ladies knew what to say. Mrs. Russell Penton 
 examined her hostess closely by the light of the 
 malodorous lamp. It was kinder to the poor 
 lady than daylight would have been, and to the 
 poor room, which, w^th the flickering firelight 
 rising and falling, and the shade over the lamp, 
 which left the walls and the furniture in a
 
 108 RICH MRS. PENTON 
 
 flattering obscurity, showed none of their im- 
 perfections to the stranger's eyes. And all 
 that was apparent in Mrs. Penton was that her 
 gown, which was of no particular colour, but 
 dark and not badly cut, hung about her slim 
 figure with a certain grace, and that the curHng 
 twist of her hair, done up in that soft large 
 knot on the back of her head, suited her much 
 better than a more elaborate coiffure would 
 have done. 
 
 Rich Mrs. Penton looked closely at her poor 
 relation, but her scrutiny was not returned. 
 The thing that had now sprung into prominence 
 in the mind of the mistress of the house, was 
 whether Martha would bring tea in nicely, and 
 whether the cake would be found which was 
 kept for such great occasions, without an appeal 
 to herself for the keys. She was careful and 
 burdened about many things ; but in the very 
 excess of her anxieties was delivered from more 
 serious alarms. It did not occur to her to 
 trouble herself with the questions which the 
 children had asked each other so anxiously.
 
 AND POOR MRS. PENTOX. 109 
 
 which Mr. Pent on was inquiring of himself with 
 a beating heart, 
 
 ' What could have brought Alicia Penton 
 here ?'
 
 no 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 There was, however, no lack of excitement 
 when the rest of the family came in. The girls 
 dazzled with the quick transition from the dark- 
 ness outside to the light within, their eyes 
 shining, their lips apart with breathless curiosity 
 and excitement, and a thrill of interest which 
 might have satisfied the requirements of any 
 visitor : and after a little interval their father, 
 pale, and somewhat breathless too, whose ex- 
 pectation was not of anj^thing agreeable, but 
 rather of some new misfortune, of which per- 
 haps his cousin had come to tell him. Edward 
 Penton did not pause to think that it was very
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. Ill 
 
 unlikely that Alicia would thus break in upon 
 his retirement in order to tell him of some mis- 
 fortune. The feeling was instinctive in his 
 mind because of long acquaintance ^^dth defeat 
 and failure, that every new thing must mean 
 further trouble. He was always ready to en- 
 counter that in his depressed way. He came 
 into the atmosphere which was tinged with the 
 smell of paraffin, the discomfort of which was 
 habitual to him, added to the undercurrent of 
 irritation in his mind, and with the feeling that 
 there was already a crowd of people in the 
 room, where probably no one was necessary but 
 himself. 
 
 Alicia Penton had long, long ceased to be an 
 object of special interest to him : nobody now 
 was of particular interest to Mr. Penton in that 
 or any sentimental way. The people who were 
 about him now either belonged to him, in 
 which case they gave him a great deal of 
 altogether inevitable trouble : or else they did 
 not belong to him, and were probably more or 
 less antagonistic — wanting things from him, 
 entertainment, hospitality, subscriptions, some-
 
 112 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 thing or other which he did not wish to give. 
 Such were the two classes into which the human 
 race was divided ; but if there was a debate- 
 able ground between the two, a scrap of soil 
 upon which a human foot could be planted, Sir 
 Walter and his daughter were its possible in- 
 habitants. They belonged to him too— in a 
 way ; they were antagonistic too — in a way. 
 Both the other halves of the world were more 
 or less united in them. 
 
 He came forward into the Hght, which, how- 
 ever, revealed his knickerbockers and muddy 
 boots more distinctly than his face. , 
 
 'It is a long time,' he said, ' since we have 
 met.' 
 
 'Yes, Edward, it is a long time; I have 
 been saying so to your wife. The girls have 
 grown up since I saw them last ; they were 
 little girls then, and now they are — grown 
 up ' 
 
 When emotion reaches a high strain and be- 
 comes impassioned, the power of expression is 
 increased, and eloquence comes; but on the 
 lower levels of feeling, suppressed excitement
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 113 
 
 and commotion of mind often find nttevance in 
 the merest commonplace. 
 
 ' Yes, they are grown up — the boy too,' said 
 Mr. Penton, under the same spell. 
 
 She cast a glance upward to where, beyond 
 the lamp, on his mother's side of the table, Wat 
 appeared, a lengthy shadow, perhaps the most 
 uncongenial of all. She made a slight forward 
 inclination of her head in recog-nition of his pre- 
 sence, but no more. The girls she had shown 
 a, certain pleasure in. They stood together, 
 with that pretty look of being but one which a 
 pair of sisters often have, so brightly cunous 
 and excited, scanning her with such eager eyes 
 that it would have been difl&cult not to respond 
 to their frank interest. But Mrs. Penton could 
 not tolerate Wat : his very presence was an 
 offence to her, and the instinctive way in which 
 he went over to his mother's side, and stood 
 there in the gloom looking at the visitor over 
 the shade of the lamp. She would have 
 none of him, but she turned with rehef to the 
 girls. 
 
 ' I am ashamed to ask the question,' she said, 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 *biit which of you is my godchild? Yoii seem 
 about the same age.' 
 
 It was a vexation that it should be the other 
 one — the one who was like her mother, not the 
 impetuous darker girl whose eyes devoured 
 the great lady who was her cousin — who re- 
 plied, 
 
 ' It is I who am Ally. There is only a year 
 between us. We are more together than any 
 of the others.' 
 
 * Ally I' said Mrs. Russell Penion, with a little 
 scorn. 'And what is your name V 
 
 ' I am Anne.' 
 
 ' She should be Anna,' said her mother, * which 
 is far prettier : but she likes what is shortest 
 best. There are so many of them. None of 
 them have their full names. Some families 
 make a great stand on that — to give everyone 
 their full name.' 
 
 ' It is a matter of taste,' said the visitor, coldly. 
 
 She was doubly, but most unreasonably, an- 
 noyed after her first moment of interest to find 
 that it was the wrong sister who was her god- 
 child, and that even she did not bear the name
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 115 
 
 that had been given her. It seemed a want of 
 respect, not only to herself, but to the family, 
 in which there had been Alicias for countless 
 years. 
 
 *I hope my uncle is well?' said Mr. Pentoo, 
 after another embarrassed pause. Sir Walter 
 was not his uncle, but it was a relic of the old 
 days, when he was a child of the house, that 
 the younger cousin was permitted to call the 
 elder so. ' I heard you were not going away 
 this year.' 
 
 ''Xo; the doctors think he may stay at home, 
 as there is every prospect of a mild winter. Of 
 course, if it became suddenly severe we could 
 take him away at a moment's notice.' 
 
 ' Of course,' Edward Penton said. However 
 severe the weather might become, neither he 
 nor his could be taken away at a moment's 
 notice. He could not help feehng conscious of 
 the difference, but with a faint smile breaking 
 upon his depression. Alicia did not mean it, 
 he was sure, but it seemed curious that she 
 should put the contrast so very clearly before 
 him There was a little whispering going on 
 
 i2
 
 116 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 between the mother and daughters about the 
 tea. Tea was a substantial meal at the Hook, 
 and the little ornamental repast at five o'clock 
 was unusual, and made a little flurry in the 
 household. Mrs. Penton had to give Anne certain 
 instructions about a little thin bread-and-butter 
 and the cake. She thought that Edward, who 
 was keeping up the conversation, screened off 
 these whisperings from his cousin's notice : 
 but as a matter of fact Alicia was keenly alive 
 to all that was taking place, and felt a sharper 
 interest in the anxiety about Martha's appear- 
 ance than in anything Edward w^as saying. 
 ' You still keep the villa at Cannes?' he went 
 on. 
 
 ' Yes ; up to this time it has been a necessity 
 for my father : but I have not seen him so 
 well for years.' 
 
 ' I am very glad to hear it,' Mr. Penton said, 
 with a little emphasis. He had to stand aside 
 as he spoke, for Martha arrived, rather embar- 
 rassed, with her tray, for which there was no 
 habitual place : and the girls had to clear the 
 books and ornaments off a little table while she
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 117 
 
 "waited. He was used to these domestic embar- 
 rassments, and it must be said for him that he 
 did the best he could to screen them even at 
 the sacrifice of himself. He drew a chair near 
 to his cousin and sat down, thus doing what he 
 could to draw her keen attention from these 
 details. 
 
 ' It is long since I have seen Penton,' he 
 said. * I hear you have made many im- 
 provements.' 
 
 * Nothing that you Avould remark — only addi- 
 tions to the comfort of the house. It used to be 
 rather cold, you will remember.' 
 
 ' I don't think I knew what cold was in those 
 old days,' he said, with a slight involuntary 
 shiver, for the door had just opened once more 
 to admit the cake, and a draught came in from 
 the always open hall. 
 
 ' We ""have had it now warmed throughout,' 
 said Mrs. Russell Penton, Avith a sHght involun- 
 tary smile ; ' and we are thinking of fitting it up 
 with electric hght. My husband has a turn for 
 playing with science. It is a great deal of 
 trouble at first, but very little afterwards, I
 
 118 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 believe ; and very convenient, without any of 
 the drawbacks of lamps or gas.' 
 
 She could not but turn her head as she spoke, 
 to the large crystal lamp upon the table, which 
 filled the room with something more than light. 
 The tea had been arranged by this time, and 
 poor Mrs. Penton had begun to pour it out, but 
 not yet was her mind disengaged from the many 
 anxieties involved — for the tea was poor. She 
 shook her head and made a little silent appeal 
 to the girls as she poured out the almost 
 colourless cup. And then there was a jug of 
 milk, but no cream. This necessitated another 
 whispering, and the swift despatch of Ally to 
 fetch what was wanted. Mrs. Kussell Penton 
 looked on at all this, and took in every detail as 
 if it had been a little scene of a comedy enacted 
 for her amusement ; but there was in the amuse- 
 ment an acrid touch. The smile was sharp, like 
 Ithuriel's spear, and cut all those innocent little 
 cobwebs away. 
 
 'I have no doubt you will make it very com- 
 plete,' Edward Penton said, with a sigh» 
 There was an assumed proprietorship about all
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 119 
 
 she said, which was hke cuttiDg him off from the 
 succession, that only possibihty which lay in his 
 future. And yet they could not cut hmi off, he 
 said to himself. 
 
 'Is this tea for me? How very kind I but I 
 never take it at this hour,' said Alicia, putting up 
 her gloved hand with a little gesture of refusal. 
 It smote, if not her heart, yet her conscience, a 
 little to see the look that passed between the 
 mother and the girls. Had Russell seen that 
 scene he would assuredly have retired into a 
 corner, and relieved himself with a whistle, 
 before asking for a cup and eating half the cake, 
 which was what he would have done regardless 
 of consequences. Rendered compunctious by 
 this thought xA.licia added hastily, ' You must 
 bring the ghls up to see the house; they ought 
 to know it ; and I hope I may see more of 
 them in the time to come.' 
 
 * Their mother, I have no doubt, will be 
 pleased,' said Edward Penton, vaguely. 
 
 * Indeed, you must not think of me,' his wife 
 said ; she had not taken offence. It was not in 
 her mild nature to suppose that anyone could
 
 120 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 mean to slight or insult her ; but she was a 
 little annoyed by the unnecessary waste of tea 
 ' I am a poor walker, you know, Edward ; and 
 always occupied with the children ; but I am 
 sure the girls would like it very much. It 
 would be very nice for them to make acquaint- 
 ance — Wat could walk up with them if you were 
 busy. Especially in the winter,' she said, with 
 a little conciliatory smile towards the great lady. 
 * I am always looking out for a little change for 
 the girls.' 
 
 ' Then we shall consider that as settled,' said 
 Alicia. She rose, in all the splendour of her 
 velvet and furs, and the whole family rose with 
 her. A thought ran through their minds — a 
 little astonished shock — a question. Was it 
 possible that this was all she had come for ? It 
 was a very inadequate conclusion to the excite- 
 ment and expectation in all their minds. Mrs. 
 Penton alone did not feel this shock. She did 
 not think the result inadequate ; a renewal of 
 acquaintance, an invitation to the girls, probably 
 the opening to them of a door into society and 
 the great world.
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 121 
 
 She came forward with what to her was 
 warmth and enthusiasm. 
 
 ' It is very kind of you to have called,' she said, 
 ' I am truly grateful, for I make few calls m}"- 
 self, and I can't wonder if I fall out of people's 
 recollection. It is a great thing for a woman 
 like you to come out of your way to be kind to 
 Edward's little girls. I am very grateful to you, 
 and I will never forget it.' 
 
 Poor Mrs. Penton gave her rich namesake a 
 warm pressure of the hand, looking at her with 
 her mild, large-lidded grey eyes, lit up by a 
 smile which transformed her face. Not a shadow 
 of doubt, not the faintest cloud of consciousness 
 that Alicia's motive had been less than angelic, 
 was in her look or in her thoughts. 
 
 Rich Mrs. Penton faltered and shrank before 
 this look of gratitude. She knew that, far from 
 deserving it, there had been nothing but con- 
 tempt in her thoughts towards this simple woman 
 who had been to her like a bit of a comedy. She 
 withdrew her hand as quickly as possible from 
 that grateful clasp. 
 
 ' You give me credit — that I don't deserve,'
 
 122 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 she said. ' I — I came to speak to my cousin on 
 business. It was really a — I won't call it a self- 
 ish motive, that brought me. But it will give 
 me real pleasure to see the girls.' 
 
 To divine the hidden meaning of this little 
 speech, which was entirely apologetic, occupied 
 the attention of the anxious family suddenly 
 pushed back into eagerness again by the inti- 
 mation of her real errand. It was not all for 
 nothing, then ! It was not a mere call of 
 civility ! Mr. Penton, who had felt something 
 like rehef when she rose, consoled by the thought 
 that there could not at least be any new mis- 
 fortune to intimate to him, fell again into that 
 state of melancholy anticipation from which he 
 had been roused, while the young ones bounded 
 upwards to the height of expectation. Some- 
 thing was coming — somethiug new ! It did not 
 much matter to them what it was. They looked 
 on wdth great excitement while their father con- 
 ducted his cousin across the hall to his book- 
 room, as it was called. They were not given 
 to fine names at Penton Hook. It had been
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 121^ 
 
 called the library in former days. But it was a 
 little out at elboAvs, like the rest of the house — 
 the damp had affected the bindings, the gilding 
 was tarnished, the Russia leather dropping to 
 pieces, a smell of mustiness and decay, much 
 contended against, yet indestructible, was in the 
 place. And it was no longer the librar}', but 
 only the book-room. The door of the dra^^-ing- 
 room being left open, the family watched with 
 interest indescribable the two figures crossing 
 the hall. Mrs. Russell Pent on, though she had 
 not been there for so many years, knew her way, 
 which particular interested the girls gTeatly, and 
 opened a new yista to them into the past. 
 Mrs. Penton, for her part, knew well enough all 
 about Alicia, but she was not jealous. She 
 shivered slightly as she saw the lady's skirt 
 sweep the halL 
 
 ' Oh, Anne,' she whispered, ' tell Martha to 
 bring a cloth and wipe it. A velvet dress ! 
 You children, with your wet feet, you are enough 
 to break anyone's heart. What are the mats 
 put there for, I should like to know V
 
 124 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 * Ob, what do you think of her, mother ? Did 
 you hke her? Don't you think she meant to be 
 kind ? Do you think we must go V 
 
 ' Certainly you must go,' said Mrs. Penton. 
 ' What do I think of her ? This is not the first 
 time I have seen Ahcia Penton, that you should 
 ask me such a question. Yes, yes, you must 
 go. You ought to know that house better 
 than any house in the country, and it is 
 only right that you should first go into society 
 there.' 
 
 ' Do you think Cousin Alicia will ask us to 
 parties? Do you think she really meant — 
 really, without thinking of anything else — to be 
 kind to Ally and me ?' 
 
 ' Anne, I am sorry that you should take such 
 notions. What object could she have but kind- 
 ness,' said Mrs. Penton, with mild conviction, 
 ' for coming here ? It is all very well to talk of 
 business with your father. Yes, no doubt she 
 has business with your father, or she would not 
 have said so ; but I am very sure she must have 
 sufi'ered from the estrangement. I always 
 thought she must sufier. Men do not think of
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 125 
 
 these things, but Tromen do. I feel sure that 
 she has talked her father over at last, and that 
 we are all to be friends again. Sir Walter is an 
 old man ; he must want to make up differences. 
 What a dreadful thing it would be to die with- 
 out making it up I' 
 
 ' Was there any real quarrel ?' said Wat, 
 coming forward with his hands in his pockets. 
 ' She may be kind enough, mother, that fine 
 lady of yours, but she does not like me.' 
 
 ' How can she know whether she likes you or 
 not ? She doesn't know you, Wat.' 
 
 * She hates me all the same. I have never 
 done anything to her that T know of. I suppose 
 I did wrong to be born.' 
 
 ' If it were not you it would be some one else,' 
 said Mrs. Penton ; ' but, children ! oh, don't talk 
 in this hard way. Think how her brothers died, 
 and that she has no children. And the house she 
 loves to go away from her, and nothing to be 
 hers ! 1 do not think I could bear it if it was 
 me. Make haste, Anne, oh, make haste and get 
 Martha to wipe up the hall. And, Horry, you 
 may as well have the thin bread-and-butter. If
 
 126 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 I had only known that Mrs. Russell Penton never 
 took tea — ' 
 
 About this failure Mrs. Penton Avas really 
 concerned; it was not only a waste of the tea 
 and of that nice bread-and-butter (which Horry 
 enjoyed exceedingly), but it was a sort of a 
 sham, enacted solely for the benefitof the visitor, 
 which was objectionable in other points of view 
 besides that of extravagance. It gave her a 
 sense of humiliation as if she had been masquer- 
 ading in order to deceive a stranger who was 
 too quick of wit to be deceived. But Mrs. Pen- 
 ton neither judged her namesake, nor was sus- 
 picious of her, nor was she even very curious as 
 the children were, as to the subject of the inter- 
 view which was going on in the book-room. 
 She feared nothing from it, nor did she expect 
 anything. She was not ready to imagine that 
 anything could happen. Sir Walter might die, 
 of course, and that would make a change ; but 
 she had Mrs. Russell Penton's word for it that 
 Sir Walter was better than usual ; and in the 
 depth of her experience of that routine of com-
 
 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 127 
 
 mon life which kept on getting a httle worse, 
 but had never been broken by any siii-piising 
 incidents, she had Httle faith in things happen- 
 ing. She felt even that she would not be sur- 
 prised for her part if Sir AYalter should never 
 die. He was eighty-five, and he might live to 
 be a hundred. Though they had not met for 
 years, she saw nothing extraordinary in the fact 
 that Alicia Penton had come to talk over some 
 business matters with her cousin. It was partly 
 indolence of mind, and partly because she had 
 so much that was real to occupy her, that she 
 had no time for imaginary cases. And so, while 
 the girls hung about the doors in excitement, 
 unable to settle to anything, curious to see 
 their great relation pass out again, and to 
 watch her getting into her carriage, and pick up 
 any information that might be attainable about 
 the object of her mission, Mrs. Penton, with a 
 word of rebuke to their curiosity, took Horry 
 upstairs to the nursery and thence retired to 
 her own room to make her modest little toilette 
 for the evening. There was no dinner to
 
 128 THE YOUNG AND THE OLD. 
 
 dress for, but the mother of the household 
 thought it was a good thing as a rule and ex- 
 ample that she should put on a different gown 
 for tea.
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 i\LiciA was a little subdued when she found 
 herself in the old library, the room she had 
 known so Avell in other circumstances. The air 
 of decay, the unused books which she had bor- 
 rowed and read and talked over, Edward being 
 a httle more disposed that way than her 
 brothers, and ready to give her advice about 
 her reading, and receive with reverence her 
 comments which the others took no interest in, 
 impressed her in spite of herself. Her eyes 
 turned to the corner in which there had been 
 a collection of the poets more accessible and 
 readable than any that existed at Penton, where 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 the books were all of a ponderous kind. They 
 were still there, the same little volumes, which 
 it had been so easy to cany about, which had 
 been brought from the Hook in Edward's 
 pocket, which she had taken with her in the 
 boat and read in the shady corner under the 
 trees among the water-lilies. She could see 
 they were still there, the binding a little tar- 
 nished, the line broken, as if several volumes 
 were lost or absent. Who read them nowV 
 She gave but one glance and saw everything, 
 then turned her back upon that corner. There 
 was a table in the window which had not 
 been there formerly, a table covered with 
 books and papers such as she was sure Edward 
 Penton did not amuse himself with. It would 
 be the boy whose name had not been mentioned, 
 whom she had taken no notice of, yet of whom, 
 with a jealous, angry consciousness, she had felt 
 the presence through all. 
 
 ' You have made few changes,' she said, in- 
 voluntarily, as she turned the chair he had 
 placed for her half round, so as not to see the 
 shelf with its range of little volumes. The
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 131 
 
 book-room was perhaps the most comfortable in 
 the house, but for that faint mustiness. The 
 walls were well lined with books. It had been 
 a good collection twenty years ago, and, though 
 there had been few additions made, it was still 
 a good collection, and the fading of the gilding 
 and a little raggedness of binding here and there 
 did not injure the appearance of the well-covered 
 walls. 
 
 ^Ir. Penton lighted the two candles on the 
 Avriting-table, which seemed to add two little 
 inquisitive eldritch spectators, blinking their little 
 flames at the human actors in this drama, and 
 watching all they did and said. 
 
 ' No, there are no changes to speak of, I 
 have had other things to think of than making 
 changes,' he said, with a little abruptness, per- 
 haps thinking that she was making a contrast 
 between the unalterable circumstances of his 
 poverty and all that had been done in the great 
 house. But she had no such meaning, nor did 
 she understand the tone of almost reproach in 
 which he spoke. 
 
 ' You must have a gi-eat deal to do, with your 
 
 k2
 
 132 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 family ; but there are cares which many people 
 comit as happiness.' 
 
 ' I am making no complaint,' he said. 
 
 And then there was a pause. There had 
 been struck a Avrong note which rang jarring 
 into the air, and made it more difScult to begin 
 again. 
 
 ' You must have been surprised,' she said, ' to 
 find me here to-day.' 
 
 * I don't know that I was surprised ; perhaps 
 it was more surprising, if I may speak my mind, 
 Alicia, that so long a time has passed without 
 seeing you here. I never harmed you, that 1 
 know.' 
 
 'No,' she said, 'you never harmed us; it 
 has been a miserable mistake altogether. For 
 years past I have felt it to be so ; but we are 
 the slaves of our own mistakes. I never seemed 
 to have the courage to take the first step to 
 make it right.' 
 
 She had neither meant to say this, nor in cold 
 blood would she have allowed it to be true ; 
 but she was carried away by the subtle influ- 
 ence of the familiar place, by the sight of
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 133 
 
 the books she used to borrow, and many an 
 indefinable recollection and influence besides. 
 
 He gave a little short laugh. 
 
 ' That is the second time to-night,' he said, 
 ' that I have heard the same thing said.' 
 
 If she had but known who the other was who 
 had said it, the old man breaking stones, who 
 had been so glad of his twopence I Mr. Penton 
 could not restrain the brief comment of that 
 laugh. 
 
 * It does not matter who says it,' said Alicia, 
 * it is true. A thing is done in passion, in 
 misery, and then it is hard to descend from our 
 pride, or to acknowledge ourselves wrong. And 
 you will think, perhaps,' she added, quickly, with 
 rising colour, ' that it is a selfish motive wliich 
 brings me here to-day.' 
 
 Edward Penton shook his head. 
 
 * A selfish motive would mean that I could be 
 of use to you : and I don't think that is very 
 probable,' he said. 
 
 Mrs. Russell Penton coloured still more. 
 
 * Edward,' she said, faltering a Httle, ' it is 
 curious, when there is an object on which one
 
 134 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 has sot one's heart, how one is led on to do 
 things that only in the doing appear in their 
 true colours. I have let you think I came to 
 renew old friendship — to see your children, 
 your girls.' 
 
 She grew more and more agitated as she went 
 OD, and there came out in her a hundred tones 
 and looks of the old Alicia, who had seemed to 
 him to have no connection with this mature, 
 dignified, self-important woman — looks and 
 tones which moved him as the old books in the 
 corner, and all the associations of the place, had 
 moved her. 
 
 ' It does not matter why you have come ; I am 
 glad you have come, anyhow ; and if I can do 
 anything — ' he made a pause and laughed 
 again, this time at himself. ' It doesn't seem 
 very hkely, looking at you and at me ; but you 
 know I was always your faithful servant,' he 
 said. 
 
 ' There is only one thing I have to say for my- 
 self, Edward — I would not allow the proposal to 
 be made by anyone but me.' 
 
 ' What is it V he asked. There was a pro-
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 135 
 
 posal then, and it was something to benefit her ! 
 Edward Penton's bosom swelled with perhaps 
 the first pleasurable sense of his own position 
 which he had felt for years. Penton had always 
 been an excitement to him, but there had been 
 little pleasure in it. For a moment, however, 
 now, he felt himself the old, the young Edward 
 Penton, who had been the faithful servant of 
 Alicia. He could not imagine anything which 
 he could have it in his power to do for her, but 
 still less could he imagine anything which he 
 would refuse. 
 
 She went on with a hesitation which was very 
 far from being natural to her. 
 
 ' You know,' she said, ' that when my father 
 dies, which is an event that cannot be far distant, 
 1 shall have to give up — the only home 1 have 
 ever known.' 
 
 His attention was fully aroused now. He 
 looked at her, across the gleam of the inquisitive 
 candles, with a startled look. Was she going to 
 ask him to give up his inheritance ? He was too 
 much sui-prised to speak. 
 
 ' You will think this an extraordinary begin-
 
 136 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 ning : but it is true. I have never lived any- 
 where else. My marriage, you know, fortunate- 
 ly, has made no difference. Of course I am my 
 father's heir in everything but what is entailed. 
 It has occurred to us — we have thought that 
 
 perhaps ' 
 
 ' AVhat have you thought, Alicia?' he cried, 
 with a sudden sharp remonstrance in his tone : 
 
 * that I was just, as in former times, ready for 
 
 anything that you What have you thought ? 
 
 that I was in the same position as of old — that 
 there was no one to consult, no one to consider 
 — except my devotion to you V 
 
 ' You mistake me altogether,' she crie 
 
 * Your devotion to me — which no doubt is ended 
 long ago — was never taken into consideration at 
 all. We thought of an entirely different motive 
 when we talked it over, my father and I. You 
 will remember that I am only asking a question, 
 Edward. 1 wanted to ask only if a proposal 
 might be made to you, that was all.' 
 
 * And what was the motive which you sup- 
 p osed likely to move me V he said. 
 
 He had risen up from his seat, and came and
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 137 
 
 stood by the mantelpiece, leaning ou it, and 
 looking down upon her. There was a great 
 commotion in his mind — a commotion of the old 
 and of the new. He had grown soft and tender 
 a few minntes before, feeling himself ready to 
 do anything for her which a lady could ask of a 
 man. But now, when it appeared to him that 
 she had gone far beyond that sphere, and was 
 about to ask from him the sacrifice of every- 
 thing — his property, his inheritance, the fortune 
 of his children — a sudden hot fountain of in- 
 dignation seemed to have risen within the man. 
 He felt as the knight did in the poem when his 
 lady lightly threw her glove among the lions — 
 an impulse to give her what she asked, to fling 
 it in her face, doing her behest in contempt of 
 the unwomanly impulse which had tempted her 
 to strain her power so far. This was how he 
 felt. No reasonable sentiment of self-defence, 
 but a burning temptation to take his heirship, 
 his hopes, all that made the future tolerable, and 
 fling them with an insult in her face. 
 
 ' Edward,' she said, * I came to you in confi- 
 dence that you would hear me — that you would
 
 138 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 let me speak plainly without offence : I mean 
 none,' she said, with agitation. ' But we have 
 both come to a reasonable age, and surely we 
 may talk to each other without wounding each 
 other — about circumstances which everybody 
 can see.' 
 
 ' Speak freely, Alicia. I only want to know 
 what you wish, and what there is in me to 
 justify the proposal, whatever it may be, that 
 you have come to make.' 
 
 ' 1 have began wrong,' she said, with a ges- 
 ture of disappointment. * It is difficult to find 
 the right words. Will you be angry if I say it 
 is no secret that you — that we — for heaven's 
 sake don't think I mean to hurt you — plainly, 
 that I, with all my father can leave, will be in a 
 better position for keeping up Penton than you 
 who are the heir-at-law.' 
 
 He stood for some time Avith his arm on the 
 mantelpiece making no answer, looking down 
 at the faint redness of a fire which had almost 
 burnt out. 
 
 ' So that's all,' he said at last, with the tremu- 
 lous note of a sudden laugh; and drawing a
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 139 
 
 chair close up to it, began to gather together 
 the scraps of half-consumed wood into a blaze. 
 All that he produced was a very feeble momen- 
 tary glimmer, which leaped up and then died out. 
 He threw down th^ poker with another short 
 laugh. * Significant,' he said, ' symbolical ! so 
 that is all, Alicia? You are sure you want no 
 more?' 
 
 ' You have not heard me out ; you don't un- 
 derstand. Edward, I know the first efiect must 
 be painful, but every word you will listen to will 
 lessen that impression. I am, if you will re- 
 member, a little older than you are.' 
 
 ' We were born, I think, in the same year.' 
 
 ' That makes a woman much older. I told 
 you so when it meant more. And I am a 
 woman, more feeble of constitution than you 
 are — not likely to live so long.' 
 
 ' On the contrary, if you will allow me to in- 
 terrupt you ; women, I believe, as a rale, are 
 longer-lived than men.' 
 
 She drew back with a pained and irritated 
 look. 
 
 * You make me feel like a lawyer supporting
 
 140 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 a weak case. It was not in this way that I 
 wanted to talk it over with you, Edward.' 
 
 'To talk over the sacrifice of everything I 
 have ever looked to — my birthright, and the 
 prospects of my children. This is rather a large 
 affair to be talked over between you and me 
 after five-o'clock tea, Alicia, over a dying fire.' 
 
 ' Then,' she said, * it would have been better 
 I had not meddled at all, as my father always 
 said. He thought it should have been made a 
 business proposal only, through a solicitor. But 
 I — I, like a foolish woman — remembering that 
 we had once been dear friends, and feeling that 
 I had been guilty of neglect, and perhaps un- 
 kindness — I would not have anything said till 
 I had come myself, till I had made my little 
 overture of reconciliation, till I ' 
 
 ' If there is to be frankness on one side there 
 should be frankness on both. Till you had put 
 forth the old influence, which once would have 
 made me do anything — give up anything — to 
 please you.' 
 
 ' You said,' she cried, provoked and humiliated, 
 ^ not five minutes since, though I did not wish
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 141 
 
 it — never thought of it — that jou were roy faith- 
 ful servant still !' 
 
 ' Yes,' he said ; ' and do you know what I 
 should like to do now? You have come to 
 ask me for my inheritance as you might ask for 
 a flower out of my garden — if there were any ! 
 I should like to fling you your Penton into your 
 apron — into your face — and see you cany it ofl', 
 and point at you, like — you were always fond of 
 poetr}', and you will remember — the fellow that 
 jumped among tlie lions for a glove : only a 
 glove — only his life, don't you know I' 
 
 It was not often that Edward Penton gave 
 way to passion, but it was brutal this that he 
 said: but for a moment he had lost all control 
 of himself. 
 
 She rose up hurriedly from her chair. 
 
 ' That was no true man !' she cried. ' Sup- 
 posing that the woman was a fool too, she used 
 him only according to his folly, to show how 
 false he was.' She paused again, breathless, 
 her heart beating with excitement and indig- 
 nation. 
 
 ' I am not asking you for your inheritance ; I
 
 142 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 came to ask yon — whether an arrangement might 
 be proposed to yon which should be for your ad- 
 vantage as well as mine. Let ns speak frankly, 
 as you say. I am not a girl, to be driven away 
 by an insult, which comes badly — oh, very badly ! 
 — from yon, Edward. If I have wounded you, 
 you have stung me bitterly ; so let us be quits.' 
 She looked at him with a smile of pain. ' You 
 have hit hardest, after all; you ought to be 
 pleased with that!^ 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, Alicia,' he said. 
 
 ' Oh, it is not necessary. It was business, and 
 not sentiment, that brought me here. x\nd this 
 is the brutal truth, Edward — like what you 
 have just said to me. You are poor and I am 
 well off. Penton would be a millstone round 
 your neck ; you could not keep it up. Whereas 
 to me it is my home — almost the thing I love 
 best. Will yon come to terms with us to set 
 aside the entail and let me have my home ? 
 The terms shall be almost what you like. It 
 can be done directly. It will be like realising a 
 fortune which may not be yours for years. I 
 ask no gift. Do you think I am not as proud as
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 143 
 
 you rare ? I would not ask you for a flower out 
 of your garden, as you say, much less your pro- 
 perty — your inheritance I Ah, your inheritance ! 
 which twenty years ago, when we used to be 
 here together, was no more likely to be yours — I 
 If we begin to talk of these things where shall 
 we end, I wonder?' she added, with another pale 
 and angry smile. ' You understand now what 
 1 mean ? And I have nothing more to say.' 
 
 ' Wait a moment,' he said : ' I am not sure 
 that I do understand you now. It is not what 
 1 thought, apparently, and I beg your par- 
 don. I thought it was something that would be 
 between you and me. But if I hear right it is 
 a business transaction you propose — something 
 to be done for an equivalent — a bargain — a sale 
 and barter— a ' 
 
 ' Yes, that is what I mean ; perhaps my father 
 was right, and the solicitors were the people to 
 manage it, not you and me — ' 
 
 ' To manage it — or not to manage it, as may 
 turn out. Yes, I think that would be the better 
 way. These sort of people can say what they 
 like to each other and it never hurts, whereas
 
 144 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 you and I — Are you really going? I hope 
 you are very well wrapped up, for the night is 
 cold. But for this little squabble, which is a 
 pity, which never ought to have been ' 
 
 'I cannot think, Edward, that it was my 
 fault.' 
 
 ' They say that ladies always think that,' he 
 said, with a smile, ' otherwise this first visit after 
 — how long is it? — went off fairly well, don't 
 you think? At forty-five, with a wife and 
 children, a man is no longer ready to throw 
 anything away ; but otherwise when it comes 
 to business ' 
 
 ' I was very foolish not to let it be done in 
 the formal way,' she said with an uneasy blush 
 and intolerable sense of the sarcasm in his tone. 
 But she would not allow herself to remain under 
 this disadvantage. ' Shall I tell my father that 
 you will receive his proposal and give it your 
 consideration V 
 
 'My consideration? Surely; my best con- 
 sideration,' he replied, with still the same look 
 of sarcastic coolness, ' which anything Sir 
 Walter Penton suggests would naturally com-
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 145 
 
 maiid from his — successor. I cannot use a 
 milder word than that. Mj position/ he added, 
 with gi'avitj, ' is not one which I sought or had 
 any hand in bringing about : therefore I can 
 liave no responsibihty for the changes that have 
 happened in the last twenty years.' 
 
 'It is I who must beg your pardon now. 
 You are quite right, of course, and there was no 
 fault of yours. Good-night and good-bye. I 
 hope you will at least think of me charitably if 
 we should not meet again.' 
 
 ' We shall certainly, I hope, meet again,' he 
 said, opening the door for her. ' The girls T\'ill 
 not forget your invitation to them. They have 
 never seen Penton, and they take an interest, 
 which you will not wonder at ' 
 
 ' Oh, 1 don't wonder — at that or anything,* 
 she added, in a lower tone ; and, as ill-luck 
 would have it, Wat, standing full in the light 
 of the lamp which lit the hall, tall in his youth- 
 ful awkwardness, half antagonistic, half anxious 
 to recommend himself, stood straight before her, 
 so that she could not, without rudeness, refuse 
 his attendance to the door where the carriage 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 lamps were shining and the bays pawing im- 
 patiently. She gave his father a look of mingled 
 misery and deprecation as she went out of sight. 
 He alone understood why it was she could not 
 bear the sight of his boy. But though her eyes 
 expressed this anguish, her moutb held another 
 meaning. 
 
 ' You will hear from Mr. Rochford in a day or 
 two,' she said, as ^e drove away. 
 
 He sent her back a smile of half sarcastic 
 acquiescence still ; but then Edward Penton 
 went back to his library and shut himself in, 
 and disregarded all the appeals that were made 
 to him during the next hour, to come to tea. 
 First the bell : then Ally tapping softly, ' Tea is 
 ready.' Then Anne's quicker summons, 'Mother 
 wants to know if we are to wait for you V 
 Then the little applicant, w^hom he Avas least 
 able to resist, little Mary, drumming very low 
 down upon the lower panels of the door, with a 
 little song of ' Fader ! fader !' 
 
 To all this Mr. Penton turned a dull ear. He 
 had been angry — he had been cut to the quick : 
 that his poverty should be thus thrown back
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 147 
 
 upon him — that he should be expected to make 
 merchandise of his inheritance, to give iip for 
 money the house of his fathers, the only fit 
 residence for the head of the family ! All this 
 gave a sharp and keen pang, and roused every 
 instinct of pride and self-assertion. But when 
 the thrill of solitude and reason fell on all that 
 band of suddenly unchained demons, and he 
 thought of the privations round him — the 
 shabbiness of the house ; the damp ; the poor 
 wife, who could not now at all hold up her 
 head among the county people ; the girls, who 
 were little nobodies and saw nothing ; Wat, 
 whose young life was spoiled : and Osy — Osy I 
 about whom some determination must be come 
 to. To see a way out of all that and not to 
 accejDt it ; for pride's sake to shut up, not only 
 himself, that was a small matter, but the children, 
 to poverty ! The fire went out ; the inquisitive 
 candles bUnked and spied ineS'ectually, making 
 nothing of the man who sat there wrapped up 
 within himself, his face buried in his hands. He 
 was chilled almost to ice when his wife stole in 
 and drew him away to the fire in the dra^vang- 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 room, from which the young ones withdrew to 
 make place for him, with looks full of wonder 
 and awe. And then it was, when he had warm- 
 ed himself and the ice had melted, then he drew 
 the family council together, and laid before 
 them, old and young, the proposal which Alicia 
 Penton had come to make.
 
 149 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 Mr. Penton drew his chair towards the fire, 
 which was not a usual thing for him to do. 
 When he felt chilly he went to the book-room, 
 where in the evening there was always a log 
 burning. In the drawing-room it was the rule 
 that nobody should approach the fire too closely; 
 Mr. Penton said it was not good for the children, 
 it gave them bad habits, and it scorched their 
 cheeks and injured their eyes. The moral of 
 which probably was that, as there were so 
 many of them, they could not all get near it, 
 and therefore all had to hold back. 
 
 But this eveniug everything was out of rule.
 
 150 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 The little ones had been sent to bed. The 
 basket of stockings was pushed aside on the 
 table. Mrs. Penton indeed, unable to bear that 
 breach of use and wont, had taken a stocking 
 out of it furtively and pulled it up on her arm. 
 It was a grey stocking, with immense healthy 
 holes the size of half-a-crown. She could not 
 get at her needle and worsted without disturb- 
 ing the family parliament, but at least she could 
 measure the holes and decide how best to ap- 
 proach them, and from what side. Walter had 
 placed himself on the other side of the fire,, 
 opposite his father, feeling instinctively that his 
 interests must be specially in question ; the girls 
 filled up the intervals between their mother and 
 Wat on the one side, their father on the other. 
 The fire had been stirred into a blaze and 
 danced cheerfully upon all the young faces. 
 The lamp with its smell of paraffin was put 
 aside too, as if it were being punished and put in 
 the corner, for which vindictive step, consider- 
 ing how it smelt and smoked, there was good 
 cause. 
 
 * You will understand,' said Mr. Penton, ' that
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 151 
 
 the visit we have just received must have had 
 some special motive/ 
 
 ' I don't see why you should be so sure of 
 that, Edw^ard,' said Mrs. Penton, ' unless she 
 said something. It might be just civility. Why 
 not?' 
 
 'It was not just civility; I knew that from 
 the first.' 
 
 ' My dear, perhaps you know your own family 
 best : but if it had been one of mine I should 
 have thought it quite natural : to see the children, 
 and hear how we are getting on.' 
 
 To this ]\lr. Penton made no reply ; the idea 
 of some one coming to see how he and his 
 family were ' getting on ' did not gratify him as 
 perhaps it ought to have done. 
 
 * I think,' said Ally, softly, ' that Aunt Ahcia 
 came out of kindness, papa.' 
 
 ' To herself, I suppose,' he said, quickly ; then 
 added, ' From her point of view it might appear 
 kindness to us too.' 
 
 There was again a pause, and they all 
 waited with growing curiosity to know what it 
 was.
 
 152 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 Mr. Penton sat in silence, balancing himself in 
 Lis chair, knitting his brows as he gazed into 
 the fire. Mrs. Penton pulled the stocking farther 
 up vipon her arm and made a searching study of 
 the holes. 
 
 ' You all know,' he said at length, ' that Pen- 
 ton has been a long time in our family, and that 
 I am the heir of entail.' 
 
 At this Walter moved a little, almost im- 
 patiently, in his chair, with a quick start, which 
 he restrained at once, as if he would have in- 
 terfered. iVnd he did feel disposed to interfere 
 — to say that it was he who was the heir of en- 
 tail. His father's priority of course was under- 
 stood, but it seemed hardly worth while to insist 
 upon it. Nevertheless, after the first impulse 
 Walter restrained himself. 
 
 'I,' said his father, rather sharply, with a 
 certain comprehension and resentment of the 
 impulse, of which, however, he was not minded 
 to take any notice, ' am the heir of entail. It is 
 tied down upon me, and can't, in the nature of 
 things, go to anyone else.'
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 153 
 
 * Unless the law were to be changed,' inter- 
 rupted Anne, remembering too well the dis- 
 cussion of the morning. 
 
 He waved his hand with an expression of 
 impatience. 
 
 ' We need not take any such hazard into con- 
 sideration ; it is most improbable, and quite out 
 of the question. As things are, I am the heir of 
 entail. That has been, I don't doubt, a thorn 
 in Sir Walter s flesh. He can't alienate an acre, 
 norj at his time of life, in honour, cut down a 
 tree.' 
 
 ' I have always said it was hard upon him,' 
 Mrs. Penton observed, in an undertone. 
 
 They all gave her a look — the look of parti- 
 sans, to whom any objection is an offence — all 
 except Anne, who kept up an attitude of im- 
 partiality throughout the whole. 
 
 ' 1 don't know why he has put off so long if 
 he had the mind to make such an offer. If it 
 had been further off, perhaps I might have been 
 more tempted ; but as it is — Alicia wants me to 
 join with her father and break the entail.' 
 
 The female part of the committee did not im-
 
 154 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 mediately see the weight of this statement. It 
 took some time to make them nnderstand : but 
 Walter saw it in a moment, and sprang to his 
 feet in quick resentment. 
 
 ' Father, of course you will not listen to it for 
 a moment !' he cried. 
 
 ' To break the entail V said the mother ; ' but 
 I thought nothing could do that, Edward.' 
 
 ' Except,' said Anne, * a change in the law.' 
 
 ' There is no question of any change in the 
 law,' said Mr. Penton, angrily. ' How should 
 there be a change in the law ? None but dema- 
 gogues or socialists would ever think of it. The 
 law is too strong in England. As for empirics 
 and revolutionaries — ' He snapped his fingers 
 with hot contempt. The suggestion made him 
 angry, although he had himself dwelt upon it 
 in the morning. Then he came back to the 
 real matter : ' Yes, there is one way in which it 
 can be done ; that is what they want me to do. 
 If I joined with Sir Walter in taking certain 
 steps, the entail could be broken : and Penton 
 would go to Alicia, which it appears is his 
 desire.'
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 155- 
 
 * Father !' Walter cried. 
 
 It was such an unspeakable blow to him, 
 striking at the very root of his personal im- 
 portance, his dreams, his propects, every- 
 thing that was his, that the young man was, 
 what did not always happen, the first to 
 seize upon this terrible idea. He could uot 
 keep his seat, but stood up tremulous, leaning 
 upon the mantelpiece, looking down with an 
 angry alarm at all their faces, lighted up by the 
 fire. It seemed to Walter that in this slowness 
 to understand there was something of the in- 
 difference which those who are not themselves 
 aff*ected so often show in the threatening of a 
 calamity. Their unawakened surprised looks, 
 not gi-appling with the question, had a half- 
 maddening eff'ect upon him. They did not 
 care ! it did not aff"ect them. 
 
 *But, Edward, why should you do that — to 
 please Sir AValter — to please — your cousin ? 
 Well, I should always like to keep on good 
 teiTQS with my relations, and do what I could 
 for them ; but to give up what we have been 
 looking forward to so long — and the only thing
 
 156 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 -we have to look forward to ! I am sure,' said 
 Mrs. Penton, tears getting into her voice, ' I 
 should be the last person to say anything 
 against relations, or make dispeace, but when 
 you think that it is the only provision we have 
 for the children — the only — and when you re- 
 member that there's Walter — ' She stopped, 
 unable to go any further, bewildered, not know- 
 ing what to think. 
 
 'Father does not mean that. It is not that, 
 whatever it may mean.' 
 
 * Of course I do not mean that. You take up 
 all sorts of absurd ideas and then you think I 
 have said it. Sir Walter and Alicia are my rela- 
 tions, it is true, but they don't set up a claim on 
 that score, neither am I such a fool. Try to 
 understand me reasonably, Annie. Property is 
 difterent from everything else ; you don't give up 
 your rights to please anybody. Here's how it 
 is. When the heir is wilHng to step in and 
 break the entail, of course he has compensation 
 for it. Sir Walter is a very old man, the pro- 
 perty in all human probability will soon be in my 
 ihands, therefore my compensation would be at
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 157 
 
 a heavy rate. They are rich enough,' said Mr. 
 Penton, in a sort of smile, 'they could afford 
 that.' 
 
 ' They would give father the money,' said 
 Anne, in a way she had before found effectual in 
 clearing her mother's ideas ; ' and he would let 
 them have the land.' 
 
 ' Edward, is that what it means ?' 
 
 * Yes, strictly speaking ; if you put feelings 
 and pride and everything to one side, and the 
 thought of one's family, find of all we've looked 
 forward to for years.' 
 
 ' You can t put them to one side,' cried young 
 Walter, sharply, in the keen, harsh, staccato 
 tones of bitterness and fear. ' You can't ! Xo 
 money would make up for them, nothing could 
 be put in their place. Father, you feel that as 
 well as If 
 
 ' / feel that as well as you ! To whom are you 
 speaking ? What are you in the matter ? — a boy 
 that may never —that might never — whereas I've 
 thought of it all my hfe ; it has been hanging 
 within reach of my hand, so to speak, for years. 
 I've built everything on it. And a bit of a boy
 
 158 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 asks me if I feel that — like him ! Like him. ! 
 What is he that he should set himself as a model 
 tomer 
 
 'Oh, father !' cried Ally, with her hand upon 
 his arm. 
 
 ' Of course,' said Mrs. Penton, in her quiet 
 voice, quenching this little eddy of passion far 
 more effectually than if she had taken notice of 
 it, 'that makes a great difference. They 
 would give you the money, and you would let 
 them keep the land ? There is justice in that, 
 Edward. I do not say it is a thing to be 
 snapped at at once, although we do want money 
 so much. But still it is quite just, a thing to be 
 calmly considered. I wish you would tell us 
 now exactly what your cousin wants, and what 
 she would give instead of it. It is like selling 
 a property. I am sure I for one should not 
 mind selling this property if we could o^Qi a 
 good price for it ; and, as we have no associ- 
 ations with Penton and have never lived there, 
 nor ' 
 
 ' Mother !' Could the old house have been 
 moved by hot human breath as by a wind of
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 159 
 
 iDclignatioD, it would have shook from parapet 
 to basement ; but Mrs. Pent on, on her deep 
 foundation of sense and reason, was not shaken 
 at all. She took no notice of the outcry. 
 
 'No, we can have no associations with 
 it,' she said, calmlv. ' 1 have dined there 
 three or four times in my life, and the childi'en 
 have never been there at alL It would not 
 matter much to us if it were to be swallowed 
 up in an earthquake, so long as its value 
 remained.' 
 
 The girls did not take their mother's prosaic 
 view. Each on her side, they consoled and 
 smoothed down the gentlemen — the young heir 
 hot with the destruction of hopes that were 
 entirely visionary, that had never had any reality 
 in them — and the immediate heir, to whom this 
 one thing was the sole touch of romance or of 
 expectation in life. 
 
 'Tell us about it, father,' and 'Oh, Wat, 
 be quiet ; nothing's done yet !' was what they 
 said. 
 
 * Your mother takes it all very easy. She 
 was not born a Penton,' said the father. ' Yes,
 
 160 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 I'll tell you all about it, though she's settled it 
 already without any trouble, you see. It is not 
 so simple to me. Women can be more brutal 
 than anyone when they take it in that way. 
 Alicia was disposed to see it in the same light. 
 She said she had been born there, and never had 
 lived anywhere else, so that her feeling to it 
 must be quite different from mine. Different 
 from mine ! to whom it has been an enchantment 
 all my life.' 
 
 'What your cousin said was quite natural, 
 Edward. I should have said the same thing 
 myself.' 
 
 ' You have just done so, my dear,' he said, 
 with a sarcasm which went quite wide of its 
 mark. 'Yes, I'll tell you all about it, children. 
 Alicia and her father, it appears, have been 
 thinking it over. They think — they know, to 
 be sure, for who can have any doubt on the 
 subject ? — that I am poor. I am a poor man, 
 with a number of children. A man in my 
 position cannot do what he likes, but what he 
 must. I need money to bring you all up, to 
 set you out in the world. Eight of you, you
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 161 
 
 know ; that's enough to crush any man,' he 
 said. 
 
 The gh'ls looked at each other with a look 
 which was half-indignant, yet half-guilty. 
 They felt that somehow they were to blame for 
 being there, for crushing their father. Walter 
 had no such sensation, but yet he recognised 
 the truth of the complaint. He was the eldest, 
 a legitimate, even a necessary party to this 
 question, since but for his existence, in his own 
 opinion, his father's heirship would have been 
 unimportant. But the others were, he allowed 
 to himself, so much ballast on the other side, 
 comphcating the question, making a difficulty 
 where there should be none. 
 
 ' I should have thought,' he said, indignantly, 
 ' that Su' AValter would have seen how mean it 
 was to take advantage — what a poor sort of 
 thing it was to trade upon a man's disabilities — 
 upon his burdens — upon what he cannot throw 
 off, nor get rid of.' 
 
 Mrs. Penton's mind had been travelhng 
 meanwhile upon its own tranquil yet anxious 
 way. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 ] 62 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 *Was there any offer made yon, Edward'? 
 Did slie say how much they thonght ? — wouldn't 
 that be one of the first things to think of '? We 
 might be tronbhng ourselves all for nothing, if 
 they w^ere intending to take advantage, as 
 Walter says. But^ then, how should Walter 
 know ? They would never take him into their 
 confidence. Was any sum mentioned ? for that 
 would show whether they meant to take advan- 
 tage. I never heard they were that sort of 
 people. Your cousin Alicia has the name of 
 being proud, but as for taking advantage ' 
 
 ' Can't you see,' he cried, with irritation, ' that 
 you are driving me distracted, going over and 
 over one set of words. Walter's a fool. Do you 
 suppose the Pentons are cheats ? To make such 
 an ofier at all was taking an — If we had been 
 as well off as they are they never would have 
 ventured. That's all about it. I never supposed 
 they would try to outwit me in a bargain.' After 
 this little blaze of energy he sank into his more 
 usual depression. ' If it hadn't been for you and 
 the children of course I shouldn't have listened, 
 not for a moment.'
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 163 
 
 'Why should you do it for us, father? 
 We don't cost so much. Wo could go away 
 and be governesses rather than be such a 
 burden !' 
 
 Mrs. Penton put down the hand upon which 
 she had drawn the stocking to give Anne a warn- 
 ing touch, while her father took no notice except 
 with a passing glance. 
 
 *A man can do himself no justice when he's 
 weighted down on every side. It has always 
 been my luck. I wonder, for my part, now 
 that they have had the assurance to propose it 
 at all, why they didn't propose it years and 
 years ago.' 
 
 ' What a thing it would have been !' said Mrs. 
 Penton ; * many an anxiety it would have saved 
 us, Edward. Why, it would make you a rich 
 man ! We have always looked forward so to 
 Penton, and nobody ever supposed Sir Walter 
 would live till eighty-five; but I have never 
 thought of it as such a paradise. For, in the first 
 place, it would want a great deal of money to 
 keep it up.' 
 
 ' Yes, it would take money to keep it up.'
 
 164 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 'Everybody says it is kept up beautifully. 
 You never could reconcile yourself to neglecting 
 anything, and hearing people say how different 
 it was in Sir Walter's time. Then the house 
 is such a grand house, and it would come to us 
 empty or nearly empty. Oh, I've thought it 
 all over so often. Gentlemen don't go into these 
 matters as a woman does. Of course, your 
 cousin Alicia would take away all the beautiful 
 furniture that suits the house. Her father 
 would leave it to her; for that's not entailed, you 
 know. We should go into it empty, or 
 with only a few old sticks ; what should we do 
 with "the things we've got, in PentonT She 
 looked round with an affectionate contempt at 
 the well-worn chairs, the table in the middle, 
 the old dingy curtains with no colour left in 
 them. ' The first thing we should have to do 
 would be to furnish from top to bottom, and 
 where should we find the money to do that V 
 
 Mr. Penton did not say anything. He made 
 a little impatient wave of his hand, but he did 
 not contradict or even attempt to stop her soft, 
 slow, gentle voice as she went on.
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 165 
 
 ' And then the gardeners ! they are a kind of 
 army in themselves. To pay them all then- 
 wages every week, the men that are in the 
 houses, and the men that are outside, and the 
 people at the lodges, and the carpenters, and the 
 men that roll the lawns; where should we 
 find the money ? If we could have the rents 
 and go on hving here^ of course I don't say any- 
 thing against it, we should be rich. But to live 
 at Penton we should just be as poor as we are 
 now — as poor but much grander — obliged to 
 give parties and keep horses— and dress. If 1 
 ever had ventured to tell you my opinion, 
 Edward, I should have told you, instead of 
 looking forward to Penton it has been my 
 terror night and day. I always thought,' she 
 continued, after a pause, * that I should try to 
 persuade you to let it, until, at least, we had a 
 little money to the good.' 
 
 ' To let Penton !' The cry burst from them 
 all in every variation of tone, indignant, angry, 
 astonished. To let — Penton I Penton, which 
 had been the golden dream of fancy, the para- 
 dise of hope, the one thing which consoled every-
 
 166 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 body, from Mr. Pent on down to Hony, for all 
 that went amiss in life. 
 
 'Well?' said the mother, lifting her mild 
 eyes, looking at them for a moment. * I have 
 always thought so, but I would not say it, for 
 what was the use '{ You all worship Penton, 
 both you and the children. But I never was 
 taken in by it. I have always seen that, how- 
 ever jDleasant it might be, and beautiful and all 
 that — and everybody's prejudices in its favour 
 — we never could keep it up.' 
 
 She turned round, having delivered her soul, 
 and drew her basket towards her, in which 
 were her needles and the worsted for her darn- 
 ing. She had settled exactly how these big 
 holes were to be attacked, how the threads of 
 the stocking went, and that it must be done in 
 an oblique line to keep the shape. Without a 
 little consideration beforehand neither stockings 
 can be mended nor anything else done. She 
 had said her say, and no doubt, however it was 
 settled, she would do her best, as well for Penton 
 as for the stocking. And the others watched 
 her without knowing they were watching her.
 
 FA^nLY COUNSELS. 1()7 
 
 She settled to her work with a httle sigh of re- 
 lief, glad to escape into a region where there 
 could be^no two opinions, where everything was 
 straightforward. There was something in this 
 which had a great effect upon the young ones, 
 especially upon Walter, who was the most re- 
 sistant, the most deeply and cruelly dis- 
 appointed. There came upon him a great, a 
 hon'ible consciousness that in all likelihood she 
 was right. 
 
 Mr. Penton, as was natural, was not so much 
 impressed. 
 
 ' All that,' he said, with a little wave of his 
 hand, ' is a truism.' He paused, then repeated 
 it again with a sense that he had got hold of a 
 new and impressive word. 'It is a truism,' he 
 said. 'Everybody was aware from the be- 
 ginning that to keep up Penton as it has been 
 kept up would be impossible. My uncle and 
 Alicia have made a toy of Penton. It would 
 be really better, it would look more like the old 
 house it is, if it were not cleaned up like that, 
 shaven and shorn like a cockney villa. If I 
 were a millionaire I should not choose to do it.
 
 168 FAMILY COUNSELS. 
 
 So I don't think very much of that argument.' 
 Walter's spirits rose as he followed eagerly his 
 father's utterance. But after a moment Mr. 
 Penton continued, ' There is no doubt, on the 
 other side, that living would cost a great deal 
 more than — more than perhaps we — have ever 
 contemplated. There would be the furnishing, 
 as your mother says — I had not thought of 
 that.' 
 
 He made the children a sort of jury, before 
 whom the pro and the con were to be set 
 forth. 
 
 ' It is beautifully furnished at present — every 
 one says so, at least ; that would be a great 
 charge to begin wuth. And we might have a 
 good deal to put up with in the confusion that 
 would be made between the poor family and 
 the rich. Your mother is quite right so far as 
 that is concerned ; what she doesn't take into 
 consideration is the family feeling — the tradi- 
 tions, the sense that it is ours, and that nobody 
 can have any right to it except ourselves. 
 Alicia, to be sure, is a Penton too, and, as she 
 says, she has been born there and never has
 
 FAMILY COUNSELS. 169 
 
 knowu any other home. But still, as a matter 
 of fact, she has entered another family. It 
 would be an alienation. It has always gone in 
 the male line. To give it up would be — would 
 be ' 
 
 ' Father,' said Walter, ' you couldn't think of 
 it. It would be like tearing body and soul 
 asunder. Give up Penton I I think I would 
 rather die.' 
 
 ' What has dying to do with it V cried the 
 father, impatiently. And then he sat silent for 
 a moment, staring into the fire and twiddling his 
 thumbs, unconscious of what he was doing. 
 The young ones watched him anxiously, feeling 
 with a certain awe that their fate was being 
 decided, but that this question was too immense 
 for their interference. At length he got up 
 slowly and pushed back his chair. * We'll sleep 
 upon it,' he said.
 
 170 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 But Walter, for his part, could not sleep upon 
 it. He followed his father out of the room, he 
 scarcely knew with what intention ; perhaps 
 with a hope of further discussion, of being able 
 to open his own mind, of convincing the waver- 
 ing mind of Mr. Penton. It seemed to him that 
 he could set it all forth so clearly if only the 
 permission were given him. But Mr. Penton 
 gave his son no invitation to accompany him. 
 He asked where Walter was going, what he 
 meant to do moving about at that hour of the 
 night. 
 
 ' I think 1 will take — a little turn, sir,' the 
 young man said.
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 171 
 
 ' You are always taking turns I' said Mr. Pen- 
 ton, witli]_irritation. ' Why can't you do some- 
 thing ? Why can't you be going on with your 
 Greek?' 
 
 There had been nothing said about Greek for 
 some time. What could he mean by alluding to 
 it now? Walter's foreboding mind at once 
 attached significance to this. He thought that 
 his father meant to suggest a return to his aban- 
 doned studies by way of preparing for some- 
 thing serious to come of them. But his dismay 
 at the suggestion was not so ungenerous as the 
 looker-on might have supposed. It was not 
 that he was afraid of being made to work. 
 What he was afraid of was that this was but 
 another sign of the abandonment of Penton — of 
 turning aside to other purposes and other views 
 than those which had been in some sort the 
 religion of his life. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that no such idea was 
 in Penton's mind. He took up the Greek, a 
 missile lying ready to his hand, and tossed it 
 at Walter as he would have flung a stone at a 
 dog which had come in his way in the present
 
 172 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 perturbed state of his spirits. Having done 
 this, he thought no more of it, but went into his 
 book-room and shut the door with a Httle em- 
 phasis, which meant that he was not to be trou- 
 bled, but which to Walter seemed to mean that he 
 dechued further argument and had made up his 
 mind. 
 
 The boy stood for a moment groping for his 
 hat, following his father with his eyes, and then 
 rushed out into the night in a turmoil of feeling 
 — indignation, ^misery, surprise. He had been 
 taken so entirely at unawares. Such a thought 
 as that of being called upon to relinquish Penton 
 had never entered into his mind ; it had never 
 occurred to him as a possibility. He knew well 
 enough, whatever anyone might say, that to 
 abolish entail was not a thing to be done in a 
 minute. Revolutions in law take time. It was 
 not likely that a man of eighty-five would live 
 long enough to see a change like this accom- 
 plished. He had dismissed that idea with 
 scorn ; and from what other quarter could any 
 attack come ? 
 
 Walter had felt himself invulnerable — un-
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 173 
 
 assailable in his own right. No son could be 
 more dutiful, more affectionate, less likely to 
 calculate upon his father's death ; yet, oddly 
 enough, his father had appeared to him only as 
 a secondary person in this matter — a man with a 
 temporary interest ; it was he who w^as the heir. 
 And — without any fault of his, in complete in- 
 dependence of him, without asking his opinion 
 any more than as one of the children, any more 
 than that of Ally or Anne — his birthiight was 
 about to be given awaj^ ! 
 
 A dim evening, soft and damp, and with 
 little light in it, had succeeded the brilliant 
 watery sunset. There was a moon somewhere 
 about, but she was visible only by intervals 
 from among the milky clouds. A sort of pale 
 suffusion of hght was in the atmosphere, in 
 which all the chief features of the landscape 
 were visible, but more clearly the house, with 
 all its matted-work of creepers, the lights in the 
 windows, the bare branches rising overhead, 
 with a Httle sighing wind in them, a wind that 
 moaned and murmured of rain. More rain ! — 
 rain that would fill up higher the link of darkly-
 
 174 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 shining water which all but surrounded Penton 
 Hook. The sky was full of it, the atmosphere 
 was full of it; the branches glistened with 
 damp ; the very gravel, where you had made 
 an indentation with your heel, filled up with 
 the oozing water, of which the soil was full : 
 and the wind kept sighing with its little lugu- 
 brious tone among the branches saying, 
 
 * More rain ! more rain !' 
 
 There was a certain moral chill in the air by 
 reason of this, but it was not cold ; it was what 
 is called ' muggy ' on Thames-side. 
 
 Walter was so well used to it that he made 
 no remark to himself on the damp, nor did he 
 feel the chill. He went crunching along the 
 gravel in his boots, which made a great many 
 indentations, and left a general running of little 
 stray water-gleams behind him, to a certain 
 bench which he had himself made under the 
 tall poplar close to the river-bank. It had not 
 been put there because there was shade to be 
 had in the season when shade is wanted, and 
 when it is pleasant to sit out and see the river 
 at one's feet. It was put there for quite a dif-
 
 AN ADVENT CRE. 175 
 
 ferent reason, because when you knew exactly 
 where to look, there was one small corner, the 
 angle of a chimney at Penton, visible among 
 the trees. And there he seated himself to 
 think. 
 
 The mother had been right when she said that 
 they had worshipped Penton. The children had 
 all been brought up in that devotion. It was 
 a sort of earthly paradise, in which they took 
 refuge from all the immediate humiliations and 
 vexations of their lot. To be poor, yet to 
 belong to the class which is rich, is not a com- 
 fortable position. Those who in his own esti- 
 mation were Walter's equals were in every 
 external circumstance more separated from him 
 than were the young farmers about ; and yet 
 the farmers would have been put out by his 
 presence among them, and he would have found 
 himself entu'ely out of his element. He was 
 thus a young solitary belonging to nobody, at 
 home with none of his compeers, without com- 
 panions or friends of his age. The farmers, had 
 he taken to them or they to him, were better off 
 than he ; they had horses to ride, they followed
 
 176 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 the hunt, they kept dogs that ran in coursing- 
 matches. Wat had nothing except, if he 
 pleased, a share now and then of the soHd sturdy 
 little pony-of-all-work, and Elfie, the shaggy 
 little terrier. 
 
 What youth of twenty could live in the coun- 
 try and see Fred Milton, who had been in his 
 division at Eton, and little Bannister, go by in 
 pink and not feel it ? He felt it, and so did Ally 
 feel it when she read Eva Milton's name among 
 the list of the young ladies who were presented 
 and who had been at the court ball. Do you 
 suppose Ally did not wish to see what a ball 
 was like as well as the rest? The farmers' 
 daughters had their dances too, and got beau- 
 tiful white tulle dresses for them as well as their 
 superiors in rank. But Ally got nothing; neither 
 the one nor the other. They were shut out of 
 everything, these poor young people, and felt it, 
 being made but of ordinary flesh and blood. 
 
 But Penton had been amid all this the refuge 
 of their imaginations. They had been told 
 indeed that even when they were in Penton 
 they would be poor. But poverty in such cir-
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 177 
 
 cumstances would be transformed. They would 
 no longer be shut out of everything, they would 
 come within the range of the people who were 
 'like themselves.' Walter seated himself at the 
 foot of the poplar-tree, with the liver running 
 far too close to his feet, — for it was very high, 
 sweeping round with an ominous hurry and 
 murmur, preparing floods to come, and the bare 
 branches overhead rustling and whispering in 
 the ^Yind — and directed his eyes to the high 
 wooded bank, the belt of trees, the Penton 
 chimney corner. He could not see it vdih his 
 bodily eyes, but in his soul he saw it dominating 
 the landscape, and saw as in a panorama every- 
 thing it involved. 
 
 Sir Walter Penton of Penton was a power in 
 the county, he was not a mere squire like Fred 
 Milton's father, or a lordhng of yesterday hke 
 Bannister's ennobled papa. Sir Walter Penton 
 of Penton — not the old man who lived shut up 
 in his library, who was taken out for a drive on 
 these fine days. Young Walter meant no harm 
 to the old man, but he was himself the Sir 
 Walter whom he had seen in his dreams. What 
 
 VOL. I. :N'
 
 178 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 was it he had looked for? Was it only the 
 vulgar improvement, more money to spend, 
 better dinners, horses, travels, all that a yonng 
 man wants 1 He had wanted these things, but 
 something more. He had wanted first of all to 
 find himself in his place ; to be somebody, not 
 nobody ; to recover the importance which was 
 his right, to have all the evils of fortune made 
 up to him. Is not that what the young dream 
 everywhere, whatever their circumstances may 
 be ? — to have everything set right, to do away 
 with all the spurns that patient merit of the 
 unworthy takes. Those who spurn you may 
 not be unworthy, and your own merit may not 
 be patent, or even you may not be conscious 
 that you are not meritorious at all. But still we 
 dream, even without such a tangible occasion 
 for dreaming as Walter, of everything being- 
 set right. 
 
 And now in a moment this hope was all to be 
 cut away. Penton was to be made nothing 
 — nothing to him, no more than any house 
 about, no more than Bannister's fictitious abbey 
 with its new Strawberry Hill cloister which was
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 1 79 
 
 founded upon nothing but wealth, whereas 
 there had been Pentons of Penton since the 
 thirteenth centurj, and most Hkely long before. 
 And he was the representative of them all I In 
 his veins was concentrated the essence of theirs, 
 and yet he was to be cut off : he was to stand 
 stupid and look on, without even a right to say 
 no, though it was his inheritance. Walter felt 
 the very possibility of thought taken from him 
 in this dreadful catastrophe. He had nothing 
 to do with it ! that was what everybody would 
 say. He was not one-and-twenty, but even if 
 he had reached that age he had nothing to do 
 with it, though it meant his very Hfe. 
 
 The tumult of these thoughts overwhelmed 
 the poor young fellow. They carried him away 
 as the river carries everything away when it is in 
 flood, and turned him over and over and dashed 
 him against stones and muddy projections, and 
 poured waves of bitterness over his head. He sat 
 and bit his nails, and gnawed his under lip, and 
 thought and thought, if there was any way to 
 get out of it, if he could say anything, make 
 any protest to his father, declare his own readi- 
 
 n2
 
 180 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 ness to go anywhere, do anything, rather than 
 suffer this sacrifice. He might go to Austraha 
 — in Australia people make fortunes quickly. 
 He might soon be able to make money, to send 
 home something for the children ; or to India, 
 or to the goldfields somewhere where nuggets 
 were still to be had. These thoughts can 
 scarcely be called disinterested, for it was how 
 to save what was more to him than nuggets or 
 fortune that Walter was thinking of: but at 
 all events it was not for himself in the first 
 place that he meant to labour. It was for an 
 ambition altogether visionary after all — for Pen- 
 ton, which meant to him the something better, 
 the something loftier, the ideal of life. As he 
 sat musing, the clouds cleared away a little; 
 there began to be a clear place in the sky : it 
 grew lighter but he did not remark it — until all 
 at once, without a word of warning, the moon 
 suddenly struck out, and made an outburst of 
 radiant reflection upon the river at his feet 
 which called his attention in spite of himself. 
 He looked up instinctively, by the instinct of 
 long habit, and lo ! everything was clear over
 
 AX ADVENTURE. 181 
 
 Pentou ; tlie moou shining full, the clouds all 
 floating away in masses of fleecy whiteness, and 
 a weather-cock somewhere blazing out, as if it 
 were made of gold and silver, to the right. 
 
 This sudden revelation was too much for the 
 boy. He gave a cry of insupportable indig- 
 nation, a loud protest and utterance of despair, 
 and then hid his face, as if the white light had 
 blinded him, in his hands. 
 
 ' Stay, Martha, look ! there's some one on the 
 bank. If it's one of the family what shall I 
 do? or if it's a tramp ? Look ! either he's gone 
 to sleep and he'll catch his death of cold, or 
 else he's blinded with the moonlight, as people 
 say.' 
 
 It was a pretty voice that spoke, ^vith a little 
 catch in it as of mingled fright and audacity : 
 and then followed a slight stir on the gravel as 
 though the speaker had staiied back at sight of 
 the unlooked-for figure under the tree. 
 
 ' Oh, Martha I what shall I do ? I've no busi- 
 ness to be here at this time of the night.' 
 
 ' You're doing no harm,' said Martha. ' The 
 missis vdW think I was showing a friend round
 
 182 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 the grounds to look at the moon, and she'll 
 never say a Avord. It's Master Walter. Hush ! 
 Don't you take no notice, and he'll take none. 
 He's often here of niglits.' 
 
 ' But he's gone to sleep, and he'll catch his 
 death of cold,' the stranger said. * Oh, Martha, 
 you that you know him, go and wake him 
 up I' 
 
 ' Hasht, then, come along. It's not cold, only 
 a bit damp, and we're used to that in this house. 
 Come along,' Martha said. 
 
 Walter heard with an acuteness of hearing 
 which perhaps, had it been only Martha, would 
 not have been his ; but the other voice was not 
 like Martha's — he thought it sounded like a 
 lady's voice. And he was pleased by the solici- 
 tude about himself. And he was very young, 
 and in great need of some new interest that 
 might call him out of himself. He rose up sud- 
 denly, and took a long step after the two 
 startled figures, which flew before him as soon 
 as he was seen to move. 
 
 ' Hi, Martha ! where are you off to ? Come 
 back, I tell you. Do you think I'll do you any 
 harm, that you run from me V
 
 AX ADVENTURE. 183 
 
 ' Oh no, sir, please, sir ; it's only me and a 
 friend taking a turn by the river afore she goes 
 up to the village. It's a friend, please, sir, as is 
 staying with us at 'ome.' 
 
 ' There's no harm done,' said Walter. ' You 
 need not run because of me. I'm going in.' 
 
 The two young women had come to a pause 
 in a spot where the moon was shining clearly, 
 showing in a little opening, amid all the tracery 
 of interlacing boughs, of which she was making 
 a shadow pattern eveiywhere, the square figure 
 of Martha, standing firm, Avith another lighter, 
 shrinking shadow, slim and youthful, beside 
 her. There was something romantic to Walter's 
 imagination in this unknown, who had shown 
 so much interest in himself. 
 
 ' Going to the village at this hour I' he added. 
 * I hope she is not going by herself.' 
 
 ' Oh, it's of no consequence, sir,' said Martha, 
 pulling rather imperatively her companion by 
 the gown. 
 
 ' Is it a bad road, or are there ti'amps, or — 
 anything? Oh, Martha I' the other said, in a 
 voice which sounded very clear, though 
 subdued.
 
 184 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 ' Oh, nonsense, Emmy ! It's just like any- 
 other road. It's a bit dark and steep to begin 
 with. But there's nothing to be frightened of.' 
 
 ' Oh, why did I stay so late !' said the other. 
 ' How silly of me not to think ! No lamps, nor 
 — nor shops, nor people. I never was out on a 
 country road in the dark. Oh, why didn't I 
 think ' 
 
 ' Don't be a silly ! It's as safe as safe ; there's 
 never no accidents here.' 
 
 ' You had better keep your friend with you 
 all night, Martha ; my mother will not mind.' 
 
 ' Oh ! — but my mother, sir ! she would go out 
 of her senses wondering what had come to me.' 
 
 ' Emmy, don't be a silly. I tell you it's as 
 safe ' 
 
 *I have nothing particularly to do,' said 
 Walter, good-humouredly. ' Since she is so 
 frightened, I will walk with her as far as the 
 turnpike. You can see the lights of the village 
 from there.' 
 
 * Oh, Mr. Walter, I couldn't let you take that 
 trouble. I'd rather go with her myself. I'll run 
 and get Jarvis. I'll '
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 185 
 
 ' You need not do anything. It's turned out 
 a lovely night,' said Walter, 'and I shall be all 
 the better for the walk.' 
 
 It was all settled in a moment, before he him- 
 self knew what was being done, with the care- 
 lessness, the suddenness which sometimes decides 
 an all-important event. Walter was seized just 
 at the moment when his own evil fortune 
 seemed overwhelming, when fate seemed to be 
 laying hold on him, with a force which nothing 
 could resist. He was seized by a kind impulse, 
 a good-natured wish to be of use to somebody, 
 to escape from himself in this most legitimate, 
 most virtuous way, by doing something for 
 another. He was pleased with himself for 
 thinking of it. A sense of being good came 
 into his mind, with a little surprise and even 
 amusement such as only an hour ago would 
 have seemed impossible to him. It was like 
 what his mother or one of the girls might have 
 done, but such impulses did not occur readily 
 to himself. He walked round towards the gate 
 by which Martha and her friend stood and 
 whispered together. Martha he could see did
 
 186 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 not like it ; she was shocked to think of her 
 young master having the trouble. The trouble ! 
 that was the thing that made it pleasant. He 
 felt for the moment delivered from himself. 
 
 ' If I am walking too fast for you, tell me/ 
 he said, when he found himself upon the road 
 with the small, timid figure keeping a respectful 
 distance at his side. 
 
 ' Oh, no, sir,' she said, but with a little pant of 
 breathlessness. 
 
 ' I am going too fast — how thoughtless of me ! 
 Is that better? And so you are not used to 
 country roads f 
 
 ' I am only a Httle cockney, sir. 1 have never 
 been out of London before. It's a bad time to 
 come to the country in the winter : for one for- 
 gets how short the days are, and it's silly to be 
 frightened. I am silly, I suppose.' 
 
 'Let us hope not about other things,' said 
 Walter. ' The road is very dark, to be sure.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' she said, with a little shiver, draw- 
 ing closer. They were still in the hollow, and 
 the hedges were high on either side, and the 
 darkness was complete upon their path, though
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 187 
 
 a little way above the moon penetrated, and 
 made the ascent as white as silver and as light 
 almost as day. 
 
 ' Should you like,' he said, with a little laugh 
 of embarrassment, yet an impulse which gave 
 him a curious pleasure, such as he was quite un- 
 familiar with, ' to hold on by me ? — would you 
 like to take my arm V 
 
 ' Oh, no, sir I' 
 
 The suggestion seemed to fill her with alarm, 
 and she shrank away after coming so close. 
 Walter was, on the whole, reheved that she did 
 not take his ofi'er, but he was pleased with him- 
 self for having made it, and immensely interested 
 in this little modest unknown, who was unseen 
 as well — this little mysterious being by his side 
 in the dark. 
 
 ' The wood is very pretty,* he said, ' although 
 you can't see it, and there are no lamps.' 
 
 ' You are laughing at me, sir ; but if you 
 consider that 1 never was out of the reach of 
 the lamps before. Hampstead is the farthest I 
 have been, and there are lamps there even on 
 the heath. The darkness is one of the thmgs
 
 188 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 that strikes me most. It is so dark you can feel 
 it. It's black.' She gave another little shiver, 
 and said, after a moment, 'I do so love the 
 light.' 
 
 Her tone, her words, the ease with which 
 she spoke, filled Walter with surprise — a sur- 
 prise which he expressed without thinking, with 
 a frankness which perhaps he would not have 
 displayed had his companion not been Martha's 
 friend. 
 
 ' And what,' he said, ' can you be doing in 
 our village, and at old Crockford's? I can't 
 understand it. You are a — you're not a ' 
 
 He began to recollect himself when he came 
 this length. To say ' You're a lady ' seemed 
 quite simple when he began to speak ; but as he 
 went on it did not prove so easy. If she was a 
 lady, how could he venture to make any such 
 remark ? 
 
 She gave a little soft laugh which was very 
 pretty to hear. 
 
 'Old Crockford is — a sort of an uncle of mine,' 
 she said. 
 
 ' Your uncle !'
 
 AN ADVENT CRE. 189' 
 
 ' Well, uo — not quite my uncle, but some- 
 thing a little like it. When I am humble- 
 minded, I call him so ; when I am not humble- 
 minded ' 
 
 * What happens then V 
 
 ' I say as little about it as I can ; I think as 
 little about it as I can. No,' she said, with a 
 little vehemence, ' I'm not a lady, and yet I'm 
 not a — Martha Crockford. I am a poor little 
 London cockney girl. You shouldn't be walk- 
 ing with me, sir ; you oughtn't to see me home, 
 you, a gentleman's sou. People might talk. 
 As soon as we get into the moonhght there, 
 where it is so blight, I will release you and run 
 home.' 
 
 *Home!' said Walter, incredulous; 'it is not 
 possible. Whoever you are — and of course I 
 have no right to ask — I am sure you are a 
 lady. You are as little like the Crockfords as 
 anyone could be. No doubt you must have 
 some reason ' 
 
 * Oh, yes,' she said, with a laugh, clasping 
 her hands, ' a mysterious reason ; how can you 
 doubt it "? 1 am a heroine, and I have got a
 
 190 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 story. I am in hiding from Prince Charming, 
 who wants to run away with me and make me 
 his queen ; but I won't have him, for I am too 
 high-toned. 1 could not have him shock his 
 court and break the queen mother's heart. 
 Every word I say makes you more certain what 
 sort of person I am. Now doesn't itf she cried, 
 with another laugh. 
 
 ' I can't tell what sort of a person you are,' 
 said Walter, ' for I am sure I never talked to 
 anyone like you before.' 
 
 ' Well,' she said, with a quick breath which 
 might have been a sigh, ' I hope that is a com- 
 pliment. I have been talking to Martha all 
 night, dropping my h's and making havoc with 
 my grammar. It is nice to do the other thing 
 for a little and bewilder some one else. Yes ; I 
 am sure this is a pretty road when there is light 
 to see it. One can't see it in the moonlight, one 
 can see nothing for the moon.' 
 
 * That is true,' said Walter ; * just as in sum- 
 mer you can't see the grass for flowers.' 
 
 ' I don't exactly catch the resemblance. What 
 is that lying under the hedge ? The shadow is
 
 AX ADYEN'TURE. 191 
 
 SO black, SO black now ^ve have got into the 
 light. Look, please ; I feel a little frightened. 
 What is that under the hedge V 
 
 ' Nothing,' said Walter : * only a heap of stones. 
 If you will look back nov/ we have got up here 
 you will see the river and all the valley. The 
 view is very pretty from here." 
 
 lie hoped to see her face w^hen she should 
 turn round, for, though the moonlight is deceiv- 
 ing, it is still better than darkness. Even though 
 she had her l^ack turned to the light, he could 
 now see something — the round of what must be 
 a pretty cheek. 
 
 ' I am sure there is something there under 
 the hedge, something that moved.' 
 
 ' I will look to satisfy you,' said Walter ; * but 
 I know there is nothing. Ah ! ' 
 
 A quick rush, a little patter of steps flying 
 along the white road, were the first indications 
 he had of what had happened. Then, before 
 he could recover liimself, a laughing ' Good- 
 bye, good-bye, sir. Thank you ; I see the 
 village lights,' came to him down the road. He 
 made a few steps in pursuit, but then stopped,
 
 192 AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 for the little figure flying was already out of 
 sight. And then he stood looking after her 
 plante la, as the French say. Why, it was an 
 adventure ! — such a break as had never hap- 
 pened before in his tranquil life.
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 The girls in the drawing-room not only met 
 with no adventure, but they did not even know 
 that the damp atmosphere had cleared up and 
 the moon come out. They did not know what 
 had become of Walter. They were as unaware 
 of his despair as of the sudden amusement which 
 had come to him to console him in the midst 
 of it. They thought — hoped rather — that he 
 had gone to the book-room with Mr. Penton 
 and was there talking it over, and perhaps un- 
 doing the effect of what their mother had said. 
 It did not, indeed, seem very likely that Walter 
 should be able to do this, but yet they were so 
 much on the side of Penton in their hearts that 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE GIRLS' OPINION. 
 
 a vague hope that it might be so, moved them 
 in spite of themselves. Walter against mother 
 seemed a forlorn hope ; and yet when all your 
 wishes are in the scale it is difficult to believe 
 that these will not somehow help and give force 
 to the advocate. 
 
 Ally and Anne had taken their places at the 
 table when the gentlemen went away. They 
 were making little pinafores for the children ; 
 there were always pinafores to be made for the 
 children. Anne, who was not fond of needle- 
 work, evaded the duty (which to her mother 
 appeared one of the chief things for which 
 women were made) as much and as long as she 
 could, but, being beguiled by promises of read- 
 ing aloud, did submit in the evening. The 
 little ones used so many pinafores I Ally was 
 always busy at them, except when she was 
 helping in the more responsible work of making 
 little frocks. This evening there was no one to 
 read aloud, but no one blamed Walter for 
 going out ; no one even thought of the book, 
 though they were at the beginning of the third 
 volume. Penton for the moment was a more
 
 THE GIRLS' OPINION. 195 
 
 interesting subject than any novel. The girls 
 had not thought so much of it as Walter had 
 done, but still it had been a prominent feature 
 in their dreams also. The idea of being Pentons 
 of Penton could not be indifferent to them ; of 
 taking their place among the aristocracy of the 
 county; of going everywhere, having invitations 
 to all the parties, to tennis in summer, to the 
 dances, all the gaieties, of which now they only 
 heard. Secretly in their souls they had con- 
 soled themselves with the thought of this when 
 they heard of the great doings at Milton and all 
 that was done when little Lord Bannister came 
 of age. Anne, indeed, had exclaimed, * If they 
 don't think proper to ask us now they may let 
 us alone afterwards, for I shan't go !' But Ally, 
 more tolerant, had taken the other side. ' They 
 don't know anything about us ; it would be go- 
 ing out of their way to ask us. If they knew 
 we were nice, and didn't ask us because we were 
 poor, that would be horrid of them ; but how 
 can they tell whether we are nice or not?' 
 Anne would have none of this indulgent argu- 
 ment; she had made up her mind when they 
 
 02
 
 196 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 came to advancement to revenge all these wrongs 
 of their poverty, so that it was equally hard 
 upon her to have to consent to do without that 
 advancement after all. 
 
 Thus they had plenty to talk about as they 
 made their little pinafores. These were made 
 of coloured print, which looked cheerful and 
 clean (when it was clean), and wore well, Mrs. 
 Penton thought. Brown holland, no doubt, is 
 the best on the whole, and there is most wear in 
 it, but it is apt to look dingy when it is not 
 quite fresh, and when it is once washed gets 
 such a blanched, sodden look ; even red braid 
 fails to make it cheerful. So that Mrs. Penton 
 preferred pink print and blue, which are cheaper 
 than brown holland. The table looked quite 
 bright with those contrasting hues upon it ; and 
 the young faces of the girls bending over their 
 work, though they looked more grave and 
 anxious than usual, were pleasant in their fresh 
 tints. Mrs. Penton herself went on with her 
 darning. She had filled up all those great holes, 
 doing them all the more quickly because she had 
 studied the ' lie ' of them, and how the threads 
 went, before.
 
 THE girls' opinion. 197 
 
 * I have never said anything about it,' said 
 Mrs. Penton^ ' for what was the use ? I saw no 
 way to be clear of Penton ; but I've had this in 
 my mind for years and years. You don't know 
 what an expense it would be; even the removal 
 would cost a great deal : and, though we should 
 have a larger income, we should have no ready 
 money — not a farthing. And then you know 
 your father, he would never be content to live 
 in a small way, as we can do here, at Penton ; 
 he would want to keep up everything as it was 
 in Sir Walter's time. He would want a carriage, 
 and horses to ride. He might even think of 
 going into Parliament — that was one of his 
 ideas once. Indeed, I see no end to the expense 
 if we were once launched upon Penton. We 
 should be finer, and we should see more com- 
 pany, but I don't think we should be a bit better 
 after a while than if we had never come into 
 any fortune at all.' 
 
 ' But it would always be something to be fine 
 and to see more company, and to have a carnage, 
 and horses to ride,' said Anne. 
 
 ' At the cost of getting into debt and leaving
 
 198 THE GIRLS' OPINION. 
 
 off worse than we were before !' said the mother, 
 shaking her head. 
 
 Ally let her work drop on the table and 
 looked up wdth her soft eyes. There was a 
 light unusual in them, which shone even in the 
 smoky rays of that inodorous lamp. 
 
 'Oh,' she said, with a long-drawn breath, 
 ' mother ! it's wicked, 1 know ; and if it made 
 things worse afterwards ' 
 
 ' She thinks just as I do !' cried Anne — ' that 
 to have a little fun and see the world, and every- 
 thing you say, would be worth it, if it were only 
 for a little while !' 
 
 ' Oh, girls !' said Mrs. Penton — a mild exasper- 
 ation was in her tone — ' if you only knew what 
 I know ' 
 
 'We can't do that, mother, unless we bad 
 experience like you ; and how are we to get 
 experience unless we risk something? What 
 can we ever know here? — the hours the post 
 goes out, though we have so few letters, the 
 times they have parties at the Abbey, though 
 we're never asked. The only thing we can 
 really get to know is how high the river rises
 
 THE girls' opixiox. 199 
 
 when it's ia flood, and how many days' rain it 
 takes to make it level with our garden. Oh, 
 how uncomfortable that is, and how chill and 
 clammy I What else can we ever know at 
 Pent on Hook ?' 
 
 ' Oh, girls ! said Mrs. Penton again. 
 
 Si jeunesse savait ! But this is what we will 
 never be till the end of the world. And at the 
 same time there was something in her maternal 
 soul that took their part. That they should 
 have their pleasure like the other girls; that 
 they should have their balls, their triumphs like 
 the rest; that to dress them beautifully and 
 admire their bright looks might be hers, a 
 little reflected glory and pleasure for once in 
 her dim, laborious life — her heart went out 
 with a sigh to this which was so pleasant, so 
 sweet. But then afterwards ? To give it up 
 was hard — hard upon those who had not dis- 
 counted it all as she had done, taking the glory 
 to pieces and deciding that there was no satis- 
 faction in it. She felt for her husband and the 
 children, though for them more than for him — 
 but her feehng was pity for a pleasant delusion
 
 200 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 which could not last, rather than sympathy. 
 Pentou in itself was to her nothing ; she dis- 
 liked it rather than otherwise as something 
 which had been opposed to her all her life. 
 
 ' If yom- father accepts this offer,' she said, 
 after a time, 'we need not stay in Penton 
 Hook. We might let it ; or at least we might 
 leave it in the winter and go to some other 
 place. We might go to London, or we might 
 even go abroad ; then yon would really see the 
 world. If your father had to give up Penton 
 without any advantage that would be a real 
 misfortune. But of course they would give him 
 a just equivalent. Our income would be doubled 
 and more than doubled. Oswald could stay at 
 Marlborough ; Walter might go to Oxford. We 
 should be better off at once without waiting for 
 it, and we should be free, not compelled to keep 
 up a large place or spend our money foolishly. 
 You might have yonr fun, as you call it. 
 Why shouldn't you? We would be a great 
 deal better off than at Penton, and directly — at 
 once. You know what everybody says about 
 waiting for dead men's shoes. Sir Walter may
 
 THE girls' opinion. 201 
 
 live for ten years yet. ^Yhen a man has lived 
 to eighty-five he may just as well live to ninety- 
 five. And I am sure, if we could only get a little 
 more money to live on, none of us ^vishes him to 
 die.' 
 
 'Oh, no,' said the girls, one after another. 
 ' If it is any pleasure to him to live,' Anne added, 
 reflectively, after a pause. 
 
 ' Pleasure to live ? It is always a pleasure to 
 live, at least it seems so. No one wishes to die 
 so long as he can help it. I wonder why, my- 
 self; for when you are feeble and languid and 
 everything is a trouble, it seems strange to wish 
 to go on. They do, though,' said the middle- 
 aged mother, with a sigh. She thought of vSir Wal- 
 ter as they thought of her, with a mixture of awe 
 and impatience. They felt that their own eager 
 state, looking forward to life, must be so far 
 beyond anything that was possible to her; just 
 as she felt her own weary yet life-full being to 
 be so far in the range of vitality above him. 
 She drew the stocking off her arm as she spoke, 
 and smoothed it out, and matched it with its 
 fellow, and rolled them both up into that tidy
 
 202 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 ball which is the proper condition of a pair of 
 stockings when they are clean and mended, and 
 ready to be put on. ' I think T will go up to the 
 nursery and take a look at the children,' she said. 
 * Horry had a cold ; I should like to see that 
 there is no feverishness about him now he is in 
 bed.' 
 
 Ally and Anne dropped their work with one 
 accord as their mother went away, not because 
 her departure freed them, but because their ex- 
 citement, their doubt, their sense of the family 
 crisis all intensified when restraint was with- 
 drawn, and they felt themselves free to discuss 
 the problem between themselves. 
 
 ' What do you think?' they both said instinct- 
 ively, the two questions meeting as it were in 
 mid-career and striking against each other. ' I 
 think,' said Anne, quickly, not pausing a mo- 
 ment, ' that there is a great deal in what mother 
 says.' 
 
 * Oh, do you T said Ally, with an answering 
 look of disappointment ; then she added, ' Of 
 course there must be, or mother would not say 
 it. But would you ever be so happy anywhere
 
 THE girls' opinion. 2G3 
 
 as YOU would be iu Penton ? Would you think 
 anywhere else as good — London, or even abroad 
 — oh, Anne, Penton I' 
 
 And now it was that Anne showed that scep- 
 tical, not to say cynical spirit, that superiority 
 to tradition which had never appeared before in 
 any of her family. 
 
 ' After all,' she said, ' what is Penton ? Only 
 a house Hke another. I never heard that it was 
 particularly convenient or even beautiful more 
 than quantities of other houses. It is very large 
 — a great deal too large for us — and without 
 furniture, as mother says. Fancy walking into 
 a great empty, echoing place, without a carpet 
 or a chair, and pretending to be comfortable. 
 It makes me shudder to think of it, whatever 
 you may say.' 
 
 Ally was chilled much more by Anne's saying 
 it than by the vision thus presented to her. 
 She began hurriedly, 
 
 ' But Penton ' and then stopped, not 
 
 knowing apparently what to say. 
 
 ' 1 begin to be dreadfully tired of Penton,' 
 said Anne, giving herself an air of superiority
 
 204 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 and elderly calmness. ' Everybody romances so 
 about that big, vulgar house. Well, anything's 
 vulgar that pretends to be more than it is. 
 One would suppose it was the House Beautiful 
 or else a royal palace at the very least, to hear 
 you all speak. And then poor Sir Walter, to 
 grudge him his little bit of life ! I feel like a 
 vampire/ cried Anne, ' every day wishing that 
 he may die.' 
 
 ' I am sure,' cried Ally, moved almost to tears, 
 * I don't wish him to die.' 
 
 ' You wish to be at Penton, and you can't be 
 at Penton till he dies,' said Anne, triumphantly. 
 'Poor old gentleman ! his nice warm rooms that 
 he has taken so much trouble with, and all his 
 pretty things ! And to think that a lot of 
 children who will pull everything to pieces 
 should be let in upon them, and his own daugh- 
 ter, who is like himself, and who would keep 
 everything just as he liked to see it, should be 
 driven away !' 
 
 ' I never thought of it in that light before,' 
 said Ally, in a troubled voice. 
 
 ' Nor I,' said Anne ; ' but it is fair to put your-
 
 THE girls' opinion. 205 
 
 self in another person's place and think how 
 you would feel if — Mrs. Russell Penton must hate 
 us, naturally. I should if I were she. Fancy 
 if there was some one whose interest it was 
 that father should die I' 
 
 * Oh, Anne 1' 
 
 * It is just the very same, only that father is 
 not so old as Sir AValter. Suppose there were 
 no boys, but only you and me, and some other 
 horrible people were the heirs of the entail. 
 How I should hate them I I think I should try 
 to kill them !' 
 
 Anne loved an effect, and x^lly's softer spirit 
 was the instrument upon v,^hich she played. 
 Ally cried, ' No, no, no I' with a homfied protest 
 against these abominable sentiments. A cloud 
 of trouble gathered over her face ; her eyes 
 filled with tears. She put up her hands to stop 
 those dreadful words as they flowed from her 
 sister's mouth. 
 
 * To hate anyone would be temble. I could 
 not do that, nor you either, Anne.' 
 
 * Not if they wished that father might 
 die?'
 
 206 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 This awful supposition overwhelmed Ally 
 altogether. She melted into tears. 
 
 ' Well,, then, come along out into the garden, 
 and don't let's think of it any more. I want a 
 little air — the lamp is so nasty to-night — and I'll 
 finish my pinafore to-morrow. It is very nearly 
 done, all but the button-holes. Do come out and 
 see if the river is rising. That is one good thing 
 about Penton, it is out of reach of the floods. 
 But look, what a change ! It is almost as clear 
 as day, and the moon so beautiful. If I had 
 known I should not have stayed indoors in the 
 light of that horrid lamp.' 
 
 ' We must do our work some time,' said Ally, 
 faintly, allowing herself to be persuaded. 
 
 It was rather cold, and very damp ; but the 
 moon had come out quite clear, dispersing, or 
 rather dri\ang back into distance the masses of 
 milky clouds which had lost their angry aspect, 
 and no longer seemed to foretell immediate rain. 
 Rain is disagreeable to everybody (except 
 occasionally to the farmers), but it is more than 
 disagreeable to people who live half surrounded 
 by a river ; it made their hearts rise to see that
 
 THE girls' opinion. 207 
 
 the rain-clouds seemed dispersing and the 
 heavens getting clear. And then it takes so 
 very little to lighten hearts of seventeen and 
 eighteen ! The merest trifle will do — the touch 
 of the fresh air, even the little nip of the cold 
 which stirred their blood. As they came out 
 Walter appeared, coming back from the gate, a 
 dark figure leaning against the light. 
 
 ' Oh, Wat, where have you been ? Have you 
 been up to the village without telling us? 
 And I did so want a run I Why didn't you call 
 mef 
 
 * Don't, Anne,' said Ally; ' he is not in spirits 
 for your nonsense. Poor Wat ! he cannot 
 throw it off Hke you.' 
 
 * Ah,' said Walter, reflectively ; but it seemed 
 to the girls that he had to think what it was he 
 could not throw off. ' I have not been up to the 
 village,' he said ; ' only round the dark corner. 
 Martha was there with a little girl who was in a 
 terrible funk. She thought there were lions and 
 tigers under the hedge. I just saw her round 
 the corner.' 
 
 ' How kind of you, Wat ! A little girl ! But 
 w^ho could she be ?'
 
 208 THE girls' opinion. 
 
 * I don't know a bit/ said AValter, demurely. 
 ' It was too dark to see her face.' 
 
 He thought his own voice sounded a httle 
 strange, but they did not perceive it. They 
 came to either side of him, Knking each an arm 
 in his. 
 
 ' Gome and look at Penton in the moonlight,' 
 said Anne, she who was so indifferent to Penton. 
 But somehow to all of them the sting was taken 
 out of it, and there was no pain for them in the 
 sight.
 
 209 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 Mrs. Russell Pentox did not let the grass 
 grow under her feet. In two or three days 
 after the above events, before Mr. Penton had 
 made up his raind to give any answer, good or 
 bad, another emissary appeared at the Hook. 
 He was a messenger less imposing but more 
 practical than the stately lady who had per- 
 haps calculated a little — more than was justified 
 by the effect produced — upon her own old 
 influence over her cousin. Xo influence, save 
 that of mutual interest and busmess-like arrange- 
 ment, was in the thoughts of the present nego- 
 tiator. He drove up to the door in a delightful 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 dog-cart with a fine horse and the neatest 
 groom, a perfectly well-appointed equipage 
 altogether, such as it is a pleasure to see. He 
 was as well got-up himself as the rest of the 
 turn-out — a young man with a heavy moustache 
 and an air — Anne, who at the sound of this 
 arrival could not be restraioed from moving to 
 the window and looking out behind the curtains, 
 pronounced him to be ' A guardsman, I should 
 think.' 
 
 ' A guardsman ! how should you know what 
 a guardsman is like ? and what could he want 
 here V Walter had said, contemptuously. But 
 he too had peeped a little, ashamed of himself 
 for doing so. ' A bagman, you mean, coming for 
 orders,' he cried ; to which his sister retorted, 
 with equal justice, ' How do you know what a 
 bagman is Hke? and what orders could he get 
 herer 
 
 The two young people were considerably 
 discomfited when the stranger, in all his smart- 
 ness and freshness, with a flower in his button- 
 hole (in the middle of winter), was suddenly 
 shown in upon them by Martha with the murmur
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 211 
 
 of a name which neither of them caught, and 
 which, as Anne divined, their hand-maiden had 
 mumbled on purpose, not comprehending w^hat 
 it was. 
 
 The stranger made his bow and explained 
 that he had come to see Mr. Penton on business; 
 and then he displayed an amiable willingness 
 to enter into conversation with the younger 
 branches of the family. 
 
 ' Your roads are not all that could be desired,' 
 he said, finding upon his coat-sleeve an infini- 
 tesimal spot of mud. ' I am afraid it must be 
 pretty damp here.' 
 
 ' No, it is not damp,' said Walter, promptly. 
 
 ' Oh I' said the other; and then after a moment 
 he hazarded the observation that the house, 
 though pretty, lay rather low. 
 
 ' It is not lower than we like it to be,' Walter 
 replied. 
 
 He did not show his natural breeding. He 
 felt somehow antagonistic to this visitor without 
 any reason, divining what his errand was. 
 
 ' Oh !' said the stranger again ; and then he 
 addressed himself to Anne, and said that the 
 
 p2
 
 212 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 weather was very mild for the season, an as- 
 sertion which the most contradictory could not 
 have denied. 
 
 Anne had been looking at him with great 
 curiosity all the time. She did not know how 
 to classify this spruce personage. She was not 
 at all acquainted with the genus young man, and 
 it was not without interest to her. He was 
 neither a guardsman nor a bagman, whatever 
 that latter order might be. Who was he ? She 
 felt very desirous to enquire. Her reply was, 
 
 ' I am afraid father must be out. Did he 
 expect you to come V thinking perhaps in this 
 Avay the stranger might be led into telling who 
 he was. 
 
 ' I don't know that he expected me. I came 
 on business. There are certain proposals, I be- 
 lieve ; but I need not trouble you with such 
 matters. I hope I may be permitted to wait 
 for Mr. Penton, if he is likely to return soon.' 
 
 ' The best way,' said Walter, with an air of 
 knowledge which deeply impressed his sister, 
 * is to write beforehand and make an appoint- 
 ment.'
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 213 
 
 * That is most true,' said the other, with sup- 
 pressed amusement, * but I was told I was 
 almost sure to find Mr. Penton at home.' 
 
 At this moment the door flew open hastily, 
 and Ally appeared, not seeing the stranger as 
 she held the door. 
 
 ' Oh, Wat,' she cried, ' father has gone out 
 and some one has come to see him. Mamma 
 thinks it is some dreadful person about Penton. 
 She wants you to run out and meet him, and 
 tell him — What are you making signs to me 
 for ?' 
 
 As she said this she came fully into the room 
 and looked round her, and with a sudden flush of 
 colour, which flamed over cheek and brow and 
 chin, perceived the visitor, who made a step 
 forward A\dth a smile and a bow. 
 
 ' I am the dreadful person,' he said. ' I don't 
 know what I can say to excuse myself. I had no 
 bad intention, at least.' 
 
 Ally was so much discomposed that after her 
 blush she grew pale and faint. She sank into a 
 chair with a murmur of apology. She felt that 
 she Avould Hke to sink through the floor ; and for
 
 214 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 once in her gentle life would have willingly 
 taken vengeance upon the brother and sister 
 who had let her commit so great a breach 
 of manners, and of whom one, Anne, showed 
 the greatest possible inclination to laugh. 
 Walter, however, was not of this mind. He took 
 everything with a seriousness that was almost 
 solemnity. 
 
 ' My sister, of course, did not know you were 
 there,' he said. And then, with that desire to 
 escape from an unpleasant situation which is 
 common to his kind, ' Since you are in a hurry 
 and your business is serious, I'll go and see if I 
 can find Mr. Penton,' he said. 
 
 And he had the heart to go, leaving the 
 stranger with Ally and Anne! the one over- 
 whelmed with confusion, the other so much 
 tempted to laugh. It was like a boy, they both 
 reflected indignantly, to leave them so. Be- 
 tween Ally, who would have liked to cry, and 
 Anne, who restrained with difficulty the titter of 
 her age, the young man, however, felt himself 
 quite at an advantage. He asked with quiet
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 215 
 
 modesty whether he might send his horse round 
 to the stables. 
 
 * I can send him np to the village, but if you 
 think I might take the liberty of putting him 
 up here ' 
 
 They were so glad to be free of him, even for 
 a moment, that they begged him to do so, in 
 one breath. 
 
 ' But for goodness' sake, Ally, don't look so 
 miserable, there is no harm done,' said Anne, in 
 the moment of his absence ; ' it will show^ him 
 how we feel about it.' 
 
 ' What does it matter how we feel ? but 
 to be rude is di-eadful ; let me go and tell 
 mother ' 
 
 ' What, and leave me alone with him ? You 
 are as bad as Wat. You shan't stir till father 
 comes. Fancy a strange young man, and an 
 enemy ' 
 
 'He need not be an enemy, he is only a 
 lawyer,' Ally said, always ready to see things in 
 the most charitable hght. 
 
 * And what is a lawyer but an enemy ? Did
 
 216 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 you ever hear of a lawyer coming into the 
 midst of a family like this but it was for harm ? 
 It was very funny, though, when you bolted in. 
 Wat and I were making conversation, when you 
 suddenly came like a thunderbolt with your 
 " dreadful person." ' 
 
 In the absence of the injured, Ally herself did 
 not refuse to laugh in a small way. 
 
 ' He does not look dreadful at all,' she said ; 
 * he looks rather — nice, as if he w'ould have some 
 feeling for us.' 
 
 ' I don't think his feeling for us could be of 
 much consequence. We have not fallen so low 
 as that, that we should need to care for an 
 attorney's feeling,' said Anne. But then her 
 attention was distracted by the fine horse with 
 its shining coat, the dog-cart all gleaming with 
 care and varnish, notwithstanding the traces of 
 the muddy roads. ' He must be well off,' she 
 said, * at least,' with a little sigh. 
 
 ' He is in the law,' said Ally ; ' that doesn't 
 mean the same thing as an attorney. An 
 attorney is the lower kind; and I'm sure it 
 may matter a great deal that he should have
 
 A XE\V FACTOR. 217 
 
 feeling. Think of poor Wat's interest. It is 
 Wat that is to be considered ; even mother, who 
 is so strong on the other side, and thinks it 
 would be so much better for the rest of us, is 
 sorry for Wat.' 
 
 * Hush I he is coming back,' Anne said. 
 
 There was something strangely familiar in 
 the return of the visitor through the open door 
 without any formalities, as if he were some one 
 staying in the house. 
 
 ' It is very fortunate that the weather is so 
 fine,' he said, coming back. ' The situation is 
 delightful for the summer, but you must find it 
 unpleasant when the floods are out.' 
 
 ' It is never unpleasant,' said Anne, ' for it is 
 our home. We like it better than any other 
 situation. Pent on is much grander, but we 
 like this best.' 
 
 ' We need not make any comparison,' said 
 Ally. ' Cousin Ahcia prefers Peuton because 
 she was bom there, and in the same way we — ' 
 
 'I understand,' the stranger said. But the 
 girls were not clever enough to divine what it 
 was he understood, whether he took this pro-
 
 218 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 fession of faith in the Hook as simply genuine, 
 or perceived the irritation and anxiety which 
 worked even in their less anxious souls. He 
 began to talk about the great entertainment 
 that had taken place lately at Bannister. ' It 
 was got up regardless of expense,' he said, 
 ' and it was very effective as a show. All that 
 plaster and pretence looks better in the glow of 
 Bengal lights — of course, you were — What am 
 I thinking of? It is not your time yet for 
 £:aieties of that kind.' 
 
 'We were not there/ said Anne, in a very 
 decisive tone. Disapproval, annoyance, a little 
 Avistfulness, a little envy were in her voice. 
 * We don't go anywhere,' she said. 
 
 * Not yet, I understand,' said the stranger 
 again. There was a soothing tone about him 
 generally. He seemed to make nothing of the 
 privations and disabilities of which they were so 
 keenly conscious. ' I have a sister who is not 
 out,' he went on. ' I tell her she has the best 
 of it : for nothing is ever so delightful as the 
 parties you don't go to, when you are very 
 young.'
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 219* 
 
 They paused over this, a httle dazzled by the 
 appearance of depth in the saying. It sounded 
 to them very original, and this is a thing that 
 has so great a charm for girls. He went on 
 pleasantly : 
 
 'There are to be some entertainments, I hear, 
 at Penton when everything is settled. I hope 
 I may have the pleasure of meeting you there.' 
 
 ' At Penton I we are never at Penton,' they 
 cried in the same breath; but then Ally gave 
 Anne a look, and Anne, being far the more 
 prompt of the two, made an immediate diversion. 
 
 ' There is father coming through the garden,' 
 she said. It was a principle in the family to 
 maintain a strict reserve in respect to Penton, 
 never permitting anyone to remark upon the 
 want of intercourse between the families. It is 
 needless to say that this was a very unneces- 
 sary reserve, as everybody knew what were the 
 relations between Sir Walter and his heir. But 
 this is a delusion common to many persons- 
 more experienced in the ways of the world 
 than the poor Pentons of the Hook. 
 
 Mr. Penton came in making a great noise with
 
 220 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 bis big boots upon the tiles of the hall. He 
 opened the door of the drawing-room and looked 
 in with a nod of recognition which was not very 
 € or dial. 
 
 * Good morning, Mr. Rochford,' he said ; ' I 
 am sorry I have kept you waiting. Perhaps 
 you will come with me to my room, where we 
 shall be undisturbed.* 
 
 The young man hesitated a little. He made 
 the girls a bow more elaborate than is usual 
 with young Englishmen. 
 
 ' If I am not so fortunate as to see you again 
 before I go — ' he said, with his eyes on Ally — 
 — and how could Ally help it ? She was not in 
 the habit of meeting people who looked so. She 
 blushed, and made an inclination of her head, 
 which took Anne, who gave him an abrupt little 
 nod, quite by surprise. 
 
 ' Why,' the girl cried, almost before the door 
 closed, ' Ally, you gave him a sort of dismissal 
 as if you had been a queen.' 
 
 ' What nonsense !' Ally said; but she blushed 
 once more all over, from the edge of her collar 
 to her hair. *I wonder/ she said, * whether
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 221 
 
 Cousia Alicia can leave ns out, if she is going 
 to give entertainments as he says.' 
 
 * When everything is settled — what does that 
 mean ? when everything is settled,' cried Anne. 
 
 ' It means, I suppose,' said "Walter, gloomily, 
 * when Penton has been given over, w^hen we 
 have fallen down among the lowest gentry, 
 just kept up a little (and that's not much) by 
 the baronetcy which they cannot take away. 
 Father can't sell that, I believe. Mrs. Fiussell 
 Penton may be a very great lady, but she can't 
 succeed to the baronetcy. Leave us out I Do 
 you mean to say that — over my body, as it were, 
 you would go !' 
 
 'Oh, Walter, don't take it like that! If 
 father settles upon doing this, it will be because 
 both together they have decided that it is the 
 best.' 
 
 ' And no one asks what I think,' cried the 
 lad, ' though after all it is I ' 
 
 He stopped himself with an effort, and with- 
 out another Avord swung out again, lea^dng the 
 door vibrating behind him. And the girls 
 looked at each other with faces suddenly
 
 522 A NEW FACTOR. 
 
 clouded. Fifty looks to twenty so remote an 
 age, so little to be calculated upon. After all, 
 it was Walter, not Mr. Penton, who was the 
 heir. And no one asked what .he thought ! 
 
 The door of the book-room closed upon the 
 negotiations which were of such importance to 
 the family. There came a hush upon the house 
 — even the winterly birds in the trees without, 
 who chirped with sober cheerfulness on ordinary 
 occasions, were silent to-day, as if knowing that 
 something very important was going on. 
 Those who passed the door of the book-room — 
 and everybody passed it, the way of each in- 
 dividual, whatever he or she was doing, leading 
 them curiously enough in that direction — heard 
 murmurs of conversation, now in a higher, now 
 in a lower key, and sometimes a little stir of the 
 chairs, which made their hearts jump, as if the 
 sitting were about to terminate. But these 
 signs were fallacious for a long time, and it was 
 only when dinner was ready, the early dinner, 
 with all its odours, which it was impossible to 
 disguise, that the door opened at last. The 
 three young people were all about the hall door,
 
 A NEW FACTOR. 223 
 
 Walter hanging moodily outside, the two girls 
 doing all they could to distract his thoughts 
 Avhen this occurred. They all started as if a 
 shell had fallen amongst them. By the first 
 ghmpse of Mr. Penton's face they were all sure 
 they could tell what had been decided upon. 
 But they were not to have this satisfaction. 
 
 ' Tell your mother,' he said, keeping in the 
 shade, where no one could read his countenance, 
 * to send in a tray with some luncheon for Mr. 
 Rochford and me.' 
 
 And then the door closed, and the discussion 
 within and the mystery and anxiety ^\'ithout 
 continued as before.
 
 224 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 ' However it goes/ said Mr. Russell PentoD, ' I 
 don't think you can help taking some notice 
 of the young people. In the first place it is 
 right, but that 1 allow does not count much in 
 social matters ; and next it is becoming and 
 expedient, and what the world will expect of 
 you, which is of course much more important.' 
 
 * Gerald,' said his wife, ' what have I done to 
 make you speak to me like that V 
 
 ' I don't know that you have done anything, 
 Ahcia. It is of course your affair rather than 
 mine. But I think it is hard upon your cousins. 
 It is like that business about the birth-right,
 
 MAX AND VTIFE. 225 
 
 you know — you liaye got the mess of pottage, 
 and they — the other thing, half sentimental, 
 half real.' 
 
 '1 wonder at yon, Gerald,' cried Mrs. Penton. 
 ' What true sentiment can they haye in the 
 matter ? They neyer liyed here ; their imme- 
 diate ancestors neyer liyed here. False senti- 
 ment, if you like, as much of that as you like, 
 but nothing else ; and the real adyantage will 
 be immediate, as you know.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know. I neyer said it was the senti- 
 ment of acquisition ; it is the sentiment of per- 
 sonal importance, which perhaps is even more 
 telling. Apart from Penton, they will feel them- 
 selves nobodies.^ 
 
 ' As they are, as they have always been.' 
 
 * AVell, my dear,' said Mr. Russell Penton, with 
 a shrug of his shoulders, ' I have always said it 
 was your affair and not mine.' 
 
 ' You never said that you disapproved. You 
 have heard all the conversation that has gone 
 on about it, and yet you have never said a 
 word. How was I to know that you dis- 
 approved V 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 * I don't disapprove. It is a question between 
 you and Sir Walter and your relations. It 
 would not become me to thrust in my opinion 
 one way or the other.' 
 
 Tears came into Mrs. Penton's eyes. 
 
 'When you say such things, Gerald, you 
 make me feel as if I were no true wife to 
 you.' 
 
 ' Yes, yon are my true wife, and a very dear 
 one,' he said, after a momentary pause, without 
 effusion, but with serious kindness. 'But we 
 knew, Alicia, when we married that the position 
 was different from that of most husbands and 
 Avives. I am a sort of Prince Consort, to advise 
 and stand by you when I can ; but it is my best 
 policy, for my own self-respect as well as your 
 comfort, not to interfere.' 
 
 ' The Prince Consort was not like that,' she 
 said ; ' he was the inspiration of everything. 
 It was not in the nature of things that any- 
 thing could be done or thought of without 
 him.-* 
 
 'I have not that self-abnegation,' he said; 
 * there is but one like that in a generation ; be-
 
 MAX AND \VIFE. 227 
 
 sides, my dear, you are not the Queen. You 
 must defer to another's i^'uidance. What is 
 settled between Sir Walter and you is for me 
 sacred. I make any little observ^ations that 
 occur to me, but not in the way of advice. For 
 example, 1 permit myself to say that it is hard 
 on your cousin, because I think you don't quite 
 appreciate the hardship on his side — not to 
 prevent you carrjdng out your own purpose, 
 Avhich I don't doubt is good and very likely the 
 best.' 
 
 She shook her head doubtfully. 
 
 ' You are very kind and very tolerant, Ger- 
 ald, but all you say makes me see that you 
 would not have done this had you been in my 
 place.' 
 
 He paused a little before he replied, 
 
 ' It is very difficult for me to imagine myself 
 in your place, Alicia. A man cannot realise 
 what it would be to be a woman, I suppose. 
 But I'll tell you what I should have done, had I 
 been in Sir Walter's place, with one dear daugh- 
 ter and an heir of entail — I should have moved 
 heaven and earth to kick him out or buy him 
 
 q2
 
 228 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 out. There can be uo doubt as to wliat I should 
 have done in that case.' 
 
 Alicia took his hand and held it in both hers. 
 She looked gratefully into his face, and said, 
 *Dear Gerald !' but yet she turned away unsatis- 
 fied, w^ith a haunting suspicion. Being Sir 
 Walter, that w^as what he would have done. 
 But he thought the woman who was his wdfe 
 should not have done it. In no way had 
 Russell Penton intimated this to be the case. 
 He had never said that a woman should have a 
 different standard of duty set up for her. But 
 Alicia had intuitions which were keener than 
 lier intelHgence, just as she had longings for 
 approval and sympathy which went far beyond 
 her power of communicating the same. He 
 would have liked her better if she had not 
 grasped at Penton. Without any aid of words, 
 this was what she divined. The blank of the 
 doubt which was in her made her heart sore. 
 She wanted to carry his sympathy with her, at 
 any cost. She called after him as he was going 
 away : 
 
 * As you are so much concerned about those
 
 MAX AND WIFE. 229 
 
 young people, 1 will ask them. I will ask them, 
 to please yon ; if you like, next week, when the 
 Bromley Russells are here.' 
 
 He looked at her for a moment with something 
 like a stare of surprise ; then his countenance 
 relaxed; a smile came over his face. 
 
 ' Why not V he said. 
 
 ' Why not ? There can be no reason against 
 it, if you wish it.' 
 
 This time Russell Penton laughed out. 
 
 * No,' he said, * no reason ; the other way. 
 Let the young fellow have his chance.' 
 
 'What chance?' Alicia stiffened in spite of 
 herself. His laugh offended her, but she would 
 not show her offence, nor inquire what he meant, 
 in case that offence might be increased. ' 1 
 was not thinking,' she added, ' of any young 
 fellow. I was thinking of the girls.' 
 
 'If my wish has weight with you, let the boy 
 come too. The sisters will want a chaperon, 
 don't you know V 
 
 ' The sisters V said Mrs. Penton. An inex- 
 pressible sense of chslike, of displeasure, of re- 
 pugnance came over her, as if some passing
 
 230 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 wind had carried it. ' Not that sharp girl,' she 
 said, with a look of fastidious dissatisfaction — 
 something that moved the lines of her nostrils 
 as if it offended a sense. 
 
 ' Not the sharp girl, and not the boy,' said 
 Rnssell Penton. ' But, then, who is left V 
 
 ' My godchild is left, Alicia, the one I like 
 best ; or, rather, whom I ' 
 
 ' Dislike least,' said her husband, with his 
 laugh. 'I cannot see, now that everything is 
 likely to be settled to your satisfaction, what 
 possible reason there can be for disliking them 
 at all.' 
 
 * There is none,' she said, with an effort. ' I 
 am the victim of a state of affairs which is over ; 
 I cannot get my feelings into accordance with 
 the new circumstances. You cannot blame me, 
 Gerald, more than I blame myself.' 
 
 He said nothing at all in reply to this, but 
 turned away as he had done with the intention 
 of going out, when she called him back. Once 
 more she recalled him, with the same dull sense 
 of his disapproval aching at her heart. 
 
 ' Gerald, after all, you see 1 do not even wait
 
 MAX AND WIFE. 231 
 
 till things are settled to ask the children. Give 
 me a little credit for that.' 
 
 ' You said, Ahcia,'that it was to please me.' 
 
 ' And so it is I and so are many things — more, 
 a great deal more, than you think.' 
 
 He put his hands upon her shoulders and 
 looked into her face. 
 
 * You are always yery good, yery kind, and 
 ready to please me. Is it for that I am to 
 giye you credit ? or for generosity towards your 
 young cousins ? You are not very logical, you 
 see.' 
 
 ' Women are not supposed to be logical,' she 
 said. 
 
 He gave a grave smile as he took his hands 
 away. 
 
 ' Women are more logical than they acknow- 
 ledge/ he said. ' It is a convenient plea.' 
 
 And this time there was no recall. He went 
 out without any further hindrance, not much 
 pleased with himself, and perhaps less with her. 
 He was not, as she divined, satisfied at all. 
 Rich Mrs. Penton's husband had as Httle devotion 
 to Penton as had poor Mr. Pent(m's wife. He
 
 232 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 felt that he would have beeu more at bis ease 
 in any other house, and a subtle sort of rivalry 
 with Penton, antagonism partly irrational, and 
 disappointment in the thought that Sir Walter's 
 death, when it came, would bring him no en- 
 franchisement, filled his mind with an irritation 
 which it was not always possible to keep under. 
 He did not want her to do this scanty justice to 
 her young relations, her only relations, in order to 
 please him. They had done no harm : why should 
 it be an oifence to her that they had in their veins 
 a certain number of drops of kindred blood? 
 
 Presently, however, this irritation turned into 
 displeasure with himself. He had been hard 
 upon AHcia ; he had asked that the young Pen- 
 tons should be invited, vaguely, without any 
 particular meaning; and she had said she would 
 ask them at once, along with the heiress, the 
 great prize for whom so many were contending. 
 It had jarred upon her when he laughed, and it 
 now occurred to him that his laugh had been 
 ill-timed and out of place ; yet, all alone as he 
 was, when it came back to his mind he laughed 
 again. Why not? he had said— and why not?
 
 MAX AND WIFE. 233 
 
 he repeated, with a gleam of humoiir hghting 
 up thoughts which were not particularly pleasant 
 in themselves. He, a poor scion of the Russells, 
 had earned off the Penton heiress ; why should 
 not young Penton, the poor and disiuheiited, 
 have a try at the other, the Russell heiress? 
 
 But if Alicia saw the reason of hi? merriment, 
 no wonder that it had jarred upon her. It was 
 in bad taste, lie said to himself. To compare 
 her with the little Russell girl was a thing which 
 even in thought was offensive. He did not 
 wonder that she was offended by his laugh, that 
 it made her stiff and cold. He sighed a little 
 as all inchnation to laugh died out of him. It 
 would have suited him better to have had a mate 
 of a lighter nature, one who w^ould have let him 
 laugh, who would have been less easil}' jarred, 
 less sei-ious, less full of dignity ; but this was a 
 thing that Russell Penton was too loyal even to 
 say to himself. It might touch the surface of 
 his thoughts, but only to be banished. It was 
 because of this inevitable jar, this little differ- 
 ence, which was so little yet was fundamental, 
 that he sighed.
 
 234 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 And she sighed too, she who did so many 
 things to please him — more, far more than he 
 had any idea of. She was ready to do ahuost 
 anything to please him : almost, yet with a great 
 reserve. Instinctively she was aware that Pen- 
 ton stood between them — that the bondage of 
 the great house which was not his, and the bm-- 
 den of representing a family of which he was 
 only, so to speak, an accidental member, lay 
 very heavy upon the easy mind and cheerful, 
 humorous nature of her husband. He was not 
 born to be the head of a house. What he 
 liked was the ease of a hfe without respon- 
 sibilities, without any representative character. 
 A cheerful little place with all its windows open 
 to the sun, where he could do what he liked,, 
 where no man could demand more of him than 
 to be friendly and agreeable, which he could 
 leave when he chose and come back to as he 
 pleased, — that would have been his ideal home. 
 She said to herself that the wife whom he had 
 taken to such a little house would have been 
 very happy, and sometimes, in the days when 
 she still indulged in dreams (which women do
 
 MAX AND WIFE. 235 
 
 ill the strangest way, long after the legitimate 
 age for it), she had seen that tiny place in a 
 vision ^-ith children about it and no cares (as if 
 that were possible !), and Gerald's countenance 
 always beaming with genial content. 
 
 But the w^oman who was so happy, who was 
 at her ease, w^hom no troubles touched, who 
 was Gerald's other self, was not Alicia. She 
 had to sigh and turn away, feeling that this 
 could never be. Her life had been already set- 
 tled when she married. There Avas no change 
 or escape for her: indeed, w^hat was stranger 
 still, though she perceived the happier possi- 
 bihties in the other lot, she knew that it had 
 never been possible to her. The ease would 
 have wearied, perhaps even disgusted her. At- 
 tending that vision of happiness would come 
 revelations of the slipshod, glimpses of what 
 ease and happiness so often come to when they 
 grow to over-hixuriance. No, the difference 
 w^as very slight, but it was fundamental. 
 
 And in this, as in so many other contradic- 
 tions of life, the woman had the worst of it. 
 Russell Penton was tolerant bv nature, and he
 
 236 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 had trained himself to still greater tolerance. He 
 made an observation, as he said, now and then, 
 but it was possible to him to stand by and look 
 on, without worrying himself about that which 
 he could not change. He would say to himself 
 that it was no business of his ; he could even 
 refrain from criticism except in so far as we 
 have seen, when he made a good-natured pro- 
 test in defence of some one wronged, or aveng- 
 ed another's injury by a laugh. But Alicia, on 
 her side, was not so easily satisfied. She want- 
 ed him to approve ; his acquiescence, his plea 
 that it was not his affair, his declaration that he 
 would not interfere, were to her gall and bitter- 
 ness. She could not adopt his light ways, nor 
 take things easily as he did. Following her 
 own course, acting upon her own principles, 
 his concurrence, his approval, were the things 
 she longed for before all others. When he said, 
 ' You are quite right,' she was happy, though 
 even then never without a sense that he must 
 have added within himself, * right from your 
 own point of view.' 
 
 The curious thing, however, and one which
 
 MAN AND WIFE. 237 
 
 she was also aware of with a strange double 
 consciousness, was that she never thought of 
 adopting his point of view, or attempting even 
 any compromise between his and hers. She 
 had placed herself so completely in her own 
 groove that she could not get out of it, and had 
 no wish to get out of it. But yet she wanted 
 his approval all the same. She wanted it pas- 
 sionately, with an insistance which even her 
 own complete enlightenment as to the differ- 
 ence between them never affected. Having 
 her own way, even in the supreme question 
 which now at the last had been opened only to 
 promise the most satisfactory solution, she yet 
 would have no real pleasure in it unless he 
 approved. x\nd his mode of passing it over, 
 his assent which meant no approval, took the 
 pleasure out of everything. What could she do 
 to please him more than she was doing ? But 
 she never had it. that satisfaction of the heart.
 
 238 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 Mr. Penton's long interview with the young 
 solicitor bad ended in this, — and, though it did 
 not seem exactly a settlement of the question, 
 it had been taken for granted by both families 
 as such : that he consented to treat with Sir 
 Walter Penton. The terms might take a longer 
 time to arrange, and there were conditions — 
 some of a rather peculiar character, as his oppo- 
 nents thought — which Mr. Penton insisted upon. 
 But upon the general question he was supposed 
 to have yielded. It had taken him a great 
 deal of thought, and he was not happy about 
 it. He went about the house and his fields with
 
 A TRAXSITIOX PERIOD. 239 
 
 a moody countenance, avoiding every turn or 
 point of view which revealed Penton — those 
 points of view which had ouce been his happi- 
 ness. This fact alone took a great deal of 
 the pleasure out of his life. It had been his re- 
 lief in former days to mount the road to that 
 corner where the view was, or go out and 
 sit on the bench under the poplar-tree : but 
 now he turned his back upon these favourite 
 places. When he was low, he had no longer 
 this way of escaping from himself. 
 
 Of all points of the compass, that on which 
 Penton lay had become the most distasteful to 
 him. He would have liked to have had it blot- 
 ted out from the landscape altogether ; there 
 was nothing but pain in the sight of it, in the 
 mere knowledge that it was there. And win- 
 ter is cruel in this particular. It spares you 
 nothing — not even a chimney. The weather- 
 cock, glowing through the bare trees, seemed 
 to catch every ray of light and blazon it over 
 the whole country : the windows that faced the 
 south were in a perpetual scintillation. The 
 great house would not be hidden ; it made no
 
 240 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 account of the feeliugs of those who were in 
 the act of parting with it for ever ; though its 
 aspect was now a reproach and liumiliation to 
 them instead of a pride, it seemed to force itself 
 more and more on their eyes. 
 
 Walter felt this almost more strongly than 
 his father, if that were possible. He too went 
 about moody, with the air of a man injured, 
 turning his back on the once favourite quarter 
 where the sunset was. He said in his haste 
 that he never wanted to see a sunset again, 
 and, when the girls called his attention to all 
 the stormy gorgeous colours of the winter 
 afternoon, he would turn his back upon them 
 and declare that the reflection in the river, the 
 secondary tints in the cold grey of the east, 
 were enough for him. He said this wath a 
 vehemence which his father did not display. 
 
 But Walter had solaces and alleviations of 
 which his father was incapable ; and Mr. Penton 
 was the one who felt it most deeply after all. In 
 his middle-aged bosom the tide of life was not 
 running high. He had few pleasures; even 
 few wishes. It no longer moved him in his
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 241 
 
 habitual self-restraint that he had no horses, no 
 means of keeping his place among his peers. 
 All that had dropped away from him in the 
 chill of custom — in that acceptance of the in- 
 e\'itable which is the lowest form of content. 
 But there had always been Penton in which his 
 imagination could take refuge. Penton was still 
 an earthly paradise into which one day or other 
 he should find entrance, which nobody could 
 close from him. And now that too was closed, 
 and his fancy could no longer go in and dwell 
 there. He said very little about it, but he felt 
 it to the bottom of his heart. It was the sort 
 of thing of which he might have died had the 
 floods been out or the atmosphere deleteiious 
 as it sometimes was ; but happily it was not an 
 exceptionally wet season, and the river had not 
 as yet been ' out ' that year. 
 
 The ladies from the first had taken it better, 
 and they continued to do so. Mrs. Penton be- 
 gan to make calculations — with bated breath 
 and many a ' hush !' when either father or son 
 were nigh — of what she would now be able to 
 do. She thought it would be well for them all, 
 
 VOL. I, R
 
 242 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 as soon as matters were settled, to go away : 
 for, though the waters were not out yet, it was 
 scarcely to be hoped for that they should not 
 after Christmas, in February at the latest, have 
 their way : and a separation from the scene 
 of their disappointment would, she thought, be 
 good both for Mr. Penton and Wat. Mrs. Pen- 
 ton said this with a sigh, feeling already all 
 that was involved in a removal in the middle 
 of winter ; but it would be good, she felt, for 
 Horry and the rest to be out of the damp, and 
 it would be very good for Wat. The thing for 
 Wat would be to go to Oxford without delay : 
 fortunately he was not too old, and that would 
 take him off" thinking about Penton if anything 
 would. 
 
 As for the father, there was no such panacea 
 for him. What can be done to distract or 
 divert a man who has outlived the ordinary 
 pleasures, and cannot have his mouth stopped 
 or his heart occupied with any new toy ? A 
 horse or two such as he would now be able to 
 afford would have done a great deal for him 
 once ; but now he had got out of the habit of
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 243 
 
 riding, and might not care to take it up again. 
 It was easier to think of the young ones 
 whose Kfe lay all before them, and who would 
 enter the world now under so much better con- 
 ditions, though not those they had calculated 
 upon. Mrs. Penton made up her mind that if 
 all Avas settled on the terms proposed she 
 would be able to give the girls * every advan- 
 tage.' They should be taken to see a great 
 many things ; they should have clothes and 
 surroundings that suited their condition ; they 
 might even * see a little of the season ' when the 
 proper time came round. 
 
 All these things were pondered aud decid- 
 ed upon in the many hours Avhen the feminine 
 portion of the household sat together, which 
 were more than had ever been before. For 
 Wat did not care to have his sisters constantly 
 A\ith him as he once had done; they set it 
 down to his disappointment about Penton, 
 and the disturbance of his temper and of his 
 life which had ensued — which, when they 
 accused him of it, he agreed in with a sort of 
 satisfaction. But when Anne said, without 
 
 r2
 
 244 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 thought, ' One would think Wat had found 
 somebody else to go with him,' he was very 
 angry, and grew very red, and demanded to 
 know who else? who was he likely to have 
 else ? with an indignation which the provoca- 
 tion did not justify. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the circumstances of 
 the household were much changed. They had 
 not been in a very flourishing condition when 
 they first discussed the law of entail and the 
 possibility that it might be attacked by a 
 reforming parliament and their birthright taken 
 from them ; but somehow that simple time of 
 expectation and depression, which now looked 
 as if it might be years ago, had been, with all 
 its straitenedness, a happier time than now. A 
 certain agitation had got into all their veins; 
 the girls and their mother sat mostly alone in 
 the evenings. There was no reading aloud. 
 Wat was out almost always, taking a walk, 
 he said ; or when he was not out he was in the 
 book-room, grinding, as he told them, at his 
 Greek, which was quite necessary if he was 
 going up to Oxford in the beginning of the
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 245 
 
 year. The girls would have thought this state 
 of affairs insupportable a little while ago, but 
 in the commotion of the approaching change 
 they found so much to talk of that they were 
 partially reconciled to making pinafores all the 
 evening in the light of the paraffin lamp, 
 though it smelt badly, and there was no one to 
 read to them. They had a gTcat deal to talk 
 about. 
 
 As for Mrs. Penton, her mouth was opened 
 as it had never been in her life before. She 
 talked of balls, and theatres, and of the ' things ' 
 they must get as soon as ever matters were 
 settled. She recounted to them her own expe- 
 riences — the dances she had gone to before her 
 maiTiage, and all the competition there had 
 been to secure her for a partner. 
 
 ' They said I was as light as a feather,' she 
 said, with her eyes fixed upon the stocking she 
 was darning, and without raising her head ; 
 ' and so they will say of Ally, for Ally is just 
 the same figure I w^as. But you must have 
 some lessons when we go to town.' 
 
 She was pleased thus to talk, recaUing old
 
 246 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 recollections, to which the girls listened with 
 astonishment : for they had never supposed 
 that their mother knew anything of those 
 gaieties, which to themselves were like the 
 fables of golden isles unknown to men ; but 
 they were not displeased to listen, weaving 
 into the simple story as it flowed the imagina- 
 tions, the anticipations which filled that unknown 
 world upon the threshold of which they stood. 
 It was even more absorbing than the stories 
 of the good and fair heroines (for Mrs. Penton 
 was very particular in her choice of the books 
 which were read by them) to which they had 
 been in the habit of listening. But they missed 
 Wat, to whom, however, they allowed the 
 narration of mother's tales might have seemed 
 a little flat had he been there. Wat up to the 
 present moment had shown very Httle interest 
 in anything of the kind : but it was a little 
 strange now that he should so often be ' taking 
 a turn ' even when the moon was not shining, 
 and when the country roads were so dark. 
 
 Mr. Rochford, the solicitor, came on several 
 occasions during this time of transition. He
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 247 
 
 came often enough to make the children quite 
 famihar with that trim and shining dog-cart, and 
 the horse which was so sleek and shining too. 
 Horrj had been driven round and round in 
 it, nay, had been allowed to di'ive himself, 
 making believe, before it was put up : and he 
 and his smaller brother assisted at the harness- 
 ing and unharnessing of this famous animal 
 with the greatest enthusiasm every time he 
 came. Young rustic lads attending at a 
 monarch's levee could not have been more 
 interested than were these babes. And Mr. 
 Rochford made himself more or less agreeable 
 in other ways to the whole family, except Wat, 
 who did not take to him, but kept him at a dis- 
 tance with an amount of unfriendly temper 
 which he showed to no one else. 
 
 There was no idea now of a tray earned into 
 the book-room when this visitor came. He was 
 introduced to the early dinner where all the 
 children sat in their high chairs, and where the 
 food was more wholesome than delicate — a meal 
 which was too plainly dinner to be disguised 
 under the name of luncheon. Mr. Rochford
 
 248 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 made himself quite at home at this family dinner. 
 He praised everything, and declared that he 
 was always most hungry at this hour, and ate 
 so heartily that Mrs. Penton took it as a person- 
 al compliment ; for, though Mrs. Penton some- 
 times made a little moan about the appetites of 
 the children, she yet was much complimented 
 when visitors (who were so few at the Hook) 
 ate well and seemed to relish the simple food. 
 
 ' Roast mutton may be simple,' she said, ' but 
 there is roast mutton and roast mutton — a big, 
 white, fat leg half cooked is a very different 
 thing from what is set on our table : for I must 
 say that Jane, if she is not much to look at, is 
 an excellent cook.' 
 
 She liked to see people eat ; not Horry get- 
 ting three helps and gorging himself : that was 
 a different matter altogether ; but a visitor who 
 could appreciate how good it really was. 
 
 And after dinner was over Mr. Rochford 
 would ask whether he might not be taken round 
 the garden to see, not the flowers, for there 
 were none, but the floodmarks of different years, 
 and how high the river had come on the last
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 249 
 
 occasion when the waters were ' out.' He had 
 a great interest in the floods — more than Mr. 
 Penton, who got weary of his guest's enthusiasm, 
 and stole back to the book-room, leaving him 
 with the girls ; and more than Anne, who heard 
 her mother calling her, or found she had some- 
 thing to do in the poultry yard, every time this 
 little incident occun-ed. Ally was the most civil, 
 the most long-suffering, and it soon became 
 evident that there was only one who had 
 patience to conduct Mr. Rochford to see the 
 floodmarks. 
 
 ' I have been used to them all my life,' the 
 young lawyer said. ' I have an old aunt who 
 lives as close to the river as this, and who has 
 the water in her garden every year. I used to 
 be sent on visits there when I was a child, and 
 oh ! the transports of the inundation and the old 
 punt in Avhich we used to float about. To 
 come up under the windows in that punt was 
 bliss.' 
 
 * You could not do that here,' said Ally, with 
 that pride in the Hook which was part of the 
 familv character. * The water never comes
 
 250 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 above the garden. I showed you the highest 
 floodmark was on a level with the terrace 
 round the house.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the visitor, with an implicit faith 
 which was not universal among those who 
 heard this tale. ' What a piece of good fortune 
 that is ! You must feel as if you were in an 
 oasis in the midst of the desert.' 
 
 Ally felt that the metaphor was not very ap- 
 propriate, but of course she knew what he 
 meant. She said, 
 
 ' The little boys are as fond of seeing the 
 floods as you were when you were a boy.' 
 
 ' It would be difficult work if at any time the 
 house was cut off — I beg your pardon,' said 
 Rochford, ' that is nonsense, of course ; but do 
 you know I dreamt the other night that the 
 river was higher than ever had been known, 
 and was sweeping all round the Hook, and that 
 the family were in danger ? 1 got out in my 
 boat on the wildest whirling stream, and steered 
 as well as I could for your window. Which is 
 your window, Miss Penton ? 1 knew quite well 
 which it was in my dream, and steered for it.
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 251 
 
 That one ! why then I was right, for that was 
 where I steered.' 
 
 'You frighten me,' said Ally, 'but the water 
 has never come near the house.' 
 
 ' It did on this occasion. There were people 
 at all the windows, but I steered for yours. I 
 heard myself calling Miss Penton, and you 
 wouldn't let me save you. You kept putting 
 the children into my arms, and I could not refuse 
 the children — but I shall never forget the hoiTor 
 with which I woke up, finding that you always 
 delayed and delayed and would not come.' 
 
 'How kind of you,' said Ally, laughing, but 
 with a little blush, 'to take so much trouble 
 even in your dream.' 
 
 ' Trouble !' he cried, ' but yet it w^as great 
 trouble, for you would not come. I heard my- 
 self calling, trying every kind of argument, but 
 you always pushed some one in front of you to 
 be saved first, and would not come yourself. I 
 awoke in a dreadful state of mind, crying out 
 that it was my fault, that it was because of me, 
 that if it had been any one else you would have 
 come.'
 
 252 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 'How ungrateful you must have thought me/ 
 said Ally, blushing more and more, ' but of course 
 I should have put the children first. You may 
 be sure that is what I shall do if it should ever 
 come true.' • 
 
 ' I am forewarned,' he said, laughing. ' I 
 shall know how to beguile you now that I am 
 informed.' 
 
 « I hope you may never have the occasion,' 
 she said. 
 
 ' Of helping you ? Do you think that is a 
 kind wish, Miss Penton ? for it is a thing which 
 would be more delightful than anything else 
 that could happen to me.' 
 
 Ally, being a little confused by this continu- 
 ance of the subject, led him round by the edge 
 of the river to the poplar-tree and the bench 
 underneath. 
 
 ' We used all to be ver^^fond of this seat,' she 
 said, ' because of the view. If Penton is going 
 now to be nothing to us, we must take the bench 
 away.' 
 
 ' Can it ever cease to be something to you ? 
 It is the home of your ancestors.'
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 253 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; but one's father is more near one 
 than one's ancestors, and if he is to have nothing 
 to do with Penton ' 
 
 ' You regret Penton,' said the lawyer, fixing 
 his eyes upon her ; ' then I wish my hand had 
 been burned off before I had anything to do 
 with the business.' 
 
 ' Oh, what could that matter?' cried Ally. 
 ' I am nobody ; and besides,' she added, with 
 gi'avity, ' I do not suppose it could have been 
 stopped by anything that either you or I could 
 do.' 
 
 This made the young man pause : but what- 
 ever was disagreeable in it was modified by the 
 conjunction ' you and I.' Was it only ci^iUty, 
 or had she unconsciously fallen into the trap 
 and associated herself with him by some real 
 bond of sympathy ? He resumed, after a pause, 
 
 * Perhaps we might not be able to cope T^-ith 
 such grandees as your father and Mrs. Russell 
 Penton, but there is nothing so strong as — as 
 an association — as mutual help, don't you 
 knowr 
 
 Ally did not know, neither did he, what he
 
 254 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 meant. She replied only, ' Oh 1' in a startled 
 tone, and hurriedly changed the snbject. 
 
 ' Will it take a long time to draw out all the 
 papers, Mr. Rochford ? Why should it take so 
 long ? It seems so simple.' 
 
 ' Nothing is simple that has to do with the 
 law. Should you like it to be hurried on or to 
 be delayed? Either thing could be done ac- 
 cording as it pleased you.' 
 
 There was the slightest little emphasis upon 
 the pronoun, so little that Ally perceived it first, 
 then the next moment blushed with shame at 
 having for a moment allowed herself to suppose 
 that it could be meant. 
 
 ' Oh, we could not wish for either one thing 
 or another,' she said. ' 1 shall be sorry when it 
 is altered, and I shall be glad. Naturally it is 
 Walter that feels it most.' 
 
 ' Ah, he is the heir.' 
 
 ' He was the heir, Mr. Rochford. I feel for 
 him. He has to change all his waj^s of thinking, 
 all that he was looking forward to. But why 
 should we talk of this ? I ought not to talk of 
 it to any stranger. It is because you have so 
 much to do with it, because you '
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 255 
 
 ' Because I am mixed np with it from the 
 beginning,' he said, regretfully. ' How kind 
 you are to receive me at all, when it was I 
 whose fate it was to introduce so painful a 
 subject. But one never knows,' he went on, in 
 a lower tone, ' when one drives up to a door 
 that has never been opened to one's steps 
 before, what one may find there ; perhaps the 
 most commonplace, perhaps' — he turned his head 
 away a little, but not enough to make the last 
 two words, uttered in a lowered but distinct 
 voice, inaudible to Ally — ' perhaps one's fate.' 
 
 The girl heard them, wondered at them, felt 
 herself grow pale, then red. There is something 
 in words that mean so much, which convey a 
 sort of secondary thrill of comprehension without 
 revealing their meaning all out. Ally, who was 
 unprepared for the real revelation, felt that 
 here was something which was not usual to 
 be said, which concerned her somehow, which 
 made it impossible for her to continue the con- 
 versation calmly. She turned away to examine 
 some moss on the trunk of the nearest tree. 
 Did he mean her to hear that ? Did he mean 
 her not to hear ? And what did it mean ? His
 
 256 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 fate — that must mean something, something 
 more than people generally said to each other 
 while taking a turn round the garden, whether 
 it might be to see the roses or to examine the 
 floodmarks. 
 
 At this moment the most fortunate thing 
 occurred — a thing which ended the interview 
 without embarrassment, without any appearance 
 of running away upon Ally's part. Mrs. Penton 
 suddenly appeared in the porch, which was 
 within sight, holding a letter in one hand and 
 beckoning with the other. She called, not Ally, 
 but ' Ahce !' which in itself was enough to mark 
 that something had occurred out of the common. 
 Her voice thrilled through the still damp air 
 almost with impatience ; its usual calm was gone ; 
 it was full of life, and haste, and impetuosity — 
 more like the quick voice of Anne thau that of 
 the mother. And then little Horry came running 
 out, delighted to escape out of doors in his pina- 
 fore, without cap or greatcoat or any wrap, his 
 red stockings making a broken line of colour as 
 he ran along the damp path, his curls of fair 
 hair blowing back from his forehead.
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 257 
 
 ' Ally ! Anne I — Ally ! Anne !' he cried, 
 ' mother wants you! Ally- Anne I mother wants 
 you I — she wants you bo^^. She's got news 
 foryoubovf. Ally-Anne! Ally-Anne!' shouted 
 the small boy. 
 
 ' I'm coming, Horry I' cried the girl ; and 
 from the other side of the house came the same 
 cry from her sister. Ally entirely forgot Mr, 
 Rochford and his fate. She ran home, leaving 
 him without another thought, encountenng mid- 
 way Anne, who was flying from the poultry 
 yard, in which she had taken refuge. What 
 was it ? At their age, and in such simphcity as 
 theirs, a letter suddenly anived with news 
 might mean anything. What might it not 
 mean ? It might mean that the Queen had sent 
 for them to Windsor Castle. It might mean 
 that some very great lady unheard of before 
 had in^ated them on the score of some old 
 unknown friendship. It might mean that some- 
 body had left them a fortune. The only thing 
 it could not mean was something unimportant. 
 Of that only they were assured. 
 
 Mrs. Penton stood at the door in her excite- 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 ment, with the letter in her hand. Her tall 
 figure was more erect, her head borne higher 
 than usual. When she saw the girls running 
 from different directions she turned and went 
 indoors, and presently Waiter appeared in an- 
 swer to another summons, walking quickly to 
 the door. Young Rochford, standing under the 
 poplar looking at them, felt ridiculously ' out 
 of it,' as he said. It would have pleased him to 
 feel that he had something to do with the family, 
 that their consultations were not entirely closed 
 to him. He had been so much mixed up with it — 
 all the details of their future means, every bit of 
 land which they relinquished, every penny of 
 that which they got as compensation, would pass 
 through his hands. He had been feeling of late 
 as if he really had a great deal to do with the 
 Pentons. But here arose at once a matter with 
 Avhich he had nothing to do, upon which he 
 could not intrude himself, to which he was left 
 as much a stranger as though he did not know 
 exactly what their income would be next year. 
 He went slowly into the book-room, with feel- 
 ings that were utterly unreasonable, though not
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD. 259 
 
 without the excuse of being natural. The book- 
 room, that was his place, and Mr. Penton and 
 the formal business. But he must not even ask 
 what was the other business which was so much 
 more interesting, the letter which had been sent 
 to Mrs. Penton, which the young ones had been 
 in such excitement to hear, and no doubt to give 
 their opinions on. He had certainly no light to 
 have an opinion on the subject, whatever it 
 might be. He was only the solicitor managing 
 an external piece of business — and treated with 
 great civility and kindness — but nothing more. 
 How could he be anything more ? 
 
 s2
 
 260 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE INVITATION. 
 
 Mrs. Penton was in a condition of excitement 
 such as had never been seen in her before. She 
 could not lay down the letter. She could not 
 speak. She went at length and seated herself in 
 the high chair — in the chair which her husband 
 occupied at any great domestic crisis, when a 
 council of the whole family was called. As her 
 usual seat was a low one, and her usual aspect 
 anything but judicial, there was no change 
 which could have marked the emergency like this. 
 It was apparent that in Mrs. Penton's mind a 
 moment had arrived at which some important 
 decision had to be come to, and for which she 
 herself and not her husband was the natural
 
 THE INVITATION. 261 
 
 president of the family council. The young ones 
 were a little awed by this unusual proceeding. 
 There was not a stocking, nor a needle, nor even 
 a reel of cotton mthin reach of her. She had 
 given herself up to the question in hand. It 
 might be supposed that the decision about Pen- 
 ton, which she took her share in powerfully, 
 while considering all the time how to do that 
 darning, was as important a matter as could 
 come within her ken ; but in her own opinion 
 the present issue was more exciting. She had 
 taken that calmly enough, though with decision ; 
 but about this she was excited and anxious, 
 scarcely able to restrain herself. The girls ran 
 in, saying, 
 
 * What is it, mother?' but she only motioned 
 to them to sit down and wait ; and it was 
 not till Walter had followed with the same 
 question that Mrs. Penton cleared her throat 
 and spoke. 
 
 'It is a letter I have just had,' she said— 'I 
 have not even talked it over with your father. 
 You were the first to be consulted, for it con- 
 cerns you.'
 
 262 THE INVITATION. 
 
 And then she stopped to take breath, and 
 slowly unfolded her letter. 
 
 ' This,' she said, 'is from Mrs. Russell Penton. 
 It is an — invitation ; for two of you : to go to 
 Penton upon a visit — for three days.' 
 
 There was a joint exclamation — joint in the 
 sense that the sound came all together, like a 
 piece of concerted music, but each voice was 
 individual. ' An invitation — to Penton !' cried 
 Anne. ' From Cousin Alicia V said Ally ; and 
 ' Not if 1 know it !' Walter cried ; from which it 
 will be seen that the one quite impartial, and 
 ready to consider the matter on its merits, was 
 Anne alone. 
 
 ' Don't come to any hasty decision,' said Mrs. 
 Penton, hiu-riedly ; * don't let it be settled by 
 impulse, children, which is what you are so 
 ready to do.' 
 
 ' Surely,' said Walter, ' when it's a mere 
 matter of amusement, impulse is as good a way 
 of deciding as another. I say " Not if I know it," 
 and that is all I mean to say.' 
 
 ' And unless you say I'm to go, mother, I 
 think Hke Wat,' said Ally, with unusual courage.
 
 THE INVITATION. 263 
 
 'Children, children! In the first place it's 
 not amusement, and your cousin has never 
 asked you before. She is a great deal richer, a 
 great deal better off than we are. Stop a little, 
 Ally and Wat. I don't say that as if being rich 
 was everything : but it is a gi-eat deal. You 
 will meet better society there than anywhere 
 else. And, even though your father is going to 
 part with Penton, you never can separate your- 
 selves from it. We shall be called Pentons of 
 Penton always, even though we never enter the 
 house.' 
 
 * Mother,' said Wat, ' you don't feel perhaps 
 as I do ; that is the best of reasons why I should 
 never enter the house. So long as I was the 
 heir, if they had chosen to ask me it might have 
 been my duty ; but NOW — ' cried Wat, his voice 
 rising as if into a salvo of artillery. Unutterable 
 things were included in that « now.' 
 
 'Now,' said his mother, 'because we are 
 giving up, because we are leaving the place, 
 so to speak, it is now much more necessary 
 than ever it was. Your cousins have done 
 nothing that is wrong. They don't mean to
 
 264 THE INVITATION. 
 
 injure you ; they are doing a very natural 
 and a very sensible thing. Oh, I am not going 
 to argue the question all over again ; but 
 unless you wish to insult them, to show you care 
 nothing for them, that their advances are dis- 
 agreeable to you, and that you don't want their 
 
 kindness ' 
 
 ' Mother,' said Walter, ' not to interrupt you, 
 that is exactly what I want to do.' 
 
 And Ally had her soft face set. It did not 
 seem that the little face, all moveable and im- 
 pressionable, could have taken so fixed a form, 
 as if it never would change again. 
 
 ' You want to insult the people, Walter, who 
 are, to begin with, your own flesh and blood.' 
 
 ' Cousins — and not full cousins — are scarcely 
 so near as that,' said Anne, with an air of im- 
 partial calm. 
 
 'To insult anybody is bad enough, if they 
 were strangers to you — if they were your 
 enemies. What can be nearer than cousins ex- 
 cept brothers and sisters ? I say, Mrs. Russell 
 Penton is your own flesh and blood, and I don't 
 think it is very nice of you, on a subject which
 
 THE INVITATION'. 265 
 
 I must know better than you do, to contradict 
 me. Your father calls Sir Walter uncle. How 
 much nearer could you be 1 And if you live 
 long enough, Wat, you will be Sir Walter after 
 him. In one sense it is being grandson to the 
 old gentleman, who lost his own tAvo sons, as you 
 know well enough. And is it him you would 
 like to insult, Wat V 
 
 This made an obvious and profound impres- 
 sion. The audience were awed ; their mutinous 
 spirit was subdued. The domestic orator pur- 
 sued her advantage without more than a pause 
 for breath. 
 
 * I never knew the boys : but when I saw 
 the Pentons first everybody was talking of it. 
 Your father had never expected to succeed, oh, 
 never I It was a tragedy that opened the way 
 for him. They had no reason to expect that a 
 young cousin, a distant cousin' (this admission 
 was no doubt contradictory of what she had just 
 said, but it came in with her present argument, 
 and she did not pause upon that), ' should ever 
 come in. If they had hated the very sight of 
 those who were to take the place of their own,
 
 266 THE INVITATION. 
 
 who could wonder? I should if— oh, Wat, if 
 it were possible that— Osy and you ' — she 
 paused a little — ' I feel as if I should hate Horry 
 even in such a case.' 
 
 The impression deepened, especially as she 
 stopped, with a low cry, to wring her hands, 
 as if realising that impossible catastrophe. 
 Walter was entirely overawed. He saw the un- 
 speakable pathos of the situation in a moment. 
 Supposing Horry — Horry! should come in to 
 be the heir, something having happened to 
 Oswald and to himself ! 
 
 ' Don't agitate yourself, mother,' he said, 
 soothingly ; ' I see what you mean.' 
 
 'And yet you would like to insult these poor 
 people, to refuse to see how hard it was for 
 them, and what they have had to bear, oh, for 
 so many years I' 
 
 Having thus broken down all opposition, 
 Mrs. Penton made a pause, but presently 
 resumed. 
 
 'And then from our side, children, there's 
 something to be said. I wish you to accept the 
 invitation. I wish it because after all it's your
 
 THE INVITATION. 267 
 
 own county, and you're of an age to be seen, 
 and you ought to be seen first there. When all 
 this is settled, your father will be in a position 
 to take you into society a little. We shall be 
 able to see our friends. If I have never gone 
 out, it has been for that — that I could not invite 
 people back again. Now I may have it in my 
 power more or less to do this. And I want you 
 to be known — I want you to be seen and 
 known. It is of great importance where young 
 people are seen first. I can't take you to court, 
 Ally, which is the right thing, for we never 
 were in circumstances to do that ourselves. 
 And the next best thing is that you should be seen 
 first in the house of the head of your family. 
 Now all that is very important, and it has got 
 sense in it, and you must not allow an impulse, 
 a hasty little feeling, to get the better of what 
 is sensible and reasonable — you must not indeed. 
 It would be very unkind to me, very foolish for 
 yourselves, very harsh and unsympathetic to 
 the Pentons. And you have a duty to all these. 
 To them? oh, yes, to them too, for they are 
 your relations and they are old, and though
 
 268 THE INVITATION. 
 
 they are prosperous now, things went very 
 badly with them once. Besides, it would be 
 as if you disapproved of what your father was 
 doing and envied them Penton ; which I sup- 
 pose is the last thing in the world you would 
 have them to see.' 
 
 ' Disapproving father is one thing,' said Wat, 
 ' but all the rest I do, and I don't care if they 
 know it or not. Penton ought to be mine. 
 You and my father don't think so — at least you 
 think there are other things more important.' 
 
 Mrs. Penton looked at her boy from her hus- 
 band's judicial chair with a mild dignity with 
 which Wat was unacquainted. 
 
 ' Penton would not be yours,' she said, ' if Sir 
 Walter were dead now. Would you like to 
 step into what is your father's, Wat ? Would 
 you like to say he is only to live five or ten 
 years because the inheritance is yours ? Your 
 father will probably live as long as Sir Walter. 
 I hope so, I am sure. He is fifty now, and that 
 would be thirty-five years hence. Would 
 Penton be yours, or would you be impatient for 
 your father to die V
 
 THE INYITATIOX. 269* 
 
 * Mother !' they all cried, in one indignant 
 outciy, the three together. 
 
 * It looks as if yon meant that. You don't, I 
 know — but it looks like it. Sir Walter may 
 as well live ten years longer, and your father 
 thirty years after that, so that you would be 
 sixty before you succeeded to Penton. Is it so 
 much worth waiting for? Is it worth while 
 showing yourself en^dous, dissatisfied with what 
 your father is doing, unkind to your relations, 
 because, forty or fifty years hence, perhaps — ' 
 
 Walter got up from his chair, as a man is 
 apt to do when the argument becomes in- 
 tolerable. 
 
 * Mother,' he said, ' you know very well that 
 not one of those intentions was in my mind. I 
 don't want to become bosom friends with people 
 who are injiu'ing us for their own advantage ; 
 but as to wishing my father a single hour, a 
 single moment less — or even Sir Walter — ' the 
 youth cried, ^vith a break in his voice. 
 
 ' Oh/ cried Anne, with impatience, * as if 
 mother did not know that ! Mother, the others 
 are dreadfuUy unreasonable. I'll go.'
 
 270 THE INVITATION. 
 
 Mrs. Penton paused a little and cleared her 
 throat. 
 
 * I am afraid you are just the one that is not 
 asked. I daresay your cousin thinks that you 
 are not out, Anne : and no more you are, my 
 dear.' 
 
 * She is as much out as I am, and we have 
 always said when we went anywhere we 
 should go together. Mother, if you wish it, of 
 course I'll go.' 
 
 'And equally of course I will go too,' said 
 Walter, somewhat indignant to be left out, ' when 
 my mother puts it like that.' 
 
 ' Well, children dear,' said Mrs. Penton, sink- 
 ing at once into an easier tone, ' how could I 
 put it otherwise? As long as you will go 
 pleasantly and friendly, and make no reflections. 
 It is such a natural thing, so right, so exactly 
 what should be, both for them to ask and for you 
 to accept. Well, now,' she added, briskly, 
 coming down from her high chair, drawing 
 forward her own natural seat, putting out an 
 accustomed hand for her work-basket, ' now that 
 this is all settled there are the preparations to
 
 THE INVITATIONS 271 
 
 think of. Walter, you must go up at once to 
 your father's tailor — to his grand tailor, you 
 know, whom he only goes to now and then — and 
 order yourself some new suits.' 
 
 ' Some new suits I' they all cried, with widely 
 opened eyes. 
 
 * Yes,' said ^Irs. Penton, who had never been 
 known to enter into any such schemes of extra- 
 vagance before. ' Indeed, we may all go to town 
 together, for I must look after Ally's things, and 
 there is no time to be lost.' 
 
 ' My — things, mother !' The plural in l)oth 
 cases was what petrified the young people, who 
 had been used to get only what could not be 
 done without. 
 
 * You must have a nice tweed suit for the 
 morning, AVat, and some dress clothes, and your 
 father will tell you whether you should get any 
 other things for Oxford, for of course I am not 
 an authority as to what young men require. 
 And it is so long since I have seen anything that 
 is fashionable,' said Mrs. Penton, ' that I don't 
 really know even what girls wear. Girls are 
 really more troublesome than boys, so far as
 
 272 THE INVITATION. 
 
 dress is concerned. You can trust a good tailor, 
 but as to what is exactly suitable to a girl's com- 
 plexion and style, and the details, you know — 
 the shoes, and the gloves, and the fans, and all 
 that ' 
 
 'Mother!' cried Ally. The girl was awe- 
 stricken ; pleasure had scarcely had time to spring 
 up in her. She was overwhelmed with the 
 glories which she had never realised before. 
 
 ' Yes, my dear ; there are a great many things 
 involved in a girl's toilet which you would never 
 think of ; the dress is not all, nor nearly all. I 
 have been so long out of the world, I have not 
 even seen what people are wearing; but it will be 
 easy to get a few hints. And what if we make 
 a day of it, and go to town all together ? Anne 
 shall come too, though Anne is not going to Pen- 
 ton. I don't often allow myself a holiday,' said 
 Mrs. Penton, with her hands full of pinafores, 
 ' but 1 think I must do so for once in a way.' 
 
 The idea of this wonderful outing, which was 
 much more comprehensible, besides being far 
 more agreeable, than the visit to Penton, filled 
 them all with pleasure.
 
 THE INVITATION. 273 
 
 * For we know that will be fun !' said Anne. 
 * Penton, I wish you joy of it, you two ! You 
 will have to be on your best behaviour, and 
 never do one thing you wish to do. I shall have 
 the best of it — the day in town, and the shopping, 
 which must be amusing, and to see everything ; 
 and then when you are setting out for Penton, 
 and feehng very uncomfortable, I shall stay at 
 home, and be the eldest, and be very much looked 
 up to. Mother, when shall we go?' 
 
 ' And oh, mother I how, how ' 
 
 ' Is it to be paid for, do you want to know. 
 Ally? My dear, we are going to have four 
 times as much income as we ever had before. 
 Thinlv of that! And can you wonder I am 
 glad ? for I shall be able to do things for all of 
 you that I never dared think of, and instead of 
 only having what you couldn't do without — 
 enough to keep you decent — I can now give 
 you what is right for you and best for you. Oh, 
 my dears, you can't tell what a difference it 
 makes ! What is a place like Penton (which I 
 never cared for at all) in comparison with being 
 able to get whatever they want for your 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE INVITATION. 
 
 children ? There is no comparison. It has 
 not come yet, it is true, for the papers are 
 not ready, but still it is quite certain. And I 
 can venture to take you to town for a day, and 
 we can all venture to enjoy ourselves a little. 
 And I am sure I am very much obliged to Mrs. 
 Russell Penton for taking such a thing into her 
 head.' 
 
 To this even the grumblers had nothing to 
 say ; even Wat himself, who perhaps was less 
 impressed by the idea of two new suits from the 
 tailor's than his sisters were about their new 
 frocks. A new suit of evening clothes can 
 scarcely be so exciting to a boy as the thought 
 of a ball dress, with all its ribbons and flowers 
 and decorations, and those delightful adjuncts of 
 shoes and gloves and fan all in harmony, is to a 
 girl. Ally's imagination was so startled by it 
 that she could scarcely realise the thought in 
 any practical way, and her enjoyment was 
 nothing to Anne's, who mapped it all out in her 
 mind, and already began to suggest to her sister 
 what she should have, with a perception which 
 must have been instinct; since Anne had not
 
 THE IXYITATIOX. 275 
 
 even that knowledge of an evening-party which 
 any one of the maids who had assisted at such 
 ceremonials might possess, though in a humble 
 way. Martha, for instance, in her last place, had 
 helped to dress the young ladies when they were 
 going out, and had got a glimpse of Paradise in 
 the cloak-room when her former mistress had a 
 ball. But, alas ! such possibilities had never 
 come to Ally and Anne. They knew nothing 
 about the fineries in which girls indulged. 
 Anne, however, by intuition, whatever the phi- 
 losophers may say, knew, never having learned. 
 Perhaps she had got a little information to guide 
 her out of novels, of which, in a gentle way, 
 Mrs. Penton herself was fond, and which had 
 opened vistas of society to the two girls. 
 
 ' You must have a white, of com'se,' she said 
 to her sister, ' blues and pinks, and that sort of 
 thing may go out of fashion, but white never. 
 Mother thinks you must have two.' 
 
 'We are only asked for three days,' cried 
 Ally, ' and that only means two evenings. Why 
 should I have more than one dress for only two 
 evenings V 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE INVITATION. 
 
 * \Nhy, just for that reason, you silly !' cried 
 Anne. ' Do you think mother would like to send 
 you to Penton with just what was necessary, to 
 make them think you had only one frock ? Oh, 
 no ! If you were staying for a fortnight of 
 course you would not want something different 
 every night ; but for two days ' 
 
 ' I should much rather you had the second 
 one, Anne.' 
 
 * I daresay ! as if there was any question about 
 me. I shall have what I require when my time 
 comes. Don't you know we are going to be 
 well off now V 
 
 ' Oh, Anne ! it is rather poor to think of being 
 well off only as a way of getting new frocks.' 
 
 * It is a great deal more than that, of course, 
 but still it is that too. It is nice to have new 
 frocks when one wants them, instead of waiting 
 and waiting till one can have the cheapest 
 possible thing that will do. We have always 
 had things that would do. Now we are to have 
 what we require — what we like. I wish Wat and 
 you. Ally, would see it as mother and I do. 
 Perhaps it may be nice to be the chief people of
 
 THE INVITATION. 277 
 
 one's name, and be able to snub all the rest, even 
 
 Cousin Alicia, but ' 
 
 ' I never ^\-ished to snub anyone, much less 
 Cousin Alicia,' ciied Ally, with indignation. 
 
 ' That is really what it comes to. We wanted 
 to be the grandest of the family, to be able to 
 say to Mrs. Russell Penton, " Stand aside, you're 
 only a woman, and let Sir Edward walk in." 
 And why should she be disinherited because 
 she's a woman? I am going in for women, for 
 the woman's side. I don't believe father is as 
 clever as she is. Oh, to be sure, I like father a 
 great deal better. How could you ask such a 
 question ? But he rather looks up to her ; he is 
 not so clever ; he couldn't set one down as she 
 does, only by a look out of her eyes. Xo, no, 
 no ; a new frock when one wants it, and to go to 
 town for the day, and even to the theatre, or to 
 have a dance at home — all that is far, far better 
 than snubbing Cousin Alicia. But,' added 
 Anne, with sudden gravity, ' for you that have 
 got to go and stay there, it is rather dreadful 
 after all.'
 
 278 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 Walter Penton had been the most satisfactory 
 of sons and brothers. He had not rebelled much 
 even against the discipline of reading aloud. 
 He was only twenty, and there was nothing to 
 do in the neighbourhood of the Hook, especially 
 in the evening, so that circumstances had helped 
 to make him good. He had, to tell the truth, 
 taken a great interest in the novels, so much as 
 to be tempted often to carry off the current 
 volume and see *how it ended,' by himself, 
 which the girls thought very mean of him. But 
 very rarely, except in summer, or when there 
 was some special attraction out-of-doors, had he 
 declined to aid the progress of the pinafores, in
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 279 
 
 his way, by reading. But lately he had not 
 been so good. Perhaps it was because there 
 was a moon, and the evenings had been parti- 
 cularly bright ; but he had not asked the girls 
 to share his walks, as formerly it had been so 
 natural to do. Sometimes he did not come into 
 the drawing-room at all after tea, but would 
 intimate that he had ' work ' to do, especially 
 now, when, if he were really going to Oxford, it 
 was necessary for him to rub up his Greek a 
 little. Nobody could say that this was not 
 perfectly legitimate, and in fact laudable ; and, 
 though the ladies were disappointed, they could 
 make no complaint, especially as, in the general 
 quickening of the family life, there was, for the 
 moment, many things to talk of, which made 
 reading aloud less necessary. 
 
 For instance, on the evening of the day which 
 they had spent in town, there was no occasion 
 for reading. The most exciting romance could 
 not have been more delightful than the retro- 
 spect of that delightful day. They all went up 
 together by the early train. Mr. Pent on him- 
 self had said that he thought he might as well
 
 280 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 go too, and accompany Walter to the tailor's, as 
 that was a place in which ladies were inadmissi- 
 ble ; and accordingly they parted at the railway, 
 the mother and the girls going one way, and 
 the father and his boy another — both parties 
 with a sense of the unusual about them which 
 made their expedition exhilarating. 
 
 To spend money when you feel (and that for 
 the first time) that you can afford it is of itself 
 exhilarating, especially (perhaps) to women who 
 have little practice in this amusement, and to 
 whom the sight of the pretty things in the shops 
 is a pleasure of a novel kind. It was a matter 
 of very serious business indeed to the ladies, 
 carrying with it a profound sense of responsi- 
 bility. Two evening dresses, for a girl who had 
 never had anything better than the simplest 
 muslin ! and a ' costume ' for morning wear of 
 the most complete kind, with everything in 
 keeping, jacket and hat and gloves. The ac- 
 quisition of this could scarcely be called pleasure. 
 It was too solemn and important, a thing the 
 accomplishment of which carried with it a 
 certain sensation of awe ; for what if it should
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 281 
 
 not be quite in the fashiou ? what if it should be 
 too much in the fashion ? too new, too old, not 
 having received the final approval of those 
 authorities which rule the world 1 Sometimes a 
 thing may be very pretty, and yet not secure 
 that verdict; or it may be mal porte, as the 
 French say, worn first by some one whose adop- 
 tion of it is an injury. 
 
 All these things have to be considered ; and 
 when the purchasers are countiy people, ignorant 
 people, who do not know what is going to be 
 worn ! So that the responsibility of the busi- 
 ness fully equalled its pleasantness, and it was 
 only Avhen the more important decisions were 
 made, and the attention of the buyers, at too 
 high a tension in respect to other articles, came 
 down to the lighter and easier consideration of 
 ribbons and gloves, that the good of the expedi- 
 tion began to be fully enjoyed. 
 
 And then they all had luncheon together, 
 meeting when their respective business was 
 executed. Mr. Penton took them to a place 
 which was rather a dear place, which he had 
 known in his youth, when all the places he had
 
 282 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 known were dear places. It was, perhaps, a 
 little old-fasliioned too, but this they were not 
 at all aware of. And the lunch he had ordered 
 was expensive, as Mrs. Penton had divined. 
 She said as much to the girls as they drove 
 from their shop to the rendezvous. She said, 
 
 ' I know your father will order the very dear- 
 est things.' And so he had ; but they enjoyed 
 it all the more. It was such a thing as had 
 never happened in all their previous experi- 
 ence ; a day in town, a day shopping, and then 
 a grand luncheon and a bottle of champagne. 
 
 ' If we are going to be so much better off, 
 they may as well get the good of it,' Mr. Penton 
 replied, in answer to his wife's half-hearted re- 
 monstrance. 
 
 For she too found a pleasure in the extrava- 
 gance. Her protest was quite formal : she too 
 was quite disposed for it once in a way — just to 
 let them know, in the beginning of their mended 
 fortune, what a little pleasure was. 
 
 And when they came home, bringing sugar- 
 plums and a few toys for the young ones, they 
 were all a Httle tired with this unusual, this ex-
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 283 
 
 traordinary dissipation. After tea the pinafores 
 did not make much progress; they were too 
 much excited to care to go on with their read- 
 ing. They wanted to talk over everything and 
 enjoy it a second time more at their leisure. 
 They had shaken off the sense of responsibility, 
 and only felt the pleasure of the holiday, which 
 was so rare in their life. Mr. Penton himself 
 was seduced into making comparison of the 
 London of which they had thus had a flying 
 glimpse with the London he had known in the 
 old days, and into telling stories of which some- 
 how the point got lost hi the telling, but which 
 had been, as he said_, 'very amusing at the timef 
 while the girls hstened and laughed, not at his 
 stories so much as out of their own conscious- 
 ness that it had all been 'fun,' even the incon- 
 veniences of the day, and the prosiness of those 
 inevitable tales. 
 
 Mrs. Penton was the one who subsided most 
 easily out of the excitement. But for a little 
 look of complacence, an evident sense that it 
 was she who had procured them all this pleasure, 
 there was less trace in her than in any of the
 
 284 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 others of the day's outing. She drew her work- 
 basket to her as usual after tea. She was not 
 to be beguiled out of her evening's work ; but 
 she smiled as she went on with her darning, 
 and listened to the father's stories, and the saucy 
 commentaries of the girls, with a happy aban- 
 donment of all authority in consideration of the 
 unusual character of the day. The only thing 
 that brought a momentary shadow over the 
 party was that Walter was not there. 
 
 ' There is no moon to-night, but Wat is off 
 again for one of his walks. I wonder what has 
 made him so fond of walks, just when we want 
 him at home f the girls cried. And then a little 
 mist came over his mother's eyes. She said, 
 ' Hush ! he is probably at his Greek ;' but 
 whether she believed this or not nobody could 
 say. 
 
 Walter, it need scarcely be said, was not at 
 his Greek. He went up the road towards the 
 village with long strides devouring the way, 
 though there was no moon nor any visible 
 inducement. The village was as quiet a spot 
 as could be found in all England. The only
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 285 
 
 lights it showed were in a few cottage windows, 
 or gHmmering from behind the great holly- 
 bushes at the rectory ; a little bit of a straggling 
 street, with an elbow composed of a dozen Kttle 
 houses, low and irregular, which streamed away 
 towards the dark and silent fields, with the 
 church, the natural centre, rising half seen, a 
 dark little tower pointing upward to the clouds. 
 There was scarcely anyone about, or any move- 
 ment save at the public-house, where what was 
 quite an illumination in the absence of other 
 lights — the red glow of the fire, and the reflec- 
 tion of a lamp through a red curtain — streamed 
 out into the road, making one warm and ani- 
 mated spot in the gloom. 
 
 Wat, however, did not go near that centre of 
 rustic entertainment. He stopped at a low wall 
 which surrounded a cottage on the outsku'ts — 
 a cottage which had once been white, and had 
 still a Httle greyness and luminousness of aspect 
 which detached it from the surrounding darkness. 
 A few bristhng dry branches of what was in 
 summer a bit of hedge surrounded the low 
 projection of the wall. Walter paused there,.
 
 286 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 where there was nothing visible to pause for. 
 The night was dark. A confused blank of 
 space, where in daylight the great stretch of the 
 valley lay, was before him, sending from afar a 
 fresh breath of wind into his face, while behind 
 him, in the nearer distance, shone the few 
 cottage lights, culminating in the red glow from 
 the * Penton Arms.' 
 
 What did he want at this corner with his back 
 against the wall ? Nothing, so far as anyone 
 could see. He made no signal, gave forth no 
 sound, save that occasionally his feet made a 
 stir on the beaten path as he changed his 
 position. 
 
 They got tired, but Walter himself was not 
 tired. Presently came the faint sound of a 
 door opening, and a flitting of other feet — light, 
 short steps that scarcely seemed to touch the 
 ground — and then the gate of the little garden 
 clicked, and, heard, not visible, something came 
 out into the road. 
 
 * Oh, are you here again, Mr. Walter ? Why 
 have you come again ? You know I don't want 
 you here.'
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 287 
 
 ' AVhy shouldn't you want me ? I want to come ; 
 it's my pleasure.' 
 
 The voice of the young man had a deeper 
 tone, a manlier bass than its usual youthful 
 lightness coming through the dark, and the 
 great space and freedom of the night. 
 
 ' It's a strange pleasure,' said the other voice. 
 * I should not think it any pleasure were I in 
 your place. If even there was a moon I for 
 people that are fond of the beauties of nature 
 that is always something. But now it is so 
 dark' — there seemed a sort of shiver in the 
 voice. ' The dark is a thing I can't abide, as 
 they say here.' 
 
 * For my part, I hke it best. Come this wa}', 
 where the view is, and you would think you 
 could see it — that is, you can feel it, which is 
 almost more. Don't you know what I mean ? 
 The wind blows from far away ; it comes from 
 miles of space, right out of the sky. You could 
 feel even that the landscape was below you 
 from the feel of the air.' 
 
 ' That is all very pretty,' she said, and this 
 time there was the indication of a yawn in her
 
 288 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 tone, ' but if it is only for the sake of the land- 
 scape, one can see that when it's day, and feel- 
 ing it is a superfluity in the dark. If that was 
 all you came for ' 
 
 ' I did not come for that at all, as you know. 
 I came for — it would be just the same to me if 
 there was no landscape at all, if it was a street 
 corner ' 
 
 ' Under a lamp-post ! Oh, that is my ideal !' 
 with a little clap of her hands. ' What I would 
 give to see a lamp again, a bright clear, big 
 Hght, like Oxford Street or the Circus I You 
 think that vulgar, I know.' 
 
 * Nothing is vulgar if you like it. I should like 
 lamp-posts too if they had associations. I saw 
 plenty of them to-day, and I wished I could 
 have had you there to take you for a walk past 
 the shop windows, since you are so fond of 
 them.' 
 
 ' Oh, the shop-windows ! Don't talk to a poor 
 exile of her native country that she is pining 
 for ! So you were in town ; and what did you 
 see there V 
 
 ' Nothing,' said Wat.
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 289 
 
 'Nothing! — in London! You must be the 
 veiy dullest, or the most obstinate, or prejudiced 
 — Nothing ! why, everything is there I' 
 
 ' You were not there ; that makes all the differ- 
 ence. I kept thinking all the time where I 
 should have found you had you been in London. 
 You never will tell me where you live, or how I 
 can see you when you go back.' 
 
 * I am not going back yet, worse luck,' she 
 said. 
 
 ' But that is no answer. I kept looking out 
 to-day to see if I could find any place which 
 looked as if you might have lived there. The 
 only place I saw like you was in Park Lane, and 
 that, I suppose ' 
 
 ' Park Lane !' she cried, with a suppressed 
 laugh ; ' that was like old Crockford's niece. I 
 could receive all my relations then.' 
 
 ' You are not old Crockford's niece V 
 
 * No, I told you — I am a heroine in trouble,' 
 she said. Her laugh was perhaps a little forced, 
 but if Walter observed that at all it only in- 
 creased the interest and fascination of such a 
 paradox as might have startled a wiser man. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 * And is town very empty V she said. ' But the 
 streets will be gay and the shop windows bright 
 because of Christmas — there is always a little 
 movement before Christmas, and things going 
 on. And to think that I should see nothing — 
 not so much as a pantomime — buried down 
 here !' 
 
 ' I thought most people came to the country 
 for Christmas,' said Wat. 
 
 'Oh, the sw ; why shouldn't I say it 
 
 right out ? — the swells, you mean ; but we are 
 not swells in my place. We enjoy ourselves 
 with all our hearts.' 
 
 ' I am sorry you think it so dull in the coun- 
 try,' said poor Wat. ' I wish you liked it better. 
 If you had been brought up here, like me — but 
 of course that is impossible. Perhaps when you 
 get better used to it ' 
 
 ' I shall never be used to it : I am on the out- 
 look, don't you know? for some one to take me 
 back.' 
 
 * Don't say that,' said Walter, ' it hurts me so. 
 I should like to reconcile you tc this place, to
 
 THE TRIMROSE PATH 291 
 
 make you fond of it, so that you should prefer 
 to stay here.' 
 
 ' With whom ? with old Crockford f she said. 
 
 Walter was very young, and trembled with 
 the great flood of feeling that came over him. 
 ' Oh, if I only had a palace, a castle, anything 
 that was good enough for you ! but I have 
 nothing — nothing you would care for. That is 
 what makes it odious beyond description, what 
 makes it more than I can bear.' 
 
 ' What is more than you can bear T 
 
 ' Losing Penton,' cried the young man ; ' I 
 told you. If Penton were still to be mine I 
 know what I should say. It is not a cottage 
 like Crockford's, nor a poor muddy sort of place 
 Hke the Hook. It is a house worthy even of 
 such as you. But I am like the disinherited 
 knight, I have nothing till I work for it.' 
 
 ' That is a gi-eat pity,' she said ; ' I have seen 
 Penton ; it is a beautiful place. It seems silly, 
 if you have a right to it, to give it up.' 
 
 ' You think so too V he cried ; ' I might have 
 known you w^ould have thought so ; but I am 
 
 u2
 
 292 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 only my father's son, and they don't consult me. 
 If I had anyone to stand by me, I might have 
 resisted — anyone else, whose fortune was bound 
 up in it as well as mine.' 
 
 * Yes : what a pity in that case that you were 
 not married,' she said. 
 
 ' I might be still,' cried Walter, with tremu- 
 lous veheoience, ' if you would have faith in 
 me — if you would forget what I am, a no- 
 body, and think what, with such a hope, I 
 might be.' 
 
 ' I !' there was a sound of mocking in the 
 laughing voice ; ' what have I got to do with it ? 
 What would those great swells at Penton think 
 if they knew you Avere saying such things to 
 old Crockford's niece V 
 
 * It is they who have nothing to do with it.' 
 he cried. ' Do you think if you were to trust 
 me that I should care what they — But oh, 
 don't, don't call yourself so, you know it is not 
 true ; not that it matters if you were. You 
 would to me, all the same, be always yourself, 
 and that means everything that a woman can 
 be.'
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 293 
 
 There was a pause before she repHed, and 
 her voice was a httle softened. 
 
 * They will never know anything about me 
 at Penton, or anywhere else. I have come here 
 in the dark ; you have scarcely seen me in day- 
 light at all, for all you are so silly.' 
 
 'Yes, a hundred times,' cried "Walter. 'Do 
 you think you can go out that I don't see you ? 
 I live about the roads since you have been 
 here.' 
 
 ' It is a pity,' she said, ^\-ith a little sharpness, 
 'that you have nothing better to do ;' then, re- 
 suming her lighter tone, ' If you don't soon 
 begin to do something a httle more practical, 
 how are you ever to be — that somebody which 
 you were offering to me V 
 
 ' It is true,' he said, ' it is true ; but don't 
 blame me. I am going to Oxford next month, 
 and then, if I do not work — ' 
 
 'To Oxford: But that's not work, that's 
 only education,' she cried, with a faint mixture 
 of something like disappointment in her voice. 
 
 ' Education is work ; it opens up everything. 
 It gives a man a name. I have been kept back ;
 
 294 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 but, oh, now, if you will say I may look forward 
 — if you will say I may hope.' 
 
 ' Look forward to what V she said ; * to come 
 up here every evening, and invite me out to 
 talk in the cold at the corner of old Crockford's 
 wall ? I do not mind, for I've nothing else to 
 amuse me now : and you have nothing else to 
 amuse you, so far as I can see ; but presently I 
 shall disappear like a Avill-o'-the-wisp, and what 
 will you look forward to then V 
 
 ' That is what I say,' he said. ' I feel it every 
 day. You will go away, and what am I to do, 
 where am I to find you ? Every morning when 
 I wake it is the first thing I think of — perhaps 
 she may be gone, and not a trace, not an 
 indication left behind, not even a name.' 
 
 ' Oh, it is not so bad as that. You know my 
 name, bnt I tell you always it is a great deal 
 better you should know no more, for what is the 
 use % You are going to Oxford, where you will 
 be for years and years before you can do any- 
 thing. And at present you are the disinherited 
 knight and I am a will-o'-the-wisp. Very well. 
 We play about a little and amuse each other.
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 295 
 
 and then you will ride off and 1 shall dance 
 away.' 
 
 * No, no, no ; for the sake of pity, if not 
 love — ' 
 
 ' What has a will-o'-the -svisp to do with 
 these sort of things, or a young man at college ? 
 At college ! it is only a schoolboy a little 
 bigger. Ride off, ride off, sir disinherited 
 knight ; and, as for me, it's my part to go danc- 
 ing, dancing away.' 
 
 And she was gone, disappearing with no 
 sound but the little click of the gate, the pat 
 of those footsteps which scarcely touched the 
 ground, snatching from him the hand which he 
 had tried to take, the hand which he had never 
 yet been allowed to hold for a moment. He 
 stood for a time at the corner of the wall, 
 tantahsed, tremulous, trying to persuade himself 
 that she was not really gone, that she would 
 appear again, a shadow out of the darkness. 
 This was all he had seen of her except in dis- 
 tant glimpses, although their intercourse had 
 gone so far. He was ready to pledge his life to 
 her, and yet this was all he knew.
 
 296 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 Walter thought to himself as he went slowly 
 down the hill, all thrilling with this interview, that 
 never had there been such a courtship before. 
 He was proud of it, poor boy. There was 
 something rapturous in its strangeness, in the 
 fact that he did not even know her name, 
 nothing but Emmy, which he had heard Martha 
 call her. Emmy did not mean much, yet it was 
 all he knew. He called her in his heart by 
 names out of the poets — Una, Rosalind, Elaine. 
 She was as much a creature of romance as any 
 of them. He dreamt, in those sweet dreams 
 awake which are the privilege of youth, of 
 seeing her flash out upon him from unimaginable 
 surroundings, a princess, a peerless lady, some- 
 thing noble and great, something not to be put 
 on the level of ordinary women. What she 
 was doing in this cottage he scarcely asked 
 himself — she who belonged to so different a 
 sphere. But it was sweet to him to think 
 that his love was so original, unlike that of any- 
 one else. His head was full of an intoxication 
 of pleasure, of pride and wonder. Nobody had 
 ever had such a story. Ah, if he had but
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 297 
 
 Penton to take her home to ! But anyhow he 
 could conquer fortune for the sake of this swee 
 unknoAvn. 
 
 This was how Walter spent his evenings while 
 the others sat round the household lamp. He 
 had the best of it. While Ally was thinking 
 only of the visit to Penton, or at least of nothing 
 else that she allowed even to herself, Wat, only 
 two years older, felt himself standing on the 
 threshold of an illimitable future full of every- 
 thing that was wonderful and sweet. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLU^IE. 
 
 LONDON : PTIINTED BY DUNCAX ALVCDOIfALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
 7
 
 
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