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 UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS II8»>-Y *1 
 
 SEP 3 19| 
 
 
 L161— O-1096
 
 
 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 THE STORY OF A WINTER. IN FLORIDA 
 
 BY 
 
 IZA DUFFUS HAKDY 
 
 althor of 'hearts or di.\moxds?' 'the love that he pa^sku by' 
 ' oraxges and alugatohs ' etc. 
 
 Yet marked I wliere the bolt of Cupid fell : 
 
 It fell upon a little western flower, — 
 
 Before milk-white, now purple with Love's wound — 
 
 And maidens call it Love-in-idleness ! ' 
 
 A Midsummer Xvjfu's Dream 
 
 IX THEEE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 3^ n b n 
 F. V. WHITE & CO. 
 
 31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, ^Y.C. 
 
 1S87
 
 ♦ 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NKW-sJTIlEET SQUARIt 
 
 LONDON
 
 g^3 • 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OP 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTEK 
 
 
 i'AGK 
 
 9^ 
 
 I. 
 
 The Atlantic Coast Express 
 
 1 
 
 f^ 
 
 
 
 
 z 
 
 II. 
 
 Southward Ho I 
 
 20 
 
 -J 
 
 III. 
 
 Ox THE St. John's Rtyer , , . . 
 
 38 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 West Grote IIorsE . , . . . . 
 
 02 
 
 
 V, 
 
 The Household Brigade , , , . 
 
 02 
 
 
 VI, 
 
 Halcyon Hours 
 
 115 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 ' La Reine s'Amuse ' , , , . 
 
 IM) 
 
 
 V VIII. 
 
 The Old World in the Ne\>' 
 
 148 
 
 
 h ^^■ 
 
 The Old, Old Story .... 
 
 . 177 
 
 
 1 ""• 
 
 The Happy FAiiiLY 
 
 . 196 
 
 
 2 XL 
 
 In Arcadia 
 
 . 217 
 
 *r^ 

 
 LOVE IN IDLENESS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPRESS. 
 
 The prospect of a journey of over a tliousaud 
 miles, to be taken alone, was not in tlie least 
 degree alarming to Violet Preston ; nor need it 
 be, indeed, to even the most timorous of En^- 
 listi girls, when the thousand miles are to be 
 passed in an American Pullman car. Violet 
 Preston was an Enoflish s^irl, and in some 
 things she was timorous ; she was apt to 
 scream at a rat and run away from a black- 
 beetle ; but she would have undertaken the 
 week's railway journey, from the Atlantic to 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 the Pacific coast, by herself, with the utmost 
 equanimity, and would have set ojQT on a voyage 
 round the world far more serenely than she 
 would have faced a large cockroach. Still, 
 • while the role of the solitary and indepen- 
 dent traveller had no terrors, and even pos- 
 sessed a certain charm, for her, she was not 
 sorry to find that, although she was alone in 
 the sense of not being under the protection of 
 any members of her family nor attached to any 
 party of friends, yet she w^ould not be alto- 
 gether without escort, as Max Eandolph haj)- 
 pened to be going by the same southward-bound 
 train that bore her from New York to Florida. 
 The Pullman ' buffet sleeping-car ' was 
 crowded from front to rear, each ' section ' 
 packed with its pile of small hand-baggage. It 
 was only early December, too early for the 
 real rush to Florida to have commenced ; but 
 it was apparent from the aspect of the car
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPRESS 3 
 
 <¥ 
 
 that the tide of northern travel had already 
 well begun to set southwards. It was evening ; 
 the lamps were lit and the windows closed ; 
 there was quite a cheerful, cosy, home-like look 
 about the interior of the car, which held out 
 ample promise of comfort for the Florida-bound 
 passengers, to whom this car was to be dining, 
 sleepiog, dressing, and drawing-room for the 
 next two days. 
 
 ' Time's up ! ' observed the conductor smil- 
 ingly, as a delicate hint to the ladies who were 
 embracing and bidding each other goodbye. 
 ' Come ! hurry up ! ' he added more famiharly 
 to a knot of young men, who were hilariously 
 wringing each other's hands, and slapping each 
 other on the back, and blocking up the narrow 
 gangway. 
 
 Mr. Eandolph had no farewells to make, 
 except so far as he took a light and friendly 
 share in Miss Preston's. She had a grandfather 
 
 B 2
 
 4 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 and a cousin come to see her off; she was fond 
 
 of them both, but it was with smiles and not 
 
 with tears that she was parting from them. 
 
 ' There's somebody has the upper berth 
 
 in your section, my dear child,' observed her 
 grandfather disapprovingly, looking at a heap 
 
 of hand-baggage on the seat opposite to 
 
 hers. 
 
 (For the benefit of those of my readers who 
 have not enjoyed the pleasure of a journey in 
 an American Pullman ' sleeper,' let me explain 
 that, of the two seats which compose each 
 ' section,' the one facing the engine commands 
 the lower berth, whilst the passenger who is 
 seated back to the engine mounts to the upper 
 berth.) 
 
 ' I wish we had booked a whole section for 
 Violet,' continued her grandfather ; ' is it too 
 late to make a change ? ' 
 
 ' Never mind, grandpapa,' Miss Preston said
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPRESS 5 
 
 cheerfully ; ' I dare say it's some other girl, 
 Avho may be a pleasant companion.' 
 
 ' It looks like a man's valise,' observed her 
 cousin Tom, thro^\'ing cold water on this com- 
 fortable suggestion. 
 
 ' Come, time's up, father,' he added, in 
 obedience to the conductor's repeated intima- 
 tion. ' You will be all right, Violet. I dare 
 say Eandolph will see to your baggage and all 
 that.' 
 
 ' Yes, 111 look after ^ss Violet well,' ^Ir. 
 Eandolph assured them. Then there was a 
 confusion of hurried handshakings and kissings 
 and parting messages. 
 
 'Love to Granny.' 'Love to Eosemary.' 
 ' Write soon ! ' ' Goodbye ! ' and Violet Pres- 
 ton's relatives, and various other passengers' 
 relatives and friends, took their departure. 
 
 The Englishmen descended from the car 
 just in time, before the train began to move ;
 
 6 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 the Americans of course waited until it was 
 fairly in motion, and then some of them Hngered 
 still until the very last moment that it was safe, 
 before they swung themselves from the steps of 
 the moving cars. 
 
 Violet Preston's heart was light, and her 
 face radiant with smiles, as she waved her hand 
 in farewell to her friends. 
 
 She was on her way to Florida, to spend 
 the winter with her dearest friend, Eosemary 
 Heath, whom she loved as a sister, and another 
 friend was by happy chance her escort. Mr. 
 Eandolph and she were too frankly good friends 
 and comrades for her even to endeavour to dis- 
 guise, either from herself or from him, that it 
 was a happy chance, to her mind ; and with 
 the utmost simplicity and straightforwardness 
 she had expressed herself as ' so glad ' to find 
 that he too was going South that very evening. 
 
 She settled herself contentedly into her seat
 
 THE ATLA>'TIC COAST EXPRESS 7 
 
 amongst her various packages. Although she 
 had travelled a great deal, she had never at- 
 tained to the accomphshment of reducing her 
 impedimenta to a minimum. Violet Preston was 
 exceedingly feminine in many things ; and in 
 her lack of the faculty of condensing and 
 compressing all her small necessaries into one 
 receptacle she was the veriest woman — although 
 she envied those strong sisters who travel with 
 one valise, as happy man can so easily do. Miss 
 Preston had a collection of bags in assorted 
 sizes, a luncheon basket, and a bundle. Amongst 
 this array of her minor baggage she sat in state, 
 and looked up at Mr. Eandolph with the sis- 
 terly smile she usually kept ready for him. Max 
 Eandolph, standing leaning his hand on the 
 back of the seat, smiled responsively down on 
 her. If there were just the faintest touch of 
 a httle new shyness in her smile, a shade of 
 crreater distance and deference than usual in
 
 8 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 his free and easy air, it was only the most in- 
 finitesimal shade, due to the new circumstances 
 in which this young man and woman found 
 themselves thrown together. 
 
 ' And where is your section ? ' inquired 
 Violet. 
 
 ' Eight at the other end of the car, but well 
 within call,' he added reassuringly. 
 
 ' I wonder who my fellow-traveller is,' she 
 said, looking at the valise on the opposite 
 seat. 
 
 'Not the fat man, it is to be hoped,' he 
 replied, casting an indicative glance in the 
 direction of a gentleman of fine aldermanic 
 proportions ; ' he'd fill up the whole section ! ' 
 
 'Horrible thought! ' said Violet. 'If it is 
 he, my only hope is that he may spend his time 
 in the smoking-car. There certainly isn't room 
 for him and his portmanteau here. There's 
 room for you,' she added, with another sisterly
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPRESS 9 
 
 smile, drawing her basket to one side, as the 
 engineer was now putting on steam, and the 
 oscillation of the car made it awkward for those ' 
 who were essaying to stand with steadfast 
 footing and graceful preservation of equili- 
 brium. 
 
 Mr. Eandolph sat down with alacrity. 
 
 ' So we are really off to Florida ! ' he ob- 
 served. 
 
 'To Florida — and Eosemary.' 
 
 ' Oh yes ; Miss Eosemary of course is the 
 more important objective point. How does she 
 like Florida life.?' 
 
 'Not very much, I fancy. She finds it 
 lonely. It is a very secluded life — very dull 
 for her' 
 
 ' Doesn't like wasting her sweetness on the 
 desert air, eh ? ' 
 
 ' Her own people have settled in a very 
 lonely part. But, you know,' Miss Preston
 
 10 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 continued in narrative tone, ' we^ Eose and I, are 
 going to stay at her uncle's place, West Grove 
 House, and when wq get there, I think she will 
 enjoy herself much more. For one thing — such 
 is feminine vanity — I think that my being with 
 her will make a little difference.' 
 
 ' Not impossible. I've heard of stranger 
 things.' 
 
 'And what will make even more difference,' 
 Yiolet added, with a quiet smile, ' is that the 
 uncle has got about twenty young men board- 
 ing there.' 
 
 'Miss Eosemary will be in her element, 
 then,' he said. ' Twenty ? You'll have a good 
 time, won't you ? Ten apiece.' 
 
 'Why don't you join the party?' she in- 
 quired. ' I dare say Mr. Whitworth could take 
 you in.' 
 
 'Tail end of a queue of twenty?' he re- 
 joined. ' No, thanks ! '
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPKES3 11 
 
 ' Why " tail end " ? ' she laughed. ' Why 
 not head? ' 
 
 ' Why, certainly,' he agreed promptly ; 
 * head's my place, isn't it ? ' and he softly 
 hummed the opening bars of ' See the Con- 
 quering Hero comes ! ' under his breath. 
 
 ' That's the air for you ! ' said Violet, laugh- 
 ing the pretty low laugh which was one of her 
 charms. 
 
 ' You always set me in my rightful place,' 
 he replied with a lazy sort of half-smile — as if 
 it was too much trouble to make it a whole one. 
 
 He was leaning back in his seat with his 
 usual air of careless nonchalance, and glanced 
 up from under his brows with a quietly 
 humorous under-glance that was as common 
 to him. 
 
 His secretive eyes — eyes which told no 
 story, yet not for the want of any tale to tell ! 
 — always seemed to hold 'hidden springs of
 
 12 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 mirth ' in their depths. Sometimes the laugh 
 that lurked there was almost a sneer ; but, as a 
 general thing, the somewhat ironic humour in 
 Max Eandolph's eyes hurt nobody, for it was 
 quite as likely to be at his own expense as at 
 anyone else's. 
 
 His superficial attitude was indolent and in- 
 different ; he walked through the world with a 
 chronic air of not seeing anything on his way 
 that was worth exciting himself about. This 
 crust of imperturbability broke up now and 
 then — though not many people had seen it 
 break up ; and of the very few who had, Violet 
 Preston was not one. 
 
 Mr. Eandolph was passably good-looking, 
 though his best friends had never been heard 
 to call him handsome. His face was rather 
 long and rather thin, the cheeks slightly hol- 
 lowed, the general cast of his features of a dis- 
 vy tinctively American type ; and the intonation of
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPRESS 13 
 
 his voice also revealed his nationality, although 
 it had no faintest touch of what we know as 
 the ' Yankee twancr ' • it was rather the soft 
 trainante accent of the South. He was tall, 
 loner-limbed, of rather slifjht than stalwart 
 build, yet not lacking in strength, though the 
 strength was probably more nervous than mus- 
 cular. His dead brown hair, straight as an 
 Indian's, grew low on his forehead ; he had a 
 heavy brown moustache, and long, sleepy, 
 almond-shaped grey eyes, that did not often 
 open quite wide under their level brows. 
 
 Violet Preston's personal appearance ranked 
 far higher up in the scale of attraction than did 
 his. If he was not handsome, even in the re- 
 port of his friends, few even of her rivals ques- 
 tioned her ricrht and title to beautv, thouo-h of 
 course there were those — chiefly women — who 
 ' did not admire her stvle.' Although she was, 
 as I have said, an Enghsh girl, she came of
 
 14 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Irish race on her mother's side ; and the traces 
 of her Irish mother's blood were clear in Violet's 
 lovely face, especially in the colouring, in the 
 contrast of her dark hair and lashes with her 
 deep blue eyes and exquisitely fair skin, fine as 
 a rose-leaf. 
 
 Max Eandolph, an artist, and with an 
 artist's eye, admired her, but never waxed en- 
 thusiastic about her charms. She thought Mm 
 ' not handsome, but nice — very nice.' Violet, 
 like most of her sisters and countrywomen, 
 would have found it very difficult to get on 
 without that adaptive and universally service- 
 able adjective — ' nice ! ' 
 
 On the whole, these two friends estimated 
 the degree and quality of each other's attrac- 
 tions very fairly, neither overvaluing nor de- 
 preciating their respective qualities. 
 
 They had not sat chatting many minutes 
 when the other occupant of the section ap-
 
 THE ATLA]!^TIC COAST EXPRESS 15 
 
 peared upon the scene, with a deprecatory bow, 
 and a polite ' Excuse me, Madam ! ' He was 
 fortunately not the fat man ; he was long and 
 lean and lanthorn-jawed ; and albeit his voice 
 was low, his pure nasal accent was strong to 
 smite the ear. 
 
 Mr. Eandolph eyed him without ill-will, 
 but with an air of impartially and judicially 
 deciding that he wished him somewhere else, 
 as the new-comer began turning over his port- 
 able property, and to facilitate his movements 
 Max vacated his seat, but still stood close by. 
 
 Presently, further down the car, a child was 
 heard to set up a pitiful cry for ' bed,' and the 
 negro porter, tall and young and coal-black, in 
 a white calico jacket that made him look 
 blacker, began to pull down one of the ' berths ' 
 that shut up so neatly into the ceiling, and to 
 haul out curtains and mattresses. Violet cast 
 a casual glance in that direction, and Max
 
 16 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Eandolpli, promptly following her eye, needed 
 no other hint, but observed that it was about 
 time for him to betake himself to his own 
 camp, w^ished her a friendly good-night, and 
 sauntered away down the car. 
 
 The other occupant of the section also dis- 
 creetly betook himself off; and Miss Preston, 
 having attracted the attention of the ' proud 
 young porter,' and intimated to him that she 
 desired to have her berth made up, went forth 
 to grapple with the toilette difficulty — which is 
 the one and only drawback of Pullman- car 
 travelling. 
 
 Violet Preston, however, was sufficiently 
 accustomed to nights on the cars to surmount 
 the difficulty gracefully. She had provided 
 herself with a dainty little pink embroidered 
 jacket, in which she looked as pretty as a 
 picture and as fresh as a rose, when she re- 
 turned from the ' Ladies' Toilette Eoom,' which
 
 THE ATLAXTIC COAST EXPEESS 17 
 
 title dignifies a cupboard in which you could 
 not swing the tiniest kitten. The ciurtains all 
 along the car were bulCTinoj and waving into 
 eccentric curves, mutely eloquent of the struggles 
 with the toilette problem going on behind their 
 folds, as Violet made her way back along the 
 narrow passage between the rows of beds ; and 
 she had not been snugly ensconced in the cur- 
 tained recess of her berth many minutes when 
 a mighty scrambhng and shuffling testified that 
 the stranger who was allotted as her compagnon 
 de voyage was mounting into the berth above 
 her ; his ascent being additionally evidenced by 
 the ocular demonstration of a pair of feet in 
 hucre crimson woollen socks dano-lincr for a 
 
 O DO 
 
 moment before the narrow opening in the 
 curtains before being drawn up to their desti- 
 nation. 
 
 Night and silence fell on the sleeping-car — 
 silence only broken by the grampus-like snorts 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 and snores of a deeply slumbering traveller— 
 for as ' every bean hath its black,' and every 
 rose its thorn, so every Pullman car has its 
 snorer. 
 
 Violet pulled up the blind from her window 
 and looked out into the darkness. The sight 
 of the grey shadowy landscape, the dusky blots 
 and blurs of objects that were shapeless and 
 colourless in the obscurity, the black spectral 
 forms of the trees flying past, the distant lamps 
 glimmering faintly across dim fields — all had a 
 charm for her. She was in a mood to find a 
 charm in everything. She was fond of travelhng ; 
 she loved Eosemary ; she was full of dreams of 
 the Sunny South. And she was on her way to 
 Fair Florida — to dear Eosemary, and with Max 
 Eandolph to see her safely through the journey. 
 That was a part of the pleasure of the position 
 certainly. He would take good care of her, 
 she knew ; and, although there was a streak of
 
 THE ATLANTIC COAST EXPRESS 19 
 
 independence in her nature, yet slie felt it could 
 not be otherwise than altogether pleasant to be 
 taken care of by a friend and brother Hke Max 
 Eandolph. 
 
 When, later on in the night, she was 
 awakened by a bang and a crash consequent 
 on the uncoupling of the car from one train, 
 and backing another train on to it more 
 violently than was necessary, she closed her 
 eyes again placidly. If there were anything 
 wrong. Max Eandolph would come and rouse 
 her. In such an eminently desirable and 
 peaceful frame of mind, luUed by the rock and 
 rush of the train as it swept on its southward 
 way, she sank back into the sweet sleep of 
 youth, health, and hope. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 
 
 In the morning Miss Preston awoke fresh and 
 happy. The toilette difficulty faced her again, 
 and she rose to meet it cheerfully. It is a 
 greater difficulty in the morning than over 
 night, as all the women-folk in the car, getting 
 ready for breakfast, make a rush to avail them- 
 selves of the severely limited toilette accommo- 
 dation at much about the same time ; and 
 Violet found the door of the dressing-room 
 besieged by several other ladies in more or less 
 dishevelled condition, variously armed with 
 divers articles of the toilette, one embracing a 
 comb and brush, another palpably secreting 
 beneath a shawl a toothbrush and sponge, while
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 21 
 
 from out of a small and bulging bag borne by 
 a third — who wore a woollen scarf tied on as a 
 hood — peeped what was evidently a beautifully 
 curled and braided head of hair. 
 
 Violet, hustled and hurried, and amiably 
 anxious to be obliging to her fellow-travellers, 
 sought in vain an opportunity of seclusion for 
 the brushing and plaiting of her long dark 
 hair ; and finally, as the porter had officiously 
 hastened to shut up her bed and take down her 
 curtains, she was reduced to resign herself to 
 the semi-publicity of the narrow slip of passage 
 at the drawing-room end of the car. There 
 Max Eandolph, on his way from the smoking- 
 car, stowing away a pipe in his pocket, came 
 upon her suddenly, occupied, mermaid-like, 
 with a comb and pocket-glass, with her hair all 
 about her shoulders. 
 
 He had never known before how long and 
 how thick was that silky dark hair !
 
 22 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Eeturning to her own section, she bade the 
 porter put up the little table, ordered her 
 coffee and eggs, and enjoyed a solitary little 
 breakfast, as the fellow-oscupant of the sec- 
 tion, with delicate consideration for the 
 probable feelings of a young lady travelling 
 alone, took his morning meal with an ac- 
 quaintance in another part of the car. Mr. 
 Eandolph also breakfasted in his own quarters, 
 but immediately after breakfast came to make 
 ample inquiries after Violet's comfort and cheer 
 her — if she needed cheering — with a little 
 social conversation. 
 
 They had crossed the wide, grey, gleaming 
 waters of the Potomac, and had a view of the 
 great white cupola of the Washington Capitol, 
 rearing its snowy crown into the sky. Later 
 on they had left the city of Eichmond — the 
 ex-capital of the Confederacy, teeming with 
 memories of the Lost Cause — behind. Then
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 23 
 
 the rest of the day passed in speeding through 
 neutral-tinted fields — grey, brown, and drab, 
 the warmest bits of the landscape being where 
 here and there the winter woods retained 
 touches of their autumnal colouring, those 
 streaks of red-russet and yellow looking the 
 richer by contrast with the burnt patches, 
 black and bare, whereon the frequent forest- 
 fires had devoured the brushwood, and left the 
 skeleton tj^-ees standing where the ' merry gTeen 
 woods ' had been. 
 
 The passengers beguiled the time in the 
 usual ways. Most of the men who did not 
 play cards resorted to the smoking-car; the 
 women who were not reading paper-covered 
 novels did Berlin wool or crochet work ; and 
 Max Eandolph and Violet Preston talked. 
 
 Max talked of himself a good deal ; he 
 always did ; he liked the subject, and so did 
 she ; and there was not much to say about the
 
 24 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 landscape through which they were passing, 
 although it set them off on a train of reminis- 
 cences of the gorgeous effects of the ' fall ' 
 colouring on the Hudson river in general, and 
 of a certain picnic on its banks in particular. 
 And dinner-time came and went, and the 
 afternoon wore on, and the rain came down 
 and splashed and pattered on the window- 
 panes ; outside, the sky was grey and the land- 
 scape looked desolate in the rain, and the only 
 little gleanings of interest to be gathered from 
 the outlook were when they passed through 
 villages, and all the inhabitants, white and 
 black, turned out to see the Florida express 
 pass, just as if they did not see it regularly 
 twice a day. And evening came, and the 
 lamps were lighted, and Violet did her best to 
 spoil her bright young eyes by reading a ' sea- 
 side ' novel by the dim hght of the high lamp, 
 until Mr. Eandolph came — and supper- time.
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 25 
 
 ' Truffled sandwiches, shrimps and tomato 
 sauce — they sound good,' mused Violet, reading 
 from the bill of fare. ' I am getting a gour- 
 mand ! ' she laughed. ' I do beheve that the 
 dominant thought in my mind for the last hour 
 has been what I would order for my supper.' 
 
 ' It's an important question, and there isn't 
 much else to think of,' said Max Eandolph. ' I 
 recommend pickled oysters.' 
 
 His recommendation carried the day against 
 the rival temptations of the other delicacies on 
 the menu. After supper, when the little port- 
 able table had been set and served and cleared, 
 he took up his seat for the evening in Violet's 
 section, and the legitimate occupant of that 
 seat, beholding, discreetly and dehcately ab- 
 sented himself, and made the third in a game 
 of ' cut-throat euchre ' at the other end of the 
 car, and left the pair of friends to talk the 
 short evening away in peace and comfort.
 
 26 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Many a time and oft these two had sat 
 together at dinner, or supper, or kmcheon- 
 party, had ridden, and driven, and danced 
 together, and perhaps ' sat out ' as many dances 
 as they had danced; had talked over most 
 things that are between heaven and earth, nay, 
 soaring beyond these hmits, had discussed 
 their differing views of heaven itself. 
 
 Yet now the sense of being away from 
 home with Max Eandolph, alone with hiui, 
 speeding by night and day to a new land, a 
 new life, under his sole care and escort, seemed 
 somehow to work a slight but subtle change, 
 to introduce a new element into their relation- 
 ship, although this new association was only to 
 endure for the brief period of the journey^South. 
 
 Max Eandolph was always very attentive 
 to Violet Preston, yet not at all exclusively so. 
 He was attentive also to others ; perhaps he 
 flirted more or less with those others ; he did
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 27 
 
 not flirt with Miss Preston ; tliey were simply 
 good comrades. So frank and fraternal, indeed, 
 was their friendship that even the curious world 
 accepted it for just what it was. Few or none 
 ' talked about it,' in the sense of implying that it 
 was anything more than friendship, nor hinted 
 at orange-blossoms and bridal bells as a probable 
 crisis. One hopeless admirer of Mss Preston's, 
 indeed, naturally suspected that Eandolph must 
 be a fellow-victim — did not see how it could be- 
 otherwise ! and one woman had been known to 
 hint that Yiolet cherished a secret tendresse for 
 Max; but the world — their little world — in 
 general let Mr. Eandolph and Miss Preston 
 alone as frankly and simply good friends. 
 
 Friendship between man and woman is not 
 so uncommon as those who are incapable of it 
 — and they are many — honestly beheve it to 
 be. To some natures, and those often the 
 most susceptible to other forms of affection, it
 
 28 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 is an impossibility, and these naturally set it 
 down as a delusion or a fraud. Violet Preston 
 was one of the women who prove the possi- 
 bility of such friendship. She could be, and 
 had been, and more than once, as simply good 
 and true and loyal a friend to a man as to a 
 woman ; and how good a friend Violet could 
 be was known only to a few. First and fore- 
 most amongst the few was Eosemary Heath, and 
 possibly amongst them also Max Eandolph might 
 be counted ; but it was always difficult to find 
 out exactly what Max Eandolph knew or 
 thought of anybody, more especially of any 
 woman. It was all but impossible to arrive at 
 the estimate he held in his secret heart of 
 even women in general, still more hopeless to 
 seek to gauge his full and true opinion of any 
 one woman in particular. 
 
 Violet Preston knew about as little of Max 
 Eandolph as anyone else ; she had often w^on-
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 29 
 
 dered whether he was in love with anyone. 
 True, he always declared himself incapable of 
 love, talked of it as of an unknown Debatable 
 Land ; but Violet knew him well enough to 
 realise how httle he allowed her or anyone else 
 to know of him, and sometimes she marvelled 
 how it was that he managed to be so reserved 
 and yet to seem so frank, that he could talk 
 so much about himself and yet tell so little. 
 
 So in the old way the second evening on 
 the cars wore away, and the 'good-night' came, 
 and Violet frankly acknowledged to herself 
 that it had been quite a pleasant day. 
 
 The next morning they were still running 
 through flat and monotonous country, having 
 passed through the most pictm-esque part of 
 the route, the belt of cypress swamps, during 
 the night. Xow, however, the red earth of 
 Georgia had given place to the white sand of 
 Florida. White banks and stretches of sand
 
 30 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 glared like snow in the morning sun. The 
 bare skeleton trees of the wintry North, which 
 had been growing gradually fewer and further 
 between, now were seen no more ; they had 
 given place to the evergreen ' yellow pines ' of 
 the South, unlike their northern brethren, tall 
 and slim and straight, with their graceful 
 feathery crowns, so fragile, so erect, it 
 seems a wonder how those slender stems can 
 support even that light and airy leafy plume. 
 Here and there were tropical touches in the 
 landscape now ; here the grey ' Spanish moss ' 
 of the South hung in long trails from the 
 branches, and there a palmetto tree stood tall 
 in its stately grace above the autumn-coloured 
 brushwood. There seemed something odd and 
 incongruous in the meeting and mingling of the 
 palms and the tropical moss and the fresh green 
 of the young pines with those gold and brown 
 and russet hues that flecked the underwood.
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 31 
 
 They passed occasional groups of little 
 wooden cottages, each of which stood up on four 
 or more legs, and the inmates, who all turned out 
 to see the train pass, grew blacker and blacker 
 as they sped further and further south. Little 
 black Topsies, all teeth and eyes, and pigs, all 
 long legs and immense snouts, with very little 
 bacon on their gaunt ribs, tumbled in the mud 
 too^ether. 
 
 Presently there was a sudden stoppage, 
 when no station, no settlement, not so much as 
 a shed was in sight to account for it. Incident 
 was scarce on this journey, aud two or three 
 gentlemen left the car and went forward along 
 the train to see if peradventure there might be 
 some tiny scrap of excitement to break the 
 monotony, and to give themselves a little 
 prestige by bringing back the news to the 
 select and aristocratic retreat of the ' Pullman 
 Sleeper ' which occupied the rear of the train.
 
 32 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 It next occurred to two or three of the 
 ladies that there was no particular reason why 
 they too should not go forward and investigate 
 for themselves. Violet was one of these 
 daughters of Eve. They passed forward 
 through a parlour- car, then through an ordinary 
 car, and on, forward still, through a smoking- 
 car — the floor of which was uncarpeted, but its 
 occupants had done their modest best towards 
 carpeting it with orange-peel and banana-skins. 
 
 The occupants at present were only a 
 coloured family — a good-humoured father, an 
 ebony mother in a huge bandanna turban, and 
 three or four elfish-looking children — the white 
 passengers having presumably gone with the 
 crowd in search of a sensation, however slight. 
 
 Violet followed the other ladies, forward 
 still, and eventually arrived in a baggage car. 
 There was not much baggage in it ; but here 
 were some of the passengers of inquiring mind,
 
 SOUTHWARD ho! 33 
 
 amongst them Max Eandolph ; and, looking 
 out of the great open door in the side of the 
 car, Violet saw half-a-dozen or so of the train 
 officials, distinguishable by their uniform, stand- 
 ing round the object of interest — neither more 
 nor less than an unlucky cow, which had been 
 caught up on the cow-catcher, and been carried 
 a mile or so before it had struggled or fallen 
 off. 
 
 The poor beast was injured ; and there was 
 a discussion going on as to whether it ought or 
 ought not to be killed, and whether the railway 
 company was liable for damages — a discussion 
 far less loud and lively than it would have been 
 in almost any country of Europe. As Violet 
 surveyed the group standing round and debat- 
 ing the matter with characteristic American 
 composure and coolness, she could not help 
 thinking, and remarking to Max Eandolph, 
 ' How Frenchmen and ItaUans would have 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 gesticulated and uplifted their voices and talked 
 all at once ! ' 
 
 The unhappy cow was lying on the bank 
 with its meek head upraised, and looking round 
 with large, wistful, pathetic eyes as it wondering 
 what had happened to it. Violet Preston, sorry 
 for the poor animal, albeit not emotional nor 
 exclamatory, stepped forward to lean and look 
 closer. While she stood in the doorway, the 
 train gave a slight preparatory jolt — a very 
 slight one, but as she was standing leaning for- 
 ward on the extreme edge of the platform. Max 
 Eandolph flung his arm lightly round her and 
 drew her back, to save her from the chance of 
 a fall — the floor of the car being of a sufficient 
 height above the ground to make such a fall 
 unpleasant, even if not dangerous. 
 
 ' Take care, Miss Violet ; it's never safe to 
 stand so near the edge,' he said, drawing her 
 back into the car.
 
 SOUTHWARD HO 35 
 
 His arm had not been round her for three 
 seconds ; it was the merest triviality of a pass- 
 ing incident ; yet somehow it did not pass out 
 of Violet's mind so quickly as such a trifle 
 should have done. It left a vague and misty 
 kind of impression — the sum of which was that 
 it was very nice to be taken care of by — some- 
 body — anybody ! perhaps especially pleasant 
 when the somebody was a trusted friend and 
 comrade like Max Eandolph. 
 
 A couple of hours later they arrived in 
 Jacksonville — which may be called the metro- 
 polis of Florida, its centre of traffic and 
 commerce, although Tallahassee is its political 
 capital. 
 
 With swinging engine-bell clanging out a 
 noisy proclamation of their approach, they 
 dashed through the outskirts of the town, and 
 the great train slackened along the platform of 
 the Jacksonville ' depot.' Mr. Eandolph loaded 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 himself with Miss Preston's small packages, and 
 they descended from the car into the hubbub 
 of yelling ' touters ' for the different hotels. 
 Violet, paying no attention to the babel of 
 ' Everett House ! ' ' Carlton Hotel ! ' ' This way 
 for the St. James ! ' ' Here you are for the boat ! ' 
 &c., looked out eagerly among the crowd ; yet 
 Max Eandolph was the first to catch sight ot 
 the face she sought. 
 
 ' There's Miss Eosemary,' he said, as a charm- 
 ing figure slipped quickly through the crowd 
 towards them — followed by many appreciative 
 glances as she passed, the men looking at her 
 face, the women at her dress. 
 
 Violet Preston was not a girl of the ' gushing ' 
 sort, and Eosemary Heath was still less that 
 way inclined ; but their two fair faces flushed 
 and lit up with pure delight as they met, and 
 they kissed each other with hearty whole-souled
 
 SOUTHWARD HO ! 37 
 
 welcome and affection, while Max Kandolph 
 looked on somewhat enviously, and presently- 
 observed — 
 
 ' Eeally, this sort of thing makes one wish 
 to be a woman ! '
 
 38 LOVE IN IDLEiXESS 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 ON THE ST. John's river. 
 
 ' Friendship is constant in all other things 
 Saye in the office and affairs of Love ! ' 
 
 Violet Preston and Eosemary Heath, fast 
 friends since their earliest schooldays, had 
 always made up their minds that they at least 
 would be constant in those afiairs as in all others. 
 They had been mere children when they made 
 their pact of friendship, an alliance never yet 
 broken by even a passing ruffle of disagreement ; 
 now they were mature young women who had 
 well attained to years of discretion, and had 
 both left their first love-stories some years be- 
 hind ; and no man had ever come between 
 them ! as they often fondly and proudly said.
 
 ON THE ST. JOH^ S KIVER 39 
 
 Possibly one reason for this satisfactory state of 
 things was that few men who admired the one 
 found much to admire in the other, so opposite 
 were their styles of beauty. 
 
 Yiolet, fair as a lily, with a delicate bloom 
 like the heart of a blush-rose on her cheeks, 
 with deep blue eyes and silky smooth dark hair, 
 was in features, as well as in colouring, a strik- 
 ing contrast to Eosemary, of whom a rival had 
 given the brief but unflattering signalement^ 
 ' Eed hair, black eyes, and tallow cheeks ! ' 
 Certainly her eyes were of a brown so dark it 
 was pardonable for a casual observer to call 
 them black ; her hair, tawny in the shadow, 
 shone red-gold in the light ; and her complexion 
 was of that pure creamy white, without a tinge 
 of pink, which some people call * waxen,' 
 thereby giving a chance to the hearer to pass 
 the epithet on as ' tallowy ' without too great a 
 strain on conscience.
 
 40 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 But there was likeness as well as contrast 
 between the two girls. They were about the 
 same height, and although Violet was a little 
 the shghter and thinner of the two, yet their 
 figures were on the whole sufficiently similar 
 for them to wear each other's jackets and 
 mantles. From long association and affection 
 they had caught one or two tricks of manner 
 and expression alike. They had some similar 
 tastes ; they went out sketching together ; they 
 sang duets, and played each other's accom- 
 paniments ; and both had in their schooldays 
 written what it pleased them to call poems. 
 They were fond, though in differing ways and 
 degrees, of romance and novelty, of dress, 
 dancing, and society. And there all likeness 
 ended. Beyond this border-land of sympathetic 
 tastes, their characters, utterly different, were 
 as completely in opposition as the colouring of 
 their hair and eyes.
 
 ON THE ST. John's river 41 
 
 They had plenty to say to each other now, 
 as they had been separated for some months. 
 Eosemary's parents — that is, her father and 
 stepmother, ' her people,' as she habitually called 
 them — belonged to the large and ever-increas- 
 ing colony of resident English in Florida ; they 
 had, unluckily for her, being tempted by a bar- 
 gain in the shape of a fine young grove, elected 
 to settle in one of the more sparsely populated 
 parts of the State, where they led a very quiet 
 and. lonely life, to Eosemary's exceeding dis- 
 content. Fortunately for her, the locahty, which 
 certainly lay low and had more swamp around 
 it than is desirable for health, appeared not to 
 agree with her; she had ailed and drooped, 
 and it was arranged that she should spend the 
 winter with her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Whit worth, also transplanted Britons, who re- 
 sided in a healthier part of Florida, and led what 
 seemed by all report to be a much pleasanter
 
 42 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 life, and with them she was to have the added 
 comfort of her friend Violet's companionship. 
 It was in order to meet Violet on her arrival 
 from the North that Eosemary had joined a 
 party of friends on a trip to Jacksonville. 
 
 ' I would have come to you at Pine Ridge/ 
 Violet said affectionately. 
 
 ' Well, I believe you actually would have 
 made even that sacrifice to friendship for me, 
 Vi. But I wouldn't have had you there. Pine 
 Ridge ? ugh ! There isn't a ridge in sight ! 
 It's as flat as a tea-tray. I was so miserable 
 there that nothing could have made it much 
 better for wie^ and it would have been all the 
 worse for you ; there would have been two 
 victims instead of one ! What's Max Randolph 
 doing down here ? ' she added more cheerfully. 
 
 ' Going to look after orange groves, I 
 believe.' 
 
 ' Like everyone else here. I wonder how
 
 ON THE ST. John's river 43 
 
 soon you'll hate the very name of oranges as 
 much as I do ? ' 
 
 ' I am very fond of oranges. I don't think 
 I shall hate them very soon.' 
 
 ' Well, you are a more contented disposi- 
 tion — more resigned to life — than I am,' said 
 Eosemary, ' so let us hope you won't get sick 
 of this Sunny South so soon as I did ! By the 
 way, how is your httle Southern friend, Mamie 
 Otis?' 
 
 ' Much as usual ; and I was just going to 
 tell you she promised to write to greet me here 
 — I told her to address "P.O., Jacksonville." I 
 wonder, have we time to go to the post-office 
 before dinner ? ' 
 
 ' Lots of time,' replied Eosemary leisurely. 
 ' Where's Mr. Max ? He mioht go Avith us, or 
 instead of us. Of course he's off somewhere 
 out of reach — ^just hke a man ! Xever in the 
 way when he's wanted.'
 
 44 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 So without escort, which, however, was not 
 at all needed under the circumstances, the two 
 girls set off to walk to the post-office. Jackson- 
 ville is a Southern, but not a very tropical-look- 
 ing, city ; its orange-trees are mostly somewhat 
 stumpy, and its bananas weedy ; it is building 
 up fast — so fast that there is an air of sawdust 
 and shavings about it ; the loose, deep, heavy 
 sand of which its roads are composed prevents 
 walking from being a pleasure, and makes 
 driving a penalty ; but it can boast of beautiful 
 avenues, overarched by splendid evergreen 
 oaks, of pretty and picturesque houses, of 
 hotels and boarding-houses without number, 
 convenient street-cars, and good shops, into the 
 windows of which Eosemary cast interested 
 glances as they passed, though Violet, fresh from 
 New York, was indifferent to their allurements. 
 
 Arrived at the post-office, they found, 
 extending from the window whence letters
 
 ON THE ST. JOHNS KIVER 45 
 
 were delivered, half way up the street, a 
 solid queue of men, closely packed one behind 
 the other in Indian file, waiting, with the 
 stoical patience of the American, for their 
 letters, and pressing forward slowly, inch by 
 inch, as one after another the foremost of the 
 file obtained their budgets and moved on. 
 
 ' Oh, Eose ! ' said Violet with mild dis- 
 may, ' it will take us an hour to get up to the 
 window ! * 
 
 ' My dear Vi, it will take us exactly half a 
 minute. Do you forget that we are in the 
 South ? Come along ! ' 
 
 And Eosemary coolly took the file in flank, 
 and calmly cut across them to the window, 
 every man making way with respect for the 
 ladies. The foremost man of the procession, 
 who was about to present his card at the win- 
 dow, bowed and drew back, giving place to 
 Violet, so that she got her letter immediately.
 
 46 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' I think,' she observed with a contented 
 smile, as the two girls walked away home- 
 wards, 'that I shall enjoy Florida life ! I like 
 the Southern ways so much.' 
 
 ' A little cheap chivalry is all very well,' 
 replied Eosemary, ' but give me theatres, shops, 
 good solid bricks and mortar ! ' 
 
 • ••••••• 
 
 The great river steamer was holding its 
 steady and stately way southwards, up the St. 
 John's Eiver (which flows north, so that ' down 
 South ' is ' up the river,' which seems unnatural 
 at first to the tourist new to these regions). 
 
 It was evening ; the saloon supper was 
 over, and on the deck, amongst many other 
 passengers, sat a well-contented trio, Eose- 
 mary, Violet, and Max Eandolph. Their ways 
 lay southward still, and still in the same direc- 
 tion, the goal for which he was bound being 
 only a few miles distant from West Grove
 
 ON THE ST. John's kiver 47 
 
 House, the residence of Eosemary's relatives. 
 So here was Mr. Eandolph still in attendance. 
 
 Miss Heath's friends in Jacksonville had 
 expressed their satisfaction that the young 
 ladies should have an old friend of Miss Pres- 
 ton's as escort on their voyage. Violet was 
 glad ; Eosemary, who only found life endurable 
 with a man or men at hand to offer petits soins, 
 was glad. Max Eandolph would have been 
 less than man if he were not glad to take two 
 such fair charges under his care ; so everybody 
 was pleased, and a happy trio sat on the deck 
 in the dusk. Max dividing his devotion pretty 
 equally between the two girls, as he usually 
 did — although if the attention he paid to them 
 were equal in degree, it was different in kind. 
 There was a flavour of flirtation in his manner 
 to Eosemary, while to Yiolet he talked more as 
 a friend and comrade. 
 
 It was a beautiful, balmy Southern night ;
 
 48 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 they had left the North and the winter far 
 behind. Great bright ' stars as large as lilies ' 
 were entangled in thin vaporous veils of cloud, 
 that floated like filmy wreaths in the purple 
 depths of the sky ; like fellow- stars fallen on 
 the land, the yellow lamps shone out here and 
 there on the distant shores, as the boat held its 
 way along the broad majestic river ; and from 
 the tall black funnel showers of red flaming 
 sparks flashed and flew backwards through the 
 darkness. 
 
 Eosemary and Violet sat leaning against the 
 bulwarks, looking out across the water at the 
 far-off lamps and dusky shores. Their escort 
 had drawn his campstool near to them, so 
 that he had a good view of the two pale profiles 
 dimly fair against the sky. 
 
 'I don't think anything could be much 
 better than this,' he observed in a kind of 
 musing content.
 
 ON THE ST. John's river 49 
 
 * There are some good hours in life,' said 
 Violet with a little dreamy happy sigh. 
 
 ' A few ! ' said Eosemary demurringly. 
 
 ' A few ? ' Max Eandolph echoed. ' I 
 should have thought you found a good many, 
 Miss Eosemary. It always seems to me that 
 life's a sort of triumphal progress to you. 
 Have you been on the war-path lately ? How 
 many scalps of the aborigines hang at your 
 girdle ? ' 
 
 ' None — for a good reason.' 
 
 ' Why so ? ' 
 
 ' Because the aborigines are bald ! ' she 
 replied gravely. 
 
 ' Can't take them by the forelock, eh ? ' he 
 said. 
 
 ' You must be getting hungry for a scalp, 
 Eosie,' laughed Violet. 
 
 ' I am,' she admitted freely ; and then sud- 
 denly turning to Max, she added — 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' Take oiF your hat ! ' 
 
 Max obeyed, disclosing a sleek dark brown 
 head of hair, not so closely cropped as it might 
 have been. 
 
 ' I see it's there,' Eosemary observed lightly. 
 
 « What's there ? ' 
 
 ' Your scalp ; it's to be had ! ' 
 
 ' For the taking ? ' suggested Yiolet. 
 
 ' No, it isn't,' he replied decidedly. ' It 
 sounds rude to contradict a lady ; but how can 
 my scalp be there when you took it long ago, 
 Miss Eosemary ? It seems to be here ; but 
 this is a world where " nothing is, but all 
 things seem." It is only the appearance of a 
 ■scalp you see ! ' 
 
 ' A shadowy triumph,' Yiolet remarked. 
 
 ' I'd test its reality if I had a practical 
 tomahawk,' said Eosemary, more briskly than 
 usual. 
 
 ' Small doubt you would,' he observed drily.
 
 ON THE ST. JOHNS KIVER 51 
 
 ' Hearts are all in your line, Eose,' said lier 
 friend, *but I think you might let heads 
 alone ! ' 
 
 ' That's right. Miss Violet ; stand up for 
 me ! Save my head ! ' said Max meekly. 
 
 ' Nought was never in danger ! ' she laughed ; 
 ' and you said just now that there was no head 
 there ! ' 
 
 ' Have you known me so long, and so well, 
 and not found out that I seldom speak the 
 truth ? ' 
 
 'I don't know you very well,' demurred 
 Violet. ' Nobody does, I think.' 
 
 'Not Miss Eosemary?' he rejoined, with 
 the touch of latent irony in his tone a little 
 more perceptible. 
 
 ' I never took the trouble to study you,' 
 said Eosemary indolently. ' I always let 
 sphinxes and riddles alone.' 
 
 ' I think I'll go overboard and hide my 
 
 E 2 
 
 tIBRARt 
 
 uNWERsrn OF \vv\nm
 
 52 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 head!' he observed in mock discomfiture. 
 * I'm sure I would — only I haven't got my life- 
 preserver on.' 
 
 The girls laughed, Eosemary a little scorn- 
 fully, Violet in the facile rippling mirth of 
 youth and happiness. Eosemary laughed, as 
 she spoke, in a rich contralto, unusually deep 
 for a woman, and sweet as the nightingale's 
 rich liquid notes. It was a voice not to be 
 forgotten when once heard, remarkable for its 
 full timbre and its peculiar penetrating sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 The night-breeze was cooling, the evening 
 wearing on ; the deck was being rapidly de- 
 serted as the passengers retired to their state- 
 rooms to woo sweet sleep ; and Eosemary and 
 Violet soon followed the example of the ma- 
 jority, leaving Max Eandolph almost alone on 
 the deck. 
 
 The girls, of course, had to have their usual
 
 ON THE ST. John's kiver 53 
 
 nightly gossip — the ' traditional back-hair chat.' 
 If they had been talking all day, there would 
 never fail to be something left over for the last 
 talk at night. They had to speak low, in order 
 not to take the occupants of the adjoining 
 state-rooms into their confidence, and whilst 
 they simultaneously talked and brushed and 
 combed their long hair, the limited dimensions 
 of the apartment which they shared compelled 
 one to get up and sit on the top berth to keep 
 out of the other's way. 
 
 ' Nice having Max with us, isn't it ? ' said 
 Violet in her usual frank way. They often 
 called him ' Max ' behind his back, but always 
 formally ' Mr. Eandolph ' to his face. 
 
 'Yes, it is,' agreed Eosemary as frankly, 
 adding, in a tone which carried its full weight 
 of meaning — 
 
 ' Oiu: Max is appreciative ! ' 
 
 ' Of W5 ? ' laughed Yiolet.
 
 54 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 ' Yes ; it would be no recommendation if 
 he were too appreciative of other people ! ' 
 
 ' I think he has a general appreciation of 
 feminine charms in his quiet way,' observed 
 Violet. 
 
 ' He certainly always seems to find an 
 attraction where we are,' said Eosemary. 
 
 'He divides his attention pretty fairly, I 
 think,' rejoined Violet, with a little — ever so 
 little — note of interrogation in her tone. 
 
 ' Yes — it's seldom that a man seems to like 
 us both so equally, so utterly different as we 
 are,' observed Eosemary. ' I sometimes wonder 
 if he admires one of us a little more than the 
 other.' 
 
 ' Which is it, do you think ? ' Violet asked, 
 on the impulse of the moment ; it was the last 
 thing she had intended to say. 
 
 'Didn't you find out on the way down, 
 when you had him all to yourself in the cars ? '
 
 ON THE ST. JOHN S RIVTJR 55 
 
 ' Why, you know Max and I are just good 
 friends, and we only talk like friends,' Violet 
 answered, sincerely enough. 
 
 'Shall I find out which he likes best?' 
 Eosemary asked, after a minute's pause. 
 
 ' If you like,' Violet consented. ' But I 
 don't think Max Eandolph's a man to admire 
 anybody over much. He thinks more of him- 
 self than of anybody else.' 
 
 ' jSTo ! ' exclaimed Eosemary, with sardonic 
 surprise. ' Astonishing man ! rara avis among 
 his sex ! Thinks of himself before anybody 
 else, does he ? Why, Vi, he ought to be 
 
 Painted upon a pole, and under-writ, 
 Here you may see — a marvel ! ' 
 
 ' I don't think as badly of men as you do, 
 Eose,' said Vi. 
 
 ' All the worse for you, my child,' inter- 
 posed her friend.
 
 56 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' I have known good men and true,' Violet 
 continued staunchly. *I think men are as 
 faithful and good as women — sometimes! ' 
 
 ' So are swans black and roses blue — some- 
 times,' retorted Kosemary. 
 
 Meanwhile the subject of their conversation 
 was sitting not far off from them in the saloon, 
 absorbed in a conversation of his own with a 
 fellow-passenger, although they did not hear 
 his voice, for Max Eandolph, like many of his 
 countrymen, habitually spoke in a subdued 
 tone. He was ' talking Florida ' from a business 
 point of view, as a field for investment, discuss- 
 ing the probabilities of profits to be derived 
 from groves, town-lots, railways, and so forth, 
 with one of the ' land agents ' who are as sands 
 upon the sea-shore in Florida, who naturally 
 regard every tourist as a possible investor. 
 This gentleman had scented almost at once in 
 Max Eandolph one more of that numerous
 
 ox THE ST. JOHX'S RIVER 67 
 
 class of travellers he knew so well, and whose 
 ways and means it was part of his business to 
 study — another of the men who come South to 
 ' look round,' and see if there is anything to be 
 picked up on Tom Tiddler's ground, and gene- 
 rally find that there is nothing whatever to be 
 ' picked up,' but something to be got by dint 
 of hard dimnor. 
 
 CO o 
 
 Like the majority of men who go to Florida, 
 regarding it with any other eyes than those of 
 the mere pleasure -tourist or health-seeker. Max 
 Eandolph had not much money, and he wanted 
 to make some somehow. Another, although 
 secondary, object he had, the pursuance of his 
 art. He intended to make sketches and studies 
 of Florida scenery. Thus much Violet Preston 
 knew, in common with the rest of his friends. 
 Indeed, she knew as much as most of them, no 
 more, and no less. She knew the main facts 
 of his history.
 
 58 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Southern born and bred, with a good share 
 of Southern pride, a passion for art, and an 
 empty purse, he had moved to Boston too late 
 to be entirely convinced of the centrality of 
 ' the hub of the universe ' ; early enough to pick 
 up some Boston ways of thought, and a fair 
 amount of Boston literary culture, though even 
 in his happiest days there he never failed to 
 feel that ' There is a world elsewhere ! ' Then 
 he went out West, where he perceived still 
 more clearly the far-sweeping scope of the 
 world outside, and realised more and more 
 fully, as day by day he looked upon the bound- 
 less expanse of the rolling prairie and heaven- 
 scaling peaks of the snow-topped mountains, 
 the vast and all but limitless range of Life and 
 Nature ; and the civilised ' world ' of his youth 
 gradually grew less in his eyes, till it seemed 
 but a httle island in the vast sea of life. 
 
 There, in the great, wild, free West, he
 
 ON THE ST. John's river 59 
 
 tried his hand in the mines, and on the ranches, 
 lived among hunters, gold-diggers, cattle-men, 
 roved as they roved, and, hke them, carried 
 his life in his hand, his revolver in his pocket, 
 wore his hair long and his boots above his 
 knees. 
 
 Although, after a time, he gave up this 
 nomad existence — the mines having yielded 
 him no gold — and returned to civilisation, still 
 the memory of that dip into the wild, free 
 life of the frontier abided with him ; its 
 aroma clung round him and took its part 
 in the moulding of his character, and to it 
 he often looked back as not the least agree- 
 able of the mixed experiences of his roving 
 life. 
 
 Next he determined to spend a few years 
 in the Old World, studying art. He went to 
 England, where he was well received — ^^nay 
 more, it may fairly be said that he was petted
 
 60 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 and made mucli of, as an American is apt to 
 be, and where lie first met and made friends 
 with Violet Preston. He had a couple of 
 pictures hung in the Eoyal Academy ; then, 
 satisfied with his success, he moved on to Paris 
 and to Eome, as a good American is bound to 
 do ; and Max Eandolph's studio became, for 
 the season, a place to visit in each city. In 
 time he paid another passing visit to London, 
 on his way back to New York, where he and 
 Miss Preston met again, and where he took up 
 his quarters for awhile. He had no real home, 
 but made himself at home everywhere, and 
 was as settled in New York as he would have 
 been anywhere else, until the roving fit seized 
 him again, and took the shape of the Florida 
 fever ; and, viewing the orange groves in the 
 double light of landscapes and investments, he 
 packed his portmanteau and started off. 
 
 Thus much everybody knew of him ; and
 
 ON THE ST. John's river 61 
 
 it was about all that anybody knew. Every- 
 thing that concerned his private life, and his 
 loves — ^if he had any — remained under lock 
 and key ; and no one yet had picked the lock 
 nor found the key.
 
 62 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE. 
 
 West Grove House was one of the many 
 establishments in Florida, whose advertise- 
 ments, figuring in our London papers, ofier an 
 answer to the vexed question, ' What to do 
 ^ with our Boys ? ' — one of the places where 
 young Englishmen are taken in and done for — 
 that is, are taught practical orange culture, if 
 they will learn, and put in the way of making 
 good bargains in land, if they will buy. Mr. 
 Whitworth was one of the ' real estate agents ' 
 whose name is legion in Florida. He had 
 plenty of land to sell on commission, and was 
 willing to let his young friends have the benefit 
 of his advice in the matter of purchase. Also,
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 63 
 
 as he had a house too large for himself and 
 wife, he furnished them with board and lodging 
 for a reasonable consideration. 
 
 West Grove House was a big wooden, 
 barrack-like building, run up in the usual 
 Southern style, with ample open-air accommo- 
 dation in the shape of broad piazzas running 
 round three sides of it, and balconies above the 
 piazzas, so that no one need ever be driven to sit 
 indoors unless they chose. Its foundations, of 
 course, were above instead of under ground, a 
 platform resting on timber supports three or four 
 feet high, affording room for the playful earth- 
 quake to give a roll and heave beneath it with 
 as httle damage as possible, and also room for 
 broken bottles, old tin cans, and rubbish of all 
 sorts, to be thrown under the house, besides 
 still leavino^ room for the sucrcrestion, to nervous 
 temperaments, of a spacious and safe retreat 
 for tramps, lunatics, and mad dogs.
 
 y 
 
 64 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 The house stood in the midst of an orange 
 grove, of course, and, equally of course, it was 
 close to a lake. In that land of lakes, the 
 Orange belt of Florida, no one would invest as 
 much capital as was represented by West Grove 
 House and its surrounding grounds, unless the 
 site of the estate was near a lake. Indeed, 
 West Grove House was favoured by the proxi- 
 mity of four lakes ; it lay within easy reach of 
 one of the great lakes of the country ; it fronted 
 on a middle-sized lake, and had a back view of 
 two little lakes. 
 
 The room allotted to Violet and Eosemary 
 was a large corner room, with two windows 
 at right angles, from one of which they had a 
 view, across the orange grove and a fringe of 
 
 pine-trees, to the South lake, and from the other, 
 across a wider stretch of grove, to a thicker wood 
 of pine-trees, through which in the distance 
 broke silvery gleams of the largest lake.
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 65 
 
 There was no garden ; the house was simply 
 set down in tlie middle of the grove. There ^ 
 were no flower-borders, and the scanty grass 
 which qualified the level stretch of sand in 
 front of the house to be raised to the dignity of 
 a 'lawn' looked unhappy, brown and sallow 
 and sickly ; any respectable British cow would 
 have disdained its quality ; while as for quantity, 
 there w^as a good deal more sand than grass — 
 the usual white Florida sand. Except on the 
 south side of the house, there was no grass at 
 all. North and east and west the white sand 
 had it all its own w^ay. The w^hite sandy soil 
 of the Florida pine-lands is by no means so 
 poor and barren as it looks. It niiofht be 
 mistaken for mere desert sea-sand by a super- 
 ficial glimpse ; but, scratch that sun-bleached 
 surface, and a layer of richer soil lies under- 
 neath, and in this white sand the orange groves 
 flourish. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 66 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 The trees, scattered at intervals of some 
 thirty or forty feet around West Grove House, 
 were all in splendid condition, their foliage of a 
 deep, rich, glossy green, their branches bowed 
 down beneath the weight of ruddy ripe golden 
 fruit. 
 
 ' How beautiful they look ! ' exclaimed 
 Violet admiringly. ' I do think an orange-tree 
 is the loveliest of trees. And what a pretty 
 view altogether ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, it's pretty for a day,' said Eosemary. 
 ' It's prettier than oitr place ; and then a view 
 always does seem prettier when you and I see 
 it together. But even with you, Vi, I shan't 
 admire this landscape very long. After all, 
 it's only the regular Florida outlook — flat as a 
 tea-tray — oranges, pine-trees, lake ; lake, pine- 
 trees, oranges — the sort of thing that always 
 ought to have sunset or moonlight turned 
 on it.'
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 67 
 
 ' Well, we shall have sunsets and moon- 
 light,' Violet rephed cheerfully ; ' but, " for 
 mine own poor part," I think it looks pretty 
 well in the. morning sunshine. I fancy I shall 
 be a long time tiring of it. I like the house, 
 too ; everything looks so sweet and clean and 
 comfortable.' 
 
 Here Mrs. Whitworth made her appearance 
 — a comely matron, still on the ri.]^ht side of 
 middle-age, with a certain likeness to her lovely 
 niece, Eosemar}^ in general features, in the 
 shape of her dark eyes, and the growth and 
 Avave of her hair. But the hair was nut-brown, 
 without a tinge of the red-gold sheen of Eose- 
 mary's ; the face it shaded was larger, fuller, 
 squarer, than Eosemary's tapering oval, which 
 'lessened in perfect cadence' from broad low 
 brow to dainty chin ; and the expressions of 
 aunt and niece were entirely different. There 
 was nothing dreamy, nothing unrestful, nothing 
 
 f2
 
 6S LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 languid, in Mrs. Whitworth's keen, kindly eyes, 
 firm, good-humoured mouth, and brisk energy 
 of manner. 
 
 ' Well, girls, are you nearly ready for 
 dinner ? ' she inquired. The visitors had only 
 that morning reached West Grove House, and 
 had not yet left their room, to which they had 
 been straightway shown on their arrival, and 
 where they had been resting a little, unpack- 
 ing a little, and, of course, talking all the 
 time. Only that morning, too, their ways and 
 Max Eandolph's had parted, but he was not 
 very far off ; he had repaired to the home of a 
 lately-settled friend, a few miles the other 
 side of the South Lake, with whom he in- 
 tended taking up his quarters, at least for a 
 time. 
 
 Mrs. Whit worth found the girls quite ready 
 for dinner, and for the introduction to the other 
 members of the household, none of whom,
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 69 
 
 with the exception of Mr. Whitworth, they had 
 yet seen, and concerning whom they cherished 
 some mild cmiosity. 
 
 A dozen young men were hanging about 
 the large, bare, central hall, which ran from the 
 front door to the back door of West Grove 
 House, various sitting and sleeping, dining and 
 smoking rooms opening off either side of it ; 
 and as Mrs. Whitworth, followed by the two 
 new arrivals, descended the stairs, there was a 
 general doffing of hats — hats amongst which, 
 as Violet observed, the ' chimney-pot,' beloved 
 of the British heart, was the only style unre- 
 presented. There w^ere wideawakes, Glen- 
 garrys, billycocks, Panamas — anything and 
 everything but the familiar ' chimney-pot ' of 
 home. 
 
 ' Ah, my hungry flock, all ready and wait- 
 ing ? ' exclaimed Mrs. Whitworth. Immediately, 
 at the sound of her voice, there was a pro-
 
 70 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 digious trampling and clattering on the bare 
 boards, as in from the south piazza, and in 
 from the east piazza, and in from the back- 
 yard, came trooping more young men, at least 
 a dozen more. The whole company filed in 
 after the ladies, and took their seats at a long 
 table which extended from end to end of the 
 large dining-room. Mrs. Whitworth placed the 
 two girls one on either side of Mr. Whitworth, 
 and took her own seat at the side, about tlie 
 middle of the table, where she could, as she 
 remarked, ' command the situation.' 
 
 Personal and particular introduction of the 
 newcomers to so large a party was of course 
 impossible ; but, while the soup w^as being 
 served, Mrs. Whitworth performed a perfunc- 
 tory kind of presentation of her guests to their 
 immediate neighbours. 
 
 * Mr. Conyers, my niece, Miss Heath ; and 
 Miss Preston, Mr. Tregelva.'
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 71 
 
 Whereon the young men addressed bowed 
 low, and the girls smiled their sweetest. 
 
 After the soup, came fish — fried black bass, 
 and an excellent fish too. 
 
 ' Staples caught this, didn't he ? ' said Mr. 
 Whitworth. 
 
 A voice halfway down the table was heard, 
 in a modest and somewhat melancholy intona- 
 tion, to disclaim the honour. . 
 
 ' Christie caught it. I was lying in the 
 bottom of the boat.' 
 
 There was a laugh at this ; evidently 
 lying in the bottom of the boat was considered 
 an eminently characteristic position for the 
 speaker. 
 
 Then a large dish, on which reposed a fine 
 roast bird resembhng a turkey, vais placed 
 upon the table. 
 
 ' You won't guess what this is, Miss Pres- 
 ton ? ' said the host.
 
 72 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 ' An ostrich ? ' Violet hazarded a conjecture. 
 
 ' It's a sand-crane. The butcher didn't 
 come to-day, and Mrs. Whitworth was in 
 despair because there was nothing to eat. 
 Luckily, Tregelva shot this crane. I hope you'll 
 find it good.' 
 
 ' Sand-crane is very good,' observed Mr. 
 "Tregelva. ' White crane isn't ; but the grey 
 sand-crane is a good eatiug bird.' 
 
 And indeed the sand-crane was pronounced 
 excellent, having a flavour between a pheasant 
 and a turkey. It was a fine large bird, too, 
 which was lucky, as it was the piece de resist- 
 ance — the only other viand perceptible to the 
 naked eye being a very scraggy bone of beef 
 — literally a bone — which reposed on a side- 
 table. 
 
 For dessert they had oranges, of course. 
 
 ' I meant to have had some guavas to-day,' 
 Mrs. Whitworth remarked. ' Never mind ;
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 73 
 
 we'll liave some after our coffee. It isn't the 
 thing, of course ; but I don't see why fruit 
 shouldn't taste as good after coffee as be- 
 fore.' 
 
 Dessert over, the party flocked out on to 
 the south piazza, all but a few of them, for 
 whom the smoking-room had greater charms 
 than sunshine and feminine society. The piazza 
 was long and wide, and liberally supplied with 
 armchairs, rocking-chairs, and folding-chairs, 
 besides a hammock and a swing-chair suspended 
 from the roof In these various seats the regi- 
 ment of young men promptly disposed them- 
 selves, gallantly leaving three of the easiest 
 rocking-chairs in a group for the ladies. 
 
 The piazza looked across the lawn, dotted 
 with orange-trees starred with their golden 
 fruit, past a fringe of tall slim pines, oleander 
 and magnolia-trees, to the blue, shining lake ; 
 the sun's blaze was tempered by a gentle, balmy
 
 74 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 breeze, and light gossamer veils of cloud 
 floated in the azure depths of the sky. The 
 chairs were very comfortable ; the coffee, which 
 was presently handed round, was very good ; 
 the young men were most of them of person- 
 able and prepossessing appearance — taking a 
 general view of them, they were a ' well set- 
 up,' manly, and gentlemanly-looking company. 
 Altogether the two girls felt, and had sufficient 
 cause for feeling, content. 
 
 ' Now for our guavas ! ' said Mrs. Whit- 
 worth. ' Who'll go across to the East Grove 
 and pick them ? Don't all speak at once ! ' she 
 added somewhat drily. The advice was unneces- 
 sary, if not ironical ; the company manifested 
 not the slightest inclination to ' all speak at 
 once.' 
 
 ' Staples, you go ! ' the hostess added after 
 a pause, turning upon a young man who was 
 lying rather than sitting in a limp attitude, with
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 7o 
 
 bis head sunk forward on his breast, in a 
 reclining chair. 
 
 ' Hadn't Treo^elva better g^o ? ' this sentle- 
 man demurred. ' Tresjelva's fond of nuavas.' 
 
 ' Ye — ves/ assented Mr. Treo-elva, who had 
 a soft, slow, drawling intonation, * but it spoils 
 the flavour unless some other fellow picks them.' 
 
 ' Quite so,' agreed Mrs. Whitworth. ' There- 
 fore, somebody please go.' 
 
 ' I'll go,' said a tall young fellow, witli dark 
 laucrhinrr eves and a izood humoured mouth, 
 rising with unexpected alacrity. 
 
 ' That's right, Christie. Staples, you go 
 and help him ! ' said the lady autocratically. 
 Mr. Staples yielded ; he gathered himself up 
 with a reluctant but resigned air from the 
 luxurious depths of his lounging-chair, and 
 went. 
 
 ' You haven't got your flock in very good 
 training, Aunt Emma,' observed Eosemary
 
 76 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 sotto voce ; ' there is not what I should call a 
 stampede to execute your bidding.' 
 
 *Eather cruel. Miss Heath,' languidly inter- 
 posed Mr. Tregelva, whose ears apparently 
 were long ; ' it doesn't take three to pick 
 guavas.' 
 
 ' They do what they're told,' Mrs. Whit- 
 worth replied with brisk decisiveness to Eose- 
 mary's remark. ' They have to. Some of them 
 require a good deal of telling.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Whit worth,' said a handsome young 
 man, looking up leisurely and speaking without 
 a smile, ' when have you told me to do any- 
 thing that I haven't done it ? ' 
 
 ' Don't be argumentative, Conyers ! ' she 
 replied ; ' that's your great fault.' 
 
 A general laugh attested that this had hit 
 a blot. 
 
 Presentl}^ Messrs. Christie and Staples 
 returned with a basket of guavas, both looking
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 77 
 
 very warm, Christie smiling, Staples depressed, 
 Mr. Tregelva was dispatched to fetch plates 
 and fruit-knives, and, probably anxious to 
 redeem the general character of the company, 
 hastened cheerfully on the errand. 
 
 The guavas were excellent, fresh and ripe, 
 looking like peachy-cheeked apples, but with a 
 delicious flavour all their own, when the ruddy- 
 £^olden rind was cut throui^h into the lus- 
 cious, pink and creamy pulp within, which 
 seemed still warm from the sun's kiss. They 
 were the first fresh guavas gathered from the 
 tree which Tiolet had ever tasted, and even 
 this triflino; detail added a pleasing: touch to a 
 situation wdiich, she and Eosemary had already 
 made up their minds, was an agi'eeable one. 
 To Violet there was additional satisfaction in 
 the reflection that her friend, Max Eandolph, 
 was not far ofl" — only on the other side of that 
 lake — and that he would probably call to pay
 
 78 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 his respects that evening, l^or was this reflection 
 altogether indifferent to Eosemary. Max would 
 be one man the more, and one who already- 
 appreciated her charms. 
 
 In the evening — that is to say, soon after 
 the six o'clock tea, which, with one o'clock 
 dinner, was the order of the day at West 
 Grove House — Mr. Eandolph duly put in an 
 appearance, and was introduced to Mrs. Whit- 
 worth, and made himself agreeable to her 
 according to his lights — not that general agree- 
 abihty was by any means Max Eandolph 's/b?'^£? ; 
 but though he seldom said pretty things or civil 
 things, or put himself at all out of his way to 
 please, there were very few women who did 
 not like Max Eandolph, and Mrs. Whitworth 
 was evidently going to be no exception to the 
 rule. 
 
 The ladies were in the parlour, as a hght 
 shower and rising breeze made the piazza
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 79 
 
 somewhat cool and damp for a lounging-place. 
 The parlour was large, white- walled, w^iite- 
 ceiled, simply furnished, and scantily orna- 
 mented, but comfortable and home-like. All the 
 chairs were easy ; books and papers" lay about 
 temptingly on the tables, and there was a piano, 
 and a goodly pile of music. 
 
 The girls had unpacked their trunks and 
 changed their travelling-dresses. They generally 
 chose their toilettes so as to harmonise, and 
 never ' killed ' each other's colours. This even- 
 ing Violet was what Eosemary affectionately 
 called ' a little pigeon ' — that is to say, she had 
 on a soft dove-coloured dress, simply and grace- 
 fully made, with knots of blue ribbon nestling 
 here and there ; while Eosemary wore a robe of 
 some clinging cream-coloured material, relieved 
 with touches of a warm red-brown, not unlike 
 the darker shades in her own rich hair — this 
 harmony of tints was a little daring, but verv
 
 80 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 effective and becoming, as Eosemary's toilettes 
 always were. 
 
 Mrs. Whitworth, surveying tlie two girls 
 approvingly, reflected that they were an ex- 
 ceedingly attractive addition to her establish- 
 ment. 
 
 ' And how did you get here ? ' Violet in- 
 quired conversationally of Max Eandolph. 
 
 ' Martin drove me round the lake in his 
 buggy ; he's gone on to some place near here 
 — said he*d call for me on his way home, if 
 you will let me inflict myself on you for an 
 hour or so ? ' turning to Mrs. Whitworth. 
 
 ' We shall be only too glad of your com- 
 pany, Mr. Eandolph,' that lady protested 
 cordially. 
 
 ' Although we have already a score of your 
 noble sex on the premises, there's always room 
 and a welcome for one more,' observed Eose- 
 mary.
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 81 
 
 ' Even when the one is you,' said Violet, 
 who often had her saucy fling at Max Ean- 
 dolph ; and their hght and laughing glances 
 met with the usual familiar freedom — more 
 freely now than during the days they had been 
 virtually alone on the journey South. 
 
 ' " Will you walk into my parlour ? said the 
 spider to the fly," ' Eosemary sang softly and 
 smilingly. ' But your flies don't seem inchned 
 to walk into the parlour, Aunt Em. Are they 
 afraid of being eaten up ? ' 
 
 ' Where are all your friends and country- 
 men ? ' Mr. Eandolph inquired, having not as 
 yet seen so much as the whisk of a coat-tail of 
 the ' Household Brigade.' 
 
 ' Countrymen they are, and friends they 
 shall be ; but we have not made much 
 progress towards friendship yet,' rephed Eose- 
 mary. 
 
 ' As for me, I haven't yet got any one of 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 LOVE IN" IDLENESS 
 
 them labelled with his proper name,' said 
 Yiolet. 
 
 ' Haven't made much impression, eh ? ' 
 remarked Max. 
 
 ' Not yet^' Violet smiled. 
 
 ' Oh, I do remember,' she added, ' the one 
 with the long nose, who always pokes his chin 
 on his breast and dives his hands deep in his 
 pockets, is Mr. Staples.' 
 
 ' Fascinating description ! ' commented Max. 
 ' I don't think I'll mind him ! ' 
 
 ' Which is the good-looking fair one who 
 never speaks ? ' inquired Eosemary. 
 
 ' Conyers ? Why, my dear child, he 
 opened his mouth three tunes this afternoon, 
 and made three distinct and articulate remarks. 
 That's a great deal for him ! ' 
 
 'And the tall slight one, with the little 
 dark moustache, who fetched the plates for the 
 fruit?'
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 83 
 
 ' Oh, Christie ! Christie is a sweet boy^ 
 we're very fond of him,' rephed Mrs. Whit- 
 worth, who called all her flock by their sur- 
 names as freely as a schoolmaster addresses his 
 class. 
 
 Here Mr. Whitworth came in ; and, imme- 
 diately scenting in Max Randolph a possible 
 purchaser of a grove, within ten minutes had 
 invited him to drive out the next day and 
 inspect some higlily desirable land which he, 
 Mr. AYhitworth, held for disposal at a rate 
 which made it • A bargain, I do assure you, my 
 dear sir, a rare bargain ; and when you see it 
 you will say so.' 
 
 Then Mrs. Whitworth opened the piano, 
 and asked the girls to sing. Violet pleaded a 
 slight cold in her throat ; and Eosemary, who 
 hked an audience, the while 
 
 Her fingers wandered idly 
 Over the ivory keys, 
 
 inquired : — 
 
 o 2
 
 84 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 'Aunt Emma, don't your little flock ever 
 come in of an evening ? ' 
 
 ' I'll call them,' said Mrs. Whitworth ; and 
 going out into the hall and across to the 
 smoking-room she gave a general invitation, 
 in a tone that suggested a royal command. 
 ' Come in, all of you, or some of you ; we're 
 going to have a little music. Come and be 
 audience.' 
 
 At this summons Mr. Christie and Mr. 
 Staples came promptly, and after them a half- 
 dozen others strayed in one by one, and lined 
 the walls and hung around the door. None, 
 except Mr. Tregelva and young Christie, 
 penetrated as far into the room as the centre 
 table, nor ventured upon the occupation of any 
 chairs save those which were in safe retirement, 
 backed against the wall. Apparently, the lack 
 of feminine society at West Grove House had 
 rendered them a little shy of it. Thus Eose-
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 85 
 
 mary and her friend had not much opportunity 
 of progress in the matter of identification, 
 although, before the end of the evening, they 
 had succeeded in ' placing ' Mr. Tregelva, with 
 his fair, close-cropped head, long tawny mous- 
 tache, and sleepy- looking pale-blue eyes, who 
 distinguished himself by volunteering to fetch 
 in another lamp, and who acted as the mouth- 
 piece of the general desire when any especial 
 song w^as requested, and who also led the 
 chorus of the murmured applause, which never 
 rose above a murmur. 
 
 Eosemary was in splendid voice, and she 
 sang her songs of sweetest sentiment, of most 
 sparkling gaiety, of most tragic pathos ; but 
 she was compelled to admit in confidence to 
 Violet that ' she had sung to more enthusiastic 
 audiences.' 
 
 ' They will warm up,' Violet said con- 
 solingly ; ' the fact is, Eosie, you and I have
 
 8(5 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 become so used to American expausion and 
 demonstrativeness, we really don't know what 
 to make of Britisli reserve.' 
 
 ' I think they are shy,' observed Eosemary 
 demurely, ' and probably require a little gentle 
 encouragement.' 
 
 ' And there's small fear that they will not 
 have it,' said Violet laughing, as the two friends, 
 with affectionately linked arms — a j)rettier pic- 
 ture than West Grove House had seen for many 
 a d-ay — went their way to their room. 
 
 'I never come down to breakfast, my 
 dears,' Mrs. Whitworth said as she bade them 
 good-night. 'I have a cup of tea in bed. 
 You two can do just what you like ; the break- 
 fast bell will ring at seven — but have your 
 breakfast in bed if you like.' 
 
 Neither Eosemary nor Violet did like, how- 
 ever. They preferred a good sociable breakfast 
 at table to cups of tea in bed, and at the
 
 TVEST GROVE HOUSE 87 
 
 summons of the seven o'clock bell they were 
 as nearly ready to go down as could reason- 
 ably be expected. The bell not only rang 
 punctually, but continued ringing at intervals 
 of three or four minutes. Violet hurried the 
 finishincr touches to her toilette, but in vain, as 
 Eosemars' declmed to hasten, and Violet waited 
 for her. When they went down to the dining- 
 room, they found the long table full, and the 
 Avliole regiment at breakfast ; it looked like a 
 barrack mess ; and all the troop rose up .in 
 respectful greeting, with a mighty pushing and 
 scraping of chairs on the bare floor. 
 
 - Are we late ? ' Violet asked apologetically, 
 as she slipped into the chair which ^Ir. Tregelva 
 placed for her. 
 
 ' How many bells do they ring ? ' inquired 
 Eosemary ; ' I counted seven.' 
 
 ' Oh, they go on ringing till everybody's 
 down,' Mr. Staples rephed.
 
 88 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' Meanwhile, Mr. Christie had hastened to the 
 side-table to pour out some coffee for the ladies. 
 Mr. Tregelva followed him to cut some ham for 
 them, and Mr. Conyers very leisurely brought 
 up the rear with bread and butter. Mr. Whit- 
 worth had already finished his breakfast and 
 left the table ; the smart young mulatto who 
 officiated as indoor ' factotum ' did not ' wait ' 
 at breakfast, but Violet and Eosemary had 
 never found themselves so well waited upon 
 before. The young men were one and all 
 ready to jump up and hasten to the side-table 
 in their behalf. Even Mr. Staples, looking, as 
 usual, limp and loose-jointed, with his large, 
 mild, melancholy eyes, and his habitual depres- 
 sion of aspect, got up to fetch them a piled-up 
 platter, with the tempting invitation, 'Won't 
 you have some hot cakes ? they're quite cold.' 
 The day began well ; but, as it went on, the 
 girls did not find it blest with so much of social
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 89 
 
 and congenial communion as might have been 
 hopefully anticipated from so fair a beginning, 
 and a fear began to dawn on them that possibly, 
 amongst this gallant band, there might prove to 
 be no congenial souls to commune with. Almost 
 immediately after breakfast the party scattered. 
 Messrs. Conyers and Tregelva, with fishing-rods 
 over their shoulders and tin bait-cans in their 
 hands, bent their steps in the direction of the 
 big lake. Young Christie and the two Fraser 
 brothers set off on a shooting expedition. Mr. 
 Staples went to fetch the mail from the nearest 
 post-town ; the rest of the brigade dispersed them- 
 selves in vaiious directions — none of them were 
 to be seen about parlour or piazza or grounds. 
 After the midday dinner, Mr. Whitworth took a 
 couple of them off to inspect some neighbour- 
 ing orange groves ; he picked up Max Ean- 
 dolph on the round, and having shown him — 
 in vain — some tempting bargains in the way
 
 90 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 of ' wild pine-land,' brought him. home to 
 supper. 
 
 Conversation as a fine art did not flourish 
 much at West Grove House. It ran entirely on 
 
 * oranges and lemons,' groves, ' lots,' and land, 
 
 • lake fronts,' wild land, pine-land, bay-land, 
 hammock-land. Violet, who always liked to 
 enter into and take a part in the life of those 
 amongst whom she found herself, took some 
 interest in inquiring which of these various 
 lands were the best, the cheapest, the dearest ; 
 why 'lake-fronts' were deemed so desirable, 
 and so on. Eosemary felt no interest at all in 
 the 'land question,' indeed, frankly averred 
 herself to be ' dead tired ' of it, and very little 
 in her aunt's gossip — running chiefly on which 
 of the young men had already bought land, 
 which of them were in process of negotiation, 
 and which had not as yet seen anything to suit 
 them — this latter class being by far the largest.
 
 WEST GROVE HOUSE 91 
 
 Mrs. Whitworth spoke in kindly terms of 
 her ' little flock.' ' They're a fine set of young 
 fellows,' she observed, 'nearly all of them 
 of the best families. There's Tregelva, an 
 eldest son — Tregelva Hall is a perfectly splendid 
 place, but heavily encumbered — Tregelva's heir 
 to the estate, but he'll have very little means to 
 keep it up. There's Chadwick, Sir Gervase 
 Chadwick's youngest son ; and Christie, Lord 
 Court-Eoyal's nephew ; and Staples, he was 
 always looked upon as the Earl of Kil- 
 vastone's heir — the old earl was Staples's 
 uncle, a widower, with only two daughters — 
 when what did the old uncle do but go and 
 marry again, and didn't die till he had two 
 sons ! Consequently, here is poor Staples. 
 Oh, there's plenty of sang azur among them, 
 but very little money — else they wouldn't be 
 here.'
 
 92 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE. 
 
 * Mr. Conyees, do you sleep very soundly, or 
 are you the most popular member of this 
 brotherhood ? ' inquired Eosemary, as she and 
 Violet sat at their social breakfast with 
 the ' Household Brigade ' — Messrs. Tregelva, 
 Christie, and Staples vying with each other in 
 ministering to the needs of the fair guests in the 
 direction of ham, fish, toast, and coffee. 
 
 ' Why do you ask that, Miss Heath ? ' re- 
 joined Conyers, who liked to know the why 
 and the wherefore of everything. He did not 
 talk much, but the little he did say was gene- 
 rally in a note of interrogation.
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 93 
 
 ' Because you always seem to be in demand 
 at an unearthly liour in the morning,' she re- 
 plied. 'Every morning we hear your name 
 called upon ' 
 
 ' We might s^j shouted, in stentorian tones,' 
 Violet observed. 
 
 ' And we hear a sound,' continued Eose- 
 marv, ' sucfjTestive of boots or a broomstick 
 aimed at your door.' 
 
 An explosion of mirth from the side-table, 
 where Christie was endeavouring to scrape some 
 meat off a huge ham-bone, testified to his ex- 
 ceeding enjoyment of Miss Heath's observation. 
 
 ' We call Conyers to come and bathe with 
 us,' said Tregelva. 
 
 ' He requires a good deal of calling,' Violet 
 remarked. 
 
 ' I always answer at the first call. It's very 
 seldom indeed they have to call me twice,' re- 
 plied Conyers, handsome, stolid, and literal.
 
 94 LOVE IjS" idleness 
 
 ' We bathe every morning in the lake,' ob- 
 served Staples. 
 
 ' Without fear of alligators ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' Conyers shot a 'gator there week before 
 last — a fellow five feet long,' said young Chad- 
 wick, putting in his word. 
 
 ' I don't count that shooting him. I didn't 
 get him ; he sank.' 
 
 ' You hit him though. I believe he went 
 down as dead as mutton,' said Tregelva. 
 
 ' Some of his avenging kindred will have 
 you one day,' remarked Rosemary. 
 
 ' Grab you by the leg, Conyers ! ' prophesied 
 Staples, apparently enjoying the idea. 
 
 ' And down you'll go ! ' added Tregelva. 
 
 ' I'm not afraid of 'gators,' rejoined Con- 
 yers, who seemed to be paying less attention to 
 the conversation than to a tough piece of ham, 
 at which he was sawing away with a very blunt 
 knife. 'Nobody thinks anything of a 'gator here.'
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 95 
 
 '1 thoLiorht a f?ood deal of them when I 
 took Mrs. Johnson's girls out on Lake Eosahe 
 in a boat that turned out to leak hke a sieve. 
 I thought those alligators were going to have 
 a feast/ said Tregelva. 
 
 ' An alligator five feet long could pull you , 
 under, couldn't he? ' asked Violet. 
 
 ' I' suppose he could, if he got hold of you 
 by the leg/ was the reply. ' But one never 
 hears of any accidents. They're not like the 
 Nile crocodiles.' 
 
 The subject of alhgators being presently 
 exhausted, the two nirls, ha\'inor finished their 
 breakfast, rose up, the regiment all rising with 
 them as one man ; and Christie and Staples 
 making a simultaneous move forward to open 
 the door, Christie, of course, attaining the goal 
 first. 
 
 ' Doesn't it make you feel rather like 
 royalty?' said Violet, in a laughing aside to
 
 96 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 Eosemary as they crossed the hall towards the 
 piazza, a great trampling and scuffling of feet 
 attesting that the whole of the brigade were 
 swarming in their wake. 
 
 ' I doubt if roj^alty appreciates the pleasures 
 of the position half as much,' remarked Eose- 
 mary. 'How the sun glares! Let us go up 
 and fetch our crowns, else we shall get our 
 noses burnt brown.' 
 
 'And have to drop our sceptres,' added 
 Violet. 
 
 They ran upstairs laughing, and got out 
 their broad-brimmed sun-hats ; Eosemary tried 
 hers on, and, not being entirely satisfied that it 
 was becoming, refused to go out until she had 
 altered the arrangement of the ribbon and 
 flower. 
 
 Hats or parasols, or both, were indeed 
 necessary to all who were mindful of their com- 
 plexions, for. although it was but little past nine
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 97 
 
 o'clock when the girls returned downstairs, the 
 sun already poured a level blaze straight on to 
 the broad, high, open south piazza, which was 
 the most popular resort. 
 
 Not a breath of air stirred the foliage of the 
 tall, slim 'yellow pines,' whose graceful feathery 
 plumes were traced in delicate pencilling against 
 the burning azure of a sky almost too dazzling 
 in its light and colour. The lake, seen in 
 glimpses between and beyond the pine-trees, 
 was as intense and pure a blue as the shining 
 sky above. The shadows of the orange-trees 
 reached long dark fingers across the brownish 
 lawn towards the house. The fruit hung ripe 
 and ruddily golden in the sunshine amongst 
 the deep green glossy leafage. Here and there 
 were lemon-trees starred with their paler fruit ; 
 here a mass of branches bent low beneath the 
 weight of enormous citrons ; and here a stately 
 tree stood laden with the huge pale golden 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 98 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 clusters of the 'grape-fruit,' which looks like 
 an immense lemon-coloured orange or orange - 
 shaped lemon, and has a dehcious tart flavour, 
 between the two. The dogs lay hke dead dogs, 
 with flaccid ears and inert tails, their passive 
 sides turned up to bask in the sun. 
 
 On the edge of the piazza Messrs. Christie 
 and Tregelva were seated, very busy cleaning 
 their guns. Along the broad shallow steps that 
 led down to the lawn Mr. Staples stretched his 
 length, his hat pulled well over his eyes, the 
 tip of his nose recklessly exposed to sunburn. 
 Mr. Conyers was reposing in a rocking-chair ; 
 a second, chair was arranged so as to afford a 
 comfortable resting-place for his manly limbs ; 
 a third chair, drawn conveniently up to his right 
 hand, supported his tobacco-pouch, matches, 
 and a yellow paper-covered French novel. He 
 looked as if, save for the trouble of pulling at 
 his meerschaum, he would have been asleep ;
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 99 
 
 Staples, to all appearance, was asleep, Tre- 
 gelva and Christie absorbed in their arsenal 
 work, when with a ^o^i frou-frou of their sum- 
 mer dresses, Violet and Eosemary stepped out 
 on the piazza. 
 
 Conyers lifted his handsome blue eyes hea- 
 vily, as if the raising of their long lashes were 
 an effort. Staples's eyes were buried in his hat, 
 Christie's and Tregelva's fixed on their guns, 
 until Eosemary made a remark, with a sweet 
 and genial smile, on the beauty of the mornings 
 at which the four looked up. 
 
 Staples lazily tilted his hat up from his nose, 
 and then as lazily gathered himself up from liis 
 step and leant against a column, witli his head 
 sunk forward on his breast, and his hands- 
 buried as deep as they would go in his pockets. 
 Conyers, knocking the ashes leisurely from his 
 pipe, bethought himself of observing, in an only 
 slightly interrogative accent, ' You don't mind 
 
 H 2
 
 100 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 smoke ? ' He evidently v^^ould liave been very 
 mucli taken aback had he received anything 
 but the cordial assurance that they did not^ 
 which Yiolet promptly gave him. 
 
 Seeing Yiolet about to move her chair back 
 out of the sun-glare, Staples took his hands out 
 of his pockets to assist her ; and then it occurred 
 to Conyers to remove his feet from the chair 
 whereon they were so luxuriously reposing. 
 Christie and Tregelva put up their guns and 
 drew near and joined the group, disposing 
 themselves comfortably in lounging-chairs, 
 while Staples, having done his duty, got into 
 the hammock and lay down. 
 
 Presently the two Fraser brothers and 
 young Chadwick came out of the house in an 
 eminently sportsmanlike ' get-up,' with their 
 guns over their shoulders and cartridge-belts 
 round their waists ; and with a brisk business 
 air, which contrasted with the supine attitude
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 101 
 
 of utter dolce far niente of the group on the 
 piazza, they crossed the lawn and turned oflf 
 down the road. Harrington — a smooth-cheeked 
 stripling, in a suit that looked as if it were made 
 out of a blue and white check duster — lounged 
 out behind them, and stood about aimlessly on 
 the steps. None of the party seemed at all 
 able to make up their minds what to do, or 
 whether to do anything. Tregelva intimated 
 that he regarded ' loafing ' as on the whole 
 a more satisfactory occupation than any other. 
 
 ' Who's going to fetch the mail ? ' inquired 
 Conyers. 
 
 ' Spencer's going.' 
 
 ' Are you going shooting ? ' asked Ilarring- 
 ton. 
 
 ' N — no, I think not,' Tregelva replied 
 slowly. ' Conyers and I went shooting the 
 other day — were out nearly all day, and we 
 got one miserable quail and a rabbit. They
 
 102 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 talk of sport here. I've more sport out of my 
 own window at home ! ' 
 
 'You can pot an alligator or bag a sand 
 crane — for our dinners ! ' said Christie. 
 
 ' And very good the crane was,' observed 
 Violet. 
 
 ' I'm glad you liked the crane, Miss Preston. 
 Pinkie roasted it very well.' 
 
 ' Why don't they have dogs ? ' demanded 
 Staples languidly from his hammock. ' Could 
 get some sport if we had dogs.' 
 
 ' They haven't got such a thing out here, 
 my dear fellow.' , 
 
 Here Christie rose up, stretched himself, 
 and announced that he was going to drive 
 to Johnson's Grove in his wagon, and inquired 
 if ' any of you fellows ' had a mind to go with 
 him? 
 
 Apparently nobody cared to drive to 
 Johnson's Grove, for nobody offered to move.
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 10 
 
 o 
 
 ' There doesn't seem to be anything to do 
 here, nor anywhere to go,' observed Eosemary. 
 
 ' No, there isn't anywhere — much,' rephed 
 Tregelva. ' There's a — a shop — they call it a 
 " dry-goods store " here — about seven miles off, 
 where you can get things ' 
 
 ' Ladies' things,' added Staples explanatorily, 
 as Tregelva appeared too somnolent to con- 
 tinue. 
 
 ' What are ladies' things ? ' asked Eosemary 
 gravely. 
 
 Staples was for a moment posed by this 
 question ; then a brilhant idea flashed upon 
 him, and he replied : 
 
 ' Well, gloves.' 
 
 ' Yes, I see you don't wear any,' remarked 
 Eosemary, glancing at the sun-browned hand 
 that hung listlessly over the edge of the ham- 
 mock. 
 
 ' And — a — dresses — and bonnets,' continued
 
 104 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Staples, brightening. ' Mrs. Whitworth bought 
 a hat there for fifty cents — that straw thing 
 she wears.' 
 
 ' It's not pohte to call a lady's hat a 
 ." thing," drawled Tregelva. 
 
 ' No, it's a " creation ! " ' suggested Har- 
 rington. 
 
 ' You can sell as well as buy in these happy 
 latitudes,' Tregelva continued conversationally, 
 waking up a little. ' Staples has got a coat he's 
 trading with a nigger.' 
 
 ' We're good traders, both of us,' Staples 
 observed meditatively ; ' the nigger pretends he 
 doesn't want to buy, and I make out I don't 
 particularly care to sell.' 
 
 ' Why don't you throw in those boots of 
 yours ? ' suggested Conyers. 
 
 ' Mr. Staples seems to have a great many 
 superfluous articles in his wardrobe,' remarked 
 Violet.
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 105 
 
 'The boots are superfluous,' Staples ad- 
 mitted dejectedly. 'I gave four guineas for 
 them.' 
 
 ' And I'd let the darkey have them for two 
 dollars if I were you,' said Conyers. 
 
 ' You should get him to show them to you. 
 Miss Preston,' said Tregelva. 
 
 As this manner of mild chaff at each other's 
 expense involved no strain upon the intellect, 
 and thus was eminently qualified to suit the 
 speakers — especially on a tropical morning like 
 this — it ran round the circle, and found fresh 
 targets in Harrington's hat — which may have 
 had a shape originally, but, through long com- 
 pression in his pocket and flattening in his 
 portmanteau, had lost such form as it had ever 
 possessed — and Tregelva's dust-coloured alpaca 
 suit, against which there was launched the 
 terrible accusation that he had bought it ready- 
 made.
 
 106 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' I wish my tailor could see it ! ' he observed, 
 casting down his eyes in impartial criticism on 
 his own garments. * He'd never make me a 
 coat again I ' 
 
 ' He'll never have the chance, if you buy 
 that grove in Tohopekaliga,' said Staples. 
 
 ' Are you all going to buy groves ? ' asked 
 Violet. 
 
 ' That's what we've all come out here for,' 
 Tregelva replied. 
 
 ' I shan't buy unless I see a better grove at 
 a lower price than has been offered me yet,' 
 came a growl from the hammock. 
 
 ' Have you chosen your grove ? ' asked Eose- 
 mary, lifting her lovely indolent dark eyes to 
 Mr. Tregelva. 
 
 < N — no — I've looked at some,' he replied 
 languidly. 
 
 'And you, Mr. Conyers?' and the dark 
 eyes turned their beauty on him.
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 107 
 
 ' I don't know. There's no liurry,' said 
 Conyers, whose classically handsome features 
 were hard to stir from their sleepy and bovine 
 sort of calm. 
 
 ' Oh, Harrington ! ' shouted Mr. Whitworth 
 from the distance. Xobody lives long in the 
 South without contracting the habit of prefixing 
 an emphatic ' Oh ! ' to the name of anyone. 
 ' Oh, Tregelva ! Harrington ! Don't you want 
 to come and see John Ecss ? He's just brought 
 in a cartful of deer.' 
 
 The whole company rose up en masse, even 
 Staples slowly preparing to tumble out of his 
 hammock. 
 
 ' Anything to see ? ' exclaimed Eosemary, 
 rising with some alacrity. " Come along, 
 Yi!' 
 
 ' Stampede in search of the smallest excite- 
 ment,' remarked Violet, as the whole party 
 hastened helter-skelter into the house and
 
 108 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 through the hall, that being the shortest cut 
 to the back-yard, where they found indeed a 
 cart, laden — alas ! not with the picturesque re- 
 mains of the antlered monarchs of the forest, 
 but with the same cut up into saddles and 
 haunches, looking very much like an ordinary 
 butcher's cart. The driver, the mighty hunter 
 who had brought in his spoils from the chase, a 
 mahogany-faced Nimrod in a brigandish som- 
 brero hat a good deal the worse for wear, was 
 engaged in sociable converse with Mr. Whit- 
 worth ; while Mr. Christie stood by looking on, 
 in a simple and degage costume which made a 
 picturesque display of shirt-sleeves, jack-boots, 
 and a huge knife stuck loosely in liis belt. In 
 the background, apparently deeply interested, 
 were Beverley, the indoor mulatto boy, and 
 old Lorenzo, the out-door man, an ancient 
 negro with a fringe of white whisker and beard 
 framing his venerable black face, and making
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 109 
 
 him look exactly like a large-sized ape. To 
 these enter Eosemary and Violet, Messrs. 
 Conyers, Staples, Tregelva, and Harrington. 
 John Eoss's brown face beamed with a hearty 
 smile as his audience thus suddenly and largely 
 increased. 
 
 ' Yes, sir, four splendid bucks ! ' he con- 
 tinued. ' I sold the hides and antlers to Mr. 
 Oalbraith.' 
 
 'He'll send them home as trophies of his 
 own killing,' was Tregelva's comment. 
 
 ' See here, sir ! ' said the hunter, hfting 
 up a fine saddle, ' fifteen cents a pound.' 
 
 ' I used to get it for two cents a pound in 
 Colorado,' Whitworth rejoined. 
 
 ' Colorado isn't Florida,' John Eoss an- 
 swered veraciously, and none could contradict 
 him. 
 
 ' I say. Staples,' observed Tregelva aside, 
 ^ you might try Eoss with your boots. He's a
 
 110 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 big strong fellow, and he might be able to bear 
 them.' 
 
 Whether this suggestion was advanced in 
 jest or earnest, Mr. Staples accepted it 
 seriously ; he hastened into the house, and 
 presently returned bearing a pair of enormous 
 thick-soled top-boots. John Boss's genial smile 
 spread from ear to ear as Staples approached 
 him, boots in hand, and proceeded gravely to 
 inquire what he thought them worth, and 
 whether he would be inclined to enter into 
 negotiations with a view to becoming their 
 possessor ? John Eoss inspected them, weighed 
 them leisurely and deliberately, shifting them 
 from hand to hand, and then pronounced his 
 opinion. 
 
 ' Well, they're wuth ten or twelve dollars, 
 but if they wuz mine I'd give ten dollars to be 
 out of them ! ' 
 
 Christie, delighted at this, burst into one of
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE 111 
 
 those hearty explosions of laughter by which 
 the new arrivals had already learned to charac- 
 terise him. His unbridled mirth attracted 
 attention to himself and his costume. 
 
 * That's a Hyde Park turn-out, Christie,' 
 remarked Tregelva. 
 
 ' I was admiring it,' said Eosemary, smiling ; 
 and indeed young Christie — tall and young, 
 strong and Hthe — had never looked handsomer 
 nor manlier than in his neglige toilet. 'And 
 this,' she added, delicately indicating the knife 
 in his belt, ' this gives a genuine frontier air to 
 the costume.' 
 
 ' He might go to a fancy ball as a pioneer, 
 mightn't he ? ' observed Staples, who stood by, 
 still bearing his boots unabashed. 
 
 ' Wouldn't you like to see him in the park, 
 vehicle, steed, and all ? ' said Tregelva, point- 
 ing to the neat ' Macy wagon,' the pride of 
 Christie's heart, painted a beautiful bright green
 
 112 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 picked out with scarlet, to which he had been 
 harnessing a half-broken rough Texan pony 
 when the faineant party from the piazza 
 swarmed into the courtyard. 
 
 'I was warm, and I took my coat off 
 for driving in the sun,' said Christie apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 ' I took off my coat driving one warm day,* 
 observed Tregelva narratively. 'I was going 
 to pay a visit, too, and I hung my coat 
 over the back of the buggy. When I got 
 
 there ' 
 
 ' ^' The cupboard was bare,'" quoted Violet 
 laughingly. 
 
 ' Yes, the buggy was bare. I turned round 
 to get my coat, and it was gone.' 
 
 ' Visiting-costume a la mode de Florida^ 
 remarked Eosemary. 
 
 ' Did you ever see your coat again ? ' asked 
 Violet.
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD BRIGADE ll3 
 
 ' Yes ; it was picked up on the road and 
 brought back to me.' 
 
 ' They're very honest about here,' put in Mr. 
 Whitworth. ' We never lock a door nor bar 
 a shutter.' 
 
 Here Mrs. Whitworth appeared, looking 
 the model of a comely housewife, with a large 
 apron tied over her dress, both her hands 
 occupied in bearing aloft a huge citron and a 
 dangling yard-measure. 
 
 ' Look here, all of you ! ' she exclaimed, 
 triumphantly displaying these trophies, ' did 
 you ever see a finer citron ? It's from the East 
 Grove. Just measure it ! Eighteen inches 
 from eye to stem ! Isn't it the prize citron of 
 the season ? ' 
 
 The hunter was holding up a haunch of 
 venison for inspection ; Staples was still con- 
 templating his rejected boots. Tregelva 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 glanced from them to the ' prize citron,' and 
 remarked languidly — 
 
 ' Looks like market- day, or a stall at the 
 Florida Exhibition, everybody showing off their 
 goods ! '
 
 115 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 HALCYON HOURS. 
 
 The day had worn on to sunset. Violet was 
 sitting on the fallen trunk of a pine-tree on the 
 brink of the South Lake, so called by the 
 inmates of West Grove House. Its proper 
 name was Lake Julia. Most of the lakes about 
 this neighbourhood appeared to have been 
 christened by men after their wives and sweet- 
 hearts, so many w^ere the feminine names 
 represented in the list, from Eulalie and Vir- 
 ginia down to ' Sue ' — not even Susan, but 
 simple familiar Sue, while one of the fairest 
 lakes answered to the name of Mary Jane. In 
 favour of these and similar equally homely 
 
 I 2
 
 116 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 designations, the aboriginal names, with their 
 quaint and curious euphony, have been ne- 
 glected in too many places, although still a 
 glance at the map of Florida relieves us by 
 showing in how many other localities the old 
 Indian words, waifs and strays of the language 
 of a race that is rapidly passing away, are 
 retained. In contrast with the appellations of 
 Jones and Jackson, Smith and Butler, and their 
 respective wives, sweethearts, and daughters, 
 how refreshing it is to come upon the good old 
 aboriginal names of Woyohokalpa, Yallaha, 
 Tohopekaliga, and Tallahassee ! while as to 
 Itsopogayoxee and Okeehumkee they are a 
 perfect treat to roll under the tongue! The 
 residents at West Grove had a little nomencla- 
 ture of their own ; they had always dubbed 
 Lake Julia ' South Lake,' in reference to the 
 quarter in which it lay with regard to the 
 house ; and they called Lake Margaret ' Silver
 
 HALCYON HOURS 117 
 
 Lake,' from its purity and brightness, but left 
 Lake Annabel and Lake Kosalie to flourish 
 under their rightful titles. 
 
 On the shore, then, of the Southern Lake 
 Julia, Violet was sitting, for a wonder, all alone. 
 Eosemary had gone for a drive with Messrs. 
 Conyers, Harrington, and Whitworth — the last- 
 named was taking the two former to inspect a 
 splendid young grove which had been placed 
 in his hands for sale, and had invited Eosemary 
 to occupy the fourth place in the carriage. Mrs. 
 Whitworth was busy in the kitchen, assisting 
 and directing Pinkie, the mulatto cook, in the 
 preparation of guava marmalade, and Violet 
 had taken a novel and gone down to sit by the 
 lake. 
 
 But the novel lay in her lap neglected in 
 favour of the sunset, and wisely so. For if her 
 lines in life should lead her — as they at present 
 promised to do — back to her own Northern
 
 118 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 clime, she would have many and many an 
 opportunity of reading the best novels, of this 
 or any other day, for one chance of contem- 
 plating such a sunset as this. 
 
 The whole west was one scarlet fire, which 
 shaded by undefinable degrees into the purest 
 of pellucid blue above ; towards the east those 
 dream-like depths of azure melted into a soft, 
 dull, pink haze, which hung like a filmy roseate 
 veil over all the eastern half of the heavens. In 
 the crystal-clear bosom of the lake every vary- 
 ing tint of the sky, every leaf and branch of 
 the tall stirless pine-trees, the green luxuriant 
 tangle of underwood on the banks, was mirrored. 
 The living landscape was not more purely, 
 clearly distinct, in detail of line and colouring, 
 than its reflection below the glassy surface of 
 the lake. Only at the edge ' the water washing 
 in the reeds ' faintly broke the silence. Violet, 
 keenly alive to all that was beautiful in life
 
 HALCYOX HOUKS 119 
 
 and in nature, the sense of beauty thrilling 
 softly through her every nerve, sat wrapt in 
 dreamy content. 
 
 Presently on the far side of the lake a 
 streak seemed to separate itself from the bank. 
 The streak was shooting out into the water, 
 crossing the lake ; it developed into a boat — a 
 boat rowed by one man, who was heading his 
 course towards the spot where she sat. Yiolet, 
 well content before, felt a sense of fuller con- 
 tentment still as she recognised that the oars- 
 man was Max Eandolph, whistling softly as he 
 pulled across the placid lake, his gun lying on 
 the thwarts. 
 
 She did not rise up to greet so old a friend, 
 but looked up and smiled as he grounded his 
 boat and sprang ashore. She had not seen Max 
 Eandolph alone since the prolonged tete-a-tete of 
 their journey from New York, and she was not 
 sorry to find this ofiered opportunity of one of
 
 120 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 the old quiet talks with this good friend and 
 comrade now. 
 
 'Why, where's Miss Eosemary?' he in- 
 quired. ' I thought you two were hke twin 
 cherries on one stem — Hermia and Helena 
 business ' 
 
 ' Hermia and Helena quarrelled, which we 
 don't mean to do,' replied Violet. 
 
 ' They clashed about a man,' he observed. 
 
 ' Which I hope we shall not ! ' she said. 
 ' For one thing, no man ever admires us both.' 
 
 'No,' he admitted. ' You are opposite 
 poles. It would be very difficult to admire 
 you both.' 
 
 He paused a minute or two, regarding her 
 deliberately and thoughtfully, before he added, 
 ' But there are some men who are born to 
 achieve difficult tasks.' 
 
 ' You had better try what you can achieve,' 
 she rejoined laughingly.
 
 HALCYON HOURS 121 
 
 ' In that line ? Yes,' he answered medita- 
 tively, pulling at his mustache, as is the way 
 of man when man is reflecting gravely,' ' I might 
 try ! Pity Miss Eosemary isn't here, that I 
 might have a chance of beginning now.' 
 
 * You must try to be content for a little 
 while without her. Are you going up to the 
 house ? ' 
 
 ' I'm in no hurry,' he replied. ' Come for 
 a turn in my boat. Miss Violet ; it's the 
 pleasantest hour of the day on the water.' 
 
 Violet neither felt nor feigned any hesita- 
 tion. She knew it was indeed the pleasantest 
 hour of all the day, and, fair as was the scene 
 on shore, it would look fairer still from the 
 water. 
 
 She stepped willingly into the boat, took 
 her seat in the stem, and Max pushed off. 
 
 The water lapped softly against the sides of 
 the boat ; the oars broke up the motionless
 
 122 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 reflection of the rose and azure sky into opaline 
 ripples, and sent tremulous wrinkles across the 
 graceful images of the tall slim pine-trees that 
 pointed downwards in the transparent depths. 
 Not a sound, not even the note of a bird, broke 
 the silence ; not a cloud drifted across the 
 pellucid sky ; nothing marred the pure and 
 perfect serenity of the hour and place. 
 
 ' How lovely it is ! ' Violet breathed with a 
 soft sigh of content. 
 
 ' Now what did vou want to bring that book 
 out with you for ? ' asked Max, pointing to the 
 volume she kept still in her hand. 
 
 ' Don't abuse my book. It's a nice book ; 
 I am enjoying it very much.' 
 
 ' I didn't abuse it : I only asked what you 
 wanted with it. You were not reading it when 
 I landed ^ ' 
 
 ' No, of course not : I was looking at you ! ' 
 she laughed.
 
 HALCYON HOUES 123 
 
 ' If it's a good book you miglit lend it to 
 me. I have read all my books and I want 
 something to read.' 
 
 ' You won't care about this,' she said ; ' it is 
 a love-story.' 
 
 ' I don't care much about love-stories 
 generally,' he acknowledged. 'They always 
 seem to me a good deal of fuss about nothing.' 
 
 'A fair description of some love-stories, 
 certainly,' she agreed. 
 
 ' People make too much of love,' he 
 observed coolly. ' It's just the gilt on the 
 ginger-bread.' 
 
 'Not the staff of life itself?' she rejoined 
 smiling. 
 
 ' No ; just a bit of gilding, easily rubbed off, 
 put on to please children — and fools. Heart- 
 less view, isn't it ? Shocks you, doesn't it ? ' 
 
 ' Well, even if your view is the right one,' 
 she said, forbearing to pronounce sentence on
 
 124 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 the said view, ' wouldn't you rather have your 
 ginger-bread gilt than not ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know,' he replied ; ' gilding's un- 
 wholesome. Perhaps it's a case of sour grapes,' 
 he added ; ' I never have had my ginger-bread 
 
 gilt.' 
 
 ' Isn't that your own doing ? ' 
 
 ' I suppose it is,' he said ; ' but if nature left 
 a heart out of my anatomy, is that my fault ? 
 I wish I could be in love! Wonder how it 
 would feel to be like that poor young 
 Fletcher ? ' naming a love-lorn swain whose 
 piteous case had been a subject of observation 
 and comment to them both. ' I wouldn't mind 
 trying it for an hour, just for a new sensa- 
 tion ! ' 
 
 ' Have you never been in love, then ? ' 
 Violet asked him frankly, lightly, but with a 
 little real curiosity underlying the lightness of 
 her tone.
 
 HALCYON HOURS 125 
 
 ' I ? ' He laughed his short sneering laugh. 
 ' Not in my hne at all to make a fool of myself 
 — in that way, I mean. There are plenty of 
 other ways left.' 
 
 ' There are, indeed,' she said, ' and worse 
 ways too.' 
 
 'I don't know about worse ways,' he de- 
 murred. ' The worst mischief in the world is 
 always made by women. JSTo man ever got 
 into any serious trouble yet that a woman 
 wasn't at the bottom of it.' 
 
 ' We might just as fairly and truly reverse 
 the case,' she replied spiritedly. ' Transpose 
 the pronouns and read man for woman.' 
 
 ' Women feel less,' asserted Max dogma- 
 tically with a certain doggedness of air which 
 he generally assumed when he was saying what 
 he didn't mean. 
 
 ' Less than you, who don't feel at all ? ' she 
 retorted.
 
 126 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' Because Dame Nature was kind enough to 
 give me a good tough piece of india-rubber in 
 place of a heart it doesn't follow that other fel- 
 lows are as lucky. Some of them come to awful 
 grief. But one can't be very sorry for a man 
 who makes a fool of himself about a woman. 
 He shouldn't let himself be fooled.' 
 
 ' I sympathise more with the fool than the 
 wise man,' she observed. 
 
 ' Naturally, as you profit by his folly.' 
 
 ' And sometimes share it,' she suggested. 
 
 ' And get off the easiest,' he said. 
 
 ' No, that we don't ! ' she replied ; ' a woman 
 always comes off the worst.' 
 
 ' Who blames a woman,' Max asked a little 
 bitterly, ' for spoiling a man's life ? ' 
 
 'And what penalty does a man pay for 
 wrecking a woman's life ? ' Violet rejoined. 
 
 ' He doesn't do it,' was the answer. ' At 
 least, not in the run of cases. I suppose you're
 
 HALCYON HOURS 127 
 
 tliinking of Mat Carew's ajQTair with Lucy Pater- 
 son ? I tell you, women's feelings are 
 
 As moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine. 
 
 The very next season Miss Lucy married some 
 rich banker.' 
 
 ' Do you think her marrying the second 
 proves she didn't care for the first ? ' inquired 
 Violet. 
 
 ' Comfortable for the second, according to 
 the view you suggest,' he remarked. 
 
 ' We run on lines that \Yill never meet,' she 
 said ; 'we start from different premises ; I am 
 afraid we shall never find a point at which to 
 meet and agree.' 
 
 ' That would be sad,' he replied ; ' I'm 
 always sorry not to agree with you. Miss 
 Violet.' 
 
 She looked at him steadily, questioningly, 
 as she inquired, ' Is that " rote sarkastic " ? '
 
 128 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 He met her frank asking gaze fully ; his 
 inscrutable grey eyes looked level into her 
 clear blue ones, and told absolutely nothing, as 
 he replied, ' Must every civil thing I say be 
 ironical ? ' 
 
 ' When it is said to me I ' she answered, 
 half laughing, half in earnest. 
 
 ' Am I such a bear to you ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' JSTo, no,' she protested sweetly. ' But we 
 have never cultivated the habit of saying civil 
 things to each other, have we?' she added, 
 with one of her pretty confiding smiles. 
 
 ' Well, no, we haven't,' he agreed. ' Do 
 you think it's time we began? ' 
 
 ' We get on very well as we are,' she said 
 lightly. 
 
 ' Very well,' he assented, looking at her 
 with his keen unsmiling gaze. 
 
 ' And we won't begin to quarrel now,' she 
 added — 'not on such an evening as this.
 
 HALCYON HOURS 129 
 
 when everything is so lovely and calm and 
 peaceful ! ' 
 
 ' And not when you're alone in the boat 
 with me,' he added. * Choose a safer time. 
 Keep the peace with me, or I might upset the 
 boat.' 
 
 ' Then you would have to swim with me to 
 shore ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, no — not if you abused me. In that 
 case, I should swim ashore by myself; only^ 
 perhaps, as I'm foolishly good-natured, I might 
 leave you an oar.' 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 130 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 CHAPTEE yil. 
 
 LA REINE S'AMUSE. 
 
 The sun has gone down in golden light be- 
 hind the western woods ; the lakes are turned 
 to liquid gold ; the cloudless azure of the sky 
 deepens slowly and softly as the veil of twi- 
 light sinks over it, tenderly as sleep steals on 
 the weary. Above the sunset, high in the west, 
 one star trembles like a diamond dewdrop. 
 
 Most of the West Grove House party are 
 out on the south piazza, enjoying the balmy 
 beauty of the breezeless evening, watching the 
 amber light of the sunset deepen into orange, 
 and the orange glow into fiery red. They are 
 talking about as much as usual — that is to say,
 
 LA KEINE S'A^IUSE 131 
 
 a desultory dropping fire of fragmentary con- 
 versation is going on. 
 
 '"Twinkle, twinkle, little star!"' quotes 
 Christie, who is the only one standing up, all 
 the rest of the party lounging in more or less 
 recumbent attitudes in rocking- or reclining- 
 chairs. 
 
 ' What httle star is it ? ' asks Violet. 
 
 ' That's the evening star,' replies Harrington. 
 
 'It's Venus.' Staples volunteers his item 
 of astronomical information. ' Venus alwavs 
 comes out just there over the sunset.' 
 
 ' Venus winked at me,' says Tregelva lan- 
 guidly. ' I wish she wouldn't ! I don't like it.' 
 
 ' Tell her not to,' observes Violet ; ' it's not 
 proper.' 
 
 ' Are you awake, Mr. Tregelva .^ ' ask& 
 Eosemary. ' I was nearly asleep, and I thought 
 you were too.' 
 
 Eosemary, in a white dress, and with a 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 sultanesque air, is reclining in the hammock, of 
 which she has lately taken exclusive possession, 
 dislodging Staples, whose favourite lounging- 
 place it used to be. 
 
 ' Did you see Galbraith to-day ? ' asks Tre- 
 gelva, proving his wakefulness by sitting a trifle 
 straighter up. 'He's got to be a regular 
 cracker — a three days' beard and a Panama 
 hat, and no collar nor cuffs.' 
 
 ' We're all beginning to look like crackers,* 
 says Harrington. ' Conyers has got a regular 
 cracker hat.' 
 
 ' What's the use of wearing a Bond Street 
 hat here ? ' demands Conyers. 
 
 ' What are crackers ? ' inquires Violet, to 
 whom the term conveys but a vague idea. 
 
 ' Crackers are the — er — natives,' replies 
 Tregelva. 
 
 ' The real natives were Indians,' Harrington 
 corrects him. * Crackers are the white settlers.'
 
 LA REINE s'aMUSE 133 
 
 ' Then if you settle here you'll all be 
 crackers,' Violet argues logically. 
 
 ' Crackers aren't gentlemen,' Conyers ob- 
 jects with stolid gravity. 
 
 ' The're pasty-faced fellows w^ho live in log- 
 huts and tell the time by the sun,' observes 
 Tregelva. 
 
 ' They're the poor whites,' continues Har- 
 rington. ' They lead a primitive kind of life. 
 If you see a fellow who looks as if he'd come 
 out of an old-clothes shop, he's generally a 
 cracker. I saw one the other day with a very 
 dirty old blanket pinned round him instead of 
 a coat.' 
 
 Staples, who is seated as usual with his head 
 drooping forward on his breast, his hands deep 
 in his pockets, his feet on a chair, and his knees 
 drawn up at an acute angle, here observes nar- 
 ratively — 
 
 ' I've sold a coat to-day to a nigger for two
 
 134 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 pounds. It was a good coat,' he adds a little 
 regretfully, ' but an awful bad fit.' 
 
 ' Why don't you go into the " old clothes " 
 business, Mr. Staples ? ' inquires Eosemary ; 
 ' you'd take to it like a young duck to the 
 water.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Miss Heath,' he replies rather 
 resentfully, ' but I've no Hebrew blood in my 
 veins ! ' 
 
 ' The blood of the Eothschilds doesn't course 
 there,' observes Tregelva. 
 
 ' Staples is such a good trader,' says Har- 
 rington maliciously, ' he'll die a millionaire.' 
 
 ' No, I shan't,' Staples contradicts flatly. 
 * And I've traded my last. I've no more coats 
 to sell.' 
 
 ' / shall be reduced to part,' says Tregelva, 
 ' if I don't hear from home soon.' 
 
 ' Not got your letter yet ? ' asks Violet. 
 
 ' No, nothing yet. If the governor won't
 
 LA REINE S'aMUSE 135 
 
 cash up, I shall have to stay here for the re- 
 mainder of my natural life.' 
 
 They are all by this time on mutually frank 
 and confidential terms, and are well aware that 
 Mr. Treselva, with no bank account of his own, 
 depends entirely on ' the governor's ' remittances 
 from home. 
 
 ' He has had to " cash up " rather often 
 before, hasn't he ? ' suggests Eosemary from her 
 hammock. 
 
 ' Ye — yes — pretty often,' the eldest hope 
 of the Tregelvas acknowledges placidly. ' I've 
 made a mess of a good many things.' 
 
 ' And now you are going to try just how bad 
 a scrape you can get into with orange groves ? ' 
 she rejoins. 
 
 ' I'll back him to make a mess of every- 
 thing he tries his hand at,' laughs young Har- 
 rington. 
 
 ' Too bad ! ' drawls Tregelva, adding with.
 
 136 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 if possible, a more indolent air than ever, a 
 tone as if his eyes were just closing in slumber, 
 ' Turn him out ! Won't somebody turn him out? ' 
 
 ' That reminds me of an awfully good 
 story,' eagerly begins Christie, who, whenever 
 he gets anything good, either a joke or guavas, 
 is always unselfishly eager for others to parti- 
 cipate in his enjoyment. ' It was in an Irish 
 theatre — and they were dissatisfied somehow 
 with the orchestra — and there was a row in the 
 gallery. One fellow was making a great dis- 
 turbance, and so they were calling, " Turn him 
 out ! " " Throw him over ! " when a man got 
 up and shouted out, " Don't waste him, boys ! 
 kill a fiddler with him / " ' 
 
 Staples and Harrington laugh ; Conyers and 
 Tregelva vouchsafe a smile ; Eosemary observes 
 sweetly — 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Christie, that story's as old as the 
 hills!'
 
 LA REINE S'AMUSE 137 
 
 Staples begins a defence of Christie's powers 
 of entertainment. 
 
 ' Christie can tell some devilish ' he 
 
 picks himself up and substitutes * some very 
 good stories.' 
 
 ' Hullo, Staples ! ' exclaims Tregelva, ' are 
 you going to become a reformed character ? ' 
 
 Staples looks rather sulkier than usual, and 
 appears absorbed in striking a match. 
 
 ' Have you heard Staples swear, Miss Pres- 
 ton ? ' Tregelva continues. 
 
 ' Does he swear ? ' she inquires. 
 
 ' He can — a httle — when he tries.' 
 
 ' I have not heard him,' she replies. ' It is 
 a treat in store.' 
 
 ' Perhaps it's not in store,' demurs Staples ; 
 ' perhaps you never will hear me.' 
 
 To do Mr. Staples justice, he did not in- 
 tend that she should ; but nevertheless, that 
 very evening, in passing the smoking-room
 
 138 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 at a moment when Staples happened to have 
 dropped and broken his favourite pipe, both 
 Eosemary and Violet were made aware of that 
 young man's extraordinary fluency of profane 
 language and proficiency in devising original 
 and ingenious oaths. 
 
 'Do you know, Vi, my dear,' said Eose- 
 mary, when the two girls were by themselves 
 in the safe seclusion of their own room, ' I have 
 come to the conclusion that it is a mistake to 
 diffuse one's self too much ; and that it is just 
 what we have been doing here. We have both 
 been diffusing ourselves too much. I believe it 
 is a practice in warfare for the best marksmen 
 not to fire at random, but each choose out 
 his man and pick him off. Let us be good 
 markswomen, Vi ; let us each select an object 
 — and pick him off ! ' 
 
 ' They do not strike me as being, any of 
 them, very vulnerable,' Violet observed ; ' but
 
 LA REINE S' AMUSE 139 
 
 even Achilles had his weak point, and I've no 
 doubt you will succeed in getting your shaft 
 in at your victim's heel, whoever he may be. 
 Have you made up your mind which one to 
 choose ? ' 
 
 Eosemary inclined her head a little on one 
 side thoughtfully. 
 
 ' I think I'll have a shot at Tregelva,' 
 she mused. 'He's rather nice. He has good 
 eyes ; a pleasant voice, and a very nice soft 
 laugh.' 
 
 ' How about Max Eandolph ? ' asked Violet 
 lightly. 
 
 ' Oh, I can run a pair I ' replied Eosemary, 
 reckless of consistency in her metaphors. ' And 
 you, Violet, why don't you try Staples and 
 Conyers ? The ugliest and the handsomest ! 
 They'd make a good pair ! ' 
 
 ' I am not sharpshooter enough to hit two 
 at once,' Violet laughed. ' You are like the
 
 140 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 circus-riders, Eosie, who gallop round on two 
 horses, a foot on the back of each/ 
 
 'And get thrown sometimes,' said Eose- 
 mary drily. 
 
 ' Which you won't,' rejoined Violet. 'Failure 
 is not in your line ! ' 
 
 ' I have failed,' Eosemary answered moodily. 
 Then, hurriedly, as if averting some possible 
 approach to a forbidden subject, she added, 
 ' Eemember old Carmichael ! ' 
 
 'Well, he was the exception that proves 
 the rule,' replied Violet. 
 
 ' The rule must pay for the exception,' 
 said Eosemary, with a look in her deep dark 
 eyes that boded no good to her victims. 
 
 ' I don't think I get on with Conyers,' 
 Violet observed confidentially the next day — 
 having presumably made tentative and experi- 
 mental endeavours to thaw that silent and
 
 LA REINE S' AMUSE 141 
 
 statuesque Antinous into conversation. 'I 
 
 can't make liim talk.' 
 
 'I think it would pass mortal woman's 
 
 power — even mine,' Eosemary added, with a 
 
 little laugh — ' to make him talk. But much 
 
 may be achieved without speech.' 
 
 'Mute eloquence of the eyes?' rejoined 
 Yiolet. ' I should like to see Conyers Avrought 
 
 up to such a pitch ! ' 
 
 'Perhaps you may. There's no knowing 
 what strange sights may be in store. He's cer- 
 tainly good-looking.' 
 
 ' He's more than good-looking,' Violet 
 replied, with artistic and impersonal enthu- 
 siasm. 'That low broad forehead and pure 
 Greek nose are a perfect pleasure to contem- 
 plate ! Perhaps it would be too much to ex- 
 pect social or intellectual qualities of him as 
 Avell. He is nothing but a profile ! ' 
 
 ' Well, Yi, if you think his profile — his
 
 142 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 " Attic forehead and his Phidian nose " — worth 
 a httle pains ' 
 
 'But I really don't/ said Yiolet, as Eose- 
 mary arrived at an eloquent and significant 
 pause. ' He's not at all in my Hne.' 
 
 ' Well, if you don't care to try him,' Eose- 
 mary rejoined musingly, ^ it seems to me a 
 pity he should be wasted.' 
 
 ' " Don't waste him ! Kill a fiddler with 
 him ! " ' quoted Yiolet, laughing. 
 
 It is a warm, still, moonless night, but 
 alive with stars. Large, and bright, and 
 golden — such stars as our England never 
 knows — they glow out from the depths of 
 sapphire sky. The West Grove House party 
 are as usual sitting outside enjoying the air. 
 On one side of the great central doors — which 
 stand wide open, of course, and from which a 
 pale stream of lamplight pours out across the
 
 LA REIXE s'mIUSE 143 
 
 piazza — Mrs. Whitworth and Violet Preston are 
 seated, surrounded by a little court, consisting 
 of Tregelva, somnolent and smoking, swaying 
 in a rocker ; Christie, wide awake and ready to 
 laugh at the tiniest of perceptible jokes : and 
 Staples, drooping limply in a chair tilted on its 
 hind legs against the wall, his chin, as usual, on 
 his shirt-front, while his hands, being occupied 
 with his pipe and light, happen for once to be 
 out of his pockets. 
 
 On the other side of the bar of hght, 
 which strikes out from the hall across the 
 piazza to the lawn, Eosemary sways in the 
 hammock, with Max Eandolph seated by her 
 side, and Chadwick and the Fraser boys at a 
 respectful distance. An empty chair is beside 
 her, and near it towers the tall athletic figure 
 of Conyers, in an attitude not so much irreso- 
 lute as contemplative, with his eye on the 
 chair.
 
 144 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 It is a comfortable chair, and, as he meets 
 the side-glance of Eosemary's dark eyes and 
 Eosemary's smile, he takes his seat there. 
 
 Violet sees, without looking at, Eosemary 
 and her surroundings — has seen for the last half- 
 hour how mutually absorbed have Eosemary 
 and Max Eandolph been. The conversation in 
 Violet's own group is not enthralling, although 
 
 it ought to be mildly interesting to her, whose 
 sympathies are always so ready. 
 
 She likes Christie, and he is heart and soul 
 absorbed in talking about a piece of land 
 lie has just bought, through Mr. Whitworth's 
 good offices ; the admirable qualities of this land, 
 ^ lake-front, half pine, half hammock,' and his 
 plans for house and grove, fill the boy to over- 
 brimming. Mrs. Whitworth much encourages 
 his enthusiasm, silently hoping that his hearers 
 may ' go and do hkewise ' ; and Violet listens 
 with apparent interest, and puts in an appro-
 
 LA REINE S'aMUSE 145 
 
 priate remark now and then. Her face is not 
 turned towards Eosemary and her court, but 
 out of the corner of her eye she takes in every 
 detail of that group. 
 
 She coukl have been one of it if she had 
 liked. She could have had that chair wherein 
 Conyers has disposed himself. It had been 
 vacant some time ; she could have sat there 
 with Eosemary and Max Eandolph. They 
 were her two best friends and most congenial 
 spirits. Why had she not joined them ? She 
 scarcely knows herself, but her attention keeps 
 wandering across to them, even when Tregelva, 
 waking up at some allusion that recalls Ascot 
 to his mind, (from which it and its kindred 
 occasions appear never to be very far-distant,) 
 sets off on a train of racing reminiscences. He 
 always dates everything by the sporting calen- 
 dar — 'It was the year when Bras d'Or won 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 14.6 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 the Derby ' ; ' It was just after the Grand 
 National,' and so on. 
 
 Violet does not take any interest in races ; 
 she does take interest in watching from the 
 distance how Eosemary draws that laconic 
 Antinous, Conyers, into sociability, and devotes 
 more and more attention to him, and less and 
 less to Max Eandolph. A few fragments of 
 the conversation float to her ears ; she catches 
 the words of Eosemary's sweet confidential 
 murmur — 
 
 ' And this little spaniel had the loveliest 
 long ears, just like satin.' 
 
 Then Conyers evidently is wound up to. the 
 pitch of relating an anecdote, of which Violet 
 only hears the final words — 
 
 ' I sent for three vets to see it, but the poor 
 beggar died.' 
 
 At this touching crisis Max Eandolph gets 
 up and walks away. Conyers and Eosemary
 
 LA REINE S'aMUSE 147 
 
 pursue the line of canine reminiscences witli a 
 mutually confidential air ; and Max, pulling 
 himself up tall in the lamplight, looks round 
 at the other members of the party, and comes 
 across to Violet's side, but only to say ' Good- 
 night ' and explain that it is time for him to 
 get home to Martin's. 
 
 ' I saw you slaying the fiddler,' Violet said to 
 Kosemary that night, in their confidential chat. 
 
 ' Yes,' Eosemary smiled, with a satisfied 
 air, interpreting this dark saying aright. 
 
 ' Max didn't half like my talking so much 
 to Conyers. Your Apollo isn't brilHant, Vi ; 
 but he serves his purpose.' 
 
 And Violet wondered, but did not ask, why 
 Max should care for Eosemary's talking to 
 Conyers, and whether he cared — much ? 
 
 l2
 
 148 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW. 
 
 There was to be a dance — a ' liop ' — a recep- 
 tion — an entertainment — thus it was variously 
 designated in tlie neighbourliood — to celebrate 
 the opening of the great new Osceola Hotel. 
 All the residents and visitors for miles around 
 were invited — ^indeed, a general invitation was 
 issued to all the world within reach. The 
 inmates of West Grove House, of course, were 
 going — at least, a select detachment of them ; 
 and the questions of the day were, which of the 
 party were going, how they were to go, and 
 how they were to dress. Some of the young 
 men had brought out evening suits in their
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 149 
 
 trunks, and some of the others had laughed 
 at them for bringing dress-clothes out to the 
 backwoods; but now the laugh was turned, 
 and the happy possessors of the swallowtails 
 and superfine hnen of civilised evening dress 
 were envied. 
 
 Tregelva actually had half a dozen pairs of 
 white gloves; and as he expressed himself 
 willing to accommodate his friends by the loan 
 thereof, he was voted the prince of good fel- 
 lows. Unfortunately, he had about the smallest 
 hand of the whole party ; and Conyers, having 
 striven in vain to compress his digits into the 
 limits of Tregelva's gloves, gave it up as a bad 
 job, and magnificently avowed his intention of 
 driving to the nearest town to buy a pair. 
 
 ' I'm not going to give three dollars for 
 gloves to wear one night,' was the sensible 
 decision of Mr. Staples. ' I shall go without, 
 or wear my old tan ones.'
 
 150 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' I've got two odd ones/ said Christie, 
 cheerfully accommodating himself to circum- 
 stances ; ' I shall wear one, and carry the other 
 with an easy flourish.' 
 
 ' I've burst a pair of Tregelva's,' observed 
 Harrington, ' but I think a burst glove's better 
 than none ; it shows at least a recognition of 
 civilised customs.' 
 
 The question of the division of the company 
 in the three vehicles of which the West Grove 
 stables could boast ran the dress question very 
 close in the general interest. It was suggested 
 that Conyers and Tregelva should go in the 
 single buggy, while Christie gave Staples a lift 
 in his Macy wagon, and the two girls accom- 
 panied Mr. and Mrs. Whitworth in the double 
 buggy. This distribution was arranged less 
 in the interests of the conventional proprieties 
 of the Old World than out of consideration for 
 the ladies' dresses, as the large double buggy
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 151 
 
 was much easier to get into and out of than 
 either of the other vehicles. 
 
 Chaperonage was an institution deemed of 
 little importance in South Florida at this stage of 
 its development. The native young ladies not 
 only dispensed with the ' chaperon,' but turned 
 the Old World code of etiquette upside down, 
 by themselves inviting the escorts who found 
 favour in their eyes ; which custom, being 
 carried out in the cases of Christie and Har- 
 rington, the two of the West Grove young men 
 who mixed most sociably with the outer world, 
 had the effect of causing some alteration in the 
 proposed arrangements for the drive. 
 
 ' Here ! ' exclaimed Christie, beaming with 
 broad smiles, as much of amusement as of flat- 
 tered vanity, ' what am I going to do ? Here 
 are two girls who have written to ask me to 
 take them to the Osceola ball ! ' 
 
 ' Take the best-looking ! ' advised Conyers.
 
 152 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' Take 'em both,' said Tregelva. 
 
 ' Toss up a coin for it — heads or tails ! ' 
 
 suggested Staples. 
 
 ' I've got an invitation from a young lady 
 too, who says she'll be glad of my escort,' said 
 Harrington, with modest pride. ' I shall have 
 to hire a trap.' 
 
 ' Seems like the cart before the horse,' ob- 
 served Staples, with sturdy conservative dis- 
 approval of innovation, ' for the girls to ask 
 fellows to take them to a ball. They've queer 
 ways out here.' 
 
 ' It doesn't speak very well for the chivalry 
 of the young men about the neighbourhood if 
 the girls are reduced to ask for escorts,' re- 
 marked Eosemary. 
 
 ' No, really it is quite the other way, Kose,' 
 said Violet ; ' it is that the girls regard a free 
 and unquestioned privilege of choice as one of 
 their natural and inalienable rights.' 
 
 ' Sort of leap-year business,' observed
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 153 
 
 Tregelva. ' I wonder if they carry it out to 
 the end?' 
 
 ' May we be there to see ! ' exclaimed Eose- 
 mary — ' to see you all — the whole band and 
 brigade of you — reluctantly borne to the altar 
 by conquering crackers ! ' 
 
 ' It would take a team of crackers to get 
 me to the altar,' Tregelva replied, with com- 
 placent security. 
 
 ' They won't try me^' growled Staples. 
 
 ' See the dangers of popularity ! ' laughed 
 Violet, turning to Christie and Harrington, the 
 popular members of the brotherhood. 
 
 ' They're just as nice, good, well-behaved 
 girls as any others,' said Christie, always kindly 
 and fairly disposed towards mankind in general, 
 including women. ' It's only the difference of 
 customs.' 
 
 'This is just a new country, and they 
 haven't any manners or customs yet ; they don't 
 know our ways,' observed Harrington, with a
 
 154 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 grand air of kindly tolerance. He probably 
 also felt his honour engaged in the justi- 
 fication of the young lady who had shown 
 her good taste by her choice of him as an 
 escort. 
 
 ' I think they have manners of their own — 
 at least, I'm glad they're not ours,' remarked 
 Staples. 
 
 ' To fail in resemblance to our customs is 
 of course a grave shortcoming,' said Violet. 
 ' But they will improve. Progress is rapid 
 here. In a very few years this neighbourhood 
 will be just like a suburb of New York.' 
 
 ' Miss Preston says that, as if to hang on to 
 the outskirts of New York was getting up to 
 the top of the ladder,' said Tregelva. 
 
 ' To my mind,' pronounced Conyers, ' New 
 York is a beast of a place.' 
 
 ' That settles it,' said Violet seriously. ' New 
 York's doom is sealed.'
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 155 
 
 The important evening arrived, and, ac- 
 cording to the altered programme, Conyeis 
 and Tregelva set ojQT in Christie's ' Macy wagon,' 
 Staples also accepting a lift therein, and being 
 relegated, like a sack of goods, to the back of 
 the wagon, where he sat on the edge, with his 
 feet dangling, and enjoyed a healthful jolting 
 which shook him into an even more limp and 
 loose-jointed condition than usual. Christie, 
 for whose convenience the exchange of vehicles 
 had been made, took his fair charge in the 
 single buggy, while the double one conveyed 
 Mr. and Mrs. Whitworth, Eosemary and Violet. 
 Harrington escorted the young lady who had 
 honoured him by her choice in a hired buggy, 
 and had all he could do to manasje his steed — 
 an imperfectly broken Texan pony, who started 
 off with a bolt, and continued bolting at inter- 
 vals all the way ; but, fortunately, Harrington's 
 companion, bred in a frontier Hfe, had good
 
 156 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 strong nerves, and could probably have driven 
 a half-broken horse as well or better than he 
 could do. 
 
 It was a medley crowd that filled the par- 
 lours, the piazzas, the corridors, and swarmed 
 up and down the stairs, of the Osceola Hotel. 
 All the visitors and residents for miles around 
 were there ; ' all ranks and conditions of men,' 
 from north and south and east and west, and 
 from the other side of the ' big ferry ' — an 
 omnium gatherum of tourists, settlers, and of 
 epurse a goodly muster of those health-seekers 
 and fortune-seekers who begin as tourists and 
 are as likely as not to end as settlers. 
 
 The cockney, A-less and complacent, was 
 represented here ; so was the English aristocrat 
 and the New York millionaire. Hyde Park 
 and Fifth Avenue had sent their contingent; 
 here too was the canny Scot — the best and 
 most thrifty and industrious of settlers ; and
 
 THE OLD WORLD IX THE XEW 157 
 
 here his neighbour from the Emerald Isle, come 
 to seek under another flag the living he could 
 not make in his own ' most distressful country.' 
 Here in full force, of course, was the American. 
 Here were citizens, Eepublican and Democratic, 
 from every State in the Union ; the Southerners, 
 although this region lay so far down in the 
 sunny South, being, oddly enough, considerably 
 in the minority. 
 
 Every variety of dress was to be seen, from 
 the correct and conventional evening toilet of 
 civiHsed society, to the cuffless, collarless 
 simplicity of the frontier. Violet Preston's 
 dress, of white nun's veiling, was simple 
 enough ; but its very lack of adornment was 
 the cunning of that art which conceals art. It 
 was eminently becoming to her pure and 
 delicate beauty; and so thought every man, 
 while every woman of the outer world appre- 
 ciated its perfect taste and style ; only the
 
 158 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 pioneer-women would probably have liked it 
 better had it been more ornate and had a bit 
 of colour about it ; the tulip would have 
 pleased them better than the lily. 
 
 Eosemary w^as in black — not sombre black, 
 but black that was brilhant with shining jet 
 and beads — transparent black lace revealing 
 the snowy gleams of her fair arms and shoulders 
 — ^black relieved by sprays of white flowers 
 and delicate ferns nestling in the folds of lace 
 and in the ruddy-golden chesnut of her hair. 
 
 There were some ladies in satin, and others 
 in serge ; one wore a resplendent white silk 
 which looked like a bridal attire ; others had 
 morning or walking-dresses smartened up by 
 bows of ribbon or knots of flowers. Some 
 were ' beauty unadorned,' while some had 
 piled on all the ornaments they could get 
 together, regardless of the motley effect pro- 
 duced by the juxtaposition of amber beads and
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 159 
 
 silver arrows or turquoise locket and emerald 
 brooch. 
 
 The styles of dancing were as varied as the 
 toilettes ; some of the couples seemed to regard 
 a waltz as an opportunity for acrobatic display, 
 so wildly did they career down the long room. 
 
 The West Grove House party kept together 
 of course. Max Randolph joined them ; 
 indeed, being so frequently there, he might 
 almost be counted as one of the house party. 
 Then the Staunton House young men came 
 round seeking introductions to the West Grove 
 ladies. Mr. Staunton, hke Mr. A\Tiitworth, 
 received a select number of his young country- 
 men to board, afforded them opportunites of 
 studying orange-culture, and gave tliem the 
 advantage of his advice and experience in the 
 matter of purchase of the land he held for 
 disposal. But Staunton House could boast of 
 no such attractions as the Whitworths' two foir
 
 160 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 guests ; and Mrs. Staunton was just an ordinary, 
 elderly, busy housewife. So ' the Staunton 
 fellows ' — as Mr. Whitworth's young men called 
 them, with a complacent sense of having the 
 best of it — gathered round the West Grove 
 House party assiduously ; and Violet and Eose- 
 mary, already engaged a dozen dances ahead, 
 could have had half a dozen partners each for 
 every waltz, and really found it difficult to 
 divide themselves fairly amongst the numerous 
 aspirants for the pleasure of their hands for 
 the dance. 
 
 Mrs. Whitworth also, a good-looking matron, 
 and a good dancer, had as many partners as 
 she could wish. Christie and Harrington 
 danced, of course, first with their own especial 
 charges, then handed them over to their friends 
 and countrymen, to whom also other ladies of 
 the neighbourhood were introduced. 
 
 A young person in a scarlet dress trimmed
 
 THE OLD WORLD IX THE XEW 161 
 
 with bio- bunches of blue artificial flowers, who 
 had apparently put on all the trinkets pertaining 
 to her mother and grandmother as well as her 
 own, bore off the resigned but not too willing 
 Staples. 
 
 Violet could not repress a smile as she saw 
 him, palpably out of breath, flushed and pant- 
 ing, looking over his partner's shoulder with 
 a pathetic expression of endurance as he was 
 whirled around in the young lady's vigorous 
 clasp. This trial over, he hastened to Violet's 
 
 side with an air of seeking shelter under her 
 friendly wing. 
 
 ' My word ! ' he said, ' she talked nineteen 
 to the dozen, and jumped half her own height 
 in the air at every step ! ' 
 
 ' Come, Miss Violet, there's your favourite 
 waltz,' said Max "Randolph, offering her his 
 arm as the band struck up ' Sweet Dream 
 Faces.' 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 Violet looked up in his face with her soft 
 smiling eyes. 
 
 ' I think I am promised two or three deep 
 for this already/ she said, but not very de- 
 cisively. 
 
 ' If you only think ^ he replied, ' never mind 
 thought ! Possession is nine points of the law,' 
 and he slipped his arm round her waist with a 
 coolly proprietary air. 
 
 ' I was just going to ask you for this waltz,' 
 said Staples in an aggrieved tone. 
 
 ' Too late ! ' she laughed as she was whirled 
 away. 
 
 On account of the privilege of old friendship, 
 Max Eandolph was favoured by more dances 
 with Miss Heath and Miss Preston than any 
 other man there — more, indeed, than the com- 
 patriots of these young ladies considered him, 
 an alien, fairly entitled to enjoy. He spent 
 a goodly part of the evening with Miss Preston,
 
 THE OLD WORLD IX THE NEW 163 
 
 but a goodlier proportion still with Miss Heatli ; 
 indeed the ladies of the neighbourhood derived 
 but little benefit from Mr. Eandolph's presence 
 at the entertainment. 
 
 Once it chanced that he and Conyers, on 
 their way to ask Eoseraary's hand for the waltz, 
 arrived at their goal simultaneously, and both 
 at once got as far as ' Miss Heath, will you- — ' 
 before, each perceiving he had not got the start 
 of the other, they mutually paused. Eosemary 
 looked up, with her rich dark brown eyes full 
 of half-mischievous and tantalising sweetness. 
 
 ' Now you both want me to dance ? ' she 
 said. ' Can I be cut in two like Solomon's 
 baby?' 
 
 ' It wasn't Solomon's baby,' objected 
 Conyers ; ' it w^as the baby he was giving a 
 judgment about.' 
 
 ' True ; but, anyhow, am I to be treated 
 like that baby ? ' 
 
 M 2
 
 164 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 'Eather than have you cut in half, I'll 
 waive my claim,' said Eandolph. 
 
 'So would I,' added Conyers, thinking it 
 right to echo this sentiment. 
 
 Eosemary looked at the first speaker, 
 ignoring Conyers' well-meant protestation. 
 
 'You haven't a claim to waive,' she observed, 
 with her slow imperial smile. 
 
 ' Not the claim of old friendship ? ' he 
 replied. 
 
 ' You might put in that claim with Violet, 
 but scarcely with me,' she said in a tone too 
 sweet to be repellent. 
 
 « Then it's " off with the old love," is it ? ' 
 he rejoined quickly, prompt to accept a dis- 
 missal. Although he smiled, the smile had a 
 mocking cast as he spoke of the ^ old love,' 
 and Eosemary fancied she caught a moment's 
 glint of displeasure in his eye. 
 
 ' No ; I'll divide — not myself, but the
 
 THE OLD WORLD IX THE NEW 1G5 
 
 dance,' she said. ' And the old — friend,' with 
 a coquettish glance and pause between the 
 adjective and the substantive, ' shall have the 
 first turn ! ' 
 
 ' What is to become of you now ? ' she 
 inquired when that turn was over, and, Conyers' 
 time having come for the latter half of the 
 dance, Max Eandolph had to give her up to 
 him. 
 
 ' I think I'll ask that comely dame in green 
 to have pity on me,' he said, glancing at a very 
 stout and rubicund lady in a bright grass-green 
 gown with a whole rainbow of feathers and 
 flowers m her hair. 
 
 'Yes, it's just the colouring to please an 
 artist's eye,' agreed Eosemary ; ' and, like Fair 
 Margaret in the ballad. 
 
 She has kilted her robes of green 
 A piece below her knee ! ' 
 
 It was true that the lady's dress was made
 
 166 LOVE m IDLE]S'ESS 
 
 of a serviceable vralking-length and exhibited 
 a pair of stout full-sized boots. 
 
 Notwithstanding his expressed admiration, 
 Mr. Eandolph refrained from seeking an intro- 
 duction to her, and waited for the chance of 
 a turn with Yiolet, who was then finishing a 
 waltz with Mr. Harrington. 
 
 A couple of dances later on, Yiolet and 
 Conyers came across Staples, with rather a 
 forlorn and sulky look, edging his way to 
 the door. 
 
 ' Not dancing, Mr. Staples ? ' said Yiolet. 
 
 ' No ; there's no one to dance with. You 
 and Miss Heath are always engaged ; and I've 
 paid my toll to the natives — they won't catch 
 me again ! ' 
 
 ' I did pity you as I saw you borne along 
 into the fray,' said Yiolet, smihng at the picture 
 in her mind's eye. 
 
 ' She jumped more like a kangaroo than
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 167 
 
 a woman,' said Staples, his grievance still 
 fresli and green in memory. ' And now just 
 look at Tregelva's girl : she gets round the 
 room in six leaps and a bound.' 
 
 'I hope the sweet consciousness of duty 
 sustains him, but I think he'd hke to pause in 
 his wild career,' observed Violet. ' Christie's 
 partner hops about like a parched pea, doesn't 
 she ? ' she added, turning her attention to the 
 next couple. 
 
 Staples chuckled, as if he derived some en- 
 joyment from the contemplation of his friends' 
 tiials. 
 
 ' Harrington's girl is very pretty, and quite 
 a nice-mannered little thing too,' Violet con- 
 tinued. 
 
 ' She's not bad, as girls go. I danced twice 
 with her,' said Staples tolerantly. 
 
 ' We are going out on the piazza, the moon- 
 light looks so lovely,' Violet said as she and
 
 168 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 her partner, fair handsome Conyers, hand- 
 some and taciturn as ever, passed out of the 
 dancing-room. 
 
 ' Fm going to smoke,' observed Staples ; but 
 after standing about in an aimless hesitating 
 v^ay for a moment or two, he followed in Vio- 
 let's track. 
 
 On the piazza, Max Eandolph and Eosemary 
 were seated on a bench just big enough for 
 two. The manner in which their heads inclined 
 towards each other as if by the law of natural 
 attraction, and the fluent murmur of under- 
 toned voices and low laughter, gave evidence 
 that they were perfectly and happily absorbed 
 in each other's society. 
 
 Violet and Eosemary never interfered with 
 each other's flirtations. When one of them 
 was enjoying a tete-a-tete^ the other never, under 
 any temptation, intruded upon it. So Violet 
 and Conyers sauntered up and down and made
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 169 
 
 remarks about the moonlight. Such moonhght 
 it was too ! the fiiU white glory of the 
 Southern night, the whole landscape — the usual 
 landscape of pine-trees, an orange-grove, and a 
 lake — bathed in a pearly flood of pure light 
 like dawn when dawn is just brightening into 
 day. 
 
 The girls' faces were fair in the silvery 
 beams, whose effulgence brought out every 
 delicate hne and dimple clear ; and so thought 
 more than one of the young men who were 
 lounging on the piazza. 
 
 Presently Eosemary glanced up at Tregelva, 
 who was passing slowly and indolently by, and 
 stopped him by some casual smiling remark. 
 Seeing the tete-a-tete turned into a trio, Violet, 
 the next time she passed, brought her partner to 
 a halt ; and then Staples came up and joined 
 the group. Max Eandolph rose and offered his 
 seat to Violet, and, as Eosemary nodded and
 
 170 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 added her sanction to tlie invitation, she ac- 
 cepted the offer. 
 
 ' I have danced the shoes off my feet ! ' 
 observed Eosemary, leaning back with a pretty 
 air of weariness, and looking up at the young 
 men as they stood round. 
 
 ' Cinderella,' remarked Tregelva, languidly 
 and not very appropriately, and was corrected 
 by Conyers, who remarked with the crystalline 
 terseness which distinguished him — 
 
 ' Cinderella only lost one shoe.' 
 
 ' I've not had such a night's dancing,' con- 
 tinued Eosemary, ' since I came into exile ! ' 
 
 ' Does it seem to you so much like exile 
 to-night ? ' asked Violet. ' As for me, I really 
 feel as if I were back in the civilised world ! ' 
 
 ' If one could shut one's eyes to the wild 
 dancing of the aborigines,' rejoined Eosemary. 
 ' I think Mr. Tregelva ' — glancing at him with 
 a smile — ' wished that he was back in the civi-
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 171 
 
 lised \vorld while he was being whirled around 
 by his cracker young lady ! ' 
 
 ' By George ! ' Tregelva agreed heartily, 
 ' I had to pull her in and take her on the curb, 
 else she'd have had me clean off my feet ! ' 
 
 Max Eandolph had gradually drifted round 
 to Violet's side. 
 
 ' Like old days, to-night, somehow, waltz- 
 ing to these old tunes,' he observed, bending 
 over her. ' Do you hate recalling old days ? ' 
 
 ' Xot when the old days are such pleasant 
 ones as man}^ we have had,' she replied. 
 
 ' We're none of us in it if they get talking 
 of old days,' remarked Staples, half-laughingly, 
 half-gr umblin gly. 
 
 ' Fm in it, am 1 not ? ' said Eandolph, still 
 looking at Violet. ' We have had good times 
 on both sides of the ocean, haven't we ? Miss 
 Eosemary, won't you join in ? ' 
 
 ' No ; speak for yourselves, as far as regards
 
 172 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 this side of the ocean. I left my good days 
 behind in my native island, and I don't expect 
 to find them again till I get back there.' 
 
 ' Now, Eosemary,' exclaimed Violet, ' why 
 can't you enjoy life just as much here as there ? 
 Do you like London fogs better than American 
 sunshine ? ' 
 
 ' A great deal better,' said Eosemary 
 stoutly. 
 
 ' Miss Preston's no true Briton,' observed 
 Tregelva. 
 
 ' She'll be getting naturalised and turning 
 into an American citizen some day,' said 
 Staples. 
 
 ' Well, if she did, her adopted country 
 would know how to appreciate her,' remarked 
 Eandolph. 
 
 ' You cannot be aware of it, but do you 
 know that sounds like a compliment ? ' said 
 Violet wonderingly.
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 173 
 
 * Perhaps I had better retract it ? ' 
 
 ' For the sake of consistency, perhaps you 
 had. You have not tlie habit of saying civil 
 thins^s to me.' 
 
 ' He keeps them all for me,' suggested 
 Eosemary. 
 
 ' You appreciate them ; Miss Violet would 
 not/ 
 
 ' You never give me a chance,' replied 
 Yiolet, smiling up in his face. 
 
 ' Other people would say civil things to 
 you if you gave them a chance,' put in Staples, 
 with a rather sulky and shamefaced air. 
 
 The notion of Staples saying civil things to 
 anybody struck Yiolet as so funny that she 
 laughed outright. 
 
 ' ]\iiss Preston doesn't think much of your 
 powers of making yourself agreeable, Staples,' 
 remarked Tregelva. 
 
 Staples did not accept the challenge ; he
 
 174 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 retired into his shell and there shut himself 
 up, aggrieved. 
 
 Presently they all rose to go in. Violet and 
 Eosemary linked arms and walked together, 
 the young men trooping round them. On the 
 top of the broad shallow steps they paused in 
 the full flood of moonlight that streamed in 
 between the columns of the piazza. 
 
 'Isn't the moonhght lovely?' exclaimed 
 Violet, looking out across the day-bright grove. 
 
 ' Yes, but there are some pretty things to 
 look at besides the moonlight,' replied Max 
 Eandolph, who stood nearest to her. 
 
 The pearly beams poured on the white 
 dress and the black — on Violet's pure pale face 
 and Eosemary's richer and m^ore striking beauty. 
 Max regarded the two with an artist's satisfac- 
 tion in contemplation of the beautiful ; and both 
 looked up at him — Eosemary with ' that regal 
 indolent air of hers ! ' the smile that always had
 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 175 
 
 a mockery or a cliallenge in it ; Violet with her 
 softer, simpler glance, innocent and confiding, 
 yet not destitute of just that touch of coquetry 
 which is second nature to a young and pretty 
 woman — or at least to ninety-nine pretty young 
 women out of a hundred. 
 
 * I have paid you another compliment. Miss 
 Violet,' he observed. 
 
 ' Was / to have a share in it ? ' she laughed. 
 
 ' A fair half,' said Eosemary. 
 
 ' I leave the division to you, Miss Eose- 
 mary,' he rejoined. 
 
 ' We two divide things equally, don't we, 
 Vi ? — when we divide them at all ! ' she replied 
 — with a touch of emphasis on the qualifying 
 final words. 
 
 When the two friends were talking over the 
 evening teie-a-tete in their room, Eosemary con- 
 fided to Vi— 
 
 ' Max wanted me to drive back with him in
 
 176 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 his trap ; but I thought I couldn't very well do 
 that. As I had gone with Aunt Em's party, 
 she might have thought it odd if I hadn't gone 
 back the same way.' 
 
 Was Max, then, falling a victim ? Yiolet 
 wondered. Had he entered upon that steep 
 inchned path down which she had seen many 
 a man slip, to land helpless in the quick- 
 sand of ignominious subjection to Eosemary's 
 charms, and dependence on Eosemary's caprice. 
 It did not seem likely, scarcely even possible. 
 Max Eandolph always appeared to Yiolet the 
 last man to fall in love, or to centre his thoughts 
 and interests anywhere outside of himself. He 
 had large capacities for kindness, even tender- 
 ness ; but of passion or emotion in him she 
 never had seen a sign.
 
 177 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 Violet had a simple and whole-souled faith 
 in Eosemary's all-conquering charms. Since 
 their early girlhood she, Eosemary's only confi- 
 dante, had known all Eosemary's life, and had 
 ample grounds for her estimate of the power of 
 Eosemary's influence over men. 
 
 I have said that both these young women 
 had left their first love-stories behind ; and here 
 I should like to go back and pick up those two 
 broken threads of the past, and briefly tell what 
 those two stories were. 
 
 Violet's was a simple story, and an ' old, old 
 story ' enough. Of good family, but with her 
 
 VOL. 1. N
 
 178 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 fair face for her only fortune, the girl, of course, 
 fell in love with a young man without a penny 
 of income save what his father chose to allow 
 him for pocket-money so long as it pleased 
 him. Both families naturally objected to the 
 engagement of this impecunious young couple. 
 Equally naturally, Eomeo and Juliet soared 
 above such coarse, commonplace, and mundane 
 considerations ; but eventually, after domestic 
 scenes, and stolen meetings, and the usual futile 
 fighting of youth and love against fate as re- 
 presented by family and financial difficulties, 
 the lovers had to part ; and his family pru- 
 dently shipped him off to Australia out of 
 temptation's way. They parted, of course, in a 
 dream of ' hopeless hope,' of lasting love that 
 should be ' faithful unto death.' 
 
 Arthur Leslie was the first to wake to real 
 life. His family had procured him a post in 
 the establishment of a wealthy merchant in
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 179 
 
 Melbourne, and he evidenced his awakening by 
 marrying his employer's daughter, who brought 
 her bridegroom the double dower of beauty 
 and money. And everybody said what a good 
 thing it was for all parties concerned — good for 
 him and good for Yi Preston too, for she never 
 would have looked at anyone else so long as 
 young Leslie was free, and now, so pretty as 
 she was, she might make a good match. Violet 
 never blamed him ; she constantly averred that 
 Arthur's course of action was only natural, he 
 being hopeless of Aer, so many thousand miles 
 away, and thrown into frequent association 
 with a lovely girl who was in everything a 
 suitable mate. And when, not a year after- 
 wards, came the news of Arthur's death, she 
 was glad to her inmost heart that she never 
 had thought hardly of her poor lost love ! 
 
 And as time passed on, Violet, being a mere 
 girl in years, and of a healthy elastic tempera- 
 
 N 2
 
 180 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ment, began to realise that after all there was 
 a good deal left in life, even though her love- 
 dream was shattered — then in time to accept 
 and familiarise herself with the idea that she 
 should probably marry some day — marry some 
 wealthy and respectable member of society, 
 with whom she would not be the least in love, 
 but to whom she would make a dutiful and 
 exemplary wife, and whom she would cheer- 
 fully assist in the judicious expenditure of his 
 money — for money he must have of course ; 
 that was a sine qua non. Love was buried 
 in her Arthur's grave ; old-maidism was an 
 unpleasing prospect, which she declined to 
 contemplate ; there was left, then, an eligible 
 marriage founded on decorous regard and 
 general suitabihty, and this was Violet's fancy 
 sketch of her eventual destiny. Meanwhile, 
 being fair and young, and much admired, and 
 liking admiration, she amused herself by flirt-
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 181 
 
 ing in an innocent superficial way that did no 
 much harm, and on the whole she enjoyed her 
 life. 
 
 Eosemary's experience of love had been a 
 bitterer one than her friend's. 
 
 Mr. Heath had two daughters by his first 
 marriage, Letice and Eosemary, there being 
 some half-dozen years' difierence in their ages. 
 Their mother died while Eosemary was yet 
 a child, and two years or so afterwards he 
 married again. His elder daughter, Letice, a 
 delicate girl of gentle and reserved disposition, 
 always from the first got on better with their 
 stepmother than did Eosemary, a high-spirited 
 and, to say the truth, somewhat wilful and 
 troublesome child, who nevertheless was Mrs. 
 Whitworth's favourite niece and god- daughter. 
 Thus it naturally happened that Eosemary, 
 especially in her early girlhood, before the 
 angles of her character and temper got rubbed
 
 182 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 down and polished, spent a good deal of her 
 time away from home with this aunt. The 
 Whitworths had at that time a pretty little 
 place on the Thames, and there, one summer, 
 on boating bent, came the handsomest and 
 most fascinating man Eosemary had ever seen 
 — one George Eaymond. 
 
 Her girlish beauty charmed him, and he 
 made his admiration plain. He knew her 
 parents ; indeed it was through them that he 
 had made the acquaintance of the Whitworths. 
 When in London, he was a frequent visitor at 
 the Heaths' ; he intimated to Eosemary that it 
 was his constant thought of her that drew him 
 to visit at her home even while she was away; 
 the casket was dear for the sake of the jewel it 
 was wont to hold. In due season he told his 
 love to Eosemary in eloquent terms, and won 
 her promise of love and faith in return. He 
 explained to her that family matters prevented
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 18o 
 
 his contemplating marriage at present, but in 
 time, in only a little time, lie might follow the 
 dictates of his heart and win and wear his 
 jewel, and so on. 
 
 Thus it was, with a happy secret at her 
 heart, full of hopes and dreams, that Eosemary 
 returned to her home. She found Letice — 
 never very strong — looking paler, and seeming 
 more abstracted than lier wont. These two 
 sisters had not grown up with the habit of full 
 and free confidence, partly owing to a vein of 
 reserve in both their natures, but chiefly because 
 of the difference in their acje, Letice having 
 grown to woman's estate, while Eosemary was 
 still a child. But if there was not an over-confi- 
 dential relationship between the sisters, there was 
 strong affection ; and Eosemary, her perception 
 quickened by her own love, her own sweet 
 secret, soon began to suspect that Letice had 
 her secret too — to dream of confiding in
 
 184 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Letice, and receiving this dear elder sister's 
 confidence in return. 
 
 One day, in a mood of expansion, she went 
 so far as to confess to Letice that there was ' some- 
 body ' she thought a great deal of, to murmur 
 a question whether there was not a somebody 
 in Letice's thoughts too. And Letice faltered, 
 ' Yes — I can't tell you now, Eosemary dear, 
 but I will tell you all about it some day — I hope 
 very soon.' And the very day after this first 
 approach to confidence a friend of the family 
 had come to call, who was an old friend of 
 George Eaymond's too, and had told them, as 
 an open secret, of George Eaymond's engage- 
 ment and impending marriage ; how he had 
 long been engaged to his cousin Grace Eay- 
 mond, the match, indeed, having been arranged 
 while the betrothed couple were but children, 
 and now the wedding-day was fixed. 
 
 Eosemary, turning herself from the crimson
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 185 
 
 of maiden shame to the white wrath of faith 
 betrayed, cast a look at her sister. Letice, 
 more deadly white than she, was in no case to 
 notice her little sister's emotion. She made an 
 effort to rise from her chair, and framed some 
 faltering excuse to get away to her own room. 
 Eosemary, reckless of appearances, sprang up 
 and followed. She never could bear to think 
 of that hour — to look back and recall the 
 interview when the two sisters learnt they had 
 been doubly deceived, that both their hearts 
 had been made the playthings of an hour, 
 treated like wildflowers, to be plucked and cast 
 aside, the happiness of both sacrificed to the 
 gratification of one man's vanity. Eosemary 
 at first would not believe that her lover, her 
 George, had been Letice's lover too, bound by 
 vows of eternal constancy to Letice as to her- 
 self, and ail the while betrothed to his cousin. 
 She caught madly at the hope that he was
 
 186 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 somehow wronged — that Letice had misunder- 
 stood him — mistaken brotherly interest for 
 love. Yet Letice was truthful as dayhght, 
 and the very soul of maiden modesty and 
 delicacy. No ! Eosemary, struggle as she 
 would between her faith in her sister and her 
 lover, could not doubt long where the truth 
 lay. 
 
 ' Her young passionate heart was strong, 
 and rose armed in fiery wrath and indignation 
 against the man who had wronged them both. 
 But Letice, of a softer mould, and physically 
 weaker too, sank beneath the blow. The shock 
 of the sudden discovery of her lover's double 
 perfidy simply killed her. Heart-disease the 
 doctors called it ; but that tender heart, weak 
 though it was, might have beat on for years 
 had it not been for the fatal hour that wrecked 
 her love and sank her life with it. 
 
 After that scene of cruel disclosure, Eose-
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 187 
 
 mary had to lift her fainting sister in her strong 
 young arms and cany her to the bed she never 
 left again. And as she sat by her sister, dying 
 and dead, as she realised what this one man's 
 holiday pastime had done to them both, in 
 Eosemary's heart the love was turned to fiery 
 hate, the milk of tenderness and trust and 
 faith in human nature curdled to gall. Never 
 again did the fresh sanguine spring of youth 
 and hope and love rise in her ; it was 
 poisoned at its source. 
 
 Her bitter brooding resentment of her 
 sister's wrong and her own soon took the shape 
 of desire to avenge it on the sex of the wronger. 
 Her wounded pride was only to be soothed by 
 fresh conquest. Love was slain by one cruel 
 stab ; the only balm was the proof of power. 
 Eosemary, when she put aside the mourning 
 she wore for Letice, went out into the world 
 with one purpose — to make the most of her
 
 188 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 uDCommon beauty to subjugate mankind ; and 
 as years passed on, and her girlish loveliness 
 bloomed into splendid womanhood, her vanity 
 waxed as the anguish of recollection waned, 
 and full-fed vanity and bitter memories all 
 alike urged her on the way she had chosen. 
 
 She laid herself out to win admiration, love 
 — to lure men's hearts into her hand, that she 
 might treat them as George Eaymond had 
 treated hers and Letice's. More than once she 
 had tempted men away from their plighted 
 troth and honour, won them, not to keep, but 
 to gratify her thirst of power in the winning, 
 to hold for a day and then fling them back 
 disdainfully to their old loves. Over and over 
 again she had conquered by the magic of her 
 dark eyes, her deep sweet thrilling voice ; and 
 the pleasure of conquest had never yet palled 
 on her. Like Violet, her programme included 
 ,the conventional 'settlement in life.' She
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 189 
 
 raeant to marry some day when she found a 
 really brilliant opportunity. Meanwhile it was 
 a case of 'la reine s'amuse.' 
 
 More than once had it happened that the 
 victims of Eosemary's ruthless ' amusement ' 
 had confided their griefs and grievances to her 
 friend Yi Preston. She had seen men's faces 
 pale and haggard, and boys' eyes dim for 
 Eosemary's sake, and thus, 
 
 Because things seen are miglitier than things heard, 
 
 she who had witnessed the effects of Eosemary's 
 conquests had a profound belief in Eosemary's 
 power, and an equal faith in Eosemary's 
 promise that she would 'let alone' any 
 man whom Violet asked her for her sake to 
 spare. It must be confessed that Eosemary 
 was just a httle vain ; yet not any more self- 
 confident than circumstances warranted her in 
 being.
 
 190 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Never yet had Eosemary interfered with 
 any of Violet's admirers, and never yet had 
 any man placed these two in the position of 
 rivals. 
 
 Eosemary had twice, but only twice, failed 
 in vanquishing where she had set her face 
 for the victory ; and thus there was reason 
 for the confidence, which Violet implicitly 
 shared with her, that she could win any one or 
 more of the West Grove House party whom 
 she cared to win. But Eosemary did not seem 
 inclined just at present to concentrate herself 
 with a view to the undoing of any particular 
 and especial victim. Probably, as she herself 
 had observed, regarding the aim and object of 
 woman's life as the conquest of man, it was a 
 mistake to ' difiuse one's self ' too much ; but 
 nevertheless she continued to diffuse herself in 
 a general distribution of her smiles, or rather, 
 she shifted and turned their light from one to
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 191 
 
 another as her changeful moods and fancies 
 varied. 
 
 ' We may just as well enjoy the season, my 
 Violet,' she said. ' There's nobody here eligible 
 enough to think of marrying^ as Aunt Em has 
 kindly made us aware. But " unto the day, 
 the day ! " and we may as well amuse our- 
 selves.' 
 
 So the days slipped sunnily by, and the two 
 friends amused themselves, and not mach harm 
 was done ; and day after day ^lax Eandolph 
 rowed across the lake in Martin's boat, or drove 
 round the lake in Martin's buggy. Sometimes 
 he brought Mr. Martin with him, but generally 
 he came alone, as Martin had his own business 
 to attend to by day, his own friends to look up 
 in the evening, and was somewhat shy of ladies' 
 society ; which certainly could not be said of 
 his friend and ' boarder ' Mr. Eandolph, who 
 almost every fine day set up his easel and
 
 192 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 sketch-block in various parts of the Whitworths' 
 grounds, made sketches of West Grove House 
 from different points of view ; and drew what 
 artistic inspiration he could from the orange- 
 groves. 
 
 It must be confessed, even by those who 
 most highly appreciate the beauty of the 
 orange-tree — with its snowy blossoms, and red- 
 gold fruit, and rich smooth foliage of deep and 
 glossy green — that the carefully cultivated model 
 groves of these beautiful trees, pruned and 
 trimmed and planted out in level and intermin- 
 able straight rows at regular distanqes in plains 
 of bare dead- white sand, have a monotonous 
 effect. The unbroken symmetry of these rect- 
 angular ranks has little indeed of the picturesque 
 to recommend it to the artist's eye. However, 
 there are satisfactory Florida sketches to be 
 made of the fair lakes and the graceful pine- 
 trees, and there is always the wild picturesque-
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 193 
 
 ness of the ' hammock-Ian d ' to fall back upon, 
 always the beautiful effects of the Southern, 
 sunsets and twilights and moonrises to study : 
 so Max Eandolph, even professionally, did not 
 fare amiss ; and socially, with the free run of 
 the West Grove House, he had certainly as 
 * good a time,' as he and his compatriots put it, 
 as he could have desired. Figures were not in 
 his line, except as touches of colour and of 
 interest introduced into a landscape ; but he 
 won Mrs. Whitworth's heart by painting and 
 presenting to her a little water-colour picture 
 of her Happy Family party assembled on the 
 piazza ; he also portrayed Eosemary and Violet 
 in the foreground of a characteristic Floridian 
 scene of palm and pine and lake. He kept this 
 little study for himself, although both of them 
 would have been pleased to accept it had he 
 offered it. 
 
 So far as his relations with these two girls 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 went, matters remained very mucli in the same 
 position as on their first arrival at West Grove 
 House. 
 
 If anything, he and Violet were even more 
 friendly than ever, more sympathetic, under the 
 surface of the mimic warfare they often playfully 
 carried on, more and more contented in each 
 other's society when they chanced to be thrown 
 together without other companions — though 
 indeed this very seldom happened now : and, if 
 anything, he and Eosemary flirted rather more 
 than less than of old ; they sometimes played at 
 being lovers, sometimes played being enemies, 
 but never succeeded even in playing at being 
 fraternal friends. 
 
 Eosemary made no much difference be- 
 tween Max Eandolph and the rest of the men 
 there ; he was simply ' one of them ' to her — one 
 whom she had known a little longer, that was 
 all. She appeared to realise no essentially
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 195 
 
 different quality and material in him ; and this 
 seemed strange to Violet, to whom it was as 
 clear as dayhght that there was no one like 
 Max. There might be many handsomer than 
 he was, cleverer than he, better than he ; but 
 no one quite like him. 
 
 2
 
 196 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY. 
 
 EosEMARY proved wonderfully successful in 
 drawing out that taciturn Antinous, Conyers, 
 who resembled the proverbial ' good boy ' in that 
 he was generally seen and not heard. She also 
 got on very well with Tregelva. Both these two 
 graciously allowed themselves to be amused by 
 Miss Heath's conversation, while Staples proved 
 more amenable to the gentle influence of Violet, 
 who took him in hand with a view to the im- 
 provement of his manners and bearing, which 
 was certainly desirable. He did not resent her 
 rallying him on his slouching gait, his poked 
 head, and deeply pocketed hands.
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 197 
 
 ' Could you not get your shoulders a little 
 higher, and your chin a little lower ? ' she asked 
 him playfully ; and he showed no sign of being 
 aggrieved or offended by the undisguised 
 twinkle of gentle humour in her soft Irish eyes. 
 
 'I was afraid you would catch cold in 
 church to-day, IsLr. Staples,' she observed one 
 day sweetly and seriously. 
 
 ' Why ? ' he inquired , flattered by her ap- 
 parent interest. 
 
 ' You took your hands out of your pockets 
 about the middle of the service, and I thought 
 they would get chilblains from the unaccus- 
 tomed exposure. Still, perhaps it was better 
 late than never. Do you go to your parish 
 church at home with your hands kept warm 
 that way ? ' 
 
 ' Were they in my pockets to-day ? ' he 
 asked simply. ' I forgot. One forgets every- 
 thing here.'
 
 198 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' Yes, even one's manners ! ' she smiled. 
 
 ' You see/ lie continued placidly, ' there 
 isn't anything to think of.' 
 
 ' Yes, there is : there's oranges,' she cor- 
 rected him. 
 
 ' I think there's more to be done with 
 lemons^' he said seriously. ' These fellows are 
 all like sheep — going one after another; they've 
 all got oranges on the brain. Now, if I could 
 see a place that suited me ' 
 
 ' Which you will readily find, of course, by 
 lying in a rocking-chair smoking all day, and 
 never stirring outside the grounds ! ' 
 
 ' I was out on Lake Eosahe yesterday.' 
 
 ' Yes, asleep in the bow of the boat.' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, Miss Preston,' he re- 
 joined, with unusual politeness and a somewhat 
 sulky air, ' I was not asleep : I caught that 
 perch you had for breakfast.' 
 
 'In a waking moment. A good perch it
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 199 
 
 was too. Well, but I interrupted you when 
 you were just going to tell me what you would 
 do if you saw a place that suited you ? ' 
 
 ' I'd go in for lemons — I think lemons would 
 pay well ; and I'd put in a good piece of ground 
 for tomatoes. But I don't see, Miss Preston, 
 how you can care a straw about ^^lemons and 
 tomatoes and crops ; you don't belong here, in 
 this life.' 
 
 ' I am always interested in the life I find 
 myself living, even if it's only for a season.' 
 
 ' I'm not ! ' he replied. ' I hate it all — at 
 least I did when first I came. I don't find it 
 quite so bad now.' 
 
 Mr. Staples' crass and unabashed ignorance 
 of all things that did not come within the 
 narrow circle of his own individual interests 
 amused even more than it surprised Violet. 
 His attitude frequently — but not always, as she 
 now began to find out — was one of bored in-
 
 200 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 difference and frank ignorance as to all creation 
 outside his own personal concerns. And, so. 
 far as the indifference at least, he was rivalled 
 by Tregelva and Conyers, who spent their time 
 chiefly in smoking in the sunshine and the 
 moonlight, ' dodging ' the sun from the south 
 piazza to the west piazza, and anon to the 
 east, when the glare of the sinking sun bathed 
 the w^est side in its light. Sometimes they 
 mustered their energies to take a row on one 
 of the lakes, and sometimes even to go a-fishing, 
 at that loveliest hour of the day when the sun 
 has set in glory but dayhght still fills the sky, 
 when the fish ' bite ' best and give least trouble 
 to the fisher. Occasionally they rode or drove 
 to the nearest town, although there seemed to 
 be nothing much to do when they got there 
 except to visit the ' bar,' where very bad 
 whiskey might be procured at a very high 
 price, and ride or drive back again.
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 201 
 
 Staples, with all his peculiarities and brus- 
 querie, was Violet's favourite of these three ; 
 although she admitted Tregelva to a degree of 
 favour he had not enjoyed before one day when 
 she found him and Staples ministering to the 
 hurts of a puppy, whose paw had been bitten 
 by one of the bigger dogs. They were on their 
 knees beside a tub, Staples carefully holding 
 the pup, while Tregelva bathed the wounded 
 paw. One of Tregelva's favourite costumes, 
 which he apparently deemed especially suitable 
 to Florida life, was a sporting-looking coat and 
 snowy white nether-garments. He was clad in 
 these to-day ; and Violet observed, with a 
 smile, that he was shielding their spotless snow 
 from contact with the ground by kneehng on a 
 newspaper the while he tenderly bathed the 
 puppy's paw. 
 
 From that day Violet made up her mind 
 that Tregelva was a good fellow, because he
 
 202 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 was kind to and fond of animals. Nor did she 
 dislike tlie handsome, silent, statuesque Conyers, 
 about whom there was a kind of indolent and 
 unconscious selfishness which rather amused 
 than annoyed her. Indeed, she managed to 
 derive a good deal of entertainment from the 
 contemplation of the blase and nonchalant 
 ways of this trio, to whom the dolce far 
 niente appeared to be the supreme good in 
 life. 
 
 Max Eandolph also got on very well with 
 them ; and Mr. Staples condescended one day 
 to express a favourable, albeit qualified, opinion 
 of him. 
 
 ' Eandolph's a decent sort of fellow — rather 
 a good sort for an American. I hate Yankees 
 generally/ 
 
 ' So do I,' agreed Tregelva. 
 
 ' Do you know many ? ' asked Violet. 
 
 'No,' replied Staples, 'I don't know any
 
 THE HAPPY FA3ULY 203 
 
 except this Eandolph, and that pig of a Collins 
 — Ezra D. Collins — over at Wekiva.' 
 
 ' I don't know any either,' said Tregelva, 
 ' and don't want to. Don't think I ever spoke 
 to any.' 
 
 ' How did you manage to get here then ? ' 
 inquired Violet. ' Crossing the ocean and 
 coming down from New York, did you travel 
 locked up in a trunk, or in an iron mask ? ' 
 
 ' There were some English fellows on board,' 
 Tregelva replied, ' and I talked to them. Yes, 
 by the way,' he added, a shade of interested 
 reminiscence quickening his wonted lazy drawl, 
 ' I did make acquaintance with a Y'ankee once ; 
 he looked rather like a gentleman, and I got 
 talking to him — I smoked a cigar with him. I 
 thought he seemed a — an intelligent sort of 
 fellow. He wasn't bad form on the whole — and, 
 by Jove ! ' — with an air of indolent disgust — 
 ' he turned out to be an infernal baofman ! '
 
 204: LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' I don't like any Yankee I ever saw, except 
 Eandolph/ said Staples, sticking to his point. 
 
 ' He would not recognise himself under that 
 denomination,' observed Violet. 'Mr. Ean- 
 dolph is of a Southern family — born and bred 
 in the South.' 
 
 ' Does that make any difference ? ' asked 
 Staples. 
 
 ' Just this,' she replied, with some warmth of 
 protest, ' that Southerners are no more Yankees 
 than we are. Didnt you know that^ Mr. Staples? ' 
 
 ' No. How should I understand about 
 these fellows and their differences ? I know,' 
 he added, anxious to display his one item of 
 knowledge, 'that the Southerners wanted to 
 keep their niggers slaves.' 
 
 'You do know thatf Well, then, now know 
 also that neither Southerners nor Western men 
 are Yankees. The term Yankee only applies 
 to the inhabitants of the six New England
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 205 
 
 States — Vermont, Massachusetts, Ehode Island, 
 Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.' 
 
 * I wish you'd teach me a Httle more. Miss 
 Preston,' said Staples. ' I'd like being taught 
 by you.' 
 
 ' Go home, Staples ! ' remonstrated Tregelva. 
 * You're getting too pohte. Your own dog 
 wouldn't know you ! ' 
 
 'I think Mr. Staples' compliments are 
 ironical,' remarked Violet. 
 
 ' No, they are not — I don't take the trouble 
 to be ironical,' he rejoined. 
 
 ' You do not take much trouble about any- 
 thing in life, certainly, any of you three ! ' she 
 observed. 
 
 Young Christie was a great contrast to this 
 faineant trio — Christie, with his boyish enjoy- 
 ment of life, amused and interested in every- 
 thing, riding to and from his prized ' ten- 
 acre lot ' of ' wild land,' returning tired at
 
 206 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 evening from a hard day's work at the clearing 
 thereof, sunburnt, flushed, and weary, but ever 
 full of schemes and of dreams of the gold to be 
 picked up from this ' Tom Tiddler's Ground.' 
 
 The Eraser boys had also delighted Mr. 
 Whitworth's heart by buying ; they had got a 
 large tract of wild pine-land at a bargain, with 
 the advantage of a lake-frontage too. The 
 lake languished under the title of ' Eed Bug ' at 
 present, but the Erasers, who had spent several 
 happy vacations in the English lake country, 
 intended to call it 'Windermere.' They had 
 already cleared a small plot in the middle of 
 their wood, and run up a rough wooden cot- 
 tage, and were every day hard at work in the 
 carpenter's shed in the West Grove courtyard 
 making their own furniture. These, as Mr. 
 Whitworth was wont to say, approvingly and 
 truthfully — these were the boys to get on in 
 Elorida ! — these cheery, healthy, energetic
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 207 
 
 young fellows, stout of heart and hand, who 
 would plant and prune the tree, dig the ground, 
 and chop the wood, and willingly wield 
 
 A spade, a rake, a hoe, 
 A pick-axe, or a bill ! 
 
 — whichever the occasion might demand. 
 
 Harrington was always amiably willing to 
 go about looking at land ; he rode and drove 
 miles to the north and south and east and 
 west to inspect groves that were for sale ; but, 
 to Mr. Whitworth's despair, nothing that he 
 saw — and every tempting kind of bargain was 
 shown to him — pleased him sufficiently for him 
 to write home a decisively favourable account 
 of it to his guardians, with an application for 
 the purchase-money. He drove about with 
 Mr. Whitworth in the buggy ; he hired a horse 
 and made equestrian excursions, and was in so 
 far a satisfactory inmate of the house that he 
 gave no trouble, paid his board punctually, and
 
 208 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 occasionally vouchsafed to go a-fishing and 
 bring in some piscatory delicacy for the table. 
 
 As to Chadwick and Spencer, they devoted 
 their whole hearts to sport. Little did they 
 care what tracts of high rolhng pine-land could 
 be had for ten dollars an acre, what desirable 
 town lots were offered at a tempting bargain 
 (generally in an unbuilt town), what beauti- 
 fully laid- out groves of seedhngs lay smiling, 
 promising, at the purchaser's hand, while they 
 could sally forth on the warpath, armed w^ith 
 gun and rod, net and knife — while earth and air 
 and water teemed with living things for them 
 to kill. Their idea of enjoying an exquisite 
 morning of blue heavens and balmy breezes — a 
 sunset hour of golden skies and soft and stirless 
 air — was to go forth and slay something ! 
 
 The table at West Grove House owed a 
 great deal to their sporting proclivities. To 
 these enthusiasts were due the breakfast dishes
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 209 
 
 of black bass (locally known as trout), and of 
 delicate perch, the turtle-soup which graced 
 the board at dinner, the suppers of broiled 
 quail or wild- pigeon — which the inhabitants 
 insisted on calling ' doves,' to Violet's extreme 
 disapprobation. 
 
 ' Fancy eating dove I ' she said. ' I believe 
 they would eat love-birds ! And to my mind 
 it spoils the flavour of soup to be informed that 
 the turtle was walking about on the shore of 
 Lake Eosalie yesterday afternoon, and " Chad- 
 wick put a bullet through its head at sixty 
 yards." ' 
 
 'Well, it was a splendid shot,' observed 
 Eosemary. 
 
 The views of these young sportsmen were 
 not so narrow as to be confined to providing 
 the table with fresh viands. They were just as 
 pleased at landing a huge and hideous gar- 
 pike — the devouring tiger of the waters, whose 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 repulsive head, with its terrible teeth, they cut 
 off and preserved as an ornament to the 
 smoking-room — as when they brought home 
 in triumph a fifteen-pound trout, which was 
 exhibited on the lawn in solemn jubilee to an 
 admiring conclave before it was conveyed in 
 procession to the kitchen. They shot black 
 squirrels and brown, drab squirrels and grey, 
 some of which were experimentally made into 
 pies, and turned out very palatable. Their 
 •especial delight, however, was to get a shot at 
 an alligator, though this unsatisfactory and dis- 
 obliging saurian generally sank when shot at, 
 disappeared in the depths, and left the marks- 
 men to a lively argument on the question 
 whether he was hit or not. But, damaged or 
 undamaged, the wise reptile seldom rose again. 
 They killed birds enough to fill an aviary 
 every week, and devoted what little leisure- 
 time they had to skinning, stuffing, and mount-
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 211 
 
 ing their spoils. They presented the birds of 
 brightest plumage to the ladies for their hats ; 
 Eosemary had a blue jay in one hat, a cardinal 
 bird in another ; Mrs. Whitworth mounted a 
 yellow woodpecker's wing; and even Violet, 
 although disapproving of this wholesale 
 slaughter of the innocents, could not say nay to 
 a rice-bird, Avith its plumage like softest black 
 velvet, and its fiery red under- wings, which 
 Chadwick proudly presented to her. Violet 
 by this time had thoroughly entered into South 
 Florida life ; she conversed glibly of seedlings 
 and budded trees, of the risks of lemons and 
 guavas, so easily damaged or killed by the 
 occasional frosts that swoop down from the 
 north even upon these sunny lands of the great 
 'orange belt' of South Florida. She was 
 learned on the subject of lake protection, and 
 quite won ]\Ii\ Wliitworth's heart when he 
 heard her dilating to Harrington on the advant- 
 
 r 2
 
 212 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 ages of the south side of a lake, whereof the 
 expanse of water tempers the north wind to 
 the seedhng orange. She spoke respectfully 
 and appreciatively of ' high hammock ' and 
 * rolling pine-lands,' and with a properly dis- 
 paraging tone of ' scrub ' and ' flat ' woods.' 
 
 She had discovered how far the average 
 Briton overestimates the necessity of broiled 
 chops, roast mutton, and fresh milk, of pave- 
 ments and made roads, inasmuch as they found 
 life not not only livable but enjoyable without 
 any of these luxuries of an effete civilisation. 
 Beef, poultry, fish, and venison proved sufficient 
 to keep the table well and variously supplied, 
 and Swiss milk did very well in their colSee, 
 while the railway line a little distance off was 
 good walking, and served for a constitutional 
 promenade quite as well as a macadamised 
 road, and much better than the deep, loose, 
 heavy sand of Florida paths. She grew quite
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 213 
 
 used to lying back reading a novel in a leak- 
 ing boat while Staples or Christie baled the 
 water out every now and then with a tin pail. 
 She resigned herself trustfully to driving 
 through pathless woods in a light buggy that 
 leapt and plunged over bush and over briar, flew 
 over fallen trees, and shaved standing stumps 
 as it dashed and crashed through the under- 
 wood ; she learnt to regard these experiences as 
 rather amusincf than alarmincf, even when the 
 traces slipped off the bar and the harness came 
 to pieces, as it very often did. There was not 
 much of it to come to pieces, that was one 
 comfort, the process of attaching a Florida 
 steed to his vehicle being a simple one ; and if 
 the buggy did break down occasionally, there 
 had never been any damage done to any of the 
 party yet by these little mishaps. 
 
 Violet still enjoyed puUing oranges fresh 
 from the bough, and going to a tree only a few
 
 214 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 yards from the piazza to pick a couple of 
 lemons when she and Eosemary had a mind for 
 a little social lemonade. Nor did the delights 
 of fresh-plucked guavas pall upon her, and she 
 mourned sincerely when the cruel frost, coming 
 unexpectedly one night, nipped in the bud the 
 fair unfolding promise of Mr. Whitworth's 
 cherished seedling bananas. 
 
 Eosemary looked on at her friend's interest 
 and enjoyment in this ' level of every day's most 
 quiet' life with a sort of half-envious, half- 
 cynical tenderness. She did not care one jot 
 for the groves and their prospects, the ' lots ' 
 and their prices. 
 
 ' I'm sick to death of it all by this time,' 
 she said ; ' I got fairly wearied out with it at 
 Pine Eidge. You are a happy girl, Vi, not to 
 get bored ; but if you'd been as long in exile at 
 that wretched Pine Eidge as I have you'd hate 
 the very name of Florida as I dOr Oh for
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY 215 
 
 London ! Oh for New York ! Oh for bricks 
 and mortar ! ' she sighed. 
 
 But Eosemary, without taking the trouble 
 to feign an interest in the pursuits of the place, 
 made herself universally agreeable, and was of 
 course an object of much admiration in the 
 little colony ; while, for her part, although she 
 did not like the primitive simplicity of the life, 
 she could not be wholly discontented, with 
 such a regiment of men, and young men, and 
 most of them fairly well-looking men, around 
 her. 
 
 ' Let us find out all their christian-names, 
 Vi,' she suggested one day. ' It's hke living 
 in a boys' school, hearing nothing but sur- 
 names.' 
 
 ' You couldn't call them by their christian- 
 names if you knew them,' remonstrated Violet. 
 
 Eosemary laughed. 
 
 ' I should like to address Tregelva by some
 
 216 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 tender diminutive. He looks like a Bertie. I 
 should like to call him Bertie.' 
 
 ' Conyers ought to be a HughJ observed 
 Violet ; ' there always seems to be a sort of 
 stolid solidity about Hugh.' 
 
 ' And what ought Staples to be ? ' 
 
 ' Staples ? Oh, he can't be anything more 
 romantic than a Joe ! ' laughed Violet. 
 
 How^ever, when Eosemary put in practice 
 her idea of asking the christian-names of the 
 household brigade, it turned out that Mr. 
 Staples had a legitimate baptismal right to the 
 well-sounding prenomen of Archibald St. Julian, 
 while the classic-featured Antinous was simple 
 James, and Tregelva answered to the unaristo- 
 cratic appellation of Thomas. Young Chad wick 
 was Cecil Vivian, Harrington was Theodore, 
 and Christie was Eichard, but to his family 
 always and only known as ' Dick,' which, both 
 the girls agreed, suited him to a nicety.
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 IN ARCADIA. 
 
 It was a rare sunset one evening, when the 
 usual piazza party — to wit, Messrs. Tregelva, 
 Conyers, and Staples, Violet and Eosemary — 
 were lounging in their accustomed places. 
 Often and often they had enjoyed the contem- 
 plation of clear and cloudless sunsets — seas of 
 scarlet Hght washing over the whole west ; but 
 seldom had they seen such stormy glory as lit 
 up the sky this evening. Piles and piles of 
 gorgeous golden clouds loomed up into the 
 azure like mountains of hj^ht, fillinjy the whole 
 hemisphere with wild and tempestuous splen- 
 dour of colour — lurid yellow blaze dashed with
 
 218 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 purple shadow, shining slopes and peaks strug- 
 gling to climb up above lowering wreaths of 
 night-black cloud, while through the pine-trees 
 the mirror-clear lake seemed turned to molten 
 gold. 
 
 Eosemary began singing softly an im- 
 promptu parody on ' The Three Fishers.' 
 
 * Three loafers sat gazing out into the west ! ' 
 
 ' Why three, Miss Heath ? ' asked Staples ; 
 ' why don't you say five ? Aren't you and Miss 
 Preston loafing too ? ' 
 
 ' Ladies don't loaf, Staples,' said Tregelva 
 reprovingly. ' They repose ! ' 
 
 ^ Out into the west as the sun went down/ 
 
 Eosemary continued in her sweet contralto tones. 
 
 ' Each thought on the woman who loved him the best.' 
 
 ' I can't get any further,' she observed, indo- 
 lently dropping her song. 
 
 'No,' said Tregelva. 'Let's stop at the
 
 IS AKCADIA 219 
 
 women who love us the best ! It's a very good 
 place to stop at.' 
 
 ' Where are they ? ' demanded Eosemary. 
 
 ' Who are they ? ' asked Conyers. 
 
 ' The girls we've left behind us ! ' Tregelva 
 quoted in reply. 
 
 ' Poor girls ! ' said Violet compassionately 
 ' How sad they must be feeling ! ' 
 
 ' Perhaps they have found someone else, 
 or several somebody elses, to dry their tears,' 
 suggested Eosemary. 
 
 ' I bet they have,' growled Staples. 
 
 ' Go ye and do likewise,' Eosemary observed 
 demurely. 
 
 ' Good advice ! ' said Tregelva. ' Quand on 
 n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a ! ' 
 
 Tregelva's French accent was not bad for a 
 true-blue Briton. 
 
 ' What does that mean ? ' inquired Staples, 
 with his usual open and unabashed ignorance.
 
 220 LOVE m IDLENESS 
 
 'Mr. Archibald St. Julian Staples,' said 
 Eosemary, glanciDg up at him in half- impatient, 
 half-disdainful disapprobation, ' did jour parents 
 send you to school ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; there's been money enough spent on 
 my education,' he replied. 
 
 'But not much to show for it,' retorted 
 Eosemary, who, like Violet, had the habit of 
 making Staples a butt for raillery, though in a less 
 gentle and friendly tone. She had no patience 
 with him, she was wont to say, whereas Violet 
 manifested a great deal of that excellent virtue 
 in his regard. 
 
 Not being ready at retort. Staples leant a 
 stolid shoulder against the column of the 
 piazza, looked straight before him, and puffed 
 at his pipe not much more sulkily than usual. 
 
 Violet came to the rescue. 
 
 ' Were you at college ? ' she asked with 
 mild interest.
 
 I^" ARCADIA 221 
 
 ' No. I was ploughed for smalls. Then I 
 had another chance given me, and I failed for 
 that too.' 
 
 ' What a shame to put young men to such 
 stiff examinations ! ' Violet observed sympathe- 
 tically. 
 
 ' It wasn't particularly stiff/ he replied can- 
 didly. ' I could have got through easily enough 
 if I'd worked at all ; but I never did work — 
 never saw why I should. Always thought I 
 was all right, till my old uncle went and 
 married a young woman! If I'd known 
 he was going to do such a thing, why, I 
 suppose I should have read books like other 
 fellows ! ' 
 
 ' Don't you care at all for reading, then ? ' 
 
 ' No ; I don't care for anything — at least, I 
 only like a few things. I like music, and 
 horses, and dogs.' 
 
 'Miss Preston has seen you ride, and has
 
 222 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 heard you swear,' remarked Tregelva ; ' but stie 
 hasn't heard you sing yet.' 
 
 ' Do sing to us, Mr. Staples ! ' said Eosemary. 
 ' I should like to hear you sing.' 
 
 ' I sing in the small hours of the morning,' 
 he replied seriously. 
 
 ' Well, we could sit up, or rise early. I got 
 up once to see the sunrise from the Eigi ; and I 
 dare say it would be quite as well worth while.' 
 But Staples shook his head. 
 ' I don't think you will hear me sing.' 
 The tropical twilight closes swiftly, like a 
 curtain of shadow dropped upon the scene ; the 
 golden clouds of sunset pale and die into misty 
 greys and blues ; and on the piazza, though 
 the dark has fallen, the httle group linger still, 
 chatting, laughing, rallying each other, until 
 a murmur of eager voices from within the 
 house attracts their attention ; and, eager for 
 the smallest diversion, they one and all hasten
 
 IX ARCADIA 223 
 
 indoors and find in the central hall the two 
 Fraser boys, Spencer, and Harrington, all 
 grouped in a circle around young Chadwick, who 
 stands under the lamp, with a smile of modest 
 triumph on his boyish beardless face. He has 
 a gun, as usual, in one hand. With the other he 
 holds up, suspended by the wings, an unhappy 
 owl — an enormous bird, which hangs flaccidly in 
 his grasp. At the first glance the new arrivals 
 can scarcely tell whether it is alive or dead, but 
 are soon enlightened by the remarks of the 
 surrounding group. 
 
 ' Don't touch it. It'll bite.' 
 
 ^ They've awfully strong beaks.' 
 
 ' It would eat a live mouse.' 
 
 'We haven't got a live mouse.' It is 
 Conyers who offers this practical objection. 
 
 ' It won't eat.' 
 
 ' It won't live.' 
 
 ' Put it in a cage.'
 
 224 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 ' Oh, poor thing ! let it fly ! ' pleads Yiolet. 
 
 ' It can't fly. Its wing is broken.' 
 
 ' And so is its leg.' 
 
 ' Oh, d it, kill the poor brute ! ' says 
 
 Staples with just a shade less indolent indiffe- 
 rence than usual. 
 
 And after a variety of conflicting counsels 
 and suggestions, it is his advice that is taken, it 
 being decided by the majority of votes that the 
 owl is too badly wounded to recover. 
 
 Young Chadwick, still cheerful and com- 
 placent — as willingly accepting the alternative 
 of making a target for the second time of his 
 unlucky captive, as that of keeping it in a cage 
 and feeding it on live mice — bears his prey off 
 into the garden, Harrington and Spencer follow- 
 ing to witness the execution. 
 
 Staples steps aside to the smoking-room 
 door and begins to fill his pipe, growling in an 
 undertone :
 
 IX ARCADIA - 2l^5 
 
 ' That fellew hasn't got any more feehng 
 than a flea ! ' 
 
 Violet is standing near him ; and they are 
 sympathetically expressing congenial humani- 
 tarian sentiments on the subject of sport in 
 general and the injured owl in particular, when 
 two shots are heard in quick succession from 
 the garden, and then an exclamation of — 
 
 ' I declare ! It's not dead yet ! ' 
 
 Staples turns abruptly, flings down his pipe 
 and tobacco-pouch, with a string of expletives 
 more or less unfit for ears polite, clears the 
 whole flight of piazza-steps at a bound, and 
 rushes across the lawn in the direction of the 
 shot*?. 
 
 Violet runs out too, and follows him into 
 the darkness of the moonless night, wherein 
 she can just discern two or three black figures 
 standing round a tree, and a shapeless fluttering 
 something suspended from a branch. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 LOVE IX IDLENESS 
 
 Violet shudders a little as the figure she 
 knows must be Staples seizes the dark fluttering 
 thing, and she hears the sound of an almost 
 luiman groan ; then, a moment afterwards, 
 Staples observes in calm and satisfied tones : 
 
 ' That's done ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, don't you feel rather like a mur- 
 derer ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' No, I feel as if I'd done one good thing 
 to day,' he replied. ' It was a good deed to 
 put that poor brute out of its pain.' 
 
 Then supper-time came, and Max Eandolph, 
 whom Mr. Whitworth had hospitably invited 
 to drop in and sup ; he rather liked Eandolph, 
 and, moreover, saw in him a possible purchaser 
 — not in a large w^ay of course ; that could not 
 be expected of a roving artist, but Mr. Whit- 
 worth had some choice small five acre groves 
 on his list at modest prices eminently suitable 
 for an artist's investment. And after supper
 
 IX ARCiDIA 227 
 
 they, as usual, sat out-of-doors a little while, 
 Staples installing himself beside Violet, whilst 
 Eosemary was a rose between two thorns, viz. 
 Eandolph and Conyers, and was perfectly well 
 able to manage two thorns, three thorns, or 
 even four thorns at once. Tregelva and Har- 
 rington were talking sport, and Chadwick re- 
 lating the episode of the owl. 
 
 ' Staples is a humanitarian,' remarked Tre- 
 gelva. ' His language was choice when Chad- 
 wick shot the bird and didn't kill it.' 
 
 ' You don't care for sport ? ' Violet observed 
 to Staples. 
 
 ' I like hunting big game,' he said. ' I'd 
 like to hunt buffalo. I've been on an elephant- 
 hunt in India. That's sport, when the elephant 
 comes crashing through the wood, and you 
 dodge and run for your life ! But I don't see 
 what you want to go and shoot poor little birds 
 for. They're harmless little things ; and they're 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 pretty ; and they sing.. I like music. Won't 
 you sing to us this evening ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly — by-and-by/ 
 
 And by>and-by, when, one by one, they all 
 had retreated from the falling night-dews and 
 moved into the parlour, the piano was opened, 
 and Staples lent his valuable assistance to Violet 
 in looking over the music. 
 
 Staples might be, as he expressed himself, 
 fond of music ; but it was very evident that his 
 education in that art had been neglected. He 
 offered homage at a distance, and had never 
 sought an intimate knowledge, or indeed any 
 acquaintance at all with the muses. 
 
 ' I'd like to learn the piano,' he observed, 
 watching Violet's fingers run lightly over the 
 keys. ' Are the black things sharps ? ' 
 
 ' No,' she replied gravely, ' they are flats.' 
 
 ' Where are the sharps, then ? ' he inquired ; 
 ^ there are sharps in a piano, aren't there ? '
 
 IN ARCADIA 229 
 
 'Yes, and elsewhere sometimes,' she re- 
 marked, ' but there isn't one very near here at 
 
 present ! ' 
 
 ' I suppose you mean you think I'm a flat, 
 
 Miss Preston — is that it ? ' 
 
 'By no means,' she rephed pleasantly. 
 ' You're in my good books to-night, and I do 
 not mean to say anything abusive.' 
 
 Staples smiled ; he had one of those sweet 
 smiles that often lighten up a some^vhat sulky, 
 heavy, downcast face. Violet had lately dis- 
 covered that he had rather good eyes— large 
 dog-like brown eyes— which now and then 
 had something of the soft and dreamy wistful- 
 ness of an affectionate dog's upward look. 
 
 Musical evenings were now a regular insti- 
 tution at West Grove House ; and the entertain- 
 ment had developed in variety as, one by one, 
 other performers had consented to be drafted 
 into the programme. Harrington had a fairly
 
 230 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 good tenor voice ; and the eldest Fraser could 
 sing one song — at least he had never been 
 known to sing any other ; his one song was the 
 ' Midshipmite.' Even Conyers had once been 
 beguiled into uplifting a passable baritone voice 
 in melody ; but Staples could never be induced 
 to do more than join in chorus. There were 
 certain stock favourite songs which were always 
 in demand. Eosemary was strong in songs of 
 emotion and sentiment, and operatic airs, and 
 her small but select audience were never tired 
 of hearing the pathetic passion of her rich 
 contralto thrilling in the ' Good-byes I ' and ' For 
 ever and for ever's,' of modern love-songs, while 
 her dramatic rendering of the ' Habanera ' air 
 from ' Carmen ' never failed to rouse a stir 
 of something like enthusiasm in even this un- 
 emotional audience. 
 
 Violet had struck out rather a specialty for 
 
 herself in the line of the more pathetic of the
 
 IX ARCADIA 231 
 
 negro melodies. She delighted everyone with 
 the dear famihar old plantation song of the 
 ' Suwanee Eiver,' which, somehow, well-known 
 as it is, yet never seems to become hackneyed. 
 She distinguished herself in the pathos she lent 
 to the quaintly characteristic ballad of ' Eosa 
 Lee,' and always sang the solos in the equally 
 characteristic negro hymns which were popular 
 on Sunday evenings at the West Grove, the espe- 
 cial favourite being that one wdth a'chorus of — 
 
 Oh, dem golden slippers ! 
 Oh, dem golden slippers ! 
 Golden slippers we's gwine to wear 
 To walk de golden street ! 
 
 in which all the brotherhood would join in 
 lustily, Lorenzo and Beverley generally listen- 
 in<T in the hall delighted, and smiling from ear 
 to ear. Although it takes a negro voice and 
 accent to give the full aroma and flavour to 
 these negro melodies, yet Violet had a certain 
 soft and pathetic thiill in her voice which
 
 282 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 suited them — at least suited those which had a 
 touch of pathos, and the purely comic ones she 
 
 never sang. 
 
 This night Max Eandolph, as usual, took up 
 his position by the piano and turned over the 
 leaves. He almost always did so ; it had be- 
 come an institu'cion that this should be his post. 
 Conyers sat by the table in a statuesque but 
 comfortable pose, with folded arms. Tregelva 
 leant back in an arm-chair, languidly caressing 
 his fair mustache. Staples, seeing Eandolph in 
 possession of the post he secretly coveted, but to 
 which he had never yet attained, had cast him- 
 self limply, as if his joints all hung loose, on a 
 sofa in a remote corner. Christie, tired out 
 with a hard day's riding, stretched himself full 
 length, with a frank word of apology, on the 
 other sofa, accepted the musical performance of 
 the evening as a serenade, and to all appear- 
 ance availed himself of it as such.
 
 IX ARCADIA 233 
 
 Violet had been singing the 'Chanson de 
 Fortunio ' — that most dainty and gracefid of 
 ]ove-songs ; and no voice was better fitted 
 to express its exquisite dehcacy and tender- 
 ness than hers. 
 
 * Je fais ce que sa fantaisie 
 
 Veut m'ordonner, 
 Et je veux, s'il lai faut ma vie, 
 
 La lui donner ! 
 Mais j'aime trop pour que je di3 
 
 Qui j'ose aimer, 
 Et je veux mourir pour ma mie, 
 
 Sans la nommer ! ' 
 
 Staples might have liked these words if he 
 had understood them, but in the present stage 
 of his education their simple charm was wasted 
 upon him. He liked what he could compre- 
 hend, and so presently from his distant sofa 
 came a mournful entreaty — 
 
 ' Please simj '' Eosa Lee," Miss Preston.' 
 ' Most musical, most melancholy,' Pcosemary 
 commented on the luirubrious tone. ' Eeallv,
 
 234 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 Mr. Staples, you ought to be a nightingale 
 yourself ! 
 
 It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
 That pierced the fearful hollow of mine ear.' 
 
 Violet was looking through a book of 
 ballads with Max Eandolph, and, I fear, did not 
 bestow on Staples' pathetic appeal the attention 
 it deserved. 
 
 In a few minutes the despondent pleading 
 from the sofa was reiterated — 
 
 ' I wish you would sing " Eosa Lee," Miss 
 Preston.' 
 
 Still Violet, absorbed with Max, was iu- 
 attentive, until a third time a voice, that had 
 sunk to the deepest depths of dejection, be- 
 sought her — 
 
 ' Oh, do sing " Eosa Lee," Miss Preston ! ' 
 
 Then Violet at last put down the book of 
 ballads, and vouchsafed to treat him and the rest 
 of the company to the musical history of the love
 
 IN ARCADIA 235 
 
 and death of that black and beauteous Eose, 
 whose ' Feet so large and comely too ' seem to 
 have been one of her chief charms in the eyes of 
 her faithful 'foolish Joe.' Possibly with a view 
 of atoning for her previous lack of attention, 
 Violet now threw unusual pathos into the final 
 lament — 
 
 U-la-ila ola-ee ! 
 Rosa sleeps in Tennessee ! 
 
 Staples was so well pleased that he got off 
 the sofa and slouched across the room to the 
 piano. As he neared that goal he suddenly 
 remembered that his hands were buried deeply 
 in his pockets, and plucked them forth with as 
 much alacrity as was compatible with his 
 general leisureness, not to say laziness, of move- 
 ment. 
 
 Violet noted the action and appreciated 
 It. 
 
 ' Good boy ! ' she said with an approving
 
 236 LOVE IN IDLENESS 
 
 smile. ' I shall turn you out quite a reformed 
 character yet ! ' 
 
 ' Why, Vi, do you think there's any room 
 for improvement left ? ' exclaimed Eosemary. 
 
 ' It's clear you do, Miss Heath,' with the 
 faintest touch of resentment in his tone. 
 
 ' I would fain be polite,' Eosemary replied, 
 ' but stern conscience will not allow me to deny 
 the charge. I think there is still a little room 
 for — pohsh.' 
 
 Staples never entered into a war of words 
 with Eosemary — perhaps because he was so 
 well aware that he would get the worst of it. 
 He kept close by Violet, and presently took 
 advantage of Max Eandolph's transference of 
 attention to Eosemary to observe, with a sort 
 of grievance in his air — 
 
 ' I suppose I'll never get the chance of 
 turning over your music for you. It's always 
 Eandolph.'
 
 L\ ARCADIA. 237 
 
 ' You should turn over if you were near/ 
 Violet replied cimiably, 'but you never are 
 near ! ' 
 
 ' I will be next time, if you'll let me.' 
 
 But Violet would commit herself to no 
 promise beyond 
 
 ' First come, first served.' 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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