K& 
 
 cxVy; 
 
 i^»i,;\ 
 
 
 
 ^>:^y 
 
 
 i 
 
 K 
 
 S& 
 
 X5 
 
 \K 
 
 
 ^msm^M 
 
 ^ 
 
 x^y 
 
 
 mm 
 
 ^K 
 
 'i^tVil*x\ 
 
 iiml 
 
 ^?SS5

 
 ^*'^^f^ ii^^ywr? K^S^m-' 
 
 ¥^^^^> 5g»*^S^M^
 
 ^ 
 

 
 SAPPHIEA.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/sapphiranovel01tytl
 
 SAPPHIEA, 
 
 Jl Wovel 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH TYTLER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 CiTOYENNE Jacqueline," "Logie Town," &c., &c. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 WARD & DOWNEY, 
 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEiN, LONDON. 
 
 1890.
 
 FEINTED BY 
 
 KELLY AND CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES ; 
 
 AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C.
 
 
 OJ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. — An Unwelcome Visitor . 
 
 II. — The Skeleton in the Cupboard 
 
 III. — A Trial to her Family . • . 
 
 IV. — The " Trial " and some of her doings 
 
 V. — '- Youth at the Prow and Pleasure at 
 THE Helm" .... 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 VI. — The Shadow of the Past 
 VII. — A Rejected Warning 
 VIII. — A Ghastly Shock 
 
 IX. — Flight . . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 24 
 41 
 60 
 
 95 
 125 
 
 156 
 184 
 200
 
 SAPPHIEA.
 
 / 
 
 " His tvife also being privy to it.''
 
 SAPPHIEA 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOE. 
 
 The place was London, the suburb Barnes, 
 the house in a side street, ' a small and 
 shabby one, only relieved from disheart- 
 ening inferiority in every respect by a 
 certain indescribable air of womanly pains 
 and youthful enterprise exercised on its 
 behalf. This was to be seen in the un- 
 blamable cleanness of its window panes, 
 the flawless condition of its window blinds, 
 the old-fashioned country flowers — car- 
 nations, gillyflowers and mignonette, in 
 addition to the stereotyped town gera- 
 niums, calceolarias and heliotrope, in its 
 little garden. The season was early 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 2 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 summer, when sucli a flush of tender 
 green, flaked thickly with apple and 
 chestnut blossoms, was over the land, 
 that it forced its way into the outskirts 
 and even the imier nooks of great towns. 
 The hour was late afternoon, when women's 
 thoughts lightly turn to four o'clock teas, 
 or if they — the women, not the thoughts 
 — are too poor for late dimiers at seven 
 or eight, to high teas with eggs and 
 mutton chops, and sardmes, raspberry 
 jam and marmalade, and the first garden 
 cresses and radishes of the year. 
 
 The little drawing-room, double as a 
 matter of course, was faded yet fresh, 
 faded as to the melancholy lemon -coloured 
 rep and somewhat battered walnut wood, 
 fresh w^ith the perennial devices of a new 
 generation bent on makmg the best of 
 things, on dragging into the scene the 
 fashion of the hour, in a Moorish rug or 
 two and a perilously ingenious arrangement 
 of Japanese fans. These last accessories
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 3 
 
 Tvere matched by the water-colour sketch 
 half-finished on the easel, and the palette, 
 box of colours and array of brushes on 
 an adjoming table ; by the piano littered 
 mth loose sheets of music, and by a jar 
 of marsh mariofolds. Where and how were 
 they got to gleam like fire, in the room of 
 some tamer flower, in that naturally prim 
 and shabby little drawing-room ? Where 
 and how they were got the next railway 
 station could have told. For there the 
 spoils of the fields and the brooks were 
 brought many a mile by the iron horse 
 to meet the aesthetic arcadian shepherdess 
 tastes of the period. 
 
 The company in the room consisted of 
 an elderly and a young woman. The 
 former, wearing a widow's dress and sitting 
 in a low wicker chair, was knitting with 
 a never-ceasing monotony exasperating to 
 some constitutions. The young woman 
 was up and down, out and in, now 
 painting at her easel for ten minutes, 
 
 1-2
 
 4 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 now reading for a snatch, now idly waving 
 one of the Japanese fans to and fro, 
 though the heat was not excessive, and 
 aofain re-arranoinjT the marsh marie^olds 
 which needed no re -arrangement. All was 
 done after the manner of a young woman ; 
 indeed, rather more vehemently after the 
 manner than is usual in an age which 
 is balanced very nicely, where girls are 
 concerned, between frantic effort and per- 
 petual motion on the one hand and dolce 
 far niente on the other. The mother and 
 daughter were a graphic commentary on 
 the poet's definition : 
 
 " The young heart hot and restless, 
 The old subdued and slow." 
 
 Yet was the commentary real or only 
 seeming ? Was the old heart subdued and 
 slow, or was it the more scorchingly hot, 
 the more desperately reckless of the two ? 
 Was it just kept still in the long fever of 
 life by an enforced occupation like that 
 which made the thin bloodless -looking
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 5 
 
 hands keep ceaselessly click -clicking the 
 knitting needles, hardly pausing save to 
 draw out one needle and put in another ? 
 What do some quiet domestic elderly 
 women wdio are never to be seen without 
 an endless, more or less useless, frequently 
 utterly unattractive piece of knitting, or 
 netting, or embroidery, knit or net or em- 
 broider into that resource of their declininof 
 years ? Does each loop or stitch catch 
 up and hold fast a tender memory, or a 
 stern resolution, or a gnawdng regret ? Is 
 such women's w^ork their way of cherish- 
 ino^ the last reflection of the lis^ht of 
 other days, of bracing up their courage 
 to the end, of stamping down care and 
 anguish ? Men would flee from the past 
 in a wild flight over land and sea. They 
 would deaden remembrance by a noisy 
 whirl of out-of-door sports, or a heavy 
 pressure of pubhc engagements. They 
 would drown care in a rao^ino^ flood of 
 dissipation, or drug it with chloral, or
 
 6 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 with some, to the bodily eyes, still surer 
 and more lasting means of stupefaction. 
 But there are women who have had no 
 choice save to knit or stitch ceaselessly 
 to keep them from crying out in their 
 misery. 
 
 These two women were mother and 
 daughter, though there was hardly a 
 particle of resemblance between the pair. 
 Perhaps it would have been difficult to 
 trace much resemblance between the elder 
 woman and the member of a younger 
 generation, or to recall clearly how the 
 matron had looked as a maid. It was 
 not that she was so old that every indi- 
 vidual trait was lost in a wrinkled mask 
 which stood for age and age alone. She 
 could not have been far above sixty 
 years, but hers was one of the faces 
 which had blanched and set and grown 
 inscrutable in the struggle of existence. 
 Of course it was possible to draw a 
 few cursory inferences. The nose must
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 7 
 
 always have been aquiline. The eyes 
 could never have been anything else in 
 colour than a greyish blue. The faded 
 complexion showed traces of having been 
 fair, in keeping with the threads of dull 
 golden auburn which lingered among the 
 dead silver of the hair almost concealed 
 by the cap. The pale lips drawn tightly 
 over teeth which were still white and 
 even, and without a gap, must always 
 have been firm lips. But whether they 
 had ever unbent like the bow of Cupid ; 
 whether the eyes, which had a certain 
 cold stoniness in them, the result of a 
 score of years' repression of their true 
 meaning, had ever flashed or danced ; the 
 hair, now drawn back in the straightest 
 of narrow braids, ever curled and 
 waved ; the wan, spare cheek ever flushed 
 in rounded softness, not many people 
 would have ventured to say. None of 
 the lady's children could have told. The 
 two elder of the three did remember
 
 8 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 something different in lier, something so 
 widely different that it had made an in- 
 delible impression even on their childish 
 minds, and they had naturally associated 
 it with their father's death and the 
 family misfortunes which soon after befell 
 them. But whether that former mother, 
 whom they could only dimly remember 
 while still in the pride and j^rime of life, 
 was bloommg and gay like other young 
 wives and mothers, untouched by dire 
 disaster, her only son and her elder 
 daughter could never, somehow, distinctly 
 establish, either to their own or to other 
 people's satisfaction. All they could 
 testify was that their mother, though she 
 might be grave and strict even then, was 
 another woman in those days from what 
 they knew her in later years. 
 
 The girl who was with Mrs. Baldwin in 
 the drawing-room of her house at Barnes 
 was her younger daughter, about twenty- 
 one years of age. Georgie Baldwin was
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 9 
 
 rather given to stating the fact, and an- 
 nouncing that she was major, not with 
 any pride either in her age or her inde- 
 pendence, rather with a merry ruefuhiess 
 at having attained such a useless dignity. 
 Other girls were allowed to have each her 
 own ball, long before she was twenty-one, 
 on her eighteenth birthday, which was a 
 woman's real majority, when she came 
 out m society and was presented to the 
 Queen, if she were fortunate enough to be 
 entitled to come out and to be presented 
 to her gracious sovereign. All the Scrope 
 girls, Susie and Stella and Sophy, had 
 come out, been presented to her Majesty 
 by the wife of the Lord Lieutenant of 
 their county, and each enjoyed the pecuhar 
 glories and delights of her own ball — 
 granted that it was but a country-house 
 ball of which she was queen. Then there 
 were other girls, like Georgie's own sister 
 Agnes and some of her friends, who had 
 achieved wonders of work, written poetry
 
 10 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 and stories — ay, and sold their lucubra- 
 tions to willing publishers — painted pictures 
 and exhibited them, passed examinations 
 and gained scholarships, if they did not 
 take degrees, and become full-fledged 
 schoolmistresses by the time they were 
 twenty-one. But as for poor Georgie, in 
 her opinion she might as well have been 
 twelve or fourteen. She had received no 
 promotion, basked in no joy befitting her 
 years, neither toiled like a young slave 
 nor by sheer genius done any noteworthy 
 deed, which would have been more to the 
 purpose. In addition she did not beheve 
 she would ever do anything worth record 
 ing. She was not sure that the collapse 
 was not in a measure that enthusiastic, 
 provoking Agnes's fault ; but whoever 
 was to blame, there the matter re- 
 mained. 
 
 Georgie Baldwin was a dainty, plump 
 little girl, a warm red and brown brunette 
 with honest if somewhat round dark hazel
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 11 
 
 eyes, a frank open white forehead un- 
 sinned against by a fringe, since the 
 pretty fluff of her silky brown hair was 
 brushed and clustered back from her 
 temples and round her small ears, instead 
 of combed down defiantly, or standing 
 out aggressively in tangles over the seat 
 of mtellect. Georgie's mouth was apt 
 to be open like a child's — not that she 
 gaped and looked silly ; it was simply the 
 innocent parting of two pouting red lips 
 between which pearly teeth gleamed ; so 
 far from looking silly she had an almost 
 exaggerated expression of sound common- 
 sense and homely wisdom. It lent her an 
 old-world, old woman air which sat wonder- 
 fully well, with a kind of quaint grace, on 
 her youth and bloom. Somehow the ex- 
 pression seemed to have to do with the 
 defect of Georgie's exceedingly comely, 
 comfortable -looking face. This was a 
 shght heaviness and tendency to square- 
 ness of the jaw, which one forgot in the
 
 12 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 dimple in the chin that corresponded with 
 another and deeper dimple going and 
 commg in the left cheek. Tell it not in 
 Gath, there was something in Georgie 
 Baldwin's face which to a student of 
 faces mio^ht have recalled the earlier Ger- 
 man Georges as they were when they 
 were ruddy, not unhandsome lads, when 
 the second Georo-e made his horse swim 
 
 a 
 
 the rushing river on the chance of greet 
 ing his unhappy mother in her fortress 
 prison, and when he was the hero of 
 Fontenoy; when the third George turned 
 resolutely from beautiful Lady Sarah 
 Lennox and was a faithful prince and 
 loyal gentleman to his plain httle princess. 
 By association one was reminded of the 
 unpretendmg sagacity and the lack of 
 implacability which, in the absence of more 
 romantic and shining qualities, were 
 marked attributes of the Electress Sophia 
 and her immediate descendants, standing 
 them in good stead and causing them in
 
 AN unwj:lcome visitor. 13 
 
 the end to defeat and supplant the gal- 
 lant, vmdictive, unpractical Stuarts. 
 
 Georgia Baldwin was simply but very 
 nicely dressed in a style not altogether in 
 accordance with her surroundmgs. For it 
 is not girls living in shabby ten -roomed 
 houses which require but a single unsophis- 
 ticated maid-servant to keep them in order 
 and to send up an early breakfast, an early 
 dinner and a high tea, instead of the ortho- 
 dox meals, who, as a rule, wear delicately- 
 coloured washing frocks. These perfectly 
 simple frocks, to the uninitiated, mean a 
 good dressmaker to contrive their exquisite 
 simphcity, and a considerable contribution 
 to the laundress's bill to preserve the 
 freshness of her young employer's toilet. 
 Girls who live in ten, not to say in 
 two, roomed houses have to renounce 
 many pleasant thmgs — cool fresh summer 
 frocks among the rest, or else if they 
 aspire to coolness they must find it 
 in sober -coloured beiges and bareges.
 
 14 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Georgie's slippers, if not manufactured by 
 a Pinnet among slipper-makers, were of 
 the softest, finest kid, of the latest 
 shape, with the most ravishing combina- 
 tion of buckles and rosettes all but 
 effacing her shapely feet. Her pocket- 
 handkerchief was of fine cambric with 
 her monogram worked in unsurjDas sable 
 embroidery. Either Miss Georgie Baldwin 
 must be an imprudent, inconsiderate little 
 person, and she did not look in the least 
 like it, or she must dress at the insti- 
 gation and under the control of somebody 
 who thou^fht few thino^s within reasonable 
 Hmits too good for her. 
 
 " Mother," said Georgie, suddenly 
 breakmg the silence, as she began anew 
 to arrange the marsh marigolds at her 
 elbow, "the cowslips and the meadow 
 orchises must be in bloom all around 
 Brackengill now." 
 
 Mrs. Baldwin started at being thus 
 roused from a reverie. " What do you
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOE. 15 
 
 remember about Brackengill, Georgie ? " 
 she demanded in a tone which held a 
 suspended reproof ; " you, a mere child 
 when we left and went to Sheffield." 
 She glanced reproachfully at Georgie as 
 much as to say, " Why do you pretend 
 to an interest you cannot feel for a 
 place which can have made no endearing 
 impression on your childish memory ? " 
 All the time her patient fingers never 
 intermitted the movement of knitting. 
 It was not a transitory stocking she was 
 engaged upon, it was one of the endless 
 squares which when combined were to 
 form some huge everlasting piece of knitted 
 work. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't remember of course," 
 said Georgie carelessly ; " but I have heard 
 Pat and Agnes and the Scropes speak 
 of it, and as long as Tweedside Jeannie 
 was alive to come and see us, she used 
 to describe the meadows with the hunts 
 for ' daffies ' and the gathering of the
 
 16 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 cowslips to make wine ; she had still 
 more to say about the fells and the 
 berries among the heather. It sounds so 
 tempting when the warm weather is set- 
 ting in. Shouldn't you like to go back 
 and see Brackengill again, mother ? 
 Then I could learn to know what father's 
 place — where we were all born — is hke." 
 " No," said Mrs. Baldwin, so abruptly 
 and harshly that it caused her daughter 
 to look up in amazement. Mrs. Baldwin, 
 though a cold stiff woman, even to her 
 children since they were grown up, was 
 not wont to be irritable or petulant. 
 Her tone cooled down in an instant, while 
 she grasped her knitting and turned her 
 square to work the other side. " I dare- 
 say it is natural for you to have some 
 curiosity about your native place and 
 your friends the Scropes' neighbourhood," 
 she proceeded to say quickly ; "at the 
 same time you are old enough to under- 
 stand that Brackengill, which ought to
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 17 
 
 have been your brother's — which had to 
 be sold long before he could have any 
 voice in the sale — may have painful as- 
 sociations for some of us." 
 
 " I am sorry if I have hurt you, 
 mother," said the girl frankly and yet 
 with a certain reserve. For it was 
 nearly eighteen years since her father's 
 death, and almost as lonof since Bracken- 
 gill, a north county property of no 
 great extent or value, was "sold out of 
 the family, beyond any hope of Pat 
 Baldwin's succeeding to it. What could 
 Pat have done with it if he had got it, 
 since he had been educated as a doctor 
 and could not withdraw into the wilder- 
 ness ^dth the expectation of finding 
 patients there ? If the thing lamented 
 over had been the great manufacturing 
 firm which had come to grief in which 
 Georgie's father had been a partner, 
 when the partners ranked with the 
 smaller country gentry, there would have 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 18 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 been a little more sense in the lamenta- 
 tion. To that rampant common- sense 
 and fan' judgment of Georgie's it appeared 
 more far-fetched and fantastical on her 
 mother's part to resent any allusion to 
 Brackengill and decline to pay it a fly- 
 ing visit than it had been for her, 
 Georgie, to cherish a girl's sentimental 
 regard for the spot of her nativity and 
 a pressing wish to make its acquamtance. 
 
 At that instant a tap at the door 
 heralded the entrance on the scene of 
 the Baldwins' solitary maid-servant, a 
 sharp supercihous young Londoner. She 
 was not ordmarily astonished or put out 
 at anything, but at this moment she 
 looked both perplexed and aggrieved. 
 
 "It is the old man again, ma'am, the 
 old serving-man as he calls hisself. I 
 tried to get him to call to mmd that 
 he was here last week, and the week 
 before that, and that no lady, let alone 
 no servant, would put up with such con-
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOK. 19 
 
 stant coming and sitting in lier kitchen, 
 but it were no use, he would come in 
 and see you." 
 
 '^ I'll see him," said Mrs. Baldwin with 
 a long-drawn breath, rising slowly ; '' I've 
 always seen Tweedside Johmiie. Since he 
 lost his poor wife he has been more 
 pressing and tiresome in his visits, but 
 it is not for me to drive him away. He 
 was an old servant of mine and my 
 husband's, and the creature is in his dot- 
 age, utterly in his dotage." She spoke 
 half apologetically, partly to Georgie, 
 partly to Selina, who still lingered on 
 the threshold, with a manifest expression 
 of injury in her attitude. 
 
 As for Mrs. Baldwin she looked stiffer 
 and wanner and more drearily mechani- 
 cal and monotonous m her actions than 
 ever. She still grasped her bit of knit- 
 ting as if she could not let it go. Was 
 it like a spell which at once bound her 
 and reassured her ? Had she come to
 
 20 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 view it in the light of Penelope's web ? 
 Had she knitted into it nightmare visions 
 and desperate resolutions, fainting hopes 
 and haunting fears, as the Tricoteuses 
 knitted their victims' crimes and the re- 
 tribution which was awaiting them at the 
 supreme crisis of the Great Revolution. 
 
 "Don't go, mother," cried Georgie 
 energetically ; " you are always the worse 
 of seeing this foolish old man. Why 
 should you be knocked up by yielding 
 to his importunity ? I should say it was 
 as bad for you as gomg back to Bracken- 
 gill without any of the indemnifications. 
 It is intolerable to have him pester you 
 in this way. Let me speak to him, if 
 he will see one of the family. We must 
 get Sam Scrope to interfere, threaten him 
 with the law and rid you of the nuisance." 
 
 " Not on any account, Georgie," her 
 mother turned round to forbid her 
 angrily. "What are you thinking of? 
 I can manage my own affairs without
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOK. 21 
 
 the aid of my daughter, not to say of 
 any Scrope among them. See that every - 
 thino: is rio'ht for Ames when she 
 comes in fagged from her long day at 
 the Museum and the offices where she 
 meant to calL That will be more like 
 making yourself of use than meddling m 
 trifles and proposing to put down a weak 
 old man.'' 
 
 Mrs. Baldwin was fairly roused from 
 her chronic apathy, and Georgie, with 
 her natural shrewdness, was rather re- 
 lieved to see it, though the rousing had 
 brought down a storm on her devoted 
 head. " Poor mother, life is dull and 
 stagnant for her, and she gets more self- 
 absorbed and unlike other people every 
 day. She makes no new friends and sees 
 no old ones. She neither goes to church 
 nor market, as they say in the north, 
 neither to say her prayers nor to go 
 about the business of her housekeeping. 
 How can she be well, though she makes
 
 22 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 no complaint of bodily illness ? How 
 can she fail to grow like a ghost or a 
 mummy ? Why she should put herself 
 about to coax and soothe that idiot of an 
 old Scotchman just because he happened 
 to be in our service a score of years ago, 
 I cannot make out. I suppose Selina 
 thinks it very queer, and v^^ill give warn- 
 ing presently because we are not like 
 other people. Well, Selina is not a trea- 
 sure, but she is respectable, and can look 
 after herself, while there was Marianne 
 who went to the corner to talk to the 
 potman and came in on Sunday evenings 
 smelling of gin ; and there was Bessie 
 who could not venture alone, after six 
 o'clock, to the post office, and cried 
 because the butcher's boy chaffed her. 
 Then as to having things right for Agnes, 
 I get little credit or thanks from the 
 object of my attentions. Agnes will be 
 equally well pleased to eat her chop over- 
 done or under-done ; she will not notice
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 23 
 
 whether her egg is new-laid or stale, she 
 will swallow it with a cheerful, philo- 
 sophic smile, the one way or the other. 
 And with regard to the tea's being over- 
 drawn, she will be so busy tellmg her 
 adventures and claiming our sympathy, 
 that she will drain the teapot without the 
 slightest respect for her nerves." 
 
 Greorgie shook her head in strong dis- 
 approbation. " Good food is wasted on 
 Agnes," she wound up her reflections, " so 
 is an attentive, affectionate sister, a young 
 woman w^ho hates to be a humbug, who 
 while she knows she will never set the 
 Thames on fire either by painting or any- 
 thing else — such as having clever, sen- 
 sible men dying for love of her — has yet 
 no mind to be treated as a doll or as a 
 baby. I can tell you it is no pleasure 
 for her to be put on a pedestal and 
 waited on all her days." Georgie threw 
 herself back in her chair with a gesture 
 of mingled amusement and indignation.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 
 
 When Mrs. Baldwin left the drawing- 
 room she knew where to go. There was 
 no waiting-room for servants or trades- 
 men, no fair-sized hall m such a house. 
 The little square landing-place, which was 
 dignified by the name of hall, was the 
 most public spot of all, liable to per- 
 petual interruptions and uninvited audiences. 
 These were made up of everybody who 
 came to the street door, as well as of the 
 different members of the household pass- 
 ing to and fro. Every messenger who 
 desired speech with the mistress of the 
 family or her subordinates, every patient 
 which a dispensary in the neighbourhood 
 sent to Dr. Patrick Baldwm, since his 
 return from Paris, where he had com-
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOAKD. 25 
 
 pleted liis medical studies, was ushered 
 into the small dining-room, to which Mrs. 
 Baldwin betook herself. 
 
 When she was at the door she drew 
 back for a moment, shifted the knitting 
 which, with its ball, she held in her right 
 hand, to her left, in order to pull out her 
 handkerchief and pass it over her heated 
 face, yet her sluggish blood was m general 
 little aifected by her movements. 
 
 The opening of the door disclosed an 
 old man so short and broad as to be 
 almost dwarfish, with bandy legs and a 
 face shrunken and skin -dried. He wore 
 an old-fashioned decent suit, not a groom's 
 Hvery, but just such a browny -black coat 
 and trousers as a respectable working-man 
 of any kind might have donned on occa- 
 sions of ceremony. The clothes had not 
 only a highly respectable aspect, they 
 lent to the wearer a slightly solemn and 
 funereal air which might have become a 
 grave-digger or that ancient official of a
 
 26 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Scotch kirk who united in his grimly- 
 respectable person the functions of 
 " bethrel " and " minister's man." 
 
 The irrepressible old man looked sub- 
 dued enough as he stood by the dining- 
 room door, holding his tall hat in one 
 bony hand and furtively smoothing the 
 scanty nap with the trembling fingers 
 of the other. His uncovered head was 
 bald, except for a fringe of russet hair 
 behind the large ears, the deficiency of 
 hair accentuating the high narrow fore- 
 head to an impressive extent. Otherwise 
 there was nothing out of the common in 
 a small-featured face covered with minute 
 creases, unless in the degree to which the 
 nearly toothless mouth had fallen in, and 
 in the shifting, wandering expression of the 
 rheumy pale blue eyes. These last details 
 combined to add a scared attribute to 
 what was, clearly enough, the growmg 
 fatuity of second childhood. 
 
 Mrs. Baldwin advanced calmly and
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 27 
 
 kindly to her visitor : "So you have 
 come again to see me, Johnnie," she said 
 quietly ; " that is good of you ; but is not 
 the road too far for you now that the 
 weather is gettmg hot, especially since 
 poor Jeannie is gone, and you have nobody 
 at home to look after you when you re- 
 turn tired out ? " 
 
 " I couldna help myself, mem," said 
 the old man with a quaver in the 
 piping voice, which, however, could not 
 break down the childish " dortiness" 
 (huffiness) and dourness in the tones ; 
 "I but to come. Them that sent 
 me would not tarry or be denied." 
 
 " Then, of course, there was no way 
 out of it," she said, as if humouring him. 
 " But you must tell me, Johnnie, why 
 you would not stay in the nice peaceful 
 retreat for lonely old men like you, to 
 which Mr. Scrope got you admission. 
 He told me all about it, and it sounded 
 restful and comfortable, even social.
 
 23 SAPPHIKA. 
 
 There were companions of your own age 
 and standing, witli whom you might 
 have had a smoke and a ' crack,' as 
 they call it in Scotland, when you liked : 
 the very thing you want now that 
 Jeannie is gone." 
 
 "Weel, I will not pretend that I have 
 aught to say against the awmshouse," 
 said Johnnie somewhat shamefacedly, at 
 the same time contumaciously. " Least 
 said is sunest mended. But sin' you've 
 asked me, I'll tell you^ mem, what I 
 could not repeat to Maister Sam Scrope, 
 not for a wee, till the secret's out : I 
 could not bide with innocent undreading 
 folk ; you ken, mem, it could not be. It 
 would be the story of Joney in the ship 
 over again. The awmshouse might have 
 fa'n about our heads, and smoored us, 
 or the yird opened and swallowed the 
 whole lot." 
 
 There was a slight rustle of her 
 widow's dress, as if she involuntarily
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 29 
 
 shrank back from his resolute appeal to 
 her knowledge of the impossibility of 
 the association. What she said aloud 
 was simply a mild persuasive protest. 
 " There was no need for you to stay, 
 if you did not wdsh it, of course ; no- 
 body w^ould have had you remain against 
 your will. Only, you see all things are 
 so changed with me that I cannot 
 pension a faithful old servant, or keep 
 him here, under my roof, in his old age. 
 I regarded Mr. Scrope's proposal as 
 worth thinking of. But what am I 
 thinking of ? I can at least take care 
 that you rest and have something to 
 refresh you, after you have come so far 
 to see your old mistress. Take that 
 chair, Johnnie, and I'll ring for Selina 
 the maid -servant to bring in a tray, 
 with some cold meat and bread and beer. 
 We have as much as that at our dis- 
 posal still ; you can eat and drink while 
 we are having our talk together."
 
 30 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " Not a bite, not a sup," cried Johnnie 
 with spasmodic energy, tottering to his 
 feet. " Was it sorning on you that you 
 thocht I was after ? On you who have 
 had to come down in the world to this 
 miserable bit hoosie and a single lass of 
 a maid, after Brackengill and its stawf 
 of servants, cook, and dairy and laundry 
 maid, and three idle tawpies of nurse- 
 maids and parlour-maids, forby me in the 
 stable, and Matthy at the sideboard and 
 in the pantry, and Willam m the gar- 
 den, and you wi' your carriage and a' 
 your orders. Eh I sirs, it was a grand 
 time, and iniquity has not prospered with 
 us. But give me my due, mem ; did I 
 ever ask plack or penny from you, after 
 the crash, beyond the sum you gifted us 
 with, when it was still, by comparison, 
 fair sailin', because we had stood by you 
 in your hoor of tribulation, you were 
 condescending enough to say. Jeannie 
 woold aye threep that you should have
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 31 
 
 kept US on wine and wa'nuts from that 
 day, because of the risk we ran, but I 
 never thought sae. I ca' heaven to 
 witness that I would not have touched 
 a curran' o' yours and the young gentle- 
 man and leddies, after you had no 
 wealth o' curran' s to spare. Jean was 
 a clever, hard-working lass in her day, 
 but she had aye an awfu' grip of the 
 world's gear." 
 
 "Hush! Johnnie, she is" gone where 
 we must all follow to render our account 
 and receive our wages," said Mrs. Baldwin 
 with a shiver. " Sit down again and do 
 not speak so loud," for the old man's 
 voice had been rising beyond his control 
 and ringing shrilly through the room. 
 '' People will think we are quarrelhng, and 
 I am sure we never quarrel," finished the 
 poor lady with a famt attempt at a smile. 
 
 " Xo, we've not quarrelled yet^ Mistress 
 Baldwin," old Johmiie said with a mean- 
 ing, well-nigh a mocking, emphasis : "I
 
 32 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 say not what sail be, and the errand I hae 
 to deliver is better done standing. I saw 
 him again yestreen, mem, as plain as a 
 pike-stawf; and he but to have it all 
 cleared up and put richt without further 
 loss of time. He speered for his body claes 
 and would have them, though they were 
 all dreeping weet out of the water. He 
 would put them on agam, and lie down 
 on the girse, by the pond, where you 
 mind we straiket him first." 
 
 "Johnnie, Johnnie," exclaimed his old 
 mistress, grasping the back of a chair to 
 steady herself, " you are distraught ; you 
 were dreaming." 
 
 " I'm as wise as you are, and I was 
 dreaming nane," said Johnnie doggedly ; 
 " what is mair, Jean was at his back, she 
 who had aye bidden me hold my tongue, 
 and no be a gammy-leerie. She couldna' 
 speak, for she was in some sort o' torture, 
 but she beckoned to me that she had got 
 mair licht in the place o' darkness, and
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 33 
 
 that it but to be proclaimed at kirk and 
 market that he hadna' deed fair, and that 
 the company would have been harried 
 out o' a heap of money, if they had not 
 broken in their turn. I trow it was part 
 of Avhat was counted on from them that 
 fell to her and me in yon giftie you 
 gied us, the night o' the funeral. The 
 maist feck o't is spent lang syne, for it 
 was not like honest money. It was ill- 
 gotten gear, and it brunt holes in our 
 pockets and took wmgs, or else it lay and 
 cankered awa'. I cannot richtly say it 
 bred another farthing, and I do not want 
 to keep what is left o' the blude money — 
 'deed, it was little better — no a nicht longer, 
 either in my box or in the bank. I drew 
 out what was still m the bank on my 
 road here. Maybe I'll sleep sounder when 
 I hae nae mair to do with the accursed 
 thhig." He fumbled feebly in his pocket, 
 drew forth a small canvas bag with a 
 
 strmg knotted round the neck, and put it 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 down with a little clash on the table 
 before Mrs. Baldwin. " There is what 
 remams of your giftie back to you, mem ; 
 I could wish I had never seen its face. 
 Muckle gude may it do you, and as for 
 what is wanting of the original sum 
 you'll assoilzie me, sin' you are a leddy 
 and we were but working bodies, a serv- 
 ing-man and his wife not over careful, 
 having no wean to fend for, Avi' nothmg 
 laid by, and often enough in straits for 
 money." 
 
 " Nonsense, Johnnie," said Mrs. Bald- 
 win, pushing back the little bag and making 
 a great effort to keep calm, " you have 
 been talking no end of nonsense this after- 
 noon ; I think the unusual heat for the 
 season must have affected your head. You 
 did very wrong to prevent me from rmging 
 for the servant to bring you food and 
 drink ; you are perfectly entitled to that 
 money — not more than fifty pounds to 
 begin with. You saw me — it is an old
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 35 
 
 story now, but you have a good memory, 
 like most pe )ple up in years, for old stories 
 — you saw me give all the servants some- 
 thing in addition to their wages, to make 
 up for any disappointment they might 
 feel at being dismissed. Mr. Baldwin had 
 not made a provision for them in his 
 will, and as you judge, correctly enough, 
 I was under the impression at the time 
 that the family would be provided for by 
 the insurance company, which failed before 
 we could realize Mr. Baldwin's insurance. 
 At the same time I was sensible, even 
 before we had met with further losses, 
 that it would not be in my power to keep 
 up the old establishment when the head 
 was gone, and the firm to which he had 
 belonged Avas in difficulties and in the act 
 of being wound up. You and Jeannie 
 were among the oldest of my servants — 
 his servants before you were mine. I do 
 not deny — I shall never forget that you 
 did — what we thought best, in trying cir-
 
 36 SAPPHIKA. 
 
 cumstances. As it happened it injured 
 nobody — unless it might be ourselves. 
 How are you to pay for your room when 
 that money is gone ? What would 
 Jeannie have thought of your thus madly 
 flinging back my money in my face, at 
 your age and mme ? Jeannie was always 
 good to me, and sorry for me." The 
 speaker pressed her hand to her side, 
 and leant wearily against the table. 
 
 The appeal took. The old man blenched 
 in his fiery zeal to atone, and looked a 
 trifle uncertain. " It was not to hurt 
 you," he said slowly, " that I was fain 
 to confess. You were not a hard mis- 
 tress, Jean aye said sae. You were ever 
 over-indulgent and free-handed, in your 
 proud quiet way. It was to do his 
 bidding, his and Jeannie's, that I came 
 here to-day." 
 
 " Then you'll do my bidding once 
 more, Johnnie, mine and Jeannie's, as she 
 spoke to you in her lifetime. Do you
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. 37 
 
 think she Avould have died without a 
 word to YOU or me, if she had made up 
 her mind to expose, at this date, what 
 has long been hidden and forgotten, what 
 had better be hushed up, till it ir, lost in 
 the eternal silence which is not far off 
 from every mortal deed, whatever the 
 outcry at the moment ? There were but 
 three in the secret to begin with ; there 
 are only two now, an old man and 
 a woman not so much younger, far on 
 their way to their graves. Nobody was 
 hurt or harried by the wrong done, 
 Johnnie ; God made that straight long be- 
 fore the year was out. They who sowed 
 the wind reaped the whirlwind, their fit 
 portion, that was all ; not a living creature 
 would be benefited, while more than one 
 or two innocent sufferers would be 
 wounded to the quick, ay, hurt to death, 
 it may be, and dragged through the mire, 
 were you to tell the tale you seek to 
 tell. You owned I never harmed you
 
 S3 SAPPIIIRA. 
 
 before or since, that I was your friend 
 rather, and my children are your old master's 
 children ; is it in the heart of man to be 
 so pitiless and cruel as to ruin us and 
 break our hearts after all these years ? " 
 He stood dumb and abashed. His 
 passion had spent itself. Besides he was 
 beginning to experience all the exhaus- 
 tion of his long walk. That his old 
 mistress should thus plead to him was 
 more than he could comprehend and 
 endure. When he had been a younger 
 man, though already faihng m mind and 
 body, when he was first seized with the 
 fever fit of making amends and at once 
 clearing his conscience, and gratifying 
 the diseased egotism which magnified 
 the offence and his share m it, she had 
 for the most part defied him. She had 
 been secure in the strength of mind of 
 his wife and the weakness of his will, 
 which had fitted him for a tool in the 
 past, and lent an abjectness to his service.
 
 THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOAED. 39 
 
 Tweedside Jeannie, the ruling spirit of 
 the pair, would never in her lifetime 
 have permitted the horrible collapse which 
 was threatened. But now that stout ally 
 was laid low, the strange abnormal 
 streno'th of madness, showino- itself in 
 the senile delusions of age, was ready to 
 break down all barriers, and to reduce 
 the former mistress and the tottering 
 wreck of her former servant to such a 
 level as they had never occupied in all 
 their former dealings. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, Johnnie," she said 
 as her last argument, " I'll free you from 
 this money, the burden of which seems 
 to be plaguing you without reason. But 
 you must allow me to write and send 
 postal orders to your landlady, to provide 
 for your board and lodging, so that your 
 mind and mine may be easy on that score. 
 Will that do ? Will you agree to that 
 compromise, and to taking a meal which 
 I shall send in for you here, before you
 
 40 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 attempt to make your way back to Hol- 
 born ? " 
 
 He was so bewildered, so tired and faint 
 all of a sudden, that be submitted, even 
 though he qualified his submission by 
 saying doubtfully he would try, he would 
 let the matter a-be for a bit, till he saw 
 if any more instructions came to him. He 
 did not wish to harm her. Jeannie had 
 always said she was a by ordmary hberal 
 ^' mensefu' mistress." 
 
 The danger was escaped for the moment. 
 Mrs. Baldwin dragged her heavy feet to 
 her bedroom — the most cheerful room, 
 with the nearest to luxury in its appoint- 
 ments, in the whole house. The setting 
 sun was flooding it with rosy light. She 
 seated herself in the red glow, throwing 
 down the knitting which she had grasped 
 till then, and covering her white worn face 
 with her cold shaking hands. "Oh, God," she 
 cried, " will the long, long day ever be done ? 
 Will night and darkness never come ? "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 
 
 Georgie Baldwin sat or rather flitted 
 here and there till a familiar ring brought 
 her the solace of company, particularly ac- 
 ceptable to her social nature. The company 
 came in the shape of her brother Pat, the 
 medical student, who had recently passed 
 his examinations and, after a term of 
 study in Paris, taken his degree. He 
 was off the irons at last, as he expressed 
 it, and trymg to get a post in comiection 
 with one of the London hospitals, in 
 default of buymg a practice, to which 
 there was the serious obstacle that he had 
 no money wherewith to make the purchase. 
 Pat was as like Georgie as a bearded man 
 a year and a half her senior could resemble 
 a young girl. Georgie had the advantage
 
 42 SAP PHI R A. 
 
 of her brother m looks. The deficiency 
 in size, which was in mascuhne proportion, 
 told worse with him than with her, and 
 was not compensated for in the man's case 
 by the comfortable plumpness which ac- 
 companied it. He ran the risk of being 
 " little Baldwin " with all his male and 
 the more unscrupulous of his female ac- 
 quaintances, while his warm brunette 
 complexion exposed him to the censure 
 from his less blooming companions of 
 havino; ''a red and white face like a trirl's." 
 Still it was a pleasant, wholesome, comely 
 face, with just the same indications of 
 good common- sense in lieu of the flighty 
 aberrations of genius, or of so-called 
 genius, as were present in Georgie's face. 
 If there were lurking laziness and love 
 of pleasure in the curves of the mobile 
 mouth, the same signs were not absent from 
 Georgie's mouth, and in both cases they were 
 balanced by the honest eyes and the square 
 determination of the lower part of the face.
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 43 
 
 " That doting old Tweedside Johnnie has 
 called again," complained Georgie to the 
 ■first sympathetic ear, " and mother would 
 go and see him." 
 
 " The miconscionable rascal," said Pat 
 Avith unhesitating decision, "he should be 
 sat upon ; however, the mother seems 
 inclined to gratify him. Perhaps she likes 
 the job. There is no accounting for 
 women's tastes, especially when there is 
 something dismal to be encountered. By 
 the way, I wanted a private talk with you, 
 Georgie, and now is the time." He flung 
 himself doA^m on a couch and clasped his 
 hands behind his dark curly head. 
 
 Georgie showed the perfect composure 
 of entire innocence, even when she asked, 
 '* What have I been doing ? What is it ? 
 Stop, Pat," she interrupted herself and 
 not her brother, " will your unruly 
 appetite wait till Agnes comes in ? Can 
 nature o^o on endurino^ the vacuum, which 
 you are always telhng me she hates, till
 
 44 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 that important personage who rules our 
 destinies, and lays down the law for 
 meal times as well as for everything else, 
 makes her ap|)earance ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I can wait," said Pat with 
 a nod, " especially as I am gomg to utilize 
 the time hy cross-questioning you." 
 
 " Then you had better be quick about 
 it, for I hear the wheels of her chariot — 
 that is, I see it is about the hour for the 
 arrival of the six o'clock omnibus, and 
 Agnes rarely keeps us waiting for the next 
 'bus — ' to give the Deil his due.' " 
 
 " I want particularly to know, Georgie," 
 demanded Pat, sittmg bolt upright, looking 
 very much in earnest and going straight 
 to the point, " why I was not told when 
 Foster and Buhner made their last pay- 
 ment of the allowance and announced that 
 the wmdmg up of the old firm, which had 
 lasted long enough, I grant you, had at 
 last come to an end ? Why was I not 
 sent for at once to come directly home, in
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 45 
 
 place of kicking my heels and amusing 
 myself for three months longer in Paris ? 
 Are you aware it was usmg me very badly 
 to keep me in the dark ? If it had not 
 been for the mother, I might have chucked 
 up you two girls and gone back where I 
 came from, in return for being treated — 
 and I the man of the family, like a baby." 
 '^ You may carry your grievance to 
 Agnes, it was all her doing," said Georgie, 
 not at all alarmed for his putting his threat 
 into execution ; she picked up a piece of 
 work and began busily to embroider one 
 of a set of mats as she talked. " If the 
 matter had rested with mother and me, we 
 should have told you by the next post, for 
 we were considerably shocked and alarmed, 
 naturally, by the cessation of our income, 
 which we had had from the time when I 
 was a child. Yet we might have guessed 
 that the windmg up of a great firm like 
 poor father's, though it might be compli- 
 cated by conflictmg claims and lawsuits
 
 46 SAPPIIIRA. 
 
 till it extended over a generation, was 
 bound to come to an end some fine day. 
 But your profound studies were not to be 
 interrupted on any account by tlie blow. 
 For you are to be a Hunter or a Jemier 
 before we are many months older. Think 
 what an injury would ha^'e been done to 
 mankmd, not to say to your family, if we 
 had baulked your early researches in what 
 is to be your great career." 
 
 "Bosh," said Pat impatiently, "if I 
 don't poison a score of unlucky patients to 
 begin with, and if I can manage to jog 
 along, setting bones, pullmg teeth, and 
 administermg a harmless bolus or a tisane 
 for a colic or a cough, it is the utmost 
 which need be expected from me, I warn 
 you. But for a chit of a girl like Agnes 
 to pretend to take the burden on her, 
 when there is a fellow belonOTw to 
 you " 
 
 " A towering giant of a fellow," inter- 
 posed Georgie.
 
 A TKIAL TO HER FAMILY. 47 
 
 For all ansAver to her insinuation, she 
 found herself caught up in her brother's 
 arms, elevated as high as his shoulder 
 and carried in that juvenile fashion half- 
 way round the room. 
 
 '• Put me down instantly, Pat," she 
 gasped ; '• the Hawkms opposite will see 
 you ; my hair is fallmg down ; I have lost 
 a slipper. You ridiculous boy ! you horrid 
 wretch of a man ! " 
 
 " Seriously," remarked Pat, after he had 
 complied with her request, and speaking 
 as if he had only indulged in a passing 
 smile, " it was a great liberty on the part 
 of Agues, if it was Agnes who took it 
 upon her, to aspire to keep the family for 
 whole three months single-handed, with 
 no more trustworthy weapons than her 
 trash of magazme articles, stories and 
 poetry." 
 
 " Oh, Agnes is always taking hberties ; 
 she is becoming nearly intolerable," said 
 Georgie coolly. " But really, Pat, we did
 
 48 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 not fare at all badly. Of course the rent 
 and taxes were paid before the allowance 
 failed, and I am prepared to say that we 
 could not have held on for an indefinite 
 period ; but Agnes did stoj) the gap, just 
 as she helped you to go to Paris and me 
 to contmue at the Art School. ' Alack- 
 a-day ! ' as Tweedside Jeannie used to say, 
 our family seems to have gone through 
 quite a succession of commercial earth- 
 quakes, great and small, so that we may 
 be used to them by this time. There 
 were the difficulties of the firm of Bald- 
 win, Foster and Bulmer in father's day, 
 which cost him his hfe, when our troubles 
 began. Then there was the failure of the 
 company in which father's life had been 
 insured ; at last there has been the gradual 
 dwindling of the allowance mother had 
 from the firm, till Mr. Bulmer wrote 
 three months ago to say that he regretted 
 to tell us, what he trusted we were in a 
 measure prepared for, that the affairs of
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 40 
 
 the iirin Avere at length wound up and 
 there was nothing left for us, in fact that 
 we had no further claim upon them." 
 
 " No doubt he expected me to step 
 into the breach and maintain the house- 
 hold, as I might have made a shift to do, 
 if I had only been warned of what was 
 called for from me instead of wasting time 
 and money in Paris," protested Pat in a 
 greater fume than was at all common with 
 him, for like Georgie he was thoroughly 
 good-natured. He had laughed and grown 
 fat for a considerable part of his life. 
 " Xeither Bulmer nor anybody else would 
 have the slightest notion of Agnes's high- 
 falutmg or that she would go walking 
 over people's heads, and having the pre- 
 sumption to imagine that she could fill 
 the mouths of three persons — of four if 
 you count the help — by the scribblings of 
 lier wretched little steel pen." 
 
 " Xow you are forgettmg that Agnes is 
 your senior by two years, and you are 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 jealous, Pat, like a man, of what a woman 
 can do. Agnes' s pen is not by any means 
 a wretched implement or instrument; she 
 is gettmg on splendidly. Several big- 
 wigs of critics have said she would do well 
 when she could take time and get into a 
 better style of magazine. I really hold 
 my breath and am carried away with ad- 
 miration myself sometimes. My great 
 objection to Agues and her opinions is 
 that she will have everybody a giant — no, 
 my dear boy," ducking her head as a 
 wise precaution, " spare the sofa cushion 
 — I mean morally, like herself. She 
 has such faith, such soarmg, undoubting 
 faith, that I am ashamed to look her in 
 the face sometimes," ended Georgie, droop- 
 ing and hanging her head a little. 
 
 " And when did you turn an unbeliever, 
 pray ? " inquired Pat m surprise. 
 
 " I don't know," said Georgie shaking 
 her head ; " perhaps I was not born with 
 such confidence in humanity. I camiot
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 51 
 
 believe the mass of men and women gifted 
 and able to remove momitains, as Agnes 
 believes tliem. I know too well of what 
 sort of stuff I myself am made of. If I can 
 manao'e to i>'et throui^li the world witli- 
 out doing much harm I shall be thank- 
 ful, though I should like to do more, to 
 do my duty," said Georgie humbly, with 
 a suspicious moisture gathering quickly 
 and as quickly dissipated where her bright 
 hazel eyes were concerned ; " I hope I shall 
 be kept from being silly or bad," she 
 went on. " But Agnes expects every 
 woman to be a heroine and every man 
 a hero. She makes no account of such 
 poor human weaknesses as lazmess, or 
 foolishness, or stupidity ; and as for — " 
 Georgie hesitated a second and blushed a 
 more vivid red, " well, as for such stuff 
 as love, at which everybody else nowadays 
 laughs and mocks, she has an implicit 
 faith in it, as in every other good and 
 hard thing. She expends as much real 
 
 4-2 
 LIBRARY 
 
 r-r^/^•-n« nf IllllViniC
 
 52 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 feeling on the romantic sentimental woes 
 of raw boys and callous girls, even of 
 the creatures of her own brain, as if she 
 were consiclerino- the matter-of-fact cares 
 of burdened men and women, yet nobody 
 dares to call Agnes a nonsensical goose. 
 A ery sensible people, with a great deal 
 more cleverness and knowledge of the 
 world than you or I have, read her stories 
 and things, and profess to derive not 
 merely enjoyment but benefit from them. 
 Sam Scrope never misses one of her con- 
 tributions to the periodicals." 
 
 " Humph I " exclaimed Pat with a 
 marked and peculiarly exasjDcratmg mean- 
 ing in his tones, and in the glance 
 of the eyes he shot at his sister from 
 beneath lashes long and dark like her 
 own. 
 
 " Oh, are you there ? " protested 
 Georgie, sprmging to her feet. " Are 
 you taking up that line too ? Well, I 
 warn you I shan't stand it. Has Agnes
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 53 
 
 been writing anything in her letters or 
 lettino; out hints of what is in her head, 
 since you came back ? Don't you know 
 she is not to be trusted in the conclu- 
 sions she arrives at with regard to the 
 members of her family and the people 
 she cares for ? In that sense all" her 
 geese are swans, and all the humdrum 
 intercourse of daily life is full of poetic 
 passionate possibilities. First, nothing 
 would hinder her from having a pre- 
 monition that I was going to be a, great 
 painter, an Angelica Kaufmann, a Eosa 
 Bonheur, and an Ehzabeth Thompson 
 rolled into one, whereas if I ever do a 
 decent landscape sketch or catch a crude 
 likeness of a face, it is all I shall attain 
 to. It is not in me to do better, per- 
 haps — you can guess the position, Pat — and 
 she is only heaping up disappointment for 
 herself by refusing to open her eyes and 
 believe the person principally concerned, 
 who ought to know best. Then when
 
 64 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 it begins to dawn upon her that I am 
 not to be a great pamter, she is pos- 
 sessed with the insane delusion that 
 Sam Scrope is in love with me, and 
 that I am to be raised to the honourable 
 rank of matron by a prosperous and 
 happy marriage. You see such a pro- 
 motion would let me down gracefully 
 from my failure to be a great painter." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know her tricks," 
 acquiesced Pat meditatively. 
 
 " I wonder how Mrs. Scrope, how 
 even the Scrope girls would look if sucli 
 rubbish were mentioned in their hear- 
 ing," went on Georgie indignantly. " At 
 the same time I will let you into a 
 secret if you have not already discovered 
 it for yourself. The man is no more m 
 love with me than the man in the moon 
 is — but he does care " — she hesitated — " I 
 know it is indelicate in girls to speak 
 of such things without authority," she 
 said apologetically.
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 55 
 
 " Especially to innocent boys — their 
 brothers," exclaimed Pat demurely. 
 
 " I AY ill tell you. He cares more for 
 Agnes's little finger than for my whole 
 body. If he were not Sam Scrope, a 
 pattern of cool-headedness and wisdom, 
 he would be deplorably spoony on Agnes, 
 and she won't see it — she turns him over 
 to me." 
 
 "It is most unfair," pronounced Pat 
 mth judicial gravity. " But here she 
 comes, and you and I are such base 
 cowards, Georgie — you know it as well 
 as I — that w^e shall not venture to tackle 
 her ; we feel ourselves unfit for the en- 
 counter — we shall let her go her way, 
 and invest us with all the attributes and 
 achievements under the sun." 
 
 A tall fair-haired girl with a bundle of 
 proofs in one hand, and a book for '' copy " 
 in the other, came quickly into the room. 
 ''Here I am," she announced cheerfully; 
 " I came as fast as I could. It was good
 
 56 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 of YOU to wait for me ; but where is 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Gone to speak to that old man of 
 the sea, Tweedside Johnnie," explained 
 Greorgie on her way to the back drawing- 
 room, where the tea-table was set. 
 
 " She must not be plagued like this," 
 protested the new-comer, hurrymg out. 
 
 " Don't go, Agnes ; mother does not wish 
 — she is gone without waiting to hear 
 me out, but it does not signify ; mother 
 will bear any amount of intrusion from 
 Aoiies, and not call it interference. In- 
 deed I think we are all a little cracked 
 about submittino^ to Amies." 
 
 By the time the hot water and the hot 
 dish were put on the table, among 
 Georgie's prettily-arranged chma and flowers, 
 Agnes reappeared without her bonnet and 
 jacket. She looked as fair and fresh as if 
 she had not been out since breakfast, 
 coping with difficulties and facing en- 
 counters which would have tried the
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 57 
 
 courage and endurance of many a man. 
 Yet she could have had no further 
 refreshment than a sandwich and a glass 
 of water, or a bun and a cup of coffee, 
 snatched from the marble table of a re- 
 staurant. " Mother says she has got one 
 of her bad headaches, and would prefer 
 to be alone, m quiet," she said with 
 concern. 
 
 " That is always mother's panacea," 
 said Georgie ; " cannot you give her some- 
 thing for her headaches, Pat ? Can't 
 you show your proficiency by relieving 
 tlie ailments of your household ? We 
 ought all to be in rude health with 
 a family physician at our beck and call." 
 
 " I don't aspire to getting the mastery 
 over women's headaches," said Pat, help- 
 ing himself to a chop and a corre- 
 sponding allowance of bread. " I believe 
 they would baffle the skill of old Galen 
 himself. When a woman never crosses 
 the threshold of her own door or breathes
 
 58 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 the air of heaven what can she expect 
 save headaches ? However, the poor mother 
 has too good an excuse for crotchets and 
 nerves. Do you know I met an old 
 gentleman at Scrope's rooms the other 
 day, I forgot to tell you, who asked if 
 my mother were still alive ? What 
 should hinder her ? I turned on him, for 
 he gave me quite a turn by the question. 
 He said he remembered her coming from 
 Yorkshire on a visit to some Lancashire 
 cousins, when she was a girl, before she 
 married. He had never forgotten the 
 spirit with which she sang some old 
 Yorkshire song. Fancy mother singing a 
 rustic ditty with appropriate spirit ! " 
 
 " I don't believe it," declared Georgie 
 stoutly. " I can remember the only time 
 I ever saw Aunt Carrie she said mother 
 had been grave and quiet ever smce she 
 knew her." 
 
 " The two things are not incompatible," 
 said Agnes ; " grave, quiet people have often
 
 A TRIAL TO HER FAMILY. 59 
 
 a strong sense of Immour, and I daresay 
 mother had some dramatic faculty." 
 
 "Which she transmitted in full measure 
 to her elder daughter," suggested Pat. 
 
 " I don't know. I wish she had. Some 
 people I saw to-day say she hasn't. But 
 I'm too hungry to decide, I'm perfectly 
 ravenous. You need not prescribe for 
 me, Pat, unless it is something to allay a 
 false appetite. That other chop, please, 
 if no one else wishes it, and the butter. 
 How good it is of the Scropes to let us 
 share their north country butter ! Georgie, 
 dear, your delicious tea is just the ghost 
 of a shade too sweet and strong — a little 
 more water. I wish Cowper had not sung 
 the dehghts of the tea-table. I might 
 have exercised what in his day would 
 have been called ' my humble muse,' in 
 celebrating its praises."
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE "trial" and SOME OF HER DOINGS. 
 
 Agnes Baldwin, sitting there announcing 
 herself so bountifully supplied with creature 
 comforts, was a slender slip of a tall fair 
 girl, not looking her five -and -twenty 
 years. She was an entirely different type 
 of woman from that which her sister 
 Georgie illustrated. One would have said 
 Agnes was not a creature of the same 
 race. When it comes to that we 
 English, Lowland Scotch and Americans, 
 who claim not only Anglo-Saxons, but 
 !N'ormans and Danes, with possibly a 
 sprinkhng of Celts or Cymri, among our 
 remoter ancestors, may well display 
 traits of various nationalities ; and 
 these sometimes appear singly and in 
 a marked manner, with little adulteration
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 61 
 
 from the other sources of our complex 
 descent. 
 
 Agnes Baldwm was not so pretty as 
 her sister Georgie, mdeed, pretty was not 
 the word for her. She had a fine free 
 and indomitable look, such as a good 
 hunter or hound might bear. Her head 
 was very handsome, though perhaps a 
 trifle too large for the slender neck. Her 
 forehead was broad and full. Her com- 
 plexion was too pale for her white skin, 
 and for hair that was pale red rather 
 than golden. Her eyes, between blue and 
 gray in colour, were wonderfully searching 
 and earnest, a little trying to individuals 
 who did not care to be looked through 
 and through, as Agnes looked them — 
 unconsciously for the most part. Her nose 
 was well formed, but small for the face. 
 Her mouth was delicate, though it was 
 somewhat wide and opened sufficiently, 
 when she spoke or smiled, to show the 
 half arch of her regular white teeth to a
 
 62 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 greater extent than a mouth generally 
 does. It ^yas at once a curiously firm 
 and a curiously sweet mouth, entirely re- 
 deeming in the first asj^ect what there 
 might have been of weakness in the 
 slightly-peaked chin. 
 
 Georgie's fingers, ]3lump, soft and white, 
 carried a good many old-fashioned valu- 
 able rings. The long, blunt-pointed instead 
 of tapermg fingers of Agnes's rather large 
 but well-formed hands, uniting the spatu- 
 late and psychic attributes in the same 
 member, were guiltless of any adornment 
 save a sio-net rinof, which looked as if it 
 had been a man's ring, taken m to fit a 
 woman's hand. It was a worn gold ring, 
 having the initials " R.B.," Agnes's 
 father's initials, inscribed on it, together 
 with a date of thirty years back. 
 
 " Xow I am gomg to tell you my adven- 
 tures," said Agnes with much gusto, after 
 the meal was practically ended, and she 
 was only sippmg what remained of her
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. G3 
 
 breakfast cup of tea and nibbling a bit of 
 cake. " I don't know that they are very 
 different from wliat they were yesterday, 
 and what they Avill be to-morrow, but I 
 am sure you will like to hear them." She 
 then struck into an animated narrative, 
 certain of an appreciative audience. She had 
 accomplished a successful hunt in the British 
 Museum for an authority Avhose existence 
 the assistant who fell to her share had at 
 first absolutely denied. She had paid an 
 early visit to a dilatory publisher — dilatori- 
 ness was the vice of the trade — and found 
 a priceless MS., which she had feared was 
 irretrievably lost, had only been waiting 
 to be " returned with thanks." 
 
 " Did you drop a tear over the poor 
 thing's prostrate body ? " asked Pat. " In 
 the stories of you story-writers all women 
 and some men break down and weep pas- 
 sionately over your rejected addresses. 
 You should know best, but I am sorry 
 to find that any of my brother men, even
 
 6t SAPPHIRA. 
 
 though they have lost their moorings and 
 landed in Grub Street, should be such 
 muffs." 
 
 " Weep ! Cry over a rejected MS. ! " 
 exclaimed Agnes, with a gleam in her 
 blue eyes which recalled vividly the his- 
 toric statement that our Northern coast 
 lines were colonized by Danes, and that 
 these Danes were the ancient Vikings. Did 
 Ragner Lodbrock weep when he went 
 down into the den of serpents ? Did 
 Rollo weep at the tidings of defeat instead 
 of chanting his death-song ? Did Roger 
 Guiscard spend his time bewailing the 
 bitterness and disappointment which could 
 come to man instead of conquering Sicily ? 
 Of course," said Agnes, " I thought 
 the man was quite right if he had no 
 market for my wares. They might be 
 too good, or they might be too bad for 
 him, they were not his bargain all the 
 same. I carried the MS. off, went into 
 a bookseller's shop and had the title-
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. C5 
 
 page and the last page withdrawn, and 
 replaced hi fresh foolscap. I am afraid 
 that was deceitful, but why will pub- 
 lishers tempt deceit by being so narrow- 
 minded as to be affected by their 
 neighbour's hieroglyphics of possession 
 and inspection, like the track of the 
 serpent, on travelled MSS. ? I took the 
 parcel in person to — can you guess how 
 many ? — five different houses. I did not 
 beg them ' of their courtesy ' ; I put it 
 to them as a business obligation to get 
 their readers to look over it, not six 
 months or a year hence, but in fourteen 
 days at the latest, and let the firms and 
 me know whether the story was worth 
 publication, in the skilled opinion of 
 the readers. I flatter myself I acted 
 with a mixture of pluck and candour, 
 and the fifth house accepted my terms. 
 If I was impertinent, desperation must 
 be my excuse, for the firm which, liad 
 just returned my MS. ' with thanks,' had 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 SAPPHIKA. 
 
 kept it three montlis : and I put it 
 to you and the publishers whether a 
 story-teller must not circulate her goods 
 and sell them, if she can, in order to 
 live ? " 
 
 "Oh, dear ! how tired you must have 
 been wandering about in this warm 
 weather," cried Georgie ; "it makes me 
 hot even to think of it." 
 
 " And it makes me hot all over in 
 another sense," said Pat, restively kickmg 
 his heels together under the table. 
 "Can't you write what you want to 
 the fellows, Agnes ? Is there any occa- 
 sion for a woman like you running 
 after them and poking your nose into 
 the men's offices ? " 
 
 " Fellows ! " shrieked Agnes, " why, it is 
 the Trade you are speaking of, the Row, 
 the Strand, Burlington Street, and what 
 not. And do you really think I inter- 
 view the magnates ? If I see a confi- 
 dential clerk I am deeply grateful."
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. G7 
 
 " I believe you women like it," said 
 Pat gloomily. 
 
 " Well, it is not unexciting," admitted 
 Agnes ; "it is seeing the world and 
 fio'htino; our own battles, and some of 
 us wlio are fit for that like it, which 
 vou men will never believe, unless when 
 you wish us to pay taxes. If we even 
 hanker after professions you accuse us of 
 being Amazons, without natural affection 
 or a conception of home ties. As to its 
 being warm weather, Georgie, I remem- 
 bered old Harriet Martineau and was glad 
 that it was not midwinter and slopping 
 wet. For she did cry when she got back 
 to her temporary shelter, weary and 
 faint-hearted, with her unsaleable * Political 
 Economy.' But at least she cried in the 
 privacy of night and her pillow. And 
 she found a purchaser, at last, poor 
 gallant, bitter old unbelieving Harriet ! 
 she won name and fame and competence 
 — if it had only been her lost faith and 
 
 5-2
 
 68 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 the humility which was wanted to make 
 her a Christian ! But I am inclulgmg in 
 padding, I am not getting on with my 
 story. I saw one of the real live Trade. 
 He looked at me over his spectacles. He 
 had never heard of my name, never heard 
 of my poor little attempts at books, and 
 clearly wondered how I could have the 
 preposterous conceit to take up so much 
 of his valuable time, which was reserved 
 for geniuses and full-blown successful 
 authors. After that terrible publisher I 
 thought the next clerk I saw was nice, 
 because he said my ' works ' were 
 ' charming ; ' on second thoughts I don't 
 believe that he had ever read a line of 
 them, and I am not sure that he was 
 nice to say that to my face. I've a 
 notion he thought I was a fool." 
 
 " I know exactly what you would do 
 when you met the publisher," said Georgie, 
 with such an air of superior regretful 
 wisdom on her round rosy face, that it
 
 THE -'TEIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 69 
 
 had a comical effect. " You would mount 
 your liigli horse and not speak him fair. 
 It is all very well not to make yourself 
 cheap, I would not do that myself, but 
 I should speak eyerybody fair." 
 
 " Why don't you throw up the sponge 
 and haye done with personal applications, 
 at least till you are a full-blown successful 
 author, as you call it ? " protested Pat, 
 harping on his old theme. " I take the 
 liberty of calling your work trash, because 
 I am your brother^ and it ain't good 
 taste for brothers to puff sisters, except 
 in strict confidence. But I'll also take 
 it upon me to say to your face, whether 
 you think it nice of me or not, that 
 there is good in your work, and it has 
 made me proud to read it sometimes," 
 said Pat gruffly. " More than that, I 
 belieye it has the elements of success in 
 it one day, if you get fair play." Pat 
 was still so much under a cloud as to 
 be serious. He was still beating the
 
 70 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Devil's tattoo with liis heels under the 
 table. 
 
 " I think it is very, very nice of you, 
 Pat, to think so highly of my work. 
 You do not know hoAV much I value 
 your opinion," said Agnes in a softened, 
 subdued voice. 
 
 " Why, rather than a girl should be 
 subjected to such an ordeal, I would 
 hawk her trash myself," he cried, recov- 
 ermg himself. 
 
 " ^o, thanks, no, Pat," Agnes declined 
 his proposal, with a return of spirit on 
 her part also, " though again I'm ever 
 so much obliged to you, my dear boy, 
 for I can guess what the oiFer costs you. 
 But I am afraid you would not speak 
 the authorities fair, accordinof to Georo:ie's 
 sovereign recipe. It would be a case of 
 ' stand and deliver' with you, and if 
 they would not deliver up their money 
 and credit to print and advertise my 
 nonsense, I can fancy you would suffer
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 71 
 
 more than I, as I would more than you, 
 if I were solicitmg purchasers and pubhc 
 patronage for any efforts of yours. And 
 how am I ever to become a renowned 
 authoress, who can command her prices, 
 without usino; the means and under- 
 gomg the necessary disciphne while I 
 am obscure and poor to begin with ? 
 You and Georgie have not heard me out. 
 I sold my last treasure — or trash, to Hill 
 and Harrow for twenty-iive pounds. I 
 hope you are sufficiently impressed, 
 young people." 
 
 " Oh ! Agnes, why did you throw it 
 away?" remonstrated Georgie vehemently. 
 " You expected fifty pounds at least 
 and I am sure it was worth a hundred, 
 though you had not time to read it all 
 to me. You took such pains with it 
 and worked so hard at it : you rose at 
 six o'clock all through the bleak spring 
 mornings, and you would not accept a 
 single invitation, you would not even go
 
 72 . SAPPHIRA. 
 
 with the Scropes to the theatre, because 
 it took you from your work." 
 
 "The big publishers would have none 
 of my magnum opus^^'' said Agnes with a 
 rueful shake of her head ; " only a small 
 fish had the taste and consideration to 
 give me twenty-five pounds for the copy- 
 right." 
 
 '' But why were you so silly and rash ? " 
 Georgie continued to urge, almost tearfully. 
 
 "I could not help myself," said the 
 unfortunate author briskly ; '"a bird m the 
 hand is worth two in the bush.' Besides, 
 I am honestly convinced that I love my 
 work far more than my wages. It may 
 be absurd of me to imagme that I can 
 tell anybody anythmg they don't know 
 already, do them any good, or mnocently 
 amuse them ; but if I can the fact re- 
 mains, and warms my heart and theirs, 
 whether I do it for twenty -five or fifty 
 pounds. I wish the money were not so 
 much needed, but if the smaller sum will
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 73 
 
 meet our requirements, the cliief diiFerence 
 is that I shall write for the few instead 
 of the many, or, perhaps I should rather 
 say, for one class instead of another. But 
 what am I, to despise the few ? or why 
 should I care for one class more than 
 another ? If I have any small talent given 
 to me to use, or message to deliver, ought 
 I not to be glad and thankful to be able 
 to do it, though it should be for twenty - 
 five mstead of for five hundred pounds ? 
 I should take the five hundred if I could 
 get it, of course, but if not the ^\e 
 hundred, why, then the twenty-five cheer- 
 fully and gratefully." 
 
 " That is true, and it is like you," 
 acknowledged Georgie ; " but though you 
 are very clever, Agnes, the only clever one 
 among us — no, don't contradict me, please — 
 you really cannot take care of yourself 
 and your work — you do make yourself 
 cheap, when one reads constantly of authors 
 getting thousands and thousands."
 
 74 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " Better say hundreds of thousands at 
 once," said iVgnes drily, balancmg her 
 tea-spoon on the edge of her cup. 
 
 " Don't interrupt me — when one hears 
 of authors getting thousands for work no 
 better than yours, when one learns the 
 style in which many of these authors and 
 wretches of men live and enjoy themselves, 
 it is exasperating to hear of a clever 
 woman like you throwing away — literally 
 throwing away — her productions." 
 
 " My dear, you make me laugh," cried 
 Agnes, showing all her white teeth and 
 the reflection of dimples like Georgie's in 
 her pale cheeks. "It is a shame of me 
 when you are so much in earnest, and it 
 is so good and dear of you to care about 
 my getting what you hold fair play. But 
 you observe Pat is mute. He is a man. 
 He is cooler-headed and more sceptical. 
 He cannot brmg himself to think that ex- 
 perienced publishers, by the dozen, would 
 cut off their noses to spite their faces.
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 75 
 
 He suspects that if I were a full-fledged 
 paragon they would not reject me with 
 thanks. He has a fellow-feeling for these 
 ^wretches of men/ who, you must re- 
 member, have generally more than one 
 string to each bow. They write smart 
 newspaper articles, political and social, give 
 courses of lectures here and in America, 
 go halves in dramatizing their stories, cul- 
 tivate each other's criticism, and sometimes 
 have snug berths in public offices — alto- 
 gether apart from their literary careers. I am 
 sure I don't grudge them any of their 
 advantages, poor fellows," finished Agnes, 
 with her bright, fearless magnanimity, 
 " thouofh some of them do have a bad 
 habit of chaffing young women unmerci- 
 fully for their lack of experience, as if all 
 the heights and depths of human nature 
 were to be gauged and fathomed in smok- 
 ing-rooms and green-rooms, on race-courses 
 and over billiard-tables. As if there were 
 not fields for the women to study as well
 
 76 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 as the men, for all kinds of women, for 
 the Jane Austens as well as for the 
 George Sands. But the men you cry out 
 agamst are fellow- workers and comrades, 
 and they are frequently heads of houses 
 with families depending on them." 
 
 " As if you yourself were not the head 
 of a house with a family to support," cried 
 Georgie. 
 
 " I^onsense," denied Agnes, and for the 
 iirst time in the discussion she looked a 
 little shame -faced and put out. "I re- 
 ferred to helpless women and children. I 
 am only lending a helpmg hand to my 
 people for a time, till Pat and you push 
 me aside, and show how much more you 
 two can do." 
 
 Georgie shook her head ruefully. 
 
 Pat whistled famtly. 
 
 " As for the ' thousands and thousands ' 
 paid on MSS.," Agnes resumed, nothing 
 loth, " the labourer is worthy of his hire ; 
 but why should the novelist be supposed
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 77 
 
 to be paid so mucli beyond other labourers, 
 especially since liis name is legion ? Think 
 of the income of many a hard-working 
 professional man, not to say the salary of 
 many a respectable clerk. Pat would like 
 to handle as Avell as to read of these 
 thousands in most cases. It is an incredu- 
 lous world, my master and mistress." 
 
 " But twenty -five pounds," still harped 
 Georgie ; " w^hy, a dressmaker, not the 
 height of the fashion either, would charge 
 as much for what her forew^oman would 
 cut and her apprentices stitch together, in 
 a day's time, while a book in the making 
 cannot be trusted to any other than the 
 author, and is the work of many days."' 
 
 " The cases are not parallel, child," 
 reasoned Agnes. "The dressmaker does 
 not, if she is not among the swell dress- 
 makers, furnish the materials of her dresses, 
 as the publisher is bound to supply paper, 
 printers' ink and so forth, in addition to 
 arranging for the publishmg and advertis-
 
 78 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 ing. The dressmaker does not run any 
 risk, save from her customers not paying 
 her personal debts, which I hope, on the 
 whole, is a rare experience. Now so many 
 books fall flat that the danger of my pub- 
 lisher's not being recouped for the cost 
 of production, includmg the twenty-five 
 pounds, will be quite a weight on my mind." 
 " Agnes, you are insupportable ; as if 
 the man could not look after his own 
 interests," argued Greorgie. 
 
 " Well, you say I can't look after my 
 interests, though I am a clever woman," 
 said Agnes with a twmkle in her eyes. 
 " But you must not take down my conceit 
 too much, for I have been reckoning that 
 this has been quite a lucky day with me. 
 I called at the office of Lavinici's News- 
 paper and of The Young Lacly^ and I 
 have got orders for two more short 
 stories." 
 
 " Oh, Agnes ; these wretched papers 
 with thek inferior fashion-plates and
 
 THE -TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 79 
 
 ancient recipes and idiotic answers to 
 idiotic correspondents," groaned Georgie. 
 "" The idea of your writing for them ! 
 The Scropes could not believe it. They 
 agreed with me that the sole readers of 
 such periodicals must be nurse-maids and 
 shop-girls." 
 
 " And are nurse-maids and shop-girls 
 not to have food for their mmds as well 
 as for their bodies, as much as you and 
 the Scropes ? " retorted Agnes with a 
 shade of haughtiness. " Have tradesmen's 
 daughters and milliners' apprentices not 
 eyes and ears ? Do they not laugh when 
 you tickle them and bleed when you 
 prick them ? as Shylock said. A young 
 nurse-maid saved the life of a child, not 
 one of her own charges, at the Serpentme 
 the other day. Some shop-girls in these 
 hard times are as well born as we are 
 and would doubtless despise my poor 
 stories. Whatever their birth, they are 
 doing honest work like me, when I write
 
 80 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 for Lavinias Newsjyaper and The Yournj 
 Lady^ which are perfectly honest though 
 neither very Tsdse nor very witty journals, 
 I grant you. I cannot pick and choose 
 in the disposal of my work ; I am glad 
 to dispose of it at all, so long as it is 
 honestly disposed of. I am surprised to 
 hear you, Georgie." 
 
 A certain hardness of which Agnes's 
 face was capable had settled down on it. 
 The hardness had even extended to the 
 lines of her tall, shght, willowy figure, 
 stiffening them. 
 
 Georgie said no more. It was note- 
 worthy to see the degree to which the 
 brother and sister fell under the spell 
 of Agnes's ardent, indomitable individuality 
 in her presence. Her influence was far 
 beyond anythmg which could be accounted 
 for by her few years' seniority. Yet her 
 very next words, spoken evidently with 
 the amiable intention of reassuring Georgie, 
 and dissipating the slight cloud of
 
 THE -'TRIAL" AND S03IE OF HER DOINGS. 81 
 
 vexation which had come between the 
 sisters, had the contrary effect of driving 
 the younger into open revolt. " I say, 
 Georgie, I saw such a pretty hat when I 
 was passing a shop in Regent Street to- 
 day. It was the style you like, and its 
 colours, white and green, would just suit 
 a red and brown girl like you. Don't 
 you think we might afford it out of our 
 day's innings ? Won't you come with 
 me to-morrow to try it on and see how 
 you look in it ? " 
 
 " No, I won't have it," cried Georgie 
 vehemently. "It is a shame to put it 
 into my head, and you with nothing 
 better than that weather-beaten sailor's 
 thing, which you have worn all winter 
 and I suppose mean to wear all summer." 
 
 " My dear Georgie," declared Agnes in 
 
 accents of amazement and reproach, " it 
 
 is my everyday wear, and you know 
 
 I go out in all weathers. I hope the 
 
 hat is still passable, for I bought a new 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 S.IPPHIRA. 
 
 riband for it only last week. I am sure 
 my Sunday's bonnet is beyond reproach." 
 
 " A Sunday's swell," suggested Pat, 
 who had fallen out of the conversation. 
 
 " And I am sure you ought to wear 
 your war-]3aint when you invade these pub- 
 lishers' dens," said Georgie, a httle ashamed 
 of her outburst, and seeking to recover 
 an easy footing. " I believe other people 
 will do it, and dazzle the grim ogres with 
 the literary women's elegance and splen- 
 dour." 
 
 " Wasted expenditure," said Agnes care- 
 lessly. " Publishers are hard-hearted, or 
 else I have not got the key to their 
 hearts, perhaps because I am not so nice- 
 lookmg and nicely got -up as my sister." 
 
 " Don't," said Georgie, looking offended 
 again. 
 
 "Why, what ails you, Georgie?" asked 
 Agnes with the greatest gentleness; "what 
 has ruffled the pigeon?" 
 
 " Pigeons are stupid birds," said Georgie
 
 THE "TKIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 83 
 
 brusquely, still somewhat in the tone in 
 which an angry little girl w^ould speak, 
 after she had turned her back on the 
 company in order to shake her small 
 person. " They are fit for nothing ex- 
 cept to eat their own weight every day." 
 
 "And to be killed and baked into pies, 
 in which case their eating propensities, as 
 going far to promote their plumpness, are 
 not objectionable," put in Pat. 
 
 "We had better go into the other 
 room, and leave Selina to clear away," 
 said Georgie, returning to common sense 
 and housekeeping obligations. " She will 
 say none of her former ' families ' ever 
 sat so long at table as we do." 
 
 " I wonder if she is our domestic, or 
 are we her servants ?" remarked Pat, moot- 
 ing a question often put, as he rose and 
 strolled with his hands in his pockets 
 into the front room. " Not to put upon a 
 slavey is a point of honour, but to move 
 at her pleasure is a demand that ought 
 
 6-2
 
 84 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 not to be addressed to any ordinary 
 mortal less cliivalrous than Don Quixote." 
 
 " It does put upon her, it throws her 
 back in her Avork," explained the matter- 
 of-fact Georgie. 
 
 " Well, here I am, and you two girls 
 have followed my lead, as m duty bound. 
 I was going to add that stuiFed pigeons 
 used to serve as popinjays, fan' game to 
 be stared at and aimed at." 
 
 " I fail to catch your meaning, good 
 people," said Agnes, making her way to 
 the easel and standino; before it, lookmo; 
 down on its little picture. 
 
 " Xow, Agnes," Georgie challenged her, 
 " you cannot pretend it is much worth. 
 These fir trees are more like broom-sticks, 
 and the broom itself reminds me of nothing 
 so much as the dribbles from the yoke of 
 
 an eo^tr." 
 
 "Artists are always severe on their own 
 performances," replied Agnes evasively. 
 " It would be a bad job if they were not.
 
 THE "TRIAL' AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 85 
 
 They iniij^t have a transcendent standard, 
 an unapproachable ideal, if they have 
 nothmg else." 
 
 '' I am afraid it is the nothing else in 
 this instance, Georgie," said Pat, joining in 
 the study of the sketch, and meaning to 
 support the artist at the same time. 
 
 " Of course it is," said Georgie de- 
 fiantly ; " commend me to a brother for 
 telling you the unvarnished truth. I wish 
 a sister were as plain-spoken, or at least 
 that she did not suffer herself to be hood- 
 winked by her regard for me and her 
 own lively imagination." 
 
 " I admit I have seen you do better 
 than this," said Agnes slowly ; " but there 
 is merit, yes, I can see a great deal of 
 merit in that sky, and I have been told 
 skies are the most difficult of all the 
 details in pictures. If you will persevere, 
 all that is in you will come out at last." 
 
 " Then very little will come out," in- 
 sisted Georgie doggedly ; "I have ncjt the
 
 86 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 making of the poorest real painter in me. 
 Don't force me into being a sham as well 
 as a puppet ; I believe I could in time 
 copy decently, and I know enough to be 
 of some use to those who know less. I 
 think I could teach drawing fairly." 
 
 " There is no occasion for you to teach 
 drawing," said Agnes coldly, speaking as 
 if the decision lay with her, as it certainly 
 did. 
 
 "Pat," turning to her brother, who 
 looked a boy beside her, " I conclude you 
 have not heard from St. James's Hospital 
 to-day?" 
 
 "Not a syllable," said Pat promptly, 
 "and what is more I don't expect to hear." 
 
 " Oh, but you are too impatient," re- 
 plied Agnes, and the lion look which was 
 in good Queen Bess's face, and which 
 sometimes showed itself in Agnes Bald- 
 win's, passed away entirely. It was suc- 
 ceeded by the anxious, tender, inexhaust- 
 ible care and devotion which are in the
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 87 
 
 whole aspect of a true mother's face. 
 She took hold of his arm and patted it 
 with hopeful encouragement. " Your 
 papers and testimonials were so excellent 
 that the governing body of the hospital 
 cannot pass them by ; they cannot afford 
 to lose the chance of securing your ser- 
 vices." 
 
 " Indeed they can, with all the ease in 
 life. There are scores of cleverer fellows 
 with better papers and testimonials. I 
 tell you, Agnes, you are only preparing 
 a disappointment for yourself," said Pat 
 gravely. 
 
 " I don't believe it," she said with con- 
 viction, " and if this hospital is not open 
 to your claims — yes, I call them claims, 
 Pat — something better will turn up — you 
 may be assured of that." 
 
 "As in the case of the immortal 
 Micawber. The editor of the Lancet will 
 write and sohcit a few valuable contri- 
 butions from my stores of knowledge
 
 88 SAPPJIIRA. 
 
 and experience, and my facile pen. Xo, 
 Miss Agnes, I leave the pen to you. One 
 literary member is enough in a family, 
 to bear the buffets of the publishers, the 
 critics and the undiscerning public. My 
 medical name and fame will reach the 
 ears of Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone, 
 so that the next time the great man is 
 ill, he will, to the astonishment of his 
 circle, waive off the family physician and 
 the most distinguished London specialists 
 and cry, ' Send for little Baldwm ; he is 
 the man for my money. I will have no- 
 body's advice but httle Baldwin's.' It 
 may be so, but I doubt it, my beloved 
 sisters. I see nothing for it, except 
 hanging on by the beastly shabby dis- 
 pensary in the next street and its poor 
 patients, till I have been clever enough 
 or lucky enough to cure them of a few 
 of the ills that flesh is heir to, when 
 some of our less impecunious neighbours, 
 in the course of ten years or so, may
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF ITER DOINGS. 89 
 
 awake to the liict of my existence, and 
 call me in, thus laying the foundation of 
 a modest — very modest — family practice." 
 
 '' Xonsense," said Agnes again, " you 
 are far too easily dispirited. I wish you 
 knew what authors have to bear. As for 
 Georgie, she has been sitting too much in 
 the house. Have you not even been once 
 to Chiswick to-day, Georgie ? Have you 
 seen nothing of any of the Scropes?" 
 
 " N^ot a ghost of them," said Georgie 
 emphatically ; " why should I ? They 
 were here yesterday, and I was there the 
 day before. The Scropes and I are not 
 to be constantly running after each other ; 
 we shall get sick of each other presently, 
 if we don't take care. You take care 
 you don't favour them very often with 
 your company. I have not such a good 
 excuse of pressing engagements to urge, 
 so that it is fortunate for me they are 
 rapidly making new acquaintances and 
 striking up fresh friendships."
 
 90 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " But you should have more air and 
 exercise," objected Agnes quite anxiously, 
 " and you do not care to go and take 
 them by yourself." 
 
 " I should not mind if I had an 
 object," suggested Georgie eagerly, "if 
 you would consent to my trymg to get 
 pupils." 
 
 " What, and leave the house to take 
 care of itself, and mother to sit all 
 alone ! " said Agnes reproachfully. 
 
 " Mother would not mind," replied 
 Georgie ; "of course if she were to miss 
 me, it would be different. She misses 
 
 you when you are late, but me " with 
 
 an expressive pause in which there was 
 not a shade of jealousy, but much 
 certainty. 
 
 " Without question she would miss 
 you," said Agnes with determination, 
 "and the house would fall to pieces, 
 since she is not able to look after it, 
 without its bright, tasteful little house-
 
 THE "TRIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 91 
 
 keeper. Number 6 would cease to be a 
 dear, comfortable, pretty home, and 
 degenerate into furnished apartments." 
 
 Georgie was considerably flattered, still 
 she did not entirely believe Agnes. 
 " You know Selina could serve you well 
 enough. You hardly care what you eat, 
 and you often don't see how I have dis- 
 posed of the tables and chairs, rugs and 
 curtains, or what flowers I have put into 
 the glasses." 
 
 " Don't I ? " asked Agnes boldly, " and 
 if I ever don't, then I need to have my 
 attention called to the furniture and what 
 is happenmg to it. I can tell you it 
 would be a very different thing to me to 
 come in when I was tired and discon- 
 solate, and find all the chairs against the 
 wall, the curtams with tight waists, and 
 no rugs, or fans, or flowers ; in short, no 
 you. I am sure Pat will say the same." 
 
 "What I say," said Pat, "and I don't 
 feel that I have much right to give an
 
 92 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 opinion — thougii it was not my fault that 
 I was kept in ignorance, staying on in 
 that beastly Paris, by way of com]3leting 
 my studies, while Agnes here took it 
 upon her to bear the burden of this ex- 
 tensive establishment — I think it would 
 be hard on mother and all of us, if one 
 of you two girls could not be spared to 
 stay at home, look after things and 
 keep the place right. Surely one is 
 enough for a galley slave," and he glared 
 a little at Agnes, who made him a low 
 curtsey. 
 
 " I know what he is thinking, Geo ; he 
 is remembering with acute sympathy the 
 poor officer who could not say two words 
 without a haw-haw between, and had 
 always found drill and the mess dinner 
 enough business for him. He came home 
 from the Antipodes to discover all his 
 sisters totting up accounts at desks in 
 offices, and speaking on platforms." 
 
 " I could look after the house and under-
 
 THE "TKIAL" AND SOME OF HER DOINGS. 1)3 
 
 take a little teaching too," represented 
 Georgie, still bent on taking a sensible 
 view of the situation, and being of 
 o'reater use in the world than she had 
 hitherto been. 
 
 "Nothing of the kind," forbade the 
 tvrant ; " you are our baby, our walking 
 gentlewoman and show-card, the certifi- 
 cate of our gentility, the proof that we 
 had once a competence and could have 
 led as idle leisurely lives as our neigh- 
 bours led, if we had so chosen. Besides, 
 another thmg : if you could catch these 
 phantom pupils how little you could 
 earn by a few hours' drudgery a week ! 
 It would be enoug-h of an oblioration to 
 be a drag on you, and to interfere with 
 all your pleasures, while the remuneration 
 would not be worth reckoning." 
 
 " Every little makes a meikle," said 
 Georgie. " How many shillings a page are 
 you paid for writing to Laviiiias News- 
 paper and The Yoiukj Lady? And you
 
 94 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 you know the irksome task frets you and 
 interferes with your other work." 
 
 " The task ought not to be irksome, 
 and I should not be worried." 
 
 Georgie was put down ; she was no match 
 at this time for her sister, and clever as 
 Agnes Baldwin was, she was far from 
 clear-sighted where the members of her 
 family were concerned. Her very love 
 for them led her astray. She did not 
 even do by them as she would have had 
 herself done by.
 
 CHAPTER, Y. 
 
 " YOUTH AT THE PROW AND PLEASURE AT 
 THE HELM." 
 
 " You shall go Avitli Pat and me, Agnes ; 
 I will take no denial. The Scropes 
 will feel quite flattered. You go to them 
 so seldom, and you are their solitary 
 literary acquaintance. They are so simple 
 as to look up to another girl who is in 
 prmt, and is run after by prmters' devils. 
 Stella, the musical sister, is quite proud 
 to be allowed to copy your songs because 
 you have composed both the words and 
 the music, and unless you happen to have 
 published them, nobody, save your friends 
 to whom you lend them, can have copies. 
 You will make yourself ill shutting your- 
 self up as you do. Yery likely that is the 
 reason why your works won't sell without 
 tremendous pushing."
 
 96 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " What /" demanded Agnes, facing round 
 upon her sister from the desk which was 
 her special property in their joint bedroom, 
 and looking very much as Balaam might 
 have looked when his ass spoke. 
 
 " Well," said Georgie undauntedly, " I 
 have no doubt I am right. I know you 
 put no great value on my literary judg- 
 ment, and I don't pretend to be an 
 authority on plots and style and the rest 
 of your tricks. But as my own sister 
 happens to be a real live authoress from 
 her cradle — don't you remember, Agnes, 
 how our governesses were at their wits' end 
 to keep you from spoiling your hand- 
 writing by scribbling poems and stories out 
 of lesson hours ? — I read every scrap of 
 information I can come across about authors 
 and their habits, to enlighten me as to how 
 they and their relatives ought to behave 
 themselves." 
 
 " You have very little to do," said 
 Agnes with a fine scorn and a hvely
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 97 
 
 indignation darting into lier tones. "Tliey 
 are not monsters. They are just like 
 other people, private people — you should 
 know that. They don't wdsh to be stared 
 at and talked about." 
 
 " Don't they ? " inr[uired Georgie, mak- 
 ing very round eyes. " You don't, but 
 I am not so sure of the rest. Why, it 
 is they themselves who supply all the 
 wonderful information. I have it, every 
 scrap, at my hnger ends, and I can tell 
 you it was no joke to get it up — there 
 was so much of it. I can tell you how 
 each popular author arranges his materials 
 and how much he can do at a sitting. 
 Should you like to hear ? Would it 
 supply you with a hint or two ? " 
 
 "Of course not," said Agnes; "that 
 would set me on the high road to eclec- 
 ticism, if not to unvarnished plagiarism." 
 
 " I know how one man could not bear 
 
 to be disturbed even though the house 
 
 were on fire. He locks himself u]) from 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 his wife and the children of his bosom 
 till he has completed his daily portion 
 of copy, and then he rushes out and dis- 
 ports himself according to his fancy. He is 
 fully entitled to do it, after he has been 
 such a good boy as to work at his chosen 
 calling for a few hours. Then there is 
 another man who cannot work except in 
 some select spot — Iceland or the Grecian 
 Isles, according to the nature of his com- 
 position : and sometimes he does not make 
 a right selection to begm with, and has 
 to go tramping about from place to place 
 till he can finish his story." 
 
 " Very inconvenient to his belongings, 
 I should say," remarked Agnes. 
 
 " I own I have been puzzled," con- 
 fessed Georgie, " because you work just 
 the length of time, long or short, that 
 you can get, without upsetting the whole 
 household — I mean without putting off 
 breakfast or dinner, or anticipating supper, 
 or else taking your meals in solitary
 
 '« YOUTH AT THE PEOW." 99 
 
 glory, a proceeding which Selina would 
 not enjoy. If you are not writing here^ 
 where I am coming and going, you write 
 in the back drawing-room, with mother 
 and me in the front. Mother is not 
 talkatiye, but I am afraid I am not al- 
 ways scrupulous about intruding on you 
 with choice bits of news : ' The Scropes 
 are passing by, and nodding up to the 
 window.' ' Such a guy of a mantle is 
 passing and about to go out of sight, 
 you really ought to come and look at it, 
 before it vanishes ; you need not mind 
 rising, for I want your advice, any way, 
 about the perspective of my cottage. Now 
 that you have stopped writing, I think 
 you ought to mterfere in Selma's quarrel 
 with the greengrocer, since neither of 
 the combatants will listen to reason from 
 me.' " 
 
 " Yes, I am well aware you are incor- 
 rigible, Georgie," said Agnes, shaking her 
 head and fluttering the sheets of her MS. 
 
 7-2
 
 100 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " But it is your fault," asserted Georgie 
 unblushing] y, turning the tables upon her 
 unsuspecting sister. " You misled me with 
 ancient anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott's 
 rising continually to let his dogs in and 
 out, and of Jane Austen's writmg in the 
 family parlour and slipping her writing 
 out of sight when callers turned up." 
 
 " Mais tout cela est chcmge,^^ said Agnes 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " And you never ask to go even to 
 Margate or Eppmg Forest, or dear old 
 Lancashire, in order to find yourself in a 
 congenial sphere for your work." 
 
 " Because, as I have told you already, 
 I am in the chrysalis stage — a mere grub 
 of Grub Street. I cannot afford to give 
 myself airs and to fool myself to the top 
 of my bent. But you are a goose, Georgie, 
 not to see that these authors, with their 
 confidences, are laughing in their sleeves 
 at you and the gaping public seekmg to 
 look behind the scenes and invade their
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PEOW." 101 
 
 inky privacy. Depend upon it, these 
 garrulous individuals are taking their fun 
 off you. They know very well gossiping 
 confidences would spoil authorship alike of 
 its simplicity and its sincerity. Authors 
 should be invisible, like the grand Lama of 
 Thibet — unless indeed he also consents to 
 step before the footlights in these unblink- 
 ing days, without shade or reserve. Our 
 personalities too ought to be held sacred. 
 As to our photographs figuring in print 
 shops and in the pages of magazines — oh ! 
 Georgie, the heinous vulgarity and absurdity 
 of the practice. But as it is possible 
 the foundation of my objections rests on 
 sour grapes, don't take my word for their 
 reasonableness ; only, if I were you, I should 
 not believe a word of such general confes- 
 sions, the merry authors of which may 
 be enjoymg their own joke amazingly." 
 
 " Then it is very ill-bred and treacher- 
 ous of them," retorted Georgie ; " such 
 canards are out of fashion. However, I
 
 102 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 am determined that you are to have a 
 httle change for your good. You are to 
 dine with Pat and me at the Scropes' 
 to-night ; mother will be glad for you to 
 do so, and I have set my heart upon 
 it." 
 
 " A wilful woman will have her way," 
 said Agnes, rising reluctantly and stretch- 
 ing her arms as if she had writer's cramp in 
 both the hardly-used members. " I suppose 
 I do owe a visit to the Scropes, and they 
 have been so friendly to you that I should 
 not like to fail," ended Agnes demurely. 
 
 Mrs. Baldwm looked from behind her 
 window-curtam after her son and daugh- 
 ters going to keep their engagement at 
 Chiswick. The party did not afford 
 themselves a cab ; the weather was very 
 fine and far advanced for the season, and 
 the girls walked in their black lace frocks, 
 which Georgie, taking the lead unhesitat- 
 ingly m this matter, decided were good 
 enough for a family 'dinner. When it
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 103 
 
 came to that, Agnes had nothmg better 
 to wear, though she had insisted on 
 providing Georgie, as " our dinner, con- 
 cert and theatre going young lady," with 
 a thm white as well as a thin black 
 frock. Pat announced his rooted deter- 
 mmation to dine in morning dress ; while 
 he carried, with a great pretence at 
 grumbhng, a small Gladstone bag, con- 
 tainmg sundry accessories to his sisters' 
 toilet in the shape of slippers, sashes, 
 &c. " The sashes will be crushed," 
 said practical Georgie ; " but we must 
 just shake them out and make the best 
 of them. We need not trouble to carry 
 flowers ; we shall pass a dozen flower- 
 shops close at hand, where we can 
 supply ourselves with all we want." 
 
 " I warn you, girls, I'll drop the bag 
 over the bridge," threatened Pat as they 
 left the house. " There is nothing of 
 mine which I care about in it. There 
 are my shoes, but I can survive that
 
 104 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 loss and live in bouts for the rest of my 
 unhappy days." 
 
 " They are boy and girls still," 
 thought their mother, gazing wistfully 
 after the light-footed, light-hearted group. 
 " Even Agnes, who is so brave and 
 darmg a woman in point of years, is 
 but an easfer enthusiastic oirl to this 
 day. How long will it last ? My 
 punishment is more than I can bear. 
 Yet I harmed nobody in deed, whatever 
 my intention may have been. I was not 
 permitted to wrong a single living crea- 
 ture, unless myself, whose peace I 
 strangled in a moment, and my poor 
 innocent children, who may be left to 
 fight the world with a blight on their 
 name. As for a couple of ignorant ser- 
 vants, their principles were not so 
 strong or their consciences so tender 
 that I should lay their fall at my door, 
 though I have turned the head, in the 
 end, of that cowardly imbecile Tweed-
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 105 
 
 side Johnnie. His wife, Jeannie, was 
 liarder-lieaded, with a strong grip of the 
 world, as he said. She it was who pro- 
 posed the deception. Well, what does it 
 matter now who broached it first ? The 
 only question is how long will exemption 
 last ? " 
 
 There was one good effect from 
 Agnes's constant, often drudging work, 
 from which she still contrived to extract 
 pleasure, that it made her enjoy a holi- 
 day with all the zest of a school-boy, for 
 girls at any stage are rarely so full of 
 ardour as Agnes was at five-and-twenty. 
 She did not take her pleasure languidly 
 or " sadly ; " she took it as she took every- 
 thing else, with her whole heart and soul, 
 and in case of the rare treat — pleasure, 
 with something of the brimming-over, 
 unalloyed glee of a child. She was the 
 best player among the players on the 
 few and far-between occasions when she 
 was persuaded to play. Doubtless, this
 
 106 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 was one of the reasons wMch made 
 Georgie and Pat and everybody who 
 knew Agnes and had ever played with 
 her, covet her for a playfellow ; she en- 
 joyed everything : the weather, the walk 
 — as it was not a business walk she 
 had leisure to look about her — the beau- 
 ties and the old associations of Chiswick, 
 which was haunted ground to her. 
 Georgie could hardly get her sister 
 along, she was so much enchanted with 
 the river and the boats ; when she came to 
 the old houses, the church and the Mall, 
 she saw ghosts everywhere. Here were 
 the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire and 
 her evil genius and successor. Lady 
 Elizabeth Foster, walking arm in arm. 
 There was Jane Thornhill, who had held 
 the world well lost for love when she 
 ran away with her father's bluff bourgeois 
 pupil, William Hogarth. She was made a 
 great lady by love, and walked to church 
 with her black boy behind her, carrying her
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 107 
 
 Bible and Prayer - book. There was 
 William Hogartli himself — a stout and 
 stm-dy John Bull — sitting in his Dutch 
 summer-house, with his dog Trump at 
 his elbow, the owner of the dog expati- 
 ating on his " line of beauty " to an 
 interested visitor. Yonder in the Mall 
 was the house, still grown over with 
 small-flowered, honey-sweet white clematis, 
 to which the two Miss . Berrys and 
 their ugly witty friend, in the days of 
 everlasting friendships, Lady Charlotte 
 Lindsay used to come for " summer lodg- 
 ings," when Chiswick was yet in the 
 fields. What a choice flavour hung 
 about these ladies, of all the finer spirits 
 of two — nay, three generations ! The list 
 extended from Horace Walpole and Sir 
 Walter Scott to Thackeray and Lord 
 Houghton, from Joanna Baillie to Lady 
 Theresa Lewis. What quaint figures the 
 sisters were, and what a pathetic little 
 history each carried in her true woman's
 
 108 S.IPPHIRA. 
 
 bosom. The Miss Berrys were the last 
 ladies who swore a little dainty swearing 
 in society as a polite finish to their con- 
 versation. On the death of a dear friend 
 and kinsman they left off rouge and 
 never resumed it, as a sign that they 
 went mourning to their graves. They 
 were both engaged in marriage, each to 
 the man of their choice, and in each case 
 the engagement was broken off, through 
 adverse family circumstances, without 
 any fault on the part of the lovers : 
 poor " Blackberry and Gooseberry," as 
 the wags unceremoniously termed them ! 
 Agnes Baldwin could hear the tap of 
 their high-heeled shoes when the Berrys 
 were girls to whom the Faubourg St. 
 Germain was free, before the great French 
 Revolution, and the tap of their fans at 
 a later date, when they entertained the best 
 of company and talked of Queen Caroline's 
 death at Brandenburg House yonder. 
 The Scropes had a house on the Mall,
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PEOW." 109 
 
 and iVgnes could hardly tear herself from 
 the window in the drawing-room, which 
 commanded the rafts, the barges, the 
 rowino'-boats and the " omni-boats," as 
 euphemism is about to dub the penny 
 steamers. In an age of travelling she had 
 never been abroad, but she had read 
 description of foreign places till her 
 lively fancy made them living pictures, 
 and she was ready boldly to. compare this 
 Chiswick suburb to scenes on the Rhine, 
 the Scheldt, the Rhone or the Arno, 
 just as Catherme Morland in " Northanger 
 Abbey " was fain to compare the land- 
 scape round Bath to the mountains and 
 woods of the south of France in " The 
 Mysteries of Udolpho." 
 
 Perhaps when Agnes saw the real 
 scenes, which rose so vividly before her 
 mind, and came so glibly to her tongue, 
 the originals, metaphorically not without 
 soil and fracture, would be less glowing ex- 
 amples than the flawless shadows had been.
 
 no SAPPHIRA. 
 
 The Scrope family consisted, like that 
 of the Baldwins, of a widowed mother, 
 an only son and his sisters — three in the 
 Scropes' case. In a general way the tw^o 
 families corresponded fairly in age and 
 standmg, and Scrope Hall was a country 
 house in the north country, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Brackengill, another country 
 house, which had belonged to the Bald- 
 wins, where they had dwelt before the 
 family reverses. Any resemblance between 
 the Scropes and the Baldwins stopped at 
 this point. The Scropes had retained all 
 their earlier claims to be tolerably well-to-do 
 country gentry, who, though not passing 
 rich, were in easy independent circum- 
 stances contrasted with their old acquaint- 
 ances. Sam Scrope, the son, might if 
 he had so chosen have remained in the 
 dignified retirement of Scrope Hall, an 
 old-fashioned, picturesque, highly incon- 
 venient grey stone house, situated among 
 the fells, where Lancashire meets West-
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." Ill 
 
 moreland, and larmed liis acres as long as 
 farmino' on liis own account would brins; 
 liim in a decent income. But he did not 
 so choose. He had brains, which every- 
 body connected with him, himself included, 
 thought it would be a sin and a shame 
 to bury in a growing solitude and a losing 
 occupation. He had been from youth 
 upwards an omnivorous reader, a hard 
 worker at his studies, and a constant 
 thinker, though by comparison a rare 
 speaker. He had studied for the bar, 
 and was now a full-fledged barrister, six 
 years older than Pat Baldwin in years 
 and sixteen m knowledge of the world. 
 Sam Scrope had briefs from north 
 country lawyers intrusted to him at 
 recurring intervals, and he had always 
 given satisfaction m the discharge of his 
 duties, which is the first step towards 
 attaining distmction in the most arduous 
 and uphill of professional careers. 
 
 It had occurred to the mother and
 
 112 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 sisters in the north to descend on the 
 barrister brother m London and avail 
 themselves of his society and circle of 
 friends. They were also able to avail 
 themselves of a furnished house at Chis- 
 wick, which happened to belong to Mrs. 
 Scrope. It had come to her through an 
 aunt, married to a merchant in London, 
 who, with his wife, had died childless. 
 The house had hitherto been let, but it 
 chanced to be vacant at this time, and its 
 owner determined to profit by the con- 
 tingency. Mrs. Scrope was more or less 
 of an invalid, who cherished a faint hope 
 that London physicians might do some- 
 thing for her weak state of health. 
 Susie, Stella and Sophy Scrope longed 
 to have the benefit of a season in town, 
 and to see a little of London society ; 
 but they knew nobody when they came 
 to Chiswick. Their mother was practically 
 helpless and totally unenterprising ; while 
 Sam's legal friends were not of much use
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 113 
 
 socially. The Scrope girls, under the first 
 check of disappointment and uncertainty, 
 looked upon an accidental circumstance 
 as quite a fortunate incident. Through 
 a common acquaintance, they stumbled 
 upon the Baldwins, Lancashire folk like 
 themselves — the Baldwins who were 
 formerly of Brackengill, whom Mrs. Scrope 
 and even Sam could remember as old 
 acquaintances. True, the Baldwins were 
 not exactly in circumstances to promote 
 the Scropes' views on London fashion- 
 able society, but Georgie, at least, was 
 always a boon as au fait to the neigh- 
 bourhood, and ready to dispense her 
 information about Kew Gardens and 
 Richmond Park, Kensington Museum 
 and the concerts at the Albert Hall — 
 all that was likely to occupy visitors. 
 Then Agnes Baldwm was an author in 
 print with the dignity of appearing 
 occasionally in popular magazines. To 
 
 be sure, she was generally engaged, 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 tliougii she did not give herself airs 
 otherwise, but the very scarceness of her 
 company rendered it the more valued. 
 The Misses Scroj^e in their simplicity 
 were never certain that the day might 
 not come when to have known her, even 
 in the most fuo^itive manner, mio^ht be 
 as o'ood as a certificate of a liberal 
 education. Pat Baldwin was a personable 
 escort. The Baldwins were worth being 
 cultivated in heu of bigger fishes. Be- 
 sides, the Scrope girls were really 
 honestly good-natured and friendly. 
 Havino^ unearthed old Lancashire neio^h- 
 hours, who had been under a cloud of 
 adversity, and made their acquaintance 
 in London, the Scropes were disposed 
 to stick to them and let the connection 
 ripen into fast friendship. 
 
 Mrs. Scrope did oppose the association 
 to a certain extent, said she had never 
 known Mrs. Baldwin well, and that the 
 lady had dropped her as she had dropped
 
 " YOUTH AT THE PROW." 115 
 
 every other acquaiiitance after her hus- 
 band's death. It was hardly worth any- 
 body's pams to renew the shght tie for 
 the short time that the Scropes were 
 to be in town. But the opposer was a 
 timid gentlewoman, in her weak health 
 largely overborne, for her good as they 
 were firmly persuaded, by her much more 
 robust and energetic offspring. In ad- 
 dition she was heartily sorry for the 
 young Baldwins, of whom she did not 
 know a particle of harm, who seemed to 
 be making a brave fight in a not too 
 easy or complacent world. In the end, 
 she contented herself with not encourag- 
 ing the intimacy by any direct act of 
 hers. On the contrary, she employed 
 at once the plea of her delicate health 
 as an excuse for not calling on Mrs. 
 Baldwin, since Mrs. Baldwin could not call 
 on her. This was for the very good reason 
 that the London lady had not left her 
 house at Barnes since she came to it. 
 
 8-2
 
 116 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 She did not profess to be ailiiig, but 
 for some occult reason best known to 
 herself she declined going abroad — "not 
 to worship God in His house, not to 
 receive the Holy Communion, not to 
 visit the poor or the sick," Mrs. Scrope 
 told herself in a positively awed voice. 
 
 The family dinner on Chiswick Mall 
 went off with the livelmess of an en- 
 tertainment at whicli entertainers and 
 guests were nearly all young people — the 
 single exception acting as a mild restraint 
 but by no means as a heavy damper on the 
 hilarity of the others. There was a great 
 deal of light chat and merry badinage, to 
 which Agnes contributed her full share, 
 thouD^h Pat and Georo^ie mio^ht be thouo^ht 
 by some to outshme her. Sam Scrope 
 supplied the dry humour without saymg 
 very much. He had not very much to say 
 except on special occasions, when what he 
 did say had a great deal in it, so that there 
 was reason to think he made up for his
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PKOW." 117 
 
 paucity of speech by abundance of thought. 
 He was as big as Pat was little — Sam's 
 comelmess was in a somewhat heavy and 
 colossal style, which was better set off by 
 his wig and gown than by ordinary dress. 
 At Scrope Hall there was a picture of 
 an old Scrope in judge's robes which Sam 
 was supposed to resemble. The likeness 
 gave rise in his friends' minds to a strong 
 and agreeable impression that he would 
 one day be invested with her Majesty's 
 ermine and take his seat on the bench. 
 
 Susie, Stella and Sophy Scrope consti- 
 tuted the three " S's," as they had a habit 
 of defining themselves — a definition which 
 their brother, brother-like, was careful to 
 remind them could, by a shght divergence 
 in pronunciation, be converted into any- 
 thing rather than a complimentary desig- 
 nation. They retorted that he formed the 
 fourth " S.S." and would suffer in their 
 company from any eccentricity of pronunci- 
 ation. The Misses Scrope, big, though on a
 
 118 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 smaller scale than their brother, rosy, fairly 
 handsome, slightly boisterous, would have 
 been well content to romp rather than 
 flirt with " little Dr. Baldwin," even 
 though a more available partner had been 
 within reach. Pat, for his part, was quite 
 ready to exchange saucy speeches with 
 three jolly girls, admitting that they were 
 not downright beauties and verged on 
 being giantesses. 
 
 If the little party looked and sounded 
 bright and animated in the dining-room, 
 they were still more so in the drawing- 
 room, where new elements of glad and 
 sympathetic intercourse presented them- 
 selves. Agnes, by one consent, was voted 
 to the piano and kept there, nothmg 
 loth, for the greater part of the evening. 
 Her singing had a charm for everybody, 
 and yet did not interfere with Pat's 
 games of reversi with Stella or hesique 
 with Sophy Scrope. 
 
 It was chiefly for Agnes' s use and
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PEOW." 119 
 
 pleasure that the cottage piano with its 
 heaps of music existed in the small 
 house at Barnes, though she was only 
 able to play and sing by fits and 
 snatches. She was a genuine musician, 
 not on a great scale, certainly, not even 
 with the advantage of a good training. 
 She had been imperfectly taught, her 
 knowledge was halting, and she had no 
 time to practise and improve . herself in the 
 art she loved. But she had a fine ear and 
 a sweet voice of moderate compass. She 
 frequently sang her own words and airs, 
 singing them from the heart, and they 
 were full of freshness and originality. 
 An expert might have detected in them 
 sins against the learned laws of harmony, 
 vagrant notes and unequal quantities. 
 But even to some who had not souls much 
 beyond scales and keys, and to all who were 
 happily not too deeply initiated mto the 
 technicalities and subtleties of music, there 
 was an mdefinite, unapproachable charm
 
 120 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 in Agnes Baldwin's clear, tender, half-un- 
 tutored singing. Her little romances 
 were part of herself, all about the crystal 
 transparency of truth, about spotless 
 purity, aud high-souled beauty — which 
 were not merely skin-deep but pierced and 
 j)ervaded a lovely nature through and 
 through — and about undying fidelity. The 
 men in Agnes's songs were heroes, incapable 
 of meanness or baseness, rev^erenced and 
 devoted without narrowness or fanaticism. 
 The women were fair saints and queens, 
 without asceticism, arrogance or insolence 
 in their saint ship and queenliness ; on the 
 •contrary, gentle and joyous, meek and 
 condescending, loyal daughters, noble 
 wives, fond yet wise mothers. 
 
 To listen to Agnes Baldwin's singing 
 on a summer night with the window 
 open to the lapping of the river, the 
 stroke of oars, the voices of children, the 
 stirring of leaves, the fragrance of flowers, 
 was like saying one's prayers in God's
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 121 
 
 universal clmrcli. Sam Scrope, for one, 
 knew well enougii from outward evidence 
 and from personal observation and reflec- 
 tion that life, alas, was not all that 
 Agnes Baldwin saw it ; that her world 
 was but a radiant section — true so far as 
 it went, let us be thankful — of the great 
 world, so much of which lay in the 
 black shadow of sin and wickedness. 
 Nevertheless he listened - to her en- 
 tranced, and could have listened for ever. 
 Whatever wit, wisdom and experience 
 he possessed, and undoubtedly his attain- 
 ments in these respects were considerable 
 for his years, and far surpassed those of 
 his companions, he would have willingly 
 exchanged all the fashionable cynicism of 
 the day, all its profane rhapsodies about 
 life's not bemo^ worth livino; and mar- 
 riage being a failure, all its lawless rav- 
 ings over the forbidden delights of what 
 is so sad, and mad and bad, and yet so 
 sweet, for one breath of Agnes Baldwin's
 
 122 SAPPIIIEA. 
 
 high faith in Heaven and earth, her un- 
 swerving trust, her undaunted courage, 
 her wholly bright yet half pathetic ac- 
 quiescence in all that is as best, because 
 it came from God. So good men and 
 women were bound to accept it and 
 make the best of it, and to find their 
 blessedness in taking up and bearing 
 the yoke and the cross, like the rest of 
 creation, and moulding themselves to the 
 awful, merciful Father's will. 
 
 It was impossible to see and hear 
 Agnes singing and not understand that 
 she had great delight in her own music ; 
 that she w^as in fact, as often as not, 
 carried away with it, so as to forget 
 time and place and all exterior circum- 
 stances. But now as she sang, in the 
 soft twilight, with every head in the room 
 involuntarily turned towards her — Mrs. 
 Scrope, who sat restmg in a corner of 
 the nearest couch abstractedly beating 
 time with her fingers on her knee ; Pat
 
 "YOUTH AT THE PROW." 123 
 
 and Susie, witli Sophy who was looking 
 on at the game, pausing in their quick 
 calculations and forgetting what they were 
 to play next ; Georgie and Stella, who 
 had been out in the garden, which opened 
 from the conservatory, and had their 
 hands full of honeysuckle and banksia 
 roses, standing arrested in the doorway ; 
 Sam, who had never moved from the 
 arm-chair which he had .taken on the 
 other side of the piano, except to hang 
 more and more with his big body over it 
 drinking in the singer's words — a sudden 
 consciousness came to her. An instinctive 
 perception, which she refused to perceive, 
 which she put away from her in- 
 stantly and peremptorily, flashed upon her. 
 She rose precipitately, with a laughing 
 apology for having trespassed on the 
 patience of the company so long. She 
 would not hsten to their protest, she 
 ensconced herself by Mrs. Scrope. She 
 left Sam sittins" out there alone in the
 
 124 SAPPHIKA. 
 
 cold, SO that lie had no choice save to 
 cross the room and say a few civil words 
 to Georgie, to which she turned rather a 
 careless ear. Then Agnes's brow cleared, 
 and she smiled benignly on the whole 
 room.
 
 CHAPTEE YL 
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 
 
 "Mother, I wish you would screw up 
 your strength to the point of calling on 
 Mrs. Baldwin," said Sam Scrope, invading 
 his mother's room after breakfast before 
 he started for his chambers in one of the 
 Imis of Court. Mrs. Scrope always break- 
 fasted in her dainty dressing-gown and 
 morning cap, in tranquil retirement. She 
 was a pretty, faded, compliant little woman 
 whom everybody petted, whose opposition 
 nobody minded very much ; it was so 
 certain to break down in the long run. 
 Her big son, with his big capacity and 
 dehberate ways, was at once the great 
 object of her admiration and her chief 
 stay, yet she was brave enough to contra- 
 dict him where he stood staring at the
 
 126 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 gloves he was pulling on and impressing 
 upon her his sense of the obhgation that 
 lay upon her to call on her old neighbour 
 in Lancashire. 
 
 " Eeally, Sam, I do not feel equal to 
 calling on Mrs. Baldwin," she said, with 
 a faint coral colour crossing the yellow- 
 white of the cheek turned to him. " I 
 am very sorry to disobhge you, of course, 
 if you care for my making the effort ; 
 and I am sorry also to fail in any cour- 
 tesy to Mrs. Baldwin, if she expects me 
 to renew our acquaintance ; but as she 
 knows I am an invahd, and as I beheve 
 she never goes out herself, though I don't 
 know why, I have no doubt she will 
 make allowance for me. Altogether, as I 
 said, Sam," Mrs. Scrope prepared a httle 
 confusedly to re^^eat her statement, " I do 
 not feel equal to calling on Mrs. Bald- 
 win." 
 
 " Certainly you ought to know your 
 own feelings best, and I don't wish to
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 127 
 
 tempt yon to make any exertion for which 
 yon are not able," said Sam, still fumbling 
 wdth the button of one of his gloves ; 
 " but it seems to me you under-rate your 
 powers. The girls persuaded you to go 
 wdth them to the last morning concert 
 at the Albert Hall, you sat out the con- 
 cert and were not w^orse for it ; Barnes is 
 nearer than Kensington, and the company 
 of an elderly lady like yourself must be 
 less fatiguing than the din, crowed and 
 heated air of a concert room ; I incline 
 to hold wdth the girls that the variety 
 of seemg a little society in a quiet way 
 would do you good. Then, I am sure, 
 you are too kind-hearted to need to be 
 reminded that though the young Bald- 
 wins are making a gallant fight, they 
 have had trouble, and have, as most people 
 would thmk, fallen dowai in the world. 
 We who have had no such experience 
 are bound to remember that, and to stand 
 by old friends."
 
 128 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " I cannot help it," said Mrs. Scrope 
 incoherently, facing round on her son, 
 and as it were standing at bay. " I 
 mean I cannot help the Baldwins' trouble, 
 though I am sorry for them ; I have been 
 sorry all along. But I cannot call on 
 Mrs. Baldwin ; pray do not ask me, 
 Sam," and the lady drew back on her 
 sofa with a kind of shivering recoil. 
 
 Sam Scrope looked keenly at his mother, 
 suddenly crossed the space between them 
 and sat down on a chair by her sofa, 
 makino: it creak with his weiofht and the 
 abruptness of the movement, an abrupt- 
 ness foreign to his habits. He pulled off 
 the gloves he had just drawn on, and 
 addressed her again. " You won't be 
 pressed to do what you don't want to — 
 you know that, mother," he proceeded 
 half commandingly, as might have been 
 expected from the manful head of a house — 
 the single man m a household of women — 
 half soothingly, because forbearance was a
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 129 
 
 quality of that very manliness, and be- 
 cause lie was accustomed to deal with a 
 timid, sickly woman. " But you must 
 tell me why you have so great a repug- 
 nance to the idea of calling on Mrs. 
 Baldwm ? " 
 
 She looked at him from under her down- 
 cast eyelids and her hands trembled while 
 she dragged her white shawl more closely 
 round her. " I think you know a little 
 why," she said almost in a whisper, as 
 if she were speaking treason ; "you were 
 the merest lad at the time, but you were 
 a good deal older than the eldest of the 
 young Baldwins, and you were far forward 
 and thoughtful for your years. You 
 know your poor dear father and I always 
 imagined," with an innocent wile to parry 
 the question by administering a little 
 gentle flattery to the questioner, " you 
 had a look of old Judge Scrope, whose 
 likeness hangs above the chimney-piece 
 
 m the library." 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 ISO SAPPHIKA. 
 
 " Yes, I daresay nothing less would 
 serve you than that I should mount the 
 woolsack, which, by the way, old Judge 
 Scrope did not do. But never mind me 
 or anybody I resemble ; the question is, 
 what happened over at Brackengill ? What 
 was the cloud that fell on the Baldwins 
 in addition to their money losses ? " 
 
 " It is a pamful subject," said Mrs. 
 Scrope, still speaking unwilhngiy, and me- 
 chanically shding the rings she wore up 
 and down her iinofers according' to the 
 manner of many nervous women. " I dare- 
 say we kept what was said from you as 
 much as we could, but you were too ob- 
 servant, and you would not be put off a 
 subject, or induced to turn away from it, 
 when you had once got it into your head." 
 
 " I have not got it clearly there to this 
 day, unless you will help me — that is 
 what I am asking," he said with quiet 
 determination, leaning back, turning half 
 round and hanging one arm over the back
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 131 
 
 of his chair, as if he had made up his 
 mind to sit there waiting patiently for 
 what he wanted, for half-an-hour at least. 
 
 " Oh ! it is httle that I can tell you of 
 anything certain," she said hastily, " only 
 vao'ue accusations and distressino; rumours, 
 while the bare suspicion was so horrible 
 that I cannot bear to think of it, far less 
 to repeat it, after all these years. Why, the 
 very thought of her — a widow like myself 
 among her grown-up children, one of 
 whom was little better than a baby at 
 the time — no farther off than across the 
 Thames there at Barnes, turns me sick." 
 
 " Face the spectre and it ceases to be a 
 sj^ectre," said Sam, " and if she has la- 
 boured under a false and what certainly 
 seems a grossly improbable aspersion all 
 these years, it is high time that her repu- 
 tation were cleared. Mother, you must 
 steel yourself to try and tell me what 
 you can recollect, in common fairness to 
 your old friend." 
 
 9-2
 
 132 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " She was no old friend of mine," said 
 Mrs. Scrope a little indignantly, raising 
 herself into a sitting posture ; " even Dick 
 Baldwin was not more than an acquaint- 
 ance of your father's, though what with 
 livino' in the country and dispensing 
 country hospitality the connection appeared 
 closer." She was bringing herself to re- 
 call and recount old events and the 
 scandal which had attached to them, but 
 it was from no desire to wipe off the 
 stains from Mrs. Bald wm's character; it was 
 from an impulse to defend herself and 
 her husband from the implication of having 
 been on intimate terms with the elder 
 Baldwins. It had flashed across her not 
 over sharp mind — and her son's sagacity 
 penetrated the motive — that she might by 
 the explanation put a limit to the grow- 
 ing friendship between the young people, 
 which she had up to the present moment 
 been powerless to arrest. " You are 
 aware, Sam, that Mr. Baldwin was a Lan-
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 13.3 
 
 cashire manuflicturer, belonging to the 
 firm of Baldwin, l^ulmer and Foster — a 
 great firm in its day. I believe Mr. Bul- 
 mer is still alive and lias made a new 
 private business out of the wreck of the 
 old one which he wound up. Mr. Bald- 
 win bouo'ht Brackenoill, he did not succeed 
 to it ; the place was not in the family's 
 hands for the whole of one generation, 
 though I believe they were well enough con- 
 nected. He married soon after he came 
 to Brackengill. He and Mrs. Baldwin were 
 not a well-matched couple. He was much 
 older, and a pompous, ostentatious kind 
 of man. Your father did not care for him, 
 though he was sorry for him when he got into 
 difficulties. It was said that his wife had 
 married him in a pet, that she had cared 
 for some other man and been disappointed 
 in her affections. It seems to me that 
 such stories were more plentiful then 
 than they are now ; either people have 
 less heart or they have more self-control.
 
 134 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 Perhaps jou can tell, Sam," she made the 
 appeal to her general referee, for a breath- 
 ing space. 
 
 " Both, I should say," Sam decided suc- 
 cinctly ; " but take time ; don't hurry your- 
 self, mother." 
 
 " I have heard that Mrs. Baldwin's 
 family, who did not belong either to 
 Lancashire or Westmoreland " 
 
 " They were Yorkshire people, I believe," 
 said Sam. 
 
 " Wherever they came from they were 
 poor," resumed Mrs. Scrope, "and it was 
 said that after she met with the dis- 
 ajDpointment I have referred to, and it may 
 be did not care what became of herself, 
 they urged her to marry Mr. Baldwin 
 for a home. If so, she was punished, 
 for it was taken from her. Yet I can- 
 not say that she did not do her duty 
 by her husband, though it was clear 
 enough that they were not of the same 
 nature. Her pride was not his pride ;
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE P.IST. K55 
 
 she was simple and dignified wliere he 
 was boastful and bumptious, at least your 
 father and I used to think so. They 
 speak of ' Manchester men ' and ' Liverpool 
 gentlemen,' but though he was well 
 enough born, as I have told you, and 
 well enough bred, conventionally, there 
 was not much of a gentleman by nature 
 in Dick Baldwin." 
 
 " The children must have taken after 
 their mother," said Sam coolly. 
 
 " Only the eldest girl Agnes is like her 
 mother," answered Mrs. Scrope with a 
 flurried glance at Sam. 
 
 "Oh I come now, mother," he began 
 hastily. Then he made an amendment on 
 what he had been going to say. " In 
 that case the scandal must have been 
 utter bosh," he said boldly. 
 
 " Very possibly it w^as," admitted his 
 mother uneasily. " When I say the girl 
 is like her, it is like what I fancy her 
 mother may have been before the be-
 
 136 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 ginning of lier troubles, before tbat dis- 
 appointment which was gossiped about 
 and before lier marriage with an uncon- 
 genial husband ; but as I did not know 
 her in those days I may be mistaken in 
 the fancy. Certainly Agnes Baldwin is 
 her mother's height and has her fair com- 
 plexion, while the other children take 
 after their father, who was a little dark 
 man. Mrs. Baldwin did her duty by her 
 husband, though the two went their dif- 
 ferent ways, and it was plain to see that 
 her heart was centred in her children. 
 She was more with Dick Baldwin after 
 he fell into his adversity and his health 
 gave way, while age was creeping fast 
 upon him. People considered that she 
 quite devoted herself to him then, though 
 he could not have been an interesting or a 
 cheerful companion. His reverses preyed 
 on his mind, until from being a loud, 
 boisterous man he grew moody and 
 morose. I have heard Dr. Blacket, whose
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 137 
 
 patient he was, say that undoubtedly his 
 brain became aifected, and he ceased to 
 be altogether responsible for his actions." 
 
 " The firm he was in were on the brink 
 of failure and stopped payment for a 
 time : was that the sum total of the mess 
 in which his affairs were left ? " inquired 
 Sam Scrope curiously. 
 
 Mrs. Scrope shook her head. "It is 
 not for me to say ; you may remember 
 he died before the business could be 
 wound up. Old Mr. Buhner, who is liv- 
 ing still, complained bitterly that there 
 c(juld be no explanation between them. 
 He blamed Mr. Baldwin, who had been 
 managmg partner before Mr. Buhner, 
 fur gross extravagance and for over-draw- 
 ing his account — his share of the profits, 
 I suppose ; I confess I never understood 
 the matter properly — if for nothing worse. 
 He had the notion — Mr. Buhner had — that 
 he was blamed for deficiencies in the capital 
 of tlie firm which were due to Mr.
 
 138 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Baldwin ; and Mr. l^ulmer was not tlie 
 man with the temper to stand such an 
 imputation, if it existed anywhere save 
 in his own imagination." 
 
 " And Baldwin died very inopportunely 
 for his partners, so far as their arriving 
 at any clear settlement ? " Sam, sitting 
 with his chin in his hand, helped his 
 mother on in her narrative. 
 
 " He was found dead in bed," said 
 Mrs. Scrope with an involuntary shiver. 
 " He was old and ailing, indeed far gone 
 in infirmity and imbecihty, for he broke 
 down very rapidly towards the end ; 
 still Dr. Blacket was surprised by the 
 suddenness of his death." She lowered 
 her voice as she finished, and again the 
 little shiver which had passed over her 
 before, in the course of the interview, 
 ran through her 
 
 " Dr. Blacket must have given a cer- 
 tificate of the cause of the death," said 
 Sam sharply.
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 139 
 
 " No, as it happened lie did not," de- 
 nied Mrs. Scrope with decision. " His 
 father the old doctor was alive still, and 
 was just then taking the whole business 
 while his son, ' young Dr. Blacket ' as 
 we called him in his father's lifetime, 
 was gone for a holiday. It was old Dr. 
 Blacket who was called in on the 
 death." 
 
 " Well ? " said Sam interrogatively. 
 "Well," repeated Mrs. Scrope like a 
 scared echo. " There were people who 
 maintained that the old doctor was past 
 work and ought never to have been in- 
 trusted with such a charge. He could 
 not get through the day's work. He 
 was always pressed for time. It was 
 alleged that he did not care to look at an 
 old man like himself, who was unques- 
 tionably past his help, for Mr. Baldwin 
 had been dead for hours before the doctor 
 got over to Brackengill. He heard what 
 Mrs. Baldwm and the servants had to
 
 140 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 say, and then gave the certificate, it was 
 asserted, without going beyond the door of 
 the room where the dead man lay." 
 
 " It seems to me that there were far too 
 many assertions and conjectures without 
 any sure foundation for them," said the 
 future judge. " Xow, mother, one more 
 thing : what was held to be the gain to 
 the Baldwins by Mr. Baldwin's opportune 
 or inopportune death ? " 
 
 It was clear that Mrs. Scrope had heard 
 the question discussed before, by the un- 
 hesitating manner in which she replied : 
 
 " Both the late Mr. Baldwin and all con- 
 nected with him were saved the exposure 
 and disgrace which would have attended 
 on any examination and publication of 
 business defalcations on his part, if such 
 existed. Why, we, who were only their 
 neighbours, were thankful, on first hearing 
 of the death, that the family had been 
 spared so much. Besides, they would have 
 been left the next thinof to destitute
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 141 
 
 without the considerable sum lor which 
 his life was insured. As it happened they 
 lost that also, from the unfortunate 
 failure of the insurance company ; but 
 they could not have anticipated the last 
 collapse, for the company bore an excellent 
 reputation. As I need not tell you, your 
 poor lather had his life insured in it, and 
 had no cause for alarm till within a week 
 of the date when he learned that he had 
 lost every one of his annual payments 
 smce he came of age." 
 
 " And for this mess of pottage — the 
 hushing-up of a local scandal, the securing 
 of an insurance premium — you can give 
 a moment's credence to the outrageous 
 theory that an educated gentlewoman of 
 unblemished reputation, nay, who had 
 the credit, as you acknowledge, of having 
 proved not merely a faithful but a kind 
 wife to an unsuitable husband the 
 moment he needed her kindness, was 
 so far left to herself as to become
 
 142 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 guilty of an inhuman crime ? " he de- 
 manded sternly and scornfully. 
 
 " Good heavens ! Sam," cried his 
 mother in mingled trepidation and 
 righteous anger, " who said I gave 
 credence to the horrible story ? I never 
 said so or thought so. I was only 
 repeating, at your urgent request, the 
 unpleasant rumours that were in circu- 
 lation in the neighbourhood of Scrope 
 Hall and Brackengill soon after Dick 
 Baldwin's death. There was an unlucky 
 mystery where it was concerned, there 
 cannot be a doubt of that," she went on 
 with the peculiar doggedness of some 
 mild women. " You must take every- 
 thing into consideration. He was not 
 only an elderly man, he was getting as 
 full of infirmities as of years, a burden to 
 himself as well as to all around him. 
 He was dying on his feet in fact, and 
 ceasmg to be answerable for what he said 
 or did, or to know fully what was passing
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. J 43 
 
 around him. For sucli a man to Lave 
 undergone an examination, which could 
 not have been dechned without at once 
 exciting suspicion, on business matters, 
 many of them transactions of years and 
 years back, would have been a melancholy 
 farce. I have always heard your father 
 say, Mr. Baldwin's death, happening when 
 it did, was a great relief to himself and 
 his friends. It saved both himself and 
 his family from an insulting ordeal — the 
 truth or falsehood of which it would 
 have been almost impossible to ascertain." 
 " It could have been done," said Sam 
 with judicial authority. 
 
 " Many people," continued Mrs. Scrope, 
 " who could not and would not accept 
 the worst version of the affair, were in- 
 clined to think it owed its origin, and 
 had received shape and colour, from some 
 simple accident or mere mistake in the 
 administration of the sick man's medi- 
 cine. If so, she might have been over-
 
 144 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 whelmed with the disastrous consequences 
 of the error, and she might have shrunk 
 from confessing the truth till it was too 
 late. That would have been weak and 
 wrong, but not like the other enormity." 
 "Was she a weak woman?" asked 
 Sam, and the sceptical irony in his voice 
 provoked even so gentle -tempered a 
 woman as his mother. 
 
 " Xo," she said emphatically, " but she 
 acted very foolishly for an innocent per- 
 son ; she dismissed some of the servants 
 who persisted m whispermg that they had 
 seen Mr. Baldwin, who was not bed-rid- 
 den, or even confined to the house, tot- 
 tering along one of the walks through 
 the shrubberies, early on the very morn- 
 ing when he was said to have been 
 found dead in bed." 
 
 " No, I deny your inference," said Sam 
 Scrope dehberately, pulhng himself to- 
 gether, getting up and walking to the 
 window behind him. " That was the un-
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 145 
 
 mistakable act of an innocent woman 
 possessed of such intelligence as she is 
 endowed with. There was no folly in it, 
 in that light. If she had been guilty 
 even to the extent you are disposed to 
 give credit to, she would have been more 
 cautious ; as it was she might very well 
 have wished to silence idle, ignorant 
 chatter. Quite probably her husband had 
 walked in the shrubbery the morning be- 
 fore that of his death, or half-a-dozen 
 mornings before, the rustic mind is not 
 too precise in the matter of dates. Or she 
 might have had the idea of nipping in the 
 bud a form of superstitious panic, involved 
 in the well-authenticated appearance of a 
 ghost or wraith." 
 
 " But you do not believe in ghosts or 
 wraiths, Sam ? " questioned Mrs. Scrope 
 m a bewildered way. 
 
 "Certainly not," answered Sam, still 
 studying the weather. 
 
 " They say it has become fashionable," 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 remarked liis mother ambiguously and 
 with halting grammar. ^' But poor Mrs. 
 Baldwin did more than that," Mrs. Scrope 
 went on, slightly piqued by the manner 
 in which her son was receiving her story : 
 "she dismissed the greater part of the ser- 
 vants with liberal additions to their wasres, 
 in spite of Mr. Baldwm's losses. It might 
 have been because she was naturally a 
 generous woman, in her quiet way, and 
 had shown herself such throughout her 
 married life," granted Mrs. Scrope candidly. 
 " The generosity was particularly noticed 
 in Mrs. Baldwin, because girls who have 
 been poor, and have married husbands m 
 what was believed to have been wealthy 
 circumstances, and paid rather dearly for 
 their bargains, are not apt to be free with 
 their money, but are grasping and tena- 
 cious of what they have bought at what 
 they find a heavy price. However, 
 though she had a generous temper, there 
 was no reason why Mrs. Baldwin should
 
 THE SIIADOAY OF THE PAST. 147 
 
 give quite a large sum of money to a 
 couple of Scotch servants, a husband and 
 wife, she had with lier. Unless " — she 
 finished ao-ain with a nervous inclination to 
 quahfj her statement — "because the woman 
 helped to nurse Mr. Baldwin after he was 
 too ill to be left with ]\Irs. Baldwm, and 
 the other servant, the man, who said he had 
 gone to the door of the bedroom to speak 
 to his wife, was the person who raised 
 the alarm that his master was lying dead 
 in bed and rode to fetch Dr. Blacket." 
 
 " These might be perfectly valid reasons 
 in Mrs. Baldwin's eyes," said Sam, still 
 speakmg with his back turned and his 
 eyes lookmg out of the window. 
 
 " But nothing, I mean nothing in the 
 ordinary course of events," maintained his 
 mother, " would account for the great 
 change in herself. I never saw a woman 
 change so much as Mrs. Baldwin did after 
 she became a widow. Everybody who 
 knew her saw it and spoke of it." 
 
 10—2
 
 148 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Sam enunciated the single word, " Grief," 
 without much conviction in his tone. 
 
 "Nonsense," said Mrs. Scrope quite im- 
 patiently for so patient a little woman. 
 " She was not so much attached to him 
 as that would come to. It was easy to 
 see that they were an ill-matched couple, 
 as I have told you, and it was current in 
 the county that in her young days she 
 had given her heart to another and a 
 very diiferent man ; she had only taken 
 Mr. Baldwin as a pis aller : not that she 
 failed him more than she could help, I 
 baheve. She treated him with perfect 
 respect, and went constantly mto com- 
 pany with him, though the pair were 
 little together at home, which might be 
 his doing as well as hers ; and as time 
 wore on she did not look an unhappy 
 woman, grave and quiet as she was for 
 the most part. I have heard her singing 
 and laughing among her children hke any 
 other young mother. But from the time of
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 149 
 
 her liusbancrs death she never crossed her 
 own door-step unless she was compelled ; 
 she did not even go to church ; she did 
 not return a sinofle call of condolence made 
 on her. She drew back within herself 
 and looked as cold and frozen as if she 
 had been turned into stone. I don't set 
 u[) for much penetration, but I must say 
 I thought she had a hunted, scared look, 
 as if she shrank from detection, and had 
 always the dread that something dreadful 
 was going to happen to her on her 
 mind." 
 
 " Imagination plays strange pranks with 
 us," said Sam ; " but I did not know that 
 you were plagued with imagination." 
 
 " Xeither am I, Sam," she said, as if 
 she were rebuking an unworthy accu- 
 sation. 
 
 " Did you ever see these favourite ser- 
 vants?" he put it to her. "They should 
 be old people, if indeed they are still 
 alive, by this time."
 
 150 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " Really, Sam, you ask so many ques- 
 tions, you seem to forget you are not in 
 court," said Lis mother, still aggrieved 
 and rather weary. " Of course I don't 
 mind answering you, if I can give you 
 any satisfaction, but it is a bad habit to 
 get into, so is your speaking over your 
 shoulder when I cannot hear half you 
 say." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, mother," said Sam, 
 wheeling round. " I may take it you know 
 nothing of these people, these servants we 
 were talking of ? " 
 
 " No, what should I know ? " rej)hed 
 Mrs. Scrope. " We were not very near 
 Brackengill at Scrope Hall, as you must 
 be aware ; neither were the two families 
 so intimate, though your father liked to 
 keep up the old north country hospitahty. 
 Certainly the man and woman would be 
 well up in years if they were alive. I 
 daresay they went back to Scotland when 
 Mrs. Baldwin broke up her establishment.
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 151 
 
 I may say slie did that when she reduced 
 her style of hving to the last degree on 
 her husband's death, and after the failure 
 of the insm-ance company, w^hen she was 
 left with no more than the allowance 
 granted by the firm till their affairs were 
 womid up. Brackengill was sold, you 
 remember, and she quitted the neighbour- 
 hood and went to Yorkshire to stay near 
 her relations. Eventually, as the young 
 people tell me, she was induced to come 
 up to London to give them a better edu- 
 cation and to launch them in life. I 
 don't suppose she would take any of her 
 old servants into Yorkshire. Stay, Sam," 
 as long - forgotten recollections stirred 
 within her, " I believe I do remember 
 something of the Scotchman. He came 
 over with a note to your father once, and 
 I think I made the observation that he 
 was the next thing to deformed, the 
 shortest, most bandy-legged person I had 
 ever seen. Dear, dear, how long that is
 
 152 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 ago," reflected the lady, interlacing her 
 fingers ; " your sister Stella was a little 
 thmg in a \yhite frock and blue shoes, and 
 she cried with fright, for you had been 
 tellmg her stories of trolls and brownies 
 and she thought the queer long-armed 
 man — for his arms were as long as his 
 bowed legs looked short — was one of them. 
 But there is somethmg more that I wish 
 to say to you," rousing herself from the 
 contemplation of the picture she had con- 
 jured up. "I can see you are gomg at 
 last. I have had no desire to rake up old 
 scandals ; if you will do me the justice 
 to think of it, you forced me to do it. 
 Xobody can be sorrier than I am for these 
 two poor innocent girls, fine girls in 
 then' clifierent styles, both of them. The 
 lad too looks a nice promising lad ; I have 
 not a word to say against any one of 
 them. They are welcome here if they 
 like to come, smce your sisters have taken 
 a fancy to them. The young Baldwins,
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 153 
 
 poor things, could not help anythmg that 
 was wrong in the past, if there was 
 anything far wrong. They were mere 
 children, all of them ; the girl Georgie was 
 younger than my Stella, a little thing of 
 three or four years. Their father and 
 mother were old neighbours at Scrope 
 Hall, and all that kmd of thing — that is 
 true enough. But surely you must see 
 that I cannot be expected, to call on a 
 woman against whom there has been even 
 the slightest breath of such a horrible 
 suspicion," and poor Mrs. Scrope positively 
 gasped at the idea. 
 
 " Unless to dispel the suspicion," said 
 Sam ; " but don't trouble about it now. I 
 am thinking of takmg a run north to-night ; 
 I have somethmg to do at home. Have 
 you any commissions ? " 
 
 " Bless me, Sam, you do take people 
 aback," cried Mrs. Scrope, sitting bolt 
 upright m her astonishment. " This is 
 a sudden resolution, and you used not to do
 
 154 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 things so unexpectedly. It is natural for 
 you to have matters to talk over with 
 Paton, your bailiff, only I wonder that 
 you did not mention beforehand that you 
 were going to Lancashire." 
 
 " I am not what is called a chatterbox," 
 said big Sam, with what would have been 
 regarded as demureness in a little girl. 
 
 " No, that you are not, though you can 
 make other people chatter. Shall you be 
 away for two or three days ? " 
 
 " Just for one, I expect ; I mean to come 
 back to-morrow night." 
 
 " My dear boy, travelling two such 
 long journeys on end, I may say, is in- 
 curring a great deal of fatigue. Are you 
 certain that it is necessary ? " 
 
 " Certain," he replied with conviction. 
 " And I am not a fine lady — I am big 
 enough to knock about the world instead 
 of merely going to Lancashire and coming 
 back again." 
 
 " No, Sam, I have no commissions, thank
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE PAST. 155 
 
 you ; I wrote to Mrs. Aslie about the win- 
 dows and beds last week. But I daresay 
 your sisters will have a feAV messages and 
 parcels." 
 
 " About wliicli tliere is no hurry, while 
 my errand will not wait. Bid the girls 
 write the messages and send the parcels 
 by post, which will help the revenue, give 
 the S.'s somethmg useful to do, and save 
 me time and trouble," said Sam, kissing 
 his mother and quittmg the room.
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 A REJECTED WxVRXING. 
 
 Agxes Baldwin was walking past the 
 ]\larble Arch m the bright summer after- 
 noon, in the course of one of her literary 
 expeditions, when it struck her that if she 
 crossed into the park she would have more 
 space and quiet to pursue her meditations, 
 which were deeply concerned in the fortunes 
 of her last heroine. She was in the act 
 of fulfilling her intention, when a han- 
 som dashed up, stopped, and the large 
 figure of Sam Scrope appeared for an in- 
 stant fining up the opening, before he leapt 
 down and joined her. It was provoking. 
 She had just got her heroine into an 
 exciting difiiculty, from which she could 
 only be extricated, with any show of 
 probability, by a considerable expenditure
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. ]57 
 
 of tliouoiit and care. Ames mi<>lit have 
 been at once soothed and exhilarated by 
 the shade of the trees and the softness of 
 the turf, though trees and turf were fast 
 losing their May freshness. She might 
 have triumpliantly extricated the child of 
 her brain from the dilemma in which the 
 heroic lover had been led to suppose that 
 his mistress was altogether indifferent to 
 him — and it was absolutely necessary that 
 he should be delicately disabused of the 
 false impression, by the time the author of 
 the imbroglio had reached the opposite gate. 
 Why would idle people come in their 
 busy neighbours' way in this tantalizing 
 fashion ? Xot that Sam Scrope was re- 
 puted idle, but why was he turning up 
 here in this desultory manner, when he 
 ought to be in his chambers occupied 
 with his law authorities ? Ah ! What 
 would Agnes not give for the leisure and 
 seclusion of chambers, instead of having 
 to work out her characters and their
 
 158 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 fates, trudging along the streets, or being 
 squeezed and shaken in omnibuses, or 
 subjected to domestic interruptions at 
 home ? 
 
 If Sam Scrope was disengaged, why 
 did he not take himself and his leisure 
 down to Chiswick, or find his way to 
 Barnes, where his heart was understood 
 to be, and bestow his spare time on 
 Georgie, who was not engaged in any 
 way which would keep her from attend- 
 ing to him ? 
 
 Georgie professed indifference to his 
 company, it is true, but of course that 
 was only pretty coyness. Agnes had in- 
 vested her favourite heroines with the 
 becoming quality over and over again. 
 Their coyness equalled their devotion and 
 fidelity. 
 
 Then a happy thought struck Agnes, 
 which served to console her for having 
 to waste her precious time, and induced 
 her to receive Sam mth quite a cordial
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 159 
 
 smile and shake of the hand. Mio-ht he 
 
 &•' 
 
 not be seeking her out and arresting her 
 to talk of Georgie ? Enamoured swains 
 were wont to seize every chance of dis- 
 coursing on the adored object, preferring 
 that they should hear her satirized, nay, 
 o'oino: so far as to dissemble and satirize 
 her themselves — though these were some- 
 what base and dastardly lovers, not at 
 all according' to Asfnes's mind — than that 
 they should not hear their lady spoken of 
 at all. Therefore as Agnes was a hundred 
 times fonder of Georgie than of the off- 
 sprmg of her own brain, she was ready 
 to sacrifice the latter to the former with 
 a good grace. 
 
 Sam Scrope, looking very tall, grave 
 and preoccupied, walked for a space by 
 Agnes's side. He did not rush into open 
 inquiries, or indulge in vague, subtle 
 allusions to the younger sister. He con- 
 tented himself with exchanging the pre- 
 liminary nothings of social intercourse,
 
 160 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 the remarks on the prolonged fine weather, 
 on the damage a long continuance of 
 the drought would do to the parks, on 
 the dust, which was an unpleasant ac- 
 companiment of travelling. Yes, he had 
 just come off a journey, at least he had 
 been as far north as Lancashire and 
 Scrope Hall. 
 
 Agnes gave what might be the expected 
 exclamation, though she could not tell 
 what there was to exclaim at on Sam 
 Scrope's spending the day at his own 
 house, unless the legal business which 
 he was not actually conducting from 
 dewy morn to dusky eve was supposed 
 to stand in the way. When he did 
 refer to Agnes's home circle, he asked 
 after Mrs. Baldwin's health instead of 
 singling out Georgie's welfare as the theme 
 of his animadversions ; but that was all 
 right, a graceful subterfuge, a respectful 
 compliment to the seniority of Georgie's 
 mother.
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 161 
 
 " How is Mrs. Baldwin ? Has she been 
 well lately ? Does she relax her rule of 
 staying at home ? " he inquired with 
 marked mterest. 
 
 Agnes thought it decidedly nice and 
 filial of him to be so much taken up with 
 what concerned her mother. She gave 
 him the requisite assurance with regard to 
 Mrs. Baldwin's health, and explained the 
 unalterable nature of her habits. Still 
 he stuck to his subject pertinaciously, 
 without betraying any inchnation to di- 
 verge to the health and habits of Mrs. 
 Baldwin's younger daughter, which one 
 mitrht have imao;ined w^ould have fur- 
 nished a yet more attractive topic. He 
 walked on by Agnes's side, crossing the 
 park with her. He let his arms fall, 
 then put them behind his back, clasping 
 them there, thrust his head a little for- 
 ward, staring abstractedly at his boots, 
 and all the time he kept on talking of 
 the pallor of Mrs. Baldwin's complexion, 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 her sedentary life, and lier absorption in 
 the work which was never out of her 
 hands. 
 
 'No one could exceed Agnes Baldwin in 
 the profound reverence and tender affection 
 she felt for her sole surviving parent, but 
 she began to think Sam Scrope tiresome, 
 formal, almost affected in his elaborate 
 discussion of what he had very little to 
 do with, in the meantime, at least — her 
 mother's looks and ways. He was speak- 
 ing more than usual, while it sounded as 
 if he were speaking for speaking's sake. 
 
 Agnes took to answering her companion 
 in monosyllables, as her attention began 
 to wander. She felt bound to settle that 
 tremendously important love affair of her 
 heroine's, and have it all cut and dry 
 before she had to sit down to her desk 
 and reduce it to paper. 
 
 How long was it before Agnes thought 
 of that story again, or did she ever finish 
 it, with a totally different ending fi:om that
 
 A KEJECTED WARNING. 163 
 
 she had intended to give it many days 
 subsequent to the miserable time when 
 she learnt to look on such sentimental 
 tribulations, on her future success as a 
 writer, even on her capacity to be fore- 
 most in earning daily bread, in the light 
 of trifles light as air, not worth reckoning ? 
 " Your mother must be greatly changed 
 since you can remember her, when you 
 were a little girl at Brackengill," he was 
 saying with the greatest seriousness, well- 
 nigh with solemnity. " My mother says 
 she can recall Mrs. Baldwin playing 
 merrily with her children and going 
 about cheerfully among her neighbours." 
 As he spoke he glanced at the sunlight 
 flickering among the trees, at the groups 
 of passers-by — children at play, and men 
 and women pursuing their ordinary er- 
 rands, all the more contentedly for the 
 quiet and freedom of the park and the 
 pleasant summer weather — at the tall, 
 slender, pale-faced, red-haired girl at his 
 
 11—2
 
 164 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 elbow, witL the slight abstraction stealing 
 over what had been till within the last 
 few minutes the eager animation of her 
 air. As he glanced, he saw none of the 
 objects on which her eyes were fixed, or 
 rather, he saw them as a background 
 to a strange and widely contrasting 
 scene. 
 
 An old - fashioned, small - windowed 
 country house, standing solitary in its 
 grounds among the " shaggy wood " and 
 rugged fells of a hill country, an old- 
 fashioned room, its principal piece of 
 furniture a big four-post bed, piled with 
 mattresses, on which lay stretched the 
 lifeless figure of an old man. He was 
 worn and hao-o^ard, as if with lono- ill- 
 ness, but his face did not bear the stamp 
 of deadly weakness, neither had it the 
 peaceful seal set on it by death in sleep, 
 when one who was very weary has been 
 mercifully called to his rest. There 
 were traces of suiFering and a last
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 165 
 
 struggle for dear life, in the clenched 
 hands and the set teeth. 
 
 " Of course mother is changed since 
 poor father died," said Agnes, roused into 
 employing tones of wondering reproach. 
 At the same time she spoke with perfect 
 calmness and confidence, as if the mere 
 fact of her father's having died in the 
 course of nature was ample reason for 
 every alteration in her mother. 
 
 " Did it never occur to you. Miss 
 Baldwin," said Sam Scrope, hesitating a 
 little, to begin with, and then hurrying 
 his speech, " that there may have been 
 some pamful details in connection with 
 your father's death ? You were too young 
 to have been made acquainted with such sad 
 particulars, but they may have left an in- 
 delible impression on Mrs. Baldwin from 
 which she has never recovered. Do forgive 
 me if I disturb and distress you," he be- 
 sought her, for Agnes was turning away 
 from him with all the suddenly awakened
 
 166 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 trouble and displeasure which such an 
 extraordinary suggestion could produce 
 visible in her face. " You may be sure I 
 would not do it if I could help myself, 
 that it is for your sake, for everybody's 
 sake. What I wish to say, and I am 
 saymg it most clumsily and blmideringly, 
 no doubt, is, that your mother appears 
 to be in a peculiar condition of mind and 
 body from which it might be well to 
 rouse her." 
 
 " Mr. Scrope," said Agnes, with frank- 
 ness, dignity and mdignation fighting for 
 the mastery in her words and looks, " I 
 confess I do not understand you. I can 
 believe that you, or rather Mrs. Scrope, may 
 have fomid a great change in my mother, 
 and may have a friendly but altogether 
 mistaken purpose in calling our attention 
 to it. As if we, her children, would not 
 see and do all that could be done in the 
 circumstances ! For if you will only 
 remember that she has lost her husband.
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 167 
 
 been without him all these long years, 
 and that we can never on earth, with all 
 our care and atfection, give him back to 
 her, you may surely judge that there is 
 sufficient cause for the alteration in her 
 looks and spirits, without the possibility 
 of our preventing it. I have said nothing of 
 our loss of Brackengill and our reduced 
 precarious circumstances," she added with 
 great simplicity, " because of course such 
 worldly reverses would not weigh a feather's 
 weight in comparison with the crownmg 
 calamity of the death of my father." 
 
 He looked at her with the same ex- 
 pression in his honest hazel eyes which 
 was there when he listened to her sing- 
 ing her own songs. It combined reve- 
 rence, admiration and amazement that he 
 should have come in contact with a spirit 
 and sentiments which were, for the most 
 part, so out of date in the generation. 
 On this occasion his glance was also full 
 of pity so intense that it wrung his heart
 
 168 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 and drained the healthy colour from his 
 cheeks. " Then it is your candid opinion," 
 he said more slowly, " that your mother's 
 widowhood, which began seventeen years 
 aofo, and was what mio'ht have been looked 
 for in the common lot, since, though she 
 was still a comparatively young woman, 
 her husband, your father, was already an 
 old ailing man, is in itself enough to have 
 broken her down beyond the power of 
 recovery, to have robbed her of all hope 
 and energy in the years that are already 
 gone, and in those which are still to come, 
 leaving her stranded as she is ? " 
 
 " Yes, I believe it," she said, half 
 solemnly, half defiantly, with shming eyes, 
 " where there has been a true union, such 
 as must have existed between mother and 
 father, where heart has answered to heart, 
 and love has done its utmost, love which 
 is stronger than death. Mind, I am not 
 saying that I do not regret the wreck 
 which remains, or that my prmciples will
 
 A EEJECTED WARNING. 1G9 
 
 let me approve of it, though what am I to 
 approve or disapprove of tlie hohest mystery 
 of Hfe ? I do not even argue that it 
 liappens in every case where there has 
 been strong and disinterested affection. 
 What I do say is that my mother's loss 
 of her husband, while she was still in 
 the middle of her days, explains perfectly 
 why she and many a wddow like her have 
 never held up their heads again." 
 
 " My mother has lost my father," he 
 remonstrated, " and from my own know- 
 ledge I can vouch that they were what 
 is called a happy couple ; I am ready to 
 vouch also, that she never has forgotten, 
 never will forget him. She is a weaker 
 woman, m every way, than your mother. 
 Her shattered health might excuse her for 
 indulging in vain retrospection. She has 
 not had so much time to recover from the 
 blow, for it is not above ten years since 
 my father died ; yet she is happy in her 
 children ; she lives again in them."
 
 170 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 " I did not say all widows mourned like 
 my mother," asserted Agnes, evidently 
 with a certain innocent pride in her 
 mother's excess of mourning ; " I have not 
 even implied that I wished it," she de- 
 fended herself. " I said I regretted it, for 
 her sake as well as for ours ; that my 
 conscience would not permit me to justify 
 it ; but I feel all the same that her phght 
 makes the greatest call on our loyalty and 
 love." Her eyes glistened as they shone, 
 and again he looked at her, strong pity 
 blending with his regard. 
 
 "It is just because of that loyalty and 
 love due to every true mourner," he be- 
 gan again, " that it seems to me it might 
 be a real kindness to the sufferer to probe 
 the wound. It may be that sQme unre- 
 vealed disaster, some untoward accident, 
 morbidly hidden and dwelt upon — to 
 bring it to the light of day and speak of 
 it would serve to place in its proper light 
 — has embittered her sorrow."
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 171 
 
 " I will not intrude into my mother's 
 private history, and press, without war- 
 rant, for her confidence, if that is what 
 you mean," she said. Her whole air was 
 full of the haughty surprise and resent- 
 ment of which she was not incapable, 
 though it always sat strangely on a crea- 
 ture who, m the multitude of her gifts, was 
 so simple, unexacting and self-forgetful. 
 " Besides, there is nothing to learn," she 
 resumed the conversation in the fulness of 
 her conviction. " Excuse me, Mr. Scrope, 
 and I'll try to thmk you mean well ; but 
 I am afraid that your being a lawyer has 
 rendered you suspicious, and set you to 
 detect secrets where none exist." 
 
 ''It is you who must forgive me, Miss 
 Bald^dn," he said with rising agitation. 
 " I am older, and I have seen a good deal 
 more of the world than you have seen. 
 Perhaps, as you think, my profession also 
 leads me to the belief that there are 
 strange terrible temptations, and unhappy
 
 172 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 inopportune accidents, which beset and be- 
 fall many people who are by nature, as 
 they appear to us, the persons least likely 
 to be entangled in such snares. I have a 
 hard duty to do, but I will not stop to 
 say it is costing me a great deal. Miss 
 Baldwin, I must tell you, there were some 
 singular incidents in connection with your 
 father's death, to which your mother's con- 
 duct, then and subsequently, has lent an 
 unfavourable colour. I would to God that 
 these could be suffered to rest ; but I am 
 compelled to tell you," he contmued, 
 passing his hand across his face, " that 
 circumstances have arisen which should 
 induce those who love your mother best 
 to require an explanation from her." 
 
 She was struck dumb, not so much 
 dismayed and terrified, as stunned and 
 absolutely unbelieving. 
 
 " I should naturally have spoken to your 
 brother, in order to caution him, " he 
 began again, " but though he is the man
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 173 
 
 and you tlie woman you are tlie elder, 
 and since I have liad the pleasure and 
 honour of knowing you," he used the 
 conventional phrase with earnest emphasis, 
 " I have been accustomed to think of you 
 as the vouno; head of the house." 
 
 She stood quite still and faced him, 
 under the cheerful sunbeams and the trees 
 lightly stirred by the wind, with the 
 children playing and gay groups passing 
 all round, at a little distance from them. 
 Her face was as colourless as his, while the 
 white heat of her wrath was just cooled 
 by incredulous bewilderment. " Are you 
 mad, Sam Scrope ? " she cried under her 
 breath, dropping all ceremony, as people 
 do when they are moved to the depths 
 of their souls — besides she had known him 
 familiarly by name and report all her life, 
 though their personal acquaintance, as 
 grown-up man and woman, was but of 
 yesterday. " Has much learning or much 
 law made you mad ? AVhat do you dare
 
 174 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 to imply ? I know, of course, that the 
 LancasHre firm in which my poor father 
 was a partner fell into difficulties shortly 
 before his death, which was sudden in 
 the end, as no doubt you have heard, and 
 possibly that may be at the bottom of 
 your extraordinary, incredible hints and 
 surmises. For he was found dead in bed 
 at last, though he had been ill for many 
 months previously. But what these old 
 crushing misfortunes have to do with 
 sinister rumours either then or now, or 
 with mother's lifelong grief for the loss 
 of her husband, you can best tell me." 
 
 " I cannot tell you," he said, turning 
 a little aside in a kind of baffled despair. 
 " I have implied nothuig. The person 
 who is m fault, who is raising spectres 
 out of w^hat may have been milucky 
 coincidences in the past and his own 
 distempered bram m the present, is an 
 old servant of your mother's." 
 
 " I know," she said readily and coher-
 
 A EEJECTED WAENING. 175 
 
 ently enough. "He is an old Scotcliman 
 called Tweedside Johnnie. He has been 
 failino; and o'ettinfi: more and more imbecile 
 for the last two or three years. He and 
 his wife came up to London from the 
 north, after we came, and mother was 
 good to them, and is good to him still, 
 smce he has lost his wife, and is all 
 alone in poor lodgings. You don't mean 
 to say that out of Tweedside Johnnie's 
 silly vagaries you or anybody else is 
 bringing a mysterious horrible charge 
 against mother ? Why, it almost makes 
 me laugh." 
 
 " Don't laugh," he forbade her im- 
 periously. " Understand me ; I am mak- 
 ing no charge, but I have thought that 
 there might be some innocent or com- 
 paratively innocent foundation for the 
 man's delusion, the secret consciousness 
 of which may have poisoned your mother's 
 life. Be quiet, Miss Baldwin ; you must 
 hear me ; it is necessary. You are ac-
 
 176 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 quainted, you say, with the circumstances 
 under which your father died. His 
 affairs were in disorder, his partners 
 were reflecting on him for misadventures 
 in his management of the concern. I 
 do not for a moment question that these 
 had any other origin than was supphed 
 by his more sanguine temper, and, it may 
 be, by a larger scale of expenditure m his 
 case than in that of the other members 
 of the firm. Both the creditors and the 
 partners w^ere pressing for an examma- 
 tion into the company's accounts, which 
 he was no longer capable of conducting 
 or joming in, either on his own behalf or 
 on theirs. He had suffered from attack 
 after attack of illness, affecting the brain, 
 and there was not the smallest hope of 
 his ultimate recovery. His mind was 
 seriously impaired. His life had become 
 a burden to himself and his nearest 
 friends, who were rendered wretched by 
 the sight of his increasing infirmities
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 177 
 
 and the apprehension that he would be 
 made a spectacle, it might be a victim, to 
 his former equals and associates. For, 
 to have procured a doctor's certificate to 
 authorize his non-attendance at any meet- 
 ing of his partners and creditors, so long 
 as he could move about, would have been 
 prejudicial to the defence which his 
 lawyers were getting up against the ac- 
 cusations levelled at him.' His death 
 could only have been looked forward to as 
 a merciful release. Death is viewed so in 
 the instance of a patient writhing under 
 the agonies of an incurable disease, or in 
 that of a raging lunatic, whose lunacy is 
 of the most inveterate and melancholy 
 description, and does not admit of a ray 
 of consolation. I put the matter plainly 
 to you, because I wish you to see that 
 even when the sorely -tried watcher by such 
 a death -bed was still convinced that the 
 issues of life and death are in the Al- 
 mighty's hands, and that it can never be 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 our part to anticipate His decrees, and was 
 still honestly and bravely resisting the 
 temptation to set the dying man free from 
 further tortures, bodily and mental, a 
 straw might turn the scale so far as 
 that unhappy watcher's future peace of 
 mmd went. The most trifling piece of 
 neglect, the shghtest mistake in food or medi- 
 cine, the inadvertent work of an exhausted 
 body and a distracted mind, might hasten 
 the inevitable end. Then the highly stimu- 
 lated and morbidly excited conscience and 
 nerves would fasten on the momentary 
 error and hold to it, vie whig it with 
 constantly increasing horror, remorse and 
 despair, as the overt act which embodied 
 the miserable actor's wish." 
 
 "I think I follow you," said Agnes 
 with a gasp, and by this time her face 
 was as wan and drawn as if she had been 
 the tempted watcher he had described. 
 " You have come to the conclusion that 
 my mother may have been a murderess
 
 A EEJECTED WAENING. 179 
 
 in intent, if she was not so in flxct. Her 
 whole honourable life is nothing to you ; 
 you judge her b}' an insane old man's 
 lying folly and by some wretched wicked 
 gossip which survives in your north coun- 
 try, the natives of which used to be counted 
 sharp-witted. Mr. Scrope, I do not wish 
 to hear any more of this — this pernicious 
 stuff, shall I call it ? or absurd and gro- 
 tesque insult. I could laugh at it this 
 minute as I listen to you. But naturally 
 I shall never speak to you again, though 
 how I am to explain to your mother and 
 sisters, and to my brother and sister, the 
 reason for my declining further acquaint- 
 ance with you, I do not know, unless 
 you, as a gentleman, undo something of 
 the barbarous advantage you have taken 
 of me in betraying me into listening to 
 such — raving blasphemy, I had almost said, 
 of my own dear mother, by helping me to 
 avoid you, as I shall avoid you for the 
 rest of my life, and to have nothing to 
 
 12-2
 
 180 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 do with j{3u in the future. I cannot, I 
 will not repeat this horrible, fantastic cock- 
 and-bull story to Pat and Georgie. It 
 would be polluting my lips and their ears. 
 Let me go." 
 
 " One moment more, Miss Baldwin," 
 he said as he caught at her sleeve. " You 
 may think and speak of me as you will ; 
 I do not blame you for a second, I am 
 not surprised. It is simply the conse- 
 quence of the ungracious task which I 
 saw myself forced to undertake. But I 
 beseech you, for your own sake, for your 
 family, for the sake of your mother herself, 
 to take the precaution of speaking to her 
 on the subject which I have been seeking, 
 very bunglingly, to bring before you. 
 Implore her to clear up the mystery — the 
 clearmg up may be quite simple and satis- 
 factory. Get her to tell you exactly what 
 happened at the time of your father's death, 
 the reason of the alliance which has existed 
 for so many years between her and this
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 181 
 
 Tweedside Johnnie, or whatever he may 
 be called, the cause Avhy she, your mother, 
 was utterly overwhelmed from the begin- 
 ning of her widowhood to this day." 
 
 " I will do nothing of the kind," she 
 said, withdrawing from his grasp. " You 
 would punish her because the poor 
 afflicted soul has lived and loved and 
 sorrowed accordmg to her faithful nature. 
 If you can madly and grossly insult my 
 mother, I never will degrade myself and 
 her by becoming an instrument in your 
 hands to cross-question and badger her, 
 as you lawyers bewilder and drive frantic 
 your victims in the witness-box. What 
 kind of undutiful daughter or heartless 
 woman do you take me for ? Do you thmk 
 I cannot trust my mother without ques- 
 tioning her ? Do you suppose your wild 
 preposterous theories have made the least 
 impression on me, which has to do with 
 belief in her ? Xo, indeed. I wish you 
 good-day, Mr. Scrope, a last good-day. I
 
 182 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 cannot tell why I was so mistaken in you. 
 Good heavens ! how much I was mistaken 
 when I encouraged my sister's intimacy 
 with your sisters, and let you walk home 
 with Georgie, and introduced Pat to your 
 house and your company. But the mis- 
 take is at an end," she broke away from 
 him at last, while he stood for a moment 
 looking after her tall slender figure, walk- 
 ing with swift unwavermg steps and 
 rapidly disappearing among the trees. 
 
 Then he turned back with something of 
 a dazed expression for so young, strong 
 and able a man. He sat down on one of 
 the benches, pulling his hat over his eyes, 
 folding his arms across his chest and 
 trying to think, while he could not get 
 rid of the stricken sense of which he was 
 conscious, a reflection in reality of the 
 utter despondency he felt. " What will 
 become of her and of the rest of them ? " 
 he reflected. " It will break her heart. 
 It will kill her. The rooting up of her
 
 A REJECTED WARNING. 183 
 
 superb, sweet faith in her mother and in 
 humanity will be worse than any fever or 
 consumption. I did it badly, I daresay, 
 but I could not help myself, for there was 
 no time to be lost, after the miserable 
 abject scoundrel had written north to 
 Buhner, and was threatening to give him- 
 self up to the police. They have no 
 friends left who will move in the business 
 that I know of. I must • speak to Pat 
 next, and that at once. Tackling him on 
 such a subject will not be much more 
 agreeable work, I take it ; but at least he 
 is a man, and a man, poor beggar ! is 
 more amenable to reason, more open to 
 probabilities and some amount of evidence, 
 even though the verdict is adverse to his 
 faith in the unhappy mother who bore 
 him.''
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 
 
 Pat Baldwin was in Sam Scrope's 
 chambers by appointment. Sam bad dis- 
 missed bis clerk, and tbe two young men 
 were sitting alone together, in tbe middle 
 of books and papers overflowing into all 
 tbe four corners of tbe sbady room. It 
 looked out on tbe river, and contained 
 reading desks, slides, lamps, and easy- 
 cbairs of every degree of ease, according to 
 modern requirements. 
 
 Tbe crucial moment was past ; Sam 
 Scrope bad braced bimself to tell bis 
 astounding tale and deliver bis unwelcome 
 warning. He bad spoken mucb less 
 vaguely and more directly to Pat Baldwin 
 tban to bis sister ; in tbe first place, be- 
 cause Pat migbt be understood to bave
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 185 
 
 a man's nerves and powers of self-control ; 
 in the second, because Sam — by no means 
 to Ills own satisfaction, lawyer and future 
 judge though he was^found himself by 
 this time armed with more definite par- 
 ticulars of the charo'e loomino^ over Mrs. 
 Baldwin's devoted head. The wretched 
 Tweedside Johnnie had carried out his 
 threat of takino; refuo^e from unsubstantial 
 phantoms in the solid arms -of the police, 
 and Sam had got possession of the sub- 
 stance of the deposition taken down from 
 the accuser's mouth, to show to the recoil- 
 mg son of the inculpated woman. 
 
 The statement was a different story 
 from that which Sam had made out for 
 himself, and the difference was of vital 
 importance. But though this fact was an 
 immense relief, there were lights in which 
 the other version was still more offensive 
 to natural feehng, Avhile it unmistakably 
 rendered Mrs. Baldwin amenable to the 
 laws which she was said to have broken.
 
 186 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Poor Pat had gone through the two or 
 three first stages of Agnes's experience, 
 but he could not refuse to credit the 
 testimony of his senses and his reason, 
 though he was still at liberty to doubt, 
 with good cause, Tweedside Johnnie's 
 perfect sanity, and therefore to question 
 his stoutest assertions. Still the young 
 man was forced to see that there was 
 some foundation for them. There had 
 been suspicions and surmises with regard 
 to the precise nature of Mr. Baldwin's 
 death, of which his young children had 
 naturally remained profoundly ignorant. 
 Pat had regarded his mother with a 
 manly kind-hearted young fellow's trust- 
 ing, protecting affection. He had never 
 dreamt of doubting her. But he could 
 not go so far as to proclaim that he 
 would believe her, though her speech or 
 her silence alike should make all men 
 liars, that he would sooner deny the 
 existence of the sun m the sky above
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 187 
 
 him than consent to entertain a suspicion 
 of lier being less than spotlessly innocent. 
 He had succeeded in resisting a desperate 
 inclination to rise up and throttle Sam 
 Scrope on the spot, quite irrespective of 
 any consideration that had to do with 
 their different ages and sizes. He had 
 even accepted, after a fashion, the 
 damning conclusion that the mother whom 
 he had honoured and loved throughout 
 his entire life might have been, nay, pro- 
 bably was, a criminal in disguise all these 
 years. 
 
 To prove how hard the process had 
 been, the lad who had that morning run 
 up the stairs to Sam Scrope's chambers, 
 hght-hearted and free from care beyond 
 his years, sat there a man in sore trouble, 
 gloomy and despondent. It looked as if 
 the hngering radiance of boyhood was ex- 
 tinguished never to return. " Little Bald- 
 win's " jaunty self-confidence, his mercurial 
 thoughtlessness, had effectually deserted
 
 18S SAPPHIRA. 
 
 liim. He was sobered down and terribly 
 in earnest at the present moment. 
 
 " Then what would you advise, Scrope ? " 
 he asked with the anxious helplessness of 
 a man who is utterly knocked down and 
 thoroughly dispirited. " She must be screened 
 at all hazards, and an exposure avoided, 
 if possible, for the girls' sakes," his lip 
 quivered as he spoke. 
 
 Sam was looking at the lad mth the 
 utmost commiseration. He had liked Pat 
 from the first, and he was favourably im- 
 pressed by the manly way in which he 
 had borne the tremendous blow Sam had 
 been compelled to inflict on him. Pat 
 was rendering the painful obligation less 
 intolerable than it might have been ; and 
 he was not thinking first of himself and 
 of the probable ruin to his own prospects, 
 but of his unhappy mother and his sisters. 
 Above all, Sam's heart yearned over Pat 
 because of the big quiet valiant fellow's de- 
 vouring passion, after a short intercourse, for
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 189 
 
 Agnes Baldwin, whom lie had been doomed, 
 in her own defence, to w^ound desperately ; 
 who had told him, for his pains, that she 
 would never speak to him again, and he 
 was inclined to believe, in spite of Pat's 
 forbearance, that she would keep her word. 
 
 " I can only advise you to get your 
 mother and sisters out of the way as 
 quickly as possible," said Sam with an 
 involuntary, instantly stifled sigh. " I still 
 trust an exposure may be prevented. Old 
 Bulmer will do nothing." 
 
 The speaker refrained from explaining 
 how much his private influence, brought 
 to bear with all his power on the sole 
 survivor of the firm in which Mr. Baldwin 
 was a partner, had to do wdth Mr. Bul- 
 mer's passive attitude in the strait. 
 
 " At the same time," Sam felt bound 
 to own, " Bulmer always felt himself ag- 
 grieved by your father's death just when 
 it occurred, and I could see he is strongly 
 inclined to believe this idiotic Tw^eedside
 
 190 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Johnnie's rambling story and to find it 
 confirmed by other evidence, without 
 which the story might be easily set aside as 
 the ravings of a lunatic. But unfortu- 
 nately the babble fits in well enough with 
 remarks and speculations which were afloat 
 at the time. I mean, of course, the ser- 
 vants' gossip of your father's having been 
 seen abroad on the very morning on 
 which he was said to have been found 
 dead in bed. There was also the acci- 
 dental absence of the doctor who had 
 attended Mr. Baldwin throughout his ill- 
 ness, and that doctor's surprise when he 
 heard, on his return, of the sudden ter- 
 mination of the illness in the manner 
 alleged, together with what was said to 
 be his amioyance at the nature of the 
 certificate granted by old Dr. Blacket. 
 If Bulmer is examined in the case, it is 
 in vain to expect that his opinion and 
 the grounds on which it is founded will 
 not come out and carry weight."
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 191 
 
 " Is there time to get away ? " asked 
 poor Pat in nervous trepidation ; " that is, 
 if we could manao;e it otherwise." 
 
 " Certainly, if you go at once. You 
 could take one of the night boats from 
 Dover or Harwich. The man is de- 
 tained in custody till the authenticity of 
 his story, where he himself is concerned, 
 can be ascertained, certain inquiries made 
 and legal advice taken on his statement ; 
 nothing will be done till to-morrow, or the 
 day after at the soonest. If you get off to- 
 night and establish yourselves in some out of 
 the way corner of the Continent — it need not 
 even be far from home — you may easily escape 
 pursuit. The search will neither be close 
 nor long. Legal authorities have no great 
 liking for these late confessions, even when 
 their authors are more trustworthy and of 
 better standing, especially w^hen the testi- 
 mony is directed against persons of fair 
 repute and good position. They have, as 
 it were, outlived their offence, if they did
 
 192 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 offend, and they and their families suffer 
 out of all proportion from tardy discovery 
 and punishment. The business will be 
 hushed uj:) presently when you are out 
 of reach, and you can ascertain from your 
 mother, mthout prejudice to anybody, 
 what actually happened. Remember, Bald- 
 win, we are really temporizing, dealing 
 with the matter on the presumption that 
 she is guilty, in order to save her from 
 the consequences of such a charge. She 
 will also have the opportunity of clearing 
 herself, if she is innocent, without her 
 being subjected to the agitation and alarm 
 which would unquestionably be caused to 
 a woman of her age and habits by the 
 mere fact of her being accused and arrested. 
 The shock might be dangerous, nay, deadly." 
 But though Sam went through the 
 pretence of temporizing simply to soften 
 the anguish and humiliation of the situa- 
 tion to those who were guiltless, and 
 would yet suffer with the guilty, he himself
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 193 
 
 had little doubt of Mrs. Baldwin's com- 
 plicity witli Tweedside Jolmnie in the 
 disgraceful heartless transaction which had 
 sent the old man beside himself. And 
 Sam could see, with an eye already prac- 
 tised to read men's thoughts in their faces, 
 that Pat likewise was not able to believe 
 his mother free from reproach. 
 
 " Of course," went on Sam, colouring 
 high, while his voice took' a quick, im- 
 patient tone, as if he anticipated objec- 
 tions and felt wholly unable to stand 
 being contradicted, " you cannot be sup- 
 posed to be furnished on the instant with 
 ready money for such an expedition ; 
 you must let me be your banker for the 
 time. My father and yours were old 
 friends — old neighbours, at least ; what 
 is your case to-day may be mine to- 
 morrow," he asserted with unblushing 
 calmness. " A man never knows how 
 far he may need to be indebted to his 
 friend for a loan." 
 
 VOL. I 13
 
 194 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 He was taking ten ^ye pound notes 
 and five ten pound notes, with which he 
 had provided himself, from his pocket- 
 book, and thrusting them into Pat's 
 trembhng hand as he spoke. " You will 
 get what you want changed into gold in 
 the steamer. For that matter, Bank of 
 England notes can be changed at most 
 places." 
 
 Pat neither accepted nor rejected the 
 loan thus pressed upon him. He stood 
 uncertain, with the notes still fluttering 
 on his palm. " You are too good, 
 Scrope," muttered the poor lad brokenly, 
 in his dire extremity. 
 
 " Oh, come now, what nonsense," cried 
 Sam, bending his somewhat bushy brows. 
 
 " I dare not refuse your money," con- 
 tinued Pat ruefully, " with the necessity 
 of incurrmg such expenses at once. But 
 Agnes will not like my borrowing it. I 
 think she has a few sovereigns over from 
 the payment for her last stories. I heard
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 195 
 
 her tell Georgie and say she was keepmg 
 it for a housekeeping reserve, in case of 
 sudden calls — she little guessed what call 
 would come or how far it would be 
 beyond her power of meeting it, poor 
 girl," he added with a groan. 
 
 " Never mind Agnes," said Sam briefly, 
 looking another way. 
 
 " I have some little money due to me," 
 explained Pat, "from a patient or two, 
 able to pay, in the Grove Eoad, if I 
 could only make out the accounts and 
 call them in." 
 
 " Make them out at your leisure, in 
 your foreign sojourn ; send them over to 
 me, and I'll see that they are called in, 
 if that will be any comfort to you. I'll 
 tell you what else I can do for you, to 
 rid you of an oppressive obligation," he 
 said, with a touch of self- scorn and 
 sardonic calmness. " I can see your 
 agent and get him to sub-let your house 
 furnished, or I can send in a broker to 
 
 13-2
 
 196 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 take your furniture off your hands, when 
 the house may be let unfurnished, pro- 
 vided the terms of your lease do not 
 forbid that. If they do, I'll see your 
 landlord, and make him hear reason. 
 Will that make things easier for you and 
 your sister ? Will that satisfy you and 
 her ? But your first consideration, my 
 good fellow," Sam pulled himself up and 
 spoke naturally and in earnest, without 
 a remnant of testiness, "is to go home 
 as quickly as possible ; say to your 
 mother you think it better you should 
 all go abroad at once for a time. She may 
 simply follow your lead, without asking 
 any question, or she may demand an 
 explanation, which might be best ; any- 
 how let your sisters pack and the whole 
 of you leave to-night. I would gladly 
 see you off, and my sisters would be at 
 your sisters' service if they knew." 
 
 " No, don't," said Pat, turning away 
 his head.
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 197 
 
 " Something would have to be said, 
 and your plan is to avoid observation," 
 granted Sam reluctantly. " Better not, 
 even if some of you did not resent our 
 presence." 
 
 " Yes, yes, better not," repeated Pat, 
 still dazed and half- stunned, but he was 
 not impervious to gratitude. " I shall 
 never forget what you are doing for us. 
 Instead of resenting your witnessing our 
 degradation," he said, picking himself up 
 and speaking with all his nascent manli- 
 ness m full force, " we are for ever your 
 debtors, though I will pay back the loan 
 if I live. As to our ever bemg able to 
 help you in the same way some day, 
 God forbid. But of course that is all 
 bosh, kindly spoken to hghten our load." 
 He moved to th^ door and then wheeled 
 round and struck his hand sharply on 
 the table. " How shall I tell the girls ? 
 I camiot," he cried in despair. 
 
 " It may be sufficient to say that you
 
 198 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 find the step imperative, and as it must 
 be immediate you have no time to ex- 
 plain, they will be told the reason why 
 later on," said Sam, puttmg his hands 
 deep m his pockets and unawares as- 
 suming the rather lordly air he was 
 accustomed to employ in any difficulty 
 with his mother and sisters. He forgot 
 that all young men were not so much 
 the heads of their houses, and the masters 
 of the situation, as he had been from 
 early manhood. They were not the first- 
 born of their respective families, the 
 reigning squires, the future judges. 
 " Your sister Georgie," he proceeded, 
 honestly seekmg to help Pat by bolster- 
 ing up his waning courage, " will 
 probably accept your dictum, and be 
 too full of her duties m makmg ready 
 to start on a journey, on a short notice, 
 to insist on her right to be informed 
 what it is all about. For your sister 
 Agnes," and his own face fell at the
 
 A GHASTLY SHOCK. 199 
 
 reference, " upon my word, I see no 
 course open to you save to refer her to 
 your mother." 
 
 " Xo," said Pat, takmg the advice, as 
 most of us do our friends' counsel, with a 
 pinch of salt, " I will not do that, not on 
 any account." 
 
 As he ran downstairs he said to him- 
 self, " Agnes is a dear, good girl, the 
 best of women, there is nobody like her, 
 but I will not be the man to set her 
 against mother. Oh, poor misguided 
 mother ! How could she have been so 
 mad ? Xo doubt it was for us more than 
 for herself, but how could she have been 
 so hard and unwomanly, and at the same 
 time so weak and reckless, as to put her- 
 self into the power of these wretched 
 unprincipled servants ? What a life she 
 must have led ; what a fate is before her, 
 even if I succeed in carrying her off from 
 justice."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FLIGHT. 
 
 It was the afternoon after Agnes's 
 memorable walk with Sam Scrope through 
 the park. Already Georgie had been con- 
 siderably perplexed by her sister's de- 
 meanom\ Georgie had more leism^e than 
 any of the rest of the family to make her 
 observations. In her very matter-of-fact- 
 ness she was apt like a child to arrive 
 at startlingly shrewd and sound conclu- 
 sions. Agnes had come in from her 
 hterary errands quite unlike herself ; she 
 was evidently greatly disturbed, but when 
 she was questioned she would not admit 
 any deplorable break -down in her enter- 
 prises or disappointment in her expectations. 
 Indeed, when she saw that she had 
 awakened Georgie's curiosity and aroused
 
 FLIGHT. 201 
 
 her suspicions, the culprit waxed feverishly, 
 flightily gay, so as to cause Mrs. Baldwin 
 to raise her grey face and heavy eyes 
 more than once from her knitting, in silent 
 surprise and deprecation. For her mother 
 hardly ever found fault with Agnes, and 
 had mibounded confidence in the daughter 
 who had been the family's chief stay, even 
 before they had been entirely dependent 
 on her cheerful indefatigable- exertions. 
 
 Georgie was not deceived in the very 
 least ; she had quite counted on what 
 happened — Agnes' s complete breakdown 
 after their mother had retired for the 
 night, and Pat had been called out to a 
 late patient. N^evertheless, it implied no 
 little common- sense kind of penetration 
 and sympathy to foresee the result. F(jr 
 Agnes was not at all in the habit of 
 laughing hysterically till she burst out 
 crying and was forced ignominously to be 
 put to bed. For Georgie would take no 
 denial thus far, though Agnes still
 
 202 SAPPHIKA. 
 
 steadfastly declined to say what ailed her, 
 or for that matter to allow that anything 
 ailed her. 
 
 " I sup|)ose it is just because you are 
 over- tired," speculated Georgie, who in- 
 sisted on looking after her sister and would 
 fam have administered to her patient a 
 cup or two of improvised beef-tea, or a 
 little weak brandy-and-water. " You ought 
 not to attempt so much, dear ; you know 
 I always say you will walk and write 
 yourself into a regular ilhiess. Why will 
 you not suffer the rest of us to do any- 
 thing to speak of for ourselves, not to say 
 to help you ? " said Georgie plaintively. 
 She spoke with the mingled sagacity, 
 pertinacity and comfortable freedom from 
 restless inquisitiveness of a girl largely 
 devoid of imagination. " Above all, you 
 ought to eat and drink your tea gently 
 when you come in ; you should think of 
 nothing else except of makmg an ample 
 meal, when you have not had a bit to
 
 FLIGHT. 203 
 
 eat, beyond a miserable makeshift in a 
 restaurant, since breakfast -time. It is your 
 duty to eat and not to speak, and I 
 thought you had some respect for your 
 duty. I cannot think what tempts you 
 to talk and laugh all the time, so fast too, 
 as you have been doing, mstead of eat- 
 ing and drinking. I must get Pat to 
 speak to you, or you will ruin your 
 digestion and get as thin a-s a whipping- 
 post. All your frocks will be too loose 
 for you, which is very unbecoming. You 
 know you will not hear of employing a 
 proper dressmaker for your own dresses 
 and you have not time to alter them. 
 I do my best for you, but bad is my 
 best." 
 
 " " No, no, Georgie ; you are very good 
 about that and everything else. Oh, it is 
 a bad world. There are so few people 
 whom you can trust, so few men especially." 
 She was twisting and untwisting her fingers 
 in her excitement, and in the action
 
 204 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 pressed the clumsy old signet ring she 
 wore so that it must have bruised her 
 flesh, for she gave an involuntary little 
 cry and began to pull it off. Then as 
 her eye fell on it, she pushed it on again. 
 " Poor father ! " she sobbed. 
 
 Georgie looked at her in amazement. 
 
 " Appearances are so deceitful," cried 
 Agnes, trying to compose herself and to 
 finish what she had been saying a minute 
 before. " You must be very careful, 
 Georgie, before you listen to any man." 
 
 "I have no intention of being anything 
 else," said Georgie with a comical pout of 
 her rosy mouth, " though I do not see the 
 particular cause for caution at the present 
 moment, and it is not I who am rash; 
 it is you yourself, Agnes, who will 
 always believe good of people till you are 
 forced to find them in the wrong. I some- 
 times think geese are more apt to appear 
 swans to a swan, than they do to a fellow 
 goose. But I cannot think what has
 
 FLIGHT. 205 
 
 come over you, to make you find the 
 world so bad all of a sudden." 
 
 " Don't mind me," said Agnes, wearily 
 turning her face to the wall ; " I'm tired 
 out, oh, so dead tired of everything, as 
 you say. I shall be better to-morrow." 
 
 The fact was that Agnes, in the 
 middle of her unswerving faith in her 
 mother and in humanity, which Sam 
 Scrope thought so superb and so sweet, 
 was tortured by the doubts which had 
 been suggested. Faint old memories which 
 she had hitherto nearly forgotten, or under- 
 stood in a totally different light, stirred 
 and stumbled into fresh life. She was 
 haunted by cruel horrible suspicions and 
 fears to which she would not give way 
 for a second, which she hated herself for 
 entertaining, which it half killed her to 
 entertain, yet which she could not dismiss 
 and bury in oblivion. 
 
 She remained at home all the next 
 morning, making a pretence to herself
 
 206 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 and to Georgie of being busy at her 
 writing-desk. In reality she was not 
 even steadily copying what she had written 
 previously. The moment she was alone, 
 she either let her hand fall idly on the 
 paper, or mechanically traced meaningless 
 lines with the pen, which she had been 
 wont to wield so unflaggingly, a forlorn 
 listless figure, in the room of her old 
 happy ardent self. 
 
 When Pat came home from his interview 
 with Sam Scrope, he immediately sought 
 out his sisters. He found them both in 
 the httle garden at the back of the house, 
 where Georgie had enticed Agnes to try 
 if the fresh air would relieve the violent 
 headache to which she had at last con- 
 fessed. 
 
 The instant the sisters saw their brother 
 they realized enough of the change in 
 him, the entire droop of the young 
 fellow's physique, together with the force 
 he had put on himself to pull nerve and
 
 FLIGHT. 207 
 
 muscle together, to be aware tliat some- 
 tliing had happened to trouble him greatly. 
 Why, in drawing' on his o-love he had all 
 but tugged the thumb out, and there he 
 Tvas wearing the dismembered glove, as if 
 unconscious of the conspicuous rent. A 
 heavy shower had fallen an hour before, 
 leaving puddles at the crossings and at 
 the exit from the Barnes railway station. 
 He had walked blindly through them, 
 without making the smallest eiFort at 
 picking his steps, so that he, who was 
 naturally as neat and trim as Georgie, was 
 in mud -bespattered boots and draggled 
 trousers. It was a state of matters in 
 complete discordance with the summer sun- 
 shine which was again flooding the world 
 and making diamonds of every drop of 
 moisture lingering on the leaves and 
 petals of the privet and syringa bushes 
 in the little garden. Georgie ran to her 
 brother, Agnes stood still to allay the 
 wild beatinir of her heart and to ask her-
 
 '208 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 self, could Sam Scrope have dared to 
 speak to Pat, as Sam had spoken to her, 
 and was Pat craven enough, base enough, 
 to listen to the tale and give credence to 
 it without striking the accuser down, in 
 the right and might of Pat's sonship ? 
 
 The moment Georgie was near enough 
 to her brother to speak without bemg 
 heard by the inquisitive Selina in the 
 kitchen or prying neighbours over the 
 garden walls, she addressed him anxious- 
 ly : " You have lost the appointment to 
 the hospital, Pat ; but why need you mind 
 so much ? Something else will turn up." 
 " Something else has turned up," said 
 Pat with a grim contortion of his face, 
 intended to pass for a smile, which was 
 totally unhke his ordinary cheerfully lazy 
 or cheerfully brisk expression. " Most 
 probably I should have lost the post, in 
 any circumstances ; but it would not have 
 signified a toss-up whether I had lost or 
 gained, since as it happens we have all to
 
 FLIGHT. 209 
 
 pack up and bundle off to-night, for a 
 longer or shorter stay on the Continent : 
 France or Germany will do equally ^ well. 
 You've never been abroad, Georgie, 
 neither you nor Agnes, nor my mother 
 for that matter, as far as I can remember. 
 Here is your chance without asking for 
 it." 
 
 " What nonsense is this that you are 
 talking, Pat ? " protested Georgie, with all 
 the severity of youthful common-sense, 
 decorum and matter-of-factness. " What 
 should we go abroad for ? Mother, too, 
 who never crosses the threshold ? If 
 there were nothing else, there is the 
 house here with two out of the three 
 years' lease unexpired ; there is the fur- 
 niture, and among it what remains of 
 mother's old treasures which we brought 
 up with us to London. There is Selina 
 with her month's wages paid yesterday 
 and a month's warning due to her before 
 we can send her away. But why should 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 SAPPHIEA. 
 
 I enter into such explanations when you 
 are only speaking nonsense to tease me ? 
 Go to-night, on a moment's notice, as if 
 we were an encampment of gipsies or a 
 set of criminals fleeing from justice ! " 
 
 " Be quiet, Georgie," cried Pat angrily, 
 and yet with such an accent of unbearable 
 pain, as he stamped his foot on the grass, 
 that a new element of wonder, mixed this 
 time with terror, laid hold of her, slow 
 though her fancy was. 
 
 " Oh, what is it then, Pat, if you are in 
 earnest ; what have you done ? What is 
 it?" 
 
 " I have done nothing," he said with a 
 kind of dogged protest. "But cannot 
 you take my words on trust ? You will 
 learn the cause soon enough. Only be- 
 lieve me, there is not a moment to lose. 
 We are to leave London and cross the 
 Channel — that will be better than the 
 German Ocean — to-night. I have got the 
 necessary money, I have borrowed it. I
 
 FLIGHT. 211 
 
 can manage about the house and servant, 
 if you will but be quick. Do what pack- 
 ing can be managed in the time, and get 
 mother ready. There is no other way, I 
 tell you, as you will understand when you 
 know everythmg. Don't press a beggar 
 when his back is at the wall, Georgie, 
 when he camiot help himself, or you either, 
 and is hardly beset as it is. Do as I 
 bid you, my dear, and you will own I 
 was right. You will never regret it." 
 
 " No, Georgie, you shall not," forbade 
 Agnes, advancing with a white passionate 
 face to where her brother and sister 
 stood. It was in a corner where the 
 Virginia creeper had been deftly made to 
 meet the privet hedge, and drape and 
 shade the water-barrel. Never so long as 
 Agnes lived would she cease to be pain- 
 fully affected by the sight of the graceful 
 festoons of the Virgmia creeper and the 
 pimgent scent of the privet flower. " I 
 know who has been talking to you, 
 
 14—2
 
 212 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 Pat. He talked to me first and I dis- 
 missed him and his story, as they 
 deserved to be dismissed. How could 
 you — how dared you — listen and take in 
 his outrageous masked calumny ? How 
 can you think of acting on it with 
 mother sitting in that house totally 
 ignorant of the conspiracy against her ? 
 Mother who was so good to us all when 
 we were children, who is so good to us 
 still in letting us do what we see best 
 for her, and m going wherever we like 
 to take her ; mother whose sole offence is 
 that she cannot leave off mournmg for 
 her dead husband." 
 
 Pat looked at Agnes in silence for a 
 moment. Georgie glanced from her 
 brother to her sister in thorough be- 
 wilderment. 
 
 " I thought to spare mother," he said 
 heavily; "but let her be the judge; at 
 least, Agnes, you cannot refuse if she 
 consents." He turned and walked into
 
 FLIGHT. 213 
 
 the house by the garden door, closely 
 followed by his sisters. 
 
 When the group entered the drawing- 
 room, it was as if Mrs. Baldwin had been 
 expecting them, for she sat with her head 
 raised and her eyes fixed on the doorway, 
 where she saAV the three appear with the 
 scarcely repressed excitement and restrained 
 emotion in their faces. She rose to her 
 feet with her ashen impassive face directed 
 towards them ; as she did so, mechani- 
 cally she thrust the knitting-needles into 
 their ball, and put down her work on a 
 table near her. 
 
 Pat advanced to his mother, he did not 
 look at her. His step, in place of hurry- 
 ing confidently, faltered and dragged, as 
 if he had to put force on himself to keep 
 from turning round and retreating at the 
 last moment. It was clear that his errand 
 was anything rather than to his mind, 
 that for the first time, instead of a pitying 
 kindly attraction to the rigid- looking
 
 214 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 woman before him, lie experienced a 
 sickening sense of repulsion. 
 
 There had been no such intimate, tender 
 relations between Pat and Mrs. Baldwin 
 as often exist between widowed mothers 
 and their only sons. She had been cold 
 in her reserve and irresponsive m her 
 impassiveness to him as to her other 
 children, even to her favourite Agnes, 
 ever since her widowhood. But Pat had 
 felt for and with her. Perhaps a lad, 
 still more than a girl, recognizes a 
 woman's forlornness, deprived of her 
 natural stay, in many cases left depen- 
 dent on those who ought still to have 
 been dependent on her. At least, if she 
 had not petted and indulged him and his 
 sisters, or made them her confidants in 
 her trials, she had not in other respects 
 repressed and thwarted them ; on the 
 contrary she had constantly deferred to 
 them, left them free to follow their own 
 inclinations, and submitted to their de
 
 FLIGHT. 215 
 
 cisions, especially to those of Agnes, in 
 a manner that was more suggestive of 
 some pathetic reversal of their natural 
 position than of weakness of character 
 on her part. 
 
 Never before had Pat Baldwin shrunk 
 from meeting his mother's eye and 
 winced at coming in contact with her. 
 After all it was but a momentary revul- 
 sion ; the next instant the poor fellow 
 overcame the brief revolt. The colour 
 returned to his face and the light to his 
 eyes. Never had " little Baldwin " 
 looked so modest and manly in reading 
 a highly successful paper, in the course 
 of his class examinations — for he was a 
 clever enough student, in spite of his 
 ridicule of his sister Agnes's exaggerated 
 estimate (jf his attainments — as he did 
 now when he appealed to his mother 
 with gentle tact and firmness : " Mother, 
 I don't wish to startle you ; merely to 
 ask if you can rely on my judgment
 
 216 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 and discretion, now that I am a man 
 and no longer a boy, when I tell you 
 that circumstances have arisen, unfortu- 
 nate passages in our faixiily history come 
 to light, which render it desirable that 
 we should go abroad, at a moment's 
 warning, and remain absent for a time or 
 altogether. The grounds of comfort are 
 that as a family we shall be together, all 
 the arrangements will be undertaken by 
 me — I have been supplied with the 
 means — and the travelling will be made 
 as easy for you as possible. The ques- 
 tion I have to put is, will you go with 
 me to-night, on my assurance that the 
 journey, however troublesome and fa- 
 tiguing, is necessary, and that everything 
 will be done that can be done, for your 
 safety and peace ? " 
 
 " I will go where and when you tell 
 me, Pat," she said hoarsely and hurriedly, 
 without an instant's pause. There was 
 even a tone of weary relief in her voice.
 
 FLIGHT. 217 
 
 as if slie would have said : "I have long 
 been looking for your coming like this, 
 and all I can say is, God bless and 
 reward you for sparing me." With that 
 she put out her two cold cramped hands, 
 caught at his arm and clung to it, as if, 
 so far from putting any impediment in 
 his way, she was ready then and there to 
 set out, and travel round the world 
 to hide her bowed head at his bid- 
 ding. 
 
 He put her carefully back in her chair 
 and looked significantly at his sisters. 
 " I am glad that you agree to trust me, 
 mother, without insisting on reasons and 
 explanations," he said with forced cheer- 
 fulness. " But there is no such desperate 
 haste," he continued with a little bluster, 
 young as he was and unused to such a 
 crisis. " You must take a meal first — we 
 must all eat our dinner to help us to 
 bear the fatigue and the long fast after- 
 wards, for we shall not be able to have a
 
 218 SAPPHIRA. 
 
 comfortable meal agaiii till we have 
 crossed the Channel. Oh, I know all 
 about it and can take good care of you 
 and the girls, and tell you what to do. 
 You forget how often I have gone to 
 and from Paris — though Paris will not be 
 om- destination exactly the journey will 
 be the same so far. Let me see," look- 
 ing at his watch, "it is half-past three 
 now. You girls must set about packmg, 
 with all the despatch you can muster, 
 what you cannot do without. The rest 
 of your things will be seen to and sent 
 after us. We ought to catch a tidal 
 train, and be at Dover or Folkestone — we 
 shall not attempt Harwich — in time for 
 the night crossmg. No, Georgie, we 
 camiot wait 'only till the morning,'" 
 answering the look in her eyes ; "it is 
 simply impossible." 
 
 Georgie stood still m the drawing-room 
 open-mouthed and blank-eyed. 
 
 Agnes had turned quickly and crept to
 
 FLIGHT. 219 
 
 her room and was sitting there, crouched 
 together, as if she Avere the guilty 
 person. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 PlllKTKD liV 
 
 KKLLY AND CO., MIPDLE MILL, KINGSTON-OK-TU/^ M Et 
 
 AUD GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.u
 
 [MIDSUMMER, 1890. 
 
 WARD & DOWNEY'S 
 
 *:t:* Messrs. Ward & Downey's Illustrated Catalogue 
 contains Portraits of the Author of '* Mehalah,'' the Author 
 of ''Molly Bawn,'' G. W. Appleton, Frank Barrett, Robert 
 Buchanan, Mrs. Lovett Cameron, Mabel Collins, Mrs. B. M. 
 Croker, J. D. Delille, Richard Bowling, Charles Du Val^ B. L. 
 Farjeon, George Manville Fenn, Somerville Gibney, James 
 Grant, Victor Hugo, Bret Harte, Richard Ashe King 
 {'* Basil''), Mrs. Macquoid, Fitzgerald Molloy, Christie 
 Murray, O'Neill Daunt, John Augustus O'Shea, Mrs. Panton, 
 James Payn, F. C. Philips, Mrs. Riddell, Blanche Roosevelt, 
 George Sand, Florence Warden, William Westall, and Harry 
 Furniss.
 
 NEW ILLUSTRATED BOOKS. 
 
 A COLONIAL TRAMP: Travels and Adventures in 
 Australia and New Guinea. By Hume Nisbet. Illustrated by 
 the Author. 2 vols. [In the press. 
 
 PICTURESQUE LONDON. By Percy Fitzgerald. 
 
 With about 100 Illustrations. [In the press. 
 
 SOCIAL ENGLAND UNDER THE REGENCY. 
 
 By John AsHTON. Profusely Illustrated. 2 vols., 30s. 
 
 [In the press. 
 
 BRAYHARD : the Strange Adventures of One Ass and 
 Seven Champions. By F. M. Allen. Illustrated by Harry 
 FURNISS. 6s. 
 
 PERFERVID : the Career of Ninian Jameison. By John 
 
 Davidson. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 6s. 
 
 UP AND DOWN : Sketches of Travel. By G. 
 Macquoid. Illustrated by Thos. R. Macquoid. ios. 6d. 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE MONTH. By Hume Nisbet. 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece, twelve whole page, and numerous 
 smaller Illustrations. 21s. 
 
 THE FLOATING PRINCE, and other Fairy Tales. 
 By the Author of "Rudder Grange." With Forty Illustrations. 6s 
 
 TING-A-LING TALES. By Frank R. Stockton. 3s. 6d. 
 
 AN ARTIST'S TOUR IN NORTH AND CENTRAL 
 AMERICA AND IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. By 
 B. Kroupa. Profusely Illustrated by the Author. 21s.
 
 WARD & DOWNEY'S 
 NEW BOOKS. 
 
 Price 36s. 
 
 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE SAND. 
 
 3 vols. Demy 8vo. With six Portraits. 
 
 Price 31s. 6d. 
 
 An Edition de Luxe of Mr. F. C. Philips' s Novel, 
 
 AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. With original Illustra- 
 tions by G. DU Maurier. Extra crown quarto. 
 
 Three- Volume Novels. Price 31s. 6d. 
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. By Richard Dowling. 
 BIRCHDENE. By William Westall. 
 BROUGHTON. By A. S. Arnold. 
 COPPER QUEEN, THE. By Blanche Roosevelt. 
 FOR VALUE RECEIVED. By Thomas Cobb. 
 GOLD OF OPHIR, THE. By Elizabeth J. Lysaght. 
 GRAYSPOINT. By Mrs. Riddell. [In the press. 
 
 HANDFASTED. By A. C. Bickley, Author of '♦ 'Mid 
 
 Surrey Hills." 
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE. By Percy Hulburd. 
 IN DURANCE VILE. By the Author of "Molly Bawn."
 
 4 
 
 Three-Volume Novels {continued). 
 
 IN SIGHT OF LAND. By Lady Duffus Hardy. 
 
 JOHN SQUIRE'S SECRET. By Charles J. Wills. 
 
 [_Shortly. 
 
 LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER. By HenrySolly. 
 
 LASS THAT LOVED A SOLDIER, THE. By G. M. 
 Fenn. 
 
 LOVE'S LEGACY. By Richard Ashe King ("Basil.") 
 
 [Shortly. 
 LUCINDA. By Major White. 
 
 MAN WITH A SHADOW, THE. By G. M. Fenn. 
 
 'MID SURREY HILLS. By A. C. Bickley. 
 
 OF HIGH DESCENT. By G. Manville Fenn. 
 
 ONE FOR THE OTHER. By Esme Stuart. 
 
 PIT TOWN CORONET, THE. By Chas. J. Wills. 
 
 ROY'S REPENTANCE. By Adeline Sargeant. 
 
 SEX TO THE LAST. By Percy Fendall. 
 
 SIR JAMES APPLEBY. By Mrs. Macquoid. 
 
 SPIDERS AND FLIES. By Percy Fendall. 
 
 STORY OF A MARRIAGE. By L. Baldwin. 
 
 THE NEW FAITH. By C. T. C. James. 
 
 THE NUGENTS OF CARRICONNA. By Tighe 
 Hopkins. 
 
 THE TWO PARDONS. By Henry Scott Vince. 
 TRUST BETRAYED, A. By John Tipton. 
 UNCLE BOB'S NIECE. By Leslie Keith.
 
 Price 30s. 
 
 DUG DE BROGLIE : The Personal Recollections of. 
 
 2 vols., demy 8vo. With a Steel Portrait. 
 
 EDMUND KEAN: Life and Adventures of. By J. Fitz- 
 gerald MoLLOY. 2 vols., demy 8vo. Limited Edition, printed 
 on antique laid paper, and handsomely bound in cloth gilt. 
 
 SOCIAL ENGLAND UNDER THE REGENCY. By 
 John Ashton. Illustrated by the Author. 2 vols., demy 8vo. 
 
 [In the press. 
 
 THE EMPRESS MARIA THERESA. From the 
 French of the Due de Broglie. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey. 2 vols. 
 
 [In the press. 
 
 UNPOPULAR KING, THE: The Life and Times of 
 Richard III. By Alfred O. Legge. 2 vols., demy Svo. With 
 sixteen Illustrations. 
 
 Price 25s. 
 
 LOVES AND MARRIAGES OF GREAT MEN. By 
 
 T. F. Thistleton Dyer. 2 vols. 
 
 HEALING ART, THE: Chapters on Medicine and 
 Medical Celebrities, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. 
 By W. H. Davenport Adams. Second edition. 2 vols., demy Svo. 
 
 ROYALTY RESTORED ; or, London under Charles II. 
 By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 2 vols., large crown Svo. With twelve 
 Portraits. 
 
 Price 21s. 
 
 AN ARTIST'S TOUR IN NORTH AND CENTRAL 
 
 AMERICA AND IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. By B. 
 Kroupa. Profusely Illustrated by the Author. 
 
 CLERICAL AND LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 By the Author of " Three-Cornered Essays." 2 vols. 
 
 COSMOPOLITAN RECOLLECTIONS. By the 
 
 Author of " Random Recollections by a Cosmopolitan." 2 vols. 
 
 EDMUND KEAN : Life and Adventures of. By J. Fitz- 
 gerald MOLLOY. 2 vols. 
 
 IRONBOUND CITY, AN : Five Months of Peril and 
 Privation in Besieged Paris. By John Augustus O'Shea. 2 vols. 
 
 JOHN WILKES: Life and Times of. By Percy Fitz- 
 gerald. 2 vols. With Four Portraits.
 
 Price 21s. (continued). 
 
 LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPECIAL 
 CORRESPONDENT. By John Augustus O'Shea. 2 vols. 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE MONTH. By Hume Ni^bet. 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece, Twelve whole page, and numerous 
 smaller Illustrations by the Author. Edition limited to 250 copies. 
 
 ROMANTIC SPAIN: A Record of Personal Experiences. 
 
 By John Augustus O'Shea. 2 vols. 
 SHELLEY : The Man and the Poet. Translated from 
 
 the French of Felix Rabbe. 2 vols. 
 A YEAR IN THE GREAT REPUBLIC. By E. 
 
 Katharine Bates. 2 vols. 
 
 Two-Yolume Novels. Price 21s. 
 
 A BRUMMAGEM BARON. By J. A. Bridges. 
 
 AN UNFORTUNATE ARRANGEMENT. By John 
 
 Hill. 
 COSETTE. By Mrs. Macquoid. 
 FIRE. By Mrs. Diehl. 
 FOR FREEDOM. By Tighe Hopkins. 
 
 FOR ONE AND THE WORLD. By M. Betham- 
 
 Edwards. 
 
 JUST IMPEDIMENT. By Richard Price. [Shortly. 
 NELLIE BLYTHE. By Jessie Greenwood. 
 ONE OF THE WICKED. 
 
 RUNNING DOUBLE : A Story of the Stable and the 
 
 Stage. By Frank Hudson. 
 SAPPHIRA. By Sarah Tytler. 
 TWIN SOUL, THE. By Dr. Charles Mackay. 
 VICE VALENTINE. By Ida Ashworth Taylor. 
 
 [Shortly. 
 
 Price 12s. 
 
 BROWNIE'S PLOT. By Thomas Cobb. 
 KALEIDOSCOPE : Shifting Scenes from East to West. 
 
 By E. Katharine Bates. Demy 8vo. 
 ROGER PERRON. By Mrs. Macquoid. 2 vols.
 
 Price 10s. 6d. 
 
 CREATION OR EVOLUTION ? A Philosophical 
 
 Enquiry. By George Ticknor Curtis. 
 
 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF COURTS AND 
 
 SOCIETY. By a Cosmopolitan. 
 
 •TWIXT OLD TIMES AND NEW. By the Baron 
 
 DE MaLORTIE. 
 
 UP AND DOWN. By Gilbert Macquoid. Illustrated 
 by T. R. Macquoid. 
 
 Price 9s. 
 
 ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON : with some Notices of 
 his Times and his Contemporaries. By the Rev. F. Arnold, B.A. 
 
 Price 7s. 6d. 
 
 DUELLING DAYS IN THE ARMY. By William 
 
 Douglas. 
 
 GREEK FOLK SONGS. With an Essay on the 
 Science of Folk Lore. By J. S. Stuart Glennie. New Edition. 
 
 IN RUSSIAN AND FRENCH PRISONS. By Prince 
 
 Kropotkin. 
 
 MODERATE MAN, THE ; and other Humorous Poems. 
 By Edwin Hamilton. With original Illustrations by Harry 
 Furniss. 
 
 OLD AND NEW SPAIN. By Dr. Henry M. Field. 
 
 With Map. 
 
 OLD COURT LIFE IN FRANCE ; or, France under 
 the Bourbons. By Mrs. Frances Elliott. With twenty whole- 
 page Engravings. 
 
 SONGS FROM THE NOVELISTS. Collected and 
 Edited and with Notes by W. Davenport Adams. Printed in 
 brown ink on hand-made paper and handsomely bound. 
 
 VERDI, MILAN, AND OTHELLO: a short Life of 
 Verdi By Blanche Roosevelt. With eighteen Illustrations.
 
 Price 6s. 
 
 ANCIENT CURES, USAGES, AND SUPER- 
 STITIONS OF IRELAND. By Lady Wilde. 
 
 ANCIENT LEGENDS OF IRELAND. By Lady 
 
 Wilde. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN IN LONDON, THE. By J. F. Hogan. 
 
 BYE-PATHS AND CROSS ROADS. By Mrs. Panton. 
 
 CATHEDRAL DAYS : A Tour through Southern Eng- 
 land. By Anna Bowman Dodd. With numerous Illustrations. 
 
 CHILDREN'S STORIES IN ENGLISH LITERA- 
 TURE. By Henrietta C. Wright. 
 
 COURT LIFE BELOW STAIRS ; or, London under 
 
 the First Georges. By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 
 
 COURT LIFE BELOW STAIRS ; or, London under 
 the Last Georges. By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 
 
 DUST AND DIAMONDS. By Thomas Purnell. 
 
 EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS OF IRISH HISTORY. By 
 W. J. O'Neill Daunt. 
 
 EMPEROR WILLIAM, THE: The Story of a Great 
 King and a good Man. By the late Dr. G. L. M. Strauss. 
 
 EYES OF THE THAMES, THE: Picturesque Studies 
 of Out-of-the-way Places. By Arthur T. Pask. 
 
 FAMOUS ENGLISH PLAYS : With some Account of 
 their Origin and their Authors. By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 
 
 FLOATING PRINCE, THE. By Frank R. Stockton. 
 
 With Forty Illustrations. 
 
 FRANCOIS LISZT : Recollections of a Compatriot. 
 
 By Madam Janka Wohl. 
 
 FROM KITCHEN TO GARRET: Hints to Young 
 Householders. By Mrs. Panton. 
 
 GUILLOTINE, THE GREAT. By Graham Everitt. 
 
 INDOLENT ESSAYS. By Richard Bowling. 
 
 IRISH INDUSTRIES, GLIMPSES OF. By Dr. J. 
 Bowles Daly. 
 
 LITTLE PEOPLE : Their Homes in Meadows, Woods, 
 and Waters. By Stella Hook. Illustrated by D. and H. Beard.
 
 9 
 
 Price 6s. 
 
 LIVING PARIS : A Guide to the Manners, Monuments, 
 and Institutions of the People. By "Alb." With Maps and Plans. 
 
 LOOK ROUND LITERATURE, A. By Robert 
 Buchanan. 
 
 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY ; or, Some Aspects of 
 Social Evolution. By J. F. Nisbet. 
 
 MAYNE REID, THE LATE CAPTAIN. A Memoir. 
 By his Widow. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRINCESS, THE. 
 
 An Autobiography. By the Princess Emily of Zanzibar. 
 MUMMER WORSHIP ; or, the New Idolatry. By 
 
 Edward St. John Brennon. 
 NOOKS AND CORNERS. A companion book to 
 
 " From Kitchen to Garret." By Mrs. Panton. 
 OPERATIC TALES. By Major-General Chesney. 
 PAPER AND PARCHMENT. By C. J. Ewald. 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A COUNTRY JOURNALIST. 
 
 By Thomas Frost. 
 RED HUGH'S CAPTIVITY. A Picture of Ireland, 
 
 Social and Political, in the reign of Queen Ehzabeth. By Standish 
 
 O'Grady. 
 ROYALTY RESTORED; or, London under Charles 
 
 the Second. By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 
 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. By Stepniak. 
 SIX MONTHS IN THE HEJAZ : An Account of the 
 
 Pilgrimages to Meccah and Medinah performed by the Author. 
 
 By John F. Keane. 
 
 STORIES OF THE GREAT SCIENTISTS. By 
 
 Henrietta C. Wright. With Eight Portraits. 
 STORY OF CARLYLE'S LIFE, THE. By A. S. 
 
 Arnold. 
 THREE YEARS OF A WANDERER'S LIFE. By 
 
 John F. Keane. 
 TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR. An attempt to 
 
 teach the Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body in a 
 
 Novel and Entertaining Manner. Edited by a London Physician. 
 
 Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 
 VICTOR HUGO: His Life and W^ork. By George 
 
 Barnett Smith. With an Engraved Portrait of Hugo.
 
 lO 
 
 One-Yolume Novels. Price 6s. 
 
 Illustrated by C. S 
 
 ALIENS. THE 
 
 AS THE TIDE TURNS 
 
 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 Reinhart . . 
 AUDREY FERRIS . . 
 BEACHCOMBERS, THE; or, Slave-Trading 
 
 under the Union Jack. Illustrated by Hume 
 
 NiSBET 
 
 BRAYHARD ; The Strange Adventures of One 
 Ass and Seven Champions. Illustrated by 
 Harry Furniss . . 
 
 CHILCOTES, THE 
 
 DESPERATE REMEDIES 
 
 DIARY OF AN ARMY SURGEON . . 
 
 EIGHT BELLS. Illustrated by the Author . 
 
 FALSELY TRUE 
 
 FICKLE PHYLLIS 
 
 FLOATING PRINCE, THE 
 
 IDLE TALES 
 
 JOHN O' LONDON. Illustrated by M. Fitz 
 
 GERALD 
 
 LAND OF THE HIBISCUS BLOSSOM 
 THE. Illustrated by the Author 
 
 LEONORA 
 
 LIL LORIMER 
 
 LUCK AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS 
 
 MASTER OF RYLANDS, THE 
 
 MIKE FLETCHER 
 
 MR. SPIVEY'S CLERK 
 
 MRS. RUMBOLD'S SECRET 
 
 OCTAVE OF FRIENDS. {In the press.) 
 
 PERFERVID : The Career of Ninian Jameison 
 Illustrated bv Harry Furniss 
 
 PRINCESS SUNSHINE . . 
 
 QUEEN OF ROSES, THE 
 
 QUESTION OF CAIN, THE 
 
 ROBERT HOLT'S ILLUSION 
 
 RUINED RACE, A 
 
 SFORZA 
 
 SHAM GOLD 
 
 STEPHANIE 
 
 STRANGEST JOURNEY OF MY LIFE, THE 
 
 Henry F. Keenan. 
 Mary E. Hullah. 
 
 Mrs. Macquoid. 
 Frances A. Gerard. 
 
 Gilbert Bishop. 
 
 F. M. Allen. 
 
 Leslie Keith. 
 
 Thomas Hardy. 
 
 A. DE Fonblanque. 
 
 Hume Nisbet. 
 
 Mrs. Cashel Hoey. 
 
 A. Larder. 
 
 Frank R. Stockton. 
 
 Mrs. Riddell. 
 
 Somerville Gibney. 
 
 Hume Nisbet. 
 
 William V. Herbert. 
 
 Theo. Gift. 
 
 D. J. Belgrave. 
 
 Lucy Leeds. 
 
 George Moore. 
 
 J. S. Fletcher. 
 
 Mrs. Macquoid. 
 
 Mrs. Lynn Linton. 
 
 John Davidson. 
 Mrs. Riddell. 
 Baynton Foster. 
 Mrs. Cashel Hoey. 
 Mary Linskill. 
 Mrs. Sigerson. 
 By the Author of "Valentino." 
 Madame Wohl. 
 Tom Lee. 
 F. Pigot. 
 STORY OF ANTONY GRACE, THE. Illus- 
 trated by Gordon Browne . . George Manville Fenn. 
 WHEAL CERTAINTY: A Cornish Story . . John Cahill. 
 WYVERN MYSTERY, THE. Illustrated by 
 
 B. S. Le Fanu J. S. Le Fanu.
 
 Price 5s 
 A TALE OF THREE NATIONS. By J. F. Hodgetts. 
 ANGELE'S TEMPTERS : A Novel. By Isaac Teller. 
 THE CURSE OF KOSHIU : A Story of Japan. By 
 
 the Hon. Lewis Wingfield. 
 GLORINDA: A Story. By Anna Bowman Dodd. 
 JOHN BROWN AND LARRY LOHENGRIN: A 
 
 Tale with Two Heroes. By William Westall. 
 IGNORANT ESSAYS. By Richard Dowling. 
 NIGEL FORTESCUE; or, The Hunted Man. By 
 
 William Westall. 
 LOCUSTA. By W. Outram Tristram. 
 ORANGES AND ALLIGATORS : Life in South 
 
 P'lorida. By Iza Duffus Hardy. 
 
 ORIGIN OF PLUM PUDDING, THE. By Frank 
 
 Hudson. With Coloured Illustrations by Gordon Browne. 
 PRINCE OF THE BLOOD. By James Payn. 
 STRANGE CRIMES. By William Westall. 
 
 Price 3s. 6d. 
 
 ARM-CHAIR ESSAYS. By F. Arnold. 
 
 BISMARCK AT HOME. 
 
 BRAVE MEN IN ACTION : Thrilling Stories of the 
 
 British Flag. By Stephen J. Mackenna and John Augustus 
 
 O'Shea. 
 CANDIDATE'S LATIN GRAMMAR, THE. By J. 
 
 Percy Reed, M.A. 
 CHAMELEON, THE: Fugitive Fancies on many 
 
 Coloured Matters. By Charles J. Dunphie. 
 
 FIFTY YEARS OF A GOOD QUEEN'S REIGN. 
 
 By A. H. Wall. With six Portraits. Gilt edges, 4s. 6d. 
 GOLDEN SOUTH, THE. Memories of Home Life in 
 
 Australia. By " Lyth." 
 ORIGINAL, THE. By Thomas Walker. With an 
 
 Introduction by Richard Dowling. 
 
 OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBOURS : Short 
 Chats on Social Topics. By Louise Chandler Moulton. 
 
 PARIS BY DAY AND NIGHT. By Anglo-Parisian. 
 
 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE : An Historical 
 Inquiry. By F. L. C. King. 
 
 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF COURTS AND 
 
 SOCIETY. By a CosmopoHtan. 
 
 THREE-CORNERED ESSAYS. By F. Arnold.
 
 12 
 
 One-Yolume Novels. Price 3s. 6d. 
 
 ANCHOR WATCH YARNS. Illustrated by 
 
 M.Fitzgerald F.M.Allen. 
 
 BETTER MAN, THE A.Patterson. 
 
 Author of " I'll tell the Dick." 
 
 CATCHING A TARTAR G. W. Appleton. 
 
 FOX AND THE GOOSE, THE : A Story of 
 
 the Curragh of Kildare . . .. .. .. J.P.Glynn. 
 
 FROZEN HEARTS G. W. Appleton. 
 
 IN JEOPARDY George Manville Fenn. 
 
 IN LUCK'S WAY Byron Webber. 
 
 JACK ALLYN'S FRIENDS G. W. Appleton. 
 
 LAST HURDLE, THE; A Story of Sporting 
 
 and Courting .. .. .. .. .. Frank Hudson. 
 
 LOGIE TOW^N Sarah Tytler. 
 
 MISS ELVESTER'S GIRLS M. W. Paxton. 
 
 MY SPANISH SAILOR Marshall Saunders. 
 
 MYSTERY OF KILLARD, THE . . . . Richard Dowling. 
 
 NEW RIVER, THE Somerville Gibney. 
 
 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A LADY . . Hamilton Aid^. 
 
 PRINCE DICK OF DAHOMEY ; or. Adventures 
 
 in the Great Dark Land James Greenwood, 
 
 RECOILING VENGEANCE, A. With illus- 
 trations by E. J. Brewtnall. . . . . . Frank Barrett. 
 
 RED RUIN : A Tale of West African River Life A. N. Homer.
 
 13 
 One- Volume Novels. Price 3s. 6d. [continued) . 
 
 SISTERS OF PHAETON {In the press) Florence Armstrong. 
 
 SPANISH GALLEON, THE F. C. Badrick. 
 
 Author of " Starwood Hall." 
 
 TARTAN AND GOLD Byron Webber. 
 
 THROUGH GREEN GLASSES. Illustrated 
 
 Edition F.M.Allen. 
 
 TING-A-LING TALES Frank R. Stockton. 
 
 TWO PINCHES OF SNUFF William Westall. 
 
 WHERE TEMPESTS BLOW M. W. Paxton. 
 
 WRECK OF THE ARGO; or, the Island Home. 
 
 Price 2s. 6d. 
 
 BLIND MUSICIAN. A Story adapted from the Russian. 
 By S. Stepniak and William Westall. 
 
 CRIME OF KESIAH KEENE, THE : A Novel. By 
 
 Mrs. Vere Campbell. 
 
 DISHES AND DRINKS; or, Philosophy in the Kitchen. 
 By the late Dr. G. L. M. Strauss. 
 
 FROM THE GREEN BAG. By F. M. Allen. 
 
 IRISH IN AUSTRALIA, THE. By J. F. Hogan. 
 
 LIVING PARIS. " Exhibition " Edition. 
 
 STORY OF MARY HERRIES, THE : A Novel. 
 
 THE OUTLAW OF ICELAND. By Victor Hugo.
 
 Novels. Price 2s. In Picture Boards. 
 
 AN AUSTRALIAN HEROINE .. Mrs. Campbell Praed. 
 
 ANTONY GRACE G. Manville Fenn. 
 
 AS IN A LOOKING GLASS F. C. Philips. 
 
 BIRD OF PASSAGE, A B. M. Croker. 
 
 BLACK BLOOD G. Manville Fenn. 
 
 CANON LUCIFER J. D. Delille. 
 
 CHEQUERS, THE James Runciman. 
 
 COQUETTE'S CONQUEST, A "Basil." 
 
 DEAN AND HIS DAUGHTER, THE . . F. C. Philips. 
 
 DIANA BARRINGTON B. M. Croker. 
 
 DINGY HOUSE AT KENSINGTON, THE 
 
 DOUBLE CUNNING G. Manville Fenn. 
 
 DUKE'S SWEETHEART, THE . . . . Richard Dowling. 
 
 EARLY FROST, AN C. R. James. 
 
 FOLLY MORRISON Frank Barrett. 
 
 GREAT PORTER SQUARE B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 GRETCHEN "Rita." 
 
 GRIF B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 HANDSOME JACK .. James Greenwood. 
 
 HEAD STATION, THE Mrs. Campbell Praed. 
 
 HER TWO MILLIONS William Westall. 
 
 HONEST DAVIE Frank Barrett. 
 
 HOUSE OF WHITE SHADOWS, THE .. B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE Marie Connor. 
 
 IDLE TALES Mrs. Riddell. 
 
 IN DURANCE VILE Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 IN ONE TOWN Edmund Downey. 
 
 IN A SILVER SEA B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 IN THE FLOWER OF HER YOUTH . . Mabel Collins. 
 
 JACK AND THREE JILLS F. C. Philips. 
 
 LADY NANCYE, THE "Rita." 
 
 LIEUTENANT BARNABAS Frank Barrett. 
 
 LIFE'S MISTAKE, A .. .. Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron. 
 LIL LORIMER Theo. Gift.
 
 V 
 
 15 
 
 LOGIE TOWN Sarah Tytler. 
 
 LOUISA K. S. Macquoid. 
 
 LUCKY YOUNG WOMAN, A . . . . F. C. Philips. 
 
 MAIDEN ALL FORLORN, A ., By the Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 MARVEL Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES, THE .. . . G. M. Fenn. 
 MENTAL STRUGGLE, A .. .. Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 MIRACLE GOLD Richard Dowling. 
 
 MISER FAREBROTHER B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 MISS JACOBSEN'S CHANCE.. .. Mrs. Campbell Praed. 
 
 MODERN CIRCE, A .. .. •• Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 MODERN MAGICIAN, A .. -.J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 
 
 NUN'S CURSE, THE Mrs. Riddell. 
 
 OLD FACTORY, THE William Westall. 
 
 ONE MAID'S MISCHIEF .. .. ' .. .. G. M. Fenn. 
 
 PRETTIEST WOMAN IN WARSAW, THE Mabel Collins. 
 
 PRETTY MISS NEVILLE B. M. Croker. 
 
 PRINCE OF THE BLOOD, A James Payn. 
 
 PROPER PRIDE B. M. Croker. 
 
 RALPH NORBRECK'S TRUST .. .. William Westall. 
 
 RED RYVINGTON William Westall. 
 
 REIGNING FAVOURITE, A Annie Thomas. 
 
 SACRED NUGGET, THE B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 SCHEHERAZADE . . Author of " The House on the Marsh." 
 
 SECRET INHERITANCE, A B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 SOCIAL VICISSITUDES F. C, Philips. 
 
 TEMPEST DRIVEN Richard Dowling. 
 
 TERRIBLE LEGACY, A G. W. Appleton. 
 
 THAT VILLAIN ROMEO . . . . J. Fitzgerald Molloy. 
 
 THIS MAN'S WIFE G. M. Fenn. 
 
 TRAGEDY OF FEATHERSTONE, THE .. B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 TWO LOVES IN ONE LIFE 
 
 TWO PINCHES OF SNUFF William Westall. 
 
 UNDER ST. PAUL'S Richard Dowling. 
 
 VIVA .. .. Mrs. Forrester. 
 
 WHAT HAST THOU DONE? .. J. Fitzgerald Molloy.
 
 i6 
 
 Novels. Price Is. 
 
 AMYON DREWTH W. Locke. 
 
 AS IN A LOOKING GLASS F. C. Philips. 
 
 AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR E. T. Pickering. 
 
 BAG OF DIAMONDS G. M. Fenn. 
 
 BLIND JUSTICE Helen Mathers. 
 
 CHARGE FROM THE GRAVE, A .. . . Somerville Gibney, 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CROOKED CLUB James Greenwood. 
 
 DEVLIN THE BARBER B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 DR. BERNARD ST. VINCENT .. .. Hume Nisbet. 
 
 EVE AT THE WHEEL G. M. Fenn. 
 
 FATAL HOUSE, THE Alice Corkran. 
 
 FLOWER OF DOOM, THE .. .. M. Beetham-Edwards. 
 
 FOG PRINCES, THE Florence Warden. 
 
 FROM THE GREEN BAG F.M.Allen. 
 
 GREAT HESPER, THE Frank Barrett. 
 
 HIS OTHER SELF E. J. Goodman. 
 
 HOUSE OF TEARS, A Edmund Downey. 
 
 IDA : an Adventure in Morocco . . . . . . Mabel Collins. 
 
 LADY VALWORTH'S DIAMONDS By the Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 LITTLE TU'PENNY Author of " Mehalah." 
 
 MISS GASCOIGNE .. . .Mrs. Riddell. 
 
 MISS TODD'S DREAM Mrs. Huddleston. 
 
 MYSTERY OF CLOOMBER, THE .. .. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 OLIVER'S BRIDE Mrs. Oliphant. 
 
 PRINCE OF DARKNESS, A Florence Warden. 
 
 PROPOSALS ; being a Maiden Meditation. 
 
 SCHOOL BOARD ESSAYS Emanuel Kink. 
 
 SKELETON KEY, THE Richard Dowling. 
 
 SNOWBOUND AT EAGLE'S Bret Harte. 
 
 SUSPICION : A strange story Christian Lys. 
 
 SWOOP OF THE EAGLES: An Episode in the Secret 
 
 History of Europe . . . . . . . . Allen Upward. 
 
 THROUGH GREEN GLASSES F. M. Allen. 
 
 VOYAGE OF THE ARK, THE F. M. Allen. 
 
 WEEK AT KILLARNEY, A .. .. Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 WHAT WAS IT? FiTzjAMES O'Brien. 
 
 WARD & DOWMEY, 12, York Street, Covent Garden, Lonflon. 
 
 Novello, Ewer & Co., Printers, London. 
 
 ^

 
 T. 3 
 
 m\m^^' 
 
 
 m. 
 
 ?j-v^;^ 

 
 I, '*, 1 1, » I, 1 II, 
 
 
 .i 
 
 I ; ) 1 I ( \) H '» ll" ( VI 
 
 I /.I i;v:i ViA Vi», ■! 
 
 i > 1 t J i» '« ij « ',» ti 
 
 
 V\|r,*i:Ji:S,N,*iV.V 
 
 
 ,;», '»,.t, '*./l. '«.'•, 
 
 I 1 ( I I «, 1