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 UNIVERSITY Of 
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 presented to the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY 
 
 MR. JOHN C. ROSE 
 
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 TU? .jNWEkSITf LIBRAM 
 
 CAUfORNIA, SAN DUMW 
 
 "*"- UV JOLLA, CAUFORNIA
 
 THE HERB-MOON 
 
 A FANTASIA 
 
 BY 
 
 John Oliver Hobbes 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 SOME EMOTIONS AND A MORAL 
 
 A STUDY IN TEMPTATIONS 
 
 THE SINNER'S COMEDY 
 
 A BUNDLE OF LIRE 
 
 *Uw Jgorfc atrt lonton 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, i8q6 
 By FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, i8g6 
 
 By THE PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 (The New York World) 
 
 All Rights Reserved
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Which Explains a Situation 5 
 
 IL Philosophy and Vegetables . . 37 
 
 EI. What the Herb-Moon Means . . 44 
 IV. Which Shows that Lovers can at 
 
 Times Talk Reason . 61 
 
 V. Susan Sheds Tears . . .73 
 
 VL Some Soliloquies ... 78 
 
 VH. Two Gentlemen of the Old School . 88 
 
 VIE. Introducing a Lady Who Disapproved 
 
 of Cynicism . . . 100 
 DC Concerning Heroes, Sorrow, and a 
 
 Horse 109 
 
 X. In which Susan has cause to Remem- 
 ber Rose Arden . . . 142 
 XL Chaste Conversation Coupled with Fear 152 
 XII. Concerning a Goddess of Mortal Speech 165 
 XIEL In which Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent . 179 
 XTV. A Lady Talks Sense "and Comedy 
 
 Looks Tearful . . 197 
 
 XV. The Question of Edward's Soul . 219 
 XVL In which Rose has to Restrain Her 
 
 Sympathies ... 242 
 
 XVIL Some Ways of Bearing Affliction 260 
 
 XVIIL In which a Few are Found Faithful 268 
 
 XIX. TheLaat .... 285
 
 THE HERB -MOON 
 
 H fantasia. 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 
 
 MlSS Crecy, the rich brewer's only 
 daughter, threatened to walk if her ponies 
 did not trot faster. 
 
 " Whip the little creatures," she told her 
 coachman, " but do not hurt them ! " 
 
 They ambled through long winding 
 roads hedged with white-thorn and 
 black-thorn ; past wheat-fields, bean-fields, 
 fields of barley ; past wide stretches of 
 meadow enameled with buttercups and 
 clover; past farmyards and little houses 
 facing lawns ; past inns and churches and 
 the cemetery where sheep 1 ' s-parsley with
 
 6 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 its long green stems and white delicate 
 flowers waved over the graves, almost 
 as high as the headstones. There were 
 windmills and many small cottages to be 
 seen either near or in the distance ; and 
 lanes, marked out by tall poplars or 
 young elms, ash and maple. Overhead 
 the sun shone out with a sleepy brilliance, 
 and gray clouds, like a swarm of fantas- 
 tic pigeons, roamed, driven by the breeze, 
 across the sky. 
 
 As the phaeton turned a sudden corner, 
 Miss Crecy saw, some few yards ahead, a 
 young man, walking. He was tall, with 
 fine square shoulders and a resolute face. 
 
 " Can I give you a lift, Mr. Robsart ? " 
 said the lady, when she reached him. 
 
 " Thanks," he replied, and stepped in 
 beside her. 
 
 Robsart was a clerk in a cotton factory, 
 and hoped, in time, to occupy the post of 
 overseer, formerly held by his father, now 
 dead. The situation demanded good
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 7 
 
 sense, patience, honesty, and every long 
 virtue ; it belonged to that graceless order 
 of responsibilities where the least mistake 
 causes immense confusion, and the most 
 scrupulous attention is accepted as a mat- 
 ter of course. Neither enthusiasm nor 
 vanity had the smallest play in Robsart's 
 life : it was all a question of duty and con- 
 science and self-respect. Sometimes he 
 resented its dullness and read about kings. 
 His own history, however, had not been 
 uneventful. At the time of his birth, his 
 father was senior partner in the honorable 
 firm first established in 1700 of Rob- 
 sart & Son, cotton spinners. The lad was 
 educated in the belief that he would, if 
 he lived, inherit the business and advance 
 a step further than his ancestors by repre- 
 senting his native town in the House of 
 Commons. He was sent to Eton, and 
 proceeded to Cambridge, where, at the end 
 of his first year, he was summoned to 
 Ottley, to find his father a bankrupt,
 
 8 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 their home under the hammer, and the 
 factory sold to a Mr. Saxe, of Notting- 
 ham. It was a deadening blow. Old 
 Robsart was an easy-tempered body, 
 who, so long as he had a horse, good wine 
 and the best tobacco, asked little of any 
 one. He had married the daughter of 
 a famous Methodist, and having killed 
 her not by cruelty but by his want of 
 religion (she had endeavored to make him 
 a Christian, and perished from the hu- 
 miliation of her defeat) he took for his 
 second wife a widow with a pinched 
 waist and easy morals, who, because she 
 did not dye her hair, was called no harder 
 name than injudicious for scattering 
 money as if it were sawdust and drinking 
 champagne by the pint. Robsart the 
 son was always courteous to this lady 
 with Cromwell, " he liked not war on 
 women " but he chafed in secret to think 
 that such a being could please the man 
 his mother had loved and prayed for.
 
 Which Explains a Situation, 9 
 
 The disgrace of the bankruptcy tried his 
 proud spirit so far that he could only live 
 by reminding himself that he might in 
 time and by working pay every creditor 
 to the full and restore the family's injured 
 integrity. The older Robsart, with that 
 distressing meekness which fills up the 
 loss of self-respect, accepted the position 
 of a salaried servant in the factory estab- 
 lished by his forefathers. All forced 
 virtue is degrading in its effect. Robsart 
 senior withered away in his attempt to 
 act divine characteristics with a heart 
 convulsed by every human instinct of 
 jealousy and resentment. His native 
 good-humor failed him after the novelty 
 of a subordinate post became merged in 
 mere routine. To be reprimanded for un- 
 punctuality (he liked to rise at noon), to 
 make way for Mr. Saxe, to be forbidden 
 his cigar during office hours these were 
 the restrictions which stopped his breath. 
 He could meet his unpaid butcher, but
 
 io The Herb-Moon. 
 
 he could not go out to luncheon at the 
 sound of the yard bell. He died in a 
 twelvemonth. His wife did not long sur- 
 vive him. She became annoyed with her 
 dressmaker, who used an inferior silk for 
 the lining of her funeral robes. A petty 
 law-suit ensued, and the little legacy left 
 her by her husband was just sufficient to 
 pay the costs of that litigation and her 
 burial fees. This sordid, unbeautiful fin- 
 ish to the hopes of Robsart's boyhood, 
 made a sad beginning for the second 
 epoch in his career. A less courageous 
 nature would have fled from the scene of 
 disappointment seeking forgetfulness 
 in new surroundings, and a reputation 
 where his father was unknown. But he 
 chose instead to remain at Ottley. At 
 first, he was looked upon with a certain 
 mistrust, but before a year had passed, 
 he was treated as a gentleman by the 
 gentry and as a scholar by the poor. 
 His sad expression made him popular
 
 "Which Explains a Situation. n 
 
 with women, and his poverty saved him 
 from the envy of less handsome rivals. 
 Too poor to mix with the young men of 
 his own education, and too refined to asso- 
 ciate on any terms of intimacy with his 
 inferiors, too proud to accept hospitalities 
 he could not return, and too ambitious to 
 be easily resigned to a life of obscurity 
 and loneliness, his existence was often a 
 burden to himself and always an enigma 
 to his friends. 
 
 Miss Crecy, as she surveyed him slyly, 
 spoke, in maternal accents, of his pallor, 
 his evident ill-health. He was growing 
 thin ; he needed a change ; would he be 
 at the cricket-match to-morrow ? Was he 
 not glad that croquet was coming into 
 fashion, and had he heard that Mr. Pope- 
 lard was engaged ? No one had seen his 
 intended, but his* mother looked greatly 
 relieved, so, no doubt, he was doing very 
 well for himself. Ottley was not a marry- 
 ing place. The girls with money wanted
 
 12 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Army men, and the men with prospects 
 wanted to keep their liberty. For her 
 part, she put love before everything. 
 But perhaps she was sentimental. 
 
 By this time, the ponies had reached 
 the gates of a property known in the 
 neighborhood as Wentworth Place, for- 
 merly the homestead of the Robsarts, and 
 now the residence of Mr. Saxe, the cot- 
 ton-spinner. 
 
 " I am going to tea with Mrs. Saxe," 
 exclaimed Miss Crecy. She would have 
 taken Robsart much further if he had but 
 promised to attend the cricket-match ; 
 as it was, she found him too ungrateful 
 a person for a young lady of her fortune 
 and amiability to waste time with. 
 
 " Good-bye," said she. 
 
 " Good-bye," said he. 
 
 His lodgings were at an old farmhouse 
 a mile or two beyond, and, as he turned 
 away from the chestnut avenue of Went- 
 worth Place the home of his fathers for
 
 Which Explains a Situation* 13 
 
 six generations, the way before him 
 looked steep and desolate. He had long 
 passed that dramatic hour in grief when 
 the very unexpectedness of the pang 
 gives it at least the interest of a new ex- 
 perience. But now it had become a stale 
 and voiceless sorrow there was no more 
 to be thought, or said, or done, and it 
 was only when he felt a tightening of his 
 heart that he knew that some sight or 
 word had called the past once more to 
 his remembrance. 
 
 They were felling the elm-trees which 
 lined at grassy intervals the road ; sev- 
 eral great branches lay hewn upon the 
 ground, and, here and there, a weeping 
 willow or a small yew or a holly bush 
 studded the turf. There was a horseless 
 wagon in an enclosure beyond where a 
 boy with a scythe stood, eating bread and 
 butter, by a grindstone. He dropped 
 the scythe to touch his cap to Robsart. 
 
 The path to Wrestle's Farm ran
 
 i4 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 through a wide, flat meadow, where chick- 
 ens were cooped, cattle fed, and the la- 
 borers' children played. Now a jackdaw, 
 now a magpie, now a rook and now a 
 crow winged through the air, and the 
 incessant twittering of birds made the 
 stillness noisy. The house half sur- 
 rounded by a moat which served as a 
 duck-pond was small and moss-grown, 
 two stories high and with three windows 
 only. One could step in at the front 
 door and out at the back in five strides. 
 Robsart's parlor, which he shared with 
 the parish organist and the organist's sis- 
 ter, Mrs. Arden, was in the right wing as 
 far as possible from the cow-shed, the 
 teeming hay-yard, and the half-filled 
 stables. To-day, as he reached the 
 threshold, a shower, which had been 
 threatening for some hours, fell from the 
 sky. He stood and watched its play, 
 heard its sharp singing, before he went 
 to the sitting-room. Rose Arden was
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 15 
 
 there at needlework, and as Robsart 
 entered she smiled, sighed, and chose a 
 brighter thread. The room was meagrely 
 furnished ; the long, low window, with its 
 dim panes, opened out on a sunburnt 
 lawn, hemmed in on one side by a brick 
 wall and at the end by a hedge. There 
 was a star-shaped flower-bed in the cen- 
 tre, where a rose-tree and some scarlet 
 geraniums grew. The rest was mostly 
 cut into strips and squares for goose- 
 berry and currant bushes, cabbages, 
 beans, and potatoes. When days were 
 hot and insects hummed and buzzed, 
 birds piped and the breeze blew fresh, 
 the outlook was, though narrow, rather 
 gay ; but now the flowers were not yet 
 in bloom, it rained, and an overpowering 
 smell of humid earth made the air op- 
 pressive. Sometimes a raindrop, heavier 
 than the others, fell with a dull splash on 
 the window-sill, sometimes a rook flew 
 over the distant tree-tops, but there was
 
 1 6 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 no other sound to be heard no other 
 living thing to see. Perhaps Rose was 
 glad to have no distraction from her 
 work : the wonderful stitches on her silk 
 coverlet multiplied, and the summer of 
 life she had never known seemed to grow 
 from under her fingers on to the blank 
 material beneath them. 
 
 Rose's face was not fair: the features, 
 though refined, were too irregular to be 
 gracious, and although her brow and soft 
 brown eyes were beautiful, they showed 
 the marks of over-long fatigue. An ex- 
 pression of intense sorrow veiled the 
 pretty liveliness of her mien, and it was 
 only when she laughed which was sel- 
 dom unless Robsart happened to be 
 present that one saw how well merri- 
 ment became her. She seemed about 
 five-and-thirty, although she was, in fact, 
 fully seven years younger. Her skin had 
 that curious waxen pallor often found in 
 women who, while they live in the coun-
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 17 
 
 try, breathing pure air, lose their color 
 and fade from lack of amusement. Oh, 
 those long days in the country days of 
 anxiety without distraction, of patient 
 waiting for letters no matter from whom 
 which never come, days of trivial neces- 
 sary tasks impossible to shirk yet so 
 wearisome in their accomplishment, days 
 when life can promise neither love, nor 
 youth, nor joy, nor even death when 
 the world seems but a mighty grind-mill 
 where slaves eternally toil without rest 
 and without hire. The merest half-be- 
 lief in a living God will sustain many 
 souls through adversities and trials of 
 any picturesque or stirring order, but 
 only the most exalted faith can give one 
 the strength to bear in patience the 
 misery of loneliness, the constant fret of 
 uncongenial surroundings, the heavy bur- 
 den of little common woes, which, be- 
 cause they are little and common, are so 
 humiliating. Rose had been born with
 
 1 8 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 a spirit of adventure, which her unevent- 
 ful life left undeveloped, and her frail 
 body utterly belied. The story of her 
 youth caused pity even in Ottley, where 
 human sympathies ran in no rapid stream. 
 Her husband, a lieutenant in the Navy, 
 had lost his reason from the effects of a 
 sunstroke, and was now in a private asy- 
 lum. Rose was nineteen at the time of 
 her marriage, and before her twentieth 
 birthday she found herself in the terrible 
 position of a young wife with no one to 
 protect her, with no right to accept af- 
 fection, with no right to bestow it, and 
 with a craving for companionship so com- 
 pelling, that in stifling it she broke her 
 heart. When her only brother left Ox- 
 ford, she went with him to the little 
 town of Ottley, where he had accepted 
 the post of parish organist, hoping, in 
 time, to become choir-master at the ca- 
 thedral. He was known to the Bishop 
 as a young man of good character,
 
 Which Explains a Situation* 19 
 
 exceptional talents and most respectable 
 family : it was on his lordship's recom- 
 mendation that he was offered the situa- 
 tion he now occupied. That Rose should 
 live with her brother was considered 
 quite the best thing, and that Robsart 
 should form a third in the household 
 was not, on the whole, to be wondered 
 at. He was a steady, high-minded young 
 man, said current opinion, and had but 
 to see Mrs. Arden to understand the re- 
 lationship perfectly. She was a good 
 creature of any age, with no sort of fas- 
 cination. It was all charming and pla- 
 tonic and idyllic. But such a pity ! such 
 a pity ! For Robsart was a fine-looking 
 fellow. One could be sure that he had 
 thrown away a number of chances solely 
 on account of his friendship for Edward 
 Banish and Mrs. Arden. 
 
 Rose, that day, had been restless in 
 Robsart's absence. She had been for a 
 little walk in the meadow, and changed
 
 20 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 her dress twice. It struck her that she 
 was growing old, and her gray alpaca 
 gown of the summer before seemed, 
 when she looked in the glass, a trying 
 color. And she wept. It was not her 
 custom to brood upon the past, yet this 
 afternoon many things which she had 
 long ceased to think of fell upon her 
 mind. Several moments in her history 
 came again with a pathos more vivid than 
 her actual living of them. One had been 
 ah, many years back, in the small 
 Catholic chapel of a little fishing-town in 
 the south of England. It was an Easter 
 Sunday, and she had wandered in to hear 
 the Mass sung. Her seat faced the high 
 altar, and when she gazed upon the cross 
 it seemed, not an emblem of sorrow, but 
 the mysterious key to the city of eternal 
 happiness. There were lilies below and 
 around ; flame-colored azaleas and deep- 
 purple flowers of some homelier variety ; 
 the gold on the priest's vestments shone
 
 Which Explains a Situation* 21 
 
 in the candle-light, and, through one 
 stained-glass window, a ray of the sun lit 
 up a wooden figure of the Virgin, curi- 
 ously carved, with onyx eyes and a robe 
 of some glittering stuff embroidered by 
 nuns. Rose observed all these things 
 just as one scans the features of a well- 
 known face or a familiar spot : if there 
 had been no visible flowers, no sun, no 
 candles, or no gold, their meaning, never- 
 theless, would still have seemed there 
 like the true elements in a fantastic 
 dream. The Great Sacrifice was made ; 
 the celebrant, the deacons and the acolytes 
 filed out to joyous music and in solemn 
 procession : one by one each worshiper 
 left the building : Rose was alone. For 
 that celestial minute, she felt that despair 
 and sin and grief and disappointment had 
 passed away for ever, that the peace of 
 God, making all things perfect, was come 
 upon the land never to depart again 
 therefrom. She prayed without words :
 
 22 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 her spirit sang its song of thanksgiving in 
 silence ; life was so sweet ; eternity, so 
 brief ; heaven, so like a fairer earth. She 
 thought of the saints and martyrs till her 
 heart thrilled with passionate admiration 
 and a fearful longing for the power to 
 suffer, endure, and conquer similarly. 
 Ah, if one could but be sure of that ulti- 
 mate triumph ! There was the doubt 
 the burden. What of the souls who 
 fought, yet apparently failed dying, un- 
 known, unacknowledged, all their labors 
 unrewarded ; who turned aside from the 
 broad way, yet, for some reason, were 
 not to be found upon the narrow one? 
 The saints who had no day ! Had any 
 one sung their histories, preached their 
 martyrdom ? Her impetuous spirit 
 paused at a plan of life which, in her judg- 
 ment, made the pleasures of this world 
 insipid, yet left the recompense of the 
 white future undefined. She was young, 
 ardent full of hope and splendid vigor ;
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 23 
 
 she longed for combats, temptations, 
 trials of faith, hardship, persecution 
 longed for them because she felt so sure 
 that nothing could dismay her ; nothing 
 overcome her pride of girlhood. Most 
 of us in our apprentice days feel mighty 
 enough to bear the burden of success, 
 but how many have the strength to fail ? 
 How many would dare to choose the gift 
 of failure? The question pursued her; 
 it carried the accent of defiance. Yet, 
 she thought, why not forget the crown- 
 ing victory or the final humiliation, which- 
 ever it might be : the task was the thing 
 the task a faithful answer to one's 
 calling. And her calling was not to high 
 places or through dazzling paths; she 
 was going to be married and live very 
 humbly. . . . Oh, how long ago it was ! 
 She was a girl then, and she used to laugh 
 all day. How long ago it was ! Arden 
 had been a bad husband ; he was often 
 drunk and he did not know'how to treat
 
 24 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 a refined woman. Yet she had cared for 
 him because he loved her after his own 
 brutal fashion : in the intervals of churl- 
 ishness and ill-temper, he would read 
 poetry aloud and kiss her pretty hands, 
 take her to the theatre, or buy flowers. 
 Then, after eight strange months, came 
 the sunstroke and all the horror of insan- 
 ity. She had tried to keep him at home, 
 but he killed their dog, and would have 
 killed her too : so they took him away. 
 He could never recover, they said. She 
 cried for two years, and studied art 
 needlework. She could now earn enough 
 money to keep herself very comfortably 
 and pay for her brother's annual trip to 
 Switzerland. He was delicate. Robsart 
 came into her existence, she knew not 
 how. He was her brother's friend, and he 
 was living at Ottley when they first came 
 there : they had agreed to settle alto- 
 gether at the farmhouse. That was all. 
 But in the woman's mind the story turned
 
 Which Explains a Situation* 25 
 
 upon one scene which happened when 
 they had been in Ottley just three 
 months. Edward had gone to the choir 
 practice, and she and Robsart were to- 
 gether, sitting idly, in the parlor. They 
 talked about spring, and ideals, and the 
 nightingale. 
 
 "You know," said Robsart, quite sud- 
 denly, " that I love you." 
 
 " Yes," she answered. 
 
 They looked into the night of each 
 other's eyes till day seemed to dawn in 
 them. 
 
 " There is nothing to fear," said he, 
 " in love in affection." 
 
 She glanced past him, out on to the 
 world she had, for too long a second, for- 
 gotten. The curtains had not been drawn, 
 and she could see the barren garden 
 where darkness seemed to flow like a 
 silent tide flooding the land with mys- 
 tery. Alone it swept the greatest, most 
 solitary of all lonelinesses. Robsart fol-
 
 26 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 lowed the direction of her gaze, and 
 with something like jealousy, drew down 
 the frayed, green blinds. 
 
 " There is nothing to see," he said, 
 "there is no moon." 
 
 She leaned her head against the shutter 
 and trembled into tears. 
 
 " Don't cry," said Robsart. " Oh, 
 Rose, do not cry ! " 
 
 " I am not I am not," she whispered, 
 and sobbing, stole past him out of the 
 room. 
 
 For weeks she had been happy enough 
 in the knowledge that he was near her: 
 she had been a listener for his footsteps 
 for the sound of his voice. And now she 
 knew what this meant. It was all wrong. 
 They could never again watch the sky 
 together or listen to the nightingale or 
 wander through the fields at sunset ; 
 they could never again smile at lovers 
 when they met them, Sunday evenings, 
 on the road from church. Robsart
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 27 
 
 seemed to understand that these things 
 were at an end, and once, when he sur- 
 prised her in tears, he spoke quite roughly 
 about the bad starch they used for his 
 collars. 
 
 " Perhaps the fault is in the ironing," 
 she suggested. 
 
 " I shall make a row about it," said he, 
 and, as he dared not look longer at her 
 poor, pale face, he went out, walked miles, 
 and came home too tired to eat his sup- 
 per. 
 
 As Rose sat at her eternal needlework, 
 her throat would swell : she felt the ex- 
 ceeding bitter cry but could not utter it, 
 and her lips grew more compressed, and 
 the lines round her mouth more deep, and 
 the fire in her temples more cruel. At 
 two-and-twenty love does not leave us 
 laughing. 
 
 " I must go to Lauderston," said 
 Robsart, one day ; " this place does not 
 agree with me."
 
 28 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 This was more than she could bear. 
 
 "Wait another month," she pleaded, 
 " till the pear-trees are in bloom. They 
 look so pretty ! " 
 
 So he stayed, and every week he found 
 it easier to remain. Rose became so 
 dull. By degrees and after many cruel 
 shocks to his sentiment, he began to own 
 to himself her poverty of personal attrac- 
 tions, and he thought he must have seen 
 her before under the glamour of a foolish, 
 incomprehensible passion. She watched 
 his love die out : she killed the lover in 
 him just as she had slain the woman in 
 herself. She told her heart, which was 
 too numb to ache, that it was better so. 
 She ceased to care very much for his 
 company ; but then she no longer cared 
 for anything : she felt chilled by her own 
 coldness. She still said her prayers the 
 Our Father and a quaint little hymn she 
 had been taught when a child, but she 
 made no special petitions named no
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 29 
 
 names. It may be that she dared not. 
 Yet she never called herself unhappy, for 
 she had so many orders for her needle- 
 work. She read Thomas a Kempis and 
 tried to follow the " Imitation of Christ." 
 Of course, she fell behind often, and often 
 wondered whether a rule so hard could 
 ever be entirely obeyed. Other rules, 
 however, which read more sweetly seemed 
 to lead to mistakes and griefs yet darker ; 
 so, obedient and uncomplaining, she 
 struggled on in the old groove. Her 
 time that second unmarked time one 
 has apart from one's daily occupation 
 was spent in waiting on the two men 
 whose sitting-room she shared. She 
 studied their tastes, lived in their work, 
 bore with their moods and humors. 
 Edward suffered heroic pains from some 
 internal malady. Days when he felt 
 bright he would be wildly boisterous : he 
 would shout, sing, play the fool, and, 
 after an hour of undisciplined hilarity,
 
 3 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 become quarrelsome. At other times he 
 had only dark looks, ominous mutterings, 
 and no appetite. When these fits were 
 upon him, poor Rose used to shed dry 
 tears in her lonely corner fearing some 
 calamity, she knew not what. In the 
 evenings, two of the three would play 
 chess, or one would read aloud while the 
 others listened, or they would go for a 
 walk, or they would each take a book. 
 On rare occasions they went to enter- 
 tainments at the Town Hall, but they 
 had always to leave early on account of 
 Edward's health, or because the music 
 was too outrageous for his scholarly ear. 
 Rose rather liked songs with a valse 
 refrain, and once she greatly enjoyed a 
 wretched performance of My Wife's 
 Second Floor. Edward, in consequence, 
 would hardly speak to her for a week. 
 He was a man of violent prejudices. 
 Yet when Rose tried to resent his tyran- 
 nical conduct, the remembrance of his
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 31 
 
 many acts of kindness, his noblesse, his 
 tenderness caught her soul, stealing over 
 her desolation like the morning sunshine 
 over bleak hills. He was editing an 
 edition of Bach, correcting, suggesting, 
 annotating, but all that was as nothing : 
 he longed to give voice to the symphonies 
 in his own brain, and because he could 
 not, he suffered, like some wretch in 
 chains tongue-tied, yet with a golden 
 message to tell could he but utter it. 
 His worse moods were those of religious 
 melancholy, which afflicted him to mad- 
 ness. He had composed a few chorales 
 under this influence, but Rose shuddered 
 when she heard them, and found no 
 beauty in harmonies born of such dis- 
 sonant emotions. 
 
 Sometimes Robsart would discover 
 that she looked ill, and they would 
 arrange to take her for a drive in the 
 trap. It took half an hour to harness the 
 pony ; Susan (who managed the farm)
 
 3 2 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 held the cart, and Adam, her husband, 
 fumbled with the reins ; Robsart and 
 Edward, looking on, would add confusion 
 to the scene by interference. Then a 
 discussion would follow : who should 
 drive ? And which way should they go ? 
 Rose's suggestions were seldom if ever 
 regarded, and the weary woman would 
 usually find herself being shaken over the 
 bleakest part of the country with Edward, 
 moaning over his liver, at her back, and 
 Robsart, wondering how soon they could 
 get home, by her side. Both men were 
 devoted to her : neither of them had ever 
 seen a woman whom he thought her equal, 
 but they never had time to tell her so 
 and were, in any case, too shy to even let 
 her guess it. Love, however, is a state 
 of giving and unconscious giving and 
 Rose never looked for praise or gratitude. 
 When they carried her off on these unprof- 
 itable excursions, she saw the kindly 
 motive under their apparent savagery and
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 33 
 
 even found the exquisite pleasure they 
 sought to give her, in suffering so much 
 for the satisfaction of their conscience. 
 Once on returning from an exceptionally 
 painful encounter with the east wind 
 over sharp stones, she heard Robsart 
 encouraging poor Edward by a reminder 
 " that after all, Rose enjoyed a drive 
 and it did her so much good ! " 
 
 She learned to speak not of herself. In 
 their sitting-room the boards groaned, the 
 wind moaned, the flies droned, but Rose 
 was nearly always silent. She talked 
 when her advice was invited, and Edward 
 had often been pleased to call her " no 
 fool " ; she considered all subjects in their 
 relation to Robsart and her brother: in 
 every discussion she counted herself her 
 own desires, her own heart, her own 
 hopes as nothing in the world. She 
 dreaded giving counsels of perfection and 
 was often, in her conversation, so liberal- 
 minded as to astonish Robsart, who found
 
 34 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 such worldly-wisdom while he acted on 
 it by no means charming in a woman. 
 When he entered the room after his drive 
 with Miss Crecy, some of the old amaze- 
 ment even disbelief fell upon him that 
 he had ever been desperately, deeply, sor- 
 rowfully in love with the plain and aging 
 woman who sat there, gray in the face, 
 embroidering doves and butterflies on a 
 pink silk quilt. And as she worked, she 
 sang 
 
 O weep, my heart, for Summer days are fled, 
 The earth is cold, and roses that were red, 
 Birds that once sang, and little things that flew 
 Are dead. 
 
 The pallid day is moist with chilling dew, 
 There is no noon, because the wind that blew 
 The clouds across the sun, is stern, poor heart, 
 Like you. 
 
 " Dear God ! " he said, when she had 
 finished. " Sing something cheerful." 
 Rose smiled, and he noticed the grave
 
 Which Explains a Situation. 35 
 
 of a dimple in her cheek. Presently he 
 mentioned that Chloe Crecy had met him 
 on the high-road and given him a lift in 
 her pony carriage. 
 
 " She's a nice girl," said Rose ; " good- 
 natured ! kind ! " 
 
 " She bores me," he answered. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Rose. She grew 
 white and made a clumsy stitch. 
 
 "Do you ever think of marrying?" 
 said she. 
 
 "What do you mean? " 
 
 " Do you ever think of marrying? " she 
 repeated. 
 
 "I believe," she went on, "you have 
 been with us so long that you think it 
 would be unkind to leave us." 
 
 " Oh no ! " said Robsart, " men are not 
 like that." 
 
 He had never considered the question, 
 but instinct gave him its answer. He 
 stayed with Edward and Rose because he 
 liked their society. That much, at least.
 
 36 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 was clear in his mind marriage or no 
 marriage. 
 
 " Men are not like that," he said, again. 
 
 Then he went out into the garden and 
 sat under the old plum-tree and stared at 
 a little white gate which led to the pad- 
 dock. He forgot the rain, although it 
 was falling fast.
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 Philosophy and Vegetables. 
 
 It was Susan who called him in. 
 
 " La, sir ! " said she, " what are you 
 thinking of? Do you want to catch your 
 death? Your coat is sopping wet? If 
 Mrs. Arden should see you ! But there ! 
 you are worse than a child. Really, sir, 
 you'd worry any one's life out." 
 
 He went into the bright small kitchen 
 where she was chopping onions, and he 
 warmed himself at the fire. 
 
 " Is it cold to-day ?" he asked. 
 
 "Cold?" said Susan; "it's enough to 
 roast you ! You've caught a chill as sure 
 as Fate." 
 
 " As sure as Fate," said Robsart. " I 
 like that ! "
 
 38 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 The woman looked at him sharply and 
 nodded her head. 
 
 "There's nothing like dandelion at this 
 time of the year," said she ; " it's beautiful. 
 I'd give something if the black sow would 
 take it, but she's too crafty. She enjoys 
 herself, she do, when she's in a temper. 
 And there's no living in the same field 
 with her. Adam has put her all alone in 
 the cuckoo-flower meadow, and she lords 
 about it like a duchess ! And it's all be- 
 cause she got a prize at the Fair. A nicer 
 sow I never had till she got that prize. 
 And do what we will, we can't suit her. 
 She won't look at Speckly who pleased 
 her well enough last year. I don't hold 
 with giving prizes. But I'm waiting till 
 she gets lonely. She wants to be ad- 
 mired that's all. When she looks about 
 the meadow and finds nothing but cuckoo- 
 flowers, she'll be civil enough to Speckly. 
 Trust her ! And if I could afford to let 
 him have his self-respect, he shouldn't go
 
 Philosophy and Vegetables, 39 
 
 nigh her. A proud trollop ! Oh ! I shall 
 be pleased when I see her getting lonely." 
 
 " I observe," said Robsart, " that you 
 believe in the sobering quality of afflic- 
 tion." 
 
 "Aye! that I do. Do you think I 
 should have married if I hadn't been 
 lonely ? Not I. But I shouldn't have 
 married so soon if I had seen London 
 first. I do like it but it is unsettling. 
 Last May I went up for three days and I 
 spent eight pound. I went everywhere 
 and I paid for everybody ! And why 
 not ? we have no children. Adam is 
 nothing for life what I call life know- 
 ing what's going on and all that. He says 
 he can't see anything in it. He's so quiet 
 and he wouldn't dress properly. I don't 
 mind how he goes about on the farm 
 but in London ! Do you think he would 
 put on a white shirt and look gentleman- 
 like? Not he. He doesn't so much 
 mind a blue and white shirt, but an all
 
 4 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 white never. He says he's only a labor- 
 ing man and doesn't want to be taken for 
 his betters. He's an excellent husband 
 is Adam, but he's dull. I like life," she 
 repeated. " I sha'n't stop here for ever. 
 When I make up my mind to go, I shall 
 go. If I waited for Adam to give the 
 word, I should never get anywhere. But 
 wherever I go, he'll follow me fast enough. 
 That's one comfort." 
 
 " I suppose you wouldn't like it, if he 
 did not follow you ? " said Robsart. 
 
 Susan tossed her head. 
 
 " Lor' ! " she answered, " he knows 
 when he's well off. He's wiser than many 
 that can talk the hind-legs off a donkey 
 and look a lot. There's that girl Ethel as 
 thinks of marrying young Bates. ' Shall 
 I marry him ? ' says she to me. ' I can 
 tell you nothing,' says I, 'but marry a 
 man with ahead on his shoulders ! Marry 
 a man with a head on his shoulders, that's 
 what I say.' And that's all she got out
 
 Philosophy and Vegetables* 4 1 
 
 of me. I was scrooping up onions just 
 as I am scrooping 'em now. Mrs. Arden 
 was sitting where you are sitting. She 
 often comes in to get cheered up." 
 
 " And what did she say ? " 
 
 " Nothing, because I gave Ethel a look. 
 It isn't kind to talk about sweethearts be- 
 fore Mrs. Arden when she can't have 
 one. It's really enough to make any- 
 body un-Christian to see a nice lady like 
 that sewing all day long with no one to 
 think of and nothing to look forward to. 
 Is it natural ? And I don't call her so 
 plain, myself. Her eyes are almost as 
 big as the Queen of Beauty's in that al- 
 manac over your head, and her figure is 
 as nice a figure as I ever saw. Doctor 
 Somers was here the other afternoon about 
 Adam's chest, and Mrs. Arden happened 
 to pass the window. ' She must have 
 been a very pretty girl,' said he, ' and it's 
 my belief that she makes herself look old 
 on purpose.' And if he ever spoke a
 
 4 2 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 true word it was that, for I have been in 
 her room of a morning and caught her 
 with her hair down her back and her neck 
 and arms bare, and I hardly knew her. 
 I would have said that she wasn't a day 
 more than six-and-twenty and we all 
 know that if a woman is old, she shows it 
 plain enough if you see her before she's 
 up and had her breakfast. I could shed 
 every tear in my body when I think of 
 Mrs. Arden, and I wish that old husband 
 of hers would break his neck. The Lord 
 forgive me for saying so ! As I have 
 never seen her husband and don't want 
 there is no harm done in wishing he 
 was dead ! And there's your coat steam- 
 ing like a wet blanket, and you pay no 
 more heed to it than if there was no such 
 thing as rheumatics. Here ! give it to 
 me." 
 
 He took off his coat and handed it to 
 Susan without a word. 
 
 " Lor ' ! " she exclaimed, with a giggle.
 
 Philosophy and Vegetables. 43 
 
 " the onions have got into your eyes. 
 They do look bad." 
 
 She watched him go up the creaking 
 staircase to his bedroom. 
 
 " He's upset," she said to herself. 
 " Those was the gentlest onions I ever 
 chopped. It wasn't them."
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 "What the Herb-Moon Means. 
 
 The good creature went out to milk 
 the cows, but all the time she grieved 
 about Robsart and wondered why he 
 looked so sad. At last she found a rea- 
 son for his melancholy, and she longed 
 so much to tell some one of her belief, that, 
 as Adam had gone to the brewery to com- 
 plain of the last cask of ale, and it was 
 impossible to remain silent till his return, 
 she sought Mrs. Arden. Rose was still 
 sitting at the window with her needle- 
 work. She had made three butterflies 
 with golden and amethyst wings while 
 Robsart had been thinking under the 
 plum-tree and talking in the kitchen. 
 
 " Is that you, Susan?" said she.
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means. 45 
 
 "Yes," said Susan, who had now a 
 pain in her throat from running or some 
 other cause. " I have got one of my 
 worrying fits, I have. I've heard some- 
 thing and I don't know whether I ought 
 to tell it. It's no affair of mine and yet 
 it is. I can't bear injustice, and if any 
 one expects me to look on and see injus- 
 tice, they don't know Susan ! They are 
 not doing the right thing by Mr. Robsart 
 at the factory. And he's too proud to 
 complain. It's just like him to let him- 
 self be put upon." 
 
 Rose stuck her needle into her needle- 
 book and sat back a little further in the 
 shade. 
 
 " It was Doctor Somers who told me," 
 continued Susan. " There's changes to be 
 made at the factory, and Mr. Robsart 
 should now, by rights, be manager. And 
 they say that long-nosed Grayson will 
 get the situation because he's a married 
 man with twins. Of course, it stands to
 
 46 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 reason that a married man is more of a 
 man than an unmarried : married men, 
 too, are supposed to be steadier, they 
 have more mouths to feed and more to 
 put up with in one way or another. 
 And it's a woman's place to take the part 
 of husbands and show a feeling heart for 
 them it's foolhardiness and nothing else 
 to trapse about from house to house go- 
 ing on against marriage. But fair's fair, 
 and Grayson has only been in the fac- 
 tory a twelvemonth : while Mr. Robsart 
 knows the business through and through. 
 I say myself he ought to think of settling 
 for what sort of life is it with no wife 
 and no proper home? I should be the 
 loser if he left me and set up for himself, 
 but I can't help seeing that it would be 
 all for his own good." 
 
 Poor Rose could not speak, but, pre- 
 tending to search for a pin, she held her 
 hand to her heart. 
 
 " Tommy was in here just now," added
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means. 47 
 
 Susan, " and his eyes are all over the 
 place. He saw Miss Crecy get as red as 
 a beet when she met Mr. Robsart on the 
 road this afternoon. She gave him a lift 
 in her new pony-shay as far as Ottley 
 Dene, and her groom gave* Tommy a 
 wink a yard long when he saw the per- 
 formance. Miss Crecy will have a nice 
 bit of money one of these days, and 
 ' Randalls ' is a pleasant-standing house." 
 
 "Yes," said Rose, "a very pleasant- 
 standing house. I remember the or- 
 chard." 
 
 " And Mr. Robsart is so fond of 
 apples ! " said Susan. " When he mar- 
 ries, I hope it will be straight off without 
 shilly-shally. For there's nothing so 
 wearing as the herb-moon." 
 
 "The herb-moon?" repeated Rose, 
 stupefied. 
 
 " Aye ! That's my name for one of 
 these long courtships. Adam and I did 
 all our courting in a fortnight : that's why
 
 48 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 we are happy. This walking out with 
 each other year in and year out, till all 
 your nerve is gone and you are sick with 
 talking, was never to my taste nor to my 
 mother's before me. 'Tisn't natural, and 
 I'm all for nature, I am." 
 
 At that moment, Edward, with a roll 
 of music under his arm, came into the 
 room ; and Susan, who was always afraid 
 of the organist because he liked to walk 
 alone in the moonlight, hurried away. 
 
 Rose took up her coverlet, and told 
 her brother, while she stitched, Susan's 
 news about the changes at the factory. 
 
 " I hate gossip," said Edward, who had 
 a shaggy beard and big eyebrows. 
 
 " But this affects Robsart," answered 
 Rose. " I think you ought to tell him 
 that the factory people are right. He 
 should get married." 
 
 " He can't get married to order," said 
 Edward. " Marriage is a thing which 
 has to come into your mind. Women, I
 
 "What the Herb-Moon Means. 49 
 
 know, think of nothing else. But men 
 are different. I wish you wouldn't dis- 
 tract me with all this petty tittle-tattle 
 when I want to work. I had an idea for 
 my opera, and now it has gone." 
 
 As Edward's ideas for his masterpiece 
 were always of so frail a nature that even 
 a coal dropping into the grate could 
 make him forget them, Rose did not 
 reproach herself bitterly for venturing to 
 address him yet further. 
 
 " You don't understand me," she said. 
 " I think it is your duty to have a seri- 
 ous talk with Louis. He has lived with 
 us now for three years, and as he knows 
 you dislike any change in your life, it is 
 clearly right that you should make it 
 easy for him to leave us. He is so kind 
 that he would suffer many disadvantages 
 rather than give any one the least pain. 
 I am sure I value his company quite as 
 much as you do, but we must not be sel- 
 fish."
 
 50 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " No doubt," said Edward, " you find 
 it quite a light matter to renounce my 
 friends and my pleasures ! To say that 
 you value Robsart's company is a mere 
 phrase, since you are never, by any 
 chance, with him for any longer time 
 than you can help that is, at meals and 
 at church. So far as I can gather you 
 have not one taste in common, and, if he 
 had not a singularly good disposition, he 
 would never stand your indifference. But 
 I should find my life insupportable with- 
 out him : he is the only man with the 
 least intelligence in the parish, and, as he 
 has a very fair knowledge of music, he is 
 the one person who can drill the choir or 
 take my place when I am ill. I could get 
 an assistant, no doubt ; but a professional 
 would be longing for my death in order 
 that he might step into my shoes, or else 
 he would try to show at every oppor- 
 tunity how much better he played than I. 
 Robsart is always modest, and never once
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means. 51 
 
 thinks that because he is an excellent 
 amateur who has learned a great deal in 
 spare moments, he can instruct those who 
 have given up their whole life and youth 
 to the study of one art. Yet you tell me 
 I ought to urge him to go away from us 
 and marry! All women are full of ca- 
 prices, and I never pretended to under- 
 stand them. I used to think that you 
 had more good sense than the rest partly 
 because of your troubles, and partly 
 because you are generally too hard at 
 work to waste time running to and 
 fro tale-bearing, scandal-mongering, and 
 match-making like the others. But in 
 this instance you have shown yourself 
 extremely weak and a person of no judg- 
 ment. I hope you will never again en- 
 courage Susan to give you her vulgar 
 though possibly well-meant advice : you 
 are not strong enough to resist the com- 
 monplace! I can see now that nothing 
 would give you greater happiness than to
 
 52 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 ruin poor Robsart's individuality by plant- 
 ing liim in an Ivy Lodge with a wife and 
 six children ! " 
 
 Rose smiled very sadly, and replied 
 with much sweetness : 
 
 " I am sorry that I appear to you so 
 foolish. The prospect of seeing Louis in 
 an Ivy Lodge does not, however, delight 
 me so much as you suppose ! But I have 
 too much faith in his heart and his char- 
 acter to fear that the responsibility of 
 either a wife or even six children would 
 destroy his courage for ever and spoil his 
 career ! In any case, his actual marriage 
 is not our business. Indeed, I am so 
 fond of him although you may not be- 
 lieve it that while I could trust my 
 reasons for urging him to marry, I could 
 not trust those I might see against such 
 a step. I should suspect them of selfish- 
 ness. Our duty is to leave him free to 
 take a wife if he felt so minded. It is 
 always said that while a man has a fairly
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means, 53 
 
 comfortable home he will not trouble him- 
 self to look out for another. Of course, 
 our rooms are not at all luxurious, but 
 they are tidy ; and Susan can cook as 
 well as any servant in the district. I 
 know that I myself would not be missed 
 very much from the household, yet every 
 woman counts where a man's home-life is 
 concerned. I mend Louis's things, and 
 dust his books, and keep order." 
 
 " Men are not so weak as you think," 
 said Edward. " They can always leave 
 anybody or any place without a pang if 
 they find another person or another place 
 they like better. If they feel pricks and 
 scruples it is merely because they cannot 
 make up their mind that the change will 
 be absolutely to their advantage. I am 
 your brother and I do not lie to you. 
 Other men would perhaps encourage your 
 delusions. The moment Robsart is not 
 happy with us, he will pack up his box 
 and go. He will find it quite easy."
 
 54 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " But," said Rose, in a low voice, "per- 
 haps he ought not to be happy with us. 
 We are bad friends, thinking only of our- 
 selves, if we encourage him to remain 
 here against his own interests." 
 
 She believed that she understood Rob- 
 sart far better than her brother, who 
 judged every one by his own measure. 
 But Rose also judged every one by her 
 own measure. She would have thought 
 it extremely difficult to leave any friends 
 who seemed to depend on her society for 
 their peace of mind and with whom she 
 had been living for three years. And of 
 course there was another consideration 
 too, which Edward could not take into 
 the reckoning because he knew nothing 
 about it. That was Robsart's former 
 love for herself. He still liked her a 
 little, though not so much, perhaps, but 
 he could forget her if she went away. 
 Yet how could she explain this? 
 
 " Has it ever occurred to you," she
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means. 55 
 
 said at last, " that Louis felt a certain 
 pity for me ? " 
 
 " What do you want with his pity 
 when I am alive to look after you ? " 
 growled Edward. 
 
 Rose forced back her tears and spoke 
 no more, till, several minutes later, she 
 heard Robsart's voice in the passage. 
 
 " Here he is," she said, and, picking up 
 her work-basket, left the room just as he 
 entered it. 
 
 When she had gone, Edward gave a 
 great sigh, and struck his head with his 
 palms. 
 
 "What is the matter with Rose?" he 
 asked. " She has never been so tire- 
 some." 
 
 " It must be the thunder in the air," 
 said Robsart. " I feel rather cross my- 
 self." 
 
 " But she isn't cross," said Edward ; 
 "she is only worrying about things which 
 don't concern her."
 
 5 6 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 The two men looked at each other, and 
 heard her light footsteps in the room 
 overheard. 
 
 " Young Hartopp told me that you 
 were driving with Chloe Crecy," said the 
 organist, who, perhaps because he was 
 rather weakly and ill and therefore de- 
 pendent on his friends, was always unrea- 
 sonably jealous of them. " I observe," 
 he went on, " that the love-making we 
 find in the world is mostly mere vanity. 
 A woman is not so grateful for affection 
 as she is anxious to show others how 
 much some one is devoted to her, and a 
 great many men are equally self-seeking. 
 It is all show and parade and pirouetting. 
 It never took me in. I have not spoken 
 two words to Chloe Crecy in my life, but 
 I'm sure she's a minx." 
 
 "Oh, she's a nice creature good- 
 natured ! kind ! " said Robsart, who, hav- 
 ing no decided opinion of his own with 
 regard to Miss Crecy, thought he could 
 not do better than quote Rose.
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means. 57 
 
 "Ah!" said Edward, "you will be 
 marrying one of these days. I see it all." 
 
 But Robsart was wondering why Rose 
 had started from the room the very mo- 
 ment that he appeared on the threshold. 
 
 " And what is all this about Grayson 
 being made manager?" continued Edward. 
 
 Robsart lit his pipe and reflected for a 
 few seconds. 
 
 " Grayson is manager at this moment," 
 he answered, at last ; " the place was 
 filled up yesterday." 
 
 " Well," said Edward, indignantly, " you 
 might have told us. It isn't pleasant to 
 learn that every passer-by knows more 
 about your friends than you do yourself." 
 
 "There was nothing to tell," said 
 Robsart ; " how could I suppose that 
 you took any interest in Grayson ? " 
 
 " I take a considerable interest in him 
 when I see him placed over your head ! 
 If you are going to endure treatment of 
 that sort you are a coward and I quite 
 agree with Rose."
 
 5 8 The Herb-Moon, 
 
 " I am sorry Rose thinks me a coward." 
 
 "Any sensible woman would say the 
 same. Why have they given Grayson 
 the preference ? " 
 
 " He is a married man. He has far 
 more need of the extra salary than I have. 
 You must admit that a sane reason." 
 
 " You can't be serious," said Edward, 
 growing more angry. " Just as if you 
 couldn't let yourself go in my presence, 
 at any rate, and call it what you must 
 think it a parcel of cant and twaddle. 
 Here's a young ass, who, because he has 
 married an old harridan for her money, is 
 thought more trustworthy than you are ! 
 I will never believe it: there must be 
 something else behind it all. The British 
 nation has not won its flag by teaching 
 doctrines of rancidity ! We are a mer- 
 cenary lot and a snobbish lot, but I swear 
 that we are not fools." 
 
 Robsart smiled. 
 
 " To be quite candid, then," said he, " I
 
 What the Herb-Moon Means* 59 
 
 haven't told you all. They are going to 
 move the manager's office to Lauderston 
 they are starting new works there. 
 And I I didn't care to go away from 
 Ottley. Lauderston is too dirty and too 
 crowded and too noisy : I prefer the 
 country." 
 
 " Then they offered you the manager- 
 ship?" 
 
 "Yes, but I don't wish it known." 
 " Every one will think that you have 
 been passed over." 
 
 " That doesn't matter in the least." 
 Edward was too bewildered too agi- 
 tated to speak. Lauderston was thirty 
 miles away. How could he urge his friend 
 to go to Lauderston? Yet how could he 
 wish him to remain when remaining meant 
 the forfeiture of four hundred a year, a 
 house, and even better prospects? The 
 poor invalid suffered agonies between the 
 selfishness he had acquired through many 
 wants and the generosity he had been
 
 60 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 born with. Then he remembered, that, 
 fortunately, the decision had been already 
 made. Had not Robsart taken the whole 
 burden of the refusal on his own shoul- 
 ders ? Edward never suspected that the 
 younger man had foreseen this struggle 
 and mercifully spared him its bitterness 
 as well as its responsibility. 
 
 " But I should like them all to know," 
 said he, " that you declined the place. 
 You are in a false position otherwise." 
 
 " It must never be mentioned," replied 
 Robsart, rather sternly. " I ask you to 
 respect my wish. I shall tell Rose be- 
 cause as you say she is annoyed about 
 the gossip it would be unfair to let her 
 misunderstand the true facts. What 
 other people think or hint or imagine is 
 of no consequence." 
 
 Then Susan came in bearing the supper- 
 tray and made Edward's head ache by 
 letting the bread-platter fall, loaf and all, 
 on the floor, with a crash.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Which Shows that Lovers can at Times 
 Talk Reason. 
 
 AFTER supper, the organist went, for it 
 was Tuesday, to the choir-practice. To 
 his great surprise and disappointment, 
 Robsart did not, as usual, offer to accom- 
 pany him. Rose began to tremble just as 
 she had trembled on just such an evening 
 three years before. She looked very pale 
 and very tired : there were heavy lines 
 under her eyes and she could scarcely 
 hold up her head. 
 
 " It is a long while," began Robsart, 
 " since we have had a talk. I don't know 
 that I have very much to say now. But 
 first I must tell you about Grayson." 
 
 He explained the matter as briefly as
 
 62 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 possible and watched her face as he had 
 not watched it for many months. " Why 
 isn't she pretty," he wondered, " when 
 everything about her is pretty? If she 
 had more color, and unbraided her hair 
 and rested her eyes and wore brighter 
 gowns, she would be charming. Yet I 
 hate red cheeks, and as for her hair 
 what can be neater than braids? No 
 amount of fatigue can alter the shape of 
 her eyes, and when she is so tidy and has 
 such a graceful figure why should she 
 deck herself in finery? I see nothing 
 wrong in her, for, on the contrary, if she 
 were in any respect different, she would 
 not be half so sweet." He was, however, 
 unable to study her so carefully as he 
 could have wished because she was not 
 sewing, and it is difficult to treat a woman 
 like a picture when she sits opposite you 
 and smiles from time to time. 
 
 " I think you were wrong," said Rose, 
 " not to go to Lauderston A man
 
 Lovers Can Talk Reason* 63 
 
 should be ambitious, and if God sends 
 you an opportunity to advance in the 
 world, you are not merely ungrateful but 
 cowardly if you do not take it. You say 
 that you prefer to live in the country : 
 that is a poor excuse for being indolent." 
 
 At this he was deeply hurt, and was 
 far too proud to make any reply. As 
 for Rose, she had such a pain in her heart 
 and such wild thoughts in her head that 
 she feared she would surely lose her wits. 
 
 " I hope it is not too late," she con- 
 tinued, " to tell them that you spoke too 
 hastily and have changed your mind." 
 
 " If it were not too late, I should never 
 see the matter in any other light. I do 
 nothing hastily, and I am a man of my 
 word. I know what I want and what I 
 do not want. I know what I can do and 
 what I cannot do. I could not go to 
 Lauderston." 
 
 Rose, for some reason, dared not ask 
 him why he felt such a dislike for a
 
 64 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 town he had visited once or twice and 
 had always, until this day, spoken well of. 
 
 "I knew I could not go there," he 
 went on, " but I did not know why I 
 could not till I thought it all out under 
 the plum-tree. I want to stay with you. 
 Although I may be nothing in your life, 
 you are everything in mine, and so long 
 as I do not offend you, or tire you, or 
 hinder you, you have no right to send 
 me away. I will not tell you that I 
 love you, because such things cannot be 
 said between us, and if they were said 
 they would mean little. I am in no 
 mood to make protestations, and you are 
 not free to hear them. I don't ask for 
 much of your company it does not give 
 me any special happiness to be with you. 
 But I like to know that you are here 
 that if you were ill or in trouble, I could 
 take care of you and protect you." 
 
 " I will not be your stumbling-block," 
 said Rose, trying to speak like an old
 
 Lovers Can Talk Reason* 65 
 
 woman, and looking, Robsart thought, 
 like an angel ; " I am very fond of you, 
 too, dear, and I am more grateful than I 
 can ever explain for your friendship and 
 your sympathy. Yet, while I value both, 
 I do not need either so much as you 
 think, for I have forgotten all my sorrow 
 and I am quite happy. Youth is the 
 time for love and grief, and I am no 
 longer young. I forget my age, but as I 
 am so contented and I find work so pleas- 
 ant, I know I must be much older than 
 most people ! You are far too manly to 
 spend your time protecting some one 
 who stands in no need of protection and 
 taking care of some one who is already 
 provided for." 
 
 Robsart understood her nature too 
 well to think her either cold or heartless 
 for saying such things to him, so although 
 he was perplexed, he loved her all the 
 better and was more than ever persuaded 
 that braids were the most admirable way
 
 66 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 of dressing the hair particularly when 
 the hair was auburn and looked as though 
 it were meant to dance and glisten. 
 
 " You are not my stumbling-block," 
 said he ; " and if there is any good in 
 me, I owe it all to you. I could not 
 have worked if you had not encouraged 
 me by your patience : I should have 
 done all manner of foolish things if I 
 had not always remembered that I would 
 have to see you the next day: I would 
 have been a false friend to Edward if 
 you had not kept me true. Do you 
 think I have forgotten that evening when 
 we stood over there by the window and 
 I kissed you and you left me ? Do you 
 think that made me love you less?" 
 
 His voice failed, and he bit his lip. 
 Rose longed to touch him, but she sat 
 quite still. 
 
 " Do you know what it is,""he said, at 
 last, "to feel' divided against yourself-^ 
 -eparafe fforn ydUrself?" Did .'yon ever
 
 Lovers Can Talk Reason. 67 
 
 feel sick, starved, bruised ? That is the 
 way I nearly always feel, and if I worked 
 twelve hours a day and if I went to the 
 ends of the earth, I should be just the 
 same. But while you are with me, I am 
 not quite so wretched." 
 
 Rose stood up and placed her chair 
 back in its place against the wall. 
 
 " I want you to promise me," she said, 
 " that you will go to Lauderston. It 
 would not be fair to Grayson to take the 
 managership now, but you can tell them 
 that you will go in some other capacity. 
 I ask this not for your sake, but for 
 mine." 
 
 " For your sake ? " he said ; " for your 
 sake ? Do you want me to go ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " I think we 
 must not meet again for a long, long 
 time. This is all wrong and madness. 
 We must not deceive each other or our- 
 selves. I have been living a lie for 
 three years and I am being- punished for
 
 68 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 it. I meant to be a good influence in 
 your life, and I find I have been an evil 
 one. I prided myself on being unselfish, 
 when I must have known that I was 
 thinking solely of my own happiness. I 
 could avoid you ; I could pretend not to 
 think of you ; I could flatter myself all 
 day that you were a friend and no more ; 
 I could do everything anything, all 
 things except leave you. I had the cour- 
 age to see you like me less and less ; I had 
 the courage to weary you by my silence 
 and my plainness ; I had the courage to 
 bury myself alive, to fade, to wither, to 
 work, work work against time, against 
 my own despair, my own madness, but I 
 had not the courage to go away or to 
 ask you to go. And was it love which 
 made me so contemptible ? I think not. 
 If you care for me, help me to be strong 
 help me to be honest." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Why," she asked, " don't you wish
 
 Lovers Can Talk Reason. 69 
 
 people to hear that you refused to go to 
 Lauderston? Because you know they 
 would say it was on my account. And 
 they would be right, Louis ! They 
 would be right ! Why are you ashamed 
 to have them guess the reason? Be- 
 cause your conscience tells you that you 
 are wrong." 
 
 " They would misjudge they would 
 never understand "stammered Robsart. 
 
 " You are not a man to mind what the 
 world said of you, if you felt that you 
 were acting an honorable part. No one 
 can be brave and defy others when he 
 has lost his own self-respect. And I 
 have brought this upon you I who 
 meant to be your friend. I have taught 
 you to be a hypocrite, to walk softly and 
 fear opinion : I have wasted your will 
 and your manhood." 
 
 " Rose ! Rose ! Rose ! " 
 
 " I have tried to make myself indispen- 
 sable to you. There may have been
 
 7 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 frowns on my face, but you always found 
 flowers in your room. And you knew 
 who put them there. That has been my 
 method all through it was all in under- 
 currents, and in hidden ways never 
 frank, never in broad sunlight. Oh, 
 promise me that you will go ! " 
 
 " You ask a hard thing." 
 
 " Promise me," she repeated. " It is 
 the only favor I have ever begged from 
 you." 
 
 Robsart had not accepted one word of 
 Rose's self-condemnation, for he knew 
 full well the woman she was, and neither 
 anything that others might say about 
 her, nor anything she might imagine 
 against herself could make him think 
 her other than the least selfish soul he 
 had ever met or heard of. She saw this 
 faith in his face, and although she had 
 meant him to think her, and indeed 
 thought herself, quite unworthy of such 
 trust, she could not help feeling glad
 
 Lovers Can Talk Reason. 71 
 
 that she was dear to one whom, she was 
 not afraid to own, she loved above any 
 creature on earth. 
 
 " Promise me," she cried, once more, 
 " that you will go." 
 
 "And what of Edward ? " he asked. 
 
 Rose looked at him in despair. 
 
 " I had forgotten Edward," she said. 
 " He would soon get tired of living alone 
 with me. Oh, what shall I do? " 
 
 Robsart felt the blood grow warm once 
 more in his veins, for the fear of leaving 
 Rose had seemed to change him to stone. 
 
 " It would kill Edward to lose you," 
 she murmured ; " he cannot live without 
 sympathy, and no one is so kind to him 
 as you are." 
 
 "You see!" said Robsart; "I have 
 acted for the best." 
 
 The poor woman smiled, and, going 
 behind him, placed a hand on each of 
 his shoulders, and looked down on him 
 as though he were a child who had
 
 72 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 stumbled through a lesson with more 
 pains than success. 
 
 " You acted generously," she whis- 
 pered ; " don't think I can ever forget 
 it," then, as she could not add more be- 
 cause of the anguish of her soul, she 
 went quickly away, blind with tears, to 
 her own room,
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Susan Sheds Tears. 
 
 THE next morning, after Robsart had 
 gone to the factory and while Edward 
 was at church, practising, Rose told 
 Susan that she would be leaving Ottley 
 that day for London. As she went there 
 twice a year or oftener on business con- 
 nected with her needlework, Susan 
 showed no surprise at the news. 
 
 " But," said Rose, " I do not wish my 
 brother to know that I am going, because 
 leave-takings make him very ill, and, as 
 you remember, the scene last time I went 
 away exhausted every one in the house ! 
 But if he comes home as usual and finds 
 me absent, he will make the best of it at 
 once and wait patiently till I return."
 
 74 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Here she checked herself, and stood 
 where Susan could not see her face. She 
 had been awake most of the night, saying 
 things over and over again, and watching 
 for daylight. 
 
 " Mr. Edward is just like a child," said 
 Susan, as she knotted the cords of Mrs. 
 Arden's box which stood between the 
 mahogany chest of drawers and the dress- 
 ing-table draped with flowered muslin 
 over pink calico ; " he will never be manly 
 till he's married." 
 
 "You want to marry everybody," said 
 Rose, laughing in spite of her grief. 
 
 " To be sure," said Susan, " for mar- 
 riage is natural. Mr. Edward would 
 have found a wife long ago if you hadn't 
 taken such care of him treating him like 
 a pet lamb and talking to him as if he 
 was an old maid. Never let a man forget 
 that he's a man that's what I say. It's 
 mothers and sisters who make half the 
 bad husbands you hear about for no
 
 Susan Sheds Tears. 75 
 
 wife worth the name wants to keep her 
 man short-coated ! But if many women 
 could have their will, they would make 
 their boys and brothers wear christening 
 robes and eat pap till they turned fifty 
 aye, and more. And it isn't love so 
 much as wanting to have their own way 
 with 'em and to have 'em like rabbits in 
 a cage. Lord ; I know by myself. I 
 could keep Adam hanging on my arm 
 all day if I hadn't the sense to see it 
 would make him a softie. There's enough 
 real children in the world for women to 
 look after without dilly-dallying about 
 with grown men. When I get one of 
 these petting moods on, I just call on my 
 poor sister who is a widow with nine 
 and I just set to work mending their 
 clothes and washing their heads the 
 eldest has a lovely head of hair, all curls. 
 It's a treat to brush it." 
 
 The sober sense in Susan's flying words 
 did not fail to enter deep into Rose's
 
 76 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 vexed mind. Her foolish devotion to 
 Edward and Robsart had, in each case, 
 been harmful rather than a benefit. She 
 saw this clearly, and, although her heart 
 died within her at the thought of parting 
 from them, the knowledge that the 
 separation was, in every sense, to their 
 gain, gave new life to her purpose and 
 fresh resolution to her fainting soul. 
 She walked from room to room, gazing 
 at each piece of furniture and each poor 
 ornament with eyes so tender and so sad, 
 that Susan, not knowing why, could not 
 help crying. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " said she, " I do hate to 
 see anybody go. Who can say when 
 they will come back? " 
 
 The trees rustled and a linnet flew out 
 of the hedge near the window. 
 
 " You won't forget to put crumbs on 
 the sill every morning," said Rose, pulling 
 down her thick veil ; " and tell my 
 brother I will write to him from London.
 
 Susan Sheds Tears. 77 
 
 I have put Mr. Robsart's linen in perfect 
 order, and I have marked all his new 
 handkerchiefs." 
 
 She gathered a little bunch of flowers 
 from the garden, drank the tea which 
 Susan gave her, and drove away in the 
 pony-trap with Adam. Susan watched 
 till she could no longer see the top of 
 Adam's whip above the hedges. Then 
 she went to feed the pigs, who were 
 squealing with all their might because she 
 had forgotten them for five minutes.
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 Some Soliloquies. 
 
 ROSE, after the manner of all women, 
 often spoke on impulse and without due 
 reflection, but her actions and in this 
 respect she differed from many of her sex 
 were always cautious and extremely dis- 
 creet. She was not one to lose her head 
 even in the whirlwind of adversity, and 
 when she seemed least considerate, it 
 would be found, on observing her con- 
 duct, that she showed much deliberation. 
 Before she packed her box that morning, 
 she had reasoned thus : 
 
 " If Robsart goes to Lauderston, 
 Edward could join him without difficulty, 
 for his reputation is already known there 
 and he would soon find pupils. But if I
 
 Some Soliloquies. 79 
 
 went to Lauderston, too, it would cause 
 gossip, and, what is worse, we should con- 
 tinue the same life that we lead here. 
 Edward, poor soul, must learn to take 
 care of himself " here she wept bitterly 
 " and Robsart must forget me. I hope 
 he will marry a sweet, good girl, who will 
 love him as he deserves. But sweet, good 
 girls are scarce, and he must not make 
 his choice in a hurry." At this she grew 
 breathless, and, feeling like a dead thing 
 without a grave and with no one to close 
 her eyes, she fell, in a heap, on her bed. 
 Then she remembered that there was no 
 time to be lost, so she bathed and dressed, 
 and plaited her hair, and sang cheerful 
 songs in a loud voice lest Robsart who 
 was eating his early breakfast in the room 
 below should think she was unhappy 
 after their conversation of the previous 
 evening: * : *. 
 
 . Now, therefore,- that the first step was 
 taken "and ^she found herself driving away,
 
 80 The Herb-Moom 
 
 her thoughts grew calmer and the tears 
 fell kindly on her face, making it young. 
 But she did not know this, and wondered 
 why a recruiting sergeant, who happened 
 to be at the railway, called her " Miss," 
 and helped her with her luggage most 
 politely. He had a gallant heart for 
 pretty eyes and women in distress. As 
 the train glided from the station, Rose 
 looked out of the carriage window and 
 saw once more the little high-street with 
 its row of artless shops, and the gray 
 spire of the parish church in the dis- 
 tance, and the smoke of the factory, 
 beyond. 
 
 When Robsart returned in the after- 
 noon, he was as little astonished as 
 Susan at the mere news of Rose's excur- 
 sion to town, but he felt that the journey 
 that day was not like those she had taken 
 before. This time she would never 
 return. He remembered her sorrowful 
 look the trembling voice when she had
 
 Some Soliloquies* 81 
 
 told him that they must part. She was 
 not a woman who would either grieve or 
 falter over an unmeant, unreal farewell. 
 There were some who coquetted with 
 experience, meeting heroic hours un- 
 marked in time, calling back fugitive sor- 
 rows, conjuring up the phantom of de- 
 spair, but Rose was not one of these. 
 Robsart's heart, sick with vexation and 
 disappointment, rebelled against her 
 austere code of honor, and the fierce 
 intolerance of all restraint, which, so long 
 as she was, at all events, near him, burnt 
 low, now burst forth a vehement, three- 
 edged flame. She was cold, she was piti- 
 less, she was ungrateful ! He had asked 
 so little merely the right to see her 
 daily, to sit at the same table, to lodge 
 under the same roof. Since that one 
 evening long ago had he ever uttered one 
 word, given a sign which the whole of 
 Ottley might not have heard and wit- 
 nessed ? The mutinous thoughts, unan-
 
 82 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 swered doubts, uneasy wonderings long 
 forgotten, which belonged to the early 
 days of his love for Rose, returned again, 
 and swept, like a tempest, through the 
 woods of his mind, stirring every feather 
 of the owl his philosophy that slept 
 there. He fled from the house and wan- 
 dered far out into the fields, addressing 
 Rose in imagination, and almost persuad- 
 ing himself that he hated her very name. 
 " I do not understand your friend- 
 ship," he said : " you leave me without a 
 word and you did not write me even a 
 line. How am I to believe in an affec- 
 tion which can disguise itself so admira- 
 bly? Ah, Rose, don't be deceived! 
 There is no love in you. You sit at your 
 work, thinking of fancies and fantasms 
 and all the melting imagery of false sen- 
 timent, till, seeing me is the dream and 
 not seeing me the reality. What is my 
 companionship to you? what is my de- 
 votion to you ? what am I myself to
 
 Some Soliloquies* 83 
 
 you ? Nothing. You would rather not 
 talk with me you would prefer never 
 meeting me. You want to flirt with my 
 shadow without my knowledge and be- 
 hind my back ! If I misjudge you, I am 
 sorry. You may have religion and 
 thoughts about duty and thoughts about 
 honor, but all the religion in heaven and 
 all the duty preached in sermons and all 
 the honor described in poetry would not 
 make you renounce love so easily if you 
 were not, spirit and body, as cold as the 
 sea! 
 
 He had the temperament known in 
 common language as steady-going, and 
 that poetical love which spends itself in 
 imagination dissipating the soul in arti- 
 ficial emotions and forgetting the practi- 
 cal kindnesses of true friendship seemed 
 to him the grossest form of insincerity. 
 He believed that a man should choose a 
 wife, protect her, provide for her, cherish 
 her, be faithful to her; intrigues, flirta-
 
 84 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 tions, verse-making and serenading filled 
 him with an equal abhorrence, and, in his 
 judgment, were equally indecent. He 
 permitted courtship out of deference to 
 woman's more timorous nature and the 
 sublime example of Jacob, but had it 
 been possible, without rudeness or a too 
 mercantile appreciation of the value of 
 time, to avoid these considerations, he 
 would certainly have despised that cus- 
 tomary dalliance also. Robsart's whole 
 being stood rooted in affection ; with him 
 it was so natural and right a thing to 
 love, that, when Edward spoke, as he 
 often did, of degrading ones aspirations 
 by the puny cares of marriage, he supposed 
 it the mere peevishness of an invalid. 
 Nor could he believe that the organist 
 really echoed the opinions of many able- 
 bodied young men who exhausted their 
 energy denouncing the noblest responsi- 
 bilities in life, seeking for wives who 
 would pay their debts, flattering women
 
 Some Soliloquies. 85 
 
 who were more generous than wise. To- 
 day, however, in his bitterness against 
 Rose, he found more reasons than ill- 
 health for Edward's cynicism, and decided 
 that brother and sister had each a callous- 
 ness of heart which was, luckily, as rare as 
 it was odious. 
 
 " Ah, Rose," he continued, still easing 
 his despair in an imaginary conversation ; 
 " you have read the lives of the saints 
 and all the imitations of Christ, which, 
 just because they are but imitations, are 
 most dangerous and misleading. Noth- 
 ing in nature is solitary go into a desert 
 and you will be the only lonely thing 
 there ! The sky has its clouds and its 
 stars ; each grain of sand is surrounded by 
 grains of sand ! There are deep sorrows 
 and killing cares in life, but the encour- 
 agement and love of friends were given us 
 to make all difficulties bearable. To 
 ignore such aid is like a soldier going out 
 to fight the enemy singlehanded, leaving
 
 86 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 his armor at home, despising his com- 
 rades and setting his commander at 
 defiance. We should not call such fool- 
 hardiness brave, but, on the contrary, 
 most insolent ! " 
 
 The suspicion that he was wronging 
 poor Rose more than cruelly was not the 
 least part of his suffering. Was not her 
 very flight abrupt, unkind, capricious 
 though it seemed a proof, if proof were 
 needed, that she thought of him not too 
 seldom but far too much ? Yet why 
 should she torture herself with these 
 scruples of conscience ? why should she 
 lock herself in a dingy room and think 
 it a sin to need company, to like one 
 man a little better even a great deal 
 better than all others? What more nat- 
 ural ? what so right ? 
 
 And now for a whim, a superstitious 
 theory of virtue she had left him. He 
 determined to bear her decision for a 
 time, at all events, without complaint.
 
 Some Soliloquies. 87 
 
 He felt too proud, too sore to write her 
 any letter or to urge her coming back. 
 He told his story to the evening and ut- 
 tered his reproaches to the air.
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School. 
 
 Every Wednesday evening, Mr. Law- 
 rence, the curate, and Mr. Sledges, the 
 lawyer, used to meet at Wrestle's Farm 
 sometimes for a hand at whist and some- 
 times for a game of chess with Robsart. 
 These reunions had been instituted, it was 
 said, for the entertainment of poor Banish, 
 who, when he felt in the mood, could 
 out-talk any man or woman in the county. 
 It not infrequently happened, therefore, 
 that the visitors left well stocked with 
 information for the week, and Edward 
 remained, sore of throat, exhausted, pray- 
 ing for solitude. These interruptions of 
 his self-contemplative life were not, how- 
 ever, so bad for his soul as his tongue,
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School* 89 
 
 and Rose, in leaving Ottley that morning, 
 had remembered, with much comfort, the 
 inevitable card-party of the evening. It 
 would relieve any melancholy or resent- 
 ment he might, at first, feel in learning 
 of her departure. 
 
 When Robsart came back from his 
 long walk, the two men were already in 
 the parlor each with a glass of ale and 
 both apparently waiting to be amused. 
 Mr. Lawrence, the curate, was short, 
 motherly in outline, over fifty, with 
 small features and merry eyes. He was 
 much in demand for christenings, because 
 he held babies so well and was not heavy- 
 handed with the water. The one man he 
 found it hard to agree with was Sledges, 
 the solicitor, who always spoke of Rome 
 and Canterbury as though they were the 
 parties in a divorce suit. 
 
 Sledges, himself, was all discretion, and 
 such was his knowledge of the law, that, 
 when it was by any means possible, he
 
 9 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 implored his clients to suffer any outrage 
 or injustice rather than expose their 
 grievances in Court. In appearance he 
 was rather like a bad portrait of Macready 
 as Richard III., and his resemblance to 
 that tragedian cost him an immense 
 amount of exertion in the striking of atti- 
 tudes and a great deal of time in the ar- 
 rangement of his hair. A windy day, for 
 instance, disturbed the effect considerably. 
 
 Edward, when Robsart entered, was 
 walking up and down the little room, 
 reading a letter aloud and muttering 
 comments, which, though inaudible as 
 speech, betrayed, by their tone, the agi- 
 tation of his mind. 
 
 " I would decide one way or the other," 
 the curate was saying, " and then I should 
 think no more about it. I have always 
 found that nearly every step we take in 
 life is to be regretted if we once begin 
 to wonder how many other steps might 
 have been possible."
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School* 91 
 
 "Then," said Sledges, sternly, "how 
 can you urge our friend to make a hasty 
 decision ? I never answer a letter until I 
 have slept upon it, and, when people ask 
 me for a reply by return of post, I always 
 suspect that they are more eager for their 
 own interests than mine ! " 
 
 " Your calling is such," said the curate, 
 " that you would naturally err rather on 
 the side of caution than on the side of 
 faith. And if one were to examine the 
 lives directed by the Church as opposed 
 to the lives advised by the Law, we 
 should find, I think, that if the confident 
 are sometimes deceived, the worldly-wise 
 are always unhappy. And I will tell you 
 why. There is one wisdom only, and 
 that is heavenly. Every other kind is 
 but a doctrine of vanity, teaching disap- 
 pointment and destruction." 
 
 "If," rejoined Mr. Sledges, "I be- 
 lieved in prayer, I should beg to be 
 delivered from pride of intellect ! "
 
 9 2 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 "And I," observed the curate, "thank 
 God, night and morning, that, though 
 surrounded by beings with neither true 
 opinions nor the courage of them, I have 
 a conviction for which I would die and 
 for which I am perfectly willing to en- 
 dure insult " here he observed a smile 
 on the lawyer's thin mouth " aye, sir, 
 and even ridicule ! " 
 
 Robsart could hardly contain his anx- 
 iety to learn the cause which had given 
 rise to so much eloquence and wrath 
 in his friend's learned visitors. Nor was 
 his curiosity made less poignant when 
 Edward, rousing himself from a dolor 
 till that moment unutterable, made the 
 following lament : 
 
 " It will mean shaving my beard ! " 
 
 " I do not agree with you there," said 
 the curate. 
 
 " There again I must beg to differ with 
 you, Mr. Lawrence," said Sledges. " The 
 pleasures of society are only to be en-
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School. 93 
 
 joyed by those who conform to its regu- 
 lations. If a young lady of most respect- 
 able connections invite me to her tea-table, 
 and, after mature consideration, I decide 
 to take the advantage for what it may be 
 worth, I do not injure that advantage by 
 presenting myself as its recipient in inap- 
 propriate habiliments ! It would not be 
 dignified, sir. I may even say it would 
 show a want of respect for the young 
 lady, which her parents, should she have 
 any, would very properly resent." 
 
 More and more bewildered, Robsart 
 turned to Banish for an explanation. 
 The organist, without a word, gave him 
 the letter. It was written in the auda- 
 cious hand of Miss Chloe Crecy, and 
 contained the hope that he, Edward, 
 would give her the pleasure of his com- 
 pany at a little tea she was giving, after 
 the cricket -match, on the morrow. Mr. 
 Sledges and Mr. Lawrence watched Rob- 
 sart's face and waited, with painful inter-
 
 94 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 est, for his opinion. In the country, such 
 a small event as the attending or not 
 attending a tea-party has an importance 
 not to be estimated by those who live in 
 a city, and not to be exaggerated by 
 those who would attempt to describe it. 
 
 " What would you do when you 
 got there, Edward?" asked the clerk; 
 " would it amuse you ? " 
 
 " One question at a time, please, Mr. 
 Robsart," said Sledges, who felt he was 
 protecting a client. 
 
 Edward rubbed his forehead. 
 
 " How can I tell whether it would 
 amuse me ? " said he. " If I knew that, 
 I could make up my mind at once ! Say 
 I shaved my beard, spent half an hour 
 driving to ' Randalls,' an hour there, half 
 an hour coming back, and did not enjoy 
 it, what on earth could atone to me for 
 the loss of time? But if, on the other 
 hand, I enjoyed the change, it would 
 really seem worth the trouble ! "
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School. 95 
 
 " Every move in life," said Robsart, 
 determined to preserve the solemnity of 
 the occasion, " is an experiment. There 
 is no such thing as an absolute cer- 
 tainty." 
 
 The curate held up his suave hands. 
 
 " Don't say that," he exclaimed. 
 " Hope, at least, is sure and certain." 
 
 "Hope?" said Sledges; "the mere 
 name is the antithesis of reason. My 
 experience has taught me to take the 
 gloomiest view of all subjects. That is 
 why I am never disappointed. Things 
 sometimes turn out better but they are 
 never worse than my anticipations. If 
 I have a cold, I am always surprised if it 
 does not kill me. If I have to defend an 
 honest client, I am always astonished if 
 we win the day ! " 
 
 "I note," said Mr. Lawrence, "that 
 the possibility of divine intervention does 
 not enter into your calculations." 
 
 "I am not so presumptuous, sir, as to
 
 96 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 think," replied the solicitor, " that God 
 Almighty would either disturb the laws 
 of nature or suborn an English jury ! 
 And, with no desire to be personal, I beg 
 to observe that all such blasphemous pre- 
 sumption invariably emanates from the 
 Church ! " 
 
 Edward had now risen, and was exam- 
 ining his features in the small mirror 
 which hung over the mantelpiece. 
 
 " My sister," said he, " never liked this 
 beard. It would please her, I know, 
 to see me clean-shaven. And if she 
 were here, she would wish me to go to 
 this ridiculous entertainment at Miss 
 Crecy's ! " 
 
 " Ah," said Mr. Lawrence, with 
 triumph, " now we have come to a mo- 
 tive which can never be barren. Think 
 how your actions will affect the happi- 
 ness of others, and then you can always 
 be sure of a profitable result. If you 
 visit this lady out of deference to Mrs.
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School* 97 
 
 Arden, it cannot matter in the least 
 whether the afternoon is dull or lively. 
 You will have attained your point in that 
 you have gratified the kind intention of 
 another." 
 
 "A very dangerous theory, if I may 
 say so," interrupted Sledges, " for, if we 
 always observed our friends' wishes at the 
 sacrifice of our own, we might often find 
 ourselves committed to much that would 
 be unwise and more that might even be 
 immoral ! " 
 
 " By no means," said Mr. Lawrence, 
 " and in support of my denial let me 
 quote the well-known rule attributed by 
 Cicero to Laelius : Ut neque rogemus res 
 turpes, nee faciamus rogati : that we 
 neither require of our friends the perform- 
 ance of base things, nor, being requested 
 of them, perform such ourselves. Thus, 
 I should find no virtue in a son's commit- 
 ting theft at his father's command, nor 
 should I discover any fine flavor of fidel-
 
 98 The Herfe-Moon. 
 
 ity in a wife who obeyed an evil husband. 
 Much misery and unhappiness has been 
 caused by a misapprehension and wrong 
 exposition of the laws of obedience." 
 
 "Aye, indeed," exclaimed Edward, 
 " and I am glad to hear you say so. My 
 poor sister would have given much to 
 have heard such words from a clergyman 
 in her youth. The poor soul was taught 
 such hideous rules of wifely duty, that, 
 for several years, she hated St. Paul, and 
 could not believe in a church which called 
 marriage a sacrament. And neither God 
 nor St. Paul nor marriage were at fault, 
 but her false teachers, who perverted 
 what was sacred into vileness, and what 
 was noble into what was ignoble ! " 
 
 His eyes filled with tears, and even 
 Robsart, who had grown pale at the 
 recollection of Rose's suffering, was sur- 
 prised to find that the organist had ever 
 given so much thought to his sister's 
 I roubles.
 
 Two Gentlemen of the Old School. 99 
 
 "A most unfortunate affair," said Mr. 
 Sledges. " But very few women at the 
 present day hold such exalted ideas of 
 duty and self-abnegation as Mrs. Arden ! 
 Her case is not a common one." 
 
 " Pardon me," said Mr. Lawrence, " I 
 could tell you of many such cases. We 
 clergymen know the patient souls who 
 endure : you lawyers only meet the 
 rebels and fighters those who have 
 strong friends to support them in court, 
 and money to pay for champions ! The 
 age of chivalry, sir, is past." 
 
 Edward walked to the writing-table and 
 sat down. 
 
 " I will go to Miss Crecy's," said he. 
 
 They all remained silent while he com- 
 posed his note. 
 
 " And I will shave my beard," he added, 
 as he fastened the envelope. 
 
 Susan carried the letter to the post, and 
 the four men sat down to a game of 
 whist.
 
 CHAPTER VIE. 
 
 Introducing a Lady who Disapproved of 
 Cynicism. 
 
 WHEN Rose reached London, she drove, 
 in a cab, to the house of the one rich per- 
 son who took an interest in her welfare 
 Mrs. Harrowby of Cavendish Square. 
 
 The footman who opened the door and 
 the butler who came forward had each an 
 air of anxiety and preoccupation which 
 did not escape Mrs. Arden's notice. She 
 wondered, with many misgivings, what it 
 could mean, and, in a feverish terror, fol- 
 lowed the elder of the two servants across 
 the chilly hall hung with spears and the 
 hides of beasts (from the collection of the 
 late General Sir Frankfort Harrowby), 
 and up the staircase.
 
 Lady who Disapproved of Cynicism. 101 
 
 The butler surveyed Rose's shabby 
 gown, and, without an effort, remembered 
 her name. 
 
 " Mrs. Arden," said he, throwing open 
 a massive white door. The room before 
 her was square, with low walls and a high 
 white sloping ceiling. The paper of yel- 
 low dahlias and green leaves, the chintz of 
 apple-blossoms which covered the sofas 
 and chairs, and the silvery curtains em- 
 broidered with grapes and apricots, gave 
 the prospect a garden-like appearance. 
 The oval mirror on the dressing-table 
 was of Pompadour design a gilt thing of 
 wrought butterflies, tulips, and ribbon- 
 ends. There was a large writing-table 
 neatly set out with a blotting-pad, silver 
 candlesticks, and a small brazen inkstand 
 held up by an ivory Muse. Some relig- 
 ious papers and The Times were piled 
 up near a red morocco box of stationery. 
 An alabaster clock stood on the mantel- 
 piece, and above it, a mirror, in a frame
 
 102 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 of gilt laurels and rosettes, reflected the 
 flaming flowers of the wall-paper. 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby was old, so she lay 
 propped up upon three lace-edged pillows 
 in an ornate French bedstead which 
 looked too frivolous to die in. Carved 
 cupids with gold wings supported the 
 blue silk canopy, and the coverlet was of 
 lilac silk worked with glittering beads 
 and little seed-pearls. Mrs. Harrowby 
 had been beautiful and she was still 
 admired. Many were the tales she could 
 tell of love and ambition, and many were 
 the hearts she had broken. But she had 
 given her own to one only and he had 
 failed her. Yet because Rose was his 
 daughter she trusted her above all women. 
 
 " My dear Rose," she exclaimed, when 
 she entered, " this is a great surprise. I 
 was on the point of writing to you. 
 You look wretchedly ill, but then I never 
 approved of your living at Ottley. Your 
 father would have perished in such a
 
 Lady who Disapproved of Cynicism. 103 
 
 place. He was a man who loved gaiety 
 and all that was bright. Your features 
 and eyes are like his, but in spirit you 
 miss him completely. Your arrival in 
 town to-day is providential. Life, how- 
 ever, is full of such accidents. I wish I 
 could find time to write a book, for I am 
 sure it would do a great deal of good. 
 But oh, my dear ! I have had such a 
 terrible grief. Can I bring myself to 
 speak of it? " 
 
 " It is better," said Rose, with a sigh, 
 "to tell a trouble than to bear it alone." 
 
 " Darrell, my maid," said Mrs. Har- 
 rowby, " Darrell, who has been my 
 trusted servant for years, who has trav- 
 eled with me and on whom I have 
 showered many kindnesses has suddenly 
 left me to get married ! Such selfishness 
 has never been known. She called here 
 in her wedding dress, and the very lace 
 on her bonnet was a piece I had given 
 her because it did not suit me ! I wish
 
 104 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 now that I had sent it to you. But of 
 course, dear, she was on the spot ! I 
 shall take her name out of my will. She 
 is a heartless person." 
 
 " I suppose," said Rose, " she fell in 
 love ! " 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense. Did you ever 
 see the creature? She had a figure like a 
 board. And now when she is over forty 
 she marries a most respectable pastry 
 cook. What could the man see in her ? 
 You may depend that he is after her sav- 
 ings. And now I have done with maids. 
 I want some quiet nice soul with no idea 
 of bettering herself or of catching a hus- 
 band a lady, in fact, my dear. I 
 thought of you at once. That is why I 
 meant to write. I will give you seventy 
 pound a year, and you need not dress 
 much. You could put by half your sal- 
 ary, and save up a little for your old age. 
 Shall we say that everything is settled 
 and that you will come ? "
 
 Lady who Disapproved of Cynicism. 105 
 
 Rose was so astonished at what she 
 considered direct assistance from Heaven 
 in her hour of need, that she clapped her 
 hands till Mrs. Harrowby herself won- 
 dered why any creature should show 
 such extreme delight at the prospect of 
 sharing her society, her ailments, and her 
 humors. 
 
 " I daresay," said she, " that you will 
 sometimes find me trying. My nerves 
 are shocking, and I am very particular. I 
 hope you have given up Newman's ser- 
 mons, for he is not a writer I approve of. 
 If you want Sunday reading, the new 
 archdeacon has published some charming 
 things on Poverty, and for week-days, 
 there is no one like dear Sir Walter or 
 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. I delight in 
 dear Saint-Pierre, and can always cry over 
 the death of Virginia. But Thackeray 
 as dear old Lord Bingham once said to 
 me Thackeray is the enemy of the hu- 
 man race a wicked cynic. My husband
 
 106 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 would not read him in my presence ! 
 And now, dear Rose, go to your room. 
 The usual one on the fifth floor near the 
 cistern ; unpack your box, and come 
 back to me directly. I shall go down to 
 dinner to-night, for Colonel Thompson 
 and Sir Harry Blythe are coming, and I 
 should like you to rearrange the neck of 
 my ruby velvet. You have such excel- 
 lent taste ! " 
 
 Now all this she said in guile to try 
 Rose's heart, for Mrs. Harrowby was a 
 woman who played as many characters as 
 Proteus had shapes. But she had never 
 cried over the death of Virginia, and she 
 hated the new archdeacon. 
 
 As Rose climbed the stairs to the attic, 
 her feet seemed wings, and, when she 
 entered that narrow room, it looked, to 
 her grateful sight, the turret chamber in 
 a fairy palace. Yet the walls were gray, 
 and the curtains at the one small win- 
 dow, malignant saffron. In one corner a
 
 Lady who Disapproved of Cynicism, 107 
 
 wooden bedstead offered uneasy rest, 
 and, facing it, a tin stand, with a basin 
 and jug, trembled in the draught of air 
 which crept under the door and up 
 through the gaping boards. A mouse, 
 as Rose came in, glided from the cup- 
 board to the hearth, where, with a squeal, 
 it disappeared. Rose placed the white 
 flowers she had brought from Ottley on 
 the mantelpiece, and, when she bent over 
 their petals to smell them, she caught 
 their pallor, and they, her tears. When 
 she lifted her face, however, a breeze 
 stirred the curtain aside and the glad sun 
 touched her sad cheeks. Her lips found 
 a song to sing : the pain in her heart 
 fell asleep. She unlocked her little box 
 and discovered, well pressed down on her 
 best bonnet, half a large seed-cake and a 
 bottle of balsam for colds, which the 
 thoughtful Susan had thrust under the 
 lid at the last moment. These set her 
 laughing, and, when she scattered the
 
 108 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 cake-crumbs on the window-sill for wan- 
 dering birds, she kissed her hand toward 
 Susan at Ottley and looked up at the 
 great, great sky which saw them both. 
 And, as she remembered this, she seemed 
 no longer separated from her friends, for 
 she sent her soul into the vast cloudland 
 where eternal day and eternal night melt 
 together and are one Dawn.
 
 CHAPTER DC 
 Concerning Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 
 
 It wanted but two hours to the time 
 fixed for Miss Crecy's party, when Susan 
 laid out Edward's clean shirt upon his 
 bed and placed his shoes, well cleaned by 
 Adam, on the hearth-rug. 
 
 " They use more starch than elbow- 
 grease at Blackett's," said she to the little 
 maid who assisted her, " and Blue enough 
 to eat away the sails of a fishing smack ! 
 I will put one of the shirts I washed last 
 week by the side of this, tuck some pink 
 paper down the front, and I lay you a 
 penny Mr. Edward will take it for the 
 one he sent to be falamered-up by those 
 husseys at the steam laundry ! Men are 
 all the same. T ne y a ^ wa ys think that
 
 no The Herb-Moon. 
 
 something they are going to get is better 
 than what they have got ! He has shaved 
 his beard, too a bit of foolishness I 
 don't hold with. I knew a gentleman 
 he was in the army as couldn't please 
 his wife no way she was an invalid lady 
 that wrote poetry, poor soul so he cut 
 off his moustache and came upon her sud- 
 den. But she said it was only changing a 
 monster she knew for a monster she didn't 
 know, and she got colder than ever. He 
 was buried at Kensal Green, and she had 
 a lovely monument put over him an 
 angel weeping by a cypress, with one finger 
 pointing up to heaven. And I never 
 see angels now but I think of Mr. Barn- 
 aby's moustache. Now, come along, do ; 
 you mustn't stand there talking all day." 
 So she seized the listening maiden by 
 the arm and drove her to the kitchen, 
 where she rated her well for her idleness 
 and instructed her further in the follies 
 of mankind.
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* in 
 
 Meanwhile, Edward came home, strok- 
 ing his shorn chin, a handsome feature, 
 and whistling the tune of 
 
 " What is love ? 'tis not hereafter : 
 Present mirth hath present laughter ; 
 
 What's to come is still unsure. 
 In delay there lies no plenty. 
 Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty, 
 
 Youth's a stuff will not endure ! " 
 
 He had been for a swim in the river, 
 and was trembling pleasantly from the 
 exercise, or at the anticipation of seeing 
 a shirt ironed to his taste. He bounded 
 up the narrow staircase, burst into his 
 bedroom, and lo ! there were the linen 
 garments, as he had hoped to find them, 
 spread out. 
 
 " Ah ! " he cried, choosing at a glance 
 the one which had the bravest show of 
 pink paper, " at last, a decent collar and 
 cuffs one can show. Who would grudge 
 eightpence for a polish like this?" 
 
 He whistled four merry airs while he
 
 ii2 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 dressed, but he was silent for three- 
 quarters of an hour while he chose and 
 arranged his necktie. His trousers, his 
 coat, and waistcoat were of dark-blue 
 serge, he had a new straw hat and his 
 hair had been cut that morning. 
 
 "La, sir! " said Susan, running out of 
 the larder as he descended the stairs, 
 " they won't know you ! And does the 
 shirt answer?" she added, in a wheedling 
 tone. 
 
 "You see," said he, not wishing to 
 hurt her feelings, " they have every sort 
 of machine at the steam laundry." 
 
 " Fancy that ! " said she, " and yet my 
 work's the best ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said he, ob- 
 serving a droll reflection of himself in a 
 metal dish-cover which hung on the 
 kitchen wall. 
 
 "That's one as I washed that you're 
 wearing now, sir," said she, gravely, with 
 a long side wink at the chair in which her
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse 113 
 
 husband usually sat. " I am glad you 
 are pleased with it," she continued ; " but 
 you do look hot ! The fire does catch 
 one at this time of the year. I've ordered 
 in a bushel of that pink paper it's as 
 cheap as dirt, and gentry is always fond 
 of it. I once knew a lady who wouldn't 
 touch a morsel of hog's-flesh unless you 
 called it ham and dinked it round with a 
 frill ! " 
 
 Edward struck the door with his walk- 
 ing-stick and wiped his brow. 
 
 " Why," said he, " is Adam so long 
 With that pony ? " 
 
 Arabella, the pony, was very old, and 
 looked as though she were made of 
 wicker-work covered with horse-hide. 
 When they tightened her girths all her 
 skin would wrinkle and her bones, like 
 osiers, would creak and bend. Yet she 
 could canter up a hill with the best and 
 trot almost as evenly as a young mule. 
 Adam now led her forth with a scarlet
 
 ii4 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 rose under each ear from the stable, and 
 Susan ran to drag the cart from its shed. 
 When all was prepared, the organist 
 climbed into the vehicle, and Georgiana, 
 the little maid, packed his rug, his mack- 
 intosh, and a basket to be filled at the 
 grocer's, into the box behind. Then 
 Edward took the whip and the moist 
 reins and touched Arabella on the head. 
 
 " Mind her new rosette," said Susan, as 
 she opened the yard gate. 
 
 Then, at the familiar sound of the 
 lifted latch, Arabella struck the attitude 
 of speed, and trotted slowly down the 
 road through the meadow, with her load 
 and the young man. 
 
 Now when they were come within 
 sight of the great iron gate of " Ran- 
 dalls," Edward halted at " The Bear and 
 Breeches," renowned for its bad ale an 
 inn at which Arabella had never once in 
 her life so much as paused at. Here, 
 however, he left the indignant animal,
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* 1 15 
 
 who was led into a yard, unharnessed by 
 a drowsy ostler, and put to rest in a 
 stall, near a litter of mongrel puppies, 
 and usually occupied, as was evident by 
 the aroma and some scattered fur, by a 
 gray donkey. Then Edward took his 
 mackintosh from the cart, and, promis- 
 ing to return for Arabella before sunset, 
 he went out again on the high-road to- 
 ward " Randalls." And when he reached 
 the entrance, the gates already stood 
 open, for a carriage, full of young ladies 
 with flowery hats, was passing through, 
 while the lodge-keeper touched his cap, 
 and his wife bade her five children who 
 were staring as still as sunflowers in a 
 row keep quiet. Edward lingered a 
 little lest the dust sent flying by the 
 wheels should soil his coat, but he bowed 
 to the damsels, who, in return, smiled 
 from under their veils, and they won- 
 dered among themselves who he could 
 be, whether he was some squire's son or
 
 n6 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 an officer from the barracks at Lauder- 
 ston he looked so new and strange with- 
 out his beard. 
 
 When he came to the archway before 
 the house, he rested a moment and sur- 
 veyed the bronze dragons on either side, 
 who sat, each with an uplifted paw, 
 keeping guard over the coat of arms, the 
 drawn sword, the shield and plumed hel- 
 met, which belonged to Mr. Crecy, the 
 brewer. The mansion was built of white 
 stone, and there were glass windows to 
 the wide door that one might see the 
 marble hall within, where a fountain 
 played, and statues of nymphs from Italy 
 stood on pedestals and vasty pictures 
 from the Royal Academy adorned the 
 staircase. No garden was in sight, but 
 only high walls topped with spikes, which 
 ran from the archway to the facade, 
 forming a square courtyard. Edward 
 sighed heavily as he now advanced to 
 pull the brass bell, and he thought of
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* 117 
 
 the ever-open door at the farm, and of 
 the watchful geese who were all that was 
 needed to defend its threshold from 
 intruders. 
 
 A footman in a brown and yellow liv- 
 ery answered his summons, and a butler, 
 pale and pompous, conducted him 
 through the conservatory on to the lawn, 
 where sat Miss Crecy and her mother, 
 and the young ladies with the flowery 
 hats and several young gentlemen in 
 white flannel, drinking tea and feeding 
 fat dogs, who were not hungry, with 
 plum-cake. Then Edward considered 
 whether he should take to his heels and 
 so make an end of all ceremony, or be 
 well-mannered and show a sad counte- 
 nance like the seemly young men in 
 white flannel. But as he turned these 
 thoughts within his mind, he caught his 
 foot in a croquet hoop, and he took this 
 as a sign from the angels that he should 
 stay. So he lifted his eyes valiantly and
 
 n8 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 straightway met those of Miss Crecy 
 which were as calm and blue as sap- 
 phires, but more admiring. 
 
 " How wonderful ! " thought he, " for, 
 although I tripped over the hoop and 
 must have looked an ass, I no longer feel 
 that I was foolish to have come here. 
 Yet my heart is spinning in my side and 
 my knees are bending under me." 
 
 Miss Crecy's locks were tawny and her 
 cheeks had the pink of apple blossoms. 
 Her nose was as straight and her chin 
 was as pointed and her hair as beauti- 
 fully smooth as a bride's in a fashion 
 book, and Edward thought that he had 
 never beheld so wifely a person, although 
 they had met many times before that 
 day. But the whole world had looked 
 different to him since the shaving-off of 
 his beard. 
 
 When Miss Crecy's hand touched his 
 in greeting, he became happier yet, and 
 followed her with a glad spirit even to
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 1 19 
 
 her mother's chair. That lady, remem- 
 bering he was but an organist, smiled 
 upon him cautiously, and begged him to 
 take a seat between the curate's wife and 
 her aged aunt. So he sat down as he 
 was told, and silence fell upon them all, 
 till one young girl who was engaged to 
 be married, and who was therefore more 
 daring than the rest, knew him by his 
 eyebrows and his white hands. 
 
 " La! " said she, "'tis Mr. Banish ! I 
 couldn't make him out ! " 
 
 At this the whole party burst out 
 laughing, and, under cover of the general 
 merriment, every couple found an oppor- 
 tunity to stroll away, some toward the 
 bowling-ground, and others among the 
 trees and flower-beds. Edward, who was 
 no laggard, seized his chance and Miss 
 Crecy's croquet mallet. 
 
 " Shall we play? " said he. 
 
 The maiden was too courteous to re- 
 fuse such an invitation from her own
 
 120 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 guest. They crossed the lawn together 
 and achieved two games, neither decisive, 
 for both combatants were unwilling either 
 to win or lose, so perfect was their match 
 in good-humor and prowess. 
 
 Yet, after a little, Edward looked at 
 the leafy woods hard by which led to the 
 apple orchard, and he thought how pleas- 
 ant it would be to go there, farther than 
 the eyes of the curate's wife and Miss 
 Crecy's admirable mother could reach. 
 So he spoke cunning words about the 
 heat of the day ; but Miss Crecy knew 
 all, and she dropped her mallet, saying: 
 
 " I see my cousin beckoning from the 
 arbor. Shall we join them?" 
 
 Therefore they went that way, till, as 
 they drew near their destination, Edward 
 saw, at a long distance down a side-path, 
 some mushrooms growing in a ring as 
 though, as the story goes, fairies had 
 danced there. Whereupon he suggested 
 that they should examine the rare spot
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 121 
 
 to which his fair companion sweetly 
 agreed. The expedition produced a very 
 pretty conversation about elves and 
 witchcraft and old country tales of love 
 and omens. 
 
 " Yet there are people who declare," 
 exclaimed the maiden, " that these things 
 are past, and many more doubt that they 
 ever were at any time. If one could be 
 frank in this life, I daresay we could all 
 tell a story as strange and romantic as 
 any you read of in books." 
 
 This she said in her wile to find out 
 whether he had a secret grief. But 
 Edward was ashamed to own that he had 
 for his part no romantic experience to 
 boast of, so he just sighed as though his 
 heart would break and looked more 
 sorrowful than a weeping willow. 
 
 " I know," said he, " a story which 
 ended before it began." 
 
 " There was never such a story in this 
 world," said she.
 
 122 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 " Dear lady," said he, " you must take 
 my word for it." 
 
 " There is a way out of every diffi- 
 culty," said she. 
 
 " Aye," said he, " into a fresh one ! " 
 
 " I find a certain hopelessness," said 
 she, " in your philosophy." 
 
 " I never take up arms against the 
 truth," said he. 
 
 "What is truth," said she, "but a 
 thing we ourselves make out of hear- 
 says? " 
 
 " I could wish it were no more," said 
 he. 
 
 " Then tell me the story," said she, " I 
 should understand " 
 
 " Quite well," said he. " You have a 
 heart." 
 
 " More head," said she, with a gasp, 
 " more head, I assure you ! " 
 
 She paled : she reddened. 
 
 "A woman's kindness," said he, "and 
 a man's deliberation ! "
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 123 
 
 " I often regret my excessive calm- 
 ness," said she, trembling from head to 
 foot. " It might, to some, look selfish." 
 
 " Never to me," said he. " I think it 
 queenly ! " 
 
 " You use such words ! " 
 
 " I think aloud." 
 
 " A dangerous habit." 
 
 " Not when I am with a friend ! " and 
 he heaved another great sigh. 
 
 " I, too," said she, not to be outdone, 
 " I, too, have had trouble! " 
 
 " You ? " 
 
 " Your story first ! " 
 
 " You make me forget it ! " And as 
 he made this answer, he inly laughed, for 
 he had no story to tell. 
 
 " I make you forget it ? " she said. 
 " How is that ? " 
 
 " I find it so much harder to bear your 
 grief than my own. I pictured you al- 
 ways happy ! '* 
 
 " I do not complain."
 
 124 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " Because you are majestic ! " 
 
 " I am awake for hours at night," said 
 she. " I cry. Would you believe it ? " 
 
 " From your eyes no ! " 
 
 " Ah," said she, " one can cry without 
 tears." 
 
 " True, "said he, " all things have a res- 
 urrection except the emotions. They 
 are born they die they never return. 
 A happiness or a despair once gone is a 
 phantom for ever." 
 
 " My friend," said she, " we soon grow 
 accustomed to solitude of soul, and, after 
 all, there is a dignity in solitariness ! 
 Sympathy makes one cling to life: isola- 
 tion exalts us to the sublime ! " 
 
 At this point one or both of them 
 stumbled over a fallen bird's nest, and 
 their shoulders touched. Whereupon 
 Edward stooped to pick up the cause of 
 that pleasing accident. And he found 
 three newly-fledged starlings in the nest 
 two dead, but one still living. And
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 125 
 
 the girl, pale with pity, took it from him, 
 and wrapt it about with her soft handker- 
 chief, and placed it, without prudery or 
 ado, in her breast an act which seemed 
 to the young man so tender and so 
 gracious that he could no longer deceive 
 her kindness by a false woe. 
 
 " If I have ever felt unhappy," said he, 
 " my selfishness not my fate has been 
 at fault. There has been no romance in 
 my past, and I have never seen but one 
 woman I could love." 
 
 " Then to be honest," said she, get- 
 ting red, " I was never once awake all 
 night in my life, and as for love or sor- 
 row, I know nothing of either ! " 
 
 At this they laughed, but, by and by, 
 sighed. 
 
 " And have you never met any one " 
 said he. 
 
 " How could I tell till he asked me? " 
 said she. 
 
 " I am asking," he said.
 
 126 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 " Good heavens ! " she exclaimed, " you 
 must give one time. On so short an 
 acquaintance, too! What would you 
 think of me if I said yes? Not that I 
 could. For how should I know one way 
 or the other ? Yet I can well believe in 
 love at first sight." 
 
 " It is then or never," cried Edward. 
 " One look is enough ! " 
 
 So she looked at him, and in a honeyed 
 silence they retraced their steps, which 
 now seemed strewn with sweet remem- 
 brances of their wonderful journey. 
 
 Meanwhile, Robsart had returned home 
 from the factory, and as he found the 
 sitting-room desolate because Rose was 
 not there, he went into the kitchen. 
 Then Susan told him of her trick with 
 the shirt, and of Arabella's new rosettes, 
 and how Edward had left in such haste 
 that he forgot to say at what time he 
 would like his supper. But Robsart's 
 heart was dull, and he soon walked out on
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 127 
 
 to the road, where now, at every cottage 
 gate, a girl or an old woman stood watch- 
 ing for the postman. Some, as he passed, 
 looked away from him sadly, and some 
 pretended not to heed him, and a few 
 blushed red with pride to find that they 
 had not been forgotten. Robsart fol- 
 lowed the man at a little distance, and 
 when he saw him making for the farm- 
 house, he feared to stop him lest he 
 should hear too soon that the letter was 
 not for himself. So he loitered by the 
 hedges, watching the grasshoppers and 
 the butterflies and the spiders' webs. 
 And presently he beheld a pony in the 
 distance, walking slowly, with neither a 
 rider nor a harness, and, by her knock- 
 knees and shape, he knew her to be Ara- 
 bella. At the sight of him she whinnied, 
 and, as he ran to meet her, her eyes held 
 a rage he could not fathom. 
 
 "Arabella," said he, in deadly terror, 
 " where is Edward ? "
 
 128 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 She tossed her head, and feigned to 
 look at some crows who were feeding in 
 a meadow close at hand. 
 
 "You must turn back with me and 
 find him," said Robsart. 
 
 But at this she lay down flat on the 
 road till her very eyelashes touched the 
 dust. 
 
 " You are a wicked girl ! " said he. 
 
 As she had been old now for many 
 years, this flattered her vanity, and after 
 a seeming resistance, she relented, rose 
 up, and suffered him to lead her back 
 towards East Ottley and " The Bear and 
 Breeches." 
 
 Robsart looked anxiously about him 
 as he went, hoping yet dreading to find 
 some trace of Edward and the missing 
 cart, but they saw neither chick nor man 
 till they reached the cross-roads, where a 
 recruiting sergeant none other, in fact, 
 than the one who had helped Rose into 
 the train appeared to be studying the
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 129 
 
 mile-post, as though he could not decide 
 which direction to take. But in reality 
 he had his mind on Robsart, for his 
 height and his build were soldierly, and 
 he thought it a shame that such a fine 
 figure of a man should be leading old 
 ponies through empty lanes. 
 
 " Have you, by any chance," said 
 Robsart, as he came up, " seen a trap by 
 the wayside ? or have you met a young 
 man in a blue serge suit, good looking 
 and quick walker, coming from East 
 Ottley?" 
 
 " No," said the sergeant, " but I am 
 bound there now, and, as I am a stranger 
 in these parts, I should be glad of your 
 company. That's been a pretty animal 
 in her day," added he, patting Arabella 
 on the neck ; " not a bit of vice about 
 her, I can see, and it wouldn't surprise 
 me to hear that she had carried many an 
 officer at polo. Our colonel has a pony 
 that couldn't touch her as she may
 
 i3 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 have been once, so to speak and he 
 wouldn't sell her for eighty pound." 
 
 " This is really very odd," replied Rob- 
 sart, " for, as a matter of fact, this pony 
 belonged to my mother's brother who is 
 a captain in the 2 1st Hussars. He is 
 now in India, but he was and may be 
 still a famous polo player." 
 
 " I knew I couldn't be mistaken, sir," 
 said the sergeant, who was nevertheless 
 greatly astonished. " Style is style, and 
 although I say it myself, nothing comes 
 up to the army for putting men and 
 beasts into the right trim. God bless 
 me ! I've seen many young fellers with 
 no more pluck nor manliness than so 
 many tins of meat, who, inside a twelve- 
 month, have turned out downright 
 credits ! I can tell you, sir, that going 
 about the country as I do, I see enough 
 to make any sensible man heave his heart 
 up. What sort of life do these young 
 fellers lead? Twiddling on the banjo,
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 13 l 
 
 singing like professionals, reading tommy- 
 rot in the newspapers, sitting about the 
 house like a parcel of old women ? If 
 they take part in some fiddling cricket- 
 match, you might think, to hear 'em talk, 
 that they were Ajaxes and Achillums ! 
 If they play croquet with a couple of 
 gals, they are ready to drink the sea dry 
 for thirst. Wet feet will send 'em to bed 
 for a fortnight, and after a day on their 
 legs they are ready to drop ! Then some 
 of 'em fall in love every new moon, and 
 instead of saying to the gal, ' Stay here, 
 my dear, till I have knocked about a bit 
 and can keep a home together ' ; they 
 court first this one and then that one 
 worse than an old gander my mother once 
 had, as could never make up his mind. 
 He was a rum character that ; one in 
 ten thousand I should say for a gander 
 will stop true to one mate all his life. 
 I could tell you a tale about a gander as 
 would put many a man to the blush."
 
 132 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " Pray tell it," said Robsart. 
 
 " Well," said the sergeant, " he was a 
 fine handsome bird with a nasty temper, 
 and my mother, being a careful woman, 
 gave him four geese. One was a sweet 
 pretty creature, all white and with them 
 feathers which curl. But he wouldn't be 
 even civil to her. Another was plain 
 white, without much show, yet a young 
 brisk thing, bright in the eye and all that. 
 Do you think he even noticed her? Not 
 he ! I've seen that poor thing with her 
 feelings so hurt that she could scarcely 
 eat. And another was gray and white, 
 rather lanky, but what one might call 
 elegant. I've known him to talk to her 
 but that's all. The one he liked was a 
 common gray goose, small and meek, 
 with a nice sort of face, yet nothing won- 
 derful. And he couldn't bear her out of 
 his sight. He would peck at all the 
 others to keep 'em from feeding while 
 she picked out the bits to her fancy.
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* 133 
 
 And just because the white one with 
 curled feathers was prettier than she 
 was, he treated her with cruel spite 
 just out of loyalty, as you may say, and 
 for fear his favorite should be jealous ! 
 So my mother had no choice but to kill 
 the little gray goose for, said she, who 
 could afford to encourage such nonsense? 
 Women are very heartless toward females. 
 And when that gander saw his mate 
 hanging up in the larder, all plucked for 
 selling, he walked off to the pond and he 
 ducked his head I don't know how many 
 times ; and when he came ashore about 
 sunset, he had all gone to nothing. And 
 he used to stand for hours under the 
 tree watching the gate she used to sit by. 
 Then the three geese would try to cheer 
 him up, and he hadn't the heart left to 
 chase them away ; but they never got a 
 smile from him. We waited a month, 
 and his temper grew worse and worse. 
 He was always watching the gate and
 
 134 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 hissing at all petticoats, even those hung 
 out to dry. So at last my mother had 
 to kill him too, and she bought another 
 gander. That's a true story, and a dozen 
 could swear to it." 
 
 " I can well believe it," said Robsart, 
 " for I live on a farm." 
 
 "Indeed," said the sergeant; "do you 
 think of settling down in that line ? " 
 
 " Oh no," said Robsart, " my work is 
 in the factory. I am a book-keeper. But 
 finish what you were telling me about 
 the men you see. I have often thought 
 myself that long courtships and coun- 
 try amusements were very unsatisfac- 
 tory." 
 
 " Unsatisfactory is not the word," said 
 the sergeant, " ruination is nearer ! Why, 
 if a man can't tell the very moment he 
 claps his eye on a woman whether she 
 suits him, I wouldn't give much for his 
 backbone. And if he will put up with 
 any makeshift instead of her, he's a poor
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse. 135 
 
 stick. Mind you ! I am speaking of 
 marriage. A bit of a lark now and again 
 is another thing and all very well in its 
 way, but your wife is your wife wherever 
 you go, whether you sling her on your 
 arm or whether you leave her at home 
 she's bone of your bone ; and if she's the 
 right sort, you can't go very far wrong, I'm 
 blowed if you can. And I've watched 
 many married men in my time. It's 
 the men that have to fight who think the 
 most of their families, and it's the men 
 that go away that the women is most 
 pleased to see come back. If I had my 
 way every man should serve his term in 
 the army. It stands to reason that we 
 cannot all be soldiers, for some must 
 watch the land, and some must be schol- 
 ars, and some must keep shops, and 
 some, on account of the women, must be 
 doctors and parsons. There are many 
 callings, as we all know; but for a young, 
 strong feller with no ties and no especial
 
 13 6 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 duties as a civilian well, I leave it to 
 you to say what he ought to do." 
 
 Now the sergeant was a guileful soul, 
 and, in telling the gander's story, he 
 had learned what he already suspected 
 from Robsart's countenance, that he had 
 just such another bird walking by his 
 side. 
 
 " Lor' bless yer soul," said he, " if 
 you've got anything on your mind (I 
 know what it is I myself have been well 
 there, fit to blooming well hang myself) 
 a barracks is just the place for you. 
 You get taken out of yourself in no time. 
 It is not an easy life, of course what's 
 the good of telling lies ? but young 
 ' chaps are all the better for a bit of hard- 
 ship. And you get an idea of life you 
 see a thing or two and if you have 
 trouble you are soon taught how to bear 
 it ; and if pleasure comes, you soon 
 learn how to enjoy yourself without 
 playing the fool."
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* 1 37 
 
 And then he began to tell of his adven- 
 tures in the East, and all that he saw and 
 all that he suffered, and how he fought 
 the Sikhs at Goojat and how he was 
 quite ready to fight them all over again 
 to-morrow. 
 
 " The first time I was in action," said 
 he, " I was little more than a drummer- 
 boy. When the rumpus began, we didn't 
 feel so bad, but presently I saw a High- 
 lander shot through the heart, and then 
 I knew what I was in for. Just to tell 
 you what men are, there was one feller 
 there who wanted to run away ; and the 
 captain, who was beginning to look queer 
 himself, pulled up at that, as bold as a 
 lion. ' If you stir,' says he, ' I'll shoot 
 you ! ' And that very chap as wanted to 
 desert started in as if he was half mad, 
 and got rewarded for distinguished ser- 
 vice. Fight ! he fought like a demon. 
 He struck out six ways for Sunday. He 
 gave 'em a treat, and no mistake about
 
 i3 8 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 it ! We are never hard on Nature in the 
 army : we expect men to be human. 
 Every one is timid at first : and them as 
 pretends to be so used to it all, as it 
 were, is the biggest cowards of the lot ! " 
 
 Robsart, as he listened, felt his heart 
 stir within him, for he was getting very 
 weary of his desk at the cotton works. 
 
 " Now, if I was a young man and had 
 my time over again," continued the ser- 
 geant, " I should go into the Lancers. 
 You get two good horses, as handsome a 
 uniform as any one could wish, and 
 board and lodging fit for a king ! It's 
 life that's what it is ! And advance- 
 ment is wonderful quick one way and 
 another. You've just got to obey orders, 
 and there you are ! No responsibility 
 and nothing to worry about. And to see 
 the Lancers coming down a road, full 
 trot, is the prettiest sight in the world : 
 the gals lean half a mile out of their win- 
 dows to look at 'em ! There was one
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* 139 
 
 young gentleman as took my advice, and, 
 without giving names, I may say he will 
 soon get his majority ! He was as you 
 might be a gentleman born ; but he 
 was down on his luck and working for his 
 living. Between you and me, he was 
 looking rather lovin' at his razors of a 
 morning. And one day we happened to 
 cross over to Portsmouth together, and, 
 if you please, I saw him hanging over the 
 the ship's side, with a precious queer pair 
 of eyes in his head. ' Now then,' says I, 
 ' buck up ! ' And he bust out crying like 
 a child fit to break his heart ; yet that 
 young blubberer is now one of the gen- 
 eral's A.D.C.'s, and as plucky a chap as 
 you'd find in the whole army. But blub- 
 bering proves nothing. It's only human 
 nature." 
 
 At this moment, Edward, swinging his 
 racquet, and staring up at the sky, ap- 
 peared in sight. 
 
 "Thank God!" said Robsart, " for I
 
 i4 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 didn't know what to think. Where's the 
 cart?" 
 
 " The cart," said Edward, " is at ' The 
 Bear and Breeches.' That beastly ani- 
 mal," he added, with a look at Arabella, 
 " must have walked out of the stables 
 while the ostler was asleep. He told me 
 that the airs she gave herself were past all 
 bearing. But let us go back for the trap 
 and drive home together." 
 
 He did not wonder to see Robsart walk- 
 ing with a stranger, for, in those lonely- 
 parts, one was always glad of a comrade. 
 
 So Edward joined the clerk and the 
 sergeant, and the three, with the pony, 
 marched on to East Ottley. Edward, 
 however, seemed in no mood to talk or to 
 listen, and he still stared at the sky, even 
 while the sergeant told stories of heroism 
 and adventure. But Robsart was full of 
 thought, and when they at last reached 
 the inn, he called the sergeant aside. 
 
 "Give me the shilling," said he; for it
 
 Heroes, Sorrow and a Horse* 141 
 
 was at a time when they still gave the 
 Queen's shilling to recruits." 
 
 " Right you are ! " said the sergeant, 
 with a heavy oath, "You are the man 
 for my money ! "
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In which Susan has Cause to Remember 
 Rose Arden. 
 
 ABOUT this hour, Susan was standing 
 at the door of the farm, watching for Ed- 
 ward and Robsart. The stars were now 
 coming out, the fowls had gone to roost, 
 and it was long past supper time. 
 
 " I feel sad-like," said she to Georgiana, 
 who stood by her side, " for I saw the 
 new moon through glass, and when I do 
 that I always hear a bit of bad news." 
 
 "And I," said Georgiana, "dreamt 
 last night of a white horse, and there's 
 no sign worse than that." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, do," said Susan. 
 " I haven't patience with such foolery. 
 And, well I never! here comes old
 
 Susan Remembers Rose Ardeiu 143 
 
 Mother Venus. What ever does she 
 want now ? creeping along the road as if 
 she was looking out for a Moses or an 
 Aaron ! She might bide at home in the 
 evening at her time of life." 
 
 " La ! " said Georgiana, beginning to 
 weep, for she was watery-hearted, " she's 
 croi-ing (crying), poor soul, that's what 
 she's doing. What's she croi-ing vur, I 
 wonder? And she looks the breathing 
 image of my old grandmother as lives at 
 Ottley Major, and has the 'sipelas. Yet 
 Mrs. Venus ain't so old as granny by a 
 good twenty year." 
 
 "How are you, Mrs. Venus?" said 
 Susan, as the woman approached ; " none 
 the worse, I hope, for the flies? They 
 are something cruel this year." 
 
 " Oh, Susan," said Mrs. Venus, with a 
 dreadful sob, " I don't mind nothing now. 
 My Arthur's been and 'listed ! " 
 
 " What ! " said Georgiana, leaning 
 against the door-post and turning the 
 color of lead.
 
 144 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " He's been and 'listed," said Mrs. 
 Venus. " The sergeant got him on with 
 drink and a pack of lies, and he took the 
 shilling and he's done for. To think he 
 should have come as low as that ! My 
 Arthur ! And the sergeant took him off 
 to the doctor's my Arthur as never had 
 a day's illness in his life to see whether 
 he was fit to be chopped up and cut 
 about by foreigners and the blackies ! " 
 
 And she threw her apron over her 
 head and rocked herself to and fro. But 
 Georgiana could not cry now, for she 
 loved Arthur, and she sat huddled up on 
 the step, seeing nothing. 
 
 " That sergeant is as sly as a fox," 
 said Susan; "he ought to be ashamed of 
 hisself bringing such disgrace into a 
 widow woman's family. And Arthur 
 should have had more sense than to listen 
 to him." 
 
 " It ain't in my Arthur," said Mrs. 
 Venus, " to do such a shameful thing of
 
 Susan Remembers Rose Arderu 145 
 
 his own free will. He doesn't see the 
 disgrace, bless you ! he talks about fight- 
 ing for his country as if he was some 
 Dook in parliament ! It's like driving off 
 to the Union in a wagonette and pair 
 that's what it is. Just see how I've 
 worked and scraped to 'prentice that 
 boy to the undertaking! Mr. Harden 
 was only saying the other day that he 
 never had a lad with such a knack at 
 lining coffins. He's so handy with his 
 fingers-like. It's the disappointment I 
 look at, for I was hoping to see him set up 
 for himself later on and take care of me 
 when I am too old to take care of him. 
 And instead of that, the last coffin he 
 lined will just do for my burial. This 
 is my death-blow, and no mistake. I 
 sha'n't hold my head up again. If his 
 father was alive, he'd break every bone 
 in his body he was a very hasty man 
 was my poor husband. My Arthur's 
 been and 'listed," she said again, lifting
 
 146 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 up her voice like a howling dog ; " my 
 Arthur's been and 'listed." 
 
 " Now don't take on like that, Mrs. 
 Venus," said Susan ; " whatever is God's 
 will is for the best, as my poor mother 
 now dead and gone used to say." 
 
 " Aye," replied Mrs. Venus, " and 
 right enough, she is dead and gone for 
 all her wise words, and whether that's 
 for the best, the worms can tell better 
 than I can ! God's will ain't my will 
 that's all I know. Oh, Georgina, you 
 knew my poor boy you used to walk 
 out with him. Ain't it heart-break- 
 ing?" 
 
 Georgiana forced her handkerchief into 
 her mouth for fear she would weep aloud, 
 and Mrs. Venus passed on, stumbling 
 over the stones as she went and shedding 
 big tears. 
 
 "What's the use of giving way?" 
 said Susan, swallowing her pity ; " I've 
 got to think of my husband. He can't
 
 Susan Remembers Rose Arden. 147 
 
 bear to see my face all blubbered with 
 crying. It upsets him for a week. But 
 you take and draw a jug of ale and carry 
 it into Mrs. Venus's with my love. And 
 the broth as I made to-day might warm 
 her up a bit. Pour some of it in the 
 large basin. Upon my word, you can't 
 stand at your own door for a breath of 
 fresh air but you see some poor creature 
 in trouble. Look sharp, now, and keep 
 your wits about you. What's Arthur to 
 you, I should like to know, or fifty Ar- 
 thurs? At your age, I never thought of 
 the men I wasn't in such a hurry to 
 make myself miserable, I wasn't. Walk- 
 ing out with Arthur Venus ! They're a 
 good-for-nothing lot those Venuses 
 root and branch. You let me catch you 
 crying about him that's all. I'm thank- 
 ful to God he's been and 'listed, or you 
 would have been in a pretty trouble, I'll 
 warrant. There's more love than mar- 
 riage in this courting, my girl."
 
 148 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 So Georgiana went softly away to the 
 cellar and drew the ale, as she was told, 
 for Mrs. Venus. But her body fell 
 against the wall at every other step, and 
 her heart felt like a grindstone at her 
 side. 
 
 Susan still remained at the threshold, 
 looking again and again up the road for 
 Robsart and Edward, till, at last, she 
 heard wheels on the long meadow road. 
 
 " Here they be," she called out to 
 Adam, who had been smoking his pipe 
 in the kitchen, " but Arabella sounds a 
 bit lame. She's getting old now for 
 these sort of outings. And you mark my 
 words, Mr. Edward won't tell us what they 
 had for tea at Miss Crecy's nor nothing 
 he saw. Talking to him is like turning 
 the handle of a locked door you may 
 turn and turn but you get nowhere ! " 
 
 When the cart came in sight, Susan 
 grew as pale as death, for there was the 
 sergeant sitting on the back seat.
 
 Susan Remembers Rose Arden. 149 
 
 "Adam," said she, in a quiet voice, 
 " I've got a feeling that Betty and her 
 calf ain't comfortable. Will you creep 
 round to the barn and bide there with 
 her till I come? But mind you stay till 
 I come and close the door well after 
 you for the air to-night is very search- 
 ing." 
 
 Then, when Adam had gone, she went 
 forth, with all the courage of a tigress 
 guarding her young, to meet the sergeant 
 and offer him a glass of ale. 
 
 " Upon my heart and life, Mr. Edward," 
 said she, " I thought you had run away 
 with Miss Crecy. And there's Mr. Rob- 
 sart who wouldn't touch a morsel with- 
 out you. Good-evening, sergeant. The 
 world ain't treating you badly, judging 
 you by your looks ! " 
 
 The sergeant saluted her politely and 
 showed all his fine white teeth. 
 
 " I've come to rob you, missis," said 
 he, " of one of your young gentlemen."
 
 150 The Herb-Moon, 
 
 " I want none of your larks ! " said 
 Susan, losing her voice. 
 
 " It's quite true, Susan," said Robsart. 
 " I've enlisted." 
 
 The woman glanced at Edward, who 
 was standing with his lips set close and 
 his eyes swimming in tears. 
 
 " O my God ! " said she. " Poor Mrs. 
 Arden ! " 
 
 " Look alive ! " growled the sergeant, 
 " look alive ! It's all for his own good ; 
 there's no one to be sorry for, and there's 
 no bones broken ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Robsart," said Susan, in 
 spite of him, " how ever could you ha' 
 done such a thing?" 
 
 " Because he's a man," said the ser- 
 geant ; " because he's sick and tired of 
 women's mews and miaus ; because he's 
 got a pair of arms and legs ; because he 
 can listen to common sense ; because he 
 wasn't born to set down ' ought and carry 
 one ' all day ! That's why, if you want to 
 know."
 
 Susan Remembers Rose Arden. 151 
 
 Susan wiped her face with her apron, 
 and began to unharness Arabella. 
 
 " My poor gal," said she, " this is the 
 heaviest load as you ever brought to my 
 door." 
 
 "Allow me, ma'am," said the sergeant, 
 assisting with the buckles, while his sly 
 pale eyes came peeping through their lids 
 like the moon between clouds. 
 
 Edward went into the house and Rob- 
 sart followed him. There they met 
 Georgiana, sobbing in the passage, with 
 the jug of ale and the basin of broth for 
 Mrs. Venus. 
 
 " Oh, sir," cried Georgiana, " have you 
 heard the dreadful news? Arthur Venus 
 with the curly hair has been and 'listed. 
 And I'm croi-ing because his mother croi'd. 
 I can't bear to see anybody croi I can't.'' 
 
 And she crept out the back way among 
 the bushes so that Susan should not see 
 her tears.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Chaste Conversation Coupled with Fear. 
 
 The next afternoon, Mrs. Triptree, the 
 Vicar's wife, sallied forth on foot to call 
 on her friend, Mrs. Crecy. She wore her 
 best green silk with the brown stripes, 
 and her bonnet had four strings two to 
 tie under her chin, and two, of broad, 
 figured ribbon, to fly in the wind. Her 
 face was round and red, but she had a 
 white sharp nose ; her eyes were as black 
 and lustreless as currants, and her lips 
 were like the mouthpiece of a trumpet. 
 She bore in her hand a small silk parasol, 
 edged with long fringe and mounted on a 
 long ivory stick. Her gloves were of 
 white kid with two buttons. On one 
 wrist she wore a gold bracelet ; on the
 
 Conversation Coupled with Fear. 153 
 
 other, a band of black velvet. And thus 
 she came to the great front door of 
 " Randalls," where, it so happened, Mrs. 
 Crecy was alighting from her high 
 barouche drawn by gray horses. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Mrs. Triptree," said 
 she. " I would not have missed you for 
 a sovereign ! I hope your daughters are 
 none the worse for my party yesterday, 
 although, to be sure, I gave them but a 
 very simple tea." 
 
 "Ah, we all know your simples, Mrs. 
 Crecy," said Mrs. Triptree, " tipsy cake 
 and hot-house grapes and champagne cup, 
 and every sort of tart. Upon my word, 
 there is no one in Ottley no, nor from 
 all I can hear, in the whole county that 
 keeps such a table. The Colonel's wife 
 gives a very poor spread such a spread 
 as you wouldn't set before your own 
 family ! " 
 
 "La!" said Mrs. Crecy, "and I've 
 heard that her god is her stomach. The
 
 iS4 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 longer I live, Mrs. Triptree, the less heed 
 I give to gossip. But come into the 
 garden where it is cool and tell me your 
 news." 
 
 " Oh, my dear! " said Mrs. Triptree, as 
 they crossed the hall, " I look to you for 
 that. We are very dull at the Vicarage 
 just now unless some things I heard this 
 morning should happen to be true. But 
 there! what is one to believe? I don't 
 like to mention names." 
 
 " Nor do I," said Mrs. Crecy, " for, 
 upon my word, the servants have ears in 
 every tree. But does the name you were 
 thinking of begin with ' A ' ? " 
 
 " One might be said to begin with an 
 1 A,' " replied Mrs. Triptree. 
 
 "And I'll be bound it has an ' R ' in 
 it." 
 
 "To be sure there is more than one 
 ' R ' in the story, Mrs. Crecy." 
 
 " And that other ' R * is the first letter 
 of a name ending in 'T *?"
 
 Conversation Coupled with Fear. 155 
 
 " 'Tis really too bad of you," said Mrs. 
 Triptree, " you are worse than a judge." 
 
 " Mrs. A. has gone to town and Mr. R. 
 has enlisted ! " said Mrs. Crecy. " Cook 
 heard it at crack of dawn this morning 
 from the milk-boy. You could have 
 blown me away like a thistle when she 
 told me. ' Well, I never,' said I, ' well, I 
 never!' Just like that. ' What does the 
 Vicar think ? ' I thought to myself. ' I 
 would give five shillings to know what 
 the Vicar says to this.' " 
 
 "The Vicar," said Mrs. Triptree, "has 
 always been of my opinion that Mrs. 
 Arden is a woman with the nicest ideas 
 of propriety. When do you see her 
 decked out? Her best black silk is her 
 wedding dress dyed. I heard that from 
 Susan. When does she put her veil up 
 in church? When does she go out before 
 the sermon ? When does she invite cu- 
 rates or married men to tea? When do 
 you find her gossiping at street corners ?
 
 156 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 She's a very nice woman, indeed, and if 
 she's plain, that's not her fault, and per- 
 haps it's her blessing. And if she looks 
 thirty-nine if she's a day it may be her 
 age or it may be trouble that is neither 
 here nor there. I don't as a rule trust 
 auburn hair, but we should always hope 
 for the best." 
 
 " And I can hear nothing said against 
 Louis Robsart," observed Mrs. Crecy. 
 "You may depend, however, that there 
 is more in this enlisting than we think. 
 Say what you will, it looks very odd, 
 Mrs. Triptree." 
 
 " Nothing would surprise me," said 
 Mrs. Triptree, "but as he went last night 
 to Lauderston and he has chosen foreign 
 service, we may take it that what may 
 have been, will be no more ! " 
 
 "And who knows what may have 
 been?" said Mrs. Crecy. 
 
 "Who, indeed?" said Mrs. Triptree. 
 " I was thinking but why say it ?
 
 Conversation Coupled with Fear* 157 
 
 What a lovely view you have from this 
 seat. To watch the world from such a 
 corner, Mrs. Crecy, one would swear it 
 was all virtue. The blue sky and the 
 peaceful cows. Heaven above and happy 
 animals, made by the Creator, basking 
 in the sun. A pretty, pretty sight ! Do 
 you get your meat from Lauderston, or 
 do you still kill your own? " 
 
 " We kill our own," replied Mrs. Crecy, 
 " and if you would accept a sirloin of 
 beef the best (though that's not much) 
 that poor ' Randalls ' can offer I should 
 be most happy." 
 
 " La ! " said Mrs. Triptree, " one would 
 think I had been hinting, whereas such a 
 thought never came into my head ! I 
 vow it isn't safe to admire the least object 
 in your presence. The Vicarage is al- 
 ready much beholden to you." 
 
 " Be that as it may," replied Mrs. 
 Crecy, " where gratitude is, I say, there 
 it's worth your while to drop favors. Not
 
 158 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 that I am able to do all I could wish, for, 
 what with the house and the stables, the 
 servants' hire and keep, what with the 
 grounds and victuals, what with clothes 
 for one's back, works of art and the 
 cellar a thousand pound seems no more 
 than a sixpenny bit. Yet you are wel- 
 come to the beef, Mrs. Triptree most 
 welcome. I hope, as the old saying goes, 
 it will be cut and come again. But what 
 were you thinking about poor Mrs. Ar- 
 den?" 
 
 " La ! I have clean forgotten. Ah well, 
 'tis all for the best. A tale loses noth- 
 ing by being repeated be as careful as 
 you please. A quart of doubt to an 
 ounce of truth is the safest brew. Yet 
 though I never spoke again I should 
 have to say my say if a question were put 
 to me on oath. If I were put on my 
 oath, Mrs. Crecy, and any one were to 
 ask me, ' Have you any reason to suspect 
 thus and so ? ' or, ' Do you think that a
 
 Conversation Coupled with Fear* 159 
 
 certain person is this, that, or the other? ' 
 I should feel bound to tell the truth." 
 
 "And what would you say, Mrs. Trip- 
 tree ? " 
 
 " I should say, ' Well, be it far from me 
 to judge, but if I know a pigeon from a 
 beehive, that young man is in love with 
 Edward Banish's sister ! ' It all points 
 to it, Mrs. Crecy. She, being a God-fear- 
 ing, superior person, leaves Ottley, and he, 
 in a fit of pique, enlists. Tis as clear as 
 anything in a book. There was never a 
 clearer case. And that reminds me. My 
 girls were saying that you had young 
 Banish here yesterday. That was most 
 condescending, I am sure. He owes you 
 a great deal. Let us pray he knows his 
 place and will give you no trouble. For 
 what is an organist in comparison with a 
 Miss Chloe Crecy ? Young men hope 
 very high nowadays." 
 
 " So far as birth goes," said Mrs. 
 Crecy, " I have no false pride. If a man
 
 160 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 is gentleman-like and has an uncle who 
 is a clerk in the House of Commons 
 and that means influence, Mrs. Triptree 
 and if he is cousin to a Lady Barrow, 
 he may always find a friend at ' Ran- 
 dalls ' ! " 
 
 "You surprise me, Mrs. Crecy. I 
 never heard that Mr. Banish was related 
 to a lady of title. I knew that he was 
 well-connected and had a grandfather in 
 the Navy, but more than this I never 
 dreamt of! " 
 
 " His aunt, my dear, was the Honor- 
 able Mrs. Puxter I heard it all this 
 morning from Dr. Somers, whose god- 
 father was her medical man. She died 
 of dropsy at Brighton, having been tapped 
 nine times. The world is very small." 
 
 " Now I think of Mr. Banish," said 
 Mrs. Triptree, "he certainly has an air 
 out of the common. But he's poor, Mrs. 
 Crecy, very poor, and when a man is 
 needy, there's no limit to his daring. If
 
 Conversation Coupled with Fear. 161 
 
 there's sixty thousand pound to be set- 
 tled on any one, he won't think the less 
 of them on that account ! A word to the 
 wise is my motto. And Miss Chloe Crecy 
 need not waste her time with an Honor- 
 able's nephew while she has a fortune ' 
 worth an Honorable in his own right ! " 
 
 " La ! " said Mrs. Crecy, " Chloe never 
 thinks of marriage, and as for her papa 
 and myself we are very humble-minded. 
 We never push. We gave her a fine 
 education, to be sure : she speaks French, 
 sings Italian, and can paint flowers on 
 wood, china, or common drawing-paper. 
 I would sooner hear her play than a 
 musical box, and her dancing is very 
 much admired. But I never speak of 
 these things." 
 
 " Her looks, Mrs. Crecy, her looks 
 alone are the talk of Ottley. What a 
 complexion ! But don't let her draw her 
 stays too tight. She doesn't need it : 
 her figure is perfection."
 
 1 62 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " Beauty is but skin-deep, Mrs. Trip- 
 tree. There's nothing truer than these 
 old sayings." 
 
 " What a delicious scent on your 
 handkerchief! " 
 
 " Made from our own lavender. Let 
 me send you a bottle. . . . You spoke 
 in such a way, Mrs. Triptree, that one 
 would think you had some person in your 
 mind." 
 
 " I never talk for the sake of talking, 
 Mrs. Crecy. I happened to know that 
 there is an officer at Lauderston who is 
 most desirous of making your acquaint- 
 ance. He's a very fine man indeed, and 
 own brother to Lord Rendlewick. If you 
 should invite him here to dinner, I wish 
 I could be as sure of everything as I am 
 that my girls would very soon be brides- 
 maids on a certain happy occasion ! " 
 
 " You mean the Honorable Charles 
 Camelot, Mrs. Triptree, who was in 
 attendance on the General when he
 
 Conversation Coupled with Fean 163 
 
 opened the Flower Show at Radley 
 Soham. I remember him well he talked 
 to Mr. Crecy for a good ten minutes. A 
 little-ish man with long arms and a wart 
 on his left eyebrow. I can well believe 
 that he might be very affable. It may 
 be with him as it is with many when 
 you say that he's not much to look at, 
 you've said the worst. But how could 
 we ask him to the house, knowing him so 
 little?" 
 
 " He is not one to stand on ceremony," 
 said Mrs. Triptree. " Mr. Crecy could 
 call upon him, and then you could write 
 him a nice civil note, saying that you are 
 having a few old friends very quietly to 
 dinner and so on." 
 
 " Then you and the Vicar must fix the 
 date, Mrs. Triptree." 
 
 " La ! You are far too good. I never 
 once thought that you would want us ! 
 Then shall you say Tuesday week? " 
 
 " By all means."
 
 164 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 "How hot it is getting! Really, it is 
 not the weather for walking." 
 
 " Rivers shall drive you home in the 
 pony-chaise, Mrs. Triptree," said Mrs. 
 Crecy, " but we must first have tea."
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 Concerning a Goddess of Mortal Speech, 
 
 Now about a fortnight later, Rose and 
 Mrs. Harrowby, her nephew Sir Harry 
 Blythe, and Colonel Thompson of the 
 th Lancers were sitting at luncheon 
 in the dining-room at 99 Cavendish 
 Square. The Colonel looked like a plaster 
 cast of Napoleon spoilt in the baking, 
 and his voice sounded as though he had 
 spent his life swallowing crumbs the 
 wrong way. Otherwise he was an amiable 
 gentleman and a brave soldier. 
 
 " Our sergeant," he was saying, " picks 
 up the strangest recruits. He aims 
 straight at the love-sick. His latest prey 
 is a factory clerk who was at Eton and 
 Cambridge ! But his papa married a
 
 1 66 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 lady with canary-colored hair, lost all his 
 money, and came to smash. This chap 
 is a fine fellow, but melancholy O Lord ! 
 It seems that his sweetheart was already 
 married." 
 
 " And he looks melancholy ? " said Mrs. 
 Harrowby ; " incredible ! " 
 
 " Scoffer ! " said the Colonel. " I can 
 assure you it's a very sad affair. The 
 sergeant heard it from the local draper, 
 and the local draper heard it from his 
 wife. When one woman tells a story to 
 the credit of another woman's virtue 
 you may depend on its truth." 
 
 " I wish to hear no true stories," said 
 Mrs. Harrowby, " or I shall lose my com- 
 fortable detestation of life." 
 
 "You are as cold in your hatreds as 
 your loves," said the Colonel ; " for you 
 establish both on the artificial." 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee ! " quoth she. " I 
 adored you for years and I adore you 
 still, yet if you are not a real man, I don't
 
 A Goddess of Mortal Speech. 167 
 
 know a hypocrite when I see him ! You 
 men always think we are cold if we use 
 words of more than two syllables, and 
 you call us unkind if we profit by your 
 philosophy. Do you remember the day 
 we " 
 
 "All this is very touching," said Sir 
 Harry, who was handsome, bird-eyed, 
 dark, and thirty-eight ; " but Mrs. Arden 
 and I have no pretty reminiscences in 
 common, and we should like to hear more 
 about the new recruit." 
 
 " I can guess it," said Mrs. Harrowby. 
 " His sweetheart had a husband, and she 
 refused to make bad worse ! So this 
 young friend thanked God for her good 
 sense, mistook relief for the heartache, 
 and enlisted. There it is ! If a woman 
 wants to keep a man's esteem for ever, 
 let her refuse to run away with him. 
 That is the one thing for which the thank- 
 less ruffians never fail to show gratitude ! " 
 
 " I like to see a woman tender," said
 
 1 68 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 the Baronet, who, if rumor spoke hon- 
 estly, had deceived a dozen or so in his 
 time. " I like to see her tender, and, if 
 possible, sorrowful." 
 
 " Of course, Jack Libertine," said his 
 aunt, " because it is the poor creature in 
 trouble who will take the greatest risk 
 for a possible brief happiness ! You are 
 a rogue, sir, and if I ever hear of a wife 
 in a scrape, I know that Harry Blythe is 
 to blame for it. Oh, you may look of- 
 fended and cough as though honor had 
 suddenly settled like a cold on your 
 chest ! You are a rascal and so is my 
 dog, Launcelot ! Yet I pet you both, 
 knowing full well, that when I am dead, 
 he will be ready to pick my bones and 
 you will sell my skin ! And here is Rose 
 a sweet, kind soul, who would, I believe, 
 be fool enough to cry at my funeral, and 
 I make her life a burden and shall not 
 leave her a shilling. I would never give 
 money to women, my dear, for of all the
 
 A Goddess of Mortal Speech. 169 
 
 humiliations piled upon our sex, there is 
 none so cruel as to be loved or married 
 for our fortune. The worst husband is 
 to be respected while he pays your bills. 
 It is hard to despise a brute, who, after 
 all, likes you well enough to provide for 
 you. That is why the wives of laboring 
 men are rarely unfaithful. They can 
 feel even while they are kicked that 
 they were chosen for themselves not 
 for their dowries. Let a woman once 
 suspect that she is loved for her money 
 and she will throw her cap over the wind- 
 mill for the first comer who seems disin- 
 terested. We are proud, Thompson ; we 
 fall through pride far more than passion." 
 
 " Yet," said Rose, timidly, " is it not 
 rather vanity than self-respect which 
 makes a woman so anxious to be wholly 
 dependent on her husband ? Even the 
 Homeric Penelope, whom you so often 
 quote, seems to have been very rich." 
 
 "That," said Mrs. Harrowby, with a
 
 170 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 twinkle in her eye, " is why Odysseus re- 
 turned to her. He was afraid she would 
 marry again and take her fortune out of 
 the family ! Homer understood human 
 nature, my love. Poor Rosie ! " she con- 
 tinued ; " I never liked Arden, as you 
 know ; but you hadn't a halfpenny piece 
 when he chose you. It was all for your 
 face and your good temper, my dear. 
 Now I was handsomer in my youth than 
 you would believe, and I had the disposi- 
 tion of a love-bird. I danced like a fairy ; 
 sang like a lark ; played the harp, talked 
 three languages, and God knows what 
 not ! And I had ten thousand a year, 
 which gave me the refusal of every laggard 
 in the realm. They all wanted me, my 
 poor Rosie, they were all so deeply in 
 debt. Did I marry to please myself? 
 No, I had like the rest not the fear of 
 God but the fear of the flunky before "my 
 eyes. I chose a husband who would 
 please my flunkies : my maid, my dress-
 
 A Goddess of Mortal Speech. 171 
 
 maker, my shoemaker and my groom 
 were all a-gog ; my inferiors were all jeal- 
 ous, my equals came, smirking, to the 
 wedding, and my superiors thought I had 
 done very well for myself ! It was a 
 glorious day for the footman when I mar- 
 ried the Duke of Chale ! " 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby never wearied of telling 
 these old stories, nor, during their recital, 
 did her friends ever miss showing at the 
 right moments the appropriate signs of 
 astonishment, admiration, and mirth. 
 There was often, it must be owned, a 
 certain vindictiveness in her tone which 
 would have been called vulgar had she 
 been a woman of less distinguished birth. 
 Her constant allusions to her money, her 
 family name, her marriages, her admirers, 
 and her exploits would have been intoler- 
 able but for her good heart and the un- 
 affected freshness of her manner. She 
 spoke her mind and that is a quality 
 which, if ill-bred, at least can never be
 
 172 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 described as commonplace. Sometimes, 
 in the course of conversation, her own 
 attention would wander. She would 
 finish a sentence in her mind, and her 
 eyes only would betray, by their vivacity 
 and ever-changing expression, that she 
 was re-living the drama of her past. 
 
 " I was a Duchess," she continued, 
 " for two very tiresome years. I yawned, 
 I yapped, I suffered all the tortures of 
 the respectable. Then my Duke died, 
 and, for a change, I married a mere Cap- 
 tain in the Guards the son of a country 
 squire. But I dropped my title, for, if a 
 man is good enough to call husband, one 
 may as well take his name ! So I became 
 plain Mrs. Harrowby, and all my flunkies 
 were shocked. And my cousin, Sir Aud- 
 ley de Borne, talked the Prime Minister 
 blue till he got my Harrowby's uncle at 
 least knighted General Sir Frankfort 
 Harrowby. The greatest duffer in the 
 Army, too. Poor fellow ! At thirty-
 
 A Goddess of Mortal Speech. 173 
 
 three I was left a widow for the second 
 time and I have lived single ever since, 
 for the only man I would have looked at 
 had not the courage to marry me ! That 
 was Ned Banish, Rosie, your father who 
 would have been Lord Chancellor had he 
 but shown more pluck. I have always 
 played the goddess with men they 
 treated me as Odysseus did poor Circe 
 and Calypso ; I told them all my wis- 
 dom and gave them fair weather when 
 they sailed away, without a ' Thank you,' 
 toward their Penelopes ! And what a 
 minx Penelope was ! I never could bear 
 that woman. Nay, I was always a god- 
 dess, my friends. I shed no tears ; I 
 made no scenes ; I uttered no reproaches. 
 But I loved your father, Rosie ; he had 
 the makings of an immortal ! Fetch me 
 his miniature. It is in the fourth drawer 
 of my writing-table, and the key is on 
 the third shelf of my wardrobe." 
 
 Rose, at this hint, gladly arose from
 
 174 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 her chair and hastened from the room 
 with a very cold acknowledgment to Sir 
 Harry, who opened the door for her as 
 she went out. 
 
 " Thompson," said Mrs. Harrowby, turn- 
 ing to the Colonel when she had gone, 
 " you were always a fool. Why must 
 you have told that story of the new re- 
 cruit ? Rose is the very woman he is 
 pining for! " 
 
 " Good God ! " said the Colonel. 
 
 " He shows his taste," said Sir Harry ; 
 " she's a seductive creature : subtle- 
 minded." 
 
 " Now, Harry," said Mrs. Harrowby, 
 turning full upon him, " I'll have none of 
 your nonsense here. I saw you at lunch 
 looking like a shot robin at my meek 
 Jenny Wren. Have you no moral sense, 
 sir? Can't I have a poor widow in my 
 house but you must make love to her 
 with your eyelashes and pass her the pep- 
 per as though it were your heart ? "
 
 A Goddess of Mortal Speech, 175 
 
 "A widow, aunt?" said he. "I 
 thought her husband was not only alive 
 but mad ! " 
 
 "Hush!" said she; "he died two 
 days ago. I had a letter from her 
 brother Edward last night, asking me to 
 break the news to her. But I have not 
 told her yet, nor shall I, till our gallant 
 young friend, the love-sick recruit, is 
 well out of England and on his way to 
 India. Edward and he have quarreled, 
 so he will hear nothing from Edward. 
 And Rose dare not say good-bye to him 
 little fool ! She wrote him a note 
 such a note ! God-blessing him and the 
 rest. Ah, Harry, that's a woman in ten 
 thousand. But she wouldn't take you as 
 a gift. She has no opinion of you. She 
 calls you a vain coxcomb a Dutch doll 
 of a man. And she abhors a rake. You 
 may purr and purr, but you will never 
 make the least impression on her 1 " 
 
 Sir Harry looked as though he had
 
 176 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 good reasons for venturing to think 
 otherwise. 
 
 "And when does the virtuous recruit 
 sail for India ? " said he. 
 
 " To-morrow," said Mrs. Harrowby. 
 
 " Then," said Sir Harry, " I will take 
 tea with you to-morrow." 
 
 " Very well, Tarquin," said she. " Very 
 well, Lovelace! Nero! Jupiter! Don 
 Juan! Blue-beard!" 
 
 He smiled at the flattering salutation, 
 bowed to the Colonel, kissed his aunt's 
 hand, and departed. 
 
 " There's a libertine," said she, when 
 he had gone : " a real villain. Rose is 
 the only woman who could resist him, 
 and she is, therefore, the only woman he 
 should marry ! And marry him she shall, 
 Thompson. I have set my mind upon 
 it. I will disinherit him if she does not. 
 I will tell her so, too. She has too much 
 kindness to see the poor fellow ruined ! " 
 
 At this moment Rose re-entered.
 
 A Goddess of Mortal Speech. 177 
 
 " I have searched everywhere," said 
 she, " but I cannot find the miniature." 
 
 " Dear heart ! " said Mrs. Harrowby, 
 with great wonder ; " how odd ! I could 
 have sworn it was in the fourth drawer. 
 But have some port, my love ; you look 
 as pale as milk. Drink her health, 
 Thompson." 
 
 Poor Rose blushed to find herself the 
 object of so much attention. She de- 
 clined the wine, but the Colonel drank to 
 her happiness with much fervor and a wink 
 at Mrs. Harrowby. 
 
 " May your heart be ever blithe, 
 Ma'am," said he, with an air of seraphic 
 innocence ; " you must cheer up ! Better 
 days are coming! 'Tis always darkest 
 before dawn, and every cloud has a silver 
 lining ! " 
 
 " Thank you," said she. " I am, I 
 hope, very cheerful very cheerful, 
 indeed ! I was never more contented 
 nor so easy in my mind."
 
 178 The Herb-Moon, 
 
 And her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " Now, Rosie," said Mrs. Harrowby, 
 " we must drink to this turtle's safe 
 return. He sails to-morrow." 
 
 "I know," said Rose, " I have not for- 
 gotten. And, Colonel I have heard 
 from my brother that there's a young 
 man called Arthur Venus from Ottley 
 who has enlisted in your regiment. His 
 mother is a widow : he is all she has : and 
 our little maid is his sweetheart. If he 
 should ever get into trouble and I be- 
 lieve he is rather headstrong will you re- 
 member that there are two women . . . 
 two poor desolate women . . . who love 
 him dearly. But then," she added, 
 "that might be said, no doubt, of all the 
 others. There will, I am sure, be many 
 in trouble to-morrow." 
 
 " Many," said the Colonel, refilling his 
 glass; "many. And the men, too, will 
 need all their pluck, I can tell you." 
 
 " Crocodile ! " said Mrs. Harrowby. 
 
 But Rose left the room.
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 In which Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent* 
 
 When Sir Harry called on the morrow, 
 he was filled with disappointment to learn 
 that Mrs. Arden was confined to her 
 room with a headache. Mrs. Harrowby, 
 in a very ill temper, received him, and 
 declared that she herself was not long for 
 this world so weary was she of its fools 
 and Tom-fools. 
 
 " Thompson and his regiment," said she, 
 " left England, as you know, early this 
 morning. Rose brought me my cup of tea 
 as usual at half-past seven, but she came 
 with such a face that I could not drink a 
 spoonful. She had been crying all night, 
 and she looked like a drowned dove." 
 
 " Then she has a heart," said Sir 
 Harry, much comforted: "I feared she
 
 180 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 was one of those hard women who re- 
 member you in their prayers, and, for the 
 rest of the time, forget you ! " 
 
 " I could wish," said Mrs. Harrowby, 
 severely, " that you had met but such ad- 
 mirable creatures! " 
 
 "Tell me about Rose," said he. 
 
 " She depressed me. ' Rose,' said I, in 
 the cheerfullest way, ' I have some news 
 for you. Your husband is dead ! ' At 
 this she reeled like a top and fell down in 
 a swoon. A swoon, sir ! I thought 
 widows swooned in poetry only ! And 
 now she lies on my bed without a word 
 or a question, staring at the wall." 
 
 " Poor girl ! " said Sir Harry, kindly, 
 " she must have been fond of the fellow." 
 
 " Once, no doubt, she was," said Mrs. 
 Harrowby ; " and who can tell what may 
 be passing in her mind ? Perhaps she is 
 thinking of the time when he looked like 
 a hero, and she is burying that picture." 
 
 She glanced at him and thought it a
 
 Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent. 181 
 
 scandal that such a smooth wretch should 
 not be ruffled by matrimony. 
 
 " Rose is not for you," said she ; " and 
 I hope you will never be such a fool as to 
 think of marriage." 
 
 " I must settle down some day," said 
 he, falling into the trap ; " but I am in no 
 hurry." 
 
 " You are not to make love to Mrs. 
 Arden." 
 
 " My wife must be a woman of the 
 world." 
 
 "Rose is no simpleton, but it is diffi- 
 cult to have one's husband in a lunatic 
 asylum and be at once religious, witty, 
 and good-looking ! " 
 
 " You are flippant," said Sir Harry, 
 somewhat shocked. 
 
 " There is no one so serious as a liber- 
 tine," said Mrs. Harrowby, with a bow. 
 
 He flushed. 
 
 " I do not wonder," he observed, " that 
 you drove every man away from you."
 
 1 82 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby admired his pluck for 
 daring to speak so rudely to a sick 
 relation. She could never forget her 
 wealth. 
 
 " My dear," said she, " I never drove 
 men away by my chatter they enjoyed 
 it. But many think it is the chief mis- 
 sion of a devoted wife to tempt her hus- 
 band to eat more than is good for him. I 
 kept too plain a table, and I never tried 
 to look alluring. I confess to these 
 crimes." 
 
 " It is for a husband," said Sir Harry, 
 " to dictate the terms of his existence. I 
 had rather live for ten years in my way 
 than for forty, yours ! A wife is neither a 
 trainer nor a keeper " 
 
 " But a slave," said Mrs. Harrowby. 
 " I found that out too late. If I had let 
 my two husbands and my thirty-six 
 wooers go straight to the devil, they 
 would have adored me for ever." 
 
 " The charm of Rose lies in the fact,"
 
 Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent, 183 
 
 said Sir Harry, " that she never makes 
 bitter remarks." 
 
 " That is because she has the gift of 
 loving with her eyes shut." 
 
 " Do you think that fellow in the coun- 
 try made a deep impression on her?" 
 asked Sir Harry. 
 
 "Yes," replied Mrs. Harrowby, "and I 
 will tell you why. So far as I can learn 
 he rarely spoke and they were never alone 
 together. He lived a life of routine, and 
 his history was such a blank that she 
 could make what she pleased of it. She 
 therefore imagined all he might have 
 said, and naturally found his conversation 
 pleasing ! For the rest, he was young, 
 handsome, and poor. All this might 
 have led to a story, but virtue with Rose 
 was the first and not the after 
 thought." 
 
 " Morality," said he, " or virtue if you 
 prefer to call it so is a question of good 
 or bad taste. In the circumstances, I
 
 184 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 should describe Mrs. Arden's conduct as 
 showing good taste nothing more. It 
 must have been dull, but it was not ridic- 
 ulous. It may have been feeble, but it 
 was not sordid." 
 
 He looked up with a pleasant smile. 
 
 " That is how," he added, " I criticise 
 life. I want no prude, no hypocrite, no 
 Magdalene who sins to-day because re- 
 pentence will become heron the morrow ! 
 I keep my respect for a woman with good 
 taste." 
 
 " Is religion nothing to you, Harry? " 
 
 " In Rose's case," he said, drily, " I be- 
 lieve it is genuine : I cannot say more." 
 
 " Like many of us," said Mrs. Har- 
 rowby, " your vanity is such that when 
 you hear of any beautiful quality which 
 you yourself do not possess, you doubt 
 its existence in any one." 
 
 " Don't preach," said her nephew, get- 
 ting irritable. 
 
 She continued :
 
 Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent. 185 
 
 "You should have developed your 
 heart before your senses not your 
 senses before your heart. That is why 
 you are so cold." 
 
 " Cold ? " said he, casting down his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes," said his aunt, " for there is 
 nothing so cold as passion." 
 
 " Really," said he, indignant " really, 
 my dear aunt " 
 
 " You can go to your club," she re- 
 plied, " and reconsider all I have been 
 saying. It will bear reflection." 
 
 He poured the contents of the cream- 
 jug into his tea-cup, swallowed it, and 
 took his departure. 
 
 Then Mrs. Harrowby went to Rose, 
 who still lay on her bed, staring at the 
 wall. 
 
 "I suppose," said the old woman, "you 
 will write the news to our mad young 
 friend, the new recruit ? " 
 
 " No."
 
 1 86 The Herb-Moon, 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " How little you know me ! " 
 
 " When my Duke died, I telegraphed 
 at once to my six best friends ! How- 
 ever, please yourself. I want you to be 
 happy that is all. Harry Blythe sends 
 you his sympathy." 
 
 "Thank him." 
 
 " I believe he is fond of you. A good 
 woman might reform him. He is by no 
 means the scoundrel he would appear. 
 In his heart I am convinced he would 
 like nothing better than a pretty wife, 
 several children all resembling himself 
 and a few houses. He would ask no 
 more. And I have never heard him say 
 a word against marriage. All his opinions 
 are respectable. Think of him, my love ! 
 Be cheerful. Good heavens ! We take 
 our joys as though they were trifles, and 
 act as though melancholy were the only 
 serious thing in life ! You are still young 
 or young enough to regard the Future
 
 Mrs* Harrowby is Eloquent* 187 
 
 as something more lively than a grave- 
 yard. You must go out and show your- 
 self." 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 " My dear, the dullest of women has 
 two occasions when she can command all 
 eyes at her own wedding and at her 
 husband's funeral." 
 
 "Am I a mountebank? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Harrowby ; " you are 
 the fool who risks her neck to jump 
 through a paper hoop ! You ride too 
 high a horse." 
 
 1 ' What have I done ? " cried Rose. 
 
 " When my father lost his temper," 
 continued Mrs. Harrowby, " he always 
 killed two dogs and kicked the footman 
 lame. I have his spirit ! " 
 
 " If I have offended you," said Rose, 
 " speak out ! " 
 
 " You enjoy suffering," said Mrs. Har- 
 rowby ; "you nurse your misery. If I 
 could but persuade you that marriage is
 
 1 88 Tlie Herb-Moon. 
 
 a martyrdom, you would marry again to- 
 morrow. I am above such silly decep- 
 tions. If you accepted Harry Blythe 
 you would be happy I repeat it, 
 happy ! " 
 
 Rose sat up and smoothed back her 
 disordered hair. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said she. 
 
 "You could get him," observed Mrs. 
 Harrowby ; " play your cards well and 
 you can be Lady Blythe all, merely for 
 your face and your irritating manner. I 
 have set my heart upon it. I will see 
 one love-match before I die, please God." 
 
 " My dear friend," said Rose, quietly, 
 " you talk like a woman in a dream." 
 
 " I will give dinner-parties ; I will buy 
 you fine gowns," said Mrs. Harrowby ; 
 "you shall appear at every advantage. 
 And if he has the sense to marry you, I 
 will leave him every penny of my 
 money." 
 
 " I don't want him," said Rose.
 
 Mrs, Harrowby is Eloquent, 189 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Harrowby, " you pre- 
 fer Robsart. You will sacrifice all things 
 for a man who would write on your tomb- 
 stone, ' Here lies some one whose name 
 I have forgotten ! ' Your father all over 
 again ! " 
 
 Rose dissolved into tears, and fell back 
 weeping on her pillow. 
 
 "Have I ever seen such weakness?" 
 said Mrs. Harrowby. " Have I ever 
 known of such folly ? Was there ever so 
 cruel so pitiless a woman ? Poor Harry 
 Blythe just waits for your word to be- 
 come a new creature. You have the 
 chance to save a noble soul yet you re- 
 fuse it. You will watch him seek out 
 in desperation some fawning Delilah ; 
 you will permit him to be disinherited ; 
 you will see a brilliant career played 
 away in country houses, obscure hotels, 
 and inglorious boudoirs ! An outrage ! " 
 
 " It is impossible," said Rose, "that he 
 could have the smallest interest in me.
 
 i9 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 We have not exchanged a dozen words 
 in confidence." 
 
 "You have made him timid what 
 better proof could you ask of his affec- 
 tion?" 
 
 " I am neither beautiful nor clever," 
 continued Rose ; " I am poor and ordi- 
 nary. What could he see in me ? " 
 
 " Now I think of it," observed Mrs. 
 Harrowby, with an air of abstraction, 
 " that wicked Delilah but cut off Samson's 
 hair. The pious Jael, however, cut off 
 her lover's head ! * You good creatures 
 are so severe. Why analyze Blythe's 
 feelings ? You attract him you tempt 
 him to reform ! Is not that sufficient?" 
 
 Rose dried her eyes, and walked from 
 the bed to the dressing-table. 
 
 " Look at me ! " she said : " I am 
 faded and heart-broken. What man would 
 remember me? " 
 
 She was thinking of Robsart. 
 
 * Mrs. Harrowby had no doubt read Balzac.
 
 Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent. 191 
 
 "An inexperienced man," said Mrs. 
 Harrowby, following her mind, " would 
 forget you at once because he would not 
 have the sense to know that you were 
 rare. But you are foolish to indulge in 
 these cryings and frettings. Penelope 
 would have looked a hag on her husband's 
 return if the goddess had not given her a 
 second youth. And there are no more 
 goddesses ! So think of your complex- 
 ion. No grief is worth a wrinkle. Did 
 you ever see a finer skin than mine ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " It is the result of cream and philoso- 
 phy : cream during sleep and philosophy 
 all day ! " 
 
 A little pink gaiety budded in Rose's 
 pale cheeks. 
 
 " You are wonderful," said she : " you 
 are the one woman in the world you can 
 love and be wise ! " 
 
 " What do you know of love ? " asked 
 Mrs. Harrowby.
 
 19 2 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 " Not much," she said, hastily ; " not 
 much." 
 
 "That's a lie." 
 
 " I had affection for my husband and 
 I have had ... a friendship ! " 
 
 " The friendship made more impression 
 than the husband ? " 
 
 " I was older ..." 
 
 " Describe Robsart again ! Show me 
 his picture ! " 
 
 " I have none." 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby looked grave. Were 
 matters so serious ? " What ? ' ' said she ; 
 " you dare not keep his photograph ? " 
 
 " I need not," said Rose. 
 
 " His face is always before you ? " 
 
 "Always," said Rose, quietly. 
 
 This candor was unexpected. Had 
 Rose already caught the audacity born of 
 freedom ? 
 
 " He is a pauper," said Mrs. Harrowby, 
 after a long pause. 
 
 " He is a king ! "
 
 Mrs. Harrowby is Eloquent. 193 
 
 " He could not support you ! " 
 
 "I worship him." 
 
 " This," said Mrs. Harrowby, " is un- 
 seemly . . . What will you live on? 
 Virtue by itself makes a thin diet." 
 
 " We shall never marry." 
 
 " Blythe is not a man who would per- 
 mit his wife to be a saint-tamer! " 
 
 "What do you think I meant?" 
 
 " What most women mean, when they 
 speak of kings whom they cannot marry, 
 and mere friends whom they worship ! 
 You will eat your breakfast bacon with 
 my poor Harry, and read poetry with 
 Robsart ! " 
 
 This suggestion was so false that Rose 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 " A clerk," continued Mrs. Harrowby, 
 " is a salaried hypocrite. He is a grain 
 of brickdust in the great pyramids of 
 middle-class stupidity ! Good God ! 
 You know these things as well as I do ! 
 What did you see in the man ? "
 
 i94 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " A soul," said Rose. 
 
 " Then he did ask you to run away 
 with him ? " said Mrs. Harrowby, at once. 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Invertebrate," murmured the older 
 woman. " I like my souls embodied ! " 
 
 " He was poor," said Rose, hotly ; " he 
 had nothing to offer. How was it possi- 
 ble to run away ? " 
 
 " Then you yourself wondered at his 
 weakness? 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " Why have you such ready and so 
 many excuses for him ? One would 
 have answered ! " 
 
 Rose blushed. 
 
 " I should have refused ..." she 
 stammered ". . . in any case." 
 
 " I could never forgive a man," said 
 Mrs. Harrowby, " who gave me no op- 
 portunity to show my superior virtue. 
 He was a very dull dog, my dear a very 
 dull dog. If it were not for the temp-
 
 Mrs. Hatrowby is Eloquent* *95 
 
 ters like Harry Blythe, we should never 
 know a chaste woman from a gallant. 
 We owe them much. How could I feel 
 the paragon of wifely honor if some 
 twelve libertines had not plotted my 
 downfall? " 
 
 She could see her beauty placid, pale, 
 ethereal in the mirror. And she smiled 
 with the understanding innocence one 
 might suppose lit up the face of the in- 
 fant Pallas Athene had that goddess, 
 let it be said, ever been an infant. 
 
 " Forget the fellow," she continued ; 
 " forget that episode of gooseberry wine 
 and honeysuckle porches ! At twenty 
 we long for love ; at five-and-twenty we 
 look for companionship ; at five-and- 
 thirty we are more anxious for a com- 
 fortable environment. Blythe can give 
 you a home and a position those things 
 abide. Mourn in white garments, dear 
 Rose ; dry your tears with lace ! Most 
 of our fine sentiments come from the
 
 196 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 stomach remember that always. The 
 soul is horridly cold-blooded ! " 
 
 Then she went into the oratory which 
 led off from her bedroom.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A Lady Talks Sense and Comedy Looks 
 Tearful* 
 
 Ottley, about this time, was flaming 
 with scarlet posters which announced a 
 Liberal Fete to be opened the following 
 afternoon by 
 
 The Hon Charles Belleborough, M. P., 
 
 in the grounds of " Randalls." 
 
 Edward received a note from Mrs. 
 Crecy inviting him to luncheon " before 
 the ceremony" at half-past one. 
 
 "Why is it," he asked himself, "that 
 we cannot gaze with due appreciation on 
 a hero till we have gorged our stomachs 
 with made dishes ? " 
 
 To Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Sledges,
 
 i9 8 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 however, he spoke like a good citizen of 
 the coming Fete. Such things brought 
 all classes of society together ; they 
 amused the young people ; helped the 
 Liberal Cause, which, after all, charlatan- 
 ism, clap-trap and time-serving apart, was 
 a sound one. Read history : forget plat- 
 forms ! Take the solid result not the 
 ephemeral methods of obtaining it. If 
 hypocrisy succeeded it proved that the 
 deceived public clung to ideals. When 
 cant was found necessary, it meant that 
 voters at least were sincere. He had, for 
 some reason, lost all his cynicism, and if 
 he barked now it was only at the moon 
 for not shining all day. 
 
 When, on the morrow, he was ushered 
 into Mrs. Crecy's drawing-room, Chloe 
 and a young man were sitting by the 
 fireplace, and, as Edward entered, the 
 girl was laughing with affected joyous- 
 ness at her visitor's remarks. She ad- 
 dressed him as Captain Camelot.
 
 A Lady Talks Sense. 199 
 
 Belleborough, the Member for Ottley, 
 who stood listening to Mr. Crecy's views 
 on Colonial Industries, was a stern man 
 who commanded an immense amount of 
 respect and was regarded with unwilling 
 awe. He had neither enemies nor friends ; 
 men agreed with him or disagreed with 
 him, and, while his supporters found him 
 blameless, his opponents thought him 
 nothing worse than dull. His conversa- 
 tion that day at luncheon was appropri- 
 ate and unmemorable. The guests present 
 were, with the exceptions of Edward and 
 the Captain, Crecy's own relatives who 
 were staying at " Randalls " for the oc- 
 casion. It was the brewer's wish to give 
 the entertainment the air of a family 
 party, and, if trembling silence in the 
 women, cautious drinking among the 
 men, brand-new dresses on the one, and 
 settled melancholy in the other, can be 
 said to indicate the careless ease of a 
 domestic circle, Charles Belleborough
 
 200 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 and his daughter, who accompanied him, 
 had certainly every reason to believe that 
 they were taken to the very heart of 
 their host's home-life. When the meal 
 was ended, the ladies adjourned to the 
 drawing-room, the gentlemen strolled 
 laboriously after them, and the servants 
 rearranged the table for dinner, in order 
 that the public, now promenading out- 
 side the windows, might enjoy the spec- 
 tacle of Crecy's plate, crockery, table-linen, 
 and cut-glass set out in the most correct 
 manner. 
 
 The Town Band played martial, and 
 the Volunteer Band amorous airs, in 
 turn ; some school children sang (while 
 Belleborough concealed but unsuccess- 
 fully his patriotic emotions) " Rule, Brit- 
 annia." Crecy pressed him reverently on 
 the arm and they passed out, in proces- 
 sion, to the grounds, where, in a pink tent 
 set apart for the fashion and first families 
 of Ottley, he took a red velvet chair on a
 
 A Lady Talks Sense. 201 
 
 little platform and heard himself intro- 
 duced as the coming glory of his country 
 and its present mainstay. Amy, his 
 daughter, sat at his right and showed no 
 signs of hearing the loud comments of 
 the Ottley gentlewomen on the subject 
 of her hat, her gown, and her general ap- 
 pearance. A few condemned, but more 
 approved, the simplicity of her attire, 
 which made no lady present feel herself 
 dowdy and gave most of them a pleasant 
 sense of possessing the taste, were they 
 in her position, to produce a far more im- 
 posing effect. As her garments did not, 
 therefore, excite any painful or envious 
 comparisons, but on the contrary, those 
 which were most solacing and charitable, 
 the audience were better able to confine 
 their attention to Belleborough's well-de- 
 livered speech. 
 
 Belleborough had made his name for 
 moral orthodoxy, and, although there are 
 always a certain number of persons who
 
 202 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 find it difficult to believe that any one 
 should ever be in earnest except when he 
 attacks received opinion, the Member for 
 Ottley had escaped, in an age of general 
 scepticism, the charge of hypocrisy. He 
 meant what he said. If his eloquence 
 sounded, on some occasions, high-flown, 
 it was because the times were easy-going, 
 not because his maxims were untried. 
 
 The Fete was declared a national dem- 
 onstration : great was the applause and 
 greater the embarrassment of those who 
 had come expecting to be amused. 
 The local photographer applied his cam- 
 era to the group ; Mr. Crecy informed 
 the audience that there were Indian jug- 
 glers and other attractions without, and 
 the meeting dispersed. 
 
 Crecy drove the Belleboroughs to the 
 railway station, and, after their departure, 
 an easier merriment settled on the house- 
 party. Mrs. Crecy suggested that Chloe 
 should sing at which point Edward
 
 A Lady Talks Sense 203 
 
 realized, to his chagrin, that he had been 
 invited solely for the honor of playing 
 the heiress's accompaniment. The Cap- 
 tain's ravished demeanor during her song 
 filled the organist with the worst appre- 
 hensions ; he recognized the Wooer in his 
 attitude, and the Son-in-law in Mrs. 
 Crecy's smile. He found it impossible to 
 remain in their society, and, making an 
 abrupt adieu, he hastened from the 
 house. 
 
 Now about nine o'clock that same 
 evening, Miss Chloe walked toward the 
 cottage of Mrs. Venus, and she carried 
 on her arm a basket of dainties for that 
 deserted woman. Mrs. Venus lived some 
 two hundred yards from the gate of 
 Wrestle's Farm, and it so happened that 
 Edward, as Miss Chloe passed, stood 
 there waiting perhaps for the carrier. 
 
 " What a surprise ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Crecy, in tones of great astonishment. 
 
 " I feel none," replied Edward, grimly.
 
 204 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 " I am so distressed," said she, " about 
 poor Mrs. Venus." 
 
 "Your sympathies," he said, with a 
 mocking - smile, " are wide." 
 
 She looked away. 
 
 " Don't be cruel," she whimpered. 
 
 " Oh, Chloe ! " 
 
 He clenched his hands and grew pale. 
 
 " Allow me," he said, with a false air 
 of self-possession, " to take that basket ! " 
 
 She gave it up and put back her veil. 
 She needed all her beauty at that moment. 
 
 "Can I disobey my parents?" she 
 asked. " Shall I break my mother's 
 heart?" 
 
 " You are so clever," said Edward, still 
 bitter, " that in any case you will cer- 
 tainly come to grief. For it takes a born 
 fool to drive a good bargain with life." 
 
 "You never give a direct answer," 
 said Chloe ; " you are always in the 
 clouds!" 
 
 " I have been walking on earth, at all
 
 A Lady Talks Sense* 205 
 
 events, for the last fortnight ! . . . Do 
 you intend to marry that man ? " 
 
 " Give me time to refuse him ! " 
 
 "You are considering the question? 
 Good God ! " 
 
 " I will not accept his offer against 
 your wish. Nor can I marry you 
 against my father's. I will remain as I 
 am always ... if you think ... a soli- 
 tary, unloved existence would suit me ! " 
 
 She sighed, drew off her gloves, and laid 
 a cool palm on Edward's trembling arm. 
 
 " We could always be great friends," 
 said she. 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " If you are a genius I am not sure 
 that you ought to marry even me ! " 
 
 " You did not talk in this strain," said 
 Edward, " when we first met ! " 
 
 "Your fascination overruled my rea- 
 son." 
 
 " Oh," he cried, breaking away from 
 her touch, " how happy we were ! "
 
 206 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " But so unusual," said Chloe, half 
 shocked. Beer and the conventions had 
 been poured out so liberally on her soul 
 that Romance could but float there like a 
 water-lily on an unmoving pool. 
 
 " I always knew," she continued, " that 
 it could lead to nothing. You see, 
 Edward, I am an only child. If I had 
 sisters brothers who could make bril- 
 liant matches, I might permit myself an 
 experiment. But all my father's hopes 
 are fixed on me. I dare not fail him. I 
 love you believe me, I love you very 
 dearly. If you had any sort of position 
 to offer me I would marry you ! " 
 
 " That will do," said he ; " no more ! 
 Take the Captain ! " 
 
 She wept. 
 
 " One must be reasonable," she said ; 
 " one cannot re-make the world." 
 
 " Every genius that is born," he ex- 
 claimed, "gives the world a new turn! 
 You are servile."
 
 A Lady Talks Sense. 207 
 
 " I never claimed to be a genius," said 
 she ; " I merely wish to do my duty." 
 
 "The duty of a beautiful woman," he 
 answered, " is to inspire hearts not to 
 preach sordid maxims. If I had any 
 sort of position to offer you you would 
 take me ! Merciful heavens ! Am I a 
 man ? You don't want a husband, but 
 some creature who will provide you with 
 a visiting list ! " 
 
 " Do I care what you are ? " cried 
 Chloe ; " I know your gifts ! But my 
 father is practical : it is on his account, 
 not mine, that I wish you had worldly 
 success." 
 
 " Has Camelot proposed to you?" 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Oh, Chloe," murmured the unhappy 
 young man, " it is not for me to say that 
 he loves you solely for your money. I 
 can well believe that he loves you for 
 yourself. You are so pretty." 
 
 They had now reached the cottage of
 
 208 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Mrs. Venus, but the windows were dark, 
 and the widow had evidently gone to 
 bed. 
 
 " I can come again in the morning," 
 said Chloe, and she sat down on a pile of 
 stones by the road. Edward, standing 
 by her side, looked upon her, with aching 
 temples. In all true love-stories there is 
 always some inequality of heart or for- 
 tune which, sooner or later, tempts one 
 soul to despair, and the other to false 
 pride. Chloe had reached the moment 
 of discontent. 
 
 " What would your father call a posi- 
 tion f " said Edward. 
 
 " Parliament," said Chloe, briefly ; " the 
 Army ; the Diplomatic Service. He 
 doesn't think so much of the Bar and the 
 Church." 
 
 " Give me a little time, then," said he ; 
 " I have some friends who might ... I 
 will never again think of music ... I 
 will go to London to-morrow ... I can
 
 A Lady Talks Sense* 209 
 
 be worldly ... I can get a Secretary- 
 ship . . . give me time." 
 
 "How long?" said the maiden. 
 
 " Two or three days. . . . You have 
 reason on your side, dearest. ... A 
 country organist! A choir-master! . . . 
 What presumption on my part. . . . 
 What is Art compared with Life ? A 
 dead letter. Let me live first. I will 
 make a large income. How much do 
 you want ? I would take nothing from 
 your father not a penny." 
 
 " Could you make four thousand a 
 year?" 
 
 " Easily ! " said the genius. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Mr. Belleborough," said she, " gives 
 his secretary two pounds a week ! " 
 
 This was discouraging. 
 
 " Never mind," said Edward, getting 
 pale ; " I have schemes." 
 
 " What sort of schemes ? " asked Chloe. 
 
 (t Why dissipate my energy in talking
 
 210 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 about them?" said the youth; "give 
 me time that is all I ask." 
 
 " Whatever happens," she said, " you 
 know one thing I love you." 
 
 "Angel!" 
 
 " No," she said, serenely, " I am not an 
 angel. I do not wish to be considered 
 one. I am a sensible girl who has per- 
 mitted herself to behave rather foolishly ! 
 But I am devoted to you, dear Edward, 
 and neither time nor distance can lessen 
 my affection for you." 
 
 She spoke primly. Has she a heart? 
 thought Edward. He dived into her 
 eyes with his own blindfolded and felt 
 no chill. 
 
 " Enigma ! " he said. 
 
 Chloe took his hand, and pressed it to 
 her cheek. 
 
 " We are talking sense," she said, softly, 
 "you must remember that we are talking 
 sense. It isn't so pleasant as . . . the 
 other!"
 
 A Lady Talks Sense. 211 
 
 "What other?" 
 
 " Non-sense, dearest." 
 
 " Our long walks . . . our talks . . . 
 our sympathy, were those nonsense?" 
 cried Edward ; " did you not say that 
 our souls were predestined for each 
 other?" 
 
 " Of course," she answered ; " our souls 
 got on extraordinarily well. But if you 
 remember, I never once said that we 
 ought to be engaged ! To begin with, I 
 do not approve of long engagements ! " 
 
 " Herb-Moons! " said Edward, to him- 
 self, " Herb-Moons ! " 
 
 " You are so odd," said Chloe ; " you 
 use such strange expressions. Poetry 
 after tea at a garden-party is appropri- 
 ate enough, because the weather is usually 
 fine and one is in the humor to say things 
 that sound well ! " 
 
 " High-minded small talk ! " said Ed- 
 ward, with a cutting smile. " We have 
 met many times, however, since that gar-
 
 212 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 den-party in rain and at twilight : in 
 the cemetery and by the old barn ! I 
 thought you were in earnest always." 
 
 " I was," she replied " I was in ear- 
 nest. And I am in earnest now. But 
 may I never change my mood ? The 
 past was all Spring : it is time to be seri- 
 ous and Autumnal ! " 
 
 Edward grasped at her excuse. 
 
 " No doubt," said he, " delicious, in- 
 consistent April is as much in earnest as 
 grave November ! She lasts as long ! 
 she rules the earth her thirty days ! " 
 
 Miss Crecy smiled wearily. She could 
 endure Edward's fantastic utterances so 
 long only as they were addressed to her 
 own eyes. Delicious April sounded too 
 much like some other woman to be a 
 pleasing figure of speech. 
 
 " There is a time," said she, "when one 
 must be business-like. People fall in love, 
 marry, and postpone the sober facts of 
 life for discussion till after the wedding-
 
 A Lady Talks Sense. 213 
 
 journey ! And because the facts are 
 sober and have to be discussed seriously, 
 they are called a disillusion ! How much 
 better it is to plunge into business mat- 
 ters first and know where you are be- 
 fore you start on your honeymoon ! I 
 should not love a man less because I 
 thought his means insufficient to marry 
 on, nor should I love him more because 
 the settlements were wholly satisfactory. 
 I am very sane, Edward." 
 
 " You are, indeed," he replied. 
 
 "You see," she continued, in calm 
 tones, " your pride is so great that it 
 would break your heart to be absolutely 
 dependent on my fortune. I feel this 
 strongly. On the other hand, I have not 
 the courage to forego my fortune and live 
 on what you could earn for me. It would 
 preserve your self-respect at the cost of 
 my health. And what is worse than an in- 
 valid wife ? I have been reading about 
 geniuses lately. They do not answer."
 
 214 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " When you talk like that," he cried, 
 " I could almost hate you ! " 
 
 " Men always detest plain-speaking," 
 she said. 
 
 " If you were not beautiful, you would 
 be inexcusable ! " 
 
 " I am determined to use my brains," 
 she replied ; " and surely, when I speak 
 so reasonably about money matters, you 
 can believe me, when I add in the same 
 breath that you are the one being in the 
 world I love ! If I do not talk in the 
 usual false strain, it is not because I rate 
 sentiment too low, but because I rate it 
 before all things ! " 
 
 " It cannot be bought," said Edward, 
 " it can only be lost ! In this conversa- 
 tion we have lost it for ever ! " 
 
 Chloe looked at him in amazement. 
 Why could he not be sane ? why this un- 
 willingness to face life as a house-holder ? 
 She rose from the heap of stones and 
 stood up beside him.
 
 A Lady Talks Sense. 215 
 
 "Edward," said she, " one of us, of 
 course, must be wrong. But if I am too 
 worldly, you are too rash. 5 ' 
 
 She put her arms around his neck with 
 that deliberate impetuosity which made 
 her recklessness as cold as her common 
 sense. 
 
 " I love you, dear," she said, " and I 
 will wait ... a few days. Good-night. 
 You must leave me now because I hear 
 the ponies." 
 
 She had ordered the groom to call for 
 her with the chaise at Mrs. Venus's cot- 
 tage. 
 
 Edward kissed her miserably and stole 
 away as the carriage loomed in the dis- 
 tance. His heart was writhing. These 
 secret meetings and stealings away filled 
 him with self-contempt. He crept home 
 to fling his frantic mood at Heaven and 
 his uneasy body on a bed. He cursed 
 his weakness ; blamed the whole system 
 of creation ; thought of Chloe's eyes ;
 
 216 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 remembered the fragrance of her face ; 
 brooded on ways of suicide. 
 
 It is an orthodox doctrine and a use- 
 ful that for every scene of life there are 
 invisible spectators an audience of good 
 and evil spirits. We may believe, there- 
 fore, that the air during the walk to Mrs. 
 Venus's cottage, and now in Edward's 
 room, was thick with sulphur and myrrh, 
 and the space crowded with hoofs and 
 wings. We may go even further and 
 presume that on this occasion it was un- 
 usually dense, for, no doubt, the word 
 had gone round among the ministers of 
 grace and the agents of destruction that 
 two young people in love were about to 
 meet, in the common unhappy circum- 
 stances, and about to talk in the usual 
 lunatic strain. Love, however, has no 
 sameness for the immortals : it is their 
 current coin ; and just as the sober among 
 us reserve our best attention for the 
 daily money-market and the seventh-
 
 A Lady Talks Sense 217 
 
 daily sermon on Unworldliness our lit- 
 tle angels and our little devils look eagerly 
 at the Love-Mart. For there are the be- 
 ginnings of all things spiritual and 
 earthy. 
 
 While Edward was tossing on his bed, 
 the angels looked at the fiends. The 
 leader of the evil ones who was gentle- 
 manlike, and carried a volume of poetry 
 behind his big ear observed : " He 
 shows great inexperience. One of you 
 might have prompted him. There is 
 gross carelessness somewhere." 
 
 " This is Comedy's interference," said 
 his colleague on the right ; " she is a nui- 
 sance." 
 
 He shot a glance at the Muse who sat 
 opposite. She had in her eyes eternal 
 tears which never fell. She was too 
 nearly human to be completely satisfied 
 with her work. 
 
 " I have great respect for your power, 
 Comedy," said the first fiend, " but you
 
 218 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 lack logic. And you will not understand 
 that the passions are serious. Here to- 
 day was an opportunity wasted. Every 
 time you step into a love-scene, we either 
 find virtue triumphant or common sense 
 made to sound absurd ! You inspire 
 plain, indelicate language, and are as 
 truthful as our vulgar friend the Record- 
 ing Angel ! " 
 
 Then his followers clattered away, plot- 
 ting malice and singing pretty songs 
 about life. But Comedy and the good 
 spirits remained, looking anxious.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 
 
 THE next afternoon, Rose was on her 
 knees in the drawing-room at Cavendish 
 Square, darning a small rent in the old 
 brocade of a Louis Seize chair, when the 
 door was suddenly thrown open and Ed- 
 ward Banish announced. 
 
 " Edward ! " she exclaimed : " I hardly 
 knew you without your beard ! What 
 has brought you to London?" 
 
 " Many things," said he, sitting down. 
 " I have much on my mind. You are 
 looking well and seem in comfortable sur- 
 roundings. Did Robsart come here be- 
 fore he left?" 
 
 " No," said she, getting pale ; " I wrote 
 him good-bye, but I did not see him. 
 Tell me about yourself."
 
 220 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " I am in danger," he said, at last, " of 
 growing cynical. I doubt everything and 
 everyone." 
 
 " That means that you can no longer be- 
 lieve in yourself ! " said his sister, gravely. 
 
 " Oh, I was sincere enough," he 
 groaned. 
 
 He blurted out his story ; the sudden 
 loves of Chloe and himself ; their clandes- 
 tine meetings ; the arrival on the scene of 
 Lord Rendlewick's brother ; the heiress's 
 changed tone; their last interview. It 
 was a breathless tragi-comic history. 
 
 " I feel it ! " he exclaimed, at the end : 
 " it is a genuine emotion. This is not a 
 question of liver or nerves or idleness. 
 It has gone to my heart. I am broken ! 
 I am destroyed ! " 
 
 " Poor child ! " said Rose ; " poor boy ! " 
 
 " I love her," he said, wofully ; " my 
 life was at her feet. And yet she can 
 talk like a solicitor! "
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 221 
 
 " If it has made you bitter, it was not 
 love," said Rose. 
 
 " I must say what I think. She has no 
 soul ! She is all ambition petty ambi- 
 tion. I despise her." 
 
 His pale countenance belied this senti- 
 ment. 
 
 Rose, in spite of her grief at the poor 
 fellow's disappointment, felt a quiet, 
 motherly satisfaction in the thought that 
 this experience was, after all, the best 
 thing that could befall him. Love had 
 touched his life. It could never now be 
 fruitless. 
 
 " She has made me desperate," he con- 
 tinued : " I have decided to get on in the 
 world ! I would sell my soul if I could 
 find the devil. But he seems to get as 
 many as he wants now for nothing ! " 
 
 " What are your plans ? " asked Rose, 
 quietly; "at present they seem mostly 
 dust and sulphur! " 
 
 " I thought of Mrs. Harrowby," said
 
 222 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Edward ; " she has influence. I have al- 
 ways been too proud to ask her help, but 
 now I am prepared to swallow any- 
 thing!" 
 
 " Yet you tell me," said Rose, " that 
 you are in love ! Dear Edward, if you 
 are false to your ideals, life, in turn, will 
 be false to you." 
 
 " What are the Ideals?" he asked, sav- 
 agely ; " will they keep a decent roof over 
 my head? will they give me the wife 
 I want? will they pay for her gowns 
 and my ambition ? will they earn me so 
 much as one night's easy sleep? I am 
 sick of swearing by phantoms." 
 
 Rose disregarded his petulance. She 
 had suffered too much to be astonished 
 at despair. 
 
 " I cannot feel," she said, " that Chloe 
 Crecy has behaved so cruelly as you im- 
 agine. She has not accepted this other 
 man she merely contemplates him ; and 
 that may mean little ! But you could
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 223 
 
 not expect her to marry you in your 
 present circumstances. Her parents 
 would certainly perhaps rightly disap- 
 prove of such a step." 
 
 " I see ! I understand ! " he exclaimed, 
 " all good women are mercenary." 
 
 "All good women are sane." 
 
 " Sane ? " he repeated, " that is Chloe's 
 eternal word." 
 
 " Then she will wait for you." 
 
 "Wait for me? How long does that 
 mean ? Why can't people marry while 
 they love each other? When I have 
 moiled and toiled all the enthusiasm out 
 of my life, when I shall have schooled 
 myself to postpone my bride for some ten 
 years I shall be in precisely the state of 
 mind to remain a bachelor! " 
 
 " If that is so," said Rose, " how fortu- 
 nate for both of you that you cannot 
 bind yourselves for eternity on the im- 
 pulse of this mood ! " 
 
 " I have not your slow blood," said
 
 224 The Herb-Moon* 
 
 Edward. Then he seemed to remember 
 her changed circumstances. 
 
 " I meant to write to you," he began, 
 awkwardly, " about Arden. But I could 
 find nothing to say. It was too painful. 
 I hate pain." 
 
 " So do I," said Rose, simply. 
 
 " He's dead, and you have your life 
 before you. The whole trouble has 
 ended much better than I could have 
 hoped. Let us talk no more about it. 
 . . . You asked to know my plans. 
 Somebody must want a secretary .... 
 I think of Parliament. . . . After all, 
 Father was destined for a great public 
 career. . . . He made his mark. . . . 
 Had he lived two years longer he would 
 have been Solicitor-General. Every one 
 says so. Why not leave Art and Music 
 to foreigners ? Vaguely ... I felt as 
 much . . . even at Cambridge. Chloe 
 may be right you yourself grant as much. 
 I shall appeal to Mrs. Harrowby. She
 
 The Question, of Edward's Soul. 225 
 
 wanted to help Father; she can help me. 
 They say I grow more like him every 
 day." 
 
 " That is true," said Rose ; " the resem- 
 blance is astounding." 
 
 She was troubled at the thought of 
 Mrs. Harrowby's possible influence on 
 Edward. Would he not take her worldli- 
 ness too seriously ? Would he under- 
 stand that her vulgarity came rather 
 from egoism than coarse feelings ? 
 
 At that moment, however, Mrs. Har- 
 rowby entered. As she caught sight of 
 Edward, she tottered and must have 
 fallen if Rose had not rushed forward to 
 support her. 
 
 " Banish," she said, faintly ; " Banish 
 all over again ! " and she burst into tears 
 the slow, spare tears of the aged. 
 
 The young man smiled sympathy and 
 admiration. His figure was his father's; 
 his clothes were shabby. Mrs. Har- 
 rowby, observing them, resolved, on
 
 226 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 the spot, to allow him a thousand a 
 year. 
 
 " I have not seen you, my boy," said 
 she, " since you were a child of three ! 
 In those days you resembled your 
 mother. I never admired her. But you 
 have grown a handsome fellow." 
 
 He kissed her hand. His father had 
 certainly loved this lady, but he had 
 lacked the courage to face her arrogance. 
 Now that she was old and weak, however, 
 it was hard to believe that she had ever 
 been too terrible to woo in earnest. 
 
 " Why are you in London ? " she 
 asked ; " you look melancholy." 
 
 He blushed. 
 
 " A love affair ? " said she. 
 
 He sighed. 
 
 " Tell your story," said Rose. 
 
 He told it let it be known, too, hon- 
 estly. At its close he looked straight at 
 Mrs. Harrowby. 
 
 " I thought of you at once," he ob-
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 227 
 
 served ; " I felt sure you would help 
 me." 
 
 " In what way ? " said the old woman. 
 
 " By your influence." 
 
 " I need all my political influence for 
 my nephew, Harry Blythe. I can do 
 nothing for you in that direction." 
 
 This was a blow. He lost his color. 
 But Mrs. Harrowby smiled pleasantly. 
 
 " Stick to your Music," said she ; " re- 
 main a genius ! But give up that girl." 
 
 " I cannot." 
 
 "You really want to marry her?" 
 
 He bowed his head. 
 
 " Would you take her without a far- 
 thing?" 
 
 "Gladly." 
 
 She paused ; then turned to Rose. 
 
 " I believe," said she, " that the boy 
 means it. He is absurd, but I like him." 
 
 " He is in too great a hurry," said 
 Rose, smiling sadly. " Love is nothing 
 if not patient."
 
 228 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " I abhor a patient lover," said Mrs. 
 Harrowby. 
 
 Edward felt encouraged and shot a 
 defiant glance at his painful sister. 
 
 "Hang up philosophy," he sighed, 
 " unless philosophy can make a Juliet ! " 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby clapped her hands. 
 
 " Hang up philosophy," said Rose, 
 drily, " and you will end by hanging 
 yourself." 
 
 " Listen ! " observed Mrs. Harrowby, 
 " listen ! my dove begins to talk like an 
 owl. What has come over you, Rose? " 
 
 " I feel that you are advising Edward 
 badly," she replied, with rising color : 
 " I know his disposition. A month ago 
 he hated all women and thought mar- 
 riage odious. Now he is dying for a girl 
 he has seen a dozen times, and swears he 
 cannot exist without a wife ! I distrust 
 these violent changes. These young 
 people who quote Romeo and Juliet 
 remember the Ballroom and the Balcony,
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 229 
 
 but they are by no means prepared to 
 follow their heroic patterns to the tomb." 
 
 "Rose," said Mrs. Harrowby, " has 
 spent her life studying last acts ! " 
 
 " I like to know the end of a story," 
 said Rose ; " the end is everything ! " 
 
 " But the beginning is important, too," 
 said Mrs. Harrowby with a certain pee- 
 vishness ; " this poor boy is merely anx- 
 ious to begin ! " 
 
 " Is he working ? " asked Rose. 
 
 " How can I work," said the young 
 man, angrily, "with a mind distraught?" 
 
 "To be sure," said Mrs. Harrowby, 
 " how can he?" 
 
 " My life is in disorder," he continued ; 
 " there is a calculating calm ... a delib- 
 erate endurance about Rose which is to 
 me as inexplicable as it is annoying ! " 
 
 Both women laughed as most women 
 do when patience is mistaken for want 
 of feeling. 
 
 " Does your Chloe believe in your
 
 230 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 genius?" asked Mrs. Harrowby, drying 
 her eyes. 
 
 " She would like it more generally 
 recognized," said Edward, with some 
 bitterness. 
 
 " Every girl likes to see her choice 
 justified," replied Mrs. Harrowby ; " that 
 is natural enough." 
 
 " But," said Rose, " she cannot expect 
 him to start where other men after 
 years of suffering, endeavor, and hard 
 work are leaving off." 
 
 In spite of her apparent severity, her 
 heart was on Edward's side. She would 
 have liked even against her own better 
 judgment a generous recklessness on 
 Chloe Crecy's part. There is always 
 something irresistibly touching if dam- 
 nable about an indiscreet marriage. One 
 condemns the folly but adores the faith 
 of young, unquestioning passion. It will 
 toss away the great, grim, heavy world as 
 though it were an air-ball !
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 231 
 
 " Dear," said Rose, in a softer tone, 
 " this is your Test. You must bear it. 
 If you are so ready to give up your 
 music which you have again and again 
 assured me is all that you live for you 
 will be as willing, later on, to sacrifice 
 Chloe for some one or something else 
 which may seem, for an instant, more 
 desirable. Music is, unquestionably, your 
 gift. Be grateful for it. Public life is 
 often demoralizing: a purely domestic 
 life may make one narrow-minded: an 
 artistic life is perhaps the noblest. Be- 
 cause whether its emotions endure or 
 perish while they endure they are at 
 least inspiring. And the moment they 
 cease to be inspiring, you cease to be an 
 artist ! " 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby opened her eyes. 
 
 "Our little Rosie," said she, "is be- 
 ginning to show her spirit. That's good 
 advice, Edward : I would never have 
 given it myself ; but I know it's good.
 
 232 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Be patient, and grateful, and industrious, 
 and if Chloe won't love you, God will ! " 
 
 " But if Chloe doesn't love you," 
 added Rose, smiling, "you must, never- 
 theless, always love Chloe." 
 
 " That's tame ! " said Mrs. Harrowby. 
 
 " That's true love," said Rose. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed the older woman, 
 with swimming eyes. Her heart was on 
 the rack, because of Edward's resem- 
 blance to his father. 
 
 "There is no reason," she said, "why 
 the boy should bury himself at Ottley. 
 We must find him work in London. 
 Does he teach ? does he compose ? does he 
 play the organ well enough for a rich par- 
 ish ? could he write a few pretty songs? " 
 
 "No," said he, "but I have published 
 one act of a tragic opera." 
 
 " Play it," said Mrs. Harrowby, point- 
 ing amiably to the piano ; " I don't want 
 to hear the whole thing I can judge by 
 the tenor's first solo! "
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 233 
 
 He seated himself at the piano and 
 sang melodiously a thrilling air. Mrs. 
 Harrowby was delighted. 
 
 " I can imagine the orchestra," she 
 exclaimed, " wild, trembling violins, and 
 now and then the flute ! Ravishing ! 
 And introduce a harp when the words 
 are Platonic ! Delicious ! My dear Rose, 
 he is brilliant ! " 
 
 She kept the young man at the piano 
 for the next two hours ; she promised to 
 lead all London to his feet ; she talked 
 of glory and fame till he saw in a pro- 
 phetic vision his own monument in 
 Westminster Abbey. And his eyes grew 
 moist at the statuesque idea. The laurel 
 on some brows soon turns into the Lotus 
 flower. Edward had too indolent a na- 
 ture to support the responsibility of an 
 early success. 
 
 " I will give a party," said Mrs. Har- 
 rowby. " I will ask all the great ama- 
 teurs to meet you Lady Harrian, and
 
 234 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Gerald Arbour, and Mrs. Van Cuyp 
 every one. You shall be a celebrity ! 
 Tell your Chloe that ! " 
 
 " How easy it sounds," said Rose, " all 
 fame and no work. No, dear Edward, 
 you must go abroad, live very simply, 
 and study ! " 
 
 "You expect a man to think as though 
 he had no body," said Edward, "and to 
 act as though he had no soul ! Mrs. 
 Harrowby understands me you don't ! 
 I need encouragement, sympathy . . ." 
 
 " And applause," added Mrs. Harrowby. 
 
 " Appreciation," he suggested, as a 
 meeker word. 
 
 " To be sure," said the older lady ; 
 " he is not at all the sort of genius for 
 six devoted friends and a chimney cor- 
 ner ! Rose is so austere ! " 
 
 Poor Rose reproached herself for being 
 harsh. Why should she always be forced 
 to act and speak in direct opposition to 
 her indulgent all too indulgent in-
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 235 
 
 stincts? How much pleasanter it would 
 have been to sit there, in silence, gra- 
 ciously inactive while Edward stained 
 his spirit with degrading hopes ! Philos- 
 ophy is an amusement to those who feel 
 nothing, and death to those who feel too 
 much. Rose had always felt too keenly, 
 and the constant war of reason against 
 her passionate ease-loving nature made 
 her, she thought, often seem heartless 
 when she was merely heart-broken. 
 
 " I know," she said, with a forced smile, 
 " that I have a fatal passion for excel- 
 lence in others! " 
 
 " You are a dear creature," exclaimed 
 Mrs. Harrowby, in a great gust of affec- 
 tion ; " you are quite right and I am 
 quite wrong, and if Edward has a grain of 
 common sense he will say the same ! " 
 
 The young man was bewildered. He 
 began to comprehend his father's reluc- 
 tance to become one flesh with a being so 
 various as Paulina Harrowby. There 
 was no security in her presence.
 
 236 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " Then what do you want me to do ? " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 " Work ! " said both women in a 
 breath. 
 
 " And Chloe? " said he, "what about 
 Chloe?" 
 
 " Be faithful," said Rose. 
 
 " Look about you ! " advised Mrs. 
 Harrowby : " she may be charming, but 
 she is not helpless enough to please me. 
 I think a woman should be helpless. 
 It moves a man's heroic instinct. Al- 
 ways be heroic, Edward." 
 
 " I will," he said, yawning from sheer 
 exhaustion. 
 
 " But the best of all, dear boy, is to 
 avoid women altogether," she continued. 
 " The strong man thinks of other 
 things ! " 
 
 He rose from the piano-stool, and, too 
 weary to be otherwise than natural, 
 dropped himself, as it were, on the easiest 
 chair in the room.
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 237 
 
 " Then I am to return to Ottley," said 
 he, " and tell Chloe that that " 
 
 " That you would be most false to her 
 by being false to your work," said Rose. 
 " Be strong, Edward." 
 
 The tired boy burst into tears. God, 
 the angels, and women know that even 
 the hardest of men cannot escape the ne- 
 cessity of weeping. And Edward was 
 not hard : no musician could be. 
 
 " Am I to see her . . . every day," 
 said he, " with that man ? What do you 
 think I am made of? If I had my way I 
 would shoot him ! Oh, I understand 
 jealousy ! I understand everything now 
 the Seventh Commandment above all 
 others ! I regard her as my wife. I can- 
 not help it. When I saw her that day at 
 ' Randalls,' I knew her at a glance. She 
 was to be the woman of my life. If 
 other men are less impressionable I am 
 sorry for them ! I had rather love one 
 creature too well than too many too
 
 238 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 little ! I have no desire to be in the 
 fashion." 
 
 " My brother speaks," thought Rose, 
 proudly ; " he is at last himself ! " 
 
 He stood up. The tears had carried 
 away the last remnant of his indecision. 
 
 " You can ask me to look on," he said, 
 " and work, work while the woman I 
 love marries another man ! My father 
 did that, and the general opinion con- 
 demned him. He was thought far too 
 generous ! " 
 
 " People are always called weak," said 
 Rose, " when they do not act for their 
 own advantage." 
 
 " And rightly," he exclaimed, " rightly ! 
 I hope I may never mistake cowardice 
 for resignation. I shall make the effort. 
 I shall appeal to Chloe once more. She 
 has sworn that she loves me. And, with 
 all her faults, I believe that she spoke the 
 truth. On the whole, I regard jealousy 
 as a noble passion. Is it not a divine at-
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 239 
 
 tribute? Your own is your own. Chloe 
 is mine for richer or poorer. If she is 
 false to me, let the consequences fall upon 
 her own head ! I may in time become 
 philosophical on the subject, but my mo- 
 ment for philosophy has not yet come. 
 I will be a man first and a saint later ! " 
 
 His voice broke. Mrs. Harrowby held 
 out her hand to him. 
 
 " Tell all this to Chloe," said she ; 
 " frighten her ! treat her with contempt ! 
 Teach her to regard you with a grovelling 
 respect and she will follow you proudly, 
 into cheap lodgings at Ealing ! I know 
 women. They adore great emotions ; 
 they detest equanimity ! But keep the 
 emotions great : never let them dwindle 
 to the poodle dog's ki-yi ! " 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby's language was ever 
 vigorous. Her words were like bread 
 soaked in vinegar. She often spoke wis- 
 dom, yet she sauced her counsel with 
 such bitterness that few could swallow it.
 
 240 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " Cheap lodgings ! " repeated Edward, 
 aghast. " I had forgotten that side of 
 the question ! " 
 
 " It is the whole question ! " said Mrs. 
 Harrowby. " It will be thought out 
 under the summer moon and acted in a 
 little back room, with a smoking chim- 
 ney, smuts in the air, hashed mutton on 
 the table, and Chloe shivering by the coal- 
 scuttle in an old opera cloak ! I have seen 
 such pictures Enthusiasm at home ! " 
 
 " Impossible," said Rose, " impossible ! 
 Enthusiasm never yet sat shivering by a 
 smoking chimney ! " 
 
 Mrs. Harrowby tittered. 
 
 " Rose is so active," said she ; " she 
 would coax the coals, cut the mutton 
 into stars, cast lavender water in the air, 
 and make her opera cloak into a window 
 curtain ! But she isn't usual." 
 
 " Go back to Ottley," whispered Rose 
 to her brother, " and ask Chloe if she 
 can be patient."
 
 The Question of Edward's Soul. 241 
 
 This advice seemed good so far as it 
 went. He kissed his sister good-bye. 
 Mrs. Harrowby patted him on the shoul- 
 der. He went forth realizing that the 
 greater part of life has to be lived alone, 
 and wondering why the struggle for com- 
 panionship should be made to seem 
 worth while. Mrs. Harrowby, on the 
 other hand, withdrew to her bedroom to 
 ache in solitude because she had no chil- 
 dren.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 In which Rose has to Restrain her 
 Sympathies. 
 
 ROSE left the torn brocade. Her own 
 worn heart needed stitches many of 
 them. She sat down, dumbly eloquent, 
 on the hearthrug and thought how pleas- 
 ant it would be to have a holiday from 
 care. She prayed timidly for Edward. 
 She tried to forget her knowledge of the 
 world and the average ambitious girl. 
 Would Chloe be the Exception? She 
 remembered her eyes and felt hopeful. 
 
 Sir Harry Blythe was announced. For 
 an awkward moment neither of them 
 could speak. Then he expressed his 
 pleasure at finding her in good health. 
 She looked younger than her years and
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies* 243 
 
 prettier than her features. Her auburn 
 hair caught the sun and curled deli- 
 riously round her ears. He always 
 noticed ears and insteps. Rose's ears 
 were incredibly perfect. He peered ner- 
 vously at her feet. They were as well 
 formed as his own. He could face with 
 confidence the thought of future genera- 
 tions. . . . They spoke of Mrs. Har- 
 rowby, her bitter charges against life. 
 
 " She over-estimates the power of 
 money," said Sir Harry; "she thinks of 
 nothing else. It has been her curse. 
 Her tone is deplorable. And the joke is 
 that both Chale and Harrowby had am- 
 ple means ! I believe they were both 
 genuinely in love with her. But she 
 was always longing to play Beggar-Maid 
 to a King Cophetua. Only a brilliant 
 woman could be so silly. . . . No doubt 
 you think us a strange family. Take me, 
 for example. I am selfish, worldly, cyni- 
 cal and indolent."
 
 244 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " I hope not," said Rose. 
 
 " I have, at any rate, always been told 
 so," he rejoined, showing a bruised smile. 
 " I know my reputation. We all know, 
 as a matter of fact, what people think of 
 us. But if I am, as I said before, selfish, 
 I am by no means self-satisfied. A 
 man's moral force depends almost wholly 
 on his wife or his women friends but 
 most of all on his wife. In my particular 
 circle marriages have often to be made 
 for more impersonal considerations than 
 those of mere affection ! If wives so 
 married, however, would take the same 
 trouble to attract and influence their hus- 
 bands as they do to please their . . . ad- 
 mirers . . . many lives would be re- 
 deemed. I am by no means convinced 
 that a man is naturally unfaithful. All 
 the men I know are very anxious to do 
 the right thing. They hate dishonor. 
 When they go wrong it is always for . . . 
 mainly . . . sentimental reasons. ... I
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies. 245 
 
 see you wonder at my introducing this 
 subject. I will explain myself. My 
 aunt has not concealed from me that you 
 entertain a very strong feeling against 
 my . . . rumored . . . character. If you 
 did not condemn it I should perhaps 
 esteem you less. I value a good wo- 
 man's condemnation. But if you could 
 not excuse it I should not be talking to 
 you now. The saints are always tolerant 
 of weaknesses in others ; they alone 
 know how hard it is to be strong ! " 
 
 The best of women and the worst 
 is never in such spiritual danger as when 
 some man would lead her to understand 
 that he regards her as a saint. The 
 temptation to at once prove and disprove 
 the charge is great. The difficulty of 
 sustaining the reputation yet greater. 
 For, to be really saint-like, one has to be 
 pugnacious, and pugnacity is not charm- 
 ing. To say the true word in season and 
 out of season is a harsh, ungrateful task.
 
 246 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 All thanks for the like are usually sobbed 
 over gravestones, old letters, and dusty 
 keepsakes. A loving woman deserves 
 much credit when she can cheerfully ab- 
 dicate all the heart's desire for tenderness 
 in favor of her coffin-lid. Rose had re- 
 ceived many cold looks and bitter re- 
 proaches in her struggle to work good 
 rather than evil. Robsart's farewell note 
 made tearful reading. Edward's last 
 glance had fallen like hot cinders on her 
 face. And then the self-distrust which 
 followed all her efforts ! Had she been 
 wise, after all, to leave Ottley? She 
 thought of Robsart's possible life in In- 
 dia. Mrs. Harrowby drew lurid pictures 
 of military society abroad. Edward's 
 sudden attachment to Chloe Crecy how 
 would it end ? Rose spent her anxious 
 nights dreaming prayers and crying in 
 her sleep. Philosophy could only give 
 her the fortitude to bear her own troubles. 
 When those she loved were suffering, or
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies. 247 
 
 in peril, her philosophy failed. In this 
 respect she differed from many of the 
 virtuous, who, in learning patience, forget 
 compassion. . . . 
 
 " My career so far," continued Sir 
 Harry, " has been a disappointment to 
 my family. They feel that I have not 
 made the best of my talents. I was con- 
 sidered a clever boy. It would be false 
 modesty to deny this. I was probably 
 bright. When I left Cambridge I went 
 abroad. Art appealed to me. Politics 
 were a bore. So I studied Art . . . from 
 the outside, as it were. I never drew a 
 line. I merely sought the principle of 
 beauty in all things. What is beautiful 
 is right : what is unbeautiful is wrong. 
 You know the idea ? But to know true 
 beauty. That is a life-work." 
 
 Rose was listening intently. As he 
 looked down at her he felt that there 
 was not a wise man, aware of her in- 
 finite ability for self-sacrifice, her religious
 
 24 8 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 method of idolatry, but would have 
 made every effort to secure the treasure 
 even at the cost of her own happiness. 
 
 " My circumstances were such," he 
 continued, "that, fortunately or unfor- 
 tunately, I could gratify every rational 
 caprice. I made mistakes. I admired 
 the wrong things. Perhaps the wrong 
 people. But I was never coarse. There 
 is sentiment in our family. My mother 
 was an amateur poetess of no inconsider- 
 able merit. She never published her 
 verses. She corresponded with Words- 
 worth ; she knew Shelley. You may 
 imagine her." 
 
 Rose bowed her head. 
 
 " My earliest associations," said Sir 
 Harry, " were with all that is high-minded. 
 I abhor the base, the sordid, the igno- 
 minious. I observe human conduct, but 
 I do not presume to understand it. My 
 sole endeavor is to keep my own mind 
 varnished. I used that word deliberately.
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies* 249 
 
 I would not have you suspect me of self- 
 deception. Life as a thing is hideous. 
 Imagination is its sole redemption. It is 
 our imagination, not our conscience, 
 which makes us better than the beasts of 
 the field. Conscience of itself makes us, 
 if anything, the beast's inferior. For he 
 represents nature warring honestly with 
 natural forces. But we represent nature 
 at war with God. . . ." 
 
 The man was sincere, or had in the 
 course of conversation gradually be- 
 come so. How long his sincerity would 
 last was another and perhaps an ungen- 
 erous question. Few prayers would be 
 answered and fewer good intentions 
 placed to our credit if the Judge of all 
 hearts demanded that same unswerving 
 constancy of mind from us which we so 
 urgently insist on from our fellow-crea- 
 tures. To be wilfully honest with another 
 human being for even half an hour is 
 enough to establish some claim, at all
 
 250 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 events, to an immortal soul. And it is 
 enough to explain the Divine desire to 
 save the same. A famous priest onc 
 wrote, that the majority of sinners were 
 so excessively unpleasant that one won- 
 dered how the Almighty could feel love 
 for them. The answer seems plain. 
 With Him we are always in earnest, 
 and earnestness is irresistibly endearing. 
 Rose was too sympathetic to feel any 
 unkind amusement at what was purely 
 comic in Sir Harry's egoism. If it were 
 not for the egoists we should learn very 
 little about ourselves. That much is 
 clear. Blythe's sketch of his mother, 
 that amateur poetess, was not without 
 pathos the inevitable laugh once done 
 with. Poetry and most of all amateur 
 poetry stands for pain. Every line of 
 it spells woe. Either the writer or 
 those living with the writer could tell a 
 tale. Sir Harry's face was engraved with 
 worn-out rhymes. Heart and part, take
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies* 251 
 
 and forsake, love and above, dear and 
 tear, to-day and away, kindness and blind- 
 ness. . . . But the man was now sincere. 
 Was he ever at his worst zwsincere? 
 Rose could not think so. He had Man- 
 ners, but he was never a sham. 
 
 " I wished to give you," he continued, 
 " some faint notion of the life I had led. 
 That is why I have dwelt at such unpar- 
 donable length on my point of view. 
 No woman needs to understand more of 
 any man's history than his point of view. 
 That is the only thing she can affect 
 that she is competent or called upon 
 to deal with. When I assure you that 
 you have quite unconsciously, I know 
 affected my whole mental attitude I 
 mean it as the highest compliment I can 
 offer. Not that you value compliments." 
 
 " Oh dear ! " said Rose, getting red 
 and feeling wretched. 
 
 Sir Harry knew women. He did not 
 misunderstand her blush. If a handsome
 
 252 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 man can ever lose hope in a love-affair, 
 Blythe lost it then. 
 
 " I have been able to watch you more 
 closely than you can realize," he went 
 on, but in a duller voice. " Your pa- 
 tience, your dignity, your courage, your 
 tenderness. And I know your story. 
 I was acquainted, too, with your husband. 
 Your sorrow where your marriage is con- 
 cerned was, and must always be, unspeak- 
 able. If I refer to it, it is merely to 
 show you that I understand." 
 
 He looked up and met her eyes. A 
 silent question was put ; a silent answer 
 given. 
 
 " All the rest," he said, aloud, " shall not 
 now be put into words. I see that you, 
 too, understand. ... I would have tried 
 to make you happy, Rose." 
 
 She was weeping, and he received an 
 exquisite satisfaction from her grief. 
 Each one of her tears fell like fiery rain 
 on his chilled heart. It evidently pained
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies* 253 
 
 her to refuse him. This is a woman's 
 innocent snare for calling back, insidi- 
 ously, rejected love. 
 
 " I should own," he said, " that my 
 aunt has more than once hinted that 
 your . . . interest . . . was elsewhere ! 
 I am too late ! " 
 
 " My friend," she said, quickly, " now 
 let me talk ! " 
 
 Mother-like she patted his arm. 
 
 " I thank you," said she. " I wonder 
 at you. You are rich, handsome, young, 
 and popular. If you married me, all 
 your relatives with one exception 
 would call you a fool. Not that I should 
 disgrace them or you. If I could call 
 back my youth my prettiness (and I 
 was pretty once) if I had a fortune, 
 it would all be thought reasonable 
 enough. But these things are not and 
 cannot be. For some years now I have 
 worked for my living. I am at present 
 Mrs. Harrowby's companion."
 
 254 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " You would give me a future," said 
 Sir Harry, who had well and often 
 weighed all these objections; "you are 
 the one woman who has been able to 
 make me contemplate marriage not only 
 as a possible, but a desirable, state. You 
 are my ideal wife. I had no ideal till I 
 met you." 
 
 He was still sincere. 
 
 " That other man," he added, with 
 some bitterness, "is lucky. Does he 
 know how lucky ? " 
 
 " You are quite mistaken," said Rose, 
 trembling.- " The . . . man . . . you re- 
 fer to is my brother's friend. Circum- 
 stances threw us much perhaps too 
 much into each other's society. His 
 life was, I think, sadder than my own. 
 For he was a man. Men were made to 
 reform existence, not to accept it. En- 
 durance on their part works like rust. 
 ... I was sorry for him." 
 
 " And can't you feel sorry for me ? "
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies* 255 
 
 cried Sir Harry, dropping the even tone 
 and frigid air he mistook for self-control ; 
 "can't you feel sorry for me? You are 
 my one chance. I know it. I love you." 
 
 He knelt at her feet. He put his arm 
 round her waist. 
 
 " I know it," he repeated. 
 
 Rose unlocked his hand and moved 
 away to the window. 
 
 " What can I say ? " she asked. 
 
 He stood up, and, turning his back to 
 her, watched her reflection in the mirror. 
 
 " Perhaps I spoke too eagerly," he 
 observed, after a long pause. " I intended 
 to be calm, but when I saw you looking 
 so distressed about that fellow I said 
 anything ! You don't understand me. 
 I am not made of stone. Let us talk 
 quietly." 
 
 " Not on this subject," said Rose. 
 
 " I don't wish to persuade you into any 
 step against your will. No happiness 
 ever comes by persuasion. Nor will I
 
 256 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 urge the fact that you ought to be mar- 
 ried and married to a man who can offer 
 you the means, the position you deserve. 
 Such considerations do not weigh with 
 you. My aunt tells me that when you 
 were a mere school-girl you refused 
 Charlie Aberthaw. He would have made 
 a better husband than Arden, and he 
 owns half of Mertford ! You were fool- 
 ish to reject him. Not that I wish to 
 remind you of old mistakes." 
 
 " You may," said Rose, serenely, " you 
 may. They give me courage." 
 
 " You are a strange woman. . . . Did 
 you wish me to believe that you find life 
 here with my aunt preferable to a life 
 of affection, tenderness . . . devotion . 
 . . independence ? It is inconceivable ! " 
 
 " If I married you," said Rose, " whose 
 heart would break? " 
 
 Involuntarily, his hand pressed a letter- 
 case in his breast-pocket, 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked.
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies* 257 
 
 " Would any heart be broken ? " she 
 explained. 
 
 " No one," he answered, " would have 
 any right to to say the least word." 
 
 "Not even Lady Lamister?" 
 
 " That's a preposterous rumor. ..." 
 
 " I have often seen Lady Lamister," 
 said Rose ; " her face . . . her pitiful face 
 has told me all I know." 
 
 " She is not a happy woman. I cannot 
 help her expression ! " 
 
 "You could ! " 
 
 " You are wrong to introduce her name. 
 I must call it pardon me unchivalrous. 
 Another woman ! This is not like you." 
 
 " I never believe in a reform which 
 looks, in the back, like desertion ! " said 
 Rose, ignoring his remark. 
 
 " Desertion," said Sir Harry, " is a 
 most uncalled-for word." 
 
 " If Lady Lamister were an evil wo- 
 man," continued Rose, " it would be 
 different. Your will is stronger than
 
 258 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 hers that is all. And, as you used your 
 will to her misfortune, now that your 
 point of view is altered use it for her 
 salvation. But to forsake her because 
 for a moment another woman is in 
 sight ! Is that being a changed man ? It 
 sounds very like the old one ! " 
 
 " You will certainly regret this . . . 
 this tone," replied Sir Harry. "There 
 are some things which ought never to be 
 said ! They jar horribly. They haunt 
 the mind. They kill affection." 
 
 " I speak as your best friend," said Rose. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I don't ask for your friendship," said 
 he. "Your friendship is too disinter- 
 ested ! I want love. If you loved me 
 you would not worry long about Lady 
 Lamister's broken heart ! " 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 " I shall go abroad." he said, abruptly. 
 
 "Why don't you marry Lady Lam- 
 ister?"
 
 Rose has to Restrain her Sympathies. 259 
 
 He seemed not to hear. 
 
 " Good-bye," said he ; " whether I agree 
 with you or whether I think you are 
 unreasonable I find myself your slave." 
 
 He had recovered his gallantry. 
 
 "I want you to do the right thing and 
 be happy," said Rose. 
 
 His eyes were more desperate for a last 
 look at her face than his ears to hear her 
 advice. Yet her advice as its echo 
 reached him seemed good. Hilda 
 Lamister with all her faults was very 
 sweet. She depended on him for her 
 moral principles. Perhaps this was as it 
 should be if one wanted peace of mind. 
 The reformation scheme had a seamy 
 side. Poor little Hilda! She made 
 scenes ; she had lately taken to rouge ; 
 she went uneasily from church to church 
 seeking " eloquent " preachers. Poor lit- 
 tle Hilda, indeed ! 
 
 " Pray for your own happiness, Rose," 
 he said, solemnly ; " not mine ! not mine ! " 
 
 And so he left her.
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 Some Ways of Bearing; Affliction. 
 
 ROSE carried Robsart's farewell letter 
 in her breast. She seldom re-read the 
 whole ; her memory had adorned itself 
 with a few love-trimmed phrases picked 
 out here and there from the dim, gram- 
 matical gloom. 
 
 " I have enlisted because I am not rich enough 
 to travel as a civilian, and every association here is 
 now so painful that my sole cure lies in flight. 
 For the present, I am ill in mind so ill that I 
 have neither the time nor the power to take my 
 choice of remedies. I accept and accept grate- 
 fully the first which offers itself. My soul is 
 drenched with bitterness. This, I know, from 
 your own example, is not right. I have never 
 heard you complain. So I must try to learn the 
 secret of endurance." .'" . ' ' .: '
 
 Some Ways of Bearing Affliction. 261 
 
 He did not ask her to write, and, 
 woman-like, she felt at once relieved and 
 hurt at this mark of consideration. A 
 correspondence between people who may 
 not, with mutual peace of mind, remain 
 together under the same roof is the very 
 sledge-hammer of woe. It shatters our 
 rock of refuge about our ears. It crushes 
 down every philosophic resolution. It is 
 an unearthing of the buried a tearing-up 
 of the heart's sleeping grain. What is the 
 secret of endurance but the willingness 
 to concede that certain things can never 
 be ? Rose had said this often. She knew 
 that Robsart had been thinking when he 
 wrote of her own words. But circum- 
 stances were changed now. The impossi- 
 ble had become merely difficult. She sat 
 musing, with her face buried in her hands 
 and tears trickling through her fingers. 
 
 " Our Father," she prayed, " if there 
 be any happiness laid up for me, let it be 
 given rather to Edward."
 
 262 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 She was roused by a tap on the shoul- 
 der. It was Mrs. Harrowby, grown very 
 old and very small. 
 
 " I am afraid," said she, " that I spoke 
 rather harshly to that poor boy." 
 
 Her voice quavered. She sat down ; 
 closed her eyes. 
 
 " Rose," she whispered, at last, "it's no 
 use . . ." and she fell so violently to 
 weeping that her face looked like a little 
 white grave-stone in a great storm of 
 rain. 
 
 " You understand ! " she said, when 
 she grew calmer. 
 
 Rose nodded her head. 
 
 " I have been thinking about your 
 father," murmured Mrs. Harrowby. " I 
 have never said bitter things about him, 
 have I ? His eyes were gray like peb- 
 bles, and his under-lip looked selfish. 
 The last time we met, he asked me to let 
 him know now and again what I was 
 doing ! And he knew he had broken my
 
 Some Ways of Bearing; Affliction. 263 
 
 heart knezv it, Rose. I was never coy 
 with Banish ; I loved him far too seri- 
 ously to play monkey-tricks. . . . But 
 that's all over. ... I have a little cottage 
 in Mertford," she added, after a pause, 
 "which isn't grand enough for Harry 
 Blythe, though it's pretty and conven- 
 ient, and, for a man with a thousand a 
 year, it would be perfect. I will give 
 it to Edward and make him a suitable 
 allowance. The boy is a genius. You 
 must go to Ottley and tell him so to- 
 morrow. He shall have his chance. 
 There is something in him. Some peo- 
 ple back horses : I prefer to back souls ! " 
 
 She chattered on at a feverish pace. 
 The boy stood on the threshold of a 
 great artistic career ; he craved encour- 
 agement. Every one would believe in 
 the successful ; every one was ready to 
 help those who stood in no need of assist- 
 ance, but beginners had a hard time. 
 
 " He has enough to live on, dear Mrs.
 
 264 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 Harrowby," said Rose, " and if you are 
 determined to be generous, it would be 
 kinder to give his opera a hearing than to 
 give him more money than he could 
 wisely spend." 
 
 " You forget the girl. I want him to 
 marry that girl. He loves her. She in- 
 spires him." 
 
 " She would cease to inspire him when 
 he realized that someone else was paying 
 their bills. He has a proud nature." 
 
 " He is a man of genius," said Mrs. 
 Harrowby, " he will, in time, make a 
 small fortune. He will not rest long on 
 my feeble oars. I merely lend them 
 while his own are being shaped. My 
 bankers shall place to his credit one thou- 
 sand a year, till he, himself, can earn as 
 much. That's a fair proposal, and no 
 reasonable person in his circumstances 
 would refuse it." 
 
 She had telegraphed for her lawyer ; 
 the man arrived while she was talking.
 
 Some Ways of Bearing Affliction. 265 
 
 Rose felt far from satisfied at her friend's 
 course, and when, on the morrow, she left 
 London for Ottley, her mind was beset 
 with many doubts. 
 
 How strangely familiar Ottley looked 
 on that day of returning ! Adam was at 
 the station with Arabella and the trap ; 
 the stationmaster and the porter and the 
 boy at the paper stand were smiling on 
 the platform ; yet it was all changed, all 
 different. Adam, ever a silent man, had 
 little to say as they drove to the farm. 
 
 " My brother Mr. Tatley has lost 
 his wife," he observed, but no more. 
 
 Adam's brother was always called Mr. 
 Tatley, because he had once been valet to 
 the Marquis of Garrow and he now betted. 
 His wife was the village dressmaker. 
 
 " Poor soul! poor patient soul! " said 
 Rose, "what will become of all of the 
 little ones? Let us call at the cottage 
 on the way home."
 
 266 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 They found the widower sitting in an 
 old smoking-jacket rocking his youngest 
 born to sleep and reading The Matrimo- 
 nial Herald. 
 
 " Pray do not rise," said Rose, " you 
 will disturb the child. I am very sorry to 
 hear " 
 
 "Oh, madam," said Mr. Tatley, "it 
 comes very hard. I have nine children. 
 And there's no one to look after them. 
 Susan has taken the five eldest for the 
 time being, but that can't go on for ever." 
 
 "That's true," said Adam. 
 
 " Ethel was used to hard work, and she 
 didn't feel it," continued Mr. Tatley; "it 
 was nothing to her to get up at five and 
 go on all day till ten or eleven. But I 
 have never done that sort of thing. So 
 a man is driven to be thoughtful," added 
 he "jin spite of himself." 
 
 "True," said Adam. 
 
 " But no Second," observed Mr. Tatley, 
 " could ever be the same as the First ! "
 
 Some Ways of Bearing; Affliction. 267 
 
 "And when was she buried?" asked 
 Rose. 
 
 "Last week, madam," said Mr. Tatley; 
 " and it was all done in good taste 
 There was nothing vulgar, and we drank 
 sherry afterwards." 
 
 Rose shook his hand and left one of 
 her few sovereigns on the mantelpiece. 
 Then she and Adam drove on to Wrestle's 
 Farm. 
 
 " Mr. Tatley," remarked Adam, " is 
 such a gentleman in his way of bearing 
 trouble, that you would think he was a 
 love-child ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVm 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 
 
 Edward was absent at the choir prac- 
 tice when Rose reached the farm, but 
 Susan stood in the doorway, her lips 
 heavy with undelivered news. 
 
 " Upon my heart and life," said she, " I 
 have been all of a tremble since I got 
 your telegram. I have shaken every car- 
 pet in the house such a to-do I never 
 made, not even when I was married. 
 You do look a poor mite, and no mistake ! 
 Have some milk, there's a lamb ! And 
 what goings-on since you were here ! 
 What with Mr. Edward and poor Maude- 
 Ethel Tatley's death ! But come up- 
 stairs to your room, darling, and see the 
 lovely water-can I bought you when I
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 269 
 
 went into Ottley Major for the funeral. 
 I see it hanging up in Bolton's window 
 the very thing. Let me untie your bon- 
 net 'twould suit you better, dearie, if 
 you curled your hair. But it don't look 
 well, say what you like, to see a lot of 
 curls on a recent widow ! Oh, my dear, 
 when I heard that ! Well, there ! it 
 didn't seem quite right to say, 'Thank 
 God,' so I went to church three times the 
 Sunday after and followed the Prayer- 
 book most particular. I sang the Psalms 
 so loud that Mrs. Triptree looked round 
 as if I was drowning the choir. ' To him 
 which slew great kings : for His mercy en- 
 dureth for ever.' You should ha' heard 
 me shout that. ' And Og, the king of 
 Bashan : for His mercy endureth for ever' 
 The Bible is a grand blessing when you 
 can't trust yourself to speak natural. 
 When I said ' Og,' I thought of Mr. Ar- 
 den and- " 
 "Tell -me, dear Susan," said -Rose, kiss-
 
 270 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 ingher apple-ish cheeks, "tell me all you 
 can about Edward. Is he well ? does he 
 eat his porridge ? " 
 
 " There's too much herb-mooning in 
 this neighborhood," replied Susan, with 
 a wise look ; " but from all I can hear it 
 is much the same everywhere ! Mr. 
 Edward has given up porridge, and he 
 lives on Normandy pippins, sardines, 
 anchovy paste, and olives in bottles. His 
 stomach seems to turn against sensible 
 food. It does sometimes when you fall 
 in love. At the time father was courting 
 mother, she couldn't touch nothing but 
 raw turnips. She used to tell that story 
 by the hour. Love is a cruel thing for 
 the indigestion. And I have heard that 
 Miss Chloe Crecy ain't much better off. 
 She's taking orange wine and iron four 
 times a day. She's got a heart poor 
 dear young lady in spite of herself. 
 She'll have Mr. Edward yet. They say 
 that the way she keeps the Honorable
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 27 1 
 
 Camelot so near and yet so far is a lesson 
 to menials. He dursn't ask her to marry 
 him, and yet he dursn't go away for fear 
 of Mr. Edward. Mrs. Crecy is on the 
 rampage, and Mr. Crecy goes on some- 
 thing dreadful in his dressing-room of a 
 morning and evening. He shouts through 
 the door to Mrs. Crecy while she's doing 
 her hair, and the second housemaid, who 
 sweeps the landing outside, told me that 
 he talks so blasphemiously that she has 
 scruples in listening! But, as she says, 
 the landing must be swept, and before 
 breakfast, too ! I don't feel a bit of 
 worry about Mr. Edward, my pet, not a 
 bit. He's such a lovely-looking feller 
 without his beard. How that did spoil 
 him, to be sure ! You mark my words 
 he'll cut out the Honorable Camelot I 
 see Miss Crecy heave her eye up to the 
 organ-loft more than once during the 
 Communion last Sunday, when every one 
 was praying with their heads down ! Oi
 
 272 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 course, it wasn't right to be looking at a 
 young man just then, but flesh-and-blood 
 will wander, even if you was to glue your 
 knees to a hassock ! No, lovie, the only 
 minit that I felt downright bad since you 
 left was when Mr. Robsart went away 
 with the Sergeant. I couldn't watch him 
 go. I stayed in the back pantry, and I 
 kep' saying to myself, ' Whatever will 
 become of poor darlin' Mrs. Arden?' 
 You see, dearie, I knew." 
 
 " What ? " said Rose, with a fine blush. 
 
 " I knew, dearie," said Susan, solemnly, 
 "that you loved him to your life! I 
 knew it all along but you don't mind 
 me, surely. It used to go to my heart 
 when you would sit at work a-trying to 
 act more Christian than is good for the 
 skin. And it was a crool test for any 
 man say what you like to see a sweet, 
 pretty young creature growing downright 
 plain, just out of duty, so to speak. You 
 are always nice-looking to me, darlin',
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 273 
 
 but I have often wished that you could 
 ha worn your lovely hair in ringlets and 
 shown off. As for Mr. Robsart, he 
 couldn't deceive Susan. I have caught 
 him more'n once picking up your 
 work after you had left it and giving 
 it a look in an adoring sort of way as he 
 knew would ha' been wrong to give to 
 you direct ! And once he kissed it and 
 a needle pricked him which narrer- 
 minded people would have called a judg- 
 ment, but I think it was a accident and 
 nothing more. I was never one for find- 
 ing judgments ! If a man was to kiss his 
 own wife's sewing-basket (to be sure, I 
 never see'd one do anything so affection- 
 ate), he'd be certain to get a darning- 
 needle in his chin. There's reason in all 
 things. But now, my poor lamb, you can 
 think of him all day and all night without 
 sin (and after all you've gone through 
 you deserve a little happiness), and you 
 can put flowers on his mother's grave and
 
 2 74 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 behave just as though you was engaged 
 to him ! Won't it be heavenly, dear ? 
 And he'll come back to England the very 
 moment he hears that you are free, and 
 sha'n't I cry at the wedding! " 
 
 The good creature had moist eyes at 
 this luxurious thought. 
 
 " And you can wear mauve or gray," 
 she continued, after a pause, " or a nice 
 flowered silk one of them that will stand 
 alone. They're a great support when 
 you feel your limbs giving way with pal- 
 pitations. And I've heard that one is 
 more nervous the second time o' getting 
 married than the first. Who could wonder 
 at it? But he'll make a kind husband 
 will Mr. Robsart although he's so quiet." 
 
 Rose kissed her again, and said " No ! 
 no!" in an affirmatory tone. 
 
 " He won't come back for years and 
 years," said she ; " and he doesn't even 
 know that things are different." 
 
 "Oh yes, he does," replied Susan, "for
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful* 275 
 
 I took and wrote to him myself. ' P. S., ' 
 I says in my letter, ' I suppose you have 
 heard our sad news. Mrs. Arden's hus- 
 band has been mercifully took away after 
 a heavy meal. Will send particulars in 
 my next.' I thought that would do for 
 a first hint." 
 
 "Oh, Susan!" said Rose, "how could 
 you ? " 
 
 " Because I knew you wouldn't," said 
 Susan, stolidly. 
 
 Their conversation was interrupted at 
 this point by a tap at the door. 
 
 " It's Georgiana," said Susan ; " you 
 wouldn't believe the trouble I have had 
 with that girl. She mopes about the 
 house and she ain't a bit the better for 
 the nice outing I gave her to Maude-Ethel 
 Tatley's funeral. But, oh, my dear ! 
 that's an affair! Mr. Tatley has taken 
 quite a fancy to her. Don't stand there 
 knocking, Georgiana," she said, raising 
 her voice, " but come in."
 
 276 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 " Mr. Tatley is in the kitchen," said 
 Georgiana, entering the room with a 
 blush and a curtsey to Rose. 
 
 " What does he want now ? " said Susan ; 
 but, as she spoke, her eyes fell upon a 
 pair of jet earrings of the afo?/-shape 
 which hung from Georgiana's scarlet 
 ears. 
 
 " Who gave you them expensive pres- 
 ents ? " she asked. 
 
 " Mr. Tatley," said Georgiana, simper- 
 ing. 
 
 " That's the way it goes on ! " exclaimed 
 Susan; "of course, jet is mourning, and 
 so far it's very delicate on Mr. Tatley 's 
 part. But it's early days, to my thinking, 
 to be giving you even mourning jewelry ! 
 I don't hold with it myself, and I shall 
 tell him so. They're a very handsome 
 pair of earrings, those, such as any lady 
 might wear. Maude-Ethel did speak 
 once or twice of leaving them to me. 
 She had 'em given to her while she
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 277 
 
 was in service at Squire Dearie's. I 
 shall speak my mind to Tatley pretty 
 straight." 
 
 "And now, Georgiana," said Rose, 
 when Susan had flounced out of the 
 room, " have you forgotten Arthur?" 
 
 " La, ma'am," said Georgiana, " do you 
 mean Arthur Venus with the curly hair? 
 He went and 'listed. He never asked 
 me to remember him. And he's gone 
 clean out of my head. Young men are 
 so unsteady, too." 
 
 She felt her earrings, and looked pen- 
 sive. 
 
 " Poor Arthur ! " said Rose. 
 
 " He wasn't kind to me," answered 
 Georgiana, getting white, " and no girl 
 with a bit o' pride could put up wi' such 
 treatment. And I demeaned myself be- 
 ing seen with him. They're a very com- 
 mon lot the Venuses. Father would 
 ha' cast me off for marrying any one so 
 low. It's a lucky thing my eyes was
 
 278 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 opened in time. Now Mr. Tatley, as any 
 one can see, is a man in a thousand. Mr. 
 Crecy offered to take him on as valet, 
 and so has Sir Robert Drame. Mr. Crecy 
 offers the best wages, so he thinks he 
 'ull go there. You don't see no com- 
 pany neither at Sir Robert's, and the 
 food 'ud poison a pauper. . . . Besides, 
 Mr. Tatley likes to be near his fam'ly 
 and his friends ! " 
 
 She looked self-conscious, and glanced 
 at herself in the mirror on Rose's dress- 
 ing-table. 
 
 " How did it all come about ? " asked 
 Rose, who was now resting, after her 
 long journey, on the sofa. 
 
 " It was like this," said Georgiana : 
 " Mrs. Tatley died, and the baby, too. 
 They was put in the same coffin. I did 
 croi to see them there. And it was all 
 through my croi-ing that Mr. Tatley 
 noticed me. ' You've got a feelin' heart, 
 Georgiana,' says he. He was standin' by
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 279 
 
 the coffin at the time, shaking his head 
 and now and again holdin' up his ribs. 
 ' I feel such a sinkin',' says he ; ' I've got 
 the very same symtims as his lordship 
 had when her ladyship died o' typhoid at 
 Men/one. Just for all the world the very 
 same symtims. I remember they gave 
 his lordship a dose of brandy.' And 
 would you believe it, ma'am, not one of 
 the others who was there had the sense 
 to see what poor Mr. Tatley wanted. 
 He didn't like to ask right out for it 
 he's not so vulgar. And I happened to 
 have the ten-shilling piece in my pocket 
 what you sent me for my birthday. I 
 was going to buy myself them amber 
 beads in Warton's window, but I slipped 
 round to 'The Plover and Quail' and 
 ordered in two bottles of the best 
 invalid brandy for Mr. Tatley. It's 
 something dreadful to see a man so 
 upset."
 
 280 The Herb-Moon, 
 
 " And then what happened ? " asked 
 Rose. 
 
 " He shook my hand, and he said I 
 was the sort as would make a home 
 happy. And I says, ' Not I ' ; and he 
 says, ' If the funeral wasn't on my mind, I 
 could stand here talking to you all day ' ; 
 and I says, 'Oh, Mr. Tatley! I'm sure 
 I'm nothing to look at ' ; and he says, 
 ' What's looks in the mother of a family? ' 
 And I says, half-laughin', ' I'm not the 
 mother of a family.' 'No,' says he, 'but 
 I know a family as you could be a mother 
 to.' And then his eldest who is just 
 turned eleven and is bandy came in and 
 we didn't say no more." 
 
 " Poor Arthur ! " said Rose. 
 
 Georgiana's under-lip began to twitch 
 and she smoothed her apron as though 
 that movement could calm the agitation 
 of her mind. 
 
 " I don't wish to think about him, 
 ma'am," she answered ; " it's quite bad
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful* 281 
 
 enough to wake up in the morning and to 
 feel a holler feeling in your side, as if 
 your heart had been hacked out. I used 
 to be very fond o' thinking, once, but 
 now, when I am alone, I says over hymns 
 to myself ' A few more years shall roll,' 
 and ' O Paradise ! O Paradise ! ' Then if 
 Susan finds me croi-ing, she knows it's the 
 sad words I'm croi-ing over and no young 
 man." 
 
 She turned away as she spoke, and 
 looked out of the window. 
 
 "There's Mr. Edward, ma'am," she 
 said, and, with averted face, left the 
 room. 
 
 Rose murmured a little prayer that all 
 might be well with her brother, and has- 
 tened down the stairs to meet him. His 
 countenance was radiant, and he embraced 
 her with all the boisterous affection of 
 his school days. 
 
 "Three cheers !" he cried, and fairly 
 lifted her off her feet. She was a small
 
 282 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 woman, and was not much heavier than a 
 girl of fourteen. 
 
 " Three cheers ! " he cried again. He 
 pulled her into the sitting-room, where 
 he threw himself far back on the hard 
 sofa, crossed his legs, and put his arms 
 behind his head. 
 
 " She has promised to wait," he said ; 
 " Chloe has promised to wait. She re- 
 fused that ass Camelot last night." 
 
 Each member of the small household 
 at Wrestle's Farm had a word to offer 
 on the subject of Miss Chloe Crecy's 
 sudden decision. Susan maintained that 
 " looks had won the day." Georgiana 
 sighed, and said " any girl could be true 
 if she had a comfortable home and no 
 living to get." Adam was disposed to 
 think that the heiress had been won over 
 by "gab" a power which he himself 
 had certainly found irresistible when 
 Susan used to court him at the hay-mak- 
 ing. Rose, who said nothing, took, se-
 
 In which a Few are Found Faithful. 283 
 
 cretly, the greater part of Edward's 
 happiness as a miraculous answer to her 
 own prayers and who shall say that she 
 was mistaken ? It was because she had 
 seen so many prayers fulfilled that she 
 feared to make frequent petitions. But 
 while she saw the accomplishment of 
 her entreaty, she did not forget its terms. 
 She had chosen Edward's welfare before 
 her own, and God seems never to reject 
 a self-sacrifice. He accepts what is of- 
 fered Him, and requires it often with 
 usury. Rose knew this as she smiled 
 on Edward's eager bliss. She delivered 
 Mrs. Harrowby's message, but even while 
 she told it, a telegram from London sum- 
 moned her to Cavendish Square. 
 
 " Perhaps she has changed her mind," 
 said Edward. 
 
 Rose shook her head and did not name 
 her fear. She remembered that last faint 
 look on Mrs. Harrowby's face. Though 
 she left Ottley by the mail the same
 
 284 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 night, she reached London next day too 
 late. The blinds of the house were all 
 down excluding the sunlight for Mrs. 
 Harrowby had not been called that 
 morning and still slept.
 
 CHAPTER XDC 
 
 The Last* 
 
 MRS. HARROWBY had altered her will 
 on the night before her death, and she 
 left three-fourths of her large fortune to 
 be divided equally between Rose Arden 
 and Edward Banish, the children of her 
 dearly-loved friend, the late Edward 
 Banish, Esq., Q.C. The remaining fourth 
 was bequeathed to Sir Harry Blythe. 
 This testament was, of course, contested 
 by several relatives, and great sums of 
 money were spent in proving that Rose 
 was neither an adventuress nor a witch. 
 The case might have dragged on for 
 many months and become a cause ce'lebre, 
 but for the frightful distraction which 
 suddenly presented itself to the public
 
 286 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 mind in the shape of the Indian Mutiny. 
 Robsart was indeed doomed to learn the 
 secret of endurance. Rose's suffering 
 during that terrible period may not be 
 told. She became housekeeper to Ed- 
 ward and Chloe, and spent her new 
 income mainly on her sister-in-law's 
 pleasures. The marriage was, in many 
 senses, fortunate, and as for Edward's 
 success is it not known ? Have we not 
 heard his light operas and his tragic 
 songs? Have we not said that but for 
 his prosperity he might have been our 
 English Mozart ? Rose, however, had 
 paid such a price for his happiness, that, 
 being a true woman, she became a Philis- 
 tine in her judgment of his art. So long 
 as he was well and contented, she thought 
 it absurd to worry about the weak or- 
 chestration of a Symphony in D. Her 
 pretty auburn hair turned gray, and when 
 she attended a dinner party given in 
 honor of Sir Harry Blythe and his bride
 
 The Last. 287 
 
 (the widow of Lord Lamister), her lady- 
 ship made a loud comment in the drawing- 
 room to the effect that " Mrs. Arden was 
 the woman who had set her cap at poor 
 Harry. As if she could have had the 
 least chance, etc., etc. And her tricks 
 were so transparent." 
 
 Even of such thickness are this world's 
 transparencies ! 
 
 Two anxious years passed by before 
 Robsart returned to England. He had 
 won wounds, experience, and the Victoria 
 Cross ; but he found poor Rose's fingers 
 too thin for the Indian rings he had 
 brought with him to place upon them. 
 When the sorely-tried soul wept her joy 
 on his breast, she sobbed a question about 
 Arthur Venus. (Georgiana had married 
 Mr. Tatley and become a shrew.) 
 
 "Arthur Venus," said Robsart, "has 
 a wooden leg and half his head shaved 
 off. And I suppose you wish, for his
 
 288 The Herb-Moon. 
 
 mother's sake, that / had the wooden leg 
 instead ! " 
 
 Most of us are aware that when Colo- 
 nel Robsart, V. C. , retired from the 
 army, he represented Ottley in the House 
 of Commons. And perhaps some of us 
 have met his wife, and wondered why he 
 did not choose a brilliant-looking woman 
 with a Presence. For if you have prayed 
 many years under the Herb-Moon, your 
 figure does not look stylish to the vulgar. 
 But Robsart, who, it is said, will be in 
 the next Cabinet, and is moreover a very 
 handsome man, seems to carry marital 
 devotion to the point of idolatry a mis- 
 take which those distinguished beauties, 
 Lady Shawcrosse and the Duchess of 
 Man, find inexcusable. 
 
 But you and I, my reader, may under- 
 stand him better.
 
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