LI E> R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 8Z3 
 D&58A 
 
 V.I
 
 16 {. C^- A?/^^ 
 
 AED B N 
 
 VOL. I. , ^^,
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTT13WOOUK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAJIENT STREET
 
 A R D E N 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 A. MARY F. ROBINSOX 
 
 IK TNVO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1883 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 ^%3 
 
 
 !^ 
 
 I 
 
 Vi\ 
 
 TO 
 
 E. F. POYNTER 
 
 IN 
 FRIENDSHIP AND GRATITUDE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTBR AGK 
 
 I. In the Fokest of Akden .... 1 
 
 II. A MiTHEELESS BaIKN 15 
 
 III. There's Nothing Half so Sweet in Life . 56 
 
 IV. At the Bushes 64 
 
 V. The Masters of Arden .... 75 
 
 VI. Good-bye! 87 
 
 VII. In a Strange Land 95 
 
 VIII. A New Life 110 
 
 IX. An English Sunday 127 
 
 X. The Primrose Path 156 
 
 XI. Pictures 177 
 
 XII. A Letter and a Meeting . ... 210
 
 A ED EN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN THE FOREST OF AKDEN. 
 
 The days are lono: s^one bv since under 
 tlie trees of Arden fair adventurous dam- 
 sels wandered in merry outlawry, and 
 many young gentlemen flocked there 
 every day to fleet the time carelessly as 
 in the golden world. No careless gaiety 
 revels in Arden now ; but through the 
 busy summer hard work for little wage ; 
 in the winter cold, dreariness, and for the 
 poor unoccupied privation. 
 
 Perhaps those oaks and elms whose 
 trunks were scored with Orlando^s rhymes, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ^ ARDEN. 
 
 have quite forgotten that their branches 
 ever sheltered so much youth and gallant 
 spirit. A few of them are left, gnarled 
 and decrepit, fenced round with rails, 
 propped with iron, secured with ropes ; 
 they stand like cumbrous giants among 
 the younger trees, and support with 
 difficulty their own extreme old age. At 
 their feet there is no forest, only miles 
 of wooded gently undulating fields. 
 
 But many of the trees are fallen ; 
 every year with the winds of March their 
 ranks get thinned and rarer. And all that 
 is left of Arden is here and there the 
 name, or the suffix of a name, among the 
 many villages that sprang up, like mush- 
 rooms, where the forest first was felled. 
 Now the villages, too, are old, mossed 
 over and ruinous. 
 
 Not far from Henley in Arden, and 
 near Wood End, stands a long straggling 
 village with half-timbered farmhouses and 
 orchards full of writhen apple-trees ; there
 
 IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 3 
 
 are thatclied cottages set at intervals be- 
 side the lane, and as you walk along the 
 road you smell the gillyflowers and lilac 
 long before the flowers, hedged in with 
 privet, are to be seen themselves ; and the 
 lane is grassy-edged and wide, bordered 
 with tall hawthorn hedges, from which 
 there starts full many a top-heavy lop- 
 branched elm. Such is the village, no 
 dififerent from the Clintons and Bush- 
 worths of the neighbourhood, yet conscious 
 of a certain prestige. For it is the oldest 
 hamlet in the township, and its trees are 
 the largest, and its name is Arden. 
 
 Arden lies higher than any village near. 
 At one extremity the road dips abruptly 
 down to the ford, and at the other makes 
 an even steeper descent. Just at the head 
 of this sudden valley stands the church, 
 the pride of Arden It is old and grey, 
 square-towered and squat, and its shadow 
 hallows a graveyard thick with graves : 
 and from this beautiful open churchyard 
 b2
 
 4 AEDEN. 
 
 one looks for miles on miles ^ seeing the 
 country roll away, featureless and mono- 
 tonous, with never a lake nor even the 
 bend of a stream, till at last the small 
 irregular fields, and the lanes edged with 
 trees, get pressed together in a dim woody 
 line, and a ring of greenish blue vapour 
 ends the horizon. 
 
 The view is from the back of the 
 church. Opposite it in front stands the 
 Hall, hidden in ash trees and tall wide- 
 branched sycamores. From the gate you 
 could throw a pebble into the garden of 
 the smart red-brick parsonage alongside 
 the church. So, as there is no society in 
 the neighbourhood, it matters much to 
 the Rectory who lives at the Hall, and 
 tq the Hall who occupies the Rectory. 
 
 One June some years ago, after a long 
 interval of sub-letting, the Hall had re- 
 turned to the possession of its hereditary 
 owners. A shabby happy-go-lucky house 
 it appeared, for the Masters were poor and
 
 IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 5 
 
 numerous. They were not an ideal house- 
 hold — all the brothers and sisters quarrelled 
 among themselves, and Mrs. Masters quar- 
 relled with them all, and with her easy- 
 going indolent husband more than with 
 any other. Great was the relief when, as 
 sometimes happened, she would leave the 
 house in a fit of anger and shelter herself 
 for weeks with her mother. And yet it 
 was through her that the family had 
 always maintained its old prestige ; it was 
 through her that the children were neither 
 ignorant nor destitute, and by her means 
 the standard of morals in the home of 
 loose-living, easy-going Jim Masters, was 
 even rigorously pure. Yet her children 
 were glad when she went away, and her 
 husband dreaded her return. 
 
 Her temper was soured and indignant ; 
 no doubt she was a difficult mistress, and 
 she was very proud. To her it did not 
 seem very long since she had been beautiful 
 Kitty Arden, the toast of the county, rich,
 
 AEDEN. 
 
 spoiled, admired, loved, everybody's dar- 
 ling. It did not seem very long ago, and 
 now Catherine Masters was an unhappy 
 woman, aged and soured, her fortune spent, 
 her beauty faded, her children brought up 
 in poverty and fallen from their true 
 position. Nevertheless, when in June the 
 Masters had come back to the Hall, the 
 Yicar, Mr. Law, had been heartily glad 
 to see her. He had often thought of 
 handsome, frank Kitty Arden, for whom, 
 in his curate days, he had cherished a secret 
 flame. He recognised her still, even in the 
 soured and battling woman who returned 
 to her old home so sadly changed. He at 
 least was always glad to see her. On the 
 morrow of her sudden return from her 
 mother's shelter, he would limp up to the 
 Hall, peering through his spectacles, would 
 fidget about the room in his timid, intimate 
 fashion, asking after the friends she had 
 left with an ease that robbed her absence 
 of its tragedy. For Mr. Law never showed
 
 IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 7 
 
 that he understood the miserable civil 
 warfare of the Hall. His presence was 
 always the signal for a truce. He was the 
 special friend, the butt, the chum of all the 
 youngsters. 
 
 Besides the A^icar and the Masters 
 there were few persons above the rank 
 of farmers for many miles around. But 
 as two of these unvisitable households 
 contain the chief personages of our story, 
 we must step over thresholds which Mrs. 
 Masters never crossed ; for the better-class 
 farmers were both too rich and too humble 
 to have any acquaintance with the Hall, 
 and neither family knew more of the other 
 than the village gossip told, or the sight of 
 each other in church on Sundays vouch- 
 safed. 
 
 The Williamses were the chief farmers 
 in Arden. Their family had been for 
 generations the most respected and honour- 
 able of any in the country side. Their 
 house w^s better than the Hall — which, in
 
 8 ARDEN. 
 
 truth, was but a tumble -down and rickety 
 erection. They lived about a mile from 
 the church, in a large black and white 
 half-timbered house close to the road. On 
 three sides of it the orchard went ; in front 
 there was a tiny garden of flowers. Harry 
 Williams, a man on the turn of forty, was 
 the most able farmer in the county. He 
 looked down with great contempt on those 
 neighbours of his who had turned all their 
 fields into grazing land, and though they 
 all knew that the value of arable land has 
 decreased at the rate of 3/. o5. an acre in the 
 last twenty years, Harry Williams flaunted 
 his golden fields of grain in the face of their 
 statistics, and made as good an income as 
 the luckiest of his forefathers. Many a 
 well-to-do lass would have been proud to 
 rule over the ample plenty of the black 
 and white house ; but Harry was still un- 
 married. His step-mother lived with him, 
 a pretty, faded, useless, falsely-elegant 
 ex-governess of fifty. Her child — Harry's
 
 IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. V 
 
 step-sister, twenty-four years younger than 
 himself — closes the list of that house- 
 hold. 
 
 Half a mile further on the road to 
 Preston Ford you pass a white gate and a 
 long drive overhung with apple-trees. The 
 drive is the eighth of a mile in length, and 
 leads to a pretty rough -cast house, half 
 villa, half farm, nearly hidden in the roses 
 and ivy that clamber over the long veran- 
 dah and make a huge tod on the red roof 
 of the porch. Here Mr. Lawrance lived. 
 Years ago, Mr. Lawrance of the Bushes had 
 been a person of importance in the restricted 
 society of Arden. 
 
 All that was changed now. Mr. Law- 
 rance might not have existed for any notice 
 that his neighbours took of him. It must, 
 one would think, be a terrible delinquency 
 that would cause so narrow and lonely 
 a society to cast one member away. 
 But no, a second marriage had done for 
 him. When Mr. Lawrance first bouglit
 
 10 * ARDEN. 
 
 the Bushes, he was a well-to-do idle county- 
 lawyer with a wife gentle and delicate, and 
 an indolent handsome son. The son went 
 away to Paris to study art, and his mother 
 very sorely missed him ; she grew pale and 
 old ; yet in every letter she begged her 
 John to be industrious, not to be dis- 
 heartened, to keep to his work. For she 
 was in spirit a woman of energy and ambi- 
 tion, and it was more tolerable to her to 
 eat out her heart in loneliness, than to con- 
 ceive that her only son should sink into 
 the passive indolence, the mere acquies- 
 cence with life, which distressed her in his 
 father. She had her reward. One summer 
 John Lawrance came home, a successful 
 painter, and brought his bride to Arden. 
 He had married well ; the young Mrs. 
 Lawrance was such a sweet, well-nur- 
 tured, well-behaved New Englander as 
 Longfellow's Priscilla must have been. 
 She and her mother-in-law became great 
 friends, and she, in her enthusiasm for the
 
 IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 11 
 
 old village, would fain have settled in Arden. 
 But John declared that his art required 
 him to live in Italy ; and his mother was 
 against his stagnating in a country village. 
 Nevertheless, having seen her children de- 
 part, she only lived long enough to get the 
 news, anxiously expected, that a grandchild 
 was born to her. ' We have called her 
 Arden Sylvia, in memory of home,' wrote 
 the proud and somewhat romantic mother. 
 Mrs. Lawrance smiled ; but she was never 
 well enough to answer the letter. 
 
 A few days afterwards she died — and 
 everyone pitied poor, lonely, Mr. Lawrance. 
 John, with an inward hope of refusal, 
 begged him to come and make his home in 
 Via Margutta with his children. But the 
 old man declared he would stick to the 
 old place ; and when soon after this the 
 younger Mrs. Lawrance died, her husband 
 felt his future too unsettled to press his 
 father to share it. The long winter rolled 
 away — he in Rome could not realise how
 
 12 AKDEN. 
 
 slowly to the solitary at the Bushes — and 
 in spring the whole village of Arden, and 
 one terzo piano in the Yia Margutta, were 
 thunder-struck by the news of Mr. Law- 
 rance's second marriage. He had married 
 his housekeeper. 
 
 John Lawrance felt outraged, and the 
 whole village more or less indignant, for 
 the first Mrs. Lawrance was still well 
 remembered. But the old man and his 
 new wife were not unhappy in their un- 
 broken solitude a deux. Perhaps the sense 
 of universal disapprobation abroad made 
 each more anxious to prove to the other 
 that their union was not a mistake. Nor 
 was it ; for they loved each other. Yet 
 love had come to them as a surprise; it 
 was not in the bond. He had taken 
 her as a provision against future help- 
 lessness ; she — a woman no longer young, 
 friendless, never beautiful — took with 
 him friendship, a home, a future. And 
 taking so much, she gave in proportion.
 
 IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 13 
 
 She was a woman whose native strength 
 of feeling, whose deep capacity for attach- 
 ment, devotion, vindictiveness, had long 
 been under the control of paid and jog-trot 
 duty. And now duty and passion were 
 one. All the strength of her per fervid 
 heart came out in her marriage. She was 
 used to be paid for her service, not loved for 
 it ; she, a poor plain neglected elderly woman 
 — and the sweet pang of this remembrance 
 would spur her on to ever-increasing devo- 
 tion and unselfishness. Mr. Lawrance was 
 grateful. He felt he had gained a good * 
 deal more than he had bargained for, that 
 life was sweeter to him than he had 
 dreamed it could be at his age. Before a 
 year was out this couple, isolated from the 
 world in penalty for a choice made without 
 any thought of passion, welcomed their 
 solitude, and would have resented any 
 change from their complete dependence on 
 each other. And so it came to pass that 
 Mr. Lawrance was an outlaw in the parish.
 
 14 ARDEN. 
 
 Such was the relative position of the 
 four principal houses in Arden when my 
 story begins. And, though a common- 
 place to the social observer, the mere 
 human being cannot refrain from astonish- 
 ment, considering that out of these four 
 families in their mutual loneliness, three 
 were absolutely dead to each other, as 
 separate as if encompassed by a magic 
 wall. The clergyman knew each apart, 
 but had no power to bring them together. 
 The Hall, the Farm, the Bushes were ab- 
 solutely separate microcosms, each prac- 
 tically non-existent to the other two. 
 
 Such is the astonishing, yet common, 
 position of affairs when my story begins.
 
 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 
 
 While these villagers drowsed away their 
 lives in peaceful Arden, John Lawrance 
 and his girl spent vivid years in Italy. 
 He was at this time a successful and even 
 eminent painter, and might be placed 
 third, after Fortuny and the young 
 Madrazo, among the brilliant realists 
 who, at that time, were beginning to make 
 their head-quarters at Rome. In every 
 respect, he was a fortunate painter. Not 
 only did he love his art and succeed in it, 
 but he hit the taste of the moment and the 
 place. He was rich, generous to extrava- 
 gance, popular, full of youth and a sort 
 of nervous exuberance that passed for
 
 16 ARDEN. 
 
 strength, l^evertheless, he did not marry 
 again. People in Rome explained this fact 
 by a fatal attachment for a beautifiil Con- 
 tessa, much his senior, and unhappily 
 married. Whether it were so or not, there 
 were no signs of the great passion in 
 Lawrance's demeanour ; he appeared per- 
 fectly contented with his free, occupied, 
 successful life, and with the society of his 
 little girl. She grew up a quiet, dreamy 
 child, with the capacity for romance which 
 had distinguished her mother, modified by 
 her father's unimpassioned facile tempera- 
 ment. The romance of her childhood was 
 Rome. 
 
 From the windows of the large, pic- 
 turesque studio in Via Margutta, you 
 looked across a network of gardens, 
 straight to the Pincian Hill. Right in 
 front of you, on the crest of the hill, rose 
 the grave and sombre grove of ilexes 
 before the Yilla Medici. However hot the 
 sun poured down upon the grey stone
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. ]7 
 
 walls alive with lizards, however it glowed 
 on the golden -burdened orange-trees, and 
 streamed on the hedges of frail China roses 
 till the over-blown pink petals strewed the 
 ground, though it filled the air with the 
 faint hawthorn-like scent of the Japanese 
 medlars, and lay like painted gold on the 
 walls of the houses, there was always 
 coolness in that grove where the water of 
 the fountain drips slowly, drop by drop, 
 from the over- brimming cup above to the 
 moss-covered slab below. Here Arden 
 used to stray with her nurse, and look over 
 the low wall to Rome lying at her feet. 
 She used to love the place ; but one day, 
 when she was about seven, she conceived a 
 horror of it. Nothing had happened, only 
 it had flitted across her mind that the 
 shadow of death must be like this ilex- 
 bhadow, grey, cold, colourless, impenetrable 
 to the sun. And thereafter she wduld play 
 no more near the green old fountain under 
 the gnarled branches. Such a child she 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 ARDEN. 
 
 was, dreamy, full of vague romantic 
 fancies, with little real hold on life, none 
 of the turbulence, passion, merriment of 
 ordinary children. 
 
 As a child, this romantic sentiment for 
 Rome quite occupied her heart. As she 
 grew a little older she became excessively 
 attached to her father ; but, at first, she 
 had taken him very quietly as a natural 
 adjunct of existence. There was a sort of 
 sweet dreamy inertness about the child, as 
 if a shock of waking was necessary to 
 arouse her most elementary perception. 
 Till she was nearly seven years old her 
 heart slept on, charmed and silent, in its 
 palace of dreams. Then a very slight thing 
 wakened it. It was this. 
 
 On her seventh birthday her father, 
 who was immensely proud of his little 
 Biondina, gave her a golden ring, the 
 colour of her curls, he said. It was just 
 such a ring as you may see by scores in 
 the Piazza di Spagna ; a plain hoop of gold
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 19 
 
 with on it the posy : ' Roma amor.' He 
 sHpped it on her finger and told her to 
 keep it always, for soon they were going 
 away from Rome to Paris, and she must 
 always treasure it as a memorial. Little 
 Arden burst into a storm of tears. Was 
 that hoop of gold all that would remain to 
 her of Rome? The child was half-mad- 
 dened with that first anguished fear of 
 loss which grown people can hardly under- 
 stand or remember. 
 
 As for her father, he looked upon her 
 tears as a child's pardonable outburst of 
 grief, unreasonable and soon forgotten. 
 But when, as the days went on, Ardenina 
 grew thin and paler, with a strange tense 
 look in the pained little vvdiite-rose face, 
 and when the light-blue eyes that used to 
 be so bright grew large and wistful, he 
 could not bear to see it. After all she was 
 all he had, this odd little girl with her 
 desperate love for Rome. Instead of grow- 
 ing angry, he was touched. And he was 
 
 c 2
 
 20 ARDEN. 
 
 more at home in the Yia Margutta than 
 anywhere else. It had been a mere freak, 
 the wish to go to Paris — and then he 
 thought of the moving. 
 
 * Nina,' he cried, as the pale little wretch 
 appeared. ' Ardenina,' he said, ' after all we 
 will stick to Rome, you and I.' 
 
 That piece of renunciation won for him 
 the passionate gratitude, the unhesitating 
 absolute devotion of his little girl. The 
 sound and look of the fountains in the 
 square ; every sudden gay branch of ole- 
 ander waving over the wall ; the great 
 round daisies in the Borghese gardens, 
 bending with the wind, all silver white one 
 way, all red the other ; all these cherished 
 joys of Arden's childhood came to her now 
 as her father's gift. And though, perhaps, 
 she never quite perceived his real qualities, 
 she would in good earnest have laid down 
 her baby life for this ideal father of hers. 
 
 When Arden was about eight years old 
 she made friends with two American chil-
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 21 
 
 dren, who, with their mother and their 
 consumptive father, had come to winter in 
 Rome. Winter after winter they returned, 
 and with every year Mr. Rose grew thinner, 
 walked slower, looked with more anxious 
 and penetrating glances at Ellie and 
 Gerard and Arden, as they acted all the 
 triumphs of Rome over again in their 
 childish play. 
 
 The girl was sharp -featured, pretty, 
 somewhat discontented ; eleven years of 
 age. She always wore fresh smart dresses, 
 and it was only now and then she would 
 condescend to play with the others. Arden 
 was a little afraid of her. She was more at 
 home with Gerard — two years younger 
 than his sister — a quick, observant, sweet- 
 natured boy, with a sharp phrase and an 
 extemporised wisdom ready to meet every 
 emergency of life. He was never ashamed 
 of playing with Arden ; his swift intelli- 
 gence and merry fancy made quite a clever 
 thing, she used to think, of her pastimes ;
 
 22 ARDEN. 
 
 as the years slipped by, till Arden in her 
 turn was eleven, the children left off their 
 games and used to visit the great temples 
 and museums of Kome. What Arden 
 loved above all, was to wander in the 
 galleries of the Vatican. While she was 
 drawing, Gerard would saunter up and 
 down, giving vent to fluent theories of art, 
 not very new perhaps or very deep, but 
 which Arden considered worthy of a more 
 brilliant Winckelmann. 
 
 But one year, when she was nearly 
 thirteen, when the Roses came as usual 
 to spend the winter in Rome, Gerard had 
 no heart for mirth. He could seldom talk 
 with Arden. tTien, for his whole time was 
 spent with his father. Mr. Rose had grown 
 thinner than ever, and over his wasted face 
 there was a strange grey colour, that made 
 Arden think, with a shiver, of the wan ilex- 
 shadows. 
 
 She had always liked Mr. Rose, but 
 now she felt afraid of him. ' Why does he
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 23 
 
 look SO strange ? ' she would say to her- 
 self. ' Perhaps he has done something 
 wicked. Perhaps he has the mal occhio,* 
 and she kept out of his way, slinking dowii 
 some side path when she saw Gerard and 
 his father in the distance. 
 
 But one day changed all that — one day 
 when Gerard, trying to speak to her, could 
 only find a voice for heavy broken sobs — 
 ' What is it, Gerard ? ' she cried, alarmed ; 
 ' is it about your father ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; one month — that\s all ' Gerard 
 could say no more. 
 
 Arden looked at him with clear, won- 
 dering eyes ; it had never occurred to her 
 that there was any danger in Mr. Rose's 
 customary illness. She had always known 
 him ill ; Gerard's father was ill. and her 
 father was a painter ; both habits were 
 well-known and established facts, not to 
 be changed or questioned. Gerard saw 
 that she did not understand. He felt hurt, 
 angry to think that what had been grieving
 
 24 ARDEN. 
 
 him so long had been quite uncomprehended 
 by his special chum ; he turned round 
 and began speaking quite unlike himself — 
 quite savagely, Arden fancied. 
 
 ' I thought you kept out of my way 
 because you knew I wanted to think of 
 nothing but him now. I thought you had 
 some sense and feeling, though you are a 
 girl. But 1 guess you're all alike — you 
 and Ellie, and all the rest ; you think of 
 nothing but yourselves. There's nothing 
 matters to you but some new makebelieve 
 or other ; but I guess you know that my 
 father has been in consumption all these 
 years ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes,' said Arden, nodding her head 
 and starmg. 
 
 *Well, understand, there's no hope 
 now.' 
 
 Arden had grown quite pale ; her blue 
 eyes were opened to their widest, but more 
 from Gerard's roughness than from a clear 
 understanding of his anxiety.
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 25 
 
 ' Dio Mio ! ' she said, with a little 
 shiver. 
 
 Then, coming up to the boy, who stood 
 still glaring at her, she laid both her hands 
 npon his arm. 
 
 ' Oh, Gerard,' she cried suddenly, ^ Will 
 your father die ? ' 
 
 ' You brute ! ' burst out the boy, 
 wrenching her hands from his arm ; he 
 dashed away, leaving Arden to wonder 
 what it all meant. 
 
 It was not very long before she learnt. 
 She heard one day that Mr. Rose was dead, 
 and soon after she went with her father to 
 see Mrs. Rose and the children. They 
 were all in black, and all, in various 
 degrees, had the same look on their faces, 
 the same hushed and restrained expression. 
 Arden felt held at arm's length ; a great 
 experience was opened like a gulf between 
 herself and her old playfellows. They had 
 passed out of the fairyland of childhood, 
 which she, young for her thirteen years,
 
 26 AKDEN. 
 
 still wandered in. There seemed less 
 difference, she thought, between Ellie and 
 Gerard, and quite old people, like her 
 father and Mrs. Rose, than between herself 
 and these children who, a few months ago, 
 had been her companions in a sort of 
 Davidsbund, which necessarily excluded 
 grown-up persons. 
 
 Arden sat perched on a chair against 
 the wall, fidgetting with her feet ; all her 
 pretty friendly ways had vanished in this 
 atmosphere of constraint and strangeness. 
 Besides, she could not forget that Gerard 
 had called her a brute. So she sat nervously 
 glancing from Ellie to Gerard, thinking 
 what she ought to say, and feeling ill at 
 ease. 
 
 The other two children sat equally 
 silent. In the stillness, Mr. Lawrance's 
 voice reached their corner of the room. 
 He was speaking of her loss to Mrs. 
 Rose. 
 
 ' I can understand,' he was saying.
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 27 
 
 ' It seems but yesterday since Arden's 
 mother died. One does not forget, one 
 only grows accustomed to always miss 
 the thing dearest of all the world.' 
 
 Arden stared with all her eyes. Sucl 
 a great sorrow ! Did her father always feel 
 it ? Was Gerard feeling it now ? She 
 looked at his face, swollen and changed 
 and pallid. She slid from her chair, and 
 crept silently to his side. 
 
 Mrs. Eose's feeble voice did not reach 
 to the end of the room where the three 
 children had settled, but Arden could hear 
 snatches of her father's answers. 
 
 ^ No ; there is no consolation — only, 
 believe me, when one has children . . . 
 I am not unhappy now, you see, because I 
 have Arden.' 
 
 Poor little Arden's heart was quite 
 overcharged with awe and strangeness. 
 So she had suffered this grief herself, and 
 she herself had been a consolation, with- 
 out any sense of either experience. She
 
 28 ARDEN. 
 
 looked round at the pale and mournful 
 faces, at the darkened room a little dis- 
 ordered with packing. It was the first 
 time she had realised grief as a powerful 
 and inevitable force. How changed the 
 whole world seemed ; how little worth 
 while it was to be proud or shy or 
 offended in such a gloomy place ! 
 
 All this time Arden was standing at 
 the back of Gerard's chair. She came 
 forward now, and touched him timidly on 
 the arm ; he looked up ; her face was wet 
 with tears. 
 
 * Forgive me, Gerard,' she cried. 'In- 
 deed I never meant to be a brute. I am 
 so sorry ; oh, so sorry ! And to think I 
 should have made you angry when you 
 are so unhappy.' 
 
 Ellie stared in dumb surprise ; as for 
 Gerard, he put his arm round her shoulder, 
 saying kindly — 
 
 ' I don't remember, Arden, dear ; but
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 29 
 
 1 guess you never meant to get me mad 
 with you.' 
 
 ' You don't remember ? ' 
 
 That was strangest and hardest of all. 
 Why, it was only a little time ago ; and 
 ever since Arden had kept on thinking, 
 always, always, of this first quarrel with 
 Gerard. She had been in a hundred 
 minds about it— sorry, ashamed, magna- 
 nimous, proud, contrite — and Gerard had 
 said, ' I don't remember/ as if it had all 
 been years ago. Yes, that was just it, 
 she thought. It was as if Gerard had 
 suddenly grown up and left her behind. 
 She supposed it was because his father 
 had died. 
 
 ' Gerard,' she cried, ' remember I have 
 lost my mother, too ! ' 
 
 ' Dear little Arden,' said the boy, ' I' 
 declare I could love to take you with 
 us.' 
 
 ' She couldn't leave her father, I pre- 
 sume,' put in P^llie.
 
 30 AKDEN. 
 
 ' What, are y.ou going ? ' cried Arden — 
 then, before they could answer, she under- 
 stood it all, the packing, the commotion 
 overhead. 
 
 ' At once ? ' she asked in a shrill little 
 gasp. 
 
 ' That's so, Arden ; we must go,' said 
 Gerard. 
 
 ' Why, certainly,' chimed in EUie. 
 * We're going home.' 
 
 ' To America? ' said Arden in despair, 
 with just such a feeling as if the dark 
 Tiber waters were closing above her head. 
 
 ' Yes, home,' repeated Ellie. 
 
 ' But we shall come back to you, 
 Arden,' said the boy. 
 
 ' Well, I don't know about that,' Ellie 
 said. ' It's a long way; besides, there's no 
 reason now for coming. We've not been 
 home these five years, and I guess mother '11 
 be in no hurry to leave.' 
 
 Ellie's metallic little voice, with no 
 cruel purpose, went on deliberately, un-
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 31 
 
 feelingl}^, closing all the doors of the 
 future on our poor little Arden's prison 
 of despair. She looked up bewildered. 
 
 ' Oh Gerard, is it true ? ' 
 
 * Well, I guess it is,' he answered, 
 
 ^ How strange ! ' said Arden, ' I wonder 
 what it was all for ? ' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' asked Ellie. 
 
 ' I wonder why we've been such great 
 friends, and seen each other every day ; 
 since you're going to America, you and 
 Gerard, we shall never see each other 
 again ever.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, we shall ! ' cried Gerard. 
 
 ' Why ; anyway,' said Ellie, ' one must 
 have friends. Living in Kome, you'll get 
 used to knowing people passing through. 
 That's so pleasant in Rome ; people are 
 real friendly, and make it cheerful to one 
 while one stays.' 
 
 ' Oh dear ! ' said Arden, holding 
 Gerard's hand, and looking a very for- 
 lorn little person.
 
 32 ARDEN. 
 
 She did not say any more ; she felt as 
 if she did not know the language. In a 
 few minutes Mr. Lawrance came to fetch 
 her away. Then there were good-byes and 
 kisses. 
 
 ^ You won't forget me?' said Arden. 
 
 ^ Never in the world,' said Gerard. 
 ' And — let Ellie say what she hkes — we'll 
 come back, Arden.' 
 
 Arden had plenty to think of that 
 evening, as she walked home with her 
 father over the Pincio, where- the band was 
 playing and the people were promenading 
 watching the sunset. The sky was all 
 crimson and yellow, with overhead a 
 field, as it were, of vivid luminous blue. 
 Against this brilliant splendour, the pine- 
 surmounted hills, the towers and domes 
 rose up thin and shadowy ; St. Peter's 
 itself looked like a thin round of smoked 
 glass, even St. Peter's. Then, quite 
 suddenly as it seemed, the great ball of 
 fire slipped behind the houses ; and for
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 33 
 
 a moment or two the sky blazed with 
 ever-increasmg brilliance ; then, as if 
 someone withdrew the light that illu- 
 minates a transparence, the life went out 
 of the colours ; they faded ; the sky again 
 grew distant and unnoticeable ; the houses 
 and mountains were the real things now, 
 the things to be looked at. 
 
 Arden did not reason her fancies to a 
 conclusion, but she felt that something of 
 the same sort had taken place in her life 
 All the glory had left her sky; even Kome, 
 as it lay at her feet, looked dark, formless, 
 a mere chaotic mass of gloomy houses. 
 
 ' For I know I shall never, never get 
 to make friends of people passing through,' 
 she muttered between her teeth. 
 
 ' What's the matter, Arden? I'm sorry 
 you'll lose your friends, darling,' said her 
 father, squeezing the cold little hand. 
 
 ' You must be all my friends now, papa,' 
 whispered Arden, nestling closer to his 
 side. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 AKDEN. 
 
 It happened as Arden had said. She 
 made no new friends to replace those she had 
 lost, though she and her father were popular 
 in Rome, so that Arden lived anything 
 but a lonely life. As she grew out of 
 childhood into girlhood, it was found that 
 she became almost beautiful, tall, with 
 large clear eyes, a graceful curly head, 
 delicate flexile lips that smiled upwards. 
 She became the darling of all the old 
 ladies in Rome ; her father's friends, 
 artists chiefly, over-praised her drawing 
 because she was so pretty, and John 
 Lawrance's only girl. No young woman 
 could have had a more social, easy, and 
 even triumphant life. But Arden had few 
 companions of her own age ; and among 
 all her admirers and protectors no special 
 friend. 
 
 Therefore she never found it hard to 
 quit Rome, as often happened, almost at a 
 moment's notice, to go on some impromptu 
 sketchi.no: tour with her father. He w^ent
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 35 
 
 alone, sometimes, if the place was very 
 rough or a difficult journey, but most often 
 he and Arden would roam together to 
 some Castello on the visible spurs of the 
 Alban or the Sabine hills. 
 
 Nothing delighted Arden more than 
 these impromptu journeys. She had the 
 passion of all foreigners for the desolate 
 Campagna ; the passion which true 
 Romans so little understand. Besides 
 these flying visits, there was, of course, 
 the necessary four months' absence in 
 the summer. Then they would go to 
 Umbria or Tuscany ; sometimes, even to 
 Switzerland or the Tyrol ; but to England 
 never. 
 
 To Arden it seemed almost impossible 
 to realise that she herself was English, and 
 had relations in England, her only rela- 
 tions, who had never been in Italy. 
 
 ^As for me, you know,' she would 
 say, ' I should die of the cold and fog, and 
 of sheer longing for Rome.' 
 
 D 2
 
 36 AEDEN. 
 
 And then a shadow would settle for a 
 moment on her father's sunny face, and he 
 would make no answer. 
 
 Every Christmas Eve Arden wrote to 
 her grandfather, whom she had never 
 seen, sending him some sketch, some 
 piece of embroidery, something done by 
 her own hands as a Christmas gift. 
 In return she would get a few lines 
 of thanks, and this was all the corre- 
 spondence that ever passed between 
 them. But one year, when Arden was 
 just seventeen j^ears old, her father came 
 into the garden one warm May morning, 
 and said, 
 
 ' Arden, I think this year w^e had 
 better go to England.' 
 
 ' Oh, papa ! ' 
 
 'Why, dear? You have never been 
 in England ; I will take you to Arden, to 
 your namesake village. Your mother 
 used to think it more beautiful than Italy ; 
 it is so fresh and green.'
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 37 
 
 ' Oh papa, I shall hate it ! ' exclaimed 
 Arden. ' But of coarse we will go if you 
 like.' 
 
 * Why would you hate it? That is 
 silly, Arden. England is our own country 
 after all ; I often think I should like to 
 see it again.' 
 
 ^ Oh, if you want, of course, papa.' 
 
 * You don't know what it's like, 
 Arden,' he said, drawing her to his side 
 and keeping his arm round her shoulder ; 
 * those green villages, the red little thatched 
 houses nestling under great oaks and elms ; 
 the green where the geese feed and the 
 boys play cricket, with a pond at one end 
 for the ducks ; the village inn with its 
 swinging sign ; the red-cheeked, comely 
 villagers, who all know you, with whom 
 you have a place to fill by rights ; not a 
 stranger, a foreigner as you are here.' 
 
 ' A foreigner in Kome, I ? It's iq 
 England I should be a foreigner, papa.' 
 ^ Besides, . I think you ought to know
 
 38 ARDEN, 
 
 more of your grandfather. Your home 
 would be with him, should anything 
 happen to me.' 
 
 * Don't, don't, dear,' cried Arden, 
 throwing her arms round her father's 
 neck and half stifling him with kisses. 
 ' You are young and he is old. How 
 could it be ? But I'll go to England.' 
 
 ' Well, well ; there's no need to settle 
 yet ; we'll think about it, dear.' 
 
 The more Arden thought about going 
 to England the less she liked the idea. 
 Suppose when they once got to England, 
 her father should refuse to come back ? 
 This was a sort of nightmare to the girl, 
 who had known some people who, having 
 lived ten years in Rome, had gone home 
 for a summer visit and had settled there. 
 
 Then the various old ladies whom 
 Arden made her confidants would try to 
 comfort her, finishing their consolations 
 with a little well-meant sermon on un- 
 selfishness and sacrifice, and the duty of
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 39 
 
 daughters. So Arden would go home, 
 dignified with a temporary patience and 
 resio^nation. She would ask her father, 
 with an Iphigenia air, whether she should 
 dismiss all the servants and when he meant 
 to start ; she would try to take an interest 
 in England, asking forlorn little questions 
 about the journey and the climate. 
 
 John Lawrance felt his resolution giving 
 way. He had always given in to Arden, 
 because it cost him so much to make her 
 give in to him. He had resolved on this 
 English visit ; since he felt it would be 
 for Arden's benefit to make acquaintance 
 with the relations who would be her 
 guardians in the event of his own death. 
 But after all he was still a young man, not 
 more delicate than many ; it was probable, 
 as the child had said, that he would outlive 
 his father. Nor could his old home, re- 
 visited under such changed conditions, be 
 productive of aught but painful memories 
 to him. When he had seen it last, his
 
 40 ARDEN. 
 
 wife was with him, his mother alive. 
 Now there would be a haunting emptiness 
 in every spot ; and, worst of all, he would 
 have to face the detested upstart step- 
 mother. For Arden's eake he would have 
 borne it all ; but the child did not wish 
 it — perhaps the visit, after all, was ill 
 advised. 
 
 Matters were in this condition, when, 
 about three weeks after the question began 
 to be debated, Arden entered her father's 
 studio one day, radiant, an open letter in 
 her hand. 
 
 ' Oh, papa, fancy. What do you think?' 
 
 'I'm sure I don't know, dear. Some- 
 thing pleasant ? ' 
 
 ' The Roses are coming to Venice this 
 summer. Coming in the end of June.' 
 
 ' The Roses ? Oh, your American 
 friends. Well, I'm very glad, Arden.' 
 
 ' So of course we can't go to England 
 this year ? ' 
 
 ' No ; I suppose that settles it. I
 
 A MITHEKLESS BAIRN. 41 
 
 suppose you'll want to go to Venice, eh, 
 dear ? ' 
 
 ^ Oh, papa/ 
 
 Arden danced all over the room, all 
 over the house for sheer joy. Her father 
 was painting her that morning in a white 
 dress, against a sunny white wall, the 
 sweet brilliant face and golden head the 
 only spot of colour in the picture. He 
 caught the look of dazzled joy upon her 
 face, the abandon and alertness of youth in 
 the poise of her figure ; the picture was 
 his master-piece, and created quite a sensa- 
 tion in Rome. It still remains that picture, 
 that incarnation of eager fearless youth. 
 When it was painted it was very like 
 Arden Lawrance 
 
 It was all arranged that they should 
 go to Venice. Arden took all the trouble 
 on herself, hired the apartments, engaged 
 servants ; so that her father found himself 
 at home in Venice almost as completely 
 as in Rome. As for Arden, all this time
 
 42 ARDEN. 
 
 she was wild with joy and expectation, she 
 laughed, and talked, and sang all day, and 
 then railed at the days for passing so 
 slowly. (Ah, happy days pass slowly.) 
 ' And it is still more than a fortnight to 
 the end of June ! * 
 
 ^ Terrible interval ! I must leave you 
 to bear a few days of it in solitude, too, my 
 girl.' 
 
 * Why, papa, are you going away? 
 May I not go with you ? ' 
 
 ' No, dear ; I want to paint the Campo 
 at Torcello. I shall put up with the priest ; 
 but that would hardly do for you. More- 
 over, is not Torcello a desolate feverish 
 place, with nothing to eat but pomegranates, 
 and nowhere to sleep but ruins P ' 
 
 ' Well, mind you don't take the fever, 
 papa. It would be too ignominious, after 
 living twenty years in Rome, to get 
 malaria at Torcello. Must you go to- 
 morrow ? ' 
 
 ' To-morrow morning, I think.'
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 43 
 
 ' Then I ouglit to go now and tell Gigi 
 to put you up some things. A rivederei ! * 
 and she ran away, a light white figure 
 across the dark cortile. 
 
 After her father was gone to Torcello, 
 Arden was quite alone. It had been 
 arranged that she should leave him four 
 days to work at his background, and that 
 on the fifth Gigi should punt her out in the 
 gondola to fetch her father home. The 
 first two days lagged and dragged away ; 
 it is difficult to be merry alone, away from 
 home, with nothing to do. Arden was not 
 merry, but neither was she sad. She 
 dreamed over again her Roman childhood, 
 all the years of it at least that she had 
 played away with the Roses ; and then she 
 fabricated an imaginary future in which 
 Mrs. Rose settled in Rome, and Arden and 
 Gerard and Ellie were bound together in 
 perfect companionship. But after a while 
 the pleasantest dreams cease to satisfy. 
 They are like the fairy gold which glitters
 
 4 4 ARDEN. 
 
 all night, but turns, when the sun shines on 
 it, to dust and withered leaves. 
 
 On the third morning of her loneliness, 
 the sun shone on Arden's reveries ; the 
 world outside looked white and hazy blue, 
 and brilliant and pure as only Venice 
 can look, and only Venice on a hot and 
 rather misty morning. Arden went out, 
 walked through the narrow Calles, over the 
 steep arched bridges, into the great white 
 square of St. Mark ; at the end the golden 
 cupolas shone out all yellow and burning 
 in the sunshine. 
 
 Arden went inside. They were singing 
 an office at the altar. In the choir and in 
 the smaller chapels little separate flocks of 
 women knelt and prayed. In the nave five 
 artists stood or sat in separate spots, paint- 
 ing at their easels. Nearer the door some 
 women, who had been marketing in the 
 Merceria, were resting their heavy baskets 
 on the benches, and talking volubly to a 
 white-shirted gondolier. All over the
 
 A MITIIERLESS BAIRN. 45 
 
 church people were living, not as in a 
 church, but as in a happy meeting- place 
 where each did as he liked best ; some 
 talked, some walked, some sang, some 
 prayed, some merely rested. For St. 
 Mark's is the true abbey of Thelema. 
 
 Arden's choice was to pass out of the 
 busy nave into one of the many little chapels, 
 placed some high upstairs, some down. She 
 used to like, when she was tired or lonely, to 
 get into such a quiet nook, to sit in the gloom 
 on a slab of red marble, and look out at 
 the light and colour of the church, at the 
 beautiful arches, the golden mosaics, the 
 deeply-coloured marbles, red, green, and 
 blue, the Byzantine pictures, solemn or 
 grotesque. To get to her favourite chapel 
 it was necessary to turn sharply round by 
 the rail of the chancel. Here there are 
 always a good many people, some watching 
 the service, some trying to see the mosaics 
 on the ceiling. Arden, her white dress 
 clear in the darkness, her hands crossed
 
 46 ARDEN. 
 
 lightly in front of her waist, came up the 
 twilit nave and stood a moment at the 
 corner, her head thrown back, smiling a 
 little, wondering if it would be possible to 
 pass. As she stood thus, a ray of light 
 caught her golden curls, her white dress. 
 An el-egant, sharp-featured young woman 
 leaning on the rail, half-turned towards 
 her, then turned altogether ; her pretty 
 grey eyes opened in a stare. 
 
 *Why mother, why Gerard,' she ex- 
 claimed shrilly, ' I declare if it isn't Arden 
 Lawrance ! ' 
 
 An older lady, plump, richly dressed, 
 with an elaborate coiffare ; a handsome, 
 velvet-jacketed, nonchalant youth, with a 
 sort of restrained eagerness under his non- 
 chalance ; and with the appearance of having 
 fine manners but not good breeding, all 
 came forward with outstretched hands. 
 
 ' Why, Arden dear ! ' cried Mrs. Rose. 
 
 ' Won't you shake hands ? ' said Gerard. 
 
 She was standing, her hands still
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN, 47 
 
 clasped before her, a perplexed little smile 
 hovering round her mouth. Gerard thought 
 he would like to paint her ; she had cer- 
 tainly grown very pretty ; but why did she 
 look so unreal and dreamy? Had she for- 
 gotten them? Gerard, who to tell the 
 truth had not often thought of his childish 
 playfellow during their long separation, felt 
 a sudden desire to be on terms of intimacy 
 with this slim white girl, whose shining 
 eyes and bright curls were beautiful even 
 in the dim light of the church. 
 
 * Won't you shake hands?' he said 
 again ; a little piqued by her silence. 
 
 ' Oh, is it really you ! ' she cried, look- 
 ing at all the three faces in turn. ' How 
 good of you to come so soon ! ^ 
 
 VYes, it is we! ' said Gerard smiling ; 
 it was clear, then, that she did remember. 
 
 ' It has been such a long time ! ' said 
 the girl, half-crying, half-laughing, press- 
 ing their hands as if to make sure they 
 were real.
 
 48 , ARDEN. 
 
 ' Hash, Arden dear, don't cry ! ' said 
 Mrs. Rose ; ' don't be so excited, my child. 
 Remember we're in church! ' 
 
 ^ No, I won't cry.' After a moment she 
 looked at them, including them all in her 
 sweet wistful smile, that made an apology 
 of her words. ' Of course it's different 
 to you,' she said. ' You have so many 
 friends. I know I am very silly. But 
 I didn't expect to see you for three 
 weeks ! ' 
 
 * I declare you haven't altered in the 
 least all these years,' cried EUie, who 
 thought Arden always too much given to 
 making a fuss. 
 
 'Like the Bourbons?' Arden smiled. 
 ^ At any rate I've forgotten nothing ! ' 
 
 ' No ; she is not altered in the least,' 
 cried Gerard. ' She was always the dearest 
 girl in the world ! ' 
 
 Arden smiled. ' Ellie's altered,' she 
 said. ' Do come into the light, Ellie ; I 
 want to see how pretty you have grown! '
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 49 
 
 ^I think EUie might retort,' cried 
 Gerard. 
 
 'And 1 think,' joined in Mrs. Kose, 
 ' that if you young people can't keep quiet, 
 you had better go out of church.' 
 
 ' Mother ! ' cried Ellie, shocked at so 
 much reverence ; ' one would think you 
 had never been outside Massachusetts ! ' 
 
 ' And it's not a church,' put in Gerard. 
 
 ' Church or chapel, it's a place of 
 worship,' decided Mrs. Rose. 
 
 Arden looked on wondering. She saw 
 no reason why one should not talk in 
 church. But now Gerard began again, and 
 the little drawl he spoke with seemed to 
 exaggerate itself as he talked. 
 
 ' A place of worship ! ' he cried with an 
 air of somewhat faded and languid enthu- 
 siasm. ' That is precisely what this place 
 is not. Look round: all these people, 
 chattering, flirting, chatting, sight-seeing ; 
 are they worshippers? It was not built to 
 worship in, this splendid, fantastic, irregu- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 ARDEN. 
 
 lar Temple of Colour, dim and glowing, 
 incoherently coherent like a dream. I will 
 tell you what it is ; a sign to Heaven of the 
 triumph of the world, a flaunting in the 
 eyes of God of the pomps and lusts of 
 princes. And the decadent East has con- 
 quered Christ in this mosque raised to his 
 name, yet tainted with the gorgeous sin, 
 yet hallowed with the unholy beauty of 
 Venice Meretrix ! ' 
 
 ' Gerard ! ' cried Arden. ' Oh don't 
 you remember how you used to go on 
 about the Guilia in the Braccio Nuovo ? ' 
 
 ^"Go on!" Little Goth! If that is 
 how you blaspheme my aesthetic theories, I 
 shall stop. I shall suit my conversation to 
 my hearers.' 
 
 * Ah! And what will you do? ' 
 
 ' I shall be natural,' said Gerard. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Eose and Ellie had 
 been looking round the church. 
 
 ' Dear me ! ' said the girl ; ' what a 
 great many people painting, to be sure ! '
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 51 
 
 ' I call it sheer irreverence ! ' cried Mrs. 
 Rose. ' And during service too ! ' 
 
 ' Don't be too hard upon them, mother,' 
 said her son. ' Next week you will have 
 to be equally shocked at me.' 
 
 ^ Oh, can you paint as well as talk ? ' 
 cried Arden. 
 
 ' I can paint,' said Gerard ; ' but not as 
 well as I talk.' 
 
 ' If you can paint at all, I am glad ; for 
 now you can go out sketching with papa.' 
 
 ' What a flattering scheme for getting 
 me out of the way ! But I haven't seen 
 Mr. Lawrance yet,' continued Gerard, 
 looking round. 
 
 ' Papa ! What a sharne to have for- 
 gotten him all this time. He is at Torcello, 
 painting the Campo.' 
 
 ' Torcello ; that's the Early Christian 
 island I've put down in our Itinerary,' 
 said Ellie. 
 
 ^Ah, to think it is near ! ' mused her 
 brother. ^ To me it has always seemed the 
 
 E '2 
 
 UNWtRSlTV OF \LUNC 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 ARDEN. 
 
 Ultima Thule of deserted Fairyland, that 
 weird and fever- stricken Basilica, mid-seas ; 
 the abandoned mother of dissolute, thank- 
 less Venice.' 
 
 ' Fever-stricken ! ' echoed Mrs. Kose. 
 ' Oh Arden, you've never let your father 
 go there alone ! ' 
 
 ' I am afraid I have. You see I had 
 no choice ; he said he must go and I must 
 stay ; so there was nothing to do ! ' 
 
 ' Mercy ! How European,' cried Ellie 
 in her sharp little voice. ' In our country 
 a young woman does what she thinks 
 right ; she's a responsible being every 
 time ! ' 
 
 ' But you see, Ellie, I don't know what 
 suits papa. And I don't think he will get 
 the fever ; we're Romans, you know. Be- 
 sides he has only been there two days, and 
 on Thursday I am going in the gondola 
 to fetck him home.' 
 
 ' I suppose you keep a gondola of your 
 own? ' inquired Ellie.
 
 A MITHEKLESS BAIKN. 53 
 
 'Well/ said Mrs. Rose. 'I can't feel 
 easy about that fever.* 
 
 ' 'Tis strange/ assented Gerard. ' 'Tis 
 the universal revenge of Antiquity. We 
 desert her great cities aud insult her 
 empire, and when at last we return and 
 would acknowledge her, she poisons 
 us ' 
 
 ' Torcello's not antique,' cried Ellie, 
 Baedeker in hand. ' It's a question of 
 drainage, I guess.' 
 
 Gerard did not seem to hear her. He 
 continued vaguely, ' Once the Mother of 
 Faith, now a deserted poisonous Fairyland. 
 It would' — he went on more seriously — 
 ' make a splendid metaphor if I could only 
 think of something to compare it to.' 
 
 Meanwhile Arden was speaking eagerly 
 to the elder lady — 
 
 ' Dear Mrs. Rose, won't you all go with 
 me to Torcello on Thursday? Think how 
 surprised and delighted papa would be ! 
 And you will have to see the island '
 
 54 ARDEN. 
 
 'Why certainly,' chimed in EUie, who 
 evidently managed aifairs. ' I guess we 
 can ^x it up together. We are bound to 
 visit all the sights, and you can show us 
 round, I presume.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Ellie. I'm so glad ; you 
 will come too, Gerard, won't you? Yes, 
 you must bring your sketching block. Oh, 
 fancy, how surprised papa will be ! ' 
 Arden broke into a little, silvery, child's 
 laugh of delight. 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs. Rose, ' I think it's a 
 good plan. And now, as you're all alone, 
 Arden, you must spend the day with us, 
 we'll lunch at Florian's.' 
 
 ' Ah, ves, the historic Florian ! ' mur- 
 mured Gerard, pushing back his hair. 
 
 'What's that?' asked Ellie, touching 
 Arden's arm and pointing. Arden shivered. 
 
 It was only a procession of poor old 
 men in faded crimson ; some of them 
 holding candles, some censors, some a black- 
 palled coffin ; each and all swinging their
 
 A MITHERLESS BAIRN. 55 
 
 burdens somewhat roughly. It was a pau- 
 per's funeral. They placed the coffin rather 
 hurriedly upon a bier that had been stand- 
 ing, unnoticed, waiting for the dead. At 
 this moment the foot of one of the bearers 
 slipped upon the uneven pavement, and he 
 stumbled, letting go his hold. The other 
 three old men pushed the coffin into its 
 proper place. 
 
 Arden turned a little pale, Gerard 
 saw it. 
 
 'I feel with you,' he whispered, Hhat 
 that neglected pauper's sorrow is the di- 
 vinest thing in this marvel of a church.' 
 
 ' I don't know how I feel,' said Arden, 
 ' suddenly cold and wicked, I think ; we 
 were so happy. Perhaps a cock has crowed 
 on my grave.' 
 
 Then they w^ent out to lunch at 
 Florian's.
 
 56 AEDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 there's nothing half so sweet in life. 
 
 ' I AM sure you would not forget Torcello, 
 Mrs. Rose.' 
 
 The sentence came from Arden, in 
 answer to an excuse from Thursday's 
 expedition, in which the elder lady pleaded 
 her bad memory for sights. 
 
 ' My dear girl, I have forgotten the 
 Apollo Belvedere, and the Sistine Chapel, 
 and the Joconde. Now in Boston, they 
 assured me if I could forget Joconde I 
 could forget anything, and Gerard, he seems 
 to suppose the same.' 
 
 ^ Torcello is much lovelier that the 
 Joconde.' 
 
 ' Well, that's pretty far-fetched, I guess,
 
 thehe's nothing half so sweet in life. 57 
 
 comparing a picture and a place ! ' cried 
 Ellie. 
 
 ' Yet they have both the same melan- 
 choly, supersensuous charm.' This last 
 remark came from Gerard, who was sketch- 
 ing in the window. 
 
 ' That dome is out of drawing,' observed 
 Arden, looking over his shoulder ; then, as 
 she turned round, ' But even if you did 
 forget it, Mrs. Rose, you would enjoy it at 
 the time.' 
 
 'Gather ye roses while ye may,' 
 hummed the young man ; ' what does it 
 matter if they are not the best sort for pot 
 pourri ! ' 
 
 • Gerard always tags on a meaning to 
 my argument,' laughed Arden, ' like the 
 moral in italics at the end of the fable.' 
 
 ' Which no one reads or heeds,' he 
 added. 
 
 * You young people would have a 
 better time by yourselves,' cried Mrs. Rose, 
 showing her trumps at this juncture.
 
 58 ARDEN. 
 
 ' Oh no, indeed. It is because you are 
 here we are so merry ! And we shall have 
 to take two gondolas because of papa's 
 things ; so there is plenty of room.' 
 
 * And mother could return with the 
 easels ; capital arrangement ! ' 
 
 ' It was Gerard, you know, Mrs. Eose, 
 who pretended there was no room. Can 
 you not really go ? ' 
 
 ' No, my dear, I think not.' 
 
 * I'm so sorry.' 
 
 ' What a fidget you are, Arden,' cried 
 Ellie, ' let mother go her way and we'll 
 go ours. Elderly folks don't like to be 
 dragged around seeing sights.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry,' said the girl again ; ' it's 
 settled then.' 
 
 ' Yes ; that's fixed,' decided Ellie, ' and 
 now, Arden and Gerard. I want to o^o 
 round the Ducal Palace.' 
 
 ' Not I,' said Gerard, ' this work of art 
 is more precious to me just now than all 
 the paradise of Tintoret.'
 
 there's nothing hale so sweet in liee. 59 
 
 ' Well, I don't believe I shall find the 
 way.' 
 
 ' I'm ready,' said Arden. 
 
 ' What ! ' cried the young man, ' with- 
 out one single protest do yoti submit 
 j^ourself to the yoke of Ellie's chariot ? 
 What a lack of wisdom and proper spirit ! 
 I suppose I must come too, then.'^ 
 
 ' And leave the work that is more than 
 Tintoret?' 
 
 ' But I never said more than Arden/ 
 
 They went along through brilliant^ 
 silent Venice, to the white court of the 
 palace, through the lines of gallery that so* 
 wonderfully catch up and repeat the colours- 
 of the outer world, sea-blue and sky-green^ 
 crimson and yellow and scarlet and purple 
 of the fruit-laden barges, silvery tones of 
 distance and of mist. 
 
 Even Ellie was awakened to enthusiasm. 
 
 ' It's just as lovely as it can be ! ' she 
 cried, as they slowly descended the outer 
 staircase.
 
 60 AKDEN. 
 
 Gerard roused himself from an ab- 
 stracted silence. 
 
 * Yes, that's so/ he answered ; ' such 
 hair and eyes ! ' 
 
 Arden stared. EUie frowned, and said 
 nothing. 
 
 Indeed, during those days Ellie had 
 much cause for frowning. She even con- 
 fided her fears to her mother. 
 
 ' Well, I presume, my dear,' said Mrs. 
 Rose, ' you will think him in love with a 
 baby next. The child has no manners at all.' 
 
 ' That, I fear,' said Ellie, ' is just what 
 Gerard admires.' 
 
 ^ I dare say, in a child like Arden 
 Lawrance. ISFot in a woman to fall in 
 love with.' 
 
 ' Well ; I don't believe but what he is 
 falling in love with her ! ' 
 
 * And I believe he is not. He admires 
 — all men do — something more deliberately 
 engaging, ^.ttractive, fascinating. Remem- 
 ber Miss De la Rue.'
 
 there's nothing half so sweet in life. 61 
 
 * I remember ! ' 
 
 ' Boy as he is, he would have married 
 her if she would have had him ! ' 
 
 ' All the more reason that he should be 
 dead in love with Arden Lawrance/ 
 
 ' But what am I to do, Ellie ? ' cried 
 her mother. 
 
 ' At least you must come with us every- 
 where ; to the galleries ; to Torcello. You 
 should not throw them together, Mother ; 
 it's very American. You should take us 
 about more, and make Arden talk to you 
 every time.' 
 
 ' Oh dear ! ' Mrs. Kose looked out of 
 the window. The air was quivering with 
 the intense heat ; the roof steamed ; at the 
 ferry a few gondoliers lay asleep in their 
 boats ; the sun blazed whitely, its rays 
 struck hke swords. 
 
 ' It is much too hot ! ' sighed Mrs. 
 Rose. 
 
 ' Too hot for Gerard to fall in love ! ' 
 cried Ellie, with emphatic sarcasm.
 
 €2 ARDEN. 
 
 ' Too hot for me to endeavour to prevent 
 him! ' 
 
 Mrs. Rose sank back in her cushions, and 
 took up her work. Ellie gazed at her one 
 moment, a picture of energy baffled by the 
 vis inertia ; and then might be heard in 
 the next room pulhng out drawers with 
 decision, as she dressed herself to go to the 
 Lido with her brother and Arden. 
 
 Afterwards when they had escorted 
 Arden home, she said to him, 
 
 ' Why do you spoil that child with your 
 ridiculous compliments ? ' 
 
 * Because she is not to be spoiled.' 
 
 ^ It is not fair. She will be fancying 
 you are in love with her.' 
 
 * Not at all ; she will fancy we are two 
 children on the Pincio.' 
 
 ' Or you will be falling in love with her 
 yourself ? ' 
 
 ' CM lo sa ! ' 
 
 ' It would be a shame ; it would be 
 ridiculous ; you are both too young ; you
 
 THERE S NOTHING HALF SO SWEET IN LIFE. 63 
 
 will have no career ; you will never get 
 your basis. Gerard, you must not marry 
 
 ^ Excellent adviser ! ' 
 
 ' But are you in love with her, Gerard ? ' 
 
 ' :^^ot yet ! '
 
 64 AEDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 AT THE BUSHES. 
 
 In the weedy garden at the Bushes, on 
 one fine morning, Mr. Lawrance was walk- 
 ing in the temperate sunshine. He had 
 been out but little, for the summer was late 
 and chill, and he hobbled feebly, leaning 
 on a stick, from flower-bed to flower-bed, 
 inspecting the scanty annuals and the gilly- 
 flowers all run to stalk. He was bent, 
 and walked heavily, yet without decision ; 
 but his white hair was thick yet, and his 
 aquiline face was bronzed with many 
 summers to a red brown that neither 
 sickness nor seclusion blanched. 
 
 The sun was hot, and the old gentle- 
 man but little used to exercise ; besides,
 
 AT THE BUSHES. 65 
 
 some over-careful, loving hand had wrapped 
 him round too closely in warm woollen 
 wraps. He had scarcely made the tour of 
 the half-dozen scattered beds in front of 
 the house, before a sudden giddiness seized 
 him. He tottered, stooped, and called out, 
 * Annie ! here ! ' 
 
 His voice was feeble as his pause, but 
 the faint echo had scarcely caught it before 
 a dark figure, seated in the shadow of the 
 porch, rose, let fall some work, and ran out 
 lightly to his aid. 
 
 As she leads him homewards, with 
 tender helpful words and gesture, let us 
 glance at the second Mrs. Lawrance. She 
 was a tall thin woman of fifty, flat-faced, 
 small -featured, her pale complexion pitted 
 and thickened by small-pox, her hair was 
 colourless and light, her leaden-grey eyes 
 without movement or sparkle. Even in 
 her youth she could have had no pretension 
 to be called pretty ; yet the face would 
 have been an interesting study for a 
 
 VOL. 1. F
 
 66 ARDEN. 
 
 painter ; of its sad contour, patient eyes, 
 long up-turned nose, thin cheeks, thin 
 mouth with a restrained piteous pout in the 
 upper lip, he might have made a pendant 
 to that portrait by Raffaelle, sometimes 
 called Maddalena Doni, which hangs in the 
 tribune of the Uffizzi. 
 
 Just now we see Mrs. Lawrance at her 
 best, as she stands looking on while her 
 husband rests on the wide bench in the ivy- 
 covered porch. 
 
 ' You're 'most overdone with the 'eat, 
 aren't you, dear ? ' she says, stooping down 
 to take off his goloshes. 
 
 She speaks loudly, for Mr. Lawrance is 
 going deaf, and speaks with a twang 
 which ruins her voice as the small-pox has 
 ruined her face. 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' he answers with weary 
 impatience. ' I'm getting an old man, a 
 broken -up old man, and a June morning is 
 too much for me. Ah, well ! ' 
 
 He looks down at his wife kneeling
 
 AT THE BJJSHES. 67 
 
 witli the goloshes in her hand, and goes on 
 to quote — 
 
 ' A lean and slippered pantaloon. 
 
 ' There's another scene to come yet, you 
 know, Annie. Second childishness, and 
 mere oblivion ! ' 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance had risen, and stood 
 looking at him with a sort of alarmed 
 affection ; always her expression when her 
 husband gave way to moods she could not 
 understand. And these, alas, were so many 
 moods that he, careful not to vex her, had 
 gradually receded, step by step, from his 
 old points of view, his accustomed standing- 
 place of thought, and had ended by con- 
 tenting himself with her level. So now, 
 when he caught her look, he changed his 
 tone and said, 
 
 ' Well, well, Annie, there's nothing to 
 mind .... I think I'll take my medicine 
 now. Aye ! help me in to the sofa ; I'll 
 rest a bit, and then we'll go and see when 
 the red calf '11 be fit for the butcher.' 
 F 2
 
 68 ARDEN. 
 
 He had already risen, and was taking 
 liis wife's arm, when, glancing out at the 
 bright garden, he saw the postman coming 
 up the drive. 
 
 ' Why, it's Saturday, this morning, to 
 be sure! ' he exclaimed. * I declare I had 
 quite forgotten ; my old head gets so 
 weak. Run, Annie, and fetch the Bir- 
 mingham paper ; I'll wait here.' 
 
 It is descriptive of the Bushes that it 
 was not one of those houses where, on 
 summer mornings, the postman is treated 
 to milk or cyder, so he was defrauded of 
 nothing by Mrs. Lawrance's hastening to 
 meet him on the drive. In a moment she 
 was back with, her husband in the porch. 
 
 ' Here's the paper, dear,' she said. She 
 stopped and looked at him anxiously for a 
 moment, then she went on in a slow clear 
 voice — 
 
 * There's summat else, dear, beside the 
 paper ; there's a letter, a furrin letter, 
 with a black edge, and it's not in Arden's
 
 AT THE BUSHES. 69 
 
 hand ; happen summat's come to the child, 
 or 
 
 ' There, there, give it me,' cried the old 
 man impatiently. ' Nay ! it's not John's 
 writing either. It's nothing at all, no 
 doubt, nothing at all. You women folk 
 are always so full of whims and fancies.' 
 
 His hand trembled so, nevertheless, 
 that he could scarcely break the seal. As 
 he read, his face took a drawn and haggard 
 expression. His wife drew near, and 
 while she laid her arm round his shoulders 
 to support him, looked over his shoulder at 
 the open letter. 
 
 This is what she read : — 
 
 * Casa Monier, Venice, June 14th. 
 
 ^ My dear Sir, — It is with the sincerest 
 sorrow and fellow-feeling that I break to 
 you the melancholy news of the unex- 
 pected, death of your son, and our valued 
 friend, Mr. John Lawrance. Your grand- 
 daughter, Arden, has begged me, a« her 
 oldest friend, to write to you in her stead,
 
 70 ARDEN. 
 
 for the poor child does not seem to com- 
 prehend what it is necessary to say. 
 
 ' When we arrived here, Mr. Lawrance 
 had been painting for some days at an 
 island near Venice, Torcello, and on Thurs- 
 day the 12th, two days after our arrival, 
 Arden and my son and daughter set out 
 to fetch him home. They found him 
 seriously ill with marsh fever, lying in a 
 sort of hovel, with no kind of accommoda- 
 tion for his needs. Mr. Lawrance, who 
 between the accesses of fever, was per- 
 fectly conscious, and even approximately 
 well, determined to go back with the 
 young people, and overruled all his 
 daughter's very strenuous objections. In- 
 deed, I presume it was impossible, from 
 what my son has told me, that he should 
 be left, or Arden allowed to remain, in 
 such a feverish and squalid hole. My 
 children returned at once to Venice with 
 orders that all should be ready for his 
 arrival, and I was waiting with them at
 
 AT THE BUSHES. 71 
 
 your son's house when, about eight o^clock, 
 Mr. Lawrance and Arden came home. 
 He was in a dead swoon, and for some 
 time altogether lifeless. When he awoke 
 he was in a burning fever, complicated with 
 acute inflammation of the lungs ; but he 
 retained perfect possession of his senses 
 until he passed away, quietly at the last, 
 yesterday night about half-past twelve 
 o'clock. I will not affect to ignore, my 
 dear Sir, that there has been of late a cer- 
 tain estrangement between you and your 
 son ; but, believe me, all remembrance of 
 it was forgotten on his death-bed. He fre- 
 quently spoke of you in terms of sincere af- 
 fection, and of your home, regretting that 
 he had not gone to England this summer, as 
 he intended in the spring. But the greatest 
 proof of his entire confidence in your love 
 is that he has left you guardian of his very 
 dear and lovely daughter Arden. She will 
 have but a slender fortune, scarcely enough 
 to live upon, even in the narrowest way,
 
 72 ARDEN. 
 
 and this is tied up in such a manner that 
 she cannot touch it until she be of age ; 
 she is but recently seventeen. We shall 
 be anxious to hear when it will suit you 
 to assume your guardianship over Arden ; 
 until then she will remain our welcome 
 and much-loved guest. Nor need you feel 
 as if she were thrust upon you, for though 
 it was Mr. Lawrance^s last and anxious de- 
 sire that she should live under your roof, 
 still in case from any cause you should 
 find it inconvenient to accept this charge, 
 another arrangement could doubtless take 
 the place of this. Arden sends you her 
 love, and believe me, dear Sir, with sincere 
 and heartfelt sympathy, Yours truly, 
 
 'Emily Eose.' 
 
 ' What shall you do, dear ? ' asked Mrs. 
 Lawrance, with anxious eyes. 
 
 * Poor John ! poor fellow ! ' murmured 
 the old man. ' So he has gone first after 
 all.'
 
 AT THE BUSHES. 7S 
 
 ' Them as don't honour a good father, 
 can expect no different/ replied his wife, 
 who could be as unforgiving to her enemies 
 as she was tender to those she loved. 
 
 ' Nay, nay, Annie, the poor boy's dead 
 now, and he was a good man in the main, 
 was John/ 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance contented herself with 
 looking a negative. 
 
 ^And what shall you do about his 
 darter, dear?' she asked. 
 
 ' Poor child ; of course she must come 
 home ; it will be very dull for her with 
 us old folks, I fear.' 
 
 ' If she's got any heart, she ought to be 
 grateful to her kind grandpa for giving 
 her a roof to shelter her.' 
 
 ' It's not like you, Annie, to be so hard, 
 especially when people are in trouble.' 
 
 'I'll do my best to make her happy, 
 poor girl — but she'll be sadly in the 
 way.'
 
 74 ARDEN. 
 
 ' Ah well ! And to think John should 
 be the first to go.' 
 
 They turned through the farmyard 
 gate together, not too much shaken to 
 examine the red calf.
 
 75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MASTERS OF ARDEN. 
 
 The news of Arden's coming rapidly- 
 spread through the village, and many were 
 the guesses hazarded regarding the old 
 gentleman's granddaughter. She was not 
 envied ; much pity was bestowed on her 
 by the young people of the village, who 
 regarded her isolated and removed condition 
 as the granddaughter of one of the quality, 
 whom the quality did not know, with a 
 peculiar mingling of contempt and longing. 
 Meanwhile the young ' quality ' at the 
 Hall, who were bored to death with their 
 ancestral dignities after their free-and- 
 easy social life at Leamington and Scar- 
 boro', looked for Arden's coming as one
 
 7G AKDEN. 
 
 looks for a star on a dark night — not day- 
 light, but still a light. They laid plots and 
 conspiracies to persuade their mother that, 
 though of course she could not be expected 
 to visit the old Lawrances, still the new 
 Miss Lawrance had done nothing to 
 forfeit her position, and might be encour- 
 aged to visit at the Hall. And, notwith- 
 standing her pride, Mrs. Lawrance had 
 been induced to make a half-promise, to 
 the effect that if she were pleased with 
 Arden's appearance, she would leave a 
 card for her at the Bushes and ask her to 
 tea at the Hall. 
 
 Things had been carried to this quasi - 
 successful issue, when one fine morning, 
 Georgina, the second girl, set out to accom- 
 pany her mother on a visit to some poor 
 people in the village. As they passed 
 the gate the lodgewoman had come out 
 to offer an acceptable morsel of gossip, and 
 with a certain pride in her superior infor- 
 mation, told Mrs. Masters that young Miss
 
 THE MASTERS OF ARDEN. 77 
 
 Lawrance was expected at the Bushes that 
 week. 
 
 ' Oh, mother, you will go and call on 
 her ? ' implored Georgina. 
 
 ' My dear child,' said her mother, ' I 
 shall do what I consider right, and what 
 that may be I cannot tell at present.' 
 
 ' They do say, mum, as she's expected 
 every day,' said the lodgekeeper with a 
 sense of humble authority on the topic. 
 
 ''She! indeed. I think, Mrs. Gay, you 
 had better meddle no more in your betters' 
 affairs until you know how to speak of 
 them with respect. Ignorant imperti- 
 nence ! ' and Mrs. Masters passed out of 
 the gate into the lane, drawing up her 
 long neck in disdain. Georgina walked 
 by her side, rebelliously silent. She dared 
 not contradict her mother ; she was deter- 
 mined not to be over-ridden. While her 
 mother was still intent on Mrs. Gay's 
 iniquities, the child espied the Rector 
 standing in the churchyard, in con versa-
 
 78 ARDEN. 
 
 tion with a boy who had driven a flock of 
 sheep to graze upon the graves. 
 
 ' Mamma, I am going to speak to Mr. 
 Law/ she said, and ran ahead. She soon 
 reached the lank, gaunt Rector, still mid- 
 way in his lecture. 
 
 ' Mr. Law,' cried Georgina, breathless, 
 ^ do come and persuade mamma to call on 
 Miss Lawrance. She doesn't mind for 
 anyone but you.' 
 
 The Rector turned, letting down his 
 arm, and the boy seized the occasion 
 for escape. Mrs. Masters was to be seen 
 nearing the gate with a relaxing severity 
 upon her face. 
 
 ' Well, well, my dear,' said Mr. Law, 
 *but you shouldn't interrupt people. 
 However, I will come and speak to your 
 mother.' 
 
 Mrs. Masters had already reached 
 them. 
 
 * So that child of mine is plaguing you
 
 THE MASTERS OF ARDEN. 79 
 
 as usual/ she said, and held out a friendly 
 hand. 
 
 ' She is anxious to be told about Miss 
 Lawrance/ 
 
 ' To be told about ! Have you seen 
 her?' 
 
 ' Only her likeness. She must be a 
 singularly attractive young woman I should 
 judge, and therefore an additional plea- 
 santness in the society of our neighbour- 
 hood/ 
 
 The Rector dropped his words like 
 pearls, impressively distinct. He rounded 
 the period with a benevolent smile. 
 
 ' Decidedly a welcome addition,' he re- 
 peated. 
 
 * There, mamma ! ' cried Georgina, 
 triumphing too soon. 
 
 ' We shall see what we shall see,' said 
 Mrs. Masters. 'No watering-place attrac- 
 tions for me. I believe the girl has had 
 no settled home.' 
 
 ' On the contrary, my dear friend, she
 
 80 ARDEN. 
 
 has resided all her life in Rome under the 
 guardianship of her father, an accomplished 
 artist/ 
 
 ' And none too respectable, I dare say.' 
 
 ' Well, well ! De mortuis nil 7iisi 
 honum ; and I have heard nothing to the 
 late Mr. Lawrance's disadvantage.' 
 
 Which was quite true, for the Rector 
 had seldom heard of him at all. 
 
 ' In Rome ! ' murmured Georgina ; awed, 
 impressed, with vague recollections of 
 Romulus and Horatius Codes, Mrs. Mang- 
 nall and bad marks, circling in her mind. 
 
 'But to return to Miss Lawrance,' con- 
 tinued the Rector, 'her grandfather has 
 shown me the letter of a friend of hers, a 
 lady of good American family.' 
 
 ' There's no such thing ! ' snapped Mrs. 
 Masters. 
 
 ' Well, well, my dear friend, an Ameri- 
 can lady, who describes Miss Lawrance as 
 a person of amiable character and elegant 
 accomplishments.'
 
 THE MASTERS OF ARDEN. 81 
 
 * But I thought she was a girl ! ' cried 
 poor Georgina, aghast. 
 
 ' So, my dear young friend, she appears 
 to be in point of years. In fact, I should 
 say a most suitable companion ; but she 
 has had the advantages of a continuous resi- 
 dence in the most ancient capital city of 
 Europe. She speaks, I imagine, Italian, 
 French, and probably German ; has had, 
 no doubt, the benefit of Italian masters in 
 singing and dancing — in fact * 
 
 ' If she*s quite respectable, I'll engage 
 her to give the girls some lessons,' said 
 Mrs. Masters. 
 
 ' Oh mamma ! thank you, mamma ; oh, 
 you dear old Rector ! ' shouted Georgina : 
 * and she is only a girl, really ? * 
 
 ^ Seventeen.' 
 
 * And pretty ? * 
 
 ' I should imagine most prepossessing.' 
 ' What's her Christian name ? ' 
 Mr. Law reddened a little and cleared 
 his throat. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 ARDEN. 
 
 It was, in fact, a very awkward question. 
 The good-natured Rector was anxious to 
 infuse a more friendly spirit into the young 
 people under his care ; he would be very 
 glad for the young Masters to be kind to 
 Miss Lawrance of the Bushes ; it was 
 the first step towards the better order of 
 things. But all would be lost if Mrs. 
 Lawrance learned — as the Rector had 
 learned — that young Miss Lawrance was 
 christened Arden. She would consider it 
 a vile infringement of her rights ; he did 
 not care even to imagine her indignation. 
 Nor was there any need she should ever 
 know it. The Rector, after revolving the 
 important aiFair over many an evening 
 pipe, had determined — for the sake of peace 
 »^to entreat Mr. Lawrance to call his grand- 
 daughter by her second name if she had 
 one, or to invent some plausible pet name. 
 It could have been so easily arranged, if 
 only Georgina had held her tongue. And 
 now must he tell the truth — should he
 
 THE MASTERS OF ARDEN. 83 
 
 feign ignorance or invent some chance, 
 harmless ' Mary * or ^ Sarah ' for the oc- 
 casion ? 
 
 * What is her name ?' repeated Georgina. 
 ' Why — Lawrance — of course,' said the 
 
 Rector — ' Lawrance — you know her father 
 was old Mr. Lawrance's son — the painter 
 you know. Let's see — do you sketch, 
 Georgina ? — ' 
 
 ' But I mean her Christian name ! ' 
 cried the incorrigible girl. 
 
 ' Her name,' said the Rector with the 
 accent of despair, ' her name is Arden.' 
 
 ' What ! ' cried Mrs. Masters. 
 
 ' Arden,^ stammered the Rector — crest- 
 fallen as a guilty thing. It was even 
 worse than he feared. 
 
 * Oh,' cried Mrs. Masters bitterly, ' this 
 is an end of the business. Now you know, 
 Georgina, what sort of an acquaintance you 
 rashly wished to make. The impertinence 
 of that upstart attorney, the insolence to 
 palm off my family name upon his foreign 
 
 a 2
 
 84 ARDEN. 
 
 granddaughter ! Oh, the underbred fellow, 
 he should be sent out of the parish — I should 
 like to have him thrashed. Arden, indeed 1 
 A fine Arden ! It's a degradation, I say. 
 It's a slap in the face.' 
 
 ' But, dear Mrs. Masters, consider,' 
 implored the Rector, ' it is only an instance 
 of Mr. Lawrance's bad taste. The girl did 
 not choose her name.' 
 
 ' This is a private matter, Mr. Law, and 
 not to be argued,' cried Mrs. Masters, with 
 tremendous dignity. ' I am the only judge 
 of this insult, and I consider it a blow never 
 to be forgiven. A blow, a theft I should 
 say, the theft of my ancestral name.' She 
 stopped for a moment, catching her breath 
 painfully. 
 
 ' Compose yourself, my dear friend,' 
 cried the Rector in genuine alarm. 
 
 ' Thank heaven, I never did composje 
 myself when the honour of my family was 
 at stake! ' burst out Mrs. Masters with 
 renewed acrimony. ' No, I am incapable of
 
 THE MASTERS OF ARDEN. 85 
 
 forgiving such an injustice. Listen, Geor- 
 gina, I forbid you to do so much as speak 
 in the lanes to that girl ! ' 
 
 ^ Oh mother,' wailed Georgina, * how 
 can you be so unjust ! ' 
 
 'Would you teach me justice — you — ' 
 cried Mrs. Masters, her eyes blazing with 
 anger, ' go to your room and stay there — 
 go ' 
 
 Speaking, she turned and gave her 
 daughter a vehement push to emphasise her 
 words. Georgina, fidgeting on one leg, 
 was taken unawares ; she tumbled in a heap 
 upon the grass, and though one foot was 
 caught and twisted in the hooped withies 
 that fenced in the graves, she did not move 
 it or even moan. Mrs. Masters and the 
 Rector were terribly frightened. At last 
 she began to groan, complaining of her 
 ankle, her mother, full of pity and re- 
 morse, bent over the girl, weeping tears and 
 kisses. She turned to the Rector. ' Go 
 for Dr. Carruthers,' she cried ; then bend-
 
 S6 ARDEN. 
 
 ing lower she put her arms tenderly under 
 the girFs shoulder and round her waist. 
 ' Go for the doctor/ she repeated. ' I will 
 carry her into your house until he comes/ 
 
 ' You ! ' 
 
 But already she had raised the girl, 
 and was carrying her swiftly, staggering, 
 down the side path to the rectory. The 
 Rector stopped a moment, looking after 
 the tall, imperious thin figure, rigid, 
 strained in every nerve, staggering among 
 the tombs. However much he might con- 
 demn, the Rector still admired her. 
 
 ' She is a grand woman,^ he muttered, 
 ' a grand woman, but prouder than Lucifer 
 — and she will never forgive that innopent 
 Miss Lawrance.'
 
 87 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 GOOD-BYE ! 
 
 Meanwhile Arden, in Venice, lay in a 
 sort of torpor ; never weeping, seldom 
 speaking, a wan smile mocking the miser- 
 able pallor of her face, like wintry sun- 
 shine on a grave. 
 
 Mrs. Rose was frightened at this 
 change in the gay, sensitive girl, and 
 vainly strove to rouse her from her 
 apathy ; but in truth there was nothing 
 to fear. Arden, whose life had ever been 
 wrapped round with dreams, was slow to 
 realise the whole extent of her loss. She 
 missed her father — he was gone away. 
 She felt strangely tired and unstrung. 
 But she could not understand that her
 
 88 ARDEN. 
 
 life was changed at once and for ever — 
 that henceforth loneliness, misery, must be 
 her portion. 
 
 She lay for hours on the sofa, drowsily 
 watching the gondolas that pass up and 
 down the Canalazzo. As they looked at 
 her, the Roses thought her dying of a 
 broken heart — they scarcely dared to speak 
 to her ; Gerard felt his love a profanation 
 not to be thought of till a happier season. 
 And yet Arden was not really so very 
 unhappy. Numb, inert, lifeless, she often 
 was not thinking of her grief at all, but 
 finding a dreary pleasure in counting the 
 numbers of the boats, or dreaming how 
 she would very soon be dead and with her 
 father, and how sorry they would all be 
 to lose her. Yet she had no clear realisa- 
 tion that her father was gone away for 
 ever — lying dead under the earth. She 
 fancied him bending over her couch, un- 
 seen, but near, waiting for her soul, to lead 
 it to the Paradise of Saints.
 
 GOOD-BYE ! 89 
 
 As the weeks grew on and she became 
 aware that she was not to die just yet, 
 she quickly shuffled another dream be- 
 tween her mind and her misery. She 
 looked upon herself as a messenger sent 
 by her father to console and help his 
 father in his great distress. A year or 
 two spent in unselfish ministry should 
 fit her to die and go to heaven. When 
 her grandfather's letter came, Mrs. Kose 
 handed it to her with a terrible anxiety ; 
 it was horrible to tell the child that her 
 future must be spent among strangers. 
 But Arden smiled as she read the letter. 
 
 ' It is very good of grandpapa/ she 
 said ; and Jay down again and watched the 
 boats gliding up and down the Canalazzo 
 as before. 
 
 ' But, my dear, you must do some- 
 thing ; you must decide.' 
 
 * It is all decided ; let me be.' 
 
 Mrs. Rose stood irresolute, watching 
 her.
 
 90 ARDEN. 
 
 My dear,' she said, ' if it makes you 
 very miserable, don't go. At any rate, 
 don't go yet. We shall be in Europe 
 all this year. Stay with us, my dearie, if 
 you are happier with us.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said Arden ; ' how good 
 you are ; but if you only knew how much 
 alike all things are to me now.' 
 
 ' Oh, stay with us, Arden,' said Gerard, 
 coming forward. And Ellie kissed her 
 more warmly than ever she had done 
 before. 
 
 ' Papa wished me to go,' she said. 
 
 ' Well ; perhaps it is best,' said Ellie, 
 her excellent common sense asserting itself 
 again. ' After all, it is more her place 
 than anywhere else.' 
 
 They said no more on the subject just 
 then, but often during the next few days 
 Arden would revert, quite without repug- 
 nance, to the new life she was to begin. 
 
 ' I have always been considered by 
 everyone,' she would say ; ' and now I
 
 GOOD-BYE ! 91 
 
 shall consider other people. One can be 
 useful, at least, however dead one's own 
 future seems ; and I suppose there is a 
 sort of happiness in being useful. I shall 
 make myself necessary to those kind old 
 people ; and the peasants — I shall be good 
 to the peasants in the terrible northern 
 winters.' 
 
 No word of regret for Rome ; scarcely 
 a pang at parting with her friends. Yet 
 Rome and these friends had been the in- 
 fluencing passions of her childhood. 
 
 After two or three days, in which 
 Arden showed herself quite indisposed to 
 do anything more immediate than theo- 
 rise, Mrs. Rose said to her — 
 
 ^ I think, my child, you should write 
 to your grandfather to-day.' 
 
 ' Oh yes.' 
 
 ' And Arden, dear, when you write, 
 you should give him some sort of hint as 
 to when he may expect you.' 
 
 ' Any time.'
 
 92 ARDEN. 
 
 * You would like to go to Rome, first ? 
 We are all going at the month's end/ 
 
 * Why should I go to Rome ? ' 
 
 ' To pack — arrange matters — say good- 
 bye.' 
 
 ' I am not strong enough ; the notary 
 will see to all that.' 
 
 Mrs. Rose stared — but only said, 
 
 ' Oh, I will manage things for you, 
 my darling.' 
 
 ' Thank you.' 
 
 Arden said no more, and took no part 
 in all the arrangements made for her 
 future ; her escort was provided, her 
 trunks packed, and she seemed not to 
 understand that she was going away. 
 Sitting there, her head aimlessly drooped 
 at the neck, her hands lying idly in her 
 lap, a wan remembering smile playing 
 round her mouth, no wonder that the two 
 women feared for her reason and Gerard 
 for her life. They scarcely dared to send 
 her away.
 
 GOOD-BYE ! 93 
 
 But on this point Arden was obstinate. 
 
 ' I can't be more unhappy than I am/ 
 she said, *but I'm going to try to be 
 better; I'm going to try to be of use in 
 the world at last.' 
 
 She smiled softly; it was her one com- 
 fort to think that she would lead a holy 
 life and die young, and soon be at peace. 
 That end should ennoble her short careless 
 years, and be a monument to her father's 
 memory. Henceforth she was dead to the 
 world. 
 
 And indeed she made her adieus with 
 something of the solemn apathy to all that 
 is dear and lovely felt by the nun who 
 takes the veil. She was even glad that 
 she must give up all that she cared for — 
 friends, country, companionship, art. For 
 now she was to think not how to live, but 
 how to die. 
 
 To the very young it seems so easy to 
 die. 
 
 Even when the parting came she was
 
 94 ARDEN. 
 
 scarcely moved. A little whiter, a degree 
 more sad, that was all. At the last she 
 clung to Mrs. Rose passionately, closely, 
 as we cling to whatever is dear, proven, 
 familiar, on the brink of the unknown. 
 But the next moment she was calm. 
 
 ' Good-bye, dear Ellie,' she said, ' don't 
 quite forget me ! ' 
 
 Then Gerard led her a little aside. 
 
 ' Arden,' he began, ' there's something 
 I want to tell you; something I must — 
 you'll let me come and see you? because 
 now ' 
 
 ^ Now,' said Arden solemnly, ' we can 
 only say good-bye.' 
 
 She gave him her hand with a sweet, 
 sad smile, that did not comprehend any- 
 thing but her own sorrow.
 
 95 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 
 
 The journey was in truth the best thing 
 that could have happened to Arden. The 
 way they went was strange to her ; she 
 could not remember her father by every 
 turning of the way through France and 
 Savoy, as in Italy the stones and trees 
 served to recall him. And the cool air of 
 the north put fresh spirit into her pros- 
 trate and weary body. There was a certain 
 excitement in going so far so fast ; these 
 three days of travel, made with companions 
 unassociated with other times, had no con- 
 nection, it seemed, with her past or with 
 her sorrow. They amused her a little, as 
 a show at a fair might have done. 
 
 Only when they reached London in the
 
 96 AEDEN. 
 
 rain, did she realise how great a step she 
 had taken. She was severed and set apart 
 from all things familiar and dear. To this 
 English girl her own country seemed in- 
 expressibly strange; for a long time it was 
 a surprise to her to hear the common people 
 talking English. She missed the caress- 
 ing Roman ways; the pompous meditative 
 Roman voices ; the soft sunny grey and 
 deep sapphire blue of Roman skies : the 
 very trees she knew the best would not 
 grow in this strange country. Arden, as 
 the train whirled her away from London, 
 away from the travelling- companions who 
 formed her last link with the South, was 
 overcome by an unspeakable desolation. 
 She was so tired, too. She did not want 
 just now to begin the arduous life of duty 
 she had so often pictured to herself. She 
 wanted someone to take care of her. When 
 she thought of it, how sad it was that just 
 she, who had always been so loved and 
 happy, just she should be this friendless
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 97 
 
 orphan in a strange land. She cried a 
 little, for sheer pity of herself — poor little 
 would-be saint of seventeen. 
 
 At Arden, itself, there is no station ; 
 but at Raynham, four miles away, there is 
 a roadside shed, sufficient for the meagre 
 traffic of the place. Here the train stopped, 
 and our heroine alighted. It was raining 
 hard as she stood under shelter, watching 
 her great trunks and boxes (a marvel to 
 the solitary porter) being heaped together. 
 At last they were all out ; the man wheeled 
 them across the line, Arden following sadly 
 and dismally enough. 
 
 She stood looking disconsolately about 
 her. 
 
 ' Miss Lawrance ? ' said the station- 
 master. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said. ' Is no one here to 
 meet me ? ' 
 
 ' ril go and see. Miss.' 
 
 The man left her ; she sank down on a 
 bench, half-dead with fatigue. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 ARDEN. 
 
 The man came back after a minute. 
 ' It seems, Miss, being such unked 
 weather, Mr. Lawrance thought it best 
 not to send a basket-carriage ; so French 
 the carrier's come to meet you and fetch 
 the boxes in his covered cart.* 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Arden. It all seemed very 
 forlorn — the fatigue, the rain, the dis- 
 comfort, the lack of welcome. But as yet 
 she would not lose heart. 
 
 She went out and stood, her heavy 
 mourning dress all wet and crumpled, 
 watching the two men heap her boxes into 
 the back of the cart. Then they brought 
 her a chair, and she clambered up and 
 seated herself on the broad wooden seat 
 by the side of the carrier. Then the horse 
 started, and jolting, rattling, rumbling, 
 they passed through the lanes. 
 
 ' It seems very uncomfortable,' thought 
 Arden, ' but perhaps it's the English 
 custom.' 
 
 How long the way seemed, through the
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 99 
 
 lanes bordered with hedges, with always 
 in front the same plan of little irregular 
 fields, with clumps of spongy trees, heavy 
 and lifeless in the thick air ; how very few 
 houses there seemed in the country, and 
 how small they were, those red square 
 ivied buildings, with never a tower or a 
 loggia. But the villages were pretty, and 
 the trees that overhung the lush hedges of 
 the lane. 
 
 Tired as she was, Arden's eyes kept 
 glancing up and down, from side to 
 side, eagerly examining the scene of her 
 future. 
 
 After they had gone about a mile, the 
 rain cleared off, and the country, fresh and 
 green, smelling of earth and flowers, looked 
 tenfold prettier. 
 
 ' The sun's come out to welcome you. 
 Miss,' said the carrier, with a broad grin. 
 
 ' Thank you.^ 
 
 ^ Mr. Lawrance was mortal vexed he 
 couldn't ha met you himself, but the long 
 
 H 2
 
 100 ARDEN. 
 
 spell of moistish weather's laid him up 
 again with the rheumatics.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Arden, ' is he ill? I'm sorry.' 
 
 ' Lor Miss, he pretty near alius is ill ; 
 he's an old man is Mr. Lawrance, and since 
 they sold the 'orse it's seldom he leaves the 
 'ouse. He's not so strong as he was — not 
 so strong as he was.' 
 
 She forgot that she was to be the old 
 man's consoling angel. Poor Arden ! How 
 gloomy it all sounded. She wondered 
 if it always rained, if her grandfather 
 was always ill. She remembered that 
 in Kome her dressmaker used to say 
 when it rained — * Oggi sembra una specie 
 d^Inghilterra.^ 
 
 ^ Does it always rain here ? ' she said 
 timidly. 
 
 The man looked at her and began to 
 laugh, a sort of suppressed inward chuckle. 
 
 ' Oh Lor, Miss,' he said, * you're the 
 very moral of poor Mr. John, so free with 
 his jokes, so affable, as he wor. Does it
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 101 
 
 alius rain ? ' he repeated, chuckling to him- 
 self, ' and there's the sunshine, as clear as 
 clear can be.* 
 
 At all events it was not on Ar den's 
 face. The fatigue, the gloomy news, the 
 sight of the pallid watery gleam which she 
 took for the usual English sun, and most 
 of all the allusion to her dead father, all 
 served to overwhelm her with a vague 
 dismay. She pulled down her veil to hide 
 the tears in her eyes. 
 
 They slackened pace to go up the hill 
 before Arden church. Her attention was 
 suddenly aroused by hearing voices in the 
 lane. 
 
 ' This is she, I suppose.' 
 
 ' What a shame to send the carrier's 
 cart. How like those people ! ' 
 
 ' I'm glad they have so much good 
 sense. Now, mind, Adelaide ; no making 
 friends with her ! ' 
 
 'Hush!' 
 
 She looked out. A handsome thin lady
 
 102 ARDEN. 
 
 of middle age, a pretty affected -looking 
 girl, with very arched eyebrows and a tiny 
 waist, were walking down the hill. 
 
 ^ Who are they ? ' said Arden to the 
 carrier. 
 
 ' It's Mrs. Masters and Miss Masters of 
 the Hall,' he answered, and touched his 
 cap. 
 
 'I wonder what they meant/ thought 
 Arden, wondering. Wh}^ was the girl told 
 not to make friends with her ? They could 
 know nothing about her, good or bad. 
 And when she had reflected a little on this 
 question, she recalled the tone of contempt 
 in which they had spoken of her relations : 
 'those people.' Evidently they were not 
 considered the equals of those two women, 
 and yet she had been used to have for her 
 friends people at least as refined and con- 
 siderable. She felt a certain indignation — 
 which was diverted, however, a little to- 
 wards her own kin, when she reflected 
 that even those rude, haughty passers-by
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 103 
 
 had looked upon it as an insult to fetch her 
 in a carrier's cart. It was all a mystery of 
 painful strangeness, forlornness, anticipated 
 humiliation. 
 
 Would the cart never get to its journey's 
 end? 
 
 'Are we nearly at the Bushes?' she 
 asked. 
 
 ' Them two red chimbleys, Miss, over 
 the hill — that's the Bushes. Only ten 
 minutes, and we're there.' 
 
 Arden saw the chimneys, but not the 
 hill, and would have wished herself miles 
 away. She could feel her heart beating 
 with anxiety and dread. 
 
 They turned a sudden corner, passed 
 a clump of trees, and came to a white gate, 
 to a long neglected drive arched over here 
 and there with apple trees, bordered with 
 overgrown laurels. A few flowers were 
 running to seed in the borders ; dande- 
 lions, plantains, and chickweed cropped up 
 among the gravel. The man got down
 
 104 ARDEN. 
 
 and hooked back the gate. Then the cart 
 jogged up the drive. 
 
 ' Here you are, Miss/ said the man. 
 
 And now the house was in view. 
 
 A rambling low verandahed house, half 
 modern stucco, half old red brick, all of it 
 clambered over and covered with ivy and 
 roses, clematis and Virginia creepers. The 
 cart dragged heavily through the gravelled 
 drive and stopped at the locked door. 
 The bell was broken, and for a long time 
 they could make no one hear. 
 
 It was getting dark and even cold. 
 
 'Belike they're all upstairs in the old 
 gentleman's room,' bethought the carrier 
 finally; and he threw some stones up at 
 the window round the corner. Then a 
 light moved — a step crossed the hall — 
 she could hear some one unbolting the 
 door. 
 
 ' Who's there ? ' cried someone. 
 
 ' It's Miss Lawrance,' said the carrier. 
 
 Then the door opened, and a pale thin
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 105 
 
 woman came out, dressed shabbily, even 
 meanly, in a cotton petticoat and jacket. 
 
 ' It's the housekeeper, I suppose,' 
 thought Arden, and she made no advance. 
 
 But the woman came up to her and 
 kissed her. 
 
 'Welcome, Arden dear,' she said. 
 ' Come in, child ; you must be cold and 
 tired. I've made a fire in the dining 
 room, and kept the dinner late for you. 
 Come, dear, Gay '11 see to your boxes.' 
 
 Arden went in. There was a candle in 
 the hall, and she could dimly see the plain 
 and shabby woman who led her in. She 
 could see, as she was led to her room, that 
 the house was shabby too. The handsome 
 carved hall chairs that had been broken 
 long ago remained unmended ; the balus- 
 trade of the stairs was loose ; in her large 
 and pretty bedroom two of the window- 
 sashes were broken. 
 
 ' You must bolt the door, dear,' said 
 Mrs. Lawrance, ' for we've mislaid the key.'
 
 106 ARDEN. 
 
 ' I've had a good bright fire made, you 
 see,' went on Mrs. Lawrance, as she helped 
 the tired girl to take off her cloak and hat, 
 ' for grandpa's been so ill aal day, he can't 
 see you to-night — and I thaat you'd be 
 glad to retire early,' said Mrs. Lawrance. 
 
 Arden turned round suddenly, and 
 threw her arms round her. 
 
 ' How good you are ! ' she cried. ' I've 
 been so lonely,' and all her dismays and 
 trouble melted in a flood of tears. Ah, 
 now she thought she had found safety 
 and shelter and love ; she had an aim in 
 life again. If the house were dull, if her 
 life would be lonely, welcome and dear 
 should such a life be to her, since love 
 would be with it, love given and received. 
 She would be like a light in the dark, like 
 sun in winter, to her grandfather and his 
 wife ; she would amply repay and over- 
 pay the debt of love she meant to owe 
 them. You see she was still very young 
 and a spoiled child ; little self-reliant, eager
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND. 107 
 
 for love and praise, vain, too ; and with so 
 little of the dramatic power of sympathy 
 that she could not understand natures and 
 situations different from her own ; never 
 guessing that to this elderly devoted couj)le 
 the intrusion of a young imperious life into 
 their cherished quiet was as a light that 
 dazzles, as a sun that wearies and destroys. 
 She threw her arms round Mrs. Lawrance's 
 neck and cried there, sure of being loved 
 and soothed. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance soothed her, gently, 
 too, and kindly. But she was alarmed. 
 What could she do, busy preoccupied 
 woman that she was, with an hysterical, 
 fanciful young lady in the house ? All 
 the time she was speaking softly to Arden, 
 as one speaks to a crying child, she was 
 half- unconsciously wishing that her hus- 
 band^s granddaughter had been a stout 
 able farmer's daughter, taking things 
 quietly, and exacting and giving little 
 besides assistance. ^Now I'll leave you,
 
 108 AEDEN. 
 
 Arden,' she said. ' I've got to see to the 
 dinner. You'll be easier, most likely 
 child, when you've eaten summat.' 
 
 She went out, softly closing the door. 
 
 Arden curled herself up on the rug — 
 she leaned her head upon her hand, and 
 looked into the flame. The depression of 
 the journey had suddenly cleared off — ^her 
 temperament, keenly alive but dreamy, 
 sprang up with a sudden rebound to her 
 old level of light-heartedness. 
 
 ^ I am going to be good and happy,' she 
 said. ' I am going to try and fill papa's place 
 to them, though they cannot fill it to me.' 
 
 She imagined all the things she would 
 undertake ; how useful she would be, how 
 English, how unlike anything she ever 
 had imagined. Through all her pleasant 
 visions of self-sacrifice ran a thread of 
 naive self-congratulation at being able to 
 fill so ably such an unexpected role. 
 
 ' If Gerard and EUie could only know ! ' 
 she exclaimed once.
 
 m A STRANGE LAND. 109 
 
 And then she forgot her fancies and 
 fell back on memory. 
 
 The tears were filling her eyes again, 
 when Mrs. Lawrance tapped at the door 
 and summoned her to dinner.
 
 110 ARDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 A NEW LIFE. 
 
 Arden woke up tlie next morning refreshed 
 and expectant. She got up quickly, and ran 
 downstairs into the sombre old dining- 
 room ; no sign of life there yet ; the clock 
 pointed at half- past six. She heard a 
 clatter in the kitchen, but there she did 
 not venture. So she unlocked the front 
 door and went out into the garden. 
 
 Outside it was as pretty as possible, so 
 fresh and bright. The sunbeams glanced 
 off the wet sharp edges of the laurel- 
 leaves ; they looked as bright as spears. 
 All the birds that sing in that season were 
 tuning up. The newly-opened flowers 
 were moist, and fresh, and sweet beyond
 
 A NEW LIFE. Ill 
 
 comparison. Above the green meadows, 
 between the trees, bluish and white mists 
 were still hanging in soft wreaths. 
 
 Life, too, in such a moment, seems a 
 bud of uncertain promise ; the birds first 
 practising notes before the song, the 
 fragrant misty morning which heralds in 
 the day of storm and the day of ripening 
 sun alike. 
 
 That morning the freshness and strange- 
 ness of things had driven Arden's sorrow 
 out of sight for an hour, as there comes 
 sometimes a lull in sharp pain, during 
 which the pillows are softer, the air 
 sweeter, the view out of the window more 
 full of meaning and colour than ever it 
 was before. Something of this renewed de- 
 light in life had fallen for a moment to 
 Arden's lot. She walked down the lane, 
 her head thrown back, singing very softly ; 
 the fresh keen air struck a colour up her 
 cheeks. In her black clothes she looked 
 very young, and delicate, and fresh ; like a
 
 112 ARDEN. 
 
 spring day before the trees begin to bud. 
 She did not hear a sound to tell of anyone 
 near at hand, or she would have stopped 
 her singing ; she did not see anyone, or she 
 would not have flourished the long sprays of 
 honeysuckle she had gathered in the hedge. 
 Yet she was seen and overheard ; and to 
 one person the thought of her was always 
 coloured by that first impression ; to one 
 person she would henceforth remain a 
 creature of frail, unearthly loveliness, 
 crowned with golden hair, with a face like 
 a blossom, a voice that was a song, a step 
 springing with youth and grace, her hands 
 full of flowers, her eyes full of light, yet 
 clad in heavy, deep, black mourning ; a 
 creature to be loved but not to love, her- 
 self impervious to all earnest passion ; only 
 clothed with loss and misery and sorrow 
 and love foregone, not changed through 
 and through by the experience of these 
 things. 
 
 Meanwhile Arden, unaware what im-
 
 A NEW LIFE. 113 
 
 pressions of her were taking shape, went 
 singing down the lane, while on the other 
 side the hedge Farmer Williams forgot his 
 fields of corn in looking after that golden 
 head. But Arden did not know, and had 
 she known would have paid no heed. She 
 went down the lane till it turns sharply 
 below the canal-bridge, and there suddenly 
 a choking in her throat, a mist in her eyes, 
 a pang in her very heart, took away again 
 her short-lived gladness. 
 
 ' You don't know what it's like, Arden ; 
 those green villages, the red little thatched 
 houses nestling under great oaks and elms ; 
 the green where the geese feed and the 
 boys play cricket, with a pond at one end 
 for the ducks ; the village inn with its 
 great swinging sign — I often think I 
 should like to see it again.' 
 
 She seemed to hear her father's voice 
 distinctly repeating the words she so well 
 remembered, but she would never, never 
 feel again the loving pressure of the arm 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 ARDEN. 
 
 that held her when she heard them. Her 
 father was dead. The thought struck 
 Arden with a terrible shock, familiar as it 
 was. Dead ! She could not cry ; she 
 seemed deafened, dumb, bruised, lifeless ; 
 she sank on a large stone under a tree, and 
 let the cruel memories surge in upon her 
 wave on wave. If her father had come to 
 Arden he would not have died. Oh, it 
 was terrible ; there was something worse 
 behind, among these fearful cloudy 
 thoughts — she would not think it. She 
 rose wildly from her seat and began walk- 
 ing homewards quickly, almost running, 
 with a vague childish purpose of leaving 
 her troubles behind her, like a dropped 
 burden, by the white stone on the village 
 green. 
 
 She soon reached home, and found the 
 breakfast-table spread and her grandfather 
 waiting for her ia the big leathern chair 
 by the hearth. There was sufficient like- 
 ness to her father in the kindly indolent
 
 A NEW LIFE. 115 
 
 old face to make Arden's eyes fill with 
 sudden tears. There were sufiicient traces 
 of his son in Arden's slight, tall figure and 
 delicate air to make her grandfather sharply 
 realise that this was no stranger he had 
 taken to his hearth, but a living reminder 
 of forgotten losses long supplanted, a 
 keeping open of old wounds, a survival of 
 a past which he had chosen long ago to 
 bury out of sight. 
 
 For a moment he thought of that past 
 with renewed tenderness, talking to Arden 
 of her father, his son. They spoke of old 
 times. The hours glided by, and Arden 
 almost felt she possessed her happiness 
 again, recalling it thus. As the sun grew 
 high, they left the house and sat talking, 
 like old friends, in the cool verandah. 
 Mr. Lawrance, roused to more interest 
 than he had shown for years, heard the 
 history of his son's life, of his pictures, and 
 their success ; of his home, of his death- 
 bed ; and he, in his turn, told Arden about 
 I 2
 
 116 ARDEN. 
 
 her father's youth, about her mother, what 
 they had all said and done together in this 
 very house where she had come to live, 
 under this very verandah where she was 
 sitting. 
 
 Indeed, a passer-by would have thought 
 it a typical scene of home life — the old 
 man, the young girl talking together 
 earnestly ; Mrs. Lawrance, with her great 
 basket of needlework, sewing busily a 
 little apart. 
 
 Only, if she had lifted her eyes from 
 her work, one would have seen an ominous 
 pale gleam in them ; have noticed how the 
 lips were pressed into a thin white line, 
 how her cheeks burned as she looked on, 
 unheeded, while this young girl, this 
 stranger who had never nursed him, filled 
 her husband's mind, filled it to the brim 
 with recollections of a time, a life, in which 
 she had no past, which was her enemy, 
 which would have disowned her, cast her 
 out.
 
 A NEW LIFE. 117 
 
 Meanwhile, quite unconsciously Arden 
 and Mr. Lawrance went on talking. 
 
 ' And did John really ever speak of 
 coming to see me ? Poor fellow, poor 
 fellow ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; he used to speak of the 
 village ; say he should like to see it again, 
 and, grandpapa, he always used to say 
 that you would keep a home and a welcome 
 for me.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay ; he might well be sure of 
 that ; we've always got a welcome here 
 for those who want us. Haven't we, 
 Annie ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance did not answer, but her 
 silence passed unnoticed. 
 
 ' I wish he had come, John. I suppose 
 he got to look quite an elderly man ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, no ; no one was ever so handsome 
 as papa ; none of the people in Rome.' 
 
 ' Ay, he was a handsome lad, more like 
 his mother than like me. She was so 
 proud of him. Ah, well ! '
 
 118 ARDEN. 
 
 The old man sighed. Arden drew her 
 chair closer. 
 
 ' I think you are like him, too, grand- 
 papa.' 
 
 ' Ah, child, it's a sad thing to live out 
 all one's interests ; but, there, have you 
 got a likeness of John ? ' 
 
 ' Of papa ? see here.' 
 
 She unclasped a locket thrust into her 
 dress, revealing a handsome, refined, in- 
 dolent face. She showed it to her grand- 
 father. 
 
 ' He was so good,' she sobbed out. 
 
 ' Poor fellow ; poor John ! And he 
 was getting on so well, you say ? ' He 
 took the little locket, and looked at it 
 silently for some minutes. Mrs. Lawrance 
 got up hurriedly and came towards them, 
 as if to look too. Suddenly she dashed 
 the locket out of the old man's hand on to 
 the gravel. 
 
 ' He was a bad son,' she cried ; ' a cruel 
 son ! '
 
 , A NEW LIFE. 119 
 
 Arden started to her feet. 
 
 ^ For shame ! How dare you, how 
 dare you ? Grandpapa ! ' 
 
 She came up to him pale, aghast, hold- 
 ing the arm of his chair. 
 
 ' She doesn't mean it, child,' cried Mr. 
 Lawrance. ' Annie, tell the child at once 
 that you didn't mean to hurt her.' 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance stood quite still, im- 
 passive to all appearance ; but a tumult of 
 pride, remorse, hatred, and jealousy was 
 raging in her heart. She said nothing, 
 but continued looking at the most distant 
 fields. 
 
 ' Do you hear ? ' said Mr. Lawrance, 
 sternly. 
 
 ^ After aal, I am your wife ! ' she said. 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' said Mr. Lawrance testily, 
 ' of course you are. And I never regretted 
 it til] now. It's your own fault, Annie, if 
 I'm angry with you, and it is ungrateful, 
 and unwomanly, and un wifely in you.' 
 ' Ah ! ' she gasped. ' I'm sorry.'
 
 120 AKDEN. 
 
 ' There, there/ went on the old gentle- 
 man, discomfited by his wife's bitter smile 
 and Arden's frightened face, ' that's right, 
 Annie. We're friends again now, friends 
 again now.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry to have ever grieved you,' 
 interrupted his ^^ife ; ' it is not your faalt. 
 It is her's ; that child's. She is taking my 
 life away with her memories and her in- 
 terests ! But there ; you'd better go, child. 
 I don't want to hurt you.' 
 
 ' There, there, be quiet, Annie,' cried 
 poor perplexed Mr. Lawrance. ' Perhaps 
 you'd better do as she says, Arden, child. 
 She's overstrained, hysterical. She's not 
 very well, I think. She doesn't mean you 
 any harm, but perhaps you'd better begin 
 your unpacking.' 
 
 He turned towards his wife, who had. 
 sunk back on the bench. Arden turned 
 away. So this was the beginning of her 
 mission ! 
 
 She went into her own room, and sat
 
 A NEW LIFE. 121 
 
 down on one of the ranged unopened 
 boxes. She felt, strange to say, more 
 wounded by her grandfather's calm dis- 
 missal than by Mrs. Lawrance's bitter 
 words. Anger, at least, is not indifference ; 
 and to her grandfather she had been con- 
 sciously affectionate — and he had dismissed 
 her. 
 
 She had been used to a diflPerent return 
 for her affection, for she had been all her 
 life a spoilt child, loved and worshipped. 
 How surprised, she thought, they would 
 be, those old people, could they know how 
 she had been cared for in Rome. Then 
 softer feelings came ; she resolved to think 
 no more of herself; she would be loving, 
 and helpful, and necessary to them, 
 despite their hardness. 
 
 At last she heard a knock at the 
 door. 
 
 She started ; she wanted to tell the 
 person outside to enter ; it added a new 
 force to her sense of the strangeness and
 
 122 ARDEN. 
 
 newness of everything, that she really did 
 not know how to say it in English ; never 
 having spoken English, save in conversa- 
 tion with her equals, in all her life. 
 
 ^ Forwards ! ' ventured Arden. 
 
 The knock was repeated. Arden, de- 
 spite her forlornness, began to laugh. She 
 went to the door herself and opened it ; 
 the little servant stood outside. 
 
 ' Please, miss,' she said, ' master says 
 this, will you come down to tea, miss, 
 or will you have it sent upstairs ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, come, I'm not a punished child. 
 Say I'll be down in a minute.' 
 
 She walked downstairs with a very 
 stately air. 
 
 * I'm glad to see you're so sensible, 
 Sylvia,' said her grandfather. ' Come and 
 get your supper, there's a good girl.' 
 
 ^ Sylvia ! ' she stared at him with 
 widening eyes 
 
 Mr. Lawrance looked at his wife ; she 
 said nothing.
 
 A NEW LIFE. 123 
 
 * It seems, my dear/ he began, a little 
 disconcerted ; ^ it seems, my dear, Arden — 
 Sylvia, I mean — the rector has told us 
 this afternoon that Mrs. Masters of the 
 Hall is very much affronted at your 
 bearing her family name ; she's a quick- 
 tempered woman, but she's the principal 
 person of the place ; and it's as well, my 
 dear, coming into a new place, that you 
 should make friends with — with ' 
 
 ' The Mammon of unrighteousness,' 
 finished Mrs. Lawrance, concluding the 
 quotation with perfect gravity. 
 
 Arden began to laugh. ' Poor Mrs. 
 Masters ! ' she said. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance looked inexpressibly 
 shocked ; but she said nothing. The old 
 gentleman explained : — 
 
 ' My wife doesn't like to hear the Bible 
 laughed at, Arden,' he said in the tone 
 of an esprit fort^ not himself outraged, 
 but careful of the sensibilities of tenderer 
 spirits.
 
 124 AEDEN. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said Arden, with 
 a quaint little foreign bow ; then, turning 
 to her grandfather, ' And so Mrs. Mas- 
 ters doesn't like my name ? ' 
 
 ' No, no, she's a queer-tempered woman ; 
 it seems she knocked down Miss Georgina 
 and half-broke her ankle because the child 
 said she'd like to know you.' 
 
 ' What a charming acquaintance ! ' 
 
 ' Well ; she's a woman of very good 
 birth, the last of the Ardens of Arden. 
 She's a right to be proud.' 
 
 ' Pride is a mortal sin,' said Mrs. 
 Lawrance. 
 
 ' Especially when it breaks one's chil- 
 dren's bones,' added Arden. 
 
 ' Well, well ; don't let us judge our 
 neighbours,' said the old man. ' Judge 
 not, you know, that ye be not judged. 
 I'm not one for being hard on people's 
 frailties.' 
 
 ' That you're not, dear,' said his wife, 
 and, with a new sweeter look on her face.
 
 A NEW LIFE. 125 
 
 and a smile that included even Arden, she 
 said, ' YouVe got a good grandfather, 
 Sylvia ; you may thank God for that ! ' 
 
 Arden, a little impatient of this devo- 
 tion, turned to her grandfather — 
 
 ' And am I to change my name to 
 please a woman I never heard of? ' she 
 asked a little sharply. 
 
 ^Sylvia's a pretty name,' replied Mr. 
 Lawrance. ' And to call you " Arden,'' 
 here, has about as much sense or meaning 
 as to call you " Parish Church." ' 
 
 ' Besides, it's your own name, you 
 know, Sylvia ; we don't choose it out for 
 you,' added Mrs. Lawrance. 
 
 ' Trae,' said the girl. ' Call me Sylvia 
 then ; Arden was quite a different person.' 
 
 ' That's right,' cried Mr. Lawrance, 
 glad to be rid of the discussion. 
 
 But his wife's heart failed her a little 
 (for she was very tender to visible suf- 
 fering) at sight of the girl's whitened 
 face.
 
 126 AEDEN. 
 
 ' Don't take it so to heart, dearie,' she 
 said. 
 
 ' Oh, no ; I don't take it to heart,' 
 answered Arden. 'Better the new name 
 with the new hfe.'
 
 127 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 
 
 Meanwhile that very evening a more 
 comfortable supper-party — also of three 
 persons — was chatting, eating, and drinking 
 at the next house down the lane. There 
 was no prettier room in Arden than the 
 Williams's big, brown wainscotted parlour. 
 You went down two oak steps into it, and 
 the three square windows were on a level 
 with the stocks and gillyflowers and gay 
 striped roses of the flower garden outside. 
 At the other a staircase, also of oak, led 
 to the upper storey. The room itself was 
 wainscotted nearly to the ceiling, where a 
 broad oaken beam supported the plaster ; 
 and at the door- ward side of the- huge,
 
 128 ARDEN. 
 
 overlianging chimney, a broad oak settle, 
 high in the back, fenced off all danger 
 of draught. Under the windows there 
 was a heavy old chest like a Florentine 
 cassone, cushioned at the top for a seat, 
 while if you lifted up the lid, piles of 
 white lavender-scented table-linen revealed 
 its second purpose. It was pleasant in 
 summer days to sit on the red cushion 
 with the flowers waving through the 
 window on a level with one's face. Over 
 head hung a canary cage, and on either 
 side of the chest, a sewing machine on a 
 stand and a little work-table told that 
 the parlour was a woman's sitting-room. 
 There was also set beside an oaken linen- 
 press, a little curly velvet sofa placed so 
 as to secure the light from the windows 
 and the warmth from the fire. The tall 
 upright clock was faced by a cottage 
 piano with Handel's ' Messiah ' open on the 
 ledge ; the old bureau had its glazen-faced 
 shelves well-filled with books ; and a
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 129 
 
 volume of ' Poesies choisies,' some French 
 school books and prizes, an odd number of 
 Michelet's ' History of France,' Carlyle on 
 * Hero-worship/ and ' The Mill on the Floss,' 
 stood shoulder to shoulder there with the 
 ^ G-uide to Farriery,' some books on farm- 
 ing, and the Family Bible. This contrast 
 between the hereditary possessions of the 
 family and the tastes of its present 
 members, gave a pleasant character and 
 homeliness to the parlour. 
 
 Although it was summer-time, a little 
 gaily-blazing fire lit up the depths of the 
 chimney, and made pleasant lights and 
 shadows on the crimson hangings. It 
 flickered, mingling with the dim light of 
 the fading day, on the faces of two women 
 and a man, who, having finished supper, 
 still lingered at the table talking. By the 
 uncertain light you would have called 
 Harry Williams an ugly man, for he was 
 square, short, and heavily-built, with a 
 thick neck and large head; his handsome 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 ARDEN. 
 
 frank blue eyes, his firm and smiling 
 mouth and ruddy skin were all in shadow ; 
 but such was the magic of his pleasant 
 smile that by daylight you would have 
 thought him a likely fellow. The woman 
 facing him, his step-mother, belonged to an 
 opposite type. A draper ^s clever daughter, 
 ' finished ' at a cheap convent-school in 
 Belgium, she had essayed semi-gentility as 
 a nursery-governess ; but her health broke 
 down while she was teaching the children 
 of a former Rector of Arden, and then 
 Harry's father, chief farmer and organist 
 of the parish, had asked her, for the third 
 time, to marry him. This time she ac- 
 cepted him as a pis- alter ^ and her decision 
 made Edward Williams very happy. He 
 was of a weaker nature than his son, more 
 of a seeker after ideals, and to him the 
 Vicar's pretty governess appeared a crea- 
 ture indefinably rare, refined, and elevated. 
 She brought her second-rate accomplish- 
 ments, her cheap piano and French convent
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 131 
 
 prizes, to make the Paradise her husband 
 looked for. He did not find it in his love, 
 this ideal existence ; then he went to the 
 alehouse, and certainly he did not find it 
 there. Harry, a lad of fourteen, set to 
 work to stop this madness, and his force of 
 will and patient love were strong enough 
 to save his father from the habitual degra- 
 dation of an unconquered evil habit. 
 
 Mrs. Williams made no difficulty about 
 accepting his penitence : she did not look 
 for ideals, and flourished well enough in 
 the plenteous well-to-do existence of her 
 married life, without asking or giving a 
 great degree of affection, and generally 
 acting upon the principle of letting well 
 and ill alike alone. During this St. 
 Martin's summer of peace and domestic 
 comfort, ten years after their marriage, 
 Susie was born. The baby did even more 
 than the imperious Harry in keeping her 
 father from the alehouse ; but the man's 
 health was already ruined. One wet
 
 132 AKDEN. 
 
 spring an epidemic of typhus devastated 
 the village ; Farmer Williams was among 
 the first to die. Harry then was left the 
 master of a farm, deteriorated by long 
 mismanagement, the only protector of a 
 sickly, incapable step-mother, and a child 
 of eight years old. 
 
 As Susie grew older she strengthened 
 his hands ; of a subtler, more eager, more 
 enthusiastic character than her brother, 
 she possessed much of his energy, decision, 
 and practical activity. She had a mind 
 that grew in all directions like a wtl^- 
 rounded tree ; from her mother she learnod 
 all the mother had to give, taking the 
 means from her and turning them to other 
 ends. She learned to play, and discarded 
 Sydney Smith for Handel ; learned French, 
 and laid aside the 'Poesies choisies,' for an 
 odd volume of Michelet's ^ History of 
 France,' that had been given her by a 
 visitor at the Rectory, interested in the 
 quaint little girl who played the organ at the
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 133 
 
 week-day practices. This book, then some 
 volume of Carlyle, bought with hardly- 
 kept savings ; then a novel of George 
 Eliot's — these had been the events of one 
 side of her life. Equally important, in 
 another way, was the gradual reform of 
 the dairy management, the saving and 
 superiority of the housekeeping since, at 
 fifteen, the intrepid little Susie had taken 
 it upon her shoulders. The brother and 
 sister went together like two good horses 
 in harness, with an equal pace to one end : 
 the ameliorating of their inherited condi- 
 tion. The mother, with facile stand-aloof 
 affection, looked on idly, did not compre- 
 hend, but applauded. 
 
 All in all, it was a close-knit and happy 
 family circle. 
 
 They were talking together this even- 
 ing, talking of Arden of course. 
 
 * Poor girl,' cried Mrs. Williams, sigh- 
 ing, ' to be condemned to Arden after the 
 gay world ! '
 
 1 34 AKDEN. 
 
 ' She didn't seem to pine this morning/ 
 said her step-son, rather grimly. 
 
 ' I daresay ; she doesn't know what it 
 means yet, a country life, an English 
 comitry life ! ' 
 
 Mrs. Williams sighed again, feeling her 
 superiority in experience. 
 
 ^ If she's a good girl, she'll find plenty 
 to do at the Bushes,' said Susie ; ' they've 
 sadly mismanaged things, those two old 
 people. The carrier says he nearly always 
 brings half their butter back unsold ; and 
 we — we can't make half enough.' 
 
 ' Ah, you can't expect every girl to be 
 as clever as Susie,' cried Mrs. Williams, 
 ' and such a student, too ! ' 
 
 ' She's, maybe, better at book-learning 
 than at dairy-work — Lawrance's maid,' said 
 Harry. ' The parson tells me she's lived 
 all her loife in Rome, among artists and 
 such-like, — her father was an artist.' 
 
 ' In Rome ! ' Susie's eyes blazed with 
 historic memories and wonder.
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 135 
 
 ' Is she a Catholic ? ' asked Mrs. 
 Williams. 
 
 ' I doant know. We shall see o' Sun- 
 days. Folk '11 look more at her than at 
 their neighbours' bonnets to-morrow.' 
 
 ' You shouldn't speak so Warwickshire, 
 Harry. I declare I'm quite ashamed of 
 you ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Williams. 
 
 ' Why shouldn't I speak Warwickshire ? 
 It 'ud be odd if I spoke different ; the 
 Williamses have lived in this house and 
 farmed Warwickshire land for over two 
 centuries. I'm too proud to think shame 
 o' them and my county.' 
 
 ^ And what will the like of this Miss 
 Lawrance think of you ? She'll fancy 
 you're no better than a farm -servant.' 
 
 ' Oh, mother, we shan't be troubled 
 with Miss Lawrance's opinions. We're not 
 gentlefolk ! ' cried Susie, a little bitterly. 
 
 ' At any rate your mother's no mere 
 housekeeper, like Mrs. Lawrance.' This 
 was true, and in so different a sense from
 
 136 ARDEN. 
 
 that which Mrs. Williams had intended, 
 that there was no help for laughing. All 
 three joined in a peal of good-natured 
 hilarity. 
 
 ' Dear little mother ! ' cried Susie, cock- 
 ing her head on one side to observe more 
 critically the slender and faded prettiness 
 of her mother. 
 
 ' Ay, she wasn't made for dairy work,' 
 joined in Harry ; who had the odd sort of 
 delight in his step-mother's incapability 
 that able men often find in peculiarly help- 
 less women. 
 
 ' Miss Lawrance is just such a nesh 
 one, I should think ! ' he exclaimed. 
 
 *Well, that settles the question pro 
 tern. ! ' cried Susie, ' and now I must get to 
 my work. Mother, how am I to translate : 
 -' Liege allait faire rendre gorge aux pro- 
 cureurs de I'eveche ? " ' 
 
 Mrs. Williams' withered French was not 
 equal to the demand, and as usual Susie 
 had recourse to the dictionary, without the
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 137 
 
 least diminution in her reliance on her 
 mother's attainments. For a good hour she 
 was lost in translating, with the difficulty 
 of a self-taught person, with the lack of 
 spontaneity of one who reads in a dead 
 language, Michelet's account of the sack 
 of Dinant. She was determined to pass 
 the Cambridge examination, to take her 
 certificate ; and some time, when Harry 
 was married, when there would be no more 
 need or place for her at home, she would 
 go and teach, she would go and learn, would 
 live with cultivated people, travel perhaps ; 
 she would earn and save, and set up an 
 efficient school for girls ; and her mother 
 •should come and live with her ; thus she 
 would pass a useful noble life. These were 
 Susie's long-loved dreams, though of late 
 they had not quite satisfied her, and had 
 seemed to lose their savour. Meanwhile 
 her brother made up his accounts, and Mrs. 
 Williams lay on the sofa and talked, hum- 
 ming softly to herself, with characteristic
 
 138 ARDEN. 
 
 disregard of the occupations of busier 
 people. So the evening passed and brought 
 the night ; and the night — welcome to early- 
 rising country people — the night passed also 
 and brought the most eventful day of the 
 week, Sunday. 
 
 A country Sunday in summer, an Eng- 
 lish country Sunday ; the fields are still, 
 no figures move, no voices are heard among 
 the waving ranks of the ripening corn ; 
 only placid animals populate the pasture 
 lands still vivid with the green of after- 
 math ; the movement, the voices of the 
 work-a-day world are stilled. Over all is 
 an imusual repose. Repose, but not silence. 
 
 There are no carts in the fields, no 
 working reapers and gleaners ; but see on 
 the road, family by family, at unequal in- 
 tervals, all alike, rich and poor, saunter 
 along the same way. There are no voices 
 in the fields, but over the twitter of the 
 children picking flowers in the hedge -rows, 
 over the sedater talk of the mothers and
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 139 
 
 fathers walking on before, over the song of 
 the birds and the lowing of the cattle, a 
 sound, a clang, a peal of bells announces 
 the holiday. 
 
 Arden woke up on Sunday morning 
 refreshed, expectant. She came downstairs 
 with a bright winning face. 
 
 ' Good morning, Sylvie/ said Mrs 
 Lawrance. 
 
 ' Good morning. How is grand- 
 papa ? ' 
 
 ' He's better this morning. Ill make a 
 shift to take you to church, as it's the first 
 time.* 
 
 ' That's very good of you. I do want 
 to see all the people, and to hear who they 
 are.' 
 
 ' Don't talk at random, child. If you 
 go to church with such thoughts as that, it 
 'uU do you no good. No good 'ull come of 
 it!' 
 
 ' True.' Arden wondered what she 
 should say next.
 
 140 AKDEN. 
 
 ' Who is the clergyman ; do you like 
 him ? ' she asked . 
 
 * Mr. Law ? He's a good sort of man 
 and a great scholar d, so they say ; but he 
 don't see after the parish much ; he's so 
 taken up with his books and with them 
 Masters.' 
 
 ^ Oh! I shall see Mrs. Masters.' Arden 
 thought of the words she had overheard 
 on the Church Hill, and of Mrs. Masters' 
 request that the name of Arden should be 
 discarded. 
 
 ' She must be an insolent woman,' 
 she reflected aloud. 
 
 ' Oh, Sylvie, learn a little respect. 
 You shouldn't speak so of your betters.' 
 
 ' I don't see that Mrs. Masters is my 
 better, Mrs. Lawrance.' 
 
 ' She's the Squire's lady, and an Arden 
 of Arden.' 
 
 ' And I'm an Arden of Rome — a yet 
 more illustrious birthplace.' 
 
 ^ Oh, well, Sylvie, if you choose to
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 141 
 
 take it ill, you must. But put on your 
 things, or we'll be late for church ; it's a 
 longish walk, even across the fields.' 
 
 The first bell was just beginning its 
 clear, far-resounding peal as they left the 
 house. Arden walked quickly. 
 
 * There's no occasion to be so precipi- 
 tate, Sylvie,' said Mrs. Lawrance ; ' there's 
 a good half-hour yet, afore service -time.' 
 
 ' Very well. What lovely roses ' — she 
 stopped, and sniffed the fragrance of a 
 yellow- sprmkled standard. 
 
 ' Yes, they're a remarkable fine blos- 
 som. Glory-die- Johns, as I've 'eard.' 
 
 ' What ? ' 
 
 ' That's their botanic name, Glory-die- 
 John.' 
 
 ' Oh, how funny, how absurd ! ' Arden 
 began to laugh. 
 
 ' Why, Sylvie, I should ha' thart you'd 
 ha' known it a'ready ; it's a French word, 
 so I'm told.' 
 
 ' True.' Arden buried her blushing
 
 142 ARDEN. 
 
 face in the roses, and felt she should not 
 have laughed. 
 
 They walked on a little way in silence. 
 * I must make another start,' thought 
 Arden. 
 
 ' Who lives in that beautiful old house ? ' 
 she inquired. ' Oh, what a beautiful black 
 and white house ; it's the first really Eng- 
 lisn house I have ever seen ! ' 
 
 ' That's Williams's Farm,' said Mrs. 
 Lawrance. ' There's nought as I can see 
 so remarkable about it. Why, Sylvie, the 
 Bushes is a much better 'ouse than that ! ' 
 
 ' But this,' cried the young girl, ' is 
 so individual ; voila du caractere^ as Gerard 
 would say. Oh, I should like to paint it.' 
 
 ' And who's Gerard, Sylvie ? ' asked 
 Mrs. Lawrance, with a sudden interest. 
 
 ' Oh, he's my oldest friend, he and 
 Ellie. He's a dear boy! ' said Arden. 
 
 ' Oh,' cried Mrs. Lawrance, ' I thart he 
 might ha' been summat else.' 
 
 Arden shook her head, but she did not
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 143 
 
 laugh, as she would have done a month 
 ago when Gerard was only a nice lad and 
 a dear friend. Now he represented much 
 more ; home, country, her old life, her 
 accustomed thoughts, youth, happiness, 
 art. It was a pity Gerard Rose had no 
 good fairy to whisper that his hour had 
 arrived ; for I think she would have 
 married him then, without being at all 
 in love — not even enough to know that 
 her heart was free. 
 
 All this time she was leaning over 
 the rickyard-gate, and Susie Williams, 
 putting on her bonnet, upstairs, could see 
 her well. ' How sweet she looks,' thought 
 Susie. ' How lovely she is in that plain 
 black dress, and long black veil. She 
 looks like the nuns at Clinton. If only 
 she would once look up and smile.' 
 
 But Arden moved away. 
 
 ' Come, Sylvie,' cried Mrs. Lawrance ; 
 ' I should ha' thart you'd ha' seen a farm 
 before, even in furrin parts.'
 
 144 ARDEN. 
 
 ' Oh, Italian farms are quite different.' 
 ' Ay, I daresay they're not so well 
 
 kep\ Susie Williams is a good 'un to 
 
 manage.' 
 
 * Is she the farmer's wife ? ' 
 
 ' No ; she's 'is step -sister, and quite a 
 girl ; 'e's never married, 'asn't Williams. 
 So you don't have farms in Rome, Sylvie ? ' 
 
 * Not in Rome, of course, but in the 
 country. Oh, in Tuscany there are such 
 pretty farms ; quite small, you know ; up 
 a hill, with no hedges, and with olive- 
 yards instead of apple-orchards, and under- 
 neath the olives, wheat or maize. You 
 can't think how pretty it is in August, 
 when they hang the maize to dry ; it look? 
 like a cloth of gold on the house-fronts, 
 with square holes left for the windows 
 and the door ; and later on you see them 
 ploughing under the olives, with great 
 white oxen, yoked to the plough — not an 
 iron plough, you know, but a sort of 
 wooden trident ; and in the spring the
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 145 
 
 corn comes up all full of blood-red tulips ; 
 and round the edges of the fields are pol- 
 lard mulberry-trees, and the vine jumps 
 along from tree to tree.' 
 
 * Here's the last stile, Sylvie. Ah, we 
 must show you an English farm ; we're 
 much more advanced in ageracultur, here.' 
 
 And now in front of them rose the 
 squat grey church, and the high grave- 
 yard full of early -coming worshippers. 
 
 It was the custom at Arden for all the 
 farmers of the parish, and their families, 
 to come to church a good twenty minutes 
 or so before service-time. In the pretty 
 high-lying churchyard, they stood in knots 
 discussing the weather and the prospects 
 of the harvest ; such as were old, or weak, 
 or tired, sat themselves, with no irreverent 
 thoughts, on the square box-like tombs. 
 It was a rendezvous, looked forward to 
 all the week, where all ends of the parish 
 met at one centre. Here the elderly 
 women gossiped together over their neigh- 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 146 ARDEN. 
 
 bours, their housekeeping, and their ail- 
 ments ; the young people found this their 
 best chance for meeting friends from dis- 
 tant farms, and for showing themselves off 
 in their prettiest clothes to their sweet- 
 hearts. Often, in the muddy, short winter 
 days, Farmer King's Milly, at Feversham, 
 for instance, would have found it quite 
 impossible to tell her secrets to her bosom 
 friend, Annie Lovell, of Raynham, since 
 their houses were five miles apart, had 
 it not been for the pleasant Sunday 
 mornings when friends met, lovers whis- 
 pered, merry girls and boys carried on 
 noisy quarrels and flirtations ; and the 
 elder people, too, amused themselves in 
 their own fashion. Of course, the gentry, 
 having leisure, carriages, a score of means 
 for meeting in the week, did not avail 
 themselves of this opportunity. The 
 Masters, old Mr. Lucy, of Raynham, 
 Mrs. Clinton, of the Firs (Mrs. Masters' 
 aunt), and the Lawrances — this was all
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 147 
 
 the list of gentry — showed their supe- 
 riority by coming later, when all the 
 humbler worshippers were seated in their 
 pews ; the Masters, in especial, often kept 
 the congregation in the church, and the 
 clergyman in the vestry, for a good five 
 minutes ; but no one would have thought 
 of beginning service without the family 
 from the Hall. 
 
 There was, therefore, quite an as- 
 semblage of lookers-on to greet Arden's 
 appearance at church with Mrs. Lawrance. 
 All turned their heads to gaze at the 
 two women, with a broad agricultural 
 stare, innocent of rudeness. 
 
 ' She's none so pretty, after all ; as 
 white as a potato.' 
 
 ^ Poor maid, she's lost her father.' 
 
 ' She's a goodly height ; 'ud be a fine 
 figure of a woman if she was filled out 
 and rosy.' 
 
 ' Oh, she'll alius be weak and sickly, 
 take my word.' 
 
 L 2
 
 148 AEDEN. 
 
 ' 'Tis a good thing for the Bushes; them 
 two old 'uns let all run to rack and ruin.' 
 
 ' She's no good, she's a furriner ; don't 
 know cheese from chalk.' 
 
 ' She's welcome as flowers in May, 
 depend upon it.' 
 
 The last speaker was Susie Williams, 
 who, having perceived that Arden must 
 have heard too many of the foregoing 
 remarks, made hers in a clear, reassuring 
 voice. Arden heard her, and smiled. 
 ' Who is that fair-haired, eager-looking 
 girl? ' she asked of Mrs. Lawrance. 
 
 ' That's Miss Williams. Good morning, 
 Miss Williams, I hope your mother's less 
 precarious in 'ealth than formerly.' 
 
 ' Yes, thank you, Mrs. Lawrance; she's 
 all right.' 
 
 Then Arden and Mrs. Lawrance went 
 down into the church, a cold and gloomy 
 barn of a place, lower than the churchyard. 
 
 ' What a nice girl she seems,' said 
 Arden.
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 149 
 
 ^ H-sh. Don't talk in church.' 
 So Arden set herself to watch her 
 neighbours and to remark the service ; 
 she had scarcely ever been to an Eng- 
 lish service before. In Rome she and her 
 father nearly always went into the country 
 on Sundays ; and Arden was not of a 
 religious temperament. She went to church 
 if other people went ; of her own accord, 
 she would probably have stayed outside. 
 
 The Lawrances' pew was half-way up 
 the aisle ; a great square wooden pew, a 
 pillar blocking up one end, the door the 
 other ; Mrs. Lawrance sat facing the altar ; 
 Arden facing the door ; she looked curiously 
 about. On the other side the aisle the 
 bell-ringers were still pulling at the strong 
 many-coloured cords, stooping and rising, 
 dragged off their feet sometimes by the 
 upward jerk of the rope. Down the aisle 
 marched the school children, with fat rosy 
 cheeks drawn into an expression of decent 
 composure, their little eyes cast down,
 
 150 ARDEN. 
 
 their whitish or dead-brown hair oiled to 
 unnatural and dripping glossiness. Then 
 the old men came in, one by one, and 
 hobbled to their places in the free seats; 
 old men with bent shoulders, wrinkled 
 faces burnt a fine red with exposure to all 
 weathers, with snowy clean hair, with an 
 expression of shrewdness and content in 
 their rugged but not unhandsome outlines. 
 They sat three rows deep at the top corner 
 of the aisle ; the sun from the window 
 behind brought out the strong colouring 
 of their faces and neck -ties, the golden- 
 brown tints of their fustian jackets. 
 
 ' They are as superior to the old men 
 in Rome as their children are expression- 
 less and ugly,' thought Arden. ' How I 
 wish Mrs. Lawrance did not look so severe. 
 I should like to sketch that head ! ' 
 
 She was saved from yielding to the 
 temptation by a renewed curiosity as a 
 third inroad from the churchyard crowded 
 the aisle. Decent labourers and their
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 151 
 
 wives, some of the farmers, too, with their 
 families. The bell-ringers stopped ; gradu- 
 ally the church filled. Arden noticed Susie 
 Williams passing to her seat ; the two girls 
 looked at each other and smiled. 
 
 ' J should like to know her,' whispered 
 Arden to Mrs. Lawrance. 
 
 'I don't know as she's a proper 
 acquaintance for you.' 
 
 ' Not proper?' 
 
 ^ Oh, she's a good girl enough, but 
 her brother's a coarse man, quite the 
 farmer.' 
 
 By ' coarse,' Mrs. Lawrance meant 
 rough. But Arden understood her differ- 
 ently. 
 
 ' Oh,' she said, ^ what a pity ! ' 
 
 There was a pause. After a minute 
 or two, a rustling. Enter a tall handsome 
 woman in a shabby silk dress, several girls, 
 two young men. One of the girls limped 
 a little, and leaned heavily on the arm of 
 her brother, a weak, handsome youth.
 
 152 ARDEN. 
 
 • Them's the Masters/ said Mrs. 
 Lawrance. 
 
 Then service began. 
 
 It seemed very long and dull to Arden, 
 the singing bad, the ceremonial dreary, 
 but the waving of the trees outside the 
 window was pretty to watch ; the people, 
 too, seemed far more in sober earnest over 
 their prayers than the worshippers at 
 grand Roman functions. How they listened 
 to the pompous, scholarly sermon ! Arden 
 found her thoughts running back to the 
 near, vanished past ; a heavy tear dropped 
 on to her knee. She shook her head and 
 looked up ; someone was looking at her, 
 earnestly and kindly. She noticed that he 
 was sitting next to Susie Williams. 
 
 ^ So that's the coarse brother, I suppose. 
 What an ugly man ! What insolence to 
 stare at me ! ' 
 
 Her expression conveyed her thoughts; 
 the man looked confused, opened his prayer- 
 book, began reading the Psalms at random.
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 153 
 
 ^ I wonder when the Roses will write to 
 me/ Arden was thinking. 
 
 After a while the sermon came to an 
 end : the service also. There was a bustle, 
 a general scuffle after umbrellas and prayer- 
 books, an exodus. Arden found herself 
 in the churchyard again, in the fresh clear 
 weather, among the grass and the trees ; 
 she stood still on the path. Mrs. Lawrance 
 nudged her. ' Stand aside, let Mrs. Masters 
 pass.* 
 
 She moved a little on to the grass. It 
 was just about the place where Georgina 
 Masters had fallen and hurt her ankle ; 
 the girl was pointing it out to her brother 
 as she passed. ' I think mother 's very 
 unjust,* she added. 
 
 Mrs. Masters heard ; she turned sharp 
 round. 
 
 ' Mrs. Lawrance, I haven't seen you for 
 an age,' she said ; 'and how's your hus- 
 band, pray?' 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance was delighted at this
 
 154 ARDEN. 
 
 mark of recognition, though she was too 
 proud to show it. 
 
 ' Mr. Lawrance is alius a sufferer,' she 
 said, ^ and 'e's just lost 'is only son, a cir- 
 cumstance as has proved very injurious to 
 'is 'ealth ; but 'e'll be pleased to 'ear you 
 was so kindly interested ' — Mrs. Lawrance 
 hesitated a moment, then she pushed Arden 
 forward — ' Mr. Lawrance's granddaughter 
 is come to live with us,' she said. 
 
 ^ Oh, mother ! ' cried Georgina, coming 
 forward. 
 
 Mrs. Masters put up her eyeglass, and 
 looked at Arden. 
 
 ' Is this the young person ? I have not 
 the pleasure of her acquaintance.' 
 
 Then she swept onwards, with one 
 triumphant glance at Georgina ; swept on, 
 leaving behind her a confused murmur of 
 reproaches, gossip, wonder, from the strag- 
 glers in the churchyard. 
 
 ' For shame ; the insolent woman ! ' 
 cried Susie Williams.
 
 AN ENGLISH SUNDAY. 155 
 
 Arden stepped forward. ' Thank you ! ' 
 she said, and held out her hand. 
 
 ' Come on, Sylvie, come on,' cried 
 Mrs. Lawrance, ' we've had quite enough 
 commotion for one Sunday a'ready.' 
 
 Arden obeyed ; but that warm friendly 
 hand-clasp remained in her memory, a full 
 equivalent for Mrs. Masters' injury. 
 
 ' Brother or no brother, I will know 
 that girl,' she said to herself, ' especially 
 as it seems I am to be allowed to know 
 nobody else.'
 
 156 ARDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 
 
 That afternoon, as Susie Williams and her 
 mother were returning from some neigh- 
 bourly visit, they met the Squire^s 
 youngest son in the lane. This was such 
 an important event to little Susie, and 
 summoned such blushes to her cheeks, that 
 we must not pass over in silence a young 
 man whose merits certainly deserve no 
 chronicle. 
 
 Fred Masters was the darling of his 
 mother and sisters ; they had always 
 spoiled him from affection, as his father 
 had done from vanity, for Fred was the 
 very reproduction of his own extravagant 
 indolent youth. The lad was now about
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 157 
 
 twenty -three years of age, a very hand- 
 some, youthful, petulant, engaging scape- 
 grace. In the spring he had been suddenly 
 expelled from Cambridge for some over- 
 daring undergraduate's 'lark,' but though 
 this escapade was the nominal cause of his 
 being sent down, people talked of worse 
 unsteadiness behind. Since then he had 
 loitered about the village, doing nothing, 
 making friends with all the village wits, 
 sworn admirers of this handsome youth, 
 who treated them all round at the Three 
 Crowns ; and of late he had found a still 
 more pleasing pastime in making love to 
 pretty Susie Williams. 
 
 So far his love-making had never gone 
 any great lengths. There was. a certain 
 dignity in Susie's frank recognition of her 
 inferior station, a certain impregnability in 
 her ardent earnestness in all she did, which 
 warned the idle youth against checkmating 
 all pleasant possibilities by proceeding to 
 extremes. All he could do was to infuse
 
 158 AKDEN. 
 
 much chivalry and devotion into his man- 
 ner at choir practices, and at the Sunday 
 school, at which Susie's presence had made 
 him a regular attendant. This promising 
 youth was strolling down the lane when he 
 saw Susie Williams and her mother a little 
 ahead. 
 
 ^ Plague take the little old woman,' he 
 said to himself, ' she is always in the way.' 
 
 However, when he came up to them, 
 he took off his hat, and made himself even 
 more agreeable to Mrs. Williams than to 
 the daughter. 
 
 * I missed you at church this morning, 
 Mrs. Williams. I hope you did not stay 
 at home from illness ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Fred, you're always so polite 
 and noticing. No, I'm quite well, I am 
 thankful to say ; but there's a mint of 
 things to do about the house, and Susie's so 
 fond of her church and school.' 
 
 ' So am L' Fred tried to look mean- 
 ingly at Susie, but she did not understand.
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 159 
 
 ' One ought to love institutions/ she 
 replied. 
 
 ' Certainly she is very stupid some- 
 times,' reflected the young man. 
 
 'Oh, yes, Mr. Fred,' went on Mrs. 
 Williams, ' everyone knows you're the stay 
 of the school ; the Vicar's so lost in his 
 book-learning. This last six months or 
 so, Susie tells me, you've been so constant 
 in looking after things and helping her 
 manage that class of great unruly boys that 
 I always say she is unfit to look after.^ 
 
 Fred smiled a little awkwardly, and 
 changed the topic. 
 
 * Are you going to church this evening, 
 Miss Susie ? There's to be a practice after 
 service, so Georgina tells me.' 
 
 * I wish I could come, but it's so late 
 getting home.' 
 
 ' Let her come, Mrs. Williams. I'll see 
 her home, if you think I'm a fit escort/ 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Fred ! ' cried the honoured and 
 delighted Mrs. Williams.
 
 160 AUDEN. 
 
 ' I think I can't come,' cried Susie, 
 feeling tremendously willing and unwilling, 
 shy and eager, all at once. ' In fact, I am 
 sure I can't come. Harry wants me/ 
 
 ' I wish you would come, Miss Susie ' — 
 this low to her ; then louder to lier mother, 
 ^ The Yicar always complains when she is 
 absent. She is the one contralto of the 
 village : 1 think Mr. Williams might spare 
 her.' 
 
 * Never fear, Mr. Fred. She'll come — 
 there's nothing she wants so much.' 
 
 ' Mother ! ' cried Susie, in an appealing 
 voice. 
 
 ' I shall see you then,' said the young 
 man. ' I am glad. Good-bye, Mrs. 
 Williams.' 
 
 Fred sauntered on : it was not so easy 
 after all ; yet he was from lack of anything 
 else to think of becommg desperately in 
 love with this yellow-haired little girl. 
 
 Mrs. Williams and her daughter went 
 slowly on in the opposite direction.
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 161 
 
 ' Why did you insist on my going this 
 evening, mother? You know I promised 
 to look over the accounts with Harry.' 
 
 ' Don't speak so sharp, Susie. I 
 shouldn't have insisted unless it were for 
 your good. And I wish you'd call me 
 " mama," not " mother." 'Tis more 
 ladylike.' 
 
 ^ I don't care ; I am not a young lady.' 
 
 * Oh, Susie, Susie, don't say such 
 things ; people take one at one's own 
 value ; and there's no knowing what may 
 happen.' 
 
 ' After all,' sighed Susie, ' it is no great 
 matter, I suppose, if I am a good woman.' 
 
 She sighed ; because she could not help 
 thinking how nice it would have been had 
 she been born a young lady ; she would 
 have known Mr. Fred's sisters. 
 
 ' We shall see,' said Mrs. Williams. 
 She smiled to herself ; now if the Squire's 
 younger son, none too well off, should 
 marry her Susie, who was as pretty a girl 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 ARDEN. 
 
 as one could wish to see and would have a 
 thousand pounds to her portion, why it 
 would be an excellent thing for him, and 
 she would live to see her daughter a real 
 lady. Her fancy ran far ahead ; it was 
 all settled in her mind, when Susie's voice 
 brought her back to reality : 
 
 ' Miss Lawrance is a young lady,' she 
 was saying, ' and such a beautiful young 
 lady! Yet she doesn't look happy ; she's 
 not so happy as I, poor girl ! ' 
 
 She had no sooner finished speaking 
 than she wondered, did Mr. Fred admire 
 Miss Lawrance? She felt an odd sort of 
 pang. 
 
 ^ Do you think her pretty, mother ? * 
 she asked, in a faltering voice. 
 
 ' Ay, ay ; she's a real lady and no 
 mistake ; as pale as wax ; and a train to 
 her dress, did you see? I suppose it's 
 French fashions.' 
 
 Mrs. Williams, who had no great 
 tenacity of ideas, went out on a new line
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 163 
 
 of fancies ; her daughter pondered vaguely 
 on the differences between herself and Miss 
 Lawrance. Mr. Fred could not have liked 
 her looks, or he would not have let his 
 mother insult the poor thing. That was 
 not nice of him ; she blamed him gravely. 
 What a venturesome pleasure it is, fraught 
 with how delicious a sense of self-assertion 
 and independence, to dare to blame those 
 on whom we secretly know that all our 
 peace of mind depends ! 
 
 They reached the httle iron gate that 
 opened on their neat flower-garden. Mrs. 
 Williams stopped to bind up some draggling 
 sprays of rose, for on Sundays she liked 
 being in the garden, there was so much 
 coming and going along the highway. 
 Susie did not wait ; she ran through the 
 dark parlour, always dim with its black 
 oak lining; on the table at one end the 
 ledgers and account books were neatly set 
 out, she sighed as she looked at them and 
 shook her head ; but she did not stop ; she 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ARDEN. 
 
 hurried upstairs into her bedroom, and sat 
 down at the foot of the bed. Nothing 
 had happened, yet her blood was whirring 
 through her veins, her head felt dizzy and 
 full. She dropped it into her hands and 
 sat gazing at the floor. She felt strangely 
 reluctant to go this evening ; yet her heart 
 was throbbing with wild joy and expecta- 
 tion. She had not done it, she kept saying 
 to herself, her mother had done it — but her 
 mother did not know what this meeting 
 must mean to Mr. Fred, what it meant to 
 her. A whole language of looks and tones, 
 a whole beseeching and granting unper- 
 ceived by her mother, had passed between 
 them in those few minutes. Susie felt that 
 her mother had unconsciously betrayed 
 her, against her will, but according to her 
 desire. She had been handed over, so to 
 speak, to a mastering fate. Now there 
 was nothing to do but fear, hope, expect. 
 Ah, she should see him again this evening; 
 hear his voice, feel his sleeve against her
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 165 
 
 arm. Did he love her, or did he only like 
 her? She did not doubt but she should 
 know. 
 
 You, my reader, may question that a 
 girl of strong good sense and sterling 
 character should love, however favouring 
 the circumstance, a mere handsome unprin- 
 cipled scapegrace such as Fred Masters ; 
 but it is no less a fact that often the most 
 reasonable and conscientious persons are 
 at the same time hot in feeling, headstrong 
 in passion, and capable of running all risks 
 in love. 
 
 Sweet, impressionable Arden, so much 
 less strong-minded, would have had too 
 delicate a judgment to fall in love with 
 such a man. She possessed neither the 
 force of self-abnegation nor the intensity of 
 sentiment which might lead Susie Williams 
 hopelessly astray, or at last condemn her 
 to a heart-breaking renunciation. Poor 
 girl ; she loved strongly, and suffered none 
 the less in suspecting her love to be im-
 
 166 ARDEN. 
 
 prudently wasted. During these three 
 months, in which so little had been said, 
 so much hinted, she had striven by all 
 means in her power to break loose from 
 the strengthening chain ; now she had been 
 bound against her will. She would struggle 
 no more. She would wait and see. 
 
 The door at the top of the staircase was 
 opened. ' Susie ! ' called her mother. 
 
 ' Yes, mother.^ 
 
 ^ Harry's stayed tea to Farmer Willis's. 
 It's almost six o' the clock; you'd better 
 come down and get your tea with me.' 
 
 ' I'm coming.' 
 
 She took off her bonnet, threw it 
 hurriedly on the bed, and rushed down- 
 stairs. 
 
 'Why, Susie,' cried Mrs. Williams, 
 ' what a fright you look, girl! Aren't 
 you going to smarten yourself up a bit 
 afore you go to church?' 
 
 ' I shall do.' 
 
 ' And your hair all anyhow, and your
 
 THE PEIMROSE PATH. 167 
 
 face as long as if you were going to a 
 funeral. I don^t call it respectful/ 
 
 ' It's my voice they want, not my 
 face/ 
 
 * I dare say — but when the Squire's son 
 oflPers to see you home.' 
 
 ' Advancement ! treasure ! The duke's 
 son ! ' quoth Susie bitterly, who was read 
 in Lamb's selections. Then as the whole 
 meaning of the passage flashed on her — 
 ^ Oh, mother, mother dear, I beg your 
 pardon.' 
 
 *Ay, you are too often rude to your 
 mother, Susie. Some day you'll be sorry.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry now, mother.' 
 
 ' Well, then, make yourself look pretty 
 to please me ; you'll never be younger.' 
 
 ' Not to-night, mother dear.* She got 
 up and kissed her mother; then taking 
 down a long blue waterproof and a straw 
 hat from a peg by the door, she put them 
 on. 
 
 ' Susie ! ' cried Mrs. Williams, horrified;
 
 168 ARDEN. 
 
 ' what's come to you ? You're never going 
 to church in your garden things ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, mother.' 
 
 She shut the door softly, and was gone. 
 Out in the lane where the light was dim, 
 and the sky turning a soft yellow-green 
 behind the tall Scotch firs — out in the 
 quiet lane she felt a childish pang of re- 
 gret that she had not pleased her mother, 
 or rather that Mr, Fred would see her 
 looking so ugly and shabby. Her blue eyes 
 — widened with anxiety and expectation — 
 looked out forlornly from under the brown 
 straw brim, the blue cloak hung gracefully 
 enough round the slender little figure; but, 
 when she passed the canal by the field - 
 path to church, she could not refrain from 
 bending over, to glance at her own reflection. 
 How common and plain she thought her- 
 self. She was almost ready to turn back 
 with vexation. But this mood, so foreign 
 to her character, veered round suddenly, 
 and gave way to an outbreak of her natural
 
 THE PRIMKOSE PATH. 169 
 
 pride. It was on purpose she had refrained 
 from looking her best — she would scorn to 
 attract, to entangle him. He should know 
 and see the difference between them, the 
 gulf that divided her, in all matters of 
 outward show, from his sisters or Miss 
 Lawrance. It was no priggish book- 
 learned phrase, it was one of the strongest 
 instincts of her nature that had prompted 
 Susie when she had said : ' One must love 
 institutions.' Nothing was clearer, more 
 universal a duty, to her thinking, than 
 that every class should progress, should 
 perfect itself in its own groove, remaining 
 distinct and respectable. Not that she 
 formulated her theory, but it was no less 
 a motive of her actions. It was this that 
 made her work so hard to reinstate her 
 family in their inherited condition of com- 
 fort and consideration. It was this that 
 made her feel her love for Fred Masters to 
 be unlawful and unfortunate. It was an 
 upheaval of her convictions.
 
 170 AKDEN. 
 
 Meanwhile it was in quite a different 
 mood that Fred thought of the approaching 
 meeting. From his point of view there 
 was no harm in it. He certainly did not 
 intend to marry Susie Williams, but neither 
 had he any more sinister designs upon her. 
 She was the prettiest girl in the village, 
 and he the young Squire. It was natural 
 that each should contribute to the amuse- 
 ment of the other. 
 
 Besides, he really liked Susie Williams. 
 Her vehement downrightness and simplicity 
 attracted him by the very force of con- 
 trasts, and had she been in his own rank 
 of life he would certainly have married 
 her. That was unfortunately impossible ; 
 but he could see no reason why a fellow 
 should not make love to a farmer's pretty 
 sister. And, depend upon it, a girl 
 like Susie Williams would know how to 
 take care of herself. That was her look- 
 out. 
 
 So he finished his cigar. Sunday was
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 171 
 
 certainly a dull day at the Hall. The 
 hours lagged and dragged as if it would 
 always be afternoon. Fred became quite 
 excited as the evening drew on at last. 
 He sat smoking after tea and thinking 
 what he would say to Susie. She was a 
 sweet little soul, so frank and honest ; nor 
 did it once occur to him that he was doing 
 his best to spoil her frankness. She was 
 certainly the prettiest girl he knew, so 
 slim and fair and rosy. And such a child, 
 a man might express a liking for her 
 without committing himself. Susie should 
 never be the worse for his affection. So 
 Fred mused, feeling very virtuous and at 
 peace with all the world, as he lounged 
 in the great garden chair under the acacia 
 tree. He was so comfortable that he let 
 the time pass on till, on pulling out his 
 watch, he discovered that service must be 
 nearly over. Then he strolled leisurely 
 towards the church. 
 
 The door was open for the sake of the
 
 1 72 ARDEN. 
 
 air ; the clear voices of the choir sounded 
 far down the lane. Fred walked across 
 the churchyard and looked in. Yes ; 
 Susie was there. Not, however, as he had 
 expected and wished to see her, casting 
 anxious glances towards the door, wonder- 
 ing why he did not come. They were 
 practising a difficult anthem. The school- 
 master had not come, and Susie was alto, 
 conductor, and organist at once. She stood 
 by the organ, turning round every now 
 and then to play with her full firm touch 
 some single phrase or motive, and then the 
 labour began of getting it sung in time. 
 She had forgotten everything but the task 
 in hand ; her brows were knit, there was 
 resolution in her face and bearing. She 
 had pushed back her hat, her pretty yellow 
 hair rippled over her temples ; her cloak 
 was thrown back over her shoulders that 
 she might beat time more freely. ' Listen,' 
 she said, and sang the difficult phrase 
 herself in all the parts, one after another.
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. I7S> 
 
 Tlien an awful Babel began, as the choir 
 essayed to put it together, Susie becoming 
 more in earnest, more dominant, more 
 successful, till at last the phrase was 
 repeated correct in time and harmony. 
 
 ' That's well,' cried Susie ; ^ now sing 
 it all through.' Then she turned to the 
 instrument and began to play, and the 
 anthem went smoothly enough ; her voice, 
 her playing, directing all. Fred, standing 
 in the shadow of the doorway, watched 
 her, not without a certain impatience; never 
 had she seemed so difficult to obtain, so 
 necessary, so distant, before. Here she 
 seemed so perfectly mistress of herself, so 
 able to direct, command. Would she indeed 
 submit to his passion? She should, she 
 should ! A sort of fury of desire awoke 
 in him as he looked on while she directed 
 this confusion, calmly, skilfully, quite 
 unconscious of his presence. At last it 
 was all over ; he shrank into the shade ; the 
 choir passed out slowly, one by one ; then,
 
 174 ARDEN. 
 
 last of all, alone, a little sadly, she also 
 came. He put out his hand. ' Susie ! ' he 
 whispered. 
 
 She did not hear, but he could see that 
 her face was changed to a tearful, childlike 
 sorrow ; that she huddled her arms in her 
 cloak as if it were mid-winter. 
 
 ^ Susie ! ' he said. 
 
 ' Ah, you are come ! ' 
 
 She gave him her hand ; he drew it 
 closer towards him, drew her to his breast, 
 folded her in his arms, looking at the 
 sweet upturned face. She was really very 
 pretty. 
 
 It was the first time he had called her 
 by her name, the first time he had ignored 
 the ordinary friendly greeting ; he had 
 never yet told her that he loved her, 
 and yet she did not feel surprised. She 
 continued to look up at him with timid 
 questioning eyes. 
 
 Then he stooped and kissed her.
 
 THE PRIMROSE PATH. 175 
 
 ' I am SO glad you kissed me first in 
 church,' she said. 
 
 The simple speech seemed to sting 
 him ; he loosed his hold of her for a 
 moment. Then he caught her to him 
 passionately, defiantly, kissing her hair, 
 her eyes, her mouth. ^ I love you, Susie,' 
 he cried ; ' I love you, I love you ' 
 
 ' Think,' she cried ; it was as if she 
 were sinking to sleep in the snow and 
 made one supreme struggle for life, ' think 
 of all there is between us. Your place, 
 my place — how far apart.' She held up 
 her arms and kept him from her while 
 she spoke, so that he might let her finish, 
 might hear her through. 
 
 ' Does that prevent me loving you ? ' 
 he cried. She felt his arms round her 
 again ; there was no more struggling 
 now. 
 
 ' I love you,' she whispered. 
 
 Ah, she was wild with joy ; she could 
 have cried it out to the stars, to the trees,
 
 176 ARDEN. 
 
 to the wind, only that he was by her side 
 to hear. There was but one cloud on her 
 delight : he had forbidden her just yet to 
 say a word to mother or brother about 
 their secret.
 
 177 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 PICTUEES. 
 
 For some days after that eventful Sunday 
 Arden was quite worn out. All the fatigue, 
 the recoil of memory, the perception of 
 her own loneliness, seemed to weigh upon 
 her together. It was very hot weather, for 
 those few days almost as hot as Italy ; and 
 Arden, like all people who have lived long in 
 Italy, dreaded the heat, not knowing how 
 soon it would be over and wished for again. 
 So she sat on the verandah, talking to her 
 grandfather, while Mrs. Lawrance, with 
 tightening lips and greatening eyes, worked 
 and listened in silence. Arden had offered 
 to help in the work, though, to say the 
 truth, she was not great in such matters ; 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 ARDEN. 
 
 but Mrs. Lawrance had answered, some- 
 what grimly, that if Sylvia would only 
 do her own sewing that would be quite 
 enough ; that she had got used to working 
 alone. She sighed a little. Arden mis- 
 understood her, and begged again and again 
 to be allowed to do something ; the elder 
 woman quietly refused ; her sigh had been 
 one of regret for those days gone by when 
 she was alone with her husband. So, 
 glad of her enforced idleness, Arden leaned 
 back in her arm-chair, and talked, now and 
 then, of her old life, of her father and his 
 ways; showing, artlessly enough, how 
 much more to her mind they were than 
 the conduct of life at the Bushes. Some- 
 times she would read ; but there were not 
 many books at the Bushes, save the 
 Classics, some works on engineering, and a 
 long file of the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' 
 It was not very entertaining. And no 
 visitors ever came. Still Arden hoped for 
 better things; she did not despond. If
 
 PICTURES. 179 
 
 she could not continue her old interests, 
 she made up her mind to seek for new 
 ones. 
 
 We know that she had made up her 
 mind to become a sort of stay of life to her 
 grandparents, and when Mrs. Lawrance so 
 curtly negatived her proposal to help in the 
 indoor work, she quietly determined to 
 look after the farming. 
 
 She knew very little about such 
 matters, but after diligent perusal of a 
 farm manual, she set out, one cooler morn- 
 ing, and walked over the little estate o^ 
 thirty or forty acres. It was all grazing 
 land and in bad condition; the high lands 
 bare with great fissures, the lower part un- 
 drained, covered with coarse rank herbage. 
 The farm man roused himself from sleep 
 to tell her that 'the grass was so mortal 
 scarce this year, he had put the cows in 
 the smallest hay-meadow.' There they 
 were, browsing away with good-will, eat- 
 ins" their winter's store. No wonder, 
 
 N 9.
 
 180 ARDEN. 
 
 thouglit Arden, fresh from her farm manual 
 and fired with the zeal of a reformer, no 
 wonder Mrs. Lawrance complains they 
 bring her butter back from the market ! 
 
 She went home, hot and tired indeed, 
 but foreseeing for herself a career of busy 
 usefulness. 
 
 ' Grandpapa,' she said that afternoon, as 
 they sat in the verandah, ^ do you know 
 the hill meadow is all full of cracks — I 
 could put my hand and arm in — and as dry 
 as a bone.' 
 
 '• Well, well, Sylvie, we musn't com- 
 plain, while there's enough for us to eat, 
 and there's so many in want.' 
 
 ' It's alius so in summer ; 'tis the lack 
 o' rain.' 
 
 ' And there's too much rain in the front 
 meadow,' cried Arden. ^ A sort of marsh, 
 all thick-stemmed lily roots.' 
 
 ' Ah well, the cows must take it turn 
 and turn about ; the one in hot weather, 
 Sylvie, the other in dry ! '
 
 PICTURES. 181 
 
 ' But, grandpapa/ she pursued, ' the 
 cows are in neither now ; they're in the 
 hay -meadow.' 
 
 ' Dear, dear! ' said Mrs. Lawrence; 'and 
 last winter we spent twenty pound in hay ; 
 the pasture's got that thin and poor, there's 
 no nourishment in it ! ' 
 
 ' It '11 last our time,' sighed the old 
 man; ' it '11 last our time, Nannie.' 
 
 ' The manual says,' went on Arden in 
 a shy impersonal tone, ' that if the hill 
 meadow were to be dug up and turned 
 over, let lie fallow for a year and theu 
 sown, it w^ould make a beautiful pasture. 
 After all, grass is a sort of crop, isn't it, 
 grandpa? ' 
 
 ' I'm not one for changing and shifting,' 
 he said ; ' let well alone, Sylvie ; there are 
 two proverbs would guide you through 
 most of the circumstances of life. One 
 is " Let well alone," and the other '' Let 
 sleeping dogs lie." ' 
 
 ' Thank Heaven,' cried Arden, ' every-
 
 182 ARDEN. 
 
 one does not think so, or the world would 
 be a sort of Hospital for Incurables ! ' 
 
 ' Softly, softly, my dear,' said the old 
 man. 
 
 But Mrs. Lawrance would not overlook 
 Arden's impetuous speech. 
 
 ' I wonder at you, Sylvie ! Lecturing 
 your gran'pa as if he was a three-years 
 child; you as has no esperience of ageri- 
 culter; and then you infarm us we're 
 incurables ! I suppose it's a very different 
 sart a' life from what you're accustomed to 
 in furrin parts; but if it wasn't for your 
 gran'pa, what would 'a become of you, for 
 all your fine acquaintance ? I never could 
 abide ingratitood and sarce ! ' The last 
 phrase, it is only fair to admit, was intended 
 to be sotto voce^ although clearly audible. 
 Arden had too much sense to be angry. 
 She perceived there was a great deal of 
 truth in Mrs. Lawrance's criticism, and 
 leaned towards her, speaking eagerly : 
 
 ' Oh, please don't think so ! Indeed I
 
 PICTURES. 183 
 
 am not ungrateful. It's just because I feel 
 you are so good to me, you and grandpapa, 
 and offered me a home when no one else 
 did, though you knew nothing about me; 
 that's just why I want to be of some use 
 to you, and not only in the way and an 
 encumbrance.' 
 
 'I'm sure, Sylvie, if you alius spoke 
 as pretty, there'd be nothing to complain 
 of,' replied the elder woman, almost affec- 
 tionately. 
 
 ' Perhaps I shall improve,' said Arden, 
 wistfully. ^ 
 
 'To be sure she will,' cried her grand- 
 father, delighted at this sudden dispersion 
 of a threatened fuss ; ' to be sure she will ; 
 in six months she'll be a sensible red- 
 cheeked English country girl. Why, she 
 looks better already, I believe, and Rome 
 wasn't built in a day, was it Sylvie ? ' 
 
 * Ah, don't let us talk of Rome.' 
 
 Indeed, even to think of Rome was 
 dangerous ; such a mist of tears would
 
 184 AEDEN. 
 
 flood her eyes, her heart would sink so, 
 and a ball grow in her throat till she 
 almost choked. But she would not have 
 lost one pang of those bitter-sweet poignant 
 memories ; as even pain is welcome in a 
 numbed limb, as any sight is longed for 
 by blinded eyes, and one gone deaf would 
 be thankful, indeed, to hear the screeching 
 of a night -jar, so in this cold senseless 
 present Arden greeted those aching 
 memories which were the only part of 
 her life that seemed alive still and capable 
 of sensation. 
 
 One day, when she felt stronger, and 
 when, as usual, there was nothing for her 
 to do except to keep out of the way, she 
 went upstairs into the attic-loft, and opened 
 one of her great trunks, hitherto untouched. 
 There lay her easel, her palette, and 
 painting tools ; there were her sketches 
 made under her father's supervision, and 
 some notes of his also, studies for his 
 larger painting ; she took them tenderly
 
 PICTURES. 185 
 
 in her arms and carried them into her 
 room. 
 
 There was one of Ponte MoUe, green 
 and desolate. There was a corner of some 
 hill-town, weather-stained white houses, 
 with little towers, projecting roofs, uneven 
 loggie and terraces, a tall cypress, a wide 
 view below. Then came studies of roads 
 and oliveyards. Then one which made 
 her heart beat faster and the tears fall like 
 rain ; the purple -flowered Piazza at Tor- 
 cello, with the grey old buildings round. 
 The brushmarks were still fresh, the paint 
 scarcely dried in. How different the world 
 was when that sketch was painted ! 
 
 It was just before she had met the 
 Roses in San Marco. She had not been 
 thinking very much of her father then ; 
 she had been so glad to meet them. And 
 yet now, no one seemed worth caring for 
 much, because he was dead ; she recalled, 
 crying softly, the day they had gone to 
 Tor cello ; the last happy morning of his
 
 186 ARDEN. 
 
 life. Then her father's death ; and she 
 had been very desolate and lonely, and con- 
 scious that she belonged to no one. Then 
 she had been told that her grandfather had 
 asked her to come and live with him. 
 After all he must have cared for her more 
 than those others cared who had known 
 her all her life, who had petted and spoiled 
 her. He was very kind. But perhaps he 
 had only invited her from a sense of duty. 
 Why, then, he must be very good. 
 
 With a rush of tender feeling towards 
 him, she took up her father's sketches and 
 hurried downstairs. 
 
 Her grandfather was asleep in his great 
 arm-chair in the little library, where he 
 read his paper and pretended now and then 
 to look over the accounts of income and 
 expenditure. Arden did not go away ; ^she 
 crept softly to the window and sat down, 
 still holding the sketches on her lap. 
 She looked at her grandfather's sleeping 
 face. How good and honourable it looked
 
 PICTURES. 187 
 
 in its repose, though the forehead and chin 
 told of obstinacy and prejudice, though the 
 slackened limbs betrayed a habit of indo- 
 lent days. But age. bringing out these 
 characteristics, had also revealed a nature 
 upright and truthful ; ever ready to help, 
 though not eager to help ; habitually 
 generous in thought, prevented only by 
 unvanquished circumstance and a natural 
 supineness from being as generous in deed. 
 Arden thought it a face to love ; it re- 
 minded her, notwithstanding much unlike- 
 ness, of her own father. The tears gathered 
 into her eyes. She turned away and 
 looked out. There was a little breeze 
 outside ; the great lilac bushes before the 
 window softly rustled their heart-shaped 
 leaves. On the other side the drive, the 
 little lawn was hedged in with apple-trees ; 
 under their shade the yellow beehives were 
 ranged, and the bees were flitting to and 
 fro over the flower-borders among the tall 
 hollyhocks and lingering white lilies, the
 
 188 ARDEN. 
 
 phlox and stocks and carnations, the roses 
 and poppies. She could hear their busy 
 hum where she sat. A fish leapt in the 
 pond under the apple and quince branches, 
 making a clear cool plop in the water. 
 Some errant hens and chickens were peck- 
 ing at the gravel. Everything wore a look 
 of indescribable peace. 
 
 ' After all, I shall be happy here,' said 
 Arden. 
 
 Thoughtlessly she spoke aloud, and her 
 voice roused the old man from his doze. 
 He opened his eyes and looked round. 
 
 ' Sylvie ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, grandpapa/ She got up and 
 went to his side, taking the pochades with 
 her. ' I've brought you some of papa's 
 sketches to see.' 
 
 ' John's work ? ' Mr. Lawrance sat up ; 
 'of course, of course. Where are my 
 glasses, Sylvie?' 
 
 ' Here, grandpapa ; see, this is near 
 Rome — ^isn't it beautiful ? '
 
 PICTURES. 189 
 
 He did not seem so satisfied, turning 
 from one sketch to another, looking at 
 them from all points of view. 
 
 ' But don't you like them, grandpapa? ' 
 she asked. 
 
 ' Well, well, Sylvie ; I'm no judge ; 
 people painted differently in my time ; 
 they look too bleak and grey and white 
 for me. Give me old Crome and Constable 
 for landscape.' 
 
 ' Ah, I never saw them,' said Arden. 
 ' No doubt they are great painters, too.' 
 
 ' You may well say so. Ah, I used to 
 be reckoned quite a judge of painting ; but 
 mind I'm not disparaging John's work ; 
 he had the knowledge no doubt, poor 
 fellow — he had the knowledge. But it 
 takes us old folk some time to get used to 
 new styles.' 
 
 ' Still, papa was a great painter.' 
 
 ' No doubt, poor fellow, no doubt.' 
 
 Arden felt a little dissatisfied all the 
 same. The pictures were goodi^ she felt sure.
 
 190 AEDEN. 
 
 She stood looking at them herself, with a 
 sort of vague idea that her father's work 
 must not be set aside disregarded, that if 
 her grandfather did not admire it she must 
 redouble her admiration. 
 
 She was still looking at them, while her 
 grandfather dozed off again, when the door 
 opened, and Mrs. Lawrance came in. 
 
 'Hush!' said Arden, 'grandpa's asleep.* 
 
 She came to the door with her treasures 
 in her arms. 
 
 ' Can I do anything?' she said. 
 
 ' No ; aal's done now, Sylvie. What 
 have you got there ? ' 
 
 * Pictures — papa did them.' 
 
 ' Let's see ! Why they're not picters, 
 Sylvie, they're views.' 
 
 ' Yes ; Italy.' 
 
 ' Good law, what a desolate place ! ' 
 
 •^ Mrs. Lawrance ! ' 
 
 ' Just think of it. I alius heerd say 
 Italy was a land of Canaan, flowing with 
 ile and wine.'
 
 PICTURES. 191 
 
 ' So it is.' 
 
 ' Why, Sylvie, how can you say so and 
 look at it — aal commons and cypresses and 
 whited sepulchres ; it seems like a sort of 
 cemetery.' 
 
 ' It's that too,' said Arden. 
 
 ' I'm sure I can't see why you should 
 pine after it so, then ; there's more beauty 
 in the view from Mrs. Masters' gate — and 
 they come aal the way from Birmingham 
 to make draughts of it. Why don't you 
 paint it, Sylvie, come now? ' 
 
 ' True. I might as well be doing some- 
 thing.' 
 
 ' It 'ud be a nice enjyment for you ; 
 there's lots to paint in Arden prettier than 
 those.' 
 
 Although Arden was not converted to 
 this desirable opinion, yet she welcomed 
 the idea of setting to paint. She had no 
 great talent; but she had been welh taught, 
 and had a fine natural sense of colour and 
 the relations of tone. Once, at some pro-
 
 192 ARDEN. 
 
 vincial Italian exhibition she had sold a 
 sketch for 100 lire ; certainly that was 
 not much, though she had been very proud 
 of earning it. But now it would be a 
 matter of real relief and importance to her, 
 to earn at least enough for her pocket- 
 money. To be dependent is always bitter, 
 save to depend on those we love ; but to be 
 dependent and idle is shameful. At least, 
 Arden thought so. 
 
 She coloured up to the roots of her 
 hair. 
 
 ' I could try,' she said. * I would like 
 to paint something simple — a river, some 
 thin trees.' 
 
 ^ There's no water hereabouts, Sylvie, 
 save the canal. But it's as pretty as heart 
 can wish on Sunday mornings, with the 
 bells aal a-ringing, and the barges going up 
 and down, and the mint and wild flowers 
 smelling as sweet as a garden.' 
 
 ' You see, I couldn't paint all that.* 
 
 ' Maybe not ; but why should you
 
 PICTURES. 193 
 
 paint thin trees, when the finest trees in 
 England are aal round for miles ? ' 
 
 ' TheyVe so difficult.' 
 
 ' That may be — but who'd buy por- 
 traits of scanty trees, Sylvie ? Better take 
 a considerable deal of trouble and produce 
 summut worth the pains.' 
 
 ' True.' 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance was glad that she had 
 roused Arden to exert herself. Not that 
 she had much opinion of painting, save as 
 an ' enjyment,' and, to do her justice, she 
 did not at all take into consideration the, 
 idea that Arden might sell her pictures, 
 and help in that way to pay for her keep. 
 But although, owing to some strange mix- 
 ture of hospitality and hostility, she refused 
 to allow the girl to be of any use, still it 
 annoyed her beyond expression to watch 
 the listless conduct of Arden's days, to see 
 her reading without interest, or sitting, her 
 pale hands crossed on her black skirt, 
 silently thinking, or meddling with things 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 1 94 AEDEX. 
 
 that did not concern her ; or talking, day 
 after day, to her grandfather, reviving in 
 his heart the interests of a past in which 
 his wife had no share. Besides, while she 
 painted, the girl would be safely out of the 
 house. Sufficient reasons (felt though not 
 formulated) for welcoming the idea. 
 
 Arden, for her part, was quite as ready 
 to relinquish her inaction. She looked so 
 bright all dinner-time that her grandfather 
 remarked her cheerful face. 
 
 ^ After dinner I am going to look out 
 for a subject,' she announced. 
 
 ' That's right, Sylvie ; landscape paint- 
 ing's the healthful work and healthful play 
 at once.' 
 
 ' It's so good of you to take an interest, 
 grandpapa ! ' 
 
 'Is it? You see I'm thinking how gay 
 you'll make our walls look.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but I should like to expose one 
 or two of the best sketches.' 
 
 ' Expose them: '
 
 PICTURES. 195 
 
 * Send them to a gallery — an exhibi- 
 tion.* 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; there's a first-rate local 
 exhibition at Birmingham. It is a great 
 place for artists, Birmingham/ 
 
 ^ Indeed, I never heard that. I am very 
 glad; 
 
 ' Why yes, Sylvie. Baker was a Bir- 
 mingham man.' 
 
 'Baker?' 
 
 ' Yes, Baker — Baker the landscape 
 painter.' 
 
 * Oh yes.' Then, after a pause, ' I* 
 feel so ashamed,' said Sylvie, * when I 
 think how little I know of your great 
 painters. Of course papa always ranked 
 as an Italian. Will you tell me about 
 the English painters, grandpapa, — what 
 sort of things they try to do, and so 
 on?' 
 
 ' All in good time, Sylvie, all in good 
 time,' said Mr. Lawrance, rather nervously, 
 remembering that his theories of art were 
 2
 
 196 AKDEN. 
 
 chiefly derived from the notices in the 
 Birmingham Daily Post. 
 
 ' Ah, Sylvie ! ' cried Mrs. Lawrance, ' it 
 isn't many a girl 'as such a grandpa. 
 You can't be rightly said to know yet 
 what a mint of infarmation 'e's possessed of. 
 Many's the question I've put to him o' 
 winter evenings, and never one, so to 
 speak, unresponded. But there, he's alius 
 reading and thinking, reading and think- 
 ing ; it's bad for 'is 'ealth I often tell 'im ; 
 but 'e's ever been such a perusing man,' 
 
 ' I'm sure he's very clever,' said Arden, 
 looking affectionately at the old man. She 
 took it all on trust, though she had never 
 seen him read anything save the Birming- 
 ham Post. But then, she had never been 
 celebrated for penetration ; she generally 
 measured people by their own accounts of 
 themselves. 
 
 ' Oh, Sylvie ! Sylvie !' said her grand- 
 father, ' what's to become of my reason now 
 there are two women to flatter me ? '
 
 PICTURES. 197 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance's face clouded ever so 
 little. She did not quite approve that 
 Arden should be spoken of as equally 
 influential with herself. Her voice took a 
 somewhat colder intonation. 
 
 ' The 'eat of the day is over now, 
 Sylvie/ she said. ^It's none too warm for 
 you to begin making chice of a view ! * 
 
 'Very well, Mrs. Lawrance — Dunque^ 
 Signore^ la rinverisco' She made a quaint 
 little curtsey to her grandfather and was 
 gone. 
 
 ' I wish she'd leave aaf tarking that, 
 gibberish ? ' cried Mrs. Lawrance petu- 
 lantly. 
 
 ' Patience, Nannie, patience. After all 
 she's a bit o' sunshine in the old house.' 
 
 ' Did you find it so dull without her? ' 
 
 Mr. Lawrance decided on the better 
 part of valour ; he shut his eyes, nodded his 
 head ; no man is expected to answer ques- 
 tions in his sleep. 
 
 Meanwhile Arden set off on her expe-
 
 198 ARDEJT. 
 
 dition. It was an afternoon in whicli all 
 views are beautiful, a broad and golden 
 light. Still it was not a place to paint ; 
 there was no subject and a multitude of 
 detail. Arden looked in vain, unable to 
 fix her mind. There was a lovely group 
 of firs, but she could not carry her easel 
 so far. The poplar-bordered road was 
 winding and graceful, but she could find no 
 point of view that would take in the stems 
 of the trees in the hedge, and their tops. 
 She would rather never paint again than 
 paint at Mrs. Masters' gate. Still she 
 went on down the lane, walking slowly, 
 and continually looking about her. 
 
 There was one spot she would indeed 
 have liked to paint. It was the orchard 
 belonging to the black and white farm- 
 house where Susie Williams lived. The 
 trees were old and gnarled, with twisted 
 spreading branches, and so large that, 
 though the trunks were at some distance 
 from each other, the boughs were locked
 
 PICTURES. 199 
 
 together, laced and interlaced in a sort of 
 net. This low net or roof was covered 
 now with ripening apples of all kinds, 
 great green baking apples, scarcely tinged, 
 pippins, small russet ones for keeping, 
 delicate Americans for show. The sun 
 caught, here and there, these spots of 
 brilliant colour, intense or delicate, shining 
 out of the heavier green of the foliage ; it 
 struck, too, on the mossed trunks ; and in 
 sun and shade alike the grass was green 
 with the startling brightness of aftermath ; 
 in the tufts of tall grass still left unsheared 
 round the trees the delicate valerian spread 
 its snowy tracery. Beyond all this, one 
 saw in the distance the next field, yellow 
 with ripened corn. It was a picture of 
 abundance, colour, autumn. 
 
 Still Arden went on, for to paint the 
 orchard one would have to be inside ; a 
 deep ditch and a high hedge separated it 
 from the road ; and sitting down to paint 
 one would only see the tree-tops. She
 
 200 ARDEN. 
 
 walked for nearly a mile. She really could 
 find nothing else. Tired and almost cross 
 she turned her steps homewards. 
 
 As she was passing the orchard again 
 she turned round, shading her eyes, for 
 another glimpse. In the low sun it looked 
 much prettier than before ; a girl in a pink 
 cotton sun-bonnet was reaching to the 
 lower branches and gathering apples. She 
 had on a brown linsey gown and a many- 
 coloured cotton apron. Arden sighed. It 
 was really a charming subject. 
 
 She must have stood looking for several 
 moments, for Susie finished picking her 
 apples, gathered them in her apron and 
 turned. Then she saw Arden. She smiled, 
 with her sudden natural smile. 
 
 ' How beautiful your orchard is ! ' cried 
 Arden, answering the smile. 
 
 ' Good evening, Miss Lawrance. I*m so 
 glad you like it, Miss Lawrance. Won't 
 you step inside and look at it, Miss Law- 
 rance, before the sun's down ? '
 
 PICTURES. 201 
 
 Susie was very shy and eager. She had 
 made quite a heroine of Miss Lawrance. 
 
 ' Thank you, I am very much obliged. 
 I have never seen such beautiful apple- 
 trees. How must I get in? ' said Arden. 
 
 ' Oh, Miss Lawrance, I beg your pardon, 
 keeping you waiting in the road. This 
 way — see, through the flower-garden in 
 front of the house.' 
 
 Arden followed, admired the flowers. 
 Susie chatted and laughed. Arden was 
 quite flattered, the girl seemed so glad to 
 see her. It was quite like old times, when* 
 the old ladies in Eome used to treat her 
 like a princess in a story-book. 
 
 The two girls lingered talking in the 
 apple-yard. Susie forgot her shyness ; 
 Arden felt quite gay. 
 
 • I was longing to come inside,' she said, 
 ' as I was going down the road, but I did 
 not like to ask.' 
 
 ' If you knew how often I have wished 
 to see you here ! ' Susie added — the words
 
 202 ARDEN. 
 
 had slipped out unawares — ' I beg your 
 pardon, Miss Lawrance/ she added, ' I 
 didn't mean to take a liberty.' 
 
 ' You are very good.' Arden took the 
 girl's hand and the tears came into her 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Oh, Miss Lawrance,' Susie went on, ' I 
 would so like you, if you would, just when 
 you pass to look over the hedge sometimes 
 and see if I'm there, and say " good-day." ' 
 
 ' Would you ? Will you let me come 
 and paint the orchard ? ' 
 
 ' Paint the orcharri ! Will you, will 
 you? And may I come and look on?' 
 
 ' I shall be so pleased ' 
 
 ' And you will tell me about Rome ? ' 
 
 ' By-and-by.' 
 
 ' And you will really let me know you ?' 
 
 * Certainly, my dear.' 
 
 ' I have wished so much to know a real 
 lady ! I beg your pardon, Miss Lawrance, 
 that sounds very horrid ; but I mean — I 
 mean I kaow no one, no woman of my
 
 PICTURES. 203 
 
 own age. You see, the other farmers' 
 daughters are very diiFerent. I am not a 
 lady ; but I care for different things — 
 books, Carlyle, music — oh dear, I can't 
 say it.' 
 
 ' You have said it very well. I shall 
 be quite as glad, dear Miss Williams, to 
 talk with you as you to talk with me, for 
 I, too, know no one here, and things are 
 all very different.' 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 ^ I am so sorry,' said Susie, ardently] ; 
 ' if only I could prevent things ! ' Shg 
 was thinking of Mrs. Masters ; but Arden 
 had forgotten Mrs. Masters. 
 
 ^ Good-bye,' she said, holding out her 
 hand ; ' and may I come to-morrow ? ' 
 
 'May you! Will you?' 
 
 ' Yes ; and you shall come and look 
 
 on. 
 
 ' I will read. I will not interrupt you.' 
 
 ' Very well. A rivederci.^ 
 
 Arden went off, glad to have secured
 
 204 AllDEN. 
 
 the orchard, thinking also that Susie 
 Williams was a very nice little girl. I!ut 
 Susie felt much more strongly. 
 
 Since her engagement to Fred Masters, 
 for so she considered it, Susie had greatly 
 felt the need of a friend. Not of a con- 
 fidante, for that was forbidden her, but of 
 someone of her own age and sex, subject 
 to the same experiences and temptations. 
 By the standard of such a person she 
 might secretly measure her own conduct ; 
 it was now too foreign to her own tradi- 
 tions, she was too conscious that her own 
 judgment disapproved of it, for her not 
 to desire a different tribunal. This was 
 one reason, but there were others why 
 Susie should welcome Arden's companion- 
 ship. For one thing, as she had said, 
 Arden was a lady, of the same class as 
 Mr. Fred's sisters ; to know such a person 
 would be an immense boon to her, Susie 
 thought. She used to be so proud, this 
 girl; she used to contrast herself with the
 
 PICTURES. 205 
 
 Misses Masters, and thinking of her round 
 of duties, her pursuits, her aims and 
 theirs; she used to be conscious of a certain 
 superiority. Yet, because a trivial good- 
 for-nothing youth ventured to disapprove of 
 her now and then, she was ready to throw 
 overboard all her independence, her un- 
 conventionality, her habits of thought, and 
 learn meekly enough to what standard she 
 must conform. These reasons were, it will 
 be observed, somewhat utilitarian : Arden 
 was to serve as a catspaw to something 
 better. But Susie had instincts as well as , 
 reasons. One of these was violently, passion- 
 ately, to assert herself on the side of any- 
 thing unjustly treated. Another — which she 
 shares with many independent, intellectual, 
 and rather roughly mannered people — was 
 an extreme devotion to whatever is frail, 
 graceful, delicate, attaching. Arden, pale, in 
 her deep mourning ; Arden with her foreign 
 bearmg and memories ; Arden treated 
 coldly, slighted, a stranger ; Arden with
 
 206 ARDEN. 
 
 her beautiful face and curling hair, her 
 sweet voice and tall lithe figure ; such an 
 Erscheinung called forth all Susie's tender- 
 ness and chivalry. She went in to tea 
 flushed and excited. Harry was seated on 
 the settle, smoking, his feet stretched out 
 cased in stoutest boots. 
 
 ' Why, Susie, wench ; you're as rosy as 
 your apples ! ' 
 
 ' I've seen Miss Lawrance.' 
 
 ^ Eh ? She's a pleasant-faced young 
 woman.' 
 
 ' She's lovely ! ' 
 
 ' That's about it.' 
 
 A pause ; but Susie was eager to detail 
 her good fortune. 
 
 ' And she's as sweet to talk to as to 
 look at.' 
 
 ' What ! Did tha speak to her ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; she came into the orchard, she 
 is going to paint it.' 
 
 * Our orchard ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes ; to-morrow.'
 
 PICTURES. 207 
 
 *How did you come to ask her, Susie? 
 It was making free, I fear.' 
 
 * Ask her ! She asked me. She is a 
 real painter ; and I may look on and talk 
 to her ; she said she would like to know 
 me.' 
 
 ' I'm glad.' 
 
 Then there was another silence. At 
 last Susie broke it — 
 
 ' The tea's nearly drawn, Harry ; will 
 you come? Here's mother.' 
 
 'Eh?' 
 
 ' Tea's ready. Are you deaf ? ' , 
 
 Harry roused himself. His eyes fell on 
 his boots. 
 
 ' What a loon I am ! I can't sit down 
 with you and mother so rough and dirty. 
 Don't wait, Susie; I won't be a moment.' 
 
 He was off. 
 
 ' Heavens ! fancy Harry turning tidy ! ' 
 cried Susie. ' I can't think what's come 
 over the lad.' 
 
 * At all events there's room for improve-
 
 208 ARDEN. 
 
 ment/ said Mrs. Williams, ' and I'm glad 
 he's about to begin. Come, Susie.' 
 
 The smart little elderly beauty stroked 
 and arranged her cap ribbons and seated 
 herself at the tea-table. Harry came in. 
 The talk, of course, was chiefly of Arden's 
 visit. Mrs. Williams was delighted that 
 Susie should have a chance of acquiring 
 that elegance in which she had not followed 
 her mother's example. She insisted that 
 to-morrow afternoon Susie must ask Miss 
 Lawrance in to tea. 
 
 ' I'll go and look out the chaney tea-set, 
 this evening,' she asserted. 
 
 'N'ay, mother,' said Harry. ' Let's not 
 force Miss Lawrance to know us. All in 
 good time. She only asked to paint the 
 orchard.' 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't see, Harry, as you 
 should stand in Susie's Ught — and she in 
 such luck with her friends.* 
 
 ' In such luck ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, with Mr. Fred, and now Miss
 
 PICTURES. 209 
 
 Lawrance. That comes of having a mother 
 who's lived among the gentry — or your 
 conceited old maramie thinks so, my 
 Susie ! ' 
 
 * But what has Mr. Fred to do with 
 it? ' asked Harry. ' I don't like Mr. Fred ; 
 that's quite another matter/ 
 
 'Don't be so stiffnecked, Harry,' said 
 Mrs. Williams. 
 
 Susie was as red as a turkey-cock. 
 
 ' He helps me with my class at Sunday 
 school,' she said ; ' at least once or twice he 
 did.' 
 
 ' Ah ! * — Harry relapsed into a dreamy 
 silence. Conversation flagged. Even the 
 pert and lively Mrs. Williams only tossed 
 her head now and then, and suggested 
 making tea-cakes. Susie said nothing ; 
 hot, and red, and indignant with herself 
 and Fred. She knew she had told a lie. 
 Unless she had broken a promise she could 
 not have told the truth. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 ARDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 
 
 But Arden did not keep her promise. 
 She had over- tired herself with her long 
 walk in the heat, and for several days lay 
 restless and fevered, on the sofa in the 
 dark little dining-room, while Mrs. Law- 
 rance waited on her with more anxiety 
 and tenderness than the motherless girl 
 had ever known. 
 
 ' Ah, if you were always like this ! ' 
 Arden cried one day. She knew she might 
 be as petulant and familiar as she chose 
 while she was ill. 
 
 ' And if you was alius like this, Sylvie ! ' 
 Mrs. Lawrance answered. 
 
 But Arden could not always be ailing
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 211 
 
 and dependent, nor even for long. Her 
 nervous buoyant nature soon recovered 
 from depression, and while slie was still 
 too ill to go out painting, she was well 
 enough to assist herself, talk and laugh, 
 and engross her grandfather's attention, 
 and put an end to her temporary friendship 
 with his wife. 
 
 Meanwhile she was missed at the Farm. 
 Mrs. Williams was very plaintive over her 
 wasted sally-lunns ; Harry, too, though he 
 did not complain, looked blank and dis- 
 appointed. Susie made no excuse for her 
 heroine, smiled, thought it quite natural, 
 did not doubt but she would come to- 
 morrow. Then to-morrow. Still to-mor- 
 row ; when the others had forgotten their 
 expectations. 
 
 It was really Susie who missed her 
 most. The moment had come to her that 
 comes to all, though very few perceive it ; 
 the moment when a passion that seems 
 established for good or evil in our lives, 
 p 2
 
 212 ARDEN. 
 
 well known already to our hearts, comes 
 into collision with an unexpected force: 
 will, reason, conscience, call it as you may. 
 We had imagined all decision over. The 
 feeling is not so very new, nor yet so very 
 old ; we are in the full zenith of possession. 
 Then something cries to us : ' 1§ this 
 your choice? Mostly we do not hear, or 
 we answer, yes ; scarcely heeding, or ima- 
 gining that the decision has been alreatly 
 made. But some hear ; some search and 
 keep, and their approved love is the dearer 
 to. them. And some reject with breaking 
 hearts, entering into the kingdom of God 
 free of disease, but maimed. Susie was 
 experiencing this renewal of choice. She 
 was anxious to escape from it into any 
 new interest. If Arden would only come, 
 either the inquiry might be dulled, or her 
 interest diverted, or at least she might 
 make some sort of shelter for herself, 
 something to break the dreariness and 
 bleakness, the coldness and utter desolation
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 213 
 
 of the altered world. But day after day 
 lengthened, lagged, and passed by, and 
 Arden did not come : Susie was left to 
 decide the question for herself 
 
 Tt was not so difficult to determine, 
 that to deceive, however unwillingly, her 
 mother and her brother, was cowardly and 
 dishonourable. Susie always set out for 
 the school — she would never consent to a 
 more private tryst — with the intention of 
 telling her lover that she could no longer 
 endure this systematised dissimulation. 
 But when she came in and saw Fred at* 
 the head of his class, or more often rest- 
 lessly loafing about and shouting out 
 occasional directions ; when she saw this 
 bored, dull, heavy young fellow, suddenly 
 look alive with content and animation at 
 the first rustle of her dress, then Susie's 
 heart failed, and her conscience threw up 
 its brief and turned her lover's advocate. 
 Indeed she did not know what would 
 become of him without her. Oddly
 
 214 AKDEN. 
 
 enough this consciousness that Fred was 
 feeble, unprincipled, easily swayed, did not 
 shock this strongly-fibred and resolute 
 girl ; the knowledge that he needed her 
 was the essential thing; without that 
 she would never have consented to 
 sacrifice her duty and her honour to his 
 desire. 
 
 So on Sunday she began — 
 
 ' Are you ill, Fred ? you looked so tired, 
 I thought, this morning.' 
 
 ' Before you came ? ' 
 
 ' I did'nt see you then ; no, afterwards." 
 
 ' No; I'm only bored.' 
 
 ' Oh ! why are you bored ? ' 
 
 ' It's precious dull life for a fellow ; 
 loafing about from Sunday night till 
 Sunday morning with nothing to look 
 forward to. I tell you I can't stand it, 
 Susie : do you hear ? ' 
 
 ' I'm sure I wish you wouldn't stand 
 it, dear Fred.' 
 
 ' Ah, my dear little girl ! '
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 215 
 
 * Wait before you kiss me ; let me 
 explain — I mean, let me tell Harry.' 
 
 ' Tell Harry ! There you are again 
 with your conditions. You love your pride 
 much more than you love me ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, Fred, there's nothmg, nothing else 
 I wouldn't do.' 
 
 ' That's what women always say ; 
 nothing but the one thing required of 
 them.' 
 
 ' Oh, Fred. Don't you think I want to 
 see you as much as you want to see me ? ' 
 
 ' Then why on earth do you make such ' 
 a fuss ! ' 
 
 ' Because ' 
 
 * Because you'd rather break my heart 
 than submit.' 
 
 The sense of injustice spurred Susie on 
 to finish her sentence. 
 
 ' Because it would be mean beyond 
 words ! ' 
 
 ' You think I'm mean then ; eh ? ' 
 
 But Fred was so much tickled with the
 
 216 AKDEN. 
 
 supreme ludicroiisness of this idea, that he 
 required no answer to his question. His 
 laugh put him in good humour. • It must 
 be owned that, in such a mood, Fred 
 Masters had the sort of irresponsible, ap- 
 pealing, petulant and caressing charm which 
 very selfish people sometimes possess; each 
 one of his bright looks and words was a 
 subtle flattery to Susie, and told her that 
 he was so well-contented because she was 
 at his side. She felt so necessary to him ; 
 she alone made him look so happy, and 
 he was so seldom happy ; how could she 
 shatter this momentary delight of his by 
 what she secretly felt would be a vain 
 appeal to his sense of justice and respon- 
 sibility? Indeed, he seemed a being of a 
 different sphere, for whom those stern 
 names need have no meaning. 
 
 So Susie deferred renewing the discus- 
 sion till the hour of parting came. 
 
 ' Now, Susie, Susie dear, do be kind. 
 Let me see you for a little half-hour on 
 Tuesday in the rickyard.'
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 217 
 
 ' It can't be ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, my love, how can you leave me to 
 drag through all the live-long week without 
 you ! I can't keep straight without you, 
 that's the truth.' 
 
 ' Fred ! Fred ! ' 
 
 ' Well, it's your fault. I never pretended 
 to be good ; but I might be good if you 
 would help me — and you won't help me.' 
 
 ' Not to dishonour, Fred.' 
 
 ' Well, Susie ; the responsibility's yours. 
 I shall be there, wet or fine.' 
 
 ' I shall be indoors ; come and see me.' 
 
 ^ Bother ; and if you don't come to 
 meet me, I shall be wild with despair.' 
 
 * Then don't come.' 
 
 ' And very likely I shall get drunk 
 again, and there'll be another row with the 
 governor.' 
 
 ' Now, Fred, you make me angry — 
 good-bye ! ' cried the young girl. 
 
 ^ Oh, Susie, Susie, Susie ! don't be so 
 harsh. There, forgive me, dearest, I'll think
 
 218 ARDEN. 
 
 of you and not give way. Only you 
 shouldn't leave me so long alone — not till 
 next Sunday, Susie ? ' 
 
 ' Not till next Sunday.' 
 
 ^ Then good-bye ; I shall be there on 
 Tuesday, if you relent.' 
 
 ' And I shall be at home, if you choose 
 to come and find me.' 
 
 ' One kiss, darling ; good-bye ! ' 
 
 ' Good-bye ! ' 
 
 And Susie walking off felt that she had 
 gained a difficult victory in not sinking 
 lower. So impossible did she find it to 
 recover the original lost footstep. 
 
 But this consciousness of having fallen 
 lower than her natural standing-point was 
 a very sad and irritating one to her. Day 
 by day she got less satisfied, less cheerful 
 and hopeful than of old ; alternately snap- 
 pish and overwhelmingly contrite. The full 
 round of daily duties in which she had 
 formerly found a healthy pleasure, became 
 a wearying, insupportable tax, now that
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 219 
 
 all her energies were bent on revolving a 
 question, much more absorbing and quite 
 foreign to the churning, and baking, and 
 brewing, and strict keeping of accounts. 
 It must be owned that these occupations 
 suffered by Susie's distraction ; but Susie 
 suffered too. She knew what it was to 
 wake in a morning and wish she had been 
 a chair, a table — any of the insensate fur- 
 niture on which she looked, that would not 
 have to think and feel, to decide and labour. 
 After a restless night, she began the day 
 weary and disheartened ; her little suc- 
 cesses seemed no longer real ; her little 
 failures seemed crushing despairs. It was 
 an effort to drag about. She counted every 
 step ; if Harry did not come in to dinner, 
 and she had to go and fetch him — it was 
 no longer a buoyant, eager companion who 
 ran out to meet him ; sometimes he scarcely 
 recognised the lagging gait, the downcast 
 head. And now no longer in the evenings 
 she took out her book and toiled merrily at
 
 220 ARDEN. 
 
 the Siege of Din ant or followed the fortunes 
 of Frederick of Prussia ; propped in one 
 corner of the settle, her eyes closed, her 
 hands before her, she would sit in listless 
 idleness, neither attempting to join in the 
 family discussions, nor heeding the anxious 
 looks that her mother and Harry would 
 cast at her from time to time. 
 
 One such evening Mrs. Williams, after 
 much uneasiness, suddenly smiled. It 
 was evident she had a bright thought. 
 
 ' Harry,' she said, ' I should take it 
 very kind if you'd just step in the front 
 garden and look at that new bed.' 
 
 ' Now, mother ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes, yes, Harry, now,' cried little 
 Mrs. Williams, nodding and shaking her 
 cap ribbons at Susie, inert and weary, on 
 the settle. 
 
 ' Here I am.' He got up, gave himself 
 a shake as if to shake off all remnants of 
 his comfortable drowsiness, and followed her 
 out of doors.
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 221 
 
 His step-mother led him towards the 
 gate. It was very clear and still ; the tree- 
 tops scarcely swayed ; the sky was full of 
 light, and flecked with fleecy wathes of 
 cloud. 
 
 Harry looked up. ' There'll be wind 
 to-night,' he said. 
 
 ' Oh, Harry, Harry. You think o' 
 nothing but crops and weather.' 
 
 ' But the rick's not thatched yet,' said 
 her step-son, stupidly excusing himself. 
 
 ' And if we lose a dozen ricks, where's 
 the ruin compared to losing Susie?' 
 
 ' Losing Susie ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, you stupid goose, losing Susie ! 
 There, you look as if I thought the wind 
 'ud carry her away with the ricks, and I'm 
 sure it might, she's got so thin o' late. 
 But that's not what I meant.' 
 
 * Oh, mother, don't trifle with me ; 
 what is it ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, you may well say so, that's the 
 question. Whatever it be, she's as changed
 
 222 ARDE5T. 
 
 as changed, our bright Susie; to see how- 
 she sits and mopes ; and my heart comes 
 into my mouth every time I speak to her, 
 she snaps one up so.' 
 
 ' She's sorely changed, poor child ; 
 poor little wench. D'ye think she's in 
 love ? ' 
 
 ' Not seriously, or she'd have told me. 
 She always tells me everything, does Susie.' 
 
 ' Is she ill, then ? ' 
 
 ' 111, partly ; and in love, partly. She's 
 slipped out of health somehow, and if we 
 don't take care, Harry, you and I, she'll 
 slip into an early grave.' 
 
 ' Don't, mother.' 
 
 ' But I must. I've been thinking ; 
 the worst of it is, we can do nothing, we 
 two ; she's too used to us. And if I was 
 to say to her, "Susie, what is it, dear?" 
 either she'd answer nothing, or she'd be- 
 come suspicious and think us spies upon 
 her.' 
 
 ' It's dreadful,' said Harry, wiping his
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 223 
 
 forehead with his hand. ' Dreadful. I feel 
 quite moithered-like.' 
 
 ' Not I. 'Twill all come right in time. 
 We'll see our Susie proud and happy yet. 
 What's to do now is, write to that strange 
 young lady at the Bushes and ask her in 
 to tea.' 
 
 ' Ask Miss Lawrance to tea ? ' 
 
 ' Lord-a-mercy, Harry, will you never 
 do anything but gape and wonder? Susie 
 must have a change. Shall we hire a 
 house at Leamington, or would you like 
 me to ask Mrs. Masters to dinner ? ^ 
 
 ' Don't take one up so, mother ; I 
 think you're very clever. I should never 
 have ventured.' 
 
 * Ventured ! forsooth. And Susie 
 moping and fretting herself to a shadow.' 
 
 'I'm sure I'm very grateful to you, 
 mother.* 
 
 ' Why, Harry, you're as red as a 
 turkey-cock. Do you think it taking such 
 liberty? Well, I'm sure; and to think of 
 the gentlefolk I've known.'
 
 224 ARDEN. 
 
 ' Shall we go in now ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; but mind, never a word to 
 Susie until we're sure of Miss Lawrance.' 
 
 So they turned towards the darkness 
 of the porch. 
 
 Mrs. Williams exerted consummate 
 generalship to get Susie to go to bed 
 soon after eight o'clock. Then she tripped 
 about the room, quite brisk and excited, 
 hunting up her seldom-used papier-mach^ 
 writing-desk, the inkstand, the mother-o'- 
 pearl penholder, the blotting-book with 
 ' A Present from Tunbridge ' on the back, 
 the jar of shot to dry the pen in, the 
 packet of vari-coloured sheets with scolloped 
 edges, the much -referred -to dictionary ; 
 all the ornamental appurtenances of a semi- 
 genteel writing-table. 
 
 Finally these long-treasured objects 
 were spread out on a page of the Field 
 upon the table, so that no inkspots might 
 disfigure the neat red cloth. Mrs. Williams 
 hovered about, looking at them with clasped
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 225 
 
 hands, as though she might derive inspira- 
 tion from the very sight of them. At last 
 she took a chair, set it very straight, laid 
 her cheek in her palm and composed her- 
 self to meditation. Finally she took her 
 pen swiftly, as though to record some 
 brilliant thought, but it was only to write 
 ' Woodleigh Farm, July 15th.' 
 
 ' Pity it hasn't a good name. Williams' 
 Farm is more than I'll consent to write, 
 but were it called tli' Oaks or th' Ashes 
 t'ud be a thousand times more genteel.' 
 
 ' But there's no good oak nearer than 
 Feversham Spinny ; and, I thank my stars, 
 no ashes to spile my crops.' 
 
 ' Lor', Harry, how you worry. Let be, 
 now — 
 
 ' Woodleigh Farm, July 15th. 
 
 *Dear Miss Lawrance ' 
 
 * Wouldn't it be more civil-like to 
 begin, Honoured Miss?' 
 
 ' Lor', Harry, how low that 'ud be, 
 now ! Listen — 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 ARDEN. 
 
 ' Dear Miss Lawrance, — I seize the 
 opportunity ' 
 
 ^All the letters I ever wrote began, 
 " I take up my pen " or " this comes 
 hoping," ' demurred Harry. 
 
 ' What a plough-boy style. No. — I 
 seize the opportunity (ah, two p's) having 
 heard from my daughter as you expressed 
 a wish ' 
 
 ' That's good ! ' said Harry ; ' '' ex- 
 pressed a wish." Lor', mother, you've 
 got it all at your fingers' ends.' 
 
 ' Expressed a wish,' meditated Mrs. 
 Williams. 'Now listen, Harry — having 
 heard from my daughter as you ex- 
 pressed a wish to pourtray our humble 
 orchard ' 
 
 ' Lor', mother, it's like a penny-reading.' 
 
 ' Our humble orchard,' went on Mrs. 
 Williams, nodding and smiling with tears 
 of pride in her china-blue eyes. ' To beg 
 you to visit our little ' 
 
 ' Home,' suggested Harry.
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 227 
 
 * Nonsense ; don't spoil it. There, I've 
 got it — 
 
 ^ Our little homestead, any day which it 
 
 may suit your convenience to mention ' 
 
 ' But there's nothing about Susie ? ' 
 ' Of course there's nothing about 
 Susie. — Requesting the favour of a reply 
 — that's to ensure her coming, you see, 
 Harry.' 
 
 ' It's like a lawyer ! ' cried Harry. 
 ' Madam, I obediently remain, 
 ' Yours truly, 
 ' Sarianna Williams, 
 
 ' 7iee Well AND.' 
 
 'Nee's the French for maiden name,' 
 added Mrs. Williams, whose French, the 
 result of six months' residence at a con- 
 vent school some twenty years ago, was 
 little more than a dim memory. 
 
 All the same the French word, the 
 pink and scented note, the fine phrases, all 
 served to dazzle Harry, whose own inspi- 
 q2
 
 228 ARDEN. 
 
 ration would scarcely have prompted more 
 than ' Honoured Miss, this comes hoping 
 you will come to tea to-morrow even- 
 ing. Your obedient servant, Henry 
 Williams.' Having this abortive missive 
 in his mind, he felt the superiority of his 
 step-mother's production. That was, he 
 imagined, just the sort of communication 
 to address to Miss Lawrance ; coloured and 
 scented, foreign and fine. With what dis- 
 dain would she not look on their plain, 
 comfortable parlour. For the first time 
 Harry blushed as he looked round him ; 
 somehow all the merit seemed to have 
 gone out of the inherited and sober home, 
 of which he had always been so proud. 
 
 ' I 'most fear it's taking a liberty, 
 mother ; we're but unked folk, and she so 
 fine.' 
 
 ' Nonsense ; unked indeed ! Speak 
 for yourself, sir. It's a thousand pities you 
 left off your schooling at fifteen.' 
 
 ' T' wasn't my fault,' growled Harry ;
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 229 
 
 and indeed it was stinging to be twitted 
 for a lack of learning which was only the 
 result of a self-sacrifice to his father's 
 interests. 
 
 Mrs. Williams felt contrite. 
 
 * There, there,' she said, ' you're better 
 than most, any way. Now, Harry, see 
 that Curtis leaves this letter at the Bushes 
 first thing to-morrow morning.' 
 
 ' I'll see to it, mother. Well, good- 
 night.' 
 
 ' Good-night.' 
 
 Darkness and silence then invested the 
 parlour, and kept their watch over the 
 little rose-coloured letter, the fruit of such 
 patient labour, the seed of such anxious 
 hopes. 
 
 Meanwhile Susie tossed restlessly up- 
 stairs, unconscious of all that was being 
 done on her behalf, dreaming that all her 
 troubles were a dream, and that her life 
 was fair and straight and open as it used 
 to be. And half a mile away Arden slept
 
 230 ARDEN. 
 
 a deep untroubled slumber, forgetting all 
 the frets that had no secret blame or shame 
 in them. With her black clothes lying 
 empty near her, Arden, a stranger and 
 fatherless, would have seemed most piti- 
 able, could some all-penetrating Eye (as 
 we see in old-fashioned Scripture pictures) 
 have pierced to either chamber. And 
 Arden thought so herself, and all the 
 people in the village save one, who knew 
 how much the worst of sorrow is an un- 
 guessed shame. 
 
 Arden woke the next morning, restless 
 and eager. She was always gay and 
 active in the morning, for until the post- 
 man brought the paper, or the small shop- 
 ping, or a circular or stray note at eleven 
 o'clock, Arden regularly expected a letter 
 from the Roses. One short note, greeting 
 her at her hotel in London, was all her 
 news of them since she had left them at 
 Venice. No wonder she thought it strange 
 and was anxious, for in six weeks they
 
 A LETTEK AND A MEETING. 231 
 
 seemed to have forgotten her ; these 
 friends for whom she had forgotten her 
 father, whom she had cared for all her life. 
 
 In the midst of her expectations and 
 grumbles, her letter- writing to and letter- 
 waiting from these earliest acquaintances, 
 the people at the farm were but slightly 
 remembered. Sometimes, indeed, she 
 thought of Susie's bright face, and of the 
 green and writhen orchard hung with 
 coloured apples ; but as yet she felt little 
 energy, and moreover, the longer she de- 
 ferred, the redder the fruit would become. 
 
 So when she woke that morning it was 
 only of Gerard and Ellie that she was 
 thinking, beings as different in her eyes 
 from Harry and Susie Williams as Fer- 
 dinand and Miranda from Falstaff and 
 Anne Page. She came down to breakfast 
 looking gay, but thoughtful. 
 
 ' Good marning, Sylvie. Your gran'- 
 papa's none so well this marning.' 
 ' Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Lawrance.'
 
 232 AUDEN. 
 
 ' rd rather see you pleasant than 
 sorry, child.' 
 
 ' Yes, Mrs. Lawrance?' 
 
 Arden subsided into silent preoccupa- 
 tion. 
 
 ' And what is it you're so thaatful 
 over, Sylvie ? ' 
 
 ' Here to London, one day ; London to 
 Paris, one night ; Paris to Turin, twenty- 
 four hours ; Turin to Yenice, one day — 
 sixty hours.' 
 
 ' What are you arter, Sylvie ? ' 
 
 ' I might get an answer to my letter 
 to-day.' 
 
 ' Oh, Sylvie, Sylvie ! ' 
 
 ' But there isn't anything wrong, Mrs. 
 Lawrance, in wishing to hear from one's 
 friends.' 
 
 ' No ; but when instead of being 
 happy in the station of life the Lard's 
 called us to, we're alius a'fretting and 
 frabbing for summat else, and taking no 
 notice, or neglecting aal that's going on
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 233 
 
 about us — that's more discontent than 
 aught else, Sylvie/ 
 
 The tears came into Arden's eyes. 
 
 ' Perhaps I am discontented,' she said, 
 very gently, ' but my life used to be very 
 different.' 
 
 She pushed her plate away, the bread 
 tasted bitter ; her eyes, filled with tears, 
 did not see the brown-patterned wall and 
 the ivy-darkened window, but her old 
 home in Italy; her father's pleasant studio; 
 people coming in and out, the Roses among 
 them ; herself, too, as she remembered her- 
 self in her father's picture, a gay, slim 
 creature, dressed in white, very young and 
 free of sorrow. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance said nothing ; she went 
 on with her breakfast, for much hard 
 work must be done between then and 
 dinner ; but as she munched her food, and 
 gulped down her tea, she too was thinking 
 that her life used to be very different ; 
 peaceful, quiet, orderly, economical. And
 
 234 ARDEN. 
 
 now there was Sylvie, always crying or 
 laughing, or falling ill, never any use to 
 anyone, nor any pleasure, either ; taking 
 the food and shelter given her with forced 
 thanks and an unhappy face. Would to 
 God her husband had let well alone and 
 left the girl to be looked after by her own 
 friends ! 
 
 So while Arden was growing tender- 
 hearted and miserable over her memories, 
 Mrs. Lawrance, in her turn, was hardening 
 herself to resent ingratitude. She finished 
 her meal, got up and pushed her chair in 
 its place against the wall. 
 
 Arden started, and got up. 
 
 ' Can I be of any use, this morning ? ' 
 she asked, mechanically. 
 
 ' None, thank you,' said her step- 
 mother, grimly ; and went away to look 
 after the housework, the cooking, the 
 "beasts, and the dairy. 
 
 Arden sighed ; there was nothing to 
 do or to look forward to, all day long.
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 235 
 
 save the postman's visit. She caught up 
 her broad Tuscan hat, and set out to 
 meet him. 
 
 ' I wonder if they'll come to England 
 this autumn,' she was saying to herself; 
 ' and if they will come and see me, or if 
 I may go and see them. It's the six- 
 teenth of July to-day. They said they 
 would be coming towards the end of 
 August ; just a month. Oh. dear, how 
 will it go ? ' 
 
 Then she walked on a little, spying 
 to right and left, but there was no one^ 
 in the lane ; so she went towards the 
 canal bridge — she would surely meet the 
 postman soon. As she walked, she went 
 on with her reverie. 
 
 ' If they were to ask me again, I 
 would go with them. I would get away 
 from here and go to Italy. One can live 
 on little there, and I have forty pounds 
 
 a-year.' 
 
 Pleased with this reverie, she stopped
 
 236 ARDEN. 
 
 on the roadside, leaning against a hurdle, 
 making pictures with her half-shut eyes. 
 
 ' I would give lessons, and paint,' she 
 cried. ' Oh, if the Roses would come and 
 take me away from here ! ' 
 
 She sighed, but not with regret ; rather 
 from the impatience of her eager hope. 
 And now, beyond the bridge, she could 
 hear the tramp of heavy boots. She 
 looked under the arch ; the framed land- 
 scape of green-bordered road and lush 
 over-hanging elms was enlivened by a 
 figure — if the bent and dusty postman 
 could be called an enlivenment ; to Arden 
 he certainly was — she ran to meet him. 
 
 ' Any letters ? ' she cried, out of 
 breath. 
 
 ' Good day. Miss : I'll foind th' News 
 for th' old gen'leman.' 
 
 ' Nothing else ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing else. Miss.' 
 
 He trudged on under the bridge, along 
 the level road. When he was fairly out
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 287 
 
 of sight, Arden sank down on a heap of 
 stones and began to cry. 
 
 Arden had not been long on her throne 
 of desolation, when she gradually became 
 aware of a sort of shuffling sound on the 
 road in front of her. Her first impulse was 
 to stop crying ; her next to pull her hat 
 well over her eyes. Then she looked up. 
 
 A farm-labourer, a slouching fellow, 
 with hair and skin much the colour of 
 his light-coloured and soiled fustian, was 
 standing on the opposite side the road, 
 looking at her with sheepish curiosity. 
 Either to excite her attention, or from 
 mere shyness, he kept on scuffling, first 
 with one foot, then with the other, 
 through a little heap of poplar down 
 and fallen blossoms collected on the road- 
 side. As she looked at him, he suddenly 
 brought this amusement to a close, and 
 as suddenly jerked forward his right 
 arm. The great brown hand held a rose- 
 coloured missive.
 
 238 ARDEK. 
 
 ' What a clumsy Pierrot,' thought 
 Arden, with an unexpected smile ; thus 
 encouraging the puppet into speech. 
 
 * Bean't yer th'old gen'leman's gran'- 
 child ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Yes/ said Arden, smiling anew. 
 
 ' Th' old Missus bade me hand yer 
 this.' So speaking, he came a little for- 
 ward, arid threw, or rather shoved, the 
 letter on to Arden's lap. She was still 
 sitting on the heap of stones. While she 
 was feeling for some coppers he shuffled 
 off; but she saw him come up to her 
 again. She thought it was for the money ; 
 but he did not come close, only near 
 enough to speak without shouting. 
 
 ' Doan't yer moind,' he said ; ' and 
 doan't yer get rheumatics on them stones.' 
 
 And before she could think of the 
 money he was off. 
 
 His rude comfort had effectually dissi- 
 pated Arden's gloom. She now began to 
 wonder who ' th' old Missus ' could be,
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 239 
 
 who sent such dainty missives by so 
 queer a messenger. Perhaps it was Mrs. 
 Masters. 
 
 So few causes for even such a flicker 
 of curiosity enlivened Arden's days just 
 now, that she dallied with her impatience. 
 Then she burst the envelope and read 
 Mrs. Williams' queer little note, with its 
 unsuccessful and plebeian elegances. 
 
 ' How stupid ! ' was Arden's first ex- 
 clamation ; ' as if I could tell what day 
 the light would suit me.' 
 
 She continued to turn homewards, but 
 when she got to the gate she hesitated. 
 What should she do when she reached 
 home ; there were three good hours till 
 dinner. Her grandfather was ill just 
 lately, and she might only talk to him 
 when he had woke up from his after- 
 dinner nap. Mrs. Lawrance would be 
 busy and unwilling to have her company. 
 Should she go on writing letters to the 
 Roses, letters that were never answered?
 
 240 ARDEN. 
 
 or read the back numbers of the 'Gentle- 
 man's ' all through again ? or half break 
 her back weeding the drive ? It was all 
 very dreary ; yes, much as Arden dis- 
 liked owning, even to herself, that any- 
 thing bored her, she must allow that she 
 was supremely weary of the Bushes. 
 
 True, she might paint, now she was 
 better. And so she took Mrs. Williams' 
 letter from her pocket, and read it through 
 again. After all it was very good-natured 
 of them to want to see her ; and the 
 orchard was certainly the prettiest subject 
 she had seen. She would go that after- 
 noon. 
 
 ' At least I can do the blocking In,' 
 she said to herself ; ' and there will be a 
 soul under sixty to talk to.' She walked 
 up the drive, feeling more excited at this 
 prospect of visiting the farmer's sister 
 down the road, than she ever used to be 
 when looking forward to a ball in the old 
 days at Rome.
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 241 
 
 She forgot that she was tired and dis- 
 appointed, and instead of going in, she 
 crossed the farmyard, and walked through 
 the fields to the farthest field of all, green 
 now with aftermath. It was a low -lying 
 lush meadow, sloping down towards the 
 brook that bordered the farther side ; the 
 brook itself was hidden under thickly- 
 sprouting pollard willows, tall reeds and 
 bulrushes ; and, lower down, mint and 
 forget-me-not fringed the edges. The 
 two sides of the field had been so badly 
 drained, that in damp weather they were 
 a swamp, and in time of drought an 
 agglomeration of barren, clayey heaps and 
 hollows ; the end that joined the little 
 meadow was partially saved by the roots 
 of the elms and willows in the hedge ; 
 but the other side, low and flat, separated 
 from Farmer Williams's ground by some 
 railings and a pool, was utterly wasted in 
 regard to hay or pasture. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 242 AKDEN. 
 
 But just now it looked so beautiful, 
 that Arden, at least, would not wish it 
 otherwise. Among the glaucous tints of 
 the reeds and flowering rushes, the golden 
 yellow of the beautiful summer iris had 
 been dashed and splashed with no niggardly 
 hand. That corner of the field ; the widen- 
 ing brook edged with silvery willows, the 
 soft greens and yellows of the sparsely- 
 grown swamp letting through here and 
 there a glimpse of the still pool and of the 
 ripening corn beyond ; that field corner 
 had struck Arden as a happy subject for a 
 panel — just a sketch, a mere pochade. So 
 she stood on the brink of the swamp, 
 changing her position repeatedly, and the 
 focus of her eyes, trying to fix in her mind 
 the outlines of her picture. 
 
 Now as it happened Harry Williams 
 was in the field beyond. She, intent on 
 her foreground, did not espy him ; but 
 he, seeing Arden with her wide hat fallen 
 back like a deep halo round her head and
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 243 
 
 ahoulders, her golden-curled head peeping 
 just above the golden -flowered irises, 
 thought her as charming a subject for 
 study as she thought them. However^ 
 being a very shy and, consciously, an 
 awkward man, Farmer Williams took good 
 care that Arden should not be disturbed by 
 the least sight of an intruder on her lone- 
 liness. He kept well behind the hedge 
 further up the field, and tried to interest 
 himself in the condition of his crops; but 
 the memory of Arden's yellow hair made 
 even the gold of his maturing harvest seem 
 faded and insufficient. 
 
 Probably she might never, or at least 
 not till long afterwards, have known of his 
 presence, but for a sudden fancy of hers to 
 clutch at and carry off some of the lavish 
 gold of the flowers. For that it was neces- 
 sary to venture boldly into the heart of the 
 swamp ; but the topmost clay-ridges were 
 not yet submerged, and by careful treading 
 k2
 
 244 ARDEN. 
 
 the flowers might be secured at no greater 
 risk than that of muddy shoes. At first 
 all went well ; but when the spears of the 
 reeds and flags, the fine stems of the rushes, 
 and the bold yellow heads of the flowers 
 were thick all round the girl, shoulder high, 
 it was less easy to find out a stepping-place ; 
 and if she stood still the soft mud sank to 
 the water level. At first she laughed, 
 gathering in her arms a rich harvest of 
 her spoil. But when her arms were full, 
 it became no easy problem to get either 
 backwards or forwards without relinquish- 
 ino: hold of the flowers. 
 
 So difficult was it to get backwards 
 over the quashed and liquid soil, that, 
 seeing the railings but a few yards ahead, 
 she determined to venture for them. Once 
 there it would be easy enough to scramble 
 along by help of their planks and posts 
 till she should reach the sudden rise of 
 the ground. Alas, for her courage! No 
 sooner had she quitted the yielding sink-
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 245 
 
 ing ridge on which she stood, than she 
 floundered hopelessly in the watery mud, 
 sinking deeper and deeper down among the 
 reed and lily roots, to the soft miry bottom 
 where the leeches lurk. 
 
 ' Santo Dio ! ' cried Arden, instinctively 
 stretching out her arms to save herself. 
 ' Oh, my flowers ! ' 
 
 It was dreadful to feel oneself still 
 going down and not to know where one 
 would stop, and not to guess how one 
 would ever extricate oneself — for Arden 
 was now ankle-deep in the slush. She 
 saw a man running across the cornfield ' 
 towards her. 
 
 ' Man ! Sir ! Sentite ! ! ' And she 
 shouted a prolonged Italian vocative. 
 
 Then she did not cry out any more, for 
 she saw the man run a little up the field 
 and return in a moment, still walking very 
 fast, although bending under the weight of 
 a broken hurdle which he carried with 
 him. He crept along the side of the fence,
 
 246 ARDEN. 
 
 balancing the hurdle on the top rail, flat, 
 and shoving it along in front of him. 
 Arden, though the mud kept on yielding 
 and yielding, never said a word to hasten 
 him. She looked on fascinated, as though 
 she were the interested watcher at some 
 game of skill. Neither did he speak ; but 
 when, in a moment, he was opposite to 
 her, he stopped- Then he took down the 
 hurdle, set it on one side, and gently 
 lowered it in such a manner that the tall 
 growing reeds and flags were flattened into 
 a sort of mat underneath. 
 
 ' Now, Miss,' he said. 
 
 ' But I can't loose my feet ! ' cried Arden. 
 
 ' Then you must let me pull you out. 
 I'm 'most afeard, though, tli' hurdle will 
 sink under my weight.' 
 
 He hesitated for a moment. By this 
 time one foot was free and on the hurdle. 
 
 ' Oh, I'm safe,' cried Arden. Not yet, 
 though ; for the mud clung close. 
 
 ' Here, Miss.'
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 247 
 
 The man had taken off his coat, and he 
 fluDg it towards her, holding one end, 
 
 ^ Tug at 'n,' he shouted. ' Tug at 'n, I 
 say.' 
 
 Another moment and Arden was run- 
 ning over the hurdle — no safe resting-place 
 — towards the railing ; yet another, and she 
 was sitting on the safe, dry ground, looking 
 ruefully at her shoes. 
 
 ' I shall never get home.' 
 
 * I'll cut you a swathe of rushes, Miss,' 
 and the man was off again towards the 
 marsh. 
 
 He returned, and began binding her feef 
 in the strong clean rushes, and in dragging 
 off this band the black adhering mud was 
 scattered on the grass. 
 
 ' Oh, don't ! don't ! ' cried Arden, much 
 more touched by this than even by his more 
 necessary help. ' How can you ? Let me 
 do it myself.' 
 
 ' Nay, Missie, my red hands are better 
 at this than your white little ones.'
 
 248 ARDEN. 
 
 ' How kind you are ! And I've never 
 thanked you — without you I should still 
 have been sinking, sinking into that horrid 
 bog.' 
 
 ' Don't mention it, Miss ; any man 'ud 
 do as much.' 
 
 ' But not so cleverly ! ' cried Arden. 
 * It was a fine idea to think of the hurdle. 
 I'll never complain of the bad fencing 
 again.' 
 
 Harry Williams smiled a sly rustic 
 smile. 
 
 ' 'T moight be better ! ' he said. 
 
 ' Now it was clever of you,' she went 
 on, ' to turn that defect to such good 
 account. What made you think so suddenly 
 of the hurdle ? ' 
 
 ' Well, Miss, you see — the old gentle- 
 man — I beg pardon, Mr. Lawrance, — he's 
 drawing on in years, and he don't see after 
 things as moight be wished. And since 
 the cows were turned into this field — the
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 249 
 
 fence being so bad they were alius getting 
 in among the ripening corn.' 
 
 ' Dear me 1 ' cried Arden, ' what a 
 shame ! I'll tell grandpa ! ' 
 
 Harry Williams took off his hat at this 
 official declaration, so to speak, of her 
 identity. 
 
 ' Nay, Miss Lawrance, don't you trouble. 
 I was going to say, knowing as th' old 
 gentleman don't take on much about repairs, 
 I took the liberty of telling my men to 
 patch up the railing with planks and 
 brambles.' 
 
 Arden blushed rosy red. It was shame- 
 ful to let things go to such rack and ruin, 
 and to trust to the energy of one's neigh- 
 bours to repair them. 
 
 The young man misunderstood her 
 colouring cheeks. 
 
 * I meant no offence, Miss,' he said, 
 quite earnestly, ^and beg your pardon for 
 interfering. But see, Miss Lawrance, when
 
 250 ARDEN. 
 
 a man's no faddler, no play -farmer, but 
 sets store by his work, and makes his living 
 by 't, 'tis a sore worry to have them lump- 
 ing cows treading down and crushing the 
 good straight corn.' 
 
 ' Oh, you mistake ! ' cried Arden. ' I 
 was only vexed you should have had the 
 trouble we ought to have taken.' 
 
 ' Thank ye, Miss, you're very good. 
 Well, about th' hurdle. You see the men 
 had got it out to mend when I heard a cry, 
 and saw you floundering in the mud with 
 all yon stinking flags.' 
 
 ' They're beautiful ! ' cried Arden. 
 
 ' Maybe, but yon's their name, and they 
 don't grow in good pasture.' 
 
 ' All the same I like them, I call them 
 yellow lilies ; they grow in Italy.' 
 
 ' Yes, Miss.' 
 
 ' But go on, about the hurdle — then you 
 picked it up and ran to help me.' 
 
 ' Yes, Miss.' 
 
 ' And you threw me your coat as a
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 251 
 
 life-rope.' Arden began to laugh. She 
 suddenly saw the comedy of the situation. 
 
 And now it was Harry Williams' turn to 
 blush and look annoyed. With the rustics' 
 awkward, ever-present dread of being ridi- 
 culous, all merriment connected with him 
 appeared ill-natured. Luckily Arden went 
 on with her phrase — 
 
 ' It was like Sir Walter Raleigh and 
 Queen Elizabeth,' she cried. ' It was more 
 than polite, it was courtly.' 
 
 Harry, who was not so ignorant as he 
 looked, remembered the tale, and how 
 Raleigh's good fortune and high favour witli 
 the Queen were said all to spring from that 
 accidental beginning, 
 
 ' 'Tis of good omen,' he said. 
 
 ' No, in the end she was very un- 
 grateful. Now I shall always remember 
 your kindness ; and may I ask your 
 name ? ' 
 
 ' Williams, Miss.' 
 . ' Ah ! But of course. How stupid I
 
 252 ARDEN. 
 
 was not to see it before. You're the bro- 
 ther of the nice girl who lives in the black- 
 and-white house ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, Miss Lawrance.' 
 
 ' You know my name, I see. Will you 
 thank your mother very much, and say 
 I'll come to paint the orchard to-morrow 
 afternoon.' 
 
 ^ Yes, Miss Lawrance. Susie '11 be right 
 glad.' 
 
 * And so shall I ; good morning. Thank 
 you ! ' 
 
 ' Good day, Miss.' 
 
 She walked off towards the gate. 
 
 ' How much better he looks in his 
 working clothes,' she thought. ' It was 
 really kind of him ; it's very interesting 
 talking to farmers. One gets to under- 
 stand the country.' 
 
 She had to stay some time unfastening 
 the broken gate propped up with wood. 
 
 ' I'm sure the Williams's gates are not 
 in this condition,' she cried.
 
 A LETTER AND A MEETING. 253 
 
 And going over the fields homewards, 
 she turned over the whole matter in her 
 mind. ' No/ she said, ' I don't believe 
 Mrs. Lawrance. I am sure he is not a 
 coarse fellow.* 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED r.Y 
 
 8POTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQCTAEK 
 
 AND PAELIAMEST STKEKT
 
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