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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 tunz'i 
 
 :\\oi2 
 
 OCT 5 198^ 
 
 L161— O-1096
 
 (( 
 
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 MY LOVE!" 
 
 E. LYNN LINTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF PATRICIA KEMHALI., " THK ATONE.MKNT OF LEAM DUNDAS, 
 "under which lord?" "the rebel OF THE FAMILY," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 11 n tr u 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 iS8i 
 
 \The right oj tramlatioii is rcser<'Cif\
 
 KIN 1 liU BY WILLIAM CLUWhb AND SONS, LlRIITkO, LONDON AND BECtLES.
 
 h 
 
 4 
 
 813 
 
 V.I 
 
 InscnbttP 
 
 TO MY PEAR OLD FBItND 
 
 ANNIE HECTOR (Mes. ALEXANDER.)
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 I. In the MoftNiNG ... ... ... 1 
 
 II. Thi: Little Eift ... ... ... 20 
 
 III. Anticii'ations ... ... ... ... 3G 
 
 IV. Fulfilment ... ... ... 58 
 
 V. Under the Lash ... ... ... 74 
 
 VI. Light and Shadow ... ... S9 
 
 VII. Impossibilities ... ... ... ... 109 
 
 VIII. His Better Chances ... ... 132 
 
 IX. Her Father ... ... ... ... 147 
 
 X. Friends in Council ... ... 1G5 
 
 XI. His Faithful Chum ... ... ... 187 
 
 XII. Those Mjss Pennefathers ... ... 205 
 
 XIII. The Family at Sherrardine ... ... 22!> 
 
 XIV. The Eeward of Sacrifice ... ... 248 
 
 XV. The Tryst at Crossing's Bridge ... 207 
 
 XVI. The PociiETFUL of Fun ... ... 286
 
 ^^MY LOVE!" 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IX THE MORXIXG. 
 
 It was a foolish thing to do ; but when was 
 happy youth aught but foolish ? And he was 
 so happy ! so happy ! He could not find fitting 
 vent for his joy, nor adequate expression by 
 which to inform the world at large how great 
 was his divine delight. Waking up to con- 
 sciousness in the dawn of that sweet spring 
 morning — full of blessed certainty and still 
 more blessed anticipation — seeing neither rock 
 nor shallow ahead and sure that no storm could 
 come to wreck his well-freighted bark — young 
 as the year, bright as the sky, hopeful as the 
 da}', he looked out on the fair English land- 
 scape of fruitful farm and sleeping village, of 
 fragrant meadow and leafy wood ; and for 
 want of some one to whom he could say how 
 
 VOL. I. I{
 
 I ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 good and beautiful she was, and how his 
 happiness seemed to fill earth and sky with 
 radiance, he took off his diamond ring — her gift 
 — and scrawled over the pane of the railway 
 carriage : My Love ! my Love ! 
 
 What a boyish thing to do ! But it relieved 
 his mind somehow, and stood as the testimony 
 of her worth and his passion, like the verses 
 hung by Orlando on the trees, the name carved 
 by Corydon on the bark. " My Love ! my 
 Love ! " Ah, what a sweet Love she was ! 
 Never since the world began — never since Eve 
 bent over her sleeping lord to awaken him to 
 life and happiness with a kiss — had there been 
 such a perfect woman as this ! How true and 
 faithful she was ! — how loving and how pure ! 
 And how sure his happiness in this coming 
 summer when he was to be made her husband 
 as he was now her betrothed ! How he loved 
 her ! — and how she loved him ! 
 
 It was not vanity to say this ; it was only 
 trust in his word, confidence in her assurance. 
 
 " My Love ! my Love ! " 
 
 What man on all the earth had such a Love 
 as he, Cyril Ponsonby, in Stella Branscombe ! — 
 the sweetest name and the sweetest girl to be 
 found within the four seas. No king on his 
 throne was so proud as this embryo civil ser-
 
 IX THE MORNING. 6 
 
 vant who had passed his examination creditably 
 and was now waiting for his Indian appoint- 
 ment ; no miser counting his golden gains in 
 his secret chamber was so rich as this only son 
 of a ruined house, this young soldier of fortune 
 whose inherited income was just one hundred 
 and fifty pounds a year : — with potentialities of 
 a noble sort in his youth, his strength and his 
 brains — but for all that, potentialities as yet in 
 the bud if not in the clouds. He whose future 
 was all to make would not have changed places 
 with the most successful man alive ; and the 
 grandest glory of the historic past faded before 
 the glowing splendour of his present. He felt 
 in himself something that was almost beyond 
 the ordinary circumstance of a man — as if 
 neither death nor evil fortune could touch him 
 — as if he had conquered fate, distanced sorrow, 
 and was now standing with the gods on the 
 sublime heights of infinite bliss : — all because 
 he loved sweet Stella Branscombe and she loved 
 him. 
 
 '' My Love ! my Love ! Grod bless her ! and 
 Grod make me worthy of her ! " he said to 
 himself, while his frank blue eyes grew dark 
 and tender and his handsome face was touched 
 with something more than even the deep love 
 of a happy boy.
 
 4 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 And with this prayer, which seemed to carry 
 both his love and his joy to heaven there to 
 be strengthened and purified, the train ground 
 slowly up to Highwood Station and Cyril leaped 
 lightly out. It was past five o'clock : — about 
 four hours to wait before a visit to Rose Hill, 
 where the Branscombes lived, was possible even 
 for an engaged man to make. But to one 
 impatient and in love, it is better to travel all 
 night and wait those four hours on the right 
 side of the line, than to go to bed like an 
 ordinary mortal and come down by the morning 
 mail — better a thousand times to lose a night's 
 rest and undergo unnecessary fatigue than to 
 forego two hours of love and gain six of repose ! 
 
 Long before the house servants of Rose Hill 
 liad begun to stir, Cyril and the gardener were 
 having an improving talk as to the prospects 
 of the fruit crop and the general behaviour of 
 the vegetables. Bruce, the big watch-dog, 
 loosed for his morning run, was licking the 
 young lover's hands and trying hard to take 
 in his face as well. Jim, the groom, was tell- 
 ing him all about the pony and her foal, the 
 new cob and the new mare, and how he did 
 not quite like the set of his ears nor the way 
 in which she carried her head; but when the 
 first clatter of opening shutters began at the
 
 IN THE MORNING. 5 
 
 house, the young fellow, half ashamed of his 
 impatience, went off to the summer-house at 
 the end of the lime-tree walk, whence he could 
 see the upper windows and where he should 
 hear the gong sound for breakfast. And then, 
 sure of his welcome, he would be free to walk 
 in on the family just as they had seated them- 
 selves at the table. Besides its convenience of 
 position, this little summer-house was a sacred 
 place to him ; for it was here that he had told 
 Stella he loved her and had asked her to be 
 his wife, and it was here that she had said she 
 loved him and would marry him if papa and 
 mamma approved. 
 
 How long it was before he heard the blessed 
 boom of that old bit of Chinese handicraft ! 
 Surely time never went so slowly as it was 
 going now ! Leadenfooted, do you say ? — 
 paralyzed and with no more feet than a snail ! 
 — that was what he seemed to Cyril counting 
 the minutes as they dropped heavily into the 
 great sea of eternity and making them all the 
 slower by his own eager heat. 
 
 At last the appointed moment came. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Branscombe were in the dinino'-room ; 
 Stella was running down the stairs ; the 
 omelette and the kidneys, the tea and the 
 coffee, the toast and the marmalade, were fitly
 
 6 " 3IY LOVEr' 
 
 disposed in proper form on the cloth ; the 
 solemn butler sounded the gong and told the 
 neighbourhood within earshot that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Branscombe were served ; and then Cyril 
 started up from his seat in the summer-house 
 and walked swiftly up the lime-tree avenue, 
 timing his entrance just as the first cup of 
 coffee was handed to Mr. Branscombe and the 
 business of the day had begun. 
 
 The young fellow was evidently a favourite 
 in the family and one to whom a special length 
 of rope was allowed. Not only was Stella 
 radiant with glad surprise at his coming so 
 long before he was expected — not only was 
 2:entle Mrs. Branscombe as frank and affectionate 
 in her welcome as if he had been really the son 
 he already called himself — but Mr. Branscombe, 
 whose humour was the true weather-gauge at 
 Eose Hill, smiled as complacently at the rest 
 and did not look displeased at this interruption 
 to his breakfast. Wherefore Jones, the butler, 
 who, as a rule, resented domestic derangements 
 and surprises as in some sense personal affronts, 
 ])ut who followed his master's line to a hair, 
 smiled too as he ushered in Mr. Ponsonby and 
 scanned each face of the family while seeming 
 to see and notice nothing. 
 
 " Sit down, boy, sit down ! What will you
 
 IN THE MORNING. 7 
 
 take ? Jones, a plate for Mr. Ponsonby," said 
 Mr. Branscombe, as he gave Cyril two long, 
 white, scented fingers, his manner deprecating 
 unnecessary fuss. 
 
 On the hint of that manner both Mrs. Brans- 
 combe and Stella acted ; each doing her best to 
 look and speak as if it were the most natural 
 thing in the world that Cyril should walk in 
 from London to breakfast, when he was not 
 expected before twelve at the earliest ; and as 
 if a girl's love and a mother's sympathy desired 
 no warmer expression than a man's half-in- 
 different welcome and more than tepid ac- 
 quiescence in things as they stood. 
 
 On that hint too Cyril acted, with more 
 instinctive than conscious perception of its 
 importance. He sat down quietly enough at 
 the other side of the table, facing Stella ; for 
 the present quite content with the joy of look- 
 ing at her dear, dear face, meeting her glad, 
 sweet eyes which seemed to say all that he 
 most longed to hear, and listening to the sound 
 of her voice which was like the most melodious 
 music to his ears. 
 
 How beautiful she was ! He had not seen 
 her for a whole month ; and in that month she 
 had gained a world of additional loveliness and 
 had put on a thousand new charms. Her rich
 
 8 *' MY LOVEl'' 
 
 brown hair had even more red gold in its tint, 
 more wave and ripple and straying rebellious 
 little curls and feathery fringes in its lines ; her 
 large blue eyes, as deeply blue as sapphires and 
 as soft as summer skies, were yet more beautiful 
 in form, more eloquent in expression — and 
 surely that fringe of curling lashes was even 
 longer than before and made them yet softer 
 and more starry ! Her complexion, so pure 
 and clear, with that creamy softness in the 
 shadows and that faint flush on her cheeks 
 which made it so like a sweet wild-rose, w\as 
 almost purer and clearer — as if happiness had 
 improved her health as well as gladdened her 
 heart ; and her supple figure looked yet more 
 graceful in the light-brown dress which clothed 
 her like wax without a suggestion of millinery 
 artifice. Her voice, that index of the nature, 
 was fuller and sweeter and more musical than 
 he had ever heard it — with always that faint 
 echo of possible sadness in its music which 
 showed that she had it in her to be a saint, a 
 martyr, or a heroine, according to the run of 
 circumstances and the ordering of life. Or, 
 haply, she might be only a tender and loving- 
 woman whose pure history and blameless 
 bearing would work like a charm in her own 
 immediate world, giving a standard of excellency
 
 7.V THE MOB XING. 9 
 
 by wliicli to live and a measure of beauty that 
 would be like inspiration to the rest. And Cyril 
 meant that this should be her life. By God's 
 help he would keep her as she was — pure and 
 meek — from now to the day of her death ; and 
 make her happier than any woman had ever 
 been made in this sad world before ! 
 
 She was peerless ; she was supreme. No 
 other girl in England was equal to her, per- 
 sonally or morally, thought Cyril — his eyes 
 fixed on her with as much worship as love, as 
 much reverence as passion. All the same, 
 between whiles he eat his toast and drank his 
 coffee and made an heroic breakfast after the 
 manner of healthy, hungry, happy youth, glad 
 to live and rejoicing in his bodily well-being 
 and iiis love alike. 
 
 And what a perfect mother for such a 
 daughter Mrs. Branscombe was ! How sweet 
 and gentle, how calm and self-restrained ! 
 She seemed never to think of herself, but to 
 live only for others ; to care only to do her 
 duty ; to make those around her happy ; to be 
 just and merciful for her child ; self-sacrificing 
 in her home ; attractive in the highest sense 
 and in every direction. Her life was the very 
 poetry of womanly tenderness ; but it was a 
 pity that her health was so delicate. She had
 
 10 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 never been a robust woman and had always 
 been one of that sensitive kind with whom the 
 steel outwears the scabbard. Of late she had 
 begun to look startlingly frail, though she did 
 not complain, and Mr. Branscombe was too 
 much absorbed in his own occupations, while 
 Stella was too young to see all the length of 
 the way that she had gone. Besides, daily 
 familiarity with gradual change blinds the eyes 
 which have not been opened by fear; but 
 Cyril, pre-occupied though he was, was shocked 
 by the increased pallor, the greater attenuation 
 of that dear mother whose life was so infinitely 
 beautiful and so infinitely precious ! 
 
 Nevertheless she made no complaint ; she 
 never did ; and when he anxiously asked her 
 how she was ? and was she quite well ? — she 
 smiled and answered quietly : 
 
 " Yes, dear, quite well, thank you. A little 
 good for nothing at times. But the spring 
 has been trying ; and I always suffer in the east 
 winds." 
 
 " I do not think you have suffered much this 
 year, Matilda," said Mr. Branscombe with 
 what in a less lovely man would have been a 
 slight amount of peevish displeasure in his 
 voice. " You have had nothing compared to 
 my neuralgia."
 
 7.V TEE MORNING. 11 
 
 " No, dear, indeed I have not," she answered 
 with a sympathetic air. " You have been very 
 bad at times, poor darling." 
 
 " At times ? Always ! " he said, almost as 
 if she had flung a small affront into his fine 
 face. " I give you my word, Cyril, I have not 
 had one day this year free from the most 
 atrocious pain. No man but myself would 
 have borne what I have borne and not have 
 lost both heart and patience." 
 
 " Poor papa ! " said Stella, full of yjity. 
 
 " My poor Frederick ! " repeated Mrs. Brans- 
 combe, her voice and eyes also full of pity. 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear it, sir," said Cyril, 
 as his contribution to the litany of condolence 
 and compassion. 
 
 And yet how well and handsome and per- 
 fectly preserved and superbly got-up altogether 
 this martyr to physical pain and mental de- 
 pression was ! Sixty last birthday — and no one 
 would have given him more than thirty-five. 
 How strange that his constant suffering had 
 told so little on him ! 
 
 " This is the kind of thins; that tests the 
 value of a man," said Mr. Branscombe, helping 
 himself to a second plateful of omelette. " Pain, 
 sleeplessness, nervous exhaustion, complete pros- 
 tration, total loss of appetite — and yet the
 
 12 " J/r LOVE!'' 
 
 spirit rising superior to all these miserable in- 
 firmities of the flesh — the blood of the gentle- 
 man asserting itself in trials which would have 
 made the cart-horse-like boor lie down and 
 howl ! I have never lost a day's work through 
 it all, have I, Matilda ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Branscombe ; " you have not, 
 dear." 
 
 " I have gone on just as if I had been in 
 rude health," he continued. " I have written 
 and painted and composed without intermission. 
 I have composed two-thirds of my operetta and 
 I have written four thousand lines of my grand 
 epic with not one single erasure — is there, 
 Matilda ? " 
 
 " No, dear, not one," said Mrs. Branscombe. 
 
 " No turning back and going over the ground 
 again and again, like a stammering child learn- 
 ing to spell," he went on to say, tossing his 
 handsome head and curling his thin lips in 
 disdain for the poor literary clods who laboured 
 where he enjoyed, plodded where he skimmed, 
 corrected and re-wrote, reconsidered and erased, 
 where he swept the air with one beat of his 
 strong wing and completed in a day what 
 others would have taken ten to create and 
 another ten to perfect. " All right off, my boy 
 — currente calamo, at one dash ! That is the
 
 7.V THE MORNING. 13 
 
 way to work ! — and tliat makes all the difference 
 between mediocre talent and the higher reach 
 of genius — between earth-born industry and 
 the heavenly power of the divine afflatus. I 
 will read it to you after breakfast, and play 
 you some of the choicest morceaux in my 
 operetta," he continued with a smile. He 
 meant the offer for grace ; and he expected it 
 to be taken as he meant. 
 
 *' That will be a great treat, I assure you," 
 said Mrs. Branscombe, also smiling as she 
 turned to Cyril ; " but," to her husband, " sup- 
 pose you keep it, dear, till after dinner ? It 
 will be so delio'htful then ! — and Cvril Inav 
 want to be out — or doing something else in the 
 morning." 
 
 " Cyril has nothing surely of such import- 
 ance on hand that he cannot hear my poem and 
 operetta ; " said Mr. Branscombe testily. 
 
 " No, sir. I assure you I shall be delighted 
 to hear them. Thank you, dear Mrs. Brans- 
 combe, but of course I shall be charmed," said 
 Cyril hastily. 
 
 Instinctively he desired to keep well with 
 Stella's father ; and Stella's father was de- 
 cidedly touchy about his work ; and very 
 easily offended by the appearance of neglect. 
 Thouo:h Cvril loved Mrs. Branscombe the better
 
 14 ''MY LOVE!'' 
 
 of the two, he would have had no hesitation 
 in declining any offer that she might have 
 made if not congenial to his humour ; but 
 j\[r. Branscombe was different ; and neither his 
 son-in-law elect nor any one else dared to say 
 '' No " when he said " Yes." In his heart 
 however, the lad wished the grand epic and 
 the best morceaux at the deuce, and his elegant 
 father-in-law with them. He had not seen 
 Stella for a whole month ; this was his first 
 visit after his engagement and that successful 
 examination on which the material security of 
 his love rested ; he had travelled all night and 
 had been mooning about the place for hours 
 at the risk of making himself ridiculous to the 
 men, simply to get three hours' extra happiness 
 thrown in ; and now it was coolly proposed 
 that he -should take the cream of the morning, 
 and devote, heaven knows how much time, to 
 listening to an epic written without corrections 
 — hundreds of lines at a sitting — and to the 
 airs of an operetta dashed off without fore- 
 thought and only by the grace of inspiration ! 
 
 Fate however, was kind and spared him. 
 After breakfast the divine afflatus came on 
 jMr. Branscombe with such power that he was 
 forced to defer his recitations until the evening, 
 as his wife had suggested. He must seize the
 
 IN THE MORS IN G. 15 
 
 inspired moment, he said, before the spiritual 
 fire had burned down to the slag of everyday 
 common-place. It would be a sin to the world 
 — to the present and future alike — were he to 
 let humanity lose what he had it in his power 
 to bestow. Utterances such as his were not too 
 frequent ; and they were too valuable to be 
 neo'lected. And to this Cvril naturallv said 
 " Yes, certainly," with fervour ; and Stella and 
 her mother said " Yes," too, with more sim- 
 plicity of sincerity ; and then the two lovers 
 wandered away together, while Mrs. Brans- 
 combe went to her daily office of transcribing 
 in a clear hand her husband's entangled hiero- 
 glyphics ; — till forced to leave her work and 
 take refuge in her own room, where only her 
 maid knew the fatal secret of her life. 
 
 And now Cyril's turn had really come, and 
 he was alone and undisturbed in the heaven of 
 his love. He improved the occasion and took 
 advantage of his freedom to tell Stella for the 
 hundredth time how beautiful she was and how 
 intensely he adored her ; how divine a thing- 
 life was to him at this moment ; and how he 
 thought her condescension in loving him at all 
 — he so far beneath her as he was in goodness 
 and greatness of all kinds — the most wonderful 
 part of the whole matter ! He said a great deal
 
 16 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 more ; but this was the theme round which all 
 the rest was merely a succession of variously- 
 phrased envelopes — ever the same thing under 
 different verbal dresses. He loved her; she 
 was something better than humanity ; and his 
 gratitude far equalled his glory in her love. 
 
 Ah ! how sweet it was to say all this out 
 on the lawn beneath that grand old spreading 
 cedar ! There they sat with instinctive modesty 
 full in view of the house, but as much alone as 
 if they had been indeed those primal two in 
 Eden, taking with tremulous feet the first 
 delicate and delicious steps along the enchanted 
 pathway of love — that enclianted pathway 
 which their posterity have trodden in the same 
 way ever since. The birds were singing in 
 the bushes, full-throated, rich, beseeching — here 
 the chant of the conqueror, there the song of 
 tlie wooer; the flowers were blooming in the 
 garden, and bees and butterflies and flies with 
 gauzy wings, "laden with light and colour," 
 rifled the cups and poised above the petals ; 
 from every leaf and blade of grass — from every 
 tender twig flushed with sap, like blood that 
 blushes — from every opening bud still sheathed 
 like dreaming youth in its soft sweet case of 
 innocence — from the moss about the tree-roots 
 and from the resinous bark about the stems —
 
 IN TEE MORNING. 17 
 
 poured out the subtle scents of spring, calling 
 up the vague hopes, the unspoken desires, the 
 tender, dumb, self-unrevealed wishes of youth 
 and the unfulfilled. The blue sky, flecked with 
 cloudlets which but gave added beauty to its 
 serenity and presaged no disaster, shone through 
 the black boughs of the great tree beneath 
 which the lovers sat and the water-fall at the 
 back of the house added its endless music to 
 the great diapason of nature which filled thi 
 air with the large glad symphony of life. It 
 was in the springtime of the year and the 
 springtime of their love. The day was yet the 
 morning and they were in the morning of their 
 lives. No sorrow had touched them, no clouds 
 loomed dark and threatening in their sky. 
 Sunshine and music, perfume and love, were 
 about them like a golden haze, seen through 
 which everything was transformed to super- 
 natural beauty, where was not one sordid spot 
 for pain to strike or sorrow to root. It was 
 the heaven on earth of the poet and the dreamer 
 — that heaven which we all enter when we love 
 and are beloved — when we trust and are assured. 
 It was the glad dawning of that future day 
 when they should live in unending glory, fed 
 on divine manna and free from the pains and 
 penalties which beset ordinary humanity — it 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 ''MY LOVEr 
 
 was the rosy-fingered dawn, heralding the great 
 Clod of Life and Joy ! 
 
 All this they felt as they sat beneath the 
 horizontal branches of the great black spreading 
 cedar-tree, while they spoke of their love and 
 discussed their future ; he, counting the days, 
 and going into the arithmetic of the hours 
 which lay between now and that blessed twenty- 
 fifth of August when they were to be married ; 
 she, smiling when he laughed, glad when he 
 exulted, hopeful because he was confident — 
 always the woman's faithful following on the 
 man's advancing feet — always her tender echo 
 to his foregoing word. 
 
 How delightful it was to have him there ! 
 How happy she was ! — and how delicious it 
 was to be able to say to him that she was so 
 happy, and to answer : " Yes, I do," when he 
 asked her at least twenty times that morning : 
 '' Did she love him ? Was she sure ? — did she 
 love him quite as much as he loved her ? But 
 no ! That was impossible ! No one who ever 
 lived on the face of this earth — no one — no one 
 — ever did or could love as much as he, Cyril 
 Ponsonby, loved her, Stella Branscombe ! It 
 was impossible. Human nature could not go 
 beyond itself ! "
 
 IN THE MORNING. 19 
 
 And he believed what he said ; and she 
 believed it because he said it. 
 
 Just then they heard the sound of a hard, 
 dry, rasping cough. It was Mrs. Branscombe, 
 in her own room with Jane Durnsford, her 
 maid. 
 
 " Poor mamma ! " said Stella. " She has such 
 a bad couo;h ! It has cluno^ to her all the winter 
 and will not go." 
 
 '" She is looking very pale and thin. I do 
 not think she can be well," said Cyril. 
 
 " She says she is," Stella answered a little 
 anxiously. " She never confesses to more than 
 feeling rather languid." 
 
 " She is so unselfish ! " said Cyril. " As un- 
 selfish as you, Stella — my own beautiful Stella, 
 my Star, my Love ! " 
 
 And with this they wandered off again on 
 that enchanted pathway traversing Eden ; and 
 even Stella forgot that her mother had a cough 
 and looked pale and white, while listening to 
 the rhapsodies of her lover.
 
 20 "MY LOVE\» 
 
 CHAPTEK 11. 
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT. 
 
 The first thing that would strike any one 
 admitted into the Branscombe household was 
 its air of exquisite refinement and poetic 
 serenity ; the next would be the consciousness 
 of some want somewhere — a very vague and 
 indefinite kind of consciousness, and a want not 
 to be found like cobwebs for the looking, but 
 there all the same ; — something in the atmo- 
 sphere that would jar on the more sensitive and 
 yet the most observant could not say what it 
 was nqr where it lay. 
 
 Cyril, too young and strong and far too much 
 in love to be either sensitive or observant out- 
 side that love, had never troubled himself about 
 things which he could neither touch nor demon- 
 strate ; and vague consciousness was a state of 
 mind by no means natural to him. He saw all 
 things with healthy positiveness, or he did not
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT. 21 
 
 see them at all ; and he had as little to do with 
 shadowy suspicions as with ghosts. To his way 
 of thinking Mr. Branscombe was all that an 
 English gentleman of more mind than muscle, 
 and of poetic feeling in excess of practicality, 
 ought to be ; and Mrs. Branscombe was the 
 very ideal of a perfect wife, mother and gentle- 
 woman. The two together were absolutely 
 perfect ; and what Stella was to him we know. 
 That vague sense of want, that fine thread of 
 something not quite real, that faint echo of 
 hollowness beneath the golden sands discovered 
 by others did not exist for him ; and he accepted 
 the appearance of things with boyish good faith, 
 wishing neither to lift up transforming veils nor 
 to scratch off polished surfaces. 
 
 And indeed by the look of things, what a 
 perfect household it was ! — and how invidious 
 as well as needless it was to imagine flaws 
 where none were visible, or that the circle was 
 not true when no one could find the exact point 
 where the line ran flat! Moreover, with whom 
 did the fault lie ? — if indeed fault there were at 
 all ; which Cyril would have passionately denied 
 had he been questioned. Most certainly not 
 with Mrs. Branscombe, all but perfect as she 
 was. With Stella? Ask if the moon gives 
 darkness instead of light, if the sun breeds fog
 
 22 "J/F LOVEr' 
 
 and miasmatic vapours ! No, certainly not with 
 Stella ; and if not with these two, then un- 
 doubtedly not with Mr. Branscombe. 
 
 The kind of man of whom the women of his 
 family are at once so proud and so much afraid 
 — to whom they give up their lives and think 
 themselves happy as well as honoured in the 
 sacrifice — whose will is as a Divine command and 
 whose opinions on all matters carry with them 
 the authority of righteousness and the weight 
 of perfected knowledge — to serve whom is to 
 carry incense to the altar, and to fail whom is 
 to be guilty of irreligion ; — Mr. Branscombe was 
 the high priest of his household ; a kind of 
 domestic Apollo, representing the last word of 
 refinement and the supreme result of culture. 
 He was eminently a Superior Person who had 
 to be petted and taken care of, flattered, 
 caressed, given way to, and surrounded by the 
 adulation of love at once submissive and pro- 
 tecting. He was never to be crossed in his 
 moods, nor interrupted, nor told unpleasant 
 news, nor consulted in cases of difficulty, nor 
 made free of any form of truth which would be 
 likely to jar on a nature so finely organized and 
 full of exquisite susceptibilities as his. He was 
 to be obeyed at a hint ; his desires were to be 
 divined and fulfilled without the trouble of
 
 THE LITTLE BIFT. 23 
 
 interpretation ; and bis comfort was to be 
 attended to witbout bitcb or worry. And tben 
 be was to be allowed to tbink tbat be drove tbe 
 wbole team and was eminently master in bis 
 own bouse. And wben, as be often did, be 
 complained of tbe distressing amount tbat be 
 bad to do and tbe weigbt of responsibility laid 
 on bis sboulders, bis wife did not laugb nor 
 did bis daugbter remonstrate in favour of tbe 
 motber wbo pulled tbe labouring oar wbile be 
 flourisbed tbe flag — tbe one accepting for love 
 and deliberate decision wbat tbe otber received 
 in faitb. 
 
 Mr. Branscombe was still an exceedingly 
 bandsome man, as be bad ever been. Wben 
 be was in tbe Gruards, and before be married, 
 be was known as Handsome Fred Branscombe 
 by bis friends — Finery Fred by bis enemies ; 
 and tbe conscious airs and little affectations of 
 a beauty-man still clung to bim. He spent a 
 good deal of bis time in devising becoming 
 studio dresses for bimself, cbiefly of velvet, 
 witb appiopriate collars, bands and " birette ; " 
 bis still luxuriant locks were marvellously black 
 and bis elegant moustacbe and beard — cut Yan- 
 dvke-fasbion — bad defied tbe silv^er fino;ers of 
 time witb as mucb extraordinary pertinacity as 
 bad bis curling raven tresses. His bands were
 
 24 ''MY LOVE!'' 
 
 long, poetic, white and well preserved ; and his 
 rather rodent-like teeth, as well as his waist and 
 feet, were marvels of care and get-up. 
 
 Besides his beauty which he still cherished ; 
 his toilette to which he sacrificed as much time 
 and thought as if he had been a pretty woman 
 on the wane ; his reputation as a lady-killer, 
 which he never forgot, he was, as he had 
 always been, a kind of dandy in art — playing 
 a little on the piano, painting not a little in 
 oils, writing poetry of an ambitious kind as well 
 as vers de societe for ladies' albums, setting 
 charades and one-act plays for drawing-room 
 entertainments, and the like. Rather late in 
 life, namely at forty years of age, he had 
 married sweet-faced Matilda Jerningham — 
 '* that good Matilda," as he used to call her ; 
 with a certain lofty compassion for her intel- 
 lectual inferiority which meant confession of 
 his magnanimity in overlooking her deficiencies 
 for the sake of her excellencies. And soon 
 after his marriage he left the army and took 
 up his abode at Rose Hill, near Highwood. 
 Here he turned to Art, as he called his play, 
 and founded his title to distinction on his 
 dandyism of pursuit as well as of person. He 
 undertook as many things as if he had been 
 the Admirable Crichton himself. Without more
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT. 2o 
 
 than the merest smattering of musical know- 
 ledge, ignorant of the first principles of thorough- 
 bass and the law of harmony, he composed 
 rondos and sonatas, motifs and nocturnes — and 
 of late he had begun an opera, score and libretto 
 both, which he called his Magnum Opus. He 
 did not know an Alexandrian from an hexa- 
 meter, nor an iambic from a trochee, but he 
 dashed off odes and sonatas by the dozen and 
 lately he had plunged into an epic with an airy 
 grace which poets of long practice in the art of 
 rhyme and rhythm might have envied. And 
 though he could not draw a round thing to 
 look solid, nor an upright thing in stable 
 equilibrium, he painted pictures of all genres, 
 and attacked a portrait as confidently as a 
 landscape, a cattle-piece, the heroic imaginative- 
 ness of high art or the accurate delineations of 
 still life. His pictures were magnificently 
 framed and hung in the various dwelling-rooms 
 according to what he called the harmony of 
 associated ideas. They made professional artists 
 turn hot and cold by turns when invited to 
 discuss them on their merits ; while even the 
 technically ignoraut, who had eyes and no 
 knowledge, laughed in their sleeves at the 
 anatomy of the living things and the drawing 
 of the inanimate.
 
 26 '• MT LOVE! " 
 
 All the same his wife praised and encouraged 
 him ; and no one knew whether she believed in 
 him sincerely or only flattered him because of 
 the sweet policy of love. And naturally Stella 
 followed her mother's lead. Born and educated 
 in the worship of her father as a Superior 
 Person, she went on worshipping him and 
 believing in him now, just as she used when 
 a child ; holding him, as she had been tauglit 
 to hold him, as the one transcendent man of all 
 creation, the ne plus ultra of English gentle- 
 hood and cultured civilization. He was to her 
 the impersonation of Matthew Arnold's " sweet- 
 ness and light ; " and when she thought of the 
 illustrious dead each seemed to her in some sort 
 a phase of dear papa — that microcosmic and 
 oecumenical genius who contained all forms of 
 beauty and goodness within himself and radiated 
 on every side, where others shine only on one. 
 
 He, on his part, received all this loving 
 adulation as a king might receive the tribute 
 of his vassals. Their worship of the highest in 
 him honoured these women who paid it even 
 more than it honoured him to whom it* was 
 paid. It was the recognition of superiority, he 
 said ; and their power of recognition proved 
 their own worth. The clod does not worship 
 the glow-worm, but man adores the sun. It
 
 THE LITTLE BLFT. li 
 
 was his due and tlieir duty ; and the two prin- 
 ciples were as harmonious as a musical chord. 
 He was fond of both wife and daughter, and 
 rested on the one far more than the other knew. 
 That good Matilda of his was everything to him 
 — eyes and hands and feet and brains — mother, 
 wife, lover, audience and applause, all in one. 
 She followed his humours, bent herself to his 
 shape, interpreted his wishes and guided while 
 she obeyed. She guarded him from every un- 
 pleasant accident of domestic life, yet gave in to 
 his fancy of holding himself as the pivot round 
 which the whole thing revolved. She loved 
 him ; or rather she had loved him when she had 
 married him full of enthusiasm for his genius, 
 of admiration for his beauty, of gratitude for his 
 love, of a girl's romantic belief in his infinite 
 superiority. Whether she woke from her dream 
 and found something in the weary life of reality 
 which she had not suspected in the ideality of 
 love, or whether she went on in her happy 
 blindness, she never told. All that the world, 
 Stella and her handsome husband himself saw, 
 was a devotion that had no limits, an ex- 
 pressed admiration that was without stint, and 
 a supple self-effacement that made some women 
 angry, others jealous and a few contemptuous 
 of her slavishness.
 
 28 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 They had been married two years before the 
 birth of their child came as an interruption — or 
 addition — to their happiness. It was an even 
 chance which it would be. Happily it was the 
 latter. Mr. Branscombe was rejoiced to be a 
 father. It completed the circle, he said ; and 
 he talked hazily about Plato's triangle and the 
 divinity of childhood. It gave him occasion 
 for a picture of his Household Star — the baby 
 in its nightgown — for a canzonet and a birth- 
 day ode, a lullaby and a nocturne ; and he 
 glorified himself in that pink little bundle suck- 
 ing its fist in the cradle upstairs as if he were 
 Jove and this the infant Minerva, or as if he 
 were the first man to whom had been born a 
 child. He gave the name — Stella. She was 
 the Star of the House and the word went well 
 in poetry. He had hesitated long between 
 May and Iris — the one for her month, the other 
 a messenger from heaven ; he had tried Violet 
 and Kose, Daisy and Eglantine ; he had thought 
 of Mary for sweetness, of Margaret for dignity ; 
 and he had gone through all the heroines of 
 fiction and history. But none composed so well 
 as Stella ; and the Star therefore she remained. 
 
 He could scarcely have found a name more 
 appropriate. As time went on and her character 
 developed, the girl proved more and more her
 
 THE LIITLE TJFT. 29 
 
 right to be named as something bright and 
 pure and high and heavenly. She had not a 
 fault ; or if any at all it was that she had none. 
 She was almost too good, too self-sacrificing, 
 too high-minded. She wanted the relieving 
 shadows of a silly weakness here, a wilful 
 naughtiness there. She was just a little angel, 
 said all her nurses, all her teachers ; and gave 
 no trouble to any one. Yet she was not sickly. 
 She had sound nerves, a full chest, a healthy 
 appetite ; she could ride without fear, play 
 lawn-tennis to perfection, and row as if she 
 had been born with an oar in each hand. She 
 was without morbid fancies or unwholesome 
 superstitions and was just a loving, devoted, 
 conscientious and unselfish little girl, with the 
 possibilities in her of martyrdom should the 
 occasion occur. She would have loved her 
 heathen lover better than her life, but she 
 would have preferred, to his love with apostacy, 
 death and bearing faithful witness to the truth. 
 She was a girl Avhom the most impassioned 
 man could have loved wholly, without under- 
 standing more than her sweetness, seeing more 
 than her beauty ; and she was one whom a sage 
 would have honoured and a priest would have 
 dedicated. 
 
 Such as she was, she was Cyril Ponsonby's
 
 30 ''MY LOVEl'' 
 
 Adored ; and he was never weary of con- 
 gratulating himself on his marvellous good 
 fortune, nor quite able to understand why she 
 should have honoured him — she who might 
 have married a duke had she liked — and he, 
 who was comparatively a mere nobody, with 
 only one hundred and fifty pounds a year of 
 private fortune and nothing more certain than 
 brains, energy, youth and the future for the 
 rest ! 
 
 Though by no means a brilliant marriage 
 in a worldly sense, this union of their only 
 daughter with young Cyril Ponsonby had met 
 with no opposition from the parents. It was 
 suitable in point of age and birth and they 
 could afford a dowry which would ensure the 
 barring out of that cruel wolf whose black 
 muzzle so often thrusts itself within the house 
 when the door has but slender golden fasten- 
 ings. The lad was well-built, healthy, generous, 
 strong, and handsome in a fine, manly way — 
 more suggestive of field-sports than lady-killing. 
 The two young creatures loved each other ; 
 what more was wanted than what they had ? 
 He was not rich certainly, but his family was 
 good and his name was without stain ; and 
 with his prospects and her dowry there was 
 no cause for fear. It would be a sorrow to part
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT. 31 
 
 with Stella, of course ; but girls are raade to be 
 married and taken out of the home ; and they, 
 the parents, always had each other. 
 
 " While you live, my good Matilda, I shall 
 never want a companion," said Mr. Branscombe, 
 when the thing was talked of between them. 
 
 " No ; while I live you will always have 
 some one to attend on you and take care of 
 you," she answered tenderly. 
 
 But nothing was said of her, the mother, nor 
 where she was to look for consolation. In her 
 love and her duties, of course, Mr. Branscombe 
 would have said, had he been asked. What 
 was the final cause of that good Matilda's 
 existence but to give without question of 
 receiving ? What is the glory of woman but 
 to love, to bless and to bestow ? Had he not 
 said so in that sonnet which he had addressed 
 to " My Wife ? " — that sonnet wherein he had 
 compared her to Ceres ; to Juno ; to Saint 
 Barbara with all the little children gathered 
 round her feet beneath her cloak ; to the moth, 
 which lays its eggs and dies ; to the grass which 
 feeds the lambs ; to the oak which man im- 
 mortalizes in a temple, a mansion, a ship ; to 
 tlie coal which is burned for the benefit of a 
 hero or a poet. That good Matilda was born 
 to set forth the beauty of self-effacement and
 
 32 " MY LOVE! " 
 
 the holiness of self-sacrifice ; and he was not 
 the one to interfere with natural arrangements 
 and throw the machinery of Providence out of 
 gear by ministering to that which had been 
 predestined to minister to him. 
 
 And she, whatever she might feel, said 
 nothing by way of regret — not even to Stella 
 herself — but rather did her best to hasten on 
 the marriage as much as it was seemly to do ; 
 she and faithful Jane Durnsford, her maid, 
 alone knowing why. 
 
 So there the whole thing stood on velvet, as 
 sporting men say. There was not a hitch, not 
 a cross, not a cloud ; and the lute of life and 
 love gave forth its fullest and most melodious 
 music. 
 
 It was now May, and in August the two 
 were to be married. Three months which love 
 ran into days as they passed and longing 
 lengthened into years as they were looked at — 
 three months of blissful anticipation, of joyous 
 realities — and then the fulfilment of their 
 dearest dreams. 
 
 Meanwhile, the young lovers sat on the lawn 
 beneath the spreading cedar-tree, while Mrs. 
 Branscombe and her maid discussed the secret 
 that was between them, and Mr. Branscombe, 
 in his study below, dashed off at white-heat
 
 THE LITTLE RIFT. 33 
 
 verses wliicli would not scan, rhymes which 
 were not harmonic, and thoughts which were 
 so much intellectual chaff without a grain of 
 wheat to give sustenance or support. But he 
 was satisfied with his work, dear man ! — and 
 presently, getting impatient by her absence, he 
 called that good Matilda to listen to what he 
 had done, and be, as so often before, his audience 
 and his applause. 
 
 When dinner was over and the family 
 had assembled in the drawing-room, then the 
 famous epic was produced and read to its author's 
 running commentary of interpolation — his de- 
 signation of the fine image here, the sonorous 
 music there — the cadence of this line, the in- 
 genious rhyme of that. 
 
 *' Then black-browed night arose, 
 With her veil of stars and snows." 
 
 " That is fine, Matilda, is it not ? You see 
 the image, Cyril ? The stars spangling the 
 veil of night — that veil the snow-topped moun- 
 tains. Perhaps it will not bear the coarse touch 
 of prose," said Mr. Branscombe with a little 
 hesitation ; " but in poetry, which is so much 
 more vague and suggestive, it comes grandly." 
 
 " Yes, dear," said Mrs. Branscombe. 
 
 " I think it lovely, papa," said Stella, whose 
 faculty did not lie in criticism. 
 
 VOL. 1. D
 
 34 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 " It is a very fine image, sir,'' said Cyril, who 
 had not heard very clearly. 
 
 And when Mr. Branscombe had thus gathered 
 in his little harvest, he smiled, raised the 
 delicate white hand which had been drooping 
 gracefully from the wrist over the arm of his 
 chair, ran his fingers through his curled and 
 scented hair, smoothed with the tips of his 
 fingers his irreproachable shirt-front, and then 
 went on with his reading as before. 
 
 Suddenly, Mrs. Branscombe gave a deep sigh 
 and turned deadly pale. A shudder ran over 
 her ; her hands dropped nervelessly in her 
 lap ; her eyes closed ; her breath came in short 
 gasps ; and she fell backward in her chair in 
 a strange and sudden faint. 
 
 All was tumult and confusion, tears, dis- 
 tress and terror ; but when Jane Durnsford 
 came on the summons, she seemed strangely 
 collected and as if she had gone through the 
 whole thing before. She knew exactly what 
 to do ; and she did it ; and when Mr. Brans- 
 combe, whose helpless distress was almost as 
 pitiable as his wife's condition, said half 
 peevishly : " Have you ever seen your mistress 
 like this before, Durnsford?" she answered 
 with a sudden flash in her eyes which no one 
 could exactly read : " Yes, sir, many times. It
 
 THE LITTLE EIFT. 85 
 
 has only been a wonder to me that no one but 
 myself knew." 
 
 " Send for the doctor at once ! — send for 
 Dr. Quigley, instantly ! " cried Mr. Branscombe 
 in extreme agitation. *• Do you mean to say, 
 Durnsford, that your mistress is chronically out 
 of health, and I do not know it ? Where are 
 those men ? Send for Quigley ! Cyril, my 
 boy, do you go for him ! Heavens ! that I 
 should have been deceived to this frightful 
 extent ! " 
 
 '' It is of no use sending for Dr. Quigley, 
 sir," said Jane Durnsford. " I know what to 
 do as well as he can tell me. Indeed, he did 
 tell me." 
 
 " Oh, Durnsford, has mamma consulted Dr. 
 Quigley, and we never knew ! " said Stella, 
 who was kneeling by her mother's side chafing 
 her hands. 
 
 " Yes, miss," answered the maid. 
 
 " But what is it ? What is it ? " repeated 
 Mr. Branscombe. 
 
 " Heart, sir. She has what the doctor calls 
 aneurism of the heart, and may die at any 
 moment. But she has not gone this time, poor 
 dear ! " added Jane, as a slio^ht sio-h stirred the 
 lips of the fainting woman and a tinge of colour 
 stole back into her waxen face.
 
 36 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 No ; she had not gone this time ; and on her 
 recovery, that good Matilda — who was so much 
 better than her husband knew — made light of 
 her attack ; said it was nothing, and that they 
 were not to be alarmed. She half rebuked Jane 
 Durnsford for her imprudent admission ; but 
 she was forced to confess that the doctor had 
 certainly told her something was a little wrong 
 with her heart, and that she might die suddenly 
 if she over-excited herself, lifted a heavy weight, 
 ran up stairs, got into a violent rage, or did any 
 other childish folly not very likely to be done 
 by a sedate woman of her age, she added, with 
 one of her sweet smiles which were more 
 pathetic than tears. They were not to fret or 
 worry about her, she said. Creaking wheels 
 last a long while, and she should live to look
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 37 
 
 after them all and see that they got into no 
 mischief for many years to come ! They were 
 to forget this little alarm, and not allow it to 
 sadden them. 
 
 And with this she drew Stella to her bosom 
 and gave her hand to Cyril. 
 
 " If only I might see you both happy ! " she 
 said tenderly. " I wish that August was 
 nearer ! " she added with a smile checked by a 
 sigh. 
 
 " My poor wife ! " said Mr. Branscombe. " I 
 must read you no more of my poetry. It 
 evidently stirs you too much. If I had known 
 of your state I would have spared you the ex- 
 citement — delightful as it is to me as an artist 
 to see how you are moved." 
 
 "I can always hear your work, dear," answered 
 Mrs. Branscombe quietly. " I should be sorry 
 to lose the pleasure of knowing what you do." 
 
 " Yes ; it would be a privation for you, my 
 poor dear ; but if it is bad for you ? — I must 
 take care of you and not do you harm ! " 
 
 In this Mr. Branscombe was, for the moment, 
 both considerate and sincere. He did really 
 think that it was a dangerous experiment for 
 this poor, weak heart to have to listen to his 
 halting rhymes and foggy metaphors ; and it 
 was therefore a sacrifice of self to conscience, of
 
 38 "MY LOVE! » 
 
 vanity to tenderness, when he said that he 
 would give up his recitations because the mental 
 emotions which they excited were hurtful to the 
 health of his good Matilda. But Mrs. Brans- 
 combe, for all that she accepted her husband's 
 words as they were meant for the moment, 
 knew only too well the truth of things ; and, 
 meeting bravely what she knew would overtake 
 her, she shook her head in pleasant deprecation 
 as she answered : — 
 
 " Always well enough to hear you, dear." 
 
 " Ah ! " he said smiling ; '' you are only 
 a child after all, Matilda! Sweets — sweets — 
 though they hurt you. Well, I must menager 
 for you, and not let you be excited beyond what 
 yon can bear." 
 
 And with this the matter dropped and the 
 death, which had been so fatally near, faded 
 into the background as a grim sentinel ever 
 standing between the chamber and the sun, but 
 not obtrusive nor making his presence distinctly 
 felt. 
 
 The secret, hitherto kept with such care 
 between the mistress and the maid, gradually 
 leaked out ; and soon the rumour crept through 
 the neighbourhood that Mrs. Branscombe, of 
 Rose Hill, was seriously ill and that her days 
 were numbered. Exaggerations were added, as
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 39 
 
 of course ; and she was credited with all the 
 diseases possible between epilepsy and consump- 
 tion. But the main fact was unfortunately 
 true, and the world gradually came to the 
 knowledge of that which had looked it in the 
 face unrecognized so long. 
 
 " Poor, dear, sweet Mrs. Branscombe ! How 
 sorry I am ! But if I were Stella I would throw 
 aside everything else and marry out of hand at 
 once." said Mrs. Latrobe, the handsome, fair- 
 haired widow who had been obliged to return 
 with her child to her old home, the Laurels, 
 where she lived under the heavy-handed tute- 
 lage of her mother, Mrs. Morshead — '' that 
 terrible old woman " as she was generally 
 called ; and with reason. 
 
 '^ I have not the smallest doubt but that you 
 would, Augusta," said her mother sourly, in 
 reply. " Between self-willed indulgence and 
 duty there is very little question which you 
 would choose." 
 
 This was a hit at that unfortunate past when 
 Augusta had carried her point of marrying 
 Professor Latrobe — a man much older than 
 herself, who could make no settlements and 
 whom she did not specially love, but whom, in 
 default of a better chance, she accepted and went 
 away with, simply to escape from her mother'?
 
 40 "MY LOVE! " 
 
 intolerable tyranny. Now that he had died 
 and left her penniless, she thought herself bound 
 by duty to return to the old bondage ; and for 
 the sake of her little son and his inheritance, she 
 went back to the misery of her past, rendered 
 harder to bear because of her temporary escape 
 into peace, freedom and affection. 
 
 It was a horrible life. Mrs. Morshead treated 
 her daughter as something between a servant 
 and a child, and made her daily bread very 
 bitter to her. No one but Augusta could have 
 borne it ; but then Augusta Latrobe had that 
 rare quality in woman, absolute self-control and 
 reasonableness. What she thought it wise 
 to do, that she did in spite of everything, dis- 
 inclination and pain included ; and when it was 
 necessary to submit to unpleasantnesses — well ! 
 — she submitted cheerfully and made the best of 
 them. 
 
 " But, mother, she has a duty to Cyril Pon- 
 sonby too," Augusta said briskly ; for with all 
 her tact and sweetness of temper she held her 
 own against her mother on occasions. She was 
 not rolled quite flat, though she was made 
 very smooth. " If that poor dear Mrs. Brans- 
 combe dies and Mr. Branscombe does not 
 want Stella to marry and leave him — he is quite 
 capable of it — what is Cyril to do ? Give up
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 41 
 
 his wife and happiness for that selfish old 
 fellow ? " 
 
 " What else should he do ? What else can 
 Stella do but stay with her father?" retorted 
 Mrs. Morshead. " What has become of all the 
 filial duty and obedience of your modern 
 daughters, I wonder ? What ought a good girl 
 to do but stay with her widowed father or 
 mother ? After all the trouble and anxiety that 
 you have caused us from the hour of your birth 
 up to the very last day of our lives, it is not 
 much to ask that you should attend to us when 
 we get old." 
 
 " In that case the world would come off but 
 oddly," said Augusta. " Would you let only 
 those girls marry where there are many in the 
 family, and always keep one as a kind of nest- 
 egg at home ? Would you never let only 
 daughters marry ? " 
 
 " I would at least have them marry men who 
 could maintain them like ladies while they lived; 
 and leave them a few pounds to keep them out 
 of beggary when they died," said Mrs. Mors- 
 head fiercely. " I would not have them first 
 disobey a mother and nearly break her heart by 
 their undutifulness, and then come back on her 
 with a family, as the only refuge against the 
 workhouse. And none but such a foolish, weak.
 
 42 " j/r LOVE!" 
 
 old creature as I am would put up witli it, so I 
 tell you ! " 
 
 " Now, mamma, don't be cross ! You know 
 you are much happier with me and Tony than 
 you would be without us, and you only like to 
 grumble. But I will not let you scold. It is 
 bad for you, and you do not mean it." 
 
 As she said this Augusta rose from her place, 
 giving her mother a nice little pat on her heavy 
 old shoulders as she passed her, and went out of 
 the room just a shade hastily. She was good- 
 tempered and she was reasonable, but she had 
 nerves and red blood like any other person ; and 
 she did not care that her patience should be 
 over heavily taxed. 
 
 Others beside Augusta Latrobe said they 
 wished that Stella Branscombe would get 
 married now, at once ; for every one seemed to 
 feel that danger threatened her happiness should 
 her mother die before that happiness had been 
 secured. But though Mrs. Branscombe seriously 
 proposed the shortening of the interval, and 
 urged the hastening of the marriage by at least 
 six weeks — and though naturally enough, Cyril 
 was ready and Stella was not reluctant — yet Mr. 
 Branscombe would not hear of it. He had not 
 written his Epithalamium ; his grand Wed- 
 ding March, to be j)layed in the church during
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 43 
 
 the service, wliicli was to be choral, was not 
 composed ; and he was too much occupied with 
 his epic to attend to either just yet. And with 
 these important objections he overruled every 
 suggestion offered, and opposed an immovable 
 opposition to his wife's prayer. And when a 
 man talks of his work as superior to human 
 happiness, not much good is to be done, if he has 
 the reins in his own hands and can drive the 
 chariot of life at his pleasure. 
 
 It was in vain that Mrs. Branscorabe tried all 
 her old arts, hitherto so successful ; in vain that 
 she sought to guide him in the right way by 
 tender flatteries, subtle suggestions. He yielded 
 to none of them ; and even showed signs of 
 seeing through the veil which until now had 
 been so impenetrable. To paint him to himself 
 as grand, magnanimous, semi-divine, should he 
 do this thing or that which it was his manifest 
 duty to do, though generally efficacious enough 
 as a rule, failed now. His pride was bound 
 up with the production of this Epithalamium 
 which was to be printed in silver letters 
 on white vellum, tied up with silver cord, and 
 distributed to all the guests. His heart was 
 set on hearing his grand Wedding March played 
 by a good organist — whom he would have down 
 from London ; and if the assembled hearers
 
 44 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 should not have the good taste to tell him that 
 he had equalled Mendelssohn, and perhaps sur- 
 passed him, his own knowledge would supply 
 their deficiency, and he would pity their ignor- 
 ance, not suspect his own shortcomings. It was 
 too much to expect that he would give up all 
 this intellectual splendour, all this artistic 
 triumph, merely to satisfy the whim of his good 
 ]\Iatilda and allow the two troublesome young 
 creatures to be married sooner than was ar- 
 ranged. The twenty-fifth of August had been 
 fixed as the auspicious day ; and the twenty-fifth 
 of August it should be ; and his dear wife only 
 lost her time in trying to bend his will. He 
 was resolute, determined, positive. He owed it 
 to himself, his genius, his fame and his child's 
 glory to be firm in this matter ; and what he 
 owed to himself he generally paid in full. No 
 more need be said — no, not though she besought 
 with insistence and strange agitation — tears in 
 her eyes and her voice broken as one earnestly 
 pleading for a grace that carried with it more 
 than appeared in the words. 
 
 It was bad for her to excite herself, her hus- 
 band reminded her with exasperating placidity 
 — that placidity which means the very beatitude 
 of obstinacy. She must be wiser than this ; she 
 must indeed ! This was more like ah hysterical
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 45 
 
 school-girl than his good Matilda who was 
 generally so reasonable and easy to manage ! 
 And to break herself against the rock of his 
 will, for a whim, was perfectly impracticable 
 and impossible. How absurd ! The idea was 
 inadmissible ; and she need not give herself any 
 trouble about the matter. His mind was made 
 up, and he could not possibly change it to 
 entertain her proposition. 
 
 '' My Epithalamium — my Wedding March — 
 surely Matilda, you, who respect my genius, 
 cannot advise me to abandon these two great 
 works — these immortal monuments to our 
 daughter's name ! " 
 
 " I should be very, very sorry, as you know, 
 dear," was her answer ; ^' but they could come 
 after, all the same, could they not ? " 
 
 " And lose their point, their life, their mean- 
 ing, their raison d'etre ? My good Matilda ! 
 how easy it is to see that you know nothing 
 of the sacred fire, the divine afflatus ! Ask a 
 poet to forego the theme of his inspiration — ask 
 a musician to allow those harmonious chords 
 vibrating in his brain, to be for ever mute in 
 the strings — and you ask him for what is dearer 
 to him than life. Between the unnecessary 
 hastening of this marriage by six weeks, and 
 the perfection of any two ideas, there can be no
 
 46 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 kind of hesitation ; and I must say I am a little 
 pained as well as surprised by your proposing 
 what is practically artistic suicide ! " 
 
 " But cannot you do them now, dear ? " she 
 asked. " You would have nearly six weeks 
 from now if you would consent to the marriage 
 at the beginning- of July." 
 
 " How can I leave my epic to break new 
 ground ? My good Matilda, what an irrational 
 scheme ! The inspiration that is in me now 
 might never return if once checked. Genius is 
 not like a loaf of bread, my poor wife. You 
 cannot cut your slice then lay it aside for to- 
 day to find it serviceable in the cupboard when 
 you want it to-morrow. You must catch the 
 divine fire as it flows, or rather I should say as 
 it burns. If I were to give up my epic it 
 would remain for ever a fragment — a colossal 
 fragment truly, but one that would fill the 
 world with a sense of loss — that would be a sin 
 against humanity at large, in that it had never 
 been finished and perfected." 
 
 " Is it really impossible ? " she asked again. 
 " With your facility could you not force yourself 
 to return to the old strain ? " 
 
 " No," he answered shortly. " What you 
 are pleased to call my facility is in point of fact 
 only the rush and swirl and outpour of genius.
 
 A NTICIPA TIONS. 47 
 
 I could not force myself to that which comes 
 unbiddeu like the winds of the morning, the 
 zephyr of the evening. And," he added 
 peevishly, dropping his grand manner for col- 
 loquial terseness; ''I shall not try; — so now 
 you know." 
 
 With this the conversation ended. There 
 was no good in wounding her husband's vanity 
 without result ; and Mrs. Branscombe had 
 always known when the next would be just 
 the step too far, and how to hark back grace- 
 fully over a shaky bit of ground already 
 traversed. Had not her whole life been passed 
 in the exercise of this delicate discrimination ? 
 — this tact that was almost like second- si o'ht ? — 
 in removing sticks and straws out of his way, 
 so that he should have smooth walking no 
 matter whose feet were torn ? — in making him 
 happy and contented through his vanity, rather 
 than suffering that vanity to lead him into 
 follies abroad because wounded and neHected 
 at home ? It was only one among thousands of 
 the examples with w^hich her days w^ere filled ; 
 yet this was the hardest of all. She would 
 have given all that she possessed in life to have 
 hastened this marriage and to have known that 
 Stella's happiness was secure. But she w^as 
 powerless when it came to a real collision of
 
 48 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 wills between herself and her husband. When 
 he ruled a negative her desire was nowhere ; 
 and what she could not win by management 
 she could not obtain by force of decision. 
 
 " Your father will not consent, my darling," 
 she said to her daughter when she came back 
 from her sleeveless errand. " He has set his 
 heart on his poem and the Wedding March ; 
 and it would pain him so much if he did not 
 have them ready for the day! He says he 
 cannot possibly do them before the twenty-fifth 
 of August ; and you know how much he holds 
 by his work. We cannot say anything when 
 he puts forth this plea." 
 
 Mrs. Branscombe said all this quite quietly 
 and naturally; but she did not look at her 
 daughter while she spoke. She found it diffi- 
 cult to uphold the claims of a bit of wordy 
 jingle and ungrammatical music before those 
 of human life and happiness. 
 
 " Dear papa ! how good and kind he is to 
 take so much trouble," said Stella simply. " I 
 am so grateful to him, and 1 am sure they will 
 be grand ; but I wish that he could have got 
 them done earlier. Not that I care about 
 marrying sooner for myself, darling, but you 
 seem to wish it so much, and so does poor 
 Cyril ; but, after all, perhaps papa knows best."
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 49 
 
 " He generally does," said Mrs. Branscombe. 
 
 She had brought up her daughter in this 
 faith and she upheld it even at this moment. 
 
 " And then, if you are not so well as you 
 ought to be, I do not care to leave you a minute 
 sooner than I must;" continued Stella lovingly, 
 putting her arms round her mother's neck. 
 " It will be bad enough when it comes, though 
 I do love Cyril so dearly — oh ! you know that ! 
 But if I could have married and settled here in 
 Highwood, quite close to you so that I could 
 have seen you every day and all day long, how 
 nice that would have been ! How I wish I 
 could, mother ! " 
 
 " So do T, my darling," answered her mother. 
 " But it is the law of life. We mothers have to 
 give up our children — our sons to the world 
 and our daughters to husbands. It cannot be 
 helped ! It is the price that we pay for the 
 glory and dehght of maternity." 
 
 " It is a dreadful pity, all the same," said 
 Stella. 
 
 " Will you say that to Cyril, my pretty ? " 
 asked her mother playfully. " Or is it only to 
 please the old mother ? " 
 
 The girl laughed her denial, and kissed her 
 mother's beating throat. How it beat ! How 
 hard and heavy and full and quick w^ere those 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 "MY LOVE!" 
 
 Hammer-like throbs ! Was this part of the 
 terrible presage ? She did not say what she 
 thought, but she clung to her mother very 
 tenderly as she answered : 
 
 " I love Cyril better than my life, mother ; 
 but he knows how much I love you and papa 
 too ; and he is such a dear, good boy ! — he is 
 not jealous." 
 
 "Who is not jealous?" asked Cyril, coming 
 through the open window from the lawn. 
 
 " You," said Stella, smiling all over her face 
 as if a sunbeam had crossed it. 
 
 " I have no cause," he answered. " If I had, 
 I do not say what I would be. I do not think 
 I should be generous enough to divide your 
 affections, even if you wished it. But I can 
 not imagine that. What made you say that I 
 was not jealous ? " 
 
 There was just a dash of uneasiness in his 
 voice ; something that was not quite like Cyril's 
 usual richness and roundness of confidence in 
 himself and fortune. 
 
 " Jealous of papa and mamma," said Stella, 
 again kissing her mother. 
 
 He drew a deeper breath. 
 
 " Oh 1 that's it, is it ? Well, no, I am not 
 likely to be jealous of them. That would be 
 absurd and bad form too ! "
 
 A N TIC IP A TIONS, 5 I 
 
 " You have no reason to be," said Mrs. 
 Branscombe quietly. " The child loves you 
 as much as the most exacting lover in the 
 world need desire. Never forget that, Cyril ! 
 She loves you with her whole heart and soul." 
 
 The mother spoke tremulously ; and as she 
 spoke the tears came for the second time to-day 
 into her mild, patient eyes. 
 
 " Dearest mother ! My own dear, darling 
 mother ! " said Stella fondly. 
 
 " She does not love me less for loving you so 
 much," said Cyril also fondly ; but why this 
 sudden sadness ? this under-current of pain ? 
 this strange sense of shadow in the cloudless 
 sky ? Ah ! he forgot that she, this dear 
 mother, was ill. It was her failing health that 
 had touched her nerves and made her so much 
 more sensitive than she used to be. " And what- 
 ever happens," he continued, meaning Stella's 
 marriage and consequent departure from home ; 
 " she will always love you just as much as she 
 does now. One love does not drive out another, 
 and her heart is large enough to hold the two." 
 
 " You answer for me very confidently," said 
 Stella forcing a laugh ; and the mother also 
 forced a laugh in concert, so that the sudden 
 shadow passed and the under-current of pain 
 was lost in the ripple of the smiling surface. 
 
 LIBRARY ~~ 
 UNIVERSnV OF »LI-IN(
 
 52 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 And then Cyril and Stella went out into the 
 garden, where they spent nine-tenths of their 
 time, and once more found Paradise and security 
 beneath the spreading branches of the old cedar 
 on the lawn. 
 
 " If only Fred would have consented ! " re- 
 plied Mrs. Branscombe, looking after them 
 sadly. " If I could but see her safe, and feel 
 sure that she would not have to live as I have 
 lived ! Oh, that Grod would give me strength 
 to carry me over these coming weeks, so that 
 I may live till I have seen her safe ! " 
 
 Would she ? When Colonel Moneypenny 
 asked Dr. Quigley as they came out of church 
 the Sunday after the rumour of her malady 
 crept about : " How he really thought Mrs. 
 Branscombe was ? " and : " Was it true that 
 she was in a very bad way, and might reckon 
 up the weeks she. had to live on her fingers ? " 
 the doctor — who liked her and knew of her 
 more than any one did in Highwood — looked 
 more than professionally grave as he answered : 
 "It is impossible to limit the recuperative 
 power of nature ; but if she does not get better 
 soon we may prepare for her being much 
 worse." And this from a man as cautious and 
 cheery as Dr. Quigley was almost as bad as a 
 sentence of death.
 
 AN TIC IP A TIONS. 5 3 
 
 It was indeed doubtful if she would last over 
 these three intervening months. That aneurism 
 was certainly not decreasing, it was scarcely 
 stationary ; and she had a cough, which was 
 about the worst thing that she could have in 
 her present circumstances. It shook her to 
 pieces, as Jane Durnsford said, and made her 
 often feel as if this were indeed death. She 
 was also evidently anxious about something, 
 though no one could imagine what it was. 
 There was nothing new in her life, save this 
 marriao;e which she had sanctioned and desired 
 with all her heart. So why should she be 
 anxious ? they asked one of another ; and no 
 one knew what to answer. No one knew 
 the secret of her thoughts ; not even Jane 
 Durnsford, who had known that other secret so 
 long. But every one felt that something was 
 underneath the smooth appearance of things, and 
 that sweet, patient, gentle Mrs. Branscombe — 
 that good Matilda — had some kind of unspoken 
 trouble which did not tend to make her present 
 precarious state of health more reassuring. 
 
 The first fear past, things gradually slipped 
 back into their old groove. All was just as it 
 had ever been ; save that Stella hung about her 
 mother more tenderly than before — anticipated 
 her wishes with more of the prescience of love
 
 54 " MY LOVE! ' 
 
 — and, for all that she was in one sense absorbed 
 by Cyril, seemed to live more and more in her 
 mother's life ; that Cyril was even more con- 
 tented, more gentle, more loving and more 
 considerate than he had ever been — and he had 
 always been " such a dear boy to me," as she used 
 to say ; and that Mr. Branscombe prefaced his 
 perpetual requirements with : "If you feel well 
 enough, my good Matilda ; " — " If it will not tire 
 you too much, my poor wife " — will you come 
 into my elegant studio and give me your time, 
 your mental energies, your attention, your very 
 life's blood, by listening to the poorest trash 
 that ever dribbled from a human brain, with 
 the understanding that you are to applaud and 
 find it all excellent and without fault ? 
 
 The weight was laid on her as heavily as 
 before ; and what a terrible weight it was ! 
 Who that has not known can estimate the pain 
 of this awakening from the loveliest dream of 
 romance that ever gilded maiden fancy into the 
 most meagre prose of reality by which wifely 
 knowledge was disenchanted ? — finding the man 
 whom she had believed to be a genius nothing 
 but a wind-bag ; finding the nature which she 
 had believed to be chivalrous and exalted, 
 selfish, vain and mean ; finding the man to be 
 simply a mask ; yet forced to live as if she still
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 55 
 
 believed in the depth of the shallowness so 
 sorrowfully gauged ; forced to pretend that she 
 found his verses poetry, his music melody, his 
 paintings art ; forced to give her life in trans- 
 cribing, and her strength in praising, things 
 which were not worth the paper on which they 
 were written ! And she, naturally the soul of 
 truth, to live with the oppressive knowledge 
 of her own life-long deception and his sub- 
 stantial worthlessness, yet to be unable to tell 
 the terrible secret to living being — to be almost 
 afraid and ashamed to confess it to herself! 
 
 No wonder that her nerves and heart had 
 given way under the strain ; that nature had 
 avenged herself on the strength by which she 
 had been coerced ! 
 
 This, then, was why Mrs. Branscombe yearned 
 so ardently to live till she had seen Stella safely 
 married. She knew what her own existence 
 had been as the moral sacrifice, the intellectual 
 victim, of her husband ; and she feared that he 
 would take her child as he had taken her, and 
 make a second sacrifice when the first was ex- 
 hausted. Should she, the mother, die before 
 her daughter was safe under the protection of 
 Cyril, she feared that the marriage would be 
 broken off in order that Stella might be kept 
 at home to be the companion of her father.
 
 56 " j/y LOVEr' 
 
 Unable to rise to the dignity of unselfishness, 
 or to bear the ennui of his loss and loneliness? 
 he would take the girl's happiness as the 
 cushion for his own, and break her heart and 
 Cyril's that he might have some one to whom 
 to read his epic and play over his latest 
 nocturne. And then Stella would find out 
 the true nature of this idolized father of hers, 
 whom now she believed flawless and touched 
 with a spiritual grace beyond that of the com- 
 mon race of men. 
 
 All this was just what no one in the whole 
 world suspected. The Branscombe marriage 
 had always passed for one of the happiest 
 which the mind of man could conceive or the 
 heart of woman desire. Tastes, souls, charac- 
 ters, were all twins one with the other, accord- 
 ing to the general belief of society ; and had 
 any one at Highwood been told that Mrs. 
 Branscombe was literally dying of her hus- 
 band's artistic elegance — dying of his odes and 
 his canzonets, his operettas and his pictures — 
 it would have been as if he had witnessed an 
 ugly miracle whereby beauty had suddenly be- 
 come foulness and truth had crumbled down 
 into falsehood. 
 
 But it would not have been believed. Mrs. 
 Branscombe had kept the secret too well to
 
 ANTICIPATIONS. 57 
 
 give the smallest loopliole of suspicion, save to 
 Dr. Quigley — not even to poor Durnsford. She 
 had married with the fullest faith in love and 
 sentiment, and with the principle superadded 
 of the strictest wifely duty. This wifely duty 
 included in her mind absolute self-surrender 
 and devotion. The wife of a criminal should 
 stand by him in the dock ; the wife of a sham 
 should hide her knowledge of the mask and 
 maintain the integrity of the thing represented 
 only, not existing. Life-long deception for the 
 maintenance of a husband's undeserved repute 
 was a sorrow truly, but no sin — a strain, but 
 no crime. A woman's conscience knew no 
 higher virtue than conjugal devotion ; and a 
 mother's duty was involved in bandaging her 
 children's eyes and bringing them up in blind 
 worship of their paternal wind-bag. On this 
 principle she had acted, in this practice lived ; 
 but the terrible tension told on her at last, and 
 Dr. Quigley said to himself : " The wonder is, 
 not that there is aneurism of the heart, but that 
 it did not develop earlier and that it has lasted 
 so long I "
 
 58 "MY LOVEr 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FULFILMENT. 
 
 Stella had two especial friends at Highwood, 
 Augusta Latrobe and Hortensia Lyon. They 
 were friends fulfilling very different functions 
 and of a very unequal calibre one from the 
 other. Mrs. Latrobe, though still young, had 
 leaped the gulf which separates maidenhood 
 from womanhood, and was therefore the denizen 
 of an unknown country and so far somewhat of 
 a stranger to her former playfellows ; while 
 Hortensia was a girl like Stella herself and 
 stood on the same plane and platform. 
 
 For all that, Augusta was perhaps really the 
 favourite ; and Stella usually gave good heed 
 to what the bright-tempered, fair-haired, reason- 
 able widow said to her. She felt that Augusta 
 spoke from a broader view of things, a wider 
 horizon and a clearer knowledge of life. Had 
 she not been married for six years, living out
 
 FULFILMENT. 59 
 
 of High wood and in the heart of London 
 society ? Of course, then, she knew life better 
 than a country girl who had never left home 
 possibly could ; and, as was said, for the most 
 part Stella gave heed to her and respected her 
 understanding. 
 
 But not this time ! How indeed could she ? 
 When Augusta came up to Rose Hill and 
 gravely proposed to the girl that she should 
 marry Cyril Ponsonby — secretly, if need be, 
 but at once — it nearly brought about a quarrel 
 between the two, so great was the girl's horror 
 and surprise at a proposition which seemed to 
 her the very acme of indelicacy. 
 
 '* Why should I marry, secretly and at once, 
 when I am so soon to be Cyril's wife in the 
 face of the world and without deceit ? " she 
 asked indignantly. 
 
 " There are many things which women can 
 advise girls to do yet not be able to give all 
 the reasons," was Augusta's tranquil answer. 
 " If you were wise you would take my advice 
 and act on it." 
 
 "- But, Augusta, what would my father and 
 mother say to such an extraordinary thing ? " 
 said Stella, opening her beautiful eyes to their 
 widest. " What would Cyril himself think of 
 it ! He would be as shocked as I mvself."
 
 60 "MY LOVE! " 
 
 " Time would show," answered Augusta 
 sententiously. " My advice is good, and I 
 know what I am saying." 
 
 " You are generally not so mysterious," said 
 Stella, trying to laugh the whole thing into 
 vapour. 
 
 " You need not treat it lightly," returned her 
 friend gravely. " I am mysterious if you like 
 to say so ; but I am awfully in earnest." 
 
 " Then give me some reason — tell me why," 
 was Stella's rejoinder. 
 
 '' Shall I ? Are you sensible enough to hear 
 the truth ? " 
 
 " I think so," she said. " I care more for 
 the truth, however unpleasant, than for pretty 
 pretences." 
 
 " Well, then, listen. Suppose your mother 
 dies. You know she is in bad health, and 
 may ; so why do you shrink and say ' Oh, 
 Augusta ! ' as if I had said something monstrous 
 and impossible ? Well, suppose she dies, then 
 your marriage will be delayed, heaven knows 
 how long ; and you never know what may 
 happen when once these things are put off." 
 
 " It w^ould be such a sorrow," said Stella, her 
 eyes full of tears, " that I could easily give up 
 my own happiness for a little while. I do not 
 think I should care much for myself at all if 
 I lost her."
 
 FULFILMENT. 61 
 
 " And Cyril ? " 
 
 " Cyril would feel with me, I am sure of 
 that." 
 
 *' And go to India without you ? " 
 
 " If necessary, yes ; but it would not be 
 necessary. I could be married quietly, without 
 parade or fuss, even if such a dreadful thing 
 had happened. But I cannot bear to discuss 
 the probability, Augusta. It is too dreadful." 
 
 " And if your father objected to the mar- 
 riage ? " continued Augusta, not heeding Stella's 
 disclaimer. 
 
 '' He would not." 
 
 " In that case the argument goes for nothing; 
 but if he did, would you give up Cyril ? " 
 
 " Augusta, how cruel you are to-day ! How 
 do I know what I would do ? " said Stella, a 
 certain look of terror breaking through the 
 mournfulness on her face. 
 
 " Oh, I see ! you would give up Cyril," said 
 ^Irs. Latrobe tranquilly. 
 
 '' If papa wanted me to stay with him for 
 a little while to comfort him, it would be my 
 duty, even if I had to put off my marriage for 
 a few months." 
 
 " And if he wanted you to break off alto- 
 gether ? Are you prepared to make that sacri- 
 fice too, Stella ? "
 
 62 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 " He would not ask me," she answered. 
 
 Mrs. Latrobe gave an odd kind of smile. 
 
 " You are just like all the rest," she said ; 
 " afraid of being pinned to a point. Well ! 
 remember that I counsel you to marry now, at 
 once, without fuss and even secretly, if need be." 
 
 " And make my happiness out of my mother's 
 chance of dying ? Augusta ! how dare you 
 advise such a tiling ? It seems to me almost 
 like murder — like killing her for my own 
 advantage." 
 
 Augusta Latrobe slightly shrugged her 
 shoulders. They were broad, finely-modelled, 
 and as white and smooth as ivory beneath her 
 dress. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " I have as much sen- 
 timent as any one need have, but I have flung 
 overboard all superfluity. I find life a tight 
 pattern at the best ; and I think the wisest 
 thing we can do is to make ourselves as com- 
 fortable as possible. Analyze what I have said, 
 and what harm is there in it ? Only a very 
 necessary precaution against possible disap- 
 pointment, like settlements against your hus- 
 band's possible ill-conduct in money when you 
 marry. You believe in Cyril ; but you will 
 have settlements all the same as if you had not 
 a particle of trust in him. You put your happi-
 
 FULFILMENT. 63 
 
 ness into his hands, but you protect yourself 
 by all the power of the law against his dis- 
 honour. So you believe in your father's un- 
 selfishness and your mother's immortality, but 
 I for one think you would be wise to secure 
 yourself against a possible disappointment in 
 the one and sorrow from the other." 
 
 " You and I see things differently," said 
 Stella. " I could not act in this way. It 
 would be too cold-blooded ! " 
 
 " Yes, that is just it. It would be rational ; 
 and reason always is cold-blooded," said 
 Augusta. 
 
 " We need not be all reason — we must have 
 a little sentiment — a little feeling," Stella 
 returned. 
 
 " Ah, my dear ! a very little is enough, I 
 assure you. Reason carries the heaviest metal 
 and goes the farthest, believe me. If you had 
 the brains I always thought you had you 
 would let me persuade you ; and you would be 
 Cyril Ponsonby's wife before the week was 
 out." 
 
 " Now, do not let us talk of it any more," 
 said Stella hastily. '' I ought to be very 
 angry with you, but I know that you mean 
 well and have spoken for my good, and I can- 
 not be vexed. But, indeed, dear Augusta, I
 
 64 "MY LOVE]'' 
 
 am pained. I did not think you would have 
 said all this." 
 
 " You are a good little goose," said Augusta 
 kindly. " I have said my say ; discharged my 
 conscience ; so now we will let the matter drop. 
 You value sentiment you see. and I go in for 
 common sense. We will see which wins in the 
 end. Now, take me into your conservatory like 
 a love. I hear you have the most magnificent 
 lapigeria in all Highwood, and my mother said 
 I was to be sure and see it and ask your 
 gardener how he has managed to cultivate such 
 a beauty." 
 
 " You may ask, but he will not tell," said 
 Stella, as lightly as she could speak. " Mason 
 has his secrets of cultivation which he tells no 
 one, not even us." 
 
 " What is his price ? " said Augusta with 
 unmoved placidity. "" Every one has his or 
 her price." 
 
 " Augusta, what an awful principle ! " cried 
 Stella. 
 
 " Truth always is awful, dear, to those who 
 have not learned her lessons by heart. Then it 
 becomes common-place and ceases to terrify," 
 said Augusta ; and with this the two went out 
 into the garden on their way to the greenhouse, 
 and Stella wondered if she should ever again
 
 FULFILMENT. 65 
 
 love her friend as mucli as she once did, or 
 forget the painful impression made on her by 
 to-day's talk. 
 
 And as they went into the greenhouse they 
 fell upon Cyril in the full freedom of prospective 
 sonship, smoking his cigar among the flowers 
 — tobacco being good against the green fly and 
 the red spider. 
 
 While looking at the flowers, Augusta 
 managed to get a few paces apart with Cyril. 
 Really she scarcely knew why she took all this 
 trouble about these young people and their 
 concerns ! What could it matter to her whether 
 they married now or not ? Only she was good- 
 natured, and did not like to think that they 
 would be made miserable. Still, half despising 
 herself and half deprecating her own solicitude, 
 she did what she could ; so, bending over a fine 
 petunia which she affected to praise and did not 
 see, she said in a low voice to Stella's lover : 
 
 " Mr. Ponsonby, why don't you give up all 
 the finery of your wedding, and get it over at 
 once while Mrs. Branscombe is alive and well 
 enough to go to it ? Take my advice and 
 marry the first day you can." 
 
 And before Cyril could answer, or had re- 
 covered from his astonishment, she had joined 
 Stella over the lapigeria, and was lost in amaze- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 QQ "MY LOVE! " 
 
 ment at the size of the flowers and the bril- 
 liancy of their colouring. 
 
 But Cyril mentally said to himself : " What 
 a thorough woman that is ! What a good- 
 hearted darling ! " and felt a strange impulse 
 of friendship to her as the one woman who had 
 interested herself in his love and Stella's. 
 
 Once again the family was assembled in the 
 drawing-room after dinner as before, to listen 
 to more lines added to that interminable epic 
 which grew and grew like a mushroom in the 
 night, or like that fish in the Arabian tales 
 which threatened to fill the world with its 
 appalling immensity. The sacred fire burnt 
 with terrible fervour at this moment and the 
 divine afflatus was breathed out in a surpris- 
 ingly shrill and prolonged note. And yet, the 
 other side of contempt being pity, it was almost 
 pathetic to see the intense satisfaction felt by 
 the author of this hopeless stuff, and how sin- 
 cerely assured he was both of his own genius 
 and the world's illimitable gain in his works. 
 
 They were sitting now in the half-circle of 
 established custom. Mr. Branscombe was at 
 the outer edge in the stately, carved armchair 
 which combined ease with dignity and had the 
 air of a drawing-room throne. His right hand 
 fell over the lion's head that formed the finish
 
 FULFILMENT. t) i 
 
 of the arm ; his left held the precious manu- 
 script. His scented locks, black and glossy 
 with crafty pomades warranted not to dye, only 
 to preserve, were artfully disposed in well- 
 arranged layers to hide the tell-tale thinning 
 tracts ; his pointed beard and well-arranged 
 moustache were treated with the same care as 
 his hair ; his evening dress was of faultless 
 elegance, save perhaps for more jewellery than 
 was permissible by the strictest canons of taste, 
 but the gold of his heavy florid chain combine'! 
 well with that narrow line of purple-blue 
 beneath his waistcoat which suggested a riband 
 of merit modestly hidden ; his handsome face, 
 with its thin, high, razor-edged nose, loosely 
 curved mobile lips, fine eyes and clear trans- 
 parent skin, was as sensitive as it was conscious ; 
 he looked the ideal of a former Beauty-man 
 turned poet and artist in his latter maturity — 
 Adonis aging into a gentleman-like Jupiter — 
 Alcibiades developing into Plato. 
 
 His wife sat next him, in a smaller, less 
 stately, less throne-like chair. His sense of 
 fitness was so keen that he would have thouo-ht 
 it a want of delicacy on her part, a something 
 that savoured of strong-mindedness and conjugal 
 rebellion, had she taken for her seat a cliair 
 resembling his. She might be queen where he
 
 C)8 "MY LOVJEr' 
 
 was king, but she was queen in a minor degree, 
 standing always on the step below his throne. 
 
 Cyril and Stella sat on the sofa, half facing 
 these two, leaving room for a Florentine marble 
 table by Mr. Branscombe's side, where he could 
 place his sheets as he finished them, or refresh 
 himself with eau sucree a fieur cT orange — a 
 beverage which greatly pleased him, and which 
 he recommended to all his friends as a discovery 
 made by himself alone. 
 
 So the time passed. At every four or ^yq^ 
 lines Mr. Branscombe interrupted his reading, 
 Avhich was of the sonorous and artificial kind, 
 that he might appeal to his good Matilda for 
 ])raise and confirmation. 
 
 " That is a fine example of alliteration, is it 
 not, Matilda ? " he said, as he broke off in the 
 middle of a sentence to call her attention to the 
 epithet, " leafy-fingered Flora, flooding fields 
 with summer sowing." " I flatter myself this 
 lias the true Shakespearian ring," he said again 
 by way of commentary, when he had half sung, 
 half chanted, these lines : 
 
 " Can honour dwell in thick-skinned caitiff breasts ? 
 Or pure refinement where gross usage reigns?" 
 
 "Has Keats ever produced an image more 
 purely Greek and sensuous than this ? " was his
 
 FULFILMENT. 69 
 
 next interruption when he came to a Hymn of 
 Maidens, sung in strophe and antistrophe to 
 celebrate the victory of their fellow-countrymen 
 — which victory he described as the dashing of 
 young eagles against the storm-clouds in ^ 
 murky sky, while the maids themselves were 
 white doves fluttering in the sunshine. How 
 the dashing of young eagles against the storm- 
 clouds could do any good by way of dispersion 
 he omitted to state. Such poetry as his does 
 not concern itself with the facts of natural 
 history ; and versified meterology is notoriously 
 free from fetters. 
 
 It was these interruptions and perpetual 
 appeals to attention — these incessant bids for 
 admiration — which made the torture of these 
 readings to Mrs. Branscombe. Had her husband 
 been content to read on and on, as some men 
 do, needing no 'more than the mere appearance 
 of attention, with sometimes a word of praise 
 judiciously interjected when a pause naturally 
 came and it was only common politeness to fill 
 it, she could have borne it bravely. She could 
 have thought out her own thoughts, and been 
 no more disturbed by the monotony of her 
 husband's voice than by the sough of the wind 
 among the trees or the falling of the cascade 
 behind the house. But this perpetual demand,
 
 70 "MY LOVEl " 
 
 tliis ceaseless strain, made the whole thing a 
 fatiguing exercise, and one which exhausted 
 lier even more than bodily exertion. And it 
 was one which habit and custom, instead of 
 softening, rendered only the more difficult. 
 
 Cyril and Stella were not thus appealed to, 
 and therefore had nothing to bear. They made 
 the dumb audience of whose sympathies the 
 poet was sure ; but that good Matilda was the 
 chorus whose voice must be heard and whose 
 minor action must run along the line taken by 
 the actors. Those two silly young people 
 might listen or not, as they choose, for all the 
 attention paid to them by Mr. Branscombe. So 
 long as they behaved themselves with outward 
 decorum, did not giggle nor whisper nor shuffle 
 with their feet nor make any kind of stir or 
 noise, they might talk together by eyes and 
 little gestures, by happy smiles and mutual 
 understanding, all in the foolish way of lovers, 
 and earn no rebuke for unbecoming conduct. 
 And as they did thus occupy themselves each 
 would have been hard put to it to say distinctly 
 what all this monotonous recitation was about ; 
 though Stella thought that papa looked very 
 elegant and handsome and superior — that his 
 white hands were as beautiful as a woman's — 
 that his face was the most graceful and gentle-
 
 FULFILMENT, 71 
 
 manlike imaginable — and that the whole thing, 
 from the well-arranged curl on his forehead to 
 the small, slim foot in blue silk socks and 
 patent-leather shoes with broad ribbon bows, 
 resting in a picturesque attitude on the crimson 
 velvet footstool, was of the highest order of art 
 that could be seen. 
 
 Perhaps Cyril would have preferred a general 
 conversation ; or better still, that happy garden 
 where he found his own Paradise and made his 
 Love's ; and Stella would have followed his 
 lead had he been able to give it. But of course 
 this was all naughtiness, and had to be sup- 
 pressed even from each other. It was hei^ 
 father who was boring him and to whom she 
 herself was giving only a fragmentary attention 
 — listening with her ears but not with her 
 heart ; and her father was almost as sacred to 
 Cyril as to Stella herself. 
 
 The three listeners were wonderfully quiet ; 
 and by a strange chance Mr. Branscombe had 
 forgotten to interrupt himself or stir up them 
 for the last run of twenty minutes. The even- 
 ing was sweet and still ; the light was gradually 
 waning. Booming beetles and ghostly miller- 
 moths flew past the open window across the 
 fragrant lawn ; bats darted in slender lines of 
 sudden darkness against the sky ; the owls
 
 72 ''MT LOVEr' 
 
 began to hoot in tlie woods ; the last notes of 
 the birds came in fitful signals sleepily from 
 among the trees ; a nightingale was giving out 
 his song ; the stars were just beginning to 
 shine in the darkening blue where the crescent 
 moon showed her silver streak ; and the voice 
 reciting that interminable epic became more 
 and more monotonous in its artificial strain, 
 more and more conducive to slumber, like the 
 rustling of the vind in a corn-field, or the 
 falling plash of water ; when suddenly Mr. 
 Branscombe interrupted himself with a short, 
 sharp jerk. 
 
 " Why, Matilda, I do believe you are 
 asleep ! " he cried angrily, in a shrill, high- 
 pitched voice. 
 
 " No, dear ! no, I am not ! " she answered, 
 starting and raising herself. " No, I am not," 
 she said again, with a strange expression of 
 terror and disturbance on her face. 
 
 She sat up in her chair and looked round the 
 room as if she saw nothing of what she looked 
 at but did see more than was there. With both 
 hands she pushed the hair off her fiice in a 
 bewildered way ; gave a deep sigh and 
 shuddered as she had shuddered once before. 
 Then she flung up her arms with a piercing 
 shriek and fell back in her chair — dead ! The
 
 FULFILMENT 
 
 aneurism had done its work, and that sudden, 
 sharp awakening from her drowsy slumber had 
 been the last strain which the dilated vessel 
 would bear. She was dead. Her husband's 
 poetry had at last killed her.
 
 74 "MY LOVE I "^ 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 UNDER THE LASH. 
 
 " What a pity ! What a thousand pities ! " 
 said Augusta Latrobe with cumulative sympathy 
 when she heard the sad news, and how sweet, 
 kind, patient Mrs. Branscombe had died as she 
 had Hved, without giving trouble to any one ; 
 with no parade of circumstance ; quietly effacing 
 herself to the last. " How I wish she had lived 
 a little longer ! " 
 
 " What is the use of wishing in that childish 
 way ? " replied Mrs. Morshead severely. " She 
 went when she w^as called. That was enough 
 for her ; and ought to be enough for you and 
 all of us." 
 
 *' But if that call had only been put off for a 
 little while ! " said the graceless widow quite 
 seriously. " If that poor dear Stella could have 
 been married before it came ! "
 
 UNDER THE LASH. 75 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course Stella's marriage is what 
 runs in your head ! " returned the mother with 
 fierce sarcasm. " That is all you think of — all 
 that any of you modern young women think of ! 
 Poor dear Mrs. Branscombe might have lived 
 or died so far as she herself was concerned, and 
 neither you, nor any one of your kind, would 
 have cared. So long as that young minx had 
 got her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Branscombe 
 both might have died twenty times over, and 
 not one of you would have thought twice of 
 them, poor dear souls ! " 
 
 " I don't think that," said Augusta tranquilly. 
 " But as things are it only makes two sorrows 
 instead of one. If Stella had been safely 
 married it would have been so much out of the 
 fire. And it does no one any good that she 
 and Cyril Ponsonby should be unhappy." 
 
 " And you would have them married and 
 that poor dear woman not cold in her grave 
 yet ? " said Mrs. Morshead. " Upon my word, 
 Augusta, you are a nice kind of daughter, I 
 must say ! A mother is nothing to you, it 
 seems — only a money-box that you can put your 
 hand into when you want anything from her, 
 and care no more about when you have done 1 
 As for thinking that you owe any duty to a 
 parent — that you should be loving, obedient,
 
 76 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 respectful — oh, no ! we are far too liberal for 
 such old-fashioned notions nowadays ! It* is 
 as much as we poor old people can expect if 
 you young ones allow that we have the right to 
 live at all. Why don't you get us all out of the 
 way so that you can do what you like with 
 what we leave ? " 
 
 " To he sorry for Mrs. Branscombe's death 
 does not look as if I did not care for mothers 
 in general," said Augusta. 
 
 " Yes, but why are you sorry ? For Stella's 
 sake, not her own," retorted Mrs. Morshead. 
 
 " No, for her own," insisted Augusta. " I 
 was very fond of Mrs. Branscombe — she was so 
 gentle and sweet-tempered; and she was always 
 very, very good to me, so I ought to have been 
 fond of her — and T was." 
 
 " Perhaps her temper was not tried as some 
 persons' is," said Mrs. Morshead grimly. ^' And 
 remember, Augusta, it is not so difficult to be 
 good-tempered with people when you do not see 
 too much of them ; " she added significantly. 
 " The test is when you live with them, and 
 learn all their disagreeable ways, and see their 
 selfishness and heartlessness. Let Mrs. Brans- 
 combe have been tried as some people are, and 
 I dare say she would have been no better than 
 her neighbours."
 
 UNDER TEE LASH. 77 
 
 " I tliink she was better than most," returned 
 her daughter. " Every one knows what an 
 amiable darling she was. She was a perfect 
 
 angel ! " 
 
 
 " You 
 
 are alwa 
 
 How I 
 
 wish you 
 
 s in extremes, Augusta, 
 would learn to be more 
 moderate and sensible ! But you always were 
 one of the most exaggerating children possible ; 
 and I see no improvement in you — no sign that 
 you are getting rid of your silly habit, which is 
 nothing better than telling stories when you 
 come to think of it." 
 
 Mrs. Morshead spoke angrily, and in her 
 anger let some stitches drop in her knitting, 
 which did not tend to improve her temper. 
 
 " It is a bad habit," said Augusta, who 
 seldom cared to defend herself; " but one very 
 difficult to overcome," smiling. "Big words 
 come so natural to one." 
 
 " Naturally ! A woman of your age, with a 
 son to educate, excusing yourself like a silly 
 girl, because it is ' natural,' " growled Mrs. 
 Morshead. " You ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself, Augusta. I am sure it makes me 
 quite miserable when I think of that poor dear 
 child, and how he is ruined by the way in 
 which he is being brought up." 
 
 " I hope not quite ruined, mamma," said
 
 78 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 Augusta cheerfully. " I do my best for him ; 
 and on the whole he is a very good little man." 
 
 ^' He is a troublesome little monkey, that is 
 what he is," said Mrs. Morshead crossly. " A 
 good little man, indeed ! — a tiresome little toad 
 you mean ; — always in some mischief or other ! 
 I met him yesterday in the garden with a 
 beautiful large geranium in his hand. And 
 now, Augusta, you will please to understand — I 
 will not have that boy pick my flowers. Once 
 for all — and I will not give you a second 
 warning — if ever I find him with another 
 garden flower, he shall not go near the beds 
 again. He shall not break and destroy every- 
 thing as he does, as if he were lord and master 
 forsooth. Not in my lifetime, Augusta ! 
 When I am dead and gone you can do what 
 you like — dance on my grave if you like — as I 
 dare say you will. I don't expect much else 
 from you. But while I am alive I am mistress; 
 and I will not be trampled under foot by an 
 undutiful girl and her noisy, impudent, trouble- 
 some little boy ! I have seen too much of that 
 kind of thing in others to submit to it myself. 
 So I tell you in time." 
 
 " I am sorry if Tony picked the flowers," 
 said Augusta. " He has strict orders not to do 
 so, and I have never known him disobey."
 
 UNDER THE LASH, 79 
 
 " Then how did he get that geranium 
 yesterday I should like to know ? " said Mrs. 
 Morshead sharply. " Did it pick itself and put 
 itself into his hand ? I suppose that is what 
 you will be saying next." 
 
 "• He told me he found it lying on the Long 
 Walk. Perhaps Page dropped it when he w^as 
 bringing in the flowers for the table," said 
 Augusta. 
 
 " He told a falsehood," returned Mrs. Mors- 
 head sharply. " Page never lets the flowers 
 fall. And now he shall be punished for two 
 faults instead of one." 
 
 Augusta said no more. She never encouraged 
 a discussion of any kind on her little son, whom 
 she kept out of his grandmother's sight as much 
 as possible. It was the only thing to do ; 
 though for doing it she was of course blamed 
 by her mother, as she would have been had she 
 done the contrary. The terrible old woman 
 had been a harsh mother even to her own child; 
 to her grandchild she was simply cruel ; though 
 the little fellow was as good as the traditional 
 gold of the nursery simile. Yet had he been a 
 boy-angel come down from heaven she would 
 have fallen foul of him for some fault evolved 
 out of her own hard temper and spirit of 
 opposition. It was for nothing wrong or even
 
 80 " MF LOVEr' 
 
 wilful that she rated him as she did. If quiet, 
 she said it made her nervous to see a little 
 fellow like that so unnaturally still, and she 
 was sure he had water on the brain and was 
 growing idiotic — or that he was sulky and 
 deserved a whipping to get the black dog off 
 his back. If lively and a little restless, after 
 the manner of his age, she sent him out of the 
 room with a rebuke for making too much noise 
 — perhaps the verbal rebuke was translated into 
 manual action, which effectually damped his 
 childish gaiety and changed his merry laugh to 
 bitter sobs. It was impossible for him to do 
 right ; for his very existence was the offence. 
 Was he not the son of that disgraceful Professor 
 Latrobe ? — that penniless physicist who had 
 married Augusta Morshead without making a 
 settlement and had died without leaving her an 
 income ! And when Mrs. Morshead thought of 
 this she wondered at her own goodness in 
 receiving back to The Laurels at all her un- 
 dutiful daughter and this living witness of her 
 fault. 
 
 This marriage with a poor man who had 
 been unable to provide for her, was the gigantic 
 grievance of a life that had been one long chord 
 of grievances — variation succeeding to variation, 
 but the main theme — the wickedness of the
 
 UNDER THE LASH. 81 
 
 world, and the ill conduct of all and sundry to 
 herself — ever the same. Had Professor Latrobe 
 been alive and wealthy Mrs. Morshead would 
 have found some other peg on which to hang 
 the pall of her dissatisfaction ; as he was dead, 
 and as he had died poor, she was spared the 
 trouble of going farther ; and the widow and 
 the child had the benefit of her bitterness and 
 complainings. 
 
 " And I will not have him brought up in 
 these extravagant habits of yours,'' continued 
 Mrs. Morshead, after a pause. " Considering 
 that you have not a penny of your own, 
 Augusta, and have to come to me for everything 
 you want, I must say you are dreadfully ex- 
 travagant, and might be more considerate. 
 You never think of what things cost, and just 
 squander away the money as if it were so much 
 water or sand." 
 
 •' I am very sorry, mamma, but I really did 
 think I had been careful," said Augusta, who 
 was, in truth, a marvel of economical resource 
 and thriftiness. 
 
 " Careful ! and there is that boy of yours in 
 his best clothes to-day gone off to play with 
 that little Turk, Nora Pennefather ! You call 
 that being careful, do you ? I do not. A 
 pretty mess he will be in when he comes back 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 from that house, the most untidy, disorderly 
 place in all Highwood ! How you can let him 
 associate with that horrid little girl I cannot 
 think ! " 
 
 " Why you see, mamma, Nora is the only 
 child of Tony's age in the place ; and it is good 
 for him to have a playmate sometimes," said 
 Augusta. 
 
 "• Not such a forward little hussy as that ! " 
 retorted Mrs. Morshead. " Better be a nice 
 well-conducted little fellow without playmates 
 than go rampaging and racketing about with 
 Nora Pennefather. The state he will be in 
 when he comes home — all covered with jam or 
 torn to tatters. I know ! Where is the money 
 to come from to support all this recklessness ? 
 It will end in my having to give up this place ; 
 I foresee that ; and you might as well dig my 
 grave at once as ask me to give up The Laurels ! 
 But I have not Fortunatus's purse, and I cannot 
 do everything." 
 
 " His everyday clothes are really too shabby 
 to be worn outside the garden," said Augusta. 
 " I have mended and patched till I can mend 
 and patch no more ; and your grandson should 
 be decent for your sake, you see," she added 
 with a pretty smile and playful half-caressing 
 accent.
 
 UNDER THE LASH. 83 
 
 '' My gTandson, indeed ! A pretty grandson 
 you have given — a beggar's child," grumbled 
 the old woman. 
 
 "And now that we are talking of Tony's 
 wardrobe, shall I go to Grraham's and order a 
 new suit for him ? " continued Augusta, speak- 
 ing as if she had not heard her mother's last 
 words, speaking indeed as if it were quite easy 
 to ask for what she wanted, and just as certain 
 that she would get it when she had asked for 
 it. " He really is getting too disreputable ! " 
 she went on to say, her manner tranquil, how- 
 ever perturbed might be her feeling ; " and as 
 his best suit is not over-fresh as it is, it will 
 soon be worn out if he takes it into daily use, 
 as he must very soon. Children knock their 
 clothes out so frightfully ! " 
 
 '' Then he should be taught not to ' knock 
 them out so frightfully,' " said Mrs. Morshead 
 in reply. " That is just where I blame you, 
 Augusta. You never teach him anything, 
 never check, nor contradict, nor correct him 
 from one day's end to the other. You let him 
 do just as he likes — scamper all over the house, 
 helter-skelter like a wild colt — run wild about 
 the place — pull the flowers — tear his clothes — 
 tell falsehoods — do just as he likes, as if he 
 were a savage. And I have to bear the brunt
 
 84 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 and pay for all his mischief. And yet I am not 
 allowed a voice in the matter. My goodness ! 
 you should have seen the way in which we 
 were brought up! As if we dared to have 
 disputed our mother's will, as you and that boy 
 of yours dispute mine ! " 
 
 " Dear mamma — I only wish to please you," 
 said Augusta sweetly. 
 
 " Please me ! " she grumbled. " It is an odd 
 way you take, Augusta. For my part I do 
 not know what the world is coming to. You 
 young people and your children are just ap- 
 palling. That is what you are." 
 
 " I am sorry you think I am doing badly by 
 my child and you," said Augusta, a slight 
 twitch about her lips though her voice was 
 quite smooth and gentle. " But we have not 
 settled about the clothes yet. Shall I order 
 him a new suit at Grraham's ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Morshead sharply. " I will 
 see to it myself. You are not to be trusted 
 with anything, Augusta. Make out your list 
 and let me look over it. If I do not keep an 
 eye on you, goodness knows what folly you 
 may not commit. I might as well have twa 
 children to look after," she added, twitching the 
 knitted woollen shawl over her shoulders with 
 an impatient pull. "I have everything to do;
 
 UNDER THE LASIL 85 
 
 and you might be such a help to me if you 
 would ! " 
 
 ''• I would help you, mamma, gladly, if you 
 would let me,"' said her daughter. 
 
 " Yex me by your incapacity and ruin me 
 by your extravagance, you mean," was the 
 ungracious response. "" I wish I could trust 
 to you ; but how can I — such a light-minded 
 feather-head as you are ? Tell me what you 
 w^ant for that boy of yours, if indeed you know 
 yourself what it is. Oh ! "' as her daughter 
 brought out a written list from her work- 
 basket ; " you have got it all cut and dried 
 have you ? Upon my word, Augusta, you 
 have coolness enough for a dozen ! That I 
 w411 say of you. However, give it to me and 
 let me see what you have had the conscience 
 to put down." 
 
 Augusta rose from her place and came over 
 to her mother, with the list of poor Tony's 
 necessaries in her hand. The terrible old 
 woman took the paper, readjusted her spectacles 
 and read it, sotto voce, to herself. It was a 
 very modest list — the least that could possibly 
 be done with ; but Mrs. Morshead read each 
 insignificant item as if it were a Cjuestion of 
 nuggets and white elephants. 
 
 Her daughter continued her work of em-
 
 86 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 broidering a silk jacket with bugles as quietly 
 as if her heart had not sunk and her courage 
 had not died. Of all the pains included in 
 her dependent position, this of asking her 
 mother for clothes for her child was perhaps 
 the worst to bear. 
 
 At last Mrs. Morshead, looking over her 
 spectacles and holding out the paper diagonally, 
 came to the point. 
 
 " How can you be so absurd, Augusta, as to 
 make out such a ridiculous list as that?" she 
 said crossly. " Do you want the poor child to 
 look like the beggar he is ? Not while I have 
 a sixpence to spend on his comfort and re- 
 spectability ! A black and white check for his 
 best ! It is an insult to me to propose such 
 a thing. He shall have a velvet ; and the 
 black and white may do for every day. I 
 cannot have him go about the world in the 
 disgraceful state you think good enough for 
 him. He is my grandson ; and if you do not 
 care for his appearance, I do." 
 
 " You are very good, mamma," said Augusta 
 affectionately. " I am sure I am most grateful 
 to you." 
 
 " Good ? Of course I am good ! Whoever 
 thought I was not ! " snapped the mother. " A 
 great deal too good to you, such a tiresome.
 
 UNDER THE LASH. 87 
 
 Tindutiful girl as you are ; and so I tell you. 
 But I will not have you say tliat I do not do 
 my duty by your poor little boy. Poor fellow ! 
 He has only me to look to ; and he shall not 
 be neglected as you would be quite willing to 
 neglect him, if I did not look after him." 
 
 Augusta made no answer. With the sweetest 
 manner and the most unruf&ed sweetness of 
 temper, she had a wonderful way of sticking 
 to her point and dropping all side issues. She 
 had accomplished her main purpose of the 
 moment, and secured a new supply of clothes 
 for her son ; and whether her mother took the 
 tone of the child's protector against her neglect, 
 or whether she had, which was just as likely, 
 given her a severe scolding for extravagance, 
 it was much the same to Augusta. The grant 
 of the new supply was the bread ; the manner 
 in which it was made was the bitter sauce 
 wherewith^that bread had to be eaten. Still, 
 the former was the essential fact, the latter 
 only an adventitious circumstance ; and while 
 grateful for the one she must pass over the 
 other as unimportant. Yet, oh ! how ardently 
 she wished that she could find her bread in any 
 other cornfield than this thorny one of home ! 
 — that she could ensure her son's fortune by 
 any other course than this of submission to her
 
 88 "i¥r LOVE! " 
 
 mother's tyranny and contempt ! But until 
 some other haven of refuge presented itself — 
 would it ever ? — she was bound to this, stony, 
 inhospitable, grudging, as it was. And her 
 only wisdom was to make the best of that 
 which she could not mend and must perforce 
 endure. 
 
 The conversation went no further on uncom- 
 fortable ways for the present ; for soon after 
 Mrs. Morshead had flung her last poisoned little 
 shaft the servant announced " Mr. Kemp," and 
 not even the terrible old woman was quite 
 equal to the task of scolding her daughter as 
 her greeting to a visitor. She contented her- 
 self therefore with an angry kind of grunt, as 
 a tall, grave, quiet-mannered but pleasant- 
 looking man came into the room and strode 
 across the floor with the bearing of a soldier 
 and the look of a king.
 
 ( 89 ) 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 LIGHT AXD SHADOW. 
 
 Looking first at Augusta with a slight smile 
 of pleasure round his mouth and a certain 
 gladness in his eyes, Sandro Kemp, the artist, 
 formally greeted Mrs. Morshead before he spoke 
 to her daughter, as it was but good breeding 
 to do. But he greeted her as one to whom she 
 was no bugbear, terrible as she might be to 
 others ; one who neither courted nor feared 
 her, and who knew how to hold his own 
 without interfering with her rights or suffering 
 her to go beyond her own lawful boundaries 
 and into his domain. The very core of Sandro 
 Kemp's character was that grave and manly 
 kind of dignity which neither takes liberties 
 nor allows them — that proud humility coupled 
 with self-respect which makes a man acknow- 
 ledge the shortcomings of his position in the
 
 90 "j/r LOVEr' 
 
 world while conscious of his own intrinsic 
 worth — that large kind of disdain for, yet sub- 
 mission to, social barriers and conventional 
 hindrances which marks one who understands 
 the higher laws of life but who will not impose 
 his own convictions on another — that stead- 
 fastness to his own side and toleration for the 
 side opposed to him, which proclaim the true 
 liberal and the man with an educated con- 
 science. Even his enemies — and he had 
 enemies like others — were forced to admit that 
 he was neither intolerant nor selfish ; though 
 such as Mrs. Morshead said that was only 
 because he was latitudinarian for the one part 
 and wanted to make friends with the Mammon 
 of Unrighteousness for the other. For all that, 
 when they took it in hand to circulate stories 
 to his discredit, they had first to invent them. 
 
 There were not wanting some in Highwood 
 with this faculty for creating fancy biographies ; 
 and Sandro had his full share of their unrooted 
 flowers of imagination. He was unmarried, 
 handsome, poor, a favourite with women, 
 and of that plastic profession which gives a 
 gentleman no standing of itself but is honour- 
 able or mean according to proficiency and 
 emolument. Hence he was a fair target for the 
 spears of the idle and the jealous ; and among
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 91 
 
 those who liked him least, and who were most 
 anxious to find the weak places in his armour 
 wherein to thrust their lance-heads, was the 
 terrible old woman who held sway at The 
 Laurels. 
 
 Sandro Kemp was indeed no favourite with 
 Mrs. Morshead. He was only an architect ; 
 only an artist ; a man who gave lessons when 
 he could find pupils ; who drew pictures for 
 his amusement and designed houses for his 
 daily bread ; and Mrs. Morshead was always 
 wanting to know what kind of profession that 
 was for a man who called himself a gentle- 
 man ? And he was poor. He lived in lodgings 
 because he was not able to afford a house ; 
 and he was unmarried because he was not able 
 to afford a wife, unless he could find one 
 with money who would be silly enough to 
 stoop to his condition. He paid his way 
 honestly and punctually — so much must be 
 admitted ; " but what a way it was ! " Mrs. 
 Morshead used to say with disdain when she 
 discussed Mr. Kemp's personal history, as she 
 was prone to do — no one knew exactly why, 
 for it was one which gave her no pleasure to 
 contemplate. Especially was she prone to dis- 
 cuss him with Augusta, and always with 
 strange acrimony, as if seeking to indemnify
 
 92 "MY LOVE! " 
 
 herself for tlie restraint put on her by the 
 irresistible dignity of his presence. 
 
 "Sandy Kemp," as she was fond of calling 
 him, in derision for the somewhat affected name 
 which had been imposed on him by a dilettante 
 godfather, who coated the pill with a golden 
 promise that he did not keep — " Sandy Kemp" 
 might have committed some crime in the dark 
 days of his obscure past for the doubt rising 
 into certainty which she expressed of his charac- 
 ter, and the dislike for his person which she 
 always hinted had its full justification if only 
 she might tell all she knew. " Sandy Kemp " 
 was bold, and knew neither his place nor his 
 betters, and some day she would tell him so. 
 He should remember who he was, and how his 
 position was one strictly of sufferance — archi- 
 tects and artists and queer people of that kind, 
 not being gentlefolks like those who owned 
 houses and lands and whose forefathers were 
 lying decently in the churchyard, with mural 
 tablets on the church walls to commemorate 
 their names, dates and ages. And therefore, if 
 " Sandy Kemp " had the good fortune to be 
 taken notice of by those who were gentlefolks, 
 he ought to remember that it was only out of 
 benevolence, not because of his own merits. 
 " Sandy Kemp " was first a Eadical and pro-
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 93 
 
 bably a Freethinker, then a declared Communist 
 and a j^rofessed Atheist, according to the as- 
 cending scale of her displeasure. And " Sandy 
 Kemp " did not know his own mother tongue ; 
 for in a speech made at the school feast he said 
 that he was " averse from " something or other ; 
 and who that understands the English language 
 says " averse from," Mrs. Morshead would like 
 to know ? — an ignorant fellow like this setting 
 himself up to speak and teach ! It was enough 
 to make the dead turn in their graves ! 
 
 Though she tried hard, Mrs. Morshead could 
 never induce Augusta to take up the cudgels 
 in the artist's defence. Poor Augusta had 
 enough to do with her own affairs and Tony's. 
 She did not want more on her hands than she 
 had already. When her mother was more than 
 usually rabid concerning this one of her many 
 betes noires, she would try to turn the conver- 
 sation into some other channel ; which always 
 had the effect of making Mrs. Morshead more 
 angry than before, and of concentrating her 
 bitterness on herself Still, she carefully re- 
 frained from defending any one whom her 
 mother chose to attack — Sandro Kemp or any 
 other. And the sense of drawing blank given 
 by her imperturbable quietness made the terrible 
 old woman more terrible still for want of attri-
 
 94 "iifr LOVEV' 
 
 tion and a safety-valve. Just as the dentition 
 of certain animals requires something which 
 they can tear and gnaw, so did Mrs. Morshead's 
 temper demand some one with whom she could 
 quarrel. If Augusta would have gratified her 
 in this, and would every now and then have 
 had a wordy wrangle, perhaps things would 
 have been better in the end, and she would 
 have gained by the process. The air would 
 have been cleared ; the old woman would have 
 got rid of some of her chronic ill-temper in 
 fierce epithets and unjust accusations ; she 
 would have gratified her vanity by her clever- 
 ness in vituperation ; and then the inevitable 
 reaction would have set in and things would 
 have gone better — until the next accumulation 
 of moral thunder-clouds was dispersed by an 
 explosion. 
 
 This possibility never entered into the calcu- 
 lations of that sweet-tempered, self-restrained 
 and reasonable creature, her daughter. It 
 seemed to Augusta the best policy to make 
 herself round because her mother was angular, 
 and to oppose smoothness to her spiky irrita- 
 bility so that both should not move on the 
 same hard lines together, but that one might 
 slip while the other struck. Acting on these 
 principles she carefully abstained from taking
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 95 
 
 up the glove so continually thrown down on 
 Mr. Kemp's account ; letting everything pass as 
 blandly as if venomous insinuations were 
 friendly praises and bitter accusations kindly 
 confessions of interest and respect — which had 
 the effect of making Mrs. Morshead still more 
 inimical to the artist, and of late more dis- 
 agreeable to, and somewhat suspicious of, her 
 daughter. So that now w^hen Sandro came 
 into the room, and greeted her with the con- 
 ventional : " How do you do, Mrs. Morshead ? " 
 she gave a curious kind of a grunt rather than 
 an answer, as she offered him two hard, inhos- 
 pitable fingers, which she twitched out of his 
 with an impatient jerk almost before he had 
 taken them. But Sandro only thought w^ithin 
 himself: "This terrible old creature is in worse 
 form than usual, to-day," looking anxiously to 
 Augusta to see if any signs of trouble were 
 visible on that fair, smooth, placid face. There 
 were none. The young widow had learned not 
 only to control herself but also her muscles ; 
 and she could make her face, when she chose, 
 no more expressive than so much sweet and 
 mindless wax- work. And this was what she 
 made it now in answer to the artist's eyes. 
 
 " I suppose you have heard the painful 
 news ? " said Sandro, after he had been seated
 
 96 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 for a short time and had discussed the weather 
 and the prospects of the harvest, foreign politics 
 and home legislation, the bills which had to be 
 passed and those which had been abandoned, 
 — for Mrs. Morshead was a politician inter alia, 
 and liked to air her theories. Those theories 
 were always diametrically opposed to Mr. 
 Kemp's ideas ; of that he was very certain, 
 whatever he might say. The terrible old 
 woman would not have agreed with him had 
 he echoed her own sentiments ; and she set her 
 heel on every independent assertion as if it had 
 been a personal affront intended for her and to 
 be resented accordingly. 
 
 *'You mean Mrs. Branscombe?" she an- 
 swered. " Yes, of course, we have heard it. 
 There are always plenty of ravens in the world 
 to come about you with their croakings and 
 dead worms and things. No fear of not hear- 
 ing of one's friends' death and ruin! What 
 I should like to see would be a little more 
 alacrity in letting me hear good news ! " 
 
 She said this with a manner that seemed to 
 accuse Sandro Kemp of Mrs. Branscombe's 
 death ; at the same time insinuating that he 
 had no end of good things under his cloak, 
 which he refrained from bringing out because 
 of the inbred perversity and wickedness of 
 his nature.
 
 LIGHT AXD SHADOW. 97 
 
 Augusta's delicate cheeks became a trifle 
 deeper in tint. 
 
 " That poor Stella, how she will feel it ! '' she 
 said hurriedly. 
 
 " They ought to have been prepared ; it was 
 their own fault if they were not/' returned her 
 mother grimly. " They knew that she had 
 heart disease, and might be taken at any 
 moment." 
 
 " But no one is prepared for the sudden death 
 of one loved," said Sandro gently. " Love 
 refuses to be influenced by anv mere fact of 
 mental knowledge." 
 
 " Oh, I am not clever enough for meta- 
 physics," said Mrs. Morshead with a sneer. 
 " I only know that we die when our hour has 
 come, and that we ought to be prepared. All 
 this extravagant grief is just rebellion against 
 God's goodness ; and no sentimentality can 
 make anything else of it." 
 
 " I was not aware that there was any ex- 
 travagant grief at Eose Hill," said Sandro 
 quietly. " And do you call the recognition of 
 the emotions sentimentality, Mrs. Morshead ? 
 We cannot speak of humanity without taking 
 them into account." 
 
 " I call everything sentimentality that sets 
 itself against honest common sense," said Mrs. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 ''MY LOVE r' 
 
 Morshead ; " and everything Atheism that ques- 
 tions the plain will of God," she added sig- 
 nificantly. 
 
 " That may be, but no one was advocating 
 either the one or the other," said Sandro. " We 
 were only talking of the shock that Mrs. Brans- 
 combe's sudden death must have been to them 
 all at Rose Hill ; and especially to poor Miss 
 Branscombe who loved her mother so dearly." 
 
 '* As to that I dare say she will manage to 
 get over her shock in a very short time," said 
 Mrs. Morshead with a vicious glance at Augusta. 
 " Grirls do not care, nowadays, so much for their 
 mothers as to break their hearts when they go. 
 A good riddance some would say — some not a 
 hundred miles from here ! " 
 
 " Would they ? I do not know these young- 
 ladies," answered Sandro. " And at all events 
 Miss Branscombe is not one of them." 
 
 " Miss Branscombe is no better than other 
 modern young misses. She has her lover ; and 
 what do you think she cares for a mother dead 
 or alive in comparison with that ? " said Mrs. 
 Morshead. "Mothers are only made for their 
 children's convenience, according to the horrible 
 doctrines of the present day. Children owe 
 nothing to their parents — no love, no duty, no 
 obedience — nothing ! They live just for them-
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW, 99 
 
 selves and their own pleasures ; for nothing else 
 in the world ; and that is modern daughter - 
 liness ! I wonder it does not bring down a 
 judgment from heaven, I declare I do ! " 
 
 " Are we quite so bad as this, mamma ? I 
 don't think you really believe it !" said Augusta 
 lightly, trying to give a brighter tone to the 
 conversation. 
 
 Mrs. Morshead looked up from under her 
 heavy frowning brows. 
 
 " I do not think you need ask," she said with 
 sullen emphasis. 
 
 '' No," said Sandro Kemp with jDerfect gravity 
 and sweetness ; " indeed Mrs. Latrobe need not. 
 Every one knows her marvellous amiability and 
 how superior she is both as a daughter and a 
 mother. She is the bright example of the 
 whole neighbourhood — a standard for all others 
 to live by and come up to if they can." 
 
 " I wish them joy," said Mrs. Morshead, 
 twitching her shawl, while Augusta laughed 
 in her bright careless way ; but those two pink 
 spots on her cheeks burned somewhat uncom- 
 fortably. *' It is as well to have a standard, 
 certainly," she continued lifting her lip, and 
 showing her two eye-teeth as a dog shows his 
 fangs when he snarls. 
 
 " They could not have a better," said Sandro,
 
 100 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 somethmg burning on his cheeks too and pass- 
 ing, despite himself, into his eyes. 
 
 " When and where did you take your lessons 
 in flattery, Mr. Kemp ? " asked Mrs. Morshead, 
 with a quick, suspicious glance from the artist's 
 somewhat too eloquent face to her daughter's 
 — serene, impassive, unmoved, save for that 
 slightly -heightened colour. " Have you been 
 to Ireland, may I ask ? " 
 
 '' And kissed the blarney stone ? " he added 
 with a smile. " No ; nor have I had any 
 lessons that I can remember. Perhaps, though, 
 my mother gave them to me, when she used to 
 tell me to look for the good in life rather than 
 the bad, and never to be afraid of recognizing 
 beauty and virtue when I saw them." 
 
 " To my way of thinking, truth stands first 
 of all things," said Mrs. Morshead. "Beauty 
 and virtue are all very well when you find 
 them ; but I should like to know where you do." 
 
 " Often," said Sandro emphatically ; " far 
 more often than not; so that my principle of 
 admiring what is lovely is identical with yours 
 of confessing the truth before all things." 
 
 " The two are identical in Stella Branscombe ; 
 and so they were in poor dear Mrs. Brans- 
 combe," said Augusta. 
 
 How much she longed to change this second
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 101 
 
 ciirrent of talk ! Yet into whatever channel 
 she might divert it, there was always the same 
 danger of collision and disagreement. 
 
 " Mrs. Branscombe could not have been a 
 very nice woman in reality to have ever married 
 that contemptible old fribble," said Mrs. Mors- 
 head. " Of all the men I have ever known I 
 think he is the most contemptible ; and I ha^'e 
 known some that came very near him." Here 
 she looked at Sandro. " Still, he is about the 
 worst, take him for all in all." 
 
 " Yours is a wide net, Mrs. Morshead," said 
 Sandro. " At least, Mr. Branscombe does no 
 one any harm ; and if he has aspirations and 
 ideas beyond his power of adequate expression, 
 it is his misfortune rather than his fault." 
 
 "It is only his vanity that makes him 
 attempt more than he can do," said Mrs. Mors- 
 head. " I am sure those ridiculous bits of poetry, 
 that he prints in gold on glazed cards and sends 
 about to all the neighbourhood, make one ill 
 to read them, such horrid stuff as they are ! I 
 am a plain woman, Mr. Kemp, and speak plain 
 English — which every one does not do." 
 
 " Yanity, or the need of occupation ? Yanity, 
 or the honest belief that he has done well, and 
 that he gives his neighbours pleasure in reading 
 and hearing what he has done ? We must have
 
 102 ''MY LOVEl'' 
 
 some interest in life ; and it is better to have 
 one of a harmless kind, even though the execu- 
 tion be weak, than to spend one's time in idle- 
 ness and gossip," said the artist. 
 
 " He has his home and his family, his estate 
 and all the parish business that he ought to do, 
 and does not. If he chose, he might have interest 
 and occupation enough without writing bad 
 poetry and painting worse pictures," snapped 
 Mrs. Morshead. 
 
 " He would still have some unoccupied time 
 on his hands," said the artist. " We men can- 
 not employ oar spare hours in doing the dainty 
 stitchwork which comes so naturally to you 
 ladies." 
 
 He looked at Augusta's length of silk with 
 its traceries of bugles and beads. 
 
 " Then let him do some good with his time,'* 
 said Mrs. Morshead. " We have poverty and 
 ignorance enough among us — let him help these 
 and leave his silly trash that he calls art alone ! 
 Art, indeed ! Art is a bad business for a man 
 when it is his profession and he has to get his 
 bread by it ; but when it does not do even this 
 it is worse than child's play." 
 
 " Talking of art, Mrs. Latrobe, have you read 
 the review of the Academy in the last week's 
 Saturday ? — it is the best that I have seen for a
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 103 
 
 long time. I should like to know who wrote it. 
 Whoever did, knew what he was about." 
 
 As he said this Sandro turned to Augusta 
 with an imprudent sigh of relief. The sour 
 temper and jangling contradictiousness of her 
 mother had never tried him so much as they did 
 to-day, and he had never pitied that sweet, 
 fair woman so much as now when he thought 
 of her hourly subjection to this hard domestic 
 martyrdom. 
 
 " Are you praised in it, Mr. Kemp ? " asked 
 Mrs. Morshead with an unpleasant laugh. 
 
 " Yes, I have read it," answered Augusta 
 hastily, her words breaking through her 
 mother's. " It seemed wonderfully well done ; 
 very just so far as I could make out, and very 
 appreciative." i 
 
 " Oh, these things are all managed behind 
 backs ! " interrupted Mrs. Morshead. " Caw 
 me, caw thee ; that is the rule. That review 
 was bought and paid for by every man who was 
 praised in it. I would stake my life on it ! " 
 
 " And I would stake mine that you are 
 wrong," said the artist a little warmly. " Do 
 you allow no honesty in the world, Mrs. Mors- 
 head ? " 
 
 " As much as I can see through a microscope 
 — no more," was the bitter reply.
 
 104 "ji/r LOVET' 
 
 ^' Ah, well, I do not agree witli you," he said. 
 " I beheve in men and women as the best things 
 we know, and I should be sorry to hold the 
 pessimist doctrines which are so fashionable just 
 now." 
 
 " And what may you please to mean by your 
 ' pessimist doctrines ' ? " asked Mrs. Morshead, 
 throwing a satirical emphasis on the words. 
 " I am a plain, old-fashioned woman and have 
 not learnt your modern jargon." 
 
 " Do you remember an old paper in the 
 Spectator or the Tatler^ I forget which ? " said 
 Sandro ; " a paper where a parallel description 
 is given of two women, Arachne, and Melissa ? 
 Arachne is the pessimist there ; and pessimism 
 means simply a belief in the sinfulness and 
 wretchedness of humanity rather than in its 
 goodness and aspiration ; a delight in finding 
 out the blemishes everywhere rather than in 
 dwelling on the beauties ; making ourselves un- 
 happy in the shadow but not rejoicing in the 
 sunlight ; seeing the evil all around and deny- 
 ing the good. That is pessimism ; and that is 
 the fashionable philosophy of our day. To me 
 it is morbid, sickly, untrue, and infinitely 
 disastrous to the character of those who hold it 
 and to the truth of things as they are." 
 
 " It is certainly a very suicidal kind of
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 105 
 
 doctrine," said Augusta, as her contribution of 
 rose-leaves. " It is so far more pleasant, as 
 well as more charitable, to tbink well and not ill 
 of people." 
 
 Just for one instant she lifted her eyes to the 
 artist's face and looked at him as if in self-for- 
 getfulness, her eyes full of sweetness and admi- 
 ration. Then she let tliem fall on her work ; 
 and again that faint colour, which was her most 
 marked sign of feeling, stole over her face and 
 neck like the reflection of a rosy cloud cast on 
 the snow. 
 
 He also changed colour as he looked at her 
 with as much inquiry as earnestness. His eyes 
 seemed to ask hers what was true, and what was 
 only the aj^pearance of things ? Then he passed 
 his hand over his beard, according to a way he 
 had, and checked a sicrh as a man turning- from 
 a lovely picture which he could not hope to 
 possess — from the vision of some sweet peaceful 
 valley which he must not enter — turning back 
 to the bare prose of his naked home, to the 
 barren desolation of his toilsome way. 
 
 " Fools' paradises ! " sneered Mrs. Morshead. 
 ^'Believe in men and women when the best 
 friend you have will buy and sell you for six- 
 pence, and your very children are not to be 
 trusted ? — Rubbish, Mr. Kemp ! and you know
 
 106 "i/r LOVE!'' 
 
 that yoii are talking rubbish ! I prefer the 
 truth." 
 
 '' The whole contention is in what is the 
 truth," said Sandro, passing over the accusation 
 as if he had not heard it. " No one wants to 
 hug himself in pleasant falsehoods ; but we must 
 never forget that there is just as much chance 
 of untruth in disbelief as in credulity. The two 
 thintrs are the mere doubles of each other." 
 
 " And I say they are not," said Mrs. Morshead 
 angrily. " And at my time of life I ought to 
 know." 
 
 " Well ! we shall never agree in our ideas of 
 humanity and goodness," said Sandro rising to 
 take leave. '' We must be content to differ." 
 
 " I don't call having my own opinion on 
 things differing from yours," said Mrs. Mors- 
 head rudely. " To differ there must be some 
 kind of equality, and I don't see much equality 
 between you and me, Mr. Kemp." 
 
 " No ? " he said smiling. " Does not my 
 man's wider experience in life make up, some- 
 what, for the greater length of yours ? " 
 
 " Your man's wider experience as you call it 
 may not perhaps have taught you the same 
 things as mine has taught me," said Mrs. Mors- 
 head dryly. " And I am not used to be com- 
 pared to a young man like yourself, Mr. Kemp,
 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW. 107 
 
 young enough to be my son and without a stake 
 in the country as we old proprietors have. 
 When you compare yourself next time let it be 
 with your equals ! " 
 
 " I meant no offence to you, Mrs. Morshead," 
 said the artist quietly. 
 
 " Then you should look before you leap, and 
 think before you speak," she answered sharply ; 
 " and remember next time to whom you speak 
 when you address a lady of my age and station ! " 
 " A most disagreeable pragmatical forward fel- 
 low," she said angrily to her daughter when 
 Sandro had gone ; '' and I wish to goodness he 
 would not come here as he does. What does he 
 want I wonder ? The spoons ? or is he wanting 
 to borrow^ money of me ? I hate his coming as 
 he does with his long words and pedantic way of 
 talking — argue, argue, argue, till one is almost 
 dazed and stupefied. One cannot say a thing 
 but he takes it up and makes some long nonsense 
 about it. He is just the most unpleasant and 
 conceited man in the place. His very name is 
 enough to set one against him. Sandro Kemp 1 
 Why not honest Sandy at once ? The affecta- 
 tion of that Italian is revolting." 
 
 " But that is not his fault exactly," said 
 Augusta, w^hen her mother stopped and looked 
 to her for an answer. " He was christened
 
 108 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 Sandro, you know ; he did not give himself the 
 name." 
 
 " Then he ought to change it," snapped 
 Mrs. Morshead, all alive with indignation. 
 " And listen to me, Augusta, I am not going to 
 have you defend that impudent fellow. A 
 young woman like you ought to be more modest 
 than this. What business is it of yours whether 
 he was christened Sandro or not ? Such for- 
 wardness ! What next I wonder ? " 
 
 As Augusta did not say what was to tread on 
 the heels of her present iniquity, the conversa- 
 tion dropped, and for half an hour the peace of 
 silence reigned between them. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sandro Kemp, walking back to 
 his lodgings, asked himself again and again this 
 one ever recurring and unanswerable question ; 
 *^ Did she mean it ? did she mean it ? "
 
 ( 109 ) 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 
 
 It was the day after poor Mrs. Branscombe's 
 funeral. The ceremonial had been of that 
 gloomy magnificence which is supposed to 
 relieve the hearts and assuage the sorrow of the 
 bereaved and to show proper respect to the 
 unconscious dead. No expense had been spared 
 to make the whole thing a local fete draped 
 in black and silver ; and Mr. Branscombe's 
 manifestations of mourning had all been as 
 perfectly ordered and as artistically arranged as 
 were the decorations of his house and the ap- 
 pointments of his studio. 
 
 The neighbours far and wide had been in- 
 vited to join their tepid tears and transitory 
 sorrow with the sacred grief of the desolate 
 widower and his motherless girl — to make- 
 believe that the death of sweet and placid Mrs.
 
 110 "MY LOVE!" 
 
 Branscombe was a true tragedy in their lives, 
 for which they put on spiritual mourning as 
 well as the hatbands and scarves proper to the 
 occasion. But it gratified Mr. Branscombe to 
 see this large array of friendly mourners ; and 
 it gratified him still more to be able to pose 
 before them as the heart-broken but still 
 dignified and gentlemanlike victim of fate and 
 sorrow. He translated into his voice and bear- 
 ing on this day of woe, the old spirit of the 
 aforetime Finery Fred, the lady-killer who 
 "used to study before his glass the looks and 
 postures which he thought would be most 
 convincing, and who trained his voice to the 
 passionate accents and deep pathetic tones by 
 which he hoped to carry the last lingering 
 strongholds of doubt and fear ; — of Finery Fred, 
 the Beauty-man of his regiment, who went in 
 for the leadership in taste and elegance and the 
 -' right thing to do," and whose highest 
 ambition was to be a superior kind of M. C, 
 and regimental Lord Chamberlain. 
 
 Sad as this occasion was, it was nevertheless 
 one which called forth all his power. Where- 
 fore he organized for his good Matilda the 
 details of a funeral fit for a royal Princess, and 
 laid in their quiet churchyard with overwhelm- 
 ing pomp the dead body of one who had lived
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. Ill 
 
 but for lier home and family and whose whole 
 existence had been passed in modesty and self- 
 effacement. And the neighbours came as they 
 were bidden ; and many of them laughed at the 
 widower with his artistic despair, and said 
 ^' What a mountebank that fellow was ; and 
 would anything ever teach him truth or sim- 
 plicity ! " 
 
 Still, the more intimate friends were really 
 sorry for the loss of this gentle life from among 
 them. There were some to whom she had been 
 as an enduring exhortation to gentleness and 
 love ; and some to whom she had been as a 
 faint and precious perfume, reminding them of 
 the best days of their innocent youth and of 
 spiritual graces perhaps long forgotten and laid 
 aside. And to others she had been of more 
 active help by her few words of wise counsel, 
 by the crystal purity of her thoughts, and by 
 that ready sympathy with their difiSculties, 
 either of mind or circumstance, which is per- 
 haps the greatest help of all because having the 
 most soothing influence. 
 
 Among those who mourned her with the 
 sense of personal loss, Augusta Latrobe was 
 foremost and the most sincere. She had lost 
 not only a wise and real friend in Mrs. Brans- 
 combe, but her only confidante. To her alone
 
 112 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 had she ever dared to oj)eii her heart, to reveal 
 her sorrows, to show the weight of the cross 
 which she carried. By her death the young 
 widow was made friendless, in the vital sense 
 of friendship ; and henceforth she must be 
 sufficient for herself. It was a terrible loss for 
 her ; and to-day, when the air was stiller than 
 usual after the sombre excitement of yesterday, 
 she felt the blank that had come into her life 
 more painfully than she had yet realized. 
 
 It was long since she had mourned as she 
 was mourning now as she walked by the river- 
 side — her little son now running before her, 
 now loitering behind — her little son who made 
 up the sole sunshine of her life, her only store 
 of happiness and love ! The song of the birdsy 
 the sound of the rushing waters, the sweet 
 scents of meadow and copse and hedgerow 
 which came round her like a cloud as she 
 strolled onwards, scarce seeing where she went 
 • — the life and gaiety, the good health and 
 beauty of her boy — all this was only dimly per- 
 ceptible to her mind ; while the loneliness of her 
 life, the hard hand of her mother, the dreary 
 necessities of her position, the crushing tyranny 
 of the home in which she must perforce take 
 shelter, the loss of her best and dearest friend, 
 her only counsellor and confidante, were the
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 113 
 
 prominent feelings of the moment and the 
 terrible facts of her real existence. 
 
 " If only I could do something that would 
 give me a home of my own and not hurt my 
 hoy's future ! " she thought for the hundredth 
 time since her husband's death. '•' If only poor 
 Antonio had lived until the boy had grown 
 up ! " she thought again. 
 
 It was characteristic of Augusta that she 
 made her son's welfare of more importance than 
 her own loss in the death of her husband ; with 
 whom, however, she had lived in profound 
 peace and concord — of itself happiness enough 
 after the perpetual jangle of her mother's house. 
 And indeed though she had not loved her 
 shy, reserved, queer-mannered and odd-looking 
 Professor as she knew that she could love had 
 she the fitting chance, she had respected him 
 very thoroughly and never let him feel that 
 want of which she herself was conscious. Her 
 sweetness and suavity had done all that love 
 could have done, and had made him even 
 happier than Qiore passionate demonstrations 
 would have made him. She was just the kind 
 of wife that he wanted ; and his marriage 
 fulfilled its intention with the most perfect 
 smoothness. Among all her memories no 
 shadow of remorse ever intruded its ghastly 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 "MY LOVEl'' 
 
 presence. She could not reproacli herself with 
 nndutifulness *or cruelty, with neglect of her 
 husband's wishes or indifference to his happiness, 
 nor feel aught but that she had made his last 
 years blessed beyond any he had lived before. 
 It had been a very pleasant, mild and rational 
 kind of friendship. He had loved her more 
 than he knew how to show or had had time to 
 fathom ; and she had not loved him at all. But 
 she had made him happy all the same ; which 
 was the one thing needful. 
 
 Still, her heart was virgin and she had all 
 the shy desires and timid dreams of one whose 
 wealth of love has not yet been given. Only 
 those who are conscious of their power of loving 
 are conscious of the void ; and she knew but 
 too well what she had missed and what she had 
 never felt. If it were possible ! If she could ! 
 She knew what would make her life one long 
 summer's day of blessedness : — a grave but kind 
 and gentle man, strong, just, resolute, tender ; 
 a man who understood life and could see all 
 round a subject ; who was observant for the one 
 part and thoughtful for the other ; who would 
 love her, but not blindly, so that he should help 
 her to be her best self and would not, for the 
 weakness which belongs to some men's love, 
 foster her follies ; a man who would be her
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 115 
 
 superior and yet her lover, her king and yet 
 her knight. 
 
 And thinking all this, letting her thoughts 
 drift idly on the rainbow spanning the sky of 
 hope, she came full on Sandro Kemp, leaning 
 against the bole of an elm- tree, making a study 
 of the rocks which just at this part broke the 
 swift current of the river into a dozen small 
 cascades. 
 
 Both ' started — Sandro so visibly that the 
 thing confessed itself, but Augusta with a 
 recovery so quick, so facile, as to hide her first 
 confusion before it was seen. This sudden 
 translation of her dreams into a personality 
 shocked rather than confused her. And if her 
 cheeks had that delicate pink flush which 
 became her so well — the day was warm ; the 
 wood in which they found themselves was a 
 little stifling despite the fresher breeze brought 
 by the river ; she had been running with her 
 child ; and she was naturally startled by coming 
 on Mr. Kemp so suddenly — he standing there 
 like the statue in Don Giovanni, she said with 
 her frank laugh that seemed to clear the air and 
 make wholesome sunshine round her as she 
 stood. 
 
 Yet Sandro would have been more content if 
 she had not laughed in that clear, light, bright
 
 116 " 3TY LOVE!'' 
 
 way ; if she had blushed more and stood witli 
 more consciousness of embarrassment and strain ; 
 if she had been less like her usual wise and self- 
 controlled self and more like the normal shy 
 and maybe silly school girl. 
 
 Having stumbled on him in this way, it was 
 the most natural thing in the world that the 
 widow should stay and look at the artist's work ; 
 and, having looked at it and praised the force 
 here, the tenderness and subtlety there, it was 
 also the most natural thing in the world that 
 she should turn over with him the pages of his 
 sketch-book and hear the history of this crocket 
 and that finial — where he found this quaint 
 fifteenth-century gable, and where this thirteenth- 
 century, massive, square and nameless tower. 
 These things came into his professional work ; 
 while sketching rocks was only his pastime to 
 be taken up between whiles, when business was 
 slack, as alas ! it generally was. 
 
 He had good hopes now, however, of making 
 his name and showing what he could do, he 
 said. Had he put his meaning into the ordinary 
 words of the unsuccessful, he would have said — 
 of turning the corner which he had been so long 
 in rounding. And when he told her of this 
 hope of permanent fame, he showed her a rough 
 sketch of his design for a stately palace about to
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 117 
 
 be built not far from Higliwoocl by a million- 
 aire from Cottonopolis. He had sent in liis 
 design witli other competitors and hoped he 
 should be the winner. If he were, the corner 
 would indeed be turned and the smooth, straight 
 road of fortune, fame and success fully entered 
 on ! 
 
 " Oh ! you must get it ! " said Augusta 
 quite simply, but warmly too — perhaps warmly 
 because simply. "This is so fine that I am 
 sure you cannot be distanced by any other 
 competitor. What a grand design it is ! I 
 have never seen anything more perfect, more 
 beautiful ! " 
 
 " And I have never received more precious 
 praise," said the artist in a slightly tremulous 
 voice, looking right into her eyes. 
 
 Augusta's face, which had been sincere, 
 animated and sympathetic, took on itself that 
 mask of mindless amiable wax which she could 
 assume whenever she pleased. 
 
 " I am glad if my praise pleases you,'' she 
 said ; " but," laughing, " you must remember 
 that I am quite ignorant of art and that I may 
 admire what is really all wrong." 
 
 " If you admire at all, that is enough for 
 me," said Sandro with dangerous fervour. 
 
 Augusta raised her eyes. She did not look
 
 118 " 31Y LOVEl'' 
 
 straight into her companion's face, but just a 
 little below his mouth. 
 
 " Surely not," she said quite gravely. " Your 
 object is to succeed with the authorities, not to 
 be praised by private friends." 
 
 " By some, not all. The commendation of 
 some would be all-sufficient for me." 
 
 " I should prefer the fame and the money for 
 my own part," she answered with an exaspe- 
 rating, prosaic, unsympathetic hardness, as un- 
 like her warmer self as night is unlike the day. 
 
 Sandro looked at her half-puzzled, half-pained. 
 
 " The day is warm," he then said ; " and this 
 place is so lovely ! Will you not sit here for 
 a little while ? We can watch your boy that 
 he does not get into mischief ; and see ! this 
 fallen tree makes an admirable seat." 
 
 The widow hesitated for just half a moment, 
 then a certain resolute look stole like a film of 
 ice over her soft eyes ; her mouth grew hard 
 and her lips were drawn together ; her graceful, 
 supple figure seemed to stiffen, and she looked 
 like one who has suddenly taken a difficult 
 resolve and who means to keep it. 
 
 " Yes," she said ; " I will sit down for a little 
 while. You can play about, Tony," she called 
 out to the child ; " but do not go too near the 
 water."
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 119 
 
 ** Oh, that is fun ! " said the boy, as he 
 scampered ofi" — rejoicing in his freedom and for- 
 getting the sorrowful lessons of his life at home 
 and the sour hard visage of the grandmother 
 who always rated and never caressed, always 
 blamed and never jDraised. 
 
 " He is a noble-looking boy," said Sandro. 
 " You may be congratulated on having such 
 a son." 
 
 Like many of his tribe he was passionately 
 fond of children, and, like Robert Southey, 
 thought no home perfect that had not a kitten 
 and a "- child rising two " among its inmates. 
 
 " He is a dear little man," answered Tony's 
 mother fondly ; '* and he gives very little trouble. 
 He is high-spirited and all that, but he is so 
 affectionate that I can guide him by a word. 
 He rebels against scolding, and injustice makes 
 him naughty ; but he yields easily to kindness 
 and fair dealing." 
 
 " Love is the best trainer for a child, just as 
 affection is his best conscience," said Sandro. 
 '' Weakness, vacillation, want of fixed principles 
 of action and all forms of injustice spoil children 
 as rust spoils steel ; but healthy love — never ! 
 Love spoils no one," he added, again looking at 
 his companion with meaning. 
 
 " No, it does not," she answered, as tran-
 
 120 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 quilly as if she had been talking of the weather 
 or the state of the roads. Then, seeing that he 
 seemed to wait for something more expKcit than 
 this cut and dried assent, she added : " But it is 
 just the thing we have to learn to live without. 
 We cannot all be loved." 
 
 " "Why not ? " he asked eagerly. " Surely 
 there is no one in the world who might not be 
 loved if he — or she — would accept what was 
 offered. You yourself " 
 
 " Oh ! I am out of the question altogether," 
 she interrupted, laughing lightly. " I have 
 my mother to attend to and my darling boy to 
 live for. When I said that we had to do with- 
 out love, I meant many of us, not myself. I 
 have all I can have — or care for." 
 
 " All you care for ? Do you never think of 
 making a new home for yourself — building up 
 the shattered temple of your life ? " 
 
 " With new decorations ? " she answered 
 brusquely. " Never ! " 
 
 Sandro turned pale and looked again at the 
 ^oy. 
 
 " Yet he would be better for a man's care," 
 he said very gently. 
 
 She sighed softly, and the ice that had come 
 into her eyes seemed suddenly to melt into 
 something that looked like tears.
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 121 
 
 " Yes. I grant that/' slie answered in a low 
 voice. '^ But I must do the best I can for him 
 by myself. It would be impossible for me to 
 marry again unless " 
 
 She stopped. 
 
 *' Unless what ? " he asked, bending down his 
 head as if to hear her answer more distinctly, 
 and again looking full and fixedly into her face. 
 He shifted his hand uneasily, and she knew 
 that he checked the impulse to take hers. 
 
 " Well ! unless I married one so rich as to 
 ensure my boy's future should my mother dis- 
 inherit him and me — as she would were I to 
 marry again." 
 
 Augusta Latrobe spoke with the greatest 
 apparent ease and frankness. The pink flush 
 had fixed itself into burning red on her cheeks ; 
 her eyes Avere hard ; her lips curiously dry. 
 But save these small indications of strain, her 
 air and voice and manner and expression were 
 all as careless and undisturbed as even Mrs. 
 Morshead could have desired. 
 
 " You see I am a very mercenary common- 
 place kind of person," she went on to say, not 
 looking at Sandro but gazing straight before 
 her across the river in the most untroubled and 
 the frankest way imaginable. And yet — the 
 flower held in her hand wavered so much that
 
 122 "ii/r LOVE!'' 
 
 she laid it on her lap, and the beating of her 
 heart was so quick and strong it shook the 
 fringe of her cape as if the wind had blown it. 
 " And, being commonplace, I do not deceive 
 myself; and I never allow myself to dream," 
 she continued in a matter-of-fact manner that 
 cut into Sandro's very soul. Yet why should 
 it ? ''I have to stay with my mother for the 
 sake of my boy — stay with her^ as I am now, 
 for as long as she lives. Or, if I leave her, I 
 must have my child's fortune assured. I could 
 not wreck his future for my own present happi- 
 ness. I must not. So you see I have no 
 temptation to marry again ; which simplifies 
 my life so far." 
 
 Sandro did not speak. That something which 
 comes into the throats of men and strangles 
 their words had come into his, and he had to 
 wait until he had mastered himself and his 
 voice. He wondered why she had said this 
 to him. Had she seen ? and did she wish to 
 warn him in time so as to spare him the 
 humiliation of a refusal? Or was it just the 
 natural outcome of her candour and simplicity ? 
 And was her quietness real or assumed? — the 
 expression of serene indifference or the effort 
 made by pride and will over a woman's weak- 
 ness and a woman's desire ? He had thought
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 123 
 
 — well ! no matter what ! Her words were 
 plain and to the point, and thoughts and dreams 
 go for nothing in the face of a direction so dis- 
 tinct. He must accept things as they were. 
 An image might be broken but the shrine 
 remained intact, and none could prevent his 
 carrying his worship in secret where he might 
 not make his devotions in public. 
 
 " And you never feel the want of a friend ? " 
 he asked after a long silence, during which she 
 still looked across the river at the landscape 
 beyond, her lips set into that hard fixed smile 
 which expresses anything rather than joy or 
 pleasure. 
 
 He did not look at her when he spoke, and 
 his voice was low, rough and husky. 
 
 The smile passed from her li^os and she ceased 
 to gaze at that rich pasture-land before her. 
 
 " A friend ? yes, indeed ; I do feel the want 
 of a friend," she said quickly. " Heaven only 
 knows how much ! how much, indeed, now that 
 the only friend I had, sweet Mrs. Branscombe, 
 is gone! But that, too, is not in my pos- 
 sibilities," she added, as if taking herself again 
 in hand. " You see my mother is old and 
 difficult, and she would not allow me to have 
 a close friendship with any one, man or woman. 
 I have to walk warily to keep even so much 
 liberty as I have now."
 
 124 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 ''But you said just now that Mrs. Brans- 
 €ombe was your friend," lie returned jealously. 
 
 " One more intimate than frequent," she 
 answered. " I did not see her often ; but when 
 I did she was everything to me." 
 
 " And you cannot replace her ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Yet others would be to you all that she 
 was," he said. 
 
 *' It cannot be. My mother would not allow 
 it," she answered. 
 
 " What a life ! What a life ! " he said indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 " It cannot be helped," she answered. " It 
 is for my boy." 
 
 " And I can be of no good to you ? " he asked 
 with a sudden outburst of feeling. " Can [ 
 bring you no happiness ? Cannot I lighten 
 your burden by ever so little ? You might do 
 so much for me — you do already — can I do 
 anything for you ? " 
 
 " You are always good to me — always," she 
 answered. " But you can be of no vital use to 
 me, nor can I be of real good to 3^ou," she 
 added with meaning. 
 
 '' Not as a simple friend ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, not even as simple friend," she replied. 
 ^^ There is no use in denying what all the world
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 125 
 
 knows already that my mother has an uncertain 
 temper, and that it is rather hard to live with 
 her. Nothing but the most complete self-con- 
 trol, as well as the most careful attention to her 
 wishes and avoidance of all that she dislikes, 
 would help me through at all ; and nothing but 
 the knowledge that it is for my boy's future 
 would make me endure it. So for I will speak 
 frankly. But I am simply on sufferance ; and I 
 have no more power at home than if I were a 
 paid companion — and indeed not quite so much, 
 for then at least I should have the power of 
 leaving. I dare not ask any one to come and 
 see me — not you, nor Stella Branscombe, nor 
 old Colonel Moneypenny " — " I am glad she 
 calls him old," thought Sandro — " nor Hortensia 
 Lyon ; in fact no one. I am of course always 
 glad to see you — or Stella, or any one,'' she 
 added hurriedly, as a check on the sudden 
 brightness that flashed into his face ; " but I 
 should not be glad to see any of you often, for 
 that would made my life more uncomfortable 
 than it is already and would react in greater 
 harshness on my boy. So that you see," she 
 said, and now she looked at him frankly ; " I am 
 just as unable to have a friend who would be of 
 real use to me — a friend in any true intimacy — 
 whether man or woman, as to have a husband."
 
 126 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 " But this miserable existence — this awful 
 slavery — who but you could bear it ! " he cried. 
 '' You can, because you are an angel — the one 
 perfect woman of creation ! " 
 
 " Because I am a cold-blooded calculator," she 
 answered lightly ; " and pride myself on my 
 common sense and reasonableness. There is 
 only one of two things to be done in life, Mr. 
 Kemp," she added, turning to him with a strange 
 air of confidence — had he been vain he would 
 have given it a warmer name ; " Break or Bear. 
 What we cannot bear with patience let us break 
 with resolution ; but when we cannot do this 
 and must endure, what folly to make things 
 worse by fretting and repining ! Six years ago 
 I broke my bonds, as you know ; but I had to 
 come back to them again, and under harder 
 terms. Now I cannot break them again, save 
 under conditions which do not present them- 
 selves ; so I have made up my mind to bear 
 them, if they last my whole lifetime. There is 
 nothing else to be done ; don't you see that ? " 
 
 " I see that you are the noblest woman 
 living," he answered in a suffocated voice; " and 
 that poverty is a greater curse than I have ever 
 felt it before. If it had not been for that miser- 
 able old godfather of mine I should have been 
 rich, like my brothers — given a profession that
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 127 
 
 would have ensured me an income, and left 
 equal with the rest by my father's will. My 
 whole life has been sacrificed to a lying promise 
 — a delusive hope ! And now for the first time 
 I know its full bitterness — the real meaning of 
 the curse ! " 
 
 " Let that pass,'' she answered quickly. " You 
 cannot alter your position any more than I can 
 alter mine ; and you too must bear with the 
 dignity of patience what hurts and galls you in 
 your life — as also must I. TTe are friends in 
 fact, though we cannot say so to the world. 
 Besides, why should we ? " she said, taking back 
 her light and careless manner. '• There is no 
 such solemn compact in two people liking to 
 talk to each other when they chance to meet, 
 and on the whole feeling more esteem and sym- 
 pathy for each other than not. This is the sum 
 total of our friendship — not a very formidable 
 affair, when we think of it ! " 
 
 *' More than this," he pleaded. 
 
 " No more. This is all," she returned. 
 
 " You can give me no more than this ? You 
 would give as much to a mere acquaintance." 
 
 " I can have only mere acquaintances," she 
 answered. " I have told you that my mother 
 will not allow me to have more." 
 
 " Not even a friend, such I would be — humble,
 
 128 "MY LOVE!" 
 
 sincere, devoted, asking only tlie privilege of 
 serving you and of being sometimes useful, and 
 always faithful ? " 
 
 He spoke as if his very life depended on her 
 answer. With the natural contradiction of 
 human nature, the clearer her path, the firmer 
 her decision, the more reluctant he was to follow 
 the one or accept the other. 
 
 Again the widow looked across the brawling 
 river to the green and quiet pastures beyond. 
 Her soft face took a half dreaming, half yearn- 
 ing, look, and her grey eyes were dark and 
 tender. Then with an effort she seemed to 
 come back to herself, to reality, to resolution, to 
 strength. 
 
 " Impossible ! " she said firmly. "Such a 
 friendship would be my ideal of life, my all of 
 happiness ; but it is utterly and entirely impos- 
 sible ! Never let us speak of it again. It would 
 be cruel on your part and weak on mine. We 
 know where we stand ; and anything else, as I 
 have said, is impossible." Rising, she called 
 out to the child : " Come, my Tony, we must 
 be going home, my little man. It is your tea- 
 time." 
 
 " And is this the last time I shall ever see 
 you alone ? " asked Sandro feverishly. 
 
 "That depends on accident," she answered
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 129 
 
 with well-feigned tranquillity. " We do not 
 often stumble over each other like this — do we?" 
 
 " If I knew your habits — when and where it 
 was most likely to meet you ! " he returned. 
 
 She looked at him a little reproachfully. 
 
 "To be soon the talk of High wood ? " she 
 said. " No. When things have to be done, the 
 only rational way is to do them thoroughly. 
 I have given myself to my child and I must 
 think only of what is best for him. To have 
 it said that his mother was a flirtins^ widow 
 who walked abroad with gentlemen, would 
 never do ! And you would be sorry to be the 
 cause of this." 
 
 " Unless " he began. 
 
 She stopped him with her eyes, they were so 
 calm and clear and icy. 
 
 " There can be no unless," she said quietly. 
 *' I have my duty marked out for me, and my 
 path is too clearly traced to miss, except by 
 wilful wrong-doing. I have to live for my boy ; 
 to do what is best for his future and to foreofo 
 all that might be pleasant to me if it should be 
 hurtful to him. Do you not see this ? Yes. 
 I know that you do. So good-bye." 
 
 She held out her hand. To judge by her 
 manner only, this interview had told him nothing, 
 and these last words had cost her no effort. 
 
 VOL. I. ' K
 
 130 "MYLovj^jr^ 
 
 " Good-bye," said Sandro, not so steadily as 
 she had spoken. Then he added impulsively : 
 *' Let me give you this sketch. It will be a 
 little memento of our talk to-day ; and this talk 
 has fixed the boundaries of my life." 
 
 " Yes ; give it me," she answered. 
 
 As she spoke she drew her veil over her face 
 and turned away her head. When she turned 
 back again the gauze was wet, but she said in a 
 light, hard, mocking tone : 
 
 " A study of rocks suits me exactly ! You 
 know the contempt I have for softness and 
 sentimentality and how I prize strength and 
 self-control ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 Once more their hands met but not their eyes. 
 The widow was looking at her boy, that set smile 
 again on her lips ; and Sandro, looking at her 
 almost as one looks at a dear face dead, felt as if 
 she had suddenly left his world and had gone 
 to some other sphere where he could not follow 
 her and might not reclaim her to his own. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said mournfully ; " and God 
 bless you. If ever you want me you know 
 where I stand, and how much you can rely 
 on me ! " 
 
 " Come, my little man ! " said the widow in a 
 strained unnatural voice. " Wish Mr. Kemp 
 good-bye, and come home to tea."
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES. 131 
 
 " Ask Mr. Kemp to come too," said the 
 child. 
 
 She laughed in a harsh odd way. 
 
 " That would never do ! " she said. '^ Good- 
 night ! " she added as she hurried away before 
 the artist could speak. 
 
 When well out of sight she suddenly stopped 
 and kneeling on the ground took the child in 
 her arms, kissing him with feverish fervour. 
 
 ''• Tell me that you love me, Tony ! " she said, 
 holding him to her. 
 
 ^' I love you," repeated the boy, patting her 
 face. '^ Dear, sweet, pretty mamma, I love you 
 so much — but, oh, mamma, pretty mamma, you 
 are crying ! What are you crying for ? Has 
 Mr. Kemp hurt you ? Let me go back and beat 
 him." 
 
 " No," she said, mastering herself with an 
 effort ; " Mr. Kemp has not hurt me and I am 
 not crying now, Tony. See ! I am quite well 
 again, and nothing is the matter," she added, 
 laughing spasmodically. " And now let us run 
 a race, and see who will get to that gate the 
 first!"
 
 132 "iifr LOVE 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 HIS BETTER CHANCES. 
 
 Meanwhile Sandro Kemp went back to his old 
 old attitude and occupation — leaning against 
 the bole of the elm-tree while sketching the 
 rocks, covered above watermark with flowers 
 and tender seedlings, by which the calmer 
 sweep of the river was broken into those thou- 
 sand tossed and troublous cascades. It was an 
 emblem of his life, he said to himself ; and he 
 did well to fix the lines which should remind 
 him of his broken hopes, his tranquillity and 
 peace destroyed for ever; all because of that 
 sweet, fair woman whom he loved so well, and, 
 as she had made him understand, so hopelessly. 
 He knew now his fate ; unless, indeed, a 
 greater share of success should come to him 
 tlian he dared to hope. Yet if his wildest 
 dreams should indeed be realized ! — if that 
 palace for the cotton-lord should be given him ?
 
 HIS BETTEB CHANCES. 133 
 
 — and tliat other great chance, that grand 
 cathedral for which he was now planning and 
 studying and striving ? Well ! he should then 
 be famous, and on the high-road to wealth as 
 the result. But would it not still be wealth of 
 that uncertain kind which depends on the life 
 of the breadwinner ? And would Augusta 
 change the certainty of her inheritance for the 
 mere chances of one man's life ? 
 
 Were she alone in the world, and had she 
 not already made trial of the same kind of 
 thing — then he might hope and believe ; but 
 with her little son, and after what she had said, 
 it seemed, indeed, impossible ! If her husband, 
 the Professor, had lived long enough to perfect 
 his great work, he too would have been wealthy 
 and world-renowned ; but he died before he had 
 proved his theory, before he had consolidated 
 his fame and by that consolidation turned it 
 into enduring cash ; and who could tell but 
 that the same fate should not overtake himself? 
 Still, he would not be craven although he was 
 hopeless. He would work as steadily for her 
 friendly approbation and for his own self- 
 respect as if he might still have hoped for her 
 love and its rich reward. The sunshine had 
 gone out of his life, but he would not whimper 
 because it was prematurely night.
 
 134 "3IY LOVEr' 
 
 All the same, he felt as if he had suddenly 
 lost his way somehow ; as if his life had fallen 
 asunder and he had to reconstruct it out of the 
 fragments ; as if something had died and some 
 one had left him ; and as if the spur which had 
 pricked forward his ambition had become blunt 
 and useless. 
 
 He made his sketch however, with the con- 
 scientious care characteristic of all his work — 
 yet how sombre in tone and low in key, how 
 mournful in spirit that pictured story of the 
 rocks ! — and then he put up his materials and 
 went slowly back to the little cottage where he 
 had made his home. 
 
 It was only a six-roomed cottage, but it 
 was one of the prettiest little places in the 
 neighbourhood. Set on a slight eminence, it 
 commanded a view of the whole rich valley, 
 with the winding river that ran so rapidly to 
 the sea — that sea itself ruling the horizon with 
 a narrow line of shining silver — while to the 
 back the wild and picturesque fell-country was 
 rounded off as by a frame by the blue heights 
 of the distant mountains. The small town of 
 Highwood lay clustered in the hollow ; and the 
 houses of the gentry, each standing in its islet 
 of green, whether of park, of garden, or of leafy 
 wood, broke up the monotony of the pasture-
 
 HIS BETTER CHANCES. 135 
 
 lands which were the chief wealth of the vale. 
 The garden of this little cottage — Fernacres, as 
 it was called — was famous for its roses, its car- 
 nations, its pansies, and its early fruit and 
 vegetables. Both Sandro and his landlord — 
 James Prinsep, the schoolmaster — spent a great 
 deal of their spare time in this little plot of 
 ground ; and the result was more than satis- 
 factory. Fernacres was ahead of even the 
 grandest places in the valley ; and the finest 
 flowers grown in the open air, as well as the 
 first dish of peas, of strawberries, and of new 
 potatoes, were sure to come from this sunny 
 little slope. 
 
 Mrs. Prinsep had been a lady's maid at Eose 
 Hill — Jane Durnsford's predecessor ; and she 
 had added to a naturally gentle and refined 
 nature the lessons in grace and moral culture 
 given her by contact with Mrs. Branscombe. 
 She was one of the true ladies of womanhood : 
 and lady enough not to be ashamed of domestic 
 work. Hence she kept the place in the most 
 exquisite cleanliness and order ; she cooked to 
 perfection ; and she made her lodger as happy 
 as any poor bachelor whose thoughts are run- 
 ning on the unattainable, can be. It was alto- 
 gether the most modest kind of home that could 
 be imagined for a man in the prime of life ; but
 
 136 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 it suited Sandro Kemp when he first entered 
 on it ; and he had gone on with it longer than 
 he originally intended hecanse of those grey 
 eyes and fair hair, that soft face, sweet voice 
 and strange combination of gentleness and will 
 which sometimes he was able to see, either at 
 The Laurels, or elsewhere. 
 
 As he came home now from his sketching 
 expedition by the river, Mrs. Prinsep, watching 
 for him from the window of her own little 
 parlour — that which corresponded to his, on 
 the other side of the door — noticed how pale 
 he looked and how heavily he walked. 
 
 " He studies too much," said the kindly 
 woman with a sigh. 
 
 Those boards and queer implements — T 
 squares, compasses and the like — those flimsy 
 sheets of yellowish and transparent paper, with 
 their black and red lines, their squares and 
 hieroglyphics — those wonderful pictures of 
 houses and churches and nondescript buildings, 
 with scales of measurement and more hiero- 
 glyphics underneath were sore trials to her 
 patience as a housekeeper and to her sym- 
 pathies as a woman. She longed to dust that 
 writing-table against the window where Sandro 
 kept this professional litter ; but this was the 
 one sacred space which no profane hand must
 
 HIS BETTER CHANCES. 137 
 
 invade ; and the poor woman was forced to let 
 alone all those smeared little saucers of red and 
 black and blue — all those messed plates and 
 dust-covered sheets of paper and parchment ; — - 
 contenting herself with supplying clean tumblers 
 of fresh water and sometimes going the length 
 of dusting about the free corners. 
 
 If this were a trial to her housewifely pride 
 of order her lodger's habits and hours touched 
 her womanly sympathies quite as much. Over 
 and over again, hours and hours after she and 
 her husband had gone to bed, she had heard 
 Sandro's footfall on the stairs, and had struck 
 a light to see the hour. Two, three, and even 
 past three it had been — and he hard at work all 
 that time with his houses and churches ! Xo 
 wonder that he looked pale at times ; or that at 
 times he was so silent and sad she had half a mind 
 to ask him what ailed him. He was just killing 
 himself with overwork ; and apparently to not 
 much good. He was as poor now as he was 
 when he first came there. Though he paid her 
 punctually and did not owe a penny in the 
 town, her fine woman's w4t told her that he 
 had not sixpence to spare from the bare neces- 
 saries of life ; and to toil as he did, early and 
 late, for no good, was what she could scarcely 
 call good sense : — though it was Mr. Kemp
 
 138 "MY LOVE r' 
 
 who did it; and, save her own James, Mr. 
 Kemp was to her mind the best man that ever 
 lived and the most of a gentleman. Mr. Brans- 
 combe was as fine as if he were a prince ; and 
 their dear good rector, in whose house she had 
 also lived — her first place as nurse-girl — was 
 the best clergyman that could be; but Mr. 
 Kemp had something in him better than either. 
 She did not know what it was exactly, she only 
 felt it ; and as he had no mother to see to his 
 things, and no sister to live with him as his 
 companion, Mrs. Prinsep thought herself con- 
 secrated to the task of taking care of him. And 
 she fulfilled her self-imposed mission as few 
 would have done. 
 
 " I am afraid your dinner will be a little 
 spoilt, Mr. Kemp," she said, coming to meet 
 him in the narrow slip that stood for a hall. 
 
 " I know that I am late," he answered with 
 a pleasant smile ; " so I cannot blame you, Mrs. 
 Prinsep." 
 
 " And there is a letter for you from Eose 
 Hill," continued the schoolmaster's wife. " Mr. 
 Branscombe's own man brought it and seemed 
 put out that you were not at home. He said 
 he was told to bring back an answer." 
 
 " Where is the letter ? " asked Sandro not 
 very eagerly.
 
 HIS BETTER CHANCES. 139 
 
 He had liked Mrs. Branscombe sincerely and 
 lie admired and liked Stella ; but Mr. Brans- 
 combe was as antipathetic to him as the tradi- 
 tional oil to vinegar ; and though he had 
 defended him when Mrs. Morshead had fallen 
 foul of him, chieflv because of his innate dislike 
 to censure and harsh criticism, yet he took care 
 to keep out of his way as much as he could, 
 and to make his intercourse with Eose Hill one 
 of the rare events of his life. It was a surprise 
 to him then that Mr. Branscombe should have 
 written to him ; and he wondered what he 
 could possibly have to say. Nevertheless he 
 was not specially eager to know ; and even 
 when Mrs. Prinsep handed him the letter he 
 laid it aside unopened until he should have 
 finished his dinner. But before he had got 
 half-way through his cold beef and salad, the 
 little gate of the garden swung open and the 
 Eose Hill livery of black and silver came up 
 the narrow walk in earnest of the dilettante's 
 impatience. 
 
 " Mr. Branscombe has sent for an answer, 
 sir, to his letter," said Mrs. Prinsep, coming' 
 into the room. 
 
 " By George ! I had forgotten all about it 
 and have not opened it yet," said the artist, 
 tearing at the envelope — which was black-
 
 140 "MY LOVE I " 
 
 bordered to such a depth as to leave scarcely 
 room for the address. He found inside the 
 sketch of a monument in vile perspective and 
 worse taste ; with a letter from Mr. Brans- 
 combe, begging him to undertake this small 
 commission, and put into workable form the 
 crude ideas hastily jotted down on the en- 
 closure. If Mr. Kemp would do Mr. Brans- 
 combe the favour of coming to see him at Rose 
 Hill, say, this evening — or to-morrow morning, 
 if that would suit him better — they might be 
 able to confer together on the mournful subject 
 of this communication and perhaps come to an 
 understanding more quickly than they could do 
 by letter. 
 
 To which Mr. Sandro Kemp returned for 
 answer a short note, written in the third person 
 as Mr. Branscombe's had been, saying that he 
 would do himself the pleasure of waiting on 
 him this evening. 
 
 '' I will not give him my best working-hours 
 in the morning," he said to himself; "and I 
 am too much out of trim to-night to do any 
 good at home ; else that Cathedral ought not 
 to stand even for this. Still it will be pleasant 
 to design something good and beautiful for 
 the dear woman. And Augusta Latrobe will 
 see it."
 
 HIS BETTEB CHANCES. 141 
 
 After which he continued his dinner, the 
 vision of a simple, touching and well-composed 
 monument gradually clearing itself in his mind 
 in direct opposition to the florid and mere- 
 tricious composition, all of cherubs' heads and 
 angels with trumps and inverted torches, of 
 broken columns wreathed with flowers and 
 crowns and crosses at the base, which repre- 
 sented Mr. Branscombe's idea of a fittino: 
 memorial to his good Matilda so ''sorrowfully 
 departed this life." 
 
 " We shall disagree, of course," said the 
 artist again to himself. " But unless he will 
 give me carte blanche I will not undertake the 
 thing at all. I will not put my brains into 
 such stuff as this, to make it in any way work- 
 able ! " he added, with a second contemptuous 
 glance at the sketch enclosed. " Xot a line 
 right ; not an idea that has not been worked 
 to death ; and the whole thing just one hetero- 
 geneous jumble of horrors ! " 
 
 As he said this, aloud this time, the garden- 
 gate swung back for the second time and the 
 postman came to the door. They had a double 
 post at Highwood, and the evening letters were 
 often the most important of the day. Mrs. 
 Prinsep brought in two. One was large and 
 official, the other was in an unknown hand ;
 
 142 ''MY LOVE!" 
 
 "but the post-mark was the London S.W., where 
 his eldest brother Hved. 
 
 He opened the first, knowing that in it was 
 contained his fate so far as the cotton-lord's 
 palace was concerned. For a moment he held 
 his breath and Mrs. Prinsep, taking away the 
 dinner-things, could not help noticing that he 
 turned deadly pale. Then the colour came 
 back in a flood on his face, and his brightest 
 smile flashed over it like sunlight, as he lifted 
 up his eyes to Mrs. Prinsep watching him 
 so tenderly, and for need of some one to share 
 his gladness called out : " Well, Mrs. Prinsep, 
 you are to keep me for a little while longer 
 yet ! I have that house at Hillside to build ! " 
 
 " I am glad of that, sir," she answered 
 smiling. " I should be sorry to lose you now 
 that you have been with us so long. And it 
 is a good thing for you too, is it not, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes ; " he said with a happy, boyish laugh. 
 ^* It is a very good thing, Mrs. Prinsep. I shall 
 have to give you that silk gown I promised 
 you. What did we say it was to be — blue or 
 green ? 
 
 " No, no, Mr. Kemp ! You are to do nothing 
 of the kind," she said, also laughing for 
 sympathy. She checked herself in an instant. 
 Her dear former mistress — her ever good and
 
 HIS BETTER CHANCES. 143 
 
 generous friend — had been buried only yester- 
 day ; and this was not tbe time for what her 
 Scotch aunt would have called " daffing." 
 
 " And I shall not wear colours for a year to 
 come," she added gravely. " Mrs, Branscombe 
 was one of my greatest losses." 
 
 " Then it shall be black silk/' said Sandro, 
 also gravely ; " and you are a good, true- 
 hearted, affectionate creature." 
 
 After this he opened his second letter, and 
 found it to be from his brother's housekeeper — 
 the three Kemp men were unmarried — saying 
 that her master was ill but that he was not 
 to be alarmed ; not much was the matter, and 
 if he got worse she would let Mr. Sandro know. 
 He had had an accident in the park ; had been 
 thrown from his horse which had rolled on him 
 and hurt his chest ; but though he could not 
 write, because his arm was powerless, and 
 though he was in bed, there was not much 
 amiss ; and Mr. Sandro should hear regularly 
 and need not be uneasy. 
 
 "• Poor old fellow ! " said Sandro, as he read 
 the letter. " I hope he is not much hurt. I 
 wish he had not said so pointedly that I need 
 not bother. I should have so much liked to 
 have seen him. It would not have cost much 
 to have run up to town. But he alwavs means
 
 144 "iifr LOVEV' 
 
 what lie sajs, and I should only annoy him if 
 I went." 
 
 And with this he crushed the letter into his 
 pocket and, taking his hat, set out for Eose 
 Hill and the inevitable fight over Mr. Brans- 
 combe's " crude ideas." 
 
 In this fight Sandro came off victorious. To 
 be sure, he had to be very careful, very cautious, 
 very gentle in his work of demolition ; and, 
 while holding fast by the matter of his design, 
 to be wary in his method. For it was a rather 
 hard task, all things considered, to have to tell 
 a wealthy man, intensely vain of his own 
 artistic skill, that his work was all wrong from 
 first to last — the design bad, the drawing 
 worse, the whole thing inadmissible and im- 
 practicable — and yet not afi*ront susceptibilities 
 which were wounded as easily as a mimosa- 
 plant is made to droop. But Sandro did it. 
 He had that rare mixture of gentleness and 
 frankness which can speak unwelcome truths 
 without offending those who have to hear 
 them ; and as Mr. Branscombe had sense 
 enough to understand what was good when 
 he saw it, and as Sandro's hasty sketch made 
 in the studio while the two were conferring, 
 had in it the manifest germ of a grand idea 
 and a great success, he allowed himself to be
 
 EIS BETTER CHANCES. 145 
 
 over-persuaded, and to leave the thing in the 
 more competent hands of the professional artist. 
 
 But he indemnified himself for his displace- 
 ment by saying to Stella and Cyril, when he 
 showed them Sandro's rapid sketch : 
 
 " We worked out this between us. Mr. 
 Kemp confessed that my original idea was the 
 grander and more luxuriant conception, but 
 there were certain technical difficulties in the 
 working which made it scarcely feasible. This 
 he considered to be more practicable ; and I 
 own I like my second idea almost as well as 
 my first." 
 
 " I like it better, sir," said Cyril. 
 
 "So do I, papa," said Stella — the poor 
 innocents ! 
 
 On which Mr. Branscombe answered a little 
 peevishly : 
 
 " I cannot say much for your taste, my dear 
 Stella — as for you, Cyril, I know that you have 
 no more artistry in you than a log. The 
 original idea was infinitely the better of the 
 two, and, as I explained to you, was abandoned 
 solely because of certain technical difficulties in 
 the working out." 
 
 " Whatever you do, papa, is beautiful," said 
 Stella, going up to him and kissing him. 
 " How I wish that mamma could have seen it ! " 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 "MY LOVE!" 
 
 she added naively, tears coming into her eyes 
 at the mention of her mother's name. 
 
 '* She will ; and she will know that she is 
 honoured," said Mr. Branscombe pompously. 
 
 The phrase jarred on Cyril strangely and 
 involuntarily he uttered an exclamation which 
 meant a disclaimer both of the sentiment and 
 the manner of uttering it. 
 
 " What an odd thing to say ! " he thought. 
 " That father-in-law of mine has certainly some 
 queer corners in his mind. He is as unlike 
 my Stella and her beloved mother as if he were 
 of another race ; and I am glad that my Stella 
 is more her mother's child than his." 
 
 On his side, Mr. Branscombe, who had heard 
 that '' Oh ! " thought — for so elegant a man a 
 little savagely : " You have very nearly come 
 to the end of your tether, young man ; and 
 this inconvenient farce has to be hissed off the 
 boards ! "
 
 ( 147 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HER FATHER. 
 
 It had to be done. Therefore, argued Mr. 
 Branscombe, it were well that it should be done 
 at once and while his daughter's heart was 
 more plastic even than usual through grief at 
 her mother's death — that death which was just 
 a week old to-day, closed by the gorgeous 
 funeral which had given the neighbourhood its 
 solemn fete the day before yesterday. 
 
 The moment was favourable and the hour 
 had come. Cyril had ridden over to the county 
 town on a planned errand, simulating 
 " business at the bank " for Mr. Branscombe. 
 Thus he was safely disposed of for the after- 
 noon. His absence would enable his prospective 
 father-in-law to lay down the lines of the future 
 without fear of interruption ; and Mr. Brans- 
 combe knew that Stella Avould keep to those lines 
 when he had once made it clear to her that
 
 148 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 they represented his will. He counted on her 
 filial fidelity, cost what it might, and that she 
 would make her action coincident with his 
 desire, subservient to his advantage, even at 
 her own loss and martyrdom. Among the 
 multiform chances of life his daughter's rebellion 
 to his command, or indifference to his wishes, 
 was the last which the mind of Mr. Branscombe 
 could entertain. 
 
 He foresaw that Cyril would be more difficult 
 to manage ; but, with Stella on his side, the 
 young fellow's force of resistance would be 
 reduced to a minimum. If a farce has to be 
 hissed off the boards, he thought, looking at 
 himself in the glass and sadly noting the crow's 
 feet about his eyes, of what good the actors' 
 refusal to budge ? They must go ; the public 
 will not hear them. 
 
 " And in this matter I am the public," said 
 Mr. Branscombe aloud ; " and this undesirable 
 engagement is the farce that has to be hissed ofi" 
 the stage of my life. Stella is too useful to me 
 now to be parted with ; and India is an un- 
 healthy climate. I am doing my duty to her 
 as well as to myself; and in time she will 
 recognize this and thank me." 
 
 On which he lowered the blind so as to make 
 a mournful and subdued light in the room ; put
 
 EER FATEER. 149 
 
 himself into a becoming attitude of grief and 
 dejection ; rang the bell with plaintive softness ; 
 and, when the man came asked him quite deferen- 
 tially to desire Miss Branscombe to come to him 
 for a moment if she had the time to spare. It 
 was all the " business " of the actor at the 
 side-scenes, preparing himself for his entrance. 
 
 " Ah ! my good child ! my dear Stella ! " he 
 said with a caressing accent and affectionate 
 gesture, as the girl came into the room at his 
 summons, her face pale for her sad thoughts on 
 this, the first terrible week-day commemoration 
 of her mother's death — her slender figure 
 looking almost shrunken in her plain, unorna- 
 mented black — her whole air one of unutter- 
 able sorrow and the evidence of loss. 
 
 She went up to him and put her arms round 
 his neck, as she laid her cheek tenderly on his 
 forehead. 
 
 " Dear, darling papa!" she said with fervour ; 
 but her tears fell over his upturned face as she 
 spoke, and Mr. Branscombe thought to himself 
 — " Her state of mind is perfect ! I have 
 already conquered all the difficulties." 
 
 " Take a chair, my love, and come and sit 
 near me," he said, pressing her hand in recog- 
 nition of her caress. " I have much to say to 
 you."
 
 150 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 She looked at him with somewhat of a startled 
 look. What could he have to say to her, 
 2)refaced in this strangely solemn manner ? 
 
 " Nothing to which you will not agree," he 
 said reassuringly, answering her startled look. 
 
 "No, I am sure of that," returned Stella 
 fondly — more fondly even than usual, her father 
 I'epresenting to her now not only himself but 
 also her beloved mother. 
 
 Indeed, who would not agree with that 
 adored being, so good and noble and gifted 
 and superior altogether as he was ? Certainly 
 not Stella his idolizing daughter brought up in 
 the faith of his perfectness as she had been, and 
 a firm believer in the quasi divinity to which 
 her life had been subordinate and her mother's 
 sacrificed. 
 
 " We have been terribly and rudely shaken, 
 my child," began Mr. Branscombe, looking up 
 to the ceiling. " We have sustained a loss to 
 which, my Stella, words can give neither ex- 
 pression nor dimension," 
 
 " Indeed, yes," said Stella simply, her tears 
 still falling softly down her face. " Life will 
 never be the same now without poor mamma. 
 We have lost the best part of it." 
 
 "I have lost more than the best part of 
 mine," said her father mournfully. " I have
 
 HER FATHER. 151 
 
 lost all that soothed my sorrows and made my 
 many sufferings endurable ; and now I have 
 only my little daughter left to me — the Star of 
 my Home, my Stella." 
 
 *' Dearest papa ! " said the girl, looking at 
 him fondly, yet wondering in her own mind 
 what were those sorrows, those sufferings, to 
 which he so darkly alluded. " I cannot supply 
 mamma's place with you," she went on to say, 
 speaking with extreme tenderness ; " but you 
 know how much I love you. Do you not ? " 
 
 " I hope it. I believe it. Were it not so, I 
 should have nothing more for which to live — 
 for you and I. my Stella, stand now alone in 
 this cold, cruel world. Hand in hand we stand 
 together — we two alone — the desolate widower, 
 the motherless daughter." 
 
 " And Cyril with us, papa," said Stella. 
 
 " Cyril ? Aye, Cyril ! But Cyril is not of 
 our blood, my little girl. Cyril has not lost 
 what we have lost," said her father with a 
 certain fine disdain that seemed to mean 
 intensity of love for the poor, dear dead wife 
 and mother rather than any want of faith in, 
 or appreciation of. the boy himself. " Cyril is 
 a Ponsonby, not a Branscombe," he continued. 
 " We two Branscombes stand alone, as I have 
 said ; and we must comfort one another."
 
 152 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 " Yes, papa, indeed I will do all I can to 
 comfort you," said Stella, taking his tone and 
 wide of bis meaning. 
 
 " I knew that ! I knew that, my good 
 child," he answered, as one allowing himself to 
 be soothed by loving assurance. " The spirit 
 of your sainted mother lives in you. I knew 
 that I could count on my child." 
 
 " So you can on Cryil, quite as much as on 
 me," said Stella, faithful to her two vital affec- 
 tions and still blind as to her father's real 
 meaning. 
 
 " Cyril is eliminated from our great affliction, 
 my dear," was his grave reply. " We must do 
 without Cyril in our mutual sorrowful consola- 
 tions." 
 
 " We cannot do without Cyril, papa," said 
 Stella. 
 
 Her father might as well have said that she 
 and Cyril were to do without him. 
 
 " I think we shall have to learn that difficult 
 lesson," was his reply, made quite quietly — 
 without any accent of sarcasm, any show of 
 aggressiveness — as if he were saying the most 
 ordinary thing in the world and not what to 
 Stella sounded the most extraordinary, the most 
 impossible. " I think we shall have to do with- 
 out Cyril, both you and I," he repeated with 
 elegant persistence.
 
 EER FATHER. 153 
 
 " How can we ? " said Stella wonderingly. 
 " He belongs to us now. He is one of ns." 
 
 "Not quite one of us just yet," her father 
 answered dryly. " Unless, indeed, you have 
 been married, my dear, unknown to me." 
 
 " Papa, what a dreadful thing to say ! " inter- 
 polated Stella, profoundly shocked. 
 
 " As such an hypothesis is inadmissible," he 
 continued quietly ; " you cannot prove in any 
 way that Cyril is one of us, or that he belongs 
 to us. A mere fiance is not one of the family 
 ill esse, he is only a potential member, a circum- 
 stance ill posse, and can still be relegated to 
 that open space which lies beyond the house 
 door. Is it not so ? " 
 
 " I do not quite understand what you mean, 
 darling," said Stella softly. 
 
 " No ? Yet I think I speak plainly, my love. 
 Have you never heard of an engagement 
 between two young people being broken off, 
 my innocent little girl ? Are all betrothals 
 necessarily consolidated by a marriage ? " 
 
 '' Papa, what do you mean ? " cried Stella, 
 looking at him with as much wonder as dismay. 
 " You cannot mean that I am to give up Cyril ? 
 — that I am not to marry him ? Oh, dear, 
 dear, papa ! — good, noble-hearted, beloved papa, 
 say that I am mistaken, and that you do not
 
 154 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 mean this ! I cannot believe it I Say that I 
 am mistaken ! " 
 
 She rose from her chair, her face wild with 
 terror, her hands clasped nervously before her, 
 her usually melodious voice now sharpened by 
 fear and flung up into almost a scream of 
 pain. 
 
 Mr. Branscombe shuddered and covered his 
 face in his hands. 
 
 " Oh, my head ! my head ! " he cried in a 
 voice of suffering. " My child, how can you 
 be so cruel as to ask me to bear all the torture 
 of this loud excitement, this undisciplined 
 passion ! My nerves cannot endure it ! Is it 
 not enough that I have lost the tenderest wife 
 that ever breathed — the most beloved partner 
 of my bosom, and cherished companion in my 
 studies and pursuits, — but must you, my 
 daughter, turn the knife in my wound and 
 agonize me afresh by this terrible display of 
 uncontrolled excitement ! I, who love all that 
 is gentle and low-voiced and subdued in a 
 woman, to have a daughter who raves like a 
 maniac — and she the daughter of the gentlest 
 soul that ever breathed, the most precious saint 
 that ever lived on earth in human form ! 
 Monstrous, oh monstrous ! most monstrous and 
 unnatural ! " he said in the voice in which he
 
 EER FATHER. 155 
 
 was wont to recite his metrical version of 
 Shakespere's King Lear. 
 
 " Forgive me, dear papa," said Stella, down 
 at his feet ; "I did not mean to hurt you. You 
 know that I would not give you a moment's 
 pain if I could help it. I did not mean to be 
 passionate or wild, but Cyril — my own Cyril — 
 I cannot give up Cyril ! How wicked I am to 
 pain you, darling papa — but my poor Cyril ! 
 Oh, beloved papa, what can I do for you — and 
 my own Cyril too ! " 
 
 It was pitiable to see the way in which the 
 poor loyal heart was torn and racked between 
 these two great loves — how the faithful soul 
 was tossed between these two great central 
 fears, that of paining her father by disobedience, 
 and that of breaking Cyril's heart by giving 
 him up as her lover. Turn which way she 
 would she saw only anguish and dismay and 
 disloyalty to one or the other of the two who 
 were as dear to her as life itself. And it had 
 come on her so suddenly ! It had been the 
 thunderbolt out of a clear sky, falling without 
 warning cloud or dim foretelling gloom. Her 
 mother's awful death itself had not been more 
 appalling, more unexpected, than this strange 
 announcement of her father's that she must give 
 up her lover. Not half an hour ago and she
 
 156 "MY LOVEV' 
 
 felt that her love at least was as safe and solid 
 as the very earth itself ; and now had come the 
 earthquake and ruin and desolation everywhere ! 
 
 " Then you do not love me, Stella ? Ah, 
 well, I must inure myself to woe ! " 
 
 Mr. Branscombe sighed deeply, leaning his 
 glossy well-brushed head with pensive grace on 
 his white and scented hand. 
 
 "• Yes, papa, I do ! I do ! You know that 
 I do ! " she answered, kneeling down by him as 
 she used to kneel by her mother. " But I love 
 Cyril too. Why may I not keep you both ? " 
 
 " Impossible, Stella ! Impossible, my child ! 
 No man can serve two masters, and you must 
 make your choice between us. You cannot 
 have both father and lover — at least not now 
 and in their entirety." 
 
 He spoke in a slow, deep measured voice — 
 still the voice in which he was wont to repeat 
 his poetry and which to Stella expressed the 
 ideal of pathos, truth and earnestness. 
 
 " Say exactly what you mean and wish, 
 papa," she cried, the look of pain on her face 
 deepening into one of absolute terror. It was 
 almost as if this beloved father, representative 
 of all human nobleness as he was, had suddenly 
 become transformed and had taken on himself 
 something strange and dreadful — as if the
 
 EER FATHER. 157 
 
 guardian angel in whose care she had trusted 
 — the god whose grace she had prayed to win 
 and thought to have found — had turned from 
 her with an angry countenance, and had become 
 her cruel enemy and her implacable judge. 
 
 " 1 mean, my dear, that you must postpone 
 your marriage with this young man ; at least 
 for the immediate present," said Mr. Brans- 
 combe, softening his voice but thinking it as 
 well to go straight to the point and spare 
 further agonies of doubt. 
 
 " Not marry him in August ? " asked Stella. 
 " Cyril will wait," she added. " There is no 
 need to marry till he has received his appoint- 
 ment and just before he sails. I am sure he 
 will wait," she said, speaking as if a load had 
 been taken from her, and as she spoke, laying 
 her hand in her father's with a fond, almoet 
 protecting gesture. 
 
 " And you would break my heart in Septem- 
 ber say, if you refrain from doing so in 
 August ? " he answered reproachfully. " You 
 would leave me, Stella, in my terrible loneli- 
 ness while you made your own happiness with 
 another ? — and leave me with such unnecessary 
 haste," he added in a low voice. " I shall soon 
 die ! " he sighed, laying his hand on his heart. 
 *' My days are numbered. Would vou advance
 
 158 "MY LOVEl'' 
 
 by so mucli the fatal hour ? — you, my daughter, 
 my Stella ! " 
 
 " Papa ! you are not ill, are you ? I did not 
 know that you were ill," cried Stella, kissing his 
 hands as this new fear overwhelmed her with 
 fresh agony. 
 
 " Cyril is young," continued Mr. Branscombe, 
 not heeding the interruption or the caresses, 
 and only careful to work the profitable vein on 
 which he had struck. " You will not have long 
 to wait. My days, my Stella, will not be many, 
 for my heart is broken and my health destroyed 
 for ever. I ask you only to stay with me — 
 your only parent now ! — for the few months, or 
 even weeks it may be, remaining to me ; — not 
 to leave me to be tended by hirelings in my last 
 hours ; — to stay with me, my child, and close 
 my eyes when I shall depart to her whom we 
 both love and who has already gone. I should 
 like to have your sweet face about my dying 
 pillow — the last thing on which my faihng sight 
 should rest 1 I should like to go straight from 
 my own dear child on earth to the sainted spirit 
 of her mother in heaven — from my earthly 
 Stella to my soul's best purified star ! " 
 
 He said all this with mournful eyes delicately 
 wxt and again raised devoutly to the ceiling of 
 the room. His air of poetic resignation and
 
 EER FATHER. 150 
 
 elegant despair would have been transparent 
 enough to all but a child who had been born 
 and brought up in the faith of filial worship 
 and the belief in paternal perfection. But it 
 told with Stella as he meant it to tell. Her 
 critical faculty had never dared to plumb nor 
 measure her father's sincerity. 
 
 " Papa ! papa ! do not talk like this ! " she 
 cried, weeping passionately. " It breaks my 
 heart to hear you." 
 
 " Mine is broken already," said Mr. Brans- 
 combe with that pathetic patience, that quiet 
 resignation to despair and pensive allusion to 
 unknown burdens which touches the sympathies 
 of the young more deeply than anything in the 
 world beside. 
 
 " No, no, papa ! You have years of life and 
 beautiful work before you. Years, years," she 
 said, clinging to him. 
 
 " Oh, my sweet, fond, trustful child, how 
 youth and love deceive themselves ! " he 
 answered, stroking her hair with tender love — 
 the melancholy caress of illimitable sorrow. " A 
 very few months will see the light of this world 
 quenched for me and my eyes opened to the 
 glories above. See ! I ask so little from you, my 
 Stella ! " he went on to say in a pleading voice 
 that was to his daughter as if a king had knelt
 
 160 "MT LOVE!" 
 
 at the feet of a beggar. " For what do I sue ? 
 Only that you should hold my hand during that 
 fateful passage of my soul — only that you should 
 sit by my bedside while I pass away — receive 
 my last sigh, and close my eyes when I am 
 gone ! Is this so much to demand from out the 
 rich treasure of a daughter's love ? — so much 
 to take from a long life of happiness as a 
 tribute to a father's worth? In a very short 
 time I shall be in the grave and you will be 
 free to marry your young husband. I shall be 
 out of your path and you will have no obstruc- 
 tion to your wishes. It will not last long, my 
 Stella — not long ! not long ! The year of your 
 mourning for your beloved mother will not have 
 passed before I, your father, am laid by her side. 
 And during that year of mourning would you 
 invest yourself in all your bridal array and 
 forget her who gave you life in the mad pleasure 
 of the world, the giddy round of bridal festivi- 
 ties ? I cannot think so meanly of my Stella — 
 of her mother's child 1 " 
 
 " Papa ! all that you say seems so sad, and so 
 beautiful while you speak — but Cyril ! poor 
 poor Cyril ! " said Stella, weeping afresh. 
 
 " Choose then as your heart dictates," said Mr. 
 Branscombe very tenderly and in the manner 
 of one who suddenly abandons all argument, all
 
 HER FATHER. 161 
 
 persuasion. '^ I would put no force on you. If 
 I do not win the little sacrifice I have demanded 
 from the plentitude of your love and with the 
 approbation of your conscience, I do not want 
 it from any other motive. Marry then, my 
 Stella, and be happy. I will do my best with- 
 out you — do my best to find my comfort in the 
 knowledge of your young joy, and to bear with 
 the dignity of a man and the resignation of a 
 Christian the disappointment of my hopes, the 
 wreck of my love and the few days of sorrow 
 still left to me. But, oh God ! " he cried with a 
 burst of anguish ; '' that it should have come to 
 this ! that my child, my own beloved and 
 idolized child — my Star, my little Stella — should 
 desert me for a stranger and make her happiness 
 out of my despair ! " 
 
 He turned away, then suddenly crossed his 
 arms on the table, laid his head on them as if 
 bowed down with anguish, and burst into a 
 passionate flood of tears. 
 
 " Papa ! darling dearest beloved papa — do 
 not cry ! do not be so unhappy ! " said Stella, 
 trying to force his face from his arms ; but the 
 paternal spine was strong and she could not stir 
 it. " Papa, you are breaking my heart ! " she 
 continued. " Look up, dearest papa ! do look at 
 me ! Oh^ I cannot bear this ! " she said, as his 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 "iifr LOVEi'' 
 
 tears and convulsive sobs grew heavier and 
 more agonized. " I would rather die than see 
 you like this. Papa ! dear papa, I will not 
 leave you ! Look up, and do not break my 
 heart in this dreadful way ! I cannot bear it ! 
 Papa, hear me — I will not marry to leave you 
 alone ! " 
 
 The die was cast ; her promise registered ; 
 her father had won the game. 
 
 " God bless you, my beloved child ! " he 
 sobbed, as he lifted up his face and took the girl 
 to his heart. " Now I know my daughter once 
 more — the Star of my Home — my one sole 
 treasure left ! " 
 
 " Only be happy, darling papa, and I shall 
 not mind for anything," cried Stella, strung for 
 the moment by the exaltation of her martyrdom 
 to the poetry and nobleness of sacrifice. Then 
 the smoke of the incense cleared and the flame 
 died down as she remembered all that this 
 martyrdom included. " My poor Cyril ! I have 
 broken your heart ! " she sobbed. 
 
 Crushed down by her pain she sank at her 
 father's well-shod, dainty feet, as a devotee 
 might have sunk before the altar of Moloch 
 when the decree of passing one beloved through 
 the fire had gone forth. 
 
 " My love," said her father, raising her and
 
 EER FATHER. 163 
 
 kissing her forehead with paternal solemnity ; 
 " you have been Cyril's good angel in that you 
 have given him an opportunity for the exercise 
 of spiritual grace, for which he ought to bless 
 and thank you on his knees. It is not every 
 day that such grand moments come into our 
 lives. Our best benefactor is he who allows us 
 occasion for the cultivation of our highest nature 
 and our noblest self." 
 
 And Stella, in her innocence, did not turn the 
 mirror round, nor ask herself why, if it were 
 such a boon that Cyril should have this occasion 
 of sjDiritual grace through the gift of sorrow — 
 this opportunity of virtue and the cultivation of 
 his highest self by the way of sacrifice — it had 
 not been as valuable for her father ? Surely — if 
 she had dared to reflect and been able to see — it 
 would have been more in accordance with his 
 professed system of self-culture, had he appro- 
 priated to himself this opportunity of ethical 
 improvement instead of giving it to another 
 who would not value it. A young fellow like 
 Cyril, content to live on that unidealized moral 
 plane where to speak the truth and have no fear 
 of man, to be brave and loyal, cheerful and 
 generous, sincere in soul and pure in heart, 
 considerate for others and self-respectful for 
 himself, made about the sum of his private
 
 1G4 " MT LOVEr' 
 
 decalogue, was not likely to be grateful for 
 this kind of supersensual martyrdom, nor 
 indeed very likely to profit by it. Many a man's 
 morality has been wrecked before now by such 
 a trial as this ; and Cyril had yet to prove the 
 quality of his, and show by experience whether 
 it would bear the strain put on it by Mr. 
 Branscombe, or break down under it with hope- 
 less ruin and collapse. 
 
 But the poor girl thought none of these 
 things. She was not near the region of clear- 
 sighted understanding where her father was 
 concerned. And by her blindness her pain was 
 lessened by at least one pang in that she did not 
 suspect the hollowness of all these high sound- 
 ing principles for which she suffered — in that 
 she had not dared to imagine that her god was 
 only a mountebank playing a part on a gilded 
 stage — or that the dazzling veil of her prophet 
 hid deformity not superhuman radiance and 
 beauty. Her father was still to her the 
 Supreme ; and in obeying him she was em- 
 phatically obeying the higher law and doing"^ 
 her noblest duty. 
 
 All the same her heart was sore for her 
 young lover and for herself, and the anguish of 
 her martyrdom was hard to bear.
 
 ( ICf) ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FRIENDS IX COUNCIL. 
 
 Naturally it was more difficult to convince 
 Cyril than it had been to persuade Stella, that 
 this renunciation of the lover in favour of the 
 father was righteous, just and holy. And the 
 young fellow had to run the gauntlet of many 
 well-delivered blows because he could not see, 
 and would not acknowledge, that father's 
 superior claims. He had to submit to the accu- 
 sations of selfishness and egoism — according to 
 the invariable rule of the selfish and egoistic — 
 of inability to rise to the sublime height of 
 Duty, that stern Yoice of God which we ought 
 all to obey like little children at the raother's 
 knee — of moral coarseness — and finally of greed ; 
 Stella's portion, coming to her through her 
 mother, being of manifest importance to a man 
 whose sole actual inheritance that he could touch
 
 166 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 and handle was just one hundred and fifty 
 pounds a year. 
 
 And when Mr. Branscombe blew this poisoned 
 little needle from between his fine, thin, mobile 
 lips he did more execution with it than with 
 any other he had used ; as indeed he had fore- 
 seen ; and by making Cyril furiously angry he 
 put him in the wrong, and forced him to 
 apologize. 
 
 On his j)art Mr. Branscombe was as cool as 
 an ice-cave in a glacier. All these hard things 
 were said with the quietest and most gentleman- 
 like air of philosophic impartiality possible to 
 be imagined. Not a trace of passion on his 
 side reduced the question to one of individual 
 antagonism or lowered the lofty standard of 
 abstract morality by which he measured the 
 right and wrong of the proposition. His accu- 
 sations were all based on fact not feeling, and 
 were capable of mathematical demonstration ; 
 and when he said things which were as hard 
 as iron and as sharp as steel, his voice was so 
 calm, his intonation so melodious, his manner so 
 refined, that Cyril was often more bewildered 
 than indignant. 
 
 More than once he asked himself with boyish 
 doubt of his own heart, had Mr. Branscombe 
 really the nobler insight, and was he himself
 
 FBIEyDS JX COUNCIL. 167 
 
 just a headstrong youth, governed solely by 
 selfish passion and incapable of a higher 
 morality ? Yet he could not quite come to this 
 view of himself, try as hard as he^ would to be 
 honest and candid, and for all that he was to 
 some degree infected by the family cult paid to 
 the family Apollo. He could not quite confess 
 that he was so much of a low-minded ruffian as 
 Mr. Branscombe made out — always by logical 
 deduction from general principles, and when 
 the sense of a wordy periphrase had to be 
 crystalized into an adjective and a noun — because 
 he wanted to marry Stella, according to their 
 engagement, even though this marriage should 
 take her from her father. It was the law of 
 life, he argued. Birds leave their nests and 
 sons their mothers ; daughters make new homes 
 for themselves with other sons taken from 
 other mothers ; and so the thing goes on all 
 the world over. What then was there specially 
 shameful and ignoble in this very natural desire 
 of his to make Stella his wife according to her 
 promise ? Grant that it did include her elegant 
 father's domestic loneliness — that it necessitated 
 a housekeeper and perhaps an amanuensis — some 
 one must suffer ; and Cyril, strong in youth 
 and love and all the hope of his great joy, did 
 not see why that some one should be himself.
 
 1G8 "ii/r LOVEr' 
 
 No, doing his best to be candid, he could not 
 see it — though certainly not for want of Mr. 
 Branscombe's strenuous and miabashed efforts 
 to enlighten him. 
 
 Meanwhile between the two poor Stella was 
 morally in the position of those savage brides 
 who, carried off with violence by their husbands 
 and defended with brutality by their kinsmen, 
 run great risk of being torn to pieces between 
 those who try to take and those who will not 
 let go. It was a terrible position for her in 
 truth ! — and her heart was nearly broken in her 
 endeavour to reconcile these two irreconcilable 
 affections, to obey these two opposing duties. 
 
 When Cyril, with all a young lover's pas- 
 sionate despair, besought her to keep her en- 
 gagement and marry him as she had promised ; 
 when he urged on her his love, his sorrow, his 
 ruined life, the sacredness of her vows, the 
 destruction of his whole future if she fell away 
 from him, and clinched all by appeals to her 
 dead mother's memory and reminders of how 
 she had always countenanced and upheld this 
 love — the poor girl felt that this was indeed her 
 duty, this her truest religion, and that nothing 
 ought to stand between her and his rescue from 
 destruction. When her father in his measured, 
 mournful voice spoke in poetic language of his
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL, 1G9 
 
 broken heart, his speedy death of which he was 
 sorrowfully certain ; and yet why should it be 
 sorrowful ? — would it not be his release, and 
 her recovery of freedom ? — when he reminded 
 her that the sacrifice which he asked of her was 
 only for so short a time ; when he compressed 
 the whole thing into an antithesis — so little to 
 lose and so much to give ; when he, too, spoke 
 of her mother up there in heaven, she whose 
 whole life had been one of love and duty and 
 devotion to him, and whose example should be 
 her guide — then her heart turned to him, to 
 this poor papa who was so good, so beautiful, 
 so superior, such a genius ; and she felt that 
 Cyril must be patient and consent to wait 
 cheerfully, as she had promised. It was only 
 right and just. They were young and poor 
 papa was not. They owed more to him than 
 to each other ; and they could be true and 
 faithful and loving even though they were not 
 to be married just yet. It was their duty. 
 Sacrifice is nobler than self-seeking. They 
 must forego their happiness now that they 
 might take it with a clearer conscience when 
 the time for it should come naturally and with- 
 out wrong-doing. 
 
 Slowly the oscillating balance of her mind 
 inclined more and more this way. Her promise,
 
 170 *' MY LOVEr' 
 
 always insisted on by her father, had already 
 been given as we know. Gradually it became 
 clear as daylight to her tliat this was the right 
 thing to do — the thing which the higher law 
 commanded and which her mother^ would have 
 approved. She forgot that mother's anxiety 
 that the marriage should take place even before 
 the day originally fixed on. She had not 
 understood the true significance of her desire 
 then, and she saw it no more clearly now. She 
 only remembered the one great lesson of her life, 
 and by this she sought to shape her own. And 
 as she grew more convinced of the righteousness 
 of her renunciation she found that strength 
 which comes from distinctness of belief, and 
 was able to stand with less turmoil of soul by 
 her desolating decision. 
 
 It made no difference to her when Augusta 
 Latrobe, at Cyril's prayer, came to Rose Hill to 
 urge his claims and advise her to marry despite 
 her father's words and her own promise. Poor 
 Cyril ! it was once more, as so often before, the 
 straw caught at by the drowning man. He 
 remembered Mrs. Latrobe's kind manner and 
 odd advice in the conservatory, before the awful 
 catastrophe of Mrs. Branscombe's death had 
 thrown all into such dire confusion, and he 
 went to The Laurels as almost the last chance
 
 FB TENDS IX COUXCIL. 171 
 
 left him. Fortunately for him, he met her just 
 as she was leaving the house with her boy, for 
 their afternoon's walk. For Mrs. Morshead, 
 though rich, would not allow her daughter to 
 have either a maid for herself or a nurse for the 
 boy. Mothers who had children should look 
 after them themselves, she used to say sourly ; 
 and women who chose to go and marry men 
 without sixpence could not expect maids and 
 things when they came back as paupers with 
 families to their old homes. 
 
 By meeting her thus alone, Cyril was able 
 to open his heart and ask the fair widow's 
 assistance in the forlorn hope he was leading 
 against Mr. Branscombe, without let or hindrance 
 or spiteful remark from the terrible old woman 
 who was thus kept happily out of the matter. 
 
 " I knew it," said Augusta. " I was sure 
 that this would come. I told you as much in 
 the conservatory that day when I advised you 
 to marry — at least this was what I meant. Do 
 you remember ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but I did not understand then what 
 you did mean ; and Stella would not have con- 
 sented to marry me secretly, even if I had asked 
 her," said Cyril. 
 
 " No ; I know that she would not ; for I said 
 much the same to her as I did to you. She
 
 172 "ii/r LOVEV' 
 
 saw no rocks ahead, poor clear ! and was half 
 inclined to quarrel with me for my wickedness — 
 only that she is too good to quarrel with any 
 one. I am sorry for you both, Mr. Ponsonby — 
 for you, because the happiness of your youth is 
 destroyed, and for her, because she is sacrificing 
 both you and herself to such a mere bit of 
 humbug as Mr. Branscombe. It is the true 
 given for the untrue." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Cyril, still under the influence of 
 that family worship. 
 
 " Surely you do not mean to say that you 
 believe in Mr. Branscombe ? " said Augusta, 
 suddenly stopping and facing the young fellow, 
 her clear grey eyes looking into his with as 
 much amusement as surprise. " The most 
 transparent old humbug in the place! — the 
 merest fop and twaddler flattered into thinking 
 himself a genius ! Why, Mr. Ponsonby, you 
 surely do not believe in him ? " she said again. 
 
 " Up to now I have," he answered. 
 
 " And now he shows himself in his true 
 colours as utterly selfish and unfeeling," said 
 Augusta. " But he has done nothing which I, 
 who know him, should not have expected of 
 him." 
 
 " He is certainly acting selfishly and cruelly 
 just now," said Cyril. '' It is all a puzzle to 
 me.
 
 FBIEXDS IX COUXCIL. 173 
 
 " To me none, for he is doing only as he has 
 done all his life/' answered the widow. Then 
 she added in a voice of inquiry ; " I have often 
 wondered what darling Mrs. Branscomhe did 
 really think ! She was a woman of far too 
 much good sense to be taken in by him I am 
 sure ; but how beautifully she behaved ! She 
 was never heard to say a word nor seen to 
 look as if she saw through him, as she must 
 have done. I used to think there are more 
 martyrs in life than have gone to the stake 
 when she showed his hideous daubs and played 
 his atrocious music as sweetly as if it had all 
 been true art instead of the awful stuff it is. 
 What an angel she was ! — but what a thousand 
 pities that she ever married that wretched 
 creature ! He was no more worthy of her than 
 if he had been a Cherokee Indian ; and not 
 so much ; for a Cherokee Indian would have 
 been at least a man, and Mr. Branscomhe is 
 not." 
 
 And by the time that Augusta had delivered 
 herself of this last astounding philippic, which 
 made Cyril hot all over, they had come to Eose 
 Hill and her mission of wise counsel began. 
 
 She could do nothing. Stella wept as a 
 loving girl naturally would when discussing 
 such a tremendous matter as this sacrifice was
 
 174 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 to her ; but she said that she had thought it all 
 out and had come to this decision as the best if 
 not the happiest thing to do. She had prayed 
 for guidance and she had received the assurance 
 of this direction. It was a terrible trial for 
 them all ; but it was right ; and her conscience 
 upheld her in her sorrow. 
 
 " My dear, nothing in the world is so fallacious 
 as conscience," said that graceless widow whose 
 rule of right was common sense. '' Reason the 
 thing out fairly and you will find that common 
 sense is dead against you. Sentiment — and 
 false sentiment too — is all that you have on 
 your side. You have let your mind get heated 
 and excited so that you do not see things as 
 they are. Believe me, you are acting foolishly 
 and wrongly. Remember, you owe something 
 to Cyril as well as to your father ; and you 
 made your first promise to him." 
 
 " But it is better for Cyril to suffer than to 
 do wrong," said Stella. " He is unhappy now, 
 poor darling, but I am sure that in his heart he 
 feels I am right. He knows that I do not love 
 him less because I feel it to be my duty to keep 
 with poor papa for a few months or years — 
 while he wants me and cannot do without me." 
 
 " You will repent it," said Augusta. " And 
 I tell you again that you are acting not only
 
 FEIENDS IX COUXCIL. 175 
 
 foolishly but wrongly — as all enthusiasts always 
 do." 
 
 " My conscience tells me I am right," said 
 Stella with mournful constancy ; and the 
 widow, who was sacrificing her own life's 
 happiness to her idea of duty, knew that it was 
 useless to say more. 
 
 It was not by nor for herself that Stella had 
 judged. It was the voice of that Divine guid- 
 ance which she had ^^I'ayed for that spoke in 
 her ; and she would be doubly criminal were 
 she to be false to its teaching. She loved Cyril 
 better than her life ; but not better than God ; 
 and love was less than the Divine Will. And 
 by the decree of this Divine Will she owed her 
 first duty to her father. If he forbad the mar- 
 riage to take place yet awhile, and wanted her 
 to live with him for another year or so, she 
 must obey him. She would be sinful else. 
 
 One other person agreed with her ; and only 
 one. This was Hortensia Lyon — next to 
 Augusta her greatest friend ; perhaps now, 
 when Augusta had gone over so boldly to 
 Mammon and self-seeking, she ought to call her 
 quite her greatest and dearest and nearest ! 
 Hortensia — a pretty, large-eyed, delicately- 
 featured little creature with a Puritan air and 
 a Quaker-like head, slender as a willow- wand,
 
 176 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 dreamy, unpractical and interpenetrated with 
 moral heroism and the spirit of self-sacrifice — 
 Hortensia upheld her, and said that she was 
 doing grandly, nobly, virtuously. And when 
 we are inclined to one way more than to 
 another, a child's applause will uphold us where 
 the condemnation of a sage w^ill scarcely shake. 
 ' Stella was greatly cheered by what Hortensia 
 said. The two together carried the day against 
 Augusta's tinkling cymbal of worldly wisdom ; 
 and finally the question was settled. Duty 
 triumphed over love ; the way of sacrifice was 
 entered on rather than that of happiness ; her 
 father's need was more powerful than her lover's 
 loss ; and the desolation of the former was more 
 pitiful than the despair of the latter. Stella 
 turned her face from the pleasant garden where 
 life was to have been one long summer's day of 
 love and joy, and accepted the stony path of 
 virtue and renunciation. The scale of duty 
 settled down firmly and the balance no longer 
 oscillated. She said, " No, we must wait," for 
 the last time ; and then the curtain fell on 
 Cyril's departure from High AYood, still en- 
 gaged but with his marriage indefinitely post- 
 poned. At any rate it was postponed until 
 that not far-distant time when Mr. Branscombe 
 should die of his broken heart and secret
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 177 
 
 malady ; as he faithfully promised that he 
 would. 
 
 So now there were three broken hearts 
 instead of one. And of these three, Stella was 
 upheld by the consciousness of well doing — Mr. 
 Branscombe had the tremendous strength given 
 by that kind of egoism which justifies itself 
 through belief in its own superiority to all the 
 surrounding world — while Cyril, who had 
 neither the consciousness of well doing nor the 
 strength of egoism to support him, was the 
 victim of both and undeniably the one most 
 to be pitied of the three. 
 
 But he neither cut his throat nor had brain- 
 fever, as perhaps he should had he been the 
 ideal lover of woman's favourite fancy. He went 
 back to London quietly and like a gentleman ; 
 not taking the world into his confidence by any 
 eccentric demonstrations of grief . on the plat- 
 form, yet, all the same, feeling more desolate, 
 more shipwrecked than he once believed he 
 ever could have felt, come what might into 
 his life. 
 
 Meanwhile, Stella, listening to her father's 
 poetry and playing over his music at Eose Hill, 
 furtively wiped away the tears that would fall, 
 try as she might to strangle them in her throat 
 before they mounted to her eyes. As Cyril did 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 "ii/r LOVE!'' 
 
 not see these tears he could scarcely give her 
 credit for them ; and more than once he sur- 
 prised in himself a certain strain of bitterness 
 when he thought of her choice, and how she 
 had thrown him over for the father whose 
 immense superiority he was beginning to 
 question. But whenever he came face to face 
 with that strain he checked it as if it had 
 been a mortal sin. Whatever else he lost he 
 would not lose his faith in her, he used to say 
 to himself; "the noblest girl in the world," as 
 Hortensia Lyon had called her when finally the 
 coup de grace had been given to love and 
 all love's sweet fond weakness, and the cross 
 of duty, self-sacrifice and daily martyrdom had 
 been preferred instead. Yes ; she was the 
 noblest-minded girl in the world and the 
 dearest, thought poor Cyril with faithful con- 
 stancy and loving reverence ; and whatever 
 happened he would keep this faith as a precious 
 and inalienable amulet. 
 
 Alike in the loftiness of their principles, espe- 
 cially so far as these affected Cyril, nothing 
 could be more unlike in character than these 
 two friends, Stella Branscombe and Hortensia 
 Lyon. Stella was as we have seen, pre- 
 eminently a good girl, conscientious, honourable, 
 dutiful, unselfish ; but she was also pre-eminently
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 179 
 
 natural and human. She liked fun as well as 
 the Miss Pennefathers, say, though her fun was 
 somewhat different from theirs ; she had a 
 merry smile and a merry laugh when she did 
 smile and laugh — which she had not done of 
 late ; she was by no means indifferent to dress, 
 but thought the choice of a colour, the cut of 
 a sleeve, matters demanding careful considera- 
 tion ; she honoured principles, but she was 
 sweetly weak to persons ; in a word she was 
 feminine and concrete, where Hortensia was 
 spiritual and abstract — or rather, it should 
 be said, where Hortensia tried to make herself 
 believe that she was spiritual and abstract. 
 
 Hortensia was one of whom those who loved 
 her said she was too good for this world, and 
 those who did not said she gave herself airs, 
 and thought herself better than anybody else. 
 Mr. Branscombe once wrote an Ode in her 
 honour, wherein he compared her to a lily, a 
 daisy, a dove and a fawn ; and Mrs. Morshead 
 used to call her " that affected little jade," and 
 express her longing to improve her manners 
 and ways by giving her a good shaking. She 
 was not always quite the same person, having 
 already had various ideals in her mind to which 
 she morally dressed. At present her pose was 
 that of Evangeline and other Puritan maidens
 
 180 "MY LOVE!" 
 
 of whom the ideal went to the extreme of self- 
 suppression ; a standard of life so lofty as to 
 be practically unattainable ; passionless purity ; 
 maidenly reserve ; womanly and ennobling in- 
 fluences. She was just at the age when girls 
 put out their sensibilities like feelers, trying for 
 their proper pabulum, their appointed path. She 
 talked a great deal of every woman having her 
 assigned mission ; and her soul's pain at this 
 moment was, that she had not found hers. She 
 sometimes said that she would make herself a 
 hospital-nurse, and sometimes that she would 
 go to Girton and take honours in classics and 
 mathematics. Sometimes she was all for taking 
 up a neglected district in London, which she 
 would cleanse and purify and make into a little 
 oasis of virtue and modesty by the simple force 
 of her presence, the power of her exhortations. 
 Then she thought she would write a book — 
 only she did not quite know on what subject, 
 nor how to begin, nor was she always sure of 
 her spelling, while her syntax was decidedly 
 shaky. At another time she talked of going 
 into a school where she should teach girls 
 younger than herself such problems of life and 
 morals as she herself had mastered. Preaching 
 to navvies was a prospect that at one time 
 allured her ; keeping a night-school for plough-
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 181 
 
 boys was another ; going out to India on the 
 Zenana Mission was one dream of her idle 
 hours ; studying medicine was another. It 
 was the seething time of her mental life and 
 she was always in a state of unrest ; but she 
 was sincere if rather silly ; and she had not 
 yet tried falling in love. Indeed, she pro- 
 claimed herself one of nature's vestals, inas- 
 much as she thought love a very dreadful 
 matter, and girls who liked men very repre- 
 hensible and extraordinary. She could not 
 understand how any nice girl could possibly 
 like one man better than all women ; and even 
 her old bosom-friend, Stella Branscombe, had 
 dropped down many degrees when first her 
 engagement to Cyril Ponsonby had been made 
 known. By her renunciation she had risen 
 even higher than she stood before ; and Hor- 
 tensia welcomed her back to continued celibacy 
 as a kind of strayed lamb restored to the fold 
 of maidenly right-mindedness. For all this she 
 was not consciously affected ; she was only seek- 
 ing and dissatisfied. 
 
 Her present attitude was, as has been said, 
 that of intense quietness of life and moral self- 
 restraint ; and her main mission was to in- 
 fluence her cousin Randolph Mackenzie to take 
 orders. '' Woman's rightful work was just this
 
 182 "MT LOVE! " 
 
 kind of tiling," she said. It was influence, not 
 authority ; passivity, not action ; and to make 
 a splendid fellow of six-feet two content himself 
 with a country curacy, where he would have 
 perhaps three hundred bucolic souls of all ages to 
 look after, was the latest object of her ambition. 
 It was through this cousin, Randolph Mac- 
 kenzie, that Cyril Ponsonby had known High- 
 wood and Stella Branscombe. The two young 
 men, the Orestes and Pylades of their set, 
 were fast friends and sworn chums. They had 
 come down to this pretty place on the outskirts 
 of the mountain district for the Long of one 
 year and the Short of another, by which all the 
 mischief had been done and the present sorrow 
 brought about. For if Randolph Mackenzie 
 had not thought his cousin Hortensia an in- 
 teresting little thing, with all her odd fancies 
 and demureness, he would not have spent his 
 vacations at High wood and then Cyril would 
 not have known Stella Branscombe ; he would 
 not have fallen in love with her, nor would she 
 with him ; he would not have gained her 
 parents' consent to a marriage which had more 
 prospective solidity than present brilliancy ; he 
 would not have been throAv^n overboard by Mr. 
 Branscombe when that good Matilda died and 
 the poet and artist wanted to keep Stella to
 
 FBIENDS IN COUNCIL. 183 
 
 himself; and he would not therefore have been 
 knockino; about London at this moment witli 
 the sad patience of a man whose life has lost its 
 meaning but to whom no violence nor raving- 
 can bring relief; he would not have thought 
 his youlh, his strength, his manhood, his health, 
 his ambition of no present avail, and only of 
 future blessing when fate should have com- 
 fortably disposed of Mr. Frederick Branscombo 
 and have thus made Stella free. 
 
 Meanwhile Hortensia bade her friend be of 
 good cheer. She had done what was right, and 
 the right knows no recoil of sorrow — she had 
 sacrificed herself for her father ; and what could 
 she have done better than this ? 
 
 " She could have married in spite of her 
 father, and that would have been better," said 
 Augusta Latrobe, when Hortensia pronounced 
 her lofty theorem. '' She owed it to herself 
 and Cyril Ponsonby ; and in my opinion she 
 has been very silly, very weak and absurdly 
 sentimental." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Latrobe ! I wonder how you can 
 say such things ! " said Hortensia with not very 
 flattering surprise. " I think she has been 
 sublime ! " 
 
 " Very likely you do," answered Augusta 
 coolly. " That does not prove her wise
 
 184 "MY LOVE!" 
 
 because you are foolish. You are just a couple 
 of sentimental school-girls together ; and one 
 makes the other more ridiculous than she need 
 be. Self-sacrifice is all very well up to a certain 
 point, but beyond that it is wrong. And 
 Stella's was beyond that point." 
 
 " For her father ! " repeated Hortensia. 
 
 " For a selfish old fop ! " said Augusta. 
 " Father or not, he is nothing but that — a very 
 selfish, vain old man ! " 
 
 '' Oh ! " said Hortensia again. 
 
 Since that Ode written in her honour she too 
 had accepted the family myth and joined in the 
 family worship. " How can you speak of such 
 a man as Mr. Branscombe in this way ? He is 
 a genius — a real divinely-inspired genius." 
 
 " He has had wit enough to persuade you and 
 others that he is," said Augusta ; " which is 
 the cleverest thing about him that I know. As 
 for real talent he has no more than that dragon- 
 fly — and not so much — for the dragon-fly 
 knows what he can do and what he cannot, 
 and what he does he does well ; which you 
 cannot say of Mr. Branscombe. If you must 
 have a hero, Hortensia, take a real one and not 
 such a sham as this ! " 
 
 But Hortensia's pretty Puritanical little face 
 gave no sign of yielding to what, after all, was
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 185 
 
 less argument than assertion. On the contrary, 
 a faint, self-satisfied smile stole over it, as she 
 said to herself : " Augusta is jealous of me and 
 Mr. Branscombe. I remember, now, how 
 vexed she was when he wrote that lovely Ode 
 to me, and she does not like him because he 
 does not like her. He called her the other day 
 a chrysalis not yet expanded ; but he said that 
 I was a Psyche and had gained my wings. I 
 know him better than she does ; and I know 
 how beautiful his nature is and what a splendid 
 intellect he has ; and nothing that she can say 
 will change my opinion." Aloud she said 
 firmly : " Stella has done quite right to give 
 up her marriage that she might stay with her 
 father. Such a father is not an e very-day 
 possession." 
 
 And with this she sighed and wished that 
 her father had been as refined and lovely as Mr. 
 Branscombe. But for her sins he was only an 
 unoesthetic kind of Philistine, who laughed at 
 the vagaries of his little maid, as he called her ; 
 gave her free leave to talk, according to her 
 mood, but took care that she did nothing com- 
 promising or overt ; chafi"ed her when she was 
 at her sublimest, and sometimes, but rarely, 
 reasoned with her gravely when she had gone 
 farther than usual over the borders of good
 
 186 "MY LOVE!'' 
 
 sense and right reason — a good-tempered, 
 domestic, utterly unromantic being, who liked 
 his cigars and took kindly to his claret and 
 who thought the world would be the best place 
 imaginable but for those uncomfortable enthu- 
 siasts who are bent on making it better. 
 
 " If only people would let things alone ! " he 
 used to say, holding his glass between him and 
 the light ; " if only his little maid would be 
 content with her lot as Providence had marked 
 it out for her, and not bother herself about 
 things which were no concerns of hers and for 
 which nature had not fitted her ! She had 
 everything in life to make her happy, and what 
 the dickens was it to her what others had or 
 had not, were or were not ! We were sent here 
 to do our duty like rational beings — not to go 
 tramping over the world tilting at windmills 
 like so many Don Quixotes ; and we were 
 meant to enjoy ourselves — not to live always 
 in the blues and as if we were going to our 
 execution ! So he would his little maid should 
 go and sing ' I'm afloat ! ' and leave all these 
 doleful dumps for the maniacs who liked them! " 
 
 By which it may be seen what an unaesthetic 
 and semi-reprobate Mr. Lyon was ; and why 
 Hortensia sighed when she contrasted Stella's 
 elegant father with her own.
 
 ( 187 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HIS FAITHFUL CHUM. 
 
 It was a fine rich luscious day when every 
 thing tempted even the most indolent or the 
 most industrious to leave the four narrow walls 
 of home for the fresh air and freedom of nature. 
 But at four o'clock Mr. Branscombe was still in 
 his studio, as he had been all the morning. 
 And Stella was with him, as she also had been 
 all the morning — indeed as she always was in 
 these sad later days ! She had glided into her 
 mother's place about her father as naturally as 
 she had inherited her jewels, or taken over the 
 housekeeping, and was now as firmly established 
 in it as if there had never been what Mr. Brans- 
 combe used to call a solution of continuity at 
 all. She was his audience and his torchbearer, 
 his secretary and amanuensis, just as that good 
 Matilda had been ; and she did almost as well.
 
 ]88 "MY LOVE]'' 
 
 She copied out his poetry and made his 
 manuscript music intelligible ; she learnt his 
 songs and played his symphonies ; she accepted 
 his own interpretation of his mixed metaphors 
 and confused phrases, and believed him when 
 he said that this thought was grand and that 
 idea fine ; she believed in him, ministered to 
 him, thought that she understood him and was 
 very sure that she loved him. And because she 
 believed in him and loved him she flattered him 
 to the top of his bent, under the idea that she 
 was simply paying him proper respect and 
 offering him the homage so entirely his due. 
 
 And she used to tell herself twenty times a 
 day that her life was blessed and her labours 
 gracious privileges, and that to be of use to her 
 beloved and gifted father was the noblest 
 destiny she could fulfil. Nevertheless, her 
 young heart was often weary ; do what she 
 would the tears would rise from her choking 
 throat to her eyes ; she was getting very pale 
 and thin and careworn altogether ; and some- 
 thing of her mother's look of patient and 
 concealed pain was creeping into her face, like 
 grey shadows among the roses. 
 
 Mr. Branscombe's artistic activity had not 
 been interrupted by his wife's death. When 
 the details of the funeral had been arranged, a
 
 HIS FAITHFUL CHUM. 189 
 
 becoming studio dress of dark grey velvet, with 
 a crape band round the arm, devised, and the 
 Monument thought out, as he said, then he 
 went back to his art, which was like nothing 
 so much as the unconscious cerebration of 
 somnambulism. To be sure his Epic was laid 
 aside. It would be a mutilated monument to 
 her memory, he said ; all the more impressive 
 in its unfinished state than if he had perfected 
 it to the end. In the incompleteness of this 
 grand work would be seen the depth and tragic 
 intensity of his love and its great loss ; and he 
 would found his claim to immortality more on 
 this colossal fragment than on any of his 
 finished pieces. The grandest works of art are 
 Greek torsos and Michael Angelo's unfinished 
 statues, he said. His Epic should rank with 
 them ; and he was not ashamed of the parallel. 
 
 For the rest he spent his time in writing 
 " Odes to Memory," " Threnodies," " Sonnets 
 to My Lost Love," " To Matilda in Heaven," 
 and the like; and in composing funeral marches 
 and dirges, which Stella had to learn by heart 
 and play in the twilight. Also he began a 
 picture like to nothing in heaven or earth ; but 
 it stood in his imagination as a striking likeness 
 of his good Matilda going up to heaven in a 
 cloud of glory, attended by angels and cherubs'
 
 lOO "MY LOVE!" 
 
 heads. It was a cross between an Assumption 
 and St. Catherine ; but he honestly believed it 
 to be original and all his own ; and he was 
 perhaps more content with this last effort of 
 his genius than with anything that he had ever 
 done. 
 
 If only he had been content to maunder 
 about these queer artistic fields by himself — if 
 only he would have planted and reared and 
 harvested without claiming the companionship 
 and assistance of another, he might have 
 amused himself then as he would, and have 
 been no burden to man or woman. But he 
 would not labour alone — for he called it labour, 
 and believed it to be as he called it. He was 
 like one of those children who cannot play by 
 themselves, but must have some one to sit by 
 and watch them — to be their chorus, or at least 
 their audience. So with Mr. Branscombe ; — he 
 must have an artistic henchman ; and Stella 
 was consecrated by nature and convenience to 
 that post. As we have seen, she thought that 
 she prized her privileges and was glad of her 
 power to make poor papa's days less sad. But 
 how unhappy her own were ! She suffered from 
 such a strange sense of oppression, of tedium, of 
 fatigue, of monotony, of mental starvation too, 
 for which she could in no wise account. She
 
 niS FAITHFUL CHUM. 191 
 
 supposed it was all because dear, dear mamma 
 had died and poor darling Cyril had gone away 
 so miserable and unsatisfied. It could be 
 nothing more ; but how beautiful it was out of 
 doors to-day ! How much she would like to be 
 in the garden ! Papa's studio was always rather 
 close and stifling — the window being generally 
 shut even on a summer's day like this, and the 
 smell of the paint strong. If he would but 
 come out for a little while with her ? — It would 
 do him good ; and the day was so lovely. 
 
 Yet how could she ask him when he had 
 told her that the Ode which she was trans- 
 cribing must be done by ^yq o'clock, and it 
 was now four and she had not nearly finished ? 
 She had been writing ever since ten o'clock this 
 morning, and she had been unpardonably slow. 
 No ; she must not look at the sunshine on the 
 grass, at the flowers in the beds, at the blue 
 sky above. She must not imagine the fresh 
 scents nor the singing of the birds ; she must 
 finish this bit of work for dear papa, and please 
 him by doing it well. And yet how unsteady 
 her hand was to-day ! — and those wretched 
 tears ! — They blurred her vision so that she 
 could not see what she was doing ; and if they 
 fell on the paper they spoilt everything. But 
 she could not keep them out of her eyes ; and
 
 192 ''MY LOVE]'' 
 
 when papa called her in his self-absorbed, pre- 
 occupied way ; " My good Matilda," as he so 
 often did, she felt as if she should die. But she 
 must get on with this Ode, one of the many 
 already composed in honour of her sweet 
 mother's memory, and stifle her yearnings, her 
 sorrow and her weariness as she best could. 
 
 Not many people came now to Rose Hill. 
 All the visits of condolence had been paid and 
 things had gone back into their usual groove. 
 Stella and Mr. Branscombe were so constantly 
 denied that the neighbours gave up making 
 useless calls which only annoyed them, knowing 
 as they did that this perpetual invisibility, 
 this constant " not at home," was a fiction, not 
 a fact. And though all knew that the order 
 was general not individual, each took it as a 
 personal affront and resented it accordingly. 
 
 One visitor however, was never shut out ; 
 and to whomsoever else father and daughter 
 were denied, for Hortensia Lyon they had 
 always a welcome. She was Mr. Branscombe's 
 prime favourite, and he never thought the time 
 lost that was given to her. When therefore, 
 the servant came in to-day, and said that Miss 
 Lyon was in the drawing-room, Mr. Branscombe, 
 so far from objecting to this interruption, 
 looked back from his easel with a smile, telling
 
 EIS FAITHFUL CHUM. 193 
 
 Stella that she might leave her transcription 
 till to-morrow, and that she was to keep her 
 little friend for a few minutes till he should 
 have finished this piece of angelic drapery, 
 when he himself would come to them. 
 
 "Hortensia Lyon is not like other girls, vain, 
 shallow, frivolous, ignorant," he said. " She 
 has a heart and a mind, and goes far deeper in 
 thought than many a woman of twice her age. 
 I consider her a rare and precious possession 
 here in our little sanctuary of poetry and art." 
 
 " She is a dear girl ; and she values you too, 
 papa. She will be so glad to see 3^ou. I know 
 she thinks it an honour — as she ought." 
 
 Stella spoke warmly and quickly, with a 
 sudden feeling of relief and pleasure, only to be 
 accounted for on the ground of her immense 
 love for Hortensia Lyon. It was as if the 
 gloom which pervaded this hot stifling room 
 like a bodily presence had been suddenly 
 removed ; and she felt almost like the Stella of 
 former days as she shut the study-door behind 
 her, and breathed the fresher air of the hall and 
 passages. 
 
 When she went into the drawing-room she 
 
 found not only Hortensia, but Hortensia's 
 
 cousin as well — that tall, broad, big-limbed 
 
 Eandolph Mackenzie whom the little player at 
 
 VOL. r.
 
 194 "ii/r LOVEr' 
 
 Providence and Puritanism wanted to trans- 
 form into a meek country curate devoted to 
 lawn-tennis and Mothers' meetings, and whom 
 nature had designed for a pioneer of civiHzation 
 and the ruler of rough men whose strength he 
 would direct and make subservient to good 
 ends. But natural designation had not much 
 influence over Hortensia, and playing at Provi- 
 dence had. 
 
 There had always been a very friendly feel- 
 ing between Stella and Randolph. As the chum 
 of her beloved — as the beloved of his chum — 
 they met on the common ground of interest and 
 sympathy ; and each loved the other because 
 both loved Cyril Ponsonby. At this moment 
 then, when all her love had turned to sorrow, 
 this visit was doubly delightful to the poor 
 girl ; and only to Cyril himself would she have 
 shown more joy and welcome than she did to 
 Randolph. 
 
 " When did you come ? " she asked with a 
 fluttered look. 
 
 It was almost as if Cyril himself was stand- 
 ing like a spirit behind that huge broad back. 
 
 " Last night. So you see I have not been 
 long before coming to see you," he answered. 
 
 " No, indeed, you have not. And it was very 
 kind of you," she said.
 
 UIS FAITHFUL CHUM. 195 
 
 With a strange impulse she bent forward and 
 offered him her hand again, her beautiful blue 
 eyes filling with tears as she looked into his 
 face with such a sudden effluence of love on her 
 own, it made him almost start. 
 
 '' I assure you, Stella, I have had no peace 
 till I brought him here," said Hortensia, with 
 her delicate, half-checked smile — smiling being 
 a frivolity rather below her present standard of 
 moral excellence and not to be indulged in 
 needlessly. " I tell him he is sadly undisciplined, 
 and needs far more self-control than he has," she 
 added, looking at her massive cousin with the 
 slender woman's amiable sense of spiritual 
 superiority over a muscular mountain of human 
 fiesh. 
 
 She meant to imply that he was lost as he 
 was, but worth the trouble of saving ; only, he 
 must let himself be saved by obedience to her. 
 
 " I do not pretend to be as good as you, 
 Hortensia," he answered with frank good-nature. 
 
 This pretty little girl's quaint scoldings were 
 as pleasant to him as if they had been caresses, 
 and hurt him no more than a little child hurts a 
 Newfoundland dog. 
 
 " You ought to try, Randolph ! " said Hor- 
 tensia, lofty and uncompromising. '' You should 
 not suffer yourself to be so impetuous as you
 
 19G "MY LOVEr' 
 
 are — so impatient and undisciplined. We do 
 so much more by meekness and self-control." 
 
 " Yes, I know all that," he answered. " But 
 what is a poor rough fellow to do, Hortensia, 
 when he is born so ? I cannot make myself as 
 sweet and gentle as you and Miss Branscombe. 
 And I should not be what I am if I were what 
 you are," he added with undeniable logic. 
 
 " Not rough, but undisciplined," she repeated. 
 " And want of discipline is to the character 
 what roughness is to the actions. It is all the 
 difference between one man and another." 
 
 " A very deep and lovely thought," said Mr. 
 Branscombe, coming into the room. '^ Just 
 such a thought as I should have expected to 
 hear from the pearl of Highwood — the modern 
 Evangeline ! " 
 
 " How kind you are, dear Mr. Branscombe ! " 
 said Hortensia Lyon, looking as fluttered as 
 Stella had looked. But the one had been the 
 agitation of love, the other the gratification of 
 pleased vanity. 
 
 "And what may you have been doing with 
 yourself, Mr. Mackenzie ? " asked Mr. Brans- 
 combe of Cyril's chosen friend. 
 
 He spoke with an indescribable air of half- 
 offensive patronage. To him Cyril and Ean- 
 dolph and the whole tribe of practical, athletic
 
 ins FAITHFUL CHUM. 197 
 
 and iincesthetlc young men were little better 
 than machines with independent volitions — 
 brutes with the use of speech and a glimmering 
 of reason. For all the finer purposes of human 
 life — for all that was, as he used to say, 
 gracious, supreme, lovely, and of precious de- 
 lio'litfulness to man, — these muscular leaders 
 of uncultured men, these huge-limbed pioneers 
 of civilization were nowhere ; and he valued 
 them no more than if they had been so many 
 elephants in broadcloth, or rhinoceroses speak- 
 ing English. They were the blind Cyclopes 
 where he was the elegant and astute Ulysses ; — 
 they were the lumbering Titans, and he was the 
 winged Mercury, the divine Apollo, the com- 
 manding Jupiter, supreme above them all. 
 
 " Not very much, sir," answered Randolph. 
 "I have taken my B.A. degree, and I am 
 waiting to see what will turn up. If Cyril 
 Ponsonby goes to India I should like to go 
 there too. You know he is like my brother, 
 and I feel rather blank without him." 
 
 " Orestes and Pylades ? Jonathan and David, 
 hey ? " returned Mr. Branscombe with a polite 
 sneer. " You have warranty, you see, for your 
 extreme friendship together." 
 
 '' Yes," said Randolph simply. " But neither 
 Pylades nor David was half as good a fellow as
 
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 HIS FAITHFUL CHUM. 199 
 
 '' Oh, papa ! " said Stella. " Poor Cyril ! he is 
 not to be compared either to an owl or a cart- 
 horse ! " 
 
 If Randolph had been hard put to it to keep 
 his loyalty to his two dear friends intact under 
 the trial ordained by Mr. Branscombe, so was 
 poor Stella. She loved Cyril and she loved her 
 father ; she honoured both impartially, and she 
 believed as much in the one as in the other. It 
 was a dreadful thing to her to hear her father, 
 who was as her king and conscience, speak 
 slightingly of her lover, who was her ideal of 
 young manhood. She could not be angry with 
 papa whatever he might do. That would be 
 impiety ; and Stella was not impious. But 
 neither could she hear poor darling Cyril 
 spoken of with disdain, nor compared to an ugly 
 barn-owl and a coarse cart-horse without 
 making her protest in defence. 
 
 " My dear, you speak with the fond imagina- 
 tion of a romantic and love-sick girl," said Mr. 
 Branscombe calmly. "• I, who have my reason 
 undisturbed, and who know men and manners, 
 am better able than you to catalogue that 
 young man. I grant him all the virtues of the 
 natural man — all the uncouth virtues as I may 
 say ; but of the finer perceptions which come 
 from culture, he has not a trace ; and in assert-
 
 200 "j/r LOVEr' 
 
 ing that lie has you but betray your own lack. 
 Let us pass to another subject. This does not 
 interest nor amuse me." 
 
 " How is your great picture getting on, Mr. 
 Branscombe ? " asked Hortensia with kindly 
 haste. 
 
 She was as distressed as Eandolph by this 
 sudden onslaught which both knew cut poor 
 Stella to the heart. 
 
 " Come and see," he answered, rising and 
 offering her his arm. " When you have given 
 me the benefit of your fresh young criticism I 
 shall be more satisfied with my work. We 
 shall return immediately, my Stella. Do not 
 give yourself the trouble of following us. I do 
 not think Mr. Eandolph Mackenzie will care for 
 what he may find in my poor studio," he added 
 with a disagreeable smile. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, sir, I do," said Eandolph, heroic- 
 ally fibbing. 
 
 But though he rose from his seat, prepared to 
 go with his cousin and her flatterer, Stella did 
 not move. Something stronger than even her 
 desire to please her father held her back. She 
 must have a word alone with Eandolph. She 
 must speak of Cyril without restraint or un- 
 friendly witnesses. 
 
 " When, where, did you see him last ? " she
 
 II IS FAITHFUL CHUM. 201 
 
 asked huiTiedly, so soon as the door was 
 shut. " How was he ? How did he look ? 
 What did he say ? Poor Cyril ! Poor darling 
 Cyril ! Oh Eandolph ! I sometimes feel as if 
 I should like to die — as if I could not live and 
 know my poor darling Cyril to be so un- 
 happy — and through me — for all that it was 
 my duty ! " 
 
 '^ Don't cry, ^liss Stella, please don't," said 
 Cyril's chum affectionately and with genuine 
 distress, not knowing what to do for the best 
 and as much afraid of his own sympathetic 
 impulses as he was sorry for her grief. " He 
 was very down, poor old man, and feels his dis- 
 appointment terribly," he went on to say 
 frankly, not being good at quick subterfuge. 
 " He sent all sorts of messages to you ; said I 
 was to give you his love and that you were 
 never to doubt him, never to forget him, nor 
 think that he would forget you ; that you were 
 to believe in him whatever you might hear, for 
 that he would be true and faithful to the last 
 and would wait for your promise to the end of 
 his life. Only you were not to give him up. 
 You were to be firm to him as he would be to 
 you, and hold yourself always engaged though 
 you were separated." 
 
 '' So I will," said Stella. " Nothing should
 
 202 "iifr LOVE!" 
 
 make nie give him up. The engagement is not 
 broken, only postponed ; and unless he wants to 
 break it off I will not." 
 
 " No ; I am sure you will not," said Randolph, 
 warmly. " But tell me. Miss Stella, why has 
 Mr. Branscombe taken such a dislike to him? 
 Did Cyril offend him in any way ? I know he 
 would not have done so intentionally, and if he 
 did, it was quite by accident and mistake. I 
 was never more taken aback in my life when 
 he let fly like that ! " 
 
 " Nor was I," said Stella, turning pale. " I 
 cannot understand him ! Papa is so wise and 
 good and just and noble, I cannot make it out. 
 Cyril perhaps vexed him because he would not at 
 the very first consent to postpone our marriage ; 
 but papa said nothing so bitter then as he did 
 to-day — at least not to me. Cyril told me that 
 he had been rather hard on him w^hen they 
 were alone." 
 
 "Yes, he told me too, that Mr. Branscombe 
 had been uncommonly rough on him," said 
 Randolph in his more familiar vernacular. 
 " But you do not mind, do you, Miss Stella ? 
 and you will not be influenced ? " 
 
 " No," said Stella firmly ; '^ not even papa 
 could turn me against Cyril." 
 
 " That is right ! That is just what I ex-
 
 EIS FAITHFUL CHUM, 203 
 
 pected ! " said Cyril's chum with almost passion- 
 ate warmth. " I think my cousin one of the 
 dearest and best girls in the world, but I think 
 you are even better. I never pitied Cyril so 
 much as now, when I see more clearly than I 
 ever did what he has lost. If I had a saint 
 I would make you that saint, Miss Stella. 
 They gave you the right name — Stella, the 
 ' Star ! ' " 
 
 He said all this with a rush of excitement 
 and passionate enthusiasm which would have 
 drawn on him the rebuke of his self-controlled 
 little cousin, had she heard it. But something 
 seemed to carry him away in spite of himself. 
 He had always admired Stella Branscombe, had 
 always loved her as his sister for Cyril's sake ; 
 but he had never known half her goodness, half 
 her beauty, until to-day. And he had never, 
 as he said, pitied Cyril so much as now, nor felt 
 that strange flood of something which was like 
 envy without its bitterness and with only its 
 yearning desire for a like portion to be meted 
 out to himself. 
 
 " We will always be kind to him, you and I?" 
 he said, still as strongly moved as before. " If 
 the whole world deserts him we wiU be faithful, 
 you and I ? " he repeated. 
 
 '• Yes," she said, giving him her hand.
 
 204 "MY LOVJEl" 
 
 He raised it to his lips, moved to strange 
 reverence and poetry of mood. 
 
 " Beautiful Stella ! " he said in an under voice. 
 ** Cyril's Star — and mine ! "
 
 ( 205 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHERS. 
 
 In almost every country society is a family 
 the girls of which go by the name of " those " — 
 " those Miss Browns," or " that Miss Smith " 
 — girls who are credited with all the faults and 
 follies accidental to a misguided youth and 
 more than ordinarily peccant humanity — girls 
 who may be thankful if they escape without 
 graver scandals sticking like unclean burrs to 
 their names, and who may think themselves 
 fortunate if they find one person in the place 
 who will stand by them heartily and courage- 
 ously. 
 
 Now the two Misses Pennefather were the 
 " those " of High wood ; and it must be con- 
 fessed that they did something to earn their 
 title. Georgie and Pattie Pennefather, or, as 
 the irreverent were wont to call them, Grip and
 
 -206 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 Pip, were the standing target for all tlie 
 poisoned arrows of ill-nature stored up in the 
 society hereabouts. And a society whereof old 
 Mrs. Morshead was an eminent and influential 
 member, was pretty certain to have a respectable 
 store of these same poisoned arrows, and to be 
 just as certain to use them freely. 
 
 Mrs. Morshead, never weary of " flinging her 
 five fingers in the face " of the human family in 
 general, flung them with special disdain and 
 abhorrence in the faces of ''those Miss Penne- 
 fathers." They represented to her the whole 
 circle of nineteenth-century iniquity, from tight 
 dresses and high heels to Professional Beauties 
 and the thronged lobbies of the Divorce Court ; 
 and it was only paying proper homage to good 
 manners to deny that they had any at all. 
 ''Those Miss Pennefathers " carried on their 
 nicely-shaped little backs wallets filled with 
 every fault and impropriety short of glaring 
 vice, that English girls of good family could 
 have, while denied the possession of any pretty 
 little fringe or plume of virtue to soften the 
 ugliness of these sinful packets. They were 
 fast, bold, loud, vulgar, idle and objectionable 
 young hussies all round ; and as for their good 
 looks, of which they were so absurdly vain and 
 which silly people made so much fuss about,
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHERS. 207 
 
 Mrs. Morshead protested she did not see them ; 
 and thought the whole family downright plain, 
 and those two horrid girls the plainest of the 
 lot. They were at the bottom of all the mischief 
 of the j)lace ; and if the place did its duty by 
 itself, they would be cut, as they deserved. 
 Their dress was positively improper ; and their 
 manners were like those of two barmaids or 
 cigar-girls, rather than of young ladies whose 
 mother was an Honourable. When some one 
 bolder or more generous than the rest, objected 
 to her sweeping condemnations, and pointed out 
 a few forgotten graces — as, that they were very 
 good-natured and never said unkind things of 
 their neighbours ; or, very charitable, and did a 
 great many kind deeds to the poor ; that they 
 were really not so wild and extravagant as they 
 seemed to be, but had the art of making a little 
 go a great way, and a big show out of small 
 material — she used to quite lose herself in her 
 wrath, and declare that at her age she ought to 
 know one thing from another, and be allowed 
 to express her opinion without fear of con- 
 tradiction from her juniors. She knew what 
 she was talking about when she said those Miss 
 Pennefathers were a disgrace to the place ; and 
 that if it were not for the father and mother — 
 who however did not deserve so much con-
 
 208 "ii/r LOVE!" 
 
 sideration — she for one would never suffer 
 them inside her house again. But then she had 
 always been too considerate for others, she 
 would go on to say in perfect sincerity and 
 faithfully believing in her own words ; and much 
 thanks she had got for it from any one ! Cer- 
 tainly she had got none from those Pennefather 
 people, who had not once sent to ask after her 
 when she had lost her favourite Skye, her 
 beloved and jorecious little Joe. Those Miss 
 Pennefathers, in a word — those laughing, gay, 
 and careless twins — were about the bitterest of 
 the many bitter drops in the cross old woman's 
 jaundiced cup of life, and stood at the highest 
 point in her cruel scale of condemnation. 
 
 She did not really love any human being — 
 her daughter and her bonny little grandson not 
 excepted — but even she drew distinctions and 
 disliked some more than others. Between 
 Hortensia Lyon and those Miss Pennefathers ; 
 while she ridiculed the former for her puri- 
 tanical affections, she vilified the latter for their 
 want of all the decencies of life and habits ; 
 or between Stella Branscombe and these two 
 hussies, this Grip and Pip whom all the young- 
 men called by their names like their sisters, 
 though no one, she used to add with a sneer, 
 ever thought of marrying them — though Stella
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHERS. 209: 
 
 was really sickening, with her dear papa here 
 and her dear papa there, dear papa's poems and 
 dear papa's paintings, the beautiful oratorio that 
 dear papa has just composed, and the dear little 
 song that dear papa wrote out last night, still, 
 said Mrs. Morshead, her excess of admiration, 
 silly and exaggerated as it was, was not so bad 
 as their want of respect. Mater and the Governor 
 — Mater so awfully jolly in a house and the 
 Grovernor the dearest old boy in the world — 
 where did they expect to go to when they could 
 say such things as these ! It would be impiety 
 to doubt what would be their end. 
 
 "Ah!" said Mrs. Morshead, shaking her 
 high-capped old head viciously ; "let me have 
 the management of those Miss Pennefathers for 
 six months! I would Mater them, I can tell 
 you! If I had not taught them propriety by 
 then, I would — I don't know what I would not 
 do ! — eat my own fingers — I declare I w^ould ! 
 And this is the kind of thing that you approve 
 of, Augusta," she added angrily. " And if I did 
 not keep you in hand, and make you respectful 
 in spite of yourself, you would Mater me, I 
 suppose ? Not while I am alive ! Not if I had 
 to die for it ! " 
 
 " You and I are different from the Penne- 
 father girls and their mother," said Augusta 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 ''MY LOVE!" 
 
 quietly. "I do not approve of their manners, 
 as you know ; but," she added a little impru- 
 dently, " I cannot help seeing that they are very 
 g'ood-hearted, good-tempered things, and always 
 ready to do any one a kindness." 
 
 " Charity begins at home," snapped Mrs. 
 Morshead. " I have no opinion of your very 
 kind people who make all the w^orld their bosom 
 friends, and run about with baskets and all that, 
 when they ought to be sitting quietly at home, 
 darning their stockings and looking after the 
 maids. It is only another form of idleness and 
 want of domestic duty ; and I would not give 
 sixpence for the kindness and good-heartedness 
 of these two young minxes — these precious 
 friends of yours ! Give me something more 
 sterling ; something that makes home home ! 
 Ah ! my pretty boy ! " she suddenly added in a 
 caressing tone, as a huge Persian cat slowly 
 raised himself from a purple velvet cushion 
 where he had been sleeping by the side of her 
 chair, and lightly leapt into her lap. " My 
 precious Shah ! my beauty ! my dear old boy ! " 
 she continued, stroking him fondly. " You at 
 least love your mistress and do not tell lies, or 
 do wickedness. If all the world was like you, 
 my pretty! But he must not eat the birds — 
 the pretty little birds ! No ! no ! he must not
 
 THOSE MISS FENNF.FATHEBS. 211 
 
 do that, old dear ! And Augusta ! " to her 
 daughter, sharply ; ''if that Tony of yours 
 drags this cat about as he does, I will slap his 
 hands the next time I see him. So mind, I 
 give you warning. I shall have the creature 
 strangled some day, if I don't take care ! Do 
 you hear me, Augusta ? " 
 
 " Yes, mamma, I will tell Tony to be more 
 careful," her daughter answered in her calm, 
 smooth way ; while the old woman grumbled 
 out : " Yes, you had better ! " and then fell to 
 kissing and caressing her cat once more. 
 
 "We all have our soft points, and this was 
 Mrs. Morshead's : — She loved animals — this love 
 culminating in a species of idolatry for her 
 Persian cat. Animals were to her what friends 
 and lovers are to others ; and to them she gave 
 all the love and respect which she denied to 
 her own kind. Men and women were vile ; 
 children were simply imps in embryo ; society 
 was a mass of iniquity from end to end ; human 
 motives were all corrupt ; but cats and dogs and 
 cows and horses were heirs of all the virtues 
 and those who ill-treated dumb creatures were 
 infinitely more criminal than those who op- 
 pressed and half-murdered their own brethren. 
 But her love for animals was eminently false 
 and unwholesome. It was not the overflow of
 
 212 "ii/r LOVEr- 
 
 that large and comprehensive sympathy whicli^ 
 having first done its normal work, finds new 
 channels of benevolence. It was simply a 
 substitute for human kindness and took to itself 
 what was due to man. Thus, she gave nothing 
 to schools, hospitals, or asylums, but she sub- 
 scribed largely to the Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals, to the Home for Lost 
 Dogs, and she was one of the most generous 
 benefactors, as well as one of the most active 
 propagandists, for the Anti-vivisection Society, 
 which, j^erhaps, she held as the most important 
 of all. Against the physiologists indeed, she 
 was specially irate, and would rather, she said, 
 have the whole human race decimated by disease 
 than insure the health and well-being of the 
 world by the sacrifice of a rabbit or a guinea-pig. 
 Men had not made such a good thing of life, 
 according to her, that they should be perpetuated 
 by vicarious suffering. Let them perish from 
 off the face of the earth, but let the dear dumb 
 brutes remain untroubled and undisturbed. All 
 the same she eat her beef and mutton, her lamb 
 and veal and chicken with a clear conscience ; 
 and when Sandro Kemp once urged this flesh- 
 eating against her theories, as a proof of the 
 universal law of transmutation for the one part, 
 and of the need of human supremacy for the
 
 THOSE MISS FEXXFFATIIEHS. 213 
 
 other, she told him he was impious and desired 
 him to change the conversation. 
 
 If only she had given her own kind a little of 
 the compassion that she lavished on those dear 
 dumb brutes ! But she tyrannized over her 
 daughter ; treated her little grandson with fatal 
 harshness ; made her service one of pain and 
 fear to her domestics ; and took away the fine 
 flavour of repute from two young girls whose 
 only sin was in their heedlessness, their beauty 
 and their youth. This was not cruelty accord- 
 ing to her ; but to hurt any creature with four 
 legs was a crime which a Christian legislature 
 should make punishable as felony. 
 
 If Mrs. Morshead disliked " those Miss Penne- 
 fathers," the twins shrank with as much anti- 
 pathy from her. For all their careless and 
 unthinking natures, for all their buoyancy and 
 elasticity of spirit, there was something in the 
 old woman's persistent sourness and opposition 
 which oppressed them as nothing else did. They 
 liked Augusta — indeed no one could fail to like 
 her, even-tempered and reasonable as she was ; 
 and they pitied her and little Tony more than 
 they pitied the poorest person in the parish ; 
 but old Mrs. Morshead was a horror, and more 
 than they could stand, save under the strongest 
 compulsion of social necessity. When they paid
 
 214 "MY LOVEr* 
 
 lier the visits demanded by duty and politeness, 
 they paid tliem as seldom and made them as 
 short as they could, while doing their best to 
 avoid pitfalls and stumbling blocks of offence. 
 This was the hardest part of the business. 
 Walking blindfold among burning ploughshares 
 was nothing to it, and skating on thin ice was 
 comparatively safe going. With Mrs. Morshead 
 the burning ploughshares were as thick as 
 pebbles on the seashore and the ice was never 
 more than a mere film which gave way as soon 
 as touched. Hence their visits were both brief 
 and rare ; and as Mrs. Morshead in common with 
 all tyrants, liked to be able to bully ad libitum, 
 but to be made as much of as if she were the 
 sweetest creature alive, she resented as a personal 
 insult the slackness of intercourse which was 
 the order between The Laurels and Sherrardine, 
 where the Pennefathers lived. 
 
 In truth, she resented everything whatever 
 about the Pennefathers, whether affecting her- 
 self or no. All the circumstances of the family 
 made one huge conglomerate of annoyances, 
 one great bete noire against which she waged 
 incessant and ineffectual war. The very name 
 was an offence. Pennefather ! What a mouth- 
 ful it was, and how absurd altogether ! Penne- 
 father here and Moneypenny there — one would
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHEBS. 215 
 
 think that Highwood had been originally 
 peopled by coiners, she said, putting her old 
 prunella-slippered feet on all the rules of philo- 
 logy. And the affectation of their calling 
 their place Sherrardine, because Mrs. Penne- 
 father's father had lived at Sherrards, the family 
 place, for the few years of his Yiscountship ! — 
 As if any one cared to know that they had a 
 Yiscount in the family — tacking themselves on 
 like that to the aristocracy simply because that 
 silly woman was an Honourable ! They were 
 substantially only simple commoners like any 
 one else, and not so good as some others. For, 
 if report said true, they had enough to do to 
 make both ends meet in their noisy, riotous, un- 
 tidy household. And if those Miss Pennefathers 
 kept at home a little more than they did, and 
 thought more of their duties and less of their 
 dress, it would be far better for them and every 
 one connected with them. And if they paid 
 their bills more punctually and gave fewer 
 dances and garden-parties, and all that nonsense, 
 it would be more to their credit. And so she, 
 Mrs. Morshead, would tell them some day. If 
 Mr. and Mrs. Pennefather did not know how to 
 guide their own children aright, it was the 
 duty of a Christian matron of her age and 
 experience — the oldest inhabitant of the parish
 
 216 "MY LOVE]'' 
 
 and perhaps if all people had their due the most 
 respectable — it was her duty to give them a 
 little friendly advice and tell them what the 
 world said of them. 
 
 She was full of this resolution when the door- 
 bell rang and the servant ushered in the Misses 
 Pennefathers, as he might have ushered in two 
 young lion-cubs fresh from the jungle. 
 
 Crisp, curl}^, jet-black hair, surmounted by 
 audacious white-beaver hats turned up short on 
 one side and flapping low down on the other ; 
 four roving, bright and dark-brown eyes set 
 under brows as straight as if they had been 
 ruled by a line and as black as if they had been 
 drawn in ink ; two pretty little Koxalana noses ; 
 wide, smiling, almost scarlet lips, showing a full 
 set of small square teeth when they laughed — and 
 they were always laughing ; cheeks dotted witli 
 dimples and as bright as damask roses in the 
 sun ; stature just five feet three, exact measure- 
 ment, not a millimetre more or less in either ; 
 trim, well-busked figures, draped in showy gar- 
 ments tied tightly back to the full display of all 
 the gracious curves and generous outlines, the 
 modelling and shaping of art and nature 
 combined ; loud voices as clear as silver bells ; 
 frank manners knowing no fear and seeking no 
 favour ; an atmosphere of unchecked gaiety, of
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHERS, 217 
 
 abounding* vitality, of girlish devil-may-carish- 
 iiess, of the very insolence of youthful happi- 
 ness ; this was the best description that could 
 be given of the two Misses Pennefathers, that 
 Gip and Pip whom all men loved and no one 
 wished to marry, and who were to Mrs. Mors- 
 head the very head and ears of her biggest bete 
 noire. 
 
 Poor, laughing, heedless Grip and Pip ! The 
 day had come when their trimestral visit to 
 that sour old Mrs. Morshead had to be paid ; and 
 they paid it for duty's sake and Augusta's. 
 But it was a corvee, a fighting with wild beasts 
 by no means agreeable to contemplate, and one 
 where they knew they should come ofT the 
 worst. 
 
 In they came with that general look of flush 
 and hurry and taking life and circumstances 
 by storm which was characteristic of them. 
 Exactly alike in dress and person they were 
 to Mrs. Morshead a reduplication of offence. 
 She never knew which from which ; nor did 
 any one, indeed ; so that it was impossible 
 to take refuge from one with the other, or to 
 change the venue and mitigate the nuisance. 
 There they both were, one just like the other ; 
 their bright eyes roving round the room in the 
 purposeless way of bright eyes conscious of
 
 218 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 their beauty, their voices clanging with loud 
 but not unmelodious force, and their whole 
 manner and appearance curiously suggestive of 
 audacity, defiance and good-temper. 
 
 "How do you do, Mrs. Morshead?" both 
 said in a breath. "What a lovely day, isn't 
 it ? How do you do, Augusta dear ? Isn't it 
 splendid weather ? " 
 
 " I never remember such splendid weather, 
 do you?" Grip went on to say, in her loud, 
 clear voice that reminded you of a cascade, it 
 was so hurried, impetuous, and continuous. 
 "And they say it's going to last for ever so- 
 long ; that's awfully jolly news, isn't it ? And 
 so we are going to give a picnic on the strength 
 of it ; and you will come to it, of course, 
 Augusta? All our friends are coming, and 
 some from London, too. The Cowley boys will 
 be here, and our own boys are at home now — 
 Jemmy came last night " — Jemmy was a young 
 sub-lieutenant in the navy, waiting for his ship 
 — "and Colonel Moneypcnny, nice old boy, 
 says that he will come too and bring the 
 champagne ; and Sandro Kemp is to put us all 
 into a picture — and Sandro is a great admirer of 
 yours, Augusta, and is always talking about 
 you ; so is Colonel Moneypcnny, too— so you will 
 have two strings to your bow if you come ; and,,
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHEIiS. 210 
 
 as times go, that is a very fair allowance for 
 one woman and more than any one else will 
 have ! " 
 
 Here Gip laughed like a musical peal of 
 thunder, and Pip laughed too, for company. 
 Mrs. Morshead shot out her under-lip and put 
 up her hands to her head. 
 
 " Good gracious ! " she said crossly. 
 
 "What is the matter with you, Mrs. Mors- 
 head ? " asked Pip sympathetically. " Have you 
 a headache ? I'm aw^fully sorry, I'm sure ! 
 Headaches must he such awfully disgusting^ 
 things. I never had one in my life, except 
 when I fell from the apple-tree and pitched 
 right on the back of my poor little nut. And 
 then it ached like fury. I thought it w^as all 
 over with me, and I w^as never so frightened 
 in my life. It was sickening. But it taught 
 me to he careful how I trusted to those horrid 
 old rotten branches again. The apples were 
 prime, for all that, and worth a spill that didn't 
 quite do for one." 
 
 ^' Perhaps, Miss Pennefather, you wall be good 
 enough to translate what you have said into 
 English," said Mrs. Morshead, when Pattie 
 stopped to take breath. '' I am not of the new 
 school, I am thankful to say, and I do not 
 imderstand slang."
 
 220 "Ji/r LOVEr' 
 
 *' Oh, I am sure, T am awfully sorry if I slung- 
 you any slang," said Pip penitentially. '' You 
 see we are so used to it from the boys when 
 they come home that it slips out when one 
 doesn't mean it. But, indeed, every one talks 
 slang nowadays ; you can't get on without. A 
 girl looks such a stick when she does not talk 
 like the rest ; and I hate sticky girls. Neither 
 George nor I are sticks ; and we don't patronize 
 the breed at home." 
 
 And at this she laughed in her turn, and Grip 
 joined in without knowing why ; and again 
 Mrs. Morshead put np her hands to her ears and 
 shot out her under-lip. 
 
 " Upon my word, Miss Pennefather, you and 
 your sister are the two very noisiest j^oung 
 ladies of my acquaintance," she said angrily. 
 
 Pip laughed and Gip laughed. 
 
 "" Well, I grant you, Mrs. Morshead, we are 
 not of the mealy-mouthed mum kind," said the 
 former, whose turn it was this time to under- 
 take the terrible old woman. It had been her 
 sister's in their last visit. 
 
 " You might be more like ladies and yet not 
 mum or mealy-mouthed, as you elegantly ex- 
 press it," said Mrs. Morshead. " You are like 
 two — I don't know what, in a room." 
 
 " Oh, we are nothing!" cried Pip audaciously.
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHEBS. 221 
 
 "' You should hear the boys, how they sing out 
 all over the place ! They make such a row that 
 sometimes you can hardly hear yourself speak. 
 Even Mater, who is the dearest old lady in the 
 world, can't always stand it, and is obliged to 
 tell them to shut up. And when Jemmy comes 
 home, it is just awful, the stramash that goes on 
 from morning to night ! But Jem is awfully 
 good fun and spins the jolliest yarns ! He is a 
 dear old man, and looks awfully handsome in 
 liis uniform, with all its gagits ! " 
 
 . ;" No ; I cannot and will not bear it ! " cried 
 ^Irs. Morshead, roused to that point of disgust 
 which lies beyond endurance. " Miss Penne- 
 father, your language is simply disgraceful ; and 
 if your own parents allow you to use words 
 which are never heard in any ladv's drawino^- 
 room, I do not. In my house, you will please 
 to remember, that you are talking to a lady and 
 you will behave like ladies — if you can." 
 " I am awfully sorry — " began Pip. 
 
 ;'"No, you are not awfully sorry — not awfully 
 anything," interrupted Mrs. ^lorshead. " I am 
 very glad if you feel ashamed of yourself, 
 Ijecause then perhaps you may improve ; but 
 there is no improvement possible while you use 
 that most objectionable and foolish expression." 
 Pip looked at her sister and made a slight
 
 222 "j/r LovEr' 
 
 grimace ; her sister looked at her and repeated 
 the sign. 
 
 " I think it's time to go, Patrick," said Gip 
 as a diversion. " We have no end of things to 
 do, you know. So you'll be sure to come next 
 Wednesday ? " she added, turning to Augusta. 
 " At Crossings Bridge, remember ; two o'clock 
 sharp ; and if possible to bring a basket of 
 gooseberries, do. You have awfully fine ones I 
 know ; and fruit is always good gear in a 
 picnic." 
 
 " What are you saying ? What are you 
 asking ? " said Mrs. Morshead savagely. 
 
 " We are giving a picnic, and we w^ant 
 Augusta," said Gip boldly. 
 
 " My daughter cannot go," said Mrs. Mors- 
 head ; and as she spoke she planted her heavy 
 old feet firmly on the footstool. 
 
 ''Oh, Mrs. Morshead ! " cried both the sisters 
 together. " It will not be half the fun without 
 Augusta." 
 
 '' Mrs. Latrobe has her duties at home," said 
 the terrible old woman, fixing her eyes with a 
 stony stare on her daughter. 
 
 The delicate pink flush came up on the 
 comely cheeks, but Augusta's voice and manner 
 were as smooth and soft and unruffled as they 
 always were.
 
 THOSE MISS rENNEFATHERS. 223 
 
 " Do you want rne at home, mamDia ? " slie 
 asked with perfect serenity. 
 
 " Do I want you at home ? AThat an absurd 
 question ! " said Mrs. Morshead. '' I do not 
 want you at home, if you mean that, for you are 
 not of much use to me at any time ; but I 
 should like to know w^hat is to become of that 
 boy of yours if you go out for the whole day 
 like this ? Do you expect me to be his nurse ? 
 And you know that I strongly object to his 
 being in the kitchen with the servants." 
 
 " Oh, Tony comes too ! He is such a jolly 
 little chap, and we are all so fond of him," said 
 Gip. " Certainly, you must bring the old 
 man ! " she added to Augusta. '' That need not 
 keep you ; so now of course you will come ? " 
 
 " If you really do not want me at home, 
 mamma, it would be pleasant for the child and 
 would keep him out of your way," said Augusta, 
 to whom the prospect of a day's freedom from 
 her mother was a boon too great to be refused 
 if in any way possible to be accepted. 
 
 " Anything for pleasure and gadding about," 
 said Mrs. Morshead. " At your age, Augusta — 
 a widow as you are, with a dear little boy to 
 educate and look after — I wonder at you for 
 your greediness after amusement ! It is not 
 decent. When a woman has been married and
 
 224 "ii/r Lovur' 
 
 left a widow as you have been — and under all 
 the peculiar circumstances of your case" — she 
 added with cruel significance, " I think she 
 ought to content herself with home and home 
 duties, and leave all this idleness to young 
 ladies like the Miss Penne fathers for instance — 
 young ladies who have nothing to think of, and 
 no heads for anything but pleasure if they had.'* 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Morshead, a little fun is good for 
 every one," said Pattie. " And Augusta is so 
 nice in a thing of this kind." 
 
 " Of course I would not go if you did not 
 wish it, mamma," said Augusta cheerfully. 
 " But if you do not want me for anything, 
 indeed I should like it. You are going to 
 Greenhill Falls, you say ? " turning to dip. 
 " It is years and years since I was there. I 
 should like it so much if I can be spared." 
 
 " As for sparing you, I can spare you well 
 enough," answered Mrs. Morshead ; " for you do 
 not make yourself so very useful, Augusta, that 
 you cannot be spared, if that is what you mean. 
 What I object to is the principle. A woman of 
 your age, and after what should have been such 
 a sobering experience, flying over the country 
 with a parcel of giddy gigglers just as if you 
 were a girl yourself — it is not becoming and 
 not decent, as I said."
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHERS. 225 
 
 " Just this once, Mrs. Morshead ! " pleaded 
 Gip. 
 
 " She will help to keep all of us young ones 
 in order," added Pip. 
 
 " It would be very nice to see the dear old 
 Falls again," said Augusta. '' I remember so 
 well the first time I went with you, mamma. I 
 was just my little Tony's age, and I remember 
 how you took me in your arms and carried me 
 over the wet places in the field." 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed Mrs. Morshead, shaking her 
 head ; " there are not many such mothers as I 
 was to you, Augusta. And finely you have 
 repaid me ! But I have never been hard to 
 you, bad a daughter as you have been to me. 
 If you want to go and take the child with you I 
 am sure I do not wish to stand in your way. I 
 do not like all this gadding about, as you know, 
 but I do not care for mere lip-service, mere 
 grudging obedience. Go if you like. I do not 
 mind being left alone all the day with no one to 
 speak to. I am used to my loneliness. Oh, yes, 
 certainly ; go and enjoy yourself. Do not mind 
 me. I am an old woman of no good to any one 
 — only fit to be dead and buried." 
 
 " Not quite that, mamma," said Augusta ; 
 " but if you really do not care " — turning to 
 Gip she added ; " I will be at Crossing's Bridge 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 "i¥r LOVE!'' 
 
 next Wednesday, at ten o'clock punctually ; and 
 I dare say mamma will let me bring a basket 
 of gooseberries with us." 
 
 " Shall I order Page to give you all the 
 peaches and grapes in the hothouse ? ' asked 
 Mrs. Morshead sarcastically. 
 
 " Oh, thanks, Mrs. Morshead ! " answered Pip 
 with exasperating gratitude. " That would be 
 good gear! How awfully jolly! You are 
 really quite too awfully good ! " 
 
 " Well, as I am not quite a fool I do not 
 think I will empty my hothouse for your 
 picnic," said Mrs. Morshead, still satirically. 
 
 On which the two girls laughed, as at a good 
 joke, and then took their leave. Grip saying in a 
 whisper to Augusta : 
 
 " And mind you make yourself awfully kill- 
 ing, for I want you to look your very best. 
 We are not going to have a single stick among 
 us, and we are going in for a pocketful of fun 
 all round. It is jolly that you are coming," she 
 added affectionately. " We were in an awful 
 fright that you wouldn't be let." 
 
 " Well ! " said Grip to Pip, as soon as they 
 had got safely outside the door ; ''of all the 
 awful old toads that ever lived that Mrs. Mors- 
 head is the worst ! How I pity that poor, dear 
 Augusta, and what an angel she is ! "
 
 THOSE MISS PENNEFATHERS. 227 
 
 " If I had such a scarecrow for my mother, 
 I would give her pepper, and make it hot," 
 answered reckless Pip. " Ugh ! It gives the 
 back shivers ! " she added, shuddering. " I 
 declare I feel as if I was all over nasty creechers- 
 crawl-up-yer." 
 
 " She is a horror," returned Grip. " How I 
 wish that stupid old Moneypenny would make 
 up his mind and marry poor Augusta out of 
 hand. It would be only charity to save her 
 from such an old Turk as that mother of hers. 
 Poor Augusta ! What a life she must lead ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't be her for five thousand a year," 
 said Pip energetically. " I would rather sweep 
 a crossing or break stones on the road ! " 
 
 " I should prefer the crossing," said Gip with 
 a reflective air. " It's good gear to sweep a 
 crossing in a club-street; and one would get 
 one's self up to look awfully killing in a Dolly 
 Varden." 
 
 " And perhaps catch a lord," said low-minded 
 Pip. 
 
 " That would be jolly," returned her sister. 
 " What would you be married in, Patrick ? " 
 
 " Cream-satin," said Pip with commendable 
 promptitude. " What would you, George ? " 
 
 " Cream-satin, too," was the answer. 
 
 And then they both went off into a dis-
 
 228 "JfF LOVE!'' 
 
 cussion on those extremely problematical bridal 
 dresses of theirs, and those wedding tours 
 which at present were all about the grounds of 
 Spanish Castles ; and agreed, as they always 
 did, down to the last square inch of " kilting," 
 and the remotest little fact of their journey. 
 
 They had never quarrelled since they were 
 born ; and in the family they were known by 
 the name of the Doves, when not the Insepar- 
 ables or the Siamese, Castor and Pollux femi- 
 nina, or the Cherry bles — which last word had 
 the advantage of uniting two ideas in one skin, 
 according to the phraseology of sub-lieutenant 
 Jemmy, whose brilliant idea it was.
 
 ( 229 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE FAMILY AT SHERRARDIXE. 
 
 It was the loudest, noisiest, best tempered, most 
 unscliolarly and most generous family in tlie 
 county. There was not a potential genius nor 
 a present student among them, but there was 
 not a coward nor a " crab," as they called the 
 cross-grained when speaking among themselves 
 — not one who would have told a lie to have 
 saved his life, nor who would have forfeited his 
 honour to have redeemed his fortune. 
 
 There were six of them for the first and 
 most important batch — the twins leading off 
 the family ball, as they used to say, followed 
 in less than a year by Jemmy, the sub- 
 lieutenant, with three other boys all treading 
 on each other's heels as closely as might be. 
 Then came a gap of ten years, when the circle 
 was finally closed by the advent of a pretty 
 little girl as the general plaything and uni-
 
 230 ''MY LOVEr' 
 
 versal delight. Thus the family proper — Nora 
 not counting ; being a kind of offset and 
 common property — had the appearance of being 
 all of one age. For Jack, the youngest, was 
 as tall and almost as strong at seventeen as 
 was Jemmy at twenty ; and among the four 
 there was not half an inch of difference in 
 height nor two pounds to spare in weight. 
 The whole six were fashioned after the same 
 pattern — the boys being just as dark-haired, 
 as bright-eyed, as loud-voiced and as socially 
 audacious as the Doves : and, to a stranger, it 
 was the oddest as well as the most bewildering 
 thing in the world to see them all assembled 
 together. It was impossible to tell which was 
 which, until you had learned the minor signs. 
 Even in the family itself mistakes in voices 
 and backs were continually being made ; and, 
 as for G-eorgie and Pattie, no one knew one 
 from the other without her distinctive brooch. 
 It was one of the favourite amusements of these 
 two curly-headed young scamps to play prac- 
 tical jokes on the household by reason of their 
 strange resemblance ; and good-humoured rows 
 were always going on because Jemmy said it 
 was Grip who had picked that ripe peach which 
 he had been watching, and Jack swore that it 
 was Pip, and neither of the accused would tell
 
 THE FAMILY AT SHERRABDINE. 23 L 
 
 which it was. When they changed or took off 
 their signboards, as their silver name-brooches 
 were generally called, not the mother herself 
 knew them apart. And if she did not who 
 else could ? As for the boys, they borrowed 
 each other's names and wore each other's 
 clothes with perfect impartiality ; and thus the 
 Pennefather family had a queer shifting phan- 
 tasmagoric kind of personality which made each 
 member responsible for the follies committed 
 by the whole together, to the destruction of all 
 identity and the accumulation of individual 
 blame. 
 
 It might have been supposed that the father 
 and mother would have done something to 
 keep all these turbulent elements in some kind 
 of order ; but Mr. Pennefather was still only 
 a great boy himself, and Mrs. Pennefather was 
 one of those good-tempered, careless kind of 
 women who never look beyond the day, and 
 who only desire to see people happy about 
 them. Her motherhood was comprised in two 
 things only — to keep her children in good 
 health and to let them be happy in their own 
 way. She would have been very glad if they 
 could have sucked in learnino' with their 
 oranges, but she objected to their being forced 
 to learn against their will ; and she would
 
 232 "iiT LOVEl'' 
 
 rather tliey were well-grown, vigorous, liglit- 
 hearted dunces than leaders of the world's best 
 thoughts by the sacrifice of the sunshine and 
 laughter of their youth. She had married 
 when only just seventeen ; so that both she and 
 her husband were even now in the very zenith 
 of their own lives and far more the play-fellows 
 than the guides or rulers of their children. 
 Add to which, the consciousness of her aristo- 
 cratic lineage, which lifted them above the level 
 of the village-herd and absolved them from the 
 obligation of class conformity and spiritless 
 respect for other people's prejudices, and just 
 so much income as gave them all they wanted 
 — with a scramble — and their wildness, their 
 audacity, their ingrained Bohemianism can be 
 accounted for ; if to some the explanation 
 carried with it no justification ; — as especially 
 did it not to Mrs. Morshead and that other 
 member of her social bete noire, Mr. Brans- 
 combe. 
 
 To Mr. Branscombe indeed, this noisy, un- 
 scholarly and uncesthetic family was intensely 
 antipathetic ; and he and Mrs. Morshead drove 
 their little chariots of condemnation side by 
 side over the Pennefather course ; though even 
 here they did not agree, save in their joint end 
 of vilifying these social abominations.
 
 THE FAMILY AT SEEBBABDISE. 233 
 
 To express his feelings, as well as to relieve 
 his mind, the elegant Mr. Branscombe once 
 drew a caricature which represented all the 
 Pennefathers as rather curious-looking savages 
 shooting arrows at an Apollo, crowned with 
 bay and holding his lyre in his hand. The 
 figure which did duty for the great god of 
 light and poetry had as much of his own like- 
 ness as he could manage to give it ; and the 
 drawing was after his special manner — proudly 
 independent of anatomy, proportion and per- 
 spective. The arrows were going all ways but 
 the right, and would have hit the moon sooner 
 than the god ; and the eight savages were very 
 little above the artistic ability of the plough- 
 boy's chalk-drawing on the barn door. But 
 Mr. Branscombe saw in it his intention rather 
 than the execution, and, under solemn promise 
 of secrecy from each in turn, handed it about 
 among the neighbours. And all save Mrs. 
 Morshead basely laughed and hypocritically 
 pronounced it clever and wonderfully amusing. 
 But the terrible old woman, who also scorned 
 a lie, when she gave it back said to Mr. Brans- 
 combe : 
 
 '' Well ! all I can say is, this is not my idea 
 of drawing; and those things are no more 
 ]ike the Pennefathers than they are like me.
 
 234 "3IY LovEr' 
 
 They are not human beings at all ; you might 
 as well call them tadpoles at once." 
 
 " Ah, my dear lady," said Mr. Branscombe 
 with sublime tranquillity ; "it takes an educa- 
 tion to understand true art. Only artists can 
 appreciate artists." 
 
 To which Mrs. Morshead snapped for answer : 
 
 " I know a good thing when I see it, as well 
 as any one else. But I don't call that good. 
 I call it a horrid daub." 
 
 Mr. Branscombe never forgave that criti- 
 cism, nor since then had he set foot in Mrs. 
 Morshead's house ; and he vowed he never 
 would. 
 
 It mattered little to the Pennefathers whether 
 Mr. Branscombe caricatured them or no. The 
 whole family held him in the supremest con- 
 tempt, as a poor creature not worth powder and 
 shot and to be passed over with the contempt 
 which great dogs feel for little ones. They 
 laughed at his aesthetics, his foppery and his 
 vanity ; and he ridiculed the want in them of 
 all that they despised in him, and added to it 
 contempt for the manliness or vigour on which 
 they most prided themselves. They thought 
 him a jackass and he thought them earth- 
 worms ; they would not have given sixpence 
 for all his art in a lump, and he would not
 
 THE FAMILY AT SEEBRABDINE. 235 
 
 have given a penny for all their stamina and 
 tone. 
 
 So the little quarrel ran along the highway 
 of life between Sherrardine and Rose Hill ; but 
 when poor Mrs. Branscombe died, it was Mr. 
 Pennefather who wrote the most feeling note ; 
 it was Mrs. Pennefather who gave Stella the 
 most sympathetic kiss on that first visit of con- 
 dolence ; and it was the six savages who, on the 
 day of the funeral, felt the most dismal and 
 sorrowful of all at Highwood, save Augusta 
 Latrobe and Mrs. Prinsep. Blunt brains for 
 the finer work of intelligence — these they un- 
 doubtedly had ; but the creatures had good 
 hearts ; and if logarithms were as a sealed 
 book to them, human kindness was their daily 
 primer. Resentment and constancy of ill- 
 feeling were as little in their way as the higher 
 branches of mathematics or the Hegelian philo- 
 sophy. "When the grave closed over the dead 
 it closed also over the last shred of " misunder- 
 standing ; " and even Mr. Branscombe, who had 
 all the tenacity of estrangement proper to a 
 vain man, was forced to accept the olive-branch 
 and bury the hatchet. This came all the more 
 easy to him inasmuch as he received their frank 
 surrender, not as sympathy with his sorrow, 
 but as homage to his personality ; and to pay
 
 236 "iMY LOVEr' 
 
 homage to Mr. Branscombe was to possess 
 yourself of that sentiment which did service 
 with him for friendship. 
 
 The one blot in the picnic that was to come 
 off was the fact that Stella Branscombe would 
 not be there. 
 
 " I suppose it is impossible," said Jemmy 
 with a slightly sombre air. 
 
 The Doves always accused Master Jemmy of 
 being " hard hit in that quarter." 
 
 " Oh, well ! " said Grip opening her eyes ; "I 
 don't think it would quite do to go to a picnic 
 when one's mother has not been dead six weeks. 
 What a muif you are, Jem, to talk such 
 rubbish ! " 
 
 " I don't see what harm it would do," said 
 Jemmy. " It must be awfully slow for the poor 
 girl to be shut up all the day long with only 
 old Branscombe. I dare say he reads his poetry 
 to her and plays on the piano as he used in 
 poor Mrs. Branscombe's time. How sick I 
 should be ! I'd rather be mast-headed than 
 listen to one of old Branscombe's yarns 1 " 
 
 " So would I," said Gip. 
 
 '^ How could you be mast-headed, Gip, when 
 you are only a girl ? " asked Jemmy gravely ; 
 for though given to practical jokes the family, 
 as a family, was profoundly literal.
 
 THE FAMILY AT SHEBBARDINE. 237 
 
 " No, I don't suppose I could be. My petti- 
 coats would come in the way/' said Gip ; and 
 then they both laughed as at a good joke, the 
 point of which was intelligible only to them- 
 selves. 
 
 " It must be awfully jolly to be a sailor and 
 a boy," said Gip after they had finished their 
 laugh and come back to such common sense as 
 they possessed. 
 
 " It's not all honey, I can tell you ! " said 
 Jemmy. " One gets pepper pretty often ; and 
 then it's stinging hot and no mistake ! " 
 
 " Then you shouldn't do anything to get 
 pepper," said Gip sagely. " You could keep out 
 of it if you liked." 
 
 "Oh, it's all very well to say that, Gip ! " said 
 Jemmy from the height of his superior wisdom. 
 " But no fellow can keep out of it ; and I do 
 believe those fellows give it to us to keep their 
 hands in and just for the fun of the thing. 
 Why the very blue-jackets say we often get 
 jawed at when we don't deserve it ; and so we 
 do ; and it's a shame. But it's jolly fun all the 
 same," added the good-tempered young fellow 
 laughing again ; '' and I dare say the youngsters 
 are too cocky and want it taken out of them." 
 
 " I think you are improved, Jem," said Gip 
 critically.
 
 238 "J/r LOVEr' 
 
 " Think so ? " he answered. " If I'm not I 
 ouglit to be, for I've been jawed at often 
 enough ! " 
 
 " I dare say it did you good," said Grip, still 
 critical. 
 
 " What did him good ? " asked Mr. Penne- 
 father coming into the room. 
 
 " Being jawed at," continued Grip, with no 
 more consciousness of vulgarity than she had 
 of crime. 
 
 " Ah ! you youngsters want the dust taken 
 out of your jackets," said the father of the flock, 
 neglecting his duty of rebuke mainly because 
 he did not see it. 
 
 " Well, Pater, you didn't like it when you 
 were a youngster yourself," said Jemmy. " And 
 I don't suppose any one ever did." 
 
 " I don't suppose they did, Jem ; but it has to 
 be done all the same," answered his father 
 laughing. 
 
 And then all three laughed, as Jem and Gip 
 had laughed before; the moving cause, which 
 would have been invisible to every one else, 
 somehow clear as daylight to them. And at 
 the sound of that well-known peal Pip, who was 
 never very far from her companion Dove, came 
 jumping through the open window, loudly 
 demanding what the fun was all about and 
 what was up ?
 
 THE FAMILY AT SHERBABDINE. 239 
 
 And when her sister answered : " Pater says 
 we youngsters have to be jawed at for our 
 good," Pip joined in the fun, and they went 
 through a second edition with as much hearty 
 zeal as they had gone through the first. 
 
 Undoubtedly they were the most mindless 
 and unpoetic set of intellectual savages to be 
 found within the four seas — and Mr. Brans- 
 combe's refined contempt was so far justified. 
 And yet, might there not be something better 
 even than art and poetry and philosophy ? — 
 Something that atoned for those unidealizing 
 brains, that childish laughter, those compara- 
 tively low aims of life ? — Something that re- 
 deemed this endless rollick from absolute folly, 
 because showing that it was not heartlessness if 
 it was unquestionably mental vacuity ? 
 
 To be happy in themselves, inoffensive to 
 others, to abjure all active ill-nature and to 
 do such good as they could in charity to the 
 poor, made about the sum of their philosophy. 
 No pessimist could have ever taught them the 
 value of discontent, the good of doubt and dis- 
 belief of mankind at large, or the virtue of turn- 
 ing outwards all the seamy sides of every person 
 and every thing. No political economist could 
 have convinced them of the sin of almscrivino^ 
 or the evil of going beyond the market-price in
 
 240 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 wages or gratuities. They were utterly and 
 entirely dense on both these points ; and it was 
 fighting with bags of wool to demonstrate to 
 them the enormity of charity or the check given 
 to the progress of humanity and the improve- 
 ment of things by the sin of cheerfulness and 
 contentment. 
 
 Even now, when the last explosion of laughter 
 because Pater had said jawing was a good thing 
 for the young, had ceased, a characteristic piece 
 of their general iniquity was perpetrated. Old 
 Betty Bailey came whining up to the front door 
 with her usual story of hunger and distress ; 
 and would the kind gentleman give her six- 
 pence ? for indeed she was but badly off, and 
 ailing. And Mr. Pennefather, instead of send- 
 ing her about her business and threatening her 
 with the constable and the lock-up and the 
 dread Bench on the Saturday, to teach her how 
 to beg the next time, ordered the old sinner into 
 the kitchen, where a glass of good beer, a loaf of 
 bread and a screw of tea were given her, though 
 every one knew that she made up, from one 
 thing and another, nigh on four shillings a 
 week ; and it is possible to live on sixpence a 
 day. On the basis of that sixpence a day Betty 
 Bailey was rich ; and if she would but have 
 abjured tea and tobacco she would soon have
 
 THE FAMILY AT SHEBBABDINE. 241 
 
 been a capitalist. Instead of which, with her 
 wealth of four shillings a week and potential 
 saving of two in the month, she came begging 
 and crying to Sherrardine ; and Mr. Penne- 
 father gave her doles just as if she had been 
 poor enough to need them ! 
 
 It was pauperizing the neighbourhood, of 
 course, to go on like this ; but the master of 
 Sherrardine could not be made to see the thing 
 in the right light or be brought to confess 
 that he was wrong. Lectured and argued 
 with by travelling economists he stuck to his 
 point with the tenacity of a woman, and held 
 on to his peg when the ground had been 
 cut to ribbons beneath his feet. He had 
 only one argument, and he used it with ex- 
 asperating consistency, even when he had been 
 proved guilty of an offence to the community at 
 large. 
 
 " The poor creatures are very badly off," he 
 used to say. " I cannot sit in my own comfort- 
 able home with a good fire and a good dinner 
 and not feel for their wretchedness. And if I 
 feel for them I must help them ; and political 
 economy may go to the deuce." 
 
 He was a dense, woolly-headed unscientific 
 son of Adam, granted ; but there were men in 
 the world perhaps a little worse than he — men 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 ''MY LOVE I" 
 
 to whom he could have given weight, yet ridden 
 far past on the road which we generally call 
 the road to Heaven ; and, all things considered, 
 society would not have made a bad bargain of it 
 had it exchanged a few wiry prim-set virtues 
 for some of his soft and generous faults. 
 
 They were all in the same way — all generous, 
 open-handed, good-natured people who made 
 war only against peevishness and churlishness 
 in all their forms, and who thought life 
 eminently worth living for all who did their 
 duty and let unpleasant things slide. 
 
 After old Betty Bailey had been disposed of 
 and the girls had told their experience at The 
 Laurels — how cross Mrs. Morshead was and 
 how sweet and placid Augusta ; after they had 
 reckoned up for the twentieth time the names 
 and numbers of their expected guests at the pic- 
 nic, and who was to bring what, they walked 
 off to the billiard-room ; Pater taking Pip and 
 Jemmy joining with Grip. The girls were as 
 fond of sport and games as their brothers and 
 knew all the tricks with rod and gun and cue, 
 with pistol, cards and dice, just as if they too 
 had been born with the privilege of wearing 
 knicker-bockers and into the inheritance of 
 beards. They knew a few things more for 
 which the world did not give them the credit
 
 THE FAMILY AT SEERRARDINE. 243 
 
 they deserved ; as, for instance, liow to em- 
 broider workhouse sheeting into extraordinarily 
 showy dresses looking as if they had cost, as 
 they would have said, a pot of money, but of 
 which the mercantile value was only a few 
 shillings. They could trim their hats so as to 
 fill the souls of their companions with envious 
 admiration, but the material was little better 
 than rags and snippets ; and they could make 
 their own gowns with the help of fashion-books 
 and here and there a pattern which they bought 
 or borrowed, and which, being audacious and 
 extreme, they always exaggerated beyond the 
 line allowed by others. They were thoroughly 
 handy girls, albeit of the tom-boy and auda- 
 cious kind ; though it must be confessed their 
 work would not bear looking into and told 
 best at a distance. But they kept all this 
 industry, for which no one gave them credit, 
 for the long winter evenings when the boys 
 were away and no out-of-door amusements 
 were to be had. In the summer they would 
 have thought it a kind of high treason against 
 the meaning of their existence had they pored 
 over needlework instead of spreading themselves 
 abroad in the garden and woods ; and to " amuse 
 the boys, poor old chaps," when they came home 
 for their holidays from school, where they
 
 244 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 practised every virtue but tliat of sticking^ to 
 their lessons, was tlie first duty iu the Penne- 
 father catalogue. Still, the Doves had the 
 germs of domesticity in them ; and, provided all 
 the windows might be open night and day — in 
 snow-time as in sunshine — provided they might 
 jump into ice-cold water every morning and 
 take a twelve mile walk, or its equivalent, every 
 day — they would make'good wives and managers 
 enough. At all events, their homes would 
 never be wanting in pleasantness nor amia- 
 bility. 
 
 As soon as they got into the billiard-room, 
 the mother and the other boys joined them ; for 
 they were always together when in the house ; 
 and the game went on with spirit. The four 
 were fairly matched, and each made as good 
 play as the other; and when any one made a 
 miss or a fluke the whole family gave tongue at 
 once and the uproar was simply deafening. 
 Jack and Bob bet on Pip and Pater, Mater and 
 Dick on Gip and Jem ; and the interest was at 
 its height, when the sound of wheels on the 
 gravel, a loud ring at the bell and a sudden 
 scuffling of feet and chorus of voices in the hall 
 brought things to a stand-still. A moment 
 after two well set-up young fellows came 
 striding into the room, followed by the servants
 
 THE FAMILY AT SnERRARDIXE. 245 
 
 all in grins, and half a dozen dogs leaping up 
 and barkiniz; a welcome. 
 
 Down went the cues and all abroad were 
 scattered the balls. Bets, spots, places and 
 play were forgotten, as the whole Pennefather 
 family converged to one point, and '* Well, Yal ! 
 Well, ^Jil ! " was shouted by the eight in 
 concert. 
 
 "Awfully glad to see you, boys," was Mr. 
 Pennefather's welcome ; '' but you have stolen 
 a march on us. We didn't expect you till half- 
 past six." 
 
 " We took the express and got out at Ling- 
 ston," said one of the young men ; " and then 
 drove over in a trap. It was better than knock- 
 ing about that smoky old Manchester." 
 
 " So it was ! " they all said together ; and 
 then they all laughed — as only the Pennefathers 
 knew how. 
 
 " Early or late, you are always welcome ! " 
 said Mrs. Pennefather prettily ; and the boys 
 and girls endorsed her statement with a volley 
 of: ''Oh, it's awfully jolly to have you sooner 
 than we expected ; " and : "It was awful good 
 fun that you thought of coming that way 1 " 
 
 To which the young men replied in the same 
 strain : " Yes, it was awful good fun ; and the 
 drive was quite too jolly ! "
 
 246 "ii/r LOVE!" 
 
 After this they all streamed out into the 
 drawing-room, where they had afternoon tea 
 and an " awfully jolly pile " of muffins, and 
 were as happy as youth, good health and un- 
 bridled spirits could make them. 
 
 The two young fellows, who had come over 
 in a dogcart from Lingston at the cost of 
 another five-and-twenty shillings rather than 
 knock about Manchester for a couple of hours, 
 were of much the same kind and class as the 
 Pennefathers themselves. Known individually 
 at Sherrardine as Yal and Mil — together as 
 the Cowley boys — the world in general recog- 
 nized them as Mr. Yalentine and Mr. Milford 
 Cowley, the only sons of Mr. and Mrs. Cowley, 
 of Greyhurst Manor, Warwickshire. It recog- 
 nized one of them too, as heir to a fine pro- 
 perty and winked its wicked eyes when it 
 discussed their intimacy with the Pennefathers. 
 " Birds of a feather," it said — Mrs. Morshead, 
 its spokeswoman ; " but it was very convenient 
 for genteel paupers like the Pennefathers to 
 have about them birds Avith golden feathers 
 like the young Mr. Cowleys ; and no doubt 
 those Miss Pennefathers would do their best 
 to catch them. But if old Mr. and Mrs. Cowley 
 did their duty they would put an end to the 
 whole thing and take their sons out of danger.
 
 THE FAMILY AT SHERBAEDINE. 247 
 
 The Cowley boys, indeed ! — Cowley fools if tliey 
 did not see the schemes that were on foot, and 
 victims if they gave in to them ! " 
 
 This was Mrs. Morshead's verdict, represent- 
 ing the suspicious and censorious ; but to no 
 one at Sherrardine had the chance of Yal or 
 Mil falling seriously in love with Gip or Pip 
 ever presented itself as yet — and if the thing 
 had been suggested to them they would have ex- 
 tinguished it by peals of interminable laughter.
 
 248 ''MY LOVE! 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE REWARD OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 Naturally, the picnic to be given next Wed- 
 nesday by the Pennefathers was the great 
 theme of present conversation at High wood. 
 It was to be a very grand affair, as the neigh- 
 bourhood counted grandeur ; and curiosity was 
 on tip-toe, together with hope and anticipation. 
 
 Miss Dawson, the milliner, was in high glee at 
 the whole affair. She was making a supremely 
 good thing out of it, for all the young ladies 
 had something new for the occasion, and trade, 
 which was generally so slack at the little town, 
 was stirred up into a very consolatory spasm 
 of briskness and vitality. 
 
 Every one in the place was asked, as well as 
 a fair sprinkling of those not immediately 
 bound up with the fortunes of High wood. 
 And among the rest Hortensia Lyon, with her
 
 THE BE WARD OF SACRIFICE. 249 
 
 parents and Randolph Mackenzie, was invited : 
 and no doubt was felt by the Pennefathers as 
 to the glad acceptance of the four. But Hor- 
 tensia, the pretty Puritan, was in the age when 
 works of supererogation and acts of quite un- 
 necessary self-sacrifice are more delightful than 
 any other pleasures. Yearning for distinction, 
 if not publicly in the eyes of men yet privately 
 and to herself, she could not take things easily 
 nor let herself go with the crowd. She must 
 stand apart, and take up a moral pose that 
 should single her out from the rest. She must 
 sacrifice what would seem to be her natural 
 inclination for the greater gain of her con- 
 science ; as now, in this matter of the picnic to 
 Greenhill Falls. 
 
 When the note of invitation, written in Gip's 
 big round sprawling hand, was brought to the 
 family at Derwent Lodge, and Mr. Lyon, look- 
 ing up from the chess-table where he was play- 
 ing a bad game against his wife's worse, said 
 kindly : " Good news for you, little maid ! " 
 and Mrs. Lyon, with motherly solicitude, 
 added : " And you shall have that pretty new 
 costume which Miss Dawson says she has just 
 got from Paris — I dare say it only came from 
 London — but it is the very thing for a picnic," 
 — Hortensia answered with pious primness :
 
 250 "ii/r LOVJEr' 
 
 " No ; I shall not go. When Stella Branseombe 
 is in such sorrow I do not think the Penne- 
 fathers should have given a picnic at all ; and 
 certainly I do not think that I ought to go 
 to it." 
 
 " Oh, Hortensia, I say ! " remonstrated Ean- 
 dolph. 
 
 " Stuff ! " said Mr. Lyon good-humouredly. 
 
 *' My dear ! " said the mother ; " you cannot 
 refuse the invitation. It will look so odd if 
 you, one of the young people of the place, 
 refuse. You must go, Hortensia." 
 
 " No, mother ; my conscience would not let 
 me," said Hortensia gravely. 
 
 "Stuff!" again repeated Mr. Lyon; "stuff 
 and nonsense, child. Are you going to make 
 yourself talked about all over the place ? " 
 
 "I do not care for that if I am conscious 
 that I am doing my duty," said Hortensia. 
 
 " All right as a matter of sentiment, I admit, 
 but the application does not fit," returned her 
 father. " There is no dereliction of duty in 
 going to a friendly picnic because poor Mrs. 
 Branseombe died six weeks ago. You cannot 
 live by the side of any grave, my child ; not 
 even by the side of your mother's, when that 
 
 sad time comes " — " Thank you, William ! " 
 
 said Mrs. Lyon with a displeased smile : — " Still
 
 THE BEWABD OF S AC B IF ICE. 251 
 
 less are you able to indulge in this kind of 
 enduring melancholy for one who was only the 
 mother of your friend." 
 
 " While Stella is unhappy I will not go to 
 balls and things ! " said Hortensia, raising her 
 pretty eyes with a sorrowful look. 
 
 " But Hortensia, I say ! " remonstrated Ean- 
 dolph for the second time. 
 
 To his good, uncritical and believing soul, 
 the self-sacrifice of his little cousin was heroic, 
 saintly, divine ; yet for all that his own grosser 
 humanity was too strong to make that act of 
 renunciation acceptable. He loved her for her 
 sweet and noble intention ; but he wanted it 
 to stop there and not go on into deed. 
 
 " Oh, it is only one of her fads ! The child 
 will never be such a fool. She will think better 
 of it when the time comes," said Mr. Lyon, 
 turning back to his game. " Check, my dear. 
 No, don't do that. If you cover with your 
 bishop I shall simply take him and you will 
 be no better off than before. And — no, you 
 cannot do that either. I have told you twenty 
 times, Cara, that you cannot castle out of check. 
 You cannot get out of it ; you are done for — 
 check ; check ; check and mate. And now, my 
 little maid, come here to me and let us make 
 an end of this last bit of silliness."
 
 252 . "MF LOVE!'' 
 
 ^' It is not silliness, father," said Hortensia 
 gravely. " I am quite in earnest." 
 
 " And you do not see tliat you are casting 
 a slur on others by your romantic self-sacrifice ? 
 You very good people never see that, it seems 
 to me." 
 
 " I am casting no slur on any one, father." 
 
 " No ? If it is right for you to abstain 
 because Mrs. Branscombe died six weeks ago, 
 then it is wrong for others to enjoy." 
 
 "It is right for me because I am Stella's 
 special friend," said Hortensia, drawing her lips 
 together. 
 
 " And your cousin, who is here only for a 
 short time ? " her father asked, with a merry 
 glance at Eandolph. 
 
 " Eandolph will not mind," said Hortensia. 
 
 " Oh, but I do," said Randolph with energy. 
 " I mind very much indeed, Hortensia. It 
 will be awfully slow without you or Stella 
 Branscombe ; and if you don't go I am sure I 
 don't care to either." 
 
 " And what will people say if two old folks 
 like your mother and me go to a thing of this 
 kind, when our child, for whose sake only all 
 these frivolous amusements should be under- 
 taken, stays at home? Yet, it will be a 
 pleasant day, and the outing will do your
 
 THE REWABD OF SAOBIFICE. 253 
 
 mother good ; and I shall not be sorry to go to 
 Greenhill Falls once more. It is two years 
 now since I was there. Besides, I like to see 
 young people happy. But what will people 
 say if we go and you do not, eh ? " 
 
 " It does not much signify what they say," 
 returned Hortensia, always in her character of 
 the faithful witness. " If you do not dislike 
 going, and do not think it wrong — • " She let 
 her sentence finish itself in silence. 
 
 " But if I insist ? " her father asked, with 
 very make-believe sternness and very trans- 
 parent severity. 
 
 She put her hand in his. 
 
 " You will not," she said with pretty 
 solemnity. 
 
 " But / do, Hortensia ; I do indeed," inter- 
 posed her mother hastily. " I think it is all 
 simply preposterous, and I insist on your going." 
 
 " No, mother, you will not force me to do 
 what I think wrong," said Hortensia. 
 
 " What exaggerated ideas you have, Hor- 
 tensia ! " said her mother a little hastily. " We 
 shall be having you find out that it is wrong to 
 laugh next. It is absurd altogether." 
 
 Of her own free will Mrs. Lyon would not 
 have " played " her daughter as did her hus- 
 band. Had she had the sole management of
 
 254 "71/F LOVE I" 
 
 this exaltee little head her rule would have been 
 more defined and her line considerably shorter. 
 
 " We cannot help that, Cara," said Mr. Lyon 
 hastily to his wife, speaking with something 
 like displeasure. ".She must think as she 
 likes ; of course we have only to take care that 
 she does not go too far in what she does." 
 
 It was a pity, certainly, but he always took 
 his daughter's part against her mother. He 
 never scolded her on his own side, even when 
 he finally forbade any overt act of folly; and 
 nothing annoyed him so much as his wife's 
 interference and rebukes. The fact was, he 
 allowed no one but himself to resist his little 
 maid ; and had Hortensia been sly, which she 
 was not, she would have always managed so 
 that her mother should have opposed her, sure 
 that then her father would have consented. 
 
 Mrs. Lyon sighed impatiently. 
 
 " You spoil her 1 " she said. 
 
 After which she took up her knitting and 
 kept an ostentatious and affronted silence. 
 
 " I should be sorry to make you unhappy, 
 my little maid, but I should be sorry to put a 
 slight on the kind-hearted Pennefathers, too," 
 continued Mr. Lyon, satisfied now that he had 
 the field to himself. 
 
 " It will not offend them because / do not go.
 
 THE BE WARD OF SAC n IF ICE. 255 
 
 ] am nobody. What matter can it make to 
 any one whether / go or stay away ? " said 
 Hortensia with recalcitrant humiHty. 
 
 '' It matters to ns and your cousin," answered 
 her father. 
 
 ^' If Randolph is going to take Orders, as I 
 hope he will, he might be better employed than 
 spending a whole day in idle gaiety. He 
 ought to begin now to give up the world." 
 
 She spoke with the prettiest little air of 
 puritanical primness conceivable ; but it was a 
 provoking little air, too, and once more roused 
 her mother out of her safe entrenchment. 
 
 " You take too much on yourself, Hortensia," 
 she said hastily and with undeniable good sense. 
 "At your age it is very unbecoming to take 
 this tone of setting all the world to rights and 
 being better than your neighbours. I am sick 
 of all this folly ; and I must insist on it that 
 you come to your senses and accept this invita- 
 tion like any other rational person." 
 
 " No, no, Cara, we can scarcely do that," 
 said Mr. Lyon. " The little maid must not be 
 forced to do what she really thinks wrong. 
 You see it is not anything very outrageous — 
 not like making herself a Zenana missionary, 
 or a hospital nurse, as was the craze a while 
 ago — eh, lassie ? But we cannot compel her
 
 256 "ii/r LOVEr' 
 
 against her conscienec. We can only persuade. 
 You take her in hand, Eandolph, and talk to 
 her," he continued, turning to his nephew for 
 whom he had so much affection as would will- 
 ingly have made him his son. " Perhaps she 
 will be guided by you. Young j)eople at your 
 age often understand each other better than we 
 old ones can." 
 
 " I am sure I shall not be guided by Ran- 
 dolph if I am not by you and mother ! " said 
 Hortensia, with a refreshingly natural outburst 
 of girlish scorn. " Randolph is not likely to 
 influence me," she added, meaning that she had 
 the loftier views and the wider intelligence, 
 and that it was she who took his mind in tow 
 not he who could steer hers. 
 
 " Well ! see what you can do. Ran," said 
 Mr. Lyon in the tone of one who is tired of a 
 discussion ; and the rest, taking the hint, 
 dropped the subject. 
 
 But Hortensia was left so far mistress of the 
 situation in that she had not been dislodged 
 from her position, and still kept her resolve to 
 sacrifice the day's pleasure to friendship and 
 to stand out from the common herd as the one 
 devoted and unselfish soul among the crowd of 
 self-seekers — the one faithful Abra who could 
 mourn with the mourners and sit in the dark-
 
 THE liEWAnn of sacrifice. 257 
 
 ness witli those whose sun liad gone out, not 
 only dance with those avIio piped and laugh 
 with those who were glad. 
 
 Meanwhile nothing more was said at Der- 
 went Lodge about the picnic, or who would or 
 would not go. The invitation was accepted 
 in general form ; and Mr. Lvon believed in his 
 power to make his little maid do as she ought 
 when the day really came. But the, mother, 
 who knew the signs of the times better than 
 he, enlightened as she was by the mysterious 
 sympathies of sex, saw only too clearly that 
 their tete montee enthusiast had determined to 
 go her own way, and that nothing was farther 
 from her thoughts than compliance with her 
 parents' wish to make one of the guests at the 
 Pennefathers' picnic. 
 
 '' It is all Willianls fault,*' said Mrs. Lyon 
 to herself. ''He has spoiled the child so terribly 
 there is no doing anything with her now. He 
 will never let me interfere, and she can twist 
 him round her little linger. If he would have 
 given me my proper authority over her, things 
 would have been very different." 
 
 And perhaps the poor dear woman was right ; 
 for without question Mr. Lyon had spoiled his 
 little maid, though he did prevent her from 
 doing anything irremediably absurd. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 "J/r LOVKr' 
 
 Sure enoug-li when the day did come — and it 
 was such a glorious day ! — there was Hortensia 
 in her black gown made with the ostentatious 
 simplicity, the evident intention of mourning, 
 which she had affected ever since Mrs. Brans- 
 combe's death. The delicate curves of her prim 
 little mouth were drawn into so many straight 
 lines ; her sleek hair was taken off her face 
 and bound round her head as smooth and tight 
 as if it had been so much spun-silk wound by 
 a machine round a wooden ball ; her whole 
 manner was instinct with that curious spirit of 
 silent Puritanism which made her the voiceless 
 preacher of Yanity and the nothingness of 
 human pleasure. 
 
 " We shall have a beautiful day," observed 
 Mr. Lyon, by way of opening the crusade. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " echoed his wife, looking straight 
 down her nose. 
 
 It was very naughty of her ; she felt that it 
 was ; but really she was glad that "William 
 should be made to feel how foolish he was in 
 spoiling the child as he did, and how much 
 wiser it would be to give her, the mother, 
 proper authority ! 
 
 " How are we going- ? " asked Mr. Lyon, as 
 if he had no doubts and no miso-ivino-s. " You 
 and I in the victoria, Cara ; and the two young'
 
 THE BEWAUD OF SACIUFICE. 259 
 
 ones in the dogcart ? You do not like the 
 dogcart, I know.'' 
 
 '^ I am not going, father," said Hortensia 
 simply. 
 
 She was not in the least degree excited. 
 "Was she not testifying ? 
 
 " Oh, stuff — yes, you are ! " he answered, 
 still cheerful and positive. " Why, I thought 
 we had done with all that nonsense, my little 
 maid ! Is it to come over again ? " 
 
 " I cannot go, father — I would so much rather 
 not ! " she repeated, tears coming into her eyes ; 
 for she was really in earnest, though she was 
 silly and over-conscious. " I have promised 
 Stella to spend the day with her. She will 
 feel so lonely, poor girl, to know that we are 
 all enjoying ourselves, and she left out.'' 
 
 The blood came into Mr. Lyon's face in a 
 flood, as it did when he was seriously annoyed. 
 He loved his little maid — no father better ; but 
 he liked to have his own way too ; he set store 
 by his parental authority ; and he had pro- 
 mised himself that he would make her yield in 
 this matter. 
 
 " I think you would scarcely like to disobey 
 me, Hortensia, if you knew how much you 
 pained me," he said very gravely. 
 
 " I am so sorry, father," she answered ; '* but 
 indeed it is against my conscience ! "
 
 200 '- MY LOVE!'-' 
 
 " Your conscience sliould lead you to obey 
 your father, Hortensia," said Mrs. Lyon un- 
 wisely. 
 
 '' Now, Cara, leave her to me ! " returned the 
 father sharply. " She and I understand each 
 other." 
 
 But if they did there was no outward and 
 visible sign thereof, save such as could be 
 found in Hortensia's red eyes and her father's 
 artificial contentment when, after half an hour's 
 private consultation in the study, both came 
 back into the drawing-room with the air of 
 people who have had a real quarrel and made 
 only a half patched-up j^eace. However that 
 might be, Mr. Lyon, heroically taking the 
 burden on himself, announced that, as his little 
 maid had such a strong objection, he would not 
 force her to go ; and while he spoke, Hortensia 
 stood by with the oppressed kind of self-gratu- 
 lation of a victor whose victory has cost her 
 dear — but who after all is victor. 
 
 '' You really do spoil her too much ! " said 
 Mrs. Lyon, with natural displeasure. " It is 
 not kind to her, William, to give her her own 
 wav in this manner. She should be made to 
 obey." 
 
 " You Icnow nothing about the matter, Cara," 
 answered her liusband irritablv. "If I sav
 
 THE BEWABD OF SACJUFICK. 2G1 
 
 tliat her reasons have convinced me that ought 
 to be enough for you." 
 
 " She makes a downright slave of you/' re- 
 turned Hortensia's mother, even more irritably 
 than the father had spoken. '' And every year 
 things get worse." 
 
 " I am master in my own house," said her 
 husband with a peremptory air. '- And it is 
 time that we were startino;." 
 
 All this time poor Eandolph had not spoken 
 a word, but he was in misery all the same. He 
 would have given half his fortune to have 
 escaped this picnic from which all the sweetness 
 and sunshine had gone. How far pleasanter it 
 would have been to have gone with Hortensia 
 to Rose Hill, where he too might have hoped to 
 cheer Stella Branscombe — Cyril Ponsonby's 
 Star and his ! But he knew that his best breed- 
 ing and his highest duty lay in simply accepting 
 the dry husks of what might have been such a 
 rich feast of enjoyment ; so, with a very sad 
 face and very reproachful eyes, he mounted tlie 
 cob that had been assigned to him, while ^Ir. 
 and Mrs. Lyon went on in the victoria, and 
 wrangled all the way. They were a very affec- 
 tionate couple as times go in this naughty 
 world ; but they were terribly put out to-day, 
 the one bv Hortensia's obstinacv aiid tlie other
 
 262 ",vr LOVEr' 
 
 by lier victory — and tliey revenged on each 
 otlier the annoyance for which she was to 
 blame. 
 
 So this was where the little Puritan's ex- 
 aggerated sense of right had led them all — to 
 the ill-humour and discomfort of her father and 
 mother; to the disappointment and gloomy 
 boredom of poor unoffending Randolph Mac- 
 kenzie ; and to the temporary annoyance of 
 half a dozen other people, and especially of the 
 kind-hearted Pennefathers themselves, who 
 '^ wanted the thing to go." 
 
 She gratified herself however, though she 
 pained so many ; and when she found herself at 
 Stella's — thanked, praised, condoled with for 
 her sacrifice and caressed with loving gratitude 
 by her friend — she thought that she had the 
 fairest slice of the day's great cake. Her slice 
 Avas even larger when Mr. Branscombe sent for 
 her to go into his studio, where he sat in his 
 elegant grey velvet costume, with the band of 
 white crape round his arm to mark his mourning 
 for a saint. 
 
 " This is just such a thing as I should have 
 expected from you ! " he said, holding Hor- 
 tensia's hand in his long, white, scented fingers : 
 ^'the delicate act of a faithful soul perfumed 
 with ano-elic sweetness."
 
 THE BEWALD OF SACBIFICE. 2G3 
 
 Hortensia blushed and looked delightfully 
 pretty. The praises of her own conscience 
 were pleasant, but Mr. Branscombe's were in- 
 toxicating. There was a fine nebulous sugges- 
 tiveness about them inexpressibly fascinating ; 
 •and she was not of the age to criticise or to 
 detect the difference between words without 
 meaning and full of lofty sound, and those 
 Avhich had a definite idea and an intelligible 
 thought. 
 
 Mr. Branscombe was her present ideal. He 
 represented to her all that was most pure and 
 poetic in man. She believed in his genius, in 
 his loftiness of mind, in the touchino- sincerity 
 ■of his love, in the noble simplicity of his life — 
 devoted as it was to Art, to Poetry, to Music — 
 to all which makes humanity beautiful, noble 
 and refined. And again she found herself 
 washing that her dear father were as delicate 
 and cesthetic as Stella Branscombe's ! If only 
 he had been, what a proud and happy daughter 
 she w^ould have been ! But she noticed that 
 Stella looked pale and weary, and that she said 
 almost eagerly : " It is such a beautiful day, 
 papa, may I not take Hortensia into the 
 g-arden ? " 
 
 '- And leave the Threnody unfinished ? — That 
 iDcautiful Threnody on your dear mother ? It is
 
 264 " j/r LOVE!" 
 
 not lialf copied vet, I see/' ^vas the reply made 
 with gentle reproach. 
 
 The girl sighed. 
 
 " I am not writing very well, to-day/' she 
 answered. " I have rather a headache ; perhaps- 
 a little fresh air will do me good." 
 
 " Let US all go," said Mr. Branscomhe, with a 
 touching kind of dignity in his self-surrender. 
 " My good little friend must not he saddened hy 
 too close contact with our grief. The fresh free 
 sky for the fresh free heart — flowers for the 
 young spirit — and the gay lilt of the glad birds 
 for the gentle soul whose world is music. I'es. 
 let us all go ! " 
 
 " What a splendid man your fatlicr is ! '" 
 whispered Hortensia with enthusiasm ; and 
 Stella lifting up her soft eyes full of love, 
 answered : 
 
 '' Yes, indeed, he is — splendid ! " And yet 
 she was sorry that he flattered her friend so- 
 very much ! It was scarcely good for her ! 
 
 " What happiness it must he to you to live 
 with him in such an atmosphere of mind and 
 beauty," continued Hortensia, her eyes glisten- 
 ing and her cheeks flushing. " All day long, 
 music and poetry — all day long, these deep 
 thoughts and noble words — and you privileged 
 to help in the work of such grand genius — you
 
 THE LEWABD OF SACBIFICE. 2G5 
 
 llio first to read and liear ! Ob, Stella, what a 
 life ! — how I envy you, my darling ! ho\y I wish 
 it was mine ! " 
 
 " It is indeed beautiful, and I am very much 
 to be envied. There are few fathers like mine," 
 answered Stella. 
 
 She sjDoke with perfect sincerity ; and yet 
 again she wondered, as she spoke, why she felt 
 so tired of her enviable position and still more 
 enviable work ; and wdiy she wished that she 
 might be sometimes alone, when the privilege 
 of her father's superior companionship was so- 
 great. She knew that his art was supreme and 
 of the purest quality ; but she was conscious of 
 a very strong and very reprehensible ^-earning- 
 to be able to read something beside his poetry, 
 to play more than his music, to look at other 
 than his pictures. And oh ! if he would but 
 turn to indifferent themes and leave her dear 
 dead mother's memory in sacred silence ! If he 
 would but leave off writing Threnodies and 
 Odes, dirges and funeral nocturnes which, he 
 said, it broke his heart to write and which she- 
 knew it broke hers to hear ! There was some- 
 thing in this incessant commemoration that 
 jarred on her, she did not know why ; but with 
 all her admiration for his genius it seemed a 
 desecration rather than, as he said, the conse-^
 
 2G0 'M/y lovjjI "' 
 
 cration of that blessed memory through the 
 homage of his love and tlie glory of his genius. 
 All this however she kept to herself, and the 
 <day of the picnic was passed at Hose Hill in 
 perfect peace and outward satisfaction ; Mr. 
 Branscombe alternately repeating his own poetry 
 and weaving glittering Avcbs of praise for Hor- 
 tensia Lyon — Ilortensia in the seventh heaven 
 of gratified vanity and genuine enthusiasm — 
 and Stella feeling as if her guard had been 
 relieved, and that she was free to wander off 
 into an independent dream-land of her own, 
 wherein she might meet her own true love, and 
 forget all the distance that lay between them 
 iind the sorrow that had overshadowed them.
 
 ( 2G7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 THE TRYST AT CROSSING'S BRIDGE. 
 
 The Pennefatliers were people wlio were 
 notoriously lucky in all their undertakings, and 
 whom Providence manifestly favoured. They 
 invariably brought their undertakings to a 
 successful issue, and when they gave picnics 
 and garden-parties the very elements themselves 
 conspired to make them go well. The national 
 superstition about Queen's weather was trans- 
 ferred at High wood to the family at Sherrardine ; 
 and halcyon days were certain when they 
 launched their pleasure-boats. Of course it 
 was just their luck to have such a glorious day 
 as was this special Wednesday, when all the 
 'COuntry-side, and some more into the bargain, 
 were gathered at the trysting place, en route 
 for G-reenhill Falls. 
 
 '- Fine day as usual ! *' shouted one.
 
 208 "J/r LOVE I" 
 
 " Pennefatlier weatlier! " said another. 
 
 "By George! I wish I had your luck/*^ 
 said Colonel Moneypenny, who was a pessimist 
 in philosophy and believed in his own persecu- 
 tion by fate. 
 
 ''When I want to succeed in anything I will 
 get tlie Miss Pennefathers to take a chance,'' 
 said Dr. Quigley, who had come to see the- 
 cohort set out, but whose professional duties; 
 prevented his joining in the fun. 
 
 He was a pleasant, well-liked and likely man 
 of about forty ; but though he paid compliments^ 
 to every unmarried woman in the place and 
 flirted in a mild way indiscriminately with all 
 alike, no one had yet found the spell which 
 should compel him to lay aside his bachelorhood 
 — no one had yet dipped the net which should 
 land him high and dry on the safe shores of 
 matrimony. His freedom was the standing- 
 puzzle of the place and almost as many explana- 
 tions were given of it as there are circumstances 
 in human life ; one bold guesser even suggesting 
 a wife and family in the background, while 
 another sketched out certain poor and disrejDU- 
 table relations who had to be kept out of his 
 income if he did not wish to see them in the 
 dock as thieves or in the Union as paupers. 
 
 Be that as it might, the cheery, likely and
 
 THE TRYST AT CROSSIXG'S BRIDGE. 2Gf) 
 
 well-liked baclielor doctor went on his own 
 way, equally ready with a joke or a piece of 
 gratuitous advice, half an hour's flirtation with 
 a pretty girl or a night's watching oyer a sick 
 boy ; knowing all the family secrets for ten 
 miles round and telling none of his own ; more 
 than once helping on a marriage that hung fire 
 but keeping well out of the range for his own 
 part ; loving his profession but always talking 
 of retiring ; constitutionally fond of pleasure 
 and given to all sorts of manly exercises, but 
 never allowing his personal desires to stand 
 between himself and the most irksome of his 
 duties. He was a fine fellow all round ; and, 
 not even excepting* Mr. Pennefather and Mr. 
 Lyon, both of whom were general favourites in 
 the place, he was, without doubt, the most 
 popular man in Highwood. 
 
 As he stood now by the side of Colonel 
 Moneypenny, with Sandro Kemp a little in 
 advance, he made by no means the least note- 
 worthy of a rather remarkable triad. All three 
 men were tall ; but, while Dr. Quigley was 
 hard and muscular, like a man accustomed to 
 an open air life, Sandro was softer in fibre 
 though as powerful in build, and the Colonel 
 w^as spare, wiry and witliout an ounce of 
 superfluous flesh on his whole body. In face the
 
 270 "MY LOVEr' 
 
 doctor was grave, smiling, cheerful, with quick 
 observant eyes and the look of one whose every 
 sense is sharpened by incessant use; Sandra 
 Kemp was grave, tender, reflective, seeing- 
 only certain things and seeing those only for 
 certain purposes ; while the Colonel had the 
 harassed and discontented expression of a 
 disappointed man too proud to complain but too 
 sensitive not to resent. 
 
 His grievance was that he had been ill- 
 treated at the Horse Guards, and that his 
 services had been passed over without the re- 
 cognition which they deserved. Hence his very 
 natural belief that England and the service 
 were going at a hand-gallOp to the deuce, and 
 that nothing would save the nation but a 
 strong reaction in favour of men of family, and 
 the mob, with the plutocracy, sent to the rear. 
 Sandro Kemp, for his part, thought that 
 national salvation was to be found only in the 
 possibility of every peasant's son rising to be 
 Prime Minister if he had it in him; and Dr. 
 Quigley had his panacea in medical supervision 
 and scientific autocracy, by which no sickly 
 man o-r woman should be allowed to marry ; no 
 unhealthy profession should be allowed to 
 continue ; and national rewards should be 
 given to those who should lighten human
 
 THE Tit Y ST AT CBOSSISG'S BBIDGE. 271 
 
 labour and minimize the chances of danger Y)\ 
 inventions and machinery. Of the three the 
 doctor was the most practical, the artist the 
 most poetical, and the soldier the best bred. 
 But it must be confessed, his was good breedings 
 with a rent in the purple ; being of the kind 
 which respects condition more than persons, 
 and does not think courtesy the right of the 
 inferior, though it may be given at times by 
 the grace of the superior. Hence he always 
 held his head a little hio'h when he was talking: 
 to Dr. Quigley or Sandro Kemp — the one a 
 country practitioner for all that he was an 
 M.D., and the other an impecunious artist for 
 all that he might have genius and was of good 
 family, not ranking in his mind as gentlemen 
 equal with himself. 
 
 While they were standing there discussing* 
 the weather-chances of the day, Augusta La- 
 trobe came up, holding her little son by the 
 hand. How pretty she looked in her soft black 
 dress, from which that generous powdering of 
 jet beads, wherever they could be put, took all 
 expression of sadness ! In no wise coquettish, 
 she was yet a woman with a wholesome resj^ect 
 for her own charms and the determination to 
 make the best of herself, according to her age, 
 should she live to be a hundred. She was never
 
 272 "MY LOVKr' 
 
 dressed too youtlifully nor dressed too much ; 
 but slic was never other than well and 
 ])ecomingly attired — her gowns fitting* to per- 
 fection — her hats and bonnets suiting her as if 
 the fashion had been expressly made for her — 
 her boots and gloves and all accessories without 
 a flaw that even the most critical could dis- 
 x^over. 
 
 In the midst of the light colours which 
 flooded the " field '' to-day, her graceful figure, 
 all black and sparkle, looked by far the most 
 elegant and distinguished. And though most 
 of the girls were many years younger — in 
 the first blush of their spring-time, while she 
 was in the rich summer of thirty-two — still she 
 was as beautiful as the prettiest of them all, 
 and perhaps with a deeper meaning in her 
 •charm. 
 
 As soon as she came up she was surrounded 
 by the Pennefiithers, with whom she was an 
 especial favourite. 
 
 "•' How jolly of you to come in such good 
 time ! " cried Georgie ; '' and how quite too 
 awfully nice you look ! "' she added ; for though 
 the main happiness of the Doves lay in fun 
 .and dress combined, they were neither jealous 
 of the success of others nor niggardly in th^r 
 praises.
 
 THE TRYST AT CROSSING'S BRIDGE. 273 
 
 '^ I am sure you look very nice too/' said 
 Augusta, smiling. '' What pretty dresses 3'ou 
 have ! " 
 
 " Think so ? — so do I. Miss Dawson made 
 them, for we had not time ; but we designed 
 them ; and I think they have come out pretty 
 well on the whole. Do you like our hats ? 
 "We got the idea out of the fashion-book, but 
 we had them made miles larger, not to be just 
 like other people, you know. And, don't you 
 see ? — I've got pink in mine and Patrick has 
 blue ; but I'll let you into the secret — we are 
 going to change them and our brooches after 
 dinner, and we shall have such fun ! Mind 
 you don't let it out ! No one knows but you 
 and us two — even the boys and Mater don't. 
 It will be good gear, I can tell you ! " 
 
 " That is a new j^^^i'^se, Georgie," said 
 Augusta, laughing. " Everything is good gear, 
 now." 
 
 " That's Jemmy's word," she answered. 
 *' You know one can't help catching the boys' 
 slang. They never talk anything else. But 
 you won't tell, will you ? " 
 
 " No! no! certainly not ! " she answered ; and 
 as at this moment the Lyons drove up with 
 Randolph Mackenzie, the noisy, good-hearted 
 givers of the feast surged up to them, and 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 "J/r LOVE !'' 
 
 Augusta was left standing near the three men, 
 and nearest to Sandro. 
 
 It was no one's business to watch either 
 Sandro or the Colonel ; but Dr. Quigley made 
 it his. Something in the face of each struck 
 those quick observant eyes of his, and he looked 
 from under the brim of his broad-leafed hat, 
 first at one and then the other, and from them 
 to the tranquil, graceful, comely widow. 
 
 A certain subdued eagerness, a certain half- 
 beseeching, half-tremulous admiration shone 
 like the sorrowful light of a strong man's tears 
 in Sandro's earnest eyes. The blood left his 
 cheeks and his lips were pressed together as if 
 the sight of this woman brought him joy and 
 pain together — the joy that he must not 
 express, the pain that he could not conceal. 
 The Colonel's thin, keen, furrowed face flushed 
 like a girl's ; yet his manner was stiff and dry, 
 and he spoke almost as if he were displeased 
 and scarcely on friendly terms with the widow 
 of the Professor. He had had this manner 
 ever since the day when Augusta Mors head had 
 announced the fact of her intended marriage 
 w^ith Professor Latrobe ; and her widowhood 
 had not changed him. Before that day he had 
 been the girl's most devoted cavalier ; so much 
 so indeed, that people had talked and speculated,
 
 THE TRYST AT CBOSSIXCr'S BRIDGE. 275 
 
 as people will in country places where tlieir 
 neighbours' affairs are the most interesting 
 things they have to discuss ; but no one said 
 anything now — though more than one had 
 wondered " whether it would ever be on again 
 with Colonel Moneypenny " when Augusta 
 Latrobe came back, a penniless widow, with a 
 child dependent on the questionable bounty of 
 her hard-handed and bad-tempered old mother. 
 
 That speculation lasted only a very short 
 time ; and no one, save Dr. Quigley, saw that 
 the Colonel cared more for Augusta Latrobe 
 than he did for those Miss Pennefathers, whom 
 he always called '^ Objectionable," or for Hor- 
 tensia Lyon, whom he laughed at as a Precieuse 
 Eidicule. 
 
 The pretty widow herself showed nothing. 
 Certainly the faintest and most delicate pink 
 tinge came over her whole face, like the far-off 
 reflection of the Alpine after-glow as she turned 
 to greet them all ; and her eyes had a curious 
 look of forced composure as they rested on each 
 by turn, when she gave her hand and returned 
 the conventional greetings proper to the occa- 
 sion. But even Dr. Quigley's perceptions were 
 at fault as to what that evanescent little flush 
 might mean — and whether it meant anything at 
 all or not ; and if it did, for whom ? and why ?
 
 276 "MY LOVE !'' 
 
 The widow , was too well-inured to self-sup- 
 23ression at that iingenial home where thorns 
 and pitfalls abounded, to betray more of herself 
 than she cared to show abroad ; and among the 
 many attractions of her character was this 
 strange union of perfect sincerity with absolute 
 self-control and as absolute reticence on all 
 that she did not choose to make manifest. She 
 once said to Dr. Quigley — who, by the w^ay, 
 got more out of her than any one else was able 
 to do — that she never remembered to have 
 betrayed by mere weakness and impulsiveness 
 what she afterwards regretted to have told. 
 If she told anything in confidence it was with 
 the deliberate intention of bestowing that con- 
 fidence ; but she never let things slip from in- 
 ability to hold them fast. And he believed her ; 
 as he was in the right to do. 
 
 Here again she held her own and baffled the 
 friendly explorer who would have penetrated 
 into the interior of her mind. Her manner to 
 Sandro Kemp was exactly the same as her 
 manner to Colonel Moneypenny ; and wdien his 
 own turn came, she gave him her hand and 
 looked up into his face with her calm, clear un- 
 troubled eyes exactly as she had looked into the 
 faces of the others ; and the doctor saw no more 
 for his part than tlie artist and the soldier had
 
 THE TRYST AT CIiOSSIXG\S LniDGE. 2i i 
 
 seen for theirs. She was sweet, smiling, cordial, 
 gracious ; but with no special meaning or appli- 
 cation. She gave no one an inch more of 
 velvet than she gave to another ; and she was 
 velvet-soft to every one alike. Still, there was 
 something under it all ; and that something — 
 what was it ? 
 
 By this time all had assembled ; and now 
 came the first act of the real drama — the order 
 of their o-oino* and who should take whom 
 — whereof this o-atherino- at Crossim^-'s Brido-e 
 was only the prologue. The Pennefathei's 
 w^ere not people who patronized family exclu- 
 siveness on days of pleasure. To a husband 
 any woman but his own wife ; to a sister any 
 man but her own brother. The cards had to 
 be shufEed and fresh combinations made ; and 
 even staid old married folks, like Mr. and Mrs. 
 Lyon, had to be dealt to other partners, with 
 whom at least they could not spar and wrangle 
 because a mother's influence had broken to 
 pieces under a father's authority, and a father's 
 authority had gone down before a daughter's 
 desire. 
 
 The arrangements were not very difficult to 
 make. Georgie and Pattie reserved for them- 
 selves, as a matter of coarse, Yalentine and Mil- 
 ford Cowley; for which they got not a little
 
 278 "J/r LOVE !'\ 
 
 obloquy from tliose mothers and daughters ^vho 
 thought that the givers of a feast should be 
 content with the crumbs, and that the sons of a 
 wealthy landowner were dainties to be bestowed 
 on the guests and not kept for the hosts. The 
 four Pennefather boys, with Eandolph Mackenzie 
 and the other young men, were dispersed among- 
 the young ladies who were still on their promo- 
 tion and unattached ; but Freddy Grant and 
 Louie Sturt, who were engaged, were sent off 
 by themselves in a unity of bliss multiplied by 
 two. Such of the elderly married folk as could 
 not be paired with their kind were planted out 
 where their chaperonage would be least obstruc- 
 tive ; and then came the question of pretty Mrs. 
 Latrobe and her escort, and who should have 
 the honour of her safe guidance. 
 
 " You must go in our pony carriage with 
 Colonel Moneypenny or Mr. Kemp," said Georgie 
 and Pattie, the two speaking like one. 
 
 They were good-natured creatures, always 
 ready to promote " cases," and to provide 
 sheaths for " spoons " if hands were but kept off 
 their own store. They were besides, honestly 
 desirous to sec Augusta well-married for the 
 second time, and taken out of the cruel keeping 
 of her mother. 
 
 " Which will you have ? " they asked with 
 generous intent.
 
 THE TRYST AT CBOSSIKG'S BBILGE. 279 
 
 As they wanted neither the artist nor the 
 Colonel for their own share, they were quite 
 willing that the widow should have her choice. 
 
 Sandro came forward with that hurried action 
 which means desire, and the eager face which is 
 substantially a prayer. 
 
 " I can drive Mrs. Latrobe," he said quietly 
 as to tone and inflection ; but his eyes were too 
 earnest to be in harmony with his voice, and 
 his hand visibly trembled as he thrust it into 
 the bosom of his coat. 
 
 For a moment Colonel Moneypenny did not 
 speak. Then he made a formal bow. 
 
 " If Mrs. Latrobe will trust herself to me, I 
 shall be happy to be her escort," he said stiffly. 
 
 He could do no less than accejot the challenge 
 flung down by the twins ; but he said no more 
 than was absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, 
 his pale, thin face flushed, as it had flushed 
 before ; and it seemed as if his heated blood 
 would give him some difficulty to damp down. 
 
 Augusta looked smiling from one to the 
 other ; but over the heads of both, not frankly 
 into their eyes. She seemed to accept the little 
 comedy as it was presented to the public, and 
 to enjoy the small tournament that had been 
 arranged for her honour — she, set in the place 
 of the Queen of Beauty whose office was to
 
 280 "jiiy LOVE !'' 
 
 declare the victor and bestow on bim her 
 favour. 
 
 Slowly sbe broiiglit ber eyes down from the 
 angle at wbicb tbey were fixed, to a level 
 with the men's faces. Sbe looked full at 
 Sandro ; not witb defiance, nor yet with cold- 
 ness, only clearly, calmly, witb odd resoluteness 
 and decision bebind wbicb could be read a 
 certain tender regret. Tben sbe glanced 
 hurriedly at Colonel Moneypenny, glancing 
 askance, not looking straight into his face as 
 she bad looked into Sandro's. 
 
 " If Colonel Moneypenny will drive me ? " 
 sbe said in a clear voice and with a smooth 
 smile. 
 
 Sandro turned away with undisguised dis- 
 appointment. The Colonel's eyes flashed as if 
 that troublesome fire were getting ahead of 
 wisdom and making itself too evident for peace. 
 But be did not speak. He only bowed again 
 in bis stiff, disagreeable, half-offended way, as 
 he offered the widow bis band to assist ber into 
 the carriage, and noticed how pretty ber feet 
 Avere and bow perfectly appointed she was alto- 
 gether. Tben be took bis place by ber side 
 with the air of a man perfectly indifferent to his 
 position and finding in it neither pleasure nor 
 pain.
 
 THE TRY ST AT CHOSSIXG'S BltlDGE, 281 
 
 " I must take my child/' said Augusta as the 
 •Colonel gathered up the reins and took the 
 whip from the groom who had been holding the 
 pony's head. 
 
 " Oh no ! " said Georgie and Pattie. *' The 
 two young ones are going together with Mater 
 and nurse Mary." 
 
 " Oh no, indeed, you cannot have Tony ! And 
 I'm sure Colonel Moneypenny don't want him ! " 
 said Gip with a little laugh. 
 
 " I would rather take him," said Augusta 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Drive on, Colonel," shouted Pip who was 
 anxious to be off. " Mater and Mary have 
 undertaken the nursery. TVe can't change 
 things now. Good-bye ; and take care of 
 Frisky down hill. He has an ugly trick of 
 falling over his own toes ! " 
 
 " Are we to go without your son ? " asked the 
 Colonel stiffly. 
 
 Augusta looked disturbed. 
 
 " I would so much rather have had him with 
 us," she said. 
 
 " Shall I insist on his being brought ? " he 
 asked again, always glacial and angular. 
 
 " By no means," said the two Doves authori- 
 tatively. " Drive on, do ! You are keeping us 
 all back."
 
 282 "j/r LOVE !■'' 
 
 The Colonel still held the whip pointed and 
 the reins loose. He looked at the widow, as if 
 for her final decision. 
 
 "Perhaps I had better not disturb the ar- 
 rangements," she said with evident reluctance ; 
 and the Colonel, giving the signal, went off at 
 a fast trot, finding it a little difficult to keep up 
 his air of glacial and offended dignity and not 
 to say frankly : "I am glad that I am to have 
 you all to myself! " 
 
 But Colonel Moneypenny was nothing if not 
 conscious of what was due to himself; and it 
 was due to himself, according to his own ideas 
 of things, that he should make Augusta Latrobe 
 practically petition to be reinstated in his good 
 graces — practically confess that she had done 
 very wrong in marrying Professor Latrobe, and 
 not waiting humbly in faith and patience for 
 the hour when he himself should have asked her 
 to be his wife. And to do this he must keep 
 her at the arm's length where he had held her 
 ever since the day of her engagement, and not 
 let her think that she had only to smile to bring'^ 
 him to her feet again. Wherefore the drive,, 
 which cost poor Sandro Kemp so much pain, 
 was the dullest, driest and most uninteresting 
 of all in the day, so far as words and looks were 
 concerned. Secretly, in his heart, the Colonel
 
 THE TliYST AT CT.OSSJyG'S U BILGE. 285 
 
 was profoundly content in sjoite of Li.s ang-nlar 
 outside; while Augusta more than once thought: 
 " Would it do ? Should I gain, both for myself 
 and the child ? or should I only exchange 
 tyrannies and get no good from either ? " 
 
 Meanwhile poor Sandro did his best to blow 
 his little bubbles in that part of this frothy sea 
 of so-called pleasure where he found himself; 
 but taking a turn at the crank or a walk on the 
 treadmill would have been almost as amusing- 
 as laughing at jokes which had no point, and 
 flirting with girls for whom he had no inclina- 
 tion. The sun had gone out of the sky for him ; 
 and he thought that picnics and all kinds of 
 open-air amusements were simply inventions of 
 the Evil One — the most stupid, insane, dis- 
 appointing, inartistic things that could possibly 
 be devised for the torment of humanity. He 
 was angry with fate, Augusta Latrobe, the 
 Pennefathers, the sunshine and Colonel Money- 
 penny — all in about equal proportion. And 
 yet, why should he make himself uncomfortable 
 because the Colonel was driving Mrs. Latrobe 
 in the pony carriage, and he was with Jack 
 Pennefather and the two pretty Miss Rayners 
 in a phaeton ? What was Mrs. Latrobe to 
 him ? What could she be indeed ? She was 
 perfectly right not to give him false hopes, and
 
 284 "j/r LOVE f' 
 
 she had full liberty to encourage any one else. 
 He could not marry ; and the Colonel was a 
 wealthy man and could. Yes; she was per- 
 fectly right ; and he was a fool to care about 
 the matter. And those two pretty cousins — 
 the Misses Eayner from London — were really 
 3'emarkably picturesque-looking girls, and their 
 heads would come in splendidly for the sketch 
 which he had promised to do of the whole 
 group. 
 
 Nevertheless, for all their prettiness, he found 
 the drive to Greenhill Falls the longest, flattest 
 ^nd dullest that he had ever taken ; and not 
 •even his artist's eyes could see the full beauty 
 of the points by which they skirted, for that 
 tugging at his heart-strings — that sense of 
 emptiness and dreariness — which made the 
 whole earth barren outside the limits of one 
 ♦sweet and gracious presence. 
 
 ''It is madness!" he said to himself; ''it is 
 slavery unworthy of a rational man ! " 
 
 All the same, he hugged his chains and 
 cherished his delusions, and made such spas- 
 modic attempts at bubble-blowing that the two 
 girls saw through the effort and resented his 
 preoccupation as an affront to their charms. 
 
 " The most stupid man I ever saw ! " said 
 <3ach when the drive came to an end ; while 
 Jack Pennefather added as his contribution :
 
 THE TBYST AT CliOSSINCrS BBIDGE. 285 
 
 " Old Kemp was never nmcli of a good thing ; 
 but to-day he was duller than old boots and as 
 heavy on hand as so much lead. He wasn't 
 worth his salt or the horseflesh it cost to tool 
 him over, and I should have liked to have 
 dropped him over the side. We should have 
 been far jollier without him." 
 
 So they would — ]Door, sad-hearted and un« 
 comfortable Sandro, for whom the sun had gone 
 out of the sky and the earth had suddenly 
 become barren because Augusta Latrobe was 
 sitting by the side of Colonel Moneypenny in 
 the pony carriage, and he was half a mile in 
 the rear with the two Misses Rayner from 
 London and that idiotic young Jack Penne- 
 father.
 
 286 ''MY LOVE r' 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 
 
 "WiiETHEE long or sliort to the minds of the 
 wayfarers the drive to Grreenhill Falls came at 
 last to an end. There were no adventures by 
 the way and not the faintest approach to an 
 accident. Frisky stumbled once in going- 
 do wn-hill, according to his habit ; but the 
 Colonel pulled him up in time, and gave him 
 n savage cut with his whip which was less for 
 the beast's correction than the man's ill-humour. 
 The children were good and neither wanted to 
 -commit suicide by climbing about the seats, nor 
 demanded impossibilities in the way of food and 
 amusement. One by one the carriages drove 
 up to the camping-ground ; and the inmates 
 were greeted as vociferously as if they had not 
 been seen for a twelvemonth, and had come 
 safely over the pass of the Tete Noire at least.
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 287 
 
 To see all those bright fiices, to hear all those 
 pleasant voices, one would have thought that 
 no sorrow existed on the earth to sadden the 
 sons and daughters of men, and that the days 
 of that long looked-for Utopia had at last set in. 
 What a noisv, joyous little company they 
 made ! and what fun it all was ! While the 
 cloth was being laid that fun was at its height. 
 The unpacking of the baskets was a succession 
 of surprises, each more delightful than the other. 
 The shouts of admiration for the Colonel's 
 generous supply of champagne, and for Augusta 
 Latrobe's gooseberries and hot-house grapes ; 
 for the terrible old woman was either too 
 human at bottom, or too proud to let her 
 daughter go empty-handed to the feast ; the 
 enthusiasm excited by the Misses Rayner's 
 superb pate de foie gras, sent as their contri- 
 bution by the parents Rayner in London ; the 
 laughter raised by the multiplicity of screws 
 of salt and cones of sugar ; the prospective 
 enjoyment contained in the quarters of lamb 
 and sirloins of beef, the chicken and veal-pies, 
 the salads with lobster and the salads without — 
 in the bottles of custard, of cream, of milk, of 
 lemonade — in the tarts and cheesecakes, the 
 jellies and big plum-cakes ; the delightful occu- 
 pation of gathering sticks and boiling the water
 
 288 ''MY LOVE ! » 
 
 in a kettle tliat would not hang over a fire that 
 would not burn ; the mess made in breaking' 
 the eggs for an omelette, and the queer com- 
 pound which went under that name when all 
 was done ; the fights with earwigs and 
 " harvest-men," wasps and beetles which went 
 on without intermission ; and then the uncom- 
 fortable seats found on tree-roots and jutting 
 stones, with ants crawling up from the ground 
 and green caterpillars dropping down from the 
 trees ; — oh, the fun of it all ! What was there 
 to compare with a picnic ? thought all the young- 
 people in a body ; and what plague, equal in 
 horror, had ever been invented by madmen for 
 the torture of innocent human beings ? thought 
 the Colonel, who hated to be disturbed in his 
 habits and who was not specially affected to the 
 Pennefathers. But he was in for it now and 
 had to make the best of it, pretending the 
 enjoyment, which he was far from finding, in 
 eating his own dinner by snatches wnile he 
 supplied the ladies without delay and disputed 
 with creeping things the best morsels on his 
 plate. 
 
 Gip and Pip were completely in their 
 element, and outdid themselves in noise, good- 
 nature and slang. The boys were ubiquitous ;. 
 and it seemed to each guest as if he or she
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 289 
 
 were asked four times over by the same person 
 whether he or she would not have more of this 
 or some of that ? — going through all the dishes 
 on the cloth. Yal and Mil Cowley kept close 
 to the skirts of Gip and Pip, and behaved 
 rather shabbily to every one else ; but though 
 the twins flirted generously with them they 
 flirted generously with every other man about 
 the place, and no one could complain that he 
 was left out in the cold. Sandro Kemp, partly 
 prudent, partly heart-sore, kept rigorously away 
 from Augusta Latrobe for the first half-hour of 
 the time ; but after then his prudence came 
 to an end, his heart-strings tugged too hard, 
 and, almost without knowing how, he found 
 himself by the fair widow's side, looking into 
 her face for some sign of love with eyes whicli. 
 betrayed his own. 
 
 But when Augusta had made up her mind 
 and marked out her course she kept to it ; and 
 not the keenest observer — not even Dr. Quigley 
 had he been there — could have detected tlie 
 faintest, most shadowy sign of that which poor 
 Sandro was yearning, longing, hoping to see. 
 Yet, that she should speak to any other man 
 than himself with frankness and gracious sweet- 
 ness annoyed the susceptibilities of the peppery- 
 tempered Colonel. During that tete-a-tete drive 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 " ji/r LOVE f' 
 
 to the Falls lie had thawed to an immense extent 
 internally, though externally his manners had 
 remained just as glacial as ever ; but he knew 
 in his own breast that the old charm had begun 
 to work again, and that .Vugusta Latrobe was 
 almost as beautiful to him, and almost as de- 
 sirable, as Augusta Morshead had been. He 
 intended however to prove her thoroughly 
 before committing himself irrevocably. That 
 is, he intended to repeat the mistake of the 
 past by which he had lost her once already. 
 If, during this period of proof, he saw any 
 symptoms of leaning to this side or that — any 
 signs of possible favouring one or another — he 
 would banish her from his thoughts, leave her 
 to her fate, and close for ever against her that 
 golden door through which, if she were wise 
 and good, she might pass into the happiness of 
 his home, the sufficiency of his fortune, and the 
 honour lying in the name and state of Mrs. 
 Colonel Moneypenny. 
 
 He had no suspicion of any one. Since her 
 widowhood and return to the old home Mrs. 
 Latrobe had lived with such supreme discretion 
 that she had escaped even the miscroscopic 
 research and the megaphonic talk of a small 
 country place like Highwood ; and no one had 
 coupled her name with that of any desirable
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 291 
 
 bachelor here or elsewhere. Sharpened as his 
 eyes were by suspicion and distrust, w^atching 
 keenly and eagerly as he did, he yet could not see 
 anything in her manner to Sandro Kemp which 
 should cause him a moment's uneasiness. Cer- 
 tainly, he did not like that fellow's following 
 her up as he did, as he had not liked the choice 
 and juxtaposition of the start ; and for a word 
 or look the jealousy, inseparable from that 
 damped-down fire in his heart, would have 
 blazed out heaven-high. But Sandro's back 
 was turned to him at this moment, and the 
 widow's calm face and quiet air betrayed 
 nothing. So the rupture which was threatened 
 for just one brief instant was happily got over, 
 and the Colonel signified his silent forgiveness 
 of a problematical sin by going up to the two 
 as they sat a few feet apart under the trees, and 
 making the third in their conversation. 
 
 When the dinner was quite over and the 
 servants' turn had come, the company all paired 
 off and strolled away to the ostensible object of 
 the day — the Falls, which were about a mile 
 distant. Gip, with the keen " flair " of her 
 kind, saw how things stood with poor Sandra 
 Kemp ; and, sympathetically inclined to give 
 all " cases " a helping hand when she could, 
 she determined to put a spoke in that old
 
 292 ''MY LOVE! " 
 
 Coloners wheel, as she irreverently phrased it^ 
 nnd to give poor old Kemp a chance. Just a& 
 they were all gathering themselves into little 
 knots, or segregating themselves into pairs, she^ 
 standing witli Yal Cowley and Jessie Rayner — 
 of whom, by the way, she wanted to get rid on 
 her own account — called to Colonel Moneypenny 
 just as he had ranged himself on Augusta's 
 right hand, Sandro Kemp being on her left. 
 
 " Oh, Colonel Moneypenny ! " she said ; " do 
 come here and tell us the name of this awfully 
 funny little flower ! I know that you are a 
 tremendously good botanist, and Jessie Rayner 
 is wild about botan}^ Do come, please ; we 
 are so awfully anxious to know." 
 
 " I assure you. Miss Pennefather, I know 
 A^ery little indeed about flowers," said the 
 Colonel crossly, and not quitting his post. 
 *' Mr. Kemp is a far better botanist than I. 
 Ask him." 
 
 " My knowledge is exceedingly superficial. 
 I am afraid I should be of no use to any one,'' 
 said Sandro quickly. " I yield the palm to you 
 willingly," he added, turning to the Colonel 
 with a smile. 
 
 " It would be absurd in me to pretend to 
 know anything about it," said the Colonel 
 ans-rilv.
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 293 
 
 Surely never were two men in greater liaste 
 to proclaim their ignorance of a science wherein 
 both were notoriously proficient ! 
 
 Gip laughed till the echoes rang with her 
 voice. 
 
 " How awfully funny ! " she said, looking at 
 the Colonel through and through. '^ Only last 
 week you told me that you had made a col- 
 lection of all the flowers to be found about 
 Highwood, and that you found there were some 
 awful lot — I forget no# how many — a thousand 
 or a million, or something. Come along and 
 don't be ill-natured ! " she added familiarly. 
 *•' What a character the Hi^-hwoodites will a'et 
 if you won't do a little kindness like this ! 
 What will Jessie Eayner say of you, I wonder ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't bring me in, Georgie ! " said 
 Miss Rayner hastily. She too had seen a little 
 into the meaning of things ; and for a pretty 
 girl from London, fashionably dressed by 
 Madame Elise and used to homage, it was too 
 humiliating to be twice slighted on the same 
 day and to have two men preferring a woman 
 ever so much older than, and not so j)retty as, 
 herself. " I should be very sorry if either 
 Colonel ^loneypenny or Mr. Kemp gave him- 
 self any trouble on my account," she added 
 stiffly. " I can find out the flower by myself."
 
 294 "ii/r LOVE r' 
 
 " If I can be of any use to you I am sure- 
 I shall be most happy," said the Colonel, stung 
 into gallantry, and going up to those two tire- 
 some girls behind whom Yalentine Cowley was 
 standing, waiting for his turn and sure of 
 Greorgie's tact. 
 
 " Shall we go on ? " asked Sandro of Augusta, 
 his heart beating fast and his voice a trifle 
 husky and unsteady. 
 
 For just one short moment the widow hesi- 
 tated, thinking rapidly ^what was the wisest 
 thing to do ? Should she escape from the 
 danger of that uninterrupted companionship by 
 joining the group of unwilling botanists ? or 
 should she trust to herself and go with Sandro 
 alone ? To do this would anger the Colonel^ 
 but to go up to him and wait for him would 
 have the look of running after him — would be 
 compromising herself both openly to the others 
 and privately to himself. 
 
 She knew that she could, if she would, win 
 that trick in the great game of matrimony. It 
 was not for nothing that she held her passions, 
 her weaknesses, her desires so well in hand to 
 give the lead to her reason and perceptions. 
 She saw through the glacial surface down to 
 the smothered fire beneath, and knew that it 
 depended only on herself which should gain on
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 295 
 
 the other. But she had not finally determined. 
 Life at her mother's home was emphatically 
 torture ; would it he much better at the 
 Coloners ? No ; she had certainly not finally 
 determined ; and in view of all that was and 
 might be — of her own indecision in some things 
 if resolute determination in others — she quietly 
 accepted Sandro's proposition and said : 
 
 "" Yes, let us go on. They will soon overtake 
 us." 
 
 " I hope not/' said the artist. 
 
 And Augusta wisely did not hear. 
 
 She was right, however. In a very short 
 time, and before Sandro could tell her about 
 the good things which had come to him, the 
 Colonel and pretty Jessie Rayner joined them 
 as they were crossing the meadow — all four 
 walking abreast — Sandro Kemp and Miss 
 Rayner on the outside, by which the Colonel 
 was next to Augusta in the middle. This 
 arrangement answered very well so long as 
 they could walk in open order over the lately 
 mown grass ; but when they came to the narrow 
 pathway through the boggy waste, where only 
 one could go at a time and where the ladies 
 had to be helped over the stones and vrhat the 
 Pennefathers called the squashy places, then 
 the efforts which each made to out-manoeuvre 
 the other v^ere marvels of generalship.
 
 296 "MY LOVE r' 
 
 The victory rested with the artist and the 
 Colonel was out-generalled. It was Sandro 
 who helped the pretty widow over all the bad 
 bits ; — Sandro who held her hand when she 
 crossed the rude stepping-stones or jumped the 
 narrow brook ; — Sandro who took her as his own 
 care by right of assignment and appropriation, 
 while the Colonel was left to fatigue-duty and 
 Jessie Rayner. It was a voiceless, weaponless 
 duel, but it was a duel all the same ; and from 
 that day Sandro Kemp might count as one of 
 the facts of his life, the deep and passionate 
 enmity of Colonel Grey Moneypenny. 
 
 This was the only hitch in the day's enjoy- 
 ment, and when they all gathered in a body at 
 the foot of the hills, the noise and fun and 
 laughter broke out afresh, all the more sweep- 
 ing and intense because of the interval of com- 
 parative repose gained through the scattering 
 of the elements. 
 
 Gip and Pip changed their hats and their 
 name-brooches, and no one knew one from 
 the other. Yal Cowley, who had been making- 
 confidences to Gip, repeated his lesson to Pip, 
 to that naughty hussy's supreme satisfaction ; 
 and Mil, who had just told Pip that he thought 
 her the j oiliest girl in the world, said the same 
 thing to Gip and entreated her to give him
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 297 
 
 ]»ack the phrase with interest. Mr. Lyon con- 
 tinued with one sister the conversation he had 
 begun with the other ; Jessie Rayner com- 
 jjlained to Pattie of the false position in which 
 she had placed her by forcing her on Colonel 
 Moneypenny ; the boys themselves were taken 
 in ; the father and mother were puzzled ; only 
 Augusta, who was in the secret, and little Nora, 
 who had landmarks of her own, saw through 
 the joke and wondered in what the fun con- 
 sisted. That there was some tremendous joke 
 in the mystification was evident, but to no one 
 but themselves and the boys, when they were 
 told, was it in any way intelligible. They 
 however, laughed as if they would never leave 
 off; and when they were told the Cowley boys 
 laughed too, but not quite so heartily as the 
 Pennefathers. 
 
 The only one of the young men who was not 
 thoroughly amused was RandoljDh Mackenzie, 
 though he had sense enough not to betray his 
 dulness. The general gaiety was so far in- 
 fectious in that he found himself compelled to 
 laugh when others laughed ; to flirt witli Grip 
 and Pip when flirting was evidently expected 
 t)f him ; to make his towering height of six feet 
 two, with bulk in proportion, as ubiquitous as 
 if he had been a smaller man ; and to do all
 
 298 ''MY LOVE r' 
 
 that was expected of a good-looking young 
 fellow in an assembly where, as the Doves had 
 said, there was not a stick of a girl nor a crab 
 of a man, and where, if the fun was of the 
 most innocent and harmless kind possible, it 
 was also of the noisiest and most rollicking. 
 
 But in spite of that superficial infection, liis 
 honest heart turned ever back to his little 
 cousin who had sacrificed herself so nobly to- 
 his idea of duty — but what a will that quiet, 
 little creature had ! — and to that dear beautiful 
 noble-hearted Stella — Cyril's Star ; and because 
 Cyril's then his as well — who had given up her 
 love for her duty, and who was so sad and 
 pale, so patient and unhappy ! What odd 
 things women are ! he thought as he stood a 
 little apart from the rest looking at the tumbling- 
 waters and seeing nothing of those falling 
 sheets of foam, those rising veils of spray. 
 They had a moral code among themselves which 
 man did not share nor yet understand. It was 
 doubtless far higher and purer than what he 
 had on his own side, but it was incomprehensible 
 all the same. 
 
 Eandolph Mackenzie was one of those young 
 men to whom a good girl is a thing to be 
 wondered at, a little feared and very much 
 respected. She was something precious and
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 21) 1> 
 
 mysterious ; sometliing removed from tlie full 
 comprehension of men because standing on an 
 infinitely higher platform. Her very ignorance 
 of the evils into the knowledge of which even 
 little lads at school are initiated, gave him a 
 curious sense of awe. When with such girls 
 as his cousin and Stella Branscombe, he felt as 
 if standing in some holy place, in the presence 
 of some sacred shrine where no sinful thing* 
 might be. It w-as as if he had to put off part 
 of himself when with them ; to be pure and 
 humble, reverent and care fid, as they also w^ere 
 pure and noble. It was a great mystery, this 
 virtuous and innocent girlhood ! — and while he 
 thought this the loud laughter of wild Georgie 
 Pennefather rang in his ear as she clambered 
 up the rock in front of him and shrieked out 
 to Milford Cowley: '' Where's Georgie, Mil? 
 I wish you would fetch her and Yal ; or stay 
 — do you go, Eandolph. Tell George and Yal 
 we w^ant them up here." 
 
 The final act of the merry drama was set 
 when Sandro Kemp was reminded of his 
 promise to " make a picture " of the party. 
 Naturally each girl wanted to be the most con- 
 spicuous of the group, and all lamented that 
 Sandro was not a photographer, w^hen it would 
 have been so much easier to have posed and
 
 300 " j/r LOVE f' 
 
 the result would have been so much more like. 
 Sandro, however, put Augusta as the " point 
 de mire." He said he wanted her black dress 
 in the composition ; — and wlien an artist says 
 that he wants something for his picture it is 
 useless to discuss or dissent. He placed them 
 all just as he would have them ; and resisted 
 the temptation to caricature Colonel Money- 
 penny. This was his day's sacrifice to a higher 
 principle — the suppression of self by the gene- 
 rosity of pride. 
 
 But the Colonel, annoyed on all sides as he 
 had been, resented the picture-making as if it 
 had been an intentional personal aJBfront. It 
 was the last drop in the cup — the last straw of 
 the pack. He was horribly ill-tempered all the 
 way home, and Frisky had a bad time of it. 
 He was not certain whether he ought or ought 
 not to be jealous of Sandro Kemp — a man 
 whom he called " that artist fellow," and held 
 as neither his equal nor yet a real gentleman. 
 If he ought, then all was over between him 
 and the fair-faced widow ; if he had no cause, 
 why then he might see about it. 
 
 He was full of these dumb wei^'hin^'s and 
 balancings, full too of pinpricks and uncom- 
 fortable places ; and he made the drive as he 
 was himself. He relented however, just as he
 
 THE POCKETFUL OF FUN. 301 
 
 nearecl the gate of The Laurels, that formid- 
 able home where, if he did not know all, he 
 guessed something of what the poor dependent 
 daughter suffered. When he parted from her 
 at her own door, he pressed her hand a little 
 more tenderly than he had intended, and looked 
 into her face with a decided softening of his 
 own. Pinched and furrowed that keen and 
 haughty face always must be ; but it could be 
 as gentle as it was sometimes haughty, as soft 
 as it was sometimes stern. It was gentle and 
 soft enough now, as he looked right into 
 Augusta's eyes while he held her hand warmly 
 clasped and said below his breath : " God bless 
 you. 
 
 Then the door opened and shut, and the 
 young widow passed from the love and gaiety 
 and pleasantness of the outer world into the 
 darkness of the prison called by courtesy her 
 home — that home where she was Cinderella 
 among the ashes whom the fairy godmother 
 had forgotten. 
 
 She had one joy however, in her happy little 
 son, who, having preceded her by half an hour 
 or so, came running into her arms as she 
 crossed the hall, saying : 
 
 " Oh, mamma, what a jolly day it has been ! '* 
 
 This was the latest addition made to his
 
 302 ''MY LOVE f' 
 
 vocabulary. It was a present bestowed on 
 him by little Nora, and the earnest of future 
 €hidings and more than one slapped little hand 
 as a reminder that "jolly" was a word not to 
 be used at The Laurels, and that as often as 
 he used it his grandmamma would " spat " him. 
 
 Hortensia was at home when her parents and 
 Randolph arrived. She had had a day after 
 her own heart, and received them all with the 
 sweet serenity of one whose conscience is clear 
 and who has done the right thing. They had 
 sacrificed to Baal in the person of the Penne- 
 fathers, and she had carried incense to the altar 
 in the person of Mr. Branscombe. She would 
 not reproach them ; only, she did feel very 
 much their moral superior as she met them at 
 the door and asked them if they had enjoyed 
 themselves ? remarked that it had been a very 
 fine day ; and said she was so glad to see them 
 safe again at home ! 
 
 She kissed her father and mother and smiled 
 quietly at her cousin ; helped her father to take 
 off his stone-coloured alpaca dust-coat ; asked 
 her mother if she should carry her bonnet 
 upstairs and bring down her cap, to save her 
 the fatigue of mounting those low, broad steps ? 
 —and stood on a pinnacle of righteousness and 
 in the consciousness of victory all roimd. She
 
 TEE POCKETFUL OF FUN. o03 
 
 had been the sweet and spiritual Mary — now 
 she was the quiet, homestaying, helpful, able 
 Martha; and they were pleasure-seekers of a 
 rowdy and objectionable kind. And she meant 
 that they should take the lesson to heart and 
 see things as she saw them. 
 
 Then the night stole on and the day came to 
 an end for all alike ; and of the Pennefathers' 
 famous picnic nothing was left but empty 
 bottles and fragments of food, torn gloves, 
 soiled gowns, a few dreams and some regrets. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
 
 J>
 
 S^£>1 
 
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