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 LAURA ERLE.
 
 LONDON! 
 BOBSOB AND SONS, PBINTEBS, l'AXCRAS ROAD, N.W. 
 
 /
 
 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 % Utotel. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 BLANCHE SEYMOUR,' 'ERMA'S ENGAGEMENT,' 
 
 ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8 CATHERINE ST. STRAND. 
 
 1873. 
 \_Tl>£ right of translation and reproduction is reserved.]
 
 8£3 
 
 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 4 Claude ! You come to-day? I did not ex- 
 pect you till to-morrow!' exclaimed Mrs. 
 Elliott, who, having settled in her own mind 
 that her nephew would not arrive till Friday, 
 felt naturally annoyed with him for appearing 
 on Thursday. 
 
 4 Yes, aunt Eleanor, I am come,' returned 
 the gentleman, who always resented his rela- 
 tive's plans in his behalf. 4 Is there any reason 
 why I should not come to-day ?' 
 
 4 No, my dear ; only I had fixed in my own 
 cj mind that you would not come till to-morrow.' 
 
 4 The delightful thing is that you are come, 
 dear Claude !' cried his sister Audrey, spring- 
 ing up joyfully to welcome him. 
 
 VOL. i. b
 
 2 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 He returned her greeting warmly, be- 
 stowed a frigid kiss on the tip of Mrs. Elliott- 
 ear, which she presented to him for the pur- 
 pose — she always meant to present her cheek, 
 but failed, chiefly because she disliked equally 
 kissing and being kissed — and continued : 
 
 'Harold Carew is coming here for a few 
 days, aunt Eleanor. He wants to see Far- 
 leigh Abbey, and can go from here more 
 easily than from Oak lands, where his mother 
 is staying. I have asked Digby Forester to 
 come here too, after the funeral on Wednesday. 
 It is so wretched for him alone at Glynton. 1 
 
 He made the communication as one who 
 knows that his news will be badly received? 
 and who is anxious to s;et it over. 
 
 4 You continue the family tradition of 
 making Enleigh a refuge for the destitute,' 
 said the lady sarcastically. 4 We live on the 
 early Christian principle, that nothing we have 
 is our own. I only hope that when we fail 
 some of the many we have ruined ourselvi 
 for will be willing to receive us into their 
 habitations.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 4 Entertaining Harold Carew and Digby 
 Forester for a week is not likely to hasten our 
 ruin,' retorted Claude, who never could be 
 persuaded that 'silence is golden.' 
 
 Mrs. Elliott may be shortly described as the 
 hair-shirt of the Dashwood family, and ad- 
 mirably did she fulfil her function of mortify- 
 ing its members. 
 
 She was not really Claude's aunt, though 
 he and his brother and sister always addressed 
 her as such. She was a cousin of their father's, 
 who had, ever since their mother's death, lived 
 at Enleig;h House, where she exercised des- 
 potic sway. There had been some early c love 
 passages' between her and the handsome 
 cousin, Charles Dashwood, whose children she 
 afterwards watched over with a mother's care, 
 though without a mother's tenderness ; but he 
 had forsaken her for a beautiful Irish girl, and 
 the fact deepened the natural prejudice enter- 
 tained by her against Ireland and the Irish. 
 The young Dashwood.* suffered keenly from 
 this prejudice. They loved their mother's 
 country and compatriots as intensely as Mrs.
 
 4 LAURA KRLE. 
 
 Elliott hated them, taking ever) r reflection on 
 the land or its inhabitants as a personal insult ; 
 while the lady, with that exquisite courtesy 
 which distinguishes a certain type of English- 
 woman, made a point of attributing to the 
 young people who were unfortunate enough 
 to share a nationality she disliked all the 
 faults and vices supposed to be characteristic 
 of the Irish race, as a whole. 
 
 She assumed that they must be untruthful, 
 untidy, quarrelsome, and so given to reckless 
 hospitality as to be always ready to waste 
 their substance in riotous living. 
 
 Claude's communication brought down a 
 storm of sarcastic invective on his head ; for 
 besides her bitter prejudice against Ireland 
 and the Irish, Mrs. Elliott had also a prejudice 
 against matrimony, and the object of her life 
 seemed to be to keep Audrey from entering 
 the holy estate. 
 
 She had already made her refuse two good 
 offers, for no reason that any one could dis- 
 cover; and she heard of the approaching visit 
 of two young men with about as much pleasure
 
 LAURA ERLE. 5 
 
 as a careful shepherd would feel on receiving 
 from a pair of respectable wolves an offer to 
 look in and inspect his flock. She deeply 
 regretted her inability to prevent such an in- 
 cursion ; but Charlie Dash wood, who now 
 reigned at Enleigh in his father's stead, had 
 given his brother carte blanche to invite any 
 one there whom he pleased, during his own 
 enforced absence abroad on account of his 
 wife's health; he would, besides, have resented 
 anything like want of hospitality towards an 
 old friend and neighbour, such as Sir Digby 
 Forester was. 
 
 But though Mrs. Elliott could not prevent 
 the visit, she could make it a visitation to 
 Claude and Audrey at least, and she did so 
 by anticipation now. She left nothing unsaid 
 that could wound their susceptibilities. Her 
 wonderful insight into character enabled her 
 to 'read each wound, each weakness, clear;' 
 she could thus give little stabs and thrusts, in 
 all sorts of skilful ways, into her unfortunate 
 victims' very tenderest parts. Her friends 
 were, in her eyes, so many pincushions, de-
 
 6 LATJ11A ERLE. 
 
 signed by Providence to receive the pins and 
 needles which it was a necessity of her nature 
 to emit from time to time. A whole shower 
 of these pleasing weapons was now poured 
 forth on Claude and Audrey. First, they were 
 reproached with their Celtic blood ; this re- 
 proach always brought on a passage of arms 
 between her and Claude, who would deny 
 vehemently that he shared one drop of that 
 obnoxious mixture, — his ' dear mother being, 7 
 he averred, ' of Norman, not Celtic origin.' 
 Next the lady animadverted severely on their 
 Anglican tendencies — the form their Irish 
 hankering after Pome took — thereby showing 
 her appreciation of the Protestantism of the 
 sister country; and she proceeded then to 
 reflect on their Irish accent, which consisted 
 chiefly in aspirating the 'hV in their whats^ 
 tokens, and suchlike words. 
 
 Claude bore it as long as it was in the 
 power of masculine nature to bear without 
 swearing, and when tills point was reached 
 left the room. He was followed speedily by 
 Audrey, who joined him on the lawn, where
 
 LAUEA ERLE. 7 
 
 he was standing by the railing, a gloomy frown 
 on his face. Her own bore the 'badgered' ex- 
 pression it always assumed during an action 
 with Mrs. Elliott. 
 
 6 Hasn't that woman the most confounded 
 temper !' was his exclamation as she came up. 
 ' How long has this fit lasted ?' 
 
 ' It has only just come on. She was an 
 angel till she heard about Digby; and how 
 could you invite Harold Carew here, Claude ? 
 He and she will fight incessantly.' 
 
 1 I couldn't get out of it; he all but asked 
 to come. Charlie told him to run down 
 whenever he liked, and he is crazy to see 
 the abbey.' 
 
 1 Where did you meet Digby Forester?' 
 
 c He called on me. He is awfully cut-up 
 about his father's death. It happened at 
 Athens, and all the arrangements about the 
 funeral have been most painful to him. It is 
 to take place at Glynton on Wednesday.' 
 
 ' Is he much changed? He has been away 
 five years.' 
 
 ' He looked awfully ill, I thought; though
 
 8 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 he is burned as brown as a berry, and you 
 never saw such a beard as he has ! Of course 
 I couldn't do otherwise than ask him here.' 
 
 No Dashwood ever could do otherwise 
 than ask every one to Enleigh on every pos- 
 sible occasion. 
 
 4 1 don't know which is worse — the pro- 
 found dulness when we are alone, or the 
 dread of quarrels when anyone is here,' sighed 
 Audrey. 
 
 Both stood looking gloomily straight out 
 before them, heedless of the sun setting glori- 
 ously and of the beauty which lay all around, 
 like people whose lives are dimmed, not by 
 any great calamity, but by constantly-recur- 
 ring petty annoyances, which quell the buo}~- 
 ancy of the spirit, and from which there is no 
 prospect of escape. The brother and sister 
 bore a strong resemblance to each other. Both 
 were tall and singularly graceful, moving 
 with the free firm tread indicative of perfect 
 physical development. Audrey was eight or 
 nine years younger than Claude, being at this 
 time only nineteen. Her masses of black hair
 
 LAUEA ERLE. . 9 
 
 were drawn back from her forehead, and 
 coiled in thick plaits round her head. Her 
 large soft gray eyes looked almost black too, 
 under their long dark lashes; ordinarily she 
 had not much colour, but exercise or excite- 
 ment would bring the blood mantling to her 
 cheeks. 
 
 ' How is Laura?' asked Claude, after they 
 had stood in silence for some time. 
 
 ' Very well — the only bright thing about 
 the place. She is going to have a Gregorian 
 choir, and is full of it. I think it is dismal 
 myself; at present we give utterance to a 
 prolonged howl; but she says it is all as it 
 should be, and that it will save her a world 
 of trouble.' 
 
 ' Let us go down and see her.' 
 
 They turned towards the Eectory, and 
 at the gate met Laura Erie, — ' the only 
 bright thing about the place,' — a tall slight 
 girl, with a graceful bending figure, laughing 
 dark eyes, a brilliant complexion, and a sweet 
 mobile mouth, round which smiles seemed 
 always dimpling.
 
 10 LAUEA ERLE. 
 
 At the first glimpse of her the cloud on 
 Claude's face disappeared. 
 
 ' Well, Laura!' he exclaimed, with that 
 unconscious change in his voice by which 
 some men always acknowledge the presence 
 of a woman not nearly connected with them. 
 He held her hand for a second or two, look- 
 ing at her with a softened expression. ' How 
 are you? It seems an age since I have seen 
 you! I hear you have a Gregorian choir; 
 but how about the ladies? that isn't orthodox.' 
 
 ' I know it ; and it has exercised me ter- 
 ribly.' 
 
 c Couldn't you get rid of them?' 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 'Banish my girls? that would never do! 
 Besides, if I did, they would betake them- 
 selves to Little Bethel in a body, carrying 
 their mankind with them ; such is the de- 
 pravity of woman ! And where should I be 
 then ? I should be left a melancholy example 
 of what may result from too close an adher- 
 ence to mediaeval precedent in this nineteenth 
 century.'
 
 LAUKA ERLE. 11 
 
 c And how have you been ?' repeated 
 Claude. c Working yourself to death, as 
 usual?' 
 
 She shook her head gaily. 
 
 ' I am in rude health, as you may per- 
 ceive.' 
 
 ' Laura, Harold Carew is coming to En- 
 leigh,' said Audrey impressively. 4 Isn't it 
 appalling to think how he and aunt Eleanor 
 will quarrel?' 
 
 4 Harold Carew ! Who is he?' 
 
 ' I thought I told you about him. He is 
 the greatest curiosity extant — a determined 
 celibataire, and a celibataire who thinks every 
 woman who sees him wants to capture him. , 
 
 4 A celibataire /' returned Laura, with a 
 peculiar intonation, indicative of complete in- 
 credulity, on the word. ' How I shall enjoy 
 seeing him ! I always like to look at those 
 natural phenomena.' 
 
 1 The ladies all detest him,' said Claude, 
 in the tone of a man who natters himself that 
 they don't detest him. 
 
 1 That is a mistake ; they should convert
 
 1 2 LAURA EliLE. 
 
 him,' responded Laura, who looked capable at 
 that moment of converting any number of 
 celibataires. 
 
 c He has a pleasing little peculiarity of 
 assuming that women have no souls, ' ex- 
 plained Audrey ; ' the assumption pleases him 
 and doesn't hurt me; and I admit that he 
 amuses me excessively, he is so pedantic and 
 so priggish, and so altogether satisfied with 
 himself.' 
 
 ' Isn't he afraid of you?' 
 
 4 Very much so ; but curiosity to know 
 what the talking pink-and-whitc thing will 
 say overcomes his fear. They call him Ha- 
 rold Harefoot, because he runs away from the 
 ladies ; but the name drives him wild, for he 
 says " Harefoot" has nothing to do with run- 
 ning away, and means something quite differ- 
 ent. His mother, Lady Emily, is the dearest 
 old woman; and it really is the most amusing 
 thing to hear her talk of him. She worships 
 him, and is as anxious to impress his perfec- 
 tions on all the world as if she had some sus- 
 picion of how much he is disliked/
 
 LAURA. EliLE. 13 
 
 ' It is a real misfortune to a young man 
 when his mother insists on enrolling him in 
 the Corps of Irresistibles,' observed Miss Erie 
 philosophically. 
 
 ' There is some more news for you,' said 
 Claude; c the Ellises have taken Oaklands, 
 and Farleigh Abbey has been bought by a 
 tallow-chandler !' 
 
 'A tallow-chandler! Shade of S. Ber- 
 nard !' ejaculated Laura. 
 
 1 Perhaps I ought rather to say a wax- 
 chandler. He has made fabulous sums by 
 inventing and patenting the Only Original 
 Inodorous, Unspluttering, Inexhaustible, and 
 Inextinguishable Wax-dip for the Million.' 
 
 L I hope he won't restore and — ruin the 
 abbey.' 
 
 ' Carew hopes so too ; but he anticipates 
 the worst, and the object of his visit is to see 
 the place before the work of destruction is 
 begun.' 
 
 4 Who did you say had taken Oaklands ?' 
 
 1 The Ellises.' 
 
 c Such horrid people, Laura,' remarked
 
 1 4 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 Audrey; l the girls so fast, with fly-away 
 heads, and talking such slam* that I can 
 hardly understand them.' 
 
 i Uncommonly pretty Violet Ellis is, 
 though,' said Claude. 
 
 ' Pretty ! What do men call pretty ? She 
 hasn't an idea in her face !' 
 
 1 One doesn't always want ideas in a wo- 
 man,' responded Mr. Dashwqod. 
 
 4 That is lucky, for in Violet Ellis, at lea>t, 
 you couldn't get them.' 
 
 1 Then you know them, Audrey ?' asked 
 Laura. 
 
 ' A little. I have met them occasionally, 
 but I dislike them and their whole set.' 
 
 1 Well, you are not likely to see much of 
 them; Oaklands is seven miles off,' observed 
 Claude.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It had been a question how Mrs. Elliott would 
 receive Sir Digby Forester. To the great 
 relief of Claude and Audrey she was gracious. 
 Perhaps his face, which bore distinctly enough 
 the traces of his grief — he had lately lost his 
 father — touched her. 
 
 ' You must make yourself at home, and 
 do exactly as you please,' she said to him. 
 1 We shall be quite alone, with the exception 
 of Harold Carew, who is coming here next 
 week. Do vou know him?' 
 
 1 Yes; he and I are old allies.' 
 
 ' Well, I hope you like him. I can't say 
 I do; but that is a matter of taste.' 
 
 Sir Digby and Audrey had known each 
 other well in former years, and now resumed, 
 as if by instinct, the old habit of calling each 
 other by their Christian names ; though during
 
 1G LAURA ERLE. 
 
 his absence Audrey had grown from a some- 
 what wild girl into a beautiful and rather 
 stately young lady. 
 
 It was no fancy on her part that he grew 
 more cheerful as they recalled together old 
 scenes and days. His face would brighten 
 wonderfully as he took his place beside her. 
 That Mrs. Elliott allowed her to enjoy his 
 society uninterruptedly was a constant source 
 of surprise to her. As a rule, that lady saw in 
 every man a devouring wolf, from whose fangs 
 it behoved her to rescue her lamb ; and this 
 had gone on for so long that Audrey accepted 
 it as the order of nature, and never thought 
 of asserting her right to a share in any wolf 
 whatsoever. AYolves were for other people — 
 not for her. But Airs. Elliott showed no dis- 
 position to interpose between her and Digby. 
 Perhaps it was that even she could not asso- 
 ciate anything wolfish with one so gentle and 
 winning. Whatever may have been the cause, 
 she read quietly in one corner of the room ; 
 Claude lay on a sofa, absorbed in the paper, 
 in another; while the vounsf man and the
 
 LAURA ERLE. 17 
 
 lady exchanged confidences to their mutual 
 content. 
 
 Mr. Carew's arrival was a disagreeable in- 
 terruption to this state of things. He set up 
 all Mrs. Elliott's bristles; and when they 
 were set up they rubbed and irritated every 
 one. 
 
 The main object of his visit was to inspect 
 Farleigh Abbey, the lion par excellence of the 
 neighbourhood, which had lately been bought 
 by an eccentric millionaire, about whose oddi- 
 ties and peculiarities innumerable stories were 
 circulated. 
 
 Mr. Carew, who considered the abbey of 
 national importance, heard of the purchase 
 with great disgust. Believing all the current 
 stories about the new proprietor, he was al- 
 ready lamenting, by anticipation, the approach- 
 ing ruin of one of the finest ecclesiastical 
 buildings of the kind in England. Hence his 
 anxiety to see it before the work of destruction 
 should be complete. 
 
 But to do so was a matter of no little 
 difficulty. Mrs. Elliott always had a plan, 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 LAUEA ERLE. 
 
 and her plans were always made with refer- 
 ence to some deep scheme which she had 
 matured in her own brain, and towards the 
 accomplishment of which she strove to make 
 every event tend. As she kept her schemes 
 absolutely to herself till they were ripe for 
 execution, no one could see the object of the 
 wonderful projects she at times unfolded, or 
 understand her systematic opposition to any 
 proposal which did not emanate from herself. 
 So resolute was this opposition, that, without 
 coming to an open rupture, it was impossible 
 to carry out anything she disliked. 
 
 Mr. Carew wished to go over to Farleigh 
 with Claude or Digby; but Mrs. Elliott had 
 no intention of allowing him to do anything 
 of the sort. She had resolved that the whole 
 party should go. It was a good opportunity 
 for calling on the De Montmorency family, and 
 she would not miss it. 
 
 It was vain to oppose her; Claude stormed, 
 but he invariably ended by doing as she 
 wished; so they were to go in a body, the 
 latter gentleman indemnifying himself by g^i-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 19 
 
 ting his sister to ask Laura Erie to accom- 
 pany them. 
 
 c She can ride the gray,' he observed. 
 
 Mrs. Elliott heard of the invitation with 
 deep anger. One of her plans was to keep 
 Claude and Laura apart. She was strongly 
 of opinion that they saw decidedly more of 
 each other than was good for either. 
 
 1 1 wonder you are always asking Laura to 
 ride with you, Audrey,' she remarked, in a 
 voice suggestive of cantharides; c as she is 
 never likely to have even a donkey of her 
 own to go about on, it seems but doubtful 
 kindness to accustom her to thoroughbred 
 horses.' 
 
 c She doesn't often ride with us, aunt Elea- 
 nor, and she works so hard that a change 
 
 7 o 
 
 occasionally does her good/ 
 
 ' Oh, of course ; and as she, no doubt, 
 means to catch Claude, I daresay she thinks it 
 wise to begin by catching his horse/ 
 
 Audrey would bear patiently any number 
 of aspersions on herself, but the least attack on 
 her friend made her put on all her war paint.
 
 20 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 1 I won't listen to such remarks, aunt Elea- 
 nor; you ought to be ashamed of making 
 them ;' and she left the room. 
 
 The lady next attacked Claude. 
 
 ( So I hear Laura is going to favour us 
 with her company to-day. In my time young 
 women waited till they were asked, but now 
 a different fashion prevails.' 
 
 1 1 asked her to come,' said he boldly. 
 
 She laughed scornfully. 
 
 1 It used to be said, " In vain the snare is 
 set in the sight of any bird," but now the 
 birds are such fools that they jump, like 
 " doting mallards," into the trap set openly 
 before their very eyes. 1 
 
 This stab was given merely to relieve the 
 irritation of Mrs. Elliott's feelings. She was 
 too shrewd a judge of character not to be well 
 aware that Laura Erie was incapable of set- 
 ting a trap for Claude. She might fall in love 
 with him, ' like a romantic fool' — that was the 
 lady's own comment — she would never try to 
 ' catch him.' 
 
 'AVhere is your eccentric guest, Claude?
 
 LAURA ERLE.' 21 
 
 I want to see him,' asked Laura, as she stood 
 on the steps, all brightness and animation. 
 
 1 He is keeping out of your way. He was 
 terribly alarmed when he heard you were 
 coming, though I told him you were harm- 
 less.' 
 
 c I wish he would show. I want to see 
 what a determined celibataire is like.' 
 
 Her curiosity was gratified. As she was 
 running up-stairs to her friend's boudoir, she 
 and Mr. Carew came upon each other with 
 such force that both were nearly knocked off 
 their feet. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said Laura instinct- 
 ively ; and then, prompted by her youth and 
 the spirit of fun in her, c Don't be alarmed ; I 
 am quite harmless.' 
 
 The gentleman muttered something not 
 very intelligible and stood stock-still, gazing 
 in utter amazement at the bright-eyed, laugh- 
 ing vision before him. 
 
 He was tall and dark ; his glossy black 
 hair very much and very smoothly brushed 
 backed from an exceedingly clever, keen,
 
 22 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 hairless face, with a rather sarcastic expres- 
 sion. 
 
 In her surprise Laura had dropped her 
 habit, which got twisted round her feet so that 
 she could not move; neither could she stoop 
 to free it without again falling foul of the 
 stranger. 
 
 1 1 must ask you to move a little,' she said, 
 c or I cannot get up my habit.' 
 
 He almost sprang to the other side of the 
 wide staircase, whence he deliberately watched 
 her as though she had been a wild animal 
 whose ways he was studying. 
 
 1 I'm harmless, unless I'm stared at too 
 much ; that irritates even the mildest crea- 
 tures,' she went on, embarrassed by this in- 
 spection, from which she was unable to escape, 
 as her habit had now got caught in the orna- 
 mental iron-work of the banister, and she had 
 some difficulty in disentangling it. ' u You 
 are requested not to irritate the animals," is 
 always written up in the Zoological Gardens. 
 Now you have looked at me, perhaps you 
 would kindly go away.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 23 
 
 'Oh, certainly,' still gazing fatuously at 
 her. ' Where can I go ?' 
 
 'Wherever you were going when you 
 nearly knocked me down.' 
 
 'I couldn't help it; you came in my way.' 
 
 ' You came in mine.' 
 
 I I didn't see you.' 
 
 4 So I suppose ; if you had you would pro- 
 bably have run the other way.' 
 
 Mr. Carew took this as an allusion to his 
 sobriquet of Harefoot, and flushed to the roots 
 of his hair. He did not like being ridiculed 
 by this bright-faced damsel, who looked up 
 mockingly at him from under her long lashes. 
 Owing to the retention of her habit, she was 
 unable to stand upright, and her crouching pos- 
 ture may have added piquancy to the laughter 
 which lurked round her dimpled mouth. 
 
 I I should have done no such thing,' he re- 
 torted. c I should not have altered my course 
 in the least.' 
 
 4 Wouldn't you have got out of my way ? 
 You don't hold, then, that manners make the 
 man?' interrogatively.
 
 24 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 He flung back his head angrily ; went 
 down a few steps and then came back again. 
 1 Can I do anything to help you?' in a doubt- 
 ful voice. 
 
 In the interval Miss Erie had freed her 
 garment, and now stood facing him in an up- 
 right attitude. 
 
 1 You have timed your offer so admirably 
 that I am enabled to decline it, with thanks ;' 
 and, bowing, she ran up-stairs. 
 
 Mr. Carew looked after her with a glance 
 compounded of anger and surprise. He was 
 still in the hall when she came down again. 
 Involuntarily their eyes met, and Laura, to 
 whom everything served as a pretext for mer- 
 riment, could not help laughing. He did not 
 feel equally disposed for mirth. Annoyed and 
 angry, he met the young lady's amused glance 
 with one of stern reprobation. 
 
 Sparkling all over with laughter she burst 
 into the drawing-room. 
 
 ' I've seen Dryasdust !' she exclaimed. ' He 
 exceeds even your description, Audrey, 7 
 and she related her adventure. 'He has a
 
 LAURA ERLE. 25 
 
 nice face, though, 5 she concluded. ' I like 
 it.' 
 
 Harold, through the open window, heard 
 the laughter and merry voices, not quite with- 
 out a suspicion that he may himself have been 
 the subject under discussion. He thought he 
 caught the word c Harefoot,' and was sure he 
 heard ' Dryasdust/ It may be explained that 
 he had distinguished himself highly in a num- 
 ber of literary ' ologies.' He was an archaeo- 
 logist and a paleologist and an ecclesiologist, 
 et caetera, and was generally accepted by his 
 friends as an undoubted authority on archi- 
 tectural and other kindred topics. 
 
 ' So I hear you had an encounter with 
 Miss Erie,' said Sir Digby to him afterwards. 
 
 ' Miss Erie was it ? I met a termagant who 
 nearly knocked me over, and then vituperated 
 me for getting in her way.' 
 
 The baronet laughed. 
 
 4 She is not likely to suffer pain and grief, 
 like the Psalmist, from keeping over silence, I 
 must say,' he remarked reflectively. 
 
 4 What a termagant!' ejaculated Mr. Carew.
 
 2G LAURA ERLE. 
 
 1 You should hear her touch up Claude 
 Dashwood, as she does sometimes, in first-rate 
 style.' 
 
 1 She would touch up the devil himself/ 
 with acerbity. 'Is Claude Dashwood going 
 to marry her ?' 
 
 ' It is not improbable.' 
 
 ' Good God ! Conceive being tied for life to 
 a woman with a tongue like that !'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 As long as the oldest inhabitant of shire 
 
 could remember, Farleigh Abbey had been the 
 favourite resort of holiday-makers, picnic-par- 
 ties, and pleasure-seekers in general. 
 
 It was an old historic place, where ecclesio- 
 logists and archaeologists met and talked in a 
 learned way pleasing to themselves ; where 
 they fought and dined and mutually admired 
 each other, looking down on their neighbours 
 because their neighbours called Farleigh an 
 abbey, whde they affirmed that it was a priory. 
 The neighbours had vague ideas on the subject 
 of clerestories, too ; confounded the refectories 
 with the dormitories ; and showed themselves 
 generally ignorant of things Benedictine and 
 Cistercian. 
 
 But ignorance of technical details is by no 
 means preventive of very real enjoyment, and
 
 28 LAUEA ERLE. 
 
 in some unscientific, sentimental way 'the 
 abbey' embodied many poetic ideas, and was 
 productive of much pleasure of a not unworthy 
 kind to the simple town and country folk. It 
 was, besides, a source of prosperity to the pro- 
 vincial metropolis, for visitors from many 
 lands, and of various race and speech, came to 
 gratify there their pilgrim-hunger. 
 
 Harold Carew, being what he was, was 
 naturally on fire to bring his architectural 
 knowledge to bear on it. He had not been 
 in that part of the country before, and felt, in 
 some sort, personally wronged that there 
 should be an abbey which he had not in- 
 spected. 
 
 Not that he called it an abbey. He had 
 no words strong enough to denounce the ig- 
 norance of the common vulgar, or the wilful 
 disregard of truth shown by the better in- 
 formed, who persisted in transferring to a 
 priory the dignity and designation of an 
 abbey. 
 
 It may be frankly admitted that it was 
 not a pleasant thing to visit an abbey, or,
 
 LA.URA ERLE. 29 
 
 indeed, any architectural or historical lion, in 
 Mr. Carew's company, if there happened to 
 be any one present inclined to respect the 
 traditions of the place. 
 
 He was a very mountain of uninteresting 
 but detestably real learning, which he was 
 always burning to pour forth for the benefit 
 of his hearers and the demolition of their most 
 cherished beliefs. 
 
 Claude and Audrey looked forward with 
 no little uneasiness to the call they were about 
 to make with him. He had put up all Mrs. 
 Elliott's bristles in the morning by throwing 
 doubts on the antiquity of some oak-carving 
 at Enleigh. That favoured abode was famed 
 — in the estimation of its possessors — for its 
 oak-staircase, its oak-floors, its oak- carving. 
 Its oak enabled it to hold its own with the 
 abbey as a local lion, and the lady could not 
 but feel aggrieved at any reflection on its 
 genuineness. There had been a rather sharp 
 skirmish between her and the visitor on the 
 subject, but out of deference to urgent re- 
 monstrances from Claude and Audrey, she
 
 30 LAURA ERXE. 
 
 had promised to say no more about it, and 
 during the drive maintained an elaborate 
 silence ; while the gentleman descanted indig- 
 nantly on the ignorance displayed by people 
 in general about such things. He animad- 
 verted further, in stroug terms, on the sin of 
 speaking of Farleigh as an abbey. 
 
 Mrs. Elliott's silence had the effect of 
 irritating him more than any positive contra- 
 diction. All his remarks were aimed at her 
 — he assumed that she upheld the abbatial 
 designation — and his combativeness was such 
 that the refusal of the enemy ' to come on' 
 only increased his ardour for the fray. 
 
 Providence, in its infinite goodness, soon 
 provided him with a foe as ready to fight as 
 he was. 
 
 Claude and Laura had ridden on, but not 
 wishing to reach Farleigh first, had waited 
 for the carriage at the foot of a steep hill, 
 which always necessitated a slackened pace. 
 When it overtook them, they continued to 
 ride beside it, and Mrs. Elliott formally in- 
 troduced Harold to Laura. He raised his hat
 
 LAURA ERLE. 31 
 
 with as low a bow as his sitting posture en- 
 abled him to accomplish. 
 
 1 Mr. Carew and I have met before,' said 
 Miss Erie, her face dimpling all over with 
 smiles at the recollection of their first en- 
 counter. 
 
 Mr. Carew was not quick at saying no- 
 thing. He always wished, when he talked, to 
 talk sense, and he was, at that moment, un- 
 able to think of a single suitable remark con- 
 sistent with strict veracity. He could not say 
 he regretted having nearly knocked her down. 
 He did not regret it; he felt that it had been 
 her doing as much as his ; so he took off his hat 
 a second time, bowed, if possible, lower than 
 before, and resumed his animadversions on the 
 want of accuracy displayed by the people of 
 shire on the subject of the abbey. 
 
 Audrey and Digby had listened to these 
 in discreet silence, only offering such harmless 
 observations from time to time as would suf- 
 fice to show a decorous attention, anxious, 
 above all things, to prevent a collision be- 
 tween the speaker and Mrs. Elliott.
 
 32 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 But Miss Erie was by no means disposed 
 to be thus quiescent. She had a word for 
 every one, and would, with the greatest ima- 
 ginable readiness, have discussed with the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer the best method 
 of reducing the income-tax. She was, besides, 
 enthusiastically fond of her native county, 
 and not at all inclined to hear it vilified in 
 silence. 
 
 4 Every one in shire who knows any- 
 thing knows that Farleigh is a priory, not an 
 abbey !' she exclaimed ; l though, of course, 
 no one thinks of exhibiting his knowledge on 
 his sleeve, as if it were something very un- 
 usual.' 
 
 Mr. Carew's face was a study. The de- 
 light of finding an antagonist who would fight 
 struggled with intense astonishment at the 
 nature of that antagonist, and at the audacity 
 which could thus challenge him, as it were, 
 to single combat. Even clever men were 
 somewhat wary how they entered the lists 
 with him, yet this provocative-looking imper- 
 sonation of impertinence seemed to have no
 
 LAURA ERLE. 33 
 
 more hesitation in contradicting him than if 
 he had been a baby of five years old. 
 
 After gazing at her for a second or two in 
 silence — these various feelings depicted on 
 his countenance — he answered in his most 
 sarcastic tones : 
 
 ' Then if they know it, it makes the case 
 all the worse. There is some excuse for ig- 
 norance; there can be none for a wilful mis- 
 representation of facts/ 
 
 1 It has nothing to do with a misrepre- 
 sentation of facts,' retorted Laura. c It is a 
 mere faqon cle parler. Besides, Farleigh 
 Abbey sounds much nicer than Farleigh 
 Priory. I shouldn't know the dear old place 
 if it was called the Priory. A priory is a 
 rubbishy kind of thing ! There's a priory at 
 Hillin^don, where the four old Miss Pringles 
 Hve — all with corkscrew curls and thin lips 
 and such scraggy necks!' 
 
 This style of argument quite overcame 
 Mr. Carew. What had the childish fancy 
 that an abbey sounded 'nicer' than a priory 
 to do with facts ? 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 1 1 don't know about a priory being a rub- 
 bishy kind of thing' (in a tone of lofty con- 
 tempt), ' but the priory at Hillingdon, which 
 is a real priory' (cuttingly), c is one of the 
 most valuable Benedictine remains in Eng- 
 land.' 
 
 4 Is it? Then the Miss Pringles are ana- 
 logues with it. They are valuable remains 
 too.' 
 
 Every one laughed except the gentleman 
 addressed. Even had he had a spark of hu- 
 mour in him, the subject was in his eyes too 
 serious to admit of light treatment. 
 
 c You consider the matter a fitting one to 
 hang jests upon? You are quite right. I 
 always make a point of jesting on subjects I 
 don't understand.' 
 
 This was the severest thing he could think 
 of at the moment. 
 
 ' Indeed !' rejoined his antagonist, in a 
 tone of well-feigned surprise. { I confess, if 
 you had not said so yourself, I should not 
 have thought you given to jesting.' 
 
 A glance of contempt mingled with repro-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 35 
 
 bation, and then — ' As a rule I endeavour not 
 to speak on subjects I don't understand.' 
 
 1 You are so right ; but exceptions prove 
 the rule, don't they? And your remarks 
 about our ignorance are the exception in 
 this case. Had you understood us better, you 
 would have seen on what very insufficient 
 grounds you were condemning us.' 
 
 Mr. Carew did not address another word 
 to Miss Erie during the rest of the drive, but 
 he watched her with a look of mingled curio- 
 sity and aversion, till his attention was at- 
 tracted by the flag floating from the abbey 
 tower, announcing that the new proprietor 
 was in residence. The contempt which, quite 
 unconsciously, he entertained for the nouveaux 
 riches was on the present occasion increased 
 by an indefinable feeling of annoyance that 
 Mr. de Montmorency should be enabled by 
 his riches to become possessed of such an his- 
 toric monument as Farleigh. As long as it 
 had remained in the hands of a family as old 
 and respectable as itself, he experienced no 
 shadow of jealousy. Time had hallowed their
 
 Q 
 
 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 claim to it; besides, they would respect every 
 stone of it as scrupulously as they did their 
 own escutcheon. They held it, as it were, 
 in trust for the nation, and felt their re- 
 sponsibilities as guardians of such a trea- 
 sure. 
 
 But these upstart millionaires who had 
 now stepped into it would be for ever demon- 
 strating their right of possession by changes 
 and adaptations to modern wants which would 
 entirely destroy the historic and architectural 
 value of the building. He felt a sense of per- 
 sonal injury at the transfer of the abbey to 
 such people, and the sight of the flag increased 
 the anger he felt. 
 
 Royalty was entitled to a flag, and great 
 ducal or lordly houses might legitimately dis- 
 play such a symbol of distinction ; but a tal- 
 low-chandler, who never had a grandfather, 
 probably not even a father ! Mr. Carew's not 
 very captivating countenance assumed a more 
 than usually sardonic expression as the car- 
 riage stopped at the abbey door: an expres- 
 sion that did not augur well for the harmony
 
 LAURA ERLE. 37 
 
 of the visit should he and the new proprietor 
 meet. 
 
 The} r did meet; and as he was as anxious 
 to show the abbey as Harold was to see it, 
 they were not long in coming to an under- 
 standing, and the whole party started to 
 < do' it. 
 
 It was famous not only for its architec- 
 tural beauties but for its historical associa- 
 tions. Kings, queens, statesmen, and other 
 celebrities, had at various periods sojourned 
 there; and the bedrooms and tables and 
 chairs and counterpanes used by them had 
 all become historical and legendary and re- 
 nowned and mouldy. 
 
 Mrs. de Montmorency had not been long 
 enough in possession to find the office of ci- 
 cerone altogether one of pleasure. She felt 
 awed by the number, rank, and reputation of 
 the mighty men . and women who had made 
 her home famous. Of some of them she had 
 never even heard till the auspicious day 
 which made her mistress of the abbey. Two 
 titles were especially puzzling — Henry Chi-
 
 Q 
 
 8 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 chele's Tower and the Venerable Bede's 
 Turret. 
 
 A gifted being, who had the whole history 
 of the place at her fingers' ends, condescended 
 to act as housekeeper under her, and the ob- 
 vious course on this occasion would have been 
 to get her to show the guests round. 
 
 But greatness has its penalties. Such a 
 course would have been not only incongruous 
 but humiliating. It would not do to let peo- 
 plefancy she was ignorant, or unable to mas- 
 ter the details connected with the traditions 
 of the house. In truth, the courage she dis- 
 played in this matter was beyond all praise, 
 for she never started to c do' the abbey with- 
 out secret trepidation. 
 
 On this especial afternoon she was more 
 than commonly uneasy. Something in Mr. 
 Carew's manner made her nervous. 
 
 Mr. de Montmorency was ostentatious in 
 pointing out the changes he had made and 
 contemplated making. To be just, these 
 changes were only such as were absolutely 
 necessary to render the place comfortably
 
 LAXJEA ERLE. 39 
 
 habitable; but hearing of them was a sore 
 exercise of Mr. Carew's self-control. 
 
 Every stone of the old part of the build- 
 ing was, properly enough, sacred in his eyes, 
 and his alarm and anger were extreme and 
 justifiable on perceiving that Mr. de Mont- 
 morency attached as much value to the re- 
 storations effected by the late owner as to the 
 really genuine remains. 
 
 But this want of discrimination resulted 
 merely from ignorance, not from any wilful 
 disregard of the relative merits of the respec- 
 tive work ; and in spite of his somewhat child- 
 ish determination to assert his rights by pull- 
 ing down and building up as he pleased, it 
 was easy to see that in reality he wished to 
 preserve carefully all that was worth preserv- 
 ing in the beautiful pile of which he had 
 become the possessor. He only wanted a 
 little judicious educating; but to be judicious 
 was not in Harold Carew's nature, and the 
 marvel is that one stone of the abbey re- 
 mained upon another after his visit. He 
 4 rubbed' the tenacious, sensitive, and irascible
 
 40 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 proprietor the wrong way at every step ; pooh- 
 poohing openly the modern restorations and 
 additions, and going into architectural rap- 
 tures over the older parts. The effect was 
 naturally (human nature being weak) to make 
 Mr. de Montmorency undervalue the latter, 
 not from any want of artistic feeling, but out 
 of pure contradiction, and merely for the sake 
 of asserting himself, and pronounce the for- 
 mer authoritatively the only portions worth 
 attention. 
 
 This so stimulated Harold's combativeness 
 that the course through the abbey, or round 
 it, was a pilgrimage of danger; but the first 
 explosion was caused by an historical, not an 
 architectural, blunder. 
 
 Laura had not gone three yards with Mrs, 
 de Montmorency before she took her measure, 
 so to speak, and proceeded to ' draw' her for 
 the edification of her friends ; she did it so 
 naturally that none but her intimates per- 
 ceived that her questions were not put in 
 good faith. Audrey and Claude were con- 
 vulsed with laughter, and the former in vain
 
 LAURA ERLE. 41 
 
 made signs to her companion to desist ; but 
 Miss Erie's love of fun was irrepressible, and 
 she went on unheeding, eliciting from her 
 hostess the most delicious mistakes and mis- 
 statements. Mr. de Montmorency believed 
 intensely in his wife and in her learning, al- 
 ways listening with profound respect to her 
 historical expositions. 
 
 'Whose room is this, Mrs. de Mont- 
 morency?' asked Laura, as they went through 
 a ghostly apartment, hung with blue. 
 
 'This is Queen Eleanor's Parlour, but it 
 has been turned into a bedroom, and you see 
 the curtains are embroidered with Eleanor 
 crosses in honour of her. She worked that 
 counterpane herself, as a gift to the rebel 
 Simon de Montfort.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! How ungrateful of him to have 
 become a rebel !' 
 
 ' This room is full of rebellious reminis- 
 cences,' said Mr. de Montmorency, laughing 
 immensely at the conceit. ' That is Oliver 
 Cromwell's prie-dieu chair,' in a tone between 
 pride and shame.
 
 42 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 Like a loyal subject he detested Oliver 
 Cromwell ; still, as the Protector's sojourn at 
 the abbey had evidently added to its celebrity, 
 he did not like to condemn him too severely. 
 
 Harold Carew uttered a low growl. To 
 hear Simon de Montfort and Oliver Crom- 
 well stigmatised as rebels, the memorials 
 of whose presence had to be apologised for, 
 was almost more than he could bear. There 
 had been many premonitory symptoms of a 
 storm, and it was doubtful how long he would 
 retain even the outward semblance of calm. 
 
 'Where does this lead to?' asked Laura, 
 as they went up a dark winding stair. 
 
 Here was the most trying part of Mrs. de 
 Montmorency's work. Henry Chichele had 
 proved too much for the united historic lore 
 of the family. This staircase led to his tower, 
 and she always feared some crucial question, 
 her inability to answer which would betray her 
 ignorance. The painful thing was, that all 
 her friends would keep on asking who he was. 
 She concluded at last, so ignorant did every 
 one seem about him, that he was some local
 
 LAURA ERLE. 43 
 
 celebrity — a highwayman, perhaps, whose story 
 she would one day learn. Meantime she put 
 a bold face on the matter. 
 
 1 This is the Venerable Chichele's Turret,' 
 she replied with an assured air, though 
 secretly so nervous that she was not the least 
 aware what words were coming from her 
 lips. 
 
 4 The Venerable Chichele ! Dear me ! Who 
 was he ?' asked Miss Laura ; while Harold, 
 standing close by, looked unutterable scorn. 
 
 4 No, no, mother ; you are making a mis- 
 take,' said her son ; c this is Henry Chichele's 
 Tower.' 
 
 ' 0, to be sure ! I always forget,' with the 
 nervous laugh peculiar to her on such occa- 
 sions, and putting her hand up as if to hide 
 her face. ' Henry Chichele's Tower. The 
 Venerable Bede's Turret is higher up.' 
 
 ' And who was Henry Chichele ?' repeated 
 Laura. 
 
 1 Bseda !' exclaimed Harold ; c he never was 
 here !' 
 
 4 Indeed he was,' returned the hostess
 
 44 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 quickly, delighted to parry the question about 
 her stumbling-block, Chichele. 4 We are going 
 up to his turret now. It is very curious, and 
 there are two holes in the floor worn by his 
 knees. He was such a good man that he was 
 always saying his prayers !' 
 
 4 Is that the test of a good man?' said 
 Digby, laughing. 
 
 4 Good or bad, he was never here — he can- 
 not have been,' returned Harold. 
 
 ' Never here, sir ! never here ! What the 
 deuce do you mean ?' cried the host, turning 
 sharply on the speaker, his face perceptibly 
 redder. 
 
 4 1 mean that Baxla never was here.' 
 
 4 Peter, sir ! Peter ! Who is talking of 
 Peter?' stammered the gentleman angrily. In 
 his excitement he had mistaken the name. 
 4 We are talking of Bede — the Venerable Bede 
 — who certainly was here. This is his turret, 
 always so called ; and there are the marks, sir, 
 of his knees, sir; holes made by him from 
 his unceasing prayers.' 
 
 4 Whoever or whatever made the holes, he
 
 LAURA EELE. 45 
 
 didn't,' repeated Harold scornfully. c It is in- 
 credible how people pervert facts. Baeda — ' 
 
 'Bseda! Breda! Who was Breda ? I 
 am speaking of Bede — the Venerable Bede,' 
 angrily. 
 
 ' Well, Bede, the Venerable Bede, if you 
 like it better. I say he never was here, never 
 had a turret here, and never said his prayers 
 here.' 
 
 I What, sir ? how, sir ?' stammered Mr. de 
 Montmorency, scarcely able to articulate from 
 sudden anger. ' You come here, a perfect 
 stranger, and deny well-known facts! How 
 can you tell who has been here or who has 
 not ?' 
 
 I I can tell, as every one can who has the 
 least knowledge on the subject, that Breda, or 
 Bede, as you corrupt his name — ' 
 
 1 Corrupt his name ! What the deuce do 
 you mean ? I corrupt the name of one of the 
 chief historical characters of my house !' 
 
 4 1 say that Ba3da, or Bede, if you prefer to 
 call him so,' went on Harold, unheeding, l can 
 never have been here, because not one stone
 
 46 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 of the building Avas laid at the time of his 
 death;' and he proceeded with a learned 
 lecture on Bede first and then on Farleigh 
 Abbey, or Priory, as he maintained it to be, 
 scouting the idea that the former could ever 
 have visited the latter. 
 
 He stamped his foot contemptuously on the 
 indentations popularly supposed to be the 
 result of the recluse's continuous genuflexions, 
 denouncing indignantly the credulity and ig- 
 norance which could believe in them, totally 
 regardless of the feelings of the unfortunate 
 Claude, who, having brought him there, felt 
 answerable for his conduct. 
 
 Words are quite inadequate to describe 
 Mr. de Montmorency's sensations, his looks 
 or gestures during the delivery of this ha- 
 rangue. His face grew redder and redder, till 
 there seemed serious reason for apprehending 
 a fit of apoplexy ; he gesticulated furiously, 
 endeavouring to refute his adversary, but 
 vainly, for rage completely stopped his articu- 
 lation, and his efforts ended in abortive spasms 
 of attempted enunciation.
 
 LAUKA ERLE. 47 
 
 At length he found words — all except the 
 h's, which he could not possibly stop to supply 
 at such a crisis— and fired a broadside into 
 his enemy. 
 
 Who was Mr. Carew, that he came there 
 to upset the associations of the abbey ? He — 
 Mr. de Montmorency — had paid for it and its 
 traditions in hard cash, and was not going to 
 see them disputed by ' an itinerant — an itiner- 
 ant — seeker after some new thing,' ended the 
 enraged proprietor, at a loss for a peroration. 
 
 The astonished and dismayed assistants 
 could only stand by in helpless silence. In- 
 terference was useless, both the disputants 
 being too angry to listen to any voice save 
 that of their own passion. But when Mr. de 
 Montmorency had somewhat relieved his feel- 
 ings, his wife and son on one side, and Claude 
 and Digby on the other, tried to stop the 
 combat. 
 
 Whether they would have succeeded or' 
 not is doubtful, but Laura created an effectual 
 diversion ; for just as the combatants, like two 
 enraged African travellers, were about to rush
 
 48 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 on each other again, she addressed Harold in 
 her clear fresh voice, 
 
 'Mr. Carew, as you have effectually de- 
 stroyed my belief in the Venerable Bede ever 
 having been here, you are bound to supply a 
 satisfactory solution of the great hole ques- 
 tion. What made the holes ? Mind, you 
 must give a romantic reason for them.' 
 
 He turned on her savagely. 'Argument 
 is useless with a person who sees matter for 
 jesting in everything.' 
 
 'It is equally useless with one bent on 
 believing in traditions for which he has paid 
 in hard cash,' she returned with sudden gra- 
 vity, and lowering her voice so that he alone 
 could hear it. ' I wonder you don't see that, 
 and that it is highly inexpedient to quarrel 
 on the subject here. Of course, no one se- 
 riously believes such rubbish.' 
 
 He stared at her in blank amazement. 
 'Inexpedient! Quarrel!' Never before had 
 such words been addressed to him. 
 
 Silent from sheer surprise, he did not 
 utter one syllable when Mr. de Montmorency,
 
 LAURA ERLE. 49 
 
 disregarding all remonstrance, returned to the 
 charge. 
 
 The whole party quitted the Venerable 
 Bede's Turret in a state of most uncomfortable 
 excitement, and all oppressed with a vague 
 sense of guilt, save the two combatants. 
 
 They continued to eye each other like 
 dogs who have been forcibly separated while 
 fighting. Harold glared too from time to time 
 at Laura, as does the dog at the master whose 
 authority prevents his renewing the attack. 
 
 Fortunately there was no more to see in- 
 doors, and the fresh air tended to calm their 
 feelings. The walk was concluded with only 
 one more explosion on Harold's part, and that 
 a mild one comparatively, for he addressed 
 his remarks chiefly to Laura, making them the 
 vehicles for some very cutting sarcasms on 
 herself. 
 
 Miss Erie gave him, it must be admitted, 
 as much as he gave her, and when they went 
 in to tea it would not be easy to say with whom 
 he was most indignant, her or Mr. de Mont- 
 morency. 
 
 vol. i. e •
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 This tea had sorely exercised Mrs. de Mont- 
 morency, and the visitors had been unwilling 
 listeners to a little colloquy on the subject, 
 which caused them to look forward to it with 
 no small anticipation of amusement. 
 
 It appeared that, the family dinner hour 
 being six, the head of the household could 
 not be brought to see the necessity of a meal 
 an hour or an hour and half only before that 
 great event in his day. 
 
 1 Tea, my dear !' the visitors heard him ex- 
 claim, evidently in answer to some remark 
 made to him by his wife; 'why, it is just 
 dinner-time ! What do people want with tea 
 at this hour?' 
 
 1 No one dines so early as we do, and peo- 
 ple always have tea at this time ; Flantagenet 
 and Gwendoline will tell you so.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 51 
 
 Plantagenet and Gwendoline were the off- 
 spring of Mr. and Mrs. de Montmorency. 
 
 ' Bosh, my dear, bosh ! Six o'clock isn't 
 early. I won't have such waste as tea at this 
 time of day.' 
 
 ' It looks so odd not to have it. It is so 
 inhospitable. Plantagenet and Gwendoline 
 always say — ' 
 
 ' There, for God's sake, my dear, don't tell 
 me what Planny and Gwen say. Ask the 
 people to stay to dinner if they are hungry — 
 though, no, don't ; for then Planny will want 
 me to have out my best sherry.' 
 
 ' Tea is ordered, mother,' said Plantagenet, 
 to end the matter. 
 
 He had drawn near during the colloquy, 
 suspecting its nature. 
 
 1 Ordered, ordered !' said Mr. de Mont- 
 morency irascibly. 'I'm not allowed to be 
 master in my own 'ouse — not in my own 
 'ouse!' In moments of excitement he always 
 omitted his h's. ' Then I won't have plates 
 of bread-and-butter cut and wasted. Let them 
 cut for themselves if they want it. What a 
 
 UNIVERSITY Ut 
 ILLINOIS LIBR/
 
 52 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 party to feed !' he muttered ; ' all as hungry 
 as hawks. Three great he-men, and one, two, 
 three women ! The old one will go into the 
 cream like bricks, and even the young ones 
 drink tea now like fishes. I say, Planny,' in a 
 loud whisper, ' don't order any cream, there's 
 a good boy — milk will do.' 
 
 'All right,' responded Plantagenet, nod- 
 ding his head as if quite entering into the 
 paternal feelings on the subject of cream. 
 
 This conversation was carried on so aud- 
 ibly that the 'people' could not choose but 
 hear, with what exquisite amusement may be 
 conceived. 
 
 It would have been heroic to decline tea ; 
 but human nature, it cannot be too often re- 
 peated, is weak, and so many and such excel- 
 lent stories were circulated in the country- 
 side respecting the way in which the inventor 
 of the Great Inextinguishable Dip emulated 
 Harpagon, that curiosity to see him preside 
 at his own board, even if that board was 
 spread only for five-o'clock tea, overcame 
 every other consideration. Besides, the hostess
 
 LAURA ERLE. 53 
 
 so pressed them, that they had no choice in 
 the matter. 
 
 On going into the library, where tea was 
 prepared, Mr. de Montmorency cast a re- 
 proachful glance at his son. 
 
 There were two silver cream -jugs on the 
 table, besides a jug of milk. For one brief 
 moment a hope that all three contained only 
 the less expensive fluid buoyed up his mind ; 
 but no, there was no mistaking the yellowish 
 liquid, all destined to be consumed by that 
 omnivorous party. 
 
 A plate with about four or six small slices 
 of bread-and-butter represented the edible 
 portion of the repast. 
 
 The host sat down, anxiously surveying 
 every drop of tea poured out. He would not 
 have touched anything himself to save his 
 life; nor did any of his family venture on 
 sharing the obnoxious meal. 
 
 Plantagenet, on seeing the scanty supply 
 of bread-and-butter, rang the bell. 
 
 c Now, Planny, what do you want?' ex-
 
 54 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 claimed his father, with an instant prevision 
 of farther expenditure. 
 
 ' They haven't brought bread-and-butter 
 enough.' 
 
 'Why, what do you mean? There's a 
 whole plateful.' 
 
 But even as he spoke it had disappeared, 
 Gwendoline having distributed it amongst the 
 company. 
 
 '0, well, it's gone!' in a dismayed tone; 
 ' but you needn't have any more. The ladies 
 are helped, and I daresay you gentlemen 
 don't care for thin slices of bread-and-but- 
 ter?' 
 
 The gentlemen unanimously repudiated 
 such a taste. 
 
 'Never mind — nothing,' said Mr. de Mont- 
 morency eagerly, the moment the servant ap- 
 peared. 
 
 'Yes, yes, some more bread-and-butter,' 
 cried Plantagenet and his mother simultane- 
 ously. 
 
 ' Very well, then ; but bring the loaf — 
 don't cut it. D'ye hear, Thomas ?' raising his
 
 LAURA ERLE. 55 
 
 voice ; ' bring the loaf. You fellows are so 
 wasteful, cutting whole plates full of bread- 
 and-butter which is never eaten. I don't 
 grudge anything to any one, but I hate waste/ 
 this last to the company, who uttered a de- 
 corous assent to so admirable a sentiment. 
 
 Harold Carew was too superior to be 
 amused ; but the less transcendental members 
 of the party had much difficulty in maintain- 
 ing a becoming gravity. The state of affairs 
 did, however, at last dawn upon that austere 
 champion of truth, and he took a grim revenge 
 on the proprietor of the Venerable Bede's 
 Turret by consuming all the bread-and-butter 
 which Thomas, in defiance of his master's or- 
 ders, brought in cut — a proceeding which sub- 
 sequently elicited from Mr. de Montmorency 
 the somewhat coarse remark that 'more valu- 
 able things went into Mr. Carew's mouth than 
 ever came out of it.' 
 
 The Farleigh dinner-bell was ringing as 
 the visitors drove away. Their host, ap- 
 prehensive that he would be called on to 
 entertain them at that meal, had indeed
 
 56 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 sped their departure with rather unseemly 
 haste. 
 
 ' Why, it's six o'clock, close upon ; you 
 will be very late. What time do you dine ?' 
 
 Assuring him that they would be home in 
 ample time, they took their leave ; and, in 
 spite of the turret episode, both visitors and 
 visited were mutually pleased, and parted 
 hoping they would soon meet again. 
 
 Mr. de Montmorency was the only excep- 
 tion to the general satisfaction. 
 
 1 Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all ;' 
 
 and Harold Carew's conduct had disgusted 
 him with the whole party. 
 
 'Ill-conditioned, ignorant brute !' he ex- 
 claimed, alluding to him as the carriage drove 
 off. 4 Why you should have given them tea, 
 Gwen !' going back to the library. ' Don't let 
 that cream be thrown away — that is if there is 
 any left,' looking anxiously into the cream - 
 jug. ' A set of idle people come here to make 
 domiciliary visits — ' 
 
 ' Domiciliary stuff! They came to call.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 57 
 
 4 To make domiciliary visits, I say ; and 
 not satisfied with hearing me abused in my 
 own house, you order up whole plates full of 
 bread-and-butter and tea enough for a regi- 
 ment. I'll stake my existence that Plantage- 
 net's whole company wouldn't eat as much in 
 a month as that long-legged ugly-looking 
 brute did at one sitting.' 
 
 ' If they didn't, they would become small 
 by degrees and beautifully less,' returned Plan- 
 tagenet, laughing. 
 
 'It's all very well for you to laugh, sir. 
 You would laugh the other side of your mouth 
 if you had to pay the bills. I'll never have 
 one of that party inside my house again ; 
 mind that, Gwen. Confound it, I don't keep 
 a hotel ! That long-legged ass says I oughtn't 
 to touch the west window. I'll block it up 
 altogether ! I'll have it done to-morrow ; I'll 
 give orders about it to-night. He says every 
 stone of it ought to be looked on as sacred. 
 I'll have every stone broken up to make the 
 new road to the brick-kiln. I will, I'm hanged 
 if I don't ! And cream the price it is ! I offered
 
 58 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 them milk, hoping to save the cream; but 
 Planny, with his officiousness, pressed the 
 cream on them. Do you know what it is a 
 pint, sir ? The brutes had moustaches too V 
 
 c Mr. Carew hadn't,' said Mrs. de Montmor- 
 ency, seizing with avidity on any extenuating 
 circumstance. 
 
 4 Because he hadn't manhood enough in him 
 to grow one,' retorted the gentleman, deter- 
 mined not to be mollified ; and he proceeded 
 to say that he would give half a crown apiece 
 for every hair Mr. Carew grew on his face. ' A 
 ton of bear's grease wouldn't make that fellow 
 grow a moustache ; and yet he comes here 
 giving his opinion about my house and my 
 doings, and says people never lived here who 
 lived and died here, as all the world knows. 
 I'll block that window up. I will, I will !' 
 
 The exciting incidents of the visit to Far- 
 leigh, and the culminating episode of Mr. 
 Carew's consumption of the bread-and-butter, 
 and the consequent discomfiture of the eccen- 
 tric proprietor of the Venerable Bede's Turret, 
 so transported Mrs. Elliott that she forgot all
 
 LAURA ERLE. 59 
 
 her ill-humour of the morning, and was as 
 genial, bright, and charming as she could be 
 at times. She was so lovable in her good fits 
 that she made every one forget how intensely 
 disagreeable she could be in her bad ones. So 
 entirely had she got over her annoyance, that 
 she insisted on keeping Laura to dinner in 
 order to ' talk over' the visit. 
 
 Laura and Mrs. Elliott together, when 
 both were amused and in good spirits, were, 
 as Audrey expressed it, c better than any 
 play.' They drew each other out, and vied 
 with each other in the quaintness and absur- 
 dity of their remarks and criticisms. Even 
 Harold Carew was observed to smile grimly 
 once or twice during dinner that evening. 
 
 He was still full of the deepest resentment 
 against Laura ; language failed him to stigma- 
 tise her flippancy, her presumption, her abo- 
 minable propensity to thrust herself into con- 
 versation with every one. But she stimulated 
 his curiosity. Of all the specimens of the in- 
 comprehensible sex he had ever come across, 
 she was the most remarkable, and his eyes fol-
 
 60 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 lowed her every movement with an intentness 
 not unobserved by Mrs. Elliott, in whose 
 active brain a new scheme began to acquire 
 consistency. 
 
 Audrey, Claude, and Digby all volunteered 
 to walk home with Laura. The Rectory was 
 close to Enleigh, the way leading through the 
 gardens and shrubbery. The whole party 
 stood on the steps for a few moments, breath- 
 ing in the freshness after the day's heat. The 
 dew lay heavy on leaf and flower ; the air was 
 rich with the scent of roses and magnolia 
 blossoms. They were all talking and laughing 
 together except Harold Carew, who stood 
 apart, still casting moody glances at Laura, 
 round whom Claude was carefully wrapping 
 a red cloak, she protesting the while that she 
 did not need it, and that he was stifling her. 
 They started ; but she, seeing that Harold 
 was not coming with them, turned back. 
 
 'Won't you say good-night to me, Mr. 
 Carew ? As we have quarrelled all day, we 
 ought to shake hands at parting, oughtn't we?' 
 holding out hers, and looking up at him from
 
 LAURA ERLE. 61 
 
 under her hat, which was tilted low down 
 over her eyes. 
 
 ' Good-night/ he said, in a voice which be- 
 trayed unconsciously the irritation and an- 
 tagonism she aroused in him, and touching 
 her hand much as he would have touched 
 some obnoxious animal. 
 
 He felt annoyed with himself because he 
 could not help being angry with her. Why 
 should he let such a chattering compound of 
 volatility and presumption disturb his equa- 
 nimity ? 
 
 'You mustn't think us quite depraved, 
 even though we do call Farleigh an abbey,' she 
 said, with a laughing light in her dark eyes. 
 
 He muttered something ungraciously; 
 her phraseology provoked him inexpressibly. 
 Why did she use such exaggerated terms ? 
 Depravity had nothing to do with the matter. 
 He had not said they were depraved; only 
 inaccurate or ignorant. 
 
 'He is a bear, you will admit/ was 
 Laura's laughing comment as she rejoined 
 Claude.
 
 62 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 4 Then why trouble yourself about him?' 
 he returned a little impatiently. 
 
 She glanced at him from under her long 
 lashes. 
 
 4 Because, most mighty, I did not wish to 
 show myself a bear too.' 
 
 On their return, Digby and Audrey stood 
 for a few minutes together on the steps. A 
 star shot across the sky, traversing in a mo- 
 ment millions of miles, and disappearing be- 
 hind the woods faster than the eye could fol- 
 low it. A white owl flew between them and 
 the moon, looking ghostly, somehow, in the 
 gleaming light. His discordant c tu-whoo' 
 made Audrey start and shiver. There is some- 
 thing weird and suggestive of coming ill in 
 the note. It broke in on her dream. 
 
 c I can't bear the owl's cry,' she said shiver- 
 ing ; i it always frightens me. Let us go in.' 
 
 In the hall they found Mrs. Elliott looking 
 over a basket of visiting cards. 
 
 ' I see Mrs. Ellis and Lady Emily Carew 
 called to-day, Audrey. We must return their 
 visit in a day or two.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 63 
 
 Audrey knew that this was inevitable, 
 much as she dreaded an intimacy with the 
 family at Oaklands. She had no sympathy 
 with any member of it, and especially disliked 
 one of the girls, Violet, from a suspicion she 
 entertained that Mrs. Elliott meant her — fast, 
 modish, and 'loud' — to displace her beauti- 
 ful, but, alas! impecunious, friend Laura in 
 Claude's heart.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Audrey always felt helpless before Mrs. El- 
 liott's resolves. That lady had a will of iron, 
 and had never been known to swerve from a 
 purpose she once set before her. Yet Audrey 
 was not without hope that her brother might 
 be saved from Violet Ellis, her aunt not- 
 withstanding. She could not conceive a worse 
 fate for him than to have her for a wife. To 
 Miss Dashwood, refined and fastidious, nothing 
 could be more abhorrent than Violet's fastness, 
 her slang, her unswerving devotion to one 
 object — that, namely, of getting a husband at 
 all costs. To obtain this worthy end she was 
 ready to sell herself to the highest bidder with 
 shameless indifference. 
 
 Claude was fastidious in his views about 
 women and in his requirements in a wife, and 
 it was on this fastidiousness his sister relied,
 
 LATTKA ERLE. 05 
 
 hoping it would counteract the force of the 
 battery his aunt might bring to bear on him. 
 
 It is true he had frequently expressed 
 much admiration for Yiolet ; but it seemed to 
 Audrey that no man who took pleasure in 
 Laura's society — as he evidently did — could 
 also take pleasure in Violet's. 
 
 No two girls could be more entirely differ- 
 ent. In a worldly point of view Laura was 
 heavily weighted in the race. She had abso- 
 lutely nothing but her own merits to recom- 
 mend her — her brightness, her ready wit, and 
 generous heart. She was literally penniless ; 
 one — horrendwn dicta — of fourteen children. 
 There had been sixteen ; but a beneficent 
 Providence had, in its infinite goodness, seen 
 fit to withdraw two — boys, of course — from a 
 quiver which, even after their departure, could 
 not but be deemed sufficiently full. 
 
 Of the fourteen living children, nine were 
 of that sex which the world contemns while 
 finding it indispensable. 
 
 Mr. Erie, the rector of Smedston, had ex- 
 actly three hundred and twenty-five pounds a 
 
 VOL. i. f
 
 C6 LAURA ERLi:. 
 
 year, and no hope of anything more, on which 
 to feed, clothe, and educate this portentous 
 family; to live like a gentleman, and to keep 
 up many parish charities. 
 
 Was it wonderful that his nightly thoughts 
 troubled him? That, as girl after o-i r l made 
 her appearance on this mortal scene, he asked 
 himself in ever-deepening despair, c What is to 
 become of her ?' Some irrepressible, but of 
 course unpardonable, doubts as to the absolute 
 abominableness of female infanticide would at 
 these seasons of depression present themselves 
 to his mind, doubts which, as became a good 
 Christian and a gentleman, he crushed back 
 steadfastly, exorcising them as devices of the 
 enemy, and resuming patiently his increased 
 burden. He reminded himself that hope is 
 one of the cardinal virtues; he therefore hoped 
 much — sometimes even against hope. These 
 hopes centred chiefly in his eldest son, John — 
 to send whom to Oxford the Rectory family 
 had denied themselves more than they ever 
 cared to speak of — and in his daughters, who, 
 he trusted, would marry.
 
 LAURA EltLE. G7 
 
 The descent of some half-dozen heaven-di- 
 rected husbands was the only solution of the 
 many difficulties surrounding his path which 
 Mr. Erie could see. He did not pause much 
 to reflect whence these husbands might come. 
 He concluded girls had a knack of picking up 
 husbands somehow ; if his did not, God help 
 them ! They must starve. At this point in his 
 reflections Mr. Erie would bury his face in his 
 hands and groan aloud; and then his wife, 
 who had no need to ask what was troubling 
 him, would speak some words of hope and con- 
 solation. Her hopes and beliefs centred in her 
 son John. She was less sanguine than her 
 head about those heaven-directed husbands, 
 who, poor fellows, were anticipated less in 
 their character of loving and cherishing 
 than of endowing with all their worldly 
 Cfoods. 
 
 Mrs. Erie was beyond the age of illusions. 
 She knew that young men with goods to be- 
 stow have no need to go into the byways of 
 life to seek maidens to endow withal. They 
 can stand in the market-place, and crowds will
 
 08 LAUKA EBLE. 
 
 flock to be hired. Therefore she was not sanguine 
 
 © 
 
 as to that matrimonial panacea, the thought 
 of which afforded so much balm to her help- 
 mate's soul. Laura might marry. The mo- 
 ther could not understand how any man could 
 look at her bright-haired, bright-faced darling 
 without loving her: for Laura was the light 
 not only of her father's but of her mothers life 
 — dear to her as her child first of all, then as 
 her friend, her adviser, and comforter, whose 
 tender sympathy, ready help, and practical 
 good sense never failed. 
 
 But Mrs. Erie had stared reality too closely 
 
 in the face not to know that Laura might 
 
 <_ 
 
 not be able to marry a rich man, and she had 
 suffered too much herself as the impecunious 
 mother of a large family to wish to see her 
 daughter the wife of a poor one. A keen 
 pang would shoot through her heart when she 
 thought of her girls' future — a tight feeling 
 
 © © O © 
 
 of anguish worse than any bodily pain. 
 
 She feared and felt especially for Laura. 
 Was she to see this tender bright creature fade 
 and wither, cut off by the bitter circumstances
 
 LAURA EltLE. G9 
 
 of her lot from all the hopes and joys of hap- 
 pier girls ? 
 
 Of course thoughts of Claude Dashwood 
 did from time to time force themselves on 
 Mrs. Erie's mind, but she resolutely put them 
 away ; and without actually saying it in so 
 many words, she tried to make Laura con- 
 scious that a match between her and the rich, 
 handsome, young patrician at the great house 
 ■ — second son though he was — was the least 
 likely event in the world to happen. The 
 frequent intercourse with Enleigh, though it 
 had its advantages, was indeed a source of 
 no little anxietv to the mother. The men 
 Laura met there — and they constituted her 
 whole society — spoiled her for any less finished 
 specimens of the sex. How could she, accus- 
 tomed to the style, conversation, and attention 
 of these gay young favourites of Fortune, 
 content herself with the untravelled, un- 
 polished country clergyman, say, who would 
 be alone likely to seek her hand? She would 
 always be trying him by some aristocratic 
 standard. He might exceed in real worth
 
 70 LAURA EltLE. 
 
 every one by whom she measured him; it 
 is, however, a melancholy fact that real worth 
 cannot always hold its own against ease of 
 manner and that indefinable something which 
 marks the man who has seen the world and 
 mixed in society. 
 
 Claude was always at the Rectory. Every 
 day, so long as he was at Enleigh, he would 
 come with a book, or a paper, or a flower; 
 anything served for an excuse. He would 
 take Laura away to play crocp.iet or to ride or 
 walk ; and Mrs. Erie, knowing what a hard 
 life the girl had, acting as governess to her 
 brothers and sisters, teaching in the school-, 
 visiting in the village, superintending the 
 choir, had not the heart to deprive her of the 
 change and brightness his presence brought 
 her. Besides, the intimacy had gone on so 
 lono- that it would be difficult to break it off 
 without assigning some definite reason for 
 doing so, and that might compromise Laura. 
 
 It was not possible to conceive a greater con- 
 trast to Miss Erie in everyway than Violet Ellis. 
 
 The Ellises were wealthy, and not scrupu-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 71 
 
 lous where it was a question of securing a 
 rich husband. 
 
 Violet was the fourth of six daughters, the 
 three eldest of whom had, at the opening of 
 this story, been ' out' for some time ; but 
 though they had toiled laboriously all day, and 
 iill night too, they had hitherto taken nothing. 
 It was hard work, and the poor souls were 
 weary enough of being exposed season after 
 season in the market-place, in hopes of finding 
 a purchaser who never came. The eldest girl, 
 Margaret, showed her sense and self-respect 
 by going 'in' again; but Violet, in all the 
 pride of eighteen, thought this a tame con- 
 clusion, and resolved to play her cards differ- 
 ently. She would avoid 'failure' — there is 
 parliamentary authority for that admirably 
 just and appropriate expression — at all haz- 
 ards ; she was therefore, as Audrey felt, a 
 dangerous rival to Laura, who, not looking 
 on 'failure' as absolutely the greatest of 
 earthly misfortunes, had some scruples left, 
 old-fashioned it may be, but respectable, as to 
 the means to be used for insuring ' success.'
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 'Are you coming with us to Oaklands, Claude T 
 asked Mrs. Elliott, the day she had settled to 
 go there. 
 
 c To Oaklands? Yes, I doirt mind going. 
 I have nothing to do here. Is Laura going?' 
 turning to his sister. 
 
 c No. I said nothing about it ; she is so 
 busy/ 
 
 I Busy ! Nonsense ! That girl is worked 
 to death. She looked so pale and worn this 
 morning ! The drive will do her good. I'll 
 go over to the Rectory and make her come.' 
 
 Mrs. Elliott began urging a host of objec- 
 tions, but Claude would not stay to listen. 
 
 I I sha'n't keep you ; she is never a minute 
 getting ready.' 
 
 He met the object of his search at the 
 Rectory door, equipped for walking.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 73 
 
 c That is all right, Laura. I came to look 
 for you; we are going to Oakland's to calk 
 Come with us.' 
 
 ' I should like it of all things ; but I'm 
 going out with papa.' 
 
 ' Never mind; you can go with him an- 
 other day. It is too hot to walk.' 
 
 1 It is hot, and I should like to come im- 
 mensely; but, you see. I couldn't leave papa,' 
 deprecatingly. ' Thanks, so many, all the 
 same.' 
 
 ' You must come, L aura, I'll tell Mr. Erie — ' 
 
 c Not for the world,' putting out a detain- 
 ing hand. ' I wouldn't leave him this after- 
 noon on any account. He has to go a long 
 way over the hill, and he feels the walk less 
 when he has a companion.' 
 
 c Let Amy go,' said Claude, his face dark- 
 ening as it always did at the least opposition 
 to anything he proposed. 
 
 ' It is too hot for her.' 
 
 4 It seems to me that all the work which 
 is too hard or too disagreeable for other people 
 is put on you.'
 
 74 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 ' Well, quite right. I'm the strong one of 
 the family,' looking up at him in her bright 
 way. ' Now, don't scoavI at me about it, be- 
 cause that frightens me and doesn't become 
 you. You know I would go willingly if I 
 could.' 
 
 ' Can't Mr. Erie put off his walk V 
 
 L l wouldn't ask him to do so; he is not 
 up to it every day, but this afternoon he feels 
 fit for anything, he says.' 
 
 1 Then you won't come ?' 
 
 'You see I can't, Claude,' deprecatingly. 
 
 He turned away with an oath. 
 
 I Claude !' she exclaimed, her face flushing 
 
 indignantly. 
 
 I I beg your pardon, Laura ; but it is such 
 nonsense! Come along, and let Teddy go 
 with your father. It isn't too fir for him.' 
 
 4 1 never throw papa over for any 0116,' 
 she said firmly. ' I am much obliged for your 
 kind thought of me, but I cannot go.' 
 
 'Very well; that settles it,' angrily; and 
 lifting his hat he strode away, leaving her 
 with that painful sense and dread of his
 
 LAURA ERLE. 75 
 
 < touchiness' which always came over her when 
 he ga.ve way to one of his i tantrums,' as he 
 did frequently enough. Life with him was a 
 precarious pleasure to a woman. Before men 
 he exercised some degree of self-restraint ; but 
 not the changing sea, the varying wind, or 
 any unsettled thing one can think of in 
 nature, was more unstable than his temper in 
 dealing with women. The very slightest ex- 
 pression of dissent from his wishes or opinions 
 was fatal to his serenity, and it took him 
 hours to recover his equanimity. He went 
 back to Enleigh now, his face as black as a 
 thunder-cloud, and told Mrs. Elliott shortly 
 that he would not go to Oaklands. 
 
 c Can't Laura come ?' asked Audrey. 
 
 c No ; she chooses instead to go tearing 
 over the hills with her father; tiring her- 
 self to death to see some confounded old wo- 
 man.' 
 
 Mrs. Elliott did her best to make him 
 change his resolution, and being unable to do 
 so started for the drive in anything but a 
 seraphic frame of mind herself.
 
 7G LAURA ERLE. 
 
 Audrey had to bear the brunt of the storm. 
 
 The lady was critical at all times ; when she 
 was at all put out she became hypercritical. 
 There was not a feature in her niece's face, a 
 point in her appearance or manner, an article 
 of her dress, which she did not pass under 
 review. 
 
 4 That ride to Glynton in the sun has 
 ruined your complexion, Audrey, and as that 
 was the only good thing about you, you are 
 not fit to be seen now. Your eyes are non- 
 descript, or green, if they are anything, and 
 your nose frightful. I wonder you don't wear 
 a hat that would hide it a little.' 
 
 4 1 don't know what sort of hat would hide 
 
 my nose, aunt Eleanor,' said poor Audrey 
 
 meekly, as if apologising for the existence of 
 » * 
 
 her vituperated organ, which, however, was 
 by no means of so despicable a kind as her 
 relation's remark implied. It was a very 
 characteristic little nose, at all events; and 
 though, perhaps, not so provokingly designed 
 by Providence for men to hang their hearts 
 upon as her friend Laura's, was yet imper-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 77 
 
 tinent and expressive enough to be a charm- 
 ing feature in her face. 
 
 ' A hat with a brim would hide your de- 
 formities in some degree,' went on Mrs. El- 
 liott. ' That one you have on is like a milk- 
 bowl turned upside down. I suppose you 
 think it looks well to have it come down just 
 to show your eyebrows. You won't have 
 any left soon, that is one consolation. Your 
 veil will speedily rub them all off, besides 
 destroying the little bit of complexion you 
 have left.' 
 
 1 1 put a veil on to keep the flies from tor- 
 menting me ; it is very thin,' in an exculpatory 
 voice. 
 
 A pause, during which Mrs. Elliott scanned 
 her victim from head to foot, and the victim, 
 for the thousandth time, was enabled to pic- 
 ture what vivisection must be like. 
 
 4 Is that the latest fashion in neckties ? 
 Adopted from your maid, I suppose ? She 
 rules you. It looks like a wisp.' 
 
 'It is a sailor's knot, and Claude thought 
 it very pretty.' Audrey always tried to
 
 78 LAURA EKLE. 
 
 shield herself by quoting some authority it 
 was possible her persecutor might respect. 
 
 ' Indeed ! then we shall have Laura burst- 
 ing out all over with sailors' knots.' 
 
 c It's very hot,' remarked Audrey cheer- 
 fully, hoping to divert attention from herself. 
 
 ' It is hot. I don't wonder you feel it, 
 however; the tight gloves you wear must stop 
 the circulation. I wonder you can bear them. 
 
 'They are not tighter than gloves ought 
 to be,' said Audrey, almost in despair at this 
 fresh attack, as she looked at her small deli- 
 cately-gloved hands. 
 
 I Aren't they ? People with large hands 
 always wear tight gloves; I have observed 
 that before.' 
 
 I I always have six and three-quarters. If 
 I had sevens, they would be like boats on me : 
 besides they wear out so.' 
 
 1 I'm glad you think of economy some- 
 times. You will have to marry a millionaire 
 to enable you to go on spending and dressing 
 at the rate you do now, or rather to enable 
 your maid to do so.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 79 
 
 Miss Dash wood's maid was a sore subject. 
 She liked her, which fact was enough to insure 
 her aunt's dislike. 
 
 'As your own fortune will soon be quite 
 insufficient for your wants, I advise you to 
 turn your attention to this millionaire chand- 
 ler who is come to the Abbey. He could, at 
 all events, pay your bills, and as he wants 
 family, like all parvenus, he would probably 
 take you.' 
 
 ' Probably, aunt Eleanor, when I signify 
 my wishes to him. I will take some lessons 
 from the Miss Ellises ; they have had a good 
 deal of experience in that line. My only fear 
 is that they may anticipate me. As Mrs. Ellis 
 did not wait for you to call on her before 
 coming to Ehleigh, I should not wonder if 
 young Mr. de Montmorency found a carriage 
 waiting for him at the Hillin^don station to 
 take him at once to Oaklands on his arrival. 
 Possession is nine points of the law, isn't it ?' 
 
 When Mrs. Elliott had goaded her victims 
 into a retort, she generally subsided herself 
 for a little while, and on this occasion they
 
 80 LAUKA ERLE. 
 
 had got near Oaklands before she resumed her 
 
 criticisms. 
 
 At that same moment Audrey and her nose 
 were the subject of conversation at the very 
 place to which they were going. There three 
 young ladies were reposing in easy-chair-, 
 under the shade of a magnificent ash-tree. 
 The lawn was as smooth as a billiard-table, 
 and there was a grand display of croquet balls 
 and mallets. 
 
 The heads of the three young ladies were 
 thrown back, as if in contemplation of the 
 rustling ash-leaves above, with the blue skv 
 gleaming through them. They may have 
 looked at the sky ; it is possible ; but they 
 were chiefly engaged in watching in divine 
 enjoyment the smoke curling up from three 
 cigarettes which they held between their re- 
 spective lips. 
 
 'How delicious this is!' exclaimed Violet, 
 flinging away the end of hers. ' Give me 
 another, Georgie. How I hope no one will 
 call ! Entertaining the natives is such a 
 bore !'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 81 
 
 4 There is no one to call, except the Dash- 
 woods ; and I doubt Miss Audrey's giving 
 herself the trouble to do that.' 
 
 ' I hate that girl!' remarked Violet, as she 
 lit a fresh cigarette ; ' she is the most odious, 
 stuck-up,' — not being able to fix on a substan- 
 tive sufficiently indicative of her dislike, she 
 ended with an expressive ' Oh !' 
 
 Miss Violet looked the very personification 
 of soulless enjoyment as she thus delivered 
 herself. She was exceedingly pretty. No 
 one could see her without being sensible of 
 her sweet youthful charm. There was neither 
 mind nor soul in her face, but in the mere 
 externals of beauty, in form and colouring, in 
 almost childlike grace and playfulness, it 
 would not have been easy to find her equal. 
 Her eyes were dancing, sunny blue ; her hair 
 golden brown, and literally ' running over' 
 with rippling curls, which even the appalling 
 head-^ear she had on could not conceal : her 
 blooming wild-rose complexion, her pretty 
 fairy figure, and perfect hands and feet, all 
 
 VOL. I. g
 
 82 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 combined to make her as fair a picture — 
 though not of a lofty type — as it was possible 
 to conceive. But the loveliness was mortal, 
 and nothing more. It would never suggest 
 
 O DC 
 
 grand thoughts of a noble life to be nobly 
 lived ; and Violet certainly did not look noble 
 when she went on to remark : 
 
 ' I do hope Miss Audrey won't take it into 
 her head to call ! Just pick up some of those 
 cigarette-ends, Kate. The whole place is 
 strewed.' 
 
 'What fun it would be if she did!' ex- 
 claimed Georgie. c I wonder what she would 
 say!' 
 
 'Nothing to us; she would curl her lip 
 and turn up her odious little nose in disdain- 
 ful silence, and then go away and abuse us 
 behind our backs.' 
 
 Now, as a rule, none of the Miss Ellises 
 made any secret of their devotion to cigarettes 
 and other narcotic delights — a devotion main- 
 tained by them to be perfectly innocent in 
 itself, as indeed it was; but in the present 
 instance there was a very potent reason for
 
 LAURA ERLE. 83 
 
 departure from their ordinary candour on the 
 subject. 
 
 Audrey Dashwood they hated, and no 
 keener gratification could they have had than 
 that of shocking her, had she alone been con- 
 cerned ; but she was the sister of 4 a fish' — by 
 that name did Yiolet frankly designate every 
 man with the least pretensions to ' eligibility' 
 — and though Claude was not a fish of the 
 first or even the second quality, yet he was 
 not to be despised in case no more desirable 
 creature 'bit.' 
 
 Of course every one would like to catch 
 a salmon, but when salmon are not to be had, 
 a salmon-trout, a perch, or even a pike, is not 
 to be contemned. It is true Claude was a 
 second son, but he had no younger brothers, 
 and his mother's fortune was settled on him ; 
 he was a barrister, too, with a reputation al- 
 ready sufficiently risen to be an earnest of 
 further elevation; he was, besides, a litterateur 
 of some note. Violet certainly meant to c go in 
 for a salmon, but it was possible she might be 
 forced to a reversionary interest in Claude, and
 
 84 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 she was too skilful a sportswoman not to know 
 
 the sort of fly with which to bait her hook. 
 
 To do her justice, she had no immediate 
 design on Claude. lie was the last sort of 
 man she would have wished to marry, but 
 being resolved not to follow her sisters' ex- 
 ample, she, while throwing for a salmon, 
 would not reject a trout. Accordingly she 
 would not be seen by him, or any one belong- 
 ing to him, in the act of smoking rather 
 potent cigarettes. That was a bait to which 
 she felt instinctively he would never rise. 
 Her dismay therefore, the dismay of the whole 
 party, may be conceived, when, as they were 
 picturing to themselves the felicity which 
 might result from horrifying Audrey, they 
 suddenly became aware of the approach of a 
 
 carriage. 
 
 4 Good heavens, there's some one coming 
 to call!' cried Kate. 
 
 1 Parler du diable V exclaimed Violet; 'it's 
 the Dash woods. Pick up those cigarette- 
 ends, Georgie, do! Is there time to escape? 
 what shall we do ?'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 85 
 
 4 No, they would see us; it is too late. 
 Don't all jump up in that way,' remonstrated 
 Kate. 
 
 Violet had sprung up, and was hastily col- 
 lecting the white paper remnants of the ex- 
 hausted cigarettes. ' How abominably we 
 shall smell ! We don't know her well enough 
 to kiss her, that's one blessing!' she ejacu- 
 lated pantingly between her labours. 
 
 'It's not the Dash woods,' said Georgie; 
 * you needn't fuss.' 
 
 ' Yes, it is. I know the horses, and it's 
 the Dashwood livery. Georgie, what a fool 
 you are to go on laughing like that! Hide 
 the cigar - box under the lilac - tree, will 
 you?' 
 
 Georgie Ellis's sense of fun was so great, 
 that even at the risk of losing a desirable fish 
 :she had to yield to it, and she was now choking 
 with laughter. ' If only St. Clare was here, 
 we might put it on him,' she remarked, push- 
 ing the box under the shrub. 
 
 'How vilely we do smell, though!' ex- 
 claimed Violet in despair, as Mrs. Elliott and
 
 8G LAURA EttLE. 
 
 Audrey, perceiving the young ladies on the 
 lawn, came forward. 
 
 As they drew near, the three girls vigor- 
 ously inhaled draughts of fresh air, hoping 
 thereby to dispel the fumes they had reason 
 to fear still hung about them. 
 
 4 That odious Audrey is sure to smell out 
 something with that hateful little sharp nose 
 of hers !' whispered Violet viciously, as Miss 
 Dashwood, whose unfortunate olfactory organ 
 was thus a second time made the subject of 
 animadversion, approached . 
 
 In the confusion and alarm of the first 
 moment Violet had thrown her cigarette on 
 the chair from which in her amazed haste she 
 had arisen. As the visitors came up she 
 caught sight of it, still in a state of combus- 
 tion. 
 
 There was but one resource. Extinction 
 was impossible under the circumstances : she 
 therefore dexterously contrived to slip it into 
 her pocket, burning her fingers much in the 
 process, and at the imminent risk of setting 
 fire to her dainty handkerchief and the letter.
 
 LAURA EBLE. 87 
 
 written on flimsy foreign paper, which she had 
 that morning received from her friend, Colonel 
 Wilmot. 
 
 As they were sitting down she espied a 
 cigarette, which must have fallen out of the 
 box, close to Audrey's chair. Kate's glances 
 directed towards the same spot convinced her 
 that she was not alone in her discovery. The 
 situation was critical. The burning cigarette 
 in her pocket exercised her terribly. It 
 might at any moment cause an awkward sen- 
 sation by setting fire to her dress, and it would 
 in any case burn a hole in Colonel Wilmot's 
 letter. She gradually insinuated her hand 
 into the receptacle in question to feel how 
 matters were progressing there. 
 
 Unfortunately her fingers came in contact 
 with the ignited end, and it needed all her 
 self-command to suppress an exclamation and 
 start. She did suppress them, however, and 
 succeeded in extinguishing the enemy, though 
 at considerable injury to the letter and her 
 own pretty little fingers. 
 
 Mrs. Ellis, who soon appeared, received
 
 88 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 Mrs. Elliott with all the consideration due by 
 the mother of six disposable daughters to a 
 clever woman known to have influence over 
 disposable young men. With respect to the 
 latter Oaklands was fortunately situated. The 
 neighbourhood abounded in good preserves. 
 
 There was Glynton absolutely asking for 
 a mistress; so dull and lonely that its lord, 
 young, good-looking, and above all rich, was 
 fain, in order to escape its gloom, to accept the 
 hospitality of strangers. There was Enleigh, 
 with Claude — only a silver fish, it is true; but 
 also with his friend, Mr. Carew, young, rich, 
 and though said to be somewhat eccentric, yet 
 reputed to be 'good' even to religiousness, 
 and that, though by no means a sine qua non, 
 does count for something. It is a pleasant 
 adjunct to a man's other qualifications, and 
 adds to his market value, especially in the 
 eyes of dowagers of the better sort. 
 
 Mrs. Ellis felt herself honoured by the 
 presence of this ' good' young man's mother 
 in her house. It might lead to his own. She 
 regretted that Lady Emily Carew was out a
 
 LAURA ERLE. 89 
 
 this moment. The latter would have been so 
 glad to see Mrs. Elliott, and hear directly 
 from her how her son was. Unfortunately 
 she was gone for a walk with Margaret. 
 
 1 Why, there they are !' cried Violet. 
 1 What on earth has happened, Meg?' 
 
 As she spoke, a lady, rather but not very 
 stout, accompanied by a girl whose dress was 
 in the utmost disorder, came through a gate 
 leading on to the lawn. 
 
 4 Ah, my dears, my dears,' began the for- 
 mer in a voice so excited that she could 
 hardly articulate, i we've been all but dead ! 
 Thank God you see us alive ! that Ave are not 
 all dead corpses, with nothing left of us but 
 our clothes ! Ah, my dearest, best of friends,' 
 addressing Mrs. Ellis, c how right you were to 
 advise me not to go so far!' 
 
 Every one naturally asked for an explana- 
 tion, whence it appeared that the two ladies 
 had met a herd of cattle which had caused 
 them great alarm. 
 
 c Do sit down, Lady Emily, you must be 
 tired,' said Mrs. Ellis.
 
 90 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 ' Tired ! Well, no. I'm too much fright- 
 ened and surprised to think such creatures 
 should be allowed to range the country at 
 will. We should both be at this moment 
 corpses, my dear friend,' impressively, c had it 
 not been for the most beautiful and charming 
 young lady I ever met, and her father.' 
 
 ' It must have been Laura and Mr. Erie,' 
 said Audrey. 
 
 ; Ah, my dear Audrey !' turning to her ; 
 ■ I beg your pardon ; and Mrs. Elliott ! Dear 
 Mrs. Elliott, excuse my rudeness in not hav- 
 ing spoken to you,' rising and kissing both 
 with, effusion. ' I saw you, but I was so 
 frightened. Laura, yes ; that was the young- 
 lady's name,' eagerly to Audrey ; ' such a dear 
 srirl: so courteous and well-bred! No fine- 
 ladyish airs and graces about her ; and she 
 did not laugh at our fright or think us fools, 
 did she, Margaret ?' 
 
 Audrey bethought herself that if Miss 
 Laura did not do so before Lady Emily, she 
 probably indemnified herself afterwards for 
 the self-control.
 
 LAURA ERIE. 91 
 
 i But what was it ? I don't understand/ 
 said Mrs. Ellis. 
 
 4 Well, now, I'll tell you all in order, ex- 
 actly as it happened;' and Lady Emily sat 
 down, settling herself regularly for a story in 
 due form. 
 
 Her stories were terrible. She lost her- 
 self in them, and her hearers lost their pa- 
 tience. Wishing to be graphic, she succeeded 
 only in missing any point there may have 
 been in her narrative. 
 
 1 As you know, my dears, Margaret and I 
 started for a walk. I must just explain,' turn- 
 ing to Mrs. Elliott and Audrey, l that I like 
 to take a walk every day, for I'm a little in- 
 clined to be stout, unfortunately; and my 
 dear son Harold has such a horror of very 
 stout people ; not that I'm very stout, be- 
 cause I take so much exercise. Do you think 
 I'm stouter than when you saw me last, my 
 dear?' to Audrey. 
 
 c By no means, Lady Emily. I find you 
 much thinner,' replied Miss Dashwood, with 
 great tact.
 
 02 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 i I'm glad of that. Indeed, I hardly know 
 how I could get stout, I eat so little and I 
 walk so much. I've quite given up cream, 
 and I take such a tiny, tiny bit of sugar in my 
 tea, don't I, dear Mrs. Ellis? though I can't 
 bear tea without sugar; but it is all to please 
 my dear son Harold,' with a half- shy laugh, 
 as if apologising for her affection ; ' you see, 
 he is my only child, the only one I ever had,' 
 regretfully, l and I naturally like to do what 
 he wishes.' 
 
 ' But he wouldn't wish you to starve your- 
 self, surely, Lady Emily ?' 
 
 1 My dear, no!' in utter repudiation of 
 such an idea. ' On the contrary, he always 
 scolds me for not taking cream, and comes 
 and puts it into my cup himself when he is 
 at home ; so touching of him, dear boy !' ten- 
 derly; c and I just take it to satisfy him when 
 he is there,' with a confidential nod, c and 
 then when he is away I neve* touch it.' 
 
 They had got a long way from the herd 
 of cattle, and the young ladies were almost 
 convulsed with laughter. 
 
 ^
 
 LAURA ERLE. 93 
 
 4 But about the cows, Lady Emily?' said 
 Violet, recalling her to the point. 
 
 ' I'm coming to them, my dear. I had 
 just to explain about the walking. Well, as 
 I said, Margaret and I started for our walk — 
 so kind of dear Margaret to come with me ; I 
 go with my maid when I can't get any one 
 else; though, indeed, I sometimes fancy she 
 doesn't like taking such long walks ; and I am 
 always glad when 1 can get any one else to 
 come, and Margaret is so kind about it; in- 
 deed, so is Violet, so are you all, my dears,' 
 with comprehensive gratitude. c Well — 
 where was I? yes; I remember. We 
 started, Margaret and I, and were going very 
 calmly and quietly along such a pretty lane, 
 but so narrow, only just room enough for us 
 two, and we were admiring this beautiful 
 country and talking about all sorts of things. 
 We had got on to really quite clever subjects, 
 hadn't we, dear Margaret? all about history, 
 you know, and all that, and about how ignor- 
 ant people are in general; it was quite inter- 
 esting, and I was just wishing that my dear
 
 04 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 Harold had been tliere to hear us' — Audrey 
 knowledge of the gentleman led her to think 
 it fortunate that he was not — ' when, my 
 dears, the most awful sight burst upon our 
 view. The whole lane was alive with bulls!' 
 and she paused, that her listeners might fully 
 take in the gravity of the situation. c Bulls, 
 my dear friends ; I never saw so many toge- 
 ther before! I hardly thought the world 
 contained so many bulls.' 
 
 But Lady Emily's story, told in her own 
 words, would fill at least twenty pages. The 
 sense of her inordinate amount of verbiage 
 was that she and her companion had been 
 much alarmed at the so-called 'bulls,' and in 
 order to escape them had clambered over a 
 gate into a field which, to their inexpressible 
 horror, they found to be also full of oxen. 
 Animated by the curiosity natural to them, 
 these harmless and gentle creatures had ad- 
 vanced to inspect the strangers who had en- 
 tered their domain in such unseemly haste. 
 In an access of terror, Lady Emily adjured 
 her friend to save herself by jumping into the
 
 LAUEA EKLE. 95 
 
 ditch, and then abandoned herself to her own 
 fate, when a merciful Providence sent to her 
 aid two angels in the shape of a young lady 
 and an old gentleman, who drove off the oxen, 
 helped Miss Ellis out of the ditch, and re- 
 vived their drooping courage by administer- 
 ing some wine which the lady happened to be 
 carrying to a sick person. 
 
 'But, indeed, it was a terrible moment,' 
 concluded Lady Emily, i when I found myself 
 alone amongst those raffing creatures ! I 
 thought of the Christians thrown to the lions 
 and tigers ; at least I'm not sure now if they 
 ever were thrown ; I rather think my son says 
 they were not ; in fact. I get a little confused 
 between the things that did happen and those 
 that didn't. And you know this young lady, 
 my dear Audrey?' she continued. 'Tell me 
 all about her. I must go and call upon her. 
 If I only had had a daughter like that ! I 
 have always so longed for a daughter!' 
 
 When the visitors had taken their depar- 
 ture, and Lady Emily had gone in to repose 
 after her adventures, Violet related to her
 
 90 LAUEA EBLE. 
 
 sister the story of Mrs. Elliott's inopportune 
 arrival, congratulating herself much on the 
 heroism she had displayed. ' It was quite- 
 noble !' she exclaimed, pulling the cigarette 
 from her pocket, and holding up her fingers 
 to exhibit the damage they had sustained in 
 extinguishing it. ' I am sure I once read 
 about a man who poked his hand into the fire 
 for some great object — only I forget what the 
 object was — and held it there for ever so long; 
 but he was nothing to me ! I'll keep that 
 cigarette as a trophy ; but I must have another 
 now;' and she proceeded to light it, looking 
 inexpressibly comic as she settled her small 
 graceful person in a capacious chair, and be- 
 gan puffing away — under difficulties, however y 
 — for her pretty lips would curve with an 
 irresistible impulse towards laughter when 
 she recalled the 'stampede' Audrey's arrival 
 had occasioned.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Lady Emily Carew lost no time in calling at 
 the Rectory. She was both profuse and dif- 
 fuse in her thanks, astonishing the undemon- 
 strative Mrs. Erie by embracing her warmly, 
 and gratifying her by the praises she bestowed 
 on Laura. 
 
 4 You have so many daughters,' she said 
 in a tone of envious regret, ' and I, who have 
 always longed for one, have none. How happy 
 I should be if I had a dear, charming, affec- 
 tionate girl like yours ! And so pretty too ! 
 And I like pretty people.' 
 
 4 1 wish I could steal you, my dear,' hold- 
 ing Laura's hand lingeringly as she was going 
 away, and lavishing on her sundry caresses, 
 much to the amazement of that lively damsel, 
 who had amused Audrey and her own family 
 not a little by her version of the encounter 
 with the 'bulls;' which turned out to be a 
 
 VOL. I. • H
 
 98 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 herd of very harmless Welsh cattle, guiltless 
 of any goring or tossing intentions. 
 
 'We first heard the most dreadful screams/ 
 said Laura; 'and when we saw Lady Emily, 
 she was standing, her hands clasped and her 
 eyes shut, praying aloud, not to be saved from 
 the "bulls," which she evidently thought use- 
 less, but to be forgiven all her past offences, 
 and petitioning Heaven with all her might to 
 bless and protect her darling and much-loved 
 Harold. It really was quite tragic, only when 
 I pictured to myself her much-loved son's sar- 
 castic face, and the scorn with which he would 
 
 have treated her fears, I could hardly help 
 lau^hin^.' 
 
 'But you didn't laugh; that was what de- 
 lighted her.' 
 
 'No; it would have been inhuman just 
 then. She was absolutely blanched with ter- 
 ror; and it was real heroism, for I firmly be- 
 lieve she thought her last hour was come ; yet 
 her one idea was to keep the bulls — as she 
 persisted in calling the poor animals — from 
 discovering Miss Ellis's hiding-place.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 99 
 
 Lady Emily, in relating her adventure, 
 had said nothing of those screams which had 
 attracted Mr. Erie and Laura. It was her 
 one bit of disingenuousness. Her propensity 
 to give utterance to a prolonged series of 
 shrieks when alarmed was one which her 
 dear son never failed to reprehend in his most 
 caustic manner. In indulging in it on the 
 present occasion, she felt she had transgressed 
 his wishes; but she would confess the delin- 
 quency to himself alone, trusting that he would 
 forgive her in consideration of the sufferings 
 she had undergone. 
 
 Lady Emily's sudden fancy for Laura was 
 a great consolation to Mrs. Elliott. She hoped 
 it would be the means of removing that dan- 
 gerously attractive damsel for some time out 
 of the way of her infatuated nephew ; for Lady 
 Emily had invited her to Melbury, and though 
 nothing definite had been settled, Mrs. Elliott 
 resolved that the scheme should not fall 
 through for want of a little judicious manage- 
 ment on her part. 
 
 In spite of Claude's very decided opposi-
 
 100 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 tion, she asked Lady Emily to come to Enleigh 
 after her visit to Oaklands. She would thus 
 have an opportunity of seeing more of Laura, 
 and her coming might induce Harold to pro- 
 long his stay, and thus have the impression 
 deepened which Mrs. Elliott felt very sure 
 her lively neighbour had made on him. His 
 moody sarcasms, whenever the latter was 
 mentioned, had not escaped her keen observa- 
 ion. She noticed how intently his eyes fol- 
 lowed every movement of the graceful girlish 
 figure. The look in his eyes was not, it is 
 true, one of admiration ; it was rather one of 
 repulsion; but the lady knew that hate and 
 love are but varying forms of the same feel- 
 ing, and that when the hate is felt by a young 
 man, and the object of it is a beautiful young 
 woman, it is very likely to transform itself into 
 love. 
 
 All men are, of course, wolves, whom it 
 behoves all women to avoid — if thev can ; but 
 Laura, being highly impecunious, must con- 
 pent to accept a husband, and Mrs. Elliott's 
 earnest desire was that that husband should
 
 LAUEA EELE. 101 
 
 not be Claude. She did not wish to have her, 
 poor, and loving devotedly every member of 
 her equally poor family, for a niece-in-law. 
 She would always be wanting Claude to do 
 something for her needy brothers, and trying 
 to get her pretty sisters on in the world. 
 
 But if Harold Carew liked to undertake 
 the office of benefactor to the Erie family, well 
 and good. Mrs. Elliott would feel sincere 
 pleasure in her sparkling neighbour's prospe- 
 rity ; and Harold was so eccentric and cared so 
 little for what the world said, that she thought 
 it not unlikely he might take it into his head 
 to marry his mother's new friend. 
 
 Claude had resented Laura's refusal to go 
 to Oakland s so highly that he sulked for more 
 than a week; nor did Lady Emily's visit to 
 the Rectory add to the sweetness of his tem- 
 per. He would have repudiated with scorn 
 the idea that he feared Harold as a rival, or 
 entertained any jealousy of him. Neverthe- 
 less he, too, had observed the sarcasms and 
 gloomy looks which had attracted Mrs. Elliott's 
 attention, and showed himself much averse to
 
 102 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 any intimacy between the houses of Carew 
 and Erie. He did not apprehend that Harold 
 would, of his own accord, wish to possess him- 
 self of his treasure, but the treasure might, at 
 any moment, take it into her head to 'con- 
 vert' that eccentric scholar, and if she once 
 undertook the task, 4 it would be all up with 
 Carew;' that was Mr. Dashwood's conclusion; 
 he felt the young lady's influence to be so po- 
 tent over himself that he could not conceive 
 its being less so over other men.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 { John is come !' 
 
 This was the exclamation that greeted 
 Laura one afternoon as she entered the rec- 
 tory garden on her return from the village. 
 
 John was her brother, who had latelv left 
 Oxford, and was now waiting on Providence 
 and his friends to find him employment. 
 
 Laura was devoted to him, and rushed 
 joyfully to meet him. She saw at once that 
 something was wrong, but to her eager inqui- 
 ries he answered that all was well. When they 
 were alone, however, he threw off the mask. 
 
 ' Laura, I'm in a deuce of a fix, and if you 
 can't help me out of it, I'm hanged if I know 
 what to do.' 
 
 This was nothing new. As long as she 
 could remember, her brother had been getting 
 into fixes, and leaving her to get him out of 
 them.
 
 104 LAUBA EBLE. 
 
 'What is it, dear?' she asked now. 
 
 4 1 may as well make a clean breast of it, 
 though yon will blame me, of course — you 
 always do; but if I can get clear of this. I'll 
 keep straight — I will, upon my honour! And, 
 Laura, it is hardly my fault. I couldn't live 
 at Oxford on the miserable pittance the gover- 
 nor allowed me.' 
 
 'How much is it?' she asked, her heart 
 suddenly feeling like lead. 
 
 'Well, a hundred, or a hundred and fifty 
 would keep things quiet just till I get some- 
 thing to do.' 
 
 A hundred ! a hundred and fifty ! AVhat 
 a paltry sum ! Quite ludicrous to those who 
 count their debts by thousands ; but on Laura's 
 ear the numbers fell almost like a death-sen- 
 tence. Where or how could she procure a 
 hundred pounds? The slender resources of 
 the family were strained to the utmost as it 
 was. It was impossible that they could meet 
 this additional demand. 
 
 c A hundred and fifty!' she exclaimed; '0 
 John, how is papa to get a hundred and fifty
 
 LATJEA ERLE. 105 
 
 pounds ? Who is the man ? Is it a pressing 
 debt?' she went on, feeling that remon- 
 strance was useless, and anxious to know the 
 worst. 
 
 By degrees it came out that he had been 
 considerably involved before leaving Oxford, 
 but had said nothing about it, hoping, when 
 he got something to do, to be able to clear off 
 the most pressing claims. He had been in- 
 tended for the Church ; but he had so fre- 
 quently urged, and so completely proved, his 
 unfitness for it, that Mr. Erie, with many re- 
 grets over the money expended on his Univer- 
 sity career, had reluctantly consented to his 
 abandoning all idea of a clerical calling. He 
 was now a gentleman at large. His expecta- 
 tions from his friends were large too, and he 
 was always fruitful in suggestions to them as 
 to the means to be employed for procuring 
 his advancement. He had a su Question for 
 Laura now. 
 
 He was eager to prevent his father from 
 learning anything of his difficulties, and in 
 order to do so, proposed that his sister should
 
 106 LAURA EKLE. 
 
 borrow the money from Audrey Dashwood, or 
 rather, through her, from Claude. 
 
 4 John!' she exclaimed, l I would just as 
 soon kill myself as ask Audrey or Claude for 
 money. What can you be thinking of?' 
 
 His face fell. 
 
 1 I don't see why you shouldn't. What is 
 the use of having rich friends if you don't 
 make use of them? Claude — ' 
 
 ' John, nothing on earth would induce me 
 to ask Claude Dash wood for money,' colour- 
 ing to the roots of her hair. 
 
 4 Then what am I to do ?' he asked in de- 
 spair. c 1 counted on you to help me. It is 
 deuced hard on me to have to live like a gen- 
 tleman and mix with other fellows on nothing. ' 
 
 ' No harder than it is on me. How absurd 
 it would be for me to attempt to dress like 
 Audrey ! But all that is beside the point. 
 The thing is, what is to be done now? Bor- 
 rowing from the Dashwoods is out of the 
 question. I would rather die than apply to 
 hem.' 
 
 4 Then I don't see how I am to keep it
 
 LAURA ERLE. 107 
 
 from the governor/ he began, fixing on the 
 consideration he knew would move her most. 
 
 'We must do that at all hazards. The 
 very thought of your owing such a sum would 
 kill him. As it is, mamma is breaking her heart 
 about him. He grows more feeble every day, 
 yet he talks of giving up his one holiday in 
 the year because of the expense, and now — 
 John !' in an accent of despairing surprise, as 
 she felt to what sacrifices her own devotion to 
 her father could have nerved her, l how was 
 it that your love for him didn't teach you self- 
 denial, knowing as you do how sensitive he is 
 on the subject of debt?' 
 
 She was young, or she would not have 
 asked the question. Affection does not teach 
 the John Erles of this world self-denial. He 
 looked weakly ashamed of himself, yet ans- 
 wered half impatiently, 
 
 1 Laura, it's no good pitching into a fellow, 
 or crying over spilt milk.' 
 
 1 It is great good for you to feel that you 
 have been as weak as water,' she answered 
 quickly. 'What you have done would half
 
 108 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 kill papa if he knew it. Will the man wait? 
 Can you put him off a little?' 
 
 4 I've done that so often, you see, hoping 
 to get something — ' 
 
 ' That he will wait no longer. I see. "Who 
 is the man? If I wrote and guaranteed the 
 money, or some of it, in six months, would he 
 wait?' 
 
 He had told her that he would make a 
 clean breast of it, but he had not done so, nor 
 was he by any means disposed to do so. He 
 shuffled now and parried her questions, so that 
 she could not arrive at anything definite. The 
 truth was, his debts amounted to nearer three 
 hundred than a hundred and fifty, and though 
 the former, like the latter, sum may appear 
 ludicrously small to some people, it was not 
 so to him. He shrank from telling his sister 
 the real state of his affairs, helpless as he felt. 
 
 He had been mean enough, or foolish 
 enough, to get into debt ; but he was not, it 
 will be seen, reckless enough to have re- 
 course to those philanthropic benefactors of 
 mankind who so persistently offer to relieve
 
 LAURA ERLE. 109 
 
 gentlemen from their difficulties — for a con- 
 sideration. 
 
 This heroism may possibly have resulted 
 from the fact that Mr. Erie had no expecta- 
 tions, nothing to make it worth any one's 
 while to be benevolent to him ; so that his 
 applications might have met with less atten- 
 tion from those philanthropists than the ex- 
 pansive nature of their announcements would 
 lead simple people to suppose. 
 
 John scouted the idea of Laura's writing 
 to c the man.' Such a proceeding was, he 
 averred, out of the question. What value 
 would any tradesman attach to her word ? 
 Besides, how could she guarantee the money ? 
 
 1 Simply enough. I would earn it.' 
 
 Earn it! Had she proposed starting for 
 the moon, he could not have looked more sur- 
 prised. 
 
 ' Yes, earn it. I shall get an engagement 
 as a governess. I could teach strangers as 
 well as my own brothers and sisters, and Amy 
 is old enough to manage the children and help 
 mamma now.'
 
 110 LAURA BBLB. 
 
 'Talk of killing papa! That would do it 
 and no mistake,' said John, relapsing in his 
 surprise into the old childish way of speaking 
 of his father. 
 
 4 Not at all ; he would feel the parting, of 
 course; so should I,' with a sort of sob in her 
 voice ; c but there would be no disgrace ; and 
 if I got eighty or a hundred pounds a year, 
 in three years your debts would be paid, for 
 I could easily dress on twenty pounds a year. 
 I dress on far less now. Besides, you would 
 get something in the mean time.' 
 
 'But you would have to tell papa and 
 mamma your reason for going.' 
 
 1 No ; I have been thinking of trying to be 
 a governess for some time. There is no rea- 
 son why I should not be one. Papa ought to 
 have a curate,' — John winced; had he ful- 
 filled the paternal wish, he might now have 
 been of some use, — ' and if I could do some- 
 thing, he might manage it. These bills of 
 yours will take all the money at first, of cours . 
 but afterwards — '
 
 LAURA ERLE. Ill 
 
 'Laura, I will repay you the money the 
 instant I can.' 
 
 He was always strong in promises. They 
 cost nothing, and soothed his conscience for 
 the moment. Besides, we none of us like to 
 have it tacitly assumed that we are absolutely 
 good for nothing. 
 
 'There is another thing, John,' went on the 
 girl, not, it is to be feared, much impressed 
 by the prospect of her brother's performances; 
 4 1 have written a story — and I thought, per- 
 haps — I did not know — one hears of people 
 getting so much money nowadays ; and if I 
 could get some in that way, the bills could be 
 paid off at once.' 
 
 John Erie had immense faith in his sister's 
 infinite resource and capacity for getting him 
 out of scrapes, but none at all in her literary 
 ability. Woman as a money-earning animal, 
 except under the familiar form of a governess, 
 was a new and irreceivable idea to him. 
 
 ' Yes, one hears of it,' he said doubt- 
 fully, c but I didn't know that you were clever 
 enough for that sort of thing.'
 
 212 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 1 If I could only get some money in that 
 way we might clear off your debts very soon, 
 much sooner, at all events, than by waiting 
 till I can earn the money as a governes-." 
 went on Laura, continuing to assume, uncon- 
 sciously almost, that the task of paying his 
 debts would be devolved by her brother on 
 some other than himself. That that other 
 should not be her father was her great object. 
 
 4 If you could get money, it would be 
 an awfully good thing,' remarked Mr. Erie; 
 'but I don't know how I can help you,' and 
 he proposed instead that she should consult 
 Audrey Dash wood. He was willing that every 
 one should assist her except himself. This 
 unwillingness to act proceeded from no want 
 of affection. It was grounded, partly on a 
 secret distrust of himself, partly on a sort of 
 fear he entertained of the novel line she was 
 adopting. 
 
 He could not have defined the feeling, but 
 lie was possessed with the idea that the course 
 she proposed was, in some way, unusu il, an 1, 
 perhaps, not the thing.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 113 
 
 1 1 wish you would consult Audrey,' he re- 
 peated. 'You know Claude writes, and he 
 would be able to advise you.' 
 
 ' I don't want to tell Claude anything 
 about it,' she said, colouring vividly, as she 
 always did at his name ; c and [ would rather 
 not tell Audrey. I am sure you could man- 
 age it if you would try. If it fails, no harm 
 has been done.' 
 
 4 It makes a fellow feel like a fool if a 
 thing fails,' he remarked, somewhat ruefully. 
 
 ' 1 feel much more like a fool sitting down 
 supinely and doing nothing, while papa gets 
 more broken every day, and dear mamma 
 looks so worn and anxious. What does it sig- 
 nify whether one looks like a fool or not?' 
 
 He continued, however, to urge his unfit- 
 ness for the task, going back to his original 
 idea that she should borrow the money. That 
 seemed to him a far more direct way of pro- 
 curing it. Earning it was slow work. As 
 she still declined, he .said, ' I say, Laura, you 
 must give up the thought of being a governess. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 It would never do. Why, all your friends 
 would cut you.' 
 
 1 They wouldn't be worth keeping then. 
 Audrey wouldn't, or the Dashwoods ;' but 
 there were doubt and a questioning sound in 
 her voice as she looked at him. 
 
 'Claude wouldn't like it,' he said signifi- 
 cantly. 
 
 1 And what is Claude to me ?' she retorted 
 quickly, almost angrily. ' I certainly shall 
 not regulate my actions to suit his fancies.' 
 
 Nevertheless Claude was very much to 
 her. He was at the root of her resolution to 
 try her fortune as a governess. She felt every 
 day more and more how he interfered with 
 her peace of mind. AYatching for his coming 
 and goin£, thinking of what he had said at 
 their last meeting and what he would say at 
 their next, came between her and all her 
 usual occupations. Her task of teaching was 
 an utter weariness to her. She was remorse- 
 fully conscious of irritability towards the 
 young brothers and sisters, who had always 
 been accustomed to turn to her for help and
 
 LAURA ERLE. 115 
 
 sympathy. Their spirits, the stories of their 
 little joys and sorrows, fretted and tried her 
 as they had never done before. 
 
 She felt impelled, by an infinite longing, to 
 be alone with her great happiness, her plea- 
 sant misery, her bright memories; but being 
 wholly unselfish, sensible, and practical, as 
 well as sensitively conscientious, in spite of 
 her apparent volatility, she knew that such 
 isolation would be the basest desertion of her 
 duty. She was, besides, too high-spirited to 
 be a mere waiter on Claude's good pleasure. 
 1 If he liked me well enough to want me to be 
 his wife, he might have asked me by this 
 time,' she argued; 'if he does not, and is only 
 amusing himself at my expense, I decline to be 
 made the plaything of an idle hour, and then 
 flung aside.' So she wisely resolved not to let 
 him wreck her life, but rather to leave her 
 home, and see if, haply, time and change 
 would break the spell. She could not afford 
 the luxury of cherishing a romantic gr ancle 
 passion; yet the thought of what Claude 
 would say was never absent from her mind.
 
 116 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 She lay awake all that night in feverish 
 anxiety and excitement. 
 
 She was so constituted that everything she 
 felt was a passion. She enjoyed rapturously 
 and suffered acutely. Her love for her parents, 
 for her brothers and sisters, for Audrey, was 
 passionate in its depth. Her love for Claude 
 was deep and tender too, but it was tempered 
 by the consciousness that it was unsolicited, in 
 words at least, and by some latent distrust of 
 him which she shrank from analysing. 
 
 Knowing she could not leave her home to 
 become a governess without Audrey's know- 
 ledge, she resolved to consult her on the 
 subject, and ask her help in obtaining some 
 employment. 
 
 Audrey was both surprised and distressed 
 when the scheme was unfolded to her, though 
 she could not but approve of it under the cir- 
 cumstances as described by Laura, who, how- 
 ever, said nothing of her brother's debts. 
 
 1 John said you would repudiate me if I 
 became a governess,' she said, a dewy look in 
 her dark eyes.
 
 LAURA EELE. 117 
 
 ' I'm sorry John takes me for such a snob. 
 I think it quite splendid of you,' throwing her 
 arms round her. c In your place I should do 
 exactly the same ; but 0, Laura, how I shall 
 miss you !'
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The announcement of Laura's intention caused 
 a sort of moral earthquake at Enleigh. It 
 affected, several people there materially. It 
 would make or mar Mrs. Elliott's plans, by 
 either forcing Claude to propose at once or 
 effectually preventing his ever doing so. 
 
 Lady Emily Carew heard the proposal 
 with regret too. It would interfere with her 
 scheme of having Laura to visit her at Mel- 
 bury, to which she had been looking forward 
 with great delight. Such a visit would 
 entirely relieve the tedium of the coming 
 winter. Now she could not hope for it, but, 
 though disappointed herself, her admiration 
 and sympathy were increased tenfold for the 
 eirl who was willing to make such an effort. 
 
 4 It will be a sad life for a gay, bright 
 little thing like her to be a governess [' she
 
 LAURA ERLE. 119 
 
 exclaimed that evening in the drawing-room. 
 ' Even if the people she goes to are nice, she 
 will miss the love and devotion she has always 
 been used to. In fact, I can hardly imagine 
 her a governess at all. She is so — so — I 
 don't know what — so bright somehow ; don't 
 you agree with me, dear Harold?' 
 
 That was the usual finale to all Lady 
 Emily's remarks if her dear son happened to 
 be present. The circumstance that he very 
 rarely did agree with her did not lessen the 
 frequency of the appeal. On this occasion, 
 however, she was fortunate enough to have 
 made an observation in which he could con- 
 cur. He confessed dryly that he could not 
 imagine Miss Erie a governess, adding, in a 
 somewhat disparaging tone, that if her pupils 
 were to become proficients in anything but 
 flippancy, she must learn to control her tongue 
 a little. 
 
 Lady Emily, always happily unconscious 
 of his sarcasms, went on innocently : 
 
 4 Yes, indeed; it must be so trying always 
 to have to be setting a good example ! I re-
 
 120 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 member my clear old French governess used 
 to make me write dictation from Noel et 
 Chapsal's Exercises, because les sentiments 
 itaient si beaux, she said ; and I suppose she 
 hoped they would do me good.' 
 
 4 Poor Laura !' said Digby. c Fancy her 
 tied down to instilling les beaux sentiments into 
 a lot of stupid girls! How bored she will be!' 
 
 c Why doesn't she marry ?' asked Harold. 
 
 Here Mrs. Elliott felt that the situation 
 whs becoming critical, and that it would be 
 wise to interpose. Claude had not spoken, 
 but she knew instinctively that he was look- 
 ing very black behind his newspaper. Of 
 what was he thinking? 
 
 c It is not every man who would care to 
 marry the eldest of such a large and needy 
 family,' she remarked. 4 It is a great responsi- 
 bility, especially as she is so wrapped up in 
 them. You see, she doesn't hesitate at any- 
 thing where they are concerned.' 
 
 1 Poor girl !' said Lady Emily, a world of 
 sympathy in her voice. i Aren't you sorry 
 for her, dear Harold ?'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 121 
 
 Dear Harold could not conscientiously 
 say he felt at all sorry for Miss Erie. Sor- 
 row was not the emotion she awoke in 
 him. 
 
 'I should say she could take very good 
 care of herself, mother,' he returned; c but I 
 doubt her success as a governess. Why 
 doesn't she write instead? I should think she 
 was better suited for it than for teaching. 
 The flippant style of writing thax is the 
 fashion now would just suit her. I have 
 little doubt she could turn out any number of 
 articles full of the silly chaff on serious sub- 
 jects which goes down in these days.' 
 
 Miss Dash wood resented highly this depre- 
 ciation of her friend. 
 
 1 1 should think any children exceedingly 
 fortunate who had Laura for a governess/ she 
 exclaimed warmly. * She is the best and 
 noblest girl I ever knew ; never thinking 
 about herself at all. I should have said that 
 the efforts of a girl struggling to help 
 those she loves were deserving of something 
 better than sneers; but I observe that gener-
 
 122 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 ous sympathy is as much out of fashion now 
 as courtesy.' 
 
 Lady Emily looked puzzled and slightly 
 alarmed. Being herself so accustomed to her 
 son's peculiarities of speech and manner as 
 rarely to be disturbed by them, she could not 
 understand the discomposing effect they had 
 on strangers. She looked at Audrey depre- 
 catingly, while Harold's own face assumed the 
 expression it invariably did whenever the 
 fact was forced on him that Nature, while 
 denying to women, for purposes of her own, 
 great physical strength, has yet very effec- 
 tually compensated for the deficiency by 
 endowing them with eyes and — tongues. Xo 
 man ever made him feel 'small' as did these 
 creatures miscalled weak. The snubbed look 
 on his countenance struggled now, too, with 
 some real regret. He was very kind-hearted, 
 and when once convinced he had given pain 
 was always compunctious. Besides, he liked 
 Audrey. He was sure she did not want to 
 marry him, and could therefore comfortably 
 gratify in her society the curiosity those im-
 
 LAURA EELE. 123 
 
 pulsive, loquacious fascinations aroused in 
 him ; a curiosity which dread of their c designs 1 
 generally kept him from satisfying. 
 
 4 1 beg your pardon, ' he said, in as excul- 
 patory a tone as the asperity of his nature 
 permitted him to adopt ; c I had no intention 
 whatever of sneering at your friend, and the 
 suggestion I made was kindly meant, at least/ 
 
 4 Yes, indeed,' interrupted Lady Emily, 
 desirous of justifying her offspring in the eyes 
 of the company ; ' and I'm sure, Audrey, you 
 are mistaken in saying he meant to sneer. 
 Sneerino; is such a horrible thing. Isn't there 
 some play or story that has a dreadful man 
 or woman called Sneer or Sneerwell in it? all 
 so odious and ill-natured. I'm sure my dear 
 son would never be so ungenerous as to sneer 
 at that charming girl's wish to help her 
 parents,' in a tone of gentle dignity, all her 
 maternal feathers beautifully ruffled. 
 
 'Well, we won't discuss Laura's private 
 affairs any more,' returned Audrey, still ex- 
 periencing a glow of anger, but speaking 
 gently to Lady Emily, as she always did.
 
 124 LAL'RA ERLE. 
 
 It -was well she had come to such a con- 
 clusion. Claude had borne as much as he 
 could well bear. He put down his paper with 
 ominous silence, and rose, his face very whit 
 
 1 It would have been wiser not to have 
 discussed them at all/ he said, in a low but 
 perfectly distinct voice of smothered wrath. 
 1 1 can only be surprised that you permitted 
 such a discussion, Audrey, or joined in it;' 
 and he left the room. 
 
 He was in a paroxysm of anger with his 
 sister, with the Carews, with his aunt, with 
 Laura herself. He felt personally insulted at 
 hearing her name bandied about, and her 
 money-earning capabilities talked over in this 
 way. How had Harold Carew ventured to 
 speak thus slightingly of her — above all, to 
 propose her writing! 
 
 Claude hated a literary woman, with an 
 intense unreasoning hatred. If Laura ever 
 took such an idea into her head, he told him- 
 self now, with much mental strong language. 
 he would have done with her for ever. 
 
 And how had she dared to lay herse"
 
 LAURA ERLE. 125 
 
 open to these remarks, by proposing such an 
 extraordinary scheme as leaving her home to 
 become a governess ! 
 
 In his secret heart his idea was that she 
 should have waited patiently till it suited his 
 good will and pleasure to come to some deci- 
 sion respecting her. 
 
 He had not quite made up his mind about 
 marrying her. Unconsciously, and consciously 
 too, he was influenced by Mrs. Elliott's argu- 
 ments, but he could not resolve to give Laura 
 up. Whenever he tried to do so, the thou- 
 sand threads by which she had wound herself 
 round his heart gave such potent proof of 
 their existence, that life became a torture. 
 
 Still he had not wanted to decide hastily. 
 There was plenty of time, and he was well 
 satisfied with things as they were. 
 
 Laura's thus taking the initiative altered 
 everything. It forced him to come to some 
 decision. Under his own eye at Smedston 
 she was safe; it would be otherwise if she 
 went out into the world to rough it among 
 strangers — a governess. The thought drove
 
 126 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 him into a frenzy. He swore aloud with 
 anger against her for conceiving such a plan, 
 or, worse still, for speaking of it. 
 
 1 I'll give her such a talking to to-morrow 
 as Avill put this nonsense out of her head,' 
 he said to himself furiously. His impulse was 
 to go then and there and administer the c talk- 
 ing-to,' but the fresh air — he had gone out 
 on the lawn — calmed his excitement. He 
 reflected that his arrival at the Rectory at 
 that moment, in a towering passion, to scold 
 the young lady of the house, would probably 
 give rise to some comment. He therefore 
 deferred action till the morrow. 
 
 The morrow came, but i" brought a tele- 
 gram from his brother, necessitating his in- 
 stant departure for London on important 
 business. He had to set out by the first train, 
 being thus compelled to defer the ' talking-to,' 
 but he hoped to return the following day, 
 and nothing important could be done by her 
 in that short time.
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 Before going to bed that night Audrey me- 
 taphorically smoked a pipe of peace with 
 Harold Carew. 
 
 c I did not mean to sneer at you 1 :* friend,' 
 he said as he was bidding her good-night. 
 'I would not have done so on any account. I 
 fully appreciate her courage. Indeed, I did 
 not think — ' hesitating. 
 
 She finished the sentence. c You did not 
 think her capable of coming to such a decision 
 or of carrying it out.' 
 
 ' I know very little of her,' he urged in a 
 defensive tone. 'My mother is enthusiastic 
 about her ; and, be assured, I meant nothing 
 disparaging when I said I did not think her 
 fit to be a governess. If you will mention 
 my suggestion to her, it may be of use. I 
 wonder something of the sort has not already 
 occurred to her.'
 
 128 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 4 Am I to tell her you think she might 
 succeed as a writer of flippant articles on seri- 
 ous subjects?' she asked, laughing. 
 
 He smiled a little. 4 You take my words 
 too literally; but you may put my sugges- 
 tion in any form you please, so as you make 
 it. It is worth attending to, believe me.' 
 
 Audrey did mention the suggestion to her 
 friend, drawing from her the confession that 
 it had been anticipated. 
 
 Audrey was in raptures. 
 
 4 You must consult Claude,' she said. 4 He 
 knows all about that sort of thine', and is the 
 proper person to help you.' 
 
 Laura's face assumed a look of sensitive 
 shrinking, as if from some painful contact. 
 
 4 1 would rather not tell Claude,' she ans- 
 wered hastily; 4 he might not like it.' 
 
 4 Not like it ! He would be delighted, 
 which is more than he is at the thought of 
 your being a governess, I can tell you.' 
 
 ' What did he say about that ?' in a tone 
 of apparent indifference.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 129 
 
 'Not much, but he looked all the more. 
 This is a different thing, and you are sure to 
 succeed. It is so odd Harold Carew should 
 have thought of it.' 
 
 'It is rather nice of him, considering how 
 I have snubbed him,' said Laura, laughing. 
 
 Audrey overruled all her objections to 
 telling Claude, refusing to entertain for a 
 moment the supposition that he could dislike 
 such a course. 
 
 While the two girls were sitting together 
 the Ellises called, and Laura, as variable as 
 the wind, was soon engaged in gay persiflage 
 with St. Clare Ellis, who was gifted with the 
 faculty of always attaching himself to the 
 most amusing lady in the company. 
 
 He gave one the idea of having run to 
 beard, for all his hair had left the top of his 
 head and transferred itself to his chin, where 
 it flourished in rich luxuriance. The part of 
 his face which was visible was marked by the 
 good-tempered geniality characteristic of the 
 Ellis family. 
 
 Mr. Carew, who had come out to recreate 
 
 vol. i. K
 
 130 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 himself a little after his severe studies, stood 
 watching them for some time in silence; then 
 addressing Sir Digby — 
 
 1 Who could think for a moment that that 
 girl is fit to be a governess? Look at her 
 now.' 
 
 The baronet apparently saw nothing re- 
 markable in her demeanour ; for after a pause 
 he said, more in answer to his own thoughts 
 than to Harold's remark, 
 
 ' The time to see her in perfection is with 
 Claude; if he chaffs her, for example, over 
 a game of croquet, when her dress gets in the 
 way of her mallet.' 
 
 Claude Dashwood's name always had a 
 discomposing effect on Harold. On hearing 
 it, lately especially, the usual sarcastic ex- 
 pression of his face deepened into a kind of 
 sardonic gloom. On this occasion he was, no 
 doubt, disgusted at the idea of a sane mascu- 
 line human being playing croquet when he 
 might have been improving his mind. 
 
 Claude returned from London just in time 
 for dinner, and the moment that important
 
 LAURA ERLE. 131 
 
 event was over, his sister, clasping her hands 
 over his arm, led him out on the terrace and 
 communicated her secret, eagerly claiming his 
 help and sympathy. 
 
 She was by no means prepared for the 
 look of fierce anger that crossed his face the 
 moment he took in her meaning. 
 
 4 That's Carew !' he exclaimed in a tone of 
 concentrated jealousy. 
 
 4 Carew ! Why, my dear, she has written 
 the story, and she could not have done that 
 in two days.' 
 
 C I hate literary women,' he said wrath- 
 fully. ' Unless she gives up such a scheme, 
 I wash my hands of her altogether. It is the 
 very height of absurdity. What can she know 
 to write about ? She has never been anywhere.' 
 
 In vain Audrey pleaded her friend's cause. 
 Claude would listen to no reason. He launched 
 a fierce philippic against blues and strong- 
 minded ladies ; urged the general incompe- 
 tency of women; inveighed against their 
 writing as weak poor stuff, the prevalence of 
 which" had vitiated the public taste ; and
 
 132 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 ended by wishing there were some stringent 
 law which would prevent their ever printing 
 a line. 
 
 Audrey was astounded. Bitterly regret- 
 ting that she had not been guided by Laura's 
 advice, she tried to mitigate his anger by 
 dwelling on the motive which had prompted 
 her friend. 
 
 c Even the motive does not reconcile me 
 to it,' he returned angrily. 
 
 Audrey was too deeply hurt to reply. For 
 the first few moments she felt almost stunned 
 by his ungenerous, even brutal, reception of 
 an appeal made to him in the full confidence 
 of perfect trust. 
 
 The conviction that she had injured Laura 
 in his estimation added to her distress. She 
 sat silent for some time, then, 
 
 4 I am so sorry I told you anything about 
 it,' she said at last. l Laura wanted me not 
 to do so. She was afraid you would not 
 
 like it.' 
 
 4 She was, was she ? Then why did she 
 
 doit?'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 133 
 
 ' Claude, you speak as though you were 
 engaged to her, and had a right to dictate to 
 her.' He was silent, and she went on: 'It is 
 imperative that she should do something. 
 You would equally dislike her being a go- 
 verness. ' 
 
 I John is the person to work, not Laura. 7 
 
 4 Only he can't or won't. The)j> are doing 
 their best to get him something ; but I have 
 no faith in him/ 
 
 { And she is to work for the family ? A 
 nice project!' contemptuously. 
 
 A long pause. 
 
 ' Then won't you do anything to help us, 
 Claude ?' resumed his sister tremulously. 
 
 4 1 would rather cut my hand off than help 
 in such a cause/ 
 
 I I gave you credit for more generosity. 
 Had any one told me such a thing of you, 
 nothing would have induced me to believe it. 
 I should have thought affection for me, to 
 say nothing of Laura, whom you have known 
 ever since she was a baby, would have made 
 you act differently.'
 
 134 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 4 1 will speak to Laura about it myself to- 
 morrow.' 
 
 1 1 beg you will do nothing of the sort. 
 She very unwillingly consented to my con- 
 sulting you, and as you decline to help her, 
 spare her at least the violent tirade you have 
 treated me to.' 
 
 She went indoors, more angry with him 
 than she had ever been in her life before. 
 
 She was not more angry than he was. 
 She had made him feel, somehow, that he was 
 4 a brute/ and if there was one conviction 
 Claude Dashwood disliked having forced on 
 him more than another, it was that. Had he 
 been consulted at the creation, as he always 
 felt he ought to have been, he would certainly 
 have dissuaded the Creator from bestowing 
 on woman that potent and most diabolic 
 faculty whereby she at times convicts her 
 tormentor — protector, helpmate, whatever he 
 is — of unmitigated brutality. 
 
 Unable to enjoy his cigar in an)' degree 
 of peace, he went up to his sister's room, to 
 try again whether he could not bring her
 
 LAURA ERLE. 135 
 
 round to his way of thinking. He failed to 
 do so. 
 
 c I did not think you could be so un- 
 generous/ was her only answer to his remarks. 
 
 1 Well, look here, Audrey, I frankly con- 
 fess I hate the whole thing; but as you have 
 set your heart on it I will look over this 
 precious story, and see if anything can be 
 done with it.' 
 
 1 Certainly not,' proudly. ' With your 
 ideas you could not be a fair judge. I will 
 help my friend now without your assistance, 
 and even if it should all end in failure, I shall 
 always admire her for having tried to do 
 something to assist her father and mother. 
 I think it is quite splendid of her, and if you 
 had a spark of the generosity I credited you 
 with, you would see that it is, instead of 
 talking nonsense about vitiating the public 
 taste.' 
 
 ' I will be as impartial as any one can be. 
 Let me have it, Audrey.' 
 
 She declined, and he left her, much ag- 
 grieved at her c obstinacy.'
 
 136 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 The Irish element preponderated largely 
 in Audrey, and she shared to the fullest ex- 
 tent one characteristic of the jrenuine Irish- 
 woman, viz. an altogether instinctive feeling 
 that she had an inherent right, in virtue of 
 her sex, to the help and assistance of men. 
 This characteristic of Irishwomen is the result 
 probably of the nature of Irish chivalry — an 
 essentially different thing from its English 
 equivalent. An Englishman is chivalrous be- 
 cause women are weak; but the consideration 
 due to weakness is always tinged, to a certain 
 extent, with the contempt felt by him for it; 
 nor is he ever quite free from some portion 
 of the feeling expressed by the excellent 
 St. Chrysostom when he pronounces woman 
 ' a necessary evil ; a natural temptation ; a 
 desirable calamity ; a domestic peril ; a deadly 
 fascination; and a painted ill.' 
 
 An Irishman's chivalry, on the contrary, 
 is the unconscious yet genuine expression of 
 his conviction that woman is the crowning 
 work of creation, and that the world would 
 be simply unendurable without her. And
 
 LAURA ERLE. 137 
 
 this difference influences the women of the 
 respective nations. The Irishwoman accepts 
 with pride that which she knows to be given 
 ungrudgingly ; while the Englishwoman is 
 rather apt to despise in her heart that which, 
 being accorded to her supposed weakness 
 only, has so large an element of contempt 
 in it. 
 
 In accordance with this feeling, Audrey 
 had expected her brother's cooperation and 
 assistance in anything she took in hand as a 
 matter of right. Her resentment at his re- 
 ception of her request was extreme. It would 
 be hard to say whether she felt more anger, 
 surprise, or pain. ' Even if he disliked it, he 
 ought to have done it because I asked him.' 
 That was her old-fashioned and very Hibernian 
 view of the matter. 
 
 How was she to break the news to Laura? 
 'She will be so hurt, 7 was her thought; for 
 she naturally judged her friend's sensations 
 by her own.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 It would be unfair not to sympathise with 
 Claude in his annoyance with Laura. In the 
 first place, the dislike felt by a certain type 
 of man for a woman capable of the least intel- 
 lectual exertion is really instinctive. He can- 
 not help it, and is not to be blamed for it. 
 But, setting that aside, he had other grounds 
 of complaint. To initiate a career for herself 
 in that independent way was surely a great 
 piece of feminine presumption? 
 
 Had she relieved her impecuniosity by 
 selling herself openly for money to some 
 Croesus with one foot in the grave and the 
 other bandaged up for the gout, he would not 
 have been half so angry ; he would, in such a 
 case, have judged her leniently, making allow- 
 ance for her circumstances ; but a girl who 
 could conceive the idea of writing a book and
 
 LAURA ERLE. 139 
 
 carry it out, and who could, farther, propose 
 leaving her home to become a governess, had 
 in her potentialities for any amount of strong- 
 mindedness; and none such, unless she re- 
 nounced her evil ways, should enjoy the 
 perilous distinction of being his wife. 
 
 But he was not without hopes that she 
 would renounce her evil ways, though he was 
 unable to administer that ' talking to' which 
 he had meditated on the following day. 
 
 Fretting about John's debts, grief at the 
 prospect of leaving her home, and anxiety to 
 know the result of Audrey's communication 
 to Claude, brought on one of the bad head- 
 aches to which Laura was subject, and for 
 which a day in bed was the only remedy. 
 
 When, therefore, her irate lover called to 
 see her, he was met by the intelligence that 
 she would be invisible to him till to-morrow, 
 at least. The disappointment did not add to 
 the serenity of his temper, nor were matters 
 improved by his getting back just in time to 
 hear Harold Carew ask Audrey if she had im- 
 parted his suggestion to her friend.
 
 140 LAURA. ERLE. 
 
 Beinjx informed that she had done so, he 
 inquired what Miss Erie had said. 
 
 4 That it was very kind of you to interest 
 yourself in her, especially considering how 
 you had both quarrelled.' 
 
 '/did not quarrel,' in a voice of injured 
 innocence. ' She attacked me violently every 
 time she saw me. It was her doing en- 
 tirely.' 
 
 'Little flirt!' muttered Claude, between his 
 teeth, prefacing the words by an adjective, 
 reprehensible perhaps, but relieving to his 
 feelings. 'Have you seen Laura?' he asked 
 his sister. 
 
 ' Yes ; only for a minute, though ; her 
 head was so bad she could hardly speak.' 
 
 'I suppose you told her all I said?' a little 
 anxiously. 
 
 ' No, not all. I told her the general drift. 
 I had to do so.' 
 
 He looked annoyed. 
 
 ' AVhat did she say ?' 
 
 ' Not much ; she was too ill.' 
 
 ' Thought me brutal and ungenerous, ot
 
 LAUKA. ERLE. 141 
 
 course. Women always do, if you say a 
 word they don't like.' 
 
 4 Your opinion of their powers is such, that 
 I should imagine it mattered little to you 
 what they thought.' 
 
 Uneas}' at the effect his conduct might 
 have on Laura, he launched into a violent 
 defence of himself and his opinions, and ended 
 by renewing his request to see the manu- 
 script. 
 
 This was refused. In the short consulta- 
 tion the two girls had had that morning, they 
 had resolved that, whatever they did hence- 
 forth, they would do for themselves. Their 
 one application for help had ended so unfor- 
 tunately, that they would not make a second. 
 Both were proud and sensitive — Laura was 
 especially so on this point — and would not 
 subject themselves to another repulse. 
 
 Audrey had said something about consult- 
 ing Harold Carew. 
 
 Laura would not hear of it. 
 
 'After all/ she observed, 'if one wants 
 really to do a thing, one must help one's self.
 
 142 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 It is no use trusting to other people. I did 
 think John might have been of some use, but 
 he is so afraid. Now, I will j ust act for my- 
 self. You would feel as I do, Audrey, if you 
 had seen papa and mamma this morning when 
 the post came in, bringing a bill a yard long, 
 for Charlie's school expenses.' 
 
 But though Laura had resolved to act for 
 herself, she suffered acutely from the con- 
 sciousness that she was doing so in opposition 
 to Claude's wishes. His disapproval took the 
 life out of all her efforts, and her unhappiness 
 was increased by feeling that perhaps she 
 ought not to care whether he liked what she 
 did or not. She could not deny to herself 
 that whether she ouo;ht or ou^ht not to do so, 
 she did actually care very much. It was un- 
 accountable that Claude had not come and 
 spoken to her himself. It is true she had 
 tried to avoid him, but a certain instinct told 
 her that he could easily have found her had 
 he made any resolute effort to do so. She 
 had no thought now about his asking her to
 
 LMJRA ERLE. 14 
 
 o 
 
 be his wife. If he would only have said, ' All 
 right, Laura ; I didn't like the idea at first, 
 but I see all you mean about it, and whether 
 you win or lose, we shall be none the less 
 friends,' she would have been quite happy. 
 
 Claude Dash wood had a horrible temper; 
 he was jealous and touchy, and would make 
 the misery of any woman who married him, 
 but he was not bad-hearted, and had he known 
 the full extent of all he made Laura suffer at 
 this time, he would have been deeply shocked. 
 The truth was, that he had fallen in love with, 
 and won the love of a girl whose nature he 
 was utterly unable to appreciate, or, indeed, 
 understand. He saw one side of her only, the 
 side naturally most prominent during her 
 girlhood, made more prominent too by the 
 fact that she was personally exceedingly 
 graceful and attractive, and consequently 
 much sought after ; while her volatile manner, 
 her gaiety, her innocent readiness for any 
 amount of dancing, flirting, amusement, and 
 4 fun' — all the result of youthful high spirits 
 — blinded him to the indications of graver
 
 144 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 character which showed themselves plainly 
 enough in her domestic life. He could not 
 see that something deeper lay beneath. His 
 violent prejudices, too, obscured his judgment; 
 for only the most cruel prejudice could have 
 been blind to the fact that, though filial affec- 
 tion was the immediate motive actuating her, 
 a something stronger than herself was strug- 
 gling in her for utterance. There was a dash 
 of genius in her causing that innate restless- 
 ness, that perpetual straining after some vague 
 ideal, which tormented her. 
 
 In all this Claude had no intention what- 
 ever of being unkind. He followed the 
 dictates of his own nature as she followed 
 hers. But though she followed these dictates, 
 she did it, so to speak, under protest. Claude's 
 influence over her was creat though not 
 supreme, and it had always tended to make 
 her ashamed of the powers she felt uncon- 
 sciously that she possessed. He repressed 
 every manifestation of originality and clever- 
 ness on her part as ruthlessly as Mrs. Elliott 
 cut down, in her geometrical garden, any
 
 LAURA ERLE. 145 
 
 aspiring flower daring to lift its head above 
 the crowded level of its fellows. The girl 
 suffered very acutely from this. It was the 
 c rift within the lute' which marred all the 
 happiness of her intercourse with him. She 
 was painfully sensible of a want of mental 
 liberty in his society, and though she tried 
 involuntarily to keep herself do^n to the 
 standard she knew he liked, she was secretly 
 restless and dissatisfied. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 While the minds of Claude and Laura were 
 being thus exercised by the attempts of the 
 latter towards an independent career, the 
 great social event of the neighbourhood was a 
 picnic of magnificent proportions, by which 
 Mrs. Ellis proposed inaugurating her daugh- 
 ters' autumn campaign. There had been at 
 first some doubt as to where it should take 
 place. Several localities had been named as 
 eligible spots on which to learn to bear dis- 
 comfort cheerfully, and make an involuntary 
 study of entomology. Finally, Sir Digby Fo- 
 rester settled the matter by proposing that 
 Glynton should be the scene of the festivities. 
 Mrs. Ellis was delighted. Whether the offer 
 resulted from the gentleman's instantaneous 
 conversion to the charms of Miss Violet, or 
 from mere erood nature, was a matter of com-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 147 
 
 parative indifference. The thing was that he 
 had made it, and what scope did it not afford 
 for the piscatory efforts of the six Miss 
 Ellises? 
 
 It always rains, or it is very hot, or there 
 is an east wind on the day fixed for a picnic. 
 On this particular day it was very hot, so hot 
 that none but English people we-ald have 
 thought of taking their pleasure under such 
 a scorching sun. 
 
 Harold Carew had left Enleigh, but Lady 
 Emily was still there, and she and Audrey 
 and Digby started early for Glynton to avoid 
 the great heat. 
 
 The thought that they must meet on this 
 day was the one uppermost in the minds of 
 Claude and Laura from the moment the affair 
 had been decided on. On learning that he 
 was going, the girl's impulse had been to de- 
 cline doing so herself, but a little reflection 
 showed her that such a course would bring 
 on her a world of wondering comment and 
 inquiry. 
 
 Mrs. Elliott, thinking Claude had started
 
 148 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 with Audrey and Lady Emily, sent down to 
 the Rectory to say she would drive Mrs. Erie 
 and Laura over to Glynton. She had not 
 offered to do so till she had heard that her 
 nephew was gone, for she never willingly 
 afforded him and Laura an opportunity of 
 being together. 
 
 The latter, on hearing that the person who 
 was incessantly in her thoughts had already 
 left Enleigh, went up there with a feeling of 
 relief. She dreaded the meeting with him so 
 much that she accepted as a reprieve every- 
 thing tending to delay it ; and yet there was 
 a pang — keen and sharp — mingled with the 
 relief. A short time before, Claude would have 
 driven her over to Glynton himself, or ridden 
 with her, overruling her objections to going 
 about all day in her habit. In those little 
 matters she had been so proud of having her 
 objections overruled by him. She always 
 began by objecting ; which afforded him an 
 opening for one of the lectures so dear to the 
 hearts of men, though they deny the fact. In 
 return for the lecture, she would contradict
 
 LAURA ERLE. 149 
 
 him and laugh at him ; but in these small con- 
 flicts he invariably came off victor — for the 
 best of all reasons, that his antagonist was 
 willing to be vanquished. 
 
 Both Mrs. Elliott and Laura were mistaken 
 in thinking Claude had started. He had not; 
 having avoided doing so in the hope of seeing 
 the young lady, and coming to an understand- 
 ing with her. He had made up his mind to 
 offer himself as her husband. That would be 
 a solution of all her difficulties, would obviate 
 the necessity for those exertions on her part 
 which grated so painfully on his prejudices; 
 and in no other way could he hope to regain 
 his own peace of mind, now fatally disturbed. 
 He had tried that week to do without seeing 1 
 her, to put her out of his thoughts. In vain ; 
 her gay joyous face, with its flitting expres- 
 sions of tenderness, her sweet young voice, 
 haunted him perpetually. The colour seemed 
 taken out of his life when he heard no longer 
 the laughing careless criticisms on every one 
 and everything. 
 
 But though compelled to acknowledge
 
 150 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 that he could not do without her, he was 
 angry both with himself and with her. He 
 disliked feeling that his hand had been forced. 
 He disliked feeling that her capacities and 
 prospects had been openly discussed. He dis- 
 liked feeling that he had given her pain, and 
 might have to give her more, for he meant to 
 attach a condition to his proposal. If she be- 
 came his wife, she must renounce, at once and 
 for ever, all attempts at authorship. 
 
 At the anticipation of seeing her he had 
 worked himself up into a fever of impatience. 
 
 He was not on the spot when she arrived, 
 and only saw her first when she was sitting 
 under the cedar-tree engaged in telling a story 
 to little Eveleen, Charlie's child, who re- 
 mained at Enleigh during her parents' absence 
 abroad. Looking up suddenly, she perceived 
 
 him coming across the lawn towards her. Ex- 
 es 
 
 cessive surprise at this unexpected sight so 
 overcame her, that for a moment she became 
 almost unconscious of what she was doing. 
 In her nervousness she addressed some words 
 to the child beside her, and stooping, kissed
 
 LAURA ERLE. 15 1 
 
 her forehead with a caressing movement of 
 her hand over her long hair. 
 
 Claude chose to believe that this perfectly 
 innocent, almost unconscious, action was done 
 with some reference to himself. One of the 
 things he most frequently told his sister was, 
 that her friend was c a most consummate and 
 finished coquette' — an imputation always stre- 
 nuously denied by Audrey. And justly so; 
 for Laura was certainly not a finished co- 
 quette, if by that term be meant one who 
 makes coquetry an art and study. There was, 
 nevertheless, a great deal of natural and very 
 innocent coquetry in her, as there is in every 
 woman who is conscious of her power to at- 
 tract and fascinate. Numbers of women are 
 totally unconscious of this power, if they are en- 
 dowed with it ; but Laura was not one of these. 
 
 She could not help being aware that, with- 
 out any effort on her part, men were attracted 
 by her — sometimes even against their will — 
 as was Harold Carew. No one was more sus- 
 ceptible to this subtil influence exercised by 
 her than Claude. Not content, however, with
 
 152 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 acknowledging the natural power which she 
 undoubtedly possessed, he was wont to attri- 
 bute to her all sorts of elaborate and — in the 
 estimation of an honourable woman — not very 
 creditable devices for the further assertion of 
 her supremacy. He did not condemn her for 
 these (supposed) devices. They were, he con- 
 sidered, a woman's legitimate weapons. They 
 had 'man' for their object, and were, he be- 
 lieved, totally incompatible with that strong- 
 mindedness, which was far worse in his eyes 
 than vice or crime. 
 
 But though, as a rule, he would not have 
 condemned Laura for using such weapons, he 
 resented, on this especial occasion, that which 
 he considered a challenge. His feeling to- 
 wards her at the moment trembled in the 
 balance between intense hate and fierce love, 
 or the thing he called such ; and there was as 
 much anger as courtesy in the tone in which 
 he accosted her. 
 
 1 How do you do, Laura ? It is so long 
 since I have seen you, that I began to think 
 we were never to meet again.' 
 
 CD
 
 LAURA ERLE. 1£3 
 
 A blinding sensation came over her as she 
 gave her hand, responsive to the one he held 
 out, in a somewhat imperious way. He re- 
 tained it in a firm grasp. 
 
 'Come with me; I want to speak to you,' 
 raising her from her seat. 
 
 Freeing her hand, she accompanied him 
 in silence. He turned down a shady walk 
 leading to a small flower-garden, surrounded 
 with high walls, called the Lady's Garden. 
 
 4 Laura, • he began, when they got near it, 
 1 why have you avoided me ? Why have you 
 kept out of my way for the last week ?' 
 
 4 1 didn't — I mean — I don't know,' she 
 stammered. 
 
 1 Yes, you did,' he interrupted impetu- 
 ously, 4 and I have thought it very unkind of 
 you.' 
 
 4 Why didn't you come and see me ?' she 
 retorted, with reviving courage. 
 
 4 You know very well I did, and that you 
 persistently refused to see me,' which was 
 only partially true. 
 
 They had reached the steps leading down
 
 154 LAURA. ERLE. 
 
 to the old-fashioned garden. She hesitated, 
 as if doubting whether to go on or not. 
 
 ' What do you want to say to me, Claude? 7 
 she asked, an indication of haughty resent- 
 ment in her voice. c If you speak to me in 
 that way, I won't go on with you.' 
 
 He suddenly put his arm round her waist, 
 almost lifting her down the steps, and bending 
 over her, covered her face with kisses. 
 
 Intense anger gave her strength to free 
 herself from his detaining grasp. 
 
 ' Claude, how could you dare ? What could 
 induce you?' she exclaimed, her eyes flashing 
 indignant scorn at him. c Are you mad ?' 
 
 Her anger brought back his reason, and 
 with it a keen sense of shame. For a moment 
 he could not answer, and she turned towards 
 the house. He placed himself before her 
 quickly. 
 
 1 Laura, stop — I beg of you — I apologise — 
 listen to me — ' 
 
 'Let me pass; you must be out of your 
 senses,' tears of outraged delicacy filling her 
 eyes.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 155 
 
 c I cannot let you pass, Laura, till you 
 have heard what I have to say to you. I 
 thought you would understand — you must 
 understand — surely no words are needed be- 
 tween us. I want you to be my wife ; I 
 thought you knew that, or I should not — not 
 have ventured. Give me your hand, Laura;' 
 and he drew a step nearer. 
 
 She dashed the angry tears from her eyes. 
 
 c I wish you hadn't done that/ she said. 
 
 4 1 was so sure you understood what I 
 meant,' in an apologetic way, and trying to 
 take her hand, but gently, as if afraid of alarm- 
 ing her again. 
 
 c How was I to know?' she asked. ' I had 
 no idea what — what you were going to say. 
 I thought you wanted to speak about some- 
 thing very different,' with a burning blush. 
 
 'We'll come to that presently,' he ans- 
 wered. ' I wanted to speak about a great 
 many things ; but first' — drawing her towards 
 him — ' you know what I mean now ? I can't 
 think how you ever doubted it.' 
 
 ' You are always telling me I jump to con-
 
 150 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 elusions,' she returned, smiling a little through 
 her tears ; l but that was a conclusion you 
 might have been very sure I should not have 
 jumped to without sufficient grounds.' 
 
 c Well, now that you know your grounds, 
 what is your conclusion?' he asked, smiling in 
 his turn, and putting his arm round her. 
 
 4 That you shouldn't take things for 
 granted in that — that exceedingly premature 
 way.' 
 
 They sat down on an iron seat near, 
 and he lavished on her a volume of tender 
 epithets and caresses, claiming from her in 
 return some expression of her affection for 
 him. 
 
 She looked at him for a moment out of 
 her clear fearless eyes, and then, murmuring 
 some scarcely intelligible words, suddenly hid 
 her face on his shoulder. 
 
 They sat for some time in silence, till the 
 sun, chasing the shadows before it, drove 
 them away. Then they walked up and down 
 the broad path in the shade cast by the elms 
 growing on the other side of the wall. A lijrht
 
 LAURA EllLE. 157 
 
 wind was rustling the leaves in the tree-tops, 
 and now and again the wood-pigeons called 
 to each other in notes of tender softness. 
 
 Laura was tall, so that her lover could 
 walk with his arm round her waist without 
 inconvenience to either, and she, at least, had 
 some seconds of perfect happiness, as he bent 
 over her with soft words and passionate ca- 
 resses. 
 
 But no perfect happiness lasts. Laura's 
 did not. Sensitive to every change in Claude's 
 expression, in his tone, she speedily became 
 aware of a look of non-content in his face. 
 
 His features were like Audrey's ; there was 
 in them the same regular high-bred cast — the 
 same thick straight eyebrows — the same gray 
 eyes, large, and looking black at times. Both 
 had a particularly beautiful smile. Claude's 
 quite redeemed his face, the expression of 
 which — to a stranger — was not prepossessing, 
 though he was very handsome. But Laura, 
 in the smile which his moustache did not con- 
 ceal, and in the gray eyes bent on her now 
 with a look of triumphant love, saw some-
 
 158 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 thing which told her that he was not fully 
 satisfied in his mind. Deeply sensible of the 
 disparity of their condition — he with so much 
 to bestow, and she so little — she feared that 
 some doubt as to how his family would re- 
 ceive the announcement of his engagement 
 was troubling him. 
 
 'Claude,' she said, looking at him, 'you 
 have made my happiness, but it is a dreadfully 
 bad match for you ; it is really a case of the 
 church mouse with me — you know that, don't 
 you?' 
 
 He answered by a smile and a reassuring 
 caress, which, however, failed to satisfy her. 
 She still felt a vague sense of uneasiness. 
 There was a reason for it. Claude's victory 
 was only half won. He had not doubted 
 Laura's ready acceptance of his offer. But 
 he wanted something more. She must give 
 up, henceforth and for ever, all idea of earn- 
 ing money in any way either for herself or 
 others. 
 
 He never flinched from his determination 
 to exact a promise to this effect from her ; but
 
 LAURA ERLE. 159 
 
 he found it less easy than he had imagined to 
 put his requisition into words. 
 
 It was one thing to make fierce resolutions 
 in her absence — another to carry them into 
 effect, walking with his arm round her waist 
 — her beautiful face quivering beneath his 
 glances with the sweet surprise of her first 
 love. ^ 
 
 He told himself again and again during 
 that walk up and down, that he had a perfect 
 right to impose this condition as the price of 
 all he had to bestow. Claude was a little too 
 conscious of all he had to bestow. The rich 
 man who marries a penniless girl must be 
 either a fool or a hero, if he is not conscious, 
 to a certain extent, that he is the one who 
 gives most — as giving is usually understood ; 
 but, then, this consciousness should not be 
 always present with him — it should not be 
 constantly in his mind — and it is not, if he is 
 generous. If it is, there is small chance of 
 happiness for the girl he marries. He will be 
 continually weighing what he has given, and 
 thinking he has never had enough in return.
 
 160 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 Claude was not ungenerous as a rule; but 
 the secret shame he could not help feeling at 
 what he was about to do made him try to 
 justify himself in his own eyes by dwelling 
 on the substantial equivalent he had it in his 
 power to make for the concession he meant to 
 demand. Still he was at a loss how to put 
 his requisition, nor did Laura's next remark 
 lessen the difficulty of his task. 
 
 Seeing that something was still wrong, 
 
 •Claude, if you spoke on an impulse, not 
 having weighed well what you did, it is not 
 too late to retract. It is, as I daresay Mrs. 
 Elliott has told you, a serious thing to marry 
 a penniless girl like me, and I would rather 
 the whole thing came to an end at once than 
 feel you ever regretted, even for a moment, 
 what you had done.' 
 
 As she spoke she freed herself from his 
 arm, and looked at him with fearless frank- 
 ness. 
 
 4 1 shall never regret it, my dearest, never. 
 What put such an idea into your head ?' placing 
 his arm round her again firmly.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 1G1 
 
 'I thought you looked uncertain, some- 
 how, as if you were not satisfied. What is it, 
 Claude ? I would rather know.' 
 
 'There is a subject, Laura, on which I must 
 speak to you,' bending over her so that she 
 could not see his face. c I hope Audrey told 
 you how much I appreciated and admired 
 your wish to do something to help your father,' 
 hesitatingly, as if uncertain how he should 
 proceed. 
 
 She looked at him gravely for a minute, 
 then smiled a little as she answered, 
 
 'She certainly did not. As I understood 
 the matter, you did not either appreciate or 
 admire it; but you see, Claude, it was a case 
 of necessity with me. The church mouse 
 mayn't be able to do much in the way of 
 making a fortune ; but you shouldn't blame 
 him for trying, at least,' with a deepening 
 colour. 
 
 'But it will no longer be a case of the 
 church mouse, Laura, I'm happy to say; I'm 
 not a millionaire, but I have enough for both 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 of us ; so you must promise me never to think 
 of anything of the sort again. 1 
 
 It was not so much his words as the tone 
 in which he spoke that jarred on her, in spite 
 of the caress with which he tried to soften his 
 meaning. 
 
 ' Think of what ?' she asked rather ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 'Well, Laura, I shouldn't care to Bee you 
 write or do anything of that kind now.' 
 
 'And you want me to promise not?' si 
 asked, with inconvenient directness. 
 
 Claude wished she would have given the 
 promise without forcing him to express him- 
 self so openly on the subject. 
 
 1 1 feel sure there is no need for any pro- 
 mise, dear. I know you will be always ready 
 to meet my wishes ; still, to avoid misunder- 
 standing — ' He paused, as if expecting a 
 ready assent from her; but no assent came 
 and they walked to the end of the path and 
 back again in silence. 
 
 Laura felt a sudden glow of anger, com- 
 bined with a deep sense of pain, at this at-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 1G 
 
 Q 
 
 tempt to bargain with her. It was as though 
 he was offering her so much money for her 
 mental liberty. And if she sold herself, how 
 were John's debts to be kept from his father's 
 knowledge ? 
 
 'Well, darling?' he said at last, thinking 
 she had had ample time to consider the mat- 
 ter. 
 
 ' I should not like to make any promise 
 about it,' she replied, in rather a low voice. 
 
 1 Why not ?' he exclaimed, his temper 
 roused, as it always was at the least opposi- 
 tion. 
 
 ' Because I don't think you have any right 
 to ask it.' 
 
 'As to right, Laura, where there is affec- 
 tion there should be no question of right.' 
 
 'Nor of bargain either, Claude,' she retorted 
 rather haughtily. 
 
 ' Bargain ! It is not bargaining to say 
 what I wish.' 
 
 ' But, you see, my wishes count for some- 
 thing too ; only that is a little fact you seem 
 to have forgotten.'
 
 164 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 'I have not forgotten it,' he returned; 'but 
 if you have the feeling for me you confessed 
 to just now, you should have no difficulty in 
 acceding to my request.' 
 
 His arm was still round her waist, but all 
 the soft light was gone out of his eyes, and an 
 expression of hard determination deepening 
 on his face. 
 
 'Am I to understand that you make this 
 promise a condition of our engagement — our 
 marriage, in fact?' she asked, again with that 
 inconvenient directness, and freeing herself 
 from his arm. 
 
 ' That is not the way to put it, Laura ;' and 
 commanding his rising temper he said gently 
 enough that she was mistaken in supposi li- 
 ne did not do justice to her wish to help her 
 parents. He did, most fully; but henceforth 
 there would be no need for any independent 
 effort on her part, as he would willingly coope- 
 rate in all plans she might form for their be- 
 nefit, and that he considered he was, under 
 the circumstances, justified in asking her to 
 promise not to engage in a pursuit which he
 
 LAURA ERLE. 105 
 
 distinctly disliked and disapproved of. c In all 
 constitutional governments, you know, the 
 subjects make terms with their sovereign,' he 
 concluded, with a smile meant to be reassur- 
 ing. 
 
 ' And the sovereign has it in his power to 
 reject the terms,' she answered gently. 'Be- 
 sides, you mistake altogether, Claude. I never 
 thought of asking you or wanting you to do 
 anything to — to — help any one belonging to 
 me,' in a surprised pained way, and flushing 
 deeply. ' Neither they nor I would trespass 
 on your kindness in such a manner as that. 
 Such an idea would never have entered my 
 head.' 
 
 She meant that help which would have 
 come gracefully and naturally from her would 
 be totally inadmissible from him. 
 
 He put his arm round her again. 
 
 ' You little atom of independence ! There 
 will be no trespassing in the matter. You 
 will have a house in London, where you will 
 reign as a queen— and a very beautiful and 
 graceful queen you will be — and I will be your
 
 10G LAURA EBLE. 
 
 first subject. You will have your own car- 
 riage to drive about in, and, of course, you 
 will have your father and mother, and John 
 and Amy, and any mortal soul you please, to 
 stay with you.' 
 
 Clearly he was of Geraint's opinion, that 
 to secure a woman's affections you need only 
 dress her beautifully. 
 
 The picture was a tempting one to a girl 
 who had lived in an atmosphere where every 
 slight indulgence, every infinitesimal pleasure, 
 was a matter for grave consideration. She 
 knew, too, that the picture would probably 
 be realised. Claude was generosity itself, so 
 far as money was concerned. He would, she 
 was certain, be lavishly indulgent to her. 
 
 ' Now won't that satisfy you?' he went on. 
 4 1 will be a very loyal and tractable subject, 
 Laura, though you may not think it becaufi 
 I insist on this one concession.' 
 
 But she was not satisfied, though he 
 tried to win her by a profusion of eare»e>. 
 Her sensation was one of profound humilia- 
 tion. She felt that it was ungenerous of him
 
 LAXJEA EELE. 1G7 
 
 to exact a promise she was not willing to give; 
 she did not think he had any right to ask a 
 promise from her in the matter. She was but 
 two-and- twenty — only just beginning to be 
 conscious of her own powers. How could 
 she bind herself by a vow never to use them, 
 no matter how they developed themselves ? 
 Besides, if she precluded herself from the 
 possibility of earning money in some way, 
 how were John's debts to be paid ? How 
 was she to get a trousseau? This last may 
 seem a prosaic consideration to romantic 
 people who have never known anxiety as to 
 the wherewithal; but Laura had been Miss 
 Thoughtful all her short life ; had shared her 
 parents' burdens from the age of ten. She 
 knew that trousseaux are not got for nothing ; 
 knew, too, how scanty was the store from 
 which hers would have to be provided. If 
 the double drain of her trousseau and John's 
 debts came on that store at once, she was well 
 aware that it would be unequal to the demand 
 made on it, and then — what would be the 
 effect on her father ? She would have bought
 
 1G8 LAURA EELE. 
 
 her own happiness at the expense of those with 
 whom her very being was bound up. I Jut she 
 could not lay these difficulties before Claude. 
 All the delicate instincts of her nature shrank 
 from such a course. 
 
 The struggle in her mind showed itself 
 plainly on her face, and Claude's keen eyes, 
 fixed on her, added to her embarrassment. 
 
 c I cannot bind myself by any promise,' 
 she said, after a pause. 
 
 He walked to the end of the path and back 
 to where she stood : her face burning:, her 
 brown hair all in picturesque disorder from 
 the way in which her head had been resting 
 against his shoulder, her tall graceful figure 
 in its white dress standing out against the 
 background of trees and flowers. When he 
 came up to her again she suddenly placed her 
 hand on his arm. 
 
 ' Claude, will you not trust me ? Why do 
 you act as if you had no confidence in me? 
 I don't like the feeling that you want to make 
 a bargain with me.' 
 
 He was moved in spite of his prejudice;
 
 LAURA ERLE. 169 
 
 but a certain obstinacy of disposition, which 
 prevented his admitting that he had ever been 
 in the wrong, came like an evil angel between 
 him and his better impulse. 
 
 It irritated him, too, to see that she was 
 less pliable than he had conceived she would 
 be in that first moment of his triumph and of 
 her young love. 
 
 'You persist in talking about a bargain, 
 Laura,' he began ; ' but be reasonable. I offer 
 you a home — ' 
 
 c Pray don't give yourself the trouble to 
 go over the items again,' she exclaimed, hurt 
 at his persistance. 
 
 c Hear me out, Laura, before you reject 
 my offer. I would provide you with a home, 
 which I would do my best to make happy for 
 you. You shall share all I have; I will deny 
 you no luxury my means afford — ' 
 
 ' Except the luxury of being free — men- 
 tally free — I know all that is implied in the 
 promise you want me to make : — and of feeling 
 that my husband trusts me. No, Claude; I 
 have, as you know, not one farthing in the
 
 170 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 world ; but I decline to sell my real self — the 
 part of me that cannot die — for a house in 
 London and a carnage. I reject your offer, 
 with all the luxuries you speak of — scorn- 
 fully — 'knowing their value, but valuing some- 
 thing else more. I can understand your think- 
 ing the thing I call my mind not worth such 
 a sacrifice. Very likely it isn't. Still, " a 
 poor thing, but mine own," you know, and I 
 mean to keep it.' 
 
 * Very well; that ends the matter.' 
 
 That was Claude's answer, wrung from 
 him by the bitter words she spoke, and the 
 contempt he discerned both in her look and 
 tone. 
 
 He turned and left the garden. 
 
 She stood for fully ten minutes without 
 moving,, almost without breathing, uncon- 
 scious of everything save the one overwhelm- 
 ing conviction of Claude's narrowness, his want 
 of generosity. The veil had been roughly torn 
 from her eyes. * To think that I would sell 
 myself for a house and a carriage!' That was 
 the only definite idea in her mind.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 171 
 
 At last she threw herself on the iron 
 seat, unheeding the sun, which was pouring 
 his scorching rays down full on her head. 
 Her pretty hair, her bright fresh dress, were 
 all dishevelled and disarranged. As if in a 
 dream, she heard her mother's voice calling 
 her; but she made no more effort to answer 
 the call than if she had not heard it. The 
 whole outer world seemed a far-off thing, 
 with which she had no concern. Reality was, 
 for her, summed up in that aching sense of 
 wounded pride gnawing at her heart.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Meantime Claude, in a paroxysm of anger 
 and disappointment, had gone back to the 
 house. He turned into the dining-room, and 
 sat there he knew not how long, till Eveleen's 
 voice calling him disturbed him. To avoid 
 her he went out through the window, but on 
 the lawn he met Mrs. Erie. 
 
 4 Do you know where Laura is?' she asked. 
 4 No one can find her, and we ought to have 
 started long ago.' 
 
 c I don't know where she is now. She was 
 in the Lady's Garden.' 
 
 1 Would you kindly see if you can find her? 
 Mrs. Elliott is in despair. ' 
 
 He was a little calmer by this time, and 
 went in search of her. 
 
 She was still sitting on the iron seat when 
 he reached the garden ; but she heard his ad-
 
 LATJKA ERLE. 173 
 
 vancing step, and, starting up, stood gazing at 
 him, with the alarmed yet defiant look of some 
 graceful hunted creature driven to bay. 
 
 Though admiring her more than any wo- 
 man he had ever seen, he had not thought her 
 beautiful till that day. That she was so he 
 admitted now with a pang of fierce anger. 
 
 ' They are waiting for you,' he said, trying 
 studiously to speak indifferently. i Mrs. Erie 
 asked me to come and tell you so.' 
 
 ' You have not said anything to her ?' she 
 exclaimed eagerly. 
 
 4 No.' 
 
 1 I must beg you not to tell her anything ; 
 it will spoil her day, and she so seldom goes 
 out.' She looked at him, expecting a nega- 
 tive promise. 
 
 ' You have not given me any right to an 
 interest in your affairs ; but I can fully under- 
 stand your dislike to letting your mother 
 know the decision you have come to.' 
 
 She would not condescend to answer this. 
 
 'Don't wait; I will come presently,' she 
 said, seeing that he still lingered.
 
 174 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 He did not move, but stood watching her a 
 she smoothed back her hair and put on her hat. 
 So much of fierce passion mingled with hia 
 
 regretful anger, that he had almost lost all 
 control over himself. Something in his bear- 
 ing and in his look warned the girl of this; 
 calling to mind, as she did, his violent demon- 
 stration once before that morning. 
 
 ' Go on, I will come afterwards,' she re- 
 peated imperiously, yet with the same defiant 
 air, veiling the apprehension she felt. 
 
 Deeply incensed at her evident mistrust, 
 he advanced a little way into the garden, thus 
 leaving her free egress; taking off his hat, and 
 bowing low, at the same time, as if to a com- 
 plete stranger. 
 
 She went on rapidly, he following more 
 slowly. Her whole soul was now bent on 
 keeping her mother in ignorance of the affair. 
 Any suspicion of it would, she knew, effect- 
 ually spoil the brightness of her day. 
 
 Mrs. Erie was standing on the steps. 
 'Where have you been, Laura? Why, 
 what is the matter? How flushed you look!'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 175 
 
 she exclaimed, with that scrutinising maternal 
 glance, compounded equally of criticism, anx- 
 iety, and affection, which daughters find so 
 aggravating. 
 
 Laura was not more patient under the in- 
 spection than young ladies generally are. 
 
 ' Nothing is the matter, mamma,' she re- 
 plied unblushingly, though Mrs. Elliott's keen 
 eye was on her ; ' only it is very hot, and I 
 came so quickly.' 
 
 i Have you a headache ?' questioned the 
 mother, who was in the habit of looking on 
 her daughter's constitutional headaches as 
 something; between a crime and a misfortune. 
 She always asked the question much as she 
 would have asked, '"Have you committed a 
 murder ? Let me know the worst.' 
 
 ' No, mamma, of course I haven't,' re- 
 sponded the young lady, much as she would 
 have repudiated the imputed crime. 
 
 Mrs. Erie attempted to arrange her hat, 
 still directing on her that look of maternal 
 scrutiny, as keen to detect a chance freckle as 
 a latent heart- affection.
 
 176 LAURA BSLE. 
 
 c Please don't, mamma,' said poor Laura, 
 her embarrassment considerably increased by 
 Claude's presence. Unable to let her out of] 
 sight, he had come up, and was watching her 
 with a dark gloomy look on his beautiful fa< 
 ' I will just go to Audrey's room and brush 
 my hair,' she said, heedless of Mrs. Elliott's 
 impatience ; eager only to escape from her mo- 
 ther and her offended lover. If he meant to 
 drive with them, and keep his eyes on her in 
 that way, she did not know how she should 
 get through the ordeal. 
 
 He, on his part, turned with a suppressed 
 cath to find fault with the coachman for some 
 fault in harnessing the horses. ' She can think 
 of her hair at such a moment,' he muttered 
 savagely. 
 
 He was hard to please. If she was not to 
 cultivate her mind, it was surely allowable to 
 brush her hair! 
 
 He had ordered his own dog-cart, meaning 
 to drive her himself, had things taken the turn 
 he wished. Now he started off alone. 
 
 This being the" state of affairs between
 
 LAURA ERLE. 177 
 
 them, it may be conceived that neither was in 
 a happy frame of mind on arriving at Glyn- 
 ton. Claude's first impulse had been not to 
 go there ; his second, not to let Laura out of 
 his sight. It was torture to him to think of 
 her alone all that day, exposed to the atten- 
 tions of other men. 
 
 Harold Carew, it is true, was absent, but 
 there were Sir Digby Forester and St. Clare 
 Ellis ; and how might she not set herself to 
 flirt with them, to avenge herself on him ! She 
 could not be with a man without flirting ; that 
 was his opinion of her ; but maddening as the 
 sight of her coquetries would be to him, some 
 fascination drew him ever on to witness 
 them. 
 
 Laura had succeeded, she hoped, in lull- 
 ing her mother's suspicions. She talked and 
 laughed incessantly during the drive. 
 
 Claude was eagerly questioned as to his 
 tardy appearance. One glance sufficed to show 
 Audrey that something had happened. 
 
 ' What is the matter ?' she whispered. * Is 
 Laura coming?' 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 'I believe so,' he answered briefly. 
 
 'I have quarrelled with Claude for ever,' 
 was Laura's hurried explanation. 
 
 At luncheon he sat where he could e 
 her. He watched with resentful anger her 
 determined efforts to conceal all traces of agi- 
 tation or disturbance; which efforts, he per- 
 sisted in assuring himself, resulted, not from 
 generous affection for her mother, but from 
 heartless indifference. Once or twice their 
 eyes met, drawn to each other's faces by an 
 irresistible fascination. 
 
 Violet Ellis sat next to Claude, and to her 
 he devoted himself ; not ostentatiously, for 
 that would, he conceived, have gratified Laura 
 by showing his own mortification, but with 
 sufficient zeal to transport that happy damsel 
 with delight. 
 
 'I'm afraid Laura is not well,' said Mrs. 
 Erie to Audrey uneasily. ' She has not eaten 
 one morsel, and her face is so flushed.' 
 
 'She didn't complain to me,' replied Au- 
 drey evasively. 
 
 As soon as the two girls could do so un-
 
 LATJEA ERLE. 179 
 
 observed they went away together, and Laura 
 told her friend all that had taken place. 
 
 Audrey listened in dismay, expressing 
 strong condemnation of her brother's conduct. 
 1 But,' she concluded, 'when his anger cools 
 down, and he has time to think over it all, he 
 will see — ' 
 
 4 And do you think I would sell myself 
 to him ? Give up all I most value for a car- 
 riage and fine clothes and an opera -box? 
 Yes, that was one of the bribes he held out. 
 If I would promise not to unsex myself by 
 using the faculties God gave me, he, Claude 
 Dashwood, would give me an opera-box every 
 year! I'm poor enough, God knows,' she 
 ended, with a bitter laugh, ( but I would 
 rather work my fingers to the very bone, or 
 die of cold and hunger, and see those I love 
 do the same, than accept luxury on such 
 terms. And then to swear he loved me,' she 
 resumed — ' to swear it by every sacred thing 
 he could think of! His love would be de- 
 gradation. I'm glad I've quarrelled with him, 
 
 Audrey.'
 
 180 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 I Laura, but think of him.' 
 
 I I can't help him. We should never have 
 been happy together. I always felt when I 
 was with him like that poor spirit whom some 
 vile magician imprisoned till it went quite 
 mad. The magician shut it up in a box, or 
 some such thing, and it used to struggle and 
 struggle and struggle to get out — I always 
 was so sorry for it — and then some one came 
 and released it. But if I let Claude imprison 
 mine, only death could free it.' 
 
 ' I didn't know } t ou had that feeling to- 
 wards him, dear.' 
 
 ' Always ; but I tried not to have it, be- 
 cause he was so kind to me — and — and — 
 Audrey, because I was a fool; but my eyes 
 have been opened. I've eaten of the fruit of 
 the tree of knowledge, and — well, I've learned 
 something, of course' — with a sudden change 
 of tone — 'never to trust a man's oaths, for 
 one thing. Don't be uneasy, Audrey. He 
 will console himself speedily. Look at him 
 now, talking to Violet Ellis just as a couple 
 of hours ago he talked to me;' and her eyes
 
 LAURA ERLE. 181 
 
 turned to the spot where, under the arching 
 trees, Claude was walking up and down with 
 Violet, bending his handsome head to catch 
 her words. 
 
 ' She isn't troubled with such an unfemi- 
 nine thins: as a soul,' went on Laura. ' One 
 cannot but wonder at the fatuity of the Al- 
 mighty in having endowed some women with 
 such inconvenient gifts. How can He so far 
 have forgotten their natural sphere?' 
 
 ' Laura dear !' 
 
 ' I'm quite serious ; and I do think Claude 
 should send up a deputation, requesting that 
 no more women with aspirations should be 
 created for the annoyance and disquiet of 
 men. Just look at the inconvenience I have 
 put him to, all because God has made me 
 what I am instead of — like Violet, for exam- 
 ple. When Claude offers her a carriage and 
 an opera-box, don't you suppose she will ac- 
 cept them gratefully ?' 
 
 c Heaven forbid that he ever should!' 
 
 ' AVhen a man has such gifts to bestow, 
 my dear Audrey, he is naturally anxious to
 
 1S2 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 find a recipient who will value him and them 
 at their true worth. See, Claude is looking 
 at us. Let us go back to the others, that he 
 may not think we wish to disturb his t«'-rc-;i 
 tete with the appreciative Violet.' 
 
 Audrey had never seen Laura in this 
 mood before. Quite unable to offer any con- 
 solation in words, she could only look her 
 sympathy, and trust that time would do some- 
 thing to allay the anger of both her and her 
 lover. 
 
 Laura was right in saying that Violet 
 would know how to appreciate Claude and 
 the gifts he bore. She had left home that 
 morning bent on enjoying herself. For once 
 she would subordinate duty to pleasure, and 
 give herself up to uninterrupted felicity, in 
 the shape of a flirtation with Sir Dighy Fo- 
 rester, who had met her friend, Colonel Wil- 
 mot, abroad, and with whom she proposed 
 having a long conversation on the subject of 
 that distinguished soldier. 
 
 But though bent on pleasure, Violet had 
 a frugal mind; and when Claude, burning
 
 LAURA EHLE. 183 
 
 with anger against Laura, showed auspicious 
 signs of readiness to prostrate himself at her 
 own fair feet, she resolved heroically to deny 
 herself the supreme gratification of a flirtation 
 with the handsomest man in the company. 
 This sacrifice involved another. She would 
 be unable to satisfy that aching longing at 
 her heart to hear about c Dick Wilmot.' It 
 was a bore, for she did want to hear about 
 him, but he must not be allowed to interfere 
 with serious business. He was very well in 
 his way; very charming; and it was safe to 
 flirt with him, precisely on the grounds which 
 make it safe for a traveller to whistle before 
 a highwayman. He had absolutely nothing, 
 so could not expect even the most violent 
 flirtation to end in matrimony. And Violet, 
 who was strictly circumspect as to the men 
 with whom she conversed, felt it a great boon 
 to have on her list one member of the noble 
 sex with whom she could be entirely at her 
 ease. 
 
 But she abstained, though with regret, 
 from mentioning Dick's name to Sir Digby;
 
 184 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 abstained from more than a few passing words 
 with the baronet himself. It was a sublime 
 sacrifice of pleasure to duty, and the martyr 
 felt herself distinctly elevated in the moral 
 scale after she had resolved on it. She had 
 her reward. Claude devoted himself to her 
 all day. It would have been suicidal to damp 
 his ardour. 
 
 Laura's breath came with such sharp 
 spasms of pain, as she watched them, that she 
 was almost suffocated. She had never before 
 felt anything like the maddening sensation 
 she experienced on seeing Claude help Violet 
 into the match-boat, with all those marks of 
 tender devotion which had hitherto been her 
 own. It was her first real knowledge of the 
 passion of jealousy, and it was not pleasant. 
 
 Then a sudden sense of shame — of the 
 littleness of it all — came to her relief. 
 
 c How can I be such a fool as to care for 
 a man whose ungenerous narrowness I can't 
 help despising?' 
 
 In utter scorn of herself she asked this 
 question, deriving some consolation for the
 
 LAURA ERLE. 185 
 
 moment from resolving to be superior both to 
 him and to her lower self. It has been found r 
 however, that philosophy is but a poor cure 
 for love, even at the best of times. 
 
 Had Laura known it, the unconscious 
 Violet was at that very instant driving Claude 
 almost wild by the persistence with which she 
 made her the subject of conversation. 
 
 Violet liked Laura. She amused and in- 
 terested her, and she was not to be feared as 
 a rival. A c parson's' daughter, country bred 
 and poor, could not compete with her, ; up* 
 in all the latest requirements of a fashionable 
 fisher woman ; and she thought her a safe 
 subject to talk to Claude about, for, truth to 
 tell, she did not find it very easy to get on 
 with him. 
 
 They had not much in common. She 
 could only talk about people, and that day 
 Claude did not seem to know any one. He 
 answered irrelevantly often enough till she 
 mentioned Laura. Then he was all attention 
 — such attention as the victim bestows on the 
 executioner who is stretching him on the
 
 186 LAURA EKLE. 
 
 rack. The very sound of her name from in- 
 different lips was torture to him. lie could 
 praise and blame her himself, but he did not 
 want to be reminded of her attractions, her 
 bright ways and sunny face, by the first 
 stranger he met. 
 
 He had missed her when she went away 
 to speak to Audrey, and had been in a frenzy 
 of anxiety about her. He looked round to 
 see which man of the company was missing, 
 but all were there, so she must, he thought, 
 be alone. A compunctious stab went through 
 his heart as he pictured her in tears, perhaps, 
 and uncomforted. A sudden wild impulse 
 seized him to rush after her, to scold her, 
 scorn her, kiss her, anything so that he could 
 see her, feel that she was still within his 
 reach. 
 
 Then he saw her with Audrey, calm and 
 collected apparently, but with a burning face 
 and eyes unnaturally bright. 
 
 He knew her so well that he was sure 
 she had a violent headache. He, as well as 
 Mrs. Erie, had noticed that she had eaten
 
 LAURA ERLE. 187 
 
 nothing. Anything like physical suffering- 
 roused his deepest pity. On the headache of 
 which she was almost unconscious he wasted 
 sympathy which, had he accorded it to the 
 real trials of her life, would have saved both 
 infinite misery.
 
 CHAPTER XI V. 
 
 When Audrey and Laura rejoined the part)* 
 they found Sir Digby proposing that they 
 should walk to the top of a neighbouring hill 
 •which commanded a splendid view of the sur- 
 rounding country. The sun was going down, 
 and a breeze having sprung up, exercise waa 
 not the impossibility it had been in the morn- 
 ino' 
 
 The hill rose almost to the dignity of a 
 mountain. The road wound up between 
 woods of larch, the delicate green of which 
 contrasted beautifully with the darker hues 
 of the forest trees beyond. The path was 
 narrow and rocky ; a mountain torrent fre- 
 quently crossing it, and thereby interrupting 
 the onward course of the pedestrians, and 
 necessitating much assistance from the gen- 
 tlemen to the ladies. Every foot of ground
 
 LAURA ERLE. 189 
 
 they passed was a world of beauty in itself. 
 Up under the firs there was little save the rich 
 carpet of moss, but the banks were thick with 
 every variety of autumn flowers; rare ferns 
 not easily to be found elsewhere here waved 
 their graceful foliage, rejoicing in the con- 
 genial soil, and the streams abounding on all 
 sides. 
 
 These streams had a charm peculiarly 
 their own. They never gave an impression 
 of damp. No doubt they did ' pay tribute to 
 the genial heaven,' but the tribute went up 
 in such delicate guise that no one was sensi- 
 ble it was being paid. They sparkled and 
 danced over their rocky beds, clear and cold 
 as crystal, stopping now and then to linger 
 lovingly under some overhanging root, visit- 
 ing a cool cavern where rare plants hid their 
 exquisite loveliness, then tumbling in joyous 
 haste over rocks and stones, 
 
 ' Gliding and springing, 
 . . . ever singing 
 In murmurs as soft as sleep,' 
 
 they went till they came to a bit of smooth
 
 190 LAUBA EBLE. 
 
 reach, where they flowed on still rapidly hut 
 less noisily, letting you look into their clear 
 depths, in which the many-coloured pebbles 
 gleamed and glanced like jewels. 
 
 When they gained the first bit of level 
 ground Digby bade them turn, and, having 
 done so, such beauty met their eyes as, once 
 seen, becomes ' a joy for ever.' 
 
 One of Nature's grand transformation 
 scenes had taken place since the morning. 
 The breeze had dispersed the golden haze, 
 and the outline of the mountains stood out. 
 unbroken, clearly defined against a sky of 
 cloudless blue. Below dashed the river be- 
 tween precipitous banks, overhung with vege- 
 tation of every kind, from the tiny floweret 
 up to the giant oak, as if to show that there 
 was no form of beauty which the country 
 could not produce. 
 
 'Isn't it grand?' said Digby to Audrey in 
 a low voice, and taking off his hat uncon- 
 sciously, as if in acknowledgment of Him 
 who, in His strength, setteth fast the moun- 
 tains. They all stood silent for some time.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 191 
 
 watching the shifting lights. Even the 
 thoughtless Violet did momentary homage to 
 the Eternal Perfection revealed in that glori- 
 ous landscape. 
 
 On the homeward journey the party got 
 separated, Claude, still with Violet under his 
 wing, leading one detachment, including, 
 amongst others, Laura, who, having got into 
 conversation with Lady Emily and Mrs. Ellis, 
 found herself drawn on after him. 
 
 One of the frequent mountain streams, 
 flowing straight across their road, brought 
 them to a standstill. The large rough stone 
 forming the bridge had got so displaced that 
 it was not easy for the ladies to cross without 
 getting wet. A little higher up the stream 
 there was a plank, but to reach it, it was 
 necessary to get over an awkward stile into 
 an adjoining field. However, to avoid the 
 risk of being assisted by Claude, who was 
 contemplating lifting the ladies over, Laura 
 went into the field. Lady Emily and Mrs. 
 Ellis followed her example. The stile was 
 formidable, but it was not so bad as it would
 
 192 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 be to trust their precious persons to Claude 
 and St. Clare Ellis. Of the latter Lady Emily 
 expressed extreme distrust to Laura. 
 
 4 1 know what young men are!' she ob- 
 served contemptuously. c He is capable of 
 dropping me into the middle of the stream 
 and saying he did it by accident;' the truth 
 being that he would not have been capable of 
 lifting her at all, in spite of her long walks 
 and sparing diet. 
 
 Violet and one or two other girls stayed 
 with Claude, who assisted or lifted them over 
 the water, much to his own and their satis- 
 faction. 
 
 But Laura had not foreseen that after the 
 stream was crossed another obstacle in the 
 shape of a stile of most portentous form and 
 size barred their return into the right road, 
 and to her dismay, when she reached it, there 
 was Claude, keeping guard, waiting to assist 
 the party over — a look of triumph on his 
 beautiful face indicating plainly how fully 
 aware he was that he had circumvented her. 
 
 The stile was a break-neck device, a real
 
 LAURA ERLE. 193 
 
 invention of the enemy — in fact, it was not a 
 stile at all; it was a good stiff fence, formed 
 of unbarked stems of young trees, necessitat- 
 ing all sorts of abnormal motions to enable 
 one to reach the top, and still more monstrous 
 proceedings to bring one to the bottom again 
 in safety; not to mention the fact that when 
 the fence was crossed there was still a tolera- 
 bly steep bank to descend; nothing of a jump 
 to young limbs, but presenting formidable 
 difficulties to those excellent matrons before 
 named. They looked, indeed, quite aghast, 
 and reproached Laura in moving terms for 
 having misled them. They even took counsel 
 together as to whether it might not be better 
 to go back and ford the stream, or trust them- 
 selves to Claude's arms, rather than risk life 
 and limb by attempting to cross such an erec- 
 tion. They gazed wildly round for a more 
 easy exit — for a gate or a less formidable 
 barrier, but none presenting itself, Mrs. Ellis 
 looked imploringly at her son; Lady Emily 
 vainly wished for her dear Harold, and felt 
 much inclined to scream. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 It is sad to have to relate that Mrs. Ellis 
 detected her son in the very act of exchang- 
 ing looks of amusement with 'the demon 
 Claude,' as Laura, in retailing the story after- 
 wards to Audrey, disrespectfully termed her 
 whilom lover. The said ' demon's' face wore 
 a look of proud satisfaction. An opportunity 
 was about to present itself for overpowering 
 his contumacious ladye-love with a quite 
 superior display of force majeure. She, as- 
 suredly, could not have lifted Mrs. Ellis over 
 a high fence, but if she saw him bear with 
 ease in his arms this gigantic humanity, how 
 would she not feel the absurdity of her pre- 
 tensions? What was the thing she fatuously 
 called her mind compared to the sinewy arms 
 capable of such a feat ? 
 
 But with this triumphant prevision of 
 making her acknowledge herself nowhere, 
 there mingled a horrible fear of possible fail- 
 ure, together with a humiliating consciou>n< — 
 that he icished to shine in her eyes, and an 
 altogether inferior and weak dread of her very 
 pronounced turn for ridicule. Delightful
 
 LAURA ERLE. 195 
 
 would it be to lift that feminine Atlas on his 
 shoulders, crushing by the sight his audacious 
 enemy; but suppose he failed to lift the 
 Atlas ? or collapsed ignominiously under the 
 attempt ? 
 
 In spite of Laura's misery — and he, who 
 read her face like a book, knew that she was 
 intensely miserable — he was fully aware that 
 no suffering could repress her diabolic sense 
 of the ludicrous. 
 
 How would not her curved coral lips 
 quiver with laughter, her bright eyes sparkle 
 and dance with fun, if she saw him staler 
 backward and fall to the ground under the 
 superincumbent weight of Mrs. Ellis's charms ! 
 Discretion is the better part of valour. He 
 would not risk his reputation. He would 
 abandon the attempt to crush Laura by any 
 display of physical force, and would submit to 
 be helped by St. Clare Ellis. 
 
 He secretly cherished the belief that Laura 
 had no suspicion of all that was in his mind. 
 Never was a belief more erroneous. That 
 inconveniently clear-sighted young woman
 
 196 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 read his face as correctly as he read hers, 
 and was perfectly aware of the nature of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 ' Will you help Mrs. Ellis down, or how, 
 St. Clare ?' asked Claude. 
 
 c Well, yes,' responded that distinguished 
 warrior. ' How shall Ave manage ? It is a 
 tough place for the ladies.' 
 
 c Captain Ellis,' said Laura, speaking over 
 Claude, ' there is a log of wood close by that 
 oak-tree. If you would bring it across, Mrs. 
 Ellis could step on it, and so get down more 
 easily.' 
 
 ' Capital ! That's a clever thought of 
 yours, Miss Erie ;' and with a running leap he 
 vaulted in the most finished manner over the 
 fence. The ladies admired, as he expected 
 them to do, his athletic powers, and the ma- 
 trons all thanked Laura warmly for her timely 
 suggestion. 
 
 1 As I brought you here, it is well I should 
 contrive some way out of the dilemma,' re- 
 turned the young lady gravely. 
 
 Their descent being facilitated by the in-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 197 
 
 tervention of the log, the) r got over with com- 
 paratively little inconvenience. 
 
 Claude experienced a fresh access of anger 
 against Laura. The quiet way in which she 
 had ignored him mortified him extremely ; 
 nevertheless he stood by the fence still, assist- 
 ing every one courteously enough. She waited 
 till the last, hoping he would move ; as he did 
 not, she had no alternative but to face him. 
 Bat she would not accept his help; at that 
 moment she would have risked any personal 
 danger rather than touch his hand. 
 
 AVhen he held it out to aid her descent, 
 she looked at him for an instant, her eves full 
 of indignant yet half-tender reproach, her lip 
 curved with an expression of mingled pride 
 and outraged dignity, and then jumped down 
 unassisted. St. Clare sprang forward. 
 
 ' What a jump ! Have you hurt yourself? 
 You might have sprained your ankle!' 
 
 'Not at all ! I always manage better 
 alone.' 
 
 Her eyes met those of Claude defiantly. 
 The incident filled up the measure of his
 
 198 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 wrath. She was bent on defying him, and he 
 bitterly congratulated himself on his escape 
 from such a combination of pride and passion, 
 one which any man might well hesitate to 
 take to his heart. 
 
 Before they got home that evening, so cer- 
 tain did Violet feel that she had caught a fish, 
 that she began to think how she could most 
 judiciously shorten line preparatory to land- 
 ing him.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ' All I ask is that papa and mamma may not 
 be told.' That was Lanra's last remark to 
 Audrey when they parted. The latter, as 
 they drove home, turned over anxiously in 
 her mind what course could most prudently 
 be adopted. That the quarrel could be per- 
 manent, she would not for a moment admit. 
 Something must be done to reconcile them; 
 and she bethought herself of every argument 
 likely to soften Claude. 
 
 She would dwell on Laura's disinterested- 
 ness. That he would surely appreciate even 
 in his anger. She was mistaken. He did not 
 appreciate it at all. Had she accepted his 
 offer on his own terms, trusting to after-influ- 
 ence or contrivance for securing her own way, 
 he, who felt almost loathing for her honest re- 
 fusal to make a promise which she held that
 
 200 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 he had no right to exact, and doubted her 
 ability to keep, would hardly have condemned 
 the subterfuge, had she stooped to employ it. 
 He would have made some cynical remarks 
 about feminine want of sincerity and a woman's 
 faculty for getting her own way in the end, 
 and would have accepted the facts, believing 
 evasion and shifty dealings to be her natural, 
 almost her legitimate, weapons, of which man 
 was the destined victim. He might possibly 
 have respected, he would not have loved, her 
 one whit the less for the deception. He went 
 into Audrey's room after her maid left her, 
 and his sister, on seeing him, hoped to be able 
 to soften his anger, but for several minutes 
 she found it impossible to get in a word. He 
 walked up and down inveighing in the strong- 
 est terms against Laura, vowing at one mo- 
 ment that, of course, all was at an end between 
 them; nothing would ever induce him to give 
 his name and substance to such a combination 
 of pride and defiance; the next, that he would 
 appeal to her father, — she was not justified in 
 refusing such an offer as his on her own re-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 201 
 
 sponsibility. Mr. Erie ought to be told, and 
 he would compel her to give up her absurd 
 folly. 
 
 Audrey listened to his ravings with as 
 much amazement as she had, in the early part 
 of the day, listened to Laura's bitter sarcasms. 
 She began to have serious doubts as to the 
 expediency of a reconciliation. 
 
 The domestic hearth which would shelter 
 two such firebrands would surely be in a per- 
 petual state of combustion. She could only 
 sit down and wait till the storm was over, and 
 her brother had exhausted himself in a series 
 of violent invectives. When he had grown a 
 little calmer she gently suggested the impos- 
 sibility of his wishing for an unwilling bride. 
 
 1 I'd tame her,' he said fiercely, with a 
 muttered oath. ' Besides, she wouldn't be un- 
 willing. You know nothing at all about her. 
 She isn't the milk-and-water you take her 
 for!' 
 
 ' But, Claude dear, you must know as well 
 as I do that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Erie would 
 attempt to force her into anything she dis-
 
 202 LAI'KA EELE. 
 
 liked. They would think about it just as she 
 does. Besides, she is of aire.' 
 
 He was fully aware of all this, and when 
 his passion cooled a little, admitted the use- 
 lessness of any appeal. 
 
 It had been arranged that he and Digby 
 should start for Ireland the morning after the 
 picnic. She begged him now to defer his 
 journey, so that he might see Laura herself 
 
 again. 
 
 He declined. There was no need, he said, 
 that he should beg and entreat any woman to 
 be his wife. Once refused, his offer would 
 not be repeated. 
 
 4 You will come in and say good-bye to 
 me to-morrow before you go ?' she asked. 
 
 ' I always do, Audrey.' 
 
 ' You are not angry with me about it, 
 dear, are you?' putting her arms round him. 
 
 ' I think you encouraged her in all this 
 nonsense,' he answered gloomily ; but he 
 kissed her, and early the following morning 
 came in to take leave of her. 
 
 l Let me give some message to Laura/ she
 
 LAURA ERLE. 203 
 
 pleaded. ' Remember she did not refuse you 
 at first, only on account of that condition, 
 and, Claude, it did look like bargaining with 
 her.' 
 
 4 No ; I will have nothing more to do with 
 her.' 
 
 She drew his head down, and kissed him 
 affectionately. 
 
 c Claude, it breaks my heart to see you go 
 off unhappy and wretched. I had so looked 
 forward to seeing you and Laura happy to- 
 gether.' 
 
 ' You know whose door to lay it at,' he 
 replied bitterly. c She will go a long way be- 
 fore she finds any one willing to do as much 
 for her as I would have done.' 
 
 Audrey was, no doubt, right in saying that 
 neither Mr. nor Mrs. Erie would force Laura's 
 inclination. They would not have done so, 
 though they might seriously regret that any- 
 thing should have occurred to interfere with 
 a match so advantageous for her in every 
 way. 
 
 But Laura resolved to spare them all
 
 ~ ( >4 LAURA KKI.l . 
 
 knowledge of the affair. W^hy should Bhe arid 
 another to their many sorrows? Besides, tell- 
 ing them would involve an allusion to John's 
 debts, a knowledge of which she was more 
 than ever anxious to keep from them. She 
 had actually written herself to the only two 
 tradesmen whose names she could induce 
 John to disclose, entreating their forbearance 
 on the score of her father's delicate health, ex- 
 plaining that her brother was in daily expect- 
 ation of some appointment, and promising 
 faithfully that some portion, at least, of the 
 debt should be discharged within the next six 
 months. 
 
 Whether the simple appeal softened their 
 hearts, or whether, as was most probable, they 
 thought there was nothing to be gained by 
 pressing their claims just then, both said they 
 would wait a little longer. 
 
 But a fortnight of the six months was 
 gone; every day was of importance; and she 
 had not yet found a way of earning any 
 money. She appealed in feverish anxiety to 
 her friend.
 
 LATJEA EltLE. 205 
 
 ' Audrey, do try to hear of some one 
 wanting a governess ; some one rich, I mean, 
 not as poor as I am, because I want money, 
 you see, not a home. I know I can teach, 
 and I can play and sing. I hate singing be- 
 fore people, but I would do it if they would 
 pay me.' 
 
 She had a splendid contralto, but could 
 hardly ever be persuaded to use it except in 
 church. 
 
 1 Have you told any one you know of a 
 governess ?' she went on anxiously. c I am 
 twenty-two, and I think I look older, don't I? 
 I would do my hair quite plainly — perhaps 
 that would make a difference — only it will 
 curl, so tiresome of it ! Do you think I look 
 too young to get a good salary ? 
 
 Audrey felt that her poor friend did look 
 painfully young, but she remarked, in a con- 
 soling way, that one often saw such young and 
 pretty governesses now that she could hardly 
 conceive youth and beauty to be any draw- 
 backs. 
 
 ' They might think I would flirt,' said the
 
 206 LAURA ERL1 
 
 hapless Laura, with a dim consciousness of her 
 
 besetting sin ; 'but I wouldn't, indeed ; I 
 never want to speak to a man again. In fact, 
 in one way, it would have been such a good 
 thing if I had been a man myself; I could 
 have got so much more money.' 
 
 1 And spent it on yourself, or gone in debt, 
 or married, or done something. You may be 
 quite sure that if you had been a man, you 
 would not have wanted to help your father to 
 keep a curate.' 
 
 'No, I suppose I shouldn't,' coincided 
 Laura, reflecting that her brother had shown 
 no anxiety to lessen the family impecuniosity, 
 4 and being a woman, I naturally think a wo- 
 man the right thing. It was only about the 
 money. It does seem hard that there are so 
 few ways by which we can earn anything.' 
 
 What might have been the result had John 
 honestly told Laura the real amount of his 
 debts, it is impossible to say. He did not do 
 so, and the thing she most dreaded happened. 
 
 A day or two after that conversation with 
 Audrey, Mr. Erie received a letter at break-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 207 
 
 fast, saying that the writer, having in vain 
 appealed to his son for payment of a long- 
 standing debt, now addressed him, hoping 
 there would be no farther delay in settling 
 the bill. Enclosed was an account for 170/. 
 
 The letter dropped from Mr. Erie's hands, 
 and he leaned back in his chair, pale and 
 speechless. 
 
 John had not yet made his appearance. 
 He was always late for breakfast — a fact which 
 caused ceaseless discord between him and his 
 father ; but Laura and Mrs. Erie were present, 
 and sprang simultaneously to the old man's 
 side. Mrs. Erie dreaded some sudden seiz- 
 ure; her daughter too surely divined the real 
 nature of the case. 
 
 Mr. Erie signed to his wife to read the 
 letter; it was a shock to her, but nothing to 
 the one she would have sustained had her 
 husband been attacked by illness. His failing 
 health was the great anxiety of her life; while 
 he was well, or comparatively so, all other 
 troubles were as a drop in the ocean. She 
 spoke words of hope and comfort to him now.
 
 208 LAURA BKLB. 
 
 It was wrong and foolish of John, but they 
 would manage somehow, and when he got an 
 
 appointment he would repay the money. 
 
 The mother's heart tried to find excuses 
 for her son, but Mr. Erie would not be con- 
 soled. Debt was, in his eyes, disgrace. How 
 could he hold up his head among his parish- 
 ioners, or read from the altar, c Thou shalt not 
 steal,' while his son was possessed of goods 
 for which he had not paid? He had from the 
 pulpit always dwelt on the sin and folly of 
 running in debt : now he would be pointed at 
 as the preacher of truths he did not practise, 
 or cause to be practised by his children. 
 
 He and John had never got on well toge- 
 ther. The father resented the young man's 
 idleness, his pleasure-loving habits. The son 
 felt aggrieved at the old man's sternness. 
 
 A violent quarrel took place between them 
 now. John stigmatised his father's notions 
 about debt being c disgraceful ' as ' heroics,' 
 while the latter inveighed against John's self- 
 ishness and extravagance. In bis heart the 
 young man bitterly repented his folly: lie
 
 LAURA ERLE. 209 
 
 was weak, not vicious or unfeeling; but ner- 
 vousness and extreme shame made him try to 
 carry things off with a high hand. He told 
 his father that so far from blaming him for 
 running in debt he ought rather to congratu- 
 late himself on having so little to pay. 
 
 To his mother and sister, however, he 
 spoke in a very different tone. They did not 
 reproach him ; what would have been the use ? 
 and to them he expressed deep contrition — 
 sincere for the time, at least — and was prolific 
 in promises for the future. 
 
 It needed all their skill to keep things 
 smooth between him and Mr. Erie. The 
 failing health of the latter gave way com- 
 pletely under the anxiety and the shock to 
 his most cherished principles. Though living 
 in a chronic state of quarrel with his son, he 
 yet loved him with a tenderness almost wo- 
 manly, and always suffered severely after a 
 1 scene ' with him. 
 
 These i scenes ' were of daily recurrence 
 now, and tended still more to shatter the weak 
 nerves and waning strength of the Rector. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 LAUBAEBLE. 
 
 For many weeks the household at Smed- 
 ston Rectory was a sad one. Other bills came 
 pouring in, for Mr. Erie had entreated his 
 son to tell him all — to let him know the 
 worst. When he knew all, he sat aghast. 
 The payment would cripple him for the rest 
 of his life. 
 
 How did not Laura thank God then that 
 no anxiety respecting a trousseau for her was 
 added to that heavy burden ! 
 
 Mr. Erie had a small sum, the careful 
 savings of years, invested for his wife, that 
 she might not, at his death, be absolutely pen- 
 niless. This sum he must now encroach on. 
 
 It barely sufficed to meet all the demands. 
 They were met, and John Erie was a free 
 man — but his father ! 
 
 The whole thing had affected him to such 
 an extent that he sank into a state of mental 
 depression from which nothing could arouse 
 him. He saw daily before his eyes his wife 
 and pretty daughters dependents on the cold 
 charity of the world. 
 
 It is a proverbial saying that pride and
 
 LAURA ERLE. 211 
 
 poverty go hand in hand, and their pride is 
 often enough made a reproach to the impe- 
 cunious. Yet it is well that they should be 
 proud. Their pride is their safeguard; it is, 
 in fact, but another name for self-respect; 
 and when self-respect dies it carries many 
 other good qualities off with it. 
 
 The pride of the Erles made them conceal 
 carefully this misfortune that had befallen 
 them. Not one word was said of it to Mrs. 
 Elliott, to Sir Digby Forester, to Audrey. 
 
 But the most carefully-guarded secret gets 
 out somewhere or somehow, and there was 
 no concealing Mr. Erie's illness. 
 
 The doctor who had known him for years 
 told Mrs. Elliott and Sir Digby that only 
 some great mental shock could thus suddenly 
 have prostrated him. He was unable to take 
 his duty; and a substitute being difficult of 
 acquisition, the service had to be put off on 
 two consecutive Sundays — once altogether, 
 and once in the afternoon — as well as all the 
 week-day services, to which, as a strict An- 
 glican, Mr. Erie attached much value.
 
 212 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 Little as he was to blame, he felt dis- 
 graced in his own eyes. The kindness and 
 sympathy shown by every one overcame him, 
 and when a neighbouring rector volunteered 
 the good offices of his curate, and the stranger 
 came to ask some trivial question, Mr. Erie 
 broke down completely. 
 
 The medical opinion was that nothing but 
 complete change of air and scene would re- 
 store him. Mrs. Erie's and Laura's hearts 
 sank. How was he to get such change? The 
 mere mention of it excited him violently. He 
 had become suddenly possessed with a passion 
 for saving, hoping that he might be enabled 
 
 in some measure to replace the money he had 
 destined for his wife. He would scarcely eat, 
 would not touch wine or beer, and added to 
 his own and his family's misery by catching a 
 bad cold from sitting in his study without a 
 fire. 
 
 Laura's proposal to leave her home and 
 become a governess was the last drop of bit- 
 terness in his cup. When she first broached 
 the subject he got very angry. He had notj
 
 LAURA ERLE. 213 
 
 he said, sunk so low as to be unable to sup- 
 port his daughter; to turn her, young and 
 pretty, adrift among strangers. Then, when 
 she gently urged the necessity of doing some- 
 thing, saying her mother did not disapprove, 
 he buried his face in his hands and sobbed 
 aloud. 
 
 In deep distress she knelt beside him, 
 putting her arm round his bowed white head. 
 
 'Oh, don't, papa, don't; you kill me !' she 
 exclaimed in an agonised voice. 
 
 By tender words and kisses she soothed 
 him at last, promising to give up the scheme, 
 as it so distressed him. 
 
 ' No, my child,' he said, in a tone that 
 went to her heart, ' do as you think best ; I 
 have no longer any right to dictate to you. I 
 am a poor useless old man. But how can we 
 — your mother and I — live without you ? 
 You are the light of our eyes — the one bright 
 spot in our lives. Had you gone to a home 
 of your own — but to be a governess ! My 
 beautiful little Laura! To be insulted, per- 
 haps.'
 
 214 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 ' Insulted, papa? Who would insult me? 
 The world is not quite so bad as that,' she 
 said cheerfully. ' Besides, I can take care 
 of myself; and even if any one did insult me, 
 why, it wouldn't hurt me. Those sort of 
 things don't really touch one ; and as to my 
 beauty' — laughing — 'well, papa, you think a 
 great deal of it — more than other people do; 
 but it won't be any the worse if I earn a 
 little money.' 
 
 She spoke cheerfully, but her soul was 
 heavy within her. Trouble loomed on all 
 sides, and her heart was always chanting a 
 sad requiem for her lost love. She missed 
 Claude daily, hourly. AVhatever his faults 
 he would have been kind and tender now. 
 It was to her as if part of her life were taken 
 away when day after day passed without 
 tidings of him; without the messages which 
 hitherto, during his absences, he had never 
 failed to send through Audrey. She had no 
 right to expect that it should be otherwise. 
 But when was love ever reasonable?
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Every one . at Enleigh was deeply concerned 
 about Mr. Erie's illness, and all felt that it 
 was probably as much mental as physical. 
 
 Audrey shrewdly suspected that John was 
 in some way connected with it. 
 
 Sir Digby Forester, who was again the 
 Dashwoods' guest, was exerting himself to the 
 utmost to find something for the young man 
 to do ; but that was not an easy matter. Em- 
 ployment to suit him was not readily to be 
 found, for John could handle a gun better than 
 a pen, and train a dog better than cast up an 
 account. He rode admirably to hounds — 
 when he could get a horse — knew all the 
 points of a dog, and would discourse scien- 
 tifically on ' scent.' But, alas, he knew little 
 else. His brains all lay in his hands and feet. 
 He was born to be a pleasant kindly country
 
 216 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 gentleman; a keen sportsman; not a hard- 
 working, self-denying bread-winner, and the 
 
 constant association with the young men at 
 Enleigh who, by the gift of fortune, were 
 enabled to lead just the life that would have 
 suited him, and with whom he shared that 
 life to a great extent, for a mount and a 
 gun and a dog were always at his disposal, 
 had fostered his tastes, and made him less fit 
 than ever for hard work. 
 
 Useless as he was to his family, he was 
 yet a general favourite. There was something 
 very lovable about his gay boyish manner; 
 the bonhomie with which he got into scrapes, 
 and the trusting confidence with which he 
 appealed to any one at hand to get him out of 
 them, and he was exceedingly affectionate, 
 though he and his father were always at 
 war. 
 
 Mr. Erie most unjustly reproached him 
 because he was not as clever as Laura. 
 
 John reproached himself, too, with genial 
 self-depreciation, but usually ended by re- 
 minding his progenitor that lie was perhaps,
 
 LAURA ERLE. 217 
 
 on the whole, the person most to blame for 
 his son's lack of brains. 
 
 4 I've always thankfully accepted whatever 
 gift Nature or any one else was good enough 
 to bestow on me,' he would observe; 'and if 
 you or she had given me brains, I should cer- 
 tainly have used them. Who knows ? I might 
 then have been a bishop! How ripping I 
 should look as a bishop !' This was a sort of 
 aside, and c ripping' was Mr. John Erie's fa- 
 vourite expression. ' May a bishop hunt, 
 Laura?' 
 
 His sister Laura among women, and Sir 
 Digby Forester among men, were his ideals. 
 During his boyish years he had worshipped 
 the latter with a real honest hero-worship 
 quite refreshing to see; and now, after the 
 baronet's long absence, John was still his de- 
 voted admirer. And Sir Digby was very fond 
 of him. 
 
 It had been no small trial to the young 
 man to abstain from revealing to his hero the 
 true source of the cloud which lay over his 
 home; but though he was the exception to
 
 218 LATH A ERIE. 
 
 the pride which characterised his family, he 
 had, out of deference to their repeatedly ex- 
 pressed wishes, abstained hitherto from any 
 indiscreet revelations. As time went on, how- 
 ever, and he had the spectacle of his father's 
 increasing weakness before his eyes, and as 
 Laura persisted in her intention of leaving 
 home, he found it impossible to avoid allusion 
 to the subject in his intercourse with Sir 
 Digby during the long days they spent to- 
 gether on the hill-side. 
 
 Had he been away from home, and not 
 actually seen the consequences ofhis imprud- 
 ence, his imagination would not have pictured 
 them vividly enough to have distressed him ; 
 but the daily sight of his failing father, his 
 mother, pale and composed, though consumed 
 with feverish anxiety, his sister — the thought 
 of Laura pained him beyond all els The 
 idea of her being a governess was insupport- 
 able to him. His was not the nature to realise 
 that doing your part fearlessly and to the 
 best of your power, however and wherever 
 you can, is the one real stamp of nobility.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 219 
 
 He was a slave to the world's estimate of 
 people and things. Laura would lose caste if 
 she earned money, for society has decreed 
 that women may suffer, but may not, with- 
 out forfeiting its favour, do anything to lessen 
 that suffering. 
 
 That Laura scoffed at society and what it 
 said on this matter, he attributed to her want 
 of knowledge of the world. 
 
 His heart grew hot within him on the sub- 
 ject, and finally he spake with his tongue. 
 
 Audrey had had a letter from a friend, 
 saying she wanted just such a governess as 
 had been described in Laura, and begging 
 that not a moment might be lost in securing 
 such a treasure. 
 
 Laura was all eagerness to go, and John 
 was in despair. He felt aggrieved with man- 
 kind at large for not intervening to prevent 
 such a calamity. The idea did not occur to 
 him of intervening in his own person by set- 
 ting to work vigorously to find means of 
 earning the money himself. Laura, in his 
 case, would have driven a cab, or broken
 
 220 LAURA EKLB. 
 
 stones, or turned dog -trainer — anything 
 rather than remain idle. Xot so John. If 
 somebody got him ' something to do,' he 
 would do it, provided it was suited to him, 
 and not too much trouble; but he had no 
 thought of helping himself, and now he 
 looked round, expecting some divinity in hu- 
 man shape to interpose between his sister 
 and her quixotic scheme. But no divinity 
 seemed at hand. 
 
 He and Digby had been shooting all the 
 morning, and then sat down under a hedge 
 on the breezy hill-side to lunch. For once 
 the young man's appetite forsook him. In 
 spite of his walk through the stubbles and 
 his twenty-four years he could not eat. 
 
 Digby had noticed his depression, and at 
 last, by kindly words and sympathetic looks, 
 drew his secret from him. He confessed the 
 whole thing with many expressions of con- 
 trition and denunciations of his own folly. 
 
 'Why in the name of fortune didn't you 
 tell me at first?' said Digby. ' I would have 
 helped you and saved all this trouble.'
 
 LAURA ERLE. 221 
 
 4 1 asked Laura to speak to Miss Dash- 
 wood, but she wouldn't hear of such a thin£, y 
 he confessed fatuously. 
 
 ' You should have come to me,' repeated 
 Digby. 
 
 'If Laura would only give up this plan 
 of hers!' said John. 
 
 Digby had never said much about that 
 plan. John's objections to it had no weight 
 whatever with him; he felt only increased 
 admiration for her courage and energy j 
 neither did he think her success doubtful, 
 like Harold Carew. ' She is a plucky little 
 thing, and will succeed in whatever she un- 
 dertakes,' was his comment. But he doubted 
 the Rectory machinery working without her, 
 and he, besides, fully expected that the an- 
 nouncement of her resolve would be instantly 
 followed by an offer of Claude's hand. 
 i Claude is a scoundrel if he doesn't make 
 her such an offer,' was his mental conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 Of all that had taken place he had, of 
 course, no suspicion.
 
 222 LAURA EELE. 
 
 Pie had always been on terms of intimate 
 friendship with the Erles, Mr. Erie having 
 been his father's tutor, and entered most 
 warmly into their troubles on this occasion ; 
 consulting eagerly with Audrey as to the best 
 means of assisting them. 
 
 This was not an easy task, owing to their 
 tenacious, sensitive pride. 
 
 With the exception of John, they held 
 themselves haughtily aloof from anything like 
 sympathy on the subject of that struggle for 
 existence which they found so hard. 
 
 Intimate as they were, neither Audrey 
 nor Mrs. Elliott had ever been able to per- 
 suade Laura to accept any little help in the 
 way of dress, though that help had been prof- 
 fered with scrupulous delicacy; for Mrs. El- 
 liott, remorselessly unmindful of such weak 
 things as feelings on some points, was yet full 
 of appreciative generosity on others. She al- 
 ways did justice to the honest independence 
 of the Erles. 
 
 'I honour them for it, my dear,' was her 
 frequent remark to her niece.
 
 LAURA ERLK. 223 
 
 Once, on the occasion of a grand ball at 
 Enleigh, she had given both Audrey and 
 Laura dresses and ornaments for the occasion, 
 but she saw that the gift was, to the latter, 
 more productive of pain than pleasure. 
 
 Laura could not receive a present with 
 the facile grace by which some people make a 
 donor feel that they have as much pleasure in 
 accepting as he has in bestowing. Tears of 
 sensitive pride rushed to her eyes. She could 
 with difficulty be brought to take the dress, 
 and she never wore it, as Mrs. Elliott plainly 
 saw, without a secret feeling that she had for- 
 feited, to a certain extent, her independence. 
 This, it may be said, showed a want of real 
 generosity. It would have been better to have 
 accepted kindness in the spirit in which it was 
 offered. That is true; but every one has the 
 defects of his or her qualities, and a too tena- 
 cious pride was certainly the fault of all the 
 Erles, John excepted. This it was which, 
 made it so difficult to help them. They could 
 help Laura to a place as a governess, and John 
 to a situation, if only one suitable to his capa-
 
 224 LAURA BBLE. 
 
 cities could be found ; beyond this there was 
 little that they could do. 
 
 There was another person deeply inter- 
 ested in the Erie family. That was Lady 
 Emily Carew, who was excited by the news 
 of their misfortunes in exact proportion to 
 her gratitude to Laura and Mr. Erie for hav- 
 ing saved her life, as she persisted in main- 
 taining that they had, when it was menaced by 
 4 those dreadful bulls.' She was as generous 
 as the day, and ready to lavish kindness on, 
 and receive it ungrudgingly from, every hu- 
 man creature. Her simple proposition now 
 was to present Mr. Erie with the money he 
 had paid for his son, so that he might re-in- 
 vest it for his wife, and then to take him and 
 her to Melbury for change of air and scene. 
 
 This proposition she disclosed to Mrs. El- 
 liott and Audrey in great delight. Their as- 
 surances that it would be quite unacceptable to 
 the Erles, that it would in fact be impossible 
 to lay it before them, were alike surprising 
 and unwelcome to her. She could not under- 
 stand what objection there could be to the
 
 LAURA ERLE. 225 
 
 plan. She had more money than she knew 
 what to do with. She had one son only, who 
 had his own fortune quite independent of 
 her. Melbury was hers for her life ; her dear 
 husband had always had a horror of the cruel 
 custom which prevails in England of turning 
 a widow out of the home in which her life 
 has been passed just when her grief is fresh 
 upon her; and as Melbury luckily was not 
 entailed, he had left it to her entirely, to do 
 as she liked with, only expressing a hope 
 that she would leave it to Harold at her 
 death. 
 
 1 And indeed, my dears,' continued Lady 
 Emily, ' he need not have troubled himself to 
 express such a hope ; for to whom should I 
 leave it but to my darling son, who always 
 lives there when he is not in London, or 
 abroad, or somewhere else?' 
 
 All this and much more did Lady Emily 
 confide to Digby and Audrey, dwelling fur- 
 ther on the fact that she had ' no poor nieces 
 or nephews, as so many people have, my 
 dears ; so nice for them, as then they can be 
 
 Q
 
 22 G LA UK A LRU . 
 
 kind to them; but I have no one; we a: 
 all rich and all only children, and Harold h 
 
 all he wants,' in a regretful tone, as though 
 Heaven had dealt hardly with her in depriv- 
 ing her of a son who stood in need of assist- 
 ance. 
 
 What a boon John Erie would have be 
 to her, had Fate decreed that she had been 
 his parent ! And now, when a benign Pro- 
 vidence had thrown the Erie family in hi 
 way, what a manifest disregard of its designs 
 did that singular race exhibit in rejecting her 
 proffered help ! She could scarcely be brought 
 to believe in such perversity. She had evi- 
 dently been ' raised up,' so to speak, in their 
 behalf, and she felt that they were running 
 counter to the wishes of the Almighty in thus 
 showing themselves stiff-necked towards 
 her. 
 
 It needed all Audrey's and Digby's influ- 
 ence to convince her that any offer to reim- 
 burse Mr. Erie, at present at least, would be 
 unacceptable. Reluctantly she abandoned 
 the idea. The visit to Melbury was a differ-
 
 LAURA. EELi: . 227 
 
 ent thing. That seemed feasible, and Lady 
 Emily secretly resolved to put the other part 
 of her plan into execution at some future 
 dav.
 
 CHAPTER XYll. 
 
 Laura Erle had to give up, for the time, at 
 all events, her scheme of earning money as a 
 
 governess. 
 
 When the preliminaries came to be ar- 
 ranged with that friend of Audrey's who was 
 
 so laudably anxious to secure 4 a treasure/ 
 Mr. Erie sank into a state of hopeless depres- 
 sion, from which nothing could arouse him. 
 He could not reconcile himself to the loss of 
 his briolit-faced child. The love of a father 
 and daughter for each other, when both love 
 their best, is the tenderest, as it is surely the 
 most beautiful and ennobling, of all human 
 affections. A daughter has a power of sym- 
 pathy with her fathers nature, because she 
 shares it, which it is not given even to his 
 wife to attain. From the day Laura could
 
 LAURA ERLE. 229 
 
 ran alone and chatter to him in lisping ac- 
 cents, she had been the pride and joy of Mr. 
 Erie's heart. He could have resigned her to 
 a husband; that would have been natural and 
 for her good, as he would have deemed; to 
 part with her on any other terms was a trial 
 greater than, in his weakened state, he could 
 endure. The sight of his wife's grief added 
 to his own. It is true she advocated Laura's 
 going ; not the less did she suffer in the 
 prospect of losing her. 
 
 1 My child, my child, how can I live with- 
 out you!' was the agonised expression of her 
 misery on the night when, in full family con- 
 clave, it was decided that Laura should go. 
 
 As has been said, the decision was not 
 carried out. The doctor interposed. Presum- 
 ing on the privilege of an old friend, he took 
 upon himself to tell Laura privately that he 
 could not answer for the consequences to her 
 father if he was subjected to any further 
 trial. 
 
 Reluctantly, therefore, after due consulta- 
 tion with her mother the scheme was aban-
 
 230 LAUEA ERLE. 
 
 doned. The money would have been of in- 
 expressible value, but it would have been 
 drawn, as so much of the money earned by 
 women under present social arrangements is, 
 from the life-blood of suffering human heart 
 
 'Thank you, my child; God will reward 
 you for this!' was all Mr. Erie said when 
 Laura told him she would stay at home ; but 
 his hand wandered caressingly over her head 
 as she knelt beside him, and he spoke more 
 that evening than he had done for week-, 
 though he seemed with difficulty to realise 
 that he could keep his treasure. If she was 
 for a moment out of his sight he inquired for 
 her in an anxious distressed voice, as if fear- 
 ing she would not return. 
 
 In all this there came one gleam of bright- 
 ness. Lady Emily had taken up John's case, 
 and by her indefatigable exertions had suc- 
 ceeded in getting him into a great banking- 
 house, with one of the heads of which she 
 was connected. 
 
 She certainly did not lose anything for 
 want of asking, where her object was to serve
 
 LAURA ERLE. 231 
 
 a friend. She emulated the importunate 
 widow with admirable results, refusing to 
 take ' No' for an answer, agitating, writing, 
 and making the lives of those unfortunates 
 who had anything to bestow burdensome to 
 them till she got what she wanted. 
 
 One evening she announced her intention 
 of going up to town by the first morning 
 train, saying she hoped to be back the follow- 
 ing day, if not that same night. 
 
 She went and returned triumphant, having 
 seen her cousin, and got John into the bank. 
 
 c I just went and caught him in his office, 
 my dear,' she explained to Audrey, ' and told 
 him he must do this for me. I had never 
 asked him for anything before ; and as he ad- 
 mired me very much in the days of my youth 
 — for, indeed, I was pretty, my dear, though 
 you would hardly believe it now — ' 
 
 Audrey assured her she thought her beau- 
 tiful at that moment. 
 
 ' No, no,' with a shy laugh, and a percept- 
 ible blush on her charming old face; 'I'm not 
 beautiful now, though my son says I'm a very
 
 232 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 nice old woman and not the least like a hag/ 
 in which statement her son was, for once, 
 quite right. ' But I was exceedingly pretty 
 once, at least so my dear husband used to tell 
 me, and this cousin too ; so for sake's sake I 
 told him he must do something for my young 
 friend ; and now, my dear, I think I'll go to 
 bed, for, you see, I'm not so young as I was, 
 and my maid is tired too, for she had not the 
 same motive for exertion that I had, so felt 
 the journey more.' 
 
 Lady Emily's very magnificent maid had 
 not felt the journey at all, except as a pleas- 
 ant diversion, but an object to love and take 
 care of and c fuss over' being necessary to 
 her mistress's existence, Miss Scott had a 
 good time of it, and she was hardly to be 
 blamed if her poor head was just a little bit 
 turned. 
 
 c You have quite taken the wind out of my 
 sails r Lady Emily,' said Digby, as he got her 
 candle ; ' I was doing my best, but you have 
 left me nowhere.' 
 
 She looked quite guilty.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 233 
 
 'I never thought of that.' 
 
 He assured her laughingly how delighted 
 he was to be thus anticipated, and, in truth r 
 John Erie might have waited long for work 
 before Sir Digby would have importuned his 
 friends as Lady Emily did hers. He had the 
 best intentions in the world, but he had some 
 remains of moderation in his demands — some 
 sense of the significance of a negative, which 
 she had not. 
 
 'And now, my dear Mr. Erie, mind you 
 are steady and work hard and all that, for I 
 said all sorts of good things of you, so you 
 must bear out my words ; and some day I 
 hope I shall see you a rich man like Whit- 
 tington. " Turn again, Whittington, Lord 
 Mayor of London Town," you know,' with 
 an encouraging smile, which, if it had lost its 
 youthful freshness, was yet beautiful as the 
 reflex of the kindest heart that ever looked 
 through human eyes. 
 
 John was both profuse and sincere, for the 
 time, in his promises of exemplary conduct. 
 He mentally commented thus: 'Fancy me
 
 234 LA UK A ERIE. 
 
 Lord Mayor of London! Ripping I should 
 look, to be sure !' 
 
 What was to be expected from a young 
 man who was perpetually picturing to himself 
 his own 'ripping' appearance in certain dis- 
 tinguished but entirely imaginary positions? 
 
 The only expression of thanks Lady Emily 
 would accept was a promise that Mr. and Mr-. 
 Erie should visit her at Melbury immediately. 
 They could not refuse. John's good fortune 
 and the certainty that he should not loe 
 Laura had brought back a gleam of hope to 
 Mr. Erie. He became more amenable to wise 
 counsel ; was brought to see that starving 
 himself, and sinking into utter despondency, 
 and consequent uselessness, at Smedston was 
 not the best way of helping his family ; and 
 consented to try what change of air and scene 
 would do, though he uttered many doleful 
 protests and laments respecting the expense 
 of the journey. 
 
 John, his father better and Laura forced 
 to give up her ' mad scheme,' felt his con- 
 science quite at rest again, and started for his
 
 LAXJEA ERLE. 235 
 
 new work happily enough — as happily, that 
 is, as was possible under the prospect of a 
 long deprivation of hunting. 
 
 The day before he went, Lady Emily pri- 
 vately presented him with twenty pounds. 
 Not being troubled with the family complaint, 
 he willingly and thankfully accepted the gift; 
 nor was it wonderful if he felt that he had 
 been justified in expecting much from his 
 friends, and in secretly cherishing the belief 
 that, if he fell again, they would again pick 
 him up. 
 
 Nevertheless, he honestly meant to keep 
 the good resolutions he had made. Having 
 disposed of John, Lady Emily's next care was 
 to get Mr. and Mrs. Erie to Melbury with as 
 little cost to themselves as possible. It was a 
 long and expensive journey, and a curate had 
 to be provided. The Dash woods had few cle- 
 rical belongings, but Digby bethought himself 
 of a college friend, a clergyman at large, al- 
 ways ready, like a colonial bishop, for a stray 
 duty, provided it were well away from his 
 own appointed sphere.
 
 236 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 This gentleman, who was much given to 
 shooting, was most opportunely invited to 
 (ilynton, and he, on hearing the circum- 
 stances, immediately volunteered to take the 
 Sunday services. Mr. Erie, who usually in- 
 sisted on giving an equivalent for even ordin- 
 ary acts of kindness, was with the greatest 
 difficulty persuaded to accej^t his offer of gra- 
 tuitous help, though money, the main consid- 
 eration of the Rector's life, was, fortunately 
 for himself, a matter of comparative indiffer- 
 ence to the stranger. 
 
 Laura was to keep house during her pa- 
 rents' absence. The terrible trial of the last 
 six weeks had somewhat diverted her mind 
 from Claude ; but now that the tension was 
 lessened, the thought of him, her quarrel with 
 him, her love for him, and the utter blank 
 the complete break with him made in her life, 
 came back with a painful force, which was 
 redoubled by its compulsory banishment 
 during that long interval. 
 
 The poor girl needed change little less 
 than her parents. Terrible as the thought of
 
 LAURA ERLE. 287 
 
 leaving her home had been, she yet, to a cer- 
 tain extent, had looked forward to it as afford- 
 ing a relief from the torture of moving about 
 amidst the scenes where she had been so 
 happy with Claude. He was still in Ireland, 
 and not one word of sympathy or remem- 
 brance did he send to her during those weeks 
 of sorrow. Her heart asked wearily for some 
 sign from him, but none came, and she longed 
 with feverish longing for any absorbing oc- 
 cupation which would drown feeling. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Erie returned from Melbury, 
 both much invigorated in health and spirits. 
 John was going on steadily in London; Laura 
 was safe under the paternal roof, not toiling 
 as a governess among strangers ; so things 
 looked brighter altogether, had not a new and 
 more terrible source of anxiety appeared. 
 Laura drooped day by day perceptibly. To 
 still that aching pain at her heart she worked 
 incessantly, teaching both at home and in the 
 schools; training the choir; visiting among 
 the people — this last necessitating long and 
 exhausting walks, owing to the straggling
 
 238 LAURA EELE. 
 
 nature of the parish. In vain Audrey en- 
 treated her to moderate her exertions; in 
 
 vain her parents interposed. She could only 
 obtain in ceaseless activity any rest from 
 mental suffering. 
 
 The village children noticed the change; 
 the boys missed the bright vivacity which had 
 delighted and civilised them, and to which 
 they used to respond by broad smiles and 
 surreptitious nudges of each other; the gh 
 whispered among themselves that 'Miss Erie 
 warn't well; she wur pale, and not so sperited- 
 like.' 
 
 Claude's unkindness had struck a chill to 
 her heart. He had been, in some sort, her 
 ideal, an imperfect one, but still an ideal ; and 
 one does not lay one's ideals in their grav 
 without many a pang over the brightness on- 
 lays down with them. 
 
 And during those weary months, when 
 Laura had been mourning over his defection, 
 he had been no less mindful of her. In the 
 first paroxysm of his anger he had given 
 Violet Ellis cause to think she might judi-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 233 
 
 ciously shorten line; but wrathful as he was, 
 he could not bring himself to burn his bridges 
 so completely as to cut himself off from all 
 hope of reconciliation with that most obstinate 
 and tormenting, yet fascinating, temptation 
 at Smedston Rectory. He told himself again 
 and again that she was cold, unnatural, strong- 
 minded, a designing flirt, a vile coquette ; he 
 did not trouble himself much about the com- 
 patibility of the various qualities he imputed 
 to her; but in his secret heart he had to ac- 
 knowledge that with all her faults and incon- 
 gruities he would rather have her than the 
 subservient Violet, eager to fling her pretty 
 self at his head. 
 
 Sometimes he was tempted to surrender at 
 discretion. Potent as this temptation was, 
 however, he could not bring himself to be the 
 first to lay down his arms, and he was not 
 without hope that time would bring to her 
 wisdom and humility. 
 
 As the dull winter months crept by, and 
 she, lonely and miserable, contrasted the mo- 
 notonous present with the future, which it was
 
 240 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 in his power to make so bright for her; as 
 she saw her chances of matrimony disappear — 
 Harold Carew had not renewed his visits to 
 Enleigh — her proud spirit would surely be 
 tamed, and she would respond gladly to the 
 hand of reconciliation he would hold out. 
 
 But these hopes were suddenly dashed 
 when he one day accidentally became aware 
 that his fair adversary, less discreet apparently 
 than Job's, or more daring, had not only 
 written but actually printed a book. It can- 
 not in truth be said that Mr. Dashwood felt 
 the least disposition to take the said book on 
 his shoulders, or bind it on him as a crown. 
 He was furiously angry, and included Harold 
 Carew, whom he considered chiefly to blame, 
 in the maledictions which he freely uttered on 
 the subject. 
 
 But if Laura chose to write, he could 
 write too. 
 
 Anger, we have been told by various 
 weighty authorities, is madness, and Claude 
 was certainly mad for the time — beside himself 
 with jealousy and wrath at the violation of
 
 LAURA ERLE. 2 il 
 
 all his most cherished prejudices by one he 
 loved. 
 
 He heard, just at this moment too, that 
 Laura was gone down to Melbury for a visit, 
 which was likely to be of some duration. 
 
 In a paroxysm of fierce disgust and tern- 
 porary hate he sought relief for his outraged 
 feelings by the composition of a savage article 
 on lady novelists for a periodical to which he 
 contributed. Of this temperate and beautiful 
 effusion Laura was the real theme. It cer- 
 tainly did more credit to his powers of 
 scurrility than to his gentlemanlike feeling or 
 his heart; but it relieved his over- wrought 
 mood, and had he, having written it, burned 
 it, all would have been well. He did not do 
 so, however ; and it remained a pleasing testi- 
 mony to his calm j udgment and large gener- 
 osity of soul. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Laura continued to droop more and more, 
 and her mother, utterly at a loss to account 
 for her depression, and deeply uneasy, had 
 insisted on her accepting an invitation given 
 by Lady Emily Carew. 
 
 The visit did not do her much good. 
 
 When well and happy she had derived 
 immense amusement from Lady Emily and 
 her ways. It was otherwise now that she was 
 ill and depressed. She was too miserable to 
 appreciate the curious mixture of strong com- 
 mon sense, childlike simplicity, unflinching 
 moral courage, and abject physical fear which 
 characterised her hostess. 
 
 Nor was this all. Lady Emily was deeply 
 religious, in a lady -like way — that is, in 
 her case, with a very decided reservation of
 
 LAURA ERLE. 243 
 
 perfectly well-bred and aristocratic worldli- 
 ness. Her son was the great theme of her 
 conversation. Once started on that congenial 
 topic, she was supremely happy. Laura had 
 only to listen. 
 
 The mother's feelings regarding this su- 
 preme object of her adoration were com- 
 plex. 
 
 Her unbounded love for him was tinged 
 with some awe, which had nothing of fear in 
 it, and with an impatience almost amounting 
 to contempt for some of his scholarly vagaries. 
 
 There were one or two points on which 
 the young lady discovered that the mother 
 and son were always at issue. The latter 
 insisted on spelling his name Harald. This 
 was a never-ending source of grief and annoy- 
 ance to his parent. Not only was it unusual 
 and incorrect, but it was a departure from 
 the family tradition. There had been Harold 
 Carews of Melbury for generations. His dear 
 father, her husband, and his father before him, 
 had been Harold Carew; and Lady Emily 
 had always hoped to embrace a grandson who
 
 244 LAURA ERIE. 
 
 would bear that honoured name. But if it 
 was to be changed into Harald for some 
 1 literary quirk,' she would almost rather not 
 see it perpetuated. 
 
 ' And all my friends think it so odd, my 
 dear; and no wonder ! And they ask me 
 why he does it; and then they set him down 
 as eccentric.' 
 
 This was one grievance; another was the 
 gentleman's heretical opinions respecting the 
 sex. Having been blessed with such a mother 
 as herself, Lady Emily could not but consider 
 these opinions reprehensible and undutiful. 
 What had she done that her only son should 
 have acquired such notions about women? 
 People would, of course, conclude that he 
 generalised from his especial experience ; and 
 what a judgment must they not form of her! 
 She felt personally reflected on and insulted 
 bv these views of his, not considering that in 
 her son's eyes she was not a woman at all as 
 other women are, but something quite apart 
 — a being half divine, and with only some re- 
 maining attributes of womanhood about her,
 
 LAURA ERLE. 245 
 
 such as a disposition to scream when fright- 
 ened, and a wish to provide him with a wife 
 much against his will. 
 
 But all this could not amuse Laura now ; 
 it simply bored her. She hated the sound of 
 Harold Carew's name, and even Lady Emily's 
 abounding kindness was counterbalanced by 
 her ceaseless loquacity on one subject. She 
 found Melbury itself dull. The house lay in 
 the valley, the downs rising before and be- 
 hind, sheltering it from the winds, but also 
 keeping off the free fresh air. A constant 
 mist hung over the lake ; the place was thick- 
 strewed with dead and dying leaves. It was 
 winter, not keen, bright, exhilarating, but 
 damp, drizzling, depressing, the air saturated 
 with moisture. 
 
 Laura, highly susceptible to all outward 
 influences, suffered positive torture from utter 
 depression of spirits. Day after day she rose 
 with an increased inclination to suicide, ask- 
 ing herself hourly why it should be a duty to 
 go on enduring life under conditions of such 
 overpowering weariness. It seemed to her
 
 246 LAURA EBLE. 
 
 that the sun did not shine once during the 
 whole of her visit. 
 
 When it did not actually rain, Lady Emily 
 drove her in her pony-carriage to call on some 
 of the people in the neighbourhood; people 
 whom, of course, the girl did not know, and 
 whose dull platitudes, to which she had to 
 listen and reply, irritated her almost to mad- 
 ness. 
 
 Lady Emily never went up on the down-, 
 the fresh air and the soft turf having a ten- 
 dency to enliven her little steeds to the extent 
 of making them start occasionally into some- 
 thing beyond the gentle trot dear to their 
 mistress's heart and nerves; so they kept to 
 the low-lying country, to the lanes, lovely in 
 springtime and summer, but dank and dreary 
 now, when the red mud lay ankle deep, and 
 only a solitary leaf on some lonely branch re- 
 mained to remind one of beauties passed 
 away. Laura, accustomed to a hill country, 
 where the winds made ceaseless music, and 
 the cloud and mountain shadows an ever- 
 shifting loveliness, found it terribly try in
 
 LAURA ERLE. 247 
 
 And the people they visited! There was a 
 tall, extensive, fair, Juno-eyed Miss Bingley 
 of Bingley Hall, destined by Lady Emily — as 
 Laura gathered from various little remarks — 
 to correct her son's views respecting the sex. 
 
 Miss Bingley, unimpassioned, fashionable, 
 unexceptionably dressed, looked haughtily 
 over the simply-attired, slight, girlish visitor, 
 whose soul spoke in every look of her dark 
 passionate eyes, addressing some careless ques- 
 tions to her: 'Had she been to the meet?' 
 4 Did she know Lady Dash?' 
 
 The first positive feeling Miss Erie expe- 
 rienced after her arrival at Melbury was one 
 of strong distaste for Miss Bingley's patronis- 
 ing airs. 
 
 Then there were Mr. and Miss SafFery, a 
 bachelor and maiden brother and sister, who 
 kept house together at Snail Farm. 
 
 Mr. Saffery was a clergyman by profes- 
 sion, but he had abandoned the cure of souls 
 for that of insects and — hams. He farmed ex- 
 tensively, and made his pigs a very paying 
 concern. In his leisure hours he devoted
 
 248 LAURA EKLI . 
 
 himself to entomology. His collection of 
 beetles was famed through the country, and 
 Laura was of course taken to see it. A new 
 spectator was always a joy to Mr. Saffery. 
 When the spectator had dark eyes, which 
 went through him like an arrow, — above all, 
 when she came from Melbury, with whose 
 heir the entomologist had a standing contro- 
 versy, — life had little better to offer. 
 
 A few days before her visit came to an 
 end, Mr. Carew arrived at Melbury. His an- 
 ticipated appearance threw his mother into a 
 fever of joyful excitement. The servants, too, 
 were all eagerly expectant ; and from the re- 
 marks made, the young lady began to have 
 some understanding of the adoration with 
 which Lady Emily regarded him. It was 
 evident that in his own home he must dis- 
 play qualities of a very different order from 
 those which made him so unpopular in 
 society. 
 
 He was shocked at the change in Laura. 
 All her beautiful colour was gone. Her face 
 had a delicate transparent hue, lovely in its
 
 LAURA ERLE. 249 
 
 way, but painful to see in her, because un- 
 natural. 
 
 He had once accused her of being a ter- 
 magant, of talking incessantly. She was no 
 longer open to such a charge; she sat still 
 and silent, never volunteering a word; and 
 when she did speak in reply to a question, 
 it was without any of the flippancy which he 
 had found so reprehensible. 
 
 ' Whose doing is that ?' he asked his mo- 
 ther. 'Is it Dash wood's?' 
 
 Lady Emily did not know. It was, she 
 thought, anxiety about her father and bro- 
 ther. l Forester said something about a mar- 
 riage between her and Claude Dashwood.' 
 The lady had not heard anything ; though she 
 had certainly noticed that Claude had seemed 
 very attentive to his sister's pretty friend; 
 but as nothing had been said to her on the 
 subject, she had avoided any allusion to it. 
 
 ' Well, between them they have pretty 
 well taken all the spirit out of her.' 
 
 It would have been well had he, in his 
 intercourse with his mother's young guest,
 
 250 LAURA EEU . 
 
 imitated his mother's reticence; but tact was 
 not Mr. Carew's strong point. If it was pos- 
 sible to blunder into an awkward topic, he 
 was sure to do so. He never entered into 
 conversation with. Laura without dragging in 
 
 on © 
 
 Claude Dash wood's name. It almost seemed 
 as if there was some fascination in it for him ; 
 and as she could not hear it without a vivid 
 and painful blush, and was unable to speak of 
 Claude without a suffocating sense of miser}', 
 she absolutely dreaded the sight of her host, 
 kind as he tried to be to her. 
 
 Had she been well and bright, as when 
 first he knew her, he might have avoided her ; 
 but her delicate drooping appearance touched 
 some tender fibre in his heart, making his 
 manner particularly gentle to her. 
 
 In his own home he came out in a totally 
 new light. To his mother, especially, he was 
 so winning and affectionate that her partiality 
 was more than justified. He had the good 
 taste not to be demonstrative in public, but 
 Laura's presence did not wholly prevent hi> 
 showing Lady Emily a thousand little atten-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 251 
 
 tions — talking to and laughing with her, teas- 
 ing her good-humouredly from time to time, 
 and then apologising in a half-tender, half- 
 caustic way, very characteristic. 
 
 The day before Laura was to return home 
 she was standing disconsolately enough at the 
 front door, watching the mist driving down 
 the valley, wishing it would either rain decid- 
 edly or clear up, so that she could go out. As 
 she stood, Harold, followed by a brace of 
 dogs, came up. 
 
 ' Have you been on the hill to-day, Miss 
 Erie?' 
 
 c I have never been on it.' 
 
 ' Never? Do you mean to say you haven't 
 been on the Encampment?' 
 
 ' No ; the weather has been so bad.' 
 
 ' But it is beautiful up there. I have just 
 come down. You have no idea how pleasant 
 it is. Will you come up ? It would do you 
 £ood.' 
 
 ' I should so like it.' 
 
 c Come then, will you ?' 
 
 4 1 will get my cloak, and tell Lady Emily/
 
 252 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 { Your cloak by all means, but never mind 
 Lady Emily. She is down at the Lodge talk- 
 ing to Mrs. Fay ; and if she misses you she 
 will suspect where I have taken you.' 
 
 ' Is the hill your favourite resort ?' 
 
 1 1 never miss going there when I'm at 
 Melbury. On a clear day you can see the 
 Isle of Wight from the top,' taking her cloak 
 from her. It was the same red one he had 
 once seen Claude wrap so carefully round her. 
 
 'Pray don't trouble/ she said, trying to 
 take it from him ; ' I always carry my cloak 
 myself.' 
 
 ' Not always, surely. I have often seen 
 Claude Dashwood carry it for you. Besides, 
 you don't look fit to carry it or anything 
 now,' with a compassionate glance. 
 
 The bracing air as they went up the hill 
 was fresh life to her. They got above the 
 mists ; the clouds broke, and streaks of blue 
 showed themselves through the curtain of 
 gray that had obscured the sky down in the 
 valley. Her eyes brightened, and a shade of 
 colour returned to her face.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 253 
 
 4 How delightful it is!' she exclaimed, with 
 something of her old vivacity. ' I must have 
 my cloak; it is much colder up here!' 
 
 He attempted to put it round her, but she 
 declined his offer, taking it from him and 
 putting it on herself. No man but Claude 
 had ever assisted her with it ; he had a way 
 of his own of doing it — throwing it over her 
 shoulder so as to make her look 'like an Irish 
 girl,' as he said. She could not bear the 
 thought that any one else should do it now. 
 She had quarrelled with him, and he was 
 lost to her; but she could not so soon put 
 away his memory, and let another take his 
 office. 
 
 Harold was disappointed. He had wished 
 to put her cloak on for her. It was associated 
 in his mind with the first day he had seen 
 her, when she had ' quarrelled with and 
 snubbed' him all the morning, made him 
 laugh in spite of himself at dinner, and then 
 come back to him in the moonlight the im- 
 personation of girlish coquetry, with that 
 cloak round her, her hat tilted down over her
 
 254 LAURA EELE. 
 
 eyes, to shake hands with him as he stood on 
 the steps. 
 
 That picture was constantly recurring to 
 his mind; but with it came the image of 
 Claude, looking on and waiting for her as one 
 who had a right to wait, and to be impatient 
 if she stayed too long. The second picture 
 neutralised the pleasure the first gave him. 
 He would like to have put her cloak on ; 
 why, he could hardly say, unless it were to 
 show himself a foe to monopolies. 
 
 Laura did not wear her cloak picturesquely 
 now, as if Claude had put it on. She threw it 
 simply and soberly round her, as became one 
 from whose life the bright lights had passed 
 
 away. 
 
 4 The air has done you good,' said Harold. 
 ' I knew it would. You ought to have come 
 here every day; it would have brought back 
 your colour. When first I saw you, you were 
 as red as a rose; now you are as pale as a 
 
 my.' 
 
 This poetic flight from the lips of her for- 
 mer antagonist took Laura quite by surprise.
 
 LAUEA ERLE. 255 
 
 'There, you are not pale now,' he went 
 on, as the blood rushed to her face, partly 
 from amusement, but chiefly from embarrass- 
 ment at the allusion to old days. 
 
 Unfortunately Laura did not know that 
 the encampment on the hill was the subject of 
 a standing controversy between her learned 
 host and that bachelor hunter after beetles — 
 Mr. Saffery. 
 
 The latter gentleman had a theory of his 
 own about it. He maintained that it was the 
 grave of Hector — his ' tumulus,' he called it. 
 It may be said at once that language quite 
 failed to express Mr. Carew's profound con- 
 tempt for this belief. That any sane man 
 should entertain it, was to him so astounding 
 that his wonder at it never grew less. It went 
 on increasing till it culminated in a sort of 
 amazed incredulity — c Saffery couldn't really 
 believe it !' 
 
 Had Miss Erie been better acquainted 
 with Mr. Carew, she would no more have 
 trusted herself alone on the hill with him 
 than she would have flown.
 
 256 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 She would have known how inevitable it 
 was that the whole case, Carew versus Saffery, 
 should have been gone through for her be- 
 nefit; but she did not know, and suffered her- 
 self to be led towards the disputed points, all 
 unconscious of her doom. 
 
 Mr. Saffery had lately been ill-advised 
 enough to lecture to a local audience on the 
 c Tumulus of Hector;' and in that lecture he 
 had, while professing the profoundest respect 
 for his adversary personally, made short work, 
 in his own estimation, of his adversary- 
 theories, so subversive of his own. 
 
 Mr. Carew despised a lecturer above all 
 living creatures. He described him as c a fool 
 standing behind a table ta Iking to other fools 
 in front of the table ;' but in this instance he 
 was almost tempted to play the fool himself, 
 and give a counter lecture, in which Mr. Saf- 
 fery, for whom he professed no respect what- 
 ever — how could he respect a man who be- 
 lieved that Hector was buried on the top of a 
 hill in shire? — would be made to un- 
 dergo some potent blows from the hammer of
 
 LAURA ERLE. 257 
 
 Truth and Common Sense, wielded with right 
 good will by the scholarly heir to Melbury. 
 
 However, on reflection, he would not de- 
 grade himself by such a proceeding. 
 
 As John Erie would have said, c he 
 couldn't fancy himself delivering a lecture; 
 so Saffery remained master of the situation. 
 
 But the pleasure of having a listener — 
 albeit a soulless woman-creature — to his re- 
 futation of these monstrous fallacies was not 
 to be resisted, and Laura, almost before she 
 was aware of it, found herself in the thick of 
 the controversy. 
 
 From point to point he drew her on, go- 
 ing still higher and higher, till they had 
 nearly reached the top. And as they as- 
 cended his eloquence increased. It cul- 
 minated in an appeal to his companion — 
 
 ' Is it conceivable that a sane man should 
 hold such a theory, or find any one to ac- 
 cept it?' 
 
 ' Certainly not,' responded Laura, who was 
 getting very tired ; l 1 should say he was in- 
 sane, and his followers too.' 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 258 laura erlj:. 
 
 Harold was delighted. 
 
 Clearly there was something quite above 
 the average in this girl. Adversity, whatever 
 may have been its nature, had brought our 
 some gleams of reason in her ; and if he w 
 tempted to regret for a moment that vivacity 
 which had impressed itself pleasurably on his 
 memory, was not the deficiency more than 
 compensated for by the gain in insight and 
 appreciation of real scholarly worth which her 
 explanation of Mr. Saffery's beliefs implied? 
 
 It was even to be regretted that she was 
 going away the next day. What further im- 
 provement might not a more prolonged inter- 
 course with a superior mind effect in her ? 
 
 Long before they got to the bottom of the 
 hill again a heavy shower came on, such a 
 shower as comes only on the open downs — 
 pelting, driving, pitiless rain, that chills you 
 through and through. The wind blew as if it 
 were coming from all four quarters of the 
 heavens at once, and meeting up there for a 
 wild dance of its own. It almost lifted Laura 
 off her feet.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 259 
 
 c Will you take my arm? You had better,' 
 said Mr. Saffery's opponent. 
 
 No. Miss Erie preferred being independ- 
 ent. The excitement of battling with the 
 wind had taken off her fatigue, and she looked 
 as red and fresh as a rose dripping with dew 
 when they reached Melbury, both wet 
 through. 
 
 Lady Emily scolded her son volubly for 
 having exposed Laura to such a risk. 
 
 * It is enough to kill her.' 
 
 Mr. Carew looked deeply compunctious. 
 It would be a serious thing to kill a creature 
 capable of solving inexplicable questions by 
 common-sense solutions. His compunction at 
 the mere contemplation of such a catastrophe 
 was almost enough to justify Claude's uneasi- 
 ness.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 To Miss Erie's extreme surprise, Mr. Carew, 
 on bidding her 'good-night,' informed her of 
 his intention of accompanying her on the first 
 part of her journey on the following day. 
 
 She had to change trains twice. At one 
 place she would have to wait at a small incon- 
 venient station; at another she had to cross 
 the line, having only a very short time to 
 do it. 
 
 Laura protested. She was quite capable 
 of taking care of herself, and in secret felt 
 much bored at the prospect of Mr. Carew's 
 company. 
 
 She had hardly spirit left to be amused at 
 his venturing to trust himself alone with her. 
 A passing feeling of wonder — ' Does he think 
 me so far beneath him as not to be danger- 
 ous ?' — did occur to her, but it made no im-
 
 LAURA ERLE. 261 
 
 pression. She cared too little about him to 
 waste thought on him. 
 
 C I wish you would not trouble. How 
 bored you will be !' she had said to him in 
 her first moment of surprise. 
 
 'Why should you say so?' he remon- 
 strated. c I like to go with you ; and I am 
 sure you are not equal to the exertion of 
 looking after your luggage.' 
 
 Miss Erie's luggage was of too modest 
 a nature to need much care on any one's 
 part. 
 
 With many tender farewells Lady Emily 
 left her at the station, her kind eyes full of 
 tears. Laura's visit had made her Ions; more 
 than ever for a daughter. 
 
 But she would ask ' dear Miss Bingley' to 
 Melbury. She was such a charming girl, and 
 dear Harold liked her — negatively, that is. He 
 did not positively object to her. She did not 
 talk much — a great recommendation ; and 
 then, what she did say was always said with 
 propriety. 
 
 Laura felt very ungrateful. Lady Emily
 
 2G2 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 and her son had overwhelmed her with kind- 
 ness. The latter had been a marvel of gentle 
 courtesy to her; yet he wearied her to death. 
 She had no inclination whatever to convert 
 him now, or to quarrel with him. Even 
 speaking was an exertion to her. He soon 
 perceived this, and abandoned all attempts at 
 conversation; but at the first large station 
 he bought some newspapers and magazines, 
 which he gave to her, saying they might 
 amuse her. 
 
 One of the first things she saw was that 
 admirable composition in which her late lover 
 had relieved his feelings. She was well ac- 
 quainted with his style, and knew r the period- 
 icals through which he was in the habit of 
 imparting his ideas to the public. She had 
 no doubt whatever that the paper in question 
 was his, and that he had taken her as his text. 
 She read it through, at first with profound 
 amazement, which changed into contemptuous 
 disappointment in him as she went on. She 
 had never conceived it possible he could 
 stoop to use such weapons.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 263 
 
 1 That is the sort of revenge he finds 
 comfort in,' was her mental comment. c I 
 hope he feels the better for it.' 
 
 She was no longer pale and languid, and 
 Mr. Carew, who seemed to derive much in- 
 struction or amusement from watching her 
 furtively, was puzzled to account for her sud- 
 den change of expression and bearing. He 
 was more than ever convinced that woman 
 was a mystery too deep for the mind of man 
 to fathom. He did not leave her till the 
 change of train had been effected, and he saw 
 her comfortably settled in a through car- 
 riage; then he said good-bye, feeling again 
 that vague sense of disappointment which he 
 had experienced on the hill when she refused 
 to let him put on her cloak. He had been 
 sensible of some pleasurable excitement at the 
 prospect of travelling with her. He liked to 
 look at her ; she stimulated his curiosity ; and 
 her behaviour on this occasion roused that 
 curiosity to the highest pitch. But it would 
 have been more satisfactory had she seemed 
 to be aware of his presence or conscious of his
 
 264 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 efforts to amuse and interest her. It is of little 
 use being attentive to a charming young lady 
 if she continues quite insensible to your ex- 
 ertions, and does not seem to know or care 
 that she is a subject of interest to you. 
 
 Claude had never been home since his 
 quarrel with Laura. He prolonged his visit 
 to Ireland far beyond the duration first as- 
 signed to it, and then went to London. But 
 at Christmas he could not avoid coming 
 down, for Charlie Dash wood was to be at 
 home, and his brother could not have ab- 
 sented himself without giving rise to much 
 comment, necessitating awkward explana- 
 tions. 
 
 Besides, Claude did not wish to absent him- 
 self. He had undergone tortures of jealousy 
 from the moment he had learned that Laura 
 had gone to Melbury. Every other senti- 
 ment gave way to the one passionate resolve 
 to keep her from Harold Carew. And he 
 must see her. Nothing else would stop that 
 maddening restlessness which tormented him 
 night and day.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 265 
 
 Enleigh was to be full of people at Christ- 
 mas ; he came clown, therefore, a week before, 
 hoping to see her quietly. 
 
 He had not exactly made up his mind 
 what to do. He would see her. That was 
 the great thing. He did so at church on 
 Sunday morning, having only arrived late on 
 Saturday night. 
 
 Even the flush which always dyed her 
 face with beauty at his coming could not con- 
 ceal from him the change in her appearance. 
 He was deeply shocked — physical suffering 
 always affected him — and, for the first time, a 
 sudden flood of remorse for his hardness to 
 her came over him. But he would see her 
 now and compensate her for all her suffer- 
 ings. 
 
 He waited outside the church door, think- 
 ing she would follow after finishing the vo- 
 luntary. Instead, she joined her father in 
 the vestry, and went thence through a side- 
 door leading into the rectory garden; so 
 Claude waited in vain. 
 
 'How shockingly ill Laura looks!' he said
 
 266 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 to Audrey. ' You did not tell me how bad 
 she was.' 
 
 4 You have much to answer for,' was her 
 reply. 
 
 He turned away with a vague feeling of 
 uneasiness. He had not been without a con- 
 sciousness that she might have suffered a 
 good deal, but the consciousness had not been 
 disagreeable to him. He hoped that the suf- 
 fering would ' tame her,' and he had suffered 
 so much himself that autumn through her 
 that he could not entirely regret her share of 
 the probation. But then, in the case of a 
 pretty woman, suffering should never go be- 
 yond the point at which looks may be affected. 
 Laura had certainly grown too thin. 
 
 He walked down to the church again in 
 the afternoon, hoping to catch her as she 
 came out. She again avoided him, nor were 
 any further efforts he made more success- 
 ful. 
 
 He did not want to send her a formal 
 message ; he would rather have met her as if 
 casually somewhere.
 
 LATJEA ERLE. 267 
 
 When Tuesday came, and he had not seen 
 her, he said to his sister, 
 
 ' Does Laura never come here now ?' 
 
 ' Yes, sometimes.' 
 
 4 1 should like to see her, Audrey.' 
 
 1 Well, go and call on her. I don't think 
 she is likely to come here just at present,' 
 dryly. 
 
 ' You mean that she doesn't want to see 
 me. Has she said anything about my com- 
 ing?' 
 
 c She has not spoken of you at all.' 
 
 When Audrey was angry some portion of 
 Mrs. Elliott's sarcastic trenchant manner 
 seemed to pass into her. Claude, highly sen- 
 sitive, felt her tone and was hurt. Men 
 always do feel hurt at the least sign of resent- 
 ment in a woman, no matter what they have 
 done themselves. 
 
 4 Audrey, don't speak in that way,' he 
 remonstrated, with mingled impatience and 
 reproach. ' You know the — the interest I 
 take in Laura; our having quarrelled does 
 not prevent my being sorry to see her
 
 268 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 looking r;o ill. Have you heard how she La 
 to-day?' 
 
 'I have not, Claude; I haven't seen her 
 since Sunday.' 
 
 He walked to the end of the room and 
 back; he always walked about when he was 
 nervous — a reprehensible habit some persons 
 have, jarring to the nerves of sensitive people, 
 especially if the pedestrian happen to be built 
 on a large scale; then he sat down by the 
 writing-table for a minute, got up again for 
 another turn, and finally subsided with his 
 back to the fire, one foot on the fender and 
 an expression of gloomy discontent and in- 
 jured feeling on his handsome face. 
 
 Audrey's ball of wool fell off her lap and 
 rolled close to his feet. He picked it up, and 
 carrying it across the room to her, said, 
 
 c Tell me about her, Audrey,' in a tone of 
 imperious entreaty. 
 
 ' Excuse me, Claude ; I have nothing to 
 tell' 
 
 1 You certainly don't treat me with much 
 sisterly confidence,' he said bitterly.
 
 LAURA ERLE. 269 
 
 4 One learns by experience. The wisdom 
 of the serpent is not less necessary to enable 
 one to get through life than the harmlessness 
 of the dove. Yon forget that yon have taught 
 me how my confidence may be received.' 
 
 ' Because one is angry about a thing once 
 it does not follow that one is to be so always.' 
 
 4 It follows, nevertheless, that one judges 
 of what is likely to be by what has been.' 
 
 1 What do you mean ?' 
 
 ' I mean now that I will not talk to you 
 about Laura.' 
 
 4 Then I think that you are very unkind ;' 
 with which boyish expression of annoyance 
 Mr. Dash wood strode to the writing-table, 
 and did this time begin to write. 
 
 He felt more surprised and hurt than he 
 had ever been before in his life. Anything 
 like implacability was, he would have said, 
 entirely foreign to the nature of his sister or 
 her friend. Both had hasty tempers, but 
 their anger was soon over, and Laura especi- 
 ally — excitable, but affectionate and generous 
 — was won by the least show of kindness. He
 
 270 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 was debating as to whether he had not better 
 call on Laura, when, as he was lying that 
 afternoon on the sofa in his sister's boudoir, 
 the subject of his thoughts came suddenly 
 into the room. It is needless to say that she 
 had not expected to find him there. She was 
 under the impression that he had gone out 
 riding. 
 
 He started up. 
 
 ' Laura ! at last ! I have been so anxious 
 to see you,' holding out his hand warmly. ' I 
 am grieved to find you looking — not well.' 
 
 The warmth of his greeting took her com- 
 pletely by surprise. 
 
 4 Do you mean to say you won't shake 
 hands with me ?' in a tone of pained amaze- 
 ment, as she did not take the one he prof- 
 fered. 
 
 Laura had made a thousand vows that 
 she would never again touch the tip of Claude 
 ])ash wood's finger; but, all vows notwith- 
 standing, she did not find it an easy matter 
 to decline shaking hands with a person who 
 was standing before her requesting her to do
 
 LAURA ERLE. 271 
 
 so, more especially as the wrong she was 
 resenting was one personal to herself. Had 
 she been resenting Audrey's grievances, she 
 might have found it less difficult to keep 
 her resolutions. As she was resenting her 
 own, she broke them, not willingly, however, 
 for she gave her hand as coldly and reluc- 
 tantly as it was possible to give it. He tried 
 to retain it. 
 
 'You have been ill — anxious. You look 
 pale. I was so sorry,' nervously. 
 
 She withdrew her hand haughtily. 
 
 c I was anxious about papa — we all were ; 
 that was all, thank you.' 
 
 She turned to speak to Audrey respecting 
 the parish matters about which she had come, 
 and then with a bow was leaving the room. 
 On seeing her about to go, Claude inter- 
 posed — 
 
 ' Don't go, Laura. I have been wanting to 
 see you. I — ' 
 
 Even in old days she had always resented 
 his assumption that when he wanted to see 
 her she was to come to him. Had he been
 
 272 LAURA E&LE. 
 
 anxious to see her now, why had he not 
 called ? 
 
 4 1 am sorry I cannot wait/ she inter- 
 rupted coldly. c I am very busy, and only 
 came to speak to Audrey for one moment. I 
 thought you were alone, Audrey,' with a 
 significant glance at her friend. 
 
 She quitted the room in a paroxysm of 
 anger. What did his reception mean? Did 
 he look on her as a fool, or a plaything to be 
 taken up and flung down at his pleasure? 
 
 She left the house, and went out into the 
 park, anywhere to be alone. She had been 
 going to the village, but felt she could not do 
 so now. To the young, every new sensation 
 in themselves, every fresh revelation of cha- 
 racter in those around them, is a discovery; 
 and when the discovery is of a painful nature, 
 the soul, inexperienced in suffering, shrinks 
 with horror at the contemplation of hitherto 
 unsuspected evils. 
 
 Laura did not know to what she was to 
 attribute Claude's conduct. Had he, then, 
 never been open and trustworthy? She was
 
 LAURA ERLE. 273 
 
 alarmed, too, at the storm of passionate anger 
 that swept over herself. The better part of 
 her was, for the time, powerless before it. 
 
 Almost mechanically she had directed her 
 steps towards the encampment — Enleigh, too, 
 could boast of such a fruitful source of discord 
 — and sat down on the root of an ash-tree 
 under which she and Claude had often rested. 
 
 How long she sat she did not know. A 
 sudden sense of all she had to do and ou^ht 
 to be doing came upon her, and she started 
 up. As she did so, she found herself face to 
 face with Harold Carew. 
 
 It must be explained that he and his mo- 
 ther had arrived at Enleigh on the preceding 
 day, anticipating their expected arrival by 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 Mrs. Elliott had asked them down in fur- 
 therance of her own scheme of counteracting 
 Claude's intentions respecting Laura. 
 
 Harold had come hither now to make 
 some calculation about the encampment, a 
 great source of interest to him always, not 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 LAURA EELB. 
 
 certainly expecting to find any one there, least 
 of all Laura. 
 
 Both looked embarrassed at this unlooked- 
 for meeting, the gentleman feeling guilty in 
 some way, as people do who have suddenly 
 intruded, however unwillingly, on the sorrows 
 of others; for the traces of tears in Laura- 
 eyes, the expression of pitiful misery on her 
 face, told their own tale. 
 
 A man less simple or more accustomed to 
 women would have spoken to her as if uncon- 
 scious that anything was amiss; but of that 
 sort of ready tact he was quite devoid, 
 and he showed plainly the concern he felt. 
 His look of distress restored her self-posses- 
 sion. 
 
 4 Have you come up to see the camp, Mr. 
 Carew?' she said. 'We cannot boast of such 
 a one as you have at Melbury.' 
 
 ' I — I beg your pardon ; I'm afraid I dis- 
 turbed you,' in tones of blundering kind- 
 heartedness. c I'm going away again.' 
 
 'Pray don't on my account. I was jusl 
 going myself. T came up here to — for the
 
 LAURA ERLE. 275 
 
 sake of the air. I took it on my way to the 
 village.' 
 
 ' Won't you allow me to go with you ? — to 
 see you home?' he asked, as if uncertain 
 whether he ought to offer to accompany her 
 or not. 
 
 ' No, thanks. I am going to the village 
 for papa; I always go alone.' 
 
 1 Let me, at least, open the gate for you.' 
 They walked on in silence, he looking in- 
 finitely distressed. He could no more bear 
 to see a woman suffer than a dumb animal. 
 Both were unable to defend themselves; for 
 though women were certainly not dumb, yet, 
 being unreasoning and unreasonable creatures, 
 they stood, owing to their natural infirmities, 
 even more in need of protection than birds or 
 quadrupeds. 
 
 When they reached the gate he spoke : 
 4 Why do you cry?' he asked, with the 
 abrupt bluntness of a schoolboy. 'Are you 
 unhappy? What is it? There are tears on 
 your eyelashes now. Can I — could my mo- 
 ther do anything for you?'
 
 276 LAURA EPwLE. 
 
 For a moment surprise kept her silent; 
 then she answered gravely, 
 
 ' Mr. Carew, have you ever been very, 
 very angry about anything V 
 
 'Angry ?' hesitating. 'Well, yes, I sup- 
 pose I have. I don't often get angry, but I 
 do sometimes,' in an exculpatory voice. 
 
 ' Well, and what do you do ?' 
 
 'Do? I — I don't know exactly. What 
 do you mean?' 
 
 ' What do you do to relieve your feelings ? 
 
 'I don't know exactly,' looking puzzled 
 and wondering if she thought he relieved 
 them by tears. 
 
 She looked at him with one of her old 
 smiles. 
 
 ' You swear sometimes, just a little, don't 
 you ? Most men do ; I mean, at least, all the 
 men I know, except papa.' 
 
 He looked convicted. 
 
 ' I don't say I have never done such a 
 thing.' 
 
 1 Well, tears in a woman correspond to 
 swearing in a man. They let off the steam.
 
 LAUEA ERLE. 277 
 
 Where a man swears a woman cries; and you 
 must think no more of having seen me in 
 tears than I should if I happened to hear you 
 use some rather strong language.' 
 
 ' I should not swear before you, I hope.' 
 
 ' Nor did I mean to let you see me cry- 
 ing. I was very angry, that was all.' 
 
 1 But can I help you?' 
 
 c Yes ; say nothing about having seen me 
 in tears. In fact, forget that you met me 
 here at all.' 
 
 4 1 cannot promise that, but I will not 
 speak of it.' 
 
 c Thank you ; your kindness has been of 
 more use than perhaps you can ever know,' 
 with an honest simple look of gratefulness. 
 1 Now we will go on our way, each of us. 
 Good-bye,' holding out her hand. 
 
 They parted, he keeping the gate open for 
 her and taking off his hat as she passed 
 through, then following her with his eyes as 
 she went down the steep encampment. 
 
 His words of sympathy had come to her 
 like a spar to which she could cling in the sea
 
 278 LAURA EELE. 
 
 of angry emotion on which she had been 
 tossed. 
 
 Claude's conduct had shaken for the mo- 
 ment her belief in truth and goodness; but 
 her anger was now calmed, and her self-con- 
 trol resumed its sway. Harold's few words 
 of unaffected genuine kindness soothed her 
 wounded feeling to a degree out of all pro- 
 portion to their apparent significance. It was 
 that they spoke to her better nature, enabling 
 it to regain its ascendency at a time of bitter 
 conflict. 
 
 From another bit of rising ground in the 
 park a gentleman had been watching the two 
 as they walked together and then stood still 
 at the gate for that last little colloquy. 
 
 When Laura left Audrey's room, Claude 
 had sat down again on the sofa, surprised and 
 angry at her reception of his cordial greeting. 
 For months he had been pining for one word 
 from her, for one touch of her hand, one smile 
 from her. He had been too proud to seek her, 
 but was ready and willing to be gracious when 
 he could be so without any compromise of his
 
 LAURA ERLE. 270 
 
 dignity. And then to have the cup snatched 
 from his lips, and no compunction shown in 
 the snatching of it ! He had not expected that 
 she would have given in all at once, thrown 
 herself metaphorically into his arms a la Vio- 
 let; but there was a calm determined haughti- 
 ness in her manner which alarmed him, and 
 which he had not expected. There was no 
 longer the girlish defiance which had made her 
 refuse his assistance at the stile, and which 
 was, little as she knew it, a most delicate 
 tribute to his influence over her. He could 
 not flatter himself there was anv such tribute 
 in her manner to-day. 
 
 He left his sister's room, and went out 
 into the park. There he saw Harold going 
 towards the encampment, and afterwards, 
 when he reached the ash-tree, Laura rise up 
 as if to meet him. 
 
 With jealous eyes he watched them walk 
 towards the gate, stand, talk, and then part 
 as if lingeringly. 
 
 He felt almost beside himself. This, then, 
 was the reason she would not stay to speak to
 
 280 LAURA ERLE. 
 
 him. She had appointed to meet his rival 
 there. She had not been long in supplying 
 his place. But Carew should never have her ! 
 She had been his before that combination of 
 pedantry and priggism had ever seen her, and 
 he would not yield her up to him now. Even 
 if he could not have her for himself, he would 
 not suffer her to fall into another's hands. 
 Such was his fierce resolve at that moment. 
 
 He had gone out with some vague idea of 
 meeting her on her way back from the village, 
 and this was what was in store for him ! 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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