LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 BY 
 
 E. V. LUCAS 
 
 fgorfc 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1910 
 
 All right* reserved 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1910, 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 19 10. 
 
 Nortoooo 
 
 J. 8. Cushtng Co. Berwick fe Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 I. In which a self-contained gentleman suddenly 
 
 feels lonely I 
 
 II. In which we enter a circle of friends on the 
 
 banks of a grey river ..... 5 
 
 III. In which we catch sight of matrons in the 
 
 making, and father and daughter meet . . 15 
 
 IV. In which an instructress of youth has qualms . 21 
 V. In which gentlemen's palates are discussed, and 
 
 age wins 29 
 
 VI. In which there is nothing but talk ... 36 
 VII. In which a matter-of-fact young woman steps out 
 
 towards independence 46 
 
 VIII. In which a grandmother asks questions and 
 
 supplies answers 58 
 
 IX. In which we find some ancient remedies, and 
 
 Christie looks back ..... 64 
 X. In which an Irish comforter gets quickly to work 72 
 XI. In which we meet two of Miss Muirhead's clients 80 
 XII. In which we visit the high-priestess of a temple 
 
 of antiquity 85 
 
 XIII. In which various employments for women that 
 
 involve no loss of caste are described . . 92 
 
 XIV. In which a young gentleman's gentlemanly future 
 
 is considered 100 
 
 XV. In which many aspects of the New Terror are 
 
 discussed 105 
 
 WITHDRAW 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAF. PAGE 
 
 XVI. In which Our Lady of Misrule hears the worst 117 
 XVII . In which Ann takes down a letter and a speech 1 22 
 XVIII. In which a citizen of a country with a future 
 
 visits a country with a past . . -133 
 XIX. In which a young gentleman obtains no lack 
 
 of advice . . . . . 142 
 
 XX. In which we are present at the christening of 
 
 the Caprice . . '. . . .149 
 XXI. In which a widower accepts his lot with 
 
 fortitude and dismay . . . .158 
 XXII. In which it seems that old ladies too can be 
 
 Napoleonic 163 
 
 XXIII. In which Alison returns from the East . 171 
 
 XXIV. In which Alison has no chance to relate the 
 
 story of her travels 177 
 
 XXV. In which garrulous sympathy is brought from 
 
 the Seven Sisters Road . . . .183 
 XXVI. In which we find a modern Ulysses and a 
 
 modern Penelope 188 
 
 XXVII. In which an evening is spent among curiosi 
 ties, autographs, and oysters . . .196 
 XXVIII. In which a mighty Social Engine lays bare 
 
 some secrets 206 
 
 XXIX. In which a retired beauty becomes wistful . 215 
 XXX. In which the stars fight for John . . .221 
 XXXI. In which the Caprice carries a happy party 
 
 to a Tudor grange 227 
 
 XXXII. In which John permanently renounces the sex 238 
 
 XXXIII. In which Mr. Bryan Hearne appears, and a 
 
 father is left dubious .... 245 
 
 XXXIV. In which various persons receive the great 
 
 news ..,.,.. 250 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXXV. In which we meet with true Romance . 255 
 XXXVI. In which a lady-love is taken round on 
 
 exhibition 265 
 
 XXXVII. In which old Mrs. Ingleside gives her 
 
 blessing 273 
 
 XXXVIII. In which we become listeners in a Norfolk 
 
 rectory 278 
 
 XXXIX. In which masqueraders prove themselves 
 
 very human 289 
 
 XL. In which aid is forthcoming for a house 
 
 lacking a motto ..... 296 
 XLI. In which a lost voice is heard and we meet 
 
 Mr. and the Misses Thames . . . 303 
 XLII. In which two young people prepare to be 
 
 very happy and what else matters ? . 310 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN WHICH A SELF-CONTAINED GENTLE 
 MAN SUDDENLY FEELS LONELY 
 
 MR. and Mrs. Ingleside had never quarrelled. 
 They had merely drifted apart in a perfectly 
 amicable way, without rancour and without tears. 
 Mr. Ingleside, his married period over, resumed 
 the status of a bachelor, at first in his own house, 
 and later, his wife having acquired a tendency to 
 asthma which made London impossible, in his 
 own rooms in London ; while Mrs. Ingleside, re 
 suming the single state quite as naturally, settled 
 at Bournemouth, which w T as not only good for her 
 breathing, on account of its profusion of pines, 
 but contained also much congenial society, includ 
 ing a Dante Circle. 
 
 Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ingleside was passionately 
 a parent. Mr. Ingleside, when he met his daugh 
 ters, enjoyed their laughing side and did his best 
 to keep them laughing ; Mrs. Ingleside 's interests 
 lying chiefly in literature and problem fiction, as 
 it is called, she languidly studied them from her 
 sofa when the holidays projected them within her 
 field of vision. During these holidays Mr. Ingle- 
 
2 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 side came down from Saturday to Monday and 
 talked pretty ironical talk irony being the refuge 
 of the modern parent who shrinks from responsi 
 bility and an interference with others which he con 
 siders may be unjustifiable. He always brought with 
 him some expensive fruit for Mrs. Ingleside, but it 
 would tax the conscience of the Bournemouth porters 
 to say that the distinguished gentleman with the iron- 
 grey hair took his seat in the London train on Mon 
 day mornings with any other expression than one 
 of complete satisfaction. Alison and Ann accom 
 panied him to the station to keep the ball of chaff 
 in the air till the last possible moment. They then 
 walked back to Mrs. Ingleside's sofa with laggard 
 steps. 
 
 For a week or two in the holidays they stayed 
 with their father in London, in his comfortable 
 rooms at the foot of Buckingham Street, when his 
 friends, all a little out-of-the-way and amusing, 
 rallied to his side to assist in their beguilement and 
 take them to the Zoo and to Maskelyne & De- 
 vant's and the other entertainments for the young. 
 Now and then it happened in the course of these 
 visits that some little trouble would occur a mood 
 of tiredness or such a pain as is only possible when 
 odd and generous gentlemen have the ordering of 
 schoolgirls' luncheons or teas which led to a 
 momentary lifting of the veil of raillery that hung 
 normally between Mr. Ingleside and his daughters, 
 and for an instant they might see mistily eyes that 
 were misty too ; but for the most part he chaffed the 
 week away, and if ever he sighed, sighed in private. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 3 
 
 So it had gone on for some years. In his 
 spare time, of which he had no particular lack, 
 Mr. Ingleside had played with literature, and his 
 translation of Horace, still in progress, was con 
 sidered to be so far as prose could go almost 
 perfect. Mr. Ingleside's life was indeed a very 
 easy one. On leaving his comfortable rooms every 
 morning, at an hour late enough for the world to 
 be warmed, he walked to a hardly less comfortable 
 apartment in one of the huge Government build 
 ings in Whitehall. It may have been the Board of 
 Education ; it may have been the Board of Trade, 
 or even the Treasury : few knew which, and the 
 wags said that Ingleside himself was not certain. 
 Whatever it was, he said nothing about it ; but it 
 was generally understood that he was a permanent 
 official of high standing, and, being already a C.B., 
 was in serious danger, two or three times a year, 
 on the critical days for English gentlemen, of re 
 ceiving a knighthood. 
 
 At the time this chronicle opens Mr. Ingleside 
 was fifty-one, while Mrs. Ingleside was a little his 
 senior. In panic as to her health, which had been 
 steadily declining, Mrs. Ingleside had just started 
 with Alison on a six months' visit to Japan. Ann 
 was still at school. 
 
 Such was the condition of affairs when one 
 morning Mr. Ingleside awoke quite early, with a 
 totally new sense of loneliness which quickly led him 
 to the decision that Ann should at once leave school 
 and come to live with him. She had been at school 
 long enough, he reasoned ; she was a quick girl, and 
 
4 MK. INGLESIDE 
 
 was now ripe to learn far more from life than from 
 instructors, even though they had the highest 
 references and best diplomas. What was far more 
 important, Mr. Ingleside felt, was that he wanted 
 her company. He was not old ; he was not ill ; he 
 was not bored ; but there was a tiny ache in his 
 heart that morning which could be explained by no 
 doctor save a doctor of the mind. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside, being one who was used to having 
 his own way and having it swiftly, sat down before 
 breakfast and wrote two letters. 
 
 "DEAR Miss RIDLEY," ran the first, "I shall 
 have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation 
 to the prize distribution on the lyth, especially as it will 
 be Ann's last, as I have decided that she shall come to 
 live with me here during her sister's absence abroad." 
 
 The other was to Ann herself. 
 
 "DEAR TANSY," wrote her father, "I want you 
 to come and look after your aged parent and get him ready 
 for the silent tomb. If you will do that, I will be equally 
 generous and will come to the French play on the i7th, but 
 only on the further condition that, unless you are acting in it, 
 you will sit by me and translate ; and after that no more 
 school. We will be very comfortable together, by Heaven 
 we will." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IN WHICH WE ENTER A CIRCLE OF 
 FRIENDS ON THE BANKS OF A GREY 
 RIVER 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE was one of those rare men who 
 are as nice in their own homes as they are in 
 other people's if not nicer. In fact, he liked his 
 own home best too well, he used to say, since it 
 made him a bad traveller, and, though a good guest, 
 an unwilling one. It is the uncomfortable men in 
 their own homes that make the best visitors. 
 
 It was for a good reason that he rarely dined out. 
 His pleasure lay so much more in the direction, of 
 informality friendships rather than acquaintance 
 ships that he hesitated to jeopardize it by absent 
 ing himself from his own roof-tree. His rooms were 
 one of the last strongholds of the dropping-in habit ; 
 and how could they continue to be so if their owner 
 continually left them? ."It is more blessed," he 
 would say, "to entertain than to be entertained." 
 And indeed it is well that a few persons should 
 remain to keep alive the old custom of casual even 
 ing visits, or it must die the death. London's self- 
 conscious and scientifically ordered hospitalities 
 menace it nightly. 
 
 It was Mr. Ingleside's feeling for the river, which 
 5 
 
6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 amounted almost to a passion, that had fixed his 
 home in Buckingham Street. If the Thames Con 
 servancy were a body elected only from lyrical 
 enthusiasts, he would have been the chairman. He 
 had waited long for his present rooms, having 
 marked them down years before, and indeed having 
 offered the late tenant a large bribe to vacate them 
 untimely. But no, London's riparians are hard to 
 dislodge : it is a stream which makes for fidelity. 
 Then came Death with the scythe that sooner or 
 later cuts every knot, and the new tenant walked in, 
 turned around three times, so to speak, like a tired 
 dog, and was at home. 
 
 It is probable that had he been able to foresee the 
 chromatic advertisements of Wellingtonia Wine and 
 Shamrock Tea burning their jumpy way through the 
 night, and the establishment of so vast and noisy and 
 tireless a fleet of Dreadnought trams as that which now 
 patrols the north bank of the Thames, he might 
 have made his abode farther west, at Chelsea ; but, 
 having waited for this home, and for a while enjoyed 
 it without these vexations, he would not change now, 
 being sufficiently a Londoner to tolerate, and indeed 
 possibly even to like, a London nuisance after a day 
 or two, and at heart to be pleased to have near at 
 hand objects so suitable for humorous attack and 
 mock indignation. Only a surgical operation, and 
 that a very serious one, can stop a true Londoner's 
 grumbling, or induce him to live anywhere else. 
 
 One of the pictures in the hall was a print of old 
 London Bridge with the massed houses upon it ; and 
 it is there that Mr. Ingleside would assuredly have 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 7 
 
 lived had he been a medieval. But of course, as he 
 often said, the Thames of that day had none of the 
 fascination of the Thames as we know it now. It 
 needed the arts of sophistication to bring out its 
 deepest subtleties just as a woman does. The 
 Thames must have been beautiful always ; but there 
 is a beauty of the wild and a beauty of the city ; and 
 it is the beauty of a city river and a city of human 
 energy that the Thames so exquisitely has. The 
 colour that it borrows from the sky is less wonderful 
 than that which it gains in conflict with the glow of 
 gas and electricity. Its sunsets must be thickened 
 and engloomed by factory smoke ere they can tinge 
 it with the hues we know. Only thus it becomes our 
 stream of mystery. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside's bedroom windows gave upon the 
 Embankment, and he knew every aspect of the river's 
 genius from its mists at dawn and its gold at sun 
 rise, throughout the busy day of tugs and barges, 
 to the brilliant blackness ofrits night. 
 
 It was Mr. Ingleside's old-fashioned rule to keep 
 open house every Friday evening. His friends were 
 welcome at all times, but on Fridays they not only 
 might themselves drop in, but bring with them 
 anyone they liked. They began to arrive at about 
 nine and left between twelve and one. 
 
 Chief among the more constant visitors was 
 Dr. Staminer. Dr. Staminer was now an elderly 
 man ; he had come, as he himself put it, to a point 
 of life when one turns first to the death column of 
 the Times: to see who has gone being more impor 
 tant than to see what has happened. He had given 
 
8 ME. INGLESIDE 
 
 up his practice for some years, and no longer was 
 willing even to be consulted. His hobby was col 
 lecting, and his house in Gower Street was a museum 
 rather than a home. Everything that was curious 
 had an appeal for the doctor, whose sense of beauty 
 was poor. Hence he had no pictures but odd ones : 
 that head of Christ engraved in one spiral line would 
 be more to him than the sweet and exquisite nor 
 mality of a Filippino Lippi. His lumber, however, 
 included one or two signboards attributed to David 
 Cox, Morland, and even Hogarth, which took their 
 place quite naturally among Fiji weapons, Chinese 
 instruments of torture, violins, Maundy money, 
 Toby jugs, and animals carved in cornelian. 
 
 But his real distinction as a collector lay in his 
 autographs, of which he had such an extraordinary 
 assemblage that there was hardly a historian or 
 biographer in England or Europe but had sought 
 access to it in the course of his labours. Dr. Stam- 
 iner usually gave permission ; but there were certain 
 of his treasures that no one was allowed to copy. 
 
 "Very immoral and curmudgeonly," Mr. Ingle- 
 side used to call it. " How dare you keep back good 
 letters like that?" (the doctor even had a few of 
 Lamb's). "They belong to the world, not to you." 
 
 But the doctor used only to laugh. "What's 
 mine I'll hold," he replied. "The world has made it 
 possible for me to acquire them ; and the world 
 therefore must wait." But it was always under 
 stood that the doctor intended to publish his best 
 autographs himself, when the hour struck. Mean 
 while, he continued to buy more, and was as well 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 9 
 
 known at Sotheby's as the late Mr. Salting at 
 Christie's. And he had the pleasant habit of 
 bringing a new treasure to Mr. Ingleside's rooms, 
 that his little circle of friends at any rate might 
 enjoy it too. 
 
 Perhaps the most serious member of the circle was 
 Richard Oast, M.P., one of the quieter and more 
 thoughtful members of the Labour party. Mr. 
 Ingleside had met him officially, and they had 
 become friends although both were then nearly 
 fifty, an age when new friends become very difficult 
 of acquisition. Disciples, yes, and flatterers ; but 
 not friends. Richard Oast was a widower and a 
 lonely one, and he needed society, while he had now 
 come to a time of life when he could afford at last 
 to be a little easy and restful. His business he was 
 a boat builder on the Thames had done well, and he 
 was in fact in a position to go into Parliament as a 
 member of the idle class had he wished to ; but 
 he preferred to throw in his lot with the Labour 
 men, although many of them were too extreme for 
 his entire approval. He was a type, with (like all 
 types) certain modifications. Thus, he had the 
 ordinary practical agnosticism of the Socialist, but it 
 was softened by an uncommon gentleness, a touch 
 of regret for having to side against so many worthy 
 and simple people. His attitude was singularly 
 aloof for a Labour member. He seemed indeed to 
 hover a little above the ground which other people 
 trod, raised to that position not by any spiritual or 
 unearthly force, but by the sheer impartiality of the 
 interested observer and the detachment of disil- 
 
io MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 lusionment. From this altitude he could see the 
 right and wrong of every party, his own included. 
 Such men never become prime ministers and rarely 
 under-secretaries ; but they are desirable companions. 
 
 "I'm tired of adjectives," he said one evening, 
 during a discussion in which Leslie had been dis 
 tributing condemnatory epigrams with more than 
 his usual freedom. "They are all right when you're 
 young ; young people can use them with confidence, 
 and little people require their aid all the time ; but 
 I'm tired of them. 'Good' and 'bad' I've partic 
 ularly done with. I have known for a long while 
 now that there are no good men and no bad men. 
 There are just men ; that is to say, human creatures 
 built up of strengths and weaknesses, contradictions 
 and tendencies. 'Good' and 'bad' adjectives 
 made by Society for its own protection. The 
 moment a man says, ' I am good,' he is in touch with 
 badness ; the moment a man says, 'I am bad,' he is 
 in danger of becoming better." 
 
 His Socialism was marked by no anger against the 
 rich. He knew that reforms could not come in a 
 moment, and that particularly in England sudden 
 revolutions were impossible ; but he knew also that 
 the people were going to win. "Of course Socialism 
 must come," he said. "You can see it drawing 
 nearer as clearly as you can see, in the small hours, 
 the approach of day. Socialism never had so power 
 ful an ally as the motor-car. The motor-car is the 
 most brutally vivid symbol of the callousness, the 
 oppressiveness, and the luxury of the rich that was 
 ever devised ; and every new motor-car that is put 
 
MR. INGLESIDE u 
 
 on the road is another nail in the coffin of 
 Plutocracy. " 
 
 "But doesn't history show us," said Dr. Staminer, 
 "that the poor like to be bullied a little by the rich ; 
 that they admire wealth much more than they envy 
 it?" 
 
 "History may show that," said Oast, "but history 
 also shows that new ideas make for change. Ideas 
 are getting spread about the world that must be 
 causing a panic in all feudal strongholds where there 
 is a grain of observation or thought. Look at the 
 relations between master and man to-day as an 
 example of the rhan^e. To-day it is not the men 
 who fear they are going to be sacked, it is the masters 
 who fear they may receive notice. That is symp 
 tomatic, isn't it ? A very good straw to tell the wind 
 by. 
 
 "We here, in the South," he went on, "have no 
 real chance to watch the change. The South is too 
 fond of its feudal chains ; our hands rise so naturally 
 to our forelocks. Everything in the South by 
 which particularly I mean London and Surrey and 
 Kent and Sussex is retrogressive : there is no 
 spirit of revolt. Even Kent's back has acquired a 
 hinge Kent that produced John Ball and Jack Cade. 
 You have only to look at the railways we put up 
 with the monopolies we endure to recognize that. 
 But the North that is where the furnace is being 
 heated for the melting of the fetters. All my holi 
 days are spent in the North." 
 
 Henry Thrace, like his host, was a Government 
 official. He was between fifty and sixty, one of 
 
12 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 those simple, quiet, and generous bachelors who 
 always eat their Sunday dinner in the same friend's 
 house and remember birthdays. " Every inch an 
 uncle" might be cut on their tombstones. Mr. 
 Thrace himself said little, but he had a chuckling 
 appreciation of the humour of others which made 
 him a perfect listener. 
 
 Vycount Ramer was a detached bachelor artist 
 whom every one liked. He drifted affectionately 
 through life and managed to make just as much of 
 an income as he needed. His favourite sketching- 
 ground was Sussex. Upon his odd first name he 
 was very amusing. " Change it?" he would say; 
 " certainly not. It may be equivocal, but I don't 
 mind that, if you don't. And after all, my father 
 gave it me : I did not assume it, like the Sangers. 
 For it is a perpetual joy to me. It procures me 
 until it is written every kind of homage and atten 
 tion. Only this morning, for example, I wanted 
 some dress boots. I went to a shop in R.egent Street, 
 where I was by no means well treated. The assis 
 tants gave me a glance, decided I was of no impor 
 tance, and did their best to persuade me that boots 
 that didn't fit fitted. I gave them some trouble in 
 return, and they were heartily sick of me and hardly 
 concealed their feelings. Very well ; it is then that 
 my innings really begins. ' Where shall we send 
 them? What name?' the man asked. 'Vycount 
 Ramer/ I said. An electric wave ran through the 
 shop. The manager emerged from a little glass 
 cubicle in which, since I was so negligible, he had 
 been joking with the cash girl, and began to bend 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 13 
 
 his back and rub his hands. He suddenly discovered 
 that it was fine weather, and said so. I let the place 
 get into a perfect quagmire of toadyism, and then I 
 asked for a pen to write the address. I wrote : 
 'Mr. Vycount Ramer, 4 Peel Studios, Kensington,' 
 and left as the bitter realization had them in its 
 
 grip." 
 
 These were the older men. Chief among the 
 younger were Jack Christie and Sanders Leslie. 
 Christie was one of the sub-editors of an evening 
 paper. The paper being Conservative, he was of 
 course a Radical, if not actually a Republican, and 
 in private life he was Richard Oast's very fervent 
 admirer. Every man is something of a specialist in 
 one line or other, and Christie in his hours of leisure 
 hunted for water colours of the early school and dis 
 covered cheap foreign restaurants. It was practi 
 cally impossible to meet him without (a) being 
 shown a faint and faded sketch almost certain to be 
 a Girtin, and (b) being adjured to try a new eighteen- 
 penny table d'hote. For Christie had none of the 
 ordinary man's selfishness in such matters. He 
 liked to share his pleasures. 
 
 Soho was full of his little paradises, and every 
 week he had added another to his list. His favour 
 ite was of course "Au Grand Pauvre," because the 
 pretty waitresses were there and the adroit patronne 
 had skilfully led him to believe that he was of all her 
 regular customers the very flower and gem. What is 
 the use of being a comfortable French commercial 
 matron if you don't do that? His French was 
 never a very strong point, but he was scrupulous to 
 
i 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 employ it in these little encounters. Downstairs, 
 however, he adhered to English as indeed most of 
 the male customers do, leaving French to that sex 
 which automatically acquires it. The success of 
 many honeymoons and perhaps a few marriages has 
 been due to the excellent rule which sees that the 
 daughters of England are not wholly imbecile on 
 continental railway platforms. 
 
 Leslie was a young architect and decorator to 
 whom rich people who bought old houses resorted in 
 their perplexity. He found bare walls and left them 
 blossoming like the rose. He was accustomed to 
 hear that it absolutely must be done for two hundred 
 pounds, and equally accustomed to sending in his 
 account for five hundred and getting it paid. On his 
 off days he scoured the country for Chippendale and 
 old oak ; but himself lived in a residential club 
 furnished by Maple. It gave him no pain to acquire 
 beautiful things for other people. He enjoyed his 
 life thoroughly ; his only melancholy thought was 
 embodied in the sombre Spanish proverb which 
 comes home with force to all architects : "The house 
 is finished, and death enters." 
 
 At the time this chronicle opens, Leslie, who had a 
 poetical turn too, was preparing to be very busy as 
 pageant master in Norfolk. 
 
 Dr. Staminer and Richard Oast were widowers. 
 The others were like Sir John Dunfern in the immor 
 tal story: "they never yet had entertained the 
 thought of yielding up their bacheloric ideas to sup- 
 place them with others which eventually should 
 coincide with those of a different sex." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN WHICH WE CATCH SIGHT OF MATRONS 
 IN THE MAKING, AND FATHER AND 
 DAUGHTER MEET 
 
 IT was a great day at Millais House, for the 
 prizes were to be given away by the Bishop, 
 and relations and friends were to be present . Excite 
 ment naturally ruled, mingled, here and there, with a 
 little misgiving among certain of the girls by no 
 means unfilial at heart as to the presentability of 
 their parents ; while positive dismay overtook one 
 or two whose stories of home splendour had been a 
 little too reckless. Mabel Strangeways, for example, 
 having built a very splendid edifice of luxury, com 
 prising a hunter of her very own, on the generosity 
 and hospitality of a rich aunt, was feeling consider 
 able disquietude as the time drew near for the public 
 display of Lieut.-Col. Strangeways' too carefully 
 tended tall hat and Mrs. Strangeways' eight-and- 
 elevenpenny boots. Among the other girls who for 
 different reasons were hardly less delighted at the 
 prospect of this parade of progenitors was Sybil 
 Aylward, who, always destructive and advanced, 
 with the courage to express most of her thoughts, 
 went so far as to call it indecent. 
 
 There remained, however, as there always will, no 
 matter how the flag of progress may flap, a solid old- 
 
 15 
 
16 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 fashioned simple majority, whose hearts had borrowed 
 fire from the domestic hearth and had lovingly 
 guarded the flame, to whom the thought of the near 
 ness of their father and mother brought nothing but 
 a throbbing happiness that was almost more than 
 they could bear. These were for the most part 
 members of large families, accustomed to all the 
 usual frank jollity and give-and-take of nursery and 
 playroom life, having minds automatically prepared 
 by such conditions for that tolerance, that instinct 
 of honest civic compromise, which used to be the most 
 valuable possession of the best Englishwomen : that 
 mental frame which, finding it so natural that boys 
 should show unreasonableness and temper, superiority 
 and tyranny, continues to expect the same of men, 
 without any corresponding distaste for them. 
 
 Ann awaited Mr. Ingleside's arrival with a beating 
 heart ; for although he had never been demonstrative 
 with her or her sister, and indeed had not disguised 
 the fact that he managed very comfortably without 
 them, her feeling for him was warm and deep, and as 
 she thought of him now, after making his letter her 
 own, not a little protective. Like most girls, she was 
 already in character something of a mother, and the 
 sudden invitation to share the life in Buckingham 
 Street had quickened the maternal instinct ; so that 
 she had already framed a considerable list of guardian 
 duties, and was very happy in the anticipation of 
 exchanging the gloss of Messrs. Aldis Wright and 
 J. W. Clark upon Cordelia's simple devotion and 
 Lear's outbursts of bewilderment and rage (the task 
 of the Literature Class for the past three months) 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 17 
 
 for such practical filialities as sending her father to 
 the barber at the right time, tying his white tie, and 
 having his slippers before the fire on wet days. 
 
 A tall fair girl ran her arm round Ann's waist as 
 she stood by the window waiting for the first sign of 
 the guests. 
 
 "Will he come, do you think?" she asked. 
 
 "He said he would, and so of course he will, poor 
 dear," said Ann. "But he'll hate it. He's such an 
 awful funk." 
 
 "How will he come, do you think?" 
 
 " Well, they'll all ride in cabs, and he'll either shoot 
 right out of the station and get here first, or hang 
 about and get here last." 
 
 "But that's much more noticeable than getting 
 mixed up with the cab-loads," said Kathleen. 
 
 "Of course it is. In trying to avoid notice he's 
 always really attracting it ; but it doesn't matter, 
 if that's his way. Besides, he hates talking, and 
 there'll be such a lot in the cabs." 
 
 Other girls had meanwhile joined them, and now a 
 solid little group of fairly caustic observers as in the 
 mass all English spectators seem to be filled the 
 window's bow, prepared for the most part to do their 
 worst with the visitors' costumes. 
 
 "Look," said Muriel Vansittart, "there's the first 
 carriage, and I say, what awful cheek ! If old 
 Podmore hasn't put my dear 'General 'in to harness ! " 
 
 "That's not 'General,' " said another, scornfully. 
 
 "Not 'General' !" replied Miss Vansittart. 
 "Perhaps you'll allow me to know my own rocking- 
 horse. It's the only white one Podmore's got. With 
 
i8 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 all this crowd coming, no wonder he's had to be 
 used." 
 
 " ' Extras. Riding lessons with competent mas 
 ters, four guineas/ " quoted Miss Aylward. " I think 
 your father ought to have a discount after this, 
 especially as there's every sign that the competent 
 master is now driving the second cab." 
 
 " So he is," cried the others. "Oh, what a shame ! 
 The darling 'Consul' ! " (The riding-master was 
 called alternately "Consul" and "Almost Human" ; 
 but not, I need hardly say, to his honest if homely 
 face. When addressed thus openly he was Mr. 
 Judd.) 
 
 "I say," exclaimed Miss Charteris, "isn't that the 
 Bishop's hat? I'm sure I can see its rigging." 
 
 "Yes, yes, it's the Bishop. 'Here beginneth the 
 first lesson,' " said Miss Aylward. 
 
 "Oh, Sybil, don't be so naughty," said little 
 Winifred Heather. 
 
 "He has beautiful legs," said Sybil, as the Bishop 
 descended and helped out his companions, all ladies. 
 "Almost they persuade me to be a Christian. What 
 a lot the great Nonconformist preachers lose by not 
 showing theirs. All they do is to put belladonna in 
 their eyes." 
 
 "Sybil, dear, I can't stand it," said Winifred, quite 
 tearfully. "You talk so dreadfully." 
 
 "Well, I'll be proper," said Sybil, "but I suppose 
 the good God made my wicked tongue as well as 
 your pious ears. There's mother in the next cab. 
 What has she got on ? Why won't fat women learn 
 that stripes are the only thing ? Oh, Ann darling, 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 19 
 
 do you think I'm going to be like that ? Girls don't 
 always grow like their mothers, do they ? I'll never 
 have a proposal if we're seen together. Good-bye. 
 I'm going to tie her bonnet on straight anyway, and 
 try and find her another coloured ribbon." 
 
 The rest of the girls remained in the bow window 
 and continued to note and criticize the arrivals, the 
 party diminishing one by one as relatives were 
 sighted. When the last carriage had disburdened 
 itself, Ann was left alone ; but she did not despair, 
 and was soon rewarded by the sight of a grey hat 
 appearing over the hill, at which she sprang down 
 the stairs and out of the house. 
 
 The tall, fragile-looking man with iron-grey hair 
 stopped as he saw her, overcome by the beautiful ur 
 gency of her approach. She ran swiftly and eagerly 
 as a girl in an unsophisticated age would have run to 
 meet her lover, her face glad with welcome. "And 
 this is my daughter ! " he thought as she approached. 
 "Mine. To think she should be so glad to see me ! 
 And at seventeen too !" The realization made him 
 happy even if it were only an impulse on the girl's 
 part. 
 
 He held her from him and looked at her thought 
 fully and with secret pride. 
 
 "How well you look!" he said. "And you've 
 grown, too ! Why do you grow so, Tansy?" he 
 added with humorous petulance. "This cursed 
 growth ! Why has everybody got to grow ? Why 
 can't you be as you were ? I can't ever wear you on 
 my watch-chain any more." 
 
 "No," she said, "and you mustn't say ' cursed' 
 
20 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 any more, either at least not here. There's a 
 Bishop on the premises somewhere." 
 
 " Surely," said he. "I know. The Right Rever 
 end Philip Burmerleigh, Bishop of Ilchester. Aren't 
 we bosom friends ? Didn't we ride from London to 
 gether and agree about the respective merits of 
 Pontet Canet and Brane Cantenac ? A very sound 
 man in the cellar and I dare say that a sound 
 man in the cellar is a sound man out of it. I hope 
 so." 
 
 "He's going to give away the prizes," said Ann. 
 
 "He'll give you yours beautifully," said her father. 
 "He overflows with milk, honey, and the best advice 
 that money can buy. But tell me what I'm to do. 
 Where shall I sit ? I would like, as I said, to sit by 
 you, but the prize spoils it all : you'll be bathed in 
 limelight, and I shall be included in its beams as the 
 author of the prodigy. That's too appalling. Is 
 there no means of being a perfect stranger and not 
 talking to Miss Ridley?" 
 
 "Oh, no," said Ann. "You must be good to-day. 
 It will soon be over. You must be quite good and 
 ordinary, just like a girl's parent and not at all like 
 the interesting and spoilt Mr. Ingleside. It won't 
 do you any harm." 
 
 " My dear Ann, you're becoming a bully. I with 
 draw my invitation to you ; I shall continue to live 
 all alone." 
 
 "And afterwards, as a reward," Ann continued, 
 "I will let you listen to Sybil Aylward, who is really 
 much more suited to be your daughter than I am. 
 But now you must be polite to Miss Ridley." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN WHICH AN INSTRUCTRESS OF YOUTH 
 HAS QUALMS 
 
 THE firm of educational agents in Bury Street 
 who had Miss Ridley's establishment on their 
 books always made a point of telling their clients 
 that she was exceedingly well-connected. The 
 phrase as a rule involves a distant title and a fairly 
 contiguous church dignitary or M.P. In the case of 
 Miss Ridley it meant that her grandfather had been 
 Dean of Bevan, and that her younger sister had 
 married an officer and gentleman who took a leading 
 part every year in the organization of the Military 
 Tournament. 
 
 Miss Ridley was forty-six. She was tall and 
 aquiline, a perfect example of that type of cultured 
 woman whom men do not marry ; and also a perfect 
 example of that type of cultured woman who never 
 repines because she has not been asked in marriage. 
 Miss Ridley had her own life to lead, and was happier 
 in training the daughters of gentlemen to take their 
 place in society quietly and efficiently than she could 
 ever have been as any one man's helpmate. Men, 
 assisted no doubt by the humour of literature and 
 the stage, are too apt to fall into the mistake of be- 
 
 21 
 
22 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 lieving that every unmarried woman is pining away 
 in disappointment or chagrin. It is a state of error 
 that is probably not on the increase. 
 
 Miss Ridley was a good and sensible woman who 
 had come through the perils of her autocracy more 
 satisfactorily than many of her fellow school 
 mistresses and most of her fellow school-masters. 
 To escape injury altogether seems to be an impossi 
 bility ; but Miss Ridley remained, if not humble, at 
 any rate human, and although (thank Heaven !) 
 she had her foibles, they were very harmless. One 
 of her little weaknesses was the persuasion that she 
 understood exactly how all the parents of her girls 
 liked to be treated, causing her to make subtle 
 modifications for each, often quite mistakenly and 
 very amusing to spectators on such a day as this, 
 when it was possible to be the observer and auditor 
 of half a dozen of her Protean efforts in as many min 
 utes. Not that Miss Ridley was insincere : far 
 from it ; she merely made a fetish of tact, and fancied 
 her efforts in that direction too fondly. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside's humorous mouth and slightly 
 ironical cast of expression called up in Miss Ridley 
 instantly a mood of worldly wisdom tinged with 
 raillery. But her native good sense was too much 
 for her when it came to discussing his daughter. 
 
 " Dear Ann ! " she said. " We shall all be so sorry 
 to lose her. You bereave us so steadily, Mr. Ingle- 
 side. We are still mourning for Alison, you know. 
 Dear Alison ! She has so much feeling, so much 
 sympathy, I am troubled for her in the rough air of 
 life." 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 23 
 
 "But surely, Miss Ridley, that is where feeling and 
 sympathy are wanted ; and Alison is giving both 
 where they are at this moment particularly needed 
 
 to her mother." 
 
 "True, of course, poor Mrs. Ingleside ! but 
 when one loves anyone as we all loved Alison 
 
 one wants to preserve her from disillusion and 
 suffering. To love is to wish to shelter." 
 
 "Ah yes, it is indeed," said Mr. Ingleside ; "and I 
 too share it. That is largely why I am going to take 
 Ann. It is all arranged. She is to have this year 
 with me. After that she might go abroad and learn 
 some more if it seemed the right thing." 
 
 "Surely there can be no question . . .?" Miss 
 Ridley exclaimed, all her finishing instincts roused. 
 
 "From one point of view, none," Mr. Ingleside 
 said. "But what of me? Suppose that I find that 
 I want her, as I find that I want her now ? There 
 is too much talk about sacrifice for children, Miss 
 Ridley. I have surrendered my girls to their in 
 structors too long. Here's Alison gone to the East 
 for Heaven knows how long, with all kinds of love 
 sick exiles only too ready to propose to her. And 
 in a year or so some young scoundrel will be mak 
 ing Ann fall in love with him, and then both will 
 have gone altogether. Where do I come in? 
 Other parents may like this kind of life, but not I. 
 No ; I consider that I have toiled long enough for 
 my Rachel, and we are now going to make our 
 home together." 
 
 "But, Mr. Ingleside," said Miss Ridley, "I see all 
 that ; I see your point of view perfectly ; but there 
 
24 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 is Ann's too. Think of what a child she is : only 
 seventeen/' 
 
 "She is grown up," said Mr. Ingleside. "Lots 
 of boys are never men, but all girls are women, and a 
 girl of seventeen is almost old. It is time she saw 
 life. She is coming home with me now, to get to 
 know me, and let me get to know her, and to meet 
 my friends." 
 
 Miss Ridley said nothing for a moment. 
 
 "I know what you are thinking," said Mr. Ingle- 
 side, smiling. "Confess it: you are thinking that 
 it is quite a question whether I am a fit companion 
 for Ann at all?" 
 
 Miss Ridley laughed. "Oh no," she said. "Not 
 that." 
 
 "Then my friends . . . ? Ah, Miss Ridley, make 
 no mistake. Ann will be in very excellent hands. 
 Ann is to be envied ..." 
 
 Miss Ridley sighed. In her heart she knew it, and 
 she was not alone among school-mistresses in envy 
 ing a departing pupil. For her, the task of continu 
 ally preparing the young for life and bidding farewell 
 to them on the threshold of that fascinating mansion ; 
 for her, the brief one-sided affection for these young 
 things, doomed ever to be cut short just as it might 
 develop into a mutual feeling. She was like the 
 shipbuilder who has never himself put out to sea. 
 
 Miss Ridley did not encourage this vein. She 
 became practical in self-defence. "Her languages," 
 she said, "are not at all good ; her music is sadly 
 deficient." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside brushed aside these objections. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 25 
 
 "I will see to it," he said, "that her French and 
 German do not suffer. She shall have the run of my 
 books." 
 
 "Books!" exclaimed Miss Ridley. "You will 
 choose them for her, I trust. Such dreadful licence 
 across the Channel. . . . That thin yellow paper. 
 . . . . Dear Ann . . ." 
 
 "I will be very careful," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 "Hector Malot. Georges Ohnet. Pierre le Coule- 
 vain. She shall be kept English. She shall never 
 bring discredit on Millais House." 
 
 "And the music?" Miss Ridley asked, with new 
 anxiety. 
 
 "You would not have her kept wholly to English 
 composers, I hope?" said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Of course not," Miss Ridley replied. "That 
 would be too stunting." 
 
 "And yet," said Mr. Ingleside, "that dreadful 
 Continent ! Is its literature alone representative ? 
 Does nothing characteristic creep into its music?" 
 
 "I don'tthink I understand, "Miss Ridley faltered. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," said Mr. Ingleside. "Only 
 one is a little amused sometimes to contrast the riot 
 of emotionalism permitted to our daughters on the 
 piano with the scrupulous bloodlessness of the books 
 we pick for them." 
 
 "I must confess," said Miss Ridley, "I had never 
 thought of that ; but I will do so in future. Every 
 piece shall be played to me by Herr Griiber before it 
 is given out. I shall then be able to detect any 
 too emotional tendency. His touch is wonderful. 
 Thank you, Mr. Ingleside. Quite a new idea." 
 
26 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Miss Ridley's conscience still troubled her. There 
 was about Mr. Ingleside an air of intellectual ease, 
 if not carelessness, a suggestion of smiling fatalism 
 that in any ordinary man would of course be wholly 
 reprehensible, but in the author of the best trans 
 lation of Horace was fitting enough : yet was such 
 a man the best guardian for a girl like Ann ? Miss 
 Ridley had in her favourite pupils much of the pride 
 of the artist : they were largely her own creation. 
 For the most part they were entering the ordinary 
 life of the well-to-do girl between school and mar 
 riage ; but Ann was different. Ann was going to 
 live with this humorous semi-Bohemian gentleman 
 free from all the restrictions and watchfulness that 
 should surround the jeune fille. Miss Ridley's 
 solicitude prompted her to protest a little more. 
 "Mr. Ingleside," she said, "about this question . . . 
 so prominent just now . . . this, ah, suffrage for 
 women . . . have you any very strong views?" 
 
 "What line do you take here?" Mr. Ingleside 
 asked in reply. 
 
 "Here, I am sorry to say, we are divided," said 
 Miss Ridley. "I personally regret the movement, 
 and yet of course I cannot help seeing that when 
 women earn their own living, and are interested in 
 social and political questions, they have a right to 
 representation. My rates, you know . . . extremely 
 heavy. Quite seventy pounds. . . . And it is of 
 course on the face of it illogical to give women local 
 representation and deny them central representa 
 tion. . . . After all, Parliament, you know, is only 
 a Town Council on a larger scale. And yet ... I 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 27 
 
 do not see myself sitting on doorsteps all night to 
 wait for a too stubborn statesman ... so unmaid- 
 enly, so so unhygienic. . . . Cold stones, you 
 know . . ." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside acquiesced. 
 
 "Nor do I care for the idea of women march 
 ing among crowds . . . militant women. . . . The 
 sphere of a woman is, I think, the home. . . . She 
 should radiate influence. ... All my teaching has 
 been to this effect, and my girls have done extremely 
 well, some of them. . . . Muriel Grandforth, who 
 married the South Pole explorer only the other day, 
 was here, you know. . . . And yet I should find it 
 very hard to condemn an earnest woman Poor 
 Law Guardian, for example, for wishing to have a 
 vote. . . . But you have not told me your opinion, 
 Mr. Ingleside." 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Ingleside, "I am rather of yours. 
 I like the old-fashioned women best, but I have every 
 sympathy with the new kind, when they really mean 
 it and don't throw stones." 
 
 "And Ann?" Miss Ridley inquired anxiously. 
 
 "Ann shall make up her mind for herself," said 
 Mr. Ingleside ; "but whatever she does, I shall 
 stand by her." 
 
 Miss Ridley sighed. "London . . ." she mur 
 mured. 
 
 Slowly the afternoon wore on. First came a 
 performance in perfect French perfect in that the 
 members of the audience were given time to under 
 stand it, which is the great lack in France of Les 
 Femmes Precieuses, as prepared for school use. 
 
28 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Then a pianoforte solo by Miss Sadie Macdonald, a 
 little dark-haired, olive-skinned Jewess, and a few 
 songs and recitations ; and lastly the distribution of 
 rewards by the Right Reverend, who was jocular and 
 earnest by turns, and always paternal and bland. 
 Mr. Ingleside smiled queerly as the Bishop pro 
 nounced his fruity benediction and wished for all the 
 girls a long and helpful life. He glanced along the 
 rows of happy and excited young creatures. How 
 would time and society deal with them, he wondered. 
 For how many would their poor little bodies prove 
 too much bodies made so carefully and consciously 
 by the Bishop's awful Ally and Employer. And 
 some would die young, and one or two might be 
 mothers of notable men, but most would merely 
 increase the suburban census. Well ! 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IN WHICH GENTLEMEN'S PALATES ARE 
 DISCUSSED, AND AGE WINS 
 
 ANN had never lived in the Buckingham Street 
 house ; she had spent part of her holidays 
 there and no more. But now she was not only to 
 live there, but to be its mistress and hostess. 
 Mistress at least in name, for of course it was not to 
 be expected that Mrs. Boody, after all these years of 
 management, would allow a chit of a girl anything 
 more than an illusion of control. 
 
 Mrs. Boody made her position secure at once, like 
 a sensible woman. "And now, my dear," she said 
 to Ann on the morning after her return, "you'll be 
 wanting to take the thing into your own hands. Of 
 course you will. Well, your pa likes his dinner 
 at quarter to eight ; what will you be giving him ?" 
 
 Ann had the feeling of being against a brick wall. 
 "What about beef?" she asked. 
 
 "Your pa doesn't like beef," said Mrs. Boody. 
 
 Ann saw light through the bricks ; it came through 
 the old, old loophole. "Mutton," she suggested 
 hopefully. 
 
 "Your pa had mutton last evening; don't you 
 remember?" said Mrs. Boody. 
 
 The brick wall turned to iron. 
 29 
 
30 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Is there anything else ?" Ann asked. "Oh yes, 
 of course, veal." 
 
 "Your pa can't touch it," said Mrs. Boody. "He 
 knows how it's prepared ; though to my mind to 
 object to one kind of meat on account of cruelty and 
 eating the others is like straining at a camel and 
 swallowing a needle. Years ago before I met 
 Boody I once kept company with a young man 
 who worked in a slaughter-house. I know." 
 
 Ann shuddered, and Mrs. Boody turned to matters 
 less sanguinary. 
 
 "There's two kinds of clever gentlemen," she said 
 "those that will eat everything on their plates as 
 quickly as possible, so as to be done with it ; and 
 those that are particular. Your pa's one of the par 
 ticular ones. If he doesn't like a thing, he won't 
 consider it for a moment. No, my dear, to-day's 
 duckling day." 
 
 "Oh, of course : ducks," said Ann, "and chickens. 
 How silly of me ! And where do you get them?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "There's a nice shop in Jermyn Street," said Mrs. 
 Boody. "And the fishmonger's there too. What 
 about fish?" 
 
 "Are there many kinds of fish?" asked Ann, 
 thinking of Miss Ridley's brief repertory. "At 
 school we always had plaice or cod." 
 
 "Don't get either of those for your pa, I beg of 
 you," said Mrs. Boody. "Duckling being rich, what 
 I should have got him for to-day would be a sole. 
 Not a lemon sole, mind, but a real sole. Fried 
 perfectly plain. He's a terror about fish, your pa is. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 31 
 
 And, I implore you, never a whiting. Salmon he 
 likes and turbot. I've known him not turn at hali 
 but and hake. But don't offer him whiting or cod. 
 When in doubt, a sole." 
 
 The thought crossed Ann's mind that Mrs. Boody 
 had entirely forgotten that Mr. Ingleside would no 
 longer be alone. If not precisely true, this was true 
 enough. Mrs. Boody was one of those excellent 
 women who were born to feed men, to think little 
 of women's needs, and to pick up their own suste 
 nance as they might, rarely in circumstances of com 
 fort. May they continue strong enough to resist 
 the new movement ! 
 
 Ann sighed. ' ' There's still the pudding, ' ' she said. 
 
 "Not yet," said Mrs. Boody. "Let's take them 
 in order. We've been wrong once : with the fish, 
 you know. We didn't get to that till after the meat, 
 you remember : all wrong, my dear, all wrong. 
 Before we come to the sweet there's the veg." 
 
 " Veg. ? " 
 
 "Vegetables, my dear. Veg. they're called for 
 short in the kitchen, although for that matter the 
 full word doesn't take so very much time." 
 
 "I'd forgotten them," said Ann. "But they're 
 not so difficult, are they ? Potatoes, of course, and 
 something green." 
 
 "Ah yes, my dear," said Mrs. Boody. "Potatoes. 
 Right. But how done?" She looked arch and 
 questioning. 
 
 Ann sank in a chair in desperation. Miss Ridley's 
 idea of a cooked potato was a boiled potato. But of 
 course this gourmet father of hers, this new and ex- 
 
32 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 acting creature of whom she had never really thought 
 before, this Lucullus of Buckingham Street, would 
 want fancy tricks. "What do you think?' 7 she 
 asked weakly. "How many ways are there of doing 
 potatoes?" 
 
 "There's boiling, peeled, and boiling in their 
 jackets," said Mrs. Boody, checking them on her fat 
 fingers. "There's fried in slices, and fried in strips. 
 There's saute and there's mashed. There's ..." 
 
 "I like them mashed," said Ann. 
 
 "Not for your pa," said Mrs. Boody, "and not 
 with duckling anyway. With cold beef, yes ; but 
 not with duckling. Small new with duckling, and 
 green peas." 
 
 " But how do you know such things ? " Ann asked. 
 
 Mrs. Boody smiled the superior smile of the initi 
 ated. "Well, my dear," she replied, "it's partly 
 training as a cook, and it's partly observation. 
 Training as a cook I don't mean just Mrs. Beeton 
 and that sort of thing, but what you pick up here 
 and there training as a cook tells you that potatoes 
 should be fried with one kind of meat, boiled with 
 another, and so on. But that's only half the battle 
 with a gentleman like your pa. Your pa can be 
 learned only by being studied, and studied, I may 
 say, for years. I know him, and I'll tell you for 
 why. Because I've been his housekeeper so long, 
 and I've used my eyes and my head. Nothing but 
 experience, my dear, could do it." 
 
 Ann sighed a deep sigh. "Not much chance for 
 me," it said. But she still persevered. "The 
 pudding?" she asked. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 33 
 
 "Ah yes," said Mrs. Boody, sighing too, "the 
 pudding ! And that's where we find the real trouble. 
 Your pa's a heart-breaker over sweets. We get him 
 the most beautiful things you ever dreamed of, and 
 he reads a book till they're cold, and then says he 
 doesn't like them. If I were a strong character, I 
 wouldn't give him sweets at all ; but then I'm so 
 weak. I can't bear to think of him not having the 
 chance at a souffle or some thing nice if he were minded 
 to. Because you know when he dines out he eats 
 sweets right enough and likes them, and I can't bear 
 to think of his saying in some other house, ' Why, do 
 you have sweets ? How lucky you are ! ' because 
 that's just what he would do. He says all that comes 
 into his head so different from you and me, my 
 dear. And then what sort of opinion would they 
 have of me as a housekeeper?" 
 
 "And you have to think out these dreadful meals 
 every day, Mrs. Boody?" Ann exclaimed. "How 
 terrible ! And how frightfully clever of you ! Really, 
 I don't think it's any use for me to begin just yet, not 
 till I have been here for awhile and had a chance to 
 see what papa likes. Please go on doing it." 
 
 After a little discussion Mrs. Boody consented to 
 do so ; and having won her little battle so gracefully, 
 and established so firmly the relative positions of 
 herself and Ann, she settled down to talk. 
 
 "I've done for lots of gentlemen in my time," she 
 said, "but none more of a gentleman than your pa, 
 my dear, although one was an Honourable. Think 
 of it, my dear, the second son of a peer, and took 
 Worcester sauce with everything. What was the 
 
34 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 use of cooking for such as that ? No palate at all ; 
 entirely gone : burnt up. And no liver either, the 
 doctor said. He left Boody all his clothes ; but he 
 was so thin that Boody, who was a fine man, couldn't 
 wear anything but the neckties and braces, and the 
 neckties were so sad-coloured that he gave them 
 away." 
 
 "Where is Mr. Boody now?" Ann inquired. 
 
 "Don't ask me, my dear," said Mrs. Boody. "He 
 left me ten years ago. He walked out of the house 
 one day, and I've never set eyes on him since." 
 
 "Perhaps he met with an accident," Ann sug 
 gested. 
 
 "No, my dear, I am afraid not," said Mrs. Boody. 
 "I can't tell you everything, such a child as you are ; 
 but he didn't meet with an accident at least, not 
 the kind you mean and he didn't go alone. I've 
 got over it now ; so much so that when she came 
 "back, not so long ago, I had a cup of tea with her. If 
 that's not forgiveness, I don't know what is. He's 
 in America, my dear, with another. A fine man and 
 a kind man, but a rover. Ah, my dear, life's all 
 before you. 
 
 "My boy has gone too," Mrs. Boody went on, 
 with a sigh. "It's three years since I heard from 
 him. He's a valet now somewhere, but where, 
 I've no notion. My last letter to him was re 
 turned." 
 
 "Were you very fond of him?" Ann asked. 
 
 "He was a dear little boy," said Mrs. Boody, 
 "when he was small. But he got wild. He liked 
 his companions more than me. He used to come 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 35 
 
 now and then to see me when he was in his first place. 
 I asked him once how he liked gentlefolks. ' Mother/ 
 he said, and I've always remembered it ; ' Mother/ 
 he said, ' they're just the same as we are, only they 
 change their socks oftener.' Many's the time I've 
 laughed over that ; and not so wrong neither. Ah 
 well ! it's hard to keep your children anyhow, but I 
 didn't think to lose both husband and son and have 
 them living. One likes to be wanted more than 
 that." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN WHICH THERE IS NOTHING BUT TALK 
 
 A FEW days after Ann had settled down, Mr. 
 Ingleside called upon Mrs. Campion in Buck 
 ingham Gate. Mrs. Campion lived in one of the 
 Georgian houses in that pleasant spot, where the 
 voice of the bugle is so often heard and military 
 music is such a common occurrence that not even 
 the youngest housemaid dashes to the window. 
 Mrs. Campion and Mr. Ingleside had long been 
 friends, but only quite recently had she settled in 
 London, having returned, a widow, from India dur 
 ing the previous year. Hence, although she was 
 acquainted with the peculiarities of the Ingleside 
 menage, she knew none of the family but himself. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, as he sank into an arm 
 chair, "I've done it. She's here." 
 
 "And how do you like it ?" Mrs. Campion asked. 
 
 "She's a dear," said Mr. Ingleside, "but I'm 
 bewildered. What am I to do with her ? What is 
 she to do with herself? It would be all right if 
 Alison were here too. She has brought responsi 
 bility into the house." 
 
 "Of course," said Mrs. Campion. "That's 
 entirely what children are for, and largely what 
 houses are for. If you don't want responsibility, 
 don't have either." 
 
 36 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 37 
 
 "As to the children," said Mr. Ingleside, " I observe 
 many people taking the maxim to heart. You 
 might go farther back, and say don't marry ; but 
 it would be so contemptibly cowardly and yet the 
 Perfect Man was a bachelor. A state that prohibited 
 marriage until its men were forty would quickly cease 
 to be. Fortunately, the fear of responsibility is not 
 yet quite general." 
 
 "Why are you happy men always so bitter?" 
 Mrs. Campion inquired. "There was a time when 
 one went to miserable men for that kind of thing." 
 
 "Ann makes me envious too," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 "It must be so splendid and interesting to be young 
 and see everything fresh." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "And believe in everything too," Mr. Ingleside 
 continued. "That's what really hurts to have 
 lost belief in things. One does not notice the loss so 
 much until one is brought in daily and hourly con 
 tact with a clean young nature on the threshold." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Campion, "you can't have it 
 both ways. You can't have innocence and know 
 ledge at the same time. One had much better try 
 to be one's age, and be sweet in it, than cry over 
 spilt years. As a matter of fact, no one ever really 
 was as young as Ann. You at this moment are as 
 near it as anyone could be, just through wanting it 
 intelligently. " 
 
 "What on earth do you mean ?" 
 
 "Why, only this : that there's no point in being 
 young unconsciously, and the young are necessarily 
 young unconsciously. The only fun in being young 
 
38 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 is knowing you are young, and glorying in it accord 
 ingly ; and no one ever did that. In fact, you can't 
 begin to do it until you're old." 
 
 " That's metaphysics," sighed Mr. Ingleside, "but 
 I see what you mean. I must cease to envy. You're 
 right there. No one really knows how to live until 
 he does that ; but, my dear, it's an awful thing to be 
 the father of a grown-up daughter a Miss." 
 
 "It wouldn't be if you weren't so spoilt and exact 
 ing," said Mrs. Campion. "If you'd learned to 
 take things as they come, it would be perfectly 
 natural for you to feel like a father. But you want 
 everything your way, instead of Nature's way or the 
 world's way." 
 
 "My dear lady," Mr. Ingleside retorted, stung by 
 the truth, "I am not exacting. All I want is to be 
 comfortable." 
 
 "Not at all ; all you want is perfection, fortified 
 by preferential treatment from every one. As a 
 matter of fact, it's only the fear of losing that which 
 makes you so terrified of growing old and unattrac 
 tive." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside frowned, and Mrs. Campion changed 
 the subject. 
 
 "Send Ann to me soon, won't you?" she said. 
 "I want to study her." 
 
 "There's nothing to study," Mr. Ingleside replied. 
 " She's as transparent as . . ." 
 
 "Oh you foolish man!" 
 
 "Oh, of course," he retorted, "you'll find poten 
 tialities. Naturally ! Sex dormant, and all the rest 
 of it. That's your line of country. But they'D 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 39 
 
 be in your own eyes. That's your besetting sin : 
 to believe people are what you want them to be. 
 You're an incorrigible romancer. But I tell you on 
 my word of honour as a father and a C.B. that 
 Ann is a very ordinary English girl, with a warm 
 heart and a candid nature. I'm not sure I shall let 
 her come and see you at all. You're too worldly." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Yes, you. I don't mean you're a cynic : nothing 
 so healthy. You're so convinced that women were 
 born to be married and men born to marry them 
 that you can't think of anything else. Confess that 
 the first thing you look at when you meet a girl is 
 her ring finger." 
 
 "No harm in that." 
 
 "Yes, there is, a great deal of harm in it, for my 
 daughter." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Campion, quite unruffled, "I'll 
 see her first. In fact, I must see her. She must 
 have some good influence to counteract all the old 
 bachelor cranks that you gather round you. You 
 can't take a girl away from a healthy school and 
 mew her up in rooms off the Strand, with a kind of 
 inverted mothers' meeting always going on, and 
 expect her to be well and jolly. She must have some 
 fun and some exercise. John will be back from 
 Oxford very soon, and he shall take her about." 
 
 "John !" said Mr. Ingleside. "John be blowed ! 
 I'll take her about." 
 
 "You're no good at all," said Mrs. Campion. 
 "You get too tired, and Ann never gets tired. Con 
 fess it." 
 
40 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "I -don't think she does, confound her !" said her 
 father. "But John will only fall in love with her 
 and be a nuisance ; and I won't want her to be 
 bothered that way for a long time." 
 
 "John will be all right," said John's mother. "If 
 he does fall in love with her, it won't hurt either of 
 them. It will do her no harm, and it will improve 
 John's manners." 
 
 "I must look at him again first," said Mr. Ingle- 
 side. "But I may say at once that it does not 
 excite me in the least to have brought up a daughter 
 at, I may say, great expense, in order that she may, 
 by existing to be flirted with, improve the deport 
 ment of other people's sons even yours. That 
 seems to me carrying altruism to a point of 
 absurdity." 
 
 Mrs. Campion laughed. "Very good," she said. 
 " 'He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. 
 Brown.' But for a fatalist," she added, "you are 
 very impatient. If it is written that John's man 
 ners are to be improved by your second daughter, 
 why rebel?" 
 
 "Oh, confound John's manners !" said Mr. Ingle- 
 side. " I'm tired of this. Seriously," he continued, 
 "let me tell you that I am more than ever convinced 
 that the whole business of fatherhood is a fraud. I 
 have never had any real companionship with either 
 of my girls yet. They began with nurses in the 
 nursery ; they went on with school-mistresses at 
 school ; and now, the minute I take Ann away for 
 the one purpose of being with her, you threaten me 
 with a son-in-law. Really, I think that fathers are 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 41 
 
 the most unselfish people in the world ; they're 
 nothing but Nature's agents, and Nature is in 
 terested only in the young." 
 
 "You were young once," said Mrs. Campion. 
 " You can't stand still." 
 
 "I suppose not," Mr. Ingleside replied. "That's 
 what's the matter with it. Life is in such a desperate 
 hurry. It is terrible to be the playthings of a Power 
 that seems to be just as much in love with decay as 
 with vitality. I have heard preachers declare that 
 nothing is so wonderful and impressive as the growth 
 and perfection of that beautiful structure, the human 
 body ; but it's a professional lie. There is some 
 thing far more wonderful and impressive, and that 
 is the wanton, wasteful destruction of it." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Campion, "don't be too serious. 
 That's the best way out of such difficulties. Don't 
 look ahead so much. Take things as they come. 
 And for mercy's sake don't talk to Ann like that and 
 poison her young mind." 
 
 "I won't," said Mr. Ingleside. "But picking 
 words is dead out of my line." 
 
 "Exactly," said Mrs. Campion. "Preferential 
 treatment again. Anyone else would have been 
 taught better manners ; but you you're just en 
 couraged." 
 
 "Who encourages me ? " Mr. Ingleside demanded. 
 
 "Every one," said Mrs. Campion. "I for one." 
 
 He laughed. "You ought to have more strength 
 of mind," he said. 
 
 "Of course," she answered, "but there you have it. 
 That's the last criticism on most men and all women." 
 
42 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "How much," Mr. Ingleside asked, "ought I to 
 allow her for dress ? " 
 
 "Does she like clothes?" 
 
 "She looks very nice, I think." 
 
 "I should put fifty pounds into the bank and give 
 her a cheque book and say it was to last for six 
 months, and see what happens. She'll be all the 
 better mother some day for having had the expe 
 rience." 
 
 " Mother ! Do forget your desire for every one to 
 be a mother." 
 
 "Why are you so obstinate?" Mrs. Campion 
 replied. "You are old enough and clever enough 
 and enough of a father to stop resisting Nature like 
 this." 
 
 "Very likely. But one must be very much more 
 in love with this world than I am to wish more chil 
 dren to be born into it." 
 
 "That's indigestion," said Mrs. Campion. "You 
 mustn't talk like that. Take the world as it comes, 
 and don't criticize. But you criticize everything. 
 You'd criticize the literary style of the codicil that 
 left you a fortune." 
 
 "Yes, and you'd tolerate everything. We're 
 probably both equally wrong." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside drove back in one of the few re 
 maining hansoms in London, and having no change 
 gave the driver a florin for a shilling fare. This so 
 delighted the man already perhaps a little predis 
 posed to sociability by one of the alcoholic lenitives 
 that London holds out towards the superseded and 
 unhappy on every hand that he settled down to 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 43 
 
 conversation as steadily as though Buckingham 
 Street were a salon; and Mr. Ingleside allowed him 
 to go on, partly from sheer good-humour and a 
 certain pity for these out-moded Jehus, and partly 
 from a natural weakness for a character. 
 
 "Lord love me, sir," the driver said, with the 
 Londoner's elision, "if every one was like you, what 
 a pleasure cab-driving would be. But there, they're 
 not. Only this morning I had two old ladies to drive 
 from the Grand Hotel to the Natural History 
 Museum and back again. They took me for an 
 hour, and they got back exactly to the minute. And 
 what do you think they gave me ? Half a crown." 
 f "But that's the fare," said Mr. Ingleside : "one 
 hour, half a crown. They probably were strangers 
 to London, and having seen it in the regulations, 
 thought it was the proper amount." 
 
 " Right you are, sir," said the cabman. "I thought 
 something was up on the way back, and I opened 
 the trap-door and catched them breaking their necks 
 trying to read the tariff. So I was prepared for the 
 worst. But what part of England do you suppose 
 people come from that don't give a cabman a penny 
 for himself?" 
 
 He paused to gather fresh impetus. "Do you 
 think they'd treat a taxi-driver like that ? Not arf . 
 Look at those shovers ! They never say a civil 
 word to anyone, but who dares ask one of them for 
 any change out of a bob, even if there's only eight- 
 pence on the clock ? Oo ? No one." 
 
 The driver leaned down 'to bring his head closer to 
 Mr. Ingleside. "What is it about those shovers," 
 
44 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 he asked mysteriously, "that makes them so differ 
 ent from us? Why are people so frightened of 
 them?" 
 
 Mr. Ingleside murmured something about ma 
 chinery, unknown forces, and so forth. 
 
 "Yes, I dare say that's part of it ; but do you 
 suppose if I was to learn to shove," said the cabman, 
 " anyone would be afraid of me ? Nar ! It's more 
 than that. Smoke cigarettes, too, all the time, and 
 have more meals in a day than I get in a week, and 
 pass on the wrong side. I dunno what London's 
 coming to." 
 
 The driver shook his head tragically. 
 
 "You don't mind me talking, I hope?" he said. 
 "It isn't costing anything, you know not like 
 talking to a taxi, what's going on all the time !" 
 
 Mr. Ingleside laughed. 
 
 "But that's not all about those two old ladies," 
 the driver resumed. " What do you think they did ? 
 They didn't give me the half-crown themselves ; 
 they nipped indoors and sent it out by the porter. 
 There's lots of different kinds of meanness in fares 
 there's the fares what are 'so sorry they haven't 
 got any coppers' ; there's the fares that think that 
 giving the driver an old newspaper is enough to make 
 him their slave ; there's the fares what pat your 
 horse and ask questions about it, and then offer a 
 bare bob ; but of all the mean tricks, getting the 
 porter to pay you is the worst. That's mean twice 
 over : because, to begin with, it's mean, just mean ; 
 and secondly, there's the porter's meanness too in 
 not sticking up for the cabman and telling the people 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 45 
 
 that the fare by itself 's not enough. That's what I 
 complain of. But no, he just hands it to me, and 
 says the ladies give it him for me for an hour's hire, 
 and grins, and off he goes back to his arm-chair and 
 the Daily Mail" 
 
 The cabman sighed. 
 
 "Fancy giving a man an hour's fare for an hour's 
 hire!" he concluded. "England's breaking up; 
 that's what I say." 
 
 Ann had her fifty pounds in a nice new bank 
 almost opposite the top of Buckingham Street, 
 where, considering that her visits were wholly con 
 fined to extracting money and never to depositing 
 any more, she was curiously popular. The clerks 
 indeed competed for her, almost as if they had a 
 commission on her withdrawals. "How will you 
 have it?" they used to ask (and is there a sweeter 
 question?), and display as they counted it out the 
 minutest interest in the weather not only of to-day 
 but of yesterday and to-morrow. After all, it is 
 the clerks with the shovels who are the salt of the 
 earth. 
 
CHAPTER VH 
 
 IN WHICH A MATTER-OF-FACT YOUNG 
 WOMAN STEPS OUT TOWARDS INDE 
 PENDENCE 
 
 ANN was not long in learning that her father had 
 lived alone for so long that there was literally 
 nothing that she could do for him except be cheery 
 and listen well. She therefore turned her thoughts 
 towards doing something for herself, and was not 
 sorry when Mr. Ingleside asked her one morning at 
 breakfast if she intended to work for her living. 
 
 "Not that I want any of the money," he said ; 
 "but every one should do something and if possible 
 earn something. It makes you independent." 
 
 "I should love to do something," said Ann. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, "what can you do? 
 Can you sing ? " 
 
 Ann said she couldn't sing. 
 
 "Can you play the piano well enough to be a 
 professional?" 
 
 Ann laughed. 
 
 "Can you act?" 
 
 Ann couldn't act for, I believe she said, nuts. 
 
 "Can you dance in bare feet?" 
 
 Ann laughed again. 
 
 "Can you paint?" 
 
 Ann couldn't paint also for nuts. 
 
 "Do you want to write?" 
 46 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 4? 
 
 Ann didn't want to write. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, "you are abnormal. 
 A freak. You must make your income by exhibit 
 ing yourself. 'The girl who doesn't want to write.' 
 But," he added, "that's the end. We have ex 
 hausted the arts. Now we come to the lower walks 
 of life open to women. Can you trim hats ? " 
 
 Ann did not want to trim hats. 
 
 "Can you devise creations?" 
 
 Ann didn't want to do that. 
 
 "Can you teach?" 
 
 Ann shuddered. 
 
 " Can you read aloud to old ladies ? " 
 
 Ann thought not. 
 
 ' ' You are very limited, ' ' said her father. ' ' I seem 
 to have wasted a great deal of money at Millais 
 House. You can't even drive, can you ? They have 
 lady cockers in Paris. It is very clear that whatever 
 you decide to do must be preceded by more lessons. 
 Well, I shall leave it to you to look about and tell 
 me what you intend to try." 
 
 "Father," said Ann a few mornings later, "I'm on 
 the track of a job." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Yes, listen. It's an advertisement which I 
 answered." 
 
 "Answered?" 
 
 "Yes. You said every girl should earn her own 
 living. Listen 
 
 " ' To LOVERS OF DOGS. A refined and entertaining 
 home is offered to a lady who will help in looking after 
 pedigree dogs. XX Office of this paper.' " 
 
48 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, "but what about 
 earning your own living ? I observe no reference to 
 salary." 
 
 "But I should be relieving you of my board and 
 lodging," said Ann. 
 
 "Have I asked to be relieved?" Mr. Ingleside 
 replied. "Moreover, you came here to keep me 
 company." 
 
 " I know that," said Ann, "and of course I wouldn't 
 leave you for anything. But I knew you'd like me 
 to be independent and answer the advertisement. 
 It might lead to something really profitable. I 
 might at any rate learn something about breeding 
 dogs, and that is a real business now, you know. 
 There was a girl at school whose mother dressed 
 entirely on their French poodle's puppies. Why 
 shouldn't I breed dogs too ?" 
 
 "Not in Buckingham Street, I hope," said her 
 father. 
 
 "Oh, father, you're so practical ! " Ann exclaimed. 
 "You never want anything unexpected or unusual." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside sighed. "I did once," he said. 
 "Don't forget that I'm a very old man. Well, 
 what was the reply?" 
 
 Ann informed him that XX had answered that if 
 Miss Ingleside would come to Reigate by the 10.15 
 train on Tuesday, she would find a varnished pony- 
 cart at the station, which would convey her to the 
 refined and entertaining home. 
 
 This being Tuesday, Ann trotted up to Charing 
 Cross full of excitement. At Reigate station the 
 pony-cart was duly waiting, so small as to be much 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 49 
 
 more like a mouse-trap, containing an elderly lady 
 with solid masses of yellow curls, and a swollen pug 
 beside her. 
 
 "Miss Ingleside, I presume?'' said the lady. 
 
 Ann acquiesced. 
 
 " I am Mrs. Bonham-Hervey," said the lady. " It 
 is about two miles from here. Jump in." 
 
 Ann took her so literally that her impact nearly 
 lifted the pony off its feet as the shafts flew up ; and 
 off they went. 
 
 "I hope you like pugs," said the lady. "Although 
 it doesn't really matter, as pugs are not in our line. 
 Dear Siegfried here is just a pet, a comrade. Aren't 
 you, darling?" she added, addressing the pug, who 
 replied with an asthmatic wheeze and a futile effort 
 to get any movement into his curling tail. "We go 
 in," Mrs. Bonham-Hervey continued, "for toy poms, 
 schipperkes, Pekinese spaniels, and Yorkshire 
 terriers. Major Bonham-Hervey, my husband, says 
 they're insects and not dogs at all, but that's only 
 his wit. They're darlings really, and my sister and 
 I adore them." 
 
 They stopped at a white gate in the midst of a 
 shrubbery. Ann opened it and followed the cart up 
 a dark and damp drive with weeds luxuriating all 
 over it, to a small once white house from which the 
 cement was peeling. In a deck-chair on the top step 
 sat an elderly man with a furiously red face and a 
 bristling grey moustache, reading a paper. 
 
 " Renton," said the lady, " this is Miss Ingleside." 
 
 The Major growled something which might have 
 been " good-morning," and watched his wife lead 
 
50 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 the mouse-trap behind the house in the direction 
 of a raging medley of barking and yapping. 
 
 "I hope you'll like this place," said the Major. 
 "I don't. Do you hear them? More like insects 
 than dogs, I call them. My idea of a dog is a blood 
 hound or a Great Dane. Insects !" 
 
 "May I go and see them?" Ann asked. 
 
 "There's no one to stop you," said the Major: 
 "but I wouldn't hasten that ordeal if I were you. 
 The swine!" 
 
 "But why do you keep them if you so dislike 
 them?" Ann asked, with the tactlessness of her 
 years and nature. 
 
 The Major grew purple. "Because this is a 
 damned ungrateful country," he said. "A parcel 
 of mean hounds. Because its miserable half -pay 
 has got to be eked out somehow. That's why. . Do 
 you suppose I'd live here at all if I could help it? 
 In this wilderness ? Not me. But toy poms and 
 all the rest of it are profitable, and my wife is very 
 clever with them. Do you play Bridge?" 
 
 The last question came so abruptly and with so 
 little relation to what had preceded it that Ann was 
 incapable at once of answering. 
 
 "Do you play Bridge?" the Major repeated, this 
 time far more in the tone a choleric man uses to his 
 wife than to a total stranger. 
 
 "No," said Ann, "I don't. I can play picquet, 
 though, and bezique." 
 
 "Picquet and bezique! No good to me," said 
 the Major. "And I told them to put Bridge in the 
 advertisement, too ! Fools ! I never can get any- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 51 
 
 thing done as I want it. Do you learn card games 
 easily ?" he asked. 
 
 ''Yes, I think so," said Ann. 
 
 He brightened a little. 
 
 " There's nothing to do here at night/' he ex 
 plained. 
 
 In the parlour, where they had lunch, Ann noticed 
 that the carpet had patches of white thread in many 
 places, and everything suggested a want of money 
 and the want of hope that often goes with it. Every 
 time the door opened fresh dogs scampered in. 
 Over her tinned tongue Ann learned what her duties 
 would be. Miss Anstruther, Mrs. Bonham-Her 
 vey's sister, it seemed, who had helped with the dogs 
 for some years ("Dogs, did you call them?" inter 
 polated the Major, "I always call them insects, 
 Miss Ingleside. My idea of a dog is a bloodhound 
 or a Great Dane"), Mrs. Bonham-Hervey's sister 
 was no longer strong enough for the fatigue of trav 
 elling to the shows as she used to do, and it was 
 therefore necessary for a substitute to be found. 
 The old way was for Mrs. Bonham-Hervey to stay 
 at home and take charge of the kennels, while her 
 sister travelled about with the exhibits and sat by 
 their cages. But her sister was now compelled to 
 give it up. 
 
 Mrs. Bonham-Hervey's sister, who had hair as 
 solid and yellow as Mrs. Bonham-Hervey's, but was 
 obviously older and less robust, corroborated. It 
 was the most delightful life, she said. They were 
 such darlings ; it broke her heart to have to stop. 
 But here she fluttered and twittered a little and 
 
52 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 replenished her tumbler from the decanter and the 
 syphon her heart was so weak. She had such 
 constant sinkings. She set down her glass, and, 
 lifting the swollen pug to her lap, exchanged an 
 affectionate embrace with it. She then kissed three 
 other dogs in turn, full on their mouths, as if to em 
 phasize the perfection of the relationship between 
 them and the household. Meanwhile, not to be 
 outdone, Mrs. Bonham-Hervey presented Siegfried 
 with scraps from the darker and stringier part of 
 the tongue. 
 
 " You might have given Miss Ingleside something 
 better than this," said the Major. " Miss Ingleside, 
 I apologize for such a shabby meal. I'm sure," he 
 resumed to his wife, "that I saw the butcher's cart 
 drive up this morning." 
 
 Mrs. Bonham-Hervey threw Ann a glance in 
 tended at once to deprecate and explain the un 
 reasonableness of men, and informed her husband 
 that it was true that the butcher had been, but it 
 was only to bring some odds and ends for Iseult, 
 who, being about to add a number of valuable 
 puppies to the stock-in-trade of the house, had been 
 ordered by the vet to have nourishing food. " Poor 
 Iseult !" she added. 
 
 " Yes," said her sister, " poor Iseult ! The sweet 
 est lady-dog that ever drew breath, Miss Ingleside, 
 and the kindest of mothers." 
 
 "Iseult, I may tell you, Miss Ingleside," said the 
 Major, "is in my opinion the most detestable little 
 bitch that an inscrutable Providence ever set on four 
 legs. She is a Yorkshire terrier by name, but I call 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 53 
 
 her an insect. Nothing less. An insect. Certainly 
 the word dog a good honest word if it is 
 used with any force or fitness, of a Great Dane, say, 
 or a bloodhound, never ought to be given to a midge 
 like that. A midge, a mosquito, a gnat ! In short, 
 an insect." 
 
 "My husband is so funny," said Mrs. Bonham- 
 Hervey. " He will have his joke. He always calls 
 our dogs insects. And it's all because he won't take 
 any pains with them, Miss Ingleside. A dog must 
 be wooed quite as much as a human being. But my 
 husband won't take any pains with them at all. He 
 expects them all to love him at sight, and if they 
 don't, he gets cross with them." 
 
 "I don't expect it," said the Major, "and I don't 
 want it. So far from wanting it, I spread Keating 
 on myself to keep them away." 
 
 Both the ladies laughed gaily. " Isn't he funny ? " 
 Mrs. Bonham-Hervey asked. "He doesn't really 
 mean it, though. He's as pleased as he can be when 
 they have puppies." 
 
 Possibly the recollection of the important part 
 played by puppies in his otherwise too frugal life 
 affected the Major ; in any case, his next remark 
 was more friendly to the kennel. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "but what kind of puppies shall 
 we be having soon with the country in the state that 
 this is ! Do you know, Miss Ingleside, that every 
 day the strain of Pekinese spaniels and schipperkes, 
 and in fact all foreign dogs, Borzois too, is 
 deteriorating?" 
 
 Ann had no notion. 
 
54 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 " It is so," the Major barked at her. " And why ? 
 Because one of the infernal Governments under 
 which we are so vilely oppressed prohibited the im 
 portation of dogs, except with restrictions that are 
 unbearably vexatious and expensive. What does 
 that mean ? " 
 
 Ann again had no notion. 
 
 "It means too much inbreeding," said the Major. 
 "Too much inbreeding." He fixed Ann with his 
 dull glare, and his face was like a beetroot. 
 
 Ann, however, was lost. Her knowledge of dogs 
 was of the shallowest. All that she knew was that 
 she liked them and they liked her. 
 
 The Major perceived her difficulty, and made a 
 gentlemanly and tactful effort to enlighten her. " If 
 there are no new dogs coming into England," he 
 said, "we must go on with the old ones, which 
 gradually, as they die off, become fewer. That 
 means that the puppies have a tendency to become 
 related, and too nearly related members of a single 
 family that gets smaller and smaller and smaller 
 every year, and, as the result of this want of invigor 
 ating new blood, weaker and punier in character 
 and frame each year. Now do you understand?" 
 
 Ann was still in a muddle, but her instinct told 
 her it was time to affect apprehension, and this 
 she successfully did. 
 
 "And so," the Major concluded, "you may im 
 agine what it will be soon. The schipperke, who, 
 at its best, is, I hold, an insect, will soon be such a 
 midge that even my wife and Miss Anstruther here 
 will admit it." 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 55 
 
 "Never!" the ladies laughingly exclaimed. 
 "Never!" 
 
 "Wait and see," said the Major. 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Bonham-Hervey, after the 
 Major had filled his pipe and left them, " do you think 
 you would like to join us? We should treat you 
 just as one of ourselves ; you would have your own 
 room ; and travelling expenses to the shows would 
 of course be paid." 
 
 "There would be no salary?" Ann asked. 
 
 "Oh no, we do not want anyone that is in need 
 of money. We offer a home and an absorbingly 
 interesting hobby." 
 
 "I don't think it would be quite what I want," 
 said Ann, realizing that frankness was the best 
 policy. 
 
 "And why not, pray?" Mrs. Bonham-Hervey 
 asked sharply. 
 
 " I don't think I should be happy here," said Ann. 
 "I don't care for the country, and the dogs are not 
 the kind I like best. I like larger dogs. And an 
 other thing is the want of salary. I have a very 
 nice home as it is ; I should not leave it unless I was 
 earning something." 
 
 "Think again," said Mrs. Bonham-Hervey. 
 "You are making a mistake, I am sure. I tell you 
 for your good. I like you. You'd have done well 
 with us. My husband likes you I could see it at 
 once. He is rarely so gay with strangers. Didn't 
 you notice," she said to her sister, "how Renton 
 took to Miss Ingleside?" 
 
 "Yes," said her sister, adding, "and it isn't as if 
 
56 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 you were always here. Think of the pleasant 
 travelling about and the excitements of the shows. 
 Very often they're opened by Royalty, you know ; 
 and the very best people compete. Our little Sig 
 urd, who's already won eighteen firsts, darling 
 Sigurd ! " - she picked up a tiny spaniel and crushed 
 it against her face "when we were at Sevenoaks 
 had the next cage to the Princess Schwallenstein's 
 pet pom, and she and I became exceedingly friendly. 
 A most delightful creature. I say again, as I have 
 said before, that dog-fancying can bring one the 
 most charming acquaintances in the world apart 
 altogether from profit. You remember, Amy dear, 
 how nice the Duchess was when she wanted Iseult 
 to be her little Kitchener's wee wine ? Could any 
 one have been more affable or more considerate ? 
 I assure you I have always looked forward to the 
 shows with the keenest anticipation. I have so 
 many friends there you would only have to men 
 tion my name. Not only among the dog-fanciers 
 oh dear, no ! Among the cat-fanciers too. 
 There's Miss Shunstone of Richmond, who has the 
 Blue Persians. We have a compact always to have 
 tea together on the first day. Miss Shunstone must 
 make as much as three hundred a year out of her 
 stud. No, Miss Ingleside, you make a great mis 
 take not to join us. The introductions I could give 
 you!" 
 
 Ann, however, succeeded at last in convincing the 
 ladies that by no she meant no ; and having assimi 
 lated this truth, their interest in her vanished. 
 
 "I'm very sorry," said Mrs. Bonham-Hervey, 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 57 
 
 "but this afternoon unfortunately there's no one to 
 drive you to the station. The Major and I have 
 an engagement, and our man is ill. The best train 
 is at 5.04." 
 
 Ann met the Major a little way from the house. 
 
 "Well," he said, "are you coming to live with 
 us?" 
 
 Ann assured him that she was not. 
 
 He said he was sorry. " If I had known you were 
 going," he said, "I would have driven you in. If 
 you'll wait now, I'll put the pony in and overtake 
 you. I have nothing to do." 
 
 "Oh yes, you have," said Ann. " You're going 
 to take Mrs. Bonham-Hervey somewhere to call." 
 
 "Did she say that?" said the Major, with a sigh. 
 "Lord, what a sex!" 
 
 "Well, I must hurry on," said Ann, by no means 
 anxious to hear the Major on his wife's foibles. 
 
 She therefore walked briskly back to Reigate, 
 happy in her liberty, and happy also, like a good 
 daughter, in the knowledge that she had a really 
 interesting story to tell at dinner that night. Who 
 would look ahead farther than that ? 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN WHICH A GRANDMOTHER ASKS QUES 
 TIONS AND SUPPLIES ANSWERS 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE'S mother lived at Hove; 
 which was called Brighton when the late King 
 stayed there, but is as distinct from Brighton, in 
 fact, as A is distinct from B. Of course, Ann had 
 to visit her grandmother early in the holidays, for 
 old Mrs. Ingleside had an almost Chinese respect for 
 progenitor-worship and even exacted from her son a 
 daily letter, which, however difficult an ordeal to 
 ordinary creatures, is no great hardship to a Govern 
 ment official. Mr. Ingleside preferred writing to 
 visiting ; but he occasionally ran down to dinner 
 by the five o'clock from Victoria, and was at home 
 again by midnight, having an increasing distaste 
 for sleeping in other people's houses. 
 
 Although an old lady of seventy-seven, Mrs. 
 Ingleside was so active and keen as to send her 
 companion to bed thoroughly tired out almost every 
 night : what with walking, driving, shopping, dis 
 cussing, and reading aloud. Mrs. Ingleside pos 
 sessed a landau in which, open or closed, she drove 
 out each afternoon ; and it was on these drives that 
 her conversational powers were at their brightest. 
 Why it is that the landau has no power to tire some 
 
 58 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 59 
 
 people, and is so deadly a foe to others, I cannot 
 explain ; but so it is. Mrs. Ingleside descended 
 from it at tea-time invigorated in mind and body : 
 her guests staggered to their bedrooms in a stupor 
 of fatigue, of which, however, she was unconscious. 
 
 Ann reached her grandmother's house in its silent 
 avenue just before lunch, and immediately after that 
 meal the carriage came round from the neighbour 
 ing mews, a foot- warmer and rugs were taken out, 
 Mrs. Ingleside and Ann were tucked carefully 
 within, and Miss Airey, the companion, returned 
 to the house with a light heart, free for once to do as 
 she would for two hours. 
 
 "Now, tell me all the news/' said Mrs. Ingleside. 
 "How is your dear father? It must be ten days 
 since I saw him, not since I sprained my thumb. 
 It's better now ; Dr. Steele is so clever. And your 
 mother, have you heard from her? And dear 
 Alison ? What a long way to go to get health ! 
 Much better come and live here, although I can't 
 say that that would be too comfortable, perhaps. 
 Worthing, let's say, or Eastbourne, or even Hastings. 
 I'm told that Littlehampton is bracing. But 
 Bournemouth, my dear, so relaxing. No wonder 
 your mother's not strong. Still, Japan's a very 
 long journey. And suppose it was very rough ? I 
 don't know how it would affect your mother, but I 
 can't help feeling that dear Alison is a very poor 
 sailor. Poor child, to think of her straining herself 
 in those terrible ' roaring forties/ don't they call 
 them ? As for myself, in the days when I used to 
 go to the Continent with your grandfather, I kept 
 
6o ME. INGLESIDE 
 
 my hand on the stewardess's wrist all the way 
 across. 
 
 "But you're not telling me anything about your 
 self. You are going to be father's housekeeper now, 
 I suppose ; but how about the rest of the day ? 
 Don't neglect your studies, my dear, just because 
 you've left school. Your music I hope you prac 
 tise every day. Two hours at least, I believe, are 
 necessary. And singing. You do sing, don't you ? 
 There is nothing to my mind so beautiful as singing. 
 I remember hearing Jenny Lind. It was wonderful 
 so pure and so sweet. That's such a nice story of 
 some one asking Jenny Lind what she was thinking 
 about at the foot of the cross in one of her great 
 parts, and she saying so simply, 'I think I was 
 thinking about the trimming of my new bonnet.' 
 That shows the artistic temperament, dear. No 
 need to tear oneself to rags. Poor Jenny Lind, I 
 think she married some one named Goldsmith. 
 
 "And Adelaide Neilson, I remember her too. 
 Poor girl, she drank some iced milk and died from it. 
 Do be careful, my dear, about very cold drinks when 
 you are hot. 
 
 "I always go to the concerts here. They have 
 very good ones at" the Dome Clara Butt, you 
 know but it's a long time since I heard an opera 
 singer Tetrazzini, my dear and now that this 
 man Strauss is all the rage, I don't know when I 
 shall go again. Wagner was bad enough, but this 
 'Elektra' seems terrible, and the funny thing is that 
 Wagner is now talked about as if he were a kind of 
 German Verdi. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 61 
 
 "But you're not telling me anything, my dear. 
 You keep up your drawing, of course. Don't let 
 that go. Such a beautiful pastime, and so useful 
 too in after life. I'm sure if I had not made sketches 
 when your grandfather and I were abroad I shouldn't 
 have the slightest recollection of some of the places 
 we went to. But now I have only to turn to my 
 album to recall in a moment Thun and Interlaken, 
 Lucerne and Milan. Though of course Milan is 
 easy to remember on account of its beautiful cathe 
 dral. So white, my dear. 
 
 "And that reminds me, what church do you go to 
 in London? Don't tell me you stay at home like 
 your dear father. Why he is so careless of such 
 things I cannot understand, for I'm sure I brought 
 him up carefully enough, except perhaps for a little 
 laxity about the Athanasian creed, which I never 
 could enjoy, and I'm sure never shall. Still, he's a 
 good man, and even if he doesn't go to church I 
 hope you do. The Abbey isn't very far, is it ? You 
 might go there, but I sometimes wonder whether 
 perhaps they're not a little too clever. Perhaps a 
 simpler church would be better St. Margaret's, 
 say ; but now I come to think of it, the St. Mar 
 garet's preacher is at the Abbey too. Well, my 
 dear, wherever you go I hope it will do you good. 
 
 "And all those funny men that your dear father 
 knows, how are they ? That Mr. Oast is in Parlia 
 ment again, I see. There are too many Labour 
 members, in my opinion. When I was young, 
 Parliament was a place for gentlemen ; but every 
 thing's changed now. What your dear father can 
 
62 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 see in a Labour member to make a friend of him, I 
 can't think ; and it seems to me unwise too, for if his 
 Government department got to hear of it, there 
 might be trouble. And the old doctor, how is he ? 
 How much better it would have been to have gone 
 on seeing patients and doing good than to retire and 
 keep a kind of museum like that. The world's full 
 enough of illness and suffering, Heaven knows. 
 There's poor Miss Airey can't get rid of her neural 
 gia, and very likely an old man like that could help 
 her. The young men are all right for the operations 
 and so forth, but when it comes to old-fashioned 
 ailments or worry, give me an old doctor. Ex 
 perience, you know, my dear. 
 
 "And that idle artist man with the funny name, 
 how is he ? Lord Ramer, is it ? No, Vycount. I 
 can't imagine what his parents were about to give 
 him such a name as that. I've heard some odd 
 names : the poor women when I was a girl used to 
 call their babies after the battles in the Crimean war, 
 Sebastopol and so forth ; but Vycount is most 
 ridiculous. So misleading, my dear. I never saw 
 any of his pictures or met anyone who had. Mark 
 my words, my dear, the best pictures are painted by 
 the men with the simplest names. Your grand 
 father had a beautiful portrait by Benjamin West, 
 and what could be better than those noble sheep and 
 cows by Thomas Sidney Cooper ? 
 
 "And that nice quiet man, Mr. Thrace, I hope 
 he's quite well. From what I know of him, I like 
 him much the best of your dear father's friends. 
 He called here last Easter, when he was on a visit to 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 63 
 
 Brighton, and brought me a beautiful bunch of 
 tulips. I remember a strange remark he made. 
 'How refreshing/ he said, 'to find a house with the 
 Standard in it.' The Standard it has been my 
 paper for thirty years, and I want no other ; and for 
 a sensible man, as Mr. Thrace seems to be, to say 
 that, shows what we're all coming to. 
 
 " Well, my dear, here we are at home again, and 
 I've had a very delightful talk with you. It's so 
 seldom that anyone comes who can really give me 
 the news I want to hear. Miss Airey is an intelli 
 gent person, but she has no real conversation." 
 
 " Grandmamma seems very well just now," said 
 Ann to the companion, when she found her alone. 
 
 "Never better," said Miss Airey, with a sigh. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN WHICH WE FIND SOME ANCIENT 
 REMEDIES, AND CHRISTIE LOOKS BACK 
 
 ALL Mr. Ingleside's friends were bibliophiles in 
 a small way : that is to say, they could no 
 more pass a second-hand book-shop on the run than 
 a cricketer can avoid pausing for a moment to watch 
 a game, even if the stumps are a tin and the bat a 
 strip of packing-case. Any little odd find was in 
 variably displayed on the following Friday ; and on 
 the evening that we have now reached Ramer had a 
 trifling discovery to exploit. 
 
 "My book," said the artist, "cost me two-pence, 
 but it carries with it secrets enough to keep Tne 
 in perpetual affluence if only I had the necessary 
 cheek. It is called A Thousand Notable Things, and 
 it contains certain cures for everything, and a num 
 ber of miscellaneous and useful counsels too. It is 
 both old and curious. The doctor here would have 
 had no chance if I had set up against him with my 
 twopenny book to take the place of his costly de 
 grees. Say you had a sore throat, and you rang the 
 Staminer bell. The door (after a long time) was 
 opened, and you were shown into a stuffy room full 
 of the illustrated papers and Punch. After a while 
 the doctor consented to see you. Not that he was 
 busy, but it looked better to keep you waiting. And 
 
 6 4 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 65 
 
 then what did he do ? He wrote you a prescription 
 for an expensive and very dull bottle of medicine 
 which would have made you worse, and then he 
 robbed you of all the money he could get. 
 
 "But suppose," Ramer went on, "you had come 
 to me, what should I have done ? Ah, I should have 
 sent you away with a delightfully interesting task 
 before you to cure yourself, beyond question, 
 but how? By catching swallows. Why? Be 
 cause my book says that ' a plaister made of the pow 
 der of burned swallows and of their nest, doth help 
 effectually the swelling of the throat or quinancy.' 
 'But,' you would have said, 'I can't catch swallows/ 
 That's where you touch the comprehensiveness of 
 my knowledge. ' Can't you?' I should have re 
 plied, all ready for you, ' then listen ; ' and turning 
 to page 1 06 of my book, I should have read to you 
 as f olloweth : 
 
 'If you will make birds drunk, that you may catch 
 them with your hands, take such meat as they love, as 
 wheat or beans, or such like, and lay them to steep in the 
 lees of wine, or in the juice of hemlock, and sprinkle the 
 same in the place where the birds use to haunt ; and if they 
 do eat thereof, straightways they will be so giddy, that you 
 may take them with your hands. I wrote this out of an old 
 written book, wherein I know many true things were written.' 
 
 There you are." 
 
 "The odd thing to me," said Dr. Staminer, 
 "about those old medicine books, is how some of the 
 remedies ever came to be thought of. One can 
 understand that a man who was ill was always 
 ready to try anything ; but how did the author hit 
 
66 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 on swallows ? To begin with, it limits the cure to the 
 summer months ; and then, why swallows' nests ? " 
 
 "Probably," said Mr. Ingleside, "it was a sheer 
 effort of fancy on the part of the doctor, who was of 
 course largely a ju-ju man. He had to be fantastic 
 in order to suggest a knowledge that he did not 
 possess and thus obtain influence and respect. 
 Swallows are difficult to catch, and their nests must 
 be very nasty ; the whole idea of making a physic 
 from them was so strange as in itself to constitute an 
 intention towards healing I mean, of course, 
 faith-healing. You took the mixture, after much 
 difficulty and some excitement, and you were hyp 
 notized into believing yourself better, and conse 
 quently were better." 
 
 "Then you believe in faith-healing?" said Rich 
 ard Oast. 
 
 "I certainly don't believe much in any other 
 kind," said Mr. Ingleside. "But let's have some 
 more, Ramer," he added. 
 
 The artist read several. 
 
 " For the cramp 
 
 'The little bone in the knee-joint of the hinder leg of a 
 hare doth presently help the cramp, if you touch the grieved 
 place therewith. Often proved.' 
 
 " For insomnia 
 
 'The soles of the feet anointed with the fat of a dormouse 
 doth procure sleep.' 
 
 " To get rid of mice 
 
 'Put two or more quick mice in a long or deep earthen 
 pot, and set the same nigh unto a fire made of ash- wood ; 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 67 
 
 when the pot begins to be hot, the mice therein will chirp or 
 make a noise, whereat all the mice that are nigh them will 
 run towards them, and so will leap into the fire, as though 
 they should come to help their poor imprisoned friends and 
 neighbours. The cause whereof Mizaldus ascribes to the 
 smoke of the ash- wood.' 
 
 "To baffle mice 
 
 'To prevent rats and mice eating your cheese. Take 
 hog's suet, and the brains of a weasel, mix them together, 
 and lay small pieces about the room : this will prevent their 
 coming.' 
 
 " Prophecy 
 
 'If you take an oak apple from an oak tree, and in the 
 same you shall find a little worm, which if it doth fly away, 
 it signifies wars ; if it creepe it betokens scarcity of corn ; 
 if it run about, then it foreshows the plague. This is the 
 country man's astrology, which they have long observed 
 for truth.' 
 
 " Against fleas 
 
 ' If you mark where your right foot doth stand at the 
 first time that you do hear the cuckow, and then grave or 
 take up the earth under the same ; wheresoever the same is 
 sprinkled about, there will no fleas breed. I know it hath 
 proved true.' 
 
 " To curb the rover 
 
 'If the ears of cats be cropped or cut off, it will make 
 them keep at home better, for then the water (which they 
 cannot abide) will drop into their ears, being open.' 
 
 " For the ague 
 
 'Pare the nails of one that hath the quartan ague, which 
 being put into a linen cloth, and so tied about the neck of a 
 
68 MB. INGLESIDE 
 
 quick eel, and the same eel put into the water, thereby the 
 ague will be driven away.' 
 
 " For teething babes 
 
 ' Young children, whose gums are anointed with the brain 
 of a hare, do breed their teeth easily. And it hath been 
 proved with the brain of a coney.' 
 
 " For toothache 
 
 'This following is a true and proved medicine for the 
 tooth ach. Take a handful of ground ivy, as much of spear 
 mint, and as much of salt ; stamp them all a little together, 
 then put all the same into a pint of vinegar, and seethe all 
 well over the fire ; then strain it well, and put the same into 
 a close glassen vessel or bottle ; and when you will use it, 
 take a spoonful thereof and put it into the side of the mouth 
 that acheth, and hold down your cheek, that it may descend 
 to the roots of the aching teeth, and it will take the ach and 
 pain away presently. This was taught me by a woman to 
 whom many resorted for help, who used only this medicine 
 therefor.' 
 
 " For cloudy vision 
 
 'If the stone that is found in the head of a long snail be 
 made in fine powder, and blown in the eye, it puts quite 
 away all spots thereof, and it destroys the web in the eye, 
 and any other evil in the same.' 
 
 " A weapon for killing snakes 
 
 'If you would kill snakes and adders, strike them with a 
 large radish.' 
 
 "I like this best," said Ramer. "For a very 
 common ailment. 'Pain in the stomach. Put 
 thirty white peppercorns in your mouth and drive 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 69 
 
 them down with beer.' 'Drive' is a splendid word 
 there." 
 
 "And here is something of a different kind," 
 Ramer concluded ; "almost the sketch for a poem 
 by Mr. Yeats 
 
 ' It is credibly reported, that whosoever is sick, and at 
 the point of death, though they be marvellous old, lying or 
 being in a certain place in Ireland, the same party cannot 
 die until he or she be removed out of that place. And 
 many that have been there, being very old and weary of 
 their lives, have earnestly desired to be removed from thence, 
 who as soon as they have been out of that place, have died 
 presently. A very strange thing, if it be true. ' ' 
 
 "Never mind that old book," said Christie, who 
 had come in as Ramer was reading. "Do you 
 know, Ingleside," he asked, "who used to live in 
 this house?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Ingleside. "No, I don't." 
 
 "Well," said Christie, "I do." 
 
 "I suppose," said Leslie, "that some wretched 
 outsider has sent in an article on Buckingham 
 Street, and you had to read it." 
 
 "As it happens," Christie replied, "your beastly 
 conjecture is right. But I don't see that it matters. 
 The thing is, that I do know, never mind how. 
 Anyway sit tight, all of you this very house we 
 are now in was once the home of Samuel Pepys. 
 The last house on the west overlooking the river : 
 that's this, you know, beyond a doubt. Think of 
 Pepys writing his old diary on this spot, night after 
 night. That's what I call interesting. Pepys must 
 have been one of the first tenants, because York 
 
70 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 House stood all over this ground until 1675, with 
 'that gateway down there as its entrance from the 
 river. The great Duke of Buckingham bought the 
 old York House, where Bacon was born, and re 
 built it for receptions and filled it with pictures." 
 
 "Do you know," Christie added impressively, 
 reading from a piece of paper, "that the Duke of 
 Buckingham (for further particulars see The Three 
 Musketeers) bought Rubens' own collection to hang 
 here, just as a Pierpont Morgan would to-day? 
 The whole thing in one swoop. Do you know there 
 were nineteen Titians, seventeen Tintorettos, thir 
 teen Paul Veroneses, three Raphaels, and three 
 Leonardos hanging more or less where we are talking 
 now ? All we have in exchange is old Ramer." 
 
 "Never mind," said Ramer; "a living dog is 
 better than a dead Leonardo." 
 
 "But think of it," said Christie. "Isn't that a 
 splendid kind of ghost to dream about? I would 
 like to be haunted by nineteen Titians. Well, 
 York House was sold to a syndicate, and they pulled 
 it down and built on its site this street, George 
 Street, Villiers Street, and Duke Street. That was 
 in 1675 ; Pepys moved in in 1784. It was called 
 York Buildings then. Peter the Great lodged at 
 the opposite corner ; Rousseau also lodged in 
 Buckingham Street, in 1765, with Hume ; and here 
 they had their famous row. 
 
 "I don't know when this house we are in was 
 rebuilt," said Christie, "but among its later tenants 
 were Etty the painter on the third floor, and Clark- 
 son Stanfield on the ground floor. All these facts 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 71 
 
 are about to be published broadcast, so don't be 
 surprised, Ingleside, if you find your rent raised." 1 
 
 "I must get," said Mr. Ingleside, "a portrait of 
 Pepys at once and have it hung in a good place, and, 
 Christie, I count on you for a drawing by Clarkson 
 Stanfield, whom I have always admired, but hence 
 forth shall love too." 
 
 "But what price Etty ?" Christie asked. 
 
 "No, I don't want an Etty," Mr. Ingleside said. 
 
 "You shall have your Clarkson Stanfield," said 
 Christie. "I know where there are three." 
 
 "Genuine?" asked Dr. Staminer. 
 
 "Oh yes. They don't forge him," said Christie. 
 "There's not enough demand. It's David Coxes 
 and Boning tons and Turners that keep the factories 
 busy." 
 
 1 A tablet incorporating several of Christie's facts is now on 
 the wall. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IN WHICH AN IRISH COMFORTER GETS 
 QUICKLY TO WORK 
 
 A FEW days later, Providence as is its way if 
 you leave it alone and refrain from worrying 
 it seemed to have leanings towards a solution of 
 Ann's difficulty; for Mr. Ingleside found on his 
 table a letter from his cousin, Rachel Muirhead, 
 offering to take Ann into her house to teach her 
 gardening. " There is a great future for women 
 gardeners," Miss Muirhead wrote, "and Ann will 
 have every chance with me. It is a business in 
 which women really have advantages above men, 
 and a business also which must improve rather than 
 decline, for the tendency to have at least a pied-a- 
 terre in the country is on the increase, fostered by 
 the motor ; and even where no real interest in 
 flowers exists, fashion will demand that it must be 
 simulated. Much as I hate fashion and its decrees 
 in what is called Society, I cannot see in the craze 
 for beautiful gardens anything but good. The life 
 also will make Ann healthy, and divert her mind 
 from votes and such follies. A woman who can say 
 that she has made two daffodils grow where only 
 one grew before, is doing more for the country than 
 a score of politicians. We have a nice little spare- 
 room that is just suited to Ann ; and if you leave 
 
 72 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 73 
 
 her to us, we will make a first-rate gardener and 
 business woman of her." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside read the letter aloud. Then, "Do 
 you want to go ?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh no," said Ann, quickly. "Not at all. I 
 want to be in London." (Miss Muirhead lived in 
 Worcestershire.) "And gardening doesn't attract 
 me a bit." 
 
 "The dogs weren't in London," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "No," said Ann, "but that was a joke. Yet after 
 all, puppies are far more interesting than bulbs." 
 
 Ann's words only partially reassured her father, 
 but he said nothing about it. All that he said 
 was, "I think you will have to go on a visit, anyway, 
 but make it as short as you can ; and for Heaven's 
 sake don't let this gardening business get hold of 
 your imagination." 
 
 "I won't, I promise," Ann said ; "but, you dear 
 thing, why don't you forbid it and settle the matter 
 once for all ?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Ingleside, "I don't forbid. If I 
 had brought you up properly, I might. Suggestion 
 is as much as I have any right to. When will you 
 go?" he added. 
 
 "I can go whenever you can spare me," said Ann. 
 
 "Then you'll never go," replied her father. "The 
 best thing to do is to get it over quickly and come 
 back and settle down again. Life is so horribly 
 unsettled. There is always something going to 
 happen to-morrow or next week." 
 
 "Of course," said Ann ; "that's what makes it so 
 attractive." 
 
74 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Ingleside, "at seventeen; but 
 not at fifty. At fifty it is to-day that we prize 
 and yesterday. I believe I should like to be one of 
 those toads that are discovered in the very heart of 
 rocks still alive after thousands of years. Until 
 the stupid pickaxe discloses them, they must be the 
 least unsettled the most secure of sentient 
 things." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside's cousin was known to the world as 
 Miss Muirhead, the owner of the Fairmile Gardens, 
 and the author of half a dozen books on gardening 
 which had revolutionized England. Always an 
 imaginative gardener, Miss Muirhead had amused 
 herself some few years before in setting some of her 
 theories on paper in particular that one which as 
 far as possible denied the gardener an axe, her view 
 being that the retention of trees and other in 
 digenous features should wherever practicable be 
 sacredly observed. She was, in fact, the best 
 known foe of formal gardening, and her book had 
 an immense influence in England, not because 
 she was the first to advocate this teaching, but 
 because she came at the right moment. She may 
 be said to have sounded the knell of bedding 
 plants. 
 
 What she began as a pastime Miss Muirhead con 
 tinued as a business. So many readers of her books 
 rang the bell of her lodge and asked to be allowed 
 to peep at her garden that she made a new one 
 purely for trade purposes, and not only sold plants 
 but became a professional adviser upon the laying 
 out of grounds. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 75 
 
 With Miss Muirhead lived Miss Lingard ; and 
 they had thus lived together for thirty years. Both 
 were the same age, sixty-one. Miss Muirhead was 
 the more practical, Miss Lingard the more poetical. 
 Miss Muirhead called Miss Lingard "A" her 
 name was Adelaide ; Miss Lingard called Miss 
 Muirhead "Beloved." "A" looked after the 
 house; " Beloved " criticized the food and signed 
 the cheques. "Beloved" held the reins when they 
 drove out together; "A" received the happiest 
 smiles of the villagers. "Beloved" said "I" ; "A" 
 said "we." 
 
 Ann was soon at home with both of them, and 
 very quickly mastered their simple routine. Miss 
 Muirhead being busy just then upon a new garden, 
 Ann was a great deal with Miss Lingard, and accom 
 panied her on her rounds as a Lady Bountiful. 
 These rounds took twice as long as when Miss Muir 
 head drove, for Miss Lingard could not bear to hurry 
 the ponies. Also she found it harder to stem the 
 flow of the talking mothers in the cottages. Noth 
 ing requires so firm a hand. 
 
 Outside Mrs. Winter's they found Dr. O'Sullivan, 
 and Ann was introduced to him before he went in. 
 He was a round, cheery Irishman, the idol of the 
 countryside. 
 
 Even outside in the chaise Ann heard his greeting. 
 " Good morning, mother, how are ye ? Pain ? Oh, 
 there's plenty of that to spare in the world. Ye're 
 not remarkable for that ! But I wish ye rid of it ! 
 I'll send ye down a bottle." 
 
 They went on to the cottage hospital, where Miss 
 
7 6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Lingard and Ann accompanied the doctor from bed 
 to bed. "Well, grannie," he said to one very old 
 woman, "so Mrs. Peters" -who had just died 
 "has got ahead of ye ! Well, well, who'd have ex 
 pected that ? Ye'll be outliving the lot of us if ye're 
 not careful." 
 
 To another old woman whose hobby it was to be 
 within five minutes of her end, he said, "If I'd as 
 nice a nurse to do the nursing of me, I'd stop me 
 dying for the pleasure of looking at her." 
 
 But his crowning effort was with old Mrs. Guntle, 
 the arch-grumbler of the place. "Ye're worse, are 
 ye ? Well, I'm wondering how Thorley's Food for 
 Cattle would be suiting you. You know what that 
 is ? Oilcakes. When I was in America there was a 
 woman at the point of death. Some one brought 
 her a cake, and she ate it the night. The morning 
 when I went to see her she was better. 'How are 
 ye?' said I. 'Och, docthor/ said she, 'I'm a new 
 man.' It saved her. Would ye like to try?" 
 
 Mrs. Guntle in spite of herself began to laugh. 
 
 "There," said the doctor, "ye've cheered me up 
 powerful. Ye wouldn't believe it, but I was that 
 miserable this morning a fit of the blues. But 
 ye've cheered me beautiful." 
 
 "No, no, / haven't cheered you, doctor," said Mrs. 
 Guntle. 
 
 "Well, it's all the same," said the doctor. "Only 
 don't forget me in your prayers." 
 
 "An' how are you this morning, Miss Piper?" he 
 said at the next bed. "Dying, are ye? Well, I 
 don't believe it, but what if ye are? Heaven's a 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 77 
 
 beautiful place, they tell me, and divil a floor to 
 scrub in the whole building ! 
 
 "And now come along out of this," the doctor 
 said to Ann, when he had looked at the last patient 
 and paid the last outrageous compliment to the very 
 homely nurse ; "this is no place for a fresh young 
 thing like you. Come and see my roses. The best 
 in England." 
 
 And he led the way across the road to his house 
 and cut for each of the ladies a bunch of the "ould 
 cabbage" as he called them "still the sweetest 
 flower on God's earth, in spite of all the florists in 
 England and France." 
 
 He ran after them with a spray of mignonette. 
 "Give it to Miss Muirhead with my compliments," 
 he said : "the very rare reseda obsoleta O'Sullivanii. 
 She's too scientific for me," he added to Ann, "so 
 I always have a little joke with her. And too 
 modern too. Won't look at mignonette in a garden 
 because it falls into no colour scheme. Colour 
 scheme be !" 
 
 Ann laughed, but Miss Lingard looked troubled. 
 She could not bear even the suggestion that Miss 
 Muirhead could be wrong. 
 
 "Miss Ingleside," the doctor added impressively, 
 "don't be a scientific gardener. Be an ould-fash- 
 ioned gardener. Scatther your seeds and bulbs, and 
 forget all about their colour. Stick to the ould 
 friends the sweet-williams and the mignonette. 
 And the lemon verbena. A garden's no garden 
 unless there's a leaf of lemon verbena to pinch in it. 
 Yes, be jabers, and marigolds ! I can't forgive the 
 
78 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 despots who banished the marigold. No, Miss 
 Ingleside, you'd better be a lady docthor than one 
 of these new-fangled lady gardeners in my opin 
 ion. And afther all, why not? You're young 
 enough to begin the course." 
 
 But Ann gave him no encouragement. "I'm 
 thinking about it all," she explained. "I'm so 
 bewildered : it's all come at once, so suddenly." 
 
 "Well," said the doctor, "bury your pretty nose 
 in that cabbage rose, and things'll be simpler. I 
 wish ye good morning, ladies, and I hope we'll 
 meet again, Miss Ingleside." 
 
 On their return they had to answer Miss Muir- 
 head's minute questions. 
 
 "How's Mrs. Ribby's leg?" 
 
 "It's better, I think : but she says it's worse." 
 
 "Of course," said Miss Muirhead. "She wanted 
 your sympathy. There's no fun when it's better. 
 'A' is so weak," she added to Ann. "They can all 
 take her in." 
 
 "Has Tommy Wilson begun to go to school 
 again?" Miss Muirhead asked. 
 
 "Yes. To-day." 
 
 "Is Barnes keeping sober?" 
 
 "Mrs. Barnes didn't say anything about it." 
 
 "Then he isn't. Was her eye bruised ?" 
 
 "No, poor thing." 
 
 "Don't pity her too much. There's many a 
 woman envies her even those attentions from her 
 husband. In fact," said Miss Muirhead, "don't 
 pity any of them too much. There's a tendency 
 abroad to cover the poor with pity just because 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 79 
 
 they're poor, as if money had anything to do with 
 happiness. They're quite as happy as the rich, and 
 in this village they're particularly lucky too. Money 
 has less to do with happiness than health has and 
 simplicity. I wish some of the gloomy authors 
 would learn that." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN WHICH WE MEET TWO OF MISS 
 MUIRHEAD'S CLIENTS 
 
 ANN accompanied her aunt to the houses of one 
 or two clients and was present during the 
 visits of others, and she was struck by Miss Muir- 
 head's masterful way with them. On her first day 
 they drove over to Sir Felix Leven's. 
 
 "I have only an hour," Miss Muirhead said, as 
 the great man met her. "Let us get to the gardens 
 at once." 
 
 "But, my dear lady, we can't do it in an hour," 
 said Sir Felix. 
 
 "I can come to my conclusions in an hour," said 
 Miss Muirhead. "One sees these things quickly." 
 
 "I must say I expected you to give me more 
 attention than that," Sir Felix replied, "consider- 
 ing " 
 
 " Considering the size of the fee ? " said Miss Muir 
 head. "But you see, Sir Felix, I don't charge for 
 time here : I charge for an experienced eye. I can 
 see in a moment what can or cannot be done. It 
 is when I get home and plan it out that the time 
 you are purchasing will come in." 
 
 Sir Felix agreed reluctantly and led the way to 
 the garden, while Ann followed with his son, an olive- 
 
 80 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 81 
 
 hued, black-haired Etonian of little less than her own 
 age. 
 
 "How you must love this place! It's so very 
 beautiful," Ann remarked by way of an opening. 
 
 "Yes, rather decent, isn't it?" he said; "but 
 we're here very little. Two or three months at the 
 most, and that means I'm only here for a few weeks. 
 You see, since the governor was taken up by the 
 nobs he has to do what they do ; and this is only 
 his summer place. He comes here for Easter and 
 for week-ends. At the end of July he takes a house 
 at Goodwood, and the next week he's on his yacht ; 
 then we go to our place in Scotland, you know. I 
 like that, because there's good fishing. And after 
 wards the governor puffs off to Marienbad to get his 
 little tummy patched up and drink that putrid stuff 
 with all the swells. But he likes it, bless his heart ! 
 Gets up at six o'clock to do it, with a brass band 
 accompaniment, and as pleased as Punch if one of 
 those weekly papers has his mug in it. Poor old 
 governor, he doesn't see that the people are all 
 laughing at his nose ! And when he comes back 
 there are the big shoots here, and I tell you our 
 pheasants are corkers, like Christmas turkeys 
 they take a lot of missing ; and then directly Christ 
 mas is over it's time for Monte, and all the old grind 
 begins again. It doesn't interest me. I like riding 
 and racquets, and I hate all this moving about ; 
 but the governor's let himself in for it now, and I 
 don't think he'll ever stop. You see he's so horribly 
 oofy." 
 
 Ann had a feeling that she was at a keyhole; 
 
82 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 but she found no words with which to urge the boy 
 to stop. 
 
 "The governor and I," he continued, "hit it off all 
 right, but I'm afraid I'm a great disappointment to 
 him, and I know he's a great disappointment to me. 
 I used to look up to him once, before I knew ; but 
 now it makes me sick to see him being toadied to for 
 his money by one set of nobs and chasing about after 
 another. But it's my brother he can't get on with. 
 My brother he's older than I am has thrown 
 himself in with the Zionists, you know, and he's 
 offended the governor no end because he's gone back 
 to the real name of the family, which is Levi, and 
 he puts it out in full in Who's Who? Henry Bull 
 Levi, eldest son of Sir Felix Leven. Rather a nasty 
 one, isn't it?" 
 
 "And what are you going to do?" Ann asked 
 him. 
 
 "When I leave Eton ? " he said. " Oh, I am going 
 to do all the right things. I'm going to Sandhurst. 
 But I'd much rather go to Texas and have a ranch." 
 
 If Miss Muirhead was too quick for Sir Felix 
 Leven, Mr. Clarence Thayer of New York was too 
 quick for her. A letter by the first post stated that 
 he would be with her at 12.30, and by 12.45 tne 
 interview was over, and he was on his way, in his car, 
 to London, to catch a night train to the Continent, 
 and thence to America again. 
 
 "Now see here, Miss Muirhead," he said, "I've 
 bought a house in Surrey Marltye Grange. It's 
 a Toodor house, and I want a Toodor garden. I 
 don't mind what it costs, but it's got to be ready for 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 83 
 
 me when I come back next summer. You've got a 
 year, say. Will you do it?" 
 
 "What is the size?" Miss Muirhead asked. 
 
 "Just what you like : what it ought to be," said 
 Mr. Thayer. "You can take in as much of the 
 surroundings as you want. It's all mine. I want a 
 Toodor garden of the same size as would go with 
 a Toodor house in Toodor times ; and I want to 
 leave it to you. But I don't want to see a grass- 
 blade in it before it's good and ready. Here are six 
 blank cheques already signed : fill them up as you 
 want them. Don't write to me. Just go ahead. 
 If there's any difficulty, settle it as if it were your 
 own house. Is that fixed?" 
 
 "I must see it first," said Miss Muirhead. 
 
 The American uttered an exclamation of impa 
 tience and disappointment. "There!" he said. 
 "You Britishers are all alike. I make you a sport 
 ing offer, and I expect a sporting return ; and you 
 say, 'I must see it first.' See it first! Why? 
 There it is, just where it was ever since it was built, 
 with yew hedges ten feet high and a yard thick and 
 solid as the great wall of China, and a fish pond, and 
 all the darned old things that this country can do 
 and every other country would give its ears for. 
 You know it backwards already although you've 
 never been there. The Toodor model exact. And 
 yet you say, 'I must see it first.' Well, that's not 
 my way of doing business. I came here, dead out 
 of my way, because I heard you were a woman in a 
 thousand ; but it seems I've lost the trip. Good 
 bye, Miss Muirhead. I'm disappointed." 
 
84 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Miss Muirhead laughed. "I'll do it," she said. 
 
 "Bully 1" saidMr.Thayer. "Then that's settled." 
 And he sprang into his car and was off in a cloud of 
 dust. 
 
 "Oh," said Ann, "how fearfully exciting !" 
 
 "Could you believe," said Miss Muirhead, "that 
 there existed a man who had enough sense of what 
 was beautiful as to want a Tudor garden, and so 
 lacking in everything that makes life interesting that 
 he declines to see it in the making?" 
 
 "I suppose he hasn't got time," said Ann. 
 
 "No, "said Miss Muirhead, "how could he have ? 
 He's an American financier." 
 
 The next day Ann returned to London. "You 
 are very kind," she said to Miss Muirhead, "but my 
 heart wouldn't be in gardening at all. I should be 
 bored to distraction most of the time. London for 
 me." 
 
 "A headstrong modern girl," said Miss Muirhead, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 "But a very nice one," said Miss Lingard. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 IN WHICH WE VISIT THE HIGH-PRIEST 
 ESS OF A TEMPLE OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 13 ICHARD OAST was very strong in wishing 
 1\. Ann to work. "Of course," he said, a few 
 Fridays later, "all girls should have something to do ; 
 and the busier our wives are the better. Few women 
 and fewer men have enough character to be idle. 
 The notion that Adam because he was turned out to 
 work was therefore cursed is the silliest fallacy I 
 know. He was well rid of the place. The curse of 
 Eden was not work but clothes. I should be a happy 
 man if it weren't for coats that didn't fit. In any 
 future incarnation I hope I may be a spaniel, and be 
 always happy and dressed without dressing." 
 
 "But what about Ann?" said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Yes," said Richard Oast. "What about Ann? 
 It's one thing to applaud her for wanting to work, 
 and it's another to find the work. Because she 
 hasn't the propulsion of necessity. She can look 
 about and choose ; and people in that position, not 
 being quite sincere, rarely do anything important." 
 
 "Ann's sincere enough," said her father. 
 
 "I should like her to use her hands," said Richard 
 Oast. "What about book-binding ? " 
 
 8s 
 
86 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "I don't think she's got any hands," said Mr. 
 Ingleside. "It must be practical head work." 
 
 "Don't make her a Society journalist," said 
 Christie. "You should see our fashion lady ! It's 
 true she would get her hats and frocks for nothing, 
 and face cream to burn, but it's a knell of a life." 
 
 "I have an idea," said Dr. Staminer. "Appren 
 tice her for a year to Miss Ming. Miss Ming is a 
 great friend of mine in fact, I visit her shop every 
 day, and a good half of my things come from her. 
 She knows her work, and it is work of a very inter 
 esting kind. Only nice people go there, and Ann, 
 even if she did not continue in the business, would 
 come away at the end of the year with a very re 
 markable store of information on very interesting 
 subjects." 
 
 "Who is Miss Ming?" Richard Oast inquired. 
 
 "Miss Ming has an old curiosity shop," Dr. 
 Staminer explained ; and it was arranged that he and 
 Mr. Ingleside should meet there on the morrow. 
 
 Miss Ming's shop was not far from South Ken 
 sington Museum, and indeed it was rather like a 
 collection of samples from that wonderful institution. 
 The Museum carried out Miss Ming's stock-in-trade 
 to the highest power. Everything that she had in 
 small numbers the Museum possessed in profusion 
 and perfection. Who, however, can compare a 
 museum with a shop -r the one so frigid and so full 
 of the unattainable, the other so human and pos- 
 sessable ? Visitors are requested not to touch, says 
 the Museum. Examine everything, said Miss 
 Ming. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 87 
 
 Miss Ming's habitues and she had many were 
 different enough in most respects, but they had one 
 feeling in common, and that was surprise that Miss 
 Ming ever brought herself to part with anything. 
 For she entertained towards her stock-in-trade a 
 feeling of benign appreciation. Everything that 
 passed through her hands was good : her catholicity 
 of taste was without bounds. 
 
 Where Miss Ming acquired her little bits (every 
 thing was a "bit") no one knew, for she never left 
 her shop, and not one of her customers ever found her 
 dealing with a seller ; and yet there was something 
 new every day. After the Boxer rising, Miss Ming's 
 shop was a treasury of loot. Blue enamel caught the 
 eye ; sumptuous robes ; hair-pins made of feathers 
 from the breasts of kingfishers ; rings and bracelets 
 of jade, green and milky ; gold and silver filigree ; 
 opium pipes ; miraculous embroidery. Where did 
 they come from? No one could say; but there 
 they were. 
 
 The Chinese interlude was, however, exceptional. 
 The life-blood of Miss Ming's business was the Eng 
 lish past. She looked back : hence her popularity 
 with travelling Americans, to whom the backward 
 glance can be indulged in only on holidays. They 
 went to her for such essentials as spinning-wheels 
 and rush-light holders. Miss Ming always had the 
 right things. When lustre was the rage, she had 
 lustre. When samplers were almost more than Old 
 Masters, she had samplers. When it was fashionable 
 to carry a handkerchief to the theatre in a bead bag 
 a hundred years old, she had bead bags. 
 
88 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 But artifice by no means monopolized her enthu 
 siasms. She loved Nature too. She had a cabinet 
 full of shells, and to watch her caressing a chambered 
 nautilus was an education in lyrical appreciation. 
 An old maid, yes; but if you asked to see some 
 Stuart baby caps, her maternal ecstasy as she ar 
 ranged the little faded lace bonnets over her doubled 
 hand would have thrilled Luini. Miss Ming, in 
 short, was that rare and delightful thing, an enthu 
 siast. 
 
 It was difficult to find anything that she did not 
 like : she may be said to have fondled the whole 
 world. " Isn't it a darling?" was her commonest 
 phrase. " Isn't it a darling?" she would say of a 
 netsuke or a crucifix, an ivory and gold whist-marker 
 or a silver pounce-box, a strip of Honiton or a Toby 
 jug, an iridescent vase excavated in Crete or an 
 elaborate watch-clock. And she would be right. 
 They were darlings each in its way : and her 
 darlings beyond question, because she had made 
 them so. She sold them because it was her business, 
 but she often took them home first. She sold cheaply 
 where she bought cheaply : never was dealer's frame 
 so free from huckster's blood. 
 
 It was Miss Ming's habit to sit in a little parlour 
 at the back of her shop and wait till the customers 
 had had time to glance about before she came for 
 ward. From this sanctuary she greeted Dr. Stam- 
 iner and Mr. Ingleside very cordially, and after the 
 doctor had sent his acquisitive eye on a swift roving 
 quest round the shelves, and Mr. Ingleside had 
 examined two or three netsukes very attentively 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 89 
 
 (" Aren't they little ducks?" Miss Ming inquired), 
 they all sat down, and Dr. Staminer introduced the 
 great topic. 
 
 But Miss Ming gave them no encouragement. 
 "It's a nice enough business," she said, "for an old 
 maid like me, but young girls shouldn't live so much 
 in the past. I don't like the idea of a fresh nice girl 
 selling ancient curiosities and fossils all day long. I 
 shouldn't let any girl of my own if I had one 
 take it up, and I shouldn't care to instruct Miss 
 Ingleside even if her father begged me to. Old 
 curiosities are very well in their way, but one ought 
 not to begin with them. It's like bus-conducting. 
 No one begins as a bus-conductor : he gets there." 
 
 "But you?" said the doctor. 
 
 "Oh, I," said Miss Ming, "I was more or less 
 brought up to it. . . . I'm the exception. ... But 
 you don't suppose I would not rather have children 
 than old china, and house worries than jade ? But 
 I haven't, and there's an end to it. Here I am 
 instead, and I'd much rather be selling you a dar 
 ling little piece of enamel, like this, than talking 
 about myself." 
 
 "Wouldn't you take Mr. Ingleside's daughter if 
 she paid a premium?" Dr. Staminer asked. "For 
 mornings only, mind. No afternoon work." 
 
 "Not if she paid me a thousand pounds a minute," 
 said Miss Ming. "I mean it. Not a fresh young 
 girl like that ! The idea ! If you brought her to me 
 in ten years' time, and she hadn't found a husband, 
 I might ; but I'm not sure even then. I couldn't 
 bear a companion, and that's a fact. I couldn't 
 
go ME. INGLESIDE 
 
 bear anyone to see me bargaining with the people 
 I buy things from." 
 
 "You're too sensitive," said Dr. Staminer. "It's 
 absurd. I don't know how you've done things as 
 well as you have with an idiotic suet-pudding heart 
 like that ! You don't deserve to get on." 
 
 "I dare say I am foolish," said Miss Ming, "but 
 we must be ourselves. There was a soldier this morn 
 ing brought in what do you think? his Victoria 
 Cross. And do you think I could buy it ? I couldn't. 
 He was ready to take a pound for it, he said." 
 
 "You didn't do him any good by that," said Dr. 
 Staminer. "He merely went to some one else and 
 sold it for ten shillings." 
 
 "I couldn't help it," said Miss Ming. "I simply 
 couldn't do it. A Victoria Cross think of it ! I 
 couldn't afford to be generous to him by giving him 
 a pound out of hand, and I couldn't bring myself to 
 trade in such a reward. That will show Mr. Ingle- 
 side," she said, "how unsuited I am to teach his 
 daughter or anyone the true principles of business." 
 
 Dr. Staminer took the refusal philosophically. "I 
 don't think you're right," he said ; "but if you think 
 like that, it comes to the same, thing. I am dis 
 appointed, because a year with you would have 
 qualified Ann to catalogue my collection, which she 
 is totally unable to do at present, and which some 
 one will have to do." 
 
 And so they went off, but not before Mr. Ingleside 
 had bought a soap-stone figure of one of the Japanese 
 gods of good luck, whose very large bald head (Miss 
 Ming told him) it is the duty of its owner to rub 
 
MB. INGLESIDE 91 
 
 gently on every possible occasion, that benefits may 
 follow. 
 
 "Ann should make a good start in life with that, 
 whatever she does," said Mr. Ingleside as Miss Ming 
 wrapped it up. 
 
 " The old darling !" said she, as she handed him 
 the parcel. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN WHICH VARIOUS PROFESSIONS THAT 
 INVOLVE NO LOSS OF CASTE ARE 
 DESCRIBED 
 
 IT was shortly after the visit to Miss Ming's that 
 Ann asked her father if she might begin at once 
 to learn shorthand and typewriting. 
 
 " Of course," said he. " It is an excellent stepping 
 stone to usefulness. I might learn to dictate to you 
 myself. I don't mind what you do," he exclaimed, 
 "so long as I see something of you and you don't 
 have to wear a blouse. Of course, as a humanitarian, 
 what I should really like for you is a Post Office 
 appointment, and then I should feel sure that in one 
 office at any rate a few men who have the effront 
 ery to want stamps are not dying of exposure. 
 But where," he added, "are you going to learn?" 
 
 Ann said she had thought of Miss Beautiman, and 
 Mr. Ingleside agreed at once, for Miss Beautiman 
 was a daughter of his father's family doctor, who 
 had performed what is in England the exceedingly 
 easy task of bringing up his children like lilies of the 
 field and then dying insolvent. The result was that 
 the three Misses Beautiman at this moment were 
 earning their own living, or what approximated to it, 
 in London, with a courage and perseverance which, 
 if they were more generally distributed, would leave 
 
 92 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 93 
 
 those detached apostles of efficiency, the English 
 critics of England, without any occupation save the 
 very distasteful one of improving themselves. 
 
 Kate Beautiman was clearly a tired woman, but 
 her will was strong, and was fortified by the bitterness 
 of her recollections of the days before fortune, as she 
 now knew it, had smiled upon her. She worked hard 
 from half-past nine till seven, and expected hard 
 work from her assistants, who bent, to the number of 
 five, over their machines all day. Miss Beautiman 
 herself had practically given up typing, and sat in a 
 little wooden compartment by the door to receive 
 custom and control the accounts. She had set out 
 with the determination that her terms were to be 
 cash, but her face wore too many proofs that that 
 policy had been defeated. She looked like a woman 
 who had met all sorts and conditions of men in 
 business transactions : her prevailing cynicism sug 
 gested it ; her attitude even to new clients suggested 
 it. It is extraordinary how different a business 
 man can be in his office in London and in his home 
 at Wimbledon. 
 
 The sisters occupied an upper part in Bloomsbury, 
 where by dint of a tea-and-tin diet they had managed 
 for some years to exist, but where now, thanks chiefly 
 to the exertions of the typist Kate, the second sister, 
 they were dwelling in comparative luxury. For Miss 
 Kate Beautiman, after eight years of struggling, had 
 accumulated a sufficient number of clients to bring in 
 a clear profit of 150 a year, with anaemia thrown in. 
 Of the others, Miss Ellen, the younger, copied pic 
 tures in the National Gallery every Thursday and 
 
94 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Friday, and Miss Sarah, the elder, did research work 
 in the Reading-Room of the British Museum. They 
 both shared their sister Kate's unswerving determi 
 nation, but they were cheerier souls than she. 
 Typing for gentlemen is, it seems, a more dulling 
 occupation even than that of copying sermons for the 
 needy or penurious clergy. Miss Sarah, at any rate, 
 retained a certain respect for humanity at large, 
 whereas Miss Kate, while associating little enough 
 with her own sex, had come to look with positive 
 disgust upon the other. Miss Sarah still cherished 
 in some neat corner of her gentle heart the possibility 
 that she might yet find an admirer : she was only 
 forty-seven ; but Miss Kate's every gesture, every 
 expression, her clothes, her umbrella, her footstep, 
 said as plain as plain could be, "Hands off." 
 
 "Yes, my dear," Miss Sarah replied to Ann's 
 remark that she must get tired of copying at the 
 British Museum, "I do get tired. Very tired. But 
 it doesn't do to think about it. The only way is to 
 keep going on. But the air's terrible, and the people 
 I sit between ! You wouldn't believe. Of course 
 they're always changing, but just now on one side 
 of me there's a Scotch poet who asks my opinion of 
 all his verses, and on the other a negro from San 
 Domingo who sits surrounded by the complete works 
 of John Stuart Mill. What negroes want with Mill 
 I can't imagine, but I've noticed that the blacker 
 a reader is the stiffer are the books he reads. You 
 should see them contorting over Herbert Spencer ! 
 Last week I sat between a Pole and a monk, 
 and a little while ago there was a simple-lifer with 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 95 
 
 nothing on but a blanket, and hair down his 
 back." 
 
 "And what do they all do ? " asked Ann. 
 
 "They're all busy writing books," said Miss Sarah. 
 "Every one in the Museum is writing a book, even 
 the officials. You'd have thought that they'd seen 
 books enough : but no. If they'd all stop making 
 new ones, and turn their minds to indexing the old 
 ones, there'd be something in it. But that would 
 be too useful. Take my present employer, for 
 example. Just now, what do you think I'm doing ? 
 I'm collecting materials for a book about every one 
 of importance called Graham. My employer is a 
 rich old gentleman in Wigan whose name is Graham, 
 and he wants to celebrate the tribe. It isn't as if it 
 was Graham only : I have to hunt also for Grahames 
 and Graemes and Grams and Grayhams, and pack 
 off the results every evening by post. I get quite 
 a start if I see Graham over a shop now, it's so on my 
 mind. I believe if I was introduced to anyone 
 named Graham I should have hysterics." 
 
 Miss Ellen, the youngest she was forty-one 
 had of course the best time. To begin with, she had 
 the happy artistic temperament, and being the child 
 of the family was licensed to possess a bad memory 
 and a vaguer sense of economy than her more re 
 sponsible sisters, whose privilege and misfortune it 
 was to come into the world before her. 
 
 "I like my work," she said, "but sometimes we 
 have very bad seasons. Just now I'm busy. I'm 
 doing Reynolds' 'Angels' Heads' for an American 
 lady who thinks it one of the cutest things she ever 
 
9 6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 saw. What I don't like is having to keep on copy 
 ing the same picture. I suppose I must have copied 
 Andrea del Sarto's 'Holy Family' ten times. Once 
 I had to do it full size for an altarpiece for a church in 
 Torquay ; but when it was done I couldn't get the 
 money, and so it was sold to a lady from Great 
 Malvern to raffle at a bazaar. 
 
 "People who want pictures are very trying," Miss 
 Ellen continued. ' ' They change their minds of tener 
 than any other kind. I'm afraid I really have to 
 insist now upon half the money on account. The 
 Americans, for example, they mean all right, I've no 
 doubt, but they go back to America and forget all 
 about their commissions, or else they buy a coloured 
 reproduction in a shop, and think I can easily find 
 another purchaser for my hand-made copy. They're 
 awfully particular about real hand-made work, some 
 of them. * You're certain it's hand-done,' they say. 
 Why, that's all I can do. If I could sit at a 
 machine like Kate and manifold copies of Holy 
 Families, don't you suppose I should?" 
 
 Ann became Miss Kate's pupil for a small con 
 sideration, and breathed over a machine every morn 
 ing, painfully forcing her fingers to obey the alphabet, 
 while at odd times she packed her head with gram- 
 malogues. She was the only unpaid worker. The 
 other assistants were there in deadly earnest, 
 because they or their parents needed the money. 
 What girl would translate human handwriting into 
 type for nine hours a day if she could help it ? (My 
 handwriting, for example, or yours ?) Miss Beauti- 
 man's girls were all pale and round-shouldered and 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 97 
 
 joyless. They could get excited, and often did, 
 over a fashion plate, for the most part, or a recital of 
 domestic disturbances, or the melodrama at the local 
 theatre, but they had no joy, no sparkle. Nor did 
 any of them seem to be engaged : no young man 
 waited for them in the evenings. To Ann, who had 
 thought vaguely of all shop-girls and therefore 
 office-girls having their young men, this was a 
 surprise. She learned it from Miss Moth, the only 
 one who was readily friendly and sympathetic Ann 
 herself having probably made free intercourse with 
 the others rather difficult by hesitating lest she 
 should seem patronizing. She had nothing but 
 friendliness for them, and no consciousness of any 
 but the accidental superiority of easier circumstances ; 
 but she made the mistake of thinking herself into 
 these others. Hence it was that Miss Moth was 
 the only one with whom she talked at all naturally, 
 and on two or three occasions when she stood Miss 
 Moth a lunch with some fresh meat in it as a 
 change from her scones and half -pork pies and boiled 
 eggs she had learned not only the history of her 
 guest but the others too. 
 
 "They're all as poor as they can be," Miss Moth 
 said, "only they have a little more independence 
 than ordinary girls, and therefore prefer this to 
 being in a shop. And some of them are plainer, too, 
 than the shop-people like." 
 
 "And they're none of them engaged?" 
 "No," said Miss Moth, "we're none of us engaged." 
 "Oh, I'm so sorry," said Ann, noticing the change 
 of pronoun. 
 
98 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "It's all right," said Miss Moth, rather wanly. 
 "Why should every girl be engaged ? All the same, 
 I'm sorry for some of them. There's so little to look 
 forward to nothing, in fact, except a rather better 
 situation as typist in an ordinary office, or even some 
 day the founding of such a business as Miss Beauti- 
 man's. Several girls have left us to go into offices, 
 but they all say they wish they hadn't. So many 
 London employers and clerks don't seem to be quite 
 ready yet to work side by side decently with girls. 
 I suppose a time will come, if we all peg along and 
 insist on earning our own living more and more in 
 men's ways." 
 
 "Are they very horrid ?" Ann asked. 
 
 "They can be," said Miss Moth. 
 
 "Do you think it will change ? " Ann asked. 
 
 "Oh no, I don't. I don't really believe in any 
 kind of change except for the worse, "said Miss Moth ; 
 "but one always hopes underneath, don't you see. 
 I suppose that's human nature like getting hungry 
 and tired." 
 
 Ann looked at her almost tearfully. 
 
 "It's all right," said Miss Moth, "but I wish that 
 there wasn't so much talked and written and acted 
 above love ; because it only fills girls' heads with 
 what oughtn't to be there, as things go. All of our 
 lot would be far happier if their heads weren't full of 
 it. Most of life for every one has got to be lived 
 without love, but you wouldn't think it from books. 
 Love's only frilling, anyway ; but it gives you some 
 thing besides yourself to think about, and that's good. 
 Work is the real thing, of course ; but the sillier kind 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 99 
 
 of girl can't see it, and so they just go on always 
 thinking of a possible to-morrow, and starving and 
 moping to-day. Directly they get away they begin 
 on their novelettes. We had a visit a little while ago 
 from a suffragette who was going round the type 
 writing offices to get recruits. Miss Beautiman is a 
 suffragette, of course, but that is what you would 
 expect : she is a business woman, and she wants a 
 hand in things ; but the others only laughed. I 
 could have told the truth about them if I had been 
 asked. ' They don't want votes, ' I should have said, 
 ' they want lovers. What's the good of talking to a 
 lot of half-starved foolish typists about votes ? You 
 can't make a girl any more sensible by giving her a 
 vote ; but you can make her happier by giving her a 
 lover, and you can turn her into a housekeeper and 
 a mother by giving her a husband.'" 
 
 "Then you don't want a vote?" Ann said. 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind," Miss Moth replied wearily. 
 "I'm tired, anyway." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN WHICH A YOUNG GENTLEMAN'S 
 GENTLEMANLY FUTURE IS CONSIDERED 
 
 " T 1 7HAT are you going to do with John ? " Mr. 
 
 VV Ingleside one day asked. " Ann's begun 
 to learn typewriting." 
 
 "I wish I knew," said Mrs. Campion. "It's so 
 difficult. He seems to have no particular leaning 
 towards anything, except cricket ; and I understand 
 that liberal as is the payment of amateurs one can't 
 live on it." 
 
 "He's not old enough to be secretary of a golf 
 club," Mr. Ingleside remarked. "Any gentleman 
 may do that, you know, but it is usual to fail else 
 where a good deal first. Quite aged second sons are 
 capital at it." 
 
 "Do be serious," said Mrs. Campion. "The poor 
 boy's whole future depends upon it." 
 
 "Frivolity is the high road to seriousness," said 
 Mr. Ingleside. "It always ends there." 
 
 "I blame myself," said Mrs. Campion. "He 
 ought to have been trained in some definite direction 
 from the first. It is too late now for so many things 
 the Army, the Navy, the Church. I don't think 
 he'd be any use at the Bar, dear boy, and I'm sure he 
 wouldn't go in for medicine. What is there left ? " 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 101 
 
 " WeU, there's trade/' said Mr. Ingleside. "Any 
 one is allowed to be a wine merchant." 
 
 "I shouldn't like that," said Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "The Stock Exchange," Mr. Ingleside continued. 
 "Extremely good form. High spirits equal to an 
 undergraduate's. Why not buy him a partnership ? 
 He might have a distinct flair for speculation. Lots 
 of gilded youth have." 
 
 Mrs. Campion looked pained. "I couldn't afford 
 that," she said, "anyway." 
 
 "There's always journalism," Mr. Ingleside added. 
 "That would put him into a position of command. 
 England is passing utterly into the power of the 
 Press." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Campion, "but journalism wants 
 brains." 
 
 "True," Mr. Ingleside replied, "but not neces 
 sarily the journalist's. I don't suggest that he 
 should do anything low. He might confine himself 
 to dramatic criticism and noting the names of guests 
 in the swagger restaurants. I am told that this 
 carries free meals with it." 
 
 "You are incorrigible," said Mrs. Campion, "and 
 you're not helping me a bit." 
 
 "Oh yes, I am," said Mr. Ingleside. "We've 
 cleared away a lot of ground. There's still the 
 stage." 
 
 "Never," cried Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "Hush," said her friend; "don't say 'never' so 
 loud. It's often not till parents shout ' never ' at the 
 top of their voices that sons begin to think seriously 
 of doing the forbidden thing. Why not the stage ? 
 
102 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 It will teach him to walk well, at any rate, and to 
 keep his hands still, and to wear beautiful trousers." 
 
 "Please don't," said Mrs. Campion. "You hurt 
 me. How could I have a son who was an actor ? " 
 
 "Why abuse actors ? " said Mr. Ingleside. "Act 
 ors are very enviable people." 
 
 " How, enviable ? " inquired Mrs. Campion. "You 
 don't call it enviable, do you, to smear grease paint 
 on your face every evening?" 
 
 "Not alone," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Well, do you call it enviable to be always pre 
 tending you are some one else ?" 
 
 "Certainly I do," said Mr. Ingleside. "That's 
 just what I do call enviable. Acting might be de 
 scribed as a protest against fact ; and indeed actors 
 seem to be among the happiest persons ; and they 
 are notoriously the healthiest. No actor or actress is 
 ever ill ; which shows what a fraud fresh air must be. 
 I know that I for one would often like to be some one 
 else or rather, to put it more accurately, I would 
 often like to cease to be myself. Actors are con 
 tinually pretending that they are others. I knew a 
 young stationer once with a heavy moustache, who 
 on his annual fortnight at the seaside carried a bag 
 with ' Captain Marden ' on it and the name of a 
 regiment under the name. The military status he 
 assumed, and the consequent attention that he 
 received in his boarding-house, gave him more pleas 
 ure and refreshment than all the ozone of the sea. 
 For two weeks he was another man and a happy man. 
 Such a device would be no good to me, because my 
 mind is so absurdly constituted that to deceive 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 103 
 
 others is useless to it unless I can deceive myself too ; 
 but he was more sensibly made, and he revelled in it. 
 Actors are in his happy position every night of their 
 lives." 
 
 "The man was a bounder," said John, who had 
 come in while they were talking. 
 
 " Oh, I dare say he was," said Mr. Ingleside. "But 
 what of that ? This world belongs to bounders ; 
 it is the very place for them. They are in a great 
 majority. It is we fastidians (as I might call us) 
 who are the intruders ; and it is we who are .always 
 applying the caustic epithets. We do so largely 
 because we are disappointed and jealous. We know 
 in our hearts that we are too exacting to enjoy the 
 existing conditions, and that makes us bitter ; 
 whereas the bounder is attuned to them, and there 
 fore contented. Don't abuse bounders, my boy. 
 Don't abuse anybody. 
 
 "But of course," Mr. Ingleside continued, "John 
 can't go on the stage, because John isn't an actor. 
 Actors are always actors. A man does not go on the 
 stage does not accept this life of pretence and grease 
 paint and heat and applause unless he has a dis 
 position that way. The unreality of it all nauseates 
 John ; he will therefore never be an actor. Nor 
 could John ever contemplate the spectacle of his wife 
 exchanging public caresses with other men ; he will 
 therefore never marry an actress. But actors and 
 actresses think nothing of all this. Every calling is 
 staffed by the people who are fitted for it ; those who 
 join it by mistake leave. Actors are actors ; tailors 
 are tailors ; hairdressers are hairdressers ; reporters 
 
io 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 are reporters ; election agents are election agents. 
 It is that fact which makes so much criticism futile 
 and absurd. Idle, for example, to find fault with a 
 restaurateur for not having the sense to taste his 
 own food and see for himself that his mushrooms, for 
 instance, are without any flavour save that of the 
 kitchen ; because a restaurateur is a restaurateur : 
 that is to say, a man without any interest in flavours. 
 To him mushrooms are not one of the rarest of nat 
 ural delicacies, but simply so much little white fungus 
 that arrives at Covent Garden in the autumn at a 
 shilling or so a bushel, and may be retailed very 
 profitably, after being ruined by his chef, at three 
 pence apiece. Do you see ? All this (though you 
 might not think it) leads up to what I want to say. 
 People are what they are. Hence the principal 
 reason for becoming an actor the ease with which 
 one escapes from oneself falls to the ground, be 
 cause an actor, being an actor, does not value this 
 privilege, since to a very great extent he is nothing 
 unless he is some one else. He has so little person 
 ality to escape from." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside paused, and John gave a long whistle. 
 
 "What a lecturer you'd make," he said. "I've 
 never heard you say so much." 
 
 "That's your mother's fault," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 "She makes me talk." 
 
 " Of course I do," Mrs. Campion replied. "That's 
 what women are for." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN WHICH MANY ASPECTS OF THE NEW 
 TERROR ARE DISCUSSED 
 
 IT was a Friday evening, and Vycount Ramer had 
 brought in with him a late edition with the news 
 of another suffragette raid in it. He read the account 
 the usual thing : on the one side, the granite male 
 tradition of ages ; on the other, a handful of exas 
 perated, excited girls, with a very real cause to further 
 and no satisfying means of furthering it but shrill 
 tumult and lawlessness. Christie listened with im 
 patience and angry grunts. 
 
 "Well," he said at the close. "I give it up." 
 
 "What do you give up? " Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 "The anti-suffrage business. I've been on the 
 fence a long time, and now I'm coming down." 
 
 "On which side?" 
 
 "On the suffragettes' side, of course. In future 
 I'm a suffragette too." 
 
 "But their horrible tactics," said Henry Thrace. 
 "Their brickbats. Their - 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Christie ; "but I don't care. 
 They're right. They ought to have a vote. Any 
 drunken beast can have it, with nothing to qualify 
 him but his damned trousers, while the cleverest 
 woman in the country mayn't express an opinion. 
 
 105 
 
io6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 It isn't fair, and I'm not going to stand it. Hence 
 forward I'm a suffragette." 
 
 " Votes for Wimmin," piped Leslie. 
 
 "I don't mind," said Christie. " They've got to 
 have votes." 
 
 "Serve them right if they had," said Leslie. 
 " There's no fun in voting." 
 
 "Fun!" snapped Christie. "Who wants fun? 
 They're in earnest." 
 
 "You will, of course, express your new views in 
 your paper ? " said Leslie. 
 
 "Leave my paper alone," said Christie. "We've 
 had all that out before. The paper's opinions and 
 mine will never be the same. They pay me for cer 
 tain work, and I do it, and that's all. They haven't 
 bought my soul." 
 
 "How jolly it would be," said Leslie, who was 
 never happier than in ragging Christie, "to find a 
 Tory paper of which the staff were Tory too. Odd 
 about you, Christie : you're not a liar in any other 
 direction." 
 
 Henry Thrace dashed in to avoid a real loss of 
 temper. "I'm glad you feel so deeply about it," 
 he said to Christie ; "I wish I could, but women are 
 so hopeless. Most women are either exchanging 
 scandal, or making it, or hoping to be mistaken for 
 Dimpsie Dentifrice." 
 
 "Well, and what are most men doing?" retorted 
 Christie. "No, if it comes to that, there's not a 
 penny to choose. But that's not the point. The 
 point is that those women who want to vote should 
 be allowed to. Those that don't want to needn't. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 107 
 
 I don't pretend to be any great shakes as a politician 
 or sociologist, but I can see plainly enough that a new 
 kind of woman has arisen, and that the state of things 
 must be adapted to meet her case. I can believe 
 that fifty years ago, in spite of the fact that one of 
 the disfranchised sex was on the throne, the cry, 
 ' Votes for Women, ' would have rung out with some 
 insincerity. But women are very different now. 
 There are at once more unmarried women and there 
 are more women who marry without illusions. But 
 what is more to the point, women have been enabled 
 to earn their living in such a great variety of new 
 ways that those who are independent of men have 
 increased in number enormously and will go on in 
 creasing." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, "I think it is time 
 that Englishmen had a lesson. Whether the suffra 
 gettes win or lose and I suppose they will win some 
 day things can't be as they were. A few more men 
 will have been taught to meet women frankly with 
 the true homage of level terms, in place of the false 
 homage of the silky drawing-room voice." 
 
 Ann coming in at this moment, Richard Oast 
 turned to her. "I suppose you're going to be a 
 suffragette?" he said pleasantly. 
 
 "I dare say," said Ann, "but I haven't thought 
 much about it yet. I should probably think as 
 father did." 
 
 "A very poor preparation," said Oast. "The art 
 of being a suffragette is to ignore your father's 
 opinions. But, my dear, I don't think you're very 
 promising material. You belong too naturally to 
 
io8 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 life. Your tendency is to find it good. The suffra 
 gette is bred of discontent as indeed all reform is." 
 
 "The first one may have been," said Christie, 
 "but they're not all discontented women any longer. 
 There are plenty of suffragettes who are made so by 
 reason and a sense of justice. Why, how could a 
 decent, intelligent woman sit down under the impli 
 cation that she's not fit to do what any cab-rank 
 waterman has the right to do choose the law-mak 
 ers of the country? It's absurd on the face of it." 
 
 "But there are many ways of influencing the 
 country besides voting for a member of Parliament," 
 said Leslie. 
 
 "Of course," Christie replied, "but that again 
 isn't the point. The point is that the disability is 
 insulting and degrading and unbearable. It doesn't 
 matter whether it's right or wrong ; what matters is 
 that half the inhabitants of the country are debarred 
 from the privilege of choosing a representative 
 merely through an accident of sex. Women may do 
 everything else : write, lecture, teach, control busi 
 ness, entertain, act, sing, become doctors, lawyers, 
 scholars, even sit on the throne ; but they mayn't 
 vote. They may marry members of Parliament and 
 be the mothers of members of Parliament, but they 
 mayn't vote for members of Parliament. Aren't 
 you beginning to see some of the idiocy of it?" 
 
 "To my mind," said Richard Oast, "a large 
 part of the hostility to the suffrage movement is 
 pure caution on the part of the men. Men are 
 naturally more self-protective than women : they 
 look ahead or perhaps it would be truer to say that 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 109 
 
 they feel ahead and safeguard themselves. The 
 more imaginative men the artists, and so forth 
 don't mind the suffrage, and even support it, because 
 they not only rather like the novelty and change, 
 but because they know instinctively that no matter 
 what happens they personally will be all right : 
 women will still want them ; Meredith, you remem 
 ber, was for the cause. But the ordinary unattrac 
 tive man is quite aware already that this movement 
 is leading to something very like a sex war, and that 
 with every concession towards power that he makes 
 his reign is shortened. Every recruit to the suffra 
 gette army is a loss to the seraglio of this person. 
 That's what he fears. That's why he's so bitter and 
 pig-headed." 
 
 "Very good," said Christie. 
 
 "Butldon't think thecause has much of afuture," 
 Oast continued, "because I don't think there will 
 ever be enough disinterested women or enough 
 women sufficiently discontented to carry it. It 
 is essentially a single-woman's war, and the young 
 stalwarts will continually be getting engaged and 
 dropping out. Nature is the real enemy of such 
 struggles, not man. Nature has arranged it that 
 most women want one man only, and want noth 
 ing apart from him. That's the trouble, Christie. 
 Your malcontents will always be numerous, and 
 possibly always determined ; but they will be a 
 minority ; most women will continue to be unmoved 
 they will have other and more primitive fish to fry. 
 Nor, I fear, did Nature give the sex any great faculty 
 of mobilization. They will fail there too." 
 
no MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "The whole movement," said Dr. Staminer, "is 
 linked together. That is partly why it is so danger 
 ous, and, to my mind, so sure to succeed. I did not 
 think of it at the time : but looking back on my life 
 now, I can see that I have watched, although inar 
 ticulately, every stage. I can remember the girls 
 my own sisters among them of the fifties and 
 sixties, how docile they were, how content to wait 
 for their wooers and do only the feminine things. 
 Archery and croquet, both staid and almost station 
 ary pastimes, were, after riding, their only open- 
 air games with the nobler sex. 
 
 "Then the seventies, with the arrival of lawn ten 
 nis and woman's first willingness to be hot and breath 
 less too. Looking at it now," the doctor continued, 
 "I believe that the whole river of feminine indepen 
 dence may be traced to the first drop of perspiration 
 caused by the first game of mixed doubles. It was 
 that drop, and the woman's disregard of it, that 
 began the new movement towards equality. 
 
 "What the seventies and lawn tennis began," he 
 continued, "the eighties and the bicycle enforced. 
 Because it was the bicycle that killed the power of 
 the parent and chaperon. The difference in the 
 English girl before and after the bicycle is almost 
 indescribable. She mounted the bicycle nominally 
 to ride with her brother, or even to get more quickly 
 to choir practice, and it carried her to emancipation. 
 
 "The typewriter," the doctor added, smiling at 
 Ann, "came at the same time, to act as an inter 
 mediary for her introduction to city life also a 
 step towards enfranchisement. In the eighties 
 
MR. INGLESIDE in 
 
 came also the woman's club and the woman's 
 cigarette. 
 
 "And then the nineties, which brought golf to 
 every suburb and a ladies' day to every club, and 
 hockey and cricket to every girls' school ; and behold 
 a girl had ceased utterly to be a girl, a superior, deli 
 cate creature of blushes and sensitivenesses, to be 
 touched reverently like a peach, but was now a 
 good fellow, and a man need no longer mind his man 
 ners when he was with her. 
 
 "And by the time the new century arrived," the 
 doctor concluded, "women were so active in so many 
 directions once reserved for men only that the suffra 
 gette movement was as logical a proceeding as the 
 fire that follows an earthquake. It is the future 
 that I think of with most gravity, for nothing of 
 course stands still, and a sex war would be a horrible 
 thing." 
 
 "What a splendid summary !" said Christie. "I 
 wish you'd write that for me." 
 
 "I've forgotten it already," said the doctor. 
 
 "It's all right," said Leslie. "Christie hasn't." 
 
 "Few of the aggressive body probably begin the 
 campaign as the enemies of man, but fewer go on 
 with it in any other spirit. That is what is so dan 
 gerous," said the doctor. 
 
 "I don't know any suffragettes," said Mr. Ingle- 
 side. "I should rather like to." 
 
 "I know an out-and-outer," said Ramer. "I 
 wonder if I might bring her here." 
 
 "Of course," said Mr. Ingleside. "That's just 
 what we want." 
 
ii2 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Fm scared to death of her," said Ramer, "but 
 I'll try." 
 
 There was no doubt about the whole-heartedness 
 of Miss Lily Custer as a suffragette. She was fragile 
 and small, but independence and courage were 
 stamped on her. She had short curling hair and 
 was pale and determined, with large grey eyes and 
 thin red lips : a very noticeable face. She wore 
 always a grey tailor-made dress and a man's collar, 
 with a black tie. Her hands were slender and long 
 and very white. Miss Custer had been to Girton 
 and had done fairly well, and then discovered that 
 she wanted to be an artist. She still had a studio, 
 but it had become a political centre, and nothing had 
 been painted there for months except the character 
 of man generally, and Cabinet Ministers in particular, 
 in black. Some of the most desperate of the ruses 
 of the party had been planned by this little delicate 
 creature. It was she who had got right into the 
 courtyard of the House of Commons disguised as the 
 chauffeur of a taxi-cab having spent some weeks 
 in motor-driving to qualify herself for the trick. It 
 was she who thought out the great Downing Street 
 invasions, when three of her colleagues disguised as 
 French milliners got into the boudoir of the Prime 
 Minister's wife, and having locked the door, lectured 
 that lady upon their ideals and intentions for an 
 hour before help could be secured. It was she who 
 successfully engineered the historic kidnapping and 
 detention of the Home Secretary. Her name, 
 however, seldom appeared. Most of all was it she 
 who kept the movement at white heat, her inventive 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 113 
 
 genius never allowing it to lack some alluring ele 
 ment of romance. Whether she wanted the vote was 
 a question which it would be difficult to answer with 
 any confidence ; but certain it was that she held men 
 in contempt and desired excitement and power. 
 Her attitude to men was one of calm and impreg 
 nable assurance and superiority. The result was 
 that they feared her, and yet, like moths, were un 
 able to resist burning their wings in the cold flame 
 of her disdain. She never relaxed ; even those that 
 professed themselves suffragettes she seemed to 
 despise also, perhaps (who knows ?) for the want of 
 manliness that their creed involved ! 
 
 Our Lady of Misrule (as she had been called) 
 came, but the evening was not a success. She 
 realized quickly that there were no converts here : 
 more, that she was in a company of men who cared 
 so little for causes and battle-cries that they probably 
 forgot that they had votes themselves. Christie, it 
 is true, was present, with his new fervour, but Chris 
 tie would never out of a clear sky have advocated 
 votes for women ; he had come over merely through 
 a sense of the injustice of withholding them a 
 very different thing. Moreover, he had not resigned 
 his post on a paper notoriously hostile to the move 
 ment : his words, therefore, to one who would have 
 made any sacrifice for her beliefs, were valueless. 
 
 Richard Oast did his best to discuss with detach 
 ment the policy of militancy and aggression, but 
 Miss Custer seemed to deprecate not only criticism 
 but even the most harmless questions. She knew 
 she was right. 
 
ii 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 The M.P. suggested that there might conceivedly 
 be people to hold the view that women who perse 
 cuted and vilified and assaulted statesmen because 
 they were held to have broken their word were not 
 providing the best credentials as responsible electors. 
 Miss Custer only smiled. 
 
 "What else are they to do?" Christie asked im 
 patiently. 
 
 "Well," said Oast, "many causes have been won 
 by waiting." 
 
 Miss Custer 's smile darkened to a scowl. "Wait ! " 
 she said. "Haven't we waited ?" 
 
 "You haven't," said Oast. "You haven't had 
 time to wait. You're only a child." 
 
 "The others, then?" said Miss Custer. 
 
 "In my opinion," said Oast "and you can disre 
 gard it, for it is only the opinion of a man they had 
 been waiting splendidly, and were just beginning to 
 reap the harvest of their quiet efficiency and good 
 sense, when the fruit was dashed from their hands by 
 the impatient high spirits of the younger faction 
 the Maenad Malcontents, shall I call them ? I know 
 of mothers who for years have steadily been proving 
 their right to vote, whose own daughters fresh from 
 school have ruined their chances for years to come." 
 
 "But even if the younger members' tactics are too 
 violent," said Miss Custer, "isn't it absurd to allow 
 that to disqualify the older ones ? " 
 
 "Ah," said Oast. "You are talking as if the world 
 were logical. That is what one does when one is 
 young and powerful. It may be absurd, but then 
 we are absurd ; life is absurd. We act upon a thou- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 115 
 
 sand impulses before logic's still small voice can be 
 heard at all. And very naturally. For logic, with 
 all its merits, has no heart and no warm blood. 
 Absurd, yes ; but it would be even more absurd if 
 men, after viewing the political aspirations of women 
 with suspicion for all these centuries, should suddenly 
 say, 'Well, they use dog- whips across the faces of our 
 rulers very handily ; they worry and annoy our 
 Prime Minister with extraordinary persistence and 
 skill, and do their best to ruin his health and nerves ; 
 they throw stones with unexpected accuracy. We 
 are now satisfied. They shall have the vote to 
 morrow : these are exactly the kind of people to elect 
 representatives wisely.' Do you honestly," Oast 
 concluded, turning smilingly to Miss Custer, "do 
 you honestly believe that you are going the right way 
 to work?" 
 
 Miss Custer said nothing. She was not, in fact, 
 a dialectician. Her rebellions were her arguments. 
 At last, however, she spoke. " Men are so contemp 
 tible," she said. 
 
 Everybody laughed, even Christie. Not that they 
 felt themselves to be so wonderfully worthy : but 
 the little woman was so desperately vitriolic. 
 
 "Well," said Oast, "I'm not going to argue that. 
 If anyone says to me, ' You are contemptible, ' I am 
 contemptible. To that person, I mean. Happily, 
 every man even the lowest can find some one 
 who thinks a little better of him than that, and 
 many of us are fortunate in never mixing with the 
 severer critics at all." 
 
 " I mean as a class," said Miss Custer. " As a class 
 
n6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 men are contemptible. They don't really care for 
 women a scrap. They want them as pets and ser 
 vants, and directly that bores them, they escape to 
 their offices and clubs. It's men that men want with 
 any steadiness. I know that ; and you know it. 
 That's why I hate them so, and that's why I mean 
 to go on doing my best to keep them in discomfort." 
 Miss Custer made, however, one convert more 
 than convert, slave and that was Sybil Aylward, 
 who was spending a week with Ann. Miss Aylward 
 had always leaned towards rebellion, and here was a 
 leader worth the name. She gazed fascinated upon 
 her all the evening, and helped her on with her things 
 at the close of it with proud hands. "May I come 
 and see you?" she asked. "Yes, do," said Miss 
 Custer, and named an hour. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN WHICH OUR LADY OF MISRULE 
 HEARS THE WORST 
 
 SYBIL and Ann arrived punctually at the little 
 revolutionary's studio on the day appointed, to 
 find it already populous. 
 
 It was a strange company. All women, of course, 
 and mostly mischievous, for Miss Custer attracted 
 only that variety. They were prepared to do any 
 thing for what was called the cause, so long as it 
 embarrassed the Government and kept the fire at 
 white heat. Whatever feelings they may individ 
 ually have entertained for individual men, their at 
 titude as a whole to the male sex was obviously one 
 neither of reverence nor fear. So long as they were 
 together, the old dependence had passed : that was 
 certain. They neither expected chivalry nor es 
 teemed it. But whether they trusted each other to 
 maintain this front for ever is another matter. 
 Women, even political women, are still daughters of 
 Eve, doomed by an ancient law, so venerable as to 
 have been inscribed upon the statute book of fate be 
 fore the beginnings of memory, to be intimate friends 
 only rarely, doomed to a clashing of interests, 
 doomed to an imperfect frankness. 
 
 But here, within closed doors, and the purple, 
 117 
 
n8 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 green, and white floating free over all, they came 
 very near a single purpose unvitiated by suspicion. 
 
 It was a dangerous air for Sybil to breathe. Ann 
 could stand it, for she had work to do and little sub 
 jectivity, and she was not a fighter. But Sybil was 
 rich and unemployed, and all her natural tendencies 
 towards anarchy and denial were likely to be nour 
 ished here. For the vote she cared nothing ; but 
 for an outlet for energy she cared much. It is clear 
 enough that until the suffrage movement began this 
 element in virtuous feminine nature had never had 
 play. No wonder that it made such an appeal to 
 the firebrands, the elves, and the malcontents. At 
 last they had power, power not only utterly apart 
 from man, their successful rival in nearly every 
 branch of activity, but power absolutely against 
 him. 
 
 Miss Custer made excellent coffee, and there were 
 cigarettes for all who wanted them. The two 
 strangers being there especially Ann, whose eyes 
 were too candid for treachery, and yet who was 
 manifestly not of the party no secrets of the cam 
 paign were discussed ; only the generalities of war. 
 News was brought of allies absent in gaol ; a late 
 comer had great tidings of an anonymous gift of five 
 thousand pounds to the funds ; various triumphs 
 at recent public meetings were recorded ; one or 
 two bruises were shown. 
 
 The talk then ran for the most part on an absent 
 stalwart, one Magda, the best speaker of this 
 younger faction. She had gone abroad to recover, 
 and her return had from time to time been post- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 119 
 
 ported, not too greatly to the satisfaction of the 
 others, who looked to her silver tongue to tell them 
 exactly what they thought and where they stood. 
 
 They were all jolly enough until suddenly the door 
 was flung open and in burst a girl as though pursued. 
 She closed it and held the handle in her right hand, 
 as they do on the stage, and pressed her left to her 
 heart as she leaned back rigidly. Her face was 
 white and she panted. 
 
 1 'Whatever is it?" some one asked. 
 
 "Magda!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Well, what about her?" 
 
 "Tell us quick." 
 
 "Is she ill?" 
 
 The girl moved to a chair and sank into it. 
 "Worse than that," she said. 
 
 "Not dead!" exclaimed Miss Custer. 
 
 "Worse," said the girl. 
 
 A shudder ran round the room, and Miss Custer's 
 lips became hard and contemptuous. 
 
 "Engaged, I suppose?" she said, with a terrible 
 coldness. 
 
 "Worse," said the girl. 
 
 "My God!" said Miss Custer, in a whisper, 
 "married!" 
 
 They looked at each other in dismay. 
 
 "But," said one of the older ones at last, "why are 
 we so hasty ? Perhaps she has married a man who 
 sympathizes with us. Rich, too. That would be 
 splendid." 
 
 But the girl who had brought the ill tidings gave 
 no hope. "He's well enough off," she said, "but 
 
120 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 there's nothing to expect from him. He's dead 
 against us. A perfect Turk." 
 
 "The traitor !" said Miss Custer. "But I never 
 felt sure of her. She never really knew how to treat 
 men. She always softened under them. That 
 changed manner, changed voice, which women keep 
 for men I used to notice them directly. Men !" 
 she used the word as though it was a whiplash 
 with which to scourge the whole sex. "There's no 
 chance for us until we have learnt to treat men like 
 snakes." 
 
 No one present quite believed her, but they did 
 not care to engage her in battle, at any rate just 
 then, and a murmur of acquiescence ran round. 
 
 "How did you hear about it ? " the messenger was 
 asked. 
 
 "I met Magda's sister," she replied. "She told 
 me. Magda has been away for a long time 
 that's why she went away. She said her sister, 
 I mean that Magda's terribly in love." 
 
 Miss Custer turned to marble. 
 
 " They're in Spain now ; they are not to be 
 back for months." 
 
 There was a long silence. Every one was nervous 
 and stunned. 
 
 Miss Custer, who had been staring at her cigarette 
 smoke with large, despairing eyes, got up. "Well," 
 she said, "I'm going out. Stay on here as long as 
 you like, but bang the door after you or the bolt 
 won't catch. This marriage is too horrible, too 
 ghastly. You'll all do it, I expect. I can't trust 
 one of you. You're all hopeless when one of these 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 121 
 
 frauds comes along. The world wasn't made for 
 serious people : it was made for the weak and the 
 treacherous." 
 
 She disappeared, and the others looked at each 
 other with disquietude. 
 
 "Poor Lily !" said one. "She takes it too much 
 to heart." 
 
 "Poor Lily ! " said another. " Oughtn't some one 
 to run after her ? " 
 
 But no one stirred, not even the speaker. 
 
 Sybil caught Ann's arm. "Come away," she 
 said : "we're strangers," and they got up. 
 
 Their movement relieved the strain, and the 
 others prepared to go too. 
 
 As for Lily Custer, she held up her little tense 
 white face to the rain, and grew calmer as the drops 
 beat upon it. But she knew what Napoleon felt not 
 only at Waterloo but at St. Helena. And her new 
 knowledge did not stop there. Perhaps she knew 
 also what Magda's feelings were. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN WHICH ANN TAKES DOWN A LETTER 
 AND A SPEECH 
 
 THE work at Miss Beautiman's was not done 
 entirely in the office. Several times a week 
 the girls were wanted elsewhere, to take down let 
 ters ; and on one occasion, after Ann had been there 
 for a month and Miss Beautiman had no one else to 
 send in reply to a sudden summons, Ann volun 
 teered to go. For the most part these clients were 
 the ordinary dull business-men of London, whose 
 own typists were away or machines broken ; but 
 now and then Ann had better luck. Mr. Ruddie, 
 for instance. "I'm very sorry," Miss Beautiman 
 had said, "he's such a jumpy, angry little man : 
 but he's good as gold at heart. You just mustn't 
 mind him. It's only his way, after all." 
 
 Ann was therefore quite prepared for the state of 
 fume and fret in which her momentary employer 
 was seething. 
 
 "Hallo," he said, "another girl! Why is it al 
 ways a stranger?" 
 
 Ann said she was very sorry. 
 
 "It doesn't matter," he said. "It doesn't matter 
 a damn. Nothing matters in this bungled world. 
 If you ever have any children, my dear, strangle 
 them at birth. Now we'll start, if you're ready." 
 
 122 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 123 
 
 Ann waited patiently while Mr. Ruddie paced the 
 floor. "Dear Sir' 1 he began, but at once withdrew 
 it. "No, I won't say dear. He's not dear ; why, 
 I'm having a row with him. Why should we per 
 petuate these miserable medievalisms? Dear, 
 indeed ! Say Sir instead. No, wait a minute ; I 
 believe that the third person would be more effec 
 tive. Begin, Mr. Victor Ruddie begs to acknowledge 
 the receipt of Mr. Pingree 1 s letter of the i$th. Have 
 you got that? No, stop. What the devil does 
 begs mean ? I don't beg. Mr. Victor Ruddie ac 
 knowledges the receipt of Mr. Pingree's letter of the i$th. 
 That's all right. Now we can go ahead. So far 
 from doing what Mr. Pingree wants, Mr. Ruddie will 
 
 see him " Mr. Ruddie here paused to call at 
 
 the top of his voice, "Mr. Packer ! Mr. Packer !" 
 
 The door opened, and a patient head was pushed 
 through. 
 
 "It's not wise, is it, to swear in a letter?" Mr. 
 Ruddie inquired. 
 
 "No," said Mr. Packer, "it's not." 
 
 "Just what I thought," said Mr. Ruddie. "Don't 
 say damned, my dear," he added to Ann. "It's a 
 mistake. Never swear when you're having a row, 
 or the other party will forget the subject of the row 
 and accuse you of using foul language. It's one of 
 the meanest tricks in this dirty little world, which is 
 controlled, my dear, by the mediocre and crafty for 
 the mediocre and gullible. But to proceed. So far 
 from doing what Mr. Pingree wants, Mr. Ruddie 
 is inspired merely to reiterate his previous refusal with 
 additional emphasis. Have you got that down? 
 
i2 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 That's rather good, I think. Just read it as far as it 
 goes, my dear." 
 
 Ann read it. 
 
 "What a nice voice you've got," said Mr. Ruddie. 
 "They send such cockneys as a rule. Have you got 
 a young man ? " 
 
 Ann replied very shortly that she had not. She 
 was beginning to be vexed, but Mr. Ruddie, al 
 though he was perfect material for the readily quarrel 
 some, had never really vexed any human soul. He 
 was too eager, too transparent, too amusing, too 
 naive. 
 
 "It's all right," he said, noticing her abruptness. 
 "Don't be cross with me if I say silly things. I'm 
 the kind that has to say everything in order to say 
 anything. I talk, and you must sift it to find the 
 sense, don't you see. Don't have a young man yet, 
 my dear. Wait till you're thirty. No woman 
 should marry till she's thirty and no man till he's 
 forty. You know what you want then. I'm 
 serious about it, my dear, because I have done the 
 other thing. I married when I was twenty-one 
 and my wife was only nineteen. . . . Just read 
 what you've got, my dear." 
 
 Ann read it again. 
 
 "And" said Mr. Ruddie, resuming his dictation, 
 "it is Mr. Ruddie' s deliberate opinion that the repe 
 tition of a letter containing practically word for word 
 an impudent demand that has already been repudiated 
 
 is the action of " Mr. Ruddie again stopped 
 
 to call for Mr. Packer, and Mr. Packer again ap 
 peared. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 125 
 
 "It's not libellous, is it," Mr. Ruddie asked, "to 
 call a man a cad." 
 
 "No," said Mr. Packer. "It's not libellous, 
 but " 
 
 "But what?" Mr. Ruddie snapped. 
 
 "But it's not always expedient." 
 
 "Expedient be blowed ! " said Mr. Ruddie, turning 
 again to Ann and completing the sentence " the 
 action of a cad. There now, copy that, and we'll 
 fire it off and see what happens." 
 
 It was tantalizing to Ann never to know the end 
 of this passage of arms ; but that is the tragic side 
 of the typists' life : they don't see the replies. 
 
 On another occasion Ann was sent to the Grand 
 Hotel to take down a speech. This she enjoyed 
 immensely. The speaker was a shy and simple 
 country gentleman who, much as he hated the plat 
 form, had from a sense of public duty consented to 
 act as the chairman of a public meeting ; and with 
 him was his barrister son. Ann found the father 
 and son in a sitting-room, with a great deal of note- 
 paper on the table and newspapers all over the 
 floor. Mr. Bellingham was nervous and kindly : 
 Dick was exceedingly pleased with himself. They 
 were both smoking when Ann entered, but Mr. Bel 
 lingham at once threw away his cigar. Dick, who 
 was young enough to make as few distinctions as 
 possible between men and women, especially women 
 who were earning their own living, retained his. "I 
 like a girl to be a good fellow, " he used to say. 
 
 "I hope you can take a quick note ? " Mr. Belling 
 ham asked. 
 
126 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Fairly quick," Ann replied. 
 
 "Quick enough for you, I'll be bound," said Dick 
 to his father. "Fluency was never your long suit." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Bellingham, after he had opened 
 the window a little, "let us make a start." 
 
 "Ladies and Gentlemen" he began, "we are met 
 together this evening to listen to Mr. Kyrle-Fanshawe, 
 M.P., who will address us on the critical situation of 
 the moment. This is a matter on which every one 
 present has opinions. For myself " 
 
 "Hold hard, my dear man," said Dick. "You are 
 going much too fast. You can't plunge into things 
 like that." 
 
 "Why, what have I missed out ? " Mr. Bellingham 
 inquired. "I've said too much, as a matter of fact, 
 because of course every one will know what Kyrle- 
 Fanshawe is going to speak about and why they are 
 there." 
 
 "Of course they know it," said Dick, "but the 
 essence of oratory is to tell people what they know 
 already and butter them up. You mustn't talk 
 as though you were in your office." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Bellingham wearily," you begin 
 it." 
 
 Dick needed no second invitation. "Now, Miss," 
 he said "Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me great 
 pleasure to see so many of you here to-night. I have 
 
 attended many important meetings in my time 
 
 Am I going too fast?" 
 
 "No," said Ann. "I can just manage it." 
 
 "I'll try to be a bit more andante," said Dick 
 "but I never remember to have seen an audience at 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 127 
 
 once so representative and so intelligently anticipative. 
 There, father, that's the style." 
 
 " Great heavens,! can't talk like that !" exclaimed 
 Mr. Bellingham. 
 
 " Great heavens, you must ! " said Dick. "There 
 are certain fixed laws, and you've got to obey 
 them. Now, Miss. // gives me particular pleasure 
 to see on the platform our old friend Mr. Stick- 
 in-the-Mud." 
 
 "Who on earth's that?" asked Mr. Bellingham. 
 
 "Oh, you must find out from the agent. There's 
 sure to be some one there who will need special 
 mention. There always is. Now, Miss, please : 
 We are met here on this auspicious occasion" Mr. 
 Bellingham groaned " on this auspicious occasion, to 
 welcome Mr. Kyrle-Fanshawe, whose name has for 
 years been familiar on our lips as a household word," 
 Mr. Bellingham groaned again, "but whom most 
 of us now for the first time meet face to face. There is no 
 need for me to tell you what Mr. Kyrle-Fanshawe has 
 done how he has been one of the mainstays of the 
 party for nearly a decade how he has always been 
 watchful to raise politics above mere party, and has 
 made the welfare of the country his pole-star" 
 
 "My dear Dick, I can't talk that way, and nothing 
 shall make me," said Mr. Bellingham. "It's dis 
 gusting. I know nothing about this man. I'm 
 only taking the chair because I feel strongly on the 
 question. I never allude to pole-stars : it's not my 
 way. A man must be characteristic." 
 
 "Well, father, you've got to play the game," said 
 Dick. "If you take the chair, you must behave 
 
128 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 accordingly. Now go on yourself. I've got you 
 safely through the opening. There'll be prolonged 
 cheers at the point where I left off, and that will cover 
 the transition from my style to yours." 
 
 Mr. Bellingham sighed and began again, contin 
 uing smoothly for some minutes. 
 
 "That's better, father," said his son; "but of 
 course you're no real good. You say what you mean 
 at once." 
 
 "And why not ? " Mr. Bellingham inquired in some 
 heat. 
 
 "Why not? Because it's against the rules of 
 platform oratory. You say simply, 'I say.' You 
 ought to put it, 'I have no hesitation in saying.' 
 Don't you see?" 
 
 Mr. Bellingham was understood to say that he saw 
 but did not agree. 
 
 "Again," said Dick, "you say, 'I can't remember.' 
 That's conversation, it's not oratory. You ought to 
 say, 'I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that in the 
 whole course of my life, looking back upon it with 
 the utmost vigilance, I cannot recollect ever having 
 heard a more monstrous proposition.' They will 
 give you applause for that." 
 
 "I don't want applause," said Mr. Bellingham. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, dad, of course you do. Every one 
 wants applause ; and in meetings like yours you need 
 it too. It's electricity. Without it, you'll be as flat 
 as stale beer." 
 
 "By theway," Mr. Bellingham suddenly remarked, 
 with much anxiety, "what am I to do if the suffra 
 gettes cut in?" 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 129 
 
 "Do? Nothing. Have them thrown out, and 
 don't say a word. Just wait and look dignified." 
 
 "Yes, you know," said Mr. Bellingham, "but I 
 can't allow that. I can't see women handled roughly. 
 It is too horrible." 
 
 "You must get used to it," Dick said. "They 
 ask for it, you know." 
 
 "I can't help it," said Mr. Bellingham. "It re 
 volts me." 
 
 "Well, you've got to choose," said Dick, "between 
 two courses. Either you let them go on inter 
 rupting, and the meeting is ruined, or you fire 
 them." 
 
 "But don't you ah think I might reason with 
 them? Show them the fallacy ? The ah funda 
 mental difference between men and women, you 
 know. Woman, the mother, the very roof-tree of 
 the home and so forth. I doubt if it has ever 
 been put to them quite like that." 
 
 " Roof-tree be jiggered," said Dick. " It's as bad 
 as pole-star, too. No, they've got past all that. 
 Believe me, there's only one thing to do. Fire 
 them." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Bellingham, " all very well. But 
 do you know that your mother has come to sym 
 pathize with them very deeply?" 
 
 Dick whistled. 
 
 " Sh ! " said Mr. Bellingham, glancing at Ann, who 
 bent her head over her notes in a passion of decipher 
 ing zeal. 
 
 "It's awkward when the roof-tree's against you," 
 said Dick. "Dear old mater, I must come home for 
 
 E 
 
130 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 a week-end and reason with her. Suffragettes in 
 deed ! She'll be a vegetarian next. And a Chris 
 tian Scientist!" 
 
 "She is one already," said Mr. Bellingham. 
 
 "Expect me on Friday night," said Dick. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Bellingham, with a sigh, "let's 
 hope that Mr. Kyrle-Fanshawe is not sufficiently 
 important for any of the suffragettes to come to his 
 meeting. It is Cabinet Ministers they go for as a 
 rule. Are you a suffragette, Miss ah Miss ?" 
 
 "I'm greatly interested in the movement," said 
 Ann. 
 
 "And what is your view of my chances of getting 
 through safely?" Mr. Bellingham said. 
 
 Ann said that she had no views at all. 
 
 "You don't know them at head-quarters?" he 
 asked a little wistfully. 
 
 Ann said that she did not. 
 
 Mr. Bellingham sighed again. "Let us proceed," 
 he said. He brought his speech to an end without 
 further difficulty, and Dick pronounced it, on the 
 whole, satisfactory, although much too mild. 
 
 "Well, that's over," Mr. Bellingham exclaimed, 
 with a sigh of relief. "Now perhaps we can think of 
 lunch." 
 
 " Over ! " replied Dick. "What about your speech 
 to follow his?" 
 
 "Do I speak again?" Mr. Bellingham asked in 
 alarm. 
 
 "Again ! My dear father, you speak twice more. 
 You speak once to say you never heard, and you are 
 sure no one present ever heard, a more eloquent and 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 131 
 
 powerful exposition of facts and principles than that 
 delivered by Mr. Kyrle-Fanshawe 
 
 "But suppose I don't think so ?" Mr. Bellingham 
 retorted. "I've always heard he's a bad speaker." 
 
 "My dear father," replied Dick, "you make me 
 tired. Aren't you the chairman of the meeting? 
 Very well, then, you think his speech perfect. A 
 chairman has no alternative. The idea of dragging 
 criticism in ! It's preposterous." 
 
 "Very well," said Mr. Bellingham. "But you 
 said I had to speak twice. What is the other occa 
 sion?" 
 
 "In reply to the vote of thanks to you, of course." 
 
 "Is that necessary ? Must there be a vote of 
 thanks?" 
 
 "My dear antediluvian parent," said Dick, "you 
 seem bent upon vitiating all the good feeling of public 
 meetings bringing in a crude indecency that must 
 in the end degenerate into the plain give-and-take of 
 a commercial transaction. Of course it's necessary. 
 Of course there will be a vote of thanks to you, and 
 of course you must say that never in your life have 
 you been spoken of so charmingly, and even though 
 you know the praise to be unearned, you will never 
 forget it so long as you remember anything." 
 
 "I needn't say much ? " Mr. Bellingham inquired. 
 
 "No, you can make it as short as you like as 
 long as you don't offend the proposer by your curt- 
 ness. Who will it be, by the way ? " 
 
 "I haven't heard," said Mr. Bellingham; "but 
 probably Henderson." 
 
 "The butcher?" 
 
132 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" said Dick. "Has he paid that 
 money yet ? " 
 
 "No," said Mr. Bellingham. 
 
 "Then," said Dick, "you're lost. Hell lay it on 
 with a trowel." 
 
 "Yes, I'm afraid he'll be fulsome," said Mr. Bel 
 lingham. 
 
 "Rancid," said Dick. 
 
 "Well, I wish I was well out of it," said Mr. Bel 
 lingham, as he turned once more to Ann to complete 
 his ordeal. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IN WHICH A CITIZEN OF A COUNTRY 
 WITH A FUTURE VISITS A COUNTRY 
 WITH A PAST 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE laid down one of his letters 
 with a sigh. "Mr. Waler arrived at Liver 
 pool yesterday," he said, "and he will call on us this 
 evening." 
 
 "But who is Mr. Waler?" Ann asked. 
 
 "Mr. Waler is an American who has an introduc 
 tion to me. He is alone. Mrs. Waler, he explains, 
 could not make the trip, as she had hoped to do. 
 We must ask him to dinner. He is going to stay 
 close by, at the Cecil." 
 
 Mr. Waler was tall and thin and grave : one of 
 those mirthless Americans who use the language of 
 humour about everything but themselves and their 
 nation ; who take things as they come ; and whose 
 attitude to life is largely that of a placid and very 
 solvent customer in a store. Like so many Ameri 
 cans, he uttered every remark, even the commonest 
 expression of opinion, as if he were on oath. The 
 extra drop of nervous fluid which (according to 
 Colonel Higginson) God added when he made the 
 American may have been secreted somewhere in his 
 anatomy, but it certainly never found its way to 
 
 133 
 
134 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 his conversation. He was, also, like many Ameri 
 cans, a remorseless unloader. Mr. Waler had been 
 in business, with the success that seems to us here 
 to dog the footsteps of his whole nation, and now, 
 having retired, he had taken up comparative edu 
 cation as a hobby. 
 
 He arrived punctually, and before shaking hands 
 with his host and Ann pronounced their names im 
 pressively ; which, since no English guest ever can 
 catch or retain the name of the person to whom he is 
 introduced, would be an impossible habit to accli 
 matize here, even though a very excellent one. Mr. 
 Waler, glancing at Mr. Ingleside's swallow-tailed 
 coat, then apologized for his own attire ; but he had 
 understood, he said, that in England it was the cus 
 tom, when there was no dinner party but only a 
 friendly and easy gathering, for Tuxedos to be per 
 mitted. 
 
 "Mrs. Waler and I," he said, "make a point of 
 allowing our guests at Umsquot absolute liberty, and 
 possibly the habit has been bad for me. In Rome, I 
 always say, one should do as the Romans do ; within 
 bounds, of course. I believe with our President, 
 Mr. Taft, that an American should never cease to be 
 an American anywhere, but at the same time I think 
 that it would be an error for his nationality to be 
 betrayed by his costume. If it would not delay 
 dinner, Miss Ingleside, I would like to step across to 
 the Hotel Cecil and just change this Tuxedo for a 
 claw-hammer coat like your father's." 
 
 This, however, was not permitted, for Mr. Ingle- 
 side solved the problem by slipping out of the room 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 135 
 
 and exchanging his claw-hammer for what in Amer 
 ica is known as a Tuxedo and here as a dinner-jacket. 
 
 Mr. Waler's admiration of his tact was intense. 
 "I shall be mailing a letter to Mrs. Waler to-morrow 
 morning," he said, "and I shall tell her this story. 
 Mrs. Waler will be delighted. There is no better 
 authority on the unwritten laws of etiquette than 
 Mrs. Waler." 
 
 These sartorial nuances having ceased to monop 
 olize his attention, Mr. Waler was free to generalize. 
 
 "You have a very convenient location here, Mr. 
 Ingleside," he said. "I don't see how you could be 
 better fixed, with the river right there and the heart 
 of London so near. I have always heard that 
 Charing Cross is the heart of London, and I wished, 
 in the small hours last night, that it wouldn't beat so 
 hard. They seemed to be shunting all the time." 
 
 "I thought," said Mr. Ingleside, "that after New 
 York London was like the grave for silence." 
 
 "New York, yes," said Mr. Waler. "But not 
 Umsquot. Umsquot is a peaceful hamlet thirty 
 miles from New York. I am very sorry," he con 
 tinued, "that Mrs. Waler is not with me. Mrs. 
 Waler is a great connoisseur of domiciles, and this 
 one would give her real pleasure." 
 
 At dinner the conversation turned upon differences 
 between America and England, English institutions, 
 the Abbey, and so forth. Like so many Americans 
 who come to England, Mr. Waler had no apparent 
 reverence for anything except his wife and the intel 
 lectual and moral eminence of certain of his country's 
 public characters, in speaking of whom his voice 
 
136 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 broke and his eyes filled with tears. Americans will 
 probably never understand the Englishman's claim 
 to the right to criticize those whom he esteems, just 
 as the English will never understand the American's 
 willingness to forego that agreeable privilege. 
 
 The new portrait of Pepys caught Mr. Waler's eye, 
 and he asked who it was ; and when it was explained 
 by what right the diarist had so honoured a place, his 
 excitement was really delightful to watch. 
 
 " And am I really taking dinner," he said, "under 
 a roof that once sheltered Samuel Pepys? Well, 
 this is a great evening. I shall never forget this 
 evening. America," Mr. Waler continued, "is a 
 great country; but it is a country with a future. 
 Nothing can make it a country with a past. Eng 
 land is a country with a past." 
 
 "And no future?" Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 " I think," said Mr. Waler tactfully, " that its past 
 is the more noticeable. If we want the past, we must 
 come to Europe. Europe is our playground. There 
 is no playground for a country with a future like 
 a country with a past. We," he sighed, "we have 
 no Pepys." 
 
 "No," said Mr. Ingleside, "but you have Dooley." 
 
 " Yes," said Ann, " and Louisa M. Alcott. I used 
 to love her books." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Waler, "you should talk with 
 Mrs. Waler about the genius of Miss Alcott. She 
 once read an essay upon her before the Umsquot 
 Summer School. 
 
 "Mr. Ingleside," said Mr. Waler, as he examined 
 his host's shelves after dinner, "I see that you have 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 137 
 
 here the works of Walter Pater. I suppose you know 
 the commentary on Pater by Dr. Winthrop P. Mus- 
 ker?" Mr. Ingleside had to confess ignorance. 
 
 "Dr. Musker," said Mr. Waler, "is a very charm 
 ing man : one of the most valued members of our 
 society at Umsquot. Mrs. Musker is a very lovely 
 woman, and she and Mrs. Waler are very intimate. 
 Dr. Musker will go far. 
 
 "Miss Ingleside, are you fond of poetry?" Mr. 
 Waler asked. 
 
 Ann said she was fond of the poetry she liked. 
 
 "I expect you don't know the work of Dr. Cyrus 
 Weedling," said Mr. Waler. "Dr. Cyrus Weedling 
 is a very remarkable young man, a graduate of Har 
 vard, and now on the staff of the Senator, one of our 
 leading papers. His verses have attracted a con 
 siderable amount of attention in America, where we 
 are much interested in poetry. Mrs. Waler thinks 
 very highly of them. One of his lyrics was dedicated 
 to Mrs. Waler." 
 
 "And what is his work like ? " Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Waler, "it is difficult to say, but 
 it will give you a good notion if I describe him as 
 being a Keats with more reality and a Browning 
 with more music." 
 
 "He has a shorter name than most American 
 poets," said Mr. Ingleside. "The poets who write 
 in the American magazines very often have names 
 that are longer than their poems." 
 
 Mr. Waler acknowledged the criticism with dig 
 nity. "On my return, Miss Ingleside," he said, "I 
 shall have much pleasure in mailing you a copy of 
 
i 3 8 ME. INGLESIDE 
 
 Dr. Weedling's last book, and I will get Mrs. Waler 
 to mark her favourites in the contents with a little 
 pencil cross. It will add largely to the book's in 
 terest. 
 
 "Well, good-night, Mr. Ingleside," said Mr. Waler, 
 an hour or so later. "I've had a bully evening. 
 My only regret is that Mrs. Waler was not with me. 
 Mrs. Waler is a very exceptional woman, Mr. Ingle- 
 side. There is no subject that she has not mastered. 
 Mrs. Waler passed through Vassar with great dis 
 tinction." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside expressed his satisfaction in a tone 
 of voice which suggested that such success was in 
 evitable in the bride of Mr. Waler, and asked if 
 there was any particular thing in London that Mr. 
 Waler wished to see. 
 
 "Since you ask me,Mr. Ingleside," said Mr. Waler, 
 "I will tell you. I should greatly esteem the privi 
 lege of seeing some of your most influential authors 
 in the flesh. Is that a reasonable proposition ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Ingleside. "As it happens, 
 the Royal Literary Fund Dinner is to be held next 
 week. I shall have much pleasure in taking you 
 as my guest. Most of the writing swells will be 
 there. Whose features are you most anxious to 
 gaze upon?" 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Waler,"! should not care to 
 return and face Mrs. Waler again without being in a 
 position to tell her something about the appearance 
 of Mr. Maurice Hewlett. Mrs. Waler considers Mr. 
 Maurice Hewlett one of your brightest authors. I 
 have heard her say that in him vitality and men- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 139 
 
 tality may be observed in their highest and loveliest 
 
 union." 
 
 "Very good," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Mrs. Waler," continued Mr. Waler, "has all Mr. 
 Maurice Hewlett's works bound in uniform binding. 
 There is no other set in Umsquot that is either so 
 handsome or so complete, although most of our 
 friends there admire him too. Mrs. Waler is very 
 fastidious about her books." 
 
 "To see Mr. Hewlett will be easy," said Mr. 
 Ingleside. "He will almost certainly be there." 
 
 "It would also give me much pleasure to have the 
 opportunity of seeing Mr. Austin Dobson," said Mr. 
 Waler. "Mrs. Waler is of opinion that Mr. Austin 
 Dobson's poetry is as near perfection within its own 
 limits as is humanly possible. When we last made 
 the trip to Europe, Mrs. Waler took a carriage and 
 drove out to Ealing in the hope of finding Mr. 
 Austin Dobson and assuring him of our admiration ; 
 but the maid informed us he was not at home. You 
 may not be aware that Mr. Austin Dobson has 
 founded a school of poetry in America. In a recent 
 number of the Focus was an article by Dr. M'Callum 
 K. Dwyer, a friend of Mrs. Waler's, on the influence 
 of Mr. Austin Dobson on the genius of Frank Demp 
 ster Sherman, Clinton Scollard, Walter Learned, 
 and Roderick W. Figg. It was a very remarkable 
 article, and created considerable attention." 
 
 "I hope that Mr. Dobson will be present," said 
 Mr. Ingleside. "In default of him, there will be 
 Mr. Gosse." 
 
 "Mr. Edmund W. Gosse ?" said Mr. Waler. "He 
 
i 4 o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 and Mrs. Waler have long corresponded on literary 
 matters. It will be a great pleasure to shake his 
 hand. How I wish Mrs. Waler were here, not only 
 for her sake but for his." With these words Mr. 
 Waler took his leave, with a heavy punctilio that left 
 the Inglesides racked by a suspicion that their man 
 ners single and collectively were of the sty. 
 
 "Sing some old English song, Ann, quick," said 
 Mr. Ingleside, when they were alone again. "He 
 is a vurry cultivated, lovely man, but sing some old 
 English song quick." 
 
 Ann sang "Mowing the Barley." 
 
 "Now let us look at the river," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 They leaned over the embankment coping and 
 watched the dark, cruel water. It was perfectly 
 still to-night : no movement at all : the texture of the 
 surface was smooth almost as of oil : it intensified 
 every light it caught and gave them back with twice 
 their brilliance. There was nothing moving in the 
 stream, but a few cabs drove by, and the bridges 
 rumbled as trains passed at Charing Cross. The 
 light of session burned in the clock tower, showing 
 that the law-makers were still at work, while on 
 every seat three or four homeless creatures were 
 twisted into incredible attitudes for their night's rest. 
 
 Ann looked at them and shuddered not with 
 disgust but with the consciousness of anomaly. 
 
 "Can't anything be done?" she asked. 
 
 "Ask them, " said her father, pointing to the House. 
 
 "But isn't it terrible?" she said. 
 
 "I suppose so," he replied. "For the old, cer 
 tainly. And yet to be very poor is the next best 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 141 
 
 thing to being very rich. Some might even place 
 it higher. The very poor are the only people who 
 can do what they like. No one troubles about their 
 clothes ; they have no office hours ; the meanest 
 thing that happens to the good is a surprise and an 
 excitement. And all the best food belongs to the poor. 
 How I long sometimes for what they call snacks 
 of fish ! One could eat then ! And sausages and 
 mashed!" 
 
 The Literary Fund Dinner filled Mr. Waler with 
 delight, but with little else, for he was so busy in 
 identifying the company by means of the chart 
 that he had no time to eat. He was at Buckingham 
 Street early the next morning, to renew his thanks 
 for so momentous an evening. 
 
 "I enjoyed it all immensely," said Mr. Waler 
 again. "It was fine. My only grief was that Mrs. 
 Waler was not with me. Mrs. Waler would have 
 rejoiced in it. There were authors present whose 
 works Mrs. Waler knows by heart. I have just 
 cabled Mrs. Waler," he said, "that I shook Mr. 
 Edmund W. Gosse's hand. It is an incident that 
 will gratify not only Mrs. Waler but the whole 
 of Umsquot." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN WHICH A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OB 
 TAINS NO LACK OF ADVICE 
 
 JOHN was annoyed when he heard that Ann had 
 begun to work regularly. It was really with 
 himself that he was vexed ; but he transferred 
 the responsibility to her. 
 
 "It's absurd," he said. "A girl like you ! What 
 do you want to earn your own living for, anyway ? 
 You're not poor." 
 
 "I want to be independent," said Ann. "Don't 
 you?" 
 
 "All in good time," said John. "But I don't 
 hold with independence in women. Women were 
 meant to be looked after by men." 
 
 "What women are you looking after ? " Ann asked. 
 
 "Oh, well, of course I don't say every man has a 
 woman to look after, always ; but at any rate what 
 would my mother do without me, do you suppose ? " 
 
 "I'm sorry," said Ann. "I thought it was she who 
 looked after you." 
 
 "That's a low thing to say," said John. "Just 
 because I haven't been able to find any congenial 
 work just yet, you turn on me ; " and he went off in a 
 huff and had his hair expensively cut. Men have 
 so many resources. 
 
 None the less he thought about his idleness a good 
 142 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 143 
 
 deal, and wrote to several of his friends for advice, 
 and asked several more to lunch or dinner for the 
 same purpose. They did themselves very well, as our 
 ugly slang has it, and put in what John described to 
 his mother as "some very useful evenings" at the 
 Halls of Variety, sporadically discussing the great 
 problem. John collected a number of opinions, cov 
 ering in fact most of the walks in life that may be 
 followed without loss either of caste or perspiration 
 by a young gentleman of the moment. 
 
 "It's a pity you haven't got any grey matter," 
 said Claude Fortescue, who was reading for the Bar, 
 "or you might write. I don't mean books, of course. 
 In the papers. Journalism's getting jolly classy, 
 you know. It's quite the thing now for a journalist 
 to have rooms in Mayfair or even over the Savoy. 
 But of course you're not brainy." 
 
 " If you knew a few really oofy peers, you might be 
 a bailiff," said Victor Wragg-Folcot, whose father 
 had placed him on a handsome allowance with a firm 
 of stockbrokers. "There's the Ducker, you know 
 he's dropped into a perfect three hundred a year, 
 with plenty of mounts and a set of rooms, and all he 
 has to do is to hear the men going to work in the 
 morning and to play tennis with his employer's 
 daughters. I believe you could do that quite as well 
 as he does. In fact, I believe you could lie in bed and 
 listen to men going to work as well as anybody in 
 Europe." 
 
 "Oh, shut up !" said John, "don't rot. Tell me 
 how one gets this kind of thing." 
 
 "Well," said Victor, "you are disqualified at once, 
 
i 44 MR INGLESIDE 
 
 because in the first place you have to be a younger 
 son, and in the second place you want heaps of 
 influence. Piles of it. It comes briefly to this, that 
 one's parents must know the right people." 
 
 "Don't you know anyone in need of a bailiff?" 
 John asked. 
 
 "I do not," replied Victor. "But, on the other 
 hand, I know at least thirty-five men in need of soft 
 bailiff jobs." 
 
 Billy M'Gregor enjoyed his lunch immensely but 
 was not helpful. "Ah, my dear boy," he said, over 
 their cigars, "if only you had developed more serious 
 ness of mind and purpose. I read in one of the 
 papers the other day that the Archbishop of York 
 not, you observe, the primate, but only a secondary 
 person gets ten thousand pounds a year. Ten 
 thousand of the very best, my dear John. And you 
 have a kind face and good calves in fact, every 
 thing. 
 
 "Success in life," he continued later, "all depends 
 upon beginning right. Here am I, and here are you. 
 I, who began right by being the only son of a wine- 
 merchant of world-wide repute, am now, at the age 
 of twenty-four, a partner and your guest. You, 
 who began wrong by not being directed into a dis 
 tinct groove or possessing a shrewd financial pro 
 genitor, are at the same age still seeking a metier (shall 
 I say ?) and paying for excellent but expensive meals. 
 Remember, John, that work is not, as some suppose, 
 the primal curse, but (a little more of that old brandy, 
 please) the primal blessing. And now, I think, 
 Lord's." 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 145 
 
 The Hon. Arthur Stacey, who was comfortably 
 installed as private secretary to a Cabinet Minister, 
 for whose daughter he had bought so much chocolate 
 that an engagement seemed inevitable, advised a 
 private secretaryship. "Not," he added, "that 
 there's nothing to do ; but discretion comes before 
 labour. To put it concisely, if a little coarsely, the 
 rule of the wise private secretary is Tact before Sweat. 
 My man is getting quite a reputation as an admin 
 istrator and a speaker ever since he allowed me to cut 
 out the first and last paragraphs of all his speeches 
 the beginning being all gas and sham politeness, and 
 the end all gas and sham patriotism. A residuum 
 remains (supplied by the permanent official) which 
 is excellent. You, of course, my dear John, are not 
 gifted in that way ; but what a pity you aren't ! 
 You would otherwise make a private secretary that 
 any man might covet, for your tailor can really fit you, 
 and you have a charming way with taxi-drivers." 
 
 Other friends suggested other means of livelihood, 
 all picturesque and ingenious and everything but 
 practical. The advantages of mastering a roulette 
 system were put before him by Archie Capstan. 
 Gerald Lake knew a man who by diligently pur 
 chasing lottery-tickets had at last won a prize of two 
 thousand marks. 
 
 "With a little capital," wrote the Rev. Stephen 
 Bidwell, once known as Boojum, but now curate of 
 Mils ted in Essex, "there's a lot of money in inten 
 sive gardening." 
 
 "I can't advise anything," wrote Hector Sands, 
 from Birmingham, "but I am sure of one thing, and 
 
146 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 that is that a Johnnie is a dam fool to-day if he 
 knows nothing about driving a motor. If you take 
 my tip, you'll learn a car upside down while you're 
 waiting for something to materialize." 
 
 Ronny Clumber, when he was told of this, blew 
 the suggestion into a beautiful cigarette ring. 
 
 "Motorin' !" he said. "Motorin's dead as mut 
 ton. Flyin's the thing now, my boy. I've just 
 come back from Amiens, and I tell you it's great. 
 I'm havin' a biplane built for me, with a Marinetti 
 engine. There's nothin' like it. Motorin' what's 
 that? Dusty roads. Eyes full of grit. Police 
 traps. Gaiety girls. Bad inns. Everything the same 
 all the time. But flyin' ! Flyin's new every trip. 
 Think of being up there at forty miles an hour and 
 lookin' down on the miserable Johnnies below ! 
 Worth doin'." 
 
 None the less it was Sands who won, and the next 
 morning John came down to breakfast at eight 
 o'clock, full of importance, and at once began to rage 
 because it was not on the table. 
 
 "Eight o'clock," he muttered, "and nothing here. 
 On a fine morning, too ! No wonder England's 
 going to the dogs," he continued, "with all this sun 
 shine wasted. People should get up at six." 
 
 He rushed to the bell in a burst of impatience and 
 rectitude. 
 
 "What on earth is the matter with your servants, 
 mother ? " he cried, as Mrs. Campion entered. " It's 
 disgraceful the way they neglect their work. You're 
 not firm enough with them. Look at the sun, too ! " 
 
 "What is it, dear ? " Mrs. Campion asked sweetly. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 147 
 
 "What is it?" he replied, astonished. "Why, 
 there's no breakfast. Here am I, busy and wanting 
 to get away, and there's nothing to eat." 
 
 "Well, my dear boy, you know," said his mother, 
 "that I don't have any breakfast, and you haven't 
 been down before half -past nine for weeks." 
 
 "Well, I'm here now," said John, "and breakfast 
 ought to be at eight if not earlier," he added. "In 
 future I shall be punctual." 
 
 Mrs. Campion smiled and said nothing. 
 
 After John had silently and critically consumed 
 his meal, he ran to his room and returned with a bag 
 in his hand. 
 
 "Are you going away?" Mrs. Campion asked. 
 
 "No," he said. "I'm going to work. Please will 
 you lend me five pounds?" 
 
 "Five pounds !" Mrs. Campion exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "I've decided I must not be idle 
 and a burden to you any more. Every man ought 
 to be independent. I am therefore going to learn to 
 be a shover. Every man ought to know how to 
 drive a car nowadays. There's no knowing when you 
 may need it. Think of how awful it would be in 
 Scotland," he added gravely, "if you were taken ill 
 and there was no one to fetch a doctor." 
 
 "But," Mrs. Campion remarked, "we haven't got 
 a car." 
 
 "No," said John, "we haven't. But some one else 
 would have one. There's always a car near at hand ; 
 and how could you ask anyone else to get up in the 
 dead of night to drive it ? If I knew how to drive it, 
 I could have it into the nearest town in no time, and 
 
148 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 save your life. Lots of people have died through 
 the want of a doctor like that, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Campion controlled her face with difficulty 
 and opened her desk. 
 
 "Who is going to have the five pounds?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Some very decent people in the Vauxhall Bridge 
 Road," said John. " They guarantee to turn you 
 out a finished shover for a fiver. I've got some old 
 clothes here to change into at the garage. Thanks 
 awfully," he added, as his mother handed him the 
 money. "It's only a loan, mind. In future I pay 
 interest on all money you advance me. At the 
 earliest possible date this shall be paid back, with 
 five per cent, interest from this morning. Perhaps 
 you'll work the sum out for me." 
 
 And he was off. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN WHICH WE ARE PRESENT AT THE 
 CHRISTENING OF THE CAPRICE 
 
 ON arriving at Mr. Ingleside's rooms on the next 
 Friday, the guests were surprised to find his 
 study a very bower of flowers. Each in turn noticed 
 it and commented upon it, each in turn was told by 
 Ann that it was her father's birthday. 
 
 "He's fifty- two to-day," she said, "and he pretends 
 to be furious about it : but of course that's absurd. 
 He's not really so silly as to mind his birthday." 
 
 "What did you give him?" Dr. Staminer asked. 
 
 " I gave him a cigar-case," said Ann. "What else 
 is there ? It's so difficult to get presents for papa." 
 
 "Of course," said Dr. Staminer. "A well-to-do 
 man of fifty-two has lived his life very badly if there 
 is any present that he is really in want of." 
 
 "And Mrs. Boody made him a cake," Ann con 
 tinued ; "and he and I had lunch together at a swell 
 restaurant, and then we went to the National Gallery. 
 I always like it on Fridays because the copyists are 
 at work and I like to see them. Some of them are 
 so frightfully clever. Papa has commissioned Miss 
 Beautiman to make me a copy of the little Cupid in 
 Correggio's picture. Wasn't that nice ? It was a per 
 fect present, because it pleased her and it pleased me 
 and it pleased him. After you're fifty, papa says, it is 
 one's duty to give presents and not to receive them." 
 
 149 
 
i$o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "With one enormously important exception," said 
 Mr. Ingleside, coming in at this moment. " Isn't it 
 so, Oast?" 
 
 Richard Oast smiled: "I shall never forgive my 
 self," he said, "for not having it ready this after 
 noon." 
 
 "It doesn't matter a bit," said Mr. Ingleside, 
 "especially as it's been wet. To-morrow will be fine 
 -and then!" 
 
 "What are you talking about?" Ann asked. 
 
 "Wait and see," said her father. " ' "To-mor 
 row," "he quoted, " 'is a lovely word, compared 
 with which "to-day's" absurd.'" 
 
 "I don't like growing old," said Oast later. " One 
 finds out so many things. And the worst of it is that 
 however one may suspect, one cannot know anything 
 before the time. There are things about life that one 
 may suspect at twenty-five but cannot know until 
 one is thirty ; and then again there is a new series 
 that one suspects at thirty but cannot know till one 
 is forty. It is after forty that the real enlighten 
 ment sets in. The worst suspicions then begin to 
 be proved, one by one. A man of our age who is not 
 going to be wholly a cynic must fight furiously." 
 
 "What puzzles me," said Mr. Ingleside, "about 
 our age is this : was life always as unsatisfactory and 
 fleshy as one then finds it to be, or is the world get 
 ting worse?" 
 
 "The world," said Dr. Staminer, "is always the 
 same. There are the same seaminesses and ugli 
 nesses all the time, but you have to grow into a 
 knowledge of them. The ordinary healthy person, 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 151 
 
 thank the stars, does not come to observation of 
 them until his youth is over. While that lasts he 
 has other things to think about. We do not eat of 
 the fruit of the tree of knowledge until our ordinary 
 digestion is beginning to fail a little." 
 
 "To vary the epigram," said Leslie, "might you 
 not say that it is not until we have false teeth that we 
 bite the apple of good and evil." 
 
 "Very good," said Christie. 
 
 "I'm sorry you like it," Leslie replied, "because 
 now it will go into an article for which you will get 
 the credit." 
 
 "I never steal," said Christie ; "I always acknow 
 ledge the source. I shall certainly use your epigram, 
 but I shall attribute it to Sydney Smith." 
 
 "Why not to me?" Leslie asked. 
 
 "Well, for two reasons at least. One is that no 
 one knows you, and it would therefore look silly ; 
 and the other is that if I did no one would think the 
 remark really witty. Almost the first thing that a 
 journalist needs is an instinct for names. To men 
 tion 'a name that is not 'up' is fatal. The public 
 so hate humour except in papers which are la 
 belled humorous, and which therefore need not 
 be humorous at all because the label hypnotizes 
 the reader into the belief that what he reads is 
 funny the public so hate humour and are so 
 suspicious of wit that they have reduced the ac 
 ceptable practitioners in those lines to the smallest 
 possible number. For all practical purposes, all 
 quoted jokes in newspapers have to be made by 
 either Sydney Smith or Sir William Gilbert, and all 
 
IS* MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 humorous situations paralleled either in Dickens 
 or Lewis Carroll." 
 
 "I see," said Leslie sadly. "But you might give 
 me a notion of what I must do to become well enough 
 known to be quoted." 
 
 "The best way of all," said Christie, "is to die ; 
 but if you could write a funny play that every one 
 went to see, you would have a chance. Another way 
 is to be in some very serious situation conspicuously 
 unassociated with jokes such as in the pulpit or 
 on the bench." 
 
 "Then there is no chance for a wit per se?" 
 
 "None. None at all. England expects that 
 every man will do his duty." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside promised Ann to return early the 
 next afternoon, which was as fine as they had hoped. 
 
 "I have at last," he said, when lunch was over, 
 "I have at last found a compensation for being a 
 Government clerk." 
 
 " Oh, father," said Ann, " there are lots of compen 
 sations. There's the note-paper, for one." 
 
 "This is the first real one," said her father. 
 "Note-paper is all very well, but it incites one to 
 use the pen. The compensation to which I refer 
 incites one to lay the pen down." 
 
 "Do tell me," said Ann. 
 
 "Come and see," said Mr. Ingleside: "it's 
 Richard Oast's present close by. Bring one of 
 our half -bottles of champagne with you." 
 
 He led the way to Villiers Street, through the 
 Underground station, across the Embankment, to 
 the Charing Cross pier ; Ann accompanying in a 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 153 
 
 kind of stupor, grasping a bottle. They descended 
 the sloping gangway to the pier itself, which was 
 deserted save for Mr. Richard Oast, M.P., sitting 
 on a barrel, and a young man in a motor-boat 
 moored to the side, who smoked a cigarette and 
 polished a gun-metal fitting. Ann noticed that the 
 motor-boat was quite new and very smart ; but 
 she was still a little dazed by the whole proceeding, 
 complicated by the unashamed champagne. Oast 
 came to meet them. 
 
 " Punctual," he said ; " which is a lesson to me. I 
 can't forget that this boat ought to have been here 
 yesterday. Are you excited, Ann?" 
 
 " Excited!" said Ann. "Of course I am, but 
 father won't explain. Look at this absurd bottle." 
 
 "Absurd!" said Oast. "I like that! Why, 
 that is the crown of most of my work." 
 
 "Champagne?" Ann exclaimed. 
 
 Mr. Oast laughed. "Wait," he said. 
 
 "But where is the present?" Ann asked. 
 
 "There," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Where? "said Ann. 
 
 "The latest toy and recreation," said Mr. Ingle- 
 side, pointing to the boat. "It's ours, Ann; Mr. 
 Oast has built it for us, and that's Mr. Timbs, the 
 engineer. I have permission from a nepotic col 
 league to keep it here. We are going a voyage in it 
 every afternoon after I leave the office, and now 
 and then we will lunch on board. It is to give us 
 fresh air, and make us healthy, and show us the 
 mystery of ships ; for we shall of course always 
 go down the river, and not up. We are going 
 
154 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 for a spin to the Pool now after you have 
 christened her." 
 
 "The champagne?" said Ann. 
 
 "Of course/' said her father. "You didn't 
 suppose we were going to drink it. No need for 
 champagne when you have a motor-boat to whisk 
 you about this beautiful river." 
 
 "What do I do?" Ann asked. 
 
 "You ought to smash it over the prow," said Mr. 
 Ingleside, "but that's very dangerous. Timbs here 
 will knock the neck off. " 
 
 Timbs dexterously did so and handed back the 
 foaming remnant. 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Ingleside, "give it a name." 
 
 "Tellme," said Ann to Richard Oast. 
 
 "What do you think of the Ann and Alison?" he 
 asked. "Lots of ships are named like that." 
 
 "It would be so awfully personal." 
 
 "Then the Respite?" 
 
 "Not quite right," Ann thought. "What do you 
 say, father?" 
 
 Mr. Ingleside affected to think. "The Caprice" 
 he said at last. 
 
 "Oh yes," said Ann, and she poured out the cham 
 pagne and solemnly named the boat the Caprice. 
 
 "Get that painted on it," said Mr. Oast to the 
 engineer. 
 
 "It's a good name," said Mr. Ingleside, "because 
 it not only describes the unusual nature of our 
 adventure, but it will excuse the boat when she 
 rams a tug or a barge or the Tower Bridge, as she is 
 certain to do before long. And now for our first 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 155 
 
 voyage. In a month I confidently expect to find 
 results in health at least equal to the same time 
 in Switzerland, without having met a single 
 waiter." 
 
 The Caprice fulfilled all expectations. On the 
 muggiest, dullest day, when there is no air at all in 
 the London streets, a breeze holds in the middle of 
 the river, and a motor-boat meeting this can easily 
 increase it to a gale. Mr. Ingleside grew visibly 
 stronger and more alert, and Ann was an understudy 
 to Hygeia. On the sea Mr. Ingleside did not hold 
 with motor-boats at all ; they were (like steamers) 
 contrary, he said, to Nature : Nature did not 
 desire anyone to go faster than herself. But in the 
 Thames he approved of them : life is as a whole 
 so artificial and forced in London that one is en 
 titled to resort to artificial means to alleviate it. 
 
 "Why you go to the trouble of all that explana 
 tion, I can't understand," said Richard Oast, "ex 
 cept for the luxury of pampering your conscience." 
 
 "No other reason," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside could not have had a more satisfy 
 ing present than the Caprice. It gave him not only 
 health and recreation ; it gave him (so to speak) a 
 stake in his beloved stream : he became a freeman 
 of the Thames. He now had as much right there as 
 any bargee ; any tug-captain sardonic and steadfast 
 at the wheel ; any inscrutable and authoritative 
 river policeman. He could now, in conversation 
 with them, say "we," "our river," "our Thames." 
 
 The Caprice's usual trip was to Greenwich and 
 back, and you may do this a hundred times a day 
 
156 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 and find it different every time different craft 
 are met and passed ; different chaff thrown from 
 the bargees ; and, best of all, a different light illu 
 mines the sails and spars, the bridges and the 
 wharves, the Tower and St. Paul's. In the later 
 evening the Caprice sometimes went up to Chelsea, 
 amid Whistler's blue mists. 
 
 Timbs, the engineer, was a cheerful, talkative 
 fellow who had been in the Royal Navy. He took 
 the boat home to Twickenham every evening and 
 brought her back to Charing Cross pier every noon, 
 ready for the after-lunch cruise. When he bared 
 his arms, it was, as Ann said, like a picture gallery, 
 so many tattooed devices were there ; and he had 
 others which Ann had not seen, and would not see, 
 Richard Oast told her including a ship in full sail 
 on his chest, and a snake all the way up his spine 
 fascinating a bird of paradise between his shoulders. 
 
 "Didn't it hurt?" Ann once asked him. 
 
 "Hurt ! " he said. " I give you my word. When 
 this was done my arm was as big as a mast." 
 
 "You've only got anchors and things," said Ann. 
 "You haven't got any names. Some sailors have 
 names on their arms." 
 
 Timbs smiled a sardonic smile. "Yes," he said, 
 "and don't some of them wish they hadn't? Not 
 half." 
 
 "Why?" asked Ann, who 'was incorrigibly inno 
 cent. 
 
 "Why, Miss? Well, I hardly like to tell you." 
 
 "Go on," said Ann. 
 
 "Well," said Timbs, "suppose you was walking 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 157 
 
 out with a girl named Polly, for example, and you 
 told her she was the only girl you was ever soft on, 
 and one day she catches sight of the name of Fan 
 just under your elbow, what then?" 
 
 "I see," said Ann. 
 
 "I've known fellows," said Timbs, "who've gone 
 to enormous expense and horrible pain to have 
 ' Eliza,' say, tattoed right over ' Maria,' so as to 
 blot 'Maria' clean out, with a lover's knot all round 
 it, too, and then blowed if they haven't got sick 
 of Eliza in a week ! No, Miss ; no wise man has 
 girls' names tattooed on him." 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IN WHICH A WIDOWER ACCEPTS HIS LOT 
 WITH FORTITUDE AND DISMAY 
 
 IT was on their return from a voyage in the Ca 
 price a few days after the birthday that Mr. 
 Ingleside found a telegram in his rooms. He read 
 it and stood by the window still and silent for some 
 moments, while Ann waited. 
 
 Then he crushed the telegram in his hand. 
 "Ann," he said, "your mother died yesterday in 
 Japan. Alison is returning at once. ..." 
 
 Ann bore the news of her mother's death as 
 tranquilly as one can at seventeen, when one has 
 never been demonstratively loved. What it chiefly 
 meant to her was the return of Alison, to which she 
 looked forward with pleasure. There are so many 
 things in London that two contemporaries can do 
 which are unamusing for one, and Ann at present 
 knew no one of her own age except John, and John 
 did not find her quite so amenable as he wished. 
 She came midway between the unattainable but 
 adorable goddess which a young man likes to be a 
 slave to and the slave that a young man likes to be 
 adored by ; and John was of the age that cannot 
 bear compromise. Besides, Ann told home truths, 
 which no wise woman ever does. In a few years 
 
 158 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 159 
 
 she would know better. John therefore was not the 
 companion that Mrs. Campion had foretold, and 
 the progress of the collection of picture post-cards 
 of pretty actresses and dancers on the walls of his 
 room had not been arrested. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside said very little about the bereave 
 ment ; but his thoughts were busy, and he looked 
 careworn. Although he had accepted the estrange 
 ment, he had never desired it. "Love comes un 
 seen," says the poet: "we only see it go." Mr. 
 Ingleside had seen it go, and the spectacle had filled 
 him with hopelessness and had fortified his natural 
 pessimism. His one steady wish was that constancy 
 might be universal ; stories of faithlessness hurt him 
 far more than tales of starvation and crime. The 
 failure of this ideal in his own experience made no 
 difference to his feelings concerning it. 
 
 "For," as he would say, "no amount of thought 
 can either make one love a woman if one does not, 
 or keep one in love if one has lost that emotion. 
 One can be solicitous, thoughtful, kind, watchful, 
 tender, protective, admiring, sorry ; but if love has 
 gone, love has gone." 
 
 And again : "A bachelor may be lonely and 
 even miserable for a great part of his time : but at 
 any rate he has broken no promises ; he has not 
 stood at the graveside of rapture." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside did not blame himself for the fiasco 
 of his own marriage ; nor did he pity himself : he 
 merely regretted that such things were possible. He 
 remembered only too vividly the happy days before 
 the rift, the coolness. 
 
160 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Mrs. Ingleside had not been a very clever woman 
 with men. She had not the instinct of manage 
 ment. But it did not occur to her husband to fix 
 the blame on that. He had loved her, she had loved 
 him ; he had made her promises, she had made 
 him promises ; and all had gone. His quarrel with 
 the powers that be was, as I say, that such things 
 were possible. 
 
 How his wife had felt about it he did not know. 
 She had seemed contented enough, with her Italian 
 studies, and her novels, and her friends ; but was 
 she? 
 
 She had written nothing of it in her letters. 
 Would Alison bring him one her last words ? He 
 wondered much. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside went down to Bournemouth to 
 arrange about the house and furniture. It was a 
 melancholy task, especially when it came to the 
 books and papers. There were so many books that 
 he had given her, that they had read together. The 
 inscriptions cut him to the heart. And yet 
 again he did not blame himself. He blamed 
 fate and fate alone : the gods, the stars, whatever 
 it is one blames. 
 
 Her desk was a terrible ordeal. She had kept 
 everything. All his love-letters were there, tied 
 together. He untied the ribbon. . . . Had she 
 re-read them, he wondered, or was it merely habit 
 to keep them an unexamined sentiment? But 
 there they were, hot from his pen. . . . He glanced 
 at one, but got no farther. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside arranged for a sale of the furniture 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 161 
 
 and the removal of the more intimate articles to 
 Buckingham Street, and returned to London in a 
 mood of perplexed melancholy. He seemed unable 
 to close his grasp on anything. Always a pessimist, 
 to-day had underscored his hopelessness. 
 
 It was his second loss, although the actual sever 
 ance had of course come years before ; but it is 
 impossible to discount death. Naturally to that 
 other loss his thoughts now turned more than ever. 
 He leaned over the embankment and watched the 
 river until the dawn was grey, and it was of Askill 
 that he was thinking. Where was Askill ? he had 
 often wondered ; but to-night the question burned 
 into his brain with new persistency. Askill and he 
 had been at school together, and afterwards at 
 college ; both had settled in London. Mr. Ingleside 
 had a warm affection for his present friends, par 
 ticularly Dr. Stammer, Thrace, and Richard Oast ; 
 but they did not compare with Askill : they did 
 not understand as he had done. One friend must 
 always stand first, and Askill was he. 
 
 Askill had been at the Bar. It was an odd choice 
 for that type of man who had much that was ad 
 venturous, so much that was even anarchistic, and so 
 much that was truthful, among 'his elements; but 
 his father, whom he greatly revered, had wished it, 
 and he had allowed circumstances to control him. 
 He succeeded ; his genius gradually brought him 
 fame and prosperity. Mr. Ingleside alone knew 
 how little he valued them, how powerful all the 
 time, but steadily more powerful as he grew older 
 and time grew shorter, was the call of the wild. 
 
162 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Civilization irked him ; success shamed him. As 
 he had grown older his impatience had increased, 
 until the day came when the papers stated that he 
 had been offered a law lordship. That night he 
 disappeared. At the very moment when everything 
 that most persons would think most desirable was 
 at his feet he vanished from the haunts of men. 
 
 The theory is that to his odd mind, with its pas 
 sionate fear, and more than fear, abhorrence, of 
 growing old, of settling down, of fossilizing, of ceasing 
 to notice this offer of security and wealth and a 
 position of honour wore something of the same 
 sinister air that of old in a society where primitive 
 hatreds flourished a warning written in blood might 
 have had. It was indeed a warning the ultima 
 tum of the world to its old enemy, the last threaten 
 ing word in their long quarrel. Reduced to the 
 simplest terms, it said : "I offer you an honourable 
 death. This is the end eat, drink, and be merry, 
 for your youth is over, and in thirty years at most 
 (which are really thirty seconds) you will die. 
 Here is a gold-mounted ladder by which you may 
 reach the velvet-lined top shelf. Up with you, 
 and turn to contented stone. Call no man dead 
 till he is comfortable." 
 
 That was six years ago, and he had never been 
 heard of since. 
 
 Such was Askill's story. And now he was 
 where ? Mr. Ingleside left the river and climbed the 
 stairs of his famous old house. " And so to bed," he 
 quoted from his illustrious predecessor with a smile ; 
 but his heart was very heavy. He belonged to 
 the older generation, and there were none left. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IN WHICH IT SEEMS THAT OLD LADIES 
 TOO CAN BE NAPOLEONIC 
 
 ANN had no sooner reached Miss Beautiman's 
 than she was told to jump into a cab and 
 drive at once to Green's Hotel in Bruton Street and 
 ask for Miss Larpent, who needed a temporary 
 secretary. Ann did so, and was led into a darkened 
 bedroom, in which after a while she discerned a ven 
 erable lady in bed. 
 
 "Sit down at the table there," said the old lady, 
 "and I'll dictate to you. Don't think I'm an in 
 valid, because I'm not. I've merely caught a chill 
 in this horrible city. The letters, which I want 
 you to take back and type for me, are to my servants, 
 who were expecting me back, and who don't know 
 what to do without instructions. They are good 
 creatures, but so stupid when they are not directed. 
 We'll begin with the cook. Are you ready ? Then 
 begin : 
 
 "'DEAR TANNER, I am sorry to have upset your plans 
 as I must have done on Tuesday, but I have contracted a 
 chill which is keeping me indoors for a few days. I expect 
 to return on Monday, and should like a leg of mutton roast 
 with plain boiled potatoes and French beans. A baked 
 custard to follow. Everything is to be as plain as possible, 
 
 163 
 
164 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 to get the taste of hotel-cooking out of my mouth. For 
 Tuesday you had better order a breast of lamb ; but I will 
 write again about this. I am, yours faithfully, 
 
 'ANTOINETTE LARPENT.' 
 
 "Tanner is a good woman/' said Miss Larpent, 
 "but very limited in range. She has no ideas be 
 yond beef and mutton. But then what cook has ? 
 At any rate, she makes beef and mutton taste like 
 beef and mutton, which the people here can't. 
 Now the coachman 
 
 "'DEAR RIGBY, I was sorry to disappoint you and 
 James and the horses by not arriving yesterday as I intended, 
 but I have contracted a chill in these draughty streets, and 
 shall be kept indoors for, I fear, a few days. I should like 
 you to drive out Miss Pearce on Thursday afternoon, 
 Mrs. Ferris on Friday, and the Misses Keen on Saturday. 
 You will be interested to hear that in London motor-cabs 
 and other petrol-driven vehicles are on the increase, so 
 that the sad spectacle of fallen horses is less common than 
 of old. I have been in a motor-cab, and indeed think it 
 was very likely the speed of it that gave me my chill ; but 
 nothing can reconcile me to the use of these abominable 
 things in the country. Yours faithfully, 
 
 'ANTOINETTE LARPENT.' 
 
 "What I should like to add," said Miss Larpent, 
 "is that I hope he'll look cheerful when he drives 
 those people out, and refuse their tips (which they 
 can't in the least afford) ; but it's no good saying 
 things like that to servants. Now to the gardener 
 
 "'DEAR MUGGERIDGE, I am sorry not to have paid 
 my morning visit on Wednesday as you must have expected, 
 but I have been detained in London by a chill and shall 
 probably not see you again till Tuesday. I hope everything 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 165 
 
 is going on well and that Thomas is not idling. As we came 
 down the drive last week on our way to the station I noticed a 
 piece of groundsel which was very near seeding. I hope that 
 you have by this time destroyed it. As nearly as I can rec 
 ollect, it was opposite the fifth or sixth Scotch fir from the 
 house, on the left. Unless destroyed before it seeds, it will 
 spread seriously. If you have any really nice peaches, you 
 might send me a basket to Green's Hotel, Bruton Street, W. 
 I should like some flowers and fruit to go to Miss Pearce, the 
 Misses Keen, and Mrs. Ferris. I am, yours faithfully, 
 
 'ANTOINETTE LARPENT.' 
 
 "Now to the parlour maid. She's a very good 
 girl, although she does send far too many things to 
 the wash (but they all do that) and never knows 
 whether a picture is hanging straight or not 
 
 "'DEAR TRIMMER, I am sorry to have upset your 
 preparations by not returning on Tuesday, but I have 
 caught a chill in London and am confined to my room for 
 a while. I hope to return on Monday, and shall be glad to be 
 at home again. I shall probably go straight to bed, so please 
 have a fire in the room and some yellow roses. It might be 
 a good opportunity now to turn out both the Rose Room 
 and the Green Room, and I have been thinking that it is a 
 long time since we looked at my furs, so perhaps they had 
 better come out and be well examined for moths. I am, 
 yours faithfully, ANTOINETTE LARPENT.' 
 
 "Now to the butler 
 
 "'DEAR ROSSITER, I was sorry to have to break my 
 word and not return on Tuesday as promised, but I have 
 contracted a chill in London, and must stay here, I am afraid, 
 till Monday next. Be sure to keep a careful record of anyone 
 that calls, and inform them that I am not really ill, but my 
 medical man tells me I must be a little careful. As he has 
 ordered some dry champagne at eleven o'clock every morn- 
 
166 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 ing, I am having some cases of quarter-bottles sent down, 
 so you will know what to expect. Lying awake last night, 
 I wondered if it might not be too heating food which has 
 caused Caro's eczema, and I think it would be well to try 
 some experiments. Will you therefore see that he has no 
 actual meat for these few days, but Tanner might prepare 
 a strengthening gravy in which to soak his bread and vege 
 tables. I am, yours faithfully, ANTOINETTE LARPENT.' 
 
 "There," said Miss Larpent, "I think that is all. 
 Oh no," she added, "there's one more. To my 
 nephew, an officer on an 0. & P. boat, who has been 
 getting very soft on one of the passengers 
 
 " ' MY DEAR BRYAN, You must excuse this letter not 
 being in my own hand, but I happen at the moment to be ill 
 in bed, and I am dictating it to an amanuensis/ 
 
 " Can you spell ' amanuensis/ my dear ? " asked 
 Miss Larpent. "If not, put ' secretary/ because 
 I'm sure I can't. 
 
 "'Your news is interesting and not unexpected. One 
 always looks for letters of this kind from sailors, who if they 
 had no more control over ships than over their hearts would 
 all be at the bottom of the sea. You say you would much 
 rather now live on shore. I do not intend to make any 
 kind of proposition until I see the girl. If I don't like her, 
 I shall not care whether you leave the sea or not. If I like 
 her, I may do something for you. I may tell you this at 
 any rate, that I like her name : that is, as much of it as you 
 tell me. I find it difficult lying here in an expensive and not 
 well-managed hotel to believe that any girl named Alison can 
 be other than nice and gentle; but nowadays there's no 
 knowing. I trust you will come down to Cray Wood at the 
 earliest moment after reaching port, and that you won't 
 propose for at least six weeks. Your affectionate aunt, 
 
 'ANTOINETTE LARPENT.' 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 167 
 
 "Now," said the old lady, "get back to your office 
 and type those, and then I will sign them. 
 
 "Tell me about yourself," said the old lady, after 
 Ann had returned and the letters were dispatched, 
 "for of course you were not brought up to be a typist." 
 
 Ann told her. 
 
 "I wonder," said the old lady, "if you could get a 
 day or two off from your work and help me with my 
 shopping. I intend, whatever the doctors say, to 
 get up for lunch on Friday and shop afterwards and 
 shop again on Saturday morning. Then I shall go 
 to bed again and rest till Monday, when I go home. 
 Do you think you could give me Friday afternoon 
 and Saturday morning?" 
 
 Ann said she would ; and on Friday she presented 
 herself at one o'clock to lunch with the old lady and 
 begin her duties. 
 
 They did the ordinary kind of shopping first, in a 
 little coupe ("No more taxis for me," said Miss 
 Larpent), and then she told the man to drive to 
 a street off the Brompton Road. 
 
 "This is an old curiosity shop, my dear," she said, 
 "kept by a great friend of mine whom I always 
 visit when I come to town Miss Ming." 
 
 "Miss Ming," said Ann, "why, I know Miss 
 Ming ! Father often gets little things from her. I 
 shall be very glad to see her again." 
 
 "My gracious!" Miss Ming exclaimed. "Miss 
 Larpent ! How are you ? I am pleased to see 
 you. And Miss Ingleside too ! I never knew that 
 you knew each other. Why, Miss Larpent, I was 
 thinking of you only yesterday ; in fact, I nearly 
 
168 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 wrote. I've just got a collection of comfit boxes in 
 Chelsea enamel perfect darlings every one of 
 them I never saw better. 'They're the very 
 thing for Miss Larpent,' I said directly I saw them. 
 The dears!" 
 
 "No, no," said Miss Larpent. "I'm too old to 
 be caught like that." 
 
 "It's gospel, I assure you," Miss Ming protested. 
 "But look at them." 
 
 "They're very attractive," said Miss Larpent, 
 "but how can I buy enamel when I've got a nephew 
 who wants to marry and hasn't a penny to bless 
 himself with?" 
 
 "The poor young fellow," said Miss Ming. "I'd 
 much rather he was made happy than that you 
 should buy anything of me." 
 
 "Well," cried Miss Larpent, "if the millennium 
 hasn't arrived !" 
 
 "I mean it," said Miss Ming stoutly. "I'd like 
 all the young people to be happily married, bless 
 their hearts. But here's a pretty thing I put on one 
 side for you the other day," and opening a drawer 
 Miss Ming extracted a tissue-paper parcel contain 
 ing a sampler. "There," she said, " ' Gertrude Jane 
 Larpent, aged eleven.' Is that one of your ancestors, 
 do you think?" 
 
 "Do I think!" exclaimed Miss Larpent. "It's 
 my own great-grandfather's sister. Where did you 
 get it?" 
 
 Miss Ming explained that it came in with several 
 others. "I always look at the names," she con 
 tinued, "they're so old-fashioned and quaint. I 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 169 
 
 like to think of the little mites sitting down to them 
 in their funny little high waists and pushing their 
 needles in and out so patiently. The pets ! And 
 to think we should be framing their samplers to-day 
 and hanging them up like pictures. Who'd have 
 thought it ? But there's precious little done by the 
 children of this day that anyone will want in a hun 
 dred years' time. Has it ever struck you," Miss 
 Ming inquired, "that in a hundred years' time it 
 will be just the same things that I am selling now 
 that the old curiosity shops will have? It won't 
 be anything that is being made now. Isn't that a 
 pity? 
 
 "Now here's a little darling," she said, taking 
 up a bead purse. "Doesn't that tempt you? 
 Or this ? " holding a blue bowl to the light. " Isn't 
 that sweet?" And so she rambled on, displaying 
 and fondling one treasure after another. 
 
 The old lady bought several things, including a 
 set of ivory lace bobbins with a lover's message 
 on each, and a little disc of silk with "My True 
 Heart" embroidered on it that a girl dead these 
 hundred years had given her lover, dead too, to 
 wear inside his watch. 
 
 "But what I really want," she said, "is one of 
 those little weather houses with an old man and an 
 old woman in it that we used to see in the cottages. 
 I want to give it to a great-nephew." 
 
 Miss Ming was nonplussed. She had no notion 
 where to get one. 
 
 "Fancy Miss Ming not knowing!" exclaimed 
 Miss Larpent. " I made sure you could tell me." 
 
i 7 o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "I think I can find out," said Ann, thinking of 
 Leslie's curious gift of omniscience in all such 
 matters ; and sure enough she was right. 
 
 "Those little weather houses?" said Leslie. 
 "You've come to the very man. You have to go 
 to Houndsditch for them. On the right side from 
 Bishopsgate, a little way along, there's a large 
 toy shop with a Scotch name. That's the place. 
 They're made in Germany nowadays, but they're 
 none the worse for that. Sixpence halfpenny each." 
 
 "How clever you are !" said Ann. 
 
 "Only so long as you ask me questions I can 
 answer," said Leslie. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IN WHICH ALISON RETURNS FROM 
 THE EAST 
 
 THE Caprice played a great part in the return of 
 Alison, for Mr. Ingleside and Ann went down 
 to Tilbury in it to bring her back. Ann felt like a 
 modern Queen Elizabeth on her way to review the 
 forces. 
 
 Alison, who had learned by letter that she was to 
 be carried back to London by water, was looking 
 over the taffrail. Ann saw her while they were still 
 a long way off and waved her handkerchief. Alison 
 waved in reply. A young man in uniform was 
 standing beside her, and they saw him soon after 
 move away. 
 
 Ann remained with Timbs in the boat and Mr. 
 Ingleside boarded the vessel. 
 
 Alison sprang to meet him and hid her face on his 
 shoulder. He saw at once that she was older. She 
 had always been an emotional girl, quite different 
 from Ann, who took life as it came : her recent 
 experiences had not reduced that characteristic, but 
 had made her graver. 
 
 Alison kept him waiting while she said good-bye 
 to a number of the passengers and the young 
 
 171 
 
172 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 officer, and then Mr. Ingleside took her to the 
 Caprice and left her with Ann while Timbs and he 
 arranged for the dispatch of the trunks to London. 
 
 Alison was no sooner alone with Ann than she 
 broke down. She had been through a very trying 
 period, and was glad to have her father's company, 
 even though he gave nothing away, and even more 
 glad to have Ann's strong young arms round her 
 neck. She sat in the boat with Ann holding her and 
 crying a little, silently, for quite a long time. 
 
 Then they started. It was late afternoon, in 
 perfect weather. They tore swifty up the golden 
 stream, often into the very eye of the sun, towards 
 the beautiful cloud of mist that was London. Under 
 the influence of the strange scene and the excite 
 ment of this unwonted means of returning home, 
 and warmed by the presence of those whom she 
 loved and who loved her, Alison grew happier. 
 Her natural vivacity began to return, and when 
 they reached Charing Cross she was talking gaily. 
 
 She set her feet firmly one before the other as they 
 walked from the pier to Buckingham Street, with 
 that pleasure in the old earth which one knows to 
 the full only after a long voyage or a very bad 
 crossing. It was delightful to be so near home : 
 Ann had pointed out the windows while they were 
 still on the Caprice; delightful to return under such 
 untoward and charming conditions. Her father 
 might not be very demonstrative ; he might be 
 more wrapped up in himself than many girls' fathers 
 were ; but he did have the most attractive ideas. 
 Who else in this world would meet his daughter at 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 173 
 
 Tilbury in a motor-boat and bring her home to 
 Charing Cross in it ? 
 
 4 And here was London, with its crowds of human 
 beings, and its shop windows, its piers, its tall men, 
 its concerts and theatres, its tea-rooms and choco 
 late, its circulating libraries, and almost above all 
 its reputation for fascinating fogs. 
 
 So Alison's thoughts ran as she stamped almost 
 like a German soldier from Charing Cross pier to 
 Buckingham Street. 
 
 Everything about her father's abode pleased her, 
 and her own room, on which Ann had spent much 
 thought and care, gave her a new thrill of satisfac 
 tion. How homely it seemed, after her cabin on 
 the ship and after the hotels she had stayed in since 
 she left England on that sad expedition. A room 
 without a mosquito net how adorable ! A floor 
 that did not move up and down how extraordi 
 narily comfortable ! And in addition to all this, 
 a secret. No wonder Alison was happier. 
 
 The anxiety which Mrs. Boody had felt when Ann 
 returned to her father's roof was renewed when 
 Alison appeared. Here was a more serious danger : 
 a daughter really grown up. 
 
 "You'll be wanting to take the housekeeping into 
 your own hands, won't you, Miss?" she said. 
 
 "Why?" was Alison's disconcerting if satisfac 
 tory reply. 
 
 "Oh, well, Miss, young ladies like to manage for 
 their pas," said Mrs. Boody. "And it's practice 
 too," she added. 
 
 "I'll watch you, I think," Alison said. "I'm 
 
174 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 sure you do it splendidly, and you've done it so 
 long. Unless, of course, you want to give it 
 up . . .?" 
 
 "There are times, Miss/' said Mrs. Boody, "when 
 I've lost heart; when your pa's had no appetite 
 whatever ; but I came to him to be his housekeeper, 
 and his housekeeper I'm prepared to be to the end. 
 But, of course, blood has claims before before 
 employees. That I'm well aware of. And that's 
 why I spoke as I did." 
 
 "Please go on, Mrs. Boody," said Alison. "We 
 had the nicest dinner last evening I have had for 
 months." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear it, Miss, very glad," said Mrs. 
 Boody. "And a change too, I'm sure, after having 
 everything boiled in sea-water, as I suppose you've 
 been doing. Couldn't you tell me now of any little 
 thing you particularly fancied, and I would get it 
 for you ? Miss Ann, now, your sister, she dotes on 
 sausages for breakfast. Is there anything you 
 prefer to anything else ? " 
 
 "No," said Alison, "so long as it's all English." 
 
 For a few days Mr. Ingleside's life was entirely 
 changed, Alison dragged him so determinedly forth 
 to explore London. These excursions had filled her 
 mind ever since the vessel left Japan ; and now 
 was the opportunity. An interesting Englishman 
 who was travelling from Japan to China added 
 fuel to the flame by the enthusiasm with which he 
 too had recalled London and desired to return; 
 but not for three years would he be free to get there. 
 
 The Cafe Royal was the centre of his paradise : 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 175 
 
 once again to stroll in at five o'clock, when the place 
 was filling up and the dominoes beginning to rattle, 
 and watch through his cigar smoke the strange 
 cosmopolitan crowd. To do that in the afternoon ; 
 in the evening to drift into a theatre or music hall, 
 and for supper a grilled bone. Simple tastes ; but 
 how far from the grasp in Hong Kong ! 
 
 "It's quite on the cards," he said, "that I should 
 want to be back here again before very long ; but 
 until I did ! . . . The awful thing about London," 
 he added, "is that when I am there I can't leave it. 
 I disregard family ties ; I break engagements. My 
 people, who live in the country, want to see me, 
 and I make excuses. I even get to the station and 
 return to my hotel ; or I go down one day and 
 invent a pretext to hurry back on the next. 
 
 "How I envy you, Miss Ingleside ! And in a 
 way you are luckier than I, for you know London 
 so little, and therefore one of the hard things won't 
 affect you : I mean the loss of landmarks. Every 
 time I go back there are new streets, changed 
 streets, old houses rebuilt, old theatres (this is the 
 worst) rebuilt. I can't bear that." 
 
 Without such talk Alison would still have wanted 
 her London banquet, but this wistful exile increased 
 her longing ; and Mr. Ingleside was dazed by the 
 intensity of their sight-seeing. At last, after being 
 led in one hour into five city churches, he gave it up. 
 
 "No," he said, "no more. I am a Londoner, and 
 Londoners don't do these things. We are the hap 
 pier for knowing that near at hand are museums 
 and churches, but we don't enter them. A picture 
 
i 7 6 MB. INGLESIDE 
 
 gallery now and then, yes ; a concert ; even a play. 
 But no more Wren interiors. My idea of Wren is 
 an inspired deviser of white stone spires on which 
 the afternoon light falls very beautifully and the 
 soot accumulates with perfect discretion. No more. 
 Never ask me to go inside a Wren church again. 
 The Abbey, yes ; but no more aldermanic dormi 
 tories. No, if you must rush about London, get 
 John Campion. He's got nothing to do, or if he 
 has, he will with punctuality and dispatch cease to 
 do it." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside was right. 
 
 "Of course, if Miss Ingleside wants me, I must 
 go," John said to his mother. "After all, she's 
 just had a bereavement, and people should be kind to 
 her. It's a great nuisance to give up this afternoon's 
 engineering work, but I will do it." 
 
 John therefore returned home to lunch, changed 
 into his best Bond street suit and green socks with 
 silver clocks, and was at Buckingham Street at 
 three. By four o'clock he had decided that Alison 
 was worth cultivating. 
 
 "A very sensible girl," he told his mother. 
 "Not a bit like Ann, always trying to score off you. 
 The kind of girl I like : a good listener." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IN WHICH ALISON HAS NO CHANCE TO 
 RELATE THE STORY OF HER TRAVELS 
 
 ALISON'S return pleased every one ; but after 
 her own family Henry Thrace and Vycount 
 Ramer were perhaps made the happiest by it. She 
 had always been their darling, and they vied with 
 each other in attentions. Surely we want a word to 
 describe these courtesies of affection, as distin 
 guished from love. Neither had the faintest thought 
 of marriage ; but their homage and assiduity would 
 have disgraced many a professed Romeo. Nor had 
 they any jealousy. If Henry Thrace brought 
 roses, only to find Ramer's roses and more beauti 
 ful ones on the table, he did not glower, but 
 laughed at his ill-luck ; if Ramer brought Lindt 
 chocolate, and found that Henry had stolen a 
 march on him with Marquis, he laughed too. 
 
 Whether or not either of these gentle bachelors 
 had ever had an affaire no one knew for certain ; 
 but among those with whom the wish is father to the 
 thought (and London drawing-rooms are full of 
 them) they were each credited with an old romance. 
 Many a woman would still be glad to take Ramer in 
 hand and see that a clothes-brush and he sometimes 
 met, and even organize the business side of his life, 
 now hopelessly in disarray ; but Thrace, they 
 
 N 177 
 
178 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 felt, was single beyond redemption, and one knew 
 instinctively that no woman living could make even 
 the minutest addition to his dressing-table. 
 
 With Ann they were both facetious ; chaff was the 
 staple diet. But with Alison they were solicitous 
 and gravely humorous. That was the difference. 
 
 If Alison caused any heart in this little sodality to 
 beat the faster, it was Christie's ; but Christie was 
 not a commanding personality. He fell midway 
 between a woman's needs : not strong enough to 
 control nor weak enough to need protection ; he 
 was just that dull thing, an ordinarily capable 
 person. Also he was so busy with his journalism 
 and general acquisitiveness as to give the impression 
 of being self-sufficing. Such men do not win 
 women : they acquire them in the day's work, 
 so to speak. But the noble sport of winning women 
 has gone out, anyway. 
 
 Christie, however, so far leaned towards Alison 
 as to interrupt his ordinary routine of old book and 
 old print and old water-colour hunting, to take 
 her to a matinee now and then, with tickets that cost 
 him nothing, and even to wonder to what extent 
 marriage would interfere with his well-ordered life. 
 
 Between the three Alison had a delightful time, 
 especially as Dr. Stammer's courtly kindness was 
 always at her call too, and Leslie's quick sympathy, 
 and the tender raillery of her father. 
 
 Old Mrs. Ingleside was also glad to see Alison 
 again, for Alison was her first and for some time her 
 only grandchild, and she had been very proud of her. 
 "Well, my dear," she said, "to think of your having 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 179 
 
 been all that distance ! Why, I'm nearly sixty 
 years older than you, and the farthest from home 
 I ever went was Florence. Firenze, as they call it 
 there. That's one of the oddest things isn't it ? 
 that great and important cities should have different 
 names in different countries. Just think, London is 
 Londres in French ; and Paris is Paris here, Parry in 
 French, and Parigi in Italian. The funny thing is 
 that it's only the big places that have so many 
 names : the little ones are the same everywhere. 
 Hove, for example not that Hove is little Hove, 
 for example, is Hove everywhere. 
 
 "And your mother. Oh, my dear, how sad ! 
 To die out there in that foreign land, where I'm 
 told the houses are made of paper. How dreadful 
 to die so far from home comforts, and all among 
 idolaters too ! It's not dying properly, is it ? 
 And what a trial for you, my dear. And mourning, 
 too ! So far as I have observed and there's 
 an excellent Japanese bazaar in the Western Road 
 the Japanese have only the very gayest colours, not 
 in the least suitable for funerals. 
 
 "But after all, I sometimes wonder whether black 
 is as important as we were brought up to think. 
 I remember hearing the American preacher Ward 
 Beecher say that we ought to wear white and be 
 joyful when another of our friends entered paradise ; 
 but that takes no account of a personal bereavement, 
 does it, my dear? Very nice in the pulpit, when 
 every one's well and excited, no doubt. But of 
 course mourning can be overdone. I remember 
 the stuffiness of two widows in a railway carriage in 
 
i8o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 France, when I was there with your grandfather. 
 So much cripe that it seemed to sop up the air like 
 a sponge. 
 
 "I hope you found some nice people in Japan to 
 give you help, and an English doctor. I always felt 
 that the long voyage was a mistake, but I didn't 
 think it would end like this. A little yellow people, 
 are they not ? Very ingenious and quick ; but 
 not a nice nation to die among. I have a set of 
 ivory chess-men from Japan most wonderful. 
 And those balls within balls as extraordinary as a 
 freak of nature. Well, well, and so your poor 
 mother lies there ! I pictured many things for her 
 in my time, but never a Japanese cemetery. Well, 
 well. Such little men, too, for bearers ! I wonder 
 they could manage it. But perhaps some of the 
 English sailors helped. You must tell me about it 
 all some day. Not now it is too recent. 
 
 "I'm glad to see you looking so bonny, my dear. 
 And your dear father, how is he ? And dear Ann ? 
 I haven't seen your dear father for a fortnight at 
 least, but he writes every day. Such a clear hand, 
 my dear ; so different from your mother's. I never 
 could be quite sure of what she said. That 
 dreadful day when I waited for her for so long at 
 Redmayne's, and it seems she wrote Debenham's. 
 Not at all alike, are they ? but really such difficult 
 sideways stuff. As I told her more than once, it 
 would have been perfectly right if she'd only 
 added Freebody's ; but she was so refined she 
 could never bring herself to say it, much less write 
 it in cold blood. Well, well, poor dear. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 181 
 
 "And dear Ann. I'm so sorry to find that, in spite 
 of all I said, she goes on with her typewriting. 
 That's not work for a lady. I very much object to 
 the activity of the young girls to-day. There's not 
 one that knows how to sit in a chair and keep her 
 hands still, as I was taught to do. They're always 
 bustling. And the interest they take, or pretend 
 to take, in everything ! Games, theatres, concerts, 
 books, photography, cycling. Even motoring. I 
 assure you I have more than once seen women 
 driving motor-cars on the Front. So bold and dar 
 ing. And men sitting beside them laughing and 
 talking as if it were quite safe. Most extraordinary ! 
 
 "I hope Ann does not drive this new motor-boat 
 which that Socialist friend of his gave to your dear 
 father. A nice present for a Government official ! 
 I'm always so afraid that the chiefs of the Depart 
 ment will get to hear of this unfortunate intimacy 
 and ask your father to leave. Bombs, you know, 
 my dear. He tells me in a letter that it can go 
 twenty knots an hour, which is terrific, Miss Airey 
 informs me. Her uncle is a captain, you know, and 
 she understands knots. Don't let dear Ann take 
 the tiller, or whatever it is, will you, my dear? 
 That is, if you have any influence over her. And 
 don't you go in for sport and politics and manly 
 things. But I don't think you will. You look 
 much more old-fashioned than dear Ann. I hope 
 you are. Ann is so independent. I like girls to 
 wait till they're spoken to and to blush a little now 
 and then. 
 
 "Now tell me all about your travels. India must 
 
i8 2 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 be glorious, but bad for the liver, I understand. 
 Such yellow faces those Anglo-Indians bring back. 
 There are several of them here in Hove, where one 
 can be reserved and refined on so little. That 
 wonderful tower at Delhi but I suppose you 
 did not get there I'm never sure how to pronounce 
 it ; TAJ it's spelt. Tarj, I suppose. But you 
 didn't see that. And Simla we had friends at 
 Simla for years, the Witheringtons. The tallest 
 woman I ever knew, but quite nice." 
 
 So the old lady ran on, and Alison did her best to 
 keep her attention on the words ; but if she nodded 
 now and again as the landau swayed and jolted, 
 who shall blame her ? Even Chinese grandchildren 
 must be frail at times. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 IN WHICH GARRULOUS SYMPATHY IS 
 BROUGHT FROM THE SEVEN SISTERS 
 ROAD 
 
 " pLEASE, Miss," said Mrs. Boody, "there's 
 
 JL a lady to see you named Wyborn." 
 
 "Wyborn," said Mr. Ingleside. "That's not a 
 name : it's a problem." 
 
 "Wyborn," said Mrs. Boody. "She says she 
 was once the young ladies' nurse." 
 
 "Why, its Sarah !" cried Alison. "I'll go and 
 bring her up." 
 
 "Her name used to be Fletcher," said Mr. Ingle- 
 side. "I remember a visit from her father, who 
 thought that as I was an obscure clerk in a Gov 
 ernment Office, I could get his uncle a post as 
 keeper of the Town Council Park at Bury St. 
 Edmunds." 
 
 Alison dragged Sarah into the room. 
 
 " Good morning, sir," she said. " Good morning, 
 Miss Ann. Hearing that your ma had passed away, 
 I thought I would call and say how sorry I was. 
 Wyborn too. Not that he knew her, but I've told 
 him so much about you all that he feels it deeply." 
 
 "And so you're married?" said Mr. Ingleside 
 as he rose to go. 
 
 183 
 
i8 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Yes, sir, three years ago. We have a small shop 
 where we sell newspapers, tobacco, and sweets. 
 And picture post-cards. Frederick Wyborn's his 
 name. 23 Pilgrim Lane, just off the Seven Sisters 
 Road." 
 
 "It's a little too far away for him to supply me," 
 said Mr. Ingleside. "But if ever I'm in that part 
 
 of the world " And so saying he went off 
 
 to what Christie called his "alleged duties." 
 
 Mrs. Wyborn took a chair and settled down to a 
 good talk, which was largely reminiscence of the 
 girls' childhood. But she came in time to herself 
 and her own affairs. Wyborn was much younger 
 than she. She had met him, she said, at a friend's 
 wedding. He was only a grocer's clerk then, but 
 full of clever ideas. It was he who arranged with an 
 Italian piano-organist to play outside the wedding 
 party's house for the whole evening for seven and six 
 so that there could be dancing and no one could 
 say they didn't have music. She had married him, 
 said Sarah, because she knew he was clever and 
 would go ahead. They had bought the business 
 with her savings. There was a pamphlet about it 
 called How to become a Tobacconist on 20, and they 
 had read that first. They read it in the Park on 
 Sundays. The tobacconist's, sweet-seller's, and 
 newsagent's were three of the businesses that re 
 quired no experience whatever. Insurance agency 
 was another, and Wyborn hoped to add that soon. 
 
 " I hope you're not sufferingettes, dearies," said 
 Sarah, with concern. "But knowing how odd 
 your pa was, I was half afraid. Wyborn says they 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 185 
 
 ought to be pole-axed. I don't go as far as that, 
 but I do call it dreadful, the way they go on. I read 
 about it in the papers while I'm waiting for cus 
 tomers. It's a most litery life for me. You've 
 no idea how many serials I keep going at once ; 
 although now and then I have to sell the last copy 
 before I've come to the end of the instalment. 
 That's a great blow." 
 
 Alison asked how Sarah had heard of their be 
 reavement. 
 
 "Well, Miss," said Sarah, "I had it from Eliza, 
 who used to be the cook at Bournemouth, you 
 remember. Eliza's mistress saw it in the Times. 
 I don't see the Times myself. We're not often 
 asked for that. Threepence is a lot of money in 
 our part. We don't do much with the pennies 
 either, except the Telegraph, and the Morning Post 
 on servants' days. No, our line's the ha'pennies, 
 morning and evening. But the real profit comes 
 from the weeklies the Forget-me-nots and Home 
 Notes for the women, and the Lloyds 1 and Reynolds' 's, 
 what can be read in bed by the men of a Sunday 
 morning. That's what we do best with. Isn't it 
 funny, dearies, to think of your old Sarah distribu 
 ting reading like this?" 
 
 "Have you any babies ?" Alison asked. 
 
 Sarah's face fell. "No, deary, I haven't, and that's 
 my cross. It's that that gives me time to read 
 so much. It makes me miserable often to think 
 that here I am for the first time in my life in the 
 midst of unlimited goodies, and no one of my own 
 to give them to. Not that I should let the little 
 
i86 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 precious have too many of them. Oh dear, no ! 
 Bad for his little teeth. But a few, now and then, 
 just for a treat, wouldn't hurt him, and might keep 
 him quiet when disposed to be fractious. But there, 
 what's the use of talking, when there's no little 
 precious to talk about?" 
 
 "Poor Sarah !" said Alison. 
 
 "Well, deary, sometimes, you know, " said Sarah, 
 " I think perhaps it's a mercy, when I read the papers 
 and see the dreadful things people are up to. 
 He might grow up into a bad character, you know, 
 and how awful that would be ! The shocking 
 murders ! The Hatton Garden burglaries ! sup 
 pose he were to do any of them? Or suppose he 
 was to become one of those anarchists and throw a 
 bomb at the King, God bless him ! No, it's getting 
 to be such a terrible place that I'm often relieved 
 to think he's never been born." 
 
 "But why," Ann asked, "are you so sure he 
 would be a boy?" 
 
 "Lor' bless you, deary," said Sarah, "I never think 
 of him as a girl. 
 
 "I have sole charge of the sweets," she continued 
 a little later. "Wyborn says I shall ruin him be 
 cause I will give the children overweight ; but I tell 
 him that the way he pinches the tobacco to the half- 
 ounce will make that all right. Oh, he's clever ! 
 And work ! He never leaves the shop. There he 
 sits all day long, smoking his pipe and talking to 
 customers about the races, and the Government, 
 and the sufferingettes, and the murders. We do 
 well out of murders. By-elections are all right, but 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 187 
 
 they're not in it with murders. I always pray that 
 the murderers won't be caught for a week at least, 
 because it works up the excitement so. By-elections 
 of course are all over in one edition, like the Derby ; 
 but we're very glad when an M.P. dies, all the 
 
 same." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IN WHICH WE FIND A MODERN ULYSSES 
 AND A MODERN PENELOPE 
 
 THE following Friday evening was a special one, 
 in honour of Alison's return the guests 
 arriving for dinner instead of after it. To meet the 
 situation, a cook had been engaged to assist in the 
 kitchen and a butler ordered from the Stores. Mr. 
 Ingleside wanted Timbs to serve in that capacity ; 
 but his daughters were against it for the reasons 
 (i) that he was engaged as a chauffeur only ; (2) 
 that he was an engineer, and therefore a superior 
 person ; (3) that he would do it badly ; and (4) , which 
 alone would have carried the day, that he was a dar 
 ling, and they did not want him to : it would hurt his 
 feelings. (How do chauffeurs acquire this trick of 
 suggesting that their feelings would be hurt ?) The 
 butler was therefore ordered. 
 ' When Mrs. Boody was told of this project her face 
 clouded. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Alison," she said, sinking into a chair. 
 
 "Mrs. Boody, whatever is the matter?" Alison 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Alison," said Mrs. Boody, "not a hired 
 butler, I implore you. That's what Boody was. 
 Suppose ... oh, it's too dreadful." 
 
 "But, Mrs. Boody," said Alison, "the world's full 
 188 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 189 
 
 of hired butlers. Why should this one be Mr. 
 Boody?" 
 
 "I can't say, Miss/ 7 said Mrs. Boody, "but I've 
 got that feeling. One of them presentiments. Sup 
 pose it should be right ? I don't often have them, 
 but they always come true. I had one before my 
 sister's youngest died of the bronchitis. I had 
 another before the young King and Queen of Spain, 
 bless their hearts, were married. I knew there'd be 
 a bomb ; and there was." 
 
 "I'm very sorry," said Alison, "but there will be 
 so many people here you couldn't possibly manage 
 alone." 
 
 "No, I know that," said Mrs. Boody, still holding 
 her left side, "but couldn't you get one of those nice 
 young women who go out waiting ? They're just as 
 handy as a man and far more reliable. You can't 
 keep the men from the decanters, both on the stairs 
 and in the pantry : they're so accustomed to their 
 little nips. The young women are always steady." 
 
 "I think we shall get a nice man," said Alison. 
 
 " They're none of them really nice," said Mrs. 
 Boody. "Not hired butlers. Your own butler 
 can be nice, but not the hired ones. I know 
 them." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside, however, refused to alter his plans, 
 and the butler was not countermanded. He was to 
 be there at four o'clock to begin his preparations ; 
 and at that hour the bell rang, followed a minute 
 after by a piercing scream. Alison and Ann looked at 
 each other in alarm. "Mr. Boody !" Ann cried, as 
 they both ran into the passage. 
 
i 9 o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 The sight that met their eyes was alarming Mrs. 
 Boody in a swoon on the floor, and a burly man 
 stealthily retreating. 
 
 "Stop !" Alison cried ; and he stepped back and 
 closed the door. At the same time Ann ran for 
 some water and Mrs. Boody opened her eyes. She 
 looked all around in a dazed way and then fixed her 
 gaze on the man. 
 
 "Oh, Horace!' 7 she said. 
 
 "Well? "said the man. 
 
 "Oh, Horace! after all these years. I wonder 
 you dare." 
 
 "Well," said the man, "if I'd have known, I 
 shouldn't have dared." 
 
 "Are you Mr. Boody?" Alison asked him. 
 
 "That was my name," said the man, who seemed 
 to have a faculty of swiftly recognizing the inevitable 
 and meeting it philosophically. 
 
 "How could you be so cruel," Alison continued, 
 "as to leave Mrs. Boody?" 
 
 " WeU, Miss," said Mr. Boody, "it was better than 
 living with her and not hitting it off." 
 
 "It was your duty to look after her," said Alison. 
 "She might have starved." 
 
 "She hasn't," said Mr. Boody, with an expressive 
 glance at Mrs". Boody's comfortable contours. Mrs. 
 Boody by this time was on her feet. "She looks to 
 me," Mr. Boody went on, "as if she had found a 
 good place and was very happy in it a great deal 
 happier than she ever would have been with me. 
 She's been luckier than I have, anyway." 
 
 "Oh, Horace," said Mrs. Boody. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 191 
 
 Alison felt the presence of a fallacy, but could not 
 phrase it. 
 
 Mr. Boody detected her difficulty, and hastened to 
 improve his position. " My belief has always been," 
 he said, "that people who don't get on should 
 separate." 
 
 "Oh, Horace," said Mrs. Boody again, adding, 
 "How often have you separated?" 
 
 This was a home thrust, and Mr. Boody could not 
 disguise the fact that he felt it. 
 
 "But it's no subject of talk for young ladies like 
 them to listen to," Mrs. Boody continued. 
 
 "That it isn't," agreed Mr. Boody, with cheerful 
 quickness. "And I'm sure, Miss," he added to 
 Alison, "that you'd like me to go back as soon as 
 possible and send another man? Martha and I," 
 he said, "would be bound to make a failure of your 
 party. Speaking for myself," he said, "I'm sure I 
 couldn't trust myself to hand anything. My nerve 
 wouldn't permit of it." 
 
 "Your nerve," retorted Mrs. Boody, who was now 
 quite herself again, "would permit of anything." 
 
 "I meant my nerves," said Mr. Boody meekly. 
 
 At this moment Mr. Ingleside arrived. "By 
 God's special providence, "as Mrs. Boody afterwards 
 used always to say in telling the story. She looked 
 upon this timeliness as a reward for years of con 
 scientious chapel attendance. 
 
 Mr. Boody, who had been on the point of escaping 
 in earnest, stood in deferential if not abject silence 
 while Alison explained the situation to her father. 
 
 "You had better come in here," Mr. Ingleside 
 
iQ2 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 said to Mr. Boody, and they disappeared in his study, 
 where they remained for some minutes. Then Mrs. 
 Boody was sent for, and then Mr. Boody left the 
 house ; and in the course of an hour another butler 
 who was nobody's husband arrived, and all went 
 well. 
 
 Mrs. Boody, as it happened, scored all round ; for 
 her chances of being confronted with her husband 
 any more were reduced practically to nothing, while 
 Mr. Ingleside had seen to it that Mr. Boody in future 
 was to pay for his freedom by a weekly allowance to 
 his lawful wife, or accept consequences which might 
 be very serious to one whose love of liberty was so 
 warm. 
 
 Talking of the interview after dinner to his friends, 
 Mr. Ingleside said that he had never had such 
 difficulty in administering reproof. "What are you 
 to do ? Here was a man a rover by disposition 
 who was thoroughly tired of his wife and had left 
 her. As he said more than once: 'That's better 
 than double harness wearing both of us out, isn't 
 it?' 
 
 "What could I say but yes ? 
 
 "Of course, the stupid thing is that his wife hadn't 
 starved. But she hadn't. Realising that she had 
 been abandoned, she dropped as soon as possible, 
 like a sensible woman, into a good situation. That 
 was Boody's trump card, and he made the most 
 of it. 
 
 "'But you promised at the altar,' I said. 
 
 " ' Pardon me/ he interrupted, 'we was registered/ 
 
 "Another set-back for me. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 193 
 
 "'Well/ I said, ' whether you were registered or 
 not, you took your wife for better or for worse, and 
 it was on the distinct understanding that you would 
 stick to her and support her.' 
 
 " * True/ he said. ' But I was very young then : I 
 didn't know my own mind. I was excited, and that's 
 the fact. It's a kind of intoxication/ he added, ' and 
 then you get sober, and you're different/ 
 
 "What is one to say to a man like that ? Every 
 word he spoke was true. 
 
 " ' Well/ I said, ' it's very unfortunate. In the eye 
 of the law she is your wife, and you must contribute 
 to her/ and I drew up a paper for him to sign. 
 
 "While I was writing it, I remembered that he 
 was a Don Juan : it is so difficult to keep all these 
 points together in one's mind. 
 
 " ' And what/ 1 asked, 'do you say to Mrs. Boody's 
 charge that you went off with another woman ? ' 
 
 "'It's quite true/ he said : 'I did.' 
 
 "'After your first experience of marriage ?' 
 
 "'Bless your heart, sir/ he said, 'that makes no 
 difference. One always thinks the next is the perfect 
 one.' 
 
 "True again. 
 
 "'But don't you know it's wicked?' I said. 
 
 '"Oh, I've no doubt of that, ' he replied, 'but I'm 
 so lonely.' 
 
 "And so ended my career as a censor of im 
 morality." 
 
 Her new sense of immunity, and the addition of 
 several pounds a year to her income, were as nothing 
 compared with Mrs. Boody's triumph as one whose 
 
i 9 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 presentiments come true. On the following Sunday 
 she paid a round of visits to her friends to tell the 
 wonderful story. A husband had long been a neg 
 ligible ingredient of life ; but a story ! there was 
 more comfort in a good story every day, and she 
 now had one worth telling. Whatever scandal may 
 have been talked in the dining-rooms, drawing-rooms, 
 and boudoirs of the houses where her friends were 
 in service whatever narrations of unhappiness 
 and discord and infidelity (and what else is there to 
 talk about ?) they were empty compared with the 
 great Boody presentiment, as detailed in the kitchen 
 or the servants' hall. 
 
 "You remember," Mrs. Boody would begin, "you 
 remember that presentiment I had about poor 
 Annie's child before it died of the bronchitis ? You 
 remember how I said it couldn't live, poor mite ? 
 And you remember that other presentiment I 
 must have told you often that other presentiment 
 I had about the young King and Queen of Spain, 
 Princess Ena that was, bless their hearts ? On their 
 wedding day ? How I knew there'd be a bomb, and 
 there was ! You remember that, don't you ? Well, 
 that's nothing to what I'm going to tell you 
 now. . . ." 
 
 So Mrs. Boody would begin. Don't you envy 
 her ? I think she was at those moments the happiest 
 woman on earth. 
 
 It was not a story that lost either in the telling 
 or the retelling. "And at that moment," she would 
 say, while the audience drew closer still "and at 
 that moment, while Boody's hand was absolutely 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 195 
 
 turning the door handle to run and you know I 
 should never have had any hold on him if he had 
 got away then at that moment, by God's special 
 providence, who should walk in but the master. . . ." 
 If all deserted wives were so happy ! 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 IN WHICH AN EVENING IS SPENT AMONG 
 CURIOSITIES, AUTOGRAPHS, AND OYSTERS 
 
 DR. STAMINER entertained the whole party a 
 little later. Mr. Ingleside protested at first, 
 for he said it might be thought by each of his friends 
 that some such feast was a kind of obligation ; but 
 he soon gave way on being assured that they were 
 not so foolish. " Besides," said the doctor, "you 
 are coming to dine with me for my own ends, and 
 not for your pleasure. I want to see what my staff 
 is capable of. For no outside help will be added. 
 No butlers ! Nothing but women folk here," he said. 
 "I couldn't afford to run the risk of exposing the 
 secret skeleton in my housekeeper's cupboard. The 
 return of Boody has made me a more serious man. 
 One never knows what may happen." 
 
 There is a story of a Gower Street antiquary who 
 preceded our doctor by nearly a century Mr. Douce, 
 I think it was who, when he too was giving a 
 dinner party and his housekeeper informed him 
 that his usual dish, a leg of mutton, would be in 
 sufficient for so many, replied with admirable logic, 
 "Then get two legs." Dr. Staminer, all unconscious 
 of this circumstance, did precisely the same. 
 
 After dinner, the company turned to the examina 
 tion of the collection. The doctor had something 
 
 196 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 197 
 
 for everybody. He had early printed books and 
 historical broadsides, autographs, and pewter, old 
 silver and vessels of horn, snuff-boxes and lusus 
 naturce, South Sea carvings and straw boxes, pipes 
 and tinder boxes, shells and watches, ivories and 
 porcelain. As I have said, he preferred the odd to 
 the beautiful ; but he had a few beautiful things too, 
 such as blocks of matrix opal, burning blue and green 
 and crimson through milky clouds, strange shapes 
 carved in cool jade from the beds of Chinese rivers, 
 and a little old Flemish woodwork. 
 
 In art Dr. Staminer belonged to what one might 
 call the Hogarth school of collector. Whatever else 
 he might have in the way of prints, he had at any 
 rate all Hogarth. The moderns had for him worked 
 in vain ; in vain had Whistler and Muirhead Bone 
 taken the burin in hand. But he liked Constable in 
 David Lucas's mezzotints ; and his stairs were 
 dignified by Piranesi. 
 
 Ann and Alison were perhaps most interested by 
 the lusus natures, always so fascinating to the young, 
 and not a little bewildering to the old those won 
 derful pieces of agate and jasper, chalcedony and 
 other stone, in the very hidden heart of which Nature, 
 possibly aeons before the creation of the protoplasm 
 from which animals and men were after aeons more 
 to emerge, had devised the simulacra of these crea 
 tures heads so like those of people we know as to 
 make us start, recognizable birds, horses, and dogs. 
 
 Mr. Ingleside could not be diverted from the 
 drawers containing the autographs. Suddenly he 
 exclaimed, " Why, you old fox, if you haven't some 
 
i 9 8 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 letters from Lamb to Martin Burney ! I thought 
 they had all disappeared." 
 
 "So they had," said the doctor, smiling the mas 
 terful smile of the successful collector : "into that 
 cabinet ! But I have only a few. Where the others 
 are is truly a mystery. In America very likely. 
 Read them, Ingleside. They will probably be as 
 fresh to me as to any of you, for it's years since I 
 bought them. I remember annotating them at the 
 time." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside arranged them in chronological 
 order. "This," he said, "according to your note, 
 Staminer, is the earliest. It is undated, and con 
 jee turally is somewhere about 1808. Martin 
 Burney, I should first say, was the son of Admiral 
 Burney, who sailed with Cook, and the nephew of 
 Madame D'Arblay. He was about Lamb's age, 
 but Lamb was much older in every way, and in 
 fact a deal of Martin had probably never grown up. 
 He was a gentle creature with a kind of doglike 
 affection for his friends, no sense of practical life 
 whatever, and liable to very foolish impulses. The 
 Lambs were very fond of him. He outlived both, 
 and wept at Mary Lamb's funeral with a lack of 
 restraint which disgusted Crabb Robinson. 
 
 "Here is the first letter : 
 
 'Mv DEAR MARTIN, I send this by our good friend 
 Ayrton to tell you that the time for self-reproach and hiding 
 has past. As to what you have done, I have only an impaired 
 inkling ; but I know your nature and what it would never do, 
 and I say in all gravity and love, absent thee from felicity 
 no more. You have had your share ; it is not well to indulge 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 199 
 
 yourself too far in abnegation. Remember moreover that 
 you are not alone : you are part of a family. The right to 
 chastise ourselves is no doubt one that human beings will 
 cherish as long as most ; but a time comes when the question 
 must be put, Are we not chastening the innocent too ? You 
 must search your heart with that inquiry at once, Martin, 
 and when you have supplied the only answer, you must 
 hasten back to Little James Street to comfort your poor 
 mother and restore in the Admiral who, I am in a position 
 to inform you, is not so angry as he pretends, having him 
 self once been young a desire for a rubber. All is not 
 lost because one has been foolish. Yours most truly, 
 
 1 C. LAMB/ 
 
 "In 1818, Lamb, thinking his literary career over 
 (before it had really begun), collected his ' Works ' in 
 two volumes, and they were dedicated to Martin 
 Burney in a sonnet, ending with the beautiful lines 
 
 'In all thy threading of this worldly maze 
 (And I have watched thee almost from a child), 
 Free from self-seeking, envy, low design, 
 I have not found a whiter soul than thine/ 
 
 "Here is the very letter that accompanied the 
 dedicatory sonnet : 
 
 * 20, GREAT RUSSELL STREET 
 ' April Sth, 1818 
 
 'DEAR LAD, as I shall always call you no matter how 
 grey you become or how senile you talk, this is the sonnet 
 which I wish to inscribe on a fly leaf of my WORKS 
 WORKS ! do you hear ? so that they may have at any 
 rate one page of which I shall never feel ashamed. For the 
 rest, I alternate between misgiving and a feeling that a few 
 things may be neatly said, but whether I would like to 
 burn them or write them all over again I am undecided. 
 Am I clear ? 
 
200 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 ( My WORKS henceforward your works by virtue 
 of this fourteener are going to be in two plump little 
 volumes. Have you ever had twins before ? I am an old 
 hand at it, for the Poetry for Children and the Tales from 
 Shakespeare were gemini too. Thine, C. L.' 
 
 "In 1821 the Admiral published his Essay on the 
 Game of Whist, and Lamb wrote to congratulate him 
 on it. There is no date : - 
 
 ' MY DEAR ADMIRAL, I have now perused your 
 treatise with pleasure and edification. Since you would 
 not give me one, and since I buy no new books, I have had to 
 borrow Martin's copy, and I adjure you when next you see 
 him to tell him from me that he must extract another from 
 the, paternal store, for never will I part with mine, as I now 
 call it. 
 
 'That is the only true subject for the Essayist's pen 
 Whist, the only game in which intellect and recreation equally 
 participate. You make me ashamed of the frivolous way 
 ward saunterings of my London pen, concerned as it is with 
 such trifles as the South Sea House, New Year's Eve, Christ's 
 Hospital and so forth. Looking back upon my recent be 
 wildering activities to think of any sane man recommencing 
 author at my age, after the publication of his Works too ! 
 I charge myself with writing real sense only in that paper 
 wherein Sarah Battle unbosoms on the Great Topic, your 
 Topic and henceforward mine. Yours till the last 
 Trump, and, as a Christian, I trust after, C. L.' 
 
 "And here," Mr. Ingleside added, "is a note, in 
 the doctor's hand, to the effect that Lamb kept his 
 word about not returning Martin's copy, for it was 
 sold after his death with other volumes from his 
 library. 
 
 "The next letter is dated 18 November, 1821, the 
 day after the Admiral's death : 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 201 
 
 ' MY DEAR MARTIN, The sad news was brought by 
 Ayrton. We had heard there was no hope ; but the shock 
 of the death of an old friend cannot to any appreciable ex 
 tent be softened by fore-knowledge. He was and he is not : 
 that is the immitigable fact. A time has come when it 
 seems that none of my friends are safe ; and you would be 
 wise to avoid me. Don't be seen with me. Run when I 
 appear. There's Jem White gone ; and then, only a month 
 ago, my brother ; and now your father. We shall soon be 
 alone, Martin. Give your mother our love. I say our but 
 I have not told Mary yet. Her recovery is so recent I 
 hesitate to do so ; and this will explain my absence from 
 the funeral. As to that other matter, I am doing what I 
 can and shall see J. R. shortly. 
 
 'May God bless us aU. C. L.' 
 
 "The phrase 'that other matter/" Mr. Ingleside 
 added, "is said in the pencil note to refer to some 
 difficulty that Martin Burney had been having with 
 his employer, John Rickman, Clerk Assistant at the 
 Table of the House of Commons, and Lamb's friend. 
 
 "The two next are more frivolous : 
 
 'DEAR MARTIN' (the date is 7 November, 1823, Cole- 
 brooke Cottage, Islington) ' Dear Martin, We count 
 on you for Sunday. Leg of lamb at three precisely. If you 
 fail us you will miss the sight of the season G. D.'s diluvian 
 shoes, still drying in the garden from his immersion. He 
 forbade us to set them near the fire, as heat cracketh them 
 as though aught could crack further such cracks as Time has 
 been making these twenty years. But come and see them. 
 You cannot miss them : they hang on the line. Thine, 
 
 'C. L.' 
 
 " G. D. is of course George Dyer, who, being 
 nearly blind, had walked into the New River in 
 front of Lamb's house a few days before. The 
 next is a year later : 
 
202 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 'DEAR MARTIN, You offered once to let us use your 
 subscription at Cawthorn's Library when you were circuiting 
 up and down in the land seeking whom you might defend. 
 Mary is sadly hipped at this moment and was never so desti 
 tute of such light fictions as C. disburses. Will you au 
 thorize him to send her a bundle no matter how foolish? 
 Hazlitt ' 
 
 "The rest is torn away," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 " What a loss! 
 
 "We come now to a letter to Mrs. Burney, referring 
 to the essay ' The Wedding ' to be found in the second 
 volume of Elia: 
 
 'COLEBROOKE COTTAGE 
 
 'May 24th, 1825. 
 
 'My DEAR MRS. BURNEY, In the forthcoming London 
 look out for some recollections of happier days for all of us 
 although I must not talk like that lest the Powers hear 
 me and punish me for ingratitude, since I am now free and 
 well. Mary has not been ill for so long that I tremble when 
 I count the months. Recollection then of happier days, 
 let me say, for you, for I have been sending my memory back 
 to Sarah's wedding and my foolishness with the Admiral 
 afterwards. You will not be offended, I know. I am a 
 sad autobiographer and none of my friends are safe when the 
 London clamours, and when having nothing but time, as 
 now, I have none. I must try to get to Little James Street 
 soon and once more shake you by the hand. Your sincere 
 friend, CHARLES LAMB.* 
 
 'Mary sends her love and wishes that the rubbers were 
 not all over. So do I. But then I wish so many things.' 
 
 "The next letter was written only a day after. 
 To Martin. It explains itself : 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 203 
 
 'COLEBROOKE COTTAGE 
 
 1 May 25th, 1825 
 
 'DEAR MARTIN, News has just come that my brother 
 John's widow has joined him in that place where there is 
 neither marriage nor giving in marriage but where I presume 
 husbands and wives do not have to be reintroduced when they 
 meet. I must attend the funeral since I am not only her 
 brother-in-law but executor. Will you come to Colebrooke 
 on Sunday and explicate the last will and testament to my 
 jaded apprehensions? I saw it once and I recollect with 
 alarm how it bristled with the terms of your Mystery. There 
 is so little money for the relict's daughter that I wish to 
 get my legal advice free as the air we breathe, which so far 
 as I have been able to observe during a pilgrimage of al 
 most exactly fifty years is the only gratuitous commodity 
 that exists. Thine, C. L.' 
 
 "A note," said Mr. Ingleside," remarks that Lamb 
 was taken ill almost directly after this letter and 
 remained ill for some time, while his sister failed 
 again too. The last is not dated at all : 
 
 'DEAR MARTIN, A barrel of oysters has fallen upon us 
 from the blue ; we know not at whose bidding, but each has 
 a guess. I like to stand aside and watch my friends engage 
 in combats of generosity, and I care not who is the winner 
 so they fight gamely and exchange shrewd blows. Oysters 
 will be on the table at nine to-morrow with concomitant 
 porter. We shall be disappointed if you eat none of them.' " 
 
 " A phrase or two of that letter, or something very 
 like it, is repeated in Lamb's 'Thoughts on Presents 
 of Game,' " said Dr. Staminer. "Perhaps we may 
 date it somewhere at the same time in 1830. 
 But it doesn't matter." 
 
 "Ah me !" said Mr. Ingleside. "There's a good 
 
204 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 sound about that ! The brave days ! The brave 
 nights ! Oysters ! Who eats oysters for supper in 
 his own house any longer, with or without con 
 comitant porter ? Once I could make three dozen 
 look very foolish." 
 
 Henry Thrace, who had been deep in a portfolio of 
 Georgian caricatures, sprang up excitedly. "Look 
 here," he said, "that gives me an idea. If I take a 
 cab and go down to Wilton's and bring back some 
 oysters, will you eat them? You don't mind, 
 doctor?" 
 
 "Mind," said the doctor, "how could I?" 
 
 "I should love to do it," said Henry Thrace, and 
 he was gone, followed by Ramer, who claimed the 
 right to provide the stout. 
 
 "Those are men," said Mr. Ingleside. " But your 
 servants will probably give notice en bloc." 
 
 "They shan't do that," said Alison, "because Ann 
 and I will get the things ready for them ;" and they 
 went downstairs with the doctor and laid the table 
 afresh. 
 
 A stationary whirring in the street told that a 
 taxicab was at the door, and the doctor and Christie 
 hurried down to help. They found Henry Thrace 
 and Ramer accompanied by an oyster-opening con 
 federate and a hamper containing twelve dozen. 
 
 "If this isn't enough," said Henry, "the man will 
 go back for more." 
 
 The cab also contained a gallon jar of stout for 
 Ramer had refused the bottled variety. In case the 
 house had none, he had also brought two loaves of 
 brown bread. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 205 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Ingleside, as once more they 
 assembled at the table, "we re-create the sacred 
 past ! This shell I shall keep as a souvenir of a 
 gallant effort. I shall have the date engraved upon 
 it to-morrow." 
 
 "I am glad you did not ask us to open them," 
 said Dr. Staminer, "for two reasons. One is that 
 we should all be eating bits of shell, and the other 
 that I now know what I have long wanted to 
 discover : what it is that oyster-openers do for a 
 living when the month has no R in it. This one 
 tells me that he is employed in Hyde Park to collect 
 pennies for the chairs. It is most happy. Chairs, 
 it seems, come in just as oysters go out, and go out 
 just as oysters come in. Voltaire himself could not 
 have hit upon a finer example of the wisdom of 
 Providence." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 IN WHICH A MIGHTY SOCIAL ENGINE 
 LAYS BARE SOME SECRETS 
 
 f^HRISTIE having been taken down the river in 
 \^s the Caprice, and having written a very suc 
 cessful article on his voyage, insisted upon entertain 
 ing Alison and Ann at his office. 
 
 "The rush," he said, "is over by twelve. Come 
 here at a quarter past, and after I've shown you 
 the place we'll go to Soho for lunch. I've just 
 discovered a new restaurant. Dejeuner, five courses, 
 one and three." 
 
 "My dear Christie," said Mr. Ingleside, "I can't 
 have my girls poisoned. It must be horse and dog 
 at that price." 
 
 "I don't care if it is," said Christie, "it's jolly 
 good." 
 
 The girls were led through a throbbing building of 
 passages and doors to Christie's room, which had 
 "Assistant Editor" painted on it. As they entered 
 he rose wearily and importantly from a desk covered 
 with papers ; other papers littered the floor. 
 
 "I'm just through," Christie said. "Look round 
 the room, won't you, while you are waiting, or 
 read the papers." 
 
 They did so, and paved the way for a number of 
 questions when the time was ripe. 
 
 206 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 207 
 
 "How is it," Alison asked, "that in order to edit 
 one paper you have to be surrounded by all the 
 others?" 
 
 "That's because ours is an evening paper," said 
 Christie, "and evening papers are so poor that they 
 have to live on their rich morning brethren. A 
 morning paper," he added, "can afford special corre 
 spondents and all the rest of it. These" - and he 
 held up a huge pair of scissors "are our special 
 correspondents." 
 
 "And what is this curious chart?" Alison asked, 
 pointing to a kind of map divided into columns with 
 little mysterious marks in each. 
 
 "Ah," said Christie, "that is a great dodge. 
 That shows me at a glance the amount of advertising 
 a publisher does and the number of reviews he gets. 
 Then we can be fair all round." 
 
 Every now and then a man would burst in and, 
 seeing the two girls, apologize and withdraw in 
 confusion. 
 
 "Who was that?" Ann asked, as one of them, a 
 sad, grey ascetic, entered, halted abashed, and dis 
 appeared. 
 
 "That's our principal humorist," said Christie. 
 "He edits the funny column." 
 
 "He doesn't look like it," said Ann. 
 
 "No," said Christie, "none of them do nowa 
 days. It's a point of honour with the new humor 
 ists to appear miserable. Come and see my chief," 
 he added, and led the way to the adjoining room, 
 where they found a genial man smoking a large 
 cigar and reading MSS. 
 
208 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "I'm so glad you came in," he said. "I've 
 reached a point where I don't know whether an 
 article is too good or too bad to be printed." 
 
 "It must be very difficult to tell, when it is written 
 by hand," said Alison. 
 
 "Yes ; but one goes a good deal by the hand 
 writing," said the editor. 
 
 "But supposing some one got the boot-boy to copy 
 out one of Stevenson's essays," Alison said. 
 
 "My dear young lady," cried the editor, "what a 
 perfectly horrible idea ! You have done for my 
 peace of mind for ever. I shall never dare to glance 
 casually at a manuscript again." 
 
 "Typing is best, of course," Ann said. 
 
 "Yes," replied the editor ; "but, in spite of your 
 sister's bomb-shell, I should prefer the first para 
 graph by hand and the rest typed. That is the 
 ideal condition for the selector." 
 
 "What is done in this room ?" Alison asked. 
 
 "Everything," said the editor. "If Christie has 
 been pretending that any share of the labour of 
 bringing out this paper falls on him, he has de 
 ceived you. He ought to do things, but he doesn't. 
 No doubt," he continued, "you saw in his room a 
 certain amount of picturesque muddle, a large 
 paste-pot, and a pair of scissors like those in 
 Struwwelpeter? Yes? I thought so. Don't be 
 under any mistake. That is merely local colour. 
 The work, as I said, is done here. 
 
 "To give you an example of what I have to do," 
 the editor continued, in his pleasant tone of raillery, 
 "look at that basket." 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 209 
 
 He held up the waste-paper basket and showed it 
 full of envelopes and torn paper. "This morning's 
 post," he said. "And who opened it? I. Who 
 read it? I. Who tore it up? I. And who 
 will have to answer the balance ? I. 
 
 "Now," he went on, "have you any notion what 
 the letters contain that people write to editors? 
 I don't mean the letters we print, but the letters 
 we don't print? Here's one, from a reader who 
 says he has taken in our paper for twenty- two years, 
 but if we ever have another paragraph like the one 
 on Tuesday last, in which there was a flippant al 
 lusion to Noah's Ark, he must cease to be a sub 
 scriber. 
 
 "Here's another, from a theatrical manager com 
 plaining that we went out of our way yesterday to 
 mention a rival by way of a comparison when, 
 considering what he, the writer, pays us a year for 
 advertisements, we ought to have used one of his 
 own productions for our purpose. If it ever hap 
 pens again, he will withdraw his advertisement." 
 
 "Does the advertisement matter?" Alison asked. 
 
 The editor gasped. "My dear Miss Innocence," 
 he said, "the advertisements are our life blood. 
 As a matter of bed-rock fact, every paper is 
 edited by the advertisement manager. Never 
 believe anyone who tells you that this is not the 
 case. We others sit here, in a kind of royal state, 
 and return manuscripts and accept invitations to 
 banquets and receptions, and draw in some cases, 
 not mine fairly tidy salaries ; but we are ciphers. 
 It is the advertisement manager who is really 
 
210 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 running the show, dictating the policy, modifying 
 the opinions. I could tell you but I won't. 
 The topic is too painful. 
 
 "Every editor's heart is seared from this cause. 
 We go about and look important and inscrutable ; 
 but all the time we know the bitter truth : we cannot 
 deceive ourselves. 
 
 "Christie, of course," he added, "is doubly 
 cursed with secret shame, for not only is he by way 
 of being an editor and suffering therefore these 
 ordinary pangs, but he is a Radical and Socialist 
 too, and every morning has to write, or approve, 
 opinions diametrically opposed to his own." 
 
 Christie groaned. 
 
 "This drawer," the editor continued, "is labelled, 
 you will observe, 'Museum.' That's where our 
 real curiosities are kept : the letters which it would 
 be too cruel to print but which are too precious to 
 lose. Here is one from quite a well-known author 
 whose books you very likely delight in, asking for a 
 special review of his book because he recently had 
 the honour of being included in a royal shooting 
 party. 
 
 "Authors are almost the worst. Their passion 
 for notice is a kind of disease. There is one novelist 
 who has written so much and variously that no 
 public event can occur to which some kind of allu 
 sion cannot be found in his works. He writes to us 
 continually drawing attention to these remarkable 
 instances of foresight, and even frames the para 
 graphs himself. Here is one beginning, ' Yet another 
 coincidence from the voluminous pen of Mr. .' 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 211 
 
 Here is another : 'Mr. - , long known as a spe 
 cialist in intelligent anticipation, has done it again. 
 . . .' I assure you there are public men who do 
 things to advertise themselves that pill-makers 
 would stick at. 
 
 "Here's another from a gentleman complaining 
 of an affront. He begins with a sentence which 
 ought to be printed on public men's note-paper, 
 they use it so often : ' My attention has been drawn 
 to.' It is a remarkable thing that no one who is 
 affronted by a paper ever by any chance discovers 
 the article for himself : his attention has to be 
 drawn to it." 
 
 "Don't they ever fail to see it?" Alison asked. 
 
 "Never," said the editor. 
 
 "Then we have a whole bundle of applications 
 from photographers to deceased authors whom we 
 have quoted, addressed care of this paper, asking 
 them to make appointments for sittings, for in 
 clusion in the Eminent Notabilities Series, and so 
 forth. Here's one addressed to Walter Savage 
 Landor. Here's one for William Hazlitt. Here's 
 one for Wordsworth." 
 
 "Not really?" said Ann. 
 
 "Absolutely," said the editor. "You have no 
 idea how ignorant people can be." 
 
 "And letters threatening libel actions!" said 
 Christie. 
 
 "Oh yes. They arrive daily," said the editor. 
 "Such is the state of the English law in this matter, 
 and such the expense and harassment of defending 
 oneself, that the threatening of libel proceedings has 
 
212 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 become a recognized industry. Otherwise penniless 
 men have been known to live comfortably on the 
 slips of the pen of careless journalists whose pro 
 prietors prefer to pay a little solatium rather than be 
 subjected to the terrific costs of the Law Courts." 
 
 "Yes," said Christie, "it was for their protection 
 that the blessed word ' alleged ' was invented 
 demand always in time leading to supply and 
 some reporters are so careful that one is credited 
 with the phrase, 'Alleged eclipse of the moon at 
 Southampton,' and another, 'Alleged prize distri 
 bution at Acton." 3 
 
 "Those grey hairs you see on poor Christie's 
 temples," said the editor, "are entirely due to panics 
 over paragraphs that have gone to press, and can 
 not be recalled, and may have libels in them." 
 
 "What exactly is libel?" Alison asked. 
 
 "Ah! "said Christie. ^ 
 
 "Libel," said the editor, "is that form of truth 
 out of which a man may make money by swearing 
 it to be a lie." 
 
 "Then it's not much fun being an editor," Alison 
 remarked. 
 
 "Very little," said the editor. "And there's not 
 much profit in it either. The work is hard ; the 
 hours are preposterous, turning on a morning 
 paper, I mean night into day and day into night ; 
 the responsibilities are heavy ; the reward is trump 
 ery. One has all the kicks and very few of the 
 ha'pence. And you may add to this the continual 
 question whether the game is intellectually, to say 
 nothing of spiritually, worth the candle whether it 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 213 
 
 is all quite good enough. For an editor, after all, no 
 matter how good he is whether he is Delane him 
 self must be, by the nature of his task, a good 
 deal of a busybody. He must be more interested 
 in other people's affairs than a gentleman quite 
 wants to be. He must often unless his paper is a 
 very different one from any that I have ever known 
 have to lend himself to opinions which he does 
 not quite believe ; while the opportunity given 
 him of unceasingly criticizing the party he does not 
 belong to is very bad for the character, inducing 
 arrogance and superiority and gradually wearing 
 down the sense of justice. But when it comes to 
 choosing a line of country instead, I must confess to 
 being stumped. Therefore one goes on. And of 
 course it's frightfully interesting too, being behind 
 the scenes. And yet ... I know a little cottage 
 near a pine wood. . . . Ah, well." 
 
 Christie afterwards took them to the sub-editor's 
 rooms, where the ruins of countless other papers 
 lay all over the floor and the place bristled with 
 more scissors ; to the composing room, where 
 terribly human linotypes stretched out their long 
 hands even more likely to do mischief than the idle 
 ones of boys and girls that Satan so loves ; to the 
 casting rooms, where the lead plates were prepared 
 by hot and oily men in their shirt-sleeves ; to the 
 printing room, where the engines were all at work, 
 rolling off the first edition (which is called the fourth) ; 
 and then he took them to a window looking down 
 upon a side street filled with horses and carts, 
 motor tricycles, and a rabble of rough, round-shoul- 
 
2i 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 dered youths with bicycles, all waiting to carry 
 the papers over London : "even to Mrs. Wyborn's," 
 as Ann said. 
 
 "Well," said Christie, over their pseudo-French 
 lunch, "what do you think of newspaper work?" 
 
 "I think," said Alison, "that you ought to join a 
 paper of your own way of thinking." 
 
 "That wouldn't be journalism," said Christie. 
 "That would be too real. It's the unreality of it all 
 that's so interesting. Journalism is the only 
 romantic employment left. To express your own 
 views all the time is to turn the journalist into a 
 missionary." 
 
 "But it's so immoral," said Alison, "to say what 
 you don't mean." 
 
 "Journalism is immoral," said Christie. " I guess 
 that's its greatest charm." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 IN WHICH A RETIRED BEAUTY BECOMES 
 WISTFUL 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE never proposed to Alison that 
 she should do anything to earn her inde 
 pendence. That was part of the difference between 
 the two girls : Ann needed an outlet for her activity, 
 Alison needed none. Ann was swift and practical 
 and, although not in any objectionable sense, selfish. 
 Alison was unselfish or, as the cynic would say, 
 her selfishness took the form of thinking of others. 
 Ann, as we have seen, had come home with the idea 
 of helping her father ; but, seeing how completely 
 his wants were supplied by himself, she had been 
 glad to do something else. Alison had no such pre 
 conceived plans, but she had quietly and un 
 consciously made new wants for her father which 
 only she could supply. He would often find her, 
 for example, waiting for him in Whitehall what time 
 the C. B.s realized that home was best. She 
 played and sang to him. They discussed novels 
 together. That Ann was not such a companion 
 was of course not Ann's fault, for she was much 
 younger. In a girl the four years between seventeen 
 and twenty-one make a difference : and Alison, 
 too, had seen death. 
 
 215 
 
2i6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Had Alison permitted herself to ponder upon the 
 great question of what to do, instead of doing a 
 thousand little characteristic things, there was at 
 any rate one acquaintance all ready with a suggestion. 
 Miss Parris was panting to shed the ray. Miss 
 Parris was that indispensable adjunct to family 
 life, a sewing-woman : one of those tidy border- 
 landers who treat parlour maids with dignity and 
 are referred to by parlour maids as persons. She 
 was elderly and coquettish, and it was evident 
 that a career of prettiness lay behind her. 
 
 They sat at the window sewing. It was a fine 
 gusty morning, and the clouds scudded over the 
 wharf buildings on the other side of the river as 
 bravely almost as if the Thames were the real sea. 
 And indeed there were real enough waves on it. 
 Skirts were flapping on the Embankment, and now 
 and then a hat blew off . Miss Parris glanced at the 
 busy trams following so fast upon each other. "Very 
 different from my time," she said, fixing her time, as 
 is the tendency of the sewing-woman, rather in the 
 past than the present. Not that Miss Parris was 
 by any means prepared to come to an end or was at 
 all lacking in vitality, but everything that happened 
 to her now in her maturity appeared unimportant 
 and trivial in comparison with the hectic triumphs of 
 her heyday when she was Stella De Lisle. Even the 
 name of Stella is no more dead almost as Jabez, 
 though for different reasons. 
 
 "In my time," said Miss Parris, "there was no 
 electricity to help a girl to get to Clapham in a few 
 minutes. Nothing but an old lumbering bus, my 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 217 
 
 dear, and on a wet night you had to fight to get into 
 that, and very often you didn't manage it then. 
 Many's the time I've had to walk home after the 
 theatre and the very skies falling. London's 
 very different now, with its trams and tubes and 
 electric light and taxicabs. 
 
 " You've got a sweet face and a very neat ankle, 
 my dear," Miss Parris continued, after a period of 
 thought. "Why don't you go on the stage ? But I 
 suppose your pa wouldn't let you." 
 
 Alison said that she herself did not care about it. 
 
 "You make a great mistake, my dear, believe me," 
 said Miss Parris. "If you had felt like that in my 
 time, I could have understood it better ; but not 
 now. The actress of to-day is a woman to be envied. 
 Look at the restaurants open to her, just for one 
 thing. In my time there were no Savoys and 
 Carltons ; or if there were, they weren't full of 
 actresses having expensive lunches and suppers. 
 But now? I sometimes go into the courtyard of 
 the Savoy just to see the little dears driving up 
 with their gentlemen in the taxis. 'Ah/ I say 
 to them, only they don't hear it, 'if you weren't on 
 the stage, you'd be eating half a pork pie with a 
 cup of cocoa in an A.B.C." 3 
 
 "How do you know they're actresses?" Alison 
 asked. 
 
 "How do I know? How do I know my own 
 name?" Miss Parris asked. "Besides, there's the 
 picture post-cards." Miss Parris sighed. "Ah !" 
 she resumed, "it is when I look at the picture post 
 cards, my dear, that I feel strongest that I was born 
 
2i8 ME. INGLESIDE 
 
 too soon. In my time a girl might be as pretty as 
 you liked" Miss Parris drew herself together 
 with a little pleased movement "and only the 
 theatre-goers knew it. There were photographs, of 
 course, but they were two shillings each, and only of 
 prima donnas and premiere dansooses and Ellen 
 Terry and Violet Cameron. But now ? Why, I'm 
 told a pretty actress can make two or three hundred 
 a year out of picture post-card fees alone. Isn't 
 that extraordinary ? " 
 Alison said it was so. 
 
 "And the tooth-powders," said Miss Parris. 
 "There was plenty of tooth-powder in my time, of 
 course ; but we didn't say so much about it. The 
 papers weren't full of it as they are to-day. There's 
 one house where I go, my dear, where they always 
 put the Sketch and the Taller in my room, and it's 
 extraordinary how they run to pretty actresses 
 showing their teeth. One would think that photog 
 raphers were all dentists. I'm told that an actress 
 with a good set can make a fortune out of the tooth- 
 powder people alone, to say nothing of the face- 
 creams. To give you an instance, my dear, of 
 how fortune's favours are distributed in this world 
 - there's a literary gentleman lodging in the same 
 house as me who writes face-cream advertisements. 
 You know them, my dear, although there's little 
 enough need for you to the stories about the 
 society lady who came all over wrinkles and crow's 
 feet before the season was half done, and after trying 
 everything else heard of So-and-so's famous poma 
 tum, and lost them all in a single night? That 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 219 
 
 kind of thing. Well, this gentleman writes them, 
 and he gets a guinea each for those that are ac 
 cepted ; but what do you think the actress gets 
 for her portrait to be used along with them ? As 
 much as two hundred pounds ! And yet people 
 talk of the decay of the drama. Why, my dear, 
 the drama's only just beginning." 
 
 Miss Parris remained silent again, lost in the con 
 templation of golden potentialities. "And when I 
 think of my time ! " she resumed. "There was only 
 hair then, and they didn't go to actresses for that. 
 Not as a rule. You don't remember the lady in the 
 Mrs. Allen's restorer picture? Well, she wasn't 
 an actress. I happen to know, because there was a 
 dresser in our theatre who knew who it was. The 
 face was everywhere, but with no name to it no 
 use to a girl at all. Not like the tooth-powders 
 to-day ! The consequence was that the pubic didn't 
 know her, poor thing. It must have been very hard 
 to have had the best-known head of hair in England 
 and a pretty face too and be as anonymous 
 as a bus-conductor. I've no doubt in my own mind 
 that many's the gentleman that must have tried to 
 get her name and address from Mrs. Allen's people : 
 but whether they got it is another pair of shoes. 
 
 "No," said Miss Parris, "an actress in my time 
 had to make her way by means of the stage. Of 
 course there were gentlemen with bouquets at the 
 stage door after the show, and gentlemen who satin the 
 same stall every night and clapped their hands with 
 meaning right at their own favourites, just as it is 
 now and I've no doubt in my own mind always will 
 
220 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 be ; but for want of the picture post-cards and the 
 illustrated papers people didn't turn round in the 
 streets then and say, ' There's So-and-so ' - as it 
 might be Gertie Schiller as they do now. Oh, dear, 
 no ! Why, I can only remember one occasion 
 when I heard a passer-by say, 'That's Stella De 
 Lisle/ and I found out afterwards it was one of our 
 own scene-shifters out with his fiancee." 
 
 Miss Parris remained silent for some time after 
 this recollection. 
 
 "Think over what I've said," she remarked at 
 last. "Your pa would be sure to come round. 
 They always do." 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 IN WHICH THE STARS FIGHT FOR JOHN 
 
 MARLTYE was certainly a very beautiful place. 
 It stood alone, not far from Byfleet, lying 
 low, as Tudor houses always did, with a moat three 
 parts of the way around it and a number of cedar 
 trees stationed like sentinels here and there in the 
 grounds. The house itself was of brick with a roof 
 of Horsham stone, such as the deal timbers of the 
 present time are incapable of supporting ; but the 
 greater part of both walls and roof was covered with 
 the little vivid self -clinging ampelopsis, which prom 
 ised in September to turn fire. 
 
 Miss Muirhead and Miss Lingard stayed at the 
 village inn for some time, while Miss Muirhead 
 examined the garden alone or with one of the great 
 professional gardeners whose men were to do the 
 work. She covered their sitting-room with plans 
 and sheets of figures. 
 
 "What I want," Miss Muirhead said to Mr. 
 Ingleside, who had gone down for the day, "is some 
 one to represent me here and see that the men work, 
 and to send me a report every now and then. Have 
 you any friend that could do that?" 
 
 Mr. Ingleside at first said that he had not, and 
 
222 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 then he thought of John. "Of course," he ex 
 claimed, "John Campion" ; and John was written 
 to and asked to come down at once. 
 
 As it happened, John and his mother were en 
 gaged on this very day in one of their periodical 
 conversations on the subject of his career ; so that 
 Mr. Ingleside's letter dropped opportunely from 
 the sky. 
 
 John had not stayed long at the garage. "I'm 
 very quick," he explained. "I have a natural apti 
 tude for engineering, the manager says. There's very 
 little I don't know about a car. All I need now is 
 practice. You're not looking very fit, mother ; 
 how would you like me to take you for a little motor 
 tour about England? I think I could find the 
 time, arid it would set you up." 
 
 But Mrs. Campion declined. "I don't think 
 so just now," she said. "I think you ought to be 
 seriously trying to get something to do. All your 
 friends think so too. Mr. Ingleside was talking 
 about it again only on Sunday." 
 
 "I wish people wouldn't talk about me so much," 
 said John. "Why the devil can't they mind their 
 own affairs?" 
 
 "It's very kind of them," said his mother, "to 
 interest themselves in you. But seriously, you must 
 make up your mind as to what you would like to do. 
 Then I can help you. It's difficult to help you if 
 you have no definite object in view." 
 
 "Well," said John, "I have, as a matter of fact, 
 been thinking a great deal about it. I woke this 
 morning horribly early quite by half-past six, I'm 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 223 
 
 sure and I couldn't get to sleep again, I was 
 thinking so hard ; and I've come to the conclusion 
 I should make an excellent director of a large con 
 cern. The fellows at the garage were very much 
 struck by my sense of order and authoritative 
 ways." 
 
 "Yes," Mrs. Campion replied, "but you can't 
 become a director all in a minute at your age. A 
 directorship is a kind of reward for long years of 
 work." 
 
 "There you go," said John, "throwing cold water 
 on the whole thing. Can't there be exceptions? 
 Can't there be born directors?" 
 
 Mrs. Campion said that there might be, but even 
 then there was a difficulty of finding companies to 
 direct. "What company are you thinking of?" 
 she inquired. 
 
 "I was thinking," said John, "that one might be 
 found. I was wondering whether you and Uncle 
 Ralph and perhaps Uncle Bertram might not like 
 to form a company? I hear on all sides that, in 
 spite of the boom and all the new companies, the 
 future of rubber is still something terrific. Rubber 
 is wanted for everything nowadays. Think of 
 tyres alone ; and then there are hot-water bottles, 
 you know, and artists. Well, I was wondering if 
 you might not like me to go out to Borneo or 
 to some South Sea Island and acquire a tract 
 of land for you to grow rubber on. I feel quite 
 confident that I could get on perfect terms with 
 the natives directly. I should of course take out 
 beads and the things that they like. Jack For- 
 
224 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 raster, who was at Merton with me, has got a job 
 of that kind and he's doing splendidly, and he was 
 a most infernal ass." 
 
 "I am quite sure neither of your uncles would be 
 willing to invest their money that way," said Mrs. 
 Campion. 
 
 "Well, there you are," said John. " Everything 
 is against me. I think it's a great shame that you 
 didn't make up your mind what I ought to be when 
 I was at school, and then I could have been prepared 
 for it. Lots of the fellows knew what they were go 
 ing to be lawyers and doctors and things like that 
 and they read accordingly. How would you like 
 me to be sports master at Eton?" 
 
 "I should be very proud of you," said Mrs. Cam 
 pion. 
 
 "There's no chance," said John. "Those things 
 go by favouritism." 
 
 "Well, there are other schools that want sports 
 masters, I suppose," said Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "I shouldn't care to be anywhere but at Eton," 
 said John. 
 
 He found Mr. Ingleside's letter on the break 
 fast table when he reached it at eleven the next 
 morning. 
 
 "By Jove, mother," he said, "here's a go ! Miss 
 Muirhead, the great gardener, wants me to superin 
 tend a very important piece of work." 
 
 "Miss Muirhead!" exclaimed Mrs. Campion. 
 "Oh yes, of course, Mr. Ingleside's cousin." 
 
 "I don't know what that has to do with it," said 
 John. "It doesn't matter whose cousin she is. The 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 225 
 
 important thing is that she wants a good man to 
 help her." 
 
 "But you don't know much about gardening, do 
 you?" asked Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "There's no need to," said John. "This is a post 
 of responsibility and authority. Some one is wanted 
 to keep a sharp eye on a large number of lazy devils. 
 But so far as that goes, I'm very keen about garden 
 ing. I've often thought of taking it up seriously. 
 Mrs. Cathcart, when I was staying there last week 
 end with Jack, said my colour sense was remarkable. 
 She asked my advice on several things. But what 
 rot to be talking like this when very likely the train's 
 gone." 
 
 He rushed for the A. B.C. and found that there 
 was in fact nothing that could now get him to 
 Marltye for a picnic lunch, as had been suggested 
 in the letter. 
 
 "There," he said, "that's what comes of not call 
 ing me properly. I've always told Purdon to knock 
 twice, to make sure, and I'm certain she only knocked 
 once this morning. Now I must take a taxi." 
 
 "But, my dear boy, it will cost a pound." 
 
 " I can't help it," said John. "You wouldn't have 
 me break faith with them and be late on the first 
 day?" 
 
 Mrs. Campion did not continue the argument : she 
 merely said that if he intended to drive there perhaps 
 he would not mind her going too, as it was such a 
 nice day. John was by no means radiant under 
 the suggestion. There was something grotesque, 
 he said, about a man's being accompanied by his 
 
 Q 
 
226 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 mother on such an occasion, and taxis were very 
 jolty ; but he magnanimously waived these points, 
 and off they went together. 
 
 John talked all the way of his new work. It would 
 necessitate getting rooms in the village, he thought, 
 and perhaps furnishing them decently. He would 
 perhaps get a horse to take him to and from Marltye. 
 It was rather lucky he was going to his tailor's this 
 week, as he would need one or two roughish country 
 suits. 
 
 Mrs. Campion said she was sure that the work 
 would not entail residence there. All that was 
 wanted was frequent visits. John at first scoffed at 
 this, and then agreed. "Very well," he said, "then 
 I must hire a motor and run down every other after 
 noon. You can come with me sometimes, mother. 
 It will do you good." 
 
 Miss Muirhead, however, offered too little for such 
 splendours. John was given a room in the house, and 
 the resident gardener's wife "did for him" when he 
 stayed there ; and when he did not, he travelled to 
 London and back again by train. And thus began 
 his career as an earner of money. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 IN WHICH THE CAPRICE CARRIES A HAPPY 
 PARTY TO A TUDOR GRANGE 
 
 WHEN Leslie had heard about Marl tye Grange 
 he was quite excited. 
 
 " I know it," he said. "The old oak is wonderful. 
 I tried to buy the staircase a year or so ago for a 
 house I was altering, but they wouldn't part. Very 
 sensible of them. I think the Yankee ought to let 
 me tinker the place, just to keep it all in the family, 
 so to speak." 
 
 As it happened, Mr. Thayer was at that very 
 moment writing to Miss Muirhead to ask her to 
 entrust the task of decorating the house fittingly to 
 some one in whom she had confidence, expense, as 
 before, no object ; and Miss Muirhead, who knew 
 all about Leslie, passed on the commission. "I 
 want the house right," he wrote : "not necessarily 
 Tudor inside, but right and comfortable if the two 
 things will go together. Every room must have hot- 
 air pipes and double windows." In the same letter 
 he added that he should like a nice drawing of the 
 place to show to his friends if Miss Muirhead could 
 find an artist ; and of course who could that artist be 
 but Vycount Ramer ? 
 
 "We're all in this," said Leslie, the next Friday. 
 227 
 
228 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Let's all go down on Sunday and explore the place. 
 Doctor, you must certainly come.' 7 
 
 " On a Sunday ? " exclaimed Dr. Staminer. " Me ? 
 I haven't broken the Sabbath for years." 
 
 "But you will come," said Alison. "I'll look after 
 you." 
 
 "I spend Sunday on my collections," said the 
 doctor. "If I go out, my housekeeper will give 
 notice : she'll think I'm mad." 
 
 "Very well, then," said Alison, "she must go, and 
 I'll be your housekeeper instead ; " and on this under 
 standing the doctor agreed. 
 
 " Couldn't we go by water ? " Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 "You say it's near Byfleet ? Couldn't we go up the 
 river as far as the mouth of Wey, and then up the 
 Wey as near to Byfleet as possible?" 
 
 " Of course," said Leslie, " the very thing. I'll ar 
 range it all." 
 
 The Caprice held six in addition to its tattooed 
 engineer ; and the Inglesides, Richard Oast, Dr. 
 Staminer, and Miss Muirhead made up the party, 
 the others going by train. Mrs. Campion, John, 
 and Leslie were to arrange the hospitalities. 
 
 Now it is worth while pausing to ask if there could 
 be a more delightful enterprise than this to leave 
 Charing Cross pier by river on a fine Sunday morn 
 ing in full summer in order to meet at a moated 
 grange and discuss its furniture and its garden, on 
 both of which unlimited money belonging to some 
 one else is to be spent ? No wonder every one was 
 happy. Mr. Ingleside was happy because his guests 
 were happy. Alison was happy because it was all 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 229 
 
 so interesting. Ann was happy because it was her 
 weekly holiday, and she was only eighteen. Miss 
 Muirhead was happy because she had just succeeded 
 in buying for Marltye a perfect set of full-grown chess 
 men in yew from an old garden in Gloucestershire 
 which was being demolished, and this was more than 
 Mr. Thayer would dare to expect even for all his six 
 blank cheques rolled together. Dr. Staminer was 
 happy because he was doing such a novel thing under 
 such pleasant conditions. Richard Oast was happy 
 because it was a fine day and his boat was doing its 
 duty. Timbs was happy because the Caprice's 
 engine was running so well. So much for the boat 
 load. As for the others, Henry Thrace was happy 
 because that was his nature. Mrs. Campion was 
 happy because she liked everybody in the party and 
 liked Mr. Ingleside most. Vycount Ramer was 
 happy because he was in the country and was to be 
 well paid for it. John was happy because he was 
 visibly in a position of authority. Leslie was happy 
 because he was a born decorator and Marltye was so 
 attractive a subject to work upon. And the Whit- 
 takers, the caretakers, were happy because all the 
 chimneys of the house once more were emitting smoke, 
 and it looked like an earnest of occupation again ; 
 for no gardener really likes it when his employers 
 are away, howsoever he may abuse their freakish- 
 ness and unreason at the village inn. 
 
 The Caprice and its crew drew every eye on the voy 
 age to Weybridge, while the little boys on the bridges 
 paid them the usual compliments of little boys on 
 bridges, but such was the boat's speed that these 
 
2 3 o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 always miscarried. They had left Charing Cross 
 pier at nine, before anyone was about ; they dashed 
 by Richard Oast's works, where the Caprice was born, 
 only half an hour later ; and were off that charming 
 row of old gay houses just east of Kew Bridge by 
 ten, as the tide was with them. And so under the 
 new bridge, and past the minaret chimney, and be 
 tween the Gardens on the one side and the flat grey 
 meadows of Sion House, and past sombre Isleworth, 
 to Richmond, with its shaggy hill and the terraces of 
 the Star and Garter rising almost as though they 
 were on the Riviera. 
 
 Richmond drew from Dr. Staminer reminiscences 
 of his early days when a walk from London through 
 its park was a regular Sunday excursion, dropping 
 down to a little inn at Ham for lunch ; while Pope's 
 villa on the other side of Twickenham Ferry drew 
 a few couplets from Mr. Ingleside, who knew the 
 Epistles and Satires by heart. And so on to King 
 ston's busy waters, where the first real signs of the 
 Sunday holiday were noticeable. And then round 
 Hampton Court's park to the Court itself, more 
 Tudor far than the Tudor destination they were 
 bound for. Here Miss Muirhead insisted on landing 
 in order to glance for a moment at the famous her 
 baceous border under the great wall ; but she was 
 allowed only ten minutes, and again the engine 
 throbbed, past Hampton village to Sunbury, where 
 they lost another ten minutes in the lock. 
 
 As they proceeded higher and the hour grew later 
 the boats began to be more numerous : spotless 
 punters emerged, dressed like fashion plates ; river 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 231 
 
 girls with sunshades and novels and terriers ; anglers 
 on cane-bottomed chairs, in boats moored to poles ; 
 here and there an outrigger ; here and there a launch. 
 And always the green banks, always the wondering 
 cattle. 
 
 And so after passing Walton and Shepperton they 
 steered southwards down the tributary Wey to the 
 point where Leslie was waiting with a wagonette. 
 
 And then came the new excitement of driving 
 through the country to a place one has never visited 
 before : the speculation as to what it will be like ; 
 the wondering if those are its chimneys, or those, and 
 what the next bend in the road will unfold. Oh, 
 the bends in the English roads ! 
 
 Marltye at last, and there was Mrs. Campion all 
 smiles and John all importance, and lunch would be 
 ready in half an hour. Ramer they found at his 
 easel in the garden with something uncommonly 
 like a proprietary expression on his face. "A little 
 bit of all right," he said: "Brother Jonathan's in 
 luck." 
 
 During the interval Leslie lectured to them illu- 
 minatingly on the exterior of Marltye. He drew 
 their attention to the smallness of the bricks and the 
 increased effect of charm which they possessed. He 
 remarked upon how simple a thing it was to build a 
 chimney diamond shape instead of square with the 
 house, and how much more decorative and pleasing 
 was the result. "A few white pigeons on the roof, 
 and the place is perfect," he said. Then he led them 
 through the rooms. 
 
 "What I particularly like about this commission," 
 
232 ME. INGLESIDE 
 
 said Leslie, "is that it comes from an American 
 millionaire with no nonsense. He has money and 
 he spends it. All my clients lately have been wealthy 
 men who affect to be Socialists. There is nothing 
 that these fellows won't spend on the luxuriousness 
 and efficiency of their places while they are getting 
 ready to do the right thing with their money. They 
 order the very latest thing in electric fittings and at 
 the same time ask me as a friend if I can advise them 
 as to the kind of communistic settlement that is most 
 in need of endowment. They keep eight gardeners 
 and two cars, and run up to town to hear and cheer 
 Sidney Webb on the nationalization of property. 
 They never see the incongruity. 'It is necessary 
 for the proper development of my ameliorative proj 
 ects,' they say, 'that I should be above worry and 
 discomfort/ And their docility in the name of art ! 
 There's a Socialist plutocrat I visited the other day 
 whose architect is one of those cranks who allow no 
 pictures. The walls of his rooms are so beautifully 
 proportioned and washed that any alien body, such 
 as a Corot or a Matthew Maris, would strike a dis 
 cordant note would be, in short, an impertinence. 
 So here was my Croesus, sitting in bare rooms, with 
 attics full of Barbizon masterpieces ! He too was 
 meditating upon the right way to do good with his 
 money, while a fountain was playing in the grounds 
 to the tune of ten pounds a day. 
 
 "Now there's nothing of that about our Yankee. 
 What he says is : ' Miss Muirhead, make me the 
 most beautiful garden that money can buy.' 'Mr. 
 Leslie, furnish my house as well as it can be fur- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 233 
 
 nished ; expense no object.' That's what I call 
 sound. He shall have both. I ask you" for this 
 long harangue came at the end of lunch "I ask 
 you to raise your glasses to Mr. Clarence Thayer, 
 the prince of neo-Elizabethans." 
 
 They all drank the health, but Dr. Staminer begged 
 leave to add an amendment. "I am drinking," he 
 said, "not only to the best of neo-Elizabethans, but 
 also to the most foolish." 
 
 "Treason," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 "Yes," said Dr. Staminer, "the most foolish. I 
 don't know how Mr. Thayer spends his time pre 
 sumably on Wall Street or in the Pit, making corners 
 but it is perfectly clear that already he has money 
 enough ; and how a man who has money enough can 
 go on making more, and allow a foreigner like Leslie 
 here to have all the joy of amassing Chippendale and 
 Heppelwhite, blue china and old oak, beats my 
 imagination. I cannot follow him. None the less, 
 his health." 
 
 "What troubles me about Mr. Thayer," said Miss 
 Muirhead, "is that I'm afraid he'll spoil the country 
 people. He's one of those rich men who throw their 
 money about and are in danger, with the best inten 
 tions in the world, of becoming wreckers. I've seen 
 a good deal of it : in fact, it's the spot on my business. 
 A rich man buys an estate, and very likely evicts a 
 dozen cottagers or so as a start ; pulls down their 
 homes ; and begins to build his house and make his 
 garden. The wretched evicted people very likely 
 have to settle in a town, especially if he is trans 
 forming a farm into a park and pleasure grounds ; 
 
234 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 while those that remain are turned from simple 
 farm labourers into feudal retainers. Indepen 
 dence goes. His wife very likely takes up patron 
 age as a hobby, to kill time ; every one is spoiled ; 
 greed creeps in. Surrey of course is naturally so 
 full of this kind of thing that I need not worry very 
 much about Marltye ; but it is dreadful to see it 
 breaking out in the really independent counties." 
 
 "You are quite right," said Richard Oast. "There 
 is no public nuisance much worse than the rich men 
 whose money makes other people discontented. It 
 is a bad day for almost every one when he grows 
 richer ; but it is worse for a poor man than any. 
 The evil done by good men is always the most subtly 
 mischievous ; and of all evil, that which proceeds 
 from easy, unthinking generosity is probably most 
 dangerous in country places. But the last thing 
 that rich people will learn is how to be generous 
 wisely." 
 
 "Oh, that'll do," said Mr. Ingleside. "I'm quite 
 sure you're right, and I'm quite sure your own gen 
 erosity is not always dictated by wisdom. This is 
 a kind of talk that leads nowhere. Let's look at 
 the garden." 
 
 Miss Muirhead led the older members of the party 
 about the grounds and discoursed on her theory of 
 arrangement how the bowling-alley was to be here 
 and the chess-men there ; where the terraces and the 
 fishpond ; and so forth. Mr. Ingleside implored her 
 to have a space somewhere for a Japanese sand lawn. 
 "You plant the edges with silver birches," he said, 
 "and then you watch their exquisite shadows creep 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 235 
 
 over the sand. No one ever walks on it ; it is just 
 a material for light and shade." 
 
 But Miss Muirhead said that the blank cheques 
 were for a Tudor garden and a Tudor garden 
 only. 
 
 Leslie gave Ann a pencil and a notebook, and they 
 went from room to room taking measurements and 
 provisionally choosing colours ; while John took 
 charge of Alison and led her all over the estate. 
 
 "I'm very strict about time/' he said. "I take 
 no liberties with the clock myself, and I don't allow 
 my men any. There is a time sheet that they all 
 have to sign. I sign it too, just as a matter of exam 
 ple, when I am here." 
 
 Alison asked him how often he came down. 
 
 "Twice a week," said John : "on Tuesday even 
 ing for Wednesday, and Friday evening for Saturday. 
 That's all that Miss Muirhead requires. You see I 
 have a very good foreman, a capital fellow. In fact, 
 they're all very decent fellows. There's nothing they 
 wouldn't do for me. I had no idea I had such a way 
 with workmen. I'm a born overseer, I find." 
 
 "Most of us are," Alison said. 
 
 John looked at her a little suspiciously. "Far 
 from it, "he said : " it is a very rare gift. Most men 
 excite animosity in their employees, but here we're 
 a perfect happy family." 
 
 Alison asked him what he did with his days there. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I have to fill in Miss Muirhead's 
 blank maps, so that she can see what has been done, 
 and write her a letter about it all, and post them. 
 And of course general supervision, you know." 
 
236 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Alison said that she hoped he was not overwork 
 ing himself. 
 
 "I try not to," he said; "but I always get so 
 keen on what I am doing that it's a great snare. I've 
 no doubt I shall break down some day, and have 
 to travel. Unless," he added, with a glance at her, 
 which, however, she did not notice, "I have some one 
 to look after me and keep me from being foolish." 
 
 "Yes," said Alison, "I suppose most men want 
 that. They talk of independence, but they love to 
 be dependent." 
 
 "On the contrary," said John, "it would not 
 interfere with my independence. I believe in wives 
 doing something too. Why don't you learn to be a 
 gardener, like Miss Muirhead?" 
 
 "No," said Alison. " She has suggested it to me, 
 but I don't care about it. It does not appeal to me." 
 
 "There's money in it," said John. "Look at Miss 
 Muirhead : she's rolling. I should think again if I 
 were you." 
 
 They came back to the moat, and John told her 
 that there were some very decent fish in it. He said 
 that one day when there was nothing to do he had 
 caught a lot. "Of course I throw them all back," 
 he added. 
 
 "But doesn't it hurt them to be hooked and then 
 have the hook torn out again ? " Alison asked. 
 
 "Great Scott, no!" he said. "They adore it. 
 I've caught one eight times." 
 
 And so the day wore on until it was time to return 
 to the Caprice and to London. 
 
 "To-morrow," said Leslie, as he wished them good- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 237 
 
 bye, " to-morrow I begin in earnest. First the 
 builders and carpenters, then the decorators, and 
 then the great hunt for furniture." 
 
 "Happy man I" said Dr. Stammer. 
 
 As for Alison and Ann and the gardening, they 
 both remained firm. 
 
 Miss Muirhead laid stress on the interest there is 
 in making paradises out of wildernesses, and she 
 showed them some fascinating coloured books 
 Humphry Repton's and others with agricultural 
 scenes on which were movable slips, which being 
 lifted up disclosed gentlemen's places : mansions, 
 drives, lawns, and lakes, where had been nothing but 
 arable land. She also discoursed upon the charm of 
 the great florists : what nice men they were, at any 
 rate the older members of the firms, for the most part 
 the founders. " Their sons," she added, "are not so 
 good, naturally ; for whereas the fathers came from 
 the soil, the sons come from the universities. But 
 no florist can be a bad man. Think," she said, "of 
 making a new purple !" 
 
 But the girls were obdurate. That was not the 
 life they had in mind, and they would not give way. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 IN WHICH JOHN PERMANENTLY RE 
 NOUNCES THE SEX 
 
 MR. INGLESIDE sank into Mrs. Campion's 
 most comfortable chair. 
 
 "He is here," he said. 
 
 "Who is here?" Mrs. Campion asked. 
 
 "Alison's lover. Who else could it be?" 
 
 "I didn't know she had a lover," said Mrs. Cam 
 pion. 
 
 "Of course she has," said Mr. Ingleside. "Since 
 she is twenty-one and my daughter whom I have 
 hardly ever seen, of course she has a lover." 
 
 "I hope you like him," Mrs. Campion replied. 
 
 "He seems to me harmless," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 "He has no money and a nice face. He treats me 
 with profound respect bordering on fear ; but I hear 
 high enough spirits going on when the door is shut. 
 But like him ? What did you consider my attitude 
 to him was likely to be ? It isn't even as if he could 
 afford to give me good cigars." 
 
 "But if he has no money . . ." Mrs. Campion 
 began. 
 
 " That's only at present," said Mr. Ingleside. "He 
 has a very wealthy aunt who will probably make 
 
 238 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 239 
 
 him comfortable. At present he is an officer on the 
 0. & P., but he is shortly to settle down and find 
 something on land." 
 
 "Like John," said Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "Yes, like John except that this young man 
 means it. He has got his Alison ; he will now get 
 his post." 
 
 "Then you have given your consent?" 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, "what is one to do? 
 I don't see that I have any real say in this matter. 
 Here is a nice, sensible girl of twenty-one who has no 
 home but my bachelor rooms, and she lets herself be 
 fallen in love with by a quite nice and capable young 
 man on a long voyage." 
 
 "Of course," said Mrs. Campion. " Long voy 
 ages - 
 
 "And at a time, too," Mr. Ingleside continued, 
 "when her heart was lonely and bruised. That's 
 when it began. Then he went out to Japan again 
 and found it was only too real, and so directly he 
 returned he saw her and called on me. But that's 
 nothing to do with it. She falls in love and naturally 
 wants to be married. Is it reasonable that I, who 
 hardly know her who simply happen years ago to 
 have become her father, and have no real place for 
 her in my life now and never have had is it likely 
 I am going suddenly to assume parental rights and 
 say no ? Besides, supposing I did, what then ? 
 They would marry just the same." 
 
 "Of course they would," said Mrs. Campion. 
 
 "Probably from your house," Mr. Ingleside rejoined. 
 "I see you naturally befriending all young lovers 
 
2 4 o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 against their elders. Very well, then," he continued, 
 "I say yes. I should no doubt have added some 
 thing about their taking time and so forth. But why ? 
 A girl who is going to be married is no real use to 
 anyone else. She would merely be an excrescence 
 in our strictly celibate abode. All my friends are 
 celibate. You see my hand has been forced. The 
 day is with the young : my time is over. I am a 
 back number. I sit on a shelf and bleat out, 'Yes, 
 my children. Bless you ! May you be happy !" 
 
 "Don't be so bitter," Mrs. Campion said. "You 
 have no right to be, either. You were young once : 
 you can't have it all again." 
 
 "True," said Mr. Ingleside, "but that does not 
 prevent one from regrets. But anyway," he con 
 tinued, "I am bored by all this marrying. I like 
 Alison, and I want her at home. But even if she 
 were not my daughter I should be bored by it. I 
 think, and shall think, that a frank unmarried girl 
 with many interests and quick sympathies is a great 
 deal more interesting than a married woman of the 
 same age. Unmarried and unattached she is a 
 companion ; married she is a monopoly. Her mind 
 goes : she becomes merely a reflection or extension 
 of her husband. In place of her wide interests she 
 concentrates on petty housekeeping affairs and 
 worries and the well-being of her capturer and con 
 queror. It is no doubt all right for him, who has his 
 slave at last ; and for her, who has her idol at last 
 (these being the two things that men and women 
 want) ; and no doubt it is all right for Nature, who 
 has brought together another couple at last ; but for 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 241 
 
 every one else it is ridiculous. Society may gain a 
 baby, but it has lost a charming presence." 
 
 Mrs. Campion laughed. " You are horribly anti 
 social/' she said. "Your critical fastidiousness is 
 uncanny and I am sure wicked. I can't think why 
 I like you. And you talk, too," she continued, "as 
 if married women had no kind of intelligence and 
 attraction at all." 
 
 "Not a bit of it," said Mr. Ingleside. "I was 
 referring only to happy wives. It is they who are 
 such a loss. Unhappy wives can be excellent com 
 pany." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Campion, "I shall ask Alison 
 to bring him here. What is his name ?" 
 
 "His name is Bryan Hearne," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 "Ann seems to have met his aunt in the course of 
 her commercial avocations Miss Larpent ; rather 
 a rum 'un, I think, but sound as a bell. Thank 
 Heaven, I shall have Ann. Ann shows no signs of 
 capitulating, and she is too young, too. I look to 
 Ann to lead my tottering footsteps to the Queen's 
 Hall on a Saturday afternoon for many years to 
 come." 
 
 "Or one of Alison's daughters?" Mrs. Campion 
 suggested. 
 
 "How terribly you talk!" said Mr. Ingleside. 
 "Grandchildren ! Had I thought of that I believe 
 I should have said no instantly." 
 
 "Would you also deny Alison the joy of being a 
 mother?" Mrs. Campion asked. 
 
 "I wasn't thinking of that," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 " I was thinking of my own feelings as a grandfather." 
 
242 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Preferential treatment once more," said Mrs. 
 Campion. "But you were very nice to Alison 
 about it all, I'm sure," she added. 
 
 "I hope so," said her father. 
 
 "Dear girl, I'm so glad. I'm sure she hugged 
 you." 
 
 " Yes, she did. But you don't seriously expect me 
 to get any satisfaction out of a hug given to me 
 because I had made it easy for her to leave me for 
 ever and live with this man?" 
 
 "Why must you analyze ?" 
 
 "Analyze ! I hope I am too old to attempt to 
 analyze the meaning of a daughter's hugs ; but I do 
 protest against being asked to look upon such a sign 
 of complete self-satisfaction as an expression of af 
 fection for me." 
 
 "Oh, dear," said Mrs. Campion, "we shall never 
 agree." 
 
 "Of course we shan't," said Mr. Ingleside. "We 
 don't talk each other's language, or think each other's 
 thoughts, or follow the same system of logic. How 
 can we agree? But we can do something much 
 better : we can be very good friends." 
 
 John returned home that evening in excellent 
 humour. "There was a little difficulty among the 
 men to-day," he said, "but I settled it very quickly. 
 All it needed was a strong hand. Really, mother, I 
 wish you could see me as an overseer : you would 
 understand me better. I think of advertising in the 
 Times for a post as general supervisor of any large 
 operations." 
 
 After dinner he prepared to go out. "Good- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 243 
 
 night," he said; "I shall probably be late. I'm 
 going round to the Inglesides'. I want to arrange 
 with Alison about taking her to Brooklands." 
 
 "Very well," said Mrs. Campion, "but she prob 
 ably won't be so keen about it as she used to be." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because she's engaged." 
 
 "Engaged ! What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Engaged to be married." 
 
 John looked at his mother in disgusted amaze 
 ment. 
 
 "Not really!" he said. "How perfectly rotten. 
 Who is the man?" 
 
 "An officer on the ship that brought her back 
 from Japan." 
 
 "As long ago as that!" he said. "What cats 
 women are ! And to let me take her about as I 
 have done ! Well, I'm blessed ! " He raged up 
 and down the room for a while. " All right," he 
 began again, " I give up women from this mo 
 ment. Do you hear, mother? I give them up. 
 Good-night." 
 
 "But where are you going?" Mrs. Campion 
 asked. "Not to the Inglesides' now?" 
 
 "Great Heaven, no ! I'm going to walk about. 
 This wants thinking over." 
 
 " My dear boy, you don't pretend you were in love 
 with Alison yourself?" said Mrs. Campion. 
 
 " No, not exactly," said John. " But I was think 
 ing of being. I thought women could see things like 
 that." 
 
 "Perhaps she could," said Mrs. Campion; "but 
 
244 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 it doesn't follow that she would necessarily approve 
 or reciprocate." 
 
 "Well," said John, "she's brought it on herself. 
 A fishy sailor, too ! What does she want with sailors ? 
 Wives in every port and all the rest of it." 
 
 "But he's going to leave the sea and get a post 
 on land." 
 
 "Ha ! that's a likely story ! We know how diffi 
 cult that is ! Look at me ! But what's the use of 
 talking ? I give her up. I give up all women. I 
 shall probably emigrate. Good-night." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 IN WHICH MR. BRYAN HEARNE APPEARS, 
 AND A FATHER IS LEFT DUBIOUS 
 
 MR. BRYAN HEARNE had called on Mr. 
 Ingleside at his office only a day or so 
 before. It had not been the easiest of interviews. 
 How could it be? With however bold a front he 
 might view the angry Bay or the frenzied Mediter 
 ranean, the treacherous Gulf or the Roaring Forties, 
 Mr. Bryan Hearne looked the picture of diffident 
 humility as he stood in the room in Whitehall, hoping 
 to leave it the richer by an affianced father-in-law. 
 
 He had reached the lobby of the office with a 
 certain fund of determination ; but in the laborious 
 process of gaining admittance to Mr. Ingleside that 
 had completely disappeared. No lover, however 
 ardent, should go as a perfect stranger for so fateful 
 an interview as this to a Government Department. 
 The architects of such buildings leave no place for 
 romance ; the personnel equally exclude it. The 
 final blow came when the exceedingly deliberate 
 messenger between Mr. Ingleside and the world 
 returned to know what was the nature of Mr. Bryan 
 Hearne's business. He wrote "private and urgent," 
 and again steeled himself to patience. As nearly as 
 he was able, in his tender and gentle and forgiving 
 
 245 
 
246 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 condition, he reproached the absent Alison for her 
 refusal to speak first. But she had said nothing to 
 her father yet. Mr. Bryan Hearne was a bolt from 
 the bluest of skies. 
 
 "What can I do for you?" Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 The obvious reply was, "Give me your eldest 
 daughter ;" but Mr. Bryan Hearne was too shy and 
 simple to say anything as telling as that simple 
 and telling and fluent, too, as he had been known 
 to be in his intercourse with clumsy sailors. 
 
 "I wanted," he said at last, "to ask you about 
 about marriage." 
 
 "Marriage?" Mr. Ingleside asked. "Marriage 
 in general, or your own marriage ? " 
 
 "My own marriage," said Mr. Hearne. 
 
 "Is it a failure?" Mr. Ingleside asked again. 
 
 "Oh no," Mr. Hearne hastily interposed. "You 
 see, I'm not married yet. I I want to be." 
 
 "Yes . . .?" said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
 This was an awful moment. Any reasonable par 
 ent with a marriageable girl ought to have divined 
 the situation. 
 
 "I came to ask you, sir, if if " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "If you would consent but hasn't Miss Ingleside 
 hasn't Alison said a single word? I implored 
 her. . . ." 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Ingleside shortly. " This is a pro 
 posal. You are asking for my daughter?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Hearne, with a sigh of relief. 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But do you know," said Mr. Ingleside, " that 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 247 
 
 she has only quite recently returned from a long voy 
 age?" 
 
 "Of course," said Mr. Hearne, "that was how I 
 met her. I am an officer on the boat." 
 
 "And it was you who were at Tilbury?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Ah," said Mr. Ingleside, "now I am beginning to 
 understand things. You must excuse me for being 
 so confused. You see, this is a subject which you 
 have probably been more or less living with for some 
 weeks, whereas I heard it first only three minutes 
 ago. ... It is very startling, almost revolutionary. 
 . . . Alison, you must understand, has just returned 
 to live with her sister and me ; we were to see much 
 of each other, for the first time ; and you propose 
 a perfect stranger to monopolize her and carry 
 her off." 
 
 "Not monopolize her, I hope." 
 
 "My dear sir, of course you will monopolize her. 
 There are no two ways in these matters. Until she 
 is married she will live with me, eat my food, and 
 think of you. After she is married she will not even 
 be under my roof. That's true, isn't it ?" 
 
 Mr. Hearne said that he feared it was. 
 "But " 
 
 " But it can't be helped ? It's the law of Nature, 
 you mean?" Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 Mr. Hearne said that that was exactly what he had 
 meant. 
 
 "Why do you want to marry?" Mr. Ingleside 
 inquired. 
 
 Mr. Hearne thought it was because he loved. 
 
248 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Can't you love and not marry?" 
 
 "It is of course possible," Mr. Hearne replied, "but 
 why should we?" He added that he feared that 
 waiting was not much in his line. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside at last, "let me have 
 the names of one or two persons to whom to write to 
 about you and tell me something about your af 
 fairs ; and I will talk to Alison. I don't pretend to 
 say that this interview has made me happy ; but I 
 admit that it probably was bound to come. You will 
 hear from me very soon." 
 
 Mr. Ingleside sent a message to say that he should 
 not be home to lunch. Instead he bought some 
 fruit, and taking his seat in the Caprice, told Timbs 
 to go to Greenwich. 
 
 He was not happy ; but it soothed him to watch 
 the water and the wharves. There is no scene of 
 beguilement so certain as a river. Mr. Ingleside 
 was thinking about his life : Arnold's lines, so often 
 in his mind, fitted themselves to the throb of the 
 Caprice's engine 
 
 " Yes ! in the sea of life enisled. 
 We million mortals live alone." 
 
 It had been his lament for years it stood almost 
 at the head of his long and ever-lengthening indict 
 ment of Fate. He found that he had never liked 
 he did not dare to say loved Alison so much. She 
 was threatened, and he wanted her. Cause 
 and effect. He laughed at the irony of his dis 
 covery. . . . 
 And this young Hearne. Was he a philopro- 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 249 
 
 genitive ? He hoped so. Marriage should be con 
 fined to such. Alison was, he was sure, but of Ann 
 he was doubtful. . . . Hearne had looked a candid 
 and simple fellow. None of your damned modern 
 sophistication about him. . . . 
 
 Mr. Ingleside looked up and found a huge vessel 
 was being moored. The first officer was standing 
 like a statue on the peak, only his eyes moving as he 
 watched the cables shortening. Sailors were run 
 ning about. The captain was smoking calmly on 
 the bridge, talking with the pilot. 
 
 "And that young fellow," thought Mr. Ingleside, 
 "is going to leave this fine life to marry Alison and 
 settle down." It vexed him. It seemed a poor 
 exchange. . . . "Dear girl," he murmured, "poor 
 girl " 
 
 "Alison," he said that evening, stroking her head, 
 "Alison, why do you want to leave me so soon?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't," she said, her eyes filling with tears. 
 
 "And yet you do," her father rejoined. 
 
 Alison cried quietly for a little while. Mr. Ingle 
 side said nothing : he had nothing to say. What 
 has a tired man, who has failed to keep his promises 
 and does not believe, to say to a young girl in love ? 
 
 "And you liked him?" Alison asked at last. 
 
 "I liked him immensely," said her father. "Write 
 and ask him to dine here to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 IN WHICH VARIOUS PERSONS RECEIVE 
 THE GREAT NEWS 
 
 "\\ 7ELL, Alison," said Richard Oast, "I am 
 V V glad to hear you are engaged. I like early 
 marriages. I was married when I was only twenty, 
 and I never regretted it, nor, I believe, did my wife. 
 No nation that grows calculating about marriage is 
 ever on the up-grade. 
 
 "If Hearne is really leaving the sea, as your father 
 tells me, and looking for something on land, I think 
 I might be able to help him. But don't let that 
 worry you, anyway. If you both want to be 
 married soon, be married. I get out of patience when 
 I see young people going on year after year betrothed 
 to each other and not daring to marry 'until William 
 has a clear three hundred per ann. !' Why, he'd 
 have twice that sum if he married. I married on 
 eighteen shillings a week, and so far from mar 
 riage adding to expenses, it halved them. It's only 
 travel that adds to a married man's expenses : that 
 is, if he marries the right woman. 
 
 "There's not enough happy fatalism in these days : 
 we're all so cautious and far-seeing. The best advice 
 anyone ever gave in this England of ours was Syd 
 ney Smith's when he told a depressed friend to 'take 
 
 250 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 251 
 
 short views.' You marry directly Hearne comes 
 back from his next voyage, my dear, and you'll 
 never regret it. Cut the engagement as short as 
 possible." 
 
 Christie heard the news with a distress that he had 
 difficulty in concealing, and he left early to think it 
 over. But his grief was not very long-lived, for the 
 next morning brought the catalogue of a sale of water- 
 colours which contained three or four examples that 
 he greatly desired, and he therefore withdrew from 
 the bank the nest-egg which had been accumulating 
 there against possible matrimonial needs, and made 
 arrangements with a little dealer to bid for the treas 
 ures : and in the excitement of these proceedings he 
 resumed his normal state of cheerfulness. Never 
 waste your pity on a collector. 
 
 Henry Thrace was rather pathetic. He had been 
 so fond of so many nice girls whom he had known 
 since children and then had seen fall into the pos 
 session of assertive young men. It was his destiny, 
 he knew, but he could not refrain from a certain 
 wistfulness and sense of loss. Alison had been per 
 haps his favourite of all ; and now she too had found 
 the real thing. He, he always felt always knew 
 in his heart was only the imitation. So must our 
 old and faithful dogs feel when the new puppy enters 
 the house and gets all the titbits. But Henry was a 
 brave and good man whose dominant principle in 
 life was to make the best of things ; and he held 
 Alison's hand and wished her the happiest of lives 
 with Bryan, while his poor eyes swam. 
 
 Vycount Ramer was less reserved. "Why, Ali- 
 
252 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 son," he said, "this is a shame. Here have I been 
 spending hours over my toilet on Fridays, hoping 
 you would notice me, and all in vain. The money 
 that's gone on plumage. The male bird, you know. 
 It's lucky I'm not a dressy man, or I should be broke. 
 As it is, I almost had my trousers creased. And 
 what's the result ? A young fellow comes along all 
 over tar and seaweed, and you jump into his arms. 
 
 "The artists' sun has set. The early eighteen- 
 eighties : those were our days. We wore black 
 velvet and had our admirers. But now we dress like 
 tramps, cut our hair short, and are married only to 
 our pipes. We are, in fact, under a cloud every 
 where. Even the letters R.A. have lost their power, 
 and to elect an artist to that honour to-day is to 
 distort his face with spasms. What did for us, I'm 
 not sure ; but very largely the Kodak and W. P. 
 Frith's autobiography." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Boody, who had never been 
 quite sure of Alison's complete innocuousness as an 
 elder daughter, and was now put for ever at ease, 
 "well, Miss Alison, I hope you'll be happy; and 
 indeed I think you will, for Mr. Hearne has the face 
 of a true lover, and not one of the selfish ones who 
 think of themselves first and their wives next. I 
 know what I'm talking about, Heaven knows. Of 
 course I've done my little bit of wondering in the 
 kitchen, like the rest of us, with all those unmarried 
 gentlemen so thick in the house on Friday nights. 
 And I've noticed a change or two lately. Mr. Christie 
 has been getting much more the dandy, and Mr. 
 Ramer has cut the mustard and cress off of his cuffs 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 253 
 
 in a way he never used to do. At one time, indeed, 
 I thought that Mr. Christie might be the happy 
 man ; but I'm glad you chose elsewhere. He's as 
 nice-spoken a gentleman as one could wish, and always 
 has a little joke with me, but I don't see him as a 
 husband. Not the lasting kind that Mr. Hearne 
 will be. Mr. Hearne ! He makes me sorry I refused 
 an offer I had when I was in my first place, from a 
 sailor on the Arethusa. If ever I married again, I'd 
 go to the sea, like you, Miss. They have such straight 
 eyes and nice colouring, and a comfortable don't- 
 care-a-damnishness (if you'll forgive me the ex 
 pression ; but listening to your pa's taught me 
 such bold words) that means a lot to us poor women." 
 
 Ann was perhaps the least sympathetic. "You 
 are in a hurry," she said. "I hope I shan't marry 
 till I'm older than that. There are so many things 
 to do first, and one never does anything after one's 
 married." 
 
 " But if you love," said Alison, " those other things 
 either don't matter, or you don't want to do them 
 alone any more." 
 
 But Ann was only just eighteen. 
 
 She made the same remark to Dr. Staminer that 
 evening when he asked her what she thought of it all. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I know what you feel. You 
 want to go your own way as long as possible." 
 
 " Of course," said Ann. "We are here only once ; 
 it is so absurd not to do what one wants to." 
 
 "I know," said the doctor kindly, "I know. Of 
 course one wants that. But between going your own 
 way absolutely, and falling in with other people's, 
 
254 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 do you think there's such a tremendous gulf ? Would 
 you be surprised to hear that the difference between 
 always having a good time and not always having a 
 good time is extraordinarily small ? You would, of 
 course, yet it's true ; but it's a thing you can't 
 believe at your age. A little kissing of the rod makes 
 everything sweeter." 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 IN WHICH WE MEET WITH TRUE RO 
 MANCE 
 
 IT was a Friday evening, and novels were under 
 discussion. No topic is so certain of a success 
 ful run, no matter where it is started, whether among 
 friends or strangers. Indeed, no topic probably has 
 turned so many strangers into friends, since a com 
 munity of taste in stories, and, above all, in charac 
 ters, is a community of taste in life, and that is the 
 basis of intimacy. Never believe the people who 
 feel assured of the happiness of a new marriage be 
 cause the husband and wife are so different and like 
 different things. Happy they may be, but it will 
 not be because of that, but in spite of it. 
 
 Novels were again under discussion. "I don't 
 hold with novels that make you miserable : hardly 
 indeed with those that make you think," Mr. Ingle- 
 side had said : "at any rate not with those that con 
 sciously propose to make you think. I even have a 
 theory that novels should not be true to life at all." 
 
 "Not true to life !" The exclamation was almost 
 general. 
 
 "No, not true to life," Mr. Ingleside repeated. 
 "If ever I should take to writing stories (and the con 
 tingency is not possible) they should be stories not 
 
 255 
 
256 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 of life as I know it, but of life as I wish it was. That 
 is the story-teller's opportunity and privilege : to 
 invent a better state of things than he lives in. 
 That is his real reward for his trouble : not the 
 money, but the pleasure it gives him to escape for 
 a while from facts. And after his own escape comes 
 his readers'. The book is their chance too." 
 
 "Then you shut out the realists altogether?" 
 some one asked. 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Ingleside. "It is partly 
 because of the impossibility of being a realist, at any 
 rate in England, and I expect everywhere, in any 
 language, that I have come to these conclusions. 
 Obviously no English novelist can be more than 
 partly a realist : and a partial realist, a realist who 
 has to leave out the truly important things, is more 
 misleading than an out-and-out idealist. Don't 
 you see ? No, there is too much talk about the mis 
 sion of the novel. The novel has no mission but to 
 provide an escape. The other books the turgid 
 tracts on public questions, the stories with a purpose 
 - are not novels at all, and it is time that a new 
 name were given to them. They are all right, but 
 they should declare themselves. They have no right 
 to pretend to be honest, genial romances, and all the 
 time want your blood that is, your improvement. 
 There is a limit to the masquerades in which the 
 preacher is entitled to appear ; when he affects to 
 be a novelist, the imprint of his cloven hoof ought 
 to be on the title page." 
 
 Richard Oast came in as Mr. Ingleside was finish 
 ing his remarks. " I quite agree," he said. " When 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 257 
 
 one is out for pleasure, of course one wants lies. 
 And the novel-reader is surely out for pleasure. 
 Just take my walk here this evening. I leave at 
 nine o'clock. I walk along Piccadilly, and see the 
 old familiar dreadful sight. I turn down Leicester 
 Square, and am confronted by a huge building 
 large enough for the offices of a Government De 
 partment, belonging to what ? What, in the name 
 of Christianity and Civilization ? The National 
 National, mark ! the National Society for the 
 
 Prevention of Cruelty to ? I again ask, what ? 
 
 To donkeys? To horses? To dogs? To politi 
 cians ? No, to children. The National Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I had never 
 noticed it till to-day. Big enough to govern New 
 Zealand in. And then past the grimy picture post 
 cards, the anti-social chemists, of Green Street and 
 Villiers Street, I come to you, and the realists expect 
 me to welcome the books and plays in which they are 
 going to give an artificial reproduction of all this 
 squalor and ugliness. I tell you I am sick of facts. 
 The world as it is disgusts me : I want, as often as I 
 can get it, the world as it is not. 
 
 "I shall put this case of the N.S.P.C.C. to my friend 
 Canon Crosskeys," he added, "to-morrow; but 
 what's the use ? He'll only hide, as he always does 
 when I take him a real corker, behind that text about 
 babes and sucklings. 'Oh, well,' I always say, 
 ' if you like to take refuge in irony . . . ! ' and that 
 makes him furious. According to my reading of 
 the Evangel, it is full of irony, but the Church 
 always denies it ; the Church can't bear to allow 
 
258 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Christ so much modern ability as that. ' Blessed are 
 the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' What 
 is that if it's not irony? Obviously it is not true 
 in the surface sense of it. But how true otherwise 
 for the meek to inherit the earth ! We see them 
 doing it every day ; it is all that the peasants of 
 England can hope for, their inheritance of earth, 
 a piece seven feet by three." 
 
 It was then that Henry Thrace joined in. "I 
 agree with both of you," he said. "I certainly 
 want no parade of facts when I read a story. 
 As Oast says, there are facts all round us ; do we 
 want to find them again when we have taken our 
 boots off and lit our pipes? That was why I so 
 rejoiced in poor Ouida, twenty and more years ago. 
 Ouida made no such foolish error. Ouida had the 
 right instinct. She transported us to a new world 
 not better than this, but utterly different, and not 
 the less strange because some of its features were 
 familiar." 
 
 " There is no Ouida now," he added. " There are 
 women novelists, Heaven knows, but they are either 
 historians of normal life, and clever enough, I'll 
 admit, or they have missions and the tete montee." 
 
 It was then that the young man whom Vycount 
 Ramer had brought said something. 
 
 "Do you know Mrs. Ros ?" he asked quietly. 
 
 Henry Thrace did not know her ; no one knew 
 her. 
 
 "Then you are all to be envied," said he. "Mrs. 
 Ros ddes most of the things that you seem to require 
 in a novelist. The life she describes will never 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 259 
 
 disconcert you by reminding you of your own. 
 She is a born novelist that is to say, you can't 
 skip her ; you have to watch her all the time ; she 
 makes you laugh ; and you are wild to know what 
 happens." 
 
 The company were greatly interested. " As a 
 matter of fact," continued the young man, "I belong 
 to a Ros Society. We used to meet together to 
 read and study her. My rooms are quite close ; 
 if you'll allow me, I'll fetch her masterpiece," and 
 off he went. 
 
 The young man on returning pulled a volume 
 from his pocket, and read as follows : ' 
 
 "When the eve at last arrived that she should say fare 
 well to the little room that had grown so familiar to her, 
 and in which she had passed many a bright half-hour in 
 company with Lord Gifford, she felt quite overcome, as she 
 gave the last finishing stitches to the cambric cover she so 
 patiently had been endeavouring, for two days previous, to 
 make her masterpiece of design. A lengthened sigh followed, 
 and ere its echo died against the walls of steel-grey tint, 
 with sprigs of lilac shooting forth here and there to relieve 
 its dull sameness, the door was quietly opened, and Lord 
 Gifford entered. His keen black eye, surrounded with 
 rings of swollen sorrow, soon penetrated her heart, as she sat 
 with her work only finished, two corners of which were laden 
 with Nature's dew. 
 
 "'My darling virgin! my queen! my Delina ! I am 
 just in time to hear the toll of a parting bell strike its heavy 
 weight of appalling softness against the weakest fibres of a 
 heart of love, arousing and tickling its dormant action, 
 thrusting the dart of evident separation deeper into its tubes 
 of tenderness, and fanning the flame, already unextinguish- 
 able, into volumes of burning blaze/ 
 
 "Throwing his arms around her neck, Lord Gifford 
 
260 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 allowed tears of great tenderness to further damp her efforts 
 of success. For a time sobs were only heard issue, until the 
 gravity of her position pointed to speedy removal. 
 
 "'Lord Gifford,' she said, 'I must go. I have already 
 told you your mother has appointed me to teach in the village 
 school ; and as this is my last evening at Columba Castle, 
 I felt sorry leaving my little room, that has so often buried 
 words of sweetest encouragement underneath its gilded 
 roof of artful azure.' 
 
 "Covering his eyes with his hands, Lord Gifford sobbed 
 aloud, and it was only when Delina insisted on going he found 
 words to reply. 
 
 " ' Must you at last leave my home, Delina, my darling ? ' 
 
 "'Oh, I must, Lord Gifford, I must.' 
 
 "'Ah, then, this is only, I trust, a slight bruise my hopes 
 have experienced, a slim stroke of momentary pain that can 
 at any moment be obliterated, and the page of silent dis 
 appointment made a folio of virgin beauty.' 
 
 "Rising to her feet, Delina shook the crumpled folds of 
 her worn alpaca, tied her chestnut locks, that hung in wavy 
 loveliness over her well-formed shoulders, more firmly ; 
 donned her little white sailor hat, whose flimsy blue band had 
 often before been pronounced brighter in colour; drew 
 her greyish gloves over her snowy hands ; then, with a heavy 
 dullness dangling about her eyes, she cast one final look 
 around the room to offer a long farewell to its plain yet lovely 
 corners. Extending one hand to Lord Gifford, she felt 
 speech had fled ; and, tightly grasping the extended tribute 
 of friendship, he slowly rose as Lady Gifford entered. 
 
 "'Well, Delina,' said she, while a fierce look stole from 
 her angry eyes, 'I hope you will get along nicely at your new 
 duty, which you will kindly attend on Monday.' 
 
 "Borrowing instant courage, with Lord Gifford in the 
 background stifling his ire as well as his sobs, she replied 
 
 "'I trust I shall, thank your ladyship,' and, bowing lowly, 
 left the room. 
 
 "Lady Gifford couldn't fail perceiving the disappointment 
 that lingered on the face of her son as Delina went from 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 261 
 
 their midst. Without further remark, Lady Gifford quitted 
 the room. 
 
 "As Delina's hurried steps spake farewell with a crackling 
 speechlessness to the pebbled avenue on which she so often 
 trod, the blackening ball of sorrow rose within her heaving 
 breast, and, as its invisible body clambered to the narrow 
 summit, it burst asunder with a sickening sound, scattering 
 its dying echo around the misty hedgeway along which she 
 passed. She heard not the sound, she felt not the force of 
 her tread, her sorrow was so illimitable. 
 
 " Lord Gifford, clinging to the vacant room in the horrors 
 of sorrow how those deep black eyes, laden with Nature's 
 dewdrops, shone like an unsheathed sword, flashing their 
 angry sheen first on one object then on another, then yielded 
 to the dart of blindness, as he fixed them on the vacant chair 
 on whose stout seat Ddina had so often reclined. 
 
 "Bathing his silken handkerchief with tears, he muttered, 
 'I'm a bloody fool, in fact one of Nature's asses, to allow my 
 thoughts to master me in such a fashion.'" 
 
 "That's the real thing, isn't it?" the young man 
 inquired, as he closed the book. 
 
 "It is indeed," said Mr. Ingleside. "Henry, 
 what do you say ? " 
 
 "Great," said Henry. "I must have that book. 
 I shall never be lonely again." 
 
 "Please read some more," said Ann. 
 
 "Yes. Find another plum," said Dr. Staminer. 
 
 "Plums!" said the young man, "she's like a 
 Christmas pudding, she's full of them. You don't 
 have to find them : they jump at you. Listen, then. 
 
 " Of the want of charms in literary men 
 
 'Mr. John Nougher, the head teacher, a man of about 
 fifty, who shared only slightly in the few prominent charms 
 attached to men of literary standing.' 
 
262 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Of autumnal tints 
 
 'He had concealed himself for some time before her 
 arrival behind an old beech tree thickly populated with 
 leaves, and apparently (to an outsider of the woody world) 
 bathed in the grapes' bloody juice/ 
 
 "Of forgetf ulness 
 
 'Turning to Delina, he said, "Delina darling, I feel 
 extremely grieved at what has happened, and trust you will 
 allow these words to glide into buried notice." 
 
 'And for his sake so she did." 
 
 "Of a lifelike statue - 
 
 'The first white-gowned statue of stationary deadness 
 was that of Lord Gifford's late father. On it the sculptor's 
 handicraft defied comment. So naturally formed did it seem 
 that all it required to convince the severest critic of its noble 
 representative's animation was a breath of Divine Omnipo 
 tence blown on his bald north.' 
 
 "Of shame - 
 
 'Then he breathed, sighed heavily, inwardly saying 
 again, "Come, courage, come! Heaven help me, else I 
 dwindle into the puddle of shame, and damp not only my 
 feet, but, alas ! my whole body." ' 
 
 "Of ecstatic love 
 
 'Lord Gifford, courting defeat, apparently with a careless 
 look, suddenly clasped her to his heaving breast. "My 
 precious darling!" he excitedly exclaimed. "A moment 
 of bliss has at last crossed my path, that seems constantly 
 paved with lofty looks of unpardonable pride." 
 
 '"I hardly understand you, Lord Gifford," said Delina, 
 while her head rested on his breast.' 
 
 Of Lady Mattie 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 263 
 
 '"Her long, yellow hands, thin beyond detail, she mostly 
 keeps powdered and jewelled with rings of every shape and 
 form. Then her features !" Lord Gifford here lit a cigar, 
 and, with a painful distortion of his face, said in a deep, 
 sullen tone : "Enough enough. But, Lord, how sharp !" 
 
 "Of plighted troth 
 
 'Dazzled with the brilliant circlet, Delina could only 
 thank him in silence, while tears of unbounded joy dropped 
 from her fine grey eyes. 
 
 'Thus were promised in marriage two which private oath, 
 parental objection would try strongly to break, or cause 
 that wary imp, procrastination, to so extend its lengthy aid 
 and solace to the heart of the wounded as to remove all stains 
 of degradation contemplated by youthful decision, and 
 transform them into marks of reasonable indelibility.' 
 
 "Of an ash tray 
 
 'Lord Gifford sat burying in the silver receptacle that 
 lay by his side the deadened ashes of feathery manufacture 
 produced by the action of this thin lips.' 
 
 "Of a maternal welcome 
 
 '"Home again, mother?" he boldly uttered, as he 
 gazed reverently in her face. 
 
 '"Home to Hades!" returned the raging, high-bred 
 daughter of distinguished effeminacy.' 
 
 "Of eyelids and a supplication 
 
 'Then, raising her huge dark eyes towards heaven until 
 hidden underneath their appointed protection, she prayed, 
 in accents that threaten to vibrate against the starry ceiling 
 until this day : "Heavenly Pater," she began, "listen to the 
 words of a daughter of affliction, and chase, I pray Thee, 
 instantly, the dismal perplexities that presently clog the 
 filmy pores of her weary brain into the stream of trickling 
 
264 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 nothingness. Bind their origin with cloth of coloured shame, 
 and restore, Thou, her equilibrium with draughts of soothing 
 good." ' 
 
 "Of cutting a cigar 
 
 'Longing for the surrender of a cigar to his lifey lips of 
 action, Lord Gifford was soon seen destroying, by a necessary 
 destructive, the butt-end of one.' 
 
 "Of a good woman's eye 
 
 '. . . that eye in whose grey depths truth is the only 
 foundation, and falsehood a blasted absentee.' 
 
 "Of early rising 
 
 'A sharp, shrill ring was heard below ; a convulsive jump, 
 and Delina was standing at the window, peeping at the great 
 broad steps that led to the outer door. Nothing was visible 
 save these, laden with heavy raindrops ; then a sudden bang, 
 and Madam-de-Maine was announced. 
 
 '"A hellish bang, by dad 1" said Lord Gifford, as he rose 
 to make inquiry as to its cause. "Early on the move, quite 
 early aye," he growled, as he felt convinced his sheets were 
 no more to be heated that day.' 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Ros?" Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 "She is an Irishwoman," said the young man. 
 "There are two books to her name, but Delina is the 
 best. I wish she'd write some more. Mrs. Ros 
 would have many more devotees were it not for the 
 difficulty of acquiring her books. I even know of a 
 copy of Delina Delaney having been purloined from 
 his host's shelves by a Prime Minister, who refused 
 to give it up." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 IN WHICH A LADY-LOVE IS TAKEN ROUND 
 ON EXHIBITION 
 
 MR. BRYAN HEARNE at Buckingham Street 
 was a very different man from Mr. Bryan 
 Hearne in Whitehall. He manifested a sense of fun ; 
 he talked freely ; he chaffed Ann ; he got on ex 
 cellently with Dr. Staminer, for whom he promised 
 to get a number of Oriental curiosities on his next and 
 last voyage ; and he satisfied Mr. Ingleside that he 
 had the makings of a thoughtful husband. What 
 ever might happen in the future, he seemed to be 
 Alison's man at the moment, and no one can look 
 farther ahead than that. 
 
 Bryan having been an only child and having lost 
 his parents, Alison was spared the ordeal of steady 
 acclimatization in his household : no small escape, 
 for prospective fathers-in-law can so easily be too 
 polite, and prospective mothers-in-law too affection 
 ate or otherwise, and brothers and sisters too criti 
 cal or astonished or amused. This, therefore, she 
 missed, except in a modified form for one night 
 only, as we shall see. 
 
 Bryan, however (like everybody else), had some 
 very odd relations, and Alison had to be displayed 
 to most of them. 
 
 265 
 
266 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 First of all came the goose with the golden eggs 
 or Miss Larpent ; and to her spotless mansion went 
 also Ann, to whom the old lady had taken a strong 
 fancy. Ann enjoyed the visit more than Alison 
 did. For one thing, her early correspondence with 
 the servants both outdoors and in seemed to place 
 her on terms with them ; and for another, she was 
 less subject to her hostess's iron will. For Miss Lar 
 pent was so accustomed to direct and manage that 
 she forced her nephew and Alison to live strictly 
 to a time-table which she drew up for them, with 
 prescribed visits to the neighbourhood in it. Ann 
 was spared these duties, and was allowed, when 
 Miss Larpent did not require her company, to roam 
 where she would or read in the library. Every 
 book in this discreet but not overworked apart 
 ment was bound in richly-tooled red leather, and 
 most of them had the book-plate of Sir Pyke Larpent, 
 K.C.B. There was not a book in the place that a 
 gentleman, whether male or female, should not 
 possess ; nor was there one lacking which a gentle 
 man ought to possess. Ann was at first rebuffed 
 by so much sumptuous propriety, tut chancing 
 upon Barchester Towers, she settled down to be 
 happy. 
 
 Meanwhile the two horses, perfectly controlled by 
 Mr. Rigby, were conveying Alison, Bryan, and Miss 
 Larpent to the great mansions of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Afterwards came the other uncles and aunts. 
 
 There were Uncle Hugh and Aunt Emily at 
 Chislehurst, whose house was a miracle of suburban 
 comfort, if not luxury. Both had always just enough 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 267 
 
 malady to keep them to a specially nourishing diet 
 and particular care ; but their illnesses were never 
 so serious as to interfere with the gentler pleasures 
 of life, which included a regular spell of cultured 
 travel in Italy. Uncle Hugh was a book collector 
 by post, and he marked a catalogue at every break 
 fast ; Aunt Emily pampered a Pomeranian named 
 " Snowy," read French novels purely for their psy 
 chology, and from the sanctuary of her sofa, with 
 her feet up, in the security of wealth and decorum, 
 sent out her sympathies to every variety of novelty 
 and revolt. 
 
 "If you are one half so happy as I have been with 
 Bryan's uncle," she said to Alison, "you will be 
 fortunate. He has never denied me anything." And 
 she believed it ; but as a matter of fact he had 
 never given her anything, except money for lavish 
 housekeeping and the cushions that he did not want 
 for himself. 
 
 " Of course," Aunt Emily continued, " some women 
 would have liked children. But I have never felt 
 their loss. My husband has been my child." 
 
 There was Bryan's Uncle Philip, the rural dean, 
 at Imping, a widower, who spent a great part of 
 every day in playing himself at croquet. They 
 stayed with him one night, and he gave them his 
 blessing; but he was exceedingly glad to see the 
 village fly arrive to take them to the station the next 
 morning. Not that he was inhospitable or selfish ; 
 but for young persons in love he had no natural 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "Since it has gone so far," said Uncle James, "I 
 
268 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 suppose you will marry. But I wish you would 
 wait another ten years or so. You will both know 
 better then whether you really are suited or not. 
 You know so little of each other now. I am not 
 sure that in a perfect state anyone should marry 
 but widows and widowers : but that, I fear, is some 
 thing of a bull. You see, however, what I mean ? 
 One cannot tell whether or not one will be happy 
 in the married state unless one has tried it." 
 
 "My dear," said Aunt Jane afterwards, when 
 alone with Alison, "I hope Mr. Rawner's remarks 
 have not made you wretched !" 
 
 "Oh no," said Alison. "I think that what Mr. 
 Rawner says is very interesting. Only it does not 
 seem to me very practical." 
 
 "There ! " exclaimed Mrs. Rawner ; "you have 
 said it. That is what I have always felt about 
 some of Mr. Rawner's ideas ; but I never could put 
 it into words. They're not practical. But in 
 tensely interesting oh yes." 
 
 Aunt Jane, however, even had she found words, 
 would never have said them to her husband's face, 
 having for him a worshipping adoration that had 
 turned him from quite a decent young fellow to an 
 opinionated oracle who would brook no interruption 
 or dissent. Aunt Jane was also so active in waiting 
 upon her lord, and so pervasive, that one thought 
 of her more as a harem than one woman. 
 
 Uncle James was a scholar : an etymologist of 
 great repute. He lived in luxury in an old and 
 beautiful house in the Cotswolds, in the company of 
 blue Persian cats and his wife. "And why marry 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 269 
 
 at all ? " he went on. "You're not unhappy, Bryan ? 
 You're not unhappy, Miss Ingleside? You've 
 both been quite contented hitherto? Then why 
 marry? Think of all the troubles of life that are 
 in store for you. Furniture. Drains. Servants. 
 Cellars. I name these only. You laugh ; but 
 they are not laughable really. Only this morn 
 ing my butler broke the cellar thermometer. I 
 insist on his taking the temperature of the cellar 
 three times every day for the claret, you know 
 and it will now be Tuesday before a new ther 
 mometer can be obtained." 
 
 "But that might happen to a bachelor's butler," 
 Bryan remarked. 
 
 Uncle James disregarded the interruption. 
 
 Uncle Victor and Aunt Maud were a less enervat 
 ing couple. But their old-fashioned attitude to love 
 was rather trying ; for Uncle Victor never entered 
 the room where Bryan and Alison were without 
 first giving a loud warning cough, followed by a peal 
 of knowing laughter ; while Aunt Maud was always 
 inventing pretexts to leave them together, remember 
 ing, as she said, how young couples like to be alone. 
 
 "Well, good-night," said Uncle Victor. "You 
 won't mind, I'm sure, if I switch off the light." 
 And he climbed the stairs chuckling. 
 
 "My dear," Aunt Maud said, "I hope that you 
 will be sure to make your father see the clergyman 
 who is to conduct the service and get him to make 
 a few discreet omissions. So very outspoken and 
 unnecessary, in my opinion. Far too primitive. 
 So injurious to a nice spirit at a wedding." 
 
270 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Poor Aunt Maud, she had this matter very much 
 at heart, her own wedding having been completely 
 ruined by the dear Canon's bluntness ; but the fact 
 was that the request that he would edit this portion 
 of the Prayer Book had been put to him by her 
 elder sister with such refinements of delicacy that 
 he had wholly missed the point. 
 
 But the worst ordeal was Seagrave House, 
 because there were there not only an uncle and 
 aunt, but cousins. The projection of a pair of 
 lovers upon a youthful high-spirited family can 
 lead to embarrassing flights of humour, especially 
 when one of the pair is a total stranger. Why 
 love is still so comic it would need a psychologi 
 cal essay to reveal ; but the cynic might say 
 that we hasten to think it comic lest we should 
 see that it was tragic, as the philosopher made 
 haste to laugh lest he wept. Be that as it 
 may, to be in love is to be laughable in every 
 normal English home. By the boys individually 
 Alison was treated with some aloofness, as one 
 who was, as they say at the exhibitions, hors con- 
 cours; by the girls apart she was looked upon as a 
 heroine and a curiosity to be studied as one who 
 had reached the desired haven ; but by the family 
 as a whole both she and Bryan were regarded with 
 mirth and levity, and many giggling jokes were made. 
 
 The pleasantest visit was to Bryan's only sister, 
 Mrs. Rivett, the mother of three children. After so 
 much middle-aged and elderly self-protection and 
 comfortable acceptance, Alison was very glad to be 
 with these cheery mites on the threshold of life. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 271 
 
 Prue, the eldest, was eight, and Sam, the youngest, 
 four. Between came Bridget, aged six. They 
 accepted Alison as an aunt instantly. 
 
 "I'm glad you're going to marry Uncle Bryan," 
 said Prue, "but of course it's a pity in one way, 
 because he won't be able to bring us any more nice 
 things from abroad." 
 
 "But couldn't Aunt Alison go too ?" said Bridget. 
 "Captains have wives, don't they?" 
 
 "Captains' wives stop at home," said Prue, "and 
 mind the baby." 
 
 "They don't always," said Bridget. " I know one 
 that didn't." 
 
 "Who?" asked Alison, quite unprepared for 
 Bridget's Biblical erudition. 
 
 "Noah's," said Bridget triumphantly. 
 
 "Very good," said Bryan. "I shall give you a 
 new Noah's ark for a prize." 
 
 "Do take Aunt Alison with you," said Bridget, 
 "and go on being a captain." 
 
 "I'm not a captain," said Bryan, "and I'm 
 coming to live on land, like you and mother and 
 father and Prue." 
 
 "Doesn't Sam live on land, then ? " Bridget asked. 
 
 "Yes, and like Sam." 
 
 "Then why won't you live with us?" Bridget 
 inquired. "The spare room's always empty." 
 
 On the night that she returned very happily to 
 London to Mr. Ingleside's great content 
 Alison received her first wedding present. 
 
 "I want to give you a wedding present," said Dr. 
 Staminer, placing a parcel in her hands, "and yet, 
 
272 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 since I am a collector and this is something out of my 
 collection, I don't want to give it to you, so please 
 take it quickly and hide it, or I shall ask for it back. 
 It is a very sordid feeling, I admit ; but if you also 
 had the collector's temperament you would know 
 that to give away anything is nearly an impossibility, 
 and to give away anything without regretting it is 
 quite an impossibility." 
 
 Alison knew the doctor fairly well, but his words 
 placed her in a dilemma, for they were so evidently 
 sincere. 
 
 "Dear doctor," she said, " please don't. ... I 
 would so much rather have something else. . . . 
 Anything . . . something new that I could choose 
 in a shop." 
 
 "No," said the doctor. "No. I want you to 
 have this. It is good for you to have it, because it 
 is very rare and wonderful ; and good for me to give 
 it, because I am an old pig. But for Heaven's 
 sake don't look at it now !" 
 
 When Alison reached her room she opened the 
 parcel. It was a Madonna in wood by Claus de 
 Worde ; the sweetest, gentlest most benignant un 
 derstanding creature imaginable. Alison had many 
 other gifts, but none so distinguished. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 IN WHICH OLD MRS. INGLESIDE GIVES 
 HER BLESSING 
 
 A LISON in her turn took Bryan to Hove to see 
 JL\ old Mrs. Ingleside. They drove out with her 
 together, and afterwards Alison and her grand 
 mother had an hour alone before dinner. 
 
 To Bryan she talked exclusively of foreign lands 
 and travel. "You must have seen so many strange 
 things. Flying-fish. Do they really fly ? I stood 
 by the rail the whole way to Calais on my first visit 
 to France, hoping either for a flying-fish or a por 
 poise, but I never saw one. 
 
 "And whales. So immense. I should like .to see 
 a whale, but of course I never shall now. There's a 
 skeleton head on the West Pier : wonderful. 
 
 "Wait a minute, Lassiter," Mrs. Ingleside called 
 to the coachman. "There's the poor man I always 
 give something to ;" and the carriage stopped to per 
 mit an able-bodied wastrel to receive his gratuity 
 and utter his too fulsome thanks. "Poor fellow," 
 said the old lady, "such a sufferer, and so brave 
 with it. I have several poor creatures I give a trifle 
 to ; and we shall come to my flower-woman directly. 
 
 "And now tell me all about icebergs," she said to 
 Bryan, and was again instantly in full swing. 
 T 273 
 
274 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "I am glad that young man is going to leave the 
 sea," said Mrs. Ingleside when Alison and she 
 were alone. "It's a very treacherous element, my 
 dear. So many wrecks. I sometimes shudder to 
 look at it even from the security of the carriage 
 as we drive along the Front. So cruel and cold. 
 Yet I suppose the ships are warm, with those great 
 funnels. But you would be very unhappy, my 
 dear, every time the wind blew. I'm sure you would. 
 And the long absences. Not that I should doubt 
 Bryan for a moment : he looks to me as honest and 
 true as the day ; but long absences are a mistake. 
 You might as well be single, my dear. 
 
 "He seems a nice young man, my dear, but I 
 should like to know a little more as to what he is 
 going to do when he leaves the sea. Don't let him 
 be a lawyer. I'm sure we don't want any more 
 lawyers, even although he would be a nice one. 
 Mr. Meldrake is all right : I can trust him ; and in 
 deed where should I be if I could not ? But don't 
 let Bryan be one, I implore you. Use your influence, 
 my dear ; you'll never have more than you have 
 now. You can do anything you like with a young 
 man when he's in love with you." 
 
 "But, dear grandmamma," said Alison, "he has 
 no notion of being a lawyer. It's far too late, too." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear it," said the old lady. "I 
 dislike lawyers intensely. I have known several 
 very objectionable ones. There was Mr. Diprose 
 in the Old Jewry who deceived your grandfather so 
 grossly, and after dining with us, too. The best 
 sherry, I remember : something very special. And 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 275 
 
 Madeira afterwards. No one drinks Madeira any 
 more, I'm told. A little heady, perhaps, but a per 
 fect dessert wine, in my opinion. 
 
 "And don't let him be a doctor, my dear. A 
 beautiful profession, no doubt ; almost a sacred one ; 
 to heal so touching, you know ; but I always feel 
 sorry for doctors' wives. No regularity possible : 
 late meals, short and broken nights ; the danger of 
 infection. I'm told it's against the law for a doctor 
 not to obey a summons ; and think how unpleasant 
 that would be, poor Bryan in the dock. And the 
 delay of becoming a successful man. Think of all 
 the expense of his course, beginning so late, and 
 the anxiety of working up a practice. No, my dear, 
 I don't think he'd better be a doctor. 
 
 "Nor a clergyman. I would not encourage that 
 not because I do not admire and esteem the clergy, 
 but I don't like the idea of a young man leaving 
 the sea for the Church. Not the right preparation, 
 I'm sure. Sailors, my dear. So profane. Parrots, 
 you know : one hears such dreadful things. The 
 Church should be a call, I think, not a deliberate 
 choice like that. And then again, the expense of 
 the preliminaries : the examinations, so trying ; 
 Hebrew, I believe ; Greek ; the waiting for a curacy. 
 And then the curacy itself. Vicars' wives, I am 
 told, can be so vexatious. I remember poor 
 Mrs. Rackshaw very vividly. Such a temper, 
 my dear. But of course if he was successful it 
 would be very nice for you, although bishops' wives 
 have no title, nothing. Very unfair, I think 
 the Lord Bishop and plain Mrs. Not just. 
 
276 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Authors, I am told, make a great deal of money, 
 but I was wondering if dear Bryan had quite enough 
 of just that sort of ability. It's very special, you 
 know : no disgrace to be without it. Your dear 
 father was always clever with his pen, and Heaven 
 knows where he got it from, for I am a poor hand 
 at writing anything, and your grandfather spelt 
 badly to the end. Tuesday always with eu, you 
 know, and all at sea with his eis and ies. But 
 so kind and considerate, and the soul of honour. 
 Yet Bryan must have some very interesting things 
 to write about. Those flying-fish, for instance. 
 They tell me at the library that books of travel 
 are always in demand." 
 
 "I think it is very likely," said Alison, "that Mr. 
 Oast will find a post for Bryan in his boat-building 
 works." 
 
 "Ah !" said Mrs. Ingleside. "But a clean post, 
 I hope. No black oil. A position of control. But 
 he must be very careful not to let Mr. Oast influence 
 him. Those dreadful Socialist notions. No prop 
 erty safe, you know. And the Crown too so 
 disloyal. I can't imagine what your dear father 
 can see in that man. And I always dread that his 
 Department will discover the friendship. But there, 
 your dear father would always go his own way. 
 Even when quite a child he refused to wear braces 
 any longer and bought a belt with his own money. 
 A little roll of shirt always showing. Well, well." 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Ingleside insisted on Bryan 
 and Alison accompanying her into Brighton to 
 choose a wedding present. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 277 
 
 "Something that you both decide on," she said. 
 "We must go to Brighton. Hove has excellent 
 shops for all the necessaries of life ; but for the 
 luxuries, Brighton. I want to get you something 
 you won't have to exchange. I know exactly what 
 it is : a large silver teapot. Every young couple 
 ought to have one and never part with it. Very 
 solid, with your initials engraved on it in a nice 
 intertwined monogram. I have quite made up my 
 mind." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 IN WHICH WE BECOME LISTENERS IN A 
 NORFOLK RECTORY 
 
 BRYAN having left for his last voyage, Alison 
 was naturally a little lonely, and she was 
 therefore not sorry when Leslie asked her one even 
 ing if she thought Mr. Ingleside would let her off for 
 a few days for his pageant. 
 
 "How exciting," she said, "but I don't think he 
 would. Do you mean both of us ?" she added. 
 
 "Of course," said Leslie. 
 
 "Ann's so busy," said Alison ; "and I shouldn't 
 care a bit for it without her." 
 
 "Well, we must see," said Leslie. 
 
 Ann was quite willing to go, but Mr. Ingleside 
 demurred. 
 
 " What on earth do you want them for ? " he asked. 
 "The world's full of girls : why come here ? Go to 
 a house where there are several : I have only two." 
 "But I want them," said Leslie. "They're exactly 
 the right type for my Tudor head-dresses. I design 
 them as maids of honour to Queen Elizabeth." 
 
 "How do you get Queen Elizabeth into it? She 
 was never at Bungay," Dr. Staminer interjected. 
 
 "Never at Bungay ! " cried Leslie. " My dear sir, 
 278 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 279 
 
 your ignorance of history, especially of Bungay 
 history, is abysmal. If you had been as busy in 
 making pageants as I have, you would know that 
 Queen Elizabeth was connected with all places. 
 She had to be we needed it ! As a matter of fact, 
 you are technically right in denying her any direct 
 association with Bungay ; but only technically. 
 Her interest in the place was undoubted, since it is 
 on record that she once remarked to an importunate 
 or inconvenient companion, ' Oh, go to Bungay ! ' ; 
 
 "But, my dear Leslie," said Dr. Staminer, "you 
 don't mean seriously to tell me that on the strength 
 of that exclamation you drag the queen into your 
 spectacle !" 
 
 "Drag!" retorted Leslie. "What horrid lan 
 guage! Certainly," he continued. " It's historical, 
 isn't it ? Great Scott, sir ! how do you think we 
 can make decent pageants without a little help of 
 that kind ? All very well for Bath with its King 
 Bladud and Beau Nash ready made, and running 
 over with material ; or Winchester with Alfred the 
 Great ; or Pevensey with William the Conqueror ; 
 or Colchester with Old King Cole ; but Bungay 
 had to get along with less assistance. However, 
 the Bungay Pageant is going to be a great success, 
 but we must have Ann and Alison. We'll have 
 Ingleside too if he likes. King Stephen would suit 
 him down to the ground. And you, sir, you'd 
 make a first-rate Benedictine prior. There's room 
 for all. There are costumes for hinds, carles, serfs, 
 and Ramer, all going begging. All are welcome." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Ingleside, "I call it absurd, 
 
280 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 coming all the way to London for your Norfolk 
 tomfooleries. Are there no local maids of honour ? " 
 
 Mr. Leslie explained that the local ladies were 
 already alotted their roles. 
 
 "One must import talent into a small town," he 
 said. 
 
 "It's only a week," Alison remarked. 
 
 "Then you want to go?" her father asked. 
 
 "I think it would be fun," Alison admitted. 
 "I've always heard that pageants are fun." 
 
 And it was therefore settled. 
 
 "But don't expect to find me here when you 
 come back," Mr. Ingleside warned her. "Prodigal 
 daughters can do it once too often." 
 
 They were invited to take any other potential 
 maid of honour they could think of, and Ann at 
 once wrote to Sybil Aylward and secured her. They 
 were to stay, Leslie said, with some old friends of his 
 at Wilmingham Rectory, a few miles out of Bungay. 
 It was doubly convenient, for the rector's wife was 
 Queen Elizabeth herself. 
 
 "Not that she is at all Elizabethan," said Leslie, 
 "but we had to give her a good part, as she's 
 rather influential and has guaranteed a large sum. 
 I dare say she'll look all right in a red wig, but 
 we're all sorry for the Earl of Essex. Her husband, 
 the rector, is all for horses and dogs, but he's a 
 trump, and you'll get through the week somehow. 
 It's jolly good of you to go anyway." 
 
 As it happened, the girls got on famously with 
 Mr. Catt-Wilkins, who kept the church (in Sybil's 
 words) "so exquisitely in the background. How 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 281 
 
 different from father!" she added, "who loved 
 revivalist services, but always came back so cross 
 after them. He never seemed to care much for his 
 family at any time, but the nearer he had been to 
 heaven the more he disliked us. I suppose it's an 
 awful shock after the excitement of feeling fright 
 fully good and happy to return to the same old 
 wife and the same old children and the same old 
 cooking." 
 
 The Reverend Cyril Catt-Wilkins was a short and 
 round man, clean-shaved and ruddy, who knew the 
 Christian names of all his parishioners. To ac 
 company him in his dogcart, as the girls did more 
 than once, was to receive a liberal education in rural 
 nomenclature. 
 
 "'Morning, Tom. How's the mare?" 
 " 'Morning, Ben. We're ready for another of 
 your cucumbers !" 
 
 " 'Morning, Sam. Misses better, I hope." 
 " 'Morning, Fred. Sorry to hear your voice has 
 cracked." 
 
 As for his sermons, he had the good fortune to 
 possess several MS. volumes of Sydney Smith's, 
 which he had bought at Sotheby's years before, and 
 these he turned and re- turned as usefully and thrift 
 ily as an old woman a good silk. He used to quote 
 with much gusto the northern parson's post- 
 burglary couplet 
 
 " They came and prigged my silver, my linen and my 
 
 store, 
 
 But they couldn't prig my sermons : they had all been 
 prigged before." 
 
282 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 He hadn't a spiritual thought in his head ; but he 
 would sit up all night to assist the lying-in of a 
 spaniel. He practised few virtues of abstention ; 
 but his burial services were Shakespearean in their 
 humanity. He was not clever ; but he was clever 
 enough to be suspicious of cleverness. He lived 
 out of the world, but watched it and knew how it 
 wagged. 
 
 Sybil's frankness gave him immense pleasure, and 
 they had many a bout of discussion. Like so many 
 modern clergymen, he allowed her extraordinary 
 latitude in her references to his calling ; but he 
 retained her respect. 
 
 "Personally," he said one evening after she had 
 been praising tolerance, "I'm getting rather bored 
 by breadth of mind. Breadth of mind nowadays 
 seems to mean nothing but looking for the humaner 
 virtues among drunkards and atheists and ignoring 
 them among parsons. It is time for some one to 
 point out how much more difficult it is for a parson 
 to be good than, for example, for a pugilist. A par 
 son is always in the limelight : he has to wear a ridic 
 ulous collar that buttons at the back, which alone 
 stamps him as pious ; his clothes are black and for 
 biddingly cut he has to go to Switzerland in 
 August in order to wear anything comfortable ; he is 
 thrown continually among old and narrow-minded 
 virgins whom he dare not offend since they possess 
 the money which his church needs, and bit by bit, 
 unless he is very careful or very careless, they sap 
 away what his daily avocations have left of his mind. 
 And so it comes to this, that when a parson is good, 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 283 
 
 it is nothing : that's what he's there for ; but when 
 a pugilist is good, you wipe your eyes. 'How beau 
 tiful ! Such a sweet nature ! ' You ought logically 
 to be just as much interested in a parson who had 
 enough character to be wicked." 
 
 Sybil and the rector had also some passages over 
 the vote, as indeed was inevitable. 
 
 "Well," he said, on the first evening, "I suppose 
 all you young ladies are suffragettes." 
 
 " I am," said Sybil. 
 
 The rector laughed. "And you want to vote, do 
 you ? " he pursued, warming to the old fray. 
 
 "Of course I do, if anyone does," said Sybil. "I 
 don't if no one does. Wouldn't you want a vote if 
 you hadn't got one and all the women had ? " 
 
 "I suppose I should," the rector admitted. 
 
 "Then why shouldn't we ?" 
 
 "Well, you see," said the rector, "that's different. 
 Legislature and politics and all that are a man's 
 affair. They're natural to him. But it's not a 
 woman's line of country at all." 
 
 "What is a woman's line of country?" Sybil 
 asked. 
 
 "What is it?" the rector replied, "why, mind 
 ing the house, of course, ordering a good dinner, 
 cooking it, keeping the accounts, looking after the 
 children." 
 
 "Yes," said Sybil, "but suppose there aren't any 
 children? Suppose it's a single woman, with no 
 one's home to mind and a living to get just like a 
 man, isn't she to have any say in her country's 
 affairs?" 
 
284 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "Well, perhaps she might," said the rector ; a but 
 not the others. I'd keep it strictly to those who 
 understood what politics meant. There should be 
 some kind of examination." 
 
 "But does every man that has the vote under 
 stand?" Sybil inquired sweetly. 
 
 The rector took refuge in facetiousness, the last 
 infirmity of cowardly minds. "What I always say," 
 he said, " is that I will believe in women's suffrage 
 when all women wear the same-shaped hat." 
 
 " That's a comic-paper joke," said Sybil. "I con 
 sider you beaten." 
 
 "And these other ladies," said the rector, "I 
 wonder what they think. You, Miss Ingleside?" 
 he inquired, turning to Alison. 
 
 "I should like to have a home," said Alison. 
 
 The rector beamed approval. 
 
 "Or," she added, "to be of some value in other 
 people's homes." 
 
 "Ah !" exclaimed the rector triumphantly. 
 
 "But please don't think that that makes me any 
 more right than Sybil," said Alison. "It's only 
 what my own wish is." 
 
 "It is the normal women," said the rector, "who 
 carry on the business of life. The hand that rocks 
 the cradle ah ! And you, Miss Ann ?" 
 
 "I don't care a bit about politics," said Ann, "and 
 I don't particularly about home. I like to be mixed 
 up with the affairs of life : but not in the least bad- 
 temperedly. I like men, and I like them to do the 
 business part of the country ; but I think it's very 
 sporting of Sybil to want to do it too." 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 285 
 
 The rector laughed. " You're too modern for me," 
 he said. "Come and see the puppies." 
 
 It was a sure road to a truce, for Sybil had a whirl 
 wind way with puppies and kittens : she would hold 
 them to her in a kind of ecstasy of companionship, 
 as different from the sickly caresses of Miss Anstru- 
 ther as anything could be. By a stroke of luck 
 there were at Wilmingham Clumber puppies a month 
 old, and it is really a wonder that Sybil ever arrived 
 at the pageant at all with such precious armfuls to 
 cherish at the Rectory. 
 
 "I wish you'd adopt me," she said one day to the 
 rector. "Let me be your curate. Why shouldn't 
 women be curates anyway? Curates have been 
 called women too long." 
 
 "Not a bad idea !" said Mr. Catt-Wilkins. "A 
 few curates like Miss Ingleside and you, and the men 
 might be lured back to church again." 
 
 "Then we are united in our battle-cry," remarked 
 Sybil. " ' Curacies for women ! ' " 
 
 Mrs. Catt-Wilkins was very unlike her husband. 
 He was an outdoor man and she an indoor woman, 
 and neither would have chosen each other were they 
 now, at their present ages, to meet for the first time. 
 Their romance and their need for each other were 
 alike over. Not that they pined or wasted away : 
 the blessed gift of acquiescence, which the kind gods 
 gave to man, saved them, as it saves millions. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Catt-Wilkins moaned not at all, for he was 
 far too busy in the countryside with his horses and 
 dogs, neighbours and parishioners, while to her the 
 uncongeniality of her husband was the cause of a 
 
286 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 pleasant wistfulness which kept her far happier than 
 any lover could have done. Wistfulness was indeed 
 her staple food. She spent her whole life in a gentle 
 envy, a whispered wish to be somewhere else in more 
 delightful surroundings ; but although she was rich 
 and her husband would have set few or no obstacles 
 in the way, she never went. Her meat and her 
 poison were one. 
 
 Mrs. Catt-Wilkins was a great reader and in a 
 small way a patron of letters. 
 
 "I suppose you know all the interesting people in 
 London, Miss Ingleside,"-she said one morning, as 
 she and Alison sat in her boudoir and watched the 
 clouds gathering for the pageant. Alison and Mrs. 
 Catt-Wilkins were much together, for Ann and 
 Sybil went off with the rector ; and though she would 
 much rather have accompanied them, Alison did not 
 like to leave her hostess alone. 
 
 "How I should love to live in London," said Mrs. 
 Catt-Wilkins. "Bungay is so dull, so restricted. 
 And then the parish ! A parson's wife, you know ! " 
 
 Alison murmured sympathetic agreement, although 
 she had seen nothing of her hostess's parochial 
 activities. 
 
 "Do tell me," the lady continued "you who 
 come right from the very centre who know every 
 one what is Mr. Hichens like ? " 
 
 "Mr. Hichens?" 
 
 "Yes, The Garden of Allah, you know. Ah!" 
 Mrs. Catt-Wilkins rolled her eyes in rapture. "What 
 a book ! You've no idea what it must mean to a 
 resident near Bungay, and a country clergyman's 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 287 
 
 wife to boot, when the hot breath of the desert rolls 
 in like that." 
 
 Alison said that she had not read it. 
 
 "'To preside over a London salon/ was what I 
 once wrote many years ago, in a confession album ; 
 and I still have the same wish. One alters so little 
 au fond. Is it not so ? " 
 
 Alison said it was. 
 
 "Madame Recamier!" exclaimed Mrs. Catt- 
 Wilkins, throwing up her eyes. "It surprises me 
 that the salon is extinct. And talk, I am told, is 
 extinct too : real talk to causer, you understand 
 is no more. Yet I believe," she continued, with 
 a glance at herself in the mirror, "that by the right 
 person it might be revivified and nourished back into 
 prosperity. But of course the right person." 
 
 Alison was tired and took no hint. 
 
 "We have no genius at Bungay," said Mrs. Catt- 
 Wilkins. "A literary society, called the Circle, meets 
 in the winter, once a month ; and Mr. Rider Haggard 
 is quite near. But Mr. Rider Haggard never took 
 me off my feet as Mr. Hichens does. I am a great 
 reader. I don't know how I should endure but for 
 books ; and I am so peculiar, you know, I have so 
 much imaginative sympathy, that when I am read 
 ing a book that is entirely congenial to me I feel I 
 am actually in the room with the author : that we 
 are together, conversing, exchanging ideas. My 
 husband is very good, of course, but he no longer cares 
 to exchange ideas. And as there is no one else here 
 with whom any real intercourse is possible he 
 does not even keep a curate I am driven back on 
 
288 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 my books. The Times library is such a boon to us 
 it came as a positive godsend, for we have no 
 children, you know, and now I have all the new books, 
 which I aways wanted, and my husband has the 
 Times, which he always wanted. I assure you I 
 positively could not eat while that terrible struggle 
 was going on, for fear of losing this great privilege. 
 All this will show you, Miss Ingleside, what it must 
 mean to me to have this pageant here and to meet 
 so many new people. I love new people, and I see 
 so few. I wish the pageant could be held annually. 
 Do speak to Mr. Leslie, Miss Ingleside use your 
 great influence to have it made an annual 
 event. I am sure it might well be. There is a 
 cattle-show here every year, you know." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 IN WHICH MASQUERADERS PROVE THEM 
 SELVES VERY HUMAN 
 
 THE pageant ground was a field just outside the 
 town in which wooden stands had been built 
 on one side of an arena. The green-room was a 
 large tent, and here the ages mingled, monarchs and 
 monks, earls and carles smoking cigarettes and 
 making twentieth-century gossip. The Abbess of 
 the old Benedictine nunnery and Queen Elizabeth 
 discussed Mr. Bernard Shaw's last play, which had 
 just reached Bungay in book form, and which the 
 abbess on her last visit to London had seen and 
 admired ; King Stephen and Henry III were deep 
 in an argument on the rival merits of Fielder and 
 Mr. Brearley on a hard wicket. The total effect was 
 one of chronology run mad. 
 
 Each maid of honour in Queen Elizabeth's suite 
 had a gentleman companion with whom to make 
 some show of animated conversation during the 
 tableau. Alison was fortunate, for her ally was an 
 amusing young artist who had recently married and 
 whose wife was a leading figure in an earlier tableau. 
 They had taken a house in Norfolk, he said, to be 
 out of the way, among total strangers ; but that was 
 a state of things intolerable to the countryside, and 
 u 289 
 
2 9 o MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 cards were falling upon them like autumn leaves. 
 "The neighbourhood," he said, "might be robins, 
 and ourselves the babes in the wood." 
 
 Alison said that she supposed it was always like 
 that. "You needn't return the calls," she added. 
 
 "That's what I say," said the courtier, "but my 
 wife won't have it. ' How can one behave like that ! ' 
 she asks. Well, there's nothing much easier, to 
 my mind, than not calling on people ; but she 
 says not. 'All very well for you in your studio to 
 talk like that ; but what kind of life is there for me 
 if I don't know a soul and everyone thinks I'm stuck 
 up, just because I'm not sociable?" 
 
 Alison agreed that this was sound. 
 
 " So what do you think I'm going to do ? " said the 
 artist. "I'm going to put this advertisement in the 
 Morning Post: 
 
 " 'Wanted by gentleman and lady who are settling 
 in a new part of the country, and wish to .be quiet 
 and private, a presentable couple to occupy an ad 
 jacent cottage and personify them when the neigh 
 bourhood calls.' '' 
 
 He was always entertaining, and Alison enjoyed 
 her Tudor strolls with him as much as Sybil was 
 bored by her partner. Mr. Monkswell, who made 
 conversation with her, was a young Norfolk solicitor 
 with a passion for the stage. He belonged to the 
 Doom School of Drama, and liked to be harrowed 
 and, as he said, "sent away thoughtful." 
 
 "A wonderful engine," he called the theatre. 
 "Books are all very well in their way, of course," 
 he said, "but you can lay them aside so easily. 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 291 
 
 Sermons make an appeal only when the preacher 
 has magnetism : besides, the conditions are wrong. 
 But the stage ! Ah, there you have everything to 
 compel attention. The eye and the ear are both 
 engaged. The electricity of personality thrills you. 
 There is no power like the power of the drama for 
 good or ill. A wonderful engine that is what I 
 always call the stage." 
 
 "Do you go to the Gaiety ? " Sybil asked sweetly. 
 
 Mr. Monkswell was surprised and pained. "I 
 mean the serious stage," he said. "To my mind a 
 play without a problem is merely an entertainment, 
 a beguilement. And of such things I am in no need. 
 I should not have taken any interest in the pageant 
 had it not been for the wish, which I have always 
 had, to see the Bungay people really thinking in 
 telligently and even imaginatively of Bungay. We 
 are taught so vividly through the eye. No one wit 
 nessing this kaleidoscope of the ages (so to speak) 
 can ever think of Bungay again purely as a twentieth- 
 century town." 
 
 "No," said Sybil, "and it will be some time before 
 some of the inhabitants who are taking part in the 
 pageant get back their twentieth-century character. 
 Mr. Gloss, the butcher, for example how funny to 
 ask him for a mutton chop after seeing him capering 
 as Sir Christopher Hatton !" 
 
 "But to return to the stage," said Mr. Monkswell. 
 "Have you seen that amazing play at the Mausoleum 
 Insanity?" 
 
 "No," said Sybil. "I never go to such things." 
 
 "You should," said Mr. Monkswell. "Most in- 
 
292 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 structive. As Aristotle says, the education of the 
 senses by pity and fear. I'll tell you the plot." 
 
 "Please don't," said Sybil. 
 
 "The curtain rises," said Mr. Monkswell, "on an 
 empty stage. I always think that's very dramatic. 
 There's a kind of mystery, almost uncanniness, about 
 an empty stage. It is a private asylum most 
 realistically reproduced : a masterpiece. After a 
 minute or two a knock is heard on the door. There 
 is naturally no one to open it, and so it opens itself, 
 and in comes an old man with a long white beard. 
 Thatis nothing, you say. No ; but listen : he comes 
 in on his hands and knees ! Think of it. It's ter 
 rible. He crawls over to the hearthrug, where there 
 is a plate of milk, and laps it up. He is mad. Don't 
 you think that a remarkable start?" 
 
 "It's uncanny enough," said Sybil. " But I don't 
 admit any particular need for me to see it." 
 
 "And then," Mr. Monkswell continued, "his 
 young and beautiful wife comes in, and when she sees 
 him she screams. You see, he has got away from his 
 keepers. I need hardly say that his madness is very 
 interesting : logical outcome of a morbidly neurotic 
 temperament. In his youth he had sown not only 
 wild oats but tares, you understand. 'The gods 
 are just, you know, and of our pleasant vices 
 You remember the passage ? He has a young wife, 
 but I could hardly tell you the rest." 
 
 "Pray don't trouble," said Sybil. "All those 
 plays are just alike." 
 
 "But the madman is wonderfully played," said 
 Mr. Monkswell. ' ' A most impressive performance. ' ' 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 293 
 
 "Anyone can play a madman," said Sybil. "It's 
 the ordinary sane people that are so difficult." 
 
 And so it went on every afternoon. 
 
 To Ann fell a vigorous young barbarian. 
 
 "I shouldn't be in this rotten oldpag.," he said, 
 "if it weren't for my governor being King Stephen 
 and guaranteeing it. I'm missing some jolly good 
 cricket. It is the sort of thing a fellow ought to go 
 to heaven for. It isn't as if these togs fitted, either. 
 They're the tightest things I ever had on. Are 
 yours tight?" 
 
 Ann said that she had been more comfortable. 
 
 "Comfortable ! I should think so !" he replied. 
 "It's all tommy rot to say that Raleigh laid down 
 his coat in a puddle for Queen Elizabeth to walk on. 
 He couldn't have done it : he couldn't have knelt, 
 not in Tudor costume. I bet you if I were to kneel 
 something would rip. It's all my sister's fault ; 
 she made the rotten things. I told her I should want 
 a shoehorn to get into them ; but she knew best, of 
 course. Last night it took both the groom and the 
 gardener to pull them off me, and to-day I had to be 
 chalked before I could get them on." 
 
 The girls were very popular among the knights and 
 serfs, kings and courtiers. Introductions go by the 
 board at pageants : any costume may talk to any 
 costume ; although to belong to the same period of 
 course confers an extra familiarity. A few of the 
 more select ladies kept on their dignity even under 
 these new and untoward conditions : indeed, they 
 had to, for Bungay is not large enough to provide 
 both pageant and spectators too without calling in 
 
2 9 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 the assistance of trade. Hence a few rencontres such 
 as no really nice people can desire, between vicarage 
 and grocery, consulting room and dispensary, non 
 conformity and the Manor. But (like deck ac 
 quaintanceships) it was tacitly understood that no 
 loss of principle was involved, that no advantage 
 was to be taken of this condescension when the 
 return was made to skirts, trousers, and the normal 
 status ; and therefore all went very amicably. 
 
 There were of course the little unavoidable diffi 
 culties, but they were as essential as the rain. Every 
 pageant has both. Mr. Somers-Gage, for example, 
 the local antiquary and poet, who wrote certain 
 lyrics for Leslie's book, never got over the surgical 
 operation which permanently removed four of his 
 best efforts after the first performance. It is true 
 that it was at the first performance that the critics 
 were present : but none the less Mr. Somers-Gage 
 was hurt, and more than hurt, surprised. It was 
 not so much the elision of the verses that cut him, 
 he explained to every one in turn in a querulous 
 monotone : the pageant-master doubtless knew best ; 
 and no doubt the performance was too long ; what 
 troubled him so was the thought of the impaired idea 
 that strangers now obtained of Bungay's place in 
 history, since the very spirit of Bungay was conveyed 
 in his lost lines. He also felt very deeply not only for 
 the singers who had practised the songs so loyally, 
 but also for poor Mrs. Anguish, who had set them 
 to such charming music. Not that the air might not 
 have been a little more bright and tuneful : for his 
 part, it was a shade too melancholy ; and yet it was 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 295 
 
 a good setting, and he regretted intensely that it 
 should have had to go. No doubt, however, Chap- 
 pell would take it up later, in a historical sequence, 
 and possibly Miss Liza Lehmann or Mr. Plunket 
 Greene, for choice, since the subject was largely 
 martial and needed a male voice would sing it. 
 
 Mrs. Anguish, who took the part of Astraea (who, 
 as every one knows, stands in metal in the market 
 place and was introduced into the pageant very 
 happily as a kind of tutelary spirit), also had some 
 thing to say on the matter ; but her complaint was 
 pitched in a key of perfect resignation, as of one who 
 had long since given up hope of ever getting any kind 
 of justice in this world. For Mrs. Anguish, it seems, 
 had all her life been the victim of musicians' jeal 
 ousies, and nothing but their machinations and the 
 refusal of London to believe that any good thing 
 could come from a Bungay composer had prevented 
 the performance not only of her Saxon opera entitled 
 Olla andPodrida at Covent Garden, but at the Queen 's 
 Hall her tone poem on the subject of the transmi 
 gration of souls. 
 
 All three girls heard the story of Mrs. Anguish's 
 life in precisely similar words, which they were able 
 afterwards to compare and verify, a task of infinitely 
 greater entertainment than the narrative itself. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 IN WHICH AID IS FORTHCOMING FOR A 
 HOUSE LACKING A MOTTO 
 
 ARLTYE GRANGE is finished now," said 
 Leslie one evening. "It wants only one 
 thing a motto. I'm sure the millionnaire would 
 like a motto." 
 
 "In Latin?" Dr. Staminer asked. 
 
 "Oh no, I don't think so," said Leslie. "That 
 would be affectation. English. The question is, 
 shall it be original or an old one ? 
 
 " If I were a poet, I have been thinking, I would try 
 to write mottoes for houses ; for it's a kind of verse 
 that enforces brevity and conciseness, and it enforces 
 also a sort of optimism, or, at any rate, kindliness ; 
 for who would inscribe over his doorway a churlish 
 or hopeless couplet ? One may be only too conscious 
 of disillusion and the necessary end of all things, and 
 yet be no Timon. But there's no particular need to 
 compose a motto, because I've a book here which 
 contains dozens of them. It is called The House, the 
 Garden, and the Steeple. I wish it had been belfry 
 because that's so much prettier a word, but no matter. 
 Let me read you some. I like this, but it might not 
 suit the millionnaire 
 
 296 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 297 
 
 'If this house be fine or not, 
 That was ne'er my serious thought ; 
 But it will have gained its ends 
 Shall I fill it full of friends.' 
 
 American millionnaires don't seem to have so many 
 friends as all that." 
 
 "Besides," said Richard Oast, "it's not true. He 
 wanted it to be fine. It was his serious thought." 
 
 "As serious," said Dr. Staminer, "as a thought 
 can be when it is backed up by no personal interest 
 nothing but cheques." 
 
 "This, then/' said Leslie 
 
 "'Stranger, should this catch your eye, 
 Do a favor passing by : 
 Bless this house e'er you be gone, 
 And it shall bless you passing on.' " 
 
 "Not bad," said Mr. Ingleside. "In fact, good." 
 "Some are a little too self-conscious," said Leslie, 
 "and some a little superior. The householder 
 the castellan creeps in to insist too much on 
 ownership, and sometimes there is a hint of com 
 mand too, as in this 
 
 'If a welcome thou wouldst win, 
 .Wipe your feet and then come in.' 
 
 That is meant to be kind, but it is not impulsively 
 warm enough quite to effect its purpose, for one 
 might very easily pause outside and wonder if the 
 risks of offending such a carefully clean host were 
 worth taking. A prettier sentiment would be this 
 (my own) 
 
298 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 To all a welcome I extend : 
 
 A friend, though muddy, 's still a friend. 
 
 Or this 
 
 With dirty boots or clean, come hi ; 
 Your bottle's waiting in the binn." 
 
 "That sentiment," said Dr. Staminer, "was 
 excellently put in the Methodist hymn which so 
 took Lamb's fancy 
 
 ' Come needy, come guilty, come loathesome and bare ; 
 You can't come too filthy come just as you are.' 
 
 The home there is the heavenly home, of course ; 
 but the sentiment would suit a Tudor grange none 
 the less." 
 
 Leslie continued his reading. "This is prettily 
 put," he said - 
 
 "'We should a guest love, while he loves to stay, 
 But when he likes not, give him loving way.' 
 
 And this too 
 
 'Thro' this wide opening gate 
 None come too early, none return too late/ 
 
 But that surely is a sentiment which would come 
 more fittingly from a grateful rhyming guest than 
 a host, in whose mouth it has just a hint of com 
 placency. It's the sort of thing for a visitors' book. 
 And that reminds me there is no visitors' book at 
 Marltye. I must order one, to be bound in vellum, 
 I think, with illegible lettering. He'll like that." 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 299 
 
 1 ' What about the motto of the Abbey of Theleme ?" 
 Dr. Staminer asked. 
 
 "Well, here it is," said Leslie, "on the next page 
 
 'In this my house I live att ease, 
 And here I doe whate'er I please.' 
 
 But did he, I wonder, that old builder? Did he 
 do what he pleased ?" 
 
 "Probably not," said Mr. Ingleside. "It is not 
 timber, brick, or stone (as Cowper would say) that 
 grants such liberties." 
 
 "Another old builder," Leslie continued, "writes 
 
 'Wouldst thou put happiness to proof, 
 Then always live 'neath thine own roof/ 
 
 But that, if genuinely obeyed, would strike the death 
 blow to hospitality, because no one could ever visit 
 at all. There you have, I should imagine, a gen 
 uinely ancient couplet ; but in the following I detect 
 a modern note 
 
 ' Give this house, oh traveller, pray, 
 A blessing as you pass this way. 
 And if you've time, I beg your pardon, 
 While you're at it bless this garden.'" 
 
 "I don't care for that at all," said Dr. Stammer. 
 "Too colloquial and jaunty." 
 
 "I've been composing one or two," said Christie, 
 "while you've been reading. "How do you like 
 this ? 
 
 This edifice of wood and stone, 
 Since mine the cost, is called my own ; 
 But you who shelter here, no less 
 My house and all it holds possess." 
 
300 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 "'Good," said Dr. Staminer, "I like that." 
 
 "I like it too," said Mr. Ingleside, "but I don't 
 think you had better have it cut in stone, Leslie." 
 
 " Why not?" 
 
 "Because America is simply alive with poets," 
 said Mr. Ingleside, "and if an original motto is to 
 be used, Mr. Thayer will want to give the job to a 
 compatriot. My American friend Mr. Waler knows 
 personally three hundred and sixty-five poets, one 
 for every day in the year ; and these little four-lined 
 things are just shucks to them ; they write them all 
 the time. So you had better either stick to Latin 
 or something very well known, or wait for the 
 arrival of the owner." 
 
 "Never mind, Christie, give us some more," said 
 Leslie. 
 
 "I've only done one other," said Christie, "yet 
 
 The fire's alight ; at eight we dine : 
 
 Come in, good friend, and choose your wine. 
 
 I wrote that as a counterblast to the lady who was 
 so keen about us wiping our boots." 
 
 "I tried too," said Dr. Staminer. "I wrote this 
 
 Madam, this trifling mud forget ; 
 
 But have you warmed the claret yet?" 
 
 "That goes home," said Mr. Ingleside. "A 
 rebuke in the right spirit." 
 
 "I'm glad I bought this book," said Leslie, "since 
 it makes you all so clever. Now for the garden 
 mottoes. They belong to sundials, of course, and 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 301 
 
 they are nearly always sad. Now and then, however, 
 a note of hope breaks in. Here is one 
 
 "Tis always morning somewhere in the world/ 
 
 That is gayer, but on one side of it is this 
 
 1 Time wastes our bodies and our wits, 
 But we waste time, and so we're quits/ 
 
 and on the other this, which epitomizes all sundial 
 lore 
 
 'When comes the sun the vanish'd shade appears, 
 But ne'er to us return our vanish'd years.' 
 
 Too true. So true that it is hardly worth repeating. 
 I prefer 
 
 "Tis always morning somewhere in the world."* 
 
 "Or," said Dr. Staminer, "Sancho Panza's mellow 
 encouragement 
 
 'There is still sun on the wall/" 
 
 " Here's another gloomy one," said Leslie. "Too 
 dreary for me - 
 
 'We are travelling each towards the sunset.' 
 
 Why should it be the sundial's special mission to 
 give pain ? But that's nothing compared with this 
 sentence of six words which positively makes one 
 creep 
 
 'It is later than you think.' 
 
302 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Genial devil to put that in the middle of a nice gar 
 den so that you might come on it suddenly on a 
 summer's day ! 
 
 ' It is later than you think/ 
 
 Christie, can't you give us an antidote ? " 
 "How do you like this ?" Christie asked 
 
 " I'm useful only in the sun : 
 
 A cloud, and all my work is done. 
 Or 
 
 I chatter only in the light. 
 You've more philosophy at night. 
 
 Those seem to me, by delimiting its powers, to 
 depreciate it as a monitor." 
 
 "I have done one too," said Mr. Ingleside 
 
 "Thou com'st to me to learn the hours ? 
 Ah, foolish one, 
 Leave time alone, 
 And happy be among the flowers." 
 
 " I like that," said Leslie. " I shall adopt that for 
 the sundial, whatever happens." 
 
 "And the belfry?" asked Dr. Staminer. 
 
 "The belfry section is dull," said Leslie; "but 
 here is a pleasant couplet for Alison's wedding. 
 'When' these words are engraved on the bells, 
 you know 
 
 'When female virtue weds with manly worth, 
 We catch the rapture and we spread it forth.' 
 
 Pope, I think." 
 
 "More like Crabbe," said Mr. Ingleside. "I 
 seem to detect worsted stockings in it." 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 IN WHICH A LOST VOICE IS HEARD, AND 
 WE MEET WITH MR. AND THE MISSES 
 THAMES 
 
 IT was only a month or so before Alison's wedding, 
 and her father was beginning to see the day 
 ahead of him like a menace, and was correspondingly 
 depressed. And then one morning the postman 
 brought a letter from Askill that rarest of events 
 which seemed in no way to lighten his gloom. 
 
 "A sprained ankle," it began, "gives me a chance to 
 write : but don't expect much. 
 
 "The postmark will give me away ; but it is likely that 
 you have already heard of my present abode. There are 
 no secrets on a planet only 25,000 miles in circumference. 
 
 "Let me say at once that Oregon is as wonderful a country 
 as I always dreamed it. Almost. Of course nothing quite 
 comes up to our hopes, just as nothing quite fulfils our fears ; 
 but Oregon is all right. The word had a fascination for me 
 even when quite a child I must have told you and I 
 never shook it off. Oregon : don't you feel it ? You can 
 breathe here. 
 
 "You will be amused to hear that I built my hut myself. 
 With these hands I cut down the trees and trimmed them. 
 Not bad for one who might, if he had stuck to it, be now a 
 K.C. that is, if you still have a king in need of counsel. 
 
 "I get very little news, and when I hear it I find I did 
 not want it. But I should like to see you again. 
 
 "How different we can be, we rats in the rat-trap! A 
 man was here a few months back with a bundle of old papers. 
 
 303 
 
3 o 4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 He read and re-read them day and night. In the midst of this 
 country and this air he read and re-read old papers. Weekly 
 things for the most part, but a few dailies too. He said 
 they made him feel like a citizen again, reminded him of 
 home. Advertisements for servants he read them too. 
 The very words 'housemaid,' 'parlour maid/ 'butler/ 
 gave him a thrill. They recalled ham and eggs, and hot water 
 for shaving, and old brandy, and everything he has not had 
 for years and apparently wants. And all the while the snow 
 was on the mountain-tops and the air had pines in it, and 
 while he was reading aloud a paragraph I couldn't stop 
 him, hadn't the heart to about the Bishop of London's 
 success at golf somewhere, an eagle was hovering overhead. 
 He never saw it. 
 
 "The fellow had his uses, though, in spite of his eternal 
 chatter about the living tomb he called home. In one of 
 his papers I caught sight of the announcement of the comple 
 tion of your Horace. If that means that you are done with 
 obligations for awhile, take a long holiday and come over here. 
 It is rough, but you shall not suffer. Things can be arranged 
 for a London gentleman even in a log hut 3000 feet above 
 the sea-level. You will lose your Thames, but the sound of a 
 rushing torrent shall never be absent. You will lose your 
 towns and chimneys, but we have a range of snow mountains. 
 You will lose your books, but your eyes shall not go idle and 
 your grey matter will gain. Also you will meet a philosopher 
 at once nearer the good earth and nearer the stars than your 
 cautious and calculating (though long-lived) Q. H. F. ever 
 was : four-footed (of course) and grizzly-haired by name, 
 Sage ; by genus, dog. Also you shall breathe, which no 
 Londoner ever did yet. And most of all, you shall almost 
 forget the rat-trap." 
 
 So Askill wrote, from his eyrie, and Mr. Ingleside 
 was conscious of a touch of nostalgia for this distant 
 recluse and his fastidious aloofness. Coming as it 
 did upon the imminent loss of his latest friend the 
 closest since Askill went away the letter depressed 
 
ME. INGLESIDE 305 
 
 him visibly, and Alison was in her turn depressed too. 
 Indeed, she had thought not a little lately of the 
 selfishness inevitable, of course, and natural 
 (like all selfishness), but selfishness none the less 
 of this marriage of hers, taking her, as it was, at so 
 early an age, right away from her father ; and just, 
 too, when he was, as she could plainly see, beginning 
 to appreciate her presence. The portion of beer and 
 skittles that is set aside for the self-conscious in this 
 life is by no means Benjaminic. 
 
 "Do let's have a little excursion all our own," she 
 said, crossing to Mr. Ingleside and taking his arm. 
 " Not even Henry Thrace. Just you and Ann and 
 I." 
 
 "The last we shall ever have," said Mr. Ingleside, 
 who never funked the truth : in fact, rather liked it 
 in its grimmer aspect. 
 
 "I don't see why not," said Alison. "You talk as 
 if marriage were death." 
 
 "No," he said, "not death; but nothing is ever 
 the same again. You will come and see me, and I 
 perhaps shall go and see you, but it won't be you 
 it won't be my Alison, but Bryan's and it won't be 
 me, it will be Bryan's father-in-law. These are iron 
 facts : nothing can alter them." 
 
 "Oh, I dare say," said Alison. "But there are 
 plenty of iron facts that, even if they cannot be 
 altered, can be ignored, at any rate until the time 
 is ripe. Don't anticipate them. Let's be a little 
 happy again and forget that I am going to ruin 
 everything. Let's go and discover some really nice 
 old town, where we are perfect strangers, and not say 
 
3o6 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 a word about our real life at all. We'll be brother 
 and sisters if you like." 
 
 "What a joke !" said Ann. 
 
 " All right," said Mr. Ingleside, "and we'll change 
 our name to make it more real. We'll go as Mr. and 
 the Misses" he looked out of the window 
 " Mr. and the Misses Thames." 
 
 "But where shall we go ?" Ann asked. 
 
 "Why not try that place that Ramer is always rav 
 ing about ? " said Mr. Ingleside. " Alfriston. Some 
 where in Sussex, between Eastbourne and Lewes. 
 Go round, Tansy, and ask him all about it, but 
 don't say why, or he'll come too." 
 
 And it was Alfriston to which the Thames family 
 made their way ; changing at Berwick, on the follow 
 ing Saturday afternoon, into a decrepit vehicle known 
 as a fly, and moving with every shuffle of the old 
 brown horse nearer and nearer to the green hills of 
 Sussex and the ancient Star Inn which was to be 
 their home ; and every moment their spirits rose, as 
 the air of the river valley became sweeter and fresher, 
 and the soft contours of the Downs soothed and the 
 great height of the Downs excited. 
 
 There is only one Alfriston, and not unwisely is it 
 called the Darling of the Downs, which surround 
 and cherish it : a small village with one beautiful 
 ancient street, and a ruined market cross at the end 
 of it under a chestnut tree, and all the old tumbled 
 facades covered with a yellow wash which takes the 
 light of morning and takes the light of noon and takes 
 the light of evening with equal serenity and charm. 
 In this street is the Star, one of the oldest inns in 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 307 
 
 England. The church the Cathedral of the 
 Downs, it has been called is below, nearer the 
 river, massed up on a mound, with a venerable 
 clergy house of the middle ages close by it, and then 
 nothing but the river and the valley and the hills. 
 
 Alfriston's industry is training, and in its bars 
 hung with coloured prints of famous winners little 
 men with bowed legs discuss the chances of two- 
 year-olds, and strings of beautiful creatures with 
 skins that daunt the sun climb the hills from the 
 stable by the green. 
 
 Such is Alfriston, and though on fine Saturdays 
 and Sundays in the summer it has to pay the penalty 
 of being so venerable and so lovely, it recovers its 
 tranquillity and fastidious privacy immediately the 
 last brake and motor-car have gone. 
 
 Here they stayed for six days, and were really 
 happy in exploring the neighbourhood one day 
 walking to Polegate, by way of Lullington's toy 
 church and the Long Man of Wilmington ; one day 
 climbing to Eastbourne over Beachy Head ; one day 
 over the beautiful turf to Southease Halt, and there 
 taking train for Lewes, that wind-swept city of the 
 hills, with perpendicular Georgian streets, and a 
 grey castle over all, and sentry windmills on guard, 
 and sheep surrounding it like a peaceful army. 
 
 It was a point of honour with them not to talk 
 about Alison's marriage ; and in order to keep the 
 conversation from too personal topics, Mr. Thames 
 invented a number of rivalries and sweepstakes which 
 lent a new interest to their walks although little 
 enough in that strange and fascinating country was 
 
3 o8 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 needed. Thus, they competed as to which could 
 find the greatest number of flowers in an hour ; they 
 guessed how long it would take (distances are very 
 deceptive in those hills) to reach a given summit ; 
 and so forth. 
 
 Those were the long excursions. Shorter ones 
 took them to the neighbouring villages little more 
 than straw yards and churches : Aliciston, with its 
 ancient dovecot for a thousand birds and its vener 
 able barn surely the greatest barn in England all 
 a wonder of beams and pillars within, and all a won 
 der of warm, weather-beaten and moss-covered tiles 
 without : within as beautiful and sombre as a 
 cathedral, without as comforting as a hill ; Ber 
 wick, islanded on its mound ; Firle,, in the shadow 
 of its precipitous Beacon and nobility ; and down 
 the valley to the sea, where the Cuckmere joins the 
 channel, and where a hundred years ago, when life 
 was worth living, the smugglers used to land their 
 kegs on dark nights. But they liked the hills the 
 best, for their turf and their thyme and their purple 
 scabious and their exhilaration ; and also for the 
 conversations which they offered with friendly 
 shepherds and friendlier dogs old wind-worn, 
 shrewd men who had never been to London, and 
 possibly could not read, but knew all that was need 
 ful. 
 
 Ramer was naturally not a little hurt when he 
 heard where they had been, and he had his revenge 
 in depreciating all the beauties of which they told 
 him, and emphasizing the places they had omitted to 
 see. "To think," he said, "that you never went to 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 309 
 
 Ripe ! Do you know that Ripe has four Tudor 
 houses in perfect condition ? Do you know that you 
 could have bought your lunch at a grocer's shop 
 where Queen Elizabeth might have stayed !" 
 
 "I wish I'd known where you were going," said 
 ,Dr. Staminer. "I have a friend in Lewes who col 
 lects incunabula. He has the finest example of the 
 Hypnerotomachia in existence. He would have been 
 glad to welcome any friend of mine." 
 
 "Did you ever hear of a Mr. Thames there?" 
 Mr. Ingleside asked. 
 
 "No," said Dr. Staminer. "Why?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing," said Mr. Ingleside. 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 IN WHICH TWO YOUNG PEOPLE PREPARE 
 TO BE VERY HAPPY AND WHAT ELSE 
 MATTERS ? 
 
 ALISON and Bryan did not care to go abroad 
 for their honeymoon. The routine horrified 
 them : the Royal Warden, the long journey, the 
 waiters, the other honeymooners, and all the rest of 
 it. Instead they took rooms in a cottage in a little 
 South Coast river harbour, and Mr. Ingleside lent 
 them the Caprice, although Bryan very properly ar 
 ranged for a sailing boat too. 
 
 Bryan had been brought up near a small harbour, 
 and now that he was to be happy and idle, he had 
 found himself longing to renew those early impres 
 sions and share them with Alison. He had hired the 
 sailing boat not merely to sail in, but to be in : they 
 would spend their days in her, whether out at sea or 
 on her sheltered moorings : at ease on her deck they 
 would command the harbour both with eye and ear. 
 Bryan had an instinct, had he not? There is no 
 holiday like that ! How often on the weary night 
 watches on his great liner had he longed for the time 
 when he could enjoy such repose as this still 
 within call of his chosen element. He would mo 
 mentarily shut his eyes and hear again the harbour 
 sounds and see the harbour sights and feel the har- 
 
 310 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 311 
 
 bour movements those dreamy, hypnotic move 
 ments. Most of all would he feel the harbour 
 sun and acquire the harbour friendliness. 
 
 The harbour friendliness ! The open, level gaze 
 of men in boats not gentry in boats, but boatmen : 
 eyes that have gazed at the horizon so long that they 
 look straight ahead by nature ! The helpfulness of 
 the men in boats ; their gentleness ; the clean grub 
 biness of them (for there is no dirt, there are only 
 smears of tar, and patches) ; their interest (seeing 
 everything, even with the backs of their heads) ; 
 their abysmal deliberateness ! He smiled as he 
 thought of his little harbour's deliberateness : the 
 men at work, without hurry, without knowledge of 
 time, only of tide. He saw this one painting a hull ; 
 that one scraping a mast ; another mending a net ; 
 another polishing brass ; another his head alone 
 visible shaving ; another ferrying a passenger 
 across ; and others hammering in the shipbuilder's 
 yard. But all alike deliberate, all part of Nature, 
 and most whistling. He saw the boats coming in 
 and going out ; he heard sails going up and coming 
 down ; he saw mud-flats being covered with the 
 beautiful water ; the departure of the beautiful 
 water and the exposure of the mud-flats ; he heard 
 the cries and wails of the sea-birds. No wonder, 
 then, that when the time came to choose a place in 
 which to spend the honeymoon he suggested this 
 little harbour. 
 
 The wedding was to be a very quiet one ; but on 
 the evening before it Mr. Ingleside entertained a 
 number of friends. Old Mrs. Ingleside and Miss 
 
3 i2 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 Airey were there : nice rooms had been found for 
 them at the Grand Hotel, close by. 
 
 "It's a long time," said the old lady, " since I was 
 at a wedding. Not since poor Clara Elphick's. 
 She was married in May, I remember, and on the 
 1 3th, too, and every one was saying how unlucky it 
 was. Unlucky indeed, for I saw in the paper that 
 her eldest son lost his father-in-law only last week. 
 But I'm sorry there are no bride's-maids, my dear. 
 I like to see the bride's-maids, pretty things, and 
 wonder which of them will go next. Nor pages. 
 Not that I care very much for pages, although 
 they're so fashionable. And no cake either, and 
 no rice, I'm told. Well, well, times change ; but 
 I shouldn't have thought myself properly married 
 if there hadn't been rice and old shoes. Such a 
 number of old shoes, my dear. Your grandfather 
 had so many young friends, you know, all full of 
 fun. 
 
 "But that's all changed now, it seems, and every 
 one has become thoughtful and anxious on wedding 
 days. I suppose it's the fault of that foreigner who 
 wrote the dismal plays : I forget his name oh yes, 
 Ibsen, wasn't it ? A Dane, I think : the same coun 
 try as our dear queen. Wonderful how Denmark 
 crops up nowadays. They tell me at the grocer's 
 that Danish bacon and eggs are better than the best 
 English. Still, I consider his plays did a lot of harm. 
 So gloomy. But then I suppose the Danes are a 
 gloomy race : Hamlet was a Dane, you know, my 
 dear. I never knew one personally, but a very inter 
 esting foreigner used to come to our house when we 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 313 
 
 were in Portland Place. A Signer Cosavella, but 
 I think he was Italian. 
 
 "Well, well, my dear, we must be getting back to 
 the hotel now. I shan't have a chance to speak 
 to you again until you're Mrs. Hearne. I hope 
 you'll be very happy, my dear, and live to use the 
 teapot for many years. China tea, they tell me, 
 is all the fashion now ; but I still like the Ceylon the 
 best. But you must please yourselves ; don't let 
 me influence you. Good-night, my sweet, good 
 night." 
 
 It was not until Mrs. Ingleside and Miss Airey 
 had gone that Miss Larpent arrived at once 
 taking her place, as she did wherever she went, as 
 the guest of honour. She established a court in 
 Mr. Ingleside's study, and during the evening sent 
 for the young couple to receive her final blessing. 
 
 " And so you are to be married to-morrow," she said, 
 as they stood before her. "Well, I hope you will be 
 very happy, and you will if you take my advice. A 
 considerable experience of other people's married life 
 and some gift of observation have qualified me to 
 scatter good counsel. 
 
 "To you, Alison, I would say : Never have a 
 headache on the same day as your husband, or, if you 
 must, be sure to have it, or rather to mention it, first. 
 Husbands and wives must never be seedy together. 
 
 "To you, Bryan, I would say : When Alison says 
 to you, as she will, that she has a dreadful headache, 
 be very careful, however you may feel, to affect to be 
 perfectly well and anxious to look after her. 
 
 "To both of you I would say : Be very chary of 
 
3 i4 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 using the word 'always' when you are criticizing 
 each other, as you sometimes must. 
 
 "To you, Alison, my dear, I would say : Never in 
 the middle of one of Bryan's dinner- table stories give 
 an order to a servant ; and if he begins by saying that 
 you went to the theatre on Friday, never remind him 
 that it was really Thursday." 
 
 "But, dear Miss Larpent," said Alison, "you 
 don't really mean that little things like that could 
 make us seriously fall out? " 
 
 "My dear Alison," said the old lady, "I mean it 
 absolutely. The cockle-shell of marriage is the least 
 seaworthy of all the vessels on the ocean of life. A 
 breath will capsize it. 
 
 "And you, Bryan, remember this : don't be 
 sarcastic. Sarcasm in marriage is the thin end of the 
 alienation wedge. If, however, you must be sarcas 
 tic and you probably will, for it is the modern 
 English husband's method of beating his wife 
 you, Alison, must be extremely careful not to be 
 sarcastic too. A household can just stand one 
 sarcastic inmate : two, and it must fall. No rightly 
 constituted sarcastic husband could possibly stand 
 sarcasm from his wife. 
 
 "To you, Bryan, I would say: Remember the 
 chocolate shops ; engrave Alison's size in gloves on 
 your heart ; arrange your walk home so that it 
 includes a florist's. 
 
 "To you, Alison, I would say : Try to get a 
 housemaid who can also cook ; it means so much in 
 emergencies. 
 
 "Finally" and here the old lady became more 
 
MR. INGLESIDE 315 
 
 serious and indeed a little tender "finally, 
 remember this, that if you guard the pence of love, 
 the pounds will take care of themselves. Don't 
 be careless of the pence of love : keep up the little 
 courtesies and though tfulnesses ; keep up, as long 
 as you possibly can, even the little vocabulary 
 for I will wager you have one. The pounds of love 
 will take care of themselves if you watch these 
 trifling pence." 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Mr. Ingleside, as Alison and 
 he paced up and down on the Embankment after 
 all the guests had gone. "Be as happy as you can, 
 and ask me to come and see you only when Bryan 
 is away. He will have to be away sometimes ; and 
 if he hasn't, send him away. The more a husband 
 goes away from his home and his wife, in reason, the 
 more he will think of them. The happiest husbands 
 are commercial travellers, who go through life 
 spending delightful week-ends with their wives. In 
 any reincarnation on this globe that may be vouch 
 safed to me I hope to be a commercial traveller 
 principally for that reason. 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear child. I have seen very 
 little of you, and now I am going to see less ; but I 
 love you very much, and I want you to be happy. I 
 have arranged with my bankers to pay you a hun 
 dred and four pounds a year, on the understanding 
 that not a penny of it is spent on household ex 
 penses." 
 
 It was a night of stars, and very still, and the river 
 was silent, without a ripple. Alison said nothing ; 
 but she had her thoughts. She and her father were 
 
316 MR. INGLESIDE 
 
 more alike than other people or even he supposed, 
 and there were hidden resemblances to him within 
 her that probably would not come to the surface 
 until she was much older. She felt for him now, for 
 she saw with a flash of insight, possibly not to be 
 recaptured for years, how lonely he was, and how 
 little she really wanted to leave him, and how much 
 more interesting he was, with all his detachments, 
 than her nice but limited sailor. And then fortu 
 nately the veil dropped again, and she was again a 
 simple girl, happy that to-morrow or rather to 
 day, for it was very late she was to be married 
 to her lover and to have a home of her own. "Dear," 
 she said, and kissed her father in a new way ; and 
 then he took her to the door and left her. 
 
 It was long before he entered the house himself. 
 He resumed his walk by the inscrutable tide and 
 thought with renewed longing of Askill. 
 
Other Books by E. V. LUCAS 
 
 Over Bemerton's 
 
 A Novel 
 
 Decorated cloth, $1.50 
 
 After seeing modern problems vividly dissected, and after the 
 excitement of thrilling adventure stories, it will be positively 
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 Cloth, I2mo, $1.50 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
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 Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
Anthologies of Varied Charm Collected by E. V. LUCAS 
 
 The Gentlest Art 
 
 A Choice of Letters by Entertaining Hands 
 
 An anthology of letter writing, so human, interesting, and amus 
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 Cloth, i6mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35 
 
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 A Further Collection of Entertaining Letters 
 
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 Some Friends of Mine 
 
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 PUBLISHED BY 
 
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 A Wanderer in London 
 
 With sixteen illustrations in color by Mr. Nelson Dawson 
 and thirty-six reproductions of great pictures 
 
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 and a knack of expressing exactly the shade of pleasure the 
 cultivated traveller has felt and perhaps been unable to put 
 into words. 
 
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 Character and Comedy 
 
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