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WHITELADIES. 
 
WHITELADIES : 
 
 % iobcl. 
 
 Bv MRS. OLIPHANT. 
 
 AVTUOK 0» "AT 1118 0ATB8," "ADAM ORABMK," " THR LAIRD OP MORLAW," 
 
 "AONKS," KTC, KTC. 
 
 HUNTER, ROSE AND OOAfPAFl 
 
 1876. 
 
f. I 
 
 
 / 
 
 Bnt«r<Hl accordiiiK to the Act of the Par- 
 liament of Canada, In the year one thousand 
 eight hundred and seventy-flve, bv Humteb, 
 Bosk ft Co., in the Office of the Minister of 
 Agriculture. 
 
 UUMTBK, K08B AMI* CO., 
 
 PRINTBRS AND BINDHK&, 
 TORONTO. 
 
 ; ■il'i/\'.:)ii 
 
 ,1 It 
 
 -\ 
 
 <^ 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Gb± 
 
 T was an old manor-house, not a deserted convent, as you 
 might suppose by the name. The conventual buildings, 
 from which no doubt the place had taken its name, had 
 {dropped away bit by bit, leaving nothing but one wall of the 
 chapel, now closely veiled and mantled with ivy, behind the 
 orchard, about a quarter of a mile from the house. The lands 
 were Church lands, but the house was a lay house, of an older 
 Idate than the family who had inhabited it from Henry VHI.'s 
 [time, when the priory was destroyed, and its possessions trans- 
 ferred to the manor. No one could tell very clearly how this 
 [transfer was made, or how the family of Austins came into 
 [being. Before that period no trace of them was to be found, 
 ^hey sprang up all at once, not rising gradually into power, but 
 ippearing fuU-blown as proprietors of the manor, and posses- 
 sors of all the confiscated lands. There was a tradition in the 
 family of some wild tragical union of an emancipated nun with 
 secularised friar— a kind of repetition of Luther and his 
 ])atherine, but with results less comfortable than those which 
 followed the marriage of those German souls. With the 
 English convertites the issue was not happy, as the story goes. 
 ?heir broken vows haunted them; their possessions, which 
 rere not theirs, but the Church's, lay heavy on their consciences ; 
 tnd they died early, leaving descendants with whose histoiy a 
 thread of perpetual misfortune was woven. The family history 
 ran in a succession of long minorities, the line of inheritance 
 jliding from one branch to the other, the direct thread break- 
 ing constantly. To die young, and leave orphan children be- 
 lind ; or to die younger still, letting the line drop and fall back 
 ipon cadets of the house, was the usual fate of the Austins of 
 A 
 
2 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Whiteladies — unfortunate people who bore the traces of their 
 original sin in their very name. 
 Miss Susan Austin was, at the moment when this story be- 
 
 fins, seated in the porch of the manor, on a blazing day of 
 uly, when every scrap of shade was grateful and pleasant, and 
 when the deep coolness of the old-fashioned porch was a kind 
 of paradise. It was a very fine old house, half brick, half tim- 
 ber ; the eaves of the high gables carved into oaken lacework ; 
 the lattice casements shining out of velvet clothing of ivy ; and 
 the great projecting window of the old hall, stepping out upon 
 the velvet lawn, aU glass from roof to ground, with only one 
 richly-carved strip of panelling to frame it into the peaked roof. 
 The door stood wide open, showing a long passage floored with 
 red bricks, one wall of which was all casement, the other 
 broken by carved and comely oaken doors, three or four cen- 
 turies old. The porch was a little wider than the passage, and 
 had a mullioned window in it, by the side of the great front 
 opening, all clustered over with climbing roses. Looking out 
 from the red-floored passage, the eye went past Miss Susan in 
 the poroh to the sweet luxuriant greenness of the lime-trees on 
 the farther side of the lawn, which ended the prospect. The 
 lawn was velvet sreen ; the trees were silken soft, and laden 
 with blossoms ; the roses fluttered in at the open porch window, 
 and crept about the door. Every beam in the long passage, 
 every door, the continuous line of casement, the many turns by 
 which this corridor led, meandering, with wealth of cool and 
 airy space, towards the house, were all centuries old, bearing 
 the stamp of distant generations upon the carved wood and 
 graceful passages; but without, everything was young and 
 sunny — grass and daisies and lime-blossoms, bees humming, 
 birds twittering, the roses waving up and down in the soft 
 wind. I Mrish the figure of Miss Susan had belonged to this 
 part of the landscape ; but, alas i historical accuracy forbids 
 romancing. She was the virtual mistress of the house, in 
 absence of a better ; but she was not young, nor had she been 
 so for many a long day. 
 
 Miss Susan was about sixty, a comely woman of her age, 
 with the fair hair and blue eyes of the Austins. Her hair was 
 so light that it did not turn grey ; and her eyes, though there 
 were vnrinkles round them, still preserved a certain innocence 
 
WHIT£LADIE8. 
 
 and candour of aapect which ill-natured people said had helpetl 
 MisH Suban to make many a hard bargain, ho guileless was 
 their aspect. Siie was dressed in a grey gown of woollen stuff 
 (alpaca, I think, for it is best to bo particular) ; her hair was 
 still abundant, and she had no cap on it, or any coyering. In 
 her day the ailoption of a cap had meant the acceptation of old 
 age, and Miss Susan had no intention of accepting that necessity 
 a moment before it was necessary. The sun, which had begun 
 to turn westward, had been blazing into the drawing-room, 
 which looked that way, and Miss Susan had been driven out of 
 her own chair and her own corner by it — an unwarrantable 
 l)iece of presumption. She had been obliged to Hy before it, 
 and she had taken refuge in the porch, which faceil to the north, 
 and where shelter was to be found. She had her knitting in 
 her hands ; but if her countenance gave any clue to her mind's 
 occupation, something more important than knitting occupied 
 her thoughts. She sat ou the bench which stood on the deepest 
 side between the inner and the outer entrance, knitting silently, 
 the air breathing soft about lier, the roses rustling. P'or a long 
 time she did not once raise her head. The gardener was plod- 
 ding about his work outside, now and then crossing the lawn 
 with heavy leisurely foot, muffled by the velvet of the old im- 
 memorial turf. Within there would now and then come an in- 
 distinct sound of voice or movement through the long passage ; 
 but nothing was visible, except the still grey figure in the shade 
 of the deep porch. 
 
 By-and-by, however, this silence was broken. First came a 
 maid, carrying a basket, who was young and rosy, and lighted 
 up the old passage with a gleam of Tightness and youthful 
 colour. 
 
 " Where are you going, Jane 1 " said Miss Susan. 
 
 " To the almshouses, please," said Jane, passing out with a 
 curtsey. 
 
 After her came another woman, at ten minutes' interval, 
 older and staider, in trim bonnet and shawl, with a large car- 
 pet bag. 
 
 " Where are you going, Martha 1 " said the lady again. 
 
 '' Please, ma'am, to the almshouses," said Martha. 
 
 Miss Susan shrugged her shoulders slightly, but said no 
 more. 
 
4 WH1TELAD1E8. 
 
 A few minutes of uileiice passed, and then a heavy foot, slow 
 and solemn, which seemed to come in procession from a vast 
 distance, echoing over miles of passage, advanced gradually, 
 with a protestation in every footfall. It was the butler, Ste- 
 vens, a portly personage with a countenance somewhat flushed 
 with care and discontent. 
 
 " Where are you going, Stevens ? " said Miss Susan. 
 
 '• I'm going where I don't want to go, mum," said Stevens, 
 " and whore I don't hold with ; and, if I might make so bold 
 as to say so, where you ought to put a stop to, if so be as you 
 don't want to be ruinated and done for — you and Miss Augus- 
 tine, and all the house." 
 
 ** ' Ruinated ' is a capital word," said Miss Susan blandly, 
 *' very forcible and expressive ; but, Stevens, I don't think 
 we'll come to that yet awhile." 
 
 " Going on like this is as good a way as any," grumbled the 
 man, ^' encouraging an idle set of good-for-nothings to eat up 
 ladies as takes that turn. I've seen it afore, Miss Austin. 
 You gets imposed upon, right hand and left hand ; and as for 
 doing good ! — No, no, this ain't the way." 
 
 Stevens, too, had a basket to carry, and the afternoon was 
 hot and the sun blazing. Between the manor and the alms- 
 houses there lay a long stretch of hot road, without any shade 
 to speak of. He had reason, perhaps, to grumble over his un- 
 willing share in these liberal charities. Miss Susan shrugged- 
 her shoulders again, this time with a low laugh at the butler's 
 perturbation, and went on with her knitting. In a few min- 
 utes another step became audible, coming along the passage — 
 a soft step with a little hesitation in it — every fifth or sixth 
 footfall having a slight pause or shufi9e which came in a kind 
 of rhythm. Then a tall figure came round the corner, relieved 
 against the old carved doorway at the end and the bright red- 
 ness of the brick floor ; a tall, very slight woman, peculiarly 
 dressed in a long limp gown, of still lighter grey than the one 
 Miss Susan wore, which hung closely about her, with long 
 hanging sleeves hanging half-way down the skirt of her dress, 
 and something like a large hood depending from her shoulders. 
 As the day wa& so warm, she had not drawn this hood over 
 her head, but wore a light black gauze scarf, covering her light 
 hair. She was not much younger than her sister, but her hair 
 
WniTFXADIKS. 
 
 WM still lighter, having some half viHihIe mixture of grey, 
 which whitened its tone. Her eyes were blue, but pale, with 
 none of the warmth in them of Miss Susan^s. She carried her 
 head a little on one side, and, in short, she was like nothing in 
 the world so much as a mediaeval saint out of a painted window, 
 of the period when painted glass was pale in colour, and did 
 not blaze in blues and rubies. She had a basket too, carried 
 in both her hands, which came out of the long falling lines of 
 her sleeves with a curious effect. Miss Augustine's basket, how- 
 ever, was full of flowers — roses, and some long white stalks of 
 lilies, not quite over, though it was July, and long branches of 
 jasmine covered with white stars. 
 
 " So you are going to the almshouses too ? " said her sister. 
 " I think we shall soon have to go and live there ourselves, as 
 Stephen says, if this is how you are going on." 
 
 " Ah, Susan, that would indeed be the right thing to do, if 
 you could make up your mind to it," said her sister, in a low, 
 soft, plaintive voice, " and let the Church have her own again. 
 Then perhaps our sacrifice, dear, might take away the curse." 
 
 " Fiddlesticks ! " said Miss Susan. " I don't believe 
 curses. But, Austine, my dear, everybody tells me you 
 doing a great deal too much." 
 
 " Can one do too much for God's poor t " 
 
 " If we were sure of that now," said Miss Susan, shaking her 
 head ; " but some of them, I am afraid, belong to — the other 
 person. However, I won't have you crossed ; but, Austine. 
 you might show a little moderation. You have carried off 
 Jane and Martha and Stevens : if any one comes, who is to 
 open the door ? " 
 
 " The doors are all open, and you are here," said Miss Augus- 
 tine calmly. " You would not have the poor sufl^er for such a 
 trifle 1 But I hope you will have no visitors to disturb your 
 thoughts. I have been meditating much this morning upon 
 that passage, * Behold, our days are as a weaver's shuttle.' 
 Think of it, dear. We have got much, much to do, Susan, to 
 make up for the sins of our family." 
 
 " Fiddlesticks ! " said Miss Susan again ; but she said it half 
 playfully, with tones more gentle than her decided expression 
 of face would have prophesied. " Go away to your charities," 
 she added. " If you do harm, you do it in a good way, and 
 
 m 
 are 
 
6 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 mean well, poor soul, God knows ; so I hope no mischief will 
 come of it. But send me Stevens home as soon as may be, 
 Anstine. for the sake of my possible meditations, if for nothing 
 else ; for there's nobody left in the house but old Martin and 
 uhe boy and the women in the kitchen." 
 
 " What should we want with so many servants " said Miss 
 Augustine with a sigh, and she walked slowly out of the porch, 
 under the rose-wreaths, and across the lawn, the sun blazing 
 upon her light dress, and turning it into white, and beating 
 fiercely on her uncovered head. 
 
 " Take a parasol, for heaven's sake," said Miss Susan ; but 
 the white figure glided on, taking no notice. The elder sister 
 paused for a moment in her knitting, and looked after the 
 other with that look, half tender,. half provoked, with which 
 we all contemplate the vagaries of those whom we love but do 
 not sympathize with, and whose pursuits are folly to us. Miss 
 Susan possessed what is called " strong sense," but she was not 
 intoler6,nt, as people of strong sense so often are ; au least she 
 was not intolerant to her sister, who was the creature most un- 
 like her, and whom she loved best in the world. 
 
 The manor-house did not belong to the Miss Austins, but 
 they had lived in it all their lives. Their family history was 
 not a bright one, as I have said ; and their own immediate por- 
 tion of the family had not fared better than the previous gene- 
 rations. They had ode brother who had gone into the diplo- 
 matic service, and had married abroad and died y-iung, before 
 the death of their father, leaving two children, a boy and a girl, 
 who had been partially brought up with the aunts. Their 
 mother was a Frenchwoman, and had married a second time. 
 The two children, Herbert and Reine, had passed half of their 
 time with her, half with their father's sisters ; for Mies Susan 
 had been appointed their guardian by their father, who had a 
 high opinion of her powers. I do not know that this mode of 
 education was very good for the young people ; but Herbert 
 was one of those gentle boys predestined to a short life, who 
 take little harm by spoiling. He was dying now at one-and- 
 twenty, among the Swiss hills, whither he had been taken, 
 when the weather grew hot, from one of the invalid refuges 
 on the Mediterranian shore. He was perishing slowly, and 
 till false hope was over, and everybody knew it — a hard fate 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 enough for his family ; but there were other things involved 
 which made it harder still. The estate of Whiteladies was 
 strictly entailed. Miss Susan and Miss Augustine Austin had 
 been well provided for by a rich mother, but their Frenijh sis- 
 ter-in-law had no money and another family, and Reine had no 
 right to the lands, or to anything but a very humble portion 
 left to her by her father ; and the old ladies had the prospect 
 before them of being turned out of the house they loved, the 
 house they had been born in, as soon as their nephew's feeble 
 existence should terminate. The supposed heir at-law was a 
 gentleman in the neighbourhood, distantly related, and deeply 
 obnoxious to them. I say the supposed heir — ^for there was a 
 break in the Austin pedigree, upon which, at the present time, 
 ::he Miss Austins and all their friends dwelt with exceeding in- 
 sistance. Two or three generations before, the second son of 
 the family had quarrelled with his father, and disappeared en- 
 tirely from England. If he had any descendants, they, and 
 not Mr. Farrel-Austin, were the direct heirs. Miss Susan had 
 sent envoys over all the known world seeking for these proble- 
 matical descendants of her grand Uncle Everard. Another 
 young Austin, of a still more distant stock, called Everard too, 
 and holding a place in the succession after Mr. Farrel-^ ustin, 
 had gone to America even, on the track of some vague Austins 
 there, who were not the people he sought ; and Enough Miss 
 Susim would not give up the pursuit, yet her hopes were getting 
 feeble ; and there seemed no Ukely escape from the dire necessity 
 of giving up the manor, and the im;)ortance (which she did not 
 dislike) of the position it gave her as virtual mistress of a his- 
 torical house, to a man she disliked and despised, the moment 
 poor Herbert's breath .should be out of his bod} . Peaceful, 
 therefore, as the scene had looked before the interruptions 
 above recorded, Miss Susan was not happy, nor were her 
 thoughts of a cheerful character. She loved her nephew, and 
 the approaching end to which all his relations h^id long looked 
 forward hung c/er her like a cloud, with that dull sense of 
 pain, soon to become more acute, which impending misfortune, 
 utterly beyond our power to avert, so often brings ; and min- 
 gled with this were the sharper anxieties and annoyances of 
 the quest she had undertaken, and its ill success up to this 
 moment ; and the increasing probability that the man she dis- 
 
WHITELADIES 
 
 liked, and no other, must be her successor, her supplanter in 
 her home. Her mind was full of such thoughts ; but she was 
 a woman used to restrain her personal sentiments, and keep 
 them to herself, having been during her long life much alone, 
 and without any conpanion in whom she was accustomed to 
 confide. The two sisters had never been separated in their 
 lives ; but Augustine, not Susan, was the one who disclosed her 
 feelings and sought for sympathy. In most relations of life 
 there is one passive and one active, one who seeks and one who 
 gives. Miss Augustine was the weaker of the two, but in this 
 respect she was the most prominent. She was always the first 
 to claim attention, to seek the interest of the other, and for 
 years long her elder sister had been made to give what she 
 asked, and to keep silent about her own sentiments, which the 
 other might not have entered into. " What was the use 1 " 
 Miss Susan said to herself ; and shrugged her shoulders and 
 kept her troubles, which were very different from Augustine's, 
 in her own breast. 
 
 How pleasant it was out there in the porch ! The branches 
 of the lime-trees blown about softly by the wind ; a daisy here 
 and there lifting its roguish saucy head, which somehow had 
 escaped the scythe, from the close-mown lawn ; the long gar- 
 lands of roses playing about the stone muUions of the window, 
 curling round the carved lintel of the door ; the cool passage 
 on the other side leading into the house, with its red floor and 
 carved doors, and long range of casement. Miss Susan scarcely 
 lifted her eyes from her knitting, but every uetail of the peace- 
 ful scene was visible before her. No wonder — she had learned 
 them all by heart in the quiet long progress of the years. She 
 knew every twig on the limes, every bud on the roses. She 
 sat still, scarcely moving, knitting in with ber thread many an 
 anxious thought, many a wandering fancj, but with a face 
 serene enough, and all about her still. It bad never been her 
 habit to betray what was in her to an unappreciative world. 
 
 She brightened up a little, however, and raised her head, 
 when she heard tho distant sound of a whistle coming far off 
 through the melodious summer air. It caught her attention, 
 and she raised her head for a second, and a smile came over 
 her face. " It must be Everard," she said to herself, and 
 listened, and made certain, as the air, a pretty gay French air, 
 
WKITELADIES. 
 
 9 
 
 became more distinct. No one els6 would whistle *^hat tune. 
 It. was one of Heine's French songs — one of those graceful 
 little melodies which are so easy to catch and so eflfective. Miss 
 Susan was pleased that he should whistle one of Heine's tunes. 
 She had her plans and theories on this point, as may be here- 
 after shewn ; and Everard besides was a favourite of her own, 
 independent of Reine. Her countenance relaxed, her knitting 
 felt lighter in her hand, as the whistle came nearer, and then 
 the sound of a firm light step. Miss Susan let the smile dwell 
 upon her face, not dismissing it, and knitted on, expecting 
 calmly till he should make his appearance. He had come to 
 make his report to her of another journey, from which he had 
 just returned, in search of the lost Austins. It had not been 
 at all to his own interest to pursue this search, for, failing Mr. 
 Farrel- Austin, he himself would be the heir-at-law ; but 
 Everard, as Miss Susan had often said to herself, was not the 
 sort of person to think of his own advantage. He was, if any- 
 thing, too easy on that head — too careless of what happened to 
 himself individually. He was an orphan with a small income 
 — that "just enough" which is so fatal an inheritance for a 
 young man — nominally ali " the bar," actually nowhere m the 
 race of life, but very ready to do anything for anybody, and 
 specially for his old cousins, who had been good to him in his 
 youth. He had a small house of his own on the river not far 
 off, which the foolish young man lived in only for a few weeks 
 now and then, but which he refused to let, for no reason but 
 because it had been his mother's, and her memory (he thought) 
 inhabited the place. Miss Susan was so provoked with this 
 and other follies that she could have beaten Everard often, and 
 then hugged him — a mingling of feelings not unusual. But as 
 Everard is just about to appear in his own person, I need not 
 describe him further. His whistle came along, advancing 
 through the air, the pleasantest prelude to his appearance. 
 Something gay and free and sweet was in the sound, the un- 
 conscious self-accompaniment of a light heart. He whistled as 
 he went for want of thought — nay, not for want of thought, 
 but because all the movements of his young soul were as yet 
 harmonious, lightsome, full of hope and sweetness ; his gay 
 personality required expression ; he was too light-hearted, too 
 much at home in the world, and friendly, to come silent along 
 
10 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 the sunshiny way. So, as he could not talk to the trees 
 and the air, like a poetical hero in a tragedy, Everard made 
 known his good-will to everything, and delicious passive happi- 
 ness, by his whistle ; and he whistled like a lark, clear and 
 sweet ; it was one of his accomplishments. He whistled Miss 
 Susan's old airs when she played them on her old piano, in 
 charming time and harmony ; and he did not save his breath 
 for drawing-room performances, but sent before him these 
 pleasant intimations of his coming, as far as a mile off. To 
 which Miss Susan sat and listened, waiting for his arrival, with 
 a smile on her face. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HAVE been waiting for you these fifteen minutes/' she 
 said. 
 " What — you knew I was coming 1 " 
 
 " I heard you, boy. If you choose to whistle * Ce que je 
 desire ' through St. Austin's parish, you may make up your 
 mind to be recognised. Ah ! you make me think of my poor 
 children, the one dying, the other nursing him " 
 
 ** Don't ! " said the young man, holding up his hand, " it is 
 heart-breaking ; I dare not think of them, for my part. Aunt 
 Susan, the missing Austins are not to be found in Cornwall. 
 I went to Bude, as you told me, and found a respectable grocer, 
 who came from Berks, to be sure, and knew very little about 
 his grandfather, but is not our man. I traced him back to 
 Flitton, where he came from, and found out his pedigree. I 
 have broken down entirely. Did you know that the Farrel- 
 Austins were at it too 1 " 
 
 "At what?" 
 
 " This search after our missing kinsfolk. They have just 
 come back, and they look very important ; I don't know if 
 they have found out anything." 
 
 " Then you have been visiting them ? " said Miss Susan, 
 bending her head over her knitting, with a scarcely audible 
 sigh ; it would have been inaudible to a stranger, but Everard 
 knew what it meant. 
 
 " I called — to ask if they had got back, that was all,'* he 
 said, with a slight movement of impatience ; " and they have 
 come back. They had come down the Rhine and by the old 
 Belgian towns, and were full of pictures, and cathedrals, and so 
 forth. But I thought I caught a gleam in old Farrel's eye." 
 
 " I wonder — but if he had found them out I don't think 
 there would be much of a gleam in his eye," said Miss Susan. 
 *' Everard, my dear, if we have to give up the house to them, 
 what shall I do 1 and my poor Austine will feel it still more." 
 
 " If it has to be done, it must be done, I suppose," sai4 
 
12 
 
 WHITRLADIRS. 
 
 Everard, with a shrug of his shoulders, " but we need not 
 think of it till we are obliged ; and besides, Aunt Susan, for- 
 give me, if you had to give it up to — poor Herbert himself, 
 you would feel it ; and if he should get better, poor fellow, and 
 live and marry *' 
 
 " Ah, my poor boy," said Miss Susan, " life and marriage 
 are not for him ! " She paused a moment and dried her eyes, 
 and gulped down a sob in her throat. " But you may be right," 
 she said in a low tone, " perhaps, whoever our successors were, 
 we should feel it — even you, Everard." 
 
 " You should never go out of Whiteladies for me," said the 
 young man, " that you may be sure of ; but I shall not have 
 the chance. Farrel-Austin, for the sake of spiting the family 
 generally, will make a point of out-living us all. There is this 
 good in it, however," he added, with a slight movement of his 
 head, which looked like throwing off a disagreeable impression, 
 and a laugh, *' if poor Herbert, or I, supposing such a thing 
 possible, had taken possession, it might have troubled your 
 affection for us. Aunt Susan. Nay, don't shake your head. In 
 spite of yourself, it would have affected you. You would have 
 felt it bitter, unnatural, that the boys you had brought up and 
 fostered should take your house from you. You would have 
 struggled against the feeling, but you could not have helped it, 
 I know." 
 
 " Yes ; a great deal you know about an old woman's feel- 
 ings/' said Miss Susan, with a smile. 
 
 "And as for these unknown people, who never heard of 
 Whiteladies, perhaps, and might pull down the old house, or 
 play tricks with it — for instance, your grocer at Bude, the best 
 of men, with a charming respectable family, a pretty daughter, 
 who is a dressmaker, and a son who has charge of the cheese 
 and butter. After all, Aunt Susan, you could not in your 
 heart prefer them even to old Farrel-Austin, who is a gentle- 
 man at least, and knows the value of the old house." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that," said Miss Susan, though she had 
 shivered at the description. ** Farrel-Austin is our enemy ; he 
 has different ways of thinking, different politics, a different 
 side in everything ; and besides — don't laugh in your light 
 way, Everard ; everybody does not take things lightly as you do 
 — there is something between him and us, an old grievance 
 that I don't care to speak of now," 
 
 P 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 IS 
 
 " So you have told me," said the young man. " Well, we 
 cannot help it, anyhow ; if he must succeed, he must succeed, 
 though I wish it was myself rather for your sake." 
 
 " Not for your own," said Miss Susan, with restrained 
 sharpness, looking up at him. *' The Farrel-Austins are your 
 friends, Everard. Oh yes, I know ! nowadays young people 
 do not take up the prejudices of their elders. It is better and 
 wiser, perhaps, to judge for yourself, to take up no foregone 
 conclusion ; but for my part, I am old-fashioned, and full of old 
 traditions. I like my friends, somehow, reasonably or un- 
 reasonably, to be on my side." 
 
 " You have never even told me why it was your side," said 
 Everard, with rising colour ; '' am I to dislike my relations 
 without even knowing why 1 That is surely going too far in 
 partizanship. I am not fond of Farrel- Austin himself ; but 
 the rest of the family " 
 
 " The — girls — that is what you would say." 
 
 " Well, Aunt Susan ! the girls if you please ; they are very 
 nice girls. Why should I hate them because you hate their 
 father ? It is against common sense, not to speak of anything 
 else." 
 
 There was a little pause after this. Miss Susan had been 
 momentarily happy in the mids^ of her cares, when Everard's 
 whistle coming to her over the summer fields and flowers, had 
 brought to her mind a soft thought of her pretty Reine, and of 
 the happiness that might be awaiting her after her trial was 
 over. But now, by a quick and sudden revulsion this feeling 
 of relief was succeeded by a sudden realization of where Heine 
 might be now, and how occupied, such as comes to us all some- 
 times, when we have dear friends in distress — in one poignant 
 flash, with a pain which concentrates in itself as much suffering 
 as might make days sad. The tears came to her eyes in a 
 gush. She could not have analysed the sensations of dis- 
 appointment, annoyance, displeasure, which conspired to throw 
 back her mind upon the great grief which was in the background 
 of her landscape, always ready to recall itself; but the reader 
 will understand how it came about. A few big drops of 
 moisture fell upon her knitting. " Oh, my poor children ! " 
 she said, " how can I think of anything else, when at this very 
 moment, perhaps, for all one knows- 
 
 » 
 
14 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I believe Everard felt what was the connecting link of thought, 
 or rather feeling, and for the first moment was half-angry, del- 
 ing himself more or less blamed ; but he was too gentle a soul 
 not to be overwhelmed by the other picture suggested, after 
 the first moment. " Is he so very bad, then 1 " he asked, after 
 an interval, in a low and reverential tone. 
 
 " Not worse than he has been for weeks," said Miss Susan, 
 " but that is as bad as possible ; and any day — any day may 
 bring. — Grod help us ! in this lovely weather, Everard, with 
 everything blooming, everything gay — him dying, her watch- 
 ing him. Oh ! how could I forget them for a moment — how 
 could I think of anything else ) ^' 
 
 He made no answer at first, then he said faltering, " We 
 can do them no good by thinking, and it is too cruel, too 
 terrible. Is she {done 1 *' 
 
 " No ; God forgive me," said Miss Susan. " I ought to 
 think of the mother who is with her. They say a mother feels 
 most. I don't know. She has other ties and other children, 
 though I have nothing to say against her. But Reine has no 
 one." 
 
 Was it a kind of unconscious appeal to his sympathy ? Miss 
 Susan felt in a moment as if she had compromised the absent 
 girl for whom she herself had formed visions with which Everard 
 had nothing to do. 
 
 " Not that Reine is worse off than hundreds of others," she 
 said hastily, " and she will never want friends ; but the tie 
 between them is very strong. I do wrong to dwell upon it — 
 and to you ! " 
 
 " Why to me 1 " said Everard. He had been annoyed to have 
 Heine's sorrow thrust upon his notice, as if he had been neglect- 
 ing her ; but he was angry now to be thus thrust away from it, 
 as if he had nothing to do with her ; the two irritations were 
 antagonistic, yet the same. 
 
 " You don't like painful subjects," said Miss Susan, with a 
 consciousness of punishing him, and vindictive pleasure, good 
 soul as she was, in his punishment. '' Let us talk of some- 
 thing else. Austine is at her almshouses, as usual, and she has 
 left me with scarcely a servant in the house. Should any one 
 call, or should tea be wanted, I don't know what I should do." 
 
 ** 1 don't suppose I could make the tea," said Everard. He 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 15 
 
 ions were 
 
 felt that he was punished, and yet he was glad of the change 
 of subject. He was light-hearted, and did not know anything 
 personally of suffering, and he could not bear to think 
 of grief or misfortune which, as he was fond of saying, he could 
 do no good by thinkine of. He felt quite sure of himself that 
 he womd have been able to overcome his repugnance of things 
 painful had it been " any good," but as it was, why make him- 
 self unhappy ? He dismissed the pain as much as he could, as 
 long as he could, and felt that he could welcome visitors gladly 
 even at the risk of making the tea, to turn the conversation 
 from the gloomy as^^ct it had taken. The thought of Herbert 
 and Reine seemed to cloud over the sunshine and take the 
 sweetness out of the air. It gave his heart a pane as if it 
 had been suddenly compressed ; and this pain, this darkening 
 of the world, could do them no good. Therefore, though he 
 was fond of them both, and would have gone to the end of the 
 world to restore health to his sick cousin, or even to do him a 
 temporary pleasure, yet, being helpless towards them, he was 
 glad to get the thoughts of them out of his mind. It spoilt his 
 comfort, and did them no manner of good. Why should he 
 break his own heart by indulging in such unprofitable thoughts I 
 Miss Susan knew Everard well ; but though she had herself 
 abruptly changed the subject in deference to his wishes, she 
 was vexed with him for accepting the change, and felt her heart 
 fill full of bitterness on Reine's account and poor Herbert's, 
 whom this light-hearted boy endeavoured to forget. She could 
 not speak to him immediately, her heart being sore and angry. 
 He felt this, and had an inkling of the cause, and was half 
 compunctious and half disposed to take the offensive, and ask 
 " What have I done ? " and defend himself, but could not, 
 being guilty in heart. So he stooa leaning against the open 
 doorway, with a great rosebranch, which had got loose from its 
 fastenings, blowing in his face, and giving him a careless prick 
 with its thorns, as the wind blew it about. Somehow the long 
 waving bough, with its many roses, which struck him lightly, 
 playfully, across the face as he stood there, with dainty mirth 
 and mischief, made him think of Reine more than Miss Susan's 
 reminder had done. The prick of the branch woke in his 
 heart that same, sudden, vivid, poignant realization of the gay 
 girl in contrast with her present circumstances, which just a 
 
16 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I 
 
 few minutes before had taken Miss Susan, too, by surprise ; and 
 thus the two remained, together, yet apart, silent, in a half 
 quarrel, but both thinking of the same subject, and almost with 
 the same thoughts. Just then the rolling of carriage wheels 
 and prance of horses became audible turning the corner of the 
 green shady road into which the gate, at this side of the town, 
 opened — for the manor house was not secluded in a park, but 
 opened directly from a shady, sylvan road, which had once 
 served as avenue to the old priory. The greater part of the 
 trees that formed the avenue had perished long ago, but some 
 great stumps and roots and an interrupted line of chance sown 
 trees showed where it had been. The two people in the porch 
 were roused by this sound. Miss Susan to a troubled recollec- 
 tion of her servantless condition, and Everard to mingled annoy- 
 ance and pleasure as he guessed who the visitors were. He 
 would have been thankful to anyone who had come in with a 
 new interest to relieve him from the gloomy thoughts that had 
 taken possession of him against his will, and the new-comers, 
 he felt sure, were people whom he liked to meet. 
 
 ** Here is some one coming to call," cried Miss Susan in dis- 
 may, ** and there is no one to open the door ! " 
 
 " The door is open, and you can receive them here, or take 
 them in, which you please, you don't require any servant," said 
 Everard ; and then he added, in a low tone, " Aunt Susan, it 
 is the Farrel- Austins ; I know their carriage." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Miss Susan, drawing herself up. She did not 
 say any more to him — for was not he a friend and supporter of 
 that objectionable family 1 — but awaited the unwelcome visitors 
 with dignified rigidity. Their visits to her were very rare, but 
 she had always made a point of enduring and returning these 
 visits with that intense politeness of hostility which transcends 
 every other kind of politeness. She would not consent to look 
 up, nor to watch the alighting of the brightly clad figures on 
 the other side of the lawn. Tho old front of the house, the old 
 doorway and porch in which Miss Susan sat, was not now the 
 formal entrance, and consequently there was no carriage road 
 to it ; so that the visitors came across the lawn with light sum- 
 mer dresses and gay ribbons, flowery creatures against the back- 
 ground of green. They were two handsome girls, prettily 
 dressed and smiling, with their father, a dark, insignificant, 
 small man, coming along like a shadow in their train. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 17 
 
 new-comers, 
 
 " Oh, how cool > nd sweet it is here ! " said Kate, the eldest 
 " We are so glad to find you at home, Miss Austin. I thinic 
 wo met your sister about an hour ago going through the village. 
 Is it safe for her to walk in the sun without her bonnet 1 I 
 should think she would get a sunstroke on such a day." 
 
 " She is the best judge," said Miss Susan, growing suddenly 
 red J then subduing herself as suddenly, " for my part," she 
 said, " I prefer the porch. It is too warm to go out. ' 
 
 " Oh, we have been so much about ; we have been abroad," 
 said Sophy, the youngest. " We think nothing of the heat 
 here. English skies and English climate are dreadful after 
 abroad." 
 
 " Ah, are thev 1 I don't know much of any other," said 
 Miss Susan. " ^ood morning, Mr. Farrel. May I show you 
 the way to the drawing-room, as I happen to be here 1 " 
 
 *• Oh, mayn't we go to the hall, please, instead ? We are all 
 so fond of the hall,' said Sophy. She was the silly one, the 
 one who said things which the others did not like to say. 
 " Please let us go there ; isn't this the turn to take 1 Oh, what 
 a dear old house it is, with such funny passages and turnings 
 and windings. If it were ours, I should never sit anywhere 
 but in the hall." 
 
 " Sophy ! " said the father, in a warning tone. 
 
 " Well, papa ! I am not saying anything that is wrong. I do 
 love the old hall. Some people say it is such a ;tumble-down, 
 ramshackle old house ; but that is because they have no taste. 
 If it were mine, I should always sit in the hall." 
 
 Miss Susan led the way to it without a word. Many people 
 thought that Sophy Farrel- Austin had reason in her madness 
 and said, with a show of silliness, things that were too disagree- 
 able for the others ; but that was a mere guess on the part of 
 the public. The hall was one of the most perfectly preserved 
 rooms of its period. The high, open roof had been ceiled, which 
 was almost the only change made since the fifteenth century, 
 and that had been done in Queen Anne's time ; and the huge, 
 open chimney was partially built up, small sacrifices made to 
 comfort by a family too tenacious of their old dwelling-place to 
 do anything to spoil it, even at the risk of asthmas or rheumif 
 tism. To tell the truth, however, there was a smaller room, of 
 which the family now made their dining-room on ordinary 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 occasions. Miss Susan, scorning to take any 'notice of words 
 which she laid up and pondered privately to increase the bitter- 
 ness of her own private sentiments towards her probable sup- 
 planters, led the way into the beautiful old hall. It was wain- 
 scoted with dark panelled wood, which shone and glistened, up to 
 within a few feet of the roof, and the interval was filled with a 
 long line of casement, throwing down a ligat which a painter 
 would have loved, upon the high, dark wall. At the upper- 
 end of the room was a deep recess, raised a step from the floor, 
 and filled with a great window all the way up to the roof At the 
 lower end the musicians' gallery of ancient days, with carved 
 front and half-effaced coatsof-arms, was still intact. The rich old 
 Turkey carpet on the floor, the heavy crimson curtains that 
 hung on either side of the recess with its great window, were 
 the most modem things in the room ; and yet they were older 
 than Miss Susan's recollection could carry. The rest of the 
 furniture dated much further back. The fire-place, in which 
 great logs of wood blazed every winter, was filled with branches 
 of flowering shrubs, and the larger old-fashioned garden flowers, 
 arranged in some huge blue and white China jars, which would 
 have bcruck any collector with envy. Miss Susan placed her 
 young visitors on an old, straight-backed settee, covered with 
 stamped leather, which was extremely quaint, and very uncom- 
 fortable. She took herself one of the heavy fringed, velvet 
 covered chairs, and began with deadly civility to talk. Everard 
 placed himself against the carved mantel-piece and the bank of 
 flowers that filled the chimney. The old room was so much 
 the brighter to him for the presence of the girls ; he did net 
 care much that Sophy ^vas silly. Their pretty faces and bright 
 looks attracted the young man ; perhaps he was not very wise 
 himself. It happens so often enough. 
 
 And thus they all sat down and talked — about the beautiful 
 weather, about the superiority, even to this beautiful weather, of 
 the weather " abroad ; " of where they had been and what they 
 had seen ; of Mrs. Farrel-Austin's health, who was something 
 of an invalid, and rarely came out ; and other similar matters, 
 such as are generally discussed in morning calls. Everard 
 helped Miss Susan greatly to keep the conversation up, and 
 carry off" the visit with the ease and lightness that was desirable, 
 but yet I am not sure that she was grateful to him. All through 
 
WUITELADIES. 
 
 19 
 
 8, with carved 
 
 her mind, while she smiled and talked, there kept riling a per- 
 petual contrast. Why were these two so bright and well, 
 while the two children of the old house were in such sad 
 estate 1 — while they chattered and laughed what might be 
 happening elsewhere ? and Everard, who had been like a 
 brother to Herbert and Reine, laughed too, and chattered, and 
 made himself pleasant to these two girls, and never thought — 
 never thought ! This was the sombre under-current which 
 went through Miss Susan's mind while she entertained her 
 ciiliers, not without sundry subdued passages of arms. But 
 Miss Susan's heart beat high, in spite of herself, when Mr. Far 
 rel- Austin lingered behind his daugltters, bidding £verard see 
 them to the carriage. 
 " Cousin Susan, I should like a word with you," he said. 
 
20 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 'HE girls went out into the old conidor, leaving the great 
 carved door of the dining-hall open behind them. The 
 flutter of their pretty dresses filled the picturesque pas- 
 sage with animation, and the sound of their receding voices 
 kept up this sentiment of life and movement even after they 
 had disappeared. Their father looked after them well-pleased, 
 with that complacence on his countenance, and pleasant sense 
 of personal well-being which is so natural, but so cruel and op- 
 pressive to people less well off. Miss Susan, for her part, felt 
 it an absolute insult. It seemed to her that he had come expressly 
 to flaunt before her his own happiness and the health and good 
 looka of his children. She turned her back to the great window 
 that she might not see them going across the lawn, with Everard 
 in close attendance upon them. A sense of desertion, by him, 
 by happiness, by all that is bright and pleasant in the world, 
 came into her heart, and made her defiant. When such a 
 feeling as this gels into the soul, all softness, all indulgence to 
 others, all favourable construction of other people's words or 
 ways departs. They seemed to her to have come to glory over 
 her and over Herbert dying, and Reine mourning, and the fail- 
 ure of the old line. What was grief and misery to her was 
 triumph to them. It was natural perhaps, but very bitter ; 
 curses even, if she had not been too good a woman to let them 
 come to utterance, were in poor Miss Susan's heart. If he had 
 said anything to her about his girls, as she expected, if he had 
 talked of them, at all, I think the flood must have found vent 
 somehow ; but fortunately he did not do this. He waited 
 till they were out of the house, and then rose and closed the 
 door, and reseated himself facing her, with something more 
 serious on his face. 
 
 " Excuse me for waiting till they had gone," he said. " I 
 don't want the girls to be mixed up in any family troubles ; 
 though, indeed, there is no trouble involved in what I have to 
 tell you — or, at least, so I hope." • 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 21 
 
 The girls were going across the lawn laughing and talking, 
 saying something about the better training of the roses, and how 
 the place might be improved. Miss Susan caught some words 
 of this with ears quickened by her excited feelings. She drew her 
 chair further from the window, and turned her back to it more 
 determinedly than ever. Everard, too ! he had gone over to 
 the prosperous side. 
 
 " My dear cousin," said Mr. Farrel-A.ustin, " I wish you 
 would not treat me like an enemy. Whenever there is any- 
 thing I can do for you, I am always glad to do it. I heard 
 that you were making inquiries after our great-uncle Everard 
 and his descendants, if he left any." 
 
 "You could not miss hearing it. I made no secret of it," 
 said Miss Susan. " \/e have put advertisements in the news- 
 papers, and done everything we possibly could to call every- 
 body's attention." 
 
 " Yes ; I know, I know ; but you never consulted me. You 
 never said, ' Cousin, it is for the advantage of all of us to find 
 these people.' " 
 
 " I do not think it is for your advantage," said Miss Susan, 
 looking quickly at him. 
 
 " You will see, however, that it is, when you know what I 
 have to tell you," he said, rubbing his hands. " I suppose I 
 may take it for granted that yon did not mean it for my ad- 
 vantage. Cousin Susan, I have found the people you have 
 been looking for in vain." 
 
 The news gave her a shock, and so did his triumphant ex- 
 pression ; but she put force upon herself. " I am glad to hear 
 It," she said. " Such a search as mine is never in vain. When 
 you have advantages to offer, you seldom fail to find the people 
 who have a right to those advantages. I am glad you have 
 been successful " 
 
 " And I am happy to hear you say so," said the other. *' In 
 short we are in a sU^te of agreement and concord for once in 
 our lives, which is delightful. I hope you will not be dis- 
 appointed, however, with the result. I found them in Bruges, 
 in a humble position eiiough. Indeed, it was the name of 
 Austin over a shop door which attracted my notice first." 
 
 He spoke leisurely, and regarded her with a smile which 
 almost drove her furious, especially as, by every possible argu 
 
22 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ment, she was bound to restrain her feelings. She was strong 
 enough, however, to do this, and presen b a perfectly calm front 
 to her adversary. 
 
 " You found the name — over a shop door 1 " 
 
 " Yes, a drapery shop ; and inside there was an old man 
 with the Austin nose as clear as I ever saw it. It belongs, you 
 know, more distinctly to the elder branch than to any other 
 portion of the family." 
 
 " The original stock is naturally stronger," said Miss Susan. 
 " When you get down to collaterals, the family type dies out. 
 Your family, for instance, all resemble your mother, who was 
 a Miss Robinson, I think I have heard 1 " 
 
 This thrust gave her a little consolation in her pain, and it 
 disturbed her antagonist in his triumph. She had, as it were, 
 drawn the first blood. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; you are quite right," he said ; " of a very good 
 family in Essex. Robinsons of Swill well — well-known people." 
 
 " In the city," said Mis3 Susan, " so I have always heard ; 
 and an excellent thing too. Blood may not always make its 
 way, but money does ; and to have an alderman for your 
 grandfather is a great deal more comfortable than to have a 
 crusader. But about our cousin at Bruges," she added, 
 recovering her temper. How pleasant to every well-regulated 
 mind is the consciousness of having administered a good, 
 honest, knock-down blow ! 
 
 Mr. Farrel- Austin glanced at her out of the light grey eyes, 
 which were indisputable Robinsons, and as remote in colour as 
 possible from the deep blue orbs, clear as a winter sky, which 
 were one of the great points of the Austins ; but he dared not 
 take any further notice. It was his turn now to restrain 
 himself. 
 
 '' A.bout our cousin in Bruges," he repeated with an effort. 
 " He turns out to be an old man, and not so happy in his 
 family as might be wished. His only son was dying — " 
 
 " For God's sake ! " said Miss Susan, moved beyond her 
 power 01 control, and indeed ceasing to control herself with 
 this good reason for giving way — " have you no heart that you 
 can say such words with a smile on your face "t You that have 
 children yourself, whom God may smite as well as another's I 
 How dare you 1 how dare you ? for your own sake V 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 28 
 
 " I don't know that I am saying anything unbecoming," said 
 
 ir. Farrel. " I did not mean it. No one can be more grateful 
 
 for the blessings of Providence than I am. I thank Heaven 
 
 that all my children are well ; but that does not hinder the 
 
 [poor man at Bruges from losing his. Pray let me continue ; 
 
 [his wife and he are old people, and his only son, as I say, was 
 
 Idying or dead — dead by this time, certainly, according to what 
 
 [they said of his condition." 
 
 Miss Susan clasped her hands tightly together. It seemed 
 [to her that he enjoyed the poignant pang his words gave her — 
 r dead by this time, certainly ! " Might that be said of the 
 other who was dearer to her 1 Two dying, that this man might 
 [get the inheritance ! Two lives extinguished, that Farrel-Austin 
 and his girls might have this honour and glory ! He had no 
 boys, however. His glory could be but short-lived. There 
 I was a kind of fierce satisfaction in that thought. 
 
 ' I had a long conversation with the old man ; indeed we 
 
 [stayed in Bruges for some days on purpose. I saw all his 
 
 papers, and there can be no doubt he is the grandson of our 
 
 great-uncle Everard. I explained the whole matter to him, of 
 
 Icourse, and brought your advertisements under his notice, and 
 
 [explained your motives." 
 
 " What are my motives 1 — according to your explanation." 
 
 " Well, my dear cousin — not exactly love and charity to me, 
 
 I are they i I explained the position fully to him." 
 ' Then there is no such thing as justice or right in the world, 
 
 II suppose," she cried indignantly, " but everything hinges on 
 love to you, or the reverse. You know what reason I have to 
 love you —well do you know it, and lose no opportunity to 
 keep it before me ; but if my boy himself — my dying boy, God 
 
 I help me I —had been in your place, Farrel-Austin, should I 
 have let him take possession of what was not his by right ? You 
 
 I judge men, and women too, by yourself. Let that pass, so far 
 as you are concerned. You have no other ground, I suppose, 
 to form a judgment on ; but you have no right to poison the 
 
 I minds of others. Nothiujy; will make me submit to that." 
 
 " Well, well," said Mr. Farrel-Austin, shrugging his shoulders 
 with contemptuous calm, " you can set yourself right when you 
 please with the Bruges shopkeeper. I will give you his address. 
 But in the meantime you may as well hear what his decision 
 
24 
 
 WHltELA-DlES. 
 
 s 
 
 is. At his ag J he does not care to change his country and his 
 position, and come to England in order to become the master 
 of a tumble down old house. He prefers his shop, and the 
 place he hari lived in all his Hie. And the short and the long 
 of it is, that he has transferred his rights to me, and resigned 
 all claim iipon the property. I agreed to it," he added, raising 
 his head, ** to save trouble, more than for any other reason. 
 He is a 7nan nearly seventy ; his son dead or dying, as I said. 
 So far as I am concerned, h could only have been a few years' 
 delay at the most." 
 
 Misi Susan sat bolt upiight in her chair, gazing at him with 
 eyes full of amazement — so much astonished that she scarcely 
 comprehended what he said. It was evidently a relief to the 
 othf r bo have made his announcement. He breathed more 
 freoly after he had got it all out. He rose from his chair and 
 went to the window, and nodded to his girls across the lawn. 
 " They are impatient;, I see, and I must be going," he went on. 
 I'hen looking at Miss Susan for the first time, he added, 
 in a tone that had t>i, sound of mockery in it, " You seem sur- 
 prised." 
 
 " Surprised ! " She had been leaning towards the chair 
 from which he had risen without realizing that he had left it 
 in her great consternation. Now she turned quickly to him. 
 ^' Surprised ! I am a great deal more than surprised." 
 
 He laughed ; he had the upper hand at last. " What more % " 
 he sAid lightly. " I think the man was a very reasonable old 
 man, and saw what his best policy was." 
 
 " And you — accepted bis sacrifice ? " said Miss Susan, 
 amazement taking from her all power of expre':dion ; — " you 
 permitted him to give up his birthright 1 you — took advantage 
 of his 7 jnorance 1 " 
 
 " My dear cousin, you are rude," he said, laughing " without 
 intending it, I am sure. So well-bred a woman could never 
 make such imputations willingly. Took advanta^^e ! I hope I 
 did not do that. But I certainly recommended the arrangement 
 to him, as the most reasonable thing he could do. Think ! 
 At his age, he could come here only to die ; and with no son 
 succeed him, of course I should have stepped in immediately. 
 Few men like to die among sbrangers. 1 was willing, of course, 
 to make him t* recompense for the convenience — ^for it was no 
 
WHITELADlES. 
 
 25 
 
 more than a convenience, make the most you can of it — of suc- 
 ceeding at once." 
 
 Miss Susan looked at him speechless with pain and passion. 
 I do not know what she did not feel disposed to say. For a 
 moment her blue eyes shot forth fire, her lips quivered from 
 the flux of too many words which flooded upon her. She 
 began even, faltering, stammering — then came to a stop in the 
 mere physical inability to arrange her words, to say all she 
 wanted, to launch her thunder-bolt at his head with the precision 
 she wished. At last she came to a dead stop, looking at him 
 only, incapable of speech ; and with that pause came reflection. 
 No ; she would say nothing ; she would not commit herself ; 
 she would think first, and perhaps do, instead of saying. She 
 gave a gasp of self-restraint. 
 
 " The young ladies seem impatient for you," she said. " Don't 
 let me detain you. I don't 1: low that I have anything to say on 
 the subject of your news, which are surprising, to be sure, 
 and take away my breath." 
 
 " Yes, I thought you would be surprised," he said, and shook 
 hands with her. How Miss Susan's fingers tingled — how she 
 would have liked, in an outburst of impatience which I fear 
 was very undignified, to apply them to his ear, rather than to 
 sufier his hand to touch hers in hypocritical amity I He was a 
 little disappointed, however, to have had so little response to 
 his communication. Her silence baffled him. He had ex- 
 pected her to commit herself ; to storm, perhaps ; to dash her- 
 self in fury against this skilful obstacle which he had placed in 
 her way. He did not expect her to have so much command 
 of herself ; and, in consequence, he went away v/ith a secret 
 uneasiness, feeling less successful and less confident in what he 
 had done, and asking himself. Could he have made some 
 mistake after all — could she know something that made his 
 enterprise unavailing 1 He was more than usually silent on 
 the drive home, making no answer to the comments of his 
 girls, or to their talk about what they would do when they got 
 possession of the manor. 
 
 " I hope the furniture goes with the house," said Kate. 
 '* Papa, you must do all you can to secure those old chairs, 
 and especially the settee with the stamped leather, which is 
 charming, and would fetch its weight in gold in Wardour 
 Street." 
 
26 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ** And, papa, those big blue and white jars," said Sophy, 
 " real old Nankin, I am sure. They must have quantities of 
 things hidden away in those old cupboards. It shall be as good 
 as a museum when we get possession of the house ! " 
 
 " You had better get possession of the house before you 
 make any plans about it," said her father tnrtly. " I nover 
 like making too sure." 
 
 " Why, papa, what has come over you 1 " cried the eldest. 
 '* You were the first to say what you would do, when we started. 
 Miss Susan has been throwing some spell over you." 
 
 " If it is her spell, it will not be hard to break it," said 
 Sophy ; and thus they glided along, between the green abundant 
 hedges, breathing the honey breath of the limes, but not quite 
 so happy and triumphant as when they came. As for the girls, 
 they had heard no details of the bargain their father had made 
 and gave no great importance to it ; for they knew he was 
 the next heir, and that the manor-house would soon cease to 
 be poor Herbert's with whom they had played as children, but 
 whom, they said constantly, they scarcely knew. They did 
 not understand what cloud had come over their father. " Miss 
 Susan is an old witch," they said, " and she has put him under 
 some spell." 
 
 Meanwhile Miss Susan sat half-stupified where he had left 
 her, in a draught, which was a thing she took precautions 
 against on ordinary occasions — the great window open behind 
 her, the door open in front of her and the current blowing 
 about even the sedate and heavy folds of the great crimson 
 curtains, and waking, though she did not yet feel it, the demon 
 Neuralgia to twist h^r nerves, and set her frame on edge. She 
 did not seem able to move or even think, so great was the 
 amazement in her mind. Could he be right — could he have 
 found the Austin she had sought for over all the world ; and 
 was it possible that the unrighteous bargain he told her of had 
 really been completed ? Unrighteous ! for was It not cheating 
 her in the way she felt most, deceiving her in her expectations ? 
 An actual misfortune could scarcely have given Miss Susan so 
 great a shock. She sat quite motionless, her very thoughts 
 arrested in their course, not knowing what to think, what to 
 do — how to take this curious new event. Must she accept it 
 as a thing beyond her power of altering, or ought she to ignore 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 27 
 
 I as something incredible, impossible 1 One thing or other 
 
 ie must decide upon at once ; but in the meantime, so great 
 
 [as the effect this intimation had upon her mind, that she felt 
 
 brself past all power of thinking. Everard coming back, 
 
 mnd her still seated there in the draught in the old hall. He 
 
 lut the door softly behind him and went in, looking at her 
 
 [ith questioning eyes. But she did not notice his looks ; she 
 
 [as too much and too deeply occupied in her own mind. Besides, 
 
 (is friendship with her visitors made Everard a kind of sus- 
 
 icted person, not to be fully trusted. Miss Susan was too 
 
 [eeply absorbed to think this, but she felt it. He sat down 
 
 )posite, where Mr. Farrel- Austin had been sitting, and looked 
 
 her ; but this mute questioning produced no response. 
 
 " What has old Farrel been saying to you. Aunt Susan 1 " he 
 
 sked at last. 
 
 " Why do you call him old Farrel, Everard 1 he is not 
 [early so old as I am," said Miss Susan with a sigh, waking 
 Ip from her thoughts. " Growing old has its advantages, no 
 |oubt, when one can realize the idea of getting rid of all one's 
 worries, and having the jangled bells put in tune again ; but 
 [therwise — to think of other« who will set everything wrong 
 )ming after us, who have .^ied hard to keep them right ! 
 *erhaps, when it comes to the very end, one does not mind ; 
 hope so ; I feel sore now to think tl^at this man should be 
 [ouuger than I am, and likely to live ever so much longer, 
 |nd enjoy my father's house." 
 Everard sat still saying nothing. He was unprepared for 
 lis sort of reply. He was slightly shocked too, as young 
 People so often are, by the expression of any sentiments, except 
 he orthodox ones, on the subject of dying. It seemed to 
 im, at twenty-five, that to Miss Susan at sixty it must be a 
 latter of comparatively little consequence how much longer 
 \he lived. He would have felt the sentiments of the Nunc 
 Hmittis to be much more appropriate and correct in the cir- 
 cumstances ; he could not understand the peculiar mortification 
 )f having less time to live than Farrel-Austin. He looked 
 rave with the fine disapproval and lofty superiority of youth. 
 Jut he was a very gentle-souled and tender-hearted young man, 
 md he did not like to express the disapproval that was in his face. 
 We had better not talk of them," said Miss Susan, after 
 
28 
 
 WHITELADIfiS. 
 
 a pause ; " we don't agree about them, and it ie not likely we 
 should ; and I don't want to quarrel with you, Everard, on 
 their account. Farrel thinks he is quite sure of the estate 
 now. He has found out some one whom he calls our missing 
 cousin, and has got him to give up in his own favour." 
 
 " Got him to give up in his own favour ! " repeated Everard 
 amazed. " Why, this is wonderful news. Who is it, and 
 where is he, and how has it come about 1 You take away one's 
 breath." 
 
 " I cannot go into the story," said Miss Susan. " Ask him- 
 self. I am sick of the subject. He thinks he has settled it, 
 and that it is all right ; and waits for nothing but my poor 
 boy's end to take possession. They had not even the grace to 
 ask for him ! " she cried, rising hastily. " Don't ask me any- 
 thing about it ; it is more than I can bear." 
 
 " But, Aunt Susan " 
 
 " I tell you we shall quarrel, Everard, if we talk more on 
 this subject," she cried. '* You are their friend, and I am 
 their — no ; it is they who are my enemies," she added, stopping 
 herself. " I don't dictate to you how you are to feel, or what 
 friends you are to make. I have no right ; but I have a right 
 to talk of what I please, and to be silent when I please. I 
 shall say no more about it. As for you," she said, after another 
 pause, with a forced smile, "the youug ladies will consult with 
 you what changes they are to make in the house. I heard 
 them commenting on the roses, and how everything could be 
 improved. You will be of the greatest use to them in t'i eir 
 new arrangements, when all obstacles are removed." 
 
 " I don't think it is kind to speak to me so," said Everard, 
 in his surprise. " It is not generous. Aunt Susan. It is like 
 kicking a fellow when he is down ; for you know I can't defend 
 myself." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it is unjust," said Miss Susan, drying her 
 eyes, which were full of hot tears, with no gratefulness of relief 
 in them. " The worst of this world is that one is driven to be 
 unjust and can't help it, even to those one loves." 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 VERARD AUSTIN remained at Whiteladies for the 
 rest of the afternoon — he was like one of the children 
 of the house. The old servants took him aside and 
 asked him to mention things to Miss Susan with which they 
 did not like to worry hdv in her trouble, though indeed most 
 of these delicacies wei'e very much after date, and concerned 
 matters on which Miss Susan had already been sufficiently 
 worried. The gardener came and told him of trees that wanted 
 cutting, and the bailiff on the farm consulted him about the 
 labourers for the approaching harvest. " Miss Susan don't 
 like tramps, and I don't want not to go against her, just when 
 things is at the worst. I shouldn't wonder, sir," said the man, 
 looking curiously in Everard's face, " if things was in other 
 hands this time next year." Everard answered him with some- 
 thing of the bitterness which he himself had condemned so 
 much a little while before. That Farrel- Austin should succeed 
 was natural ; but thus to look forward to the changing of 
 masters gave him, too, a pang. He went indoors somewhat 
 disturbed, and fell into the hands of Martha and Jane fresh 
 from the almshouses. Martha, who was Miss Susan's maid 
 and half-housekeeper, had taken charge of him often enough in 
 his boyish days, and called him Master Everard still, so she 
 wa entitled to speak, while the younger maid looked on, and 
 concurred — " It will break my lady's heart," said Martha, 
 " leaving of this old house ; not but what we might be a deal 
 more comfortable in a nice handy place, in good repair like 
 yours is. Master Everard ; where the floors is straight and the 
 roofs likewise, and you don't catch a rheumatism round every 
 corner ; but my lady ain't of my way of thinking.' I tell her 
 as it would have been just as bad if Mr. Herbert had got well, 
 poor dear young gentleman, and got married ; but she won't 
 listen to me. Miss Augustine, she don't take on about the 
 house ; but she's got plenty to take on about, poor soul ; and 
 the way she do carry on about them almshouses I It'B like a 
 
30 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ; 
 
 I 
 
 born natural, that's what it is, and nothing else. Oh, me ! 1 1 
 know as I didn't ought to say it ; but what can you do, I ask 
 you, Master Everard, when you've got the like of that under 
 your very nose ? She'll soon have nothing but paupers in the | 
 parish if she has her way." 
 
 " She's very feeling-hearted," said Jane, who stood behind 
 her elder companion and put in a word noiv and then over 
 Martha's shoulder. She had been enjoying the delights of 
 patronage, the happiness of recommending her friends in the 
 village to Miss Augustine's consideration ; and this was too 
 pleasant a privilege to be consistent with criticism. The pro- 
 fusion of her mistress's alms made Jane feel herself to be " feel- 
 ing-hearted " too. 
 
 " And great thanks she gets for it all," said Martha. " They 
 call her the crazy one down in the village. Miss Susan, she's 
 the hard one ; and Miss Au^fustine's the crazy one. That's 
 gratitude ! trailing about in ler grey gown for all the world 
 like ar Papist nun. But, poor soul, I didn't ought to grudge 
 her her grey. Master Everard. We'll soon be black and black 
 enough in our mourning, from all that I hear." 
 
 Again Edward was conscious of a shiver. He made a hasty 
 answer and withdrew from the women who had come up to 
 him in one of the airy corridors up stairs, half glass, like the 
 passages below, and full of corners. Everard was on his way 
 from a pilgrimage to the room, in which, when Herbert and he 
 were children, they had been allowed to accumulate their play- 
 things and possessions. It had a bit of corridor, like a glazed 
 gallery, leading to it — and a door opened from it to the 
 musicians' gallery of the hall. The impulse which led him to 
 this place was not like his usual care to avoid unpleasant sen- 
 sations, for the very sight of the long bare room, with its 
 windows half-choked with ivy, the traces of old delights on the 
 walls— bows hung on one side, whips on the other — a heap of 
 cricket bats and pads in a corner ; and old books, pictures, and 
 rubbish heaped upon the old creaky piano at which Eeine used 
 to play to them, had gone to his heart. How often the old 
 walls had rung with their voices, the old floor creaked under 
 them ! He had given one look in to the haunted solitude, and 
 then had fled, feeling himself unable to bear it. " As if I could 
 do them any good thinking," Everard had said to himself with 
 
 11 
 
WH1TELADIE8. 
 
 31 
 
 a rush of tears to his eyes — and it was in the gallery leading 
 to this room — the west gallery as everybody called it — that the 
 w^men stopped hira. The rooms at Whiteladies had almost 
 every one a gallery, or an ante-room, or a little separate stair- 
 case to itself. The dinner-bell pealed out as he emerged from 
 thence and hurried to the room M'hich had been always called 
 his, to prepare for dinner. How full of memories the old place 
 was! The dinner-bell was very solemn, like the bell of a 
 cathedral, and had never been known to be silent, except when 
 the family were absent, for more years than any one could 
 reckon. How well he recollected the stir it made among them 
 all as children, and how the)'^ would steal into the musicians' 
 gallery and watch in the centre of the great room below, in the 
 speck of light which shone amid its dimness, the two ladies 
 sitting at table, like people in a book or in a dream, the servants 
 moving softly about, and no one aware of the unseen spectators, 
 till the irrepressible whispering and rustling of the children 
 betrayed them ! how sometimes they were sent away igno- 
 miniously, and sometimes Aunt Susan, in a cheery mood, would 
 throw up oranges to them, which Reine, with her tiny hands, 
 could never catch ! How she used to cry when the oranges 
 fell round her and were snapped up by the boys — not for the 
 fruit, for Reine never had anything witLout sharing it or 
 giving it away, but for the failure which made them laugh at 
 her ! Everard laughed unawares as the scene came up before 
 him, and then felt that sudden compression, constriction of his 
 heaxt—serrement du coeur, which forces out the bitterest tears. 
 And then he hurried down to dinner and took his seat with the 
 ladies, in the cool of the summer evening, in the same historical 
 spot, having now become one of them, and no longer a spectator. 
 But he looked up at the gallery with a wistful sense of the 
 little scuffle that used to be there, the scrambling of small feet, 
 and whispering of voices. In summer, when coolness was an 
 advantage, the ladies still dined in the great hall. 
 
 " Austine, you have not seen Everard since he returned from 
 America," said Miss Susan. " How strong and well he is 
 looking! " — here she gave a little sigh ; not that she grudged 
 Everard his good looks, but the very words brought the other, 
 before her, at thought of whom every other young man's 
 strength and health seemed almost cruel. 
 
32 
 
 WHTTELADIKS. 
 
 " He has escaped the fate of the family," said Miss Augus- 
 tine. " All I can pray for, Everard, is that you may never be 
 the Austin of Whiteladies. No wealth can make up for that." 
 
 " Hush, hush I " said Miss Susan with a smile, " these are 
 your fancies. We are not worse off than many other families 
 who have no such curse as you think of, my dear. What were 
 you doing at your almshouses? Are all the old women com- 
 fortable — and grumbling 1 What were you about to-day 1" 
 
 " I met them in chapel," said the younger sister, " and 
 talked to them. 1 told them, as I Uways do, what need we 
 have of their prayers ; and that they should maintain a Christian 
 life. Ah, Susan, you smile ; and Everard, because he is young 
 and foolish, would laugh if he could ; but when you think 
 that is all I can do, or any one can do, to make up for the sins 
 of the past, to avert the doom of the family " 
 
 " If we have anything to make up more than others, I think 
 we should do it ourselves," said Miss Susan. "But never 
 mind, dear, if it pleases you. You are spoiling the people ; but 
 there are not many villages spoiled with kindness. I comfort 
 myself with that." 
 
 " It is not to please myself that I toil night and day, that I 
 rise up early and lie down late," said Miss Augustine with a 
 faint gleam of indignation in her blue eyes. Then she looked 
 at Everard and sighed. She did not want to brag of her 
 mortifications. In the curious balance-sheet which she kept 
 with heaven, poor soul, so m.-ny prayers and vigils and charities, 
 against so many sinful genen '^ns past, so many family failings 
 in duty, she was aware that anything like a boast on her part 
 diminished the value of the compensation she was rendering. 
 Her unexpressed rule was that the, so to speak, commercial 
 worth of a good deed disappeared, when advantage was taken 
 of it for this world ; she wanted to keep it at its full value for 
 the next, and therefore she stopped short and said no more, 
 " Some of them put us to shame," she said; " they lead such 
 holy lives. Old Mary Matthews spends nearly her whole time 
 in chapel. She lives only for God and us. To hear her speak 
 would reward you for many sacrifices, Susan — if you ever 
 ma-e any. She gives up all — her time, her comfort, her whole 
 thoughts — for us." 
 
 ••;Why for us 1 " said Everard. ** Do you keep people on 
 
WHTTELADIEB. 
 
 purpose to pray for the family, Aunt Augustine 1 I beg your 
 pardon, but it sounded something like it. You can't mean it, 
 of course 1 " 
 
 " Why should not I mean it 1 We do not pray so much as 
 we ought for ourselves," said Miss Augustine ; *• and if I can 
 
 persuade holy persons to pray for us continually " 
 
 " At so much a week, a cottage, and coals and candles," said 
 Miss Susan. ** Augustine, my dear, you shall have your way 
 as long as I can got it for you. I am glad the old souls are 
 comfortable ; and if they are good, so much the better ; and I 
 am glad you like it, my dear ; but whatever you think, you 
 should not talk in this way. Eh, Stevens, what do you say 1 " 
 
 I "If I might make so bold, ma'am," said the butler, "not to 
 
 I go again Miss Augustine ; but that hold Missis Matthews, 
 
 mum, she's a hold " 
 
 "Silence, sir," said Miss Susan promptly, "I don't want to 
 
 I hear any gossip; my sister knows best. Tell Everard about 
 your schools, my dear ; the parish must be the better of the 
 schools. Whatever the immediate motive is, ro long as the 
 thing is good," said this casuist, " and whatever the occasional 
 
 iresult may be, as long as the meaning is charitable — There, 
 
 (there, Everard, I won't have her crossed." 
 
 This was said hastily in an undertone to Everard, who was 
 
 Jshaking his head, with a suppressed laugh on his face. 
 
 " I am not objecting to anything that is done, but to your 
 
 [reasoning, which is defective," he said. 
 
 " Oh, my reasoning ! is that all 1 I don't stand upon my 
 reasoning," said Miss Susan. And then there was a pause in 
 the conversation, for Miss Susan's mind was perturbed, and 
 she talked but in fits and starts, having sudden intervals of 
 silence, from which she would as suddenly emerge into animated 
 
 Idiscussion, then be still again all in a moment. Miss Augustine, 
 
 in her long limp grey dress, with pale hands coming out of 
 the wide hanging sleeves, talked only on one subject, and did 
 lot eat at all, so that her company was not very cheerful. And 
 llverard could not but glance up now and then to the gallery, 
 i^hich lay in deep shade, and feel as if he was in a dream, seated 
 lown below in the light. How vividly the childish past had 
 jome upon him ; and how much more cheerful it had been in 
 those old days, when the three atoms in the dusty corner of the 
 
 
34 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 gallery looked down with laughing eyes upon the solemn peo- 
 ple at table, and whispered and rustled in their restlessness till 
 they were found out ! 
 
 At last — and this was something so wonderful that even the 
 servants who waited at table were appalled — Miss Augustine 
 recommenced the conversation. " You have had some one 
 here to-day," she said. " Farrel-Austin — I met him." 
 
 " Yes ! " said Miss Susan breathless and alarmed. 
 
 *' It seemed to me that the shadow had fallen upon them 
 already. He is grey and changed. I have not seen him for 
 a long time ; his wife is ill, and his children .re delicate." 
 
 <' Nonsense, Austine, the girls are as strong and well as a 
 couple of hoydens need be." Miss Susan spoke almost sharply, 
 and in a half-frightened tone. 
 
 " You think so, Svisan ; for my part I saw the shadow plain- 
 ly. It is that their time is drawing near to inherit. Perhaps 
 as they are girls, nothing will happen to them ; nothing ever 
 happened to us ; that is to say, they will not marry probably ; 
 they will be as we have been. I wish to know them, Susan. 
 Probably one of them would take up my work, and endeavour 
 to keep further trouble from the house." 
 
 " Farrel's daughter ? you are very good, Austine, very good ; 
 you put me to shame," said Miss Susan bending her head. 
 
 " Yes ; why not Farrel's daughter ? She is a woman like the 
 rest of us, and an Austin like the rest of us. I wish the prop- 
 erty could pass to women, then there might be an end of it 
 once for all." 
 
 '' In that case it would go to Eeine, and there would not in 
 the least be an end of it ; quite the reverse." 
 
 " I could persuade Reine," said Miss Augustine. "Ah, yes ; 
 I could persuade her. She knows my life. She knows about 
 the family, how we have all suffered. Heine would be led by 
 me ; she would give it up, as I should have done had I the 
 power. But men will not do such a thing. I am not blaming 
 them. I am saying what is the fact. Reine would have given 
 it up." 
 
 "You speak like a visionary," said Miss Susan sighing. 
 " Yes, I daresay Reine would be capable of a piece of foUy, or 
 you, or even myself. We do things that seem right to us at 
 the moment without taking other things into consideration, 
 
WUITELADIES. 
 
 85 
 
 would not in 
 
 when we are quite free to do what we like. But don't you see, 
 my dear, a man with an entailed estate is not free 1 His son 
 or his heir must come after him, as his father went before him ; 
 he is only a kind of tenant. Farrel, since you have spoken of 
 Farrel — I would not have begun it — dare not alienate the prop- 
 erty from Everard ; and Everard, when it comes to him, must 
 keep it for his son, if he ever has one." 
 
 ''The thing would be," said Miss Augustine, "to make up 
 your mind never to have one, Everard." She looked at him 
 calmly and gravely, crossing her hands within her long sleeves. 
 
 "But my dear Aunt Augustine," said Everard laughing, 
 " what good would that do me ? I should have to hand it on 
 to the next in the entail all the same. I could not do away 
 \vith the estate without the consent of my heir at least." 
 
 " Then I will tell you what to do," said Miss Augustine. 
 "Marry ; it is different from what I said just now, but it has the 
 same meaning. Marry at once ; and when you have a boy 
 let him be sent to me. I will train him, I will show him 
 his duty ; and then with his consent, which he will be sure to 
 give when he grows up, you can break the entail and restore 
 Whiteladies to its right owner. Do this, my dear boy, it is 
 quite simple ; and so at last I shall have the satisfaction of 
 feeling that the curse will be ended one day. Yes ; the thing 
 to be done is this." 
 
 Miss Susan had exclaimed in various tones of impatience. 
 She had laughed reluctantly when Everard laughed ; but what 
 her sister said was more serious to her than it was to the young 
 man. " Do you mean to live for ever," she said at last, " that 
 you calculate so calmly on bringing up Everard's son ?" 
 
 " I am fifty-five," said Miss Augustine, " and Everard might 
 have a son in a year. Probably I shall live to seventy-five, at 
 least — most of the women of our family do. He would then 
 be twenty, approaching his majority. There is nothing ex- 
 travagant in it ; and on the whole, it seems to me the most 
 hopeful thing to do. You must marry, Everard, without delay ; 
 and if you want money I will help you. I will do anything 
 for an object so near my heart." 
 
 "You had better settle whom I am to marry, Aunt Augus- 
 tine." 
 
 Everard's laughter made the old walls gay. He entered into 
 
36 
 
 WHITELADIEa 
 
 the joke without any arri^re pensde; the suggestion amused 
 him beyond measure ; all the more that it was made with so 
 much gravity and solemnity. Miss Susan had laughed too ; 
 but now she became slightly alarmed, and watched her sister 
 with troubled eyes. 
 
 "Whom you are to marry? That wants consideration," 
 said Miss Augustine. " The sacrifice would be more complete 
 and satisfactory if two branches of the family concurred in 
 making it. The proper person for you to marry in the cir- 
 cumstances would be, either " 
 
 "Austine!" 
 
 " Yes ! I am giving the subject my best attention. You 
 cannot understand, no one can understand, how all-important 
 it is to me. Everard, either one of Farrel's girls, to whom I 
 bear no malice, or perhaps Reine." 
 
 " Austine, you are out of your senses on this point," said 
 Miss Susan, almost springing from her seat and disturbing sud- 
 denly the calm of the talk. " Come, come, we must retire ; 
 we have dined. Everard, if you choose to sit a little, Stevens 
 is giving you some very good claret. It wa^ my father's ; I 
 can answer for it, much better than I can answer for my own, 
 for I am no judge. You will find us in the west room when 
 you are ready, or in the garden. It is almost too sweet to be 
 indoors to-night." 
 
 She drew her sister's arm within hers and led her away, 
 with a peremptory authority which permitted no argument, and 
 to which Augustine instinctively yielded ; and Everard remained 
 alone, his cheek tingling, his heart beating. It had all been pure 
 amusement up to this point ; but even his sense of the ludicrous 
 could not carry him further. He might have known, he said 
 to himself, that this was what she must say. He blushed, and 
 felt it ungenerous in himself to have allowed her to go so far, to 
 propose these names to him. He seemed to be making the girls 
 endure a humiliation against his will, and without their 
 knowledge). What had they done that he should permit any 
 one even to suggest that he could choose among them ? 
 This was the more elevated side of his feelings ; but there 
 was another side, I am obliged to allow, a fluttered, flat- 
 tered corsciousness that the suggestion might be true ; that he 
 might Y ave it in his power, like a sultan, to choose among 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 87 
 
 ;hoose among 
 
 them, and throw his princely handkerchief at the one he pre- 
 ferred. A mixture therefore of some curious sense of elation 
 and suppressed pleasure mingled with the more generous feel- 
 ing wiuiin him, quenching at once the ridicule of Miss Augus- 
 tine's proposal, and the sense of wrong done to those three girls. 
 Yes, no doubt, it is a man's privilege to choose ; he, and not 
 the woman, has it in his power to weigh the qualities of one and 
 another, and to decide which would be most fit for the glorious 
 position of his wife. They could not choose him, but he 
 could choose one of them, and on his choice probably their 
 future fate would depend. It was impossible not to feel a little 
 pleasant flutter of consciousness. He was not vain, but he felt 
 the sweetness of the superiority involved, and the greatness of 
 the position. When the ladies were gone Everard laughed, all 
 alone by himself, he could not help it ; and the echoes took up 
 the laughter, and rang into that special corner of the gallery 
 which he knew so well, centring there. Why there, of all places 
 in the world 1 Was it some ghost of little Reine in her child- 
 hood that laughed 1 Reine in her childhood had been the 
 one who exercised choice. It was she who might have 
 thrown the handkerchief, not Everard. A.nd then a hush 
 came over him, and a compunction, as he thought where 
 Eeine was at this moment, and how she might be occupied. 
 I ndiiig over her brother's deathbed, hearing his last words, 
 her heart contracted with the bitter pang of parting ; while 
 her old playfellow laughed, and wondered whether he should 
 choose her out of the three to share his grandeur. Everard 
 grew quite silent all at once, and poured himself out a glass of 
 t^e old claret in deep humiliation and stillness, feeling ashamed 
 of himself He held the wine up to the light with the solemn- 
 est countenance, trying to take himself in, and persuade himself 
 that he had no lighter thoughts in his mind, and then having 
 drank it with equal solemnity, he got up and strolled out in the 
 garden. He had so grave a face when Miss Susan met him, 
 that she thought for the first moment that some letter had 
 come and that all was over, and gasped and called to him, what 
 was it ? what was it ? " Nothing ! " said Everard more solemn 
 than ever. He was impervious to any attempt at laughter for 
 the rest of the evening, ashamed of himself and his light 
 thoughts, in sudden contrast with the thoughts that must be 
 
38 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 occupying his cousins, his old playmates. And yet, as he went 
 home in the moonlight, the shock of that contrast lessened, and 
 his young lightness of mind began to reassert itself. Before he 
 got out of hearing of the manor ho began to whistle again un- 
 awares ; but this time it was not one of Reine's songs. It was 
 a light opera air which, no doubt, one of the other girls had 
 taught him, or so at least Miss Susan tnought. 
 
 #v 
 
WHITELA.DIES, 
 
 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 '.20 
 
 N all relationships, as I have already said — and it is not an 
 original saying — there is one who is active and one who 
 is passive — " Tun qui haise et I'autre qui tend la joue," 
 as the French say, with their wonderful half-pathetic, half-cynic 
 wisdom. Between ti i two sisters of Whiteladies it was Augus- 
 tine who gave the cheek and Susan the kiss, it was Augastine 
 who claimed and Susan who offered sympathy ; it was Augus- 
 tine's aifairo, such as they were, which were discussed. The 
 younger sister had only her own fancies and imaginations, her 
 charities, and the fantastic compensation which she thought 
 she was making for the evil deeds of her family, to discuss and 
 enlarge upon ; whereas the elder had her mind full of those 
 mundane matters from which all our cares spring — the manage- 
 ment of material interests — the conflict which is always more 
 or less involved in the government of other souls. She 
 managed her nephew's estate in trust for him till he came of 
 age— if he should live to come of age, poor boy. She managed 
 her own money and her sister's, which was not inconsiderable ; 
 and the house and the servants, and in some degree the parish, 
 of which Miss Susan was the virtual Squire. But of all this 
 weight of affairs it did not occur to her to throw any upon 
 Augustine. Augustine had always been spared from her youth 
 up — spared all annoyance, all trouble, everybody uniting to 
 shield her. She had been "delicate" in her childhood, and 
 she had sustained a " disappointment " in youth — which means 
 in grosser words that she had been jilted, openly and disgrace- 
 fully, by Farrel-Austin, her cousin, which was the ground of 
 Susan Austin's enmity to him. I doubt much whether Augus- 
 tine herself, whose blood was always tepid and her head in- 
 volved in dreams, felt this half so much as her family felt it for 
 her — her sister especially, to whom she had been a pet and 
 plaything all her life, and who had that half-adoring admira- 
 tion for her which an elder sister is sometimes seen to entertain 
 for a younger one whom she believes to be gifted with that 
 
40 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I I 
 
 beauty which she knows has not fallen to her share. Susan 
 felt the blow with an acute sense of shame and wounded pride, 
 which Augustine herself was entirely incapable of, and from that 
 moment forward had constituted herself, not only the protector 
 of her sister's weakness, but the representative of something 
 better which had failed, of that admiration and chivalrous ser- 
 vice which a beautiful woman is supposed to receive from the 
 world. It may seem a strange thing to many to call the de- 
 votion of one woman to another chivalrous. Yet Susan's 
 devotion to her. sister merited the title. She vowed to herself 
 that, so far as she could prevent it, her sister should never feel 
 the failure of those attentions which her lover ought to have 
 given her — that she should never know what it was to fall into 
 that nftglect which is often the portion of middle-aged women 
 - that she should be petted and cared for, as if slie were still 
 the favourite child or the adored wife which she had been or 
 might have been. In doing this Susan not only testified the 
 depth of her love for Augustine and indignant compassion for 
 her wrongs, but also a woman's hi^h ideal of how an ideal 
 woman should be treated in thi > world. Augustine was neither 
 a beautiful woman nor an ideal one, though her sister thought 
 so, and Susan had been checked many a time in her idolatry 
 by her idol's total want of comprehension of it ; but she had 
 never given up her plan for consoling the sufferer. She had 
 admired Augustine as well as loved her ; she had always found 
 what she did excellent ; she had made Augustine's plans im- 
 portant by believing in them, and her opinions weighty, even 
 while, within herself, she saw the plans to be impracticable and 
 the opinions futile. The elder sister would pause in the midst 
 of a hundred real and pressing occupations, a hundred weighty 
 cares, to condole with, or to assist, or support, the younger, 
 pulling her through some parish imbroglio, some almshouse 
 squabble, as if these trifling annoyances had been affairs of 
 state. But of the serious matters which occupied her own 
 mind she said nothing to Augustine, knowing that she would 
 find no comprehension, and willing to avoid the certainty that 
 her sister would take no interest in her proceedings. Indeed 
 it was quite possible that Augustine would have gone further 
 than mere failure of sympathy. Susan knew very well that 
 she would be disapproved of, perhaps censured, for being en- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 M 
 
 grossed by the affairs of this world. The village people, and 
 everybody on the estate, were, I think, of the same opinion. 
 They thought Miss Susan " the hard one " — doing her ineffable 
 injustice, one of those unconsidered wrongs that cut into the 
 I heart. At first, I suppose, this had not been the state of affairs 
 I — between the sisters, at least ; but it would be difficult to t'ill 
 {how many disappointments the stronj< and hard Susan had 
 gone through before she made up her mind never to ask for the 
 sympathy which never came her way. This was her best philo- 
 sophy, and saved her much mortification ; but it cost her many 
 trials before she could make up her mind to it, and had not its 
 lorigin in philosophy at all, but in much wounding and lacerat- 
 |ing of a generous and sensitive heart. 
 
 Therefore she did not breathe a word to her sister about the 
 I present annoyance and anxiety in her mind. When it was 
 their hour to go upstairs — and everything was done likeclock- 
 Iwork at Whiteladies — she went with Augustine to her room, 
 las she always did, and heard over again for the third or fourth 
 [time her complaint over the rudeness of the butler, Stevens, 
 [who did not countenance Augustine's "ways." 
 
 " Indeed, he is a very honest fellow," said Miss Susan, think- 
 ing bitterly of Farrel-Austin and of the last successful stroke 
 le had made. 
 
 " He is a savage, he is a barbarian — he cannot be a Chris- 
 tian,' Miss Augustine had replied. 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dear ; we must take care not to judge other 
 )eople. I will scold him well, and he will never venture to say 
 inything disagreeable to you again." 
 
 " You think I am speaking for myself," said Augustine. " No, 
 rhat I feel is, how out of place such a man is in a household 
 [ike ours. You are deceived about him now, and think his 
 lonesty, as you call it. covers all his faults. But, Susan, listen 
 po me. Without tLd Christian life, what is honesty 1 Do you 
 kh;nk it would bear the strain if temptation — to any great 
 
 crime, for instance " 
 
 " My dear, you are speaking nonsense," said Miss Susan. 
 " That is what I am afraid of," said her sister solemnly. " A 
 an like this ought not to be in a house like ours ; for you are 
 Christian, Susan.** 
 
 "I hope so, at least," said the other with a momentary 
 ugh. 
 
42 
 
 WHWKLADIES. 
 
 
 " But why should you laugh ? Oh, Susan ! think how you 
 throw back my work — even you hinder my atonement. Is 
 not this how all the family have been — treating everything 
 lightly — our family sin and doom, like the rest 1 and you, who 
 ought to know better, who ought to strengthen my hands ! 
 perhaps, who knows, if you could but have given your mind to 
 it, we two together might have averted the doom ! " 
 
 Augustine sat down in the large hard wooden chair which 
 she used by way of mortification, and covered her face with her 
 hands. Susan, who was standing by holding her candle, looked 
 at her strangely with a half smile, and a curious acute sense of 
 the contrast between them. She stood silent for a moment, 
 perhaps with a half wonder which of the two it was who had 
 done most for the old house ; but if she entertained this thought, 
 it was but for the moment. She laid her hand upon her sis- 
 ter's shoulder. 
 
 " My dear Austine," she said, " I am Martha and you are 
 Mary. So long as Martha did not find fault with her sister, 
 our good Lord made no objection to her house-wifely ways. 
 So, if I am earthly while you are heavenly, you must put up 
 with me, dear ; for after all, there are a great many earthly things 
 to be looked after. And as for Stevens, I shall scold him well," 
 she added with sudden energy, with a little outburst of natural 
 indignation at the cause (though innocent) of this slight ruffling 
 of the domestic calm. The thoughts in her mind were of a 
 curious and mixed description as she went along the corridor 
 after Augustine had melted, and bestowed, with a certain lofty 
 and melancholy regret for her sister's imperfections, her good- 
 night kiss. Miss Susan's room was on the other side of the 
 house, over the drawing-room. To reach it she had to go 
 along the corridor, which skirted the staircase with its dark 
 oaken balustrades, and thence into another casemented passage, 
 which led by three or four oaken steps to the ante-room in 
 which her maid slept, and from which her own room opened. 
 One of her windows looked out upon the north side, the same 
 aspect as the dining-hall, and was, indeed, the large casement 
 which occupied one of the richly-carved gables on that side of 
 the house. The other looked out upon the west side, over the 
 garden, and facing the sunset. It was a large panelled room, 
 with few curtains, for Miss Susan loved air. A shaded night- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 48 
 
 lamp burned faintly upon a set of carved oaken-drawers at the 
 north end, and the moonlight slanting through the western 
 window threw two white lights, broken by le black bar of the 
 casement, on the broad oak boards — for only the centre of the 
 room was carpeted. Martha came in with her mistress, sone- 
 what sleepy, and slightly injured in her feelings, for what with 
 Everard's visit and the other agitations of the day, Miss Snsan 
 was half an hour late. It is not to be supposed that she, who 
 could not confide in her zlateT, would confide in Martha ; but 
 yet Martha knew, by various indications, what Augustine would 
 never have discovered, that Miss Susan had " something on 
 her mind." Perhaps it was because she did not talk as much 
 as usual, and listened to Martha's own remarks with the in- 
 difference of abstractedness ; perhaps because of the little tap 
 of her foot on the floor, and sound of her voice as she asked 
 hpr faithful attendant if she had done yet, while Martha, ag- 
 grieved but conscientious, fumbled with the doors of the ward- 
 robe, in which she had just hung up her mistress's gown ; per- 
 haps it was the tired way in which Miss Susan leaned back in 
 her easy chair, and the half sigh which breathed into her good 
 night. But from all these signs together Martha knew, what 
 nothing could have taught Augustine. But what could the 
 maid do to show her sympathy ? At first, I am sorry to say, 
 she did not feel much, but was rather glad that the mistress, 
 who had kept her half an hour longer than usual out of bed, 
 should herself have some part of the penalty to pay ; but com- 
 punctions grew upon Martha before she left the room, and I 
 think that her lingering, which annoyed Miss Susan, was partly 
 meant to show that she felt for her mistress. If so, it met the 
 usual recompense of unappreciated kindness, and at last earned 
 a peremptory dismissal for the lingerer. When Miss Susan 
 was alone, she raised herself a little from her chair and screwed 
 up the flame of the small silver lamp on her little table, and 
 put the double eyeglass which she used, being slightly short- 
 sighted, on to her nose. She was going to think ; and she had 
 an idea, not uncommon to short-sighted people, that to see dis- 
 tinctly helped her faculties in everything. She felt instinctively 
 for her eyeglass when any noise woke her in the middle of the 
 night ; she could hear better as well as think better with that 
 aid. The two white streaks of moonlight, with the broad bar 
 
44 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 of shadow between, and all the markings of the diamond panes, 
 indicated on th« grey oaken boards and fringe of Turkey car- 
 pet moved slowly along the floor, coming further into the room 
 as the moon moved westward to its setting. In the distant 
 corner the night-light burned dim but steady. Miss Susan sat 
 by the side of her bed, which was hung at the head with blue- 
 grey curtains of beautiful old damask. On her little table was 
 a Bible and Prayer-Book, a long-stalked glass with a rose in it, 
 another book less sacred, which she had been reading in the 
 morning, her handkerchief, her eau-de-cologne, her large old 
 watch in an old stand, and those other trifles which every lady's- 
 maid who respects herself keeps ready and in order by her 
 mistress's bedside. Martha, too sleepy to be long about her 
 own preparations, was in bed and asleep almost as soon as Miss 
 Susan put on her glasses. All was perfectly still, the world 
 out-of doors held under the spell of the moonlight, the world 
 inside rapt in sleep and rest. Miss Susan wrapped her dress- 
 ing-gown about her, and sat up in her chair to think. It was a 
 very cosy, very comfortable chair, not hard and angular like 
 Augustine's, and everything in the room was pleasant and soft, 
 not ascetical and self-denying. Susan Austin was not young, 
 but she had kept something of that curious freshness of soul 
 which some unmarried women carry down to old age. She 
 was not aware in her innermost heart that she was old. In 
 everything external she owned her years fully, and felt them ; 
 but in her heart she, who had never passed out of the first 
 stage of life, retained so many of its early iiiii:'ions as to con- 
 fuse herself and bewilder her consciousness. When she sat like 
 this thinking by herself, with nothing to remind her of the 
 actual aspect of circumstances, she never could be quite sure 
 whether she was young or old. There was always a momentary 
 glimmer and doubtfulness about her before she settled down to 
 the consideration of her problem, whatever it was, — as to which 
 problem it was, those which had come before her in her youth, 
 which she had settled, or left to float in abeyance for the set- 
 tling of circumstances — or the actual and practical matter-of- 
 fact of to-day. For a moment she caught her own mind linger- 
 ing upon that old story between Augustine and their cousin 
 Farrel, as if it were one of the phases of that which demanded 
 her attention ; and then she roused herself sharply to her im 
 mediate difficulty, and to consider what she was to do. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 45 
 
 It is forlorn in such an emergency to be compelled to delib- 
 erate alone, without any sharer of one's anxieties or confidante 
 of one's thoughts. But Miss Susan was used to this, and was 
 willing to recognise the advantage it gave her in the way of 
 independence and prompt conclusion. She was free from the 
 temptation of talking too much, of attacking her opponents 
 with those winged words which live often after the feeling that 
 dictated them has passed. She could not be drawn into any 
 self-committal, for nobody thought or cared what was in her 
 mind. Perhaps, however, it is more easy to exercise that curi- 
 ous casuistry which self-interest originates even in the most 
 candid mind, when it is not necessary to put one's thoughts 
 into words. I cannot tell on what ground it was that this 
 amiable and, on the whole, good woman concluded her op- 
 position to Farrel-Austin, and his undoubted right of inheri- 
 tance to be righteous, and even holy. She resisted his claim — 
 because it was absolutely intolerable to her to think of giving 
 up her home to him, because she hated and despised him — mo- 
 tives very comprehensible, but not especially generous, or ele 
 vated in the abstract. She felt, however, and believed — when 
 she sat down in her chair and put on her glasses to reflect how 
 she could baffle and overthrow him — that it was something for 
 the good of the family and the world that she was planning, 
 not anything selfish for her own benefit. If Augustine in one 
 room planned alms and charities for the expiation of the guilt 
 of the family, which had made itself rich by church lands, with 
 the deepest sense that her undertaking was of the most pious 
 character — Susan, in another, set herself to ponder how to re- 
 tain possession of these lands, with a corresponding sense that 
 her undertaking, her determination, was, if not absolutely 
 pious, at least of a noble and elevated character. She did not 
 say to herself that she was intent upon resisting the enemy by 
 every means in her power. She said to herself that she was 
 determined to have justice, and to resist to the last the doing 
 of wrong, and the victory of the unworthy. This was her wf\y 
 i of putting it to herself — and herself did not contradict her, as 
 perhaps another listener might have done. A certain enthu- 
 siasm even grew in her as she pondered. She felt no doubt 
 whatever that Farrel-Austin had gained* his point by false re- 
 presentations, and had played upon the ignorance of the un- 
 
46 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ■iw!i 
 
 known Austin who had transferred his rights to him, as he said. 
 And how could she tell if this was the true. heir 1 Even docu- 
 ments were not to be trusted to in such a case, nor the sharpest 
 of lawyers — and old Mr. Lincoln, the family solicitor, was any- 
 thing but sharp. Besides, if this man in Bruges were the right 
 man, he had probably no idea of what he was relinquishing. 
 How could a Flemish tradesman know what were the beauticH 
 and attractions of " a place " in the home counties, amid all the 
 wealth and fulness of English lands, and with all the historical 
 associations of Whiteladies ) He could not possibly know, or 
 he would not give them up. And if he had a wife, she could 
 not know, or she would never permit such a sacrifice. 
 
 Miss Susan sat and thought till the moonlight disappeared 
 from the window, and the summer night felt the momentary 
 chill which precedes dawn. She thought of it till her heart 
 burned. No, she could not submit to this. In her own person 
 she must euBcertain if the story was true, and if the strangers 
 really knew what they were doing. It took some time to 
 move her to this resolution ; but at last it took possession of 
 her. To go and undo what Farrel- Austin had done, to wake 
 in the mind of the heir, if this was the heir, that desire to pos- 
 sess which is dominant in most minds, and ever ready to answer 
 to any appeal ; she rose almost with a spring of ^ outhful ani- 
 mation from her seat when her thoughts settled upon this con- 
 clusion. She put out her lamp and went to the window, where 
 a faint blueness was growing — that dim beginning of illumina- 
 tion which is not night but day, and which a very early bird in the 
 green covert underneath was beginning to greet with the first 
 faint twitter of returning existence. Miss Susan felt herself 
 inspired ; it was not to defeat Fa-rrel- Austin, but to prevent 
 wrong, to do justice, a noble impulse which fires the heart and 
 lights the eye. 
 
 Thus she made up her mind to an undertaking which after- 
 wards had more effect upon her personal fate than anythicg 
 else that had happened in. her long life. She did it, not only 
 intending no evil, but with a sense of what she believed to be 
 a generous feeling expanding her souL Her own personal mo- 
 tives were so thrust out of sight that she herself did not per- 
 ceive them — and, indeed, had it been suggested to her 
 that she had personal motives, she would have denied it stren- 
 
 II 
 
WBITELADIES. 
 
 47 
 
 uously. VVliat interest could she have in substituting one heir 
 for another f But yet Miss Susan's blue eyes shot forth a gleam 
 which was not heavenly as she lay down and tried to sleep. 
 She could not sleep, her mind being excited and full of a 
 thousand thoughts — the last distinct sensation in it before the 
 uneasy doze which came over her senses in the morning being 
 a thrill of pleasure that Farrel- Austin might yet be foiled. But 
 what of that ) It was not her part to protect Farrel- Austin ; 
 her business was to protect the old stock of the family, and 
 keep the line of succession intact. The more she thought of it, 
 the more did this appear a sacred duty, worthy of any labour 
 and any sacrifice. 
 
48 
 
 WHTTELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 [HE breakfast table was spread in the smaller dining-room, 
 a room furnished with quaint old furniture like the 
 hall, which looked out upon nothing but the grass and 
 trees of the garden, bounded by an old mossy wall, as old as 
 the house. The windows were all open, the last ray of the 
 morning sun slanting off the shining panes, the scent of the 
 flowers coming in, and all the morning freshness. Miss Susan 
 came down-stftirs full of unusual energy, notwithstanding her 
 sleepless night. She had decided upon something to do, which 
 is always satisfactory to an active mind ; and though she was 
 beyond the age at which people generally plan long jouiiieys 
 with pleasure, the prick of something new inspired her and 
 made a stir in her veins. " People live more when they move 
 about," she said to herself when with a little wonder and par- 
 tial amusement at herself she became conscious of this, and 
 took her seat at the breakfast table with a sense of stimulated 
 energy which was very pleasant. 
 
 Miss Augustine came in after her sister, with h«^r hands 
 folded in her long sleeves, looking more than ever like a saint 
 out of a painted windoYir. She crossed herself as she sat down. 
 Her blue eyes seemed veiled so far as external life went. She 
 was the ideal nun of romance and poetry, not the ruddy-faced, 
 active personage who is generally to be found under that guise 
 in actual life. This was one of her fast-days — and indeed most 
 days were fast-days with her. She was her own rule, which 
 is always a harsher kind of restraint than any rule adapted to 
 common use. Her breakfast consisted of a cup of milk and a 
 small cake of bread. She gave her sister an abstracted kiss, 
 but took no notice of hor lively looks. When she withdrew 
 her hands from her sleeves a roll of paper became visible in 
 one of them, which she slowly opened out. 
 
 *' These are the plans for the chantry, finished at last," she 
 said. " Everything is ready now. You must take them to the 
 vicar, I suppose, Susan. I cannot argue with a worldly-mind- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 4d 
 
 ed man. I will go to the almshouses while you are talking to 
 him, and , pray." 
 
 " The vicar has no power in the matter," said Miss Susan. 
 " So long as we are the lay rectors we can build as we please ; 
 at the chancel end at least." 
 
 Augustine put up her thin hands, just appearing out of the 
 wide sleeves, to her ears. '' Susan, Susan ! do not use those 
 words, which have all our guilt in them ! Lay rectors ! Lay 
 robbers ! Oh ! will you ever learn that this thought is the misery 
 of my life 1 " 
 
 " My dear, we must be reasonable," said Miss Susan. " If 
 you like to throw away — no, I mean to employ your money in 
 building a chantry, I don't object ; but we have our rights." 
 
 '' Our rights are nothing but wrongs," said the other shaking 
 her head, " unless my poor work may be accepted as an expia* 
 tion. Ours is not the guilt, and therefore, beinj innocent, we 
 may make amends." 
 
 " I wander where you got your doctrines from 1 " said Miss 
 Susan. " They are not Popish either, so far as I can make 
 out ; and in some things, Austine, you are not even High 
 Church." 
 
 Augustine made no reply ! Her attention had failed. She 
 held the drawing before her, and gazed at the image of her 
 chantry, which at last, after many difl&culties, she had managed 
 to bring into existence — on paper at least. I do not think she 
 had very clear notions in point of doctrine. She had taken up 
 with a visionary mediaevalism which she did not very well 
 understand, and which she combined unawares with many of 
 the ordinary principles of a moderate English churchwoman. 
 She liked to cross herself, without meaning very much by it, 
 and the idea of an Austin Chantry where service should be 
 said every day, " to the intention of " the Austin family, had 
 been for years her cherished fancy, though she would have 
 been shocked had any advanced Ritualists or others suggested 
 to her that what she meant was a daily mass for the dead. 
 She did not mean this at all, nor did she know very clearly 
 what she meant except to build a chantry, in which daily ser- 
 vice should be maintained for ever, always with a reference to 
 the Austins, and making some sort of expiation, she could 
 not have told what, for this fundamental sin of the family. 
 
60 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Perhaps it was merely inability of reasoning, perhaps a disin- 
 clination to entangle herself in doctrine at ail, that made her 
 prefer to remain in this vagueness and confusion. Slie knew 
 very well what she wanted to do, but not exactly why. 
 
 While her sister looked at her drawings Miss Susan thought 
 it a good moment to reveal her own plans, with, I suppose, 
 that yearning for some sort of sympathy which survives even 
 in the minds of those who have had full experience of the 
 difl&culty or even impossibility of obtaining it. She knew 
 Augustine would not, probably could not, enter into her thoughts, 
 and I am not sure th-' - ^^ > desired it — but yet she longed to 
 awaken some little interest. 
 
 "I am thinking," she said, "of going away — for afewdays." 
 
 Augustine took no notice. She examined first the front ele- 
 vation, then the interior of the chantry. " They say it is against 
 the law," she remarked after a while, *• to have a second altar ; 
 but every old chantry has it, and without an .iltar the service 
 would be imperfect. Remember this, Susan ; for the vicar, 
 they tell me, will object." 
 
 "You don't hear what I say, then 1 I am thinking of — ^leav- 
 ing home." 
 
 " Yes, I heard — so long as you settle this for me before you 
 go, that it may be bsgun at once. Think, Susan ! it is the work 
 of my life." 
 
 " I will see to it," said Miss Susan with a sigh. " You shall 
 not be crossed, dear, if I can manage it. But you don't ask 
 where I am going or why I am going." 
 
 "No," said Augustine calmly ; " it is no doubt about business, 
 and business has no share in my thoughts." 
 
 " If it had not a share in my thoughts things would go badly 
 with us," said Miss Susan, colouring with momentary impatience 
 and self-assertion. Then she fell back into her former tone. 
 " I am going abroad, Austine ; does not that rouse you 1 I 
 have not been abroad since we were quite young, how many 
 years ago ? — when we went to Italy with my father — when we 
 were all happy together. Ah me ! what a difference ! Austine, 
 you recollect that 1 " 
 
 " Happy, were we ] " said Augustine looking up, with a faint 
 tinge of colour on her paleness ; " no, I was never happy till I 
 saw once for all how wicked we were, how we deserved our 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 61 
 
 troubles, and how something might be done to make up for 
 them. I have never really cared for anything else." 
 
 This the said with a slight raising of her hand and an air 
 of reality which seldom appeared in her visionary face. It was 
 true, though it was so strange. Miss Susan was a much more 
 reasonable, much more weighty personage, but she perceiv- 
 ed this change with a little suspicion and did not under- 
 stand the fanciful, foolish sister whom she had loved and pet- 
 ted all her life. 
 
 " My dear, we had no troubles then," she said with a won- 
 dering look. 
 
 "Always, always," said Augustine, " and I never knew the rea- 
 son, till I found it out." Then this gleam of something more 
 than intelligence faded all at once from her face. " I hope you will 
 settle everything before you go," she said almost querulously ; 
 " to be put off now and have to wait would break my heart." 
 " I'll do it, I'll do it, Austine. I am going on family business." 
 " If you see poor Herbert," said Augustine calmly, '* tell him 
 we pray for him in the almshouses night and day. That may do 
 him good. If I had got my work done sooner he might have 
 Uved. Indeed the devil sometimes tempts me to think it is 
 hard that just when my chantry is beginning and continual 
 prayer going on, Herbert should die. It seems to take away 
 the meaning ! But what am I, one poor creature, to make up, 
 against so many that have done wrong 1 " 
 
 " I am not going to Herbert, I am going to Flanders, to 
 Bruges," said Miss Susan, carried away by a sense of the im- 
 portance of her mission, and always awaiting, as her right, 
 some spark of curiosity at least. 
 
 Augustine returned to her drawing ; the waning light died 
 out of her face ; she became again the conventional visionaiy, 
 the recluse of romance, abstracted and indifferent. 
 
 "The vicar is always against me," she said ; " you must talk 
 to him, Susan. He wants the Browns to come into the vacant 
 cottage. He says they have been honest and all that ; but 
 they are not praying people. I cannot take them in j it is 
 praying people I want." 
 
 " In short, you want something for your money," said her 
 sister ; " a percentage, such as it is. You are more a woman of 
 business, my dear, than you think." 
 
^2 
 
 WHITFXADIES. 
 
 Augustine looked at her vaguely, startled. " I try to do for 
 the best," she said. " I do not understand why people should 
 always wish to thwart me ; what I want is their good." 
 
 " They like their own way better than their good, or rather 
 than what you think is for their good," said Miss Susan. " We 
 all like our own way." 
 
 " Not me, notme 1 " said the other with a sigh ; and she rose and 
 crossed herself onoe more. " Will you come to prayers at the 
 almshouses, Susan ? The bell will ring presently, and it would 
 do you good." 
 
 " My dear, I have no time," said the elder sister, l have a 
 hundred things to do." 
 
 Augustine turned away with a soft shake of the head. She 
 folded her arms into her sleeves and glided away like a ghosf . 
 Presently her sister saw her crossing the lawn, her grey hood 
 thrown lightly over her head, her long robes falling in straight, 
 soft lines, her slim figure moving along noiselessly. Miss Suban 
 was the practical member of the family, and but for her prob- 
 ably the Austins of Whiteladies would have died out ere now, 
 by sheer carel'^'tness of their substance and indifference to what 
 was going on around them ; but as she watched her sister cros- 
 sing the lawn, a sense of inferiority crossed her mind. She 
 felt herself worldly, a pitiful creature of the earth, and wished 
 she was as good as Augustine. "But the house, and the farm, 
 and the world must be kept going," she said by way of relieving 
 herself, with a mingling of humour and compunction. It was 
 not much her small affairs could do to make or mar the going 
 on of the world, but yet in small ways and great the world has 
 to be kept going. She went off at once to the bailiff, who was 
 waiting for her, feeling a pleasure in proving to herself that 
 she was busy and had no time, which is perhaps a more usual 
 process of thought with the Marthas of this world than the 
 other plan of finding fault with the Maries ; for in their hearts 
 most women have a feeling that the prayer is the best. 
 
 The intimation of Miss Susan's intended absence excited the 
 rest of the household much more than it had excited her sister. 
 " Wherever are you agoing to, miss ] " said Cook, who was as 
 old as her mistress, and had never changed her style of address- 
 ing her since the days when she was young Miss Susan and 
 played at housekeeping. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 53 
 
 " I am going abroad," she answered, with a little innocent 
 pride ; for to people who live all their lives at home there is a 
 certain grandeur in going abroad. " You will take great care 
 of my sister, and see that she does not fast too much." 
 
 It was a patriarchal household, with such a tinge of familiar- 
 ity in its dealings with its mistress, as — with servants who 
 have passed their lives in a house — it is seldom possible, even 
 if desirable, to avoid. Stevens the butler stopped open-mouthed, 
 with a towel in his hand, to listen, and Martha approached 
 from the other end of the kitchen, where she had been busy 
 tying up and labelling Cook's newly-made preserves. 
 
 " Going abroad ! " they all echoed in different keys. 
 
 " I expect you all to be doubly careful and attentive," said 
 Miss Susan, " though indeed I am not going very far, and 
 probably won't be more than a few days gone. But in the 
 meantime Miss Augustine will require your utmost care. 
 Stevens, I am very much displeased with the way you took it 
 upon you to speak at dinner yesterday. It annoyed my sister 
 extremely, and you had no right to use so much freedom. 
 Never let it happen again." 
 
 Stevens was taken entirely by surprise, and stood gazing at 
 her with the bewildered air of a man who, seeking innocent 
 amusement in the hearing of news, is suddenly transfixed by 
 an unexpected thunderbolt. "Me, mum!" said Stevens be- 
 wildered, " I — I don't know what you're a talking about." It 
 was an unfair advantage to take. 
 
 "Precisely, you," said Miss Susan; " what have you to do 
 with the people at the almshouses ? Nobody expects you to 
 be answerable for what they do or don't do. Never let me 
 hear anything of the kind again." 
 
 " Oh," said Stevens, with a snort of suppressed offence, " it's 
 them ! Miss Austin, I can't promise at no price ! if I hears 
 that hold 'ag a praised up to the skies — " 
 
 " You will simply hold your tongue," said Miss Susan per- 
 emptorily. " What is it to you ? My sister knows her own 
 people best." 
 
 Upon this the two women in attendance shook their heads, 
 and Stevens, encouraged by this tacit support, took courage. 
 
 " She don't, mum, she don't," he said ; " if you heard the 
 things they'll say behind her back ! It ip?-h».s ui*^ sick, it does, 
 
54 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I 
 
 being a faithful servant. If I don't dare to speak up, who 
 can 1 She's imposed upon to that degree, and made game of, 
 as your blood would run cold to see it ; and if I ain't to say a 
 word when I haves the chance, who can 1 The women sees it 
 even — and it's nat'ral as I should see further than the v, omen." 
 
 " Then you'll please to set the women a good example by 
 holding your tongue," said Miss Susan. " Once for all, re- 
 collect, all of you, Miss Augustine shall never be crossed while 
 I am mistress of the house. When it goes into other hands 
 you can do as you please." 
 
 " Oh laws ! " said the Cook, "when it comes to that, nunn, 
 none of us has nothing to do here." 
 
 " That is as you please, and as Mr. — as the heir pleases," 
 Miss Susan said, making a pause before the last words. Her 
 cheek coloured, her blue eyes grew warm with the new life and 
 energy in her. She went out of the kitchen with a certain 
 swell of anticipated triumph in her whole person. Mr Farrel- 
 Austin should soon discover that he was not to have everything 
 his own way. Probably she would tmd he had deceived the 
 old man at Bruges, that these poor people knew nothing about 
 the true value of what they were relinijuishing. Curiously 
 enough, it never occurred to her, to lessen her exhilaration, 
 that to leave the house of her fathers to an old linen-draper 
 from the Low Countries would be little more agreeable than to 
 leave it to Farrel-Austin — nay, even as Everard had suggested 
 to her, that Farrel-Austin, as being an English gentleman, was 
 much more likely to do honour to the old house than a foreigner 
 of inferior position, and ideas altogether different from her 
 own. She thought nothing of this ; she ignored herself, in- 
 deed, in the matter, which was a thing she was pleased co think 
 of afterwards, and which gave her a little consolation — that is, 
 she thought of herself only through Farrel-Austin, as the 
 person most interested in, and most likely to be gratified by 
 h*3 downfall. 
 
 As the day wore on and the sun got round and blazec on 
 the south front of the house, she withdrew to the porch, as oii 
 the former day, and sat there enjoying the coolness, the move- 
 ment of the leaves, the soft, almost imperceptible breeze. She 
 was more light-hearted than on the previous day when poor 
 Herbert was in her mind, and when nothing but the success of 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 65 
 
 her adversary seemed possible. Now i^ seemed to her that h 
 new leaf was turned, a new chapter commenced. 
 
 Thus the day went on. In the afternoon she had one visitor, 
 and only one, the vicar, Mr. Gerard, who came by the north 
 gate, as her visitors yesterday had done, and crossed the lawn 
 to the porch with much less satisfaction of mind than Miss 
 Susan had to see him coming. 
 
 " Of course you know what has brought me," he said at 
 once, seating himself iij a garden-chair which had been standing 
 outside on the lawn, and which he brought in after his first 
 greeting. " This chantry of your sister's is a thing I don't 
 understand, and I don't know how I can consent to it. It is 
 alien to all the customs of the time. It is a thing that ought 
 to have been built three hundred years ago, if at all. It will 
 be a bit of bran new Gothic, a thing I detest ; and in short I 
 don't understand it, nor what possible meaning a chantry can 
 have in these days." 
 
 "Neither do I," said Miss Susan smiling, " not the least in 
 the world." 
 
 " If it is meant for masses for the dead," said Mr. Gerard — 
 " some people I know have gone as far as that — but I could not 
 consent to it, Miss Austin. It should have been built three 
 hundred years ago, if at all." 
 
 " Augustine could not have built it three hundred years 
 ago," said Miss Susan, " for the best of reasons. My own 
 opinion is, between ourselves, that had she been born three 
 hundred years ago she would have been a happier woman ; but 
 neither she nor I can change that." 
 
 " That is not the question," said the vicar. He was a man 
 with a fine faculty for being annoyed. There was a longitudinal 
 line in his forehead between his eyes, which was continually 
 moving, marking the passing irritations which went and came, 
 and his voice had a querulous tone. He was in the way of 
 thinking that everything that happened out of the natural 
 course was done to annoy him specially, and he felt it a personal 
 grievance that the Austin chantry had not been built in the 
 sixteenth century. " There might have been some sense in it 
 then," he added, " and though art was lo^f about that time, 
 still it would have got toned down, and been probably an orna- 
 ment to the church ; but a white, staring, new thing, with spick 
 and span pinnacles ! I do not see how I can consent," 
 
56 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " At all events," said Miss Susan, showing the faintest edge 
 of claw under the velvet of her touch, "no one can blame you at 
 least, which I think is always a consolation. I have just been 
 
 foing over the accounts for the restoration of the chancel, and 
 think you may congratulate yourself that you have not got to 
 pay them. Austine would kill me if she heard me, but that is 
 one good of a lay rector. I hope you won't oppose her, 
 seriously, Mr Gerard. It is not masses for the dead she is 
 thinking of. You know her crotchets. My sister has a very 
 fine mind when she is roused to exert it," Miss Susan said with 
 a little dignity, " but it is nonsense to deny that she has 
 crotchets, and I hope you are too wise and kind to oppose her. 
 The endowment will be good, and the chantry pretty. Why, 
 it is by Gilbert Scott." 
 
 " No, no, not Sir Gilbert himself '. at least, I fear not," said 
 Mr. Gerard melting. 
 
 " One of his favourite pupils, and he has looked at it and 
 approved. We shall have people coming to see it from all 
 parts of the country, and it is Augustine's favourite crotchet. 
 I am sure, Mr. Gerard, you will not seriously oppose." 
 
 Thus it was that the vicar was talked over. He reflected 
 afterwards that there was consolation in the view of the subject 
 which she introduced so cunningly, and that he could no more 
 be found fault with for the new chantry which the lay rector 
 had a right to connect with his part of the church if he chose 
 — than he could be made to pay the bills for the restoration of 
 the chancel. And Miss Susan had put it to him so delicately 
 about her sister's crotchets that what could a gentleman do but 
 yield ? The longitudinal line on his forehead smoothed out 
 accordingly, and his tone ceased to be querulous. Yes, there 
 was no doubt she had crotchets, poor soul ; indeed, she was 
 half crazy, there could be no doubt, or whole crazy, perhaps, 
 as the village people thought, but a good {"eligious creature, 
 fond of prayers and church services, and not clever enough to 
 go far astray in point of doctrine. As Mr. Gerard went home, 
 indeed, having committed himself, he discovered a number of 
 admirable reasons for tolerating Augustine and her crotchets. 
 If she sank money enough to secure an endowment of sixty 
 pounds a year, in order to have prayers said daily in her chantry, 
 as she called it, it was clear that thirty or forty from Mr. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 57 
 
 Gerard instead of the eighty he now paid, would be quite 
 enough for his curate's salrry. For what could a curate want 
 with more than, or even so much as, a hundred pounds a year 1 
 And then the almshouses disposed of the old people of the 
 parish in the most comfortable way, and on the whole Augus- 
 tine did more good than harm. Poor thing! it would be a 
 pity, he thought, to cross this innocent and pious creature, 
 who was " deficient," but too gentle and good to be interfered 
 with in her crotchets. Poor Augustine, whom they all dis- 
 posed of so calmly ! Perhaps it was foolish enough of her to 
 stay alone in the little almshouse chapel al' the time that this 
 interview was going on, praying that God would touch the 
 heart of His servant, and render it favourable towards her, 
 while Miss Susan managed it all so deftly by mere sleight of 
 hand ; but on the whole Augustine's idea of the world as a 
 place where God did move hearts for small matters as well as 
 great, was a more elevated one than the others'. !She felt quite 
 sure when she glided home through the summer fields, still and 
 grey in her strange dress, that God's servant's heart had been 
 moved to favour her, and that she might begin her work at 
 once. 
 
M 
 
 WHITELADIKS. 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 USAN AUSTIN said no more about her intended ex- 
 pedition, except to Martha, who had orders to prepare 
 for the journey, and who was thrown into an excite- 
 ment somewhat unbecoming her years by the fact that her 
 mistress preferred to take Jane as her attendant, which was a 
 slight very trying to the elder woman. " I cannot indulge 
 myself by taking you," said Miss Susan, " because I want you 
 to take care of my sister ; she requires more attendance than I 
 do, Martha, and you will watch over her." I am afraiu that 
 Miss Susan had a double motive in this decision, as most people 
 have, and preferred Jane, who was young and strong, to the 
 other, who required her little comforts, and did not like to be 
 hurried, or put out ; but she veiled the personal preference 
 under a good substantial reason, which is a very good thing to 
 do in all cases where it is desirable that the wheels of life 
 should go easily. Martha had " a good cry," but then con- 
 s' led herself with the importance of her charge. " Not as it 
 wants much cleverness to dress Miss Augustine, as never puts 
 01 nothing worth looking at — that grey thing for ever and 
 ever ! " she said, with natural contempt. Augustine herself was 
 wholly occupied with the chantry, and took no interest in her 
 sister's movements ; and there was no one else to inquire into 
 them or ask a reason. She went off accordingly quite quietly 
 and unobserved, with one box, and Jane in delighted attend- 
 ance. Miss Susau took her best clack silk with her, which she 
 wore seldom, having fallen into the custom o< the grey gown 
 to please Augustine, a motive which in small matters was her 
 chief rule of action ; — on this occasion, however, she intended 
 to be as magnificent as the best contents of her wardrobe could 
 make her, taking, also, her Indian shawl and newest bonnet. 
 These signs of superiority would not, she felt sure, be thrown 
 away on a linen-draper. She took with her, also, by way of 
 appealing to another order of feelings, a very imposing picture 
 pf the house of Whiteladies, in which a gorgeous procession, 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 59 
 
 escorting Queen Elizabeth, who was reported to have visited 
 the place, was represented as issuing from the old porch. It 
 seemed to Miss Susan that nobody who saw that picture could 
 be willing to relinquish the house ; for, indeed, her knowledge 
 of Art was limited. She set out one evening, resolved, with 
 heroic courage, to commit herself to the Antwerp boat, which 
 in Miss Susan's early days had been the chief and natural 
 mode of conveyance. Impossible to tell how tranquil the 
 country was as she left it — the labourers going home, the balmy 
 kine wandering devious and leisurely with melodious lowings 
 through the quiet roads. Life would go on with all its quiet 
 routine unbroken, while Miss Susan dared the dangers of the 
 deep, and prayer bell and dinner bell ring jus' as usual, and 
 Augustine and her almshouse people go through all their pious 
 habitudes. She was away from home so seldom, that this 
 universal sv'ay of common life and custom struck her strangely, 
 with a humiliating sense of her own unimportance — she who 
 was so important, the centre of everything. Jane, her young 
 maid, felt the same sentiment in a totally different way, being 
 full of pride and exultation in her own unusualness, and delicious 
 contempt for those unfortunates to whom this day was just the 
 same as any other. Jane did not fear the dangers of the deep, 
 which she did not know — but Miss Susan did, who was aware 
 what she was about to undergo ; but she trusted in Providence 
 to take care of her, and smooth the angry waves, and said a 
 little prayer of thanksgiving when she felt the evening air 
 come soft upon her face, though the tree-tops would move 
 about against the sky more than was desirable. I do not quite 
 know by what rule of thought it was that Miss Susan felt her- 
 self to have a special claim to the succour of Providence as 
 going upon a most righteous errand. She did manage to re- 
 present her mission to herself in this light, however. She was 
 going to vindicate the right — to restore to their natural position 
 people who had been wronged. If these said people were 
 quite indifferent both to their wrongs and their rights, that 
 was their own fault, and in no respects Miss Susan's, who had 
 her duty to do, whatever came of it. This she maintained very 
 stoutly to herself, ignoring Farrel- Austin altogether, who might 
 have thought of her enterprise in a different light. All through 
 the night which she passed upon the gloomy ocean in a closQ 
 
60 
 
 WHTTELADIES. 
 
 little berth, with Jane helpless and wretched, requiring the 
 attention of the stewardess. Miss Susan felt her spirit supported 
 by the consciousness of virtue which was almost heroic : How 
 much more comfortable she would have been at home in the 
 west room, which she remembered so tenderly ; how terrible 
 was that rushing sound of waves in her ears, waves separated 
 from her by so fragile a bulwark, '^ only a plank between her 
 and eternity ! " But all this she was undergoing for the sake 
 of justice and right. 
 
 She felt herself, however, like a creature in a dream, when 
 she walked out the morning of her arrival, alone, into the streets 
 of Bruges, confused by the strangeness of the place, which so 
 recalled her youth to her, that she could scarcely believe she 
 had not left her father and brother at the hotel. Once in these 
 early days, she had come out alone in the morning, she remem- 
 bered, just as she was doing now, to buy presents for her com- 
 panions ; and that curious, delightful sense of half fright, half 
 freedom, which the girl had felt thrilling her through and 
 through while on this escapade, came back to the mind of the 
 woman who was growing old, with a pathetic pleasure. She 
 remembered how she had paused at the corner of this street, 
 afraid to stop, afraid to go on, almost too shy to go into the 
 shops where she had seen the things she wanted to buy. Miss 
 Susan was too old to be shy now. She walked along sedately, 
 not afraid that anybody would stare at her or be rude to her, 
 or troubled by any doubts whether it was/* proper ;" but yet the 
 past confused her mind. How strange it all was ! Could it be 
 that the carillon, which chimed sweetly, keenly in her ears, 
 like a voice out of her youth, startling her by reiterated calls 
 and reminders, had been chiming out all the ordinary hours — 
 nay, quarters of hours — marking everybody's meal- times and 
 ordinary every day vicissitudes, for these forty years past 1 It 
 was some time before her ear got used to it, before she ceased to 
 start and feel as if the sweet chimes from the belfrv were some- 
 thing personal, addressed to her alone. She had been very 
 young when she was in Bruges before, and everything was 
 deeply impressed upon her mind. She had travelled very little 
 since, and all the quaint gables, the squares, the lace-makers 
 seated at their doors, the shop- windows full of peasant jewel- 
 lery, had the strangest air of familiarity. It was some time 
 
WHITELADtES. 
 
 61 
 
 remem- 
 
 even in the curious bewildering tumult of her feelings before 
 she could recollect her real errand. She had not asked any 
 further information from Furrel-Austin. If he had found their 
 unknown relation out by seeing the name of Austin over a shop 
 door, she surely could do as much. She had, however, wandered 
 into the outskirts of the town before she fully recollected that 
 her mission in Bruges was, first of all, to walk about the streets 
 and tind out the strange Austins who were foreigners and 
 tradespeople. She came back, accordingly, as best she could, 
 straying through the devious streets, meeting English travellers 
 with the infallible Murray under their arms, and wor. Serine to 
 herself how people could have leisure to come to such a place 
 as this for mere sight-seeing. That day, however, perhaps 
 because of the strong hold upon her of the past and its recollec- 
 tions, perhaps because of the bewildering sense of mingled 
 familiarity and strangeness in the place, she did not find the 
 object of her search — though, indeed, the streets of Bruges are 
 not so many, or the shops so extensive as to defy the scrutiny 
 of a passer-by. She got tired, and half ashamed of herself to be 
 thus walking about alone, and was glad to take refuge in a dim 
 corner of the Cathedral, where she dropped on one knee in the 
 obscurity, half afraid to be seen by any English visitor in thia 
 attitude of devotion in a Roman Catholic church, and then sat 
 down, to collect herself and think over all she had to do ? 
 What was it she had to do ? To prevent wrong from 
 being done ; to help to secure her unknown cousins in their 
 rights. This was but a vague way of stating it, but it 
 was more difficult to put the case to herself if she entered 
 into detail. To persuade them that they had been over- 
 persuaded, that they had too lightly given up advantages which 
 had they known their real value they would not have given up ; 
 to prove to them how pleasant a thing it was to be Austins of 
 Whiteladies. This was what she had to do. 
 
 Next morning Miss Susan set out with a clear head and a 
 more distinct notion of what she was about. She had got used 
 to the reiterations of the carillon, to the familiar distant look 
 of the quaint streets. And, indeed, she had not gone very far 
 when her heart jumped up in her breast to see written over a 
 large shop the name of Austin, as Farrel had told her. She 
 stopped on the opposite side and looked at it. It was situated 
 
62 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 at a bend in the road, where a narrow street debouched into a 
 wider one, and had that air of self-restrained plainness, of being 
 above the paltry art of window-dressing, which is peculiar to 
 old and long-established shops whose character is known, 
 where rich materials are sold at high prices, and everything 
 cheap is contemned. Piles of linen and blankets, and other un- 
 attractive articles, were in the broad but dingy window, and in 
 the doorway stood an old man with a black skull-cap on his 
 head, and blue eyes full of vivacity and activity, notwithstanding 
 his years. He was standing at his door looking up and down, 
 with <;he air of a man who looked for news, or expected some 
 incidont other than the tranquil events around. When Miss 
 Susan crossed the narrow part of the street, which she did with 
 her heart in {her mouth, he looked up at her, noting her 
 appearance ; and she felc sure that some internal warning 
 of the nature of her errand came into his mind. From this 
 look Miss Susan, quick as a flash of lightning, divined that he 
 was not satisfied with his bargain, that his attention and curio- 
 sity were aroused, and that Farrel- Austin's visit had made him 
 curious of other visits, and in a state of expectation. I believe 
 she was right in the idea she thus formed, but she saw it more 
 clearly than M. Austin did, who knew little more than that he 
 was restless, and in an unsettled state of mind. 
 
 " Est-ce vous qui §tes le propri^taire ] " said Miss Susan, 
 speaking bluntly, in her bad French, without any polite pre- 
 faces, such ,^s befit the language ; she was too much excited, 
 even had she been sufficiently conversant with the strange 
 tongue, to know that they were necessary. The shopkeeper 
 took his cap off his bald head, which was venerable, with an 
 encircling ring of white lo '^s, and made her a bow. He was a 
 handsome old man, with b^ >. eyes, such as had always been 
 peculiar to the Austins, and a general resemblance — or so, at 
 least. Miss Susan thought — to the old family pictures at White- 
 ladies. Under her best black silk gown, and the Indian shawl 
 which she had put on to impress her unknown relation with a 
 sense of her importance, she felt her heart beating. But, in- 
 deed, black silk and India dhawls are inconvenient wear in the 
 middle of summer in the Pays Bas ; and perhaps this fact had 
 son^ething to do with the flush and tremor of which she was 
 suddenly conscious. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 63 
 
 id into a 
 of being 
 mliar to 
 
 known, 
 irything 
 >ther un- 
 r, and in 
 p on his 
 standing 
 d down, 
 jd some 
 en Miss 
 did with 
 ing her 
 warning 
 rom this 
 
 that he 
 id curio- 
 Lade him 
 [ believe 
 
 it more 
 
 that he 
 
 s Susan, 
 ite pre- 
 excited, 
 strange 
 pkeeper 
 with an 
 [e was a 
 ys been 
 »rso, at 
 
 White- 
 n shawl 
 
 with a 
 But, in- 
 r in the 
 act had 
 she was 
 
 M. Austin, the shopkeeper, took off his cap to her, and 
 answered " Oui, madame," blandly ; then, with that instant 
 perception of her nationality, for which the English abroad are 
 not always grateful, he added, " Madame islnglese 'i we too. I 
 am Jnglese. In what can I be serviceable to madame 1 " 
 
 " Oh, you understand English. Thank heaven," said Miss 
 Susan, whose French was far from fluent. " I am very glad to 
 hear it, for that will make my business so much the easier. It 
 is long since I have been abroad, and I have almost forgotten 
 the language. Could I apeak to you somewhere 1 I don't 
 want to buy anything," she said abruptly, as he stood aside to 
 let her come in. 
 
 " That shall be at the pleasure of madame," said the old man 
 with the sweetest of smiles, " though miladi will not find bet- 
 ter damask in many places. Enter, madame. I will take you 
 to my counting-house, or into my private house, if that will 
 more please you. In what can I be serviceable to madame 1 " 
 
 " Come in here — anywhere where we can be quiet. What I 
 have to say is important," said Miss Susan. The shop was not 
 like an English shop. There was less light, less decorations, 
 the windows were half blocked up, and behind, in the depths 
 of the shop, there was a large, half-curtained window, opening 
 into another room at the back. '' I am not a customer, but it 
 may be worth your while," said Miss Susan, her breath coming 
 quick on her parted lips. 
 
 The shopkeeper made her a bow, which she set down to 
 French politeness, for all people who spoke another language 
 were French to Miss Susan. He said, " Madame shall be 
 sati~''?d," and he led her into the deeper depths, where he 
 placed a chair for her, and remained standing in a deferential 
 attitude. Miss Susan was confused by the new circumstances 
 in which she found herself, and by the rapidity with which 
 event had followed event. 
 
 " My name is Austin too," she said, faltering slightly. ** 1 
 thought when I saw your name, that perhaps you were a 
 relation of mine — who has been long lost to his family." 
 
 " It is too great an honour," said the old shopkeeper, with 
 another bow ; " but yes — but yes, it is indeed so. I have seen 
 already another gentleman, a person in the same interests. 
 Yes, it is me. I am Guillaume Austin." 
 
 I> 
 
mm 
 
 64 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 "Guillaumel" 
 
 " Yes. William you it call. 1 have told my name to the 
 other monsieur. He is, he say, the successive — what you call 
 it ? The one who comes " 
 
 " The heir " 
 
 " That is the word. I show him my papers — ^he is satisfied ; 
 as I will also to madame with pleasure. Madame is also cou- 
 sin of Monsieur Farrel ] Yes ? — and of me. It is too great 
 honour. She shall see for herself. My grandfather was 
 Ingleseman — tres Inglese. I recall to myself his figure as if I 
 saw it at this monr ent. Blue eyes, very clear, pointed nose — 
 ma foi ! like the nose of madame." 
 
 " I should like to see your papers," said Miss Susan. " Shall 
 I come back in the evening when you have more time ? I s!iould 
 like to see your wife — ^for you have one surely ] ar d your 
 children." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; but one is gone," said the shopkeeper. " Figure 
 to yourself, madame, that I had but one son, and he is gone 1 
 There is no longer any one to take my place — to come after me. 
 Ah ! life is changed when it is so. One lives on — but what is 
 life ? a thing we must endure till it comes to an end." 
 
 " I know it well," said Miss Susan, in a low tone. 
 
 " Madame, too, has had the misfortune to lose her son, like 
 meT' 
 
 " Ah, don't speak of it. But I have no son. I am what you 
 call vile fee," said Miss Susan , " an old maid — nothing more. 
 And he is still living, poor boy ; but doomed, alas ! doomed. 
 Mr. Austin, I have a great many things to speak to you about." 
 
 " I attend — with all my heart," said the shopmaker, some- 
 what puzzled, for Miss Susan's speech was mysterious, there 
 could be little doubt. 
 
 '* If I return, then, in the evening, you will show me your 
 papers and introduce me to your family," said Miss Susan, get- 
 ting up. " I must not take up your time now." 
 
 " But I am delighted to wait upon madame now," said the 
 old man, " and since madame has the bounty to wish to see my 
 family — by here, madame^ I beg — enter, and be welcome — very 
 welcome." 
 
 Saying this he opened the great window-door in the end of 
 the shop, and Miss Susan, walking tbrward somewhat agitated. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 65 
 
 found herself all at once in a scene very unexpected by her, and 
 of a kind for which she was unprepared. She was ushered in 
 at once to the family room and family life, without even the 
 interposition of a passage. The room into which this glass 
 door opened was not very large, and quite disproportionately 
 lofty. Opposite to the entrance from the shop was another 
 large window, reaching almost to the roof, which opened upon 
 a narrow court, and kept a curious dim daylight, half from 
 without, half from within, in the space, which seemed more 
 narrow than it need have done by reason of the height of the 
 roof. Against this window, in a large easy chair, sat an old 
 woman in a black gown, without a cap, and with one little tail 
 of gray hair twisted at the back of her head, and curl-papers 
 embellishing her forehead in front. Her gown was rusty, and 
 not without stains, and she wore a large handkerchief, with spots, 
 tied about her neck. She was chopping vegetables in a dish, 
 and not in the least abashed to be found so engaged. In a 
 corner sat a younger woman, also in black, and looking like 
 a gloomy shadow, lingering apart from the light. Another 
 young woman went and came towards an inner room, in 
 which it was evident the dinner was going to be cooked. 
 A pile of boxes, red and blue, and all the colours of the rain- 
 bow, was on a table. There was no carpet on the floor, which 
 evidently had not been frotU for some time past, nor curtains 
 at the window, except a melancholy spotted muslin, which 
 hung closely over it, making the scanty daylight dimmer still. 
 Miss Susan drew her breath hard with a kind of gasp. The 
 Austins were people extremely well to do — rich in their way, 
 and thinking themselves very comfortable ; but to the pre- 
 judiced English eye of their new relation, the scene was one of 
 absolute squalor. Even in an English cottage. Miss Susan 
 thought, there would have been an attempt at some prettiness 
 or other, some air of nicety or ornament, but the comfortable 
 people here (though Miss Sumn supposed all foroigaers to 
 be naturally addicted to show and glitter) thought of nothing 
 but the necessities of living. They were not in the least 
 ashamed, as an English family would have been, of being 
 " caught " in the midst of their morning's occupations. The 
 old lady put aside the basin with the vegetables, and wiped 
 her hands with a napkin, and greeted her visitor with perfect 
 B 
 
66 
 
 WHITELADtES. 
 
 •I 
 
 calm. The others took scarcely any notice. Were these the 
 people whose right it wsa to succeed generations of English 
 squires — the dignified house of Whiteladies ? Miss Susan 
 shivered as she sat down, and then she began her work of 
 temptation. She drew forth her picture, which was handed 
 round for everybody to see. She described the estate and all 
 its attractions. Would they let this pass away from them? 
 At least they shouli not do it without knowing what they had 
 sacrificed. To do this, partly in English, which the shopkeeper 
 translated imperfectly, and partly in very bad French, was no 
 small labour to Miss Susan ; but her zeal was equal to the tax 
 upon it, and the more she talked, and the more trovible she had 
 to overcome her own repugnance to these new people, the more 
 vehement she became in her efforts to break their alliance with 
 Farrel, and induce them to recover their rights. The young 
 woman who was moving about the room, and whose appearance 
 had at once struck Miss Susan, came and looked over the old 
 mother's shoulder at the picture, and expressed her admiration 
 in the liveliest terms. The jolie maison it was, and the dommage 
 to lose it, she cried : and these words were very strong pleas in 
 favour of all Miss Susan said. 
 
 " Ah, what an abominable law," said the old lady at length, 
 " that excludes the daughters — sans 9a, ma fille ! " and she 
 began to cry a little. ** Oh my son, my son ! if the good God 
 had not taken him, what joy to have restored him to the 
 country of his grandfather, to an establishment so charming ! " 
 
 Miss Susan drew close to the old woman in the rusty black 
 gown, and approached her mouth to her ear. 
 
 " Cette jeune femme-l^ est veuve de votre fils ? " 
 
 " No. There she is — there in the corner. She who neither 
 smiles nor speaks," said the mother, putting up the napkin 
 with which she had dried her hands, to her eyes. 
 
 The whole situation had in it a dreary tragi-comedy, half 
 pitiful, half laughable ; a groat deal of intense feeling veiled 
 by external circumstances of the homeliest order, such as is 
 often to be found in comfortable, unlovely bourgeois house- 
 holds. How it was, in such a matter-of-fact interior that the 
 great temptation of her life should have flashed across Miss 
 Susan's mind, I cannot tell. She glanced from the young wife, 
 very soon to be a mother, who leant over the old lady's chair, 
 
lese the 
 English 
 I Susan 
 work of 
 handed 
 ) and all 
 I theml 
 hey had 
 pkeeper 
 , was no 
 I the tax 
 » she had 
 the more 
 Qce with 
 le young 
 pearance 
 : the old 
 miration 
 dommage 
 ; pleas in 
 
 t length, 
 and she 
 )od God 
 to the 
 
 ng!" 
 
 y hlack 
 
 neither 
 napkin 
 
 iy, half 
 ^ veiled 
 h as is 
 house- 
 that the 
 )ss Miss 
 ng wife, 
 's chair, 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 67 
 
 
 to the dark shadow in the room, who had never stirred from 
 her seat. It was all done in a moment — thought, plan, execution* 
 A sudden excitement took hold upon her. She drew her chair 
 close to the old woman, and hent forward till her lips almost 
 touched her ear. 
 
 " L'autre est — la m6me — que elle t " 
 
 " Que voulez-vous dire, madame ? " 
 
 The old lady looked up at her bewildered, but, caught by 
 the glitter of excitement in Miss Susan's eye, and the panting 
 breath, which bore evidence to some sudden fever in her, 
 stopped short. Her wondering look turned into something 
 more keen and impassioned — a kind of electric spark flashed 
 between the two women. It was done in a moment ; so rapidly, 
 that at least (as Miss Susan thought after, a hundred times, 
 and a hundred to that) it was without premeditation ; so sudden, 
 that it was scarcely their fault. Miss Susan's eyes gleaming, 
 said something to those of the old Flamande, whom she had 
 never seen before, Guillaume Austin's wife. A curious thrill 
 ran through both — the sting, the attraction, the sharp move- 
 ment, half pain, half pleasure, of temptation and guilty inten- 
 tion ; for there was a sharp and stinging sensation of pleasure 
 in it, and something which made them giddy. They stood on 
 the edge of a precipice, and looked at each other a second time 
 before they took the plunge. Then Miss Susan laid her hand 
 upon the other's arm, gripping it in her passion. 
 
 "Venez quelque part pour parler," she said, in her bad 
 French. 
 
68 
 
 WHITELADIEa. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CANNOT tell the reader what was the conversation that 
 ensued between Miss Susan and Madame Austin of 
 Bruges, because the two naturally shut themselves up by 
 themselves, and desired no witnesses. They went up-stairs, 
 threading their way through a warehouse full of goods, to 
 Madame Austin's bedroom, which was her reception-room, and; 
 to Miss Susan's surprise, a great deal prettier and lighter than 
 the family apartment below, in which all the ordinary concerns 
 of life were carried on. There were two white beds in it, in a 
 recess with crimson curtains drawn almost completely across — 
 and various pretty articles of furniture, some marqueterie 
 cabinets, and tables which would have made the mouth of any 
 amateur of old furniture water, and two sofas with little rugs 
 laid down in front of them. The boards were carefully waxed 
 and clean, the white curtains drawn over the window, and 
 everything arranged with some care and daintiness. Madame 
 Austin placed her visitor on the principal sofa, which was 
 covered with tapestry, but rather hard and straight, and then 
 shut the door. She did not mean to be overheard. 
 
 Madame Austin was the ruling spirit in the house. It was she 
 that regulated the expenses, that married the daughters, and 
 that had made the match between her son and the poor creature 
 down-stairs, who had taken no part in the conversation. Her 
 husband made believe to supervise, and cr.iticize everything, in 
 which harmless gratification she encouraged him ; but in fact 
 his real business was to acquiesce, whioh he did with great 
 success. Miss Susan divined well when she said to herself that 
 his wife would never permit him to relinquish advantages so 
 great when she knew something of what they really implied ; 
 but she too had been broken down by grief, and ready to feel 
 that nothing was of any consequence in life, when Farrel- Austin 
 had found them out. I do not know what cunning devil com- 
 municated to Miss Susan the right spell by which to wake up 
 in Madame Austin the energies of a vivacious temperament 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 69 
 
 on that 
 istin of 
 s up by 
 >8tairs, 
 )ods, to 
 m, and; 
 ier than 
 oncerns 
 
 it, in a 
 ,cross — 
 jueterie 
 
 of any 
 ;le rugs 
 ' waxed 
 iw, and 
 [adame 
 ch was 
 id then 
 
 vas she 
 rs, and 
 Feature 
 Her 
 ling, in 
 in fact 
 great 
 jlfthat 
 iges so 
 iplied ; 
 to feel 
 A.ustin 
 il com- 
 ake up 
 rament 
 
 partially repressed by grief and age ; but certainly the attempt 
 was crowned with success. So good an intelligence arose be- 
 tween them that their talk lasted for an hour or more, and that 
 they parted with close pressure of hands and with meaning 
 looks, notwithstanding Miss Susan's terribly bad French, which 
 was involved to a degree which I hardly dare venture to present 
 to the reader ; and many readers are aware, by unhappy ex- 
 per jnce, what an elderly Englishwoman's French can be. " Je 
 r .viendrai encore demain," said Miss Susan. " J'ai beaucoup 
 choses k parler, et vous dira encore k votre mari. Si vous 
 voulez me parler avant cela, allez k I'hdtel ; je serai toujours 
 dans mon appartement. II est pas ungplaisir pour moi de 
 marcher autour la ville, comme quand j'6tais jeune. J'aime 
 rester tranquil ; et je reviendrai demain, dans la matin^ k votre 
 maison ici. J'ai beaucoup choses de parler autour." 
 
 Madame Austin did not know what " parler autour " could 
 mean, but she accepted the puzzle and comprehended the 
 general thread of the meaning. She returned to her sitting- 
 room down-stairs with her head full of a hundred busy thoughts, 
 and Miss Susan went off to her hotel with a headache, ca sed 
 by a corresponding overflow in her mind. She was a a great 
 excitement, which indeed could not be quieted by going to the 
 hotel, but which prompted her to " marcher autour la ville, " 
 as she herself said, trying to neutralise the undue activity of her 
 brain by movement of body. It is one of nature's instinctive 
 ways of wearing out emotion. To do wrong is a very strange 
 sensation, and it was one which, in any great degree, was 
 unknown to Miss Susan. She had done wrong, I suppose, 
 often enough before, but she had long outgrown that sensitive 
 stage of niind and body which can seriously regard as mortal 
 sins the little peccadilloes of common life — the momentary 
 failures of temper or rashness of words, which the tender 
 youthful soul confesses and repents of as great sins. Temptation 
 had not come near her virtuous and equable life ; and, to tell 
 the truth, she had often felt with a compunction that the con- 
 fession she sometimes made in church, of a burden of guilt 
 which was intolerable to her, and of sins too many to be re- 
 membered, was an innocent hypocrisy on her part. She had 
 taken herself to task often enough for her inability to feel this 
 deep penitence as she ought ; and now a real and great tempta- 
 
70 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 tion had come in her way, and Miss Susan did not feel at 
 all in that state of mi ' d which she would have thought prob- 
 able. Her first sensation was that of extreme excitement — a 
 sharp and stinging yet almost pleasurable sense of energy and 
 force and strong will which could accomplish miracles : so I 
 suppose the rebel angels must have felt in the first moment of 
 their sin — intoxicated with the mere sense of it, and of their 
 own amazing force and boldness who dared to do it, and defy 
 the Lord of heave and th. She walked about and looked in 
 at the shop-windoT ' r.^, .,hat wonderful filagree- work of steel 
 and silver which po.^ vi^t> >vumen wear in those Low Countries, 
 and at the films of : ;>e w'^^h in other circumstances Miss 
 Susan was woman enough to h.we been interested in for their 
 ovm sake. Why could not she think of them ] — why could not 
 she care for them now ? A deeper sensation possessed her, and 
 its first effect was so strange that it filled her with fright ; for, 
 to tell the truth, it was p.a exhilarating rather than a depressing 
 sensation. She was breathless with excitement, panting, her 
 heart beating. Now and then she looked behind her as if some 
 one were pursuing her. She looked at the people whom she 
 met with a conscious defiance, bidding them with her eyes find 
 out, if they dared, the secret which possessed her completely. 
 This thought was not as other thoughts which come and go in 
 the mind, which give way to passing impressions, yet prove 
 themselves to have the lead by returning to fill up all crevices. 
 It never departed from her for a moment. When she went 
 into the shops to buy, as she did after awhile by way of calming 
 herself down, she was half afraid of saying something about 
 it in the midst of her request to look at laces, or her questions 
 as to the price ; and, like other mental intoxications, this un- 
 accomplished intention of evil seemed to carry her out of her- 
 self altogether ; it annihilated all bodily sensations. She walked 
 about as lightly as a ghost, unconscious of fatigue, unconscious 
 of her physical power altogether, feeling neither hunger nor 
 weariness. She went through the churches, the picture galleries, 
 looking vaguely at everything, conscious clearly of nothing, 
 now and then horribly attracted by one of those horrible pictures 
 of blood and suffering, the martyrdoms which abound in all 
 Flemish collections. She went into the shops, as I have said, 
 and bought lace, for what reason she did not know, nor for 
 
 
WUITELADIES. 
 
 71 
 
 whom ; and it was only in the afternoon late that she went 
 back to her hotel, where Jane, frightened, was looking out for 
 her, and thinking her mistress must have been lost or murdered 
 among " them foreigners." " I have been with friends," Miss 
 Susan said, sitting down, bolt upright, on the vacant chair, and 
 looking Jane straight in the face, to make sure that the simple 
 creature suspected nothing. How could she have supposed Jane 
 to know anything, or suspect ? But it is one feature of this 
 curious exaltation of mind, in which Miss Susan was, that reason 
 and all its limitations is for the moment abandoned, and things 
 impossible become likely and natural. After this, however, the 
 body suddenly asserted itself, and she became aware that she 
 had been on foot the whole day, and was no ]< ger capable of 
 any physical exertion. She lay down on the cof lead tired, 
 and after a little interval had something to ef wl i she took 
 with appetite, and looked on her purchas- ^ ' \ ith a certain 
 pleasure, and slept soundly all night — the ale^i f the innocent, 
 the sleep of the just. No remorse visited hf ^, or penitence, only 
 a certain breathless excitement stirring n^ n whole being, a 
 sense of life and strength and power. 
 
 Next morning Miss Susan repeated her visit to her new rela- 
 tions at an early hour. This time she found them all prepared 
 for her, and was received not in the general room, but in Madame 
 Austin's chamber, where M. Austin and his wife awaited her 
 coming. The shopkeeper himself had altogether changed in 
 appearance : his countenance beamed ; he bowed over the hand 
 which Miss Susan held out to him, like an old courtier, and 
 looked grateful at her. 
 
 " Madame has come to our house like a good angel," he said, 
 *' Ah ! it is madame's intelligence which has found out the 
 good news, which cette pauvre cMrie had not the courage to tell 
 us. I did never think to laugh of good heart again," said the 
 poor man with tears in his eyes, " but this has made me young j 
 and it would almost seem as if we owed it to madame." 
 
 " How can that be ? " said Miss Susan. " It must have been 
 found out sooner or later. It will make up to you, if anything 
 can, for the loss of your boy." 
 
 " If he had but lived to see it ! " said the old man with a 
 sob. 
 
 Jbe mother stood behind, tearless, with a glitter in her eyes 
 
 Ui 
 
72 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 which was almost fierce. Miss Susan did not venture to do 
 more than give her one hurried glance, to which she replied 
 with a gleam of furv, clasping her hands together. Was it 
 fury 1 Miss Susan thought so, and shrank for the moment, not 
 quite able to understand the feelings of the other woman who 
 had so clearly understood her, yet who now seemed to address 
 to her a look of wild reproach. 
 
 " And my poor wife," went on the old shopkeeper, " for 
 her it will be an even still more happy—- Tu es contente, 
 biea contente, n*est-ce pas ? " 
 
 " Oui, mon ami," said the woman, turning her back to him, 
 with once more a glance from which Miss Susan shrank. 
 
 " Ah, madame, excuse her ; she cannot speak ; it is a joy too 
 much," he cried, drying his old eyes. 
 
 Miss Susan felt herself constrained and drawn on by the 
 excitement of the moment, and urged by the silence of the 
 other woman, who was as much involved as she. 
 
 " My poor boy will have a sadder lot even than yours," she 
 said ; " he is dying too young even to hope for any of the joys 
 of life. There is neither wife nor child possible for Herbert." 
 The tears rushed to her eyes as she spoke. Heaven help her ! 
 she had availed herself, as it were, of nature and affection to 
 help her to commit her sin with more ease and apparent security. 
 She had taken advantage of poor Herbert in order to wake 
 those tears which gave her credit in the eyes of the unsuspect- 
 ing stranger. In the midst of her excitement and feverish 
 sense of life, a sudden chill struck at her heart. Had she come 
 to this debasement so soon ) Was it possible that in such an 
 emergency she had made capital and stock-in-trade of her dying 
 boy? This reflection was not put into words, but flashed 
 through her with one of those poignant instantaneous cuts and 
 thrusts which men and women are subject to, invisibly to all 
 the world. M. Austin, forgetting his respect in sympathy, 
 held out his hand to her to press hers with a profound and 
 tender feeling which went to Miss Susan's heart ; but she had 
 the courage to return the pressure before she dropped his hand 
 hastily (he thought in English pride and reserve), and, making 
 a visible effort to suppress her emotion, continued, " After this 
 discovery, I suppose your bargain with Mr. Farrel- Austin, who 
 took such an advantage of you, is at an end at once ? " 
 
WHITELADIIS. 
 
 73 
 
 " Speak French," said Madame Austin, with gloom on her 
 countenance ; " I do not understand your English." 
 
 ** Mon amie, you are u little abrupt. Forgive her, madame ; 
 it is the excitation — the joy. In women the nerves are so much 
 allied with the sentiments," said the old shopkeeper, feeling 
 himself, like all men, qualified to generalize on this subject. 
 Then he added with dignity, '• I promised only for myself. 
 My old companion and me, — we felt no desire to be more rich, 
 to enter upon another life ; but at present it is different. If 
 there comes an inheritor," he added, with a gleam of light 
 over his face, " who shall be born to this wealth, who can be 
 educated for it, who will be happy in it, and great and pros- 
 perous — ah, madame 1 permit that I thank you again ! Yes, 
 it is you who have revealed the goodness of God to me. I 
 should not have been so happy to-day but for you." 
 
 Miss Susan interrupted him almost abruptly. The sombre 
 shadow on Madame Austin s countenance began to affect her 
 in spite of herself. " Will you write to him," she said, ** or 
 would you wish me to explain for you ) I shall see him on my 
 return." 
 
 '' Still English/' said Madame Austin, " when I say that I 
 do not understand it ! I wish to understand what is said." 
 
 The two women looked each other in the face : one wonder- 
 ing, uncertain, half afraid ; the other angry, defiant, jealous, 
 feeling her power, and glad, I suppose, to find some possible 
 and apparent cause of irritation by which to let loose the storm 
 in her breast of confused irritation and pain. Miss Susan 
 looked at her and felt frightened ; she had even begun to share 
 in the sentiment which made her accomplice so bitter and 
 fierce ; she answered, with something like humility, in her 
 atrocious French, 
 
 " Je parle d'un monsieur que vous avez vu, qui est allez ici, 
 qui a parl6 k vous de I'Angleterre. M. Austin et vous allez 
 changer votre id6es — et je veux dire k cet monsieur que quelque 
 chose de different est venu, que vous n'est pas de m^me esprit 
 que avant. Voici ! " said Miss Susan, rather pleased with her- 
 self for having got on so far in a breath. " Je signifie cela — 
 c'est-i,-dire, je offrir mon service pour assister votre mari changer 
 la chose qu'il a faites." 
 
 " Oui, mon amie," said M. Austin, " pour casser I'affaire— -^ 
 
 -5?1 
 
74 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 le contrat que nous avons fait, vous H moi, et que d'ailleurs 
 n'a jamais 6t6 ex6cut6 ; c'est 9a; I shall write, and madame 
 will explique, and all will be made as at first. The gentleman 
 'vas kind. I should never have known my rights, nor any- 
 thing about the beautiful house that belongs to us " f 
 
 " That may belong to you, on my poor boy's death," said 
 Miss Susan, correcting him. 
 
 " Assuredly ; after the death of M. le propri^taire actuel. 
 Yes, yes, that is understood. Madame will explain to ce 
 monsieur how the situation has changed, and how the contract 
 is at least suspended in the meantime." 
 
 " Until the event," said ivliss Susan. 
 
 " Until the event, assuredly," said M. Austin, rubbing his 
 hands. 
 
 " Until the event," said Madame Austin, recovering herself 
 under this discussion of details. *' But it will be wise to treat 
 ce monsieur with much gentleness," she added ; " he must be 
 m^nag6 ; for figure to yourself that it might be a girl, and he 
 might no longer wish to pay the money proposed, mon ami 
 He must be managed with great care. Perhaps if I were my- 
 self to go to England to see this monsieur " 
 
 " Mon ange ! it would fatigue you to death." 
 
 " It is true ; and then a country so strange — a cuisine 
 abominable. But I should not hesitate to sacrifice myself, as 
 you well know, Guillaume, were it necessary. Write then, and 
 we will see by his reply if he is angry, and I can go afterwards 
 if it is needful." 
 
 " And madame, who is so kind, who has so much bounty for 
 us," said the old man, " madame will explain." 
 
 Once more the two women looked at each other. They hci 
 been so cordial yesterday, why were not they cordial to-day 1 
 
 " How is it that madame has so much bounty for us ? " said 
 the old Flemish woman, half aside. " She has no doubt her 
 own reasons." 
 
 " The house has been mine all my life," said Miss Susan, 
 boldly. " I think perhaps, if you get it, you will let me live 
 there till I die. And Farrel-Austin is a bad man," she added 
 with vehemence ; " he has done us bitter wrong. I would do 
 anything in the world rather than let him have Whiteladies. 
 I thought I had told ^ou this yesterday. Do you understan4 
 me uow ? " 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 76 
 
 " I begin to comprehend," said Madame Austin, under her 
 breath. 
 
 Finally this was the compact that was made between them. 
 The Austins themselves were to write, repudiating their bar- 
 gain with Farrel, or at least suspending it, tc> await an event, 
 of the likelihood of which they were not aware at the !.ime they 
 had consented to his terms ; and Miss Susan was to see him, 
 and smooth all down and make him understand. Nothing 
 could be decided till the event. It might be a mere postpone- 
 ment — it might turn out in no way harmful to Farrel, only an 
 inconvenience. Miss Susan was no longer excited, nor so com- 
 fortable in her mind as vesterday. The full cup had evaporated, 
 so to speak, and shrunk ; it was no longer running over. One 
 or two indications of a more miserable consciousness had come 
 to her. She had read the shame of guilt and its irritation in 
 her confederate's eyes ; she had felt the pain of deceiving an 
 unsuspecting person. These were new sensations, and they 
 were not pleasant ; nor was her brief parting interview with 
 Madame Austin pleasant. She had not felt, in the first fury 
 of temptation, any dislike to the close contact which was 
 necessary with that homely person, or the perfect equality 
 which was necessary between her and her fellow-conspirator ; 
 but to-day Miss Susan did feel this, and shrank. She grew 
 impatient of the old woman's brusque manner, and her look of 
 reproach. " As if she were any better than me/' said poor 
 Miss Susan to herself. Alas ! into what moral depths the 
 proud Englishwoman must have fallen who could compare 
 herself with Madame Austin ! And when she took leave of 
 her, and Madame Austin, recovering her spirits, breathed some 
 confidential details — half jocular, and altogether familiar, with 
 a breath smelling of garlic — into Miss Susan's ear, she fell back, 
 with a mixture of disdain and disgust which it was almost 
 impossible to conceal. She walked back to the hotel this time 
 without any inclination to linger, and gave orders to Jane to 
 prepare at once for the home journey. The only thing that 
 did her any good, in the painful tumult of feeling which had 
 succeeded her excitement, was a glimpse which she caugia in 
 passing into the same lofty common room in which she had 
 first seen the Austin family. The son's widow still sat a 
 gloomy shadow in her chair in the corner ; but m tl\e full light 
 
 m\ 
 life J 
 i 
 
-—• »- •> 
 
 76 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 of the window, in the big easy chair which Madame Austin 
 had filled yesterday, sat the daughter of the house with her 
 child on her lap, leaning back and holding up the plump baby 
 with pretty outstretched arms. Whatever share she might 
 have in the plot was involuntary. She was a fair-haired, 
 round-faced Flemish girl, innocent and merry. She held up 
 her child in her pretty round sturdy arms, and chirruped and 
 talked nonsense to it in a language of which Miss Susan knew 
 not a word. She stopped and looked a moment at this pretty 
 picture, then turned quickly, and went away. After all, the 
 plot was all in embryo as yet. Though evil was meant. Provi- 
 dence was still the arbiter, and good and evil alike must turn 
 upon the event. 
 
WHITBLADIBS. 
 
 77 
 
 e Austin 
 with her 
 imp baby 
 he might 
 ir-haired, 
 B held up 
 uped and 
 an knew 
 lis pretty 
 • all, the 
 at, Provi- 
 lust turn 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 *Ml/fA ON'T you think he is better, mamma — a little better to- 
 
 ^^ day 1 " 
 
 ^^^^ " Ah, mon Dieu, what can I say, Heine ? To be a lit- 
 tle better in his state is often to be worst of all. You have not 
 seen so much as I have. Often, very often, there is a gleam of 
 the dying tiame in the socket ; there is an air of being well — 
 almost well. What can I say 1 I have seen it like that. And 
 they have all told us that he cannot live. Alas, alas, my poor 
 boy!" 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur buried her face in her handkerchief as 
 she spoke. She was seated in the little sitting-room of a little 
 house in an Alpine valley, where they had brought the invalid 
 when the summer grew too hot for him on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean. He himself had chosen the Kanderthal as 
 his summer quarters, and with the obstinacy of a sick man had 
 clung to the notion. The valley was shut in by a circle of 
 snowy peaks towards the east ; white, dazzling mountain-tops, 
 which yet looked small and homely and familiar in the shadow 
 of the bigger Alps around. A little mountain stream ran 
 through the valley, across which, at one point, clustered a knot 
 of houses, with a homely inn in the midst. There were trout 
 in the river, and the necessaries of life were to be had in the 
 village, through which a constant stream of travellers passed 
 during the summer and autumn, parties crossing the steep pass 
 of the Gemmi, and individual tourists of more enterprising 
 character fighting their way from this favourable centre into va- 
 rious unknown recesses of tlie hills. Behind the chalet a wa- 
 terfall kept up a continuous murmur, giving utterance, as it 
 seemed, to the very silence of the mountains. The scent of 
 pine-woods was in the air ; to the west the glory of the sunset 
 shone over a long broken stretch of a valley, uneven moorland 
 interspersed with clumps of wood. To be so little out of the 
 way — nay, indeed, to be in the way — of the summer traveller, 
 it was singularly wild and quaint and fresh. Indeed, for one 
 
78 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 thing, no tourist ever stayed there except for food and rest, 
 for there was nothing to attract any one in the plain little se- 
 cluded village, with only its circle of snowy peaks above its 
 trout-stream, and its sunsets, to catch any fanciful eye. Some- 
 times, however, a fanciful eye was caught by these charms, as 
 in the case of poor Herbert Austin, who had been brought here 
 to die. He lay in the little room which communicated with this 
 sitting-room, in a small wooden chamber opening upon a balcony, 
 from which you could watch the sun setting over the Kanderthal 
 and the moon rising over the snow-white glory of the Dolden- 
 horn, almost at the same moment. The chalet belonged to the 
 inn, and was connected with it by a covered passage. The sum- 
 mer was at its height, and still poor Herbert lingered, though 
 M. de Mirfleur, in pleasant Normandy, grew a little weary 
 of the long time his wife's son took in dying ; and Madame 
 de Mirfleur herself, as jealous Reine would think sometimes, 
 in spite of herself, .^rew weary too, thinking of her second 
 family at home, and the husband whom Reine had always 
 felt to be an ofibnce. The mother and sister who were 
 thus watching over Herbert's last moments were not so united 
 in their grief and pious duties as might have been supposed. 
 Generally it is the mother whose whole heart is absorbed in 
 such watching, and the young sister who is to be pardoned if 
 sometimes, in the sadness of the shadow that precedes death, 
 her young mind should wander back to life and its warmer in- 
 terests with a longing which makes her feel guilty. But in this 
 case these positions were reversed. It was the mother who 
 longed involuntarily for the life she had left behind her, and 
 whose heart i everted wistfully to something brighter and more 
 hopeful, to other interests and loves as strong, if not stronger, 
 than that she felt in and for her eldest son. When it is the 
 other way the sad mother pardons her child lor a wandering 
 imagination '. but the sad child, jealous and miserable, does not 
 forgive the mother, who has so much to fall back upon. Reine 
 had never been able to forgive her mother's marriage. She 
 never named her by her new name without a thrill ot irritation. 
 Her stepfather seemed a standing shame to her, and every new 
 brother and sister who came into the world was a new offence 
 against Reine's delicacy. She had been glad, very glad, of 
 Madame de Mirfleur's aid in transporting Herbert hither, and 
 
 i.*- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 79 
 
 and rest, 
 
 I little se- 
 above its 
 ). Some- 
 harms, as 
 ught here 
 . with this 
 a balcony, 
 anderthal 
 e Dolden- 
 sjed to the 
 The sura- 
 d, though 
 tie weary 
 Madame 
 ometimes, 
 ler second 
 ad always 
 who were 
 so united 
 [supposed. 
 )sorbed in 
 irdoned if 
 ies death, 
 '^armer in- 
 !ut in this 
 )ther who 
 I her, and 
 and more 
 stronger, 
 1 it is the 
 wandering 
 , does not 
 I. Keine 
 ge. She 
 rritation. 
 v^ery new 
 w offence 
 glad, of 
 her, and 
 
 at first her mother's society, apart from the new family, had 
 been very sweet to the girl, who loved her, notwithstanding 
 the fantastic sense of shame which possessed her, and her jeal- 
 ousy of all her new connections. But when Reine, quick-sight- 
 ed with the sharpened vision of jealousy and wounded love, 
 saw, or thought she saw that her mother began to weary of the 
 long vigil, that she began to wonder what her little ones were 
 doing, and to talk of all the troubles of a long absence, her 
 heart rose impatient in an agony of anger and shame and deep 
 mortification. Weary of waiting for her son's death — her eldest 
 son, who ought to have been her only son — weary of those 
 lingering moments which were now^ all that remained to Her- 
 bert ! Reine, in the anguish of her own deep grief and pity and 
 longing hold upon him, felt herself sometimes almost wild 
 against her mother. She did so now, when Madame de Mir- 
 fleur, with a certain calm, though she was crying, shook her 
 head and lamented that such gleams of betterness were often the 
 precursors of the end. Reine did not weep when her mother 
 buried her face in her delicate perfumed handkerchief. She 
 said to herself fiercely, " Mamma likes to think so ; she wants to 
 get rid of us, and get back to those others," and looked at her with 
 eyes which shone hot and dry, with a flushed cheek and clenched 
 hands. It was all she could do to restrain herself, to keep 
 from saying something which good sense and good taste, and a 
 lingering natural affection, alike made her feel that she must not 
 say. Reine was one of those curious creatures in whom two 
 races mingle. She had the Austin blue eyes, but with a light 
 in them such as no Austin had before ; but she had the dark 
 brown hair, smooth and silky, of her French mother, and some- 
 thing of the piquancy of feature, the little petulant nose, the mo- 
 bile countenance of the more vivacious blood. Her figure was 
 like a fairy's little and slight ; her movements, both of mind 
 and body, rapid as the stirrings of a bird : she went from one 
 mood to another instantaneously, which was not the habit of 
 her father's deliberate race. Miss Susan thought her all French 
 — Madame de Mirfleur all English ; and indeed both with some 
 reason — for when in England thjs perverse girl was full of en- 
 thusiasm for everything that belonged to her mother's country, 
 and when in France was the most prejudiced anu narrow-mind- 
 ed of Englishwomen. Youth is always perverse, more or less, 
 
80 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 It i 
 
 and there was a double share of its fanciful self-will and change^ 
 ableness in Reine, whose circumstances were so peculiar and 
 her temptations so many. She was so rent asunder by love 
 and grief, by a kind of adoration for her dying brother, the 
 only being in the world who belonged exclusively to her- 
 self, and jealous suspicion that he did not get his due from 
 others, that her petulance was very comprehensible. IShe wait- 
 ed till Madame de Mirfleur came out of her handkerchief, still 
 with hot and dry and glittering eyes. 
 
 " You think it would be well if it were over," said Reine ; 
 " that is I have heard people say. It would be well — yes, in 
 order to release his nurses and attendants, it would be well if 
 it should come to an end. Ah, mamma, you think so too — 
 you, his mother ! You would not harm him nor shorten his 
 life, but yet you think, as it is hopeless, it might be well : you 
 want to go to your husband and your children !" 
 
 " If I do, that is simple enough," said Madame de Mirfleur. 
 '' Ciel ! how unjust you are, Reine ! because I tell you the re- 
 sult of a little rally like Herberh's is often not happy. 1 want 
 to go to my husband, and to your brothers and sisters, yes — I 
 should be unnatural if I did not — but that my duty, which j 
 will never neglect, calls upon me here." 
 
 " Oh, do not stay !" cried Reine vehemently — " do not stay ! 
 I can do all the duty. If it is only duty that keeps you, go, 
 mamma, go ! I would not have you, for that reason, fctay an- 
 other day." 
 
 " Child ! how foolish you are ! ' said the mother. "Reine, 
 you should not show your reprjgti; iice to everything I am fond 
 of. It is wicked — and, more, it is foolish. What can any one 
 think of you 1 I will stay while I am necessary to my poor 
 boy ; you may be sure of that. " 
 
 " Not necessary," said Reine — " oh, not necessary ! I can 
 do all for him that is necessary. He is all I have in the world. 
 There are neither husband nor children that can come between 
 Herbert and me. Go, mamma — for Heaven's sake, go ! W hen 
 yourh eart is gone already, why should you remain t 1 can do 
 all he requires. Oh, please, go ! " 
 
 " Yrtu are very wicked, Reine," said her mother, "and un- 
 kind I You do not reflect that I stay for you. What are you 
 to Jo when you are left all alone 1—you, who are so unjust to 
 your molber 1 I ^.tay for that. What would you do 1 " 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 81 
 
 i change^ 
 liiar and 
 
 by love 
 ther, the 
 
 to her- 
 ue from 
 ihe wait- 
 hiief, still 
 
 d Keine ; 
 —yes, in 
 )e well if 
 so too — 
 )rten his 
 "^ell : you 
 
 Mirfleur. 
 ai the re- 
 I want 
 ■s, yes— I 
 . which I 
 
 ttot stay ! 
 you, go, 
 stay an- 
 
 "Reine, 
 am fond 
 any one 
 my poor 
 
 ! I can 
 
 le world. 
 
 between 
 
 ! When 
 
 I can do 
 
 'and un- 
 it are you 
 unjust to 
 
 "Me!" said Reine. She grew pale suddenly to her very 
 lips, struck by this sudden suggestion in the sharpest way. 
 She gave a sob of tearless passion. She knew very well that 
 her brother was dying ; but thus to be compelled to admit and 
 realize it, was more than she could bear. "I will do the best 
 I can," she said, closing her eyes in the giddy faintness that 
 came over her. " What does it matter about me ? " 
 
 " The very thought makes you ill, " said Madame de Mirfleur. 
 ** Reine, you know what is coming, but you will never allow 
 yourself to think of it. Pause now, and reflect ; when my poor 
 Herbert is gone, what will become of you, unless I am here to 
 look after you ] You will have to do everything yourself. Why 
 should we refuse to consider things which we know must hap- 
 pen ? There will be the funeral — all the arrangements — " 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! have you a heai t of stone ? " cried 
 Reine. She was shocked and wounded and stung to the very 
 soul. To speak of his funeral, almost in his presence, seemed 
 nothing less than brutal to the excited girl ; and all these mat- 
 ter-of-fact indications of what was coming jarred bitterly upon 
 the heart, in which, I suppose, hope will still live while life 
 lasts. Reine felt her whole being thrill with the shock of tais 
 terrible, practical touch, which to her mother seemed merely a 
 simple putting into words of the most evident and unavoidable 
 thought. 
 
 " I hope I have a heart like all the rest of the world," ^aid 
 Madame de Mirfleur. " And you are excited and beside yci^"- 
 self, or I could not pass over your unkindness as I do. Y^ . 
 Reine, it is my duty to stay for poor Herbert, but still more 
 for you. What would you do 1 " 
 
 " What would it matter ? " cried Reine bitt ly — *' not drop 
 into his grave with him — ah no ; one is not p«n aiitted that hap- 
 piness. One has to stay behind and live on, when there is 
 nothing to live for more ! " 
 
 " You are impious, my child," said he^ mother. " And, 
 again, you are foolish ; you do not reflect low young you are, 
 and that life has many interests yet in store for you — new con- 
 nections, new duties " 
 
 *' Husbands and children ! " cried Reine with scornful bitter- 
 ness, turning her blue eyes, agleam with that feverish fire 
 which tells at once of the neoeiiaity and impossibility of tears, 
 
82 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 I 1 
 
 upon her mother. Then her countenance changed all in a mo- 
 ment. A little bell tinkled faintly from the next room. " I 
 am coming," she cried, in a tone as soft as the summer air that 
 caressed the flowers in the balcony. The expression of her face 
 was changed and softened ; she became another creature in a 
 moment. Without a word or a look more, she opened the door 
 of the inner room and disappeared. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur looked after her, not without irritation ; 
 but she was not so fiery as Reine, and she made allowances for 
 I ie girl's folly, and calmed down her own displeasure. She 
 listened for a moment to make out whether the invalid's wants 
 were anything more than usual^ whether her help was required ; 
 and then drawing towards her a blotting-buok which lay on 
 the table, she resumed her letter to her husband. She was not 
 80 much excited as Reine by this interview, and indeed, she felt 
 she had only done her duty in indicating to the girl very plain- 
 ly that life must go on and be provided for, even after Herbert 
 had gone out of it. '* My poor loy ! " she said to herself, dry- 
 ing some tears ; but she could not think of dying with him, or 
 feel any despair from that one loss ; she had many to live for, 
 many to think of, even though she might have him no longer. 
 "Reine is excited and unreaso- ible, as usual," she wrote to 
 her husba')d ; "always jealous of you, mon ami, and of our 
 children. This arises chiefly from her English ideas, I am dis- 
 posed to believe. Perhaps when the sad event vvhich we are 
 awaiting is over, she v.ill see more clearly that I have done the 
 best for her as well as for myself. We must pardon her in the 
 meantime, poi>i child. It is in her blood. The English are 
 always more o. less fantastic. We others, French, have true 
 reason. Reassure yourself, mon cher ami, that I will not re- 
 main a day longer than I can help away from you and our 
 children. My poor Herbert sinks daily. Think of our misery ! 
 — yo'': ti.nno! imagine how sad it is. Probably in a week, at 
 the forihest, a\i will be over. Ah, mon Dieu ! what it is to 
 have a Tni»tl.<;r's 1 art i and how many martyrdoms we have to 
 bear ! " Mud: Tie de Mirfleur wrote this sentence with a very 
 deep sigh, a 1 <-u,r,^iTfHire wiped from her eyes a fresh gush of tears. 
 She was per ;tly correct in every way as a mother. She felt as 
 she Ought to eel, and expressed her sorrow as it was becom- 
 ing to expre^ it, only she Wu,s not absorbed by it — a thing 
 
 f 
 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 83 
 
 1 a mo- 
 ll. "I 
 \\T that 
 lier face 
 ire in a 
 lie door 
 
 Ltation ; 
 
 aces for 
 
 She 
 
 8 WAJltS 
 
 quired ; 
 lay on 
 was not 
 she felt 
 y plain- 
 Herbert 
 elf, dry- 
 him, or 
 live for, 
 longer, 
 pote to 
 [ of our 
 am dis- 
 we are 
 one the 
 in the 
 ish are 
 ve true 
 not re- 
 tnd our 
 nisery ! 
 eek, at 
 it is to 
 lave to 
 a very 
 )f tears, 
 felt as 
 becom- 
 thiug 
 
 3 
 
 ^ 
 
 which is against all true rules of piety and submission. She 
 could not rave like Reine, as if there was nothing else worth 
 caring for, except her poor Herbert, her dear boy. She had a 
 great many other things to care for; and she recognised all 
 that must happen, and accepted it as necessary. Soon it would 
 be over ; and all recovery being hopeless, and the patient hav- 
 ing nothing to look forward to but suffering, could it be doubt- 
 ed that it was best for him to have his suffering over 1 though 
 Reine, in her rebellion against God and man, could not see this, 
 and clung to every lingering moment which could lengthen out 
 heF brother's life. 
 
 Reine herself cleared like a cloudy sky as she passed across 
 the threshold into her brother's room. The change was instan- 
 taneous. Her blue eyes, which had a doubtful light in them, 
 and looked sometimes fierce and sometimes impassioned, were 
 now as soft as the sky. The lines of irritation were all smoothed 
 from her brow and from under her eyes. Limpid eyes, soft 
 looks, an unruffled, gentle face, with nothing in it but love and 
 tenderness, was what she showed always to her sick brother. 
 Herbert knew her only under this aspect, though with the 
 clear-sightedness of an invalid, he had divined that Reine was 
 not always so sweet to others as to himself 
 
 " You called me," she said, coming up to his bed-side with 
 something caressing, soothing, in the very sound of her step 
 and voice ; *' you want me, Herbert 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; but I don't want you to do anything. Sit down by 
 me, Reine ; I am tired of my own company ; that is all." 
 
 " And so am I — of everybody's company but yours," she said, 
 sitting down by the bed-side and stooping her pretty shining 
 head to kiss his thin hand. 
 
 " Thanks, dear, for saying such pretty things to me. But, 
 Reine, I heard voices ; you were talking — was it with mamma 1 
 — not so softly as you do to me." 
 
 f v" Oh, it was nothing," said Reine with a flush. " Did you 
 hear us, poor boy 1 Oh, that was wicked ! Yes, you know 
 there are things that make me — I do not mean angry — I sup- 
 pose I have no right to be angry with mamma " 
 
 " Why should you be angry with any one ? " he said softly, 
 " If you had to lie here like me, you would think nothing was 
 
 '\:> 
 
 imm 
 
 MMHMBC'I 
 
84 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 1 1 'I 
 
 worth being angry about. V.y poor Reine ! you do not even 
 know what I mean." 
 
 " Oh no ; there is so much that is wrong," said Reine — " so 
 many things that people do — so many that they think — their 
 very ways of doing even what is right enough. No, no ; it is 
 worth while to be angry about many, many things. I do not 
 want to learn to be indifferent ; besides, that would be im- 
 possible to me — it is not my nature." 
 
 The invalid smiled and shook his head softly at her. " Your 
 excuse goes against yourself," he said. " If you are ruled by 
 your nature, must not others be moved by theirs ? You active- 
 minded people, Reine, you would like every one to think like 
 you ; but if you could accomplish it, what a monotonous world 
 you would make ! I should not like the Kanderthal if all the 
 mountain-tops were shaped the same ; and I should not perhaps 
 love you so much if you were less youiself. Why not let other 
 people, my Reine, be themselves too ? " 
 
 The brother and sister spoke French, which, more than Eng- 
 lish, had been the language of their childhood. 
 
 " Herbert, don't say such ttiings ! " cried the girl. " You do 
 not love me for this or for that, as strangers might, but because 
 I am me, Reine, and you are you, Herbert. That is all we 
 want. Ah yes, perhaps if 1 were very good I should like to be 
 loved for being good. I don't know ; I don't think it even 
 then When they used to promise to love me if I was good at 
 Whityladies, I was always naughty — on purpose 1 — yes, I am 
 afraid. Herbert, should not you like to be at Whiteladies, 
 lying on the warm, warm grass in the orchard, underneath the 
 great apple-tree, with the bees humming all about, and the dear 
 white English clouds floating and floating, and the sky so deep, 
 deep, that you could not fathom it ? Ah ! " cried Reine, draw- 
 ing a deep breath, " I have not thought of it for a long time ; 
 but I wish we were there," 
 
 The sick youth did not say anything for a moment ; his eyes 
 followed her look, which she turned instinctively to the open 
 window. Then he sighed ; then raising himself a little, said, 
 with a gleam of energy, "I am certainly better, Reine. I 
 should like to get up and set out across the Gemmi, down the 
 side of 'ihe lake that must be shining so in the sun. That's the 
 brightest way home." Then he laughed, with a laugh which, 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 85 
 
 
 though feeble, had not lost the pleasant ring of 3'outhfulnes8, 
 " What wild ideas you put into my head ! " he said. " No, I 
 am not up to that yet ; but, Reine, I am certainly better. I 
 have such a desire to get up ; and I thought I should never get 
 up again." 
 
 " I will call Francois ! " cried the girl eagerly. He had been 
 made to get up for days together without any will of his own, 
 and now that he should wish it seemed to her a step towards 
 that recovery which Keine could never believe impossible. She 
 rushed out to call his servant, and waited, with her heart beat- 
 ing, till he should be dressed, her thoughts already dancing for- 
 ward to brighter and brighter possibilities. " He has never 
 had the good of the mountain air," said Reine to herself, " and 
 the scent of the pine-woods. He shall sit on the balcony to- 
 day, and to-morrow go out in the chair, and next week, per- 
 haps — who knows ? — he may be able to walk up to the water- 
 fall, and — O God ! Dieu tout-puissant ! doux Jesus ! " 
 cried the girl, putting her hands together, " I will be good ! 
 I will be good ! I will endure anything ; if only he may live ! 
 — if only he may live ! " 
 
86 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ' HIS little scene took place in the village of Kandersteg, at 
 the foot of the hills, exactly on the day when Miss 
 Snsan executed her errand in the room behind the shop, 
 in low-lying Bruges, among the flat canals and fat Flemish 
 fields. The tumult in poor Reine's heart would have been al- 
 most as strange to Miss Susan as it was to Reine's mother ; for 
 it was long now since Herbert had been given up by everybody, 
 and since the doctors had all said, that " nothing short of a 
 miracle " could save him. Neither Miss Susan nor Madame 
 de Mirfleur believed in miracles. But Reine who was young 
 had no such limitation of mind, and never could nor would ac- 
 knowledge that anything was impossible. "What does im- 
 possible mean ? " Reine cried in her vehemence, on this very 
 evening, after Herbert had accomplished her hopes, had stayed 
 for an hour or more on the balcony and felt himself better for 
 it, and ordered Fran9ois to prepare his wheeled chair for to- 
 morrow. Reine had much ado not to throw her arms round 
 FranQois' neck, when he pronounced solemnly that " Monsieur 
 est mieux, d^cid^ment mieux." " M§me," added Francois, " il 
 a un petit air de je ne sais quoi — quelque chose — un rien — un 
 regard " 
 
 " N'est ce pas, mon ami : " cried Reine transported. Yes, 
 there was a something, a nothing, a changed look which thrilled 
 her with the wildest hopes, — and it was after this talk that she 
 confronted Madame de Mirfleur with the question, " What 
 does impossible mean 1 It means only, I suppose, that God 
 does not interfere — that He lets nature go on in the common 
 way. Then nothing is impossible ; because at any moment, 
 God may interfere if He pleases. Ah ! He has His reasons, I 
 suppose. If He were never to interfere at all, but leave nature 
 to do her will, it is not for us to blame Him," cried Reine with 
 tears, " but yet always He may ; so there is always hope, and 
 nothing is impossible in this world." 
 
 " Reine, you speak like a child," said her mother. " Have 
 
 
WHITKLADIES. 
 
 87 
 But when all 
 
 not I prayed and hoped too for my boy's life 1 
 say it is impossible " 
 
 " Mamma," said Heine, " wlien my piano jars, it is impossible 
 for me to set it right — if 1 let it alone, it goes worse and worse, 
 if 1 meddle with it in my ignorance, it goes wurse an<l worse. 
 If you, even, who know more than I do, touch it, you cannot 
 mend it. But the man comes who knows, et voila! c'est tout 
 simple," cried Iteine. '* lie touches sometliing we never ob- 
 served, he makes something rise or fall an<l all is harmonious 
 again. That is like God. He does not do it always, I know. 
 Ah ! how can I tell why 1 If it was me," cried the girl, with 
 tears streaming from her eyes, " I would save every one — but 
 He is not like me." 
 
 " Reine, you are impious — you are wicked; how dare you 
 speak so ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! I am not impious," she cried, dropping upon 
 her knees — all the English part in her, all her reason and self- 
 restraint broken dov/n by extreme emotion. " The bon Dieu 
 knows I am not ! I know, I know He does, and sees me, the 
 good Father, and is sorry, and considers with Himself in His 
 great heart if He will do it even yet. Oh, 1 know, 1 know ! " 
 cried the weeping girl, " some must die, and He considers 
 long , but tell mo He does not see me, does not hear me, is not 
 sorry for me — how is He then my Father] No!" she said 
 softly, rising from her knees and drying the tears from her 
 face, " what I feel is that He is thinking it over again." 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur was half afraid of her daughter, think- 
 ing she was going out of her mind. She laid her hand upon 
 Reine's shoulder with a soothing touch. *' Ch^ns ! " she said, 
 ** don't you know it was all decided and settled before you were 
 born, from the beginning of the world ] " 
 
 "Hush!" said Reine, in her excitement. "I can feel it 
 even in the air. If our eyes were clear enough, we should see 
 the angels waiting to know. I daie not pray any more, only 
 wait like the angels. He is considering. Oh ! pray, pray ! " 
 the poor child cried, feverish and impassioned. She went out 
 into the balcony and knelt down there, leaning her forehead 
 against the wooden railing. The sky shone above with a 
 thousand stars, the moon, which was late that night, had begun 
 to throw upwards from behind the pinnacles of snow, a rising 
 
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 VmiTELADIES. 
 
 whiteness, which made them gleam ; the waterfall murmured 
 softly in the silence ; the pines joined in their continual cpdence 
 and sent their aromatic odours like a breath of healing, in soft 
 waves towards the sick man's chamber. There was a stillness 
 all about as if, as poor Reine said, God himself was consider- 
 ing, weighing the balance of death or life. She did not look at 
 the wonderful landscape around, or see or even feel its beauty. 
 Her mind was too much absorbed — not praying, as she said, 
 but fixed in one wonderful voiceless aspiration. This fervour 
 and height of feeling died away after a time, and poor little 
 Reine came back to common life, trembhng, with a thrill in all 
 her nerves, and chilled with over emotion, but yet calm, hav- 
 ing got some strange gleam of encouragement, as she thought, 
 from the soft air and the starry skies. 
 
 " Hi is fast asleep," she said to her mother when they 
 parted for the night, with such a smile on her face as only 
 comes after much tears, and the excitement of great suffering, 
 " quite fast asleep, breathing like a child. He has not slept 
 so before, almost for years." 
 
 ** Poor child," said Madame de Mirfleur, kissing her. She 
 was not moved by Reine's visionary hopes. She believed much 
 more in the doctors, who had described tc her often enough — 
 for she was curious on such subjects — ho w Herbert's disease 
 had worked, and of the "perforations" that had taken place, 
 and the •* tissue " that was destroyed. She preferred to know 
 the worst, she had always said, and she had a strange inquisi- 
 tive relish for these details. She shook her head and cried a 
 little, and said her prayers too with more fervour than usual, 
 after she parted fr jm Reine. Poor Herbert, if he could live 
 after all, how pleasant it would be ! how sweet to take M. de 
 Mirfleur and the children to her son's chateau in England, and 
 to get the good of his wealth. Ah ! what would not she give 
 for his life, her poor boy, her eldest, poor Austin's child, whom 
 indeed she had half forgotten, but who had always been so good 
 to her I Madame de Mirfleur cried over the thought, and said 
 her prayers fervently, with a warmer petition for Herbert than 
 usual ; but even as she prayed she shook her head ; she had no 
 faith in her own prayers. She was a French Protestant, and 
 knew a great deal about theology, and perhaps had been rather 
 shaken by the many controversies which she had heard on the 
 
VrHIT£LADIES. 
 
 »» 
 
 subject. And accordingly she shook her head ; to be sure, she 
 said to herself, there was no doubt that God could do every- 
 thing — but, as a matter of fact, it was evident that this was 
 not an age of miracles ; and how could we suppose that all the 
 economy of heaven and earth could be stopped and turned 
 aside, because one insignificant creature wished it ! She shook 
 her head ; and I think whatever theory of prayer we may 
 adopt, the warmest believer in its efficacy would scarcely expect 
 any very distinct answer to such prayers as those of Madame 
 de Mirfleur. 
 
 Herbert and Reine Austin had been brought up almost en- 
 tirely together from their earliest years. Partly from his 
 delicate health and partly from their semi-French training, the 
 boy and girl had not been separated as boys and girls generally 
 are by the processes of education. Herbert had never been 
 strong, and consequently had never been sent to school or col- 
 lege. He had had tutors from time to time, but as nobody 
 near him was much concerned about his mental progress, and 
 his life was always precarious, the boy was allowed to grow up, 
 as girls sometimes are, with no formal education at all, but a 
 great deal of reading j his only superiority over his sister in this 
 point was, that he knew after a fashion Latin and Greek, which 
 Madame de Mirfleur and even Miss Susan Austin would have 
 thought it improper to teach a girl ; while she knew certain 
 arts of the needle which it was beneath man's dignity to teach 
 a boy. Otherwise they had gone through the self-same studies, 
 read the same books and mutually communicated to each other 
 all they found therein. The affection between them, and their 
 union, was thus of a quite special and peculiar character. Each 
 was the other's family concentrated in one. Their frequent 
 separations from their mother, and isolation by themselves at 
 Whiteladies, where at first the two little brown French mice, 
 as Miss Susan had called them, were but little appreciated, had 
 thrown Reine and Herbert more and more upon each other for 
 sympathy and companionship. To be sure as they grew older 
 they became by natural process of events the cherished darlings 
 of Whiteladies, to which at first they were a trouble and op- 
 pression ; but the aunts were old and they were young, and 
 except Everard Austin, had no companions but each other. 
 Then their mother's marriage, which occurred when Herbert 
 
90 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 was about fourteen and his sister two years younger, gave an 
 additional closeness, as of orplians altogether forsaken, to their 
 union. Herbert was the one who took this marriage most 
 easily. "If mamma likes it, it is no one else's business," he 
 had said with unusual animation when Miss Susan began to 
 discuss the subject ; it was not his fault, and Herbert had no 
 intention of being brought to account for it. He took it very 
 quietly and had always been quite friendly to his step-father, 
 and heard of the birth of the children with equanimity. His 
 feelings were not so intense as those of Reine ; he was calm by 
 nature, and illness had hu8he<l and stilled him. Reine, on the 
 other hand, was more shocked and indignant at this step on 
 her mother's part, than words can say. It forced her into pre- 
 cocious womanhood, so much did it go to her heart. To say 
 that she hated the new husband and the new name whicli her 
 mother had chosen, was little. She felt herself insulted by 
 them, young as she was. The blood came hot to her face at 
 thought of the marriage, as if it had been something wrong — 
 and her girlish fantastic delicacy never recovered the shock. 
 It turned her heart from her mother who was no longer hers, 
 and fixed it more and more upon Herbert, the only being in 
 the world who was hers, and in whom she could trust fully. 
 " But if I were to marry too ! " he said to her once, in some 
 moment of gayer spirits. " It is natural that you should marry, 
 not unnatural," cried Reine; " it would be right, not wretched. 
 I might not like it, probably I should not like it — but it 
 would not change my ideal." This serious result had hap- 
 pened in respect to her mother, who could no longer be 
 Keine's ideal, whatever might happen. The girl was so 
 confused in consequence, and broken away from all land- 
 marks, that she and those who had charge of her, had anything 
 but easy work in the days before Herbert's malady declared it- 
 self. This had been the saving of Reine ; she had devoted 
 herself to her sick brother heart and soul, and the jar in her 
 mind hid ceased to communicate false notes to everything 
 around, it was now two years since the malady which had 
 hung over him all his life had taken a distinct form ; though 
 even now, the doctors allowed, there were special points in it 
 which made Herbert unlike other consumptive patients, and 
 sometimes inclined a physician who saw him for the first time. 
 
WHITLLADIES. 
 
 Ot 
 
 Lime, 
 
 to entertain doubts as to what the real cause of his sufferings 
 was, and to begin hopefully some new treatment, which ended 
 like all the rest in disappointment. He had been sent about 
 from one place to another, to sea air, to mountain air, to soft 
 Italian villas, to rough homes among the hills, and wherever 
 he went Reine had gone with him. One winter they had 
 passed in the south of France, another on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean just across the Italian border. Sometimes the 
 two went together where English ladies were seldom seen, and 
 where the girl, half afraid, clinging to Herbert's arm as long as 
 he was able to keep up a pretence of protecting her, and pro- 
 tecting him when that pretence was over, had to live the 
 homeliest life, with almost hardship in it, in order to secure 
 good air or tending for him. 
 
 This life had drawn them yet closer and closer together. 
 They had read and talked together, and exchanged with each 
 other all the eager, irrestrainable opinions of youth. Some- 
 times they would differ on a point and discuss it with that 
 lively fulness of youthful talk which so often looks like elo- 
 quence ; but more often the current of their thoughts ran in the 
 same channel, as was natural with two so nearly allied. Dur- 
 ing all this time Keine had been subject to a sudden vertigo, 
 by times, when looking at him suddenly, or recalled to it by 
 something that was said or done, there would come to her, all 
 at once, the terrible recollection that Herbert was doomed. 
 But except for this and the miserable moments when a sudden 
 conviction would seize her that he was growing worse, the 
 time of Herbert's illness was the most happy in Reine's life. 
 She had no one to find fault with her, no one to cross her in 
 her ideas of right and wrong. She had no one to think of but 
 Herbert, and to think of him and be with him had been her 
 delight all her life. Except in the melancholy moments I have 
 indicated when she suddenly realized that he was going from 
 her, Reine was happy ; it is so easy to believe that the harm 
 which is expected will not come, when it comes softly au petit 
 pas — and so easy to feel that good is more probable than evil. 
 She had even enjoyed their wandering, practising upon herself 
 an easy deception ; until the time came when Herbert's strength 
 had failed altogether, and Madame de Mirfieur had been sent 
 for, and every melancholy preparation was made which noted 
 
92 
 
 WHITELADIRS. 
 
 that it was expected of him that now he should die. Poor 
 Reine woke up suddenly out of the thoughtless happiness she 
 had permitted heraelf to fall into ; might she perhaps have 
 done better for him, had she always been dwelling upon his 
 approaching end, and, instead of snatching so many flowers of 
 innocent pleasure on the road, had thought of nothing but the 
 conclusion which now seemed to approach so rapidly? She 
 asked herself this question sometimes, sitting in her little 
 chamber behind her brother's and gazing at the snow-peaks 
 where they stood out against the sky — but she did not know 
 how to answer it. And in the meantime Herbert had grown 
 mo"^ and more to be all in all to her, and she did not know 
 how to give him up. Even now, at what everybody thought 
 was his last stage, Reine was still ready to be assailed by those 
 floods of hope which are terrible when they fail, as rapidly as 
 they rose. Was this to be so ? Was she to lose him, who was 
 all in all to her t She said to herself, that to nurse him all 
 her life long would be nothing — to give up all personaV prospects 
 and anticipations such as most girls indulge in, would be nothing 
 — nor that he should be ill always, spending his life in the 
 dreary vicissitudes of sickness. Nothing, nothing ! so long as 
 he lived. She could bear all, be patient with everything, 
 never grumble, never repine ; indeed these words seemed as 
 idle words to the girl, who could think of nothing better or 
 brighter than to nurse Herbert for ever and be his perpetual 
 companion. Without him her life shrank into a miserable con- 
 fusion and nothingness. With him, however ill he might be, 
 however weak, she had her certain and visible place in the 
 world; her duties which were dear to her, and was to herself a 
 recognisable existence ; but without Herbert, Reine could not 
 realize herself To think, as her mother had suggested, of 
 what would happen to her when he died, of the funeral, and 
 the dismal desolation after, was impossible to her. Her soul 
 sickened and refused to look at such depths of misery ; but yet 
 when, more vaguely, the idea of being left alone had presented 
 itself to her, Reine had felt with a gasp of breathless anguish, 
 that nothing of her except the very husk and rind of herself 
 could survive Herbert. How could she live without him 1 To 
 be the least thought of in her mother's house, the last in it, yet 
 not of it, disposed of by a man who was not her father, and 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 93 
 
 whose very existence was an insult to her, and pushed aside by 
 the children whom she never called brothers and sisters ; it 
 would not be her who should bear this, but some poor shell ot 
 her, some ghost who might bear her name. 
 
 On the special night which we have just described, when the 
 possibility of recovery for her brother again burst upon her, she 
 sat up late with her window open, looking out upon the moon- 
 light as it lighted up the snow-peaks. They stood round in a 
 close circle, peak upon peak, noiseless as ghosts and as pale, 
 abstracted, yet somehow looking to her excited imagination as 
 if they put their great heads nearer together in the silence, and 
 murmured to each other something about Herbert. It seemed 
 to Reine that the pi'jes too were saying something, but that 
 was sadder, and chilled her. Earth and heaven were full ot 
 Herbert, everything was occupied about him ; which indeed 
 suited well enough with that other fantastic frenzy of hers, 
 that God was thinking it over again, and that there was a 
 pause in r.ll the elements of waiting, to know how it was to be. 
 Ii'rancjv^is, Herbert's faithful servant, always sat up with him at 
 night or slept in his room when the vigil was unnecessary, so 
 that Reine was never called upon thus to exhaust her strength. 
 She stole into her brother's room again in the middle of the 
 night before she went to bed. He was still asleep, sleeping 
 calmly without any hardness of breathing, without any feverish 
 flush on his cheek, or exhausting moisture on his forehead. 
 He was still and in perfect rest, so happy and comfortable that 
 Francois had coiled himself upon his truckle-bed and slept as 
 sounaly as the invalid he was watching. Reine laid her hand 
 upon Herbert's forehead lightly, to feel how cool it was ; he 
 stirred a little, but no more than a child would, and by the 
 light of the faint night-lamp she saw that a smile came over 
 his face like a ray of sunshine. After this she stole away back 
 to her own room like a ghost, and dropped by the side of her 
 little bed, unable to pray any longer, being exhausted — able to 
 do nothing but weep, which she did in utter exhaustion of joy. 
 God had considered, and He had found it could be done, and 
 had pity upon her. So she concluded, poor child ! and dropped 
 asleep in her turn a little while after, helpless and feeble with 
 happiness. Poor child I on so small a foundation can hope 
 found itself and comfort come. 
 
 I 
 
94 
 
 WHITFXADIES. 
 
 On the same night Miss Susan went back again from 
 Antwerp to London. She had a calm passage, which was well 
 for her, for Miss Susan was not so sure that night of God's 
 protection as Reine was, nor could she appeal to Him for 
 shelter against the winds and waves with the same confidence 
 of being heard and taken care of as when she went from 
 London to Antwerp. But ha[)pily the night was still, the 
 moon shining as bright and clear upon that great wayward 
 strait, the Channel, as she did upon the noiseless whiteness of 
 the Dolden-horn ; and about the same hour when Keine fell 
 asleep, her relation did so also, lying somewhat nervous in her 
 berth, and thinking that there was but a plank between her and 
 eternity. She did not know of the happy change which Keine 
 believed had taken place in the Alpine valley, any more than 
 Keine knew in what darker transaction Miss Susan had become 
 involved ; and thus they met the future, one happy in wild 
 hopes of what God had done for her, the other with a sombre 
 confidence in what (she thought) she had managed for herself. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 96 
 
 If 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EINE, is it long since you heard from Aunt Susan 1 
 Look here, I don't want her tender little notes to the 
 invalid. 1 am tired of always recollecting that I am 
 an invalid. When one is dying one has enough of it, without 
 always being reminded in one's correspondence. Is there no 
 news? I want news. What <loes she say 1" 
 
 " She speaks only of the Farrel-Austins — who had gone to 
 see her," said Kcine almost under her breath. 
 
 *• Ah ! " HtM-bcrt too showed a little change of sentiment at 
 this name. Then he laughed faintly. *• 1 don't know why I 
 should mind," he said ; " every man has a next-of-kin, I sup- 
 pose, an heir-at-law, though every man does not die before his 
 time like me. Thai's what makes it unpleasant, I suppose. 
 Well, what about Farrel- Austin, Keine ? There is no harm in 
 him that I know." 
 
 " There is great harm in him," said Reine indignantly ; 
 " why did he go there to insult them, to make them think 1 
 And 1 know there was something long ago that makes Aunt 
 Susan hate him. She says Everard was there too — I think, 
 with Kate and Sophy '' 
 
 " And you do not like that either 1 " said Herbert, putting 
 his hand upon hers and looking at her with a smile. 
 
 " I do not mind," said Reine sedately. " Why should I 
 mind 1 I do not think they are very good companions for 
 Everard," she added, with that impressive look of mature wis- 
 dom which the most youthful countenance is fond of putting 
 on by times ; " but that is my only reason. He is not very 
 settled in his mind." 
 
 " Are you settled in your mind, Reine ? " 
 
 " I ? I have nothini; to unsettle me," she said wiih genuine 
 surprise. " I am a girl j it is different. I can stop myself 
 whenever I feel that 1 am going too far. You boys cannot 
 stop yourselves," Reine added, with the least little shake of 
 her pretty head ; " that makes frivolous companions so bad for 
 Everard. He will go on and on without thinking." 
 
90 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " He is next-of-kin, too," said Herbert with a smile. *• How 
 strange a light it throws upon them all when one is dying ! } 
 wonder what they think about me, Heine ! I wonder if they 
 are always waiting, expecting every day to bring them the 
 news 1 I daresay Farrel- Austin has settled exactly what he is 
 to do, and the changes he will make in the old house. He will 
 be sure to make changes, if only to show that he is the master. 
 The first great change of all will be when the White ladies 
 themselves have to go away. Can you believe in the house 
 without Aunt Susan, Reine 1 I think, for my part, it will drop 
 to pieces ; and Augustine praying against the window like a 
 saint in painted glass. Do you know where they mean to 
 go?" 
 
 " Herbert ! you kill me when you ask me such questions." 
 
 " Because they all imply my own dying 1 " said Herbert. 
 " Yes, my queen, I know. But just for the fun of the thing, 
 tell me what do you think Farrel means to do 1 Will he 
 meddle with the old almshouses, and show them all that he is 
 Lord of the Manor and nobody else 1 or will he grudge the 
 money and let Augustine keep possession of the family charities ) 
 That is what I think ; he is fond of his money, and of making 
 a good show with it, not feeding useless poor people. But then 
 if he leaves the almshouses to her undisturbed, where will 
 Augustine go 1 By Jove ! " said Herbert, striking his feeble 
 hand against his oouoh with the energy of a new idea, "^ I 
 should not be in the least surprised if she went and lived at 
 the almshouses herself, like one of her own poor people ; she 
 would think, poor soul, that that would please God. I am 
 more sorry for Aunt Susan," he added after a pause, "for she 
 is not so simple ; and she has been the squire so long, how will 
 she ever bear to abdicate ? It will be hard upon her, Reine.'' 
 
 Reine had turned away her head to conceal the bitter tears 
 of disappointment that had rushed to her eyes. She had been 
 80 sure that he was better— and to be thrown thus back all at 
 once upon this talk about his death was more than she could 
 bear. 
 
 " Don't cry, dear," he said, " I am only discussing it for the 
 fun of the thing ; and to tell you the truth, Reine, I am keep- 
 ing the chief point of the joke to myself all this time. I don t 
 know what you will think when I tell you— 
 
 " What, Bertie, what 1 " 
 
 u 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 97 
 
 »> 
 
 " Don't be so anxious ; 1 daresay it is utter nonsense. Lean 
 down your ear that I may whisper ; I am half-ashamed to say 
 it aloud. Heine, hush ! listen ! Somehow I have got a strange 
 feeling, just for a day or two, that I am not gcing to die at all, 
 but to live." 
 
 " I am sure of it," cried the girl falling on her knees and 
 throwing her arms round him. " I know it ! It was last night. 
 God did not make up His mind till last night. I felt it in the 
 air. I felt it everywhere. Some angel put it into my head. 
 For all this time I have been making up my mind, and giving 
 you up, Bertie, till yesterday ; something put it into my 
 head — the thought was not mine, or I would not have any 
 faith in it. Something said to me, ' God is thinking it all 
 over again.' Oh, I know ! He would not let them tell you and 
 me both, unless it was true." 
 
 " Do you think so Reine ! do you really think so 1 " said the 
 sick boy — for he was but a boy — with a sudden dev^ in his 
 large liquid exhausted eyes. '* I thought you would laugh at me 
 — no, of course, I don't mean laugh — ^but think it a piece of folly. 
 I thought it must be nonsense myself; but do you really, really, 
 think so too 1 " 
 
 The only answer she could make was to kiss him, dashing off 
 her tears that they might not come upon his face ; and the two 
 kept silent for a moment, two young faces, close together, pale, 
 one with emotion, the other with weakness, half-angelic in their 
 pathetic youthfulnes^ , and the inspiration of this sudden hope, 
 smiles upon their lips, tears in their eyes, and the trembling of 
 a confidence too ethereal for common mortality in the two hearts 
 that beat so close together. There was something even in the 
 utter unreasonableness of their hope which made it more touch- 
 ing, more pathetic still. The boy was less moved than the girl 
 in his weakness, and in the patience which that long appren- 
 ticeship to dying had taught him. It was not so much to him 
 who was going as to her who must remain. 
 
 " If it should be so," he said after a while, almost in a whis- 
 per, " oh, how good we ought to be, Reine ! If I failed of my 
 duty, if I did not do what God meant me to do in everything, 
 if I took to thinking of myself — then it would be better that 
 things had gone on — as they are going." 
 As they were going, Bertie ! " 
 G 
 
 ii 
 
98 
 
 WHITEF.ADIE8. 
 
 " Yon think so, really ; you think so 1 Don't just say it for 
 my feelings, for I don't really mind. I was quite willing, you 
 know, Reme." 
 
 Poor boy ! already he had put his willingness in the past, un- 
 ftwares. 
 
 " Bertie," she said solemnly, " I don't know if you believe in 
 the angels like me. Then tell me how this is ; sometimes I 
 have a thought in the morning which was not there at night ; 
 sometimes when I have been puzzling and wondering what to 
 do — about you, perhaps, about mamma, about one of the manv, 
 many things," said Keine with a celestial face of grave simpli- 
 city, ** which perplex us in life, and all at once I have had a 
 thought which made everything clear. One moment quite in 
 the dark, not seeing what to do ; and the next, with a thought 
 that made everything clear. Now, how did that come, Bertie ? 
 tell me. Not from me — it was put into my head, just as you 
 pull my dress, or touch my arm, and whisper something to me 
 in the dark. I always believe in things that are like this, jpu< 
 into my head." 
 
 Was it wonderful that the boy was easy to convince by this 
 fanciful argument, and took Reine's theory very seriously 1 He 
 was in a state of weakened life and impassioned hope, when 
 the mind is very open to such theories. When the mother 
 came in to hear that Herbert was much better, and that he 
 meant to go out in his wheeled-chair in the afternoon, even she 
 could scarcely guard herself against a gleam of hope. He was 
 certainly better. " For the moment, ch6rie," she said to Reine, 
 who followed her out anxiously to have her opinion ; " for the 
 moment, yes, he is better ; but we cannot look for anything 
 permanent. Do not deceive yourself, ma Reine. It is not to 
 be so." 
 
 " Why is it not to be so ? when I am sure it is to be so ; it 
 shall be so !" cried Reine. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur shook her head. " These rall)rings are 
 very deceitful," she said. " Often, as I told you, they mean only 
 that the end is very near. Almost all those who die of linger- 
 ing chronic illness, like our poor dear, have a last blaze-up in 
 the socket, as it were, before the end. Do not trust to it ; do 
 not build any hopes upon 't, Reine." 
 
 " But I do ; but I will ! " the girl said under her breath with 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 it 
 
 with 
 
 a shudder. When her mother went into those medical details, 
 which she was fond of, Heine shrank always, as if from a blow. 
 <* Yet it is possible that it might bo more than a momentary 
 rally," said Madame de MirHeur. " I am disposed almost to 
 hope so. The perforation may be arrested for t!ie time by this 
 beautiful air and the scent of the pines, (tod grant it ! The 
 doctors have always said it was possible. We must take the 
 greatest care, especially of his nourishment, Heine ; and if I 
 leave you for a little while alone with him " 
 
 " Are you going away, mamma ? " said Heine, with a guilty 
 thrill of pleasure which she rebuked and heartily tried to cast 
 out from her mind ; for had she not pledged herself to be good, 
 to bear everything, never to suffer a thought that was unkind 
 to enter her mind, if only Herbert might recover 1 She dared 
 not risk that healing by permitting within her any movement 
 of feeling that was less than tender and kind. She stopped ac' 
 cordingly and changed her tone, and repeated with eagerness, 
 " Mamma, do you think of going away ? " Madame de Mir- 
 fleur felt that there was a difference in the tone with which 
 these two identical sentences were spoken ; but she was not 
 nearly enough in sympathy with her daughter to divine what 
 that difference meant. 
 
 " If Herbert continues to get better — and if the doctor thinks 
 well of him when he comes tomorrow — I think I will venture 
 to return home for a little while, to see how everything is going 
 on." Madame de Mirfleur was half apologetic in her tone. "I 
 am not like you, Heine," she said, kissing her daughter's cheek, 
 " I have so many things to think of ; 1 am torn in so many 
 pieces ; dear Herbert here ; the little ones li-bas ; and my hus- 
 band. What a benediction of God is this relief in the midst 
 of our anxiety, if it will but last ! Gh^rie, if the doctor thinks 
 as we do, I will leave you with Fran9oi8 to take care of my 
 darling boy, while I go and see that all is going well in Nor- 
 mandy. See ! I was afraid to hope ; and now your hope, ma 
 Heine, has overcome me and stolen into my heart." 
 
 Yesterday this speech would have roused one of the devils 
 who tempted her in Heine's thoughts — and even now the evil 
 impulse swelled upwards and struggled for the mastery, whis- 
 pering that Madame de Mirfleur was thinking more of the home 
 " 1^-bas," than of poor Herbert ; that she was glad to seize the 
 
100 
 
 WHITELADlES. 
 
 opportunity to get away, and a hundred other evil thingi9. 
 Keine grew crimson, her mother could not tell why. It wiis 
 with her struggle, poor child, to overcome this wicked thought 
 and to cast from her mind all iuterpretations of her mother's 
 conduct except the kindest one. The girl grew red with the 
 effort she made to hold fast by her pledge and resist all temp- 
 tation. It was better to let her mind be a blank without thought 
 at all, than to allow evil thoughts to come in after she had prom- 
 ised to God to abandon them. I do not think Reine had any 
 idea that she was paying a price for Herbert's amendment by 
 " being good," as she had vowed in her simpKcity to be. It 
 was gratitude, profound and trembling, that the innocent soul 
 within her longed to express by this means ; but still J think 
 all unawares she had a feeling— which made her determination 
 to be good still more pathetically strong — ^that perhaps if God 
 saw her gratitude and her purpose fail, He might be less dis- 
 posed to continue His great blessings to one so forgetful of them. 
 Thus, as constantly happens in human affairs, the generous 
 sense of gratitude longing to express itself, mingled with that 
 secret fear of being found wanting, which lies at the Ijottom of 
 every heart. Reine could not disentangle them any more than 
 I can, or any son of Adam ; but fortunately, she was less aware 
 of the mixture than we are who look on. 
 
 '* Yes, mamma/' she answered at length, with a meekness 
 quite unusual to her, '^ I am sure you must want to see the lit- 
 tle ones ; it is only natural." This was all that Reine cou' i 
 manage to stammer forth. 
 
 '^ N'est ce pas ? " said the mother pleased though she could 
 not read her daughter's thoughts, with this acknowledgment 
 of the rights and claims of her other children. Madame de 
 Mirfleur loved to mdnagerj and was fond of feeling herself to be 
 a woman disturbed with many diverse cares, and generally 
 sacrificing herself to some one of them ; but she had a great 
 deal of natural affe<'tion, and was glad to have something like 
 a willing assent on the part of her troublesome girl to the " other 
 ties," which she was herself too much disposed to bring in 
 on all occasions. She kissed Reine very affectionately, and 
 we it off again to write to her husband a description of the 
 change. 
 
 *' He IS better, unquestionably better/' she said. " At first 
 
things. 
 
 [t Wc^S 
 
 iiought 
 other's 
 th the 
 [ temp- 
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 1 prom- 
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 lent by 
 be. It 
 nt soul 
 r think 
 ination 
 if God 
 ess dis- 
 f them, 
 jnerous 
 th that 
 fctom of 
 re than 
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 eekness 
 
 the lit- 
 
 e cou'i 
 
 e could 
 idgment 
 lame de 
 ilf to be 
 merally 
 a great 
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 " other 
 >ring in 
 ly, and 
 1 of the 
 
 At first 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 101 
 
 I feared it was the last gleam before the end ; but I almost 
 hope now it may be somethiiig more lasting. Ah, if my poor 
 Herbert be but spared, what a benediction for all of us, and his 
 little brothers and sisters ! I know you will not be jealous, mon 
 cher ami, of my love for my boy. If the doctor thinks well I 
 shall leave this frightful village to-morrow and be with thee as 
 quickly as I can travel. What happiness, bon Dieu, to see our 
 own house again 1 " She added in a P. S., " Eeine is very ami- 
 able to me ; hope and happiness, mon ami, are better for some 
 natures than sorrow She is so much softer and humbler since 
 her brother was better." Poor Reine ! Thus it will be per- 
 ceived that Madame de Mirfleur, like most of her nation, was 
 something of a philosopher too. 
 
 When Reine was left alone she did not even then make any 
 1 emark to herself upon mamma's eagerness to get away to her 
 children, whose very names on ordinary occasions the girl dis- 
 liked to hear. To punish and school herself now she recalled 
 them deliberately. Jeanot and Camille and little Babette, all 
 French to their finger-tips, spoilt children, whose ears the Eng- 
 lish sister, herself trained in nursery proprieties under Miss 
 Susan's rule, had longed to box many times. She resolved now 
 to buy some of the carved wood which haunts the traveller at 
 every corner in Switzerland for them, and be very good to them 
 when she saw them again. Oh, how good Reine meant to be ! 
 Tender visions of an ideal purity arose in her mind Herbert 
 and she — the one raised from the brink of the grave, the other 
 still more blesbcd in receiving him from that shadow of death 
 — how could they ever be good en'^ugh, gentle enough, kind 
 enough, to show their gratitude t Reine's young soul seemed 
 to float in a very haaven of gentler meanings, of peace with all 
 men, of charity and tenJerness. Never, she vowed to herself, 
 should poor man cross her path without being the better for 
 it ; never a tear fall that she could dry. Herbert, when she 
 went to him, was much of the same mind. He had begun to 
 believe in himself and in life, with all those unknown blessings 
 which the boy had sweetly relinquished, scarcely knowing 
 them, but which now seemed to come back fluttering about his 
 head on sunny wings, like the swallows returning with the 
 summer. Herbert was younger even than his years, in heart, 
 at least — in consequence of his long ill-health and seclusion. 
 
 il 
 
102 
 
 WH7TELADIES. 
 
 and the entire retirement from a boy's ordinary pursuits which 
 that had made necessary ; and I do not think that he had ever 
 ventured to realize warmly, as in his feebleness he was now 
 doing through that visionary tender light which is the preroga- 
 tive of youth, all the beauty and brightness and splenc^our of 
 life. Heretofore he had turned nis eyes from it, knowing that 
 his doom had gone forth, and with a gentle philosophy avoid- 
 ed the sight of that which he could never enjoy. But lo ! now, 
 an accidental improvement, or what might prove but an ac- 
 cidental improvement acting upon a fantastic notion of Reine's, 
 had placed him all at once, to his own consciousness, in 
 the position of a rescued man. He was not much like a 
 man rescued, but rather one trembling already at the gates of 
 death, as he crept downstairs on Fran9ois'8 arm to his chair. 
 The other travellers in the place stood by r<?ispectfully to let 
 him pass, and lingered after he had passed, looking after him 
 with pit^ and low comments to each other. " Not long for this 
 world," said one au^I another shaking their heads ; while Her- 
 bert, poor fellow, feeling his wheel-chair to be something like a 
 victor's car, held his sisier's hand as they went slowly along 
 the road towards the waterfall, and talked to her of what they 
 should do when they got home. It might have been heaven 
 they were going to instead of Whiteladies, so bright were their 
 beautiful young resolutions, their innocent plans. They meant, 
 you may be sure, to make a heaven on earth of their Berk- 
 shire parish, to turn Whiteladies into a celestial palace and 
 House Beautiful, and to be good as two children, as ^ood as 
 angels. How beautiful to them was the village road, the moun- 
 tain stream running strong under the bridge, the waves wash- 
 ing on the pebbly edge, the heather and herbage that en- 
 croached upon the smoothness of the way ! " We m"st not 
 go to the waterfall, it is too far and the road is -ough; but we 
 will mst here a little where the air comes through the pines. 
 I*, is as pretty here as anywhere," said Reine. " Pretty ! you 
 mean it is beautiful ; everything is beautiful," said Herbert, 
 who had not been out of doors before since his arrival, lying 
 ba^li in his chair and looking at the sky, across which some 
 flimsy cloudlets were floating. It chilled Reine somehow in 
 the midst of her joy, to see how naturally his eyes turned to 
 the sky. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 103 
 
 "Never mind the clouds, Bertie dear," she said hastily, 
 " look down the valley, how beautiful it is ; or let Fran9oi8 
 turn t he chair round, and then you can see the mount lins." 
 
 " Must I give up the sky then as if I had nothing more to 
 do with it ? " said Herbert with a boyish, pleasant laugh. 
 Even this speech made Reine tremble ; for might not God per- 
 haps think that they were taking Him too quickly at His word 
 and making too sure 1 
 
 ♦* The great thing," she said, eluding the question, " is to be 
 near the pines ; everybody says the pines are so good. Let 
 them breathe upon you, Bertie, and make you strong." 
 
 " At their pleasure," said Herbert smiling and turning his 
 pale head towards the strong trees, murmuring with odorous 
 breath overhead. The sunshine glowed and burned upon their 
 great red trunks, and the dark foliage which stood close and 
 gave forth no reflection. The bees filled the air with a con- 
 tinuous hum, which seemed the very voice of the warm after- 
 noon, of the sunshine which brought forth every flimsy insect 
 and grateful flower among the grass. Herbert sat listening in si- 
 lence for some time, in that beatitude of gentle emotion which 
 after danger is over is so sweet to the sufferer. " Sing 
 me something, Reine," he said at lr«st, in the caprice of that 
 delightful mood. Reine was seated on a stone by the side of 
 the road, with a broad hat shading her eyes, and a white para- 
 sol over her head. She did not wait to be asked a second time. 
 What would she not have done at Herbert's wish 1 She looked 
 at him tenderly where he sat in his chair under the shadow of 
 a kindly pine which seemed to have stepped out of the wood 
 on purpose — and without more ado began to sing. Many a 
 time had she sang to him when her heart was sick to death, 
 and it took all her strength to form the notes ; but to-day 
 Reine's soul was easy and at home, and she could put all her 
 heart into it. She sang the little air that Everard Austin 
 had whistled as he came through the green lanes towards White- 
 ladies, making Miss Susan's heart glad : — 
 
 •* Ce que je desire, et que j'aime, 
 C est tou jours toi, 
 De mon &me le bien supreme 
 
 C'est encore toi, c'est encore toi." 
 
104 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Some village children came and made a little group round them 
 listening, and the tourists in the village, much surprised, 
 gathered about the bridge to listen too, wondering. Reine did 
 not mind ; she was singing for Herbert, no one else ; and what 
 did it matter who might be near l 
 
 { 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 106 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EltBii^RT continued much better next day. It had 
 done him good to be out, and already Fran9ois, with 
 that confidence in all simple natural remedies which 
 the French, and indeed all continental nations, have so much 
 more strongly than we, asserted boldly that it was the pines 
 which had already done so much for his young master. I do 
 not think that Beine and Herbert, being half English, had 
 much faith in the pines. They referred the improvement at 
 once, and directly, to a higher hand, and were glad, poor child- 
 ren, to think that no means h]ul been necessary, but that God 
 had done it simply by willing it, in that miraculous simple way 
 which seems so natural to the primitive soul. The doctor, when 
 he came next day upon his weekly visit from Thun or Interla- 
 ken, was entirely taken by surprise. I believe that from week 
 to week he had scarcely expected to see his patient living ; and 
 now he was up, and out, coming back to something like appe- 
 tite and ease, and as full of hope as youth could be. The doctor 
 shook his head, but was soon infected, like the others, by this 
 atmosphere of hopefulness. He allowed that a wonderful pro- 
 gress had been made ; that there always were special circum- 
 stances in this case which made it unlike other cases, and left 
 a margin for unexpected results. And when Madame de Mir- 
 fleur took him aside to ask about the state of the tissue, and 
 whether the perforations were arrested, he still said, though 
 with hesitation and shakings of the head, that he could not say 
 that it might not be the beginning of a permanently favourable 
 turn in the disease, or that healing processes might not have 
 set in. " Such cases are very unlikely," he said. " They are 
 of the nature of miracles, and we are very reluctant to believe 
 in them ; but still at M. Austin's age, it is impossible to deny 
 that results utterly unexpected happen sometimes. Sometimes 
 at rare intervals ; and no one can calculate upon them. It 
 might be that it was really the commcacement of a permanent 
 improvement ; and nothing can be better for him than the 
 hopeful state of mind in v/hich he is." 
 
106 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " Then, M. le docteur," said Madame de Mirfleur, anxiously, 
 " you think that I may leave him 1 You think I may go and 
 visit my husband and my little ones, for a little time — a very 
 little time — without fear ? " 
 
 " Nothing is impossible," said the doctor, " nor can I guar- 
 antee anything till we see how M. Austin goes on. If the im- 
 provement continues for a week or two " 
 
 " But I shall be back in a week or two," said the woman, 
 whose heart was torn asunder, in a tone of dismay ; and at 
 length she managed to extort from the doctor something which 
 she took for a permission. It was not that she loved Herbert 
 less — but perhaps it was natural that she should love the babies, 
 and the husband whose name she bore, and who had separated 
 her from the life to which the other family belonged — more. 
 Madame de Mirfleur did not enter into any analysis of her 
 feelings, as she hurried in a flutter of pleasant excitement to 
 pack her necessaries for the home journey. Reine, always domi- 
 nated by that tremulous determination to be good at any cost, 
 carefully refrained also, but with more difficulty, from any 
 questioning with herself about her mother's sentiments. She 
 made the best of it to Herbert, who was somewhat surprised 
 that his mother should leave him, having acquired that confi- 
 dence of the sick in the fact of their own importance, to which 
 everything must give way. He was not wounded, being too 
 certain, poor boy, of being the first object in his little circle, 
 but he was surprised. 
 
 " Reflect, Herbert, mamma has other people to think of. 
 There are the little ones ; little children are constantly having 
 measles, and colds, and indigestion ; and then M. de Mir- 
 fleur " 
 
 " I thought you disliked to think of M. de Mirfleur, Reine." 
 
 " Ah ! so I do ; but, Bertie, I have been very unkind, I have 
 hated him, and been angry with mamma, without reason. It 
 seems to be natural to some people to marry," said the girl, 
 after a pause, " and we ought not to judge them ; it is not 
 wrong M wish that one's mother belonged to one, that ?he did 
 not belong to other people, is it *? But that is all. Mamma 
 thought otherwise. Bertie, we were little, and we were so much 
 away in England. Six months in the year, fancy ; and then 
 she must have been lonely. We do not take these things into 
 
WHITELADTES. 
 
 107 
 
 of. 
 
 account when we are children," said Reine ; " but after, when 
 we can think, many things become clear." 
 
 It was thus with a certain grandeur of indulgence and benevo- 
 lence that the two young people saw their mother go away. 
 That she should have a husband and children at all was a ter- 
 rible infringement of the ideal, and brought her down unques- 
 tionably to a lower level in their primitive world ; but granting 
 the husband and the children, as it was necessary to do, no 
 doubt sh3 had, upon that secondary level, a certain duty to 
 them. They bade her good-bye tenderly, their innate disap- 
 proval changing, with their altered moral view, from irritation 
 and disappointment into a condescending sweetness. " Poor 
 mamma ! I do not see that it was possible for her to avoid go- 
 ing," Reine said ; and perhaps, after all, it was this disapproved 
 of, and by no means ideal mother, who felt the separation most 
 keenly when the moment came. When a woman takes a 
 second life upon her, no doubt she must resign herself to 
 give up something of the sweetness of the first ; and it would 
 be demanding too much of human nature to expect that 
 the girl and boy, who were fanciful and even fantastic in 
 their poetical and visionary youth, could be as reverent of their 
 mother as if she had altogether belonged to theuL Men and 
 women, 1 fear, will never be equal in this world, were all con- 
 ventional and outside bonds removed to-morrow. The widow- 
 er-father does not descend from ..ny pedestal when he forms 
 what Madame de Mirfleur called " new ties," as does the widow- 
 mother ; and it will be a strange world,, when, if ever, we come 
 to expect no more from women than we do from men ; it being 
 granted, sure enough, that in other ways more is to be expected 
 from men than from women. Herbert sat in his chair on the 
 balcony to see her go away, smiling and waving his thin hand 
 to his mother ; and Reine, at the carriage-door, kissed her 
 blandly, and watched her drive off with a tender patronizing 
 sense that it was quite natural. But the mother, poor woman, 
 though she was quite eager to get away, and had " other ties " 
 awaiting her, looked at them through eyes half blinded with 
 tears, and felt a pang of inferiority of which she had never be- 
 fore been sensible. She was not an ideal personage, but she 
 felt, without knowing how, the loss of her position, and that 
 descent from the highest, by which she had purchased her hap- 
 
108 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 pinesB. These momentary sensations would be a great deal 
 more hard upon us if we could define them to ourselves, as you 
 and I, dear reader, can define them when we see them thus 
 going on before us ; but fortunately few people have the gift to 
 do this in their own case. So that Madame de Mirfleur only 
 knew that her heart was wrung with pain to leave her boy, 
 who might be dying still, notwithstanding his apparent im- 
 provement. And, by-and-by, as her home became nearer, and 
 Herbert farther off, the balance turned involuntarily, and she 
 felt only how deep must be her own maternal tenderness when 
 the pang of leaving Herbert could thus overshadow her pleasure 
 in the thought of meeting all the rest. 
 
 Reine came closer to her brother when she went back to 
 him, with a sense that if she had not been trying with all her 
 might to be good, she would have felt injured and angry at 
 her mother's desertion. " I don't know so much as mamma, 
 but I know how to take care of you, Bertie," she said, smooth- 
 ing back the hair from his forehead, with that low caressing 
 coo of tenderness which mothers use to their children. 
 
 " You hare always been my nurse, Reine," he said grateful- 
 ly — then after a pause — " and by-and-by I mean to require no 
 nursing, but to take care of you." 
 
 And thus they went out again, feeling half happy, half for- 
 saken, but gradually grew happier and happier, as once more 
 the air from the pines blew about Herbert's head ; and he got 
 out of his chair on Frangois's arm and walked into the wood, 
 trembling a little in his feebleness, but glad beyond words, and 
 full of infinite hope. It was the first walk he had taken, and 
 Reine magnified it, till it came to look, as Bertie said, as if he 
 had crossed the pass without a guide, and was the greatest pe- 
 destrian in all the KanderthaJ. He sat up to dinner, after a 
 rest ; and how they laughed over it, and talked, projecting ex- 
 peditions of every possible and impossible kind, to which the 
 Gemmi was nothing, and feeling their freedom from all com? 
 ment, and happy privilege of being as foolish as they pleased ! 
 Grave Frangois even smiled at them as he served their simple 
 meal ; *' Enfants ! " he said, as they burst into soft peals of 
 laughter — unusual and delicious laughter, which had sounded 
 so sick and faint in the chamber to which death seemed always 
 approaching. They had the heart to laugh now, these two young 
 
WHlTELADlES. 
 
 109 
 
 creatures, alone in the world. But Fran(ioi8 did not object to 
 their laughter, or think it indecorous, by reason of the strong 
 faith he had in the pines, which seemed to him, after so many 
 things that had been tried in vain, at last the real cure. 
 
 Thus they went on for a week or more, after Madame de 
 Mirfleur left them, as happy as two babies, doing (with close 
 regard to Herbert's weakness and necessities) what seemed 
 good in their own eyes — going out daily, sitting in the balcony, 
 watching the parties of pilgrims who came and went, amusing 
 themselves (now that the French mother was absent, before 
 whom neither boy nr girl would betray that their English 
 country-folks were less than perfect) over the British tourist* 
 with their alpenstocks. Such of these same tourists as lingered 
 in the valley grew very tender of the invalid and his sister, 
 happily unaware that Reine laughed at thenL They said to 
 each other, " He is looking much better," and, " What a 
 change in a few days ! " and, " Please God, the poor young 
 fellow will come round after all." The ladies would have liked 
 to go and kiss Reine, and God bless her for a good girl devoted 
 to her sick brother ; and the men would have been fain to pat 
 Herbert on the shoulder, and bid him keep a good heart, and 
 get well, to reward his pretty sister, if for nothing else ; while 
 all the time the boy and girl, Heaven help them, made fun of 
 the British tourists from their balcony, and felt themselves as 
 happy as the day was long, fear and the shadow of death hav- 
 ing melted quite away. 
 
 I am loth to break upon thi& gentle time, or show how their 
 hopes came to nothing ; or at least sank for the time in deeper 
 darkness than ever. One sultry afternoon the pair sallied forth 
 with the intention of staying in the pine-wood a little longer 
 than usual, as Herbert daily grew stronger. It was very hot, 
 not a leaf astir, and insupportable in the littlo rooms, where 
 all the walls were baked, and the sun blazing upon the closed 
 shutters. Once under the pines, there would be nature and 
 air, and there they could stay till the sun was setting ; for no 
 harm could come to the tenderest invalid on such a day. But 
 as the afternoon drew on, ominous clouds appeared over the 
 snow of the hills, and before preparations could be made to 
 meet it one of the sudden storms of mountainous countries 
 broke upon the KanderthaL Deluges of rain swept down from 
 
110 
 
 WHITELADlES. 
 
 the sky, an hour ago so blue, rain and hail in ^reat solid drops 
 like stones beating against the wayfarer. When it was dis- 
 covered that the brother and sister were out of doors, the little 
 inn was in an immediate commotion. One sturdy British 
 tourist, most laughable of all, who had just returned with a red 
 face, peeled and smarting, from a long walk in the sun, rushed 
 at the only mule that was to be had, and harnessed it himself, 
 wildly swearing (may it be forgiven him !) unintelligible oaths, 
 into the only covered vehicle in the place, and lashed the brute 
 into a reluctant gallop, jolting on the shaft or running by the 
 side in such a state of redness and moisture as is possible only 
 to an Englishman of sixteen stone weight. They huddled 
 Herbert, faintly smiling his thanks, and Keine, trembling and 
 drenched, and deadly pale, into the rude carriage, and jolted 
 them back over the stony road, the British tourist rushing on 
 in advance to order brandy and water enough to have drowned 
 Herbert. But, alas ! the harm was done. It is a long way to 
 Thun from the Kanderthal, but the doctor was sent for, and 
 the poor lad had every attention that in such a place it vas 
 possible to give him. Reine went back to her seat by the bed- 
 side with a change as from life to death in her face. She would 
 not believe it when the doctor spoke to her, gravely shaking 
 his head once more, and advised that her mother should be 
 sent for. " You must not be alone," he said, looking at her 
 pitifully, and in his heart wondering what kind of stuff the 
 mother was made of who could leave such a pair of children in 
 such circumstances. He had taken Reine out of the room to 
 say this to her, and to add that he would himself telegraph, as 
 soon as he got back to Thun, for Madame de Mirfleur. " One 
 cannot tell what may happen within the next twenty-four 
 hours," said the doctor, "and you must not be alone." Then 
 poor Reine's pent-up soul burst forth. What was the use of 
 being good, of trying so hard, so hard, as she had done, to 
 make the best of ever3rthing, to blame no one, to be tender, 
 and kind, and charitable t She had tried, Heaven, with all 
 her heart and might ; and this was what it had come back to 
 again ! 
 
 •• Oh, don't ! don't I " she cried, in sharp anguish. " No ; let 
 me have him all to myself. I love him. No one else does. Oh, 
 let her alone 1 She has her husband and her children. She 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 was glad when m^ Bertie was better, that she might go to 
 them. Why should she come back now 1 What is he to her 1 
 the last, the farthest ofif, less dear than the baby, not half so 
 much to her as her house and her husband, a id all the new 
 things she cares for. But he is everything to me, all I have, 
 and all I want. Oh, let us alone ! let us alone i " 
 
 " Dear young lady," said the compassionate doctor, " your 
 grief is too much for you ; you don't know what you say." 
 
 "Oh, I know ! I know 1" cried Reine. "She was glad he 
 was better, that she might go ; that was all she thought of. 
 Don't send for her ; I could not bear to see her. She will say 
 she knew it all the time, and blame you fo. letting her go — 
 though you know she longed to go. Oh, let me have him to 
 myself! I care for nothing else — nothing now — nothing in the 
 world!" 
 
 " You must not say so ; you will kill yourself," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Oh, I wish, I wish I could ; that would be the best. If 
 ym would only kill me with Bertie ! but you have not the 
 courage — you dare not. Then, doctor, leave us together — 
 leave us alone, brother and sister. 1 have no one but him, 
 and he has no one but me. Mamma is married ; she has others 
 to think of; leave my Bertie to me. I know how to nurse 
 him, doctor," said Reine, clasping her hands. " I have always 
 done it, since I was so high ; he is used to me, and he likes me 
 best. Oh, let me havo him all to myself ! " 
 
 These words went to the hearts of those who heard them ; 
 and, indeed, there were on the landing several persons waiting 
 who heard them — some English ladies, who had stopped in 
 their journey out of pity to " be of use to the poor young 
 creature," they said ; and the landlady of the inn, who was 
 waiting outside to hear how Herbert was. The doctor, who 
 was a compassionate man, as doctors usually are, gave them 
 what satisfaction he could ; but that was very small He said 
 he would send for the mother, of course ; but, in the meantime, 
 recommended that no one should interfere with Reine unless 
 " something should happen." " Do you think it likely any- 
 thing should happen before you come back ? " asked one of the 
 awe-stricken women. But the doctor only shook his head, and 
 said he could answer for nothing ; but that in case anything 
 
112 
 
 WHITELADIKH. 
 
 happened, one of them should take charge of lieine. More 
 than one kind-hearted stranger in the little inn kept awake 
 that night, thinking of the poor forlorn girl and dying boy, 
 whose touching union had been noted by all the village. The 
 bi^ Englishman who had brought them home out of the storm, 
 cned like a baby in the coffee-room as he told to some new- 
 comers how Keine had sat singing songs to her brother, and 
 how the poor bov had mended, and began to look like life 
 again. " If it had not been for this accursed storm I " cried 
 the good man, upon which one of the new arrivals rebuked 
 him. There was little thought of in the village that night but 
 the two young Englanders, without their mother, or a friend 
 near them. But when the morning came, Herbert still lived i 
 he lived through that dreary day upon the little strength he 
 had acquired during his temporary improvement. During this 
 terrible time Reine would not leave him except by moments 
 now and then, when she would go out on the balcony and look 
 up blank and tearless to the skies, which were so bright again. 
 Ah ! why were they bright, after all the harm was done 1 Had 
 they covered themselves with clouds, it would have been more 
 befitting, after all they had brought about. I cannot describe 
 the misery in Reine./ heart. It was something more, some- 
 thing harder and more bitter than ^rief. She had a bewildered 
 sense that God himself had wronged her, making her believe 
 something which He did not mean to come true. How could 
 she pray T She had prayed once, and had been answered, she 
 thought, and then cast aside, and all her happiness turned into 
 woe. If He had said No at first it would have been hard 
 enough, but she could have borne it ; but He had seemed to 
 grant, and then had withdrawn the blessing ; He had mocked 
 her with a delusive reply. Poor Reine felt giddy in the world, 
 having lost the centre of it, the soul of it, the God to whom 
 she could appeal. She had cast herself rashly upon this ordeal 
 by fire, staked her faith of every day, her child's confidence, 
 upon a miracle, and, holding out her hand for it, had found it 
 turn to nothing. She stood dimly looking out from the bal- 
 cony on the third night after Herbert's relapse. The stars 
 were coming out in the dark sky, and to anybody but Reine, 
 who observed nothing external, the wind was cold. She stood 
 in a kind of trance, saying nothing, feeling the wind blow upon 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 lis 
 
 her with the scent of the pines, which made her sick ; and the 
 starslooktid coldly at her, friends no longer, but alien inquisitive 
 lights peering out of an unfriendly heaven. Herbert lay in an 
 uneasy sleep, weary and restless as are the dying, asking in his 
 dreams to be raised up, to have the window opened, to get 
 more air. Restless, too, with the excitement upon her of what 
 was coming, she had wandered out, blank to all external sounds 
 and sights, not for the sake of the air, but only to relieve the 
 misery which nothing relieved. She did not even notice the 
 nairiage coming along the darkening road, which the people at 
 the inn were watching eagerly, hoping that it brought the 
 mother. Heine was too much exhausted by this time to think 
 even of her mother. She was still standing in the same atti- 
 tude, neither hearing nor noticing, when the carriage drew up 
 at the door. The excitement of the inn people had subsided, 
 for it had been apparent for some time that the inmate of the 
 carriage was a man. He jumped lightly down at the door, a 
 young man light of step and of heart, but paused, and looked 
 up at the figure in the balcony, which stood so motionless, 
 seeming to watch him. " Ah, Reine ! is it you 1 I came off 
 at once to congratulate you," he said, in his cheery English 
 voice. It was Everard Austin, who had heard of Herbert's 
 wonderful amendment, and had come on at once, impulsive 
 and sanguine, to take part in their joy. That was more in his 
 way than consoling suffering, though he had a kind heart. 
 
114 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ]f^\ ISS SUSAN'S absence from home had been a very 
 short one— she left and returned within the week^ 
 and during this time matters went on very quietly at 
 Whiteladies. The servants had their own way in most things 
 — they gave Miss Augustine her spare meals when they pleased, 
 though Martha, left in charge, stood over her to see that she ate 
 something. But Stephens stood upon no ceremony — he toot 
 off his coat and went into the garden, which was his weakness, 
 and there enjoyed a can ival of digging and dibbling, until the 
 gardener grumbled, who was not disposed to have his plants 
 meddled with. 
 
 " He has been a touching of my geraniums," said this funct- 
 ionary ; "what do he know about a garden 1 Do you ever see 
 me a poking of myself into the pantry a cleaning of his spoons 1 " 
 
 " No, bless you," said the cook ; " nobody don't see you a 
 putting of your hand to work as you ain't forced to. You 
 know better, Mr. Smithers." 
 
 " That ain't it, that ain't it," said Smithers, somewhat dis- 
 comfited ; and he went out forthwith, and made an end of the 
 amateur. " Either it's my garden, or it ain't," said the man of 
 the spade ; " if it is, you'll get out o' that in ten minutes' time. 
 I can't be bothered with fellers here as don't know the differ- 
 ence between a petuniar and a nasty choking rubbish of a 
 bindweed." 
 
 " You might speak a little more civil to them as helps you," 
 said Stephens, humbled by an unfortunate mistake he had 
 made ; but still not without some attempt at self assertion. 
 
 " Help ! you wait till I asks you for your help," said the 
 gardener. And thus Stevens was driven back to his coat, his 
 pantry, and the proprieties of life, before Miss Susan's return. 
 
 As for Augustine, she gathered her poor people round her 
 in the Almshouse chapel every morning, and said her prayers 
 among the pensioners, whom she took so much pains to guiae 
 in their devotion, for the benefit of her family a^rd the expia- 
 
 . ^ 
 
 \ 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 116 
 
 »> 
 
 \^ 
 
 tion of their sins. The poor people in the Almshouses were 
 not perhaps more pious than any other equal number of people 
 in the village : but they all hobbled to their seats in the chapel, 
 and said their Amens, led by Josiah Tolladay — who had been 
 parish clerk in his day, and pleased himself in this shadow of 
 his ancient office — with a certain fervour. Some of them grum- 
 bled, as who does not grumble at a set duty, whatever it may 
 be 1 but I think the routine of the daily service was rather a 
 blessing to most of them, giving them a motive for exerting 
 themselves, for putting on clean crps, and brushing their olil 
 coats. The Almshouses lay near the entrance of the village 
 of St. Austin's, a square of old red-brick houses, built two hun- 
 dred years ago, with high dormer windows, and red walls, mel- 
 lowed into softness bv age. They had been suffered to fall into 
 decay by several generations of Austins, but had been restored 
 to thorough repair and to their original use by Miss Augustine 
 who had added a great many conveniences and advantages, un- 
 thought of in former days, to the little cottages, and had done 
 everything that could be done to make the lives of her beads- 
 men and beadswomen agreeable. She was great herself on the 
 duty of self-denial, fasted much, and liked to punish her deli- 
 cate and fragile outer woman, which, poor soul, had little strength 
 to spare ; but she petted her pensioners, and made a great deal of 
 their little ailments, and kept the cook at Whiteladies constantly 
 occupied for them, making dainty dishes to tempt the appetites 
 of old humbugs of both sexes, who could eat their own plain 
 food very heartily when this kind and foolish lady was out of 
 the way. She was so ready to indulge them, that old Mrs. 
 Tolladay was quite right in calling the gentle foundress, the 
 abstract, self-absorbed, devotional creature, whose life was de- 
 dicated to prayer for her family, a great temptation to her 
 neighbours. Miss Augustine was so anxious to make up for all 
 her grandfathers and grandmothers had done, and to earn a 
 pardon for their misdeeds, that she could deny nothing to her 
 poor. The Almshouses formed a square of tiny cottages, with 
 a large garden in the midst, which absorbed more plants, the 
 gardener said, than all the gardens at Whiteladies. The en- 
 trance from the road was through a gateway, over which was 
 a clock tower ; and in this part of the building were situated 
 the pretty quaint little rooms occupied by the chaplain. Right 
 
116 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 opposite, at the other end of the garden, was the chapel ; and 
 all the houses opened upon the garden, which -^ as pretty and 
 bright with flowers, with a large grass-plot in the midst, and a 
 fine old mulberry tree, under which the old people woul \ sit 
 and bask in the sunshine. There were about thirty of them, 
 seven or eight houses on each side of the square — a large num- 
 ber to be maintained by one family ; but I suppose the fii-st 
 Austins had entertained a due sense of their own wickedness, 
 and felt that no small price was required to buy them oflf. Half 
 of these peoplo at least, however, were now at Miss Augus- 
 tine's charges. The endowment, being in land, and in a situ- 
 ation where land rises comparatively little in value, had ceased 
 to be sufficient for so large a number of pensioners — and at 
 least half of the houses had been left vacant, and falling into 
 decay in the time of the late Squire and his father. It 
 had been the enterprise of Miss Augustine's life to set this 
 family charity fully forth again, according to the ordinance of 
 the firs* founder — and almost all her fortune was dedicated to 
 that and to the new freak of the chantry. She had chosen her 
 poor people herself from the village and neighbourhood, and 
 perhaps on the whole they were not badly chosen. She had 
 selected the chaplain herself, a quaint prim little old man, with 
 a wife not unlike himself, who fitted into the rooms in the 
 tower, and whose object in life for their first two years had 
 been to smooth down Miss Augustine, and keep her within the 
 limits of good sense. Happily they had given that over before 
 the time at which this story commences, and now contented 
 themselves with their particular mission to the old almspeople 
 themselves. These were enough to give them full occupation. 
 They were partly old couples, husband and wife, and partly 
 widows and single people ; an«i they were as various in their 
 characteristics as every group of human persons are, " a sad 
 nandful," as old Mr&. ToUaday said. Dr. Richard and his wife 
 had enough to do, to keep them in order, what with Miss Au- 
 gustine's vagarios, and what with the peculiarities of the Aus- 
 tin pensioners themselves. 
 
 The two principal sides of the square, facing each ot^er — the 
 gate side and the chapel side — had each a faction oi its own. 
 The chapel side was led by old Mrs. Matthews, who was the 
 most prayerful woman in the community, or at least had the 
 
 I 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 117 
 
 credit among her own set of being so — the gate side, by Sai ah 
 Stort.on, once the laundress at Whiteladies, who was, I fear, a 
 very mundane personage, and did not hesitate to speak her mind 
 to Miss Augustine herself. Old Mrs. Tolladay lived on the 
 south side, and was the critic and historian, or bard, of both 
 the factions. She was the wife of the old clerk, who rang the 
 chapel bell and led with infinite self-importance the irregular 
 fire of Amens, which was so trying to Dr. Richard ; but many 
 of the old folks were deaf, and not a few stupid, and how could 
 they be expected to keep time in the responsea 1 Old Mrs. Mat- 
 thews, who had been a Methodist once upon a time, and still 
 was suspected of proclivities towards chapel, would groan now 
 and then, without any warning, in the middle of the service, 
 making Dr. Richard, whose nerves were sensitive, jump ; and 
 on summer days, when the weather was hot, and the chapel 
 close and drowsy, some of the old men would indulge in an 
 occasional snore, quickly strangled by his helpmate — which 
 had a still stronger effect on the Doctor's nerves. John Sim- 
 mons, who had no wife to wake him, was the worst offender on 
 such occasions. He lived on the north side, in the darkest 
 and coldest of all the cottages, and would drop his head upon 
 his old breast, and dose contentedly, filling the little chapel 
 with audible indications of his beatific repose. Once Miss Au- 
 gustine herself had risen from her place, and walking solemnly 
 down the chapel, in the midst of the awestricken people, had 
 awakened John, taking her slim white hand out of her long 
 sleeves, and making him start with a cold touch upon his should- 
 er. " It will be best to stay away out of God's house if you cannot 
 join in our prayers," Miss Augustine had said, words which in 
 his fright and compunction the old man did not understand. 
 He thought he was to be turned out of his poor little cold cot- 
 tage, which was a palace to him, and awaited the next Mon- 
 day, on which he received his weekly pittance from the chap- 
 lain, with terrified expectation. " Be I to go, sir 1 " said old 
 John, trembling in all his old limbs ; for he had but " the 
 House " before him as an alternative, and the reader knows 
 what a horror that alternative is to most poor folks. 
 
 " Miss Augustine has said nothing about it," said Dr. Rich- 
 ard ; "but John, you must not snore in church ; if you will sleep, 
 which is very reprehensible, why should you snore, John 1 " 
 
118 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I. 
 i 
 
 " It's my misfortune, sir," said the old man. " I was always 
 a snoring sleeper, God forgive me ; there's many a one, as you 
 say, sir, as can take his nap quiet, and no one know nothing 
 about it : but Doctor, I don't mean no harm, und it ain't, my 
 fault." 
 
 " You must take care not to sleep, John," said Dr. Richard, 
 shaking his head, " that is the great thing. You'll not snore 
 if you don't sleep." 
 
 " I donnow that," said John doubtfully, taking up his shil- 
 lings. The old soul was hazy, and did not quite know what 
 he was blamed for. Of all the few enjoyments he had, that 
 summer dose in the warm atmosphere was perhaps the sweetest. 
 Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care — John felt it 
 was one of the best things in this world, though he did not 
 know what any idle book had said. 
 
 At nine o'clock every morning James Tolladay sallied out of 
 his cottage, with the key of the chapel, opened the door, and 
 began to tug at the rope, which dangled so temptingly just out 
 of reach of the children, when they came to see their grand- 
 fathers and grandmothers at the Almshouses. The chapel was 
 not a very good specimen of architecture, having been built in 
 the seventeenth century ; and the bell which James Tolladay 
 rung was not much of a bell ; but still it marked nine o'clock 
 to the village, the clergyman of the parish being a quiet and 
 somewhat indolent person, who had, up to this time, resisted 
 the movement in favour of daily services. Tolladay kept on 
 ringing while the old people stumbled past him into cheir bench- 
 es, and the Doctor, in his surplice, and little Mrs. Richard in 
 her little trim bonnet — till Miss Augustine came along the r^th 
 from the gate like a figure in a procession, with her veil on her 
 head in summer, and her hood in winter, and with her hands 
 folded in her long hanging sleevps. Miss Augustine always 
 came alone, a solitary figure in che sunshine, and walked ab- 
 stracted and solemn across the garden, and up the length of 
 the chapel to the seat which was left for her on one side of the 
 altar r^ils. Mrs. Richard had a place on the other side, but 
 Miss Augustine occupied a sort of stall, slightly raised, and 
 very visible to all the congregation. The Austin arms were 
 on this stall, a sign of proprietorship not perhaps quite in keep- 
 ing with the humble meaning of the chapel ; and Miss Angus- 
 
I 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 119 
 
 tine had blazoned it with a legend in very ecclesiastical red 
 and blue — " Pray for us," translated with laudable intentions, 
 out of the Latin, in order to be understood by the congrega- 
 tion^ but sent back into obscurity by the church decorator, 
 whose letters were far too good art to be comprehensible. The 
 old women, blinking under their old dingy bonnets, which some 
 of them still insisted upon wearing "in the fashion," with here 
 and there a tumbled red and yellow rose, notwithstanding all 
 that Mrs. liichard could say : and the old men with their 
 heads sunk into the shabby collars of their old coats, sitting 
 tremulous upon the benches, over which Miss Augustine could 
 look from her high seat, immediately finding out any defaulter 
 — were a pitiful assemblage enough, in that unloveliness of 
 age and weakness which the very poor have so little means of 
 making beautiful ; but they were not without interest, nor 
 their own quaint humour had any one there been of the mind 
 to discover it. Of this view of the assemblage I need not say 
 Miss Augustine was quite unconscious ; her ear caught Mrs. 
 Matthews's groan of unction with a sense of happiaess, and 
 she was pleased by the fervour of the dropping Amen, which 
 made poor Dr. Richard so nervous. She did not mind the pain- 
 ful fact that at least a minute elasped between John ToUaday's 
 clerkly solemnity of response and the fitful gust with which 
 John Simmons in the background added his assisting voice. 
 Miss Augustine was too much absorbed in her own special in- 
 terests, to be a Ritualist or not a Ritualist, or to think at all of 
 Church politics. She was confused in her theology, and deter- 
 mined to have her family prayed for, and their sins expiated 
 without asking herself whether it was release from purgatory 
 which she anticipated as the answer to her prayers, or sim- 
 ply a turning aside of the curse for the future. I think the 
 idea in her mind was quite confused, and she neither knew nor 
 was at any trouble to ascertain exactly what she meant. Ac- 
 cordingly, though many people, and the rector himself among 
 them, thought Miss Augustine to be of the highest sect of the 
 High Church, verging upon Popery itself, Miss Augustine in 
 reality found more comfort in the Dissenting fervour of the old 
 woman who was a " Methody," than in the most correct church 
 worship. What she wanted, poor soul, was that semi-com- 
 mercial, semi-visionary trafiic, in which not herself but her fam- 
 
120 
 
 WHITELADIE!:^. 
 
 ily were to be the gainers. She was a merchant organizing 
 this bargain with heaven, the nature of which she left vague 
 even to herself ; and those who aided her with most apparent 
 warmth of supplications were the people whom she most ap- 
 preciated, with but little regard to the fashion of their exer- 
 tions. John Simmons, when he snored, was like a workman 
 shirking work to Miss Augustine. But even Dr. Richa/d and 
 his wife had not fathomed this downright straightforward bus- 
 iness temper which existed without her own knowledge, or 
 any one else's, in the strange visionary being with whom they 
 had to do. She, indeed put her meaning simply into so many 
 words, but it was impossible for those good people to take her 
 at her own word, and to believe that she expressed all she 
 meant, and nothing less or more. 
 
 There was a little prayer used in the almshouse chapel for 
 the family of the founder, which Dr. Richard had consented, 
 with some difficulty, to add after the collects at morning and 
 evening service, and which he had a strong impression was un- 
 canonical, and against the rubrics, employing it, so to speak, 
 under protest, and explaining to every chance stranger that it 
 was "a tradition of the place from time immemorial." 
 
 " I suppose we are not at liberty to change lightly any ancient 
 use," said the chaplain, " at least such was the advice of my 
 excellent friend the Bishop of the Leeward Islands, in whose 
 judgment I have great confidence. I have not yet had an op- 
 portunity of laying the matter before the bishop of my own 
 diocese, but I have little doubt his lordship will be of the same 
 opinion." 
 
 With this protestation of faith, which I think waa much 
 stronger than Dr. Richard felt, the chaplain used the prayer ; 
 but he maintained a constant struggle against Miss Augustine, 
 who would have had him add sentences to it from time to time, 
 as various family exigencies arose. On one of the days of Miss 
 Susan's absence a thought of this kind came into her sister's 
 head. Augustine felt that Miss Susan being absent, and 
 travelling, and occupied with her business, whatever it was, 
 might perhaps omit to read the lessons for the day, as was 
 usual, or would be less particular in her personal devotions. 
 She thought this over all evening, and dreamt of it at night ; 
 and in the morning she sent a letter to the chaplain as soon as 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 121 
 
 she woke, begging him to add to his prayer for the founder's 
 family the words, "and for &uch among them as may be specially 
 exposed to temptation this day." Dr. Richard took a very 
 strong step on this occasion — he refused to do it. It was a 
 great thing for a man to do, the comfort of whose remnant of 
 life hung upon the pleasure of his patroness ; but he knew it 
 was an illegal liberty to take with his service, and he would 
 not do it. Miss Augustine was very self-absorbed, and very 
 much accustomed (though she thought otherwise) to have 
 everything her own way, and when she perceived that this new 
 petition of hers was not added to the prayer for her family, she 
 disregarded James Tolladay's clerkly leading of the responses 
 even more than John Simmons did. She made a little pause, 
 and repeated it herself, in an audible voice, and then said her 
 Amen, keeping everybody waiting lor her, and Dr. Richard 
 standing mute and red on the chancel steps, with the words, as 
 it might be, taken out of his very lips. When they all came 
 out of chapel, Mrs. Matthews had a private interview with 
 Miss Augustine, which detained her, and it was not till after 
 the old people had dispersed to their cottages that she made 
 her way over to the clocL *ower in which the chaplain's rooms 
 were situated. " You dii not pray for my people, as I asked 
 you," said Augustine, looking at him with her pale blue eyes. 
 She was not angry or irritable, but asked the question softly. 
 Dr. Richard had been waiting for her in his dining-room, which 
 was a quaint room over the archway, with one window looking 
 to the road, another to the garden. He was seated by the 
 table, his wife beside him, who had not yet taken oflf her bon- 
 net, and who held her smelling-salts in her hand. 
 
 " Miss Augustine," said the chaplain, with a little flush on 
 his innocent aged face. He was a plump neat little old man, 
 with the red and white of a girl in his gentle countenance. 
 He had risen up when she entered, but being somewhat nervous 
 sat down again, though she never sat down. " Miss Augustine," 
 he said solemnly, " I have told you before, I cannot do anything, 
 even to oblige you, which is against Church law and every sound 
 principle. Whatever happens to me, I must be guided by law." 
 
 " Does law forbid you to pray for your fellow-creatures who 
 are in temptation 1 " said Miss Augustine without any change 
 of her serious abstracted countenance. 
 
122 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 '* Miss Augustine, this is a question in which I cannot be 
 dictated to," said the old gentleman, growing redder. " I will 
 ask the prayers of the congregation for any special person who 
 may be in trouble, sorrow, or distress, before the litany, or the 
 collect for all conditions of men, making a pause at the ap- 
 propriate petition, as is my duty ; but I cannot go beyond the 
 rubrics, whatever it may cost me," said Dr. Richard, with a 
 look of determined resolution, as though he looked for nothing 
 better than to be led immediately to the stake. And his wife 
 fixed her eyes upon him admiringly, backing him up ; and put, 
 with a little pressure of his fingers, her smelling-salts into his 
 hand. 
 
 '* In that case," said Miss Augustine, in her abstract way, 
 " in that case — I will not ask you ; but it is a pity the rubrics 
 should say it is your duty not to pray for any one in tempta- 
 tion ; it was Susan," she added softly, with a sigh. 
 
 " Miss Susan ! " said the chaplain, growing hotter than ever 
 at the thought that he had nearly been betrayed into the im- 
 pertinence of praying for a person whom he so much respected. 
 He was horrified at the risk he had run. " Miss Augustine," 
 he said, severely, ** if my conscience had permitted me to do 
 this, which I am glad it did not, what would your sister have 
 said t I could never have looked her in the face again, after 
 taking such a liberty with her." 
 
 '* We could never have looked her in the face again," echoed 
 Mrs. Bichard ; " but, thank God, my dear, you stood fast ! " 
 
 " Yes. I hope true Church principles and a strong resolution 
 will always save me," said the Doctor, with gentle humility, 
 "and that I may always have the resolution to stand fast ! " 
 
 Miss Augustine made no reply to this for the moment. Then 
 she said, without any change of tone, " Say, to-morrow, please, 
 that prayers are requested for Susan Austin, on a voyage, and 
 in temptation abroad." 
 
 " My dear Miss Augustine ! " said the unhappy clergyman, 
 taking a sniff at the salts, which now were truly needed. 
 
 " Yes, that will come to the same thing," said Miss Augus- 
 tine quietly to herself. 
 
 She stood opposite to the agitated pair, with her hands folded 
 into her great sleeves, her hood hanging back on her shoulders, 
 her black veil falling softly about her pale head. There was 
 
WUITELADIES. 
 
 128 
 
 folded 
 aiders, 
 
 re was 
 
 no emotion in her countenance. Her mind was not alarmed 
 about her sister. The prayer was a precautionary measure, to 
 keep Susan out of temptation — not any hing strenuously called 
 for by necessity. She sighed softly as she made the reflection, 
 that to name her sister before the litany was said would answer 
 her purpose equally well ; and thus with a faint smile, and 
 slight wave of her hand towards the chaplain and his wife, she 
 turned and went away. The ordinary politenesses were lost 
 upon Miss Augustine, and the door stood open behind her, so 
 that there was no need for Dr. Richard to get up and open it ; 
 and, indeed, they were so used to her ways, her comings and 
 her goings, that he did not think of it. So the old gentleman 
 sat with his wife by his side, backing him up, gazing with con- 
 sternation, and without a word, at the grey retreating figure. 
 Mrs. Richard, who saw her husband's perturbed condition, 
 comforted him as best she could, patting his arm with her soft 
 little hand, and whispering words of consolation. When Miss 
 Augustine was fairly out of the house, the distressed clergyman 
 at last permitted his feelings to burst forth. 
 
 " Pray foi Susan Austin publicly by name I " he said, rising 
 and walking about the room. " My dear, it will ruin us ! You 
 will see it will ruin us ! This comes of women having power 
 in the church ! I don't mean to say anything, my dear, injuri- 
 ous to your sex, which you know I respect deeply — in its own 
 place ; but a woman's interference in the church is enough to 
 send the wisest man out of his wits." 
 
 " Dear Henery," said Mrs. Richard, for it was thus she pro- 
 nounced her husband's name, ** why should you be so much 
 disturbed about it ? when you know she is mad ? " 
 
 "It is only her enemies who say she is mad," said Dr. 
 Richard ; " and even if she is mad, what does that matter 1 
 There is nothing against the rubrics in what she asks of me 
 now. I shall be forced to do it ; and what will Miss Susan 
 say 1 And consider that all our comfort, everything depends 
 upon it. Ellen, you are very sensible ; but you don't grasp the 
 full bearings of the subject as I do." 
 
 " No, my dear, I do not pretend to have your mind," said 
 the good wife ; " but things never turn out so bad as we fear," 
 she said a moment after, with homely philosophy, — " nor sc 
 good either," she added with a sigh. 
 
124 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 j(m/\ ISS SUSAN came home on the Saturday night. She 
 ^I^^L was very tired, and saw no one that evening ; but 
 ^^^^ Martha, her old maid, who returned into attendance 
 upon her natural mistress at once, thou^iit and reported to the 
 others that " something had come over Miss Susan." Whether 
 it was tiredness or crossness, or bad news, or that her business 
 had not turned out so well as she expected, no one could tell ; 
 but "something had come over her." Next morning she did not 
 go to church — a thing which had not happened in the Austin 
 family for ages. 
 
 " I had an intuition that you were yielding to temptation," 
 Miss Augustine said with some solemnity, as she went out to 
 prayers at the Almshouses ; after which she meant to go to 
 morning service in the church, as always. 
 
 " I am only tired, my dear," said Miss Susan, with a little 
 shiver. 
 
 The remarks in the kitchen were more stringent than Miss 
 Augustine's. 
 
 " Foreign parts apparently is bad for the soul," said Martha, 
 when it was ascertained that Jane, too, following her mistress's 
 example, did not mean to go to church. 
 
 " They're demoralizin', that's what they are." said Stevens, 
 who liked a long word. 
 
 " I've always said as I'd never set foot out o' my own coun- 
 try, not for any money," said Cook, with the liberal mind 
 natural to her craft. 
 
 Poor Jane, who had been very ill on the crossing, though the 
 sea was calm, sat silent at the chimney corner with a bad head- 
 ache, and very devout intentions to the same effect. 
 
 " If you knew what it was to go a sea- voyage, like I do," she 
 protested with forlorn pride, " you'd have a deal more charity 
 in you." But even Jane's little presents, brought from " abroad" 
 did not quite conciliate the others, to whom this chit o f a gir 
 had been preferred. Jane on the whole, however, was bttte 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 125 
 
 "Bhe 
 larity 
 road" 
 agir 
 bttte 
 
 off, even amid the criticisms of the kitchen, than Miss Susan 
 was, seated by herself in the drawing-room, to which the sun 
 did not come round till the afternoon, with the same picture 
 hanging before her eyes which she had used to tempt the Aus- 
 tins at Bruges, with a shawl about her shoulders, and a sombre 
 consciousness in her heart that had never before been known 
 there. It was one of those dull days which so often interpose 
 their unwelcome presence into an English summer. The sky 
 and the world were grey with east wind, the sun hidden, the 
 colour all gone out. The trees stood about and shivered, 
 striking the clouds with their hapless heads ; the flowers 
 looked pitiful and appealing, as if they would have liked to be 
 brought indoors and kept in shelter ; and the dreariness of the 
 fire place, done up in white paper ornaments, as is the orthodox 
 summer fashion in England, was unspeakable. Miss {Susan, 
 drawing her shawl round her, sat in her easy chair near the fire 
 by habit ; and a more dismal centre of the room could not 
 have been than that chilly whiteness. How she would have 
 liked a fire ! but in the beginning of July, what Englishwoman, 
 with a proper fear of her housemaid before her eyes, would dare 
 to ask for that indulgence ? So Miss Susan sat and shivered, and 
 watched the cold trees looking in at the window and the grey 
 sky above, and drew her shawl closer with a shiver that went 
 through her very heart. The vibration of the church bells was 
 in the still, rural air, and not a sound in the house. Miss 
 Susan felt as if she were isolated by some stem power ; set 
 apart from the world because of "what had happened ; " which 
 was the way she described her own very active agency during 
 the past week to herself. But this did not make her repent, 
 or change her mind in any respect ; the excitement of her evil 
 inspiration was still strong upon her ; and then there was as 
 yet no wrong done, only intended, and of course, at any mo- 
 ment, the wrong which was only in intention might be departed 
 from, and all be well. She had that morning received a letter 
 from Reine, full of joyous thanksgiving over Herbert's improve- 
 ment. Augustine, who believed in miracles, had gone off to 
 church in great excitement, to put up Herbert's name as giving 
 thanks, and to tell the poor people that their prayers had been 
 so far heard ; but Miss Susan, who was more of this world, 
 and did not believe in miracles, and to whom the fact that any 
 
126 
 
 WH1TBLADIE8. 
 
 human event was very desirable made it at once less likely, put 
 very little faith in Heine's letter. " Poor child ! poor boy 1 " 
 she said to herself, shaking her head and dnring her eyes ; then 
 put it aside, and thought little more of it. Her own wickedness 
 that she had planned was more exciting to her. She sat and 
 brooded over that, while all the j)ari8h said their prayers in 
 church, where she, too, ought to have been. For she was not, 
 after all, so very tired ; her mind was as full -and lively as if 
 there had not been such a thing as fatigue in the world ; and 
 I do not think she had anything like an adequate excuse for 
 staying at home. 
 
 On the Sunday afternoon Miss Susan received a visit which 
 roused her a little from the self absorption which this new era 
 in her existence had brought about, though it was only Dr. 
 and Mrs. Richard, who walked across the fields to see her after 
 her journey, and to take a cup of tea. They were a pleasant 
 little couple to see, jogging across the fields arm in arm — he the 
 prettiest fresh-coloured little old gentleman, in glossy black and 
 ivory white, a model of a neat, little elderly clergyman ; she not 
 quite so pretty, but very trim and neat too, in a nice black silk 
 gown, and a bonnet with a rose in it. Mrs. Richard was rather 
 hard upon the old women at the Almshouses for their battered 
 flowers, and thought a little plain uniform bonnet of the cottage 
 shape, with a simple brown ribbon, would have been desirable ; 
 but for her own part she clung to the rose, which nodded on 
 the summit of her head. Both of tl:em, however, had a con- 
 scious look upon their innocent old fav "" They had come to 
 " discharge a duty," and the solemnitj' of this duty, which was 
 as they said to each other, a very painful one, overwhelmed 
 and slightly excited them. " What if she should be there her- 
 self 1 " said Mrs. Richard, clasping a little closer her husband's 
 arm, to give emphasis to her question. " It does not matter 
 who is there ; I must do my duty," said the Doctor, in heroic 
 tones ; " besides," he added, dropping his voice, " she never 
 notices anything that is not said to her, poor soul ! " 
 
 But happily Miss Augustine was not present when they were 
 shown into the drawing-room where Miss Susan sat writing 
 letters. A ^ood deal was said, of course, which was altogether 
 foreign to the object of the visit : How she had enjoyed her 
 journey, whether it was not very fatiguing, whether it had not 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 127 
 
 been very delightful, and a charming change, (fee. Miss Susan 
 answered all their questions benignly enough, though she was 
 very anxious to get back to the letter she was writing to Farrel- 
 Austin, and rang the bell for tea, and poured it out, and was 
 very gracious, secretly asking herself, what in the name of 
 wonder had brought them here to day to torment her ] But 
 it was not till he had been strengthened by these potations 
 that Dr. Richard spoke. 
 
 " My dear Miss Susan," he said at length, " my coming to- 
 day was not purely accidental, or merely to ask you after your 
 journev. I wanted to — if you will permit me — put you on your 
 guard. * 
 
 *' In what respect ? " said Miss Susan, quickly, feeling her 
 heart begin to beat. Dr. Richard was the last person in the 
 world whom she could suppose likely to know about the object 
 of her rapid journey, or what she had done ; but guilt is very 
 suspicious, and she felt herself immediately put upon her defence. 
 
 " I trust you will not take it amiss that I should speak to you 
 on such a subject," said the old clergyman, clearing his throat ; 
 his pretty, old pink cheek grew quite red with agitation, " I 
 take the very greatest interest in both you and your sister. Miss 
 Susan. You are both of you considerably younger than I am, 
 and I have been here now more than a dozen years, and one can- 
 not help taking an interest in anything connected with the 
 family—--" 
 
 " No, indeed ; one cannot help it ; it would be quite un- 
 natural if one did not take an interest," said Mrs. Richard, 
 backing him up. 
 
 " But nobody objects to your taking an interest," said Miss 
 Susan. " I think it, as you say, the most natural thing in the 
 world." 
 
 " Thanks, thanks, for saying so ! " said Dr. Richard with en- 
 thusiasm ; and then he looked at his wife, and his wife at him, 
 and there was an awful pause. 
 
 " My dear, good, excellent people," said Miss Susan hurriedly, 
 " for heaven's sake, if there is any bad n'^ws coming, out with 
 it at once ! " 
 
 " No, no ; no bad news !" said Dr. Richard ; and then he 
 cleared his throat. " The fact is, I came to speak to you — 
 about Miss Augustine. I am afraid her eccentricity is increas- 
 
128 
 
 WHITFXADIES. 
 
 ma 
 
 >l 
 
 ing. It is painful, very painful to me to say so, but for her 
 kindness my wife and I should not have been half so comfort- 
 able these dozen years past ; but I think it a friend's duty, not 
 to say a clergyman's. Miss Susan, you are aware that people 
 say that she is — not quite right in her mind ! " 
 
 " I am aware that people talk a great deal of nonsense," said 
 Miss Susan, half-relieved, half-aggravated. " I should not won- 
 der if they said I was mad myself." 
 
 " If they knew ! " she added mentally, with a curious thrill 
 of self-arraignment judging her own cause, and in the twinkling 
 of an eye running over the past and the future, and w^>adering, 
 if she should ever be found out, whether people would say she 
 was mad too. 
 
 " No, no," said the Doctor ; " you are well known for one of 
 the most sensible women in the county." 
 
 " Quite one of the most influential and well-known people 
 in the county," said Mrs. Richard, Mrith an echo in which there 
 always was an individual tone. 
 
 " Well, well ; let that be as it may," said Miss Susan, not 
 dissatisfied with this appreciation ; " and what has my sister 
 done — while I have been absent, I suppose ? " 
 
 " It is a matter of great gravity and closely concerning my- 
 self," said Dr. Richard, with some dignity, " You are aware, 
 Miss Susan, that my ofl&ce as warden of the Almshouses is in 
 some respects an anomalous one, making me, in some degree 
 subordinate, or apparently so, in my ecclesiastical position to — 
 in fact, to a lady. It is quite a strange, almost unprecedented, 
 combination of circumstances." 
 
 " Very strange indeed," said Mrs. Richard. " My husband, 
 in his ecclesiastical position, as it were subordinate — to a lady." 
 
 " Pardon me," said Miss Susan ; " I never interfere with 
 Augustine. You knew how it would be when you came." 
 
 " But there are some things one was not prepared for," said 
 the Doctor, with irrestrainable pathos. "It might set me 
 wrong with the persons I respect most. Miss Susan. Your 
 s ister not only attempted to add a petition to the prayers of 
 the Church, which nobody is at liberty to do except the Arch- 
 bishops themselves, acting under the authority of Government ; 
 but finding me inexorable in that — for I hope nothing will 
 ever lead me astray from the laws of the Church — she directed 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 12d 
 
 me to request the prayers of the congregation for you, the most 
 respectable person in the neighbourhood — for you, as exposed 
 to temptation ! " 
 
 A strange change passed over Miss Susan's face. She had 
 been ready to laugh, impatient of the long explanation, and 
 scarcely able to conceal her desire to get rid of her visitors. 
 She sat poising the pen in her hand with which she had been 
 writing, turning over her papers, with a smile on her lip ; but 
 when Dr. Richard came to those last words, her face changed 
 all at once. She dropped the pen out of her hand, her face 
 grew grey, the smile disappeared in a moment, and Miss Susan 
 sat looking at them, with a curious consciousness about her, 
 which the excellent couple could not understand. 
 
 " What day was that? " she said quickly, almost under her 
 breath. 
 
 " It was on Thursday." 
 
 "Thursday morning," added Mrs. Eichard. "If you re- 
 member, Henery, you got a note about it quite early, and after 
 chapel she spoke " 
 
 "Yes, it was quite early; probably the note," said the 
 chaplain, "was written on Wednesday night." 
 
 Miss Susan was ashy grey ; all the blood seemed to have 
 gone out of her. She made them no answer at first, but sat 
 brooding, like a woman struck into stone. Then she rose to 
 her feet suddenly as the door opened, and Augustine, grey and 
 silent, came in, gliding like a medisBval saint. 
 
 " My sister is always right," said Miss Susan, almost passion- 
 ately, going suddenly up to her and kissing her pale cheek with 
 a fervour no one understood, and Augustine least of all. " I 
 always approve what she does ;" and having made this little 
 demonstration, she returned to her seat, and took up her pen 
 again, with more show of pre-occupation than before. 
 
 What could the old couple do after this but make their bow 
 and their courtesy, and go off again bewildered ? " I think 
 Miss Susan is the maddest of the two," said Mrs. Richard, 
 when they had two long fields between them and Whiteladies ; 
 and I am not surprised, I confess, that they should have thought 
 80, on that occaiion, at least 
 
 Miss Susan was deeply struck with this curious little inci- 
 dent. She had always entertained a half visionary respect for 
 I 
 
130 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 II 
 
 her sister, something of the reverential feeling with which some 
 nations regard those who are imperfectly developed in intelli- 
 gence ; and this curious revelation deepened the sentiment 
 into something half-adoring, half-afraid. Nobody knew what 
 she had done, but Augustine knew somehow that she had been 
 in temptation. I cannot describe the impression this made 
 upon her mind and her heart, which was guilty but quite un- 
 accustomed to guilt. It thrilled her through and through ; 
 but it did not make her give up her purpose, which was per- 
 haps the strangest thing of all. 
 
 " My dear," she said, assuming with some difficulty an 
 ordinary smile, '' what made you think I was going wrong 
 when I was away 1 " 
 
 ''What made me think it? nothing; something that came 
 into my mind. You do not understand how I am moved and 
 led," said Augustine, looking at her sister seriously. 
 
 " No, dear, no — I don't understand ; that is true. God bless 
 you, my dear ! " said the woman who was guilty, turning away 
 with a tremor which Augustine understood as little — her whole 
 being tremulous and softened with love and reverence, and 
 almost awe, of the spotless creature by her ; beat I suspect, 
 though Miss Susan felt so deeply the wonderful fact that her 
 sister had divined her moral danger, she was not in the least 
 moved thereby to turn away from that moral danger, or give 
 up her wicked plan ; which is as curious a problem as I re- 
 member to have met with. Having all the habits of truth and 
 virtue, she was touched to the heart to think that Augustine 
 should have had a mysterious consciousness of the moment 
 when she was brought to abandon tho right path, and felt the 
 whole situation sentimentally, as if she had read it in a story ; 
 but it had not the slightest effect otherwise. With this tremor 
 of feeling upon her, she went back to her writing-table, and 
 finished her letter to Farrel-Austin, which >^as as follows : — 
 
 " Dear Cousin, — Having had some business which called 
 me abroad latt week, my interest in the facts you told me, the 
 last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, led me to pass by 
 Bruges, where I saw our common relations, the Austins. They 
 seem very nice, homely people, and I enjoyed making their 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 131 
 
 jh some 
 intelli- 
 itiment 
 w what 
 ad been 
 ,a made 
 [uite un- 
 hrough ; 
 was per- 
 
 tiat came 
 oved and 
 
 God bless 
 ling away 
 her whole 
 •ence, and 
 I suspect, 
 that her 
 1 the least 
 or give 
 as I re- 
 truth and 
 Augustine 
 Q moment 
 nd felt the 
 in a story ; 
 ihis tremor 
 -table, and 
 LOWS ; — 
 
 acquaintance, though it was curious to realize relations of ours 
 occupying such a position. I heard from them, however, that 
 a discovery had been made in the meantime which seriously 
 interferes with the bargain which they made with you ; in- 
 deed, is likely to invalidate it altogether. I took in hand to 
 inform you of the facts, though they are rather delicate to be 
 discussed between a lady and a gentleman ; but it would have 
 been absurd of a woman of my age to make any difficulty on 
 such a matter. If you wiU call on me, or appoint a time at 
 which I can see you at your own house, I will let you know 
 exactly what are the facts of the case ; though I have no doubt 
 you will at once divine them, if you were informed at the time 
 you saw the Brages Austins that their son who died had left a 
 young widow. 
 
 " With compliments to Mrs. Farrel- Austin and your girls, 
 
 " Believe me, truly yours, 
 
 " Susan Austin." 
 
 I do not know that Miss Susan had ever written to Farrel- 
 Austin in so friendly a spirit before. She felt almost cordial 
 towards him as she put her letter into the envelope. If this 
 improvement in friendly feeling was the first product of an in- 
 tention to do the man wrong, then wrong-doing, she felt, must 
 be rather an amiable influence than otherwise : and she went 
 > rest that night with a sense of satisfaction in her mind. In 
 the late Professor AytoTin's quaint poem of " Firmilian," it is 
 recorded that the hero of that drama committed many murders 
 and other crimes in a vain attempt to study the sensation 
 usually called Remorse, but was entirely unsuccessful, even 
 :7hen his crimes were on the grandest scale, and attended by 
 many aggravating circumstances. Miss Susan knew nothing 
 about Firmilian, but I think her mind was in a very similar 
 state. She was not at all affected in sentiment by her con- 
 spiracy. She felt the same as usual, nay, almost better than 
 usual, more kindly towards her enemy whom she was going +a 
 injure, and more reverential and admiring to her saintly sister, 
 who had divined something of her evil intentions — or at least 
 had divined her danger, though without the slightest notion 
 what the kind of evU was to which she was tempted. Miss 
 Susan was indeed half frightened at herself when she found 
 
^ 
 
 _ ;.c 
 
 182 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I 
 
 how very little impression her own wickedness had made upon 
 her. The first night she had been a little alarmed when she 
 said her prayers, but this had all worn off, and she went to bed 
 without a tremor, and slept the sleep of innocence — the sleep 
 of the just. She was so entirely herself that she was able to 
 reflect how strange it was, and how little the people who write 
 sermons know the state of the real mind. Shd was astonished 
 herself at the perfect calm with which she regarded her own 
 contemplated crime, for crime it was. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 1^ R. FARREL-AUSTIN lived in a house which was called 
 J^^ the Hatch, though I cannot tell what is the meaning 
 ^^^^^^ of the name. It was a modern house, like hundreds 
 of others, solid i nd ugly, and comfortable enough, with a small 
 park round it, and — which it could scarcely help having in 
 Berkshire — some fine trees about. Farrel- Austin had a good 
 deal of property ; his house stood upon his own land, though 
 his estate was not very extensive, and he had a considerable 
 amount of money in good investments, and some house-property 
 in London, in the City, which was very valuable. Altogether, 
 therefore, he was well off, and lived in a comfortable way with 
 everything handsome about him. All his family at present 
 consisted of the two daughters who came with him to visit 
 Whiteladies, as we have seen ; but he had married a second 
 time, and had an ailing wife who was continually, as people 
 say, having " expectations," which, however, never came to 
 anything. He had been married for about ten years, and dur- 
 ing this long period Mrs. Farrel- Austin's expectations had been 
 a joke among her neighbours ; but they were no joke to her 
 husband, nor to the two young ladies, her stepdaughters, who, 
 as they could not succeed to the Austin lands themselves, were 
 naturally very desirous to have a brother who could do so. 
 They were not very considerate of Mrs. Austin generally, but 
 in respect to her health they were solicitous beyond measure. 
 They took such care of her, that the poor woman's life became 
 a burden to her, and especially at the moment when there were 
 expectations did this care and anxiety overflow. The poor 
 soul had broken down, body and mind, under this surveillance. 
 She had been a pretty girl enough when she was married, and 
 entered with a light heart upon her functions, not afraid of 
 what might happen to her ; but Mr. Farrel- Austin's unsatisfied 
 longing for an heir, and the supervision of the two sharp girls 
 who grew up so very soon to be young ladies, and evidently 
 considered^ as their father did, that the sole use and meaning 
 
134 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 
 of their mild young stepmother was to produce that necessary 
 article, soon made an end of all her lightheartedness. Her 
 courage totally failed. She had no very strong emot'ons any 
 way, but a little affection and 1 indness were necessary to keep 
 her going, and this she did not get, in the kind that was im- 
 portant, at least. Her husband, I suppose, was fond of her, 
 as (of course) all husbands are of all wives, but she could not 
 pet or make friends with the girls, who, short of her possible 
 use as the mother of an heir, found her very much in their 
 way, and had no inclination to establish affectionate relations 
 with her. Therefore she took to her sofa, poor soul, and to 
 tonics, and the state of an invalid — a condition which, when 
 one has nothing particular to do in the world, and nothing to 
 amuse or occupy a flat existence, is not a bad expedient in its 
 way for the feeble soul, giving it the support of an innocent, 
 if not-very agreeable routine — rules to observe and physic to 
 take. This was how poor Mrs. Farrel-Austin endeavoured to 
 dedommager herself for the failure of her life She preserved a 
 pale sort of faded prettiness even on her sofa ; and among the 
 society which the girls collected round them, there was now 
 and then one who would seek refuge with the mild invalid, 
 when the fun of the younger party grew too fast and furious. 
 Even, I believe, the stepmother might have set up a flirtation 
 or two of her own had she cared for that amusement ; but 
 fortunately she had her tonics to take, which was a more inno- 
 cent gratification, and suited all parties better ; for a man 
 must be a very robust flirt indeed, whose attentions can sup- 
 port the frequent interposition of a maid with a medicine- 
 bottle and a spoon. 
 
 The society of ihe Farrel- Austins was of a kind which might 
 be considered very nne, or the reverse, according to the taste 
 of the critic, though that, indeed, may be said of almost all 
 society. They knew, of course, and visited, all the surrounding 
 gentry, among whom there were a great many worthy people, 
 though nothing so remarkable as to stand out from the general 
 level ; but what was more important to the young ladies, at 
 least, they had the officers of the regiment which was posted 
 near, and in which there were a great many very noble young 
 personages, ornaments to any society, who accepted Mr. Farrel- 
 Austin's invitations freely, and derived a great deal of arauser 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 135 
 
 ment from his household, without perhaps paying that natural 
 tribute of respect and civility to their entertainers behind their 
 backs, which is becoming in the circumstances. Indeed, the 
 Farrel-Austins were not quite on the same social level as the 
 Marquis of Dropmore, or Lord Ffarington, who were constant- 
 ly at the Hatch when their regiment was stationed n^iai , nor 
 even of Lord Alf Groombridge, though he was as poor as a 
 church-mouse ; and the same thing might be said of a great 
 many other honourable and distinguished young gentlemen who 
 kept a continual riot at the house, and made great havoc with 
 the cellar, and on Sundays, especially, would keep this establish- 
 ment, which ought to have been almost pious in its good order, 
 in a state of hurry and flurry, and noise and laughter, as if it 
 had been a hotel. The Austins, it is true, boasted themselves 
 of good family, though nothing definite was known of them 
 before Henry Ylll. — and they were rich enough to entertain 
 their distinguished visitors at very considerable cost ; but 
 they had neither that rank which introduces the possessor into 
 all circles, nor that amount of money which makes up every 
 deficiency. Had one of the Miss Farrel-Austins married the 
 Marquis or the Earl, or even Lord Alf in his impecuniosity, 
 she would have been said to have " succeeded in catching" 
 poor Dropmore, or poor Ffarington, and would have been 
 stormed or wept over by the gentleman's relations as if she had 
 been a ragged girl off* the streets — King Cophetua's beggar 
 maid herself ; notwithstanding that these poor innocents, 
 Ffarington and Dropmore, had taken advantage of the father's 
 hospitalities for months or years before. I am bound to add 
 that the Farrel-Austins were not only fully aware of this, but 
 would have used exactly the same phraseology themselves in 
 respect to any other young lady of their own standing whose 
 fascinations had been equally exercised upon the well-fortified 
 bosoms of Dropmore and Company. Nevertheless they adapted 
 themselves to the amusements which suited their visitors, and 
 in summer lived in a lively succession of outdoor parties, 
 spending half of their time in drags, in boats, on race-courses, 
 at cricket-matches, and other energetic diversions. Sometimes 
 their father was their chaperon, sometimes a young married 
 lady belonging to the same society, and with the same tastes. 
 The very highest and the very lowest classes of society have a 
 
I 
 
 If 
 
 136 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 great affinity to each other. There was always something 
 planned for Sunday in this lively " set" — they were as eager to 
 put the day to use as if they had been working hard all the 
 week, and had this day only to amuse themselves in. I suppose 
 they, or perhaps their father, began to do this because there 
 was in it the delightful piquancy of sensation which the blas4 ap- 
 petite fsels when it is able to shock somebody else by its grati- 
 fications ; and though they have long ago ceased to shock any 
 body, the flavour of the sensation lasted. All the servants at 
 the Hatch, indeed, were shocked vastly, which preserved a 
 little of this delightful sense of naughtiness. The quieter 
 neighbours round, especially those houses in which there were 
 no young people, disapproved, also, in a general way, and called 
 the Miss Austins fast ; and Miss Susan disapproved most 
 strenuously, I need not say, and expressed her contempt in 
 terms which she took no trouble to modify. But I cannot deny 
 that there was a general hankering among the younger members 
 of society for a share in these hruyant amusements ; and Everard 
 Austin could not see what harm it did that the girls should 
 enjoy themselves, and had no objection to join them, and liked 
 Kate and Sophy so much that sometimes he was moved to think 
 that he liked one of them more. His house, indeed, which was 
 on the river, was a favourite centre for their expeditions, and I 
 think even that though he was not rich, neither of his cousins 
 would have rejected Everard off-hand without deliberation — 
 for, to be sure, he was the heir, at present, after their father, 
 and every year ma<le it less likely that Mrs. Austin would pro- 
 duce the much-wished-for successor. Neither of them would 
 jiave quite liked to risk accepting him yet, in face of all the 
 possibilities which existed in the way of Dropmore, Ffarington, 
 and Company ; but yet they would not have refused him off- 
 hand. 
 
 Now I may as well tell the reader at once that Kate and 
 Sophy Farrel-Austin were not what either I or he (she) would 
 call nice girls. 1 am fond of girls, for my own part. I don't 
 like to speak ill of them, or j^ive an unfavourable impression, 
 and as it is very probable that my prejudice in favour of the 
 spieies may betray me into some relentings in respect to these 
 particular examples, some softening of their after proceedings or 
 explanation of their devices^ I think it best to say at once that 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 la? 
 
 they were not nice girls. They had not rery sweet natures to 
 hegin with ; for the fact is — and it is a vprv terrible one — that 
 great many people do como into the world with natures 
 
 a 
 
 which are not sweet, and enter upon the race of life handicapped 
 (if I may be permitted an irregular but useful expression) in 
 the most frightful way. I do not pretend to explain this mys- 
 tery, which, among all the mysteries of earth, is one ?f the 
 most cruel, but I am forced to believe it. Kate and Sophy had 
 never been very nice. 1'heir father before them v/as not nicej 
 but an extremely selfish and self-regarding person, often cross, 
 and with no generosity or elevation of mind to set them a bettei 
 example. They had no mother, and no restraint, except that 
 of school, which is very seldom more than external and tempor- 
 ary. The young stepmother had begun by petting them, but 
 neither could nor wished to attempt to rule the girls, who soon 
 acquired a contempt for her ; and as her invalidism grew, they 
 took the control of the house, as well as themselves, altogether 
 out of her hands. From sixteen they had been in that state of 
 rampant indepenilence and determination to hav»? their own 
 way, which has now, I fear, become as common among girls as 
 it used to be among boys, when education was more neglected 
 than it is nowadays. Boys who are at school — and even when 
 they are young men at the university — must be in some degree 
 of subordination ; but girls who do not respect their parents 
 are absolutely beyond this useful power, and can be described 
 as nothing but rampant — the unloveliest as well as the un- 
 wholesoraest of all mental and moral attitudes. Kate had come 
 out at sixteen, and since that time had been constantly in this 
 rampant state ; by sheer force and power of will she had kept 
 Sophy back until she also attained that mature age, but her 
 power ended at that point and Sophy had then become ram- 
 pant too. They turned everything upside down in the house, 
 planned their life according to their pleasure, over-rode the step- 
 mother, coaxed the father, who was fond and proud of them — 
 the best part of his character — and set out thus in the Drop- 
 more and Ffarington kind of business. At sixteen girls do not 
 plan to be married- -they plan to enjoy themselves ; and these 
 noble young gentlemen seemed best adapted to second their in- 
 tentions. But it is inconceivable how old a young woman is at 
 twenty one who has begun life at sixteen in this tremendous 
 
138 
 
 WHITKLADIKS. 
 
 way. Kate, who had been for five long years thus about the 
 world — at all the balls, at all the pleasure-parties, at all the 
 races, regattas, cricket-matches, flower-shows, every kind of 
 country entertainment— and at everything she could attain to in 
 town in the short season which her father could afford to give 
 them — felt herself about a hundred when she attained her ma- 
 jority. She had done absolutely everything that can be done in 
 the way of amusement — at least in England — and the last win- 
 ter and spring had been devoted to doing the same sort of thing 
 " abroad. There was nothing new under the sun to this unfor- 
 tunate young woman — unless, perhaps, it might be getting mar- 
 ried, which had for some time begun to appear a worthy object in 
 her eyes. To make a good match and gain a legitimate footing 
 in the society to which Dropmore, &c., belonged ; to be able to 
 give a " good setting down" to the unapproachable women who 
 Ignored her from its heights — and to snatch the delights of a 
 title by sheer strength and skill from among her hurly-burly of 
 Guardsmen, this had begun to seem to Kate the thing most 
 worth thinking of in the world. It was " full time" she should 
 take some such step, for she was old, blas4e, beginning to fear 
 that she must be pass^e too, — at one and twenty ! Nineteen at 
 the outside is the age at which the rampant girl ought to marry 
 in order to carry out her career without a cloud — the marriage, 
 of course, bien entenduy being of an appropriate kind. 
 
 The Sunday which I have just described, on which Miss 
 Susan did not go to church, had been spent by the young ladies 
 in their usual way. There had been a river party, preceded 
 by a luncheon at Everard's house, which, having been planned 
 when the weather was hot, had of course to be carried out, 
 though the day was cold with that chill of July which is more 
 penetrating than December. The girls in their white dresses 
 had paid for their pleasure, and the somewhat riotous late din- 
 ner which awaited the party at the Hatch had scarcely sufficed 
 to warm their feet and restore their comfort. It was only next 
 morning, pretty late, over the breakfast which they shared in 
 Kate's room, the largest of the two inhabited by the sisters, 
 that they could talk over their previous day's pleasure. And 
 even then their attention was disturbed by a curious piece of 
 news which had been brought to them along with their tray, 
 and which was to the effect that Herbert Austin had suddenly 
 
WHITELAnrES. 
 
 139 
 
 and miraculously recovered hie health, thanks having been 
 given for him in the parish church at St. Austin's on the pre- 
 vious morning. The gardener had gone to church there, with 
 the intention of negotiating with the gardener at Whiteladies 
 about certain seedlings, and he had brought back the informa- 
 tion. His wife had told it to the housekeeper, and the house- 
 keeper to the butler, and the butler to the young ladies'-maid, 
 so that the report had grown in magnitude as it rolled 
 onward. Sarah reported with a courtesy that Mr. Herbert 
 was quite well, and was expected home directly — indeed, 
 she was not quite sure whetlier he was not at home already 
 and in church when the clergyman read out the name as 
 returning thanks — that would be the most natural way : and 
 as she thought it over, Sarah concluded, and said, that this 
 must have been what she heard. 
 
 " Herbert better ! what a bore ! " said Sophy, not heeding 
 the presence of the maid. " What right has he to get better, 
 I should like to know, and cut papa out 1 " 
 
 " Everybody has a' right to do the best for themselves, when 
 they can," said Kate, whose role it was to be sensible ; " but I 
 don't believe it can be true." 
 
 " I assure you, miss," said Sarah, who was a pert maid, such 
 as should naturally belong to such young ladies, ** as gardener 
 heard it with his own ears, and there could be no doubt on the 
 subject. I said, * My young ladies won't never believe it ; ' and 
 Mr. Beaver, he said * They'll find as it's too true !' " 
 
 " It was very impudent of Beaver to say anything of the sort," 
 said Kate, " and you may tell him him so. Now go ; you don't 
 require to wait any longer. I'll ring when I'm ready to have 
 my hair done. Hold your tongue, Soph, for two minutes, till 
 that girl's gone. They tell everything, and they remember 
 everything." 
 
 " What do I care 1 " said Sophy, " if twenty people were here 
 I'd say just the same. What an awful bore, when papa had 
 quite made up his mind to have Whiteladies ! I should like ' o 
 do something to that Herbert, if it's true ; and it's sure to be 
 true." 
 
 " I don't believe it," said Kate reflectively. " One often hears 
 of these cases rallying just for a week or two — but there's no 
 
140 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 cure for consumption. It would be too teasing i f b ut you 
 may be sure it isn't and can't be " 
 
 " Everything that is unpleasant comes true/' said Sophy. 
 This was one of the sayings with which she amused her monae, 
 and made Dropmore and the rest declare that " By Jove ! that 
 girl was not so soft as she looked." " I think it is an awful 
 bore for poor papa." 
 
 After they had exhausted this gloomy view of the subject, 
 they began to look at its brighter side, if it had one. 
 
 " After all," said Sophy, '* having Whiteladies won't do very 
 much for papa. It is clear he is not going to have an heir, and 
 he can't leave it to us ; and what good would it do him, poor 
 old thing, for the time he has to live 1 " 
 
 " Papa is not so very old," said Kate, " nor so very fond of 
 us either, Sophy. He wants it for himself; and so should I, if 
 I were in his place." 
 
 " He wants it for the coming man," said Sophy, "who won't 
 come. I wonder, for my part, that poor mamma don't steal a 
 child ; I should in her place. Where would be the harm 1 and 
 then everybody would be pleased." 
 
 " Except Eyerard, and whoever marries Everard." 
 
 " So long as that is neither you nor me," said Sophy iaugh- 
 
 y, " I don't mind ; I should rather like to spite Evert^rd's wife, 
 
 I am 
 
 if she's somebody else. Why should men ever marry ? 
 sure they are a great deal better as they are." 
 
 " Speaking of marrying," said Kate seriously, " far the best 
 thing for you to do if it is true about Herbert, is to marry Aim, 
 Sophy. You are the one that is the most suitable in age. He 
 is just a simple innocent, and kno.vs nothing of the world, so 
 you could easily have him, if you liked to take the trouble ; and 
 then Whiteladies would be secured, one way or an other, and 
 papa pleased." 
 
 ** But me having it would not be like him having it," said 
 Sophy. " Would he be pleased ? You said not, just now." 
 
 " it would be the best that could be done," said Kate ; and 
 then she began to recount to her sister certain things that Drop- 
 more had said, and to ask whether Sophy thought they meant 
 anything ? which Sophy, wise in her sister's concerns, however 
 foolish in her own, did not think they did, though she herself 
 had certain words laid up from " Alf," in which she had more 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 141 
 
 faith, but which Kate scouted. ** They are only amusing them- 
 selves/' said the elder sister. " If Herbert does get better, 
 marry him, Sophv, with my blessing, and be content." 
 
 " And you could have Everard, and we should neither of us 
 change our names, but make one charming family party — " 
 
 " Oh, bosh ! I hate your family parties, besides, Everard 
 would have nothing in that case," said Kate, ringing the bell 
 for the maid, before whom they did not exactly continue their 
 discussion, but launched forth about Dropmore and Alf. 
 
 "There's been some one over here from the Barracks this 
 morning," said Sarah, " with a note for master. I think it was 
 the Markis's own man, miss." 
 
 " Whatever could it be I " cried both the sisters together, for 
 they were very slipshod in their language, as the reader will 
 perceive. 
 
 " And Miss Kate did go all of a tremble, and her cheeks lik« 
 strawberries," Sarah reported in the servants' hall, where, in- 
 deed, the Markis's man had already learned that nothing but a 
 wedding could excuse ^uch goings on. 
 
 " We ain't such fools as we look," that functionary had an- 
 swered with a wink, witty as his master himself. 
 
 I do not think that Kate, who knew the world, had any idea, 
 after the first momentary thrill of curiosity, that Dropmore's 
 note to her father could contain anything of supreme import- 
 ance, but it might be, and probably was, a proposal for some 
 new expedition, at any one of which matters might come to a 
 crisis ; and she sallied forth from her room accordingly, in her 
 fresh morning dress, looking a great deal fresher than she felt, 
 and with a little subdued excitement in her mind. She went 
 to the library, where her father generally spent his mornings, 
 and gave him her cheek to kiss, and asked affectionately after 
 his health, 
 
 " I do hope you have no rheumatism, papa, after last night. 
 Oh, how cold it was ! 1 don't think I shall ever let myself be 
 persuaded to go on the water in an east wind again." 
 
 " Not till the next time Dropmore asks," said her father in 
 his surliest voice. 
 
 " Dropmore, oh ! " Kate shrugged her shoulders. " A great 
 deal I care for what he asks. By-the-bye, I believe this is his 
 
142 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 cipher. Have you been hearing from Dropmore this morning, 
 papa ? and what does his most noble lordship please to want 1 " 
 
 '' Bah ! what does it matter what he wants ) " said Mr. Far- 
 rel- Austin savagely. '' Do you suppose I have nothing to do 
 but act as secretary for your amusements ) Not when I have 
 news of my own like what I have this morning/' and his eyes 
 reverted to a large letter which lay before him with " White- 
 ladies " in a flowery heading above the date. 
 
 "Is it true, then, that Herbert is better? " said Kate. 
 
 ** Herbert better ! rubbish ! Herbert will never be better ; 
 but that old witch has undermined me ! " cried the disappointed 
 heir with flashing eyes. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 143 
 
 CHAPI ER XVI. 
 
 lAPA has just heard that Herbert Austin, who has 
 Whiteladies, you know — our place that is to be — is 
 much better ; and he is low about it," said Sophy. 
 " Of course, if Herbert were to get better it would be a great 
 disappointment for us." 
 
 This speech elicited a shout of laughter from Dropmore and 
 the rest, with running exclamations of " Frank, by Jove," and 
 " I like people who speak their minds." 
 
 " Well," said Sophy, " if I were to say we were all delighted, 
 who would believe me ? It is the most enchanting old house 
 in the world, and a good property, and we have always been 
 led to believe that he was in a consumption. I declare I don't 
 know what is bad enough for him, if he is going to swindle us 
 out ofit^ and live." 
 
 "Sophy, you should not talk so wildly," said mild Mrs. 
 Austin from her sofa. " People will think you mean what you 
 say." 
 
 " And I do," said the girl. " I hate a cheat. Papa is quite 
 low about it, and so is cousin Everard. They are down upon 
 their luck." 
 
 " Am IV said Everard, who was a little out of temper, it 
 must be allowed, but chiefly because in the presence of the 
 Guardsmen he was very much thrown into the shade. " I 
 don't know about being down on my luck ; but it's not a sweet 
 expression for a young lady to use." 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind about expressions that young ladies ought 
 to use ! " said Sophy. A tinge of colour, came on her face at 
 the reproof, but she tossed her pretty head, and went on all 
 the more : " V/hy shouldn't girls use the same words as other 
 people do 1 You men want to keep th':) best of everything 
 to yourselves — nice sti'ong expressions sjid all the rest." 
 
 " By Jove ! " said Lord Alf ; " mind yoa, I don't like a girl 
 to swear — it ain't the thing somehow; but for a phrase like 
 ' down on his luck,' or * awful fun/ or anything like that~ 
 
 ft 
 
144 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " And pray why shouldn't you like a girl to swear ? " said 
 Kate. " * By Jove,' for instance? I like it. It gives a great 
 deal of point to your conversation, Lord Alf." 
 
 ** Oh, bless you, that ain't swearing. But it don't do. I 
 am not very great at reasons ; but, by Jove, you must draw the 
 line somewhere. 1 don't think now that a girl ought to swear." 
 
 " Except ' her pretty oath of yea and nay,* " said Everard, 
 who had a little, a very little, literature. 
 
 The company in general stared at him, not having an idea 
 what he meant ; and as it is more humbling somehow to fail 
 in a shot of this descrij^^iVn, which goes over the head of your 
 audience, than it is t^ sL^w actual inferiority, Everard felt 
 himself grow very red and hot, and feel very angry. The scene 
 was the drawing-room at the Hatch, where a party of callers 
 were spending the afternoon, eating bread-and-butter and 
 drinking tea, and planning new delights. After this break- 
 down, for so he felt it, Everard withdrew hastily to Mrs. 
 Austin's sofa, and began to talk to her, though ha did not 
 quite know what it was about. Mild Mrs. Austin, though she 
 did not understand the attempts which one or two of the visi- 
 tors of the house had made to flirt with her, was pleased to be 
 talked to, and approved of Everard, who was never noisy, 
 though often " led away," like all the others, by the foolish- 
 ness of the girls. 
 
 "I am glad you said that about this slang they talk," said 
 Mrs. Austin. " Perhaps coming from you it ma} have some 
 weight with them. They do not mind what I say. And have 
 you heard any more about poor Herbert? You must not 
 think Mr. Austin is low about it, as they said. They only say 
 such things to make people laugh." 
 
 This charitable interpretation arose from the poor lady's de- 
 sire to do the best for her step-children, whom it was one of the 
 regrets of her faded life, now and then breathed into the ear of 
 a confidential friend, that she did not love as she ought. 
 
 " I have only heard he is better," said Everard ; " and it is 
 no particular virtue on my part to be heartily glad of it. I am 
 not poor Herbert's heir." 
 
 He spoke louder than he had any need to speak ; for Mrs. 
 Austin, though an invalid, was not at all deaf. But I fear that 
 he had a haimeiiug to be heard and replied to, and called back 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 145 
 
 into the chattering circle which had formed round the girls. 
 Neither Kate nor Sophy, however, had any time at the moment 
 to attend to Everard, whom they felt sure they could wheedle 
 back at any time. He gave a glance towards them with the 
 corner of his eye, and saw Kate seriously inclining her pretty 
 pink ear to some barrack joke which the most noble Marquis 
 of Dropmore was recounting with many interruptions of laugh- 
 ter ; while Sophy carried on with Lord Alf and an applauding 
 auditory that discussion about where the line should be drawn, 
 and what girls migjht and might not do. " I hunt whenever I 
 can," Sophy was saying ; " and I wish there was a ladies' club 
 at Hurlingham or somewhere ; I should go in for all the prizes. 
 And I'm sure I could drive your team every bit as well as you 
 do. Oh, what I would give just to have the ribbons in my 
 hand ! You should see then how a drag could go." 
 
 Everard listened, deeply disgusted. He had not been in the 
 least disgusted when the same sort of thing had been said to 
 himself, but had laughed and applauded with the rest, feeling 
 something quite irresistible in the notion of pretty Sophy's 
 manly longings. Her little delicate hands, her slim person, no 
 weightier than a bird, the toss of her charming head, with its 
 wavy, fair locks, like a flower, all soft colour and movement, 
 had put ineffable humour into the suggestion of those exploits 
 in which she longed to emulate the heroes of the household 
 brigade. But now, when Everard was outside the circle, he 
 felt a totally different sentiment move him. Clouds and dark- 
 ness came over his face, and I do not know what further 
 severity might have come from his lips, had not Mr. Farrel- 
 Austin, looking still blacker than himself, come into the room, 
 in a way which added very little to the harmony, though some- 
 thing to the amusement, of the party. He nodded to the 
 visitors, snarled at the girk, and said something disagreeable 
 to his wife, all in two minutes by the clock. 
 
 " How can you expect to be well, if you go on drinking tea 
 for ever and ever 1 " he said to the only harmless member of the 
 party. " Afternoon tea must have been invented by the devil 
 himself to destroy women's nerves and their constitutions." He 
 said this as loudly and with the same intention as had moved 
 Everard ; and he had more success, for Dropmore, Alf, and the 
 rest turned round with their teacups in their hands, and showed 
 J 
 
146 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 their excellent teeth under their moustachios in a roar of 
 laughter. " I had not the least idea I was so amusing," said 
 Mr. Farrel, sourer than ever. " Here, Everard, let me have a 
 word with you." 
 
 " By Jove ! he is down on his luck," said Lord Alf to Sophy 
 in an audible aside. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you so "i " said the elegant young lady ; " and 
 when he's low he's always as cross as two sticks." 
 
 " Everard," said Mr. Farrel-Austin, " I am going over to 
 Whiteladies on business. That old witch, Susan Austin, has 
 outwitted us both. As it is your interest as well as mine, you 
 had better drive over with me — unless you prefer the idiocy 
 here to all the interests of life, as some of these fools seem to 
 do." 
 
 " Not T," said Everard with much stateliness, " as you may 
 perceive, for I am taking no part in it. I am quite at your 
 service. But if it's about poor Herbert, I don't see what Miss 
 Susan can have to do with it," he added, casting a longing look 
 behind. 
 
 " Bah ! Herb, t is neither here nor there," said the heir- 
 presumptive. " You don't suppose I put any faith in that. 
 She has spread the rumour, perhaps, to confuse us and put us 
 off the scent. These old women," said Mr. Farrel with deliber- 
 ate virulence, " are the very devil when they put their minds 
 to it. And you are as much interested as I am, Everard, as I 
 have no son — and what with the absurdity and perverseness of 
 women," he added, setting his teeth with deliberate virulence, 
 " don't seem likely to have." 
 
 I don't know whether the company in the drawing-room 
 heard this speech. Indeed, I do not think they could have 
 heard it, being fully occupied by their own witty and graceful 
 conversation. But there came in at this moment a burst of 
 laughter which drove the two gentlemen furious in quite 
 different ways, as they strode with all the dignity of ill-temper 
 down-stairs. Farrel-Austin did not care for the Guardsmen's 
 laughter in itself, nor was he critical of the manners of his 
 daughters, but he was in a state of irritation which any trifle 
 would have made to boil over. And Everard was in that con- 
 dition of black disapproval which every word and tone in- 
 creases, and to which the gaiety of a laugh is the direst of 
 
 II 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 147 
 
 offences. Ho would have laughed as gaily as any of them had 
 he been seated where Lord Alt* was ; but being "out of it," to 
 use their own elegant language, he could see nothing but what 
 was objectionable, insolent, nay, disgusting, in the sound. 
 
 What influenced Farrel-Austin to take the young man with 
 him, however, I am unable to say. Probably it was the mere 
 suggestion of the moment, the congenial sight of a countenance 
 as cloudy as his own, and perhaps a feeling that as (owing to 
 the perverseness of women) their interests were the same, 
 Everard might help him to unravel Miss Susan's meaning, and 
 to ascertain what foundation in reality there was for her letter 
 which had disturbed him so greatly ; and then Everard was 
 the friend and pet of the ladies, and Farrel felt that to convey 
 him over as his own second and backer-up, would inflict a pang 
 upon his antagonist ; which, failing victory for yourself, is 
 always a good thing to do. As for Everard, he went in pure 
 despite, a most comprehensible reason, hoping to punish by his 
 dignified withdrawal the little company whose offence was that 
 it did not appreciate his presence. Foolish yet natural motive 
 — which will continue to influence boys and girls, and even 
 men and women, as long as there are two sets of us in the 
 world ; and that will be as long as the world lasts, I suppose. 
 
 The two gentlemen got into the dog-cart which stood at the 
 door, and dashed away across the summer country in the lazy, 
 drowsy afternoon to Whiteladies. The wind had changed and 
 was breathing softly from the west, and summer had recon- 
 quered its power. Nothing was moving that could help it 
 through all the warm and leafy country. The kine lay drowsy 
 in the pastures, not caring even to graze, or stood about, the 
 white ones dazzling in the sunshine, contemplating the world 
 around in a meditative calm. The heat had stilled every sound, 
 except that of the insects whose existence it is ; and the warm 
 grass basked, and the big white daisies on the roadside trembled 
 with a still pleasure, drinking in the golden light into their 
 golden hearts. 
 
 But the roads were dusty, which was the chief thing the 
 two men thought of except their business. Everard heard for 
 the first time ol the bargain Farrel had made with the Austins 
 of Bruges, and did not quite know what V* think of it, or which 
 side to take in the matter. A sensuaon of annoyance that his 
 
11 
 
 I 
 
 ■i 
 
 m 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 ! 
 
 14S 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 companion had succeeded in finding people for whom he had 
 himself made so many vain searches, was the first feeling that 
 moved him. But whether he liked or did not like Farrel's 
 bargain, he could not tell. He did not like it, because he had 
 no desire to see Farrel-Austin reigning at Whiteladies ; and he 
 did not dislike it because, on the whole, Farrel would probably 
 make a better Squire than an old shopkeeper from the Nether- 
 lands ; and thus his mind was so divided that he could not tell 
 what he thought. But he was very curious about Miss Susan's 
 prompt action in the matter, and looked forward with some 
 amusement and interest to hear what she had done, and iiow 
 she had outwitted the expectant heir. 
 
 This idea even beguiled his mind out of the dispositions of 
 general misanthropy with which he hiid started. He grew 
 eager to know all about it, and anticipated with positive en- 
 joyment the encounter between the old lady who was the actual 
 Squire, and his companion who was the prospective one. As 
 they neared Whiteladies, too, another change took place in 
 Everard. He had almost been Farrel's partisan when ihey 
 started, feeling in the mutual gloom, which his companion 
 shared so completely, a bond of union which was very close for 
 the moment. But Everard's gloom dispersed in the excitement 
 of this new object ; in short, 1 believe the rapid movement and 
 change of the air would of themselves have been enough to 
 dispel it — whereas the gloom of the other deepened. And as 
 they flew along the familiar roads, Everard felt the force of all 
 the old ties which attached him to the old house and its in- 
 mates, and began to feel reluctant to appear before Miss Susan 
 by the side of her enemy. " If you will go in first I'll see to 
 putting up the horse," he said when they reached the house. 
 
 " There is no occasion for putting up the horse," said Far- 
 rel, and though Everard invented various other excuses for lin- 
 ;;;ering behind, they were all ineffectual. Farrel, I suppose, 
 had the stronger will of the two, and he would not relinquish 
 the pleasure of giving a sting to Miss Susan by exhibiting her 
 favourite as his backer. So the young man was forced to 
 follow him whether he would or not ; but it was with a total 
 revolution of sentiment. " I only hope she will outwit the 
 fellow, and make an end of him clean," Everard said to himself. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 149 
 
 They wore shown into the hall, w'uere Miss Susan chose, for 
 some reason of her own, to give them audience. She appeared 
 in a minute or two in her grey gown, and with a certain air of 
 importance, and shook hands with them. 
 
 " What, you here, Everard 'i " she said with a smile and a 
 cordial greeting. " I did not look for this pleasure. But of 
 course the business is yours as well as Mr. Farrel's. It was 
 very seldom that Miss Susan condescended to add Austin to 
 that less distinguished name. 
 
 " I happened — to be — at the Hatch," said Everard faltering. 
 
 " Yes, he was with my daughters ; and as he was there I 
 made him come with me, because of course he may have the 
 greatest interest," said Mr. Farrel, "as much interest almost 
 as myself " 
 
 " Just the same," said Miss Susan briskly , " m.ore indeed, 
 because he is young and you are old, cousin Farrel. Sit down 
 there, Everard, and listen ; though having a second gentleman 
 to hear what I have to say is alarming, and will make it all the 
 harder upon me." 
 
 Saying this, she indicated a seat to Farrel and one to Everard 
 (he did not know if it was with intention that she placed him 
 opposite to the gallery with which he had so many tender as- 
 sociations), and seated herself in the most imposing chair in 
 the room, as in a seat of judgment. There was a considerable 
 tremor about her as she thus for the first time personally an- 
 nounced what she had done ; but this did not appear to the 
 men who watched her, one with affectionate interest and a mix- 
 ture of eagerness and amusement, the other with resolute op- 
 position, dislike, and fear. They thought her as stately and 
 as strong as a rock, informing her adversary thus, almost with 
 a proud indifference, of the way in which her will had van- 
 quished his, and were not the least av^are of the flutter of con- 
 sciousness which sometimes seemed almost to take away her 
 breath. 
 
 " I was much surprised, I need not say, by your letter," said 
 Farrel, " surprised to hear you had been at Bruges, as I know 
 you are not given to travelling ; and I do not know how to 
 understand the intimation you send me that my arrangement 
 with our old relative is not to stand. Pardon me, cousin Susan, 
 but I cannot imagine why you should have interfered in the 
 matter, or why you should pr«fer him to me." 
 
150 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " What had my interference to do with it 1 " she said, speaking 
 slowly to preserve her composure ; though this very expedient 
 of her agitation made her appear more composed. *' I had 
 business abroad," she went on with elaborate calm, " and I 
 have always taken a great interest in these Austins. They are 
 excellent people — in their way ; but it can scarcely be sup- 
 posed that I should prefer people in their way to any other. 
 They are not the kind of persons to step into my father's 
 house." 
 
 " Ah, you feel that ! " said Farrel with an expression of re- 
 lief. 
 
 " Of course I must feel that," said Miss Susan with that fer- 
 vour of truth which is the most able and successful means of 
 giving credence to a lie ; " but what has my preference to do 
 with it 1 I don't know if they told you, poor old people, that 
 the son they were mourning had left a young widow 1 — a very 
 important fact." 
 
 " Yes, I know it. But what of that ? " 
 
 " What of that ? You ask me so, you a married man with 
 children of your own ! It is very unpleasant for a lady to 
 speak of such matters, especially before a young man like 
 Everard ; but of course I cannot shrink from performing my 
 promise. This young widow, who is quite overwhelmed by 
 her loss, is — in short, there is a baby expected. There, now 
 you know the whole." 
 
 It was honestly unpleasant to Miss Susan, though she was 
 a very mature, and indeed, old woman, to speak to the men of 
 this, so much had the bloom of maidenhood, that indefinable 
 fragrance of youthfulness which some unwedded people carry 
 to the utmost extremity of old age, lingered in her. Her cheek 
 coloured, her eyes fell ; nature came in again to lend an ap- 
 pearance of perfect verity to all she said, and so complicated 
 are our human emotions, that, at the moment, it was in reality 
 this shy hesitation, so natural yet so absurd at her years, and 
 not any consciousness of her guilt, which was uppermost in her 
 mind. She cast down her eyes for the moment, and a sudden 
 colour came to her face ; then she looked up again, facing Far- 
 rel, who in the trouble of his mind, repeating the words after 
 her, had risen from his seat. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 151 
 
 (( 
 
 Ves," she said, "of course you will perceive that in these 
 circumstances they cannot compromise themselves, but must 
 wait the event. It may be a girl, of course," Miss Susan ad- 
 ded steadily, "as likely as not, and in that case I suppose 
 your bargain stands. We must all " — and here her feelings 
 got the better of her, and she drew a long shivering breath of 
 excitement — " await the event." 
 
 With this she turned to Everard, making a hasty movement 
 of her hands and liead as if glad to throw off an unpleasing 
 subject. " It is some time since I have seen you," she said. 
 " I am surprised that you should have taken so much interest 
 in this news as to come expressly to hear it ; when you had 
 no othe/ motive — " 
 
 How glad she was to get rid of a little of her pent up feelings 
 by this assault ! 
 
 " I had another motive," said the young man, taken by sur- 
 prise and somewhat aggrieved as well ; " I heard Herbert was 
 better — getting well. I heartily hope it is true." 
 
 " You heartily hope it is true ? Yes, yes, I believe you do, 
 Everard, I believe you do ! " said Miss Susan, melting all of 
 a sudden. She put up her handkerchief to her eyes to dry the 
 tears which belonged to her excitement as much as the irrita- 
 tion. " As for getting well, there are no miracles nowadays, 
 and I don't hope it, though Augustine does, and my poor little 
 Reine does, God help her. No, no, I cannot hope for that ; 
 but better he certainly is — for the moment. They have been 
 able to get him out again, and the doctor says — Stop, I have 
 Reine's letter in my pocket ; I will read you what the doctor 
 says." 
 
 All this time Farrel-Austin, now bolt upright on the chair 
 whichhe had resumed after receiving the thunderbolt, sat gloom- 
 ing with his eyes fixed on air and his mind transfixed with this 
 tremendous arrow. He gnawed his under lip, out of which the 
 blood had gone, and clenched his hands furtively, with a secret 
 wish to attack some one, but a consciousness that he could do 
 nothing, which was terrible to him. He never for a moment 
 doubted the truth of the intimation he had just received, but 
 took it as gospel, doubting Miss Susan no* more than he doubted 
 the law or any other absolutely certain thing. A righteous 
 person has thus an immense advantage over all false and frivo- 
 
152 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 lou8 people in doing wron^ as well as in other things. The 
 man never doubted her. He did not care much for a lie him- 
 self, and would perhaps have shrunk from few deceits to secure 
 Whiteladies for himself ; but he no more suspected her than he 
 suspected Heaven itself. He sat like one stunned, and gnawed 
 his lip and devoured his sharp disappointment, mortification, 
 and pain. He did not know what to say or do in this sudden 
 downfall from the security in which he had boasted himself, but 
 sat hearing dully what the other two said, without caring to 
 make out what it was. 
 
 As for Miss Susan, she watched him narrowly, holding her 
 breath, though she did nothing to betray her scrutiny. She 
 had expected doubt, questioning, crosu examination ; and he 
 said nothing. In her guilty consciousness she could not realize 
 that this man whom she despised and disliked could have faith 
 in her, and watched him stealthily, wondering when he would 
 break out into accusations and blasphemies. She was almost 
 as wretched as he was, sitting there so calmly opposite to him, 
 making conversation for Everard, and wondering. Was it pos- 
 sible he could believe her ] Would he go oflf at once to find 
 out ? Would her accomplices stand fast 1 Her heart beat 
 V ildly in her sober bosom, when, feeling herself for the first 
 time in the power of another, she sat and asked herself what 
 was going to happen, and what Farrel- Austin could mean 1 
 
WHITFXADIES. 
 
 153 
 
 ;o secure 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FTEK affairs had come to the point described in our last 
 chapter, when Miss Susan had committed herself 
 openly to her scheme for the discomfiture of Farrel- 
 Austin, and that personage had accepted, with a bitterness, 1 
 cannot describe, the curious contretemps (as he thought) which 
 thus thrust him aside from the heirship, of which he had been 
 so certain, and made everything more indefirHe than ever — 
 there occurred a lull in the family story. All that could be done 
 was to await the event which should determine whether a new 
 boy was to spring of the old Austin stock, or the conspiracy to 
 come to nothing in the person of a girl. All depended upon 
 Providence, as Miss Susan said, with the strange mixture of 
 truth and falsehood which distinguished this extraordinary epi- 
 sode in her life. She said this without a change of countenance, 
 and it was absolutely true. If Providence chose to defeat her 
 fraud, and bring all her wicked plans to nothing, it was still 
 within the power of Heaven to do so in the most natural and 
 simple way. In short, it thus depended upon Providence — she 
 said to herself, in the extraordinary train of casuistical reason- 
 ing which went through her mind on this point — whether she 
 really should be guilty of this wrong or not. It was a kind of 
 Sortes into which she had thrown herself — much as a man 
 might do who put it upon the hazard of a " toss-up" whether 
 he should kill another man or not. The problematical murderer 
 might thus hold that some power outside of himself had to do 
 with his decision between crime and innocence ; and so did 
 Miss Susan. It was, she said to herself, within the arbitration 
 of Providence — Providence alone could decide ; and the guilty 
 flutter with which her heart sometimes woke in her, in the 
 uncertainty of the chances before her, was thus calmed down 
 by an almost pious sense (as she felt it) of dependence upon 
 " a higher hand." I do not attempt to explain this curious 
 mixture of the habits of an innocent and honourable and even 
 religious mind, with the one novel and extraordinary impulse 
 
154 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 to a great wrong wliich had seized upon Miss Susan once in her 
 life, without, su to speak, impairing her character, or indeed 
 having any inimcdiate effect upon its general strain. She would 
 catch herself even saying a little prayer for the success of her 
 crime sometimes, and would stop short with a hard drawn 
 breath, and such a quickening of all her pulses as nothing in her 
 life had ever brought before ; but generally her mind was 
 calmed by Am thought that as yet nothing was certain, but all 
 in the ban Is of Providence ; and that her final guilt, if she was 
 doomed to be guilty, would be in some way sanctioned and 
 justified by the deliberate decision of Heaven. 
 
 This uncertainty it was, no doubt, which kept up an excite- 
 ment in her, not painful except by moments, a strange quicken- 
 ing of life, which made the period of her temptation feel like a 
 new era in her existence. She was not unhappy, neither did 
 she feel guilty, but only excited, possessed by a secret spring of 
 eagerness and intentness which made all life more energetic and 
 vital. This, as I have said, was almost more pleasurable than 
 painful ; but in one way she paid the penalty. The new thing 
 became her master -thought : she could not get rid of it for a 
 moment. Whatever she was doing, whatever thinking of, 
 this came constantly uppermost. It looked her in the face, so 
 to speak, the first thing in the morning and never left her but 
 reluctantly when she went to sleep at the close of the day, 
 mingling broken visions of itself even with her dreams, and 
 often waking her up with a start in the dead of night. It 
 haunted her like a ghost ; and though it was not accompanied 
 by any sense of remorse, her constant consciousness of its pre- 
 sence gradually had an effect upon her life. Her face grew 
 anxious : she moved less steadily than of old ; she almost gave 
 up her knitting and such meditative occupations, and took to 
 reading desperately when she was not immersed in business — 
 all to escape from the thing by her side, though it was not in 
 itself painful. Thus gradually, insidiously, subtlely, the evil 
 took possession of her life. 
 
 As for Farrel- Austin, his temper and general sensibility were 
 impaired by Miss Susan's intimation to an incalculable degree. 
 There was no living with him, all his family said. He too 
 awaited the decision of Providence, but in anything but a pious 
 way ; and poor Mrs. Farrel- Austin had much to bear which no 
 
 I! ] '. 
 
WfllTELADIKS. 
 
 155 
 
 (»ne heard uf. " Fcol poorly I What in tht- ^immI of y<»nr Ireliiig 
 poorly 1 " he would say to her with whimsical hrutality. " Any 
 other woman but you would liave seen what wuu rc({uired of her. 
 Why, even that creature at Bruges — that widow I It is what 
 women were made for ; and there isn't a labourer's wife in the 
 parish but is up to as much as that." 
 
 " Oh, Farrel, how can you be so unkind ? " the i)oor woman 
 would say. " But i' I had a little girl you would be quite as 
 angry, and that could not be my fault." 
 
 " Have a girl if you dare ! " said the furious heir-presump- 
 tive. And thud he awaited the decision of Providence — moi« 
 innocently, but in a much less becoming way, than Miss Susan 
 did. It was not a thing that was publicly spoken of, neither 
 was the world in general aware what was the new question 
 which had arisen between the two houses, but its effects were 
 infinitely less felt in Whiteladies than in the internal comfort 
 of the Hatch. 
 
 In the mids^ of this sourd and suppressed excitement, how- 
 ever, the new possibility about Herbert, which poor Augustine 
 had given solemn thanks for, but which all the experienced 
 people had treated as folly, began to grow and acquire some- 
 thing like reality. A dying life may rally and flicker in the 
 socket for a day or two, but when the improvement lasts for a 
 whole month, and goes on increasing, even the greatest sceptic 
 must pause and consider. It was not till Heine's letter arrived, 
 telling the doctor's last opinion that there had always been 
 something peculiar in the case, and that he could no longer 
 say that recovery wae impossible, that Miss Susan's mind first 
 really opened to the idea. She was by herself when this 
 letter came, and read it, shaking her head and saying " Poor 
 child ! " as usual ; but when she had got to the end. Miss 
 Susan made a pause and drew a long breath, and began at the 
 beginning agaiii, with a curiously awakened look in her face. 
 In the middle of this second reading she suddenly sprang up 
 from her seat., said loud out (being all alone), " There will be 
 no need for it then ! " and burst into a sudden flood of tears. 
 It was as if some fountain had opened in her breast ; she could 
 not stop crying, or saying things to herself, in the strange 
 rapture that came upon her. " No need, no need ; it will not 
 matter ! " she said again and again, not knowing that she was 
 speaking. 
 
ill 
 
 166 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " What will not matter 1 " said Augustine, who had come in 
 softly and stood by, looking on with grave surprise. 
 
 Augustine knew nothing about Bruges — not even of the ex- 
 istence of the Austins there, and less (I need nor say) of the 
 decision of Providence for which her sister waited . Miss Susan 
 started to her feet and ran to her, and put the letter into her 
 hand. 
 
 " I do begin to believe the boy will get well," she cried, her 
 eyes once more overflowing. 
 
 Her sister could not understand her excitement : she her- 
 self hi5d made up her simple mind to Herbert's certain re- 
 covery long before, when the first letter came. 
 
 " Yes, he will recover," she said ; " I do not go by the doctor, 
 but by my feelings. For some time I have been quite sure 
 that an answer was coming, and Mary Matthews has said the 
 same thing to me. We did not know, of course, when it 
 would come. Yes, he will get better. Though it was so very 
 discouraging, we have never ceased, never for a day " 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! " said Miss Susan, her heart penetrated 
 and melting, " you have a right to put confidence in your 
 prayers, for you are as good as a child. Pray for us all, that 
 our sins may be forgiven us. You don't know, you could not 
 think, what evil things come into some people's minds." 
 
 "I knew you were in temptation," said Augustine gently ; 
 and she went away, asking no questions, for it was the time 
 for her almshouses' service, which nothing ever was permitted 
 to disturb. 
 
 And the whole parish, which had shaken its head and doubt- 
 ed, yet was very ready to believe news that had a half-miracu- 
 lous air, now accepted Herbert's recovery as certain. " See 
 what it IS to be rich," some of the people said ; '* if it had been 
 one o' our poor lads, he'd been dead years ago." The people 
 at the Almshouses regarded it in a different way. Even the 
 profane ones among them, like old John, who was conscious of 
 doing very little to swell the prayers of the community, felt a 
 certain pride in the news, as if they had something to do with 
 the event. " We've prayed him back to life," said old Mrs. 
 Matthews, who was very anxious that some one should send an 
 account of it to the Methodist Magazine, and had the courage to 
 propose this step to Dr. Richard, who nearly fainted at the 
 
 i I 
 
 cL 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 157 
 
 proposition. Almost all the old people felt a curious thrill of 
 innocent vanity at having thus been instrumental in so im- 
 portant an event ; but the village generally resented this \iew, 
 and said it was like their impudence to believe that God 
 Almighty would take so much notice of folks in an Almshouse. 
 Dr. Richard himself did not quite know what to s?.y on the 
 subject. He was not sure that it was " in good taste " to 
 speak of it so, and he did not think the Church approved of 
 any such practical indentification of the benefit of her prayers. 
 In a more general way, yes ; but to say that Herbert's re- 
 covery and the prayers of the Almshouses were cause and 
 effect was rather startling to him. He said to his wife that 
 it was " Dissenterish " — a decision in which she fully agreed. 
 " Very Dissenterish my dear, and not at all in good taste." 
 Mrs. Richard said. 
 
 But while the public in general, and the older persons in- 
 volved, were thus affected by the news, it had its effect too, in 
 conjunction with other circumstances, upon the young people, 
 who were less immediately under its influence. Everard Aus- 
 tin, who was not the heir-presumptive, and indeed now knew 
 himself to be another degree off from that desirable position, felt 
 nothing but joy at his cousin's amendment ; and the girls at 
 the Hatch were little affected by the failure of their father's 
 immediate hopes. But other things came in to give it a cer- 
 tain power over their future lives. Kate took it so seriously 
 upon herself to advise Sophy as to her future conduct in re- 
 spect to the recovered invalid, that Sophy was inspired to double 
 efforts for the enjoyment of the present moment, which might, 
 if suv accepted her sister's suggestion, be all that was left to her 
 of the pleasure she enjoyed most. 
 
 " Do it myself 1 No ; I could not do it myself," said Kate, 
 when they discussed the subject, " for he is younger than I am ; 
 you are just the right age for him. You will have to spend the 
 winters abroad," she added, being of a prudent and forecasting 
 mind, *'so you need not say you will get no fun out of your life. 
 Rome and these sorts of places, where he would be sure to be 
 sent to, are great fun, when you get into a good set. You had 
 far better make up your mind to it ; for, as for Alf, he is no 
 good, my dear ; he is only amusing himself ; you may take my 
 word for that." 
 
:ii 
 
 il! 
 
 1 
 
 158 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " And so am I amnsing myself," Sophy said, her cheeks blaz- 
 ing with indignation at this uncalled-for stroke ; " and, what's 
 more, I mean to, like you and Dropmore are doing. T can see 
 as far into a milestone as any of you," cried the young lady, 
 who cared as littlo for grammar as for other colloquial delicacies. 
 
 And thus it was that the fun grew faster and more furious 
 than ever ; and these two fair sisters flew about both town and 
 country, wherever gaiety was going, and were seen on the top 
 of more drags, and had more dancing, more flirting, and more 
 pleasuring than ^wo girls of unblemished character are often 
 permitted to inuulge in. Poor Everard was dreadfully " out of 
 it " in that hruyant summer. He had no drag, nor any particu- 
 lar way of being useful, except by boats ; and, as Kate truly 
 said, a couple of girls cannot drag about a m.an with them, even 
 though he is their cousin. I do not think he would have found 
 much fault with their gaiety had he shared in it ; and though 
 he did find fault with their slang, there is a piquancy in acting as 
 Mentor to two girls so pretty which seems to carry its own re- 
 ward with it. But Everard disapproved very much when he 
 found himself left out, and easily convinced himself that they 
 were going a great deal too far, and that he was grieved, an- 
 noyed, and even disgusted by their total departure from woman- 
 ly tranquillity. He did not know what to do with himself in 
 his desolate and d4laissd condition, hankering after them and 
 their society, and yet disapproving of it, and despising their 
 friends and their pleasures, as he said to himself he did. He 
 felt dreadfully, dolefully superior, after a few days, in his water- 
 side cottage, and as if he could never again condescend to the 
 vulgar amusements which were popular at the Hatch ; and an 
 impulse moved him, half from a generous and friendly motive, 
 half on his own behalf, to go to Switzerland, where there was 
 always variety to be had, and to join his young cousins there, 
 and help to nurse Herbert back to strength and health. It was 
 a very natural reaction, though I do not think he was sensible 
 of it, which made his mind turn with a sudden rebound to Reine, 
 after Kate and Sophy had been unkind to him. Reine was 
 hasty and high-spirited, and had made him feel now and then 
 that she did not quite approve of him ; but she never would 
 have left him in the lurch, as the other girls had done ; and he 
 was very fond of Herbert, and very glad of his recovery; and he 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 159 
 
 le : and he 
 
 wanted change : so that all these causes together worked him 
 to a sudden resolution, and this was how it happened that he 
 appeared all at once, without preface or announcement, in the 
 Kanderthal, before the little inn, like an angel sent to help her 
 in her extremity, at Reine's moment of greatest n,eed. 
 
 And whether it was the general helpfulness, hopefulness, and 
 freshness of the stranger, like a wholesome air from home, or 
 whether it was a lurning point in the m.^lady, Icaniiot tell, but 
 Herbert began to mend Irom that very night. Everard infused 
 a certain courage into them all. He relieved Reine, whose ter- 
 rible disappointment had stupefied her, and who for the first 
 time had utterly broken down under the strain which overtasked 
 her young faculties. He roused up Franqois who, though he 
 went on steadily with his duty, was out of heart too, and had 
 resigned himself to his young master's death. " He ha« been 
 as bad before, and got better," Everard said, though he did not 
 believe what he was saying ; but he made both Reine and Fran- 
 cois believe it, and what was still better, Herbert himself, who 
 rallied aud made a last desperate effort to get hold again of the 
 thread of life, which was so fast slipping out of his languid fin- 
 gers. " It is a relapse," said Everard, " an accidental relapse, 
 from the wetting; he has not really lost ground." And to his 
 own wonder he gradually saw this pious falsehood grow into a 
 truth. 
 
 To the great wonder of the valley too, which took so much 
 interest in the poor young Englishman, and which had already 
 settled where to bury him, and held itself ready at any moment 
 to weep over the news which everybody expected, the next 
 bulletin was that Herbert was better ; and from that moment 
 he gradually, slowly mended again, toiling back by languid de- 
 grees to the hopeful though invalid state from which he had 
 fallen. Madame de Mirfleur arrived two days after, when the 
 improvement had thoroughly set in, and she never quite 
 realized how near death her son had been. He was still ill 
 enough, however, to justify her in blaming herself much for 
 having left him, and in driving poor Reine frantic with the in- 
 ference that only in his mother's absence could he have been 
 exposed to such a danger. She did not mean to blame Reine, 
 whose devotion to her brother and admirable care of him she 
 always boasted of, but I think she sincerely believed that un- 
 
i 
 
 160 
 
 WEITKLADIES. 
 
 der her own guardianship, in this point at least, her son would 
 have been more safe. But the sweet bells of Beine's nature 
 had all been jangled out of tune by these events. The ordinary 
 fate of those who look for miracles had befallen her ; her 
 miracle, in which she believed so firmly, had failed, and all hea- 
 ven and earth had swung out of balance. Her head swam, and 
 the world with it, swaying under her feet at every step she 
 took. Everything was out of joint to Reine. She had tried to 
 be angelically good, subduing every rising of temper and 
 unkind feeling, quenching not only every word on her lips, but 
 every thought in her heart, which was not kind i\nd forbearing. 
 But what did it matter ? God had not accepted v.he offering of 
 her goodness nor the entreaties of her prayers ; He had changed 
 his miud again ; He had stopped short and interrupted His own 
 work. Relne allowed all the old bitterness which she had 
 tried so hard to subdue to pour back into her heart. When 
 Madame de Mirfteur, going into her son's room, made that 
 speech at the door about her deep regret at having left her boy 
 the girl could not restrain herself. She burst out to Everard, 
 who w-^s standing by, the moment her mother was out of the 
 room. 
 
 " Oh, it is cruel, cruel ! " she cried. " Is it likely Lhat I would 
 risk Herbert's life — I that have only Herbert in all the world 1 
 We are nothing to her — nothing! in comparison with that — that 
 gentleman she has married, and those babies she has," cried 
 poor R«ine. 
 
 It seemed somewhat absurd to Everard that she should 
 speak with such bitterness of her mother's husband ; but he 
 was kind and consoled her. 
 
 ** Dear Reine, she did not blame you," he said ; ** she only 
 meant that she was sorry to have been away from you ; and of 
 course it is natural that she should care — a little, for her hus- 
 band and her other children." 
 
 " Oh ! you don't, you cannot understand ! " said Reine. 
 " What did she want v/ith. a husband ? — and other children ? 
 That is the whole matter. Your mother belongs to you, doesn't 
 she? or else she is not your mother." 
 
 When she had given forth this piece of triumphant lode with 
 all the fervour and satisfaction of her French blood, Reine sud- 
 denly felt the shame of having betrayed herself and blamed her 
 
 ^u. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 t6i 
 
 mother. Her flushed face grew pale, her voice faltered. 
 " Everard, don't mind what I say. I am angry, and unhappy, 
 and cross, and I don't know what is the matter with me," cried 
 the poor child. 
 
 •* You are worn out ; that is what is the matter with you," 
 said Everard, strong in English common sense. " There is no- 
 thing that affects the nerves and the temper like an overstrain 
 of your strength. You must be quite quiet, and let yourself be 
 taken care of, now Herbert is better, and you will get all right 
 again. Don't cry ; you are worn out, my poor little queen." 
 
 " Don't call me that," said the girl weeping ; " it makes me 
 think of the happy times before be was iU, and of Aunt Susan 
 and home." 
 
 " And what could you think of better 1 " said Everard. " By- 
 and-by — don't cry, Queeny I — the happy days will come back, 
 and you and I will take Herbert home." 
 
 And he took her hand and held it fast, and as she went on 
 crying, kissed it and said many a soft word of consolation. 
 He was her cousin, and had been brought up with her ; so it 
 was natural. But I do not know what Everard meant, neither 
 did he know himself : " You and I will take Herbert home." 
 The words had a curious effect upon both the young people — 
 upon her who listened and him who spoke. They seemed to 
 imply a great deal more than they really meant. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur did not see this little scene, which pro- 
 bably would have startled and alarmed her ; but quite inde* 
 pendently there rose up in her mind an idea which pleased her, 
 and originated a new interest in her thoughts. It came to her 
 as she sat watching Herbert, who was sleeping softly after the 
 first airing of his renewed convalescence. He was so quiet and 
 doing 30 well that her mind was at ease about him, and free to 
 proceed to other matters ; and from these thoughts of hers 
 arose a little comedy in the midst of the almost tragedy which 
 kept the little party so long prisoners in the soft seclusion of 
 the Kanderlhal. 
 
 M 
 
16^ 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII . . 
 
 ADAME DE MIRFLEUR had more anxieties connected 
 with her first family than merely the illness of her 
 son ; she had also the fate of her daughter to think 
 of, and I am not sure that the latter disquietude did not give 
 her the most concern. Herbert, poor boy, could but die, which 
 Avould be a great grief, but an end of all anxiety, wherejis Reine 
 was likely to live, and cause much anxiety, unless her future 
 were properly ctxted for. Reine's establishment in life had 
 been a very serious thought to Madame de Mirfleur since the 
 girl was about ten years old, and though, she was only eighteen 
 as yet, her mother was well aware how negligent English rela- 
 tives are in this particular, leaving a girl's marriage to enhance, 
 or what they are pleased to call Providence, or more likely her 
 own silly fancy, without taking any trouble to establish her 
 suitably in life. She had thought much, very much of this, 
 and of the great unlikelihood, on the other hand, of Reine, 
 with her English ways, submitting to her mother's guidance in 
 so important a matter, or accepting the husband whom she 
 might choose ; and if the girl was obstinate and threw herself 
 back, as was most probable, on the absurd laisser-aller of the 
 English, the chances were that she would never find a proper 
 settlement at all. These thoughts, temporarily suspended 
 when Herbert was at his worst, had come up again with double 
 force as she ceased to be completely occupied by him ; and 
 when she found Everard with his cousins, a new impulse was 
 given to her imagination. Madamf^ de Mirfleur had known 
 Everard more or less since his boyhood ; she liked him, for his 
 manners were always pleasant to women. He was of suitable 
 age, birth, and disposition ; and though she did not quite know 
 the amount of his means, which was the most important pre- 
 liminary of all, he could not be poor, as he was of no profession, 
 and free to wander about the world as only rich young men 
 can do. Madame de Mirfleur felt that it would be simply 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 163 
 
 criminal on her part to let such an occasion slip. In the inter- 
 vals of their nursing, accordingly, she sought Everard's com- 
 pany, and had long talks with him when no one else was by. 
 She was a pretty woman still, though she was Reine's mother, 
 and had all the graces of her nation, and that conversational 
 skill which is so thoroughly French ; and Everard, who liked 
 the society of women, had not the least objection on his side to 
 her ' jmpanionship. In this way she managed to find out from 
 him what his position was, and to form a very good guess at 
 his income, and to ascertain many details of his life, with infi> 
 nite skill, tact, and patience, and without in the least alarming 
 the object of her study. She found out that he had a house of 
 his own, and money enough to sound very well indeed when 
 put into francs, which she immediately did by means of mental 
 calculations, which cost her some time and a considerable effort. 
 This, with so much more added to it, in the shape of Reine's 
 t?o/, would make altogether, she thought, a very pretty fortune ; 
 and evidently the two were made for each other. They had 
 similar tastes and habits in many points ; one was twenty-fiv , 
 the other eighteen ; one dark, the other fair ; one impulp- /e and 
 highspirited, with quick French blood in her veins, the other 
 tranquil, with all the English ballast necessary. Altogether, 
 it was such a marriage as might have been made in heaven \ 
 and if heaven had not one fit to do it, Madame de Mirfleur 
 felt herself strong enough to remedy this inadvertence. It 
 seemed to her that she would be neglecting her chief duty as 
 Reine's mother if she allowed this opportunity to slip through 
 her hands. To be sure, it would have been more according to 
 le& convenaniceSf had there been a third party at hand, a mutual 
 friend to undertake the negotiation ; but, failing any one else, 
 Madame de Mirfleur felt that, rather than lose such an " oc- 
 casion," she must, for once, neglect the convenances, and put 
 herself into the breach. 
 
 " I do not understand how it is that your friends do not marry 
 you," she said one day when they were walking together. " Ah, 
 you laugh, Monsieur Everard. I know that is not your English 
 way ; but believe me, it is the duty of the friends of every young 
 person. It is a dangerous thing to choose for yourself ; for how 
 should you know what is in a young girl ? You can judge by 
 
164 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 nothing but look^ and outside manners, which are very deceit- 
 ful, while a mother or a judicious friend would sound her char 
 acter. You condemn our French system, you others, but that 
 is because you don't know. For example, when I married my 
 present husband, M. de Mirfleur, it was an affair of great de- 
 liberation. I did not think at first that his property was so good 
 as I had a right to expect, and there was some scandal about his 
 grandparent wh' did not quite please me. But all that was 
 smoothed awav h> rocess of time, and a personal interview con- 
 vinced me tlia 1 abv Id find in him everything that a reason- 
 able woman desi^^s. ' d so I do ; we are as happy as the day. 
 With poor Herbert's father the affair was very different. There 
 was no deliberation — no time for thought. With my present 
 experience, had I known that daughters do not inherit in Eng- 
 land I should have drawn back, even at the last moment. But 
 I was young, and my friends were not so prudent as they ought 
 to have been, and we did what you call fall in love. Ah, it is 
 a mistake ! a mistake ! In France things are a great deal better 
 managed. I wish I coull convert you to my views." 
 
 " It would be very easy for Madame de Mirfleur to convert 
 me to anything," said Everard, with a skill which he must have 
 caught from her, and which, to tell the truth, occasioned him- 
 self some surprise. 
 
 ^, " Ah, you flatter ! " said the lady ; " but seriously, if you 
 will think of it, there are a thousand advantages on our side. 
 For example, now, if I were to propose to you a charming young 
 person whom I know — not one whom I have seen on the sur- 
 face, but whom I know au fondj you understand — with a dot 
 that would be suitable, good health, and good temper, and every- 
 thing that is desirable in a wife 1 I should be sure of my facts, 
 you could know nothing but the surface. Would it not then 
 be much better for you to put yourself into my hands, and take 
 my advice 1 " 
 
 " I have no doubt of it," said Everard, once more, gallantly ; 
 " if I wished to marry, I could not do better than put myself in 
 such skilful hands." 
 
 *' If you wished to marry — ah bah ! if you come to that, per 
 haps there are not many who wish to marry, for that sole rea- 
 •on," said Madame de Mirfleur. 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 105 
 
 rview con- 
 
 " Pardon me ; but why should they do it 1 " said Everard. 
 
 " Ah, fie, fie 1 you are not so innocent as you appear," she 
 said. " Need I tell to you the many reasons ? Besides, it is 
 your duty. No man can be really a trustworthy member of so- 
 ciety till he has married and ranged himself. It is clearly your 
 duty to range yourself at a certain time of life, and accept the 
 responsibilities that nature imposes. Besides, what would be- 
 come of u& if young men did not marry 1 There would be a 
 mob of mauvais si'jets, and no society at all. No, mon ami, it 
 is your duty ; and when I tell you I have a very charming young 
 person in my eye " 
 
 " I should like to see her very much. I have no doubt your 
 taste is excellent, and that we should agree ir nnst points," 
 said Everard, with a laugh. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Madame de Mirfleur, hur »uri , him, 
 
 a 
 
 very charming young person," she added, se ^ ^u 1y, "with, let 
 us say, a hundred and fifty thousand francs. V^'iat would you 
 say to that for the dot ? " 
 
 "Exactly the right sum, I have no doubl i^ I had the least 
 notion how much it was," said Everard, entering into the joke, 
 as he thought ; " but, pardon my impatience, the young person 
 herself " 
 
 "Extremely comme il faut" said the lady, very gravely. "You 
 may be sure I should not think of proposing any one who was 
 not of good family ; noble of course ; that is what you call gen- 
 tlefolks — you English. Young — at the most charming age in- 
 deed — not too young to be a companion, nor too old to adapt 
 herself to your wishes. A delightful disposition, lively — a lit- 
 tle impetuous perhaps." 
 
 " Why this is a paragon ! " said Everard, beginning to feel 
 a slight uneasiness. He had not yet a notion whom she meant ; 
 but a suspicion that this was no joke, but earnest, began to 
 steal over his mind : he was infinitely amused ; but notwith- 
 standing his curiosity and relish of the fun, was too honour- 
 able and delicate not to be a little afraid of letting it go too 
 far. " She must be ugly to make up for so many virtues ; other- 
 wise how could I hope that such a bundle of excellence would 
 ^ven look at me 1 " 
 
 fll 
 
 ill 
 
166 
 
 WHITEL.VDIES. 
 
 li 
 
 i I 
 
 " On the contrary, there are many people who think her 
 pretty," said Madame de Mirfleur : " perhaps I am not quite 
 qualified to judge. She has charming bright eyes, good hair, 
 good teeth, a good figure, and, I think I may say, a very favour- 
 able disposition. Monsieur Everard, towards you." 
 
 " Good heavens !' cried the young man ; and he blushed \iot\y 
 and made an endeavour to change the subject. " I wonder if 
 this Kanderthal is quite the place for Herbert," he said hastily : 
 " don't you think there is a want of air ? My own opinion is 
 that he would be better on higher ground." 
 
 " Yes, probably," said Madame de Mirfleur, smiling. " Ah, 
 Monsieur Everard, you are afraid ; but do not shrink so, I will 
 not harm you. You are very droll, you English — what you call 
 prude. I will not frighten you any more ; but I have a regard 
 for you, and I should like to marry you all the same." 
 
 " You do me too much honour," said Everard, taking oif his 
 hat and making his best bow. Thus he tried to carry off his 
 embarrassment ; and Madame de Mirfleur did not want any 
 further indication that she had gone far enough, but stopped 
 instantly, and began to talk to him with all the ease of her 
 nation about a hundred other subjects, so that he half forgot 
 this assault upon him, or thought he had mistaken, and that it 
 was merely her French way. She was so lively and amusing 
 indeed that she completely reassured him, and brought him 
 back to the inn in the best of humours with her and with him- 
 self. Heine was standing on the balcony as they came up, and 
 her face brightened as he looked up and waved his hand to her. 
 " It works,' Madame de Mirfleur said to herself ; but even she 
 felt that for a beginning she had said quite enough. 
 
 In a few days after, to her great delight, a compatriot — a gen- 
 tleman whom she knew, and who was acquainted with her 
 family and antecedents — appeared in the Kanderthal, on his 
 way, by the Gemmi pass, to the French side of Switzerland. 
 She hailed his arrival with the sincerest pleasure, for, indeed, 
 it was much more proper that a third party should manage the 
 matter. M. de Bonneville was a grey-haired, middle-aged 
 Frenchman, very straight and very grave, with a grizzled 
 moustache and a military air. He understood her at a word, 
 as was natural, and when she took him aside and explained to 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 1()7 
 
 him all her fears and difficulties about Reine and tlio fearful 
 neglect of English relations in this the most important part in 
 a girl's life, his heart was touched with admiration of the true 
 motherly solicitude thus confided to him. 
 
 " It is not perhaps the moment I wouki have chosen," said 
 Madame de Mirfleur, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, " 
 " while my Herbert is still so ill ; but what would you, cher 
 Baron ? My other child is equally dear to me ; and when she 
 gets among her English relations, I shall never be able to do 
 anything for my Reine." 
 
 " I understand, I understand," said M. de Bonneville ; 
 " believe me, dear lady, I am not unworthy of so touching a 
 confidence. I will take occasion to make myself acquainted 
 with this charming young man, and I will seize the first oppor- 
 tunity of presenting the subject to him in such a light as you 
 would wish." 
 
 " I must make you aware of -^ll the details," said the lady, 
 and she disclosed to him the amount of Reine's dot, which 
 pleased M. de Bonneville much, and made him think, if this 
 negotiation came to nothing, of a son of his own, who would 
 find it a very agreeable addition to his Mens. " Decidedly 
 Mademoiselle Reine is not a partie to be neglected," he said, 
 and made a note of all the chief points. He even put off his 
 journey for three or four days, in order to be of use to his 
 friend, and to see how the affair would end. 
 
 From this time Everard found his company sought by the 
 new-comer with a persistency which was very flattering. M. de 
 Bonneville praised his French, and though he was conscious he 
 did not deserve the praise, he was immensely flattered by it ; and 
 his new friend sought information upon English subjects with 
 a serious desire to know, which pleased Everard still more. " I 
 hope you are coming to England, as you want to know so much 
 about it," he said, in an Englishman's cordial yet unmannerly 
 way. 
 
 " I propose to myself to go some time," said the cautious Baron, 
 thinking that probably if he arranged this marriage, the grateful 
 young people might give him an invitation to their chateau in 
 England : but he was very cautious, and did not begin his 
 
 11 
 
 ¥'-: 
 
168 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 attack till he had known Everard for three days at least, whichi 
 in SNvitzerland, is as good as a friendship of years. 
 
 " Do you stay with your cousins 1 " he snid one day, when 
 they were walking up the hillside on the skirts of the Oemmi. 
 A. de Bonneville was a little short of breath, and would pause 
 frequently, not caring to confess this weakness, to admire the 
 view. The valley lay stretched out before them like a map, 
 the snowy hills retiring at their right hand, the long line of 
 heathery broken land disappearing into the distance on the 
 other, and the village, with its little bridge and wooden houses 
 straggling across its river. Herbert's wheeled chair was visible 
 on the road like a child's toy — Reine walking by her brother's 
 side. " It is beautiful, the devotion of that charming young per- 
 son to her brotln^r," M. de Bonneville said, with a sudden burst 
 of sentiment. " Pardon me, it is too much for my feelings ! Do 
 you mean to remain with this so touching group, Monsieur 
 Austin, or do you proceed *o Italy like myself? " 
 
 " I have not made up my mind," said Everard. " So long 
 as I can be of any use to Herbert, I will stay." 
 
 " Poor young man ! it is to be hoped he will get better ; 
 though I fear it is not very probable. How sad it is, not only 
 for himself, but for hia charming sister I One can understand 
 Madame de Mirfleur's anxiety to see her daughter established 
 in life." 
 
 " Is she anxious on that subject ) " said Everard, half laugh- 
 ing. ** 1 think she may spare herself the trouble. Eeine is 
 very young, and there is time enough." 
 
 " That is one of the points, I believe, on which our two 
 peoples take different views," said M. de Bonneville, good- 
 humouredly. " In France it is considered a duty with parentis 
 to marry their children well and suitably — which is reasonable, 
 you will allow, at least." 
 
 '' I do not see, I confess," said Everard, with a little British 
 indignation, " how, in such a matter, any one man can choose 
 for another. It is the thing of all others in which people must 
 please themselves." 
 
 " You think so ? Well," said M. de Bonneville, shrugging 
 his shoulders, '' the one does not hinder the other. You may 
 
WHITCLADIE8. 
 
 169 
 
 still please yourself, if your parents are judicious and place be- 
 fore you a proper choice." 
 
 Everard said notliing. He cut down the thistles on the side 
 of the road with his cane to give vent to his feelings, and 
 mentally shrugged his shoulders too. What was the use of 
 discussing such a subject with a Frenchman 1 As if they could 
 be fit to judge, with their views ! 
 
 '• In no other important matter of life," said M. de Bonne- 
 ville, insinuatingly, *• do we allow young persons at an early age 
 to decide for themselves, and this, pardon me for saying so, is 
 the most impossible of all. How can a young girl of eighteen 
 come to any wise conclusi'^n in a matter so important 1 What 
 can her grounds be for forming a judgment ? She knows neither 
 men nor life ; it is not to be desired that she should. How 
 then is she to judge what is best for her 1 Pardon me, the 
 English are a very sensible people, but this is a biiise : I can use 
 no other word." 
 
 " Well, sir," said Everard hotly, with a youthful blush, 
 " among us we still believe in such a thing as love." 
 
 " Mou jeune ami," said his companion, " I also believe in 
 it; but tell me, what is a girl to love who knows nothing? 
 Black eyes or blue, light hair or dark, him who valses best, or 
 him who sings 1 What does she know more 1 what do we 
 wish the white creature to know more ? But when her parents 
 say to her — * Ch6rie, here is some one whom with great care we 
 have chosen, whom we know to be worthy of your innocence, 
 whose sentiments and principles are such as do him honour, 
 and whose birth and means are suitable. Love him if you can ; 
 he is worthy ' — once more pardon me," said M. de Bonneville, 
 " it seems to me that this is more accordant with reason than 
 to let a child decide her fate upon the experience of a soiree 
 du bal. We think so in France." 
 
 Everard could not say much in reply to this. There rose up 
 before him a recollection of Kate and Sophy mounted high on 
 Dropmore's drag, and careering over the country with that 
 hero and his companions under the nominal guardianship of & 
 young matron as rampant as themselves. They were petfectly 
 able to form a judgment upon the relative merits of the Guards- 
 men ; perfectly able to set himself aside coolly as nubody 
 
 1.^' 
 
 
170 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 which was, I fear, the head and front of their offending. Per- 
 haps there were cases in which the Frenchman might be 
 right. 
 
 " The case is almost, but I do not say quite, as strong with 
 a young man," said M. de Boimeville. " Again it is to the ex- 
 perience of the soiree du bal which you would trust to in place 
 of the anxiwus selection of iiiends and parents. A young girl 
 is not a statue to be measured at a glance. Her excellences 
 are modest," said the mutual friend, growing enthusiastic. 
 " She is something cachee, sacred ; it is but her features, her 
 least profound attractions, which can be learned in a valse or a 
 party of pleasure. Mademoiselle Eeine is a very charming 
 young person,*' he continued, in a more business-like tone. 
 " Her mother has confided to me her anxieties about her. I 
 have a strong inclination to propose to Madame de Mirfleur 
 my second son Oscar, who, though I say it who should not, is 
 as fine a young fellow as it is possible to see." 
 
 Everard stopped short in his walk, and looked at him mena- 
 cingly, clenching his fist unawares. It was all he could do to 
 subdue his fury and keep himself from pitching the old match- 
 maker headlong down the hill. So that was what the specious 
 old humbug was thinking of! His son, indeed; some miser- 
 able, puny Frenchman — for Reine ! Everard's blood boiled in 
 his veins, and he could not help loo^ ing fiercely in his compan- 
 ion's face ; he was speechless with consternation and wrath. 
 Reine ! that they should discuss her like a bale of goods, and 
 marry her perhaps, poor little darling ! — if there was no one to 
 interfere. 
 
 " Yes," said M. de Bonneville meditatively. " The dot is small, 
 smaller than Oscar has a right to expect ; but in other ways the 
 partie is very suitable. It would seal an old friendship, and it 
 would secure the happiness of two families. Unfortunately the 
 post has gone to-day, buc to-morrow I will write to Oscar and 
 suggest it to him. I do not wish for a more sweet daughter- 
 in-law than Mademoiselle Reine." 
 
 " But can you really for a moment suppose that Reine ! " 
 
 thundered forth the Englishman. " Good heavens ! what an 
 extraordinary way you have of ordering affairs ! Reine, poor 
 girl, with her brother ill, her heart bursting, all her mind ab- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 171 
 
 sorbed, to be roused up in order to have some fine young gen- 
 tleman presented to her ! It is incredible — it is absurd — it is 
 cruel ! " said the young man, flushed with anger and indigna- 
 tion. His companion while he stormed did nothing but smile. 
 
 " Cher Monsieur Everard," he said, " I think I comprehend 
 your feelings. Believe me, Oscar shall stand in no one's way. 
 If you desire to secure this pearl for yourself, trust to me ; I 
 will propose it to Madame de Mirfleur. You are about my son's 
 age ; probably rich, as all you English are rich. To be sure, 
 there is a degree of relationship between you ; but then you are 
 Protestants both, and it does not matter. If you will favour 
 me with your confidence about preliminaries, I understand all 
 your delicacy of feeling. As an old friend of the family I will 
 venture to propose it to Madame de Mirfleur." 
 
 " You will do nothing of the kind," said Everard, furious. "I 
 — address myself to any girl by a go-between ! I — insult poor 
 Reine at such a moment ! You may understand French delicacy 
 of feeling, M. de Bonneville, but when we use such words we 
 English mean something different. If any man should venture 
 to interfere so in my private affairs — or in my cousin's either 
 for that matter " 
 
 " Monsiepr Everard, I think you forget yourself," said the 
 Frenchman with dignity. 
 
 " Yes ; perhaps I forget myself. I don't mean to say any- 
 thing disagreeable to you, for I suppose you mean no harm ; 
 but if a countryman of my own had presumed— had ventured 
 
 . Of course I don't mean to use these words to you," said 
 
 Everard, conscious that a quarrel on such a subject (with a man 
 of double his age would be little desirable ; " it is our different 
 ways of thinking. But pray be good enough, M. de Bonne- 
 ville, to say nothing to Madame de Mirfleur about me." 
 
 " Certainly not," said the Frenchman with a smile," if you do 
 not wish it. Here is the excellence of our system, which by means 
 of leaving the matter in the hands of a third party, avoids 
 all offence or misunderstanding. Since you do not wish it, I 
 will write to Oscar to-night." 
 
 Everard gave him a look, which if looks were explosive might 
 
 .Jit a 
 
 im 
 
 1 1 ' 
 l'?i: 
 
 have blown him across the Gerami. 
 
 You mistake me," he 
 
f1.» 
 
 , V. 
 
 i I 
 
 I7i 
 
 WHITELADIEtt. 
 
 said, not knowing what he said ; ** I will not have my cousin 
 interfered with, any more than myself " 
 
 '* Ah, forgive me ! that is going too far," said the Frenchman ; 
 " that is what you call dog in the manger. You will not eat 
 yourself, and you would prevent others from eating. I have 
 her mother's sanction, which is all that is important, and my 
 son will be here in thTee days. Ah ! the sun is beginning to 
 sink behind the hills. How beautiful is that rose-flash on the 
 snow ! With your permission I will turn back and make the 
 descent again. The hour of sunset is never wholesome. Par- 
 don, we shall meet at the table d'hdte.** 
 
 Everaid made him the very slightest possible salutation, and 
 pursued his walk in a state of excitement and rage which I can- 
 not describe. He went miles up the hill in his fervour of feel- 
 ing, not knowing where he went. What ! traffic in Reine — sell 
 Reine to the best bidder *, expose her to a coid-blooded little 
 beast of a Frenchman, who would come and look at the girl to 
 judge whether he liked her as an appendage to her dot ! Ever- 
 ard's rage and dismay carried him almost to the top of the pass 
 before he discovered where he was. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 173 
 
 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 <y^*-T 
 
 VERA.RD was too late, as might have been expected, for 
 the table d'hdte. When he reached the village, very 
 tired after his long walk, he met the diners there, strol- 
 ling about in the soft evening — the men with their cigars, the 
 ladies in little groups in their evening toilettes, which were of 
 an unexciting character. On the road, at a short distance from 
 the hotel, he encountered Madame de Mirfleur and M. de 
 Bonneville, no doubt planning the advent of M. Oscar, he 
 thought to himself, with renewed fury ; but, indeed, they were 
 only talking over the failure of their project in respect to him- 
 self. Reine was seated in the balcony above, alone, looking out 
 upon the soft night and the distant mountains, and soothed, I 
 think, by the hum of voices close at hand, which mingled with 
 the sound of the waterfall, and gave a sense of fellowship and 
 society. Everard looked up at her and waved his hand, and 
 begged her to wait till he should come. There was a new moon 
 making her way upwards in the pale sky, not yet quite visible 
 behind the hills. Reine's face was turned towards it with a 
 certain wistful stillness which went to Everard's heart. She was 
 in this little world,but not of it. She had no part in the whisper- 
 ings and laughter of those groups below. Her young life had 
 been plucked out of the midst of life, as it were, and wrapped 
 in the shadows of a sick chamber, when others like her were in 
 the full tide of youthful enjoyment. As Everard dived into 
 the dining-room of the inn to snatch a hasty meal, the perpe- 
 tual contrast which he felt himself to make in spite of himself, 
 came back to his mind. 1 think he continued to have an un- 
 conscious feeling, of which he would have been ashamed had it 
 been forced upon his notice or put into words, that he had him- 
 self a choice to make between his cousins — though how he 
 could have chosen both Kate and Sophy, I am af a loss to know, 
 and he never separated the two in his thoughts. When he 
 looked, as it were, from Reine to them, he felt himself to descend 
 
 ■i iiiif 
 
 lit! 
 
 ill 
 
174 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ever so far in the scale. Those pretty gay creatures " enjoyed 
 themselves" a great deal more than poor Reine had ever had it 
 in her power to do. But it was no choice of Reine's which thus 
 separated her from the enjoyments of her kind — was it the mere 
 force of circumstances 1 Everard could remember Reine as gay 
 as a bird, as bright as a flower ; though he could not connect 
 any idea of her with drags and racecourses. He had himself 
 rowed her on the river many a day, and heard her pretty 
 French songs rising like a fresh spontaneous breeze of melody 
 over the water. Now she looked to him like something above 
 the common course of life — with so much in her eyes that he 
 could not fathom, and such an air of thought and of emotion 
 about her as half attracted, half repelled him. The emotions 
 of Sophy and Kate were all on the surface— thrown off into 
 the air in careless floods of words and laughter. Their senti- 
 ments were all boldly expressed ; all the more boldly when 
 they were sentiments of an equivocal character. He seoDied to 
 hear them, loud, noisy, laughing, moving about in their i>right 
 dresses, lawless, scorning all restraint ; and then his mind re- 
 curred to the light figure seated overhead in the evening dark- 
 ness, shadowy, dusky, silent, with only a soft whiteness where 
 her face was, and not a sound to betray her presence. Pevhaps 
 she was weeping silently in her solitude ; perhaps thinking un- 
 utterable thoughts ; perhaps anxiously planning what she could 
 do for her invalid to make him Vt*^r or happier, perhaps pray- 
 ing for him. These idf'>,s brought a . loisture to Everard's eyes. 
 It was all a perad venture, but iaere was no perad venture, no 
 mystery about Kate and Sophy ; no need to wonder what they 
 were thinking of. Their souls moved in so limited an orbit, 
 and the life which they flattered themselves they knew so 
 thoroughly ran in such a narrow channel, that no one who knew 
 them could go far astray in calculation of what they were about ; 
 but Reine was unfathomable in her silence, a little world of in- 
 dividual thought and feeling into which Everard did not know 
 if he was worthy to enter, and could not divine. 
 
 While the young man thus nused — and dined, very uncom- 
 ibitab' V — Madame de Mirfleur listened to the report of her 
 agent. She had a lace shawl thrown over her head, over the 
 hai.v which waj? still as brown and plentiful as ever, and needed 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 176 
 
 no matronly covering. They walked along among the other 
 groups, straying a little further than the rest, who stopped her 
 from moment to moment as she went on, to ask for her son. 
 
 '* Better much better ; a thousand thanks," she kept saying. 
 " Really better : on the way to get well, I hope 1 " and then 
 she would turn an anxious ear to M. de Bonneville. " On such 
 matters sense is not to be expected from the English," she said 
 with a cloud on her face ; " they understand nothing. I could 
 not for a moment doubt your discretion, cher Monsieur de Bonne- 
 ville ; but perhaps you were a little too open with him, ex- 
 plained yourself too clearly ; not that I should think for a mo- 
 ment of blaming you. They are all the same, all the same ! — 
 insensate, unable to comprehend." 
 
 " I do not think my discretion was at fault," said the French- 
 man. " It is, as you say, an inherent inability to understand. 
 If he had not seen the folly of irritating himself, I have no 
 doubt that your young friend would have resorted to the brutal 
 weapons of the English in return for the interest I showed 
 him ; in which case," said M. de Bonneville calmly, " I should 
 have been under a painful necessity in respect to him. For 
 your sake, Madame, I am glad that he was able to apologize 
 and restrain himself." 
 
 " Juste ciel ! that 1 should have brought this upon you ! " cried 
 Madame de Mirfleur ; and it was after the little sensation 
 caused in her mind by this that he ventured to suggest that 
 other suitor for Reine. 
 
 " My SOP is already soits-prdfet,'" he said. " He has a great 
 career before him. It is a position that would suit Mademoi- 
 selle your charming daughter. In his ofl&uial pos on, I need 
 not say, a wife of Mademoiselle Heine's disbincti i would be 
 everything for him ; and though we might look for more 
 money, yet I shall willingly waive that question in considera- 
 tion of the desirable connections my son would thus acquire ; 
 a mother-in-law like Madame de Mirfleur is n t to be secured 
 every day," said the negotiant bowing to his knees. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur, on her part, made such a curtsey as 
 the Kanderthal, overrun by English tourists, had never seen 
 before ; and she smiled upon the idea of M. Oscar and his 
 career, and felt that could she but see Reine the wife of a 
 
 nJi 
 
 ■(!■*« 
 
 ^1- 
 
 
 H^^S>4: ■■■<yJ^ 
 
176 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 sous-prijetf the girl would he well and safely disposed of. But, 
 after her first exultation, a cold shiver came over Reine's 
 mother. She drew her shawl more closely round her. 
 
 ** Alas ! " she said, " so far as I am concerned everything would 
 be easy ; but, pity me, cher Baron, pity me ! Though I trust 
 I know my duty, I cannot undertake for Reinc. What suffer- 
 ing it is to have a child with other rules of action than those 
 on< approves of. It should be an example to every one not to 
 marry out of their own country. My child is English to the 
 nail-tips. I cannob help it ; it is my desolation. If it is her 
 fancy to find M. Oscar pleasing, all will go well ; but if it does 
 not, then our project will be ended ; and with such uncertainty 
 can I venture to bring Monsieur your sou here, to this little 
 village at the end of the world ? " 
 
 Thus the elder spirits communed not without serious anxiety ; 
 for Reine herself and her dot and her relationships seemed so 
 desirable that M. ^le Bonneville did not readily give up the 
 idea. 
 
 " She will surely accept your recommendation," he said, dis- 
 couraged and surprised. 
 
 " Alas ! my dear friend, you do not understand the English," 
 said the mother. " The recommendation would be the thing 
 which would spoil all." 
 
 "But then the ;parti you had yourself chosen — Monsieur 
 Everard ] " said the Frenchman puzzled. 
 
 " Ah, cher Baron, he would have managed it all in the 
 English way," ! id Madame de Mirfieur, almost weeping. " I 
 should have had no need to recommend. You do not know, 
 as I do, the English way." 
 
 And they turned back and walked on together under the 
 stars to ihe hotel door, where all the other groups were cluster- 
 ing, talVJtig of expeditions past and to con.e. The warm 
 evening air softer ?id the voices and gave to the flitting figures, 
 the half visible coit urs, the shadowy groups, a refinement un- 
 known to vbe:;Ti in broad daylight- Reine on her balcony saw 
 her mother iiirig back, and felt in her heart a wondering 
 bitter i. ess. j 3ine cfid nob care for the tourist society in which, 
 as ir> every ot. t, Madame de Mirflcur made herself acquaint- 
 anras and got a little amusement ; yet she could not kslp 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 177 
 
 
 feeling (as what girl could in the circumstances ?) a secret sense 
 that it was she who had a right to the amusement, and that 
 her own deep and grave anxiety, the wild trembling of her 
 heart, the sadness of the future, and the burden which she 
 was bearing and had to bear every day, would have been more 
 appropriate to her mother, at her mother's age, than to her- 
 self. This thought — it was Reine's weakness to feel this pain- 
 ful antagonism towards her mother — had just come into a 
 mind which had been full of better thoughts, when Everard 
 came up-stairs and joined her in the balcony. He too had met 
 Madame de Mirfleur as he came from the hotel, ;md he thought 
 he had heard the name " Oscar " as he passed her ; so that 
 his mind had received a fresh impulse, and was full of belli- 
 gerent and indignant thoughts. He came quite softly, how- 
 ever, to the edge of the balcony where Eeine was seated, and 
 stood over her, leaning against the window, a dark figure, 
 scarcely distinguishable. Reine's heart stirred softly at his 
 coming ; she did not know why ; she did not ask herself why ; 
 but took it for granted that she liked him to come, because of 
 his kindness and his kinship, and because they had been 
 brought up together, and because of his brotherly goodness to 
 Herbert, and through Herbert to herself. 
 
 " I have got an idea, Reine," he said, in the quick, almost 
 sharp, tones of suppressed emotion. " I think the Kanderthai 
 is too close ; there is not air enough for Herbert. Let us take 
 him up higher — ^that is, of course, if the doctor approves." 
 
 " I thought you liked the Kanderthai," said Reine, raising 
 her eyes to him, and touched with a visionary disappointment. 
 It hurt her a little to think that he was not pleased with the 
 place in which he had lingered so long for their sakes. 
 
 " I like it well enough," said Everard ; " but it suddenly oc- 
 curred to me to-day that, buried down here in a hole, beneath 
 the hills, there is too little air for Bertie. He wants air. It 
 seems to me that is the chief thing he wants. What did the 
 doctor say to-day 1 " 
 
 " He said — what you have always said, Everard — that Bertie 
 had regained his lost ground, and that this last illness was an 
 accident, like the thunderstorm. It might have killed him ; 
 but as it has not killed him, it does him no particular harm. 
 
 m 
 
 
 ir 
 
 ^hl 
 
 m 
 
 * M 
 
178 
 
 WHITELi^OIES. 
 
 That sounds nonsense," said Reine, " but it is what he told me^ 
 He is doing well, the doctor says — doing well ; and I can't be: 
 half glad — not as I ought." 
 
 *' Why not, Reine 1 " 
 
 " I can't tell, my heart is so heavy," she cried, putting her 
 hand to her wet eyes. " Before this — accident as you will call 
 it — I felt, oh, so different ! There was one night that I seemed 
 to see and hear God deciding for us. I felt quite sure ; there 
 was something in the air, something coming down from the 
 sky. You may laugh, Everard ; but to feel that you are quite, 
 quite sure that God is on your side, listening to you, and con- 
 sidering and doing what you ask — oh, you can't tell what a 
 thing it is ! " 
 
 " I don't laugh, Reine ; very, very far from it, dear." 
 
 " And then co be disappointed ! " sha cried ; " to feel a blank 
 come over everything, as if there was no one to care, as if God! 
 had forgotten or was thinking of something else ! I am not 
 quite so bad as that now," bhe added, with a weary gesture > 
 " but I feel as if it was not God, but only nature or chance or 
 something, that does it. An accident, you all say — going out 
 when we had better have stayed in ; a chance cloud blowing 
 this way, when it might have blown some other way. Oh ! " 
 cried Reine, " if that is all, what is the good of living 1 All ac- 
 cidet s chance Nature turning this way or the other ; no one 
 to sustain you if you are stumbling ; no one to say what is to 
 be — and it is ! I do not care to live, I do not want to live if this 
 is all there is to be in the world." 
 
 She put her head down in her lap, hidden by her hands. Ever- 
 ai'd stood over her, deeply touched and wondering, but with- 
 out a word to say. What could he say 1 It had never in his 
 life occurred to him to think on such subjects. No great trouble 
 or joy, nothing which stirs the soul to its depths, had ever hap- 
 pened to the young m^in in his easy existence. He had sailed 
 over the sunny surface of things, and had been content. He 
 could not answer anything to Reine in her first great conflict 
 with the undiscovered universe — the first painful, terrible shadow 
 that had ever come across her childish faith. He did not even 
 under itand the pain it gave her, nor how so entirely specula' 
 tive a matter could give pain. But though he was thus prevent- 
 
 1' 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 17J) 
 
 ed from feeling the higher sympathy, he was very sorry for his 
 little cousin, and reverent of her in this strange affliction. He 
 put his hand softly, tenderly upon her hidden head, and stroked 
 it in his ignorance, as he might have consoled a child. 
 
 " Reine, I am not good enough to say anything to you, even 
 if I knew," he said ; " and I don't know. I suppose God must 
 always be at the bottom of it, whatever happens. We cannot 
 tell or judge, can we ? for, you know, we cannot see any more 
 than one side. That's all I know," he added humbly, stroking 
 once more with a tender touch the bowed head which he could 
 scarcely see. How diflferent this was from the life he had come 
 from — from Madame de Mirfleur conspiring about Oscar and 
 how to settle her daughter in life ! Reine, he felt, was as far away 
 from it all as heaven is from earth ; and somehow he changed 
 as he stood there, and felt a different man : though, indeed, he 
 was not, I fear, at all different, and would have fallen away 
 again in ten minutes, had the call of the gayer voices to which 
 he was accustomed come upon his ear. His piety was of the 
 good, honest, unthinking kind — a sort of placid, stubborn de- 
 pendence upon unseen power and goodness, which is not to be 
 shaken by any argument, and which outlasts all philosophy — 
 thank heaven for it ! — a good sound magnet in its way, keep- 
 ing the compass right, though it may not possess the higher 
 attributes of spiritual insight or faith. 
 
 Reine was silent for a time, in the silence that always follows 
 an outburst of feeling ; but in spite of herself she was consoled — 
 consoled by the voice and touch which were so soft and kind, and 
 by the steady, unelevated, but in its way certain, reality of his 
 assurance. God must be at the bottom of it all — Everard, 
 without thinking much on the subject, or feeling very much, 
 had always a sort of dull, practical conviction of that ; and 
 this, like some firmj strong wooden prop to lean against, 
 comforted the visionary soul of Reine. She felt the solid 
 strength of it a kind of support to her, though there might be, 
 indeed, more faith in her aching, miserable doubt than there was 
 ill half-a-dozen such souls as Everard's ; yet the common-place 
 was a support to the visionary in this as in so many other 
 things. 
 
 
 I t 
 
 I 
 
 
180 
 
 WHITELADIEB. 
 
 " You want a change, too," said Everard. " You are 
 worn out. Let us go to some of the simple places high up 
 among the hills. I nave a selfish reason. I have just heard uf 
 aome one coming who would — bore you very much. At least, 
 he would bore me very much," said the youne man with forced 
 candour. " Let us get away before he comes. 
 
 " Is it some one from England 1 " said Keine. 
 
 " I don't know where he is from — last. You don't know 
 him. Never mind the fellow ; of course that's nothing to the 
 purpose. But I do wish Herbert would try a less confined air." 
 
 " It is strange that the doctor and you should agree so well," 
 said Heine with a smile. " You are sure you did not put it 
 into his head ? He wants us to go up to Appenzell, or some 
 such place ; and Herbert is to take the cure des sapins and the 
 cure de petit lait. It is a quiet place, where no tourists go. 
 But, Everard, I don't think you must come with us ; it will be 
 so dull for yon." 
 
 " So what ] It is evident you want me to pay you compli- 
 ments. I am determined to go. If I must not accompany 
 you, I will hire a private mule of my own with a side-saddle. 
 Why should not I do the cure de petit lait too 1 " 
 
 " Ah, because you don't want it." 
 
 " Is that a reason to be given seriously to a British tourist ? 
 It is the very thing to make me go." 
 
 " Everard, you laugh ; I wish I could laugh too," said Reine. 
 " Probably Herbert wo^^l get better the sooner. I feel so 
 heavy — so serious — not like other girls." 
 
 " You were neither heavy nor serious in the old times," said 
 Everard, looking down upon her with a stirring of fondness 
 which was not love, in his heart, " when you used to be 
 scolded for being so French. Did you ever dine solemnly in 
 the hall since you grew up, Reine ? It is very odd. I could 
 not help looking up to the gallery, and hearing the old scuffle 
 in the corner, and wondering what you thought to see me sit- 
 ting splendid with the aunts at table. It was verj* bewildering. 
 I felt like two people, one sitting grown-up down below, the 
 other whispering up in the corner with Reine and Bertie, look- 
 ing on and thinking it something grand and awful. I shall go 
 there and look at you when we are all at home again. You have 
 never been at Whiteladies since you were grown up, Reine 1 " 
 
WHITFXADIES. 
 
 181 
 
 " No," she said, turning her face to him with a soft ghost of 
 a laugh. It was nothing to call a laugh ; yet Everard felt 
 proud of himself for having so far succeeded in turning her 
 mood. The moon was up now, and i^hining upon her, making 
 a whiteness all about her, and throwing shadows of the rails of 
 the balcony, so that Rune's head rose as out of a cage ; but the 
 look she turned to him was wistful, half beseeching, though 
 Reine was not aware of it. She half put out her hand to 
 him. He was helping her out of that prison of grief and anx- 
 iety and wasted youth. " }Iow wonderful," shs said, " to think 
 we were all children once, not afraid of anything I I can't 
 make it out." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, my queen," said Everard. " I was 
 always mortally afraid of the ghost in the great staircase. I 
 don't like to go up or down now by myself. Reine, I looked 
 into the old playroom last time I was there. It was when poor 
 Bertie was so ill. There were all our tops and our bats and 
 your music, and I don't know what rubbish besides. It went 
 to my heart. I had to rush off and do something, or I should 
 have broken down and made a baby of myself." 
 
 A soft sob came from Reine's throat and relieved her, a rush 
 of tears came to her eyes. She looked up at him, the moon 
 shining so ^vhitely on her face, and glistening in these blots of 
 moisture, and took his hand in her impulsive way and kissed it, 
 not able to speak. The touch of those velvet lips on his brown 
 hand made Everard jump. Women the least experienced take 
 a salutation sedately, like Maud in the poem ; it comes natural. 
 But to a man the effect is different. He grew suddenly red and 
 hot, and tingling to his very hair. He took her hand in both 
 his with a kind of tender rage, and knelt down and kissed it 
 over and over, as if to make up by forced exaggeration for that 
 desecration of her maiden lips. 
 
 " You must not do that," he said, quick and sharply, in tones 
 that sounded almost angry ; ** you must never do that, Reine ; " 
 and could not get over it, but repeated the words, haU-scolding 
 her, half-weeping over her hand, till poor Reine, confused and 
 bewildered, felt that something new had come to pass between 
 them, and blushed overwhelmingly too, so that the moon had 
 hard ado to keep the upper hand. She had to rise from her 
 
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 ScMices 
 
 CorporatiGn 
 
 23 WIST MAIN STtKT 
 
 WltSTII(,N.Y. USW 
 
 (716)S73-4S03 
 

182 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 seat on the balcony before she could get her hand from him, 
 and felt, as it were, another, happier, more trivial life come 
 rushing back upon her in a strange maze of pleasure and appre- 
 hension and wonder and shamefacedness. 
 
 " I think I hear Bertie calling," she said, out of the flutter 
 and confusion of her heart, and went away like a ghost out of 
 the moonlight, leaving Everard, come to himself, leaning against 
 the window, and looking out blankly upon the nisht. 
 
 Had he made a dreadful fool of himself ? he asked, when he 
 was thus left alone ; then held up his hand, which she had 
 kissed, and looked at it in his strange new thrill of emotion 
 with a half-imbecile smile. He felt him3elf wondering that the 
 place did not show in the moonlight, and at last put it up to 
 his face, half-ashamed, though nobody saw him. What had 
 happened to Everaid ? He himself could not tell. 
 
 ■f 
 
WHITELIDIES. 
 
 tSJj 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 DO not know ttdt English doctors have the gift of recom- 
 mending thoHe pleasant simple fictions of treatment which 
 bring their patient face to face with nature, and give that 
 greatest nurse full opportunity to try her powers^ as Continen- 
 tal doctors do, in cases where medicine has already tried its 
 powers and failed — the grape cure, the whey cure, the fir-tree 
 cure — turning their patient as it were into the fresh air, among 
 the trees, on the hillsides, and leaving the rest to the mother 
 of us all. Fran9ois was already strong in the opinion that his 
 master's improvement arose from the sapins that perfumed the 
 air in the Kanderthal, and made a solemn music in the wind ; 
 and the cure de petit lait in the primitive valleys of Appenzell 
 commended itself to the young fanciful party, and to Herbert 
 himself, whose mind was extremely taken up by the idea. He 
 had no sooner heard of it than he began to find the Kanderthal 
 close and airless, as £verard suggested to him, and in his pro- 
 gressing convalescence the idea of a little change and novelty 
 was deliehtful to the lad thus creeping back across the thresh- 
 old of li&. Already he felt himself no invalid, but a young 
 man, with all a young man's hopes before him. When he re- 
 turned from his daily expedition in his chair he would get out 
 and saunter about for ten minutes, assuming an easy and, as 
 far as he could, a robust air, in front of the hotel, and would 
 answer to the inquiries of the visitors that he was getting 
 strong fast, and hoped soon to be all right. That interruption, 
 however, to his first half-miraculous recovery had affected Her- 
 bert something in the same way as it affected Keine. He too 
 had fallen out of the profound sense of an actual interposition 
 of Providence in his favour, out of the saintliness of that reso- 
 lution to be henceforth " good " beyond measure, by way of 
 proving their gratitude, which had affected them both in so 
 childlike a way. The whole matter had slid back to the lower 
 level of ordinary agencies, nature, accident, what the doctor 
 
 i 
 
'i 
 
 184 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 
 h 
 
 m^ 
 
 
 did and the careful inirses, what the patient swallowed, the 
 equality of the temperature kept up in his room, and so forth. 
 
 This shed a strange blank over it all to Herbert as well as to 
 his sister. He did not seem to have the same tender and awe- 
 struck longing to be good. His recovery was not the same 
 thing as it had been. He got better in a common way, as other 
 men get better. He had come down from the soft eminence 
 on which he had felt himself, and the change had a vulgarising 
 effect, lowering the level somehow of all his thoughts. But 
 Herbert's mind was not sufficiently visionary to feel this as a 
 definite pain, as Reine did. He accepted it, sufficiently content, 
 and perhaps easier on the lower level ; and then to feel the 
 springs of health stirring and bubbling after the long languor 
 of deadly sickness is delight enough to dismiss all secondary 
 emotions from the heart. Herbert was anxious to make another 
 move, to appear before a new population, who would not be so 
 sympathetic, so conscious that he had just escaped the jaws of 
 death. 
 
 " They are all a little disappointed that I did not die," he 
 said. " The village people don't like it — they have been cheated 
 out of their sensation. I should like to come back in a year or 
 so, when I am quite strong, and show myself ; but in the 
 meantime let's move on. If £verard stays, we shall be quite 
 jolly enough by ourselves, we three. We shan't want any other 
 society. I am ready whenever you please." 
 
 As for Madame de Mirfleur, however, she was quite indis- 
 posed for this move. She protested on Herbert's behalf, but 
 was silenced by the doctor's opinion. She protested on her own 
 account that it was quite impossible she could go further o£f 
 into those wilds and further from her home, but was stopped 
 by Reine, who begged her mamma not to think of that, since 
 Fran9ois and she had so often had the charge of Herbert. 
 
 " I am sure you will be glad to get back to M. de Mirfleur 
 and the children," Reino said with an ironical cordiality which 
 •he might have spared, as her mother never divined what she 
 meant. 
 
 " Yes," Madame de Mirfleur answered quite seriously, " that 
 is true, ch^rie. Of course I shall be glad to get home where 
 they all want me so much ; though M. de Mirfleur, to whom I 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 185 
 
 am sorry to see you never do justice, has been very good and 
 has not complained. Still the children are very young, and it 
 is natural I should be anxious to get home. But see what 
 happened last time I went away," said the mother, not dis- 
 pleased perhaps, much as she lamented its consequences, to 
 have this proof of her own importance handy. " I should never 
 forgive myself if it occurred again." 
 
 Reine grew pale and then red, moved beyond bearing, but 
 she dared not say anything, and could only clench her little 
 hands and go out to the balcony to keep herself from replying. 
 Was it her fault that the thunderstorm came down so suddenly 
 out of a clear sky ? She was not the only one who had been 
 deceived. Were there not ever so many parties on the moun- 
 tains who came home drenched and frightened, though they 
 had experienced guides with them who ought to have known 
 the changes of the sky better than poor little Reine ? Still 
 she could not say that this might not have been averted had the 
 mother been there, and thus she was driven frantic and escaped 
 into the balcony and shut her lips close that she might not 
 reply. 
 
 " But I shall go with them and see them safe, for the journey, 
 at least ; you may confide in my discretion," said Everard. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur gave him a look, and then looked at 
 Reine upon the balcony. It was a significant glance and filled 
 Everard with very disagreeable emotions. What did the wo- 
 man mean 1 He fell back upon the consciousness that she was 
 French, which of coarse explained a great deal. French ob- 
 servers always have nonsensical and disagreeable thoughts in 
 their mind. They never can be satisfied with what is, but 
 must always carry out every line of action to its logical end — an 
 intolerable mode of proceeding. Why should she look from 
 him to Reine ? Everard did not consider that Madame de 
 Mirfleur had a dilemma of her own in respect to the two which 
 ought to regulate her movements, and which in the meantime 
 embarrassed her exceedingly. She took Reine aside, not know- 
 ing what else to say. 
 
 " Ch^rie," she said, for she was always kind and indulgent, 
 and less moved than an English mother might have been by 
 her child's petulance. " I am not happy about this new fancy 
 
 [■'I 
 
 r 
 
186 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 
 my poor Herbert and you have in the head — the cousin, this 
 Everard ; he is very comme il faut, what you call nice, and 
 sufficiently good-looking and young. What will any one say to me 
 if I let my Reine go away wandering in lonely places with this 
 young man 1 " 
 
 " It is with Herbert I am going," said Reine, hastily. " Mam- 
 ma, do not press me too far ; there are some things I could not 
 bear. Everard is nothing to me," she added, feeling her 
 cheeks flush and a great desire to cry come over her. She could 
 not laugh and take this suggestion lightly, easily, as she wished 
 to do, but grew serious, and flushed, and angry in spite of her- 
 -.3lf. 
 
 " My dearest, I did not suppose so," said the mother, always 
 kind, but studying the girl's face closely with her suspicions 
 aroused. " I must think of what is right for you, ch6rie," she 
 said. '' It is not merely what one feels ; Herbert is still ill ; he 
 will require to retire himself early, to take many precautions, 
 to avoid the chill of evening and of morning, to rest at midday; 
 and what will my Reine do then 1 You will be left with the 
 cousin. I have every confidence in the cousin, my child ; he is 
 good and honourable, and will take no advantage." 
 
 " Mamma, do you think what you are saying 1 " said Reine, 
 almost with violence ; " have not you confidence in me 1 What 
 have I ever done that you should speak like this 1 " 
 
 " You have done nothing, ch6rie, nothing," said Madame de 
 Mirfleur. " Of course in you I have every confidence— that 
 goes without saying ; but it is the man who has to be thought 
 of in such circumstances, not the young girl who is ignorant of 
 the world, and who is never to blame. And then we must 
 consider what people will say. You will have to pass hours 
 alone with the cousin. People will say, ' What is Madame de 
 Mirfleur thinking of to leave her daughter thus unprotected 1 ' 
 It will be terrible ; I shall not know how to excuse myself." 
 
 " Then it is of yourself, not of me, you are thinking," said 
 Reine with fierce calm. 
 
 " You are unkind, my child," said Madame de Mirfleur. " I 
 do indeed think what will be said of me — that I have neglected 
 my duty. The world will not blame you ; they wul say, 
 
WHITELADTES. 
 
 187 
 
 ' What could the mother be thinking of?' But it is on you, 
 ch^rie, that the penalty would fall." 
 
 " You could tell the world that your daughter was English, 
 used to protect herself, or rather, not needing any protection," 
 said Reinc -, " and that you had your husband and children to 
 think of, and could not give your attention to me," she added 
 bitterly. 
 
 " That is true, that is true," said Madame de Mirfleur. The 
 irony was lost upon her. Of course the husband and children 
 were the strongest of all arguments in favour of leaving Reine 
 to her own guidance ; but as she was a conscientious woman, 
 anxious to do justice to all her belongings, it may be believed 
 that she did not make up her mind easily. Poor soul ! not to 
 speak of M. de Mirfleur, the babble of Jeanot and Babctte, who 
 never contradicted nor crossed her, in whose little lives there 
 were no problems, who, so long as they were kept from having 
 too much fruit and allowed to have everything else they wanted, 
 were always pleased and satisfactory, naturally had a charm to 
 their mother which these English children of hers, who were 
 only half hers, and who set up so many independent opinions 
 and caused her so much anxiety, were destitute of. Poor 
 Madame de Mirfleur felt very deeply how different it was to 
 have grown up young people to look after, and how much 
 easier as well as sweeter to have babies to pet and spoil. She 
 sighed a very heavy sigh. ** I must take time to think it over 
 again," she said. " Do not press me for an answer, ch^rie ; I 
 must think it over ; though how I can go away so much further, 
 or how I can let you go alone, I know not. I will take to-day 
 to think of it ; do not say any more to-day." 
 
 Now I will not say that after the scene in the balcony which 
 I have recorded, there had not been a little thrill and tremour in 
 Heine's bosom, half pleasure, half fright, at the notion of going 
 to the mountains in Everard's close company ; and that the 
 idea her mother had suggested, that Herbert's invalid habits 
 must infallibly throw the other two much together, had not al- 
 ready passed through Reine's mind with very considerable 
 doubts as to the expediency of the proceeding ; but as she was 
 eighteen, and not a paragon of patience or any other perfection, 
 the moment that Madame de Mirfleur took up this view of the 
 
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 :| 
 
 II 
 
 i'il 
 
188 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
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 I 
 
 question, Reine grew angry and felt insulted, and anxious to 
 prove that she could walk through all the world by Everard's 
 tide, or that of any other, without once stooping from her high 
 maidenly indifference to all men, or committing herself to any 
 foolish sentiment. 
 
 Everard, too, had his private cogitations on the same subject. 
 He was old enough to know a little, though only a very little, 
 about himself, and he did ask himself in a vague, indolent sort 
 of way whether he was ready to accept the possible consequen- 
 ces of being shut up in a mountain solitude like that of Ap- 
 penzell, not even with Reine, dear reader, for he knew his own 
 weakness, but with any pretty and pleasant girl. Half whim- 
 sically he admitted to himself, carefully and with natural deli- 
 cacy endeavouring to put away Reine personally from the ques- 
 tion, that it was more than likely that he would put himself at 
 the feet, in much less than six weeks, of any girl in these ex- 
 ceptional circumstances. And he tried conscientiously to ask 
 himself whether he was prepared to accept the consequences, 
 to settle down with a wife in his waterside cottage, on his very 
 moderate income, or to put himself into unwelcome and unac- 
 customed harness of work in order to make that income more. 
 Everard quaked and trembled, and acknowledged within him- 
 self that it would be much better policy to go away, and even 
 to run the risk of being slighted by Kate and Sophy, who would 
 lead him into no such danger. He felt that this was the thing 
 to do ; and almost made up his mind to do it But in the 
 course of the afternoon, he went out to walk by Herbert's 
 wheeled chair to the fir-trees, and instantly, without more ado 
 or any hesitation, plunged into all sorts of plans for what they 
 were to do at Appenzell. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Herbert laughing, " you don't think 
 I shall be up to all those climbings and raids upon the moun- 
 tains 1 You and Reine must do them, while I lie under the 
 fir-trees and drink whey. I shall watch you with a telescope," 
 said the invalid. 
 
 "To be sure," said Everard cheerily; "Reine and I will have 
 to do the climbing," and this was his way of settling the ques, 
 tion and escaping oiit of temptation. He looked at Reine- 
 who did not venture to look at him^ and felt his heart thrill 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 189 
 
 !i ^ 
 
 with the prospect. How could he leave Herbert, who wanted 
 flim BO much ? he asked himself. Cheerful company was 
 half the battle, and variety, and some one to laugh him 
 out of his invalid fancies ; and how was it to be expected that 
 ReinecouM laugh and be cheery all by herself) It would be 
 injurious lo both brother and sister, he felt sure, if he left them, 
 for Reine was already exhausted with the long, unassisted 
 strain ; and what would kind Aunt Susan, the kindest friend 
 of his youth, say to him if he deserted the young head of the 
 house 1 
 
 Thus the question was decided with aconsiderable divergence, 
 as will be perceived, between the two diflferent lines of argu- 
 ment, and between the practical and the logical result. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur, though she was more exact in her rea- 
 sonings, by right of her nation, than these two unphilosophical 
 young persons, followed in some respect their fashion of argu- 
 ment, being swayed aside, as they were, by personal feelings. 
 She did not at all require to think on the disftdvantages of the 
 projected expedition, which were as clear as noonday. Reine 
 ought not, she knew, to be left alone, as she would constantly 
 be, by her brother's sickness, with Everard, whom she herself 
 had selected as a most desirable parti for her daughter. To 
 throw the young people thus together was against all les 
 convenances : it was actually tempting them to commit some 
 folly or other, putting the means into their hand, encouraging 
 them to forget themselves. But then, on the other hand, Ma- 
 dame de Mirfleur said to herself, if the worst came to the worst, 
 and they did fall absurdly in love with each other, and make 
 an exhibition of themselves, there would be no great harm done, 
 and she would have the ready answer to all objectors, that she 
 had already chosen the young man for her daughter, and consid- 
 ered him as Reine's fianc6. This she knew would stop all mouths. 
 " Comme nous devons nous marier ! " says the charming ingenue 
 in Alfred de Musset'e pretty play, when her lover, half awed, 
 half emboldened by her simplicity, wonders she bhould see no 
 harm in the secret interview he asks. Madame de Mirfleur felt 
 that if anything came of it she could silence all cavillers by 
 " C'est son fianc^," just as at present she could make an end of 
 all critics by " C'est son cousin." As for Oscar de Bonneville, 
 
 il 
 
 l- 
 
 
 U I 
 
 ill 
 
190 
 
 WHITELADIEH. 
 
 Bi 
 
 all hopes of him were over if the party made this sudden move, 
 and she must resign herself to that misfortune. 
 
 Thus Madame de Mirfleur succeeded like the others in per- 
 suading herself that what she wanted to do, t.e., return to her 
 husband and children, and leave the young people to their own 
 devices, was in reality the best and kindest thing she could do 
 for them, and that she was securing their best interests at a 
 sacrifice of her own feelings. 
 
 It was Herbert whose office it was to extort this consent from 
 her ,: but to him in his weakness she skimmed lightly over the 
 difficulties of the situation. He could talk of nothing else, 
 bavins got the excitement of change, like wine into his head. 
 
 " Mamma you are not going to set yourself against it. Reine 
 says you do not like it ; but when you think what the doctor 
 said " 
 
 He was lyine down for his rest after his airing, and very 
 bright-eyed he looked in his excitement, and fragile, like a crea- 
 ture whom the wind might blow away. 
 
 " I will set myself against nothing you wish, my dearest," 
 said his mother : <' but you know, mon 'Erbert, how I am torn 
 in pieces. I cannot go further from home. M. de Mirfleur is 
 very good ; but now that he knows you are better, how can I 
 expect him to consent that I should go still further away 1 " 
 
 ** Reine will take very good care of me, petite m^re," said 
 Herbert coaxingly, " and that kind fellow, Everard " 
 
 " Yes, yes, ch6ri, I know they will take care of you ; though 
 your mother does not like to trust you altogether, even to 
 your sister," she said with a sigh ; *' but I must think of 
 my Reine too," she added. " Your kind Everard is a young 
 man and Reine is a young girl, a fiUe k marier, and if I leave 
 them together with only you for a chaperon, what will every- 
 body say 1 " 
 
 Upon which Herbert burst into an unsteady boyish laugh. 
 " Why, old Everard ? " he cried ; <* he is Reine's brother as 
 much as I am. We were all brought up together ; we were like 
 one family." 
 
 " I have already told mamma so," said Reine rising, and 
 going to the window with a severe air of youthful offence, 
 though her heart was beating and plunging in her breast. She 
 
 hf 
 th 
 m 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 191 
 
 I 
 
 had not told her mother so, and this Madame de Mirfleur knew, 
 though perhaps the ^irl herself was not aware of it ; but the 
 mother was far too wiue to take any advantage of this slip. 
 
 "Yes, my darlings," she said,*'! know it is so; I have 
 always heard him spoken of so, and he is very kind to you, 
 my Herbert, so kind that he makes me love him," she said 
 with natural tears coming to her eyes. " I have been thinking 
 about it all till my head aches. Even if you were to stay here, 
 I could not remain much longer now you are better, and as we 
 could not send him away, it would come to the same thing here. 
 I will tell you what I have thought of doing. I will leave my 
 maid, my good Julie, who is fond of you both, to take care of 
 Reine." 
 
 Heine turned round abruptly, with a burning blush on her 
 face, and a wild impulse of resistance in her heart. Was Julie 
 to be left as a policeman to watch and pry, as if she, Reine, could 
 not take care of herself 1 E :t the girl met her mother's eye, 
 which was quite serene and always kind, and her heart smote 
 her for the unnecessary rebellion. She could not yield or res- 
 train herself all at once, but she turned round again and stared 
 out of the window, which was uncivil, but better, the reader 
 will allow, than flying out in un filial wrath. 
 
 " Well," said Herbert approvingly, on whom the intimation 
 had a very soothing effect, " that will be a good thing, mamma, 
 for Reine certainly does not take care of herself. She would 
 wear herself to death if I and £vcrard and Francois would let 
 her. Par example ! " cried the young man laughing, " who is 
 to be Julie's chaperon 1 If you are afraid of Reine flirting with 
 Everard, which is not her way, who is to prevent Julie flirting 
 with Fran9ois 1 And I assure you he is not at all rang^, he, but 
 a terrible fellow. Must I be her chaperon too 1 " 
 
 "Ah, mon bien-aim^, how it does me good to hear you 
 laugh ! " cried Madame de Mirfleur, with tears in her eyes ; and 
 this joke united the little family more than tons of wisdom 
 could have done ; for Reine, too, mollified in a moment, came 
 in from the window half crying, half laughing, to kiss her brother 
 out of sheer gratitude to him for having recovered that blessed 
 faculty. And the invalid was pleased with himself for the effect 
 he had produced, and relished his own wit and repeated it to 
 
 !-'l 
 
192 
 
 WHITELADIR8. 
 
 ! 
 
 Everard, when he made his appearance, with fresh peals of 
 laughter, which made them all the best of friends. 
 
 The removal was accomplished two days after, Everard in 
 the meantime makine an expedition to that metropolitan place 
 Thun, which bhey all felt to be a greater emporium of luxurv 
 tnan London or Paris, and from which he brought a carriage full 
 of comforts of every description to make up what might be 
 wanting to Herbert's ease, and to their table among the higher 
 and more primitive hills. I cannot tell you how they travelled, 
 dear reader, because I do not auite know which is the way — 
 but they started from the Kanderthal in the big carriage Ever- 
 ard had brought from Thun, with all the people in the hotel 
 out on the steps to watch them, and wave kindly farewells, and 
 call out to them friendly hopes for the invalid. 
 
 Madame de Mirileur cried, and sobbed, and smiled, and waved 
 her handkerchief from her own carriage, which accompanied 
 their's a little bit of the way, when the moment of parting came. 
 Her mind was satisfied when she saw Julie safe on the banquette 
 by Fran9ois' side. Julie was a kind Frenchwoman of five-and- 
 thirty, very indulgent to the young people, who were still chil- 
 dren to her, and whom she had spoiled in her day. She had 
 wept to think she was not going back to fiabette, but had dried 
 her eyes on contemplating Reine. And the young party them- 
 selves were not alarmed by Julie. They made great capital of 
 Herbert's joke, which was not perhaps quite so witty as they 
 all thought ; and thus went off with more youthful tumult, 
 smiles, and excitement than the brother and sister had known 
 for years, to the valleys of the High Alps and all the unknown 
 things — life or death, happiness or misery — that might be await- 
 ing them in those unknown regions. It would perhaps be wrong 
 to say that they went without fear of one kind or another ; but 
 the fe^ had a thrill in it inrhich was almost as good as joy. 
 
WIIITEIADIES. 
 
 lf)3 
 
 CIIAPTKH XXI. 
 
 I HE news of Herbert's second rally, and the hopeful state 
 in which he was, did not create so great a sensation 
 among his relations as the first had done. The people 
 who were not so deeply interested as Reine, and to whom die 
 life or death was of secondary importance, nevertheless shared 
 something of her feeling. He was no longer a creature brought 
 up from the edge of the grave, miraculously or semi-miracu- 
 lously restored to life and hope, but a sick man fallen back 
 again into the common conditions of nature, varying as others 
 vary, now better, now worse, and probably as all had made up 
 their mind to the worst, merely showing, with perhaps more 
 force than usual, the well-known uncertainty of consumptive 
 patients, blazing up in the socket with an effort which, though 
 repeated, was still a last effort, and had no real hopefulness in 
 it. This they all thought, from Miss Susan, who wished for 
 his recovery, to Mr. Farrel- Austin, whose wishes were exactly 
 the reverse. They wished, and they did not wish, that he 
 might set better ; but they no longer believed it as possible. 
 Even Augustine paused in her absolute faith, and allowed a 
 faint wonder to cross her mind as to what was meant by this 
 strange dispensation. She asked to have some sign given her 
 whether or not to go on praying for Herbert's restoration. 
 
 " It might be that this was a token to ask no more," she 
 said to Dr. Richard, who was somewhat scandalised by the sug- 
 gestion. " If it is not intended to save him, this may be a sign 
 that his name should be mentioned no longer." 
 
 Dr. Richard, though he was not half so truly confident as 
 Augustine was in the acceptaoility of her bedesmen's and bedes- 
 women's prayers, was yet deeply shocked by this idea. " So 
 long as I am chaplain at the Almshouses, so long shall the 
 poor boy be commended to God in every litany I say ! " he 
 declared with energy, firm as ever in his duty and the church's 
 laws. It was dreadful to him, Dr. Richard said, to be thus as 
 
 i^ 
 
 
194 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 
 it were subordinate to a lady, liable to her suggestions, which 
 were contrary to every rubric, though, indeed, he never took 
 them. ** I suffer much from having these suggestions made to 
 me, though I thank God I have never given in — never ! and 
 never wUl ! " said the old chaplain, with tremulous heroism. 
 He bemoaned himself to his wife, who believed in him heartily, 
 and comforted him, and to Miss Susan, who gave him a short 
 answer, and to the rector, who chuckled and was delighted. 
 
 '' [ always said it was m odd position," he said ; '' but of 
 course you knew when you entered upon it how you would be." 
 This was all the consolation he got except from his wife, who 
 always entered into his feelings, and stood by him on every 
 occasion with her smelling-salts. And the more Miss Augus- 
 tine thought that it was unnecessary to pray further for her 
 nephew, the more clearly Dr. Richard enunciated his name 
 every time that the litany was said. The Almshouses sided 
 with the doctor, I am bound to add, in this, if not in the ma- 
 jority of subjects ; and old Mrs. Matthews was one of the jhief 
 of his partisans, " for while there is life there is hope," she 
 justly said. 
 
 But while they were thus thrown back from «heir first hopes 
 about Herbert, Miss Susan was surprised one night by anothei 
 piece of information, to her as exciting as anything about him 
 could be. She had gone to her room one August night rather 
 earlier than usual, though the hours kept by the household at 
 Whiteladies were always early. Martha had gone to Jtd in 
 the anteroom, where she slept within call of her mistress, and 
 all the house, except Miss Susan herself, was stilled in slumber. 
 Miss Susan sat wrapped in her dressing-gown, reading before 
 she went to bed, as it had always been her habit to do. She 
 had a choice of excellent books for this purpose on a little shelf 
 at the side of her bed, each with markers in it to keep the 
 place. They were not all religious literature, but good " sound 
 reading " books, of the kind of which a little goes a long way. 
 She was seated with one of these excellent volumes on her 
 knee, perhaps because she was thinking over what she had just 
 read, perhaps because her attention had flagged. Her atten- 
 tion, it must be allowed, had lately flagged a good deal, since 
 shr had an absorbing subject of thought, and she had taken to 
 
WHITELADTES. 
 
 195 
 
 novels and other light reading, to her considerable disgust, 
 finding that these trifling productions had more power of dis-. 
 tracting her from her own contemplations than works more 
 worth studying. She was seated thus, as I have said, in the 
 big easy chair, with her feet on a footstool, her dressing-gown 
 wrapping her in its large and loose folds, and her lamp burning 
 clear on the little table — with her book on her lap, not reading, 
 but thinking — when all at once her ear was caught by the 
 sound of a horse galloping heavily along the somewhat heavy 
 road. It was not later than half-past ten when this happened, 
 buu half-past ten was a very late hour in the parish of St. 
 Austin. Miss Susan knew at once, by intuition, the moment 
 she heard the sound, that this laborious messenger, floundering 
 along upon his heavy steed, was coming to her. Her heart 
 began to beat. Whiteladies was at some distance from a tele- 
 graph station, and she had before now received news in this 
 way. She opened her window softly and looked out. It was 
 a dark night, raining hard, cold and comfortless. She listened 
 to the hoofs coming steadily, noisily along, and waited till the 
 messenger appeared, as she felt sure he would, at the door. 
 Then she went down-stairs quickly, and undid the bolts and 
 bars, and received the telegram. " Thank you ; good night," 
 she said to him, mechanically, not knowing what she was 
 about, and stumbling again up the dark, oaken c»aircase, 
 which ci'eaked under her foot, and where a ghost was said to 
 " walk." Miss Susan herself, though she was not superstitious, 
 did not like to turn her head towards ;he door of the glazed 
 passage, which led to the old playrroom and the musicians' 
 gallery. Her heart felt sick and faint within her : she believed 
 that she held the nev/s of ilerbert's death in her hand, though 
 she had no light to read it, and if Herbert himself had ap- 
 peared to her, standing wan and terrible at that door, she 
 would not have felt surprised. Her own room, was in a dis- 
 order which she could not account for when she i cached it 
 again and shut the door, for it did not at first occur to her that 
 she had left the window wide open, letting in the wind, which 
 had scattered her little paraphernaha about, and the rain which 
 had made a great wet stain upon the old oak floor. She tore 
 the envelope open, feeling more and more sick and faint, the 
 
 
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 WHITELADIES. 
 
 K ' 
 
 chill of the night going llirougb ana through lu r, .mtl a deupei 
 chill in her heart. So deeply had one thought taken posses- 
 sion of her, that when she read the words in this startling mis- 
 sive, she could not at first make out what they meant. For it 
 was not an intimation of death, but of birth. Miss Susan 
 stared at it first, and then sat down in her chair and tried to 
 understand what it meant. And this was what she read : — 
 
 •'* Dieu soit lou6, un garcon. N6 k deux heures et demi de 
 Papr^s-midi ce 16 AoAt. Lou6 soit le bon Dieu." 
 
 Miss Susan could not move ; her whole being seemed seized 
 with cruel pain. " Praised be God. God be praised ! " She 
 gave a low cry, and fell on her knees by her bedside. Was it 
 to echo that ascription of praise 1 The night wind blew in and 
 blew about the flame of the lamp and of the dim night-light in 
 the other corner of the room, and the rain rained in, making a 
 larger and larger circle, like a pool of blood on the floor. A 
 huge shadov7 of Miss Susan flickered upon the opposite wall, 
 cast by the waving lamp which was behind her. She lay motion- 
 less, now and then uttering a low, painful cry, with her face hid 
 against the bed. 
 
 But this could not last. She got up after a while, and shut 
 the window, and drew the curtains as before, and picked up the 
 handkerchief, the letters, the little prayer-book, which the wind 
 had tossed i:bout, and put back her book on its shelf. She had 
 no one to speak to and she did not, you may suppose, speak to 
 herself, though a strong impulse moved her to go and wake 
 Martha ; not iliat she could have confided in Mf rtha, but only 
 to have the comfort of a human face to look at, and a voice 
 to say something to her, difl^erent from that " Dieu soit lou6 — 
 lou6 soit le bon Dieu," which seemed to ring in her ears. But 
 Miss Susan knew that Martha would be cros- if she were 
 roused, and that no one in the peaceful house would do more 
 than stare at this information she had received ■ no one would 
 take the least interest in it for itself, and no one, no one ! 
 could tell what it was to her. She was very cold, but she could 
 not go to bed ; the hoofs of the horse receding into the dis- 
 tance seemed to keep echoing into her ears long after they must 
 have got oMt of hearing ; every creak of the oaken boards, as 
 she walked up and down, seemed to be some voice calling 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 197 
 
 
 tO her. And how the old boards creaked ! like so many spec- 
 tators, ancestors, old honourable people of the house, crow<Hng 
 round to look at the one who had brought dishonour into it. 
 Miss Susan had met with no punishment for her wicked plan 
 up to this time. It had given her excitement, nothing more, 
 but now the deferred penalty had come. She walked about on 
 the creaking boards afraid of them, and terrified at the sound, 
 in such a restless anguish as I cannot describe. Up to this time 
 kind chance, or gracious Providence, might have made her con- 
 spiracy null ; but neither God nor accident (how does a woman 
 who has done wrong know which word to use ?) had stepped in 
 to help her. And now it was irremediable, past her power or 
 any one's to annul the evil. And the worst of all was those 
 words which the old man in Bruges, who was her dupe and not 
 her accomplice, had repeated in his innocence, that the name of 
 the new-born might have God's name on either side to protect it. 
 " Dieu soil Irue ! " she repeated to herself, shuddering. She 
 seemed to hear it repeated to all round, not piously, but mock- 
 ingly, shouted at her by eldritch voices. *' Praised be God ! 
 God be praised ! " for what ? for the accomplishment of a lie, a 
 cheat, a conspiracy ! Miss Susan's limbs trembled under her. 
 She could not tell how it was that the vengeance of heavea 
 did not fall and crush the old house which had never before 
 sheltered such a crime. But Augustine was asleep, praying in 
 her sleep like an angel, under the same old roof, offering up 
 continual adorations, innocent worship for the expiation of some 
 visionary sins which nobody knew anything of ; would they 
 answer for the wiping away of her sister's sin which was so 
 real 'i Miss Susan walked up and down all the long night. She 
 lay down on her bed towards morning, chiefly that no one 
 might see how deeply agitated she had been, and when Martha 
 got up at the usual hour, asked for a cup of tea to restore her a 
 little. *• I have not been feeling quite well," said Miss Susan, 
 to ancicipate any remarks as to her wan looks. 
 
 " So I was afraid, miss," said Martha, " but I thought as 
 you'd call me if you wanted anything." This lukewarm devo- 
 tion made Miss Susan smile. 
 
 Notwithstanding all her sufferings, however, she wrote a 
 letter to Mr. Farrel-Austin that morning, and sent it by a pri- 
 
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198 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 vate messenger, enclosing her telegram, so undeniably genuine, 
 with a few accompanying words. " I am afraid you will not 
 be exhilarated by this intelligence," she wrote, " though I con- 
 fess for my part it gives me pleasure, as continuing the family 
 in the old stock. But anyhow, I feel it is my duty to forward 
 it to you. It is curious to think," she added, " that but for 
 your kind researches, I might never have found out these 
 Austins of Bruges." This letter Miss Susan sealed with her 
 big Whiteladies seal, and enclosed the telegram in a large en- 
 velope. And she went about all her ordinary occupations that 
 day, and looked and even felt very much as usual. " I had 
 rather a disturbed night, and could not sleep," she said, by way 
 of explanation of the look of exhaustion she was conscious of. 
 And she wrote to old Guillaume Austin of Bruges a very kind 
 and friendly letter, congratulating him, and hoping that, if she 
 had the misfortune to lose her nephew (who, however, she was 
 very happy to tell hii i, was much better), his little grandson 
 might long and worthily fill the place of master of Whiteladies. 
 It was a letter which old Guillaume translated with infinite 
 care and some use of the dictionary, not only to his family, b 't 
 also to his principal customers, astonishing them by the news of 
 his good fortune. To be sure his poor Gertrude, his daughter, 
 was mourning the loss of her baby, born on the same day as his 
 daughter-in-law's fine toy, but which had not survived its birth. 
 She was very sad about it, poor child ; but still that was a 
 sorrow which would glide imperceptibly away, while this great 
 joy and pride and honour would remain. 
 
 I need not tell how Mr. Farrel- Austin tore his hair. He 
 received his cousin Susan's intimation of the fact that it was he 
 who had discovered the Austins of Bruges for her with an in- 
 describable dismay and rage, and showed the telegram to his 
 wife, grinding his teeth at her. " Every poor wretch in the 
 world — except you ! " he cried, till poor Mrs. Tarrel-Austin 
 shrank and wept. There was nothing he would not have done 
 to show his rage and despite, but he could do nothing except 
 bully his wife and his servants. His daughters were quite 
 matches for him, and would not 1>e bullied. They were scarcely 
 interested in the news of a new heir. " Herbert being better, 
 what does it matter ? " said Kate and Sophy. " I could under- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 199 
 
 staDcl you being in a state of mind about him. It is hard, after 
 calculating upon the property, to have him get better in spite of 
 you." said one of these young ladies, with the frankness natural 
 to her kind, " but what does it matter now if there were a 
 whole regiment of babies in the way 1 Isn't a miss as good as a 
 mile 1 " This philosophy did not affect the wrathful and dissatis- 
 fied man, who had no faith in Herbert's recovery — but it satisfied 
 the girls, who thought papa was getting really too bad ; yet, as 
 they managed to get most things they wanted, were not parti- 
 cularly impressed even by the loss of Whiteladies. " What 
 with Herbert getting better and this new baby, whoever it is, 
 I suppose old Susan will be in great fig," the. one sister said. 
 "I. wish them joy of their old tumble-down hole of a place," 
 said the other ; and so their lament was made for the vanished 
 hope. 
 
 Thus life passed on with all the personages involved in this 
 history. The only other incident that happened just then was one 
 which concerned the little party in Switzerland. Everard was 
 summoned home in haste, when he had scarcely done more than 
 escort his cousins to their new quarters, and so that little 
 romance, if it had ever been likely to come to a romance, 
 was nipped in the bud. He had to come back about 
 business, which with the unoccupied and moderately rich, 
 means almost invariably bad fortune. His money, not too 
 much to start with, hrd been invested in doubtful hands ; and 
 when he reached England he found that he had lost half of it 
 by the delinquency of a manager who had run away with his 
 money, and that of a great many people besides. Everard, de- 
 prived at a blow of half his income, was fain to take the first 
 employment that offered, which was a mission to the West 
 Indies, to look after property there, partly his own, partly be- 
 longing to his fellow-sufferers, which had been allowed to drop 
 into that specially hopeless Slough of Despond which seems 
 natural to West Indian affairs. He went away, poor fellow, 
 feeling that life had changed totally for him, and leaving be- 
 hind both the dreams and the reality of existence. His care- 
 less days were all over. What he had to think of Bow was 
 how to save the little that remained to him, and do his duty 
 by the others who, on no good grounds, only because he had 
 
 
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200 
 
 VVHITKLADIES. 
 
 been energetic and ready, had intrusted their interests to him. 
 Why they should have trusted him, who knew nothing of 
 business, and whose only qualification was that gentlemanly 
 vagabondage which is always ready to go off to the end of 
 the world at a moment's notice, Everard could not tell ; but 
 he meant to do his best; if only to secure some other occupa- 
 tion for himself when this job was done. 
 
 This was rather a sad interruption, in many ways, to the 
 
 iroung man's careless life ; and they all felt it as a shock. He 
 eft Herbert under the pine-trees, weak but hopeful, looking as 
 if any breeze might make an end of him, so fragile was he, the 
 soul shining through him almost visibly, yet an air of recovery 
 about him which gave all lookers-on a tremulous confidence ; 
 and Reine, with moisture in her eyes which she did not try to 
 conceal, and an ache in her heart which she did conceal, but 
 
 Eoorly. Everard had taken his cousin's privilege, and kissed 
 er on the forehead when he went away, trying not to think of 
 the deep blush which surged up to the roots of her hair. But 
 poor Reine saw him go with a pang which she could disclose 
 to nobody, and which at first seemed to fill her heart too full 
 of pain to be kept down. She had not realized, till he was 
 gone, how great a place he had taken in her little world ; and 
 the surprise was as great as the pain. How dreary the valley 
 looked, how lonely her life when his carriage drove away down 
 the hill to the world ! How the Alpine heights seemed to 
 close in, and the very sky to contract ! Only a few days be- 
 fore, when they arrived, everything had looked so different. 
 Now even the friendly tourists of the Kanderthal would have 
 been some relief to the dead blank of solitude which closed 
 over Reine. She had her brother, as always, to nurse and 
 care for, and watch daily and hourly on his passage back to 
 life, and many were the forlorn moments when she asked her- 
 self what did she want more 1 what had she ever desired more ? 
 Many and many a day had Reine prayed, and pledged herself 
 in her prayers, to be contented with anything, if Herbert was 
 but spared to her ; and now Herbert was spared and getting 
 better — yet lo ! she was miserable. The poor girl had a toUgh 
 battle to fight with herself in that lonely Swiss valley, but she 
 stood to her arms, even when capable of little more, and kept 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 201 
 
 up her courage so heroically, that when for the first time 
 Herbert wrote a little note to Everard as he had promised, he 
 assured the traveller that he had scarcely missed him, Reine 
 had been so bright and so kind. When Reine read this little 
 letter she felt a pang of mingled pain and pleasure. She had 
 not betrayed herself. " But it is a little unkind to Everard to 
 say I have been so bright since his going," she said, feeling her 
 voice thick with tears. " Oh, he will not mind," said Herbert 
 lightly, "j.nd you know it is true. After a11, though he was a 
 delightful companion, there is nothing so sweet as being by 
 ourselves," the sick iDoy added with undoubting confidence. 
 " Oh, what a trickster I am ' " poor Reine said to herself ; and 
 she kissed him, and told him that she hoped he would think 
 so always, always ! which Herbert promised in sheer lightness 
 of heart. 
 
 And thus we leave this helpless pair, like the rest, to them- 
 selves for a year ; Herbert to get better as he could, Reine to 
 fight her battle out, and win it so far, and recover the calm of 
 use and wont. Eventually the sky widened to her, and the 
 hills drew farther off, and the oppression loosened from her 
 heart. She took Herbert to Italy in October, still mending ; 
 and wrote long and frequer t letters about him to Whiteladies, 
 boasting of his walks and increasing strength, and promising 
 that next summer he should go hor e. I don't want the reader 
 to think that Reine had altogether lost her heart during this 
 brief episode. It came back to her after a while, having been 
 only vagrant, errant, as young hearts will be by times. She 
 had but learned to know, for the first time in her life, what 
 a difference happens in this world according to the presence or 
 absence of one being ; how such an one can fill up the space 
 and pervade the atmosphere ; and how, suddenly going, he 
 seems to carry everything away with him. Her battle and 
 struggle and pain were half owing to the shame and distress 
 with which she found out that a man could do this, and had' 
 done it, though only for a few days, to herself ; leaving her in 
 a kind of blank despair when he was gone. But she got rid of 
 this feeling (or thought she did), and the world settled back 
 into its right proportions, and she said to herself that she was 
 again her own mistress. Yet there were moments, when the 
 
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 JL. 
 
202 
 
 WHITELADIEa 
 
 
 stars were shining, when the twilight was falling, when the 
 moon was up — or sometimes in the very heat of the day, 
 when a sensible young woman has no right to give way to folly 
 — whenReine all at once would feel not her own mistress, and the 
 world again would all melt away to make room for one shadow. 
 As the winter passed, however, she got the better of this sensa- 
 tion daily, she was glad to think. To be sure there was no reason 
 why she should not think of Everard if she liked ; but her 
 main duty was to take care of Herbert, and to feel once more, 
 if she could, as she had once felt, and as she still professed to 
 feel, poor child, in her prayers, that if Herbert only lived she 
 would ask for nothing more. 
 
 I 
 
WHITErJiDIES. 
 
 203 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BOUT two years after the events I have just described, in 
 the autumn, when life was low and dreary at White- 
 ladies, a new and unexpected visitor arrived at the old 
 house. Herbert and his sister had not come home that sum- 
 mer as they had hopp'^ — nor even the next. He was better, 
 almost out of the doctor's hands, having taken, it was evident, 
 a new lease of life. But he was not strong, nor could ever be; 
 his life, though renewed, and though it might now last for years, 
 could never be anything but that of an invalid. So much all 
 bis advisers had granted. He might last as long as any of the 
 vigorous persons round him, by dint of care and constant 
 watchfulness ; but it was not likely that he could ever be a 
 strong man like others, or that he could live without taking care 
 of himself, and being taken care of. This, which they would 
 ttll have hailed with gratitude while he was very ill, seemed but 
 a pale kind of blessedness now when it was assured, and when 
 it became certain that his existence must be spent in thinking 
 about his health, in moving from one place to another as the 
 season went on, according as this place or the other " agreed 
 with him," seeking the cool in summer and the warmth in win- 
 ter, with no likelihood of ever being delivered from this bond- 
 age. He had scarcely found this out himself, poor fellow, but 
 still entertained hopes of getting strong, at some future moment 
 always indefinitely postponed. He had not been quite strong 
 enough to venture upon England during the summer, much as 
 he had looked forward to it ; and though in the meantime he 
 had come of age and nominally assumed the control of his own 
 afifairs, the celebration of this coming of age had been a dreary 
 business enough. • Farrel-Austin, looking as black as night, and 
 feeling himself a man swindled and cheated out of his rights, 
 had been present at the dinner of the tenantry, in spite of him- 
 self, and with sentiments towards Herbert which may be 
 divined ; and ^yith only such dismal pretence at delight as coulc\ 
 
204 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 be shown by the family solicitor, whose head was full of other 
 things, the rejoicings had passed over. There had been a great 
 field-day, indeed, at the Almshouse chapel, where the old peo- 
 ple with their cracked voices tried to chant the twentieth and 
 twenty-first Psalms, and were much bewildered in their old souls 
 as to whom " the king " might be whose desire of his heart they 
 thus prayed God to grant. Mrs. Matthews alone, who was more 
 learned theologically than her neighbours, having been brought 
 up a Methody, professed to some undercitandin,i< of it ; but even 
 she was wonderfully confused between King David and a greater 
 than he, and poor young Herbert whose birthday it was. " He 
 may be the squire, if you please, and if so be as he lives," said 
 old Sarah, who was Mrs. Matthews's rival, " many's the time I've 
 nursed him, and carried him about in my arms, and who should 
 know if I don't ? But there ain't no power in this world as 
 can make young Mr. Herbert king o' England, so long as the 
 Prince o' Wales is to the fore, and the rest o' them. If Miss 
 Augustine was to swear to it, I knows better ; and you can tell 
 her that from me." 
 
 " He can't be king o' England," said Mrs. Matthews, " neither 
 me nor Miss Augustine thinks of anything of the kind. It's 
 awful to see such ignorance o' spiritual meanings. What's the 
 Bible but spiritual meanings 1 You don't take the blessed word 
 right off according to what it says." 
 
 " That's the difference between you and me," said old Sarah 
 boldly. " 1 does ; and I hope I practise my Bible, instead of 
 turning it off into any kind of meanings. I've always heard as 
 that was one of the differences atween Methodies and good steady 
 church folks." 
 
 " Husht, husht, here's the doctor a-coming," said old Mrs. 
 ToUaday, who kept the peace between the parties, but liked to 
 tell the story of their conflicts afterwards to any understanding 
 ear. " I dun-no much about how Mr. Herbert, poor lad, could 
 be the king myself," she said to the vicar, who was one of her 
 frequent auditors, and who dearly liked a joke about the Alms- 
 houses, which were a kind of imperium in imperio^ a separate 
 principality within his natural dominions ^ " but Miss Augus- 
 tine warn't meaning that. If she's queer, she ain't a rebel nor 
 nothing o' that sort, but says her prayers for the queen regular, 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 205 
 
 other 
 
 like the rest of us. As for meiiiiitij^s, Tolla«liiy says to iin% we've 
 no call to go searching for meanings like them two, but just to 
 do what we're told, as is the whole duty of man, me and Tolla- 
 day says. As for them two, they're us good as r play. * King 
 David was 'im as had all his desirt^s granted 'im, and long life 
 and help out o* Sion,* said Mrs. Matthews. * And a nice per- 
 son he was to have all his wants,* says old Sarah. * I'd ha* 
 shut my door pretty fast in the man's face if he'd come here 
 asking help, I can tell you. Call him a king if you please, but 
 I calls him no better nor the rest — a-peepin' and a spyin* ' " 
 
 " What did she mean by that 1 " asked the vicar, amused but 
 wondering. 
 
 " 'Cause of the woman as was a-washing of herself, sir,'* said 
 Mrs. ToUaday, modestly looking down. " Sarah can't abide 
 him for that ; but I says as maybe it was a strange sight so 
 long agone. Folks wasn't so thoughtful of washings and so 
 forth in old times. When I was in service myself, which is a 
 good bit since, there wasn't near the fuss about baths as there 
 is nowadays, not even among the gentlefolks. Says Mrs. 
 Matthews, * He was a man after God's own heart, he was.' ' I 
 ain't a-going to find fault with my Maker, it ain't my place,* 
 says Sarah ; ' but I don't approve o' His taste.' And that's as 
 true as I stand here. She's a bold woman, is old Sarah. There's 
 many as might think it, but few as would say it. Anyhow, I 
 can't get it out o' my mind as it was somehow Mr. Herbert as 
 we was a chanting of, and never King David. Poor man, he's 
 dead this years and years," said Mrs. ToUaday, " and you know, 
 as well as me, sir, that there are no devices nor labours found, 
 nor wisdom, as the hymn says, underneath the ground.** 
 
 " Well, Mrs. ToUaday," said the vicar, who had laughed his 
 laugh out, and bethought himself of what was due to his pro- 
 fession, " let us hope that young Mr. Austin's desires will all be 
 good ones, and that so we may pray God to give them to him, 
 without anything amiss coming of it." 
 
 " That*s just what I say, sir," said Mrs. ToUaday, " it's for all 
 the world like the toast as used to be the fashion in my young 
 days, when folks drank not to your health, as they do now, but 
 to your wishes, if so be as they were vartuous. Many a time 
 that*s been done to me, when I was a young girl ; and I am 
 
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206 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 sure," she added with a curUuy, taking the glass of wine with 
 which the vicar usually rewarded the amusement her cossip 
 gave him, <' as I may say that to you and not be afraid ; I drinks 
 to your wishes, sir.' 
 
 " As long as they are virtuous," said the vicar laughing ; and 
 for a long time after he was very fond of retailing ola Sarah's 
 difference of opinion with her Maker, which perhaps the gentle 
 reader may have heard attributed to a much more important 
 perbon. 
 
 Miss Susan gave the almshouse people a gorgeous supper in 
 the evening, at which I am grieved to say old John Simmons 
 had more beer than was good for him, and volunteered a song, 
 to the great horror of the chaplain and the chaplain's wife, and 
 many spectators from the village who had come to see the poor 
 old souls enjoying this unusual festivity. " Let him sing if he 
 likes,'' old Sarah cried, who was herself a little jovial. " It's 
 something for you to tell, you as comes a finding-fault and a-pry- 
 ing at poor old folks enjoying themselves once in a way." " Let 
 them stare," said Mrs. Matthews, for once backing up her rival ; 
 *' it'll do 'em go'^ i to see that we ain't wild beasts a-feeding, but 
 poor folks as well off as rich folks, which ain't common." " No 
 it ain't, missis ; you're right there," said the table by general 
 consent ; and after this the spectators slunk away. But I am 
 obliged to admit that John Simmons was irrepressible, and 
 groaned out a verse of song which ran away into a deplorable 
 chorus, in which several of the old men joined in the elation of 
 their hearts — but by means of their wives and other authorities 
 suffered for it next day. 
 
 Thus Herbert's birthday passed without Herbert, who was 
 up among the pines again, breathing in their odours and getting 
 strong, as they all said, though not strong enough to come home. 
 Herbert enjoyed this lazy and languid existence well enough, 
 poor fellow ; but Beine, since that prick of fuller and warmer 
 life came momentarily to her, had not enjoyed it. She had 
 lost her pretty colour, except at moments when she was excited, 
 and her eyes had grown bigger, and had that wistful look in 
 them which comes when a girl has begun to look out into the 
 world from her little circle of individuality, and to wonder what 
 real life is like, with a longing to try its dangers. In a boy, 
 
WIIITKLADIES. 
 
 907 
 
 this loDKing is the best thing that can be, inspiriting him to ex • 
 ertion ; out in a eirl, what snape can it take out a loneinff for 
 some one who wul open the door of living to her, and lead her 
 out into the big world, of which girls too, like boys, form such 
 exaggerated hopes) Reine was not thinking of any one in 
 particular, she said to herself often ; but her life had grown 
 just a little weary to her, and felt small and limited and poor, 
 and as if it must go on in the same monotony for ever and ever. 
 There came a nameless, restless sense upon her of looking for 
 something that might happen at any moment, which is the 
 greatest mental trouble young women have to encounter, who 
 are obliged to be passive, not active, in settling their own fate. 
 I remember hearing a high-spirited and fanciful girl, who had 
 been dreadfully sobered oy her plunge into marriage, declare 
 the chief advantage of that condition to be — that you had no 
 longer any restlessness of expectation, but had come down to 
 reiJity, and knew all that was ever to come of you, and at length 
 could fathom at once the necessity and the philosophy of con- 
 tent. This is perhaps rather a dreary view to take of the sub- 
 ject ; but, however, Reine was in the troublous state of expec- 
 tation, which this young woman declared to be thus put an end 
 to. She was, as a young man often is, whose friends keep him 
 back from active occupation, wondering whether this flat round 
 was to go on for ever, or whether next moment, round the next 
 comer, there might not be something waiting which would 
 change her whole life. 
 
 As for Miss Susan and her sister, they went on living at 
 Whiteladies as of old. The management of the estate had been, 
 to some extent, taken out of Miss Susan's hands, at Herbert's 
 majority, but as she had done everytliing for it for years, and 
 knew more about it than anybody else, she was stUl so much 
 consulted and referred to, that the difference was scarcely more 
 than in name. Herbert had written " a beautiful letter" to his 
 aunts when he came of age, begging them not so much as to 
 think of any change, and declaring that even were he able to 
 to come home, Whiteladies would not be itself to him unless 
 the dear White ladies of his childhood were in it as of old." 
 " That is all very well," said Miss Susan, " but if he gets well 
 enough to marry, poor boy, which pray God he may, he will 
 
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208 
 
 WHITELADIES, 
 
 ; 
 
 want his house to himself." Augustine took no notice at all of 
 the matter. To her it was of no importance where she lived ; 
 a room in the Almshouses would have pleased her as well as 
 the most sumptuous chamber, so long as she was kept free from 
 all domestic business, and could go and come, and muse and 
 pray as she would. She gave the letter back to her sister with- 
 out a word on its chief subject. " His wife should be warned 
 of the curse that is on the house," she said with a soft sigh ; 
 and that was all. 
 
 " The curse, Augustine !" said Miss Susan with a little shiver. 
 ** You have turned it away, dear, if it ever existed. How can 
 you speak of a curse when this poor boy is spared, and is going 
 toUve?" 
 
 " It is not turned away, it is only suspended," said Augus- 
 tine. " I feel it still hanging like a sword over ue. If we relax 
 in our prayers, in our efforts to make up, as much as we can, 
 for the evil done, any day it may fall." 
 
 Miss Susan shivered once more ; a tremulous chill ran over 
 her. She was much the stronger, much the more sensible of 
 the two ; but what has that to do with such a question ? espe- 
 cially with the consciousness she had in her heart. This con- 
 sciousness, however, had been getting lighter and lighter, as 
 Herbert grew stronger and stronger. She had sinned, but God 
 was so good to her that He was making her sin of no effect, 
 following her wickedness, to her great joy, not by shame or ex- 
 posure, as He might so well have done, but by his blessing 
 which neutralised it altogether. Thinking over it for all these 
 many days, now that it seemed likely to do no practical harm 
 to any one, perhaps it was not, after all, so great a sin. Three 
 people only were involved in the guilt of it ; and the guilt 
 after all, was but a deception. Deceptions are practised every- 
 where, often even by good people, Miss Susan argued with her- 
 self, and this was one which, at present, could scarcely be said 
 to harm anybody, and which, even in the worst of circumstances, 
 was not an actual turning away of justice, but rather a lawless 
 righting, by means of a falsehood, of a legal wrong which was 
 false to nature. Casuistry is a science whicii it is easy to learn. 
 The most simple minds become adepts in it ; the most virtuous 
 persons find a refuge there when necessity moves them. Talk 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 209 
 
 of Jesuitry ! as if this art was not far more universal than that 
 maligned body, spreading where they were never heard of, and 
 lying close to every one of us ! As time went on Miss Susan 
 might have taken a degree in it — mistress of the art — though 
 there was nobody who knew her in all the country round, who 
 would not have sworn by her straightforwardness and down- 
 right truth and honour. And what with this useful philosophy, 
 and what with Herbert's recovery, the burden had gone off her 
 soul gradually ; and by this time she had so put her visits to 
 Bruges, and the telegrams and subsequent letters she had re- 
 ceived on the same subject, out of her mind, that it seemed to 
 her, when she thought of it, like an uneasy dream, which she 
 was glad to forget, but which had no more weight than a 
 dream upon her living and the course of events. She had been 
 able to deal Farrel- Austin a good downright blow by means of 
 it ; and though Miss Susan was a good woman, she was not 
 sorry for that And all the rest had come to nothing — it had 
 done no harm to any one, at least, no harm to speak of — 
 nothing that Lad not been got over long ago. Old Austin's 
 daughter, Gertrude, the fair young matron whom Miss Susan 
 had seen at })ruges, had already had another baby, and no 
 doubt had forgotten the little one she had lost ; and the little 
 boy, who was Herbert's heir presumptive, was the delight and 
 pride of his grandfather and of all the house. So what harm 
 was done 1 . The burden grew lighter and lighter, as she asked 
 herself this question, at Miss Susan's heart. 
 
 One day in this autumn there came, however, as I have said, 
 a change and interruption to these thoughts. It was October, 
 and though there is no finer month sometimes in our change- 
 able English climate, October can be chiU enough when it 
 pleases, as all the world knows. It was not a time of the year 
 favourable, at least when the season was wet, to the country 
 about Whiteladies. To be sure, the wealth of trees took on 
 lovely tints of autumn colours when you could see them ; bu t 
 when it rained day after day, as it did that season, every wood 
 and byway was choked up with fallen leaves ; the gardens 
 were all strewn with them ; the heaviness of decaying vegeta- 
 tion was in the air ', and everything looked dismal^ ragged and 
 worn out The very world deemed going to pieces^ rending off 
 N 
 
 '■hi 
 
 V 
 
 . ' 
 
210 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 its garments piecemeal, and letting them rot at its melancholy 
 feet. The rain poured down out of thf heavy skies as if it 
 would never end. The night fell soon on the ashamed and 
 pallid day. The gardener at Whiteladies swept '4s lawn all 
 day long, but never got clear of those rags and scraps of foliage 
 which eveiy wind loosened. Berks was like a dissipated old 
 young man, worn out before his time. On one of thise dismal 
 evenings Augustine was coming from the evening service at 
 the Almshouses in the dark, just before nightfall. With her 
 grey hood over her head, and her hands folded into her great 
 grey sleeves, she looked like a ghost gliding through the per- 
 turbed and ragged world ; but she was a comfortable ghost, her 
 peculiar dress suiting the season. As she came along the road, 
 for the byway through the fields was impassable, she saw before 
 her another shrouded figure, not grey as she was, but black, 
 wrapped in a great hooded cloak, and stumbling forward 
 againtt the rain and wind. I will not undertake to say that 
 ^.ugustine's visionary eyes noticed her closely; but any un- 
 tamiliar figure makes itself remarked on a country road, where 
 generally every figure is most familiar. This woman was un- 
 usually tall, and she was evidently a stranger. She carried a 
 child in her arms, and stopped at every house and at every 
 turning to look eagerly about her, as if looking for something 
 or some one, in a strange place. She wei)t along more and 
 more slowly till Augustine walking on, in her uninterrupted, 
 steady way, turning neither to the right nor to the left hand, 
 came up to her. The stranger had seen her coming ; and, I 
 suppose, Augustine's dress had awakened hopes of succour in 
 her mind, bearing some resemblance to the religious garb which 
 was well known to her. At length when the leafy road which 
 led to the side door of Whiteladies struck off from the highway 
 bewildering her utterly, she stood still at the corner, and 
 waited for the approach of the other wayfarer, the only one 
 visible in all this silent, rural place. *' Ma soeur ! " she said 
 softly, *A) attract her attention. Then touching Augustine's 
 long grey sleeve, stammered in English, " I lost my way. Ma 
 8«Bur, aidez-moi pour I'amour de Dieu ! " 
 
 " You are a stranger," said Augustine ; " you want to find 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 211 
 
 some one 1 I will help you if I can. Where is it you want 
 to gol" 
 
 The woman looked at her searchingly, which was but a trick 
 of her imperfect English, to make out by study of her face and 
 lips, as well as by hearing, what she said. Her child began to 
 cry, and she hushed it impatiently, speaking roughly to the 
 curiously-dressed creature, which had a little cap of black stuff 
 closely tied down under its chin. Then she said once more, 
 employing the name evidently as a talisman to secure atten- 
 tion, " Ma soeur ! I want Viteladies ; can you tell me where 
 it is?" 
 
 « Whiteladies ! " 
 
 ** That is the name. I am very fatigued, and a stranger, 
 ma soeur." 
 
 " If you are very fatigued and a stranger, you shall come to 
 Whiteladies, whatever you want there," said Augustine. " I 
 am going to the house now ; come with me — by this way." 
 
 She turned into Priory Lane, the old avenue where they 
 were soon ancle-deep in fallen leaves. The child wailed on the 
 woman's shoulder, and she shook it, lightly indeed, but harshly 
 " Tais-toi done, petit sot ! " she said sharply ; then turning 
 with the ingratiating tone she had used before, " We are very 
 fatigued, ma sceur. We have come over the sea. I know little 
 English. What I have learn, I learn all by myself, that no one 
 know. I come to London, and then to Viteladies. It is a long 
 way." 
 
 " And why do you want to come to Whiteladies ? " said Au- 
 gustine. " It was a strange place to think of — though I will 
 never send a stranger and a tired person away without food and 
 rest, at least. But what has brought you here 1 " 
 
 " Ah ! I must not tell it, my story ; it is a strange story. I 
 come to see one old lady, who other times did come to see me. 
 She will not know me, perhaps ; but she will know my name. 
 My name is like her own. It is Austin, ma sceur." 
 
 " Osteng 1 " said Augustine, struck with surprise ; " that is 
 not my name. Ah, you are French, to be sure. You mean 
 Austin ? You have the same name as we have ; who are you, 
 then ? I have never seen you before." 
 
 i- : 
 
 w 
 
 
 
212 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " You, ma soeur ! but it was not you. It was a lady more 
 stout, more large, not religious. Ah, no, not you ; but another 
 There are perhaps many lady in the house ? " 
 
 " It may be my sister you mean," said Augustine ; and she 
 opened the gate and led up to the porch, where on this wet and 
 chilly day there was no token of the warm inhabited look it 
 bore in summer. There was scarcely any curiosity roused in 
 her mind, but a certain pity for the tired creature whom she 
 took in, opening the door, as Christabel took in the mysterious 
 lady. " There is i step, take care," said Augustine holding 
 out her hand to the stranger, who grasped at it to keep herself 
 from stumbling. It was almost dark, and the glimmer from the 
 casement of the long many-cornered passage, with its red floor 
 scarcely gave light enough to make the way visible. " Ah, 
 merci, ma soeur ! " said the stranger, " I shall not forget that 
 you have brought me in, when I was fatigued and nearly dead." 
 
 " Do not thank me," said Augustine ; " if you know my 
 sister you have a right to come in ; but I always help the weary ; 
 do not thank me. I do it to take away the curse from the 
 house." 
 
 The stranger did not know what she meant, but stood by her 
 in the dark, drawing a long hard breath, and staring at her 
 with dark mysterious, almost menacing, eyes. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 <i 
 
 ERE is some one, Susan, who knows you," said Augus- 
 tine, introducing the new comer into the drawing- 
 room where her sister sat. It was a wainscoted 
 room, very handsome fuii warm in its brown panelling, in 
 which the firelight shone reflected. There was a bright fire, and 
 the room doubled itself by rueans of a large mirror over the 
 mantelpiece, antique like the house, shining out of black wood 
 and burnished brass. Miss Susan sat by the fii e with her 
 knitting, framing one of those elaborate meshes of casuistry 
 which I have already referred to. The table close by her was 
 heaped with books, drawings for the chantry, and for the im~ 
 provement of an old house in the neighbourhood which she had 
 bought in order to be independent, whatever accidents might 
 happen. She was more tranquil than usual in the quiet of her 
 thoughts, having made an effort to dismiss the more painful 
 subject altogether, and to think only of the immediate future, 
 as it appeared now in the light of Herbert's recovery. She was 
 thinking how to improve the house she had bought, which at 
 present bore the unmeaning title of St Augustin's Grange, and 
 which she mirthfully announced her intention of calling 
 Grey-women's, as a variation upon Whiteladies. Miss Susan 
 was sixty, and pretended to no lingering of youthfulness ; but 
 she was so strong and full of life that nobody thought of her as 
 an old woman, and though she professed, as persons of her age 
 do, to have but a small amount of life left, she had no real feel- 
 ing to this effect (as few have), and was thinking of her future 
 house and planning conveniences for it as carefully as if she ex- 
 pected to live in it for a hundred years. If she had been doing 
 this with the immediate prospect of leaving Whiteladies before 
 her, probably she might have felt a certain pain ; but as she had 
 no idea of leaving Whiteladies, there was nothing to disturb 
 the pleasure with which almost every mind plans and plots the 
 arrangement of a house. It is one of the things which every- 
 
 .! i 
 
214 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 body likes to attempt, each of us having a confidence that we 
 shall succeed in it. By the fire which felt so warmly pleasant 
 in contrast with the greyness without, having just decided with 
 satisfaction that it was late enough to have the lamp lighted, 
 the curtains drawn, and the greyness shut out altogether ; and 
 with the moral consolation about her of having got rid of her 
 spectre, and of having been happily saved from all consequences 
 of her wickedness, Miss Susan sat pondering her new house, 
 and knitting her shawl, mind and hands alike occupied, and as 
 near being happy as most women of sixty ever succeed in being. 
 She turned round with a smile as Augustine spoke. 
 
 I cannot describe the curious shock and sense as of a stunning 
 blow that came all at once upon her. She did not recognise the 
 woman, whom she had scarcely seen, nor did she realize at all 
 what was to follow. The stranger stood in the full light, throw- 
 ing back the hood of her cloak which had been drawn over her 
 bonnet. She was very tall, slight, and dark. Who was she 1 
 It was easier to tell what she was. No one so remarkable in ap- 
 pearance had entered the old house for years. She was not 
 pi'etty or handsome only, but beautiful, with fine features and 
 great dark, flashing, mysterious eyes ; not a creature to be over- 
 looked or passed with slighting notice. Unconsciously as she 
 looked at her. Miss Susan rose to her feet in instinctive homage 
 to her beauty, which was like that of a princess. Who was 
 she 1 The startled woman could not tell, yet felt somehow, 
 not only that she knew her, but that she had known of her ar- 
 rival all her life, and was prepared for it, although she could 
 not tell what it meant. She stood up and faced her faltering, 
 and said, " This lady — knows me 1 but, pardon me, I don't 
 know you." 
 
 " Yes ; it is this one," said the stranger. " You not know 
 me, Madame ! You see me at m> beau-p6re's house at Bruges. 
 Ah ! you remember now. And this is your child," she said 
 suddenly, with a significant smile, putting down the baby by 
 Miss Susan's feet. " I have brought him to you." 
 
 " Ah ! " Miss Susan said, with a suppressed cry. She looked 
 helplessly from one to the other for a moment, holding up her 
 hands as if in appeal to all the world against this sudden and 
 extraordinary visitor. " You are — Madame Austin," she said 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 215 
 
 11 
 il 
 
 " their son's wife 1 Yes. Forgive me for not 
 And I hope/' she added, not knowing what she 
 
 still faltering, 
 
 knowing you. ^ , 
 
 said, " I hope — you are better now. 1 " 
 
 " Yes, I am well," said the young woman, sitting down 
 abruptly. The child, which was about two years old, gave a 
 crow of delight at sight of the fire, and crept towards it in- 
 stantly on his hands and knees. Both the baby and its mother 
 seemed to take possession at once of the place. She began to 
 undo and throw back on Miss Susan's pretty velvet-covered 
 chairs her wet cloak, and taking off her bonnet Ifid it on the 
 table, on the plans of the new house. The boy, for his part 
 dragged himself over the great soft rug to the fender, where he 
 sat down triumphant, holding his baby hands to the fire. His 
 cap, which was made like a little nightcap of black stuff, with a 
 border of coarse white lace very full round his face, such as 
 French and Flemish children wear, was a head-dress worn in- 
 doors and out-of-doors, and not to be taken off — but he kicked 
 himself free of the shawl in which he had been enveloped on 
 his way to the fender. Augustine stood in her abstract way 
 behind, not noticing much and waiting only to see if anything 
 was wanted of her ; while Miss Susan, deeply agitated, and not 
 knowing what to say or lo, stood also, disposseitsed, looking 
 from the child to the woman and from the woman to the child. 
 
 " You have come from Bruges ? " she said, rousing herself to 
 to talk a little, yet in such confusion of mind that she did not 
 know what she said. " You have iiad bad weather, unfortu- 
 nately. You speak English 1 My French is so bad that I am 
 glad of that." 
 
 " I know ver' little," said the stranger. " I have learn all 
 alone, that nobody might know. I have planned it for long 
 time to get a little change. Enfant, tais-toi ; he is bad ; he is 
 disagreeable ; but it is to you he owes his existence, and I have 
 brought him to you." 
 
 " You do not mean to give him a bad character, poor little 
 thing," Miss Susan said with a forced smile. " Take care, take 
 care, baby ! " 
 
 " He will not take care. He likes to play with fire, and he 
 does not understand you/' said the woman, with almost a look 
 of pleasure. Miss Susan seized the child, and, drawing him 
 
 •!■ i 
 i 'i 
 
 . I J 
 
216 
 
 WHITELADIE& 
 
 away from the fender, placed him on the rug ; and then the 
 house echoed with a lusty cry, that startling cry of childhood 
 which is so appalling to the bolitf.ry. Miss Susan, desperate 
 and dismayed, tried what she could to amend her mistake. 
 She took the handsomest book on the table in her agitation and 
 thrust its pictures at him ; she essayed to take him on her 
 lap ; she rushed to a cabinet and got out some curiosities to 
 amuse him. " Dear, dear ! cannot you pacify him 1 " she said 
 at last. Augustine had turned away and gone out of the room, 
 which was a relief 
 
 " He does not care for me," said the woman with a smile, 
 leaning back in her chair and stretching out her feet to the 
 fire. " Sometimes he will scream only when he catches sight of 
 me. I brought him to you ; — his aunt," she added meaningly, 
 " Madame knows — Gertrude, who lost her baby — can manage 
 him, but not me. He is your child, Madamo of the Viteladies. 
 I bring him to you." 
 
 " Oh heaven help me ! heaven help me ! " cried Miss Susan 
 wringing her hands. 
 
 However, after a while the baby fell into a state of quiet, 
 pondering something, and at last, overcome by the warmth, 
 fell fast asleep, a deliverance for which Miss Susan was more 
 
 thankful than I can say. " But he will catch cold in his wet 
 clothes," she said bending over him, not able to shut out from 
 her heart a thrill of natural kindness as she looked at the little 
 flushed face surrounded by its closely tied cap, and the little 
 sturdy fat legs thrust out from under his petticoats. 
 
 '' Oh, nothing will harm him," said the mother, with again 
 a laugh that rang harshly. She pushed the cbUd a little aside 
 with her foot, not for his convenience, but her own. " It is 
 warm here," she added, " he likes it, and so do I." 
 
 Then there was a pause. The stranger eyed Miss Susan with 
 a half-mocking, defiant look, and Miss Susan, disturbed and 
 unhappy, looked at her, wondering what had brought her, 
 what her object was, and oh ! when it would be possible to get 
 her away ! 
 
 " You have come to England — to see it 1 " she asked, " for 
 pleasure 1 to visit your friends ? or perhaps on business ? I 
 
"Mi 
 
 WHITELADIBS. 
 
 217 
 
 am surprised that you should have found an out-of-the-way 
 place like this." 
 
 << I sought it," said the new-comer. " I found the name on 
 a letter, and then in a book, and so g- 1 here. I have come to 
 see you." 
 
 ** It is very kind of you, I am sure," said Miss Susan, more 
 and more troubled. " Do you know many people in England 1 
 We shall, of course, be very glad to have you for a little while, 
 but Whiteladies is not — amusing — at this time of the year." 
 
 " I know nobody — but you," said t*he stranger again. She 
 sat with her great eyes fixed upon Miss Susan, who faltered 
 and trembled under their steady gaze, leaning back in her 
 chair, stretching out her feet to the fire with the air of one 
 entirely at home and determined to be comfortable. She never 
 took her eyes from Miss Susan's face, and there was a slight 
 smile on her lip. 
 
 " Listen," she said. " It was not possible any longer there. 
 They always hated me. Whatever I said or did, it was wrong. 
 They could not put me out, for others would have cried shame. 
 They quarrelled with me and scolded me, sometimes ten times 
 in a day. Ah, yes. I was not a log of wood. I scolded too ; 
 and we all hated each other. But they love the child. So I 
 thoueht to come away, and bring the child to you. It is you 
 that have done it, and you should have it ; and it is I, madame 
 knows, that have the only right to dispose of it. It is I — you 
 acknowledge that 1 " 
 
 Heaven and earth ! was it possible that the woman meant 
 anything like what she said 1 '' You have had a quarrel with 
 hem," said Miss Susan, pretending to take it lightly, falling 
 at every word into a tremour she could not restrain. " Ah ! 
 that happens sometimes, but fortunately it does not last. If I 
 can be of any use to make it up, I will do anything I can.'' 
 
 As she spoke she tried to return, and to overcome, if possible, 
 the steady gaze of the other ; but this was not an effort of 
 which MIss Susan was capable. The strange, beautiful crea- 
 ture, who looked like some being of anew species treading this 
 unaccustomed soil, looked calmly at her and smiled again. 
 
 "No," she said, 
 change, what I lofe. 
 
 « 
 
 you will keep 
 I will know your 
 
 me here 
 friends. 
 
 that will be 
 I will be as 
 
218 
 
 WHITELADIK8. 
 
 your daughter. You will net send me back to that place where 
 they hate me. 1 like this better. I will stay here, and be a 
 daughter to you." 
 
 Miss Susan grew pale to her very lips ; her sin had found 
 her out. "You say so because you are angry," she said 
 trembling ; " but they are your friends ; they have been kind 
 to you. This is not really my house, but my nephew's, and I 
 cannot pretend to have — any right to you ; though what you 
 say is very kind," she added with a shiver. " I will write to 
 M. Austin, and you will pay us a short visit, for we are dull 
 here — and then you will go back to your home. I know you 
 would not like the life here." 
 
 " I shall try," said the stranger composedly. " I like a room 
 like this and a warm, beautiful house ; and you have many ser- 
 vants and are rich. Ah, madame must not be too modest. 
 She has a right to me — and the child. She will be my second 
 mother, I know it. I shall be very happy here." 
 
 Miss Susan trembled more and more. " Indeed, you are 
 deceiving yourself," she said. " Indeed, I could not set my- 
 self against Mousheer Austin, your father-in-law. Indeed, in- 
 deed " 
 
 " And indeed, indeed ! " said her visitor. " Yes ; you havo 
 best xight to the child. The child is yours — and I cannot be 
 separated from him. Am not I his mother," she said, with a 
 mocking light on her face, and laughed — a laugh which was in 
 reality very musical and pleasant, but which sounded to Miss 
 Susan like the laugh of a fiend. 
 
 And then there came a pause ; for Miss Susan, at her wit's 
 end, did not know what to say. The child lay with one little 
 foot kicked out at full length, the other dimpled knee bent, 
 his little face flushed in the firelight, fust asleep at their feet ; 
 the wet shawl in which he had been wrapped steaming and 
 smoking in the heat; and the tall, fine figure of the young 
 woman, slim and graceful, thrown back in the easy-chair in ab- 
 solute repose and comfort. Though Miss Susan stood on her 
 own hearth, and these two were intruders, aliens, it was she 
 who hesitated and trembled, and the other who was calm and 
 full of easy good-humour. She lay back in her chair as if she 
 had lived there all her life ; she stretched herself out before 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 219 
 
 the welcome fire ; she smiled upon the misti-ess of the house 
 with benign indifference. " You would not separate the mother 
 and the child," she repeated. " That would be worse than to 
 separate husband and wife." 
 
 Miss Susan wrung her hands in despair. " For a little 
 while I shall be — glad to have you," she said, putting force on 
 herself ; " for a — week or two — a fortnight. But for a longer 
 time I cannot promise. I am going to leave this house." 
 
 " One house is like another to me," said the stranger. "I 
 will go with you where you go. You will be good to me — and 
 the child." 
 
 Poor Miss Susan ! This second Kuth looked at her dismay 
 unmoved, nay, with a certain air of half humorous amusement. 
 She was not afraid of her, nor of being turned away. She held 
 possession with the bold security of one who, she knows, can- 
 not be rejected. " I shall not' be dull or fatigued of you, for 
 you will be kind ; and where you go I will go," she repeated, 
 in Ruth's very words ; while Miss Susan's heart sank, sank 
 into the very depths of despair. What could she do or say ? 
 Should she give up her resistance for the moment, and wait to 
 see what time would bring forth 1 or should she, however dif- 
 ficult it was, stand out now at the beginning, and turn away 
 the unwelcome visitor 1 At that moment, however, while she 
 tried to make up her mind to the severest measures, a blast of 
 rain came against the window, and moaned and groaned in the 
 chimneys of the old house. To turn a woman and a child out 
 into such a night was impossible ; they must stay at least till 
 morning, whatever they did more. 
 
 " And I should like something to eat," said the stranger, 
 stretching her arms above her head with natural but not el^ 
 gant freedom, and distorting her beautiful face with a great 
 yawn. " I am very fatigued ; and then I should like to wash 
 myself and rest." 
 
 " Perhaps it is too late to do anything else to-night," said 
 Miss Susan, with a troubled countenance ; " to-morrow we must 
 talk further ; and I think you will see that it will be better to 
 go back where you are known — among your friends " 
 
 " No, no ; never go back ! " she cried. " I will go where you 
 go ; that is, I will not change any more. I will stay with you 
 — and the child." 
 
220 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Miss Susan rang the bell with an agitatc><l hand, which con- 
 veyed strange tremours even to the sound of the bell, and let 
 the kitchen, if not into her secret, at least into the knowledge 
 that there was a secret, and something mysterious goirg on. 
 Martha ran to answer the summons, pushing old Stevens out 
 of the way. '* If it's anything particular, it s me as my lady 
 wants," Martha said, moved to double zoal by curiosity ; and a 
 more curious scene had never been seen by wondering eyes of 
 domestic at Whiteladies than that which Martha savr. The 
 stranger lying back in her chair, yawning and stretching her 
 arms ; Miss Susan standing opposite, with black care upon her 
 brow ; and at their feet between them, roasting, as Martha 
 said, in front of the fire, the rosy baby with its odd dress, 
 thrown down like a bundle on the rug. Martha gave a scream 
 at sight of the child. " Lord ! it's a baby ! and summun will 
 tread on't 1 " she cried, with her eyes starting out of her head. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you foolish woman," cried Miss Susan ; 
 " do you think I will tread on the child ? It is sleeping, poor 
 little thing. Go at once, and make ready the East room ; light a 
 fire, and make everything comfortable. This — lady — is going 
 to stay all night." 
 
 " Yes — every night," interposed the visitor, with a smile. 
 
 " You hear what I say to you, Martha," said Miss Susan, see- 
 ing that her maid turned gaping to the other speaker. " The 
 East room, directly ; and there is a child's bed, isn't there, 
 somewhere in the house 1 " 
 
 " Yes, sure. Miss Susan ; Master Herbert's, as he had when 
 he come first, and Miss Reine's, but that's bigger, as it's the one 
 she slept in at ten years old, afore you give her the little dress- 
 ing room ; and then there's an old cradle " 
 
 "I don't want a list of all the old furniture in the house," 
 cried Miss Susan, cutting Martha short, " and get a bath ready 
 and some food for the child. Everything is to be done to make 
 — this lady — comfortable — for the night." 
 
 " Ah ! I knew Madame would be a mother to mrj," cried the 
 stranger, suddenly rising up, and folding her unwilling hostess 
 in an unexpected and unwelcome embrace. Miss Susan, half- 
 resisting, felt her cheek touch the new-comer's damp and some- 
 what rough black woollen gown with sensations which I cannot 
 
WHIIKLADIES. 
 
 221 
 
 >> 
 
 describe. Utter diHmay took possession of her soul. The pun- 
 ishment of her sin had taken form and shape ; it was no longer 
 to be escaped from. What should she, what could she do ? 
 She withdrew herself almost roughly from the hold of her 
 captor, which was powerful enough to require an effort to get 
 free, and shook her collar straight, and her hair, which had l)een 
 deranged by this unexpected sign of affection. " Let every- 
 thing be got ready at once," she said, turning with peremptory 
 tones to Martha, who had witnessed with much dismay and sur- 
 prise her mistress's discomfiture. The wind sighed and groaned 
 in the great chimney, as if it sympathized with her trouble, and 
 blew noisy blasts of rain against the windows. Miss Susan 
 suppressed the thrill of hot impatience and longing to turn this 
 newcomer to the door which moved her. It could not be done 
 to-night. Nothing could warrant her in turning out her worst 
 enemy to the mercy of the elements to-night. 
 
 That was the strangest night that had been passed in White- 
 ladies for years. The stranger dined with the ladies in the old 
 hall, which astonished her, hut which she thought ugly and cold. 
 " It is a church ; it is not a room," she said, with a shiver. " I 
 do not like to eat in a church." Afterwards, however, when 
 she saw Augustine sit down, whom she watched wonderingly, 
 rhe sat down also. '' If ma soeur does it, I may do it," she said. 
 But she did a great many things at table which disgu&ted Miss 
 Susan, who could thinkof nothing else but this strange intruder. 
 She ate up her gravy with a piece of bread, pursuing the savoury 
 liquid round her plate. She declined to allow her knife and 
 fork to be changed, to the great horror of Stevens. She ad- 
 dressed that correct and high-class servant familiarly as ** my 
 friend " — translating faithfully from her natural tongue — and 
 drawing him into the conversation, a liberty which Stevens on 
 his own account was not indisposed to take, but which he scorned 
 to be led into by a stranger. Miss Susan breathed at last when 
 her visitor was taken up-stairs to bed. She went with her 
 solemnly, and ushered her into the bright, luxurious English 
 room, with its blazing fire, and warm curtains, and soft carpet. 
 The young woman's eyes opened wide with wonder. " I lofe 
 this," she said, basking before the fire, and kissed Miss Susan 
 again, not h withstanding her resistance. There was no one in 
 
 ih' 
 
 i 
 
222 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 the house so tall, not even Stevens, and to resist her effectually 
 was not in anybody's power at Whiteladies. The child had 
 been carried up stairs, and lay, still dressed, fast asleep upon 
 the bed. 
 
 " Shall I stay, ma'am, and help the — lady — with the chyildl" 
 said Martha, in a whisper. 
 
 " No, no ; she will know how to manage it herself," said Miss 
 Susan, not caring that any of the household should see too much 
 of the stranger. 
 
 A curious, foreign-looking box, with many iron clamps and 
 bands, had been brought from the railway in the intb. ^al. The 
 candles were lighted, the fire burning, the kettle boiling on the 
 hob, and a plentiful supply of bread and milk for the baby when 
 it woke. What more could be required 1 Miss Susan left her 
 undesired guests with a sense of relief, which, alas ! was very 
 short-lived. She had escaped, indeed, for the moment ; but 
 the prospect before her was so terrible, that her very heart 
 sickened at it. What was she to do ? She was in this woman's 
 power ; in the power of a reckless creature, who could by a 
 word hold her up to shame and bitter disgrace ; who could take 
 away from her all the honour she had earned in her long hon- 
 ourable life, and leave a stigma upon her very grave. What 
 could she do to get rid of her, to send her back again to her 
 relations, to get her out of the desecrated house ? Miss Susan's 
 state of mind, on this dreadful night, was one chaos of fear, 
 doubt, misery, remorse, and pain. Her sin had found her out. 
 Was she to be condemned to live hereafter all her life in pres- 
 ence of this constant reminder of it ? Jf she had suffered but 
 little before, she suffered enough to make up for it now. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 223 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 'HE night was terrible for this peaceful household in a 
 more extended sense than that deep misery which the 
 arrival of the stranger cost Miss Susan. Those quiet 
 people, mistresses and servants, had but just gone to bed when 
 the yells of the child rang through the silence, waking and dis- 
 turbing every one, from Jane, who slept with the intense sleep 
 of youth, unawakable by all ordinary commotions, to Augustine, 
 who spent the early night in prayer, and Miss Susan, who 
 neither prayed nor slept, and felt as if she should be, hencefor- 
 ward, incapable of either. These yells continued for about an 
 hour, during which time the household, driven distracted, 
 made repeated visits in all manner of costumes to the door of 
 the East room, which was locked, and from which the stranger 
 shrilly repelled them, 
 
 " Je dois le dompter ! " she cried through the thick oaken 
 door, and in the midst of those screams which, to the unac- 
 customed ear, seem so much more terrible than they really are. 
 
 " It'll bust itself, that's what it'll do," said the old cook ; 
 " particular as it's a boy. Boys should never be let scream 
 like that ; it's far more dangerous for them than it is for a 
 gell." 
 
 Cook was a widow, and therefore an authority on all such 
 subjects. After an hour or so the child was heard to sink into 
 subdued sobbings, and Whiteladies, relieved, went to bed, 
 thanking its stars that this terrible experience was over. But 
 long before daylight the conflict recommenced, and once more 
 the inmates, in their night-dresses, and Miss Susan in her 
 dressing-gown, assembled round the door of the East room. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, let some one come in and help you," 
 said Miss Susan through the door. 
 
 " Je dois le dompter," answered the other fiercely. *• Go 
 away, away ! Je dois le dompter ! " 
 
 ■ f 
 
224 
 
 WHITELADJES. 
 
 "What's shea-going to do, ma'am?" said Cook. "Dump 
 *um ? Good Lord, she don't mean to beat the child, I 'ope^ 
 particular as it's a boy." 
 
 Three times in the night the dreadful experience was re- 
 peated, and I leave the reader to imagine with what feelings 
 the family regarded its new inmate. They were all down- 
 stairs very early, with that exhausted and dissipated feeling 
 which want of sleep gives. The maids found some comfort in 
 the tea, which Cook made instantly to restore their nerves ; 
 but even this brought little comfort to Miss Susan, who lay 
 awake and miserable in her bed, fearing every moment a 
 repetition of the cries, and feeling herself helpless and enslaved 
 in the hands of some diabolical creature, who, having no mercy 
 on the child, would, she felt sure, have none on her, and whom 
 she had no means of subduing or getting rid of. iUl the 
 strength had gone out of her, mind and body. She shrank 
 even from the sight of the stranger, from getting up to meet 
 her again, from coming into personal contact and conflict with 
 her. She became a weak old woman, and cried hopelessly on 
 her pillow, not knowing where to turn, after the exhaustion of 
 that terrible night. This, however, was but a passing mood 
 Uke another, and she got up at her usual time, and faced the 
 world and her evil fortune, as she must have done had an 
 earthquake swept all she cared for out of the world — as we 
 must all do, whatever may have happened to us, even the loss 
 of all that makes life sweet. She got up and dressed herself 
 as usual, with the same care as always, and went down-stairs 
 and called the family together for prayers, and did ever3rthing 
 as she was used to do it — watching the door every moment, 
 however, and trembling lest that tall black figure should come 
 in. It was a great relief, however, when, by way of account- 
 ing for Cook's absence at morning prayers, Martha pointed out 
 that buxom personage in the garden, walkiL>g about with the 
 child in her arms. 
 
 "The — lady's — a-havine her breakfast in bed," said 
 Martha. " What did the child do, ma'am, but stretches out 
 its little arms when me and Cook went in first thing, after she 
 unlocked the door." 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 225 
 
 said 
 yea out 
 iT she 
 
 ** Why did two of you go V said Miss Susan, "Did she 
 riDg the bell ? " 
 
 " Well, ma'am," said Martha, " you'll say it's^one 'o' my 
 silly, nervish ways. But I was frightened — I don't deny. 
 What with Cook saying as the child would bust itbelf, and 
 what with them cries — but, Lord bless you, it's all right," said 
 Martha ; " and a-laughing and crowing to Cook, and all of us 
 as soon as it got down to the kitchen, and taking its sop as 
 natural ! I can't think what could come over the child to be 
 that wicked with its ma." 
 
 " Some people never get on with children," said Miss Susan, 
 feeling some apology necessary ; " and no doubt it misses the 
 nurse it was used to. And it was tired with the journey — — " 
 
 " That's exactly what Cook says," said Martha. " Some 
 folks has no way with children — even when it's the ma — and 
 Cook says " 
 
 " I hope you have taken the lady's breakfast up to her com- 
 fortably," said Miss Susan ; " tell her, with my compliments, 
 that I hope she will not hurry to get up, as she must have had 
 a very bad night." 
 
 " Who is she 1 " said Augustine quietly, 
 
 Miss Susan knew that this question awaited her ; and it was 
 very comforting to her mind to know that Augustine would 
 accept the facts of the story calmly without thinking of any 
 meaning that might lie below them, or asking any explanations. 
 She told her these facts quite simply. 
 
 " She is the daughter-in-law of the Austins of Bruges — their 
 son's widow — her child is Herbert's next of kin and heir pre- 
 sumptive. Since dear Bertie has got better his chances, of 
 course, have become very much smaller ; and, as I trust," said 
 Miss Susan fervently, with tears of pain coming to her eyes, 
 " that my dear boy will live to have heirs of his own, this baby, 
 poor thing, has no chance at all to speak of; but, you see, as 
 they do not know that, and heard that Herbert was never 
 likely to recover, and are people quite diflFerent from ourselves, 
 and don't understand things, they still look upon him as the 
 heir." 
 
 "Yes," said Augustine, " I understand ; and ^they think he 
 has a right to live here. " 
 
 iHr 
 
226 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " It is not that, dear. The young woman has quarrelled 
 with her husband's parents, or she did not feel happy with 
 them. Such things happen often, you know ; perhaps there 
 were faults on both sides. So she took it into her head to 
 come here. She is an orphan, with no friends, and a young 
 widow, poor thing ; but I am most anxious to get her sent 
 away." 
 
 " Why should she be sent away 1 " said Augustine. " It is 
 our duty to keep her, if she wishes to stay. An orphan — a 
 widow ! Susan, you do not see our duties as I wish you could. 
 We who are eating the bread which ought to be the property 
 of the widow and the orphan — how dare we cast one of them 
 from our doors ! No, if she wishes it, she must stay." 
 
 " Augustine I " cried her sister with tears, ** I will do any- 
 thing you tell me, dear ; but don't ask me to do this ! I do 
 not like her — I am afraid of her. Think how she must have 
 used the child last night ! I cannot let her stay." 
 
 Augustine put down the cup of milk which was her habitual 
 breakfast, ana looked across the table at her sister. " It is 
 not by what we like we should be ruled," she said. " Alas, 
 most people are ; but we have a duty. If she is not good, she 
 has the more need of help ; but I would not leave the child 
 with her," she added, for she, too, had felt what it was to be 
 disturbed. " I would give the child to some one else who can 
 manage it. Otherwise you cannot refuse her, an orphan and 
 widow, if she wishes to stay." 
 
 " Austine, you mistake, you mistake ! " cried Miss Suean, 
 driven to her wit's end. 
 
 " No, I do not mistake ; from our door no widow and no 
 orphan should ever be driven away. When it is Herbert's 
 house, he must do as he thinks fit," said Augustine ; " at least 
 I know he will not be guided by me. But for us, who live to 
 
 expiate- No, she must not be sent away. But I would give 
 
 the charge of the child to some one else," she added with less 
 solemnity of tone ; " certainly I would have some one else for 
 
 the child." 
 
 With this Augustine rose and went away, her hands in her 
 sleeves, her pace as measured as ever. She gave forth her 
 solemn decision on general principles, knowing no other, with 
 an abstract superiority which offended no one, because of its 
 
 ii ■'^ 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 227 
 
 very abstraction, and curious imperfection in all practical human 
 knowledge. Miss Susan was too wise to be led by her sister 
 in ordinary afifairs ; but she listened to this judgment, her heart 
 wrung by pangs which she could not avow to any one. It was 
 not the motive which liulked so largely with Augustine, and 
 was, indeed, the only one she took account of, which affected 
 her sister. It was neither Christian pity for the helpless, nor 
 a wish to expiate the sins of the past, that moved Miss Susan. 
 The emotion which was battling in her heart was fear. How 
 could she bear it be known what she had done ? How could 
 she endure to i t Augustine know, or Herbert, or Reine 1 — or 
 even Farrel- Austin, who would rejoice over her, and take de- 
 light in her shame ? She dared not turn her visitor out of the 
 house, for this reason. She sat by herself when Augustine had 
 eone, with her hands clasped tight, and a bitter, helpless beat- 
 ing and fluttering of her heart. Never before had she felt her- 
 self in the position of a coward, afraid to face the exigency be- 
 fore her. She had always dared to meet all things, looking 
 danger and trouble in the face ; but then she had never done 
 anything in her life to be ashamed of before. She shrank now 
 from meeting the unknown woman who had taken possession 
 of her house. If she had remained there in her room, shut up, 
 Miss Susan felt as if she would gladly have compounded to let 
 her remain, supplying her with as many luxuries as she cared 
 for. But to face her, to talk to her, to have to put up with 
 her, and her companionship, this was more than she could 
 bear. 
 
 She had not been able to look at her letters in her preoccu- 
 pied and excited state ; but when she turned them over now, 
 in the pause that ensued after Augustine's departure, she 
 found a letter from old Guillaume Austin, full of trouble, nar 
 rating to her how his daughter-in-law had fled ftom the house 
 in consequence of some quarrel, carrying the child with her, 
 who was the joy of their hearts. So far as she was concerned, 
 the old man said, they were indifferent to the loss, for since 
 Giovanua's child was born she had changed her character 
 entirely, and was no longer the heart-broken widow who had 
 obtained all their sympathies. " She had always a peculiar 
 temper," the father wrote. " My poor son did not live happy 
 witl^ her, though we were ready to forget everything in our 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
228 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 grief. She is not one of our people, but by origin an Italian, fond 
 of pleasure, and very hot tempered, like all of that race. But 
 recently she has been almost beyond our patience. Madame 
 will rememberhow good my old wife was to her — though she can- 
 not bearthe idle — letting her do nothing, as is hernature. Since 
 the baby was bom, however, she has been most ungrateful to 
 my poor wife, looking her in the face as if to frighten, and 
 with insolent smiles ; and I have heard her even threaten to 
 betray the wife of my bosom to me for something unknown — 
 some dress, I suppose, or other trifle my Marie has given her 
 without telling me. This is insufferable ; but we have borne 
 it all for the child, who is the darling of our old age. Ma- 
 dame will feel for me, for it is your loss, too, as well as ours. 
 The child, the heir is gone ! who charmed us and made us feel 
 young again. My wife thinks she may have gone to you, and 
 therefore I write ; but I h&ve no hopes of this myself, and only 
 fear she may have married some one, and taken our darling 
 from us for ever — for who would separate a mother from her 
 child 1 — though the boy does not lovb her, not at all, not so 
 much as he loves us and his aunt Gertrude, who thinks she 
 sees in him the boy whom she lost. Write to me in pity, dear 
 and honoured madame, and if by any chance the unhappy 
 Giovanna has gone to you, I will come and fetch her away." 
 
 This letter was balm to Miss Susan's wounds. She wrote an 
 answer to M. Austin at once, then bethought herself of a still 
 quicker mode of conveying information, and wiote a telegram, 
 which she at once dispatched by the gardener, mounted on the 
 best horse in the stable, to the railway. " She is here with the 
 child, quite well. T shall be glad to see you," Miss Susan wrote ; 
 then sat down again, tremulous, but resolute to think of what 
 was before hei But for the prospect of old Guillaume's visit, 
 what a prospect it was that lay before her ! She could under- 
 stand how that beautiful face would look, with its mocking de- 
 fiance at the helpless old woman who was in her power, and 
 could not escape from her. Poor old Madame Austin ! Her 
 sin was the greatest of all. Miss Susan felt, with a sense of 
 relief, for was it not her good husband whom she was deceiving, 
 and had not all the execution of the complot been left in her 
 hands? Miss Susan knew she herself had lied; but how 
 much oftener Madame Austin must have lied, practically, and 
 
n, fond 
 But 
 [adame 
 he can- 
 Since 
 beful to 
 m, and 
 laten to 
 lown — 
 ven her 
 e borne 
 . Ma- 
 as ours. 
 3 us feel 
 ou, and 
 md only 
 darling 
 irom her 
 I, not so 
 inks she 
 ity, dear 
 [inhappy 
 ^ay.» 
 NTote an 
 >f a still 
 elegram, 
 d on the 
 with the 
 1 wrote ; 
 of what 
 e's visit, 
 d under- 
 lying de- 
 jeer, and 
 i! Her 
 sense of 
 Bceiving, 
 in her 
 )ut how 
 ,lly, and 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 229 
 
 by word and speech ! Everything she had done for weeks 
 and months must have been a Tie, and thus she had put 
 herself in this woman's power, who cruelly had taken advan- 
 tage of it. Miss Susan realized, with a shudder, how the 
 poor old Flemish woman, who was her confederate, must 
 have been put to the agony ! How she must have been held 
 over the precipice, pushed almost to the verge, obliged perhaps 
 to lie and lie again, in order to save herself. She trembled at 
 the terrible picture ; and now all that had been done to Madame 
 Austin was about to be done to herself — for was not she, too, 
 in this pitiless woman's power ? 
 
 A tap at the door. She thought it was the invader of her 
 peace, and said, " Come in " faintly. Then the door was pushed 
 open, and a tottering little figure, so low down that Miss Susan, 
 unprepared for this pigmy, did not see it at first, came in with a 
 feeble rush, as babies do, too much afraid of its capabilities of 
 progress to have any confidence of holding out. " Did you ever 
 see such a darling, ma'am 1 " said Cook. " We couldn't keep 
 him not to ourselves a moment longer. I whips him up, and I 
 says * Miss Susan must see him.' Now, did you ever set your 
 two eyes on a sweeter boy V 
 
 Miss Susan, relieved, did as she was told ; she fixed her eyes 
 upon the boy, who, after his rush, subsided on to the floor, and 
 gazed at her in silence. He was as fair as an English child, a 
 flaxen-headed, blue-eyed, Flemish baby, with innocent, wide- 
 open eyes. 
 
 " He ain't a bit like his ma, bless him, and he takes to strangers 
 quite natural. Look at him a-cooing and a-laughing at you, 
 ma'am, as he never set eyes on before ! But human nature is 
 unaccountable," said Cook, with awe-stricken gravity, " for he 
 can't abide his ma." 
 
 " Did you ever know such a case before ? " said Miss Susan, 
 who, upon the ground that Cook was a widow, looked up to 
 her judgment on such matters as all the rest of the household 
 did. Cook was in very high feather at this moment, having at 
 last proved beyond doubt the superiority of her knowledge and 
 experience as having once had a child (dtill-born) of her own. 
 
 "Well, ma'am," said Cook, "that depends. There's some 
 folk as never have no way with children, married or single, it 
 don't matter. Now that child, if you let him sit at your feet, 
 
 II 
 
 It 
 
 It 
 
230 
 
 WIITTKLADIES. 
 
 and give him a reel out of your workbox to play with, will be 
 as good as gold ; lor you've got a way with children, you have ; 
 but he can't abide his ma." 
 
 " Leave him there, if you think he will be good," said Miss 
 Susan. She did more than give the baby a reel out of her 
 workbox, for she took out the scissors, pins, needles, all sharp 
 and pointed things, and put down the workbox itself on the 
 carpet. And then she sat watching the child with the most 
 curious, exquisite mixture of anguish and a kind of pleasure in 
 her heart. Poor old Guillaume Austin's grandchild, a tme 
 scion of the old stock ! but not as was supposed. She watched 
 the little tremulous dabs the baby made at the various articles 
 that pleased him. How he grasped them in the round fat fin- 
 gers that were just long enough to close on a reel ; how he 
 threw them away to snatch at others ; the pitiful look of mingled 
 suffering, injured feeling, and indignation which came over his 
 face in a moment when the lid of the box dropped on his fin- 
 gers ; his unconscious little song to himself, cooing and gurg- 
 ling in a baby monologue. What was the child thinking ? No 
 clue had he to the disadvantages under which he was entering 
 life, or the advantages which had been planned for him before 
 he was born, and which, by the will of Providence, were falling 
 into nothing. Poor little unconscious baby ! The workbox 
 and its reels were at this moment quite world enough for him. 
 
 It was an hour or two later before the stranger came down- 
 stairs. She had put on a black silk dress, and done up her hair 
 carefully, and made her appearance as imposing as possible ; 
 and, indeed, so far as this went, she required few external 
 helps. The child took no notice of her, sheltered as he was 
 under Miss Susan's wing, until she took him up roughly, dis- 
 turbing his toys and play. Then he pushed her away with a 
 repetition of last night's screams, beating with his little angry 
 handa against her face, and shrieking, " No, no ! " his only in- 
 telligible word, at the top of his lungs. The young woman 
 grew exasperated, too, and repaid the blows he gave with one 
 or two heavy slaps and a shake, by means of which the cries 
 became trei*iulous and wavering, though they were as loud as 
 ever. By the time the conflict had come to this point, however, 
 Cook and Martha, flushed with indignation, were both at the 
 door. '^ 11 ne faut pas frapper I'enfang ! " Miss Susan called 
 
WHITELADIE8.] 
 
 231 
 
 l.i 
 
 out loudly in her peculiar French. " Vous ne restrez pas un 
 moment ici vous ne donnez p'*^ cet enfant au cook ; vous 
 ^coutez 1 Donnez, donnez, toute Qo suite ! " Her voice was so 
 imperative that the woman was cowed. She turned and tossed 
 the child to Cook, who, red as her own fire, stood holding out 
 her arms to receive the screaming and struggling boy. 
 
 " What do I care 1 " said the stranger. " Petiw sot ! "ochon I 
 va I I slept not all the night," she added. " You heard ? 
 Figure to yourselt' whether I wish to keep him now. Ah, petit 
 fripon, petit vaurien ! Va ! " 
 
 " Madame Austin," said Miss Susan solemnly as the women 
 went away, carrying the child, who clung to Cook's broad bosom 
 and sobbed on her shoulder. " You do not stay here another 
 hour, unless you promise to give up the child to those who can 
 take care of him. Ym cannot ; that is clear." 
 
 " And yet he is my child," said the young woman with « 
 malicious smile. ''Madame knows he is my child') He is 
 always sage with his aunt Gertrude, and likes her red and white 
 face. Madame remembers Gertrude, who lost her baby ? But 
 mine belongs to me" 
 
 " He may belong to you," said Miss Susan with almost a sav- 
 age tone, " but he is not to remain with you another hour, un- 
 less you wish to take him away ; in which case," said Miss 
 Susan, going to the door and throwing it open, '' you are per- 
 fectly at liberty to depart, him and you." 
 
 The stranger sat for a moment looking at her, then went and 
 looked out into the red -floored passage, with a kind of insolent 
 scrutiny. Then she made Miss Susan a mock curtsey, and sat 
 down. 
 
 " They are welcome to have him," she said calmly. " What 
 should I want him for % Even a child, a baby, should know 
 better than to hate one. I do not like it ; it is a nasty little 
 thing — very like Gertrude, and with her ways exactly. It is 
 hard to see your child resemble another woman ; should not 
 madame think so, if she had been like me, and had a child ) " 
 
 " Look here," Miss Susan said, going up to her and shaking 
 her by the shoulders, with a whiteness and force of passion 
 about her which cowered Giovanna in spite of herself — " look 
 here ! This is how you treated your poor mother-in-law, no 
 doubt, and drove her wild. I will not put up with it— do you 
 
 ! i 
 
 
 - |: 
 
232 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 hear me 1 I will drive you out of the house this very day, and 
 let you do what you will and say what you will, rather than 
 bear this. You hear me 1 and I mean what I say." 
 
 Giovanna stared, blank with surprise, at the resolute old 
 woman, who, driven beyond all patience, made this speech to 
 her. She was astounded. She answered quite humbly, sink- 
 ing her voice, " I will do what you tell me. Madame is not a 
 fool, lika my belle m^re." 
 
 " She is not a fool either I " cried Miss Susan. " Ah, I wish 
 now she had been ! I wish I had seen your face that day ! Oh 
 yes, you are pretty — pretty enough ! but I never should have 
 put anything in your power if I had seen your face that day ! " 
 
 Giovanna gazed at her for a moment, still bewildered. Then 
 she rose and looked at herself in the old glass, which distorted 
 that beautiful face a little. " I am glad you find me pretty," 
 she said. " My face ! it is not a white and red moon, like Ger- 
 trude's, who is always praised and spoiled ; but I hope it may 
 do more for me than hers has done yet. That is what I intend. 
 My poor pretty face—that it may win fortune yet ! — my face 
 or my boy." 
 
 Miss Susan, her passion dying out, stood and looked at this 
 unknown creature with dismay. Her face or her boy I — what 
 did she mean ? or was there any meaning at all in these wild 
 words — words that might be mere folly and vanity, and indeed 
 resembled that more than anything else. Perhaps, after all, 
 she was but a fool who required a little firmnesB of treatment — 
 nothing more. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 238 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 EISS SUSAN AUSTIN was not altogether devoid in ordi- 
 nary circumstances of one very common feminine weak- 
 ness to which independent women are especially liable. 
 She had the old-fashioned prejudice that it was a good thing to 
 " conb.ilt a man "upon points of difficulty which occurred in her 
 life. The process of consulting, indeed, was apt to be a peculiar 
 one. If he distinctly disagreed with herself, Miss Susan set the 
 man whom she consulted down as a fool, or next to a fool, and 
 took her own way, and said nothing about the consultation. But 
 when by chance he happened to agree with her, then sne made 
 great capital of his opinion, and announced it everywhere as the 
 cause of her own action, whatever that might be. Everard, be- 
 fore his departure, had been the depository of her confidence on 
 most occasions, and as he was very amenable to her influence, 
 and readily saw things in the light which she wished him to 
 see them in, he had been very useful to her, or so at least she 
 said ; and the idea of sending for EverarA, who had just returned 
 from the West Indies, occurred to her almost in spite of herself, 
 when this new crisis happened at Whiteladies. The idea came 
 into her mind, but next moment she shivered at the thought, 
 and turned from it mentally as though it had stung her. What 
 could she say to Everard to account for the effect Giovanna pro- 
 duced upon her — the half terror, half hatred, which filled her 
 mind towards the new-Cv>mer, and the curious mixture of fright 
 and repugnance with which even the child seemed to regard its 
 mother 1 How could she explain all this to him 1 She had so 
 long given him credit lor understanding everything, that she 
 had come to believe in this marvellous power of discrimination 
 with which she had herself endowed him ; and now she shrank 
 from permitting Everard even to see the infliction to which she 
 had exposed herself, and the terrible burden she had brought 
 upon the house. He could not understand, — and yet who could 
 tell that he might not understand 1 see through her trouble, 
 and perceive that some reason must exist for such a tbra'dom ? 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
284 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 If he, or any one else, ever suspected the real reason, Miss Susan 
 felt that she must die. Her character, her position in the family, 
 the place she held in the world, would be eone. Had things 
 been as they were when she had gone upon tier mission to the 
 Austins at Bruges, I have no doubt the real necessities of the 
 case, and the important issues depending upon the step she had 
 taken, would have supported Miss Susan in the hard part she 
 had now to play ; but to continue to have this part to play after 
 the necessity was over, and when it was no longer, to all appear- 
 ance, of any immediate importance at all who Herbert's heir 
 should be, gave a bitterness to this unhappy rdle which it is 
 impossible to describe. The strange woman, who had taken 
 possession of the house without any real claim to its shelter, 
 had it in her power to ruin and destroy Miss Susan, thoueh 
 nothing she could do could now affect Whiteladies ; and for 
 this poor personal reason Miss Susan felt, with a pang, she must 
 bear all Giovanna's impertinences, and the trouble of her pres- 
 ence, and all the remarks upon her — her manners, her appear- 
 ance, her want of breeding, and her behaviour in the house, 
 which no doubt everybody would notice. Everard, should he 
 appear, would be infinitely annoyed to find such an inmate in 
 the house. Herbert, should he come home, would vith equal 
 certainty wish to get rid of so singular a visitor. Miss Susan 
 saw a hundred difficulties and complications in her way. She 
 hoped a little from the intervention of Monsieur Guillaume 
 Austin, to whom she had written, after sending off her telegram, 
 in full detail, begging him to come to Whiteladies, to recover 
 his grandchild, if that was possible ; but Giovanna's looks were 
 not very favourable to this hope. Thus the punishment of her 
 sin, for which she had felt so little remorse when she did it, 
 found her out at last. I wonder if successful sin ever does fill 
 the sinner with remorse, or whether human nature, always so 
 ready in self defence, does not set to work, in every case, to in- 
 vent reasons which seem to justify, or almost more than to jus- 
 tify, the wickedness which serves its purpose 1 This is too pro- 
 found an inquiry for these pages ; but certainly Miss Susan, for 
 one, felt the biting of remorse in her heart when her sin proved 
 useless, and when it became nothing but a menace and a terror 
 to her, as she had never felt it before. Oh, how could she have 
 charged her conscience and sullied her life (she said to herself) 
 
WHTTELADIES. 
 
 235 
 
 for a thing so useless, so foolish, so little likely to advantage 
 any one ! Why had she done it ] to disappoint Far rel- Austin ! 
 that had been her miserable motive — nothing more ; and this 
 was how it had all ended. Had she left the action of Provi- 
 dence alone, and refrained from interfering, Farrel-Austin 
 would have been discomfited all the same, but her conscience 
 would have been clear. 1 do not think that Miss Susan had as yet 
 any feeling in her mind that the discomfiture of Farrel-Austin 
 was not a most righteous object, and one which justified en- 
 tirely the interference of Heaven. 
 
 But, in the me;,ntime, what a difference was made in her 
 peaceable domestic life ! No doubt she ought to have been suffer- 
 ing as much for a long time past, for the offence was not 
 new, though the punishment was ; but if it came late, it came 
 bitterly. Her pain was like fire in her heart. This seemed 
 to herself, as she thought of it — and she did little but think of 
 it — to be the best comparison. Like fire — burning and con- 
 suming her, yet never completing its horrible work — gnawing 
 continually with a red-hot glow, and quivering as of lambent 
 flame. She seemed to herself now and then to have the power, 
 as it were, of taking her heart out of these glowing ashes, and 
 looking at it, but always to let it drop back piteously into the 
 torment. Oh, how she wished and longed, with an eager hope- 
 lessness which seemed to give fresh force to her suffering, that 
 the sin could be undone, that these two last years could be 
 wiped out of time, that she could go back to the moment be- 
 fore she set out for Bruges ! She longed for this with an in- 
 tensity which was equalled only by its impossibility. If only 
 she had not done it ! Once it occurred to her with a thrill of 
 fright, that the sensations of her mind were exactly those which 
 arc described in many a sermon and sensational religious book. 
 Was it hell that she had within her 1 She shuddered, and 
 burst forth into a low moaning when the question shaped itself 
 in her mind. But notwithstanding all these horrors, she had 
 to conduct herself as became a person in good society — to man- 
 age all her affairs, and talk to the servants, and smile upon 
 chance visitors, as if everything were well — which added a re- 
 finement of pain to these tortures. And thus the days passed 
 on till Monsieur Guillaume Austin arrived from Bruges — the 
 one event which still inspired her with something like hope. 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
2^6 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Giovanna, meanwhile, settled down in Whiteladies with 
 every appearance of intending to make it her settled habitation. 
 After the first excitement of the arrival was over, she fell back 
 into a state of indolent comfort, which for the time, until phe 
 became tired of it, seemed more congenial to her than the arti- 
 ficial activity of her commencement, and which was much more 
 agreeable, or at least much less disagreeable, to the other 
 members of the household. She gave up the child to Cook, 
 who managed it sufficiently well to keep it quiet and happy, to 
 the great envy of the rest of the family. Every one envied 
 Cook her experience and success, except the mother of the 
 child, who shrugged her shoulders, and, with evident satisfac- 
 tion in gettin": free from the trouble, fell back upon a stock oi 
 books she had found, which made the weary days pass more 
 pleasantly to her than they would otherwise have done. These 
 were French novels, which once had belonged, before her econd 
 marriage, to Madame de Mirfleur, and which she, too, had 
 found a great resource. Let not the reader be alarmed for the 
 morality of the house. They were French novels which had 
 passed under Miss Susan's censorship, and been allowed by 
 her, therefore they were harmless of their kind — too harmless, 
 I fear, for Giovanna's taste^ who would have liked something 
 more exciting ; but in her transplantation to so very foreign a 
 soil as Whiteladies, and the absolute blank which existence ap- 
 peared to her there, she was more glad than can be described 
 of the poor little unbound books, green and yellow, over which 
 the mother of Herbei-t and Reine had yawned through many a 
 long and weary day. It was Miss Susan herself who had pro- 
 duced them out of pity for her v'sitor, unwelcome as that visi- 
 tor was — and, indeed, for her own relief. For, however ob- 
 jectionable a woman may be who sits opposite to you all day 
 poring over a novel, whether green or yellow, she is less objec- 
 tionable than the same woman when doing nothing, and follow- 
 ing you about whenever you move with a pair of great black 
 eyes. Not being able to get rid of the stranger more completely, 
 Miss Susan Avas very thankful to be so far rid of her as this, 
 and her heart stirred with a faint hope that perhaps the good 
 linen-draper who was coming might be able to exercise some 
 authority over his daughter-in-law, and carry her away with 
 him. She tried to persuade herself that she did not hope for 
 
WHITE LADIES. 
 
 287 
 
 this, but the hope grew involuntarily stronger and stronger as 
 the moment approached, and she sat waiting in the warm and 
 tranquil quiet of the afternoon for the old man's arrival. She 
 had sent the carriage to the station for him, and sat expecting 
 him with her heart beating, as much excited, almost, as if she 
 had been a girl looking for a very different kind of visitor. 
 Miss Susan, however, did not tell Giovanna, who sat opposite 
 to her, with her feet on the fender, holding her book between 
 her face and the fire, who it was whom she expected. She 
 would not diminish the effect of the arrival by giving any time 
 for preparation, but hoped as much from the suddenness of the 
 old man's appearance as from his authority. Giovanna was 
 chilly, like most indolent people, and fond of the fire. She had 
 drawn her chair as close to it as possible, and though she 
 shielded her face with all the care she could, yet there was still 
 a hot colour on the cheeks, which were exposed now and then 
 for a moment to the blaze. Miss Susan sat behind, in the 
 background, with her knitting, waiting for the return of the 
 carriage which had been sent to the station for Monsieur Guil- 
 laume, and now and then casting a glance over her knitting- 
 needles at the disturber of her domestic peace. What a strange 
 figure to have established itself in this tranquil English 
 house ! There came up before Miss Susan's imagination a pic- 
 ture of the room behind the shop at Bruges, so bare of every 
 grace and prettiness, with the cooking going on, and the young 
 woman seated in the corner, to whom no one paid any atten- 
 tion. There too, probably, she had been self-indulgent and 
 self-absorbed, but what a difference there was in her surround- 
 ings ! The English lady, I have no doubt, exaggerated the 
 advantages of her own comfortable, softly-cushioned drawing- 
 room, and probably the back room at Bruges, if less pretty and 
 less luxurious, was also much less dull to Giovanna, than this 
 curtained, carpeted place, with no society but that of a quiet 
 Englishwoman, who disapproved of her. At Bruges there had 
 been opportunities of talk with various people, more entertaining 
 than even the novels ; and though Giovanna had been disap- 
 proved of there, as now, she had been able to give as well as 
 take — at least since power had been put into her hands. At 
 present she yawned sadly as she turned the leaves. It was 
 horribly dull, and horribly long, this vacant, uneventful after- 
 
288 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 noon. If some one would come, if something would happen, 
 what a relief it would be ! She yawned as she turned the 
 page. 
 
 At last there came a sound of carriage wheels on the gravel. 
 Miss Susan did not suppose that her visitor took any notice, 
 but I need not say that Giovanna, to whom something new 
 would have been so great a piece of good fortune, gave instant 
 attention, though she still kept the book before her, a shield 
 not only from the fire, but from her companion's observation. 
 Giovanna saw that Miss Susan was secretly excited and anxious, 
 and I think the youn'^?r woman anticipated some amusement 
 at the expense of hci couipanion— expecting an elderly lover, 
 perhaps, or something of a kind which might have stirred her- 
 self. But when the figure of her father-in-law appeared at the 
 door, very ingratiating and slightly timid, in two greatcoats 
 which increased his bulk without increasing his dignity, and 
 with a great caohe-nez about his neck, Giovf.nna perceived at 
 once the conspiracy against her, and in a moment collected her 
 forces to meet it. M. Guillaume represented to her a laborious 
 life, frugal fare, plain dress, and domestic authority, such as 
 that was— the things from which she had fled. Here (though 
 it was dull) she had ease, luxury, the consciousness of power, 
 and a future in which she could better herself — in which, in- 
 deed, she might look forward to being mistress of the luxurious 
 house, and ordering it so that it should cease to be dull. To 
 allow herself to be taken back to Bruges, to the back-shop, was 
 aa far as anything could be from her intentions. How could 
 they be so foolish as to think it ? She let her book drop on 
 her lap, and looked at the plotters with a glow of laughter at 
 their simplicity, lifting up the great eyes. 
 
 As for Monsieur Guillaume, he was in a state of considerable 
 excitement, pleasure, and pain. He was pleased to come to the 
 wealthy house in which he felt a sense of proprietorship, much 
 quickened by the comfort of the luxurious English carriage in 
 which he had driven from the station. This was a sign of 
 grandeur and good-fortune comprehensible to everybody ; and 
 the old shopkeeper felt at once the difference involved. On 
 the other hand, he was anxious about his little grandchild, 
 whom he adored, and a little afraid of the task of subduing its 
 mother, which had been put into his hands ; and he was an- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 239 
 
 xious to make a good appearance, and to impress favourably his 
 new relations, on whose good-will, somehow or other, depended 
 his future inheritance. He made a very elaborate bow when 
 he came in, and touched respectfully the tips of the fingers 
 which Miss Susan extended to him. She was a great lady, 
 and he was a shopkeeper ; she was an Englishwoman, reserved 
 and stately, and he a homely old Fleming. Neither of them 
 knew very well how to treat the other, and Miss Susan, who 
 felt that all the comfort of her future life depended on how she 
 managed this old man, and upon the success of his mission, was 
 still more anxious and elaborate than he was. She drew for- 
 ward the easiest chair for him, and asked for his family with a 
 flutter of e£fusive politeness quite unlike her usual demeanour. 
 
 " And Madame Jean is quite safe with me," she said, when 
 their first salutations were over. 
 
 Here was the tug of war. The old man turned to his daugh- 
 ter-in-law eagerly, yet somewhat tremulous. She had pushed 
 away her chair from the fire, and with her book still in her hands, 
 sat looking at him with shining eyes. 
 
 " Ah, Giov&nna," he said, shaking his head, " how thou hast 
 made all our hearts sore ! how could you do it 1 We should 
 not have crossed you, if you had told us you were weary of 
 home. The house is miserable without you ; how could you go 
 away 1 " 
 
 " Mon beau-pAre," said Giovanna, taking the kiss he bestowed 
 on her forehead with indifference, •* say you have missed the 
 child, if you please, that may be true enough ; but as for me, 
 no one pretended to care for me." 
 
 " Mon enfant " 
 
 *' Assez, assez ! Let us speak the truth. Madame knows 
 well enough," said Giovanna, " it is the baby you love. If you 
 could have him without me, I do not doubt it would make you 
 very happy. Only that it is impossible to separate the child 
 from the mother — every one knows as much as that." 
 
 She said this with a malicious look toMoucds Miss Susan, who 
 shrank involuntarily. But Monsieur Gulllaume, who accepted 
 the statement as a simple fact, did not shrink, but assented, 
 shaking his head. 
 
 " Assuredly, assuredly," he said, " nor did any one wish it. 
 The child is our delight ; but you, Giovanna, you too—*" 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 \{Si 
 
240 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ** I do nc'o think the others would say so — my mother-in-la\7, 
 for example, or Gertrude ; nor, indeed, you either, mon beau- 
 pdre, if you had not a motive. I was alwaj's the lazy one — the 
 useless one. It was I who had the bad temper. You never 
 cared for me, or made me comfortable. Now ces dames are kind, 
 and this will be the boy's home " 
 
 " If he succeeds," said Miss Susan, interposing from the 
 background, where she stood watchful, growing more and more 
 anxious. • 
 
 " You are aware that now this is much less certain. My 
 nephew is better ; he is getting well and strong." 
 
 They both turned to look at her ; Giovanna with startled, 
 wide-open eyes, and the old man with an evident thrill of sur- 
 prise. Then he seemed to divine a secret motive in this speech, 
 and gave Miss Susan a glance of intelligence, and smiled and, 
 nodded his head. 
 
 " To be r.ure, to be sure," he said. " Monsieur, the present 
 proprietaire, may live. It is to be hoped that he will continue 
 to live — at least, until the child is older. Yes, yes, Giovanna, 
 what you say is true. I appreciate your maternal care, ma fiUe. 
 It is right tL ' the boy should visit his future home ; that he 
 should learn the manners of the people, and all that is needful 
 to a proprietor. But he is very young — a few years hence will 
 be soon enough. And why should you have left us so hastily, 
 so secretly 1 We have all been unhappy," he added with a sigh. 
 
 I cannot describe how Miss Susan listened to all this, with an. 
 impatience which reached the verge of the intolerable. To hear 
 them taking it all calmly for granted — calculating on Herbert's 
 death as an essential preliminary of which they were quite sure ! 
 But she kept silent with a painful effort, and kept in the back- 
 ground, trembling with the struggle to restrain herself. It was 
 best that she should take no part, say nothing, but leave the 
 issue as far as she could to Providence. To Providence ! the 
 familiar word came to her unawares ; but what right had she to 
 appeal to ProvidenJ^— to trust in Providence in such a matter ? 
 She quaked, and wihdrew a little further still, leaving the 
 ground clear. Surely old Austin would exercise his authority 
 — and could overcome this young rebel without her aid ! 
 
 The old man waited for an answer, but got none. He was a 
 good man in his way, but he had been accustomed all his life to 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 ^41 
 
 have his utterances respected, and he did not understand the 
 profane audacity which declined even to reply to him. After a 
 moment's interval he resumed, eager, but yet damped in his 
 confidence. 
 
 " Le petit ! where is he ? I may see him, may not 11" 
 
 Miss Susan rose at once to ring the bell for the child, but to 
 her amazement she was stopped by Giovanna 
 
 " Wait a little," she said, " I am the mother. I have the 
 best right. That is acknowledged ] No one has '\ny right over 
 him but me." 
 
 Miss Susan quailed before the glance of those eyes, which 
 were so full of meaning. There was something more in the 
 words than mere self-assertion. There was once more a gleam 
 of malicious enjoyment, almost revengeful. What wrong had 
 Giovanna to revenge upon Mips Susan, who had given her the 
 means of asserting herself — who had changed her position in 
 the world altogether, and given her a standing-ground which 
 she never before possessed 1 The mistress of Whiteladies, so 
 long foremost and regnant, sat down again behind backs with 
 a sense of humiliation not to be described. She left the two 
 strangers to ftght out their quarrel without any interference on 
 her part. As for Giovanna, she had no revengeful meaning 
 whatever ; but she loved to feel and to show her power. 
 
 " Assuredly, ma fiUe," said the old man, who was in her 
 power too, and felt it with not much less dismay than Miss 
 Susan. 
 
 " Then understand," said the young woman, rising from her 
 chair with sudden energy, and throwing down the book which 
 she had up to this moment kept in her hands, " I will have no 
 one interfere. The child is to me — he is mine, and I will have 
 no one interfere. It shall not be said that he is more gentile 
 more sagCj with another than with his mother. He shall not 
 be taught any more to love others more than me. To others 
 he is nothing ; but he is mine, mine, mine ! and mine only ! " 
 she said, putting her hands together with a sudden clap, the 
 colour mounting to her cheeks, and the light flashing in her 
 eyes. 
 
 Miss Susan, who in another would have been roused by this 
 self-assertion, was quite cowed by it now, and sat with a pang 
 
 I 
 
 
242 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 in her heart which I cannot describe, listening and — submitting. 
 What could she say or do 1 
 
 " Assur^inent, ma fills; assur^ment, ma fiUe," murmured 
 poor old M. Guillaume, looking at this rampant symbol of 
 natural power with something like terror. He was quite un- 
 prepared for it. Giovanna had been to him but the feeblest 
 creature in the house, the dependant, generally disapproved of, 
 and always powerless. To be sure, since her child waa born, 
 he bad heard more complaints of her, and had even perceived 
 that she was not as submissive as formerly ; but then it is 
 always so easy for the head of the house to believe that it is 
 his womankind who are to blame, and that when matters are 
 in his own hands all will go well. He was totally discomfited, 
 dismayed, and taken by surprise. He could not understand 
 that this was the creature who had sat in the corner, and been 
 made of no account. He did not know what to do in the 
 emergency. He longed for his wife, to ask counsel oi. to 
 direct him ; and then he remembered that his wife, too. had 
 seemed a little afraid of Giovanna, a sentiment at which he 
 had loftily smiled, saying to himself, good man, that the girl, 
 poor thing, was a good girl enough, and as soon as he lifted up 
 a finger, would no doubt submit as became her. In this curious 
 reversal of positions and change of circumstances, he could but 
 look at her bewildered, and had not an idea what to say or to 
 do. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 243 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ' HE evening which followed was of the most uncomfort- 
 able kind. Good M. Guillaume, divided between 
 curiosity and the sense of novelty with which he found 
 himself in a place so unlike his ideas ; a desire to please the 
 ladies of the house, and an equally strong desire to settle the 
 question which had brought him to Whiteladies — was alto- 
 gether shaken out of his use and wont. He had been allowed 
 a little interview with the child,^ which clung to him, and could 
 only be separated from him at the cost of much squalling and 
 commotion, in which even the blandishments of Cook were but 
 partially availing. The old man, who had been accustomed to 
 carry the baby about with him, to keep it on his knee at meals, 
 and give it all those illegitimate indulgences which are common 
 where nurseries and nursery laws do not exist, did not under- 
 stand, and was much afflicted by the compulsory separation. 
 
 " It is time for the baby to go to bed, and we are going in 
 to dinner," Miss Susan said ; as if this was any reason (thought 
 poor M. Guillaume) why the baby should not come to dinner 
 too, or why inexorably it should go to bed ! How often had 
 he kept it on his knee, and fed it with indigestible morsels till 
 its countenance shone with gravy and happiness ! He had to 
 submit, however, Giovanna looking at him while he did so (he 
 thought) with a curious, malicious satisfaction. M. Guillaume 
 had never been in England before, and the dinner was as odd 
 to him as the first foreign dinner is to an Englishiian. He did 
 not understand the succession of dishes, the heavy substantial 
 soup, the solid roast mutton ; neither did he understand the 
 old hall, which looked to him like a chapel, or the noiseless 
 Stevens behind his chair, or the low-toned conversation, of 
 which indeed there was very little. Augustine, in her grey 
 robes, was to him simply a nun, whom he also addressed as 
 Giovanna had done, as " Ma scerx " Why she should be thus 
 in a private house at an ordinary table, he could not tell, but 
 supposed it to be merely one of those wonderful ways of the 
 
 •1 i 
 
 ■I 
 
 : 
 
244 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 English which he had so often heard of. Giovanna, who sat 
 opposite to him, and who was hv this time familiarised with 
 the routine of Whiteladies, scarcely talked at all ; and though 
 Miss Susan, by way of setting him " at his ease," asked a civil 
 question from time to time about his journey, what kind of 
 crossing he had experienced, and other such commonplace mat- 
 ters ; yet the old linendraper was abashed by the quiet, the 
 dimness of the great room round him, the strangeness of the 
 mansion and of the meal. The back room behind the shop at 
 Bruges, where the family dined and for the most part lived, 
 seemed to him infinitely more comfortable and pleasant than 
 this solemn place, which, on the other hand, w^jis not in the 
 least like a room in one of the great ch&teaux of his own rich 
 country, which was the only thing to which he could have 
 compared it. Hd was glad to accept the suggestion that he 
 was tired, and retire to his room, which, in its multiplicity of 
 comforts, its baths, its carpets, and its curtains, was almost 
 equally bewildering. When, however, rising by skreigh of 
 day, he went out in the soft, mellow brightness of the autumn 
 morning, M. Guillaume's reverential feelings sensibly decreased. 
 The house of Whiteladies did not please him at all ; its oldness 
 disgusted him ; and those lovely antique carved gables, which * 
 were the pride of all the Austins, filled him with contempt. 
 Had they been in stone, indeed, he might have understood that 
 they were unobjectionable ; but brick and wood were so far 
 below the dignity of a chateau, that he felt a sensible downfall. 
 After all, what was a place like this to tempt a man from the 
 comfoits of Bruges, from his own country, and everything he 
 loved 1 He had formed a very different idea of Whiteladies. 
 Windsor Castle might have come up better to his sublime con- 
 ception; but this poor little place, with its homely latticed 
 windows, and irregular outlines, appeared to the good old shop- 
 keeper a mere magnified cottage, nothing more. He was dis- 
 turbed, poor man, in a great many ways. It had appeared to 
 him, before he came, that he had nothing to do but to exert 
 his authority, and bring his daughter-in-law home, and the child, 
 who was of much more importance than she, and without 
 whom he scarcely ventured to face his wife and Gertrude. 
 Giovanna had never counted for much in the house, and to 
 suppose that he should have difficulty in overcoming her will 
 
 } 
 
WIIITELADIES. 
 
 245 
 
 } 
 
 had never occurred to him. But there was something in her 
 look which made him very much more doubtful of nis own 
 power than up to this time he had ever been ; and this was a 
 humbling and discouraging sensation. Visions, too, of another 
 little business which this visit gave him a most desirable op- 
 portunity to conclude, were in his mind ; and he had anticipated 
 a few days overflowing with occupation, in which, having only 
 women t*^ encounter, he could not fail to be triumphantly suc- 
 cessful. He had entertained these agreeable thoughts of 
 triumph up to the very moment of arriving at Whiteladies ; 
 but somehow the aspect of things was not propitious. Neither 
 Giovanna nor Miss Susan looked as if they were ready to give 
 in to his masculine authority, or to yield to his persutus^^'e in- 
 fluence. The one was defiant, the other roused and on her 
 guard. M. Guillaume had been well managed throughout his 
 life. He had been allowed to suppose that he had everything 
 his own way ; his solemn utterances had been listened to with 
 awe, his jokes had been laughed at, his verdict acknowledged 
 as final. A man who is thus treated at home is apt to be 
 easily mortified abroad, where nobody cares to mdnager his 
 feelings, or to receive his sayings, whether wise or witty, with 
 sentiments properly apportioned to the requirements of the 
 moment. Nothing takes the spirit so completely out of such a 
 man as the first suspicion that he is among pefple to whom he 
 is not an authority, and who really care no more for his opinion 
 than for that of any other man. M. Guillaume was in this un- 
 comfortable position now. Here were two women, neither of 
 them in the least impressed by his superiority, whom, by sheer 
 force of reason, it was necessary for him to get the better of. 
 " And women, as is well known, are inaccessible to reason," he 
 said to himself scornfully. This was somewhat consolatory to 
 his pride, but I am far from sure whether a lingering doubt of 
 his own powers of reasoning, when unassisted by prestige and 
 natural authority, had not a great deal to do with it ; and the 
 good mau felt somewhat small and much discouraged, which it 
 is painful for the father of a family to do. 
 
 After breakfast Miss Susan brought him out to see the place. 
 He had done his very best to be civil, to drink tea which he 
 did not like, and eat the bacon and eggs, and do justice to the 
 cold patridge on the sideboard, and now he professed himself 
 
 !<^i 
 
246 
 
 WUITELADIES. 
 
 delighted to make an inspection of Whiteladies. The leaves 
 had been torn by the recent storm from the trees, so that the 
 foliage was much thinned, and though it was a beautiful autumn 
 morning, with a brilliant blue sky, and sunshine full of that 
 regretful brightness which autumn sunshine so often seems to 
 show, yellow leaves still came floating, moment by moment, 
 through the soft atmosphere, dropping noiseless on the grass, 
 detached by the light air, which could not even be called a 
 breeze. The gables of Whiteladies stood out against the blue, 
 with a serene superiority to the waning season, yet a certain 
 svmpathetic consciousness in their grey age, of the generations 
 that had fallen about the old place like the leaves. Miss 
 Susan, whose heart was full, looked at the house of her fathers 
 with eyes touched to poetry by emotion. 
 
 " The old house has seen many a change," she said, " and 
 not a few sad ones. I am not superstitious about it, like my 
 sister, but you must know, M. Guillaume, that our property 
 was originally Church lands, and that is supposed to bring with 
 it — well, the reverse of a blessing." 
 
 " Ah ! " said M. Guillaume, " that is then the chapel, as I 
 supposed, in which you dine 1 " 
 
 " The chapel ! " cried Miss Susan in dismay. " Oh dear, no 
 — the house is not monastic, as is evident. It is, I believe, the 
 best example, or almost the best example, extant of an English 
 manor-house." 
 
 M. Guillaume saw that he had .ommitted himself, and said 
 no more. He listened with respectful attention while the chief 
 architectural features of the house were pointed out to him. 
 No doubt it was fine, since his informer said so — he would not 
 hurt her feelings by uttering any doubts on the subject — only, 
 if ever it came into his hands — he murmured f o himself. 
 
 " And now about your business," cried Miss Susan, who had 
 done her best to throw oflf her prevailing anxieiy. " Giovanna ? 
 you mean to take her back with you — and the child t Your 
 poor good wife must miss the child." 
 
 M. Guillaume took of his hat in his perplexity, and rubbed 
 his bald head. " Ah ! " he said, " here is my great trouble. 
 Giovanna is more changed than 1 can say. I have been told 
 of her wilfulness, but Madame knows that women are apt to 
 exaggerate — not but that I have the greatest respect for the 
 
 
WH1TELADIE8. 
 
 247 
 
 sex — " He paused, and made her a reverence, which so exas- 
 perated Miss Susan that she could with pleasure have boxed 
 his ears, as he bowed. But this was one of the many impulses 
 which it is best for " the sex," as well as other human creatures, 
 to restrain. 
 
 ** But I find it is true," said M. Guillaurae. " She does not 
 show any readiness to obey. I do not understand it. I have 
 always been accustomed to be obeyed, and I do not understand 
 it," he added with plaintive iteration. " Since she has had the 
 child she has power, I suppose that is the explanation. Ladies 
 — with every respect — are rarely able to support the tempta- 
 tion of having power. Madame will nardon me for saying so, 
 I am sure." 
 
 " But you have power also," said Miss Susan. " She is de- 
 pendent upon you, is not she 1 aud I don't see how she can re- 
 sist what you say. She has nothing of her own, I suppose 1 " 
 she continued, pausing upon this point in her inquiries. " She 
 told me so< If she is dependent upon you, she must do as you 
 say." 
 
 " That is very true," said the old shopkeeper with a certain 
 embarrassment ; " but I must speak frankly to Madame, who 
 is sensible, and will not be offended with what I say. Perhaps 
 it is for this she has come here. It has occurred to my good 
 wife, who has a very good head, that le petit has already rights 
 which should not be forgotten. I do not hesitate to say that 
 women are very quick; these things come into their heads 
 sooner than with us sometimes. My wife thought that there 
 should be a demand for an allowance, a something, for the heir. 
 My wife, Madame knows, is very careful of her children. She 
 loves to lay up for them, to make a little money for them. Le 
 petit had never been thought of, and there was no provision 
 made. She has said for a long time that a little rente, a — what 
 you call allowance, should be claimed for the child. Giovanna 
 has heard it, and that has put another idea into her foolish 
 head ; but Madame will easily perceive that the claim is very 
 just, of a something — a little revenue — for the heir." 
 
 " From whom is this littlt revenue to come 1 " said Miss 
 Susan, looking at him with a calm which she did not feel. 
 
 M. Guillaume was embarrassed for the moment ; but a man 
 who is accustomed tn look at his fellow-creatures from the 
 
 k <l 
 
248 
 
 WIIITELADIES. 
 
 other side of a counter, and to take money from them, however 
 uelicate his feelings may be, has seldom much hesitation in 
 making pecuniary claims. From whom 1 He had not care- 
 fully considered the question. Whiteladies in general had been 
 represented to him by that metaphorical pronoun which is used 
 for so many vague things. They ought to give the heir this 
 income ; but who they were, he was unable on the spur of the 
 moment to say. 
 
 " Madame asks from whom 1 " he said. " I am a stranger. 
 I know little more than the name. From Vite-ladies — from 
 Madame herself — from the estates of which le petit is the heir.** 
 
 " I have nothing to do with the estates,'' said Miss Susan. 
 She was so thankful to be able to speak to him without any one 
 by to make her afraid, that she explained herself with double 
 precision and clearness, and took pains to put a final end to his 
 hopes. " My sister and I are happily independent ; and you 
 are aware that the proprietor of Whiteladies is a young man 
 of twentj'one, not at all anxious about an heir, and indeed 
 likely to marry and have children of his own." 
 
 " To marry i — to have children 1 " said M. Guillaume in un- 
 affected dismay. " But, pardon me, M. Herbert is dying. It 
 is an affair of a few weeks, perhaps a few days. This is what 
 you said." 
 
 " I said so eighteen months ago, M. Guillaume. Since then 
 there has been a most happy change. Herbert is better. H# 
 will soon, I hope, be well and strong." 
 
 " But he is poitrinaire," said the old man eagerly. ** He is 
 beyond hope. There are rallyings and temporary recoveries, 
 but these maladies are never cured — never cured. Is it not so ? 
 You said this yesterday, to help me with Giovanna, and I 
 thanked you. But it cannot be, it is not possible. I will not 
 believe it ! — such maladies are never cured. And if so, why 
 then — why then ! — no, Madame deceives herself If this were 
 the case, it would be all in vain, all that has been done ; and le 
 petit " 
 
 " I am not to blame, I hope, for le petit," said Miss Susan, 
 trjMng to smile, but with a horrible constriction at her heart. 
 
 " But why then ? " said M. Guillaume, bewildered and in- 
 dignant, " why then 1 I had settled all with M. Farrel-Austin. 
 Madame has misled me altogether. Madame has turned my 
 
 i( 
 
WllITRLADIES. 
 
 249 
 
 house upsido down. We were quiet, we had no agitations ; our 
 daughterin-law, if she was not much use to us, was yet sub- 
 missive, and gave no trouble. But Madame comes, and in a 
 moment all is changed. Giovanna, whom no one thought of» 
 has a baby, and it is put into our heads that he is the heir to a 
 great ch&teau in England. Bah ! this is your ch&teau — this 
 maison dc campacne, this construction partly of wood — and 
 now you tc^ll me that le petit is not the heir ! 
 
 MisR Susan stood still and looked at the audacious speaker. 
 She was stupefied. To insult herself was nothing, './Ut White- 
 ladies I It appeared to her that the earth must certainly open 
 and swallow him up. 
 
 " Not that I regret your ch&teau ! " said the linendraper, wild 
 with wrath. " If it were mine, I would pull it down, and build 
 something which should be comme il faut, which would last, 
 which should not be of brick and wood. The glass would do 
 for the fruit-houses, early fruits for the market ; and with the 
 wood 1 should make a temple in the garden, where ces dames 
 could drink of the tea ! It is all it is good for — a maison de 
 campagne, a house of farmers, a nothing — and so old ! the floors 
 swell upward, and the roofs bow downward. It is eaten of 
 worms ] it is good for rats, not for human beings to live in. 
 And le petit is not the heir ! and it is Guillaume Austin of 
 Bruges that you go to make a laughing-stock of, Madame 
 Suzanne ! But it shall not be — it shall not be ! " 
 
 I do not know what Miss Susan would have replied to this 
 outburst, had not Giovanna suddenly met them coming round 
 the corner of the house. Giovanna had many wrongs to avenge, 
 or thought she had many wrongs to avenge, upon the family of 
 her husband generally, and she had either a favourable inclina- 
 tion towards the ladies who had taken her in and used her 
 kindljr , or at least as much hope for the future as tempted her 
 to take their part. 
 
 *• What is it, mon beau-p^re, that shall not be 1 " she cried. 
 " Ah, I know ! that which the mother wishes so much does not 
 please here 1 You want money, money, though you are so rich. 
 You say you love le petit, but you want money for him. But 
 he is my child, not yours, and I do not ask for any money. I 
 am not so fond of it as you are. I know what the belle-m6re 
 says night and day, night and day. ' They should ^ire U9 
 
 I -i 
 
250 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 money, these rich English, they should give us money ; we have 
 them in our power.' That is what she is always saying. Ces 
 dames are very good to me, and I will not have them robbed. 
 I speak plain, but it is true. Ah ! you may look as you please, 
 mon beau-p6re ; we are not in Bruges, and I am not frightened. 
 You cannot do anything to me here." 
 
 M. Guillaume stood between the two women, not knowing 
 what to do or say. He was wild with rage and disappointment, 
 but he had that chilling sense of discomfiture which, even while 
 it gives the desire to speak and storm, takes away the power, 
 lie tarned from Giovanna, who defied him, to Miss Su?jan, who 
 had not got over her horror of his insolence, and regarded him 
 as she might have regarded the devil himself, had that great 
 personage been so little of a gentleman as to think of demolish- 
 ing Whiteladies. Between the old gentlewoman who was his 
 social superior, and the young creature made superior to him by 
 ail the advantages of youth and by the stronger passions that 
 moved her, the old linendraper stood transfixed, incapable of any 
 individual action. He took off his hat once more, and took out 
 his handkerchief, and rubbed his bald head with baffled wrath 
 and perplexity. " Sotte ! " he said under his breath to his 
 daughter-in-law; and at Miss Susan he cast a look, which was 
 half of curiosity to see what impression Giovanna's revelations 
 had made upon her, and the other half made up of fear and 
 rage, in equal portions. Miss Susan took the ascendant, as natu- 
 ral to her superior birth and breeding. 
 
 " If you will come down this way, through the orchard, I 
 will show you the ruins of the Priory," she said blandly, making 
 a half curtsey by way of closing the discussion, and turning to 
 lead the way. Her politeness, in which there was just that ad- 
 mixture of contempt which keeps an inferior in his proper 
 place, altogether cowed the old shopkeeper. He turned too, 
 and followed her with increased respect, though suppressed re- 
 sentment. But he cast another look at Giovanna before he fol- 
 lowed, and muttered still stronger expressions, " Imbecile ! 
 idiote ! " between his teeth, as he followed his guide along the 
 leafy way. Giovanna took this abuse with great composure. 
 She laughed as she went back across the lawn, leaving them to 
 -purvey the ruins with what interest they might. She even 
 snapped her fingers with a vulgar, but significant gesture. " That 
 for thee and thy evil words ! " she said, 
 
WH1TELAD[ES. 
 
 251 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 EISS SUSAN felt that it was beyond doubt the work of 
 Providence to increase her punishment that Everard 
 should arrive as he did quite unexpectedly on the 
 evening of this day. M. Guillaume had calmed down out of 
 the first passion of his disappointment, and as he was really 
 fond of the child, and stood in awe of his wife and daughter,^ 
 who were still more devoted to it, he was now using all his. 
 powers to induce Giovanna to go back with him. Everard met. 
 them in the green lane, on the north side of the house, when, 
 he arrived. Their appearance struck him with some surprise. 
 The old man carried in his arms the child, which was still 
 dressed in its Flemish costume, with the little close cap con- 
 cealing its round face. The baby had its arms closely clasped 
 round the old man's neck, and M. Guillaume, in that conjunc- 
 tion, looked more venerable and more amiable than when he 
 was arguing with Miss Susan. Giovanna walked beside him, 
 and a very animated conversation was going on between them. 
 It would be difficult to describe the amazement with which 
 Everard perceived this singularly un-English group so near 
 Whiteladies. They seemed to have come from the little gate 
 which opened on the lane, and they were in eager, almost vio- 
 lent, controversy about something. Who were they ? and what 
 could they have to do with Whiteladies 'i he asked himself, won- 
 dering. Everard walked in, unannounced, through the long 
 passages, and opened softly the door of the drawing-room. 
 Miss Susan was seated at a small desk near one of the windows. 
 She had her face buried in her hands, most pathetic and most 
 suggestive of all the attitudes of distress. Her grey hair was 
 pushed back a little by the painful grasp of her fingers. She 
 was giving vent to a low moaning, almost more the breathing 
 of pain than an articulate cry of suffering. 
 
 « Aunt Susan ! What is the matter ? " 
 
 She raised herself instantly, with a smile on her face — a smile 
 8o completely and unmistakably artificial, and put on for pur- 
 
252 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 poses of concealment, that it scared Everard almost more than 
 her trouble did. " What, Everard ! " she said, " is it you 1 
 This is a pleasure I was not looking for — " and she ^ose up and 
 held out her hands to him. There was some trace of redness 
 about her eyes ; but it looked more like want of rest than tears ; 
 and as her manner was manifestly put on, a certain jauntiness, 
 quite unlike Miss Susan, had got into it. The smile which she 
 forced by dint of the strong effort required to produce it, got 
 exaggerated, and ran almost into a laugh ; her head had a little 
 nervous toss. A stranger would have said her manner was full 
 of affectatior. This wab the strange aspect which her emotion 
 took. 
 
 " What is the matter 1 " Everard repeated, taking her hands 
 into his, and looking at her earnestly. " Is there bad news 1 " 
 
 " No, no ; nothing of the kind. I had a little r-ctack of — that 
 old pain I used to suffer from — neuralgia, I suppose. As one 
 gets older one dislikes owning to rheumatism. No, no, no bad 
 news ; a little physical annoyance — nothing more." 
 
 Everard tried hard to recollect what the "old pain " was, but 
 could not succeed in identifying anything of the kind with the 
 always vigorous Miss Susan. She interrupted his reflections 
 by saying, with a very jaunty and, what was meant to be, easy 
 air, " Have you seen my visitors ? You must have met them 
 in the Priory Lane." 
 
 *• An old Frenchman, with a funny little child clasped round 
 his neck," said Everard, to whose simple English understand- 
 ing all foreigners were Frenchmen, ** and a very handsome 
 young woman. Do they belong here 1 I did meet them, and 
 could not make them out. The old man looked a genial old 
 soul. I liked to see him with the child. Your visitors ! 
 Where did you pick them up 1 " 
 
 " These are very important people to the house and to the 
 race," said Miss Susan with once more, so to speak, a flutter of 
 her wings. ** They are — but, come, guess ; does nothing 
 ■^hisper to you who they are ? " 
 
 " How should it 1 " said Everard, in his dissatisfaction with 
 Miss Susan's strange demeanour, growing somewhat angry. 
 ^* What have such people to do with you 1 The old fellow is 
 nice-looking enough, and the woman really handsome ; but 
 they don't seem the kind of people one would expect to see 
 tipre." 
 
 Mi 
 
 force( 
 comei 
 after 
 are tl 
 the yi 
 same 
 
 « 
 
 (( 
 
WHITELADiES. 
 
 253 
 
 Miss Susan made a pause, smiling again in that same sickly 
 forced way. " They say it is always good for a race when it 
 comes back to the people, to the wholesome common stock, 
 after a great many generations of useless gentlefolk. These 
 are the Austins of Bruges, Everard, whom you hunted all over 
 the world. They are simple Belgian tradespeople, but at th<a 
 same time Austins, pur sang." 
 
 " The Austins of Bruges ? " 
 
 " Yes ; come over on a visit. It was very kind of them, 
 though we are beginning to tire of each other. The old man, 
 M. Guillaume, he whom Farrel thought he had done away with, 
 and his daughter-in-law, a young widow, and the little child, 
 who is — the heir." 
 
 "The heirl — of the shop, you mean, I suppose." 
 
 " I do nothing of the kind, Everard, and it is unkind of you 
 not to understand. The next heir to Whiteladies." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Everard. " Make your mind easy, Aunt 
 Susan. Herbert will marry before he has been six months at 
 home. I know Herbert. He has been helpless and dependent 
 so long, that the moment he has a chance of proving himself a 
 man by the glorious superiority of having a wife, he will do it. 
 Poor fellow 1 after you have been led about and domineered 
 over all your life, of course you want, in your turn, to domineer 
 over some one. See if my words don't come true." 
 
 " So that is your idea of marriage — to domineer over some 
 one ! Poor creatures 1 " said Miss Susan compassionately ; 
 "you will soon find out the diflFerence. I hope he may, 
 Everard — I hope he may. He shall have my blessing, I pro- 
 mise you, and willing consent. To be quit of that child and 
 its heirship, and know there was some one who had a real 
 right to the place— Good heavens, what would I not give ! " 
 
 " It appears, then, you don't admire those good people from 
 Bruges 1 '* 
 
 " Oh, I have nothing to say against them," said Miss Susan, 
 faltering — " nothing ! The old man is highly respectable, and 
 Madame Austin le jeune, is — very nice-looking. They are 
 quite nice sort of people — for their station in life." 
 
 " But you are tired of them," said Everard with a laugh. 
 
 " Well, perhaps to say tired is too strong an expression," 
 said Miss Susan, with a panting at the throat which belied her 
 
 i 
 
254 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 calm speech. " But we have little in common, as you may 
 suppose. We don't* know what to say to each other ; that is 
 the great draw-back at all times between the different classes. 
 Their ideas are different from ours. Besides, they are foreign, 
 which makes more d:iiference still." 
 
 " I have come to stay till Monday, if you will have me," 
 said Everard ; " so I shall be able to judge for myself. I 
 thought the young woman was very pretty. Is there a Mon- 
 sieur Austin le jeune 1 A widow ! Oh, then you may expect 
 her, if she stays, to turn a good many heads." 
 
 Miss Susan gave him a searching, wondv^ring look. ** You 
 are mistaken," she said. " She is not anything so wonderful ; 
 good-looking, even handsome — but not a beauty to turn men's 
 heads." 
 
 "W 3 shall see," said Everard lightly. "And now tell me 
 what news you have of the travellers. They don't write to me 
 
 now. 
 
 »» 
 
 ** Why 1 " said Miss Susan, eager to change the subject, and, 
 besides, very ready to take an interest in anything that 
 concerned the intercourse between Everard and Beine. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he said, shrugging his shoulders. 
 " Somehow we are not so intimate as we were. Beine told me, 
 indeed, the last time she wrote that it was unnecessary to write 
 so often, now Herbert was well — as if that was all I cared for ! " 
 These last words were said low, after a pause, and there was a 
 tone of indignation and complaint in them, subdued yet per- 
 ceptible, which, even in the midst of her trouble, was balm to 
 Miss Susan's ear. 
 
 " Beine is a capricious child," she said with a passing gleam 
 of enjoyment. " You saw a great deal of them before you went 
 to Jamaica. But that is nearly two years since," she added 
 maliciously ; " many changes have taken place since then." 
 
 " That is true," said Everard. And it was still more true, 
 though he did not say so, that the change had not all been on 
 Beine's part. He, too, had been capricious, and two or three 
 broken and fugitive flirtations had occurred in his life since 
 that day when, deeply knotionney and not knowing how to keep 
 his feelings to himself, he had left Beine in the little Alpine 
 valley. That Alpine valley already looked very far oflf to him ; 
 but he should have preferred, on th« whole, to find itt memory 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 255 
 
 and influence more fresh with Eeine. He framed his lips un- 
 consciously to a whistle as he submitted to Miss Susan's exam- 
 ination, which meant to express that he didn't care, that if 
 Heine chose to be indifferent and forgetful, why, he could be 
 indifferent too. Instantly, however, he remembered, before 
 any sound became audible, that to whistle was indecorous, and 
 forbore. 
 
 " And how are your own affairs going on 1 " said Miss Susan ; 
 " we have not had any conversation on the subject since you 
 came back. Well 1 I am glad to hear it. You have not really 
 been a loser, then, by your fright and your hard work ] '* 
 
 " Rather a gainer on the whole," said Everard ; " besides 
 the amusement. Work is not such a bad thing when you are 
 fond of it. If ever I am in great need or take a panic again, I 
 shall enjoy it. It takes up your thoughts." 
 
 " Then why don't you go on, having made a beginning 1 '" 
 said Miss Susan. " You are well off for a young man, Everard ; 
 but suppose you were to marry 1 And now that > ou have made 
 a beginning and got over the worst, I wish you could go on." 
 
 " I don't think I shall ever marry," said Everard with a 
 vague smile creeping about the corners of his lips. 
 
 " Very likely ! You should have gone on, Everard. A 
 little more money never comes amiss ; and as you really like 
 work " 
 
 ** When I am forced to it," he said, laughing. " I am not 
 forced, now ; that makes all the difference. You don't expect 
 a young man of the nineteenth century, brought up as I have 
 been, to go to work in cold blood without a motive 1 No, no, 
 that is too much." 
 
 ** If you please, ma'am," said Martha, coming in, " Stevens 
 wishes to know if the foreign lady and gentleman is staying 
 over Sunday 1 And Cook wishes to say, please " 
 
 A shadow citme over Miss Susan's face. She forgot the ap- 
 pearances which she had been keeping up with Everard. The 
 colour went out of her cheeks ; her eyes grew dull and dead, 
 as if the life had died out of them. She put up her hands to 
 stop this further demand upon her. 
 
 " They cannot go on Sunday, of course," she said, " and it 
 is too late to go to-day. Stevens knows that as well as I do, 
 and so do you all. Of course they mean to stay." 
 
 "And if you please, ma'am, Cook says, the baby 
 
 LI 
 
256 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 (( 
 
 No more, please, no more ! " cried Miss Susan faintly. 
 
 (( 
 
 shall come presently and talk to Cook. 
 
 " You want to get rid of these people," said Everard sym- 
 pathetically, startled by her look. " You don't like them, 
 Aunt Susan, whatever, you may say." 
 
 " I hate them ! " she said low under her breath, with a tone 
 of feeling so intens;e that he was alarmed by it. Then she 
 recovered herself suddenly, chased the cloud from her face, 
 and fell back into the jaunty manner which had so much sur- 
 prised and almost shocked him before. " Of course I don't 
 mean that," she said with a laugh. " Even I have caught 
 your fashion of exaggeration ; but I don't love them, indeed, 
 and I think a Sunday with them in the house is a very dismal 
 affair to look forward to. Go and dress, Everard ; there is the 
 bell. I must go and speak to Cook." 
 
 While this conversation had been going on in-doors, the two 
 foreigners thus discussed were walking up and down Priory 
 Lane, in close conversation still. They did not hear the dress- 
 ing-bell, or did not care for it. As for Giovanna, she had never 
 yet troubled herself to ask what the preliminary bell meant. 
 She had not dresses to change, and having no acquaintance 
 with the habit which prescribed this alteration of costume in 
 the evening, made no attempt to comply with it. The child 
 clung about M. Guillaume's neck, and gave power to his argu- 
 ments, though it nearly strangled him with its close clasp. 
 " My good Giovanna," he said, " why put yourself in opposi- 
 tion to all your friends ? We are your friends, though you 
 will not think so. This darling, the light of our eyes, you 
 will not steal him from us. Yes, my own ! it is of thee I apeak. 
 The blessed infant knows ; look how he holds me ! You would 
 not deprive me of him, my daughter — my dear child ? " 
 
 " I should not steal him, anyhow," said the young woman 
 with an exultation which he thought cruel. " He is mine." 
 
 "Yes, I know. I have always respected thy right, cherie; 
 you know I have. When thy mother-in-law would have had 
 me take authority over him, I have said, ' No ; she is his 
 mother ; the right is with her ' — always, ma fille ! I ask thee 
 as a favour — 1 do not command thee, though some, you know, 
 
 might think . Listen, my child. The little one will be 
 
 nothing but a burden to you in the world. If you should wish 
 
 t 
 
 « 
 
 lit 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 257 
 
 
 to go away, to see new faces, to be independent, though it is 
 so strange for a woman, yet think, my child, the little one would 
 be a burden. You have not the habits of our Gertrude, who 
 understands children. Leave thy little one with us ! You will 
 then be free to go where you will." 
 
 " And you wul be rid of me ! " cried the young woman with 
 passionate scorn. " Ah, I know you ! I know what you mean. 
 To get the child without me would be victory. Ma belle-m^re 
 would be glad, and Gertrude, who understands children ! Un- 
 derstand me, then, mon beau-p6re. The child is my power. I 
 will never leave hold of him ; he is my power. By him I can 
 revenge myself; without him I am nobody, and you do not fear 
 me. Give my baby to me ! " 
 
 She seized the child, who struggled to keep his hold, and 
 dragged him out of his grandfather's arms. The little fellow 
 had his mouth open to cry, when she deftly filled it with her 
 handkerchief, and setting him down forcibly on his little legs, 
 shook him into frightened silence. " Cry, and I will beat thee ! " 
 she said. Then turning to the grandfather, who vfsr remon- 
 strating and entreating, " He shall walk ; he is Hg enough ; he 
 shall not be carried, nor spoiled, as you would spoil him. Lis- 
 ten, bon papa. I have not anything else to keep my own part 
 with ; but he is mine." 
 
 " Giovanna ! Giovanna ! think less of thyself and more of 
 thy chad I " 
 
 " When I find you set me a good example," she said. " Is it 
 not your comfort you seek, caring nothing for mine 1 Get rid 
 of me, and keep the child ! Ah, I perceive, my belle-m^re in 
 that ! But it is his interest to be here. Ces dames, though 
 they don't love us, are kind enough. And listen to me ; they 
 will never give you the rente you demand for the boy — never ! 
 but if he stays here and I stay here they will not turn us out. 
 Ah, no, Madame Suzanne dares not turn me out ! See, then, 
 the reason of what I am doing. You love the child, but you 
 do not wish a burden ; and if you take him away, it will be as 
 a burden ; they will never give you a sou for him. But leave 
 us here, and they will be forced to nourish us and lodge us. Ah, 
 you perceive ! I am not without reason ; I know what I do." 
 
 M. Guillaume was staggered. Angry as he was to have the 
 child dragged from his arms, and dismayed as he was by Gio- 
 Q 
 
258 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 vanna's indifference to its fright and tears, there was still some- 
 thing in thi6 argument which compelled his attention. It was 
 true that the subject of an allowance for the baby's maintenance 
 and education had been of late very much talked of at Bmges, 
 and the family had unanimously concluded that it was a right 
 and necessary thing, and the letter making the claim had begun 
 to be concocted, when Giovanna, stung by some quarrel, had 
 suddenW taker tho matter into her own hands. To take back 
 the chL i ir<" i be aweet ; but to take it back pensionless and 
 almost i >);>; i*. i^, with its heirship rendered uncertain, and its 
 immediai ■r.'.huj denied, would not be sweet. M. Guillaume 
 was torn in twaiii ./ conflicting sentiments, his paternal feel- 
 ings struggling against a vevy strong desire to make what could 
 be honestly made out of Whiteladies, and to have the baby pro- 
 vided for. His rafe was eager to have the child, but would she 
 be as eager if she knew that it was totally penniless, and had 
 only visionary expectations 1 Would not she complain more 
 and more of Giovanna, who did nothing, and even of the child 
 itself, another mouth to be fed 1 This view of the subject 
 silenced and confounded him. " If I could hope that thou 
 wouldst be kind ! " he said, faltering, eyeing the poor baby, 
 over whom his heart yearned. His heart yearned over the 
 child ; and yet he felt it would be something of a triumph 
 "could he exploiter Miss Susan, and transfer an undesirable bur- 
 den from his own shoulders to hers. Surely this was worth 
 doing, after her English coldness, her aristocratic contempt. M. 
 Guillaume did not like to be looked down upon. He had been 
 wounded in his pride and hurt in his tender feelings ; and now 
 he would be revenged on her ! He put his hand on Giovanna'a 
 shoulder, and drew closer to her, and they held a consultation 
 with their heads together, which was only interrupted by the 
 appearance of Stevens, very dark and solemn, who begged to 
 ask if they were aware that the dinuer-bell had rung full five 
 minutes before ? 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I HE dinner-table in the old hall was surrounded by a very 
 odd party that night. Miss Susan, at the head of the 
 table, in the handsome matronly evening dress which 
 she took to always at the beginning of winter, did her best to 
 look as usual, though she could not quite keep the panting of 
 her breast from being visible under ^ . ^lack silk and lace. 
 She was breathless, as if she had been lui aig hard ; this was 
 the form her agitation took. Miss A' ^"ist. ,,, at the other end 
 of the table, sat motionless, absorbe-' n ler own thoughts, and 
 quite unmoved by what was going oii iround her. Everard 
 had one side to himself, from wh' ^h he watched with great 
 curiosity the pair opposite to him a lio came in abruptly — 
 Giovanna, with her black hair slightly ruffled by the wind, and 
 M. Guillaume, rubbing his bald head. This was all the toilette 
 they had made. The meal began almost in silence, with a few 
 remarks only between Miss Susan and Everard. M. Guillaume 
 was pre-occupied. Giovanna was at no time disposed for much 
 conversation. Miss Susan, however, after a litt'e interval, 
 began to talk significantly, so as to attract the strangers. 
 
 " You said yon had not heard lately from Herbert," she said, 
 addressing her young cousin. " You don't know, then, I sup- 
 pose, that they have made all their plans for coming home ? " 
 
 " Not before the winter, I hope." 
 
 " Oh, no, not before the winter — in May, when we hope it 
 will be quite safe. They are coming home, not for a visit, but 
 to settle. And we must think of looking for a house," said 
 Miss Susan, with a smile and a sigh. 
 
 " Do you mean that you — you who have been mistress of 
 Whiteladies for so long — that you will leave Whiteladies ? They 
 will never allow that," said Everard. 
 
 Miss Susan looked him meaningly in the face, with a gleam 
 of her eye towards the strangers on the other side of the table. 
 How could he tell what meaning she wished to convey to him 1 
 Men are not clever at interpreting such communications in the 
 
260 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 P: 
 
 best of circumstances, and, perfectly ignorant as he was of the 
 circumstances, how could Everard make out what she wanted " 
 But the look silenced and left him gapine with his mouth open, 
 feeling that something was expected of nim, and not knowing 
 what to say. 
 
 '* Yes, that is my intention," said Miss Susan, with that 
 jaunty air which had so perplexed and annoyed him before. 
 " When Herbert comes home, he has his sister with him to 
 keep his house. I should be superseded. I should be merely 
 a lodger or a visitor in Whiteladies, and that I could not put 
 up with. I shall go of course." 
 
 "But, Aunt Susan, Reine would never think — Herbert 
 would never permit " 
 
 Another glance, still more full of meaning, but of meaning quite 
 beyond Everard's grasp, stopped him again. What could she 
 want him to do or say 1 he asked himself. What could she be 
 thinking of? 
 
 " The thing is settled," said Miss Susan ; " of course we 
 must go. The house and everything in it belongs to Herbert. 
 He will marry, of course. Did not you say to me this very 
 afternoon that he was sure to marry 1 " 
 
 " Yes," Everard answered faintly ; " but " 
 
 " There is no but," she replied, with almost a triumphant 
 air. '' It is a matter of course. I shall feel leaving the old 
 house, but I have no right to it, it is not mine, and I do not 
 mean to make any fuss. In six months from this time, if all 
 is well, we shall be out of Whiteladies." 
 
 She said this with again a little toss of her head, as if in 
 satisfaction. Gio\anna and M. Guillaume exchanged alarmed 
 glances. The words were taking effect. 
 
 " Is it settled ? " said Augustine calmly. " I did not know 
 things had gone so far. The question now is, who wiU Herbert 
 marry 1 We once talked of this in respect to you, Everard, and 
 I told you my views — I should say my wishes. Herbert has 
 been restored as by a miracle. He ought to be very thank- 
 ful — he ought to show his gratitude. But it depends much 
 upon the kind of woman he marries. I thought once in res- 
 pect to you " 
 
 " Austine, we need not enter into these questions before 
 strangers," said Miss Susan. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 261 
 
 mow 
 rbert 
 ,and 
 rt has 
 ihank- 
 much 
 n res- 
 
 " It does not matter who is present," said Augustine. " Every 
 one knows what ray life is, and what is the curse of our 
 house." 
 
 " Pardon, ma soBur/' said M. Guillaume. " I am of the house, 
 but I do not know." 
 
 " Ah" said Augustine, looking at him. "After Herbert, you 
 represent the elder branch ? it is true ; but you have not a 
 daughter who is young, under twenty, have you 1 that is wiiat 
 I want to know. 
 
 " I have three daughters, ma soeur," said M. Guillaume, 
 delighted to find a subject on which he could expatiate ; " all 
 very good — gentilles, kind to every one. There is Madeleine, 
 who is the wife of M. Meeren, the jeweller — Francois Meeren, 
 the eldest son, very well off ; and Marie, who is settled at 
 Courtray, whose husband has a great manufactory ; and Gertrude, 
 my youngest, who has niarried my partner — they will succeed 
 her mother and me when our day is over. Ma soeur knows 
 that my son died ? Yes j these are misfortunes that all have 
 to bear. This is my family. They are very good women, 
 though I say it — pious and good mothers and wives, and 
 obedient to their husbands and kind to the poor. 
 
 Augustine had continued to look at him, but the animation 
 had faded out of her eyes. " Men's wives are of little interest 
 to me," she said. " What I want is one who is young, and 
 who would understand and do what I say." 
 
 Here Giovanna got up from her chair, pushing it back with 
 a force which almost made Stevens drop the dish he was carry- 
 ing. " Me ! " she cried, with a gleam of malice in her eyes, 
 " me, ma soeur ! I am younger than Gertrude and the rest. I 
 am no one's wife. Let it be me." 
 
 Augustine looked at her with curious scrutiny, measuring 
 her from head to foot, as it were ; while Miss Susan, horror- 
 stricken at once by the discussion and the indecorum, looked 
 on breathless. Then Augustine turned away. 
 
 " You could not be Herbert's wife," she said, with her usual 
 abstract quiet ; and added softly, " I must ask for enlighten- 
 ment. I shall speak to my people at the Almshouses to-morrow. 
 We have done so much. His life has been given to us ; why 
 not the family salvation too t " 
 
202 
 
 WHTTKLADIE8. 
 
 " These are questionn which had better not be discussed at 
 the dinner-table," said Miss Susan, " a place where in England 
 we don't think it right to indulge in expressions of feelinff. 
 Madame Jean, I am afraid you are surprised by ray sister s 
 ways. In the family we all know what she means exactly ; 
 but outside the family " 
 
 ** I am one of the family," said Giovanna, leaning back in 
 her chair, on which she had reseated herself. She put up her 
 hands, and clasped them behind her head in an attitude which 
 was of the easiest and freest description. '* I eat no more, 
 thank you, take it away ; though the cuisine is better than my 
 belle-m^re's, bon papa ; but I cannot eat for ever, like you Eng- 
 lish. Oh, I am one of the family. I understand also, and I 
 think — there are things that come into my head." 
 
 Miss Susan gave her a look which was full of fright and dis- 
 like, but not of understanding. Everard only thought he caught 
 for a moment the gleam of sudden malicious meaning in her 
 eyes. She laughed a low laugh, and looked at him across the 
 table, yawning and stretching her arms, which were hidden by 
 her black sleeves, but which Everard divined to be beautiful 
 ones, somewhat large, but fine and shapely. His eye sought 
 hers half unwillingly, attracted in spite of himself. How rail 
 of life and youth and warmth and force she looked among all 
 these old people ! Even her careless gestures, her want of 
 breeding, over which Stevens was groaning, seemed to make it 
 more evident ; and he thought to himself, with a shudder, that 
 he understood what was in her eye. 
 
 But none of the old people thought the rude young Ti'oman 
 worth notice. Her father-in-law pulled her skirt sharply under 
 the table, to recall her to " her manners," and she laughed, but 
 did not alter her position. Miss Susan was horrified and angry, 
 but her indignation went no farther. She turned to the old 
 linendraper with elaborate politeness. 
 
 " I am afraid you will find our English Sunday dull," she 
 said. " You know we have different ideas from those you have 
 abroad ; and if you want to go to-morrow, travelling is difiicult 
 on Sunday — though to be sure we might make an effort." 
 
 " Pardon, I have no intention of going to-morrow," said M. 
 Guillaume. " I have been thinking much — and after diniie^r I 
 will disclose to Madame what my thoughts have been." 
 
 r 
 
WniTKI.ADIFa 
 
 263 
 
 Miss Susan's bosom swelled with suspense and pain. " That 
 will do, Stevens, that will do," she said. 
 
 He had been wandering round and round the table for about 
 an hour, she thought, with sweet dishes of which there was an 
 unusual and unnecessary abundance, and which no one tasted. 
 She felt sure, as people always do, when they are aware of some- 
 thing to conceal, that he lingered so long on purpose to spy out 
 what he coula of the mystery ; and now her heart beat with 
 feverish desire to know what was the nature of M, Guillaume's 
 thoughts. Why did not he say plainly, " We are going on 
 Monday ? " T^-'t would have been a hundred times better 
 than any thoughts. 
 
 " It will be well if you will come to the Almhouses to-mor- 
 row," said Miss Augustine, once more taking the conduct of 
 the conversation into her hands. " It will be well for yourself 
 to show at least that you understand what the burden of the 
 family is. Perhaps good thoughts will be put into your head ; 
 perhaps, as you are the next in succession of our family — ah ! 
 I must think of that. You are an old man ; you cannot be 
 ambitious," she said, slowly and calmly ; " nor love the world 
 as others do." 
 
 " You flatter me, ma soenr," said M. Guillaume. " I should 
 be proud to deserve your commendation ; but I am ambitious. 
 Not for myself — for me it is nothing ; but if this child were the 
 master here, I should die happy. It is what I wish for most." 
 
 " That is," said Miss Susan, with rising colour (and oh how 
 thankful she was for some feasible pretext by which to throw 
 oflf a little of the rising tide of feeling within her !) — " that is 
 — what M. Guillaume Austin wishes for most is, that Herbert, 
 our boy, whom God has spared, should get worse again, and 
 die." 
 
 The old man looked up at her, startlej, having, like so many 
 others, thought innocently enough of what was most important 
 to himself, without considering how it told Upon the others. 
 Giovanna, however, put herself suddenly in the breach. 
 
 " I," she cried, with another quick change of movement — 
 "I am the child's mother, Madame Suzanne, you know ; >et I 
 do not wish this. Listen. I drink to tho iiealth of M Her- 
 bert ! " she cried, lifting up the nearest g]a;>8 of wine, v/iiich 
 happened to be her father-in-law's ; " that he comes home well 
 
264 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 and strong, that he takes a wife, that he lives long ! I carry 
 this to his health. Vive M. Herbert ! " she cried, and drank 
 the wine, which brought a sadden flush to her cheeks, and 
 lighted up her eyes. 
 
 They all gazed at her — I cannot say with what disapproval 
 and secret horror in their elderly calm ; except Everard, who, 
 alway? ready to admire a pretty woman, felt a sudden enthu- 
 siasm take possession of him. He, oddly enough, was the only 
 one to understand her meaning ; but how handsome she was ! 
 how splendid the glow in her eyes ! He looked across the 
 table, and bowed and pledged her. He was the only one who 
 did not look at her with disapproval. Her beauty conciliated 
 the young man, in spite of himself. 
 
 " Drinking to him is a vain ceremony," said Augustine, " but 
 if you were to practise self-denial, and get up early, and come 
 to the Alms|iouses every morning with me " 
 
 " I will," said Giovanna, quickly, " I will every morning if 
 ma sceur will permit me." 
 
 " I do not suppose that every morning can mean much in 
 Madame Jean's case," said Miss Susan stiffly, " as no doubt she 
 will be returning home before long." 
 
 " Do not check the young woman, Susan, when she shows 
 good dispositions," said Augustine. " It is always good to 
 pray. You are worldly-minded yourself, and do not think as 
 I do ; but when I can find one to feel with me, that makes me 
 happy. She may stay longer than you think." 
 
 Miss Susan could not restrain a low exclamation of dismay. 
 Everard, looking at her, saw that her face began to wear that 
 terrible look of conscious impotence — helpless and driven into 
 a corner, which is so unendurable to the strong. She was of 
 more personal importance individually than all the tormentors 
 who surrounded her, but she was powerless, and could do no- 
 thing against them. Her cheeks flushed hot under her eyes, 
 which seemed scorched, and dazzled too, by this burning of 
 shame. He said something to her in a low tone, to call off her 
 attention, and perceived that the strong woman, generally mis- 
 tress of the circumstances, was unable to answer him out of 
 sheer emotion. Fortunately, by this time the dessert was on 
 the table, and she rose abruptly. Augustine, slower, rose too. 
 Giovanna, however, sat still composedly by her father-in-law's 
 side. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 265 
 
 < 
 
 " The bon papa has not finished his wine," she said, pointing 
 to him. 
 
 " Madame Jean," said Miss Susan, " in England you must 
 do as English ladies do. I cannot permit anything else in my 
 house." 
 
 It was not this that made her excited, but it was a mode of 
 throwing forth a little of that excitement which, moment by 
 moment, was getting more than she could bear. Giovanna, 
 after another look, got up and obeyed her without a word. 
 
 " So this is the mode Anglaise ? " said the old man, when 
 they were gone ; " it is not polite ; it is to show, I suppose, 
 that we are not welcome ; but Madame Suzanne need not give 
 herself the trouble. If she will do her duty to her relations, I 
 do not mean to stay." 
 
 " I do not know what it is about," said Everard ; " but she 
 always does her duty by everybody, and you need not be 
 afraid." 
 
 On this hint M. Guillaume began, and told Everard the whole 
 matter, filling him with perplexity. The story of Miss Susan's 
 visit sounded strangely enough, though the simple narrator 
 ^l^^toiew nothing of its worst consequences ; but he told his in- 
 ) tefested auditor how she had tempted him to throw up hisbar- 
 igain with Farrel- Austin, and raised hopes which now she seemed 
 'so little inclined to realize ; and the story was not agreeable to 
 Everard's ear. Farrel-Austin, no doubt, had begun this curi- 
 ous oblique dealing ; but Farrel-Austin was a man from whom 
 little was expected, and Everard had been used to expect much 
 from Miss Susan. But he did not know, all the time, that he 
 was driving her almost mad, keeping back the old man, who had 
 promised that evening to let her know the issue of his thoughts. 
 She was sitting in a corner, speechless and rigid with agitation, 
 when the two came in from the dining-room to " join the ladies ;" 
 and even then Everard, in his ignorance, would have seated 
 himself beside her, to postpone the explanation still longer. 
 " Go away ! go away ! " she said to him in a wild whisper. 
 What could she meani for certainly there could be nothing 
 tragical connected with this old man, or so at least Everard 
 thought. 
 
 " Madame will excuse me, I hope," said Guillaume blandly ; 
 as it is the mode Anglaise, I endeavoured to follow it, though 
 
 , I 
 
 it , 
 
266 
 
 WHTTELADIES. 
 
 it seems little polite. But it is not for one country to condemn 
 the ways of the other. If Madame wishes it, I will now say 
 the result of my thoughts." 
 
 Miss Susan, who was past speaking, nodded her head, and 
 did her best to form her lips into a smile. 
 
 " Madame informs me," said M. Guillaume, " that Monsieur 
 Herbert is better, that the chances of le petit are small, and 
 that there is no one to give to the child the rente, the allow- 
 ance, that is his due ? " 
 
 " That is true, quite true." 
 
 " On the other hand," said M. Guillaume, " Giovanna has 
 told me her ideas — she will not come away with me. What 
 she says is that her boy has a right to be here ; and she will 
 not leave Viteladies. What can I say 1 Madame perceives 
 that it is not easy to change the ideas "of Giovanna when she 
 has made up her mind." 
 
 " But what has her mind to do with it," cried Miss Susan, 
 in despair, " when it is you who have the power 1 " 
 
 " Madame is right, of course," said the old ^shopkeeper ; " it 
 is I who have the power. I am the father, the head of the 
 house. Still, a good father is not a tyrant, Madame Suzanne ; 
 a good father hears reason. Giovanna says to me, ' It is well ; 
 if le petit has no right, it is for M. le Proprietaire to say so." 
 She is not without acuteness, madame will perceive. What she 
 says is, ' If Madame Suzanne cannot provide for le petit — will 
 not make him any allowance — and tells us that she has nothing 
 to do with Vfteladies — then it is best to wait until they come 
 who have to do with it. M. Herbert returns in May. Eh, 
 bien ! she will remain till then, that M. Herbert, who must 
 know best, may decide.' " 
 
 Miss Susan was thunderstruck. She was dr.- ven into silence, 
 paralyzed by this intimation. She looked at the old shopkeeper 
 with a dumb strain of terror and appeal in her face, which 
 moved him, though he did not understand. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! Madame," he cried ; " can I help it 1 it is not 
 I : I am without power ! " 
 
 " But she shall not stay — I cannot have her ; I will not have 
 her ! " cried Miss Susan, in her dismay. 
 
 M. Guillaume said nothing, but he beckoned his step-daughter 
 from the other end of the room. 
 
 
WHITELAniES. 
 
 267 
 
 * Speak for thyself," he said. " Thou art not wanted here, 
 nor thy child either. It would be better to return with me." 
 
 Giovanna looked Miss Susan full in the eyes, with an audar 
 cious smile. 
 
 " Madame Suzanne will not send me away," she said ; " I am 
 sure she will not send me away." 
 
 Miss Susan felt herself caught in the toils. She looked from 
 one to another with despairing eyes. She might appeal to the 
 old man, but she knew it was hopeless to appeal to the young 
 woman, who stood over her with determination in every line of 
 her face, and conscious power glancing from her eyes. She 
 subdued herself by an incalculable effort. 
 
 " I thought," she said, faltering, " that it would be happier 
 for you to go back to your home — that to be near your friends 
 would please you. It may be comfortable enough here, but 
 you would miss the — society of your friends- 
 
 n 
 
 Ma- 
 
 " My mother-in law "? " said Giovanna, with a laugh, 
 dame is too good to think of me. Yes, it is dull, I know ; but 
 for the child I overlook that. I will stay till M. Herbert 
 comes. The bon papa is fond of the child, but he loves his 
 rente, and will leave us when we are penniless. I will stay 
 till M. Herbert returns, who must govern everything. Madame 
 Suzanne will not contradict me, otherwise I shall have no 
 choice. I shall be forced to go to M. Herbert to tell him all." 
 
 Miss Susan sat still and listened. She had to keep silence, 
 though her heart beat so that it seemed to be escaping out of 
 her sober breast, and the blood filled her veins to bursting. 
 Heaven help her ! here was her punishment. Fiery passion 
 blazed in her, but she durst not betray it ; and to keep it down 
 — to keep it silent — was all she was able to do. She answered, 
 faltering — 
 
 " You are mistaken ; you are mistaken ! Herbert will do 
 nothing. Besides, some one could write and tell you what he 
 says." 
 
 " Pardon ! but I move not ; I leave not," said Giovanna. 
 She enjoyed the triumph. " I am a mother," she said ; " Ma- 
 dame Suzanne knows ; and mothers sacrifice everything for the 
 good of their children — everything. I a " able for the sacrifice," 
 she said, looking down upon Miss Susan with a gleam almost of 
 
 1 
 
268 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 laughter— of fun, humour, and malicious amusement in her 
 eyes. 
 
 To reason with this creature was like dashing oneself against 
 a stone wall. She was impregnable in her resolution. Miss 
 Susan, feeling the blow go to her heart, pushed her chair back 
 into the corner, and hid herself, as it were. It was a dark 
 corner, where her face was in comparative darkness. 
 
 " I cannot struggle with you," she said, in a piteous whisper, 
 feeling her lips too parched and dry for another word. . 
 
 \> 
 
 H 
 
1- 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 269 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. . 
 
 OING to stay till Herbert comes back ! bui, my dear 
 Aunt Susan, since you don't want her — and of course 
 you dont want her — why don't you say so V cried 
 Everard. " An unwelcome guest may be endured for a day or 
 two, or a week or two, but for five or six months " 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Susan, who was pale, and in whose 
 vigorous frame a tremble of weakness seemed so out of place, 
 " how can I say so ? It would be so — discourteous — eo 
 uncivil — " 
 
 The young man looked at her with dismay. He would 
 have laughed had she not been so deadly serious. Her face 
 was white and drawn, her lips quivered slightly as she spoke. 
 She looked all at once a weak old woman, tremulous, broken 
 down and uncertain of herself. 
 
 " You must be ill," he said, " I can't believe it Is vou 1 am 
 speaking to. You ought to see the doctor, Aunt Scsar — you 
 cannot be well." 
 
 " Perhaps," she said with a pitiful attempt a,u a ..wh, 
 " perhaps. Indeed you must be right, Everard, ^>^' 1 don'i: feel 
 like myself. T am getting old, you know." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " he said lightly, " you were as youn ;•; an i*fiy of 
 us last time I was here." 
 
 "Ah!" said Miss Susan with er quivering lips, ' l have 
 kept that up too long. I have gone on bemg yoimg — ar.d now 
 all at once I am old ; that is how it is." 
 
 " But that does not make any difference in my argument," 
 said Everard ; " if you are old -which I don't believe^ — the less 
 reason is there for having you vexed. You don't like this 
 guest who is going to inflict herself upon you. I shouldn't 
 mind her," he added, with a laugh ; " she's very handsome, 
 Aunt Susan -, but I don't suppose that affects you in the same 
 way ; and she will be quite out of place when Herbert comes, 
 or at least when Reine comes. J advise you to tell her plainly, 
 before the old fellow goes, that i won't do." 
 
270 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 
 ill 
 
 ! 
 
 " I can't, my dear — 1 can't ! " said Miss Susan ; how her lips 
 quivered ! — " she is in my bouse, she is my guest, and I can't 
 say, * Go away.' " 
 
 " Why not 1 She is not a person of very fine feelings, to be 
 hurt by it. She is not even a lady ; and till May, till the end 
 of May 1 you will never be able to endure her." 
 
 " Oh, yes I shall," said Miss Susan. " I see you think that 
 T am very weak ; but I never was uncivil to any one, Everard, 
 not to any one ! in my own house. It is Herbert's house, of 
 course," she added qaickly, " but yet it has been mine, ^uhough 
 I never had any real right to it, for sc many years." 
 
 " And you really mean to leave now 1 " 
 
 " I suppose so," said Miss Susan faltering, " I think, probably 
 — nothing is settled. Doix't be too ha-rd upon me, Everard ! 
 I said so — for them, to show them that I had no power." 
 
 " Then why, for heaven's sake, if yon have so strong a feeling 
 — why for lb > sake of politeness ! — Politeness is absurd, 
 Aunt Susan," said Everard. " Do you mean to say that if any 
 saucy fellow, any oad I may have met, chose to come into my 
 hodse and take possession, I rhould not kick him out because 
 it would be uncivil ? This is not like your good sense. You 
 must have some other reason. No ! do you mean no by that 
 shake of the head ? Then if it is so very disaf ^eeable to you, 
 let me speak to her. Let me suggest " 
 
 " Not for the world," cried Miss Susan. " No, for pity's sake, 
 no. You M^.ll make me frantic if you speak of such a thing." 
 
 " Or to he old fellow," said Everard ; " he ought to see the 
 absurdity of it, and the tyranny." 
 
 She carght at this evidently v/ith a little hope. " You may 
 speak to Monsieur Guillaume if you feel disposed," she said ; 
 " yer,, yoi^ may speak to him. 1 blame him very much ; he 
 oag'L'u noc to have listened to her ; he oughii to have taken her 
 av^av lit once." 
 
 •' i.?iv;v c uld he if she wouldn't go? Men no doubt are 
 poweriu; Ufniva;;;'," said Everard laughing, " but suppose the 
 other sid^ leclinbd to be moved 1 Even a horse at the water, 
 if it declii is to uriuk — you know the proverb." 
 
 " Oh do 't worry me witb proverbs — as if I have not enough 
 without that ! " she said with an impatience which wouM have 
 been comic had it i^ot been so tragical. " Ves, Everard, yes, if 
 
WHITELAI>1ES. 
 
 271 
 
 you like you may speak to him — but not to her ; not a word to 
 her for the world. My dear boy, my dear boy ! You won't go 
 against me in this." 
 
 " Of course I shall do only what ycu wish me to do," he said 
 more gravely ; the sight of her agitation troubled the young 
 man exceedingly. To think of any concealed feeling, any mys- 
 tery in connection with Susan Austin, seemed not only a blas- 
 phemy, but an absurdity. Yet what could she mean, what 
 could her strange terror, her changed looks, her agitated aspect, 
 mean ? Everard was more disturbed than he could say. 
 
 This was on the Sunday afternoon, that hour of all others 
 when clouds hang heaviest and troubles, where they exist, come 
 most into the foreground. The occupations of ordinary life 
 push them aside, but Sunday, which is devoted to rest, and in 
 which so many people honestly endeavour to put the trifling 
 little cares of every day out of their minds, always lays hold of 
 those bigger disturbers of existence which it is the aim of our 
 lives to forget. Miss Susan would have made a brave fight 
 against the evil which she could not avoid on another day, but 
 this day, with all its many associations of quiet, its outside 
 tranquillity, its powerful recollections and habits, was too much 
 for it. Everard had found her walking in the Prioiy Lane by 
 herself, a bitter dew of pain in her eyes, and a tremble in her 
 lips which frightened him. She had come out to collect her 
 thoughts a little, and to escape from her visitors, who sometimes 
 seemed for the moment more than she could bear. 
 
 Miss Augustine came up on her way from the afternoon service 
 at the Almshouses, while Everard spoke. She was accompanied 
 by Giovanna, and it was a curious sight to .jee the tall, slight 
 figure of the Grey sister, type of everything abstract and 
 mystic, with that other by her side, full of strange vitality, 
 watching the absorbed and dreamy creature with those looks 
 of investigation, puzzled to know what her meaning was, but 
 determined somehow to be at the bottom of it. Giovanna's 
 eyes darted a keen telegraphic communication to Everard's as 
 they came up. This glance seemed to convey at once an opin- 
 ion and an inquiry. " How droll she is ! Is she mad ? 1 am 
 finding her out," the eyes said. Everard carefully refrained 
 from making any reply ; though indeed this was self-denial on 
 his part, for Giovanna certainly made Whiteladies more amus- 
 ing than it had been when he was last there. 
 
ii-l. mm "return 
 
 272 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " You have been to church 1 " said Miss Su3an, with her 
 forced and reluctant smile. 
 
 •* She went with me," said Miss Augustine. " I hope we 
 have a great acquisition in her. Few have understood me so 
 quickly. If anything should happen to Herbert " 
 
 " Nothing is going to happen to Herbert," cried Miss Susan. 
 " God bless him ! It sounds as if you were putting a spell 
 upon our boy." 
 
 " I put no spell ; I don't even understand such profane 
 words. My heart is set on one thing, and it is of less import- 
 ance how it is carried out. If anything should happen to 
 Herbert, I believe I have found one who sees the necessity as 
 I do, and who will sacrifice herself for the salvation of the 
 race." 
 
 " One -vrho will sacrifice herself ! " Miss Susan gasped wildly 
 under her breath. 
 
 Giovanna looked at har with defiance, challenging her, as it 
 were, to a mortal struggle ; yet there was a glimmer of laughter 
 in her eyes. She looked at Miss Susan from behind the back 
 of the other, and made a slow solemn courtesy as Augustine 
 spoke. Her eyes were dancing with a humorous enjoyment of 
 the situation, with mischief and playfulness, yet with conscious 
 power. 
 
 "This — lady?" said Miss Susan, "I think you are mad; 
 Austine; I think you are going mad ! " 
 
 Miss Augustine shook her head. " Susan, how often do I 
 tell you that you are giving your heart to Mammon and to the 
 v,'orld ! This is worse than madness. It makes you incapable 
 of seeing spiritual things. Yes ! she is capable of it. Heaven 
 has sent her in answer to many prayers." 
 
 Saying this, Augustine glided past towards the house with 
 her arms folded in her sleeves., and her abstract eyes fixed on 
 the vacant air. A little flusli of displeasure at the opposition 
 had come upon her face as she spoke, but it faded as quickly as 
 it came. As for Giovanna, before she followed her, she stopped 
 and threw up her hands with a critical gesture : " Is it then 
 my fault ? " she said as she passed. 
 
 Aias Susan s*.ood and looked after them, her eyes dilating ; 
 a kind of panic was in her face. " Is it then God that has sent 
 
WHIT£LADIBS. 
 
 273 
 
 her, to support the innocent, to punish the guilty 1 " she said 
 under her breath. 
 
 "Aunt Susan, take my arm ; you are certainly ill." 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said faintly. "Take me in, take me out of 
 sight, and never tell any one, Everard, never tell any one. I think 
 I shall go out of my mind. It must be giving my thoughts to 
 Mammon and the world, as she said." 
 
 " Never mind what she says," said Everard, " no one pays 
 any attention to what she says. Your nerves are over wrought 
 somehow or other, and you are ill. But I'll have it out with 
 the old duflfer ! " cried the young man. They met Monsieur 
 Guillaume immediately after, and I think he must have heard 
 them ; but he was happily quite unaware of the nature of a 
 " duflfer," or what the word meant, and, to tell the truth, so 
 ami. 
 
 Miss Susan was not able to come down to dinner, a marvel- 
 lous and almost unheard of event, so that the party was still 
 less lively than usual. Everard was so concerned about his 
 old friend, and the strange condition in which she was, that he 
 began his attack upon the old shopkeeper almost as soon as 
 they were left alone. " Don't you think, sir," the young man 
 began in a straightforward, unartificial way, "that it would be 
 better to take your daughter-in-law with you 1 She will only 
 be uncomfortable among people so diflTerent from those you 
 have been accustomed to ; I doubt if they will get on." 
 
 " Get on 1 " said Monsieur Guillaume pleasantly, " Get on 
 what ? She does not wish to get on anywhere. She wishes to 
 stay here." 
 
 " I mean, they are not likely to be comfortable together, to 
 agree, to be friends." 
 
 M. Guillaume shrugged his shoulders. " Mon Dieu," he said, 
 " it will not be my fault. If Madame Suzanne will not grant the 
 little rente, the allowance I demanded for le petit, is it fit that 
 he should be at my charge ? He was not thought of till 
 Madame Suzanne came to visit us. There is nothing for him. 
 He was born to be the heir here." 
 
 " But Miss Austm could have nothing to do with his being 
 bom," cried Everard laughing. Poor Miss Susan, it seemed the 
 drollest thing to lay to her charge. But M. Guillaume did not 
 see the joke, he went on seriously. 
 
 R 
 
274 
 
 WUITELADIES. 
 
 " And I had made my little arrangement with M. Farrel. 
 We were in accord, all was settled ; so much to come to me on 
 the spot, and this heritage, this old ch&teau — ch4teau, mon 
 Dieu, a thing of wood and brick ! —to him, eventually. But 
 when Madame Suzanne arrived to tell us of the beauties of this 
 place, and when the women among them made discovery of the 
 petit, that he was about to be born, the contract was broken 
 with M. Farrel. I lost the money — and now I lose the herit- 
 age ; and it is I who must provide for le petit ; Monsieur, 
 such a thing was never heard of. It is incredible ; and 
 Madame Suzanne thinks, I am to carry off the child without 
 a word, and take this disappointment tranquilly ! But no ! 
 I am not a fool, and it cannot be." 
 
 " But I thought you were very fond of the child, and were 
 in despair at losing him," said Everard. 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried the old shopkeeper, " despair is one thing, 
 and good sense is another. This is contrary to good sense. 
 Giovanna is an obstinate, but she has good sense. ^ They will 
 not give le petit anything, eh bien, let them bear the expense 
 of him ! ' That is what she says." 
 
 " Then the allowance is all you want 1 " said Everard, with 
 British brevity. This seemed to him the easiest of arrange- 
 ments. With his mind quite relieved, and a few jokes laid up 
 for the amusement of the future, touching Miss Susan's powers 
 and disabilities, he strcUed into the drawing-room, M. Guill- 
 aume preferring to be^^tke himself to bed. The drawing-room 
 of Whiteladies had never looked so thoroughly unlike itself. 
 There seemed to Everard at first to be no one there, but after 
 a minute he perceived a figure stretched out upon a sofa. The 
 lamps were very dim, throwing a sort of twilight glimmer 
 through the room ; and the fire was very red, adding a rosy 
 hue, but no more, to this faint illumination. It was the sort 
 of li^ht favourable to talk, or to meditation, or to slumber, but 
 by aid of which neither reading, nor work, nor any active oc- 
 cupation could be pursued. This was of itself sufficient to 
 mark the absence of Miss Susan, for whom a cheerful full light 
 of animation and activity seemed always necessary. The figure 
 on the sofa lay at full length, with an abandon of indolence 
 and comfort which suited the warm atmosphere and subdued 
 light. Everard felt a certain, appropriateness in the scene alto- 
 
WH1TELA.DIES. 
 
 275 
 
 gether, but it wa« not WhiteUdios. An Italian palace or an 
 eastern harem would have been more in accordance with the 
 presiding figure. She raised her head, however, as he ap- 
 
 {)roachea, supporting herself on her elbow, with a vivacity un- 
 ike the eastern calm, and looked at him by the dim light with 
 a look half provoking half inviting, which attracted the foolish 
 young man more perhaps than a more correct demeanour 
 would have done. Why should not he try what he could do, 
 Everat'cl thought, to move the rebel 1 for he had an internal 
 conviction that even the allowance which would satisfy M. 
 Guillaume would not content Giovanna. He drew a chair to 
 the other side of the table upon which the tall dim lamp was 
 standing, and which was drawn close to the sofa on which 
 the young woman lay. 
 
 " Do you really mean to remain at Whiteladies 1 " he said. 
 " I don't think you can have any idea how dull it is here." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders slightly and raised her eyebrows. 
 She had let her head drop back upon the sofa cushions, and the 
 faint light threw a kind of dreamy radiance upon her fine fea- 
 tures, and great glowing dark eyes. 
 
 " Dull ! it is almost more than dull," he continued ; though 
 even as he spoke he felt that to have this beautiful creature in 
 Whiteladies would be a sensible alleviation of the dulness, and 
 that his effort on Miss Susan's behalf was of the most disin- 
 terested kind. " It would kill you, I fear ; you can't imagine 
 what it is in winter, when the days are short ; the lamps are lit 
 at half-past four, and nothing happens all the evening, no one 
 comes. You sit before dinner round the fire, and Miss Austin 
 knits ; and after dinner you sit round the fire again, and there 
 is not a sound in all the place, unless you have yourself the 
 courage to make an observation, and it seems about a year be- 
 fore it is time to go to bed. You don't know what it is." 
 
 What Miss Susan would have said had she heard this account 
 of those winter evenings, many of which the hypocrite had 
 spent very cosily at Whiteladies, I prefer not to think. The 
 idea occurred to himself with a comic panic. What would she 
 say ) He could scarcely keep from laughing as he asked him- 
 self the question. 
 
 " I have imagination," said Giovanna, stretching her arms. 
 " I can see it all ; but I should not endure it, me. I should get 
 up and snap my fingers at them and dance, or sing." 
 
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276 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Everard, entering into the humour of his rdle, 
 " 80 you think at present ; but it would soon take the spirit out 
 of you. I am very sorry for you, Madame Jean. If I were 
 like you, with the power of enjoying myself, and having the 
 world at my feet " 
 
 " Ah ! bah ! " cried Giovanna, " how can one have the world 
 at one's feet, when one has no money 1 And you should see 
 the shop at Bruges, mon Dieu ! People do not come and throw 
 themselves at one's feet there. I am not sure even if Gertrude 
 and the belle m6re can help it : but here " 
 
 " You will have no one to see you," said Everard, tickled by 
 the part he was playing, and throwing himself into the spirit of 
 it. " That is worse — for what is the good of being visible when 
 tlere is no one to see ? " 
 
 This consideration evidently was not without its effect. Gio- 
 vanna raised herself lazily on her elbow and looked at him 
 across the table. " You come," said she, "and this Herbert." 
 
 " Herbert," said Everard, shaking his head, " ho is a sickly 
 boy ; and as for me — I have to pay my vows at other shrines," 
 he said with a laugh. But he found this conversation immensely 
 entertaining, and went on representing the disadvantages of 
 Whiteladies with more enjoyment thi^n perhaps he had ever ex- 
 perienced in that place on a Sunday evening before. He went 
 on till Giovanna pettishly bade him go. " At the least, it is 
 comfortable," she said. " Ah, go i It is very tranquil, there 
 is no one to call to you with a sharp voice like a knife, 'Gi'vanna !* 
 tu dors !' Go, I am going to sleep." 
 
 I don't suppose she meant him to take her at her word, for 
 Giovanna was amused too, and found the young man's company 
 and his compliments, and that half-mocking, half-real mixture 
 of homage and criticism to be a pleasant variety. But Everard, 
 partly because he had exhausted all he had to say, partly lest he 
 should be drawn on to say more, jumped up in a state of amuse- 
 ment and satisfaction with himself and his own cleverness which 
 was very pleasant. " Since you send me away, I must obey," 
 he said j " Dormez, belle enuhanteresse ! " and with this, which 
 he felt to be a very pretty speech indeed, he left the room more 
 pleased with himself than ever. He had spent a most satisfac- 
 tory evening, he had ascertained that the old man was to be 
 bought off with money, and he had done his best to disgust the 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 277 
 
 young woman with a dull English country-house ; in sh-^rt, he 
 had done Miss Susan yeoman s service, and amused himself at 
 the same time. Everard was agreeahly excited, and felt, after 
 a few moments' reflection over a cigar on the lawn, that he would 
 like to do more. It was still early, for the Sunday dinner at 
 Whiteladies, as in so many other respectable English houses, 
 was an hour earlier than usual ; and as he wandered round the 
 house, he saw the light still shining in Miss Susan's window. 
 This decided him ; he threw away the end of his cigar, and 
 hastening up the great staircase three steps at once, hurried to 
 Miss Susan's door. " Come in," she said faintly. Everard was 
 as much a child of the house as Herbert and Reine, and had 
 received many an admonition in that well-known chamber. He 
 opened the door without hesitation. But there was something 
 in the very atmosphere which he felt to daunt him as he went 
 in. 
 
 Miss Susan was seated in her easy chair by the bedside fully 
 dressed. She was leaning her head back upon the high shoulder 
 of the old-fashioned chair W7th her eyes shut. She thought it 
 was Martha who had come in, and she was not careful to keep up 
 appearances with Martha, who had found out days before that 
 something was the matter. She was almost ghastly in her pale- 
 ness, and there was an utter languor of despair about her atti- 
 tude and her look, which alarmed Everard in the highest degree. 
 But he could not stop the first wortJs that rose upon his lips, or 
 subdue altogether the cheery tone which came naturally from 
 his satisfied feelings. '' Aunt Susan," he cried, " come along, 
 come down-stairs, now's your time. I have been telling stories 
 of Whiteladies to disgust her, and I believe now you could buy 
 them off with a small annuity. Aunt Susan ! forgive my noise, 
 you are ill." 
 
 " No no," she said with a gasp and a forlorn smile. " No, 
 only tired. What did you say, Everard ? whom am I to buy 
 off 1 " This was a last effort at keeping up appearances. It 
 seemed to strike her all at once that this was an ungrateful 
 way of treating one who had been taking so much trouble on 
 her account. " Forgive me, Everard," she said ; " I have been 
 dozing, and my head is muddled. Buy them off ? To be sure, 
 I should have thought of that ; for an annuity, after all, though 
 
FJl 
 
 278 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I have no right to give it, is better than having them settled 
 in the house." 
 
 " Far better, since you dislike them so much," said Everard ; 
 " I don't, for my part. She is not so bad. She is very hand- 
 some, and there's some fun in her." 
 
 " Fun ! " Miss Susan rose up very tremulous and uncertain 
 and looking ten years older, with her face ashy pale, and a 
 tottering in her steps, all brought about by this unwelcome 
 visitor ; and to hear of fun in connection with Giovanna, made 
 her sharply, unreasonably angry for the time. " You should 
 choose your words better at such a moment," she said. 
 
 " Never mind my words, come and speak to her," cried 
 Everard. He was very curious and full of wonder, seeing there 
 was something below the surface more than met his eyes, and 
 that the mystery was far more mysterious than his idea of it. 
 Miss Susan hesitated more than ever, and seemed as if she 
 would have gone back before they reached the stairs, but ho 
 kept up her courage. " When it's only a little money, and you 
 can afford it," he said. " You don't care so much for a little 
 money." 
 
 " No, I don't care much for a little money," she repeated 
 after him mechanically, as she went down stairs. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 279 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 EISS SUSAN went into the drawing-room in the same 
 dim light in which Everard had left it. She was ir- 
 ritable and impatient in her misery. She would have 
 liked to turn up all the lamps, and throw a flood of light upon 
 the stranger whose attitude on the sofa was equally indolent 
 and indecorous. Why was she there at all ? what right had 
 she to extend herself at full length, to make herself so comfort- 
 able ? That Giovanna should be comfortable did not do Miss 
 Susan any further harm ; but she felt as if it did, and a foun- 
 tain of hot wrath surged up in her heart. This, however, she 
 felt was not the way in which she could do any good, so she 
 made an effort to restrain herself. She sat down in Everard 's 
 seat which he had left. She was not quite sure whether he 
 himself were not lingering in the shadows at the door of the 
 room, and this made her difficulty the greater in what she had 
 to say. 
 
 " Do you like this darkness ? " she asked. ^' It is oppressive 
 we cannot see to do anything." 
 
 " Me, I don't want to do anything," said Giovanna. " I 
 sleep and I dream. This is more pleasant to me. Madame 
 Suzanne loves occupation. Me, I do not." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Susan with suppressed impatience, " that 
 is one of the differences between us. You wanted me to make 
 an allowance for the child, and I refused. Indeed, it is not my 
 business, for Whiteladies is not mine. But now that I have 
 thought of it, I will consent. It would be so much better for 
 you to travel with your father-in-law than alone." 
 
 Giovanna turned her face towards her companion with again 
 that laughing devil in her eye. " Madame Suzanne mistakes. 
 The bon-papa spoke of his rente that he loves, not me. If ces 
 dames will give me money to dress myself, to be more like 
 them, that will be well ; but it was the bon-papa, not me." 
 
 " Never mind who it was," said Miss Susan, on the verge of 
 losing her temper. " One or the other, I suppose it is all the 
 same. I will give you your allowance." 
 
280 
 
 WHlTELi^DIE8. 
 
 "To dress myself? thanks, that will be well. Then I can 
 follow the mode Anglaise, and have something to wear the 
 evening, like Madame Suzanne herself." 
 
 " For the child ! " cried the suffering woman, in a voice 
 which to Everard, behind backs, sounded like low and muffled 
 thunder. " To support him and you, to keep you independent, 
 to make you comfortable at home among your own people — " 
 
 " Merci ! " cried Giovanna, shrugging her shoulders. " That 
 is the bon-papa's idea, as I tell madame, not mine. Comfort- 
 able ! with my belle-m^re I Listen, Madame Suzanne — I have 
 been thinking. If you will accept me with bounty, you shall 
 not be sorry. I can make myself good. I can be useful, 
 though it is not what I like best I stay — I make myself 
 your child " 
 
 " I do not want you," cried Miss Susan, stung beyond her 
 strength of self-control, " I do not want you. I will pay you 
 anything to get you away." 
 
 Giovanna's eyes gave forth a gleam. " Tr^s bien," she said 
 calml3^ " Then I shall stay, if madame pleases or not. It is 
 what I have intended from the beginning, and I do not change 
 my mind, me." 
 
 " But if I say you shall not stay ! " said Miss Susan wrought 
 to fury, and pushing back her chair from the table. 
 
 Giovanna raised herself on her elbow, and leant across the 
 table, fixing the other with her great eyes. 
 
 " Once more, ti^s bien," she said in a significant tone, too 
 low for Everard to hear, but not a whisper. " Tr^s bien ! 
 Madame then wishes me to tell not only M. Herbert, but the 
 bonne soeur, madame's sister, and ce petit monsieur-14 1 " 
 
 Miss Susan sat and listened like a figure of stone. Her colour 
 changed out of the flush of anger which had lighted it up, and 
 grew again ashy pale. From her labouring breast there came 
 a great gasp, half groan, half sob. She looked at the remorse- 
 less creature opposite with a piteous prayer coming into her 
 eyes. First rage, which was useless ; then entreaty, more use- 
 less still. " Have pity on me ! have pity on me," she said. 
 
 " But certainly ! " said Giovanna, sinking back upon her 
 cushions with a soft laugh. " Certainly ! I am not cruel, me ; 
 but I am comfortable, and I stav." 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 281 
 
 " She will not hear of it," said Miss Susan, meeting Everard's 
 anxious looks as she passed hiro, hurrying up-stairs. ** Never 
 mind me. Everard, never mind ! we shall do well enough. 
 Do not say any more about it. Never mind I never mind ! It 
 is time we were all in bed." 
 
 " But, Aunt Susan, tell me " 
 
 " No, no, there is nothing to tell," she said hurrying from 
 him. " Do not let us say any more about it. It is time we 
 w^ere all in bed." 
 
 The next day M. Guillaume left Whiteladies, after a very 
 melancholy parting with his little grandchild. The old man 
 sobbed, and the child sobbed for sympathy. " Thou wilt be 
 good to hiro, Giovanna ! " he said weeping. Giovanna stood 
 and looked on with a smile on her face. ** Bon papa, it is easy 
 to cry," she said ; " but you do not want him without a rente ; 
 weep then for the rente, not for the child." " Heartless ! " cried 
 the old shopkeeper, turning from her ; and her laugh, though 
 it was quite low, did sound heartless to the bystanders ; yet 
 there was some truth in what she said. M. Guillaume went 
 away in the morning, and Everard in the afternoon. The 
 young man was deeply perplexed and disturbed. He had been 
 a witness of the conclusive interview on the previous night 
 without hearing all that was said ; yet he had heard enough to 
 show him that something lay behind of which he was not cog- 
 nisant — something which made Miss Susan unwillingly submit 
 to an encumbrance which she hated, and which made her more 
 deeply, tragically unhappy than a woman of her spotless life 
 and tranquil age had any right to be. To throw such a woman 
 into passionate distress, and make her, so strong in her good 
 sense, so reasonable and thoroughly acquainted with the world, 
 bow her head under an irritating and unnecessary yoke, there 
 must be some cause more potent than anything Everard could 
 divine. He made an attempt to gain her confidence before he 
 went away ; but it was still more fruitless than before. The 
 only thing she would say was, that she could speak no more 
 on the subject. " There is nothing to say. She is here now 
 for good or for evil, and we must make the best of it. Prob- 
 ably we shall get on better than we think," said Miss Susan ; 
 and that was all he could extract from her. He went away 
 piore disturbed than he could tell ; his curiosity was excited a^ 
 
2«2 
 
 WIlITELAniKS. 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 4. 
 
 well as his sympathy, and though, after a while, his natural re- 
 luctance to dwell on painful subjects made him attempt to turn 
 his mind from this, yet the evident mystery to be found out 
 made that attempt more hard than usual. Everard was alto- 
 gether in a somewhat uncertain and wavering state of mind at 
 the time. He had returned from his compulsory episode of 
 active life rather better in fortune, and with a perception of his 
 own unoccupied state, which had never disturbed him before. 
 He had not got to love work, which is a thing which requires 
 either genius or training. He honestly believed, indeed, that 
 he hated work, as was natural to a young man of his education ; 
 but having been driven to it, and discovered in himself, to his 
 great surprise, some faculty for it, his return to what he thought 
 his natural state had a somewhat strange effect upon him. To 
 do nothing was, no doubt, his natura) state. It was freedom ; 
 it was happiness (passive) ; it was the most desirable condition 
 of existence. All this he felt to be true. He was his own 
 master, free to go where he would, do what he would, amuse 
 himself as he liked ; and yet the conclusion of the time when 
 he had not been his own master — when he had been obliged to 
 do this and that, to move here and there not by his own will, 
 but as necessity demanded — had left a sense of vacancy in his 
 life. He was dissatisfied with his leisure and his freedom ; 
 they were not so good, not so pleasant, as they had once been. 
 He had known storm and tempest, and all the expedients by 
 which men triumph over these commotions, and the calm of 
 his inland existence wearied him, though he had not yet gone 
 so far as to confess it to himself. 
 
 This made him think more of the mystery of Whiteladies. 
 than perhaps he would have done otherwise, and moved him so 
 far as to indite a letter to Reine, in which perhaps more mo- 
 tives than that of interest in Miss Susan's troubles were involved. 
 He had left them when the sudden storm which he had now 
 surmounted had appeared on the horizon at a very critical mo- 
 ment of his intercourse with Eeine ; and then they had been 
 cast altogether apart, driven into totally different channels for 
 two years. Two years is a long time or a short time, according 
 to the constitution of the mind and the nature of circumstances. 
 It had been about a century to Everard, and he had developed 
 a different being. And now this different being, brought back 
 
 
 
WHITEI.ADrES. 
 
 283 
 
 to the oH life, did not well know what to do with himself. 
 Should he go and join his cousins again, amuse himself, see the 
 world and perhaps renew some things that were past 
 and rdunite a link half broken, half unmade ? Any how 
 he wi ote to Reine, setting forth that Aunt Susan was ill and 
 very qui'er — thatthere was a visitor at VVhiteladies, of a very 
 novel and unusual character — that the dear old house threatened 
 to be turned upside down — fourthly and accidentally, that he 
 had a great mind to spend the next six months on the Continent. 
 Where were they going for the winter 1 Only ladies, they say, 
 put their chief subject in a postscript. Everard put his under 
 care of a " By-the-bye" in the last two lines of his letter. The 
 difference between the two modes is not very great. 
 
 And thus, while the young man meditated change, which is 
 natural to his age, in which renovation and revolution are always 
 possible, the older people at Whiteladies settled down to make 
 the best of it, which is the philosophy of their age. To say the 
 older people is incorrect, for it was Miss Susan only who had 
 anything novel or heavy to endure. Miss Augustine liked the 
 new guest, who for some time went regularly to the Almshouse 
 services with her, and knelt devoutly, and chanted forth the 
 hymns with a full rich voice, which indeed silenced the quaver- 
 ing tones of the old folks, but filled the chapel with such a 
 flood of melody as had never been heard there before. Gio- 
 vanna enjoyed singing. She had a fine natural voice, but little 
 instruction, and no opportunity at the moment of getting at any- 
 thing better in the way of music ; so that she was glad of the 
 hymns which gave her pleasure at once in the exercise of her 
 voice, and in the agreeable knowledge that she was making a 
 sensation. As much of a crowd as was possible in St. Austin's 
 began to gather in the Almshouse garden when she was known 
 to be about to sing ; and though Mrs. Richard instinc- 
 tively disapproved of her, the Doctor was somewhat proud of 
 this addition to his service. Giovanna went regularly with her 
 patroness, and gained Augustine's heart, as much as that 
 abstracted heart could be gained, and made herself not unpopu- 
 lar with the poor people, to whom she would speak in her im- 
 perfect English with more <^amiliarity than the ladies ever 
 indulged in, and from whom, in lieu of better, she was quite 
 yeady to receive compliments about her singing and her beauty. 
 
284 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 Once, indeed, she sang songs to them in their garden, to the 
 great entertainment of the old Almshouse folks. She was caught 
 in the act by Mrs. Richard, who rushed to the rescue of her 
 gentility with feelings which I will not attempt to describe. 
 The old lady ran out breathless at the termination of a song, 
 with a flush upon her pretty old cheeks, and caught the idno- 
 vator by the arm. 
 
 " The Doctor is at home, and I am just going to give him a 
 cup of tea," she said ; "won't you come and have some with 
 
 us r' 
 
 Mrs. Richard's tidy little bosom heaved under her black silk 
 gown with consternation and dismay. 
 
 Giovanna was not at all willing to give up her alfresco enter- 
 tainment. " But I will return, I will return," she said. 
 
 " Do, madam, do ; " cried the old people, who were va^ely 
 pleased by her music, and more keenly delighted by having a 
 new event to talk about, and the power of wondering what 
 Miss Augustine (poor thing !) would think y and Mrs. Richard 
 led Giovanna in, with her hand upon her arm, fearful lest her 
 prisoner should escape. 
 
 " It is very good of you to sing to them, but it is not a thing 
 that is done in England," said the little old lady. 
 
 " I love to sing," said Giovanna, " and I shall come often. 
 They have not any one to amuse them ; and neither have I," 
 she added with a sigh. 
 
 " My dear, you must speak to the Doctor about it," said 
 Mrs. Richard. 
 
 Giovanna was glad of any change, even of little Dr. Richard 
 and the cup of tea, so she was submissive enough for the mo- 
 ment ; and to see her between these two excellent and orderly 
 little people was an edifying sight. 
 
 " No, it is not usual," said Dr. Richard, " my wife is right ; 
 but it is very kind-hearted of madame, my dear, to wish to 
 amuse the poor people. There is nothing to be said against 
 that." 
 
 " Very kind-hearted," said Mrs. Richard, though with less 
 enthusiasm. '< It is all from those foreigners' love of display," 
 she said in her heart. 
 
 " But perhaps it v^ould be wise to consult Miss Augustine, 
 and — an^ other friend vou may have confidence in," said tl^9 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 285 
 
 to the 
 caught 
 of her 
 )8cribe. 
 % Bong, 
 le iiino- 
 
 j him a 
 ae with 
 
 lack silk 
 
 CO enter- 
 
 i. 
 
 va^ely 
 aaving a 
 ng what 
 Richard 
 1 lest her 
 
 »t a thing 
 
 me often, 
 have I," 
 
 it," said 
 
 Richard 
 the mo- 
 orderly 
 
 is right ; 
 wish to 
 id against 
 
 with less 
 display," 
 
 ^ugustine, 
 ** said th^ 
 
 Doctor. " People are so very censorious, and we must not 
 give any occasion for evil-speaking." 
 
 ** I think exactly with Dr. Richard, my dear," said the old 
 lady. " X am sure that would be the best." 
 
 " But I have nothing done to consult about," ';.ied the cul- 
 prit' surprised. She sipped her tea, and eat a large piece of 
 the good people's cake, however, and let them talk. When she 
 was not crossed, Giovanna was perfectly good-humoured. " I 
 will sing to you, if you please," she said when she had finished. 
 
 The Doctor and his wife looked at each other, and professed 
 their delight in the proposal. " But we have no piano," they 
 said in chorus with embarrassed looks. 
 
 " What does that do to me, when I can sing without it 1 " 
 said Giovanna. And she lifted up her powerful voice, " almost 
 too much for a drawing-room," Mrs. Richard said aft?irwards, 
 and sane them one of the ie gay peasant songs that abound in 
 Italy, where every village has its own canzone. She sang seated 
 where she had been taking her tea, and without seeming to 
 miss an accompaniment, they remarked to each other, as if she 
 had been a ballad-singer. It was pretty enough, but so very 
 unusual I " Of course foreigners cannot be expected to know 
 what is according to the rules of society in England," Mrs. 
 Richard said with conscious indulgence ; but she put on her 
 bonnet, and walked with " Madame " part of the way to 
 Whiteladies, that she might not continue her performance in 
 the garden. ** Miss Augustine might think, or Miss Susan 
 might think) that we countenanced it ; and in the Doctor's 
 position that would never do," said the old lady, breathing her 
 troubles into the ear of a confidential friend whom she met on 
 her way home. And Dr. Richard himself felt the danger not 
 less strongly than she. 
 
 Other changes, however, happened to Giovanna as she settled 
 down at Whiteladies. She was without any fixed principles of 
 morality, and had no code of any kind which interfered with 
 her free action. To give up doing anything she wanted to do 
 because it involved lying, or any kind of spiritual dishonesty, 
 would never have occurred to her, nor was she capable of per- 
 ceiving that there was anything wrong in securing her own 
 advantage as she had done. But she was by no means all bad, 
 any more than truthful and honourable persons are all good. 
 
286 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ' ' 
 
 Her own advantage, or what she thought her own advantage, 
 and her own way, were paramount considerations with her ; 
 but having obtained these, Giovanna had no wish to hurt any- 
 body, or to be unkind. S!ie was indolent, and loved ease, but 
 still she was capable of taking trouble now and then to do a 
 kindness. She had had no moral training, and all her faculties 
 were obtuse ; and she had seen no prevailing rule but that of 
 selfishness. Selftshness takes different aspects, according to 
 the manner in which you look at it. When you have to main- 
 tain hardly, by a constant struggle, your own self against the 
 encroachments and still more rampant selfishness of others, the 
 struggle confers a certain beauty upon the object of it. 
 Giovanna had wanted to have her own way, like the others of 
 the family, but had been usually thrust into a corner, and pre- 
 vented from having it. What wonder that, when she had a 
 chance for this, she seized it, and emancipated herself, and 
 secured her comfort, with the total disregard to others which 
 she had been used to see ? But now, havmg got this — having 
 for the moment all she wanted — an entire exemption from work, 
 an existence full of external comfort, and circumstances around 
 her which flattered her with the sense of an elevated position, 
 she began to think a little. Nothing was exacted of her. If 
 Miss Susan was not kind to her, she was not at least unkind, 
 only withdrawing from her as much as possible, a thing which 
 Giovanna felt to oe quite natural ; and in the quiet and silence 
 the young woman's mind began to work. I do not say her 
 conscience, for that was not in the least awakened, nor was she 
 conscious of any penitential regret in thinking of the past, or 
 religious resolution for the future : it was her mind only that 
 was concerned. She thought it might be as well to make cer- 
 tain changes in her habits. In her new existence, certain 
 modifications of the old use and wont seemed reasonable. And 
 then there gradually developed in her an invaluable possession 
 which sometimes does more for the character than high prin- 
 ciple or good intention — a sense of the ludicrous. This was 
 what Everard meant when he said there was fun in her. She 
 had a sense of Iiumour, a sense of the incongruities which affect 
 some minds so much more powerfully by the fact of being 
 absurd, than by the fact of being wrong. Giovanna, without 
 any actual good motive, thus felt the necessity of amending 
 herself, and making various changes in her life. 
 
WHITRLADIES. 
 
 2H7 
 
 her ; 
 i any- 
 e, but 
 3 do a 
 culties 
 Aiat of 
 ing to 
 » main- 
 iBt the 
 318, the 
 
 of it. 
 ihers of 
 nd pre- 
 e had a 
 (If, and 
 •8 which 
 -having 
 m work, 
 3 around 
 position, 
 
 her. If 
 unkind, 
 
 jg which 
 
 d silence 
 
 say her 
 
 was she 
 
 past, or 
 
 >nly that 
 
 ■ ;e cer- 
 
 „ certain 
 >lo. And 
 tossession 
 lieh prin- 
 
 iThis was 
 ler. She 
 ich affect 
 of being 
 -, without 
 amending 
 
 TIiIh, it may ho Hiipposud, took Honw iiiiK; to Wovrlop; and 
 in the meantime the household in which sliu had become so 
 very distinct a part, had to make up its mind to her, and re- 
 sume as best it could its natural habits and use and wont, with 
 the addition of this stranger in the midst. As for the servants, 
 their instinctive repugnance to a foreigner and a new inmate 
 was lessened from the very first by tlio introduction of the 
 child, who conciliated the maids, and thus made them forgive 
 his mother the extra rooms they had to arrange, and the extra 
 work necessary. The child was fortunately an engaging and 
 merry child, and as he got used to the strange faces round him^ 
 became the delight and pride and amusement of the house. 
 Cook was still head nurse, and derived an increased importance 
 and satisfaction from her supremacy. I doubt if she had ever 
 before felt the dignity and happiness of her position as a 
 married woman half so much as now, when that fact alone (as 
 the others felt) gave her a mysterious capacity for the manage- 
 ment of the child. The maids overlooked the fact that the 
 child's mother, though equally a married woman, was absolutely 
 destitute of this power ; but accuracy of reasoning is not 
 necessary in such an argument, and the entire household bowed 
 to the superior endowments of Cook. The child's pattering, 
 sturdy little feet, and crowings of baby laughter becam ' the 
 music of Whiteladies, the pleasant accompaniment to which the 
 lives at least of the little community in the kitchen were set. 
 Miss Susan, being miserable, resisted the fascination, and Augus- 
 tine was too abstract to be sensible of it ; but the servants 
 yielded as one woman, and even Stevens succumbed almost at 
 once. Now and then even, a bell would ring inefifectually in 
 that well-ordered house, and the whole group of attendants be 
 found clustered together worshipping before the baby, who had 
 produced some new wc. d, or made some manifestation of super- 
 natural cleverness ; and the sound of the child pervaded all 
 that part of the house in which the servants were supreme. 
 They forgave his mother for being there because she had 
 brought him, and if at the same time they hated her for her 
 neglect of him, the hatred was kept passive by a perception 
 that, but for this insensibility on her part, the child could not 
 have been allowed thus fully and pleasantly to minister to 
 them. 
 
288 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 As for Miss Susan, who had felt as though nothing could 
 make her endure the presence of Giovanna, she too was affected 
 unwittingly by the soft effects of time. It was true that no 
 ««ntiment, no principle in existence was strong enough to 
 make her accept this unwilling guest. Had she been bidden 
 to do it in order to make atonement for her own guilt, or as 
 penance for that guilt, earning its forgiveness, or out of pity 
 or Christian feeling, sho would have pronounced the effort im- 
 possible ; and impossible she had still thought it when she 
 watched with despair the old shopkeeper's departure, and re- 
 flected with a sense of suffering intolerable and not to be borne 
 that he had left behind him this terrible witness against her, 
 this instrument of her punishment. Miss Susan had paced 
 about her room in restless anguish, saying to herself under her 
 breath that he^ punishment was greater than she could bear. 
 She had felt with a sickening sense of helplessness and hope- 
 lessness that she could never go downstairs again, ne; er take 
 her place at that table, never eat or drink ir? the company of 
 this new inmate whom she could not free Serseif from. And 
 for a few days, indeed, Miss Susan kept on inventing little 
 ailments which kept her in her own room. But this could not 
 last. She had a hundred things to look after which made it 
 necessary for her to be about, to be visible ; and gradually there 
 grew upon her a stirring of curiosity to see how things went 
 on, with that woman always there. And then sh( resumed 
 her ordinary habits, came down-stairs, sat down at the familiar 
 table, and by degrees found herself getting accustomed to the 
 new-comer. Strangest effect of those calm monotonous days ! 
 Nothing would have made her do it knowingly, but soft pres- 
 sure of time made her do it. Things quieted down ; the alien 
 was there, and there was no possibility of casting her out ; 
 and, most wonderful of all, Miss Susan got used to her, in 
 spite of herself. 
 
 And Giovanna, for her part, began to think. 
 
 f\' 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 289 
 
 could 
 fected 
 at no 
 gh to 
 )idden 
 
 or as 
 3f pity 
 3Tt im- 
 en she 
 gind re- 
 ) borne 
 ist her, 
 L paced 
 der her 
 d bear, 
 i hope- 
 er take 
 pany of 
 I. And 
 ig little 
 )uld not 
 made it 
 lly there 
 igs went 
 resumed 
 familiar 
 I to the 
 us days ! 
 loft pres- 
 the alien 
 ler out ; 
 
 her, in 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 lOVAKNA possessed that quality which is commouly 
 called common sense, though I doubt if she was her- 
 self aw&re of it. She had never before been in a 
 position in which this good sense could tell much, or in which 
 even it was called forth to any purpose. Her lot had always 
 been determined for her by others. She had never, until the 
 coming of the child, been in a position in which it mattered 
 much one way or another what she thought ; and since that 
 eventful moment her thinkings had not been of an edifying 
 description. They had been chiefly bent on the consideration 
 how to circumvent the others who were using her for their pur- 
 pose, and to work advantage to herself out of the circumstances 
 which, for the tirst time in her life, gave her the mastery. 
 Now, she had done this ; she had triumphantly overcome all 
 difiliculties, and riding over everybody's objections, had es- 
 tablished herself here in comfort. Giovanna had expected a 
 constant conflict with Miss Susan, who was her enemy, and 
 over whom she had got the victory. She had looked for 
 nothing better than a daily fight — rather enlivening, all things 
 considered — with the mistress of the house, to whom, she 
 knew, she was so unwelcome a guest She had anticipated a 
 long-continued struggle, in which she should have to hold her 
 own, and defend heir'^lf, hour by hour. When the found that 
 this wai> not going to be the case — that poor Miss Susan, in 
 her misery and downfall, ga^e up and disappeared, and, even 
 when she returned again to her ordinisry habits, treated herself, 
 Giovanna, with no harshness, and was oL\ly silent and cold, 
 not insulting and disagreeable, a great deal of surprise arose 
 in her mind. There were no little vengeances taken upon her, 
 no jibes directed against her, no tasks attempted to be imposed. 
 Miss Augustine, the bonne sour, who no doubt (and this Gio- 
 anna could understand) acted from religious motives, was as 
 kind to her as it was in her abstract nature to be, talking to 
 her on subjects which the young woman did not understand, 
 S 
 
•MM^^M 
 
 290 
 
 WHJTELADIKS. 
 
 but to which she assented easily, to please the other, about the 
 salvation of the race, and how if anything h ippened to Herbert, 
 there- might be a great work possible to his successor ; but even 
 Miss Susan, who was hex* adversary, was not unkind to her, 
 only cold, and this> Giovanna, accustomed to much rough usage, 
 was not refined enough to take much note of. Accordingly it 
 occurred to her, thinking on the subject, that it might be worth 
 while to put herself more in accord with her position ; the 
 situation was novel, and Giovanna felt instinctively the in- 
 fluence of the high breeding of her present companions. The 
 first result of her cogitations became evident one winter day, 
 when all was dreary out of doors, and Miss Susan, who avoided 
 as long as she could the place in which Giovanna was, felt her- 
 self at last compelled to take refuge in the drawing-room. 
 There sLq found, to her great amazement, the young woman 
 seated on the rug before the fire, playing with the child, who, 
 seated on her lap, seemed as perfectly at home there as on the 
 ample lap of its beloved Cook. Miss Susan started visibly at 
 this unaccustomed sight, but said nothing. It was not her 
 
 She drew her 
 up her book. 
 She had been 
 and read only 
 
 custom to say anything she could help saying, 
 chair aside to be out of thtnr way, and took 
 Tliis wdii another notable change in her habits, 
 used to workj knitting the silent hours away, 
 at set times, set ap :»rt for this purpose by the habit of years — 
 and then always what she called " standard books." Now, Miss 
 Susan, though her knitting was always at hand, knitted scarcely 
 at all, but read continually novels, and all the light literature 
 of the circulating library. She M'as scarcoiy herself aware of 
 this change. It is a sign of the state of mind in which we 
 have too much to think of, as well as of that m which Wd have 
 nothing to think of at all. . 
 
 And I think if any stranger had seen that pretty group, the 
 beautiful young mother cooing over the child, playing with it 
 and caressing it, the child responding by all manner of baby 
 tricks and laughter, and soft clingings and claspings, while 
 the elder woman sat silent and grey, taking no notice of them ; 
 he would havo set the elder won an down as the severest and 
 sternest of grandmothers — the father's mother, no doubt, 
 emblem of the genus mother-in-lav/, which so many clever 
 persons have held up to odium. To tell the truth, Miss Susan 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 291 
 
 lOut the 
 
 lerbert, 
 
 ut even 
 
 I to her, 
 
 h usage, 
 
 lingly it 
 
 )e worth 
 
 ion ; the 
 the in- 
 
 18. The 
 
 liter day, 
 
 ) avoided 
 felt her- 
 
 ing-room. 
 
 ig woman 
 
 \ild, who, 
 as on the 
 
 visibly at 
 
 as not her 
 
 ) drew her 
 
 her book, 
 had been 
 read only 
 •f years — 
 
 [Kow, Miss 
 id scarcely 
 . literature 
 if aware of 
 . which we 
 [ch Wd have 
 
 [group, the 
 )ing with it 
 ler of baby 
 Ings, while 
 3e of them ; 
 Bverest and 
 no doubt, 
 lany clever 
 [Miss Susan 
 
 had some difficulty in going on -iyith her readi ig, with the 
 sound of those baby babblings in her ear. She was thunder- 
 struck at first by the scene, and then felt unreasonably angry. 
 Was nature nothing then 1 She had thought the child's dislike 
 of Giovanna — though it was painful to see — was appropriate 
 to the circumstances, and had in it a species of poetic justice. 
 Had it been but a pretence, or what did this sudden fondness 
 mean 1 She kept silent as long as she could, but after a time 
 the continual babble grew too much for her. 
 
 ♦' You have grown very suddenly fond of the child, Madame 
 Jean," she said abruptly. 
 
 " Fond ! " said Giovanna, " that is a strange word, that Eng- 
 lish word of yours ; I can make him love me — here." 
 
 " You did not love him elsewhere, so far I have heard," said 
 Miss Susan, "and that is the best way to gain love." 
 
 " Madame Suzanne, I wish to speak to you," said Giovanna. 
 " At Bruges I was never anything ; they said the child was more 
 gentil, more sage with Geitrude. Well ; it might be he was ; 
 they said I knew nothing about children, that I could not learn 
 — that it was not in ny nature ; things which were pleasant, 
 which were re-assuring, don't you think ? That was one of the 
 reasons why I came away." 
 
 " You did not show much power of managing him, it must 
 be confessed, when you came here." 
 
 " No," said Giovanna, "■ It was harder than I thought. Tliese 
 babies, they have no reason. When you say, ' Be still, I am thy 
 mother, be still ! ' it does not touch them. What they like is 
 kisses and cakes, and that you should make what in England is 
 called ' a fuss ;' that is the hardest, making a fuss ; but when it 
 is done, all is done. Voila ! Now he loves me. If Gertrude ap- 
 proached, he would run to me and cry. Ah, that would make 
 me happy ' " 
 
 " Then it is to spite Gertrude " — Miss Susan began, in her 
 severest voice. 
 
 " No, no ; I only contemplate that as a pleasure, a pleasure 
 to come. No, I am not very fond of to read, like you, Madame 
 Suzanne. Besides, there is not anything more to read ; and so 
 I reflect. 1 reflect with myself, that not to have love with one's 
 child, or at least amiti6, is very strange. It is droll ; it gives 
 to think ; aild people will stare and say, ' Is that Jw. chUd ? ' 
 
"TT 
 
 f H 
 
 f li 
 
 i 
 
 
 •'•■I 
 
 292 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 This is what I reflect within myself. To try before would have 
 been without use, for always there was Gertrude, or my belle- 
 mere, or some one. They cry out, * G'vanna, touch it not, thou 
 wilt injure the baby ! ' ' G'vanna, give it to me, thou knowest 
 nothing of children ! ' And when I came away it was more 
 hard than I thought. Babies have not sense to know when it is 
 their mother. I said co myself, * Here is a perverse one, who 
 hates me like the rest,* and I was angry. I beat him — ^you 
 would have beat him also, Madame Suzanne, if he had screamed 
 when you touched him. And then — petit drdle ! — he screamed 
 more." 
 
 " Very natural," said Miss Susan. " If you had any heart, 
 you would not beat a baby like that." 
 
 Giovanna's eyes flashed. She lifted her hand quickly, as if 
 to give a blow of recollection now; but, changing her mind, 
 she caught the child up in her arms, and laid his little flushed 
 cheek to hers. " A pr6sent, tu m'aimes ! " she said. " When 
 I saw how the others did, I knew I could do it too. Also, Mar 
 dame Suzanne, I recollected that a mother should have de 
 I'amiti^ for her child." 
 
 . Miss Susan gave a short contemptuous laugh. '' It is a fine 
 thing to have found that out at last," she said. 
 
 "And I have reflected. further," said Giovanna — "Yes, dar- 
 ling, thou shalt have these jolies choses ; " and with this, she 
 took calmly from the table one of a very finely-carved set of 
 chessmen, Indian work, which ornamented it. Miss Susan 
 started, and put out her hand to e ,ve the ivory knight, but the 
 little fellow had already grasped it, and a sudden scream arose. 
 
 " For shame ! Madame Suzanne," cried Giovanna, with fun 
 sparkling in her eyes. " You, too, then, have no heart ! " 
 
 " This is totally different from kindness ; this is spoiling the 
 child," cried Miss Susan. " My ivory chessmen, which were 
 my mother's ! Take it away from him at once." 
 
 Giovanna wavered a moment between fun and prudence, then 
 coaxing the child adroitly with something else less valuable, got 
 the knight from him, and replaced it on the table. Then she 
 resumed where she had broken off". " I have reflected further, 
 that it is bad to fight in a house. You take me for your enemy, 
 Madame Suzanne 1 — eh bien, I am not your enemy. I do 
 nothing against you. I se^k what is good for me, as all do." 
 
WIHTELilDIES. 
 
 293 
 
 " All don't do it at the cost of other people's comfort — at 
 the cost of everything that is worth caring for in another's life." 
 
 This Miss Susan said low, with her eyes bent on the fire, to 
 herself rather than to Giovanna ; from whom, indeed, she ex- 
 pected no response. 
 
 *' Mon Dieu ! it is not like that," cried the young woman ; 
 **what is it that I do to you 1 Nothing ! I do not trouble, 
 nor tease, nor ask for anything, I am contented with what you 
 give me. I have come here, and I find it well ; but you, what is it 
 that I do to you 1 I do not interfere. It is but to see me (»ne 
 time in a day, two times, perhaps. Listen, it cannot be so bad 
 for you to see me even two times in a day as it would be for me 
 to go back to my belle-m^re." 
 
 " But you have no right to be here," said Miss Susan, shaking 
 her grey dress free from the baby's grasp, who had rolled softly 
 off the young woman's knee, and now sat on the carpet be- 
 tween them. His little babble went on all through their talk. 
 The plaything Giovanna had given him — a paper-knife of carved 
 ivory — was a delightful weapon to the child ; he struck the 
 floor with it, which under no possibility could be supposed capa- 
 ble of motion, and then the legs of the chair, on which Miss 
 Susan sat, which afforded a more likely steed. Miss Susan had 
 hard ado to pull her skirts from the soft round baby fingers, as 
 the child lookx^d up at her with great eyes, which laughed in her 
 angiy face. It was all she could do to keep her heart from 
 melting to him ; but then, the woman ! who looked at her with 
 eyes which were not angry, nor disagreeable, wooing her to 
 smile, which not for the world, and all it contained, would she 
 do. 
 
 " Always I have seen that one does what one can for one's 
 self," said Giovanna ; " shall I think of you first, instead of my- 
 self? But no ! is there any in the world who does that ? But 
 no ! it is contrary to reason. I do my best for me ; and then I 
 reflect ; now that I am well off, I will hurt no one. I will be 
 friends if Madame Suzanne will. I wish not to trouble her. I 
 will show de I'amiti^ for her as well as for le petit. Thus it 
 should be when we live in one house." 
 
 Giovanna spoke with a certain earnestness as of honest con- 
 viction. She had no sense of irony in her mind ; but Miss 
 Susan had a deep sense of irony, and felt herself insulted when 
 
u 
 
 294 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 she was thus addressed by the intruder who had found her way 
 into the house, and made havoc of her life. She got up hastily 
 to her feet, overturning the child, who had now seated himself 
 on her dress, and for whom this hasty movement had all the 
 effect of an earthquake. She did not even notice this, how- 
 ever, and paid no attention to his cries, but fell to walking 
 about the room in a state of impatience and excitement which 
 would not be kept under. 
 
 " You do well to teach me what people should do who live in 
 one house I " cried Miss Susan. " It comes gracefully from you 
 who have forced yourself into my house against my will — who 
 are a burden, and insupportable to me — you and your child. 
 Take him away, or you will drive me mad. I cannot hear my- 
 self speak." 
 
 " Hush, mon ange," said Giovanna ; " hush, here is some- 
 thing else that is pretty for thee — hush ! and do not make the 
 bonne maman angry. Ah, pardon, Madame Suzanne, you are 
 not the bonne maman — but you look almost like her when you 
 look like thut ! " 
 
 " You are very impertinent," said Miss Susan, flushing high ; 
 for to compare her to Madame Austin of Bruges was more than 
 she could bear. 
 
 " That is still more like her ! " said Giovanna ; " the belle- 
 m^re often tells me I am impertinent. Can I help it then ? if 
 I say what I think, that cannot be wrong. But you are not 
 really like the bonne maman, Madame Suzanne," she added, 
 subduing the malice in her eyes. " You hate me, but you do 
 not try to make me unhappy. You give me everything I want. 
 You do not grudge. You do not make me work. Ah, what a 
 life she would have made to one who came like me ! " 
 
 This silenced Miss Susan, in spite of herself ; for she herself 
 felt and knew that she was not at all kind to Giovanna, and 
 she was quite unaware that Giovanna was inaccessible to those 
 unkindn esses which more refined natures feel, and having the 
 substantial advantages of her reception at Whiteladies undis- 
 turbed by any practical hardship, had no further requirements 
 in a sentimental sort. Miss Susan felt that she was not kind, 
 but Giovanna did not feel it ; and as the elder woman could not 
 understand the bluntness of feeling in the younger, which pro- 
 duced this toleration, she was obliged, against her will, to see 
 
u ' 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 295 
 
 in it some indication of a higher nature. She thought reluct- 
 antly, and for the moment, that the woman, whom she loathed, 
 was better than herself. She came back to the chair as this 
 thought forced itself upon her, and sat down there and fixed 
 her eyes upon the intruder, who still held her place on the car- 
 pet at her feet. 
 
 " Why do not you go away ? " she said, tempted once more 
 to make a last eflfort for her own relief. " If you think it good 
 of me to receive you as I do, why will you not listen to my en- 
 treaties, and go away ? I will give you enough to live on ; I 
 will not grudge money ; but I cannot bear the sight of you, 
 you know that. It brings my sin, my great sin, to my mind. 
 I repent it ; but I cannot undo it," cried Miss Susan. " Oh, 
 God forgive me ! but you, Giovanna, listen ! You have done 
 wrong, too, as well as I — but it has been for your benefit, not 
 for your punishment. You should not have done it, any more 
 than me." 
 
 " Madame Suzanne," said Giovanna, " one must think of 
 one's self first ; what you call sin does not trouble me. I did 
 not begin it. I did what I was told. If it is wrong, it is for 
 the belle-m^re and yon. I am safe ; and I must think of myself. 
 It pleases me lo be l^ere, and I have my plans. But I should 
 like to show de I'amiti^ for you, Madame Suzanne — when I 
 have thought first of myself." 
 
 " But it will be no better for yourself, staying here," cried 
 Miss Susan, subduing herself forcibly. " I will give you money 
 — ^you shall live where you please " 
 
 " Pardon," said Giovanna, with a smile ; " it is to me to know, 
 I have mes id6es k moi. You all think of yourselves first. I 
 will be good friends if you v/ill ; but, first of all, there is 7ne." 
 
 " And the child ] " said Miss Susan, with strange forgetful- 
 ness, and a bizarre recollection, in her argument, of the conven- 
 tional self-devotion to be expected from a mother. 
 
 " The child, bah ! probably what will be for my advantage 
 will be also for his ; but you do not think, Madame Suzanne," 
 said Giovanna, with a laugh, regarding her closely with a look 
 which but for its perfect good-humour would have been sar- 
 castic, " that I will sacrifice myself, me, for the child ! " 
 
 " Then why should you make a pretence of loving him ] lov- 
 ing him! if you are capable of love! " cried Miss Susan, in 
 dismay. 
 
I ! 
 
 : 
 
 296 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Giovanna laughed. Slie touk the little fellow up in her arms, 
 and put his little rosy cheek against the fair oval of her own. 
 " Tu m'aimes k present/' she said ; " that ib as it ought to be. 
 One cannot have a baby and not have de I'amiti^ for him ; but, 
 naturally, first of all I will think of myself— me." 
 
 ** It is all pretence, then, your love," cried Miss Susan, once 
 more starting up wildly, with a sense that the talk, and the 
 sight of her, and the situation altogether, were intolerable. 
 " Oh, it is like you foreigners ! You pretend to love the child 
 because it is corame il faut. You want to be friendly with me 
 because it is comme il faut. And you expect me, an honest 
 Englishwoman, to accept this? Oh?" she cried, hiding her 
 face in her hands, with a pang of recollection, " I was that at 
 least before I knew you ! " 
 
 Curious perversity of nature ! For the moment Miss Susan 
 felt bitterly that the loss of her honesty and her innocence was 
 Giovanna's fault. The young woman laughed, in spite of her- 
 self, and it was not wonderful that she did so. She got up for 
 the first time from the carpet, raising the child to her shoulder. 
 But she wanted to conciliate, not to offend ; and suppressed the 
 inappropriate laughter. She^went up to where Miss Susan had 
 placed herself — thrown back in a great chair, with her face 
 covered by her hands — and touched her arm softly, not with- 
 out a certain respect for her trouble. 
 
 " I do not pretend, " she said ; " because it is comme il faut? 
 but, yes, that is all natural. Yet I do not pretend. I wish to 
 show de I'amiti^ for Madame Suzanne. I will not give up my 
 ideas, nor do what you will, instead of that which I will ; but 
 to be good friends, that is what I desire. B^b6 is satisfied 
 — ^he asks no more — he demands not the sacrifice. Why not 
 Madame Suzanne too ? " 
 
 " Go away, go away, please," cried Miss Susan, faintly. She 
 was not capable of anything more. 
 
 Giovanna shrugged her handsome shoulders, and gave an 
 appealing look round her, as if to some unseen audience. She 
 felt that nothing but native English stupidity could fail to see 
 her good sense and honest meaning. Then, perceiving further 
 argument to be hopeless, she turned away, with the child stil 
 on her shoulder, and ere she had reached the end of the pasl 
 sage, began to sing to him with her sweet rich untutored voice. 
 
WHITELADTES. 
 
 297 
 
 Hve an 
 She 
 to see 
 'urther 
 d stil 
 le pasl 
 voice. 
 
 The voice receded, carolling through all the echoes of the old 
 house like a bird, floating up the great oaken staircase, and 
 away to the extremity of the long corridor, where her room 
 was. She was perfectly light-hearted and easy-minded in the 
 resolntion to do the best for herself ; and she was perfectly 
 aware that the further scheme she had concocted for her own 
 benefit would be still more displeasing to the present mistress 
 of the house. She did not care for that the least in the world ; 
 but, honestly, she was well-disposed towards Miss Susan, and 
 not only willing but almost anxious, so far as anxiety was 
 possible to her, to establish a stskte of affairs in which they 
 might be good friends. 
 
 But to Miss Susan it was absolutely impossible to conceive 
 that thinp so incompatible could yet exist together. Perhaps 
 she was dimly aware of the incongruities in her own mind, the 
 sense of guilt and the sense of innocence which existed 
 there, in opposition, yet, somehow, in that strange concord 
 which welds the contradictions of the human soul into one, 
 despite of all incongruity ; but to realize or believe in the 
 strange mixture in Giovanna's mind was quite impossible 
 to her. She sat still with her face covered until she was quite 
 sure the young woman and her child had gone, listening, indeed 
 to the voice which went so lightly and sweetly through the pas- 
 sages. How could she sing — that woman ! whom if she had 
 never seen, Susan Austin would still have been an honest 
 woman, able to look everybody in the face ? Miss Susan knew 
 — no one better — how utterly foolish and false it was to say 
 this ; she knew that Giovanna was but the instrument, not the 
 originator, of her own guilt ; but, notwithstanding, the idea 
 having once occurred to her, that had she never seen Gio- 
 vanna, she would never have been guilty, she hugged it to her 
 bosom with an insane satisfaction, feeling as if, for the moment, 
 it was a relief. Oh that she had never seen her ! How blameless 
 she had been before that unhappy meeting ! how free of all 
 weight upon her conscience ! and now, how burdened, how 
 miserable, how despotic that conscience was! and her good 
 name dependent upon the discretion of this creature, without 
 discretion, without feeling, this false, bold foreigner, this in- 
 truder who had thrust her way into a quiet house, to destroy 
 its peace ! When she was quite sure that Giovanna was out of 
 
298 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 the way, Miss Susan went to her own room and looketl piteously 
 at her own worn face in the glass. Did that face tell the same 
 secrets to others as it did to herself 1 she wondered. She had 
 never been a vain woman, even in her youth, though she had 
 been comely enough, if not pretty ; but now, a stranger, who did 
 not know Miss Susan, might have thought her vain. She 
 looked at herself so often in the glass, pitifully studying her 
 looks, to see what could be read in them. It bad come to be 
 one of the habits of her life. 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 j'^HE winter passed slowly, as winters do, especially in the 
 silence of the country, where little happens to mark their 
 course. The autumnal fall of leaves lasted long, but at 
 length cleared off with the fogs and damps of November, leav- 
 ing the lawn and the Priory Lane outside I'ree from the faded 
 garments of the limes and beeches. Slowly, slo^vly the earth 
 turned to the deepest dark of winter, and turned back again 
 imperceptibly towards the sun. The rich brown fields turned 
 up their furrows to the darkening damp and whitening frost, 
 and lay still resting from their labours, waiting for the germs 
 to come. The trees stood out bare against the sky, betraying 
 every knob and twist upon their branches ; big lumps of grey 
 mistletoe hung in the apple-trees that bordered Priory Lane j 
 and hero and there, when the sky was blue, a lingering branch 
 of Lombardy poplar, still endued with a few leaves, turning their 
 white lining outwards, stood up like a flower. The Austin 
 Chantry was getting nearly finished, all the external work 
 having been done some time ago. It was hoped that the or- 
 namentation within would be done in time for Christmas, when 
 the chaplain, who was likewise to be the curate, and save 
 (though Mr. Gerard mentioned this to no one) sixty pounds a 
 year to the vicar, was to begin the daily eervice. This chaplain 
 was a nephew of Dr. Richard's, a good young man of very 
 High Church views, who was very ready to pray for the souls 
 of the Austin family without once thinking of the rubrics. Mr. 
 Gerard did not care for a man of such pronounced opinions ; 
 and good little Dr. Richard even, after family feeling had led 
 him to nominate his nephew, was seized with many pangs as to 
 the young Ritualist's effect upon the parish. 
 
 " He will do what Miss Augustine wants, which is what I 
 never would have done," said the warden of the Almshouses. 
 " He thinks he is a better Churchman than I am, poor fellow ! 
 but he is very careless of the Church's directions, my dear ; and 
 if you don't attend to the rubrics, where a^e you to find rest in 
 this world ? But he thinks he is a better Churchman than I." 
 
300 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 .# 
 
 <( 
 
 YcB, my dear, the rubrics have always been your groat 
 standard/' said the good wife ; but as the Rer. Mr. Wrook 
 was related to them by her side, she was reluctant to say any- 
 thing more. 
 
 Thus, however, it was with a careful and somewhat anxious 
 brow that Dr. Richard awaited the young man s arrival. He 
 saved Mr. Gerard the best part of a curate's salary, as I have 
 said. Miss Au^^stine endowed the Chantry with an income of 
 sixtv pounds a year ; and with twenty or thirty pounds added 
 to that, who could object to such salary for a curacy in a coun- 
 try place 1 The vicar's purse wp.8 the better for it, if not him- 
 self ; and he thought it likely that by careful processes of dis- 
 approval any young man in course of time might be put down. 
 The Chantry was to be opened at Christmas ; and I think (if 
 it had ever occurred to her) that Miss Augustine might then 
 have been content to sing her Nunc Dimittis ; but it never did 
 occur to her, her life being very full, and all her hours occupied 
 yet she did look fom^ard to the time when two sets of prayers 
 should be said every day for the Austins with unbounded ex- 
 pectation. Up to the middle of November I think, she almost 
 hoped (in an abstract way, meaning no harm to her nephew) 
 that something might still happen to Herbert ; for Giovanna, 
 who went with her to the Almshouse service every morning to 
 please her, seemed endowed with heavenly dispositions, and 
 ready to train up her boy — who was a ready-made child, so to 
 speak, and not uncertain, as any baby must be who has to be 
 bom to parents not yet so much as acquainted with each 
 other — to make the necessary sacrifice, and restore Whiteladies 
 to the Church. This hope failed a little after November, 
 because then, without rhyme or reason, Giovanna tired of her 
 devotions, and went to the early service no longer, though even 
 then Miss Augustine felt that little Jean (now called Johnny) 
 was within her own power, and could be trained in the way 
 in which he should go ; but anyhow, howsoever it was to be 
 accomplished, no doubt the double prayers for the race would 
 accomplish much, and something of the sweetness of an end at- 
 tained stole into Augustine's heart. 
 
 The parish and the neighbourhood also took a great interest 
 in the Chantry. Such of the neighbours as thought Miss 
 Augustine mad awaited, with a mixture of amusement' and 
 
WHITKLADIES. 
 
 .%1 
 
 ir groat 
 Wrook 
 lay any- 
 anxious 
 raX, He 
 » I have 
 icome of 
 is added 
 1 a coun- 
 not him- 
 BS of dig- 
 it down, 
 think (if 
 ght then 
 lever did 
 occupied 
 f prayers 
 nded ex- 
 le almost 
 nephew) 
 riovanna, 
 »rning to 
 ions, and 
 ild, so to 
 Las to be 
 rith each 
 dteladies 
 ovember, 
 id of her 
 ugh even 
 Johnny) 
 the way 
 '^as to be 
 ,ce would 
 m end at- 
 
 t interest 
 
 ht Miss 
 
 lent' and 
 
 1 
 
 anxiety, the opening of this new chapel, which was said to he 
 unlike anything seen before^a miracle of ecclesiatitical eccen- 
 tricity ; while those who thought her papistical looked forward 
 with equal interest to a change of polemics and exciWment, 
 deploring the introduction of Ritualism into a quiet corner of 
 the country, hitherto free of that pest, but enjoying unawares 
 the agreeable stimulant of local schism and ecclesiatitical strife. 
 The taste for this is so univerbal that I suppose it must be an 
 instinct of human nature, as strong among the non-tightin 
 portion of the creation as actual combat is to the warlike, 
 need not say that the foundress of the Chantry had no such 
 thoughts ; her object was simple enough ; but it was too simple 
 — too one-fold (if I may borrow an expressive word from my 
 native tongue : ae-fauld we write it in Scotch) — for the appre- 
 hension of ordinary persons, who never believe in unity of 
 motive. Some people thought she was artfully bent on in- 
 troducing confession and all the other bugbears of Protestantism, 
 but she meant nothing of the kind : she only wanted to open 
 another agency in heaven on behall' of the Austins, and nothing 
 else affected her mind so long as this was secured. 
 
 The Chantry, however, afforded a very reasonable excuse to 
 Kate and Sophy Farrel- Austin for paying a visit to Whiteladies, 
 concerning which they had heard some curious rumours. Their 
 interest in the place no doubt had considerably died out of late, 
 since Herbert's amendment in health had been proved beyond 
 doubt. Their father had borne that blow without much sym- 
 pathy from his children, though they had not hesitated, as the 
 reader is aware, to express their own sense that it was " a swin- 
 dle " and " a sell," and that Herbert had no right to get better. 
 The downfall to Farrel- Austin himself had been a terrible one, 
 and the foolish levity of his children about it had piovoked 
 him often, almost past bearing ; but time had driven him into 
 silence, and. into an appearance at least of forgetting his dis- 
 appointment. On the whole he had no very deadly reason for 
 disappointment ; he was very well off without Whiteladies, 
 and had he got Whiteladies he had no son to succeed him, and 
 less and less likelihood of ever having one. But I beUeve it is 
 the man who has much who always feels most deeply when 
 he is hindered from having more. The charm of adding 
 field to held is, I suppose, a more keen and practiced 
 
302 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 f 
 
 hunger than that of acquiring a httle is to him who has nothing. 
 Poverty does not know the sweetness that eludes it altogether, 
 hut Property is fully aware of the keen delight of possession. 
 The disappointment sunk deep into Farrel-Austin's heart. It 
 even made him feel like the victim of retributive justice, as if, 
 had he but kept his word to Augustine, Herbert might have 
 been killed for him, and all been well ; whereas now Providence 
 preserved Herbert to spite him, and keep the inheritance from 
 him ! It was an unwarrantable bolstering up, on the part of 
 Heaven and the doctors, of a miserable life which could be 
 very little good either to its owner or any other ; and Farrel- 
 Austin grew morose and disagreeable at home, byway jf aveng- 
 ing himself on some one. Kate and Sophy did not very much 
 care : they were too independent to be under his power, as 
 daughters at home so often are under the power of a morose 
 father. They had emancipated themselves beforehand, and 
 now were strong in the fortresses of habit and established 
 custom, and those natural defences with which they were power- 
 fully provided. Humours had reached them of a new inmate 
 at Whiteladies, a young woman with a child, said to be the 
 heir, who very much attracted their curiosity ; and they had 
 every intention of being kind to Herbert and Keine v/hen they 
 came home, and of making fast friends with their cousins. 
 " For why should families be divided ? " Kate said, not without 
 sentiment. " However disappointed we may be, we can't 
 quarrel with Herbert for getting well, can we, and keeping his 
 own property 1 " The heroes who assembled at afternoon tea 
 grinned under these circumstances, and said "No." These 
 were not the heroes of two years ago : Dropmore was married 
 among his own '' set," and Ffarington had sold out and gone 
 down to his estates in Wales, and Lord Alf had been ruined 
 by a succession of misfortunes on the turf, so that there was 
 quite a new party at the Hatch, though the life was very mucu 
 the same as before. Drags and dinner^), and boatings and races 
 and cricket matches, varied, when winter came on, and accord- 
 ing to the seasons, by hunting, skating, dancing, and every 
 other amusement procurable, went on like clock-work, like 
 treadmill- work, or anything else that is useless and monotonous. 
 Kate Farrel- Austin, who was now twenty-three in years, felt a 
 hundred and three in life. She had grown wise, the usual (and 
 
WMITELADIES. 
 
 303 
 
 othing. 
 )gether, 
 session; 
 irt. It 
 le, as if, 
 ht have 
 vidence 
 ce from 
 part of 
 jould be 
 . Farrel- 
 •faveng- 
 ry much 
 ower, as 
 L morose 
 nd, and 
 ablished 
 e power- 
 / inmate 
 o be the 
 ihey had 
 hen they 
 cousins, 
 without 
 ^ve can't 
 ping his 
 noon tea 
 These 
 married 
 md gone 
 n ruined 
 here was 
 iry inucu 
 md races 
 d accord- 
 id every 
 )rk, like 
 lotonous. 
 irs, felt a 
 sual (and 
 
 
 horrible) conclusion of girls of her sort. She wanted to marry, 
 and change the air and scene of her existence, which began to 
 grow tired of her as she of it. Sophy, on the way to the same 
 state of superannuation, rather wished it too. *' One of us 
 ought certainly to do something," she said, assenting to Kate's 
 homilies on the subject. They were not fools, though they 
 were rather objectionable young women ; and they felt that 
 such life as theirs comes to be untenable after a while. To be 
 sure the young men of their kind, the successors of Dropmore, 
 &c. (I cannot really take the trouble to put down those young 
 gentlemen's names), did carry on the same kind of existence ; 
 but they went and came, were at London sometimes and some- 
 times in the country and had a certain something which they 
 called duty to give lines as it were to their life ; while to be 
 always there, awaiting the return of each succeeding set of men, 
 was the fate of the girls. The male creatures here as in most 
 things had the advantage of the others, except that perhaps in 
 their consciousness of the tedium of their noisy monotonous 
 lot, the girls, had they been capable of it, had a better chance 
 of getting yreary and turning to better things. 
 
 The Austin Chantry furnished the Farrel- Austins with the 
 excuse they wanted to investigate Whiteladies and its mysteri- 
 ous guest. They drove over on a December day, when it was 
 nearly finished, and by right of their relationship obtained en- 
 trance and full opportunity of inspection ; and not only so, but 
 met Miss Augustine there, with whom they returned to White- 
 ladies. There was not very much intercourse possible between 
 the recluse and these two lively young ladies, but they accom- 
 panied her notwithstanding, plying her with mocking questions, 
 and " drawing her out ; " for the Farrel-Austins were of those 
 who held the opinion that Miss Augustine was mad, and a fair 
 subject of ridicule. They got her to tell them about her pious 
 purposes, and laid them up, with many a mischievous glance at 
 each other, for the entertainment of their friends. When 
 Stevens showed them in, announcing them with a peculiar loud- 
 ness of tone intended to show his warm sense of the family 
 hostility, there wus no one in the drawing-room but Gi »vanna, 
 who sat reclining in one of the great chairs, lazily watching the 
 little boy who trotted about her, and who had now asbumed 
 the natural demeanour of a child to a mother. She was not a 
 
304 
 
 WHITFXADIES. 
 
 caressing mother even now, and in his Tieart I do not doubt 
 Johnny still preferred Cook : but they made a pretty group, 
 the rosy little fellow in his velvet frock and snow-white pini^ 
 fore, and Giovanna in a black dress of the same material, which 
 gave a most appropriate setting to her beauty. Dear reader, 
 let me not deceive you, or give you false ideas of Miss Susan's 
 liberality, or Giovanna's extravagance. The velvet was vel- 
 veteen, of which we all make our winter gowns, not the more 
 costly material which lasts you (or lasted your mother, shall 
 we say ?) twenty years as a dinner-dress, and costs you twice 
 as many pounds as years. The Farrel-Austins were pretty 
 girls both, but they were not of the higher order of beauty, 
 like Giovanna ; and they were much impressed by her looks 
 and the indolent grace of her attitude, and the easy at-home 
 air with which she held possession of Miss Susan's drawing- 
 room. She scarcely stirred when they came in, for her breed- 
 *ng, as may be supposed, was still very imperfect, and probably 
 her silence prolonged their respect for her more than conversa- 
 tion would have done ; but the child, whom the visitors knew 
 how to make use of as a medium of communication, soon pro- 
 duced a certain acquaintance. " Je suis Johnny," the baby 
 said in answer to their question. In his little language one 
 tongue and another was much the same ; but in the drawing- 
 room the mode of communication differed from that in this 
 kitchen, and the child acknowledged the equality of the two 
 languages by mixing them. '' But mamma say Yan," he added 
 as an after-thought. 
 
 The two girls looked at each other. Here was the mysteri- 
 ous guest evidently before them : to find her out, her ways, 
 her meaning, and how she contemplated her position, could not 
 be difiicult. Kate was as usual a reasonable creature, talking 
 as other people talk ; while Sophy was the madcap, saying 
 things she ought not to say, whose luck it was not unfrequently 
 to surprise other people into similar indiscretions. 
 
 " Then this charming little fellow is yours ? " said Kate. 
 " How nice for the old ladies to have a child in the house I 
 Gentlemen don't always care for the trouble, but where there 
 are only ladies it is so cheerful : and how clever he is to speak 
 both Endish and French ! " 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 805 
 
 ioubt 
 jroup, 
 pina- 
 which 
 eader, 
 usan's 
 ^ vel- 
 i more 
 , shall 
 twice 
 pretty 
 leauty, 
 looks 
 t-'home 
 awing- 
 breed- 
 obably 
 tiversa- 
 3 knew 
 on pro* 
 p baby 
 i,ge one 
 iwing- 
 in this 
 le two 
 added 
 
 lysteri- 
 ways, 
 
 uld not 
 
 talking 
 saying 
 
 juently 
 
 Kate, 
 house ! 
 e there 
 ) speak 
 
 Giovauna laughed softly. The idea that it was cheerful to 
 have a child in the house amused her, but she kept her own 
 counsel. " They teach him — a few words," she said, making 
 the w more of a v, and rolling the r a great deal more than she 
 did usuaUy, so that this sounded like voriiids, and proved to the 
 
 firls, who had come to make an examination of her, that she 
 new very little English and spoke it very badly, as they after- 
 wards said. 
 
 " Then you are come from abroad 1 Pray don't think us im- 
 pertinent. We fcre cousins ; Fan*el- Austins ; you may have 
 heard of us." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I have heard of you," said Giovanna with a smile. 
 She had never changed her indolent position, and it gave her 
 a certain pleasure to feel herself so far superior to her visitors, 
 though in her heart she was afraid of them, and afraid of being 
 exposed alone to their scrutiny. 
 
 Kate looked at her sister, feeling that the stranger had the 
 advantage, but Sophy broke in with an answering laugh. 
 
 " It has not been anything very pleasant you have heard ; 
 we can see that ; but we ain't so bad as the old ladies think 
 us," said Sophy. "We are nice enough; Kate is sensible, 
 though I am silly ; we are not so bad as they think us here." 
 
 " I heard of you from my beau-p^re at Bruges," said Gio- 
 vanna. " Jeanot ! 'faut pas g^ner la belle dame." 
 
 " Oh, I like him," said Kate. " Then you are from abroad 
 You are one of the Austins of Bruges ; we are your cousins too. 
 I hope you like England, and Whiteladies. Is it not a charming 
 old house 1 " 
 
 Giovanna made no reply. She smiled, which might have 
 been assent or contempt ; it was difficult to say which. She 
 had no intention of betraying herself. Whatever these young 
 women might be, nothing could put them on her side of the 
 question : this she perceived by instinct, and heroically re- 
 frained from ail self-committal. The child by this time had 
 gone to Sophy, and stood by her knee, allowing himself to be 
 petted and caressed. 
 
 " Oh what a dear little thing ! what a nasty little thing ! " 
 said Sophy. " If papa saw him he would like to murder him, 
 and so should I. I suppose he is the heir 1 " 
 
r 
 
 300 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " But M. Herbert lives, and goes to get well," said Gio- 
 vaniia. 
 
 " Yea, what a shame it is ! Quel dommage, as you say in 
 French. What right has he to get well, after putting it into 
 everybody's head that he was going to die 1 I declare I have 
 no patience with such hypocrisy 1 People should do one thing 
 or another," said Sophy, " not pretend for years that they are 
 dying, and then live." 
 
 " Sophy, don't say such things. She is the silliest rattle, and 
 says whatever comes into her head. To be kept in suspense 
 used to be very trying for poor papa," said Kat«. " He does not 
 believe still that Herbert can live ; and now that he has gone out 
 of papa's hands, it must be rather trying for you." 
 
 " 1 am not angry with M. Herbert because he gets well," said 
 Giovanna with a smile. She was amused indeed by the idea, 
 and her amusement had done more to dissipate her resentment 
 than reason ; for to be sure it was somewhat ludicrous that 
 Herbert should be found fault with for getting well. " When 
 I am sick," she went on, " I try to get better too." 
 
 " Well, I think it is a shame," said Sophy. " He ought to 
 think of other people waiting and waiting, never knowing 
 what is going to happen. Oh ! Miss Susan, how do you do 1 
 We came to ask for you, and when Herbert and Reine were 
 expected home." 
 
 Miss Susan came in prepared for the examination she had 
 to go through. Her aspect was cloudy, as it always was now- 
 a-days. She had not the assured air of dignified supremacy 
 and proprietorship which she once had possessed ; but the 
 Farrel-Austins werG not penetrating enough to perceive more 
 than ohat she looked dull, which was what they scarcely ex- 
 pected. She gave a glance at Giovanna, still reclining in- 
 dolently in her easy chair ; and curiously enough, quite against 
 her expectation, without warning or reason, Miss Susan felt 
 herself moved by something like a thrill of pleasure ! What 
 did it mean ? It meant that Farrel's girls, whom she disliked, 
 who were her natural enemies, were not fit to be named in 
 comparison with this young woman who was her torment, her 
 punishment, her bad angel ; but at all events hers, on her side, 
 pitied with her against them. It was not an elevated sort of 
 satisfaction, but such as it was it surprised her with a strange 
 
 litt 
 
 ces 
 
 he 
 
 M. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 307 
 
 [ Gio- 
 
 say in 
 it into 
 I have 
 3 thing 
 ley are 
 
 ble, and 
 iispense 
 loes not 
 rone out 
 
 ill," said 
 he idea, 
 entment 
 ous that 
 " When 
 
 aught to 
 knowing 
 you do 1 
 ine were 
 
 she had 
 ?as now- 
 ipremacy 
 but the 
 Lve more 
 ircely ex- 
 ining in- 
 e against 
 5usan felt 
 ! What 
 disliked, 
 named in 
 nent, her 
 her side, 
 d sort of 
 a strange 
 
 gleam of pleasure. She sat down near Giovanna, unconsciously 
 ranging herself on that side against the other ; and then she 
 relapsed into common life, and gave her visitors a very cir- 
 cumstantial account of Herbert and Keine — how they had 
 wished to come home at Christmas, but the doctors thought it 
 more prudent to wait till May. Kate and Sophy listened 
 eagerly, consulting each other, and comparing notes in frequent 
 looks. 
 
 " Yes, })oor fellow ! of course May will be better," said 
 Kate, " tiiough / should have said June myself. It is some- 
 times very cold in May. Of course he will alwaj'^s be very 
 delicate j his constitution must be so shattered." 
 
 " His constitution is not shattered at all," said Miss Susan, 
 irritated, as the friends of a convalescent so often are, by 
 doubts of his strength. " Shattered constitutions come from 
 quite different causes, Mii-s Kate — from what you call ' fast ' 
 living and wickedness. Herbert has the constitution of a 
 child ; he has no enemy but cold, and I hope we can take care 
 of him here." 
 
 " Oh, Kate meant no harm/' said Sophy ; *' we know he 
 could never have been * fast.' It is easy to keep straight when 
 you haven't health for anything else," said this too well-in- 
 formed young woman. 
 
 " Hush ! " said her sister in an audible whisper, catching 
 hold of the baby to make a diversion. Then Kate aimed her 
 little broadside too. 
 
 " We have been so pleased to make acquaintance with 
 madame," she said, using that title v/ithout any name, as badly- 
 instructed people are so apt to do. " It must be nice for you 
 to feel yourself provided whatever happens. This, I hear, is 
 the little heir ?" 
 
 " Madame Suzanne," interrupted Giovanna, " I have told 
 ces dames that I am glad M. Herbert goes to get well I hope 
 he will live long and be happy. Jean, cheri ! dis fort * Vive 
 M. Herbert 1 ' as I taught you, that ces dames may hear." 
 
 Johnny was armed with his usual weapon, the paper-knife, 
 which on ordinary occasions Miss Susan could not endure to 
 see in his hand ; for I need not say it was her own pet weapon, 
 which Giovanna in her ignorance had appropriated. He made 
 a great flourish in the air with this falchion. " Vive M'sieu 
 
308 
 
 WHITELADIEa 
 
 'Erbert ! " cried the child, his little round face flushed and 
 shining with natural delight in his achievement. Giovanna 
 snatched him up on her lap to kiss and applaud him, and Miss 
 Susan, with a start of wonder, felt tears of pleasure come to her 
 eyes. It was scarcely credible even to herself. 
 
 " Yes, he is the heir," she said quickly, looking her assail- 
 ants in the face, " that is, if Herbert has no children of his 
 own. I am fortunate, as you say — more fortunate than your 
 papa, Miss Kate." 
 
 " Who has only girls," said Sophy, coming to the rescue. 
 " Poor papa ! Though if we are not as good as the men, we 
 must be poor creatures," she added with a laugh, and this was 
 a proposition which nobody attempted to deny. 
 
 As for Kate, she addressed her sister very seriously when 
 they left Whiteladies. Things were come to a pass in which 
 active measures were necessary, and a thorough comprehension 
 of the situation. 
 
 *• If you don't make up your mind at once to marry Herbert, 
 that woman will," she said to Sophy. " We shall see before 
 six months are out. You don't mind my advice as you ought, 
 but you had better this time. I'd rather marry him myself 
 than let him drop into the hands of an adventuress like that." 
 
 " Do ! I shan't interfere," said Sophy lightly ; but in her 
 heart she allowed that Kate was right. If one of them was to 
 have Whiteladies, it would be necessary to be alert and vigorous. 
 Giovanna was not an antagonist to be despised. They did not 
 undervalue her beauty: women seldom do, whatever fancy- 
 painters on the other side may say. 
 
 Miss Susan, for her part, left the drawing-room along with 
 them, with so curious a sensation going through her that she 
 had to retire to her room to get the better of it. She felt a 
 certain thrill of gratefulness, satisfaction, kindness in the midst 
 of her hatred ; and yet the hatred was not diminished. This 
 put all her nerves on edge like a jarring chord. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 309 
 
 led and 
 ovanna 
 id Miss 
 B to her 
 
 r assai'v- 
 
 of his . 
 in your 
 
 I rescue, 
 len, we 
 this was 
 
 ly when 
 n which 
 ^hension 
 
 Herbert, 
 e before 
 >u ought, 
 1 myself 
 te that." 
 lit in her 
 m. waste 
 vigorous. 
 y did not 
 er fancy- 
 
 ong with 
 !> that she 
 ^he felt a 
 the midst 
 d. This 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 ERBERT and Reine had settled at Cannes for the win- 
 ter, at the same time when Giovanna settled herself at 
 Whiteladies. They knew very little of this strange 
 inmate in their old home, and thought still less. The young 
 man had been promoted from one point to another of the invalid 
 resorts, and now remained at Cannes, which was so much 
 brighter and less valetudinary than Mentone, simply, as the 
 doctors said, " as a precautionary measure." Does the reader 
 know that bright-margin, where the sun shines so serene and 
 sweet, and where the colour of the sea and the sky and the hills 
 and the trees are all brightened and glorified by the fact that the 
 greys and chills of northern winter are still close at hand ) 
 When one has little to do, when one is fancy free, when one is 
 young, and happiness comes natural, there is nothing more 
 delicious than the Rivii a. You are able, in such circumstances, 
 to ignore the touching groups which encircle here and there 
 some of the early doomed. You are able to hope that the 
 invalids must get better. You say to yourself, " In this air, 
 under this sky, no one can long insist upon being ill ; " and if 
 your own invalid, in whom you are most interested, has really 
 mended, hope for every other becomes conviction. And then 
 there are always idlers about who are not ill, to whom life is a 
 holiday, or seems so, and who, being impelled to amuse them- 
 selves by force of circumstances, add a pleasant movement to 
 the beautiful scene. Without even these attractions, is not 
 the place in which you receive back your sick as from the 
 dead always beautiful, if it were the dirtiest seaport or deserted 
 village 1 Mud and grey sky, or sands of gold and heavenly 
 vaults of blue, what matters ? That was the first time since 
 the inspired and glorious moment at Kandersteg that Reine had 
 felt sure of Herbert's recovery ; — there was no doubting the 
 fact now. He was even no longer an invalid, a change which 
 at first was not nearly so delightful as she had expected to his 
 sister. They had been all irf all to each other for so long ; and 
 
 '■'!i 
 
310 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Heine had given up to Herbert not only willingly, but joyfully 
 all the delights of youth — its amusements, its companionships, 
 everything. She had never been at a ball (grown up) in her 
 life, though she was now over twenty. She had passed the last 
 four years, the very quintessence of her youth, in a sick room, 
 or in the subdued goings out and gentle amusements suited to 
 an invalid ; and, indeed, her heart and mind being fully oc- 
 cupied, she had desired no better. Herbert, and his comfort 
 and his entertainment, had been the sum of all living to Reine. 
 And now had come the time when she was emancipated, and 
 when the young man, recovering his strengh, began to think of 
 other amusements than those which a girl could share. It was 
 quite natural. Herbert made friends of his own, and went out 
 with them, and made parties of pleasure, and manly expeditions 
 in which Reine had no part. It was very foolish of her to feel it, 
 and no critic could have been more indignant with her than she 
 was with herself. The girl's first sensation was surprise, when 
 she found herself left out. She was bewildered by it. It had 
 never occurred to her as likely, natural, nay, necessary — which, 
 as soon as she recovered her breath, she assured herself it was. 
 Poor Reine even tried to laugh at herself for her womanish 
 folly. Was it to be expected that Herbert should continue in 
 the same round when he got better, that he should not go out 
 into the world like other men ? On the contrary, Reine was 
 proud and delighted to see him go ; to feel that he was able for 
 it ; to listen to his step, which was as active as any of the ot>.ers 
 she thought, and his voice, which rang as clear and gay. It 
 was only after he was gone that the sudden surprise I have 
 spoken of assailed her. And if you will think of it, it was 
 hard upon Reine. Because of her devotion to him she liad 
 made no friends for herself. She had been out of the way of 
 wanting friends. Madame de Mirfleur's eagerness to introduce 
 her, to find companions for her, when she paid the pair her pas- 
 sing visits, had always been one of the things which most 
 offended Reine. What did she want with other companions 
 than Herbert *? She was necessary to him, and did anyone 
 s'jppose that she would leave him for pleasure 1 For pleasure ! 
 could mamma suppose it would be any pleasure to her to be 
 separate from her brother 1 Thus the girl thought in her ab- 
 solute way, carrying matters with a high hand as long as it was 
 
WIIITKLAl>IES. 
 
 nil 
 
 oyfuUy 
 inships, 
 in her 
 the last 
 c room, 
 lited to 
 ally oc- 
 comfort 
 ) Reine. 
 :ed, and 
 think of 
 
 It was 
 (rent out 
 ►editions 
 o feel it, 
 than she 
 je, when 
 
 It had 
 —which, 
 if it was. 
 omanish 
 tinue in 
 t go out 
 ei.ne was 
 J able for 
 he ot>.ers 
 
 36 I have 
 it, it was 
 she liad 
 e way of 
 introduce 
 r her pas- 
 ich most 
 mpanions 
 d anyone 
 pleasure ! 
 her to be 
 in her ab- 
 as it was 
 
 in her power to do so. But now that Herbert was well, every- 
 thing was changed. He was fond of his sister, who had been 
 so good a nurse to him ; but it seemed perfectly natural that 
 she should have been his nurse, and nad she not always said she 
 preferred it to anything else in the world 1 It was just the sort 
 of thing that suited Reine — it was her way, and the way of most 
 good girls. But it did not occur to Herbert to think that there 
 was anything astonishing, any hardship in the matter ; nor, 
 when he went out with his new friends, did it come into his 
 head that Reine, all alone, might be dull and miss him. Yes, 
 miss him, that of course she must ; but then it was inevitable. 
 A young fellow enjoying his n.ttural liberty could not by any 
 possibility drag a girl about everywhere after him — that was 
 out of the question, of course. At first now and then it 
 would sometimes come into his head that his sister was alone at 
 home, but that impression very soon wore off. She liked it. 
 She said so ; and why should she say so if it was not the case 1 
 Besides, she could of course have friends if she chose. So shy 
 Reine, who had not been used to any friends but him, who had 
 alienated herself from all her friends for him, stayed at home 
 within the four rather bare walls of their sitting-room, while 
 the sun shone outside, and even the invalids strolled about, and 
 the soft sound of the sea upon the beach filled the air with a 
 subdued, delicious murmur. Good Francois, Herbert's faithful 
 attendant, used to entreat her to go out. 
 
 " The weather is delightful," he said. " Why will made- 
 moiselle insist upon shutting herself up in-doors ] " 
 
 " I will go out presently, Francois," Reine said, her pretty 
 lips quivering a little. 
 
 But she had no one to go out with, poor child. She did not 
 like even to go and throw herself upon the charity of one or 
 two ladies whom she knew. She knew no one well, and how 
 could she go and thrust herself upon them now, after having 
 received their advances coldly while she had Herbert 1 So the 
 poor child sat down and read, or tried to read, seated at the 
 window from which she could see the sea and the people who 
 were walking about. How lucky she was to have such a cheer- 
 ful window ! But when she saw the sick English girl who 
 lived close by going out for her midday walk leaning upon her 
 brother's arm, with her mother close by watching her, poor 
 
 
 
312 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 % 
 
 Heine's heart grew sick. Why was it not she who was ill 1 if 
 she died, nobody would miss her much (so neglected youth 
 always feels, with poignant self pity), whereas it was evident 
 that the heart of that poor lady would break if her child was 
 taken from her. The poor lady whom Heine thus noted looked 
 up at her where she sat at the window, with a corresponding 
 pang in her heart. Oh, why was it that other girls should be 
 so fresh and blooming while her child was dying 1 But it is 
 very hard at twenty to sit at a bright window alone, and try 
 to read, while all the world is moving about before your eyes, 
 and the sunshine sheds a soft intoxication of happiness into the 
 air. The book would fall from her hands, and the young 
 blood would tingle in her veins. No doubt, if one of the 
 ladies whom Heine knew had called just then, the girl would 
 have received her visitor with th^ utmost dignity, nor betrayed 
 by a word, by a look, how lonely he was : for she was proud, 
 and rather perverse, and shy — shy to her very finger-tips ; but 
 in her heart, I think if any one had been so boldly kind as to 
 force her out, and take her in charge, she would have been 
 ready to kiss that deliverer's feet, but never to own what a 
 deliverknce it was. 
 
 No one came, however, in this enterprising way. Thej had 
 been in Cannes several times, the brother and sister, and Heine 
 had been always bound to Herbert's side, finding it impossible 
 to leave him. How could these mere acquaintances know that 
 things were changed now 1 So she sat at the window most of 
 the day, sometimes trying to make litule sketches, sometimes 
 working, but generally reading or pretending to read — not 
 improving books, dear reader. These young people did not 
 carry much solid literature about with them. They had 
 poetry books — not a good selection — and a supply of the 
 pretty Tauchnitz volumes, only limited by the extent of that 
 enterprising firm's reprints, besides such books as weie to be 
 got at the library. Everard had shown more discrimination 
 than was usual to him when he said that Herbert, after his 
 long helplessness and dependence, would rush very eagerly 
 into the enjoyments and freedom of life. It was very natural 
 that he should do so ; chained to a sick room, as he had 
 been for so long — then indulged with invalid pleasures, 
 invalid privileges, and gradually feeling the tide rise and 
 
 
WHITELADTBS. 
 
 313 
 
 mi if 
 
 youth 
 ivident 
 Id was 
 looked 
 onding 
 uld be 
 ut it is 
 md try 
 ir eyes, 
 nto the 
 young 
 of the 
 would 
 etrayed 
 proud, 
 ps ; but 
 id as to 
 ve been 
 what a 
 
 lej had 
 dReine 
 possible 
 ow that 
 most of 
 netimes 
 id — not 
 did not 
 ey had 
 of the 
 of that 
 ke to be 
 lination 
 fter his 
 eagerly 
 natural 
 he had 
 easures, 
 ise and 
 
 the warm blood of his youth swell in his veins — the poor 
 young fellow was greedy of freedom, of boyish company, from 
 which he had always been shut out — of adventures innocent 
 enough, yet to his recluse mind having all the zest of des- 
 perate risk and daring. He had no intention of doing any- 
 thing wron^, or even anything unkind. But this was the 
 very first time that he had fallen among a party of young 
 men like himself, and the contrast being so novel, was de- 
 lightful to him. And his new friends " took to him " with 
 a flattering vehemence of liking. They came to fetch him 
 in the morning, they involved him in a hundred little en- 
 gagements. They were fond of him, he thought, and he had 
 never known friendship before. In short, they turned Herbert's 
 head, a thing which quite commonly happens both to girls and 
 boys when for the first time either boy or girl falls into a 
 merry group of his or her contemporaries, with many amuse- 
 ments and engagements on hand. Had one of these young 
 fellows happened to fall in love with Reine, all would have 
 gone well — for then, no doubt, the young lover would have 
 devised ways and means for having her of the party. But she 
 was not encouraging to their advances. Girls who have little 
 outward contact with society are apt to f )rm an uncomfortably 
 high ideal, and Reine thought her brother's friends a pack of 
 noisy boys quite iniferior to Herbert, with no intellect, and not 
 very much breeding. She was very dignified and reserved 
 when they ran in and out, calling for him to come here and go 
 there, and treated them as somehow beneath the notice of such 
 a very mature person as herself ; and the young fellows were 
 offended, and revenged themselves by adding ten years to her 
 age, and giving her credit for various disagreeable qualities. 
 
 " Oh, yes, he has a sister," they would say, " much older than 
 Austin — who looks as if she would like to turn us all out, and 
 keep her darling at her apron-string." 
 
 " You must remember she has iiad the nursing of him all his 
 life," a more charitable neighbour would suggest by way of wc- 
 cusing the middle-aged sister. 
 
 " But women ought to know that a man is not to be always 
 lounging about pleasing them, and not himself. Hang it all, 
 what would they have 1 I wonder Austin don't send her home. 
 It is the best place for her." 
 
:<I4 
 
 WHITELADIKH. 
 
 This was how the friends commented upon Reine. And 
 Reine did not know that even to be called Austin was refresh- 
 ing to the invalid lad, showing him that he was at least on 
 equal terms with somebody ; and that the sense of inc^ependonce 
 intoxicated him, so that«he did not know how to enjoy it enough 
 — to take draughts full enough and deep enough of the delight- 
 ful pleasure of being his own master, of meeting the night air 
 without a muffler, and going home late in sheer bravado, to 
 show that he was an invalid no more. 
 
 After this first change, which chilled her and made her life so 
 lonely, another change came upon Reine. She had been used 
 to be anxious about Herbert all her life, and now another kind 
 of anxiety seized her, which a great many women know very 
 well, and which with many becomes a great and terrible pas- 
 sion, ravaging secretly their very lives. Fear for his health slid 
 imperceptibly in her loneliness into fear for him. Does the 
 reader know the difference ? She was a very ignorant, foolish 
 girl ; she did not know anything about the amusements and 
 pleasures of young men. When her brother came in slightly 
 flushed and flighty, with some excitement in his looks, parting 
 loudly with his friends at the door, smelling of cigars and wine, 
 a little rough, a little noisy, poor Reine thought he was plung- 
 ings into some terrible whirlpool of dissipation, such as she had 
 read of in books ; and, as she was of the kind of women who 
 is subject to its assaults, the \'ulture came down upon her, there 
 and then, and began to gnaw . her heart. In those long even- 
 ings when she sat alone waiting for him, the legendary Spartan 
 with the fox under his cloak was nothing to Reine. She kept 
 quite still over her book, and read page after page, without 
 knowing a word she was reading, but heard the pitiful little 
 clock on the mantel-piece chime the hours, and every step and 
 voice outside, and every sound within, with painful acuteness, 
 as if she were all ear ; and felt her heart beat all over her — in 
 her throat, in her ears, stifling her and stopping her breath. 
 She did not form any idea to herself of how Herbert might be 
 passing his time ; she would not let her thoughts accuse him of 
 anything, for. indeed, she was too innocent to imagine those 
 horrors which women often do imagine. She sat in an agony 
 of listening, waiting for him, wondering how he would look 
 when he returned — wondering if this was him, with a renewed 
 
WMITFXADIKH. 
 
 815 
 
 . And 
 refresh- 
 least on 
 Bndence 
 enough 
 delight- 
 light air 
 ^ado, to 
 
 Br life so 
 en used 
 ler kind 
 aw very 
 ible pas- 
 )alth slid 
 )oes the 
 b, foolish 
 ents and 
 slightly- 
 parting 
 nd wine, 
 IB plung- 
 i she had 
 nen who 
 ler, there 
 )ng even- 
 Spartan 
 Jhe kept 
 without 
 ful little 
 step and 
 cuteness, 
 her — in 
 breath, 
 might be 
 se him of 
 ne those 
 m agony 
 uld look 
 renewed 
 
 crisis of excitement, this step that was coming — falling dull and 
 dead when the step was past, rousing up again to the next, fool- 
 ing herself helpless, miserable, a slave to the anguish which 
 dominated her, and against which reason itself could make no 
 stand. Every morning she woke saying to herself that she 
 would not allow herself to be so miserable again, and every 
 night fell back into the clutches of this passion, which gripped 
 at her and consumed her. When Herbert came in early and 
 " like himself " — that is to say, with no traces of excitement or 
 levity— the torture would stop in a moment, and a delicious re- 
 pose would come over her soul ; but next night it came back 
 again the same as ever, and poor Reine's struggles to keep 
 mastery of herself were all in vain. There are hundreds of 
 women who will know exactly how she felt, and what an absorb- 
 ing fever it was which had seized upon her. She had more 
 reason than she really knew for her fears, for Herbert was play- 
 ing with his newly -acquired health in the rashest way, and 
 though he was doing no great harm, had yet departed totally 
 from that ideal which haa been his, as well as his sister's, but a 
 short time before. He had lost altogether the tender gratitude 
 of that moment when he thought he was being cured in a half 
 miraculous, heavenly way, and when his first simple boyish 
 thought was how good, how good it became him to bo, to prove 
 the thankfulness of which his heart was full. He had forgot- 
 ten now about being thankful. He was glad, delighted to bo 
 well, and half believed that he had some personal credit in it. 
 He had " cheated the doctors " — it was not they who had cured 
 him, but presumably something great and vigorous in himself 
 which had' triumphed over all difficulties ; and now he had a 
 right to enjoy himself in proportion to — what he began to think 
 — the self-denial of past years. Both the brother and sister had 
 very much fallen off from that state of elevation above the 
 world which had been temporarily theirs ir that wonderfid mo- 
 ment at Kandersteg ; and they had begun to feel the effect of 
 those drawbacks which every great change brings with it, even 
 when the change is altogether blessed, and has been looked for- 
 ward to with hope for years. 
 
 This was the position of affairs between the brother and 
 sister when Madame de Mirfleur arrived to pay them a visit, and 
 satisfy herself as to her son's health. She came to them in her 
 
 
I 
 
 »«"'■ 
 
 316 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 most genial mood, happy in Herbert's recovery, and meaning 
 to afford herself a little holiday, which was scarcely the aspect 
 under which her former visits to her elder children had shown 
 themselves. They had received her proposal with very dutiful 
 readiness, but oddly enough, as one of the features of the change, 
 it was Keine who wished for her arrival, not Herbert, though 
 he, in former times, had always been the most charitable to his 
 mother. Now his brow clouded at the prospect. His new-bom 
 independence seemed in danger. He felt as if mufflers and 
 respirators, and all the old marks of bondage, wer*» coming back 
 to him in Madame de Mirfleur's tnmks. 
 
 " If mamma comes with the intention of coddling me up 
 again, and goes on about taking care," he said, " by Jove ! I tell 
 you I'll not stand it, Reiue." 
 
 " Mamma will do what she thinks best," said Keine, perhaps 
 a little coldly ; " but you know I think you are wrong, Bertie, 
 though you will not pay any attention to me." 
 
 " You are just like a girl," said Herbert, " never satisfied, 
 never able to see the difference. What a change it is, by Jove, 
 when a fellow gets into the world, and learns the right way of 
 looking at things ! If you go and set her on me, I'll never for- 
 give you ; as if I could not be trusted to my own guidance — as 
 if it were not I, myself, who was most concerned ! " 
 
 These speeches of her brother's cost Keine, I am afraid, some 
 tears when he was gone, and her pride yielded to the effects of 
 loneliness and discouragement. He was forsaking her, she 
 thought, who had the most right to be good to her — ^he of whom 
 she had boasted that he was the only being who belonged to 
 her in the world ; her very own, whom nobody could take from 
 her. Poor Keine ! it had not required very much to detach 
 him from her. When Madame deMirfleur arrived, however, 
 she did not interfere with Herbert's newly formed habits, nor at- 
 tempt to put any order in his mannish ways. She scolded 
 Beine for moping, for sitting alone and neglecting society, and 
 instantly set about to remedy this fault; but she found Herbert's 
 little dissipations tout simple, said not a word about a respirator, 
 and rather encouraged him than otherwise, Keine thought. 
 She made him give them an account of everything where he 
 had been, and all about his expeditions, when he came back at 
 pight, and never showed eyen a shadow of disapproval, laugh 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 317 
 
 meaning 
 e aspect 
 I shown 
 f dutiful 
 ) change, 
 , though 
 tie to his 
 lew-bom 
 lers and 
 ling back 
 
 ; me up 
 re! I tell 
 
 , perhaps 
 g, Bertie, 
 
 satisfied, 
 
 by Jove, 
 
 it way of 
 
 never for- 
 
 lance — as 
 
 ■aid, some 
 effects of 
 her, she 
 1 of whom 
 onged to 
 aike from 
 
 detach 
 however, 
 is, nor at- 
 
 scolded 
 liety, and 
 Herbert's 
 espirator, 
 thought, 
 where he 
 e back at 
 al, laugh 
 
 ing at the poor little jokes which Herbert reported, and making 
 the best of his pleasure, ^he made him ask his friends, of 
 whom Beine disapproved, to dinner, and was kind to them, and 
 charmed these young men ; for Madame de Mirfleur had been 
 a beauty in her day, and kept up those arts of pleasing which 
 her daughter disdained, and made Herbert's boyish companions 
 half in love with her. This had the effect of restraining Her- 
 bert often, without any suspicions of restraint antering his head ; 
 and the girl, who half despised, half envied her mother's power, 
 was not slow to perceive this, though she felt in her heart that 
 nothing could ever qualify her to follow the example. Poor 
 Reine looked on, disapproving her mother as usual, yet feeling 
 less satisfied with herself than usual, and asking herself vainly 
 if she loved Herbert as she thought she did, would not she 
 make any sacrifice to make him happy ? If this made him 
 happy, why could not she do it 1 It was because his companions 
 were his inferiors, she said to herself — companions not worthy 
 of Herbert. How could she stoop to them ? Madame de Mir- 
 fleur had not such a high standard of excellence. She exerted 
 herself for the amusement of the young men as if they had 
 been heroes and sages. And even Reine, though she disap- 
 proved, was happier, against her will. 
 
 " But, mon Dieu ! " cried Madame de Mirfleur. " the fools 
 that these boys Jare ! Have you ever heard, my Reine, such 
 b^tises as my poor Herbert takes for pleasantries ] They give 
 me mal au coeur. How they are b^tes, these boys ! " 
 
 " I thought you liked them," said Reine, " you are so kind 
 to them. You flatter them, even. Oh does it not wound you, 
 are you not ashamed, to see Bertie, my Bertie, prefer the noise 
 — those scuffling % It is this that gives me mal au coeur." 
 
 " Bah ! you are high-flown," said the mother. " If one took 
 to heart all the things that men do, one would have no conso- 
 lation in this world. They are all less or more, b@tes, the men. 
 What we have to do is to manager — t© make of it the best we 
 can. You do not expect them to underetand — to be like us ; 
 Tenez, Reine ; that which your brother wants is a friend. Mo 
 not thee, my child, nor me. Do not cry, ch6rie. It is the lot 
 of the woman. Thou hast not known whether thou wert girl 
 or boy, or what difference there was, in the strange Ufe you have 
 led ; but listen, my most dear, for now you find it out. Her- 
 
 'ill 
 
 if: ^1 
 
318 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 bert is but like otbers ; he is no worse than the rest. He ac- 
 cepts from thee everything, so long as he wants thee ; but now 
 he is independent, he wants thee fio more. This is a truth 
 which every woman learns. To struggle is inutile—it does no 
 good, and a woman who is wise accepts what must be, and does 
 not struggle. What he wants is a friend. Where is the cousin, 
 the Monsieur Everard, whom I left with you, who went away 
 suddenly ? You have never told me why he went away." 
 
 Reine's colour rose. She grew red to the roots of her hair. 
 It was a subject which had never been touched upon betv/een 
 them, and possibly it was the girl's consciousness of something 
 which she could not put into words which made the blood 
 flush to her face. Madame de Mirfleur had been very discreet 
 on this subject, as she always was. She had never done any- 
 thing to awaken her child's susceptibilities. And she wjxs not 
 ignorant of Everard's story, which Julie had entered upon in 
 much greater detail than would have been possible to Reine. 
 Honestly, she thought no more of Everard so far as Reine was 
 concerned ; but, for Herbert, he would be invaluable ; there- 
 fore, it was with no match-making meaning that she awaited 
 her daughter's reply. 
 
 " I told you when it happened," said Reine, in very measured 
 tones, and with unnecessary dignity ; " you have forgotten, 
 mamma. His affairs got into disorder ; he thought he had lost 
 all his money ; and he was obliged to go at a moment's notice 
 to save himself from being ruined." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Madame de Mirflaur, " I begin to recollect. 
 Apres 1 He was not ruined, but he did not come back 1 " 
 
 " He did not come back because he had to go to Jamaica — 
 to the West Indies," said Reine, somewhat indignant, " to work 
 hard. It is not long since he has been back in England. I 
 
 had a letter — ^to 3ay he thought — of coming ^" Here she 
 
 stopped short, and looked at her mother with a certain defiance. 
 She had not meant to say anything of this letter, but in Everard's 
 defence had betrayed its existence before she knew. 
 
 ^ Ah ! " said Madame de Mirfleur, wisely showing little 
 eagerness, " such a one as Everard would be a good companion 
 for thy brother. He is a man, voyez-vous, not a boy. He thought 
 — of com mg 1 " 
 
 " Somewhere — for the winter," said Reine, with a certain 
 oracular vagueness, and a tremor in her voice. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 319 
 
 He ac- 
 mt now 
 a truth 
 does no 
 nd does 
 cousin, 
 it away 
 r." 
 
 Ler hair. 
 )et\/een 
 uething 
 3 blood 
 discreet 
 ne any- 
 wDsnot 
 upon in 
 3 Reine. 
 ine was 
 ; there- 
 awaited 
 
 easured 
 rgotten, 
 had lost 
 s notice 
 
 collect. 
 
 maica — 
 to work 
 and. I 
 [ere she 
 iefiance. 
 verard's 
 
 " Some-vere," said Madame de Mirfleur, laughing, *' that is 
 large ; and you replied, ma lieine 1 " 
 
 " I did not reply — I havfe not time," said Reine with dignity, 
 ** to answer all the idle letters that come to me. People in 
 England ^eem to think one has nothing to do but to write." 
 
 " It is very true," said the mother, " they are foolish, the 
 English, on that point. Give me tliy letter, cherie, and I will 
 answer it for thee. I can think of no one who would be so 
 good for Herbert. Probably he will never want a good friend 
 so much as now." 
 
 " Mamma ! " cried Reine, changing from red to white, and 
 from white to red in her dismay, " you are not going to invite 
 Everard here ? " 
 
 " Why not, my most dear H It is tout simple ; unless thou 
 hast something in thy heart against it, which 1 don't know." 
 
 " I have nothing secret in my heart," cried Reine, her heart 
 beating loudly, her eyes filling with tears ; " but don't do it — 
 don't do it ; I don't want him here." 
 
 " Tr6s-bicn, my child," said the mother calmly, " it was not 
 for thee, but for thy brother. Is there anything against 
 him " 
 
 " No, no, no ! There is nothing against him — nothing ! " 
 
 "Then you are unreasonable, Reine," said her mother; 
 *• but I will not go against you, my child. You are excited — 
 the tears come to you in the eyes ; you are not well — you have 
 been too much alone, ma petite Reine." 
 
 " No, no ; I am quite well — I am not excited ! " cried the 
 girl. 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur kissed her, and smoothed her hair, and 
 bid her put on her hat and come out. 
 
 " Come and listen a little to the sea," she said. " It is 
 soft, like the wind in our trees. I love to take advantage of 
 the air when I am by the sea." 
 
 Lg little 
 npanion 
 thought 
 
 k certain 
 
320 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 'HE eflfect of this conversation, however, did not end as 
 the talk 't^self did. Reine thought of little else all the 
 rest of the day. When they got to the beach, Madame 
 de Mirfleur, as was natural, met with some of her friends, and 
 Reine, dropping behind, had leisure enough for her own 
 thoughts. It was one of those lovely, soft, bright days which 
 follow each other for weeks together, even though grim Decem- 
 ber, on that charmed and peaceful coast. The sea, as blue as a 
 forget-me-not or a child's eyes — less deep in tone than the 
 Austin eyes through which Reine gazed at it, but not less lim- 
 pid and liquid bright — played with its pebbles on the beach 
 like a child, rolling them over playfully, and sending the softest 
 hus-sh of delicious sound through air which was full of light 
 and sunshine. It was not too still, but had the refreshment of 
 a tiny breeze, just enough to ruffle the sea-surface where it was 
 shallow, and make edges of undulating shadow upon the shin- 
 ing sand and stones underneath, which the sun changed to gold. 
 The blue sky to westward was turning into a great blaze of 
 rose, through which its native hue shone in bars and breaks, 
 here turning to purple and crimson, here cooling down to the 
 wistfuUest shadowy green. As close to the sea as ic could 
 keep its footing, a noble stone pine stood on a little height, ris- 
 ing like a great stately brown pillar, to spread its shade be- 
 tween the young spectator and the setting sun. Behind, not a 
 stone's throw from where she stood, rose the line of villas among 
 their trees, and all the soft lively movement of the little town. 
 How diflFerent from the scenes which Everard's name conjured 
 up before Reine — the soft English landscape of Whiteladicc, 
 the snowy peaks and mild sweet pastures of the Alpine valleys 
 where they had been last together ! Madame de Mirfleur felt 
 that it would not harm her daughter to leave her time for 
 thought. She was too far-seeing to worry her with interference, 
 or to stop the germination of the seeds she had herself 
 Bown ; and having soothed Reine by the influences of the open 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 321 
 
 end as 
 ) all the 
 kladame 
 ids, and 
 er own 
 '8 which 
 Decem- 
 >lue as a 
 han the 
 less lim- 
 le beach 
 le softest 
 of light 
 iment of 
 re it was 
 ihe shin- 
 L to gold. 
 
 blaze of 
 I breaks, 
 rn to the 
 
 io could 
 
 t, ns- 
 
 ihade be- 
 ad, not a 
 IS among 
 ,le town, 
 conjured 
 iteladic;:, 
 e valleys 
 fleur felt 
 time for 
 irference, 
 herself 
 the open 
 
 air and the sea, had no objection to leave her alone, and permit 
 the something which was evidently in her mind, whatever it 
 was, to work. Madame de Mirfieur was not only (;oncerned 
 about her daughter's happiness from a French point of view, 
 feeling that the time was come when it would be right to marry 
 her ; but she was also solicitous about her condition in other 
 ways. It might not be for Reine's happiness to continue much 
 longer with Herbert, who was emancipating himself very quickly 
 from his old bonds, and probably would soon find the sister 
 who, a year a^^^*^, had been indispensable to him, to be a burden 
 and drag upon nis freedom, in the career of manhood he was 
 entering upon so eagerly. And where was Eeine to go ? 
 Madame de Mirfleur could not risk taking her to Normandy, 
 where, delightful as that home was, her English child would 
 not be happy ; and she had a mother's natural reluctance to 
 abandon her altogether to the old aunts at Whiteladies, who, 
 as rival guardians to her children in their youth, had naturally 
 taken the aspect of rivals and enemies to their mother. No ; 
 it would have been impossible in France that an affaire du cceur 
 should have dragged on so long as that between Everard and 
 Reine must have done, if indeed there was anything in it. 
 But there was never any understanding those English, anJ if 
 Heine's looks meant anything, surely this was what they meant. 
 At all events, it was well that Reine should have an opportu- 
 nity of thinking it well over; and if there was nothing in it, 
 at least it would be good for Herbert to have the support and 
 help of his cousin. Therefore, in whatever light you choose to 
 view the subject, it was important that Everard should be 
 here. So she left her daughter undisturbed to think, in peace, 
 what it was best to do. 
 
 And indeed it was a sufficiently difficult question to come to 
 any decision upon. There was no quarrel between Reine and 
 Everard, nor any reason why they should regard each otlier in 
 any but a kind and cousinly way. Such a rajjpro.hement, and 
 such a curious break as had occurred between them, are not at 
 all uncommon. They had been very much thrown together, 
 and brought insensibly to the very verge of an alliance more 
 close and tender ; but before a word had been said, before any 
 decisive step had been taken. Fate came in suddenly and 
 severed them, " at a moment's notice," as Reine said, leaving no. 
 U 
 
 1 , 
 
 MM 
 
322 
 
 WHITKL^DIEb. 
 
 time, no possibility for any explanation or any pledge. I do 
 not know what was in Everard's heart at the moment of part- 
 ing, whether he had ever fully made up his mind to make the 
 sacrifices which would be necessary should he marry, or 
 whether his feelings had gone beyond all such prudential con- 
 siderations ; but anyhow, the s-mmons which surprised him so 
 suddenly was of a nature which made it impossible for him in 
 honour to do anything or say anything which should compro- 
 mise Keine. For it was loss of fortune, perhaps total — the 
 first news being exaggerated, as so often happens — with which 
 he was threatened ; and in the face of such news, honour sealed 
 his lips, and he dared not trust himself to say a word beyond 
 the tenderness of a good-bye which his relationship permitted. 
 He went away from her with suppressed anguish in his heart, 
 feeling like a man who had suddenly fallen out of paradise 
 down, down to the commonest earth — but silenced himself, and 
 subdued himself by hard pressure of necessity till time and the 
 natural influences of distance and close occupation dulled the 
 poignant feeling with which he had said that good-bye. The 
 woman has the worst of it in such circumstances. She is left, 
 which always seems the inferior part, and always is the hardest 
 to bear, in the same scene, with everything to recall to her 
 what has been, and nothing to justify her in dwelling upon the 
 tender recollection. I do not know why it should appear to 
 women, universally, something to be ashamed of when they 
 give love unasked — or even when they give it in return for 
 every kind of asking except the straightforward and final 
 words. It is no shame to a man to do so ; but these differences 
 of sentiment are inexplicable, and will not bear accounting for. 
 Reine fe>< that she had " almost " given her heart and deepest 
 affections, without being asked for them. She had not, it is 
 true, committed herself in words, any more than he had done ; 
 but she believed with sore shame that he knew — ^just as he 
 felt sure (but without shame) that she knew ; though in truth 
 neither of them knew even their own feelings, which on both 
 sides had changed somewhat, without undergoing any funda- 
 mental alteration. Such meetings and partings are not uncom- 
 mon. Sometimes the two thus rent asunder at the critical mo- 
 ment, never meet again at all, and the incipient romance dies 
 in the bud, leaving (vevy often) a touch of bitterness in the 
 
 M- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 823 
 
 
 >. I do 
 of part- 
 lake the 
 any, or 
 itial con- 
 i him so 
 )T him in 
 compro- 
 )tal — the 
 th which 
 lur sealed 
 d beyond 
 ermitted. 
 his heart, 
 paradise 
 nself, and 
 e and the 
 lulled the 
 )ye. The 
 >he is left, 
 he hardest 
 all to her 
 r upon the 
 appear to 
 vhen they 
 return for 
 and final 
 diflfeTences 
 anting for. 
 ad deepest 
 d not, it is 
 had done ; 
 -just as he 
 h in truth 
 oh on both 
 any funda- 
 Qot uncom- 
 critical mo- 
 imance dies 
 aess in the 
 
 woman's heart, a sense of incompleteness in the man's. Some- 
 times the two meet when age has developed or altered them, 
 and when they ask themselves with horror what they could 
 possibly have seen in that man or that woman ? And some- 
 times they meet again voluntarily or involuntarily, and — that 
 happiness which pleases Heaven ; for it is impossib.-e to predict 
 the termination of such an interrupted tale. 
 
 Beine had not found it very easy to piece that broken bit of 
 her life into the web again. She had never said a word to any 
 one, never allowed herself to speak to herself of what she felt ; 
 but it had not been easy to bear. Honour, too, like everything 
 else, takes a diflFerent aspect as it is regarded by man or woman. 
 Everard had thought that honour absolutely sealed his lips 
 from the moment that he knew, or rather believed, that his 
 fortune was gone ; but Reine would have been infinitely more 
 ready to give him her fullest trust, and would have felt an 
 absolute gratitude to him had he spoken out of his poverty, 
 and given her the pleasure of sympathizing, of consoling, of 
 adding her courage and constancy to his. She was too proud 
 to have allowed herself to think that there was any want of 
 honour in the way he left her, for Eeine would have died 
 rather than have had the pitiful tribute of a declaration made 
 for honour's sake ; but yet, had it not been her case, but a 
 hypothetical one, she would have pronounced it to be most 
 honourable to speak, while the man would have felt a single 
 word inconsistent with his honour ! So we must apparently 
 go on misunderstanding each other till the end of time. It 
 was a case in which there was a great deal to be said on both 
 sides, the reader will perceive. But all this was over ; and the 
 two whom a word might have made one were quite free, quite 
 independent, and might each have married some one else had 
 they so chosen, without the other having a word to say ; and 
 yet they could not meet without a certain embarrassment, 
 without a sense of what might have been. They were not 
 lovers, and they were not indifferent to each other, and 
 on both sides there was just a little wholesome bitterness. 
 Reine, though far too proud to own it, had felt herself for- 
 saken. Everard, since his return from the active work which 
 had left him little time to think, had felt himself slighted. 
 She had said that, now Herbert was better, it was not worth 
 
 t 
 
324 
 
 WHITELADIKS. 
 
 while writing so often ! and when he had got over that unkind 
 speech, and had written, as good as offering himself to join 
 them, she had not replied. He had written in October, and 
 now it was nearly Christmas, and she had never replied. So 
 there was, the reader will perceive, a most hopeful and promis- 
 ing grievance on both sides. Reine turned over her part of it 
 deeply and much in her mind that night, after the conversation 
 with her mother which 1 have recorded. She asked herself, 
 had she any right to deprive Herbert of a friend who would be 
 of use to him for any foolish pride of hers 1 She could keep 
 herself apart very easily, Reine thought, iu her pride. She 
 was no longer very necessary to Herbert. He did not want 
 her as he used to do. She could keep apart, and trouble no 
 one ; and why should she, for any ridiculous self-consciousness, 
 ghost of sentiment dead and gone, deprive her brother of such 
 a friend ? She said " No ! " to herself vehemently, as she lay 
 and pondered the question in the dark, when she ought to have 
 been asleep. Everard was nothing, and could be nothing to 
 her, but her cousin ; it would be necessary to see him as such, 
 but not to see much of him ; and whatever he might be else, 
 he was a gentleman, and would never have the bad taste to 
 intrude upon her if he saw she did not want him. Besides, 
 there was no likelihood that he would wish it ; therefore Reine 
 made up her mind that no exaggerated sentimentality on her 
 part, no weak personal feeling, should interfere with Herbert's 
 good. She would keep herself out of the way. 
 
 But the reader will scarcely require to be told that the letter 
 written under this inspiration was not exactly the kind of 
 letter which it flatters a young man to receive from a girl to 
 whom he has once been so closely drawn as Everard had been 
 to Reine, and to whom he still feels a visionary link, holding 
 him fast in spite of himself. He received the cold epistle, in 
 which Reine informed him simply where they were, adding a 
 message from her brother : " If you are coming to the Con- 
 tinent, Herbert wishes me to say he would be glad to see you 
 here," in a scene and on a day which was as unlike as it is 
 possible to imagine to the soft Italian weather, and genial 
 southern beach, on which Reine had concocted it. As it hap- 
 pened, the moment was one of the most lively and successful 
 in Everard's somewhat calm country life. He, who often felt 
 
ll 
 
 WHITELADTES. 
 
 325 
 
 himself insignificant, and sometimes slighted, was for that 
 morning at least in the ascenda^ Very cold weather had set 
 in suddenly, and in cold weather Everard became a person of 
 
 feat importance in his neighbourhood. I will tell you why. 
 is little house, which was on the river, as I have already said, 
 and in summer a very fine starting-point foi water-parties, 
 possessed unusually picturesque and well-planted grounds ; 
 and in the heart of a pretty bit of plantation which belonged 
 to him was an ornamental piece of water, very prettily sur- 
 rounded bjr trees and sloping lawns, which froze quickly, as 
 the water was shallow, and was the pleasantest skating-ground 
 for miles round. Need I say more to show how a frost made 
 Everard instantly a man of consequence 1 On the day on 
 which Reine's epistle arrived at Water Beeches, which was the 
 name of his place, it was a beautiful English frost, such as we 
 see but rarely nowadays. I do not know whether there is 
 really any change of the climate, or whether it is only the 
 change of one's own season from spring to autumn which ^ives 
 an air of change even to the weather ; but I do not think there 
 are so many bright, crisp, clear frosts as there used to be. Nor, 
 perhaps, is it much to be regretted that the intense cold — 
 which may be as champagne to the healthy and comfortable, 
 but is death to the sick and misery to the poor — should be 
 less common than formerly. It was, however, a brilliant frosty 
 day at the Water Beeches, and a large party had come over to 
 enjoy the pond. The sun was shining red through the leafless 
 trees, and such of them as had not encountered his direct in- 
 fluence were still encased in fairy garments of rime, feathery 
 and white to the furthest twig. The wet grass was brilliantly 
 green, and lighted up in the sun's way with sparkling water- 
 diamonds, though in the shade it too was crisp and white with 
 frost, and crackled under your feet. On the broad path at one 
 end of the pond two or three older people, who did not skate, 
 were walking briskly up and down, stamping their feet to keep 
 them warm, and hurrying now and then in pairs to the house, 
 which was just visible through the trees, to get warmed by the 
 fire. But on the ice no one was cold. The girls, with their 
 red petticoats and red feathers, and pretty faces flushed with 
 the exercise, were, some of them, gliding about independently 
 with their hands in their mufls, some of them being conducted 
 
 ii>. 
 
 '^ : 
 
326 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 about by their attendants, some dashing along in chairs wheeled 
 by a chivalrous skater. They had just come out again, after a 
 merry luncheon, stimulated by the best fare Everard's house- 
 keeper could furnish, and by Everard's best champagne ; and 
 as the afternoon was now so short, and the sun sinking low, 
 the gay little crowd was doing all it could to get an hour's plea- 
 sure out of half-an-hour's time, and the scene was one of per- 
 petual movement, constant varying and intermingling of the 
 bright-coloured groups, and a pleasant sound of talk and 
 laughter which rang through the clear air and the leafless trf^es. 
 The few chaperons who waited upon the pleasure of these young 
 ladies were getting tired and chilled, and perhaps cross, as was 
 (I think) extremely natural, and thinking of their carriages ; 
 but the girls were happy, and not cross, and all of them very 
 agreeable to Everard, who was the cause of so much pleasure. 
 Sophy and Kate naturally took upon them to do the honours 
 of their cousin's place. Everybody knows what a moveable 
 relationship cousinry is, and how it recedes and advances ac- 
 cording to the inclination of the moment. To-day, the Farrel- 
 Austins felt themselves first-cousins to Everard, his next-of- 
 kin, so to speak, and comparative owners. They showed their 
 friends the house and the grounds, and all the pretty open- 
 ings and peeps of the river. " It is small, but it is a perfect 
 little place," they said with all the pride of proprietorship. 
 " What fun we have had here 1 It is delightful for boating. 
 We have the joUiest parties! " 
 
 ** In short, I don't know such a place for fun all the year 
 jound," cried Sophy. 
 
 " And of course, being so closely related, it is just like our 
 own," said Kate. " We can bring whom we like here." 
 
 It was with the sound of all these pretty things in his ears, 
 and all the pleasant duties of hospitality absorbing his attention, 
 with pleasant looks, and smiles, and compliments about his 
 house and his table coming to him on all sides, and a sense of 
 importance thrust upon him in the most delightful way, that 
 Everard had Beine's letter put into his hand. It was im- 
 possible that he could read it then ; he put it into his pocket 
 with a momentary flutter and tremor of his heart, and went 
 on with the entertainment of his guests. All the afternoon he 
 was in motion, flying about upon the ice, where, for he was a 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 327 
 
 !| 
 
 very good skater, he was in great demand, and where his per- 
 formances were received with great applause ; then superintend- 
 ing the muster of the carriageo, putting his pretty guests into 
 them, receiving thanks and plaudits, and gay good-byes " for, 
 the present. " There was to be a dance at the Hatch that night 
 where most of the party were to reassemble, and Everard felt 
 himself sure of the prettiest partners, and the fullest considera- 
 tion of ail his claims to notice and kindness. He had never 
 been more pleased with himself, nor in a more agreeable state 
 of mind towards the world in general, than when he shut the 
 door ot his cousins* carriage, which was the last to leave. 
 
 " Mind you come early. I want to settle with you about 
 next time," said Kate. 
 
 " And Evf," cried Sophy, leaning out of the carriage," bring 
 me those barberries you promised me for my hair." 
 
 Everard stood smiling, waving his hand to them as they 
 drove away. " Madcaps ! " he said to himself, " always with 
 something on hand ! " as he went slowly home, watching the 
 last red gleam of the sun disappear behind the trees. It was 
 getting colder and colder every moment, the chilliest of De- 
 cember nights ; but the young man, in his glow of exercise and 
 pleasure, did not take any notice of this. He went into his 
 cosy little library, where a bright fire was burning, and where, 
 even there in his own particular sanctum, the disturbing pre- 
 sence of those gay visitors was apparent. They had taken 
 down some of his books from his shelves, and they had scattered 
 the cushions of his sofa round the fire, where a circle of them 
 had evidently been seated. There is a certain amused curiosity 
 in a jouns man's thoughts as to the doings and sayings, when 
 by themselves, of those mysterious creatures called girls. What 
 were they talking about while they chattered round that fire ? 
 his fire, where, someho^*^, some -subtle difference in the atmos- 
 phere betokened their recent presence ? He sat down with a 
 smile on his face, and that flattered sense of general importance 
 and acceptability in his mind, and took Reine's letter out of 
 his pocket. It was perhaps not the most suitable state of mind 
 in which to read the chilly communication of Reine. 
 
 Its effect upon him, however, was not at all chilly. It made 
 him hot with anger. He threw it down on the table when he 
 had read it, feeling such a letter to be an insult. Go to Cannes 
 
 J 
 
 i-^^iiri'inriifiil 
 
828 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 to be of use, forsooth, to Herbert ! a kind of sick nurse, he 
 supposed, or perhaps keeper, now that he could go out, to ihe 
 inexperienced young fellow. Everard bounced up from his 
 comfortable chair, and began to walk up and down the room in 
 his indignation. Other people nearer home had better taste 
 than Reine. If ehe thought that he was to be whistled to, like 
 a dog, when he was wanted, she was mistaken. Not even when 
 he was wanted — it was clear enough that she did not want 
 him, cold, uncourteous, unfriendly as she was ! Everard's 
 mind rose like an angry sea, and swelled into such a ferment 
 that he could not subdue himself. A mere acquaintance would 
 have written more civilly, more kindly, would have thought it 
 necessary at least to appear to join in the abrupt, cold, semi- 
 invitation, which Heine transmitted as if she had nothing to 
 do with it. Even her mother (a wise woman, with some real 
 knowledge of the world, and who knew when a man was worth 
 being civil to !) had perceived the coldness of the letter, and 
 added a conciliatory postscript. Everard was wounded and 
 humiliated in his moment of success and flattered vanity, when 
 he was most accessible to such a wound. And he was quite 
 incapable of divining — as probably he would have done in any 
 one else's case, but as no man seems capable f doing in his 
 own — that Reine's coldnesn was the best of all proof that she 
 was not indifferent, and that something must lie below the 
 studied chill of such a composition. He dressed for the party 
 at the Hatch in a state of mind which I will not attempt to 
 describe, but of which his servant gave a graphic account to 
 the housekeeper. 
 
 " Summat s gone agin master," that functionary said. " He 
 have torn those gardenias all to bits as was got for his button- 
 hole ; and the lots of ties as he've spiled is enough to bring 
 tears to your eyes. Some o' them there young ladies has been 
 a misconducting theirselves ; or else it's the money market. 
 But I don't think it's money," said John ; " when it's money 
 gentlemen is low, not furious, like to knock you down." 
 
 " Get along with you, do," said the housekeeper. " We 
 don't want no ladies hero ! " 
 
 " That may be, or it mayn't be," said John ; " but some- 
 thing's gone agin master. Listen ! there he be, a rampaging 
 because the dog-cart ain't come round, which I hear the wheels, 
 and William — it's his turn, and I'll just keep out o* the way," 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 329 
 
 "se, he 
 toihe 
 )m his 
 3omin 
 ? taste 
 io, like 
 I when 
 :; want 
 erard's 
 Biment 
 I would 
 ught it 
 I, semi- 
 hing to 
 me real 
 8 worth 
 ,er, and 
 ed and 
 y, when 
 )s quite 
 ) in any 
 ^ in his 
 hat she 
 low the 
 e party 
 empt to 
 jount to 
 
 "He 
 
 )utton- 
 
 hring 
 
 as been 
 
 market. 
 
 money 
 
 "We 
 
 William was of John's opinion when thev compared notes 
 after. Master drove to the Hatch like mad, the groom said. 
 He had never been seen to look so black in all his life before, 
 for Everard was a peaceable soul in general, and rather under 
 the dominion of his servants. He was, however, extremely gay 
 at the Hatch, and danced more than any one, far outstripping 
 the languid Guardsmen in his exertions, and taking all the pains 
 in the world to convince himself that, though some people 
 might show a want of perception of his excellencies, there were 
 others who had a great deal more discrimination. Indeed, his 
 energy was so vehement, that two or three young ladies, including 
 Sophy, found it necessary to pause and question themselves on 
 the subject, wondering what sudden charm on their part had 
 warmed him into such sudden exhibitions of feeling. 
 
 " It will not answer at all," Sophy said to her sister ; " for 
 I don't mean to marry Everard, for all the skating and all the 
 boating ir. the world — not now, at least. Ten years hence, 
 perhaps, one ir ght feel diflTe rent — but now ! — and I don't want 
 
 to quarrel with him either, in case " said this far-seeing 
 
 young woman. 
 
 This will show how Heine's communication excited and 
 stimulated her cousin, though perhaps in a curious way. 
 
 \ 
 
 it some- 
 
 npaging 
 
 wheels, 
 
 way," 
 
330 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 c^^ 
 
 VERARD'S excited mood, however, did not last ; perhaps 
 he danced out some of his bitterness ; violent exercise 
 is good for all violent feeling, and calms it down. He 
 came to himself with a strange shock, when — one of the latest 
 to leave, as he had been one of the earliest to go — he came sud- 
 denly out from the lighted rooms, and noisy music, and chat- 
 tering voices, to the clear cold wintry moonlight, deep in the 
 frosty nighf , or rather early on the frosty morning of the next 
 day. There are some people who take to themselves, in our 
 minds at least, a special phase of nature, and plant meir own 
 image in the midst of it with a certain arrogance, so tiiat we 
 cannot dissociate the sunset from one of those usurpers, or the 
 twilight from another. In this way Reine had taken possession 
 of the moonlight for Everard. It was no doing of hers, nor 
 was she aware of it , but still it was the case. He never saw 
 the moon shining without remembering the little balcony at 
 Kandersteg, and the whiteness with which her head rose out of 
 the dark shadow of the rustic wooden framework. How could 
 he help but think of her now, when worn out by a gaiety which 
 had not been quite real, he suddenly fell, as it were, into the 
 silence, the clear white light, the frost-bound chill, cold blue 
 skies above oim, full of frosty, yet burning stars, and the broad 
 level shining of that ice-cold moon 1 Everard, like other peo- 
 ple at his time of life, and in his somewhat unsettled condition 
 of mind, had a way of feeling somewhat " low " after being very 
 gay. It is generally the imaginative who do this, and is a sign, 
 I think, of a higher nature ; but Everard had the disadvantage 
 of it without the good, for he was not of a poetical mind — 
 though I suppose theie must have been enough poetry in him 
 to produce this reaction. When it came on, as it always did 
 after the noisy gaiety of the Hatch, he had, in general, one cer- 
 tain refuge to which he always betook himself. He thought of 
 Reine — Reine, who was gay enough, had nature permitted her 
 to have her way, but whom love had separated from everything 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 331 
 
 perhaps 
 jxercise 
 n. He 
 e latest 
 me sud- 
 id chat- 
 ) in the 
 lie next 
 , in our 
 eir own 
 biiat we 
 I, or the 
 ssession 
 !rs, nor 
 ver saw 
 icony at 
 e out of 
 w could 
 y which 
 into the 
 )ld blue 
 le broad 
 ler peo- 
 )ndition 
 ing very 
 ; a sign, 
 vantage 
 mind — 
 in him 
 ays did 
 one cer- 
 )ught of 
 bted her 
 jrything 
 
 of the kind, and transplanted into solitude and quiet, and the 
 moonlight, which, in his mind, was dedicated to her image ; 
 this was his resource when he was " low ;" and he turned to it 
 as naturally as the flowers turn to the sun. Reine was his ima- 
 gination, his land of fancy, his unseen world, to Everard ; but 
 lo ! on the very threshold of this secret region of dreams, the 
 young man felt himself pulled up and stopped short. Reine's 
 letter rolled up before him like a black curtain shutting out his 
 visonary refuge. Had he lost her ? he asked himself, with a 
 sudden thrill of visionary panic. Her image had embodied all 
 poetry, all romance, to him, and had it fled from his firmament % 
 The girls whom he had left had no images at all, so to speak ; 
 they were flesh and blood realities, pleasant enough, so long as 
 you were with them, and often very amusing to Everard, who, 
 after he had lingered in their society till the last moment, had 
 that other to fall back upon — the other, whose superiority he 
 felt as soon as he got outside the noisy circle, and whose soft 
 influence, oddly enough, seemed to confer a superiority upon 
 him, who had her in that private sphere to turn to, when he 
 was tired of the rest. Nothing could be sweeter than the sense 
 of repose and moral elevation with which, for instance, after a 
 gay and amusing and successful day like this, he went back 
 into the other world, which he had the privilege of possessing, 
 and felt once more the mountain air breathe over him, fresh 
 with the odour of the pines, and saw the moon rising behind the 
 snowy peaks, which were as white as her own light, and that 
 soft, upturned face lifted to the sky, full of tender thoughts and 
 mysteries ! If Reine forsook him, what mystery would be left 
 in the world for Everard ? what shadowy world, unrealized, 
 and sweeter for being unrealized than any fact could ever be 1 
 The poor young fellow was seized with a chill of fright, which 
 penetrated to the marrow of his bones, and froze him doubly 
 tliis cold night. "What it would be to lose one's imagination ! 
 to have no dreams left, no place which they could inhabit ! 
 Poor Everard felt himself turned out of his refuge, turned out 
 into the cold, the heavenly doors closed upon him all in a mo- 
 ment ; and he could not bear it. William, who thought his 
 master had gone out of his mind, or fallen asleep — for what but 
 unconsciousness or insanity could justify the snail's pace into 
 which they had dropped ?— felt frozen on his seat behind ; but 
 
 :.'M 
 
332 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 he was not half so frozen as poor Everard, in his Ulster, whose 
 heart was colder than his hands, and through whose very soul 
 the shiverings /an. 
 
 Next morning, as was natural, Everard endeavoured to make 
 a stand against the dismay which had taken possession of him, 
 and succeeded for a short time, as long as he was fully occupied 
 and amused, during which time he felt himself angry, and deter- 
 mined that he was a very badly-used man. This struggle he 
 kept up for about a week, and did not answer Reine's letter. 
 But at last the co'ifl^ct was too much for him. One day he rode 
 over suddenly to vVaiteladies, and informed them that he was 
 going abroad for the rest of the winter. He had nothing to do at 
 Water Beeches, and country life was dull ; he thought it 
 possible that he might pass through Cannes on his way to Italy, 
 as that was, on the whole, in winter the pleasantest way, and, 
 of course, would see Herbert. But he did not mention Reine 
 at all, nor her letter, and gave no reason for his going, except 
 caprice, and the dulness of the country. " I have not an es- 
 tate to manage like you," he said to Miss Susan ; and to Au- 
 gustine, expressed his grief that he could not be present at the 
 consecration of the Austin Chantry, which he had seen on his 
 way white and bristling with gothic pinnacles, like a patch upon 
 the greyness of the old church. Augustine, whom he met on 
 the road, with her grey hood over her head, and her hands 
 folded in her sleeves, was roused out of her abstracted calm to 
 a half displeasure. " Mr. Farrel-Austin will be the only repre- 
 sentative of the family, except ourselves," she said ; " not that 
 I dislike them, as Susan does. I hope I do not dislike any 
 one," said the Grey sister. " You can tell Herbert, if you see 
 him, vhat I would have put off the consecration till his return 
 — but why should I rob the family of four months' prayers ] 
 That would be a sinful waste, Everard ; the time is too short 
 : — too short — to lose a day." 
 
 This was the only message he had to carry. As for Miss 
 Susan, her chief anxiety was that he should say nothing about 
 Giovanna. " A hundred things may happen before May," the 
 elder sister said, with such an anxious worried look as went to 
 Everard's heart, " I don't conceal from you that I don't want 
 her to stay." \ 
 
 <( 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 333 
 
 , whose 
 ry soul 
 
 [;omake 
 of him, 
 ccupied 
 d deter- 
 ggle he 
 s letter, 
 he rode 
 he was 
 to do at 
 ►ught it 
 bo Italy, 
 ly, and, 
 n Reine 
 , except 
 »t an es- 
 l to Au- 
 it at the 
 n on his 
 ch upon 
 met on 
 ir hands 
 calm to 
 y repre- 
 lot that 
 ike any 
 you see 
 s return 
 rayers ^ 
 DO short 
 
 or Miss 
 g about 
 ly," the 
 went to 
 I't want 
 
 *' Then send her away," he said lightly. Miss Susan shook 
 h<^r head ; she went out to the gate with him, crossing the 
 lawn, though it was damp, to whisper once again, " Nothing 
 about her — say nothing about her — a hundred things may 
 happen before May." 
 
 Everard left home about ten days after the arrival of Heine's 
 letter) which he did not answer. He could make it evident 
 that he was cflfended, at least in that way ; and he lingered on 
 the road to show, if possible, that he had no eagarness in 
 obeying the summons. His silence puzzled the household at 
 Cannes. Madame de Mirfleur, with a twist of the cirumstances, 
 which is extremely natural, and constantly occurring among 
 ladies, set it down as her daughter's fault. She forgave 
 Everard, but she blamed Keine. And with much skilful ques- 
 tioning, which was almost entirely ineffectual, she endeavoured 
 to elicit from Herbert what the state of affairs between these 
 two had been. Herbert, for his part, had not an idea on the 
 subject. He could not understand how it was possible that 
 Everard could quarrel with Reine. " She is aggravating some- 
 times," he allowed, " when she looks at you like this — I don't 
 know how to describe it — as if she meant to find you out. 
 Why should she try to find a fellow out 1 a man (as she ought 
 to know) is not like a pack of girls." 
 
 " Precisely," said Madame de Mirfleur, " but perhaps that 
 is difficult for our poor Reine — till lately thou wert a boy, and 
 sick, mon 'Erbert ; you forget. Women are dull, ray son ; 
 and this is perhaps one of the things that it is most hard for 
 them to learn." 
 
 "You may say so, indeed," said Herbert, *' unintelligible 
 beings ! — till they come to your age, mamma, when you seem 
 to begin to understand. It is all very well for girls to give an 
 account of themselves. What I am surprised at is, that they 
 do not perceive at once the fundamental difference. Reine is 
 a clever girl, and it just shows the strange limitation, even of 
 the cleverest ; now 1 don't call myself a clever man — I have 
 had a great many disadvantages — but 1 can perceive at a 
 glance " 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur was infinitely disposed to laugh, or to 
 box her son's ears; but she was one of those women — of whom 
 there are many in the world — who think it better not to attempt 
 
 i: 
 
 ;t! 
 
334 
 
 WHITELiDIES. 
 
 the use of reason, but to manager the male creatures whom 
 they study so curiously. Both the sexes, indeed, I think, have 
 about the same opinion of each other, though the male portion 
 of the community found the means of uttering theirs sooner than 
 the other, and have got it stereotyped, so to speak. We both 
 think each other " inaccessible to reason," and ring the changes 
 upon humouring and coaxing the natural adversary. Madame 
 de Mirfleur thought she knew men aufond^ and it was not her 
 practice to argue with them. She did not tell Herbert that 
 his mental superiority was not so great as he thought it. She 
 only smiled, and said gently, " It is much more facile to per- 
 ceive the state of aflfairs when it is to our own advantage, mon 
 fils. It is that which gives your eyes so much that is clear. 
 Reine, who is a girl, who has not the same position, it is natural 
 she should not like so much to acknowledge herself to see it. 
 But she could not demand from Everard that he shoiJd account 
 for himself. And she will not of you when she has better 
 
 learned to know " 
 
 ** From Everard % Everard is of little importance. I was 
 thinki.. I of myself," cried Herbert. " How fortunate it is for 
 
 me that you have come here ! I should not have believed that 
 Reine could be sulky. I am fond of her, of course ; but I can- 
 not drag a girl everywhere about with me. Is it reasonable ? 
 Women should understand their place. I am sure you do, 
 mamma. It is home that is a woman's sphere. She cannot 
 move about the world, or see all kinds of life, or penetrate 
 everywhere, like a man ; and it would not suit her if she 
 could," said Herbert, twisting the soft down of his moustache. 
 He was of opinion that it was best for a man to take his place, 
 and show at once that he did not intend to submit to any in- 
 quisition ; and this, indeed, was what his friends advised, who 
 warned him against petticoat government. "K you don't 
 mind they'll make a slave of you," the young men said. And 
 Herbert was determined to give all who had plans of this des- 
 cription fair notice. He would not allow himself to be made a 
 slave. 
 
 " You express yourself with your usual good sense, my son," 
 said Madame de Mirfleur. " Yes, the home is the woman's 
 sphere ; always I have tried to make this known to my Reine. 
 Is it that she loves the world ? I make her enter there with 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 335 
 
 es whom 
 ink, have 
 B portion 
 3ner than 
 We both 
 e changes 
 Madame 
 IS not her 
 bert that 
 b it. She 
 lie to por- 
 tage, mon 
 r. is clear, 
 lis natural 
 ' to see it. 
 Id account 
 iias better 
 
 ce. I was 
 .te it is for 
 lieved that 
 
 but I can- 
 easonable 1 
 re you do, 
 She cannot 
 • penetrate 
 
 her if she 
 moustache, 
 e his place, 
 
 to any in- 
 llvised, who 
 
 you don't 
 said. And 
 
 of this des- 
 ) be made a 
 
 e, my son," 
 he woman's 
 ) my Heine, 
 there with 
 
 difficulty. No, it is you she loves, and understands not to be 
 separated. She has given up the pleasures that are natural to 
 be with you when you were ill ; and she understands not to 
 be separated now." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Herbert, " that is the usual thing which I 
 understand all women say to faire valoir their little services. 
 What has she given up ] They would not h^ive been pleasures 
 to her while I was ill ; and she ought to understand. It comes 
 back to what I said, mamma. Reine is a clevei girl, as girls 
 go — and I am not clever, that I know ; but the thing which 
 she cannot grasp is quite clear to me. It is best to say no more 
 about it — you can understand reason, and explain to her what 
 I mean." 
 
 " Yes, ch6ri," said Madame de Mirfleur, submissively ; then 
 she added, " Monsieur Everard left you at Appenzell ] Was he 
 weary of the quiet 1 or had he cause to go 1 " 
 
 " Why, he had lost his money, and had to look after it — or 
 he thought he had lost his money. Probably, too, he found it 
 slow. There was nobody there, and I was not good for much 
 in those days. He had to be content with Reine. Perhaps he 
 thought she was not much company for him," said the young 
 man, with a sentiment not unusual in young men towards their 
 sisters. His mother watched him with a curious expression. 
 Madame de Mirfleur was in her way a student of human nature, 
 and though it was her son who made these revelations, she was 
 amused by them all the same, and rather encouraged him than 
 otherwise to speak his mind. But if she said nothing about 
 Reine, this did not mean that she was deceived in respect to 
 her daughter, or with Herbert's view of the matter. But she 
 wanted to hear all ho had to say, and for the moment she 
 looked upon him more as a typical representative of man, than 
 as himself, a creature in whose credit, she, his mother, was con- 
 cerned. 
 
 " It has appeared to you that this might be the reason why 
 he went away l " 
 
 " I never thought much about it," said Herbert. " I had 
 enough to do thinking of myself. So I have now. I don't 
 care to go into Everard's aflFairs. If he likes to come, he'll 
 come, I suppose ; and if he don't I'kc, he won't — that's all about 
 it— that's how I would act it it was mt. Hallo ! why, while 
 
L^T^^^J!^^^ 
 
 <^^^'' 
 
 336 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 we're talking, here he is I Look here — in that carriage at the 
 door ! " 
 
 " Ah, make my excuses, Herbert. I go to speak to Fran9ois 
 about a room for him," said Madame de Mirfieur. What she 
 did, in fact, was to dart into her own room, where Reine was 
 sitting at work on some article of dress. Julie had much to 
 do, looking after and catering for the little party, so that Reine 
 had to make herself useful, and ao things occasionaily for her- 
 self 
 
 " Ch^rie," said her mother, stooping over her, " thy cousin 
 is come — he is at the door. I thought it best to teii you before 
 you met him. For my part, I nev^:!r like to be taken at the 
 unforeseen — I prefer to be prepared." 
 
 Reine had stopped her sewing for the moment now she re- 
 sumed it — so quietly that her mother could scarcely make out 
 whether this news was pleasant to her or not. '' I have no 
 preparation to make," she said coidly ; but her blood was not 
 so much under mastery as her tongue, and rushed in a flood to 
 her face ; her fingers, too, stumbled, her needle pricked her, 
 and Madame de Mirfleur, watching, learned something at last 
 —which was that Reine was not so indiflferent as she said. 
 
 " Me, I am not like you, my child," she said. " My little 
 preparations are always nacessary — for example, I cannot Hee 
 the cousin in my robe de chambre. Julie ! quick ! — but you, 
 as you are ready, can go and salute him. It is to-day, is it not, 
 that we go to see milady Northcote, who will be kind to you 
 when I am gone av/ay 1 I will put on my black silk ; but you, 
 my child, who are English, who have always your toilette made 
 from the morning, go, if you will, and see the cousin. There 
 is no one but Herbert there." 
 
 " Mamma," said Reine, " I heard Herbert say something 
 when I passed the door a little while ago. It was something 
 about me. What has happened to him that he speiiks so '? — 
 that he thinks so 1 Has he changed altogether from our Her- 
 bert who loved us 1 Is that common 1 Oh, must it be ? must 
 it be 1" 
 
 " Mon Dieu 1 " cried the mother, " can I answer for all that 
 a foolish boy will say 1 Men are fools, ma Reine. They pre- 
 tend to be wise, and they are fools. But we must not say this 
 — no one says it, though we all know it in our hearts. Tran- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 .337 
 
 broken-hearted tL tef« ^^^led'^if'r' '"''Wnt an] 
 not take what she had heard so calm?i^.1? ''"" *^«»- She did 
 
 think not more of me. Kerens th» i' "/ '""""■* my child- 
 
 travel wuhout it, as y'ou know." '"" "^"^ ** <>«•>§«• I never' 
 
 i ao not want anvfloni. .!>„ 
 tobeasoncewewere whl '"'^^''""•eanderose T„ . 
 
 wewere happy;X"'i7lTaT:h:rhi'''"^^*««""i>- wT^^ 
 sore because oTSte'hrhTay'"" ''."-us^bltte- 
 
 ooy ; they are not likp «<, . tu '"""^ ^ to expect senw f^Z.^ 
 thou wouldst be a womTn n^7.'"'^*' °» •'nde'rstand"nB S v 
 to support it. and7a7nothTnf"'T"'='^'"- 'hou n^.'t W^ 
 
 c^:- eous.. Who :^& i^s- sr i£H 
 
 w'a:in^'aKtrdir4^^^^^^ 
 &„°'^T"^- -M^l'-^h'tier-r'^^ •'^^-''he 
 
 you-take me with you , ' If 1 S'befnX'tif^tT 
 
 ■*v 
 
 #1 
 11 
 
»38 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 , 
 
 give me. I will try to do better, iitdeed I will. You love me 
 a little — oh, I know only a little, not as I want you to love me t 
 But I should be good ; I should try to please you and — every 
 one, ma m^re ! Take me home with you ! " 
 
 " Keine, ch^rie ! Yes, my most dear, if you wish it. We 
 will talk of it after. You excite yourself ; you make yourself 
 unhappy, my child." 
 
 " No, no, no," she cried ; " it is not I. I never should have 
 dreamt of it, that Herbert could think me a burden, think me 
 intrusive, interfering, disagreeable ! I cannot bear it ! Ah, 
 perhaps it is my fault that people are so uiikind ! Perhaps I 
 am what he says. But, mamma, I will be different with you. 
 Take me with you. I will be your maid, your bonne, anything! 
 only don't leave me here ! " 
 
 *' Ma Reine," said Madame de Mirfleur, touched, but some- 
 what embarrassed, " you shall go with me, do not doubt it — if 
 it pleases you to go. You are my child as much as Babette, and 
 I love you just the same. A mother has not one measure of 
 love for one and another for another. Do not think it,, ch^rie. 
 You shall go with me if you wish it, but you must not be so, 
 angry with Herbert. What are men 1 I have told you often 
 they are not like us ; they seek what they like, and their own 
 way, and their own pleasures ; in short, they are fools, as the 
 selfish always are. Herbert is ungrateful to thee for giving up 
 thy youth to him, and thy brightest years ; but he is not so 
 unkind as he seems — that which he said was not what he thinks. 
 You must forgive him, ma Reine ; he is ungrateful " 
 
 " Do I wish him to be grateful 1 " said the girl. " If one 
 gives me a flower, I am grateful, or a glass of water ; but grati- 
 tude — from Herbert — to me ! Do not let us talk of it, for I 
 cannot bear it. But since he does not want me, and finds me 
 a trouble — mother, mother, take me home with you ! " 
 
 " Yes, ch^rie, yes ; it shall be as you will," said Madame de 
 Mirfleur, drawing Reine's throbbing head on to her bosom, and 
 soothing her as if she had been still a child. She consoled her 
 with soft words, with caresses, and tender tones. Probably 
 she thought it was a mere passing fancy, which would come to 
 nothing ; but she had never crossed any of her children, and 
 she soothed and petted Reine instinctively, assenting to all she 
 asked, though without attaching to what she asked any very 
 
WHITELADIEa 
 
 839 
 
 m© 
 nel 
 rery 
 
 We 
 LTself 
 
 have 
 iktne 
 Ah, 
 laps 1 
 ti you- 
 
 1 some- 
 
 itte, and 
 isure ot 
 i, ch6rie. 
 ot be 80 
 ou ofbeu 
 keir own 
 Is, as tbe 
 giving up 
 [s not 80 
 te tbink8. 
 
 Lf it, fori 
 1 finds me 
 
 Ldame de 
 losom, and 
 Insoled ber 
 1 probably 
 lid come to 
 lildren, and 
 ■ to all sbe 
 ' any very 
 
 serious meaning. She took her favounte essence of orange 
 flowers from her dressing-case, and made the agitated girl swal- 
 low some of it, and bathed her eyes with rose-water, and kissed 
 and comforted her. " You shall do what pleases to you, ma 
 bien aim6e," she said. " Dry thy dear eyes, my child, and let 
 us go to salute the cousin. He will think something is wrong. 
 He will suppose he is not welcome ; and we are not like men, 
 who are j» law to themselves ; we are women, and must do what 
 is expected — what is reasonable. Come, ch6rie, or he will 
 think we avoid him, and that something has gone wrong." 
 
 Thus abjured, Reine followed her mother to the sitting-room, 
 where Everard had exhausted everything he had to say to Her- 
 bert, and everytiiing that Herbert had to say to him ; and v. lere 
 the two young men were waiting vety impatiently, and with a 
 glowing sense of injury for the appearance of the ladies, Her- 
 bert exclaimed fretfully that they had kept him waiting half 
 the morning, as they came in. " And here is Everard, who is 
 still more badly used," he cried ; " after a long journey too. 
 You need not have made toilettes, surely, before you came to 
 see Everard ; but ladies are all the same everywhere, I suppose !" 
 
 Heine's eyes gave forth a gleam of fire. " Everywhere ! " she 
 cried, " always troublesome, and in the way. It is better to be 
 rid of them. I think so as well as you." 
 
 Everard, who was receiving the salutations and apologies of 
 Madame de Mirfleur, did not hear this little speech ; but he 
 saw the fire in Reine's eyes, which lighted up her proud sensi- 
 tive face. This was not his Reine of the moonlight, whom he 
 had comforted. And he took her look as addressed to himself, 
 though it was not meant for him. She gave him her hand with 
 proud reluctance. He had lost her then 1 it was as he thought. 
 
340 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 EINE did not go back from her resolution ; she did not 
 •JjKX change her mind as her mother expected, and forgive 
 *^ Herbert's etuurderie. Reine could not look upon it as 
 etourderie, and she was too deeply wounded to recover the 
 shock easily ; but I think she had the satisfaction of giving an 
 almost equal shock to her brother, who, though he talked so 
 about the limitation of a girl's understanding, and the super- 
 iority of his own, was as much wounded as R<'aG was, when 
 he found that his sister really meant to desert him. He did 
 not say a word to her, but he denounced to his mother the 
 insensibility of women, who only cared for a fellow so long as 
 he did exactly what they wished, and could not endure him to 
 have the least little bit of his own way. " I should never 
 have heard anything of this if I had taken her about with 
 me everywhere, and gone to bed at ten o'clock, as she wished," 
 he cried, with bitterness. 
 
 " You have reason, mon 'Erbert," said Madame de Mirfleur ; 
 " had you cared for her society, she would never have left you ; 
 but it is not amusing to sit at home while les autres are amusing 
 themselves. One would .equire to be an angel for this." 
 
 " I never thought Reine cared for amusement," said Herbert ; 
 " she never said so ; she was always pleased to be at home ; it 
 must all have come on, her love for gaiety, to spite me." 
 
 Madame de Mirfleur did not reply ; she thought it wisest to 
 say nothing in such a controversy, hi»,v^ing, I fear, a deep-rooted 
 contempt for the masculine understanding in such matters at 
 least. En revanche, she professed the most unbounded reverence 
 for it in other matters, and liked, as Miss Susan did, to consult 
 " a man " in all difficult questions, though I fear, like Miss 
 Susan, it was only the advice of one who agreed with her that 
 she took. But with Herbert she was silent. What was the 
 use 1 she said to herself. If he could not see that Reine's in- 
 difterence to amusement arose from her affection to himself, 
 what could she say to persuade him of it ? and it was against 
 
 But 
 
 to 
 
 had 
 
 ten 
 
 de 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 841 
 
 d not 
 jrgive 
 i it as 
 jr the 
 ing an 
 ked 80 
 super- 
 , when 
 He did 
 her t\ie 
 long as 
 I him to 
 a never 
 ,ut with 
 jrisbed," 
 
 irfleur ; 
 eft you; 
 amusing 
 
 Herbert ; 
 home ; it 
 
 wisest to 
 jp-rooted 
 latters at 
 •everence 
 ,0 consult 
 Like Miss 
 , her that 
 |t was the 
 Seine's in- 
 himself, 
 against 
 
 her principles to denounce him for selfishness, as probably an 
 Endish mother would have done. ** Que voulez-vous 1 it is 
 their nature," Madame de Mirfleur would have said, shrugging 
 her shoulders. I am not sure, however, that this silence was 
 much more satisfactory to Herbert than an explanation would 
 have been. He was not really selfish, perhaps, only deceived 
 by the perpetual homage that had been paid to him during his 
 illness, and by the intoxicating sense of sudden emancipation 
 now. 
 
 As for Everard, he was totally dismayed by the announce- 
 ment ; all the attempts at self-assertinn which he had intended 
 to make failed him. As was natural, he took this, not in the 
 least as affecting Herbert, but only as a pointed slight addressed 
 to himself. He had left home to please her at Christmas, of 
 pJl times in the year, when everybody who has a home goes 
 back to it, when no one is absent who can help ic. And though 
 her invitation was no invitation, and was not accompanied by 
 one conciliating word, he had obeyed the summons, almost, he 
 said to himself, at a moment's notice ; and she for whom he 
 came, though she had not asked him, she had withdrawn her- 
 self from the party ! Everard said to himself that he would 
 not stay, that he would push on at once to Italy, and prove to 
 her that it was not her or her society that had tempted him. 
 He made up his mind to this at once, but he did not do it. 
 He lingered next day and next day again. He thought it 
 would be best not to commit himself to anything till he had 
 talked to Reine ; if he had but half an hour's conversation with 
 her he would be able to see whether it was her mother's doing. 
 A young man in such circumstances has an instinctive distrust 
 of a mother. Probably it was one of Madame de Mirfleur's 
 absurd French notions. Probably she thought it not entirely 
 comme ilfaut that Reine, now under her brother's guardian- 
 ship, should be attended by Everard. Ridiculous ! but on the 
 whole it was consolatory tc think that this might be the mother's 
 doing, and that Reine was being made a victim of like himself. 
 But (whether this also was her m ther's doing he could not tell) 
 to get an interview with Reine was beyond his power. He 
 had no chance of saying a word to her till he had been at least 
 ten days in Cannes, and the time of her departure with Madame 
 
 ' 1! 
 
 de Mirfleur was drawing near. One 
 
 evening. 
 
 however, he 
 
342 
 
 WH1TELADIE8. 
 
 happened to come into the room when Reine had stepped out 
 upon the balcony, and he followed her there hastily, determined 
 to seize the occasion. It was a mild evening, not moonlight, 
 as (he felt) it ought to have been, but full of the soft lightness 
 of stars, and the luminous reflection of the sea. Beyond her, 
 as she stood outside the window, he saw the sweep of dim blue, 
 with edges of white, the great Mediterranean, which forms the 
 usual background on this coast. There was too little light for 
 much colour, only a vague blueness or greyness, against which 
 the slim, straight figure rose. He stepped out softly not to 
 frighten her ; but even then she started, and looked about for 
 some means of escape, when she found herself captured and 
 in his power. Everard did not take any sudden or violent ad- 
 vantage of his luck. He began quite gently, with an English- 
 man's precaution, to talk, of the weather and the beautiful 
 night. 
 
 " It only wants a moon to be perfect," he said. " Do you 
 remember, Keine, the balcony at Kandersteg? I always as- 
 sociate you with balconies and moons. And do you remember, 
 at Appenzell " 
 
 It was on her lips to say, " Don't talk of Appenzell ! " almost 
 angrily, but she restrained herself. " I remember most things 
 that have happened lately," she said ; " I have done nothing 
 to make me forget." 
 
 " Have IV said Everard, glad of the chance ; for to get an 
 opening for reproach or self-defence was exactly what he de- 
 sired. 
 
 " I did not say so. I suppose we both remember all that 
 there is to remember," said Reine, and she added hastily, " I 
 don't mean anything more than I say." 
 
 " It almost sounds as if you did — and to see your letter," 
 said Everard, " no one would have thought you remembered 
 anytiimg, or that we had ever known each other. Reine, 
 Reine, why are you going away ) " 
 
 " Why am I going away? I am not going what you call, 
 away. I am going rather, as we should say, home — with 
 mamma. Is it not the most natural thing to do V* 
 
 " Did you ever call Madame de Mirfleur's house home be- 
 fore? " said Everard ; " do you mean it ? Are not you coming 
 to Whiteladies, to your own country, to the place you belong 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 343 
 
 edout 
 mined 
 lUght, 
 htnees 
 id her, 
 m blue, 
 TOB the 
 ght for 
 i which 
 not to 
 )out for 
 red and 
 lent ad- 
 English- 
 )eautiful 
 
 « Do you 
 ways as- 
 imember, 
 
 " almost 
 >st things 
 nothing 
 
 to get an 
 tt he de- 
 
 r all that 
 itily, " I 
 
 ir letter," 
 lembered 
 Reine, 
 
 you calli 
 [lue — with 
 
 home be- 
 [)u coming 
 fovL belong 
 
 to? Reine, you frighten me. I don't understand what you 
 mean." 
 
 " Do I belong to Whiteladies 1 Is England my country 1 " 
 said Reine. « I am not so sure as you are. I am a French- 
 woman's daughter, and perhaps, most likely, it will turn out 
 that mamma's house is the only one I have any right to." 
 
 Her3 she paused, faltering, to keep the tears out of iter 
 voice. Everard did not see that her lip was quivering, but he 
 di<!COvered it in the tremulous sound. 
 
 " What injustice you are doing to everybody ! " he cried in- 
 dignantly. " How can you treat us so ? " 
 
 " Treat you? I was not thinking of you," said Reine. " Her- 
 bert will go to Whitela Ues in May. It is home to him ; but 
 what is there that belongs to a girl? Supposing Herbert 
 marries, would Whiteladies be my home ? I have no right, no 
 place anywhere. The only thing, I suppose, a girl has a right 
 to is, perhaps, her mother. I have not even that —but mamma 
 would give me a home. I should be sure of a home at least " 
 
 " I do not understand you, Reine." 
 
 " It is tout simple, as mamma says ; everything is tout sim- 
 ple," she said ; " that Herbert should stand by himself, not 
 wanting me ; and that I should have nothing and nobody in 
 the world. Tout simple ! I am not complaining ; I a^> only 
 saying the truth. It is the best that I should go to Normandy 
 and try to please mamma. She does not belong to me, but 
 I belong to her, in a way -—and she would never be unkind to 
 me. Well, there is nothing so very wonderful in what I say. 
 Girls are like that ; they have nothing belonging to them ; 
 they are not meant to have, mamma would say. It is tout 
 simple ; they are meant to manager, and to cajole, and to sub- 
 mit ; and I can do the last. That is why I say that, most 
 likely, Normandy will be my home after all." 
 
 " You cannot mean this," said Everard troubled. " You 
 never could be happy there ; why should you change now ? 
 Herbert and you have been together all your lives ; and if he 
 marries — — " Here Everard drew a long breath and made a 
 pause. " You could not be happy with Monsieur, your step- 
 father, and all the little Mirfleurs," he said. 
 
 " One can live, one can get ou, without being happy," ined 
 Reine. Then she laughed. " What is the use of talking ? One 
 
344 
 
 WHITFXADIES. 
 
 has to do what one must. Let me go in, please. Balconies and 
 moonlights are not good. To think too much, to talk folly, may 
 be very well for you who can do what you please, but they are not 
 good for girls. I am going in now." 
 
 " Wait one moment, Eeine. Cannot you do what you please ? 
 — not only for yourseif, but for others. Everything will be 
 changed if you go ; as for me, you don't care about me, what I 
 feel — but Herbert. He has always been your charge ; you 
 have thought of him before everything " 
 
 " And so I do now," cried the girl. Two big tears dropped 
 out of her eyes. "So I do now ! Bertie shall not think me a 
 burden, shall not complain of me if I should die. Let me pass, 
 please. Everard, may I not even have so much of my own will 
 as to go out or in if I like 1 I do not ask much more." 
 
 Everard stood aside, but he caught the edge of her loose 
 sleeve as she passed him, and detained her still a moment. 
 " What are you thmking of 1 what have you in your mind ] " 
 he said humbly. " Have yoa changed, or have I changed, or 
 what has gone wrong ? I don't understand you, Heine." 
 
 She stood for a moment hesitating, as if she might have 
 changed her tone ; but what was there to say 1 " I am not 
 changed that I know of ; I cannot tell whether you are changed 
 or not," she said. " Nothing is wrong ; it is tout simple, as 
 mamma says." 
 
 AVhat was tout simple ? Everard had not a notion what was 
 in her mind, or how it was that the delicate poise had been 
 disturbed, and Reine taught to feel the disadvantage of her 
 womanhood. She had not been in the habit of thinking or 
 feeling anything of the kind. She had not been aware even 
 for years and years, as her mother had said, whether she was 
 girl or boy. The discovery had come all at once. Everard 
 pondered dimly and with perplexity how much he had to do 
 with it, or what it was. But indeed he had nothing to do with 
 it ; the question between Reine and himself was a totally dif- 
 ferent question from the other which was for the moment su- 
 preme in her miud. Had she been free to think of it, I do not 
 suppose Reine would have felt in much doubt as to her power 
 over Everard. But it was the other phase of her life which 
 was uppermost for the moment. 
 
 He followed her into the lighted room, where Madame de 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 345 
 
 and 
 may 
 enot 
 
 jasel 
 .11 be 
 hat I 
 ; you 
 
 jpped 
 
 me a 
 
 I pass, 
 
 n will 
 
 • loose 
 )ment. 
 ind ] " 
 ^ed, or 
 
 it have 
 \m not 
 langed 
 iple, as 
 
 lat was 
 d been 
 of her 
 dng or 
 :e even 
 jhe was 
 verard 
 to do 
 io with 
 Uy dif- 
 lent su- 
 do not 
 power 
 which 
 
 ame de 
 
 Mirfleur sat at her tapisserie in the light of the lamp. But 
 when Reine went to the piano and began to sing " Ma Nor- 
 mandie " with her sweet young fresh voice, he retreated again 
 to the balcony, irritated by the song more than by anything she 
 had said. Madame de Mirfleur, who was a musician too, added 
 a mellow second to the refrain of her child's song. The voices 
 suited each other, and a prettier harmony could not have been, 
 nor a more pleasant suggestion to any one whose mind was iii 
 tune. Indeed, it made the mother feel happy for the moment, 
 though she was herself doubtful how far Reine's visit to the 
 Norman chateau would be a success. " Je vais revoir ma Nor- 
 mandie," the girl sang, very sweetly ; the mother joined in ; 
 mother and daughter were going together to that simple rural 
 home, while the young men went out into the world and enjoyed 
 themselves. What more suitable, more pleasant for all parties 1 
 But Everard felt himself grow hot and angry. His temper 
 flamed up with unreasonable, ferocious impatience. What a 
 farce it was, he cried bitterly to himself. What did that wo- 
 man want with Reine 1 she had another family whom she cared 
 for much more. She would make the poor child wretched 
 when she got her to that detestable Normandie they were sing- 
 ing about with so much false sentiment. Of course it was all 
 some ridiculous nonsense of hers about propriety, something 
 that never could have come into Reine's poor dear little inno- 
 cent head if it had not been put there. When a young man is 
 angry with the girl he is fond of, what a blessing it is when she 
 has a mother upon whom he can put out his wrath ! the reader 
 knows how very little poor Madame de Mirfleur had to do with 
 it. But though she was somewhat afraid of her daughter's 
 visit, and anxious about its success, Reine's song was very plea- 
 sant to her, and she liked to put in that pretty second, and to 
 feel that her child's sweet voice was in some sense an echo of 
 her own. 
 
 " Thanks, ch^rie, " she said when Reine closed the piano. 
 ** I love thy song, and I love thee for singing it. Tiens, my 
 voice goes with your fresh voice well enough still." 
 
 She was pleased, poor soul ; but Everard, glaring at her from 
 the balcony, would have liked to do something to Madame de 
 Mirfleur had the rules of society permitted. He " felt like 
 hurling things at her," like Maria in the play. 
 
 iiO !' i 
 
346 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Yet — I do not know how it came to pass, but so it was — even 
 then Everard did not carry out his intention of making a start 
 on his own account, and going off and leaving the 'ittle party 
 which was just about to break up, each going his or her own 
 way. He lingered and lingered still till the moment came when 
 the ladies had arranged to leave. Herbert by this time had 
 made up his mind to go on to Italy too, and Everard, in spite 
 of himself, found that he was tacitly pledged to be his young 
 cousin's comr anion, though Bertie without Reine was not partic- 
 ularly to his mind. Though he had been partially weaned 
 from his noisy young friends by Everard's presence, Herbert 
 had still made his boyish desire to emancipate hinrself suffi- 
 ciently apparent to annoy and bore the elder man, who 
 having long known the delights of freedom, wa*: not so eager 
 to claim them, nor so jealous of their infringement. Everard 
 had no admiration of the billiard-rooms or smoking-rooms, or 
 noisy boyish parties which Herbert preferred so much to the 
 society of his mother and sister. " Please yourself," he said, 
 shrugging his shoulders, as he left the lad at the door of these 
 brilliant centres of society ; and this shrug had more eflfect 
 upon Herbert's mind than dozens of moral lectures. His first 
 doubt, indeed, as to whether the " life " which he was seeing, 
 v/as not really of the most advanced and brilliant kind, was 
 suggested to him by that contemptous movement of his cousin's 
 shoulders. "He is a rustic, he is a Puritan," Herbert said to 
 himself, but quite unconsciously Everard's shrug was as a cloud 
 over his gaiety. Everard, however, shrugged his shoulder* 
 much more emphatically when he found that he was expected 
 to act the part of guide, philosopher, and friend to the young 
 fellow, who was no longer an invalid, and who was so anxious 
 to see the world. Once upon a time he had been very ready 
 to undertake the office, to give the sick lad his arm, to wheel 
 him about in his chair, to carry him up or down stairs when 
 that was needful. 
 
 " But you don't expect me to be Herbert's nurse all by my- 
 self," he said ruefully, just after Madame de Mirfleur had made 
 a pretty little speech to him about the benefit which his exam- 
 ple and his society would be to her boy. Reine was in the 
 room too, working demurely at her mother's tapisserie, and 
 making no sign. 
 
 L 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 347 
 
 exam- 
 in the 
 and 
 
 " He wants no nurse," said Madame de Mirfleur, " thank 
 God ; but your society, cher Monsieur Everard, will be every- 
 thing for him. It will set our minds at ease. Reine, speak for 
 thyself, then. Do not let Monsieur Everard go away without 
 thy word too." 
 
 Reine raised her eyes from her work, and gave a quick, 
 sudden glance at him. Then Everard saw that her eyes were 
 full of tears. Were they for him 1 were they for Herbert 1 were 
 they for herself ? He could not tell. Her voice was husky and 
 strained, very different from the clear carol with which this 
 night even, over again, she had given forth the quavering notes 
 of " Ma Normandie." How he hated the song which she had 
 taken to singing over and over again when nobody wanted it ! 
 But her voice just then had lost all its music, and he was glad. 
 
 " Everard knows — what I would say," said Reine. " He 
 always was — very good to Bertie ; " and here her tears fell. 
 They were so big that they made a storm of themselves, and 
 echoed as they fell, these two tears. 
 
 " But speak then," said her mother, " we go to-morrow ; 
 there is no more time to say anything after to-night." 
 
 Reine's eyes had filled again. She was exercising great con- 
 trol over herself, and would not weep nor break down, but she 
 could not keep the tears out of her eyes. "He is not very 
 strong," she said faltering. " He never was — without some 
 one to take care of him — before. Oh ! how can I speak'? Perhaps, 
 I am forsaking him for my own poor pride, after all. If he 
 got ill, what should I do 1 what should I do 1 " 
 
 " Ch<?rie, if he gets ill, it will be the will of God ; thou canst 
 do no more. Tell what you wish to your cousin. Monsieur 
 Everard is very good and kind ; he will watch over him ; he 
 will take care of him " 
 
 " I know, I know ! " said Reine under her breath, making a 
 desperate effort to swallow down the rising sob in her throat. 
 
 Through all this Eveyard sat very still, with a rueful sort of 
 smile on his face. He did not like it, but what could he say t 
 He had no desire to watch over Herbert, to take care of him, as 
 Madame de Mirfleur said ; but he was soft-hearted, and his 
 very soul was melted by Reine's tears, though at the same time 
 they wounded him ; for, alas ! there was very little appearance 
 of any thought for him, Everard, in all she looked and said. 
 
 \\ 
 
 liii' 
 
348 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 And then there followed a silence in which, if he had been a 
 brave man, he would have struck a stroke for liberty, and en- 
 deavoured to get out of this thankless office ; and he fully meant 
 to do it ; but sat still looking at the lamp, and said nothing, 
 though the opportunity was afforded him. A man who has so 
 little courage or presence of mind surely deserves all his sufferings. 
 
 1 
 
■ Z^- 
 
 WHITELADIEa 
 
 349 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ^ 
 
 VERARD and Herbert made their tour through Italy 
 without very much heart for the performance; but 
 partly out of pride, partly because, when once started 
 on a giro of any kind, it is easier to go on than to turn back, 
 they accomplished it. On Herbert's part, indeed, there was 
 occasion for a very strong backbone of pride to keep him up, 
 for the poor young fellow, whose health was not so strong as 
 he thought, had one or two warnings of this fact, and when 
 shut up for a week or two in Rome or in Naples, longed un- 
 speakably for the sister who had always been his nurse and 
 companion. Everard was very kind, and gave up a great deal 
 of his time to the invalid ; but it was not to be expected that 
 he should absolutely devote himself, as Reine did, thinking of 
 nothing in the world but Herbert. He had indeed many other 
 things to think of, and when the state of convalescence was 
 reached he left the patient to get better as he could, though he 
 was very good to him when he was absolutely ill What more 
 could any one askl But poor Herbert wanted more. He 
 wanted Reine, and thus learned how foolish it was to throw his 
 prop away, Reine in the meanwhile wanted him, and spent 
 many wretched hours in the heart of that still Normandy, long- 
 ing to be with the travellers, to know what they were about, 
 and how her brother arranged his life without her. The young 
 men arrived at the Chateau Mirfleur at the earliest moment per- 
 missible, getting there in the end of April, to pick up Reine ; 
 and as they had all been longing for this meeting, any clouds that 
 had risen on the firmament dispersed at once before the sun- 
 shine. They were so glad to be together again, that they did 
 not ask why or how they had separated. And instead of sing- 
 ing " Ma Normandie," as she had done at Cannes, Reine sang 
 " Home, sweet home," bringing tears into the eyes of the wan- 
 derers with that tender ditty. Herbert and she were indeed 
 much excited about their home-going, as was natural. They 
 had not been at Whiteladies for six years, a large slice out of 
 
350 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 their young lives. They had been boy and girl when they left 
 it, and now they were man and woman. And all the responsi- 
 bilities of life awaited Herbert, now three-and-twenty, in full 
 possession of his rights. In the first tenderness of the reunion 
 Reine and he had again many talks over this life which was 
 now beginning — a different kind of life from that which he 
 thought, poor boy, he was making acquaintance with in billiard- 
 rooms, &c. I think he had ceased to confide in the billiard- 
 room version of existence, but probably not so much from good 
 sense or any virtue of his, as from the convincing effect of those 
 two " attacks " which he had been assailed by at Rome and 
 Naples, and which proved to him that he was not yet strong 
 enough to dare vulgar excitements, and turn night into day. 
 
 As for Everard, it seemed to him that it was his fate to be 
 left in the lurch. He had been told off to attend upon Herbert 
 and take care of him when he had no such intention, and now, 
 instead of rewarding him for his complaisance, Reine was in- 
 tent upon cementing her own reconciliation with her brother, 
 and making up for what she now represented to herself as her 
 desertion of him. Poor Everard could not get a word or a look 
 from her, but was left in a whimisical solitude to make acquaint- 
 ance with Jeanot and Babette, and to be amiable to M. deMir- 
 fleur, whom his wife's children were not fond of. Everard 
 found him very agreeable, being driven to take refuge with the 
 honest, homely Frenchman, who had more charity for Herbert 
 and Reine than they had for him. M. de Mirfleur, like his wife, 
 found many things to be tout simple which distressed and wor- 
 ried the others. He was not even angry with the young peo- 
 ple for their natural reluctance to acknowledge himself, which 
 indeed showed very advanced ]3erceptions in a step-father, and 
 much forbearance. He set dowm all their farouche characteris- 
 tics to their nationality. Indeed there was in the good man's 
 mind an evident feeling that the fact of being English ex- 
 plained everything. Everard was left to the society of M. de 
 Mirfleur and the children, who grew very fond of him ; and 
 indeed it was he who derived the most advantage from his week 
 in Normandy, if he had only been able to see it in that light. 
 But I am not sure that he did not think the renewed devotion 
 of friendship between the brother and sister excessive ; for it 
 was not until they were ploughing the stormy seas on the voy- 
 
 tl 
 
 WJ 
 
 is I 
 wi 
 
 yc 
 
 aci 
 onl 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 351 
 
 peo- 
 
 and 
 cteris- 
 man's 
 ex- 
 IM. de 
 ; and 
 week 
 light, 
 votiou 
 for it 
 e voy- 
 
 age from Havre, which was their nearest seaport to England, 
 that he had so much as a chance of a conversation with Reine. 
 Herbert, bound to be well on his triumphal return home, had 
 been persuaded to go below and escape the night air. But 
 Reine, who was in a restless condition, full of suppressed ex- 
 citement, and a tolerable sailor besides, could not keep still. 
 She came up to the deck when the night was gathering, the 
 dark waves running swiftly by the ship's side, the night-air 
 blowing strong (for there was no wind, the sailors said) through 
 the bare cordage, and carrying before it the huge black pennon 
 of smoke from the funnel. The sea was not rough. There 
 was something congenial to the commotion and excitement of 
 Reine's spirit in the throb and bound of the steamer, and in the 
 dark waves, and their ceaseless movement, through which, 
 stormy and black and full of mysterious life as they looked, the 
 blacker solid hull pushed its resistless way. She liked the 
 strong current of the air, and the sense of progress, and even 
 the half-terror of that dark world in which this little floating 
 world held its own between sky and sea. Everarc tossed his 
 cigar over the ship's side when he saw her, '■ id came eagerly 
 forward and drew her hand through his arm. It was the first 
 time he had been able to say a word to her since they met. 
 !But even then Reine's first question was not encouraging. 
 
 " How do you think Bertie is looking 1 " she said. 
 
 Every man, however, be his temper ever so touchy, can be 
 patient when the inducement is strong enough. Everard, 
 though deeply tempted to make a churlish answer, controlled 
 himself in a second, and replied — 
 
 "Very well, I think ; not robust, perhaps, Reine ; you must 
 not expect him all at once to look robust." 
 
 " I suppose not," she said, with a sigh. 
 
 " But quite well, which is much more important. It is not 
 the degree, but the kind, that is to be looked at," said Everard, 
 with a great show of wisdom. " Strength is one thing, health 
 is another ; and it is not the most robust men," he went on 
 with a smile, " who live longest, Reine." 
 
 " I suppose not," she repeated. Then after a pause, "Do 
 you think, from what you have seen of him, that he will be 
 active and take up a country life 1 There is not much going 
 on at Whiteladies ; you say you found your life dull 1 " 
 
 " To excuse myself for coming when you called me, Reine." 
 
 \'. 
 
352 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 
 I 
 
 " I w\ 
 I did taL 
 wanted to 
 
 " Ah ! but X did not call you. I never should have ventured 
 — Everard, you are doing me injustice. How could I have, 
 taken so much upon myself? " 
 
 " I wish you would take a great deal more upon yourself. 
 You did, Heine. You said, ' Stand in my place.' " 
 
 "Yes, I know; my heart was breaking. Forgive me, 
 Everard Who* i could I ask but you 1 " 
 
 V <> you anything you like, if you say that. And 
 VI. -i f^ace, Reine. I did not want to, mind you — I 
 • ii. you, not Bertie — but I did." 
 
 " Everard, you i kind, and so cruel. Thanks 1 thanks a 
 thousand times ! " 
 
 " I do not want to be thanked," he said, standing over her ; 
 for she had drawn her hand from his arm, and was standing 
 by the steep stairs which led below, ready for escape. " 1 
 don't care for thanks. I want to be rewarded. I am not one 
 of the generous kind. I did not do it for nothing. Pay me, 
 Reine!" 
 
 Reine looked him in the face very sedately. I do not think 
 that his rudeness alarmed, or even annoyed her, to speak of. 
 A gleam of malice came into her eyes ; then a gleam of some- 
 thing else, which was, though it was hard to see it, a tear. 
 Then she suddenly took his hand, kissed it before Everard had 
 time to stop her, and fled below. And when she reached the 
 safe refuge of the ladies' cabin, where no profane foot could 
 follow her, Reine took off her hat, and shook down her hair, 
 which was all blown about by the wind, and laughed to herself. 
 When she turned her eyes to the dismal little swinging lamp 
 overhead, that dolorous light reflected itself in such glimmers 
 of sunshine as it had never seen before. How gay the girl felt ! 
 and mischievous, like a kitten. Pay him ! Reine sat down on 
 the darksome hair-cloth sofa in the corner, with wicked smiles 
 curling the corners of her mouth ; and then she put her hunds 
 ovtsr her face, and cried. The other ladies, poor souls ! were 
 asleep or poorly, and paid no attention to all this pantomime. 
 It was the happiest moment she had had for years, and this is 
 how she ran away from it ; but I don't think that the running 
 awa,y made her enjoy it the less. 
 
 As for Everard, he was left on deck feeling somewhat dis- 
 comfited. It was the second time this had happened to him. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 S53 
 
 She had kissed his hand before, and he had been angry and 
 ashamed, as it was natural a man should be, of such an inap- 
 propriate homage. He had thought, to tell the truth, that h'ji 
 demand for payment was rather an original way of making 
 proposal ; and he felt himself laughed at, which is, of all things 
 in the world, the thing most trying to a lover^s feelings, fiut 
 after a while, when he had lighted and smoked a cigar, and 
 fiercely perambulated the deck for ten minutes, he calmed 
 down, and began to enter into the spirit of the situation. Such 
 a response, if it was intensely provoking, was not, after all, very 
 discouraging. He went down-stairs after a while (having, as 
 the reader will perceive, his attack of t^ " love-sickness rather 
 badly), and looked at Herbert, who wa^. ex ided on another 
 dismal sofa, similar to the one on w^^ch ine indulged her 
 malice, and spread a warm rug over hi- *:, . na told him the hour, 
 that " we're getting on famously, old lei'ovv^ ! " with the utmost 
 sweetness. But he could not himselt resc in the dreary cabin, 
 under the swinging lamp, and went -jV on deck, where there 
 was something more congenial in ine fresh air, the waves 
 running high, the clouds breaking into dawn. 
 
 They arrived in the afternoon by a train which had been 
 selected for them by instructions from Whiteladies ; and no 
 sooner had they reached the station than the evidenee of a 
 great reception made itself apparent. The very station was 
 decorated as if for royalty. Just outside was an arch made of 
 green branches, and sweet with white boughs of the blossomed 
 May. Quite a crowd of people were waiting to welcome the 
 travellers — the tenants before mentioned, not a very large band, 
 the village people in a mass, the clergy, and several of the neigh- 
 bours in their carriages, including the Farrel- Austins. Every- 
 body who had any right to such a privilege pressed forward to 
 shake hands with Herbert. " Welcome home ! " they cried, 
 cheering the young man, who was so much surorised and affected 
 that he could scarcely speak to them. As ror Reine, between 
 crying and smiling, she was incapable of anything, and had|to 
 be almost lifted into the carriage. Kate and Sophy Farrel- Austin 
 wt^ved their handkerchiefs and their parasols, and called out 
 " Welcome, Bertie ! " over the heads of the other poeple. 
 They were all invited to a great dinner at Whiteladies on the 
 next day, at which half tbfi pounty was tq be ftgsembled ^ and 
 W 
 
854 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 Herbert and Reine were especially touched by the kind looks of 
 their cousins. '* I used not to like them," Reine said, when " e 
 first moment of emotion was over, and they were driving along 
 the sunny high rOad towards Whiteladies ; "it shows how 
 foolish one's judgments are ; " while Herbert declared " they 
 were always jolly girls, and, by Jove ! as pretty as any he had 
 seen for ages." Everard did not say anything ; but then they 
 had taken no notice of him. He was on the back seat, not much 
 noticed by any one ; but Herbert and Reine were the observed 
 of all observers. There were two or three other arches along 
 the rural road, and round each a little group of the country 
 folks, pleased with the little show, and full of kindly welcomes. 
 In front of the Almshouses all the old people were drawn up, 
 and a large text, done in flowers, stretched along the front of 
 the old red-brick building. " I cried unto the Lord, and He 
 heard me," was the inscription ; the trim old Dr. Richard, in 
 his trim canonicals, stood at the gate in the centre of his flock 
 when the carriage stopped. Herbert jumped down amongst 
 them with his heart full, and spoke to the old people ; while 
 Keine sat in the carriage, and cried, and held out her hands to 
 her friends. Miss Augustine had wished to be there too, among 
 the others who, she thought, had brought Herbert back to life 
 by their prayers ; but her sister had interposed strenuously, 
 and this had been given up. When the Almshouses were 
 passed there was another arch, the finest of all. It was built 
 up into high columns of green on each side, and across the arch 
 was the inscription, " As welcome as the flowers in May," 
 curiously worked in hawthorn blossom, with dropping orna- 
 ments of the wild blue hyacinth from each initial letter. It was 
 so pretty that they stopped the carriage to look at it, amid the 
 cheers of the village people who clustered round, for it was 
 close to the village. Among them stood a tall, beautiful young 
 woman, in a black dress, with a rosy, fair-haired boy, whose 
 hat was decorated with the same wreath of May and hyacinth. 
 Even in that moment of excitement, both brother and sister re- 
 marked her. " Who was that lady ? — you bowed to her," said 
 Reine, as soon as they had passed. " By Jove ! how handsome 
 she was ! " said Herbert. Everard only smiled and pointed out 
 to them the servants about the gate of Whiteladies, and Miss 
 Susan and Miss Augustine standing out in the sunshine in their 
 
WHITELAOIES. 
 
 355 
 
 okB of 
 en ' e 
 ; along 
 B how 
 " they 
 he had 
 )n they 
 b much 
 jserved 
 IS along 
 country 
 )lcome8. 
 iwn up, 
 front of 
 and He 
 hard, in 
 his flock 
 amongst 
 e ; while 
 liands to 
 o, among 
 ck to life 
 anuously, 
 ises were 
 was built 
 \ the arch 
 in May," 
 ing orna- 
 r. It was 
 amid the 
 tor it was 
 Lful young 
 oy, whose 
 hyacinth, 
 i sister re- 
 her," said 
 handsome 
 ointed out 
 , and Miss 
 ne in their 
 
 grey cowns. The young people threw the carriage doors open 
 at either side, and had alighted almost before it stopped. And 
 then came that moment of inarticulate delight, when friends 
 meet after a long parting, when questions are asked in a shower 
 and no one answers, and the eyes that have not seen each other 
 for so long look through and through the familiar faces, leaping 
 to quick conclusions. Everard (whom no one took any notice 
 of) kept still in the carriage, which had drawn up at the g«.to, 
 and surveyed this scene from his elevation with a sense of dis- 
 advantage, yet superiority. He was out of all the excitement 
 and commotion. Nobody could look at him, bronzed and 
 strong, as if he had just come back from the edge of the grave ; 
 but from his position of vantage he saw everything. He saw 
 Miss Susan's anxious survey of Herbert, and the solemn, simple 
 complaisance on poor Augustine's face, who felt it was her doing 
 — hers and that of her o'dieeble chorus in the Almshouses ; and 
 he saw Eeine pause, with her arms round Miss Susan's neck, to 
 look her closely in the eyes, asking, " What is it ? what is it 1 
 not in words, but with an alarmed look. Everard knew, as if 
 he had seen into her heart, that Reine had found out something 
 strange in Miss Susan's eyes, and thinking of only one thing 
 that could disturb her leaped with a pang to the conclusion that 
 Herbert was not looking so well or so strong as she had sup- 
 posed. And I think that Everard, in the curious intuition of 
 that moment when he was nothing but an onlooker, discovered 
 also, that though Miss Susan looked so anxiously at Herbert, 
 she scarcely saw him, and formed no opinion about his health, 
 having something else much more keen and close in her mind. 
 
 '* And here is Everard too," Miss Susan said ; " he is not such 
 a stranger as you others. Come, Everard, and help us to wel- 
 come them ; and come in, Bertie, to your own house. Oh, how 
 glad we all are to see you here ! " 
 
 " Aunt Susan," said Reine, whispering in her ear, "lean see 
 by your eyes that you think he is not strong still." 
 
 " By my eyes ? " said Miss Susan, too much confused by many 
 emotions to understand ; but she made no disclaimer, only put 
 her hand over her eyebrows, and led Herbert to the old porch, 
 everybody following almost solemnly. Such a home-coming 
 could scarcely fail to be somewhat solemn as well as glad. " My 
 dear," she said, pausing on the threshold, " God bless you ! 
 
356 
 
 white! ADIE8. 
 
 Ood haR brought you safe back when we never expected it. We 
 should all say thank God, Bertie, when we bring you in at your 
 own door." 
 
 ^ And she stood with her h;md on his shoulder, and stretched 
 up to him (for he had ^rown tall in his illness), and kissed him, 
 with one or two tears dropping on her cheeks. Herbert's eyes 
 were wet too. He was very accessible to emotion ; he turned 
 round to the little group who were all so dear, and familiar, 
 with his lip quivering. " I have most reason of all to say, 
 * Thank God, ' " the young man said, with his heart full, stand- 
 ing there on his own threshold, which, a little while before, no 
 one had hoped to see him cross again. 
 
 Just then the little gate which opened into Priory Lane and 
 was opposite the old porch, was pushed open, and two people 
 came in. The jar of the gate as it opened caught everybody's 
 ear ; and Herbert in particular, being somewhat excited, turned 
 hastily to see what the interruption was. It was the lady to 
 whom Everard had bowed, who had been standing under the 
 triumphal arch as they passed. She approached them, crossing 
 the lawn with a familiar, assured step, leading her child. Miss 
 Susan, who had been standing close by him, her hand still fondly 
 resting on Herbert's shoulder, started at sight of the new-comer, 
 and withdrew quickly, impatiently from his side ; but the young 
 man, naturally enough, had no eyes for what his old aunt was 
 doing, but stood quite still, unconscious, in his surprise, that he 
 was staring at the beautiful stranger. Reine, standing just be- 
 hind him, stared too, equally surprised, but searching in her 
 more active brain what it meant. Giovanna came straight up 
 to the group in the porch. " Madame Suzanne 1 " she said, 
 with a self-possession which seemed to have deserted the others. 
 Miss Susan obeyed the summons with tremulous haste. She 
 came forward growing visibly pale in her excitement. " Her- 
 bert," she said, " and Reine," making a pause after the words, 
 " this is a — lady who is staying here. This is Madame Jean 
 
 Austin from Bruges, of whom you have heard " 
 
 * And her child," said Giovanna, putting him forward. 
 
 " Madame Jean ? who is Madame Jean 1 " said Herbert, 
 
 whispering to his aunt, after he had bowed to the stranger, 
 
 Giovanna was anxious about this meeting, and her ears were 
 
 very sharp, and she heard the question, Her great black eyei 
 
 (< 
 
WHITELADIEa 
 
 367 
 
 no 
 
 Bhone, and she fliniled upon the young mau, who was more 
 deeply impressed by her sudden appearance than words could 
 say. 
 
 "Monsieur," she said with a curtsey, smilinK, "it is the little 
 child who is the person to look at, not me. Me, I am simple 
 Giovanna, the widow of Jean ; iiobudy ; but the little boy is 
 most to you : he is the heir." 
 
 " The heir 1 " said Herbert, turning a little pale. He looked 
 round upon the others with bewilderment, asking explanations ; 
 then suddenly recollecting, said, " Ah, I understand ; the next 
 of kin that was l^jt. I had forgotten. Then, Aunt Susan, this 
 is my heir 1 " 
 
 " Yes, " she said, with blanched lips. She could not have 
 uttered another word, had it been to deliver herself and the 
 race from this burden for ever. 
 
 Giovanna had taken the child into her arms. At this moment 
 she swung him down lightly as a feather on to the raised floor 
 of the porch, where they were all standing. " Jean ! " she cried 
 " ton devoir !" The baby turned his blue eyes upon her, half- 
 frightened ; then looked round at the strange faces about him, 
 struggling with an inclination to cry ; then, mustering his 
 faculties, took his little cap off with the gravity of a judge, and 
 flinging it feebly in the air, shouted out, " Vive M. 'Erbert ! " 
 "Encore," cried Giovanna. " Vive Monsieur 'Erbert ! " said the 
 little fellow loudly, with a wave of his small hand. 
 
 This little performance had a very curious effect upon the as- 
 sembled party. Surprise and pleasure shone in Herbert's eyes ; 
 he was quite captivated by this last scene of his reception ; and 
 even Everard, though he knew better, was charmed by the 
 beautiful face and the beautiful attitude of the young woman 
 who stood animated and blooming, like the leader of an orches- 
 ii a, on the lawn outside. But Heine's suspicions darted up like 
 au army in ambush all in a moment, though she could not tell 
 what she was suspicious of. As for Miss Susan, she stood with 
 arms dropped by her side, her face fallen blank. All expression 
 seemed to hav« gone out of it, everything but a kind of weary 
 pain. 
 
 "Who is she, Reine ? Everard, who is she?" Heibert 
 whispered anxiously, when, some time later, the three weut off 
 together to visit their childish haunts ; the old playroom, the 
 
 U 
 
368 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 musicians* gallery, the ancient corridors in which they had once 
 frolicked. Miss Susan had come up-stairs with them, but had 
 left them for the moment. " Tell me quick, before Aunt Susan 
 comes back." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Reine with a laugh, though I don't think she 
 was really merry, " this is the old time back again, indeed, 
 when we must whisper and have secrets as soon as Aunt ^usan 
 is away." 
 
 " But who is she 1 " said Herbert. They had come into the 
 gallery overlooking the hall, where the table was already spread 
 for dinner. Giovanna was walking round it, with her child 
 perched on her shoulder. At the sound of the steps and the 
 voices she turned round, and waved her hand to them. " Vive 
 Monsieur 'Erbert ! " she sang, in a melodious voice which filled 
 all the echoes. She was so strong that it was nothing to her 
 to hold the baby poised on her shoulder, while she pointed up 
 to the figures in the gallery and waved her hand to them. The 
 child, bolder this time, took up his little shout with a crow of 
 pleasure. The three ghosts ir the gallery stood and looked 
 down upon this pretty group i«?ith very mingled feelings. But 
 Herbert, for his part, being very sensitive to all homage, felt a 
 glow of pleasure steal over him " When a man has a welcome 
 like this," he said to himself, " it is very pleasant to come 
 home ! " 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 859 
 
 kd once 
 ut had 
 , Susan 
 
 ink she 
 indeed, 
 t ^usan 
 
 nto the 
 spread 
 T child 
 and the 
 " Vive 
 ;h filled 
 J to her 
 ited up 
 m. The 
 crow of 
 looked 
 s. But 
 e, felt a 
 ^relcome 
 A) come 
 
 stand ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 E ! I am nobody," said Giovanna. " Ces dames have 
 been very kind to me. I was the son's widow, the 
 left-out one at home. Does mademoiselle under- 
 But then you can never have been the left-out one — 
 the one who was always wrong." 
 
 " No," said Reine. She was not, however, so much touched 
 by this confidence as Herbert, who, though he was not ad- 
 dressed, was within hearing, and gave very distracted answers 
 to Miss Susan, who was talking to him, by reason of listening 
 to what Giovanna said. 
 
 " But I knew that the petit was not nobody, like me ; and I 
 brought him here. He is the next, till M. Herbert will marry, 
 and have his own heirs. This is what I desire, mademoiselle, 
 believe me — for now I love Viteladies, not for profit, but for 
 love. It was for money I came at first," she said with a laugh, 
 " to live ; but now I have de I'amiti^ for every one, even this 
 old Stefen, who do not love me nor my child." 
 
 She said this laughing, while Stevens stood before her with 
 the tray in his hands, serving her with tea ; and I leave the 
 reader to define the feelings of that functionary, who had to re- 
 ceive this direct shaft levelled at him, and make no reply. 
 Herbert, whose attention by this time had been quite drawn 
 away from Miss Susan, laughed too. He turned his chair round 
 to take part in this talk, which was much more interesting than 
 anything bis aunt had to say. 
 
 ** That was scarcely fair," he said, " the man hearing you; for 
 he dared not say anything in return, you know." 
 
 " Oh, he do dare say many things ! " said Giovanna. " 1 like 
 to have my little revenge, me. The domestics did not like me 
 at first, M. Herbert ; I know not why. It is the nature of you 
 other English not to love the foreigner. You are proud. You 
 think yourselves more good than we." 
 
 "Not so, indeed ! " cried Herbert eagerly, "just the reverse, 
 I think. Beside, we are half foreign ourselves, Reine and I." 
 
360 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " Whatever you may be, Herbert, I 
 English," said Reine with dignity. She 
 disturbed, though she could not tell why. 
 
 "Mademoiselle has reason," said Giovanna 
 
 count myself pure 
 was suspicious and 
 
 " It is very 
 
 fine to be English. One can feel so that one is more good than 
 all the world ! As soon as I can speak well enough, I shall say 
 so too. I am of no nation at present, me— Italian born, Beige 
 by living — and the Beiges are not a people. They are a little 
 French, a little Flemish, not one thing or another. I prefer to 
 be English too. I am Austin, like all you others, and Vite- 
 ladies is my 'ome." 
 
 This little speech made the others look at each other, and 
 Herbert laughed with a curious consciousness. Whiteladies 
 was his. He had scarcely ever realized it before. He did not 
 even feel quite cure now that he was not here on a visit, his 
 Aunt Susan's guest. Was it the others who were his guests, 
 all of them, from Miss Susan herself, who had always been the 
 'Squire, down to this piquant stranger? Herbert laughed 
 with a sense of pleasure and strangeness, and shy boyish won- 
 der whether he should say something about being glad to see 
 her there, or be silent. Happily he decided that silence was 
 the right thing, and nobody spoke for the moment. Giovanna, 
 however, who seemed to have taken upon her to amuse the 
 company, soon resumed — 
 
 " In Eiigland it is not amusing, the winter, M. Herbert. Ah, 
 mon Di3U ! what a consolation to make the garlands to build 
 up the arch ! Figure to yourself that I was up at four o'clock 
 this morning, and all the rooms full of those pretty aub^pines, 
 which you call May. My fingers smell of it now ; and look, 
 how they are pricked !" she said, holdiLg them out. She had 
 a pretty hand, large like her person, but white and shapely, 
 and strong. There was a force about it, and about the solid 
 round white arm with which sl^e had tossed about the heavy 
 child, which had impressed Herbert greatly al. the time ; and 
 its beauty struck him all the more now, from the sense of 
 strength connected with it — strength and vitality, which in his 
 weakness seemed to him the grandest things in the world. 
 
 " Did you prick your fingers for me 1 " he said, quite touched 
 by this devotion to his service ; and but for his shyness, and 
 th3 presence of so many people, I think he would have ventured 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 361 
 
 to kiss the wounded hand. But as it was, he only looked at 
 it, which Reine did also with a half-disdainful civility, while 
 Everard peeped over her shoulder, half laughing. Miss Susan 
 had pushed her chair away. 
 
 " Not for you altogether," said Giovanna frankly, "for I did 
 not know you, M. Herbert ; but for pleasure, and to amuse 
 myself ; and perhaps a little that you and mademoiselle might 
 have de I'amiti^ for me when you knew. What is de I'amiti^ 
 in English 1 Friendship — ah, that is grand, serious, not what 
 I mean. And we mrst not say love — that is too much, that is 
 autre chose." 
 
 Herbert, charmed, looking at the beautiful speaker, thought 
 she blushed ; and this moved him mightily, for Giovanna was 
 not like a little girl at a dance, an ingenue, who blushed for 
 nothing. She was a woman, older than himself, and not pretty, 
 but grand and great and beautiful ; nor ignorant, but a woman 
 who knew more of that wonderful " life " which dazzled the 
 boy — a great deal more than he himself did, or any one here. 
 That she should blush while she spoke to him was in some way 
 an intoxicating compliment to Herbert's own influence and 
 manly power. 
 
 " You mean like" said Reine, who persistently acted the part 
 of a wet blanket. " That is what we say in English, when it 
 means something not so serious as friendship and not so close 
 as love — a feeling on the surface ; when you would say *il me 
 plait' in French, in English you say 'I like him.' It means 
 just that, and no more." 
 
 Giovanna shrugged her shoulders with a little shiver. 
 " Oomme c'est froid, 9a ! " she said, snatching up Miss Susan's 
 shawl, which lay on a chair, and winding it round her. Miss 
 Susan half turned round, with a consciousness that something 
 of hers was being touched, but she said nothing, and her 
 eye was dull and veiled. Reine, who knew that her aunt did 
 not like her properties interfered with, was more surprised 
 than ever, and half alarmed, though she did not know why. 
 
 "Ah, yes, it is cold, very cold, you English," said Giov- 
 anna, unwinding the shawl again, and stretching it out be- 
 hind her at the full extent of her white ; "ms. How the red 
 drapery threw out her fine head, with the close braids of black 
 hair, wavy and abundant, twined round and round it, in de- 
 
362 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 fiance of fashion ! Her hair was not at all the hair of the 
 period, either in colour or texture. It was black, and glossy, 
 and shining, as dark hair ought to be ; and she was pale, with 
 scarcely any colour about her except her lips. " Ah, how it is 
 cold ! Mademoiselle Reine, I will not say like- -I will say de 
 l'amiti6 ! It is more sweet. And then, if it should come to 
 be love after, it will be more natural," she said with a smile. 
 
 I do not know if it was her beauty, to which women are, 
 I think, almost more susceptible than men, vulgar prejudice 
 notwithstanding — or perhaps it was something ingratiating 
 and sweet in her smile ; but Reine's suspicions and her coldness 
 quite unrea3onably gave way, os they had quite unreasonably 
 sprung up, and she drew nearer to the stranger and opened 
 her heart unawares, while the young men struck in, and the 
 conversation became general. Four young people chattering 
 all together, talking a great deal of nonsense, running into 
 wise speculations, into discussions about the meaning of words, 
 like and love, and de Vamitie! — one knows what a pleasant jumble 
 it is, and how the talkers enjoy it ; all the more as they are 
 continually skimming the surface of subjects which make the 
 nerves ti ngle and the heart beat. The old room grew gay with 
 the sound of their voices, soft laughter, atd exclamations which 
 gave variety to the talk. Curious ! Miss Susan drew her chair 
 a little more apart. It was "^he who was the one left out. In 
 her own house, which ^^as 5;^ t her own house any longer— in 
 the centre of tht kingdoin w^ore she had been mistress so long, 
 but was no more mistress. She said to herself, with a little 
 natural bitterness, that perhaps it was judicious and really kind, 
 after all, on the part of Herbert and Keine, to do it at once, to 
 leave no doubt on the subject, to supplant her then and there, 
 keeping up no fiction of being her guests still, or considering 
 her the head of the house. Much better, and on the whole 
 more kind ! for of course everything else would be a fiction. 
 Her reign had been long, but it was over. The change must 
 be made some time, and when so well, so appropriately as now 1 
 i\iter a while she went softly round behind the group, and 
 secured her shawl. She did not like her personal properties 
 interfered wit/Ji. No one had ever done it except this daring 
 ere si ure, and it was a thing Miss Susan was not prepared to put 
 up w ith. She could bear the great downfall which was inevitable, 
 
WHITEtADIES. 
 
 503 
 
 but these small annoyances she could not bear. She secured 
 her shawl, and brought it with her, hanging it over the back 
 of her chair. But when she got up and when she reseated 
 herself, no one took any notice. She was already supplanted 
 and set aside, the very first night 1 It was sudden, she said w 
 herselfwith a catching of her breath, but on the whole it wae 
 best. 
 
 I need not say that Reine and Herbert were totally innocent 
 of any such intention ; and that it was the inadvertence of tiieir 
 youth that was to blame, and nothing else. By-and-by the 
 door opened softly, and Miss Augustine came in. She had 
 been attending a special evening service at the Almshouses — 
 a thanksgiving for Herbert's return. She had, a curious de- 
 coration for her, a bit of flowering May in the waistband of her 
 dress, and she brought in the sweet freshness of the night 
 with her, and the scent of the hawthorn, special and modest 
 gem of the May from which it takes its name. She broke up 
 without any hesitation the lively group, which Miss Susan, 
 sore and sad, had withdrawn from. Augustine was a woman 
 of one idea, and had no room in her mind for anythi-ig flse. 
 Like Monsieur and Madame de Mirfleur, though in a very 
 different way, many things were tout simple to her, agairst 
 which many less siugle-minded persons broke their heads, if 
 not their hearts. 
 
 " You should have come with me, Herbert," she "'^lu, halt 
 disapproving. " You may be tired, but there could I: nothing 
 more refreshing than to give thanks. Though perhaps," she 
 added, folding her hands, " it was bet^ • that the thank sgiviT7g 
 should be like the prayers, disinters ed, no personal feeling 
 mixing in. Yes, perhaps that was best. Giovanna, you 
 should have been there." 
 
 " Ah, pardon ! " said Giovanna with a slight imperceptible 
 yawn, " it was to welcome madei oiselle and monsieur that I 
 stayed. Ah ! the musique ! Tenez ! ma sceur, I will make 
 the music with a very good heart, now." 
 
 "That is a different thing," said Miss Augustine. -''They 
 trusted to you — though to me the hymns they sing themselves 
 are more sweet than yours. One voice may be pleasant to 
 hear, but it is but one. When ")1 sing, it is like heaveiii, 
 where that will be our occupation l ght and day." 
 
364 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " Ah, ma sfleur/' said Giovanna, " but there they will sing 
 in tune, n'est ce pas, all the old ones. Tenez ! I will make the 
 music now." 
 
 And with this she went straight to the piano, uninvited, un- 
 bidden, and began a Te Deum out of one of Mozart's masses, 
 the glorious rolling strains of which filled net only the room, 
 but the house. Giovanna scarcely knew how to play ; her 
 science was all of the ear. She gave the sentiment of the music, 
 rather than its notes — a reminiscence of what she had heard — 
 and then she sang that most magnificent of hymns, pouring it 
 forth, I suppose, from some undeveloped instinct of art in her, 
 with a fervency and power which the bystanders were fain to 
 think only the highest feeling could inspire. She was not bad, 
 though she did many wrong things with the greatest equan- 
 imity ; yet we know that she was not good either, and could 
 not by any chance have really had the feeling which seemed to 
 swell and tremble in her song. I don't pretend to say how this 
 was ; but it is certain that stupid people, carnal and fleshly 
 persons, sing thus often as if tiieir whole heart, and that the 
 heart of a seraph, was in tht strain. Giovanna sang so that she 
 brought the tears to their eyes. Reine stole away out from 
 among the others, and put herself humbly behind the singer, 
 and joined her soft voice, broken with tears, o her's. Together 
 they appealed to prophets, and martyrs, and apostles, to praise 
 the God v'^ho had wrought this deliverance, like so many others. 
 Herbert, +or whom it all was, hid his face in his clasped hands, 
 and felt that thrill of awed humility, yet of melting, tender 
 pride, with which the single soul recognises itself as the hero, 
 the object of such an offering. He could not face the light, 
 with hie eyes and his heart so full. Who was he, that so much 
 hari bee : done for him ? And yet, poor boy, there was a soft 
 pleased co: '^cic usness in his heart that there must be something 
 m hiBi; moxi than most, to warrant that which had been done. 
 Auguswiru! stood upright by the mantelpiece, with her arms 
 folded ' iiCr .sleeves, and her poor visionary soul still as usual. 
 To hei uhis was something like a legal acknowledgment — a 
 receipt, o to speak, for value received. It was due to God, 
 who, for certain inducements of prayer, had conserted to do 
 what was asked of Him. She had already thanked Him, and 
 with all her heart ; and t'le was glad that every one should 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 365 
 
 thank Him, that there should be no stint of praise. Miss Susan 
 was the only one who sat unmoved, and even went on with her 
 knitting. To some people of absolute minds one little rift 
 within the lute makes mute all the music For my part, I 
 think Giovanna, though her code of truth and honour was very 
 loose, or indeed one might say non-existent — and though she 
 had schemes in her mind which no very high-souled person 
 could have entertained — was quite capable of being sincere in 
 her thanksgiving, and not at all incapable of some kinds of 
 religious feeling ; and though she could commit a marked and 
 unmistakable act of dishonesty without feeling any particular 
 trouble in her conscience, was yet a honest soul in her way. 
 This is one of the paradoxes of humanity, which I don't pretend 
 to understand and cannot explain, yet believe in. But Miss 
 Susan did not believe in it. She thought it desecration to hear 
 those sacred words coming forth from this woman's mouth. In 
 her heaiii she longed to get up in righteous wrath, and turn 
 the deceiver out of the house. But, alas ! what could she do ] 
 She too was a deceiver, more than Giovanna, and dared not in 
 terfere with Giovanna, lest she should be herself betrayed ; and 
 last of all, and for the moment almost bitterest of all, it was no 
 longer her house, and she had no right to turn any one out, or 
 take any one in, any more for ever 1 
 
 '• Who is she ? Where did they pick her up ? How do they 
 manage to keep her here, a creature like that 1 " said Herbert 
 to Everard, as they lounged together for half an hour in the 
 old playroom, which had been made into a smoking-room for 
 the young men. Herbert was of opinion that to smoke a cigar 
 before going to bed was a thing that every man was called upon 
 to do. Those who did not follow this custom were boys or 
 invalids ; and though he was not fond of it, he went through 
 the ceremony nightly. He could talk of nothing but Giovanna, 
 and it was with difl&culty that Everard prevailed upon him to 
 go to his room after all the emotions of the day. 
 
 '^ I want to know how they have got her to stay," he said, 
 trying to detain his cousin that he might go on talking on this 
 attractive subject. 
 
 " You should ask Aunt Susan," said Everard, shrugging his 
 shoulders. He himself was not impressed in this sort of way by 
 Cliovanna. He thought her very handsome, and very clever, 
 
 m 
 
366 
 
 WHTTELADTES. 
 
 giving her credit for a greater amount of wisdom than she 
 really possessed, and setting down all she had done and all she 
 had said to an elaborate scheme, which was scarcely true ; for 
 the dangerous point in Giovanna's wiles was that they were half 
 nature, something spontaneous and unconscious being mixed 
 up in every one of them. Everard resolved to warn Miss Susan, 
 and put her on her guard, and he groaned to himself over the 
 office of guardian and protector to this boy which had been 
 thrust upon him. The wisest man in the world could not keep 
 a boy of three-and-twenty out of mischief. He had done his 
 best for him, but it was not possible to do any more. 
 
 While he was thinking thus, and Herbert was walking about 
 his room in a pleasant ferment of excitement and pleasure, 
 thinking over all that had happened, and the flattering attention 
 that had been shown to him on all sides, two other scenes were 
 going on in different rooms, which bore testimony to a kindred 
 excitement. In the first the chief actor was Giovanna, who 
 has gone to her chairber in a state of high delight, feeling the 
 ball at her feet, and everything in her power. She did not 
 object to Herbert himself; he was young and handsome, and 
 would never have the power to coerce and control her ; and she 
 had no intention of being anything but good to him. She woke 
 the child, to whom she had carried some sweetmeats from the 
 dessert, and played with and petted him — a most immoral 
 proceeding, as any mother will allow ; for by the time she was 
 sleepy, and ready to go to bed, little Jean was broad awake, 
 and had to be frightened and thieatened with black closets and 
 black men before he could be hushed into quiet ; and the un- 
 timely bonbons made him ill. Giovanna had not thought of 
 all that. She wanted some one to help her to get rid of her 
 excitement, and disturbed the baby's childish sleep, and de- 
 ranged his Kitomach, without meaning him any haim. 1 am 
 afraid, however, it made little difference to Jean that she was 
 quite innocent of any evil intention, and indeed, believed herself 
 to be acting the part of a most kind and indulgent mother. 
 
 But while Giovanna was playing with the child, Reine 
 stole into Miss Susan's room to disburden her soul, and seek 
 that private delight of talking a thing over which women love. 
 She stole in with the lightest tap, scarcely audible, noiseless, 
 in her white dressing-gown, and light foot ; and in point of 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 367 
 
 fact Miss Susan did not hear that soft appeal for admission. 
 Therefore she was taken by surprise when Reine appeared. 
 She Avas seated in a curious blank and stupor, " anywhere," 
 not on her habitual chair by the side of the bed, where her 
 table stood with her books on it, and where her lamp was 
 burning, but near the door, on the first chair she had come to, 
 with that helpless, forlorn air which extreme feebleness or ex- 
 treme pre-occupation gives. She roused herself with a look of 
 almost terror when she saw Reine, and started from her seat. 
 
 " How you frightened me ! " she said fretfully. " I thought 
 you had been in bed. After your journey and your fatigue, 
 you ought to be in bed." 
 
 " I wanted to talk to you," said Reine. " Oh, Aunt Susati, 
 it is so long — so long since we were here ; and I wanted to ask 
 you, do you think he looks well 1 Do you think he looks 
 strong? You have something strange in your eyes, Aunt 
 Susan. Oh, tell me if you are disappointed — if he does not 
 look so well as you thought." 
 
 Miss Susan made a pause ; and then she answered as if with 
 difficulty, "Your brother ? Oh yes, I think he is looking very 
 well — better even than I thought." 
 
 Reine came closer to her, and putting one soft arm into hers, 
 looked at her, examining her face with wistful eyes, — " Then 
 what is it, Aunt Susan ? " she sail. 
 
 ** What is — what ? I do not understand you," cried Miss 
 Susan, shifting her arm, and turning away her face. " You 
 are tired, and you are fantastic, as you always were. Reine, 
 go to bed." 
 
 " Dear Aunt Susan," cried Reine, " don't put me away. 
 You are not vexed with us for coming back ^ — you are not 
 sorry we have come 1 Oh, don't turn your face from me ! iTou 
 never used to turn from me, except when I had done wrong. 
 Have we done wrong, Herbert or me ] " 
 
 " No, child, no — no, I tell you ! Oh, Reine, don't worry 
 me now. I have enough without that — I cannot bear any 
 more." 
 
 Miss Susan shook off the clinging hold. She roused herself, 
 and walked across the room, and put off her shawl, which she 
 had drawn round her shoulders to come up-stairs. She had 
 not begun to undress, though Martha by this time was fast 
 
868 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 In the trouble of her mind she had sent Martha also 
 away. She took off her few ornaments with trembling hands, 
 and put them down on the table. 
 
 " Go to bed, Reine ; I am tired too — forgive me, dear," she 
 said with a sigh, " I cannot talk to you to-night." 
 
 " What is it, Aunt Susan ? " said Reine softly, looking at 
 her with anxious eyes. 
 
 " It is nothing — nothing ! only I cannot talk to you. I am 
 not angiy ; but leave me, dear child, leave me for to-nicht." 
 
 "Aunt Susan," said the girl, going up to her agam, and 
 once more putting an arm round her, " it is something about 
 — that woman, iff it is not us, it is her. Why does she trouble 
 you ? — why is she here? Don't send me away, but tell me 
 about her. Dear Aunt Susan, you are ill, you are looking so 
 strange, not like yourself. Tell me — I belong to you. I can 
 understand you better than any one else." 
 
 " Oh, hush, hush, Reine ; you don't know what you are say- 
 ing. It is nothing, child, nothing ! You understand me ! " 
 
 " Better than any one," cried the girl, " for I belong to you. 
 I can read what is in your face. None of the others know, but 
 I saw it. Aunt Susan, tell me — whisper — I will keep it sacred, 
 whatever it is, and it will do you good." 
 
 Miss Susan leant her head upon the fragile young creature 
 who clung to her. Reine, so slight and young, supported the 
 stronger, older woman, with a force which was all of the heart 
 and soul ; but no ./ords came from the sufferer's lips. She stood 
 clasping the girl close to her, and for a moment gave way to a 
 great sob, which shook her like a convulsion. The touch, the 
 presence, the innocent bosom laid against her own in all that 
 Ignorant instinctive sympathy which is the great mystery of 
 kindred, did her good. Then she kissed the girl tenderly, and 
 sent her away. 
 
 " God bless you, darling ! though I am not worthy to say it 
 — not worthy ! " said the woman, trembling, who had always 
 seemed to Reine the very emblem of strength, authority, and 
 steadfast power. 
 
 She stole away, quite hushed and silenced, to her room. 
 What could this be 1 Not worthy ! Was it some religious 
 panic that had seized upon Miss Susan — some horror of doubt 
 and dwkoess, like that which Reine herself h?^d passed through 1 
 
 [•ir-"-r 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 369 
 
 ha also 
 hands, 
 
 tr," she 
 
 iking at 
 
 I am 
 
 ght." 
 bin, and 
 g about 
 ) trouble 
 tell me 
 Dking so 
 . I can 
 
 This Vas the only thing the girl could think of*. Pity kept her 
 from sleeping, and breathed a hundred prayers througn her 
 mind, as she lay and listened to the old clock, telling the hours 
 with its familiar voice. Very familiar, and yet novel and strange. 
 — more bfcrange than if she had never heard it before — though 
 so many nights, year after year, it had chimed through her 
 dreams, and woke her to many another soft May morning, more 
 tranquil and more sweet even than this. 
 
 are say- 
 me!" 
 y to you. 
 now, but 
 it sacred, 
 
 creature 
 jrted the 
 the heart 
 Jhe stood 
 «ray to a 
 )uch, the 
 all that 
 ystery of 
 erly, and 
 
 to say it 
 always 
 )rity, and 
 
 ■^1 
 
 ler room, 
 religious 
 of doubt 
 through 1 
 

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 23 WfST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEUTER.N.Y. UStO 
 
 (716) •72-4503 
 
 
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370 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 EXT day was the day of the great dinner to which Miss 
 Susan had invited half the county, to welcome the 
 young master of the house, and mark the moment of 
 her own withdrawal from her long supremacy in Whiteladies. 
 Though she had felt with some bitterness on the previous night 
 the supposed intention of Herbert and Reine to supplant her at 
 ice, Miss Susan was far too sensible a woman to make voluntary 
 Vexation for herself, out of an event so well known and long 
 anticipated. That she must feel it was of course inevitable, 
 but as she felt no real wrong in it, and had for a long time ex- 
 pected it, there was not, apart from the painful burden on her 
 mind which threw a dark shadow over everything, any bitter- 
 ness in the necessary and natural event. She had made all her 
 arrangements without undue fuss or publicity, and had pre- 
 pared for herself, as I have said, a h Duse, which had pro^dden- 
 tially fallen vacant, on the other side of the village, where Au- 
 igustine would still be within reach of the Almshouses. I am 
 not sure that, so far as she was herself concerned, the sovereign 
 of Whiteladies, now on the point of abdication, would not have 
 preferred to l e a little further off, out of daUy sight of her for- 
 saken throne ; but this would have deprived ' Augustine of all 
 that made liie to her, and Miss Susan was too strong, too proud, 
 and too heroic, to hesitate for a moment, or to think her own 
 sentiment worth indulging. Perhaps, indeed, even without 
 that powerful argument of Augustine, she would have scorned 
 to indulge a feeling which she could not have failed to recog- 
 nise as a mean and petty one. She had her faults, like most 
 people, and she had committed a great wrong, which clouded 
 her life, but there was nothing petty or mean about Miss Susan. 
 After Reine had left her on the previous night, she had made 
 a great effort, and recovered her self-command. I don't know 
 why she had allo\/ed herself to be so beaten down. One kind 
 of excitement, no doubt, predisposes towards another ; and after 
 the triumph and joy of Herbert's return, her sense of the hor- 
 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 371 
 
 am 
 
 rible cloud which hung over her personally, the revelation which 
 Giovanna at any moment had it in her power to make, the 
 evident intention she had of ingratiating herself with the new- 
 comers, and the success so far of the attempt, produced a reac- 
 tion which almost drove Miss Susan wild. If you will think 
 of it, she had cause enough. She, heretofore an honourable and 
 spotless woman, who had never ffcired the face of man, to lie 
 now under the horrible risk of being found out — to be at the 
 mercy of a passionate, impulsive creature, who could at any 
 moment cover her with shame, and pull her down from her 
 pedestal. I think that at such moments to have the worst hap- 
 pen, to be pulled down finally, to have her shame published to 
 the world, would have been the best thing that could have hap- 
 pened to Miss Susan. She would then have raised up her 
 humbled head again, and accepted her punishment, and faced 
 the daylight, free from fear of anything that could befall her. 
 The worst of it all now was this intolerable sense that there 
 was something to be found out, that everything was not honest 
 and open in her life, as it had always been. And by times 
 this consciousness overpowered and broke her down, as it 
 had done on the previous night. But when a vigorous soul is 
 thus overpowered and breaks down, the moment of its utter 
 overthrow marks a new beginning of power and endurance. 
 The old fable of Antaeus, who derived fresh strength whenever 
 he was thrown, from contact with his mother earth, is profoundly 
 true. Miss Susan had been thrown too, had fallen, and had re- 
 bounded with fresh force. Even Reine could scarcely see in her 
 countenance next morning any trace of the emotion of last 
 night. She took her place at the breakfast table with a smile, 
 with composure which was not feigned, putting bravely her bur- 
 den behind her, and resolute to make steady head as long as 
 she could against any storm that could threaten. Even when 
 Herbert eluded that " business consultation," and begged to be 
 left free to roam about the old house, and renew his acquaintance 
 with every familiar comer, she was able to accept the postpone- 
 ment without pain. She watched the young people go out even 
 with almost pleasure — the brother and sister together, and 
 Everard — and Giovanna at the head of the troop, with little 
 Jean perched on her shoulder. Giovanna was fond of wander- 
 ing about without any covering on her head, having a com- 
 
• 
 
 372 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 plexion which I suppose would not spoil, and loving the sun. 
 And it suited her somehow to have the child on her shoulder, 
 to toss him about, to the terror of all the household, in her 
 strong beautiful arms. I rather think it was because the house- 
 hold generally was frightened by this rough play, that Giovanna 
 had taken to it ; for she liked to shock them, not from malice, 
 but from a sort of schoolboy mischief. Little Jean, who had 
 got over all his dislike of her, enjoyed his perch upon her 
 shoulder ; and it was impossible to tell how Herbert admired 
 her, her strength, her quick swift easy movements, the light- 
 ness and grace with which she carried the boy, and all her gam- 
 bols with him, in which a certain risk always mingled. He 
 could not keep his eyes from her, and followed wherever she 
 led, penetrating into rooms where, in his delicate boyhood, he 
 had never been allowed to go. 
 
 " I know myself in every part," cried Giovanna gaily. " I 
 have all visited, all seen, even where it is not safe. It is safe 
 here, M. Herbert. Come then and look at the carvings, all 
 dose ; they are beautiful when you are near." 
 
 They followed her about within and without, as if she had 
 been the cicerone, though they had all known Whiteladies long 
 before she had ; and even Beine's nascent suspicions were not 
 able to stand before her frank energy and cordial ignorant talk. 
 For she was quite ignorant, and made no attempt to conceal it. 
 
 ** Me, I love not at all what is so old,'' she said with a laugh. 
 " I prefer the smooth wall and the big window, and a floor well 
 frott6, that shines. Wood that is aU cut like the lace, what 
 
 food does that do 1 and brick, that is nothing, that is common, 
 love stone ch&teaux, with much of window, and little tourelles 
 at the top. But if you love the wood, and the brick, tr^s 
 bien ! I know myself in all the little corners,'' said Giovanna. 
 And outside and in, it was she who led the way. 
 
 Once again — and it was a thing which had repeatedly hap- 
 pened before this, notwithstanding the terror and oppression 
 of her presence — Miss Susan was even grateful to uiovanna, 
 who left her free to make all her arrangements, and amused 
 and interested the new-comers, who were strangers in a sense, 
 though to them belonged the house and everything in it ; and 
 I doubt if it had yet entered into her head that Giovi^rna's 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 373 
 
 society or her beauty involved any danger to Herbert. She 
 was older than Herbert ; she was *' not a lady ;" she was an 
 intruder and alien, and nothing to the young people, though 
 she might amuse them for the moment. The only danger Miss 
 Susan saw in her was one tragic and terrible danger to herself, 
 which she had determined for the moment not to think of. 
 For everybody else she was harmless. So at least Miss Susan, 
 with an inadvertence natural to her pre-occupied mind, thought. 
 And there were a great many arrangements to make for the 
 great dinner, and many things besides that required looking 
 after. However distinctly one has foreseen the necessities of a 
 great crisis, yet it is only when it arrives that they acquire 
 their due urgency. Miss Susan now, for almost the first time, 
 felt the house she had secured at the other end of the village 
 to be a reality. She felt at last that her preparations were 
 real, that the existence in which for the last six months 
 there had been much that was like a painful dream, had 
 come out suddenly into the actual and certain, and that 
 she had had a change to undergo not much unlike the change 
 of death. Things that had been planned only, had to be done 
 now — a difference which is wonderful — and the stir and com- 
 motion which had come into the house with the arrival of 
 Herbert was the preface of a commotion still more serious. 
 And as Miss Susan went about giving her orders, she tried to 
 comfort herself with the thought that now at last Giovanna 
 must go. There was no longer any pretence for her stay. 
 Herbert had come home. She had and could have no claim 
 upon Susan and Augustine Austin at the Grange, whatever 
 claim she might have on the inmates of Whiteladies; nor 
 could she transfer herself to the young people, and live with 
 Herbert and Reine. Even she, though she was not reasonable, 
 must see that now there was no further excuse for her presence 
 — that she must go. Miss Susan settled in her mind the 
 allowance she would offer her. It would be a kind of black 
 mail, blood money, the price of her secret ; but better that 
 than exposure. And then, Giovanna had not been disagree- 
 able of late. Rather the reverse ; she had tried, as she said, 
 to show de Vamitid. She had been friendly, cheerful, rather 
 pleasant, in her strange way. Miss Susan, with a curious feel- 
 ing for which she could not quite account, concluded with her- 
 
374 
 
 WHITELADIRS. 
 
 self that she would not wish this creature, who had for so long 
 belonged to her, as it were — who had been one of her family, 
 though she was at the same time her enemy, her greatest 
 trouble — to fall back unaided upon the shop at Bruges, where 
 the people had not been kind to her. No ; she would, she 
 said to herself, be very thankful to get rid of Giovanna, but 
 not to see her fall into misery and helplessness. She should 
 have an income enough to keep her comfortable. This was a 
 luxury which Miss Susan felt she could venture to give herself. 
 She would provide for her persecutor, and get rid of her, and 
 be free of the panic which now was before her night and day. 
 This thought cheered her as she went about, superintending the 
 hanging of the tapestry in the hall, which was only put there 
 on grand occasions, and the building up of the old silver on 
 the great oak buffet. Everything that Whiteladies could do 
 in the way of splendour was to be exhibited to-night. There 
 had been no feast when Herbert came of age, for indeed it had 
 been like enough that his birth-day might be his death day 
 also. But now all these clouds had rolled away, and his future 
 was clear. She paid a solemn visit to the cellar with Stevens 
 to get out the best wines, her father's old claret and madeira, 
 of which she had been so careful, saving it for Herbert j or if 
 not for Herbert, for Everard, whom she had looked upon as her 
 personal heir. Not a bottle of it should ever have gone to 
 Farrel- Austin, the reader may be sure, though she was willing 
 to feast him to-night, and give him of her best, to celebrate her 
 triumph over him — a triumph which, thank Heaven ! was all 
 innocent, not brought about by plotting or planning — God's 
 doing, and not her's. 
 
 I will not attempt to describe all the company, the best peo- 
 ple in that corner of Berkshire, who came from all points, 
 through the roads which were white and sweet with May, to 
 do honour to Herbert's home-coming. It is too late in this 
 history, and there is too much of more importance to tell you, 
 to leave me room for those excellent people. Lord Kings- 
 borough was there, and proposed Herbert's health ; and Sir 
 Reginald Parke, and Sir Francis Rivers, and the Hon. Mr. 
 Skindle, who married Lord Maidenhead's daughter. Lady 
 Cordelia ; and all the first company in the county, down to (or 
 up to) the great China merchant who had bought St. Dun- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 37o 
 
 Stan's^ once the property of a Howard. It is rare to see a 
 dinner party so large or so important, and still more rare to 
 see siK'a a room so filled. The old musicians' gallery was put 
 to its proper use for the first time for years ; and now and then, 
 not too often, a soft fluting and piping and fiddling came from 
 the partial gloom, floating over the heads of the well-dressed 
 crowd who sat at the long, splendid table, in a blaze of light 
 and reflection, and silver, and crystal, and flowers. 
 
 " I wish we could be in the gallery to see ourselves sitting 
 here, in this great show," Everard whispered to Reine as he 
 passed her to his inferior place ; for it was not permitted to 
 Everard on this great occasion to hand in the young mistress 
 of the house, in whose favour Miss Susan intended after this 
 night to abdicate. Keine looked up with soft eyes to the dim 
 corner in which the three used to scramble and rustle, and 
 catch the oranges, and I fear thought more of this reminiscence 
 than of what her companion said to her, who was ignorant of 
 the old times. But indeed the show was worth seeing from the 
 gallery, where old Martha, and young Jane, and the good 
 French Julie, who had come with Ktfine, clustered in the chil- 
 dren's very corner, keeping out of sight behind the tapestry, and 
 pointing out to each other the ladies and their fine dresses. 
 The maids cared nothing about the gentlemen, but shook their 
 heads over Sophy and Kate's bare shoulders, and made notes 
 of how the dresses were made. Julie communicated her views 
 on the subject with an authority which her auditors received 
 without question, for was not she French 1 — a large word, which 
 takes in the wilds of Normandy as well as Paris, that centre of 
 the civilised world. Herbert sat with his back to these eager 
 watchers, at the foot of the table, taking his natural place for 
 the first time, and half hidden by the voluminous robes of Lady 
 Kingsborough and Lady Rivers. The pink gros grain of one 
 of those ladies and the gorgeous white moire of the other dazzled 
 the women in the gallery ; but, apart from such professional 
 considerations, the scene was a charming one to look at, with 
 the twinkle of the many lights, the brightness of the flowers 
 and the dresses — the illuminated spot in the midst of the partial 
 darkness of the old walls, all gorgeous with colour, and move- 
 ment, and the hum of sound. Miss Susan at the head of the 
 table, in her old point lace, looked like a queen, Martha 
 
376 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 I 
 
 .#;; 
 
 I- 
 
 thought. It was her apotheosis, her climax, the eoneludine 
 triumph — a sort of phoenix blaze with which she meant to end 
 her life. 
 
 The dinner was a gorgeous dinner, worthy the hall and the 
 company ; the wine, as I have said, old and rare ; and every* 
 thing went off to perfection. The Farrel- Austins, who were 
 only relations, and not of first importance as county people, sat 
 about the centre of the table, which was the least important 
 place, and opposite to them was Giovanna, who had been put 
 under the charge of old Dr. Richard, to keep her in order, a 
 duty to which he devoted all his faculties. Everything went on 
 perfectly well. The dinner proceeded solemnly, grandly, to its 
 conclusion. Grace — that curious, ill-timed, after-dinner grace 
 which comes just at the daintiest moment of the feast — was duly 
 said ; the fruits were being served, forced fruits of every pro- 
 curable kind, one of the most costly parts of the entertainment 
 at that season ; and a general bustle of expectation prepared 
 the way for those congratulatory and friendly speeches, wel- 
 comes of his great neighbours to the young Squire, which were 
 the real objects of the as^mbly. Lord Kingsborough even had 
 cleared his throat for the first time — a signal which his wife 
 heard at the other end, and understood as an intimation that 
 quietness was to be enforced, to which she replied by stopping,, 
 to set a good example, in the midst of a sentence. He cleared 
 his throat again, the great man, and was almost on his legs^ 
 He was by Miss Susan's side, in the place of honour. He was. 
 a stout man, requiring some pulling up after dinner when his. 
 chair was comfortable — and he had actually put forth one foot, 
 and made his first effort to rise, for the third time clearing his 
 throat — 
 
 When an interruption occurred never to be forgotten in 
 
 the annals of Whiteladies. Suddenly there was heard a patter 
 of small feet, startling the company ; and suddenly a some- 
 thing, a pigmy, a tiny figure, made itself visible in the centre 
 of the table. It stood up beside a great pyramid of flowers, a 
 living decoration, with a little flushed rose-face and flaxen curls 
 showing above the mass of greenery The great people at the 
 head and the foot of the table stood breathless during the com- 
 motion and half-scufile in the centre of the room which attended 
 this sudden apparition. " What is it ? " everybody asked^^ 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 877 
 
 I 
 
 Deluding 
 
 it to end 
 
 and the 
 d every- 
 ho were 
 ople, sat 
 aportant 
 been put 
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 went on 
 ly, to its 
 er grace 
 was duly 
 /ery pro- 
 ;ainment 
 repared 
 es, wel- 
 ich were 
 )ven had 
 his wife 
 Aon that 
 stoppings 
 B cleared 
 his leg& 
 He wa& 
 ^hen his 
 one foot 
 aringhifi, 
 
 gotten in 
 a patter 
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 owers, a 
 cen curls 
 le at the 
 the corn- 
 attended 
 f asked^ 
 
 After that first moment of excited curiositi', it hecame apparent 
 that it was a child who had been suddenly lifted by some one 
 into that prominent place. The little creature stood still a mo- 
 ment, frightened ; then audibly prompted, woke to its duty. 
 It plucked from its small head a small velvet cap with a white 
 feather, and gave forth its tiny shout, which rang into the 
 echoes. 
 
 " Vive M. 'Erbert ! vive M. 'Erbert 1 " cried little Jean, turn- 
 ing round and round, and waving his cap on either side of him. 
 Vague excitement and delight, and sense of importance, and 
 hopes of sugar-plums, inspired the child. He gave forth his 
 little shout with his whole heart, his blue eyes dancing, his 
 little cheeks flushed ; and I leave the reader to imagine what a 
 sensation little Jean's unexpected appearance and still more un- 
 expected shout produced in the decorous splendour of the great 
 haU. 
 
 *' Who is it ? " " What is it 1 " " What does it mean 1 " 
 " Who is the child 1 " " What does he say 1 " cried everybody. 
 There got up such a commotion and flutter as dispersed in a 
 moment the respectful silence which had been preparing for 
 Lord Kingsborough. Every guest appealed to his or her neigh- 
 bour for information, and — except the very few too well-in- 
 formed, like Dr. Kichard, who guilty and self-reproachful, asking 
 himself how he could have prevented it, and what he should say 
 to Miss Susan, sat silent, incapable of speech — every one sent 
 back the question. Giovanna, calm and radiant, alone replied, 
 <' It is the next who will succeed," she cried, sending little rills 
 of knowledge on either side of her. " It is Jean Austin, the 
 little heir,'; 
 
 Lord Kingsborough was taken aback, as was natural ; but he 
 was a good-natured man, and fond of children. '* God bless 
 us ! " he said. '' Miss Austin, you don't mean to tell me the 
 boy's married, and thp t's his heir 1 " 
 
 " It is the next of kin," said Miss Susan with white lips ; 
 no more his heir than I am, but the heir if Herbert had not 
 lived. Lord Kingsborough, you will forgive the interruption ; 
 you will not disappoint us. He is no more Herbert's heir than 
 I am ! " again she cried with a shiver of agitation. 
 
 It was the Hon. Mr. Skindle who supported her on the other 
 side ; and having heard that there was madness in the Austin 
 
378 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 family, that gentleman was afraid. " 'Gad, she looked fte if 
 she would murder somebody," he confided afterwards to the 
 friend who drove him home. 
 
 " Not his heir, but the heir," said Lord Kingsborough good- 
 humouredly, '' a fine distinction ? " and as he was a kind soul, 
 he made another prodigious effort, and got himself out of his 
 seat. He made a very friendly, nice little speech, saying that 
 the very young gentleman who preceded him had indeed taken 
 the wind out of his sails, and forestalled what he had to say ; 
 but that, nevertheless, as an old neighbour and family friend, 
 he desired to echo in honest English, and with every cordial 
 sentiment, their little friend's effective speech, and to wish to 
 Herbert Austin, now happily restored to his home in perfect 
 health and vigour, everything, &c., &c. He went on to tell 
 the assembly what they knew very well ; that he had known 
 Herbert's father and grandfather, and had the happiness of a 
 long acquaintance with the admirable ladies who had so long 
 represented the name of Austin among them ; and to each he 
 gave an appropriate compliment. In short, his speech com- 
 posed the disturbed assembly, and brought everything back to 
 the judicious level of a great dinner ; and Herbert made his re- 
 ply with modest self-possession, and the course of affairs, mo- 
 mentarily interrupted, flowed on again according to the pro- 
 gramme. But in the centre of the table, where the less im- 
 portant people sat, Giovanna and the child were the centre of 
 attraction. She caught every one's eye, now that attention had 
 been called to her. After he had made the necessary sensa- 
 tion, she took little Jean down from the table, and set him on 
 the carpet, where he ran from one to another, collecting the 
 offerings which every one was ready to give him. Sophy and 
 Kate got hold of him in succession, and crammed him with 
 bonbons, while their father glared at the child across the table. 
 He made his way even as far as Lord Kingsborough, who took 
 himi on his knee and patted his curly head. '* But the little 
 chap should be in bed," said the kind potentate, who had a 
 great many of his own. Jean escaped a moment after, and ran 
 behind the chairs in high excitement to the next who called 
 him. It was only when the ladies left the room that Giovanna 
 caught him, and swinging him up to her white shoulder, which 
 was not half so much uncovered as Kate's and Sophy's, carried 
 
WUIT£LAniK8. 
 
 379 
 
 him away triumphant, shouting once more " Vive M. Erbert ! " 
 from that eminence, as he finally disappepred at ;.he great 
 door. 
 
 This was Giovanna's first appearance in public, but it was a 
 memorable one. Poor old Dr. Richard, half weeping, secured 
 Everard as soon as the ladies were gone, and poured his pitiful 
 story into his ears. 
 
 ** What could I do, Mr. Austin 1 " cried the poor little, pretty 
 old gentleman. '' She had him up before I could think what 
 she was going to do ; and you cannot use violence to a lady, 
 sir, you cannot use violence, especially on a festive occasion like 
 this. I should have been obliged to restrain her forcibly, if at 
 all, and what could I do ) " 
 
 " I am sure you did everything that was necessary," said 
 Everard with a smile. She was capable of setting Dr. Richard 
 himself on the table, if it had served her purpose, in^tead of 
 being restrained by him, was what he thought. 
 
 I 1 
 
880 
 
 WHITELADIBH. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 ^ HE evening came to an end at last, like all others. The 
 great people went first, as became them, filling the rural 
 roads with the ponderous rumble of their great carriages 
 and gleams of their lamps. The whole neighbourhood was astir. 
 A little crowd of village people had collected round the gates 
 to see the ladies in their fine dresses, and to catch the distant 
 echo of the festivities. There was quite an excitement among 
 them, as carriage after carriage rolled away. The night was 
 soft and warm and light, the moon invisible, but yet shedding 
 from behind the clouds a subdued lightness into the atmos- 
 phere. As the company dwindled, and ceremony diminished^ 
 a group gradually collected in the great porch, and at last this 
 group dwindled to the family party and the Farrel-Austins^ 
 who were the last to go away. This was by no means the de- 
 sire of their father, who had derived little pleasure from 
 the entertainment. None of those ulterior views which Kate 
 and Sophy had discussed so freely between themselves had 
 been communicated to their father, and he saw nothing but the 
 celebration of his own downfall, and the funeral of his hopes, 
 in this feast, which was all to the honour of Herbert Conse- 
 quently, he had been eager to get away at the earliest moment 
 possible, and would even have preceded Lord Kingsborough, 
 could he have moved his daughters, who did not share his 
 feelings. On the contrary, the display which they had just 
 witnessed had produced a very sensible effect upon Kate and 
 Sophy. They were very well oflf, but they did not possess half 
 the riches of Whiteladies ; and the grandeur of the stately old 
 hall, and the importance of the party, impressed these young 
 women of the world. Sophy, who was the youngest, was na- 
 turally the least affected ; but 'Kate, now five-and-twenty, and 
 beginning to perceive very distinctly that all is vanity, was more 
 moved than I can say. In the intervals of livelier intercourse, and 
 especially during that moment in the drawing-room when the 
 gentlemen were absent — a moment pleasing in its ci^m to the 
 
 iv ; 
 
WHrTELADlES. 
 
 nsi 
 
 milder portion of womankind, but which fast, young ladies Bel- 
 dom endure with patience — Kate made poiiited appeals to her 
 sister's proper feclinss. 
 
 " If ypu let all this slip through your fingers, I shall despise 
 you," she said with vehemence. 
 
 " Go in for it yourself, then," whispered the bold Sophy ; " I 
 shan't object." 
 
 But even Sophy was impressed. Her first interest, Lord Alf, 
 had disappeared long ago, and had been succeeded by others, 
 all very willing to amuse themselves and her, as much as she 
 pleased, but all disappearing in their turn to the regions above, 
 or the regions below, equally out of Sophy's reach, whom cir- 
 cumstances shut out from the haunts of blacklegs and sporting 
 men, as well as from the upper world, to which the Lord Alfs 
 of creation belong by nature. Still it was not in Sophy's na- 
 ture to be so wise as Kate. She was not tired of amusing her- 
 self, and had not begun yet to pursue her gaieties with a definite 
 end. Sophy told her fnends quite frankly that her sister was 
 ** on the look-out." " She has had her fun, and she wants to 
 settle down," the younger said with admirable candour, to the 
 delight and much amusement of her audiences from the Bar- 
 racks. For this these gentlemen well knew, though both rea- 
 sonable and virtuous in a man, is not so easily managed in the 
 case of a lady. " By Jove ! I shouldn't wonder if she did," 
 was iheir generous comment. " She has had her fun. by Jove I 
 and who does she suppose would have her ? " Yet the best of 
 girls, and the freshest and sweetest, do have these heroes, after 
 a great deal more " fun " than ever could have been within the 
 reach of Kate ; for there are disabilities of women which can- 
 not be touched by legislation, and to which the most strong- 
 minded must submit. 
 
 However, Sophy and Kate, as T have said, were both moved 
 to exertion by this display of all the grandeur of Whiteladies. 
 They kept their father fuming and fretting outside, while they 
 lingered in the porch with Beine and Herbert The whole 
 youthful party was there, including Everard and Giovanna, who 
 had at last permitted poor little Jean to be put to bed, but who 
 was still excited by her demonstration, and the splendid com- 
 pany of which she had formed a part. 
 
382 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " How they are dull, these great ladies ! " she cried ; " but 
 not more dull than ces messieurs, who thought I was mad. 
 Mon Dieu ! because I was happy about M. Herbert, and that he 
 had come home." 
 
 " It was very grand of you to be glad," cried Sophy. " Ber- 
 tie, you have gone and put everybody out. Why did you get 
 well, sir ? Papa pretends to be pleased too, but he would like 
 to give you strychnine or something. Oh, it wouldn't do us 
 any good, we are only girls ; and I think you have a better 
 right than papa." 
 
 " Thanks for taking my part," said Herbert, who was a Httle 
 uncertain how to take this very frank address. A man seldom 
 thinks his own problematical death an amusing incident ; but 
 still he felt that to laugh was the right thing to do. 
 
 " Oh, of course we take your part," cried Sophy. " We ex- 
 pect no end of fun from you, now you've come back. I am so 
 sick of all those Barrack parties ; but you will always have 
 something going on, won't you 'i And Reine, you must ask us. 
 How delicious a dance would be in the hall I ilertie, remember 
 you are to go to Ascot with m ; you are our cousin, not any 
 one else's. When one is related to Lhe hero of the moment, 
 one is not going to let one's glory drop. Promise, Bertie ! you 
 go with us 1 " • 
 
 " I am quite willing, if you want me," said Herbert. 
 
 " Oh, if we want you ! — of course we want you — we want 
 you always," cried Sophy. " Why, you are the lion ; we are 
 proud of you. We shall want to let everybody see that you 
 don't despise your poor relations, that you remember we are your 
 cousins, and used to play with you. Don't you recollect, Ber- 
 tie 1 Kate and Beine used to be th' friends always, because 
 they were the steadiest ; and you and me — we were the ones 
 who got into scrapes," cried Sophy. This, to tell the truth, 
 was a very rash statement ; for Herbert, always delicate, had 
 not been in the habit of getting into scrapes. But all the more 
 for this, he was pleased with the idea. 
 
 " Yes," he said half doubtfully, " I recollect ;" but his recol- 
 lections were not clear enough to enter into details. 
 
 Come let us get into a scrape again," cried Sophy ; *^ it is 
 such a lovely night. Let us send the carriage on in front, and 
 walk. Come with us, won't you ? After a party, it is so plea- 
 
WHITBLADIES. 
 
 383' 
 
 sant to have a walk ; and we have been such swells to-night. 
 Come, Bertie, let's run on, and bring ourselves down." 
 
 " Sophy, you madcap I I daresay the night air is not good 
 for him," said Kate. 
 
 Upon which Sophy broke forth into the merriest laughter. 
 " As if Bertie cared for the night air ! Why, he looks twice as 
 strong as any of us. Will you come 1 " 
 
 " With all my heari," said Herbert ; " it is the very thing 
 after such a tremendous business as Aunt Susan's dinner. This is 
 not the kind of entertainment I mean to give. We shall leave 
 the swells, as you say, to take care of themselves." 
 
 " And ask me I " said bold Sophy, running out into the 
 moonlight, which just then got free of the clouds. " She was in 
 high spirits, and pleased with the decided beginning she had 
 made. In her white dress, with her white shoes twinkling over 
 the dark cool greenness of the grass, she looked like a fairy 
 broken forth from the woods. " Who will run a race with me 
 to the end of the lane ?" she cried, pirouetting round and round 
 the lawn. How pretty she was, how gay, how light-hearted — 
 a madcap, as her sister said, who stood in the shadow of the 
 porch laughing, and bade Sophy recollect that she would ruin 
 her shoes. i 
 
 " And you can't run in high heels," said Kate. 
 
 " Cg.n't I ] " cried Sophy. " Come, Bertie, come." They 
 nearly knocked down Mr. Farrel-Austin, who stood outside 
 smoking his cigar, and swearing within himself, as they rushed 
 out through the little gate. The carriage was proceeding 
 abreast, its lamps making two bright lines of light, along the 
 wood, the coachman swearing internally as much as his master. 
 The others followed more quietly — Kate, Reine, and Everard. 
 Giovanna, yawning, had withdrawn some time before. 
 
 " Sophy, really, is too great a romp," said Kate ; " she is 
 always after some nonsense ; and now we shall never be able 
 to overtake them, to talk to Bertie about coming to the Hatch. 
 Reine, you must settle it. We do so want you to come ; con- 
 sider how long it is since we have seen you, and of course 
 everybody wants to see you ; so unless we settle at once we 
 shall miss our chance — Everard too. We have been so long 
 separated ; and perhaps," said Kate, dropping her voice, " papa 
 may have been disagreeable ; but that don't make any diflfer- 
 
$84f 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ence to us. Say when you will come ; we are all coURins 
 together, and we ought to be friends. What a blessing when 
 there are no horrible questions of property between people ! '* 
 said Kate, who had so much sense. ^^Now it don't matter to any 
 one, except for friendship, who is next of kin." 
 
 " Bertie has won," said Sophy, calling out to them. " Fancy ! 
 I thought I was sure, such a short distance ; men can etay 
 better than we can," said the well-informed young woman; "but 
 for a little bit like this, the girl ought to win." 
 
 " Since you have come back, let us settle about when they 
 are to come," said Kate ; and then there ensued a lively dis- 
 cussion. They clustered all together at the end of the lane, in 
 the clear space where there were no shadowing trees — the two 
 young men acting a& shadows, the girls all distinct in their 
 pretty light dresses, which ihe moon whitened and brightened. 
 The consultation was very animated, and diversified by much 
 mirth and laughter, Sophy being wild, as she said, with excite- 
 ment, with the stimulation of the race, and of the night air and 
 the freedom. " After a grand party of swells, where one has 
 to behave one's self," she said, " one always goes wild." And 
 she fell to waltzing about the party. Everard was the only one 
 of them V'ho had any doubt as to the reality of Sophy's mad- 
 cap mood ; the others accepted it with the nsuve confidence of 
 innocence. They said to each other, what a merry girl she was 1 
 when at last, moved by Mr. Farrel- Austin's s> Iks and the de- 
 termination of the coachmaU) the girls permitt<)d themselves to 
 be placed in the carriage. " Becollect Friday 1 " they both 
 cried, kissing Koine, and giving the most cordial pressure of tbo 
 hand to Herbert. The three who were left, stood and loc^Led 
 after the carriage as it set off along thj moonlit road. Keine 
 had taken her brother's arm. She gave Everf»rd no opportunity 
 to resume that interrupted conversation on b^aru the steamboat. 
 And Kate and Sophy had not been at all attentive to their cousin, 
 who was quite as nearly related to them as Bertie, so that if 
 he was dightly misanthropical and disposed to find fault, it can 
 scarcely be said that he had no justification. They all strolled 
 along together slowly, enjoying the soft evening and the sup-- 
 pressed moonhght, which was now dim again, struggling faintly 
 through a mysterious labyrinth of cloud. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 385 
 
 (( 
 
 " I had forgotten what nice girls they were," fiaid H» rbert ; 
 Sophy especially; so kind and so genial and unati'ected. 
 How foolish one is when one is young ! I don't think I liked 
 them, even, when we were last here." 
 
 " They are sometimes too kind," said Everard, shrugging 
 his shoulders ; but neither of the others took any notice of 
 what he said. 
 
 " One is so much occupied with one's self when one is young," 
 said middle-aged Reine, already over twenty, and feeling all 
 the advantages which age bestows. 
 
 " Do you think it is that ? " said Herbert. He was much 
 aflfected by the cordiality of his cousins, and moved by many 
 concurring causes to a certain sentimentality of mind ; and he 
 was not indisposed for a little of that semi-philosophical talk 
 which sounds so elevating and so improving at his age. 
 
 " Yes,"' said Reine with confidence ; " one is so little sure of 
 one's self, one is always afraid of having done amiss ; things 
 you say sound so silly when you think them over. I blush 
 sometimes now when I am quite alone to think how silly I 
 must have seemed; and that prevents you doing justice to 
 others ; but I like Kate best." 
 
 " And I like Sophy best. She has no nonsense about her ; 
 she is so frank and so simple. Which is Everard for 1 On 
 the whole, there is no doubt about it, English girls have a 
 something, a je ne sais quoi — " 
 
 " I can t give any opinion," said Everard laughing. " After 
 your visit to the Hatch you will be able to decide. And have 
 you thought what Aunt Susan will say, within the first week, 
 almost before you have been seen at home ] " 
 
 " By Jove ! I forgot Aunt Susan ! " cried Herbert with a 
 sudden pause ; then he laughed, trying to feel the exquisite 
 fun of asking Aunt Susan's permission, while they were so in- 
 dependent of her; but this scarcely answered just at first. 
 " Of course," he added, with an attempt at self-assertion^ 
 " one cannot go on consulting Aunt Susan's opinion for ever." 
 
 " But the first week ! " Everard had all the delight of mis- 
 chief in making them feel the subordination in which they still 
 stood in spite of themselves. He went on laughing. "I 
 would not say anthing about it to-night. She is not half 
 pleased with Madame Jean, as they call her. I hope Madame 
 Y 
 
■*MpmMI 
 
 380 
 
 WHITfr^LADIKS. 
 
 Jean has been getting it hot Everything went off perfectly 
 well by a miracle, but that woman as nearly spoiled it by her 
 nonsense and her boy " 
 
 "Whom do you call that woman?" said Herbert coldly. 
 " I think Madame Jean did ju&t what a warm-hearted person 
 would do. She did not wait for mere ceremony or congratul- 
 ations pre-arranged. For my part," said Herbert stiffly, " I 
 never admired any one so much. She is the most beautiful, 
 glorious creature ! " 
 
 " There was no one there so pretty," said innocent Beine. 
 
 " Pretty ! she is not pretty : she is splendid ! she is beauti- 
 ful ! By Jove ! to see her with her arm raised, and that child 
 on her shoulder — it's like a picture ! If you will laugh," said 
 Herbert pettishly, ' don't laugh in that offensive way ! What 
 have they done to you, and why are you so disagreeable to 
 night 1 " 
 
 " Am I disagreeable ? " said Everard laughing again. It was 
 all he could do to keep from being angry, and he felt tt s was 
 the safest way. " Perhaps it is that I am more enlightened 
 than you youngsters. However beautiful a woman may be 
 (and I don't deny she's very handsome), I can see when she's 
 playing a part." 
 
 "What part is she playing ] " cried Herbert hotly. Reine 
 was half frightened by his vehemence, and provoked as he was 
 by Everard's disdainful tone ; but she pressed her brother's 
 arm to restrain him, fearful o( a quarrel, as girls are so apt to 
 
 be. 
 
 " I suppose you will say we are all plajdng our parts ; and 
 so we are," said Reine, '* Bertie, you have been the hero to- 
 night, and we are all your satellites for the moment. Come in 
 ' qmck, it feels chilly. I don't suppose even Everard would say 
 Sophy was playing a part, except her natural one," she added 
 with a laugh. 
 
 Everard was taken by surprise. He echoed her laugh with 
 all the imbecility of astonishment. " You believe in them too," 
 he said to her in an aside, then added, " No, only her natural 
 part," with a tone which Herbert found as offensive as the 
 other. Herbert himself was in a state of flattered self-conscious- 
 ness which made him look upon every word said against his 
 worshippers as an assault upon himself. Perhaps the lad being 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 387 
 
 younger than his years, was still at the age when a boy is more 
 in love with himself than any one else, and loves others accord- 
 ing to their appreciation of that self which bulks so largely in 
 his own eypR. Giovanna's homage to him, and Sophy's en- 
 thusiasm of cousinship, and the flattering look in all these fine 
 eyes, had intoxicated Herbert. He could not but feel that 
 they were above all criticism, these young, fair women, who 
 did such justice to his own excellencies. As for any suggestion 
 that their regard for him was not genuine, it was as great an 
 insult to him as to them, and brought him down, in the most 
 humbling way, from the pedestal on which they had elevated 
 him. Reine's hand patting softly on his arm kept him silent, 
 but he felt that he could knock down Everard with pleasure, 
 and fumes of anger and self-exaltation mounted into his head. 
 
 " Don't quarrel, Bertie," Reine whispered in his ear. 
 
 " Quarrel ! he is not worth quarrelling with. He is jealous, 
 I suppose, because I am more important than he is," Herbert 
 said, stalking through the long passages which were still all 
 bright with lights and flowers. Everard hanging back out of 
 hearing, followed the two young figures with his eyes through 
 the windings of the passage. Herbert held his head high, in- 
 dignant. K^ine, with both her hands on his arm, soothed and 
 calmed him. They were both resentful of his sour tone and 
 what he had said. 
 
 " I dare say they think I am jealous," Everard said to him- 
 self, with a laugh that was not merry, and went away to his 
 own room, and beginning to arrange his things for departure, 
 meaning to leave next day. He had no need to stay there to 
 swell Herbert's triumph, he who had so long acted as nurse to 
 him without fee or reward. Not quite without reward either, 
 he thought, after all, rebuking himself, and held up his hand 
 and looked at it intently, with a smile stealing over his face. 
 Why should he interfere to save Herbert from his own vanity 
 and folly ? Why should he subject himself to the usual fate of 
 Mentors, pointing out Scylla on the one side and Ciiarybdis on 
 the other 1 If the frail vessel was determined to be wrecked, 
 what had he, Everard, to do with it 1 Let the boy accomplish 
 his destiny, who cared 1 and then what could Reine do but take 
 refuge with her natural champion, he whom she herself had 
 appointed to stand in her place, and who had his own score 
 
388 
 
 WHTTELADIEa 
 
 against her still nnacquitted 1 It was evidently to his interest 
 to keep out of the way, to let things go as they would. " And 
 I'll back Giovanna against Sophy," he said to himself, half 
 jealous, half laughing, as he went to sleep. 
 
 As for Herbert, he lounged into the great hall, where some 
 lights were still burning, with his sister, and found Miss Susan 
 there, pale with fatigue and the excitement past but trium- 
 phant. " I hopo you have not tired yourself out," she said. 
 " It was like those girls to lead you out into the night air, to 
 give you a chance of taking cold. Their father would like 
 nothing better than to see you laid up again ; but I don't give 
 them credit for any scheme. They are too feather-brained for 
 anything but folly." 
 
 " Do you mean our cousins Sophy and Kate 1 " said Herbert 
 with some solemnity, and an unconscious attempt to overawe 
 Miss Susan, who was not used to anything of this kind, and 
 was unable to understand what he meant. 
 
 " I mean the Farrel-Austin girls," she said. " Riot ard 
 noise and nonsense is their atmosphere. I hope you do not 
 like these kind of goings on, Reine ) " 
 
 The brother and sister looked at each other. " You have 
 always disliked the Farrel-Austins," said Herbert, bravely put- 
 ting himself in the breach. *' I don't know why, Aunt Susan. 
 But we have no quarrel with the girls. Thev are very nice and 
 friendly. Indeed, Reine and I have promised to go to them 
 on Friday, for two or three days. " 
 
 He was three-and-twenty, he wasacknowledgedinasterof the 
 house ; but Herbert felt a certain tremor steal over him, and 
 stood up before her with a strong sense of valour and daring as 
 he said these words. 
 
 " Going to them on Friday — to the Farrel-Austins, for three 
 or four days ! then you do not mean even to go to your own 
 parish church on your first Sunday ? Herbert," said Miss Susan, 
 indignantly, " you will break Augustine's heart." 
 
 "No, no, we did not say three or four days. I thought ol 
 that," said Reine. " We shall return on Saturday. Don't be 
 angry. Aunt Susan. They were very kind, and we thought it 
 was no harm." 
 
 Herbert gave her an indignant glance. It was on his lips to 
 say, " It does not matter whether Aunt Susan is angry or not," 
 
 (( 
 
> i 
 
 WUITELADIES. 
 
 389 
 
 but looking at her, he thought bettor of it " Yes," he said 
 after a pause, " we shall return on Saturday. They were very 
 kind, as Reine says, and how visiting our cousins could possibly 
 involve any harm " 
 
 " That is your own affair," said Miss Susan ; " I know what 
 you mean Herbert, and of course you are right, you are not 
 children any longer, and must choose your own friends ; well ! 
 Before "ou go, however, I should like to settle everything. 
 To-night is my last night. Yes, yes, it is too late to discuss 
 that now. I don't mean to say more at present. It went ofif 
 very well, very pleasantly, but for that ridiculous interruption 
 of Giovanna's " 
 
 " I did not think it was ridiculous," said Herbert. " It was 
 very pretty. Does Giovanna displease you too 1 " 
 
 Once more Reine pressed his arm. He was not always going 
 to be coerced like this. If Miss Susan wants to be unjust and 
 ungenerous, he was man enough, he felt, to meet her to the 
 face. 
 
 " It was very ridiculous, I thought," she said with a sigh, 
 " and I told her so. I don't suppose she meant any harm. She 
 is very ignorant, and knows nothing about the customs of 
 society. Thank heaven, she can't stay very long now." 
 
 " Why can't she stay ? " cried Herbert alarmed. " Aunt 
 Susan, I don't know what has come over you. You used to be 
 so kind to everybody, but now, and it is the people I particularly 
 like you are so furious against. Why 1 those girls, who are as 
 pretty and as pleasant as possible, and just the kind of com- 
 panions Reine wants, and Madame Jean who is the most charm- 
 ing person I ever saw in this house. Ignorant ! I think she is 
 very accomplished. How she sang last night, and what an eye 
 she has for the picturesque ! I never admired Whit<^ladies so 
 much as this morning, when she took us over it. Aunt Susan, 
 don't be so cross. Are you disappointed in Reine, or in me, 
 that you are so hard upon the people we like most 1 " 
 
 " The people you like most ? " cried Miss Susan aghast. 
 
 " Yes, Aunt Susan, I like them too," said Reine, bravely put- 
 ting herself by her brother's side. I believe they both thought 
 it was a most chivalrous and high-spirited thing they were doing, 
 rejecting experience and taking rashly what seemed to them the 
 weaker side. The side of the accused against ths judge, the 
 
390 
 
 WHTTELADIE8. 
 
 side of the young against the old. It seemed so natural to do 
 that. The two stood together in their foolishness in the old 
 hall, all decorated in their honour, and confronted the de- 
 throned queen of it with a smile. She stood baffled and thun- 
 derstruck, gazing at them and scarcely knew what to say. 
 
 " Well, children, well," she managed to get out at last. " You 
 are no longer under me, you must choose your own friends ; 
 but God help you, what is to become of you if these are the 
 kind of people you like best ! " 
 
 They both laughed softly ; though Reine had compunctions, 
 they were not afraid. *' You must confess at least that we have 
 good taste," said Herbert ; " two very pretty people, and one 
 beautiful. I should have been much happier with Sophy at one 
 hand and Madame Jean on the other, instead of those two 
 swells, as Sophy calls them." 
 
 " Sophy, as you call her, would give her head for their notice," 
 cried Miss Susan indignant, " two of the best women in the 
 county, and the most important families." 
 
 Herbert shrugged his shoulders. " They did not amuse me," 
 he said, " but perhaps I am stupid. I prefer the foolish Sophy 
 and the undaunted Madame Jean." 
 
 Miss Susan left them with a cold good night to see all the 
 lights put out, which was important in the old house. She was 
 so angry that it almost eased her of her personal burden ; but 
 Reine, I confess, felt a thrill of panic as she went up the oak 
 stairs. Scylla and Chary bdis ! She did not identify Herbert's 
 danger, but in her heart there worked a vague premonition of 
 danger, and without knowing why, she was afraid. 
 
 (C 
 
' / 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 891 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 OING away 1 " said Giovanna. " M. 'Erbert, you go 
 away already 1 is it that Viteladies is what you caJl 
 dull 1 You have been here so short of time, you 
 do not yet know." 
 
 " We are going on! for a day ; at least, not quite two days," 
 said Reine. 
 
 " For a day ! but a day, two days is long. Why go at alH " 
 said Giovanna. " We are very well here. I will sing, if that 
 pleases to you. M. 'Erbert, when you are so long absent, you 
 should not go away to-morrow, the next day. Madame Suzanne 
 will think, * They love me not.' " 
 
 " That would be nonsense," said Herbert ; " besides, you know 
 I cannot be kept in one place at my age, whatever old ladies 
 may think." 
 
 " Ah ! nor young ladies neither," said Giovanna. " You are 
 homme, you have the freedom to do what you will, I know it. 
 Me, I am but a woman, I can never have this freedom ; but I 
 comprehend and I admire. Yes, M. 'Erbert, that goes with- 
 out saying. One does not put the eagle into a cage. 
 
 And Giovanna gave a soft little sigh. She was seated in one 
 of her favourite easy chairs, thrown back in it in an attitude of 
 delicious, easy, repose. She had no mind for the work with 
 which Reine employed herself, and which all the women Her- 
 bert ever knew had indulged in, to his annoyance, and often 
 envy ; for an invalid's weary hours w-uld have been the better 
 often of such feminine solace, and the young man hated it all 
 the more that he had often been tempted to take to it, had his 
 pride permitted. But Giovanna had no mind for this pretty 
 cheat, that looked like occupation. In her own room she worked 
 hard at her own dresses and those of the child, but down-stairs 
 she sat with her large, shapely white hands in her lap, in all 
 the luxury of doing nothing ; and this peculiarity delighted 
 Herbert. He was pleased, too, with what she said ; he liked 
 to imagine that he was an eagle who could not be shut into a 
 
392 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 cage, and to feel his immense superiority, as man, over the 
 women who were never free to do as they liked, and for whom 
 (he thought) such an indulgence would not be good. He drew 
 himself up unconsciously, and felt older, taller. " No," he said, 
 " of course it would be too foolish of Auni Susan or any one 
 to expect me to be guided by what she thinks right." 
 
 " Me, I do not speak for you," said Giovanna ; " I speak for 
 myself. I am disappointed, me. It. will be dull when you are 
 gone. Yes, yes, Monsieur 'Erbert, we are selfish, we other 
 women. When you go we are dull ; we think not of you, but 
 of ourselves, n'est ce pas. Mademoiselle Reine ? I am frank. I 
 confess it. You will be very happy; you will have much 
 pleasure ; but me, I shall be dull. VoiU tout ! " 
 
 I need not say that this frankness captivated Herbert. It is 
 always more pleasant to have our absence regretted by others, 
 selfishly, for the loss it is to them, than unselfishly on our ac- 
 count only ; so that this profession of indifference to the plea- 
 sure of your departing friend, in consideration of the loss to 
 yourself, is the very highest compliment you can pay him. Her- 
 bert felt this to the bottom of his heart He was infinitely 
 flattered and touched by the thought of a superiority so delight- 
 ful, and he had not been used to it. He had been accustomed, 
 indeed, to be in his own person the centre of a great deal of 
 care and anxiety, everybody thinking of him, for his Ei>^k6 ; but 
 to have it recognised that nis presence or absence made a place 
 dull or the reverse, and affected his surroundings, not for his 
 sake but theirs, was an immense rise in the world to Herbert. 
 He felt it necessary to bo very friendly and attentive to Gio- 
 vanna, by way of consoling her. " After all, it will not be very 
 long," he said ; " from Friday morning to Saturday night. I 
 like to humour the old ladies, and they make a point of our be- 
 ing at home for Sunday ; though I don't know how Sophy and 
 Kate will like it, Reine." 
 
 " They will not like it at all," said Giovanna. " They want 
 you to be to them, to amuse them, to make them happy ; so do 
 I, the same. When they come here, those young ladies, we 
 shall not be friends ; we shall fight," she said with a laugh. 
 " Ah, they are more clever than me, they will win ; though if 
 we could fight with the hands like men, I should win. I am 
 more strong." 
 
 « 
 
WHITELADrES. 
 
 398 
 
 " It need not come so far as tliat," said Herbert, comnlaisant 
 and delighted. " You are all very kind, I am sure, and think 
 more of me than I deserve." 
 
 " I am kind — to me, not to you, M. 'Erbert," aaid Oiovanna ; 
 " when I tell you it is dull, dull k mourir the moment you go . 
 away." 
 
 " Yet you have spent a good many months here without Her- 
 bert, Madame Jean," said Reine ; " if it had been so dull, you 
 might have gone away." 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle ! where could I have gone to 1 I am not 
 rich like you ; I have not parents that love 1^°. If I go home 
 now," cried Giovanna, with a laugh, " it will be to the room 
 behind the shop where my belle-m6re sits all the day, where 
 they cook the dinner, where I am the one that is in the way, 
 always. I have no money, no people to care for me. Even 
 little Jean they take from me. They say, * Tenez GiVanna ; 
 she has not the ways of children.' Have not I the ways of 
 children, M. 'Erbert 1 That is what they would say to me, if 
 I went to what you coll 'ome." 
 
 " Reine," said Herbert, in an undertone, " how can you be 
 so cruel, reminding the poor thing how badly off she is 1 I 
 hope you will not think of going away," he added, turning to 
 Giovanna. " Reine and I will be too glad that you should 
 stay ; and as for your flattering appreciation of our society, I 
 for one am very grateful," said the young fellow. " I am very 
 happy to be able to do anything to make Whiteladies pleasant 
 to you." 
 
 Miss Susan came in, as he said this, with Everord, who was 
 going away ; but she was too much preoccupied by her own 
 cares to attend to what her nephew was saying. Everard ap- 
 preciated the position more clearly. He saw the grateful look 
 with which Giovanna turned her beautiful eyes to the young 
 master of the house, and he saw the pleased vanity and com- 
 plaisance in Herbert's face. " What an ass he is ! " Everard 
 thought to himself; and then he quoted privately with rueful 
 comment — 
 
 " ' On him each courtier's eye was bent, 
 To him each lady's look was lent : ' 
 
 all because the young idiot has Whiteladies, and is the head of 
 the house." " Bravo, Herbert, old boy," ho said aloud, though 
 
394 
 
 WRITELADIE8. 
 
 'there was nothing partioulaily appropriate in the speech, 
 " you are having your innings. I hope you'll make the 
 most of them. But now that I am no longer wanted, I am 
 
 foing oif. I suppose when it is warm enough for water parties, 
 shall come into fashion again ; Sophy and Kate will manage 
 that." 
 
 " Well, Everard, if I were you I should have more pride," 
 said Miss Susan. " I would not allow myself to be tasen up 
 and thrown aside as those girls please. What you can see in 
 whem baffles me. They are not very pretty. They are very 
 loud, and fast, and noisy — " 
 
 " I think so too ! " cried Giovanna, clapping her hands. 
 " They are my enemies : they take you away, M. 'Erbert and 
 Mademoiselle Reine. They make it dull here." 
 
 ** Only for a dav," said Herbert, bending over her, his eyes 
 melting and glowing with that delightful suffusion of satisfied 
 vanity which with so many men represents love. " I could not 
 stay long away if I would," said the young man in a lower 
 tone. He was quite captivated by her frank demonstrations 
 of personal loss, and believed them to the bottom of his heart. 
 'Miss Susa threw a curious, half-startled look at them, and 
 Reine raised her head from her embroidery ; but both of these 
 ladies had something of their own on their minds which occupied 
 them, and closed their eyes to other matters. Keine was 
 secretly uneasy that Everard should go away ; that there should 
 have been no explanation between them ; and that his tone had 
 in it a certain suppressed bitterness. What had she done to 
 him 1 Nothing. She had been occupied with her brother, as 
 was natural ; any one else would have been the same. Everard's 
 turn could come at any time, she said to herself, with an un- 
 conscious arrogance not unusual with girls, when thev are sure 
 of having the upper hand. But she was uneasy that he should 
 go away. 
 
 " I don't want to interfere with your pleasures, Herbert," 
 said Miss Susan, " but I must settle what I am to do. Our 
 cottage is ready for us, everything is arranged ; and I want to 
 give up my charge to you, and go away." 
 
 " To go away ! " the brother and sister repeated together 
 ^ith dismav. 
 
 (( 
 
WHITELAmKH. 
 
 395 
 
 " Of cuurac ; that is wlmt it must como tu. Wlion you wore 
 under ago it was different. I was your guardian, Herbert, and 
 you were my children." 
 
 '< Aunt Susan," cried Keine, coming up to her with eager 
 tenderness, " we are your children still. 
 
 " And I — am not at all sure whether it will suit me to take 
 up all you have been doing," said Herbert. '* It suits you, why 
 should we change ; and how could Reine manage the house ? 
 Aunt Susan, it is unkind to come down upon us like this. 
 Leave us a little time to get used to it. What do you want 
 with a cottage 1 Of course you must like Whiteladies best." 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Susan ! what he says is not so B(>lfish as it 
 sounds," said Reine. " Why —why should you go 1 " 
 
 " We are all selfish," said Herbert, "as Madame Joan says. 
 She wishes us to stay because it is dull without us" ("Bien, 
 tr^s dull," said Giovanna), " and we want you to stay because 
 we are not up to the work and don't understand it. Never 
 mind the cottage ; there is plenty of room in Whiteladies for 
 all of us. Aunt Susan why should you be disagreeable *? Don't 
 go away." 
 
 " I wish it ; I wish it," she said in a low tone ; "let me go !" 
 
 " But we don't wish it," cried Reine, kissing her in triumph, 
 " neither does Augustine. Oh, Aunt Austine, listen to her, 
 speak for us 1 You don't wish to go away from Whiteladies, 
 away from your home ? " 
 
 " No," said Augustine, who had come in in her noiseless way. 
 " I do not intend to leave Whiteladies," she went on, with 
 serious composure ; " but, Herbert, I have something to say to 
 you. It is more important than anything else, xou must 
 marry ; you must marry at once ; I don't wish any time to be 
 lost. I wish you to have an heir, whom I shall bring up. I 
 will devote myself to him. I am fifty-seven ; there is no time 
 to be lost ; but with care I might live twenty years. The 
 women of our house are long-lived. Susan is sixty, but she is 
 as active as any one of you ; and for an object lUce this, one 
 would spare no pains to lengthen one's days. You must marry, 
 Herbert. This has now become the chief object of my life." 
 
 The young members of the party, unable to restrain them- 
 selves, laughed at this solemn address. Miss Susan turned 
 away impatient, and sitting down, pulled out the knitting of 
 
 \ i .., 
 
896 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 which lately she had done so little. But as for Augustine, her 
 countenance preserved a perfect gravity. She saw nothing 
 laughable in it. " I excuse you," she said very seriously, " for 
 you cannot see into my heart and read what is there. Nor does 
 Susan understand me. She is taken up with the cares of this 
 world and the foolishness of riches. She thinks a foolish display 
 like that of last night is more important. But, Herbert, li^iten 
 to me ; you and your true welfare have been my first thought 
 and my first prayer for years, and this is my recommendation, 
 my command to you. You must marry — and without any un 
 necessary delay." 
 
 " But the lady ! " said Herbert, laughing and blushing ; even 
 this very odd address had a pleasurable element in it. It im- 
 plied the importance of everything he did ; and it pleased the 
 young man, even after such an odd fashion, to lay this flattering 
 unction to his soul. 
 
 " The lady ? " said Miss Augustine gravely ; and then she 
 made a pause. " I have thought a great deal about that, and 
 there is more than one whom I could suggest to you , but I have 
 never married myself, and I might not perhaps be a good judge. 
 It seems the general opinion that in such matters people should 
 choose for themselves." 
 
 All this she said with so profound a gravity that the by- 
 standers, divided between amusement and a kind of awe, held 
 their breath and looked at each other. Miss Augustine had 
 not sat down. She rarely did sit down in the common sitting- 
 room ; her hands were too full of occupation. Her church ser- 
 vices, now that the Chantry was opened, her Almshouses' 
 prayers, her charities, her universal oversight of her pensioners 
 filled up all her time, and bound her to hours as stricily as if 
 she had been a cotton spinner in a mill. No cotton-spinner 
 worked harder than did this Grey Sister ; from morning to 
 night her time was portioned out. I do not venture to say how 
 many miles she walked daily, rain or shine ; from Whiteladies tu 
 the Almshouses, to the church, to the Almshouses again ; or 
 how many hours she spent absorbed in that strange matter-of- 
 fact devotion which was her way of working for her family. 
 She repeated in her soft tones, " I do not interfere with your 
 choice, Herbert ; but what I say is very important. Marry ! 
 I wish it above everything else in life." And having said this, 
 she went away. 
 
WHITELADTES. 
 
 397 
 
 " This is very solemn," said Herbert with a laugh, but his 
 laugh was not like the merriment into which, by-and-by, the 
 others burst forth, and which half offended the young man. 
 Beine, for her part, ran to the piano when Miss Augustine disap- 
 peared, and burst forth into a quaint little French ditty, sweet 
 and simple, of old Norman rusticity. 
 
 ** A chaque rose que j'eflfeuille 
 Marie-toi, car il est temps," 
 
 the girl sang. But Miss Susan did not laugh, and Herbert did 
 not care to see anything ridiculed in which he had such an im- 
 portant share. After all, it was natural enough, he said to 
 himself, that such adv^'^e should be given with great gravity to 
 one on whose acts so much depended. He did not see what there 
 was to laugh about. Reine was absurd with her songs. There 
 was always one of them which came in pat to the moment. 
 Herbert almost thought that this light-minded repetition of 
 Augustine's &dvice was impertinent both to her and himself 
 And thus a little gloom had come over his brow. 
 
 " Messieurs et mesdames," said Giovanna suddenly, " you 
 laugh, but, 71 you reflect, ma soeur has reason. She thinks, 
 here is Monsieur 'Erbert, young and strong, but yet there are 
 things which happen to the strongest ; and here, on the other 
 part, is a little boy, a little, little boy, who is not English, whose 
 mother is nothing but a foreigner, who is the heir. This 
 gives her the panique. And for me, too, M. 'Eerbert, I 
 say with Mademoiselle Reine, ' Marie-toi, car il est temps.' 
 Yes, truly ! although little Jean is my boy, I say mariez-vous 
 with my heart." 
 
 " How good you are ! how generous you are ' Strange that 
 you should be the only one to see it," said Herbert, for the 
 moment despising all the people belonging to him, who were so 
 opaque, who did not perceive the necessities of the position. 
 He himself saw those necessities well enough, and that he 
 should marry was the first and most important. To tell the 
 truth, he could not see even that Augustine'c anxiety was of 
 an exaggerated description. It was not a thing to make laugh- 
 ter and ridiculous jokes and songs about. 
 
 Giovanna did not desert her post during that day. She did 
 not always lead the conversation, nor make herself so important 
 
398 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 in it as she had done at first, but she was always there, putting 
 in a word when necessary, ready to come to Herbert's assist- 
 ance, to amuse him when there was occasion, to flatter him 
 with bold, frank speeches, in which there was always a subtle 
 compliment involved. Everard took his leave shortly after, 
 with farewells in which there was a certain conscioufcness that 
 he had not been treated quite as he ought to have been. " Till 
 I come into fashion again," he said, with the laugh which be- 
 gan to sound harsh to Reine's ears, " I am better at home in 
 my own den, where I can be as sulky as I please. When I am 
 wanted, you know where to find me." Reine thought he looked 
 at her when he said this with reproach in his eyes, 
 
 " I think you are wanted now," said Miss Susan ; " there 
 are many things I wished to consult you about. I wish you 
 wouks not go away." 
 
 But he was obstinate. " No, no ; there is nothiag for me to 
 do," he said ; " no journeys to make, no troubles to encounter. 
 You are all settled at home in safety ; and when I am wanted 
 you know where to find me," he added, this time holding out 
 his hand to Reine, and looking at her very distinctly. Poor 
 Reine felt herself on the edge of a very sea of trouble ; every- 
 body around her seemed to have sometliing in their thoughts 
 beyond her divining. Miss Susan meant more than she could 
 fathom, and there lurked a purpose in Giovanna's beautiful 
 eyes, which Reine began to be diinly conscious of, but could not 
 explain to hers^^lf. How could he leave her to ste - her course 
 among these undeveloped perils 1 and how coulu <^ call him 
 back when he was " wanted," as he said bitterly t She gave 
 him her hand, turning away her head to hide a something, al- 
 most a tear, that would come into her eyes, and with a forlorn 
 sense of desertion in her heart ; but she was too proud either 
 by look or word to bid Everard stay. 
 
 This was on Thursday, and the next day they were to go to 
 the Hatch, so that the interval was not long. Giovanna sang 
 for them in the evening all kinds of popular songs which was 
 what she knew best, old Flemish ballads, and French and 
 Italian canzoni ; those songs of which every hamlet possesses 
 one special to itself. " For I am not educated," she said ; 
 " Mademoiselle must see that. I do all this by the ear. It is 
 not music ; it is nothing but ignorance. These are the chants 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 399 
 
 du peuple, and I am nothing but one of the peuple, me. I am 
 tr6s-peuple. I never pretend otherwise. I do not wish to de- 
 ceive you, M. 'Erbert, nor Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Deceive us ! " cried Herbert. " If we could imagine such 
 a thing, we should be dolts indeed." 
 
 Giovanna raised her head and looked at him, then turned 
 to Miss Susan, whose knitting had dropped on her knee, and 
 who, without thought, I think, had turned her eyes upon the 
 group. " You are right, Monsieur 'Erbert," she said, with a 
 strange malicious laugh, " here at least you are quite safe, 
 though there are much of persons who are traitres in the world. 
 No one will deceive you here." 
 
 She laughed as she spoke, and Miss Susan clutched at her 
 knitting and buried herself in it, so to speak, not raising her 
 head again for a full hour after, during which time Herbert and 
 Giovanna talked a great deal to each other. And Eeine sat 
 by, with an incipient wonder in her mind which she could not 
 quite make out, feeling as if her aunt and herself were one fac- 
 tion, Giovanna and Herbert another ; as if thftre were all sorts 
 of secred threads which she could not unravel, and intentions 
 of which she knew nothing. The sense of strangeness grew on 
 her so,, that she could scarcely believe she was in Whiteladies, 
 the home for which she had sighed so long. This kind of dis- 
 enchantment happens often when the hoped-for becomes actual, 
 but not always so strongly or with so bewildering a sense of 
 something unrevealed, as that which pressed upon the very 
 soul of Reine. 
 
 Next morning Giovanna, with her child on her shoulder, 
 came out to the gate to see them drive away. " You will not 
 stay more long than to-morrow," she said. " How we are go- 
 ing to be dull till you come back ! Monsieur 'Erbert, Made- 
 moiselle Reine, you promise — not more long than to-morrow ! 
 It is two great long days ! " She kissed her hand to them, and 
 little Jean waved his cap, and shouted ** Vive M. 'Erbert ! " as 
 the carriage drove away. 
 
 " What a grace she has about her I " said Herbert. " I never 
 saw a woman so graceful. After all, it is a bore to go. It is 
 astonishing how happy one feels, after a long absence, in the 
 mere sense of being at home. I am sorry we promised ; of 
 course we must keep our promise now." 
 
400 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ** I like it rather," said Keine, feeling half ashamed of herself. 
 " Home is not what it used to be ; there is something strange, 
 something new ; I can't tell what it is. After all, though Ma- 
 dame Jean is very handsome, it is strange she should be there." 
 
 " Oh, you object to Madame Jean, do you ? " said Herbert. 
 " You women are all alike ; Aunt Susan does not like her 
 either. I suppose you cannot help it ; the moment a woman is 
 more attractive than others, the moment a man shows that he 
 has got eyes in his head But you cannot help it, I sup- 
 pose. What a walk she has, and carrying that child like a 
 feather ! It is a great bore this visit to the Hatch, and so soon." 
 
 " You were pleased with the idea ; you were delighted to 
 accept the invitation," said Reine, injudiciously, 1 must say. 
 
 " Bah ! one's ideas change ; but Sophy and Kate would have 
 been disappointed," said Herbert, with that ineffable look of 
 complaisance in his eyes. And thus from Scylla, which he had 
 left, he drove calmly on to Charybdis, not knowing where he 
 went. 
 
 was 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 401 
 
 was 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 'HERE had been great preparations made for Herbert's re- 
 ception at the Hatch. 1 say Herbert's — for Reine, 
 though she had been perforce included in the invitation, 
 not even considered ai\y more. After the banquet at 
 Whiteladies the sisters had many consultations on this subject, 
 and there was indeed very little time to do anything. Sophy 
 had been of opinion at first that the more gay his short visit 
 could be made the better Herbert would be pleased, and had 
 contemplated an impromptu dance, and I don't know how many 
 other diversions ; but Kate vas wiser. It was one good trait 
 in their characters, if there was not very much else, that they 
 acted for each other with much disinterestedness, seldom or never 
 entering into personal rivalry. " Not too much the first time," 
 said Kate ; " let him make acquaintance with us, that is the 
 chief thing." " But he mightn't care for us," objected Sophy. 
 " Some people have such bad taste." This was immediately 
 after the Whiteladies dinner, after the moonlight walk and the 
 long drive, when they were safe in the sanctuary of their own 
 rooms. The girls were in their white dressing gowns, with 
 their hair about their shoulders, and were taking a light refec- 
 tion of cakes and chocolate before going to bed. 
 
 " If you choose to study him a little, and take a little pains, 
 of course he will like you," said Kate. ** Any man will fall in 
 love with any woman, if she takes trouble enough." 
 
 " It is very odd to me," said Sophy, " that with those opinions 
 you should not be married, at your age." 
 
 " My dear," said Kate seriously, " plenty of men have fallen 
 in love with me, only they have not been the right kind of men. 
 I have been too fond of fun ; and nobody that quite suited has 
 come in my way since I gave up amusing myself. The Barracks 
 so near is very much in one's way," said Kate, with a sigh. 
 " One gets used to such a lot of them about ; and you can 
 always have your funj whatever happens; and till you are 
 driven to it, it seems odd to make a fuss about one. But what 
 
 AA 
 
402 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ym have got to do is easy enough. He is as innocent as a baby, 
 and as foolish. No woman ever took the trouble, I should say, 
 to look at him. Ypu have it all in your own hands. As for 
 Reine, I will look after Reine. She is a suspicious little thing, 
 but I'll keep her out of your way." 
 
 " What a bore it is ! " said Sophy, with a y iwn. " Whv 
 should we be obliged to marry more than the men are 1 It isn'u 
 fair. Nobody finds fault with them, though they have dozens 
 of affairs ; but we're drawn over the coals for a nothing, a bit 
 of fun. I'm sure I don't want to marry Bertie, or any on^. 
 I'd a great deal rather not. So long as one has one's amuse- 
 ment, it's jolly enough." 
 
 " If you could always be as young as you are now," said Kate 
 oracularly ; " but even you are beginning to be pass^e, Sophy. 
 It's the pace, you know, as the men say — you need not make 
 faces. 'The moment you are married you will be a girl again. 
 As for me, I feel a grandmother." 
 
 " You are old," said Sophy compassionately ; and indeed you 
 ought to go first." 
 
 "I am just eighteen months older than you are," said Kate, 
 rousing herself in self-defence, " and with your light hair, you'll 
 go off sooner. Don't be afraid ; as soon as I have got you off 
 my hands I shall take care of myself But look here ! What 
 you've got to do is to study Herbert a little. Don't take him 
 up as if he were Jack or Tom. Study him. There is one 
 thing you never can go wrong in with any of them," said this 
 experienced young woman. " Look as if you thought him the 
 cleverest fellow that ever was ; make yourself as great a fool as 
 you can in comparison. That flatters them above everything. 
 Ask his advice, you know, and that sort of thing. The greatest 
 fool I ever knew," said Kate reflectively, '* was Fenwick, the 
 adjutant. I made him wild about me by that." ' 
 
 " He would need to be a fool to think you meant it," said 
 Sophy scornfully ; " you that have such an opinion of yourself." 
 
 " I had too good an opinion of myself to have anything to 
 say to Atm, at least ; but it's fun putting them in a state," 
 said Kate, pleased with the recollection. This was a sentiment 
 which her sister fully shared, and they amused themselves 
 with reminiscences of several such dupes ere they separated. 
 Perhaps even the dupes were scarcely such dupes as these young 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 403 
 
 ladies thought ; I ut any how, they had never boon, as Kate 
 said, " the right sort of men." Dropmore, &c., were always 
 to the full as knowing as their pretty adversaries, and were not 
 to be beguiled by any such specious pretences. And to tell 
 the truth, I am doubtful how far Kate's science was genuine. 
 I doubt whether she was unscrupulous enough and good-tem- 
 pered enough to carry out her own programme ; and Sophy 
 certainly was too careless, too feather-brained, for any such 
 scheme. She meant to marry Herbert because his recommend- 
 ations were great, and because he lay in her way, as it were, 
 and it would be almost a sin not to put forth a hand to ap- 
 propriate the gifts of Providence ; but if it had been necessary 
 to " study " him, as her sister enjoined, or to give great pains 
 to his subjugation, I feel sure that Sophy's patience and resolu- 
 tion would have given way. The charm in the enterprise was 
 that it seemed so easy ; Whiteladies was a most desirable ob- 
 ject ; and Sophy, longing for fresh woods and pastures new, 
 was rather attracted than repelled by the likehhood of having 
 to spend the winters abroad. 
 
 Mr. Farrel-Austin, for his part, received the young head of 
 his family with anything t'^t delight. He had been unable, in 
 ordinary civility, to contrad lot the invitation his daughters had 
 given, but took care to express his sentiments on the subject 
 next day very distinctly — had they carad at all for those senti- 
 ments, which I don't think they did. Their schemes, of course, 
 were quite out of his range, and were not communicated to 
 him ; nor was he such a self-denying parent as to have been 
 much consoled for his own loss of the family property by the 
 possibility of one of his daughters stepping into possession of 
 it. He thought it an ill-timed exhibition of their usual love 
 of strangers, and love of company, and growled at them all day 
 long until the time of the arrival, when he absented himself, 
 to their great satisfaction, though it was intended as the crown- 
 ing evidence of his displeasure. " Papa has been obliged to go 
 out ; he is so sorry, but hopes you will excuse him till dinner," 
 Kate said, when the girls came to receive their cousins at the 
 door. " Oh, they won't mind, I am sure," said Sophy. " We 
 shall have them all to ourselves, which will be much jollier." 
 Herbert's brow clouded temporarily, for, though he did not 
 love Mr. Farrel-Austin, he felt that his absence showed a want 
 
404 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 of that " proper respect " which was due to the head of the 
 house. But under the say ifiiluence of the girls the cloud 
 speedily floated away. They had gone early, by special prayer, 
 as their stay was to be so short ; and Kate had made the judi- 
 cious addition of two men from the barracks to their little 
 luncheon-party. " One for me, and one for Reine," she had 
 said to Sophy, "which will leave you a fair field." The one 
 whom Kate had chosen for herself was a middle-aged major, 
 with a small property — a man who had hitherto afforded much 
 " fun " to the party generally as a butt, but whose serious at- 
 tentions Miss Farrel- Austin, at five-and-twenty, did not ab- 
 solutely discourage. If nothing better came in the way, he 
 might do, she felt. He had a comfortable income and a mild 
 temper, and would not object to " fun." Eeine's share was a 
 foolish youth, who had not long joined the regiment ; but as 
 she was quite unconscious that he had been selected for her, 
 Reine was happily free from all sense of being badly treated. 
 He laughed at the jokes which Kate and Sophy made, and held 
 his tongue otherwise — thus fulfilling all the duty for which he 
 was told off. After this morning-meal, which was so much 
 gayer and more lively than anything at Whiteladies, the new- 
 comers were carried off to see the house and the grounds, upon 
 which many improvements had been made. Sophy was Her- 
 bert's guide, and ran before him through all the new rooms, 
 showing the new library, the morning-room, and the other 
 additions. " This is one good of an ugly modern place," she 
 said. " You can never alter dear old Whiteladies, Bertie. If 
 you did, we should get up a crusade of ?11 the Austins and all 
 the antiquarians, and do something to you — kill you, I think ; 
 unless some weak-minded person like myself were to interfere." 
 
 " I shall never put myself in danger," he said, though per- 
 haps 1 am not such a fanatic about Whiteladies as you others. 
 
 " Don't !" said Sophy, raising her hand as if to stop his 
 mouth. " If you say a word more I shall hate you. It is small 
 to be sure ; and if you should have a very large family when 
 you marry — " she went on, with a laugh — " but the Austins 
 never have large families ; that is one part of the curse, I sup- 
 pose your Aunt Augustine would say ; but for my part, I hate 
 large families, and I think it is very grand to have a curse be- 
 longing to us. It is as good as a family ghost. What a pity 
 
WHTTELADIES. 
 
 405 
 
 that the monk and the nun don't walk ! But there is some- 
 thing in the great staircase. Did you ever see iti I never 
 lived in Whiteladies, or I should have tried to see what it was." 
 
 " Did you never live at Whiteladies 1 I thought when we 
 were children " 
 
 " Never for more than a day. The old ladies hate us. Ask us 
 now, Bertie, there's a darling. Well ! he will be a darling if 
 he asks us. It is the most delightful old house in the world, 
 and I want to go." 
 
 " Then I ask you on the spot," said Herbert. " Am I a dar- 
 Hng now 1 You know," he added, in a lower tone, as they 
 went on, and separated from the others, " it was as near as pos- 
 sible being yours. Two years ago no one supposed I should 
 get better. You must have felt it was your own ? " 
 
 " Not once," said Sophy. " Papa's, perhaps — but what 
 would that have done for us 1 Daughters marry and go away — 
 it never would have been ours ; and Mrs Farrel-Austin won't 
 have a son. Isn't it provoking ? Oh, she is only our step- 
 mother, you know — it does not matter what we say. Papa could 
 beat her ; but I am so glad, so glad," cried Sophy, with a glow of 
 smiles, " that instead of papa, or that nasty little French boy, 
 Bertie, it is you, our cousin, whom we are fond of! — I can't 
 tell you how glad I am." i ' 
 
 " Thanks," said Herbert, clasping the hand she held out to 
 him, and holding it. It seemed so natural to him that she 
 should be glad. 
 
 " Because," said Sophy, looking at him with her pretty blue 
 eyes, " we have been sadly neglected, Kate and I. We have 
 never had any one to advise us, or tell us what we ought to 
 do. We both came out too young, and were thrown on the 
 world to do what we pleased. If you see anything in us you 
 do»'t like, Bertie, remember this is the reason. We never had 
 a brother. Now, you will be as near a brother to us as any one 
 could be. We shall be able to go and consult you, and you will 
 help us out of our scrapes. I did so hope, before you came, 
 that we should be friends ; and now I think we shall," she 
 said, giving a little pressure to the hand which still held hers. 
 
 Herbert was so much affected by this appeal that it brought 
 the tears to his eyes. 
 
406 
 
 WHITELADIRS. 
 
 '* I think wo shall, indeed," he aaid warmly, — " nay, we are 
 It would be a stranse fellow, indeed, who would not be glad to 
 be brother, or anything else, to a girl like you." 
 
 " Brother, not anything else," said Sophy, audibly but softly. 
 " Ah, Bertie ! you can't uiink how glad I am. As soon as we 
 saw you, Kate and I could not help feeling what an advantage 
 Reine had over us. To have you to refer to always — to have 
 you to talk to — instead of the nonsense that we girls are always 
 chattering to each other." 
 
 " Well," said Herbert, more and more pleased, " I suppose it 
 is an advantage ; not that I feel myself particularly wise, I am 
 sure. There is always something occurring which shows one 
 how little one knows." 
 
 " If you feel that, imagine how we must feel," said Sophy, 
 " who have never had any education. Oh, yes, we have had 
 just the same as other girls ! bu^p not like men — not like you, 
 Bertie. Oh, yoi: need not be modest. I know you haven't been 
 at the University to waste your time and get into debt, lilce so 
 many we know. But you have done a great deal bettor. You 
 have read and you have thought, and Reine has had all the 
 advantage. I almost hate Reine for being so much better off 
 than we are." 
 
 " But really," cried Herbert, laughing half with pleasure, half 
 with a sense of the incongruity of the praise, " you give me a 
 great deal more credit than I deserve. I have never been very 
 much of a student. I don't know that I have done much for 
 Reine — except what one can do in th ; way of conversation, you 
 know," he added, after a pause, feeling that after all it must, 
 have been this improving conversation which had made his sis- 
 ter what she was. It had not occurred to him before, but the 
 moment it was suggested — ^yes, of course, that was what it must 
 be. 
 
 " Just what I said," cried Sophy ; " and we never had that 
 advantage. So if you find us frivolous, Bertie " 
 
 " How could I find you frivolous ? You are nothing of the 
 sort. I shall almost think you want me to pay you compli- 
 ments — ^to say what I think of you." 
 
 " I hate compliments," cried Sophy." " Here we are on the 
 lawn, Bertie, and here are the others. What do you think of 
 it. We have had such trouble with the grass — now, I think it 
 
WHITELADIRS. 
 
 407 
 
 r. WO are 
 
 is rathor nice. It haH boon rollod and wati^rod and mown, and 
 rolled and watered and mown again, almont evory day." 
 
 "It is the best croquet-ground in the county," said the 
 Mf^or ; and why shouldn't we have a game ? It is pleasant to 
 be out of doors suclt a lovely day." 
 
 This was assent(3d to, and the otherR wont in-doors for their 
 hats ; but Sophy stayed. " 1 have got rid of any complexion 
 I ever had," she said. " I am alway« out of doors, The sun 
 must have got tired of burning mo, 1 am so brown already," 
 and she put up two white, pink fingered hiMids to her white 
 and pink cheeks. She was one of those blondes of satin-skin 
 who are not easily affected l)y the elements. Herbert laughed, 
 and with the priviU^ge of cousinship took hold of one of the 
 pink tips of her finger, and looked at the hand. 
 
 " Is that what you call brown ?" he said. " We have just 
 come from the land of brown beauties, and I ought to know. 
 It is the colour of milk, with roses in it/' and the young man, 
 who was not used to paying compliments, blushed as he made 
 his essay ; which was more than Sophy, experienced in the 
 commodity, felt any occasion to do. 
 
 " Milk of roses," she said," laughing j " that is a thing for 
 the complexion. I don't use it, Bertie. I don't use anything 
 of the kind. Men are always so dreadfully knowing about 
 girls' dodges — ." The word slipped out against her will, for 
 Sophy felt that slang was not expedient, and she blushed at 
 this slip, though she had not blushed at the compliment. Her- 
 bert did not, however, discriminate. He took the pretty suf- 
 fusion to his own account, and laughed at the inadvertent 
 word. He thought she put il in inverted commas, as a lady 
 should ; and when this is done, a word of slang is piquant now 
 and then as a quotation. Besides, he was far from being a 
 purist in language. Kate, however, the unselfish, thoughtful 
 elder sister, sweetly considerate of the young beautv, brought 
 out Sophy's hat with her own, and they began to play. Her- 
 bert and Reine were novices, unacquainted (strange as the con- 
 fession must sound) with this universally popular game ; and 
 Sophy stepped into the breach, and took them both on her 
 side. " I am the best player of the lot," said Sophy calmly. 
 You know I am. So Bertie and Ileine shall come with me ; 
 and beat us if you can ! " said the yoimg champion ; and if the 
 
408 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 reader will believe me, Sophy's boast came true. Kate, indeed, 
 made a brave stand ; but the Major was middle-aged, and the 
 young fellow was feeble, and Herbert showed an unsuspected 
 genius for the game. He was quite pleased himself by his 
 success ; everything, indeed, seemed to conspire to m^ke Her- 
 bert feel how clever he was, how superior he was, what an 
 acquisition was his society ; and during the former part of his 
 life it had not been so. Like one of the great philosophers of 
 modern times, Herbert felt that those who appreciated him so 
 deeply must in themselves approach the sublime. Indeed, I 
 fear it is a little mean on my part to take the example of that 
 great philosopher, as if he were a rare instance ; for is not the 
 foolishest of us of the same opinion ? " Call me wise, and I 
 will allow you to be a judge," says an old Scotch proverb. 
 Herbert was ready to think all these kind people very good 
 judges who so magnified and glorified himself. 
 
 In the evening there was a very small dinner party ; again 
 two men to balance Kate and Keine, but not the same men — 
 persons of greater weight and standing, with Farrel- Austin 
 himself at the foot of his own table. Mrs. Farrel- Austin was 
 not well enough to come to dinner, but appeared in the draw- 
 ing-room afterwards ; and when the gentlemen came up stairs, 
 appropriated Reine. Sophy, who had a pretty little voice, had 
 gone to the piano, and was singing to Herbert, pausing at the 
 end of every verse to ask him, " Was it very bad ? Tell me 
 what you dislike most, my high notes or my low notes, or my 
 execution, or what 1" while Her».u*t, laughing and protesting, 
 gave vehement praise to all. " I don't dislike anything. I 
 am delighted with every word ; but you must not trust to me, 
 for indeed I am no judge of music." " No judge of music, and 
 yet fresh from Italy !" cried Sophy, with flattering contempt. 
 
 While this was going on, Mrs. Farrel-Austin drew Reine 
 close to her sofa. " I am very glad to see you, my dear," she 
 said, "and so far as I am concerned, I hope you will come 
 often. You are so quiet and nice ; and all I have seen of your 
 Aunt Susan I like, though I know she does not lika us. But 
 I hopr, my dear, you won't get into the racketing set our girls 
 are so fond of. I should be very sorry for that ; it would be 
 bad for your brother. I don't mean to say anything against 
 Kate and Sophy. They are very lively and very strong, and it 
 
WH1TELADIE8. 
 
 409 
 
 suits them, though in somo things I think it is bad for them too. 
 But vour brother sould never stand it, my dear ; I know what 
 bad health is, and I can see that he is not strong still." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Reine eagerly. " He has been going out in 
 the world a great deal lately. I was frightened at first ; but I 
 assure you he is quite strong." 
 
 Mrs. Farrel-Austin shook her head. •* I know what poor 
 health is," she said, " and however strong you may get, you 
 never can stand a racket. I don't suppose for a moment that 
 they mean any harm, but still I should not like anything to 
 happen in this house. People might say — and your Aunt Su- 
 san would be sure to think — It is very nice, I suppose, for 
 young people ; and of course at your age you are capable of a 
 great deal of racketing ; but I must warn you, my dear, it's 
 ruin for the health." 
 
 " Indeed, I don't think we have any intention of racketing." 
 
 " Ah, it is not the intention that matters," said the invalid. 
 " I only want to warn you, my dear. It is a very racketing 
 set. You should not let yourself be drawn into it, and quietly, 
 you know, when you have an opportunity, you might say a 
 word to your brother. I dare say he feels the paramount value 
 of health. Oh what should I give now if I had only been 
 warned when I was young ! You cannot play with your health, 
 my dear, with impunity. Even the girls, though they are so 
 strong, have headache and things which they oughtn't oo have 
 at their age. But I hope you will come here often, you are so 
 nice and quiet — not like the most of those that come here." 
 
 " What is Mrs. Austin saying to you, Reine 1 " asked Kate. 
 
 " She told me I was nice and quiet," said Reine, thinking 
 that in honour she was bound not to divulge the rest ; and they 
 both laughed at the moderate compliment. 
 
 " So you are," said Kate, giving her a little hug. " It is re- 
 freshing to be with any one so tranquil — and I am sure you will 
 do us both good." 
 
 Reine was not impressed by this as Herbert was by Sophy's 
 pretty speeches. Perhaps the praise that was given to her was 
 not equally well chosen. The passionate little semi-French girl 
 (who had been so ultra-English in Normandy) was scarcely 
 flattered by being called tranquil, and did not feel that to do 
 Sophy and Kate good by being " nice and quiet" was a lofty 
 
410 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 mission. What did a racketing set mean ? she wondered. An in- 
 voluntary prejudice against the house rose in her mind, and this 
 opened her eyes to something of Sophy's tactics. It was rather 
 hard to sit and look on and see Herbert thus fooled to the top of 
 his bent. When she went to the piano beside them Sophy grew 
 more rational ; but still she kept referring to Herbert, consult- 
 ing him. " Is it like this they do it in Italy 1 " She sang, 
 executing a " shake" with more natural sweetness than science. 
 " Indeed, I don't know, but it is beautiful," said Herbert. 
 " Ask Reine." " Oh, Reine is only a girl like myself. She 
 will say what she thinks will please me. I have fai more con- 
 fidence in a gentlemen," cried Sophy ; " and above all in you, 
 Bertie, who have promised to be a brother to me," she said in 
 a lower tone. ** Did I promise to be a brother 1 " said poor 
 foolish Herbert, his heart beating with vanity and pleasure. 
 And the evening passed amid these delights. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 411 
 
 An in- 
 ,nd this 
 rather 
 I top of 
 lygrew 
 lonsult- 
 le fiang, 
 science, 
 [erbert. 
 f. She 
 )re con- 
 in you, 
 said in 
 id poor 
 leasure. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 <ii 
 
 NEED not follow day by day the course of Herbert's life. 
 Though the brother and sister went out a good deal 
 together at first, being asked to all the great houses in the 
 neighbourhood, as became their position in the county and their 
 recent arrival, yet there gradually arose a separation between 
 Herbert and Reine. It was inevitable, and she had learned to 
 acknowledge this, and did not rebel as at first ; but a great many 
 people shook their heads when it became apparent that, not- 
 withstanding Mrs. Farrel-Austin's warning, Herbert had been 
 drawn into the " racketing set" whose head quarters were jit 
 the Hatch. The young man was fond of pleasure as well as of 
 flattery, and it was summer, when all the ills that flesh is heir 
 to, relax their hold a little, and dissipation is comparatively 
 harmless. He went to Ascott with the party from the Hatch, 
 and he went to a great many other places with them ; and 
 though the friends he made under their auspices led Her- 
 bert into places much worse both for his health and mind 
 than any the girls could lead him to, he remained faithful, so 
 far, to Kate and Sophy, and continued to attend them wherever 
 they went. As for Reine, she was happy enough in the compa- 
 rative quiet into which she dropped when the first outbreak of 
 gaiety was over. Miss Susan, against her will, still remained 
 at Whiteladies ; against her will — yet it may well be supposed 
 it was no pleasure to her to separate herself from the old house 
 in which she had been born, and from which she had never 
 been absent for so much as six months all her life. Miss Augus- 
 tine, for her part, took little or no notice of the change in the 
 household. She went her way as usual, morning and evening, to 
 the Almshouses. When Miss Susan spoke to her, as she did 
 sometimes, about the cottage which stood all this time furnished 
 and ready for instant occupation, she only shook her head. " I 
 do not mean to leave Whiteladies," she said calmly. Neither 
 did Giovanna, so far as could be perceived. " You cannot re- 
 main here when we go," said Miss Susan to her. 
 
 ! 
 
^12 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " There is much room in the house," said Giovanna ; " and 
 when you go, Madame Suzanne, there will be still more. The 
 little chamber for me, and the child, what will that do to any 
 onel" 
 
 " But you cannot, you must not ; it will be improper — don't 
 you understand 1 " cried Miss Susan. 
 
 Giovanna shook her head. 
 
 " I will speak to M. Herbert," she said, smiling in Miss 
 Susan's face. 
 
 This then was the position of affairs. Herbert put off con- 
 tinually the settlement between them, begging that he might 
 have a little holiday, that she would retain the management of 
 the estate and of his affairs, and this with a certain generosity 
 mingling with his inclination to avoid trouble ; for in reality 
 he loved the woman who had been in her way a mother to 
 him, and hesitated about taking from her the occupation of her 
 life. It was well meant ; and Miss Susan felt within herself 
 that moral cowardice which so often affects those who live in 
 expectation of an inevitable change or catastrophe. It must 
 come, she knew ; and when the moment of departure came, 
 she could not tell, she dared not anticipate what horrors might 
 come with it ; but she was almost glad to defer it, to consent 
 that it should be postponed from day to day. The king in the 
 story, however, could scarcely manage, ^ suppose, to be happy 
 with that sword hanging over his head. No doubt he got used 
 to it, poor wretch, and could eat and drink, and snatch a fear- 
 ful joy from the feasting which went on around him ; he might 
 even make merry, perhaps, but he could scarcely be very happy 
 under the shadow. So Miss Susan felt. She went on steadily, 
 fulfilled all her duties, dispensed hospitalities, and even now 
 and then permitted herself to be amused ; but she was not 
 happy. Sometimes, when she said her prayers — for she did 
 still say her prayers, notwithstanding the burden on her soul 
 — she would breathe a sigh which was scarcely a prayer, that 
 it might sooix be over one way or another, that her sufferings 
 might be cut short ; but then she would rouse herself up, and 
 recall that despairing sigh. Giovanna would not budge. Miss 
 Susan made a great many appeals to her, when Reine was 
 straying abo it the garden, or after she had gone to her inno- 
 cent rest. She offered sums which made that young woman 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 413 
 
 tremble iu presence of a temptation which she could scarcely 
 resist ; but she set her white teeth firm, and conquered. It 
 was better to have all than only a part, Giovanna thought, and 
 she comforted herself that at the last moment, if her scheme 
 failed, she could fall back upon and accept Miss Susan's offer. 
 This made her very secure through all the events that followed. 
 When Herbert abandoned Whiteladies and was constantly at 
 the Hatch, when he seemed to have altogether given himself 
 over to his cousins, and a report got up through the county 
 that "an alliance was contemplated," as the Kingsborough 
 paper put it, grandly having a habit of royalty, so to speak — 
 between two distinguished county families, Giovanna bore the 
 contretemps quite calmly, feeling that Miss Susan's magnificent 
 oflfer was always behind her to fall back upon, if her great 
 personal enterprise should come to nothing. Her serenity gave 
 her a great advantage over Herbert's feebler spirit. When he 
 came home to Whiteladies, she regained her sway over him, 
 and as she never indulged in a single look of reproach, such as 
 Sophy employed freely when he left the Hatch, or was too 
 long of returning, she gradually established for herself a sup- 
 erior place in the young man's mind. 
 
 As for Herbert himself, the three long months of that sum- 
 mer were more to him than all the former years of his life put 
 together. His first outburst of freedom on the Riviera, and 
 his subsequent ramble in Italy, had been overcast by adverse 
 circumstances. He had got his own way, but at a cost which 
 was painful to him, and a great many annoyances and difficul- 
 ties had been mingled with his pleasure. But now there was 
 nothing to interfere with it. Reine was quiescent, presenting 
 a smiling countenance when he saw her, not gloomy or fright- 
 ened, as she had been at Cannes. She was happy enough ; 
 she was at home, with her aunts to fall back upon, and plenty 
 of friends. And everybody and everything smiled upon Her- 
 bert. He was acting generously, he felt, to his former guardian, 
 in leaving to her all the trouble of his affairs. He wa^ sur- 
 rounded by gay friends and unbounded amusements, amuse- 
 ments bounded only by the time that was occupied by them, 
 and those human limitations which make it impossible to do 
 two things at once. Could he have been in two places at once, 
 enjoying two different kinds of pleasure at the same time, his 
 
414 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 engagements were sufficient to have secured for liim a double 
 enjoyment. From the highest magnates of the county, to the 
 young soldiers of Kingsborough, his own contemporaries, every- 
 body was willing to do him honour. The entire month of 
 June he spent in town, where he had everything that town 
 could give him — though there life moved rather more quickly 
 than suited his still unconfirmed strength. Both in London 
 and in the country he was invited into higher circles than 
 those which the Farrel- Austins were permitted to enter ; but 
 still he remained faithful to his cousins, who gave him a hom- 
 age which he could not expect elsewhere, and who had always 
 "something going on," both in town and country, and no 
 pause in their fast and furious gaiety. They were always pre- 
 pared to go with him or to take him somewhere, to give him 
 the ca/rte dupays, to tell him all the antecedents and history of 
 this one and that one, and to make the ignorant youth feel 
 himself an experienced man. Then, when it pleased him to go 
 home, he was the master, welcomed by all, and found another 
 beautiful slave waiting serene to burn incense to him. No 
 wonder Herbert enjoyed himself. He had come out of his 
 chrysalis condition altogether, and was enjojring the butterfly 
 existence to an extent which he had never conceived of, flutter- 
 ing about everywhere, sunning his fine new wings, his new 
 energies, his manhood, and his health, and his wealth, and all 
 the glories that were his. To do him justice, he would have 
 brought his household up to town, in order that Reine too 
 might have had her glimpse of the season, could he have per- 
 suaded them ; but Reine, just then at a critical point o£ her 
 life, declined the indulgence. Kate and Sophy, however, were 
 fond of sajdng that they had never enjoyed a season so much. 
 Operarboxes rained upon them ; they never wanted bouquets ; 
 and their parties to Richmond, to Greenwich, wherever persons 
 of their class go, were endless. Herbert was ready for any- 
 thing, and their father did not decline the advantages, though 
 he disliked the giver of them ; and even when he was dis- 
 agreeable, matrons were always procurable to chaperone the 
 party, and preside over their pleasures. Everybody believed, 
 as Sophy did, that there could be but one conclusion to so 
 close an intimacy. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 415 
 
 " At all events, we have had a very jolly season," said Kate, 
 who was not so sure. 
 
 And Herbert fully echoed the words when he heard them. 
 Yes, it had been a very jolly season. He had " spent his money 
 f"ee," which in the highest class, as well as in the lowest, is the 
 most appropriate way in which a young man can make himself 
 agreeable. He had enjoyed himself, and he had given to others 
 a great many opportunities of enjoying themselves. Now and 
 then he carried down a great party to Whiteladies, and intro- 
 duced the heau monde to his beautiful old house, and made one 
 of those fdtes '^ampdtres for his friends which break so agree- 
 ably upon the toils of London pleasuring, and which supply to 
 the highest class, always like the lowest in their peculiar rites, 
 an elegant substitute for Cremorne and Eosherville. Miss Susan 
 bestirred herself, and made a magnificent response to his ap- 
 peals when he asked her to receive such parties, and consoled 
 herself for the gay mob that disturbed the dignity of the old 
 house, by the nobl<j names of some of them, which she was too 
 English not to be impressed by. And thus in a series of de- 
 lights the summer passed from May to August. Herbert did 
 not go to Scotland, though he had many invitations and solici- 
 tations to do so when the season was over. He came home in- 
 stead, and settled there when fashion melted away out of town ; 
 and Sophy, considering the subject, as she thought, impartially, 
 and without any personal prejudice (she said), concluded that it 
 must be for her sake he stayed. 
 
 " I know the Duke of Ptarmigan asked him, and Tom Heath, 
 and Billy Trotter," she said to her sister. " Billy, they say, 
 has the finest moors going. Why shouldn't he have gone, unless 
 he had some motive ? He can't have any shooting here till 
 September. If it isn't that, what do you suppose it can be ? " 
 
 " Well, at all events we have had a very jolly season," said 
 Kate, not disposed to commit herself ; " and what we have to 
 do is to keep things going, and show him the country, and not 
 be dull even now." Which admirable suggestion they carried 
 oui with all their hearts. 
 
 Herbert's thoughts, however, were not, I fear, so far advanced 
 as Sophy supposed. It was not that he did not think of that 
 necessity of marrying which Miss Augustine enforced upon him 
 in precisely the same words, every time she saw him. " Fou 
 
416 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 are wasting time — you are wasting my time, Herbert," she said 
 to him when he came back to Whiteladies, in July. Frankly 
 she thought this the most important point of view. So far as 
 he was concerned, he was young, and there was time enough ; 
 bub if she, a woman of se\ en-and-fitty, was to bring up his heir 
 and initiate him into her ideps, sur'^ly there was not a moment 
 to be lost in taking the preliminary step, 
 
 Herbert was very much amused with this view of the subject. 
 It tickled his imagination so, that he had not been able to re- 
 frain from communicating it to several of his friends. But 
 various of these gentlemen, after they had laughed, pronounced 
 it to be their opinion that, by Jove, the old girl was not so far 
 out. 
 
 " 1 wouldn't stand having that little brat of a child set up as 
 the heir under my very nose ; and, by Jove, Austin, I'd settle 
 that old curmudgeon Farrel's hopes fast enough, if I were in 
 your place," said his advisers. 
 
 Herbert was not displeased with the notion. He played with 
 it, with a certain enjoyment. H'> felt that he was a prize worth 
 anybody's pursuit, and liked to hear that such and such ladies 
 were "after him." The Duke of Ptarmigan had a daughter or 
 two, and Sir Billy Trotter's sister might do worse, her friends 
 thought. Herbert smoothed an incipient moustache, late in 
 growing, and consequently very precious, and felt a delightful 
 complaisance steal over him. And he knew that Sophy, his 
 cousin, did not despise him ; I am not sure even that the 
 young coxcomb was not aware that he might have the pick of 
 either of the girls, if he chose ; which also, though Kate had 
 never thought on the subject, was true enough. She had faith- 
 fully given him over to her younger sister, and never interfered; 
 but if Herbert had thrown his handkerchief to her, she would 
 have thought it sinful to refuse. When he thought on the sub- 
 ject, which was often enough, he had a kind of lazy sense that 
 this was what would befall him at last. He would throw his 
 handkerchief some time when he was at the Hatch, and where- 
 soever tlie chance wind might flutter it, there would be his fate. 
 He did not really care much whether it might happen to be 
 Sophy or Kate. 
 
 When he came home, however, these thoughts would float 
 away out of his mind. He did not think of marrying, though 
 
WH1TKLADIE8. 
 
 417 
 
 Miss Augustine spoke to him on the subject every day. He 
 thought of something else, which yet was not so far different ; 
 he thought that nowhere, in society or out of it, had he seen 
 any one like Giovanna. 
 
 " Did you ever see such a picture ? " he would say to Eeine. 
 " Look at her ! Now she's sculpture, with that child on her 
 shoulder. If the boy was only like herself, what a group they'd 
 make ! I'd like to have Marochetti, or some of those swells, 
 down, to make them in marble. And she'd paint just as well. 
 By Jove, she's all the arts put together. How she does sing ! 
 Patti and the rest are nothing to her. But I don't understand 
 how she could be the mother of that boy." 
 
 Giovanna came back across the lawn, having swung the child 
 from her shoulder on to the fragrant grass, in time to hear this, 
 and smiled and said, " He does not resemble me, does he 1 Ma- 
 dame Suzanne, M. Herbert remarks that the boy is not dark as 
 me. He is another type — yes, another type, n'est ce pas ! " 
 
 " Not a bit like you," said Herbert. " I don't say anything 
 against Jean, who is a dear little fellow ; but he is not like you." 
 
 " Ah ! but he is the heir of M. Herbert, which is better," 
 cried Giovanna with a laugh, " until M. Herbert will marry. 
 Why will not you marry and range yourself? Then the little 
 Jean and the great Giovanna will melt away like the fogs. Ah, 
 marry, M. Herbert ! it is what you ought to do." 
 
 " Are you so anxious, then, to melt away like the fog ? — like 
 the sunshine, you mean." said the young man in a low voice. 
 They were all in the porch, but he had gone out to meet her, 
 on pretence of playing with little Jean. 
 
 " But no," said Giovanna smiling, " not at all. I am very 
 well here ; but when M. Herbert will marry, then I must go 
 away. Little Jean will be no more the heir." 
 
 " Then I shall never marry," said the young man, though 
 still in tones so low as not to reach the ears of the others. Gio- 
 vanna turned her face towards him with a mocking laugh. 
 
 '' Bah ! already I know Madame Herbert's name, her little 
 name ! " she cried, and picked up the boy with one vigorous 
 easy sweep of her beautiful arms, and cairied him off, singing 
 to him — hke a goddess, Herbert thought, like the nurse of a 
 young Apollo. He was dreadfully disconcerted with this sud- 
 den withdrawal, and when Miss Augustine, coming in, addressed 
 BB 
 
418 
 
 WHIT£LADI£S. 
 
 bim in her usual way, he turned from her pettishly, with an 
 impatient exclamation, — 
 
 •' I wish you would give over," he said ; " you are makine a 
 joke of a serious matter. You are putting all sorts of folSes 
 into people's heads." 
 
 It was only at Whiteladies, however, that he entertained 
 this feeling. When he was away from home he would now and 
 then consider the question of throwing the handkerchief, and 
 made up his mind that there would be a kind of justice in it if 
 the petit nom of the future Mrs. Herbert turned out to be either 
 Sophy or Kate. 
 
 Things went on in this way until, one day in August, it was 
 ordained that the party, with its usual military attendants, 
 should vary its enjoyments by a day on the river. They 
 started from Water Beeches, Everard's house, in the morning, 
 with the intention of rowing up the river as far as Marlow, and 
 returning in the evening to a late dinner. The party consisted 
 of Kate and Sophy, with their father, Reine and Herbert, 
 Everard himself, and a quantity of young soldiers, with the 
 wife of one of them, four ladies, to wit, and an indefinite num- 
 ber of men. They started on a lovely morning, warm yet fresh, 
 with a soft little breeze blowing, stirring the long flags and 
 rushes, and floating the water-lillies that lurked among th'eir 
 great leaves in every corner. Reine and Everard had not seen 
 much of each other for some time. From the day he went off 
 in an injured state of mind, reminding them half indignantly 
 that they knew where to find him when he was wanted, they 
 had met only two or three times, and never had spoken to each 
 other alone. Everard had been in town for the greater part of 
 the time, purposely taking himself away, sore and wounded, to 
 have, as he thought, no notice taken of him ; while Reine, on 
 her part, was too proud to make any advances to so easily af- 
 fronted a lover. This had been in her mind, restraining her 
 from many enjoyments, when both Herbert and Miss Susan 
 thought her " quite happy." She was " quite happy," she al- 
 ways said ; did not wish to go to town, preferred to stay at 
 Whiteladies, had no desire to go to Court and to make her 
 debut in society, as Miss Susan felt she should. Reine resisted, 
 being rather proud and fanciful and capricious, as the best of 
 girls may be permitted to be under such circumstances ; and she 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 19 
 
 bad determinedly made herself " happy " in her country life, 
 with such gaieties and amusements a ame to her naturally. 
 I think, however, that she had lookea forward to this day on 
 the river, not without a little hope, born of wearine ;s, that 
 something might happen to break the ice between Evcrard and 
 herself. By some freak of fortune, however, or unkind arrange- 
 ment, it so happened that Reine and Everard were not even in 
 the same boat when th3y started. She thought (naturally) that 
 it was his fault, and he thought (equally naturally) that it was 
 her fault ; and each believed that the accident was a pren^edi- 
 ted and elaborately schemed device to hold the other off. T 
 leave the reader to guess whether this added to the pleasure of 
 the party, in which these two, out of their different boats, 
 watched each other when they could, and alternated between 
 wild gaiety put on when each was within sight of the other, to 
 show how little either minded — and fits of abstraction. The 
 morning was beautiful ; the fair river glided past them, here 
 shining like a silver shield, there falling into heavenly coolness 
 under the shadows, with deep liquid tones of green and brown, 
 with glorified reflections of every branch and twig, with forests 
 of delicious growth ^called weeds) undernertth its clear rippling, 
 throwing up long blossomed boughs of ntarry flowers, and in 
 the shallows masses of great cool flags and beds of water-lillies. 
 
 This was not a scene for the chills and heats of a love-quarrel, 
 or for the perversity of a voluntary separation. And X think 
 Everard felt this, and grew impatient of the foolish caprice 
 which he thought was Reine's, and which Reine thought was 
 his, as so aften happens. When they started in the cooler 
 afternoon, to come down the river, he put her almost roughly 
 into his boat. 
 
 " You are coming with me this time," h^ said in a half 
 savage tone, gripping her elbow fiercely ^vs he caught her op. Ler 
 way to the other, and almost lifted her into his boat. 
 
 Reine half-resisted for the moment, her face flaming with 
 respondent wrath ; but melted somehow by his face so near 
 her, and his imperative grasp, she allowed herself to be thrust 
 into the little nutshell which she knew so well, and which (or 
 its predecessors) had been called " Queen " for years, thereby 
 acquiring for Everard a character for loyalty which Reine knew 
 he did not deserve, though he had nover told her so. The mo- 
 
420 
 
 WHJTELADIKS. 
 
 ment she had taken her place there, however, Reine justified 
 all Everard's sulks by immediately resuming towards him the 
 old toue. If she had not thus recovered him as her vizier and 
 right-hand man, she would I presume, have kept her anxiety 
 in her own breast. As it was, ho had scarcely placed her on 
 the cushions, when suddenly, without a pause, without one 
 special word to him, asking pardon (as she ought) for her 
 naughtiness, Reine said suddenly, " Everard ! oh, will you take 
 care, please, that Bertie does not row 1 " 
 
 ■ He looked at her wholly aggravated, but half-laughing. " is 
 this all I am ever to be good for ? " he said ; " not a word for 
 me, no interest in me. Am I to be Bertie's dry-nurse all my 
 life? And is this all? " 
 
 She put her hand softly on his arm, and drew him near to 
 to her, to whisper to him. In that moment all Reine's coldness 
 all her doubts of him had floated away, with a suddeimess 
 which I don't pretend to account for, but which belonged to her 
 impulsive character (and in her heart I do not believe she had 
 ever had the least real doubt of him, though it was a kind of dis- 
 mal amusement to think she had). She put up her face to him, 
 with her hand on his arm. " Speak low," she said. *' Is there 
 any one I could ask but you ? Everard, he has done too much 
 already to-day ; don't let him row." 
 
 Everard laughed. He jumped out of his boat and spoke to 
 the other men about, confidentially, in undertones. *' Don't 
 let him see you mean it," he said ; and when he had oettled 
 this piece of diplomacy, he came back and pushed off his own 
 boat into mid stream. " The others had all got settled," he 
 said, " I don't see why I should run upon your messages, and 
 do everything you tell me, and never get anything by it. Mrs 
 Sellinger has gone with Kate and Sohpy, who have much more 
 need of a chaperone than you have : and for the first time I 
 have you to myself, Reine." 
 
 Reine had the strings of the rudder in her hands, and could 
 have driven him back, I think, had she liked ; but she did not. 
 She let herself and the boat float down the pleasanter way. " I 
 don't mind," she said softly ; " for a long time I have had no 
 talk with you — since we came home." 
 
 " And whose fault is that, I should like to know ? " cried 
 Everard, with a few long swift strokes carrying the boat almost 
 
 "and 
 was a 
 
WHITELADIKS. 
 
 421 
 
 out of eight of the larger one, which had not yet started. " How 
 cruel you are, Reine ! You say that as if I was to blame ; when 
 you know all the time if you had but held up a little finger " 
 
 " Why should I hold up a little finger ? " said Reine softly, 
 leaning back in her seat. But there was a smile on her face. 
 It was true, she acknowledged to herself. She had known it 
 all the time. A little finger, a look, a word would have done it, 
 though she had made believe to be lonely and dreary, and half- 
 forsaken, ind angry even. At which, as the boat glided down 
 the river in the soft shadows after sunset, in the cool greynesa 
 of the twilight, she smiled again. 
 
 But before 'they reached the Water Beeches, these cool soft 
 shades had given way to a sudden cold mist, what country peo- 
 ple call a " blight." It was only then, I think, that these two 
 recollected themselves, leaving saucy messages for their com- 
 panions, and it was only when they got safely within sight of 
 Everard's house, and felt the coldness of the " blight" stealing 
 through them, that they recollected to wonder what had kept 
 the others so long. Then Reine grew frightened, unreasonably, 
 as she felt, fantastically, for was not Herbert quite well 1 but 
 yet beyond her own power of control. 
 
 " Turn back, and let us meet them," she begged ; and Everard 
 though unwilling, could not refuse to do it. They went back 
 through the growing darkness, looking out eagerly for the 
 party. 
 
 " That cannot be them," said Everard, as the long sweep of 
 oars became audible. " It must be a racing boat, for I hear 
 no voices." 
 
 They lay close by the bank and watched, Reine in an agony 
 of anxiety, for which she could give no reason. But sure enough 
 it was the rest of the part y^, rowing quickly down, very still 
 and frightened. Herbert had insisted upon rowing, in spite of 
 all remonstrances, and just a few minutes before had been found 
 half-fainting over his oar, shivering and breathless. 
 
 *• It is nothing — it is nothing," he gasped when he saw Reine, 
 " and we are close at home." But his heart panted so, that this 
 was all he could say. 
 
422 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 ^7 HAT a dismal conclusion it was of so merry a day ! 
 '*' Herbert walked into the house, indeed, leaning upon 
 
 •^^ Everard's arm, and when some wine had been admin- 
 
 istered to him, declared himself better, and endeavoured to 
 prove that he was quite able to join them at supper, and that 
 it was nothing. But his pale face and panting breast belied his 
 words, and after a while he acknowledged that perhaps it would 
 be best to remain on the sofa in the drawing-room, while the 
 others had their meal. Reine took her place by him at once, 
 though indeed Sophy, who was kind enough, was ready and 
 even anxious to do it. But in such a case the bond of kin is 
 always paramount. The doctor was sent for at once, and 
 Everard went and came from his guests at the dinner«table, to 
 his much more thought of guests in the cool, silent drawing- 
 room, where Reine sat on a low chair by the sofa, holding her 
 brother's hand, and fanning him to jive him air. 
 
 " All right, old fellow ! " poor Bertie said, whenever Eve- 
 rard's anxious face appeared; but when Reine and he were 
 left alone, he panted forth abuse of himself and complaints of 
 Providence. " Just as I thought I was all right — whenever I 
 felt a little freedom, took a little liberty " 
 
 " Oh Bertie," said Reine, " yoi; know you should not have 
 done it. Dear, don't talk now to make it worse. Lie still, 
 and you'll be better. Oh Bertie ! have patience, have patience, 
 dear!" 
 
 " To look like a fool ! " he gasped ; " never good for any- 
 thing. No — ^more — strength than a baby ! and all those 
 fellows looking on." 
 
 " Bertie, they are all very kind, they are all very sorry. Oh, 
 how can you talk of looking like a fool 1 " 
 
 " I do," he said ; " and the girls too ! — weaker, weaker 
 than any of them. Sorry ! I don't want them to be sorry ; 
 and old Farrel gloating over it. Oh God ! I can't bear it— I 
 can't bear it, Reine." 
 
WHITKLADIKS. 
 
 42n 
 
 " Bertie, be still — do you hear me 1 This is weak, if you 
 please ; this is unlike a man. You have done too much, and 
 overtired yourself, is this a reason to give up heart, to abuse 
 everybody, to blaspheme " 
 
 "It is more — than being overtired," he moaned ; "feel my 
 heart, how it goes ! " 
 
 " Yes, it is a spasm," said Reine, taking upon her a compo- 
 sure and confidence she did not feel. *' You have had the 
 same before. If you want to be better, don't talk ; oh, don't 
 talk, Bertie. Be stiP, be quite still ! " 
 
 And thus she sat, with his hand in hers, softly fanning him ; 
 and half in exhaustion, half soothed by her words, he kept 
 silent. Reine had harder work when the dinner was over, and 
 Sophy and Kate fluttered into the room, to stand by the sofa, 
 and worry him ^"^ith questions. 
 
 " How are you now ? Is your breathing easier ? Are you 
 better, Bertie 1 oh say you are a little better ! We can never, 
 never forgive ourselves for keeping you out so late, and for 
 lettine you tire yourself so." 
 
 " Please don't make him talk," cried Reine. " He is a little 
 better. Oh, Bertie, Bertie, dear, be still. If he is quite quiet, 
 it will pass off all the sooner. I am not the least frightened," 
 she said, though her heart beat loud in her throat, belying her 
 words ; but Reine had seen Farrel-Austin's face, hungry and 
 eager, over his daughters' shoulders. " He is not really so bad ; 
 he has had it before. Only he must, he must, be still. Oh, 
 Sophy, for the love of heaven, do not make him speak ! " 
 
 " Nonsense — I am all right," he said. 
 
 " Of course he can speak," cried Sophy triumphantly ; " you 
 are making a great deal too much fuss, Reine. Make him eat 
 something, that will do him good. There's some grouse. Eve- 
 rard, fetch him some grouse — one can eat that when one can 
 eat nothing else — and I'll run and get him a glass of cham- 
 pagne." 
 
 " Oh, go away — oh, keep her away ! " cried Reine, joining 
 her hands in eager supplication. 
 
 Everard, to whom she looked, shrugged his shoulders, for it 
 was not so easy a thing to do. But by dint of patience the 
 room was cleared at last ; and though Sophy would fain have 
 returned by the open window, "just to say good-bye," as she 
 
424 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 said, " aud to cheer Bertie up, for they were all making f<oo 
 great a fuss about him," the whole party were finally got into 
 their carriages, and sent away. Sophy's last words, however, 
 though they disgusted the watchers, were balm to Hebert. 
 
 " She is a jolly girl," he said ; " you are making — too — much 
 fuss. It's — going off. I'll be — all right — directly." 
 
 And then in the grateful quiet that followed, which no on# 
 disturbed, with his two familiar nurses, who had watched him 
 so often, by his side, the excitement really began to lessen, the 
 palpitation to subside. Reine and Everard sat side by side, in the 
 silence, saying nothing to each other, almost forgetting, if that 
 were possible, what they had been saying to each other as they 
 glided, in absolute seclusion from all other creatures, down the 
 soft twilight river. All the recent past seemed to melt into 
 the clouds for them, and they were again at Appenzell, ao Kan- 
 dsrsteg, returned to their familiar occupation, nursing their sick 
 together, as they had so often nursed him before. 
 
 Everard had despatched a messenger to Whiteladies, when 
 he sent for the doctor ; and Miss Susan, careful of Reine as 
 well m of Herbert, obeyed the summons along with the anxious 
 Francois, who understood the case in a moment. The doctor, 
 on his arrival, gave also a certain consolation to the watchers. 
 With quiet all might be well again ; there was nothing imme- 
 diately alarming in the attack ; but he must not exert himself, 
 and must be content ibr the moment at least to retire to the 
 seclusion of an invalid. They all remained in Water Beeches 
 for the night, out next morning were able to remove the pa- 
 tient to Whiteladies. In the morning, before they left, poor 
 Everard, once more thrown into a secondary place, took posses- 
 sion of Reine, and led hei all over his small premises. It was 
 a misty niorning, touched with the first sensation of autumn, 
 though summer was still all ablaze in the gardens and fields. 
 A perfect tranquillity of repose was everywhere, and as the sun 
 got power, and the soft white mists broke up, a soft clearness 
 of subdued light, as dazzling almost as full sunshine, suflfused 
 the warm still atmosphere. The river glided languid under 
 the heat, gleaming white and dark, without the magical colours 
 of the previous day. The lazy shadows drooped over it from 
 the leafv banks, so still that it was hard to sav which was sub- 
 stance and which shadow. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 425 
 
 (( 
 
 We are going to finish our last night's talk," said Everard. 
 
 " Finish I " said Reine half-smiling, half-weeping, for how 
 much had happened since that enchanted twilight ! " what 
 more is there to say 'i " And I don't think there was much 
 more to say — though he kept her under the trees on the river- 
 side, and in the shady little wood by the pond where the skat- 
 ing had been when he received her letter — saying it ; so long, 
 that Miss Susan herself came out to look for them, wondering. 
 As she called " Reine ! Reine ! " through the still air, wonder- 
 ing more and more, she suddenly came in sight of them 
 turning the corner of a great clump of roses, gay in their 
 second season of bloom. They came towards her arm-in-arm, 
 with a light on their faces which it needed no sorcerer to inter- 
 pret. Miss Susan had never gone through these experiences 
 herself, but she understood at once what tiiis meant, and her 
 heart gave one leap of great and deep delight. It was so long 
 since she had felt what it was to be happy, that the sensation 
 overpowered her. It was what she had hoped for and prayed 
 for, so long as her hopes were worth much, or her prayers. She 
 had lost sight of this secret longing in the dull chaos of preoc- 
 cupation which had swallowed her up for so long ; and now 
 this thing for which she had never dared to scheme, and which 
 lately she had not had the courage even to wish for, was 
 accomplished before her eyes. 
 
 " Oh," said Miss Susan, out of the depths of an experience 
 unknown to them, " how much better God is to us than we 
 are to ourselves ! A just desire comes to pass without any 
 scheming." And she kissed them both with lips that trembled, 
 and joy incredible, incomprehensible in her heart. She had 
 ceased to hope for anything that was personally desirable to 
 her ; and, lo ! here was her chief wish accomplished. 
 
 This was all Hebrew and Sanscrit to the young people, who 
 smiled to each other in their ignorance, but were touched by 
 her emotion, and surrounded her with their happiness and their 
 love, a very atmosphere of tenderness and jubilation. And the 
 sun burst forth just then, and woke up all the dormant glow of 
 colour, as if to celebrate the news now first breathed to other 
 ears than their own ; and the birds, they thought, fell a-sing- 
 ing all at once, in full chorus. Herbert, who lay on the sofa, 
 languid and pale, waiting for them to start on his drive home, 
 
 ■i 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
 a. , 
 
 i 
 
426 
 
 WHITET,A1>TES. 
 
 did not observe these phenomena, poor boy, though the windows 
 were open. He thought they were long of coming (as indeed 
 they were), and was fretful, feeling himself neglected, and 
 eager to get home. 
 
 Whiteladies immediately turned itself into an enchanted 
 palace, a castle of silence and quiet. The young master of the 
 house was as if he had been transported suddenly into the 
 Arabian nights. Everything was arranged for his comfort, for 
 his amusement, to make him forget the noisier pleasures into 
 which he had plunged **!-' so much delight. When he had 
 got over his sombre and painful disappointment, I don't think 
 poor Herbert, accustomed to an invalid existence, disliked the 
 Sybarite seclusion in which he found himself. He had the 
 most careful and tender nurse, watching every look ; and he 
 had (which I suspect was the best of it) a Slave — an Odalisque, 
 a creature devoted to his pleasure — his flatterer, the chief 
 source of his amusement, his dancing-girl, his singing-woman, 
 a whole band of entertainers in one. This I need not say was 
 Giovanna. At last her turn had come, and she was ready to 
 take advantage of it. She did not interfere with the 
 nursing, having, perhaps few faculties that way, or perhaps 
 (which is more likely) feeling it wiser not to invade the 
 province of the old servants and the anxious relatives. 
 But she took upon her to amuse Herbert, with a success 
 vhich none of the others could rival She was never anxious ; 
 she did not look at him with those longing eager eyes which, 
 even in the depths of their love, convey alarm to the mind of 
 the sick. She was gay and bright, and took the best view of 
 everything feeling quite confident that all would be well ; for, 
 indeed, though she liked him well enough, there was no love in 
 her to make her afraid. She was perfectly patient, sitting by 
 him for hours, always ready to take any one's place, ready to 
 sing to him, to read to him in her indifferent English, making 
 him gay with her mistakes, and joining in the laugh against 
 herself with unbroken good-humour. She taught little Jean 
 tricks to amuse the invalid, and made up a whole series of 
 gymnastic evolutions with the boy, tossing him about in her 
 beautiful arms, a picture of elastic strength and grace. She 
 was, in short — there is no other word for it — not Herbert's 
 nurse or companion, but his slave ; and there could be littk- 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 itr 
 
 doubt that it was the presence and ministrations of this beauti- 
 ful creature which made him so patient of his confinement. 
 And he was quite patient, as contented as in the days when he 
 had no thought beyond his sick room, notwithstanding that 
 now he spoke continually of what he meant to do when he was 
 well. Giovanna cured him of anxiety, made everything look 
 bright to him. It was some time before Miss Susan or Reine 
 suspected the cause of this contented state, which was so good 
 for him, and promoted his recovery so much. A man's nearest 
 friends are slow to recognise or believe that a stranger has 
 more power over him than themselves ; but after a while they 
 did perceive it with varying and not agreeable sentiments. I 
 cannot venture to describe the thrill of horror and pain with 
 which Miss Susan found it out. It was while she was walking 
 alone from the village, at the corner of Priory Lane, that the 
 thought struck her suddenly ; and she never forgot the aspect 
 of the place, the little heaps of fallen leaves at her feet, as she 
 stood still in her dismay, and, like a revelation, saw what was 
 coming. Miss Susan uttered a groan so bitter, that it seemed 
 to echo through the air, and shake the leaves from the trees, 
 which came down about her in a shower, for it was now 
 September. " He will marry her I " she said to herself ; and 
 the consequences of her own sin, instead of coming to an end, 
 would be prolonged for ever, and affect unborn generations. 
 Reine naturally had no such horror in her mind ; but the idea 
 of Giovanna's ascendancy over Herbert was far from agreeable 
 to her, as may be supposed. She struggled hard to dismiss the 
 idea, and she tried what she could to keep her place by her 
 brother, and so resist the growing influence. But it was too 
 late for such an effort ; and indeed, I am afraid, involved a 
 sacrifice not only of herself, but of her pride, and of Herbert's 
 affection, that was too much for Keine. To see his looks cloud 
 over, to see him turn his back on her, to hear his querulous 
 questions, " Why did not she go out t Was not Everard wait- 
 ing? Could not she leave him a little freedom, a little time to 
 himself 1 " — all this overcame his sister. 
 
 . " He will marry Giovanna," she said, pouring her woes into 
 the ear of her betrothed. " She must want to marry him, or 
 she would not be there always, she would not behave as she is 
 doing." 
 
 mmvatSSi 
 
428 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 " He will marry whom he likes, darling, and we can't stop 
 him," said Everard, which was poor consolation. And thus 
 the crisis slowly drew near. 
 
 In the meantime another event, utterly unexpected, had fol- 
 lowed that unlucky day on the river, and had contributed to 
 leave the little romance of Herbert and Giovanna undisturbed. 
 Mr. Farrei-Austin caught cold in the " blight " that fell upon 
 the river, or in the drive home afterwards ; nobody could ex- 
 actly tell how it was. He caught cold, which brought on con- 
 gestion of the lungs, and in ten daye, taking the county and all 
 his friends utterly by surprise, and himself no less, to whom 
 such a thing seemed incredible — was dead. Dead ; not ill, nor 
 in danger, but actually dead — a thing which the whole district 
 gasped to hear, not finding it possible to connect the idea of 
 Farrel-Austin with anything so solemn. The girls drove over 
 twice to ask for Herbert, and had been admitted to the morn- 
 ing-room, the cheerfuUest room in the house, where he lay on 
 his sofa, to see him, and had told him lightly (which was a 
 consolation to Herbert, as showing him that he was not alone 
 in misfortune) that papa was ill too, in bed and very bad. 
 But Sophy and Kate were, like all the rest of the world, totally 
 unprepared for the catastrophe which followed ; and they did 
 not come back, being suddenly plunged into all the solemn 
 horror of an event so deeply affecting their own fortunes, as 
 well as such aflfections as they possessed. Thus, there was not 
 even the diversion of a rival to interrupt Giovanna's oppor- 
 tunity. Farrel- Austin's death affected Miss Susan in the most 
 extraordinary way, so that all her friends were thunderstruck. 
 She was overwhelmed ; was it by grief for her enemy 1 When 
 she recived the news, she gave utterance to a wild and terrible 
 cry, and rushed up to her own room, whence she scarcely ap- 
 peared all the rest of the day. Next morning she presented to 
 her astonished family a countenance haggard and pale, as if by 
 years of suffering. What was the cause ? Was it Susan that 
 had loved him, and not Augustine (who took the information 
 very calmly), or what was the secret of this impassioned emo- 
 tion ? No one could say. Miss Susan was like a woman dis- 
 traught for some days. She would break out into moanings 
 and weeping when she was alone, in which indulgence she was 
 more than once surprised by the bewildered Reine. This was 
 
WUITULADIES. 
 
 429 
 
 too extraordinary to be accounted for. Was it possible, the 
 others asked themselves, that her enmity to Farrel-Austin had 
 been biit a perverse cloak for another sentiment 1 I give these 
 wild guesses, because they were at their wits' end, and had not 
 the least clue to the mystery. So bewildered were they, that 
 they could show her little sympathy, and do nothing to com- 
 fort her ; for it was monstrous to see her thus afilicttd. Gio- 
 vanna was the only one who seemed to have any insight at 
 this moment into the mind of Miss Susan. I think even she 
 had but a dim realisation of how it was. But she was kind, 
 and did her best to show her kindness ; a sympathy which Miss 
 Susan revolted the rest by utter rejection of, a rejection almost 
 fierce in its rudeness. 
 
 " Keep me free from that woman — keep her away from me ! " 
 she cried wildly. 
 
 " Aunt Susan," said Reine, not without reproach in her 
 tone, " Giovanna wants to be kind." 
 
 " Oh, kind ! What has come to us that I must put up with 
 her kindness ? " she cried, with her blue eyes aflame. 
 
 Neither Keine nor any of the others knew what to say to 
 this strange new phase in Miss Susan's mysterious conduct. 
 For it was apparent to all of them that some mystery had come 
 into her life, into her character, since the innocent old days 
 when her eyes were as clear and her brow, though so old, as 
 unruffled as their own. Day by day Miss Susan's burden was 
 getting heavier to bear. Parrel's death, which removed all 
 ^ barriers except the one she had herself put there, between 
 ' Everard and the inheritance of Whiteladies ; and this growing 
 fascination of Herbert for Giovanna, which she seemed incap- 
 able of doing anything to stop, and which, she cried out to 
 herself in the silence of the night, she never, never would per- 
 mit herself to consent to, and could not bear ; — these two things 
 together filled up the measure of her miseries. Day by day the 
 skies grew blacker over her, her footsteps were hemmed in 
 more terribly ; until at last she seemed scarcely to know what 
 she was doing. The bailiff addressed himself to Everard in a 
 kind of despair. 
 
 " I can't get no orders," he said. " I can't get nothing rea- 
 sonable out of Miss Austin ; whether it's ar^wi^ueness, or what, 
 none of us can tell." And he gave Everard an inquisitive 
 
 ^r 
 
 i 
 
4S0 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 look, as if testing him how far he might go. It was the opinion 
 of the common people that Augustine had been mad for years ; 
 and now they thought Miss Susan was showing signs of the 
 same jaalady. " That's how things goes when it's in a family," 
 the village said. 
 
 Thus the utmost miserable endurance, and the most foolish 
 imbecile happiness lived together under the same roof, vaguely 
 conscious of each other, yet neithe" fathoming the other's 
 depths. Herbert, like Reine and Everard, perceivea that 
 something was wrong with Miss Susan ; but being deeply or 
 cupied with his own affairs, and feeling that absolute unim- 
 portance of anything that could happen to his old aunt in 
 comparison — was not much tempted to dwell upon the idea, or 
 to make any great effort to penetrate the mystery ; while she, 
 still more deeply preoccupied with her wretchedness, fearing 
 the future, yet fearing still more to betray herself, did not 
 realise how quickly affairs were progressing, nor how far they 
 had gone. It was not till late in September that she at last 
 awoke to the fact. Herbert was better, almost well again, the 
 doctor pronounced, but sadly shaken and weak. It was a 
 damp rainy day, with chills in it of the waning season, dreary 
 showers of yellow leaves falling with every gust, and all the 
 signs that an early ungenial autumn, without those gorgeous 
 gildings of decay which beguile us of our natural regrets, was 
 closing in, yellow and humid, with wet mists and dreary rain. 
 Everything dismal that can happen is more dismal on such a 
 day, and any diversion which can be had indoors to cheat the 
 lingering hours is a double blessing. Herbert was as usual in 
 the morning-room, which had been given up to him as the most 
 cheerful, Reine had been called away to see Everard, who, 
 now that the invalid was better, insisted upon a share of her 
 attention ; and she had left the room all the more reluctantly 
 that there was a gleam of pleasure in her brother's eye as she 
 was summoned " Giovanna will stay with me," he said, the 
 colour rising in his pale cheeks ; and Reine fled to Everard, 
 red with mortification and sorrow and anger, to ask hrm for 
 the hundredth time, " Could nothing be done to stop it — 
 could nothing be done 1 " 
 
 Miss Susan was going about the house from room to room, 
 feverishly active in some things by way of making up, perhaps, 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 431 
 
 for the half-conscious failing of her powers in others. She 
 was restless, and could not keep still to look out upon the flying 
 leaves, the dreary blasts, the grey dismal sky ; and the rain 
 prevented her from keeping her miserable soul still by exercise 
 out of doors, as she often did now, contrary to all use and wont. 
 She had no intention in her mind when her restless feet turned 
 the way of Herbert's room. She did not know that Giovanna 
 was there, and Reine absent. She was not suspicious more 
 than usual, neither had she the hope or fear of finding out 
 anything. She went mechanically that way, as she might have 
 gone mechanically through the long turnings of the passage 
 to the porch, where Reine and Everard were looking out upon 
 the dismal autumn day. 
 
 When she opened the door, however, listlessly, she saw a 
 sight which woke her up like a trumpet. Giovanna was sitting 
 upon a stool close by Herbert's sofa. One of her hands he 
 was holding tenderly in his ; with the other she was smoothing 
 back his hair from his forehead, caressing him with soft touches 
 and soft words, while he gazed at her with that melting glow 
 of sentimentality — vanity or love, or both together, in his 
 eyes — which no spectator can ever mistake. As Miss Susan 
 went into the room, Giovanna, who sat with her back to the 
 door, bent over him and kissed him on the forehead, murming 
 as she did so into his bewitched and delighted ear. 
 
 The looker-on was petrified for the first moment ; then she 
 threw up her hands, and startled the lovers with a wild shrill 
 cry. I think it was heard all over the house. Giovanna jumped 
 up from her stool, and Herbert started upright on his sofa ; and 
 Reine and Everard, alarmed, came rushing from the porch. 
 They all gazed at Miss Susan, who stood there as pale as marble, 
 gasping with an attempt to speak. Herbert for the moiaent 
 was cowed and frightened by the sighc of her ; but Giovanna 
 had perfect possession of her faculties. She faced the new- 
 comers with a blush which only improved her beauty, and 
 laughed. 
 
 "Eh bien !" she cried, " you have then found out, Madame 
 Suzanne ? I am content, me. I am not fond of to deceive. 
 Speak to her, mon * Erbert, the word is to thee," 
 
 " Yes, Aunt Susan," he said, trjdng to laugh too, but blushing, 
 a hot uneasy blush, not like Giovanna's. " I beg your pardon 
 
 t i 
 
 ,1 
 
432 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Of course I ought to have spoken to you before ; and equally 
 of course now you see what has happened without requiring 
 any explanation. Giovanna, whom you have been so kind to, 
 is going to be my wife." 
 
 Miss Susan once more cried out wildly in her misery. " It 
 cannot be — it shall not be ! I will not have it ! " she said. 
 
 Once more Giovanna laughed, not offensively, but with a 
 good-natured sense of fun. " Mon Dieu 1 " she said, " what 
 can you do ? Why should not we be bons amis 1 You cannot 
 do anything, Madame Suzanne. It is all fixed and settled ; 
 and if you will think, it is for the best, it will arrange all." 
 Giovanna had a real desire to make peace, to secure de VamitiSf 
 as she said. She went across the room towards Miss Susan, 
 holding out her hand. 
 
 And then for a moment a mortal struggle went on in Susan 
 Austin's soul. She repulsed wildly, but mechanically, the 
 offered hand, and stood there motionless, her breast panting, 
 all the powers of nature startled into intensity, and such a 
 conflict and passion going on within her as made her blind and 
 deaf to the world outside. Then suddenly she put her hand 
 upon the nearest chair, and drawing it to her, sat down, opposite 
 to Herbert, with a nervous shiver running over her frame. She 
 put up her hand to her throat, as if to tear away something 
 which restrained or suffocated her ; and then she said, in a 
 terrible, stifled voice, " Herbert ! first you must hear what I 
 have got to say." 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 433 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 lOVANNA looked at Miss Susan with surprise, then with 
 a little ap*)rehension. It was her turn to bo uneasy. 
 " Que voulez-vous 1 que voulez-vous direl" she said 
 under her breath, endeavouring to catch Miss Susan's eye. Miss 
 Susan was a great deal too impassioneit and absorbed even to 
 notice the disturbed condition of her adversary. She knew her- 
 self to be surrounded by an eager audience, but yet in her soul 
 she was alone, insensible to everything, moved only by a pas- 
 sionate impulse to relieve herself, to throw off the burden which 
 was driving her mad. She did not even see Giovanna, who, 
 after walking round behind Herbert, trying to communicate by 
 the eyes with the woman whom all this time she had herself 
 subdued by covert threats, sat down at last at the head of the 
 sofa, putting her hand, which Herbert took into his, upon it. 
 Probably this sign of kindness stimulated Miss Susan, thpugh 
 I doubt whether she was conscious of it, something having laid 
 hold upon her which was beyond her power to resist. 
 
 " I have a story to tell you, children," she said, pulling in- 
 stinctively with her hand at the throat of her dress, which 
 seemed to choke her, " and a confession to make. I have been 
 good, good enough in my way, trying to do my duty most of 
 my life ; but now at the end of it I have done wrong, and sinned 
 against you all. God forgive me ! and I hope you'll forgive 
 me. I've been trying to save myself from the — exposure — from 
 the shame, God help me ! I have thought of myself, when I 
 ought to have thought of you all. Oh, I've been punished ! 
 I've been punished ! But perhaps it is not yet too late. Oh, 
 Herbert, Herbert ! my dear boy, listen to me !" 
 
 " If you are going to say anything against Giovanna, you will 
 lose your time. Aunt Susan," said Herbert; and Giovanna 
 leaned on the arm of the sofa and kissed his forehead again in 
 thanks and triumph. 
 
 •* What I am going to say first is against myself," said Miss* 
 Susan. " It is three years ago — a little more than three years ;. 
 00 ' 
 
434 
 
 WHTTKTiADIRK. 
 
 Fuirel-Austiii, who is deiul, curnt; ami told mo that he bad 
 found the missing people, the Austins whom you have heard 
 of, whom I had sought for so long, and that he had made some 
 bargain with them, that they should withdraw in his favour 
 You were very ill then, Herbert, thought to be dying ; and 
 Farrel-Austin — poor man, he is dead ! — was our enemy, it 
 was dreadful, dreadful to think of him coming here, being the 
 master of the place. That was my sin to begin with. 1 thought 
 I could bear anything sooner than that." 
 
 Augustine came into the room at this moment. She came 
 and went so noiselessly that no one even heard her ; and Miss 
 Susan was too much absorbed to note anything. The new 
 comer stood still near the door behind her sister, at first be- 
 cause it was her habit, and then, I suppose, in sympathy wi*;h 
 the motionless attention of the others, and the continuance, 
 without a pause, of Miss Susan's voice. 
 
 " I meant no harm ; I don't know what I meant I went to 
 break their bargains, to show them the picture of the house, to 
 make them keep their rights against that man. It was wicked 
 enough. Farrel-Austin's gone, and God knows what was be- 
 tween him and us ; but to think of him here made me mad, 
 and I went to try and break the bargain. I own that was what 
 I meant It was not Christian-like ; not what your Aunt 
 Augustine, who is as good as an angel, would have approved 
 of; but it was not wicked, not wicked, if I had done no more 
 than that ! 
 
 " When I got there," said Miss Susan, drawing a long breath, 
 I found them willing enough ; but the man was old, and his son 
 was dead, and there was nothing but daughters left. In the 
 room with them was a daughter, a young married woman, a 
 young widow " 
 
 " Yes, there was ma," said Giovanna. " To what good is all 
 this narrative, M&dame Suzanne 1 Me, I know it before, and 
 Monsieur 'Erbert is not amused ; look, he yawns. We have 
 assez, assez, for to-day." 
 
 " There was her ; sitting in the room, a poor, melancholy, 
 neglected creature; and there was the other young woman, 
 Gertrude, pretty and fair, like an English girl. She was — 
 going to have a baby," said Miss Susan, even at that moment 
 hesitating iu her old maidliness before she said it, her old face 
 
WHITRLADIES. 
 
 4n^ 
 
 colouring softly. " The devil put it into my hoad all at onco. 
 It was not premeditated ; I did not make it up in my mind. 
 All at once, all at once the devil put it into my head ! I said 
 suddenly to the old woman, to old Madame Austin, ' Your 
 daughter-in-luw is in the same condition 1 ' She was sitting 
 down crouched in a cormer. She was said to be sick. What 
 was more natural," cried poor Miss Susan, looking round, " than 
 to think that was the cause 1 " 
 
 Perhaps it was the first time she had thought of this excuse. 
 She caught at the idea with heat and eagerness, appealing to 
 them all. " What more natural than that I should think so ? 
 She never rose up; I could not see her. di, children," cried 
 Miss Susan, wringing her hands, " I cannot tell how much or 
 how little wickedness there was in my first thought ; but an- 
 swer !PP, wasn't it natural 1 The old woman took me up in a 
 moment, took up more — yes, I am sure — more than I meant. 
 She drew me away to her room, and there wo talked of it. 
 She did not say to me distinctly that the widow was not in 
 that way. '' We settled," she said after a pause, with a shiver 
 and gasp before the words, " that anyhow — if a boy camer-it 
 was to be Giovanna's boy and the heir." 
 
 Herbert made an effort at this moment to relinquish Gio- 
 vanna's hand, which he had been holding all the time ; not, I 
 believe, because of this information which he scarcely under- 
 stood as vet, but because his arm was cramped remaining so 
 long in the same position ; but she, as was natural, understood 
 the movement otherwise. She held him for a second, then 
 tossed his hand away and sprang up from her chair. " Apr^s 1 " 
 she cried, with an insolent laugh. Madame Suzanne, you 
 radotez, you are too old. This goes without saying that the 
 boy is Giovanna's boy." 
 
 " Yes, we know all this," said Herbert pettishly. " Aunt 
 Susan, I cannot imagine what you are making all this fuss and 
 looking so excited about. What do you mean ? What is all 
 this about old women and babies ? I wish you would speak 
 out if you have anything to say. Giovanna, come here." 
 
 ** Yes," she said, throwing herself on the sofa beside him ; 
 "yes, mon 'Erbert, mon bien-aim6. You will not abandon 
 me, whatever any one may aay ?" 
 
 P 
 
48H 
 
 WHITELADrE8. 
 
 ** Herbert," cried Miss Susan, " let her alone, let her alone, 
 for God's sake ! She is guilty, guiltier than I am. She made 
 a pretence as her mother-in-law told her, pretended to be ill, 
 pretended to have a child, kept up the deceit — how can I tell 
 now long 1 — till now. Gertrude is innocent, whose baby was 
 taken ; she thought it died, poor thing ! but Giovanna is not 
 innocent. All she has done, all she has said, has been lies, lies I 
 The child is not her child ; it is not the heir. She has thrust 
 herself into this house, and done all this mischief, by a lie. 
 She knows it ; look at her. She has kept her place by threat- 
 ening me, by holding my disgrace before my eyes ; and now 
 Herbert, my poor boy, my poor boy, she will ruin you. Oh, 
 put her away, put her away ! " 
 
 Herbert rose up, trembling in his weakness. " Is this true, 
 Giovanna 1 " he said, turning to her piteously. " Have you 
 anything to say against it ? Is it true ) " 
 
 Reine, who had been standing behind, listening with an 
 amazement beyond the reach of words, came to her brother's 
 side, to support him at this terrible moment ; but he put her 
 away. Even Miss Susan, who was the chief sufferer, fell into 
 the back-ground. Giovanna kept her place on the sofa defiant, 
 while he stood before her, turning his back upon the elder of- 
 fender, who felt this mark of her own unimportance even ia 
 the fever of her excitement and passion. 
 
 ** Have you nothing to say against it ? " cried Herbert, with 
 anguish in his voice. " Giovanna ! Giovanna ! is it true ? " 
 
 Giovanna shrugged her shoulders impatiently. " Mon Dieu," 
 she said, " I did what I was told. They said to me, ' Do this,' 
 and I did it ; was it my fault 1 It was the old woman who did 
 all, as Madame Suzanne says " 
 
 " We are all involved together, God forgive us I " cried Miss 
 Susan, bowing her head into her hands. 
 
 Then there was a terrible pause. They were all silent, all 
 waiting to hear what Herbert had to say, who, by reason of 
 being most deeply involved, seemed suddenly elevated into the 
 judge. He went away from the sofa where Giovanna was, and 
 in front of which Miss Susan was sitting, as far away as he 
 could get, and began to walk up and down the room in his ex- 
 citement. He took no further notice of Giovanna, but after 
 a moment, pausing in his angry march^ said suddenly, " It was 
 
WHITELADIE8. 
 
 487 
 
 alone, 
 I made 
 beiU, 
 [I I tell 
 by was 
 k is not 
 J8, lies ! 
 ) thrust 
 
 y a lie. 
 
 threat- 
 
 nd now 
 
 u. Oh, 
 
 his true, 
 [ave you 
 
 with an 
 brother's 
 B put her 
 , fell into 
 |a defiant, 
 elder of- 
 le even ij 
 
 cried Miss 
 
 silent, all 
 _ reason of 
 sd into the 
 a was, and 
 iway as he 
 in his ex- 
 , but after 
 « It was 
 
 all on Farrel-Austin's account you plunged into crime like this 1 
 Silence, Reine ! it is crime, and it is she who is to blame. 
 What in the name of heaven had Farrel-Aiistin done to you 
 that you should avenge yourself upon us all like this 1 " 
 
 " Forgive me, Herbert ! " said Miss Susan faintly ; " he was 
 to have married Augustine, and he forsook her, jilted her, 
 shamed her, my only sister. How could I see him in this 
 house ? " 
 
 And theri again there was a pause. Even Reine mad., no 
 advance to the culprit, though her heart began to beat loudly, 
 and her indignation was mingled with pity. Giovanna sat 
 gloomy, drumming with her foot upon the carpet. Herbert 
 had resumed his rapid pacing up and down. Miss Susan sat 
 in the midst of them, hopeless, motionless, her bowed head 
 hidden in her hands, every help and friendly prop dropped 
 away from her, enduring to the depths the bitterness of her 
 punishment, } ^t perhaps, with a natural reaction, asking herself, 
 was there none, none of all she had been kind to, capable of a 
 word, a look, a touch of pity in this moment of her downfall 
 and uttermost need ! Both Everard and Seine felt upon them 
 that strange spell which often seems to freeze all outward ac- 
 tion in a great emergency, though their hearts were swelling. 
 They had both made a forward step ; when suddenly the mat- 
 ter was taken out of their hands. Augustine perhaps was more 
 slow than any of them, out of her abstraction and musing, to be 
 roused to what was being said. But the last words had sup- 
 plied a sharp sting of retJity which woke her fully, and helped 
 her to understand. As soon as she had mastered it, she went 
 up swiftly and silently to her sister, put her arms round her, 
 and drew away the hands in which she had buried her face. 
 
 " Susan," she said, in a voice more real and more living than 
 had been heard from her lips for years, " I have heard every- 
 thing. You have confessed your sin, and God will forgive you. 
 Come with me." 
 
 " Austine ! Austine ! " cried poor Miss Susan shrinking, 
 dropping to the floor at the feet of the immaculate creature who 
 was to her as a saint. 
 
 " Yes, it is I," said Augustine. "Poor Susan ! and I never 
 knew ! God will forgive you. Come vath me." 
 
 
 i 
 
438 
 
 WHITELADIE& 
 
 "Yes," said the other, the elder and stronger, with the 
 humility of a child ; and she got up from where she had thrown 
 herself, and casting a pitiful look upon them all, turned round 
 and gave her hand to her sister. She was weak with her ex- 
 citement, and exhausted as if she had risen from a long illness. 
 Augustine drew her sister's hand through her arm, and without 
 another word led her away. Reine rushed after them, weeping 
 and anxious, the bonds loosed that seemed to have congealed 
 her. Augustine put her back, not unkindly, but with decision. 
 " Another time, Eeine. She is going with me." 
 
 They were all so overawed by this sudden action that even 
 Herbert stopped short in his angry march, and Everard, who 
 opened the door for their exit, could only look at them, and 
 could not say a word. Miss Susan hung on Augustine's arm, 
 broken, shattered, feeble ; an old woman, worn out and faint- 
 ing. The recluse supporting her, with a certain air of strength 
 and pride, strangely unlike her nature, walked on steadily and 
 firmly, looking, as was her wont, neither to the right hand nor 
 the left. All her life Susan had been her protector, her sup- 
 porter, her stay. Now their positions had changed all in a mo- 
 ment. Erect and almost proud she walked out of the room, 
 holding up the bowed-down, feeble figure upon her arm. And 
 the young people, all so strangely, all so differently affected by 
 this extraordinary revelation, stood blankly together and looked 
 at each other, not knowing what to say, when the door closed. 
 None of the three Austins spoke to or looked at Giovanna, who 
 sat on the sofa, still drumming with her foot upon the carpet. 
 When the first blank pause was over, Reine went up to Herbert 
 and put her arm through his. " Oh, forgive her ! forgive her !" 
 she cried. 
 
 " I will never forgive her," he said wildly ; " she had been 
 the cause of it all. Why did she let this go on, my God ! and 
 why did she tell me now ? " 
 
 Giovanna sat still, beating her foot on the carpet, and neither 
 moved nor spoke. 
 
 As for Susan and Augustine, no one attempted to follow them. 
 No one thought of anything further than a withdrawal to their 
 rooms of the two sisters, united in a tenderness of far older 
 date than the memories of the young people could reach ; and 
 I don't even know whether the impulse that made them both 
 
WHITELADTES. 
 
 4;]}) 
 
 turn though the long passage towards the porch was the same. 
 I don't suppose it was, Augustine thought of leading her peni- 
 tent sister to the Almshouse chapel, as she would have wished 
 should be dune to herself in any great and sudden trouble ; 
 whereas an idea of another kind entered at once into the mind 
 of Susan, which, beaten down and shaken as it was, began 
 already to recover a little after having thrown oflf the burden. 
 She paused a moment in the hall, and took down a grey hood 
 which was hanging there, like Augustine's, a covering which 
 she had adopted to please her sister on her walks about the 
 roads near home. It was the nearest thing at hand, and she 
 caught at it, and put it on, as both together with one simultan- 
 eous impulse they bent their steps to the door. I have said that 
 the day was damp and dismal and hopeless, one of those days 
 which make a despairing waste of a leafy country. Now and 
 then there would come a miserable gust of wind, carrying floods 
 of sickly yellow leaves from all the trees, and in the intervals 
 a small mizzling rain, not enough to wet anything, coming like 
 spray in the wayfarers' faces, filled up the dreary moments. 
 No one was out of doors who could be in ; it was worse than a 
 storm, bringing chill to the marrow of your bones, weighing 
 heavy upon your soul. The two old sisters, without a word to 
 each other, went out through the long passage, through the 
 porch in which Miss Susan had sat and done her knitting so 
 many summers through. She took no farewell look at the fami- 
 liar place, made no moan as she left it. They went out cling- 
 ing to each other, Augustine erect and almost proud, Susan 
 bowed and feeble, across the sodden wet lawn, and out at the 
 y^^^tle gate in Priory Lane. They had done it a hundred and a 
 thousand times before ; they meant, or at least Miss Susan 
 meant, to do it never again ; but her mind was capable of no 
 regret for Whiteladies. She went out mechanically, leaning on 
 her sister, yet almost mechanically directing that sister the way 
 Susan intended to go, not Augustine. And thus they set forth 
 into the autumn weather, into the mists, into the solitary world. 
 Had the departure been made publicly, with solemn farewells 
 and leavetakings, ihey would have felt it far more deeply. As 
 it was, they scarcely felt it at all, having their minds full of 
 other things. They went along Priory Lane, wading through 
 the yellow leaves, and along the road to the village, where Au- 
 
 
440 
 
 WHp'ELADlES. 
 
 gustine would have turned to the left, the way to the Alms- 
 houses. They had not spoken a word to each other, and Miss 
 Susan leant almost helplessly in her exhaustion upon her rhter ; 
 but nevertheless she swayed Augustine in the opposite direction 
 across the village street. One or two women came out to the 
 cottage doors to look after them, It was a curious sight, instead 
 of Miss Augustine, grey and tall and noiseless, whom they were 
 all used to watch in the other direction, to see the two grey 
 figures going on silently, one so bowed and aged as to be unre- 
 cognisable, exacth the opposite way. " She has got another 
 with "her, an old 'un," the women said to each other, and rubbed 
 their eyes and were not half sure that the sight was real. They 
 watched the two figures slowly disappearing round the crmer. 
 It came on to rain, but the wayfarers did not qiicken their pace. 
 They proceeded slowly on, neither saying a word to ^/ne other, 
 indifferent to the rain, and to the yellow leaves that tumbled on 
 their path. So, I suppose, with their heads bowed, and no 
 glance behind, the first pair may have gone desolate out of 
 Paradise. But they were young, and life was before them ; 
 whereas Susan and Augustine, setting out forlorn upon their 
 new existence, were old, and had no heart for another home 
 and another life. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 441 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 HEN a number of people have suddenly been brought 
 together accidentally, by such an extrRordinary inci- 
 dent as that I have attempted to describe, it is 
 almost as difficult for them to separate as it is to know what to 
 do or what to say to each other. Herbert kept walking up and 
 down the room, dispelling, or thinking he was dispelling, his 
 wrath and excitement in this way. Giovanna sat on the sofa 
 motionless, except her foot, with which she kept on beating the 
 carpet. Reine, after trying to join herself to her brother, as I 
 have said, and console him, went back to Everard, who had gone 
 to the window, the safest refuge for the embarrassed and dis- 
 turbed. Rpiine went to her betrothed, finding in him that refuge 
 which is so great a safeguard to the mind in all circumstances. 
 She was very anxious and unhappy, but it was about others, 
 not about herself ; and though there was a cloud of disquietude 
 and painr upon her, as she stood by Everard's side, her face 
 turned towards the others, watching for any new event, yet 
 Reine's mind had in itself such a consciousness of safe anchor- 
 age, and of a refuge beyond any one's power to interfere with, 
 that the very trouble which had overtaken them seemed to add 
 a fresh security to her internal well-being. Nothing that any- 
 one could say, nothing that anyone could do, could interfere 
 between her and Everard ; and Everard for his part, with that 
 unconscious selfishnes ii deux, which is like no other kind of 
 selfishness, was not thinking of Herbert or Miss Susan, but 
 only of his poor Reine, exposed to this agitation and trouble. 
 
 " Oh, if I could only carry y vU away from it all, my poor 
 darling ! " he said in her ear. 
 
 Reine said, " Oh, hush, Everard, do not think of me," feeling 
 indeed that she was not the chief sufferer, nor deserving in the 
 present case of the first place in any one's sympathy ; yet she 
 was comforted. "Why does not she go away ^ — oh, if she 
 would but go away ! " cried R«ine, and stood thus watching , 
 consoled by her lover, anxious and vigilant, but yet not the 
 person most deserving of pity, as she herself felt. 
 
442 
 
 WH1TPXADIE8. 
 
 While they thus remained as Miss SuciLi had left them, not 
 knowing how to get themselves dispersed, there came a sudden 
 sound of carriage wheels and loud knocking at the great door 
 on the other side of the house, the door by which all strangers 
 approached. 
 
 " Oh, as if we were not bad enough already, here are visi- 
 tors ! " cried Reine. And even Herbert seemed to listen, irri- 
 tated by the unexpected commotion. Then followed the sound 
 of loud voices, and a confused colloquy. " I must go and re- 
 ceive them^ whoever it is," said Reine, with a moan over her 
 fate. After a while steps were heard approaching, and the 
 door was thrown open suddenly. " Not here, not here," cried 
 Reine, running forward. " The drawing-room, Stevens." 
 
 " Beg pardon, ma'am," said Stevens flushed and angry. " It 
 ain't my fault. I can't help it. They won't be kept back, 
 Miss Reine," he cried, bending his head down over her. 
 ** Don't be frightened. It's the hold foreign gent " 
 
 " Not here," cried Reine again. " Oh, whom did you say ? 
 Stevers, I tell you not here." 
 
 " But he is here ; the hold foreign gent," said Stevens, who 
 seemed to be suddenly pulled back from behind by somebody 
 following him. If there had been any laughter in hes^ I think 
 Reine would have laughed ; but though the impulse gleamed 
 across her distracted mind, the power was wautmg. And there 
 suddenly appeared facing her, in the place of Stevens, two 
 people who took ftom por • Reine all inclination to laugh. One 
 of them was an old man, spruce and dapper, in the elaborate 
 travelling wraps of a foreigner of the bourgeois class, with a 
 comforter tied round hi« neck, and a large great coat with a 
 hood to it. The other was a young woman, fair and full, with 
 cheeks momentarily paled by weariness and agitation, but now 
 and then dyed deep with rooy colour. These two came to a 
 momentary stop in their eager career, to gaze at Reine ; but 
 finally pushing past her, to her great amazement got before her 
 into the room which she had been defending from them. 
 
 " I seek Madame Suzanne ! I seek the lady ! " said the old 
 man. 
 
 At the sound of his voice Giovanna sprang to her feet ; and 
 as soon as they got sight of her, the two strangers made a 
 startled pause. Then the young woman rushed forward and 
 laid hold of her by the arm. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 443 
 
 " Mon b^b6 ! moii enfant ! donne-moi mon b6b6 ! " she said. 
 
 " Eh bien, Gertrude ! c'est toi ! " cried Giovanna. She was 
 roused in a moment from the quiescent state, sullen or stupefied, 
 in which she had been. She seemed to rise full of sudden 
 energy and new life. " And the bon papa too ! Tiens, this is 
 something of extraordinary ; but unhappily Madame Suzanne 
 has just left us, she is not here. Suffer me £o present to my 
 beau-p^re, M. Herbert ; my belle-sceur Gertrude, of whom you 
 have just heard. Give yourself the trouble to sit down, my 
 parents. This is a pleasure very unattended. Had Madame 
 Suzanne known — she talked of you toute k I'heure — no doubt 
 she would have stayed " 
 
 " Giovanna," cried the old man trembling, "you know, you 
 must know, why we are here. Content this poor child, and 
 restore to her her baby. Ah, traitre ! her baby, not thine. 
 How could I be so blind — how could I be so foolish — and you 
 so criminal, Giovanna 1 Your poor belle-m^re has been ill, 
 has been at the point of death, and she has told us all." 
 
 " Mon enfant ! " cried the young woman clasping her hands. 
 " My b6b6, Giovanna ; give me my b6b6, and I pardon thee all." 
 
 " Ah ! the belle-m^re has made her confession, then 1 " said 
 Giovanna. "O'est 9a 1 Poor belle-m^rel and poor Madame 
 Suzanne ! who has come to do the same here. But none say 
 ' Poor Giovanna.' Me, I am criminal, va 1 I am the one 
 whom all denounce ; but the others, they are then my victims, 
 not I theirs i " 
 
 " Giovanna, Giovanna, I debate not with thee," cried the old 
 man. " We say nothing to taee, nothing ; we blame not, nor 
 punish. We say, give back the child — ah, give back the child ! 
 Look at her, how her colour changes, how she weeps ! Give 
 her her b6b6. We will not blame, nor say a word to thee, 
 never ! " 
 
 " No ! you will but leave me to die of hunger," said Giovanna, 
 " to die by the roads, in the fields, qu'importe ? I am out of 
 the law, me. Yet I have done less ill than the others. They 
 were old, they had all they desired ; and I was young, and 
 miserable, and made mad — ah, ma Gertrude ! by thee too, 
 gentle as thou look'st, even by thee I "; 
 
 Giovahna, Giovanna ! " cried Gertrude throwing herself at 
 her feet. Her pretty upturned face looked round and innocent, 
 
 m II 
 
444 
 
 V/HITELADrES. 
 
 <( 
 
 Give 
 
 like a child's and the big tears ran down her cheeks, 
 me my b6b6, and I will ask your pardon on my knees." 
 
 Giovanna made a pause, standing upright, with this stranger 
 clinging to her dress, and looked round upon them all with a 
 strange mixture of scorn and defiance and emotion. " Mes- 
 sieurs," she said, " and mademoiselle '. you see what proof the 
 bon Dieu has sent of all Madame Suzanne said. Was it my 
 doing 1 No ! I was obedient, I did what I was told ; but, 
 voyons ! it will bo 1 who shall suffer. Madame Suzanne is 
 safe. You can do nothing to her ; in a little while you will 
 lole her again, as before. The belle-m<^re, who is wicked, 
 wickedest of all, gets better, and one calls her poor bonne- 
 maman, pauvre petite mere ! But me ! I am the one who shall 
 be cast away, I am the one to be punished ; here, there, every- 
 where, I shall be kicked like a dog — yes, like a dog ! All the 
 pardon, the mis^ricorde will be for them — ^for me the punish- 
 ment. Because I am the most weak ! because I am be the 
 slave of all — because I am the one who has excuse the most ! *' 
 
 She was so noble in her attitude, so giand in her voice and 
 expression, that Herbert stood and gazed at her like one spill- 
 bound. But I do not think she remarked this, being for the 
 moment transported out of herself by a passionate outburst of 
 feeling — sense of being wronged — pity for herself, defiance of 
 her enemies ; and a courage and resolution mingling with all, 
 which, if not very elevated in their origin, were intense enough 
 to give elevation to her looks. What an actress she would 
 have made ! Everard thought regretfully. He was already 
 very pitiful of the forsaken creature at whom every one threw 
 a stone. 
 
 " Giovanna, Giovanna ! " cried the weeping Gertrude, cling- 
 ing to her dress, " hear me ! I will fvorgive you, I will love you. 
 But give me my b6b6, Giovanna, give me my child ! " 
 
 Giovanna paused again, looking down upon the baby face, 
 all blurred with crying. Her own face changed from its almost 
 tragic form to a softer aspect. A kind of pity stole over it, 
 then another and stronger sentiment. A gleam of humour 
 came into her eyes. " Tenez," she said, " I go to have my 
 revenge ! " and drawing her dress suddenly from Gertrude's 
 clasp, she went up to the bell, rang it sharply, and waiting, 
 facing them all with a smile, " Monsieur Stevens," she said 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 445 
 
 with the most enchanting courtesy, when the butler appeared, 
 " will you have the goodness to bring to me, or to send to me, 
 my boy, the little master Jean 1 " 
 
 After she had given this order she stood still waiting, all the 
 profounder feeling of her face disappearing into an illumination 
 of gaiety and fun, which none of the spectators understood. A 
 few minutes elapsed while this pause lasted. Martha, who 
 th vught Master Jean was being sent for to see company, hastily 
 invested him in his best frock and ribbons. " And be sure you 
 make your bow pretty, and say how do do," said innocent 
 Martha, knowing nothing of the character of the visit, nor of 
 the tragical change which had suddenly come upon the family 
 life. The child came in with all the boldness of the household 
 pet into the room in which so many excited people were wait- 
 ing for him. His pretty fair hair was dressed according to the 
 tradition of the British nursery, in a great flat curl on the top 
 of his little head. He had his velvet frock on, with scarlet rib- 
 bons, and looked, as Martha proudly thought, " a little gentle- 
 man," every inch of him. He looked round him with chilrUsh 
 complaisance as he came in, and made his little salute as Gio- 
 vana had taught him. But when Gertrude rushed towards 
 him, as she did at once, and throwing herself on her kn^es be- 
 side him, caught him in her arms and covered him with kisses, 
 little Jean was taken by violently surprise. A year's interval 
 is eternity to such a baby. He knew nothing about Gertrude. 
 He cried, struggled, fought to be free, and finally struck at her 
 with his sturdy little fists. 
 
 " Mamma, mamma ! " cried little Jean, holding out appeal- 
 ing arms to Giovanna, who stood at a little distance, her fine 
 nostrils expanded, a smile upon her lip, a gleam of mischief in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " He will know me" said the old man, going to his daughter's 
 aid. " A moment, give him a moment, Gertrude. A moi, 
 Jeanot, k moi ! Let him go, ma fiUe. Give him a moment to 
 recollect himself; he has forgotten perhaps his language. 
 Jeanot, my child, come to me ! ' 
 
 Jean paid no attention to these blandishments. When Ger- 
 trude, weeping, released by her father's orders her tight hold of 
 the child, he rushed at once to Giovanna's side, and clung to 
 
446 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 her dress, and hid his face in its folds. " Mamma, mamma, 
 take Johnny ! " he said. 
 
 Giovanna stooped, lifted him like a feather, and tossed him 
 up to her shoulder with a look of triumph. " There thou are 
 safe, no one can touch thee," she said ; and turning upon her 
 discomfited relations, looked down upon them both with a smile. 
 It was her r rengp nd she enjoyed it with all her heart. The 
 child clung t '^ lasping both his arms round hers, which she 
 had raised ti, h.\d<\ 'nm fast. She laughed aloud — a laugh 
 which startled ^y v.'!}-^, and woke the echoes all about. 
 
 " Tiens ! " she said in un r gay voice, ** whose child is he now ? 
 Take him if you will, Gertrude, you who were always the first, 
 who knew yourself in babies, who were more beloved than the 
 stupid Giovanna. Take him, then, since he is to thee ! " 
 
 What a picture she would have made, standing there with 
 the child, her ^reat eye» flashing, her bosom expanded, looking 
 down upon the plebeiai pair before her with a triumphant 
 smild ! So Everard thought, who had entirely ranged himself 
 on Giovanna's side ; and so thought poor Herbert, looking at 
 her with his heart beating, his whole being in a ferment, his 
 temper and his nerves worn to their utmost. He went away 
 trembling from the sight, and beckoned Reine to him, and 
 threw himself into a chair at the other end of the room. 
 
 " What is all this rabble to us ? " he cried querulously, when 
 his sister answered his summons. " For heaven's sake, clear 
 the house of strangers — get them away." 
 
 " All, Herbert ? " said Reine frightened. 
 
 He made no further reply, but dismissed her with an im- 
 
 Eatient wave of his hand, and taking up a book, which she saw 
 e held upside down, and which trembled in his hand, turned 
 his back upon the new-comers who had so strangely invaded 
 the house. 
 
 As for these good people, they had nothing to say to this 
 triumph of Giovanni. I suppose they had expected, as many 
 iiiuocent persons do, that by mere force of nature the child 
 would turn to those who alone had a right to him. Gtertrude, 
 encumbered by her heavy travelling wraps, wearied, discouraged 
 and disappointed, sat down and cried, her round face getting 
 every moment more blurred and unrecognisable. M. Guil- 
 laume, however, though tired too, and feeling this reception 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 447 
 
 very different from the distinguished une which he had received 
 on his former visit, felt it necessary to maintain the family 
 dignity. 
 
 " I would speak with Madame Suzanne," he said turning to 
 Reine, who approached. " Mademoiselle does not perhaps 
 know that I am a relation, a next-of-kin. It is I, not the poor 
 b^b^, who am the next to succeed. I am Guillaume Austin, of 
 Bruges. I would speak with Madame Suzanne. She will 
 know how to deal with this insens^e, this woman who keeps 
 from my daughter her child." 
 
 " My aunt is — ill," said Reine. " I don't thi"k she is able 
 to see you. Will you come into another roon inC ^est, and I 
 will speak to Giovanna. You must want to re^jj — ittle— and 
 — something to eat " 
 
 So far Reine's hospitable instincts carrT .vi bar; but when 
 Stevens entered with a request from the dri\ er t the cab which 
 had brought the strangers hither, to know '^h?^< he was to do, 
 she could not make any reply to the look L^a. M. Guillaume 
 save her. That look plainly implied a right to remain in the 
 house, which made Reine tremble, and she pretended not to 
 see that she was referred to. Then the old shopkeeper took it 
 upon himself to send away the man. " Madame Suzanne 
 would be uncontent, certainly uncontent, if I went away with- 
 out to see her," he said ; " dismiss him then, mon ami. I will 
 
 give you to pay " and he pulled out a purse from his 
 
 pocket. What could Reine do or saj ? She stood trembling, 
 wondering how it was all to be arranged, what she could do ; 
 for though she was quite unaware of the withdrawal of Miss 
 Susan, she felt that in this case it was her duty to act for her 
 brother and herself. She went up to Giovanna softly, and 
 touched her on the arm. 
 
 " What are you going to do 1 " she said in a whisper. " Oh, 
 Giovanna, have some pity upon us ! Get them to go away. 
 My aunt Susan has been kind to you, and how could she see 
 these people ? Oh, get them to go away ! " 
 
 Giovanna looked down upon Reine, too, with the same 
 triumphant smile. " You come also," she said, " Mademoiselle 
 Reine, you, too ! to poor Giovanna, who was not good for any- 
 thing. Bien ! It cannot be for to-night, but perhaps for to- 
 morrow, for they are fatigued — that sees itself Gertrude, to 
 
 ^.4 <l 
 
 
448 
 
 WHITKLADIES. 
 
 cry will do nothing ; it will frighten the child more, who is, as 
 you perceive, to me, not to thee. Smile, then — that will be 
 more well^ — and come with me, petite sotte. Though thou wert 
 not good to Giovanna, Giovanna will be more noble, and take 
 care of thee." 
 
 She took hold of her sister-in-law as she spoke, half dragged 
 her off her chair, and leading her with her disengaged hand, 
 walked out of the room with the child on her shoulder. Reine 
 heard the sound of an impatient sigh, and hurried to her 
 brother's side. But Herbert had his eyes firmly fixed upon the 
 book, and when she came up to him waved her off. 
 
 " Let me alone," he said in his querulous tones, "cannot you 
 let mo alone ! " Even the touch of tenderness was more than 
 he could bear. 
 
 Then it was Everard's turn to exert himself who had met 
 M. Guillaume before, and with a little trouble get him to follow 
 the others as far as the small dining-room, in which Reine had 
 given orders for a hasty meal. M. Guillaume was not unwil- 
 ling to enter into explanations. His poor wife, he said, had 
 been ill for weeks past. 
 
 " It was some mysterious attack of the nerves ; no one could 
 tell what it was," the old man said. " I called doctor after 
 doctor, if you will believe me, monsieur. I spared no expense. 
 At last it was said to me, 'It is a priest that is wanted, not a 
 doctor.' I am Protestant, monsieur," said the old shopkeeper 
 seriously. " I replied with disdain, * According to my faith, 
 it is the husband, it is the father who is priest.' I go to 
 Madame Austin's chamber. I say to her, * My wife, speak ! ' 
 Brief, monsieur, she spoke, that suffering angel, that martyr ! 
 She told us of the wickedness which Madame Suzanne and 
 cette mechante planned, and how she was drawn to be one 
 with them, pauvre ch^rie. Ah, monsieur, how women are 
 weak ! or when not weak, wicked. She told us all, monsieur, 
 how she has been unhappy ! and as soon as we could leave her, 
 we came, Gertrude and I — for my part, I was not press6— -I 
 said, * Thou hast many children, my Gertrude ; leave then this 
 one to be at the expense of those who have acted so vilely.' 
 And my poor angel said so also from her sick bed ; but the 
 young they are obstinate, they have no reason, and — behold 
 us I We had a bad, a very bad traversee ; and it appears that 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 449 
 
 la jeunel^ whom I know not, would willingly send us back 
 without the repose of an hour." 
 
 " You must pardon her," said Everaro\ '* We have been in 
 great trouble, and she did not know even who you were." 
 
 "It seems to me," said the old man, opening his coat with a 
 flourish of offended dignity, " that in this house, which mav" 
 soon be mine, all should know me. When I say I am Guil- 
 laume Austin of Bruges, what mure rests to say 1 " 
 
 " But, Monsieur Guillaume," said Everard, upon whom these 
 words, "this house, which may soon be mine," made, in spite 
 of himself, a highly disagreeable impression, " I have always 
 heard that for yourself you cared nothing for it — would not 
 have it indeed." 
 
 " I would not give that for it," said the old man with a snap 
 of his fingers ; " a miserable grange, a maison de campagne, a 
 thing of wood and stone ! Bv.l one has one's dignity and one's 
 rights." 
 
 And he elevated his old head, with a snort from the Austin 
 nose, which he possessed in its most pronounced form. Everard 
 did not know whether to take him by the shoulders and to turn 
 him out of the house, or to laugh ; but the latter was the easiest. 
 The old shopkeeper was like an old cock strutting about the 
 house which he despised. " I hate your England," he said, 
 " your rain, your autumn, your old baraques which you call 
 ch&teaux. For chateaux come to my country, come to the Pays 
 BaS) monsieur. No, I would not change, I care not for your 
 dirty England. But," he added, "one has one's dignity and 
 one's rights, all the same." 
 
 He was mollified, however, when Stevens came to help him 
 o£f with his coats, and when Cook sent up the best she could 
 supply on such short notice. 
 
 *' I thought perhaps, M. Austin, you would like to rest be- 
 fore-dinner," said Keine, trembling as she said the last word. 
 She hoped still that he would interrupt her, and add " before 
 we go.'* 
 
 But no such thought entered into M. Guillaume's mind. He 
 calculated on staying a few days now that he was here, as he 
 had done before, and being inade much of, as then. He in- 
 clined his head politely in answer to Reine's remark, and said, 
 Yes, he would be pleased to rest before dinner ; the journey 
 
 DD 
 
 i;?P >| 
 
450 
 
 WHITELADIE8. 
 
 was long and very fatiguing. He thought even that after din- 
 ner he would retire at once, that he mjght be reinis for to- 
 morrow. " And I hope, mademoiselle, that your villanous 
 weather will se remettre," he added. " Bon Dieu, what it 
 must be to live in this country ! When the house comes to 
 me, I will sell it, monsieur. The money will be more sweet 
 elsewhere than in this vieille maison delabr^e, though it is so 
 much to you." 
 
 " But you cannot sell it," said Reine, flushing crimson, " if 
 it ever should come to you." 
 
 "Who will prevent me ? " said M. Guillaume, " Ah, your 
 mandit law of heritage ! Tiens ! then I will pull it down, 
 mademoiselle," he said calmly, sipping the old claret, and mak- 
 ingher a little bow. 
 
 The reader may jud^^'e how agreeable M. Guillaume made 
 himself with this kind of conversation. He was a great deal 
 more at his ease than he had ever been with Miss Susan, of 
 vhom he stood in awe. 
 
 "After this misfortune, this surprise," he went on, " which 
 has made so much to suffer my poor wife, it goes of my honour 
 to take myself the place of heir. I cannot more make any 
 arrangement, any bargain, monsieur perceives, that one should 
 be able to say Guillaume Austin of Bruges deceived the world 
 to put iiR his little son, against the law, to be the heir ! Oh 
 these women, these women, how they are weak and wicked ! 
 When I heard of it I wept. I, a man, an old ! my poor angel 
 has so much suffered ; I forgave her when I heard her tale ; 
 bat that m^chante, that Giovanna, who was the cause of all, 
 iMtw could I forgive — and Madame Suzanne 1 Apropos, \?here 
 is Madame Suzanne 1 She comes not, I set) her not. She is 
 afraid, then, to present herself before me." 
 
 This was more than Beine's self-denial could bear. " I do 
 not know who you are," she cried indignantly. " I never heard 
 there were any Austins who were not gentlemen. Do not dtop 
 me, Everard. This house is m^ brother's house, and I am hiis 
 representative. We have nothing to do with you, heir or not 
 heir, and know nothing about your children, or your wife, or 
 any one belonging to vou. For poor Giovanna's sake, though 
 no doubt you nave dnven her to do wrong through your cruel^, 
 jou shall have what you want for to night. Miss Susan Austin 
 
WHITELADIEa 
 
 451 
 
 if 
 
 hicli 
 lour 
 
 aay 
 ould 
 ^orld 
 Oh 
 
 kedl 
 
 tale J 
 f all, 
 jhere 
 
 .he is 
 
 afraid of you I Everard, I cannot stay any longer to hear my 
 family and my home insulted. See that they have what they 
 want ! " said the girl ablaze with rage and indignation. 
 
 M. Guillaume, perhaps, had been taking too much of the old 
 claret in his fatigue, and he did not understand lilndish very 
 well when delivered with such force and rapidity. lie looked 
 after her with more surprise than an^er, when Reine, a little 
 too audibly in her wrath, shut behind her the heavy oak door. 
 
 " Eh bien ? " he said. " Mademoiselle is irritable, n'est ce 
 pas 1 And what did she mean, then, for Giovanna's sake ? " 
 
 Everard hold it to be needless to explain Heine's innocent 
 flourish of trumpets *n favour of the culprit. He said, " Ah, 
 that is the question. What do you mean to do about Giovanna, 
 M. Guillaume ? " 
 
 " Do ! " cried the old man, and he made a coarse but forcible 
 gesture, as of putting something disagreeable out of his mouth, 
 ** she may die of hunger, as she said — by the road, by the fields 
 — for anything she will get from me." 
 
 N 't 
 
452 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 NEED not say that the condition of Whiteladies that 
 evening was about as uncomfortable as could be conceived. 
 Before dinner — a ceremonial at which Everard alone offi- 
 ciated, with the new-comers and Giovanna, all of whom ate a 
 very good dinner — it had been discovered that Miss Susan had 
 not gone to her own room, but to her new house, from which a 
 messenger arrived for Martha in the darkening of the winterly 
 afternoon. The message was from Miss Augustine, written in her 
 pointed, old-fashioned hand ; and requesting that Martha would 
 bring everything her mistress required for the night ; Augustine 
 forgot that she herself wanted anything. It was old John Sim- 
 mons, from the Almshouses, who brought the note, and who 
 told the household that Miss Augustine had been there as usual 
 for the evening service. The intimation of this sudden re- 
 moval fell like a tliunderbolt upon the house. Martha, crying, 
 packed her little box, and went oflf in the early darkness, not 
 knowing, as she said, whether she was " on her head or heels," 
 and thinking every tree a ghost as she went along the unfami- 
 liar road, through the misty dreary night. Herbert had retired 
 to his room, where he would not admit even his sister, and Reine, 
 sad and miserable, with a head-ache as well as a heart-ache, not 
 knowing what was the next misfortune that might happen, 
 wandered up and down all the evening through, fretting at 
 Everard's long absence, though she had begged him to under- 
 take the duties of host, and longing to see Giovanna and talk to 
 her, with a desire that was half-liking and half-hatred. Oh, how 
 dared she, how dared she live among them with such a secret 
 on her mind ? Yet what was to become of her ? Reine felt 
 with a mixture of contempt and satisfaction that, so far as Her- 
 bert was concerned, Giovanna's chances were all over for ever. 
 She flitted about the house, listening with wonder and horror 
 to the sound of voices from the dining-room, which were cheer- 
 ful enough in the midst of the ruin and misery that these peo- 
 ple had made. Reine was no more just, no more impartial, 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 458 
 
 hat 
 ired. 
 offi- 
 te a 
 had 
 Lch a 
 berly 
 aher 
 irould 
 istine 
 iSim- 
 . who 
 i usual 
 sn re- 
 trying, 
 3S, not 
 heels," 
 
 nfami- 
 
 •etired 
 
 iBeine, 
 le, not 
 
 ^appen, 
 
 jing at 
 under- 
 talkto 
 
 fh,how 
 secret 
 
 tne felt 
 ^sHer- 
 >r ever, 
 horror 
 cheer- 
 jse peo- 
 [partial, 
 
 than the rest. She said to herself " which these people had 
 made," and pitied poor Miss Susan, whose heart was hroken b^ 
 it, just as M. Guillaume pitied his suffering angel, his poor wife. 
 Reine on her side threw all the guilt upon that suffering angel. 
 Poor Giovanna had done what she was told, but it was the 
 wretched old woman, the vulgar schemer, the wicked old Flem- 
 ing who had planned the lie in all its details, and had the 
 courage to carry it out. All Keine's heart flowed over with 
 pity for the sinner who was her own. Poor Aunt Susan ! what 
 could she be thinking ? how could she be feeling in the solitude 
 of the strange new house ! No doubt believing that the chil- 
 dren to whom she had been so kind had abandoned her. It 
 was all Reine cqjild do to keep herself from going with Martha, 
 to whom she gave a hundred messages of love. " Tell her I 
 wanted to come with you, but could not because of the visitors. 
 Tell her the old gentleman from Bruges— Bruges, Martha, you 
 will not forget the name — came directly she had gone, and that 
 I hope they are going away to-morrow, and that I will come to 
 her at once. Give her my dear love, Martha," cried the girl, 
 following Martha out to the porch, and standing there in the 
 darkness watching her, while Miss Susan's maid walked out 
 unwillingly into the night, followed by the under-gardener with 
 her baggage. This was while the others were at dinner, and it 
 was then that Reine saw the cheerful light through the great 
 oriel window, and heard the voices sounding cheerful too, she 
 thought, notwithstanding the strange scenes they had just gone 
 through. She was so restless and so curious that she stole up- 
 stairs into the musicians' gallery, to see what they were doing. 
 Giovanna was the mistress of the situation still ; but she seemed 
 to be using her power in a merciful way. The serious part of 
 the dinner was concluded, and little Jean was there, whom 
 Giovanna — throwing sweetmeats across the table to Gertrude, 
 who sat with her eyes fixed upon her as upon a goddess — was 
 beguiling into recollection of and friendship with the new- 
 comers. "C'est Maman Gertrude; c'est ton autre maman," 
 she was saying to the child. " Tiens, all the bonbons are with 
 her. I have given all to her. Say * Maman Gertrude,' and 
 she will give thee some." There was a strained air of gaiety 
 and patronage about Giovanna, or so at least Reine thought, 
 and she went away guiltily from this peep at them, feeling her- 
 
454 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 self an eavesdropper, and thinking she saw Everard look up to 
 the corner he too knew so well ; an 1 thus the evening passed, 
 full of agitation and pain. When the strangers were got to 
 their rooms at last, Everard found a little eager ghost, with 
 great anxious eyes, upon the stairs waiting for him ; and they 
 had a long eager talk, in whispers, as if anybody could hear 
 them. " Giovanna is behaving like a brick," said Everard. 
 " She is doing all she can to content the child with the new 
 people. Poor little beggar ! I don't wonder he kicks at it. 
 She had her little triumph, poor girl, but she's acting like a 
 hero now. What do you think. Reins ? Will Herbert go on 
 with it in spite of all ? " 
 
 " If I were Herbert — " cried the girl — then stopped in her 
 impulsive rapid outcry. " He is changed," she said, tears coming 
 to her eyes. " He is ro longer my Bertie, Everard. No, we 
 need not vex ourselves about that ; we shall never hear of it 
 any more." 
 
 " So much the better," said Everard ; " it never would have 
 answered ; though one does feel sorry for Giovanna. Heine, 
 my darling,. what a blessing that old Susan, God help her, had 
 the courage to make a clean breast of it before these others 
 came ! " 
 
 " I never thought of that," said the girl, awestricken. " So 
 it was, so it was ! It must have been Providence that put it 
 into her head." 
 
 " It was Hevbert's madness that put it into her head. How 
 could he be sush a fool ! but it is curious, you know, what set 
 both of them on it at the same time, that horrible old woman 
 at Bruges, and her here. It looks like what they call a brain- 
 wave/' said Everard, " though that throws a deal of light on 
 the matter, don't it ? Queenie, you are as white as the China 
 rose on the porch. I hope Julie is there to look after you, 
 poor little queen ! I wonder why all this trouble should 
 upon you." 
 
 " Oh, what is it to me in comparison % " said the girl, almost 
 indignant ; but he was so sorry for her, and his tender pity was 
 in itself so sweet, that I think before they separated — her head 
 still aching, though her heart was less sore — Keine, out of sym- 
 pathy for him, had begun also to entertain a little pity for herself. 
 
 The iaorning rose strangely on the disturbed household — rose 
 
 My 
 fall 
 
 moi6 
 
 you 
 
 are 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 455 
 
 My 
 Id fall 
 
 jtlmost 
 
 by was 
 
 imprudently, without the least compassion for them, in a blaze 
 of futile, too early liunshine, which faded after the first half of 
 the day. The light seemed to look in mocking at the empty 
 rooms in which Susan and Augustine had lived all their lives. 
 Reine was early astir, unable to rest ; and she had not been 
 down-stairs ten minutes when all sorts of references were made 
 to her. *' I should like to know, miss, if you please, who is to 
 give the orders, if so be as Miss Susan have gone for good/* 
 said Stevens ; and Cook came up immediately after with her 
 arms wrapped in her apron. *' I won't keep you not five min- 
 utes, miss ; but if Miss Susan's gone for good, I don't know as 
 I can find it convenient to stay. Where there's gentlemen and 
 a deal of company isn't like a lady's place, where there's a quiet 
 life," said Cook. " Oh," said Reine, driven to her wits' end, 
 " please, please, like good people, wait a little ! How can I tell 
 what we must do 'i " The old servants granted Reine the 
 ** little time " she begged, but they did it ungraciously and with 
 a sure sense of supremacy over her. Happily she found a 
 ^'^ariety of trays with coffee going up to the strangers' rooms, 
 and found, to her great relief, that she would escape the misery 
 of a breakfast with them ; and Francois brought a message 
 from Herbert to the effect that he was quite well, but meant to 
 stay in his room till ces gens-1^ were out of the house. " May 
 I not go to him l " cried Reine. " Monsieur is quite well," 
 Frangois replied ; " Mademoiselle may trust me. But it will 
 be well to leave him till ce monsieur and ces dames have gone 
 away." And Fran9ois too, though he was very kind to Ma- 
 demoiselle Reine, gave her to understand that she should 
 take precautions, and that Monsieur should not be exposed 
 to scenes so trying ; so that the household, with very good 
 intentions, was hard upon Reine. And it was nearly noon 
 before she saw anything of the other party, about whose de- 
 parture she was so anxious. At last about twelve o'clock, 
 perilously near the time of the train, she met Giovanna on the 
 stairs. The young woman was pale, with the gaiety and the 
 triumph gone out of her. " I go to ask that the carriage may 
 be ready," said Giovanna. " They will go at midi, if Made- 
 moiselle will send the carriage." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Reine eagerly ; " but you are ill, Giovanna ; 
 you are pale." She added half timidly, after a moment, " What 
 are you going to do? " 
 
 
456 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 Giovanna smiled with something of the bravado of the pre- 
 vious day. "I will derange no one," she said ; " Mademoiselle 
 need not fear. I will not seek again those who have deserted 
 me. C'est petit, ga ! " she cried with a momentary outburst, 
 waving her hand towards the door of Herbert's room. Then 
 controlling herself, " That they should go is best, n'est ce pas ? 
 I work for that. If Mademoiselle will give the orders for the 
 carriage " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Eeine, and then in her pity she laid her 
 hand on Giovanna's arm. " Giovanna, I am very sorry for you. 
 I do not think you are the most to blame," she said. 
 
 " Blame ! " said Giovanna, with a ?hrug of her shoulders, 
 " I did as I was told." Then two big tears came into her eyes. 
 She put her white, large, shapely hands on Reine's shoulders, 
 and kissed her suddenly on both her cheeks. " You, you are 
 good, you have a heart ! " she said ; " but to abandon the 
 friends when they are in trouble, c'est petit, 9a ! " and with, that 
 she turned hastily and went back to her room. Reine, breath- 
 less, ran down-stairs to order the carriage. She went to the 
 door with her heart beating, and stood waiting to see what 
 would happen, not knowing whether Giovanna's kiss was to be 
 taken as a farewell. Presently voices were hoard approaching, 
 and the whole party came down-stairs ; the old man in his big 
 coat, with his cache-nez about his ii^ck, Gertrude pale but happy, 
 and last of all Giovanna, in her ui al household dress, with the 
 boy on her shoulder. GertriRtf .«rried in her hand a large 
 packet of bonbons, and got hastily into the carriage, while her 
 father stood bowing and making his little farewell speeches to 
 Reine and Everard. Giovanna coming after them with her 
 strong light step, her head erect, and the child, in his little vel- 
 vet coat with his cap and feather, seated on her shouldsr, his 
 hand twisted in her hair, interested them more than all M. 
 Guillaume's speeches. Giovanna went past them to the carriage 
 door j she Jiad a flush upon her cheek which had been so pale. 
 She put the child down upon Gertrude's lap, and kissed him. 
 ' ' Manan will come to Jean presently, in a moment," she said. 
 '"Regarde done ! how much of bonbons are in Maman Gertrude's 
 U4 , Thou wilt eft them all, petit gourmands and save none 
 fc>'; me.'" 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 457 
 
 lers, 
 syes. 
 lers, 
 I axe 
 the 
 that 
 eath- 
 > the 
 what 
 to be 
 
 jhing, 
 is big 
 
 appy, 
 
 th the 
 
 large 
 
 eher 
 
 es to 
 
 her 
 le vel- 
 ar, his 
 allM. 
 rriage 
 ) pale. 
 
 him. 
 le said. 
 ,rude's 
 
 none 
 
 Then with a laugh and mocking menace she stepped back 
 into a corner, where she was invisible to the child, and stood 
 there motionless till the old man got in beside his daughter^ 
 and the carriage drove away. A little cry, wondering and wist- 
 ful, " Mamma ! mamma ! " was the last sound audible as the 
 wheels crashed over the gravel. Reine turned round, holding 
 out her hands to the forlorn creature behind her, her heart full 
 of pity. The tears were raining down in a storm from Gio- 
 vanna's eyes, but she laughed and shook them away. " Mon 
 Dieu ! " she cried, " I do not know why is this. Why should I 
 love him 1 I am not his mother. But it is an attack of the 
 nerfs — I cannot bear any more," and drawing her hands out of 
 Heine's she fled with a strange shame and passion through the 
 dim passages. They heard her go up-stairs, and, listening in 
 some anxiety, after a few minutes' interval, heard her moving 
 about her room with brisk, active steps. 
 
 " That is all right," said Everard, with a sigh of relief. 
 " Poor Giovanna ! some one must be kind to her ; but come in 
 here and rest, my queen. All this is too much for you." 
 
 " Oh, what is it to me in comparison ? " cried Reine ; but she 
 suflfered herself to be led into the drawing-room to be consoled 
 and comforted, and to rest before anything more was done 
 She thought she kept an ear alert to listen for Giovanna's move- 
 ments, but I suppose Everard was talking too close to that ear 
 to make it so lively as it ought to have been. At least before, 
 anjrthing was heard by either of them, Giovanna in her turn 
 had gone away. 
 
 She came down stairs carefully, listening t< nake sure that 
 no one was about. She had put up all her little (jossessions ready 
 to be carried away. Pausing in the corrid' r above to make 
 sure that all was quiet, she went down with her swift, light 
 step, a step too firm and full of character +o be noiseless, bu^- 
 too rapid at the present moment to risk a .vaking any spies. 
 She went along the winding passages, and out through the 
 great porch, and across the damp grass. The afternoon had 
 begun to set in by this time, and the fading sunshine of the 
 morning was over. When she had reached the out. r gate she 
 turned back to look at the house. Giovanna was not a person 
 of taste ; she thought not much more of Whil adies than her 
 father-in-law did. "Adieu, vieille baraque," she said, kissing the 
 
458 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 tips of her fingers ; but the half-contempt of her words was 
 scarcely carried out by her face. She wa,8 pale again, and her 
 eyes were red. Though she had declared frankly that she saw 
 no reason for loving little Jean, I suppose the child — whom she 
 had determined to make fond of her, as it was not comme il faut 
 that a mother and child should detest each other — had crept 
 Hto her heart, though she professed not to know it. She had 
 been crying, though she would not have admitted it, over his 
 little empty bed, and those red rims to her eyes were the con- 
 sequence. When she had made that farewell to the old walls 
 she turned and went on, swiftly and lightly ar, a bird, skimming 
 along the ground, her erect figure full of health and beautiful 
 strength, vigour^ and unconscious grace. She looked strong 
 enough for anything, her firm foot ringing in perfect measure 
 on the path, like a Roman woman in a procession, straight and 
 noble, more vigorous, more practical, more alive than the Greek ; 
 fit to be made a statue of or a picture ; to carry water-jars or 
 grape-brskets, or children ; almost to till the ground or sit up- 
 on a throne. The air cleared away the redness from her eyes, 
 and brought colour back to he cheeks. The grand air, the 
 plein jov/r, words in which, for once in a way, the French excel 
 us in the fine abundance and greatness of the ideas suggested, 
 suited Giovanna ; though she loved comfort toe , and could be 
 as indolent as heart could desire. But to-day she wanted the 
 movement, the sense of rapid progress. She wore her usual 
 morning-dre -. of heavy blue serge, so dark as to be almost 
 black, with a kind of cloak of the same material, the end of 
 which was thrown over the shoulder in a fashion of her own. 
 The dre^s was perfectly simple, without flounce or twist of any 
 kind in its long lines. Such a woman, so strong, so swift, so 
 dpan^leBS, tarrying her head with such a light and noble grace, 
 might, have bo.^n ii queen's messenger, bound on affairs of life 
 and '^?a1i h, -.ari^ng pardon and largesse or laws and noble ordi- 
 nances Kji i^it.e from some throned Ida, some \dsionary princess. 
 Though .-,•: did -iot know her way, she went straight on, find- 
 Smi it by . stinct seeing the high roof and old red walls of the 
 ('/range ev> »• i?o far off, as only her penetrating eyes and noble 
 height coula have managed to see. She recovered her spirits 
 as she walked on, aiid nodded and smiled with careless good- 
 humour to the women in the callage, who came to their doors to 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 459 
 
 \ was 
 
 d her 
 
 e saw 
 
 m she 
 
 il faut 
 
 L crept 
 
 le had 
 
 irer his 
 
 le coa- 
 
 d walls 
 
 mming 
 
 3autiful 
 
 L strong 
 
 neasure 
 
 ght and 
 
 , Greek ; 
 
 r-jars or 
 
 r sit up- 
 
 ler eyes, 
 air, the 
 
 ich excel 
 
 iggested, 
 
 could be 
 
 mted the 
 
 Ler usual 
 
 e almost 
 
 le end of 
 her own. 
 Lst of any 
 swift, so 
 ble grace, 
 3rs of life 
 oble ordi- 
 r princess, 
 on, find- 
 j,lls of the 
 land noble 
 ler spirits 
 jle&s good- 
 ■ir doors to 
 
 look after her, moved by that vague, consciousness which some- 
 how gets into the very atmosphere of something going on at 
 Whiteladies. " Something's up," they all said ; though how 
 they knew I cannot tell, nor could they themselves have told. 
 
 The gate of the Grange, which was surrounded by shrub- 
 beries, stood open, and so did the door of the house, as generally 
 happens when there has been a removal ; for servants and work- 
 people have a fine sense of appropriateness, and prefer to be 
 and to look as uncomfortable as possible at such a crisis. Gio- 
 vanna went in without a moment's hesitation. The door opened 
 into a square hall, which gave entrance to several rooms, 
 the sitting-rooms of the house. One of these doors only was 
 shut, and this Giovanna divined must be the one occupied. She 
 neither paused nor knocked nor asked admittance, but went 
 straight to it, and opening the door, walked in without a word 
 into the room in which, as she supposed. Miss Susan was. She 
 was not noiseless, as T have said ; there was nothing of the cat 
 about her ; her foot sounded light and regular with a frankness 
 beyond all thought of stealth. The sound of it had already 
 roused the lonely occupant of the room. Miss Susan was lying 
 on a sofa, worn out with the storm of yesterday, and looking 
 old and feeble. She raised herself on her elbow, wondering who 
 it was; and it startled her, no doubt, to see this young woman 
 enter, who was, I suppose, the last person in the world she 
 expected to see. 
 
 " Giovanna, you ! " she cried, and a strange shock ran through 
 her, half of pain — for Reine might have come by this time, she 
 could not but think — yet strangely mixed, she could not tell 
 how, with a tinge of pleasure too. 
 
 " Madame Suzanne, yes," said Giovanna, " it is me. I know 
 not what you will think. I come back to you, though you 
 have cast me away. All the world also has cast me away," she 
 added with a smUe ; "I have no one to whom I can go ; but I 
 am strong, I am young ; I am not a lady, as you say. I know 
 to do many things that ladies cannot do. I can frotter and 
 brush when it is necesssary. I can make the garden ; I can 
 conduct your carriage ; many things more that 1 need not 
 name. Even I can make the kitchen, or the robes when it is 
 necessiary. I come to say. Take me then for your butlare, like 
 old Stefan. I am more strong than he ; I do many more things. 
 
 m 
 
 
460 
 
 WHITFTJLDIES. 
 
 Ecoutez, Madame Suzanne ! I am alone, very alone ; I know 
 not Avhat may come to me, but one perishes not when one can 
 work. It is not for that I come. It is that I have de I'amiti^ 
 for you." 
 
 Miss Susan made an incredulous exclamation and shook her 
 head ; though I think there was a sentiment of a very different 
 and, considering all the circumstances, very strange character 
 rising in her heart. 
 
 " You believe me not 1 Bien ! " said Giovanna, " neverthe- 
 less it is trua You have not loved me — which, perhaps, it is 
 not possible, that one should love me ; you have looked at me 
 as your enemy. Yes ; it was tout naturel. Notwithstanding, 
 you were kind. You spared nothing," said the practical Gio 
 vanna. " I had to eat and to drink Hke you ; you did not re- 
 fuse the robes when I needed them. You were good, all good 
 for me, though you did not love me. Eh bien, Madame 
 Suzanne,'' she said suddenly, the tears coming to her eyes, ** I 
 love you I You may not believe it, but it is true." 
 
 " Giovanna ! I don't know what to say to you," faltered 
 Miss Susan, feeling some moisture start into the corners of her 
 own eyes. 
 
 " Ecoutez," she said again ; " is it that you know what has 
 haji ened since you went away i Madame Suzanne, it is tnie 
 that I wished to be Madame Herbert, that I tried to make him 
 love me. Was it not tout naturel ? He was rich and I had 
 not a sou, and it is pleasant to be grande dame, great ladye, to 
 have all that one can desire. Mon Dieu, how that is agreeable ! 
 I made great effort, I deny it not. D'ailleurs, it was very 
 necessary that the petit should be put out of the way. Look 
 you, that is all over. He abandons me. He regards me not 
 even ; says not one word of pity when I had the most great 
 need. Allez," cried Giovanna indignantly, her eyes flasliing, 
 " c'est petit, qa, ! " She made a pause, with a great expansion 
 and heave of her breast, then resumed. "But, Madame 
 Suzanne, although it happened all like that, I am glad, glad — 
 I thank the bon Dieu on my knees — that you did speak it then, 
 not row; that day, not this; that you have mot lose the 
 moment, the just moment. For that I thank the bon Dieu." 
 
 "Giovanna, I hope the bon Dieu will forgive us," Miss 
 Susan said, very humbly putting her hands across her eyes. 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 461 
 
 (i 
 
 in 
 
 )iit 
 ber 
 
 bered 
 ,f her 
 
 I hope so also," said Giovaana cheerfully, as if that matter 
 were not one which disturbed her very much ; " but it was 
 good, good that you spoke the first. The belle-m^re had also 
 remorse ; she had bien de quoi ! She sent them to say all, to 
 take back — the child. Madame Suzanne," cried Giovanna, 
 " listen ! I have given him back to Gertrude ; I have taught 
 him to be sage with her. I have made to smile her and the 
 beau-p^re, and showed bounty to them. All that they would 
 I have done, and asked nothing : for what 1 that they might 
 go away, that they might not vex personne, that there might 
 not be so much of talk. Tenez, Madame Suzanne ! And 
 they go when I am weary with to sp<'ak, with to smile, with 
 to make excuse — they go, ehfin ! and I return to my chamber, 
 and the little bed is empty, and the petit is gone away ! " 
 
 There was no chair near her on which she could sit down, 
 and at this point she dropped upon the floor and cried, the 
 tears falling in a sudden storm over her cheeks. They had 
 long been gathering, making her eyes hot and heavy. Poor 
 Giovanna ! She cried like a child with keen emotion, which 
 found relief in that violent utterance. " N'importe ! " she 
 s^d, struggling against the momentary passion, forcing a trem- 
 ulous smile upon the mouth which quivered, " n'importe ! I 
 shall get over it ; but figure to yourself the place empty, empty ! 
 and so still ! Why should I care ? I am not his mother," said 
 Giovanna ; and wept as if her heart would break. 
 
 Miss Susan rose from her sofa. She was weak and tottered 
 as she got up. She went to Giovanna's side, laid her hand on 
 her head, and stooping over her kissed her on the forehead. 
 "Poor thing ! poor thing ! " she said, in a trembling voice, 
 *• this is my doing too." 
 
 ** It is nothing, nothing ! " cried Giovanna, springing up and 
 shaking back a loose lock of her black hair. " Now I will go 
 and see what is to do. Put thyself on the sofa, Madame 
 Suzanne. Ah, pardon ! I said it without thought." 
 
 Miss Susan did not understand what it was for which Gio- 
 vanna begged pardon. It did not occur to her that the use of 
 the second person could, in any case, be sin; but Giovanna, 
 utterly shocked and appalled at her own temerity, blushed 
 crimson and almost forgot little Jean. She led Miss Susan 
 back to the sofa, and placed her there with the utmost tender- 
 
462 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 ness. " Madame Suzanne must not think that it was more 
 than an inadvertence, a fault of excitement, that I could take 
 it upon me to say thee to my superior. Oh, pardon ! a thou- 
 sand times. Now I go to bring you of the th^, to shut the door 
 close, to make quiet the people, that all shall be as Viteladies. 
 I am Madame Suzanne's servant from this hour." 
 
 '^ Giovanna," said Miss Susan, who, just at this moment, was 
 very easily agitated and did not so easily recover herself, " I do 
 not say no. We have done wrong together ; we will try to be 
 good together. I have made you suffer too ; but Giovanna, re- 
 member there must be nothing more of thai. You. must pro- 
 mise me that all shall be over between you and Herbert." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Giovanna, with a gesture of disgust. " Me, I 
 suffered as Madame Suzanne says ; and he saw, and never 
 said a word ; not so much as, * Poor Giovanna ! ' Allez ! c'est 
 petit, 9a ! " cried the young woman, tossing her fine head aloft 
 with a pride of nature that sate well on her. Then she turned 
 smiling to Miss Susan on the sofa. " Rest, my mistress," she 
 said softly, with quaint distinctness of pronunciation. " Ma- 
 demoiselle Reine will soon be here to talk, and make erery- 
 thing plain to you. I go to bring of the th6, me." 
 
 wa 
 
WHITELADIES. 
 
 468 
 
 CHAPTEli XLVIII. 
 
 ERBERTcame into the drawing-room almost immedi- 
 ately after Giovanna left. Francois had watched the 
 carriage ga off, and I suppose he thought that Giovanna 
 was in it with the others ; and his master, feeling free and safe, 
 went down-stairs. Herbert had not been the least sufferer in 
 that eventful day and night. He had been sadly weakened by 
 a course of flattery, and had got to consider himself, in a sense, 
 the centre of the world. Invalidism by itself is nearly enough 
 to produce this feeling ; and when upon a long invalid life was 
 built the superstructure of sudden consequence and freedom, 
 the dazzling influence of unhoped-for prosperity and well-being, 
 the worship to which every young man of wealth and position 
 is more or less subjected, the wooing of his cousins, the down- 
 right flattery of Giovanna, the reader will easily perceive how 
 the young man's head was turned, not being a strong head by 
 nature. I think (though I express the opinion with difiidence, 
 not having studied the subject) that it is your vain man, your 
 man whose sense of self-importance is very elevated, who feels 
 a deception most bitterly. The more healthy soul regrets and 
 suffers, but does not feel the same sting in the wound, that he 
 does to whom a sin against himself is the one thing unpardon- 
 able. Herbert took the story of Giovanna's deception thus, as 
 an offence against himself. That she should have deceived 
 others, was little in comparison ; but him ! that he should be, 
 as it were, the centre of this plot, surrounded by people who 
 had planned and conspired in such pitiful ways ! His pride 
 was too deeply hurt, his self-importaiice too rudely shaken, to 
 leave him free to any access of pity or consideration for the 
 culprits. He was not sorry even for Miss Susan ; and towards 
 Giovanna and her strange relatives, and the hideous interrup- 
 tion to his comfort and calm which they produced, he had no 
 pity. Nor was he able to discriminate between her ordinary 
 character and this one evil which she had done. Being once 
 lowered in his imagination, she fell altogether, his chief attrac* 
 
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 tion to her, indeed, being her beauty, which hitherto had dazzled 
 and kept him from any inquiry into her other qualities. Now 
 he gave Giovanna no credit for any qualities at all. His wrath 
 was hot and fierce against her. She had taken him in, de- 
 frauded him of those tender words and caresses which he never, 
 had he known it, would have wasted on suoh a woman. She 
 had humbled him in his own opinion, had made him feel thus 
 that he was not the great person he had supposed ; for her in- 
 terested motives, which were now evident, were so many detrac- 
 tions from his glory, which he had supposed had drawn her 
 towards him, as flowers are drawn to the sun. He had so low 
 an opinion of her after this discovery, that he was afraid to 
 venture out of his room, lest he should be exposed to some en- 
 cointer with her, and to the tears and prayers his embittered 
 vanity supposed she must be waiting to address him. This was 
 the chief reason of his retirement, and he was so angry that 
 Heine and Everard should still keep all their wits about them, 
 notwithstanding that he had been thus insulted and wounded, 
 and could show feeling for others, and put up with those detes- 
 table visitors, that he almost felt that they too must be included 
 in the conspiracy. It was necessary, indeed, that the visitors 
 should be looked after, and even (his r ijason allowed) conciliated 
 to a certain extent, to get them away ; but still, that his sister 
 should be able to do it, irritated Herbert. He came down, ac- 
 cordingly, in anything but a gracious state of mind. Poor 
 fellow ! I suppose his sudden downfall from the (supposed) 
 highest level of human importance, respected and feared and 
 loved by everybody, to the chastened grandeur of one who was 
 first with nobody, though master of all ; and who was not of 
 paramount personal importance to any one, had stung him almost 
 beyond bearing. Miss Susan, whom he felt he had treated gen- 
 erously, had deceived, then left him without a word. Beine, to 
 whom perhaps he had not been kind, had stolen away, out of 
 his power to affect her in any primary degree, had found a new 
 refuge for herself ; and Giovanna, to whom he had given that 
 inestimable treasure of his love ! Poor Herbert's heart was 
 sore and sick, and full of mortified feeling. No wonder he was 
 querulous and irritable. He came into the room where the 
 lovers were, offended even by the sight of them together. When 
 they dropped apart at his entrance, he was more angry still. 
 Indeed, he felt angry at anjrthing, ready to fight with a fly. 
 
I 
 
 'i 
 
 WUITELADIES. 
 
 465 
 
 " Don't let me disturb you," he said ; " though, indeed, if 
 you don't mind, and can put up with it for a fe^ minutes, I 
 should be glad to speak to you together. I have been think- 
 ing that it is impossible for me to go on in this way, you 
 know. Evidently, England will not do for me. It is not 
 October yet, and see what weather ! I cannot bear it. It is 
 a necessity of my nature, putting health out of the question, to 
 have sunshine and brightness. I see nothing for it but to go 
 abroad." 
 
 Reine's heart gave a painful leap. She looked at Everard 
 with a wistful question in her eyes. "Dear Bertie, if you 
 think so," she said faltering, " of course I will not object to 
 what you like best. But might we not first consult the doctors 1 
 You were so well before that night. Oh, Bertie, you know I 
 would never set myself against what was best for you — but I 
 shoulil like to stay at home, just for a little ; and the weather 
 will get better. October is generally fine, is it not, Everard 1 
 
 You ought to know " 
 
 " You don't understand me," said Herbert again. " You 
 may stay at home as much as you like. You don't suppose I 
 want you to go. Look here, I suppose I may speak plainly 
 to two people engaged to each other, as you are. Why 
 shouldn't you marry directly, and be done with it ? Then 
 you could live on at Whiteladies, and Everard could manage 
 the property ; he wants something to do — which would leave 
 me free to follow my inclinations, and live abroad." 
 ** Bertie ! " cried Reine, crimson with surprise and pain. 
 " Well ! is there anything to make a fuss about 1 You mean 
 to be married, I suppose. Why wait 1 It might be got over, 
 surely, in a month or so. And then, Reine being disposed of," 
 he went on with the most curious unconsciousness, " would 
 not need to be any burden on me ; she would want no brother 
 to look after her. I could move about as I please, which a 
 man never can do when he has to drag a lady after him. I 
 think my plan is a very good plan, and why you should find 
 
 any fault with it, Reine— you, for whose benefit it is " 
 
 Reine said nothing. Tears of a mortification different from 
 her brother's came into her eyes. Perhaps the mortification 
 was unreasonable ; for, indeed, a sister who allows herself to 
 be betrothed does in a way take the first step in abandoning 
 
 EE 
 
 t 
 
 'If- 
 
466 
 
 WMfrELADIES. 
 
 ber brother ! But to be cast off in this cool and sudden way 
 went to her heart, notwithstanding the strong moral support 
 she had of Everard behind her. She had served, and (though 
 he was not aware of it) protected, and guided for so long the 
 helpless lad, whose entire comfort had depended on her. And 
 even Everard could not console her for this sudden, almost 
 contemptuous, almost insolent dismissal. With her face 
 crimson and her heart beating, she turned away from her un- 
 grateful brother. 
 
 " You ought not to speak to me so," cried the girl with 
 bitter tears in her eyes. " You should not throw me off like 
 an old glove ; it is not your part, Bertie." And with her heart 
 very heavy and sore, and her quick temper aflame, she hurried 
 away out of the room, leaving them ; and, like the others who 
 had gone before, set off by the same oft-trodden road, through 
 the village, to the Grange. Already Miss Susan's new home 
 had become the general familyrefuge from all evil. 
 
 When Reine was gone, Bertie's irritation subdued itself ; for 
 one man's excited temper cannot but subdue itself speedily, 
 when it has to beat against the blank wall of another man's 
 indifference. Everard did not care so very much if he was 
 angry or not. He could afford to let Herbert and all the rest 
 of the world cool down, and take their own way. He was 
 sorry for the poor boy, but his temper did not affect deeply 
 the elder man ; his elder in years, and twice his elder in ex- 
 perience. Herbert soon calmed down under this process, and 
 then they had a long and serious conversation. Nor did 
 Everard think the proposal at all unreasonable. From disgust, 
 or temper, or disappointment, or for health's sake — what did 
 it matter which 1 — the master of Whiteladies had determined 
 to go abroad. And what so natural as that Heine's marriage 
 should take place early, there being no reason whatever why 
 they should wait ; or that Everard, as her husband, and him- 
 self the heir presumptive, should manage the property, and 
 live with his wife in the old house 1 The proposal had not 
 been delicately made, but it was kind enough. Everard for- 
 gave the roughness more readily than Beine could do, and 
 accepted the good-will heartily, taking it for granted that 
 brotherly kindness was its chief motive. He undertook to 
 convince Reine that nothing could be more reasonable, nothing 
 more kind. 
 
WHITELADIE& 
 
 467 
 
 ** It removes the only obstacle that was in our way," said 
 Everard, grasping his cousin's hand warmly. ** God bless you, 
 Bertie. I hope you'll some time be as happy — more happy you 
 can't be." 
 
 Poor Bertie took this salutation but grimly, wincing from 
 every such touch, but refused at once Everard's proposal that 
 they should follow Keine to see Miss Susan. 
 
 " You may go if you like," he said ; " people feel things 
 in different ways, some deeper, some more lightly. I don't 
 blame you, but I can't do it. I couldn't speak to her if she were 
 here." 
 
 " Send her a message, at least," said Everard ; " one word- 
 that you forgive her," 
 
 ** I don't forgive her ! " cried the young man, hurrying 
 back to the shelter of his room, where he shut himself up with 
 Fran9ois. " To-morrow we shall leave this cursed place," he 
 said in his anger to that faithful servant. " I cannot bear it 
 another day." 
 
 Everard followed Eeine to the Grange, and the first sight he 
 saw made him thank heaven that Herbert was not of the party. 
 Giovanna opened the door to him, smiling and at her ease. 
 She ushered him into Miss Susan's sitting-room, then disap- 
 peared, and came back, bringing more tea, serving every one. 
 She was thoroughly in her element, moving briskly about the 
 old new house, arranging the furniture, which as yet was mere 
 dead furniture, without any associations, making a new White- 
 ladies out of the unfamiliar place. 
 
 " It is like a conte des f^es, but it is true," she said. " I have 
 always had de I'amiti^ for Madame Suzanne ; now I shall hold the 
 manage, me. I shall do all things that she wishes. Tiens ! it is 
 what I was made for, Monsieur Everard. I am not born ladye, 
 as you say. I am peuple, trds peuple. I can work. Mon Dieu, 
 who else has been kind to me ? Not one. As for persons who 
 abandon a friend when they have great need, that for them ! ** 
 said Giovauna snapping her fingers, her eyes flashing, her face 
 reddening. " C'est petit, 9a ! " 
 
 And there she remains, and has done for years. I am afraid 
 she is not half so penitent as she ought to be for the almost 
 crime which, in conjunction with the others, she carried out so 
 sSUccessfully for a time. She shrugs her shoulders when by 
 
468 
 
 WHITELADIES. 
 
 chance, in the seclusion of the family, any one refers to it ; but 
 the sin never lay very heavy on her conscience, nor does it affect 
 her tranquillity now. Neither is she ashamed of her pursuit of 
 Herbert, which so long as it lasted, seemed tout simple to the 
 young woman. And I do not think that she is at all conscious 
 that it was he who threw her over, but rather has the satisfac- 
 tion of feeling that her own disgust at his petitesse ended the 
 matter. But while she has no such feeling as she ought to have 
 for these enormities, she does feel deeply, and mentions some- 
 times with a burning blush of self-reproach, that once in an un- 
 guarded moment she addressed Miss Siisan as " Thou ! " This 
 bin Giovanna will not easily forgive herself, and never, I think, 
 will forget. So it cannot be said that she is without conscience, 
 after all. 
 
 And a more active, notable, delightful housewife could not be. 
 She sings about the house till the old Grange rings with her 
 magnificent voice. She sings when there is what Pshe calls 
 high mass in the Chantry, so that the country people from ever 
 so many miles off come to hear her ; and just as sweetly, and 
 with still more energy, she sings in the Almshouse chapel, 
 delighting the poor folks. She likes the hymns which are 
 slightly " Methody," the same ones that old Mrs Mathews pre- 
 fers, and rings the bell with her strong arm for old ToUaday 
 when he has his rheumatism, and carries huge baskets of good 
 things for the sick folk, and likes it. They say she is the hand- 
 somest woman in St. Austin's parish, or in the county, some 
 people think ; and it is whispered in the Almshouses that she 
 has had very fine "offers" indeed, had she liked to take them. 
 I myself know for a fact that the rector, a man of the fiaest 
 taste, of good family, and elegant manners, and fastidious mind, 
 laid himself and all his iittributes at the feet of this Diana, but 
 in vain. And at the first sight of her the young priest of the 
 Chantry, Dr. Richard's nephew, gave up, without a struggle, that 
 favourite doctrine of clerical celibacy, at which his uncle had 
 aimed every weapon of reason and ridicule for years in vain. 
 Giovanna slew this fashionable heresy in the curate's breast with 
 one laughing look out of her great eyes. But she would not have 
 him, all the same, any more than the rector, but laughed and 
 cried out. " Toi ! I will be thy mother, mon fils." Fortuna- 
 tely the curate knew little French, and never quite made out 
 what she had said. 
 
I • 
 
 WfilTELAOIEa 
 
 469 
 
 As for Miss Susan, though her health continued good, she 
 never quite recovered her activity and vigour. She did recover 
 her peace of mind completely, and is only entering the period 
 of conscious old age now, after an interval of years, very con- 
 tented and happy. Whiteladies, she declares, only failed her 
 when her strength failed to manage it ; and the old Grange 
 has become the cheerfullest and brightest of homes. I am net 
 sure even that sometimes, when her mind is a little confused, as 
 all minds will be now and then, Miss Susan has not a moment's 
 doubt whether the great wickedness of her life has not been 
 one of those things which '* work together for good," as Augus- 
 tine says. But she feels that this is a terrible doctrine, and 
 " will not do," opening the door to all kinds of speculations, 
 and affording a frightful precedent. Still,but for this great sin of 
 hers, she never would have had Giovanna's strong kind arm to 
 loan upon, nor her cheery presence to make the house lively and 
 sweet. Even Augustine feels a certain comfort in that cheery 
 presence, notwithstanding that her wants are so few, and her 
 habits so imperative, putting her life beyond the power of change 
 or misfortvne, for no change can ever deprive her of the Alms- 
 houses. Even on that exciting day when the sisters went 
 forth from Whiteladies, like the first pair from Paradise, 
 though affection and awakened interest brought Augustine 
 for a moment to the head of affairs, and made her the sup- 
 port and stay of her stronger companion, she went to her 
 Almshouse service all the same, after she had placed Susan on 
 the sofa and kissed her, and written the note to Martha about 
 her night things. She did her duty bravely, and without 
 shrinking ; then went to the Almshouses — and so continued all 
 the rest of her life. 
 
 Herbert, notwithstanding his threat to leave the place next 
 day, stayed against his will till Eeine was married, which she 
 consented to be after a while, without unnecessary delay. He 
 saw Miss Susan only on the wedding day, when he touched her 
 hand coldly, and talked of la pluie et le beau Umpsy as if she had 
 been a stranger. Nothing could induce him to resume the old 
 cordial relations with one who had so deceived him ; and no 
 doubt there will be people who will think Herbert in the right. 
 Indeed, if I did not think that Miss Susan had been very fully 
 punished during the time when she was unsuspected, and car- 
 
470 
 
 WHITELADIEa 
 
 ried her Inferno about with her in her own bosom, without any 
 one knowing, I should be disposed to think she got off much too 
 easily after her confession was made ; for as soon as the story 
 was told, and the wrong set right, she became comparatively 
 happy — really happy, indeed — in the great and blessed sense of 
 relief ; and no one (except Herbert) was hard upon her. The 
 tale scarcely crept out at all in the neighbourhood. There was 
 something curious, people said, but even the best-informed be- 
 lieved it to be only one of those quarrels which, alas ! occur 
 now and then even in the best regulated families. Herbert 
 went about the county, paying his farewell visits ; and there 
 was a fair assemblage of wealth and fashion at Eeine's marriage, 
 which was performed at the Austin Chantry, in presence of all 
 their connections. Then Herbert went abroad, partly for his 
 health, partly because he preferred the freer and gayer life of 
 the Continent, to which he had been so long accustomed, people 
 said. He does not often return, and he is rather fretful, perhaps, 
 in his temper, and dilettante in his tastes, with the looks, some 
 ladies say, of "a confirmed bachelor." I don't know, for ray part, 
 what that look is, nor how much it is to be trusted to ; but mean- 
 while it suits Everard and Reinc very well to live at Whiteladies 
 and manage the property. And Miss Augustine is already seri- 
 ously preparing for the task she has so long contemplated, the 
 education of an heir. Unfortunately Heine has only a girl yet, 
 which is a disappointment ; but better days may come. 
 
 As for the Farrel- Austins, they sold the Hatch after their 
 father's death, and broke up the lively society there. Kate 
 married her middle-aged major as soon after as decency would 
 permit, and Sophy accompanied them to the Continent, where 
 they met Herbert at various gay and much-frequented places. 
 Nothing, however, came of this ; but after all, at the end of 
 years, Lord Alf, once in the ascendant in Sophy's firmament, 
 turned up very much out at elbows at a German watering-place, 
 and Sophy, who had a comfortable income, was content to buy 
 his poor little title with it. The marriage was not very happy, 
 but she said, and I hope thought, that he was her first love, and 
 that this was the romance of her life. Mrs. Farrel Austin, 
 strange to tell, got better — quite better, as we say in Scotland 
 — ^though she retained an inclination towards tonics as long as 
 she lived. 
 
\ • 
 
 \ 
 
 WUITELADIES. 
 
 \ 
 
 471 
 
 Old M. Guillaume Austin of Bruges was gathered to l>e 
 fathers last year, so that all danger from his heirship is happily 
 over. His daughter Gertrude has so many children, that a 
 covert proposal has been made, I understand, to Miss Susan and 
 Giovanr.d to have little Jean restored to them if they wish it. 
 But he \a associated with too many painful recollections to be 
 
 f)lea8ing io Miss Susan, and Giovanna's robust organization has 
 ong ago surmounted that momentary wound of parting. Be- 
 side, is not Whiteladies close by, with little Queenie in the 
 nursery already, and who knows what superior hopes 1 
 
 THE END. 
 
€^~^