L I E. RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 ^ 
 
 . 711 
 
 tV' '
 
 A G I R L'S PAST 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 A GIRL'S PAST 
 
 A N O V E L 
 
 BY 
 
 Mrs HERBERT MARTIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' BONNIE LESLEY,' ' COMMON CLAY, 
 'A MAN AND A BROTHER,' ETC., ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 F. V. WHITE & CO. 
 I SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 
 1893 
 
 All Rights reserved.
 
 A maid whom there were none to praise, 
 And ver}' few to love.
 
 8S.5 
 
 V.X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ! 
 
 45 
 
 64 
 
 86 
 
 114 
 
 139 
 170 
 199 
 214 
 239
 
 A GI RL'S PAST
 
 A GIRL'S PAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' Then you are really going down to 
 take possession of your property, to- 
 morrow, Monsieur le Prince ? Don't you 
 feel big ? I really wonder we see no 
 difference in you ! ' 
 
 Graham Brooke-Graham looked up 
 from the beloved old gun he was clean- 
 ing, and smiled at his small, lively, 
 brunette sister, who perched herself on 
 the table of his smoking-room, and 
 glanced him over with her rather small 
 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 A Girl's Past. 
 
 but brightly brown eyes. Mrs Brooke, 
 who had come in to rummage in a 
 cupboard for something necessary for 
 the packing which busied her at present, 
 looked a little grave at her daughter's 
 levity. Mrs Brooke was an excellent 
 woman, with a supreme regard for the 
 fitting. Of course it was a great bless- 
 ing, an enormous relief, to a widow of 
 small means, that her only son's distant 
 cousin and godfather, John Graham of 
 Erdley, should have taken so great a 
 fancy to his namesake as to make him 
 his heir, and then leave the world while 
 that heir was only eight-and-twenty ; but 
 it is not comme il faut to rejoice too 
 openly at the results of a death, which 
 should always modify the tones and sad- 
 den the countenance. 
 
 ' Kitty, dear,' she said in faint remon-
 
 A Girl 's Past. 3 
 
 strance, ' It is hardly fitting ; Graham 
 was fond of his cousin, he is only lately 
 dead.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I know he liked the poor old 
 gian. I know he did not wish him 
 gone ; but since he is gone, mater, and 
 human nature is human nature, Graham 
 may be allowed to enjoy the idea of his 
 princeship.' 
 
 * I was happy enough before,' Graham 
 said slowly ; then, in deference to the 
 impatient protest of Kitty's shoulders 
 against humbug, he added, 'but I don't 
 pretend to be above being glad to have 
 Erdley. They say the shooting is jolly 
 good this year.' 
 
 A month ago, Graham Brooke-Graham 
 (with a hypheii) had been simple Graham 
 Brooke, of the Military Store Depart- 
 ment of the War Office ; now he was
 
 4 A Girl's Past. 
 
 a landed proprietor, possessing a rent- 
 roll of some thousands — by no means a 
 millionaire, but grandly promoted, in the 
 eyes of a mother and sister used to 
 the modest and thrifty ways of a small 
 establishment at Putney. Mrs Graham 
 felt, somehow, as if she were person- 
 ally to be praised for the result — 
 for bringing so successful, so delightful 
 a son into the world. There was, she 
 believed, an immense deal both in here- 
 dity and education. Graham had good 
 blood in him, and no one could justly 
 say she had ever spoiled her only son. 
 She greatly plumed herself on him, as 
 she did on Kitty's social success at 
 balls, where she always danced as much 
 and had as many admirers as far more 
 handsome girls. The brother and sister 
 were not in the least alike : Kitty, as
 
 A Girl's Past, 5 
 
 we have said, was small, dark, viva- 
 cious ; Graham had a fair skin, before 
 foreign service (for he had been both 
 In Africa and India) had tanned him 
 to a rich mahogany ; his short-cropped 
 hair was light brown, his eyes calm, 
 steadfast, persistent grey. He was not 
 handsome ; his nose left much to be 
 desired, and he had no really beautiful 
 traits ; but his rather large, close-shut 
 mouth had a sweet expression, and his 
 round, firm chin, a somewhat attractive 
 dimple. He was not very tall, but 
 broad-shouldered, well-proportioned, with 
 an air of easy strength. The most un- 
 demonstrative of men, he was yet always 
 liked by men and women ; one of the 
 least eloquent and showy, yet no one 
 ever thought him stupid, he had an 
 oddly penetrating habit of understanding
 
 6 A Girl's Fast. 
 
 things and people — children were fond 
 of him, animals adored him, girls trusted 
 him. He was of a purely English 
 type ; but the ordinary John-Bullish ob- 
 stinacy of prejudice one might have 
 expected to find with this physique had 
 been somehow turned into tolerance by a 
 pretty extensive acquaintance with other 
 countries and peoples. Enough of de- 
 scription ! It is very likely nine people 
 out of ten would not have looked at 
 Brooke-Graham twice, yet he was not 
 insignificant or contemptible for all that. 
 He had been in the habit of visiting- 
 Mr Graham of Erdley whenever he 
 could spare time ; but, as it happened, 
 he had been two years at the Cape, 
 from which he only returned some 
 weeks before his cousin's sudden death ; 
 so he had not been there for some
 
 A Girl's Past. 7 
 
 time, and had not shot over the Erdley 
 preserves for four seasons. Graham was 
 a keen sportsman, and was looking for- 
 ward to the pheasant-shooting of the 
 month on which he was just entering. 
 He went down to Gloucestershire the 
 following day, and this was the 29th 
 of September. He was going alone — 
 partly because his most intimate chums 
 were scattered, partly because Erdley 
 wanted a good deal doing to it to 
 make it a really agreeable place to stay 
 in, even for bachelors. Mr Graham 
 had been much of a recluse — a book- 
 ish, low-spirited man, who cared little 
 for social life. He had burled himself 
 in an untidy library, allowed two or 
 three old servants to cheat him at their 
 pleasure, and had given up in despair 
 attempting to put anything right In a
 
 8 A Girl's Past. 
 
 world which he felt to be hopelessly 
 tangled and chaotic. * Oh, yes I I know, 
 I know ! ' he would cry, wringing his 
 delicate hands, when the Rector insisted 
 on explaining to him how sad and bad 
 everything in the village was, and how 
 sorely in need of reform. ' My dear sir, 
 I know it all ! English social life is 
 rotten to the core — from the highest to 
 the lowest stratum, corruption is slowly 
 penetrating. Will twenty pounds help 
 you out at all ? ' 
 
 And Mr Merryweather, the Rector, 
 generally found that it would. The new 
 young Squire of Erdley meant, in his 
 silent heart, to do very differently from 
 his predecessor. He would let sunshine 
 and air through the house ; would give 
 away a lot of the books ; he was no dul- 
 lard, and liked reading well enough, but he
 
 A Girl's Past. 9 
 
 liked the life of every day, open air, 
 men and women, much better. He 
 would shoot over the neglected pre- 
 serves, furnish the dingy rooms, mix 
 freely in the doings and socialities of 
 the place, make himself acquainted w^ith 
 the habits and customs of the country 
 folks. He had no pride in him, not an 
 idea of startingr on a hio^her level than 
 his neighbours ; he had many and prac- 
 tical schemes of goodwill. Then — in 
 time — when things were straight and 
 the manor-house as he liked it, he would 
 take home some nice, 'jolly,' clever girl, 
 and lead a wholesome, happy, country 
 life — keeping himself from getting rusty 
 by occasional flights to town, to Paris, 
 or further afield. Life looked calmly 
 radiant in Brooke-Graham's eyes as he 
 whistled like a lark over his gun-clean-
 
 lo A Girrs Past. 
 
 ing, and made arrangements for his visit 
 to his lately-acquired property. 
 
 * A man in your position, dear, ought 
 to have a valet', his mother said, sud- 
 denly appearing at his door with another 
 dozen of handkerchiefs fresh from the 
 laundress. 
 
 'A what?' he asked absently, stop- 
 ping his whistle and staring at her. 
 
 *A valet — a man-servant,' she re- 
 peated, faltering a little, however, as 
 she saw the smile dawn on his shut 
 mouth, and twinkle in his honest grey 
 eyes. * I know you are very independ- 
 ent and democratic in your ideas ; but, 
 really, dear, I think you ought! 
 
 'What do you suppose will happen if 
 I don't?' 
 
 * Oh ! nothing ; only, it may seem 
 singular. Mr Calbraith has, and he is
 
 A Girrs Past. 1 1 
 
 not in so good a position as you are 
 now.' 
 
 'No, mater; I don't think I'll in- 
 dulge in a valet. Old Rogers, my cousin's 
 factotum, isn't a bad sort ; he can fill my 
 bath, and so on, when I want anything. 
 I don't relish the idea of a fine gentle- 
 man overhauling my shirts and sneer- 
 ing at my rough - and - ready ways. I 
 prefer to spend the money on a nice 
 maid for you and Kit ; she said she 
 would like one who could make up 
 frocks and hats for her. You know I 
 sha'n't be so enormously rich w^hen all's 
 said and done.' 
 
 ' But you're too generous, Graham. 
 You want to spend too much on Kitty 
 and me. We are quite comfortable as 
 we are.' 
 
 'Ay,' he returned, smiling. 'I know
 
 12 A GivTs Past. 
 
 all your little dodges, mater ; don't try 
 and take me in. I've heard you set- 
 tling to have ''high tea" (of all abomina- 
 tions), instead of a proper dinner, be- 
 cause I was going out ; and, I know, 
 one day Kitty declared she hadn't had 
 lunch enough, and felt as hungry as when 
 she sat down.' 
 
 ' That was only Kitty's nonsense,' 
 the mother cried, a little vexed at the 
 exposure of her small economies. ' It 
 is ridiculous to have a great spread 
 for tw^o women.' 
 
 'That's women's way. But I choose 
 you should have as big a spread as 
 you like. You want to make a selfish 
 brute of me.' 
 
 * No, dearest ; I could not do that.' 
 
 'Well,' he returned, getting up 
 and stretching himself, with the clean,
 
 A GirFs Past. 13 
 
 polished gun, held out at length in 
 one hand, ' at any rate, you will do 
 your best to try.' 
 
 ' It was always Kitty, not you, who 
 was the selfish one, from childhood,' 
 she persisted, gazing fondly at him. 
 
 He frowned a little. It now and 
 then annoyed him to witness her un- 
 wavering partiality ; but it never vexed 
 Kitty, who took life on the surface, 
 with happy ease. 
 
 ' I don't think that's quite fair on 
 Kit. She cared for things more than 
 I did, that's all. She's not selfish ; and 
 as for me, I'm quite as capable of 
 ofrabbine and stickinor to what I want 
 as any one, only it doesn't occur to me 
 to want things very badly as a rule.' 
 
 He packed his gun carefully into 
 its case, in the deliberate, methodical,
 
 14 A Girl's Past. 
 
 orderly way he had, with dexterous 
 fingers, then sat down to fill and light 
 his shabby, old pipe, which he never 
 would exchange for the expensive meer- 
 schaums which had fi-om time to time 
 been presented to him. Graham had 
 a curious, pertinacious constancy in all 
 his tastes and habits ; he never lost 
 a friend nor gave up a custom, if he 
 could help it. As he puffed slowly 
 through his first pipe — which took him 
 a long time — he revolved his past, pre- 
 sent and future in his calm exhaus- 
 tive fashion. He was no facile talker, 
 and had little skill in clothing thoup-ht 
 in eloquence; yet he thought much, 
 and had dreams, ideals, hopes and 
 speculations which, if put into words, 
 would a good deal have surprised 
 even his intimates. He had been
 
 A Girfs Past. 1 5 
 
 through some adventures, had faced 
 death more than once ; in a skir- 
 mish in Africa ; at sea ; in an at- 
 tack of fever — these things had left 
 their traces on a mind naturally reten- 
 tive and persistent. In that fever, 
 when he was delirious, he had sur- 
 prised the friend that nursed him 
 by revealing odd depths and powers, 
 stranofe revelations of unimao^ined secrets 
 in a state of half delirium. It had 
 cured that friend of thinking him as 
 only a 'good old chap,' a 'decent 
 fellow, with nothing very remarkable 
 in him, you know.' Ever after he 
 declared there was more under Brooke's 
 quiet skin than any one knew. But 
 Brooke had a great power of ' keeping 
 himself to himself,' as the servants 
 say.
 
 i6 A Girts Past. 
 
 * I daresay,' he was thinking, as he 
 slowly let out clouds of smoke, 'things 
 aren't going to be at all what I map out ; 
 there's no accounting for the vagaries 
 of life. It seems all smooth sailing now, 
 but I shall very likely get among some 
 breakers after a bit. I mean to be jolly 
 happy, and have a right easy time of 
 it, but fortune may mean just differ- 
 ently. The poor old man didn't enjoy 
 his life there much ; it's true he was 
 not, like me — much more thin-skinned, 
 more of a pessimist, the sort much 
 thinking makes lean or mad. I sha'n't 
 go his way to work, I'll keep my eyes 
 open and my ears, and see if there's 
 anything very particular wanting to be 
 done. Not the old beef, coal - and - 
 blanket work of bygone days. Squire 
 and Lady Bountiful, smiling dames in
 
 A GirFs Past. 17 
 
 red cloaks, innocent peasant beauties, 
 and all the past stock - in - trade that's 
 played out ; it's a day of school boards 
 and county councils now, of strikes and 
 allotments. I must be up to the spirit 
 of the time. I wish there were a more 
 modern specimen at the Rectory than 
 old Merry weather. He's not bad, but 
 quite an anachronism ; he sees there 
 are sores, and he sets to work with 
 his ancient plasters and nostrums that 
 don't do a bit of good. Church is 
 his one idea of saving the souls of 
 the poor folks — unrelenting, undeviating, 
 unattractive church services ; beef-tea and 
 blue pills are his remedies for the suf- 
 fering bodies. They get what they can 
 out of the poor old boy, and laugh at 
 him at home. I won't be blarneyed to 
 my face, and scoffed at behind my back. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 1 8 A Girl's Past. 
 
 I'll get at the people, and clear off the 
 humbug. There's some grit under it 
 when one can reach it. Poor old 
 Graham never could. He shrank from 
 the poor people, their coarse talk, their 
 ugliness, their old clothes, their soft 
 sawder when they wanted anything, 
 their abuse when they couldn't get 
 it. I won't shrink. I won't expect 
 the impossible, and we shall see.' 
 So the day of Brooke-Graham's entry 
 on his small kingdom began — in 
 smoke. 
 
 The fair September weather — fair and 
 blue to its last hour — smiled serenely 
 over the red brick house at Erdley ; the 
 garden, woods and fallow fields, the 
 brooding hills and green sloping meadow 
 of the country place, that seemed also 
 to smile, waiting, as autumn lingered,
 
 A Girl's Past. 19 
 
 for its coming master. Graham Brooke- 
 Graham had truly come Into a * goodly 
 heritage.' To-morrow would see him in 
 possession of it.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The following, morning Mr Brooke- 
 Graham, his well - worn portmanteau, 
 gun - case and bag, were conveyed to 
 the London station in due time for 
 the train for Oldfield Junction and 
 Erdley. As he followed in line before 
 the ticket office, he was rather amused 
 to hear a suave, distinct, unmistakably 
 clerical accent, demanding — ' Four and 
 a half for Erdley, if you please ; ' then 
 equally distinctly — ' by the way, could 
 you kindly inform me where I change 
 for Erdley? There seems some little 
 confusion — ' 
 
 20
 
 A Girrs Past. 21 
 
 Graham looked at the speaker In some 
 surprise at finding any one beside himself 
 en 7^oute for so small and remote a place, 
 but he had lived long enough to under- 
 stand how small the world is. It was 
 a shortish man, with a rather rusty 
 clergyman's soft hat on his head, wear- 
 ing a sort of cloak of an equally seedy 
 appearance ; grey locks that had not long 
 before been light, which seemed to need 
 a good deal of brushing, rested on the 
 collar of this garment ; the face, when 
 turned in profile, was neat featured, 
 rather red in complexion, with greyish 
 whiskers and moustache, of an old- 
 fashioned cut, somewhat d la Dundreary. 
 'No, sir,' the ticket clerk snapped 
 back in return ; 'it is not my busi- 
 ness to give information about changes ; 
 they'll tell you at the train. Come, sir,
 
 22 A Girl's Past, 
 
 look sharp, please — three seventeen 
 six.' 
 
 The payment seemed a lengthy busi- 
 ness, and the delay caused by the fumb- 
 ling for an ancient purse, the extraction 
 of a black kid glove which looked as 
 if it had done duty at countless funerals, 
 and the slow searching, which eventually 
 produced a crumpled five-pound note, 
 made the most backward of the file of 
 would-be travellers fidget and fume. At 
 last the change was given and counted, 
 the tickets grasped, and Graham could 
 get his. On the departure platform, in 
 front of the nearly empty train, he 
 found the same clergyman inquiring 
 anxiously of various impossible people 
 where he was to change for Erdley. 
 Graham had a foolish predilection for 
 helping lame dogs over stiles, and went
 
 A GirFs Past, 23 
 
 up, raising his hat courteously to a 
 small group, all well laden with packages, 
 who hovered near, keeping guard over a 
 pile of very shabby-looking luggage. 
 
 ' Excuse me, sir,' he said, in his slow, 
 gentle voice, which gave an impression 
 of indolence, contradicted by his observ- 
 ant, keen glance, ' I am going to 
 Erdley. I can satisfy you on that 
 point ; you have to change twice — at 
 Stroud and at Oldfield Junction — only 
 ten miles from Erdley. The train leaves 
 Oldfield at 5.15 ; we get to Erdley a 
 few minutes past six.' 
 
 * Thank you, sir, thank you a hundred 
 times ! ' the other cried effusively ; ' it 
 seemed as if no one could give me the 
 desired information — as if Erdley were 
 at the other end of nowhere. I am 
 much obliged to you,'
 
 24 A Girl's Past. 
 
 * Not at all. It is sometimes difficult, 
 I know, to get trustworthy answers, and 
 Erdley is rather remote.' Raising his 
 hat again, he fell back and watched 
 the clergyman repeating his words to 
 the ladies of his party. In truth, 
 Graham regarded these same ladies a 
 little fixedly. 
 
 He was in the twenties, and two of 
 them were very young and very pretty, 
 yet in totally different styles- It was easy 
 to guess at the relationship of the party 
 — father, mother and three daughters ; 
 two grown up, and the third a small, 
 frail-looking child with a crutch, appar- 
 ently not more than ten years old. The 
 mother was tall, thin, a little haggard- 
 looking— in fact, almost gaunt — yet she 
 was only middle-aged, probably very 
 little over forty, and had certainly been
 
 A Girl's Past. 25 
 
 once a handsome girl. She had the 
 indescribable air of trouble ; care, not 
 age, had evidently worn her — probably 
 a long- hand-to-hand fight with that 
 poverty which grinds soul and body 
 into attenuation. Her abundant hair 
 was still dark, soft and wavy, though 
 threaded with grey ; her large, sunken 
 eyes must have once been beautiful, 
 now they were only resignedly quiescent, 
 dimmed by unjoyful experiences ; her 
 complexion was sallow^ and unhealthy- 
 looking ; but, judging by one of the 
 girls who was much like her, it might 
 have been once, as the daughter's was 
 now, a clear, creamy pale — the very tint 
 to set off deep, dark eyes and straight, 
 fine brows. Every beauty was marred 
 and spoilt In the mother by the ruthless 
 hand of the hao- Care. The once soft,
 
 2 6 A Xrirrs Past. 
 
 curved mouth, made for slow, sweet 
 smiles, was dragged out of shape, and 
 drooped into unlovely lines ; the cheeks 
 had fallen in, and the bones showed 
 prominent ; the long, well-shaped throat 
 had grown scraggy ; the once graceful 
 figure angular, with the tired stoop of 
 one accustomed to carry burdens. Yet 
 withal, it was a gentle and attractive 
 face, which might have struck one as 
 still handsome, if the least care as to 
 becomingness or nicety of toilette had 
 set it off to any advantage. There was 
 no attempt at this ; the lady had evidently 
 given up her own appearance hopelessly ; 
 she was dressed with the dowdy, dis- 
 orderly shabbiness which some people 
 think appropriate to a journey. The 
 girls, on the contrary, had evidendy 
 somewhat studied their looks. One of
 
 A Girl's Past. 27 
 
 them — a very fair, pretty, alert-lookln^^ 
 maiden — had dressed her h'ght locks 
 with care and skill ; some coquettish 
 little curls were carefully arranged under 
 her small home-made cloth toque, and ca- 
 ressed the slender nape of a white neck. 
 She looked up and down and about her 
 with the lively restlessness of a bird ; 
 her complexion was pretty, and her 
 grey-blue eyes bright. The other girl 
 was a perfect contrast in every single 
 particular — in colouring, expression, feat- 
 ure, style, She had dark, almost dusky, 
 hair, coarse and naturally curly, raised 
 high without any fringe, only with, as 
 it were, a kind of halo of rough, loose 
 hair ; a very picturesque and becoming, 
 yet evidently unstudied, coiffure. Her 
 complexion was absolutely pale — a 
 creamy, yellowish pale — the only touch
 
 28 A Girl's Past 
 
 of red being on the rather full, plaintive 
 mouth — the mouth of a child. The 
 round, soft chin had a pretty, babyish 
 dimple, but the expression of the face 
 was not infantile at all, though she 
 looked remarkably young — it was sad, 
 reserved, rather brooding. The great, 
 heavy-lidded, darkly-fringed brown eyes 
 that met Graham's for a moment had a 
 depth of wistful melancholy in them that 
 touched and disturbed him. He thought 
 he had never seen any girl at all like 
 this one. After her sadness, it was a 
 relief to hear the fair sister's chatter and 
 laugh, and to see that the father also 
 looked somewhat jovial. The little girl 
 — the lame one — had a pale, small face, 
 with some expression of physical pain on 
 it, and a pair of large, dark, eager eyes, 
 anxious to take in every detail en voyage.
 
 A Girfs Past. 29 
 
 ' Going to Erdley, bag and baggage ; 
 I wonder who they can be ? ' thought 
 Graham, as he watched his luggage in 
 and chose his carriage, ' hardly to stay 
 with Merry weather — such a tribe.' 
 
 He had the boyish curiosity to glance 
 at the labels on the pile of ungainly 
 luggage. ' Rev. W. W. Lane, passen- 
 ger to Erdley.' He thought of the 
 two pretty sisters once or twice before 
 they reached the first change. Here 
 he saw them all again on the platform, 
 the clergyman in a considerable state 
 of fuss ; he got his womankind and 
 baggage together, and then darted off 
 to the refreshment-room. 
 
 ' Is he going to get tea for the lot ? ' 
 thought Graham, as he followed him ; 
 'there will barely be time, but they look 
 as if they wanted it.'
 
 30 A Girl's Past. 
 
 No, such was evidently not the inten- 
 tion of the head of the family. He 
 was rapidly drinking off a modicum of 
 whisky and water. 
 
 'Ha,' thought Graham, 'hence that 
 slightly rubicund nose of yours, my 
 friend. Are you also one of the " nip- 
 ping " sort ? I feel rather sorry for 
 Madame votre femme.' 
 
 Turning from the buffet, the clergy- 
 man encountered his friend-in-need, and 
 smiled agreeably, showing white and 
 even teeth. He gave a little gesture 
 of recognition, which, after a moment's 
 hesitation, made Graham ask him politely 
 if he had found everything all right 
 so far ; it was rather an awkward line 
 for losing luggage on. 
 
 ' Yes, yes, thanks, all right so far. 
 It is no joke, however, travelling about
 
 A Girl's Past. ^i 
 
 with such a pile, and four unprotected 
 females Into the bargain. But I'm used 
 to it — we are birds of passage, old hands 
 at travelling. I am going down as 
 locum tenens for an invalided parson, 
 and, as the engagement will last some 
 time, I have to bring a heap of "portable 
 property." ' 
 
 'Ah ! In the neighbourhood of Erdley .-^ ' 
 ' In Erdley itself, sir. We are bound 
 for Erdley Rectory.' 
 
 * For the Rectory ? Is Merry weather 
 111, then?' 
 
 *Yes, sir, he is. Ordered abroad at 
 once for the chest — to travel a year 
 or two. I knew him formerly, so he 
 was glad to engage me. You know 
 Merry weather, then ? ' 
 
 * Yes, very well ; it is odd I had 
 not heard he was 111. I think, sir, you
 
 32 A Girls Past. 
 
 liad better get into the train now, it 
 soon starts. Good-afternoon.' 
 
 They separated, each wondering a 
 little about the other. So this smooth- 
 spoken, seedy-looking parson, with the 
 (slightly) red nose and the taste for 
 'modest quenchers,' as Dick Swiveller 
 puts it, was bound for Erdley Rectory, 
 the pompous, old-fashioned, drily — irre- 
 proachable Merry weather was his com- 
 plete antithesis. 
 
 Mr Lane meanwhile bundled his ladies 
 and their parcels pell-mell into a new 
 train. Once settled there, he began — he 
 and his fair-haired daughter were the 
 talkers of the party, — 
 
 * I saw that nice-looking, gentlemanly, 
 young fellow again, and he spoke very 
 civilly. I wonder who he can be. Erdley 
 is an uncommonly small place ; he must
 
 A Girl's Past, 33 
 
 be going to stay with one of the county 
 families, I suppose. He has nothing of 
 the swell about him, yet there is an air 
 — a something — I hope we may meet 
 at Erdley. Madge, my dear, I really 
 should be obliged to you not to kick 
 my shins.' 
 
 The little lame girl blushed, and apolo- 
 gised. She was beginning to look very 
 tired, and her eldest sister quietly made 
 a sort of cushion of herself, against which 
 the aching little back could rest, while 
 she picked up her feet, curled them 
 on the seat, and put a shawl over them. 
 
 'Is that better, Madge?' she said, in 
 a low-toned, sad, contralto voice, just 
 the voice that ought to belong to her 
 face. 
 
 The litde girl glanced at her with a 
 grateful smile. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 34 ^ Girl's Past, 
 
 * Ever so much better, Gwen.' 
 Then, as the father and other sister 
 chatted on discursively from one topic 
 to another, with an occasional remark 
 from the mother, Gwens dark eyes fell, 
 and she was as quiet and passive as 
 if asleep. 
 
 At Erdley station Mr Lane watched, 
 with as much attention as he could 
 spare from collecting his heterogeneous 
 mass of bundles, boxes and baskets, and 
 stowing them into a fusty and ancient 
 omnibus, which was waiting for his 
 party, to see the ' gentlemanly young 
 fellow' depart. A high dog-cart was 
 waiting, driven by a young groom, into 
 which Graham climbed, after tipping 
 the porters liberally, as appeared from 
 their wreathed smiles, but Mr Lane 
 failed to discover his final destination.
 
 A GirVs Past, 35 
 
 The village of Erdley was about a 
 mile from the station, the church and 
 parsonage still a little farther on. The 
 crazy old vehicle jolted the weary bodies 
 of the dusty, rather forlorn-looking little 
 party over the hard, stony road. 
 
 Mrs Lane was resignedly tired and 
 patient as usual, her husband snappish 
 and captious, Madge half worn out, 
 Ettle cross, Gwen — well, Gwen was 
 simply silent, but she looked weary 
 enough. The village was rather a large 
 one. It boasted a butcher's shop, of 
 which the stock-in-trade appeared to be 
 a dangling, objectionable-looking bullock's 
 heart, and a lean, wizen shoulder of 
 mutton. The blue-frocked butcher com- 
 mented on the omnibus and its occupants, 
 as It passed, to his neighbour, who kept 
 a combined grocery, boot and shoe and
 
 36 A GirVs Past. 
 
 china shop, which he called an Emporium. 
 The widow over the way, who baked 
 for the parish, looked out also and hoped 
 there would be a good consumption of 
 bread now at the Vicarage, Mr Merry- 
 weather and his two servants had eaten 
 scandalously little. 
 
 The post-office, which was also a 
 stationer's, was the only other shop in 
 the long straggling street. The doctor's 
 and lawyer's houses stood cheek by 
 jowl with their shining brass plates ; 
 an ' Establishment for Young Ladies ' 
 towered above the small tenements on 
 each side. The street was wide, grass- 
 grown, unexciting. Then came a few 
 more scattered houses and cottages, 
 then, in a cluster, the stumpy brown 
 tower of the church, a rather snug-look- 
 ing vicarage, whose garden opened on
 
 A Girl's Past, ^^ 
 
 to the churchyard, which, however, was 
 a sunshiny and pleasant one, and a sub- 
 stantial farm-house, whose out-buildings 
 and yards were flanked and shaded by 
 a group of elms. The rooks swung and 
 cawed there pleasantly in spring-time. 
 
 ' Here we are, thank goodness ! Not 
 a bad-lookino^ house either,' cried the 
 clergyman, as he surveyed his temporary 
 resting-place. 
 
 Mrs Lane looked out with an inward 
 sigh. Oh, if only this homelike place 
 could have been a real home ! If only 
 her dreary wanderings from place to 
 place might be over and she could sit 
 permanently by a familiar hearth. But 
 her life had grown to be a meek accept- 
 ance of the inevitable. ' What good 
 does talkinor do?' was the formula of 
 her existence.
 
 SS A Girl's Past, 
 
 ' Get out, girls, hurry up ! ' the father 
 cried impatiently, as they collected 
 their belongings. * Let us see If there 
 is anything to be had to eat. We have 
 had a day of It with these wearisome 
 cross-country journeys.' 
 
 A rustic-looking woman-servant, the 
 ' General ' whom Mrs Lane had en- 
 gaged to help on domestic concerns, 
 opened the door, with sleeves tucked 
 up above her bare, red arms. She 
 dipped an awkward curtsey, and came 
 forward to help with the luggage. 
 Tea and cold meat was ready In the 
 long, low, oak-panelled dining-room. 
 The furniture was solid and respect- 
 ably old-fashioned. The place looked 
 kindly. 
 
 *It's all very nice, I'm sure,' Mrs 
 Lane said, in her slow, languid voice,
 
 A Girrs Past, 39 
 
 naturally pitched, like Gwen's, in a 
 minor key. ' Such a sweet country 
 smell.' 
 
 ' Yes, it's very well, very well,' her 
 husband said, dancing and fidgeting 
 about in his usual restless, rapid 
 fashion. * Don't stop to unpack or any 
 nonsense now, Esther. Let's have 
 tea directly ; we all want it. Then 
 we'll go over the house and see what 
 room there is in it for pupils.' 
 
 At that Mrs Lane's mouth drooped 
 again and she sighed. Her connec- 
 tions with the word were all dismal. 
 Too well she knew what that oft-re- 
 peated phrase, * Mr Lane's pupils,' meant. 
 It had almost power enough to take 
 away the flavour of her tea, which 
 was the one luxury of her toiling life. 
 The meal despatched, the girls went
 
 40 A GirFs Past. 
 
 to settle their bedrooms. Ettie — so the 
 second one was invariably called — 
 always slept alone ; Gwen choosing 
 to take the care of the delicate little 
 sister, who was her pet and nursling. 
 
 She had to be helped to bed, laying 
 her aching, tired little dark head down 
 on the pillow, which smelt of rosemary 
 and lavender, with a sigh of content. 
 
 ' How clean it all is,' she said 
 admiringly. ' Leave the blind up, 
 Gwen ; there's a nice bit of sky, and 
 the tops of some trees. They rest 
 me. It's a dear old room, isn't it, 
 Gwen '^. only so many cupboards. 
 Please look in all of them before 
 you go down, and lock them this 
 side. There might be — something in 
 them.' 
 
 * But there isn't, see,' Gwen said,
 
 A Girl's Past, 41 
 
 throwing open first one door In the 
 wall then another. ' There's one more, 
 but that's locked up. They have left 
 things in it, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Oh, dear ! ' Madge cried, raising 
 her head from her pillow. ' I wish 
 there wasn't a locked cupboard in 
 the room one doesn't know anything 
 about ! Perhaps — perhaps there's a 
 
 skeleton inside it, Gwen.' 
 
 ' My dear, there's always one in 010^ 
 cupboard/ Gwen returned, half laughing, 
 but not mirthfully. 
 
 She was sorry the next moment for 
 having said it. Her nervous little 
 sister took her too literally 
 
 *Oh, Gwen! Not really?' 
 
 ' No, no, dear ; I was only talking 
 nonsense. There is nothing here I 
 am sure but old clothes.'
 
 42 A Girl's Past. 
 
 * How can you know ? How can 
 you be sure ? ' 
 
 * Yes, yes, I know. But I am not 
 going down anyhow. I will sit by 
 the window here till you're asleep, 
 I've something to mend. You 
 mustn't be a goose, Madge. No one 
 is ever afraid of anything in the 
 country.' 
 
 Madge subsided, soothed by the 
 promise of companionship. 
 
 Before very long she had forgotten 
 the weariness of her poor little body, 
 which, too often, was to her but a 
 vehicle for pain, and was dreaming 
 of an impossible land where pain was 
 not, nor the terrors of the everyday 
 life. 
 
 Gwen sat and stared out of the 
 window on the darkening landscape.
 
 A Girl's Past. 43 
 
 Her work had been a pretence. There 
 was no light to sew by, and she was 
 too Hstless and tired to light a candle. 
 
 The autumn day had died. Presently 
 a broad red moon almost startled her by 
 a sudden glimpse of brightness amongst 
 the elm trees. It was a solemn, peaceful 
 look-out. The light reflected itself in 
 Gwen s great deep dark eyes as in the 
 pool beyond the farmyard. Her pale, 
 pretty sad face looked spiritualised and 
 beautiful in the moonshine. It was a 
 pity to see anyone so young, yet with 
 nothing of the hope or joy of youth 
 about her. In repose Gwen looked 
 more pathetic even than in ordinary 
 moments, and at no time could anyone 
 fail to be struck by the wistfulness of 
 her expression and the cast of her 
 features. Perhaps it was but a trick, a
 
 44 ^ Girl's Past. 
 
 freak of Nature's ; perhaps that look 
 meant nothing more than that she had 
 inherited a colourless complexion, a shape 
 of face, a certain mould of mouth, and 
 unsmiling deep eyes, which had really 
 no connection with mournful ideas or 
 events. Perhaps. I do not open Gwen s 
 mind to you. She followed the rise of 
 the great red moon as It changed Its 
 hue to a paler gold, and an hour drifted 
 by before she could make up her mind 
 to leave her quiet watch and join her 
 mother and sister in the unpacking that 
 was necessary for the night. An im- 
 patient call from her sister woke her 
 from her dream. Witli a sigh she went 
 out Into the candle-light and the weari- 
 some bustle of arrangement.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Graham felt a certain natural elation of 
 heart as the dog-cart drew up at the 
 stone portico of his own house. He 
 glanced round with a new, agreeable 
 sense of possession. It was not a 'lordly 
 pleasure house,' nor a vast estate, simply 
 an old-fashioned, solid, comfortable-look- 
 ing, red-brick country mansion, of no 
 particular style of architecture, beautified 
 by climbing roses in front, and Virginia 
 creepers on the sides, with a goodly 
 array of small-paned, white eye-browed 
 windows, and with a hospitable open 
 
 door, which admitted into a pleasant, 
 
 45
 
 46 A Girl's Past. 
 
 square, carpeted hall, where a fire of logs 
 was burning, which looked hospitable 
 though it was warm weather. The 
 gardens were not very extensive, but 
 prettily planted with fine large shrubs 
 and trees, and with a smooth expanse 
 of mossy lawn, divided with a gap and 
 sunken wall from the paddock or small 
 park beyond. Rogers, his cousin's man- 
 servant, a rather lugubrious-looking, but 
 eminently respectable elderly man, with 
 grey whiskers neatly trimmed to his 
 thin long face, came forward, with an 
 air of grave decorous welcome, as his 
 new master sprang lightly to the ground 
 and offered him his hand with that 
 cordial simplicity which was one of the 
 secrets of his attraction. 
 
 * Here I am ! How are you, Rogers ? 
 All ready for me ? '
 
 A Girl's Past. 47 
 
 ' Quite ready sir ; all well, thank you, 
 sir. Allow me. Mr Willoughby, sir, 
 is within. Oh, here he is. He thought 
 you might feel a little lonely the first 
 evening, so came in to dinner.' 
 
 ' Ha, that's right ! How are you Mr 
 Willoughby ? Very kind of you to take 
 compassion on me ! ' 
 
 Mr Willoughby, the owner of a small 
 property adjoining the Manor House, 
 had been Mr Graham's chief, if not only 
 friend in Erdley, and had been left his 
 executor. In spite of a difference of 
 nearly thirty years in their ages, the 
 present owner of the Manor House and 
 he were also friends. 
 
 Mr Willoughby was a remarkably tall 
 thin man of stork-like proportions, so 
 shy, diffident and nervous, that he had 
 adopted various strange, restless tricks
 
 48 A Girl's Past, 
 
 and movements, which rendered him 
 uncouth, though never unrefined. Odd, 
 loose, shabby in dress, and by no means 
 handsome, yet he had an air of distinc- 
 tion, and could never have been mistaken 
 for anything but a perfect gentleman. 
 A love of books and dislike of ordinary 
 society had been points of sympathy 
 between him and the late Mr Graham ; 
 but Mr Willoughby had other traits, 
 which were more congenial to the 
 younger Graham. He was a thorough 
 country lover, fond of sport, of shooting, 
 fishing and riding, an authority on all 
 rustic lore. Graham liked his wife 
 also ; for, though Mr Willoughby had 
 been too shy and too vacillating to 
 make up his mind to rnarry till he had 
 most of the habits and the years of an 
 old bachelor, he had at last got a wife,
 
 A Girl's Past, 49 
 
 a maiden lady no longer young, whom 
 he had liked for years and might have 
 married long before if he had not been 
 too nervous to ask her, and she too 
 dignified to encourage him. However, 
 when they did manage a serious, sedate, 
 middle-aged marriage, they were happy 
 in a quiet unsentimental way. Mrs 
 Willoughby, who was fond of society 
 of the unexciting kind, gently coerced 
 her husband into hospitality, and was 
 sympathetic with young people, even 
 though they often surprised and not a 
 little shocked her with their eman- 
 cipated ways. 
 
 Mr Willoughby greeted his friend 
 with as much cordiality as his queer, 
 jerky, nervous manner would permit 
 to appear, and when the first awkward- 
 ness, which he always experienced with 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 A Girl's Past. 
 
 acquaintances, was spent, he became 
 communicative. 
 
 He was ready to join Graham in a 
 day's pheasant shooting on the morrow, 
 which his wife insisted was to end in 
 the young man dining with them. The 
 birds were plentiful, and prospects of 
 sport good. The news of the estate and 
 business affairs occupied the early part 
 of the dinner, which was a simple one 
 enough, but well cooked, as Mrs Rogers 
 was accustomed to serve her old master 
 who had some fastidious tastes. Then 
 Graham had questions to ask about his 
 neighbours. He had not been down 
 now for two and a half years, and 
 there were a few changes, though but 
 few. 
 
 'Dick Hall drank himself to death. 
 It was a great grief to the old people.
 
 A GirFs Past. 51 
 
 I fear the younger brother is rather 
 inclined the same way. That pretty, 
 consumptive Miss Ray died a year 
 ago. Young Willard married a good- 
 looking, fast girl, whom my wife abhors 
 — a Miss Cooke, from near Stroud. It 
 was a pity, for he's a nice fellow. 
 They have a noisy, racketty house. 
 The Miss Barnetts are unmarried still. 
 Look out for yourself with them, 
 Graham. They will all be ready to 
 pounce ; and if you are at all attentive, 
 mamma will ask your intentions. I be- 
 lieve that's about the extent of Erdley 
 news.' 
 
 * Stay ; there's a change at the Vicar- 
 aofe, isn't there ? ' 
 
 ' To be sure. Stupid of me to for- 
 get that important item. Merryweather 
 quite broke down, poor fellow ; had 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 A Girl's Past. 
 
 a long illness in the spring, and is 
 ordered abroad to take some years' 
 rest. He has got a locum tenens for 
 two years, I believe. I heard he was 
 to come to-day.' 
 
 ' He did ; in the same train with 
 me, also a wife and three daughters, 
 name of Lane.' 
 
 * Ay, that was it. He was at 
 college with Merry weather, or school, 
 or something. A High Churchman 
 rather, and a clever man, I've heard, 
 but I know nothing more of him.' 
 
 ' I suppose I ought to call on hifUy 
 not he on me, eh ? ' 
 
 * I don't know. I daresay it might 
 be kind. We shall see what he's like 
 on Sunday ; and the wife and I must 
 call. It will be somewhat of a relief 
 if the fellow can preach, for old Merry-
 
 A Girl's Past. 53 
 
 weather can't. He ground out one 
 or two tunes, like a barrel - organ ; we 
 had pretty well exhausted him. But 
 he is a good, well-meaning man.' 
 
 *Oh, very; only a bore. I'm sorry 
 he's in bad health.' 
 
 A pause devoted to port wine and 
 filberts, then from Mr Willoughby, — 
 
 ' Come to make a long stay, Graham ? ' 
 
 * I don't know. I have left all my 
 plans indefinite. It is rather jolly to 
 feel no one has any right to control 
 one's actions. I resigned the office a 
 month ago.' 
 
 *And feel like Prince Fortunatus?' 
 
 ' I feel it's a pleasant position, but I 
 don't suppose I shall find it all play.' 
 
 ^ Not if you go in for conscientious 
 squire work — try new theories and 
 study grievances. There'll always be
 
 54 ^ Girfs Past. 
 
 folks to grumble, and want you to do 
 no end of things. You'll either have 
 to ignore or to tackle the ''duties of 
 your position," which people talk so 
 much of. Poor old Graham shut him- 
 self up, and tried to shut his ears. 
 He always said he was like Hamlet, 
 not born to set things right. You're 
 young, and energetic, and, I fancy, 
 a bit fond of theories. I daresay 
 you will feel that you are. Meanwhile, 
 get your fun out of it while you can. 
 You've got a good managing man in 
 Grant, only he's a little hard and 
 narrow. Don't let him tyrannise over 
 you.' 
 
 Graham felt his will strong and 
 his mind capable enough to enter 
 on his responsibilities with courage. 
 Things looked bright through the
 
 A Girl's Past. 55 
 
 rosy medium of the bottle of fine 
 old port which Rogers had unearthed 
 for the occasion. Life was full of in- 
 terest, from pheasant shooting to pretty 
 girls. He had zest for all forms of 
 distraction. These two dauo^hters of 
 the new clergyman were both of them 
 very pretty, even in the unbecoming 
 dust and shabbiness of their travelling 
 costumes. They would be prettier still 
 in a more favourable moment. He 
 quite looked forward to the call he 
 contemplated paying on the first decent 
 opportunity ; then he could make up 
 his mind on the point which perplexed 
 him — which style was most attractive ; 
 the fair-haired, blue -eyed, lively type, 
 or the dark, pale and sad one. He 
 wondered why that girl had such a 
 melancholy expression. She was too
 
 56 A Girrs Past. 
 
 young, surely, to have come by it 
 naturally. Years of sorrow alone could 
 justify the lonely, dreamy depths of 
 her eyes — a trick, probably — an acci- 
 dent of feature. Some quite ordinary 
 people have a way of looking pathetic. 
 He should not be at all surprised to 
 find Miss Lane a dull, common-place 
 sort of girl after all ; the other one 
 must certainly be amusing. As a rule, 
 he was drawn to lively people. 
 
 The next day he and Mr Willoughby 
 ' pouthered up and down ' after the 
 pheasants, * and had a rattlin' day ' in 
 the plantations and over the fields and 
 sides of Loxeter Hill. The pop pop 
 of the guns were frequent, and the bag 
 heavy. A great many brace found their 
 way to different houses, with 'Mr Graham 
 Brooke-Graham's' new card attached.
 
 A Girl's Past. 57 
 
 He was delighted to find his eve as true 
 and his aim as sure as ever. Clean, 
 wholesome Hvlno^ had left his bodv 
 strong, muscular and In excellent case. 
 Mrs Willou^hbv, a rather faded, vet 
 nice-looking, lady-like woman, the dlgnity 
 of whose manners was tempered by 
 solicitous kindness, received him cordi- 
 ally in the drawing-room she had managed 
 to make so very like herself, quiet-toned, 
 comfortable, and in good taste, with no- 
 thing obtrusive or fine about it. She 
 liked Graham with all her heart, as 
 middle-aged and old ladies always did. 
 He took trouble to be polite to them. 
 and had a frank open-heartedness in 
 speech and manner, with yet a kind of 
 reserve which prevented his being seen 
 through too easily, which was agreeable 
 to those who are apt to expect little
 
 5^ A Girl's Past, 
 
 from young men. She had been 'doing 
 her district ' in the village as she told 
 them, and had met the new people from 
 the Vicarage in the post-office. ' A 
 fussy little man, very quick and talkative, 
 moves his hand a great deal, and is 
 rather oratorical, a worn-out, pale-look- 
 ing wife, and a very pretty fair 
 daughter. ' 
 
 ' Oh, you saw only the fair daughter ! ' 
 cried Graham, displaying a sudden in- 
 terest. 'There is another — a perfect con- 
 trast — but both are very pretty. Rather 
 nice sort of people don't you think, 
 Mrs Willoughby ^ Only very poor, I 
 should suppose.-^' 
 
 ' Yes, very poor, I fancy. I don't 
 know that I took muck to the clergy- 
 man. One ought not to judge, but locmn 
 tenens, you know, are apt to be — '
 
 A Girl's Past. 59 
 
 She broke off with an apologetic 
 little laugh as she saw her husband 
 was writhing and squeezing up his eyes, 
 signs she had learnt to understand as 
 well as words. 
 
 ' Leiorh thinks me uncharitable and 
 censorious,' she said to Graham, smiling ; 
 ' don't you Leigh ? He has a theory 
 that all women are.' 
 
 * No, no, don't pay yourself bad com- 
 pliments and father them on me. Only 
 don't let us start with the idea, first 
 that locum tenens are, as a rule, objec- 
 tionable, secondly, Mr Lane is a locicvi 
 tenens^ ergo Mr Lane is objectionable. 
 His poverty, perhaps not his will, offends. 
 The Church has not prizes to offer 
 everybody ; there are unlucky dogs in 
 every profession. Merry weather is a 
 cautious man, he would not have asked
 
 6o A Girls Past. 
 
 this one to come, I expect, If he had not 
 known he was all right. And, at any 
 rate,' he added quaintly, with an odd 
 twitch of his eyes in the young man's 
 direction, 'Lane has two pretty daughters, 
 Graham says. There's safety in numbers ; 
 stick to the two, my boy.' 
 
 ' Well, we may count it to him as 
 a virtue, mayn't we? till we know of 
 some others,' Graham rejoined, smiling. 
 * It's better to have pretty daughters 
 than ugly ones. I feel rather inclined 
 to be sorry for our new temporary 
 parson, do you know, there was such 
 an air of seediness about the whole 
 turn-out of the family. It can't be a 
 cheerful life.' 
 
 'He looks cheerful enough,' Mrs 
 Willoughby put in. ' Rather over lively. 
 The wife has a sad face.'
 
 A Girl's Past. 6i 
 
 * Well, I daresay it is worst for the 
 wife if they're poor. It generally is 
 worse for the women in this world.' 
 
 ' Where did yon learn your philosophy, 
 my boy?' Mr Willoughby asked laugh- 
 ing his odd, short, spasmodic little 
 laugh. ' You've no vast experience 
 of women.' 
 
 * From my mother, I suppose,' 
 Graham answered, rather gravely. 
 *We were very poor once, she had 
 a hard struggle of it when my father 
 died. At any rate I always feel glad 
 that the Fates did not make me 
 a woman.' 
 
 'Well,' Mrs Willoughby said in her 
 quiet, decisive voice, ' there are women, 
 on the other hand, who rejoice not 
 to be men. I am one of them.' 
 
 ' Yes, I daresay the best women
 
 62 A Girl's Past. 
 
 would agree with you, the nicest cer- 
 tainly of them would.' 
 
 * Merci du compliment I ' she said, 
 smiling at him. ' I don't find fault with 
 the strong-minded ladies, the emanci- 
 pated ones, but I have no inclination 
 for the role. I hope, to go back to 
 the new clergyman, that Mrs Lane 
 and her daughters will prove to be 
 pleasant and useful. We always 
 wished poor Mr Merryweather had a 
 wife. There is plenty to do in Erdley.' 
 
 ' Mrs Lane did not look much like 
 a doer, I thought. But what can there 
 be to do in Erdley, Mrs Willoughby ? ' 
 
 ' There are a great many very poor 
 people, and of rather a low type — ' Mrs 
 Willoughby began. 
 
 Her husband interrupted her a little 
 tartly.
 
 A GirFs Past. 6^ 
 
 ' To pauperise and lower still further — 
 to encourage In lies and begging ! My 
 wife, Graham, is the most absurdly 
 generous, the most mischievous of givers. 
 She would ruin the whole parish if I 
 gave her her head.' 
 
 *Well, dear,' his wife put in with a 
 tone of serene protest, ' you are always 
 raving about the bad housing and bad 
 pay, I am sure. And if one can make 
 poor people a little happier, it can't be 
 very wrong to do it.' 
 
 * Right or wrong you'll continue to 
 go your own way,' he retorted, with a 
 twist and a writhe. 
 
 ' I am afraid I shall. I am too old 
 to be reformed ; ' and, smiling pleasantly 
 on them both, the mild-mannered, kindly, 
 but persistent woman left them to their 
 wine.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. Graham 
 had knocked about the world and seen 
 the noisy side of it too much to be 
 unable to relish the large calm, the pro- 
 found leisure, the brooding peace of a 
 sunshiny country Sunday. One fancies 
 that if one were dropped on a rural spot 
 of earth from another planet, this day 
 would be instantly recognisable. The 
 very sky seemed washed, like the door- 
 steps and the children's faces ; the quiet 
 air was only broken in upon by the 
 sound of bells. The rooks cawed a lazy 
 
 chorus from the churchyard elms ; the 
 64
 
 A Girl's Past 65 
 
 hens seemed to put on a Sabbatical 
 cluck for the day ; the cock crowed 
 like a hoarse, respectable parish clerk. 
 Graham's two pet dogs, Trim and 
 Dainty, looked up at him with wistful 
 protest when he appeared in his black 
 Sunday coat with a flower in it. Why 
 would people go flocking once a week 
 to a big grey house where dogs are 
 not admitted ? Graham had not been 
 a great church-goer, but, for various 
 reasons, he intended to-day to take his 
 seat in the Squire's pew. He stood 
 on the doorstep, listening to the bells, 
 after breakfast, snuffing up the sweet, 
 still autumn morning, and drawing on 
 a respectable pair of gloves, which Trim 
 would much have liked to tear to pieces. 
 Dressed in these irreproachable London 
 clothes, with his sunburnt, manly, sweet- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 A Girl's Past. 
 
 tempered face and golden brown mous- 
 tache, broad-shouldered, well set on a 
 pair of straight, firm legs, Mr Graham 
 Brooke-Graham appeared a very person- 
 able young man indeed, though he had 
 no legitimate claims to beauty. He 
 patted the dogs, and condoled with 
 them as he gave his orders to them to 
 stay behind, and repressed the eager 
 little rushes they could not help mak- 
 ing to follow. 
 
 'After lunch, old chaps, you shall have 
 a run. We're on Sunday behaviour re- 
 member ; ' and he strode off, swinging 
 his stick, no dandy cane but a good 
 thick, knobby affair which had accom- 
 panied his wanderings for years. 
 
 As he fell in with scattered groups 
 along the road, all going towards the 
 stumpy-towered church, he met with
 
 A GirFs Past 6y 
 
 various greetings, curtseys and bows to 
 the * young squire,' * how d'ye do's,' 
 and poHte small remarks from such of 
 the higher class as he knew, sweet 
 smiles and volleys of glances in the 
 porch where the four Miss Barnetts 
 were shaking out their plumage — very 
 smart plumage, too, though it was the 
 end of the summer, for they had made 
 a special effort for the occasion of Mr 
 Brooke - Graham's first appearance in 
 that character. Graham was polite but 
 stoical ; the Miss Barnetts did not, as 
 he expressed it, ' fetch him ' at all. 
 
 He entered the cool - smelling, old- 
 fashioned village sanctuary and walked 
 to his place under a fire of glances, 
 blushing a little, perhaps, but with 
 steadfast unwavering eyes. It was a 
 primitive little place, untouched by the
 
 68 A Girl's Past. 
 
 professional restorer, with black oak 
 pews, irregular paving, and a low, humble 
 altar, for which Mrs Willoughby had 
 lately worked a cloth ; with a narrow 
 lancet painted window above, and 
 vases filled with late flowers. Mr 
 Merry weather was one of the old 
 school, and though he rather liked 
 ritual he had not had energy enough 
 to change time - honoured customs, so 
 there was a mixed choir of village 
 girls, boys and men, and the old clerk, 
 though his office was nearly a sinecure, 
 still led the Amens and responses. The 
 Parsonage pew was occupied. Graham's 
 was just opposite, and he naturally 
 glanced at the new family. Mrs Lane, 
 in thin black silk that crackled like 
 paper, and a bonnet that had seen good 
 service, sat at the end, the lame little
 
 A GirFs Past, 69 
 
 girl beside her, then came Ettie in a 
 blue bonnet which set off the golden 
 hair which fluffed prettily about her 
 vivacious fair face. She managed to 
 look nice, though, as Miss Barnett 
 whispered to her sister, ' she had got 
 nothing on worth two - pence half- 
 penny/ 
 
 What did Graham's manly mind 
 know of cost or fabric ? He thought 
 the cheap cream-coloured costume looked 
 very well, and was confirmed in his 
 impression of her prettiness. 
 
 But where was the ' dark one ' ? He 
 glanced about and discovered that she 
 sat at the small organ, half hidden by 
 a scanty curtain. She played the 
 voluntary well, but he fancied she was 
 very nervous over it. Then Mr Lane's 
 resonant, though worn, musical voice
 
 70 A Girl's Past 
 
 began in a strong, sure intoning, ' When 
 the wicked man,' and all the con- 
 gregation were on their feet. They 
 were not used to intoning. Some of 
 the old - world folks, who dreaded 
 popery, did not like it, nor any of the 
 innovations which it was evident Mr 
 Lane intended to make law, but Graham 
 was pleased with the service. It was 
 much more musical and harmonious 
 than he remembered of yore. Mr Lane 
 not only intoned well, he sang also, loud, 
 in a sure, rather fine if worn baritone. 
 Ettie, too, raised a high, clear, true 
 soprano, which dominated the uncertain 
 voices which at once followed and 
 obeyed her lead. 
 
 It was evident the new family were 
 musical. Graham could detect, be- 
 sides the fresh treble, a rich, full con-
 
 A Girl's Past, 7 1 
 
 tralto making itself heard as a thrush 
 does in a chorus of shriller birds. 
 It came from the young organist. 
 He was pleased with the fitness of 
 things that gave the fair, gay-looking 
 sister her clear, high, canary notes, 
 and the sad-faced one that pathetic, 
 rich contralto. Ettie genuflected, curt- 
 seyed, and performed various rites, yet 
 her demeanour was not reverential. She 
 turned her slender throat from right 
 to left, observing everything and 
 everybody. More than once Graham 
 met shrewd glances from the blue eyes 
 opposite. He was amused with the 
 lively girl, with her outward gestures 
 of devotion and her evident wide- 
 awakeness to secular fact. If she 
 had been less pretty he might have 
 been a little more severe on the light
 
 72 A Girl's Past. 
 
 behaviour of a girl who ought to have 
 ' set an example ' as clergyman's 
 daughter. Theresa, Charlotte, Ada, 
 and Genevieve Barnett were, however, 
 very severe, and that made the balance 
 even. The sermon was short, which 
 in itself was a recommendation after 
 the long service, but it was also dis- 
 tinctly a good sermon. Mr Lane had 
 a fine pulpit voice, and made it sym- 
 pathetic ; the matter was well turned, 
 sensible, and rather impressive. 
 Graham felt inclined to rejoice over 
 poor Mr Merryweather's misfortunes. 
 He made up his mind to call at the 
 Parsonage the very next day, what- 
 ever etiquette might say was the 
 proper thing, of which he was not 
 sure. He stopped behind the rest of 
 the congregation to introduce himself
 
 A Girl's Past. 73 
 
 to the Lanes. They had already 
 found out all about their fellow- 
 traveller, and the clergyman responded 
 warmly to his salutation. He, in his 
 turn, begged to introduce Mrs Lane, 
 his daughters, Gweneth, Esther and 
 Margaret, for they appeared at full 
 length on state occasions. They 
 walked together a short distance, 
 and Mr Lane was very chatty 
 and communicative. He was glad 
 Mr Brooke-Graham had liked the 
 service. There was a great deal 
 he should wish to reform, but must 
 go softly to work, as he was only 
 a stop-gap. Merry weather, no doubt, 
 was an excellent man, a little fossil- 
 ised. For his part he liked a rather 
 ornate service, plenty of music and 
 good music. Yes, they were a
 
 74 A Girrs Past. 
 
 musical lot. He supposed there 
 
 was no vanity in saying that. It 
 was born in them all. His wife 
 once sang magnificently ( ' You did, 
 my dear,' to a feeble protest). She 
 had lost her voice, but still played the 
 piano better than most people. Gwen 
 played the organ and sang ; Ettle 
 the violin, and had a good pipe of 
 her own ; Madge was learning the 
 'cello. The boys (he had two boys 
 at school), were musical too. He 
 himself had some taste. Did Mr 
 Brooke-Graham relish music ? Ah, if 
 so, he must help at their little family 
 concerts. They intended to get up 
 village musical entertainments, popular 
 but refined. The bucolic taste needed 
 educating. 
 
 He talked so fast there was not much
 
 A Girls Past, 75 
 
 chance of getting in more than a word 
 or two, but Graham was not loquacious. 
 He hstened, and considered Mr Lane 
 a bit bumptious and underbred, perhaps, 
 but well-meaning — a good-natured, rather 
 clever little man. The ladies of the 
 party were silent enough, with the ex- 
 ception of Esther, who tried now and 
 then to get her oar in. She was much 
 the most like the father. She evidently 
 wanted to start a friendship with Mr 
 Brooke - Graham, and he was quite 
 cordial and ready. Gwen, with Madge 
 clinging to her arm as she limped 
 along with her little crutch, walked in 
 silence. He hardly heard her voice at 
 all. She glanced about her, and the 
 beauty of the day and scene seemed to 
 find a reflection in her looks, which 
 softened and brightened a little out of
 
 76 A GirFs Past 
 
 their usual sombre quietude. Now and 
 then she said a word under her breath 
 to her little sister, making her notice a 
 peep of view, a scudding rabbit, or 
 yellowing tree, but that was all. She 
 seemed either very shy, very reserved, 
 or very — no, she was not stupid. 
 She had a sympathetic nature, or her 
 eyes would not have dwelt so lovingly 
 on the beautiful things of the country. 
 Graham spoke of calling as they reached 
 the parting of their ways, and Mr Lane 
 warmly and fussily invited him to come 
 and have a — a cup of tea, he added, 
 as he met his wife's warning look, 
 with them any day at five o'clock or 
 so. 
 
 * To-morrow ? ' asked Graham. 
 
 * Certainly ! To-morrow, by all means. 
 They were pretty straight, as straight
 
 A Girl's Past. yj 
 
 as poor wanderers can be,' he added, 
 sighing. 
 
 * I often pray for a quiet, permanent 
 haven, Mr Brooke-Graham, but I have 
 never had any luck. From pillar to 
 post, that has been my fate.' 
 
 He sighed again, but still he looked 
 cheerful enough. 
 
 Graham fancied the sigh was echoed 
 in poor Mrs Lane's heart if not on her 
 patient lips. Mr Lane waved his hand 
 at parting from his new friend as if they 
 had known each other for years. 
 
 ' Shall we have to be forever '' Brooke- 
 Grahaming " him?' asked Ettie. 'It's a 
 ridiculous double-barrelled name.' 
 
 *I wonder if he'd mind plain Graham,' 
 mused Mrs Lane. 'It is a mouthful.' 
 
 * You had better give him the benefit 
 of his hyphen, as it means a good deal
 
 ^S AGirl^sPasL 
 
 to him/ Mr Lane said. * He was only 
 a poor War Office clerk before, I hear. 
 This is a nice little property.' 
 
 *What is a ** hyphen," Gwen?' whis- 
 pered Madge. ' I learnt in " Mary's 
 Grammar," I think, but I forget.' 
 
 *A little line that joins two words,' 
 Gwen answered, briefly. 
 
 Madge's education was elementary and 
 precarious. She had never been to 
 school or had a governess. Gwen 
 taught her what little she could 'when 
 there was time.' 
 
 'Well, what has that got to do with 
 that gentleman ? ' 
 
 * His name used to be Brooke, now 
 it is Brooke-Graham with a hyphen.' 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 Madge loved to know the whys and 
 wherefores of things.
 
 A Girl's Past. 79 
 
 * Because a Mr Graham left him 
 money, he took the name.' 
 
 * Is he rich, then ? ' 
 
 * I suppose he is, rather.' 
 'Richer than father?' 
 
 * You silly child ! You know we 
 are not rich at all. We are very 
 poor." 
 
 * How many pounds a year make 
 people rich ? ' 
 
 * Madge, don't bother with questions. 
 I can't tell you.' 
 
 Gwen spoke rather irritably. She had 
 not the best of tempers. No one of 
 the Lanes had, except the long-suffering 
 mother, but then she was never spite- 
 ful or 'nasty,' and Madge never loved 
 her less for occasional moments of irri- 
 tation which did not last. Gwen was 
 at once her heroine and her darling.
 
 8o A GirPs Past, 
 
 She admired, adored and served her 
 with intense, unspoken devotion. 
 
 Mr Lane had by this time dropped 
 the subject of Brooke-Graham, and was 
 speaking in his rapid, skimming, impa- 
 tient sort of way of two pupils he ex- 
 pected by the end of the month. 
 
 ' I wish we need not have them,' his 
 wife sighed, half afraid when she had 
 spoken. 
 
 He turned angrily upon her. 
 
 ' Don't you suppose / wish so too ? 
 Isn't it a nuisance, a hateful infliction 
 on me ? I wish you would tell me how 
 to avoid it. I wish to heaven I could 
 earn ;^200 a year any other way. Isn't 
 it worse for me than you ? ' 
 
 Mrs Lane did not answer. She could 
 not. She could not truthfully say that 
 she thought so. Her husband could
 
 A GirFs Past. 8i 
 
 shake them off, could go out and forget 
 them. He had such a deHghtfully easy 
 way of forgetting evils. She never could. 
 Their presence was a misery and an in- 
 cubus to her all day long. 
 
 But why did the innocent word ' pupil ' 
 suggest such ideas to her mind ? Why 
 not rather a mild image of a theo- 
 logical student, a sort of acolyte, soft 
 of speech, meek of bearing ? Alas ! 
 Mr Lane's pupils were not of this kind. 
 He advertised for ' troublesome youths.' 
 Parents wearied and hopeless of reform 
 sent him their black sheep. Truly, his 
 hundred per annum was hardly earned. 
 
 They had had every variety of mauvais 
 sujel, from dunce to dipsomaniac, and 
 everyone had left a new wrinkle of sad- 
 ness on Mrs Lane's careworn counten- 
 ance. She suffered and submitted. Her 
 
 VOL. L F
 
 82 A Girts Past. 
 
 husband had a faculty of taking things 
 easy, though he let off a good deal of 
 steam in complaints and self-pity. 
 
 There was Irish blood as well as fiery 
 Welsh in Mr Lane, and the former was 
 accountable for the incorrigible hopeful- 
 ness which had carried him over many 
 a bad passage. He was often in the 
 depths of despair, but a good dinner, 
 an extra glass of whisky-and-water, a 
 quarterly payment, would suffice to raise 
 his spirits, and the mere satisfaction of 
 talking and grumbling about his mis- 
 fortune to a willing listener was always 
 a consolation. And he had an unshake- 
 ably good opinion of himself, that had 
 survived many a shock which would 
 have utterly prostrated a less robust 
 conceit. In these things lay the secret 
 of Mr Lane's frequent joviality, which
 
 A Girl's Past. 83 
 
 really had little excuse, as could well 
 be supposed. 
 
 He had some grounds, however, 
 for conceit. He really w^as a clever 
 man ; the marvel was, he had never 
 found a better market for his talents. 
 A fine voice and delivery, a quickness 
 of invention, and a very tolerable amount 
 of learning ought to have landed him 
 in the secure haven of a comfortable 
 living, but somehow no one ever could 
 quite trust him for long together. He 
 was unstable as water, and often man- 
 aged to gain credit for positive vices 
 which he did not possess. A violent, if 
 easily appeased temper, and a habit of 
 inaccuracy of speech, generally made 
 themselves seen, and did him more harm 
 than the 'ill luck,' which he freely de- 
 nounced as the sole origin of all his dis-
 
 84 A Girl's Past. 
 
 asters. His long-suffering, gentle and, 
 on the whole, affectionate wife, though 
 she no longer cherished illusions about 
 him, still managed to preserve enough 
 kindness for him to excuse the faults 
 she never attempted not to see. 
 
 Of all his children he cared most for 
 Ettie, of whom he was proud, who re- 
 sembled him, and had the audacity to 
 beard him in his most irritable moods. 
 He admired, was proud of her, and 
 intended her to marry well. He was 
 not long in informing his wife, in the 
 privacy of the matrimonial chamber, that 
 Brooke-Graham certainly admired Ettie. 
 He looked at her a long while, and 
 with approval. It would be a nice match 
 for the girl. 
 
 ' But if it were Gwen,' his wife faltered 
 timidly.
 
 A Girls Past 85 
 
 Mr Lane bristled into wrath in a mo- 
 ment, and was positive, as he always 
 was, in defence of his most unsupported 
 theories. 
 
 ' Gwen ? Nonsense ! he hardly looked 
 at Gwen. Ettie is the girl to attract 
 a young fellow like that. You have 
 always something uncomfortable to sug- 
 gest, Esther.'
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The very next day Graham paid his 
 promised call at the Parsonage. The 
 prim, old-fashioned order of Mr Merry- 
 weather's regime was already displaced. 
 Signs of a family, and a not very 
 orderly one, were broadcast over the 
 whole house. Doors stood open, hats 
 and jackets were thrown on to the 
 umbrella-stand that had been only used 
 to the vicar's soft black hat and sedate 
 overcoat ; the drawing-room was full of 
 unaccustomed lumber, music on the 
 chairs and on the square old piano, 
 
 a violoncello case leant against the wall, 
 86
 
 A Girl's Past, 87 
 
 some feminine work and a dilapidated 
 novel were on the table. Mrs Lane 
 sat near the window sewing ; Madge 
 was in the garden outside on a bench 
 with her doll ; the other girls ap- 
 peared from somewhere. The visitor 
 was not sorry to find the father of 
 the family absent. Where he was 
 there w^as a little chance of hearing any 
 other voice. It proved to be Ettie's 
 chiefly that was heard in default of his ; 
 she decidedly took the lead. Though 
 only eighteen years old, Miss Ettie was 
 a very self-confident young person, and 
 seldom at a loss. She laughed a great 
 deal, showing a glimpse of regular 
 white young teeth and a pretty dimple 
 that came and went. She was friendly, 
 nay intimate, in a minute — no ice to 
 break here. The other two were quite
 
 88 A Girl's Past 
 
 different. Mrs Lane was nervous, diffi- 
 dent, never at her ease with outsiders, 
 apt to be apologetic, and to seem un- 
 sure of herself and her position. She 
 had no conversation, and an awkward 
 manner. Gwen, too, though not awk- 
 ward, was singularly silent and reserved. 
 She let Ettie rattle on, and made no 
 effort to take an elder sister's share 
 in entertaining a pleasant young man. 
 Graham was piqued. He wanted to 
 hear her low, sad-toned, melodious voice 
 oftener. He wanted to find out if 
 she were proud, stupid, shy, or un- 
 happy, to fathom the meaning that 
 seemed to lie deep in the large, dark, 
 liquid eyes which he seldom met in a 
 straight open glance. 
 
 Were ever sisters more unlike } The 
 old hackneyed contrasts of night and
 
 A Girl 's Past, 89 
 
 morning, sunshine and shadow, rose 
 to the mind involuntarily. What had 
 made one so grave, the other so gay ? 
 Probably temperament, forces as un- 
 accountable as tinted their eyes and 
 gave the different calibre to their voices. 
 
 A look and whisper from her mother 
 sent Gwen presently out of the room, 
 and after enoup^h time for boilino^ some 
 water had elapsed, the one servant 
 appeared with a tray, Gwen following, 
 a little flushed, which a glance at the 
 toast which accompanied the tea ac- 
 counted for. 
 
 Graham was struck suddenly by the 
 positive beauty which this delicate rose 
 colour gave the pale, still face. That 
 and a sudden smile, which something 
 he said brought out, were all that was 
 required to make her lovely. It was a
 
 90 A Girls Past. 
 
 pity to see both colour and smile fade 
 so quickly. 
 
 Mr Lane made his appearance soon 
 after the tea, and began to eat toast 
 and to talk with equal rapidity. He 
 was very suave and agreeable to his 
 guest, and really knew how to converse 
 well on a good many discursive subjects 
 in a sketchy but telling way. He had 
 for the last five years been in London, 
 but before that he had travelled a good 
 deal, taking chaplaincies in various 
 continental towns. Graham and he 
 found interest in comparing notes on 
 places they both knew. Ettie kept a 
 robust hold on the conversation, how- 
 ever, not allowing it to become a 
 duologue, but the other two members 
 of the family who were present, as 
 usual retired into the background. They
 
 A Girls Past. 91 
 
 seemed interested in each other, and 
 had a low remark now and then to 
 interchange on some small, domestic 
 matter. After tea Graham reminded 
 his host that he had been promised 
 music. 
 
 Mr Lane was perfectly willing to 
 show off the accomplishments of his 
 family. 
 
 ' What will you have ? A duet ? 
 Gwen's and Ettie's voices go admir- 
 ably together. It is really a kind 
 provision of nature that gave Ettie a 
 high soprano and Gwen a contralto. 
 Here are the old favourites — Mendels- 
 sohn. Choose one for them ! ' 
 
 Graham chose the old hackneyed duet, 
 which he loved for the words as well 
 as the music, ' Wert thou in the cauld 
 blast.'
 
 92 A Girls Past. 
 
 He never afterwards disassociated it 
 with Gwen. She had the saddest, richest 
 of contralto voices, which lent a new 
 pathos to what was already pathetic. 
 After that Ettie sang. They had a 
 stock of old standard music, the regular 
 repertoire of well-trained amateurs, but 
 nothing very new. Ettie gave them 
 * Cherry ripe,' ' Where the bee sucks,' 
 and so on. Her high, bird-like trill 
 was very pretty, but he was impatient 
 for the deeper, sadder voice, and was 
 ready, when the younger sister had 
 done, with a book of Kingsley's ballads 
 for the elder. He made Gwen sing 
 'The Sands o' Dee,' the 'Three Fishers,' 
 'Oh that we two were maying.' Like 
 many happy young people he loved to 
 be thrilled into sympathetic melancholy. 
 The dark-eyed, ivory-pale girl puzzled
 
 A Girls Past. 93 
 
 him. What made her look so mourn- 
 ful ? Why was she so utterly reserved, 
 so apart from the rest ? He hardly 
 heard her father speak to her, all his 
 talk was directed to the favourite, gay, 
 pretty, smiling Ettie. Graham found 
 the younger sister perfectly approach 
 able, friendly, coquettish, lively. He 
 only got monosyllables from Gwen. She 
 did not seem at all vain of her musical 
 powers ; she sang because she was 
 asked, perhaps because singing was 
 easier than talking, besides, it was the 
 thing to be done, what visitors ex- 
 pected. Her father did not discuss 
 her. He answered Graham's question 
 about the organ by saying Gwen had 
 undertaken it for the present as they 
 seemed in difficulties. He hoped amongst 
 them they should make a decent choir
 
 94 ^ Girl s Past, 
 
 in time, but the country voices were 
 not musical. Gwen would start a class 
 of boys. 
 
 'How shall you like that?' Graham 
 asked her. 
 
 ' Oh, very well,' she answered, in her 
 low - pitched indifferent voice. ' They 
 will be troublesome, I daresay, but I 
 have done it before.' 
 
 * It must be trying work — it is rough 
 material.' 
 
 *Yes. But I shan't mind.' 
 
 ' I wonder what would bring her out 
 of her shell,' Graham thought as he 
 walked home, with the rich voice 
 echoing in his mind. ' What would 
 make that girl break out into a rage 
 — or a fit of laughter — or — or anything 
 but that dull dreary calm? She must 
 be very young, perhaps twenty, but
 
 A Girl's Past. 95 
 
 she hasn't a scrap of the gaiety of youth 
 about her. Is she miserable at home ? 
 Poor they are, no doubt. The mother 
 looks care-ridden enough, but is there 
 worse than poverty ? Is the father a 
 secret tyrant, does he beat or swear at 
 them ? No, there's no appearance of 
 anything actually bad in him — a bit of 
 a windbag, perhaps a humbug, but no 
 look of cruelty or wickedness. Still, I 
 don't fancy he and she are on the 
 best of terms. I wish I could find 
 out what gives her that unhappy look ! ' 
 Graham hated to see suffering, especi- 
 ally in women, children or animals. He 
 was no sentimentalist. He had seen men 
 die in a skirmish, he had faced many 
 a danger sternly enough, but the misery 
 of an ill-used child, the cry of a wounded 
 dog, the sorrow in a woman's eyes
 
 96 A Girts Past. 
 
 ' made a fool of him,' as he said. He 
 tried to think that Gwen was only 
 made to look so by a cast of feature, 
 by natural complexion, yet still his 
 thoughts recurred to her, and he still 
 vexed his mind with conjectures as 
 to causes where perhaps none were to 
 be found. It was certainly odd that 
 two sisters should be so utterly unlike, 
 but heredity will account for any 
 strange diversity. The one had the 
 temperament of one branch of an- 
 cestors, the other of a different race. 
 He himself and Kitty generally dis- 
 agreed about things. But in spite of 
 all reasoning he felt he should be glad 
 if he could make Gweneth Lane look 
 happy. 
 
 The splendid autumn weather showed 
 no signs yet of giving way to the
 
 A GirVs Past. 97 
 
 dominion of winter ; though October it 
 was positively hot. One day, soon 
 after this, Graham felt almost fagged 
 out, after a long ramble with his gun 
 and dogs, and was glad to strike into 
 the shade of the small plantation that 
 skirted the lower part of his garden, 
 and which was generally called the 
 Wilderness. This part of the Erdley 
 Manor House property was only vaguely 
 protected from trespassers by a casual 
 board announcing that such ' would be 
 prosecuted,' and, as a fact, the 
 Erdley people made pretty free with 
 the Wilderness, which could be 
 easily entered from the high road. In 
 spring the largest and finest primroses, 
 oxlips, and blue hyacinths grew here. 
 In summer their kingdom was taken 
 by a host of lordly foxgloves, below 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 98 A Girl's Past, 
 
 these the pink stars of campion and 
 the white of stitchwort made a gay 
 tapestry. Now but few flowers re- 
 mained ; not much beside a little 
 honeysuckle, some traveller's joy, and 
 some other isolated blossoms, but the 
 berries were beginning to show colour 
 and to tempt the children's clutch. 
 Graham was hot and tired. He threw 
 himself on a bed of pine needles, sniffed 
 in the warm, aromatic air, and lay star- 
 ing at the blue sky that peeped through 
 the screen of the fir trees till he 
 dropped into a luxurious open - air 
 slumber. 
 
 As he slowly emerged from it, some 
 half hour later, remaining in a blissful 
 state of semi-consciousness for a few 
 seconds, he became aware, in a vague 
 sort of way, of a crooning little voice
 
 A Girls Past. 99 
 
 half chanting near him, very near him, 
 only completely screened off by a thick 
 holly-bush. He wondered as he listened. 
 It seemed an odd thing to hear a child 
 in the Wilderness singing, 
 
 ' I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows, 
 Where oxHps and the nodding, nodding violet blows.' 
 
 Then a soliloquy. ' I wonder what sort 
 of flowers oxlips are, but I'm afraid 
 they come in spring. It's such a pity 
 now that most of everything is gone 
 over. I should like to find oxlips and 
 violets.' Then again it broke into 
 singing, 
 
 ' There sleeps the fairy queen.' 
 
 Another pause, and a musing repetition. 
 ' The fairy queen. This would be a 
 nice place for fairies.' 
 
 Graham raised himself on his elbows
 
 lOO A Girl's Past. 
 
 and tried to look through the leafy 
 screen. At the same moment Trim, 
 who had been dozing as well as his 
 master, started up with a short bark and 
 dashed through a hole in the bush. 
 Graham heard a shrill cry, half-fright- 
 ened, half-laughing. In a minute he 
 skirted the holly bush, calling his dog 
 and sending an assurance of Trim's 
 good temper before him. He found 
 Madge, with her crutch beside her, 
 sitting on the mossy stump of a tree 
 with such few flowers as she had col- 
 lected between her fingers. She looked 
 up at him with an effort to rise, which 
 he prevented, and a tide of crimson 
 blushes overflooded her serious, childish 
 face. 
 
 'Oh, please,' she stammered, *am I 
 trespassing? I didn't see the board
 
 A Girl's Past. loi 
 
 till after I got In. If I am, I'll go 
 away.' 
 
 ' No, no,' he cried earnestly, patting 
 her back in her seat and dropping 
 down on the grass near her. ' Never 
 mind the board. No one but poachers 
 need trouble about that. But how did 
 you get in .-^ ' 
 
 He glanced at her crutch. 
 
 'Oh, quite easily,' she said, still 
 blushing and turning her head away 
 from him to hide it. ' I walked with 
 Gwen to a cottage near here — our 
 washerwoman's cottage — and while she 
 talked to her I came in. I get about 
 very well. I — I suppose it is your 
 wood ? ' 
 
 * Yes ; do you know who I am '^. ' 
 
 * Oh, yes,' she answered, stealing a 
 shy momentary glance at him ; ' you
 
 I02 A Girls Past. 
 
 are Mr Hyphen Graham, aren't 
 you ? ' 
 
 Graham put his hand over his mouth 
 to hide his smile. He always got on 
 with children, chiefly because he took 
 them seriously and never made them 
 feel ridiculous. 
 
 *^r6>^/^^- Graham,' he answered lightly. 
 'Yes. And your are Miss Margaret 
 Lane V 
 
 * Yes ; but they call me Madge.' 
 'May I call you Madge?' 
 'Certainly,' the child answered, widi 
 
 a pretty, quaint, little air of dignified 
 courtesy. 
 
 * Do you like this place, Madge .^ 
 I fancy you are not used to the 
 country.' 
 
 * No. We have lived in London 
 for a good while, and before that at
 
 A GirFs Past, 103 
 
 Boulogne, in France, you know. I 
 have never been accustomed to the 
 country, but I Hke it — im — mensely.' 
 
 'That is right. Then you will enjoy 
 being here, I hope/ 
 
 'Yes. But it won't be for long — 
 not for always. The real vicar will 
 come back.' 
 
 * Should you like it to be for long ? ' 
 *Yes, of course, I should. It is 
 
 not nice moving so often, but,' she 
 added, with an old sort of sigh, 'people 
 must put up with things. It is nice 
 while it lasts.' 
 
 * How old are you, Madge?' 
 
 * Nearly eleven.' 
 
 'You talk sometimes as if you were 
 a woman.' 
 She blushed. 
 ' I am afraid I do. Ettie laughs at
 
 I04 A Girl's Past. 
 
 me, and father. They say I am old- 
 fashioned, but I can't help it if I am. 
 I have not been able to see many 
 children, and have not had anyone to 
 play with. Jack and Sidney are next 
 to me, and they are big boys at school. 
 I was a twin. I wish the other twin 
 had lived ; it was a girl. It would 
 have been nice.' 
 
 'It is rather lonely for you. Your 
 sisters are so much older.* 
 
 * Yes. Gwen is twenty, and Ettie 
 eighteen and a half. But Gwen is 
 always good to me. Of course, she 
 can't play games — at least she doesn't 
 care to, much — but I can say what I 
 like to her, and she reads to me, and 
 when I am in pain she nurses me. I 
 always sleep with Gwen.' 
 
 ' I guess that you are very fond of her.'
 
 A Girl's Past. 105 
 
 ' Oh, very, very fond ! ' the child 
 cried fervently. Now that her first 
 shyness was gone, she seemed to find 
 it easy to talk to Graham, and to 
 confide in his kind, clear grey eyes. 
 ' People generally like Ettie best, but 
 they don't know. Gwen is like mother ; 
 the boys and Ettie are different. Jack 
 is good-natured, but I do not care 
 much for Sid. I am afraid he will 
 give a great deal of trouble.' 
 
 ' Boys are often troublesome.' 
 
 ' Yes. Jack is, too ; he gets into 
 scrapes, but Sid is rather bad. Most 
 boys seem bad. Don't you think so ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I hope not. That is a little 
 strong. I said troublesome. I know 
 we are all of us that.' 
 
 ' But the pupils father gets are bad, 
 really bad often. I never have to do
 
 1 06 A Girl 's Past. 
 
 with them. Only one, he was of "weak 
 intellect," that's what they said, but 
 not bad, I liked him, and he was very 
 fond of me. We played beggar my 
 neighbour together, he never could 
 learn cassino, I believe he is coming 
 back, I shall be glad, but mother says 
 it is a great trouble. I wish we need 
 not have pupils, but we must for the 
 money. We are very poor, you know.' 
 
 Graham felt half ashamed of listen- 
 ing to this innocent revelation of what 
 probably the rest of Madge's family 
 would not wish him to know, but he 
 was interested. He wanted always to 
 attach a meaning to, to account for, 
 Gwen's sad looks. Madge did not 
 paint a rose-coloured existence. 
 
 * I am sorry,' he said vaguely, look- 
 ing down at Trim, who lay between his
 
 A Girl's Past, 107 
 
 legs, and pulling a tangle out of his 
 ear. 
 
 *Yes, it is not nice to be poor,' 
 Madge said, sighing ; ' but I suppose 
 you don't know anything about it. 
 Father says you must be very rich.' 
 
 Graham felt quite anxious to justify 
 himself as from an accusation. 
 
 ' I assure you I have been anything 
 but rich ; I know quite well what it 
 means to be poor.' 
 
 ' Do yoti ? ' Madge said wonderingl)-. 
 'Well, it isn't nice, is it? not to be able 
 to buy anything, and, if one wants new 
 frocks or boots, to have father angry and 
 saying he hasn't got a brass farthing 
 and he shall end in the workhouse. 
 We don't believe that of course. There 
 are not ladies and gentlemen in the 
 workhouse ; but we never have any
 
 io8 A Giri:s Past. 
 
 money, and mother is unhappy about 
 it/ 
 
 * I wonder if your mother would like 
 your telling me,' Graham said gently. 
 Madge blushed furiously, and her eyes 
 filled. He felt as if he had struck her, 
 and hastened to say, * Don't mind, Madge! 
 I'll not repeat a word. I didn't mean to 
 vex you. Let us be friends, and then 
 you can say just what you like.' 
 
 She could not speak. Her throat 
 was swelling with a sob, but her eyes 
 were fixed imploringly on his. He took 
 her small thin hand and patted it in a 
 brotherly fashion. 
 
 * Come, say we shall be friends ! ' 
 'You'll not tell anyone what I said,' 
 
 she gasped out ; ' not about father 
 being angry, and the workhouse, they'd 
 be so vexed.'
 
 A Girl's Past. 109 
 
 * No, no, indeed I won't.' 
 ' Thank you/ 
 
 ' And we'll be friends ? ' 
 
 ' But you're so — so old — ' 
 
 ' I am a good deal older than you, 
 but that's no reason against it. People 
 can be friends if there are any amount 
 of years between them. I hope you'll 
 come and see me.' 
 
 * At your house ? ' she asked, with 
 brightening looks. 
 
 * Yes. There's an old pony in my 
 stables, a very old quiet pony. I was 
 thinking you might perhaps like to 
 borrow him sometimes. Should you?' 
 
 'Oh, I should!' 
 
 'Then I hope you will — often. I will 
 call him your pony.' 
 
 'Mine — at your stables?' 
 
 'Yes, why not? His name is John
 
 no A Girts Past, 
 
 Bull. It isn't a pretty name, they 
 call him Johnny, he used to draw Mr 
 Grahams chair. And you and your 
 sisters will come Into the Wilderness 
 whenever you like, won't you ? ' 
 
 ' Thank you,' Madge said again. She 
 had now recovered her dignity. 'You 
 are very kind. Ettie doesn't care much 
 for country walks ; she likes the Oldfield 
 road best. But Gwen and I do, only 
 Gwen Isn't quite sure It's safe. She is a 
 little frightened about tramps and bulls.' 
 
 'There are never tramps or bulls in 
 
 the Wilderness, it Is quite near to my 
 
 house.' 
 
 * I will tell her that. I often have to 
 
 go alone, for there's plenty to do at 
 
 home, especially when there are pupils.' 
 
 *Well, alone or with — with anybody — 
 
 you'll! be always welcome, Madge.'
 
 A GirFs Past. 1 1 [ 
 
 She looked gratefully at him. To her- 
 self she said he was the very nicest 
 man she knew, but she did not put this 
 sentiment into w^ords, only softly repeat- 
 ing her frequent ' Thank you.' 
 
 ' I must go now, it must be tea-time 
 I think, and Gwen will surely be ready. 
 Good-bye, Mr — Mr — Brooke-Graham.' 
 
 * Stay, I'll help you to the entrance. 
 It is rather roug^h walkinof. Should 
 you mind if I lifted you over this 
 bit?' 
 
 * No,' Madge said, though colouring, 
 and he carried her to the edge of the 
 plantation, leaving her on the other 
 side of the park paling in the high road. 
 
 Madge limped away gaily, with the 
 sensation of adoration which some girl 
 children feel for young men springing 
 warm within her, eager to tell Gwen of
 
 112 A Girl's Past. 
 
 the delightful ways of Mr Brooke- 
 Graham. 
 
 Graham went back towards home, 
 thinking over the child's confidences, 
 which had given him a good deal of 
 insight into the ways of the Lane house- 
 hold, and some explanation of the 
 melancholy looks that had been on his 
 mind since he first saw Gwen and her 
 mother. He thought he understood 
 something of the clergyman's nature. 
 He guessed him to be imprudent, ill- 
 judging, hasty, and not too well prin- 
 cipled, yet he felt disposed to be lenient 
 and friendly. When a man is poor and 
 out of luck it is not difficult to fall into 
 ways which the more prudent and the 
 prosperous find censurable. With a good 
 balance at one's bankers, and an assured 
 income, it is easy to win the chorus of
 
 A Girl^s Past. 1 1 3 
 
 approbation which attends the success- 
 ful. He resolved to be a friend to the 
 whole Lane family as well as to Madge. 
 They interested him and roused his sym- 
 pathy — never very dormant in Graham's 
 breast. It would be pleasant to see 
 Gwen look happy — very pleasant. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Erdley was not exactly a gay neighbour- 
 hood. The Miss Barnetts, on the con- 
 trary, declared it to be the ' very most 
 hideously dull hole in Christendom ; ' but 
 they were given to strong language 
 and exaggerations, being, as Mrs Barnett 
 said, 'so lively,' which liveliness showed 
 itself chiefly in violent invective, or in 
 raptures over ' dear fellows ' and ' lovely 
 dances.' But, on Mr Brooke-Graham's 
 appearance in their midst, Erdley felt 
 it ought to exert itself. The form of 
 entertainment most popular, because the 
 
 least expensive, was that * cheap and 
 114
 
 A Gz7^rs Past. 1 1 5 
 
 nasty ' one of garden-parties, but the 
 advent of an eligible bachelor demanded 
 more effort. 
 
 * Papa, we really must give a dinner 
 for Mr Brooke-Graham,' Mrs Barnett 
 protested. 
 
 ' No, a dance ! ' implored the daughters. 
 
 Papa, however, who showed symptoms 
 of yielding to the dinner, struck at the 
 dance, and the girls had to give way, 
 reflectinof that after all it would be 
 difficult to beat together young men 
 enough to make It tolerable. The fast, 
 objectionable, little IMrs Willard, who 
 always got hold of men somehow, chose 
 to have a dance however, so, almost 
 simultaneously, Graham received Mrs 
 Barnett's invitation to dine on the third 
 of November, Mrs Willard's off-hand 
 announcement of a 'carpet dance,' and
 
 ii6 A GirFs Past. 
 
 two or three other requests for the 
 pleasure of his company at dinner or at 
 lunch, to the Willoughbys' and one or 
 others. He accepted all with ready 
 complacency. 
 
 * Shall you ask these Lanes .'^' Mrs 
 Willard inquired of the second Miss 
 Barnett, Charlotte, generally known as 
 Chatty, the best-looking and the most 
 advanced flirt of the four. 
 
 Mrs Willard threw a flavour of con- 
 tempt into her tone. The Lanes did 
 not seem to be going to be popular with 
 the Erdley ladies. 
 
 ' The mater says we must. Mr and 
 Mrs and one Miss Lane. We can't 
 do with two.' 
 
 ' To a dance I must ask the lot. 
 What do you think of them, Chatty ? ' 
 
 Chatty tossed her be-frizzled light head.
 
 A Girl s Past. 1 1 7 
 
 * Well, not much. They seem shady 
 rather to me — and shabby. Such 
 clothes ! I wouldn't give sixpence for 
 the whole turn-out.' 
 
 * Pretty, d'you think ? ' Mrs Willard 
 asked casually, remarking to herself 
 meanwhile how Chatty Barnett was age- 
 ing, and how red her nose got sometimes. 
 
 ' Rather,' grudgingly. ' The dark one 
 looks glum, and the other is not exactly 
 good form, is she ? ' 
 
 An outsider would hardly have con- 
 sidered either of the two ladies who were 
 thus conversing as the best judge of 
 *good form,' but people have not yet the 
 ' giftie ' to see themselves as others see 
 them, and they agreed complacently as 
 to poor Ettie not being 'much of it.' But 
 the Lanes were bidden to the impending 
 festivities.
 
 ii8 A Girls Past. 
 
 Mrs Lane opened the two notes at 
 breakfast. The Barnetts' card for the 
 Rev. W., Mrs and Miss Lane, and the 
 Willard's for the family. She looked 
 half frightened as she read them. 
 
 * What have you there, mamma ? ' 
 her husband asked in his sonorous, 
 imperious, marital accents, stretching 
 out his hand. He read them aloud. 
 'So! Invitations are pouring in,' he 
 remarked with some gratification. ' We 
 promise to be gay.' 
 
 'Must v^e accept?' Mrs Lane asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 She longed for a loophole of escape. 
 To her shy nervous temper and 
 morbid consciousness of shabby clothes, 
 company was a terror. 
 
 ' Of course, of course,' her husband 
 decided. * You and I and one of the
 
 A GirFs Past, 119 
 
 girls ' — he glanced at Ettie — ' to the 
 Barnetts' dinner, you and the girls 
 only to the dance.' 
 
 ' I don't want to go,' Gwen said 
 briefly. 
 
 Both Ettie and her father looked 
 relieved. 
 
 ' Well, we can make an excuse 
 for you to the Barnetts. Only one is 
 asked there. But it will look 
 
 marked if you don't both go to this 
 dance.' 
 
 ' I have no proper clothes. I don't 
 want.' 
 
 * Pooh, pooh ! Buy some cheap 
 fluffy stuff, and make it up at home. 
 Anything will do for a small dance. 
 As for the dinner, that's a little dif- 
 ferent — one must be decent. What 
 have you, Esther .'^ Only that eternal
 
 1 20 A Girl's Past. 
 
 moire ? Could you make it respectable 
 with black lace or something?' 
 
 Mr Lane was one of those domestic 
 autocrats, frequently found amongst the 
 clergy, who like to meddle and to 
 rule, even in the purely feminine 
 departments. He knew exactly the 
 contents of his wife and daughters' 
 wardrobes. 
 
 * Yes, oh yes,' she answered eagerly. 
 ' It does not matter what I wear.' 
 
 * Not much,' he retorted, almost 
 brutally. He was fond of his wife in 
 a fitful, commonplace fashion, but he 
 had a very poor opinion of her. ' But 
 as for Ettie — Ettie should have a new 
 frock.' 
 
 * I want one awfully,' Ettie put in, 
 with sparkling eyes, and the radiance 
 of hope flushing her pretty face.
 
 A Girl's Past. 1 2 1 
 
 *Yes, you do, my poor pet,' he said, 
 as tenderly as he was capable of speak- 
 ing ; 'and you must have your chances 
 now you are young and pretty. Let me 
 see.' He stroked his long whiskers with 
 one small red hand contemplatively. ' That 
 seems a decentish draper's — the church- 
 warden Phillips. Go there and choose 
 something, not expensive — that soft sort 
 of silk — what do they call it? Pongee, 
 is it ? I daresay the village dressmaker 
 can manage if you give her ideas.' 
 
 *The third of November,' Mrs Lane 
 said musingly. 'When is it the pupils 
 come, William ? ' 
 
 ' Not till the sixth. At least young 
 Turvey on the sixth, Johnstone on the 
 seventh. I shall go to Oldfield to meet 
 Turvey, stop there a night, and bring 
 them both on the seventh.'
 
 122 A Girls Past, 
 
 Mrs Lane sighed heavily, a sound 
 that always irritated her husband. 
 
 * I wish you wouldn't moan over 
 things, Esther,' he said sharply. 'These 
 fellows are a necessary evil. You 
 needn't make so much of them. I wish 
 you were not so given over to dismality. 
 I am sure things are worse for me than 
 you, but I keep up some spirit. I am 
 not always groaning.' 
 
 Fortunately for him this was true. 
 Foiled, unsuccessful, a hundred times 
 at the lowest ebb of fortune, he had 
 a certain sanguine elasticity which re- 
 bounded from the depths. He would 
 occasionally yield to angry despair, often 
 to violent rages at fortune, but he could 
 always recover and keep a certain 
 power of enjoyment. Mrs Lane had 
 long ago accepted the defeat of life
 
 A Girls Past. 123 
 
 patiently, and had lost every hope with 
 uncomplaining quietude, but though she 
 was patient she could not help being 
 depressed, and her depression always 
 made her husband angry whenever it 
 struck him forcibly. 
 
 * I don't mind poor Turvey,' she said, 
 trying to put a little more cheerfulness 
 into her voice ; ' he is harmless and 
 kind enough, but I own I am a little 
 frightened by the idea of Johnstone,' 
 
 ' Oh, he may be better than we 
 think ; at any rate his father is very 
 liberal, and we need the money, 
 Heaven knows. Well, I must go. 
 Write and accept these invitations, 
 Esther, and go to Phillips and see 
 what you can do.' 
 
 'Am I to pay him?' Mrs Lane 
 asked timidly.
 
 124 ^ Gtrrs Past, 
 
 ' Oh, no ; not till Christmas,' the 
 clergyman returned airily. ' Don't run 
 me up a big bill, but get what's neces- 
 sary to make Ettie look respectable. 
 Those Barnett girls are inclined to 
 sneer, I can see, and I want my girl 
 to outshine them and make them 
 jealous of her good looks.' 
 
 He stooped to give Ettie a kiss as 
 he passed, for which she put up her 
 pretty rosy mouth. It was impossible 
 to help noticing the marked difference 
 he showed between his daughters. 
 
 Mrs Lane glanced at Gwen with a 
 tender sort of apology, and put out a 
 furtive hand to touch hers. 
 
 * You really don't want to go, 
 Gwennie ? ' she said gently. 
 
 ' No, of course not, mother,' the girl 
 answered, in her low, level voice. ' I
 
 A Gh^ls Past. 125 
 
 should hate it. I had much rather 
 keep away from the dance.' 
 
 ' Stuff, Gwen,' Ettie interrupted, in 
 her father's very tones. * It would look 
 very bad. You mttst go. You can sit 
 in a dark corner and be dreary there 
 if you like. You're not obliged to 
 dance.' She got up and gave a 
 kind of pirouette. ' Oh, how jolly to 
 think of parties and a new frock ! ' 
 
 Mrs Lane and Gwen smiled 
 simultaneously as they looked at her ; 
 the same kind of maternal, sympathetic 
 interest on both faces, though one was 
 nearly as young as Ettie's. 
 
 'Come on, Gwen, to Phillips,' Ettie 
 continued. ' Now that papa is so 
 amenable we must really get a good 
 many things. Oh, how I love buying. 
 If I could marry a well-to-do man,
 
 126 A Girrs Past. 
 
 and go out shopping with a fat, heavy 
 purse, how heavenly it would feel.' 
 
 The shopping was to the purpose, 
 and though the clergyman's wife 
 looked dowdy enough at the Barnetts' 
 dinner-party, the pretty daughter shone 
 like a freshly-set jewel in her new silk 
 frock. Her pinky-white, smooth neck 
 and round arms gave an extra charm to 
 her girlish, fair beauty. Gwen had 
 dressed her hair most becomingly, and 
 had lent her her own string of pearls. 
 
 The Miss Barnetts felt unchristian 
 sentiments about her when they noticed 
 Brooke-Graham's expression of admiring 
 surprise. Ettie had a great appetite for 
 pleasure, which had never yet been at 
 all adequately satisfied. To dress, to 
 look pretty, to attract, these were the 
 ideals of her life. She had been starved
 
 A Gh^fs Past. 127 
 
 or only half fed with them. How her 
 eyes sparkled with expectant pleasure. 
 Youth and gaiety gave her a new 
 vivacity. She knew she looked her 
 best, and was radiant in the knowledo^e. 
 Yet though Graham's cool, grey eyes 
 reflected some of the pleasure in hers, 
 he was conscious of a distinct disap- 
 pointment. Why was only ' the fair one ' 
 present? Where was the Lady of 
 Shadow ? There was Mr Lane, in 
 respectable, ultra-clerical garb, brushed 
 and spruce ; his delicate features and 
 reddened complexion and slightly blood- 
 shot eyes a sort of elderly caricature 
 of Ettie ; his greyish, straggling, Dun- 
 dreary whiskers and rather scraggy 
 moustache were trimmed for the occa- 
 sion. He smiled, bowed, and compli- 
 mented, covering his wife's nervous
 
 128 A GirVs Past. 
 
 timidity and feeble conversation with 
 a flow of facile talk, ' not badly done, 
 but a little too much of it,' as Mr 
 Willoughby said. Some apology was 
 made, or half made, for his eldest 
 daughter. 
 
 Mrs Barnett hardly cared to listen. 
 She took no interest (unless a slightly 
 malign one) in the pretty sisters, and 
 had carefully arranged to seat whichever 
 of them came between two ineligibles, a 
 boyish, bank - clerk asked to fill up a 
 gap, and Mr Willoughby, who was 
 afraid of young ladies, and particularly 
 awkward with them. 
 
 Ettie, however, was never to be 
 snubbed. She cultivated the baby bank- 
 clerk, who soon rose to the occasion, 
 put his diffidence into his pocket, be- 
 gan to giggle and make giggle, and was
 
 A Girl's Past. 129 
 
 exceedingly happy in his juxtaposition 
 to so pretty and agreeable a partner. 
 
 Graham found himself on the other 
 side of the table, between Mrs Barnett 
 and her daughter Chatty. He had been 
 considered to prefer the second Miss 
 Barnett, so her elder sister had loyally 
 retired in her favour, and was stalkino- 
 a less eligible, but more easily captured 
 quarry In the shape of a widowed solicitor 
 from Oldfield. Graham was polite, but 
 he felt distinctly bored. Mrs Barnett 
 had only two lines of conversation — 
 gossip about her neighbours, praise of 
 her own family. She was amusing in 
 neither. Chatty tossed and prinked, 
 shrugged her white shoulders, and made 
 play with a pair of large light pro- 
 minent blue eyes in vain. Graham 
 was polite but irresponsive. She caught 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 130 A GirPs Past, 
 
 him once or twice looking with approval 
 (she thought), at that 'little flirting, 
 underbred Miss Lane,' and was as 
 intensely indignant with her as if she 
 herself had never flirted. 
 
 Vanity Fair — in a reduced and shabby 
 form — may be held in the depths of 
 the country ; and girls who have no 
 interests, no occupations, few scruples, 
 and still fewer ideas, will make fools 
 of themselves to the end of time. 
 
 After dinner Chatty had to give up 
 even the appearance of monopolising 
 Mr Brooke-Graham. He went to Ettie 
 as soon as he entered the drawing- 
 room, and took a vacant seat by her 
 at once, regardless, or careless of the 
 Miss Barnett's bitter glances. 
 
 Ettie looked up at him with her 
 childish, dimpled smile, which he thought
 
 A Girl's Past. 131 
 
 one of the nicest things about her. 
 She might be a Httle coquette, but 
 she was still fresh, young and naive. 
 
 'Well,' he said, 'did you enjoy that 
 long age of a dinner ? 
 
 * Oh, yes,' she said ; ' didn't you ? ' 
 
 * First tell me why you did, and then 
 I'll answer you.' 
 
 'Why ? Oh, I don't know. I've been 
 out so little, I suppose I'd enjoy any- 
 thing, I like nice things to eat and 
 drink,' she added, with a sly little look ; 
 * champagne and iced pudding after cold 
 water and cold mutton, com7ne d F ordin- 
 aire. Then it's fun to see people, 
 and — ' 
 
 * And to flirt with a young fellow just 
 initiated, eh ? ' 
 
 Even as he spoke, Graham was con- 
 scious that he would not have dreamt
 
 132 A Girls Past, 
 
 of speaking like this to Ettie's sister. 
 Ettie did not mind ; she laughed and 
 nodded. 
 
 'Well, he's not a bad boy. Now 
 tell me, Mr — Mr — must I always say 
 Brooke-QxX2i\\-d.vs\, it is such a mouthful?' 
 
 * Oh, no, call me just what you 
 please.' 
 
 * Well tell me, Mr Graham, then, why 
 you didnt enjoy your dinner ? ' 
 
 She hoped, with mischief, that he 
 would respond by running down Miss 
 Chatty Barnett, whom Ettie already 
 recognised as an enemy ; but that was 
 not Graham's way. 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know,' he answered care- 
 lessly. ' It was long and hot, and I 
 always find conventional big dinners 
 rather a bore. Why isn't your sister 
 here ? '
 
 A Girls Past. i33 
 
 'She did not care to come.' 
 * Does she disHke going out always ? ' 
 ' I beHeve she does. Gwen is shy, 
 you know. She says she has no com- 
 pany talk.' 
 
 ' She is not so bright and merry as 
 you.' 
 
 ' No,' Ettie returned, with calm com- 
 placency. ' I always took things differ- 
 ently. I look at the bright side of 
 things, fortunately for me, for they 
 never are too bright with us.' 
 
 'And your sister is easily depressed?' 
 Ettie nodded. 
 
 'Does she always dislike going every- 
 where?' he asked, a little wistfully. 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know,' Ettie said, with 
 nonchalance. 
 
 She did not find it interesting to 
 discuss Gwen.
 
 1 34 A Girls Past, 
 
 ' I want you all to come to me to 
 some kind of a party. I was thinking 
 if you'd lunch with me, all of you, 
 Madge included, on Thursday.' 
 
 ' On Thursday ? let me see, that's the 
 
 eighth. Father will be away. He is 
 
 going to fetch some pupils. But that 
 
 wouldn't matter,' she added naively; 'we 
 
 could come. It would be awfully jolly.' 
 
 * Do you think so ? I will ask your 
 
 mother. Your father could have a 
 
 bachelor's dinner with me some other 
 
 time. I'll have Mrs Willoughby as 
 
 hostess, but the party shall be yours ; 
 
 you shall arrange it.' 
 
 * Shall I .^ How jolly ! ' Ettie cried 
 again with bright eyes. The girl of the 
 period has a * universal adjective' as 
 well as the London rough. ' Shall I 
 settle it ? '
 
 .4 Girl's Past. 135 
 
 *Yes, In every detail. You don't 
 object to Mrs Willoughby ? ' 
 
 ' No,' the girl admitted, condescend- 
 ingly. ' She seems nice. Someone told 
 me she had only been a little while 
 married, but it can't be true.' 
 
 *Why not? It is, however. Brides 
 are not always about twenty.' 
 
 ' No, but she does look old.' 
 
 * Well, about my party — your party } 
 You and your mother and sisters wiil 
 come.' 
 
 ' What a heap of undiluted woman- 
 kind ! ' 
 
 ' I must have you all four, particularly 
 Madge. She and I are sworn friends.' 
 
 ' Really ? She's a queer, whimsical 
 little mortal ! Well, us four, who else } 
 Mr and Mrs Willoughby. Please 7iot 
 the Barnetts nor the Willards ! '
 
 136 A GirVs Past, 
 
 He lauQrhed at her candour. 
 ' Why not ? ' 
 
 * Oh, I don't like them, and they don't 
 like me. You won't ask them ? ' 
 
 ' I said you should have it all your 
 own way.' 
 
 * How kind you are ! Then who else ? ' 
 
 * Do you object to young Fairfax and 
 Fred Ray ? That will be quite enough. 
 They both play tennis, and we can get up 
 a set. Now, please,' getting out his note- 
 book, ' what will you have for luncheon ? 
 ** Which are your favourite vanities ? " 
 Champagne I know, iced pudding I know, 
 What else?' 
 
 'Jugged hare,' she said, laughing, 'and 
 anything with cream.' 
 
 He gravely put down these items, ex- 
 tracted a few more confessions, and 
 promised to do his best.
 
 A Girl's Past. 13/ 
 
 ' Look how that girl is throwing herself 
 at his head ! ' Chatty Barnett whispered 
 bitterly to her next sister. * Disgusting, 
 I call it! How silly men are! Any 
 flirting, giggling minx can take them 
 in if she's bold enough. Now he is 
 wanting her to sing ! Well / believe 
 these Lanes are regular adventurers ! 
 The Coombs knew someone who knew a 
 person that remembered to have heard 
 something ve7y shady about them. I 
 hope ma won't encourage her showing off.' 
 
 Ettie did sing, and was much ap- 
 plauded. Chatty's cup of bitterness was 
 full. Mr Brooke-Graham ' flirted with 
 her,' as she chose to call it, all the 
 evening, was very polite to poor, sad, 
 inoffensive Mrs Lane, and secured her 
 promise foi herself and daughters on 
 the eighth. Mr Lane congratulated him-
 
 138 A Girls Past. 
 
 self, when alone with his wife, on Ettie's 
 success. 
 
 * Graham's taken with her, there's no 
 doubt of that, Esther. We may hope 
 to see the little puss well settled one 
 of these days, and if old Merry weather 
 never recovers, who can tell ? We 
 might be comfortably settled at the 
 Parsonage, and Miss Ettie Lady of the 
 Manor ; eh, my dear ? ' 
 
 * Things don't happen like that — to us,' 
 Mrs Lane murmured. Fortunately for 
 her Mr Lane did not hear the remark. 
 He was building his usual castles in the 
 air. He had quite a principality in those 
 ethereal regions already.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Graham was not disappointed again 
 
 at the Willards' carpet dance by Gwen's 
 
 non-appearance, yet he did not get 
 
 much satisfaction from her presence. 
 
 She kept resolutely in the background, 
 
 and though she looked very nearly 
 
 beautiful in her cloud of white, and 
 
 would have looked quite so but for 
 
 her reserve and pallor, she was not 
 
 much noticed and sought after. Ettle 
 
 quite outshone her, and was the 
 
 belle of the night. Gwen did not 
 
 dance waltzes, she said, they made 
 
 her so dizzy — she had headaches 
 139
 
 140 A Girl's Past. 
 
 after them. She refused him again and 
 again, only dancing once in a lancers 
 with him, and once or twice more with 
 partners who seemed to find nothing 
 to say to her, and whom she regarded 
 with her sad indifferent eyes as she 
 did most things. Only for a brief 
 space she warmed and lighted up. 
 When Graham talked about Madge 
 the soft flitting smile and colour came 
 for the moment, and her deep, dark 
 eyes were illuminated with tender- 
 ness. 
 
 * She adores you, I think,' she said, 
 looking up at him for a moment 
 while the brightness and softening 
 lasted, 'especially since you sent 
 Johnny round for her. It was so 
 kind of you. We went for a picnic. 
 We got right to the top of Durrock
 
 A Girrs Past. 141 
 
 Hill. There was such a splendid 
 view, Madge enjoyed herself im- 
 mensely, the hill air gave her quite 
 a colour.' 
 
 'Is she very delicate?' 
 
 ' She is stronger than she was. 
 She nearly died several times before 
 she was seven. Now, except for her 
 lameness, the doctors think she may 
 grow up tolerably strong.' 
 
 * She is a dear little maid.' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 Gwen did not gush. She added 
 nothing to the one full, deep mono- 
 syllable, but it came from her heart. 
 He saw that she cozdd love, and 
 strongly too. Reserved as she was, 
 he knew that she had no ordinary 
 affection for this frail little sister. 
 
 ' She is like you,' he said.
 
 142 A Girls Past. 
 
 Gwen darted at him a look curiously 
 mixed of terror and anger. 
 
 * Oh, no, she is not ! oh, I hope not — ' 
 She paused, struck suddenly by his 
 
 look of astonishment at her reception 
 of this seemingly innocent remark, and 
 tried hard to force out an odd, cold 
 little laugh, as if to convince him she 
 had meant nothing by her words. 
 
 * You hope not ? ' he repeated. 
 *Well/ she said, in an embarassed 
 
 way, looking in an opposite direction 
 from him, * I mean — if I meant anything 
 — I had rather she struck out a new 
 line.' 
 
 * For my part I like Madge all the 
 better for the likeness/ he said, rather 
 under his breath. 
 
 She either did not or would not hear, 
 changing the subject abrupdy.
 
 A Girl's Past. 143 
 
 'I was wondering,' she said brusquely, 
 * whether Mrs Willard is what people call 
 pretty ? ' 
 
 * Some men think so,' he answered, 
 indifferently; 'she is not my style. Is 
 she yours ? ' 
 
 ' No. She is — she looks so bold, so 
 self-conscious. But I daresay,' she added 
 quickly, ' it is only her looks ; she may 
 be very nice.' 
 
 He had noticed in Gwen before an 
 odd reluctance to speak ill of people, 
 especially of her own sex. Unlike Ettie, 
 who vituperated freely such people as 
 she declared she ' hated ' and ' abhorred ' 
 with all the frank intolerance and vehe- 
 mence of youth, Gwen had generally 
 some saving clause, and scarcely ever 
 committed herself to a violently inimical 
 statement. On the other hand she made
 
 144 ^ Girrs Past, 
 
 no friends. She was cold, shy, reserved, 
 unresponsive to all. A poor, kind, in- 
 valided old maid whom she visited and 
 did little ministrations to, and Mrs 
 Willoughby, whose gentle courtesy 
 seemed to attract her, were the only 
 slight exceptions. No man could light 
 a ray in her dark, sombre eyes. She 
 had no sweet looks, no wreathed smiles 
 for the gay Lotharios of the county. 
 
 Graham had an odd persistency in 
 dwelling on an idea, a great power of 
 absorbing himself in a subject, an in- 
 terest. 
 
 Gweneth Lane had first attracted 
 him, and now bade fair to occupy a 
 large part of his thoughts. She puzzled 
 him, she was a problem. From his 
 schoolboy days he had liked to fasten 
 his wits to a puzzle, he began to be
 
 A Girl's Past. 145 
 
 in desperate earnest about solving this 
 one. Her relations with her family and 
 neighbours seemed peculiar, she stood 
 alone. Between her mother and herselt 
 he could divine signs of a deep and 
 genuine affection ; they watched each 
 other with solicitous interest, each 
 seemed anxious to spare, to serve the 
 other. Yet even here, he fancied, there 
 was not actual intimacy or unreserve. 
 Her next sister and she were not much 
 together ; there were none of the signs 
 of confidence, of comradeship between 
 them that often exists between sisters. 
 They did not quarrel, but they went 
 different ways ; no whispers, signs, or 
 any of the freemasonry of close re- 
 lationship were to be observed. 
 
 And there were positive signs of a 
 more decided antagonism in Mr Lane's 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 A Girrs Past. 
 
 manner and bearing with his eldest 
 daughter. He had acquired a suave 
 mannerism in society, partly clerical, 
 partly conventional, which led him to 
 adopt an artificial blandness towards 
 her when it was necessary, but of the 
 open, kindly, paternal, there was not 
 a trace. Under the smooth manner 
 Graham even thought he detected dis- 
 like, or, at least, a sort of animosity, 
 strikingly in contrast with his obvi- 
 ous, unstudied, palpable admiration and 
 fondness for his daughter Esther. 
 
 With Madge, and Madge alone, Gwen 
 seemed like other girls — natural, affec- 
 tionate, and at ease. Her face, with 
 its unconscious pathos, repressed, yet 
 impossible to disguise, the lonely, fixed 
 unyouthful sadness which dwelt in the 
 depths of her eyes, pressed on his
 
 A Girrs Past, 147 
 
 heart with an insistent, almost a painful 
 claim. 
 
 He longed to find out that it was but 
 a trick — a habit of countenance, to 
 discover some girlish enjoyment of 
 things, some unreasoning gaiety in her, 
 to be able to draw smiles — genuine 
 smiles, not the faint attempts which 
 were as inadequate as sunshine through 
 mist — to her lips, to hear her laugh out 
 loud, to see her behave in some foolish, 
 lively, youthful fashion, which would 
 relieve him of some of the tiresome 
 pain of pity — pity which had no ground 
 in fact, as far as he knew. What was 
 there exceptionally miserable in her con- 
 dition, even if it were not the brightest 
 lot in the world ? True, the Lanes 
 were poor, even very poor, this was 
 evident enough. True, they seemed to
 
 148 A Girl's Past, 
 
 have led a somewhat unlucky kind of 
 existence. The boys, of whose sins 
 Madge had so frankly told him, were 
 very likely a trouble and anxiety. The 
 pupils — to take the same small philo- 
 sopher's judgment of them — were ap- 
 parently unpleasant inmates to endure, 
 but need she be unhappy for these 
 causes ? Ettie had the same obstacles 
 to enjoyment of life, but Ettie was 
 gay as a lark ! Had she been crossed 
 in love ? Possibly. Had she perhaps 
 lost by death or separation someone 
 dearer than the rest of the world '^ It 
 might be so. Meanwhile she remained 
 a mystery — a riddle — to the solution 
 of which he bent his resolute and ob- 
 stinate mind. He tried hard to get 
 her to like him — to be friendly and 
 confidential. It was a difficult task»
 
 A GirFs Past. 149 
 
 yet he fancied he won some slight 
 measure of success. He fancied, at any 
 rate, she had no dislike for him. She 
 would not talk much, but her glance 
 dwelt on him once or twice with an 
 indefinite kind of softness. She seemed 
 to look on his face as that of one 
 friendly to her, and as if she wondered 
 why he were so. He might, perhaps, 
 be justly said to ' flirt ' with Ettie — 
 that is to say, he allowed himself to 
 be flirted with ; he laughed, talked, 
 chaffed and danced with her, he paid 
 her openly candid compliments, they 
 were already on a tolerably intimate 
 footing. With Gwen there was not the 
 faintest approach to anything of this 
 sort. Yet Graham was really not con- 
 ceited or coxcombical with Ettie ; he 
 did not imagine there was a scrap of real
 
 1 50 A Girl's Past. 
 
 earnest under the rather rolHckIng levity 
 of the astute young person who seemed 
 perfectly able to guard her own heart 
 and peace, whose bright, hard, blue eyes 
 neither melted nor sank beneath his, 
 who was evidently only bent on the 
 enjoyment of the moment — at least 
 this was the view he took. He had 
 too newly attained what Kitty called 
 his * principality,' to understand that he 
 had become an object for the ambitious 
 and worldly hopes of marriageable young 
 ladies. He did not realise Ettie's hard 
 stratum of common sense and purpose 
 of self-aggrandisement under the light, 
 gay froth on the surface. She was not, 
 he was sure, in danger of being in love 
 with him, and he had a certain simple 
 chivalry in him which forbade his com- 
 prehension of a possibility of so young
 
 A Girl's Past. 151 
 
 a girl falling in love with a place and 
 an income. He thought a great deal 
 more of one look from Gwen's serious 
 deep eyes than of a thousand wiles 
 and smiles from the pretty, fair Ettie. 
 He enjoyed the Willards' dance, though 
 it gave him but a meagre allowance of 
 Gwen's society, much more than the 
 Barnetts' state dinner, and he intended 
 to get considerably more satisfaction 
 still out of his own lunch-party. 
 
 The morning of this latter event was 
 one of the last days of the second 
 summer they were enjoying, with just 
 enough of crispness in the warmth to 
 exhilarate the spirits. Even Gwen felt 
 a glow of cheerful girlish hope and 
 pleasure as she came down to a late 
 breakfast, at which Mr Lane was not 
 present. He had left early on his pupil-
 
 152 A Girl's Past, 
 
 catching expedition. This fact alone, 
 that for a day or two her father would 
 be out of the way, was a gain. It was 
 shocking, of course, that it should be 
 so, Gwen would have shrunk from say- 
 ing so much in words, yet she knew 
 in her heart that she breathed more 
 freely, felt more cheerful, without the 
 possibility of meeting her father's brief, 
 unfriendly glance, or hearing his voice, 
 either raised in irritable reproach or 
 bitter with disapproval. She did not 
 mean to be unfilial, but she could not 
 love him, and she felt in every nerve 
 of her conscious being that he had no 
 affection for her. 
 
 Besides, it was a bracing, delicious 
 autumn day, she was not twenty-one, 
 and she was going to a place where 
 she expected to enjoy herself. All
 
 A Girl's Past. 153 
 
 these reasons combined to give a certain 
 sweetness to her sensations, which was 
 rare enough. She spoke more than 
 usual, and with more animation. Her 
 pale, careworn mother smiled with 
 pleasure. Ettie was not apt to be low- 
 spirited at any time, and was exultant 
 with her own successes and hopes. 
 Madge was delighted to be asked * with 
 the grown-ups ' by her dear Mr Brooke- 
 Graham, so the meagre breakfast was 
 a much more festal meal than usual. 
 It was even, in its poor way, a secret 
 satisfaction to the anxious matron to 
 be spared ordering any dinner. The 
 butcher's bills were never off her mind, 
 and wherever she went they rose upon 
 her like spectres, her life was one 
 long struggle with griping poverty. No 
 wonder her poor forehead was furrowed,
 
 1 54 A Girl's Past. 
 
 her poor lips pinched and drawn down 
 at the corners. These were the scars 
 of her constant and ignoble battle. She 
 looked for nothing else from life, till 
 these, and all other cares, could be laid 
 down by the side of the grave. Her 
 only hope was that the girls might 
 escape such a lot, her only constant 
 satisfaction that her husband did not 
 *take things' as she did, and managed, 
 somehow or other, to get more pleasure 
 out of his life than could easily have 
 been imagined. She loved him, he 
 had been, on the whole, a kind husband 
 to her, yet she owned him 'trying,' 
 and could not but admit to herself that 
 it was a certain relief to have him 
 absent for any length of time. Yet 
 with that unconscious hypocrisy which 
 timid, gentle women learn as a second
 
 A Girrs Past. 155 
 
 nature, she tried a faint regret that 
 'your poor dear papa' should lose this 
 party. No one, not even his favourite 
 daughter, cared to join in this sentiment. 
 Mr Brooke - Graham had not forgot- 
 ten any of Miss Ettie's pet * vanities ' ; 
 the hospitable lunch-table was crowded 
 with ofood thines and sweet thinofs. 
 Mrs Willoughby's feminine taste had a 
 little curtailed and chastened the super- 
 abundance of his bachelor providings, 
 but enouo^h was left to have furnished 
 
 o 
 
 a luxurious meal to twenty guests in- 
 stead of half-a-dozen. Ettie did full 
 justice to his thoughtful remembrance 
 of her taste, and ate a very hearty and 
 satisfactory meal. Madge seemed also 
 to be indulging herself in unwonted 
 gluttony to her anxious shy mother, to 
 whom poverty had taught a rather un-
 
 156 A Girl's Past, 
 
 comfortable habit of watching the appe- 
 tites of her children. She was a little 
 shocked at what seemed to her almost 
 like excess, and ventured a feeble re- 
 monstrance when Graham would insist 
 in pressing fresh supplies of delicacies 
 on the blushing little girl, whose plead- 
 ing eyes seemed to implore her mother 
 for once to overlook the extraordinary- 
 feasting. Gwen ate as little as a bird. 
 She had long ago learnt to curb the 
 inconvenient appetite of a growing girl, 
 and to *go without,' and the habit had 
 become nature. The joys of the senses 
 did not appear to be evident to her. 
 It was all Graham could do to get her 
 to drink one small glass of champagne, 
 while Ettie took two or three with the 
 careless freedom of another and an 
 altogether different nature.
 
 A Girl's Past. 157 
 
 It was her gay soprano that made 
 the most noise at the luncheon-table. 
 Gwen's low-spoken few sentences came 
 only now and then in answer to Mrs 
 Willoughby's kind polite questions, or 
 when Graham made an effort to brinof 
 her into the conversation. After lunch, 
 when he came into the drawing-room to 
 join his visitors in taking coffee, he 
 found Gwen by herself in one window, 
 apart from the rest, who were looking 
 at some of old Mr Graham's bric-a-brac 
 at the other end of the room. Gwen 
 was rather listlessly turning over 
 Graham's bachelor photograph album. 
 He joined her and sat so as to keep 
 her, as it were, almost imprisoned in 
 her little recess. There were chiefly men 
 in the book. Graham was not, and had 
 never, been, a Madies' man.' Beyond
 
 158 A Girrs Past. 
 
 portraits of his mother and sister, and 
 of one or two celebrities, nearly all were 
 of school and college friends, or chums 
 met abroad. Gwen turned over the 
 pages rather mechanically as Graham 
 made a short running catalogue of 
 names. Suddenly she paused at one 
 page, and he heard her draw in her 
 breath hard. She looked at him invol- 
 untarily, with a question in her eyes. 
 She was very pale, some curious sur- 
 prise or emotion contracted her mouth. 
 He glanced at the photograph which 
 lay open before them. 
 
 ' Do you know him ? That's a 
 fellow I met In India somewhere. I 
 did not know him well. I believe I've 
 forgotten his name — Hollington, was It? 
 No — something like that — let me see.' 
 
 But Gwen had quickly turned on ;
 
 A GirFs Past. 159 
 
 she was evidently struggling to show no 
 confusion. 
 
 ' No, I was mistaken. It was very 
 like someone I — we — knew — a pupil of 
 father's. It startled me — a little — it 
 was so like.' She hurried on with 
 unusual volubility. ' This is your sister 
 again, of course. What a nice picture ! 
 She is very pretty.' 
 
 * No, she is not really, not very pretty. 
 That is a flattering presentment, 
 smoothed and toned down as they do 
 photographs now. She is nice-looking, 
 and a jolly lltde thing. Some day, 
 Miss Lane, I hope you will know her — 
 and be friends.' 
 
 She shook her head with an odd, 
 uncheerful smile. 
 
 ' What do you mean by that ? by 
 shaking your head,' he asked, a little in-
 
 1 60 A Girl's Past, 
 
 dignantly. 'Why should not you make 
 friends with my sister ? ' 
 
 * She would not like me — I do not 
 make friends/ 
 
 *What nonsense,' he said bluntly. 
 ' I beg your pardon, I can give it no 
 other name/ 
 
 'It is not nonsense, it is true,' the 
 low, sad voice protested. ' I cannot 
 Girls could not like me.' 
 
 * And why not ? ' 
 
 * I — I am not agreeable. I do not 
 know how to begin.' 
 
 'You cannot judge of yourself; you 
 are unfair, you fancy things.' 
 
 *Oh, but one can judge of oneself 
 better than others, for one knows. In- 
 deed, Mr Graham, I am not saying 
 this to make you compliment me.' 
 
 She said these words with an innocent,
 
 A GirFs Past. i6i 
 
 wistful candour that reminded him of 
 Madge. She looked at him earnestly, 
 without a spark of coquettish allurement. 
 The words and tone touched him in an 
 indescribable way. She seemed, as she 
 spoke, so young, so sincere, with a sweet- 
 ness in her sudden lapse into confidence 
 he had never seen in her face before. 
 
 'You must let me go on believing I 
 know you,' he said, dropping his voice 
 with a sudden deepening of tone, which 
 an experienced woman knows the mean- 
 ing of. ' Without trying to pay compli- 
 ments, you must let m.e say that I am 
 sure my way of thinking of you is truer 
 than your own. You have a bad habit 
 of self - depreciation. If Kitty agrees 
 with me, as she often does, you and she 
 will be friends.' 
 
 Again she shook her head, but a 
 
 VOL. T. L
 
 1 62 A GirPs Past. 
 
 faint colour and a half-reluctant smile 
 followed. 
 
 ' I am afraid not. I am afraid I know 
 too well that you are only saying that 
 to be kind. Ettie makes friends easily, 
 I never do.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you have not had many 
 chances.' 
 
 'No, I have not. We have never 
 stayed long enough in places for me 
 to get used to people, and I am 
 stupidly afraid of everybody.' 
 
 ' I hope you will stay here long 
 enough to be understood and to 
 understand.' 
 
 She seemed suddenly to draw back. 
 The *good moment' was gone, and 
 the brief spell of unreserve. It was 
 evident she would speak no longer of 
 herself. He had noticed before how
 
 A GirFs Past. 163 
 
 she shied from intimate talk, or any 
 sort of self-reveaHng, like a timid horse. 
 He got no more half-confidences, no 
 more tete-d-tites with Gwen. They 
 all went into the garden, and a game 
 of tennis followed, in which Ettie 
 played (very badly). 
 
 Gwen would not even attempt to 
 learn. ' It spoils the set,' she said, 
 obstinately unpersuadable, and would 
 hear no arguments in favour of making 
 a beginning. 
 
 Ettie had no compunction about 
 spoiling anyone's play. She sprang 
 after every ball with excited little 
 screams, and invariable non - success, 
 and reduced the other players to inward 
 maledictions, while they hypocritically 
 pretended that it was rather nice than 
 otherwise to have their play ruined by
 
 1 64 A Girl's Past, 
 
 so pretty and vivacious a little spoil- 
 sport. 
 
 Mr Willoughby, who was a good 
 tennis-player, and liked the ' severity 
 of the game' preserved, indulged in 
 strong language apart to Graham, after 
 being ignominiously beaten from no 
 fault of his own. 
 
 *The girl's an impertinent little ape,' 
 he declared. ' Why doesn't she prac- 
 tise in private before she destroys every- 
 one's play in public .^ A chattering,, 
 forward minx ! ' 
 
 * Oh, poor child, you are too hard 
 on her ! ' Graham responded, with the 
 indulgence of youthful humanity to a 
 pretty girl. ' She has had no chances.' 
 
 *The other one, though she is as 
 much too cold and reserved as the 
 other is forward, has twice her sense
 
 A Gh-rs Past. 165 
 
 and twice her good looks,' Mr Willoughby 
 declared. ' She knows when to keep 
 quiet.' 
 
 ' She certainly does,' Graham said 
 rather ruefully — words which his friend 
 took as bearing a reproach. 
 
 'Well,' he rejoined quickly, 'anything 
 is better than chattering and showing 
 off like that litde fool.' 
 
 ' She has not had the best schooling, 
 1 expect.' 
 
 ' You mean she has a pretty face, 
 which covers a multitude of sins,' Mr 
 Willoughby returned grimly, and said 
 no more. 
 
 Graham went straio^ht to Gwen's 
 quiet corner and asked her and Madge 
 to come with him to investigate a 
 certain jargonelle pear-tree, which bore 
 a fine crop of sweet, yellow fruit.
 
 1 66 A Girrs Past, 
 
 In the orchard, picking up and eating 
 the pears which Graham shook on to 
 the grass, Gwen was suddenly surprised 
 into being frank, free, and girh'shly 
 merry. She seemed to catch Madge's 
 confidential friendliness, and to regard 
 the clear-eyed, kind-voiced, young squire 
 with candid confidence. She was a new 
 and a fascinating Gwen in this aspect, 
 running with outspread hands to catch 
 the pears as they fell, juicy and luscious, 
 into her brown, slender palms, biting 
 them with her strong, small, white 
 teeth with the zest of a child. For 
 the moment the cloud was lifted. She 
 looked, and was, happy. It was not 
 even a great drawback to her pleasure 
 when a wasp, that had hidden in the 
 heart of a pear, crept out and stung 
 her hand. The pang was more than
 
 A GirPs Past, 167 
 
 made up for by Graham's anxious and 
 tender solicitude. It was so new and 
 sweet to be cared for with such eager 
 sincerity. The pain that hurts is that 
 which no one pities — the secret gnaw- 
 ing of an unshared anguish. Gwen had 
 known that pain. She had no self-pity 
 left when others were compassionate 
 and kind. It had been to her, indeed, 
 a halcyon day ; she always kept its 
 memory green. 
 
 That night when Madge, as she often 
 did, started out of a bad dream with 
 a cry, she found Gwen sitting by the 
 window in the moonlight, with her chin 
 on her clasped hands, as still as if 
 she had fallen asleep. As the terror 
 flitted, with her awakening to find her- 
 self not alone, Madge fell back on 
 her pillow and looked at her sister
 
 1 68 A Girl's Past, 
 
 How still she sat. How pure and 
 delicate the pale outline of her profile 
 showed against the moonlit window. 
 
 * Gwen, dear,* she said at last, and 
 the girl turned quickly towards her. 
 ' Gwennie, what are you thinking about?' 
 
 'About to-day,' Gwen answered briefly. 
 
 ' Wasn't it lovely ? You did enjoy 
 yourself, Gwennie dear } ' 
 
 'Yes, I did.' 
 
 ' And he is nice, isn't he ? ' 
 
 Gwen faintly smiled. 
 
 *Who is he, Madge .^' 
 
 ' Why, my Mr Graham, of course. 
 You really like him "^ ' 
 
 There was a moment's silence, then 
 Madge thought she heard a low 'Yes,' 
 too faint to satisfy her. 
 
 ' Really, truly, Gwen 1 You must like 
 him. He is so good and dear.'
 
 A Girrs Past. 169 
 
 ' Oh, yes, yes. I like him. Go to 
 sleep ! ' 
 
 Madge turned on her side half angrily. 
 Why need Gwen speak so impatiently? 
 She had not expected an enthusiastic 
 answer.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 In a place like Erdley, people need 
 indeed be white as snow to escape de- 
 traction, and the new clergyman, who 
 had taken Mr Merry weather's duty there, 
 might, perhaps, be described as rather 
 more neutral-tinted than unspotted in 
 reputation. Some tales of extravagance, 
 of imprudence, even hints of certain 
 unclerical proclivities a little more re- 
 prehensible, had followed his track, and 
 Erdley gossips began to shake their 
 heads, and morally smack their lips, over 
 stories not to his credit. He was by 
 
 no means a good payer. The Erdley 
 170
 
 A Girl's Past, 1 7 1 
 
 tradespeople were most yielding in the 
 way of long-drawn accounts and almost 
 unlimited credit, but when a man is 
 stingy in his orders, and long-winded 
 in his payments, the butcher and baker 
 will begin to complain. He was plausi- 
 ble ; he was very good in the church ; 
 he was attentive to. the duties connected 
 with it and occasionally kind to the sick 
 and sorrowful, but a vague reputation be- 
 gan to float about him, fostered warmly 
 by such ladies as were jealous of his 
 daughters' beauty and Ettie's flirtations. 
 They ' hoped he did not drink ; ' but — 
 ' his nose was red,' he was extraordin- 
 arily voluble sometimes, — Mr Willard 
 had joked about a certain club dinner, 
 when he showed the ' parson ' home. 
 Gale of the King's Head spoke of an 
 order for spirits — if Mr Lane did not
 
 172 A Girfs Past. 
 
 drink himself, those ' wretched pupils of 
 his ' did. The two youths he brought 
 back with him to the Vicarage soon 
 gave endless food to the scandal-mongers. 
 Graham encountered them often in the 
 village, and when he paid a rare visit 
 to the public billiard-room. He recog- 
 nised one by the description Madge 
 had given of him as of 'weak intellect.' 
 A tall, weedy creature, with weak eyes 
 and a vi^eaker smile, whose forehead and 
 chin ran, as if frightened, away from the 
 big nose, who twisted and cracked his 
 red, knuckly fingers — this was the pupil 
 generally called 'poor young Turvey.' 
 His schoolfellows, of course, had called 
 him ' Topsy-Turvey,' which was pain- 
 fully descriptive of the state of his 
 wits. He, at least, was harmless enough, 
 except when some stronger and baser
 
 A GirFs Past. 173 
 
 mind than his own coerced him, but the 
 other specimen was far worse. A cer- 
 tain Bob Johnstone, a fellow tolerably 
 well-born, and with plenty of money to 
 come, who was destined by the doom 
 of hereditary inclination to 'go to the 
 bad.' Turvey, unfortunately for him, 
 seemed to be a good deal under the 
 influence of this hopeful youth, whose 
 conversation, even in the presence of 
 ladies, was far from refined, and In the 
 company of men only was thickly larded 
 with oaths and coarse expressions ; and 
 both of them appeared to be but vaguely 
 supervised by their nominal preceptor^ 
 who did not evidently intend to spend 
 very much of his time in a hopeless 
 struggle to put learning into them and 
 bad habits out. Their hours of study 
 w^ere certainly short enough, for they
 
 174 ^ Girl s Past, 
 
 were constantly to be seen, the one 
 swaggering, the other shambHng about 
 the place, smoking, frequenting the 
 billiard-room, and the bar of the King's 
 Head. 
 
 ' Pupils indeed ! ' cried Mrs Barnett 
 to Mrs Willard ; ' a fine sort of a tutor 
 Mr Lane makes them ! He must adver- 
 tise for refractory youths that everybody 
 has given up as hopeless. Why, he lets 
 them behave as disgracefully as they 
 please. Our groom told Mr Barnett 
 that Johnstone young man has been 
 drunk ever so many nights. The 
 other's only an idiot, and more to be 
 pitied than blamed. Nice associates for 
 a clergyman's wife and daughters ! Any 
 respectable man had rather break stones 
 for a living than take such creatures into 
 his own family.'
 
 A GirFs Past, 175 
 
 Mrs Willard did not suggest, as she 
 mieht have done, that an educated 
 clergyman of small build and weak 
 muscles would not make much by 
 breaklnof stones. She aorreed with Mrs 
 Barnett that the Lanes were a * queer 
 lot,' and she, for her part, had not 
 much opinion of any of them. She 
 thought Mr Lane probably drank him- 
 self. Mrs Lane was a poor creature, 
 very dull and difficult to get on with, 
 while the girls — well, Gweneth gave her 
 the idea of being somehow 'under a 
 cloud,' and Ettie was the sort of orirl 
 
 o 
 
 to run away with a village blacksmith 
 if she couldn't get a better husband by 
 hook or by crook. Such kind and 
 charitable expressions of opinion were 
 not rare in Erdley, any more than in 
 other small country places. However,
 
 176 A Girl's Past, 
 
 even scandal herself hardly painted Mr 
 Bob Johnstone blacker than he proved. 
 
 Graham had had various small colli- 
 sions with him at the billiard-room, and 
 on those afternoons, when he happened to 
 meet him when he called (as he often did) 
 on the Lanes. He hated him with the 
 contemptuous disgust for all foul and un- 
 pleasant things which his clean, strong, 
 healthy nature invariably felt. A long- 
 ing desire to kick the fellow possessed 
 him, which opportunity gave him the 
 means of gratifying at last, one day 
 about a month after the appearance of 
 the ' pupils ' on the scene. He was 
 crossing the Wilderness, which made a 
 short cut from the house to one part 
 of the high road, when he heard 
 voices near him amongst the bushes. 
 One, Gwen's low contralto he was sure,
 
 A Girrs Past. 177 
 
 though raised to a pitch he had never 
 heard. It trembled, yet was loud with 
 some tempest of fear or anger. He could 
 not distinguish actually what she said, 
 but he was sure that she spoke with 
 some strong passion, and he heard 
 following the insolent laugh and thick 
 accents of the refractory pupil ; and 
 these words he could just catch as he 
 neared them, ' Really, Miss Gwen, you 
 need not be so stand off. Why can't you 
 be decent to a fellow ? You haven't 
 always been so chary.' Here the voice 
 sank and thickened into low, coarse 
 accents, followed again by the insulting 
 laugh of a half - drunken young black- 
 guard. Then Graham heard again, ' It 
 wouldn't kill you to give me a kiss. 
 What's a kiss ? ' There was a sound of 
 struggle, of rending bushes, and Gwen 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 A Girrs Past. 
 
 broke through the underwood, panting, 
 crimson, with bright dilated eyes. She 
 almost fell into Graham's arms. He 
 was too enraged to stop for civilities. 
 ' Where is he ? ' he said, in short, stern 
 tones, pale with wrath. ' Where is the 
 brute ? Let me get at him.' Johnstone 
 was not far off. He had struggled to 
 follow Gwen, but, being more than 
 half-drunk, had stumbled over a briar 
 and lay full length at Graham's feet. 
 The young squire kicked him as if he 
 were an unclean beast. 
 
 * Get up,' he said. ' Be out of this ! If 
 you were sober I'd flog you. As it is, you 
 ask Miss Lane's pardon when you have 
 your senses, or I'll horsewhip you in pub- 
 lic. Be off, this is my property ! I don't 
 allow drunken young blackguards about. 
 
 Bob Johnstone struggled slowly into
 
 A Girl's Past. 179 
 
 a sitting posture, where he remained 
 stupidly staring at the tall, strong figure 
 that towered over him. He looked 
 infinitely foolish, but almost as disgrace- 
 ful. 'Get up! Be off!' Graham re- 
 peated, in tones Gwen had not believed 
 his calm, kind voice capable of. * I'll 
 see Mr Lane to-morrow.' 
 
 The insolent stage was merging into 
 the maudlin. The young reprobate got 
 on to his feet with difficulty, and pro- 
 ceeded to protest that he meant no 
 harm — only a ' mere flirtation ' ; that Mr 
 Brooke - Graham was ' a damned sight 
 too hard on a poor fellow that meant 
 nothin' ; ' as for being drunk, he swore 
 by all his gods he was as sober — 'as 
 sober as — as you are.' As for insulting 
 Miss Gwen, he thought far too much of 
 her. He should never have stayed at
 
 i8o A Girrs Past. 
 
 ' old Lane's ' if it hadn't been for ' the 
 young ladies.' ' All the fellers fall in 
 love with 'em,' he added, with a par- 
 ticularly loathly wink, which filled up 
 the measure of Graham's wrath. 
 
 ' Since you won't clear out of yourself, 
 allow me to show you the way,' he said, 
 with grim sarcasm, and, taking a grip 
 of the starchless collar, he conducted Mr 
 Johnstone to the road and started him, 
 protesting against ' ungen'lemanly vio- 
 lence,' on his homeward way. Then 
 he returned more slowly, making a con- 
 siderable effort so to swallow his passion 
 as to appear pretty much as usual before 
 Gwen. She faced him with a desperate, 
 quivering attempt at a smile. She could 
 not force herself to be anything but pale 
 — paler even than her wont — and her 
 voice, as she desperately tried to make
 
 A Girl's Past. i8i 
 
 it sound unconcerned, had a sobbing 
 cadence in it ; yet it was evident she 
 intended to let the incident go by. 
 
 'Please — please, ISlv Graham,' she 
 cried, even compelling herself to utter 
 a little unreal short laugh, ^ please don't 
 make too much of this — this stupid rude- 
 ness of — of — that boy's. I daresay he — 
 he meant nothing. You'll not let it go 
 any further ? You'll not say anything to 
 — to my father ? ' 
 
 Graham looked at her in grave, sur- 
 prised displeasure. He was longing for 
 the time and chance of humblinQ^ and 
 punishing the disreputable young cad 
 who had insulted Gwen, and made her 
 — for the moment when she broke 
 through the bushes — look so tragical, 
 so scornful and so beautiful all at once. 
 Her eager desire now to hush it up, to
 
 1 82 A Girrs Past. 
 
 soften his wrath, was repellent to him. 
 Why should she care about the further 
 issue of his righteous disgust ? Why 
 should she want to protect the young 
 wretch ? 
 
 ' I was under the impression he 
 needed a lesson in manners,' he said 
 coldly. * It would give me some pleas- 
 ure to give him one.' 
 
 * I'd rather — much rather, you let it 
 alone now,' she said quickly and nerv- 
 ously, not looking at him. A moment 
 after she raised her eyes, and met his 
 grave, curious look. She blushed all 
 over her face, and her mouth trembled. 
 
 * You see,' she began again more 
 quickly, more nervously, with an implor- 
 ing pathos in her deep, sad eyes, * we 
 can't get rid of him yet. It would only 
 be another bother — another upset at
 
 A Girl's Past. 183 
 
 home — we — we are very poor. Poor 
 people have to put up with all kinds 
 of disagreeable things. I — I am very 
 much obliged to you for interfering — 
 he was very rude — I was annoyed, but 
 — well, I know it is no excuse — but he 
 had been drinking or he would not 
 have behaved so. He is generally civil 
 and keeps his distance. I can gener- 
 ally manage to protect myself 
 
 He was no longer angry, he was 
 only vaguely pained and hurt for 
 her. 
 
 * Gwen,' he said impetuously, and 
 both were too strongly moved to notice 
 till afterwards how he had addressed 
 her, ' I can't bear to think that you 
 should be exposed to the chance of 
 being spoken to in that way — should 
 have that disgusting young blackguard
 
 1 84 A Girl's Past, 
 
 within reach of you. Could — can no- 
 thing be done with him ? ' 
 
 * He shall beg my pardon when he 
 is sober,' Gwen said, with a faint smile. 
 ' I sometimes can manage him better 
 than the rest. Yes, I know he is horrid, 
 but — we can't very well get rid of 
 him. Father has undertaken to have 
 him for a year.' 
 
 ' For a year ! It is contamination for 
 you and your sisters.' 
 
 Graham w^as frowning again, at Fate, 
 at Mr Lane, at the pupils, at any- 
 body and everybody except Gwen. 
 
 'Do let me have it out with him,' 
 he added, with a sudden boyish frank- 
 ness which was very engaging. 
 
 Gwen shook her head, but her eyes 
 were soft. 
 
 * No, no,' she said. ' Why should
 
 A Girrs Past. 185 
 
 you care ? I — we are used, I am afraid, 
 to that sort of contamination. We have 
 always been too poor to be fastidious. 
 Don't think about it any more, please, 
 Mr Graham.' 
 
 ' But I must — I can't help it — I 
 must think about it, for it concerns 
 you.' 
 
 * Not very deeply,' she said, with 
 that faint smile again. * Young John- 
 stone, after all, does not make much 
 difference to my life. It is not at 
 any time so very — ' she stopped ab- 
 ruptly, coloured deeply, and began to 
 move downwards towards the road. 
 
 ' What were you going to say ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, nothing — nothing. You must 
 forget this, Mr Graham, you must 
 really! It is not worth a second 
 thought. If I ask you I know you
 
 1 86 A Girts Past, 
 
 will be kind enough not to make any 
 more of it' 
 
 * Then I am not to kick him ? 
 not to give him a thrashing ? ' 
 
 ' Please not,' she said earnestly. 
 ' It would make everything much worse/ 
 
 ' Then of course I will not. Of 
 course I will do what you really wish. 
 You shall never have to ask me 
 anything twice.' 
 
 'You are very kind to me,' she 
 said, in a faltering voice, stooping to 
 clear some clinging tendrils from her 
 way. He stooped too, and in mov- 
 ing them touched her hand. She took 
 it away quickly and hurried forward. 
 
 ' Where are you going ? ' he asked. 
 ' May I walk with you ? ' 
 
 ' I am going to practise some new 
 chants on the organ,' she said. ' Billy
 
 A Girl's Past. 187 
 
 Melhuish will be waiting at the church 
 to blow the organ for me. I had better 
 not take you out of your way.' 
 
 'My way is no way. I was only 
 loafing. Do let me come into the 
 church with you. It is a quiet, dream}-, 
 little place. I love to sit in an empty 
 church as the dusk comes on. The very 
 spirit of silence and peace, the ghosts 
 of a bygone past seem to fill it. 
 If I should not be troublesome 
 to you, I should like to hear you play.' 
 
 She said nothino- either of consent 
 or denial. One voice within her urged 
 her to send him away, another, more 
 persistent, pleaded for one sweet re- 
 poseful hour in the weariness of the 
 days. Brooke-Graham was her friend. 
 She had not many, and the very 
 scarcity made her prize those she had
 
 1 88 A Girrs Past. 
 
 more than happier, richer girls do. 
 She let him open the heavy, low-browed 
 door for her, to light the candles by 
 the organ, and to set the urchin going 
 at the bellows. Then he sat on one 
 of the singers' benches close behind her, 
 and she began to play. The echoes in 
 the empty little church rolled back 
 the sweet, sonorous tones. Gwen began 
 rather feebly, but the spirit of music 
 came into her fingers after a few minutes, 
 and she played her best for her one 
 auditor, for Billy was but a mere stupid 
 machine, who neither listened nor cared. 
 
 She tried over a couple of chants, and 
 then, after pausing a moment, began softly 
 and sweetly some of the tenderest bits 
 from the ' Messiah ' ; not the triumphant 
 choruses, but the plaintive suggestions of 
 consolation in the midst of the sorrows
 
 A GirFs Past, 189 
 
 and wrongs of the world, which appeal to 
 the universal needs of man's inner self 
 — * He shall feed his flock,' ' How beauti- 
 ful are the feet' Graham sat spell- 
 bound, in a profound quiescence. The 
 music, the dimness, the sudden sinking 
 into calm of his own angry emotions, all 
 seemed to possess his soul with a deep 
 overmastering sensation which he had 
 neither power nor will to analyse. He 
 only knew it was one of the supreme 
 moments of life, which change the cur- 
 rent of things. 
 
 At last the music suddenly stopped, 
 from a very prosaic cause. Billy's time 
 was up. He had to be home at five, 
 and no music, however enthralling to 
 educated minds, had power to win his 
 rugged breast from thoughts of tea. 
 
 * Shall I blow for you ? Do you wish to
 
 190 A Girl's Past. 
 
 go on playing ? ' Graham asked in a 
 subdued voice, as she turned on her bench 
 and told Billy he could leave. 
 
 *Oh, no,' she said, ' I must go too — they 
 will want me, I daresay.' 
 
 But she did not immediately get up, and 
 he sat down near her. He longed to 
 lengthen out the dim sweetness of the 
 hour, and she was loath to break the 
 spell of rest which had fallen upon her 
 from the place and the music. 
 
 ' I wish — ' he began softly, and then 
 paused a moment. Then, as she started 
 a little and looked at him, he went on : 
 ' I wish you would tell me — you know 
 we have made a compact of friend- 
 ship, you and Madge and I — I wish 
 you would tell me whether there is 
 nothing at all I could do for you. 
 When one has friends, you know.
 
 A GirFs Past. 191 
 
 one is anxious to show that it is so, 
 and I cannot help fancying — you must 
 forgive me if it seems impertinent to 
 say it — I cannot help fancying you 
 are not quite happy somehow at home.' 
 
 * No, I am not,' she said under her 
 breath ; * you are right. I am not at 
 all happy.' 
 
 * Do you mind telling me why ? ' he 
 said, in the softest, most coaxing of 
 voices, just as he would have spoken 
 to a child that was hurt. 
 
 'We — we are in church,' she said, 
 with a startled little movement, a slight 
 withdrawing from him. They were the 
 first words that occurred to her, a vague 
 protection from the seducing softness 
 that made her long to pour out her 
 heart, while all the instincts of the long 
 habit of reserve resisted.
 
 192 A Girl's Past. 
 
 ' Well,' he said half smiling, ' I am 
 not saying or thinking anything that is 
 profane. Surely one may care for 
 people — one may wish to help — one's 
 friends — in church ? ' 
 
 ' I know you are my friend,' the 
 words came reluctantly yet softly, ' and 
 I have not many. I know you are 
 very kind, but I — I am afraid I cannot 
 tell you.' 
 
 ' Will you let me say what I imagine 
 makes you sad?' 
 
 ' Oh, you — you cannot know, you 
 cannot guess ! ' she cried, starting sud- 
 denly as if stung. 
 
 ' Well, I have noticed — I have 
 thought a great deal. I do often 
 think about you. Just let me say one 
 or two things. You have told me you 
 have not many friends, you are very
 
 A Girl's Past. 193 
 
 reserved and distant, which keeps people 
 away, yet you don't like isolation, you 
 are very sensitive and tender, it would 
 make you happier to be liked.' 
 
 ' I am afraid not. I can't be cordial 
 and nice to people. I don't expect 
 anyone to like me.' 
 
 'You fancy so, yet I believe I am 
 right. If only you would trust more, 
 be less reserved.' 
 
 * I cannot,' she said sadly. ' I have 
 made up my mind to do without friends. 
 I have mother and Madge.' 
 
 ' But it is not natural, not right for a 
 girl like you ! You oicg/it not to be so.' 
 
 ' I know girls are expected to be 
 bright and charming, to please and be 
 pleased, but I am not like other girls. 
 My life has been — has been full of 
 trouble.' 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 1 94 A Girl's Past. 
 
 ' And you are only twenty ! ' he half- 
 smiled, yet her words were a weight 
 on his heart. 
 
 ' People can be unhappy at twenty, 
 at ten, at fifteen, at any age,' she said, 
 with an undertone of passion. '/ have 
 never been anything else.' 
 
 *Gwen,' he said, in a voice of strong, 
 manly reproach, ' you cannot mean 
 what you say. You exaggerate — it 
 cannot be so.' 
 
 * It is true,' she persisted, suddenly 
 dropping her reserve and speaking 
 strongly and fervently from her heart. 
 ' I tell you it is true. There is too much 
 said of the joys of childhood, I never 
 had any, mine was a wretched, careworn 
 childhood. I lay awake when I was little 
 because I was too full of trouble to sleep.. 
 I woke to heavy, dreary thoughts.'
 
 A Gi7'l's Past. 195 
 
 * Ettie is your sister, she did not 
 suffer so.' 
 
 ' Ettie and I are a whole world 
 apart. She was born light-hearted and 
 hopeful, things do not prey on her. I 
 was born to be sorrowful, and I am sure 
 I shall fulfil my destiny ; in little things, 
 and in great I am unlucky, and my 
 nature is my worst misfortune. My 
 mother was very unhappy before and 
 after my birth. I never had a chance 
 of being anything else.' 
 
 'It is very wrong to talk so. You 
 are so young.' 
 
 * My body is young ; my se/f feels 
 old, very old, quite worn out and 
 weary. ' 
 
 He leant towards her, and stretched 
 out his warm, strong, right hand. 
 
 ' Dear, you must not talk so. Life
 
 796 A Girl's Past. 
 
 is before you. It shall be sweet yet. 
 You must let me help you. I cannot 
 bear to hear you speak so.' 
 
 She did not put her hand into his, 
 though it sought eagerly to clasp it. 
 She rose hastily, upsetting a whole 
 pile of music books, which she stooped 
 to pick up. A flurry of haste and 
 bustle to be gone seemed suddenly to 
 possess her. 
 
 ' I had no idea how late it was. 
 Please lock up the organ, Mr Graham. 
 Is it light enough to see when the 
 candles are out ? Perhaps you can 
 use one of those wax spills. Oh, thank 
 you ; I have the books all right. I 
 must run home.' 
 
 * You'll let me go with you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, no,' — with a nervous, little 
 laugh — * it is such a step of a way.
 
 A Girl's Past. 197 
 
 No, I had rather not. If you will 
 lock the church door, please, and leave 
 the key at the cottage, I shall be 
 obliged. Good-night, Mr Graham, 
 good-night.' She hurried off, leav- 
 inof him behind, but when he had 
 locked the door he found her waiting 
 to say a hurried, panting sentence. ' Mr 
 Graham, just one word, please. I 
 want you to forget everything, really 
 everything, that has passed this after- 
 noon. I have been talking nonsense. 
 It is that you must forget, as well as 
 that horrid boy's rudeness — everything.' 
 
 ' I will do all I can for you,' he 
 answered quietly, ' but if you ask me 
 what is Impossible I can make no 
 promises. At least, you will allow that 
 we are friends ? That is not nonsense, 
 not to be forgotten ? '
 
 198 A Girrs Past, 
 
 ' Oh, I do want a friend,' she said 
 impetuously, then shrank from her 
 own words. ' It depends on what it 
 means, but thank you for all your 
 kindness.' 
 
 * It is not kindness', he cried, taking 
 both her hands and holding them tight. 
 
 She wrenched them away. 
 
 *0h, hush, that's nonsense,' she cried, 
 in a forced, unnatural voice ; * it is just 
 that and nothing else. You are very 
 kind, and I am ever so much obliged 
 to you. Good-night. I must make 
 haste.' 
 
 She ran off, into the grey mist of the 
 gathering evening, as if pursued. He 
 stood and watched the slender, running 
 figure till it was swallowed up in dark- 
 ness. Then he turned and went very 
 thoughtfully towards home.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ' Am I in love with her ? ' 
 
 There comes a time when a man sud- 
 denly wakes with a start to ask himself 
 that question, and it is one to which it 
 is often difficult to give a clear and 
 precise answer. There are so many 
 shades and gradations in liking, interest 
 and love, that it is barely possible now 
 and then to trace where one merges 
 into another. Graham sat over his 
 study fire after his solitary dinner, and 
 his mind involuntarily turned to face 
 this question. He had been drawn 
 from the beginning by a very strong
 
 200 A Girl's Past. 
 
 attraction to Gwen. Of that he had no 
 doubt whatever, but at first he was sure 
 compassion had more than anything else 
 — more even than admiration for her 
 looks — to do with that feeling than any- 
 more passionate or vehement emotion. 
 The deep and brooding sadness of her 
 eyes, the wistful and pathetic lines of 
 her features, had troubled first, and then 
 engrossed his thoughts. He had fancied, 
 in certain moods at first, that Ettie's 
 bright, vivacious prettiness, her girlish, 
 audacious gaiety had suited him best. 
 She was a veritable allegra, and he had 
 always liked bright, cheerful and pretty 
 things. Yet, oddly enough, he had no 
 doubt now in determining that Ettie's 
 vivacity had ceased to fascinate, and 
 that Gwen's reserve, even her coldness, 
 her quiet sadness, sometimes brightened
 
 A Girl's Past. 201 
 
 by a gleam which showed a brief revela- 
 tion of what happiness might have made 
 her, were far more alluring to his im- 
 agination, and more appealing to his 
 heart. Ettie was shallow ; a mere bright, 
 little brook, that showed every glitter- 
 ing, worthless pebble that lay under its 
 few inches, soon fathomed, soon ex- 
 hausted. The elements of secrecy, of 
 unexplored depth, of a puzzle that had 
 to be solved, were all wanting. There 
 was plenty of scope for fancy in study- 
 ing Gwen. Besides, he was sure that 
 in spite of fate, of the crippling narrow- 
 ing grip that poverty and adverse cir- 
 cumstances had laid upon her, there 
 remained underneath a tender, loyal and 
 passionate nature. He had seen brief 
 glimpses of it, in moments of expansion, 
 in her ways with her mother and her
 
 202 A Girl's Past. 
 
 little sister, both of whom Ettie either 
 ignored or snubbed. It was Gwen who 
 was always called upon in that house- 
 hold to give up and to serve. She 
 seemed to have no reluctance, no sense 
 of grievance in calmly accepting this 
 rSle. Ettie, the father's pet and admira- 
 tion, though the younger sister, quietly 
 annexed the most comfortable chair, the 
 crustiest bit of the loaf, the nicest por- 
 tion of everything, the gaiety that was 
 only available for one. Gwen acquiesced 
 in this division of things, not only with- 
 out grudging but apparently from choice. 
 Madge sometimes railed at it, she never 
 did. And surely there were possi- 
 bilities, sleeping but to be awakened, of 
 womanly love and passion in the depths 
 of those pathetic, unfathomed eyes ! 
 When Graham thought of the joy of
 
 A Girr s Past. 203 
 
 seeing them aroused, and by him, the 
 triumph and satisfaction of heart if the 
 dormant spirit in them leapt out to 
 meet him, and owned him its master, 
 he started to his feet in a kind of 
 momentary transport. Surely it might 
 be ! Surely he could win her to him, 
 shrink as she would ! But why did she 
 shrink ? What made her draw back 
 so evidently, so persistently, just as the 
 moment seemed near, just as he was 
 ready to seize it ? What barrier, what 
 fanciful, foolish pride, what sensitive 
 distrust of him or of herself always came 
 between and kept him at arm's length ? 
 Something, impalpable as a cobweb, 
 but stronger than his will, stretched be- 
 tween them. Well, he was an obstinate 
 fellow. His will was strong, his heart 
 firm, he was not used to take rebuffs.
 
 204 A Girl's Past. 
 
 he could conquer a weak girl like Gwen ! 
 For, after all, she was weak. She was 
 easily swayed, easily daunted. She 
 thought a great deal of others, she had 
 very little confidence in herself. He 
 was often half irritated, half charmed by 
 her genuine humility, by the entire 
 absence of vanity and conceit in her 
 nature, so curiously a contrast in this 
 respect, as in every other, to her sister, 
 whose robust good opinion of herself 
 was evident in every bold, confident 
 smile, in every assured glance, in every 
 turn of the head and movement of the 
 figure. He would convince Gwen first 
 that she was dear and sweet to him, 
 that he found her beautiful and desir- 
 able. He would make her believe in 
 herself, and then in him. Bit by bit he 
 would break down the barriers of her
 
 A Girl's Past. 205 
 
 reserve and timidity, would first make 
 
 her his friend — his dear, true, intimate 
 
 friend — would not scare her by lover's 
 
 talk or looks, then the rest would follow 
 
 by easy, delightful steps, till her heart 
 
 yielded itself to him, the hands to his 
 
 hands, the lips to his lips. Ah, he had 
 
 pretty well answered his own question 
 
 by this time. As he reached this point, 
 
 and the seductive vision he had raised 
 
 took possession of him, as he imagined 
 
 to himself the soft, frightened pressure 
 
 of Gwen's first shy kiss, he trembled 
 
 and grew hot with sudden passion. Oh, 
 
 yes, he loved her! He loved her, but 
 
 he would be careful and prudent. He 
 
 would not hurry matters — common sense 
 
 began to talk down the impulse of the 
 
 moment — he would take time, would see 
 
 his way.
 
 2o6 A Girl's Past, 
 
 * There are many objections,' said 
 common sense, in that calm, unpleasant 
 way it has sometimes. ' You don't like 
 the family or connections. Mr Lane will 
 not be a father-in-law to be proud of. 
 In marrying her you would marry 
 poverty and social inferiority. You, the 
 well-to-do young country squire who 
 has a right to look out for so very 
 different a connection.' 
 
 ' What hateful worldliness ! ' cried 
 Graham's other self, the passionate and 
 impetuous one. ' I should marry her, 
 not her family, and she is a darling, 
 fit for any man. I want a wife I can 
 love, not a wife to bring me money or 
 position.' 
 
 'Well, don't be in a hurry at any rate,' 
 urged common sense, yielding ground a 
 little. ' That would onlv scare her and
 
 A Girl's Past. 207 
 
 do harm. Take your time, get to know 
 her better, win her confidence — you 
 haven't that yet. See how she shrank 
 away directly you spoke of 7nore than 
 friendship' 
 
 So far he owned common sense was in 
 the right ; instinct told him to wait, to 
 hurry nothing. He had known her such 
 a short time. He had promised to go 
 home — that is to say to his mother's 
 home — shortly, and to spend Christmas 
 there. Nothing definite should be said 
 or done till he returned to Erdley, 
 perhaps till spring. He was not afraid 
 of his own constancy nor of Gwen's 
 changing. She was not pursued by any 
 admirers. She stood aloof, and none but 
 he seemed to care to o^et nearer to her. 
 He did not want to rush into any hasty 
 action. There was a charm to him in
 
 2o8 A Girl's Past. 
 
 the anticipation of the slow, subtle nearing 
 of the realisation of his hope. The 
 generous as well as the selfish desires of 
 Graham's nature were enlisted in the 
 pursuit of Gwen. Poor child ! She had 
 so little, she was unhappy, she had 
 always been unhappy. The remembrance 
 of those few sad words of reminiscence, 
 spoken in that pathetic voice of hers, 
 thrilled him with pitying tenderness and 
 with a longing to set it all right. She was 
 so pale. Her eyes and mouth had such a 
 weary yet patient look in them, her days 
 were full of the hard tasks of poverty, 
 she had neither rest nor pleasure. Even 
 little things were against her ; and, though 
 it seemed trivial, it hurt him to notice 
 how shabby her poor little boots were, 
 how rusty and well-mended her gloves. 
 She had no pretty warm wraps and furs
 
 A Girl's Past, 209 
 
 to fence her from the increasing cold. 
 She was still wearing her summer dress, 
 with only a thin jacket, and she often 
 looked pinched. Why, even to see her 
 prettily, luxuriously clothed would be a 
 delight ! To spend money on her — 
 choosing just what his close, keen notice 
 showed him she wanted most — to hear 
 her remonstrating with him on being 
 over-generous ! Oh, if she would but 
 let him, how he would change all her 
 life, would warm and cheer and com- 
 fort her half-starved heart ! 
 
 He began to plan delightful sur- 
 prises for her — little secret devices 
 to cheat her into brightness. He 
 would make her happy through her 
 devotion to her mother and to little 
 Madge. He would be liberal to the 
 
 others, but these were the ones he should 
 VOL. I. o
 
 2IO A Girfs Past. 
 
 care to be really good to — that he 
 would be fond of for Gwen's sake. 
 Madge would be so happy to find 
 herself his little sister. Graham was 
 in a glow of impetuous feeling. His 
 mind leapt forward into the future, 
 and he saw it all filled with rose- 
 coloured light. Gwen was only twenty. 
 What if those few years of childhood 
 and girlish life had all been dreary ? 
 there was time enough for a whole age 
 of happiness. He was glad to remember 
 how young she was, after all. There 
 was not much time lost. He had al- 
 ways meant to win a girl's first love, 
 first dreams, first kisses. She was so 
 quiet, reserved and distant with men 
 — he should be the very first. He 
 had always loved that idea. He had 
 a great objection to following a
 
 A Girl's Past, 2 1 1 
 
 whole host oi lovers in a girl's well- 
 used heart. He had often told Kitty, 
 with brotherly frankness, that he should 
 not care for succession in a long line 
 of flirtations, which was all any 
 admirer of hers could boast. Kitty 
 had been a gay, reckless, little flirt 
 ever since she w^as seventeen — had 
 never been to a dance without a 
 desperate ' affair ' ; had been half en- 
 gaged a dozen times, and whole en- 
 gaged twice. But his Gwen had never 
 been gay — could never have flirted. 
 Why, if he came near her, if he only 
 wanted to touch her hand, she shrank 
 away with adorable timidity that was 
 not coldness, for he could see in the 
 troubled depth of her eyes that she was 
 not indifferent. He hoped his mother 
 and Kitty would understand and be
 
 212 A Girl's Past. 
 
 good to her, but if they were not he 
 could bear it quite well. He could 
 imagine his dear, good, Philistine little 
 mother pursing up her lips and putting 
 on her worldly-wise manner. ' Oh, my 
 dearest boy ! you really might have 
 done better.' He seemed to hear her 
 voice saying the words in her emphasis- 
 ing fashion. * Only a poor clergyman's 
 daughter, and rather a shabby specimen 
 of a clergyman, too. A girl without 
 a penny — with no position whatever! 
 Then Kitty's frank detraction — Miss 
 Kitty never minced matters, and did 
 not at all mind being uncomplimentary — 
 'Well, she is pretty, but she has nothing 
 to say for herself. She has no go in 
 her. She is horribly reserved.' 
 
 These things should not vex him. 
 He always got his way in the end.
 
 A Girrs Past. 213 
 
 and he could, at any rate, manage his 
 mother. He was perfectly independent. 
 What people said or thought could not 
 hurt him. They might be nasty to 
 Gwen before she was his wife, but 
 people must be civil to Mrs Brooke- 
 Graham of Erdley ; and when she was 
 known, when prosperity and tenderness 
 had made her blossom out into a sub- 
 dued kind of brilliancy, which he was 
 able to imagine for her, she would be 
 valued and loved by those who were 
 capable of understanding her — she would 
 be so happy she would not need a 
 great many friends. His visions had 
 reached this height, he was in a glow 
 of hope that almost seemed certainty, 
 when it grew late, and all the village 
 slept.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Meanwhile Gwen had hurried from the 
 church to the Vicarage, and had found 
 the family assembled there in one of 
 its most depressing conditions. Many 
 trifles combined had put Mr Lane into 
 his worst humour ; everything and any- 
 thing served as a lighted match to the 
 tinder of his wrath. An untidy litter 
 of tea covered the table. Cups that had 
 been used stood forlornly about amidst 
 the wrecks of bread-and-butter and 
 stale cake. A little remnant of flat, cold 
 tea was vainly protected by a rakish- 
 looking old tea cosy, which by no 
 214
 
 A GiiH's Past. 2 1 5 
 
 means deserved its name. Ettie, who 
 always made herself as comfortable as 
 circumstances allowed, had left the un- 
 inviting tea-table, and was taking up 
 nearly the whole of the small fire, with 
 a ragged sixpenny novel in her hand ; 
 Mr Lane fidgetted and raved about 
 the room ; his wife still sat limp, de- 
 jected and unmoving by the tray, keep- 
 ing the meal as eatable as she could 
 for the unpunctual Gwen ; one pupil, 
 the incorrigible Johnstone, was not to 
 be seen ; poor ' Topsy Turvey ' leant 
 his elbows on the table amid a perfect 
 wreckage of spilt tea and bits of soppy 
 bread-and-butter. His stupid, good- 
 natured face looked calmly on as Mr 
 Lane stormed more or less at every- 
 thing. He turned, with a new access 
 of petulance, on his elder daughter as
 
 2i6 A Girrs Past, 
 
 she slipped in and took a seat by her 
 mother. 
 
 ' Late as usual ! You can never 
 have the common politeness to con- 
 form to the hours of meals. It is 
 really too bad that one's daughter 
 should show so little consideration for 
 my comfort.' 
 
 ' Come, papa, we did not wait for 
 her,' murmured the mother, as Gwen 
 sat silent. * You had your tea at the 
 usual time. It is Gwen who gets it cold 
 and uncomfortable.' 
 
 ' Wait ! Would you have me wait ? 
 A pretty life I should lead if I gave 
 in to all their vagaries. Cold ! People 
 deserve cold tea who can't be punctual. 
 Upon my word it's enough to drive 
 one crazy the way these young people 
 go on. Where have you been ? ' he
 
 A Girl's Past. 217 
 
 snapped, turning on Gwen almost 
 savagely. ' That young scoundrel John- 
 stone came in, as usual, with some 
 cock - and - bull story about you and Mr 
 Brooke - Graham. I sent him to bed, 
 but I really should like to know the 
 rights of the story.' 
 
 * He was — was rude to me,' Gwen 
 murmured, through half-closed lips, the 
 slow, painful colour (it was always pain- 
 ful to her to blush) rising in her pale 
 face. * He followed me. I — I went into 
 the plantation to get away from him.' 
 
 She paused suddenly, and drew a 
 long, hard breath. Ettie watched her 
 sharply, unsympathetically, from her 
 place by the fire. 
 
 * What then ? ' demanded the father. 
 'Was there a row between Graham and 
 that wretched lad ? '
 
 2i8 A Girl's Past, 
 
 * He — came — up/ Gwen answered, with 
 difficulty, pausing between each word, 
 ' He — sent him out of the wilderness.' 
 
 ' Well, what did you do then ? Stop 
 in the wilderness to be sympathised 
 with ? ' 
 
 There was a sneer on his face and 
 in his voice. 
 
 * I went to the church to practise 
 the chants,' she answered briefly, without 
 looking at her father. 
 
 'Yes, and someone said Mr Brooke- 
 Graham went in too. Was that so ? ' 
 
 *Yes,' Gwen said, stung to sudden 
 anger, fixing her eyes on him. ' What 
 then ? ' 
 
 ' What then .'^ Why — why it was 
 not at all a correct thing to do, not 
 at all. You'll have the village talk- 
 ing about you. Your own good taste,
 
 A Girl's Past. 2 1 9 
 
 your own delicacy, should have told 
 you.' 
 
 * Hush, hush, papa,' Mrs Lane mur- 
 mured, distressed for her child, but 
 daring hardly to interpose in *one of 
 papa's moods.' 
 
 * Hold your tongue, mother,' he re- 
 torted rudely. ^ I have a right to speak 
 to Gweneth, I suppose, though I never 
 found it did much good. You have 
 always spoilt her, but I tell you no 
 good ever came, or ever will come, of 
 her secretive, underhand ways.' 
 
 The angr}^ flush of acute pain deep- 
 ened on Gwen's face. She pressed her 
 lips together and sat still. What was 
 the use of speaking? In such a mood, 
 reason alike and appeal to feeling would 
 be wasted on the violent man, in whose 
 mind a variety of vexations small and
 
 2 20 A Girl's Past. 
 
 great were pricking him to fury. Topsy 
 Turvey made a sudden, if not agree- 
 able, diversion. Violence of manner 
 frightened his poor, weak soul ; when 
 he was frightened he writhed and con- 
 torted his bony frame for relief. Kick- 
 ing out one nervous leg he gave a 
 mighty jerk, which upset Gwen's cup of 
 tea on the cloth. Mr Lane did not 
 actually swear — in words. To that 
 extent he managed to keep up his 
 clerical reputation, but he raved in a 
 tone that conveyed the idea of swearing, 
 and poor Turvey poured out a flood of 
 incoherent apology, ending up with a 
 weak giggle and an attempted consola- 
 tion that it was 'nearly clean cloth day.' 
 Ettie broke into a short laugh at this, 
 and remarked it was Thursday, she did 
 not know how he made that out, and
 
 A Girfs Past. 2 2 1 
 
 Gwen escaped in the confusion. There 
 was no fire in the drawing-room, but 
 she preferred peace to warmth. Here 
 was the friendly piano ; she could, per- 
 haps, forget herself in music. While 
 she played her mother came in softly. 
 She stood behind her, and touched 
 her with half-timid but caressing little 
 pats. She made hesitating beginnings 
 at speech, which became easier to her 
 when the girl half turned on the stool 
 and leant back against her. 
 
 * Gwennie, dear, you must not take 
 what papa says to heart. He has a 
 great deal to vex him. This dreadful 
 Johnstone boy, and poor Turvey is try- 
 ing, too, one must confess. When he 
 is irritated he says more than he really 
 means.' 
 
 ' Don't fret about it, mother dear.
 
 2 22 A Girl's Past. 
 
 don't worry about me,' Gwen's low 
 voice said tenderly. ' I am used, you 
 know, to his thinking badly of me. I 
 daresay I deserve he should. I know 
 I don't deserve that you should be un- 
 happy about me.' 
 
 * He seems, somehow, rather annoyed 
 with Mr Brooke-Graham. He fancied — 
 I never did myself — that — that he liked 
 — Ettie! She paused, then added nerv- 
 ously : ' Of course it would be a very 
 nice thing for her.' 
 
 Gwen said nothing, the mother went 
 on again. 
 
 ' It is foolish, I think, to imagine 
 every man who is kind and friendly 
 should mean — should mean — anything. 
 Ettie is very young. I hope she may 
 marry tolerably, but I don't look high 
 for her. Gwennie, dear, what made Mr
 
 A Girl's Past. 223 
 
 Graham go Into the church with you ? 
 Someone told papa as he came in.' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know, how should I ? ' 
 Gwen cried, suddenly twisting herself 
 from her mother. ' It was a whim, 
 a fancy, he said it seemed peaceful. 
 Could I make a fuss and tell him not 
 to come ? ' 
 
 There was a pause, then the mother 
 said, in a low, frightened, faltering 
 voice, — 
 
 * You are careftd, dear. There is — 
 nothing ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing, nothing,' Gwen said, vehe- 
 mently. 'It is cruel, hateful to think 
 so ! Can't he even be friendly — kind — 
 to me as he is to Ettie and Madge. 
 Am I to have no friends at all .^ Am 
 I a pariah ? ' 
 
 It was not often Gwen spoke so, not
 
 224 ^ Girl's Past. 
 
 often passion of any sort was allowed 
 to get the upper hand of her. The 
 timid mother was silenced at once. She 
 was one of those who seek peace in 
 * letting things be,' but, alas, she seldom 
 found what she sought. She hastily- 
 kissed her daughter, murmuring some 
 soothing commonplace, and left her. 
 Things were too difficult for her to 
 begin combatting them. Possibly ' it 
 would all come right in the end.' She 
 often used this formula, which meant 
 but little to her after the many dis- 
 appointments of her troubled life. In 
 one respect she had a well-founded 
 confidence in a change for the better. 
 Mr Lane's bad tempers did not gener- 
 ally rage very long. By supper - time 
 he would probably have grumbled and 
 stormed himself into a fairly quiescent
 
 A GirFs Past. 225 
 
 state, and his usual glass of spirits and 
 water would help to produce a milder 
 frame of mind. Yet, though this was 
 so, he retained a resentful, cold manner 
 to Gwen. What business had she to 
 be making extra bother with those 
 plagues of pupils? It was bad enough 
 as it was, endeavouring to keep John- 
 stone in decent bounds so that he could 
 continue to receive, if not to earn, the 
 handsome sum his sorely tried father 
 was ready to pay to put his prodigal 
 son out of his siorht. 
 
 ' What's to be done ? ' he growled 
 at Gwen, in the middle of supper. 
 ' Have I got to make his apologies ? 
 I daresay you thought too much of a 
 drunken lad's foolishness.' 
 
 ' I will speak to him myself,' Gwen 
 said, with a sudden proud flash of scorn 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 226 A Girl's Past. 
 
 and anger. * He shall beg my pardon. 
 I won't submit to be insulted by him.' 
 
 * He didn't probably know what he 
 was saying. You might have man- 
 aged to keep it quiet, and not bring 
 other people in.' 
 
 ' I could not help,' she returned, 
 with a proud but quivering lip. * Mr 
 Brooke-Graham happened to hear. He 
 is too much of a gentleman to let a 
 lady — a girl — be treated like that.' 
 
 'Quite a romantic adventure,' Ettie 
 said sneeringly. 'Gwen always liked 
 romance ! ' 
 
 * There was something meaning, 
 almost viciously meaning in her voice 
 and the quick, sharp glance which 
 accompanied it. Gwen met both with 
 a kind of desperate contempt, yet it 
 was plain the little poisoned dart went
 
 A Girrs Past. 227 
 
 home. She was very white, and her 
 under Hp trembled. 
 
 * It is difficult enough to manage 
 such a position as is thrust upon me,' 
 Mr Lane went on resentfully, ' to make 
 both ends meet as best I can, with the 
 help of what I get from these wretched 
 boys, without complications. I should 
 have thought you girls could keep out 
 of their way, and manage to make 
 things less, rather than more, difficult. 
 No man was ever harassed and ham- 
 pered as I am.' 
 
 ' The girls do what they can to help, 
 papa,' Mrs Lane said, in her sad, meek 
 voice. 
 
 ' Do they } ' he returned grimly, ' I 
 wish I could see it.' 
 
 ' Let me leave home, let me take a 
 situation somewhere,' Gwen said sud-
 
 228 A Girl's Past, 
 
 denly and breathlessly. * I would be 
 glad; 
 
 'What could you do?' he asked 
 bitterly. 
 
 * I don't know. It is not my fault 
 that I am not educated enough for a 
 governess, but I can sew, I can do 
 housework. I don't mind what it is ; 
 and I have my music' 
 
 * It would hardly help me, a clergy- 
 man, who have a position to keep up, 
 to have a daughter in service. We 
 must rub on, I suppose, but I do think 
 you might manage not to make more 
 bother with the pupils.* 
 
 Gwen forebore to answer the angry 
 unreasonableness of her father. In 
 truth, he hardly cared what accusation 
 he brought against her. He could not 
 openly state the head and front of her
 
 A Gii^Ps Past. 229 
 
 offending, which was simply that she, 
 and not Ettie, had been placed in the 
 position which he only vaguely guessed 
 at. The bare idea that Gwen, rather 
 than Ettie, might attract the squire, 
 suggested complications and unpleasant- 
 ness which, with that facile nature of 
 his, that invariably shirked emergencies 
 and disagreeables as long as possible, 
 he chose not to entertain definitely, 
 but which vaguely perplexed and irri- 
 tated him. He began to consider ways 
 and means of sending Gwen away, and 
 bringing Ettie more and more forward, 
 but he had not the energy of purpose 
 either to plan or to carry out any dis- 
 tinct projects. He only uneasily asked 
 his wife, when they were alone, if she had 
 ever noticed any sort of interest in Mr 
 Brooke-Graham's manner towards Gwen.
 
 230 A Girl's Past. 
 
 * It might be very awkward and unfor- 
 tunate/ he added, avoiding more detail. 
 
 ' No,' his wife said dubiously, ' he 
 likes her — they are friendly. I don't 
 think that he cares particularly for — 
 for either of the girls, you know ; I 
 never saw much in his manner with 
 Ettie.' 
 
 ' Pooh, you never see things ! He 
 certainly admired — was taken with Ettie. 
 I believe you might have done some- 
 thing in throwing them together. She 
 is just the pretty, lively, taking girl, to 
 attract a quiet fellow like that, and she's 
 much prettier than Gwen.' 
 
 ' I know you think so,' the mother 
 could not help saying in a futile kind 
 of championship, 'but everybody does 
 not. There are people who call Gwen 
 lovely ! '
 
 A Girfs Past, 231 
 
 * I am sorry to hear It, if they are 
 of any use,' Mr Lane said drily. ' If 
 you had more sense, you would wish to 
 see Ettie well married.' 
 
 * I do — of course I do — but she is so 
 young.' 
 
 * That is a charm in itself, a bright, 
 girlish kittenish, young thing, pretty 
 and full of life, she is more attrac- 
 tive now than she will be when she is 
 older. I don't want Gwen to spoil 
 her chances.' 
 
 Mrs Lane only sighed, taking refuge 
 in silence. Life was too much for her 
 feeble powers of pilotage ; she must drift 
 and let the children drift, sadly and 
 vaguely, on a shifting and dangerous sea. 
 Luck had always been against her and 
 she feared Gwen, in inheriting her looks 
 and many of her ways, had also come in
 
 232 A GirFs Past. 
 
 for the same melancholy heritage of dis- 
 aster. She had always been an ' unlucky 
 child/ They must go on drifting; there 
 was always a possibility of help. 
 
 Gwen certainly inherited much from 
 her mother, physically and mentally, but 
 she had a certain reserve of strength, 
 courage and will power, which the older, 
 weaker woman lacked ; with much incon- 
 sistency, and even weakness, Gwen had 
 some stronger qualities. She found John- 
 stone alone in the so-called 'study,' next 
 morning, resting his hot, aching head on a 
 big dictionary, and calmly demanded an 
 apology from him, and promise of amend- 
 ment. He looked up at her with feeble 
 penitence, being In the forlorn and shiver- 
 ing stage of reaction — her stern, pale 
 young face set into severe lines was as 
 an accusing angel's to him. He feebly
 
 A Girrs Past. 233 
 
 admired, and was weakly ' spoony ' on 
 Gwen. 
 
 ' What did I do ? I was rather on, 
 you know, and really don't remember, 
 Miss Lane — ' 
 
 ' You are always on,' she returned 
 with supreme scorn, 'but anyhow, what- 
 ever state you are in, you are never 
 to dare again to be impertinent to me ! ' 
 
 ' I'm sure I beg your pardon if I 
 was rude,' he said spluttering, half 
 inclined to weep. ' I am a miserable 
 beggar, I know. I wish I were in 
 my coffin — I do feel so wretched.' 
 
 * You will die if you go on like this. 
 No wonder you are wretched. Oh ! ' 
 she cried, suddenly softening into pity 
 in spite of her disgust, ' why don't you 
 stop ? Why will you destroy yourself I' 
 Why don't you give it up } '
 
 234 A Girl's Past, 
 
 He was fairly blubbering now. 
 
 * Oh, Miss Lane, if only I could ! 
 Every morning when I wake with a 
 devil of a headache, feeling so sick and 
 bad, I could cut my throat ; I say I 
 never will have another drop, and I 
 mean it at the time, but I can't go 
 on with it — I can't. At dinner there's 
 beer going — it picks me up, and water 
 seems so nasty, then I want something 
 stronger, there's every chance of getting 
 it ; why, even Mr Lane takes whisky, 
 you know, though, of course, not too 
 much, so I begin nipping, then I have 
 to go on. It's in my blood. I really 
 can't help myself.' 
 
 Gwen felt with a sudden pang that 
 his plea had something in it. This was 
 not the house, her father was not the 
 man for the wretched boy to have a
 
 A Girls Past. 235 
 
 fair chance of reform. She could not 
 truly say she had never seen her father 
 the worse for what he had taken, 
 though it was seldom he actually ex- 
 ceeded. He took such pupils, not 
 honestly desiring their redemption, but 
 to eke out his own slender means. A 
 sense of degradation, of shame, hung 
 over her. Alas ! she could feel no pride 
 in her family. Theirs was not the 
 honest poverty which has nothing to 
 be ashamed of. 
 
 * I wish I could help you — I am sorry 
 for you,' she said, drawing a long, heavy 
 sigh. ' My father ought to try and 
 prevent you more than he does. You 
 should not be allowed any chance at 
 all. You are throwing your life away. 
 Surely, surely you might draw back be- 
 fore it is too late.*
 
 236 A Gtrl's Past, 
 
 'It's very good of you to care — to take 
 any trouble about me — after I was so 
 beastly to you. What did I do, Miss 
 Gwen ? I've only the haziest notion. 
 Was Mr Brooke-Graham there ?^ — what 
 happened ? I know he despises me 
 awfly.' 
 
 * It doesn't matter about repeating the 
 stupid, rude things you said/ Gwen said 
 quickly, flushing a little. 'Yes, Mr 
 Graham was very angry. Don't let's 
 talk about it. If it never happens again, 
 never mind,' with gathering severity, 
 'whether you are "on" or not, I will not 
 say any more about it' 
 
 * You'll forgive me ? You'll not hate 
 me ? ' 
 
 * I'll forgive you/ Gwen said slowly, 
 * but as to the rest — if you saw what 
 you were like sometimes — '
 
 A Girfs Past. 237 
 
 'You can't help hating me ? ' 
 
 ' Not hating, but nobody, however 
 kind, could help despisi7ig }'ou. You are 
 so young — you might be different, surely 
 you might. Won't you try again?' 
 
 Her deep, rich, sad voice was full 
 of pleading pathos, her great eyes full 
 of sad entreaty. Johnstone groaned. 
 
 ' It's no use saying I will. I've 
 no faith left in myself,' he muttered 
 drearily, passing his hot, trembling hand 
 through his uncombed hair. ' It's too 
 strong for me — the temptation, I mean 
 — it's in my blood. It's all very 
 well for a girl like you to talk, who 
 doesn't know what temptation means, 
 or badness — ' 
 
 Gwen made a sudden movement. 
 She seemed to shrink from his words 
 with a motion of denial. * I do know/
 
 238 A Girfs Past, 
 
 she said hoarsely, under her breath. * I'm 
 not good. Oh, I am sorry for you ! ' 
 
 'God bless you for that,' he splut- 
 tered out sobbingly, and suddenly 
 stretching out that hot, sodden hand of 
 his to touch hers. With all her repug- 
 nance for him, Gwen let him hold her 
 cold little fingers a moment, but when, 
 from clasping he proceeded to try and 
 kiss them, she snatched her hand away 
 and left the room suddenly. The poor 
 boy, who had lost the wholesome self- 
 restraint and bashfulness of youth, wiped 
 his eyes without any fresh sense of 
 shame at his own passing emotion. No 
 regret was strong enough to overcome 
 the low desires of his poor, tainted, 
 limited soul.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 After the conclusion Graham had ar- 
 rived at, as to the state of his feeHngs 
 towards Gwen, he naturally desired and 
 sought for every opportunity of seeing 
 her. But he was oddly baffled. Gwen 
 seemed to have gone back to the first 
 habits of her life at Erdley. She was 
 busy at home or in the village ; she 
 did not pay visits, and it was always 
 Ettie and not she who took part in any 
 small festivity. When they met by 
 chance, she was brief, cold, reserved, her 
 eyes would not meet his, she would not 
 
 be drawn into any but the very briefest 
 239
 
 240 A Gi7^rs Past. 
 
 conversations. Mr Lane was always 
 to be seen, ready to button - hole 
 the young squire, was expansive, end- 
 lessly talkative. Ettie was easily to 
 be met, and ready to be responsive, 
 a little coquettish, as alluring as she 
 knew how to be. But Gwen had drawn 
 back into the shadows. She was quiet, 
 repellent, uncommunicative. Without 
 making a confidante of her, Graham had 
 allowed his friend Mrs Willoughby, with 
 whom he was on very intimate terms, 
 to know that he was interested in the 
 eldest Miss Lane, He was the more 
 confidential because the Willoughbys 
 themselves liked and admired Gwen, 
 and the kind lady did her utmost to 
 form a friendship with the shy, silent 
 girl, to induce her to come often to see 
 her, and to try and gain her confidence.
 
 A GirVs^Past, 241 
 
 Graham was given as many opportuni- 
 ties as Mrs Willoughby could manage 
 for seeing Gwen at her house, but they 
 were few enough. He seemed to gain 
 no ground. The very difficulty of ap- 
 proach, her very backwardness, however, 
 had charms for this obstinate young fel- 
 low, who loved to set his will against 
 an obstacle. In his eyes, G wen's very 
 reserve was a potent attraction, and her 
 sister's forwardness disgusted and alien- 
 ated him. 
 
 Christmas was not far off He 
 should have to leave Erdley without 
 having gained a step. But there was 
 time enough, he thought ; he had no iear 
 of rivalry. Gwen was not popular with 
 the youth of the neighbourhood, even 
 though her beauty of face and voice 
 were acknowledged. Ettie, though often 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 A Girl's Past. 
 
 laughed at and treated with scant re- 
 spect, had won far more notice and 
 admiration. When he came back, when 
 spring with its sweetness of Hfe and 
 promise of joy was with them, he would 
 win her yet. 
 
 He was very constant in calling on 
 Mrs Willoughby, and always contrived 
 to bring the conversation ingeniously 
 round to parish questions, which were 
 likely to introduce the locum tenens and 
 his family. Mrs Willoughby, though 
 never uncharitable or censorious, was not 
 a woman who liked or approved of 
 everybody ; and she let it be perceived, 
 though she avoided strong speech, that 
 Mr Lane was not one of her favourites, 
 nor was his younger daughter. Mrs 
 Lane she tolerated with half contemptu- 
 ous pity. The neat, precise Mrs Wil-
 
 A Girrs Past, 243 
 
 loughby, who had brought the dainty 
 carefulness of her old maidenly years 
 into her married home, could not 
 help considering the clergyman's wife 
 'shiftless,' and weakly indulgent towards 
 a state of affairs in her house which no 
 mistress should allow. But she was a 
 'gentle, kind soul,' Mrs Willoughby 
 admitted, 'and no doubt has had a 
 great deal to put up with.' 
 
 'Ay,' Graham replied with conviction, 
 ' it needs a strong angel not to be the 
 worse for poverty. Mrs Lane has been 
 over-weighted in life, poor thing. No 
 one, with the least chivalry in him 
 should condemn her.' 
 
 ' I hope I condemn no one,' Mrs Wil- 
 loughby said, in her sweet, precise voice. 
 * I daresay there are excuses even for 
 Mr Lane ; yet I can't esteem him as a
 
 244 A Girl's Past. 
 
 man or a clergyman, outside the church. 
 He is a good preacher.' 
 
 * Considering that, it is rather odd, 
 isn't it, he has never got promotion .-^ ' 
 
 ' There may be plenty of reasons. 
 Surely you don't think it enough for 
 a man to preach well ? ' 
 
 * I .f^ I am afraid I have little opinion 
 of parsons at the best. They always 
 seem to be rather hybrid, indefinite 
 creatures ; I don't expect them both 
 to preach and to practise excellence. 
 Yet, possibly, Lane is no hypocrite. 
 He is a facile, fluid, emotional sort of 
 fellow. I daresay, while he is declaim- 
 ing "on the side of the angels" he 
 feels what he says — but the world, 
 the flesh and the devil waiting outside 
 the church doors, are too strong for 
 him. He is not, however, unkind to
 
 A Girl' s Past. 245 
 
 the poor people. They seem rather to 
 like him/ 
 
 * Oh, I believe he is good-natured, 
 in a way. But Miss Lane — Gwen, as 
 they call her — is the best in parish work. 
 The old folks speak highly of her, 
 she goes in and sits with them, reads, 
 and sometimes sings. Old Betty Harris 
 told me she asked her to sing her a 
 hymn, as '* she'd heard tell of her won- 
 derful voice and couldn't get to church 
 to listen to it," and Gwen sang "like a 
 nightingale," the old body said, " Lead, 
 kindly h'ght," and "Hark! hark! my 
 soul." ' 
 
 * That was very kind,' Graham said 
 fervently, his eyes shining and a tender 
 sort of smile on his lips. He vowed 
 inwardly to take old Betty a pound of 
 tea.
 
 246 A Girl's Past, 
 
 * Yes, it was. Betty told me her 
 voice sounded that sweet and sad she 
 was fain to cry " Hke a babby." ' 
 
 * It is a sad voice/ 
 
 *Very. Miss Lane has trained the 
 choir boys very well, and they are 
 really improued in behaviour — such 
 troublesome monkeys as they were at 
 first ! She has a nice way with them, 
 and is not hard on the naughtiest. 
 Her father and the churchwardens 
 wanted her to have Bobby Hughes ex- 
 pelled, he behaved so badly, but she 
 begged him off, Mr Willoughby heard 
 her. She is very charitable to the 
 7nauvais sujets of the village. That 
 poor girl, Mary Witts, who came home 
 in disgrace, she has befriended, I 
 know, for her mother told me how 
 surprised they were at the parsons
 
 A Girl's Past. 247 
 
 young lady going to see Mary every 
 day while she was so ill.' 
 
 'I have noticed that Gwen — that Miss 
 Lane is particularly charitable to all the 
 black sheep. It is singularly unlike 
 the behaviour of most of our good 
 Christian ladies — of course, I except 
 you, Mrs Willoughby.' 
 
 ' It strikes me, Graham,' Mrs Wil- 
 loughby said, glancing up from her fine 
 work with a demure smile, 'that you 
 have noticed a great many things in 
 Miss Lane ! * 
 
 He blushed quite boyishly, with a 
 little conscious laugh. 
 
 'Well, I own I admire her very 
 much.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but admiration may mean very 
 little, or a great deal. I suppose you 
 think her very pretty ? '
 
 248 A Girrs Past. 
 
 'Oh, yes, certainly! A fellow would 
 be blind who didn't.' 
 
 'And she has a charming contralto 
 voice, very sweet, rich and thrilling — 
 that goes a long way.' 
 
 ' No one could deny that.* 
 
 'Yes, well — but beyond these points 
 — you don't stop at admiring her face 
 and voice ? ' 
 
 ' No, I don't,' Graham declared stoutly. 
 
 * She is not — not clever, not highly 
 cultivated ? ' 
 
 * Perhaps not exactly, but there is 
 plenty of thought in her ; she does not 
 talk much, but she reads a great deat. 
 I daresay people would not consider 
 her clever' 
 
 ' But good — you are sure of her good- 
 ness, though she has not been trained 
 in the best of schools } '
 
 A GirF s Past. 249 
 
 * What does that comprehensive word 
 good imply to you, Mrs Willoughby ? 
 
 Not perfect. I don't consider her per- 
 fect nor goody, but when you say good 
 you mean — ' 
 
 ' True, upright, conscientious. We 
 don't know very much, do we, about 
 her ? She may be all these, as we see 
 she is kind and charitable ; but are you 
 sure she is ? ' 
 
 * Oh, I am sure she is true, perfectly 
 true and pure ! ' Graham cried with a 
 sudden enthusiasm, carried beyond the 
 careful level of conventional speech. 
 * Look in her face — ' 
 
 Mrs Willoughby gently shook her 
 head, saying, in mild remonstrance, — 
 ' Graham ! Graham ! you men are all 
 alike. You see a pretty face, and you 
 give the owner of it credit for every
 
 250 A Girl's Past. 
 
 virtue under the sun. Don't be run 
 away with by your eyes, my dear 
 boy. Forgive my saying just this one 
 bit of middle-aged prudence : be quite 
 sure you are doing wisely for your- 
 self and all belonging to you, before 
 you really and definitely give away 
 your heart.' 
 
 ' I'm not just like other men/ 
 Graham declared sturdily. ' I've seen 
 plenty of pretty girls — heaps of them, 
 here in England and in different parts 
 of the world. Beauty alone doesn't 
 appeal to me ; many a lovely face has 
 left me as cold as a stone. But there's 
 a fate in these things — magnetism or 
 what you like. Why is it that some 
 people draw one's heart to them ? One 
 can't say, but it is so.' 
 
 ' When you are young and romantic,'
 
 A Girl's Past, 251 
 
 Mrs Wllloughby said with a little sigh, 
 perhaps, for her lost youth. 
 
 ' My dear Mrs Willoughby ! you are 
 as romantic as any one. Don't pretend to 
 have forgotten how to be. Look here ! ' 
 He lifted up the book that lay beside her, 
 ' The most loveiy of novels ! But you 
 seemed interested in it. Don't throw 
 cold water on my sentiments after that' 
 
 * I don't, Graham. I believe in love, 
 but I believe in common sense in 
 marriages.' 
 
 * Well. I'm not married, nor engaged 
 yet. When I am, you shall say what 
 you like.' 
 
 *What do you think about Graham 
 and Miss Lane '^ ' Mrs Willoughby 
 asked her husband rather anxiously 
 after this talk. 'Is it a serious thing, 
 do you suppose ? '
 
 252 A Girrs Past. 
 
 Mr Willoughby shrugged his lean 
 shoulders and fidgeted his long hands 
 and feet as he was wont to do when 
 perplexed. 
 
 * How can I say, my dear ? Women 
 are more acute than men in reading the 
 weather signs of love. He stares at 
 her a vast deal in church, and he is 
 very regular there — both are suspicious 
 symptoms. And she looks conscious, 
 particularly shy, and she avoids him — 
 so much I have noticed ; but to dis- 
 tinguish between a passing fit and a 
 chronic disease of love, is beyond my 
 diagnosis.' 
 
 ' Yes ! Tve thought too, lately, that 
 she avoids him,' Mrs Willoughby said 
 doubtfully. ' I wonder what that means. 
 It would be a splendid thing for 
 her!'
 
 A Girl's Past, 253 
 
 'If she happens to Hke him,' Mr 
 Willoughby remarked drily. 
 
 * To Hke him ! Everybody must Hke 
 Graham.' ^ 
 
 ' Well, love, then. I suppose all 
 women don't love him ; that would be 
 awkward. Perhaps Miss Lane is not 
 so worldly as you give her credit for 
 being — ' 
 
 * But I do believe she likes Graham 
 and I am sure Mr and Mrs Lane 
 would be delighted.' 
 
 ' Oh, they would adore him, as a son- 
 in-law ; of that there is no shadow of 
 doubt, no possible doubt whatever. But 
 would Graham reciprocate } Would he 
 find Mr Lane a satisfactory beau pere ? 
 There are more doubts on that point. 
 I don't think it is exactly an ideal 
 family to marry into.'
 
 2 54 ^ Gild's Past. 
 
 * Nor I. But I like Gwen, in spite of 
 her quiet, reserved ways. She is so 
 pathetic ; she appeals first to one s com- 
 passion, then affection.' 
 
 * I like her too — a hundred times 
 better than that pert, forward, third-rate 
 miss, her sister. I long to box her ears 
 when she flourishes about and laughs — ye 
 gods, how the child laughs at nothing ! ' 
 
 * I do not approve of Miss Ettie Lane 
 at all,' Mrs Willoughby said in her 
 most precise tone. ' Still, there is no 
 likeness between the sisters. No one 
 can call the elder girl a flirt or forward, 
 she is too backward. Her eyes have a 
 way of going to one's heart, somehow, 
 and her voice — it is the most larmoyant 
 voice I ever heard — when she sang at 
 that village concert, I found myself 
 actually crying.'
 
 A GirPs Past. 255 
 
 * I suppose her eyes and her voice 
 have got at Brooke-Graham*s heart, too. 
 Well, time will show if there is any- 
 thing to come of this or not. I shall 
 continue to think it would be a mis- 
 fortune for him to marry into the Lane 
 family. People are beginning to gossip 
 finely about the parson. One discounts 
 half of what the Willards and the Barnetts 
 say, of course, yet there is a residuum of 
 truth, I suppose. He certainly is getting 
 in debt, he certainly likes a " wee 
 drappie " ; he has a foolish, incautious 
 tongue, and his pupils are a scandal to 
 a quiet neighbourhood. But he may be 
 more unlucky than bad, and I believe he is. 
 I'm sorry for that sad-faced wife of his, at 
 any rate, for Lane certainly has a temper.' 
 
 * I hope it may not have gone deep 
 with Graham.'
 
 256 A Girl's Past. 
 
 ' Or that Miss Lane won't have him/ 
 
 * My dear ! That is unHkely ! ' 
 
 * Why ? There may be another love 
 in the background. She has the look 
 of a girl who has a story.' 
 
 *She is so young.' 
 
 * What ? Twenty or twenty - one } 
 Lots of time for mischief. We must 
 wait and see what comes of it' 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
 X