SiTVi .%. ^% IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) / // A V &»/ 1.0 I.I ^^^■° IIIIIM III .^' 13^1 III It t 4 M 112.2 1.8 1.25 1.4 |l.6 ^ 6" — ► "/a & //, '/a 'e. e": d-1 >.=>' o 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian institute for Historiral Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1980 Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibjiographiquas The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Fbatures of this copy w' ich may be bibliographically unique, which nay alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. D D D D □ n D D v/ n D Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur Covers damaged/ Couverture endommag6e Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurde et/ou pelliculde Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre do couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque ceia 6ta't possiblo, ces pages n'ont pas 6x6 film^es. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl^mentaires: L'Fnstitut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'ii iui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la methods normale de filmage sont irtdiqu6s ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages/ D Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaurdes e'^ou pellicul6es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages ddcolordes, tachetdes ou piqudes □Pages detached/ Pages d^tachdes □ Showthrough/ Transparence I I Quality of print varies/ Quality in6gale de {'impression Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel supplementaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible D Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 fiimies & nouveau de fapon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. v/ 10X This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous 14X 18X 22X \:7 26X 30X ] 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X e §taiis s du lodifier r une Image The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Nations* Library of Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. L'exemplaire fMm6 fut reproduit grdce d la gdn^rositi de: Bibliothdque nationale du Canada Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. Ail other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. BS Les exemplaires originpux dont la couverture en papier est imprimde sont filmds en commen9ant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — »- (meaning "CON- TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END "), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaTtra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ^^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent etre film^s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Stre reproduit en un seul clichd, ii est film6 A partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants iMustrent la mdthode. errata i to e pelure, ;on d n 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 ■I A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. VOL. T. * ^ II ^'^ A WOMAS IN SPITE OF HERSELF. BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON, AUTHOR OF " LIVE IT DOWN," &c. &c. IN illREE VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1872. The right of Translation it retefved. u t / LONDON : PRINTSO BT MACUONALU AND TUOWKLL, BI.KNHCIM HOUi»e, BLENTTRrM RTRKETT, OXFORD BTKVKT. PART I. IN SILK AND SERGE. VOL. I. B A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. CHAPTER I. " A TIME " AT QUEBEC. rrilE rigour and severity of the Canadian win- ter are favourable to social festivity and domestic enjoyment in a degree that can scarce- ly be imagined by persons whose experience of winters in humid and fickle climates has not taught them that a frosty air may brace the nerves and exhilarate the spirits, instead of gen- erating the miserable coldness which tries the fortitude of the hardy and utterly subdues the spirits of the weak. It is during the months of winter, when the snow flies like dust before the mad wind, and no sudden thaw is apprehended by enthusiastic skaters and sleigh-drivers, that b2 4 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. the English tourist should visit the principal cities of our most important American depend- ency, if he would make acquaintance with Cana- dian hospitality under the most favourable cir- cumBtances, and observe with what lightness of step and brightness of complexion and mad vivacity of speech and laughter the girls of Quebec and Montreal sustain the excitement and protract the pleasures of the ball-room. But though the cold months are the period of the year which they specially devote to hos- pitable gladness, it is usual for the superior inhabitants of a Canadian town of any magni- tude or social pretensions to have a summer season in which they amuse themselves very much after the fashion of our May fair idlers during the interval between the close of April and the later days of July. For a lady to be ambitious of shining in assemblies and winning the admiration of drawing-rooms, it is not ne- cessary that she should reside in a European capital ; and young people of both sexes are apt to have tastes and aims which require for their gratification or accomplishment the opportuni- i:. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 5 ties of social intercourse, though they may be denizens of a Transatlantic colony and lack the style and culture of Belgravian discipline. It is therefore in accordance with the e\ or- lastiug fitness of things, and for sufficient ends, that Quebec annually indulges in a brief burst of gaiety which is called her winter-season by all intelligent persons who have the good for- tune to live within gunshot of Fort Diamond. Nor was it in any degree less fit and natural that some eleven years from the present time the people of Quebec made extraordinary exertions to impart to their summer-season the brilliance and diversity appropriate to metropolitan gaiety. Various memorable circumstances combined just then to put Quebec on good terms with herself, and inspire her with a laudable ambition to de- monstrate to an extraordinary number of Euro- pean and United States' strangers that, even as she surpassed all the other cities of British North itmerica in antiquity and historic renown, so she excelled them in politeness and social grace. The temporary reappearance of the colonial parliament in the ancient seat of the f» A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. I II government of Canada would alone have in- cited the authorities and principal inhabitants of Quebec to make unusual exertions for the honour of their picturesque capital. But scarce- ly had the public sentiment of the city begun to exult over what it was pleased to regard as the restoration of a forfeited honour, when the elation and amiable insolence of the magistracy, populace, and other good people of St. Law- rence's grandest stron^^hold were raised yet higher by an announcement that, ere many weeks had passed, they would have the honour of entertaining and the delight of gazing upon the majestic youth who, in the course of years and propitious fortune, would be their sove- reign. Under these circumstances, it was not sur- prising that the Quebeckians perpetrated decora- tions and festal excesses with lavish prodigality and a disregard of dollars' worth that caused the few cool heads of the excited commlinity to predict the speedy advent of colonial bankrupt- cy. Upholsterers and house-painters were jubilant about the buoyancy and prospects of A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. trade. Solemn, mournful houses, standing con- spicuously in St. Lewis Street, or lurking in shady corners of the five gates of the Upper Town, whose antiquated and thrifty inhabitants liad for twenty years never squandered a cent on a flower-pot or a strip of white muslin for a fresh window-blind, suddenly put tliemselves into the hands of artfiil restorers, and smiled out upon an astonished world with an air of honest pride in the change wrought in their appearance by nurserymen and needlewomen and workers in colour. In Buade Street and St. Anne Street, shops were refronted and furnished with plate-glass windows of startling magnitude hy tradesmen prudently desirous of keeping up with the pace and spirit of the time. Such was the demand for skilled gardeners in the rural suburbs, approachable by the St. Foy and the St. Lewis roads, that horticultural practitioners, dependent for sub- sistence on the casual exigencies of several em- ployers, were in a position to demand three dollars for a day's labour. Lumbering old coaches, that had sustained the dignity of colo- 8 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. nial noblesse for more than half a century, were exchanged for modern barouches or Kght phae- tons, sent up from New York, or over the At- lantic from Long Acre, London. Mansions, that had not known gaiety since the Fils de la LiberU first raised the standard of rebellion at Montreal, dispersed invitations to state-din- ners, and prepared their drawing-rooms for grand routs ; and whilst ;fche lacqueys of the capital blazed forth in new liveries, such an im- provement was discernible in the horse stock of the Upper Town, and its more opulent sub- urbs, that Mr. Clofin Bohen, stud-groom to General the Earl of Wimbledon, commander of Her Majesty's forces stationed in the garrison of Quebec, repeatedly remarked, at his favourite club, and in the dialect of his native state of New York, that he would with the greatest possible alacrity and cheerfulness commence a course of everlasting torture if the little town was not fast becoming the horsiest place in America outside the United States. Under ordinary circumstances, a careful and saving, not to say parsimonious people, holding A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. their surplus cash tightly, or spending it with a caution and stinginess betokening their lively sense of its value, the more affluent Quebeckians suddenly vanquished their habits of thrift, and throwing away the strings of their money-bags, went in for a reckless extravagance that as- tonished no less than it delighted their fellow- citizens of inferior fortune. At length it seemed to the comparatively impecunious mem- bers of a not opulent community that their good time had arrived, and given birth to a beneficent social crisis which, transferring wealth from those who did not need it greatly to those who needed ifmuch, effected the volun- tary impoverishment of the rich, and the highly acceptable enrichment of the poor. Nor were they wrong. Their good time had come— a time that will be long remembered in Quebec as the summer-season of the Prince of Wales's year. u 10 ill ;i. Ill ii! CHAPTER II. IN THE ARCADE OF THE QUEBEC POST-OFFICE. QUEBEC was still whirling round and plung- ing about in the vortex of dissipation into which she had taken a fearless though de- liberate header, in honour of her restored parlia- ment and future sovereign, when, one hot, swel- tering afternoon, midway between the hour of luncheon and the time of dinner, an unattend- ed lady, whose more than ordinary height and stately carriage would have given dignity to her appearance even if her dress had betokened poverty and lowliness of degree, turned her back on the Castle Gardens, where the principal inhabitants of the capital had gathered, or were fast assembling, to enjoy an open-air military concert. Having crossed the Place d'Armes on A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 11 the side of the old Chateau, she walked the short length of Fort Street, and turning to the right at the southern extremity of Buade Street, proceeded towards the Post-office with a busi- ness-like directness which indicated that her solitary promenade had its object in that public building. Whilst the ease with wliicb she moved along the public ways betokened that her education had lacked no proper instruction in the art of deportment, her rich and elegant, though not inordinately sumptuous attire, gave favourable testimony respecting her taste and the compe- tency of her milliner. Her bonnet, a thing of lace and lightness, though the performance of Canadian artiste, would have beseemed a Paris- ian belle taking her daily drive in the " Bois ;" and nothing in the way of an attractive but un- obtrusive afternoon dress, for a gentlewoman of her style, could be imagined in better design and keeping than the robe of violet silk and the white lace shawl that accorded with her imposing air, whilst they withdrew from ob- servation the defective points of a figure 12 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. which, though by no means devoid of harmoni- ous proportion, was more remarkable for im- posing tallness than symmetry, and on a criti- cal examination was found to be deficient in those waves and curves of outline that contri- bute so largely to the grace and loveliness of the perfect feminine contour. Nor were the subordinate articles and minute complements of her attire chargeable with being of inferior excellence or in less unexception- able taste. Her toy parasol, trimmed with a profusion of the finest lace, had as yet sur- rendered none of its virgin delicacy under the discolouring influence of scorching suns, or from exposure to clouds of dust ; and the kid glove, filmy as the finest silk, and smooth with a rich, creamy smoothness, covering the hand that clasped the ivory handle of the dainty sun- shade, would have endured comparison with the choicest products of its kind procurable in Bond Street or the Rue de Rivoli. It was the same with the smallest additaments of her toilet. The lustrous brooch of a dazzling stone and plain gold-work that secured the ends of I'll A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 13 her collar of Spanish point, the tiny jewelled studs that fastened her wrist-bands of the same material, and the serpent-like chain by which a bijou watch was guarded from injury if it should chance to slip from its pocket, were all of a quality and workmanship which showed that, if their wearer was fortunate in possessing pecuniary means for the gratification of some- what expensive tastes, she was scarcely less fe- licitous in having a refined judgment for her guidance in the selection of articles of adorn- ment. In short, at a glance it was obvious that she was an Edition de luxe of English womanhood; and yet she was only a colonial belle who, in respect of personal refinement and gentle tone, was no more than the equal of some two or three hundred other marriageable young women who might have been seen, a few nights since, at the grand ball with which the Governor- General had celebrated his reappearance at the Old Chateau. But let it not be supposed that tallness of stature and taste in dress were Felicia Avalon's most notable characteristics, because in drawing 14 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. the reader's attention to a charming woman I have spoken first of those matters that, eleven years since, were the first to strike the critical observer on seeing her casually at a social gathering. There are women who depend for their effectiveness on dress, and there are wo- men who impart picturesqueness to every dress which they wear. That Felicia Avalon belonged to the latter class of womankind we have the testimony of Madame Perronet, the dressmaker of Fabrique Street — court-milliner, as the gar- rulous and by no means extortionate modiste likes to be styled by her customers, two-thirds of whom are the descendants of gentlewomen who, in pre-Union days, used to buy their pro- digious trains and outrageous furbelows and preposterous turbans of Madame Perronet's mother, whilom famous in Quebec as a practi- tioner in millinery, under the name and style of Madame Dinant. " Of my patronesses/' Madame Perronet used to observe to her familiar friends, with a fer- vour declaratory of her Gallic origin, and a liberal use of Canadian-French expletives, " some ill! i;i;(! A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 15 are made to look like ladies by what I put on their backs, whilst just a few are the making of their dresses ; and of those few Miss Avalon is a bright specimen. I never have any diffi- culty with her. There's no colour that puts her out of bloom, and no cut that doesn't seem to bring out one of her good points. When short skirts came in she could show a pretty pair of feet without making you think of the old mar- ket dame whose petticoats were cut about her knees ; and when the day for long dresses fol- lowed, it was a treat to see a new silk trailing and rustling after Miss Avalon as she swept about my show-room. Not that she is perfect, my dear — no, no. Ma foi, what lady is, to the court-milliner who knows her business? It's I who know how narrow and straight she is, just where she ought to bound out with curves. It's only I and her maid who know what she would look like if it wasn't for the whalebone and wadding which 1 will put into her dresses, in spite of all the grand nonsense she talks about the vanity and deceitfulness of women who dis- guise the shapes which nature has given them. y 16 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. feii ' Fiddle-de-dee, Miss Avalon/ I answer ; * that's mighty fine to preach in that way at rac, whose duty it is to improve on nature. Disguise your shape, indeed I It's just because you have no shape there, and here, that I make you up with just a little padding. Instead of scolding me, be thankful that you don't stand in greater need of improvement.' She is never angry with me for that sort of fun, bless you I Of aftable ladies there are many kinds. There's the con- descending lady, whose affability seems to say, ' Am not I a model Christian for talking in this familiar style with a dressmaker ? ' Then there's the affiible lady who, after gossippiug and laughing with me as though I were her sister, takes me up short at parting with a hint that I am not to presume on a gentlewoman's conde- scensiort. But Miss Avalon is of another sort. There's no wrinkle of pride in her affability. She always makes you feel that she is pleased to see you, and that, instead of talking for the plea- sure of heanng herself talk, she draws you out in all kinds of chat, for the mere pleasure as it seems of Hstening to you, as though you were her par- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 17 ticular friend. But, for all her courteous ways, she knows her own mind, and is not to be put from it like some of the high and mighty ones who, after all their grand airs and despotic talk, finish up by ordering exactly what you mean them to order. What Miss Avalon means to have when she enters my show-room, that I have to send her when she has left it, however much I may try to put her off with something else. And it's strangely pretty and clever in the way of nice manners, how, after binding me down to obey her in every particular, she always finishes with pretending that her will is mine, and that her confidence in my taste is complete. ' There, there, that will do, Madame Perronet ; I leave it all to your judgment, which all the world knows is faultless.' My faith and heart ! of all the belles of the city, there's ne'er a one that's more fit to be Queen of Quebec than Miss Avalon I" Having entered the modest portico of the Quebec Post-Office, and walked half the length of its narrow Arcade, the lady, whose urbanity had made so deep and favourable an impression on VOL. I. C 18 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. her dressmaker, paused before the panel prepar- ed for the receipt of letters destined for European mails, and took from a pocket in her violet robe an envelope whose superscription she read de- liberately before committing the epistle to the letter-box, even as nervous senders of an import- ant missive are prone, under like circumstances, to re-assure themselves respecting the accuracy of its direction, ere they finally deliver it over to postal guardianship. In another second the letter was beyond her reach, and scarcely had her ear caught the noise occasioned by its arrival at the bottom of the letter-box, when a manly and by no means un- pleasant voice caused her to start round with surprise and a momentary air of dissatisfaction. •' Allow me to congratulate you on being just in time for the English mail. Three minutes later, and you would have found the box shut." " How do you know my letter is for Eng- land ?" the lady retorted quickly as she turned towards her saluter a face which combined in a very remarkable manner feminine delicacy and an almost masculine massiveness — a counten- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 19 ance overfloving with womanly loveliness, and singularly expressive of womanly refinement; but at the same time, in its regular profile, well- moulded lips, arching eyebrows, and contour of finely modelled cheek and chin, characterized by a largeness and freedom of outline rarely observable in a female face of undeniable beauty. The startle which she had experienced would Imve accounted satisfactorily for the slight I'lush which for an instant imparted an unac- customed brightness to a complexion that, un- der ordinary circumstances, bore more resem- blance to the embrowned whiteness of a Span- ish brunette than to the transparent freshness of an English blonde. But in addition to the colour and look attributable to astonishment, a critical discerner of the facial expressions of human emotion would not have failed to detect in her visage a subtle and involuntary confes- sion of intense aversion for the rather comely and altogether well-appointed gentleman who had discovered her in the commission of a very simple and innocent act which, for reasons c2 : r I* .' \ :'■ 1 1 20 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. known to herself, she had wished to perform without observation. Fortunately for his immediate peace of mind, Major Joseph Curtain Tilbury, K.A., was no nice scrutinizer of the human countenance, and had so favourable an opinion of his ability to please the fair sex in general, and Felicia Ava- lon in particular, that, even if he had remarked that lady's transient air of dissatisfaction and repugnance, it would not have occurred to him to regard it as the result of his unexpected ap- pearance, or as in any way referable to her re- gard for himself. Nor can it be denied that Major Tilbury's confidence in his powers of pleasing and gene- ral self-complacency had such justificatory grounds as might be looked for in his stature, bodily shape, and military bearing. The owner of a broad chest that indicated proper muscular capacity and physical development, and of a stature that almost established his claim to rank amongst men six feet high, he possessed a figure whicr , though evincing certain suspicious signs of a tendency towards corpulence, retained ) perform } of mind, ,, was no lance, and ability to licia Ava- remarked action and •ed to him pected ap- to her re- Tilbury's and gene- istificatory lis stature, The owner r muscular and of a lira to rank ied a figure iious signs retained .1' A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 2) some vestiges of the elegance by which it had been distinguished ten years earlier. And whatever advantages he boasted in respect of bodily shape were duly sustained by the judg- ment and skill of a, competent tailor. By his comrades of the Artillery, Joseph Curtain Til- bury was known as one of the smartest men in the service, and for this reputation he was in no small degree indebted to sartorial art, though he studiously avoided even the slightest appear- ance of foppishness, aad exercised in all arrange- ments for his personal decoration the same con- sistent though unobtrusive economy that con- trolled every department of his pecuniary ex- penditure. Entries in the Army Lists of past years were on the side of the rumours which re- presented that he was not a day less than forty years of age ; but when pressed by malicious banterers to make a full statement concerning the time which he had spent or misspent on the earth's surface, he had for the last three years stubbornly maintained that he had not completed his seventh lustre. In behalf of which assertion even his assailants were compelled to admit £ i I ■. 22 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. that it was not discredited by the condition of his thick chestnut-brown hair, in which no sin- gle grey hair was discernible, or by the appear- ance of his face, which, though it had broadened under the influence of time and self-indulgence, and to a microscopic observer showed some of the treacherous marks of methodical dissipation, had not altogether lost the fineness of feature and mirthful smile which in former times had gained for Joe Tilbury the reputation of being the best-looking youngster of his period at Woolwich. For the rest, so far as the gentleman's ap- pearance is concerned, it is enough for the pre- sent to remark that his coiffure, of the severest miUtary style, about the nape of the neck and in the parts above the ears, allowed his hair a little freedom of action and curling-length on the 'iummit of his head ; and that his closely-cut moustaches afforded no concealment to the excellently white, but by no means unduly con- spicuous teeth, whose appearance heightened most agreeably the effect of the cordial and roguish smiles which continually brightened his A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 23 face during idle conversation. By-and-by, I raay take occasion to draw attention to some of the less agreeable characteristics of Major Til- bury's aspect and style ; but just now, when, for for the benefit of Miss Felicia Avalon and other ladies assembled or about to assemble in the Castle Gardens, he has done his utmost to appear to the best advantage, it would be uncivil and malignant to point out his defects and cover them with the magnifying glass of satire. "You slipt it into the slit for the London fetters," replied Major Tilbury, who prudently forbore to add that, having on his return from the Lower Town unexpectedly seen her cross the avenue of Prescott Gate, he had watched her walking slowly in the direction of the post-office, which building he had, by a rapid movement, succeeded in entering at the further opening of the arcade, in time to read clandestinely over her shoulder the address of the letter which she had posted for London. " A most satisfactory explanation," returned Felicia Avalon, smiling at her own folly in put- ting a question to which the answer was so \' 24 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. I f' ! 1 :i i obvious, and recovering in an instant all her customary self-possession and cordiality of manner. "Allow me," continued the Major, bowing once again on the acceptance of his statement, " to apologise for coming upon you so suddenly. It was not my design to give you a disagreeable surprise." " Nor have you done so. Major Tilbury," the lady answered, extending to the man of arms the right hand, to the excellence of whose glove testimony has already been offered. " Sur- prises are not necessarily painful. On the con- trary, I am glad to see you, sooner than I ex- pected, back again from Montreal, where I doubt not you have had an abundance of gaiety and diversion." " Lots of gaiety, but not so much diversion. In the morning, breakfast and cigar ; between breakfast and lunch, idling on lawns, or playing billiards with some rather nicish girls, who could use their ton;3ues better than their cues ; in the afternoon, a canter in the country or a drive with new acquaintances ; then a big din- p. A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. 25 lit all her :diality of Dr, bowing statement, 3 suddenly, isagreeable Ibury," the an of arms hose glove jd. " Sur- n the con- than I ex- where I e of gaiety diversion. 1 between or playing girls, who heir cues ; imtry or a a big din- ner and a ball. That was the order of every day — pleasant, no doubt, and coramendably hospitable, but monotonous." " You can scarcely have found time for the interests of the service ?" " No fear of my neglecting duty. I made my inspections, wrote my reports, and did all that kind of thing, and yet found plenty of time for eating, drinking, billiards, and waltzing, and all the other kinds of dull enjoyment put at my command by the good people of the second city in the colony. But don't imagine. Miss Avalon, that I'm such a monster of ingratitude as to run Montreal down, after she has done her best to destroy my liver and figure for the rest of my life. It's a doosid smart, jolly place ; and they are going the pace there as fast as we are here. The matrimonial market is baoyant, political controversies are suspended, end every one is living, without a single demoralizing thought, for pay-day. The girls of the city are going on tick to their milliners with a recklessness that will give their cousins of New York a reputa- tion for comparative prudence and stinginess ; I i' i\ i 26 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. and each one of them has made np her mind to get a kiss from the Prince of Wales. Moreover, the dinners were capital. Montreal has good cooks and first-rate wine-cellars." " Everything for the body, but no congenial entertainment for the mind ?" suggested Felicia Avalon, a mischievous smile animating her fine countenance, whilst her voice — a very peculiar voice, and resembling her countenance in its singular union of feminine gentleness and mas- culine power — uttered these words in a tone of interrogation and saucy ridicule. " Lord bless you, Miss Avalon 1" the Major returned quickly, repelling with fervour what appeared to him to be a serious imputation on his honour, "don't imagine that I have any appetite for mental food. Intellectual aspira- tions are altogether out of my way. 1 haven't a mind ; Fm an artilleryman. If a fellow brings a mind with him into Her Majesty's regiment, the service very soon relieves him of that super- fluous piece of baggage. It's a point of honour vdth an artilleryman to leave his mind behind him at Woolwich, as soon as he has passed ^m A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 27 his examination and got his commission, for the use of any successor who may enter the Academy without brains of his own." " You are at needless pains, Major Tilbury," interposed Miss Avalon, who, though she had her private reasons for regarding her companion with the intensest dislike and contempt, could condescend to extract amusement from his vanity and flippant sauciness, " to defend yourself from an accusation which no one is ever likely to prefer against you seriously." Though the soldier, more thin-skinned than Felicia Avalon imagined, secretly winced under the satiric thrust, he had the good sense to con- ceal his annoyance, and at the same time the simplicity to amuse his adversary by compli- menting her on the dexterity with which she had planted the blow. " Doosidly well put in I" exclaimed the generous critic. " Ton honour, no London girl in her third season could have done it more smartly. That's just the sort of play in which women excel all the world over ; and— don't think I flatter you. Miss Avalon ; I am plain Joe Tilbury, and flatter nobody— it's I ; ! i i i i 1 ■ i t 1 ]': 1 28 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. my ca lid opinion that the Canadian girls and women are quicker at repartee than their sis- ters of any other country in the world ; and, by Jove, so far as style and make-up go, I really don't see that they are much under the mark of the London women." Making a miniature mock-courtesy, which was the more piquant because it was per- formed by so stately a personage, and giving a quick deprecatory wave with her toy parasol and the hand that held her scent-bottle, the lady acknowledged her admirer's compliment by saying, " We girls and women of Canada are truly fortunate to have won the approba- tion of so fine a judge as Major Tilbury. For my absent sisters, no less than myseif, I beg leave, sir, to express our colonial gratitude for your leniency. I hope that we may never lose your good opinion." Though it would have cut to the quick any man not liable to a charge of inordinate vanity and stupefying self-esteem. Major Tilbury would have received this speech as an utterance of ap- propriate homage to his knowledge of the A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 29 world and consiiramate discernment in all matters of taste, had not the demurely spoken Tvords been followed by a look of inimitable drollery in the speaker's face, and a certain in- describable movement in the folds of her dra- pery, which rendered it obvious even to her victim that she was sorely tempted to burst out laughing in his face. More discomforted by the lady's merriment than enlightened as to its precise cause, Major Tilbury conceived a suspicion that he had ex- posed himself to her disesteem by rating his in- tellectual capacities too meanly, — an error which he forthwith attempted to amend by assuring Miss Avalon that he was by no means such a fool as it had been his humour to represent himself. "Point of fact," the Major urged towards the close of this remarkable vindication of his na- tural abilities, "when I was a youngster I was for a time quite a studious dog, — used to read poetry and history and all kinds of philo- sophy. Stowed away somewhere in England, either at my cousin's place in Hertfordshire or else .it Sir Charles Tilbury's place in town — I 80 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. gad I I forget which — I have a lot of books in- to which I copied all the best things out of al- most every work of mark in English literature ; Gibbon, Dr. Johnson, Shakspeare, Blair, Pin- nook, and 'all the rest of them." " If you continue your revelations, I shall be afraid to talk freely with so profound and uni- versal a student." "And," the Major went on, pursuing his own course across the conversational country, with- out paying any attention to Felicia Avalon's in- terruptions, " far from despising mental diver- sions and studious occupations, 1 shouldn't ob- ject to taking to books again, if I had nothing better to do. Of course it's an ascertained fact that no man of the first mark in any big busi- ness ever was a reading man. Lord Palmer- ston has never read a book of any kind since he was five-and-twenty. The Duke of Welling- ton used to say that, whenever he found an unusually bad officer, he was always sure, on inquii'ing, to discover that the fellow had gra- duated at one of the universities. Marlborough spelt so badly that his despatches were abso- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 31 lutely ludicrous, until they had been touched up by his secretary. Stephenson — the fellow who turns out to have invented railways, and almost everything else that some other man was supposed to have invented — was an un- taught mechanic. . But still books have their uses. Sometimes they enable a man to get comfortably and cheaply through a lot of time which, but for them, would hang doosid heavy on his hands ; and knowing what literature has done for many a poor beggar out of luck, I really think that, if I were to be regularly broken down and knocked up, I should go in again for reading, like my old chum and mess- mate, Tom Boileau." " Pray don't," entreated Miss Avalon ; " if you re-educate yourself, you won't be nearly so amusing a companion as you are now." *' Not so sure of that. Tom is an uncommon- ly amusing fellow, and yet ha» reads, year in, year out, his book a day, and a good deal more in the way of articles. But then a taste for literature was hereditary with Tom, who has got it in the romantic form. Tom went to 32 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. g"nof in the Artillery ; would buy expensive horses on his own judgment, though he had no eye for an animal's points ; would play high, though he had married a woman without money, and had no private fortune to speak of; would borrow money of the Jews, on terras of their own fixing. So the poor boy burst up — had to leave the service, and for two or three years had an awful time of it, until an old aunt left him an annuity of £300 a year, paid quarterly, on which Tom and his wife and little girl went to live in the neighbourhood of Ramsgate. Small income that for a man who once upon a time kept six horses, and thought himself badly used if he did not get a good bottle of claret after dinner I But he is quite happy, and gets on, I may say, swimmingly. The secret of it is just this : he took to reading, which is about the cheapest way of killing time that a man can go in for. An annual subscription of £3 keeps him happy the whole year through. He takes his three volumes of fiction every morning be- tween breakfast and five o'clock, when he has a short walk, and calls at the Ramsgate library A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 33 ; a man can for a fresh supply of literary fodder. Dines at homo ; after dinner talks to his wife about "what he has read in the morning ; tops up with a slight tale in a magazine, and so to bed. What would have become of him without liiH studious tastes, I can't imagine." " We have travelled all the way from Mon- treal to Ramsgate," Major Tilbury's listener observed, for the purpose of recalling him to their common interests. " Don't let us travel all the Avay back again, Miss Avulon. I have had e^' ngh of Montreal. It isn't a bad place, but I could not enjoy life there for this simple reason — I wanted to bo In making which confession Major Tilbury lowered his voice to a confidential tone, tha t was designed to aid his words in making Felicia understand how dreary and depressing- he would find existence in any place where she was not. " And liere,'^ returned Miss Avalon, burlesqu- ing his air of secret confidence, whilst she play- ed upon his words, "is precisely the place VOL. I. D 34 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. where I cannot enjoy life for a moment longer." " Why so ? It is a very snug little corner." " Rather too snug, and at the same time rather too public. The people who recognise us as they pass through the Arcade, are doubt- less wondering what induces me to let you de- tain me here so long." " Probably they don't know you. If they do, what matters? All the people who have a right to gossip about our doings are at the Gardens." " Where we will join them." " By all means, if you will let me accompany you." " Even to so old a friend as Major Tilbury, ten minutes is a long interview in this public place." " You should not reproach me with my mis- fortune. It is no fault of mine if we are not old friends." " Aunt Messurier will wonder where I have been. Let us hasten to her." Whereupon, it being evident that Miss Ava- lon could not be induced to protract an inter- accompany here I have A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 35 view which had already occasioned her some little embarrassment, Major Tilbmy bowed assent to her wish, and availing himself of her implied permission, prepared to attend her to the Castle Gardens. d2 h #i; Oil CHAPTER III. IN WHICH MAJOR TILBURY IS ADMONISHED NOT TO PRESHUME. i''> \ TF Miss Avalon hoped to retire from the Ar- -*- cade without attracting the attention of the loafers and loiterers, who usually hung about the entrances and purlieus of the Post-OiSce to- wards the close of the day, the hope must have deserted her when, on reaching the top of the flight of steps by whl^h the office is approached, she saw her old friend, ^'ora M'Carthy, sitting on the pavement at the .^ottom of the stairs, with a huge basket of cheap fruit on either side of her by no means fragile or elegant person. Plow can I introduce Nora to my readers, so as to give them a vivid and complete concep- tion of her physical and moral peculiarities A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 37 HED NOT TO without being guilty of injustice to the most whimsical, honest, affectionate old creature that ever earned a precarious ►subsistence by selling fruit in the public ways of a considerable city ? What words can do justice to her broad, low forehead and tigerish jaw, to her big mouth and battered visage, >vithout conveying erroneous notions respecting the temper and habits of a lady who never committed an excess in whisky, miless the honour of St. Patrick or respect due to her own natal day sanctioned, if it did not demand, the indiscretion, and who never raised brawny arm or clenched fist in offensive warfare, unless an insult offered to her native island had roused within her breast a consuming zeal for Erin's renown. " The tap o' the morning to you, my dar- lintl" exclaimed Nora, rising with creditable quickness to the groggy and badly covered feet, which had no easy time of it in the service of an owner whose vocation was peripatetic and whose weight exceeded sixteen stone. " And may you sleep all the better on the pillow of innocince, and on the couch of swate rapose for ,,,l '■ * :ii'n ! 1 ' i M ill : t 4M 1 < '!i i ;i 38 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. gladdening the eyes of a wretched ould 'ooman. All hail to you, Miss Avalon ! Och, and 'tis a glorious sight the seeing of you 1 Your eyes are just two burning stars in a darksome firma- ment, and the grand show of dark brown hair that covers your proud head is like the black cloud that nurses the rage of heaven till it bursts out in the roaring of mighty thunders and the withering glare of lightning. But 'tis little, my darlint, that you have to do with the thunder-cloud and destructive illimints, dressed, as becomes you, for the gala like a radiant queen of gladness or one of the janii of the deep." To which magnificent address ]\Iiss Avalon, in a very matter-of-fact voice, but with no lack of cordiality, responded, " How d'ye do, Nora ? I was telling Mr. Avalon the other day that I had not seen you for weeks. You have not been to see us lately." " When I presliume to drag my clumsy ould carcase up the Foy Road and pay my respects to the lady of Fairmead," returned Nora, speak- ing in a whining and at the same time pompous A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 39 tone, that combined in a very ludicrous manner self-abasement and impudence, " it is that I may- offer Miss Avalon some fruit that's fit eating for the fairest lady of Quebec. But sorry little is the really prime fruit that Nora M'Carthy can buy in open market in those hard times. Apples and pears, street-pines and garden- sauce, good enough for rabble, but no prviper meat for such as you, are the stock that Nora dales in now-a-days, though time was she had a shop in a tidy street out in St. Rock's paiish, and may be comes of as ould blood and as much regal descint as half of those who'd think it scorn to be seen speaking to her. And, Miss Avalon, you wouldn't have me so far forget my riverince to you as to offer you such fruit as ne'er a servant in Fairmead would think of picking from the trees or the ground of your garden for her mistress's table." " You have made enough pretty speeches for to-day," Felicia Avalon interposed bluntly, so that her humble friend might not embarrass her with another outbreak of grotesque flattery. " And you can't suppose, Nora, that I am silly enough i 40 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. N;i:i I ! to believe all your smooth talk and outrageous compliments, when I know that you go about Quebec talking in the same ridiculous fashion to every lady who is foolish enough to listen to you, — ay, and every woman old or young, gentle or simple, whom you can wheedle into buying a cent's worth of fruit of you." " Go on, Miss Avalon," answered Nora, in a natural and pathetic tone, whilst she adopted a strain that, notwithstanding its innocence of adulatory purpose, was far more calculated to gratify her patroness's self-love than any designed compliments could have been, " rate me soundly and call me a lying old fool, and bid me keep my glosings, and fictions, and sin- ful falsehoods for those who care to be fawned on even by beggars. A good scoulding from you goes like music to my heart, and makes me feel as if I was once again a girl in ould Oireland, with a lady over me to taach me manners, and give me discipline if I broke the priest's bidding. There's many a one to swear and gibe at ould Nora, to scorn and slander her, ay, and to give her stick and kick when liquor A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 41 is in and dacent manners out; but in all Canada there's only one who ivver condesciuds to dale out iddefying reproofs to my poor soul, and scould me charitably as though I was a Christian sinner with the infarmities of age upon me, and etarnity near at hand." " I am sorry that you like my scoldings so much,'" returned Miss Avalon, shaking her head with comical gravity. " That's the reason they do you so little good. I believe you do wrong for the sake of the pure excitement of being called to order by me. But in all good faith, Nora, you should keep your tongue in better government ; for you are an old body, and every day growing so much older, that you can't hope to be here much longer. At most it won't be many years before you'll be called to account for what you have done. And you may call them glosings and fictions, and give them whatever other pleasant names you please, but all those absurd flatteries and dishonest praises with which you try to curry favour with your betters are nothing else but so many crafty lies." 42 i!i!!lii !>l! ii a;! 'ii.i! '!;■ I A WOMAN IN $PITE OF HERSELF. 1 ■ 1 i ■ il:! ; " Don't be too hard on me, darlint," whim- pered Nora, "or you'll just drive mo beyond myself into a pinnytintial howling and wailing that will scare you into fits, and bring a crowd upon us. And yet you doos manage it sweet- ly. No priest could do it better. Och, and mayn't I be punished for saying so ; but the world has better sisters of charity than those that wear black bombazeen and ugly caps. Of course I am a great reptile and manufacturer to tell so many lies, although I am a poor woman, and lies are strangely useful in the way of busi- ness. But don't be too hard on me, darlint, in a public place, where a crowd would gather if I groaned in sperrit for my soul's ease." " Then you must come to the Fairmead to- morrow for the rest of the scolding," observed Miss Avalon, consenting, out of respect for the penitent's feelings and menaces, to torture her no more for the present. ** Bring your baskets empty, Nora, for I think you can find in my garden a stock of fiuit that won't need to be commended to your customers by glosings and fictions. Moreover, I found the other day a A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 43 nt," whim- Qo beyond id wailing ig a crowd e it sweet- Och, and ) ; but the ban those caps. Of Bcturer to )r woman, ay of busi- darlint, in gather if I rmead to- * observed 3t for the )rture her ir baskets ad in my 3ed to be sings and ler day a queer old blaciv bottle, as round as a cricket- ball, and furnished with the drollest little neck and mouth imaginable, which I told Mr. Avalon wouldbe just the bottle for your pocket, when you have to spend the bitter days of the cold months I hanging about street-corners." " If ivver an angel in human form," exclaimed Nora, suddenly lifted from the depths of contri- jtion, and thrown off her guard by the munifi- cence of the lady whom the poor creature re- garded more affectionately than any other being on the earth's surface. " Not another word in that way," interposed Felicia Avalon, promptly putting a stop to what she feared would prove another extravagant outpouring of Nora's adulatory eloquence. " Och !" expostulated the scarcely manage- able Nora, who had achieved such a recognised })osition as the privileged prater and gossip- monger of the Quebec thoroughfares, that she felt herself free to say whatever she pleased to the quality of the town, " it's hard on a poor (;rittur, when her heart is stirred, to forbid her to revale the feelings that do her credit. But ;!! 44 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. itii! i !! I i! i! iiilil Miss Avalon*8 orders are not the commands that onld Nora M'Carthy would dare to dis- obey. Still, you'll let me bid you ' God speed.' There, there, away wid you — away wid you !" added this eccentric daughter of the Emerald Isle, suddenly exchanging a dolorous for a jubi- lant tone, when she had rubbed two rising* tears back into her eyes with her fists. '* Pass on, in all your radiance and rich attire, and ould Nora will stand by and watch you walk- ing down to the Gardens, where all tlio nobility and gentility are walking up and dovvn, listen- ing, as aristockcracy should, to bands a-playing martial chimes. Sweep on, my darlint, attend- ed, as you should be, by your brave cavalier walking by your side, while he tries to blind your eyes to his feelings, and win you for the game of life. Och, and blithe will be the day when I see you make a prudent choice, and go off for a longer walk than an afternoon's pro- menade — ay, for a walk down the sunny slopes of life with a proper man for your humble ser- vant." " By Jove !" Major Tilbury remarked in an A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 45 irked in an inKlcrtoiio to his companion, "our egregious apple-woman is giving you some good advice after all." " After all ! Is it then so rare for an apple- woman to talk einse?" asked Nora, with an impudent smile on her uncouth face. "But mind you, Meejor Tilbury, the agragious ould apple-woman nivver even so much as hinted that you were a proper man for so high an im- pliement. You're well enough for an hour's pastime in a crowded flower-garden. And I don't say that you're not a gallant man to look at, though you're getting, something like me, too big in the girth, and are just ten years older than you were half-a-score years since. But don't preshume — don't preshume. Who are you that should dare to aspire to my lady's hand ? A meejor, that's all ! Hoot, your hon- our, go to the wars and work your way to top o' the ladder ; become Cuuuel, Ginneral, Field- Marshal, Commander-in-chief; and even then if I saw you on your bended knees preferring your shute and proffering your service to Miss Avalon, I should say, " You're seeking a higher 46 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. honour tlian any you have won I' But what marvel if you do preshume, when Miss Avalon deigns to let you wait upon her through the strates o' Quebic." By the sentiment of which counsel, and still more che significant leers and winks with which ic was given, Major Joseph Curtain Til- bury was so much dissatisfied and put out of countenance, that ho was thankful to escape from what threatened to become a ludicrous and embarrassing position, by following in the wake of Miss Avalon, who, without giving the egregi- ous apple-woman a formal farewell, proceeded on her "'■ay to the promenade, from which she had I absent for something like half-an- hour. 47 CHAPTER IV. THE CASTLE GARDENS. "VTOT many cities can boast of so convenient •^^ and picturesque a ground for promenade and open-air recreation as the Castle Gardens of Quebec. Occupying the site and contiguous spaces of the vice- regal residence that was de- stroyed by conflagration in 1834, they extend from Des Carrieres Street on the north to the extreme verge of the cliff that overlooks and all but overhangs the Lower Town ; from which gallery the spectator commands an unbroken view of the St. Lawrence, rolling its mighty current towards the Atlantic, between banks scarcely more remarkable for the grandeur and diversity of their natural beauties than for the attractions which human labour has bestowed ,ti!': '(■■'••• ,•:# 48 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. || ;v''i r' I III on one of the most superb landscapes known to travellers. And on the occasion to which the reader's attention is now directed, the Castle Gardens were seen under highly favourable, if not the best possible, circumstances. The gorgeous hues of the Rhododendrons had already disap- peared from the inclosure, of which they are, during a few weeks in each year, a conspicuous ornament ; but whilst the blaze of hundreds of well-g).own azaleas imparted brilliance and light to the inner lawn, the green turf and abundant foliage of the ornamental trees were brightened in every direction by a lavish dis- play of scarlet geraniums and other splendid flowers. Visible in a retired part of the arbore- tum, was a tent gaudily decorated with flags, amongst which miglit be found the bunting of nearly every nation in the universe. Under the canvas of this marquee ices of delicious pro- perties and effervescing drinks of barbaric or pleasantly-wicked names were supplied to the promenaders who thronged its approaches on every cessation in the music, which two military A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 49 bands, playing alternately from their appointed j stations on two canopied platforms, created for the delectation of a company some three thon- |Sand strong. In that company were congregated all the [principal personages of Quebec, and a number of [official dignitaries and colonial celebrities who had been drawn from various parts of Canada to the ancient capital of our chief British-American dependency. The -Governor-general and the (ladies of his family, attended by a proper staff of [aides-de-camp and courtiers, were on the ground, [together with two noble guests, members of the English Peerage, whose patrician rank and titles rendered them especially acceptable to the [democratic gentlefolk of the French-English [community. Each of the learned professions rere represented at the meeting by its most jonspicuous members, and a large contingent )f aspirants for the highest employments and lonours of their vocation. Yonder, with his jhaplain at his heels, a dame of high standing in Quebec on either side, and a line of inferior ladies forming in his rear a suitable train VOL. I. jj 50 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. of gentle admirers, walked the Bishop of the diocese, a broad-featured, swarthy, black-eyed gentleman, with a cheery greeting for every good Anglican churchman, and no tendency to blush for the short-comings of his official petticoat, although he was well aware that his black-stockinged ankles and big feet were grotesquely conspicuous under his epis- copal drapery. Here and there strangers stum- bled upon a cute-looking and jaunty but withal fogeyish personage, of whom the said strangers were informed in an undertone that he was Mr. Justice So-and-so, a puisne judge of the Quebec Court of Queen's Bench. Music being his fa- vourite diversion, it is needless to sav that the Chief-Justice was also in the Gardens ; and it being equally notorious that the Chief-Justice was never allowed to enter general society unless attended by his somewhat imperious wife and three stout daughters, it may be taken for granted that Lady Slingsby, with her favourite retired colonel in attendance, and the Misses Slingsby, each with two junior members of the Quebec bar competing for the possession of her t jirm 't^ Lop of the black-eyed for every ) tendency his official ware that big feet r his epis- gers stum- but Avithal 1 strangers he was Mr. the Quebec Ing his fa- y that the 18 ; and it lief-Justice al society erious wife e taken for r favourite the Misses )ers of the sion of her A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 51 virginal affections, contributed to the magnitude and lustre of the galaxy. Senators entitled, much to their wives' satisfaction, to the appella- tioii of Honourable, and senators whose honour iiad not yet risen to a point recognizable by heralds, were treading on one another's tees or *ach other's wives' dresses in every avenue to 4he refreshment marquee. An important military stronghold, and a garrison in high repute with mar- tial coteries as a, most agreeable station for cap- tain or subaltern with a natural aptitude for skat- ing, and a soldier-like taste for promiscuous and unlimited flirtation, Quebec is always v/ell provid- ed with officers ; and upon the present occasion the show of gentlemen, holding their lives in their aihands for the preservation of England's honour, ■was equal to the reasonable expectations of the iBeveral scores, if not hundreds, of young ladies '""who, like their old acquaintance or particular -.friend, Felicia Avalon, were of the deliberate opinion that email-talk, waltzing, and costume "iwere arts in which civilians can rarely compete —with bellicose practitioners. Nor may the chronicler fail to mention how E 2 m ■■1 1 W' I I 52 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. largely the civil service, and the commercial sets, and the vocatiordess gentry of Quebec (the last-named element being an important power in the permanent population of the town) con- tributed to the assembly in the Castle Gar- dens. Every branch of that irrepressible and uni- versally fortunate family, the Ommanies of Que- bec, was represented in the crowd by sumptu- ously-attired ■'/omen or red-faced men. Sir Peter Carteret — ciiief of the banking-house " Carteret, Galsworthy and Greeder," and a gentleman known in certain august circles to have sighed in vain for Felicia Avalon's hand — stalked stiffly over the inner lawn before the commencement of the concert, and never left the grounds until the bands had together played the national anthem. To make which announcement is equivalent to saying that every merchant, known honourably on the floor of the Quebec Exchange, and not then oppressed by bodily sick- ness or other urgent domestic affliction, was at the promenade; for eleven years since Sir Peter's will was law to his commercial brethren of Que- bec, who, with the alacrity of well-drilled soldiers, Km A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 53 were wont to draw their handkerchiefs from their pockets, as soon as they saw their chief take preUminary measures for the blowing of his own nose. On the other hand, it must be admitted that, besides the capitalists honoured on 'Change, the Lower Town, where the mer- chants of Quebec do congregate, had thrown into the Gardens not a few choice specimens of speculative riff-raff, whom Sir Peter never deigned to recognise with a nod, though he condescended to take care of their money. Also, the promenade being accessible by means of a rather large pecuniary payment to all per- sons having any tincture of respectability, it must be conceded that, qualifying the majority of manifest gentle-folk, whose dress and style differed but little from the fashion and air of well-bred English people in Kensington Gar- dens or Regent's Park, there were visible some comical specimens of ill-kept and grotesquely- clothed humanity. But upon the whole, it was a scene of pomp and gaiety, of brightness and exhilaration, and none the less fraught with pleasant influences, or likely to rouse agreeable 1 1' >■' * ' tin ■ ! i!;,: ^:\,: ';;':>:;■•:.; :^ V 'i (■ 54 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. associations, because a certain excess of colour in the habiliments of the promenaders, and a peculiar richness of tone in the hum and babble of the assembly, intimated that the Irish were neither less numerous nor less dominant in the more affluent classes of Quebec than in the humble grade where Mrs. M'Carthy found her equals. • On making a slow and sinuous way through this congregation of neighbours and notabilities, Felicia Avalon was required at nearly every step to acknowledge one of the many greetings which, whilst testifying to the regard entertain- ed for her by her acquaintance, evidenced also that the re-union had received a considerable influx of new attendants since she had quitted it for her excursion to the post-office. Had the curious observer required any additional indica- tion of the lady's social condition, he would have found it in the cordiality with which she was accosted by those who, from the obsequi- ous attentions of the crowd, were seen to be personages of importance. The Governor- General, it was observed, came ten yards out A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 55 of his way to exchange words of courtesy with Miss Avalon, when she had made a divergence from the direct line to her aunt's seat, in order that she might escape his Excellency's observa- tion. Sir Peter Carteret raised his hat and bowed profoundly to the stately girl, Avhose presence imparted to his cheeks a colour which heightened the eifect of his grey locks. Cross- ing her path at the foot of a floral trophy, which the Gardens' Committee had raised for the temporavy adornment of their pleasure- ground, the Ilishop of the Anglican Church detained her for a brief gossip. His lordship had not seen Miss Avalon's brother for several weeks, and hoped sincerely that his exertions in his cure and for the unhappy inmates of the Quebec gaol, did not overtax his powers. Far be it from a bishop to discountenance zeal in his clergy, but Mr. Avalon unfortunately was by no means so strong as his friends could wish him to be. It would be a thousand pities if so exemplary a parish priest diminished his powers of usefulness by indiscretion. And scarcely had his Anglican lordship moved onwards, with en- mm J>. ■> ,t ■■'■ l-i-, 'Wfs ■■. .m I' ;-■■.> ., c; 1 • /■:■■ , '■;■- ' ' i'l ' ■'-■ ■'*..' ■- '.*•'' €| ^-^m i ?] 1 T'- wn f ■ ■ ■.: .| -,^ m ii 9 § liiii 56 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. couragenieiit on his lips for another lady of our national church, when his Catholic lordship, Monseigneur Hippolyte Rigaud, took Miss Avalon's hand in his episcopal grip, and gave her most precise and altogether needless direc- tions as to the spot where she might find her pious and charming aunt, Mademoiselle Messurier. Moreover, the student of manners, then and there watching Miss Avalon's demeanour, and having a familiar knowledge of the constituents of Quebec society, would not have failed to observe that in her distribution of smiles and verbal courtesies to her many acquaint- ances, she was certainly in no degree less cor- dial to her humble than to her great friends. The salute with which she acknowledged the Earl of Wimbledon's deferential obeisance was no whit more expressive of interest and sympa- thetic concern than the greeting that she ac- corded to little Jack Gandy, Mus. Doc, the knock-kneed organist of the Protestant cathe- dral ; and the Honourable Mrs. Muspratt, wife of the Honourable Secretary Muspratt — who, in III A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 57 consideration of her husband's senatorial rank, about which she made a needless to-do, and lier grand house at the corner of Durham Ter- race, to which she was wont to invite all the world of Quebec, and her separate estate, to wliich she was perpetually making boastful allusions to her acquaintance, was regarded by her toadies as the Queen of Quebec during the customary absence of the Governor-General's lady — ^would have deemed herself to have been slighted by her dear Felicia's response to her greeting, had she witnessed the air of delight with which Miss Aval on seized Madame Noir's hand, as though that somewhat eccentric and extremely dilapidated teacher of Parisian French were her closest friend. From which and other like demonstrations of mere politeness to lier grander acquaintance, and of affectionate warmth to her less fortunate friends, the stu- dent afore-mentioned of manners and deport- ment would have been justified in inferring that, not content with her secure position in the beau monde of her native city, Miss Avalon was sufficiently amiable to be ambitious of '''. ■■ •fV ...•:l i:l 58 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. achieving a reputation for complaisance and universal considerateness. On regaining the seat which Aunt (or, to speak precisely, Great-Aunt) Messurier had jealously guarded and retained for her, Miss Avalon, by a timely and significant expression of thanks for his past services, dismissed Major Tilbury from further 'attendance upon her in a manner that, without affording any disturbance to that gentleman's self-love, compelled him to turn elsewhere for amusement, and in his re- treat enable a young clergyman to approach her chair. Had not the striking resemblance borne by this young clergyman to Miss Messurier's ward stated their relationship with unmistakeable clearness, the pleasure which illuminated her countenance so soon as she saw him approach- ing her, might have occasioned the unin- formed spectator a suspicion that Miss Avalon was only biding her time to join the gracious and devout army of clerical wives. But the singular similitude of Felix and Felicia Avalon rendered such a misapprehension impossible. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 59 To see them together for ten seconds was to know that they were brother and sister. In either were observable the same characteristics that distin- guished the other. The same handsome profile, and largely moulded but finely formed lips, the same dark eyes and arching eyebrows, the same rich, brown hair, and bloodless, olive complexion, that contributed to the sister's peculiar attractiveness, were present in the brother's physical endowments. On a micro- scopic comparison of the two faces, it was seen that even in their most delicate lines and shadows, no less than in their general design, the one was a precise reproduction of th-j other. To make this marvellous resemblance all the more striking, the possession of those facial growths of hair, which usually proclaim the sex of the adult male, had been denied to Felix Avalon, whose lips and cheeks were so perfectly devoid of even the first signs of moustache and whisker, that in his twenty-sixth year he was as downless and smooth-faced as any girl of eighteen summers. And yet the contrast between the brother ^ti X." '^ ^is4' -ii 'lid unlit aiili ':''M ;; ll!! mi (ill! IP'! 60 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. and sister was only by a few degrees less re- markable than their similarity. Though they were no less alike in height than in countenance, the stature which gave to Felicia the air and dignity of tallness barely preserved Felix from an appearance of meanness, if not of diminu- tiveness. Whilst the sister's straight and there- fore defective figure, by reason of its altitude, rendered her remarkable amongst her sex for majestic presence, the brother, without falling shortof Folicia'sheightbysoniuch as thetitheof a barleycorn, had under no circumstances the effect of masculine greatness, and on standing by her side, almost seemed an undersized person. A corresponding deficiency of force and largeness was observable in the countenance of the bro- ther, whose face appeared, in some perplexing way, to be smaller, slighter, weaker than his sister's, though the most precise comparison and measurement of their two heads would have found them -almost identical in massiveness and weisr^ f^ "^'oll as in conformation. In short, the It 'xpression which appeared mascu- oung woman, seemed effeminate in A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 61 the somewhat younger man. Moreover, to com- plete the sum of the differences observable in this startlingly similar pair : whilst Felicia Ava- lon, notwithstanding her total freedom from un- feniinine robustness, displayed the signs of an unusually vigorous constitution in her bodily erectness and charming air of gracious self- possession and physical self- enjoyment, her brother bore the equally unmistakeable indica- tions of constitutional debihty in the slight roundness of his shoulders and corresponding contraction of his chest, in the nervous indeci- sion of his steps, and in the equally pathetic and indescribable air of weariness and resigna- tion that suffering is prone to impart to the face of the chronic invalid. ' '1 1 1 ■ .1! ill 1 i j; 1 i 1 i ii T*! til 1 1 i i i.'i 1 1 1 r' !l!i:i;;ir m 62 CHAPTER V. MISS MESSURIER DISAPPROVES OF MAJOR TILBURY. TN Speaking of Felix Avalon's delicate appear- ■*- ance, I must preserve the reader from the error of thinking him a pale-faced curate, with the languishing air that is generally believed to render young clergymen attractive to senti- mental ladies. At heart and in temper no man ■was less effeminate than Felicia Avalon's bro- ther, who never allowed the physical weakness, of which he was reminded by the circumstances of each of his laborious days, to be an ex- cuse for indolence, or a reason why he should spare himself in the performance of his profes- sional duties. The infirmity of constitution, which had denied him the ordinary pleasures of boyhood, and planted in his mind a conviction A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 63 that he would never attain to the thresliold of middle age, far from subduing his courage, in- spired him with an heroic resoluteness in com- bating the depressing influences of bodily afflic- tion ; and though his affectionate nature caused him to prize human sympathy at ics full worth, the masculine pride of his sensitive spirit would have repelled the interest which had the appear- ance of springing from commiseration of his bodily deficiencies. Even the sister, who had been the nurse of his suffering youth, and whose solicitude had enabled him to survive the mala- dies of his boyhood, was seldom allowed to treat him as though he were less stalw^art than other men ; and though he was strongly averse to insincerity oi* affectation of any kind, I am disposed to think that, bad he suspected how manifest to others was the weakness of which be was so vividly conscious, ho would have had recourse to artifice for the concealment of his chronic indisposition, and would have hidden the languor of his limbs beneath an assumed air of excessive vigour. Nor let it be imagined that the clear prevision ;;.!( if! I ili ii i)i'i (J4 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. of his premature death, and the resignation with which he anticipated his fate, were attend- ed with any visible sadness or secret depression. Quebec contain f^d no young man who appeared more thoroughly than Felix to relish the inno- cent diversions of society, or who contributed more to the gaiety of the circles in which he moved. In his considerate expressions to Fe- licia respecting her brother's clerical zeal, the Bishop had spoken no words of mere politeness or insincere courtesy ; for the conscientious as- siduity with which the young incumbent of St. Anne's, Stanislaus Street, discharged his official duty to a numerous and humble flock, whilst he also found time and strength for the equally efficient performance of work devolving upon him as chaplain of the Quebec gaol, was an affair of notoriety to all persons interested in the social condition of the city. And yet with all his work in the classes of his parochial school, the homes of the poor, and the cells of a prison, Felix Avalon — " Foxe Avalon'e boy," as he was affectionately designated by his father's old friends — w^ent to as many dinner-parties : ■'^'^.^:'*^" A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 65 and drawing-room assemblies in the course of a year as any officer in the whole garrison of Quebec. Amongst the conversationalists of the capital he had achieved a reputation for humour and vivaciousness, without ever incurring a charge of flippancy. At the whist-club it was allowed by competent and severe judges that he played almost as good a rubber as his ftither of pleasant memory; and, though on taking orders he had ceased to waltz, out of respect to those Avho regarded dancing as an un clerical accomplishment, he seldom failed to attend his sister to the balls and routs, where she main- tained a reputation, acquired several years since, of being the best dancer in Quebec. Moreover, fir from allowing that the exercise of the ball- room was no altogether fit pastime for men of sacred vocation, he had no scruple in confessing the self-sacrifice it cost him to forbear from tak- ing active part in an amusement which ap- peared to him alike agreeable and beneficial. Thus, if from some points of view the youthful incumbent of St. Anne's was a model clergyman to all observers, to some few of those who re- YOL. I. F j. ■ v'. 4 ■I. -r t, - - *i 1 a i n 66 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. -I I 1 1 1 ,<'t-:\ I 1 :,'. II i T; ;wi; i hi!:!i' til jit garded other aspects of his life he appeared less chargeable with asceticism and austerity than with an earthly love of the world, from which he looked forward to taking an early departure. " Here already I at least half an hour sooner than I expected you," observed Felicia Avalon to her brother. " Henderson's head-ache," explained the new- comer, " was good enough to take its leave just about the time when, in the ordinary course of things, it ought to have reached the height of violence ; whereupon the schoolmaster-in-chief was at liberty to leave the children in the hands of their ordinary teacher, and move off in the pursuit of pleasure." " That man is always having a headache," Felicia remarked tetchily, "and putting his work on you, who have always more thau enough to do," "Yes, poor fellow," assented Felix, "he has more than an average man's share of ill- health." "And less than an average man's share of fortitude." A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 67 .■HJ " The more the pity for him." "Not from me, Felix. He complains a great deal too much. If he suffered more he would grumble less." " If he suffered more, it would perhaps be easier for him to suffer manfully. Small annoy- ances are sometimes harder to endure than great griefs. Moreover, if he endured bravely, he would be cheered by a consciousness of a kind of heroism that would at least give him the solace of self-respect," Felix observed gene- rously of his school-master and church-clerk, Avho greatly needed a little of his master's quiet fortitude under his share of fleshl}'- ills. " But," be added, " let us forget poor Henderson's ail- ments and grievances. I am out for 'enjoyment, and am of opinion, my dear aunt, that you had better contribute to my pleasure by letting me trot you round the gardens." On learning that Aunt Messurier had no dis- position for exercise, but preferred sitting in the sun, and watching the restless throng from her seat, Felix transferred the rejected in- vitation to his sister, who rose promptly from F 2 mm 68 A ^yOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. the scat, which she had scarcely resumed, and went off with her brother to look for friends, and pick up chat, when not paying attention to the music. When the brother and sister returned half an hour afterwards to Aunt Messurier — a tall and extremely attenuated old lady, whose regular profile, flat forehead, protruding eyes, and severe gentility of aspect were well-known to the frequenters of the choicest drawing-rooms of Quebec — the two bands were playing " God save the Queen," and the assembly was mani- festing symptoms of immediate dissolution. At which moment Major Tilbury, who, after receiv- ing his co7igc of dismissal, had been incessantly on the watch for an opportunity of fastening himself again on Felicia Avalon, saw an open- ing, which he promptly turned to account, for the achievement of his purpose. A gentlewo- man in appearance, from the topmost" plume of her fantastic head-dress to the lowest flounce of her dull crimson dress, Miss Messurier had raised herself to the full height of her lathe- ii 1! A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. G9 like frame, and was listlessly accepting her jTaud-nepliew's proffered arm, when the artil- leryman quietly came up behind Felicia, just as she was falling back dutifully in the rear of her t xtremely incompetent and highly picturesque chaperon. "Allow me to help you through the crowd to your carriage, which you may have some difficulty in finding, for the crush of e ' looking in the wrong direction. The carriage is on the other side of the gate." In less than another three minutes Miss Ava- lon's carriage — a roomy but modest vehicle, built much in the fashion of the Long Acre landau of the present date, drawn by a single big bay horse of handsome shape and sliowy action, and driven by a white-headed coachman who had served the Avalona from boyhood — luid drawn up before the entrance to the Gar- dciLS. " Drop Miss Messurier at her house, and then — home. Thank you, ]\Iajor Tilbury, for look- In[^' after my sister," said Felix, as he took his seat with his back to the big bay animal, which leaped up thrice ere it deigned to settle into its collar, and then bore the carriage northwards at a canter, which the white-headed coachman promptly moderated to a swinging trot. But though the big bay horse made good speed, it was not pulled up sharp at the door of ^liss Messurier's small house, hard bv the City Hall, at the corner of St. Lewis and St. Ursule Streets, ere that sharp-featured lady had ■> / m 4;i| .["I i I I I 11 74 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. given emphatic utterance to her disapprobation of Major Tilbury, to the mingled surprise and amusement of Felicia Avalon, who was not ac- customed to hear her aunt speak so decidedly in the disfiivour of a mere acquaintance. " I don't like that officer," observed the old lady, tartly. "Indeed," rejoined Felicia, "what has he done to offend you ?" " Paid me clumsy compliments. He is too free-and-easy. He talks slang, and has not the decency to keep himself pure of tobacco-smoke when he enters tho society of ladies. He pays you a great deal too much attention, Felicia. You should keep him more at a distance." " His style is not so perfect as he imagines, aunt," replied Felicia, " but he tries to be enter- taining, and that's something to the credit of a man in these days, when men think it in good tone to affect duluess. He always has plenty to say for himself." " In an insufferably impudent manner," spite- fully interposed the old lady, sitting bolt up- right. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 75 " His brotlier-officors speak well of him. In- deed, he is popular with the whole garrison." "Indeed," rejoined the hostile Miss Messurier; " I am sorry, for the garrison's sake, to hear it. The tone of the military profession must have deteriorated prodigiously since I was a girl, if 8uch a man, a vain egotist, is generally esteemed by the officers of Her Majesty's army. Don't you agree with me, Felix?" Admitting that he cherished no strong liking lor Major Tilbury, Felix urged that the culprit had his commendable qualities. He excelled in athletic sports ; rode well, shot well, skated better than any other man in garrison, and was reputed to be an efficient officer. The young clergyman, whose want of physical stamina had never allowed him to acquire pas- sable proficiency in masculine pastimes, had such an admiration of the muscular prowess of vigorous men that he was always disposed to think favourably of the stalwart and active of his own sex. Finding that she could not induce Felix to support her attack upon the gentleman who i -; m !i: 70 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ii I ii : ii!'';iii '§ had offended lier by praising Canada in a pa- tronizing style that revealed his secret disdair for Canadians, Miss Messurier dismissed the topic with a significant toss of her head, and lapsed into silence, which she maintained for the rest of her drive. But though it had pleased Felicia to speak in Major Tilbury's defence, she did net in her heart dissent from her aunt's judgment of his style. Indeed, if the truth may be told at once of a matter that will be discussed more fully by-and-by, Miss ]\Iessurier's dislike of the noisy ofiicer was lenient and flattering in com- parison with the sentiment of disdainful abhor- rence which her niece cherished for him. And whilst Felicia and her brother drove in silence homewards, after dropping their aged relative at her anticpiated residence in the Old Town, Miss Messurier's ward thought to herself — "Yes, the man's badness arms against him those who have no posititive proofs of its existence. It is not ]iis vulgarity, which is obvious to every woman of discernment, but the evil of his na- tvire, which he hides under an affectation of A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 77 IdnJly temper and boisterous affability, that sets Aunt Messurier at war with him. He is a dangerous man, all the more so because he is not altogeiher deficient in cunning and tact, though his egregious vanity continually causes him to irritate those whom he is most anxious to please. He is not the mere pleasure-loving fool that he pretends to be. On the contrary, he hos cleverness of a mean sort, and more knowledge than he cares to reveal. How strange that a man of average powers and edu- cation should find gratification for an exorbi- tant vanity in assuming the mask of a simple- ton ! ^Vill lie ever dare to tell me in plain words that he loves me ? A short time wili show. Self-interest, self-conceit, and every mean motive that is calculated to inspire a selfish na- ture with a sentiment which it can mistake for love, are urging him onwards to his bitter hu- miliation." And whilst Felicia Avalon was occupied with these and similar thoughts, their object was walking leisurely towards the artillery-barracks in a state of agreeable elation that rendered 1 1 '■ r < i ■ M ; 1 •ft : 1 n } ^ fe IP lij 78 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ^i 1 i I i I him unobservant of the admiration with which he was stared at by a group of street-urchins in whose estimation Major Tilbury — "the officer" who won the Gentleman's Cup at the last Que- bec races — was a truly heroic personage. " Everything goes well," Joseph Curtain Tilbury remarked to himself, as he walked with the true military lounge in the direction of Palace Gate, and none the worse for his morn- ing's discovery. "'Messrs. Hobson and Holli- day, 15, Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London:' ay, that was the address of the letter which my queenly Felicia dropped into the letter-box. When she is Mrs. Tilbury, I shan't allow her to have any secret dealings with those most fash- ionable of West End publishers. I wonder what she earns by writing for them. When Jack Slider went to grief, his wife brought him round again by manufacturing novels. Per- haps Felicia will- net her £1,000 a-year by the scribbling business — not a bad addition to the in- come we shall have from her money and my lit- tle savings, to say nothing of ray ' pay.' But, by my peculiar star, I must take care not to quarrel T^r, i,L\,^,\^ii A WOMAN. IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 79 with her, or she will have her revenge by ex- hibiting me in three volumes, octavo, as a mon- ster of iniquity, given over to licence and latch- key. Poor Jack Slider caught it hot and sharp when Mrs. S. put him into a book. ' Only a Wife,' in three vols., was the cause why Jack was black-balled, at the Rag. Joseph Curtain Tilbury, you dog, you must be a model of do- mestic virtue when you have taken a woman of letters for better and woroe. It is a fearful thing, my dear friend, to fall into the hands of a literary wife when you have done her wrong." After a pause in his meditations, Major Til- bury bethought himself yet further, as he turn- ed into the chief court of his barracks — " To make assurance doubly sure that she is the au- thor of ' Marjory Gatkiu : or Sketches of High Life in a British American Colony,' I'll ask Ned Canton for particulars. Ned advises Hob- Hon and HoUiday in all their commercial ven- tures, and will be sure to know who wrote the 'Canadian Sketches.' By-the-by, Ned dined me and old Hobson once upon a time at m ,v .v;;.^.:!-,M. ||i;';i!li|iil 80 A WO:\IAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. his club. To he sure, he did. Hobson is a stout, florid old boy, who called himself ' 'Ob- son,' and insisted on having another bottle of port when Ned proposed an adjournment to the smoking-room. The time may come when I may give the bibulous Hobson a dinner, and come to terms with him over a second bottle of port for ray wife's next novel." i. ill p' ' it 81 CHAPTER VI. THE AVALONS OF THE FAIRMEAD. WHILST surveying the memorial tablets which are conspicuously placed in the walls of the plain but sufficiently commodious Protestant Cathedral of Quebec, the sight-seer of the Canadian capital is likely to observe, at a point hard by the Richmond monument, a mural stone that bears the following inscrip- tion : — " In memory of Colonel Stephen Foxe Avalon, C.B., sprung froir* the Ancient House of the Avalonfcf cP Gloucestershire in England, who died at his Residence of Fairmead, in the Neighbourhood of this Capital, A.D. 1856, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Having distin- guished himself in several of the Chief Battles of the Peninsular War, and received an almost :» VOL. I. G 82 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. aaejigijlj ,, II B '< ■ 1. I Mi ' f'l 1,9 IB I l' * I I II M i 'I I Fatal Wound at Waterloo, Colonel Avalon emi- grated to Canada and settled in Quebec, where his Estimable Social Qualities won for him the Cordial Affection of his Fellow-citizens of all Parties and both Religions. Colonel Avalon married Marie Messurier, one of the Co-heiresses of Nicholas Messurier, Seigneur of Tregeux and Serquiny, by which Accomplished and Amiable Lady, who died A.D. 1835, and was interred near the Dust of several of her Ancestors in the Catholic Cathedral of this City, he had two Children, who lived to mourn their Loss of a Loving Father." Above this somewhat wordy legend the observer may see the heraldic por- traiture of a shield impaling the arms of Avalon and Messurier, whilst beneath it may be read the rather trite reflection, " In Coelo Quies." The story of Stephen Foxe Avalon's early manhood is so singular a romance, and the cir- cumstances, which drove him from Europe to a Transatlantic refuge with a bleeding and all but broken heart, were so strangely tragic that, if I could persuade myself to disregard prudence and the rules of art, I would burden these pages A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 83 with a chapter not immediately conducive to their main story, and give the particulars of a sad and dismal episode in a gallant gentleman's career. But since this narrative must concern itself chiefly with the fortunes of Foxe Avalon's children, from whom it would be unwise to witlidraw the reader's attention, I will leave the recital of their father's earlier sorrows for a more convenient occasion, and pursue the main purpose of the present work. Though it may not say much for his spiritual earnestness, it speaks favourably for Colonel Avalon's freedom from polemical bitterness, that, whilst maintaining a character for sincere at- tachment to the religious institutions of his native land, he was received wath equal confi- dence and aj0fection by the Catholic and Protes- tant families of his adopted city. It was also creditable to his amiable temper and courteous breeding that, though officially employed and privately interested to support the policy of the Imperial government of the colony, he cherished feelings of friendship for his most resolute poli- tical opponents, and even during crises of ex- g2 ^1 ■il 84 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ! I :Mi|jii i "*i! Mil ' >M ' I! ! 'ft 1 1ll I (II ' treme revolutionary excitement, maintained pleasant social relations with the chiefs of all the various parties and factions of the two pro- ™ce8. A place-holder under government, he never failed in loyalty to his sovereign, or roused the animosities of the reforming Liberals or the extreme Republicans. A soldier, whose courage and capacity had been tested in hard- fought fields, he possessed the finer qualities, whilst preserving his intelligence and temper from the ordinary prejudices, of military men. Though he conscientiously believed that every defeat of tho English Tories was a misfortune to the whole British people, he was never want- ing in charity and politeness to Toryism's ex- tremest opponents, of whose views he used to say, betwixt pinches of his much -prized prince's mixture, " The Radicals are in most cases honest and fairly intelligent men ; they mean well enough, sir, but their views are deplorable — absolutely deplorable." And so completely was he the master of social opinion in both of the national divisions of Canadian society, that his marriage with a lady of French descent and Mil A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 85 tlie unreformed religion was regarded with equal favour by the English Protestants and French Catholics. Moreover, it is well for readers to know that Colonel Aval on was not more proud of his pedigree or his Peninsular medals, than of his unique popularity with all classes of his fellow-colonists. The epitaph which commemorated it was a composition on which the Colonel himself expended much thought during his last illness. When Foxe A^^'alon married Marie Messurier twice on the same day — once in the old Catholic ciithedral on the antique market-place, and again in the modern Episcopal church in the Place d'Armes — he was no longer a yonng man, though time had imparted no unwieldy massiveness to his commanding figure, or given many white threads to his bushy brows, ample whiskers, and abundant crop of thick and strongly-curling hair. Truth to tell, he wanted but three days of his fiftieth birth- day when Marie Messurier assumed the name of Avalon, and resolved to be an obedient wife, to the best of her feminine ability. It is 86 A WOMAN IX SPITE OF HERSELF. W 1 1 "'i'^ by no means improbable that Quebec babbled and gossiped a little about the considerable discrepancy between the ages of the bride and her groom : for though Mario Messurier was no recently-emancipated school-girl, but a woman who had loved and lost her first love long ere she ever thought of becoming Foxe Avalon's wife, it could not be denied that she was at least twenty years younger than her husband. On no other point, however, could Quebec find aught to object against Marie's selection of a lord and lot in life. The religious question was no difficulty under the circumstances of her mature womanhood and his unexceptionable character for gentlemanlike devoutness. With respect to position and material advantages, the two were as nearly equal as matrimonially-disposed man and woman could be. If the Colonel was a member of one of the oldest fixmilies in Glou- cestershire, the Quebec Messuriers had descend- ed from a peer of France whom Louis the Four- teenth and the great Turenne had covered with honours and eulogy, in requital for brilliant military serdces. Nor was the match unequal mi [i A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 87 ill respect of the pecuniary endowments of the lady and her chosen partner. Marie's share of the money resulting from the sale of Nicholas Mossurior's estate was little short of £16,000, a large fortune for a Quebec heiress ; but no one could think that considerable sum of money an inordinate measure of wealth to accrue by mar- riage to a man of Colonel Avalon's income. It was admitted that, by marrying P^oxe Avalon, Marie added greatly to her social im- portance. A man of good professional status, who held the lucrative post of Custos of the Quebec garrison, and had acted as private se- cretary to two successive governors of Canada, Colonel Avalon, C.B., was a personage whose wife, even if she had sprung from an inferior grade of colonial society, would have taken rank with the first gentlewomen of the capital. And Mrs. Avalon was in every respect qualified to occupy the position which her marriage con- ferred upon her. The Fairmead — a house which the Colonel selected for his bride's home in a suburb less populous with villas forty years since than it is uow-a-days — became a favourite IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) i.O I.I S iia 2.5 IIM 1112.2 1.25 1.4 2.0 1.6 Va -^y V /A VI y Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 M3 ^ ///// w. p 88 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. Hi' m resort for all the best society of the city ; and Colonel Avalon encouraged his wife to spare no reasonable expense in developing the natural beauties of her grounds, and in rendering her residence attractive to its numerous guests. Foxe Avalon must have founded on his mar- riage exorbitant hopes of domestic happiness, if he was disappointed by the experiences of his first three years of matrimonial life. In temper and tastes he and his wife were thoroughly congenial ; and ere they had been married two years, a little girl appeared on the scene to heighten their felicity with the pride and con- tinual excitements of parental satisfaction. Rather more than a year after Felicia's birth, her brother came into the world — an event that preceded by only a brief while a gloomy change in the life at the Fairmead. Almost before the little boy manifested the first signs of constitu- tional infirmity, Marie Avalon entered the ear- lier stages of the lingering malady to which she succumbed, after three years of acute suffer- ing ; and scarcely had she been placed beneath the pavement of the Catholic Cathedral when llH , A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 89 the doctors declared to the despondent widower their fear that little Felix would soon follow his mother to another world— their certainti/ that, if the child were rescued from the immediately. impending perils, he could only arrive at man^s estate by a childhood passed in bodily affliction, and by a youth of painful debility. To ordinary observers the sorrows of his home appeared to have no extraordinary effect on Foxe Avalon's spirits and social arrangements. Instead of relinquishing the establishment in which he had consumed a brief period of exceptional happiness, he continued to reside at the Fairmead, where he received his friends with an undiminish- ed hospitality, and expended on his beautiful gardens the same amount of care that ih^ had received during his wife's life. It was remark- ed that he found especial enjoyment in carrying out the plans which she had formed for the fur- . ther embellishment of the grounds; and that he allowed nothing to be put out of sight which was calculated to remind him of his bereavement.. Perhaps he accepted invitations with an alacrity significant of a widower's readiness to find di- 90 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. version outside the walls of a desolate home. He became a more regular attendant at his whist-clubs, a more frequent diner at the vari- ous mess-tables of tiie garrison ; but wherever he went, he was remarkable for the same cour- teous cheerfulness and gracious serenity which had distinguished him before the second grand sorrow of his existence. But those erred greatly who inferred from tht; composure and cheerful- ness of his demeanour that his griefs had fall- en upon a nature deficient in sensibility and affec- tionateness. The anguish, that makes no dis- play and finds no utterance, is eonietimes far keener and more enduring than the woe that finds relief in words and wins commiseration by looks of dejection. It was so with Foxe Avalon, the sunshine of whose smiling coun- tenance played over a perpetually clouded heart. Even Felicia, who in the coursa of vears learnt to appreciate the fortitude and. unselfish- ness of her father's nature, never imagined the poignancy of the emotions which his recollec- tions of her mother roused in his breast UZJ A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 91 during his declining age ; and fortunately for her peace of mind and love of him, it never occurred to her to Buspect that his paternal tenderness for her afflicted brother was basely qualified with an alloy of wounded vanity that was strangly out of harmony with the finer forces of his generous disposition. Before his marriage Foxe Avalon had pas- sionately desired to have a son who should transmit to another generation the physical strength and bodily grandeur that had been hereditary in his family for centuries, and who should play a brilliant part in the profes- sion of arms; To have a big, stately, handsome soldier for his son was. Foxe Avalon's chief desire. There was an egotistic meanness in the ardent longing; and when instead of a vigorous, well-shaped boy, the son ca?ne in the form of a feeble, nervous, ricketty, strumous child, the father's parental disappointment com- prised a sense of personal humiliation in hav- ing given life to so defective a creature. Had Foxe Avalon been a man of violent pas- sions and sordid nature this morbid shame 92 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ■t till ■M i for his son's infirmities would have revealed itself in alternate neglect of, and harshness to- wards, the little fellow. But it was far from the Colonel to harbour resentment against the innocent cause of his chagrin ; and to the last Felix never detected what was reprehensible, if not unnatural, in the feelings with which he was regarded by his sire. As for Felicia, it never occurred to her to regard her brother's debility with a disdainful compassion or selfish sensitiveness. Her pity for him contained no alloy of the sentiment which would have caused her to think his affliction discreditable to herself: No girl was ever more proud of a sturdy, vigorous, overbearing brother than Felicia was of the fragile, pallid, weakly Felix, who, during his earlier years, resembled her in nothing save his profile, the colour of his hair, and the expression of his large, dark eyes. In her estimation he was a boy of incomparable cleverness and goodness; and the assiduity with which she devoted her- self to his service was scarcely more pathetic than amusing to those who studied her demeanour A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 93 to the invalid. And Foxe Avalon's children were objects of interest to nearly every resident in Quebec. The rural "habitans," whose farms supplied the markets of Quebec with fruit and poultry, and whose business caused them to pass frequently along the St. Foy road, were wont to look out for the boy and girl on ap- proaching the Fairmead elms ; and many an honest housewife, whose personal intercourse with the Avalons was confined to the ex- change of way-side greetings, effected as she passed to and fro betwixt her farm and the city on market-days, never put up a prayer in French patois to the great Father of little children without making special mention of Marie Messurier's offspring. The same affectionate care was felt and dis- played for the brother and sister by the deni- zens of the city. When Felix was in his fifth vear, and under medical orders to spend as much time as possible in the open air, v;ithout reHnquishing the recumbent position necessitat- ed by his spinal malady, Foxe Avalon provided for the boy's convenience a couch-phaeton, a ir-: f , I> ,( I' ^1 i; fi'^l 94 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. vehicle so fashioned that, whilst Felix lay at full length on its spring-bed, his sister could sit by his side. The animal that drew this trap was a stout brown pony, which Felicia drove under the guardianship of the Colonel's coachman, who used to walk by the side of the equipage, holding in his hand a leading-rein that was at- tached to the pony's bit. Everyone who knew Quebec was familiar with this carriage and its occupants, — the slim, stately, large-eyed girl who sat erect whilst she divided her attention between her animal and her brother ; and the shadowy, eager-visaged little boy who lay upon his back, and never failed to look upforhis sister's smile whenever anything occurred to please him. In the narrow, precipitous streets of the Upper Town, and in the still closer and more hilly thoroughfares of the Lower Town, people promptly bestirred themselves to make way for this CDmmodious phaeton, which enjoyed in the public streets of Quebec just the same privileges that are accorded to royal carriages in grander capitals. It was free to move on the right hand or the left, to break or follow the line, accord- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 95 ing to its pleasure ; and wherever it went about the city of steep and tortuous routes, the child- ren were saluted cordially by persons of every condition, — alike by the fruit-sellers of the mar- kets and the sailors of the quays, by tradesmen standing at the doors of their shops, and gentle- folk entitled to call Colonel Avalon their per- sonal friend. This phaeton had been a familiar feature of the street-life of Quebec for soraethhig less than three years when Felicia, fast approaching the completion of her ninth year, held with her father a conversation that demonstrated the conscientious sense of responsibility with which the child, even at that early age, ministered to her brother. "What are you so thoughtful about, little woman?" inquired Colonel Avalon, who was sitting after a solitary dinner over his walnuts and wine, whilst Felicia occupied a low chair near a bright log-fire. When Colonel Avalon dined alone, his daugh- ter was wont to appear in the dining-room after 96 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. li ill ■ the removal of the cheese, and give him her company during his dessert. " I was thinking of Felix." " Indeed ; what of him !" " He is not quite so well. The pain in his knee would not let him sleep last night ; and, though he is a brave boy, I caught him crying this afternoon because the pain troubled him so. I hope Dr. Renouf v.'ill come to-morrow." " He shall come. I'll write to him, since you wish it," returned the Colonel, who always treated his daughter as far as possible with the respectfulness due to a girl twice her age. " Thank you. To see Dr. Renouf will any- how make mo easy," Miss Avalon replied, with comical stateliness. After a pause, she added, with a sigh, " It will be a long, long time, papa, before Felix is quite strong. Sometimes, do you know, I have a fear that he will not ever be quite strong, even when he is a man." " Sometimes, my pet," the Colonel answered sadly and tenderly, " I fear that he will never live to be a man." " Oh, don't fear that," the girl rejoined quick- I ■ A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF 97 ly, in a voice that was more expressive of con- fidence than alarm. She paused for a few moments before she added, with characteristic gentleness and an almost unnatural decisive- ness, « He will live to be a man. He won't die before he is a man." "May you be right!" " I shall take care of him." " You're a weakling, Fay," mildly objected the father, calling his girl by the pet name which she had acquired somehow or other, though no one knew the origin of the fanciful diminutive, " to accomplish what, I am afraid, the Almighty won't think right to do for us." " But God has promised me that I shall take care of him," responded Fay, with a sudden increase of earnestness, turning her face up- wards to her father, and away from the glowing fire, so that, whilst one side of her countenance was in deep shade, the other appeared to her companion to be clothed with a mysterious glory. "It's now ever so long, papa, since mamma's picture— the one in the drawing-room, not the other picture of her— looked at me so VOL. I. g =15 If ti 'I m i - 98 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. sadly and sweetly that I, all in a quickness, felt how sad a thing it was that she could not come back to us from heaven and take care of Felix. Perhapi you know, if she had lived, he would not have lost his strength and gone lame. The look of the picture must have taught me so, besides showing me that mamma wished me to have Felix for a charge as well as a brother. And ever since the evening when mamma told me to be the nurse of her mother- less Felix — I mean ever since the look of the picture told me so — you know what I mean, dear — I have known that God will make me strong enough to take care of Felix." All which statement of the circumstances and terms of her commission to be her brother's guardian-angel was made with such earnest- ness and unqualified simplicity, and penetrated Foxe Avalou's heart with such pathetic force, that he was in no humour to gainsay his daugh- ter's representations, or question the grounds of her comfortable confidence in her ability to make a man of Felix. Indeed, for the moment, the Colonel was so profoundly stirred and alto- il A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 99 gether tlirown aback by Fay's confidential reve- lation, that he had no command of speech, nor of those feelings of which speech is the incom- petent servant. Much to the child's surprise, he rose quickly from his chair, and, after hastily smoothing her bright tresses with a gentle movement of his right hand, retired abruptly, and without another word, to his study, whence he emerged, after an hour's interval, in posses- sion of his usual equanimity, on the announce- ment that his coffee and daughter awaited him in the drawing-room. Having sipped his two cups of strong black Mocha with his customary deliberateness, Foxe Avalon would fain have imparted, that evening, an extraordinary tenderness to the caress with which he dismissed Fay for nightly rest. But it was beyond the gracious gentleman's power to perform an act of endearment more eloquent of paternal fondness and reverence than his customary mode of bidding adieu to the girl for the night. h2 4:i| r ■^ 100 CHAPTER VII. FEI.ICIA AVALON'S UNWOMANLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. TT will be well for the reader to bear in mind -■- the conversation reported in the last chap- ter; for the explanation of what may appear abnormal in Felicia Avalon's character, and irreconcilable with her temperament and circum- stances, must be sought in the sincerity with which she believed herself commissioned to be the helpmate of her brother, and in the earnest- ness with which she determined, at the thres- hold of plastic girlhood, to accomplish the ap- pointed work. That a lady of fine nature and noble capa- bilities should outlive the fervour of girlhood, and reach mature years, without entertaining even the vaguest wish to taste the felicity '>f A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. 101 love and marriage, is sometimes no matter foi. astonishment. The experience of most persons will furnish instances of single women who, in the absence of circumstances favourable to the development of the affections that dispose the gentler sex to cherish romantic passion, have passed from youth to age without ex- periencing a single emotion more fervid than the impulses of friendship or filial enthusiasm. But it is rare for a girl of abundant sensibility and a joyous temperament to spend the opening years of womanhood, surrounded by demon- strative admirers of the sterner sex, without entertaining a decided preference for some one qualified to become her husband. Yet this was Felicia Avalon*s case. That she suffered under no constitutional disinclination for the societv of men, was proved by the cordiality that she displayed to them, so long as their attentions indicated no desire for an intimacy with her exceeding the limits of a hearty and unem- barrassing friendship. That she had entered her twenty-seventh year unmarried, and under no engagement to marry, was certainly not I ! 1 :.| I- : ; 102 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. attributable to an absence of suitors for her hand. Thougli she had never incurred an evil reputation for trifling with the teelings of her pursuers, and, before her introduction to Major Tilbury, had never wittingly exposed herself to a suspicion of coquetry, it was known that no girl of Quebec had received a larger number of eligible offers. Sir Peter Carteret's age and pompous manner accounted satisfactorily for her unwillingness to exchange her maidenly freedom for the rank and wealth which would pertain to the wife of so opulent a baronet. But she had declined offers from men so desir- able in age, culture, position, and personal at- tractiveness, that her conduct in rejecting them was deemed explicable' only on the supposition that she either guarded a secret passion for an unknown lover, or was perversely bent on dying an old maid. Had the world known as much as the reader learnt from the last chapter, it would have spared itself much of the trouble which it took in vainly endeavouring to account for a course of action that had seriously diminished in two A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 103 or three quarters the almost universal popular- ity which Felicia Avalon enjoyed in Quebec so- ciety before her father's death. The secret of her perplexing behaviour lay in the belief and the devotion which gave rise to her peculiar relations with her only brother. Not that she had ever made any vow of perpetual virginity for his benefit. Not that she had declined her several suitors on deliberate consideration of his title to her undivided and life-long care, or in any way out of respect for her sentimental obligations to the brother who had long sur- vived the condition of incapacity from which she undertook in tender childhood to do her ut- most to raise him. All that readers are asked to believe is, that the mission and labour of the child had so affected the nature and moulded the character of Felicia Avalon that she arrived at maturity, and passed the earlier years of adult life, inno- cent of the sentimental susceptibilities and the disposition for a particular kind of love' that are usually operative in unsophisticated girls and right-minded women. The mission gave *f I':: ' V' lis 11 li ''5 M£ lit ii It' V'.' ?;ii iirt 104 A WOMAN IN SPITS OF HERSELF. to her intellect and heart a direction which they m maintained long after the decided improvement of her brother's health might have been regard- ed as the fulfilment of her undertaking. The devotion, which characterized her performance of the voluntary duty, withdrew her life from the reach of certain general influences, and, without inspiring her with unfeminine hardness, or even narroAving her sympathies, guarded her from the forces that, under other circumstances, would have rendered her a wife and mother before the completion of her twenty-first year. To the same causes must be attributed Felicia Avalon's possession of certain masculine accomplishments, the discovery of which will doubtless lower her in the estimation of many readers, and cause her to be regarded as a very eccentric and insufferably strong-minded crea- ture. Concerning the attainments, which are thus likely to subject her to grievous misappre- hension, I would fain be silent, if silence were compatible with the purposes of this narrative. But the historical necessity is imperious, and all that I may do for the preservation of Felicia J ' ; A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 105 Avalon's character for feminine propriety, is to satisfy her censors that, whilst possessing in- formation which may strike them as scarcely more unusual than discreditable in a woman, she was by no means deficient in the lighter pursuits and graceful arts appropriate to her sex. Of the merits of Miss Avalon's dancing enough has already been said, and those who were pri- vileged to see her in the Castle Gardens are not likely to question that she was a perfect mistress of the most difficult of all feminine mysteries — the arts of dress and deportment. But the taste and knowledge, which enable a woman to make the most of her bodily grace, were by no means the most important results of the care lavished on Colonel Avalon's daugh- ter by governesses and professors. Severe musical critics concurred in allowing that, whilst lacking the finish and delicacy of a perfect artiste, she was a pianist of cleverness and poetic feeling, whose execution, notwith- standing its faultiness, possessed merits to which the mere mechanical performer can never m 106 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 11 attain. Of her vocal ability the judges spoke with much greater warmth ; and, besides com- raeuding the thoroughness with which she had carried out the instructions of several compe- tent teachers of singing, they were pleased to regard as a choice musical curiosity the un- usually comprehensive organ which enabled Miss Avalon to perform with equal ease male and female parts at the re-unions of the Quebec Madrigal Association. Nor was the lady with- out title to rank amongst painters as an aspirant considerably superior to the better sort of ama- teurs. When Leonard Donkin, oi the " Old Water Colour," returned to London from his Canadian trip, he occasioned Mrs. Donkin no little uneasiness by the extravagant enthusiasm with which he spoke of the artistic genius oi Miss Avalon of Quebec ; and Leonard's brethren of the studios were disposed to ridicule his re- presentations as rhapsodies, occasioned by the fair Canadian's personal fascinations, rather than by her pictorial skill, until lie exhibited, in support of his assertions, half-a-dozen sketches in water-colours — bits of Canadian 'I''- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 107 u autumn-tint and some studies of waterfalls — which quickly caused them to substitute cordial eulogy for flippaut badinage, and to admit unanimously that Leonard's transatlantic she- painter was a bold delineator and superb col- ourist. And now for the revelations which will shock the fastidious, and incite them to predict evil things of Miss Avalon of the Fairmead. She knew Latin ; she knew Greek ; she knew Mathe- matics—not very much of them, perhaps, but something more than an average hack classical and mathematical tutor could conscientiously undertake to teach a clever pupil. Her know- ledge in each of these departments of study was limited, but it certainly was not chargeable with being " only a smattering." What she knew of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, she knew pre- cisely and thoroughly, and could use with equal promptitude and exactness. She could play with the first six books of Euclid as though its propositions were mere tricks and puzzles for the diversion of a gentlewoman's idle hours. The Civil Service examiners — who, I am assured m ■;V ^"BiHB 112 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. fi lil I :■ '■ J:: m ! without a qualification of surprise, Colonel Ava- lon exclaimed, " By Jove, Miss Fay, you've settled it all I You've talked the matter over with Renouf before mentioning it to me ? You've engaged the tutor f " No, dear, not engaged him — only found him out for your approval. I was sure that you •would like me to have a plan before I troubled you about Felix's education. You have always preferred that I should arrange everything for him." " Who's the tutor ?" "Mr. Willis — an Englishman and a capital scholar. He is a Master of Arts of Oxford, who has settled in Canada for the sake of his health, which requires a bracing atmosphere. Dr. Renouf says that Mr. Willis took high honours at Oxford." " Of course, then," inquired Foxe Avalon, " he speaks English with purity ?" " Doubtless." " I would not have my son taught by a fel- low with a Yankee twang and a nasal squeak," L A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 113 inBisted the Colonel, who, in spite of hie affec- tion for Canada, had never reconciled himself to the peculiarities of Canadian-English, and in his desire that his children should speak their mother-tongue with perfect purity, never allowed a servant to enter his house who had the slightest taint of Americanism in his dialect or tone. In the higher grades of society, at Quebec or Montreal, it is still possible to find whole fami- lies whose voices and language are altogether free from Transatlantic corruption, though it must be admitted that such families are less numerous than they were thirty years since, and that, in proportion as English influence has grown weaker amongst the superior colo- uists in matters of taste, the objectionable in- tonation and verbal peculiarities of Yankee speech have become more prevalent in the dra^xing-room8 of both cities. Colonel Avalon had, however, exerted himself so successfully to preserve his children from what he stigmatized, with excessive disgust to an extremely confi- dential fi'iend, as a barbarous and insufferably VOL. I. I mi 'Si m m 1 1 : I" ..■if '■»■• . V! B • ^ 114 A WOaiAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. vulgar dialect, that their colonial birth and breeding would not have been detected in the politest circles of London society by their man- ner of expressing themselves. "Dr. Renouf would have bt:n sure to say if Mr. Willis could not be trusted in that particu- lar," urged Fay. " Of course. Renouf dislikes vile, poisoned English as much as I do. Did he tell you how much Mr. Willis would expect me to pay him ?" " Certainly not, papa. That's a matter about which I should not presume to trouble my head." " The boy will learn slowly without the emu- lation of companionship." " I shall be his companion." " You 1" ejaculated Foxe Avalon, opening his eyes with astonishment at the young lady, who had occasioned her father not a few surprises during the brief period of her existence. *' Yes, I mean to learn Latin. Miss Marchmont says Latin is a very proper study for a girl, and that I had better begin it at once." Miss Marchmont, a lady for whom Colonel A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. 115 Avalon cherished cordial respect, was Fay Ava- lou's governess, and would have been present at this interesting discussion, had she not been suddenly called away on the previous day to visit a sick sister at Montreal. " If Miss Marchmont says so, I suppose it won't hurt you to learn Latin; but don't talk to everybody about it, for I don't wish the world to regard you as an intellectual phenomenon." " And I mean to learn Greek," continued the barely fourteen-year-old Felicia Avalon, enun- ciating all the particulars of her fully matured plans. " If you do, child," her father exclaimed in a voice of consternation, " you'll frighten all the men away from you." " I don't want them to come near me. And I mean to learn Euclid and Algebra." " You'll die an old maid," roared the Colonel, somewhat disposed to scold, but more strongly inclined to laugh. "You see, papa," argued the young lady, taking no notice of the menace of his last ejacu- lation, " it will do Felix a great deal of good to 12 h m 4 '■*S /■■•'■# ■I ^1 I 'J ■ s Al- ly I 116 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. !i ! have a companiou in his studies. We shall work together ; and when his weakness disposes him to indolence, I shall spur him on. So Mr. Willis will have a class of two — a good, docile boy, and a naughty, rebellious girl." The excellence of the girl's plan for her brother's training being obvious, Colonel Avalon adopted it ; and forthwith Mr. Frederick Willis, M.A., of Queen's College, Oxford, was retained as visiting-tutor at the Fairmead, to lure the children onwards over the thorny ways and arduoiis steeps of academic learning. And with the perseverance and resoluteness which distinguished her from ordinary girls, Fay AvaloL learnt Latin and Greek, Euclid and Algebra, with her brother, keeping pace with him in each of those studies from the day when Mr. Willis led him over the threshold of the Latin accidence, to the time when the Bishop of Quebec, after ascertaining with surprise the soundness of his acquirements, ordained the young literate a deacon of the. Church of Eng- land. Yet further, in palliation of Miss Avalon's A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 117 offences against the ferainiue proprieties, let it be remarked that, though she had acquired, with much more than an average graduate's accuracy, rather more than an ordinary honour- less Oxford or Cambridge M.A.'s knowledge of classics and mathematics, she never made a show of her reprehensible attainments. On the contrary, when Albert Renouf, Dr. Renouf's eldest son, intending to exalt her in the world's estimation, made a grand talk about her mar- vellous cleverness and astounding knowledge of dead literatures, the young lady, on hearing of her champion's indiscretion, bade him, under pain of her perpetual detestation, hold his peace for all future time concerning her unnatural erudition. Of course it was generally under- stood by Miss Avalon's female acquaintances that she was a fearfully learned person, and was equally qualified to enlighten the com- mandant of the garrison on questions of forti- fication, and to argue with the bishop on the mysteries of the Greek tongue ; but, in consider- ation of her richness in feminine accomplish- ments, they forgave her for being so criminally m !•:■• ,'m „ •|3 ■ H ■4 [I ii ♦ * i i • I .r ;ii II I i 118 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. superior to themselves. The girl who danced so well, painted so cleverly, sung so exquisitely, and played a part of universal affability in her native city, was not severely judged for pos- sessing a store of unfeminine knowledge, which she oad the good taste to keep to herself and her brother. .»'. fMi 119 CHAPTER VIII. A TOPOGRAPHICAL PARALLEL. rpHE luxurious slave, with a soul disposed to ^ sicken o'er the heaving wave, the vain lord of wantonness and ease suffering from an inca- pacity to derive enjoyment from pleasure, or any other English gentleman of weak nerves and strong appetite for novelty, who would fain realize some of the excitements of a brief residence in Quebec during the hot season, and yet shiinks from the bare thought of trying to dance in triumph over stormy waters for ten consecutive days and nights, may do something for the attainment of his object by passing a fortnight in Guernsey during July or August. Let him run from London to Southampton or Weymouth in a first-class railway-carriage, and i'ni 120 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. consent to endure the Jiacomfort of a few hours' passage over a not invariably turbulent sea, let hirn throw himself on the hospitality of Gardiner's Government House Hotel, and, by the aid of such introductions as even despicably bad sailors can sometimes procure, make the acquaintance of the native aristocracy of St. Peter's Port and its environs, and he will be in a position to form a not altogether inadequate notion of some of the pleasant experiences in store for the bolder traveller from the mother country, who, at the same season of the year, and with similar recommendations to denizens of the Canadian city, takes up his abode at Payne's Hotel in the Place d'Armes, or the Albion Hotel in Palace Street. Not that the diminutive island possesses all the grander attractions and nobler beauties which rouse the enthusiasm of the artist who for the first time visits Quebec, and gazes with an awful delight on its surrounding scenery. The land of primaeval forests and far-re- sounding cataracts is rich in marvels, the like of which no tourist may look for in an island II i^ A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 121 -m whose only waterfalls are rippling rills that glide almost imperceptibly between grassy bor- ders, and whose farmers allow no timber to cover ground that can be used profitably for the sustenance of their valuable breed of cattle. Nor is it suggested that St. Peter's Port is comparable with Quebec in respect to magni- tude, populousness, or picturesque impressive- ness. The hill from whose summit the guns of Fort George command every approach by w^hich the most skilful pilot could hope to bring a hostile ship through the hidden rocks of an appallingly dangerous coast into the harbour of the insular capital, is a modest, though never insignificant, elevation, when it is contrasted with the glittering vastness of Cape Diamond ; and the aspects of the two places are not without the architectural diff^irences that must under any circumstances distinguish the city of a populous and far-extending territory from the marine town of a small and isolated community. And yet the y»oint8 of external resemblance are so numerous and striking that no worthy son of Quebec is likely to rest his eyes on the (■■ .' II' ' n Iff.*''!. '•■■■J i'l hi; i'-- - i 1 ^:^. 11 in 11 ■ .1 ill H! i 1 122 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. houses of St. Peter's Port, rising in successive stages from the water's edge to the summit of a commanding eminence, without thinking of his native city with fresh impulses of patriotic pride and fondness. By the cheerful bright- ness and briskness of the quay, he is reminded of the port and " Lower Town," where, in his boyhood, he watched the skill and listened to the animating cries of Canadian sailors, or studied the keen faces of merchants hastening from the humming 'Change to their contiguous warehouses. The show of substantial and pic- turesque habitations covering the hill almost deludes him for the moment into thinking that he surveys a piece of the Canadian " Upper Town," at one of the points where its military works are least conspicuous. The steamer, on which he slowly glides towards a noble harbour, moves indeed upon the ocean, but over a plain to which the barriers of closely adjacent islands and the lines of remoter coasts have denied the appearance of immeasurable wideness that cha- racterizes the open sea in a degree that accords with its proverbial reputation for boundlessness. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 123 Narrowed into a frith, less expansive than many of the smaller Canadian lakes, the sea that plashes against the marge of Guernsey on the one side, and laves the rocks of Herm and Jeddho on the other, is not insulted by the writer who urges that it is more calculated to strengthen than dispel the illusion which dis- poses the tourist to mistake it, during one of its calmer periods, for the fluctuating and swollen surface of the mighty St. Law- rence. A closer inspection of the insular town ascer- tains that its similarity to Quebec extends to social conditions, and is even more noticeable in its internal arrangements and rural suburbs than in the more prominent features of its marine aspect. Just as the people of the Canadian capital delight in making aquatic excursions for business or pleasure to the various islands that glitter in the tide, and to the numerous town- ships that nestle in the coves of the St. Law- rence, the denizens of the European town ai-e continually running by steamer or yacht to the other sea-encircled settlements of the Chan- r i ■ (: ■'I'* If.';:' Is-," It L V" F i '4 I 11; r.-r ■ 'i* 124 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. :| W' i-.' I I! if ■ ;; . j % ; !: ; ■■■•' ■ ': '■ ■ .''1 1 nel, or the nearer ports of the French coast. The intelligence, the vigour, and the amiable authoritativeness of the important personages of the island correspond precisely to the shrewd- ness, energy, and wholesome self-sufficiency of the colonial dignitaries. Pride of family de- clares itself in the colony just as quaintly and agreeably as in the self-governing dependency that holds its parliament under the guns of Fort George. Our American tourist from Que- bec, on climbing the narrow streets of St. Peter's Port, is reminded of his native city by the irregularity and precipitousness of the ways, the French names upon the shopfronts, the Gal- lic babble of the populace gossiping in a patois that proclaims their French origin, — an origin which is still further evidenced, in the case of the humbler folk in town for the market, by peculiarities of costume. A Guernseyan loiterer in the old market- pk^e of Quebec, amidst French-speaking hig- glers of both sexes, may in July readily ima- gine himself listening to the cries and chaffer- ing of the French-speaking dealers of the equal- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 125 ly picturesque market of St. Peter's Port. The suburbs and immediate environs of the Canadian capital are no less calculated to entertain him with agreeable illusions. He sees, indeed, forests and waterfalls that tell him he is in a foreign land ; but ever and again he comes upon a lake or a river-creek which he may be pardoned for mistaking for a ghmpse of one of the many lake-like bays with which the storms of count- less seasons have indented and beautified the sea-board of his native island. The farms of the French habitans are somewhat larger, no doubt, than the farms of his familiar neighbours, the Guernseyau agriculturalists ; but the home- steads of the former have the same picturesque- ness,tone, music, that distinguishdwellingsof the latter from the English farm-house. Nor is he less forcibly reminded of his home by those quarters of the city, and those circles of colonial society, where English influence is paramount. Saunter- ing under the trees which border the lanes of the suburban quarter, of which the Chemin de la Grande All^e and the St. Foy Koad are the chief arteries— the suburb in which the I j / • : I if ', I III : ,'V ■■' |i!IMIll'!i 11 ''III I ■'>: 'J 121; A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. Quebeckians of wealth and fashion have tlieir garden-gh*t villas and emparked mansions — he fancies himself back again on the outskirts of the ornamental grounds of St. Martin's, and peering about the picturesque cottages of the Rohais Road. And thus, surrendering himself to the influences of a scene which has nothing to remind him of the perilous severity of the Canadian winter, he realizes the fact that, so long as the brief summer of their country endures, the ladies of Quebec are not less largely favoured than the " Lilies of Guernsey " with a genial atmosphere and the luxurious delights which horticulture dispenses even in lands where Na- ture declines to smile until she has been wooed with the homage of labour. 127 CHAPTER IX. FELICIA AVALON ASTONISHES HER BROTHER. Tl VEN at the present time, when so much has been done for the extension and i )rove-» ment of this choicest suburb of Quebec, um St. Foy Road, which is the most picturesque of its highways, contains few residences superior to the Fairmead. Built substantially of the hard stone of the neighbouring rocks, and furnished with every appliance for mitigating the rigours of the Canadian climate, it is seen to best ad- vantage when the foliage of its well-grown trees, and the parterres of its undulating gar- dens, surround it with the appropriate embel- lishments of a model summer residence. An ample hall, bright with masses of gorge- ous blossoms during the season of flowers, and I B ^lllili": . !■' '. 1 !l|ii|! I 1 iliiiii B i m "r . y.'.J l| !':'! ; 1 1^ I ( I 1 'l '|l i ■i! 1 iiili ^1. 1 ■ifl ^'' f 1 1 t !' fl I!'!" ! ,i »r ■ ■ . f: !''i|:i^ 128 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. luxuriously heated with a large stove during the mouthb of incessant snow and frost. Open- ing into the hall, a drawing-room large enough for a party of seventy dancers, a library which Foxe Avalon furnished with some three thousand judiciously-chosen volumes, a break- fast-parlour for many a day designated Miss Avalon's parlour, and the dining-room, in which the Colonel used to entertam four-and-twenty guests at his state dinners. Good kitchens in .the rear, and ample cellars beneath them. A lofty and excellently-furnished billiard-room, erected at the back of the mansion. Immediate- ly over the apartments of the ground-floor half a dozen capacious bed-rooms. Above them, the battlemented tower, whither Marie Messurier's husband used to conduct his friends for a cigar in his sufficiently commodious smoking-room, and for a superb ,iew of the Charles Valley, the Bonhomme and Tsoumonthowan mountains, and the St. Lawrence. A snug stable and big coach-house. A flower-garden, comprising more than an acre, and an ornamental pad- dock, containing some four acres of pasture, A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 129 with his belt of carefully cultivated timber. These were the principal features of the modest demesne which Felix and Fay Avalon continued to make their home for several years after their father's death. It was nothing more than just such a good suburban villa as the prosperous London merchant delights to call his little place at Putney. They were also the arrangements of the place, of which Felicia Avalon may be said to have become the mistress in her early child- hood. For even in the days when a governess resided in the house for Fay's benefit, the girl was almost as much the queen of her father's residence as her mother could have been under any circumstances. Out of respect to the feelings of a lady whom Marie held in affectionate regard, rather from consideration for his own comfort, Foxe Avalon had, on his wife's death, invited Miss Messurier to take up her abode beneath his roof, and assume the reins of domestic authority that had fallen from her niece's hands. But cautious Miss Messurier, foreseeing that such an arrange- ment might be more productive of embarrass- VOL. I. K Kh i"-*^'! * .■^ <• -%^'^v I"'' •''■ iiii , illKlll'iii'l^' mm 130 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. '^ ^ I'I'i; I', hi Ml-' 'I., mi m ii'i.ii 1 SI nil iiiiii 'iliiili' '■ *'l ;il ii';! : lif II II 1^ ll'i i inent than of family union, declined to accede to the Colonel's petition, though she readily promised to give him the benefit of her feminine sagacity and watchfulness in the education of his children. No teacher of accomplishments was ever engaged for Felicia, no female servant was ever taken into the Fairmead, until Miss Messurier had been consulted on the subject ; and from the time when Fay first " came out " at one of the winter assemblies in the Place d'Armes, till the festal madness of " the Prince's season," Great-aunt Messurier had discharged with equal assiduity and kindliness the func- tions of chaperon to Miss Avalon of the Fair- mead. But though the aunt's influence had been steadily felt in the training of the niece, and in the internal affairs of Colonel Avcilon's liouschold, it never became a government at prevented the younger lady from thinking her- self, or being thought, the mistress of her father's mansion. It was in the nature of things that this premature attainment and un- interrupted possession of a housewife's au- thority gave Felicia Avalon an air of self- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 131 dependence seldom observable in a young single woman. On the other hand, it was in accordance with the unqualified amiability of h^r generous and strongly sympathetic temper- ament, that they failed to infuse her with arro- gance, or impart to her manners the slightest indications of a dominating spirit. In the breakfast-room of the Fair mead — a parlour that commanded even a finer view of the Charles Valley than the drawing-room — Felix Avalon and his sister were seated over a rather late breakfast, some ten days after the grand promenade in the Castle Gardens, when the conversation of the two took the following form, whilst the luxuriously warm air, laden with floral perfume, and coming through the open window from the rose-beds, increased the young clergyman's reluctance to break away from the agreeable influences of his sister's com- pany, and hasten off" to his parochial duties. " Lady Morton's party of last night was even better than her parties usually are," Felix re- marked, in flattering judgment of an assembly k2 £ :K:^;:. > . - ■■|",V'-i'V .1 ..1 ' ; .;■ -■ - V' •n. ,. f 1 ' 1 m ill 1 'l f: ■A liiill m '■'il,. I |! it: J I;!! I pi'! , '!l> 132 A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. which he and his sister had attended on the previous evening. " So pleasant, that I was sorry to see it break up so early," Fay assented, giving one of the results of an unusually extended observation of evening entertainments. " The pleasanter the party, the less likely is it to give one low spirits and ennui on the following day. I danced a good deal, but I am not at all tired this morning." " 1 saw you dancing with Mr. Patterson, the new attorney-general. How did you like him?" " He is very amusing, but, like all able law- yers — inordinately loquacious. Barristers should be contented with their forensic privileges and refrain from excessive speech in private society. Mr. Patterson talks well, but unfortunately he never knows when he has said enough ; and he has not acquired the conversationalist's art of concealing the desire for admiration." " You danced with him three times." " He asked me three times, and I was disen- gaged. If I had not accepted him for a part- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 133 ner, I should have been compelled to annoy Aunt Messurier by dancing yet oftener with Major Tilbury." " She is afraid that the Major will make you an offer." "Far worse. That would be a reasonable apprehension. Dear old aunt is afraid that I should accept him." " I should be sorry to know there were grounds for that apprehension." " Indeed, — then you sympathize with aunt's dislike of the man ?" " It is wrong of me to cherish an antagonism against a man of whom I know no evil, and who takes great pains to make himself agree- able to me." " Perhaps you would find him more congen- ial to you if he appeared less anxious for your good opinion. As it is, you dislike him ?" " In strict confidence, Fay," the incumbent of St. Anne's remarked, with a seriousness that was not the less impressive because it was slightly qualified with comical exaggeration, " I never approach him without experiencing a I MM i. . 4'^ ■■ ■ ;>( - .'ft. '•? l 134 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. r? 't ; I gl >. I liiii i!ii:!i!iiii Wfm m ' 'I! Hlilil sensation of nervous repulsion and indefinable abhorrence. One reads in novels of men who have detected their disguised enemies by a mys- terious unaccountable instinct of hatred; and if Major Tilbury were to work me a fatal wrong, and show himself the resolute foe of my happiness, he would at the same time justify my culpable re- pugnance to him and demonstrate the natural- ness of the fictitious delineations. I am told that he is an honourable gentleman, but in the total absence of any facts to justify my unchari- table suspicions, I cannot do otherwise than be- lieve he is not a true man." " You shan't have him for a brother-in-law ; make yourself quite easy on that score." " No such fear ever disturbed me." " Indeed 1 He has shown me abundance of attention?" Felicia remarked interrogatively, whilst she experienced satisfaction on learning that the courtesies, which she knew herself to liave lavished on the ofiicer of artillery, had not attracted her brother's attention, or at least had occasioned him no uneasiness. Since her brother had been so unobservant of A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 135 her flirtation with Major Tilbury, she might pre- sume that the world had been no less inatten- tive to an affair of which she was already ashamed. * " I shall know that you have lost your heart," laughed Felix, " long before you tell the name of the man who has wonit. Atpresent yon are heart- whole ; and my nervous system will not fail to announce it to me when you have ceased to be so. If you were to admire Mr. Patterson as mnch as he obviously admires you, the time might come quickly when I should have to look out for another home, or a less congenial house- keeper." If Felix, on making this speech, regarded his sister's handsome face with a fear that his words would call a treacherous blush to its olive com- plexion, he was relieved by the manner in which she said, " You'll never see me the wife of a smart chatterbox." " By-the-by," observed Felix, abruptly lead- ing the talk to another subject, as he mentally prepared himself for his daily excursion into I ■•"■ .•r;.» . f.. n ;■•■■ I. ■I : V .1 '!'! ' 'i ;.|1| i|t : ■'■ M m\\ ; 1 '. 1 •'"' 'Hiiii^ ' ■ ..iii i ..' :'! ill! ■, 1- „ 'if . :'UM .'"' ' '4 ' '. . :.. 1 - \l ; il 1 ,1 .'' ; ■ - lliiiii! >^ ,; 1 ' . Ilili: 136 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. town, "Mr. Quex stopped me yesterday as I passed his shop-door, and asked what you thought of * Sketches of High Life in a British- American* Colony.' Our bookseller seems to entertain a flattering opinion of your critical opinion ; and when I told him that you had not even looked into the story yet, he could scarcely believe me." " Everybody appears to be reading that book. I suppose I must make an effort to master its contents and go with the fashion in literature as well as in other things." " The story is making a prodigious sensation. It has not been published thirteen months, and yet it has had an enormous sale." " A year is a long time for the popularity of a novel." " The London critics are of one mind about the freshness and artistic excellence of the pic- tures of colonial society ; and the Times calls it a story that no living novelist need blush to call one of his masterpieces. Its circulation in the United States is to be counted by thousands, and Quex tells me that last week he sold over A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 137 n his counter in Market Place three hundred and twenty copies of the New York edition. With the solitary exception of yourself, every reason- able person in Quebec has read, or is reading it." "Don't say any more about the critics, Felix; their unanimity is, to say the least, very sus- picious. And as for the sale and the popularity of a story, paltry authors may make a great deal of money now-a-days, and contemptible works find hundreds of thousands of readers. If you wish me to read the book without further delay, assure me of its merits." Whereupon Felix, having finished his break- fast, rose from his seat, paced four or five times along one side of the parlour with quick, nervous steps, and then, facing round, delivered quite a fervid oration on the merits of the book which, whilst all the world of Quebec was discussing it excitedly, his sister had manifested a per- plexing disinclination to peruse. Perhaps the young clergyman was all the more emphatic in his eulogies of the work because he was piqued by Fay's neglect of a performance which he had ;*'' m }' 138 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. \i ''. V ':i ■'.''Vmm, Pirn ,1 1 jll|I!!!l!l!li M •■!;'■: 'SI i; i i i i 1 i j ':" '-4 ilili! taken under his protection, and was resolved on scolding her into reading. " Marjory Gatkin ; or Sketches of High Life in a British American Colony," was not precisely a novel ; or, if it must be classed with novels, it should be regarded as the first specimen of a new school of romantic fiction. Its second title was more appropriate than the first to the de- sign of a work which, instead of being a contin- uous narrative, with the initiatory descriptions, plot, and denouement of an ordinary romance, was a series of separate portraitures of the leading per- sonages in the best social set of a colonial capital. Each chapter might have been published alone as a distinct and complete delineation of charac- ter and manners. But the author had exercised wonderful cleverness in making each sketch contribute to the interest of those that followed it, and in producing a perfect and harmonious drama of domestic life in the series of papers. Though the anonymous author had adopted imaginary names for places as well as persons, the descriptions left no room to question that the colony of the narratives was Canada, that A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 131) the city was Quebec, that the characters were personages whom he had studied during a resi- dence on the St. Lawrence. Marjory Gatkin, the heroine, was an altogether bewitching httle creature, a truthful illustration of the finest qualities of a brave, simple, affectionate girl ; and, whilst demonstrating the most extraordi- nary faculty for depicting varieties of human nature in bright, piquant, and elegant language, the author in the more pathetic and serious passages of an abundantly humorous achieve- ment had proved himself to have the ability and will to make his readers stronger and braver, as well as lighter of heart. In short, Mr. Felix Avalon was ready to stake all the reputation which he enjoyed amongst his friends for sa- gacity on a decided opinion that "Marjory Gatkin " was the book of an author capable of incomparably excellent work in literary art. During his delivery of which oration on the merits of an anonymous writer, the Rev. Felix Avalon was pleased to see in his sister's coun- tenance certain evidences that she was affected by his words. Indeed, by the quick changes of m m ■Mm' m ■■t^'i^'''':' ll^l,. U'l ri- ;j:(jj jjljjiljlj ' t' ' ■ Ml '1 ■■ '*. ''%' , 1 ■ 1 ■ .i ' lie I III llim iiiiiii 140 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HF,RSELF. her heightened colour, and the tell-tale twitch- ing of her expressive mouth, and the brightness of her glowin> - d joyful eyes, Miss Avalon exhibited a me. are and vehemence of excite- ment so greatly disproportionate to the stimu- lus which was likely to result from the commen- dation of the unknown author, that, had Felix not been greatly carried away and blinded by his own fervour, he would not have failed to detect from Fay's looks the secret which she shortly revealed to liim by a verbal con- fession. " There, now ^ ^j will behave like a sensible girl and read the book?" Felix asked trium- phantly, feeling that his eloquence had achieved its object. " After so forcible and minute a description of its contents, I should be wasting my time," re- plied Fay Avalon, returning for a moment to her waywardness, and making one last attempt to maintain an affectation of indifference, and keep her own counsel. " Upon my word, Fay," exclaimed Felix, "you are more irritating and foolish than ever." A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 141 ** Why, you foolish boy, I wrote the book my- self," Fay cried aloud, as her heart beat tumultu- ously, and a crimson flush leaped to her face in the agitation of the crisis. " What !— you wrote the book?" " Yes — yes — yes I I did not mean to tell you. I meant to keep the secret even from you. And I should have kept it from you, if you had not broken rae down, and gladdened me till you almost maddened me with your preposterous praises." Whereupon Felix, having thoroughly received his sisters astounding communication, and rea- lized all its significance, threw his arras round her neck and kissed her half a dozen times in as many seconds, and, covering her with scores of laudatory epithets, declared himself a preposterous blockhead for not having learnt from the internal evidence of " Marjory Gatkin " that no one but his inimitable sister could have been its author. All which hysterical impul- siveness and extravagant diction were of course very unseemly in the young clergyman, and must be accounted for by apologetic reference lii : r. 142 A WOaiAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ,;., .'5, I! 'I-- 111 ill 111! ^ii'iiii B r 1 ■ I ! :^. :i f •'<^ 1 to the constitutional excitability of the French Messuriers. " Oh I darling, you are so unspeakably kind to me I" ejaculated Fay, with something like a sob, whilst tears of pure happiness ran from her brimming eyes to the hands that rested on her brother's shoulder. " Kind, you goose I" rejoined the brother. " And you are not in the least angry with me?" inquired Fay, who had entertained a secret fear that Felix might disapprove of her literary venture, as a feat savouring of unfemi- niue confidence, and scarcely congruent with the dignity of the Avalons. For antiquated prejudices sometimes hold their ground amongst colonial grandees long after English society has discarded them ; and, though Fay had no taint of snobbishness in her nature, and had been trained to hold literature and its professors in reverential regard, she was not quite sure that Miss Avalon of the Fairmead might not be thought to have compromised the Avalon gen- tility, and to have sinned against the social proprieties, in trying her hand at authorship. ! {{ S"r \ A WOMAN IX SPITE OF HERSELF. 143 " No ; T forgive you for not letting me into your confidence sooner," said Felix, whose pride in his sister's achievement caused him to miss the force of her anxious inquiry. " I mean," she explained, " that you don't think me wrong, or strong-minded, or — in fact, an offender against the social proprieties?" Mr. Felix Avalon was of opinion that the proprieties had not been in any degree violated. The feminine proprieties were nothing more than laws resulting from the action of such gentlewomen as his sister ; and whatsoever a lady of the finest natural quality was pleased to do could not be otherwise than seemly and fit. If the Gloucestershire Avalons were ever in past time such noodles as to cherish disdain for women who exercised for honourable ends their finest mental faculties, an excuse must be sought for them in the force of obsolete preju- dices. If Fay's father were alive, he would be beside himself with joy at his daughter's lite- rary success. But how had Fay conceived the notion of trying her hand at authorship? How had she carried her project into effect ? Now U^'-^ii' im^ ,.?-^ ■ y 144 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. that she made her brother a companion of her secret, she must have no reserve in her confi- dence, but tell him everything. In reply to which entreaty Fay Avalon, who had risen to her feet to receive her brother's embrace and tempestuous congratulations, placed a hand on each of his shoulders, and, treating him as though she were a child play- ing with a wheelbarrow, pushed him gently backwards across the room until he dropt into an easy-chair, beside which article of furniture lay a footstool that was one of Fay's favourite seats. And having lowered herself to this stool, so that she sat in child-like fashion at her bro- ther's feet, she gratified his curiosity to the fullest possible extent. It might be a prosaic and ignoble confession, but still it was the truth, that she had first de- termined to write a book in the hope that she could earn money with her pen. More than two years had passed since she and Felix, sit- ting in private council over their account-books, had found themselves compelled to acknowledge that their united income was insufiicient to '■"• ': le- lie :s. to A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 145 maintain the Fairraead, and the style of living which they had been educated to think appro- priate to their dignity. To curtail the expenses of the establishment would be difficult, if not impossible. The gardens could not be kept up with less than two gardeners. Their carriage was an absolute necessity. It would be ex- tremely painful to institute retrenchments of expenditure that would put an end to the bene- volent charities which the Fairmead had, for a querter of a century, dispensed to the poor of the town. Fay would have deemed herself a dishonoured personage if she had been com- pelled to leave the Fairmead. She loved the old home no less than her brother loved it. Their happiness depended on its preservation. And yet the fact was obvious that their way of living was beyond the income accruing from their property and her brother's modest prefer- ments. Indeed, his profession contributed no- thing to their private means, since he very properly expended on charity to his poor, and on the maintenance of his schools, every coin that came to him from his church and chap- VOL. I. L rv-M|-| ■, .<: .. 146 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. J;:^ 11 l.t '"v II m I 'iii'liil laincy. Under these circumstances, she had resolved to write a book, and tho object of her industry, prosecuted without her brother's knowledge, whilst he worked in his parish and at the gaol, had been attained. On completing " Marjory Gatkin " she sent it to the London publishers, Messrs. Hobson and HoUiday. The story had been such a commercial success that Messrs. Hobson and Hollida^ had already, paid her £200 on account cf her share of half the profits arising from its sale. Yet more, she had written another story — a far better one than " Marjory Gatkin " — for which Messrs. Hobson and Holliday had sent her £500. Consequently she was a rich woman. Felix might make him- self perfectly easy with respect to questions of domestic finance. Instead of being less than their needs, their income would exceed their expenditure. He might increase his munificence to the poor, and she, with a light conscience, might continue to be one of Madame Perronet's most lavish patrons. " I have a Frenchwoman's love of finery," Miss Avalon confessed naively, when she had completed her revelations, " and A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 147 it is Buch a relief to know that I may gratify it without sin." " And do you mean to keep your secret any longer ?" inquired Felix. " Bless me, yes I" Felicia ejaculated sharply, as though the mere suggestion that she might throw aside the curtain of anonymity had scared her. "I would not for any consideration let the world know that I write books. As it is, I am too clever and knowing to be so thoroughly popular as I wish to be. Some of our friends already think me a monstrous prodigy of learn- ing. Ever since Albert Eenouf made such an absurd fuss about my Latin and Greek, and my knowledge of a few books of Euclid, the Wash- bournes and the Antrobuses have shown them- selves afraid of me. Oh 1 Felix, dear," the young woman added passionately, " I don't want to be admired, but to be loved by everybody who is lovable." " And who is there in Quebec, my glorious girl," answered Felix, smoothing her brown hair, as though he were a giant, and she an eight-years-old pet, " from the brother whom l2 r ■♦ i^-^'HW '^'•W} V ■ <'--'\i) i' ■ ' -■.-■*•" ■'•^i-,' } ::^hK- 1: ":^'i. I : . ^.m V. '.♦V..' I." l-\iM .>.''■ * !l-'\ ■■ ■- '■:,■ til''"? - ■ ', . : i'.«.vf i.1 ,, ■•■•I 148 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. • 5' you nursed throughout years of sickness, to the poorest wretch of my parish, who does not love you?" "I think I am liked by a great many people," assented the woman, who, though she had never felt the glow of the fiercest kind of love, had dangerously active sympathies, and a morbid yearning for the good opinion of her neigh- bours. " So, mind," she added, in an admonitory voice, after a few seconds' pause, " you may not betray me. To be safe, you must be on your guard, not to let it seem that you have even a notion who the anonymous author can be. And don't think, Felix, that, because I have written for money's sake, I mean to make a base and venal use of ray pen." " No fear of my thinkiug that." " The writer's vocation will be congenial and in every respect salutary. Ere long 1 shall write in a way worthy of the praises which you have lavished on my first raw attempt. The mental effort of creating characters and suit- able positions for them fills me with delight ; A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 149 and whilst studying my own imaginary charac- ters, I learn to appreciate the forces and failings of my own nature. My pen shall stimulate and fortify the virtues of my readers, whilst it affords them entertainment. I don't mean to be a mere scribbler, but a literary artist of high purpose. And I know" she concluded, shaking her white, soft hand, before she pointed with it to her forehead, " that I shall be a great writer I The literary power is in me. I feel it in my hand and my head and my heart." To Felix A va Ion's discredit it must be re- corded that, in the excitement occasioned to him by his sister's revelations, he became so unobservant of the passage of time, that he continued to gossip with her long after the hour which should have seen him at the door of the St. Anne's school, where that discontented valetudinarian and croaker, Mr. Henderson, deemed himself badly treated in being con- strained to perform the duties of his pedagogic office without the Rex. Felix Avalon's assistance. But fortunately the big Dutch clock, that had made remarks about tlie time for full thirty ''1 v . I . . • ■. i V ; • li.' t ■i - b - t ;. t 150 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. '■ ;i: ' '1 '.■ ■':':#lj :•'-!;■ ill , ■•1.1.1 , ;;|l, , » years, in its corner of the entrance-hall of the Fairmead mansion, recalled Felix to a sense of his professional responsibilities, when it was still possible for him to reach Dauphine Street at his usual hour for visting the Quebec peni- tentiary. wim 'im 151 CHAPTER X. THE MAJOR S INTENTIONS. '■j THOUGH Major Tilbury's acquaintances in * the different military services concurred in applauding his manliness, it does not follow that he possessed more than an average share of the robuster virtues. To think a male person more than ordinarily courageous and rich in the distinctive qualities of his sex because his comrades are pleased to commend him for being a manly fellow, would be almost as absurd as to believe in a gentlewoman's amia- bility on the complaisant evidence of the score of ladies who, in their inability to say any- thing more credible in her favour, have agreed to speak highly of her good temper. In their desire to account for their goodwill towards a ■ 1 ; . ,. •.- 1.,) * • 1, .■•• ■ ;':F/i" •■■,., '■■■■yfS • ■ .«■■'•■ ' ■ t '/ : -,.1 •,. !■'■■■ ■, ;• :-, .1: .. .■ iTh'' '■ i ' ■ li'ii'r '. ,1%,... , 4 iv:. 152 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. \4 Mi ■ I ■I H j; ! [i '■ i'ki.''l:.! i I 11 ii if llsililiii w iiiiii m I ill congenial comrade, men of weak descriptive powers are apt to fall back on an epithet which, in ordinary gossip, seldom means more than that the person to whom it is applied knows how to make himself agreeable to men. Certain physical deficiencies preclude individuals of the male sex from whatever advantages may result from a reputation of manliness. Your uncommonly manly personage may not be less than five feet ten inches in height ; he must have a loud and authoritative, but withal agreeable, voice ; he may be stout and of u presence indicative of habitual self-indulgence, but his stoutness may not be absolutely dis- figuring, or likely to result in bodily in- dolence. But if he complies with these con- ditions, and has a knack of rendering himself acceptable to his companions, there does not live the mean-spirited, sordid, and thoroughly false fellow, who may not hope to hear himself applauded for manliness. When I recall all the sorry creatures who have been described in my hearing as " doosid manly fellows," 1 am almost tempted to think A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 153 . ■' ••' that a condition of Bohemian vagabondage and domestic nncleanness must be peculiarly favour- able to the development of masculine nobleness. So long as he could extort money from his im- poverished mother, and find the means of sub- sistence without sponging on the financial re- sources of his friends about town, that blatant, broad-shouldered mendicant, Marmaduke Tando, of the Middle Temple and the Marlborough Club, was credited with manliness by the quid-nuncs of the Marlborough and the rest of his not ex- tremely fastidious adherents. " Manliness," also, was held to be the moral specialty of Smart Bubbleton, Esq., of the Inland Revenue Oflice, and divers residences duly registered in the archives of the Commiseioners of the Court of Bankruptcy, so long as he contrived to main- tain an appearance of growing prosperity at the expense of that large army of credulous tradesmen who, without being a whit more respectable than the man who fleeced them, were blockheads enough to imagine that so smart a fellow as Bubbleton would be sure to pull through his little difficulties, and that Mrs. ^.'U ■-. "'»/ »> !■■■ . ' '■ Hi. v- • ■* ' * "■' . . tk ■ ),', ,, ': ■'!.■••«■ - ' ' • 'i.h^ i • ilh.'^V." •'' ■' »''•' ' ■' ' ■,. i;.,^,| . . . ■ 1 ' '*':''• i t-' '.'t.,. ^ l" ' ,' m'' ji-ii' *- ' .' Sf • '• .' : ^•k'^^: ' y.' ■• '„ •• \ '>; ' M.:.' ;•:*^.,■. f I t f - 154 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ''!'. , ■ i til ''""i'\ t t^'< il 1 t 1 ■ il' : ! 1 Bubbleton'e diamonds and lace would be paid for sooner or later. So long as Bubbleton was meanly content to live like, an honest clerk of a public office, on his modest earnings and the income arising from his wife's small settlement, he was rather looked down upon by his few associj^ites for beiug a man whose Israelitish face was seldom so clean as soap and water could make it, and whose sprawling lips were apt to be rebellious at times, when their pro- priei 11' was bent on producing a thoroughly aspirated " h." But when Bubbleton turned swindler, he succeeded in attracting some two or three hundred people who consented to speak civil things of him. To commend him for his good looks was out of the question, for, even when Bubbleton had liidden his ugly mouth under a moustache, his face was more calculated to rouse the terror of children than the admira- tion of women. Evi'n liattery could not venture to laud hi"> fc ;leverness. But society felt its omethiiig for the social reput of I ta of whose existence nine- tenths > f his acquaintance would have never .\^\\^ I I mm m ■%'' A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 155 ■ . , *■' M ^ ,; heard, had he possessed the spirit and hardi- hood to resist the promptings of his contempti- ble vanity. So society decreed that poor Bub- bleton should take rank amongst the manly fellows," and amongst the representatives of English manliness he had his place, until his certificates of social worth were rudely can- celled by the proceedings of a court of justice. In fairness, however, to Bubbleton's approvers, it must be acknowledged that they did not per- sist in their erroneous estimate of his moral nature after he had opened their eyes to his unworthiness. Most of them showed much more alacrity in dropping him than they had displayed in taking him up. No homily can be more fervid or edifying than the oration which Selim Tiptoft, R.A., who had been Bub- bleton's closest friend during the heyday of the impostor's prosperity, delivered upon the weak- ness and uniform uumanliness of his old chum's character and career. Let it not, however, be imagined that the foundations of Major Tilbury's reputation were of Bubbletonian inadequacy and flimsiness. ■ « ■'' ( I ■■ 1 >.y? i , > \ ' •1 •.• * j*^,'';' ' ■' . i % :■ r : '""l^r 156 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. His appearance, as we have seen, was certainly not devoid of manliness ; and it was none the less in harmony with his fame because the harshness and sinuous vigour of his hair, curl- ing even to its roots upon his head, indicated that the closeness and faultlessness of his mili- tary coiffure resulted from the constant vigil- ance and stern discipline of a resolute hair- dresser, whose art alone preserved the well- cHpped and almost sleek Major from being a prodigy of hirsute development and shaggy wildness. Nor were his temper and tastes incongruous with his special renown. There was no taint of physical cowardice in his com- position, though his nature was not innocent of certain superstitious tendencies which are apt to engender cowardice. He cherished a genuine liking, which at times almost rose to be an enthusiasm, for field-sports ; and though he never owned an expensive animal, and would jocularly describe himself as the worst- mounted officer in Her Majesty's army, he was allowed to be one of the boldest and cleverest heavy riders in the Artillery. Endowed with ii I ■ ■HPT,'! P jr A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 157 an. excess of muscular energy, he spared no pains to excel in masculine pastimes. His most familiar friends never imagined how much he did and suifered, on first arriving at Quebec, to win an honourable place amongst the skaters of the fashionable skating-rinks. To commend such a man for having a particular kind of man- liness was not to misuse the word ; but even Joseph Curtain Tilbury's character for being a "doosid manly fellow" was less due to his essentially masculine powers and accomplish- ments, than to the less creditable peculiarities that rendered him very agreeable to his men- friends. That he was popular in tlie service was un- questionable. From generals to cadets every- one knew and reported well of him. The veterans of the Artillery were pleased to think that he exercised a benelicial influence on youngsters in discountenancing the military fashion of high play, and in setting them an example of prudence in private, and of zeal in professional, affairs. The youngsters, on the other hand, felt it an honour to be allowed to 'I . . ■■xm I 158 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. call him Joe when they met him in hunting- field or barrack-yard. By seniors and juniors he was equally liked, and he flattered them both in different ways. Perhaps no man was ever a more skilful adulator than Major Tilbury, who never held intercourse with a professional superior without exhibiting a pleasant mind- fulness of his companion's rank, and yet was so outspoken, hearty, almost bluff in his mode of address, that no one ever suspected him of sy- cophancy. In like manner he was one of those adroit boasters who gain credit for modesty by the very means which they employ to magnify themselves unduly. The frank admissions of the narrow^ness of his private means, the oc- casional jocular references to the more fortun- ate circumstances of his powerful relatives, and the casual depreciative allusions to the Here- fordshire Tilburies, with which he not seldom seasoned his small-talk, created an impression that his social story was highly honourable, and exalted him in the world's esteem, whilst implying that he was too simple and sensible a fellow to wish to be anything greater than plain A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 159 Joe Tilbury. No man, it was felt, could speak so highly of his more than respectable family, and at the same time be guilty of secret arrogance or uneasiness on the score of his de- scent. No one could touch so pleasantly on the affluence of his fortunate kindred, and be jealous of their prosperity. No one could be so playful about his straitened means, without being generously indifferent to the disadvantages of poverty. Moreover, by uniformly taking up the position of a poor man, Joseph Curtain Tilbury placed the systematic economy, which characterized his personal expenditure, beyond suspicions of meanness, and added to the merit of the small pecuniary services which, it was known, he was capable of rendering to his friends in their moments of financial difficulty. But perhaps the chief cause of his popularity with his friends of the army was the never-fail- ing flow of animal spirits that disposed him at all moments to be the hilarious, garrulous boon companion of the idlers of a garrison. Possess- ing a copious, if not choice, repertory of comic stories, which he delivered with excellent mimetic ,♦• .. - 1. 1 dl III ' lit ; -' '11 11 :|'i b II! "'; .IB! ■■Mi ft. 11,; ' iV;?' 160 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ability, he was the life of mess-rooms, and en- joyed that reputation for conversational spright- liness which is often won by the jovial repeater of other men's mots. Seen on his legs amongst a knot of martial auditors. Major Tilbury was often observed with a jolly grin on his handsome face, whilst he drew aside a special chum, who knew from the jovial grimace that Joe Tilbury was primed to fire off another " good thing." Sometimes he would prepare an admiring listener for aboisterouspleasantry by digging him smartly in the ribs, and saying, " Now, old boy, here's one for you." In one or two respects he was superior to most jesters of his coarse and common quality ; for he was never slow to scream with uproarious glee over the ludicrous anecdotes of a rival in his own low line of jocular art, never overtopped the stories or correct- ed the blunders of less skilful gossip-mon- gers, never appropriated without permission a comrade's successful jeu d' esprit. Very many of Major Tilbury's facetia3 were taken, I am bound to confess, from modern editions of " Joe Miller ;" and as I wish this work to be no less ac- sr^ \% A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 161 ceptable in drawing-rooms than in bachelors' snuggeries, I have no intention to spice its pages with the broadest and most pungent of the Major's smart stories. But in behalf of the least delicate of them, it can honestly be averred that they did not shock the moral or aesthetic sense of the masculine sets in which Joseph Curtain Tilbury loved to shine. That Major Tilbury's acquaintance rated him somewhat above his deserts, I can readily be- lieve. Indeed the style of the rollicking officer of Artillery was so decidedly inferior to the man- ner of the majority of his friends, that any severe censor, of Miss Messurier's type of severe genti- lity, might well be excused for wondering how they came to tolerate him so universally, and applaud him so heartily. It is also very pro- bable that of the gentlemen who extolled Joe Tilbury there were some who made charitable allowances for him as the char- tered libertine of the military cliques, and over- looked what was most objectionable in his eccentricities, in consideration of his being " quite a character." I am disposed to think that VOL. I. K >^»ll 162 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. any youngster of the Artillery, who should at the present time take Joe Tilbury for a model, would soon be called to order by his seniors, and even acquire the unenviable noto- riety of a noisy cad. It is certain that Major Tilbury would have sunk in the regard of his associates had they known as much of him as the reader will in due course discover. His character would have been greatly damaged by the discovery that, instead of being the poor man that he delighted to represent him- self, he had saved a considerable sum of money by his steadily-practised economies, and by prudent husbandry of the sufficient, though limited, means with which he started in life. Possibly he would have been cut or cold- shouldered by the majority of his supporters, had they known that, whilst loudly condemn- ing high play, and refusing to countenance it in his own rooms, Joseph Curtain Tilbury was so careful and methodical a player at the snug little loo parties, to which he habitually drew his acquaintance to play for ridiculously low stakes, that his tables yielded him annually a !,:;,'i' A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF, 163 ;e. m- it ras a comfortable addition to his more than sufficient income. But Joseph Tilbury had escaped through a long series of years the exposure that is apt to befall less cautious schemers ; and his reputatioii for manliness and the other qualities of a deuced good fellow had never stood higher than it did in Quebec, on the morning after the party at Lady Morton's house, of which we have already heard Felix and Felicia Avalon speak with approval. The big clock of the Artillery Barracks was marking the time of day, 2.30 P.M., when] Major Tilbury, dressed in civilian's costume, and walk- ing with his stateliest gait, was seen to cross the Residence Court of the said barracks by two youthful officers who were enjoying a post- luncheon smoke at a second-floor window of the building specially provided for the ac- commodation of Artillery officers stationed at Quebec. The two young soldiers were Frank {alias Dandy) Trevor, lieutenant of Artillery, and his most intimate friend, Maurice (alias Mouse) M 2 k." * .* r,.'^}'^ -J! W WJi 164 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. Ponsford, lieutenant of the 40th line regiment, then stationed at the Cape Diamond garrison. The Mouse and the Dandy were as thick as thieves, whatever that may mean ; holding precisely the same views on all questions of clothing, and never allowing thier slight differ- ences of opinion respecting combinations of tobacco to disturb their affectionate intercourse. Whilst strenuous devotion to the arts of personal adornment left the Dandy no energy for the study of tobacco in its darker and more repul- sive forms, the Mouse, never deigning to fill pipe with his comrade's effeminate mixture of Turkish weeds, persisted in smoking Cavendish and. the strongest shag. " There's nothing like Cavendish," Maurice was wont to observe, " for letting you know that you are going the pace. If I were to smoke your dried rose-leaves, Dandy, I should never wake in the morning with a rough tongue and a shaking hand." So long as Major Tilbury was within sight, his young friends watched him in silence ; but as soon as he had passed through the great gate and disappeared from view, they ex- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 165 , »■ >/ changed nods of comic significance, and then broke into laughter. " Joe has determined to take his header this eventful afternoon," remarked the Dandy, who enjoyed Major Tilbury's closest confidence. " Good luck to him," said Mouse Ponsford, after a few vigorous puffs at his meerschaum. " He does not want our good wishes. Bless you, the thing is settled ! Joe isn't the flat to give a woman a chance of refusing him. The whole afftiir is settled." "How so r " He has sounded her in every way. Point of fact, I may say she has accepted him." " Before he has proposed to her 1" " Precisely. Joe is an old soldier. He let her see that he would make her an offer, 2/ she would consent to accept him in case he asked her. You see ? ' Shan't commit myself until you have pledged your honour not to make a fool of me,' — that's just what he as good as said to her. Whereto the fascinating creature replied in proper phraseology, *A wink is as good as a nod to a willing animal. You're the ■1' ii Mm ™ w ;. Ill \m lA^ 160 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. man for me. Don't be afraid to speak out.' So, you see, Joe has nothing to fear. When I say that he is going in for his header, I only mean that he will now deliberately put his hand to the compact, and fix himself beyond the power of drawing back." " It seems queer, though, don't it ?" remarked young Maurice Ponsford, with an air of boyish surprise and amusement, " The answer before the question is a novel arrangement." " Nothing novel in it," responded the Dandy, with a display of inoffensive disdain for his friend's simplicity. " That's how ofl'ers are usually managed. Like any other treaty, a matrimonial alliance ought always to be the immediate result of preliminary negociations, which, if they break through, leave neither party in a scrape." " She's a devilish showy woman I — 'bout the best-groomed filly in Quebec I" " Filly I — mare you mean I I never looked closely at her teeth, but I have a suspicion that she is a goodish bit older than she pretends to be. Anyhow she has been on the market here several seasons." A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 167 " She hasn't remained on hand for want of bidders. My Colonel, who knows Quebec well, and has relations in the colony, was saying the other day that no Quebec girl had refused more offers than Miss Avalon." " No doubt," assented the Dandy, in his most magnificent style, as he drew himself up to the full height of his slight and rather gracefid figure, " but all the fellows whom she has sent to the right-about are colonists. Joe is the first man from England who has paid her the compliment of looking at her with a view to business. Your colonial girls of ambition and capability always look out fur a matrimonial set- tlement in London." " I don't like to hear of a girl's having bad a lot of offers," observed the Mouse, after a pause, when he had refilled and relit his meerschaum. "That sort of thing, you know, isn't to a girl's credit. It mayn't mean vice ; but it looks un- commonly like mischief." " Under ordinary circumstances, you are right. But you mayn't be hard, Mouse, on a girl in Miss Avidon's position. What was she to do ? The JI^iHH^C 108 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ill 1 t ''i ■ ■ i 1 1 ■ t' '1 1 Canadian Yanks and storekeepers would admire her. She could not help that. They would make her oilers. She never asked 'em. I really don't think a woman is bound to say ' Yes ' to the first man who sinks to his right Mary-bone, and says * Take me 1' " " I detest flirts," warmly ejaculated the Mouse, who secretly regarded himself as the blighted victim of a perfidious damsel. " Then you are a universal misogynist," re- torted Lieutenant Trevor, with playful cynicism. " What's that, Dandy ? A misogynist I You Woolwich men are so proud of your superior education, that you must bi always stodging fellows with long words." "Anyhow, flirt or no flirt," continued the Dandy, " she'll do very well for Joe. She isn't up to the mark in figure ; she is a doosid deal too tall, and she has no more shape than a pump or a gate-post; but Joe is one of those fellows who can overlook any defect in a woman, who has height, and is a showy high-stepper. Then, too, she has a goodish lump of money in the Canadian sixes." . l*^ ,(U •! i-UI' A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 169 "]\Iust have, by the way iu which she and her brother live." " Oh I it ain't much — seven or eight thousand — -just enough to tile Joe in and make him com- fortable. She comes of a right good stock in the way of blood ; and though her voice is too drum-like and manly for my liking, it has none of the vile, through-your-nose drawl of the in- ferior Canadian girls." "Yes, take her for all in all — she'll do." " And mark ye. Mouse," rtjoined the Dandy, in a serious and almost solemn tone, " Joe has come to the time when he ought to fix himself. He ain't a chicken ; and though he is a doosid manly fellow, and a dear old boy, he ain't the man he was by a long piece. With careful usage he may keep the road and trot to cover for several years, but he can scarcely be called a safe mount across country." " He is as active as ever." " Ah I but he has more than one screw loose." " He hasn't a grey hair on his nob," *' True ; but mind, and don't let it go further," responded Lieutenant Trevor, lowering his voice ! 170 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. :'^m ^m% whilst he basely betrayed a friend's confidence, " I happen to know that for the last ten months he has used Kerbstone's Patent Hair-Restorer." " You don't mean it ?" " He took to it soon after he began to prance about Miss Avalon's long skirts. What's more, it was not a sprain that shut him up last Oc- tober — not a bit of it, I come of a medical family, you know — my grandad was one of George the Third's physicians — and I have the family eye for diseases. Joe's sprain was gout — a slight attack, no doubt, but still it was gout." "It's uncommon plucky of him, then," urged the Mouse, whose loyalty to the Major of Artil- lery was much more thorough and zealous than Trevor's devotion to Fay Avalon's suitor, " to go on as he does with muscular business." "It's uncommon foolhardy in him to drink so much beer, though our doctor has told him again and again that it will find him out before long at a vital point. And he ought not, at his time of life, to smoke so much cheap tobacco. He ought to take te claret and cigars." "Everyone knows that he isn't rich," expostu- -li.., A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 171 to jtu- lated Mouse Ponsford, who did not relish the severe and anatomical criticisms which the Dandy was delivering with respect to their absent friend, "and it strikes me it is very greatly to his credit that he smokes and drinks what he can afford to smoke and drink, and nothing better." " No doubt," persisted the censorious Dandy, " but it does not follow that he should smoke and drink so much of them. The beer is be- ginning to tell on him." " Can't see it ^ He appears to me to be in excellent form." " Form ! Where are your eyes, Mouse 1 Just look at his figure " " Well, just a trifle podgy — nothing for a man of his height and active habits." *' Ah ! my boy, the question is not, what it is now, but what it will be a year or two hence. Podginess is a growing evil. When it has once seized upon a man it never leaves him, or ceases to work him woe. Figure," con- tinued the Dandy, with oracular solemnity, as he glanced at his own delicate waist, " is the w 172 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. (i ■>^...m I iiii l!i! Ill most precious and fleeting of man's physical en- dowments. Until he has lost it, the successful man does not know how much it has contributed to his success. To have it, is in many cases to have the power of winning friends and extort- ing the world's homage. To lose it, is to be- come ludicrous. Soon after he lost his figure, Louis Philippe lost his throne. Let the present emperor lose his figure, and he will lose pres- tige, influence, moral weight, until the sceptre slips from his hand. The Mouse laughed, but admitted that " fig- ure " went a great way with women ; and that, no doubt, if Joe Tilbury was likely to lose his figure, he did well to make his game in the matrimonial market without delay. Whilst Major Tilbury's friends were thus humorously and critically discussing his qualifi- cations, and the merits of the lady whom he had designed to attach to himself in the capacity of a wife, that gentleman was wending his way towards the Fairmead, on the be'ijt possible terms with himself. Before emerging from the town, he surveyed witli pleasant satisfaction the A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 173 reflection of his imposing presence in the plate- glass windows of several of the principal shops of St. John's Street; and, as he paced leisurely up the St. Foy Road, he derived a benevolent delight from the thought that, if Felicia Avalon would be a creditable wife for him to bring back to England, she would deem herself no less fortunate in having for her husband one of the best-looking officers of Her Majesty's Artillery. No fear that he would find the lady reluctant to receive him lessened his customary serenity, as he sauntered beneath the trees that bordered the Fairmead demesne, and turned into the gardens of her villa. And on this point Felicia Avalon was by no means disposed to occasion him disappointment. On the contrary, she had made every provision for the reception of her expected visitor. Left to her own devices, by her brother's de- parture for the performance of his ordinary avo- cations at the Quebec Gaol, she spent an hour in Avriting letters, and half an hour in a solitary promenade through the shady paths of the Fair'-^ead shrubberies, during which walk in the WWMWH 174 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. /.■ ' familiar grounds her face had worn an aspect of composure and joyous contentment that would certainly have afforded her approaching suitor no discouragement, could he have witnesf=ied it. Having ve-entered the house, she summoned her staid and elderly maid-servant to the draw- ing-room. "Martha," she observed to the domestic, who Had served in the Fairrnead household from the day when Foxe Avalon brought Marie Messurier to the villa, " I expect Major Tillury to call at three o'clock." "Indeed, Miss Avalon, and will you be at home?" inquired Martha, who had conceived a distrust of tL\e Major similar in kind to the warmer seniim-^nt of aversion with which he was regarded by her master. " Yes ; I shall be at homo to him " '•Umph!" grunted Martha, who enjoyed an old servant's privilege to express her opinions on all matters of domestic interest. " And I shall be at home to no one else." " Indeed, Miss Avalon i" " You may show him into this room ; and A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 175 take care that no one disturbs us." " Jf Miss Messurier should come ?" asked Mar- tha- vs^ho by no means relished the thought of a oont'lential tete-a-tete between Miss Felicia and "that presuming Major." " She won't come," responded Miss Avalon, cutting away Martha's suddenly-entertained hope of a seasonable interruption to an inter- view of which she cordially disapproved. " I have written to aunt, and told her not to call on me this morning." Martha's countenance fell, as she replied, sulkily and tartly, "Certainly, Miss Avalon, I will attend to your orders." " You may go now." But lilartha stayed, struggling vainly with tlic impulses of an affectionate heart, which piompted her to take some umisnai step for her mistress's protection from an unknown (jalamity. " God bless you. Miss Avalon !" at last the faithful creature blurted out, " I do hope you are not going to say anything foolish to the Major that you'll live to repent." ■t ■1 ■ ,11 1 1 1 i 1 176 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. A look of displeasure took possession of Felicia Avalon's handsome face ; but in three seconds it gave way to an expression of be- witching drollery and tenderness-. And before the sweet expression had passed from her bright brown eyes and delicious lips, Fay Avalon put her right arm fondly round her servant's neck, and calling her by the title which in her childhood she used to apply habitually to the right womanly woman, said, " Give me one kiss, Nursie, and call me Fay, as you used to do." " Oh I Fay, my darling, my dear !" ejaculated the woman, as the tears sprung to her eyes, whilst her lips touched her mistress's smooth cheek, " you're too good to everybody. Though I am your servant, and no more, I love you as much as ever I loved my little girl who is in heaven." "You needn't fear that lam going to say anything to Major Tilbury that I shall live to repent," Fay said quietly, when she had re- sponded to Martha's kiss with a similar endear- ment. ' U'^'** A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 177 " Then you don't mean to tell him that you'll be Mrs. Tilbury r Whereupon Fay Avalon uttered a peal of rich laughter, and replied — " What an absurd woman you are, Nursie I Why, I would sooner discharge you and look out for a new maid." So there was an end to Martha's fears just about the moment when Joseph Curtain Til- bury's hopes were most sanguine. igU as m to re- jar- VOL. I. N i mi lll 178 CHAPTER XI. MAJOR TILBURY GETS HIS ANSWER, AND SOME- THING MORE. m VrOT WITHSTANDING his " manliness " and ■^^ sufficiency of " pluck," the nervous system of Major Joseph Curtain Tilbury experienced a slight tremor, which he v.-.is constrained to cor- rect by throwing an unusual amount of muscu- lar vigour into his step as he followed Martha across the vestibule of Felicia Avalon's villa from the hall door to the entrance of the draw- ing-room. But his usual self-possession return- ed to him as soon as his eyes rested on the lady of the house sitting precisely in the middle of a small sofa, which was so placed that she could at her pleasure rest her arms on a table puitably decorated with knick-knacks and rich- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 179 ly-embelliahed editions of English poets. In- stead of disconcerting him, the perfect compo- sure of Miss Avalon's fine countenance, and the remarkable coolness of her whole air, reassured him most agreeably, and afforded him a plea- sant confidence that his part in the interview might be altogether simple and devoid of thea- trical effort. It was manifest that the lady felt no alarm at the position, and that it would not be necessary for him to give utterance to any violent protestations, or throw himself into romantically dramatic attitudes. Having cher- ished a sHglit fear that he would be required to fall on his knee at the moment of making his offer. Major Tilbury was pleased to read in Fay's looks that she was quite prepared for a nmtter-of-fact, prosaic, business-like interview. In the privacy of his barrack-quarters Joe Tilbury had provided for the worst by a course of genuflectory practice, in which he had come to the conclusion that, though he could fall on his right knee with faultless grace, he could not resume the erect posture so easily and naturally as he could desire. n2 i* .- . vmmm 180 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ¥i \^Mr" It was therefore a relief to him to see that there would be no occasion for him to kneel. Clearly Miss Avalon had no desire to be treated like a poetical young school-miss, but as a wo- man who, knowing her own mind, and thorough- ly aware of his purpose, had no inclination for " a scene." The whole affair would be as simple and straightforward as an ordinary morning call. As there was no room for him on the sofa occupied by Miss Avalon, and no seat more conveniently placed for him than the chair directly opposite the said sofa, Joseph Tilbury, after shaking hands with Felicia, and returning her apparently cordial smile, composed himself on the particular piece of furniture which the lady had herself put for his accommodation before he entered the room. " It is uncommonly kind of you. Miss Ava- lon," Major Tilbury observed, by way of open- ing the proceedings, when he had deliberately seated himself, " to receive me thus promptly and kindly ; and I am the more grateful to you, because I flatter myself that, when I asked yoa last night to grant mo this interview, I made A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 181 you understand the purpose which gave me courage to solicit so particular a favour." With a smile that, in the eyes of the ena- moured officer, imparted an indescribable love- liness to her face, and in a voice of cordial sympathy. Miss Avalon replied, with the most bewitching coolness and naivete — *' I imagine what it is you wish to say to mo. Major Tilbury, and the anticipation of the an- nouncement does not fill me with dismay." " Now, I suppose. Miss Avalon," rejoined Joseph Tilbury, " to be perfectly in rule, I ought to sigh, put my hand to my heart, stam- mer out half a dozen incoherent words, turn red, and then fall on one knee, and implore you to consider my petition with the benignity characteristic of your amiable disposition. Allow me to propose that you imagine I have done all that sort of thing." " On the other hand, I suppose, it is incum- bent on me to say, ' Be kind enough to be more explicit, that we may not misunderstand one another on an affair of some importance.' Ima- gine that I have done so," i IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /> ^ {■/ "^^.r ^ —y ^ ^ ^< % %5 (/x fA I 1.0 I.I 1.25 l« 12.8 i!llil2 Ill 1.4 IIM 2.2 M 1.6 ^

/ <$*■ ^. fir .>. C»^l Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716 ) 872-4503 [<'. J^ ■' 1 IjMWJJII' i I ii ^^Dl I| ^ .■si '4- '1 ! i if . ,. .'. ;n, Ii 'U i: ? ^ :ii! 182 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. The playfulness with which Fay Aval on adopted his vein of untimely banter was all the more piquant to her auditor, because a toae of resoluteness and gravity was perceptible in her voice. "Nothing else shall be left to imagination, Felicia," the suitor blurted out in his bluffest and most earnest style. " You shall hear me tell you the plain truth — awkwardly, perhaps, but strongly. I want you to be my wife. I have studied you for some fewyears with theprofound- est admiration, and now that my heart is in my throat, it gives me courage to tell you what I have sometimes thought I never should find the pluck to say — 1 love you — I love you with all my soul and life, and you must promise to be my wife !" . As the man uttered these words, his assumed levity forsook him, and such a glow of passion brightened his eyes that Fay Avalon was satisfied of the sincerity of his declaration, and of the intensity of his emotion — saw that she was the actual mistress of his selfish desires; saw that, so far as a hard, sensual, dissipated man . 1 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 183 of the world could love, he loved her — fiercely, grossly, hatefully I "Come, come," she responded lightly, de- clining to lay aside at present the tone of rail- lery and unseasonable jocoseness which she had adopted at his suggestion, '' let us imagine all that. We agreed that we would avoid melo- drama. We are old enough, both of us, to be able to dispense with the play of children. You are uo green boy. Major Tilbury ; I am no un- sophisticated girl, but a woman. Shall I shock you," she added, with a sly look, that was at the same time mischievous and tender, " when I confess that you are not the first man who has entertained your ambition ? If ever I am mar- ried, I must be taken on my own terms." " For Heaven's sake name them. Miss Avalon. Whatever they are, I will gratefully accede to them. No, don't name them. Allow me the honour of throwing myself on your generosity, and agreeing to them whilst they are unknown. Surely I should trust you, when I ask you to trust me." " Fie ! fie I" interrupted Fay Avalon, placing •i < ;i ,,«.^- 5 ■ mm m 1. ;•)'..' ■t.\ ■ ■'» I'-'-- I: i- 184 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. J.. . . her two elbows on the table as she leaned for- wards, and, extending her white, taper fingers towards the perplexed man, laughed at him with maddening devilry. "A moment since you were the cold-hearted man of business, now you are the reckless gamester, who plays blind chance, and turns away from the table on which he throws his all." When her laughter ceased, she said in a startlingly different voice, as though she felt herself bound to preserve her suitor from per- petrating an indiscretion which he might speed- ily repent, " But, seriously. Major Tilbury, have you regarded this proposal of yours from every point of view? You should not forget the wishes, or lose sight of the prejudices, of your family. If I were to consent, what would the Herefordshire Tilburies, who may have far more ambitions hopes for you, say to your choice? You know, I am only a colonial girl." The malicious twinkling of Felicia Avalon's dark eyes, that so little accorded with her affected seriousness, should have put her victim on his guard, and shown him that she was only ■• I A ^70MAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 185 playing with his egregious vanity, and his ludi- crous belief in his own superiority to the Cana- dian colonists ; but he only saw in her words an occasion for paying her a compliment at the expense of his friends, and exhibiting his own generous disregard for what he necessarily re- garded as a slight drawback to the advantages of the alliance which he desired. "For the matter of that, I am my own master, and my people are too sensible to think that I am bound to please them in my marriage. So long as I don't bring discredit on them, they can have no right to complain. As for the Canadian families, you know how I esteem them. No doubt they are rough and colonial ; but though you are one of them, in a certain sense, by birth aaid education, you have the style of the mother country, as much as you would have had it if you had been born and raised in Gloucestershire, which has no finer family than the Avalons." " So you have told me before. And of course it is very agreeable to me to know you think so. But Lady Tilbury and your cousins may think :Mf 11 186 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. you no impartial judge of ray merits," Felicia rejoined with exquisite humility. " My dear Miss Avalon," urged the Major, "you are troubling yourself most fantastically about a matter that should not afford you a moment's concern. My people will be as proud of you as even I could wish them to be. When we shall have settled in England, you'll laugh at this queer anxiety, as the drollest and most absurd of fancies." « Settle in England I" " Is the prospect displeasing ?" " Nothing that I can think likely to happen to me, Major Tilbury, shall ever induce me to live permanently in any land but the colony of my birth. Ah ! you are surprised I You would feel no surprise if you knew how I love Quebec and its people ; how I prize the honour in which I, as my father's daughter, am held in this glorious and beautiful city ; how I love the dear old home in which you see me, surrounded with every happiness but one that I wish for 1" This was a novel view of Felicia Avalon for Joseph Tilbury. He had taken it as a matter i.^i &■'. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 187 of course that she would gladly exchange Canada for England, Quebec for London, the social status of a colonial woman for the con- dition of a married lady in the mother country. " Mj scheme for my own life," continued the lady of colonial prejudices, " has been to remain in the society where I love everyone, and where everyone cherishes some kind of affectionate re- gard for me. For myself I should prefer to live on as I have done since my father's death, the companion of my brother, who could not endure separation from me. Affection and duty, love and a reasonable recognition of the responsibili- ties attaching to me as a woman, might decide me to marry under certain circumstances ; but nothing could reconcile me to the thought of a marriage which would exile me from Canada." Here, then, it flashed upon Joseph Tilbury, was the main condition of the terms on which Felicia Avalon had intimated that she might consent to accept him. And it appeared no such very hard condition to the man who was possessed by a fierce passion for the woman who prized Quebec beyond the rest of the world. • t * * ' * . •:-''? ill 188 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. and would regard her removal from Canada as tantamount to banishment from her native land. To live in a colony had never been his purpose ; but expatriation with Fay Avalon seemed to him to be preferable to his old life in England without her. Moreover, life in Canada, as the Major had learnt from some years' experience, war? not without special pleasures in compensa- tion for its inconveniences. He liked the society of the garrison, the sports of the adjacent coun- try, the families of the city. If he niarried Fay, he could take up his abode at the Fairmead, and participate in the social respect accorded to the Avalons as persons of unimpeachable co- lonial status. Since the military authorities in London had decided that, in consequence of recent re-arrangements of the service, he should remain for another term of a few years in Quebec, it would be possible for him to retain his com- mission for some time after his marriage with Felicia. Having rapidly summed up and balanced all the advantages and disadvantages of a conces- sion to what he had almost instantaneously ii *\ A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. 189 come to ref .rd as a stipulation, Major Tilbury- assured Miss Avalon that in order to be her hus- band he would gladly relinquish his profession and his native country. To be her husband was his object, and to attain his end he would sacrifice everything lie possessed, with the ex- ception of honour. Her people should be his people I " You pay me a great compliment," observed Felicia, exhibiting in her countenance signs of satisfaction at this considerable proof of the in- fluence which she had gained over him. "No compliment, dear Miss Avalon. Love knows no sacrifices. It's pure selfishness ; and whatever it does that has an appearance of sacrifice it does for its own ends. Men in love are far too eager for their own sakes, and bent on their own ends, to do or say civil things out of mere complaisance." " Still you do compliment me by showing how much you prize me and desire me. Then the first point is settled. If I consent to marry you I shall never be asked by you to leave Canada t" ■■a I M 1 '•■ i :^| III ■ J; |i I ^'ii' l! h .n ,.1 n. 190 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 41' ill! *' Never." *' And uovv for the other points." " Bother the other points, Felicia," Joseph Tilbury exclaimed, as he gave an indication of a purpose to spring from his chair and approach the lady. But, ere the purpose was effected, he was stayed by the singular look of displeasure which his movement and last words elicited from his companion. *' Stay where you are for a few minutes longer, 1 beg you," Fay Avalon said, in a tone that, notwithstanding its mildness, was irresistibly authoritative. "And," she added, in the same tranquil voice, when he had yielded obediently to her command, " don't call me Felicia again till I give you leave to do so. To you — at least for the present — I am Miss Avalon. I never accorded you the privilege of playing with my Christian name." A pause, during which Felicia Avalon gather- ed her mental and moral forces for the continua- tion of her difficult, and perhaps scarcely justi- iiuble, game. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 191 " My father more than once, towards the close of life," she at length remarked, " spoke to me about the probability of my sooner or later marrying. lie had reasons for thinking me not constituted to be tho contented wife of just any man — or rather, let me say, for think- ing me qualified by nature to be an unspeakably miserable woman, if I became the wife of a mean and immoral man. Only a few weeks before his death he said to me very solemnly, ' Fay, never consent to be the wife of a man of whose truth- fulness and benevolence vou have the least doubt. It would go hard with you if you mar- ried a liar, or a man of cruel nature.' Speaking perhaps somewhat under the influence of a prejudice natural to a man of his honourable lineage, he added, *And you will make a rash experiment if you ever unite yourself to a man who has reason to blush for his origin.'" This was said very slowly — almost with the deliberateness and vocal clearness of an actress speaking a part on the stage. * The paternal counsel, moreover, was rendered all the more painfully impressive to Miss Avalon's auditor by 192 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. the way in which she unintentionally imitated Foxe Avalon's voice, whilst repeating his ad- vice. "You increase my confidence," rejoined Joseph Tilbury, concealing a secret uneasines under a confident tone, that was scarcely in harmony with a slight paleness that overspread his usually bright-coloured face. "My family, thank Heaven, is one that no peer would blush to enter. I have never set up for a philanthropist, or anything better than an honest gentleman and good officer ; but it is allowed by those who know me that I am not wanting in kindness and humanity. As for my truthfulness, no man ever questioned my honour." With a quickness that did not violate ladylike decorum, though it would have reminded any third auditor of the suddenness and smartness with which a barrister throws a startling inquiry at a witness whom he wishes to demolish. Fay Avalon asked, " Has any woman ever questioned it r A smile played over Major Tilbury's comely face, a smile that was excusable and natural. ■:i A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 193 aince the vain man regarded Fay's interroga- tion as a sign that she was capable of jealousy, and was secretly piqued by some rumours of attention that he had paid to one of her rivals. " Ton my honour, Miss Avalou," he replied, with mingled jocosity and earnestness, when his first amusement had subsided, " if you were by the waving of a magic wand to assemble on the lawn before this house all the ladies of America and Europe to whom I have had the honour of being introduced during my whole life, I could without apprehension say to them, ' If there is one amongst you all who can prove me a false man, speak now, and prove me un- worthy of the affection of the only woman I have ever loved I' " ** What, you have never loved any woman but me ?" Fay interrupted, in a dry, hard, mocking key, strangely unlike her natural voice. " Think, Major Tilbury, 'never' is a long time." Abashed by the interruption, though not dis- abused of his agreeable misconception, Joseph Tilbury expostulated, VOL. I. O ill! ill ■1: >i^i § ■;■ ( ML mm m 194 A WOM.\N IN SPITE OF HERSELF. " Of course, Mi&s Avalon, you don't require a complete and exact confession of every flir- tation that relieved the monotony of my life when I was a Woolwich cadet. You don't want me to go back so far as my boyhood." " Not so far back as that," Fay Avalon assur- ed him with a satirical emphasis that brought the purple to his ears. " And surely my assurance, with respect to my manly career, satisfies you ?" " Not quite." " About what do you wish for information ?" " Nothing. There is a matter respecting which, T am thankfiil to say, I require no in- formation. Still I will stimulate your curiosity with a question." " I am impatient to hear it." Again, bringing the tips of her fingers to- gether, as she looked forward, and over them at her companion, she inquired, with tortucing preciseness of utterance, " You remember Mil- licent Lac^oix, the girl who used to wait at Mostyn's shop in the Market-Place!" Had her eyes been closed, so that they could mm to- at A WOMAN IN bPITE OF HERSELF. 195 not observe the livid pallor which instantly seized his countenance; had her ears been stopped, so that they could not hear his quick breatliing, Felicia would have known that her inquiry had struck home to her antagonist's most vulnerable point. As it was, looking di- rectly into his eyes, she scanned the evidences of his confusion and anger, until they slowly disappeared, and he had recovered the appear- ance of self-possession. Major Tilbury was not the man to succumb without a struggle to an attack that after all might be no more than a reference to mere rumours prejudicial to his moral character. Conscious though he was of guilt, it occurred to him that Felicia Avalon might not be aware of the full extent of his wickedness. Ay, more, a hope came to him that, even if she knew the worst, Felicia Avalon might condone his ot- fence, if he threw himself on her generosity with passionate avowals of his penitence and remorse. After all, Millicent Lacroix was no- thing better than a pretty little milliner, one of a class of persons whom he had been trained by o2 nit M:^ ■ '■^■ i' Hi 196 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. corrupting circumstances to regard as the pro- per prey of his order. Felicia Avalon was, as she had herself intiraated, no unsophisticated girl, but a woman, of years and worldly exper- ience, who, of course, knew that officers in the army were no strait-laced precisians, and that it was no uncommon thing for girls of the lower classes to live in infamy. That she had per- mitted, — had actually encouraged his addresses — was evidence that she knew no great evil of him. And even if she had somehow learnt that Millie Lacroix had been his victim, her conduct justified the hope that she intended to treat his wrong-doing as a venial misdemeanour. Any- how, he would not throw up his cards until she had shown her hand. " 1 have heard of Millicent Lacroix," he ad- mitted. " In fact, I know something of that young person, — enough, indeed, to justify me in saying that she is no fit object for your sympathy. Truth to tell, the girl has been talked about, — is, I may say, notorious, shame- fully notorious." " Oh," pleaded Felicia Avalon, shrinking with ■Pi A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 197 disgust at the man's baseness in thus turning upon the victim of his perfidy, whilst she over- flowed with pity for the misery which his sin had wrought, "spare her, if you cannot respect me ; spare her — now that she is dead." "Dead! — By Jove!" Joseph Tilbury ejacu- lated, with surprise and genuine horror. " 1 did not know it was so bad as that." "What better fate could have befallen her after she left Quebec ? In His mercy, the good Father, who has forgiveness for all penitent sinners, spared her the punishment of protracted shame, and she is in Heaven. Is that a worse fate than you designed for her ?" " I designed for her !" " Major Tilbury," interposed Felicia with a withering sternness in her calm face and steady voice, " don't play the hypocrite again in this room. Listen to me. I took an affectionate interest in that girl. She was descended from an honest French-Canadian family. Indeed, she and I had the same blood in our veins ; for, a century or more since, there \vas a marriage between a Lacroix and a Messurier, which made II Pii i'\ i!p|f 198 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. US tenth cousins. If our relationship were nearer, I should not blush to own it. And when the girl's parents died, it was I who induced her to come to Quebec. I procured her the situation she had in Mostyn's shop, and thereby I brought her to ruin. On leaving Quebec in ill-health, the miserable girl went to Montreal to be nurs- ed by her aunt, who in due course wrote me a letter that caused rne to run up the river to Montreal, in time to see her die — to see her buried with her babe that died, even whilst it killed her. On her death-bed Milliceut Lacroix told me her whole story of foolishness and wickedness — a story which, out of tenderness to her memory, I have revealed to no one, not even to ray brother. On her death-bed she commissioned me to convey to you an assur- ance of her forgiveness, and to return to you these presents. Take them, sir, together with the assurance that one of Millicent's last prayers was that you might repent, and be pardoned by Him who had pardoned her." Whilst speaking the last words of this state- ment, Miss Avalon drew from the pocket of her ^ A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 199 dress a packet, which she offered to Major Tilbury, who seized it, and whilst putting it in his coat delivered himself of a groan of rage and anguish. The man's face was of ashy whiteness as his eyes fell before the disdainful regard of his com- panion, who intimated by her look and a move- ment of her right hand that she wished their interview to terminate without delay. She had never appeared so lovely and nobly beautiful to her astounded admirer as she did when she thus attempted to dismiss him with scornful silence. " Don't be too hard upon me. Miss Avalon. Have compassion for me as well as for her. Let your generous nature palliate my offences," he implored in prelude to a statement of exten- uating circumstances which he was preparing to force upon her. " The army is a bad school of morals. We men of the sword, who " " Sir," interposed Felicia Avalon, rising from her seat and drawing herself to the full height of her queenly stature, as she struck him down with an air of splendid pride, " you forget that m II b i ::!t i • '•,■ l; <■?■. i.t"' til'; r ■ ;!•; iilli 200 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. you are talking to the daughter of an officer !" " For Heaven's sake, pardon me I" prayed the culprit. " Other men have sinned :*n the same way, and found women to pardon them." " Pardon you ? — for Heaven's sake ?" retorted Fay Avalon with bitter mockery. "The woman capable of pardoning you,, in the full knowledge of what she pardons, must be sought in London, where I am told there are girls of gentle family, heartless nature, and sordid selfishness — who can be lenient to the repulsive vices of profli- gate men. But here, sir, you are in Canada, where it is still thought that men should be truthful and considerate for the weak. I am thankful to say that it is not my function to pardon offenders of your sort. If it were, sir, 1 should be unable to pardon Millicent's murderer." In despair of softening the sternness or mitigating the rage of Millicent Lacroix's avenger, Joseph Tilbury arose with what email appearance of dignity he could command, and bowing to Felicia Avalon, observed, " At least, Miss Avalon, I have never failed in reverence for you, however blame-worthy I may have S A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 201 been towards others. Whatever my misconduct, I did not come here with a purpose to outrage your feelingH, but to render you what you just now admitted to be the greatest compitnent that it was in ray power to pay you. You might have responded to the man who put himself in your power with something less of harshness." " Surely, sir," retorted Felicia Avalon, for the moment losing command of herself in a paroxysm of indignant aversion for her dupe, *'even a woman may respond with insult to such an insult as you have put on me. Is it a compliment that you have dared to ask me to be your wife, your slave ? Why, the words, in which you clothed your abominable proposition, were only a repetition of such phrases as you used to destroy a simple girl — the girl you killed with words. The very lip with which you hoped to touch this hand had upon it a lie. Oh, sir, you are surprised at my frankness. Excuse the rudeness of a colonial woman who can call the most offensive kind of falsehood by its right name, and has the hardihood to treat an un- endurable insult with meet indignation. Why do I, « I lit? 111 --^ . ,1 ■i: w 202 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. you linger here, sir? I have no more to say to you but this. When you spoke just now with slanderous disdain of poor Millicent Lacroix, it occurred to me that it was strange that even you did not spare her, out of sensitiveness for your own mother's shame." Had Felicia Avalou forborne to give him this last cruel stab with a poisoned blade, he would have made no further reply to her re- proaches. He would have left her, in fury and humiliation, but in no mood to wreak his vengeance upon her ; and the whole subsequent course of her life might have been different. It would have been better for her in every way — better for her chances of happiness, and for her place in the esteem of those who read this history of her fortunes, if she had refrained from thus trampling on a fallen foe, and hurling down up- on him a barbarous sarcasm. But the devil was just then master of her boiling blood ; and maddened by the excitements of anger, disdain, vengeance, pity, and a sense of uncontrollable loathing, she ceased for the moment to be womanly. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 203 That one last taunt, that final reference to a shame of which Joseph JLiiiiiiik"^imagined all living persons to be ignorant, save the few in- dividuals who were specially interested in keep- ing it secret ; that insolent rejection of him as a base-born creature, was the one final lash of his flogging that provoked him to retaliate terribly on the cause of his humiliation. But for that last blow he would have endured his punishment like a cowed slave. But the sting of that affront called into action all the dormant ferocity of his by no means chivalric nature, and inspired him with satanic resentment. With a quick step he brought himself close up to Felicia Aval on, and exhibiting to her a face empurpled and distorted with the fury of hatred, he hissed out, " At least, madam, the in- sult of which you complain was invited. You were at great pains to bring it on your- self."" The words penetrated to his enemy's sense of womanly dignity. She had brought the affront of his solicitations on herself. For many a month the recollection of the reproach if 204 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. h'i ! , •! drove sleep from her pillow at moments when she most sorely needed rest. But that memory, though it tortured her acutely, was less product- ive of unrest to the sufferer than the recollec- tion of the terrifying ferociousness of the look "svhich accompanied the words, that had scarcely escaped from her enemy's lips, when he turned abruptly from her, and hastened from the Fairmead. On being left to herself by Major Tilbury's quick though by no means premature departure, Felicia Avalon passed rapidly through a series of sharp and agonizing emotions. For a few minutes she exulted over the completeness and thoroughness of the punishment which she had inflicted on the destroyer of her miserable pro- Ugee^ Millicent Lacroix. But the triumph was of very brief duration, and the short-lived satis- faction was never renewed. Then came a vivid recognition of all the ignominious artifices by which she had lured Millicent's betrayer into the position which enabled her to bestow on him a richly merited but unwomanly chastisement. Strange to say, she had never perceived the ^m A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 205 unfeminine insolence and meanness of tho steps which she had taken throughout several months for his discomfiture, until they had resulted in the too siiccessful accomplishment of their ob- ject ; but now that she had opened his eyes to his repulsiveness, and made herself the object of. his implacable enmity, she saw her conduct in its proper light. No longer blinded by her dis- gust for the man, and by her sympathy for his victim, she realized the nature of her own be- haviour, and forthwith magnified its most dis- creditable features. Nor could she deny to her own conscience that the craft and resoluteness, with which she had wreaked her vengeance on Major Tilbury were by no means innocent of an ambition to revenge her own indignity as well as Millicent's wrong. Had the culprit's crime against Millicent Lacroix been perpetrated be- fore he had ventured to become her avenger's admirer, the latter would have contented herself with some less extravagant and more justifiable method of demonstrating her aversion to him. In that case she would have abhorred him no less strongly, but she would certainly have per- fr !i: 1 '1 III ' Hi Mu^^ll 1 illr Js 1 hi' ' jo^ ' ' ^Q^BH^^H iiiflUI 1 ^■H [^t i^^H ■ 1 ^^^ ;|:|^H ''M^H^ ''it] ^^^H' '''''''' il^^^^K' ;' ,'' 1 ^^^H' ^^' 1 ^^H :;vU^H ■ ■ ■ » , 1 ■ ■ , 'i , 1 ■ V. ii fUiiii •.;;,;*;[ '.'■■'?•; r^H ;'-iV.>i • li ?i n^H ■ 206 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. eecutt'.d him less malignant! j. " Who am I that I presume to punish sins?" she asked of her own heart, when tears of self-scorn were raining from her eyes, half an hour after Major Tilbury's departure, " and play the part of Pro- vidence ? I have uusexed myself. He was no more than an admirer, a flatterer, when I re- solved to draw him to me. I did draw that hateful creature to me ; and I have lost my self-respect for ever. Oh I why was I made too manly in temper for a woman's place and work I" A flood of tears followed this mental ejacula- tion, but it affbrdtd her no relief. How could so proud and sympathetic and sensitive a crea- ture reconcile herself to the scalding sense of self-abasement and shamefulness that possessed her as soon as she could review impartially all the deceptions, and meannesses, and indelicacies of her part in the drama on which the curtain had just fallen? And then the angry eyes of the furious man, converted in a few minutes from her lover to her implacable and unscrupulous foe, rose before her mental vision, together with the terrifying I > A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 207 features of his visage. " He will do me wrong if it is in his power," she thought with a shud- der. « I care not for myself. Let him do his worst, so that his retaliation affects me alone. But pray God he may not strike at mo through my brother, or strike me so as to harm Felix I I told Martha I would not say anything to Major Tilbury which I should live to repent. I have broken ray word sadly. I repent of nearly everything I said to him. I repent that I ever allowed him to— to insult me." ! m 208 I r i ■; < ■ 'f I r il CHAPTER XII. COMFORTERS IN THE HOUR OF TRIBULATION. nnO you, my bearded and philosophic reader, ■* whose self-respect is stronger than yonr vanity, and cannot therefore be shattered or greatly disturbed by disdain or ridicule, it is difficult to realize the mental torture which Joseph Curtain Tilbury endured, in consequence of Miss Avalon's rejection of his suit. When you wooed without winning Lucretia Coldhart, the disappointment was certainly severe. A mishap on the Stock Exchange, depriving you in an hour of the gradual accumulations of several years of latour, would not occasion you more annoyance than Lucre tia's cruelty caused you in the time when your heart was susceptible of the influences of beauty. It was a blow, a re- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 209 verse, a defeat. You made no miserable pre- tence of regarding the matter as a joke. For awhile the misadventure caused you to eat too little and drink too much, and to utter cynical sentiments respecting the falsity of womankind. When your chagrin was most poignant, you dieoovered that Lucretia was nothing better than a charming doll ; but you were never troubled by the conviction that you had ren- dered yourself absolutely despicable. Of course you derived no satisfaction from the knowledge that several of your own acquaintance, and as many of Lucretia's particular friends, were chuckling over your accident, even as benevolent men and women are wont to chuckle when they see a comrade get a tumble on the ice, in the hunting-field, or on a drawing-room carpet. But you could not help reflecting that, though unquestionably a doll, Lucretia was a charming doll, that you had proved your good taste in admiring her showy endowments, that you had displayed no egregious vanity and self-confi- dence in your bootless pursuit of her, and that even your most malicious associates thought VOL. T. P rt If, i I. ;' '?»: iir • ,♦■: ■■': ::!^' ^^i ■| 'r 210 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. none the worse of you for your disaster. So, without making any absurd number of wry faces, you consumed the leek of disappointment, and bore yourself like a gentleman. The sor- row was transient ; and when you led your blushing Frances (n^e Worthington) from what young people of ultra-romantic propensities still like to call the hymeneal altar, you were heartily glad that Lucretia had preferred old Jonas Stockdish with his money-bags to young Barry Marchinont with his prospects in Westminster Hall. But then, sir, you were no morbidly vain man, smarting under a galling consciousness of secret ignominy, and at the same time inordinately eager for social appro- bation. Major Tilbury, on the contrary, was a gen- tleman whose vanity dominated all the other forces of his nature. The shame with which he reflected on the circumstances of his birth was the oifspring of the same vanity that made him overrate the value of his popularity in mess- rooms, incited him to flatter others in order that they might flatter him in leturn, caused A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 211 rier 3ed him to employ artificial means for the conceal- ment of the marks put upon him by time, and inspired him with an over-weening admiration of himself. Elated by the preference which had been evinced for him by one of the handsomest women of Quebec, who was known to have declined suitors of great wealth and unex- ceptionable status, and confident in his power to win by the force of his personal attractions and conversational brilliance the girl whom so many men had courted in vain, he had made no secret in garrison-society of his intention to marry Fay Avalon. It was for him, and no other man, that she had grown to the perfection of her beauty. The pear was his, and would fall into, his hand as soon as his appetite for it decided him to relinquish the freedom and privi- leges of a bachelor's existence. Outside the military " sets " it was also more generally understood than the lady suspected, that Felicia Avalon, after refusing some of the richest and best-born men in the colony, had made up her mind to throw herself away on an Artillery officer almost old enough to be ller v2 ■F^ ■'. 212 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. father, and possessing just no private fortune. Though she had flattered herself that her flirta- tion with Major Tilbury had neither occasioned much gossip nor attracted much attention, the affair had been in some wa ' or other talked over in every gentle household within six miles of Cape Diamond ; and poor old Miss Messurier had been kept in a perfect fever of vexation by the busybodies who begged her to tell them if it was really true that her niece and Major Tilbury had agreed to put their horses together. That delicious old retailer of clack and tattle. Lady Morton, had no doubt whatever that Felicia had quite made up her mind not to lose a chance of becoming Mrs. Tilbury. " Of course she'is a great fool to have set her heart on jupip- ing upon the shoulders of that red-faced, swag- gering, not-so-young-as-he~looks officer ; but still she is a dear girl, and an ornament to Quebec," her ladyship had remarked to at least two dozen of her particular friends ; " though her figure has no more shape in it than either of the gate-posts at the end of my drive. We shall miss her — her poor brother will miss her Tl A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 213 very much ; but it's better that she should go. Everybody ought to speak well of her; but, still, it must be admitted that she has been a terrible spoil-sport to other marriageable girls. It is sheer slander to call her a flirt. Until that noisy major crossed her path, she never paid mortal man any attention which would justify a censure or a suspicion. It was more her mis- fortune than her fault that men would persist in adoring her tallness and her handsome face. Still, she stopt the way, blocked the road, spoilt the sport of other girls, for whose sakes, if not for her own, she ought to have moved off into matrimony years ago." And in thus speak- ing, old Lady Morton gave utterance to senti- ments in which several of the matrons of Quebec cordially concurred. Under these circumstances, Joseph Tilbury was well aware that Felicia's rejection of his offer could not be kept secret. That she would expose him to «he moralists of Quebec as the profligate wretch who had killed Millicent I^a- croix he had no fear, since she had declared her resolution to be silent to the world concerning i li il 214 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ■!',•■»• •■I'lt i*! ■ft '■•« ^ |i ''•'•;.'h' i that ghastly tale of common licentiousness, ont of tender regard to the poor girl's memory. Moreover, though the tenth cousinship, of which Felicia Avalon had spoken as having existed between herself and Millicent, was no nearer or more important than the relationship born by many a peeress of Scotch family to the young milliner of whom her ladyship buys bon- nets during the London season, out of clannish sentiment, it was a tie that would disincline the mistress of the Fairmead ibo trouble her Quebec friends about the ignominious fate of her humble relative. Other equally obvious facts concurred to assure Major Tilbury that Fay Avalon would not call attention to the manner in which she had visited him with her displeasure, — would not invite criticism of the artifices which she had employed to bring about his punishment. But, though she would be decorously and conveni- ently reticent, the necessary change in her de- meanour Avould of itself declare to Quebec that she had rejected him disdainfully. Henceforth she would, of course, give the " cut direct " to the Major, towards whom her demeanour in 111 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 215 society had beeu hitherto abundantly gracious. He could not call at a " good house " in Quebec without being likely to encounter her ; and yet, wherever and whenever they might meet, she would of course refrain from accord- ing him even the slightest recognition. The first party at which he and she should be simul- taneously present would reveal to his military associates that he had been " pitched over " with contempt by the woman of whose hand he hud been so boastfully secure, and of whose affectionate regard for him he had spoken so impudently, that Dandy Trevor and the other boys of the garrison had for several weeks been in the habit of terming Felicia "the future Mrs. Joe !" As he realized, point by point, all the ludi- crous and humiliating circumstances of his position, and the certainty that before forty- eight hours had passed all the coteries of tlio garrison and city would be gossiping and laughing about his misadventure, the vain man, to whom the sting of ridicule was unen- durable, fell into such a panic of apprehensions I 216 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. that he was for a short hour strongly disposed to fly from the persecution which he dreaded. " Confound her I" he groaned, " she meant to drive me from Quebec 1" Nor was he wrong in attributing this pur- pose to Fay Avalon, who had really calculated on rendering Canada so distasteful to her enemy that he would take an early oppor- tunity to cross the Atlantic, on the plea that urgent private affairs required his presence in England. And it is more than probable that she would have achieved her object, had not her concluding sarcasm inspired him with a determination to work his vengeance upon her in a way that should make her rue the hour when she ventured to rouse his resent- ment. "But I'll disappoint her," he muttered to himself, as he pondered in his locked chamber — " ay, and trample upon her when she implores for mercy. She taunted me with my birthright of ignominy. The time shall come when I will clothe her with shame, compared with which my disgrace shall appear honour. But how did A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 217 she learn it ? — who told her ? — do others know what I am f And in the intensity of his an- guish, the man nearly lost his consciousness, whilst the purple blood distended the veins of his head, and beads of sweat rolled down his face. But the sharpest part of his punishment con- sisted of the self-scorn which the obvious sin- cerity and vehemence of Felicia Avalon's dis- gust at his wickedness had planted in his breast. Frivolous, selfish, absurdly vain though he was, the man was not utterly depraved. The time was when he could not have been fairly accused of lacking generosity ; and a long career of ostentatious profligacy and secret meannesses had not altogether deprived him of the power to admire goodness. On marrying Fay Avalon, he had designed to turn over a new leaf, to reform, to become a moral charac- ter. It had even occurred to him to hope that, under his wife's influence, he might become a good and religious man. And whilst he cursed Felicia Avalon for her artifices and falsehood, he could not blind himself to the fact that she I' I' 218 A WO^IAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. I ''4 ■.!m tl ^^^ I waa a noble, generous, pure creature, who, in her contemptuous repulse of his suit, hud dis- played the sentiments of scorn and repugnance which he merited, and which the knowledge of his uncleanness and treachery would necessarily rouse in every right-minded woman. This re- cognition of her goodness and liis own despi- cableness — to his credit, be it said — hurt him even more than his vivid perception of the absur- dity of his positioI^. But though it filled him with remorse, it engendered in him no contri- tion. The more that he admired, by so much the more he detested, the cause of his anguish. In seeing her womanliness grow more bright and loveable, and his own turpitude become more black under the light which her anger had thrown on the one and the other, the miserable man realized something of the unutter- able anguish of those accursed souls that, whilst lying in the horrors of hell, behold and yearn for the joys of the paradise from which they are excluded. It was alike consistent with the great evil and little good of his nature that he hated her for her loveliness, and desired to A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 219 mako her as odious in appearance as he was in reality. When a sleepless night had passed over his trouble, Joseph Tilbury confided to his young- friend and professional subordinate, Frank Tre- vor, so much of his misfortunes as he knew it would be impossible for him to withhold from that sagacious and elegant youth. But he was, of course, careful to put his partial revelations in a form that would expose him as little as possible to the ridicule of the garrison, and secure for him the greatest possible amount of sympathy. Confining himself to an avowal of his rejection, he was silent concerning the reasons which had actuated Felicia Avalon, and he intimated that in her conduct to him she had merely obeyed the instincts of an utterly heartless coquette. He hud been deucedly hard hit. The woman had only been making a fool of him, whilst she pretended to care for him, and lured him into her meshes. She was a wily siren, a cruel flirt, and she had cut him to the heart. He could not have believed in the existence of such baseness, perfidy, downright ; t VI, ': t • ' f, . ' I. >' ■A :[ ■&■:'. ; . ' ■ '■'■■./■''ff I !'!h 220 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. indelicacy in the form of a woman. In refusing him, aho laughed, flouted, jeered at him — had even mimicked hie voice and manner, and de- lided the profession of which he was a member. But though she had proved herself a thorough she-devil, he could not help loving her still. He was a besotted, infatuated, contemptible fool for continuing to care about her ; but he was no longer master of himself, and should never again be the man that he had been. He should, of course, have been warned by the fate of the other men who had proposed to her. But men in love are deaf to warnings, blind to reasons. But Joe Tilbury forgave her. He hoped no frient' of his would speak an evil word of her. He should have maintained si- lence about the affair, had not the obligations of friendship required him to speak out frankly to the Dandy. In reply to which confidential communications the Dandy was most sympathetic to his stricken friend, and most energetic in his expressions of disdain for the wily siren. He patted Joe on the shoulder, bade him keep his pecker up ««p A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 221 and never say die, and suggested that they should get ** leave " for a few days, and go up the country for some fishing, or run over to Macknay's in the Island of Orleans, where they could solace themselves with good eating and drinking at moderate charges. To which pro- posal Joe replied in the negative, with a stub- born fortitude worthy of his reputation for manliness. He was not going to turn tail and skulk, even for a day. He would face the ridi- cule of the affair, put a brave face on disaster, " show " about Quebec as though nothing had happened, and let Miss Circe see that she could not break his heart. Whereto Frank Trevor replied that Joe was a trump, and demeaned himself in a fashion that would command the respect of the whole garrison. On leaving his stricken comrade, Dandy Tre- vor went off without delay to Mouse Ponsford, whom he found making silent war on his nervous system with a loaded meerschaum, and com- municated the dismal tidings. The Mouse was not surprised to hear the news. It was a shame, an outrage, a barbarous crime ; he pitied poor 222 A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. ! I'M old Joe with all his heart ; he hoped that the whole gamson would make common cause with Joe, and agree that never an officer in Quebec should ask the flirt to dance at public assembly or private party ; but still he could not say that he was astonished at Miss Avalon's iniquity. " Don't you remember, Dandy, what I said to you yesterday morning?" urged Lieutenant Mau- rice Ponsford, who, having for once surpassed his friend in sagacity, was properly desirous to get due credit for his acuteness. "I told you I didn't like to hear of a girl's having had a lot of offers. My very words were, ' That sort of thing, you know, isn't to a girl's credit. It mayn't mean vice, but it looks imcommonly like mischief!' You remember I said so ? Come, now, bear me out as a friend should." Finding that the Mouse, who could at times be a troublesome customer, was bent on extort- ing an expression of assent, Frank Trevor reluctantly admitted that Maurice Ponsford, of the 49th, had delivered the sentiment in those precise words. "And," added the Dandy, with a not uncommon dishonesty, " I (( A WOMAN IN SPITE OP HERSELF. 223 took exactly the same view of the woman's character." " Not a bit of it, Dandy," warmly retorted Maurice, who fought for the originality of his opinion, as though it were a new patent con- trivance of which he was the sole inventor, whilst the Dandy was a fraudulent craftsman, bent on infringing his right. " Come, none of that. It won'c do. You expressly said that Miss Avalon was an exception to the rule." " But I admitted the rule," urged the Dandy. "I accepted your principle. You were right for once." " I should think I was ! Why, hang me, if in this case it doesn't mean both mischief and vice." " Granted. But don't be so arrogant. You were quite right— and I wasn't altogether wrong. Now, Mouse, I have known you some- times altogether wrong." His good-humour suddenly returning on this frank admission that he had seen through Miss Avalon from the beginning, and had not been "bamboozled by her flummery," the Mouse ex- 224 A WOMAN m SPITE OF HERSELF. m mA ti ' ; claimed, "There, Dandy, now you have done me justice like a friend. Now have a pipe. Whenever I am struck off my pins by a * facer ' I fall upon tobacco. My motto is, ' When in trou- ble, fill up !' So fill up with your Lat. co. Rose- leaves, or whatever other mild compound you are burning at the present moment. Ah ! poor Joe should have stuck to the ' weed,* and left womankind alone." "If he meant to do matrimonial business with womankind," observed the Dandy, "the dear old boy should have ' gone in ' before he lost his figure." "No doubt," Lieutenant Ponsford assented cordially, quick to recognize the merit of his comrade's critical sentiments, now that full justice had been rendered to his own. " But," he added, after a pause, " it's better for him as it is. He'll be happier without that baggage than he could ever have been with her." " I don't know that," gloomily responded the Dandy. "He is awfuUy cut up, though be means to bear it like a man." "Of course he'll bear it bravely. It would the he A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 225 not be like Joe to cave in, because he has had a facer." " Poor old boy I he may fling away his waist- belt and Patent Hair-Restorer now." " By Jove !" exclaimed the Mouse fiercely, " that woman's conduct is iniquitous !" Before forty-eight hours had passed the whole garrison of Quebec — that is to say, the officers of it — took the same view of Miss Avalon's con- duct. The Cavahy and Infantry, the Engineers and Artillery, were of one mind on the subject, She had behaved infamously. She was a " bad lot," a " dangerous woman," a " petticoated be- trayer." Expressions of sympathy flowed in upon the petticoated betrayer's victim. The Mouse pre- sented him with a tribute of affection in the shape of a hig meerschaum, with the legend, " When in trouble, till up !" ^chased on its silver fi ".ng. The Dandy insisted that he and dear old Joe should be photographed together on the same card, in attitudes calculated to do justice to their figures. Colonel Protheroe begged the vic- tim to accept an Albert watch-guard of massive VOL. I. Q ' i p 226 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ■kTff''r.~ l'^'' ?^l '.iil gold. And in the course of ten days the mili- tary sympathy and enthusiasm for Joe Tilbury rose to such a point that the garrison decided to give him a little dinner at " Macknay's on the Island." Joseph Tilbury was precisely one af those popular and manly fellows to whom men like to give dinners and exalt as mahogany-tree heroes on the slightest possible provocation. And, in the Major's case, it was not difficult to discover a suitable pretext for feeding him in a hot room, and proclaiming him with uproarious melody a "jolly good fellow." As Honorary Secretary of the Quebec Garrison Race Association, he had done unpaid service to the officers quartered on Cape Diamond ; and nothing could be more reasonable than that the gentlemen who had profited by his secretarial ability should give him a dinner and a piece of plate — no exorbi- tantly expensive thing in the way of a tea-pot, but a substantial though modest memorial of the regard in which he was held. A committee was formed, who struck the iron while it was hot, and made themselves temporary owners in A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 227 give :orbi- i-pot, trust of the tallest of the three challenge-cups that had stood for the last twelvemonth in the window of Gadsby's shop in St. Lewis Street. Hence it came to pass that, whilst Felicia Avalon's singular treatment of Major Tilbury- was the pet topic of every drawing-room of Quebec, Joseph Curtain Tilbury was entertained at a complimentary dinner by all the officers of the garrison, and presented with a metallic " expression of the respect cherished by his friends for his soldier-like qualities and uniform manliness." That Felicia Avalon heard with satisfaction of this compliment ^o her discarded suitor, the readers of this history are not likely to suppose. Instead of driving her enemy from Quebec, she experienced the mortification ofi knowing that her treatment of him had rendered him more popular than ever. And this was a bitter mor- tification to the woman who had prided herself on her popularity in her native city quite as much as Major Tilbury prided himself on his popularity in the army. Though, of course, no public allusion was made to her by Q2 fITfF ij ^■^ m J.. ', '■■' i I. t '. (■ /iiii^'i .■*fil i -■1, 1 /' ,, • .J i i ■] m\ t . ;' j: ■ 228 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. the givers of the Tilbury testimonial ; and though the Major's friends professed that they were merely acknowledging in a usual manner his services to the Race Club, she was acutely sensitive of the significance of the demonstra- tion. To her it was a declaration that, in the opinion of a considerable and very influential section of the society of Quebec, she had been guilty of falsehood, heartlessness, and un woman- liness. ,^'::' i' f 229 and they Qner itely stra- the ntial been man- CHAPTER XIII. a THE MOTHER COUNTRY. »> rjUT though he found many consolers, Major ■-' Tilbiuy derived no adequate consolation from their kindness. It was, of course, a relief to escape the ridicule which he had appre- hended, and to know that, instead of diminish- ing his popularity, Felicia Avalou's repudiation of his addresses had for the moment raised him to the rank of a social hero. It was positively agreeable to him to see that, instead of looking coldly on him, society was disposed to resent his wrongs, even to the' point of exclaiming openly against the woman who had aimed at covering him with discredit. But these miti- gations of calamity were no compensation for the sufferings which wounded vanity, despised u 'X 230 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. love, and consciousness of shame inflicted upon him. Fay Avalon's exhibition of derisive con- tempt for his powers of fascination was of itself an otFence calculated to fire him with relentless enmity. Her manifestation of disgust at his passion and his nature was an outrage which the courtesies of his male friends could not wipe from his recollection. The scorn of her allu- sion to his vicious origin was an indignity which, had she been a man, he would have avenged with murder. Since she was a woman, he resolved to avenge it by murdering her repu- tation, and driving her in ignominy from the community whose respect and love were dear to her above all her other possessions. This being the resolve on the execution of which he meant to exert every faculty of a mind which Felicia Avalon had discerned to be by no means deficient in natural strength and shrewdness, his animosity against his petti- coated adversary was not assuaged by the con- tents of a parcel which arrived in his hands from England some three or four weeks after his last visit to the Fairmead. T^ A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 2ai The packet contained a letter from one of his London friends, Ned Canton, already mentioned in these pages, and an early copy of a new novel in three volumes — " The Mother Country," by the author of " Marjory Gatkin ; Sketches of High Life in a British-American Colony," and published by Messrs. Hobson and Holliday, 15, Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London. The packet contained also several pages of soiled and scored MS. Ned Canton's letter was in the following words : — *' 8, Pump Court, Temple. *' Dear Joe, " Only three minutes for a line or two. Mail starts to-night, and business urgent. You are right in your suspicions. ' Marjory Gatkin ' was written by the woman you wot of; and since you wish for a specimen of her handwriting, I send you some sheets of her copy. All the MS. of ' Marjory ' is in my hands, it having come to me together with proofs from the printers. I revised the lady's sketches for publication, and nursed them through the press. 232 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ■I'' ■■!■' ■ i- Of course, I make this communication jLinder strict seal ; and you must be careful to keep your knowledge to yourself, as the fair author is especially desirous to remain incog. So be cautious, and don't blow the gaff on our charm- ing friend until you have marital authority to do what you like with her reputation and — earnings. The said earnings, by the way, are likely to be considerable. ' Marjory Gatkin ' had a stunning good sale. H. and H. netted £1,476 by the sale, and have astounded her by their munificence in paying her £500 for ' The Mother Country,' which would be dirt cheap at a thousand. If our ' green hand ' fulfils her promise, she will be worth £1,000 to £1,500 a year for a long time to any husband who knows how to use her. When she is yours, don't make the common mistake of urging her to overwork herself. Feed her on poetry, the fine arts, and agreeable assurances that she is influencing her generation ; give her a continental trip every autumn ; let her have pin-money in reason, and pocket the balance, which will be tidy. As for me, my fortune is scarcely equal to my deserts, ffMift;lr (t7f.> A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 233 but not bad enough to steep me in gloom. Hack-work buoyant, journalism yielding satis- factory returns, connection increasing. On the other hand, card-account for the last twelve months indicates loss of capital ; and Miss Lalage, of Minerva Cottage, Brorapton, is more extravagant and imperious than ever. Old Hobson is as vigorous as ever, takes his port with no apparent injury to his constitution, and has not at present declared his intention to make me his heir. " Yours sincerely and effusively, " Ned (Janton." The sight of the quire of soiled pages on which Felicia Avalon had written the opening chapters of " Majory Gatkin" aftbrded manifest satisfaction to Major Tilbmy, who, after glanc- ing curiously over their contents, subjected the author's handwriting to the closest scrutiny. " Good !" ho said, when he had locked the scored and disfigured sheets, together with Ned Canton's letter, in the secret drawer of the massive writing-desk that had seen service at J F a h 234 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. h I Malta and Gibraltar before coming out to Canada ; " they will be useful — very useful — all the more so because they are written in a masculine style, designed, doubtless, to create an impression that they were indited i man. They show me what she would do, if she set to work to disguise her handwriting. And now for * The Mother Country.' Let me see, who was the aiicieut author who observed, ' Oh ! that mine enemy would write a book !' Haply, Joe Tilbury, it may be thy fate to re-echo that sentiment. As I am no professional reviewer, I may as well cut the pages of my dea** Felicia's volumes, and read them before paf ' judg- ment on them." Whereupon Major Tilbury cut the pages of the three volumes; and, having so prepared them for perusal, he proceeded forthwith to ascertain the contents of a novel about which something must be said for the benefit of readers who have neglected to print upon their memories one of the best works of fiction that may be found on Mr. Mudie's shelves. In " The Mother Country," Miss Avalon. had T A WOMAN IN SPITE OK HERSELF. 235 endeavoured to produce a story that should tell readers ou both sides of the Atlantic some wholesome truths respectinpj the political and social relations of Great Biitain and her Ameri- can dependencies. Whilst reproving the colo- nists of the higher classes for their propensity to exhibit an almost servile respect for the so- cial opinion of London, and urging them to feel in their colonial birth the same pride that na- tives of the mother country took in their insular origin, she endeavoured to show the evil that ensued to England from the frivolous demean- our and licentious conduct occasionally observ- able in t' e persons who, born in England, and represeni ig the authority of the imperial go- vernment, ^ ime out to the colonies to occupy more or less important posts in them. That the work betrayed the author's pride in her colony, and even indicated a preference for it over the parent-land, the reader may infer from the strong and absolutely romantic attachment which Felicia Avalon cherished for Canada ; but to show that it was in no way deficient in loyalty to the throne and devotion to the en- 236 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. tire empire, it is tiiongh to say that its political sentiments were precisely those which Foxe Avalor. had inculcated in his children, and that the book overflowed with patriotic en- thusiasm. That the tale achieved its end perfectly, or that its symmetry was not affected injuriously by those of its parts which were specially written for the accomplishment of its politico-social objects, I cannot represent. Poli- tical novels are frequently popular, but they are almost always defective from purely artistic points of view. Novels with a moral purpose are usually infelicitous in proportion to tlie magnitude of the efforts made by their writers to improve the morals of the public. And, though I wish to speak favourably of Miss Avalon s literary performances, which are un- questionably of high excellence, T am of opinion that " The Mother Country " would have been a much more agreeable book if the writer had kept her political sentiments to herself, and had been content to amuse the people whom she en- deavoured to instruct and edify. But the story was powerful and deeply inter- ^^w A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 237 eating. Although overweighted with homily and social essay, it raised the anonymous author's reputation for humour ; and the critics concurred in extolling the force observable in the delinea- tion of Colonel Congreve's ludicrous vanity and repulsive nature. Even greater skill and clever- ness were allowed to be shown in the portrait- ure of Maud Henderson, the colonial girl, who, after conceiving sentiments of friendship for the Colonel, regarded him with repugnance and vindictive enmity, on receiving conclusive proof of his barbarous perfidy to Fanny Hartlibb, the poor creature whom he reduced to infamy, at the very time when he ventured to range him- self amongst the number of Maud's suitors. The story of Fanny's ruin 'vas told with exquisite delicacy, and yet with a most minute enumera- tion of all the odious artifices of her destroyer. The whole romantic fiction of English literature contains nothing more simple in language and overpoweringly pathetic than the chapters which describe her sickness and penitential death. There is no need to recapitulate the facts of a tragedy — or, it may be, of a melo- m'' h' 238 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. ''iS drama — with which the reader is ah'eady suf- ficiently familiar. In her relations with Colonel Congreve, and her goodness to Fanny, Maud Henderson played in fiction a part very similar to that which Felicia Avalon had actually per- formed towards Major Tilbury and Millicent Lacroix. The utterances put by the writer's art in the lips of the dying girl — her prayers for her own forgiveness, and far more fervent and thrilling supplications that her betrayer should also be forgiven — were the very utterances which Millicent Lacroix had delivered whilst death stood over her with outstretched hand. They were, also, the very words which the wretch- ed peruser of " The Mother Country " — reading the story throughout one entire, long, sleepless night, in his lodging in the Artillery Barracks of Quebec — seemed to hear in clear, penetrating, plaintive notes of damning gentleness, spoken by the very voice of the murdered girl. As his eyes looked on the clear fresh type which im- pressed those awful words on his soul as dis- tinctly as they had been marked upon the white paper, he shivered with horror at the enormity ,^ : I'i I A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 239 of his wickedness, and groaned under the super- stitious fancy that the sheets on which he looked were the very chart of indictment that would be read out to him at the day of judgment. Maud Henderson was no piece of biographic portraiture, but a character differing in nearly every minor detail from her delineator. She had none of the personal distinctions of her artistic creator. Instead of being the daughter of an English officer, she was the child of a Canadian merchant of colonial birth ; and save that she was represented as moving in the best society of Quebec — the city of the story's drama — her domestic position and story bore no re- semblance to those of Miss Avalon. She was no possessor of great accomplishments and un- usual talents, but a woman whose influence de- pended mainly on intellectual and moral qualifi- cations that certainly were absent from Felicia's most distinctive endowments. But though the author had been at great pains to save herself from the charge of making herself the heroine of her own literary performance, should the authorship of the book ever become known, M M 240 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. i . there were one or two grand traits in which she and Maud resembled each other. As the type of the true Canadian woman, Maud cherished for her colony and native city the same love that was known to be one of Felicia's strongest sentiments. Moreover, Maud was so constituted that it was ahnodt consistent with her character to act in some respects towards Colonel Con- greve precisely as Felicia had acted towards Major Tilbury. Though she was not describea as luring the Colonel to an avowal of love ^i;d an oifer of marriage, in order that she might give him a humiliating rejection, she was made to rejoice in her ability to treat her suitor, on the occasion of his proposal to her, very much as Felicia treated the Major. Just as Felicia avenged Millicent Lacroix's wrongs by her crushing repulse of Major Tilbury, Maud aveng- ed Fanny Hartlibb by a similar repudiation of Colonel Congreve's suit. In this particular the story corresponded so precisely with the drama of real life that even the writer's cleverness scarcely succeeded in making Maud's conduct to her abominated suitor appear altogether in har- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 241 mony with her general gentleness and modesty. But if Felicia Avalon had taken especial pains to disguise the original of Maud Henderson from readers who, though living in Quebec, would not know all the particulars of her relations with Major Tilbury, she had depicted Colonel Congreve's original with photographic exact- ness. As he read " The Mother Country," Jo- seph Tilbury had the pleasure of seeing himself portrayed in Colonel Congreve, so that, even had tlie episode of Fanny Hartlibb's ruin been omitted from the book, he could not have failed to recognize himself in the vain, garrulous, swaggering, underbred Colonel. Before reveal- ing the darkest and most hateful qualities of this garrison roisterer, the author made excel- lent fun for her readers by laughing at his affec- tations and clumsy coxcombries, his propensity for telling old jokes, and his anxiety to conceal the marks which time had set in his appearance. There was no defective point in the effeminately vain man's aspect and address that was not rendered exquisitely ludicrous by the satirist of Colonel Congreve. He had no secret weakness VOL. R 242 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. i i'^. or hidden folly which Felicia did rot prove her- Helf to have detected by the ridicule that her pen poured on the Colonel. In the earlier part of the story the Colonel figured as the success- ful military cad, thinly veneered with gentility; the development of the plot showed him to be a villain varuished with such conventional decency as must cover the outside of every man pre- suming to associate with gentlemen; towards the f'-lose of the story he was the same villain, v/ith all the varnish scraped off. In short, Major Tilbury had the novel excitement of being exhibited to himself as a peculiarly offen- sive type of the Englishmen who tend to render England odious and contemptible in the eyes of our colonists. Such an exhibition was not agreeable to the individual who had assumed an air of superiority to colonial society. It was all the more painful to his self-love because he was compelled to see that the picture was no caricature, but a veritable portraiture ; that tlie woman who lashed him so cruelly did him no injustice. Had the date of the publication of "The ^m? n A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 243 The Mother Country " permitted the supposition, Joseph Tilbury would have thought that the scene of Colonel Congreve's rejection by Maud Henderson had been written since the day when Felicia Avalon dismissed him from her presence. Forbidden by obvious facts to take this view of the most offensive part of the novel, the Major was not slow in discerning from it that the au- thor of the book had with her pen drawn out the plan of her final battle with hiiii, and in due course had amused herself by fciitlifully carry- ing out the hostile programme. The case was so. Felicia had already written the opening chapters of the story on a design that Colonel Congreve should play the villain's role, when Millicent's betrayal came to her knowledge and furnished her with the saddest incidents of the narrative. In her indignation against the helpless girl's destroyer, she first imagined the romantic punishment of his wickedness ; and having found relief in the imaginary chastise- ment of the offender, she conceived the purpose of rendering the conception a thing of actual occurrence. The story had been completed, r2 u 244 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 'i'S:' I; I' ^1 r.-^ n III lii ii 1 -li i ,M •% sent to the London publishers, and put in type, when the artist had the satisfaction of putting into practice lier artistic notion of a suitable punishment for such a revolting delinquent. Even in the excitement of her last conversation with Major Tilbury, she had diverted herself with rendering the interview as far as possible a close and literal performance of the scene in the unpublished novel. The same sarcasms which she had put into Maud's mouth she had repeated with practised accent in her own drawing-room to the man whom she loathed. In one respect, however, there was an impor- tant difference between the fictitious scene and the scene of real life. It was a considerable re- lief to the Major's wounded sensibilities to dis- cover that "The Mother Country " contained no allusion to the ignominy of his birth. In this particular Felicia Avalon, with the pen in her hand, had been no less true to her own woman- liness, and generous to her foe, than she would have been by word of mouth, had not fury gained momentary possession of her better self under the irritation of his exasperating presence. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 245 1 type, tutting uitable iquent. rsation herself ►oesible jene in .rcasms (he had sr own thed. L impor- ne and ible re- to dis- Ined no In this in her voman- would )t fury ;er self esence. Having, through Ned Canton's promptitude, obtained a copy of " The Mother Country" be- fore another copy of the work had arrived in America, Major Tilbury had time to peruse the novel several times, and resolve deliberately as to the course which it would be prudent for him to take respecting its contents, before the next mail from England brought out papers calling attention to " the new story by the author of * Marjory Gatkin.' " And during that interval he came to prudent conclusions concerning the narrative, which he kept under lock and key at his quarters. "As soon as I see signs that the people here identify me with the Colonel," Joseph Tilbury thought within himself, " I will trans- gress Ned Canton's injunctions, and ' blow the gaff' on my fascinating enemy. When they have once detected me in Congreve, the men of the garrison will not be slow to suspect who is my anonymous assailant, and like an honest, good-natured fellow, I will assist their sus- picions to the truth. After all, the book won't hurt me much more than I am hurt already. As V. ■■'{Jl HH H 1 1 1 1 1 11 • - ??k f H'^n' ImiJ 246 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. for Fanny Hartlibb and her busineBs, T shall cause my enthusiastic friends to regard that matter as a vile attempt to asperse me with odious slan- der ; and my friends, knowing little or nothing about that monstrously ugly affair with Millie, will take my part against the calumniator who has begun the odious business of disseminat- ing libels under the forms of romantic fiction. Moreover, they will be quick to regard the novel as a malignant endeavour to cover the whole military profession with obloquy. Fel- lows are always ready 'to go it hot against anonymous traducers of honourable gentlemen.' Oh I Jezebel, confound you, it's war to the knife, is it? And you have been flattering yourself that the chances are all on your side ? You'll find yourself mistaken, madam. The chances are on mine ; for you will fight with pure steel, while I shall cut you with a poisoned blade. If you have the town with you, I have the garrison ; and many weeks shall not pass before you shall see your dear ' colonials ' dropping off from you. You are an anonymous author, an anonymous calumniator ! It won't J'T- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 247 ill cause latter as IS slan- nothing 1 Millie, tor who eminat- fictioTi. ird the ver the r. Fel- against tlemen.' to the ottering ir side? . The ht with oisoned you, I lall not )lonials ' nymous 't won't be difficult for me to malte the world believe strangely horrible things of a female manufac- turer of libels. Wait awhile, and your dear friends of Quebec, whom you love so luuch that you can't endure the thought of leaving them — shall cease to be your dear friends. You taunted me with my mother's profligacy, did you? By my mother's shame, I'll crush you, madam; and make you such a creature that no son of yours shall ever be proud of you!" And whilst the man communed with himself thus amiably and generously, a privileged ob- server would have seen in the sternness of a once handsome face, and the hardening lines of a battered visage, conclusive proof that, not- withstanding the frivolousness of his past career. Major Tilbury was capable of reso- luteness, — capable of persisting with unyielding steadfastness in a course of diabolical cruelty. nil II 248 CHAPTER XIV. RESTING AT " THE CHAUMONTS' FARM." flTHILST Major Tilbury was nursing his ' * wrath against Felicia, and laying plans for her social perdition, she was living in seclu- sion at the Chaumonts' farm in the neighbour- hood of the St. Anne's Falls, and enjoying the scenery of one of the boldest and most pictur- esque districts within five-and-twenty or thirty miles of Quebec. The Chaumonts' farm — so called from the name of the French faniily that have posp'Rsed it for a hundred and fifty years — i« a place that she had been accustom ^fl fr ' )od lo visit, whenever Dr. Rer .» ' >r her health change of air ai iden t • .e coun- try. The Fairmead, though fixr i in a suburb of A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 249 Quebec, was so perfectly rural that it miglit be thought that its inhabitants would never have felt it desirable to seek country air elsewhere ; but no place is so charming and healthy as to satisfy the requirements of those who can com- mand the means of spending periodical holidays in another locality. And the Chaumonts was the spot which Felicia had been educated to re- gard as the most delightful of earthly retreats. It was the abode where Marie Messurier had spent many a week of her childhood ; and Feli- cia loved it as an almost sacred harbour, in con- sideration of its associations with her mother's memory. The Chaumonts, simple but refined specimens of French habitans, were distant and humble kinsmen of the aristocratic Messu- riers ; people too well placed in the world to condescend to take ordinary lodgers beneath their roof, though highly pleased to entertain their wealthy relatives who, without offending their cousin's feelings, could pay for their board and lodging at the Farm with handsome pre- sents. Throughout his long widowhood Foxe Avalon was an annual visitor at the Chau- I 1 ll lill 250 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. monts' farm, where he had encountered Marie Messnrier for the first time. It was the Colonel's head-quarters whenever he shot snipe and wild-duck in the marshes about Ange Gardieu and Chateau Richer ; and amongst the means which the Colonel employed, with some scepti- cism, it must be confessed, for the restoration of his afflicted boy, was the water of those springs of ot. Anne, that are believed by the supersti- tious denizens of the surrounding region to possess sanative powers for every malady that human flesh is heir to. Amongst the crutches exhibited on the walls of St. Anne's church as memorials of marvellous cures achieved by the saint, may be seen those which Felix relin- quished at the threshold of manhood. Happier hours Felicia Avalon had, no doubt, spent in this seclusion in former years ; but never had the tranquillity of the Farm and the beauties of the neighbourhocd afforded her more refreshment than they did on the occasion of this last residence in a beloved locality. Com- ing from the unusual heat of Quebec, that had exhausted her physical powers no less com- r ' li A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 251 pletely than the peculiar agitations of a me- morable crisis in her life had broken her spirits, she experienced for the first time in her life that luxury of repose which the very young seldom derive from intercourse with nature. For months she had been overtaxing her powers by literary labour and imprudent indulgence in the social diversions of the city. The excitements that accrued to her from the startling success of her first book, and the poignancy of her secret sorrow for poor little Millicent Lacroix, had already done much to shatter her nerves, when pangs of remorse for the unwomanly vio- lence of her conduct to Major Tilbury, and dis- tressing apprehensions of evil results from her rash demeanour, reduced her to a condition of ill-health that rendered change of scene a ne- cessity for her. Before Dr. Renouf ordered her off to the Chaumonts' farm, Felix had decided that not another week should elapse ere he car- ried her off to their choice restmg-place. The exclamations of joy and gratitude that escaped from her lips as the big bay horse closed a fatiguing journey by draggiLg her carriage * i 252 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. slowly up the narrow road past St. Anne's church, satisfied Felix that he had taken the best course for her recovery. " This pure, quiet, blessed, lovely place !" she exclaimed, as tears of subduing joy came into her eyes. "In thref^ days I shall be strong again, and at peace ill my heart." And so far as outward signs indicated the state of her feelings, the remedy gave her serenity and contentment in less than that time. At the farm, when her brother had returned to Quebec after a night's rest, she enjoyed the solitude for which she yearned. The parlour of the homestead was her private sitting-room, which her hostess — old Madame Chaumont, a prim, cleanly, taciturn body — never cared to enter, unless her guest specially invited her to do so. Her large, airy bedroom, furnished with antique furniture, commanded a superb view of rock and cataract, glen and forest ; and as she lay in bed the fresh air came to her from the valley, laden with the perfumes of a contigu- ous garden. Besides Felicia and the two fe- ir'^^e servants of the form, Madame Chaumont, il A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 253 '.A incessantly busy in her dairy and kitchen, was the only woman in the establishment. The other members of the family — Michel Chaumont, his two sons, and the two male helps — were out upon the farm from early morn till late even- ing ; so that Sunday was the only day in the week when Felicia found an opportunity to ex- change sociable words with the three farmers, who, notwithstanding their clannish affection for "the Colonel's daughter," and their approval of her pleasant address, were too shy in her company, and too much in awe of so elegant and stately a lady, to weary her with too much of their society on the day of rest. Felicia was therefore at liberty to enjoy her loneliness, and she made the most of the privilege. She sauntered about the village, when agri- cultural labour had taken its inhabitants from their dwellings. Entering the church, she in- spected the votive tablets and relics, and amongst them her brother's discarded crutchetj, and the inscribed marble that recorded Foxe Avalon's thankfulness for his cure. Now from this point and now from that, now reclining on .1 :■•. 254 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. a green bank in the valley, and now perched upon a ledge of rock on the height, she feasted her eyes on the dazzling whitenesB of the tum- bling rapids, and caught to her soul the exqui- site harmonies faintly audible beneath the tumultuous roar of the never-resting cataracts. At other times she sauntered in the woods, where the voices of birds, the hum of insects, or the quick steps of frightened animals, were the loudest interruptions of the tranquillizing stillness. Or she would sit for an hour at a time on the large garden-chair, under the big pear-tree in the Chaumonts' garden, watching the autumnal purple and crimson deepen upon the sides of the glen. After deriving from her retirement all the benefits which she had hoped to gain from the change of scene and circumstance. Fay Avulon protracted her sojourn at the Chaumonts' farm for several weeks, under the influence of increasing delight in the beauties of the country, and of a nervous apprehension that a return to the Fair- meii would be injurious to her spirits. Once a week Felix drove over from Quebec and passed A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 255 a night at the farm ; and when Fay had spent three weeks in seclusion, Miss Messurier jour- neyed from the city to St. Anne's Falls, and be- came the companion of her grand-niece for a full fortnight. Ten days having elapsed since Aunt Messurier s return to Quebec, Felix took up his abode at the Chaumonts', where he had made arrangements to pass his customary autumn holiday of a clergyman's fortnight. Felicia Avalon, therefore, was not left too much to herself, though solitariness was the prevaihng condition of her happy existence in the house- hold on the hill. And the restful solitude, broken by occasional society, and relieved by agreeable news from the great world beyond her retreat, was a de- licious and invigorating experience to the sensi- tive and thoughtful womaji, who passed much of her companionless time in exercising the art of the painter in water-colours, and an equal portion of her leisure in reading letters and newspapers, or in " meditating a scheme fur another literary enterprise. English papers in- formed her that ''The Mother Country" was I'l Ik 256 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. regarded in London as a worthy sequel to " Marjory Gatkin ;" and critics on both sides of the Atlantic encouraged the anonymous author to persevere in a vocation for which she had shown herself to possess special faculties. More than once Felix had suggested that he should like to have her back again at the Fairmead ; and as often Fay, with unacci stomed selfish- ness, had been wilfully deaf to his intimations. Some nervous instinct, some vague prevision of coming disaster, warned her to delay her re- turn to Quebec, as a movement that would be fraught with disappointments and vexations to her. And yet, in spite of this undercurrent of undefinable fear, she was happy in her employ- ments, her meditations, and her plans for the future. During the last three weeks of her stay at the farm, she seldom thought of Major Tilbury, or of those incidents of their intercourse on which she could not reflect without blushing for herself. At length, however, the time came when the return could no longer be delayed. Felix had made his last journey over from the Fairmead A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 257 for the purpose of conveying her back to Quebec; and the carriage for her homeward journey was standing at the door of the farm-house, laden with her luggage, of which the most valuable item in her eyes was the folio of sketches, ex- ecuted in her peculiar style of brilliant and au- dacious colouring, that were destined to be lost in a catastrophe which the future had in store for her. "Good-bye, dear Madame Chaumont; many, many thanks to you for all the kindness you have shown to me !" Fay Avalon exclaimed, as she pressed her lips to the bronzed cheek of her landlady, with that cordial affectionateness and absence of petty pride that made her popular with the humbler people of Quebec, and caused Nora Maccarthy to maintain that Miss Avalon of the Fairmead was just the sweetest-tempered cratur that the Lord had ever put in shoe- leather. Fay had another kiss— one no less cordial, though less effusive, than her parting salute to Madame— for Madame's husband; and, having thus warmly paid her adieux to her host and VOL. I. g 258 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. liostess, she gave "Cousin Henri" and "Cousin Francois " such a hearty grip to the hand, and such an irradiating smile, that after watching Fay Avalon's carriage till it was out of sight, those shy and awkward young French-(Janadian8 went off to their farm-work, pleasantly regard- ing themselves as no ordinary fellows, since they had for a cousin so superb and queenly a woman as " the Colonel's daughter." The setting sun was illuminating the tinned roofs of Quebec, and clothing them with a glit- tering brightness when, towards the close of one of those delicious days which the Canadians look for in the beginning of November — during the " Indian summer ;'" che Canadian equivalent of our " St. Luke's little summer " — Fay Avalon returned to her native city, after her prolonged sojourn at the farm near the Falls. Another half-hour, and her carriage turned into theFairmead gate, betwixt trees utterly stripped of the crimson leaves that a few weeks earlier had given them the brilliant gorgeousness which no words can bring with adequate vividness before the imagination of the reader who has never HP A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 251) exulted over the blazing splendours of the Canadian autumn. " Here we are, Fay, back again," Felix ex- claimed, joyfully, as he leaped from the car- riage, and prepared to assist his sister to alight — " back again at our hajDpy home." " God grant that it may still be our happy home !" Fay implored, mentally, as the black- ness of profound melancholy leaped upon her with terrifying suddenness. • A .. -^1 ■'^\ s2 260 i CHAPTER XV. SOCIETY DISAPPROVES OF THE AVALONS. "If" ANY days had not passed after their return •^■^ from the Falls when P^elix and his sister were informed by several significant circum- stances that some influence was at work that tended to lower them in the regard of their fellow-citizens, and even to beget coldness between them and several of their oldest and most familiar friends. Though he had not been long in priest's orders, Felix had acquired considerable reputa- tion as a popular preacher, and had drawn to his church, in a humble quarter of the city, several families that had their residences in dis- tant and fashionable localities. Partly because he was "Foxe Avalon's boy," and partly be- A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 261 cause they appreciated rightly the earnestness of his delivery and the excellence of his ser- mons, some of the principal personages of Quebec had relinquished their sittings in the Protestant cathedral, and become regular mem- bers of his congregation, very much to the gratification of the young man, who had taken ^possession of his pulpit with some fear that he should experience the proverbial fate of pro- phets daring enough to prophesy in their own country. Of course it was vexatious to him to see these extra-parochial adherents fall away from him, and resume their foix.ier places in the chief church. It was yet more painful to him to remark that some of the principal Church of England residents in his district withdrew from his congregation. How was he to account for this change? There had been no disturbance at school-meeting or vestry-meeting to which the manifest ill-feeling could be attributed. He had changed in no particular since his popu- larity was complete. He had been just as as- siduous as ever in the performance of his duties, ill Mil II Hi 262 A WOMAN IX SPITE OF HERSELF. and certainly had given utterance to no opinions that were calculated to offend his people. What distressed hira even more than the signs of dis- affection was the frigid reserve which he en- countered whenever he tried to ascertain from the deserters their reason for withdrawing from his church. "What can this mean, Mr. Mangrove?" he inquired frankly of his churchwarden, a tall, pompous, phlegmatic man, for whom, in spite of several disagreeable qualities, Felix entertained much respect. " It means, sir," said Mr. Mangrove, " that some of your old hearers don*t wish to sit under you any longer." " But why don't they wish to remain in my congregation ?" " It must be, sir, because they are disposed to go elsewhere." " But, my dear Mr. Mangrove, they must have discovered some grounds for looking upon me with positive disapprobation. Can't you do me the great service of telling me how I have unconsciously offended them ?" A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. tUVA "Surely, sir, it would be better for you to ank them yourself." "I have asked them," roflponded Felix, with depressiou and annoyance that he had no motive for concealing, " and they repulse me as you do." With an irritating accession of pomposity, Mr. Mangrove rejoined, '* Then it would ill-be- come me, sir, in my official position, to gossip about their opinions, which it is clear they wish to keep to themselves." The next morning, the Reverend Felix Avalon found on his breakfast-table the following note from his churchwarden, who lived within a stone's tlu'ow of the young clergyman's church, and more than a mile from the Anglican Cathe- dral : — " The General Stores, *' Dauphine Street, Quebec. " Reverend Sir, " In consequence of circumstances with respect to which I am advised not to make any precise statement, I have determined, after much deliberation and searching of my con- science, to separate myself and family from H '* « 8 ] 14 264 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. your congregation, and to attend the services of the Cathedral Church. On the expiration of my present year of office, I therefore trust that you will provide yourself with another occupant of the office to which you paid me the compli- ment of inviting " Your very obedient servant, " Jonas Mangrove." " What can it mean ?" exclaimed Felix, re- peating to his sister the question that he had put on the previous day to the stately Mr. Mangrove. " We must have an enemy," Felicia observed in a low voice. •' Yes, an enemy hath done this thing," as- sented Felix, in a tone particularly afflicting tc his sister, whose conscience had suggested to her that the unknown enemy might prove to be herself. On the evening of the same day, Felix and his sister attended the first of the Winter j^ssemblies at Payne's Hotel, in the Place d' Amies, to which of course the Assemblies' Com- RHIH wmm. , re- had Mr. A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 2G5 mittee had sent them the ordinary tickets of admission. It was an nnusually brilliant and crowded assembly; and for the first time in her life Felicia spent an evening in a ball-room without being- solicited on all sides by persons wishing to dance with her. She did not dance more than five times during the entire enter- tainment, and her partners, though gentlemen of respectability, were not persons of the best position. The officers of the garrson were pre- sent in full force, but no one of them asked her to dance. It was, of course, obvious that she was cut by the garrison ; tlir.t the officers of all the services resented her rejection of Major Tilbury, and were bent on "putting her down." Yet worse, by the favour exhibited to Major Tilbury by the ladies of every " set" in Quebec, it was obvious that he had risen in social esteem as much as she had fallen. There were other signs that the animosity against her was not confined to military circles. Poor old TTiss Messurier, on duty as her niece's chaperon, was in a fume and fret, until the arrival of the Fairmead carriage put an end to the sharpest i^i 266 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. '..1 4 1 r i *- ! part of her puuishment. '' What have you been doing to make yourself shunned?" tlie aged gentlewoman inquired with startling vehemence so soon as she had taken her place in her car- riage. " Some mad freak of yours, Felicia, has rendered you notorious?" Leaving the exasperated lady at her house in the town, Felix and his sister returned to their suburb, and did not exchange twenty words, until they were once again within the walls of the Fairmead.. " Is there a good fire in the library, Martha ?" were P'elicia's first words, when she had re- entered the house, on which the snow w*a8 ftxlling. " A good fire," Martha answered. " Then be off to bed, nursie. Your master and I are going to have a chat; and, as w^e shall be late, I won't keep you up." Not a little surprised at the unexpected dis- missal, Martha retired ; and as soon as she had disappeared, her mistress said quickly, " Come into the library, Felix ; I must make a confes- sion to vou before 1 e:o to bed. You must J' go f f; A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 267 know all. I have been very wrong to have secrets from you." Whereupon Felix followed her into the library, and having closed the door of the apartment, seated himself before the blazing fire. " Put an end to my astonishment and per- plexity as quickly as possible," he entreated, " for, you may believe me, they are very pain- ful." Without delay Fay Avalon, having seated herself midway between the fire and the lamp that stood on the library table, told him the whole story of her treatment of Major Tilbury, not omitting the particulars of the suffering and death of Millicent Lacroix. Reserving nothing of the truth, which it caused her inexpressible embarrassment and shame to reveal, she told him all the facts respecting her intercourse with the man whose influence, she had no doubt, was the cause of the slights she had endured at the Assembly. As she uttered the last words of her confes- sion, a burning blush imparted to her delicate cheek and grand countenance a glow that, II r i 268 A WOMAN IX SPITE OF HERSELF. •SE|i nli f-gH|flB^B^B * 1 ■ m in spite of its intensity, was strangely beautify- ing ; and ere the colour had passed ar/ay, her agitation was increased by the startling enthu- siasm with which her auditor declared his ad- miration of the condiict that threatened to oc- casion both of them enduring trouble. "You noble, glorious Fay!" the >oung man exclaimed, after h^ had risen from his chair, and taken up his position where he could smooth his darling's dark tresses, and, whilst thus strok- ing her into composure, could kiss her fore- hea'd. "Don't, don't forgive me," the woman en- treated, as though she were a school-girl, and Felix her father, " till you have scolded me. I have behaved impetuously, wi"^\igly, wickedly. I have brought disgrace on myself, and compro- mised you. I thought only of myself and my own indignation, when I persuaded myself that I was avenging grandly the wrongs perpetrated against the dead girl; and when, instead of giv- ing rein to my resentment, I ought to have reflected how my action would affect you " " Nonsense, darling ! Don't fret about the I ^V^i'^i/hi,- . A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 269 disagreeable consequeiiccs of your righteous be- haviour. You have done grandly, Fay — oh, gloriously !— and if your action is destined to bring some trivial anr.oyances upon me, I shall think them a cheap price to pay for the chastise- ment which you have inflicted on that unutter- able rascal I My instinctive repugnance to the fellow is justified." "But you shan't suffer, Felix," Fay cried, impetuously. " The world is on his side now, because it knows nothing of his atrocious con- duct. I am not afraid of him, now that you have forgiven me; and since it can do poor Millie Lacroix no harm now to publish her tale of woe, it shall be published more precisely than it is narrated in "The Mother Country." Rather than let him escape the infamy which he merits, I will avow myself the author of that work, and tell the world that he is the real Colonel Con- grevc, and that I humiliated him because he murdered Millicent with false words and vile deeds." " You must do no sud: auig," Felix inter- posed, gravely. W . i II '.a^ «^. .■* l^ 270 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. Wi ■ 'i;i 1 ■■ 1 ■■■ j'li, li; 1 .} m ■ ■:■;'!' %'.A ')•■ *!i> ■>i!:ii "Why not r " Rely on my judgment now," Felix urged, with increasing seriousness. " Yes, yes, dear, I will be obedient. Don't fear that I will be headstrong again, or bring more trouble on you by fresh folly." " How can you prove your accusations against him r " Millicent told me — on her death-bed." "Ay, on her death-bed. She i's no longer alive to demonstrate his guilt by testimony that he could not upset." " She told her aunt, too." " No doubt ; but he can reply to you and her aunt, ' Either through the art of her betrayer, or such mental disturbance as frequently ensues on the commission of the crime which she ac- knowledged herself to have committed, the un- happy girl was the victim of delusion.' He would not question the accuracy of your report of the girfs words. It would be enough for him to say that the girl's words were false — none the less untrue because they iuqDosed on you and a near female relative." A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 271 " Why, Felix, I saw the letters he wrote to her." " Have you copies of them ?" " No." "And you returned the originals to him?" Fay Avalon's countenance fell. She saw at once the shrewdness and justice of her brother's view of Major Tilbury's position ; and even in the chagrin which the new discovery occasioned her, she admired the clearness of her brother's observation, and the conciseness of the language in which he had demonstrated her inability to fix on xMajor Tilbury the obloquy of his crime. " We must be quiet, and act as though the change in the world's demeanour did not great- ly affect us. Many unpleasantnesses may come to us from this awk',vard affair ; — we must en- dure them with composure and dignity. Slan- der may for a brief while withdraw from us the affection of our friends ;— our lives must disr redit the evil reports ; we must live calumnv down, and vanquish our enemy by rigliteous behavi- our. j> " But, darling, brave Feiix, it is so hard that i ta .f !i i-l: I Hi K ■ ! 272 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. you should suffer on account of my indiscretion and folly." " I shan't suffer much through them," Felix put in stoutly, " though it is possible that Major Tilbury will try to damage me, in order that he may make you repent your splendid scorn of him. And, mind you. Fay," he added, in an- other tone, " I have yet to ascertain that the disturbance in my congregation is due to their disapprobation of you, or their sympathy for this profligate soldier. How our father. Fay, abhorred the fellows of whom this disgusting man is a specimen !" " There can be nothing else to account for the behaviour of your congregation." " It is incredible that my people have no better reason for drawing away from me than sympathy with Major Tilbury — than interest in the love-affairs of an officer of whom they know nothing more creditable than that he is a good heavy-weight steeplechase rider. Depend upon it, my dear, there is some mischief brewing that we have not discovered at present. Perhaps I have been guilty of some foolhardiness, and in m A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 273 a fortnight's time shall find myself bound to repay your confidence with a corresponding confession of error. I haye not, that I am aware of, incensed any young lady by forbear- ing to make her an offer." " Don't laugh, Felix ; this is no laughing matter," Fay entreated. " I won't cry over these transient troubles, if I can have my will. Of course we have good reason to be vexed, irritated, indignant. But don't magnify the evil." "For myself;" urged Fay, "I should not care, come whatever may come. But it will torture me beyond my measure of fortitude to know that you are writhing under the evil falsehoods that people-not malicious, heartless people, but our own old friends— will whisper about me." " Let any man dare to speak an evil word of you in my hearing !" Felix exclaimed fiercely, as he drew himself to the full height of his sHght frame. The thought that idle tongues would pre- sume to traduce his sister fired the blood of VOL. I. 274 A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. '.,.■1 the young clergyman, who was a soldier's son, and had a soldier's heart, though it had pleased heaven to make him something weaker in body than a not strong woman. For a few seconds he was so incensed, that his flashing eyes and dilated nostrils accorded ill with his religious vocation. " If they do speak ill of me, even in your hearing," Fay observed quietly and sadly, " you must endure it meekly. It will be a hard trial for you, dear. Oh I the courage of the priest is far finer than the courage of the sol- dier ! The soldier has only to resent wrongs manfully ; the priest must endure them uncom- plainingly. The man of war performs his duty in resisting, the man of Christian service must often accomplish it by yielding to, his adver- saries.'* The reproof— for it was a reproof, though it was uttered so tenderly and admiringly — was seasonable, and had the desired effect. Leav- ing him as quickly as it had taken possession of him, the young man's fury subsided, and passed away whilst his sister was still remind- •:1vt| i;'l?i!<;^ Photographic Sciences Corporation ^yj'k rv^ '<> 73 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 11580 (716) 872-4503 w. '* < 276 CHAPTER XVI. GOSSIP AND COUNSEL. in VERY day now brought some fresh annoy- -^ ance, that increased Felix Avalon's concern for his sister, and confirmed him in the opinion that sympathy for Major Tilbury was not the only cause of the ill-feeling manifested to him- self and Felicia by the commonalty of Quebec, and by persons of the best standing in the city. The seceders from his congregation grew in number. The subscribers to his schools began to send him notices of their intention to dis- continue their subscriptions. Tradesmen who had known him from his boyhood, and had been in the habit of waiting for his salutations on seeing him come down their streets, now bftgan to avoid his conversation, by returning into A WOMAN IN SPITE OF HERSELF. 277 their shops on observing him at a distance. If he follower" them into their stores, they were cautious, taciturn, or absolutely discourteous. They were very busy, had accounts to inspect, had to write letters for the next post. If he wished to communicate anything of importance, they would prefer him to write his wishes, and not trouble himself tp call upon them. From none of these obviously indignant householders and men of business could he get a satisfactory answer when he asked them if he had done anything to offend them. Two or three of them gave his inquiry the singular response, " Done anything to offend me, sir? I am not quite sure. Time will show." Mr. Quex, of the Market Place, in the Upper Town, was more civil and considerate than most of his fellow-tradesmen, though, as it ap- peared in due course, he had especially strong reasons for regarding Felix and Felicia Avalon with disfavour. Quex was a man of sterling worth, generous in his emotions, and remark- able for fidelity to his associates. He was one of those exceptional characters whose gratitude i| II r.Hn iV' ' ' 7. . n •■.(■^ 111 M. If il it,; f ri.,