STACK ANNEX EMIIY LOVE' T C 1 U lie Craze of Christina BY MRS. EMILY LOVETT CAMERON AUTHOR Or 'A DIFFICULT MATTER," "A FAIR FRAUD," "IN A GRASS COUNTRY,' ETC., ETC. NEW YORK STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 238 WILLIAM STREET Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1899 By STREET & SMITH In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. THE CRAZE OF CHRISTINA. CHAPTER I. "WHAT would you like done, sir?" Clifford looked helplessly about him. "I I am sure I haven't the faintest 'idea, Docker," he replied feebly, after a short pause that was brimful of misery. All over the great gaunt desolate drawing- room that had not been used for half a century, the dust lay in a thick impalpable mantle, like a veil of soft gray wool. Docker had thrown back the shutters from one of the five tall win- dows that stretched away down one side of the room into a dim vista of seemingly intermina- ble length; and the pale winter daylight crept weirdly in over the worn and faded satin hang- ings, and the broken spindle-legged furniture, and threw ghostlike reflections across the vast misty faces of a long row of mirrors in tar- nished gilt frames, that filled in the whole length of the opposite wall. Between the mirrors and the windows mid- 2072231 6 The Craze of Christina. way as it were betwixt heaven and earth hung two huge glass luster chandeliers whose cold icy fingers clanked faintly against one another at the unaccustomed reverberation of human footsteps over the long-untrodden parquet floor; whilst, to complete the picture of desolation, a couple of mice shot suddenly from beneath a ponderous settee amongst whose stuffings and springs they were engaged in ministering to the needs of a promising young family and scam- pering swiftly down the long room, with an eerie rustle of tiny claws upon the carpetless boards, disappeared again under the gloom of a sombre ebony cabinet in the far distance. Clifford shivered. Three months ago he had been only a poor devil of a struggling journalist, rising early and toiling late, grinding out endless wretched little articles for penny weekly papers far on into the night articles that were sometimes accepted and sometimes rejected, so that he had had ever a pleasing uncertainty in his mind as to where his next day's dinner was to come from, and whether or no he would in any case have pence enough left in his pocket to wash down his meager fare with a glass of beer. To-day he is master of Esselton Hall, with a rent roll of 8,000 a year; and he has youth The Craze of Christina. 7 and health and good looks on his side as well, and the world is at his feet! And yet at this moment he almost wishes himself back again in his shabby back attic in the mean little street leading out of the Totten- ham-court Road! This half-formulated and wholly insensate desire, was principal!}? on account of Docker. For to have unexpectedly inherited the hoarded- up wealth of a half-crazy old miser, who had never taken the faintest notice of him during his life, almost paled into insignificance beside the awful fact of having inherited his butler as well. Docker was not only terrible in his majestic solemnity, in the imperturbable gravity of his mien, in the cold contempt of his pale gray eye, in the immaculate whiteness and stiffness of his shirt-front and white tie he was not only awe- inspiring by reason of these details but he was in addition horrible to contemplate by reason of his immutability. There were certain very unpleasant condi- tions attached to the late Mr. Greville's will, and Docker was one of them. Docker was like the eternal and everlasting Sphinx he could never be removed. To the end of time Clifford believed that he would continue to fis those 8 The Craze of Christina. steel-gray eyes in withering contempt upon the young master whom he despised or whom, by the expression of those stony eyes, he appeared to despise and nothing apparently save death could rid his victim of their steadfast gaze. Clifford had an innate conviction that Docker would never be so obliging as to die. He must have lived for generations already there seemed no reasonable evidence why he should not continue to live for several generations longer. Docker stood by his new master's side with his venerable white hair, and his no less vener- able white linen choker; he offered no sugges- tions, he evidently experienced no sort of hu- man emotion, neither sympathy nor interest played upon his expressionless countenance; there was only that suspicion of contempt in his unfaltering eyes, and a certain relentless undercurrent of stolid determination. "I can't I really can't go on living by my- self in such a house!" burst with something like a groan from the poor young man's lips, as he watched the mice disappear in conjugal amity beneath the ebony sarcophagus far away. "I am afraid you have no choice, sir," replied Docker with perfect politeness, but with an ex- The Craze of Christina. 9 asperating finality, "unless indeed" he added significantly. "Why in the world did the old boy leave it to me at all if it was to be coupled with such hate- ful and detestable conditions!" cried Clifford, rounding almost wildly upon his butler, and in his mind he added: And you you , James Doc- ker, are of all these hateful conditions the most unutterably detestable ! "Why did he tie me up in this ridiculous and childish fashion? why leave me the place at all, unless I could do as I like about it? Why, I ask you?" "That is not for me to say, sir," and Docker spread out his fat white hands with a gesture of deferential negation that seemed to Clifford's heated fancy to have something of mockery about it. For after all, Docker must have known ! Docker could not have lived forty years man and boy in the late Mr. Greville's service without having some sort of idea why, after having quarrelled so desperately with his only sister that he had refused to go and see her when she was dying, he had ended by leav- ing all he had in the world to her orphaned son whom he had never set eyes upon. Docker too must surely have known why this munificent bequest, which might have been due to the tardy promptings of fraternal affection or to a io The Craze of Christina. sense of remorse for his past injustice and harshness, should have been discounted and robbed of half its generosity by the irritating and humiliating conditions by which the old miser had seen fit to encumber his heir. Briefly, the conditions were these: James Docker was to remain in Mark Clif- ford's service as long as he lived. Mark Clifford was not to marry until the third anniversary of his uncle's death should have elapsed. And lastly, and this seemed to the unfortu- nate young man to be the strangest and most un- reasonable condition of all, he was not until that same third anniversary was past, to leave Essel- ton Hall for longer than one week at a time upon any pretext or excuse whatever. In addition to these requirements he was compelled to restore and redecorate the whole of the interior of the house, the work to be commenced not later than three months after the death of the testator. In order that these conditions might be scrupulously carried out, the estate had been left in trust to three executors, who all three, or any one of them, were empowered to enforce certain penalties upon the legatee, should he fail to comply with the terms of the will. The Craze of Christina. 1 1 These penalties were of an exceedingly strin- gent character. If Clifford dismissed James Docker from his service, the sum of 20,000 was to be diverted from the estate and paid over to a second cousin of Mr. Greville's, a certain Charles Greville, or failing him, to his eldest living child. If Clifford absented himself from Esselton Hall for twenty -four hours longer than the pre- scribed week, then a sum of 50,000 was to be given to the same person; whilst if he com- mitted the dire offense of matrimony within the forbidden period, Esselton Hall and the whole of the property appertaining to it, to- gether with all the very large sums of money that had been for many years accumulating in the funds and other securities, were to pass completely away from him, also to the benefit of Charles Greville and his eldest child, whilst the unfortunate young man was to be instantly reduced to a small legacy of 5,000, and would therefore return to very nearly the same poverty from which his uncle's magnificent be- quest had so lately rescued him. In short, by the terms of this most inexplica- ble will, Mr. Greville's heir who was twenty- five was compelled to reside for three years in solitary bachelorhood in this vast and gloomy 12 The Craze of Christina. mansion, under the surveillance of a peculiarly disagreeable old butler, or else to forfeit his new-gotten wealth altogether. And it must be admitted that to be saddled with Docker seemed to him at first to be the most maddeningly insupportable condition of all. He supposed grimly and there is no reason to believe that his supposition was wrong that Docker had been left'as a watch-dog, sort of spy set upon his movements, so that he might give timely notice to the executors up in London if he attempted in any way to elude or defeat the conditions of the will. Ai the first, a faint hope had arisen in Clif- ford's mind that Docker himself might decline the position thrust upon him. What if the old man were to declare himself, of his own free will, desirous of resigning his onerous position and retiring into private life? Might it not be possible judiciously to pension him off? Clifford actually had had the audacity to sug- gest this to his new butler. "You have worked hard all your life, Docker; would you not like to rest a little in your old age?" he said insinuatingly; "there can surely be a cottage found for you on the estate, a nice, comfortable littla cottage, Docker, with a gar- The Craze of Christina. 13 den, you know, and a tidy maidservant to wait on you; I would see that you had every com- fort." "You are forgetting the terms of your uncle's will, sir," broke in the old man solemnly, with a look of stern disapproval. "Oh!" with a nervous laugh, "not at all, Docker, not at all ! but if you gave me warning it would not be the same as if I sent you away eh? and I might make it worth your while, and we might just settle it amicably between us, you know?" "Mr. Clifford, sir, I beg as you will never say such a thing as that to me again!" had replied the immaculate Docker indignantly. "Your late uncle, sir, have in his goodness left me a competence, on the express condition that I re- mains as butler in your service so long as I lives, the which on his death-bed I promised him to do. 'Tisn't likely as I'm going to be a party to cheat my master of his last wishes; why, 'twouldn't be honest, sir! Not all the gold of India nor all the cottages on this estate, Mr. Clifford, would tempt me into such disre- spect to his memory !" Clifford had subsided. He had made his effort for freedom and had failed ignominously. Dooker remained master of the situation. 14 The Craze of Christina. It was now three whole months since the funeral, and Clifford had settled himself down at Esselton, and he would have been very glad to have been allowed to go on quietly from day to day without any trouble. He had retired as usual to-day to smoke his pipe after breakfast in the only comfortable and habitable sitting- room in the house, his late uncle's study; but when on this particular morning he was pro- ceeding to carry out his modest and inoffensive programme of enjoyment, Docker had intruded on his solitude with a suggestion that it was his duty to be escorted over the whole house, as it was high time to consider the subject of the re- pairs and renovations that must now be imme- diately commenced, in accordance with the late Mr. Greville's directions. "The three months is now up," said Docker ominously. Clifford groaned inwardly, but having no decent excuse to offer he submitted to what was apparently inevitable, and Docker solemnly jingling a huge bunch of keys, led the way with impressive gravity through the long dis- mal passages and staircases into the different apartments of the house, into many of which he had never yet penetrated. Esselton Kail was a huge square white block, The Craze of Christina. 15 adorned at its entrance by a colonnade of white pillars forming a long, solid porch across the drive, which swept under its shelter up to the front door, after a fashion which has now gone out of date. Architecturally, there was no beauty whatever in the structure the walls were stuccoed, the roof was of gray slate, and presented no pleasing irregularities of outline, and the long straight windows ran in two un- broken lines round all four sides of the building. The house was about a hundred years old, and had been built at that remarkable period, when art, and good taste, and the love of har- monious beauty seem to have been conspicu- ously and inexplicably extinct in the minds of the architects of this country. The men who built those great bald white country houses of which not a few are scat- tered up and down the face of our England appear to have had no regard for anything save size and squareness, and when first these houses arose amidst the green fairness of their sur- rounding parks and gardens, they must have presented a most painfully hideous appear- ance. Nevertheless, Time who can be safely trusted to improve and ameliorate the very worst of human structures had laid a softening finger 1 6 The Craze of Christina. upon the once aggressive ugliness of Essleton Hall. In places the weather had toned down the stucco walls into shades of green and brown, whilst jasmine and clustering roses had flung a veil of tender greenery across the bare un- sightly surfaces; and in summer time great bunches of cream and crimson blossoms would come nodding in at the windows; and even the gray slates on the roof had become beautified by patches of green and orange lichens which served in a great measure to obliterate their crude unloveliness. Inside, the condition of things was far worse. For two generations no female influence had pervaded the house, and two-thirds of the rooms had been entirely shut up for years. Mr. Greville, who had lived and died a bachelor, had succeeded an uncle who had also never married. It was, therefore, a singular coinci- dence that now for the third time, Esselton Hall should descend, not from father to son, but from uncle to nephew. The late owner having been not only a bachelor but a miser as well, had allowed the house to fall into disrepair, and not a penny had been spent upon it during the whole time- nearly fifty years of his ownership. Seem- The Craze of Christina. 17 ingly, at the end of his life he had wished to atone for this long neglect, hence the clause in his will which had desired his heir to restore the interior of the house a task which possibly an inborn indolence as much as anything else had deterred him from carrying out during his own lifetime. The task of restoring and beautifying the house, which with all its faults was a comforta- ble and roomy one, and presented great capa- bilities to an artistic mind, would to a good many persons have been a congenial one. But Mark Clifford was not one of these persons. The whole subject of high art decoration was an unknown country to him. He had no views with regard to the dado versus the frieze, no ideas upon wall papers, no inspirations with re- spect to styles and periods. His only idea was to take somebody else's advice. Whose advice could he take? Not Docker's, surely! his whole inner man rebelled, his very gorge rose at the mere thought of appealing to Docker lor advice. Yet if not Docker, who then? Docker was here on the spot, ever present, ever ready ; permeating the very atmosphere as it were, with his bland and offensive sugges- tions and his no less offensive limitations and delineations of duty. Clifford was well aware 1 8 The Craze of Christina. that Docker asked nothing better than to be given carte blanche to undertake the whole business. He wondered if he should be driven to this in the end, out of sheer desperation? It would save him a world of trouble and bother, no doubt, but no! he thought that he could not, would not, bring himself to plant the hated Docker's foot so heavily as this upon his own neck! he would not fall so low yet, he would make a fight for his freedom first! even if he should have to come to it in time; and with the possibility he shuddered anew. We none of us know what we may have to come to in this world ! He walked across to the one tall dust-bp- grimed window which Docker had unshuttered, iind stood with his back to the room and to his detested butler, staring gloomily out upon the winter landscape with his hands thrust deep <]own into his trousers pockets. An Italian garden lay in front of him. The formal tile-edged flower-beds were mapped out into hideous symmetrical patterns, and were now nothing but bare squares and lozenges of earth, like new-made graves. Out of them sprouted at intervals about a dozen broken and blackened stone statues of heathen gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, amongst whom The Craze of Christina. 19 there was a paucity of legs and arms, and an almost entire destitution of noses. Beyond this cheerful parterre was a sunk fence, and then the park, dotted over with fine trees and with a boundary of low wood-clad hills. Three roads converging towards the house approached it from divergent directions, lying white and level upon the carpet of green turf which "they inter- sected ; and as Mr. Clifford stood looking help- lessly, and almost hopelessly, out over his new domain, three black specks detached them- selves almost simultaneously from the dark background of the woods at the far end of the three roads, and advanced swiftly and steadily along the ribbon-like lines towards the house. "If I might make so bold as to suggest, Mr. Clifford," said at this moment the voice of Docker behind him, "there's my cousin, Mr. George Jones, at Oldcastle, as would be most happy to undertake the paperin' and paintin' and such like of the house for you. A builder and contractor, to say nothing of being glazier, plumber and carpenter as well, is Jones, and as honest a man as you could find to do your work, sir; he'd wait on you with pleasure at any hour convenient. I'll send the groom into Oldcastle to request him to coine up and speak to you, sir, if " 2O 1 he Craze of Christina. "Hush," interrupted Mr. Clifford sharply, as he pointed a long tapering finger out towards the home park. "What are these advancing things?" Docker approached, looked out of the window and sniffed. A sniff of scorn, not unmingled with baffled rage. "Them? oh, them be wo ladies a-ridin' on bicycles, Mr. Clifford, and," he added in the depths of his disgusted heart, "they be a corn- in* and a pokin' their noses in here, where they're not a-wanted!" The Craze of Christina. 21 CHAPTER II. NORA BEUHEN was the first to arrive, as was only to be expected, seeing that she was excel- lently mounted on a brand-new high-grade Swift machine, highly geared and furnished with all the very latest improvements the very swiftest of all Swifts, in fact. As she shot out of the shelter of the woods she cast a quick glance to the right and left of her, and then she also sniffed, as Docker had sniffed, a sniff full of scorn and jealousy, and flavored with the very gall of bitterness. "Here they come!" she muttered. "Just what I expected! CATS!" and then she put the pace on, and simply flew down the gen- tle slope. "I'll get there first, any way!" she said to herself. "I wonder how they have the face to do it! That brazen-faced old harridan on her lumbering tricycle, anybody can tell what her motives must be, with those gawky girls of hers on her hands ! and that Miss Ashley, too! with an eye to business, of course! rapa- cious pig! Well, nobody can accuse me of in- 22 The Craze of Christina. terested motives, that's certain! I am on a mis- sion of pure philanthropy!" She alighted under the white stone pillared porch, and as she jumped lightly and gracefully from her cycle, she did so with the pleased con- sciousness that a pale-complexioned young man with dark eyes was observing her from behind the dusty panes of an adjacent window. "That's him," said Mrs. Bruhen to herself, with ungrammatic terseness, pretending not to look that way. She shook out the folds of her neat tailor-made dress, touched with light fin- gers first the fringe in front and then the shin- ing knob of pale brown hair at the back of her head, then pulled the bell -handle with a firm and decided jerk. She was conscious of look- ing quite her best in her cycling get-up, and she experienced a glow of inward satisfaction that her swift and graceful approach had been observe, by the master of the house. **Women who have tall, slight figures always make a good effect on a bike," she said to her- self, as she followed the footman across the wide stone-flagged floor of the hall. "Five min- utes to the good, I should say," she added, with a triumphant glance back towards the open hall door, whence her two rivals could be seen still struggling in the middle distance. The Craze of Christina. 23 She met her host with two outstretched hands neatly gloved in tan-colored doeskin. "Dear Mr. Clifford, I felt I must run over and see you, as we heard you were settled down now. I m not in the least bit conventional, you know; my name is Nora Bruhen ; I'll drop my husband's pasteboard in the hall as I go out, and then it will be all right. We want to be neighborly, Fred and I. We aren't stiff and stuck-up like some of the people down here, and I am so sorry for you, Mr. Clifford !" "I am sure you are very kind," murmured Clifford gratefully, though he had not the slightest idea what this tall blonde woman with the elegant figure and rather long nose was driving at, or why she was sorry for him. Was it on account of Docker, perchance? If so, he could certainly appreciate her sympathy. "Only this morning," went on his visitor rapidly, "Fred that's my old husband said to me, 'Don't stand on ceremony, Nora; it's high time we should look that poor young man up. Go over and see him, and tell him we are his friends, his true friends, and that we welcome him to Middleshire;' so I just hopped on the bike, you see, and here I am!" "You are very kind," again murmured Clif- ford somewhat confusedly, for he was quite 24 The Craze of Christina. unused to ladies' society and felt a little bewil- dered. "You see I was determined to be the first, the very first," continued Mrs. Bruhen; "there will be others" at this moment the hall door- bell rang loudly ; she frowned "several others, I make no doubt, but always remember that I was the first, and that nobody can impugn my motives, whatever may be said of other peo- ple's; and if there is any thing on earth I can do to help you in your lonely, solitary lifo, bear in mind always that there is nobody to whom you may more safely turn for assistance and sym- pathy er ahem" the words rapidly jumbled themselves up together and epded in a cough, as the footman threw open the door and an- nounced loudly: "Mrs. Hommaney." A stout lady in a very short black skirt, a felt hat with a draggled ostrich feather, pushed far back from her fringeless forehead, and a very red face, came puffing and panting into the room. She also stretched forth two hands, in very dirty gardening gloves, towards him and fell upon him with a torrent of breathless words : "You poor dear boy! left all by yourself in this dreadful place! I felt I must fly over to The Craze of Christina. 25 give you a greeting as soon as we heard that you were settled down. I knew your uncle well, and I've come, my dear Mr. Clifford, to be a mother to you, a mother, my dear boy, and I know what it is to have a mother's heart, I can tell you!" "Scarcely wonderful, with eight children, is it?" murmured Mrs. Bruhen softly. Mrs. Ommaney turned sharply round. "Oh you, Mrs. Bruhen! I thought I de- scried somebody scorching with all her might on the right-hand drive. I might have guessed it would be you." "You would have guessed rightly, dear Mrs. Ommaney," replied the lady, with a suspicious sweetness of manner, "but for all my scorching I seem to have come in cooler than you are. Do sit down ; how terribly hot that heavy old tri- cycle makes you why don't you buy some- thing lighter and swifter? It can't be good for the heart to work so hard !" Mrs. Ommaney glared, but disdained to reply. She took her enemy's advice, however, and sank down upon a chair still breathless from her recent exertions. Clifford was heard once more to murmur, "Very kind," and then as an after-thought, he added that he was motherless for the moment. 26 The Craze of Christina. "I will be a moth " began Mrs. Ommaney anew, but at that moment the door-bell rang for the third time, and the two ladies exchanged glances. A common danger drew them nearer to one another. "It's that Ashley creature!" murmured Mrs. Bruhen below her breath. "I knew she wouldn't be long in putting in an appearance here! it's a case of 'where the carcass is, there will be the vulture'! ' "Who is it?" inquired the host; "she doesn't look much like a vulture," he added. "Ah, you mustn't judge by appearances, dear Mr. Clifford! it's not the outside of the platter that matters, it's the heart." "And this lady's heart is like a vulture's? How curious!" "Hush-sh here she comes." And Miss Ashley was announced. She was a little woman, with sharp eyes and a beak-like nose. She cast a rapid glance to the right and left of her as she entered, as though to take in the strength of tho forces already arrayed against her, then she tripped forward with black suede outstretched hands towards Clif- ford. "I heard you had come down for good this time, Mr. Clifford, so I have come over at once The Craze of Christina. 27 to see if I can be of any use to you. Ah ! Mrs. Oramaney, you here? Why, you haven't brought Miss Maud! she, of course, might have done something for Mr. Clifford! and Mrs. Bruhen, too! who would have thought of seeing you here, of all people!" "My motives are entirely disinterested ones, Miss Ashley!" replied Mrs. Bruhen, darkly. "Won't you be seated, ladies?" murmured Clifford, who was vaguely aware that there was thunder in the air, although he could not imag- ine why these ladies had come here to quarrel with each other, nor indeed had he the faintest idea why they had come at all. Nevertheless, he said politely that he was glad to see them, and thanked them very much for their visit. And secretly he wondered what on earth they wanted. He was soon to be enlightened. Mrs. Ommaney took the initiative. "So we understand that you have got to do up this dear old house, Mr. Clifford. What a dreadful responsibilty for a poor solitary bachelor!" and up went the dirty garden-gloves in a gesture of sympathy. "On the contrary," cried Mrs. Bruhen, briskly, "it will be a most delightful and ab- sorbing occupation for Mr. Clifford," 28 The Craze of Christina. "That all depends on whether Mr. Clifford gets the right people to advise him about it," remarked Miss Ashley dryly, and then it seemed to Clifford's fevered imagination that in the moment of silence that followed, the three ladies glared at one another savagely. "Exactly so," said Mrs. Ommaney, with a fierce nod; "and that is why I am going to try and persuade Mr. Clifford to come back and lunch with me, BO that he may talk to my Maud about it." Hereupon Mrs. Bruhen and Miss Ashley ex- changer! glances of scornful amusement, and went away whispering together into one of the windows. Mrs. Ommaney was not slow in seizing her opportunity. "My Maud," she said in a low- ered voice to Clifford "that's my eldest girl has a positive genius for decorating houses. She will love to arrange and settle everything for you papers, dadoes, ceilings, carved over-man- tels and encaustic-tile fireplaces; you can leave it all safely to her she will manage everything for you!" "Indeed?" said Clifford, a little doubtfully; "that will be very kind of her." "Only, of course, you must talk it over with her, and go into it together. She would not The Craze of Christina. 29 dream of settling things without your authority. That's why I want you to come back and lunch. Will you?" Clifford thought of lunch alone lunch with Docker behind his chair to escape even for one hour from Docker was a gain. He accepted the invitation. No sooner had he done so than ho was accosted by Mrs. Bruhen. "Look here, Mr. Clifford, I'm going up to town to-morrow, and I want you to come up with me. I will take you round to all the best art decorators, and I will help you to choose all the papers and dadoes, you know I'll tell you what to get. I've moved house twice in the last two years, and I understand a lot about doing up houses, and everybody says my taste is excellent. We could go up by the ten o'clock train, and we could lunch somewhere you know perhaps you would give me lunch?" "Oh, certainly, with the greatest pleasure, anywhere you like," said Clifford, politely. "Thanks, we'll say the Savoy, then. That will be handy for the Strand shops." "Don't you be in such a hurry," broke in Miss Ashley, earnestly; "don't take anybody's advice till you have looked round for yourself, Mr. Clifford ! I ought to know better far than 3O The Craze of Christina. these two ladies for I am a painter, paperer, furnisher and decorator myself." Clifford gasped. "Yes, don't look so astonished. In these hard times, you know, we poor lonely women have to put our shoulders to the wheel and work, and so, as I was always very clever at that kind of thing, I determined when my dear parents died, to start professionally in that lino. I have a shop full of beautiful things at Old- castle." "Indeed? and do you make it pay?" "Oh, excellently well; you see I am a thor- ough woman of business." "You don't look it." "No? that's what people tell me. But be- cause one runs a business I don't see why one need look a fright, do you?" "I am sure you could never be a fright," said Clifford, politely. "How sweet of you to say that! then you will come and lunch with me and talk it over?" Clifford glanced towards Mrs. Ommaney. "Not to-day, I am afraid," he said, lowering his voice. "Ah! the universal mother has claimed you, I see!" she whispered back. "You will be in- troduced to 'my Maud.' Don't be taken in by The Craze of Christina. 31 her; she has the worst taste possible! Well, come to-morrow, then?" "I am very sorry, but to-morrow, you see, I am also unfortunately engaged." "To Mrs. Bruhen, of course! she won't stand you lunch, I expect! you'll have to treat her! That's her little playful dodge; she is as mean as you make 'em, is Nora Bruhen!" Clifford reddened. "Oh, I assure you I offered " "Yes, she's clever at getting offers. Now I invite you to lunch with me. I have a tiny ivy- covered cottage where I live with my assistant and my maid ; it adjoins my shop in Oldcastle High Street. It is only a little humble four- roomed cottage, but I will give you the very best of welcomes at it, arid the fare if simple "Audacious creature!" fiercely muttered Mrs. Ommaney, who had overheard the last words. "For an unmarried woman, Miss Ashley," ohe went on aloud, "you certainly sail very near the wind in giving invitations to tete-a- tete meals to bachelors ! In, my young days, before I married Mr. Ommaney " "Oh, that was so very long ago, dear Mrs. Ommaney !" replied Miss Ashley sweetly ; "and besides, Mr. Clifford need not come at all if he 32 The Craze of Christina. does not think it would be quite correct. Neither, of course, need he go up to town with Mrs. Bruhen; some people would not think that correct either! perhaps, dear Mrs. Brunen, if you were to ask Mr. Bruhen "Impertinent creature! how dare you speak like that to me. My motives are above sus- picion; yours, unfortunately "Ladies! ladies!" cried Clifford helplessly. "This is positively disgraceful!" interpolated tho heavy voice of Mrs. Ommaney. "What will Mr. Clifford think of you both." Then immediately the other two rounded upon her. "Oh! I am sure you needn't preach, Mrs. Ommaney, when everybody knows what your object is!" said Nora Bruhen. "And fancy talking about Maud's taste!" cried Miss Ashley; "why, everything she can possibly know she has picked up from me!" Clifford felt his brain giving way, and at that moment, as though to complete his despair, Docker opened the door. "I beg pardon, sir, but when you are disen- gaged- "Don't you see that I am not disengaged, my good man!" The Craze of Christina. 33 But Docker stood firm and immovable, he had no intention of going away. "Well, what is it? Who is it? What on earth do you want? Can't you speak? cried Clifford irritably. "Certainly, Mr. Clifford, I am waitin' on pur- pose for to speak. There is some one wishes to see you." "Who is it?" "That there Mr. George Jones as I told you about, has just called round." "Your cousin, you mean?" "He do happen to be my cousin," replied Docker with much dignity,