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 THE LIBRARY 
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 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 LOYELL'S 
 
 WESTMINSTER 
 SERIES 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, Neio York, as second class mctter. 
 
 THE CASE OF 
 
 GENL OPLE AND 
 
 LADY CAMPER 
 
 BY 
 
 GbORGE MEREDITH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MliN \\. LOVF.LL COMPANY 
 I 50 Worth St., cor. Mission Plack 
 
 SUBSCRIPTION, fia.OO.
 
 BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHORS. 
 
 LOVELL'S 
 
 Westminster Series. 
 
 1. Her Last Throw. By the Duchess - - 25 
 
 2. The Moment After. By Eobert Buchanan - 25 
 
 3. The Case of Gen'l Ople and Lady Camper. By 
 
 George Meredith 25 
 
 4. The Story of the Gadsbys. By Rudyard 
 
 Kipling 25 
 
 5. The Doctor's Secret. By Rita - - - 25 
 
 6. The Tale of Chloe. By George Meredith - 25 
 
 7. An Old Courtyard. By Katherine S. Macquoid 25 
 
 8. Frances ELane's Fortune. By L. T. Meade - 25 
 
 9. Passion the Plaything. By R. Murray Gilchrist, 25 
 
 10, City and Suburban. By Florence Warden - 25 
 
 11. A Romance of the Wire. By M. Beth am - 
 
 Edwards 25 
 
 Any of the above sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers 
 
 JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
 
 150 WORTH STREET, NEW YOR 
 
 n
 
 THE 
 
 Case. of General Ople and Laflj Canijer.
 
 THE CASE OP 
 
 GENERAL OPLE AND 
 LADY CAMPER. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH, 
 
 AuiHi*R OF "Chloe," "Diana of the Crossways," "The 
 Egoist," etc., etc. 
 
 ♦ •♦ 
 
 New York: 
 
 JOHN \V. LOVELL COMPANY, 
 
 150 Worth Street, cor. Mission Place.
 
 Copyright, 1890, 
 
 HY 
 
 JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY
 
 
 The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 An excursion beyond the immediate sub- 
 urbs of London, projected long before his 
 pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in 
 fact, ever since his retirement from active serv- 
 ice, led General Ople across a famous com- 
 mon, with which he fell in love at once, to a 
 lofty highway aloug the borders of a park, for 
 which he promptly exch:inged his heart, and 
 so gradually within a stone's-throw or so of 
 the river-side, where he determined not solely 
 to bestow his affections but to settle for life. 
 It may be seen that he was of an impulsive 
 temperament, though he had thought fit to 
 loosen his sword-belt. The pony-carriage, 
 however, had been hired for the very special 
 purpose of helping him to pass in review the 
 
 9160r^
 
 6 The Case of General Ople 
 
 lines of what he called country houses, cot- 
 tages, or even sites for building, not too re- 
 mote from sweet London; and as when Coelebs 
 goes forth intending to pursue and obtain, 
 there is no doubt of his bringing home a wife, 
 the circumstance that there stood a house to 
 let, in an airy situation, at a certain distance 
 in hail of the metropolis he worshiped, was 
 enough to kindle the general's enthusiasm. 
 He would have taken the first he saw had it 
 not been for his daughter, who accompanied, 
 and at the age of eighteen was about to under- 
 take the management of his house. Fortune, 
 under Elizabeth Ople's guiding restraint, 
 directed, him to an epitome of the comforts. 
 The place he fell upon is only to be described 
 in the tongue of auctioneers, and for the first 
 week after taking it he modestly followed 
 them by terming it hijou. In time, when his 
 own imagination, instigated by a state cf some- 
 thing more than mere contentment, had been 
 at work on it, he chose the happy phrase " a 
 gentlemanly residence. " For it was, he de-
 
 and Lady Camper. 7 
 
 clared, a small estate. There was a lodge to 
 it, resembling two seutry-boxes forced into 
 union, where in one half an old couple sat 
 bent, ia the other half lay compressed; there 
 was a back-drive to discoverable stables; there 
 was a bit of grass that would have appeared a 
 meadow if magnified; and there was a wall 
 round the kitchen garden aud a strip of wood 
 round the flower garden. The prying of the 
 outside world was impossible. Comfort, for- 
 tification, and gentlemanliness made the place, 
 as tl;p general said, an ideal English home. 
 
 The compass of the estate was half an acre, 
 and perhaps a perch or two, just the size for 
 the hugging love General Ople was happiest 
 in giving. He wisely decided to retain the 
 old couple at the lodge, whose members were 
 used to restriction, and also not to purchase a 
 cow, that would have wanted pasture. With 
 the old man, while the old woman attended to 
 the bell at the handsome front entrance with 
 its gilt spiked gates, he undertook to do the 
 gardening— a business he delighted in, so long
 
 8 The Case of General Ople 
 
 as he could perform it in a gentlemanly man- 
 ner; that is to say, so long as he was not over- 
 looked. He was perfectly concealed from the 
 road. Only one house, and curiously indeed, 
 only one window of the house, and further to 
 show the protection extended to Douro Lodge, 
 that window an attic, overlooked him. And 
 the house was empty. 
 
 The house (for who can hope, and who 
 should desire a commodious house with con- 
 servatories, aviaries, pond, and boat-shed, and 
 other joys of wealth, to remain unoccupied) 
 was taken two seasons later by a lady of whom 
 Fame, rolling like a dust-cloud from the place 
 she had left, reported that she was eccentric. 
 The word is uninstructive; it does not fright- 
 en. In a lady of a certain age it is rather a 
 characteristic of aristocracy in retirement. 
 And at least it implies wealth. 
 
 General Ople was very anxious to see her. 
 He had the sentiment of humble respectful- 
 ness toward aristocracy, and there was that in 
 riches which roused his admiration. London,
 
 and Lady Camper. 9 
 
 for instauce, he was not afraid to say he 
 '' thought the wonder of the world. He re- 
 marked, in additioD, that the sacking of Lon- 
 don would suftice to make every common 
 soldier of the foreigii army of occupation an in- 
 dependent gentleman for the term of his natu- 
 ral days. But this is a nightmare! said he, 
 startling himself with an abhorrent dream of 
 envy of those enriched invading officers: for 
 Booty is the one lovely thing which the mili- 
 tary mind can contemplate in the abstract. 
 His habit was to go of! in an explosion of 
 heavy sighs when he had delivered himself so 
 far, like a man at war with himself. 
 
 The lady arrived in time: she received the 
 cards of the neighborhood, and signalized her 
 eccentricity by paying no attention to them, 
 excepting the card of a Mrs. Baerens, who had 
 audience of her at once. By express arrange- 
 ment, the card of General Wilson Ople, as her 
 nearest neighbor, followed the card of the rec- 
 tor, the social head of the district; and the 
 rector was granted an interview, but Lady
 
 10 The Case of General OpU 
 
 Camper was not at home to General Ople. 
 " She is of snjDerior station to me, and may 
 not wish to associate with me," the gejieral 
 modestly said. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was wounded; for in spite 
 of himself, and without the slightest wish to 
 obtrude his own person, as he explained the 
 meaning that he had in him, his rank in the 
 British army forced him to be the representa- 
 tive of it in the absence of any one of a sujie- 
 rior rank. So that he was professionally hart, 
 and his heart being in his profession, it may 
 be honestly stated that he was wounded in his 
 feelings, though he said no, and insisted on 
 the distinction. Once a day his walk for con- 
 stitutional exercise compelled him to pass be- 
 fore Lady Camper's windows, which were not 
 bashfully withdrawn, as he said humorously 
 of Douro Lodge, in the seclusion of half-pay, 
 but bowed out imperiously, militarily, like a 
 generalissimo on horseback, and had full com- 
 mand of the road and levels up to the swelling 
 park foliage. He went by at a smart stride.
 
 and Lady Camper. 11 
 
 with a delicate depression of his upright bear- 
 ing, as though hastening to greet a friend in 
 view, whoso hand was getting ready for the 
 shake. This much would have been observed 
 by a house-maid; and considering his fine fig- 
 ure and the peculiar shining silveriness of his 
 hair, the acceleration of his gait was notice- 
 able. When he drove by, the pony's right eai- 
 was flicked to the exti-eme indignation of the 
 mettlesome little animal. It ensued in conse- 
 quence that the general was borne flying under 
 the eyes of Lady Camper, and such pace dis- 
 pleasing him, he reduced it invariably at a step 
 or two beyond the corner of her grounds. 
 
 But neither he nor his daughter Elizabeth 
 attached importance to so trivial a circum- 
 stance. The general punctiliously avoided 
 glancing at the windows during the jiassage 
 past them, whether in his wild career or on 
 foot. Elizabeth took a side-shot as one looks 
 at a way-side tree. Their speech concerning 
 Lady Camper was an exchange of common- 
 places over bur loneliness; and this condition
 
 12 The Case of General Ople 
 
 of hers was the more perplexing to General 
 Opie on his hearing from his daughter that 
 the ladj was very fine-looking, and not so very 
 old, as he had fancied eccentric ladies must 
 be. 
 
 The rector's account of her, too, excited 
 the mind. She had informed him bluntly 
 that she now and then went to church to save 
 appearances, but was not a church-goer, find- 
 ing it impossible to support the length of the 
 service; might, however, be reckoned in sub- 
 scriptions for all the charities, and left her 
 pew open to poor people, and none but the 
 poor. She had traveled over Europe, and 
 knew the East. 
 
 Sketches in water-colors of the scenes she 
 had visited adorned hor walls, and a pair of 
 pistols, that she had found useful, she affirmed, 
 lay on the writing-desk in her drawing-room. 
 General Ople gathered from the rector that 
 she had a great contempt for men; yet it was 
 curiously varied with lamentations over the 
 weakness of women. " Really she can not
 
 ^ mid Lady Camper'. 13 
 
 possibly be an example of that," said the gen- 
 eral, thinking of the pistols. 
 
 Now we learn from those who have studied 
 women on the chess-board, and know what 
 ebony or ivory will do along jiarticular lines, 
 or hopping, that men much talked about will 
 take possession of their thonghts; and certain- 
 ly the fact may be accepted for one of their 
 moves. But the whole fabric of our knowl- 
 edge of them, which we are taught to build on 
 this originally acute perception, is shattered 
 when we hear that it is exactly the same, in 
 the same degree, in proportion to the amount 
 of work they have to do, exactly the same 
 with men and their thoughts in the case of 
 women much talked about. So it was with 
 General Ople, and nothing is left for me to 
 say except that there is broader ground than 
 the chess-board. I am earnest in protesting 
 the similarity of the singular couples on com- 
 mon earth, because otherwise the general is in 
 peril of the accusation that he is a feminine 
 character; and not simply was he a gallant
 
 14 The Case of General 02)te 
 
 officer and a veteran in gunpowder strife, he 
 was also (and it is an extraordinary thing that 
 a genuine humility did not prevent it, and did 
 survive it) a lord and conqueror of the sex. 
 He had done his pretty bit of mischief, all in 
 the way of honor, of course, but hearts had 
 knocked. And now, with his bright white 
 hair, his close-brushed white whiskers on a 
 face burned brown, his clear-cut features, and 
 a winning droop of his eyelids, there was pow- 
 der in him still — if not shot. 
 
 There was a lamentable susceptibility to 
 ladies' charms. On the other hand, for the 
 protection of the sex, a remainder of shyness 
 kept him from active enterprise, and in the 
 state of suffering so long as indications of en- 
 couragement were wanting. He had killed 
 the soft ones who came to him, attracted by 
 the softness in him, to be killed; but clever 
 women alarmed and paralyzed him. Their 
 aptitude to question and require immediate, 
 sparkling answers; their demand for fresh wit 
 of a kind that is not furnished by publications
 
 tind Lachj Camper. 15 
 
 .^ 
 
 which strike it into heads with a hammer, and 
 supply it wholesale; their various reading; 
 their power of ridicule too, made them awful 
 in his contemplation. 
 
 Supposing — for the inflammable officer was 
 now thinking, and deeply thinking, of a clever 
 woman — sui:)posing that Lady Camper's pis- 
 tols were needed in her defense one night! at 
 the first rejjort proclaiming her extremity, 
 valor might gain an introduction to her upon 
 easy terms, and would not be expected to be 
 witty. She would, perhaps, after the excite- 
 ment, admit his masculine suj^eriority in the 
 beautiful old fashion by fainting in his arms. 
 Such was the reverie he passingly indulged, 
 and only so could he venture to hope for an 
 acquaintance with the formidable lady who 
 was his next neighbor. But the proud society 
 of the burglarious denied him op]3ortunity. 
 
 Meanwhile he learned that Lady Camper 
 had a nephew, and the young gentleman was 
 in a cavalry regiment. General Ople met him 
 outside his gates, received and returned a
 
 16 Tlte Case of General Opie 
 
 polite salute, liked his appearance and man- 
 ners, and talked of him to Elizabeth, asking 
 her if by chance she had seen him. She re- 
 plied that she believed that she had, and 
 praised his horsemanship. The general dis- 
 covered that he was an excellent sculler. His 
 daughter was rowing him up the river when 
 the young gentleman shot by with a splendid 
 stroke, in an outrigger, backed, and floating 
 alongside presumed to enter into conversation, 
 during which he managed to express regrets 
 at his aunt's turn for solitariness. As they 
 belonged to sister branches of the same serv- 
 ice, the general and Mr. Reginald Rolles had 
 a theme in common, and a passion. 
 
 Elizabeth told her father that nothing 
 afforded her so much pleasure as to hear him 
 talk with Mr. Rolles on military matters. 
 General Ople assured her that it pleased liim 
 likewise. He began to spy about for Mr. 
 Rolles, and it sometimes occurred that they 
 conversed across the wall — it could hardly be 
 avoided. A hint or two, an undefinable flying
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. VI 
 
 allusion, gave the general to understand that 
 Lady Camper had not been happy in her mar- 
 riage. He was pained to think of her mis- 
 fortune; but as she was not over forty, the 
 disaster was, perhaps, not irremediable; that 
 is to say, if she could be taught to extend her 
 forgiveness to men and abandon her solitude. 
 " If," he said to his daughter, " Lady Cam- 
 per should by any chance be induced to con- 
 tract a second alliance, she would, one might 
 expect, be humanized, and we should have 
 highly agreeable neighbors." 
 
 Elizabeth artlessly hoped for such an event 
 to take place. 
 
 She rarely differed with her father, up to 
 whom, taking example from the world around 
 him, she looked as the pattern of a man of 
 wise conduct. 
 
 And he was one; and though modest, he 
 was in good humor with himself, approved 
 himself, and could say that, without boasting 
 of success, he was a satisfied man until he met 
 his touchstone in Lady Camper.
 
 18 The Case of General Opie 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 This is the pathetic matter of my story, 
 and it requires pointing out, because he never 
 could explain what it was that seemed to him 
 so cruel in it, for he was no brilliant son of 
 fortune; he was no great pretender; none of 
 those who are logically displaced from the 
 heights they have been raised to, manifestly 
 created to show the moral in Providence. He 
 was modest, retiring, humbly contented; a 
 gentlemanly residence appeased his ambition. 
 Popular he could own that he was, but not 
 meteorically ; rather by reason of his willingness 
 to receive light than to shed it. Why, then, was 
 the terrible test brought to bear upon him of 
 all men? He was one of us; no worse, and 
 not strikingly or perilously better; and he 
 could not but feel, in the bitterness of his re- 
 flections upon an inexplicable destiny, that the 
 punishment befalling him, unmerited as it 
 was, looked like absence of design in the
 
 ^ and Lady Campe7\ 19 
 
 sch^e of things above. It looked as if the 
 blow had been dealt him by reckless chance. 
 And to believe that was for the miud of Gen- 
 eral Ople the having to return to his alphabet 
 and recommence the ascent of the laborious 
 mountain of understanding. 
 
 To proceed, the general's introduction to 
 Lady Camper was owing to a message she sent 
 him by her gardener with a request that he 
 would cut down a branch of a wych-elm ob- 
 scui'ing her view across his grounds toward 
 the river. The general consulted with his 
 daughter, and came to the conclusion that, as 
 he could hardly dis^^atch a written reply to a 
 verbal message, yet greatly wished to subscribe 
 to the wishes of Lady Camper, the best thing 
 for him to do was to apply for an interview. 
 
 He sent word that he would wait on Lady 
 Camper immediately, and betook himself 
 forthwith to his toilet. 
 
 She was the niece of an earl! 
 
 Elizabeth commended his appearance, 
 "passed him," as he would have said; and
 
 20 The Case of General Ople 
 
 well she might, for his hat, siirtont, trousers 
 and boots were worthy of an introduction to 
 royalty. A touch of scarlet silk round the 
 neck gave him bloom, and better than that, 
 the blooming consciousness of it. 
 
 " You are not to be nervous, papa," Eliza- 
 beth said. 
 
 "Not at all," replied the general. "I 
 say, not at all, my dear," he repeated, and so 
 betrayed that he had fallen into tlie nervous 
 mood. "I was saying, I have known worse 
 mornings thau this." 
 
 He turned to her and smiled brightly, nod- 
 ded, and set his face to meet the future. 
 
 He was absent an hour and a half. 
 
 He came back with his radiance a little sub- 
 dued, by no means eclipsed; as, when experi- 
 ence has afforded us matter for thought, we 
 cease to shine dazzlingly, yet are not clouded; 
 the rays have merely grown serener. The 
 sum of his impressions was conveyed in the 
 reflective utterance, " It only shows, my dear.
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. 21 
 
 ho^j: different the reality is from our anticipa- 
 tion of it." 
 
 Lady Camper had been charming; full of 
 condescension, neighborly, friendly, willing to 
 be satisfied with the sacrifice of the smallest 
 branch of the wych-elm, and only requiring 
 that much for complimentary reasons. 
 
 Elizabeth wished to hear what they were, 
 and she thought the request rather singular; 
 but the general begged her to bear in mind 
 that they- were dealing with a very extraordi- 
 nary woman. " Highly accomplished, really 
 exceeding handsome," he said to himself, 
 aloud. 
 
 The reasons were, her liking for air and 
 view, and desire to see into her neighbor's 
 grounds without having to mount to the 
 attic. 
 
 Elizabeth gave a slight exclamation, and 
 blushed. 
 
 " So, my dear, we are objects of interest to 
 her ladyship," said the general.
 
 23 The Case of General Ople 
 
 He assured her that Lady Camper's man- 
 ners were delightful. Strauger to tell, she 
 knew a great deal of his antecedent history, 
 things he had not supposed were known. 
 " Little matters," he reoiarked, by which his 
 daughter faintly conceived a reference to the 
 conquests of his dashing days. Lady Camper 
 had deigned to impart some of her own, inci- 
 dentally: that she was of Welsh blood, and 
 born among the mountains. " She has a ro- 
 mantic look," was the general's comment; 
 and that her husband had been an insatiable 
 traveler before he became an invalid, and had 
 never cared for art. " Quite an extraordinary 
 circumstance, with such a wife!" the general 
 said. 
 
 He fell upon the wych-elm with his own 
 hands under cover of the leafage, and the 
 next day he paid his respects to Lady Camper, 
 to inquire if her ladyship saw any further ob- 
 struction to the view. 
 
 " None," she replied. "And now we shall 
 see what the two birds will do."
 
 and Lady Camper. 23 
 
 - Appareutly, then, she entertained an ani- 
 mosity to a pair of birds in the tree. 
 
 " Yes, yes; I say they chirp early in the 
 morning/' said General Ople. 
 
 "At all hours." 
 
 " The song of birds — " he pleaded softly 
 for nature. 
 
 " If the nest is provided for them; but I 
 don't like vagabond chirping." 
 
 The general perfectly acquiesced. This, in 
 an engagement with a clever woman, is what 
 you should do, or else you are likely to find 
 yourself jalanted unawares in a high wind, 
 your hat blown off, and your coat-tails any- 
 where; in other words, you will stand ridicu- 
 lous in your bewilderment; and General Ople 
 ever footed with the utmost caution to avoid 
 that quagmire of the ridiculous. The ex- 
 tremer quags he had hitherto escaped; the 
 smaller, into which he fell in his agile eva- 
 sions of the big, he had hitherto been blessed 
 in finding none to notice. 
 
 He requested her ladyshij^'s permission to
 
 24 I'he Case of General Ople 
 
 present his daughter. Lady Camper sent in 
 her card. 
 
 Elizabeth Ople beheld a tall, handsomely 
 mannered lady, with good feakires and pene- 
 trating dark eyes, an easy carriage of her per- 
 son and an agreeable voice; but (the vision of 
 her age flashed out under the compelling eyes 
 of youth) fifty if a day. The rich coloring 
 confessed to it. But she was very pleasing; 
 and Elizabeth's perception dwelt on it only 
 because her father's manly chivalry had de- 
 fended the lady against one year more than 
 forty. 
 
 The richness of the coloring, Elizabeth 
 feared, was artificial, and it caused her in- 
 genuous young blood a shudder. For we are 
 so devoted to nature when the dame is flatter- 
 ing us with her gifts, that we loathe the sub- 
 stitute, omitting to think how much less it is 
 an imposition than a form of practical adora- 
 tion of the genuine. 
 
 Our young detective, however, concealed 
 her emotion of childish horror.
 
 and Lady Camper. 25 
 
 " Lady Camper remarked of her : ' ' She seems 
 honest, and that is the most we cau hope of 
 girls." 
 
 " She is a jewel for an houest mau/" the 
 general sighed, ' ' some day I' ' 
 
 " Let us hope it will be a distant day/' 
 
 " Yet," said the general, " girls expect to 
 marry. " 
 
 Lady Camper fixed her black eyes on him, 
 but did not speak. 
 
 He told Elizabeth that her ladyship's eyes 
 were exceedingly searching. "Only," said 
 he, " as'l have nothing to hide, 1 am able to 
 submit to inspection," and he laughed slight- 
 ly up to arresting cough, and made the man- 
 tel-piece ornaments joass muster. 
 
 General Ople was ihe hero to chami)ion a 
 lady whose airs of haughtiness caused her to 
 be somewhat backbitten. He assured every- 
 body that Lady Camper was much misunder- 
 stood; she was a most remarkable woman; she 
 was a most affable and highly intelligent huly. 
 Building up her attributes to a splendid cii-
 
 26 The Case of General Ople 
 
 max, he declared that she was pious, charita- 
 ble, witty, and really au extraordinary artist. 
 He laid particular stress on her artistic 
 qualities, describing her power with the brush, 
 her water-color sketches, and also some im- 
 mensely clever caricatures. As he talked of 
 no one else, his friends heard enough of Lady 
 Camper, who was anything but a favorite. 
 The Pollingtons, the Wilders, the Wardens, the 
 Baerens, the Goslings, and others of his ac- 
 quaintance, talked of Lady Camper and Gen- 
 eral Ople rather maliciously. They were all 
 City people, and they admired the general, 
 but mourned that he should so abjectly have 
 fallen at the feet of a lady as red with rouge 
 as a railway bill. His not seeing it showed 
 the state he was in. The sister of Mrs. Pol- 
 lington, an amiable widow, relict of a large 
 City waiehouseman, named Barcoj), was 
 chilled by a falling off in his attentions. His 
 apology for not appearing at garden-parties 
 was that he was engaged to wait on Lady 
 Camper.
 
 and Lady Camper, 27 
 
 And at one time, her not condescending to 
 exchange visits with the obsequious general 
 was a topic fertile in irony. But she did con- 
 descend. 
 
 Lady Camper came to his gate unexpected- 
 ly, rang the bell, and was let in like an ordi- 
 nary visitor. It liappened Ibat the general 
 was gardening— not the pretty occupation of 
 pruning, he was digging— and of necessity his 
 coat was off, and he was hot, dusty, unpre- 
 sentable. 
 
 From adoring earth as the mother of 
 roses, you may pass into a lady's presence 
 without purification; you can not— or so the 
 general thought— when you are caught in the 
 act of adoring the mother of cabbages. And 
 though he himself loved the cabbage equally 
 with the rose, in his heart respected the vege- 
 table yet more than he esteemed the flower, 
 for he gloried in his kitchen garden, this was 
 not a secret for the world to know, and he 
 almost heeled over on his beam ends when 
 word was brought of the extreme honor Lady
 
 28 The Case of General OiM 
 
 Camper had done him. He worked his arms 
 hurriedly into his fatigue jacket^ trusting to 
 get away to the house and spend a couple of 
 minutes on his adornment; and with any other 
 visitor it might have been accomplished, but 
 Lady Cam2:)er disliked sitting alone in a room. 
 She was on the square of lawn as the general 
 stole along Ihe walk. Had she ke^^t her back 
 to him he might have rounded her, like the 
 shadow of a dial, undetected. She was fright- 
 fully acute of tearing. She turned while he 
 was in the agony of hesitation, in a queer alti- 
 tude, one leg on the march, projected by a 
 frenzied tiptoe of the hinder leg, the very 
 faialest moment she could jDOSsibly have se- 
 lected for unveiling him. 
 
 Of course there was no choice but to sur- 
 render on the spot. 
 
 He began to squander his dizzy wits in pro- 
 fuse apologies. Lady Camper simply spoke 
 of the nice little nest of a garden, smellcd the 
 flowers, accepted a Kiel rose and a Eohan, a 
 Celine, a Falcot, and La France,
 
 and Lady Camper. 29 
 
 " A beautiful rose indeed," she said of the 
 latter, " only it smells of macassar oil." 
 
 " Realh', it never struck me. 1 say it 
 never struck me before,'^ rejoined the cjen- 
 eral, smelling it as at a pinch of snuff. " I 
 was saying, I always — " and he tacitly, with 
 the absurdest of smiles, begged permission to 
 leave unterminated a sentence not in itself 
 particularly difficult. 
 
 " 1 have a nose," observed Lady Cam- 
 per. 
 
 Like i\\Q nobly bred person she was, accord- 
 ing to General Ople's version of the interview 
 on his estate, when he stood before her in his 
 gardening costume, she put him at his ease, 
 or she exerted herself to do so; and if he under- 
 went considerable anguish, it was the fault of 
 his excessive scrupulousness regarding dress, 
 propriety, appearance. 
 
 He conducted her at her request to the 
 kitchen garden and the handful of paddock, 
 the stables and coach-house, then back to the 
 lawn.
 
 30 The Case of General Ople 
 
 "It is the home for a young couple," she 
 said. 
 
 " 1 am no longer young/' the general 
 bowed, with the sigh peculiar to this confes- 
 sion. " I say I am no longer young, but I 
 call the place a gentlemanly residence. 1 was 
 saying I — " 
 
 " Yes, yes!" Lady Camper tossed her head, 
 half closing her eyes with a contraction of the 
 brows as if in pain. 
 
 He perceived a similar expression whenever 
 he spoke of his residence. 
 
 Perhaps it recalled happier days to enter 
 such a nest. Perhaps it had been such a home 
 for a young couple that she had entered on her 
 marriage with Sir Scrope Camper, before he 
 inherited his title and estates. 
 
 The general was at a loss to conceive what 
 it was. 
 
 It recurred at another mention of his idea 
 of the nature of the residence. It was almost 
 a paroxysm. He determined not to vex her 
 reminiscences again; and as this resolution
 
 ^ and Lady Camber. 31 
 
 dii-Qcted his mind to his residence, thinking it 
 pre-eminently gentlemanly, his tongue com- 
 mitted the error of repeating it, with " gentle- 
 man-lil\0 " for a variation. 
 
 Elizabeth was out— he knew not where. 
 The house-maid informed him that Miss Eliza- 
 beth was out rowing on the water. 
 
 " Is she alone?" Lady Camper inquired of 
 him. 
 
 " I fancy so," the general replied. 
 
 " The poor child has no mother." 
 
 " It has been a sad loss to us both, Lady 
 Camper." 
 
 " Ko doubt. She is too pretty to go out 
 alone." 
 
 " 1 can trust her." 
 
 " Girls!" 
 
 " She has the spirit of a man." 
 
 " That is well. She has a spirit; it will be 
 tried." 
 
 The general modestly furnished an instance 
 or two of her spiritedness.
 
 32 The Case of General Ople 
 
 Lady Camper seemed to like this theme; 
 she looked graciously interested. 
 
 " Still, you should not suffer her to go out 
 alone," she said. 
 
 " I place implicit confidence in her," said 
 the general; and Lady Camper gave it up. 
 
 She jjroposed to walk down the lanes to the 
 river-side to meet Elizabeth returning. 
 
 The general manifested alacrity checked by 
 reluctance. Lady Camper had told him she 
 objected to sit in a strange room by herself; 
 after that, he could hardly leave her to dash 
 upstairs to change his clothes; yet how, at- 
 tired as he was, in a fatigue jacket, that 
 warned him not to imagine his back view, 
 and held him constantly a little to the rear of 
 Latly Camper lest she should be troubled by 
 it; and he knew the habit of the second rank 
 to criticise the front — how consent to face the 
 outer world in such style side by side with the 
 lady he admired? 
 
 "Come," said she; and he shot forward a 
 step, looking as if he had missed fire.
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. 3C 
 
 "^re you not coming, general?" 
 
 He advanced mechanically. 
 
 Not a soul met them down the lanes, except 
 a little one, to whom Lady Camper gave a 
 small silver piece, because she was a picture. 
 
 The act of charity sunk into the general's 
 heart, as any pretty performance will do upon 
 a warm waxen bed. 
 
 Lady Camper surprised him by answering 
 his thoughts. " No; it's for my own pleas- 
 ure. " 
 
 Presently she said: " Here they are.*' 
 
 General Ople beheld his daughter by the 
 river-side at the end of the lane, under eccort 
 of Mr. Keginald Eolles. 
 
 It was another picture, and a pleasing one. 
 The young lady and the young gentleman 
 wore boating hats, and were both dressed in 
 white, and standhig by or just turning from 
 the outrigger and light skif! they were about 
 to leave in charge of a waterman. Elizabeth 
 stretched a finger at arm's-length, issuing 
 directions, which Mr. liolles took up and
 
 34 The Case of General Opte 
 
 worded farther to the man for the sake of 
 emphasis; and he, rather than Elizabeth, was 
 guilty of the half start at sight of the persons 
 who were approaching. 
 
 " My uephew, you should know, is intend- 
 ed for a working soldier," said Lady Camper; 
 " I like that sort of soldier best." 
 
 General Ople drooped his shoulders at the 
 personal compliment. 
 
 She resumed. " His jjay is a matter of im- 
 portance to him. You are aware of the small- 
 iiess of a subaltern's pay." 
 
 "I," said the general, " I say I feel my 
 poor half -pay, having always been a working 
 soldier myself, very important, I was saying, 
 very important to me." 
 
 " Why did you retire?" 
 
 Her interest in him seemed promising. He 
 replied conscientiously: " lieyond the duties of 
 general of brigade, I could not, I say I could 
 not, dare to aspire; I can accept and execute 
 orders; I shrink from responsibility." 
 
 "It is a pity," said she, " that you were
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. 35 
 
 uoL like my nephew Eegiiiald, entirely de- 
 pendent on your profession." 
 
 She laid such stress on her remark that the 
 general, who had just exjaressed a very modest 
 estimate of his abilities, was unable to reject 
 the flattery of her assuming him to be a man 
 of some fortune. He coughed and said, " Very 
 little." The thought came to him that he 
 might have to make a statement to her in 
 time, and he emphasized: "Very little in- 
 deed. Sufhcient," he assured her, " for a 
 gentlemanly appearance." 
 
 " I have given you your warning," was her 
 inscrutable rejoinder, uttered within earshot of 
 the young people, to whom, especially to Eliza- 
 beth, she was gracious. The damsel's boating 
 uniform was praised, and her sunny flush of 
 exercise and exposure. 
 
 Lady Camper regretted that she could not 
 abandon her parasol. 
 
 *' I freckle so easily." 
 
 The general, puzzling over her strange 
 words about a warning, gazed at the red rose
 
 36 The Case of General Ople 
 
 of art on her cheek with an air of profound 
 abstraction. 
 
 " I freckle so easily," she repeated, drop- 
 l^ing her parasol to defend her face from the 
 calculating scrutiny. 
 
 " 1 burn brown," said Elizabeth. 
 
 Lady Camper laid the bud of a Falcot rose 
 against the young girl's cheek, but fetched 
 streams of color that overwhelmed the mo- 
 mentary comparison of the sun-swathed skin 
 with the rich dusky yellow of the rose in its 
 deepening inward to soft brown. 
 
 Eeginald stretched his hand for the privi- 
 leged flower, and she let him take it; then she 
 looked at the general; but the general was 
 looking, with his usual air of satisfaction, no- 
 where. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 '* Lady Camper is no common enigma," 
 General Ople observed to his daughter. 
 Elizabeth inclined to be pleased with her.
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. 37 
 
 for at her suggestion the general had bought 
 a couple oi horses, that she might ride in the 
 park accompanied by her father or the little 
 groom. Still, the great lady was hard to 
 read. 
 
 She tested tbe resources of his income by 
 all sorts of instigation to expenditure, which 
 his gallantry could not withstand; she encour- 
 aged him to talk of his deeds in arms; she was 
 friendly, almost affectionate, and most bounti- 
 ful in the presents of fruit, peaches, nectarines, 
 grapes, and hot-house wonders, that she show- 
 ered on his table; but slie was an enigma in 
 her evident dissatisfaction with him for some- 
 thing he seemed to have left unsaid. And 
 what could that be? 
 
 At their last interview she had asked him: 
 " Are you sure, general, you have nothing 
 more to tell nie?^' 
 
 And as he remarked, when relating it to 
 Elizabeth: " One might really be tempted to 
 misapprehend her ladyship's — 1 say one 
 might commit one's self beyond recovery.
 
 38 The Case of General Ople 
 
 Now, my dear, what do you think she intend- 
 ed?'^ 
 
 Elizabeth was " burning brown, ^' or darkly 
 blushing, as her manner was. 
 
 She answered: " I am certain you know of 
 nothing that would interest her; nothing, un- 
 less—^' 
 
 " Well?" the general urged her. 
 
 " How can I speak it, papa?'' 
 
 " You really can't mean — " 
 
 " Papa, what could I mean?'^ 
 
 "If 1 were fool enough!'' he murmured. 
 " No, no, I am an old man, I was saying, I 
 am past the age of folly." 
 
 One day Elizabeth came home from her ride 
 in a thoughtful mood. She had not, further 
 than has been mentioned, incited her father 
 to think of the age of folly; but voluntarily 
 or not. Lady Camper had, by an excess of 
 graciousness amounting to downright invita- 
 tion; as thus: " AYill you i^ersist in withhold- 
 ing your confidence from me, general?" She 
 added; " 1 am not so difficult a person."
 
 and Lady Camper. 30 
 
 -^ 
 
 These prompting speeches occurred on the 
 mornhig of the day when Elizabeth sat at his 
 table, after a long ride into the country, pro- 
 foundly meditative. 
 
 A note was handed to General Ople, with 
 the request that he would step in to speak with 
 Lady Camper in the course of the evening or 
 next morning. Elizabeth waited till his hat 
 was on, then said: " Papa, on my ride to-day, 
 I met Mr. Koiles.'' 
 
 " I am glad you had an agreeable escort, 
 my dear. " 
 
 " I could not refuse his company. " 
 
 " Certainly not. And where did you ride?'^ 
 
 " To a beautiful valley; and there we 
 met—" 
 
 " Her ladyship?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " She always admires you on horseback." 
 
 " So you know it, papa, if she should speak 
 of it." 
 
 " And 1 am bound to tell you, my child," 
 said the general^ " that this morning Lady
 
 40 The Case of General Opie 
 
 Camper's manner to me was — if I were a fool 
 — 1 say, this morning — I beat a retreat, but 
 apparently she — I see no way out of it — sup- 
 posing she — " 
 
 " 1 am sure she esteems you, dear papa," 
 said Elizabeth. 
 
 *' You take to her, my dear?" the genera] 
 inquired, anxiously, " a little? A little afraid 
 of her?" 
 
 " A little," Elizabeth replied, " only a lit- 
 tle." 
 
 " Don't be agitated about me." 
 " No, papa; you are sure to do right." 
 " But you are trembling." 
 "Oh, no! 1 wish you success." 
 General Ople was overjoyed to be re-enforced 
 by his daughter's good wishes. He kissed her 
 to thank her. He turned back to her to kiss 
 her again. She had greatly lightened the 
 difficulty at least of a delicate position. 
 
 It was just like the imperious nature of 
 Lady Camper to summon him in the evening 
 to terminate the conversation of the morning,
 
 and Lady Camper. 41 
 
 from the visible pitfall of which he had beaten 
 a raflier precii^itate retreat. But if his daugh- 
 ter cordially wished him success, and Lady 
 Camper oJffered him the crown of it, why then 
 he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good 
 commander who has to pass a fordable river 
 in the enemy's presence; a dash, a splash, a 
 rattling volley or two, and you are over, estab- 
 lished on the ojjposite bank. But you must be 
 positive of victory, otherwise, with the river 
 behind you, your new position is likely to be 
 ' ticklish. So the general entered Lady Cam- 
 per's drawing-room warily, watching the fair 
 enemy. He knew he was captivating, his old 
 conquests whispered in his ears, and her re- 
 ception of him all but pointed to a footstool at 
 her feet. He might have fallen there at once, 
 had he not remembered a hint that Mr. Regi- 
 nald Rolles had dropped concerning Lady 
 Camper's amazing variability. 
 Lady Camper began: 
 
 " General, you ran away from me this 
 morning. Let me speak. And, by the way.
 
 42 The Case of General Opie 
 
 I ranst reproach 5'ou; you should not have left 
 it to me. Things have now gone so far that I 
 can not pretend to be blhid. I know your 
 feelings as a father. Your daughter's happi- 
 ness — " 
 
 "My lady," the general interposed, "1 
 have her distinct assurance that it is, I say it 
 is wrapped up in mine." 
 
 " Let me speak. Young people will say 
 anything. Well, they have a certain excuse 
 for selfishness; we have not. I am in some 
 degree bound to my nephew; he is my sister's 
 son." 
 
 " Assuredly, my lady. I would not stand 
 in his light, be quite assured. If 1 am, 1 was 
 saying if I am not mistaken, 1 — And he is, or 
 has the making of an excellent soldier in him, 
 and is likely to be a distinguished cavalry offi- 
 
 cer." 
 
 " He has to carve his own way in the world, 
 general." 
 
 *' All good soldiers have, my lady. And if
 
 and Lady Camper. 43 
 
 my position is not, after a considerable term 
 of service, I say if — " 
 
 ''To continue,'* said Lady Camper, "I 
 never have liked early marriage's. I was mar- 
 ried in my teens before I knew men. Now I 
 do know them, and now — " 
 
 The general plunged forward. *' The honor 
 you do us now— a mature experience is worth 
 — my dear Lady Camper, 1 have admired you; 
 and your objection to early marriages can not 
 apply to — indeed, madame, vigor, they say — 
 though youth, of course — yet young people, 
 as you observe — and I have, though perhaps 
 my reputation is against it, I was saying I 
 have a natural timidity with your sex, and I 
 am gray-headed, white-headed, but happily 
 vrithont a single malady." 
 
 Lady Camper's brows showed a trifling be- 
 wilderment. " I am speakiug of these young 
 people, General Opie." 
 
 " I consent to everything beforehand, my 
 dear lady. He sli.ould be, I say Mr. Iiolies 
 should be provided for."
 
 44 The Case of General Oi)le 
 
 " So should she, general, so should Eliza- 
 beth/' 
 
 " She shall be, she will, dear madame. 
 AY hat 1 have, with your permission, if — good 
 Heaven! Lady Oanijier, I scarcely know where 
 I am. She would — 1 shall not liiie to lose her; 
 you would not wish it. In time she will — she 
 has every quality of a good wife. " 
 
 "There, stay there, and be intelligible,'* 
 said Lady Camper. " She has every quality. 
 Money should be one of them. Has she 
 money?" 
 
 "Oh! my lady," the general exclaimed, 
 " we shall not come upon your purse when 
 her time comes." 
 
 " Has she ten thousand jjounds?" 
 
 " Elizabeth? She will have, at her father's 
 death — but as for my income, it is moderate, 
 and only sufficient to maintain a gentlemanly 
 appearance in proper self-respect. I make no 
 show. I say 1 make no show. A wealthy 
 marriage is the last thing on earth I should 
 have aimed at. I prefer quiet and retirement.
 
 and Lady Camper. 45 
 
 Personally^ I mean. That is my personal 
 tast§- But if the lady: I say if it should hap- 
 pen that the lady — and indeed I am not one 
 to press a suit; but if she who distinguishes 
 and honors me should chance to be wealthy, 
 all I can do is to leave her wealth at her dis- 
 posal, and that I do: 1 do that unreservedly. 
 I feel 1 am very confused, alarmingly con- 
 fused. Your ladyship merits a suj^erior — I 
 trust 1 have not — 1 am entirely at your lady- 
 ship's mercy. '* 
 
 " Are you prepared, if your daughter is 
 asked in -marriage, to settle ten thousand 
 pounds on her, General Ople?" 
 
 The general collected himself. In his heart 
 he thoroughly appreciated the moral beauty of 
 Lady Camper's extreme solicitude on behalf 
 of his daughter's provision; but he would have 
 desired a postponement of that and other 
 material questions belonging to a distant fut- 
 ure until his own fate was decided. 
 
 So he said: " Your ladyship's generosity is 
 very marked. I say it is very marked."
 
 46 Tlie Case of General O'ple 
 
 " Now, my good General Ople! how is it 
 marked in any degree?" cried Lady Camper. 
 " I am not generous. I don't pretend to be; 
 and certainly 1 don't want the young people 
 to think me so. I want to be just. I have 
 assumed that you intend to be the same. 
 Then will you do me the favor to reply to 
 me?" 
 
 The general smiled winningly and intently, 
 to show her that he prized her, and would not 
 let her escape his eulogies. 
 
 '^ Marked, in this way, dear madame, that 
 you think of my daughter's future more than 
 I. I say more than her father himself does. 
 I know I ought to speak more warmly, 1 feel 
 warmly. 1 was never an eloquent man, and 
 if you take me as a soldier, I am, as I have 
 ever been in the service — 1 was saying I am 
 Wilson Ople, of the grade of general, to be 
 relied on for executing orders; and, madame, 
 you are Lady Camper, and you command me. 
 I can not be more precise. Li fact, it is the 
 feeling of the necessity for keeping close to
 
 and Lady Qamper. 47 
 
 the business that destroys what I would say. 1 
 am iy fact lamentably incompetent to conduct 
 my own case. " 
 
 Lady Camper left her chair. 
 
 " Dear me, this is very strange, unless I am 
 singularly in error," she said. 
 
 The general now faintly guessed that he 
 might be in error, for his part. 
 
 But she had burned his ships, blown up his 
 bridges; retreat could not be thought of. 
 
 He stood up, his head bent and appealing to 
 her side-face liice one pleadingly in pursuit, 
 and very deferentially, with a courteous vehe- 
 mence, he entreated first her ladyship's pardon 
 for his presumption, and then the gift of her 
 ladyship's hand. 
 
 As for his language, it was the tongue of 
 General Ople. But his bearing was fine. If 
 his clipped white siliien hair spoke of age, his 
 figure breathed manliness. He was a picture, 
 and she loved pictures. 
 
 For his own sake, she begged him to cease.
 
 48 The Case of General O'ple 
 
 She dreaded to liear of something " gentle- 
 manly. '^ 
 
 " This is a new idea to me, ray dear gen- 
 eral," she said. " You must give me time. 
 People at our age have to think of the fitness. 
 Of course, in a sense, we are both free to do 
 as we like. Perhaps I may be of some aid to 
 you. My preference is for absolute independ- 
 ence. And I wished to talk of a different 
 affair. Come to me to-morrow. Do not be 
 hurt if I decide that we had better remain as 
 we are. " 
 
 The general bowed. His efforts, and the 
 wavering of the fair enemy's flag, had inspired 
 him with a positive reawakening of masculine 
 passion to gain this fortress. He said well: 
 " 1 have, then, the happiness, madame, of 
 being allowed to hope until to-morrow?" 
 
 She replied: " I would not deprive you of a 
 moment of happiness. Bring good sense with 
 you when you do come." 
 
 The general asked, eagerly: "I have your 
 ladyship's permission to come early?"
 
 and Lady Camjier. 4d 
 
 "" Consult your happiness/* she answered; 
 and iWo his mind she seemed returning to the 
 state of enigma, it was on the wliole delicious- 
 ly. She restored him his youth. He told 
 Elizabeth that night he really must begin to 
 think of marr3'ing her to some worthy young 
 fellow. " Though/' said he, with an air of 
 frank intoxication, " my opinion is, the young 
 ones are not so lively as the old in these days, 
 or I should have been besieged before now." 
 
 The exact substance of the interview he 
 forebore to relate to his inquisitive daughter, 
 with a very honorable discretion. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Elizabeth came riding home Iq breakfast 
 from a gallop round the park, and passing Lady 
 Camper's gates, received the salutation of her 
 parasol. Lady Camper talked with her through 
 the bars. There was not a sign to tell of a 
 change or twist in her neighborly affability. 
 She remarked simply enough that it was her
 
 50 The Case of General Opie 
 
 nephew's habit to take early gallops, and pos- 
 sibly Elizabeth might have seen liim, for his 
 quarters were proximate; but she did not de- 
 mand an answer. She had passed a rather 
 restless night, she said. " How is the gen- 
 eral?" 
 
 " Papa must have slept soundly, for he 
 usually calls to me through his door when he 
 hears I am up," said Elizabeth. 
 
 Lady Camper nodded kindly and walked 
 ou. 
 
 At seven in the morning General OpIe was 
 ready for battle. His f oroes were, the antici- 
 pation of victory, a carefully arranged toilet, 
 and an unaccustomed spirit of enterprise in 
 the realms of speech; for he was no longer in 
 such awe o£ Lady Camper. 
 
 "You have slejjt well?" she inquired. 
 
 " Excellently, my lady." 
 
 *' Yes, your daughter tells me she heard 
 you, as she went by your door in the morning 
 for a ride to meet my nephew. You are, 1 
 shall assume, prepared for business?"
 
 and Lady Camper. 51 
 
 " Elizabetli — to meet—!" General Ople's 
 impre^ion of anything extraneous to his emo- 
 tion was feeble and passed instantly. " Pre- 
 pared! Oh, certainly I" and he struok in a 
 compliment on her ladyship's fresh morning 
 bloom. 
 
 " It can hardly be visible," she responded. 
 " I have not painted yet." 
 
 " Does your ladyship proceed to your paint- 
 ing in the very early morning?" 
 
 " Eonge. I rouge." 
 , " Dear me I I should not have supposed 
 it." 
 
 " You have speculated on it very openly, 
 general. I remember your trying to see a 
 freckle through the rouge; but the truth is, 1 
 am of a supernatural paleness if I do not 
 rouge, so I do. You understand, therefore, I 
 have a false complexion. Now to business." 
 
 " If your ladyship insists on calling it busi- 
 ness. 1 have little to offer — myself!" 
 
 *' You have a gentlemanly residence." 
 
 *' It is, ray lady, it is. It is a bijou."
 
 52 The Case of General Oph 
 
 " Ah I" Lady Camper sighed dejectedly. 
 
 " It is a perfect hijou !" 
 
 "Oblige me, general, by not pronouncing 
 the French word as if you were swearing by 
 something in English, like a trooper." 
 
 Genei-al Ople started, admitted that the 
 word was French, and apologized for his pro- 
 nunciation. Her variability was now visible 
 over a corner of the battlefield like a thunder- 
 cloud. 
 
 " The business we have to discuss concerns 
 the young people, general." 
 
 "Yes," brightened by this, he assented. 
 " Yes, dear Lady Camper, it is a part of the 
 business; it is a secondary part; it has to be 
 discussed; 1 say I subscribe beforehand. I 
 may say that honoring, esteeming you as 1 do, 
 and hopiTig ardently for your consent — " 
 
 " They must have a home and an income, 
 general. " 
 
 " I presume, dearest. Lady Elizabeth will be 
 welcome in your home. I certainly shall 
 never chase Reginald out of mine."
 
 and Lady Camper. 53 
 
 Lady Camper threw back her head. " Then 
 you are not^yet awake, or you practice the 
 art of,6leeping with oiDeu eyes'. Now listen to 
 me. I rouge, 1 have told you. 1 like colors, 
 and I do not like to see wrinkles or have them 
 seen. Therefore 1 rouge. I do not expect to 
 deceive the world so flagrantly as to my age, 
 and you I would not deceive for a moment. 1 
 am seventy." 
 
 The effect of this noble frankness on the 
 creneral was to raise him from his chair in a 
 sitting posture as if he had been blown up. 
 , Her countenance was inexorably impertur- 
 bable under his alternate blinking and gazing 
 that drew her close and shot her distant, like 
 a mysterious toy. 
 
 " But," said she, " 1 am an artist; 1 dislike 
 the look of extreme age, so I conceal it as well 
 as 1 can. You are very kind to fall in with 
 the deception; an innocent, and, 1 think, a 
 projicr one, before the world, though not to 
 the gentleman who does me the honor to pro- 
 pose to me for my hand. You desire to settle
 
 54 The Case of General Ople 
 
 our business first. You esteem me; I suppose 
 you mean as much as young people mean when 
 they say they love. Do you? Let us come to 
 an uudei-standing. " 
 
 " I can," the melancholy general gasped, 
 " I say I can — I can not — I can not credit 
 your ladyship's — " 
 
 " You are at liberty to call me Angela." 
 
 " Ange~" he tried it, and in shame re- 
 lapsed. "Madame. Yes. Thanks." 
 
 " Ah," cried Lady Camj^er, " do not use 
 these vulgar contractions of decent speech in 
 my presence. 1 abhor the word ' thanks.' It 
 is fit for fribbles." 
 
 "Dear me, I have used it all my life," 
 groaned the general. 
 
 " Then for the remainder, be it understood 
 that you renounce it. To continue, my age 
 is—" 
 
 " Oh, impossible, impossible," the general 
 almost wailed; there was really a crack in his 
 
 voice, 
 
 Advancing to seventy. But, like you, I
 
 and Lady Camper. 55 
 
 am happy to say I have not a malady. I bring 
 no invalid rTrame to a union that necessitates 
 the leaviug of the front door open day and 
 night to the doctor. My belief is, I could fol- 
 low my husband still on a campaign, if he 
 were a warrior instead of a pensioner." 
 
 General Ople winced. 
 
 He was about to say humbly, " As general 
 of brigade — " 
 
 " Yes, yes, you want a commanding officer, 
 and that 1 have seen, and that has caused me 
 to meditate on your proposal," she interrupt- 
 ed him; while he, studying her countenance 
 hard, with. the painful aspect of a youth who 
 lashes a donkey memory in an examination by 
 word of mouth, attempted to marshal her 
 signs of younger years against her awful con- 
 fession of the extremely ancient, the withcr- 
 ingly ancient. But for the manifest rouge, 
 manifest in spite of her declaration that she 
 had not yet that morning proceeded to her 
 paint-brush, he would have thrown down his 
 glove to challenge her on the subject of her
 
 56 The Case of General Ople 
 
 age. She actually had charms. Her mouth 
 had a cliarm; her eyes were lively; her figure, 
 mature if you like, was at least full aud good; 
 she stood upright, she had a queeuly seat. 
 His mental ejaculation was: " AVhat a won- 
 derful constitution!" 
 
 By a lapse of politeness he rejjeated it to 
 himself half aloud; he was shockingly nervous. 
 
 " Yes, I have finer health than many a 
 younger woman," she said. " An ordinary 
 calculation would give me twenty good years 
 to come. I am a widow, as you know. And, 
 by the way, you have a leaning for widows. 
 Have you not? 1 thought 1 had heard of a 
 Widow Barcop in this parish. Do not j)ro- 
 test. I assure you I am a stranger to jeal- 
 ousy. My income — " 
 
 The general raised his hands. 
 
 " Well, then," said the cool and self-con- 
 tained lady, " before I go further, I may ask 
 you, knowing what you have forced me to con- 
 fess, are you still of the same mind as to mar- 
 riage? And one moment, general. I promise
 
 a7id Lady Camper. 57 
 
 you most sincerely that your withdrawing a 
 step shall not, as far as it touches me, atfect 
 my neighborly and friendly sentiments, not in 
 any degree. Shall we be as we were?" 
 
 Lady Camper extended her delicate hand to 
 him. 
 
 He took it respectfully, inspected the aris- 
 tocratic and unshrunken fingers, and kissing 
 them, said: " 1 never withdraw from a posi- 
 tion unless I am beaten back. Lady Camper, 
 I~" - 
 
 " My name is Angela." 
 
 The general tried again; he could not utter 
 the name. 
 
 To call a lady of seventy Angela is difficult 
 in itself. It is, it seems, thrico difficult in the 
 way of courtship. 
 
 " Angela I" said she. 
 
 " Yes. 1 say, there is not a more beautiful 
 female name, dear Lady Camper." 
 
 " Spare me that word ' female ' as long as 
 you live. Address mo by that name, if you 
 please/'
 
 58 The Case of General Ople 
 
 The general smiled. The smile was meant 
 for propitiation and sweetness. It became a 
 brazen smile. 
 
 " Unless you wish to step back/' said she. 
 
 " Indeed, no. I am happy, Lady Camper. 
 My life is yours. I say my life is devoted to 
 you, dear madame. '' 
 
 "Angela!^' 
 
 General Ople was blushiugly delivered of 
 the name. 
 
 " That will do," said she. " And as I think 
 it possible one may be admired too much as 
 an artist, I must request 3'ou to keep my num- 
 ber of years a secret." 
 
 " To the death, madame!" said the general. 
 
 " And now we will take a turn in the gar- 
 den, Wilson Ople. And beware of one thing, 
 for a commencement, for you are full of 
 weeds, and I mean to pluck out a few: never 
 call any place a gentlemanly residence in my 
 hearing, nor let it come to my ears that you 
 have been using the phrase elsewhere. Don't 
 express astonishment. At present it is enough
 
 and Lady Camper. 59 
 
 r 
 
 that I dislike it. Bat this only," Lady Cam- 
 per added, " this ouly if it is not your iuteu- 
 tion to withdraw from your jiosition. " 
 
 " Madame, my lady, I was saying — hem I — 
 Angela, 1 could not wish to withdraw!'' 
 
 Lady Camper leaned with some pressure on 
 his arm, observing: " You have a curious at- 
 tachment to antiquities." 
 
 " My dear lady, it is your mind; 1 say it is 
 your mind; I was saying I am in love with 
 your mind," the general endeavored to assure 
 her, and himself too. 
 
 " Or is it my powers as an artist?" 
 
 " Your mind, your extraordinary powers of 
 mind. " 
 
 " Well," said Lady Camper, " a veteran 
 general of brigade is as good a crutch as a 
 childless eld grannam can have." 
 
 And such, as a crutch, General Ople, parad- 
 ing her grounds with the aged woman, found 
 himself used and treated. 
 
 The accuracy of his perceptions might be 
 (|uestioned. He vvas like a man stunned by
 
 60 Tlie Case of General Ople 
 
 some great tropical fruit, which responds to 
 the longing of his eyes by falling on his head; 
 but it appeared to him that she increased iu 
 bitterness at every step they took, as if deter- 
 mined to make him realize her wrinkles. 
 
 He was even so inconsequent, or so little 
 recognized his position as to object in his heart 
 to hear himself called Wilson. 
 
 It is true that she uttered Wilson Ople as if 
 the names formed one word. And on a sec- 
 ond occasion (when he inclined to feel hurt) 
 she remarked, '* I fear, Wilsonople, if we are 
 to speak plainly, thou art but a fool.^' 
 
 He, 2ierha2:>s, naturally objected to that. He 
 was, however, giddy, and barely knew. 
 
 Yet once more the magical woman changed. 
 All semblance of harshness and harridan-like 
 spike-tonguedness vanished when she said 
 adieu. 
 
 The astronomer, looking at the crusty jag 
 and scoria of the magnified moon through his 
 telescope, and again with naked eyes at the 
 soft-beaming moon, when the crater-i'idges are
 
 .r and Lady Camper. 61 
 
 faiut as eyebrow pencilings, has a similar 
 sharp alternation of prospect to that which 
 mystified General Ople, 
 
 But between watching an orb that is only 
 variable at our caprice, and contemi^lating a 
 woman who shifts and quivers ever at her 
 own, how vast the difference! 
 
 And consider that this woman is about to 
 be one's wife! 
 
 He could have believed (if he had not known 
 full surely that such things are not) he was in 
 the hands of a witch. 
 
 Lady Camper's "adieu" was perfectly 
 beautiful — a kind, cordial, intimate, above all, 
 to satisfy his present craving, it was a lady- 
 like adieu — the adieu of a delicate and elegant 
 woman, who had hardly left her anchorage by 
 forty to sail into the fifties. 
 
 Alas! he had her word for it that she was 
 not less than seventy. And worse, she had 
 betrayed most melancholy signs of sourness 
 and agedness as soon as he had sworn himself 
 to her fast and fixed.
 
 62 The Case of General Opie 
 
 " The road is open to yon to retreat/' were 
 her last words. 
 
 " My road/' he answered, gallantly, " is 
 forward." 
 
 He was drawing backward as he said it, and 
 something provoked her to smile. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 It is a noble thing to say that your road is 
 forward, and it befits a man of battles. Gen- 
 eral Ople was too loyal a gentleman to think 
 of any other road. Still, albeit not gifted with 
 imagination, he could not avoid the feeling 
 that he had set his face to winter. He found 
 himself suddenly walking straight into the 
 heart of winter, and a nipping winter. For 
 her ladyship had proved acutely nipping. His 
 little customary phrases, to which Lady Cam- 
 per objected, he could see no harm in what- 
 ever. Conversing with her in the privacy of 
 domestic life would never be the flowing busi- 
 ness that it is for other men. Jt would de-
 
 and Lady Camper. 63 
 
 maud perpetual vigilance, hop. skip, jumi?, 
 floundering, and apologies. 
 
 This was not a pleasing prospect. 
 
 On the other hand, she was the niece of an 
 earl. She was wealthy. She might be an ex- 
 cellent friend to Elizabeth; and she could be, 
 when she liked, both commandingly and be- 
 witch irigly lady-like. 
 
 Good! But he was a general officer of not 
 more than fifty-five, in his full vigor, and she 
 a woman'of seventy! 
 
 The prospect was bleak. It resembled an 
 outlook on the steppes. In point of the disci- 
 pline he was to expect, he might be compared 
 to a raw recruit, and in his own home! 
 
 However, she was a woman of mind. One 
 would be proud of her. 
 
 But did he know the worst of her? A dread- 
 ful presentiment that he did not know the 
 worst of her rolled an ocean of gloom upon 
 General Ople, striking out one solitary thought 
 in the obscurity — namely, that he was about to 
 receive punishment for retiring from active
 
 64 The Case of General Oph 
 
 service to a life of ease at a comparatively early 
 age, when still in marching trim. And the 
 shadow of the thought was that he deserved 
 the punishment! 
 
 He was in his garden with the dawn. Hard 
 exercise is the best of opiates for dismal reflec- 
 tions. The general discomposed his daughter 
 by offering to accompany her on her morning 
 ride before breakfast. She considered that it 
 would fatigue him. " I am not a man of 
 eighty!" he cried. He could have wished that 
 he had been. 
 
 He led the way to the park, where they soon 
 had sight of young Rolles, who checked his 
 horse and spied them like a vedette, but, per- 
 ceiving that he had been seen, came cantering 
 and hailing the general with hearty wonder- 
 ment. 
 
 " And what's this the world says, general?" 
 said he. " Bat we all applaud your taste. My 
 aunt Angela was the handsomest woman of 
 her time." 
 
 The general murmured in confusion: " Dear
 
 and Ludi] Camper. 65 
 
 me!" and looked at the young man, thinking 
 that he could not have known the time. 
 
 " Is all arranged, my dear general?" 
 
 " Nothing is arranged; and I beg— I say I 
 beg — I came out for fresh air and pace." 
 
 The general rode frantically. 
 
 In spite of the fresh air he was unable to eat 
 at breakfast. He was bound, of course, to 
 present himself to Lady Camper, in common 
 civility, immediately after it. 
 
 And first, what were the i3hrases he had to 
 avoid uttering in her presence? He could re- 
 member only the "gentlemanly residence." 
 And it was a gentlemanly residence, he 
 thought, as he took leave of it It was one, 
 neatly named to fit the place. Lady Camper 
 is indeed a most eccentric person! he decided 
 from his experience of her. 
 
 He was rather astonished that young Eolles 
 should have spoken so coolly of his aunt's 
 leaning to matrimony; but perhaps her exact 
 age was unknown to the younger members of 
 her family.
 
 66 The Case of General Ople 
 
 This idea refreshed him by suggesting the 
 extremely honorable nature of Lady Camper's 
 uncomfortable confession. 
 
 He himself had an uncomfortable confession 
 to make. He would have to speak of his in- 
 come. He was living up to the edges of it. 
 
 " She is an upright woman, and I must be 
 the same!" he said, fortunately not in her 
 hearing. 
 
 The subject was disagreeable to a man sensi- 
 tive on the topic of mouey, and feeling that 
 his prudence had recently beeu misled to keep 
 up appearances. 
 
 Lady Camper was in her garden, reclining 
 under her parasol. A chair was beside her, to 
 which, acknowledging the salutation of her 
 suitor, she waved him. 
 
 " You have met my nephew Eeginald this 
 morning, general?" 
 
 " Curiously, in the park, this morning, be- 
 fore breakfast, I did — yes. Hem! 1 — J say 
 I did meet him. Has your ladyship seen 
 him?"
 
 and Lady Camper. 67 
 
 No. The park is very pretty iu the early 
 
 mug." 
 
 morning 
 
 Sweetly pretty.*' 
 
 Lady Camper raised her head, and with the 
 mildness of assured dictatorshi]?, pronounced : 
 
 " Never say that before me." 
 
 " 1 submit, my lady," said the poor scourged 
 man. 
 
 " Why, naturally yoa do. Vulgar plirases 
 have to be endured, exeept when our intimates 
 are guilty, and then we are not merely offend- 
 ed — we are compromised by them. You are 
 still of the mind in which you left me yester- 
 day? You are one day older. But, I warn 
 you, so am I." 
 
 *' Yes, my lady, we can not — T say we can 
 not check — time. Decidedly of the same 
 mind. Quite so." 
 
 "Oblige me by never saying 'Quite so.' 
 My lawyer says it. It reeks of the city of 
 London. And do not look so miserable." 
 
 " 1, madame? — my dear lady!" the general 
 flashed out in a radiance that dulled instantly.
 
 ^8 The Case of General Ople 
 
 " Well,'^ said she, cheerfully, " and you're 
 for the old woman?" 
 
 " For Lady Camper." 
 
 " You are seductive in your flatteries, gen- 
 eral. Well, then, we have to speak of busi- 
 ness. '' 
 
 "My affairs— " 
 
 General Ople was beginning, with perturbed 
 foreliead, but Lady Camper held up her 
 finger. 
 
 " We will touch on your affairs incidentally. 
 Now, listen to me, and do not exclaim until I 
 have finished. You know that these two 
 young ones have been whispering over the 
 wall for some months. They have been meet- 
 ing on the river and in the park habitually, 
 apparently with your consent." 
 
 "My lady!" 
 
 " 1 did not say with your connivance.'* 
 
 " You mean my daughter Elizabeth?" 
 
 " And my nephew Eeginald. We have 
 named them, if that advances us. Now, the 
 end of such meetings is marriage, and the
 
 and Lady Camper. 69 
 
 ■ r 
 
 sooner the better, if they are to continue. I 
 would rather they should not; I do not hold 
 it good for young soldiers to marry. But if 
 they do, it is very certain that their pay will 
 not support a family; and in a marriage of 
 two healthy young people, we have to assume 
 the existence of the family. You have allowed 
 matters to go so far that the boy is hot in love; 
 I suppose the girl is, too. She is a nice girl. 
 1 do not object to her personally. But I in- 
 sist that -a settlement be made on her before I 
 give my nephew one penny. Hear me out, 
 for I am not fond of business, and shall be 
 glad to have done with these explanations. 
 Reginald has nothing of his own. He is my 
 sister's son, and I loved her, and rather like the 
 boy. He has at present four hundred a year 
 from me. I will double it, on, the condition 
 that you at once make over ten thousand 
 pounds — not less; and let it be yes or no — to 
 be settled on your daughter and go to her 
 children, independent of the husband — cda va 
 sans dire, Now you may speak, general. "
 
 70 The Case of General OpU 
 
 The general spoke, with breath fetched 
 from the deeps: 
 
 " Teu thousand pouudsl Hem! TenI frank- 
 ly, ten, my lady! One's income — I am quite 
 taken by suri^rise. 1 say Elizabeth's conduct 
 — though, jDoor child, it is natural to her to 
 seek a mate — I mean, to accept a mate and an 
 establishment; and Reginald is a very hopeful 
 fellow — I was saying they jump on me out of 
 an ambush; and I wish them every happiness. 
 And she is an ardent soldier, and a soldier she 
 must marry. But ten thousand!" 
 
 "It is to secure the happiness of your 
 daughter, general." 
 
 "Pounds! my lady. It would rather crip- 
 ple me." 
 
 " You would have my house, general; you 
 would have the moiety, as the lawyers say, of 
 my purse; you would have horses, carriages, 
 servants; I do not divine what more you 
 would wish to have." 
 
 " But, madame — a pensioner on the govern- 
 ment! I can look back on past services— I
 
 and Lady Camper. 71 
 
 say old services— aud 1 accept my position. 
 But, madame, a pensioner on my wife, bring- 
 ing next to nothing to the common estate! 1 
 fear my self-respect would, I say would—'* 
 
 " Well, and what would it do, General 
 Ople?" 
 
 * " I was saying my self-respect as my wife's 
 pensioner, my lady. 1 could not come to her 
 empty-handed. " 
 
 " Do you expect that 1 should be the person 
 to settle money on your daughter, to save her 
 from mischances? A rakish husband, for ex- 
 ample, for Reginald is young, and no one can 
 guess what will be made of him.'* 
 
 " Undoubtedly your ladyship is correct. 
 "We might try absence for the poor girl. I 
 have no female relation, but I could send her 
 to the sea-side to a lady friend." 
 
 " General Ople, I forbid you, as you value 
 my esteem, ever— and I repeat, I forbid you 
 ever— to afflict my ears with that phrase ' lady 
 friend!' "
 
 72 The Case of General Ople 
 
 The general blinked in a state of insurgent 
 liiimility. 
 
 These incessant whippings could not but 
 sting the humblest of men; and "lady 
 friend/' he was sure, was a very common 
 term, used, he was sure, in the very best so- 
 ciety. He had never heard her majesty speak 
 at levees of a lady friend, but he was quite 
 sure that she had one; and if so, what could 
 be the objection to her subjects mentioning it 
 as a term to suit their own circumstances? 
 
 He was harassed and perplexed by old Lady 
 Camper's treatment of him, and he resolved 
 not to call her Angela, even upon suj^plication 
 — not that day, at least. 
 
 She said: *" You will not need to bring 
 property of any kind to the common estate; 1 
 neither look for it nor desire it. The gener- 
 ous thing for you to do would be to give your 
 daughter all you have, and come to me." 
 
 " But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or 
 curtail my income — a man at his wife's discre- 
 tion, I was saying a man at his wife's mercy — "
 
 and Lady Camper. 73 
 
 General Ople was really forced, by his manly 
 dignity, to make this protest on its behalL 
 He did not see how he could have escaped 
 doing so; he was more an agent than a princi- 
 pal. " My wile's mercy/' he sfiid again, but 
 simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders. 
 
 Lady Camper's brows were wrathful. A 
 deep blood-crimson overcame the rouge, and 
 gave her a terrible stormy look. 
 
 " The congress now ceases to sit, and the 
 treaty is not concluded," was all she said. 
 
 She rose, bowed to him, " Good-morning, 
 general," and turned her back. 
 
 He sighed. He was a free man. But this 
 could not be denied — whatever the lady's age, 
 she was a grand woman in her carriage, and 
 when looking angry she had a queen-like aspect 
 that raised her out of the reckoning of time. 
 
 So now he knew there was a worse behind 
 what he had previously known. He was pre- 
 cipitate in calling it the worst. 
 
 " Now," sai4 he to himself, " I know the 
 worst r^
 
 f4 The Case of GcTieral Ople 
 
 No mail should ever say it. Least of all, 
 one who has entered uito relations with an ec- 
 centric lady. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Politeness required that General Ople 
 should not apjDear to rejoice in his dismissal as 
 a suitor, and should at least make some show 
 of holding himself at the beck of a reconsider- 
 ing mind. He was guilty of running up to 
 Loudon early next day, and remaining absent 
 until nightfall; and he did the same on the 
 two following days. When he presented him- 
 self at Lady Camper's lodge gates, the aston- 
 ishing intelligence that her ladyship had de- 
 parted for the Continent and Egypt gave him 
 qualms of remorse, which assumed a more 
 definite shape in something like awe of her 
 triumphant constitution. He forbore to men- 
 tion her age, for he was the most honorable of 
 men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness im- 
 pelled him to say and repeat an idea that h^^d.
 
 and Lady Camper. 75 
 
 visited him, to the effect that Lady Camper 
 was one of those wonderful women who are 
 comparable to brilliant generals, and defend 
 themselves from the siege of Time by various 
 aggressive movements. Fearful of not being 
 understood, owing to the rarity of the occa- 
 sions when the squat, plain squad of honest 
 Saxon regulars at his command were called 
 \x\)on to explain an idea, he recast the sen- 
 , tence. But, as it happened that the regulars 
 of his vocabulary were not numerous, and not 
 accustomed to work upon thoughts and images, 
 his repetitious rather succeeded in ex^josiug the 
 piece of knowledge he had recently acquired 
 than in making his meaning plainer. So we 
 need not marvel that his acquaintances should 
 suppose him to be secretly aware of an ex- 
 treme degree in which Lady Camper was a 
 veteran. 
 
 General Ople entered into the gayeties of 
 the neighborhood once more, and passed 
 through (.he winter cheerfully. In justice to 
 him, however, it should be said that to the in-
 
 7G The Case of General Ople 
 
 tent dwelling of his mind upon Lady Camper, 
 and not to the festive life he led, was due his 
 entire ignonuice of his daughter's uuhappi- 
 ness. She lived with him, aud jet it was in 
 other houses he learm d that she was unhappy. 
 After his lust interview with Lady Camper, he 
 had informed Elizabeth of the ruinous and 
 preposterous amount of money demanded of 
 him for a settlement upon her; and Elizabeth, 
 like the girl of good sense that she was, had 
 reiVuad immediately, " It could not bethought 
 of, p;ipa, " 
 
 He had spoken to Reginald likewise. The 
 young man fell into a dramatic tcaring-of-hair 
 and long -stride fury not ill -becoming an 
 ejiamored dragoon. But he maintained that 
 his aunt, though an eccentric, v/as a cordially 
 kind woman. lie seemed to feel, if he did 
 not partly hint, that the general might have 
 accepted Lady Camper's terms. The young 
 officer could not longer be welcome at Douro 
 Lodge, so the general paid him a morning call 
 at his quarters, and was distressed to find him
 
 and Lady Camper. ^K 
 
 breakfasting very late, tapping eggs that he 
 forgot to open — one of the surest signs of a 
 3'oung man downright and deeply in love, as the 
 general knew from experience — and surround- 
 ed by uncut sporting journals of past weeks, 
 which dated from the day when his blow had 
 struck him, as accurately as the watch of the 
 drowned man 'marks his minute. 
 
 Lady Camper had gone to Italy, and was in 
 communication with her nephew. Reginald 
 was not f ui'ther explicit. His legs were very 
 prominent in his despair, and his fingers fre- 
 quently performed the part of blunt combs, 
 consequently the general was impressed by his 
 ])a3sion for Elizabeth. The girl who, if she 
 was often meditative, always met his eyes with 
 a smile, and quietly said: " Yes, papa," and 
 " No, papa,'*' gave him little concern as to the 
 state of her feelings. Yet everybody said now 
 that she was unhapp}'. 
 
 Mrs. Barcop, the widow, raised her voice 
 above the rest. So attentive was she to Eliza- 
 beth that the general had it kindly suggested to
 
 78 The Case of General Ople 
 
 him that some one was courting him through 
 his daughter. He gazed at the widow. 
 
 Now she was not much past thirty; and it was 
 really singular — he could have laughed — the 
 thiuking of Mrs. Barcop set him persistently 
 thinking of Lady Camper. That is to say, his 
 mad fancy reverted from the lady of perhaps 
 thirty-five to the lady of seventy. Such, 
 thought he, is genius in a woman. Of his 
 neighbors generally, Mrs. Baerens, the wife of 
 a German merchant, an exquisite player on 
 the pianoforte, was the most inclined to lead 
 him to speak of Lady Camper. She was a 
 kind, prattling woman, and was known to 
 have been a governess before her charms with- 
 drew the gastronomic Gottfried Baerens from 
 his devotion to the well-served City club, 
 where, as he exclaimed (ever turning fondly 
 to his wife as he vocalized the compliment), he 
 had found every necessity, every luxury in 
 life, " as you can not have dem out of London 
 — all save de female I" Mrs. Baerens, a lady 
 of Teutonic extraction, was distinguishable as
 
 and Lady Camper. 79 
 
 oue of that sex; at least she was not masculine. 
 She spoke with great respect of Lady Camper 
 and her family, and seemed to agree in the 
 general's eulogies of Lady Camper's constitu- 
 tion. Still he thought she eyed him strangely. 
 
 One April morning the general received a 
 letter with the Italian postmark. Opening it 
 with his usual calm and happy curiosity, he 
 perceived that it was composed of pen-and-ink 
 drawings. And suddenly his heart sunk like 
 a scuttled ghip. He saw himself the victim 
 of a caricature. 
 
 The first sketch had merely seemed pictur- 
 esque, and he supposed it a clever play of 
 fancy by some traveling friend, or perhaps an 
 actual scene slightly exaggerated. 
 
 Even on reading " A distant View of the 
 City of Wilsonople," he was only slightly en- 
 lightened. His heart beat still with befitting 
 regularity. But the second and the third 
 sketches betrayed the terrible hand. The dis- 
 tant view of the city of "Wilsonople was fair 
 with glittering domes, which, in the succeed-
 
 80 The Case of General Ople 
 
 ing near view, proved to have been soap-bub- 
 bles, for a j)lace of extreme flatness, begrit 
 with crazy old - fashioned fortifications, was 
 shown; and in the third view, representing 
 the interior, stood for sole place of habitation, 
 a sentry-box. 
 
 Most minutely drawn, and, alas, with fear- 
 ful accuracy, a military gentleman in undress 
 occu^jied the box. Not a doubt could exist as 
 to the person it was meant to be. 
 
 The general tried hard to remain incredu- 
 lous. He remembered too well who had called 
 him Wilsonople. 
 
 But here was the extraordinary thing that 
 sent him over the neighborhood canvassing for 
 exclamations: on the fourth page was the out- 
 line of a lovely feminine hand holding a pen, 
 as in the act of shading, and under it was writ- 
 ten these words: " What I say is, I say I think 
 it exceedingly unlady-like.^' 
 
 Now consider the general's feelings when, 
 turning to this fourth page, having these very 
 words in his mouth, as the accurate expres-
 
 and Lady Camper. 81 
 
 siorf of his thoughts, he discovered them writ- 
 tea. 
 
 An enemy who anticipates the actions of our 
 mind has a quality of the mah'gnaut divine 
 that may well inspire terror. The senses of 
 General Ople were struck by the aspect of a 
 black goddess who penetrated him, read him 
 through, and had both power and will to ex- 
 pose and make him ridiculous forever. 
 
 The loveliness of the hand, too, in a \)ev- 
 plexing manner contested his denunciation of 
 her conduct. It was lady-like eminently, and 
 it involved him in a confused mixture of the 
 moral and material, as great as young jieople 
 are known to feel when they make the attempt 
 to separate them, in one of their frenzies. 
 
 With a petty, bitter laugh he folded the let- 
 ter, put it in his breast-pocket, and sallied 
 forth for a walk, chiefly to talk to himself 
 about it. But as it absorbed him entirely, he 
 showed it to the rector, whom he met, and 
 what the rector said is of no consequence, for 
 General Oi^le listened to no remarks, calling
 
 83 The Case of General Opie 
 
 in succession on the Pollingtons, the Goslings, 
 the Baerens, and others, early though it was, 
 and the lords of those houses absent amassing 
 hoards; and to the ladies everywhere he dis- 
 played the sketches he had received, observing 
 that Wilsonople meant himself; and there he 
 was, he said, pointing at the capped fellow in 
 the sentry box, done unmistakably. The like- 
 ness indeed was remarkable. " !She is a wom- 
 an of genius," he ejaculated, with utter mel- 
 ancholy. 
 
 Mrs. Baerens, by the aid of a magnifying- 
 glass, assisted him to read a line under the 
 sentry box, that he had taken for a mere trem- 
 bling dash; it ran: " A gentlemanly resi- 
 dence." 
 
 " What eyes she has I" the general ex- 
 claimed. " 1 say it is miraculous what eyes 
 she has at her time of — I was saying 1 should 
 never have known it was writing." 
 
 He sighed heavily. His shuddering sensi- 
 tiveness to caricature was increased by a cer- 
 tain evident dread of the hand which struck;
 
 and Lady Camper. 83 
 
 the Icuowing that he was absolutely bare to 
 this woman, defenseless, open to exposure in 
 his little whims, foibles, tricks, incompeten- 
 cies, in what lay in his heart, and the words 
 that would come to his tongue. He felt like 
 a man haunted. 
 
 So deeply did he feel the blow that peoj^le 
 asked how it was that he could be so foolish 
 as to dance about assisting Lady Camper in 
 her efforts to make him ridiculous; he acted 
 the parts of publisher and agent for the fear- 
 ful caricaturist. In truth there was a strange- 
 ly double reason for his conduct, he danced 
 about for sympathy, he had the inteusest 
 craving for sympathy, but more than this, or 
 quite as much, he desired to have the powers 
 of his enemy widely ajDpreciated; in the first 
 place, that he might be excused to himself for 
 wincing under them, and secondly, because an 
 awful admiration of her that should be deep- 
 ened by a corresponding sentiment around 
 him, helped him to enjoy luxurious recollec- 
 tions of an hour when he was near making her
 
 84 The Case of General Ople 
 
 his ovva — his own, in the holy abstract con- 
 temphitioii of marriage, without realizing their 
 probable relative conditions after the cere- 
 mony. 
 
 *' I say that is the very image of her lady- 
 shiji's hand," he was especially fond of re- 
 marking, " I say it is a beautiful hand." 
 
 He carried the letter in his pocket-book; 
 and beginning to fancy that she had done her 
 worst, for he could not imagine an inventive 
 malignity capable of pursuing the theme, he 
 spoke of her treatment of him witli compas- 
 sionate regret, not badly assumed from being 
 partly sincere. 
 
 Two letters dated in France, the one Dijou, 
 the other Fontaiuebleau, arrived together; and 
 as the general knew Lady Camper to be re- 
 turning to England, he expected that she was 
 anxious to excuse herself to him. His fingers 
 were not so confident, for he tore one of the 
 letters to open it. 
 
 The city of Wilsonople was recognizable im- 
 mediately. So likewise was the sole inhabitant.
 
 -^ and Lady Camper. 85 
 
 Gertieral Ople's petty, bitter laugh returned, 
 like a weak-chested patieut's cough in the shift- 
 ing of our winds eastward. 
 
 A faceless woman's shadow kneels on the 
 ground near the sentry box, weeping. A face- 
 less shadow of a 3'oung man on horseback is 
 beheld galloping toward, a gulf. The sole in- 
 habitant contemplates his largely substantial 
 full-fleshed face and. figure in a glass. 
 
 Next, we see the standard of Great Britain 
 furled; next, unfurled and borne by a troop 
 of shadows to the sentry-box. The officer 
 within says: " 1 say I should be very happy to 
 carry it, but I can not quit this gentlemanly 
 residence." 
 
 Next, the standard is shown assailed by pop- 
 guns. Several of the shadows are prostrate. 
 " I was saying, I assure you that nothing but 
 this gentlemanly residence prevents me from 
 heading you," says the gallant officer. 
 
 General Ople trembled with protestant in- 
 dignation when he saw himself reclining hi a 
 magnified sentry box, while the detachments
 
 86 The Case of General Ople 
 
 of shadows hurry to him to show him the 
 standard of his country trailing in the dust; 
 and he is maliciously made to say: " 1 dislike 
 responsibility. I say I am a fervent patriot, 
 and very fond of my comforts, but I shun re- 
 sponsibility." 
 
 The second letter contained scenes between 
 Wilsonople and the Moon. 
 
 He addresses her as his neighbor, and tells 
 her of his triumphs over the sex. 
 
 He requests her to inform him whether she is 
 a " female," that she may be triumphed over. 
 
 He hastens past her window on foot, with 
 his head bent, just as the general had been in 
 the habit of walking. 
 
 He drives a mouse-pony furiously by. 
 
 He cuts down a tree that she may peep 
 through. 
 
 Then, from the Moon's point of view, Wil- 
 sonople, a Silenus, is discerned in an arm- 
 chair winking at a couple too plainly pouting 
 their lips for a doubt of their intentions to be 
 entertained.
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. 87 
 
 Js. fourth letter arrived, bearing date of 
 Paris. This oue illustrated Wilsonople's court- 
 ship of the MooQ, and ended with his " say- 
 ing," in his peculiar manner: " lu spite of 
 her paint I could not have conceived her age 
 to be so enormous." 
 
 How break off his engagement with the 
 Lady Moon? Consent to none of her terms! 
 
 Little used as he was to read behind a veil, 
 acuteness of suffering sharpened the general's 
 intelligence to a degree that sustained him in 
 animated dialogue with each succeeding sketch 
 or poisoned arrow whirring at him, from the 
 moment his eyes rested on it; and here are a 
 few samples: 
 
 " Wilsonople informs the Moon that she is 
 ' sweetly pretty. ' ' ' 
 
 " lie thanks her with ' Thanks!' for a hand- 
 some piece of lunar green cheese." 
 
 "He points to her, apparently saying to 
 some one * My lady friend.' " 
 
 " He sneezes ' Bijou ! hijuu ! hijou !' " 
 
 They were trifles, but they attacked his
 
 88 The Case of General Ople 
 
 habits of speech; and lie began to grow more 
 and more alarmingly absurd in each fresh 
 caricature of his person. 
 
 lie looked at himself as the malicious wom- 
 an's hand had shaped him. It was unjust; it 
 was no resemblance — and yet it was! There 
 was a corner of likeness left that leavened the 
 lump; henceforth he must walk abroad with 
 this distressing image of himself before his 
 eyes, instead of the satisfactory reflex of the 
 man who had, and was happy in thinking that 
 he had done mischief in his time. Such an 
 end for a conquering man was too pathetic. 
 
 The general surprised himself talking to 
 himself in something louder than a hum at 
 neighbors' dinner- tables. He looked about 
 and noticed that people were silently watching 
 him. 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Lady Camper's return was the subject of 
 speculation in the neighborhood, for most
 
 .>• and Lady Camper. 89 
 
 people thought she would cease to persecute 
 the general with her preposterous and unwar- 
 rantable pen-and-ink sketches when living so 
 closely proximate; and how he would behave 
 was the question. Those who made a hero of 
 him were sure he would treat her with disdain. 
 Others were uncertain. He had been so 
 severely hit that it seemed possible he would 
 not show much spirit. 
 
 He, for his part, had come to entertain such 
 dread of the post, that Lady Camper's return 
 relieved him of his morning apprehensions; 
 and he would have forgiven her, though he 
 feared to see her, if only she had promised to 
 leave him in peace for the future. He feared 
 to see her, because of the too probable furnish- 
 ing of fresh matter for her ladyship's hand. 
 Of course he could not avoid being seen by 
 her, and that was a particular misery. A 
 gentlemanly humility or demureness of as- 
 pect when seen, would, he hoped, disarm his 
 enemy. It should, he thought. He had 
 borne unheard-of things. No one of his
 
 00 The Ca.se of General Ople 
 
 friends and acquaiutauces knew, they could 
 not know, what he had endured. It had 
 caused him fits of stammering. It had de- 
 stroyed the composure of his gait. Elizabeth 
 had informed him that he talked to himself 
 incessantly, and aloud. She, poor child, 
 looked pale, too. She was evidently anxious 
 about him. 
 
 Young Kolles, whom he had met now and 
 then, persisted in praising his aunt's good 
 heart. So, perhaps, having satiated her re- 
 venge, she might now be inclined for peace, 
 on the terms of distant civility. 
 
 " Yes. Poor Elizabeth!" sighed the gen- 
 eral, in pity of the poor girl's disappoint- 
 ment; "poor Elizabeth! she little guesses 
 what her father has gone through. Poor 
 child! I say, she hasn't any idea of ray suffer- 
 ings." He commended himself for keeping 
 them from her. 
 
 General Ople delivered his card at Lady 
 Camper's lodge gates, and escaped to his resi- 
 dence in a state of prickly heat that requir-ed
 
 ^ and Lady Camper. 91 
 
 th^ brushing of his hair with hard brushes for 
 teu minutes lo comfort and re-establish him. 
 
 He fell to working in his garden, when 
 Lady Camper's card was brought to him an 
 hour after the delivery of his own, a pleasing 
 promptitude, showing signs of repentance, 
 and suggesting to the general instantly some 
 sharp sarcasms upon women, which he had 
 come upon in quotation in the p; pers and the 
 pulpitj his two main sources of information. 
 
 Instead of handing back the card to the 
 maid, he stuck it in his hat and went on dig- 
 ging- 
 
 The first of a series of letters containing 
 
 shameless realistic caricatures was handed to 
 him the afternoon following. They came fast 
 and thick. Not a day's interval of grace was 
 allowed. Niobe under the shafts of Diana was 
 hardly less violently and morally assailed. 
 The deadliness of the attack lay in the ridicule 
 of the daily habits of one of the most sensitive 
 of men, as to his personal aj^pearance, and the 
 opinion of the world. He might have con-
 
 92 The Case of General Ople 
 
 cealed the sketches, but he could not have 
 concealed the bruises, and people were per- 
 IDCtually asking the unhappy general what he 
 was saying, for he spoke to himself as if he 
 were repeating something to them for the 
 tenth time. 
 
 " 1 say,'' said he, " I say, that for a lady, 
 really an educated lady, to sit, as she must — 
 I was saying, she must have sat in au attic to 
 have the right view of me. And there, you 
 see, this is what she has done. This is the 
 last; this is the afternoon's delivery. Her 
 ladyship has me correctly as to costume, but 
 I could not exhibit such a sketch to ladies." 
 
 A back view of the general was displayed 
 in his act of digging. 
 
 " I say I could not allow ladies to see it," 
 he informed the gentlemen, who were suffered 
 to inspect it freely. 
 
 " But you see 1 have no means of escape; I 
 am at her mercy from morning to night," the 
 general said, with a quivering tongue, *' un- 
 less I stay at home insjcle the house; and that
 
 (i/til Lady Camper. 93 
 
 Is death to me, or unless 1 abandon the place, 
 and my lease; and 1 shall — I say, I shall find 
 nowhere iu England for anything like the 
 money or conveniences such a gent — a resi- 
 dence you would call fit for a gentleman. I 
 call it a hi — it is, iu short, a gem. But I 
 shall have to go." 
 
 Young Eolles offered to expostulate with 
 his aunt Angela. 
 
 The general said: " Tha— 1 thank you very 
 much. I would not have her ladyship sup- 
 pose I am so susceptible. I hardly know," 
 he confessed pitiably, " what it is right to say, 
 and what not — what not. 1 — I — I never 
 know that I am not looking a fooh I hurry 
 from tree to tree to shun the light. I am 
 seriously affected in my appetite. I say I 
 shall have to go." 
 
 Reginald gave him to understand that if he 
 flew the shafts would follow him, for Lady 
 Camper would never forgive his running away, 
 and was quite equal to publishing a book of 
 the adventures of Wilsonople.
 
 94 The Case of Gemral Oph 
 
 Suiulay iifLenioon, walking in (lie park with 
 his daughter on his arm, General Ople met 
 Mr. Eolles. lie saw that the yonug man and 
 Elizabeth were mortally pale, and as the very 
 idea of wretchedness directed his attention to 
 himself, he addressed them conjointly on the 
 subject of his persecution, giving neither of 
 them a chance of speaking until they were 
 constrained to part. 
 
 A sketch was the consequence, in which a 
 withered Cupid and a fading Psyche were seen 
 divided by Wilsonople, who keeps them forci- 
 bly asunder with policeman's fists, while 
 courteously and elegantly entreating them to 
 hear him. " Meet,'' he tells them, " as often 
 as you like, in my company, so long as you 
 listen to me;" and the pathos of his aspect 
 makes hungry demand for a sympathetic audi- 
 ence. 
 
 Now this, and not the series representing 
 the martyrdom of the old couple at Douro 
 Lodge gates, whose rigid frames bore witness 
 to the close packing of a gentlemanly resi-
 
 and Lady Camper. 95 
 
 dence, this was the sketch General Ople, in his 
 ma'clness from the pursuing bite of the gadfly, 
 handed about at Mrs. Pollington's lawn-party. 
 Some have said that he would not have betrayed 
 his daughter; but it is reasonable to suppose 
 he had no idea of his daughter's being the 
 Psyche. Or if he had, it was indistinct, owing 
 to the violence of his personal emotion. As- 
 suming this to have been the very sketch, he 
 handed it to two or three ladies in turn, and 
 was heard to deliver himself at intervals in 
 the following snatches: " As you like, my lady, 
 as you like; strike, I say, strike; I bear it; I 
 say 1 bear it. If her ladyship is unforgiving, 
 I say I am enduring — I may go — I was saying 
 1 may go mad, but while 1 have my reason I 
 walk upright — I walk upright.^' 
 
 Mr. Pollington and certain City gentlemen 
 hearing the poor general's renewed soliloquies, 
 were seized with disgust of Lady Camper's 
 conduct, and stoutly advised an application to 
 the law courts. 
 
 He gave ear to them abstractedly, but after
 
 96 The Case of General Ople 
 
 pulliug out the whole chapter of the carica- 
 tures (which it seemed that he kept in a case 
 of morocco leather in his breast- pocivet), show- 
 ing them, with comments on them, and ob- 
 serving, " There will be more — there must be 
 more — I say I am sure there are things I do 
 that her ladyship will discover and expose/' 
 he declined to seek redress or simple protec- 
 tion; and the miserable spectacle was exhibited 
 soon after of this courtly man listening to 
 Mrs. Barcop on the weather, and replying in 
 acquiescence: "It is hot — If your ladyship 
 will only abstain from colors. Very hot, as 
 you say, madame — 1 do not complain of pen 
 and ink, but I would rather escape colors. 
 And I dare say you find it hot, too?" 
 
 Mrs. Barcop shut her eyes and sighed over 
 the wreck of a handsome military officer. 
 
 She asked him: " What is your objection to 
 colors?" 
 
 His hand was at his breast-pocket immedi- 
 ately, as he said: "Have you not seen?" — 
 though but a few minutes back he had shown
 
 and Lady Camper. 97 
 
 her ther5ontents of the packet, iucludiug a hur- 
 ried glance of the famous digging scene. 
 
 By this time the entire district was in fervid 
 sympaLhy with General Opie. The ladies did 
 not, as their lords did, proclaim astonishment 
 that a man i^^hould suffer a woman to goad him 
 to a state of semi-lunacy; but one or two con- 
 fessed to their husbands that it required a 
 great admiration of General Ople not to de- 
 spise him, both for his susceptibility and his 
 patience. As for the men, they knew him to 
 have faced the balls in bellowing battle-strife; 
 they knew him to have endured privation, not 
 only cold, but downright want of food and 
 diink — an almost unimaginable horror to these 
 brave daily feasters; so they could not quite 
 look on him in contempt; but his want of 
 sense was offensive, and still more so his sub- 
 mission to a scourging by a woman. Not one 
 of them would have deigned to feel it. Would 
 they have allowed her to see that she could sting 
 them? They w^ould have laughed ather. Or they 
 would have dragged her before a magistrate. 
 
 4
 
 08 The Case of General Ople 
 
 It was a Sunday in early summer when Gen- 
 eral Oi^le walked to morning service, unac- 
 companied by Elizabeth, who was unwell. 
 The church was of the considerate, old- 
 fashioned order, with square pews, permit- 
 ting the mind to abstract itself from the ser- 
 mon, or wrestle at leisure with the difficulties 
 presented by Ihe preacher, as General Ople 
 often did, feeling not a little in love with his 
 sincere attentiveness for grappling with the 
 knotty point, and partially allowing the strug- 
 gle to be seen. The church was, besides, a 
 sanctuary for him. Hither his enemy did not 
 come. He had this one place of refuge, and 
 he almost looked a happy man again. 
 
 He had passed into his hat and out of it, 
 which he habitually did standing, when who 
 should walk up to within a couple of yards of 
 liim but Lady Camper. Her pew was full 
 of poor people, who made signs of retiring. 
 She signified to them that they were to sit, 
 then quietly took her seat among them, front- 
 ing the general across the aisle.
 
 and Lady Camper. 99 
 
 •-^ 
 . During the sermon a low voice, snarji in 
 
 contradistinction to the monotone of the 
 preacher's, was heard to repeat these words: 
 "I say I am not sure 1 shall survive it/' 
 Considerable muttering in the same quarter 
 was heard besides. 
 
 After the customary ceremonious game, 
 when all were free to move, of nobody liking 
 to move first. Lady Camper and a charily boy 
 were the persons who took the lead. But Lady 
 Camper could not quit her pew, owing to the 
 sticking of the door. She smiled, as with her 
 pretty hand she twice or thrice esi^ayed to 
 shake it ojoen. General Ople strode to her 
 aid. He pulled the door, gave the shadow of 
 a respectful bow, and no doubt he would have 
 withdrawn, had not Lady Camper, while ac- 
 knowledging the civility, placed her prayer- 
 book in his liands to carry at her heels. There 
 was no clioice for him. He made a sort of 
 slipping dance back for his hat, and followed 
 her ladyship. All present being eager to wit- 
 ness the spectacle, the passage of Lady Cam-
 
 100 The Case of General O'pie 
 
 per dragging the vietini general beliind her 
 was ©bEcrved without a stir of the well-dressed 
 members of tlie cnngregation, until a desire 
 overcame them to see how Lady Camper would 
 behave to her fish when she had him outside 
 the sacred edifice. 
 
 None could have imagined such a scene. 
 Lady Camper was in her carnage; General 
 Ople was, hat in hand, at the carriage-step, 
 and he looked as if he were toasting before the 
 bars of a furnace, for while he stood there, 
 Lady Camper was rapidly penciling outlines 
 in a small pocket sketch-book. There are 
 dogs whose shyness is put to it to endure 
 human observation and a direct address to 
 them, even on the part of their masters; and 
 these dear simple dogs wag tail and turn their 
 heads aside waveringly, as though to entreat 
 you not to eye them and talk to them so. 
 General Ople, in the j)resence of the sketch- 
 book, was much like the iiervous animal. Me 
 would fain have run away. He glanced at it, 
 and round about, and again at it, and at the
 
 and Lady Camper. 101 
 
 .<*> 
 
 heavens. Her ladyship's cruelty, aud his in- 
 explicable submission to it, were witnessed of 
 the multitude. 
 
 The general's friends walked very slowly. 
 Lady Camper's carriage whirled by, and the 
 general came up with them, accosting them 
 and himself alternately. They asked him 
 where Elizabeth was, and he replied, " Poor 
 child, yes! I am told she is pale, but I can 
 
 • 
 
 not believe 1 am so perfectly — 1 say so perfect- 
 ly-T^'idiculous when I join in the responses." 
 He drew forth half a dozen sheets, and showed 
 them sketches that Lady Camper had taken 
 in church, caricaturing him in the sitting down 
 and the standing up. She had lorn them out 
 of the book, and presented them to him when 
 driving off. " I was saying, M'orship in the 
 ordinary sense will be interdicted to me if her 
 ladyship — "said the general, wofully, shuffling 
 the sketch-paper sheets in which he figured. 
 
 He made the following odd confession to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Gosling on the road — that he had 
 gone to his chest, and taken out his sword-belt
 
 102 The Case of General Opie 
 
 to measure his girth, and fouud himself thin- 
 ner than when he left the service, which had 
 not been the case before his attendance at the 
 last levee of the foregoing season. So the de- 
 duction was obvious — that Lady Camper had 
 reduced him. She had reduced him as effect- 
 ually as a harassing siege. 
 
 " But why do you pay accention to her! 
 Why — " exclaimed Mr. Gosling, a gentleman 
 of the City, whose roundness would have turned 
 a rifle-shot. 
 
 " To allow her to wound you so seriously!" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Gosling. 
 
 " Madame, if she were my wife," the gen- 
 eral explained, " 1 should feel it. I say it is 
 the fact of it; I feel it, if I appear so ex- 
 tremely ridiculous to a huuian eye, to any one 
 eye.'' 
 
 " To Lady Camper's eye!" 
 
 He admitted it might be that. He had 
 not thought of ascribing the acuteness of his 
 l^aiii to the miserable image he presented to 
 this particular lady's eye. No; it really was
 
 and Ladij Camper. 103 
 
 .>* 
 
 true, curiously true; another lady's eye might 
 have trausformed him to a pumpkin shape, 
 exaggerated all his foibles fifty-fold, and he, 
 though not likiug it, of course not, would yet 
 have preserved a certain manly equanimity. 
 How was it Lady Camj^er had such power 
 over him — a lady concealing seventy years 
 with a rouge-box or paint-pot? It was witch- 
 craft in its worst character. He had for six 
 months at her bidding been actually living the 
 life of a beast, degraded in his own esteem; 
 scorched by every laugh he heard; running, 
 pursued, overtaken, and, as it were, scored or 
 branded, and then let go for the process to be 
 repeated. 
 
 CHAPTER Vlll. 
 
 OcR young barbarians have it all their own 
 way with us when they fall into love-liking; 
 they lead us whither they please, and interest 
 us in their wishings, their weepings, and that 
 fine performance, their kissings. But when
 
 104 The Case of General Ofle 
 
 we see our veterans tottering to their fall, we • 
 scarcely consent to their having a wish; as for 
 a kiss, we halloo at them if we discover them 
 on a by-way to the sacred grove where such 
 things are supposed to be done by the vener- 
 able. And this piece of rank injustice, not to 
 say impoliteness, is entirely because of an un- 
 sound opinion that Nature is not in it, as 
 though it were our esteem for Nature which 
 caused us to disrespect them. They, in truth, 
 show her to us discreet, civilized, in a decent 
 moral asjiect; vistas of real life, views of the 
 mind's eye, are opened by their touching lit- 
 tle emotions; whereas those bully youngsters 
 who come bellowing at us and catch us by the 
 senses plainly prove either that we are no bet- 
 ter than they, or that we give our attention of 
 Nature only when she makes us afraid of her. 
 If we cared for her, we should be up and after 
 lier reverentially in her sedater steps, deeply 
 studying her in her slower paces. Whirling, 
 she teaches nothing. Our closest instructors, 
 the true philosophers— the sLory-tcllers, in
 
 and Lady Camper. 105 
 
 short — will learn in time that Nature is not of 
 necessity always roaring, and as soon as they 
 do, the world may be said to be enlightened. 
 Meantime, in the contemplation of a j^air of 
 white whiskers fluttering round a j)air of man- 
 ifestly painted cheeivs, be assured that Nature 
 is in it, very Nature, domesticated Nature, 
 the Nature of gradations. Nature with a per- 
 spective. Art in days to come will dote on the 
 theme. It is Nature calling to Nature, Nat- 
 ure amazed with brains, and pursuing the di- 
 rection of their index; not that hectoring old 
 wanton — but let the young have their fun. Let 
 the superior interest of the i)assions of the aged 
 be conceded, and not a word shall be said 
 against the young. They are young, and hap- 
 pily they can not clothe themselves. 
 
 If, then. Nature is in it, with a couple prop- 
 erly attired, how has she been made active? 
 The reason of her launch upon this last ad- 
 venture is, that she has perceived the person 
 who can supply the virtue known to her by ex- 
 perience to be wanting. Thus, in the broader
 
 106 
 
 The Case of General O'ple 
 
 instance, many who have journeyed far down 
 the road, turn back to the worship of youth, 
 which they liave lost. 8ornearefor the grace- 
 ful worl(]liuess of wit, of which they have jusfc 
 share enough to admire it. Some are capti- 
 vated by hands that can wield the rod, which 
 in earlier days they escaped to their cost. In 
 the case of General Ople it was partly her 
 whippings of him, partly her penetration, 
 her ability, that sat so finely on a wealihy 
 woman; her indifference to conventional man- 
 ners, that so well beseemed a nobly born one, 
 and more than all, her correction of his 
 little weaknesses and incompetencies, in spite 
 of his dislike of it, won him. He began to 
 feel a sort of nibbling pleasure in her gro- 
 tesque sketches of his person; a tendency to 
 recur to the old ones, wdiile dreading the 
 arrival of new. You hear old gentlemen speak 
 fondly of the switch; and they are not attached 
 to pain, but the instrument revives their feel- 
 ing of youth; and General Ople half enjoyed, 
 while shrinking. Lady Camper's foregone out-
 
 and Lady Camper. 107 
 
 lines of him. For iu the distance^ the wliip's 
 enS may look lilie a clingiug caress instead of 
 a stinging flick. But this craven melting in his 
 heart was rebuked by a very worthy pride, 
 that flew for support to the injury she had 
 done to his devotions and the offense to the 
 sacred edifice. After thinking over it he de- 
 cided that he must quit his residence; and as 
 it appeared to him in the light of a duty, with 
 an unspoken anguish, commissioned the 
 house-agent of his town to sgU his lease or let 
 the house furnished, without further parley. 
 
 From the house-agent's shop he turned into 
 the chemist's for a tonic — a foolish proceed- 
 ing — for he had received bracing enough in the 
 blow he had just dealt himself, but he had been 
 cogitating on tonics recently, imagining cer- 
 tain valiant effects of them, with visions of a 
 former careless hap^^iuess that they were likely 
 to restore. So he requested to have the tonic 
 strong, and he took one glass of it over the 
 counter. 
 
 Fifteen minutes after the draught he came
 
 108 Tlie Case of Geiitral Gph 
 
 in sight of his house^ and beholding it, he 
 could have called it a gentlemanly residence 
 aloud under Lady Camper's windows, his in- 
 surgency was of such violeuce. He talked of 
 it incessantly, but forebore to tell Elizabeth, 
 as she was looking pale, the reason why its 
 modest merits touched him so. He longed 
 for the hour of his next dose, and for a carica- 
 ture to follow, that he might drink and defy 
 it. A caricature was really due to him, he 
 thought; otherwise why had he abandoned his 
 bijou dwelling. Lady Camper, however, sent 
 none. He had to wait a fortnight before one 
 came, and that was rather a likeness, and a 
 handsome likeness, except as regarded a cer- 
 tain disorderliness in his dress, which he knew 
 to be very unlike him. Still it dispatched 
 him to the looking-glass, to bring that verifier 
 of fact in evidence against the sketch. While 
 sitting there he heard the house-maid's knock 
 at the door, and the strange intelligence that 
 his daughter was with Lady Camper, and had 
 left word that she hoped he would not forget
 
 and Lady Ctwiper. 1( 9 
 
 >■' 
 his engagement to go to Mrs. Bacreus' luwii- 
 
 panty. 
 
 The general jumped away from the glass, 
 censuring the absent Elizabeth in a fit of wrath 
 so foreign to him that he returned hurriedly 
 to have another look at himself, and exclaimed 
 at the pitch of his voice: " I say, I attribute 
 it to an indigestion of that tonic. Do you 
 h^ar?" The house-maid faintly answered out- 
 side the door that she did, alarming him, for 
 there seemed to be confusion somewhere. His 
 , hope was that no one would mention Lady 
 CamperV name, for the mere thought of her 
 caused a rush to his head. " I believe I am 
 in for a touch of apoplexy," he said to the rec- 
 tor, who greeted him, in advance of the ladies, 
 on Mrs. Baerens' lawn. He said it smilingly, 
 but wanting some show of sympathy, instead 
 of the whisper and meaningless hand at his 
 clerical band, with which the rector responded, 
 he cried, " Apoplexy,'' and his friend seemed 
 then to understand, and disappeared among 
 the ladies.
 
 110 Tie Cafte of General OpU 
 
 Several of them surrounded the general, and 
 one inquired whether the series was being con- 
 tinued. He drew forth his j^od^et-book, 
 handed her the latest, and remarked on the 
 gross injustice of it; for, as he requested them 
 to take the note, her ladyship now sketched 
 him as a person inattentive to his dress, and he 
 begaed them to observe that she had drawn 
 
 DO 
 
 him with his neck-tie hanging loose. " And 
 that — I say that has never been known of me 
 since I first entered society." 
 
 The ladies exchanged looks of profound con- 
 cern, for the fact was, the general had come 
 without any necktie and any collar, and he ap- 
 peared to be unaware of the circumstance. The 
 rector had told them that, in answer to a hint 
 he had dropped on the subject of neck-tics, 
 General 0])le expressed a slight apprehension 
 of apoplexy; but his careless or merely partial 
 observance of the laws of butlonment could 
 have nothing to do with such fears. They 
 signified rather a disorder of the intelligence. 
 Elizabeth was condemned for leaving him to
 
 and Lady Camper. Ill 
 
 go about 'aloue. The situation was really most 
 painful, for a word to so sensitive a man would 
 drive him away in shame and for good; and 
 still, to let him parade the ground in the state, 
 compared with his natural self, of scarecrow, 
 and with the dreadful habit of talking to him- 
 self quite raging, was a horrible alternative. 
 Mrs. Baerens at last directed her husband upon 
 the general, trembling as though she watches 
 for the operations of a fish torpedo; and other 
 ladies shared her excessive anxiousness, for 
 Mr. Baerens had the manner and look of 
 artillery, and on this occasion carried a sur- 
 charge of powder. 
 
 The general bent his ear to Mr. Baerens, 
 whose German-English and repeated remark, 
 " 1 am to do it wid delicassy," did not assist 
 his comprehension, and when he might have 
 been enlightened, he was petrified by seeing 
 Lady Camper walk on the lawn with Ehza- 
 beth. The great lady stood a moment beside 
 Mrs. Baerens; she came straight over to him, 
 contemplating him in silence.
 
 112 ^he Case of General Ople 
 
 Then she said, " Your arm, General Ople," 
 and she made one circuit of the lawn with him, 
 barely speaking. 
 
 At her request he conducted her to her car- 
 riage. He took a seat beside her, obediently. 
 He felt that he was being sketched, and com- 
 ported himself like a child's flat man, that 
 jumps at the pulling of a string. 
 
 " Where hav^e you left your girl, general?" 
 Before he could rally his wits to answer the 
 question, he was asked: 
 
 " And what have you done with your neck- 
 tie and collar?" 
 
 He touched his throat. 
 
 " I am rather nervous to-day; I forgot, 
 Elizabeth," he said, sending his lingers in a 
 dotting run of wonderment round his neck. 
 
 Lady Camper smiled with a triumphing 
 humor on her close-drawn lijDS. 
 
 The verified absence of neck-tie and collar 
 seemed to be choking him. 
 
 " Never mind, you have been abroad with- 
 out them," said Lady Camper, " and that is
 
 and Lady Camper. 113 
 
 a vicfcory'^for me. And you thought of Eliza- 
 bepi first wheu I drew your attention to it, 
 and that is a victory for you. It is a very 
 great victory. Pray do not be dismayed, gen- 
 eral. You have a handsome campaigning air. 
 And no apologies, if you please; I like you 
 well enough as you are. There is my hand." 
 
 General Ople understood her last remark. 
 He pressed the lady's hand iu silence very 
 nervously. 
 
 " But do not shrug your head into your 
 shoulders as if there were any possibility of 
 concealing the thunderingly evident," said 
 Lady Camper, electrifying him what with her 
 cordial squeeze, her kind eyes, and her singu- 
 lar language. " You have omitted the collar. 
 "Well? The collar is the fatal finishing touch 
 in men's dress; it would make Apollo look 
 bo7irgeois." 
 
 Her hand was in his; and watching the play 
 of her features, a spark entered General Ople's 
 brain, causing him, in forgetfulness of collar 
 and caricatures, to ejaculate:
 
 114 The Case of (kncral Qi-le 
 
 " Seventy? Did 3'oiir laclyshi]') say seventy? 
 Utterly impossible! You trifled with me." 
 
 " We will talk when we are free of this ac- 
 companiment of carrioi^e- wheels, general," 
 said Lady Camper. 
 
 " I will beg permission to go and fetch 
 Elizabeth, madanie. " 
 
 " Rightly thought of. Fetch her in my car- 
 riage. And, by the way, Mrs. Baerens was 
 my old music-mistress, and is, I think, one 
 year older than 1. She can tell you on which 
 side of seventy 1 am." 
 
 " I shall not require to ask, my lady," he 
 said, sighing. 
 
 " Then we will send the carriage for Eliza- 
 beth, and have it out together at once. I am 
 impatient; yes, general, impatient — for what? 
 forgiveness. ' ' 
 
 " Of me, my lady?" The general breathed 
 profoundly. 
 
 " Of whom else? Do you know what it is? 
 I don't think you do. You English have the 
 smallest experience of humanity. I mean this:
 
 and Lady Camper. 115 
 
 to strike so hard that, in the end, you soften 
 '^'our heart to the victim. Well, that is my 
 weakness. And we of our blood pat no re- 
 straint on the blows we strike, so we are al- 
 ways overdoing it." 
 
 General Ople assisted Lady Camper to 
 alight from the carriage, which was forthwith 
 dispatched for Elizabeth. 
 
 He prepared to listen to her with a discon- 
 nected smile of acute attentiveness. 
 
 She had changed. She spoke of money. 
 Ten thousand pounds must be settled on his 
 daugh'ter. " And now," said she, " you will 
 remember that you are wanting a collar." 
 
 He acquiesced. He craved permission to 
 retire for ten minutes. 
 
 " Simplest of men! What will cover you?" 
 she exclaimed, and peremptorily bidding him 
 sit down in the drawing-room she took one of 
 the famous pair of pistols in her hand, and 
 said: "If I put myself in a similar position, 
 and make myself decolUtee, too, will that sat- 
 isfy you? You see these murderous weapons?
 
 116 The Case of General OpU 
 
 Well, I am a coward. I dread fire-arms. 
 They are hid there to impose on the world, 
 and I believe they do. They have imposed on 
 you. Now you would never think of pretend- 
 ing to a moral quality you do not possess. 
 But, sill}', simple man that you are I you can 
 give yourself the airs of wealth, buy horses to 
 conceal your nakedness, and when you are 
 taken upon the standard of your apparent in- 
 come, you would rather seem to be beating a 
 miserly retreat than behave frankly and hon- 
 estly. I have a little overstated it, but I am 
 near the mark. " 
 
 " Your ladyship wanting courage!" cried 
 the general. 
 
 " Eef resh yourself by meditating on it," 
 said she. " And to prove it to you, 1 was glad 
 to take this house when 1 knew I was to have 
 a gallant gentleman for a neighbor. No 
 visitors will be admitted. General Ople, so you 
 are bare-throated only to me — sit quietly. 
 One day you speculated on the paint on my 
 cheeks for the space of a minute and a half — •
 
 and Lady Catniicr. 117 
 
 i had said that I freckled easily. Your look 
 sfguified that you really could not detect a sin- 
 gle freckle for the paint. 1 forgave you, or I 
 did not. But when I found you, on closer 
 acquaintance, as indifferent to your daugh- 
 ter's happiness as you had been to her reputa- 
 tion—" 
 
 " My daughter! her reputation! her happi- 
 ness!" 
 
 General Ople raised his eyes under a wave, 
 half , uttering the outcries. 
 
 " So indifferent to her reputation that you 
 allowed' a young man to talk with her over 
 the wall, and meet her by appointment: so 
 reckless of the girl's happiness that when I 
 tried to bring you to a treaty on her behalf, 
 you could not be dragged from thinking of 
 yourself and your own affairs. When I found 
 that, perhaps I was predisposed to give you 
 some of what my sisters used to call my 
 spice. You would not honestly state the i^ro- 
 portions of your income, and you affected to 
 be faithful to the woman of seventy. Most
 
 118 The Case of General Oph 
 
 preposterous! Could any caricature of mine 
 exceed iu grotesqueuess your sketch of your- 
 self? You are a brave and a generous man 
 all the same; and I suspect it is more hood- 
 winking than egotism — or extreme egotism — 
 that blinds you. A certain amount you must 
 have to be a man. You did not like my paint, 
 still less did you like my sincerity; you were 
 annoyed by my corrections of your habits of 
 speech; you were horrified by the age of sev- 
 enty, and you were credulous. General Ople, 
 listen to me, and remember that you have no 
 collar on! you were credulous of my statement 
 of my great age, or you chose to be so, or 
 chose to seem so because I had brushed your 
 cat's coat against the fur. And then, full of 
 yourself, not thinking of Eli;:abeth, but to 
 withdraw in the chivalrous attitude of the man 
 true to his word to the old woman, only stick- 
 ling to bi'ing a certain independence to the 
 common stock, because — I quote you, and you 
 have no collar on, mind — ' vou could not be 
 at your wife's mercy,' you broke from your
 
 and Lady Camper. 119 
 
 proposal on the money question. Where was 
 your consideration for Elizabeth then? Well, 
 general, you were fond of thinking of your- 
 self, and I thought I would assist you. I 
 gave you i^Jenty of subject matter. 1 will not 
 say I meant to work a homeopathic cure. 
 But if I drive you to forget your collar is it or 
 is it not a triumjih? l\o," added Lady Cam- 
 per, '' it is no triumph for me; but it is one 
 for you, if you like to make the most of it. 
 Your fault has been to quit active service, gen- 
 eral; and love your ease too well. It is the 
 fault of your countrymen. You must get a 
 militia regiment, or inspectorship of militia. 
 You are ten times the man in exercise. Why, 
 do you mean to tell me that you would have 
 cared for those drawings of mine when march- 
 ing?" 
 
 " I think so — I say I think so," remarked 
 the general, seriously. 
 
 " I doubt it,'' said she. " But to the 
 point: here comes Elizabeth. If you have not 
 much money to spare for her, according to
 
 r 
 
 120 2 he Case of General Ople 
 
 your prudent calculation, reflect how this 
 money has enfeebled you and reduced you to 
 the level of the people round about us here — 
 who flre what? Inhabitants of gentlemanly 
 residences — yes! But wliat kind of creatures? 
 They have no mental standard, no moral aim, 
 no native chivahy. You were rapidly becom- 
 ing one of thoni, only, fortunately for you, 
 you were sensitive to ridicule." 
 
 " Elizabeth shall have half my money set- 
 tled on her," said the general; " though I 
 fear it is not much. And if I can find occu- 
 pation, my lady — " 
 
 '* Something worthier than /fZt«^,"saId Lady 
 Camper, penciling outlines rapidly on the 
 margin of a book, and he saw himself lashing 
 a pony; " or thai," and he was jDlucking at a 
 cabbage; " or that," and he was bowing to 
 three petticoated posts. 
 
 " The 'likeness is exact/' General Ople 
 groaned. 
 
 " So you may suppose I have studied you," 
 said she. "But there is no real likeness.
 
 and Lady Camjjer. 131 
 
 Slight exaggerations do more harm to truth 
 /fchan reckless violations of it. You would not 
 have cared one bit for a caricature if you had 
 not nursed the absurd idea of beiug one of our 
 conquerors. It is the very tragedy of modesty 
 for a man like you to have such notions, my 
 poor dear good friend. The modest are the 
 most easily intoxicated, when they sip at van- 
 ity. And reflect whether you have not been 
 intoxicated; for these young people have been 
 wretched, and you have not observed it, 
 though one of them was living with you, and 
 is the' child you love. There, I have done. 
 Pray show a good face to Elizabeth." 
 
 The general obeyed as well as he could. He 
 felt very like a sheep that has come from a 
 shearing, and when released he wished to run 
 away. But hardly had he escaped before he 
 had a desire for the renewal of the operation. 
 " She sees me through, she sees me through," 
 he was heard saying to himself; and in the 
 end he taught himself to say it with a secret 
 exultation, for as it was on her part an ex-
 
 132 The Case of Oeneral Ople 
 
 traordiuary piece of insight to see him 
 through, it struck hitu that in acknowledging 
 the truth of it he made a discovery of new- 
 powers in human nature. 
 
 General Ople studied Lady Camper dili- 
 gently for fresh proofs of her penetration of 
 the mysteries in his bosom, by which means, 
 as it happened that she was diligently observ- 
 ing the two betrothed young ones, he began 
 to watch them likewise, and took pleasure in 
 the sight. Their meetings, their partings, 
 their rides out and home, furnished him 
 themes of converse. lie soon had enough to 
 talk of, and previously, as he remembered, he 
 had never sustained a conversation of any 
 length with composure and the beneficent 
 sense of fullness. Five thousand pounds, to 
 which sum Lady Camper reduced her stipula- 
 tion for Elizabeth's dowry, he signed over to 
 his dear girl gladly, and came out with the 
 confession to her ladyship that a well-invested 
 twelve thousand comprised his fortune. She 
 shrugged; she had left off pulling him this
 
 and Lady Camper. 123 
 
 way ancl that, so his chains were enjoyable; 
 ^d he said to himself: " If ever she sliould in 
 the dead of night want a man to defend her!" 
 He mentioned it to Eeginald, who had been 
 the repository of Elizabeth's lamentations 
 about her father being left alone, forsaken, 
 and the young man conceived a scheme for 
 causing his aunt's great bell to be rung at 
 midnight, which would certainly have led to a 
 dramatic issue and the happy re-establishment 
 of our masculine ascendency at the close of 
 this history. But he forgot it, in his bride- 
 groom'-s delight, until he was making his mis- 
 erable official speech at the wedding-break- 
 fast, and set Elizabeth winking over a tear. 
 As she stood in the hall ready to depart; a 
 great van was observed in the road at the gates 
 of Douro Lodge; and this the men in custody 
 declared to contain the goods and knick- 
 knacks of the people who had taken the house 
 furnished for a year, and were coming in that 
 very afternoon, 
 
 " I remember — I say now 1 remember — I
 
 l'J4 Tlie Case of General Oi)le 
 
 liaii a notice/' the general said, cheerily, to 
 Lis troubled daugliler. 
 
 " But where are you to go, papa?" the jjoor 
 girl cried, close on sobbing. 
 
 " 1 shall get employment of some sort," 
 said he. " I was saying 1 want it, I need it, 
 I require it.'' 
 
 " You are saying three times what once 
 would have sufficed for," said Lady Camper, 
 and she asked him a few questions, frowned 
 with a smile, and offered him a lodgment in 
 his neighbor's house. 
 
 " Keally, dearest Aunt Angela?" said Eliza- 
 beth. 
 
 " What else can I do, child? I have, it 
 seems, driven him out of a genllemanly resi- 
 dence, and 1 must give him a lady-like one. 
 True, 1 would rather have had him at call, 
 but as 1 have always wished for a policeman 
 in the house, 1 may as well be satisfied with a' 
 soldier. " 
 
 " But if you lose your character, my lady?" 
 gaid Reginald.
 
 and Lady Camper. 125 
 
 " Then I must look to the general to re- 
 store it." 
 
 General Ople immediately bowed his head 
 over Lady Camj^er's fingers. 
 
 " An odd thing to haj^pen to a woman of 
 forty-one!" she said to her great peojDle; and 
 they submitted with the best grace in the 
 world, while the general's ears tingled till he 
 felt younger than Reginald. This — his reflec- 
 tions ran, or it would be more correct to say 
 waltzed — this is the result of painting! that 
 you can believe a woman to be any age when 
 her cheeks are tinted ! 
 
 As for Lady Camper, she had been floated 
 accidentally over the ridicule of the bruit of a 
 marriage at a time of life as terrible to her as 
 her fiction of seventy had been to General 
 Ople; she resigned herself to let things go with 
 the tide. She had not been blissful in her first 
 marriage, she had abandoned the chase of an 
 ideal man, and she had found one who was 
 tunable so as not to offend her ears — likely 
 ever to be a fund of amusement for her humor
 
 126 The Case of General Ople. 
 
 — good, impressible, and, above all, vei-}- pict- 
 uresque. There is the secret of her and of 
 how it came to pass that a simple man and a 
 complex woman fell to union after the stran- 
 gest division. 
 
 THE END.
 
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