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To be obtained from «11 Ironmongers, Stores, etc., or GOURMET ft CO., Mount neasant, LOKDON, W.O SsHd/Qr eur PamthttI ^" Homt Ntastaries," PtttFrtl, •ff a Blair asked, looking up at him from her seat with inquiring wonder. Armitage paused a moment, and perused his boots. It's BO liard for a fellow to be Eounced upon like that for a definition off- and. " Well, a scallywag," he answered, leaning his back, for moral support, against the big euc&lyptus-tree beside which he stood, " a sc&Uywag, I should say, well— well, is — why, he's the sort of man, you know, you wouldn't like to be seen walking down Piccadilly with." ** Oh, I see t " Nea exclaimed, with a bright little laugh. " You mean, if you were walkmg down Piccadilly yourself in a frock-coat and shiny tall hat, with an orchid from Bull's stuck in your button-hole 1 Then I think, Mr. Armitage, I rather like scallvwags." Madame Geriolo brouglit her eyes (and eye- S lasses) back from space, where they had been rmly fixed on a point in the heavens at an infinite distanje, and ejaculated in mild and solemn surprise : " But why, my dear Nea ? " *' Oh, because, Madame, scallywags are always by far the most interesting people in the world. They're so much more likely to be original and amusing than all the rest of us. Arusta and authors, for example, are almost alwMTS soallywags." " what a gross libel on two liberal profes- sions I " Armitage put in, with a shocked ex- pression of face. He dabbled in water-colours as an amateur himself, and therefore considered he was very nearly implicated in this wholesale condemna- tion of art and literature. " As far as I'm concerned," Madame Ceriolo said with angelic softness, re-arranging her pinoe-nee, "I hate originality. And I'm not very fond of artists and authors. Why should people wish to be different from th:iir fellow- Christians?" " Who is it you're calling a scallywag, any way ? " Isabel Boyton asked from her seat beyond with her clear American accent. If Madame Ceriolo was going to start an abstract disenssion on an ethical question of wide extent, Isabel meant, with Philadelphian practicality, to nail her down at ^once to the matter in hand, and resolutely resist all attempts at diKression. " Why, this new man, Gasooyne," Armitage drawled out in answer, annexing a vacant chair t'ust abandoned by a fai, old Frenchman in the lackground by the ca/^, and seating himself opposite them. "It's a good name — Oascoyne," Nea sug- gested, quietly. "Yes, indeed," Miss Boyton echoed, w' h American promptitude. " A first-rate name. I've read it in a history-book." " But a good name doesn't count for much nowadays,' Madame Ceriolo interposed, and then straightway repented her. Anybody can assume a good name, of course ; but surely ahe was the last person on earth who ought to have called attention, just then, to the facility of the asstunption. For did she not print a ooontess's coronet on the top of her own caxd on no better title ? and was not her vogue in Bivierian Society entirely due to her personal assertion of her relationship to the Geriolos of Gastel Ceriolo, in the Austrian Tyrol ? "Well, he's a nice-looking young fellow enough," Nea added, pleading his cause with warmth, for she had committed herself to Mr. Gasooyne's case now, and she was quite deter- mined he should have an invitation. " Besides, we're awfully short of gentle- men," Isabel Boyton put in sharply. " I haven't seen him, hut a man's a man. I don't care whether he is a scallywag or not, I mean to go for him." And she jotted dorvn the name on her list at once, without waiting to hear Madame Ceriolo for the prosecution. It was seasonable weather at Mentone, for the 20th of December. The sky was as cloud- lessly blue as July, and from the southern side of the date-palms on the Jardin Public, where they all sat basking in the warm rays of the sun, the great jagged peaks of the bare mountains in tiie rear showed distinct and hard against a deep sapphire background. A few hundred feet below the summi^< of one of the tallest and most rugged, the i uined walls of the Saracen fortress of Sant' Agnese just caught the light ; and it was to ibat airy plat- form that Nea and Isabel proposed their joint pictiio for the twenty-fourth — the day before Christmas. And the question under debate at that particular moment was simply this — who should be invited by the two founders of the feast f eaoh alternately adding a name to her own list, according to fancy. "Well, if you take Mr. Gasooyne," Nea '^' to THE SCALLYWAG. €:■ ■aid, with a faint air of disappointment at losing her guest, "J shall take Mr. Thistle- ton." And she proceeded to inscribe him. " But, Nea, my dear," Madame Geriolo broke in with an admirable show of maternal solicitude, " wbb is Mr. Gascoyne, and who is Mr. Thistleton ? I think we ought to make sure of that. I haven't even heard their names before. Are they in Society ? " " Oh, they're all right, I guets," Isabel Boyton answered briskly, looking up much amused. "Momma was talking to them on the promenade yesterday, and she says she apprehends Mr. Thistleton's got money, and Mr. Gascoyne'd got brains if he ain't <^ot family. They can just come right along. Don't you be afraid, Madame." " Your momma's opinion is very reassuring, no doubt," Madame Geriolo continued drily, as one who liked not the security, and in a voice that half mimicked Isabel's frank American- ism; "but still, as being in charge of dear Kea's conduct and society while she remains at Mentone, I should prefer to feel certain, before we commit ourselves to inviting them, exactly who these young men are. The fact that they're stopping at a decent hotel in the town is not in itself sufficient. Such very odd people get into good hotels on the Biviera sometimes." And Madame Ceiiolo, moasuring Isabel through her eyeglasses with a stony stare, drew herself up \vith a poker-dr.wn-her-back air, in perfect imitation of the stereotyped British matronly exclusiveness. The fact was, having acoeptnd the post of chaperon-companion to Nea Blair for the winter, Madame Oeriolo was laudably anrious to perform her part in that novel capacity with strict propriety and attention to detail; but, never having tried her hand at the pro- prieties in her life before, and being desirous now of observing them to the utmost letter of the law — if anything, she rather over-did it than otherwise. " Now, Mr. Armitage," Nea said mis- chievoucly, " it's you who're responsible for t^a woman of forty as you would wiib to see our original introduction to the scallywag and macross a table d'hdte at dinner any day.' " " ^ "ir they're really Oxford men, and yonr fact, as a cosmopolitan and a woman of the world, that she always thought to herself in French or German, and translated aloud, as it were, into English. It called attention now and ngain in passing to what casual observers might otherwise have overlooked — her Tyro- lose origin and her Parisian training. '* And Gascoyne, the scaUywag," Armitage went on reflectively. " appears to be a sort of tutor or something of the kind to the other one — Thistleton . ' ' Madame Ceriolo's back collapsed altogether. " An Oxford tutor ! " she cried, smiling most genially. " Why, that's quite respectable. The pink of propriety. Tout ce qu'il y a de plus comme il faut t Nothing could be more proper." " I don't think he's exactly a tutor — not in the sense you mean," Armitage continued hastily, afraid of guaranteeing the Bcallywag too far. " I think he's merely come abroad for the vacation, you know, bringing this other young fellow along with him as a private pupil, to give him a few hours' reading and accom- pany him generally. I fancy he hasn't taken his own degree yet." " Then they're both of them students still ? " Isabel Boyton interjected. " Oh my 1 Ain't that nice ! Two Oxford students 1 You always read in' English books, you know, about students at Oxford." ArmHage smiled. " We don't call them students at Oxford or Cambridge, thou^, for obvious reasons," he said, with British tolerance for Transatlantic ignorance ; " we know too well what they go there for. Miss Boyton, for that. We call them undergraduates." " vVell, undergraduates, any way," Isabel answered good-humouredly. She was accus- tomed to snubbing. " It don't much matter what you call them, I guess, as long as they're men, and come from Oxford. Are you satisfied about them now in your own mind, Madame Geriolo ? " Madame Geriolo smiled her gradotts little smile. She was as pretty and well pnQi|erved his friend. Speak up for their antecedents! You've got to account for your acquaintances to Madame." And she drew, a circle with her parasol on the gravel-path, as if to point the moral of the impossibilities of his ever escaping them. " Well, to begin with, they're Oxford men," Armitage said, clearing his throat, and looking dubiously about him. " They're both of them Oxford men." Madame Ceriolo's back relaxed somewhat. "Oh, Oxford men," she answered in an appeased voice. " That's always something." Then, after a pause, under her breath, to her- self, " Ja wohl, ja wohl I C'est toujowrs quelque chose." It was part of Madame Ceriolo's point, in momma approves of them," she replied, with just the faintest httle, undertone of malice, " I'm sure they'll be an acquisition to Mentone Society. Though I could wish that one of them was not a scallywag, if Mr. Armitage has explamed the meaning of the name he applies to him correctly." " Chut I " Armitage murmured in a gentle un-^ertone. " Talk of the devil 1— Here comes Thistleton ! " " We sav in Austria, ' Speak of an angel, and you hear ^V» rustle of her wings,'" Madame answered demurely. " C'est plus poU, notre proverbe A noun; n'est-ce pas, monsiewrf And which ia Tbis'leton? The pupil or the scallywag 7" DN WINTER QUARTERS. zi "The p^pil," Armitago whispered, in a flutter of uneasiness. "But take care — taka care. He'll see we're talking of him." " The pupil 1 C'eat Men I " Madame mused in reply. And in effect it was well; for experience and analoky led her to conclude that the pupil is usually richer in this world's goods than his master or instructcr. " Though, after all," Madame reflected to herself wisely, " it isn't always the richest people, either, you can get most out of." Her reflections, howeror, philosophical as they might be, were cut short by the arrival of the pupil himself, whom Armitage advanced to meet with friendly ri^iit hand, and pre- sented duly to the ladies of the party. " Madame Ceriolo, Miss Boyton, Miss Blair —Mr. Thistleton." The new-comer bowed. He was a blonde young man, tall, hearty, and athletic, with a complexion indicative of serious attention to beefsteak for brcukfast, and he wore a well- made knickerbocker suit that suggested im- limited credit at a West-end tailor's. Madame Ceriolo cast her keen black eyes over him ona9 ^om head to foot through those impassive gUuiAes, and summed him up men- tally at a glance to herself; manufacturing Interest, rich, good-humoured, a fool with his money, strong, handsome, Britannic — the kind of young man, in fact, whu, under other circum- stances, it might have been well for a woman of the world to cultivate. But then, dear ^ea! that excellent M.. Blair ; the Cornish rectory ; her British respectability 1 Madame drew herself up once more at the thought and bowed stiffly. " Now, Nea, say, he's yours ; you've got to ask him," Isabel Boyton remarked, after the usual formtJibien of the weather report and the bill of health had been duly exchanged by either party. "The seal " She checked herself; even Transatlantic freedom of s^ eeoh has its final limits. " Mr. Gascoyne's mine, and Mr. Thistleton'': yours, you know. So fire away, there's a dear. ' On Saturday next — the pleasure of your company.' " " What is it ? " the blonde young man asked, with a good-humoured smile. " Tennis, a hop, a diimer, a tea fight? " " Oh, dear no I only a picnic, Mr. Thistle- ton," Nea answered, blushing ; a blush through that clear, rich, olive- dusky skin is so very becoming. " Miss Boyton and I are stopping together at the ' Hdtel des Bives d'Or,' and we've got up a little entertainment of our own " ""V^th momma and Madame Ceriolo," Isabel interposed promptly, to save the con- venances. "To Sant' Agnese on the hill-top there," Nea went on, without noticmg the interrup- tion. " It's on Saturday, the twenty-fourth, the day before Christmas. Are you and Mr. Gascoyne engaged for Saturday ? " " Now, you're asking mju man. too,' Isabel put in, pretending to be vexed ; " and I was going to write him such a sweetly pretty in- vitation." "We're not engaged, so far as I'm con- cerned," Thistleton answered, seating him- self. " I shall be awfully delighted. But I'm not so sure about Gascoyne, Miss Blair. He's such a shy sort of fellow, he won't go out. However, I'll convey Miss Boyton's message to him." " But the trouble is," Isabel said, glancing seaward, " that every man Jack of us is to go ' on a donkey." " And this meeting cordially recognises the principle," Armitage put in Iroui behind, " that every man Jack of us, as Miss Boyton so charmingly phrases it, is to engage, pro- vide, hire, and pay for his own animal." "Where's Sant' Agnese?" the blonde young man inquired, looking about him vaguely. Armitage and Miss Boyton pointed it out together at once (of course in different places), and Armitage's, as a matter of fact, happened to be the right one. Such is the perversity of men, that they actually insist upon being usually accurate in these unimportant details. " Why, I could hop that lot on one foot," Thistleton exclaimed, contemptuously. "I'll walk, Miss Blair ; I don't need any donkey." "But you don't understand," Armitage answered, smiling. " The point of this par- ticular entertainment is that it's to be funda- mentally and essentially an exclusive donkey- picnic." " For which reason, Mr. Armitage, we've included you in it," Isabel remarked, paren- thetically in a stage undertone. Armitage severely ignored the cheap witticism. A man of culture can afford to ignore Pennsylvanian pleasantry. "And it would mar the harmony of the entertainment," he continued, as bland as ever, " if any of us were to insist on going up on our natural organs of locomotion." " Meaning our legs," Nea added, in explana- tion, for the blonde young man seemed help- lessly involved m doubt as to Armitage's meaning. Isabel Boyton glanced down at the ground with modest coyness. " Limbs we say in Amurrica," she mur- mured, half-audibly to herself, with a rising blush. " We are all vertebrate animals," Armitage responded, with cheerful ease. " Why seek to conceal the fact ? Well, you see, Thistleton, the joke is just this : we shall start some ten or fifteen donkey-power strong, all in a row, to scale the virgin heights of Sant' Agnese — is ' virgin heights ' permissible in America, Miss Boyton ? — and if any one of us were ignobly to walk by the side, he'd be ^king a mean advantage of all the remainder." "In short, a mean to make ourselves ridiculous in a lot," Nea said, coining to the :^% W TSfftiSJ. « za THE SCALLYWAQ. r I resene ; " and none of ns mast be less ridiculous than the main body. You oan't think what fjn it is, Mr. Thistleton, and what a cavalcade we shall make, zigzagging up and down the mountain-side like so many billy-goats I Why, fat old Mrs. Newton at our hotel 's going to eome on purpose, if she can get any donkey in Mentone strong enough to carry her." " The true philosopher," Armitage observed, sectentiously, "is never deterred from doing that which suits his own convenience by the consideration that he is at the same time afforcting an innocent amusement to other people." The blonde young man yielded with grace forthwith. " Oh, if it's nnly a case of making myself ridiculous to please the company," he said, with native good himiour, " I'm all there. It's my usual attitude. I accept the donkey and the invitation. When aid where do we start ? We must have aMndezvous." " At the gare at ten shtrp," Nea said, tick- ing him off on her list of tho apprised. " And mmd you order your donkeys well beforehand, for there'll be a brisk demand. Every donkey in Mentone *11 be in requisition for the picnic." Madame Geriolo sighed. " What a character you're giving us t " sho exclaimed lackadaisi- cally. " But never mind, my child — lajeunesse a'amuiera." And she looked as young and pretty herself when she smiled as a woman of forty can ever reasonably be expected to do. CHAPTER II. BOOM FOB THE HEBO. Ak hour later the blonde young man pursued the even tenor of his way, assisted by a cigar and swinging a stcut green orange-stick in his hand, sJong the Promenade du Midi, the main lotmge of Mentone, towards the Hdtel Conti- nental. Arrived at the gracd staircase of the palatial caravanserai, the most fashionable in the town, he leapt lightl up three steps at a time into the entrance-) ill, and calling out, l^ " Here, you, sir," in his ative tongue— for he "^^ was no bnguist — to the boy at the lift, mounted hydraulically, whistling as he went, to the second storey. There he burst into the neatly- furnished sitting-room, being a boisterous young man, most heedless of the conventions, and, flinging his hat on the table and himself into an easy chair before the superfluous fire, exclaimed in a loud and jolly voice to his com- panion: " I say, Gtascoyne, here's games to the fore I I've got aa invitation for you." His friend looked up inquiringly. "Who from?" he asked, laying down his pen and rising from his desk to sun himself in the broad flood of light by the window. * " A pretty American," Thistleton answer«d, knocking off his ash into the basket of olivfl< wood; " no end of a stunner I " "But I don't know hsr," Paul Gascoyne gasped out, with a half-terrified look. " So much the better," his companion re- torted, imperturbably. " If a lady falls over head and ears in love with you merely from seeing your manly form in the street without ever having so much as exchanged a single word with you, the compliment's a higher one, of course, tihan if she waited to learn all your virtues and accomplishments in the ordinary manner." " Dinner? ' Gascoyne asked, with a dubious glance towards his bedroom door. He was thinking how far his evening apparel would carry him unaided. " No, not dinner ; a picuic next Saturday as ever was," Thistleton replied, all unconsoious. " The ladies of the 'Bives d'Or ' invite us both to lunch with them on the green up yonder at Sant' Agnese. It's an awful lark, and the pretty American's dying to see you. She says she's heard so much about you " " A picnic t " Paul interposed, cutting him short at once, and distinctly r^HMd by learn- ing of this lesser evil. " Well^Hntresay I can let it run to a pi'^nic. That won't dip into much. But how did the ladies at the ' Bives d'Or ' ever come at all to cognise my humble existence ? " Thistleton smiled an abstruse smile. " Why, Armitage told them, I suppose," he answered, carelessly. " But do you really imagine, at the present time of day, my dear fellow, every girl in the place doesn't know at once the name, antecedents, position, and prospects, of every young man of marriageable age that by any chance comes into it ? Do you think they naven't spotted the fashionable intelligence wat two real live Oxford men are stopping a ; ' I'le ' Continental ' ? I should rather say so I Gascoyne, my boy, keep your eyes open. We've our price in the world. Mind you always remember it I " Paul Gascoyne smiled uneasily. " I wish I could think so," he murmured half aloud. "Yes, we've our price in the world," hit friend continued slowly, cigar turned down- wards and lips pursed, musing. " The eligible young man is fast becoming an extinct animal. The supply by no means equals the demand. And the result's as usual. We're at a pre- mium in Society, and, as economic units, we must govern ourselves accordingly." " Ah, that's all very well for rich men like you, Paul began, hurriedly. "Whatt do you mean to say," Thistleton cried, rising and fronting him with a jerk, "that half the women one meets wouldn't be glad to marry the son and heir of a British bar " Before he could utter the word that was gurgling in his throat, however, Gascoyne had dapped his hand upon that imprudent mouth, and cried out, in a perfect agony of disgust : "No more of that nonsense, for heaven'i ^B^ ROOM FOR THE HERO. is; Bake, Thistleton ! I hope you haven't breathed a word about it to anybody here in Mentone ? If you have, I think I shall die of shame. I'll take the very next train back to Paris, I swear, and never oome near either you or the place again as long as I live." Thistleton sat down, red-faced, but sobered. " Honour bright, not a word 1 " he answered, gazing hard at his companior. '* I've never 80 much as even alluded to it. The golden- haired Pennsylvanian was trying to pump me all she knew, I confess ; but I hstened not to the voice of the charmer, charmed she never BO wisely through her neat little nose. I resisted the s:ren like bricks, and kept my own counsel. Now, don't cut up rusty about it, there's a good, sensible fellow. If a man's father does happen to be born " But a darted look from Gascoyne cut him short once more with unspoken remonstrance, and he contented himself with pulling down his collar and flashing his shirt-cuffs to imitate in pantomime a general air of close connection with the British aristocracy. Therfr was a short pause, during which Thistleton slowly puffed his cigar, while Paul looked out of the window in meditative mood and scanned the blue bay and purple sea, with Bordighera shining white on its promontory in the distance. It would have been impossible for anybody to deny, as you saw him then, that Paul Gascoyne was essentially a scallywag. He looked the character to perfection. It wasn't merely that his coat, though carefully bi ity. Paul started at the sound, and scanned her close. His ears tingled. Was she really as innocent and harmless as she looked, or had it somehow come round to her ? — but oh, no I impossible I " Yes," he went on, quietly, without notio ing the interruption ; ' but you must be born a diuce's or an earl's or marquis's daughter, to be called Lady Isabel." Miss Boyton's coimtenance fell not a little. " Is that BO ? " she exclaimed, plaintive!}'. " You don't tell, really I Then I can't be Lady Isabel, no matter who I married ? " "No matter whom you married," Paul answered, vith the stern precision of Lindley Murray and a British Peerage in equi^l propor- tions. " Well, now, if that ain't jest too bad I " Isabel Boyton exclaimed, with deep mock pathos. " Say, Nea, Mr. Gascoyne's crushed the dream of my life. I don't care a cent to be Lady Somebody if I can't be Lady Isabel. And I can't be Lady Isabel, whoever I xuijcry. I call It jest heartrending." " Won't an honourable or a courtesy -lord do as well ? " Nea asked, laughing. " Oh ! my, no 1 " Isabel answered promptly ; though what manner of wild-beast a courtesy- lord might be she hadn't the faintest conception. "I'd most as soon go back to Philadelphia again, returned empty, and marry a stock- broker. I've made up my mind to be Lady Isabel or nothing." " Then I'm iSraid." Paul said with a faint little smile, " I can do nothing for you." " But if it were only to make her plain ' My. Lady,' now t " Nea put in laughingly. Paul laughed in return — an uneasy laugh. They had just reached one of the sudden steep ascents where the sure-footed little donkeys, straining every nerve and muscle in their stout, small legs, climb up < the bare rocks like mountain coats, with their human burdens jerking in the saiddles like so many meal-bags. " How the little beasts grimp ! " Paul cried, half surprised ; " such plucky little creatures, and so strong for their size! They're really wonderful 1 " " That's a good word — ' grimp,' " Nea answered from in front. "Is it packer English, I wonder ? " " I do admire it," Isabel Boyton replied from behind. "Here, get up, donkey. My Arab steed don't carry mci regularly." Just at that moment a loud cry of ' Ach Himmel I " resounded from the forefront of the cavalcade, where Madame Ceriolo led the way — Madame Ceriolo, even in the most trying circumstanceb, never forgot to keep up her French and German — followed next instant by a sharp "iifon Dieul gueUe m T iple, or Lady 8 jest lovely " air of perfect scanned her she really as ked, or had it -but oh, no! rithout notic ust be born a daughter, to . not a little. I, plaintively, can't be Lady ?" ,rried," Paul )n of Lindley equp-l propor- It too bad ! " deep mock yrne's crushed Eire a cent to Lady Isabel. 3ver I mijry. [urtesy-lord do •ed promptly ; st a courtesy- )st conception. Philadelphia irry a stock- 1 to be Lady with a faint r you." ler plain ' My. ngJy- ineasy laugh, sudden steep ttle donkeys, sole in their ire rocks like man burdens ny meal-bags. Paul cried, itle creatures, they're really imp," [s it " Nea packer oyton replied donkey. My rly." cry of ' Ach forefront of eriolo led the in the most ;ot to keep up oUowed next Oieu t queUe I " Paul and Armita^e followed more slowly at a little distance." iPage 23. I AT SANT* AQNESE. 17 ' affreuse polite Mtel" and the shambling, scrambling noise of a fallen donkey en- deavouring to recover itself. Paul and Arraitage were at her side in a moment, to pick up Madame Ceriolo and her unhappy mount. Madame made the most noise, but Blanchette, the donkey, had received oy far the most injury. The poor little beast's kneoB were cut and bleeding. "<7o Vai couronride, la mdchante," Madame said carelessly, and Paul saw at a glance it would be quite unable to continue the journey. It's an ill wind, however, that blows nobody good. Paul seized the opportunity to eiTect a double stroke of business — to do a politeness to Madame Ceriolo and to get rid of the onus of his own donkey. Almost before she could have a voice in the matter, or any other man of the party equally gallant or equally uncom- fortable could anticipate him, he had shifted the side- saddle from poor, patient, shivering, broken-kneed Blanchette, and transferred it forthwith to the bigger beast he himself had been riding. "Aferci, monsieur, merci ; mille renierci- menta" Madame cried, all smiles, as soon as she had recovered her equanimity and her company manners. " And you, you little brute," turning to poor Blanchette and shaking her wee gloved fist angrily in its face, " you deserve to be whipped, to be soundly whipped, for yoiir nasty temper." " The poor creature couldn't help it," Paul murmured quietly, tightening the girths ; " the road's very steep and very slippory, you can see, I don't wonder they sometimes come an awful cropper ! " "By Jove!" Aruiitage said, watching him as he fastened the buckles and bands, " what a dab you are at donkeys, really, Gascoyne ! You do it like a groom 1 you've missed your vocation." Paul coloured up to the roots of his hair. "I've been used to horses," he answered quietly. Then he turned back without another word to take his place on foot beside Nea Blair and Isabel. " Here, boy," ho called out to one of the drivers quickly, "hand me that basket : I'll take it on ; and go down to Men- tone with this poor little beast. She'll need looking after." He spoke in French fluently, and Nea turned in surprise. " Why, you said you had never been abroad before 1" she exclaimed, taken aback. "And now you talk like a regular boulevardier. Were you born Parisian, or did you acquire it by a miracle ? " "I've had great opportunities of talking French at home," Pam answered, a little em- barrassed. ' * We — a — we always had a French- woman in the family when I was a child." " A governess ? " Nea suggested. " Well, no. Not exactly a governess." " A bonne, then ? " '* N0| not QL^te a bonne, either," Paul replied truthfully. Thon, a happy thought seizing him on the moment, he continued, with truth, " She was a lady's-maid." After that he relapsed into silence for a while, freling painfully conscious in his own mind that his subterfuge was a snobbish one. For though he only meant, himself, *■- evade a difticulty, he saw at once that J..6& Blair would understand him to mean a lady's maid of his mother's. And as to the possibility of his mother having ever possessed that ornamental adjunct — why, the bare idea of it was simply ridiouloua. CHAPTER rV. AT SANT' AONESE. Once restored to the free use of his own two legs, Paul Gascoyne was himself again. As the one member of the partv, except the donkey-boys, who went afoot, he was here, there, and everywhere, in waiting upon every- body. What prodigies of valour did he not perform in hauling fat old Mrs. Newton's donkey up the steepest bits, or in slipping down round the sharpest corners to hfllp Nea Blair safely round some difficult gully 1 What use- ful services did he not lavish on the golden- haired Pennsylvanian and her shnvelled mamma, walking by their sided where the ledges were narrowest, and calming their fears where the rocks towards the slope were loosest and most landslippy! How he darted from the rear up short-cuts of the zig-zags, and appeared in front again, a hundred yards i^ead, on some isolated boulder, to encourage and direct their doubtful footsteps 1 How he scrambled over inaccessible faces of olifif to fetch some fern or flower for Nea, or to answer some abstract question as to the ultimate destination of the minor side-paths from Isabel Boyton ! He was a good climber, and he enjoyed the climb — though he feared for his old boots and his carefully-conserved trousers. The road was long — Sant' Agnese stands some three thousand feet above sea-lewl — but at every turn the views grew lovelier, and the sense of elation in the mountain air more dis- tinct and delicious. They passed from the region of olives into the zone of pine woods, and then again into that of bare white rock, scarcely terraced here and there by Provencal industry to support a few stunted vines and undersized chestnut trees. The path wound slowly up the sides of the stony ravine, and then mounted in a series of sharp elbows the sheer peak itself, to an accompaniment of cries of Franco-German distress' from Madame Ceriolo and shrill Transatlantic exclamations of horror from the golden-haired Pennsylvanian. At last they reached the goal of their pilgrim- age — a rocky platform high up the last peaks of the jagged mountain, with a gray Ligurian village just clinging to the Aopes, and almost r ' i3 THE SCALLYWAG. indUtinguiHhnble from tho still grayer wall of bare rock that rose «bovo it in Hliarp tors and wcatliur-woru chimneys against the deep blue heaven. "What a glorious view!" Nua Ulair ex- claimed, as thuy looked down unexpectedly on the northern side into a profound and naked buin of rock, at whose bottom tlie iSorrigo torrent roared and brawled amid its scattered boulders. " And what magnificent great peaks away across the valley there ! " " I guess we'd better fix up lunch on that flat piece by the chapel," Isabel Boyton re- marked with Occidental practicability, spying out forthwith tho one patdi of tolerai)ly level ground within reach of the village. Ft was a spur of the mountain, covered witli that rare object in tiio Trovenfjal Alps, a carpet of turf, and projecting from the mam range far into the semicircle of the deep rock-basin. " We'll fix it up right away," Madame Ceriolo auawerod with good-natured mimicry. Madame Ceriolo had the natural talent for languages which seems to go inseparably with the rdle of Continental adventuress, and she spoke American almost b... well and with almost as good an accent as she spoke her other alternative tongues. " If your momma and Mrs. Newton 11 set themselves down right here, and make themselves comfortable, Mr. (^ascoyne and I will jest unpack the baskets. Come along here, Nea, we want you to help us. Miss Boyton, you get the plates and things ready, will you ? " For a few minutes they were busy arranging everything, Armitage, the blonde young man, and Paul rendering all due assistance ; and Paul was aware in an indefinite way that Madame Ceriolo was somehow anxious to keep him o£F as much as possible from tho golden- haired Pcnnsylvanian. But as this gave him the opportunity of conversing more with Nea, and as, duty to the contrary notwithstanding, he very much preferred Nea to the heiress of Pactohm, he by no means resented Madame's obvious anxiety in this respect. On tho contrary, he salved his conscience with the reflection that it was ^lodame rather than inclination that kept him away from the lady of the golden hair and prospects. Such a picnic as that December morning's Paul had never before borne a part in. There were dishes from liumpclmayor's, cunningly compounded of aspic and olives, whose very names he had not so nmch as heard, but whereof the rest of the party, more instructed in cookery, talked qnite glibly. There were curious salads, and garnishings of crayfish, and candied fruits and prstry and nougat of artistio Hianufaoture. There was much cham- pagne, and vintage clarets, and Asti mouaaeux for those who liked it sweet, and green char- treuse poured from a Gantagalli bottle. For though the pionio was nominally a joint afiair of Nea's and the American's, it was Isabel Boyton who contributed the lion's share of the material proriaion, which she insisted upon doing with true Western magaificonoo. The lunch was so goot o^en the beauties of nature wont unnoticed by com- parison. Tliey had hardly time to look at tlie gliiiipife of calm blue sea disclosed between the ridges of serrated peaks, tho green br.sking valleys that smiled a couple of thoiiHaiid fcut below, with their orange and lemon groves, or the flood of sunshiiie that poured in full force upon tiie mouldering battlements of tho grim and wasted Alps in front of them. After lunch, however, Pa"! somehow found himself seated on the slope cf the hill with Nea. They had discussed n»<4ny things — Mentone and the view, and the fiowers, and the village — and Nea had jiiHt told him the strange old legend of tho castle that (flings to the topmost peak — how it was founded by a Baracen, who levied tax and toll on all the Christian folk of tho country round, and finally became converted to the faith of Europe by the beautiful eyes of a peasant-girl, whose charms had enslaved him, when suddenly sho came back plump to the nineteenth century witli the point-blank question : " Where do you live when you're at home, Mr. Gas- . coyne ? " | " In Surrey," Paul answered vaguely, grow- ing uncomfortably hot. " Surrey's a big address," Nea Blair answered, pulling a tiny rock-rose from a cranny in the precipice. "Any particular part — or do you occupy the county generally ? " Paul laughed, but not with quite a gracious laugh. "About twenty - live miles from London," he answered, with evasive vague- ness. " I've lots of friends in Surrey," Nea went on innocently, unconscious of the mental pangs she was carelessly inflicting on him. " Do you know Hillboroutii ? " "Why, that's just where I live," Paul answered, with a suopressed start. " Dear me ; how funny I haven't mot you 1 " Nea exclaimed in surpriae. " I'm always down at Ilillborough stopping with the Ilamiltons." " Indeed 1" Paul responded in a very dry voice. "You must know tho Hamiltons," Noa persisted, all innocence. " Sir Arthur Hamil- ton, of tho Grange, at Hillborough. He u^cd to be Governor of Madras, you know, or somewhere." " I know them by name, of course," Paul admitted uneasily. " But not personally ? " " No, not personally. We— a— wo move in diflerent circles." " Then you must know the Boyd- Galloways," Nea w«nt on interrogatively. "Only by sight. I haven't any largo acquaintance at Hillborough." "The Jacksons?" " Colonel Jackson I somotimos see, it's trao ; AT SANT' AaNBSi^. 19 inntsted upon llcoiioo. Tho >>t oven the cod by com- ,0 luol; at tlie I botwooti tlio rcon br.skiiig a055IP. i I rftor the picnic, on the Promenade du Midi, very stitT from their ride, and full of mutual notes of last night's ontorlniniucnt. Madame Coriolo ttiiiiled lior conventional ■mile, aa iha repliod obliciuoly : " And yet the other one— Jc ne me rappello ])lu» ion «om— oh yoB. Mr. Tliistloton : he's very aKrcoablo too, and probably, I should say, an excellent iiarti," "Oh, he ain't much," Isabel Boyton answered with Yankee directnoai. " He's a lot too like a piece of putty I'or mo. Of course, he's a fine big boy, and pretty nice to look at ; but tlioro'H nothing in him. I'm down on mind, I am, and the scallywag's got throe times as much of that as Mr. Thistleton." " He's clover, I think," Nea assented, with a nod. " Oh, you needn't talk, Nea," the American put in with a mock-injured air. " I call it real mean, the way you walked off with my young man that I'd invited on purpose for my own amusement, and loft me to talk half tho day to that pappy, sappy, vappy, big Englishman, with no more conversation in his six feet six than a ship's figuroltoad. It was jest down- right ugly of hea, wasn't it, momma ? " Mrs. Toyton was a dried-up old lady of the mummified American order — there are two classes of American old ladies : the plentiful and the very skimpy — wL" seldom contributed much to the interchange of thought, save when her daughter called upon her to confirm her own opinion; and she murmured now dutifully : •' If you asked him for yourself, Izzy, you'd a right to his aUontions; but, perhaps, he most thrust bimjolf upon Miss Blair." "He was very kind and attentive to us all," Nea answered. "In fact, he did more than anybody else to make everything go off smoothly." " I can't find out who the dickons he is. though," Armitage broke in with a sigh. Ho was an old habittid of the Biviera, and had imbibed all the true Bivieran love for scandal- mongering and inquisitiveness. " He beats me quite. I never was so utterly nonplussed in all my life. I've tried my hardest to draw him out, but I can get nothing out of him. He shifts, and evades, and prevaricates, and holds his tongue. He won't be pumped, however skilfully you work the handle." And Armitage fiung himself back in a despairing attitude. Nea smiled. "That's not unnatural," she remarked in parenthesis. "The worst of it is, though, the other fellow's just as reticent as he is," Armitage went on, unheeding her. " Not about himself, I don't mean — that's all plain sailing : Thistle- ton pire'a a master cutler at Sheffield, who manufactures razors by appointment to Her Majesty (odd implements for Her Majesty t) and is as rich as they make them — but about this man Oasooyno, whom you call 'the scally- wag ' " "Oh, say I " Isabel Boyton interposed fniiikly, " if that ain't real good now I It was you yourself that taught us tho word — wo Innocent lambs had never even hoard of it— and now you want to go and father it upon us 1 " " Well, anyhow, Gaspoyne seems to have put Tliistleton up to it to keep all dork, for when I tried to pump hun about his tutor he shutd his big nioutt:, and looks shoepislily foolish, and can't be got to say a single word about liim." " What was that Mrs. Newton was saying to you yesterday about there being a Hit Sonio- uody Gascoyne somowiiere down in South Wales '? " Madame Coriolo asked with languid interest. I'ur a foreigner, born and bred abroad, Madame Ceriolo's acquaintanoo with English life and iOngUsh topography was certainly something quite surprising. But then, you see, her dear mamma, as she was careful always to explain to strangers, was English born — the daughter of a dean and niece of a viscount. Very well connected person on every side, little Madame Ceriolo 1 And a dean is such a capital card to play in Society. " Oh, there was a Sir Emery Gascoyne at Gascoyne Manor, down near Haverfordwest," Armitage explained glibly; "a very rich old gentlemen of sensitive tastes and peculiar opinions. I stopped there once when I was an undergraduate. Hplendid old place — Eliza- bethan house — delightful park — square miles of pheasants; but ill-temnered, very. If this young fellow's related to him — his next-of-kin, heir-at-law, executor, assign, and so forth — now's your chance. Miss Boyton, to pick up that English title I heard you say yesterday you'd sot your susceptible American hear upon." The golden - haired Fennsylvanian smiled resignedly. "It can never — never — never be Lady Isabel," she observed with pathos. " And yet I feel somehow like running a coronet." " I don't think Mr. Gascoyne can be in any way connected with these Pembrokeshire people," Nea Blair put in, without the slightest intention of contributing at all to the general gossip. " He told me his family lived in Surrey — and," she added, after a moment's faint hesi- tation, " he implied they were by no means either rich or distinguished." " In Surrey ? Where — where ? " urged a general chorus, in which Armitage's voice and Madame Ceriolo's were by far the most con- spicuous. "I don't know whether I ought to say," Nea answered simply. " I dragged it out of him rather, and he told me in confidence." "Oh, if its got to telling you things in con- fidence already," Armitage retorted with a meaning smile, '* I wouldn't for worlds dream of enquiring any further into the matter. Eh, Madame Ceriolo« What do you think about it?" 32 THE SCAhLYWAQ. Thus goaded .c a reply, Nea answered at once, with a very red face. " It wasn't so very much in confidence as all that comes to. He lives at Hillborough." " Hillborough," Armitage repeated with a very abstruse air. " Then that'll exactly do. A friend of mine's a vicar near Hillborough— the very next parish, in fact, a place called Uipsley, and I'll write and ask him this very day all about the mysterious stranger. For when a man possesses a social mystery, its a sort of duty one owes to Society to turn him inside cut and unravel him entirely. Fellows have no right to set us double acrostics in their own persons, and then omit to supply the solution." " Ilere they come," Madame Ceriolo cried. " The two Oxonians I You'll have an oppor- tunity now to try your hand again at him." Annitage's eye glanced like a setter's on the trail of the quarry. " I'll have one more try, at acy rate," he said, with an air of virtuous resolution ; " his birth shall no longer be ' wropped in mystery,' like Jeames de la Pluche's. He shall tell us oil. He shall be forced against his will to con- ^flss his secret." The blonde young man approached them carelessly. " Morning, Armitage," he said, with an easy nod. Then he lifted his hat, " Good-morning, Madame Ceriolo. Miss Boyton, I hope your momma's not overtired this morning." " We're all too stiff to do anything on earth but sit still and scandalise," the pretty Au:erican answerad, with pert fluency. " Wo v/ere scandalising you two when you hove In sight round the next block. I guess you must have felt your ears tingle." Paul felt his tingling at that precise moment. " What were you saying about us ? " he inquired, eagerly. Miss Boyton made a graceftitelmd lady -like, though faint, variat:on on a common gesture of street-boy derision. " Wouldn't you jest like to know ? " she responded, saucily. " You can't tell what things we've all been hearing about you." " You can hardly have heard much that was true," Paul retorted, with some annoyance. " Nobody here at Mentone knows anything of m\, family." " What, have you no friends here ? " Madame Ceriolo inquired, estonished. "How very odd! I thought everybody knocked up against some- body they knew in Mentone. The world's so absurdly small nowadays." And she sighed feelingly. Paul nesitated. " Only one lady," he answered, after a brief pause. " A friend of my mother's. And I'm sure you haven't any of you met her, or else she'd have told me so." " Are you all of yuu game for a brisk walk to Cap Martin?" Thibtleton put in abruptly, with a jetk of his thumb in the direotiou indicated. " We must do apmething to work off the effects of that infernal jolting." "Bar the swear-word, I quite coincide," Isabel Boyton answered. " The rest of us are too tired, I think," Madame Ceriolo yawned, gazing around her affectedly, and darting a very meaning glance at Armitage. "I'll go," that inquuring soul responded promptly, catching on to it, as Miss Boyton afterwards observed, like a detective to the traces of a supposed forger. " You won't come, Nea ? " the American asked, as she rose to go. "I don't think I can," Nea answered hurriedly, looking down at her feet ; " I don'f feel up to it." As a matter of fact, nothing ou earth would have pleased her better ; but she didn't like to walk with Paul after Armitage's insinuations that he had been quick in taking her into his youthful confidence. " Well, let's start at once, then," the blonde young man remarked, cheerfully; he was always as cheerful as heelth and wealth and good humour can make one. " We've got no time to lose, I expect, if we mean to walk out to the point and back before limch-time." As they turned to set out, a woman passed them very unobtrusively ; a Frenchwoman, as it seemed, neatly, but by no means fashionably dressed, and carrying in her hand a small market basket. She looked at Paul very hard as she went by, but had evidently not the least intention of recognising him. The young man, however, gazed at her for a moment in obvious doubt ; then something within him seemed to get the better of him. He raisnd his hat, and said, " Bon jour. Mademoiselle," with marked politeness. ^^Bon jour, Monsieur Paul," the French- woman answered, with a respectful emile, evidently pleased at his recognition. And they both passed on upon their respective errands. But as soon a.^ they were gone, Madame Ceriolo put up her ^ortoiseshell eyeglass — the eyeglass she reserved for her most insolent starss — and regarded the unobtrusive French- woman from a distance with a prolonged Rtrutiny. " Nea," she said, turning round to her charge with the air of one who has made a profound discovery, " did you take it all in, cettc petite comedie-laf How simple I How comical 1 How charmingly idyllic I . He didn't know whether to bow to her or not, in such good company ; but at the last moment he was afraid to out her. FOor little simpleton I How very fresh of him I This is evidently the lady who was his mother's friend, J suppose. She would have saved him the exposure if she could. But he hadn't the tact or the good sense to perceive it." " He was quite right to bow," Nea answered, growing hot, " whoever she may be ; and I respect him all the more for it." " But do you know who she is ? " Madamo* I do< j 1 THE COMMON PUMP IN ACTION. 23 (ling to work ng." e coincide," d, I think," around her uiing glance il responded Hiss IJoyton 3tive to the e American answered t; "I don'< , nothing ou er ; but sho ' Armitage's ck in taiung the blonde y; he was wealth and e've got no to walk out time." inian passed hwoman, as fashionably nd a small il very hard lot the least The young moment in withm him He raisnd lemoiselle," he French- Jtful smile, tion. And ' respective e, Madame eglass— the )st insolent vo French - prolonged ig round to > has made ke it all in, pie I How He didn't ot, in such lont he was ton I How Jy the lady pose. She ure if she ' the good k answered, be; and I " Madcmo persisted, all overflowing with suppressed amusement. "No, I don't," Nea answered; "and it doesn't much matter." Madame braced herself up, like a British matron compelled to announce a most shock- ing truth. " She's a lady's-maid with a family at the ' lies Britanniques,' " she answ^ed, shortly. There was a brief pause after the explosion, in the course of which Nea and Isabel Boyton's mamma each digested by degrees this startling item of information. Then Nea murmured aloud once more : " I always did and always shall like scally- wags. I'm glad Mr. Gascoyne wasn't ashamed to acknowledge " CHAPTER VI. THE COMMON PUMP IN ACTION. The square party of pedestrians turned away along the sea front, and then, taking the main road towards Nice, struck off for the basking, olive-coloured promontory of Gap Martin. Thistleton led the way with the Pennsylvanian heiress ; Paul and Armitage followed more slowly at a little distance. Isabel Boyton bad arranged this order of malice prepense; for she was a mischievous girl, like most of her countrywomen, and, though not inquisitive enough herself to assist in the process of pump- ing Paul, she was by no means averse to see that application of social hydraulics put into practice for the general benefit by t^ third person, '* Queer sort of body, that little Madame Ceriolo," Armitage began as soon as they were well out of earshot. He was one of that \wge class of people who can seldom t^lk about any- thing on earth except some other hmnan being. Personalities largely outweigh generalities in their conversation. With all the world to choose from, with sun, moon, and stars, and heavenly bodies, sea and land and air and ether, stone and soil and plant and animal, history and science and arts and letters, to fonp the text of a possible talk, they cap find nothing to discuss except some petty detail in the trivifki life of sume other fellow-creature. That Mr^. Jones has quarrelled with Mrs. Browii, or that Smith has been blaokhalled at the Cheyne Bow Club, sterns to them a far more important and interesting fact than an eruption of Vesuvius or a caUclysm at St. Petersburg. " She seepis good natored," Paul answered, without profoundly gauging the depths of the subject. It was the most charitable thmg he could find in his heart to say about her. " Ob, good natured enough, no doubt ! " Armitage went on, confidentially ; " but what a curious persop for a man of the world to think of entrusting the care of his daughter to." " Perhaps Mr. Blair's not a man of the world," the younger speaker replied, witb rare sai, u)ity for his age. " Gouqtry parsons are often very siiuple-minded peoplp." " He must be precious simple-minded if he took the Ceriolo for anything but wiiat she is," Armitage contiiued, sneering. "A brazen- faced specimen of the cosmopolitan adven- turess, if ever there was ofie. But how clever, too — how impiepsely clever ! Ton my soul, I admire her ingenuity. Having accepted 4 situation aa guardian of thp morals of an English young lady, she rises to the full height of her post with astonishing success and aston- ishing dignity. Her simulation of virtue's something quite sublune in its own way. Why, you'd hardly believe it; I ({.ttempted to fiirt with her in the mildest possible manner — I, who am the^discreetest and least compromising of mankind,' a mountain of prudence— and tho British indignation and icy coldness with which she repelled my gentle adyances was truly edifying. Np Belgravian mamma that ever lived could have done it more beautifully." " Perhaps she didn't care for you," Paul suggested dryly. " Even a bom fiirt doesn't want to fiirt with everybody indiscriiuuiately." " Perhaps that may be it," Armitage echoed, somewhat crestfallen. He was over thirty, and be took it ill that a young fellow barely of age as yet should thus calmly snub his pre- tensions to the role of lady-kiUer. " But, at any rate, her respectability is beyond reproach. Being cast for her part by pur^ force of curcum- stances, she accepts the situation t^i. plays it to perfection." "She's quite right to respect Miss Blair's youth and innocence," Paul answered quietly. " As far as that goe^ I think all the better of her for it. Even if she is an adventuress, as you say, she's bound, as things stand, to do the very best she can for her present em- ployer." " Oh, of course, of course ! You speak like a book, a nice little Suqday-school bop^, with a picture on the cover. But from the othoi^ point of view, you know, the thing's so ludicrous. Her careful assumption of the highest piorality's so tr^sparently absufd. Whenever she delivers herself of one of her little copybook platitudes, I always feel in- clined to put my tongue in my cl^eek and wink gently. There's no doubj) about it, though, she's devilish clever. She can talk every blessed European language with e^ual eas'). She seems* lUte tlie famous pnma donna in the stpry, to hf^ve swindlp(l in eveiry civilized country of the world — and also in Germany." Paul smiled. "Her French is certainly admirable," he said. " Ifer accent's so good. She speaks like a Parisian." Armitage darted a hasty glance at him side- ways. So that fellow pretended to be a judge on French accent, did he ? That was certainly remarkable. A scallywag on accent ! " ^u( ber EnMish, too," he pors|stcd oncp V/ . V ••=■;■ fc4 THE SCALLYWAG. more; "what's still oddot is her English. She rolls her r'« a little, to be sure, and she slurB her th'a ; thct's only natural ; but what admirable fluency and what perfect com m and she has of even our slang and our stock quota- tions I She can pun and jest and bandy chaff in English, French, Italian, and German. She can bully a cabman or browbeat a land- lord in ten languages. If her name's really Ceriolo, which Heaven only knows, the way she's leeumt English alone is something to my mind truly miraculous." " Her mother was English, she says," Paul BUgg'.i lied in his simplicity. " A clergyman's daugh ler, she told me— a Dean Something or other." The older hand laughed at him to his face. "Do you really mean to say," he cried, with an amused air, "you believe all that? Oh, what charming simplicity I Why, you might as well believe in the Countess's coronet and the family legend and the late lamented Count who was killed at the head of his noble troop of Austrian sympp thizers by an infuriated Turk in the war in Servia. No, no, my dear fellow. Don't you see how cleverly all that's been arranged ? Madame has to deal with a respected papa who happens to be an English clergyman. Whatever or whoever the Ceriolo may be, she thoroughly understands our English Philistinism and our English pre- jui'.ices. The respected papa won't entrust his precious budding daughter to anybody who's not a highly respectable married woman and a member of the Church of England as by law established. Very well, then ; we can easily manage that for you ; Madame's mamma was an English lady — Anglican, of course— yes, and clerical too — a Dean's daughter; and Madame herself, though born at the ancestral Schloss in the Austrian Tyrol, was brought up by agreement in her mother's religion. Could anything be simpler, more natural, or more convincing ? And how very well planned I French and German, with the Paris accent and the Viennese culture, and yet all the advantages of an English lady's care and the precise and particular type of Christendom exactly adapted to the needs and requirements of a country clergyman's daughter 1 By George, she's deep — extremely deep I But if it were a Frenchman of clerical sympathiej she had to deal with, I bet you she'd be a Parisian and a fervent Catholic. Not too divote, you knew, nor austerely rigorous, but as Catholic as a dame du monde ought to be." Paul shifted a little uncomfortaoly in his pea-jacket. This cynic had clearly devoted all his energies to the study and comprehension of his fellow-creatures, and he read them, it seemed, a trifle too easily. In such a man's hands, who was safe for a moment? Paul was afraid what the fellow might screw and worm out of him. " The funniest thing of all," Armitage went on after a short pause, " is that she speaks all languages well, but none exactly like a born native. Her English is splendid, but her r'a and th'a are a trifle German. Her French is good, but her ua and her eus are a trifle Eni^lish. Her German's prodigious, but her ch'a and her final g'a are scarcely Hanoverian. And she can't talk in any one of those languages for five minutes at a stretch without helping herself out now and again quite naturally by a word from another." " Perhaps," Paul said, " she lived as a child in all three countries" "Perhaps so," Armitage repeated; "but there's no evidence. However, I mean in any case to clear up her history. I was writing last night to a friend of mine, a parson, who knows Mr. Blair ; he's the Vicar of Hipsley, near Hillborough in Surrey " — he eyed his man close to see the effect upon him — "and I've asked him to find out all he can about her." " Indeed 1 " Paul said, never showing sur- prise by a muscle of his face. " I wonder you care to take so much pains about so unimport- ant a piece of intelligence." " Oh, for the girl's sake, don't you know I " Armitage added hastily. " Of course she's hardly a proper person to have charge of a young lady alone on the Continent. Besides, one naturally likes to know what sort of com- pany one's committing one's self to, doesn't one ? " " I don't think it much matters, as long as as they're decent people," Paul answered evasively. " Ah, but that's just the question at issue," Armitage went on, trying another tack. " My man at Hillborough will hunt it all up. He's a capital hand at tracking people dovm. He ought to have been a detective. By the way, I fancy I heard Miss Blair say you came your- self from somewhere near Hillborough." "I come from Hillborough town," Paul answered shortly. " Then you know Bimington, of course." " No ; I've never met him." " Dear me, how odd I He's vicar at Hipsley. And he's so very much ripandu, as the French say. Spread about at every tea-fight and lunch and garden-party for twenty miles everywhere round Hillborough." "Yes?" i "Yes, really. You muat have seen him. Though perhaps you took him for a layman or a trainer's assistant. A bulldoggy-looking parson — a regular slogger, with a taste for loud tweeds and a most unolerieiJ necktie." "Oh, I know him well by sig^t," Paul answered in haste ; " I only meant I'd never spoken to him." Armitage altered the venue once more. "I've been down in that part of the world myself," he went on reflectively, " and I don't remember to have met any Gaacoynes there." " Most likely not," Paul answered with energy. M:i THE COMMON PUMP IN ACTION, 25 ly like a born but her r'a and 'rench is good, Eni^lish. Her 8 and her final A.nd she can't aages for five telping herself ally by a word ived as a child peated; "but I mean in any I was writing a parson, who ar of Hipsley, —he eyed his )n him — "and he can about ■ showing sur- ' I wonder you ± so unimport- fc you know I " f course she's e charge of a lent. Besides, bt sort of com- lelf to, doesn't ers, as long as aul answered 3tlon at issue," Br tack. " My all up. He's le dovm. He By the way, ou oame your- wough." town," Paul of course." sar at Hipsley. as the French ight and lunch as everywhere ve seen him. r a layman or doggy-looking ti a taste for ed necktie." sight," Paul eant I'd never once more. of the world " and I don't soynes there." nswered with •, "You spell your name like the Pembroke- ehire people," his persecutor went on. " It's a very rare Way. Do you happen to be related to them ? '■ Thus brought to bay, Paul answered " Tes " with a very great effort, and then relapsed into silence. But Armitage was not going to let him off BO cheap. " You don't mean to say so! " he exclaimed with real interest, for the scent was growing very warm now. " Then what rela- tion are you to the present baronet ? " There was no escape from it any longer. Paul gasped for breath. " Mr. Armitage," he said, turning suddenly upon huu like a hunted creature at bay, " you've no right to question a stranger like this. My private affairs are my private affairs. I refuse to answer. I decline to say what relation I am to the present Sir Emery." He slipped out the words without weighing them well. Armitage leapt upon them with the true joy of the chase. " The present Sir Emery I" he exclaimed with much irony, " why, that's a queer thing to say 1 You must be very ill-informed as to the history of your own family, it seems, Gaseoyne. I should be sorry to pit my information against yours, but I was under the impression, shared, I beheve, by Society at large, that the late Sir Emery was the last of the name, and that the property in Pembrokeshire haid gone to a distant cousin, who's not a baronet at all, Mrs. Newton tells me." No man can stand having his veracity im- pugned by such an obvious innuendo of false- hood as that. Paul Gaseoyne drew a deep breath once more and answered warmly, " There you have been misinformed. It's not my business to set you right. You can correct your mistake by looking in a peerage. But if you must know, the present baronet is my father, Sir Emery Gaseoyne, and he lives at Hillborough I " Armitage gazed at the flushed young face and angry eyes in blank astonishment. Ap- parently, the fellow believed what he said; but how absurd, how incredible ! This scally- wag the heir of the Gaseoyne baronetcy and the Pembrokeshire estates 1 What blimder could he have made ? What error of identity ? What mistake of fact ? What confusion of persons ? However, being a very politic young man. and having now obtained all the information he wanted or was likely to get, he hastened to answer, in his mopt soothing tones, " Dear me I I must have been misinformed. I fancied I'd heard so. A very great family, the Gasooynes of Pembrokeshire. I stopped once down at — at your uncle's plaoe," and he glanced inquiringly at Paul, who fronted him angrily. " What a magnificent house, and so well kept, too, with sucn lovely gardens t " " Old Sir Emery was not my uncle," Paul answered curtly. "I never saw him. Bub the subject's one I don't caro to talk about." At the top of the hill they changed partners. Armitage, p\l agog with his news, took Isabel Boyton ah^ad quickly. " Well, I've found out who he is," he cried, with triumph in his face ; " or, at least, what he calls himself. Now's your chance for that Englisli title, after all. Miss Boyton. He tells me his father's a real live baronet." " He's quite nice," Isabel answered, gravely digesting the news, " and I don't know that he mightn't fit the place. I hook on to him, Mr. Armitage." The Englishman smiled at her credulous simplicity. A baronet's son. That threadbare scallywag I They returned by the inland road in vary- ing moods. Paul, hot with the thought that that horrid secret would now get abroad all over Mentone and make him the laughing-stock of the Promenade du Midi, went home alone to the H6tel Continental. Armitage burst radiant into the Jardin Public, big with his latest item of gossip. He found Madame Geriolo equally excited with her own discovery. " Just fancy," she said, as he sat down by her side : " figurez-voua, mon ami, you saw that woman Mr. Gaseoyne bowod to the moment he left us ? Well, who in the world do you suppose she is? A lady's-maid — a lady's- maid at the 'lies Britanniques ! ' And he ' raised his hat to her exactly like an equal." k "And who do you think he is himself," Armitage cried, all eagerness. " You'll never guess. It's too absurd. He says his father's a British baronet." " Oh, no ! " Nea Blair exclaimed, flushing; hot with a burst of sympathetic shame. " He never said that I He told me quite the con- trary. It can't be possible." " He did, honour bright ; I give you my word for it," Armitage answered, exploding. He's the heir to the finest estate in all South Wales, and he's the last descendant of an ancient aud noble family that came over, like the Slys, with Richard Conqueror." " I don't believe it," Nea exclaimed stoutly; meaning, not that she disbelieved Paul, but disbelieved the report of his ever having said so. " No, more do I, Miss Blair, if you ask my honest opinion," Armitage answered, laughing. " I expect his uncle's the same sort of baronet as the unfortunate nobleman who lately languished so long in Portland Prison." "There's a good deal of doubt about baronetcies, I believe," Madame Geriolo mused to herself aloud. " They're not so regularly looked into as peerages. And I'm given to understand there are a great many baronets knocking about loose on the world at present, who have no more claim to be called Sir Somebody So-and-So than I have to be called — well, the Queen of England." Very dangerous ground for you, Madame Geriolo. 30 THE SCALLYWAG. CHAPTER VII. SIR EMERY AND LADY GASCOYNE AT HOME. Sib Emery GAdcoYNB, Baronet, sat ia his own easy-chair in front of his own fireplace at HiU- borough, Surrey. It was evening, and Sir Emery rested after his day's labours. He had been out driving from two in the afternoon, and it was cold winter weather for holding the reins, for Sir Emery always drove himself. He had ample reason. His .fingers were numbed and cramped with driving. He found it diilicult, indeed, to enter in a book a few notes ho Vvas endeavouruig to ni^ke of hib afternoon's engagements. "'Ere, Faith, girl," the British baronet called to his daughter in the adjoining room, " I can't 'old the pen. Come along and enter them drives to-day, will you ? I'm most clemmed with cold, it's that keen and bitter up o' Kent's '111 this weather." "Just wait a minute, father dear," Faith answered, cheerily, from the kitchen behind. " I'm coming directly. We're hotting up some soup for your supper, here, mother and I. It's lovely soup, darling, and it'll thaw you out just beautifully as soon as you drink it.' The voice wt^s a voice like her brother's own — soft an4 sweet, with a delicate intonation that made et^ph syllable clear and distinct as the notes of a bell. Sir Emery listened to it with a fatherly smile, for he loved her well. "Ood bless that girll " he said to himself, laying down the pen he could scarcely wield. " It's a comfort to 'ear 'er. She do make a man glad with that pretty small voice of 'ers." Sir Emery's room was neither large noi handsomely furnished. It was entered direct from the street by a buff-coL ired door, and it led by a second similar one into the kitchen behind it. The centre of the apartment was occupied by a square table, with flaps at the side, covered with that pecuUar sort of deep brown oil-oloth which is Imown to the initiated as American leather. A sideboard stood againt t the further wall, decorated with a couple cf large spiky shells and a spotted dog in dark red and white china. The spotted dog Faith had attempted more than once surreptitiously to abolish, but Sir Emery always brought it back again to its place in triumph ; it had been his mother's, he said, and he was sort of attached to it. A couple of cane-bottomed - chairs, a small horsehair pouch, and the seat which Sir Emery himself occupied, completed the furniture of the baronet's receptioni room. And yet there werfi not wanting, even in that humble home, some signs of feminine taste and aesthetic culture. The spotted dog was an eyesore that Faith could never quite get rid of ; but the cheap porcelain vases, with the red and blue bouquets painted crudely on their sides, and the pink paper fiowers stuck into their yawning mouths, she had sternly) and successfully repressed some months ago. In their place, two simple little monochromatio jars of Linthorpe pottery were installed on the mantelpiece, and some sprigs of green and late-Ungering chrysanthemums usurped the former throne of the pink-paper monstrosities. The curtains were plain, but of a pretty cre- tonne ; the covering of Sir Emery's chr.ir itself was neat and cheerful ; and the autimacassar on the couch, worked in simple crewels, had at least the negative merit of unobtrusiveness and harmony. Altogether one could easily see at a glance it was a working man's cottage of the superior sort, kept neat and sweet by loving and tasteful hands, which did all in their power to relieve and diversify its neces- sary monotony. For the British baronet was not known as Sir Emery at all to his friends and neighbours, but smiply and solely as Gascoj'ne the Flj'- man. Most of them had heard, indeed, in a vague and general way, that if everybody had his rights, as poor folk ought to have, Martha Gascoyne would have been My Lady, and the flyman himself would have ridden in a carriage through the handsomest park in the county of Pembroke. But as to calling him anything but plain Gascoyne — him, the driver they had known so well from his childhood, when he played in the street with them all as children — why, it would no m^re have occurred to those simple souls than it occurs to any of us to address the ordinary familiar descendaqt of Welsh or Irish princes as " Your Highness " or " Your Majesty." '• • Sir Emery knocked the ashes out of his black clay pipe, and waited patiently for the advent of his soup. As soon as it arrived he ate it heartily, at the same time dictating to Fsiith the various items of his day's engage- ments (for at Hillborough long credit busi- nesses were the order of the day) : " Cab from station, Mrs. Morton, one-and-six ; put it two shillin' ; she'll never pay till Christmas twelve- month I To Kent's '111 and back, Cap'en Lloyd, 'orf a suverin' ; no, 'arf a suverin's not a penny too much, missus ; and then to the Bitches, Mrs. Boyd-Galloway ; that lot's worth 'arf a crown. Faith. If ever we see the colour of 'er money, 'arf a crown's not a forden too igh for it." Faith entered the items dutifully as she was bid, and laid down the ledger with a sigh as soon as they were finished. " I can't bear to think, father," she said, " you havp to go out driving cold nights like these, and at your age, too, when you ought to be sitting home here comfortably by the fire." " I can't abear to think it myself neither," Mrs. Gascoyne echoed — for why keep up, now we're in the bosom of the faniily, the useless farce of describing her as My Lady ? It was only in the respected works of Debrett and Burke that she figured under that unfamiliar and noble designation. To all the neighbours in Plowden's Court, she was nothing more than plain Mrs. Gascoyne, who, if everybody bad i '¥i »'' SIR EMERY AND LADY QASCOYNE A'l HOME. 27 aonocbromatio iistalled on ihe of green and usurped tho monstrosities. ! a pretty cre- •y's chr.ir itself ) autimacassar crewels, had at nobtrusiveness ould easily see Ein's cottage of ind sweet by ich did all in rsify its nccos- i not known as nd neighbours, oyne the Fly- d, indeed, in a everybody had I have, Martha Lady, and the Bn in a carriage 1 the county of him anything Iriver they had lood, when he all as children jQ occurred to rs to any of us r descendant of )ur Highness " les out of his itiently for the as it arrived he ae dictating to day's engage- ig credit busi- y): "Cab from lix ; put it two ristmas twelve- back, Cap'en a suverin's not id then to the that lot's worth e see the colour >t a farden too ully as she was with a sigh as I can't bear to hav9 to go out tnd at your age, ling home here lyself neither," ly keep up, now [ily, the useless Lady ? It was of Debrett and that unfamiliar the neighbours thing more than everybody had their rights, would no doubt have been a real live lady. The baronet stirred the fire with meditative poker. "It's a wonderful pity," he murmured, Shilosophioally, " that nothing couldn't never e done in the way of makin' money out of that there baronite-oy. It's a wonderful pity that after all them years we should ba livin' on 'ere, missus, the same as usual, a-drivin' a cab day an' night for a livelihood, when we're acshally an' in point of law an' fac' baronites of the United Kingdom. It beats me 'ow it is we can't make money out of it." " I always think," Mrs. Gascoyne responded, taking out her knitting, " that you don't under- stan' 'ow to do it, Emery." " Mother dear I " Faith said low, in a warn- ing voice, for she knew only too well whither this prelude inevitably tended. The baronet of the United Kingdom slowly filled his pipe once more, as he finished the soup and poured himself out a glassful of beer from the jug at his elbow. " It can't be done," he answered, confidently. " There ain't no doubt about it that it can't be done. It stands to reason it can't. If it could be done, Mr. Solomons 'ud 'a' done it, you warrant you, long ago." " This ain't 'ow you'd ought to be livin' at your age, though, Emery," Mrs. Gascoyne went on, sticking to her point. "If we only knowed 'ow, we'd ought to be making money out of it some'ow." " Mr. Solomons is a rare clever man," the baronet replied, puffing vigorously away at the freshly-lighted pipe. " Wot I say is this, missus, if it could 'a been done, Mr. Solomons 'uil 'a done it." Faith made a bid for a gentle diversion. " I met Mr. Solomons this evening," she said, " as I was coming home from school, and ho told me to tell you he'd look in on business to-morrow morning, before you went down to meet the 10.40." " You're tired. Faith," her father said, eye- ing her kindly. Faith smoothed back the hair from her high white forehead— so like her brother's. "Only a little bit, father," she answered, with rather a wearied smile. " It's the infants that are so tiring. They wear one out. They don't mean to be worrie.«i, poor little souls, of course ; but thoy do distract one a bit some- times." " I wish you was well quit of them infants," Mrs. Gascoyne remarked, "and could 'and them over to the pupil-teachers. The big girls don't give no trouble at all, in the manner of speaking, by the side of the little ones. It's when you've took the infants, I always take notice, you comes 'ome most worn and tired- like.'^ " Oh, it's nothing," Faith answered, taking her mother's hand in hers and smoothing it gently. " It'll be over soon for this term— the holidays begin on Wednesday. And when I think of father, driving out in the cold on Kent's Ilill this weather, I'm ashamed ol myself to think I ever complain a word about the infants." " They're rarely trying, them infants, I'll be bound," her father continued, philosophically slow. " I mind what it was myself, when you was all little ones, you an' Paul an' the rest, afore we buried 'Ope and Charity, playin' arcund the 'osses feet, an' kickin' up that row that a man couldn't 'ardly 'ear to take a order. Charity was a rai'e one to make a noise, she was ; she was the biggest o' the three, when you was all born ; ' for the greatest o' these,' says the parson, ' is Charity.' And wot it must be to 'ave twenty or thirty of. 'em, all to once, a-cryin' and a-chatterin', why it beats everything." " 'Ope and Charity was two blessed little creatures," Mrs. Gascoyne interposed with a tear in her eye. " They never got in nobody's way, I'm sure, Emery. 'Ope 'ud be eighteen year old come May, if she'd 'a lived. An* Charity was always 'ead of the class in 'rith- metic. Miss Taylor, she ssys to me more 'n once, ' Wot a wonderful 'ead that there child o' yours have got, to be sure, Mrs. Gascoyne, for figgers and such like I ' " " 'E's a rare clever man, Mr. Solomons," the father repeated, relapsing, after the wont of his kind, into the dominant subject ; " an' if any man could do it, you take my word for it, missus, Mr. Solomons 'ud 'a done it." " It seems sort o' throwed away as things stand now," Mrs. Gascoyne went on, in spite of a quick deprecatory glance from her daughter's eyes. " It ain't no good at all, as far as I can see, except for a customer to chaff you about sometimes." The baronet blew the smoke slowly through his ringed lips. " I might 'a kep' a pubUc, an' made money out of it that way," he said, " but you was always agin a public, mother; an' I don't blame you for it. A public's a poor sort o' way for a man to employ a historical name, as Mr. Solomons put it. 13ut if I 'adn't 'a been married now, afore the title came to us, I might 'a made something of it like that myself, you see, missus — meaning to say, in the way of a hairess." Poor Faith saw that the bolt had fallen — that well-known bolt which descended with periodical regularity from the clear sky of hev father's unruffled good humour — and she gave up the attempt any longer to delay the rising tempest. " I'm sure, Emery," her mother broke in, with a stifled sob, "you needn't always be a-oastin' that in my teeth— that I stood in your way agin' makin' your fortune. It ain't no fault o' mine, nor my people's, neither, that you was took with me and arst me to marry you. Arnt Emily was always agin my 'avin' you. An' there was many as said at 28 THE SCALLYWAG. the time, you know yourself well enough, I'd throwed myself away, and I might 'a done better far to take another one. Why, there was Alfred Dyke, him as owned the mill at Chase's Corner " The baronet of the United Kmgdom checked her threatened outburst of early reminiscences kindly. " It ain't for myself I'm thinkin', mother," he said, with a nod or two of his chin—" it ain't for myself, not anyways, but for the children. - Wot a thing it 'ud 'a been for Faith and Paul, now, if I'd 'a 'appened to be a bachelor, don't you see, at the time w'en this thing fell in, and 'ad married a hairess, as would 'ave brought 'em up like ladies and gentlemen — ladies an' gentlemen the same as they'd ought to be 1 " Faith couldn't forbear a gentle smile. "But, father dear," she said, smoothing his hand with hers, "don't you see yourself it wouldn't have been Paul and me at all in that case ? It 'd be somebody else we none of us know or oare anything about, wouldn't it ? " " But it do seem a pity," her father went on musingly, " that the value of the baronite-cy, for commercial purposes," he paused awhile, and then repeated once more that high- sounding phrase, " for commercial purposes," rolling it on his palate like one who loved it, " should 'a been clean throwed away, as SA:. Solomons says, all through the faok that I 'appened to be married afore I come into it." Mrs. Gascoyne's handkerchief went up to her eyes with dramatic rapidity ; and Faith, holding up one finger in warning to her father, stroked her mother's hair with her other hand with filial tenderness. " I wish," she said, h<^lf angrily, " Mr. Solomons had never put these ideas into your head, father. I'm sure you'd never have thought of it all for yourself. You'd never have dreamt of making money out of anything on earth so sacred as tliat is." "I don't say, Faith," her father went on, eyeing his beer with the light of the paraffin lamp shining through it, I don't say as ever I'd 'a married for money, or made capital like, as Mr. Solomon says, out o' the title, an' that. I don't say as I've the manners or the eddica- tiou to do it. I'm satisfied with your mother, as 'as always bin a true and faithful wife to me, in sickness an' in 'ealth, an' no woman better." " If you weren't," Faith interposed, " you'd be the ungratefuUest man in all Hillborough." " If I wasn't," her father repeated dutifully, following his cue, "I'd be the ongratefuUest man in all 'iliborough. I know all that, an' I ain't a-denyin' of it. But wot I says is just this : I says to Solomon this very last Sunday, ' Mr. Solomons,' says I, ' if I'd 'a bin a bachelor wen this title fell in, there's many a tidy woman as 'ad her thousand pound or two put away in the bank 'ad 'a bin glad to call 'erself Lady GascoyiM on the strength of it.' " "Emery," his wife sobbed, holding her face in her hands, " I call it most onmanly of you. Many's the time I've done a good cry, all along of your talking in that onmanly manner." The father of the family turned round to her soothingly. "Mind you, mother," he went on, in a demonstrative voice, " I don't say as I'd ever 'ave wanted 'er for all 'or thousands. I ain't that kind ; I'm not one as sets so much store by the money. Wot I do say is, as a matter o' business, it's a pity the baronite-cy should be throwed away, an' all for nothing." "It won't be throwed away," the mother responded, drying her eyes hysterically, " not after our time. Paul 'ave 'ad a good educa- tion, an' Paul '11 marry a woman as is fit for 'im." " There am't no doubt at all about that," the British baronet answered in a mollified tone. " As Mr. Solomons says, our Paul 'ave a splendid future before him." "Oxford 'ave made a gentleman of 'im," Mrs. Gascoyno continued, gloating over the words. "It 'ave," the father replied, gazing deep into the fire. " There ain't no doubt of it. We've all got reason to be main grateful to Mr. Solomons for that much." " I never feel quite so sure about that, some- how," Faith ventured to say. " I often wonder whether Paul wouldn't have been happier, and whether we wouldn't all have been happier, if Mr. Solomons had never meddled at all in our private business." " I do wonder at you, Faith I " her mother exclaimed aghast. "You, to talk like that, when we ought all to be so beholden like to Mr. Solomons ! " " Look what 'e've done for Paul ! " the father cried eagerly. " If it wasn't for 'im, Paul might be tendin' the 'osses still, the same as I do." "But we've got to pay him for it," Faith answered stoutly. " Sooner or later we've got to pay him. And see what notes of hand he's made you sign for it I " "Ay, but Paul '11 settle all that," the father replied with absolute confidence, "and afore long, too, I warrant you, little one I Why, if it hadn't been for Mr. Solomons, we'd never so much as 'a thought o' sendui' 'im to college an' makin' a gentleman of 'im. An' now, Mr. Solomons says, 'e's a'most through with 'is collegin', an' ready to make 'is start in life. If 'e does as Mr, Solomons means 'im to do, 'e'll pay it all off, principal an' interest, as easy as winkin'. We've all got reason to be main grateful to Mr. Solomons. 'E's a clever one, 'e is, if ever there was one. An' 'e says it as knows ; says 'e to me, • Gosooyne,* says 'e, ' your boy Paul, if 'e ploys 'is cords weU,' says 'e, 'as 'e'd ought to play 'em, 'ave a splendid future,' says 'e, • before 'im.* " " But he won't play them as Mr. Solomons ; PAUL'S ADVI5ER. 29 lolding her onmanly of a good cry, at onmanly ed round to nother," he (6, " I don't for all 'or a not one as Wot I do s a pity the tvay, an' all the mother •ically, " not good eduoa- as is fit for ibout that," a mollified ur Paul 'ave an of 'im," ig over the gazing deep doubt of it. grateful to t that, some- >ften wonder happier, and n happier, if at all in our her mother k like that, ilden like to " the father r 'im, Paul le same as I r it," Faith er we've got )f hand he's ," the father "and afore e ! Why, if we'd never m to college .n' now, Mr. igh with 'is tart in life. B 'im to do, interest, as eason to be E's a clever An' 'e says ooyne,' says cards well,' em, 'ave a tn.'" r. Solomons wants him, I'm sure," Faith answered, un- abashed. " He'll play them his own way. He can't do any other." " 'E'U pay it all off," the baronet repeated, ruminating the words with infinite pleasure; " 'e'U pay it all off, when '0 once gets 'is start, principal an' interest, as easy as winkin'." The happiness he derived from the mere sound of those opulent expressions, " principal and interest," as he rolled them on his palate, seemed more than to repay him for any little passing discomfort the sense of indebtedness to his supposed benefactor might otherwise have cost him. It makes a man feel almost like a capitalist himself when he can talk glibly about principal and interest. CHAPTER VIII. Paul's adviser. In another room at Hillborough, that self- same evening, two other people were dis- cussing still more eagerly together this identical problem of the market-value of a British baronetcy. The house in which they cussed it had a dingy, stingy, glooming-loo.wiig front, com- manding a full view of the market and the High Street; and on the venerable wire- blinds in the office-window the inquiring way- farer might make out through the dust that clogged them the simple legend, "Judah P. Solomons, Auctioneer and Estate Agent." Not that Mr. Solomons really subsisted upon the nett profits of his auctioneering and his com- mission on rents. Those were but the- ostensible and officially avowed sources of his comfortable revenue. The businer^ that really enriched Mr. Solomons — for Mr. Solomons was undoubtedly rich — was the less respect- able and less openly confessed trade of a general money-lender. Mr. Solomons was, in fact, by profession a capitalist. He made those familiar advances, on note of hand alone, without security, at moderate interest, which have so often roused our ardent admiration for the generous mixture of philanthropic spirit and the love of adventure in the amiable lender when we read the tempting announcement of the proffered boon in the advertisement columns of our pet daily paper. Mr. Solomons himself, the philanthropist in question, was a short but portly man of a certain age ; it was clear he had thriven on the results of well - directed benevolence. His figure was rotund and his face fat; he had small, black, beady eyes, rich in life and humour ; and his mouth, though full, was by no means deficient in human kindness. His hair was curly, and displayed, perhaps, a trifling disregard of economy in the matter of bear's grease; but his entire appearance was not wholly unprepossessing ; he looked like a sharp and cunning business man, in whom, nevertheless, the trade of assisting his fellow- creatures in distress (for a modest percentage) had not altogether killed out the heart that beat within the ample and well-filled fancy waist- ' coat. "The acute reader may, perliaps, already have jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Solomons was by race a Jew, and in that con- clusion the acute reader would not, as a matter of fact, have been quite unjustified. In creed, however, Mr. Solomons had con- formed so successfully to the Church of Eng- land (mainly, perhaps, for business reasons) that he filled at that moment the onerous post of vicas's churchwarden for the parish of Hillborough. In a country town Judaism is at a discount ; and Mr. Solomons was too good a Jew at heart ever to touch anything at a discount, except of course, for the purpose of " bulling " or " bearing " it. The younger gentleman, who sat opposite Mr. Solomons at the first-fioor fireplace aboVe the dingy ofiice, was half an inch taller, and many inches smaller round the waist ; but he otherwise bore a distinct resemblance in figure and feature to his prosperous relative. Only, in Lionel Solomon's face, the cunning and the sharpness of his uncle's eyes and mouth seemed, if anything, to be actually exaggerated, while the redeeming qualities of good-humour and good-fellowship were both, on the contrary, conspicuous by their absence. Lionel was handsome with the Oriental hand- someness of the well-fed young Jew ; and he had brought down from town with him the offensive, underbred, jaunty cosmopolitanism of the shady middle class in that great desert of London which is so peculiarly repulsive to a cultivated understanding. His hair was even curlier and more oleaginous than Mr. Solomons' own ; and he held between his lips a cheap, oad cigar, which he managed with all the consummate easy grace of a gentleman accustomed to ride into the City every morn- ing in the envied seat beside the driver of the of the omnibiis he honoured with his distin- guished patronage. Mr. Solomons unrolled a packet of greasy, much folded papers, which he had taken from a pigeon-hole in the safe by his side, and laid them one after another upon his knee, where he regarded them close with evident affection. " Yes, Leo," ho said reassuringly, " they're all right. Every penny of that money's as safe as housea." " I'd like to see the collateral, that's all," Mr. Lionel answered, with a jaunty toss of his curled head. " It's a precious lot of money to lend upon personal security, and that a man of straw, or less than straw, if it comes to that. Uncle Judah." Mr. Solomons took up the newest of the lot and examined it tenderly. " Twelve months after date," he mused to himself, in a softly mur-muring tcue, " for value received — two hundred pconds — renew- able with twenty per cent, interest. Emery Gascoyne — perfectly regular. It's a good in- 30 THE SCALLYWAQ. vestment, TiM—tk good investment." He turned over a second, and looked at tlie en- 'donement. "Sir Emery Oascoyne, Bart.," he continued, softly, " accepted as fair as an acceptance can be. Good business, Leo, my boy- very good business." " How much did you give him for this two hundred, now? " Mr. Lionel asked, in a some- what contemptuous tone, taking it up carefully. The older man seized it once moro with n nervous grasp, like one who foars to let a favourite and fragile object pass for a moment out of his own possession. "A hundred and fifty," he answered, refold- ing it and replacing it in due order ; " and than twenty per cent., you see, on the full two hundred, every time it's renewed, aftev the first year,, gives a good interest." Lionel looked up with an amused air. " Well, all I can say," he put in with a smile, " is — that ain't the way we do busLiess in the City." " Perhaps not," his uncle answered, with a faint air of vexation. It was evident that this was his pet venture, and that certain vague doubts as to its perfect soundness in his cwn mind made him all the more impatient of out- side criticism. " But, Leo, you don't know everything in London. One of the great points in a country business is just that — to be able to tell who you can trust, and who you can't, on their own sense of honesty." Mr. Lionel sneered. " I trust nobody myself," he responded, vigorously, puffing at his cigar with a violent Euff, to enforce the full depth and breadth of is sentiment. "Then that's bad business," Mr. Solomons answered, with one fat forefinger raised didac- tically. " Take my word for it, my boy, that's bad business. I wouldn't be half what I am now, and you'd be helping me in the old shop in the Borough, if I'd trusted nobody. But I knew who to trust, and that's what's made me. Bind 'em down on paper as fast as you can, of course : I'm not one to omit having every- thing legal, and fixed, and regular ; but all the papers and stamps and parchments in the world won't do you any good if you've got hold of a rogue. No, never a stamp of them. A rogue can't he made to pay if he don't want. A rogue '11 go through the court to spite you. A rogue '11 take things before his honour the county court judge, and explain everything; and his honour '11 give judr,ment for reduced interest. It ain't the paf it and the stamps and the signatures that does it ; it's the man himself you've got to trust to. You once get hold of an honest man, and if he works his fingers to the bone, and hiu knees to the stumps, he'll pay you somehow — principal and interest ; he'll pay you somehow. And Sir Emery Gasooyne, Bart., he's an honest man, and so's Paul. He may be only a cab and fly proprietor," Mr. Solomons went on, giving his debtor the full benefit of his whole legal designation ; " but Sir Emery Gasooyne, Bart., cab itnd fly proprietor, of Plowden's Court, Uillborougli, is as honest a man as ever stepped, and Paul, his son, is one that takes after him." " It was that title of ' Bart.;' in my opinion, that led you astray in the first instance," his nephew went on, with a touch of scorn in his voice; "and having once begim, yon di(hi't like to confess your mistake, and you've kept to it ever since, getting deeper and deeper in it." Mr. Solomons shufiled uneasily in his chair. The young man had touched him on a tender point. " I don't deny, Leo," he answered with apologetic softness, " that the title of ' Bart.' had a great deal to do with it. A man who':4 born a Jew can't get over that ; and I'm proud to think, if I've changed my religion, I've never attempted to shake ofi my ancestors. It came about like this, you see. It was six years ago or more — let me see, I have it here — yes, seven years ago on the fourth of Feb- ruary — number one falls due on the fourth every year ; it was seven years ago Gascoyne came to me, and he says, ' Mr. Solomsns, I want your advice, knowing you to be a better man of business than any lawyer in the town ' — for Gascoyne knows Barr and Wilkie are fools — ' and I've just come into a baronetcy,' says he. Well, when I heard that, I lifted my hat, having always a strong respect for rank and title and everything of that sort — I wouldn't be one of the seed of Abraham if I hadn't— and I said to him, ' Sir Emery, I'm very glad to hear it ; and if there's anything I can do for you in the way of a little temporary accommodation' — thinking, of course, thero was money coming with it, as a man would naturally expect with a baronetcy — ' I'll be happy to arrange it on the most moderate terms for you.' For when a man in his posi- tion comes into a title and a big estate, he's likely to want a little temporary accom- modation at first, just to make a good show when he goes to claim his own of the executors." * " To be sure," his nephew assented blandly. "Well, you see," Mr. Solomons went on, still in a very self- exculpatory tone, " it soon turned out that there wasn't any money— that the money'd all gone to the other branch of the family. But having made Sir Emery a preliminary advance, ana having been the very first m<»n in the world to call him 'Sir Emery ' " — Mr. Solomons loved to repeat that title in private life whenever ne could ; it was so dear to his soul to be thus brought into contact wdth a real live baronet — " I thought to myself, 'Well, having once begun, I'll see the thing throng' to the bitter end now, what- ever it costs me.' And I look at it accordingly, Le3, as a long investment." " A very long investment indeed ! " Mr. Lionel answered, with an ugly smile. " You'll good pay for it of," no, of." '■: PAUL'S ADVISER. 3« laooj^ie, Bart., wden'B Court, nan as ever ne that takes 1 my opinion, instance," his f scorn in his , yon didn't yon've kept and deeper in his chair. Q on a tender iswered with tie of 'liart.' A. man who's nd I'm proud •eligion, I've ly ancestors. It was six ' have it here urth of Feb- 1 the fourth igo Gascoyno SolomDns, I be a better in the town ' 1 Wilkie are I baronetcy,' t, I lifted my eot for rank that sort — I braham if I Emery, I'm 8 anything I le temporary ourse, thero man would cy— 'I'll be ist moderate in his posi- big estate, rary aocom- ike a good own of the i tod blandly. 18 went on, ae, " it soon aoney— that r branch of ir Emery a een the very I him 'Sir ) repeat that >uld ; it was )rought into "I thought gfun, I'll see now, what- accordingly, leedl" Mr. e. " You'll I nS73r soe a penny of your money again, I take it." » " I'll see every farthing of it back in full, I'll take my davy I " his uncle retorted, with a rather red face — his heart was suspected. " Gascoyne and his son are honest people — good honest people as ever lived — and tliey'll pay mo all, if they work themselves to death for it. But it wasn't only the money I thought of," he continued, after a short pause. " No, no, Loo. It wasn't only the money I thought of." "It's all I think of," his nephew said candidly. " Then so much the worse for you, my .lear," Mr. Solomons replied, with equal frankness. "That's a mistake in life. You miss the half of it. What I thought was this. Here's this man — a common flyman — a petty little cab-owner with four horses of his own — no more than four horses, and screws at that ; but a British baronet. If you and I were to work all our lives, Leo, and slave and save, and toil and moil, we'd never rise to be British baronets. But this man's born one, d'you see, or born as good as one ; born what you and I'd give ten thousand pounds to be made this minute. Says I to myself, turning the matter over. What a pity to think there's nothing to be made, for him or for me, out of Qascoyne's baronetcy ! If Gascoyne was younger, says I, and better brought up, he might have made money out of it by marrying an heiress. But he's married already, and the old lady's not likely to die ; or, if she did, he's not marketable now ; he's too old and too simple. Still, there's the boy — there's the boy Paul. He's young and pliable yet ; clay fresh to hand ; yoii can make what you li'tce of him. Well, I don't deny there was a touch of senti- ment in it all ; for I love a title ; but I couldn't bear either to think of a good chance being thrown away — a chance of making money out of it, for him and for me ; for a title has always a value of its own, and it goes against the grain with mo to see a thing that has a value of its own thrown away, as it were, and let go to waste, for want of a little temporary em- ployment." " To be sure," his nephew assented, with an acquiescent nod, for there he, too, could sym- pathise most fully. " So the idea occurred to me," Mr. Solomons went on, " couldn't I lend those two people enough, oii their own notes of hand — three, six, nine, twelve, renewable annually — to give the young ulan Paul a thorough good school- ing, and send him to Oxford and make a gentleman of huu ? " " But the security," the younger man ex- claimed, impatiently — " the security ? the security ? Where's your collateral ? " Mr. Solomons shook his head with a very deliberate and sapient shake. " There's securities and securitieR, Leo," ho said, " and you dou't uuderstaad but one particular kind of 'em. I'd as soon have Emery Gascovne's paper as any landed gentleman's in all England. Anyhow, I made up my mind to do it, and I did it, Leo ; that's the lon^ and short of it. I made 'em both insure their lives — the Hand- in-Hand, a capital company — and I've paid the premiums ever since myself; here's the receipts, you see, for the last six years, as proper as proper." " You've paid the premiums yourself ? " Lionel echoed, with a cunning smile. " But I've made 'em sign for 'em, of course," his uncle continued, hastily, " I've made 'em sign for 'em. They've covered it all, and the bonuses go to increase the sum insured, which balances premiums almost. Here's the papers ; here they are," and he fumbled the bundle with eager fingers. The nephew regarded them with pitying contempt. " What's the good of all these ? " he cried, turning tliem over sceptically. '* The fellow was a minor when he signed the lot. I daresay he's a minor still, if it comes to that, They ve no legal value," " My dear," the uncle went on with a very grave face, "you think a great deal too much about what's legal, and a great deal too little about moral obligation, that keeps alive the money-lending. Yes, he waa a minor, and he's a minor still ; but when he comes of ago, you mark my words, he'll sign again for every penny of the money. Ha's a good boy, Paul, an honest boy, and sooner than let me lose a penny of my advances he'd work as my slave to his dying day — and him that'll live to be a baronet of the United Kingdom. Besides," Mr. Solomons continued more cheerfully, " ho knows I've done a great deal for him. He knows it's me that has made his fortune. I've sent him to school, and sent him to college, and made a gentleman of him. He knows he's got to benave fair and honest by^e, as I've behaved by him. Ho knows he's got to look out for money. As soon as he's married, and married well, he'll pay me back every penny, principal and interest." " Suppose he don't marry well ? " the nephew interposed with a provoking smile ; "suppose the heiress don't choose to take him?" Mr. Solomons folded the' notes of hand and other documents into a neat little bundle, and tied them up once more with a dirty red tape, preparatory to locking them up in the safe in their accustomed pigeon-hole. " Tliere's more heiresses than one in the world," he said with a determined air. " If heiress number one won't rise to the fly, heiress number '^^wo will swallow it, I warrant you. No, no, Leo ; don't you tcdk to me. A baronet's worth his price in the market any day. Young women don't get a ' My Lady ' for nothing, and Paul's been taught exactly what he's worth. He knows it's a duty he owes to me, and he owes to hi-i father ; that jointly and severally they're bound 32 THE SCALLYWAG. (o pay ; and that to marry an heiress is the cheapest and easiest way to pay me." " Her njoney'U be all strictly tied up," the nephew exclaimed. " I know their way, these landed people, with their contracts and their settlements." " A man of title can always dictate his own terms," the money-lender answerod with more worldly wisdom ; " at least, among the manu- facturers. He can sell himself for as much as he choosoH somewhere and iiang out f< his price till thov chooso to pay it." Mr. Lionel gave ti grunt of extreme dissatis- faction. " Well, it's no business of mine, of course," he observed in a distinct bad humour; " but what I say is this : you'd got no right ever to begin upon it ; it ain't legitimate trad- ing ; it's too precious speculative." His uncle glanced back at him with a re- proachful look. " There'll be enough for vou without it, Leo," he answered ; " anvway when I'm gone. It's all for you, you know verv well, that I slave and hoaii. And I only wish you were such a young man as Paul is. I take a sort of pride in him, I don't deny. I only wish I'd put you to college the same as him and made a gentleman of you." " There ain't much to be made out of going to college," Mr. Lionel replied, picking his teeth with bis penknife ; " at least, if you ain't going into business afterwards as a British baronet." "It's all for you, Leo," Mr. Solomons re- peated, rising to put back the papers in their places. "And even if this turns out a bad speculation — which I don't believe — there'll be more than enough for you, anyhow, with- out it." CHAPTEE IX. TEMPTATION. At Mentone the sun continued to shine and the world to bask in the joys of his rays, in spite of the snow on Kent's Hill and the white fogs that enwrapped the county of Surrey. To Paul's great surprise, tod, when once the dreaded secret was out, the burden of bearing it became infinitely lessened. He had shrunk, with all the shyness of a sensitive nature, from letting the loungers on the Promenade du Midi know the real truth about his false position. He thought they would find in it nothing but cause for veiled ridicule. But, as a matter of fact, on that very evening the indefatigable Armitage, pursuing his quest through every villa he knew in town, dis- covered at last in a friend's library a copy of Debrett's invaluable work on the people whom one can really know, don't you know, in England. Turning over the paged with a triumphant hand, to put to rout and confusion this absurd scallywag with his cock-and-bull story about his fine relations, Armitage was fairly dumbfounded to come upon the entry, "Gahcoynk, Sir Emery, 14th baronet," followed by half a page of the usual pro- foundly interesting genealogical detail, and ending with the fine abrupt but concise in- formation, " Resilience, I'lowden's Court, Hill- borough, Surrey." The Plowden's Court of real life was a narrow entry oiT the main street of the sleepy little country town, but the Plowden's Court which these words naturally conjured up before Armitage's fancy, seen in such a con- nection, was a stately and dignified Eliza- bethan mansion, standing in its own grounds of heaven knows how many statute acres, and surrounded by garden, lawn, and park-lands. Armitage rubbed his eyes in blank amaze- ment. Was it possible, then, that the scally- wag had spoken the truth? In spite of all appearances to the contrary, was he really the heir to a baronetcy of Charles II. 's creation, and to the noblest estate in the county of Pembroke ? He glanced through the profoundly in- teresting genealogical details with a curious eye. Yes, that was all plain sailing enough. " Succeeded his second cousin, Sir Emery Charles Emeric Qascoyne, 18th baronet, vide infra," Armitage proceeded to vide infra accordingly, and noticed at once that the name of Paul seemed to alternate regularly through- out the list with the name of Emery as the distinctive mark of the Qascoyne baronetcy. So far, clearly, the scallywag's story seemed to hold together much better than he expected. And next as to the estates ? Not a word said about them, to be sure ; but, then, the respected and esteemed Debrett deals only in exalted rank, and has nothing to say on such inferior subjects as filthy lucre. " Residence, Plowden's Court, Hillborough." Fancy tlie scallywag combig, after all, from a baronial mansion in the county of Surrey 1 Next day the entire little world of Mentone had duly digested the singular news that the unobtrusive Oxford undergraduate, who had come out to the Riviera strictly incog., as a tutor to the blonde young men at the Con- tinental, was really the heir to a baronetcy in disguise, and the scion of a distinguished Pem- brokeshure family. And all the world re- marked at once, with its usual acuteness, that, in spite of his shyness, they had said from the first Paul Gascoyne was a delightful young man and had most charming maimers. AU the world, inaeed, has always divined these things beforehand, and is immensely surprised at all the rest of the world's stupidity in not having perceived thraa. Three days later, however, at the usual littlo conclave in the Jardin Public— the "School for Scandal " Madame Geriolo christened the j particular corner affected by Armitage and his grotip of intimates — that ardent inquirer came down quite triumphant with a letter in his hand. "After all," he said, as he seated himself TEMPTATION. 33 1th baronet," he UBual pro- al detail, and mt concise iii- I's Court, Hill- bl life was a t 0/ the sleepy owden's Court conjured up in such a con- gnified Eli/a- 8 own grounds liuto acres, and d park-lands. blank amaze- hat the Bcally- [n spite of ul ,8 he really the II.'b creation, the county of >rofoundIy in- vith a curious loiling enough. D, Sir Emery I baronet, vide to vide ivfra that the name ilarly through- Emery as the ^ne baronetcy, tory seemed to Q he expected, ot a word said ut, then, the i deals only in to say on such •' Residence, Fancy tlie om a baronial Id of Mentone news that tho late, who had ily incog., as a n at the Con- a baronetcy in nguished Pem- the world re- aal aoutencBS, they had said iras a delightful ling manners, ilwaprs divined is mmiensely orld's stupidity the usual little —the "School christened the mitage and his inquirer oame letter in his seated himaelf Ttdtb Q oomprehensive nod on his favourite bench, " it turns out the scallywag's nobody much. I've just had a line from my friend Bimington at Hipsley, near Uillborouffh, and he saya, though the lad's supposed to be hehr to a baronetcy, his father's a fellow in a very Bmall way of business (reasons of delicacy, he writes, prevent him from particularising further), and not at all in Society, or anything like it, in Surrey. It seems the grandfather of the present baronet was a very bad lot, a scapegrace of low habitB, who conBorted chiefly with grooms or stable-boys, and married a milkmaid or something of the sort ; no doubt after circumstancos which, as Herodotus says, it is not lawful to mention, after which ho was very property cut off by his papa, the baronet of the time, with the traditional shilling. With that modest capital as liis whole start in life, the scallywag's ancestor set up in town ; and there his descendants, living on the change for the shilling, I suppose, went from hsA to worse, till the present man has sunk practi- cally to the level of the working classes. When old Sir Emery, whom I knew in Pem- brokeshire, popped off the hooks, some six or seven years ago, he entirely ignored this debased stock — they'd intermarried, mean- while, with cooks or BCuUerymaids — and left the estates at Qascoyne Manor and elsewhere to a younger branch, who had always kept up their position as gentlemen. So the scally- wag's papa's only a bare courtesy baronet after all ; by birth and education the scallywag himself is— well, just what you'd expect him to be. Bimington says in a postscript," Armi- tage went on, glancing around him with an air of virtuous self-abnegation, " he hopes I won't mention these facts to anyone for young Gascoyne's sake ; bo I'm sure I can count upon all of you not to breathe a word of it, or to let it make the very slightest difference in any way in your treatment of the scallywag." Madame Ceriolo, raising a pair of dove-uke eyes, saw her chance to seore a point. " But he really is the heir to a baronetcy in spite of everythmg, you see," she put in languidly. •' That's very satisfactory. When people who are born of noble blood happen to oe poor, or to be placed in any dependent position, other people often cast most unjustifiable doubts upon the truth of what they say about their own families. I sympathise with Mr. Qas- coyne " ; and she glanced down with a mean- ing look at the countess's coronet engraved on the plain silver locket she wore at her bosom. "He'll be a Sur, though, any way, won't he ? " Isabel Boyton asked, goin^ straight to the point with true American busmess percep- tion. "He'll be a Sur, any way, Miss Boyton," ^rmitage retorted sharply. " And he'll make his wife, when he catches one, into a real My Lady." " For my part," Nea Blair put in with quiet firmness. " I don't oare a E.in whether he's heir to a baronetcy or whether he's not. I take him for himself. I think he's a very nice, good, sensible young man, and, whoever his parents are, he's a born gentleman." " One of nature's gentlemen I " Madame Ceriolo huterjeotod lackadaisically, with a darted glance from her tortoiseshell eyeglasses at Armitage, who, playing with his button, and foellng the sense of the meeting was entirely with the scallywag, rethred gracefully upon a safe commonplace: "After all, it doesn't so much matter what a man's father is, as what he is himself— except, of course, for purposes of probate." So, in the end, as it turned out, the world of Mentone agreed to accept Paul Gascoyne with a very good grace as a future baronet, and to invite him freely to the afternoon teas and mild " at homes " which form the staple of its innocent invalldish entertainments. A baronet is a baronet, if it comes to that, be he moro or less, as the lawyers would gracefully put it ; and a baronet's son who has been to Oxford, no matter how poor, has always a possible future open before him. Kay, more, the mere fact of the little mystery as to his origin, and the whispered story about the lady's-maid and the dubious grandmamma, added just a touch of romance to the whole affair, which made up in piquancy for whatever Paul lacked in exte- rior adornment. If there's anything odd about a man's antecedents (and still more about a woman's), it's a mere toss-up whether Society chooses to pet him or damn him. But when once Society has made up its nodnd to accept him, it becomes forthwith a point of honour to stick up for him at all risks, and to see in him nothing but the most ooneummate virtues. The very oddity is held to constitute a distinc- tion. In point of fact, accordingly, Paul Gas- coyne became the fashion of Mentone. And having once attained that proud position, as the smidl tame lion of a provincial show, everybody, of course, discovered in hun at once unsuspeoted mines of learning or talent, and agreed unanimously over five o'clock tea- tables that young Gascoyne was really a most charming and interesting person. The consequence was that for the next six weeks Paul saw a good deal of Society at Mentone — more, in fact, than he had ever seen of that commodity anywhere in his life before, and amongst it of Nea Blair and Isabel Boyton. Nea he liked and adnured immensely. And with good reason. For it was the very first time he had ever had the opportunity of meet- ing an educated English lady and conversing with her on equal terms about subjects that both could alike discourse of. He was always flattered when Nea talked to him ; the subUe delight of finding one's self able to hold one's own fairljjr with a beautiful and clever woman moved hun strangely. Hitherto he had only seen and adnured suoh beings from afiur. To stand face to face with Nea Blair, and find S4 THB ACALLYWAQ. that ah* did not diid«in to talk with hiai— nay, that the avldently p-otarred lili Hooiaty to Thiatlaton'a ur Arniitr 'o'l— waa to the ahy young nian (roiu I'lowden'i ('ourt a poaitiva ravelatlon of dulight and ({ladneaa. It ii to ho feurad that he oven nuKlectod Ariitotlo'H I'Uliioi, and hia duty to Mr. Huloiuuna, luure thnn onoa, in hia rcadineaa to go where Nea IJlair might poaaibly meet liini. He paid for it afterward* in (luaiiua ( f oonsoienoe, to be aura ; but aa long as it lasted it waa perfect bliu to bitn. Not that he believed or knew ho was falling in love witli Nea. If that explanation of hii mental phonnincna liad ever occurred to hia honest soul, Paul would have felt that thope myiterioua Claims which weighed on him ao heavily made it quite nocessary for him to see aa little aa poaaible of the fair enohantreaa. He knew he waa bound by solemn bond and pact to Mr. Holomons to sell hinisolf finally in the matrimonial market for l\ard cash .to the highest bidder ; and thouKli even then uncom- fortable doubta as to the justice c^r morality of such a prooeading sometiuio* forced thom- aelvaa obtrusively upon Paul's mind, while the day of sale seemed still so far off, he would nevertbeleBs have shrunk from letting himself get entangled in any other bund which niiglit prove adverse in the end to Mr. Solomons' fair chance of repayment, After all, he thought oaauistically to himself, there was always a !)08sibility that be might finally happen to fall n love with some nice girl who was also the heiress Mr. Bolomons dreamed about ; and then, and in lliat oaso— but there ho broke down. The nearer he drew to the actuol fact Mid pact of marriage, the more repugntxt did (he whole wild scheme appear to him. One sunny afternoon, a week or two later, the whole little coterie of the " Hives d'Or" had toade an excursion together on to the rocky hills that bound either side of tho old mule- path to Castellar. When they reached the ridge where great rounded bosses of ice-worn aandatone form a huge hog's back overlooking the twin-valleyB to right and left, they dispersed by twos and threes, aa men and maidens will do, among the rosemary bushes and the scanty umbrella-pines, or sat down in groups upon the bare, smooth rocks, in full view of the sea and the jagged summit of the gigantic Berceau. Paul foimd himself, quite unconsciously, wandering among the low lentisk scrub with Kea Blair, and, seating themselves at last on the edge of the slope, with the lemons gleam- ing yellow in the Carei Valley far below their feet, they discoursed together, as youth and maiden discourse, of heaven and earth, and fate and philosophy, but more particularly of their own two aelvea, with that profound interest which youth and a freo heart (dways lend to that entrancing subject when discussed i d»u», under tho 'spreading shade of a romantic pine tree. " And when you've taken your degree, what tbea ? " Mea (uked. with some eagerness, after Paul liad duly onli){ht«ned her mind as to the precise period of his Ureats oiamination, and tha chances for and against his obtaining a First in that arduous undertaking. " Well, then," Paul answered, with aorao little embarrassni«»t, " after tlmt, I lupposa, I must go in fur a relluwship." " But if you get a FellowHhip you won't be able to marry, will yuu ? " Nea inquired, with interest, "ilaven't they got some horribly barbarous rule nt Oxford, that if a Fellow marries he must lose his position ? " " No, no ; not now," I'aul answered, smil- ing. " ' C'ctail aulrrfoii ainai, mail nout nvons shangd tout cela,' as Bganarelle says in tlie play. A Fellowship, now, is for a fixed period.'' " Well, that's well, anyhow," Nea went on, more easily. " I hope, Mr. Qaicoyne, you'll get your Fellowship." "Thank you," Paul replied. "That's very kind of you. But I'm ashamed of having bored you with all this talk about myself — the BUDJect upon which, as somebody once put it, ' all men are fluent and none agree- able.' " " The somebody was wrone, then," Nea answered with decision. "Whenever ono meets an interesting individuality one wanta to know as much as possible about it. Don't you think," and she looked up at him with her charming smile, " in our society, nowadays, we never really get to know half enough about one another? " " I know nothing about Society," Paul re< plied, frankly. " I've never been in it. I've had no chance. But I think — in as much of the world aa I know, which is a very tiny world indeed — we do somehow Beem to go round and round, like people in the maze at Hampton Court, and never get at the heart a]id core one of the other." Dangerous ground, dangerous ground, dear Paul, for Mr. Solomons' chance of recovering in full on that long investment. Nea felt it so, perhaps, for she paused a moment, and examined a little pink rock-oistug that sprang from a cleft in the sandstone at her feet with unnecessarily dose attention for anyone who was not a professed botanist. Then she said, suddenly, as if with a burst of inspiration : " I shall be up in Oxford myself, I expect, next Bummer term. Mrs. Douglas, the wife of tho Aooadian professor — at Magdalen, you know— means to ask me up for the Eights or something." " That'll be just delightful i " Paul answered, warmly. " We shall have some chance then of really getting to know one another." " I always liked Oxford," Nea murmured, looking down, and half afraid the converBation was leading her too far. " I just love every inch of it," Paul replied, with fervour. " But, thon, I've much reason to be grateful to Oxford. 1 owe it everything." Ind ft! to the lination, and obtaining u I with lorao I luppoio, I yon won't bo quired, witli me horribly if • Ftllow vtrod, imll- mait noui trelle laya in for a fixed ea went on, oyne, you'll That's very I of having ut myielf — lebody once none agree- then," Nea lenever one f one wants t it. Don't lim with her , nowadays, nough about y" Paul re- in it. I've I aa much of a very tiny seem to go khe maze at it the heart rround, dear : recovering le paused « k roek'Oistus landetone at Utention for 9d botanist, kh a burst of ilf, I expect, I, the wife of Sdalen, you le Eights or ul answered, chance then kher." I murmured, conversation Paul replied, uuch reason everything." THE HGtfefe^i is WILLING. U 5 "You'll live ilioro when you're a Tellow? " Koa asked, looking; up again. I'aul hesitated a second, and pulled grasses in his turn. " I have to g»l my Fellowship first," he said, with some rcsorve. " And then — and then [ suppoHO I must do something or other to make some money. I have heavy claims upon me." "Oh dear, what a pityf'Kea cried, with genuine regret. " Why so. Miss Blair ? " ** Because it's bo droadful you should have to enter the world with claims, whatever they may be, to clog you. If you were free to choose your own walk in life, you know, you might do such wonders." "I should tike literature," Paul went on, relat>slng once more into that egoistic vein. "l3ut, of course that's impossible.' " Why imposHible ? " Nea asked, quickly. " Because nobody can make money at litera- ture nowadavB," Paul answered, with a sigh ; "and my circumstanoos are such that it's absolutely necessary, before everything else, I should make money, and make it quickly. I must sacrifice everything to my chance of making money." " I see," Nea answered, with a faint tinge of displeasure in her tone. And she thought to herself, " Perhaps he means he must get rich BO as to keep up the dignity of the titlo. If BO, I'm really and truly sorry; for I thought he had a great deal better stuff than that in him." "There are so many claims I have to satisfy," I'aul went on, in a low voice, as if answering her inmost unspoken thought. " My titiie's not my own. It's somebody 6»e's. I've mortgaged it all by anticipation." Nea gave a start. " Th^n you're engaged," she said, putting the obvious femlnlnb interpretation upon his ambi^oue sentence. (A woman reads every- thing by the light of her own world— courtbhip &nd marriage.) "Oh, no," Paul ariswered, smiling. •*! didn't mean that, or anything like it. I wouldn't mind that. It was something much more seriottii. I start in life with a grave butden." CfiAPTER X. THE HEIRESS IS WILLINO. "Sat, Mr. Giwcoyne," Isabel Boyton ex- claimed, catching mm up, breathless, on the Promenade dtl Midi, one day in the last week of Paul's stay at Mentone ; " will you come and ride with us over to La Mortola to- morrow ? " " I'm sorry," Paul answered, smiling at her free Pennsylvanian mode of address, "but I've no horse to ride upon." " Oh, t don't mean ride horseback," Isabel explained promptly; "momma and I have chartered a kahrriago— it brake, t think you call it over here in Europe — and we're taking a party of ladies and gentlemen acrosB to see the gardens." "I shall bo delighted to bo," Paul answered truthfully— for Nea would be there, he knew, and he went accordingly. At La Mortola, however, he soon found out that Miss Isabel meant to keep him all for herself, and, indeed, she stuck to him with creditable persistence. This was a very new sonsatlon for Paul, who had never before been mode so much of ; but he acjeptod it as Jrouth accepts almost everything — with the rank delight of a new experience. A nd how charming it was, that drive across to La Mortola, with the hot southern afternoon sun beating full upon the hills, Bordighera gleaming white upon its seaward point, and Cap Martin behind bathed in broad floods of glorious sunshine ! How Qrimaldi shone among its silvery olives t How the spires of Mentone rose tall and slender in the glisten- ing background I At the deep dark gorge, spanned oy the Pont bt. Louis, they crossed the frontier, and Paul found himself for the first time in his life on the soil of Italy. Past the Italian Custom House and the old Sartioen tower in Dr. Bennett's garden, they wound along tiio ledge to the corner by La Mortola ; and tiicn they skirted a deep rocky ravine, all in darkest sliade, with green pines clambering up its steep sides, till they halted agninst a broken eliff near the summit. At last they reached those marvellous hanging gardens, hewn out of the bare rock, where feathery African palms and broad-leaved tropical veee- tation bask in the hot sun as on their native deserts. There they descended and wandered about at will, tbr it was a " free dav," knd Isabel Boyton, taking possession of Paul, walked him off alone, with American coolness, to a seat that overhung the villa and the sea, with a view along the coast for a hundred miles from San Bemo to Toulon. "You go back next week," She said at once, after an awkward pause, when Paul had found nothing more to say to her, for he talked far less freely with the heiress than with Nea Blair. " Yes ; I go back n6xt Week," Paul rep^&tedi vaguely. " To Oxford ? " "To Oxford." " "We Shall miss you so at Mentone," thb Pennsylvanian went on with genuine regret. " You see, we're so shorthanded for gentlemen, ain't we ? " " You're very kind," Paul murmured, much abashed by this frank remark. " But perhaps somebody else will come who'll do as well— oir better." " What's a good titue to come and see Oxford in ? " Isabel asked abruptly, without heeding his remark, and gazing with a vacant ex- pression seaward. 36 THE 5CALLYWAa. Ui " Siumncr tenn's the best for visitora," Faal answered, taken aback. " I should say about the twentieth of May, for example." " Perhaps I'll fetch momma alone and have a look at it then," the golden-haired American continued, playing nervously with her parasol. " We could have a good time at Oxford about May, couldn't we ? " " I'll do my best to help you enjoy your- Mlf," Paul replied, as in duty hound, but with a sinking recollection that just about that precise date he would be straining every nerve for his final examination. "T call that real nice of you," Isabel answered, still poking her parasol into the ground by her side. " Will you take us about and show us the college, the same as we read about in • Tom Brown at Oxford ? " " The University's changed a good deal since those days," Paul replied with a smile, " but I shall be glad to do whatevei- I can to make TOUT visit a pleasant one. Though Thisleton," he added, after a short pause, *' would be able to show you a great deal more about the place than I can." The Pennsylvsmian brought back her clear blue eyes from space with a sudden flash upon bun. " Why ? " she asked curtly. " Because he's so much richer," Paul answered, boldly shaming the devil. " He's a member of all the clubs and spciis and everything. His father's one of the wealthiest men in Sheffield." Isabel drew a face with her parasol on the gravel below. " I don't care a pin for that," she answered shortly. " I suppose not. You're so rich yourself," Paul retorted, with a sigh. Then he turned the subject olumsily. "These are lovely gardens." " My poppa could buy up a place like this with a month's income," the young lady answered, refusing to follow the false trail. She said it, not with any vrJgar, boastful \ir, but simplv as if to put him in possession of the facts of the o&ae. She wanted him to know her exact position. "Why isn't he here with you?" Paul ventured to ask, just to keep the conversa- tional ball rolling. " Oh my 1 " Isabel exolaimed. " What a question to ask t Why, he's got to stop home and mind the store, of course, like every other man, hasn't he ? " " He's In business, then t " Paul said, with a start of surprise. " In my country," Isabel answered gravely, "it ain't respectable not to be in business. My poppa's the richest man in Philadelphia." Then she looked down at her shoes, and added once more, " But I don't care a pin about money myself, for all that. What I care for is whether people are nice or not. And I like Mr. Thistleton well enough in a sort of way ; he's quite nice, of course and there's nothing grabby about him. But he kind of don't take me." "No?" Paul said, feeling he was called upon to say something. "No," Isabel answered; "he don't," and then relapsed into strange silence. For a moment or two they sat with their eyes fixed on the ground, and neither spoke a single word to the other. Then Isabel began once more, just to encourage him a bit, for she misinterpreted his awkwardness and shyness : " It is a lovely place. I'm most inclined to make my poppa give up the States and come across to reside for a permanence in some elegant place like thic 'n Europe." "Your father would come if you wished him, then ? " Paul asked, all trembling with excitement, for he dimly suspected he was neglecting his duty (and Mr. Solomons' interests) In the most culpable manner. Isabel noticed his tremulous voice, and answered in the softest tones she could command : "He'd do anything 'most to make me happy." " Indeed," Paul replied, and gazed once more with a preoccupied air towards the dis- tant Esterels. They came out so dear against the blue horizon. " Yes, pvppa just spoils me," Isabel went on abstractedly ; " he's a real good poppa. And how lovely it'd be to pass one's l&e in a place like this, with all those glorious mountains and hills around one, and that elegant sea timibling and shining right in front of one's eye — with somebody uiat loved one." The running was getting imcomfortably hot now. "It would be delightful indeed," Paul echoed, very warm in the face, " if only one had got the money to do it with." Isabel waited a moment again with down- cast eyes; but her neighbour seemed dis- inclined to continue the conversation. And to think he had the power to make any woman My Lady I She paused and looked long at him. Then she rose at last with a stifled . sigh. He was real nice, she thought, this British baronet's son, and he trembled a good bit, and felt like proposing, but he couldn't just make up his mind ri^t away on the spot to say what he wanted. English young men are so absurdly awkward. " Well, we Ehall meet at Oxford, any way," she said lightly, moving down towards the shore. " Let's got along and see what those great red plants on the rocks are, Mr. Gas- coyne. I expect by this time momma '11 be looking out for me.'' Paul went home to the Continental that night with a terrible consoiousnass of neglected duty. Modest as he was, he couldn't even pretend to conceal from himself the obvious THE HEIRESS IS WILLING. 37 fact that the golden-haired PennBylvanian had exhibited a marked preference for his conversa- tion and society. He fancied she almost ex- pected him to propose to her. And, indeed, the idea was not wholly of his own suggestion, Thistleton, when relating the common gossip of the Promenade du Midi, had more than once announced his firm belief that Paul might have " the Yankee girl for the asking." And Paul himself, much inclined to underrate his own powers of attraction, could not, never- theless, deny in his own soul the patent evidences that Isabel Boyton, for aU her wealth, was .'ully susceptible to the charms of a British baronetcy. He stood at last face to face in eamest with a great Difficulty. Could he or could he not carry out his Com- pact? As he sat by himself in his room at the " Continental " that night, he thought it all over, how it had gradually grown up step by step from the very beginning. It seemed so natural, every bit of it, to him, who had grown up with it himuelf, as a sort of religion. So strange to anyone else who heard it only for the first time now as a completed transaction. For six years past and more, his father and mother and Mr. Solomons — the three great authorities that framed his life for him — ^had impressed it upon him as the first article of bis practical creed that he was to grow up a gentleman and marry an heiress. To us, what an ignoble aim it seems t but on Paul it had always been eaforced for years by all the sanctions of parental wisdom and commercial honesty as the supreme necessity. He was indebted to Mr. Solomons for his schooling, and his clothing, and his Oxford education ; and the way he was bound to re- pay Mr. Solomons was to follow instructions to the very letter and marry an heiress. His stocK-in-trade in life was his prospective title, and he was to sell that commodity, in accord- Euice with rr cognised commercial maxims, in the dearest mantet. And yet, strange to say, Paul Gascoyne himself was not mercenary. He had passively accepted the rdle in life, as most young men passively accept the choice o' a profession made for them by their parents, without think- ing very much, one way or the other, as to either ito morality or its feasibility. He was so yoimg when Mr. Solomons first hit upon his grand scheme for utilising the reversion to a British baronetcy — no more than fourteen — that he had got the idea thoroughly dinned into his head long before be was able to recog- nise in all its naked hideousness the base and sordid side of that hateful compact. Solomons had supplied him with money from time to tinje — not liberally, to be sure, for he did not wish to make his proUgi extravagant, bri in sufficient quantities for the simple needs and wants of a scallywag ; and Paul had accepted the money, giving in return hia worthleu notes of hand, as youth always accepts its livelihood from its acoustomed purveyors, without much care or thought as to the right or wrong of the customary supplies. And then there had been so much besides to distract his attention from the abstract question of the ethios of marriage. He was occupied so much with reading for the schools, and taking pupils in his spare time to help eke out his scanty income; for he felt deeply what a drain he had always made on the family resources, and how much bis father was beginning to stand in need of a son's assistance in the management of his business. The question of the moment — the definite question then and there before him at each instauc of hi.^ life — the necessity for reading hard pjid taking a good degree, and the parallel necessity for liTing at Oxford as cheaply as even a scallywag could do it — had overshadowed and eclipsed that remoter ques- tion of the imderlying morality of the whole transMtion, which had been settled for him beforehand, as it were, by his father and Mr. Solomons. Paul, in iact, was the inheritor of two arduous heritages — ^the barren baronetcy, and Mr. Solomons' Claims to principal and interest. Till that evening, then, though qualms of conscience had now ard then obtruded them- selves, he had never fairly and squarely faced his supreme difficulty. But to-night, in the solitude of his room at the " Continental," sitting by himself in the dark (so as not to waste bis friend Thistleton's bougies at a franc apiece, hotel reckoning ; for economy in small matters had long since become instinctive with him) he turned the matter over for the first time in his soul, with the definite issue clearly before him — could he or could he not ever con- scientiously marry Isabel Boyton ? His whole soul within him revolted at once with a tempestuous No. Now that tlxe chance for carrying Mr. Solomons' sobeme into actual practice had finally arrived — nay, even had thrust itself bodily upon him — ^he felt at once the whole meanness and baseness of the entire arrangement. Not so far as Mr. Solomons and his father were concerned — of their wisdom and goodness he could hardly have Sermitted himself even now to entertain a oubt — but so far as bis own execution of their plan was at issue, he realised that at once in its true colours. It would be wickedly and grossly unjust to Isabel. And it would be doing violence at the same time to his own inner and better nature. But then the claims upon him ? Those ter- rible notes of hand. He took out his pocket- book, lighted one candle, and totted them dl up, sum by sum, at compound interest, as they stood there confessed, from the very first moment. School expenses, tailor's bill, travel- ling, rooms and sundries; all renewable yearly at twenty per cent., and all running on 38 TliE SCALLVWAO. indefinitely for ever at a rapidly -growing rate. Premiums on policies, washing, books — good heavens ! how tne totals appall&i and staggered him. If he worked his lite long at any eda- oated profession he would never be able to earn enough to clear off that deadly load of debt with which he started. He saw clearly before him (wo awful alternatives: either to hunt and capture his heiress, as originally designed — in spite of all his seething internal repug- nance ; or else to play false to his father and llr. Solomons — to whom he owed everything —by keeping his benefactor (as he had been taught to regard him) waiting for years perhaps for his full repayment. Waiting for years, indeed I "Why, at twenty per cent., renewable annually, the sum could never get paid at all. It would go on accu- mulating as long as he lived, bond behind bond, and remain, when he died, as a heritage of debt to whoever came after him. Not that anybody would ever come after him at all, if it came to that ; for, as tbiugs then stood, he would never, never be able to marry. The baronetcy might revert to the remote cousin in Pembrokeshire. And then, for one brief moment, Nea Blair's sweet face as she sat on the hillside that day at Sant' Agnese flashed across Paul's mental vision as he blew out the candle once more in utter despair, and gave him one further in- ternal qualm of conscience. Was it possible he was influenced in ^hat he had just been thinking by any wicked arvUre-pensie as to Nea— that beautiful, impossible, unattainable Nea ? He, who was nobody, to dream about her. In his inmost soul, he trusted not ; for he felt how imworthy a thing it would be to betray his father, and Faith, and Mr. Solomons, and lus duty, all for the sake of his own wicked personal likes and fancies. Whatever came, he would at least try to keep Nea out of his mind severely, and decide the question upon its own merits. He would try to envisage it thus only to himself. Dare he do this great wrong to Isabel Boyton ? Or to any other woman circumstanced like Isabel ? He would try to let it hinge on that,not on Nea. For, lifter all, what was Nea to him or he to Nea ? Six weeks before he had never seen her; and now — he realised with a pang to himself that he wouldn't like to think he should never again see Nea. And all through the long sleepless night that followed, one truth kept breaking in upon him more clearly than ever : if he would, he might marry Isabel Boyton — and pay off Mr. Solomons without Isabel's ever missmg those few paltry hundreds. To Isabel's poppa they were but a drop in the bucket: and yet to him, Paul Qascoyne, they were a millstone round his neck, an insupportable burden put upon him aUnost against his will before he had yet arrived at yean of discretion. CHAPTEB XI. BEHIND TBB 80ENS8. Thbee days later Paul and his companion turned their backs on Mentone en route for England. Scallywag as he was, Paul had so far succeeded in interesting the little world of the "Bivesd'Or " that Madame Ceriolo, and Nea Blair, and Isabel Boyton, and her mamma, and even the great Armitage himself — the leader of the coterie — came down to the station to see him off. Armitage thought it was always well to fall in with the general opinion of Society upon anybody or anything. But i'ust before they bade their last adieus at the •arrier, a tidy little Frenchwoman in a plain black dress pushed her way to the front with a bouquet in her hand of prodigious dimen- sions. The Ceriolo recognised her in a m' ment again. It was that compromisii'g litt - quay's- maid at the " lies Britanniques." ' ' Comment c'eat vous, Mademoiselle Clarice ! " Paul cried, taking her hand with perfect c»i- pressement, though he blushed a little before the faces of all his une acquaintances. " How kind of you to come and see me off t I called last night at your hotel, but they told me you were engaged and couldn't see me." " Justement; je faisais la coiffure de Madume" Mademoiselle Clarice answered, unabashed by the presence of the Ceriolo and so much good society. "But clier Monsieur Paul, I couldn't let you go and leave Mentone sans vous serrer la main — moi qui votia a/i connu quand vous itiez tout petit, tout petit — mais tout petit 'comme ga, monsieur. And I do myself the pleasure of bringing you a bouquet for cette chire maman. You will make her my compliments, cette chire maman. Tell her it has been so delightful to see yoa again. It has recalled those so happy days at Hillborough." Paul took the big bouquet without any dis- play of mauvaise honte, and thanked the voluble httle Mademoiselle Clarice for it in French as fluent almost as her own. Mademoiselle Clarice had tears in hei' eyes. "And to hear you talk that baautiful language," she cried, " cette belle Icngue que je vous a/i enseignee m^oi-meme — ah qv^ c'est charmant I " She stooped forward irresistibly, and kissed him on both cheeks. Mademoiselle Clarice was forty, but plump and well pre- served. Paul accepted the kissos with a very good grace, PS well as the two hands with which she bid him farewell. "And now I must run back," she said ; " I must run back this minute. Madams m'attend — elU e'em- patiente tant, Madame I " And with another good kiss and two shakes of the hand she wan gone, and Paul was left standing alone by the barrier. "What a strange creisure!" Madama Ceriolo cried, putting up those long-handled tortoiseshell eyeglasses of hers, and following the impresBionabie Frenchwoman with, b&i t 1 'i J tl..M, BEHIND tHB SCENES. i, is companion en route for , Patil had so little world of iriolo.andNea her mamma, himself — the to the station raght it was incral opinion ything. But adieus at the lan in a plain ;he front with giouB dimen- in a m' ment fj litt „ ikjy's- lelle Clarice I" 1 perfect em,' i little before oces. " How 3ff! I called r told me you e." coiffure do :e answered, le Geriolo and her Monsieur javc Mentone qui V0U8 ai t, tout petit — ieur. And I nging you a I. You will fhire maman. il to see yoa lappy days at hout any dis- thanked the rice for it in her own. in he!' eyes, at beautiful ) Icngue que -ah ^v^ c'est d irresistibly. Mademoiselle >nd well pre- I with A very > hands with "And now I Qst run back I — elle a'em- nrith another land she waa alone by thQ " Madams long-handle^ ad fo|?owing m with, hoi 39 oiiony glancd as she left the station. " Who is she, Mr. Gascoyne, and how on earth did you ever come to know her ? " " She's an old friend of my mother's," Paul answered onoe more, blurting out the whole simple truth, " and she tauent me French at Hillborough when I was a little chap, for she was a lady's-maid at a house where my father was coachman." And then without waiting to observe the effect of this painful Parthian shot, delivered trembling, he raised his hat, and biddiug a comprehensive good-bye to all at onuc, took refuge with Thistleton behind the passengers' barrier. " Goodness gracious I " Madame Ceriolo cried, looking round with an astonished air of surprise to Armitage, " did you ever in your life see anything so funny ? One would have thought the woman would have had good feel- ing and good sense enough not to inflict her- self upon him in the present company. She may have been a friend of his mother's, of course, and all that sort of thing ; but if she wanted to see him she should have gone to his hotel and seen him quietly. She ought to remember that now he's heir to a baronetcy and a member of a university, and admitted as such into good society." For since Mentone had decided upon adopting Paul, and therefore backed him up for every possible virtue, it had been Madame's cue to itisist most strenuotlsly upon the genealogical fact that wherever a person of noble race may happen to be born, or whatever position he may happen to fill, he retains his sixteen quarters of nobility intact for all that. This was one for Paul, and two for Madame Geriolo. "Why, I thought it was so nice of her," Nea objected, with her simple English tender- heartedness, "to come down and see him off BO simply before us all, and to brihg him those flowers, and, in the simplicity of her heart, to fall on his neck and kiss him openly. Her eyes were quite full of tears, too. I'hi sure, Madame Ceriolo, she's very fond of him." " Nea, my dear," Madame Ceriolo remarked sevetely, with the precise smile of the British matron, " your views are really quite revolution- ary. There should be natural lines between the various classes. People mustn't all get mixed up promiscuously. Even if she liked him, she shouldn't let her feelings get the better of her. She shotild always remember to keep her proper place, no matter what her private senti- ments may prompt her to." And, indeed, in Madame Ceriolo's family they managed these things a great deal better. For, as Nea and Madame Ceriolo were coming to Mentone that very autumn, a little episode had occurred in a coffee-room at Marseilles which may be here related, as flashing a ray of incidental light on the character of Madame Ceriolo's aristocratic antecedents. They reached Marseilles late in the evening, and drove at once to the Hotel da Louvre— It was paii of Madanio's cue that she knew the best and moSt luxurious hotel at every town in Europe — where they went down in their travelling dress to the restaurant for supper. As they entered they found they had the room to themselves, and an obsequious waiter, in an irreproachable white tie and with a spotless napkin hanging gracefully on his arm, inotioned them over witiiout a word to a table near the fireplace. For the indivisible moment of time while they took their seats an observant spectator might just have noted a flash of recognition in Madame's eyes, and an answr:-- ing flash that twinkled silently in the obse- quious waiter's. But neither spoke a word of any sort to the other, save in the way of business. Madame took the carte that the waiter handed her, with a stifled yawn, and ordered an omelette and a bottle of Beaujolais with the same careless air with which she would have ordered it from any other youn^ man in a similar position. At the end of the supper, however, she sent Nea up to get her necessaries for the night un- packed, and waited down herself to ask a few questions, to make quite sure, she said, aboht the trains to-morrow. As soon as Nea had left the room, the obsequious waiter approached a little nearer, and, still with his unequivocally respectful air and his spotless napkin hanging gracefully over his arm, stood ;3Vidently awaiting Madame Ceriolo's orders. Madame eyed him a moment with a perfect calm through those aristocratic glasses, and then observed quietly, " Tien«i c'eai toi," with- out moving at all from the position she occu- pied when Nea left her. "Yes, it's me, Polly," the irreproachable waiter answered, in his native English) straight and stiff as ever. " I thought you were going to make the season at Pau this Winter," Madame Ceriolo remarked in an arid tone of voice, a little sour about the upper notes, and crumbling her bread with one hand uneasily. " I was," the irreproachable waiter replied, without moving a muscle, " but I ain't now. The governor and me had a blow-up about terms. So I gave him the slip, and engaged on here — extra hand for the Biviera season." " You made the summer at Scheveningen, I think ? " Madame Ceriolo remarked languidly, as one discusses the affairs of an indifferent acquaintance. The irreproachable waiter bowed his stiff, official bow. " At the ' H6tel des Anglais,' " he answered, in his unvarying hotel tone. " Good busmess ? " "No; beastly. All Dutch and Germans. Them gentlemen button, up their pockets too tight. If it hadn't been for a family or two of English and Americans droppin^r in casual, the tips wouldn't so much as have paid for my washing. Dickeys and cuffs come dear at 40 THB SCALLYWAG. Soheveningen." There waa a slight panse. Then Macume Ceriolo spoke again. " Tom." "Yes, PoUy." *' Where's Karl ? " " With a variety troupe at Berlin, when I last heard from him." •' Doing well ? " "Pretty well, I believe. Feathering his nest. But banjos ain't anything like what they'd used to be. The line's overstocked, that's the long and the short of it." " How's mother ? " Madame Ceriolo asked, carelessly. "Drunk," the irreproachable waiter re- sponded, rearranging his tia. "Drunk, aa usual." "Still at the Dials?" The waiter nodded. "She can't go far from dear old Drury," he answered vaguely. " Well, I love the Lane, myself," Madame Ceriolo responded. " It's a rare old place. I never waa happier, Tom, in all my life, than in the days when I was on, long ago, in the pantomime." "You're on the quiet now, I see," the waiter remarked, with a respectful inclination ^in case anybody should huppen to see him through the glass doors that opened on to the corridor. Madame Ceriolo bent her head. " On the strict quiet," she responded coldly. " Governess ? " " Well, pretty much that sort of thing, you know* Companion. Chaperon." " To an English yoimg lady, I gathered ? " " Yes. Clergyman's daughter." The waiter's face almost relaxed into a broad smile. "Well, you always were a clever one, Poll^ t " he exclaimed, delighted. Madame Cenolo drew herself up very stiff, as one who prefers to discourage levity in the lower classes. " I hope I know how to behave myself in whatever society I may happen to be placed," she answered, chillily. "You do," the waiter replied. "You're a rare one at that. I wish I could make as much out of the French and German as you and Earl do. Mine's all thrown away — all waiters speak the lot. Say , though : what are you now — I mean in the way of name and nation?" " Toujours Ceriolo" Madame answered, with a quiet smile. " After all, it's safer. If anybody who knew you before comes up and eaUs you by a different name when you've taken an alias, how awfully awkward I And really, if it comes to that, Ceriolo's as good a name for a person to own as any I could in- vent. It's suggestive of anything on earth but organ-grinding." For, in truth, Madame's father, the reputed Count, had really earned a precarious liveli- hood by the production of sweet music on that despised instoument. The irreproachable waiter smiled an im> maculate smile. "And are you Italian, or what ? " he asked, always respectful. "Tyrolese," Madame answered carelessly; "it's better so. Widow of a Count in the Austrian service. Mother an Englishwoman — which is true for once, you see — brought up in Vienna in the English Church by special agreement — to suit the clergyman." " And how much are you going to stand me for my discreet silence ? " tiie waiter asked, comine half a step nearer, and assuming a less agreeable tone and countenance. Madame pulled out ten francs from her dainty purse, and laid the coin gingerly on the edge of the table. "Won't do," the waiter observed, shaking his head solemnly. " Not enough by a long way. Won't do at all. When an affectionate brother meets his sister again, whom he hasn't seen for more'n a twelvemonth — and keeps her secrets — he c(ui't be put off with half a Napoleon. No, no, Polly; you must stand me a sovereign." " It's an imposition," Madame Ceriolo, re- marked, growing very red in the face, but remembering even so to preserve her blandest tone, and drawing the sum in question im- willingly from her pocket. " Tom, I call it a perfect imposition." "All right, my angel," the waiter replied calmly, supping the coin at once into his pocket. "I've done as much more 'en once for you, Poll^ , when you were hard up ; and, after all, it am't often we meet now, is it, my chicken?" " You're rude and coarse," Madame Ceriolo answered, rising to go. " I wonder you dare to address me in such vulgar language." " Well, considering you're a countess, it is rather cheeky," the waiter replied, smiling, but still with the imperturbable attitude of the well-bred servant. " You see, Po%, we ain't all like you. I wish we were t We ain't all learnt to speak the Queen's English with ease and correctness from the elocution master at Drury." At that moment, before he oould reveal any further items of domestic history a head ap- peared at the door, and the waiter, without altering a shade of his tone, continued respect- fully, in fluent French : " Trie bien, madame. The omnibus will be here to take down your luggage to the 11.40." All which will' suggest to the intelligent reader's mind the fact that in Madame Ceriolo's family the distinctions of rank were duly observed, and that no member of that noble and well-bred house ever allowed his feelings of affection or of contempt, of anger or of laughter, to get the better at any time of his sober judgment. But this had happened three months before the moment when Paul Gascoyne and Charlie Thistleton were seen out of the station, away down at Mentone, by Mademoiselle CUurice, the lady's-maid. „.. .,. ■.:.,,. , , , - } A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 41 oil Italian, or otful. ■ed careleBBlv; Count in the Englishwoman 16 — brought up roh by speciid an. ig to stand me waiter asked, SBuming a leas nos from her ingerly on the irved, shaking igh by a long m affectionate horn he hasn't |j — and keeps f with half a 11 must stand 16 Ceriolo, re- the face, but 3 her blandest question un- 'om, I call it wMter replied •noe into his lore 'en once tiardup; and, low, is it, my ^ame Ceriolo er you dare to age. lountess, it is i, smiling, but ititude of the 'oily, we ain't We ain't all iish with ease ion master at lid revetfl any ry a head ap- alter, without inned respect- nnibuB will be bo the 11.40." tie intelligent lame Ceriolo's ik were duly of that noble )d his feelings anger or of ly time of his ; nontbs before i and Charlie station, away iselle Clarice, '■«/iii htut'-'' CHAPTER XII. A CHAMCB ACQUAINTANCB. While Paul and bis pupil were travelling north to Paris by the tram de luxe (at the pupil's expense, of course — bien entendu), away over in England Faith Qasooyne was journeying homeward with a heavy heart and a parliamentary ticket by the slow train from Dorsetshire and Hillborough. For Faith had managed to get away for her holiday to her mother's friends in a sheltered coastwise nook in the beloved West Country, where the sun had shone for her (by rare' good luck) almost as brightly as on the Biviera, and where the breakers had whitened almost as blue a sea as that which shattered itself in shimmering spray upon the bold and broken rocks of La Mortola. A delightful holiday indeed for poor hardworked Faith, far from the alternate drudgery of school or home, and safe from the perpetual din and uproar of those joyous but all too effusively happy infants. And now that short, peaceful interlude of rest and change was fairly over, and to-day Faith must return to her post at Hillborough in good time for the reopening of school, the day after to-morrow. At the second station after she left Sea- minster, Faitli, who had hitherto enjoyed all to herself the commodious little wooden horse- box known as a third-class compartment on the Great Occidental Bailway, was somewhat surprised to see the door of her carriage thrown open with a flourish by a footman in livery, and a middle-aged lady (for to Faith thirty-seven was already middle-age), far better dressed than the average of Parliamen- tary passengers, seat herself with a quiet smile of polite recognition at the opposite window. Faith's democratic back was set up at once by the lady's presumption in venttiring to intrude her well-bred presence into a Parlia- mentary compartment. People who employ footmen in liverj ought to hord with their equals in a well-padded first, instead of rudely thrusting themselves to spy out the manners and customs of their fellow Christians whose purses compel them to travel third in oommo dious horseboxes. Faith resented the intru- sion as she resented the calls of the district visitors who dropped in at all times and seasons to bestow good advice gratis upon her- self and her mother, but would have been verv much astonished if the cab-owner's wife had reciprocated the attention by sending in a card casually on their own " at home" day. These de haut en baa civilities were not much to Faith's taste: she had too much self-respect and self -reverence herself to care either for, obtruding on others or being herself obtruded ' upon. But the lady settled herself down in her seat, and spoke with such unassuming and sprightly graciousness to Faith that even that Nationiil Schoolmistress's proud heart was melted by degrees, and before the two had reached Wil- mington Junction they were hard at work in conversation with one another. "Dear me, where's my lunch-basket? " the lady said at last, looking round for the racks which did not exist in the commodious horse- box ; " is it over your side, my dear ? " She said " my dear " so simply and naturally that Faith could hardly find it in her heart to answer : " I think your footman — or, at least, the gentleman in tight silk stockings who saw you off— put it under the seat there." The lady laughed a good-natured laugh. " Oh, he's not my footman," she answered, stooping down to look for it ; " ho belongs to some friends where I have been spending Christmas. It doesn't run to footmen with me, I can assure you. If it did, I wouldn't be travelling third this morning." " No ? " Faith queried coldly. " No," the lady answered, with a gentle but very decisive smile, "nor you eilher, if it come? to that. Nobody ever travels third by preferb^'^e, so don't pretend it. There are peoijle who tell you they do, but then they're snobs, and also untruthful. They're afraid to say they do it for economy ; I'm not. I travel third because it's cheap. As Pooh-Bah says in the play, I do it but I don't like it. Now, say the truth yourself: wouldn't you, if you could, always (ravel first or second ? " " I never tried," Faith answered evasively ; " I've never had money enough." " Now, that's right I " the stranger exclaimed warmly opening her lunoh-basket and taking out some cold grouse and a fiask of olaret. "That shows at once you have blue blood. I'm a great admirer of blue blood myself ; I firmly believe in it." " I don't precisely see what blue 'lood s got to do with the matter," Faith answered, be- wildered. "I come from a little country town in Surrey, and I'm a National Schoolmistress." " Exactly," the ady echoed. ' The very moment I set eyes on you I felt sure you had blue blood. I saw it in your wrists, and I wasn't mistaJcen. You mayn't know it, perhaps ; a great many people have got blue blood and aren't aware of it. But it's there, for all that, as blue as indigo ; and I, who am a connoisseur in matters of blood, can always spot it ; " and she proceeded to taJte out from a dainty case a knife, fork, spoon, and a couple of drinking-glasBcs. "But how did you spot it in me just now ? " Faith asked with a smile, not wholly unflattered. " Because you weren't ashamed to say you'd never travelled anything but tliird, and be- cause you insisted then with unnecessary zeal on the smallness and humility of your own surroundings. Only blue blood ever does that. Everybody s descended from a duke on one side and a cobbler on the other. Snobs try 42 THfi SCALLYWAd. ftlways to brincr forward their duke and conceal their cobbler. Bine blood's prouder and franker, too. It insists upon its cobbler bein^ duly recognised." "Well, I'm not ashamed of mine; I'm proud of him," Faith answered, colouring up ; " but all the same, I don't like blue blood, It's so hard and unfeeling. It makes me mad sometimes. You wouldn t believe how it keeps people waiting for their money." " I'm sorry you don't like it," the lady said, with the same soft smile as before and a bewitching look, " for then you won't like me. I'm blue, very blue, as blue as the sky, and I don't pretend to deny it. Will you take a little grouse and a glass of claret ? " " Thank you," Faith answered coldly, flushing up once more; "I have my owa lunch here in my own parcel." " What have you got ? " the lady asked, with the inquiring air of a profound gourmet. " Hard-boiled eggs and sandwiches," Fait said, half choking. •• Well, Lady Seaminster didn't give me any hard-boiled eggs," the lady said, searching in vain in her basket. " May I have one of yours ? Let's share our provisions." Faith could hardly say no, though she saw bi once through the polite ruse ; so she passed ah egg to the lady with an " Oh, of course, I shall be delighted," and proceeded herself to eat a very dry sandwich. " Have some grouse," the lady said, passing her over a piece on a little eleotro-plated dish, "and a glass of claret." " I've never tasted claret," Faith answered, grimly ; " I don't know if I'U like it." " ^1 the better reason for trying it now," the lady replied, still cheerfully kind, in spite of rebuffs. " And so you thought that elegant gentleman in the silk stockings was my ser- vant, did you? What a capital joke I But people at Oxford can't afford to keep footmen in tights, you know. We're as poor as ehurch miise there — ^psor, but cultured." A flash of interest gleamed for a oecond in Faith's oyo at the mention c f Oxford. " Oh, yrn livo there, do you ? " she said. " I should lo' T to see Oxford" •' Yes, my husbai^d 's professor of Accadian," the ad.v remarked; "his name's Douglas. But I dare ray yon don't know what Accadian is. I didn't, I'm sure, till I married Archie." A fuller flush came on Faith's cheek. " I've heatd of it from mybruiher," she said, simply. "I think it was tho language spoken in Assyria before the Assyrians went there, wasn't it ? Ah, yes, Paul told me so 1 And I've heard him speak oi your husband, too, I fancy." " Have yon a brother at Oxford, then ? *' the lady asked, with a start. " Yea, at Christ Church." * ' " "Why, that's Archie's coUego," the lady Wient on, smiling. "What's ms natue? I may know him." " I don't think So. Hie name's Gascoyne." Mrs. Douglas fairly jumped with her triumph. " There I didn't I tell you so ? " she cried, clapping her hands in her joy. " You have blue blood. It's as clear as mud. ArchI j's told me all about your brother. He's poor but blue. I knew you were blue. Your father's a baronet." Faith trembled all over at this sudden recognition. " Yes," she answered with some annoyance ; " but he's as poor as he can be. He's a cab-driver, too. I told you I wasn't ashamed of my cobbler." " And I told you I was sure you had blue blood," Mrs. Douglas echoed, delighted. " Now, this is quite too lovely, trving to pass yourself off for a ro' ' ■ like tnat; but it's no use with me. I bcu through these flimsy disguises always. Have some more claret ? it's not so bad, is it ? And so you'd love to go to Oxford ? " " Yes," Faith faltered ; " Paul's told me so much about it." " Guard," the lady cried, as they stopped at a station, " do we change here ? Mind you tell us when Tve ^et to Hillbotough Junction." She had enjomed this upon him already more than a dozen times since they started on their journey, and the guard was beghining to get a l^ittle v'ired of it. " All right, mum," he said, in a testy voice ; " don't you be afeard. I'll see you all right. Jest you sit whete you ate until I come and tell vou." "^Vhy, that's whete I have to change," Faith observed, as Mrs. Douglas withdrew her head from the window. "Well, that's all right," Mrs. Douglas replied, with a cheery nod. " Now we can have such a nice Ule-d-tlte together. You must tell me all about your brother and yourself. Do you know, my husband thinks your brother's awfully clever ? " She had found the right way to Faith's hpart at last. Thus adjured. Faith began to gosnp with real goodwill about Paul, and her mother, and th . bushiess at Hillbotough, and the life of a schoolmistress, and the trials she endured at the hands (and throats) of those unconscious infants. She talked away more and more familiarly as the time went on till dusk set in, and the lamp in the horsebox alone was left to light them. Mrs. Douglas, in spite of her prejudice in fatour of bluo blood, was really sympathetic; and by dexterotis side-questions she drew bilt of FeAih the inmost longings and troubles of her heart: how the local HUlborough grandees owed long bills which they woului't pay how Paiil was cramped at Christ Church 'or want of money; how her fathet was grqwing rheu- matic and too old for his wora. ^ how hard a time they often had in the winter ; how fond she vvas of Paul, atid Paul of bbr ; how he had taught her ... his holidays all he learnt himself; how they two read Datt(!et and ] ] A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 43 e's Gascoyne." led with her 1 yon so ? " she ler joy. "You mud. Arohlj's He's poor but Ycnir father's a it this sudden ered with some as he can be. yon I wasn't you had blue ed, delighted, trving to pass that; but it's b these flimsy more claret ? ou'd love to go I's told me so ihey stopped at e? Mind you igh Junction." 1 him already they started on w beghining to a testy voice ; you all right. il I come and e to change," s withdrew her Mrs. Douglas •' Now we can ;ogether. You r brother and msband thinks ay to Faith's i'aith began to Paul, and her llborough* and the trials she ■oats) of those 3d away more e went on till the horsebox Mrs. Douglas, r of bluo blood, by dexterous of Faith the of her heart: ruAdees owed ay how Paiil i -'or want of prqwing rheu- i how hard a »r; how fond bbr ; how he all he learnt Dfttt(!fit and Viotov Hugo together, and how she longed with all her heart and Boul to be free from the indescribable bondage of the infants. Every- thing she told — Mrs. Douelas was so excellent and friendly a wielder of tne pump — save that one hateful secret about Mr. Solomons. There Faith was always discreetly silent. She hated that horrible compact so thoroughly in her soul that she could never so much as bring "That would be no use, thank you — thank you ever so much," she replied, gasphig ; " I couldn't pay it back — I mean, I couldn't afford to pay so much for — for a mistake of my own in not getting out at the right station." " The mistake wm mine," Mrs. Douglas said with prompt decision. " It was I who misled you. I ought to have asked." She hesitated for a moment. " There's a good hotel here, I herself to speak of it, even in the family circle.>Jknow," she began oncd more timidly, " if They talked so long and talked so earnestly ^ou'd only be so nice as to come there as my that they quite forgot about Eillborough Junction. At last, as the clock was sounding seven, they arrived at a big and noisy station, where porters were shouting, and trains were pufGing, and the electric light was fizzing and splutter- ing. Mrs. Douglas put her head out of the wmdow once more, and called out to the guard, " Now, is this Hiliborough Junction ? " The guard, with a righteously-astonished air, cried back in reply, " Hiliborough Junction ? Why, what are you thinking of, mum ? We passed Hiliborough Junction a clear two hours ago." Faith looked at Mrs« Douglas, and Mrs. Douglas looked at Faitn. They stared in silence. Then the elder woman burst suddenly into a good-natured laugh. It was no use bullying that righteously-astonished guard. He was clearly expostulation-proof by long experience. " "\Vhen can we get a train i back ? " she asked instead, with practical wisdom. And the guard answered in the same busi- ness-like tone, " You can't get no train bask to-night at all; last's gone. You'll have to stop here till to-morrow morning." Mrs. Douglas laughed again ; to her it was a mere adventure. The Lightbody's carriage which was sent down to meet her would have to go back to the Bectory empty — that was all. But tears rushed up suddenly into poor Faith's eyes. To her it was nothing less than a grave misfortune. " Oh, where can I go ? " she cried, clasping her hands together nervously. " And mother '11 be so dreadfully, dreadfully frightened 1 " Mrs. Douglas's face grew somewhat graver. " You must come with me to an hotel," she answered kindly. Faith looked back at her «vith eyes of genuine dismay. " i can^t," she murmured in a choking voice. " I — I couldn't afford to go to ftny hotel where you'd go to." Mrs. Douglas took in the whole difficulty at a glance. " How much have you got with you, dear ? " she asked gently. " Four and sixpence," Faith answered with a terrible gulp. To her that was indeed a formidable sum to have to spend unexpectedly upon a night's lodging. " If I were to lend you a few shillings " Mrs. Douglas began, but Faith shook her head. guest. But Faith shook her head still more vigor- ously than before. "You're a dear, kind thing," she cried, grasping her new friend's hand and pressing it warmly, "and I'm ever so grateful. But I couldn't— I couldn't — oh no, I couldn't 1 It may be pride, and it may be the blood of the cobblers in me, I don't know which ; but I never could do it — I really couldn't." Mrs. Douglas had tact enough to see at once she really meant it, and that nothing on earth would shuke her firm resolve ; so she paused a moment to collect her thoughts. Then she said once more, with that perfect good-humour which seemed never to desert her, " Well, if that's so, my dear, there's no other way out of it. The mountain won't come to Mahomet, it appears, so I suppose Mahomet must go to the mountain. If you won't come to my hotel, my child, I'll just have to go and stop at youra to take care of you. Faith drew back with a little cry of depre- cation. " Oh no," she exclaimed ; " I could never let you do that, I'm sure, Mrs. Douglas." But on that point Mrs. Douglas was firm. The rock of the convenances on which she founded her plea could not have been more immovable in its fixity than herself. " There are no two ways about it, my dear," she said, after Faith had pleaded in vain every plea sne knew to be let go alone to her own sort of lodging-house ; " the thing's impossible. I'm a married woman, and older than you, and I know all about it. A girl of your age — and a baronet's daughter, too — can't be per- mitted to go by herself to an urn or pubUo- house, especially the sort of Inn you seem to imply, without a married woman to guarantee her and chaperon her. As a Christian crea- ture, I couldn't dream of allowing it. Why, that dear mother of yours would go out of her senses if she only knew you'd been passing the night alone in such a place without me to take care of you." A sudden thought seemed to strike her all at once. " Stop here a second," she said ; " I'll soon come back to you." Faith stopped on the platform by her one small portmanteau for five minutes or more ; and then Mrs. Douglas returned triumphant. "This is what I have said," she exclaimed, brandishing a piece of white paper all radiant before her. " I've sent otf a telegram : ' Mrs. Douglas, Pendlebury, to Gascoyne, Plowdeu's 44 THE SCALLYWAG. Court, Hillborough, Surrey. Tour daughter has missed her train, but is here and safe. Will return to-morrow. I am taking her to a respectable inn for the night. I am a friend of the Lightbodys, of Cheriton Rectory.' " " How did you know my address ? " Faith gasped, astonished. " My dear," Mrs. Douglas replied, "I happen to possess a pair of eyes. I read it on the label, there, on your portmanteau." " How much did it cost? " Taith cried, all aghast. " I refuse to be questioned about my private correspondence," Mrs. Douglas answered firmly. " That's my affair. The telegram's mine, and sent in my own name. And now, dear, we've got to go out into the town and hunt about for our four-and-sixpenny lodging." CHAPTER XIII. BBOTBEB AND SISTER. " So what did you do, then ? " Paul asked, two days later, as his sister and he sat hand-in> hand, comparing notes over their winter's adventures. " So then," Faith went on, continuing her tale with unusual animation, '* we ran about to two cr three little places, to see which one would tuiie us cheapest. And Mrs. Douglas — oh, she's a wonderful one at bargaining— you and I would never dare to do it. We wouldn't have the face to beat people down so. ' No,' she said, ' that won't suit ui — we want bed and breakfast for half-a-crown,' and, you'll hardly believe it, at last she got it." It was the luncheon-hour on the first day of Faith's return to the slavery of the infants ; but Faith had not gone home for her mid-day meal. She had got Paul to bring it out to her in her father's tin, up to the Knoll — the heath- clad height that overhangs Hillborough, and from wUch tld town derives its name. A little wooden summer-house, in form like a small Ionic temple, consisting only of a cucular roof supported by heavy wooden columns, in the quaint bad taste of the eighteenth century, crowns the svuumit ; and here, on that bright, frosty January morning, in spite of the cold, Fadth preferred to eat her lunch undisturbed tmder the dear blue sky, in order to enjoy an uninterrupted interchange of confidences with her nevriy-returned brother. In the small houses of the labomring classes and the lesser howrgeoiaie a Ute-^-tete is impossible. People in that rank of life always go outdoors to say whatever they have most at heart to one another — a fact which explains much in their habits and manners whereat the unreflecting in the classes above them are apt to jeer beyond what Ib seemly. So, brusque as was the change to Paul from the lemon-groves of Men- tone to the bare boughs and leafiless trunks of the beeches and chestnuts on the Knoll at Hillborough, he was glad to embrace that chance of outpouring his soul to his one inti- mate fjriend and confidante, his sister, in the rococo summer-house on the open hill-top, rather than in the narrow little parlour at the ancestral abode of the Qasooyne family. << We couldn't have done it ourselves," Paul mused hi reply. " But that's always the way with people who feel sure of their ground, Faith. They'll bargain and haggle ten times as much over a shilling as we will. You see, they're not afraid of losuig caste by it." " That's just it," Faith went on. " She was as bold as brass about it. 'Half a crown and not one penny more we pay,' she said, putting her little foot down smartly — just like this ; ' and we don't want any supper ; because, you see. Faith, you and I can sup in our own room, to save expense, off the remains of the sandwiches and the grouse and claret.' " " No ! She didn't say that out loud before theu: very face ! " Paul exclaimed, aghast. " Yes, she did, before their very faces, my dear ; and me there, just ready to drop at her side with shame and annoyance. But, Paul, she didn't seem to care a pin. She was as high and mighty as if she'd ordered a private room, with champagne and turtle. She held up her head like a thorough lady, and made me feel quite bold myself, merely by dint of her good example." " And you slept together ? " Paul asked. "And we slept together," Faith answered. " She said she didn't mind a bit sharing the same room, though she would with some people, because I had blue blood — she was always talking that nonsense about blue blood, you know— and blue blood was akin all the world over. And I said I'd always under- stood, from the documents in the case, that mankind was made of one flesh, everywhere alike, no matter what might be the particular colour or quality of its circulating fluid ; and, for my part, I didn't care a brass farthing whether her blood was blue, or pink, or yellow, or merely red like us common people ; for she was a dear, good thing, anyhow, and I liked her ever so. And then she took my face be- tween her hands, like this, and kissed me so hard, and said, ' Now we two are friends for good and always, so we'll talk no more non- sense about debatable questions.' And, Paul, she's really such a sweet, kind soul, I could almost forgive her for bemg such a dreadful aristocrat. Why, do you know, she says she pays everybody weekly, and never kept even a washerwoman waiting for her money, not a fortnight in her life, nor wouldn't, either." " Well, you see. Faith," Paul answered, musing, " I expect the fact is, very often, they don't remember, and they've no idea what trouble they're causing. Perhaps we oughtn't to judge them too hardly." " I judge them hardly," Faith cried, flushing up ; "and so would you, if you'd the bills to mt^e ^up, and had to go round to their very doors to ask them for the money. But Mra. :: :j '■\ ■J to his one inti- 8 sister, in tho open hill-top, parlour at the e family, urselves," Paul always the way their ground, acgle ten times wm. You see, a by it." on. " She was If a crown and le said, putting just like tlds; r ; because, you in our own remains of the claret.' " 3ut loud before )d, aghast, i^ery faces, my to drop at her 56. But, Paul, )he was as high i private room, •he held up her 1 made me feel nt of her good *aul asked, aith answered, tit sharing the d with some tlood — she was out blue blood, IS akin all the always imder- the case, that ih, everywhere f the particular Qg fluid; and, brass farthing link, or yellow, leople ; for she i^, and I liked k my face be- kissed me so ire friends for no more non- • And, Paul, i soul, I could ich a dreadful , she says she er kept even a money, not a t, either." kul answered, >ry often, they no idea what >s W6 oughtn't sried, flushing 'd the bills to to their very y. But Mrs. BROTHER AND SI5TER. 45 i I ■ Douglas, she's quite another sort — she's quite [different. You can't think how friendly we got together in that one evening. Though, to be sure, we lay awake the best part of the night, chattering away like a couple of mag- I pies ; and before morning we were much more ' intimate than I ever was with any other woman before in all mv life. I think, perhaps " And then Faith hesitated. " You think, perhaps, it was because she was more like the sort of person you ought natu- rally to mix with," Paul suggested gently, read- ing with his quick sympathetic instinct her unuttered thought. Faith faltered still. " Well, perhaps so," she said. " More my equal — at least, in intelligence and feeling. Though I should be sorry to think, Paul," she added, after a pause, " I had more in common with the class that keeps people waiting for their money than with dear, good, honest, hardworking souls like father and mother." '* I don't think the classes need be mutually exclusive, as we say in logic," Paul mused slowly. "You see, I mix a good deal with both classes now ; and it seems to me there may be good and bad in both about equally." " Perhaps so. But the harm the one class does comes home to me, of course, a great deal more than the harm done by the other. They give me such a lot of bother about the bills : you wouldn't believe it. But Mrs. Djuglas is a dear, I'm sure of that. She gave me such a kiss when she saw me off by the tri\in next morning, and she said to me, ' Now, remember, Faith dear, I expect you to come in summer term and visit me at Oxford.' " " At Oxford ? " Paul cried, with a start of short-lived pleasure. " Oh, yes ; she was always going on about that the whole night through. She kept at it all the time ; ' You must come to Oxford.' I'd happened to say to her earlier in the day, while we were in the train together, and before we got quite so intimate with one another, that I'd always had such a longing to see the University ; and as soon as we'd begun to chum up a bit, you know, she said at once : ' Next summer term you must come and visit me at Oxford.' But it couldn't be managed, of course," Faith went on with a sigh. " The thing's beyond us. Though I couldn't make her understand how utterly impossible it was." Paul's face fell. " I suppose it is impossible," he murmured, disappointed. " You couldn't get the proper sort of clothes, I expect, to go and stop at Mrs. Douglas's, could you ? " " No," Faith answered very decisively. " I couldn't indeed. It may be wicked pride, but I'm woman enough to feel I won't go unless I can be dressed as well as all the others." " It's a dreadful thing, Faith," Paul said, still holding her hand and looking away vaguely over the bare English landscape — so painful a contrast to the green of Mentone ; " it's a dreadful thing tiiat 1 can't do anything in that way to help you. Now, any other brother, situated as I am, would be able to a-tbint bis sister a bit, and make her a little preBent of a dress and hat for such an occasion as that, for example. But I — I can't. What- ever I have is all Mr. Solomons'. I can't spend a single penny unnecessarily on myself or you without doing a wrong to him and father and you and mother. There's that tenner, now, I got from Thistleton, for coaching him : under any oth«r circumstances I'd be able to look upon that as my own to spend — I earned it myself— and to get you an evening dress (you'd want a simple evening dress, of course) to go to Oxford with. But I can't allow myself such a luxury as that. If I did, I'd have to get another tenner the more from Mr. Solomons, and sign for it at once, and burden my conscience, and father's, and yours, with another extra ten pounds, and all tho interest." "I sometimes think," Faith exclaimed petulantly, " we should all have ^oon a great deal happier in our lives if we'd never heard of that dreadful Mr. Solomons I " Paul took a more judicial view of the situa- tion, as became his sex. " I sometimes think so, too," he answered after a pause. "But, then, you've got to remember. Faith, that we, both of us, are what we ore now wholly and solely through Mr. Solomons. We can't unthink so much of our past as to make ourselves mentally into what we might have been if Mr. Solomons had never ao aU crossed our horizon. We must recollect th \t if it hadn't been for Mr. Solomons I should never have gone either to the Gram- mar School or to Oxford. And if I'd never ![one, you'd never have learnt all that you've earnt from me. You'd never even have become a teacher — now, would you? In a sort of way, Faith, you're now a laidy, and I'm a gentleman. I Imow we are not what the big people at Hillborough would call gentlefolk; but in the only sense of the word that's worth anything we are ; and that we are all depends upon Mr. Solomons. So being what we are, we can't say now what we would have wished things to be if we had been quite other- wise." " That's a trifle metaphysical,'^ Faith mur- mured, smiling. " I don't feel sure I follow it. But perhaps, after all, on the whole, I agree with you." "Mr. Solomons is a factor yon can't eliminate from our joint lives," Paul went on quietly ; " and if we could eliminate him, and tdl that he implies, we'd not be ourselves. We'd be Tom and Mary Whitehead, if you imderstand me." " You might be Tom, but I'd not be Mary," Faith answered with a not tmbecoming toss of her head, for the Whiteheads, in point of fact, were her pet aversion. " The difference there vr*\ A3 THE SCALLYWAd. U Bomotliing in the fibre. T suppose Mrs. Douglas would say it was bluo blood; but, anyhow, 1 believe I'm not quite made of the same stuff as she is." " Why, there you're as bad as Mrs. Douglas herself, Paul retorted, laughing. " Who was so precious democratic just now, I'd like to know, about all mankind and its varieties of circulating fluid ? " Faith laughed in return, but withdrew her hand. We all of us object to the prejudices of others, but our own little prejudices are so much more sensible, so much more firmly 3 rounded on reasonable distinctions I Wo on't like to have them too freely laughed at. " And this Yankee girl you were telling ua about last night," Faith went on after a pause. •' Was she very nice ? As nice as she was rich ? And did you and she flirt desperately together ? " Paul's smiling face grow suddenly grave. "Well, Faith," he said, "to tell you the truth — you may think it an awfully presump- tuous thing for a fellow like me to say, but I really believe it — if I were to take pains about going the right way to work, I might get that Yankee girl to Bay Yea to me." " Most probably," Faith answered, quite un. discomposed by tliis (to Paul) most startling announcement. " You're lauehing at tne," Paul cried, draw- ing back a little ahcurply. " You think me a conceited prig for imagining it." " Not at all," Faith replied, with supreme sisterly confidence in her brotlier's attractions. " On the contrary, I should think nothing on earth could be more perfectly natural. There's no reason, that I can see, why you need be so absurdly modest about your own position. You're tall, you're strong, you're well-built, you're good-looking, and though it's me that says it, as oughtn't to say it, you're every inch a gentleman. You've been well educated; you're an Oxford man, acoostomed to mix with the best blood in England; you're cleverer than anybody else I ever met ; and last of all, you're the heu to a baronetcjjr. Heaven knows I'm the least likely person m the world to over-estimate the worth or im- portance of thai — but, after all, it always coTllits for something. If all those combined attractions aren't enough to bring down the American girl on her knees, where, for good- ness' sake, does she expect to find her complete Adonis ? " " I wish I felt half as confident about myself as you do about me," Paul murmured, half ashamed. " If you did, you wouldn't be half as nice as you are qow, my dear. It's your diffidence that puts the comhle on yoir perfections, as dear old Clarice would say. I'm so glad you saw her. She'd be so proud and delighted." " And yet it was awkward," Paul said re- flectively. " I don't doubt it was awkward," his sister replied. "It's always awkward to mix up your classes." " I'm not so much ashamed," Paul went on with a sigh, " as uncomfortable and doubtful. It isn't snobbishness, I think, that makes me feel so ; but, you see, vou don't know how other people will treat them. And you hate having to be always obtruding on people whose whole ideas and sympathies and feelings are restricted to one class the fact that you your- self are just equally bound up with another. It seems like assuming a constant attitude of needless antagonism." " Is she pretty ? " Taitii put in abruptly, not lieeding his explanation. " Who ? Clarice ? As pretty as ever, and not one day older." " I didn't mean her" Faith interposed with a smile. " I mean the other one — the American." " Oh, her ! Yes, in her way. no doubt. Mignonne, slender, pallid, and golden-haired. She looks as if a breath would blow her away. Yet she's full of spirit, and cheek, and audacity, for all that. She said to me herself one day : ' I'm a little one, but, oh my ! ' and I'm sure she meant it. The man that marries her will have somebody to tackle." " And do you like her, Paul ? " I Paul looked up in surprise — not at the words, but at the impressive, half-regretful way in which they were spoken. " No," he said. " Faith, if you ask me point-blank, she's a nice little girl — pretty, and all that sort of thing ; but I don't care for her." " And will you take pains about going the right way to make her say Yea to you ? " " Faith, how can you 1 I could never marry her. Bich as she is, and with all Mr. Solomons' bills at my back, I could never marry her." There was a minute's pause. Tnen Faith said again, looking up in his face : " So the revolt has come. It's come at la^t. I've been waiting for it, and expecting it. For months and months I've been waiting and watching. You've found yourself face to face with the facts at last, and your conscience is too strong for you. I knew it would be." " The revolt has come," Paul answered, with an effort. " I found it out last week at Men* tone, alone, and, in my own mind, it's all settled now. It's a terrible thing to have to say. Faith, and I've hardly worked out all it entails yet; but, come what may, I can't marry an heiress." Faith said nothing, but she rose from her seat, and putting her two hands to his warm, red cheeks, kissed him soundly with sisterly fervour. "I know what it means, Paul," she said, stooping over him tenderly. " I know what a struggle it must have cost you to make up your mind — you on whom it's been enjoined as a sort of sacred duty for so many years past by father and Mr. Solomons. But I knew, THE COMING OP AQK OF THE HEIR. 47 to mix up aul wont on id doubtful. t makes nie know how id you hate leople whose feelings are you your- th another. attitude of n abruptly, 8 over, and rposed with one — the no doubt. Iden-haired. V her away, id audacity, If one day : id I'm sure ies her will 1 ttheworda, tful way in 9u ask me W— pretty, n't care for it going the ou ? " ever marry . Solomons' TV her." rhen Faith ime at la.t. np it. For 'aiting and face to face nsoience is Id be." vered, with ek at Men< id, it's aU to have to 1 out all it y» I can't I from her his warm, ith sisterly ' she said, tow what a I make up n enjoined years past It I knew, when onoe you oame to stand face to face with it, you'd see through the sham and dinpel tlio iUusion. You could never, never so sell your- self into slavery, and a helpless woman into gross degradation." " It will kill father whenever I have to tell him," Paul murmured in return. " It will be the deatb-knell of all his hopes and ideals." "But you needn't tell him — at present at least," Faith answered, wisely. " I'ut oil i.he worst till you find it's inevitable. After all, it's only a guess that the American would tolco you. Most men don't marry at twenty-one. And you won't be twenty-one till to-morrow. You've years before you yet to make up your mind in. You can earn money 'meanwhile and repay it slowly. The disillusionment may come by slow degrees. There's no need to ppring it upon him at one swoop, as you sprang it upon me unexpectedly this minute." " I can never earn it ; I can never repay it," Paul answered, despondently. "It's far too heavy a weight for a man to begin life upon. I bhall sink under the burden, but I shall never get rid of it." " Wait and see," Faith answered. " For the present, there's no need for saying anything. To-morrow Mr. Solomons wiU want you to sign your name afresh. But don't be foolish enough to tell him this. Why, gooc ess gracious, there's the bell 1 I must hurr* down at once. And how cold it is up here jn the hill-top." Halfway down the slope she turned and spoke once more. "And the other girl," she said, "Nea Blak? The English one ? " " She's very, very nice," Paul answered, with warmth. " She's a really good girl. I like her immensely." " Who is she ? " Faith asked, in a tremulous voice. " Her father's a clergyman, somewhere down In Cornwall." " I should hate her," Faith cried. " I know I should hate her. I never can bear grand girls Uke that. If this is one of that sort, I know I should hate her. The American I could stand — their ways are not our ways ; and we have the better ot them in some things ; but an Englishwoman like that, I know I could never, never endure her." "I'm sorry," Paul answered. And he looked at her tenderly. CHAPTER XrV. THE OOHINO OF AOB OP THE HEIR TO THE TITLE. Next morning was Paul's twenty-first birth- day. I'or that important occasion he had hurried home to England three days before his term at Oxford began ; for Mr. Solomons was anxious to bind him down firmly at the earliest poaeible moment to repay all the sums borrowed on his account by his father during his infancy, from the very beginning. To bo sure, they had all bnen expended on nccosaaricB, and if the sturdy infant hiinNclf would not pay, it would alwnys be possible to fall back upon his father. But, tnon, what Uflo was that as a security ? Mr. Solnmonn asked himself. No, no ; he wanted Paul's own hand and seal to all the documents hereinafter recapitulated, on the date of hu coming of age, as a guarantee for future repayinent. The occasion, indeed, was celebrated in the Oascoyne household with all duo solemnity. The baronet himself wore his Sunday best, with the carefully-brushed tall hat in which hu always drove summer visitors to church in the Hillborough season ; and at ten of the clock precisely he and Paul repaired, with a church- going air, as is the habit of their class (viewed not as a baronet, but as petite hourqcoisie) whenever a legal function has to be performed, to the dingy, stingy, gloomy-looking house where Mr. Solomons abode in the High Street of Hillborough. Mr. Solomons, too, for his part, had risen in every way to the dignity of tne occasion. He had to do business with a real live baronet and his eldest son ; and he had prepared to receive his distinguished guests and clients with becoming hospitalitv. A decanter of brown sherry and a plate of plain cake stood upon tho table by the dusty window of the estate agent's office; a bouquet of laurustinus and early forced wallflowers adorned the one vase on the wooden chimney-piece, and a fancy waistcoat of the most ornate design decorated Mr. Solomons' own portly person. Mr. Lionel, too, had come down from town to act as wit- ness and general adviser, and to watch the case, so to speak, on his own behalf, as next- of-kin and heir-at-law to the person most interested in the whole proceeding. Mr. Lionel's hair was about as curly and as olea- ginous as usual, but the flower in his button- hole was even nobler in proportions than was his wont on week-days, and the perfume that exhaled from his silk pocket-handkerchief was more redolent than ever of that fervid musk which is dear to the Oriental nervous organi- sation. " Come in. Sir Emery," Mr. Solomons ob- served, rubbing his hands with great unction, as the cab-driver paused for a second respect- fully at his creditor's door. Mr. Solomons called his distinguished client plain Gascoyne on ordinary occasions when they met on terms of employer and cabman, but whenever these solemn functions of high finance had to bs performed he allowed himself the inexpensi^ i luxury of rolling that superfluous title for i special treat on his appreciative palate as a connoisseur rolls a good glass of burgundy. Paul grew hot in the face at the unwelcome sound— for to Paul that hateful baronetcy had grown Into a perfect bete noire — but Su* Emery advonoea by shuffling steps with a THE SCALLYWAG. 1 I I diffident air into the middle of the room, find- ing obvious difllculties as to the carriago of his . iianda, and then observed, in a very Bheopisb tone, OS ho bowed awliwardly : " Good-day, Mr. adomons, sir. Fine mornin', Mr. Lionel. " It ia a fine morning," Mr. Lionel con- desoendod to obuerve in reply, with n distant nod ; " but deviliith cold, ain't it ? " Then, ex- tending his alcek white hand to Paul, with a more gracious salute, " How de do, Oascoyne ? Had a jolly time over yonder at Mcntono ? " For Mr. Lionel never forgot that Paul Oascoyne had beon to Oxford and was heir to a baronotov, and that, therefore, social capital might, as likely as not, hereafter be made out of nim. " Thank you," Paul answered, with a slight inclination of his head and a marked tone of distaste ; " I enjoyed myself very much on the Iliviora. It's a beautiful place, and the people were so very kind to mo." For Paul on his side had always a curious double feeling towards Lionel Solomons. On the one hand, he never forgot tha^i Lionel was his uncle's nephew, and that once upon a time, when ho played as a child in his father's yard, he used to regard Lionel as a very grand ouug gentleman indeed. And, on tne other and, he couldn't conceal from himself the patent fact, especially since he had mixed in the society of gentlemen on equal terms at Oxford, that Lionel Solomons was a peculiarly offensive kind of snob— the snob about town who thinks he knows a thing or two as to the world at large, and talks with dib familiarity about everyone everywhere wnose name is bandied about in the shrill mouths of London gossip. Mr. Solomons motioned Sir Emery graciously into a chair. "Sit down, Paul," he said, turning to his younger client. "A glass of wine this cold morning, Sir Emery ? " " I thank you kindly, sir," the baronet re- sponded, taking it up as he spoke. " 'Ere's your very good 'ealth, Mr. Solomons, an' my respex to Mr. Lionel." Mr. Solomons poured out a glass for Paul and then two more, in solemn silence, for him- self and his nephew. Tho drinking of wine has a sort of serious ceremonial importance with certain perBons of Mr. Solomons' char- acter. After that he plunged for a while into Seneral conversation on the atmospheric con- itions and the meteorological probabilities for the immediate future — a subject which led round naturally by graceful steps to the politi- cal state of this lungdom, and the chances of a defeat for the existing Miniatrj over the Bill for the County Government of Dublin. Mr. Solomons considered it becoming on these State oooaaions not to start too abruptly on the question of business; a certain subdued deli- cacy of consideration for his clients' feelings made him hesan the interview on the broader and, so to speak, neutral basis of a meeting between gentlemen. At last, however, when the sherry and the Ministry were both comfortably disposed of, and Sir Emery had signified his satisfaction and acquiescence in either process, Mr. Solo- mons doxterously'and gracefully introduced the real subject before the house with a small set speech. " I think, Sir Emery," ho said, put- ting bis square bullet-head a little on one side, " you intimated just now that you wished to confer with me on a matter of business? '' " Yes, sir," the cab-driver answered, grow- ing suddenly hot, and speaking with a visible effort of oloqueooe. "My son, Paul, as you know, sir, have come of age to-day, and it's our desure, Mr. Solomons, if-so-be-as it's okally convenient to you, to go together over them there little advances you'v" beon kind enough to make from time to ti' 'or Paul's eddioa- tion, if I may so term ' to set 'em all right and straight, ia tL .^ner o' speaking, by gettin' Paul's own acknowledgment for 'em in black an' white, now he's no longer a minor but his own master." It was a great triumph for the British baronet to stumble through so long a sentence unhurt, without a single halt, or a lapse of consciousness, and he felt justly proud when be got fairly' to the end of It. Frequently as he had rehearsed it to himself in bed the night before, he never thought that when the moment for firing it ofT in actual practice really arrived be would have got pat through it all with such distinguished success. Mr. Solomons smiled a smile of grateful recognition, and bowed, with one hand spread carelessly over bis ample and expansive waist: coat. " If I've been of any service to you and your son, Sur Emery," be answered with humility, not untempered by conscious recti- tude and the sense of a generous action well performed (at twenty per cent, inierest, and incidentals), "I'm more than repaid, I'm sure, for all my time and trouble. " '* And now," Mr. Lionel remarked, with a curl of his full Oriental lips, under the budding moustache, " let's get to business." To business Mr. Solomons thereupon at once addressed himself with congenial speed. He brought from their pigeon -bole in the safe (with a decorous show of having to hunt for them first among bis multifarious papers, though he bad put them handy before bis client entered) the bundle of aoknowledgments tied up in pink tape, and duly signed, sealed, and de- livered by Paul and his father. ' " These," he said, unfolding them with studious care, and recapitulating them one by one, " are the documents in the case. If you please, Mr. Paul"— he had never called him Mr. Paul before; but he was a free man now, and this was business—" we'll go over them to- gether, and cheek their correctness." "I have the figures all down here in my pocket-hook," Paid answered hastily, for he ^ 'i at a meeting srry and the dispoaed of, 8 aatisfaction IS, Mr. SolO' atroduoed the I a tmall set he said, put* 9 on one side, ou wished to isinosB? "' wcrod, grow* nth a viaiblo Paul, as you day, and it's i-as it's okally 3T over them kind enough i'aul's eddioa- } set 'em all r o' speaking, i;ment for 'em )nger a minor the British ng a sentence or a lapse of )roud when he intly as he had ) night before, ) moment for Jly arrived he all with such e of grateful I hand spread mnsive waist.- ice to you and iBwered with nsciouB recti- is action well interest, and laid, I'm sure, irked, with a ir the budding enpon at once 1 speed. He the safe (with unt for them its, though he lient entered) ts tied up in laled, and de- " These," he OUB care, and ' are the please, Mr. im Mr. Paul an now, and over them to* J88." a here in my ABtily, for he le, a «» .« i t J o a o 1 I s o tMBi Iriew tgreei proloi look in s( JiWIlUA'WV"' ' '' '-.'JiMVi' THE eOMINQ OP AQB OP THE HBIR. 49 ras an^donB to shorten this unpleasant inter- Hew as much as possible ; " will you just llance at their numbers, and see if they're oourate?" But Mr. Solomons was not to be so put off. Por his part, indeed, he was quite otherwise ninded. This ceremony was^to him a vastly eable one, and he was anxious rather to brolong it, and to increase the sense of its deep importance by every conceivable legal detail in lis power. ' "Excuse me," he said blandly, taking up the paper, and laying it open with ostentatious ^BorupulouBneiJS. "This is the law, and we toiust be striotly lawyer-like. Will you kindly look over the contents of this document, and leee whether it tallies with your recollection ? " Paul took it up and resigned himself with a fsigh to the unpleasant ordeal. " Quite [right," he answered, handing it back formally. ' Will you be so good as to initial it on the {back, then, with date as signed?" Mr. [Solomons asked. Paiil did as he was bid, in wondering silence. Mr. Solomons took up the next in order, and I then the third, and after that the fourth, and ; 80 on through all that hateful series of bills and renewals. Every item Paul acknowledged in solemn form, and each was duly handed over for inspection as he did so to Mr. Lionel, who also initialled them in his quality of witness. At last the whole lot was fairly disposed of, and the dreadful total alone now stared Paul in the face with his blank insolvency. Then Mr. Solomons took from his desk yet another paper — this time a solemn document in due legal form, which he proceeded to read aloud in a serious tone and with deep impressiveness. Of "this indenture" and its contents Paul could only remember afterwards that it con- tained many allusions to Sir Emery Qascoyne, of Plowden's Court, Hillborough, in the County of Surrey, baronet, and Pai! Gasooyne, of Christ Church, in the University of Oxford, gentleman, of the first part, as well as to Judah Prince Solomons, of High Street, HiU- borough aforesaid, auctioneer and estate agent, of the second part ; and that it purported to witness, with many unnecessary circumlocu- tions and subterfuges of the usual legal sort, to the simple fact that the two persons of the first part agreed and consented, jointly and severally, to pay the person of the second put a certain gross lump-sum, which, so iat as human probability went, they had no sort of prospect or reasonable chance of ever paying. However, it was perfectly useless to say so to Mr. Solomons at that exact moment ; for the pleasure which he derived from the perusal of the bond was too intense to permit the inter- vention of any other feeling. So when the document had been duly read and digested, Paul took up the pea and did as he was bid, signing opposite a small red wafer on the face of the instrument, ood then remarking, as he handed it back to Mr. Solomons, with his finger on the wafer, in accordance with in- structions : " I deliver this as my act and deed " — a sentence which seemed to afford the person of the second part the profoundest and most obviously heartfelt enjoyment. And well it might indeed, for no loophole of escape was left to Paul and his father any- where. Th')y had bound themselves down, body and soul, to be Mr. Solomons' slaves and journeymen lumds till they had paid him in full for every stiver of the amount to the uttermost farthing. When all the other signing and witnessing had been done, and Paul had covenanted by solemn attestations never to plead infancy, error, or non-indebtedness, Mr. Solomons sighed a sigh of mingled regret and relief as he observed once more : " And now, Paul, you owe the seven-and-six for the stamp you'll notice." Paul pulled out his purse and paid the sum demanded without a passing murmur. He had been so long accustomed to these constant petty exactions that he took them now almost for granted, and hardly even reflected upon the curious fact that the sum in which he was now indebted amounted to more than double the original lump he had actually received, without counting these perpetual noinor draw- back Mr. Solomons folded up the document oare- fuUy, and replaced it in its pigeon-hole in the iron safe. " That finishes the past," he said; "there we've got our security, Leo. And for the futur*), Mr. Paul, is there any temporary assistance you need just now to return to Oxford with ? " A terrible light burst across Paul's soul. How on earth was he to live till he took his degree? Now that he had fully made up his mind that he couldn't and wouldn't marry an heiress, how could he go on accepting money from Mr. Solomons, which was really advanced on the remote security of that supposed con- tingency? Clearly, to do so would be dis- honest and uiijust. And yet, if he didn't accept it, how could he ever take his degree at all, and if h<4 didn't take his degree, how could he possibly hope to eain anything any- where, eiUier to keep himself alive or to repay Mr. Solomons? Strange to say, this terrible dilemma had never before occiurred to his youthful intelli- Cce. He had to meet it and solve it off- d now, without a single minute for con- sideration. It would not have been surprising, with the training he had had, if Paul, accustomed to live upon Mr. Solomons' loans, as most young men live upon their father's resources, had salved his conscience by this clear plea of necessity, and h8,d decided that to take his degree, anyhow, wan of the first importance, both for himaelf oir.d Mi. Solomons. 50 THE SCALLYWAQ. Bat he didn't. In an instant he had thought aJ these things over, and being now a man and a free agent, had decided in a dash what course of action his freedom imposed upon him. With trembling lips be answered firmly: " Nc , thank you, Mr. Solomons ; I've enough in hand for my needs for the present." And then he relapsed into troubled silence. What followed he hardly noticed much. There was more political talk, and more sherry all round, with pliuu-oake accompaniment and serious faces. And then they rose to leave, Paul thinking to himself that now the crisis had oome at last, and he could never return to his beloved Oxford. Those three years of his life would all be ''ihrown away. He must miss his degree— and break his father's heart with, the disappointment. But Sir Emery observed, as he reached the open air, rubbing his hands together in the profundity of his admiration : " 'E's a rare clever chap, to be sure, is Mr. Solomons. Barr and Wilkie ain't nothin' by the side of him. Why, 'e read them documents out aloud so as no lawyer couldn't 'a drawed 'em up better." And Mr. Lionel, within, was observing to his imcle : " Well, you a/re a simple one, and no mistake, to let that fellow Gascoyne see where you keep his acknowledgments I For my part, I wouldn't trust any man aUve to know where I keep any papers of importance." CHAPTER XV. riOHHITTKB OF 8UFPLT. When Paul got home, he put his dilemma, at lunch time, before Faith, 'W'ho went out with him once more on the knoii to discuss it. "And what do you mean to do now?" Faith asked, as soon as he had finished out> pouring his difficulties into her sympathetic ear, " Anyhow, you iniMt go back to Oxford." "I can't," Paul answered, shortly; "I've no money to go with." " You've Thistloton's tenner," Faith replied, with simple straightforwardness, unconscious of the impropriety of such language on the lips of the female instructor of youth ; for she had seen so little of anybody but Paul, that Paul's phrases came naturally to the tip of her tongue whenever she discussed the things that pertain to men, and more especially to Oxford. " That'll pay your way up and settle you in, at any rate." " But my battels i " Paul objected. " I won't have anything to meet my battels with." Faith was too well up in University language not to be well aware by this time that " battels " are the collage charges for food, lodging, sun- dries, and tuition; so she made no bones about that techniocJ phrase, but answered boldlv: " Well, the battels must take care of them- selves ; they won't be due till the beginning of next term, and meanwhile yon can live on tick —as all the big people do at Billborough — can't you?" " Faith I " Paul cried, looking down Into lorn face aghast. " ^t tu, Brute I Yon who altnyi pitch into them so for not paying their little bills promptly I " "Oh, I don't really mean thatt" Faith answered, colouring up, and somewhat shocked herself at her own levity in this fall from grace ; for, to Faith, the worst of all human sins was hving on credit. " I only meant — can't you try to get some more private pupils in the course of term-time, and stand your chance at the end of being able to pay your battels ? " Paul reflected profoundly. "It's a precious poor chance," he responded, with perfect frankness. " There aren't many fellows who care to read nowadays with an undergraduate. And, besides, it spoils a man's own prospects for his examinations so much, if he has to go teaching and reading at once — driving two teams abreasti as learner and tutor." "It does," Faith answered. "That's ob- vious, of course. But, then, you've got to do something, you know, to keep the ball roll- ing." It's a great thing for a man to have an un- practical woman to spur him on. It mAkes him boldly attempt the impossible. So in the end, after much discussing of pros and cona between them, it was finally decided that Paul must go up to Oxford, as usual, and do his best to hang on somehow for the present. If the worst came to the worst, as Faith put it sao- oinctly, he must make a clean breast oi it all to Mr. Solomons. But if not, he tLight manage by hook or by crook to earn eno \gh money to pull through two terms ; for in tiwo terms more he would take his degree, and then he might really begin to work for money. It was a desperate attempt — how desperate those only know who have themselves been through it. But Paul resolved to try, and the resolve itself had in it a gentle touch of the heroic. Next day, in fact, he bade farewell to Faith and his mother, and returned with his ten- pound note to Oxford. Ten pounds is a slender provision for a term's expenses, but it would enable him at least to look about him for the moment, and see what chances arose of taking pupils. And, indeed, that very night fortune favoured him, as it sometimes favours those forlorn Lopes of work-a-day heroes. To his great sur- prise, Thistleton came round, after ful, to hia rooms, to ask if Paul would take him on for the term as a private pupil. " It's to read, this time," he explained, with his usual frankness, "not to satisfy the gover- nor. I really must get through my ' Mods ' at last, and, if I don't look sharp, I shall be ' ploughed ' agahi, and that 'd set the governor's back up, so that he'd cut my allowanoe, for he won t stand my failing again, the Kovemor won't, that's certain." ■*' f.'wwii'^i'j-rTr^T COMMITTBB OP SUPPLY. 31 s IntolMr whoaltwyB ( their little Mt!" Faith hat shcoked fall from all human oly meant — rivate pupils stand your *o P»y your responded, uren't many tys with an toils a man's ns BO much, ig at onoe — earner and That's ob- ra ffot to do le ball roll- have an un- it makes < So in the " and oona )d that Paul do hia best mt. If the put it sue- last of it all he ixight un eno Tgh for in vtfo legree, and for money. J desperate wives been ry, and the luch of the U to Faith ti his ten- imds is a dnses, but about hirn aoes arose e favoured 96 forlorn great sur- lU, to his m on for ned, with ■he gover- 'Mods 'at shaU be governor's anoe, for governor With great joy, fheretore, Paul consented to take him on for the term, and so double that modest tenner. Thistleton stopped talking long and htte in his friend's rooms, and about twelve o'clock one of those confidential fits came over Paul, which are apt to come over young men, and others, when they sit up late into the small hours of the morning over the smouldering embers of a dying fire. He had impressed upon Thistleton more than once already the absolute need for his making a little money, and his consequent desire to obtain pupils ; and Thistleton in return had laughingly chaffed him about those mysterious claims to which Paul was always so vaguely alluding. Then Paul had waxed mor j confidential and friendly still, and had imported to Thistleton's sym- pathetic ear the fact that, if he didn't succeed in earning his own living for the next two terms, he would be obliged to leave Oxford without taking his degree at all, and so cut off all hope of making a Uvelihood in future and satisfying the mysteripus claims in question. "How so?" Thistleton asked; and Paul answered him in guarded phrase that lus means of subsistence had since his return from Mentone been suddenly and quite unexpectedly cut from under him. " What I The respected bart.'8 not dead, is he ? " the blonde young man asked, opening his big blue eyes as wide as he could open them. Paul replied, with a somewhat forced smiley that the respected hart, still continued to walk this colid earth, and that his ^sappearanoe, indeed, from this mortal scene would have produced very little effect one way or the otiier upon his son's fortunes. Then Thistleton grew more curious and in- quisitive still, and Paul more confidential ; till the end of it all was that Paul gradually un- folded to his friend the whole of Mr. Solomons' scheme for his education and future life, with the financial details of yesterday's indenture, and the supposed way in which he was him- self to discharge thereafter those serious obli- gations. When Thistleton heard the entire story, he would have laughed outright had it notoeen for the obvious seriousness of Paul's dilemma. To borrow money on the strength of a prospec- tive heiress unknown was really too ricQculous. But as soon as he began fully to grasp the whole absurd incident, its graver as well as its more comic aspects, his mdignation got the better of his amusement at the episode. He declared roundly, in verv plain terms, that Mr. Solomons, having taken Paul's life into his own hands while Paul was yet too young to know good from evil, and huaving brought Paul up like a genUoman, at Oxford, was clearly bound to see the thing through to the bitter end — at least, till Paul had taken his degree, and was, therefore, in a position to earn his own livelihood. "It I were you, QHOOyae," the blonde young man asserted vigorously (with an un- necessary expletive, here suppressed), "I wouldn't have the very slightest compunction in the world in taking hin money for the next two terms, and then tell him right out he might whistle for his cash till you were able and ready to pay him back again. It's his own fault entirely if he's made a bad invest- ment on a grotesque security. At least, that's how we'd look at the matter in Yorkshire." " I think," Paul answered, with that gravity beyond his years that fate had forced upon him, " if it were somebody else's case I was judging instead of my own, I should judge as you do, either in Yorkshire or elsewhere. I should say a fellow waisn't boind by acts im- posed upon him, as it were, oy his father or others, before he arrived at years of discretion. But then, when I was asked to sign those papers yesterday, if I were poing to protest at all, that wai the moment when I ought to have prciiCi-t d. I ou(,'ht to have plainly scJd, ' I'll sign for the money, if you'll go on nnding me in ready cash till I take my degree but, mind, I don't engage to d anything in the world to catch an ..eiress.' Only I h«dn't the courage to say so then and thsr'. You sev it's b en made a sort of religious duty for ne, through all m;y life, to marry for money ; and if I'd blurted out my refusal point-blank like that, I'm afraid my father would have been grieved and annoyed at it." " I expect my s;overnor's grieved and annoyed at a great many things I do," Thistleton retorted with the unruffled philo- Lophical calm of oue-and-twenty — where others are concerned. ' It don't pay to be too tender to the feelings ui fathers, you see; it gives them too high and mighty an idea of their own importance. Fathers in any cas are apt to magnify their office overmuch, and it would never do for sons as well to pamper tihcm. But, after all, I don t know why you need have spoken at all, nor why you shouldn't go on accepting this old buffer's assistance and support, with a quiet conscience, till you take your degree. When one looks it in the face, you don't know that you won't marry an neiress. Accidents tuill happen, you see, even in the best regulated families. It's just as easy, if it comes to that, to fall in love with a girl with five thousand a year as with a girl who hasn't a penny to bless herself with. If thej^five thousand pounder's pretty and nice, like that Yankee at Mentone with the mamma in tow, I should say, on the whole, it's a great deal easier." "Not for me," Paul answered, with the prompt fervour bom of recent internal debate on this very question. "I can understand that another fellow, wLo hadn't been brought up to look out for money, migl t fall in love with a ^1 with money quite as easily as with a girl without any. He has no prejudice one way or the other. But in my case it's dif- ferent. The very fact that the money's been so 5a THE SCALLYWAG. * mnoh insisted apon for me, and that part of it would go to pay Mr. Solomons "—Paul never even thought of calling his creditor anything less respectful than " Mr. Solomons " even to his nearest acquaintance— " would suflBce to pre- vent me from falling in love with money. You ■ee, falling in love's such a delicately balanced operation T If I married money at all, it'd be simply and solely because I married for moncv, not because I fell in love with it ; and I could never take anv woman's money to pay the debt incurred beforehand for my own educa- tion. I should feel as if I'd sold myself to her, and was her absolute property." Thistleton stirred the fire meditatiTely, with his friend's poker. " It ia awkward," he admitted unwillingly — " devilish awkward, I allow. I say, Gascoyne, how much about does it cost yon to live for a term here ? " •' Oh, cvn awful lot of money," Paul answered, much downcast, staring hard at the embers. "Net much short of fifty pounds on an average." Thistleton looked across at him with a broad smile of surprise. "Fifty pounds 1" he echoed. * You f.on't mean to say, my dear fellow, you man-ge to bring it clown to fifty pounds, do you ' Well, for summer term especially I do, when there are no fires to keep up," Paul answered soberly. "But spring term comes rather heavy sometimes, Z must say, bec^us of the cold and extra clothing." Thistleton looked for some time at the fire, ataring harder than ever with blank astonish- ment. " Ghucoyne," he said at last in a very low tone, " I'm clean ashamed of myself. ' • Why, my dear boy ? " " Because I spend at least five times as much as that on an average." " AL, but then you've got five times as much to spend, yon know. That makes all the difierence." Thistleton paused and ruminated once more. How very unevenly things are arranged in this world I He was evidently thinking how be could word a difficult proposition for thair partial readjustment. Then he spoke again : " I oould easily cut my own expenses down fifty quid this term," he said, " if you'd only let me lend it to you. I'm sure I wouldn't feel the loss in any way. The governor's behaved like a brick this winter." Paul shook his head. " Impossible," he answered with a despondent air. " It's awfully good of you, Thistleton, awfully kind of you to think of it ; but as things stand, of course I couldn't dream of accepting it." " It wouldn't make the slightest difference in the world to me," Thistleton went on per- suasively. "I assure you, Gascoyne, my governor 'd never feel or miss fifty poimds one way or the other." " Thank you ever so much," Paul answered with genuine gratitude. " I know you mean every word you say, but I oould never by any possibility take it, Thistleton." "Why not, my dear boy?" the blonde young man said, laying hia hand on his friend's shoulder. "Because, in the first place, it's your father's money, not yours, you propose to lend, and I couldn't accept it ; but also in the second place, which is far more important, I haven't the very slightest chance of ever repaying you." " Bepayuig me I " Thistleton echoed with a crestfaUen air. "Oh, dash it all, Gascoyne, I never thought of your really repaying me, of course, you know. I meant it as an offer of pure accommodation." Paul laughed in spite of himself. "That sort of loan," he said, taking his friend's hand in his and wringing it warmly, " is usually called by another name. Seriously, Thistle- ton, I couldn't think of taking it from you. You see, I've no right to pay anybody else till I've repaid the last farUiing I owe to Mr. Solomons ; and to borrow money on the cheuice of repaying it at such a remote date — say somewhere about the Greek Kalends — would be downright robbery." A bright idea seized suddenly upon Thistle- ton. By Jove I " he cried, " I'll tell you how we'll manage it. It's as easy as pap. You can't lose either way. You know that prize essay you were mugging away at all the time we were at Montone — ' The Influence of the Benaissance on Modem Thought,' wasn't it ? — ah, yes, I thought so. Well, how much would you get, now, if you happened to win it?" "Fifty pounds," Paul answered. "But, that's so very improbable." "Awfully improbable," his friend echoed warmly with profound conviction. " That's just what I say. You haven't a chance. You ought to back yourself to lose, don't you see ; that's the wav to work it. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll bet you ten to one in Svers you win. And yon put a fiver on the chance you don't. Then — 'don' you catch on? 'as the Yankee gurl used to say— you stand to come out pretty even either way. Suppose you get the prize, yon earn fifty pounds, out of which you owe me a fiver — that leaves forty- five to the good, doesn't it ? But suppose you lose, I owe you fifty. So, you see, you clear pretty nearly the same lot whichever turns up. I call that good hedging." And the blonde young man leant back in his chair with a chuckle at his own ingenuity. Paul smiled again. The blonde young man seemed so hugelv delighted at the cleverness of his own device that he was really loth to be compelled to disillusion him. "Your adroitness in trying to find a way to make me a present of fifty pounds under a transparent disguise really touches me," he said with a faint tremar in his voice; "but don't think about it any more, you dear, good fallew. it's ever by any the blonde thia friend's _. it's your Ipose to lend, In the second jit, I haven't rer repaying lioed with a |1, Oascoyne, lepaying me, as an offer •If. "That friend's hand " is usually 8ly, Thistle, t from you. )ody else till owe to Mr. a the chance date — say ends— would FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE. 53 pon Thistle- tell you how 8 pap. You V that prize all the time aence of the ,' wasn't it? how much lappened to ed. "But, lend echoed 1. " That's lance. You I't you see; 11 you what nvers you chance you m ? ' as the id to come ippose you ads, out of aves forty, appose vou you clear r turns up. ^6 blonde ir with a 'oongman cleverness ■eally loth I. "Your make me •nsparent id with a n't think lew. It's quite impossible. I must try to make it up myself with pupils and economy, and back my chances for the prize essay. If at the end of the term I'm still to the bad, I'll put the matter fairly before Mr. Solomons. \Vhether I stay up one term longer and take my degree or not must then depend upon what he thinks best for his own interest. After all, my whole future's mortgaged to him already, and its more his affair than mine in the end what becomes of me." " Why, I call it downright slavery ! " Thistle, ton exclaimed warmly. "I think it ought to be prohibited by Act of Parliament. It's a great deal worse than the chimney boys and the indentured labourers. I only wish I'd got that beastly old Jew with his head in chancery here imder my arm this very minute. By George, sir, wouldn't I just punch it as flat as a panctike in rather less than no time I " " I think," Paul answered with a smile, "punching his head flat would do me very little permanent good. Indeed, in his own way he really means me well. He's bound us down by all the terrors of the law to his per- centa$ros and his policies ; but I believe he considers himself my benefactor for all that." " Benefactor be blowed I " Thistleton re- Bponded, rising with North Country vehemense. " If I could only see the old blackguard in college to night, it'd give me the sinoerest pleasure in life to kick him a dozen times round Tom Quad till he roared for mercy." CHAPTER XVI. FOBTUNB FAVOURS THB BRATB. In spite of Paul's fears, however, that dreaded spring term went off mosli happily. To be siure, he had to work for his bread like a London cab-horse (as Sir Emery loved pro- fessionally to phrase it), but Paul had never been afraid of hard work, and as long as he could make both ends meet somehow, and avoid running into further debt with Mr. Solomons, he was amply satisfied. And that spring term he got as many pupils as he could possibly find time for. The reason for this sudden run upon his tutorial powers was, of course, the usual one which accounts for all successes and failuren in life — a woman's wire-pulling. It is a mistake to think this world is mainly run by fnen. Genius, talent, industry, capacity— nay, even the invaJuable quality of unsorupulousness itself— are as dust in the balance as a means to success com- pared with the silent, unobtrusive, backstdra influence of the feminine intelligence. A woman's wit is worth the whole lot of them. And this valuable ally in the struggle for life Paul managed to secure almost without knowing it. For two days after his return to The House (as Christ Church men insist upon calling tlieir college) Paul received a little note from Faith'* new friend, Mrs. Douglas, inviting him to drink afternoon tea at her house in the Parks — the fashionable tutorial suburb of modern married Oxford. The Parks, in fact, which are the natural outcome of the married Fellow system, have completely revolutionized the Oxford we all knew and loved in our own callow under- graduate period. In those monastic ages the Fellow who married lost his Fellowship ; the presence of women in the University was un- known ; and even the stray intrusion of a sister or cousin into those stern gray quads was severely frowned upon by ascetic authority. But nowadays, under the new petticoat rigime, all that is changed : the Senior Tutor lives in a comfortable creeper-clad villa in the Parks ; his wife gives lunches and afternoon teas ; and his growu-up daughters play tennis with the men, and belong to the University just as much as the average undergraduate — or even in virtue of their fixity of tenure a little more so. Mrs. Senior Tutor (with marriageable girls) is quite as anxious to catch tho eligible undergraduate for her own dance in Com- memoration week as any Belgravian mamma in all London ; and the Bev. the Bursar himself smiles benignly while scholars and exhibitioners waste the shining hours in flirta- tion and punts on the banks of the Cherwell. Things were not so ordered Conaule Plcmco, when Leighton was Vice-chancellor. But as everybody seems satisfied^with the existing systCx^ -especially the Senior Tutor' s daughters — there can be Uttle doubt that all is for the best in the host of all possible Universities, and that flurting, so far from distracting the heads of students, as the older school devoutly believed, is in reality a powerful spur on the mmd of the youth to the acquisition of classical and mathematical knowledge. To this new microcosm of the Parks and their inhabitants, Mrs. Douglas played the part of centre of gravity. Bound her as primary the lesser orbs of that little system revolved in their various subordinate places. Not that Mrs. Douglas herself was either rich or pretentious. The Accadiap professor's sti- pend consisted of the modest interest on a sum in Beduced Two-and-three-qaarters per Cent. ConsoxS, which he supplemented only by pri- v&te means of the smalleat, and by a very moderate income from his wife's family. But Mrs. Douglas had the invaluable quality of being able to " hold her salon " ; and being, besides, an earl's niece, she had rapidly grown into the principal wire-puller and recognised leader of Oxford tutorial Society. With that greater world where the heads of houses move serene in placid orbits, indeed, she interfered but little ; but the Parks acknowledged her away without a mummr, as the representative of authority in its most benign avatar. For Mra. Douglaa had tact, sense, and kindliness ; she was truly sympathetio to a very high degree, and she would put herself out to serve so THE ACALLYWAQ. a friend in a way that was sure to attract the friend's wannest gratitude. Moreover, she WM a woman, and therefore skilled in the feminine art of mounting the back-stairs with address and good-humour. This combination of quaUties m wanted to read for " Mods." with a private tutor, going out into the very high- ways and by-ways of the University, so to speak, and compelling them to come in with truly Biblical fortitude. But wheu once Mrs. Douglas took a thing in hand, it was v^ell beknown to the Chan- cellor, masters, and soholara of the Jniversity of Oxford that, sooner or latei; she meant to get it done, and that the Chaneellor, masters, and scholars aforesaid might, therefore, just as well give in at once, without unnecessary trouble, Dother, or expense, and let her have her way as Goun as she asked for it. " Going in for ' Mods.' in June ?" Mrs. Dou;;- las would remark, with a sigh of pity, to the unhappy undergraduate of limited brains, fixing her mild brown eyes upon him with an air of the profotmdest sympathy and friendly assist- ance. " Then you'll want to read up your books this ter ith a private coach or some- body, of course;" and when the unhappy un-ergraduate of limited brains, falling readUy into the trap thus baited for his destruction, admitted abstractedly, in a general way, that a little tutorial assistance of a friendly sort WJuld, perhaps, be not wholly unsuited to his JTitellectual needs, Mrs. Douglas, fixing her mild brown eyes still more firmly than ever upon his trembling face, would nail him to his admission at once by responding cheerfully, " Then I know the very man that'll suit your book just down to the ground. Mr. Gasoojme, of Christ Church, has a great many pupils reading with him this term, but I dare say I could induce him to make room for you some- how. My husband thinks very highly of Mr. Gascoyne. He's a capital coach. If yon want to get through with flying colours, he's just the right man to pull you out of the moderator's clutches. That's his card in my basket there ; don't forget the name: 'Gascoyne, of Ghrist Church, first pair right, nimiber six, Peck- water.' Yes, one- of the gr<)at Gascoyne people down in Pembrokeshire — that's the very family. I'm glad you know them. Hia father's the preccnt baronet, I believe, and hia sister's coming up tc see me next Commemo- ration. If you like you an take his card to remember the name by ; and when Mr, Gas- coyne comes again on Stmday. I'll make a point of asking him whether you've been to call upon him about reading for ' Mods.' or not, and I'll tell him (as you're a most particular friend of min to be sure to pay you every poosible attention. When a clove;-- and good-looking woman of thirty-five, who happens to be also a professor's wifo flings herself upon an unhappy under- graduate of limited brains in that dashing fasliion, with a smile that might soften the heart of a stone, what on earth can the unhappy undergraduate do in self-defence but call at once upon Gascoyne of Christ Church, and gratefully receive his valuable instructionb ? Whence it resulted that, at the end of a fort- night, Gascoyne of Ghrist Church had as many pupils as he could easily manage (at ton pounds a head), and saw his way clearly to that term's expenses, about which he had so despaired a few days before with Faith at Hillborough. A woman of Mrs. Douglas's type is the most US .'dl ally a man can find in life. Make friends with her, young man, wherever met ; and be sure she wul be worth to yon a great FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE. 35 deal more than many hundred men at the head of your profession. One further feat of Mrs. Douglas's the candid historian blushes to repeat ; yet, in the interest of truth, it must needs be recorded. For when, a fortnight later, Mrs. Douglas gave her first dinner-party of the term, she took occasion, in the drawmg-room, about ten of the clock, to draw aside the Senior Proctor confidentially for a moment, and murmur in his ear: "I think, Mr. Wayles, you're one of the examiners for the Marlborough HistorioiJ Essay, aren't you ? " The Senior Proctor, a grim, close-shaven man, with firm-set hps and a very clerical mouth and collar, signified his assent by a slight bow of aoquiesoence, and a murmured reply of: " I believe my office entails upon me that among other honours." Mrs. Douglas assumed her most bewitching smile. " Now, dear Mr. Wayles," she said, bending over towards him, ooquettiishly, " you mustn't really be emgry with me. I'm only a woman, you know, and we women have always orr little plots and conspiracies on hand, haven't we ? I'm very much interested in a particular essay which bears for motto the words, ' Non jam prima peto Mneatheua neque vincere eerto, Quanquam ! ' There, you see, though I was dragged up before Oirton and Newnham were invented, you didn't know befovj I could spout out a I'Atin hexameter as p> t as that, did you ? Well, I want you moat pa ticula/rly to read over that identical essay wi' ii speciiJ attention, very special a' Jentiuu, ai d if you finj H in every respect in^mensely btscer than aU the rest put together, to recommiind it to the kind attention of your coI'Oagues." The Senior Proctor — that grim, dose-shaven man — allowed just the faintest ghost of a smile of amused pity to pucker the comers of his very clerical mouth, as he answered with official succinctness : " Every essay alike, my dear Mrs. Douglas, will receive at my hands, and I believe I may venture to say at those of my brother-examiners also, the most imparticJ consideration; and nothing that can be said to uj by any outside person — even yourself — can have me very slightest influence upon ns in making our award to the most deserving competitor." " Oh, of course," Mrs. Douglas answered, with that mo''^c bewitching smile once more well to the 'rent. " I know and understand all that perfectly. I haven't Uved so long in the University as dear Archie's wife without havmg learnt how absolutely useless it is to try to pull any wires or go up any backstairs in University business. I only meant to say if you find that essay quite undeniably the very best, I hope you won't let the fact of my recommendation tell strongly against it." The Senior Proctor had an uncomfortable sense that when Mrs. Douglas laid so pro- found a stress upon the words "absolutely useless " that irreverent little woman was actually trying to chaff him or to laugh in her sleeve ; and as the Senior Proctor repre- sents before the world the dignity and majesty of the University in its corporate capacity, so wicked an attempt on her part to poP fim at his office would, no doubt, have merited condign punishment. But he only bowed once more a sphinx-like bow, and answered severely, "All the essays alike shall have my best attention." Now, we all of us know, of course — we who are men and women of the world — that the Senior Proctor spoke the exact truth, and that in matters so important as University prizes no shadow of partiality can ever be suspected among Enghsh gentlemen. (If it were, we might all be tempted to think that English gentlemen were not, after all, so very superior hi kind as we know them to be to the members of every other European nationaUty.) Never* theless, it must be noted, ^ a single and un- accoimtable historical fact, that when the Senior Proctor — that lone, bachelor man — went home that night along the cold, gray streets to his solitary rooms in Fellows Quad, Merton, and saw a big bimdle of Marlborough Prize Essays lying on his table unopened for his deep consideration, his mouth relaxed for a moment into a distinctly human smile as he thought of the delicate pressure of her hand with which Mri:. Douglas — charming woman, to be sure, Mrs. Douglas I — had bid him good- night, with a last whispered adieu of " Now, don't forget, Mr. Wayles : * Non jam, prima peto Mnestheus neque vincere eerto.^ " How delicious Virgil sounded, to be sure, on those red ripe lips! Had she learnt that verse by heart, he wondered, on purpose to bamboozle him? So thinking, and gloating over that dainty pressure, the Senior Proctor flung himself into his easy.- chair, before his goodly fire, kicked off his boots and endued himself in his woollen- lined slippers, fortified his intellect with a brandy-and-soda from the syphon at his side, lighted one of Bacon's best cigars, and proceeded, with his feet on the fender comfortably, to address his soul in indulgent mood to the task of lite'«ry and historical criticism. But, strange to say, he did not take up the very fi^t essay that came to hand, as a con- scientious Proctor might fairly be expected to do. On the contrary, he turned them all over one by one with deliberate finger till he came to a roll of neat white foolscap, legibly in- scribed in a bold, black hand — I blush to narrate it — with that very Virgilian motto which treacherous Mrs. Douglas had been at such pains to get by rote, without one false quantity, and to fire off, unappalled, against his grim clerical mouth and collar. He read the essay through first with close attention ; then he wrote down on a small sheet of paper 56 THE SCALLYWAG. at his Bide the mystic letters '* v. g.," supposed to stand for " very good " in our own vernacu- lar. By the time he had read it through, the hour was advanced, and a second brandy-and- soda and a second cigar were needed to stimu* late the critical faculty. As time went on, it must be frankly admitted, those essays got shorter and shorter shrift, while the soda got deeper and deeper doses of brandy, imtilpy the tim. the clock marked three, the Senior Proctor rose with dignity, drained the re- mainder of his last taU tumbler, and sticking all the papers in the desk for read, stroUed on to his bedroom unmistakably sleepy. Kow, it must not be concluded from this TeraciouB account that Paul Gascoyne's essay was not in all probability, on its own merits, the very best of the enture lot submitted for judgment, nor that Mrs. Douglas had exerted on its behalf anything which could be described by the most severe moralist as undue in- fluence. In fact, have we not already recorded the Senior Proctor's emphatic and deliberate assertion to the contrary ? And was not that assertion again renewed ? For when a fortnight later Mrs. Douglas ventured to thank the dig- nitary in question (as she irreverently phrased it), " for backing her man for the Marlborough Prize," the Senior Proctor, opening his eyes wide in his very grimmest fashion, replied with an innocent aur of surprise: *' Oh, 80 the successful candidate was the Eerson yon spoke about, Mrs. Douglas, was e ? Well, I'm sure, we bad none of us the very faintest idea of it." But, nevertheless, it is a historical fact, not to be blinked at, that when the Senior Proctor passed on the papers to his brother examiners for consideration, Paul Gascoyne's essay went on top, marked in plain words, " Optime meritus eat. — P.H.W.," and it is equally certain that the other examiners, glancing hastily over them with an uncritical eye, one and ul endorsed Mr. Wayles' opinion. From which facts it may be gathered that, though Paul Gascoyne's Marlborough Essay wasreaUy and truly one of the most brilliant ever sub- mitted to the Board of Examiners, and, though favouritism of any kind is unknown at Oxford, it is none the less a very useful thing to have a Mrs. Douglas of your own on hand to say a good word for yon whenever convenient. But Paul had no idea of all these hidden springs of action in the Senior Proctor and liis esteemed colleagues when a week or so before the end of the term he read, all trembling, a notice posted on the door of the schools : "The Board of Examiners for the Marl- borough Historical Essay, Chichele Founda- tion, have awarded the Prize of Fifty Guineas to Paul Gasooyne, Commoner of Christ Church." His heart beat high as he read those words, and his knees reeled under him. So next tanut at Isastt was safe from Mr. Solomons 1 CHAPTER XVII. REVOLUTIONARY SCHEMES. Neverthglehs, it was not without great damage to his own ultimate chances of future success that Paul had secured this momentary triumph. He was able to write back to Hill- borough, it is true, and assure Mr. Solomons he had no further need of assistance for the present ; but he had lost almost a whole term, so far as his own reading for the Greats Schools was concerned, in that valiant spurt at private pupils. His prospects of a First were fai more remote now than ever before, for a man can't support himself by teaching others, and at the same time read hard enough in his spare hours to enter ir.to fair coirpntiMnn with his compeers who have been able to devote their undivided energies to their own education. He had handicapped himself heavily in the race for honours. Paul ruefully realized this profound truth when he began to work on his own account in the Easter vaca- tion and sammer term. He had a great deal of leeway still to make up if he were to present himself in a well-prepared condition before the searching scrutiny of those dreaded examiners. And on the issue of the examina- tion depended, in large measure, his chance of obtaining a Fellowship, with the consequent possibility of earning a livelihood, and sooner or later repaying Mr. Solomons. Spring and the Easter vacation wore away, and summer term came back to Oxford. The new green foliage dawned once more on the chestnuts by the Cherwell. The University blossomed out into punts and flannels ; labur- nums and pink may glorified the parks ; ices were in brisk demand at Cooper's in the High ; and the voice of the sister was heard in the tennis-courts, eagerly criticising the fraternal service. It was all as delightful and as redolent of youth, fizz, and syllabub as Oxford knows how to be, in full leaf and in warm June weather. And Paul Gascoyne, working hard for Greats in his rooms in Peck- water, was nevertheless able to snatch many an afternoon for a pull in a four down the river to Newnham, or for a Ions stroll round Cunmor and Shotover with his mend Thistle- ton. Even the shadow of an approaching examination, and the remote prospect of being Mr. Solomons' bond-slave for half a lif etime caimot quite kill out in the full heart of youth the glory of the green leaf and the fresh vigour of an English spring-tide. About those days, one morning down at Hillborough, Faith Gascoyne, sitting in the window where the clematis looked into her small bare bedroom, heard a postman's double knock at the door below, and rushed down in haate to take the letters. There was only one, bat that was enclosed in a neat square envelope, of better quaUty than often came to Plowden's Court, and bearing on the flap a crest and monogram in delicate neutral colour. It was ■■WlWl REVOLUTIONARY SCHEMES. 57 UES. without great mces of future Ills momentarv ) back to Hill- Mr. Solomona stance for the ) a whole term, or the Qreats t valiant spurt icts of a First m ever before, )lf by teaching lA hard enough taircoinpitiMnn been able to )8 to their own apped himself Paul ruefully len he began to le Easter vaca- lad a great deal were to present ondition before those dreaded of the examina- ■e, his chance of the consequent ood, and sooner 3. lion wore away, to Oxford. The ce more on the The University Bannels; labur- the parks ; ices 3ooper's in the ister was heard criticising the i delightful and nd syllabub as uU leaf and in Paul Gascoyne, rooms in Peck- to snatch many four down the ng stroll round Mend Thistle- ui approaching rospeot of being hoii a lif etime heart of youth and the fresh e. ming down at sitting in the ooked into her Dstman's double rushed down in . was only one, quare envelope, ne to Plowden's ap a orest and Boloor. Ik waa addreaied to herself, and bore the Oxford post- mark. Faith guessed at once from whom it must have come ; but none the less she tore it open with quivering fingers and read it eagerly : " Mt dbab Faith," it began, for that night at the country inn had made Mt's. Douglas feel quite at home vath the National School- mistress, "I hope you haven't altogether forgotten your implied promise to come and see me at Oxford this term." [' How can she say so,' thought Faith, ' the wicked thing, when 1 told her aeain and again a dozen tirnos over it was absolutely impossi- ble ? ' But that was part of Mrs. Douglas's insinuating cleverness.] " Well, my dear little Cornish friend, Nea Blair, who met your brother Paul at Mentone last winter, and was so charmed with him, is coming up to stay with us the week after next ; and as I think it would be nicer for both you gir)8 to have a little society of your own age, so as not to be entirely dependent on an old married woman like me for entertainment, I want you to manage so that your visit may coincide with hers, and then, you know, the same set of festivities will do for both of you. Now, isn't that economical? So mind you don't disappoint us, as dozens of undergraduates who have seen the photo you gave me are dying to make your personal acquaintance, and some of them are rich, and as beautiful as Adonis. Please recollect I'll stand no excuses, and least of all any that have any nonsense in them. Write by return, and tell me, not whether you can come or not — that's settled already — but by what train on Wednesday week we may expect to see you. Mr. Douglas will go down to the station to bring you up. No refusal allow!. *' Ever yours affectionately, "Eleanor Mary Douglas." Then came a peculiarly fetching x .S. : "As I have some reason to believa your brother Paul has a sneaking regard for my little friend Nea, I think it may be just as well you should come at once and form an opinion about her desirability as a possible sister-in- law, before Mr. Gascoyne has irrevocably committed himself to her without obtaining your previous approbation and consent." Faith laid down the letter on the bed before her, and burst at once into a fierce flood of tears. It was so terrible to stand so near the accomplishment of a dream of years, and yet to feel its realisation utterly unattainable ! Ever since Paul first went to Oxford it hod been the dearest wish of Faith's heart to pay him a visit there. Every time he came back to that narrow world of Hillborough with tid- ings of all he had seen and done since he had last been home — of the sights, and the sports, and the wines, and the breakfasts, of the free young life and movement of Oxford, of the colleges and the quads, and the walks and the gardens, and of the meadows thronged on Show Sunday, of the barges laden with folk for the boat races — the longing to join in it all, for once in her life, had grown deeper and deeper in poor Faith's boLjcm. It waa so painful to think how near that bright little world was brought to her, and yet how distant still, how impossible, how unattainable. To Paul, her own brother, whom she loved so dearly, and from whom she had learned so much, it waa all a mere matter of everyday experience ; but to her, his sister, tlesh of his flesh and blood of his blood, it was like the vi^e murmur of some remote sphere into which she could never, never penetrate. And now the mere receipt of this easy invi- tation made her feel more than ever the vast- ness of the gulf that separated her from Oxford. Though Paul was in it and of it, as of right, to her it must for ever be as Paradise to the Peri. So she burst into tears of pure unhappineas. She couldn't accept. Of course she couldn't accept. For her to go to Oxford was simply impossible. It was all very well for Mrs. Douglas to say, in her glib fashion, " I'll stand no excuses." That's always the way with these grand folks. They get into the habit of think- ing everybody else can manage things as easily and simply as they can. But how on earth could Faith leave the infants in the middle of a term ? To say nothing at all about all the other manifold difliculties that stood like lions in the way — how could she get her place filled up by proxy ? how could she afford to pay her fare to Oxford and back, after having already allowed herself a trip this year down to Dorset- shire for Christmas ? and, above all, how could she \. .'ovide herself with those needful frocks for day and night which she must needs weur at so grand a place as Mrs. Douglas's, if she didn't wish utterly to disgrace Paul in the eyes of the entire University of Oxford ? All these manifold possibilities rose up at once before poor Faith's eyes as she read that exasperating, tantalising letter, and filled them with tears from some interminable reservour. And yet how tempting the invitation itself was. And, barring that constant factor of the insensibility of ' grand people ' to their neigh- bour's limitations, how kindly and nicely Mrs. Douglas had written to her. Faith would have given a great deal (if she'd got it) to be able to accept that cordial offer and see Oxford. But, then, she hadn't got it, and that was just the difficulty. There was the rub, as Hamlet puts it. The golden apple was dangled almost within her eager reach, yet not even on tiptoe could she hope to attain to it. When her father came to see the letter at breakfast-time, however, to Faith's great and unspeakable surprise, he turned it over, and, looking across to Mrs. Gascoyne, said, thought- fully : .^■."I'f* S8 THE SCALLYWAO. "Well, minus?" There wu an interrogation in his tone which drove Faith half frantic. " Well, Emery ?" his wife answered, with the same intonation. "Couldn't us manage this anv'ow, mother?" the British baronet continued, looking hard at the monogram. " No, we couldn't, Emery, I'm afraid," Mrs. Oascoyne made answer. And that was all Faith heard about it then. Her heart sank once more like lead to the recesses of her bosom. But as soon as she was gone to endure the infants once more, as best she might, the baronet paused as ho pulled on his boots, in preparation for meeting the 8.40 down, and observed mysteriously to his better half, in a oonfidential undertone, with a nod towards the door whence Faith had just issued : "Yon don't tUnk we could do it, then, mother, don't you ? " Mrs. Oascoyne hesitated. " It'd cost a power o' money, Emery," she answered dubiously. The baronet gazed at the fire with an abstracted air. " We've made very great sacrifices for our Paul, missus," he said with emphasis, after a short pause, during which he seemed to be screwing himself up for action ; " we've made very great sacrifices for our Paul, haven'tus? " "Yes, Emciry," his wife answered, with a wistful look ; " I don't deny we've made very great sacrifices." And then «ihe relapsed for a moment into thoughtful silence. " 'Tain't as if we was bound to pay every penny we get to Solomons," the husband and father went on again. " Now Paul's of age, 'e's took over a part of the responsibility, mother." "That's so, Emery," Mrs. Gajooyne as- sented. "The way I look at it is this," the baronet went on, glancing up argumentatively, and beating time with his pipe to the expression of his opinion, like one who expects to en- counter more opposition. " We've made very great sacrifices for Paul, we 'ave, an' wy shouldn't us expeok to make some sort o' sacrifices for Faith as well? That's 'ow I pats it." "There's reason in that, no doubt," Mrs. Oascoyne admitted very timorously. " Now, there's that bill o' the Colonel's," her husband continued in a most pugnacious tone, taking down his ledger. "Seventeen pound fourteen and tuppence — bin owin' ever since last Christmas twelvemonth. If only the Colonel could be got to pay up like a man —and I'll arst him myself this very day: Faith won't go becos he always swears at Var — there ain't no reason as I can see wy Faith mightn't be let go up to Oxfoxvl." "'Ow about the infants?" Mrs. Oascoyne interposed. " Infants be blowed ! Drat them infants I ' her husband answered energetically. " It's all very well drattin' 'em, as far as fVi^r'll go," Mrs. Oascoyne answered with feminine common-sense ; " but they won't be dratted without a substitoot. She's got to find somebody as'U take 'er place with 'em." " I'll find somebody ! " the baronet answered with valorous resolve. " Dang it all, missus I if nobody else can't be got to teach 'em, wv, I'll give up drivin' and take 'em myself, sooner 'n she shouldn't go, you see if I don't." " She've set her heart on goin'," Mrs. Oas- coyne said once more, with a maternal sigh. " ix.ot dear I she's a-longin' for it. I wouldn't say nothin' to 'er face about it, for fear of makin' 'er too bashful like before you ; but you seen yourself, Emery, her eyes was that rod and tbed with cryin'." " They was," the baronet answered. " I seen 'em myself. An' what I say is this — we've made sacrifices for Paul, very great sacrifices, and we're pleased and proud of 'im ; so wy shouldn't we make sacrifices for Faith as well, as 'asn't so many chances in life as 'im of ever enjoyin' of 'erseu ? " " Wy not, sure ? " Mrs. Oascoyne re- sponded. "Jest you look at the letter, too," the baronet went on, admiring the monogram and the address in the comer. " Anybody could see she was a real tip-topper in a minute by that. ' The Bod House, Norham Boad, Oxford.' An' a crest over her name, same as Lady 'Illborough's 1 " The crest a£forded both the liveliest satisfao- tion. So, after much confabulation, it was finally resolved that the baronet himself should beard the redoubtable Colonel in his den that very day, and that if the siege operations in that direction turned out a success. Faith should be permitted to go to Oxford. But meanwhile, for fear of failure, it was duly agreed between the two dark conspirators that nothing more should be said to Faith on the subject. That selfsame evening, while Faith, with a very white face and a trembling hand, bithig her lips hard all the while to keep back the tears, was slowly composing a suitable refusal to Mrs. Douglas, Sir Emery entered, much agitated, into the bare living-room, his hat on his head and his brow steaming, and fiung down a cheque on the centre table. "There, mother," he cried, half laughing, half crying himself in his joy, " I said I'd do it, an' I've done it, by Oeorge I He've paid up the lot — the whole bloomin' lot — seventeen pound fourteen and tuppence." Faith glanced up from her letter aghast. " Who ? " she cried, seizing the cheque in astonishment. " Oh, father, not the Colonel ? " Her father gave way to a hysterical burst of prolonged laughter " Well, I thought 'e'd 'a kicked me down- stairs at first," he said, chuckling, "but Z >j»i tn iX M ■with I'tbe ot to wered UbubI lon't." ,. Om- ,\ sigh. ouWn't [ear o( lu; but aa that li. "I I thlfl— y pe»* loflm; at Faith leM'lm IN 0000 SOCIBTY. 59 •yne too re- the gram and ody could minute by Boad, same m me, it satiafao- jtM finally ould beard . that very ns In that 1 should be neanwhlle, Bd between thing more JOt. iib, with a land, biting p back the able refusal ered, much I, hlB hat on and flung If laughing, . Baid I'd do He've paid seventeen • aghast, te cheque m leColoneW Irioal buret of td me down- ig, "but I made un pay me. I says, ' Such credit, sir,' says I, ' it clearly onreasonable. I don't want to 'urry any gentleman, sir,' says I, quite re- spockful like, ray 'at in my 'and, ' but if vou could any'ow make it convenient.' An' bloss me, missus, if 'e didn't whip out his cheque- book on the spot, an' after sayin' in a 'uiT I was a impident, presoomin' feller to venture to dun un, 'e drawed out a ohciiue for the lot, an' there it is afore you. An' now. Faith, my girl, you can go to Oxford t " Faith jumped up with tears in her eyes. •• Oh, I couldn't, father I " she cried. '< Not that way. I couldn't. It'd seem like robbing mother and you — and Mr. Solomons." But youth is weak and tluie is fleeting. It was her last chance to go to Oxford. After little persuasion and special pleading on her mother's part, Faith was brought at last to see matters in a different light, and to acquiesce in her father's reiterated view, " What I says is this — 'ery first opportunity she had ever had of talking to any voung man of decent education and gentlemanly manners on equal terms, except her own brother, and she was naturally pleased with him. Mrs. Douglas shrugged her shoulders a little bit — almost as naturally as Madame Ceriolo. " Do you think so ? " she said. " Well, he's nice enough, I suppose ; but his manners haven't that repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Ve^-e, somehow. He's a trifle too boisterous for my .taste, you know. Good- bearted, of course, and all that sort of thing, but not with the stamp of Blue Blood about him." "Oh, nonsense, my dear Eleanor," the Professor ejaculated with a good round mouth. '* The young fellow's as well behaved as most earls in England, and, if it comes to that, a gieat deal better." "I'm so glad you say so, Mr. Douglas," Faith put in wi& a smile — " that it's non- sense, I mean — for I should have been afraid to." "WeU, but reaUy, Faith," Mrs. Douglas retorted, " he isn't fit to hold a candle any day to your brother Paul." "I should think not, indeed!" Nea ex- claimed immediately, with profound convic- tion. "Wh", Mr. Gascoyne's just worth a thousand of him I " Faith turned with a grateful look to Nea for that kindly sentence ; and yet she would have liked the praise of Paul all the better if it hadn't been contrasted with dispraise of Mr. Thistleton. For her part, she tiiought him a mjst delightful young man, and was only sorry he was so dreadfully rich, and there- fore, of course, if one got to know him better, no doubt nasty. They parted in the passage outside Faith's bedroom, and Nea, as she said " Good-night, dear," to her new friend, leant forward to kiss her. Faith hesitated for a moment: she wasn't accustomed to cheapen her embraces in the usual feline feminine manner, and as ^et she didn't feel sure of Nea; but next mstant she yielded, and pressed her com- panion's hand. " Thank you so much," she said, with tears in her eyes, and darted into her room. But Nea didn't even so much as know for what she thanked her. Faith meant for not having been " grand," and crushed her. To herself she was always the National Schoolmistress. But Nea saw in her only a graceful, hand- btulated IDYLS OP YOUTH. 63 tirn^ to lentiona ever bo J people evening ery nice • As ft lortonity ing man manners iher, and rs a little ;;eriolo. ;7eU,he's manners I caate of trifle too . Good- o{ thing, x>d about nor," the ad month, id as most to that, a Douglas," 1 it's non- Ave been . DouglaB le any day Nea ex- ind oonvio- it worth a to Nea for would have better if it aise of Mr. Qght him a was only and there- him better, iBide Faith's Good-night, ward to Kiss )ment : she »r embraces aner, and as ,; but next 1 her corn- much," she darted into Bo much as ■en "grand," aceful, hand* Bonbe, well-read girl, and Paul Gascoyne's sister. So ended Faith Gascoyne's first equally dreaded and longed-for evening in Good Society. Outside the Douglases' door Thistleton paused and looked at his friend. •' Why, Gasooyne," he said, " you never told me whav a beautiful girl your sister was, and so awfully clever 1 " Paul smiled. " As a rule," he said, " men don't blow the trumpet for their own female relations." Thistleton accepted the explanation in silonoe, and walked along muto for two or three minutes. Then he began again, almost as if to himself : " But this one," he said, '■ is so exceptionally beautiful." Paul was aware of an uncomfortable sensa- tion at the base of his throat, and diverted the conversation to Jho chances of a bump on the first night of the races. CFAirrER XIX. IDTLS OF YOUTH. To Faith those ten delicious days at Oxford were a dream fulfilled — pure gold, every one of them. How glorious were those strolls round Magdalen cloisters; those fresh morning walks in Christ Church meadows ; those after- noon lounges in the cool nooks of Wadham Gardens! How grand the tower of Merton loomed up in the moonlight ; how noble was the prospect of the crowded High, with the steeple of St. Mary's and St. Laud's porch in the middle distance, viewed fron the atone steps of Queen's or University 1 How she loved each mouldering pinnacle of Oriel, each vaulted boss in the great roof of Christ Church! What delightful afternoon teas in Tom Quad ; what luxurious breakfasts in the New Buildings at Ballioll To the National Schoolmistress, fresh from the din of the infants and the narrow precincts of Plowden's Court, the height and breadth and calm and glory of thobe majestic colleges were some- thing unknown, unpictured, unfanoied. Even after all Paul had told her, it eclipsed and eiliMed her best ideal. She had only one pang — that she must so soon leave it all. And what a grand phantasmagoria it pro- duced in her mind, tiiat whirlmg week of unparalleled excitement ! Tn the morning, to view the Bodleian or the Badcliffe, to walk under the chestnuts on the Cherwell bank, or to admire from the bridge the soaring tower of Magdalen. At mid-day, to lunch in some undergraduate's quarters, or with bearded dons in some panelled common-room: for Mrs. Douglas was known to be the best of hostesses, and whoever saw Oxford under her auspices was sure not to lack for entertainment or for entertainments. In the afternoon, to float down the rivr ir to Iffley in a tub pair ; or to lounge on padded punts under the broad shade of Addison's Walk ; or to drink tea in rooms looking out over the Benaissanoe court of St. John's ; or to hear the anthem trilled from sweet boyish throats in New College Chapel. In the evening, to dine, at home or abroad, in varied company ; to listen to some concert in the hall of Exeter : or to see the solemn inner quad of Jesus incongruously decked out with Japanese lanterns and hanging lights for a Cymric festival. A new world seemed to open out all at once before her. A world all excitement, pleasure, and loveliness. To most girls brough'; up in quiet, cultivated homes, a visit to Oxfotd is one long whirl of dissipation. To Faith, brought up in the cab- man's cottage, it was a perfect revelation of art, life and Deauty. It sank into her soul like first love. If you can imagine a bird's-eye view of Florence, Paris, and educated Society rolled into one, that is something like what those ten days at Oxford were to Faith ,e. ve- nighii Nea Blair went out with her, and e\ .ry night, to Faith's immense surprise, Nea wore the same simple cashmere dress she had worn at Mrs. Douglas's that first evening. It made Faith feel a great deal more at home with her ; after three days, indeed, she quite got over her fear of Nea. Nea was so gentle, BO sweet, so kind, it was impossible for any- body long to resist her. By the third evening they were sworn friends, and when Faith went up with her after the little carpet-dance to bed, it was actually with her arm round the "grand girl's" waist that she mounted the staircase. On the morning of their fourth day at Oxford they were walking in the High with Mrs. Douglas — on their way to visit the reredos at All Souls' — ^when just outside the doors of the " Mitre " Nea was suddenly stopped by a g(Men-halred apparition. "Oh my, momma!" the apparition ex- claimed, in a fine Pennsylvanian twang, " if here ain't Nea Blair as large as life and twice as nat'ral 1 Well, now, I do call that jest lovely! To think we should meet you here again, Nea. But I felt like it, somehow ; I said to momma this morning, as we were un- loading the baggage down at the oars, ^g ourselves riU the time. Oh, don't the place look jest lovely t " " It is lovely," Nea said ; " I always enjoy it so much. But why did you telegraph to Mr. Thistleton, instead of Mr. Gascoyne ? We saw so much more of Mr. Gascoyne at Mentone." " Well, to tell you the truth," Isabel answered, " I didn't jest feel like asking Mr. Gascoyne ; while that young Thistleton fellow — he's a real good sort, but only a boy, you know — so I didn't mind asking him." " This is Mr. Gascoyne's sister," Nea said, with a slight wave towards Faith, who stood irresolute in the background. " She's stopping with me at Mrs. Douglas's. We're going just now to see one of the colleges— All Souls'. " " Well, I don't mind if we catch on to it," Isabel answered, briskly. "We've jest come out to see what the place is like, and one col- lege 11 do for us, I presoom, as well as another. Aocording to the Guide, the city must be full of them." Mrs. Douglas knocked under with con- descending tact. She reoollected that Nea had told her Miss Boyton was rich ; and, after all, there are always lots of nice young men lying aboat loose who'd be glad to pick up with a rich and pretty American. " If your mamma and yon would like to join cor party," she said, Mrith her beet second-class smile (Mn. Douglas's smiles were duly gra- duated for all ranks of Society), " I'm sure we shall be delij^ted. Any friends of Nea's are always weleome to ns. " So from that moment forth the Boytons were duly accepted as part and parcel of Mrs. Dooglas'i set durins that crowded race week. They went aTsrywhere with Faith and Nea, and shared in most of the undergraduate feafets which Mrs. Douglas offered vicariously for her young friends' amusement. Undergraduate Oxford loves anything fresh, and Isabel Boyton's freshness, at any rate, was wholly beyond dispute. Before the week was out, the golden-haired Fennsylvanian had become a feature in Christ Church, and even betting was offered in Feckwater whether or not Gascoyne would marry her. The same evening Mrs. Douglas gave her first dinner-party for her two guests, and as they sat in the drawing-room, just before the earliest outsider arrived, Mrs. Douglas turned to Faith (Nea hadn't yet come down) and re- marked parenthetically : " Oh, by the way, Mr. Thistleton will take you in to dinner, my dear. He'll go after your brother Paul, and then Mr. Wade '11 take in Nea." Faith shrank back a Uttle alarmed. " Oh, but teU me, Mrs. Douglas," she cried, somewhat shamefaced, " why mayn't I go last ? I don't want to go in before Nea." Mrs. Douglas shook her head in most decided disapproval. " It can't be helped, my child," she said. " It's not my arrangement. I've got nothing on earth to do with settling the table of precedence. It's the Lord Chamberlain who has long ago decided once for all that your brother Paul, as a baronet's son, walks in before young Thistleton, and that you, as a baronet's daughter, walk in before Nea." Faith gave a little gesture of extreme dis- satisfaction. This playing at baronetcy was to her most distasteful. "I can't bear it," she cried. "Do, dear Mrs. Douglas, as a special favour, let Nea at least go in before me." But Mrs. Douglas was inflexible. " No, no," she said; "none of your nasty Badical levelling ways for me, turning Society topsy- turvy with your new-fangled ideas, and all just to suit your own unbridled fancy. People of quality must behave as such. If you happen to be bora a baronet's daughter you must take precedence of a country parson's girl. NohUite oblige. That's the price you have to pay for being bom in an exalted station in life. You must fulfil the duties that belong to your place in Society." So, with a very bad grace, poor Faith yielded. When Nea came down, F by that up in the North, you know. People are all -ning in money with as in Sheffield. To bi^ ch up there is positively vulgar, so far as that goes. The distinguished thing in the North is to be poor but ctutured. It's almost as fashionable as bemg poor but honi>st used once to be in Sunday-8