rm-'. i;^! 'jv'il&i?!-" a OUIDA'S NEW NOVEL. One volume, crown 8vo. At every Library. PIPISTRELLO, and other Stories. By OUIDA. CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W. WITH A SILKEN THREAD ETC. With a Silken Thread AND OTHER STORIES Bv E. LYNN LINTON AUTHOR OF 'I'ATRICIA KEMBALL," " THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS,^ "the WOXLD well LOST," "under which lord?" ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. 1Lonl3on CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1880 \The ri^ht of trajislation is resei ved} Printed hy William Clmves and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles. ^ INSCRIBED TO MY DEAR FRIENDS OF LANG SYNE, MR. AND MES. HENRY WILLS. W,^08 I DESIRE to tliank tlie Editors of All the Year Bound, London Society, The Illustrated London News, The Queen, The World, etc., for their courteous permission to publish in a collected form some of my stories which have from time to time appeared in their papers and magazines. In the story " Fur Love," which fir.-^t appi ared in The Queen newspaper, lies the original idea of my novel "The World Well Lost." E. LYNN LINTON. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. With a Silken Thread — CHAPTER PAGE I. Giving Rope ... ... ... ... ... 3 II. Her Ordeal ... ... ... ... 23 III. Shibboleth ... ... 44 IV. Out of Place ... ... ... ... 63 V. Like to Like ... ... ... ... 86 The Countess M^lusine ... ... ... ... 103 Mildred's Lovers ... ... ... ... ... 1.37 The Last Tenants of Hangman's House ... ... 157 Dear Davie ... ... ... ... ... ... 187 The Family at Fenhouse ... ... ... 209 The Best to Win — PART L The Start ... ... ... ... ... 233 IL TheEace ... ... ... ... 252 III. The Finish ... 271 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. VOL. I. WITH A SILKEN THREAD. CHAPTER I. GIVING ROPE. Doubtless the story of King Cophetua reads well. The picture of the Eoyal lover condescendiBg to the maid of low estate — lifting beggary to a seat on the Imperial throne and covering rags with the Eoyal purple — thrills the hearts of all those who prize love more than conventional laws and who hold that social dis- tinctions should he subordinated to human emotion. But the thing works awkwardly in real life. When King Cophetua's choice drops her h's and marries plural nouns to singular verbs her grammatical slips count as so many flaws in the crystal of her purity, and every uncouth phrase chips so much off the marble of her moral worth ; a malicious world looks askance, hiding its laughter in its sleeve, and prim old dowa- gers, whose main occupation in life is to preach down a daughter's heart that her hand may close on money. WITH A SILKEN THE E A J). point to the defective syntax of the lowly born as to the kind of thing which a romantic fancy idealizes, and to the peccant prodigal himself as one whose example is a warning to both sexes— showing em- phatically the way to be avoided, not followed. We have no symj)athy nowadays with virtue in the rongh. Of what good a woman's sincerity, devotion, unselfishness, when she eats with her knife, drinks with her month full, says " We was a-going to " and " Was you a-laying on the grass " ? Sincerity, devotion and unselfishness are not confined to her or her class, we sa}', pleading the cause of humanity at large when it suits us ; and many a lady might have been found who would have been as noble in her conduct as she and would have understood syntax and manners better. Bad grammar has not the fee-simple of all the virtues ; and education scores honours by itself. This was the philosophy which was to be brought home to Bernard Haynes, when his mother, apparently yielding to his passionate prayer, agreed to receive at Midwood, as one of themselves and his prosjiective wife, pretty Lois Lancaster, the daughter of a Wyth- burn guide living at the foot of the Helvellyn, and necessarily not well up in the accidence of refined living. Bernard had fallen madly in love with Lois this last summer down in the lake country, whither ho had gone to read for the Long — or to imagine that he GIVING ROPE. was reading ; fallen in love in all honour and youthful sincerity of purpose be it understood — designing to l^e a modern King Cophetua in a minor degree, and to make the peasant-born girl his wife when he had entered actively on the administration of his estate. It was his ideal of life just then ; for the mission to which he this year specially believed himself conse- crated was the fusion of classes and the establishment •of universal fraternity. Mrs. Haynes, clever in her generation, understood to perfection the art of giving rope. She knew the generic impracticability of youth and the headstrong nature of her son Bernard in particular, given as he was to temporary theories by which the world was to be regenerated and all the wrongs of society set to rights ; Init she trusted to early influences, to the sensitive perceptions of educa- tion, to the glaring discrepancies of caste, to the con- trast which would be presented to his lover by his sisters, and above all to the grace and beauty of Edith Grattan — the only daitghter of Lad}' Julia and Mr. Grattan, of High Heath ; and she believed that, Avith all these silken fibres laid among the strands, her rope would be found effectual, and that by concession she would conquer. Wherefore, after the due amount of reluctance and remonstrance, she took her resolution as one who yielded; invited Lois Lancaster to come and stay at Mid wood ; and kept her own counsel for the remainder. WITH A SILKEN THBEAD. " Yoii always were the best mother in the world ! "^ cried Bernard enthnsiastically, Avlien she had dropped her guard and lowered her foil. " I should be a brute if I did not love yon beyond aU things." " And show your love by your obedience ? " she asked with a smile partly weary, partlj^ satirical. To at respectable Philistine as she was, these excursions into the loft}^ regions of ideal ethics were fatiguing and con- temptible ; and Bernard's frequent " crazes," now for communism, now for patriarchal simplicity — at one time for benevolent despotism and the return of the Can-ing man, and now again as at this moment for the general uplifting of beggars' daughters by modern King Cophetuas — seemed to her almost as melancholj- a state of things as if he had been a declared lunatic in Hanwell, pronounced unfit to manage his own concerns at Midwood. " In all but this one thing — only this one ! And when you have seen Lois 3'ou v^iYl understand and forgive," he pleaded. " I understand and forgive noAv," she answered. " That does not however, include sanction; even though I have put my own feelings aside to meet your wishes." " I am content to wait till you have seen her," he repeated. She passed her hand caressingly over his smootli, young, earnest face. GIVING EOPE. " All ! my boy ! " she sighed ; " if your poor father had lived yoa "would have been in better hands than mine. He would have been a successful guide where I have failed. I have always been too indulgent, and have trusted too miich to love and too little to authority. I see my mistake now when it is too late." " Don't say that, mother ! " cried Bernard, really pained. " You know how much I love you — ^how deepl}' I respect you ! Don't cast a doubt on my love and devotion for you ! " " No, dear, not so long as you have your own way and ave not thwarted. But see, in the first serious conflict between us, who has to yield ! Ah, Bernard ! words are easier than deeds." " No, no, mother, only in this one thing. And am I not in this what every man is? " " Man ! " she half whispered, smiling. " My boy Bernard, scarcely twenty-one, a man ! " " And then, you have not seen Lois yet," he said again, ignoring her anaternal disclaimer and going back to the central point of his position, the very core and meaning of his love — the girl's beauty — which was indeed supreme. " Well, my boy, we will say no more now. I have consented to her coming here, at your request; but you can hardly expect me to think that the daughter 8 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. of a mountain guide is the right kind of person for your future wife — you, our Bernard, to whom we had looked, your sisters and I, as the head of the house who would take his dear father's place and keep the family name where it stood in his lifetime ! It is a hitter disappointment and humiliation, as you must see for yourself; and you cannot expect us to do more than tolerate it. The influence too, that it will cer- tainly have on your sisters' marriages " " No, not to men worthy of the name of men — men, not barbers' blocks — men, not coxcombs ! " interrupted Bernard, full of the righteous thoroughness of icono- clastic youth. Mrs. Haynes smiled again. " Men of our position are gentlemen, my dear boy," she said quietly ; " and gentlemen have what you would perhaps call the prejudices, but I the obligations, the refinements, of their order. Such a man as Sir James Aitken, for instance, or young Charley Grattan, would not like his wife's sister-in-law to be a peasant- girl out of Wythburn." " She is equal to either Maud or Cora ! " cried Ber- nard hastily. Mrs. Haynes laid her hand on his arm. " Hush ! " she said authoritatively ; " your sisters are sacred ! " " So is Lois, mother," he cried in hot defence. GIVING ROPE. 9 She lifted lier head proudly and looked at him straight between the eyes. " But your sisters are ladies," she said with emphasis. " Now let the discussion drop. I have given way, as you desired, and the thing is at an end for the pi-esent." Seeing nothing of his mother's secret thoughts and unconscious of the rope which was heing paid out so liberall}^ Bernard's only feeling at her acquiescence to receive Lois Lancaster as her guest, on an equality with herself and his sisters, Avas naturally one of the very excess of loving giatitude. His mother, he said, was one in a thousand ; she only needed to be tried to prove her surpassing excellence. What a heart she had ! That a proud woman, as she confessedly was, should have so far sanctioned such a choice as this which he had made, showed how deep was her real human worth and how innocently shallow her conven- tionalism when brought face to face with the higher and holier things of life. He declaimed for a good half- hour to his favourite sister, Cora, on the sweetness of his mother and the delightfulness of Lois; on the moial harmony and spiritual worth of the arrangement alto- gether ; and how he expected everj-thing from it — how his sisters, and especially his dear little Cora, would give his Lois that " tone " which she had not perhaps in such perfection as might be, and which, when acquired, would jmt the finishing touch to her loveli- 10 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. ness; while they wotilcl get good from her simpler nature and unspoilt manners, her directness and abso- lute innocence. To all of which Cora assented openly, with secret reservations unexpressed ; wondering what Bernard could possibly mean l)y saying that Maud and she would " get good " by their association with a peasant- girl ; but — sighing — supposing it was because he was- in love I Being in love made every one so stupid I There were Maud and Sir James Aitken, they were stupid enough, and she was sure they were in love with each other; though Sir James had not said so yet and Maud only showed her state of mind to eyes as quick to- read the hidden thinirs of a heart as a sister's. And now Bernard was talking nonsense about a guide's daughter from the foot of Helvellyn doing them good — them! — Maud and herself — ladies, with a landed proprietor for their dead father and a living bishop for their uncle ! But as she had the pliant hypocrisy which belongs to a peaceful and loving nature, she said nothing. She merely smiled very sweetly and looked as if she agreed : and Bernard kissed her with a curious air of patronage, and thought what a dear little thing she was, and how well Lois and she would get on, and what a lucky fellow he was altogether. If Bernard was charmed with his mother's acqui- GIVING BOPE. 11 escence, the girls were dismayed— Cora quite as nnich. so as Maud, though she hid it better. Maud indeed openly and passionately resented the arrangement. She thought she should never be able to meet Sir- James Aitken's grave eyes, which could be so scornful on occasions, when he should be introduced to Lois Lancaster as Bernard's future wife and her own sister- in-law. She was almost as keen as mamma herself in her estimate of social harmonies, and felt that the oflFer,. for which she had waited so long and patiently, would be farther off now than ever — in fact, so far off as never to be made — when once the degradation of the family was published abi'oad. She wondered at her mother for sanctioning this mad infatuation of Bernard's ; but he had always been her favourite, she said to Cora, with angry tears in her dark blue eyes ; and they, Cora and she, had been sacrificed to him from the first. It was very wrong of mamma — very. Of course, neither Sir James Aitken nor Edith Grattan — and if not Edith, then not Charley— would come to the house now. How could they, with such a person as Lois Lancaster to meet them ? And when she said this, angry tears came into Cora's- softer ej^es to match her sister's, as she sighed by way of echo : " I wonder at mamma, too ! It is very wrong of her to forget us, as she does, for Bernard ! " When however, they carried their griefs to their- 12 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. mother, hoping that remonstrance would make her change her mind before she was committed to action, she put them aside — not harshly, but with the iron hand which they knew of old to lie hidden beneath her velvet glove. " Do not talk nonsense, my dears ! " she said calmly. '• I know what I am about." " It is degrading to little Cora and me ! " flashed Maud, taking the attitude of her sister's protector — as indeed she was, being the eldest of the ftxmily and six years older than Cora, who was only seventeen. " What I can endure, you can also," returned Mrs. Haynes. " And I do not think I have ever shown myself indifferent to your best interests." " Not unless Bernard came in between," said Maud, who quaked so soon as she had spoken ; for Mrs. Haynes 'was not meek towards rebellion. Her mother looked at her sternly. She was a woman with a rather set face of the classic type, with a fixed mouth, and a pair of fine dark eyes that did a great deal of work for her. " I have never sacrificed you to yoxw brother," she -said slowly. " You are unjust, Maud, and ungrateful to say so." " You are sacrificing us now," sobbed Maud. " Go I — you are a silly girl ; you understand nothing," returned her mother, with a fine dash of contempt in her GIVING HOPE. 13 voice and manner. "Leave me to manage my own affairs, and when I want jour advice, I will ask yon for it. Till then oblige me by not giving it." " It is too bad," fired Mand as her parting shot, sub- siding into furtive tears and her modern point ; Cora, her eyes swimming too, seating herself close to her disgraced sister, but looking with pleading love at mamma, thus keeping on terms with both, as her manner was. She was called the " peacemaker " in the family, and some- times " the dove ; " and her raison cVetre was to be a kind of elastic cushion, softening the shocks all round by never taking part with any one and always making the best of everything. Presently the hall bell rang and two young men entered the room. The one was Sir James Aitken, the owner of Aitken Park and the desired of all the un- married girls for miles round; the other Charley Grattan, who, when his father should be gathered to his fathers, would be the possessor of High Heath, one of the best properties in the neighbourhood. It was on these two young men that Mrs. Haynes had fixed her eyes as husbands for her daughters ; including, with Charley, his beautiful sister Edith as the wife manifestly designed by fate and fitness for Bernard. Character, position, age, circumstances, everything harmonized in this triple arrangement ; and she felt sure that she had only to play her cards skilfully to 14 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. make the three tricks she had counted on in lier hand. This absurd affair of Bernard's had therefore been a subject of much anxiety to her. She had pondered on it night and day ever since he had broken the ice and confided it to her, as a dutiful son should ; looked at it all round and in every light ; foreseen all its dangers ; mapped out the obstacles ; weighed all the chances ; and had at last, as we have seen, come to the conclusion that giving rope was the Ijest way of strangling the incubus, and that Bernard miist prove for himself how fatal was the mistake he wished to make, no one at- tempting to counsel or coerce. It was a bold game, taking into consideration all the collateral circum- stances at stake — Sir James and Charley Grattan, and the indignation which Edith might naturally be supposed to feel at having had a girl of Lois Lan- caster's degree as her antecedent rival. But Mrs. Haynes was clever, as has been said. She knew that large games incUide great hazards, and that when one is in deadly peril the way of escape cannot possibly be easy. Hence she decided on her course, and now had •only to watch, and guide as well as she could if things threatened to go wrong and needed a skilful touch to put them right. They were two handsome 3'oung men who came in now to make one of their frequent calls on the Midwood ladies. Sir James was the older, graver, darker of the GIVING ROPE. 15 "two. He had had a long minority and a not too happy boyhood, for his father and mother had died while he was still an infant, and he had not been over-well "treated by his guardians. They had cared for his money and what they could make out of him, not for his best advantage and what they could do for him. Hence, he had developed a certain sadness, which was natural, and, what was alto quite as natural, a certain suspicion of motives wljich seemed to have robbed his youth of half its charm because of all its spontaneity. He was in love with Maud Haynes, yet he doubted her. He was diffident of himself; he had a title and an estate ; and he was steeped to the lips in distrust of women. It was then onlj' too easy to him to be wary and cautious, timid and unconvinced, feeling as he did that no girl could love him for himself while his ad- vantages hung like millstones round his neck. Thus it was that, although he loved Maud Haynos, he had not yet declared himself, uncertain as he was if it were him- self or his name and possessions which would be the bait to which she would rise — if she rose at all. For Maud was both proud and shy, and concealed her feel- ings with the skill of a veteran ; so that she gave him no kind of intimation as to what she thought or Avhat she desired. And her physique aided her in her reti- cence. She had great eyes habitually cast down and veiled by long lashes, and that pale cream-coloured 16 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. skin wliicli emotion only renders paler. Hence, she never blushed ; and Sir James was imdirected by stock finger-posts. So the aifair between them had dragged on for some months now, the one yearning, the other hesitating, but the final plunge not made and never seeming nearer. Meanwhile Mrs. Haynes looked on, and considered within herself — should she bring matters to an issue suddenly or leave them to the gradual development of time ? — which was very slow and wearisome. She saw that Sir James was blind and Maud perforce was dumb ; but as there was no rival, near or far off, she decided on leaving the young people to themselves ; and now she thought it best that nothing had yet been said, with tliis ridiculous affair of Bernard's in the wind. Sensitive and suspicious as he was, Sir James might have been estranged for ever had he thought that his name and fortune had been taken to bolster up the name and fortunes of a partially disgraced family. No, it was best that nothing had been said — that nothing- should bo said — until this cva/e of Bernard's had got itself settled. As for Charles Clrattan, that could wait almost in- definitely. He was but two and twenty, Cora only seventeen ; and they were destined. No one who saw them together could fail to see the sequel. The fair, laughing, light-hearted youth was the exact match for GIVING BOPE. 17 the fair, genial, affectionate girl. They were not en- gaged any more than Maud and Sir James were engaged ; for Charley had promised his mother to wait until Cora had had a season in London. She was so pretty that Lady Julia, a woman also wise in her generation, wanted to test the quality of her mind and heart and to see for herself whether the girl counted constancy among her virtues. But they were safe, thought Mrs. Haynes. If only Maud and Bernard were as safe she would sound her maternal Nunc Diinittis with a light heart on the chord of matrimony ! Presently Bernard came into the room. lie was in radiant spirits and looked more than ever the young- poet, blessed and ecstatic, which was always more or less his expression. His long, brown Mvayy hair was flung back from his smooth face and pure white fore- head ; his large, grey limpid eyes were dark and tender with joy and love ; he seemed as if he had seen an angel by the way — as if, like the Lady who tended the garden, his " dreams were less slumlier tlian Paradise," and the things of his soul were more realities than the things of his daily life. Mis. Haynes looked at him with an expression made up of pride and sorrow. If he could be got safely over these next few years, she thought — appraising poor Bernard's idealisms as if they were measles or smallpox — he might wear right in time ; but these next few years were the tests. And VOL. I. c 18 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. that dreadful girl in the background ! If it had been Edith, now^ — calm, sensible Edith — how glad the mother's heart would have been ! " What a time it is since we have seen you ! " said Charley, on Avhom a three-days' absence, if it had not in any way saddened him while it lasted, seemed in- terminable now when he thought of it. *' Yes ; what have you been doing ? " was the sym- pathetic answer of handsome Mrs. Ilaynes. " I don't know exactly. Edith was bitten with a mania for fishing, and I have been up the river with her every day." " Oh ! " said Cora in a tone of disappointment. She liked fishing and wondered why they had not asked her to join them, seeing that Edith and she were such friends. "Why did you not come too, Miss Cora?" asked Charley. She looked at him with a certain reproach in her sweet face, but quite frankly and innocently. " Because you did not ask me," she answered. " How could I go when I knew nothing about it ? " Whereat Charley laughed and she laughed too. She always laughed when ho did, being one of those natures which simply echo and reflect the moods of others and are nothing of themselves ; hence are bright or dull, according to their company. With Charley Grattan GIVING ROPE. 19 she was bright, but Sir James Aitken made her dull ; while Bernard thought her as idealistic and unpractical iis himself. "It is long too since I have seen you," said Sir •James, seating himself by Mrs. Haynes. "Yes; so it is. And what have you been doing? Pishing, like 3'oung Mr. Grattan ? " she answered. *' No ; I do not know what I have been doing," he ;said. " Dreaming a little and growling a good deal." As he said this he looked across the room to Maud. " Ah ! that is a bad habit," said 3Irs. Haynes in her maternal, tranquil way. "Nothing deserves the ex- penditure of strength needed for growling. ' Break or bear' — that is x\iy motto ; and I find it a good guide." " Sometimes one growls at what one can neither break nor bear," he returned. " There may be such a state as uncertainty." " That can easily bo ended," said Mrs. Ilaynes. " I dislike uncertainty too much to suiier it for long, and would soon know my fate if I had any doubt of it." " True ; but it is difficult," he answered. " Life is a succession of difficulties," was her reply, with a glance at Bernard; " biit they have to be con- quered at all costs." " Ah ! you are so biave, Mr.<. Haynes ! You have such clear views and are so firm ! " he said with a certain dash of envy running through his admiration. 20 WITH A SILKEN THEEAD. " It is just because I have clear views tliat I am firm," sliG answered witli a smile. " It is a necessity of my nature to see my way plain before me, and to walk straight to my point." Perhaps this was a euphemism. All persons woiild not have called the life-Avalk of the handsome widow straight ; and especially would not Bernard, her dear boy and hojDe, could he have read between the lines at this moment and seen the real meaning of her gracious bearing. "Is this the same?" asked Sir James abruptly, getting up and going over to the ottoman where Maud was sitting, putting dainty stitches at intervals into a breadth of modern point. " Yes," said Maud quietly, her manner still, com- posed, indifferent, betraying nothing of her heart or feeling. " You don't tire of it ? " he asked with a slicrlit accent of surprise. " Oh no ! " she said ; " I like it." " How wonderful to like the same thing for so long I Why, how long have you been about this? I kno^v it by this," he said, pointing to a wrong stitch made at some distance, and which ho himself had put in oiio day as a kind of test whether she cared more for him than for the sjnumetry of her work, and so would either let it remain or take it out. GIVING EOFE. 21 " I began it iu the spring," she answered. "And not tired yet? " he repeated. "Certainly not. I am not so silly as to want a -new interest every day," was her reply, made quietly as to manner, but secretly with both excitement and meaning. He looked at her keenly, but he saw nothing in her calm face and well-bred impassivity of manner. If she were angling for him, he thought, she was angling in the daintiest way in which woman ever held the line for a human life : so daintily that she almost ■deserved her reward. And yet, if it were not angling but truth? As he thought this his sad face almost beamed and his grave eyes lightened suddenly — if she did really love him for himself? " I am glad you are constant and not easily tired of an interest," he said in a low voice ; and Maud, not to show how suddenly she trembled, laid her work in her lap and answered, as of course : " I thought every one knew I was not fickle." " Such a nuisance, this folly of Bernard's," thought j\Irs. Haynes, watching them covertly. " Just as things .are getting on so well ! So inconsiderate of him ! so wrong ! My poor girls to be perhaps sacrificed to the crazy whim of a wilful, foolish boy ! " Which unspoken reflection was a curious commentary on Maud's fiery accusation that she and Cora had been 22 WITH A SILKEN TUBEAD. always sacrificed to Bernard, and that mamma cared notliing for them in comparison with him. It was- only another of the many instances abonnding which prove that the truth is the one nndiscoverable element of human life, and that what things are and what they seem to he can never be made to agree. ( 23 ) CHAPTER II. HER ORDEAL. Meanwhile the cause of all this domestic difficulty at Midwood, distracted between love and fear, excitement and apprehension, pleased vanity and humiliating self- distrust, was preparing for her ordeal. A visit to the lady-mother of the fine gentleman who had offered to make her his wife and raise her to a place almost as far bej'ond her own, in the modern estimate of things, as was that mythical King Cophetua's beyond his beggar-girl's, was a trial which naturally appalled the daughter of the "Wythburn guide. Not that Lois Lancaster was a peasant-girl of the conventional type. Her father, who knew what he was about, had determined that she should be " made a lady of; " and a lady accordingly she was — that is, she had never milked a cow in her life, could not churn nor make a cheese nor cut out a shirt nor knit nor cook like a Christian ; but she could tat and crochet and embroider with creditable dexterity, if her plain-work Avas no more commendable than her baking. She was a country girl of the modern school — rather 24 WITJr A SILKEN THREAD. delicate in liealtb, "vvitli a tendency to hysterics and no digestion to spealv of; avIio conld play a little on the piano and sing prettily in the choir; who dressed by the fashion-papers ; took in her weekly instalment of penny literature ; wore an elaborate chignon and a great many beads (chiefly of wood and glass) and would as soon have thought of swearing as of talking "broad Cumberland." She called the vernacular of the dales-folk '• rough talk " — rough pronounced with a slight leaning towards "roof" — and her grammar was really not very much more imperfect than the grammar of most girls, though some of her phrases and epithets were local. She had caught up current slang too, and had been heard to say " awfully jolly " all the same as if she had been the real lady she assumed to be. In a word, she was the half-bred of the summer show- place ; neither gentlewoman nor peasant ; having lost the racy colour and untrained simplicity of the latter without gaining the grace and refinement of the former. But she was a good girl in both mind and conduct ; and if not thorough in polish, was at the least sub- stantial in propriety. And she was beautiful — Avonder- fully beautiful ; slightly impassive perhaps, and too much like a wooden Madonna ; but every feature was perfect and her colour was as lovel}^ as her form. Her pure, transparent skin, through which the blue veins could be seen so clearly traced, was at all times HER ORDEAL. 25 as delicate as the lining of a sea-sliell ; Lut when the colour mounted, as it did under slight emotion, few things in nature could bo compared to it for exquisite tenderness of tint. And, as she knew the value of her complexion, she took care of it and did not suffer herself to get freckled, sunburnt or coarsened. Her hair was as fine as silk and of the colour of dark amber ; her eyes were large, light blue, and heavily fringed with dark lashes ; and her eyebrows, of that long and lovely arch which is so beautiful but not in- tellectual, were the same colour as her lashes. She was tall and slight; — altogether, a supremely lovely person, who, had she been born in the purple, would have attained an almost fabulous reputation, like Helen, Cleopatra, or poor Scottish Mary. As it was, her father, who had eyes and a decided faculty for arithmetic, determined that her beauty should be made to pay somehow, as a valuable investment placed to his credit by nature. This father of hers, old Timothy Lancaster, was one of those clever, anchorless men of whom every village possesses at the least one. " He could do anything he had a mind to," was the phrase usually applied to him by his fx'iends and neighbours ; but the worst of it was he had a mind for so little. He disliked hard work almost as much as he disliked routine ; and found loaf- ing about the glens and mountains the plea santest thing 26 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. he knew when he was not king of his company at the beershops. He was a self-taught geologist, botanist and naturalist ; Imt the profession whereby he made his bread was that of mountain guide. He was ambitious, and liked the society of the gentry with whom he was brought in contact during the summer ; and as he was " slape " and sharp, he made a A^ery pretty penny in consequence. Part of these pennies he had })ut into a good substantial stone cottage, which he had Imilt at Wythburn and had had the wit to make picturesque : hence valuable as lodgiugs to the tourists who cared to stay at the foot of Helvellyn and whom he piloted up and down during the season. But he liked housing the " young gentlemen from college " best ; for he had secret hopes of Lois and the soft moments that overtake men in the twilight among the mountains. In spite of his natural artistry and good-fellowship, he was a shrewd man of business who knew how to make all things pay — a fern or a flower or a bit of lead-ore from a mine ; so why should he not hold his daughter's youth and beauty as possessions to be disposed of advanta- geously like the rest? To do him justice he kept her strict, and had no squanderings in the market-place; and, to do her justice, his task of overlooking was not heavy, for she was no gad-about nor flirt. She understood, young as she was, that her name had to be kept as carefully as her complexion ; hence she was HER ORDEAL. 27 more chary of herself than her neighbours liked. They called her proud and stuck-up ; but she let them talk. When she had won then she would have the right to laugh. Meanwhile their ill-nature did her no harm. It broke up no schemes, but if anything worked to her good in that it proved her caution. She sometimes re- gretted a little that bad things were said of her to John Musgrave, the young farmer who lived on the fell over there by Dunmail Eaise ; but she could not help it. If John thought ill of her, she used to say to herself, be- cause she kept herself to herself, and was not a fly-by- night like the rest of the girls, it was a pity ; but sho could not help his foolishness and he must think as he had a mind. If he chose he could find out for himself that she was neither proud nor stuck-up ; onl}', being without a mother and with a house mostly fiill of young gentlemen in the summer, she was tied to be careful, else she would give folks leave to talk in a worse way than they did now. All of which showed a certain wisdom as well as rectitude in Lois that was not with- out value in the formation of her character. This year it seemed as if old Tim Lancaster's wishes Avere near fulfilment. Bernard Haynes had taken lodg- ings in his house ; had spent a great deal of money in specimens for which he had neither use nor liking ; had seen Lois ; and, being in one of his idyllic moods, had dreamt of the possibility of transplanting so SAveet a •28 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. cottage-flower into the trim parterres and costly " houses " of Midwood. He was a youth of moods. He had hegun his thinking life as an ascetic worshipper of Sir Galahad and the Arthurian legends; then he de- veloped into benevolent despotism, the King the best man — the Can-ing man, as he used to say — ruling his subjects with strength and wisdom combined ; and from this he had branched off into his present craze — a belief in the universal brotherhood of the future, to be brought about mainly by Lois Lancaster as the mistress of Mid wood. Fascinated by her beauty, he believed her more really refined than she Avas. Down in that remote district, without the companionship of ladies of his own class, her manners, which truly were excellent for one of her degree, seemed to him better than they were, or than they would have seemed had he been able to compare her, say, with his sisters or Edith Grattan. Even when he caught this little failing, that small lapse, he did not allow it to affect the main point of his admiration. To him Lois was like some classic nymph, and far superior to the conventionalized ladies of his own time and land. She merely needed a little, very little, polish to make her absolutely perfect ; when it Avould be seen that she was of infinitel}^ better material than were those who should polish her. Li short, he was in love; and as foolish as men in love for the most part are; but he HER OBDEAL. 29 played old Timothy Lancaster's game to perfection, and the soft moment in the twilight came. Being young, he made an offer of his hand as well as of his love ; for he was an honourable fellow and in- tended to do well to every one. He would inaugurate his system of universal brotherhood aiid equality at Midwood, and the world would take the lesson to heart and repeat it for the advancement of society generally. If only Lois would 1)0 liis wife, the human race would be benefited to the end of time, and the reign of false- hood and humbug and pretence, and a thousand other bad things, would be shortened and contracted by so much. All this was natural enough to a youth in the idjdlic stage, when he has consorted closelj' for two months with a lovely girl in a lonely place — a girl who dressed neatly, acted discreetly and spoke with pro- priety ; who had golden hair, sweet tender eyes and a seraphic face ; who was gentle in her Avays, low-voiced and sparse of speech and neither gross nor affected in mind or action. It was natural that he should dream and idealize, and forget all that stood between them when the spell had had time to work and the world, that seemed forgetting, had been forgotten. Cophetua was a King, and the beggar's daughter was his Queen ; so why should not Lois Lancaster, the daughter of the local guide and geologist, be his, Bernard Haynes's, wife? 30 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. The father's delight was boundless when Bernard, carrying out the thing properly all through, told hiui what he had done and how that Lois had consented to be his wife ; but when the news got abroad that Lois was promised to a young gentleman from London^for all hiffh life is from London in the dales — and that she would be most as grand as the Queen herself, John Musgrave was startled as if by a shock out of his dream, and, as Lois herself translated it, was " not best jileased with himself or any one else." He went over to Brigend to wish her good-bye the day before she was to leave ; and he went with a curious mixture of sorrow and anger making havoc in his usually quiet breast. " So you are going on a visit. Miss Lancaster, I hear ? " he began ; for he too was of the new school, and not as frankly familiar to Lois as his father had been to her mother. She was " Miss Lancaster," not "Lois," nor "lass," as the old way would have had it. As he was " Mr. John " to her, not plain " John," as Ms father had been to her mother. " Yes, Mr. John," said Lois, raising her lovely eyes ; " to jMr. Haynes's mother ; that was the young gentle- man as we had here all summer." " So I heard," said John, twirling his hat by the brim between his fingers. "It'll be a fine uplift for you, 3Iiss Lancaster." BER ORDEAL. 31 " I don't know abont an uplift, ]\Ii\ John," answered Lois ^vitll a certain assumption of haughtiness that had its irrave side if also its comical. If she had to be Ber- nard's wife she must hold herself his equal, she thought. The role of the heggar-girl was not to her mind, though she was pleased enough with her King Cophetua. " The finest lady in the land is nothing hut a lady," she con- tinued ; " and folks can be ladies as hasn't great' names." "Yes, I know that well enough," said John. " And I know that you're a lady yourself, Miss Lancaster. Still the quality is of different stuff to us dalesmen and statesmen ; and by all accounts this Mr. Haynes's people are real quality." " And father's as good as any of them," said Lois. *' Father knows a deal more than most of the young gentlemen themselves know ; and that they say when they leave." " Still," said John, who had the dogged persistency of his kind, '• if your father is a clever man in his way, which there's no denying, he's not one of the quality." Lois was silent. She thought John Musgrave uncommonly disagreeable to-day, and wondered at the sudden change that had come over him. Before this summer she had thought him well enough, and maybe a little beyond. He was a fine-looking, clear-skinned, bright-eyed young fellow who bore a good name and 32 WITH A SILKEN TIIBEAD. was not given to drink, and who, with his freehold of seventy acres, had the girls' eyes on him far and near, and was acconnted a prize equal in his own waj^ to Sir James Aitken and young Charley Grattan in theirs. And though, if Lois had been asked, she would have scorned the insinuation as an insult and would have denied that she had ever thought of him twice or wanted him once, yet she had often looked at him at church when they met in the choir; and if Fellfoot was a dull place in winter it was not so dull as it would have been had any l)ut John Musgrave held it. " I suppose, then," said John, " you'll not he for staying here long, Miss Lancaster, when you come back again ? I've heard a tale as points that way." Lois blushed that faint fair flush of hers which was so infinitely becoming. "I don't know about that, Mr. John," she said. " Nothing's settled yet anyhow." " But it is to be ? " His rasping voice was very sad, his ruddy face a little pale, his smooth brow furrowed, his full, fleshy lips contracted. Lois hung her head and twisted her neck-ribbon whence dangled the locket which Bernard had given her. Many feelings perplexed and disturbed her at. this moment; pride in her prospective grandetir and present importance ; a dislike, she could not under- HER ORDEAL. 33 stand why, to confess her engagement to John Mus- grave how glad soever she might be to tell it to others — fear of the future either way, should it be realized or should it be broken off; — a very tumult of con- tending thoughts and feelings, each fighting for supremacy in her mind, made her bashful, sorry, moved, silent. Then she faltered, shyly: " I suppose so, Mr. John ; " and did not look at him. " I am sorry for it, Miss Lancaster," said John bluntly. " You'd be best with your own people and your own kind. I reckon naught of these weddings out of a body's home and calling, as one might sa}'. Best bide with one's own ! " He spoke with feeling, therefore with a broader accent and less precision than usual ; and Lois was quick to note the difference. " That might have been all very well fifty years ago, but it doesn't do now, Mr. John," she answered, taking heart of grace to speak in self-defence. " The world has pushed on a bit since our grandfathers' times, and we must go with it." " They knew a thing or two afore," said John with more sense than elegance ; " and if we take hold of some new good, we needn't leave loose of all the old." " Dear me, Mr. John ! " cried Lois with a forced smile; "one would think I was going to New Zealand, vol.. I. D 34 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. never to come back no more ; and I'm onlj^ going iiito Warwickshire, and sliall be home again quite soon," "Yes, home again; but how?" said John. Again she blushed. " That has nothing to do with my going away now," she said. " That was to be, whether or no." John Musgrave sighed. " I don't like it," ho said after a pause, with a fine assumption of fraternal feeling as if thinking only for Lois and in nowise foi' himself. Lois looked at him. Her calm eyes brightened with a certain something ; it was not wholly malice and it was not all regret, but it was a curious mixture of the two. Deep down in the innermost recesses of her heart was a certain consciousness that she had been tacitly false to John Musgrave. How much soever she would have disclaimed the accusation, she knt-w that when she had first come home from her Penrith board- ing-school she had thought Mr. Musgrave a young man of very fair attractions, and had more than once pictured Fellfoot as her future home. To be sure, she would have preferred some gentleman in the com- mercial line to a fellside farmer, and a town life to a country one. She would have liked a neat little six or eight roomed suburban villa, with a green door and a brass-handled bell, Venetian blinds, and a nice little plot of ground in the front where she might have HER ORDEAL. 35 •gi-own marigolds and mignonette ; and she would liave •enjoyed town liousekeeping, where everything is at your hand and you need not trouhle with laying in •stores and forethought for every detail. Her one girl would have done the rough work, while she would Irave put her hand to the finer parts, dusting the " drawing-room," and the like ; hut John Musgrave was too fine a fellow in himself to be lightly regarded ; and though she was fit for something better than to be a farmer's wife, as she often said to herself when she looked in her glass, still she might go farther and fare worse ; and he had a good bit of land and was cleanly- living, sober and handsome. But when Bernard Haynes came to lodge at Brigend and made himself the Strephon to her Chloe, then John Musgrave faded away like a dissolving view ; and to be the wife of a real gentleman who talked so well that she did not fully understand hiui was a prospect too dazzling to be foregone. For all that, she had this certain uneasy consciousness, and more than once wished that John MuKG:rave had not come to bid her good-bye; though it did gratify her to show him the prize which she had won and to make him feel the worth of that which he had lost. Had he not been so cautious and deliberate, according to his race and kind, the thing might have been settled long ago ; and then she would have been caught and caged. What a good 36 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. thing that he had been so backward ! She knew that she would have accepted him had he offered, and what a miss she would have had ! But for all this know- ledge and self-confession, had she been' asked she would have averred warmly that, of all the gentlemen of her acquaintance, John Musgrave was the last at whom she would have looked, even over her shoulder. " Well, I must be toddling," said John, rising with a heavy sigh and limp look. "Good-bye, Miss Lancaster. I supj)ose you'll be writing home, so that we may have word of you ? " " Yes, of course I shall be writing to father," said Lois. " And take care of yourself," he added earnestly. " Thank you, Mr. John; I hope so," she answered. " And let us hear how you get on," he repeated. " Yes, Mr. John," she said. " Grood-bye, Miss Lancaster." " Good-bye, Mr. John." "I'm main sorry, Miss Lancaster. Eh! but I is,"^ said the poor fellow with tears in his eyes. " I don't like it anyhow. It isn't the thing for you, and I'm afraid you'll find that out when it's too late to change." " It ain't too late now," said Lois, stirred more than she cared to acknowledge to herself. He lifted his eyes with a sxxddcn tlash. She lowered hers and was sorry she had been so indiscreet. HER ORDEAL. 37 "Do you mean to say ?" he began, drawing- near to her and taking her hand in his. How rongh and brown and toil-hardened his was ! How white and fine Bernard's had been ! She drew her own away. " I meant nothing," she said coldly. " Good-bye, Mr. John. Please excnse me, I am throng just now." " He has no one to blame but himself," was her un- spoken thought, as she went upstairs into her room «,nd turned over the dresses that had just come in from Keswick, in preparation for her intended visit to Mid- wood — with Mr. Bernard's mother and sistei's, those formidable critics and judges in the background, wait- ing for her arrival before delivering their verdict ; and, turning them over, she said half aloud : "I am sure they are as nice as nice ; no one need be finer." Mrs, Haynes was not one to make war with rose water. By no means naturally cruel, she was yet one of those resolute women to whom cruelty comes easy when it has to fulfil the purpose in view. Accept- ing her son's infatuation as a disease, she had no more scruple in using sharp measures for his cure than has the surgeon scruples in applying the knife when only the knife can herald healing. Her object was to show Lois to Bernard in a humiliating light, and thus convince him by demonstration of the unfitness which he would not receive as a doctrine preached by another. 38 WITH A SILKEN TEBEAD. Wherefore, to the "bewilderment of Maud and Cora, and' to Bernard's dissatisfaction for the one part and grati- tude for the other, she asked a few friends to dinner on the ver}- evening of the girl's arrival. She had no- wish to let her get somewhat accustomed to her new surroundings before she was introduced to Bernard's world. She should be shown with the full flush of her native awkwardness upon her ; with the fatigue of travel and the excitement of the first meeting to add to^ her discomfort and make her still more nervous and ungainly. This too was part of the rope she was pay- ing out with such consummate skill, and in the coils of which both Bernard and Lois Avere to be caught and their untimely love-affair strangled out of existence. An hour before dinner — that is, at seven o'clock — the- carriage sent by Mrs. Haynes to the station drove up' to the door of ]Midwood, bringing Lois, escorted hy Bernard, to her ordeal. " ]\Iother, Miss Lancaster," said the boy, his face- flushed and radiant as he brought into the stately drawing-room, whei'c his mother and sisters sat, the fair-haired, weary Lois Lancaster, looking more im- passive than ever because she was scared, and scarcely knowing, as she told her father afterwards, her right hand from her left. Mrs. Haynes rose with her most courtly manner and! wade a few steps forward. Perfectly well bred and EER ORDEAL. 39 graceful, «lic put ou her grandest air and received tlie fluttered country girl with the magnificent politeness with, which she would have received a duchess. No fault could possibly be found with her method of re- ception. How better could she show her respect for her son's choice than by treating Lois, peasant as she was, as though she had been an earl's daughter ? Nevertheless, it was inhuman, if magnificent ; and Bernard felt that he would gladly have exchanged this resjjcctful politeness for one dash, of maternal warmth, of womanly consideration. "I hope you are not tired. Miss Lancaster?" said Mrs. Haynes with exquisite courtesy, but frigid as an icicle. " It is a fatiguing journey from Windermere to our place." " Thank you, Mrs. Haynes ; I am not overdone," said Lois, whose unmistakable accent, so slight at Wyth- burn, was frightfully distinct now. But she spoke with self-possession though stiffly. "My daughters — Miss Haynes; my youngest daugh- ter," said Mrs. Haynes regally. • The girls cauie forward and shook hands with Ber- nard's choice. They scanned her critically after the manner of girls with each other, and a glance of intel- ligence passed from Maiid to Cora and back again. They saw before them a cieatuie whose every feature was simply perfect ; a creature with the materials of 40 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. beauty fit to set the world aflame ; yet one who some- how missed the sonl of all beauty — power to charm. She was bad style ; and they denied the material seeing the imperfection of the result. That bad style moreover, was a thing so subtle that it could scarcely be explained. The girl was dressed as it would seem by the description unexceptionably ; and yet the sum total was failure. Her grey merino was made with the profusion of flounces and trimmings dear to second-rate fashion, and trimmed largely with mock lace of a common kind and pattern. Eound her neck she wore a blue tie — Bernard's locket slung on to a long streamer of blue ribbon of a lighter shade than her tie — and a row of white satin-stone beads with a cross depending. Her golden hair was dressed in mul- titudinous puff's and braids — a wonderful structure, through which were visible unsightly tracts of greenish- coloured frizettes, rather destructive of the eflect sought to be produced ; her hat was an audacious but very picturesque Eubens, with a long white feather, a red rose, a mother-of-pearl buckle, and a skeletonized kind of aigrette as the artistic ornaments among the black lace and velvet with which it was trimmed ; and her gloves were dark green, single buttoned. Maud, in her simple dress of cream-coloured "work- house sheeting " over her brown silk skirt, and Cora, in her sailor serge, looked what they were — ladies whose HER ORDEAL. 41 ladyhood no dress could have diminished or advanced ; while Lois, lovely as a dream, lovely as Eaflfaelle's fairest Madonna, stood confessed a pretence — a homely Dork- ing spangled to represent a silver pheasant, fondly thinking herself disguised to the life and nndistinguish- able from her hosts. *' I hope you are not tired, Miss Lancaster," repeated Maud, as a younger echo of her mother. " No, thank you, Miss Haynes," said Lois. Cora asked kindly : " Are you cold ? " and Lois answered quietly: "No, thank you, Miss Haynes. I don't feel the cold, thank you." " Perhaps you would like to go to your room and dress for dinner. We dine at eight," then said Mrs. Haynes, still with her grand air of stately courtesy. *' My daughters' maid shall assist you to unpack. You have not brought a maid with you, I think ? " " Thank you, Mrs. Haynes ; but there's no occasion," said Lois. " I can undo my things very well by myself, thank you." " You had better let Sherwood assist you," said Mrs. Haynes with dignity. *' You are very kind, I'm sure ; but there's no occasion, thank you, Mrs. Haynes," answered Lois, as she had answered before. She shrank from the idea of a grand creature like a lady's maid handling her treasures and spying into 42 WITH A SILKEN THEEAD. vacant spaces ; and, with, tlie suspicion of lier class, slie dreaded lest picking fingers should accompany prying eyes. Mrs. ITaynes bent her head stiffly ; and Bernard, who had the lover's quickness of perception, saw that the first hitch had come. " Take my mother's advice, Miss Lancaster. She knows best," ho said hastily. r>ut Lois answered as before : " No, thank you, Mr. Bernard, there's no occasion. I can do for myself, and I don't require help." And again the critical eyes looked at each other, and said mutely : " What a Goth ! " Even Bernard was conscious of a certain want. He would have been hard put to it to define it ; but he know that something was amiss. Nevertheless, when Lois left the room he cried enthusiastically : " Is she not lovely, mother ? " Mrs. Haynes answered quietly : " Yes, exceedingly beautiful." " I was sure you would think so," said Bernard. " But though she is so beautiful, she shows too much of her upper gums when she smiles, and her hands are underbred," said Mrs. Ilayncs in just the same voice and manner as that in which she had assented to the proposition of her exceeding beauty. " No — capable," cried Bernard, loj'al to his idyll. HER OBDEAL. A3;- Mrs. Ilaynes smiled. " Capable, if you like that word best, my dear," she said. " At all events, the capability which makes the palms thick and the tips of the fingers coarse. Very honourable, I allow, for her station, but not hands generally seen at the table of one of us." " Innocence and love and modesty are more impor- tant things than the useless white hands of ladies," said. Bernard, flinging back his hair. "Just so, my boy. I agree with you entirely," returned his mother. "All the same, I have a prejudice in favour of ladies, as I think I told you before; and I deny that innocence, love and modesty are confined to peasants. My dears," to her daughters, " the dressing- bell has rung. Are you not going ? " *' You will be kind to poor Lois, mother ! " cried. Bernard pleadingly. " I shall treat her as I would treat any other lady," his mother answered, holding her head high. " You desire no other mode, do you, Bernard ? " *' No, dear mother. You are awfully good, as it is, I know," he said ; " but," boyishly, " be kind to her, poor darling ! " " What a child you are ! " said Mrs. Haynes, scorn mingled with her affection, as she SAvept from the room ^ leaving her son a vague crowd of shadowy yet all the same uncomfortable thoughts, for his share of the day's, transactions. M WITH A SILKEN THREAD. CHAPTER III. SHIBBOLETH. Dressed for dinner in her high "black silk, also made after the patterns of the third-rate fashion-hooks and greatly trimmed with hlue hows and white mock lace • — her lovely face, impassive and unchanging, sur- mounted hy that elaborate structure of amber-coloured hair silken as to texture but hideous as to arrangement — Lois presented that same odd combination of beauty which did not charm and apparent correctness that was in fact bad style, which Mrs. Haynes and the girls had caught as her characteristic from the first. Neither rough nor awkward, she yet was totally devoid of grace ; moving as if she were tightly braced in stays so stiff that she could not bend from the waist, and with u certain air of constrained discomfort about her that suggested unusedness to both her dress and her sur- roundings. But if constrained she was pale and quiet, and so far Mrs. Haynes respected her. Had she been flushed and fussy she would have been activel}^ un- pleasant; as it was, she was simply passive and gave 120 trouble to repress. SHIBBOLETH. 45 As each guest arrived there was the same look and movement of surprise, which betrayed the sense of her unfitness as clearly as Mrs. Haynes for her own part felt it. This young unknown Madonna, sitting holt upright on the sofa, dressed like and yet unlike them- selves and neither a lady nor a servant, neither a gentlewoman nor a peasant, with a face that would have been perfect in its fitting frame of simple rusticity or aesthetic refinement, but that now was all out of harmony and drawing, made quite an excitement among the women as well as the men. " Who is she ? " they asked curiously ; Mrs. Haynes answering calmly : " A young person from the remote north, whom a strange chance has thrown on my hands for a few days. It is an odd stor^', but I cannot go- into it now." And when she had said this to every one alike, in precisely the same tone and with the same accent and expression, the dinner was announced, and Lois Lan- caster went down Avith the rest. Seated between Bernard and Sir James Aitken — Bernard having on his other hand Edith Grattan — the country-bred girl was dimly conscious of perils and perplexities before her ; and the guests, who noted her, were as conscious that she was a misfit among them, and did not know how to pronounce her shibboleth as it should be said. For one thing, she did not know the 46 WITH A SILKEN TIIREAB. use of tlie fisli-kuife, but, to be quite fine and correct, chased her piece of cod about the plate witli a fork and a bit of bread, and hunted up the slippery morsels with amazing perseverance. For another, she cut her quenelle as if it had been beefsteak, and when offered Tvine asked for beer ; she ate her jelly with a spoon and fork, and the ice-pudding was evidently experi- mental ; but when the cheese came round she took two l)its with the look of an old friend long parted and now happily met again, and carried it on the point of her knife without fear or faltering. At the dessert too she had no fears, but accepted her apple as she had accepted her cheese, like an old friend ; and when she attacked it she bit it bodily with heart}'- good-will, and made light of the peel. All these were trifles, if one will, but they were sufficient to show that a wide social gulf separated this beautiful young creature fiom her com- pany, and that the chance which had thrown her as a guest and an etpial into the hands of the proudest and most fastidious woman in the district must indeed have b)een an odd one, as she said. The same kind of thing was manifest in her conver- sation. She did not speak like a peasant, but certainly :iot like a lady — rather as a shop-girl or an upper maid would have spoken. "Have you ever been in Warwickshire before, 3Iis8 Lancaster?" asked Sir James Aitkcn during soup — SHIBBOLETH. 41 poor Lois, and that tinaccominodating vermicelli ! — by way of opening the' ball. Lois raised her starry eyes. "No," she said with a certain hesitancy; then added: " You have the advantage of me, sir. I don't know your name." " Aitken," said Sir James, smiling. " Sir James Aitken." " Oh ! " said Lois, relieved. " No, I have not been here before, Sir James Aitken," she then answered, con- tent now that she could catalogue her companion. " It is too soon yet to ask how you like it," he continued. " I thought the scenery very romantic as I rode along," said Lois; "but I was not overmuch taken up with it. I like the mountains better. Do you live here. Sir James Aitken ? " " Yes ; not far from here — at Aitken Park," he .answered. " You miist come over and see my place. I have some curious old Eoman remains that will interest you." " Thank you, Sir James Aitken, I'm sure. I shall be most agreeable," said Lois simply. "When shall 1 •come ? " " I will arrange the party to-night," he ansAvered kindly. He was a man, hence more tender to the social sliort- 48 WITE A SILKEN THEE AD. comings of a girl so lovely as Lois Lancaster than any woman would have been, and her odd mixture of pro- priety and unconventionality, stiffness and simplicity, amused him. At this moment the salmi came round. Lois refused. " No salmi ? " asked Sir James, just as a silence had settled on the table. " No, thank you, Sir James Aitken," answered Lois. " I've had as much as I've a mind for, and done very v/ell, thank you." At which Edith Grattan raised her bright, mis- chievous eyeSy and looked demurely into Bernard's face. " There is nothing so charming as idiomatic Eng- lish ! " cried Bernard boldly. " It is such a pity that we have refined it away into the tame and colourless language of conventional use. Had I my own way we would go back to the language of Shakespeare and Chaucer." The step was wide, but Bernard's blood was up. " Do you mean to say you woitld like us all to speak like the common people ? " asked Edith, surprise dashed with indignation. Eeally Bernard Haynes, though verj- handsome and fascinating, and the owner of Midwood into the bargain, was almost too odd ! " A few racy idioms and pictorial expressions would he an advantage to us — they would lift up our daily SHIBBOLETH. 49 tongvie and give it life and force," argued Bernard. " Wliat you call the speecli of the common people is only old English, pure and undefiled — the English, as I said, of Chaucer. If we went back to our forefathers' time we should speak as — as — the north-country people do, for instance." " But I do not want to go back to our forefathers' time, if the result would be that I should speak like a common person. It would be very frightful to hear ladies and gentlemen speaking broad Cumberland, for instance, because that was the accent used in Chaucer's time," said Edith disdainfully. Lois, catching the words "broad Cumberland," turned her head to look at the young lady treading on her borders, fixing on her those calm, sweet, ravishing eyes which how- ever, did not excuse in Edith's mind such a solecism as that of which she had been guilty. So the dinner passed ; Mrs. Haynes betraying nothina: ; Maud and Cora disturbed and uncomfortable and showing that they were ; Lois uncomfortable too, but as quiet in her own way as Mrs. Haynes was in hers ; and Bernard wondering what subtle change it was that had come over her, making her less supremely delightful than he bad found her at the foot of Ilelvellyn. When they rose to leave the room, Lois modestly stayed behind till she encountered Mrs. Haynes. VOL. I. E 50 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. "Do yoii please, ma'am, to go forward," she said, slirinking back. Mrs. Hayues took up her air of lofty courtes}^ " I am your hostess," she said with her grand manner and proud smile. " It is 3'onr place to go first." " I would rather you went forward, Mrs. Haynes, please," returned Lois, meaning the perfection of polite- ness ; hut something in the lady's face seemed to compel as well as enlighten her, when she hurriedly brushed past both mother and son, and nearly tripped over her entangling train; Mrs. Hajuies smiling to Bernard with cruel meaning as her eyes led his to tlio girl's awkwardness of exit. Sir James, as a man of his word, made up the party which he had proposed to Lois during dinner ; and the next day it was agreed that they should all go over to Aitken Park, to see the Eoman remains and picture- gallery for which it was famous, when they would lunch there and come home to five o'clock tea. In arranging how they should go, there was a ques- tion of riding ; and Maud, Cora, and Edith all voted for horseback over the dulness of driving in the cold of an October day ; when Cora said good-naturedly : " But we can scarcely do that, ]\Iaud ; Miss Lancaster has no habit." "Oh!" said Lois, "I don't mind for a habit, Miss Cora. I can ride in any old skirt you have SHIBBOLETH. 51 liandy. We never Tbotlier aLout liaMts down at Wythburn." " You cannot ride witliout a liat and liabit," said Mrs. Haynes a little disdainfully. " It makes no odds, 3Irs. Ilaynes ; indeed it don't," slie repeated earnestly, and in her eagerness forgot her best style. '• We don't fash about such things at the place where I came from, and I can do quite well with an old skirt, or even a shawl to lap around me." " You forget. Miss Lancaster, that you are not at Wythburn now," said Mrs. Haynes with a smile that was neither genial nor reassuring. " You cannot ride in an old skirt, or even a shawl round you" — con- temptuously — " and I should have thought that even you would have had enough perception to have un- derstood that ! " " I meant not to give trouble," said Lois meekly. " Pray allow me to arrange as I think best. You will give me least trouble by the most obedience," was the lady's reply ; and Lois felt humbled and humili- ated. But why ? What had she done ? According lo her lights, she had done only what was right and kind and considerate ; but she had evidently missed her way somehow, and had offended when she meant Ijut to serve. Yet, if she had ridden, she would have shown them how to stick on, she thought, with the pride of one who, as she phrased it, could ride bare- 52 WITH A SILKEN TEBEAB. back as well as side-saddle, and who had never heen beat by any beast she had yet mounted nor was afraid of the best that ever laid leg to gi'oiind. In the end, despite the ojoposition of Mrs. Hayncs, it was arranged that Bernard should drive Lois in the pony-carriage, while his sisters rode with Charley and Edith Grattan. This was the best plan that could be devised, and suited every one save Mrs. Haynes. When they were seated in the carriage and safely started, poor Lois drew a long bieath as if a heavy weight had been taken oif her ; and turning to Bernard said, for her almost warmly : " IMy word ! this is nice, Mr. Bernard ! It is like homo ! " " It is home," said Bernard fondly ; " your home, Lois ! " " I like Wythburn best," she said. " I feel strange- like here, j'et." " You will soon get accustomed, dear," he returned. " My mother is very good and means everything that is kind." " Does she ? " said Lois. " Did I offend her just now, Mr. Bernard ? I didn't mean to, I'm sure ; but she didn't look best pleased at what I said about the habit. But I meant no oftence." " No, no ! " he answered hastily ; " she Avas not offended, Lois ; she only wanted to put you right and make you understand." SHIBBOLETH. . 53 *' She was ratlier sLort, all the same," said Lois quietly ; " hut father, he is short too at times ; and one must see and hear a good hit in this life and never take heed. Don't you think so ? " " I hope you will not have to see or hear much that is unpleasant at j\Iidwood," said Bernard gravely. Lois looked at him. Was he too going to be short like his mother ? If so she, Lois, would not trouble him ; so she lapsed into silence, and Bernard drove on, wondering if he should say anything to her that might help to bring her into more harmony with her new ■surroundings or leave things to work themselves clear, when — would that nameless charm by which he had been fascinated, and which now seemed lost, return? Perhaps ; he hoped, nay more, he believed, that it would. It came back in part now, in this lonely drive together, when she was more natural and at ease, he less critical and more ready to be charmed than at the stately in- harmonious home. All the same, it seemed to him that she had manifestly deteriorated since he parted from her at \Vythburii, and that a nameless but un- doubted change had taken place in her manners and appearance. It never occurred to him that the change was in himself, because of those domestic and social influences on which Mrs. Haynes had counted so much. This little renewal of lover-like good-fellowship soon came to an end, and they reached Aitken Park where 54 WJTE A SILKEN THREAD. they were met by Sir James and the riders, who had distanced them by taking a short cnt across country. The girls, ashamed of their uncongenial companion, visibly shrank from her in a way that said but little for the thoroughness of their good breeding, if we take good breeding to be more than the correct pronunci- ation of shibboleth. Edith was openly antagonistic, and 3Iaud seemed to fear infection in anything like close association. Only Cora, good-natured, kind- hearted Cora, the dove and peacemaker of the company, kept with her ; and Bernard was gratefiil, and mentally doulded the sum he would give her on the day of her marriage — whenever that might be. As he was naturally obliged to attend to Edith who looked to him as her assigned cavalier, while Sir James, playing host, singled out IMaud as the representative lady, Charley and Cora had Lois between them ; and, though both felt her something of a nuisance and wished her safe back at the foot of Helvellj-n, both, being good- hearted and gentle of soul as well as of birth, treated her with consideration and made her as welcome as was in the nature of things. Occasionally however, they all got into a group together ; and once they did so when they were at the Jioman remains. '• How long aa;o is it since these old stones were set here, i\[r. Bernard?" asked Lois in a rather high- pitched key. " Over three hundred years, I reckon ? " SlilDBOLETIL 55 " Longer than that hy two thousand," answered Bernard, who wished that she wonkl not speak. " And who was |^it laid them, say you ? " she asked again. " The Eomans," answered Sir James. Lois raised her dark-fringed, starry eyes. " Were those the same as St. Paul wrote to ? " she asked with a certain reverence, almost awe, of manner. " The same people, but not the same individuals," said Sir James ; while Maud flushed for vexation and pretty Cora, for all her kind heart, looked at Charley and giggled, girl-like. " You should go through a course of ancient history, Miss Lancaster," said Bernard, more disturbed than he cared to acknowledge. " Did they not teach you history at school ? " " Yes, the Kings of England," she answered ; " but not the Eomans, except what the Bible says of them." "What kind of school could it have been? What did they teach you?" asked Edith Grattan, who had taken, she scarcely knew why, tlio bitterest dislike to this beautiful but not fascinating young person. " Needlework, and the Bible mornings and evenings, and reading, writing and ciphering, and such like, Miss Grattan," said Lois with the sublime contentment of ignorance. m WITH A SILKEN THREAD. " And nothiug instructive." " Miss Symes — Miss Symes was our mistress — called that instruction," said Lois, lifting her lovely eyes. Miss Grattan smiled Avith calm disdain. " I am afraid that would not pass muster with most lady principals," she said. " ]\Iodern education is rather more complete than that, is it not, Mr. Haynes ?" to Bernard. " Literature is not everything ; there is a deeper knowledge which is more important, and Miss Lan- caster has that," said Bernard loyally. " The minci is sometimes dumb when the soul is most eloquent. The sweetest songs are not those of most scientific precision or freighted with the greatest amount of learning." " That is like you, Bernard ! You are idealizing ignorance now. What a queer boy you are ! " cried Maud petulantly. " We shall have you next finding the wrong to be l)ettcr than the right ! " " How soon your people gets put out," said placid Lois to Bernard, when they were alone for a moment afterwards. " JMy word, but they are tetchy ! " " Lois ! " remonstrated Bernard. " Well now, j\Ir. Bernard, I'm sure you can't deny it," she continued. " Here's Mrs. Haynes as sour and sad as a Friday's child, and Miss Maud bites your nose off for next thing to nothing. I'm glad you're SHIBBOLETH. sweeter-tempered," she added "with a timid little smile and lovely fleeting hlush, as she lifted up her eyes and looked at him with an unmistakable look of admiration. And Bernard, meeting that look, forgave her. Aitken Park was as famous for its picture-gallery as for its Eoman remains ; and Sir James was natiirally proud of a collectiou of Old Masters that would have been a not unworthy annexe to the National Gallery. He liked nothing better than to be the showman of his treasures; and part of the day's programme was to visit the gallery and hear him expatiate on its merits. Among other things there was a " Marriage of St. Catherine " which Sir James always maintained was better than that in the Louvre ; and here the party halted while the host pointed out this fine line and that superb flesh tint, this marvellous bit of compo- sition and that crafty _^ combination of colours. He was an artist in his own way and had the artistic dialect by heart. " The Marriage of St. Catherine ! " at last broke in Lois with an accent of profound horror. " How could our Lord marry her when he was a baby ? The Bible saj^s nothing about it, Mr. Haynes " — to Bernard, in- dignantly — " it is downright impious ! " " It is one of the Eoman Catholic legends. Miss Lancaster," Sir James explained. " But it isn't true and it isn't right," said Lois. " It 58 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. is wicked to say suda things of onr Lord, and thcj^ not in the Bible." " These old legends and saints' histories have given us some of our noblest pictures," Sir James apologized, " Art would have perished but for them." " It had lietter perish than men paint what isn't true, and is blasphemy into the bargain," persisted Lois. " I reckon nothing of a thing that has" to live as you say, Sir James Aitken, by such means. Give me the Bible and nothing else." " Well, if it offends you wo will go on to another," Sir James said good-naturedl3\ " I can understand your dislike, if you are not accustomed to such things." This he said to stay the current of girlish disdain that had set in, and to give Lois '• reason " before her superior companions. "No, indeed," she answered a little proudly, as if boasting of a distinction; "I am not accustomed to such things, as you say. Sir James Aitken, and I don't hold with Papistry anyhow." " You will have to enlarge your borders if j^oxi go on the Continent, I fear ! " returned the host, smiling. " Every step you take and every place you visit will shock voTi else." "I don't Avant to go among the Papists, Sir James," said Lois. " I am a professing Christian and don't hold with outlandish ways anyhow." SIIIBBOLETIL 59- " Bernard ! " said Maud in a low voice to her brother. " How could yon allow mamma to invite this girl here to disgrace ns with her ignorance and common manners- in this way? What can Sir James think ? " Bernard threw hack his poetic head. " Do you not see any beauty, Maud, in the loyalty of a simple nature, a childlike creed ? " he asked, his heart belying his reason. " There are tAvo waj's of looking at everything ; why not take the more beautiful as well as the more charitable ? " "Because I like common sense and reality," said Maud disdainfully, also flinging up her head, biit falling back to join the party. Contemj)tuous of poor Lois as she was, she was not inclined to let Sir James Aitken see too much of those glorious eyes which men seemed to think superior to learning or deportment. Perhaps conscious that she had made rather a random shot in the matter of an Old Master, Lois discreetly held her tongue for the remainder of the tour round the gallery ; perhaps too she was not incited to testify, as there was nothing of so purely a legendary character in the pictures after this unlucky marriage of St. Catherine ; though one or two, Avhere the drapery was of a rather diaphanous quality and scanty quantity, made the blood come up into her fair face hotl}- and lowered her eyes Avith shame. How ever could the}' ! she thought ; wondering at the ease with Avhich the young ladies <50 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. stood before these undraped representations of humanity ; it was downright indecent ; and before the gentlemen, too ! But her evident bashfuhiess only had the effect of making every one else uncomfortable and conscious ; Avhile, had she taken her lesson in art without wincino- like the rest, they would have been perfectly at ease and with no thought of evil. " What a horrid girl ! " said Maud in sacred conclave with Cora and Edith. " Did you see how she behaved when we Avere looking at that Venus ? She made me feel so uncomfortable, for I am sure Sir James noticed her by the way in which he hurried on ; and the same when we came to St. Sebastian and that Cupid." " She must be very indelicate to think anything," said Edith ; but Cora suggested kindly : " Oh, she is so countrified, you see ! — she has seen nothing, and I dare say it would shock any one not accustomed. For after all these undressed creatures are not very pleasant to look at for the first time ! " " Cora, how can you talk such nonsense ! " cried Maud. " You will soon be as bad as Bernard." " Poor Bernard ! " cried Edith, laughing. " Oil ! he is a dear boy, and as good as possible," ansAvered Maud briskly :— Edith must not laugh at him or believe him to be despised at home. " But he is an awful goose sometimes ! " she added pleasantly. " Is he a goose about this girl — this Miss Lancaster ? " asked Edith with false calmness. SHIBBOLETH. 61 " Oh dear, no ! " answered Maud. *' He knows nothing of her, and cares nothing. It is only that he is too kind- hearted generally, and makes excuses for every one." By which it may be seen that leaining to say shib- boleth as it should be said does not include truth as one of the obligations of the lesson. The rest of the day passed without any very glaring misdeeds of Lois to excite the anger of Bernard's sisters and to awaken unpleasant emotions in Bernard's owni heart. To be sure, she did everything in the way of table-gaucheries that she did yesterday, and got into continual entanglements easily discernible by educated eyes — knowing no more than a heathen what to eat or how to eat it. But she stumbled on, for the most part in happy ignorance that she was offending ; and as Sir James and Bernard were kind and Cora was gentle and forbearing, her spirits gradvially rose, and she bore her- self with a certain amount of ease that showed her to advantage in some aspects, if to disadvantage in others. For, if she was less awkward because less constrained, she was more assured, consequently less guarded ; and now and then let the natural flavour of Wythburn have broader scope — when she forgot that she was a lady and must not talk Cumberland nor make free. Asked if she could play, she said "Yes," and sat down without hesitation to the magnificent Erard which even Maud, who was a proficient, toiiched with '0)2 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. fi certain reverence. But Lois, thinking that her sole duty lay in doing her best and knowing nothing of how had that best was, played her piece with the missed notes and slurred passages, the false chords and scamped bass of her kind ; shaking her head and saying " Tut ! "' to herself Avhen she tumbled on to flats and sharps where she had no business to be, and taking the whole thing with the mindless docility of a schoolgirl set to her task. But she looked so sweet and simple while she was murdering her music that Bernard, who was both tortured by and ashamed of her performance, was unable to feel really annoyed because of the naive good faith and candour with which she made her fiasco ; but the girls, with whom neither her siraplicit}^ nor her beauty counted in her favour, made wry faces to each other behind their screens, and Maud said quietly to Sir James : " Were 3^011 not rather cruel ? " After this thej^ went back to Midwood ; and Bernard's "theory on the fusion of classes, and the advantage that would accrue to the race were gentlemen to marry jjeasant-girls, did not seem such a hopeless absurdity when he had level}' Lois with him alone, as it had flashed across him that it was when she was playing flats for sharps and missing whole bars serenely in " The Wedding ]\Iarch " at Aitken Park. CHAPTER IV. OUT OF PLACE. The sudden change of habits and manners — from sim- plicity and porridge to luxiirionsness and a French cook — from continual exercise about the house, gusty breaths of fresh fell-side air at all hours of the day, and small rooms, cosy and closely heated, to much sit- ting, little walking, and spacious apartments where she felt chilled and unhomed because she could not " sit into tbe fire " as she said, but did not feel warm or com- fortable at a distance — began to tell on the health and spirits of Lois. She was at no time robust, being of the kind which drinks tea and does not eat meat — which pinches its waist in stiff stag's and goes in airy costume on bleak days, if so be that vanity prompts gossamer and re- pudiates woollen, catarrh and subsequent consumption notwithstanding ; hence she had but a small amount of reserve-force wherewith to resist unfriendly influences, and with all her placid demeanour she suffered as acutely as those who are more demonstrative and out wardly excited. 64 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. The personal strain too, under wliicli she was living also told on her and made her yet more nervous than before, hence more inicouth — and, by the vicious round of action and reaction, more distressed ; so that alto- gether the visit on which she had counted so much Avhile at Wythburn, seemed proving itself one of those Dead Sea apples of life which a mocking fate so often flings into our lap, charming to the imagination and bitter to the sense. Ill at ease and uncomfortable, she had not even the satisfaction of any tangible cause of complaint. Maud was harsh and contemptuous truly, but then Cora was sweet and friendly; and though Bernard was a little perplexed and restrained before folk, on those rare occasions when he got her to himself, alone, he was all that he had ever been, and his faithfulness to the ideal he had created for himself was as unshaken as his tenderness. As for Mrs, Haynes, she continued to treat her unwelcome guest as she had treated her from the beginning, with cold and stately courtes}?', seeking to make her conscious that she was an alien among them wlaile fulfilling the law of politeness to the letter, only dropping out of the canon human kindness and womanly compassion. In the neatest but the most cruel way possible she dissected and displayed the girl's utter ignorance of all those things into the knowledge of which ladies of condition are supposed to be born as a OUT OF PLAGE. G5 gift of race. She fatliomed lier deepest deptli in litera- ture and art— then sliowed her son, and all the world, how contemptibly shallow it was; she made her reveal herself as substantially uncultivated, unrefined, plebeian in her views of life, in her estimate of social obligations, and unable to rise to the height of patrician magna- nimity, no matter what the gloss put on her by a gentle nature and the glamour wrought by her surpassing- beauty. At every turn she made her betray her un- fitness so plainly that Bernard, distracted between love and common sense, respect for his mother and loyalty to Lois, scarcely knew what course to take — more- especially as all by which he was wounded was as vague as was all that by which Lois herself was pained ; so that he, no more than herself, could put his finger on any one spot and say : " This is the core of my com- plaining." AVere they never to discuss art, for instance, because Miss Lancaster did not know Eaflfaelle from Eembrandt, and had heard as little of Turner as of Claude ? Was all mention of the latest discoveries in astronomy to be tabooed, because, when she was asked, this unpromising young friend of theirs was forced to confess that she had no idea of how the earth went round the sun; thought that comets were balls of fire with their tails of streaming flames ; held that the stars and moon and sun were things set in the sky for the good and dclecta- VOL. I. . F 66 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. tion of man alone ; and maintained that the earth was the centre of the universe? Were Shakespeare and Milton to be names without meaning for tliem, because Lois Lancaster did not know one from the other ; confessing to have tried " Paradise Lost " once at boarding-school, and to have ended in weariness and tears? Were they all to forego their inherited breeding because she said " Mrs. Haynes " at the end of every phrase, and ate fluids as if they were solids ? Had Bernard remonstrated with his mother on her subtle cruelty, she would have opened her fine eyes on him with the look for which she was famous, and would have asked, with every appearance of surprise and interest, where she had failed?— and how could she act to please him if what she did now displeased him ? Was it her fault, she would have said, if he had insisted on bringing into their circle one so entirely unfitted for her position ? And did he expect them — his mother and sisters — to lower themselves to Miss Lancaster's very meagre standard of refinement and education ? Whatever discomfort existed in the arrangements would have been shown as his own creation ; and Bernard, conscious of all this, forbore to remonstrate — having also that difficulty which his mother intended he should have, in formularizing what was amiss, b}' which he ran curricle with poor Lois, also tormented and effectually gagged. OUT OF PLACE. 67 There liad seldom been so gay a time at Midwood as now during the stay of Lois Lancaster. Every day Mrs. Haynes got up something fresh and fair for the young people of the neighbourhood; so that by the outside look of things she was doing the daughter of the Wythburn guide rare honour and paying her supreme attention. But somehow everything caused Lois increased mortification and showed her at a dis- advantage; and when others were at the zenith of enjoyment she was at the nadir of distress. Amongst other pleasures, an impromptu ball Avas given at Mid- wood, none the less delightful because rather more informal than such things generall}^ are. And to this, of course, came all the neighbourhood, still greatly wondering, and some greatly scandalized, at the con- tinued presence as an equal at such a place as Midwood of this beautiful nondescript, whom no one knew where to place nor how to catalogue — fair as a flower, gentle as a dove, ignorant as a servant and with a manner in ;accord with her ignorance. Now Lois had learnt dancing " at boarding-school," much in the same way as she had learnt music, and was about as proficient in the one art as the other. Style and execution were no more perfect in her feet than in her hands. If she played flats for sharps, struck wrong chords, slurred her shakes, and left out all the difficult bars without an idea of grammar or construction in G8 WITE A SILKEN THREAD. music, in dancing she swam when she should have walked, and hopped when she should have waltzed ;. hut, in return, she did her steps on every possible occasion with conscientious fidelity, and she held her gown at each side, with her elbows turned out, as in the old days of Dutch shirts and sandalled shoes. She W'ent through the Avhole performance with painstaking exactness, her sweet face at first serenely unconscious of any cause of ridicule in her proceedings — but as time went on, and she caught the amnsed glances of un- friendlj- critics and heard the half-whispered remarks with which the well-bred were not ashamed to over- whelm her, getting gradually perplexed — from per- plexity passing to pain, as security became doubt, and doubt developed into certainty that something was amiss, and that she was not quite as others were. Among the rest she danced with Sir James Aitken ; but only once. Amused as he was at this new sj)ecimen of humanity, he had no desire to make himself sport for the Philistines and afford cause of imgodly ridicule to a room full of scorners ; and pretty Lois Lancaster, ducking and pirouetting, hopj^ing, curtseying and doing her steps with zeal, was a sight so unusual to l^eople who had been educated in the art by the first professors, that it was scarcely to be wondered at if a proud man, and a sensitive, had not magnanimity enough to brave the smiles of his comrades for the OUT OF PLACE. G9 sake of giving a false sense of security to an underbred unknown. But liis dancing with her at all was an oftence to Maud, which went far to destroy all her pleasure in the evening — ]Maud, pioud, reserved, Avell bred, and with fair average reason, luit with not force <5nough to resist that meanest passion of the whole category, jealousy without cause of an inferior without attraction. It did not make matters better for Lois, bad as they already were, that one of her young hostesses either studiously avoided her, or treated her when forced into momentary contact with a disdain so marked that every one in the room could see it. She was uncomfort- able enough already without this to add to her misery ; and her efforts to put these crooked things straight were certainly not crowned with success. At last, in despair, she phmged into the depths with Sir James. " Patience, me ! " she said, lifting ber lovely face full of trouble to his ; " what can have put Miss Maud ■so sadly about. Sir James Aitken ? She looks as sour as verjuice at me; and Avhat have I done, I wonder?" Sir James raised his eyes and looked over to Maud, who, with a flushed face and discomposed air, was talking to young Charley Grattan by no means as if she enjoyed the circumstances of the moment, but rather as if she would have given worlds either to break into wrath or burst into tears. A smile broke rO WITH A SILKEN THBEAD. tliroiigh the gravity of liis face. It l>ecame almost radiant; and for a moment he had that look of effulgent delight which only the habitually melancholy show, whq^i hy chance a ray of happiness pierces the sober-hued integuments of their thoughts and they are joyous in proportion to their general gloom. Did she- real]}^ love him? was this in truth jealousy? Love includes jealousy, thought Sir James ; who also was on the wrong track this Ava}^ If he could convince him- self through Lois tliat he was truly loved by Maud, how ho would bless that odd young person and think kindly even of her dancino- ! "I do not think that Miss Haynes is annoyed with you for any reason." was his repl3% made quickly, '• Oh yes, she is, Sir James Aitken," answered Lois Math seriousness. "If you don't see it. I do, and I shall just ask Mr. Bernard what's to do with her when I see him." " Let me advise you, Miss Lancaster, to say nothing," said Sir James. " There is a great deal of wisdom in silence." " But I don't like it. Sir James Aitken," said pretty Lois. " If anything's amiss I like folks to say it out, and not do as Miss Maud does, look black, a body doesn't know why. Oh ! here is Mr. Bernard " " Come to take you down for an ice," Avas Bernard's hurried interruption ; he, for his part, not caring to see OUT OF PLACE. 71 the girl appropriated any longer by the Baronet on whom his mother had fixed her eyes for Maud. As the master of the house his duties were naturallj^ manifold and called him perpetually off guard, else, when he could, he had engaged Lois in talk on some pretext as now, or, dancing with her himself, had bravely borne as his burden the half of her artistic absurdities. But this could not be very often, and these moments of reprieve were, as she said, few and far between. She was overjoyed then, when he came to her now to carry her off into the refreshment-room ; and the instant she took his arm — she called it " linking " — plunged into the history of her wi'ongs against Miss Maud and those sour looks of hers which hurt her so much in her mind; saying, what Avas quite true, that she hadn't a notion what it was all about, and that she would sooner eat her fingers than oftend one of the family. To which Bernard, heroically conquering the little spasm that crossed him at her homely metaphor, answered kindly : " I am sure you would, my dear girl. You have the sweetest nature in the world. Who would have the heart to offend you or be angry Avith you? " " Then you thinlc it may be only a maggot of my own?" asked Lois with a sweet smile. "If you do, Mr. Bernard, I'll not say anything to Miss Maud, for I'd not like to add fuel to fire, you know, and I'd bear a deal for your sake." WITH A SILKEN THREAD. "I am sure you would," lie answered. "But I hope, my dear, you will have nothing very bad to bear ; and as for Maud, you are, I trust, mistaken, and she means nothing personal to you. Perhaps she has a headache. Girls often have headaches," he added pleasantly. '•Yes; I am often but poorly myself," said Lois, accepting his explanation simply; for indeed she was an amiable, single-hearted creature, beautiful in her nature so far as education and training would allow, and if not pushed beyond her powers always sure to respond true to a moral harmony. " So I'll say nothing about it, Mr. Bernard, but think that maybe it is a headache, as you say." ■'You are alwaj^s just and sweet-tempered, Lois," cried Bernard enthusiastically; to which the guide's daughter answered with a blush and a smile : " Hoot, Mr, Bernard ! you flatter me." And with this their time of retreat was over, and Bernard had to take her back to the dancing-room and leave her to herself, while he kept his engagement with Edith Grattan for the waltz that had just begun. Mrs. Haynes, cruel only to be kind, as she argued in her own mind, took care that Lois should have plenty of opportunities for her damaging display of steps and hops. To be sure, as the evening wore on it became an increasing difficulty to find partners for this lovely OUT OF PLACE. 73 bungler. Her face was all very well, thouglit the young men ; but style goes further in a ball-room than beauty, and proficiency in the art of keeping time and step is a sine qua non for round dances as well as square ones. Wherefore, one by one towards the end of the evening they Avere all engaged when Mrs. Haynes asked them to take out Miss Lancaster ; and at last, as if in honest despair at finding her good intentions of no avail, she said in a moderately loud voice to Bernard : " My dear Iwy, what on earth shall I do ? None of the men will dance with Miss Lancaster, and you can easily understand why. It is excessively unpleasant for me, yet what can I do ? " Bernard saw it all, and was on thorns. As his mother said, what could she — or indeed any one — do? This was no place for Lois. His mountain daisy, so beautiful in her own simple home, was ill set when transplanted to the artificial grace and conventional circumstances of a life like this at 3Iidwood. There she satisfied his highest ideal ; here — ho was forced to admit it — she was inharmonioiis and discordant. And yet, was not his life to bo spent here? Was not his home to be at Midwood, and his duties comprised in tlie ownership of the place? He could not live on the Wythburn crags or under the dark shadows of Hel- vellyn, forgotten and forgetting, as in last summer's WITH A SILKEN TIinEAD. Long. He must take up the position into whicli lie hacl been born, and fit liimself into bis spbere. These thoughts flashed like lightning through his brain while his mother spoke ; but he gave words only to the first of them, when he answered, very coldly : " You were wrong, mother, and cruel, to expose her as you have done." " Which means, my dear boy, that when Miss Lan- caster is Mrs. Haynes, Midwood must be closed against society at laige," she said in a low voice, turning away to capture a young guardsman not quick at fence or falsehood, and present him to Miss Lancaster for the next lancers. If Bernard who saw clearly was on thorns, Lois who saw but dimly Avas not on roses. The occult difference between herself and the rest became at every moment more confessed ; and gradually her sense of humiliation worked on her nerves so powerfully that she was on the verge of a fit of hysterics. At last, escaping to the safe seclusion of her own room, she sat down before the glass and had what she herself called a good cry. She- was unutterably mortified and wretched, she scarcely knew why ; for the glass gave back a face which she knew well enough to be the loveliest of ail in the room, and a general appearance with which, in her ignorance, she was perfectly content and wherein she saw no jioint of inferiority to the best among them. OUT OF PLACE. 75- None tlie less she was miserable and wished quite aloud at least a dozen times that she had never come ; and she would go home to-morrow, that she would, and never set foot in Midwood again ! If Mr. Bernard had to go with Midwood, let him. Mrs. Haynes and Miss Maud would take the sweetness out of honey itself, and make the very sunshine but a dree hillside mist ! She could not bear it, and she would not; they would break her heart before they had done with her ; and she would not have it, that wouldn't she ! When the housemaid broke in, singing, to arrange her room for the night and make up the fire, poor Lois, more at home with Mary Anne than with any of the grand folks with whom the mocking fate which gave the Dead Sea apples had thrown her for the time, frankly fraternizing, poured out all her troubles and wept like a sister on her neck. " Why, miss, what's to do ? " cried Mary Anne, amazed that any one should cry who had on a muslin frock dotted with a thousand sky-blue bows, and who had been dancing with real gentlemen in the Midwood ball-room. " I feel so lost, Mary Anne ! " sobbed poor Lois pite- ously. " I'm not myself here, and I've taken the rue for coming." Then said Mar}'- Anne briskly, having her own private suspicions of King Cophetua, and thinking tc- 76 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. herself that if slie could slie would put any number of spokes possible into that wheel: " La, miss, if you'll not mind my saying so, you're no fit company for our folks ! — you're not the same kind as our young ladies ; and it's a shame of them to ask you here and make game of you as they do. You're best with yoxir own, and it's my advice that you go back to 'em sharp. You and I are not so far different when we come to measure things, and I'm sure I couldn't do as you do — make free with a family as grand as missis's." " "Why did they have nie here if they wanted to make game of me ? " cried Lois, indignant through her distress. " Ah, why indeed ! " returned Mary Anne. " That's best known to you and the young master. But I'll tell you what," she added with a burst of virtuous scorn, " these grand folks are precious mean when you get close to 'em. And that's the blessed truth ! " " I'll go away, that I will ! " cried Lois, still sobbing. •' Yes, I should," said Mary Anne coolly; "and you'll be best at your own home." " Oh, Mary Anno, how badly I do feel ! " said the poor girl, turning pale. " Have a cup of tea, miss," the servant answered. " There's nothing like a cup of tea when you are out of sorts." But Lois fainted before the words were well uttered ; OUT OF PLACE. 77 and Mary Anne, ringing the bell, brought up a small army of fellow-maids, who stood about the girl and conjectured, asserted, pitied or condemned according to the calibre of brain and direction of thons-ht belons-- ing to each. " Yon left the ball-room early last night. Miss Lan- caster," said Mrs. Haynes the next morning at break- fast. " Were yon fatigued or indisposed ? " She spoke coldl}', as if fatigue or indisposition were an offence deserving rebuke ; and she looked with a kind of surprised annoyance at the girl's pale cheeks and sunken eyes which sufficiently betrayed her discom- fort. " I didn't feel myself very well, Mrs. Haynes," answered Lois rather shakily. She could have repeated last night's fit of weeping under very slight provocation indeed. Bernarrd's soft eyes looked sympathetic and distressed. "Were you not well?" he asked with the unmis- takable emotion of a lover. " Oh, not badly to mind about, i_Mr. Bernard," answered Lois heroically. "'Was the dancing too much for you?" asked kindly Cora. " Maybe it was, Miss Cora," Lois said with a jerk, grateful for the suggestion which was so well cal- culated to conceal the real cause. " I'm not used 78 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. to it, and I'm only delicate. A very little does for me." " Then yon should not have danced so mnch," said Mrs. Haynes, always with that subtle accent and manner of condemnation which seemed to place Lois Lancaster as a culprit before her, whom it was part of her daily duty to rebuke. " How could I hinder myself, Mrs. Haynes ? " asked Lois, opening her eyes. " When the young gentlemen asked me if I was going to dance, and seemed to want to take me out, how could I give them a back-word? " " You are not obliged to dance with every one who asks you," said Mrs. Haynes with her superior smile. " But I wanted to, Mrs. Haynes," said innocent Lois, goaded into spontaneity. " It isn't pleasant to sit b}^ oneself when one sees all the rest as gay as gay ; and it's a treat I don't often have." "Then don't complain if you suffer," said Mrs. Haynes. " I didn't complain, Mrs. Ha^'nes," Lois answered with unnecessary earnestness. " It was yourself as asked me if I felt myself poorly, and I said I did. I didn't mean to find fault," she added, her eyes filling with tears. " No, mother," put in Bernard ; " Miss Lancaster did not complain. She never complains of anything." " No ? " said Mrs. Haynes coldly ; while the poor OUT OF PLACE. girl's tears dropped slowly on her plate ; " then we need not pursue the subject. And pray, Miss Lan- caster, control 3'ourself a little better than this. People do not cry like children in public — at least, not the people with whom we are in the habit of associating." Which speech of course had the effect of making Lois cry still more and of deepening Mrs. Haynes's dis- l^leasure. After breakfast Bernard watched his opportunity. Mrs. Haynes was always careful to prevent his getting apart with Lois ; but this morning she was obliged to attend to some business that would not wait, and her son took advantage of her absence to endeavour to con- sole his disconsolate beloved. He himself was to the full as wretched as she was. He saw quite plainly that his mother whom he loved, and his future wife whom he adored, did not "get on together;" but, beyond this elemental perception of things, he was lost. He thought that perhaps Lois might know more than he knew, and, as was perfectly natural, he felt sure that it must be somehow in her power to change the present discords into harmonies, and that, if any blame was to fall anywhere, it must righteously fall on her head. It was her knowledge of this natural decision which had made Mrs. Haynes so certain of her game and so resolute to carry it to the bitter end. " Lois, my darling," he said tenderly, " what is it 80 WITH A SILKEN TIIBEAD. that makes j'ou and vay mother jar so perpetually ? I had hoped everything from your visit here, but some- how things seem all to go wrong, and nothing that I can say or do mends matters in any way. What is it, Lois?" " I'm sure, Mr. Bernard, you'd better ask Mrs. Haynes, not me," answered Lois with an ominous quiver in her voice. " I wanted you so much to be friends," said Bernard with almost pathetic earnestness. " It isn't my fault, Mr. Bernard, indeed it isn't," said Lois, the tears beginning again to start. " I've done all I could to be agreeable to Mrs. Haynes and the young ladies ever since I came, but I don't think the}- like me; and the more I try the more they seem to snap me. J«[ot Miss Cora, though, I must say," she added generously ; " she has been as good as gold to me ; but," beginning to cry outright, " Mrs. Haynes and Miss Maud, they can't abide me, and that's the Avhole tale from beginning to end, Mr. Bernard." "But, Lois, dearest Lois, cannot you make things better?" he cried with the illogical insistence of a man's disappointment. " No, ]Mr. Bernard, that I cannot," she answered weeping ; " and — I'll not tell you any lie about it — I've taken the rue for coming, and want to go back home." OUT OF PLACE. 81 " Lois," he cried, " you cTo not mean that, I am sure ! " " Yes I do," she said ; " I'm best at home. This isn't the place for me, Mr. Bernard, and I was jnst a silly gowk for coming. Yon're all over grand for me, and I'm a sight too simple for you. I'm best at home,'^ she repeated. " You are at home," said Bernard, taking her hand. It was a well-shaped hand in essentials, but it was not the hand of an aristocrat. She shook her head. " No," she said ; " no, Mr. Ber- nard. This is no home to me, and never could be." At that moment the servant entered the room with two letters on a tray for Lois, and " Mrs. Haynes desires to see you, sir," as his message for Bernard. " I will be back directly, dear," said the young lover tenderly as he turned away, Lois answering unselfishly, as her manner was : " Don't put yourself about, Mr. Bernard. Don't trouble about me. I've got father's letter to read ; " again dissolving into tears as she rose from her place and went over to the window, carrying not only her father's letter, Init one from John Mus- grave as well — to soothe or sting the smarting sore of her wounded spirit. She read her letters, still standing by the window ; and then her hands dropped by her side, and her soul went back to the past and the beloved. The fresh free VOL. I. . G 82 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. life of the fells came like a turst of snnsWne in the gloom of a winter's day across the memory of the poor, fevered, uncomfortable girl. She saw visibly before her the lovely little Thirlmere Lake, with Dale Head, its mansion, grander to her than even the palatial stateliness of Midwood. The crags and fells rose np to her inward sight, clothed in their insset of autumn, their purple and gold of summer, their greenery of spring — beautiful always ; her friends and companions always ; things that were like living creatures loving her and sympathizing with her, knowing her and understanding her. She knew that she was out of place here, and she felt that she must take her courage in both hands and break her bonds before they had cut more deeply into her soul. She knew where her best wisdom lay, and she must conform to its demands. John Musgrave, who was her friend, would counsel her to do as her own heart was counselling her now ; and John Musgrave would not have led her into circum- stances which were in real fact no better than so many snares — circumstances wherein he knew, as Bernard must have known, that she would suffer and be pained. John Musgrave was at her feet, and would be trans- lated to heaven upon earth if she would but return home and smile on him. And now that she had seen him nearer, Bernard did not seem so fine a fellow after all. He was under his mother's thumb too much for OUT OF PLACE. 83 Lois, whom tliat tliumb oppressed and crushed ; she preferred a more vig•oro^^s independence, like John's for instance ; and a man who woukl 1 le proud of her, and not ashamed. The ohl passion of home that possesses the heart of the mountaineer came upon Lois with its loving sick- ness, its infinite yearning'. She felt as if she could not breathe in these cold, spacious, unhomelike rooms ; she must go back to her simpler mode of life, to her moun- tains, her crags, her mere, her home. Bernard Haynes and all his grandeur were as nothing to her compared to the loveliness of her own. The daua;hter of the fells, born and reared in the shadow of Helvellyn, she must go back- to her cradle, else she would pine away and die ; she must shake herself clear of the false ilream that had bewitched her if she meant to see happiness or fulfil her allotted length of days. Mrs. Haynes found her standing thus by the window in the drawing-room, those two dirty, crumpled, uii- grammatical and ill-spelt letters, which had been the awakening magicians, still in lier hands ; her lovely face softened by its yearning dream ; her mind lost, her thoughts away ; but, through the dream her resolve sloMdy consolidating and fashioning itself to an intelli- gible course of action. The lady wallced up to her with her noiseless, stately step ; and Lois, starting, made a little curtsey and said 84 WITH A SILKEN TIWEAD. with perfect resj)ect but no assumption of equalitj^ : " Mrs. Haynes, ma'am, if you please, I leave liere to-^ day." Mrs. Haynes bent her head. " The carriage shall be ready for you at your own time," she said, her handsome eyes flashing with sudden pleasure. " By what train ? " " The soonest that will carry me, Mrs. Haynes, if you please," Lois answered. " I have my things to pack, and then I am ready." " I hope you have not had bad news from home ? " asked the lady politelj^, glancing at the letters in the girl's hands. Lois lifted up her beautiful eyes, again filled with tears. " Thank you, IMrs. Haynes, father's quite well ; but I'm best at home," she said. *' It was a pitj" I ever came." " I think so too," answered the lady significantly ; "but I do not think you have any cause to say so. You have been well treated." " No, Mrs. Haynes, I have not been well treated," said Lois with a huskj^ voice. " You and Miss Haynes have made me feel that I am not good enough for you ; all that I could do and say would not make j'ou cotton with me, and I have been miserable ever since I came. But don't tliink I want to force myself where I am not OUT OF FLACE. 85 wanted," she added. " I Lave a home, if it is small ; and I would rather be in my own with father and them as loves me than be here with all of yon, where no one but Mr. Bernard can abide me ; and he don't stand np for me." On which she broke down; and retreated sobbing from the room. " Poor girl ! " said Mrs. Haynes to herself, pitiful now because victorious. " I know that I have been cruel ; but what could I do ? It was destruction else ; and Bernard will live to thank me, as will she. That dear, foolish boy, with his dreams and absurdities, to imagine that he could begin Communism and inaugu- rate Utojiia at Midwood ! What an abyss I have saved iim from ; and how cleverly I have managed him ! " 8G WITH A SILKEN THREAD. CHAPTER Y. LIKE TO LIKE. If Bernard was to fulfil his mother's prophecy and live- to thank her for preventing his ruin, that time was evidently not at this present date. If he was " viewy " and unpractical, because young and romantic, he was. neither fickle nor unloving ; and his aftection for Lois- was as sincere as his dream of the future they might have made together, had but a friendly fate permitted,. Avas impossible. Her virtues were of a kind specially delightful to him in his present phase of thought ; they were virtues which upheld his ideal of fraternal equality and made it seem reasonable as well as good; while they deepened his revolt against caste distinctions and the vices of his own order whereby such an angel as Lois Lancaster Avas excluded and abased. Hence he had wished to make her his wife almost as much for moral reasons as for personal liking, and drew as much comfort from his reverence as joy from his love. When, therefore, she left in this abrupt way, almost at an hour's notice, declining to give any satisfactory explanation because declining to have any private^ LIKE TO LIKE. 87 interview with him ; refusing his escort to the railway station ; saying only, when he pleaded and remonstrated : '• I will write to you, Mr. Bernard," and: "'Please not to press me, Mr. Bernard, I have my reasons," and the like — the poor lad fell into the despair to which we all succumb when the fool's paradise in which we have been living melts into thin air and leaves us only the rugged rocks of the sterile desert — when our gods lie shattered at our feet — stocks and stones no more divine than ourselves. But despair, tears, protestations, what not, it had to he borne; and lovely Lois Lancaster went off, ac- cording to her desire ; unattended and in silence ; but leaving behind her the distinct impression that all was over between them, and that she, the beggar girl, de- clined the offer of King Cophetua to share his pui-ple, and preferred her own native rags instead. " You have broken my heart, mother," cried Bernard with a boy's self-abandonment to sorrow. " My dear boy, I have saved you from destruction," was his mother's reply, made calml}^ from the heights of superior^ wisdom. " Had it not been for me you would have been lost for ever ; but I rescued you just in time." " Saved ! Rescued ! You call forfeiture of my word, breaking my promise, destroying a noble woman's hap- piness and my own for life, salvation, rescue ! " he cried 88 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. bitterly. " I shall never see her equal, never ! Slie was an angel — simple, sweet, strong, pure ! You did not know her, mother, because you would not. You were prejudiced from the beginning, and you saw everything through a false medium." "You mean that you did, my boy," she answered. " What I saw was a pretty and creditable young woman, well-mannered for her station if ridiculous enough when brought into a false equality with such as ourselves ; a young woman who will make a capital wife for a well- to-do farmer or small tradesman, where she will not have too much hard work to do, but who, as the wife of a gentleman, would have dragged her husband into the lower levels of society and would have ruined the prospects and position of his whole family. That is what I see, my son, and I think my eyes have been the clearer." " And your heart the colder," flashed Bernard, stung by love out of his ordinary filial respect. She bent her proud head in acquiescence. " Yes, my heart the colder because my reason the keener," she answered, fixing her bright eyes on liim steadily ; " and reason goes farther than fancy." " And wisdom— the best wisdom — the wisdom Avhich accepts things, not appearances, — goes farther than that cold, dead, godless thing you call reason ! " said Ber- nard, pacing the room feverishly, prepared for a month's LIKE TO LIKE. 89 close arguing; Avliich liis motlier cleverly avoided by going into the dining-room and giving some unneces- sary orders to the butler. Difficult as Mrs. Haynes foiind her boy in tlie first hours of his disappointment, he was slightly more amenable than Lois found her father. If a young man's crushed love is hard to soothe, Avhat is an am- bitious man's crushed hope when his cunningly devised schemes are torn into shreds, and the cup which has touched his lips is dashed to the ground before he has tasted the rich wine on which he has counted as his life's future food? I^ond, in his dry way, as old Lan- caster was of Lois — a fondness greatly helped by his faculty of arithmetical calculation — proud of her as a bonny thing to look at, and lonesome as he found his home without her — the beershops getting the good of her absence — -he had no fair greeting for her when he returned late in the evening from Keswick, and found his daughter in her every-day dress, sitting by the kitchen fire as if no possibility of a grander time, when she should be a lady with waiting-maids at her feet, had ever crossed her days ; as if she were content to live and die in the poor obscurity into which she had been born. "Why, Lois, lass, how's this? " he cried as he strode in, shaking the wet from his dripping clothes and staring at her as if she had been the Armboth Bogle — so at least 00 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. slic told John Musgrave some time afterwards, Avlien Bernard Haynes and Midwood and her chances of ad- vancement had all sunk back into the phantasmagoria of a feverish dream. '■ I have come Lack, father," Lois answered laconi- cally. " Ay, lass, a Llind man conld see that ! " he said. " But why, for mercy's sake ? — that's what gets over mo!— why?" " Because I was not suited and was not wanted where I "was," she said with a certain soft dignity that was infinitely touching; "and because, father, I made a mistake. These grand folk arc nut for me, nor I for them, and I've done with them for ever ! " " Softly, my lass ; softly there ! You've got to reckon with your father before you've wiped that chalk off the door," cried old Lancaster with an expression on his face known only too well to Lois. " We dalesmen are not of the kind to be taken up and laid down again like a bit of stack peat. That young man, that Mr. Bernard there, he courted you ; and by the Lord ho shall wed you or I'll know the reason why ! " " No, father, he shall not," said Lois ; " for I'll not wed him. He'd be willing, fast enough, whatever his mother and sisters may say, biit it's me as cries oft". I'll have none of him, not if it was ever so ! " " And I say you shall ! " said her father sternly. LIKE TO LIKE. 91 Lois lifted up her head.' " I'll not wed where I don't love," she said, very quiet in her manner, pale as to ftice, resolute as to accent ;. " and I find that I don't love Mr. Bernard Haynes as I ought if I was to he his wife; so I'll not make- believe the thing I can't sw^ear to as certain sure." " We'll see, my lass ; we'll see ! " was his reply. " If there's been foul play between them all we'll see to its- being righted, or my name's not Tim Lancaster ! I'll have no young fly-by-night coming here after my girl, and then crying off when he finds he's changed his mind." " Father ! " she interrupted a little scornfully as well as angrily. " Don't I tell you that it's me who has cried off, and not Mr. Bernard who wanted to get shot of me ? How can you go harping and harping like that on such a foolish Avord when I tell yon the exact con- trary, as plain as tongue can speak ? I Avouldn't marry Mr. Bernard Hayes and have to live at Midwood yonder, no, not if he was made of gold ; so noAV ! They ain't the sort for me, and I'm not the sort for them ; and I'd rather never have a name to my back at all than a name I didn't agree with and hold by. Leave me to manage my OAvn affairs, and I'll not ask your help." "You're a fool," said old Lancaster coarsely. " Such a chance doesn't come twice in a lifetime, and you've got your fortune in your OAvn hands." 92 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. " I onl}^ rue that it came once to me ! " cried Lois, Inirstiug into tears. "" I know I'd have been saved a sight of money and a vast of trouble if I hadn't been fool enough to think that I was fit to wed with a gentle- man like Mr, Bernard Haynes, or that I could ever be the like of his mother and sisters I " " The long and the short of it is just this, Lois, they've been badgering you," cried old Lancaster, rufiSing his grizzled hair in his wrath. " They behaved as fine as if I was one of themselves," answered Lois with a mental twinge at the falsehood which she felt herself compelled to make for peace' sake ; *' but I came to my senses while I was there, father. It wouldn't do for me to wed with Mr. Bernard. He is too far away from such as us, and nought but sorrow would come of it." "And his money?" cried old Lancaster with an oath. " Father, when I marry I'll marry the man, not his money," she answered coldly. " Marry ! — when you marry, lass, it will be some poor crazy old tinkler, I'm thinking, if this is the way you are going to carry on," said her fiither passionately. "Who, in mercy's name, but yourself would have given up such a chance as this ? " " Every honest girl who held herself as she ought, and who disdained to push herself where she was not LIKE TO LIKE. 93 wanted," Lois replied, holding her head high ; " and I tell you again, father, I'd rather eat my fingers off than wed with Mr. Bernard Haynes to have to live at Midwood with his mother and sisters. So that's plain ; and I can't make it no plainer ! " Saying which she retreated with dignity to her own little room upstairs, and, taking her slate, wrote on it the first draught of the letter of renunciation which to-morrow's post was to bear to Bernard Haynes. Life is simple enough and action easy while our feelings are single and not complex, while our motives run clear and are not entangled ; but when desires pull passionately to the left and reason warns us loftil}' to the right, when self-interest and self-respect are at war together, it is difficult to decide on our best course ; and even when decided on it is difiicult to follow. This was the case now with Lois. She knew qiiite well what she ought to do, and she intended to do it. Still it was hard. The vision of her grandeur had been very seductive while it lasted and before it had been tested; and, naturally enough, it was a trial to put off her regal gold and purple and come back to her dull homespun. But it had to be done. She had never been deeply in love with Bernard. He was not the kind of man Avhom she would have chosen for himself, and before every one else in the world, to be her husband. He was too refined in •94 WITH A SILKEN TTTBEAD. -thought, too subtle, too much above her head to be completely sympathetic with her; that well-to-do tradesman of her earliest aspirations was more the kind of thing to suit. A county gentleman, with views, was altogether beside the mark; and she was sufficiently reasonable to confess all this to herself— and to act as she confessed. Also, she knew full well that, as she had said to her father, she was entirely out of place among his people. Her self-respect in this had been wounded ; it must now reassert itself. She must show them all — that proud woman more than all — that she, the daughter of the fells, had too much inde- pendence of character to force herself into a family which did not want her — to marry for money one whom she found that she did not really love. All the same it was a sacrifice ; and she suffered while she made it. But she did make it ; and gallantly. She wrote her first copy on the slate, and by care she managed to write it correctly. It was without care and by the ;spontaneity of nature that she wrote it with dignity. She sent these few lines, she said, to wish Mr. Bernard and them all good-bye — to break off the engagement between them — because she was not fit for them, and they could not make her feel at home with them, and -things that went wrong in the beginning generally £nished off worse at the end. She saw that she was LIKE TO LIKE. in Mrs. Haynes's way and that she could do nothing to please her ; and it was best to part now, before it became liarder to do. He had better keep to his own, she said — and the tears fell fast as she added, re- nouncing for ever all her splendid hopes — she would keep with hers"; and not all the world could offer would make her go through another such time as she had had at Midwood, or induce her to see him again or cany on with him in any way. She ended by wishing him and them all health and happiness and "by being his obedient servant, Lois Lancaster. So ended the dream of the beggar-girl and the endeavour of our modern King Cophetna to lift her to a place beside him on his throne ; so ended the new Utopia planned by the young reformer — the regenera- tion of society that was to follow on the sons of the aristocracv taking to themselves wives fiom among the daughters of the peasantry. It was a prosaic sermon on a poetical text, a halting envoi to a gracious idyl; but it was inevitable, as things stood, and the ■only way of wisxlom open to either. " Now, nry dear," said Mrs. Ilayncs to her daughter Maud, after she had read the letter which Bernard flung over to her in a paroxysm of- despair and she had failed in her first attempts to soothe him ; but she knew quite well that time would do what she had not been able to do, and that he Avould live to be happy in 06 WITH A SILKEN- THREAD. her way and to thank her for havino: saved him from his own; " now, was I right or wrong? Had I opposed this mad passion of Bernard's he would have married otit of hand. He was fascinated for the time, and saw all things as he wanted to see them. Quietly letting him prove for himself the incongi'uity of the whole matter, letting the impossibility show itself, saved him and us. Ah, Maud ! a silken thread makes the hest driving-rein a woman can have when she has to deal with man ; and to check while seeming to permit is the only way to secure the command." She smiled radiantly. She was pleased with herself and her method ; and success repaid her for many a hitter moment. " You are always right, mamma," said Maud, cling- ing to her with a gesture of special fondness. " And the yoimg woman has behaved admirably," returned Mrs. Haj'nes ; " with great good sense and dignit}' ; that I feel bound to confess," "Yes," said Maud with a happy smile; "most ad- mirably. I quite like her now." Mrs. Haynes looked at her daughter keenly. "So has some one else, I fancy," she said with meaning. " Can I read yoti, my Maud ? " The girl hid her face on her mother's shoulder. " At last ! " she breathed with a happy sigh. " Oh, mamma, I am so happy ! " LIKE TO LIKE. 97 " I knew it would come, my dear," said Mrs. Haynes. " I am charmed, for you will now be at rest, my Maud ; all the same, I never doubted it," " I did, mamma ; once — when that girl was here," said Maud. " Yes, we were in danger certainly then," returned her mother ; " and we should have been lost for ever had Bernard carried out his mad design. But we were saved, you see; saved without loss — quitte pour la pew!'" " And you managed so well, mamma ! — and I was so stupid and impertinent ! " Maud said with loving penitence. She was so happy that she was glad to be repentant; it seemed to add to her present delight to say how far she had failed in the past. Her mother smoothed her glossy hair. "This is the reward for which we mothers long," she answered ; " that our plans should succeed and our children acknowledge our foresight and good sense. Xow we must think of settlements and your trous- seau, my darling ; and next year perhaps we may have to repeat it all over again for Cora." " With Charley, mamma ? " " With Charley." " I thought so ! " cried Maud. " Dear little Cora, what a sweet little wife she will make ! How much I wish that Bernard would marry Edith ! " she added with a little sigh. VOL. r. H 98 WITH A SILKEN THREAD. " So he will some day," said Mrs. Haynes. " He is broken-hearted now, poor boy — or thinks that he is — and that this young woman from Wythbxirn is the only creature Avorth a second thought in the world. He swears that I have ruined his happiness for life and that he will never marry any one if he cannot have Miss Lancaster ; but I know him better than he knows himself; — and some day he will marry Edith Grattan." " That will be delightful ! — what a haj)py family party ! " cried Maud, kissing her mother enthusiasti- cally just as Sir James Aitken rode up to the door, and the first chapter of her book of betrothal opened. It was a curious coincidence — but then life is made up of curious coincidences — that on the evening of the very day in April when Bernard disappointed his mother's hopes and formally refused to propose to Edith Grattan, Lois, who had been but pale and wan all through the winter, was standing out for a moment by the garden gate at Brigend, watching the last rays of the sun slowly passing from the fell-tops when John Musgrave came riding by. John had been a good deal on and off at the house this Avinter ; and folks did say — but then folks say a vast ihey have no call to, as John always answered when attacked on the subject — that he had helped old Lancaster out of a pinch which else had threatened him severely' — that pinch for the need of which he had blustered to Lois loud and long, and LIKE TO LIKE. 99 «worn that he would take the law of young Bernard Hajmes and make him smart for his villany. It did not make him lower his voice to he told that he had not a hair's-breadth of standing-ground. He was angry and disappointed ; and when men are in a rage they do not care much for reason. John's help however, tided him ■over the Avorst part ; and he, for his part, was by no means sorrj- to be of use to Lois Lancaster's father. It made the future bright and the pi'esent very sweet, and it seemed somehow to redeem the mistakes and disasters of the past ; and it made Lois tender and patient Avith her rustic friend — gratitude gilding the roiigh metal which might be accepted but could not be denied, and rendering all that was homely beautiful and comely. "Eh?" he said as he came up. "You out in the ■damp like this ? Are you doing wise-like, Miss Lan- caster ? Aren't you best indoors ? " He spoke with an indescribable accent of tenderness, his fine blue eyes bent on her with grave and serious affection. " It is very mild, Mr. John," Lois answered, blush- ing vividly. "But you are very frail," John returned, hitching his horse to the rail and passing through the gate to place himself by her side. " We must take care of you, you know. Good gear's bad to spare ! " " You are very good to think so much of mc, Mr. 100 WITH A SILKEN TUBE AD. John," she said, playing with her rihhons, and looking sninemely pretty if a little awkward. "Do you like me to mind you as much as I do?" returned John in a lower voice. " Yes " said Lois, looking down. " I don't fash you when I care for you ? " The w-ords seemed somehow to choke him ; and he- waited for their answer as a man waits for the verdict which will give him life or death. " No," she said. " You mean that, Lois ? " "Yes, Mr. John; I mean it," she replied. He clasped her in his arms. "Eh, my lass!" he cried, his voice broken with emotion ; " you've made a proud man of me to-night ! I've waited for you, Lois, as patiently as Jacob waited for Eachel; and I've oft wondered if it would ever come ! And now it has ; and you do mean it, lass ? " "Yes," repeated Lois bashfully but firml3^ "I da mean it, Mr. John." "And you can make yourself hai-)p3'- with a rough farmer body like me ; you as is a lady ? " " Yes, I'll be happy," she answered. He put back her face tenderly, almost reverently, and kissed her fresh, fair lips. " My lass ! " he said, straining her to him "like's best to like, and love's more nor gear. The highest lady in LIKE TO LIKE. 101 the land sliau't be better cared for nor you — shan't be happier or more looked to; and, as for me, I'd not change my place to-night with a crowned king on his throne ! " " Yes," said Lois, and she meant all that her words implied ; '• like's best to like, as yon say, Mr. John ; anything else is of no good. Bvit many a body goes the wrong road that way, and it's a good job when they find it out before it's too late." "I'm not too late, am I?" asked John, Avith the foolish repetition of one asking to be assured of that of which he is already convinced. He was only a lover, poor fellow, and no wiser than his kind. " No," said Lois ; " you're in time, Mr. John." " And you mean it ? " he reiterated. She laid her hand in his. " There's my hand on it," she said frankly. " Now do you think I mean it ? " " I do, my lass ! I do ! " he answered, kissing her a little strongly; Lois making a feint to resist, as she gasped breathlessly : " Oh, Mr. John, such ways ! Well, if ever I saw the like ! " THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. CHAPTER I. The world was dull and life was veiy dreary to young Anthony Carthew ; and all sorts of strange unanswered questions gathered heavily upon his heart, like the sad dreams which oppress the mournful. For what was he living ? — to what aim, end, purpose or intention ? For pleasure ? — pleasure in the dullest of societies and the most uninteresting of countries? For ambition? — what ambition was there for a daily tutor in Stoneleigh, whose best pupil was the exciseman's eldest boy, and whose noblest energies were fulfilled when he had ground his " hie, ha3C, hoc " into the unwilling brains of half a dozen farmers' sons ? For a pleasant home- life of love and sweet affection ? — but his possessions in that way were not rich enough for the needs of the poorest heart. With a half-sister, much older than himself, who usurped the domination without granting the tenderness of a mother and who thought that the 106 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. fit guidance of youth meant the supi:)ression of its in- stincts and the annihilation of all its jo^'^s, — with only such a companion as this, there could not be much love shut up for him within those four walls called by cour- tesy his home. So that, turn which way he would, his whole life seemed barren and his very existence a mistake. Anthony was not unreasonable in his discontent ; for in truth never was there a more comfortless life than that which Eachel Cavthew provided for her young brother in that miserable house of theirs. Old maiden- ism was stamped on every square inch of the naked cleanliness and exasperating order which she had a grim delight in scraping round her; and even mild, well-conducted, sober-tempered men were tempted to commit unusual domestic crimes for the sake of breaking the hard lines of her hideous regularity. All gloom and narrowness — all repression and domination— in such a melancholy dungeon as this Rachel thought to forge the links and grappling-irons which were to save her youthful brother from external evil, and anchor him to the safety lying in the calm of home aifections. Can 3'ou wonder, then, that Anthony was weary of a life which gave him only such a stagnant pool as thi& for the bay which held its choicest pearls ? Fifty at the youngest, stiff-backed, lean, bony and in- expressibly sour-tempered, Rachel Carthew was a living THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 107 protest against every grace of womanliood and every suave deliglit of life. No one had been ever known to love her — not even when she was young and what people, who measure beauty by length of inches and weight of bone, call a " fine woman ; " and now, of coiirse, such a contingency was out of the question — she was as far removed from love in any of its forms as if she had been one of the Gorgon sisterhood unearthed. But the hardest have a soft place somewhere ; and even Eachel had her preferences. The soft place in her heart was given to a certain little Nelly Blair, the daughter of the Stoneleigh attorney ; who thus was admitted into the huls clos which so few had found means to penetrate. Nelly Blair was a pretty little creature of the apple- cheek order; with large light-blue eyes, well shaped but inexpressive ; a fair, round, fat face ; a short, bhmt, positive nose ; red lips, neither full nor wide ; a figure made up of a succession of circles ; and with a temper as even as a bowl of fiesh milk. Such as she was, she was Eachel C'arthew's chosen friend ; and Eachel had her designs on her friend's future fortunes. Now Anthony well knew what those designs were, and gave way to them according to the habitual indolence of his character, according to the deference he always paid his sister and according to the pliancy of the discontented and unhappy. The suit went by Eachel's ruling ; and in 108 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. due time Antlion}-, clieated Toy tlie crying need of sym- pathy into the belief that he loved Nelly Blair, who, by the way, was the only girl of his own age and condition with whom he was acquainted, made his proposal in proper form and in proper form was accepted. For though he was only the village teacher of Humanities, he was not poor ; and though Nelly was the attorney's daughter, she had no portion. So that they were about equal in rank and condition ; and neither could despise the belongings of the other. And now Anthony thought he should be happy; surely j^es — ^was he not loved and did he not love ? But, to his shame as well as to his sorrow, the dead- Aveight was not lifted from his heart nor the shadow on his life lightened. He was not happier than he Avas before ; and often a great deal more bored, because less alone. For the rest, Eachel was grimly satisfied and Xelly temperately content ; smiling Avhen her band- some lover met her and smiling just as placidly Avhen he left her; smiling if she said: "What a long time since I have seen you ! " and smiling in precisely the same curves and depth of dimples if she said instead : " What ! here again so soon ! " In short, Xelly was always the same. She lived in her small world of crochet-work and household duties, of jams and pickles and bead-purses and cunning economies, with a calm- ness and equanimity that likened her to a monotonous THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 109 plain without thorns, weeds or flowers : or to a wave- less lake beneath a colourless gray sky, tossed by no passion and beautified by no reflection. Doubtless she was very good ; but she was horribly uninteresting. Anthony was angry with himself that he was not more contented ; for was he not truly, really, devotedly in love ? Eachel said he was, and Eachel knew every- thing ; and Xelly was satisfied — and would she ba that if he failed even in the smallest particular ? It was said young girls were exacting ; and she was doubtless like the rest. More weary and melancholy than ever, one day Anthony plunged into the only square yard of copse to be seen for miles round Stoneleigh. It was tlie wood of the neighbourhood, and might have been an acre cut out of the Black Forest for the magnificent ideas of gloom and grandeur associated with it by the Stoneleigh people ; and naturally it was a favourite place with Anthony, with his romantic tendencies and insatiable love of nature. Lost in his own vao-iie dreaminsrs, his. head buried in his hands, over which his picturesque black hair hung thick and wavy, Anthony's senses were closed against the outside world, when suddenly a voice, most rarely sweet and musical, asking with the dain- tiest dash of foreign accent : " What was the name of this wood ? — and in which direction was Stoneleigh ? " woke him to the knowledge that a ladv was standing; before 110 TEE COUNTESS MELUSINE. him. Conftised and startled, he sprang to his feet, and his eyes met two Large hazel orbs fixed with a strange perplexing expression on his face. "This is Beech Copse, madam; and Stoneleigh lies to the north," stammered Anthony. "Thank yon; yon are kind," said the lady, still keeping her perplexingly Deautiful eyes fixed steadily upon him. " And you, monsienr — forgive me the liberty — but do yon, too, live at Stoneleigh ? " " Yes," said Anthony, blushing. "I am glad of that," she answered with a low sweet laugh ; " for I am your neighbour noAV, and shall hope to see you sometimes at Oakfell Hall." " Oakfell Hall ! " echoed Anthony in a tone of surprise. " In its ruined state, how can you bo there, madam ? It is years since it was inhabited, and it is little better than a ruin." " I am usually ver}- rapid in my movements," said the hidy with a (lingular smile. " I took tlie place only a few days ago, certainly ; but if you will do mo the pleasure of paying me a visit, you will I think agree that I have not lost my time. Will you come ? " Anthony stammered something, he scarcely knew what; but it was sufficiently unintelligible to jiass for an assent ; and the lady accepted it as such. "Adieu then, monsieur ! " she said. " Eemember, I •count on seeing you at the Hall; and soon — the sooner THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. ill the more cliarming." She waved her hand, then passed with a pretty, light, balancing step round the clump of gorse that grew beside them. Anthony saw her light-blue summer robe flutter through the golden lacings of the blossoms, and it seemed as if heaven itself had fluttered away in its folds. With a magnificent burst of stoicism he left the copse and came out upon the open common; and there, walking in the direction of Stoneleigh, he saw the flutter of a light-blue robe and a graceful head turned back towards the road; one small fair hand holding the chestnut curls from off the face. Was the air so marvellously clear to-day that every line and hue and movement of that figure should be preternaturally distinct? — or was it, in very truth, a chapter of glamour? and was Anthony under the spell of an unblessed faj^? A couple of centuries ago he would have thought himself possessed, and would have straightway gone to a priest to be exorcised. Now, with the light of science slanting in his eyes, he spoke reasonably to himself of nerves and liver, of the virtue that lay in calomel and black-draught, and of the foolish excitability of those who dwell much alone in •country places. But he was bewitched nevertheless. 112 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. CHAPTER II. " Who has taken tlie old Hall, Eacliel— Oakfell Hall?" cried Anthony, in a rushing headlong kind of manner„ He was out of breath and heated, having run all the way home in the hope of overtaking that gracious form gliding so swiftly iDcfore him ; and lie had been disap- pointed. " How did 3^on know it was taken at all ? " said Rachel stiffly. She was displeased at his abrupt entrance and more abrupt manner. " Never mind that, but tell mc the name of the person," said Anthony, still more impatiently. " When you address me with becoming respect, I may reply to you ; not before," was Rachel's frosty answer. " Pshaw ! I meant nothing disrespectful, sister. I only want to know the lady's name." "How do you know it is a lady?" asked Rachel again, with a quick suspicion in her glance. "Yoi^ are very odd to-day, Anthony." "Why, sister?" he answered, forcing a laugh and putting on a caressing manner that was as false and strained as the rest. "What is there odd in asking THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 113 the name of a new tenant of the ohl Hall ? I heard it was let, and I simply wished to know to whom, as any one else would wish to know. It was a piece of ordinary gossip, snrel}" not surprising." " Well — there ! that's enough ahont it, boy ! I don't know her name and I don't want to know it. She has no name at all, I dare say. Very likely she is an adventuress, and thinks it best to leave her old address behind her." Eachel smiled grimly; her gruff wit pleased her. " Eachel, j^ou are absurd," cried Anthony angrily ; "and uncharitable beyond bounds. It is really too bad — a stranger whom you have never ever seen — te- at once conclude evil ; it is too revolting — too un- womanly ! " Anthony was in much agitation when he spoke, and kept his face turned away. Eachel opened her eyes. In all the years of her young brother's life, during which he had submitted to her uncomfortable authority like the most dutiful son, he had never spoken to her so disrespectfully as now. She turned upon him savagely, and while rolling out her deep-mouthed peroration, the door-bell rang and Nelly Blair entered. Vapid and unmeaning — with those abrupt decided manners which have no grace in them, and dressed in the singularly unbecoming fashion delighted in by staid 3'oung ladies in the country to whom beauty of VOL. I. . I 114 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. toilette is a sin, and wlio cannot, for the life of tliem, divorce elegance from frivolity, f;\sliion from worthless- ness — Nelly offered sixcli a painful contrast to the beautiful stranger whom he had just met, that Anthony felt like one who had Leen blind or crazed, and whose senses were that moment restored. Had he ever really loved Nelly? — thought her lovely or found her lovable? Was that the portion which life had meted out to him ? and was he to accept it with thankfulness? Surely it was all a dream, a hideous dream, from which his guardian angel had awakened him before too late while standing there by the golden gorse in the lieech-wood cOpse. Nell}^ was not sensitive, and her heart gave her no revelations. She shook her lover's hand just as nsual ; looked into his pale face with her usual smile ; cauglit the earnest piercing eyes upon her own jnst as placidly as ever ; then turned to Rachel amiably, and brushed her corkscrew curls by way of kiss. " Well ! the Hall is taken at last," said Nelly, sitt^ing down in a fat little bundle, and unfastening her bonnet. " Queer, tumble-down old place ! I am sure I wonder at any one living there ; don't you, Kachel ? " " Who has taken it ? " asked Anthony quickly. " Oh, a foreign Avoman ; the Countess Melusine, or some such name. Who she is I don't know, you know ; but father drew the agreement, and she signed herself the Countess Melusine — such a heathenish name too ! Oh, THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 115 Eacliel, ain't it a good thing ? — father has agreed with Joe Styles to draw his coals, and Joe will do it for a shilling a week less than what we joaid old Ned. I am so glad ! And, Eachel, how did yonr potted beef turn out ? Mine was all spoilt. I put in too mueli pepper, and father conghed himself nearly into a fit. Tity, wasn't it, such good stuff to ho, wasted ? " '•For how long is the agreement made, Nelly?" asked Anthonj'-, kicking up a square of drugget, much to Eachel's displeasure. " With Joe Styles ? " " No, no, Nelly ! Can 3'ou never rise out of the kitchen ? " said Anthony scornfully. '• I mean the lady's — the Countess Melusine's — for the Hall." " Oh, I don't know, I'm sure, Anthony. But how «he runs in your head ! What is it to ns how long she stays? She will very likely be too proud to notice ns." " Anthony, I cannot understand you," said Iiachel very sternly. She had kept her eyes fixed on her brother for some time ; and Kachel, though narrow, was sharp. " Perhaps not, sister. Did you ever understand me? " With which the young man flung himself out of the room, swinging the door after him in no very gentle fashion. " Anthonj- 's queer to-day," said Nelly equably, as she threaded her needle. '• What is the matter, Eachel ? " 116 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. " I cannot tell yon," said Eacliel, straightening the disordered square with angiy hands. " The letting of the Hall seems to have upset him somehow, I think that foreign woman has bewitched him." " Dear me ! " said Nelly laughing. " "Well, that is odd, now ! Why, I have never thought of her twice ! Men are queer folk. Eachel; not half so rational as women, after all." " Some are not, certainly," said Eachel ; meaning Anthony as the apex of the world's j^yramid of fools. After what was to Anthony a constrained and most wretched evening, but which seemed to Nelly just the same as all other evenings and to Eachel neither more nor less filled A\-ith foolishness and the waywardness of life, the lawyer's daughter, to her lover's profound relief, prepared to go home. Never had he felt her presence so oppressive nor her society so uninteresting ; never had Eachel appeared harsher, less womanly, less admirable ; never had he felt himself less suited to his companions, more lonely in heart or more desirous of escape. He could think of nothing but that beautiful stranger who spoke to him so kindly in the wood, whose smile had made his life a glory, and Avhose friendship seemed as if it would be no unworthy fore- taste of heaven. He could render no account to himself for the persistency of his thoughts. Youths of his age and temperament are rarely introspective, and for the THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 117 most part content themselves with feeling, without caring to examine ; and Anthony gave himself up to the tide without seeking to fathom its depth or discern its outlet. Time enough for that when the harbour was reached or the wreck came. The weary night passed, and the dull morning broadened into day. But the hours seemed to Anthony to lag as they had never lagged before — as if they were all halt and lame, staggering one step where formerly they ran two — until he stood at the lodge- g'ate of the Hall. Had a magician passed through that ruined place? or how was it that the waste and desola- tion which had grown round the Hall in its seven years' desertion had been removed vvitli such marvel- lous speed? The tangled shruljbery was thinned and trimmed ; the broad walks, which had grown green with moss and weeds, were newly gravelled, hard- rolled, smooth and firm; the lawn was closely mown, and from rank coarse grass spangled with ox-eyes and the bitter hawkweed, had turned to moss close-grown xind fragrant ; the flower-beds had been cleared of their waste of nettles and groundsel and were now gay with the choicest flowers; while the house itself was changed in all but the mere outside lines — trellis-work, paint and gilding, marble and paper and cement transforming its whole appearance and creating a palace from a ruin. But the marvel of it all was the exceeding celerity 118 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. ■with whicli tlie transformation had been accomplished^ and the nnostentatious manner in which it had been done. Anthony was bewildered ; and Avhile looking about him, almost superstitionsl}^ — " I have been exj)editious,. monsieur, have I not?" — said that sweetest voice which the world had ever heard ; and the Countess stood noiselessly beside him. In her fresh morning dress, with the soft wind blowing her chestnut curls loosely over her face and giving a warmer tinge to her fair cheek, with her strange eyes so full of hidden meanings looking at him more kindly than woman's eyes had ever looked before, her smiling mouth and graceful figure, she seemed more than mortal to the young country tutor, accustomed only to the dull dowdyism of -Nelly Blair and the rest of the " second set " in Stoneleigh. He scarcely knew what he answered. He blushed, hesi- tated, stammered, much as a young Greek shepherd might have done if a goddess had suddenly revealed herself: And something never felt before rose up within him ; the inner depth was for the first time struck, the living spring for the first time oj^ened. The acquaintance was not twenty-four hours old, but already it had stolen from Anthony the sacred treasure of his life. Plow the time passed he never knew. He thought THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 119 lie had been about an liour, perhaps a couple of hours, at the Hall, when the sunset fell and the moon came out. He had spent then, the whole afternoon and part of the evening in the gardens with the lady, and had taken his delight in such deep draughts that he had scarce been able to understand its flavour. But if Anthony had been nnconscioiis of all save feeling, the Countess had done her appointed work with vigour and understanding ; and long before parting-time had come had learnt the names, biographies and rent-rolls of every family in the neighbourhood, their weak points and their strong ones, where they were most vulnerable and where they were intact. Anthony was too much absorbed to notice the greedy interest which she lent to this description ; too much fascinated by her grace and kindness to ask himself why she cared to know all these minutiai of people whom she had never seen, or of what possible interest it could be to her that young Mr. Briggs had two thousand a year and old Mr. Smith four ; that the Hopgoods were the principal friends of the neighbourhood ; that the Joneses — retired Liverpool merchants — were said to play at ruinous stakes sometimes ; while Captain MacArthur was a professed gambler and lived by the Baden tables. If Anthony had looked at his companion as he detailed this last bit of local gossip, he would have 120 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. seen that she changed colour and slightly frowned, while something that might have been a naughty expletive, from the sound, rippled musically over her lips. But he paid no attention to this, nor to the inexplicable half-muttered exclamation : " Keady made to my hand ! " said in the sweetest and gentlest of voices, with the brightest of glances flung far over the landscape. The Countess laughed. " I could tell you more than this, Monsieur Antoine," she said pleasantly. "My friend M. le Baron von Guldeustern has told me a pretty little nest of secrets — perhaps more than you know of here in your virtuous little valley." And then Anthony was gracefully dismissed, the dinner-bell having rung : and midway in the broad walk a fair soft hand joined itself with his, and the loveliest of hazel eyes looked with swimming gentle- ness upon him, as two small dewy lips parted, and a voice as sweet as a young bird's expressed pretty thankfulness for the honour of this long visit, and many gracious hopes that it would be soon repeated, and that they, the speakers, joined now hand in hand, would become firm friends and great allies. Whereat the delicate palm gave an almost imperceptible pressure against his, and the dewy lips smiled a tenderer smile. " For he is really very handsome and his innocence is quite delicious," she said, speaking to her maid, to THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 121 whom she related the substance of this long day's talk. "Well, and after?" said that individual, in French, seating herself familiarly by the Countess on the sofa. " Well ! " answered the lady, yawning. " It is a good field, my dear, and a safe venture. And now to dinner ; for, oh, I am so hungry ! " 122 THE COUNTESS ME LU SINE. CHArTEE III. The Countess Melusine became tlie rage at Stoneleiglu Flattcrinc; letters of iiitrodiaction from the Baron Guldenstern, a Hanoverian nobleman of unqnestionable standing, to the Hopgoods, Avho were the leading people of the place, gave the pass-key into every house beside. For the Baron was a great friend of the Plopgoods, and one whose notice somewhat honoured them ; so that any recommendation of his was sure of eager acknow- ledgment. But among all her adherents none wor- shipped her with so much singleness of heart — the infatuation of none struck so deep or soared so high- — as the young teacher's. To him she was a revelation, a being from another world; it was adoration rather than love that he felt for her ; and he could have died for her simple wilful pleasure with as much rapture as other men would have lived for their own. And she — perhaps she pitied him; perhaps his innocence and ingenuousness touched her ; perhaps even another feel- ing came in ; — be that as it may, she spared him. The great events of the present year at Stoneleigh were the balls and parties given by the Countess at THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 123- Oakfell Hall. The wealthy Joneses and the superior Hopgoods both asserted that they had never seen any- thing equal to them in their way ; and if aught had been wanting to confirm their admiration of their new neighbour, it would have been the faultlessness of her entertainments. They were subjects of conversation and imitation for years after, when the whole thing had exploded and gone to the winds. To be sure, the play was very deep and the fair Countess was no coward va> her laughing bets ; to be sure too, no one ever seemed to win, and the beautiful hostess herself always pro- tested most strenuously of all, how she had been victimized ; complaining in her fascinating accent of the cruelty of her guests and their inhospitality to a. stranger and a foreigner. " It was very odd," Mr. Jones used to say when counting up the stakes, " very odd indeed who had got them all ! " And Mr. Joues, as a retired Liverpool merchant, was pretty well up to gambling in all its aspects. Very odd too, was it how often the best cards turned up at the right moment in the hand of the Countess ^ and how that pretty graceful way of shuffling of hers seemed to bring her good luck : " As, indeed, it should, as a reward of its gracefulness," said Mr. Briggs gallantly, though somewhat ruefully as well, as he disbursed his golden losses. 124 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. The only joeison who held off from joining in this universal choir of homage was Captain ]\Iac Arthur. Between him and the lady existed a something — no one exactly knew what — hut a certain mute distrust on his part and a scarcel}^ veiled defiance on hers. He went less to Oakfell Hall than any one in the neia'h- bourhood, and often he used to say : "I cannot think where I have seen the Countess before, but her face seems so very familiar to me." Once he made the same remark to her ; but she answered him so haughtily, so much as if the assertion were an offence, that Captain MacArthur thought it needful to apologize and assure her he was mistaken. Still, there was nothing like open hostility between them ; and the fre(]^uentcr of the Baden tables simply forbore to adulate her like the rest ; he never spoke with positive disfavour. The most curious thing in her social tactics, was how she contrived to be secretly on better terms with half her society than came out in public bearing. Almost all the gentlemen in turn were admitted to private consultations in tliat delicious little boudoir hung with blue and silver, that " gave off" from the drawing-room, as she phrased it; but specially and most frequently might young Mr. Briggs and old ]Mr. Smith have been seen there by those of the curious who had cared to penetrate the secrets of the Hall. But no one knew of their long, earnest, gracious collo- THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. quies in the little boudoir of blue.and silver ; no one knew that even Mr. Hopgood spent many a half-morn- ing closeted there with the Countess in the freshest and most becoming of morning toilettes, and with the daintiest and most delicate of " slight refreshments " on the table beside them ; no one know that Mr. Jones, more than once, told the partner of his bosom a whole chapter of fibs to conceal the fact that he had passed hours at the Hall under a spell of blue and silver, and old Ehenish wine in cut crj'stal goblets, and floating muslin and chestnut-coloured curls, which for ever culminated in a tangible result better not detailed at length ; — no one knew all this, or what those tete-a- tetes meant, or whether it was ambition or intrigue, love, mone}^ or politics, that animated the Countess Melusine and made her life the busy web of secrets that it was. The most carefully guarded secret of all was the iiltimate purpose of this blue-and-silver boudoir off the drawing-room. More noticeable than her secret intimacies with the moneyed men of the district, becaxise more open, was her daring patronage of young Anthony Carthew. She invited him to her revels, where the Hopgoods in their silks and flounces and severe local aristo- cracy and the Joneses in their flighty haughtiness, were assembled as by right ; and she bore down the opposition which would have swamped a less popular 12G THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. innovator. And her protege did not disgrace lier. With the tact of an inborn gentleman, he carried himself with qnietness and dignity ; not making him- self conspictious in any way and even catching some- thing of the tone ahout him. And thongh it was all new to him, no one who saw him in those brilliant rooms, modest, frank and beautiful as became his yonth, would liave supposed that he was making his novitiate and that all, even to the proper mode of address, was a new study to him. In one thing he was markedl}^ distinct from the rest; he never played. The Countess forbade him the card-room ; and he was too happy to obey her desires to Avish to infringe them. He was the only one in the place who knew of those secret colloquies in the boudoir, and he used at times to be vaguely fearful, mutely uneasy, as a faithful hound might have been ; jealous of his mistress — but jealous for love not self-seeking. But the Countess never neglected him. On the contrary, she petted him openly in her reunions, as she called them ; made much of him, and kept him always about her; praising his manners, his face, his talents, to every one around, and raising him, by the might of her popularity, to the startling equality of recognition even from the Hopgoods themselves. Six months before he would as soon have expected a bow or a " hand-shake " from the Head of the Empire himself. But the daytime gave THE COUNTESS 2IELUSINE. 127 Anthon}^ liis dearest pleasures, more so than even those brilliant vivid evenings. He was rarely twenty-four hours away from the Hall, excepting when the houdoir was tenanted by a rival. Whole days would pass like minutes, while he wandered in the garden by the side of the Countess, whose varied knowledge and sparkling wit enthralled him quite as much as her beauty or her gracious kindness. In the mean time what did Nelly Blair? and what the austere Eachel ? They held themselves aloof fri)m the popular current and predicted all sorts of shameful couchings to tlie popular blindness. Nelly at last began^to see that Anthony's life was centred in the Hall, and that he had become indifferent to her even to neglect, Eachel had long seen as much ; and she fumed and raged and even wept for spite — but all as unheeded as if she had been but the boisterous wind or the angry rain lashing the distant fells. Nelly took it much more quietly. She would listen placidly to Rachel's fierce wrath, and, when she had ended, would give a light sigh and say : " Oh, he'll come round, llachel ! He is very j'oung, you know ; and I always thought him rather foolish ; but he'll come round in time. Let's wait and see, and not trouble ourselves too much about him, Rachel." 128 THE COUNTESS MELIJSINE. CHAPTEE IV. One day Anthony was at tlie Hall as usual, in the blue- and-silver boudoir. The Countess had never looked more beautiful than .she did to-day and had never been more charming. Her manners had a warmer shade than nsiial, and were more familiarly caressing ; and, for the first time, she spoke of her private afQxirs. Hitherto she had only alluded incidentally to herself as the daughter of a prince with a barrow-load of consonants, and a name unpronounceable by any but a compatriot ; or^ as the widow of The Coimt. She never gave Ids name, though the German Baron had written it in his letter of introduction, but so ill, that whether it were Eussian or Eoumaic no one on this side Babel could tell. For the rest, she was the Countess Melusino. From speaking of her parentage and condition, touch- ing feelingly on the various troubles she had under- gone, and letting her sweet eyes, beaded with heavy tears, rest lovingly on Anthony's eager face as she spoke of death and disappointment and the fresh heart's early sorrows, she glided by easy transition into the more worldly matters of money and expense. THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 129 Lightly and without complaint, laughing in her natural bird-like manner, she confessed to a tiresome momentary embarrassment and to her need for a paltry three hundred pounds — just for a few days ; certainly not longer than a week ; merely to pay an insolent tradesman who would not wait her convenience. And then she appealed to her cher Monsieur Antoine to tell her — she so ignorant of English business — how she could raise that three hundred pounds ; for see ! touching her bracelets and pointing to her furniture — what grand security she had to offer ! — and jewels and plate, she had often heard men say, were only consoli- dated bank-notes. And again she laughed; but her cheeks were paler than before and her dark-browm eyes were troubled. Anthony's whole fortune was just one compact three hundred pounds, — his, though his sister dealt with it as her own, even sometimes, when irreflectively irate, threatening to leave it away to strangers. Simple boy I he had told this to the Countess the very first visit he had paid her; but he had forgotten now; and her request came as an unhoped-for opportunity to be of service. Eager, proud, glad, he spoke to her of this sum, which to him seemed, as indeed it was, a fortune. " And would she not honour him by taking it ? She might repaj^ it at her leisure, for he could scarcely hope that she would honour him so far as to accept his VOL. I. ' K 130 THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. little offering as a gift. Yet he would be so glad, so proud, to offer it. Would she not render his whole life hlessed by the remembrance that once he had been enabled to spare her half an hour's embarrassment? Would she not prove the sincerity of her friendship for him, and test the loyalty of his devotion, by suffer- ing him to aid her ? Oh ! would she not grant him this, when if need be he would aid her with his life?" Powerfully moved, but respectful as ever, he took her pliant hand and pressed it between his own, all his honest love in his eyes and quivering like sunlight over his face. In the lady's eyes flickered a painful half-frightened glance. She looked fearfullj'' at the door, then bent forward with a caressing movement, as if to thank him. And then a longing loving look veiled that painful glance; her cheek flushed, her lip quivered and tears gathered rip into her eyes ; she laid her hand on the boy's forehead, and with a voice full of genuine tenderness said sadly : " No, no, my poor child, not you ! " " Maudite hete ! " growled Justine, the maid, watching the scene through the keyhole. " She shall pay for this ! " That touch sealed Anthony's fate. He flung himself at her feet ; he did not know Avliat he said, scarcely what he felt ; he only knew that the barrier was THE COUNTESS MELUSINE. 131 Lroken down and that the love which had hidden deep in his heart, scarcely daring to confess itself in the silence of his own thoughts, now leapt forth into the life of words. The Countess JMelusine was Tised to hear men talk