UCSB LIBRARY THE GRASSHOPPERS HOW DO MEN MANAGE TO MAKE A LIVING, DICK?" Pllgl The Grasshoppers BY MRS. ANDREW DEAN (Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick) AUTHOR OF "ISAAC ELLER's MONEY," "A SPLENDID COUSIN, "MRS. FINCH-BRASSEY," " LESSER'S DAUGHTER," ETC. Illustrated by Walter B. Russell " La eigale, ayant chant f Tout /V//, Sf trouva fort dfyourvue Quand la bise fut venue ' : ftew FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copgrfgbt, 1895 jfrc&crlcfc H. Stofeee Company CONTENTS. CHAPTER AGE I. MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS, .... 7 II. SHOPPING, 14 III. HERR HANSEN, 22 IV. MRS. THEODORE AT HOME, . 35 V. HERR HANSEN'S COATS 42 VI. BEFORE THE DANCE 58 VII. A FOOLISH VIRGIN, 69 VIII. DICK'S FOLLY, 85 IX. BAD NEWS, . 92 X. REALITIES, 105 XI. RATS, 120 XII. FIRST IMPRESSIONS, 131 XIIL AN AFTERNOON CALL, 147 XIV. A FAMILY PARTY, 161 XV. ON THE ALSTER, 176 XVI. NEWS FROM ENGLAND, 193 XVII. CHRISTMAS WITH AUNT BERTHA, . . . 212 XVIII. NF.W YEAR'S EVE, . 225 XIX. POLTERABEND, 24! XX THE WEDDING DAY, ... .261 21 29229 vi Contents. CHAPTER PAGB XXI. FORTUNE'S FREAKES UNKINDK. . . .272 XXII. LEBEWOHL! ... ... 281 XXIII. LIFE IN A GARRET, 289 XXIV. A WHITE ELEPHANT 302 XXV. IN WHICH OLD FRIENDS MEET, . . .314 XXVI. AN ARRIVAL, A DEPARTURE, AND A SURPRISE, 327 XXVII. WHAT EVERY WISB MAN'S SON DOTH KNOW, 337 THE GRASSHOPPERS CHAPTER I. MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS. WHEN Hilary Frere first expressed a wish to go to college her mother wept. Mrs. Frere had not trained up her daughter to walk in such a path as this. She had never seen any of the women's colleges, nor had she ever known a person who lived in one, nor was she in the habit of reading anything more about them than the chance paragraphs that appear in the daily papers and the fashion books. Nevertheless, like many others of her generation, she cherished a lively dislike of these institutions. The very name of one still sends an unpleasing thrill through the frames of many respectable and otherwise intelligent persons. It conjures up a vision of womanhood with the graces left out. It suggests an aggressive creature brimful of the knowledge to be gathered from text-books, and lacking the modesty that recognizes a yet wider, deeper knowledge in other people. Moreover, Mrs. Frere feared that collegiate life would have the same effect on a girl as a vow of celi- bacy. It would lead her to dress in a disagreeably conspicuous fashion. She would cut her hair short, take to spectacles, and burn her modish gowns ; and it would fill her with the distrust of men and marriage that is fashionable among the glorified spinsters of to-day. " The others will say they despise men, and then ttbe Grasshoppers, marry the first one who proposes," wailed Mrs. Frere, " but if Hilary says so, she will act on it ; and Hilary would make such a pretty bride." Mrs. Frere, like many a mother, lived in the hope of seeing her two girls married ; and the wish in her kind heart proceeded from her sincere belief in the advantages of married life. She was not by any means without a little common worldly ambition. She would far rather have seen her children married to rich men than to poor ones; but she would confess without much pressure, and without any shame, that in her opinion almost any existence as a married woman was preferable to a state of single blessedness. She was, in short, a person of antiquated views, who would probably have told you that marriage and mother- hood ought to be the end and aim of a woman's life. Her beliefs were behind the times, but they were com- plimentary to her husband. Mrs. Frere was a German. Twenty-five years ago she had arrived in England with no fortune but her good looks, her foreign tongue, and a pretty touch on the piano. She spent a couple of years in imparting all she could of these advantages to the daughters of Mr. Theodore, a wealthy merchant, and then she accepted an offer of marriage from Richard Frere, a junior partner in her employer's firm. Mr. Frere married for love, and he got what he wanted. He and his wife clung to each other with an affection that the passing years seemed to foster and strengthen, as time fosters and strengthens other healthy, natural growths. Money the years did not bring him, and for this his beloved wife was in part responsible. But even the anxieties of his position, and Mrs. Frere's failure to appreciate them, could not do much to trouble his affection for her. About most items of their expenditure husband and wife disagreed ; and it is a pleasing fact that this constant disagreement had only a superficial influence on their regard for each other. Such are the advantages of inconsistency. jflBotber anfc Daughters. 9 There was, however, one form of expenditure in which both of them delighted. They were equally determined to deny their children nothing. Mrs. Frere's indulgence spent itself chiefly on amusements, clothes, and toys. Mr. Frere made a point of paying as much as possible for his daughters' education. It was his way of providing for their future. Mrs. Frere's way was still more simple. The girls would marry young, and marry well, she said, and there would be an end of all perplexity. The next few years would bring this about, and, if more money than usual was spent on dress and hospitality, Mr. Frere must not grumble. She besought him to keep an easy mind and a light heart until the rice had been thrown after Nell and her bridegroom. Then the two old people could settle down as quietly as Mr. Frere liked and enjoy the sunset of life side by side. Her hus- band used to smile at his wife's pictures of their chil- dren's triumphs and of the silver honeymoon they two would pass together. But his anxieties were too real to be dispelled by pleasant prophecy. He was piti- fully eager to give his children anything he could in the shape of a hold on the world. Nell's endeavors to improve herself were never unpleasing to her mother. She had a fancy for modern languages ; she danced well ; and, aided by expensive masters, she made the most of a pretty little voice. Even her rivals called her a clever girl. When the banjo came into fashion she learned to play it at once, and she could dance in an accordion-pleated skirt as soon as that was the proper thing to do. She had quite a genius (her friends said) for painting flowers on any background in vogue. Sometimes it was the panels of a door ; once it was the ceiling, and that made her mother nervous. Lately it had been drain-pipes. In a country town she would have been the prop of the bazaars. Hilary was very unlike her sister, and she was at once the pride and the despair of her mother's heart. At school she worked hard and did well, and this (Srassbopperg. greatly gratified Mrs. Frere, who never realized that her child's proficiency in English was not as strange and commendable as it would have been in herself. But when Hilary left school her mother did not see why she should trouble any further about the pursuit of knowledge. A few singing lessons, a fancy for water-colors, the translation of / Promcssi Sposi, or even a course or two of scientific lectures such last touches to a girl's education Mrs. Frere could under- stand ; but it vexed her to see the child light up over a volume of Ruskin, and yawn in the dressmaker's parlor. And why should she work at Greek and mathematics ? In these days, when eligible husbands are few and far between, it behooves a girl to be care- ful lest she should frighten one away. Moreover, the Greek characters might injure her eyes ; and if she spent her mornings indoors " doing mathematics," she would certainly lose her complexion. These recondite studies were unpraiseworthy, but even they were not as inconvenient as a fit of " slumming " that made Hilary late for meals, and eventually gave her the measles. Mrs. Frere said she could not allow it to go on. It endangered their lives, upset the house, and put the servants out of temper. If Hilary wanted to be charitable she might give away some of her pocket money. None, however, of Hilary's most tiresome vagaries had been as displeasing to her mother as the last one. In the dawn of her youth and beauty she wished to renounce the world and shut herself up in a woman's college. Mrs. Frere implored her child to stay at home and gather rosebuds while she might. She reminded Hilary that her eighteenth birthday had come and gone, and that time was flying. But Hilary kissed her mother, and coaxed her father, and as usual got her own way. After overcoming just enough resistance to enhance her self-respect, she departed, full of curiosity and hope, to try a new manner of life at St. Cyprian's. After her first term Hilary came home full of new dftotber an& Daughters. " tastes and opinions that in one sense gave Mrs. Frere much satisfaction. They enabled her to say to her husband, " I told you so " a form of revenge that all men tell us is exceedingly dear to the feminine heart. Hilary had not burned her fashionable gowns, but she said that they were vulgar. She had not cut off her beautiful hair, but she wore it brushed away from her face and twisted into a rough shapeless lump at the back. She bought shoes and gloves that were too large and too thick, and with the most incapable of fingers she trimmed her own hats. On all the great questions of the day her opinions were feverishly decided. It must be owned that even Nell, easy- going, good-tempered Nell, found her sister a trying companion at this critical period of her growth. There was never any telling what Hilary would swear at or swear by next. Of course Nell's smart clothes came under the ban. So did most of her friends and all her occupations. And Nell, who was not without perception, noticed that Hilary rather made a point now of being bored by most company, and of discovering that nearly everyone she met was ridiculous. To Nell it seemed that this habit was not a sign of either a great heart or a great wit, and that the sooner Hilary cast it off the better. On the whole, this little crop of affectations was the most visible fruit to her own people of Hilary's first term at college. But they soon discovered that at the end of each term the crop had changed a little, and generally for the better. In the course of three terms she had seen the vanity of several " isms " and cast them aside. At Christmas she had come home with " Walden " in her trunk and contempt in her soul for material comforts. In her soul the contempt flourished finely for a fortnight, but the weather turned cold and her body inconveniently rebelled. She had refused a fire in her own room, and had lived on bread and potatoes for a week. So she fell ill, and was ordered sweet-breads and champagne. 12 Gbe (Brassboppers. She had brought a friend with her who was as rude to Mrs. Frere and Nell as Mr. Stiggins was to Mr. Wetter. She showed them very plainly that in her opinion they were vessels of wrath. At Easter Hilary arrived with a Norwegian dictionary and another friend, who said Ibsen had knocked Shakspere into a cocked hat. The two young ladies spent the vacation discussing the marriage laws and a pamphlet that should bring about their amendment. But the pamphlet never got written, because one day a young man called on Hilary's friend and proposed to her. She came upstairs in a state of happy excitement from her interview with him, and said she must go to the Army and Navy stores that very afternoon and order her trousseau, as " he " had to sail for India in no time and wished to take her with him. Mrs. Frere liked that girl, and gave her a handsome wed- ding present. After this Hilary did not bring many of her college acquaintances home with her. She was somehow often most attracted by the poor ones who dressed shabbily and looked forward to making their own living. Her father's friends were flourishing business people, luxurious in their habits, extravagant in their expenditure. They considered her a girl of eccentric tastes, and she considered some of them dull, common- place, and respectably corrupt. Her work at college led to nothing much. At the end of her third term she had made very little of her text-books ; but she had gained some experience of a society that does not attach quite as much value to money as the one in which she lived. She had seen people deeply interested in other pursuits and problems than the race for gold and the display of it. She had made friends with women who spent less in a year on clothes than Mrs. Theodore did on a single gown, and were nevertheless content and highly honored. New ideas fermented in her, some extravagant and foolish, some wholesome, to be discarded or developed as she grew older. When she packed her trunks at flBotber anO Daughters. 13 the end of the May term she came across her notes for the pamphlet on the marriage laws. She thought it would be a pleasant holiday task to expand them. On the subject of men and marriage her opinions were still fully formed. On the subject of clothes her taste had changed again. CHAPTER II. SHOPPING. MRS. FRERE and Nell had been shopping all the morning. They had left home directly after break- fast, for they had seen at an early hour that the day would be fine, and that it would be pleasant to spend it out of doors. The inside of a London shop will not seem to everyone an attractive place in which to pass any part of a bright June morning. But these ladies were town born and bred. To them summer brought few country memories, and no wish for other sights and sounds than those of the London streets. Of course they liked a fine summer. It was dry under foot and fair over head. In such weather they could linger near the shop windows or in one of the parks. If they felt hot they sought the shade ; if they were thirsty they ate an ice. Nell thought she had never seen the shops so tempting. Her mother and she had spent a good deal of money already, and they still had purchases to make. Nell wanted a hat and Mrs. Frere a bonnet. It was difficult to choose among so many, and it ended in Nell taking two and spending twice as much as Mrs. Frere said she could afford. But the black one was necessary, and Nell looked so bewitching in the big brown one that her mother could not bear to leave it behind. Besides the hats there were shoes and gloves to get, and a bit of real lace for Nell's new dinner gown. Mrs. Frere never liked her children to follow the fashion of wearing imitation lace. She thought it as undesirable as electro-plate instead of silver, or cotton instead of linen. But real Alenfon is costly, especially when you choose the Sbopping. 15 most expensive pattern. Nell persuaded her mother to take it by reminding her that it is always economi- cal to buy the best. Mrs. Frere prided herself on her economy. The ladies lunched at the Autolycus. Just a roast fowl and half a bottle of claret, and a meringue for Nell ; a frugal little meal that nevertheless cost about a sovereign. Mrs. Frere did not drink cheap wine, and she .ordered asparagus without noticing that the price on the bill of fare was very high. Somehow, though she was not a young woman, she was liable to these surprises. After lunch they drove to Marshall & Snellgrove's. They had an account there, a plan that reduces the anxiety of shopping to a minimum. It is, in fact, all centered in that unpleasant moment, once in six months, when the bill comes in. Instead of painfully considering the price of each separate article, and sometimes choosing a cheaper one, or even doing without it. Mrs. Frere and Nell spent all their time and trouble on finding what best pleased them. They were occupied with the realization, not with the cost of their desires. In this way, as I have said already, Mrs. Frere fre- quently prepared surprises for herself. The half- yearly bills were full of them. Still she complacently maintained that she was an economical woman. She declared with truth that she only bought what she wanted, and when her husband accused her of spend- ing more than he could afford, she begged him to point out exactly which article he considered super- fluous. I need hardly say that in such arguments it was the lord and master who retired worsted. "If we are to have a dance," said Mrs. Frere to Nell, " we had better buy something for Hilary to wear." " Oh, yes, mother ! " said Nell anxiously. " Remem- ber what she looked like at Mrs. Theodore's dance in those bath towels." Hilary's present style of dress was a sore trial to her mother and sister. She had come up for a day last raseboppers. month in order to be present at one of Mrs. Frere's afternoon receptions, and she had appeared on this occasion in a bright brown velveteen, villainously cut and made. In a room full of well-dressed people she looked conspicuous and absurd, and Mrs. Frere very naturally felt vexed. She thought that Hilary showed a want of sense, and even of refinement, in attracting public attention by her eccentric clothes. But many of Mrs. Frere's opinions were so antiquated that one hardly likes to repeat them. " You must ask for yellow, mother," prompted Nell, as they walked toward the department they required. " Hilary is sure to want yellow." " It is such an ugly color," complained Mrs. Frere. " Oh, no, mother ! Look at this." The man serving them had brought forward a soft silky material, shot in all shades of yellow from cream to crocus. He set it up in folds, gave it a little pat, and mentioned that it was new and inexpensive. " I want something inexpensive," said Mrs. Frere. He told her the price. It was three times as much as she wished to give. The man saw her hesitate, and pushed aside some inferior goods as unworthy of her notice. Mrs. Frere felt quite flattered, and ordered a generous length to be sent to her French dressmaker that afternoon. This business accomplished, the mother and daughter made some trifling purchases and then drove home. They were tired, but well satisfied with their day's work. Nell was particularly pleased with a fan that she had seen just as she left the shop, and which had only cost a guinea. " I asked the price this time, mother," she said. " Don't you remember how vexed father was at Christmas about the feather fan that I took without knowing it cost five guineas. He will not mind one guinea, will he ? " " I don't know, my dear," sighed Mrs. Frere. " He seems to mind everything. I am sure I am as saving Sbopptnfl. '7 as I can be, but he expects me to keep house and dress myself and you on nothing." Nell made no reply. Ever since she could remem- ber, money had been a sore subject between her father and mother. It was the one cause of dissen- sion in their affectionate household, and the disputes about it were unpleasant and well worn. The young people avoided a topic sure to come in one way or the other to a miserable end. It was nearly six o'clock when they reached St. John's Wood, and as they pulled up at their own door they saw Mr. Frere letting himself in with his latch- key. He was a gray-haired, elderly man, rather under the average height, sparely built, and thin. His features were refined, and though, on the whole, you would have called his face a plain one, you would have said that his eyes were likeable. You could not imagine them looking unkindly on anyone ; and they were intelligent eyes. But there was a troubled look in his face, and the deep lines on it were lines of anxiety. This afternoon, when he had taken off his coat and hat, he walked slowly upstairs to the morn- ing room on the first floor. His wife and daughter had hurried there before him because, as the front door opened, they saw Hilary's big trunk in the halir So they knew she had arrived from St. Cyprian's, and they hastened to welcome her, and to note without any loss of time the latest changes in her costume and her opinions. They could reckon on changes, but not on the direction of them. Strangers who saw the sisters together usually said that they were very much alike ; and in some respects there was, no doubt, an obvious resemblance. Both girls were slenderly built, of average height, fair- haired, blue-eyed, and pale. They both had small feet and pretty, useless-looking white hands ; their dimples matched, and so did their voices. There were tricks of manner common to both, and now and again a striking likeness of expression would bear wit- ness to their sisterhood. But as acquaintance with Grasshoppers. them grew the resemblance, at first so striking, gradually faded. Nell's good humor was irresistible. It was proof against the dullest company. Youth itself seemed to enter the room with her youth in the best of spirits, well satisfied and easily entertained. Hilary, on the contrary, was often out of spirits, because, like many people of her years, she felt sure that the world was in a parlous state, and that it behoved her to better it. As a preliminary, she tried to better herself, which shows, at any rate, that she was ahead of some more accredited reformers. This afternoon her mother and sister stared at her in surprise. Since their last meeting Hilary's appear- ance had undergone a startling alteration. The obnoxious velveteen had vanished, so had the home- made hat and the clumsy boots. " Hilary ! " exclaimed her sister, " how trim you look. What have you done to yourself ? " " Tell me, Nell," said Hilary, in a solemn voice, " are these sleeves right ? " and she gave them a pull at the shoulder to show what she meant. " Where is that velveteen ? " asked Nell, and she in her turn completed her question with a brief dumb- show that described the sloppy, slovenly garment after which she inquired. Hilary looked rather annoyed. " I gave it away," she said. " But do answer, Nell. I see no clothes at college. Are these sleeves right ? and this skirt ? Is it narrow enough ? I am so afraid it is not. Why have you done your hair so low on your neck ? Is mine too high ? I hope you like my hat." She walked slowly to a mirror over the fire-place, looked at her reflection there, and then turned round to greet her father as he came into the room. " You look very well, my dear," he said affection- ately. Mrs. Frere and Nell had taken off their outdoor things and thrown them down anywhere. The center table and some of the chairs were littered with parcels. When the maid came in with tea she hardly knew where to put the tray. But the room, in spite of its Shopping. 19 present disorder, looked pleasant and comfortable. It was large, light, plainly furnished, fragrant with spring flowers. The windows opened on a roomy veranda that overlooked neighboring gardens as well as the one belonging to the house. On this warm June evening the birds were singing in a rapture. The din of London sounded far away. The air came in lilac- laden from the trees in full flower below. " But why have you given away the velveteen ? " said Mrs. Frere, who felt bewildered by her daughter's sudden amazing interest in the shape of a sleeve. " It was badly made," said Hilary. " Then why did you wear it at my At Home ? " Hilary did not answer her mother's question. She looked a little bit guilty, got up and helped herself to cake, and said, as she sat down again, " It is so impor- tant to dress well. Not really, you know, but because people are so silly. They will not listen to us if we look dowdy." " Listen ! " said Mr. Frere. " You are not going to talk from the housetops, I hope, my dear. I don't approve of women speaking in public." " Why not ? " " Oh ! I don't know, my dear. I like domestic .women and all that. Besides, what can you want to say ? " Hilary's eyes, which were usually rather solemn, twinkled for a moment with amusement. She sipped her tea, let the subject drop, and then, after a sufficient pause, started a new one. " So we are going to have a dance ? " she asked. She addressed her father, who looked as much startled as if she had struck him. From behind his chair Nell made reproachful grimaces at her sister, and Mrs. Frere said : " Nothing is decided, my dear. Father has not given his consent yet. In fact, I had not mentioned it; had I, Henry?" "Certainly not, "said Mr. Frere. " And I wish you would not now." 20 abe <5ras6bopperg. " We must give one, you know," said Mrs. Frere, in her placid, comfortable voice. There were no lines of anxiety on her face. She always said that if only people would take things easily, as she did, they would get on in life, as she had hitherto done. " A dance at home is such fun," said Nell, perching on her father's chair, and putting her arm round his neck. " It needn't cost much," hazarded Mrs. Frere. " We make our own jellies." " It always does cost a great deal," said Mr. Frere. " Well, papa, dear," said Nell, stroking her father's hair, " you know you like spending your money on Hilary and me. You always say we are to have everything we want, and I am sure we want a dance." " Besides, we must do as other people do," said Mrs. Frere. " Other people do not spend more than they can afford." " Really, my dear," said Mrs. Frere, in an aggrieved voice, " if you can suggest any possible retrenchment, I shall be very glad. We must have food and clothes, and that is about all we do have. We keep no carriage, we have no men servants. I never ask you for jewelry. The truth is, you lose a thousand pounds in the City, and then complain because I spend twenty in the house." " What can I do if I haven't got the money ? " said Mr. Frere, who was rapidly losing his temper. " Oh, you have a good business. The girls will soon be married, and then we shan't want much." Hilary got up. Her face showed plainly enough that her mother's last remark offended her. " I think I will go and unpack," she said. " Hilary does not like your prophecies, my dear," said Mr. Frere. " She means to stay at home." His wife sighed, and when the girls had left the room together, she exclaimed, " How I wish that Hilary had never gone to college ! " Shopping. 21 " I don't," said her husband. " If ever she wants to earn her living " " Really, Henry, you are as bad as she is. Earn her living, indeed ! I hope my girls will never think of such a thing. Such pretty girls as they are they are sure to marry well. Of course, if we are always croaking and looking at the dark side of things, we shall have no luck. But that is not my way. Let the future take care of itself. I call it downright wicked to be always spoiling the children's pleasure, and making them uncomfortable, just when their lookout is so brilliant too." Mr. Frere stared at his wife in astonishment, but she nodded and blinked at him in a manner full of meaning. " My girls are great favorites," she said. " Oh ! is that all ? " said her husband, picking up the day's paper and unfolding it. " How very provoking you can be, Henry ! " com- plained Mrs. Frere. " What more do you want ? Nell is as good as engaged to Arthur Preston, and Herr Hansen took the greatest interest in Hilary's photograph. Since I showed it to him he always asks after her." " I would far rather hear Dick Lorimer ask after her." " You don't aim high enough for your daughter, Henry. I always notice that. Dick Lorimer is very well, but Herr Hansen is a rich man." " Settle it your own way, my dear, if you can," said Mr. Frere. He never much enjoyed these discussions of his daughters' admirers. He thought to himself, as many another man has before him, that the ways of women are beyond the masculine understanding. Why should such a simple-minded woman as his wife prefer Herr Hansen to Dick Lorimer simply because he had more money ? CHAPTER III. HERR HANSEN. MRS. FRERE said that she did not give dinner parties, and in one sense this was true. She hardly ever put extra leaves into her table. But it is quite as expensive to prepare a dainty repast two or three times a week for a couple of young men as to entertain a dozen old fogies once in away. The Freres kept open house, and an inn where no bills are presented costs its supporters money. Mrs. Frerewas loyal to her tradi- tions, and considered the palates of her guests in a degree undreamed of nowadays by an Englishwoman. And some of her pets were very uppish about their food. Hamburg people stew their hams in champagne, baste their venison with cream and butter, and stuff their poultry with truffles. " Such a misfortune ! " she exclaimed, as she burst into the morning room one afternoon, about a week after Hilary's return from college. Hilary looked up from her books inquiringly. " The crayfish have come," panted Mrs. Frere. " Oh ! " said Hilary. " They are bad. What shall I do ? " " Throw them away/' " My dear child ! I have promised Herr Hansen to have bisque for dinner. The servants are all so busy. Would you mind going round to the nearest fishmonger and telling him to send a big lobster at once? I suppose you would rather not bring it with you? Of course, lobster is not crayfish. I know Herr Hansen will find it out. It is a real misfortune." " Is he so greedy, then ?" asked Hilary, who had not seen her mother's new phoenix yet ; but Mrs. f>err ftanscn. 23 Frere did not hear the question. She had seen a speck of dust on a photograph frame, and was hunt- ing in the writing-table drawer for a duster with which to remove it. She kept an embroidered one handy for emergencies, but Nell borrowed it some- times and forgot to put it back again. Hilary took her books upstairs, and got ready to go out. She found it almost impossible to accom- plish any steady reading at home. Nell's constant strumming disturbed her a good deal, and Mrs. Frere's domestic confidences still more. She reckoned that she might have translated a whole act of the " Hecuba " while she listened to her mother's reasons for think- ing the cook wasted the butter. It did not take long to go round to the fishmonger, and when she came back she sat down to her books again. This time she remained in her own bedroom ; but she had hardly read ten lines when Nell came in from a happy day at Shoolbred's, her hands full of little parcels. " I am so tired," she said, sinking into an easy-chair. " I have told them to bring me some tea up here. What are you going to wear to-night, Hilary ? " " I don't know," said Hilary, debating with herself as to whether she should ask Nell to drink her tea elsewhere ; but before she had made up her mind a maid came in with a little tray that she placed at Nell's side. Hilary looked ruefully at her Liddell and Scott and shut it. " Your pale green suits you best," said Nell. Hilary got up and surveyed herself in the wardrobe glass. Then she opened a drawer and took out the gown. " After all," she said undecidedly, " what does it matter to-night?" "You can never tell," said Nell. Hilary did not like the implication underlying this remark, but she made no comment on it ; and when she dressed for dinner she put on the green gown. It was pale and transparent, and cunningly made. It seemed to hang in straight folds from her throat, 24 tTbe <3ra00boppers. and yet it did not hide the lovely lines of her figure, nor did it quite cover her neck and arms. Herr Hansen, who had come early, stared at her in amaze- ment as Mrs. Frere presented him. Except for the color of her gown, and for her neatly shod feet, the girl might have stepped straight from "The Golden Stairs"; and whether or not you think Burne Jones paints beautiful women, he certainly shows you a type uncommon in German mercantile society. Herr Hansen's first idea was that he did not admire it. He liked a stout, rosy-cheeked maid with a full bust, a tight waistband, and an engaging giggle ; and he had been brought up to think that a woman who did not copy her dress from the fashion-plates must be either an actress or a lunatic. He reminded himself, how- ever, that he was in England. Germans talk of a mad Englishman as we talk of a canny Scot. " So you are the learned young lady," he said, sit- ting down heavily beside her. " Am I ? " said Hilary, wondering how her mother could admire his appearance or describe him as a fine-looking man. There was certainly a great deal of him, and with many people quantity seems to count. Hilary, like most women, thought that men should by rights be tall, but she required something more than mere height and size. Herr Hansen's figure was shocking to English prejudices. He was corpulent. He had rather fine blue eyes, an unre- markable nose, a high color, and a great deal too much dark hair. His locks, his beard, and his whiskers would all have been the better for pruning. He wore a frock coat that was too tight for him, a crimson tie, and trousers of a pronounced fancy pattern, probably recommended by his tailor as genuinely English. " In Germany young ladies do not go to the univ- ersity," he continued, evidently under the impression that he was communicating a fact unknown in England. " Not yet," said Hilary. 1>err 1>ansen. 2 5 "Never," said Herr Hansen, "I assure you. Never ! " " Oh ! " said Hilary civilly, but she could not con- tinue the discussion because Dick Lorimer came in just then, and, after shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Frere, caught sight of her. They had not seen each other for five years, and until dinner was announced they were both fully occupied in observing the out- ward changes made by time. " You had short frocks," said Dick, looking at Hilary's train. "Yes," said Hilary, with her eyes fixed on Dick's mustache. When he went away it had not been slightly grizzled. " You wore your hair down your back." " I did." Hilary glanced at Dick's forehead as she spoke. In five years his hair had receded, and at the top it was thin. " You are much taller." " Yes, and you are not. I am up to your shoulder now." " Hardly." Memory on memory crowded into their minds as their speech stumbled into a more familiar key. In spite of the seven years that separated them they were old friends. Dick's father had represented the firm of Theodore & Frere in Bombay. His liver killed him a year after the senior partner's death, and three months before he was entitled to a share in the business and a pension for his widow. Mr. Theo- dore, Jr., said that this was the fortune of war. The widow and her son must abide by it. Mr. Lorimer had died at a very inconvenient moment for the business ; in fact, his demise, occurring when it did, probably cost the firm some thousands of pounds. Further expense on his behalf Mr. Theodore, who had lately married, would not incur. The widow and her son must help themselves and look heavenward rather than to Theodore & Frere for additional assistance. The widow drooped and soon died, after (Srassboppers. which Dick had an income of seventy pounds all io himself. At this period of his life he was fond of rowing. He played billiards well, and he possessed a bull pup. Mr. Theodore said that such tastes were incompatible with a mercantile career, and when Dick asked his advice he waved him politely out of the private office. He had been greatly annoyed by Dick's refusal to accept a clerkship with a Jewish firm in Sierra Leone. To have your benefits forgot- ten is not so provoking as to have them refused with contumely. Moreover, Dick seemed to think his income a small one ; and he said that he could not do a day's work on an empty stomach, even after hearing that Mr. Theodore's father had never afforded himself any lunch until he was earning a thousand a year. Finally, Mr. Theodore said out- right that he would have nothing to do with Dick in business, though he would always be pleased to meet him in society. Dick soon saw that it would be very difficult to make a start in London. The only business men he knew were known still better to Mr. Theodore, and went to him for the young man's character. Rowing, billiards, bull pups ! A gentleman with such tastes may be asked into your drawing room, but not into your office. But Dick had qualities that carry a man through many difficulties, and in Mr. Frere he found a steady friend. It was he who advised the young man to go to America, and who gave him some valuable intro- ductions there. Dick did well from the beginning, and had come back at the age of twenty-seven with a small capital, the best of reputations, and every pros- pect of making his way in the world. He now said that he would always be pleased to do business with Mr. Theodore, but that he preferred not to meet him in society. Dick's circumstances were not exactly easy yet. Mr. Frere, who knew his affairs, understood that he would have uncommonly little to spend for some fcerr 1>ansen. 27 time to come. Nevertheless, nothing would have pleased him better than to see Hilary and Dick en- gaged. He was not as ambitious for his children as his wife was. Mere happiness would have contented him. She had set her heart on wealth and position. But then, as Hilary would have said, a woman plants her standard high. At dinner Hilary sat between Herr Hansen and Dick. She had never been out of England, and had hardly ever eaten a meal in the society of a foreigner. Like all true Britons, she felt genuine contempt for those graceless persons whose habits differed from her own ; and Herr Hansen's table manners gave her a succession of little shocks. The first thing he did was to tuck his napkin comfortably into his waistcoat. Hilary watched him as if she expected that he would proceed to tuck up his sleeves. He did not do that, but his neighbors could hear him lap his soup. He helped himself to extraordinary quantities of any dish that was handed round ; he paid her mother compliments on every one that pleased him ; and when his portion required a knife and fork, he cut the whole of it into good-sized pieces before he began to eat. " This mayonnaise is very good," he said to Hilary. " Did you make it ? " " No," said Hilary, without expressing the surprise she felt. " Could you make it ? " "No." " Ah ! that is a pity." Hilary smiled faintly and drank a little champagne. Then she turned to Dick Lorimer, but he was discuss- ing the boom in the South African market with her father. Arthur Preston and Nell were absorbed in each other, and now Mrs. Frere, observing Herr Hansen's silence, drew him into a prolonged discus- sion of the Hamburg cuisine. Hilary wished herself back at St. Cyprian's, where everyone dined in less than twenty minutes, and neither knew nor cared very much what they had for dinner. 28 Cbe <5ra0sbopper0. The talk did not become general until a savory arrived that stirred Herr Hansen to comment on its excellence, and at the same time express his low opinion of English cooking. From the solemnity with which he spoke he might have been condemning our national morals. He said that he always went down in weight during his annual visit to this country. Arthur Preston, who spoke of himself as " up to date," glanced at Herr Hansen's figure and asked him if he did not find a course of semi-starvation wholesome. The good-natured German smiled and blinked and said that it might be wholesome, but he did not enjoy it. He put it to his hostess : Could anyone with a palate acquire a taste for mint sauce or, worse still, for rhubarb ? He told her a long story that turned on his repugnance to rabbit, and his disgust when he found that he had eaten some unawares in a stew. Then Mr. Frere and Dick took up the cudgels on behalf of beefsteak, porter, and a roast duck stuffed with sage and onions. Foreign messes made them ill, they said. There was some sense in mint sauce and rhubarb, but who out of a nightmare wanted to eat raw herrings, raw ham, and vinegar with green pease. Herr Hansen said that Dick could not know Hamburg. Civilization and nature had combined to make that chosen town a center for epicures. The best goulash he had ever tasted had been dished up to him in a Hamburg hotel. " Do you know Hamburg ? " he said, turning to Hilary. " You should come there this summer." "I think we are going to Switzerland," said Hilary. " Switzerland is nothing. What can you do there ? They make meringues the Swiss cooks and then they have finished. I know. I have been there." Hilary sent her mother an imploring glance, to which Mrs. Frere replied by getting up from table. " Herr Hansen talks a good deal about food," said Mrs. Frere apologetically. " People do in Ger- many, you know." " It seems such a pity he wasn't born a pig," said t>err f>ansen. 29 Hilary, going to the piano. " He would have been far happier." Mrs. Frere looked distressed, but her reply was inaudible to Hilary, who had begun to play. Nell went out on the veranda, and before she had been there very long, Arthur Preston joined her. He was a good-looking young fellow, and the only son of moderately well-to-do people. His sentiment for Nell was plain to everyone, especially plain to his mother, who desired her son to make a wealthy match. It was a light and butterfly courtship, begun to a waltz tune, and growing more ardent as the summer days grew longer. They met at dances, at dinners, at the play. Of late he had come in two or three times a week for a game of tennis after his day on the Stock Exchange, and whenever Mrs. Frere asked him to stay and dine he managed to be dis- engaged. She could not understand why he had not long since settled matters ; he was making a respect- able little income she had heard. She did not know that he spent every penny of it, and could not think of marriage with a dowerless wife. In fact, he did not think of marriage at all just yet. He wanted to enjoy his bachelor life to the dregs. T, his summer his flirtation with Nell gave it an agreeable zest. He assured himself that he was immensely in love with her, and he tried his best to convince her of it too. Everyone who knew them said they expected a speedy invitation to the wedding ; but those who knew Arthur best did not mean what they said. This evening the two young people sat together on the veranda for a few minutes, and then they de- scended to the garden, where for the next half hour they appeared and disappeared like Faust and Mar- garet among the trees. When the other men came away from the dining room they found Mrs. Frere fast asleep in an easy- chair, and Hilary by herself on the veranda wrapped in a fluffy white shawl. Dick Lorimer managed to reach her first and sit down by her side. Herr 3 Gbe <5ras0bopper0. Hansen stood within the window and talked to his host in German. Presently they too descended to the garden and walked slowly up and down the lawn, lighting fresh cigars and talking of business matters in high voices that sometimes fell to a significant whisper. Hilary had always liked Dick Lorimer. She thought she might like him better than ever now that through her advance in years they could meet on equal terms. It was a little bit disappointing to find as she talked to him that he had not stood still, that he was even yet ahead of her. Half a decade, that to her had brought such great and weighty changes, seemed also to have done a good deal for him. He had arrived with strides at manhood. Hilary envied him the lines in his face. They had been graven there by experiences that help to crystallize and to mature. His eyes were as keen and good-humored as ever, but his manner was more assured. What did they talk of as they sat together and watched the moon rise high above the tall elms at the bottom of the garden ? Certainly most of the pleas- ant talk in which we share, to which we listen, would not bear writing down. Besides, consider how small a part spoken words play in any conversation. You pick up the threads of an old friendship with the aid of your manners, your voices, your eyes, your smiles and frowns ? Who stops to give more than its due to a tongue ? Dick and Hilary told each other where they had spent the years, and, in a bare, colorless way, what they had been doing the while. Hilary mentioned St. Cyprian's, spoke of her schooldays, talked of her best girl friend ; and all this Dick had clean forgotten by the following morning. What he remembered was that she had grown tall and slim and lovely, and that her eyes were like stars, and that her voice was sweet and sometimes quaintly solemn, and that she still looked rather childlike. Her eyes had not lost their direct and candid gaze. He observed that she dressed outlandishly, f>ert "fcansem 3 1 but that it somehow became her, and he thought she had not lost her old trick of talking nonsense. For instance, she asked him whether he saw any good reason why everyone should not be equally well off and at leisure, and she expounded a scheme for the accomplishment of this most desirable end that was very pretty and left out difficulties as naively as a dream or a fairy tale. Dick said something about the reform of the universe being a big job, and she got quite angry with him, because she said he implied that it was too big for her, and that he only said so because she was a girl. If a boy had proposed to undertake it, he would have at any rate listened with respect, Dick denied this last impeachment, and they had a lively quarrel, talked up and down the questions of the hour, and found themselves after a time almost on their former level of intimate friendship. For once Hilary's dilettante socialism had really done her a useful turn. They had fringed round a variety of subjects, and Hilary had just listened with an expression of horror to Dick's admis- sion that he liked a day's shooting, when Mrs. Frere came out to them and said that it was time to have a little music. Would Dick tell Mr. Frere that the grass looked damp, and that everyone wished to hear Herr Hansen play ? Dick told both these lies like a man, and whether they came willingly or not, everyone soon reassembled in the drawing room. Hilary had not heard Herr Hansen play, and as her mother's manner pointed to something unusual she composed herself to listen with enjoyment. The very way his hands poised for a moment above the keys was full of promise, and directly they struck a few preliminary chords Hilary understood that the man was a musician. He began with a little gigue of Bach's that he played with brilliance and precision. He went on to Beethoven, and then, at Mrs. Frere's request, he played Chopin's great Polonaise in A flat major. The stir of it danced in Hilary's eyes as she thanked him. She 3 2 Cbe Orassboppers. forgot that he had talked about food all through dinner. The crash of the great chords rang in her ears and sent the blood with a lilt through her veins. Everyone looked roused. " You like music ? " said Herr Hansen, with a pleased face, to Hilary. He was panting a little, and as he sat down near her he mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. " In England there is no music, is there ? " " Oh ! " cried Hilary and Nell together. " No music in London ! " " You mean concerts. You must put on a black coat and a white shirt and drive three miles. I do not call that music. You hear Joachim, you say, and Paderewski. Yes. That is very fine, of course ; but in Hamburg my friends come two or three times every week. We drink beer, we smoke, we take off our coats, and we play trios, quartettes, quintettes, what you will, for several hours. That is what I call music what one makes at home in one's own rooms with a few good friends. So you find the great masters your good friends in time." Hilary began to like Herr Hansen in spite of his clumsy ways. One of those discussions arose between them that are often started by people of different nationalities, and gradually everyone present joined in it. Whether the English are musical or not is a question that will at any moment excite contradictory replies. Herr Hansen made no bones about his negative. " I dined with some people yesterday," he said, " and after dinner they asked me if I liked music. I said ' Yes.' What else could I say ? There were seven daughters, and they all sang to me." Herr Hansen paused, overcome by his memories. " The piano was out of tune. They did not mind that at all. They were all out of tune too. And the songs! Mein lieber Gott ! Who makes these songs that your English young ladies sing? " Hilary and Nell still maintained that you could hear ttcrr tiansen. 33 as much good music in London as anywhere else ; and Dick Lorimer, who did not know one tune from another, upheld them. Mrs. Frere assured Herr Hansen that her daughters talked without book. They did not know Germany. Some day they would go there and discover how superior it is in every respect to the land of their birth. Much to the amusement of her family, Mrs. Frere talked in this way now and then. She had lived contentedly in England for more than half her life, and she had reared her children to be English in habits, opinions, and prejudices ; yet she would now and then speak as if her adopted country was still strange and hateful in her sight. It did not mean much. Nell said that she felt quite afraid to sing in Herr Hansen's presence-, but at Arthur Preston's request she went to the piano. While she was turning over her music, Herr Hansen said to Hilary in a confi- dential undertone : " There is a good German opera at Covent Garden just now. Will you come with me ? On Saturday they give ' Lohengrin.' I will call for you, if you will permit it." " Do you take out your friends' daughters in that way when you are in Hamburg ? " said Hilary, after some hesitation. He looked so unconscious of having suggested anything impossible that she did not like to refuse point-blank. " In Hamburg ? No. A girl may not stir from her mother's side there. But in England and America it is different. And you a so learned young- lady. You will come ? In New York I took Miss Van Riesling three times ; and now she has married a Member of Congress. So, you see, what she did you may do." "I'm afraid not," said Hilary. '-We are quite behindhand here, you know. We are only remote islanders." Herr Hansen looked dreadfully disappointed, until a new idea occurred to him and cheered him up. 34 Gbe Grasshoppers. " I will get a box," he said ; " then you will all come." The plan did not commend itself to Hilary, who, along with her advanced ideas, cherished some preju- dices that many of her contemporaries would have condemned as prim and Puritan. She was not fond of accepting pleasures from anyone but her father, and she knew that Mr. Frere shared her point of view. So she sent Herr Hansen to consult with him, well know- ing that in this way the project would fall to the ground. Directly Dick Lorimer saw his chance he strolled up to Hilary, and took the seat that Herr Hansen had just vacated. " Shall we have a walk on Sunday ? " he said. "In the old style? 8 ' " Yes, yes," said Hilary delightedly, " in the old style." " All right. I'll come round quite early." "You have arranged with the others, I suppose ?" " Nell doesn't seem to care about it," said Dick, looking at his boots. " She says Preston is coming to play tennis." " And papa ? " "Well if his rheumatism is better. But you and I might go anyhow, Hilary ; such old friends as we are." " Old enemies, you mean." " It comes to the same thing," said Dick. CHAPTER IV. MRS. THEODORE AT HOME. MR. FRERE'S present partner was a good deal younger than himself. He was an elder brother of the little girls who had once upon a time learned German and music from Mrs. Frere. His father, Mr. Lazarus Theodore, a German Jew, had clung with strong attachment to the ways of his youth. The son was over anxious to forget them. His father had left him a thriving business, which he carried on success- fully, and a handsome fortune, which he soon doubled by clever speculation. At the age of thirty-three he married an English girl, whose acquaintance he made at a hydropathic hotel in Derbyshire. Mr. Theodore thought that the youngest daughter of a half-pay major would be economical in her habits ; but he soon found that his wife spent money as if life was hardly long enough to compensate her for the priva- tions of her early years. Luckily, even she could not keep pace with her husband's knack of raking money into his own till. They were a very flourishing couple. Mrs. Theodore stanchly upheld her husband in his resolve to forget his foreign origin. They spelled and spoke their name as if it had been an English one, and they avoided those old acquaintances who would not remember to utter the initial consonants softly, and to affix a final ome, 43 her, or even to shake hands, until she passed him on her way downstairs. Then he inquired why her hus- band had not come, and smiled when Mrs. Frere explained that he was too busy. " He ought to take a holiday sometimes," said Mr. Theodore. " I wish he would. He works much too hard," said Mrs. Frere, with a sigh. " You should persuade him to retire," said Mr. Theodore, with a smile that Hilary thought unpleasant. But his voice did not invite retort. It was languid, soft, and slow, and as he spoke he turned on his heel to speed some other parting guests. Mrs. Frere, with her two eligible bachelors for companions, enjoyed the homeward drive, and did not brood over Mr. Theo- dore's words until the following day. Then she worried over them as persistently as if they had been poetry, and she a commentator, finding in them appli- cations, hints, and prophecies they would scarcely bear, and trying to interpret them with the help of all she knew about Mr. and Mrs. Theodore, their ancestors, their contemporaries, and their probable descendants. CHAPTER V. HERR HANSEN'S COATS. MRS. FRERE received a slight shock on Sunday morning when Hilary came down ready dressed for her walk with Dick. " I wonder what Mrs. Theodore would say if Sophia met a young man at a railway station and spent a day in the country with him ? " she inquired. "I've no doubt she would be horrified," said Hilary. " Then why do you do it ? " " I am not Sophia, and Dick is not a young man. He is Dick." " That certainly makes a difference," admitted Mrs. Frere. " Still " And she saw her child depart with a pang. No one will deny that it is exceedingly trying to have your fondest hopes raised one day, and dashed to the ground the next. Only the night before Mrs. Frere had gone to bed in the best of spirits, after assuring her husband that six weeks or so hence she would probably require about a thousand pounds for two trousseaux and a double wedding. " I intend to buy all the house linen for both the girls," she said, as she placidly brushed her thick blond hair. " Herr Hansen will expect it, as he is a German ; and although it is not the English custom, I dare say Arthur will be glad to have it given." Some men, on hearing this, would have asked whether their daughters were actually engaged. Mr. Frere only said that he would be glad to turn out the gas. " I should think that Mr. Preston would furnish a house for his son," continued Mrs. Frere. " They 44 1>err "fcansen's Goats. 45 would not want a large one, to begin with. Have you noticed those new red brick ones near Kensington High Street ? I wish Arthur would be quick and speak." In his own mind Mr. Frere did not much expect that Arthur would ever speak, and it annoyed him to see the young man always about the house. The intimacy had grown rapidly, and, as far as the head of the family was concerned, almost unawares. " I think Arthur comes here too often," he said tentatively. " My dear Henry ! How is that possible ? " " People will begin to talk." " Begin ! They have talked all the winter. Are you blind and deaf? Everyone considers Arthur and Nell as good as engaged." "Well, if that's what you like " " Of course, I like it. Coming events cast their shadow before." " Your events are all shadow, I'm afraid. How- ever / don't want to get rid of the girls, but I should like to go to sleep now." " I am not a bit sleepy. My ears are full of the Appassionata. You must have noticed, Henry, that when Herr Hansen played the last movement oh ! very well. I won't say another word if you'll just tell me this : does his town house face the Alster ? " Mrs. Frere had not been in Hamburg for years, and at the date of her last visit she did not know Herr Hansen ; but she had always known the name of the firm in which he was now senior partner. Hansen, Bopp, & Rossler. The very syllables had magic in them beclouding to the judgment. When young people fall in love they are sometimes kept awake by pleasure, grief, or excitement ; but Mrs. Frere lost part of her night's rest for the sake of her child. While Hilary slept like a top, her mother tossed from side to side and recalled the incidents of the last twelve hours. Herr Hansen had come straight up to them after making his bow to Mrs. Theodore. 46 Gbe <5ra0sbopper0. He had stayed in their neighborhood all the after- noon. He had spoken unreservedly of Hilary's beauty, and listened with the greatest interest to an account of her other perfections. It is true he had eaten an excellent dinner. Mrs. Frere sighed as she remembered that he had taken a pigeon bone in his fingers to pick it with complete finish, and that, as he did so, Hilary turned rather red. But when a man has passed forty you do not expect anything but liver to destroy his appetite ; and Hansen, Bopp & Rossler were above manners, just as the son of a duke may be, if he likes, in England. In Mrs. Frere's mind, Herr Hansen represented the great firm, even when he sat at her table eating vol au vent of pigeons. That green gown certainly suited Hilary, but Mrs. Frere would never have foreseen its effect on Herr Hansen. If she had been consulted, she would have said, " On no account, my darling. Wear a square- cut black silk, have a neat head of hair, and lace as tightly as you can." But, of course, men as much sought after as Herr Hansen do grow capricious. They shilly-shally until middle age, and then they suddenly throw the handkerchief to someone unlike the ideal you feel sure they have hitherto set up. Hilary's behavior was even more surprising. Mrs. Frere would never have expected her child to make so little objection to Herr Hansen's figure and foreign ways. She could not plead blindness to his intentions, because, to prevent mistakes, Mrs. Frere had pointed them out quite plainly to both girls. It is true that Hilary had looked annoyed, and dropped some non- sensical remark about friendship being possible with- out an alloy of sentiment. Young ladies do say that kind of thing before a man declares himself. It means no more than the protestations of your enamoured bachelor who vows he will not marry. On the whole, Mrs. Frere had been deeply gratified by the events of the day, and it vexed her to find next morning that Hilary meant to take herself off for a fcerr fjansen's Coats. 47 walk with Dick Lorimer. She said something about the impropriety of it to her husband, but he refused to interfere, although he agreed that it would be awkward if Herr Hansen called this morning in a dress coat and white gloves, and with a bunch of flowers in his hand. Herr Hansen might not know that in England a man may make his offer of mar- riage in any coat he pleases, nor that it is the topsy- turvy custom of the country to woo the child first and then the parents. It would really be very embarrass- ing for Mr. and Mrs. Frere if they had to hear pro- posals they would joyfully accept, and then see them- selves forced to admit that their daughter was scam- pering over the country with another young man. In such a contingency what did Mr. Frere intend to say? Influenza ? Really, Mr. Frere did not deserve to have wealthy sons-in-law if he would not make the smallest effort to receive them suitably. It was no use telling Mrs. Frere to use her own authority. He might as well tell her to use her wings. Meanwhile, Hilary sent for a hansom, and started. She had promised to be at Victoria by ten o'clock, and it was all she could do to get there in time. She rather enjoyed shocking Mrs. Grundy as long as it could be done with inward comfort to herself; and she certainly was not going to shy at a Sunday walk with Dick just because they were no longer boy and girl. How many Sunday walks had they taken together nve years ago? And Dick never talked sentimental nonsense. The juxtaposition, even in thought, of Dick and sentiment made Hilary smile. He came forward as her hansom drew up at the station, and hurried her to the train. Somehow he had secured an empty carriage. They were only just in time. " Where are we going, then ? " asked Hilary. That Dick should plan the walk was quite in accord- ance with the ancient custom. " I have taken single tickets to Dorking." 48 abe <5ra06boppers. " Through the woods to Coldharbor, and on by Jacob's Walk and Friday Street to Abinger Hatch ? " " If you can walk as well as ever." " Do you call that a walk ? I plant my banner on snow and ice nowadays. We ought to meet in Switzerland, Dick." " Do she-undergraduates eat sweets?" " Well, sometimes. Oh ! I wondered what that package was. Those French ones you used to bring ? You have a very agreeable memory." He watched her take off her gloves and untie the golden thread that bound the package. She looked up as she offered the sweets to him. ' Have you altered much ? " she asked. * My tailor says I have." ' Nonsense ! I mean in important ways." ' I've given up Bass and taken to lager." ' Ah ! you are just the same," she said regretfully ; "never serious." Dick felt inclined to retort that he was not a woman of leisure, with ample time for the consideration of those vast questions that seemed to occupy Hilary's mind. His life had been a hard uphill tussle. A man whose days are spent in eager buying and selling is apt to find his work tax enough on his faculties. In his leisure hours he is glad to rest. But face to face daily with the primitive interests and passions of human nature, Dick had learned, at any rate, how to bear himself bravely ; how to use the weapons he needed ; how to wring some measure of success from life. And yet this child, who had trodden on rose- leaves, complained that he was not sufficiently seri- ous. She meant it, too. " All right," said Dick cheerfully, " go ahead. What shall we talk about ?" " Oh ! we can't talk like that," said Hilary, rather annoyed. " At least I can't. It must come naturally." " What must?" " Subjects." Not if he could help it, Dick assured himself. But fcerr f>ansen's Coata. 49 aloud he said, " I wonder whether the old woman in Leith Hill Tower sells ginger beer on Sundays ? " Hilary laughed with a contented sound and con- tinued to eat her sweets. Dick's remark, taken as an answer to her own, was certainly abrupt, and perhaps not calculated to excite discussion. This she recog- nized, and in some degree deplored. At the same time she felt persuaded that, if she got thirsty and asked for ginger beer, Dick by hook or by crook would get it ; also that, if they met a mad bull, he would cause it to go away ; also that he knew about roads and trains, and would lead her comfortably home again, and that, however willing she was to over- tire herself and suffer silently, he would not let her do anything of the kind. In Switzerland, last year, she had on one occasion been so dead beat that she lagged behind the others for the last few miles, and her self-constituted companion, a young professor of literature, staying in the same hotel, had chosen that opportunity to state his views on Ruskin as an inter, preter of scenery. He had talked without stopping all the way home, and had never seen that she could hardly keep on her feet, and that his arm would have been more acceptable just then than his views. Hilary was, of course, immensely interested in Rus- kin, but somehow that afternoon in Switzerland her thoughts flew to Dick. She wished he was there instead of the young professor. He would have known nothing about the modern date of our passion for mountains, but the mountains would have kept him silent, which is, after all, what they are apt to do for greater folk than either Dick or the professor. Hilary, who had begun by sitting at the feet of her new friend, told Nell that he had "chattered," and next day, as they descended to Lauterbrunnen from the Little Scheideck, she refused to marry him. So he went on to Miirren in a huff. This episode, which in her uneventful life stood out importantly, came uppermost to-day. She remembered the forlornness with which she had stumbled along 5 Gbe (Brassboppers. through heavy snow, and afterward under drenching rain. " Suppose we were on a mountain together, Dick," she said suddenly, " and we had tramped through miles of snow, and then it began to rain, and I was so tired I could hardly get on. What would you do ? " " Is that a subject?" said Dick, shying at once. By this time they had left Dorking well behind them and were in the shade of Redlands Wood. They had hardly spoken since they left the train. Dick had repeated his question about the old woman in Leith Hill Tower, and Hilary had not replied. At that moment she was mentally plunging through snow, accompanied by the young professor. " Answer, Dick ! " she said impatiently. He looked at her, and considered before he spoke. " I couldn't carry you far, you know," he said. " Girls are so tall nowadays." " O Dick ! do answer seriously. It is not a frivo- lous question." " It sounds like one, then. How can I tell what I should do ? Give you some brandy, if I had any, I suppose. Hi ! stop, Hilary ! Don't tear on like that. It's one o'clock, and this is where we are going to have lunch. What have you brought? " Dick unloaded his satchel and Hilary a string bag. They never entered an inn on these expeditions, even when Mr. Frere accompanied them, and when they were defying Mrs. Grundy it was manifestly impossi- ble. Mrs. Grundy's views are always changing, and are never consistent, so it is perhaps hardly worth while to quote them ; but it seems that while she objects to a long country walk, she simply will not stand an inn. Dear old lady ! We could not do with- out her, and she often shows herself most sensible and prudent ; but her rules are very difficult to compre- hend sometimes. Dick and Hilary did not in the least regret an inn. The pine wood was good enough for them. It had '"i COULDN'T CARRY YOI FAR, voi' KNOW,' HE SAID." Page 50. f>err tmnsen's Coats. 5 1 rained the day before, and now the hot sun distilled fragrance from every branch and trunk of the great trees. There were shade and coolness beneath their branches, and sunlight to look at wherever the rays fell. The undergrowth of heather, bilberry, and bracken was still young, the heather tipped with deli- cate green, the bilberry hung with bells of dainty coral, the bracken only just unfurled ; and from where they sat, beneath an immense oak at the edge of the wood, they saw the heavenly blue of wild hyacinths growing in thousands, and sending their scent abroad with every little puff of air. " I wish we lived in the country," said Hilary, tak- ing off her gloves and untying the neat packages she had brought from home. " What horrid sandwiches yours look, Dick ! I am sure you cut them yourself. Have some of mine. I think papa ought to get a cottage just for Sundays and part of the summer. Don't you think it would be a good plan ? You could come on Saturdays and stay with us." " Yes," said Dick, with hesitation. " Where are the objections ? I can hear in your voice that some occur to you." " Well, the additional expense for one." " Oh ! " said Hilary, lifting her eyebrows, " is that all ? Papa always has the money for anything we want." Dick unscrewed his flask and offered Hilary some claret, but she refused it. She did not like any wine but champagne. " I disapprove of worrying much about money," she continued. " It is not a subject that ought to fill one's thoughts at all." " It fills them pretty full when you happen to have none," said Dick. " But that never happens. People like ourselves have what is necessary somehow." " Have you ever asked how ? " " No," said Hilary, more intent on an orange that she was carefully peeling than on Dick's surprising 5 2 be Grasshoppers. gravity of tone. " I don't care about money. I never give a thought to it. Why should one ? " " That's all right for you," said Dick. " Your father works for you now, and when you're married your husband will. But a man has to earn his living unless he inherits one, of course/' " I don't recognize your distinction," said Hilary ; " you talk as if every woman had a man to work for her. Whether she ought to have is a question of opinion, but that many have not is a matter of fact." " Unfortunately it is," said Dick. " I should not object to earn my own living." " How would you set about it ? " " Well ! it's a secret, but I don't mind telling you, Dick." She stopped for a moment, disturbed by the rustle of a rabbit scampering through the bracken a little way off, and then she said in an impressive under- tone : " I'm translating a Greek play into English verse, and I am going to write a pamphlet about the mar- riage laws." " It's very clever of you," said Dick, " but I dare say I shall make more by a consignment of tussores that I expect from Calcutta to-morrow." "You have a sordid mind, Dick. I can't think why nice people should worry about pounds, shillings, and pence. Papa does, you know. It is just like children playing at cards ; they are more interested in the counters than in the game. You are always heaping up your counters, and forget that life slips away hour by hour." " But I don't see how you're to play the game with- out the counters," said Dick. Hilary waved away the clouds of smoke blowing toward her from Dick's newly lighted pipe, and pres- ently she got up and gathered a few wild hyacinths. When the pipe was finished they went on. Meanwhile Mrs. Frere's prophecies were half ful- filled, which is perhaps as much as a nineteenth-cen- f>ert fwnsen's Coats. 53 tury prophet can expect. Herr Hansen did call. He came late in the afternoon, and excused himself by explaining that time had slipped away faster than he thought at the Zoo. He had been interviewing some of the monkeys. Mrs. Frere assured him that in her house he would find a welcome any day and any hour. Of course, he would dine. Herr Hansen said he would, with pleasure, as it was only in the bosom of an amiable and accomplished family that a poor foreigner could shake off the depressing influ- ences of an English Sunday. Could Mrs. Frere tell him why drunkenness was the only Sabbath recreation officially encouraged in this country ? Mrs. Frere shook her head, which was not used to trouble about such matters. At the present moment the question of a savory dinner seemed of greater interest, and directly an opportunity occurred she slipped out of the room to confer with the cook. She had not reck- oned on an important guest to-night, and her menu, as she reflected on it while chatting to Herr Hansen, suddenly looked meager. But her cook was a treas- ure, and her store-room well supplied. If all defi- ciencies could be as easily made good Luckily, Herr Hansen did not wear a dress coat. Then he had not come on purpose to propose to Hilary, and for half an hour Nell might entertain him ; but Nell would have something else to do if Arthur kept his promise and arrived. Mrs. Frere hurried into the " library," a ground-floor room, comfortably furnished with everything proper to a library excepting book- shelves and books. Here she found Mr. Frere half asleep on the sofa. He had shown a want of energy of late, a constant inclination to rest and doze, that puzzled his wife when she thought of it. It struck her now, as she opened the door, that he looked heavy and colorless, but the impression faded from her mind at once. What she came to say possessed her. " My dear, Herr Hansen has come. I told you he would. But he has on a frock coat. He has been to 54 Gbe (Srassboppers. see the monkeys at the Zoo. Can you look after him now for an hour ? " " Where are the girls? " " O Henry ! how can you ask, when you know how much I was against it? Don't say so before Herr Hansen. He is not used to your free-and-easy English ways." " He asked Hilary to go to the opera with him," growled Mr. Frere. " He didn't ask her to go for a walk with Dick Lorimer, though." "Where is Nell?" " In the drawing room, but Arthur is coming directly for tennis. His people don't allow it on Sundays, so the poor boy is driven here." " Will they both dine ? and Dick too ? because I want to know which one of the three I am to entertain. I'm willing to do my duty, but I like it clearly pointed out. The other night you said I monopolized Hansen." " An ounce of tact is worth a ton of duty in such cases, Henry. Use your wits, as I do. By the way, I think I'll stay here and watch for Hilary and Dick. I do not want them to burst into the drawing room covered with dust. You go and talk to Herr Hansen. You know you like him." " Oh ! he's all right. Not exactly romantic looking, perhaps " " Romantic looking ? " " From Hilary's point of view, I mean. You take her consent for granted- " " Hilary is so sensible. Now, Henry, don't look at me like that when I say a word in favor of our own child. I am not calling her a beauty or a genius." " Well, well," said Mr. Frere as he went out of the room, " you can call her what you like, but I'll eat my hat if ever you call her Frau Hansen." Mrs. Frere sat at the window, and when Hilary and Dick arrived she attracted their attention by saying in a loud whisper : fcerr tmnsen'0 Coats. 55 "Come in here first." " What is it, mamma?" said Hilary, as she entered the room. " Any bores about ? How is it you are not with them ? " " Herr Hansen has come," said Mrs. Frere. " Again ! His visits are not few and far between, are they ? But why are you standing sentry here ? " " Well, my dear, I thought you would probably look very dusty ; and you do." " We've had a ripping walk," said Dick, who had stopped for a moment in the hall to unstrap his satchel and mackintosh. " I am glad you have enjoyed yourselves," said Mrs. Frere. She hesitated a little, and then said to Hilary : " Herr Hansen does not know you have been out. Perhaps you had better dress before you go into the drawing room." Dick rather opened his eyes at this, but he did not say anything until Hilary had taken her departure. Even then he only spoke in answer to Mrs. Frere's next remark. " Herr Hansen has such a high opinion of Hilary," she said, " I do not wish it disturbed." " He seems a good-natured old fellow," said Dick, with that apparent irrelevance and real point of which even rather simple-minded men are sometimes capable. Dick, of course, made his point with his second adjective. " He is only forty," said Mrs. Frere. " He looks more," said Dick, his eyes fixed with interest on the dusty toe of his boot. " In Germany," continued Mrs. Frere, "young girls do not go for walks with young men. It is not con- sidered proper." " I have never had the least wish to live in Germany," said Dick. " That is why I did not tell Herr Hansen that you and Hilary had gone out together." Dick was silent. 56 $be (Brassboppers. " I wish you would not do it again," continued Mrs. Frere plaintively. " I am sure it is not the right thing, now that you are both grown up. Hilary is nearly twenty. You forget that, Dick." " Oh, no ! I don't," said Dick, getting up. " I'll just run round to my rooms and dress now. Dinner at eight, isn't it ? " " You need not dress," said Mrs. Frere. " Herr Hansen has on a frock coat." But Dick confounded Herr Hansen and his coats, and appeared half an hour later as spick and span as he could make himself. He had taken extra pains with his white tie. " Well, Dick ! had a good walk ? " said Mr. Frere, when he had helped everyone to soup. He had forgotten his wife's injunctions two minutes after they were laid on him. The masculine mind does sometimes show itself incapable of very simple per- formances. " You have been walking ? " said Herr Hansen. " And you ? " he went on, turning to Hilary, " what have you done all day ? " " I have had a long walk," began Hilary, determined not to make a secret of an expedition that she meant to repeat as soon as possible. " That is curious," said Herr Hansen. " Can you tell me, then, why the elephant may not walk on Sunday ? Last time I went to the Zoo I rode on him. To-day, when I asked, they told me, ' On Sundays he does not go out.' Why does your sis- ter laugh? Is it not comme il faut to ride on the elephant ? " So that danger passed away, and Mrs. Frere breathed comfortably again. Hilary explained in euphemism that the elephant was not a usual mount for stout elderly gentlemen. But Herr Hansen said she was mistaken. There had been people of all ages aloft when he had ventured there one Easter Monday, two years ago. He had gone because he wanted for once to mix in a British crowd, and share its pleasures. f>err tansen's Coats. 57 On being questioned, however, he admitted that half an hour had given him as much of the pleasure as he could bear. He thought that tradition exaggerated the Englishman's attachment to soap and water ; nor did he see any beauty in the fashionable Volkslied 'Hi-tiddley-hi-ti-hi-ti-hi." The words were nonsense. " That's news," whispered Arthur Preston to Nell, and his tone made her so much inclined to laugh that she had to start a fresh subject in hot haste ; and when it was set going she scolded him in under- tones for trying to make her giggle. Hilary, she knew, considered Arthur an ill-bred young man. It would never do for him to justify that opinion by visible rudeness to one of his host's guests. CHAPTER VI. BEFORE THE DANCE. IT is, of course, extremely difficult to gauge the wear and tear of work that we are not used to do. Every man is apt to think his neighbor has an easy time of it. He who delves for his bread talks as if all the work of the world was done by hands. The man of business thinks in his heart that poets and painters play. The man of letters envies the artisan whose work grows hour by hour in response to the effort spent on it. A planter's life sounds like an everlasting holiday on horseback. And most of us have heard of Mr. Darwin's housekeeper, who thought her master would be all the better for " some- thing to do." Mr. Frere and Dick Lorimer spent the day in com- fortably furnished offices, where they read and wrote letters, received visitors, and discussed questions of sale and purchase with manufacturers, customers, and subordinates. Described thus, the life does not sound a hard one. It is easy to describe anyone's doings in just such an incomplete way. Men constantly do women the wrong of supposing that a large household can run smoothly without any strain on the guiding hand. And Mrs. Frere often told her husband that, if he would manage the servants and tradespeople, she would gladly sit in front of a pedestal desk and write half a dozen letters a day. This did not pre- vent her from saying an hour later that the poor man was terribly overworked. Dick Lorimer had just returned to his office one afternoon when one of his clerks ushered in Mr. Frere. He had come on business, he said ; but when JSefore tbe Dance. 59 the business was ended he still lingered. The office was newly built, and very spick and span. Mr. Frere looked about him, approved of the furniture, sat down in a leather-covered easy-chair, and began talking of Dick's concerns. These were promising enough, and as long as they were the subject of con- versation, even Mr. Frere looked almost cheerful. He took a generous pleasure in the young man's progress. He was eager to help where he could. He placed his own great experience and his excellent brains at Dick's service, for there was no question of rivalry between the firms. He wanted Dick to get on, to do well, to succeed in his career. The two men discussed new undertakings, made plans, were fruitful in expedients. It seemed a pity they were not at work together. Dick had more audacity than his friend, and that became his years. He did not hang back from a risk. Mr. Frere liked to tread carefully, to make a venture small in its beginnings. He warned Dick not to go ahead too fast. Solomon himself could hardly have surpassed him as an adviser. He did not say anything about his own affairs, but presently he mentioned that he must go home early. It was the night of the dance. " Have you had lunch ? " asked Dick, who noticed that Mr. Frere looked ill. " Yes," Mr. Frere replied, with hesitation. It was very slight, but the young man heard it. " Where do you usually go? " " I have tried an A. B. C. shop lately." " My stars ! " said the young man. " What can you get there ? " " I have cocoa and bread and butter. I dine when I get home, you know." " Doctor's orders ? " " No." Dick, who was walking up and down the office, wheeled round and faced Mr. Frere. " I am coming to a dance at your house to-night," he said, 60 abe <5ras0boppet6. Mr. Frere bit his lips nervously, and his anxious face clouded more deeply than before. " I can't help it," he muttered. " They sent the invitations without consulting me. They don't under- stand, Dick. All they see is that Theodore has plenty of money and that I am his partner. They think I worry about trifles." " You do make a good income, I suppose ?" " Last year I made less than I spent. This year business is bad. I tell you I'm ashamed to face Theodore. It can't go on, you know. After Christ- mas he can turn me out, if he likes. What is to be- come of them then ? Who would take me on ? Or suppose I die ? " " Do you talk to Mrs. Frere ? " " She won't listen. She can't bear to think of such things, she says. She trusts to my going on with Theodore, and to the girls getting married." " Well, that's a point of view," said Dick cheerfully. " It's no use meeting misfortune halfway." " If you don't, it probably garrotes you before you have time to cry out," said Mr. Frere. " I suppose the girls are very likely to marry ? " Dick asked this question in an indifferent tone, as if it was quite remote from his personal interests, and Mr. Frere did not notice that he waited rather anx- iously for the answer. He ceased his promenade up and down the room and stood quite still, his face turned away from his friend. " I don't know," said Mr. Frere wearily. " Their mother thinks so, of course. But nowadays young men want to marry money." " Not all ! " said Dick. Mr. Frere looked reflective, but he made no further remark just then, and presently he got up to go. Dick accompanied him to the door, but instead of opening it, he leaned against it, and faced Mr. Frere, with a smile that was perhaps slightly embarrassed, and yet very pleasant to see. " Whom is Hilary going to marry ? " he asked. Before tbe Dance. 61 " No one ; so she says." " I wish she would marry me." " My dear boy," stammered Mr. Frere, " do you wish it ? " " Rather ! Ever since she was so high." Dick's hand went down very near the floor. " But can you afford to marry ? " " Not just yet, perhaps ; but if things go well, in a year or even next spring, if Hilary would be content with a rabbit-hutch at first." Mr. Frere looked quite pale. He sank on the nearest seat, and when he spoke his voice betrayed his agitation. " To have you really one of us to think that you were my son I could die in peace." " But you're not going to die," said Dick cheerfully. " We're all going to live and flourish." Even as he spoke, the elder man turned ashen gray and tremulous. " I can't think what has come to me," he said, in a voice as full of horror as his face. " I often feel like this now. I have lost all courage. I can't sleep, and I can't fix my mind on anything but the one idea, what will become of them when I die ? There would be a thousand pounds a year's living and then For God's sake make haste, Dick ! I am always doing the sum in my head, what is the least they could live on ? What must they have for fire, and food, and shelter, and how am I to get it together?" " Have you never insured your life ?" " For a thousand pounds, two years ago." Dick looked grave and distressed, and before he could say anything Mr. Frere spoke again. " I tried to increase it some time back," he said. " They refused me." Dick did not lift his eyes. It was as if he had seen his old friend's death-warrant. But after a silence of some moments he pulled himself together and spoke more cheerfully than he really felt, 62 be <5rassbopper0. "You've worried yourself ill," he said. "You must take things easy for a bit." " I can't. I do all the traveling, you know. I'm off to Genoa to-morrow." " Let Theodore go instead." "How can I refuse ? I'm tied hand and foot. He has the money, and at the end of the year our partner- ship ceases unless he consents to renew it. If I strike work he'll tell me to go he'd be a fool if he didn't." " I'm afraid he's not a fool not that kind, at least," said Dick. Some interruption from outside reminded Mr. Frere that he was talking to a busy man. He got up. "Wish me good luck," said Dick, as he shook hands. "I shall dance with Hilary to-night." " My dear boy, I don't know that I ought," said Mr. Frere. " We are a falling house." " I'm not afraid of that," said Dick. " I don't want to be in too great a hurry, though. There is such a thing as speaking at the wrong moment, I sup- pose, and Hilary is full of ideas just now." " Her mother complains a good deal of that." " Mrs. Frere has ideas too." " Any amount," admitted her husband. In his heart he added that they were foolish, but he was too loyal to say so aloud. " You know what her great idea is at the present moment?" " I dare say she has mentioned it," said Mr. Frere, in an unfinished way. " Herr Hansen." " Oh, yes ! of course. She often speaks of him ; but she will forget him directly he has gone back to Hamburg." Dick had plenty to do all the afternoon, but his busi- ness transactions did not entirely fill his thoughts. He understood that it was touch and go with his old friends, and he wondered what he had better do to help them. He could soon afford to marry and main- tain a modest household one of those little homes JBefore tbe Dance. 63 that to many minds seem pleasant and comfortable, though the income spent in them counts itself by hundreds. The picture of such a home painted itself in pleasing flashes on his imagination. He felt impatient to make it ready. But would Hilary con- sent to share it ? He did not want her to come to him solely for her father's sake ; and yet he believed that, if the sisters married well, Mr. Frere would recover both his health and his courage. His ex- penditure might so easily be reduced when he and his wife were living by themselves, for Mrs. Frere's extravagance mainly spent itself on her children. Then Mr. Theodore would perhaps consent to renew the partnership, and so all would yet go well. It really seemed as if Mrs. Frere's point of view was not quite unreasonable. The family welfare hung on the marriages made by the girls ; but what a pity that it should be so ! How foolish to live in such a manner that their prosperity hung on the delicate thread of a young man's choice, of a maiden's fancy ! Suppose Arthur Preston was playing fast and loose ? Suppose Hilary said Nay ? She railed against men and mar- riage. It is true that such railings are in the air to- day, and that yet most misses blossom into madams. The refusal by the insurance office was a bad piece of news. Mr. Frere had certainly looked broken down of late. Many a definite disease is less alarm- ing than the gradual deterioration that even medical men can sometimes only describe as failure. A year's rest might set him right, or at any rate patch him up. How could he get it ? Dick had not answered the question when he left the City ; and while he dined and dressed for the dance his old friend's affairs still worried him. Mrs. Frere had promised to give a small and simple entertainment : she would not ask any elderly people, or provide an elaborate supper ; she would buy no flowers, and hardly any ice, and the young folks might drink cheap champagne. Mr. Frere sighed, and avoided the discussion of details ; but he knew ance. 67 " Arthur does not care about wine/ 8 said Nell quickly. " He will when he is old enough. I dare say he prefers ginger beer now." " You talk as if he was a boy, Hilary." " So he is a mere boy." " Well, if it comes to that I am a mere girl," said Nell dreamily. Mrs. Frere had left the room again. The sisters were still busy with the flowers: Hilary on her knees in front of the fireplace, and Nell just behind, a pot of yellow daisies in her hand. " Dear me, Nell ! " said Hilary, half turning round, " are you engaged to him ? " " Of course not," said Nell, with a deep blush. " But you may be any day. How dreadful ! " " Dreadful ! Delightful, you mean." " A boy and girl like you ! You would hate each other in six months." " Father and mother don't hate each other." " No," said Hilary, with reflective eyes ; " but per- haps they are an exception to the rule." " Suppose anyone asks you to marry him ? " " No one would," said Hilary, drawing herself up behind the daisies that she had just taken from Nell's hands. " Men do not propose without some encour- agement, and I give none." " I should have thought they might, if they were very keen, you know." " In these days," said Hilary, " young men are never very keen, unless there is money in it." " Arthur does not care for money." " Has he told you so ? " " No, but he knows I have none." Hilary, who had filled the fireplace to her satisfac- tion, got up now and stared into the glass over the mantelpiece. She saw her sister's face there as well as her own. The younger girl's expression was dreamy, smiling, and serene. " Some men are flirts," said Hilary. Directly the words had escaped her lips she would 68 cbc Grasshoppers. gladly have recalled them. Their effect on her sister was cruel. Nell turned quite pale, and with a gesture of impatience and indignation moved away. " Dear Nell," cried her sister, with compunction, "I hope Arthur is not one, since you care so much." " Do you believe that he is ?" asked Nell steadily. Much against her will, Hilary hesitated before she spoke, and when she did speak stammered. " I don't know," she said. " Sophia and he mother thinks why doesn't he either keep away or speak ? If he does not men who dangle after girls are most dishonorable." " Well," said Nell, " what is a man to do ? How can he get to know a girl if he doesn't dangle, as you call it. Would you have him propose to her at the end of an hour's acquaintance ? " " My dears," said Mrs. Frere, suddenly appearing in a great bustle, " three bouquets have come from Herr Hansen such beauties! but they are all three the same size." " Did you want yours to be bigger than ours ? " said Nell, hanging behind a little, while Hilary hurried into the hall to look at these unexpected tributes from their foreign friend. " No, no, dear ; of course not," whispered Mrs. Frere. " But I did think the one he sent Hilary might have been larger than ours, you know just to show what he meant. Flowers are rather serious, and of course he will have on evening clothes to-night. I really don't see what is to prevent him - " THE FKERES WERE VERY POPULAR PEOPLE." Page (X). CHAPTER VII. A FOOLISH VIRGIN. HILARY had taken an unexpected fancy to Herr Hansen. She forgave him for eating with his knife because, she said, he played the ' Feuerzauber ' as if he was a whole orchestra, and Beethoven's Opus 109 almost as well as Hans von Billow. She knew which of the three nosegays he meant for her. He had asked her which color her gown would be, and she had told him yellow. Two of the nosegays were of roses, and one of yellow Iceland poppies, so she took that one for herself. He saw it in her hands directly he entered the room, although she was dancing, and some way from the door. He did not dance, but he liked to watch Hilary. She looked charming in her transparent lemon-colored draperies. She wore no ornaments on her neck and arms, and no fringe on her forehead ; she knew that bangs and bangles did not become her. Her hair grew naturally as it best suited her face, and luckily the fashion of the day permitted her to leave bracelets and necklaces up- stairs. When she caught sight of Herr Hansen she nodded and smiled at him, and he understood that she was saying, "Thank you." The Freres were very popular people. Everyone liked going to their house, whether to dance or to dine. They did not gather great crowds together, nor did they trot after little lions ; they might have done both, but, of course, they were not very worldly wise. They asked the friends they really liked, and Mrs. Frere was the only person in the house whose tastes were governed by sordid ambition. She was a shock- ingly worldly woman, Mrs. Theodore said, and she 69 7 tfbe (Srassboppers. certainly did wish Hilary and Nell to marry well. However, even as a Mammon worshiper, her kindliness did not depart from her. She preferred the moneyed men, but she was hospitable to the poor ones, per- haps as a set-off to her inward hopes that they would not aspire to her daughters. Since Herr Hansen had come forward so much she reckoned Dick as poor. It is curious how some houses are overrun by young men, while others seem under a ban that drives them away. Hilary and Nell were not more beautiful than many other girls, nor were their abilities at all remarkable. Gold had they none ; yet every season seemed to bring them lovers. Like other gifts of fortune, suitors are certainly distributed in an unfair, mysterious way. Some women have a choice among numbers, while others, apparently as fair to see, are wooed by never a one. No man living can tell you the reason why. They will give you vague generalities about grace and charm ; if they know German, they will probably mention the ewig-weibliche ; if they like slang, they will answer you in the current phrases. You go home still wondering why Chloe has had twenty offers, and her cousin Doris none. It was a great satisfaction to Mrs. Frere to perceive that none of the pretty girls who came to her dance eclipsed her own two darlings. Mrs. Theodore, it is true, wore a conquering air, but then she, being mar- ried, did not count. Besides, her victory might have been won without her personal assistance. If she had sent her clothes and jewels on a wax figure she would have created the same sensation. She always entered a room with a little smile, that was as much as to say, " Yes, I know I am too well dressed, too gorgeous, too expensive for my company. It isn't my fault, though. It is yours for being poor and shabby. I really haven't got anything cheaper." And in a sense her smile expressed the truth. Her garments were irreproachable in color, cut, and texture, but always rather over-fine. To-night she wore a white brocade, stiff with silver embroidery. It was cut perilously B foollsb Wrgtn. 71 low, but her neck and arms were almost covered by diamonds. Sophia looked as plain as usual, in pale pink. "Shall I find you a partner, Mrs. Theodore?" said Mrs. Frere. " Do you mean to dance?" " There doesn't seem to be much room," she replied, and her objection was not unreasonable. From where she stood at the door the crowd looked uncomfortably dense already. " Of course, with your train you almost need an empty space," said Mrs. Frere. "Or a clever partner. How badly young men dance nowadays ! " " Did they dance better when you were a girl ? " " I did not know any of these young men when I was a girl," said Mrs. Theodore. "I don't suppose I ever shook hands with a business man until I met my husband." " Oh ! " said Mrs. Frere, and without prolonging her reply she drifted further into the room among the dancers. The waltz they were watching had come to an end, and the hostess wished to provide partners for two or three girls who were usually wall-flowers, in particular for Sophia Theodore. It was not an easy task, and she looked about for a daughter to assist her, but they had both disappeared. " Where can they be ? " she asked of Dick. " Nell is just coming back from the refreshment room now. There she is. I saw Hilary on Herr Hansen's arm a moment ago. Shall I find her for you, Mrs. Frere? " " No, thank you, Nell will do ; and what dances have you left, Dick ? I want partners for Sophia Theodore." " I haven't one, I'm afraid. How about Hansen ? He came late." " Herr Hansen does not dance." "Well, he's wise, with his figure," said Dick. The musicians tuned up for the Barn Dance, and Dick had to claim his partner. He looked out anx- 7 2 ttbe (Brassboppers. iously for Hilary, but she did not appear. Herr Han- sen, too, was absent. The stupid dance seemed to go on forever, and, meanwhile, the poppy-giver took his innings. Dick wished he had sent Hilary some flowers. Whose would she have carried ? his, or those offered by that stout, middle-aged German ? Hilary's name stood on his card for the supper dance and for two later ones. They were his own choice. The early hours of the evening are not those in which a man finds it easy to have his say. Wine, dance, and song set the pulses astir, fire the blood, give eloquence and courage. These good things Dick felt that he would need. He was by no means sure of Hilary. He was not even sure that she would dismiss the poppy-giver. Meanwhile, Herr Hansen had led his lady to the veranda outside the drawing-room, and there they sat together, undisturbed and unseen. The moon shone over the great elms at the bottom of the garden ; the dance music came through the open windows; so did a confused buzz of voices and of prancing foot- steps. " It is a pity that you should miss this dance," said Herr Hansen. " To me you can talk any day, but all young girls love to dance." " I like sitting out here," said Hilary. " It is not like London, is it ? to see nothing but the moon and those great trees." " Ah ! you should see Hamburg," said Herr Han- sen. " That is a town." Hilary smiled vaguely, and held up her nosegay to look at it. The flowers nodded at her, and the long trails quivered in the moonlight. "They do not understand bouquets here," said Herr Hansen. " When I saw how carelessly they had made yours I felt very angry. In Hamburg they are as even as if they were molded out of vegetables or wax, in rings of different colors and quite flat ; or they make a harp of flowers, or a ship. Last year my friend Frau Werner sent me, on my birthday, a roolieb Wr0fn. 73 little piano made of Parmese violets. Imagine that ! " " Was it pretty ? " said Hilary. " It was most artistic," said Herr Hansen. Hilary shut her eyes and listened to the swing of the dance music. It was very pleasant out here with her comfortable middle-aged friend. " How old are you, Miss Hilary ? " he said. He never called her Miss Frere, and she supposed, quite rightly, that he was not acquainted with the English custom. " I am not quite twenty," she said. " It is very young. I am forty-five." " Really ! " She nearly betrayed her surprise that he was not older, but she remembered just in time that he might not like it. " Yes," he said, sighing. " I have never married." " Well," said Hilary, " you haven't missed much, have you ? " " That is a strange thing for a young girl to say. It is not what I expected." " What ought I to have said ? " " Well, perhaps, that it is not too late." " I should not think it is," said Hilary consider- ately. "You might be more comfortable. You say your housekeeper has neglected you lately." " In Germany we think Englishwomen are very bad housekeepers. They are not at all domestic, we believe." " Perhaps you are right," said Hilary cheerfully. " I'm sure I'm not." " Ah ! do not say so, Miss Hilary. If you married, it would come." " Would it ? " said Hilary, in the voice of one listen- ing to an evil prophet. " I am afraid you think noth- ing good can come out of England," she added gayly. " I cannot say so," answered Herr Hansen impar- tially. " Your pickles are excellent." " Well, that's something, you know." said Hilary, getting up ; but Herr Hansen detained her, 74 Cbe <5ras0bopper0. " Please do not go yet," he said. " I have a ques- tion to ask you." " About Bayreuth ? " inquired Hilary, sitting down again. " No ! no ! About myself. You do not really think J am too old to marry ? " For the first time the girl's heart sank with an uncomfortable presentiment of what was coming. She half rose, and then after all sat still. She would not be fatuous enough to flee from a difficulty that might not be near. Herr Hansen's voice and his hesitating manner were suspicious, but his figure reassured her. " You must find someone near your own age," she said. " It is only our bodies that grow old. Our hearts remain young." " Do they ? " said Hilary. " You who are so learned so emancipated you would not care for looks in your husband. What are looks? They vanish." " I don't care for a husband at all," said Miss Frere. " I do not wish to marry." " That is young girl's talk. Every woman should marry and have her own home, where she is the queen. A lonely life is nothing. I have tried it and can tell you. At first you think it is fine ; you are free ; you can cut a dash ; you spend your money as you like ; you knock about the world. Then one day you wake up and are old. Soon your life ends. There is no one to care whether you live or die ; and you begin to think of a home where there are two one to enjoy things with you, to be happy when you are happy, and sad when you are sad. Her eyes near yours to see what is beautiful, her ears to listen with you ; and perhaps some little children to make you young again. I have two houses, Miss Hilary, and much money, and Hamburg is a fine town much finer than London. It is like Venice, only the houses are white and clean. Would you like to live there ? " a jfooltsb Wrgin. 75 Hilary shook her head. She hated to hurt her friend. He blinked at her through his spectacles, and she met his mild, kindly smile. " Think over it," he urged. " You need not make up your mind to-night. To-morrow is also a day. I know that I am not exactly a Romeo, but I can offer my wife a beautiful existence ; and I am a good fellow." " I am sure you are," said Hilary. She listened rather anxiously for the music to stop. She knew that when it did some of the dancers would come out here for air. " I really do not mean to marry," she added. " I should hate housekeeping and all that." " We will take a good cook," said Herr Hansen. " Do come, Miss Hilary." " No," said Hilary. " I cannot." " I am very unhappy," said Herr Hansen. " I wish I was not so old. It is true that I am too old for a young girl." " I don't know about that," said Hilary ; " but if you were twenty years younger I should still say No ; and if Romeo himself came, I should bid him begone from my balcony." " My child," said Herr Hansen, in a fatherly way, " when happiness comes, do not throw it away. It may only come once." He got up when he had spoken and walked a few steps toward the open window, where he was met by a lively group of young people, who had finished their dance, and were streaming out of the hot room. Hilary remained hidden and silent for a little. When one of the moon-gazing couples discovered her, she got up hurriedly and returned to her neglected duties. " I wish you would find some partners for Sophia Theodore," said Mrs. Frere, directly she came across her daughter. " People say that modern young men are mercenary, but no one would think so to see the fuss they make about dancing with thirty thousand pounds." 7 6 Gbe <3rag0bopper0. Hilary did what she could ; but before she had canvassed many young men, Dick claimed her for the supper dance. It was a waltz, and in spite of the heat they both enjoyed it. Then, while the first batch went into the dining room, those left behind had an "extra." Hilary and Dick sat out on the veranda while that proceeded. They went in to supper rather late, got a little table to themselves, and enjoyed their chicken and champagne ; but Hilary's mood did not seem to Dick propitious. Once she hardly heard what he said ; once he saw her take up the poppies and glance at them with wistful eyes. He felt in- clined to throw them from her. " What has become of Herr Hansen ? " he asked. " I don't know." " You were sitting on the veranda with him a little while ago." " Yes, but I've not seen him since." Dick felt encouraged, and proposed that when they had finished supper they should go and sit on the veranda. " Because you want to smoke ? " said Hilary. " Did Herr Hansen smoke ? " inquired Dick. " No ; but you are not bound to imitate him in every respect, are you ? " Hilary stumbled over the end of her query and turned suspiciously red. Dick looked at her keenly. " I may be glad to do so," he said, getting up. " How did he entertain you ? " For the moment Hilary could walk on a little ahead and make no reply. They had to pass through the drawing room, crowded now with dancers ; the wall flowers as well as the beauties were on their feet. Even the lazy young men had become more alert, and the doorways were less thickly decorated than before. Outside, on the veranda, two or three couples were star- gazing, so Dick and Hilary descended to the garden. Here they met Arthur and Nell discussing the ad- vantages of croquet by moonlight. The argument seemed to be one of many points and to require con- a tfoolteb Utrgfn. 77 centration ; at any rate, the debaters wandered away together and disappeared among the elms. " I think I ought to go back to the house," said Hilary, standing still. " Mother might want me." " Come once round," said Dick, in a wheedling voice. " It's our dance, you know." " Light your cigar, then. I know what slaves men are to their silly little habits." As Hilary spoke a large moth flew wildly against her face, and with a sudden startled movement she stumbled against Dick. If he had not been stalwart they would both have fallen, but he was quick, and helped her to regain her footing. As he did so, he drew her arm through his. " Do you think I need support ? " said Hilary, half vexed, half amused. " There might be another moth about," said Dick. "If you think I am afraid of moths or mice, or even beetles, yes, even beetles, you are mistaken. I am not so silly. That moth did not frighten me, it surprised me. Perhaps, as you are a man, you do not see the difference." " Has not a man eyes ?" " Don't gibe, Dick. I'm serious. Come, and sit down in the summer house. I've twisted my foot a little. No. You needn't tear off for doctors and rouse the household. It's nothing. I shall be able to dance in five minutes." But in five minutes neither of them had moved from the little summer house, which was moonlit and sheltered. Carnations and lilies, growing just outside, sent in their fragrance ; jessamine hung unpruned about the entry ; the night wind fanned through the elm branches, and the murmur of it mingled with the dance music that came faintly and brokenly across the garden. " It.'s getting too hot in London," said Hilary. " I shall be glad to go away. This morning in Regent Street I could hardly breathe." " Are you going away ?" 7 8 Cbe (Brassboppers. " Oh ! I suppose so. We always go away for the autumn months." " But have you made your plans ? Will your father get three months' rest ? He needs it." " He won't get it. He has often been telegraphed for after a few days. It vexes my mother when it happens." " Isn't it rather lonely for him when you are away ? " " I never thought of that," said Hilary. " Perhaps it is ; but he never makes any objection on that score. He only complains of the expense." "Well, it is his business to think of that," said Dick. " I wish I had plenty of money," said Hilary. " Oh ! do you ? I shouldn't have thought you'd care about it." " I'm very mercenary. All my life I've seen the disadvantage of being short of money. I want a lot." " You wouldn't marry a poor man, then ? " " Oh, well ! I could share my money with him, you know, if I had it." "Yes," said Dick, "but I mean if you hadn't got it as things are, in fact." " Oh ! as things are, in fact," said Hilary mockingly, " I don't mean to marry at all." "Why not?" " I would rather die than spend my life with a creature I considered my inferior in every mental and moral capacity." Dick looked puzzled. After a little hesitation he said : " A decent man never does think in that way of the girl he wants for his wife." " You are dense, Dick," cried Hilary, with wide- open, smiling eyes. "It is I who think that way about men." " I didn't know we were such a bad lot." " You have been ruined by centuries of despotic power on the one hand, and slavish submission on the other." " You speak like a book." a ffoolisb IDtrflin. 79 " It's none the less true." " I don't see much to choose between men and women, myself," said Dick rather hotly. " On the whole, perhaps, men are better. They gossip less ; they quarrel less ; they are less false and vain." " They quarrel more ; they cheat more ; they are more selfish." " And yet we cannot do without each other, can we ? " " I am going to try," said Hilary, with decision. She got up as she spoke, and seemed to expect that Dick would follow her. But he leaned back in the darkness, and spoke with some trace of agitation. On her face, as she stood near the entry, the moonlight fell. He could see her starry eyes ; he could make out the determined, half angry set of her mouth. " Hilary," he said, " you were such a dear little girl five or six years ago." " I am not a little girl now." " I know. All the while I was away I used to picture you growing up. I thought I hoped " His voice grew uncertain, and he stopped a moment. Hilary took a step away from him, as if she would elude what he had yet to say : but he sprang to his feet, and in a moment got ahead of her. " I want you for my wife," he said, with a deter- mination that was really passionate, but which she resented as unauthorized. " In a sense what you say is true. No man worth his salt thinks himself good enough for the girl he loves. Don't you see how it is ? I will kiss your feet if you will let me, and yet my arm is stronger than yours, my back is broader, I want to hedge you in." " You are very kind, Dick. You always were ; but that is just the conventional attitude, you know." " I don't care what names you call it. It's the natural, sensible one. Will you marry me, Hilary ? " " No, I will not." Whether he took this prompt denial to heart much, Hilary could not tell. Just then he said nothing 8o cbe (Braesboppere. more, and as they walked back to the house together his head was turned away from her. " Are you vexed, Dick ? " she said, after a time. " I have more to say, and I hardly know how to say it. Come and sit down again, and let us talk things out. I've got to make you change your mind before we part." They had come to an iron seat at one end of the lawn, and Hilary sat down on it. " You won't do that," she said. " Listen, then. I saw your father this afternoon. I asked his consent." " How proper of you ! " " He gave it willingly." " I dare say. Father was always fond of you ; for that matter, so am I." " Don't you care to please your father ? " " Certainly. But I must please myself first. You see that, I suppose ? " " No. 1 can't say that I do." " We don't agree about anything." " It seems not." " Perhaps you like the idea of a cat and dog life." " I like the idea of a life with you." " O Dick ! " exclaimed Hilary, in a mock woeful voice, " that I should live to hear you make pretty speeches." " I don't find it easy, I confess," he said grimly. " It is your own fault. You ought to understand." " What ? " "That women have grown and changed. We no longer find our only happiness in marriage. I want my life to be a wide one." " What do you mean ? Will you teach in a school, or write for the magazines, or rant at hole-and-corner meetings ? You talk nonsense." " You are narrow." Dick wished he might swear chiefly at himself. He had been so determined to keep his temper, to see that Hilary kept hers, And now, instead of melting fc roolisb Wr0ln. Under the ardor of his arguments, she was up in arms against him, indignant, cap-&-pie. 11 If you expect to marry a man without faults, of course you will be disappointed," he said rather irrele- vantly. " But why should you ? You are not fault- less yourself, I suppose ? " " I should expect my husband to think me so," said Hilary, with a provoking smile. " Then you had better marry a fool," said Dick, out of patience. " I dare say you will." " Well, no, Dick," said Hilary, her eyes dancing with mischief. " I have explained that I will not." So, for the moment, Hilary had the best of it. Dick said nothing more, and as soon as he could he went home. As he was putting on his coat he saw Mr. Frere, and he could not resist the appeal for news that spoke in his host's face. " It's no good," he said, under his breath. " What, my boy ? " said Mr. Frere anxiously. " Hilary has refused me." " You don't mean that she prefers Hansen ? " " I don't know. She tells me she won't marry at all." " But don't girls always say that ? " The two men had gone just outside the front door, where they could speak unheard. Dick saw that Mr. Frere looked worried and haggard. He was biting his lips nervously, and his fingers trembled as they touched his whiskers. " Hilary meant what she said." " I must talk to her," said Mr. Frere. " She is a very good girl ; she will listen to reason." " I would rather she listened to me," said Dick. " Did you tell her how much I wished it ? " " I said something of the kind." The two men were silent, and after a moment's pause Dick moved away. " Good-night," he said. Mr. Frere followed him. " Did you leave a stone unturned ? " he asked anx- iously. 8* ftbe (Brassboppers. "I don't know," said Dick; "I'm not good at talking." He stopped again, and evidently had something more to say, something he found it difficult to express. " I told Hilary she ought to think of you," he began. " At the same time " Mr. Frere did not help him out. He listened, but his eyes showed that he was brooding over the news. " A man wants to be married for his own sake," finished Dick, with an effort. " Of course, of course ! " assented Mr. Frere. " Perhaps it would be best to say nothing to Hilary." " Do you think so ? " " Even if you persuaded her to say Yes, it would not be much satisfaction to me, unless she changed a good deal." " I see," said Mr. Frere. And the two men parted, after shaking hands. Mr. Frere found, when he got back into the house, that his guests were beginning to go. For the next half hour he was busy speeding them. It struck two as the last carriage drove away and he shut the garden gate. He yawned with weariness, and hurried into the dining room, where he had seen his wife and daughters a little while ago ; but the girls had gone to bed. His wife was waiting there by herself, and he saw in her face and manner traces of extreme agita- tion. In fact, her eyes were full of tears, and her voice broke as she tried to speak to him. " Henry," she said, " the child has refused Herr Hansen." Mr. Frere dropped into a chair, and looked fixedly at the floor. His brow was contracted in anxious wrinkles ; his eyelids concealed his eyes ; he bit his lips nervously. " I have always told you not to build too much on the girls marrying well," he said. " Oh ! " cried his wife, " now you think you are in the right when you croak like a raven. I always told B ffoolfsb IDirsin. 83 you our girls would have offers. If Hilary dismisses a millionaire, it does not affect my argument." " It affects mine, though. It makes it true." " I know she will marry Dick Lorimer ; such a poor match, in comparison." " You may make yourself easy on that score," said Mr. Frere ; " she has refused Dick, too, to-night." His wife stared at him, first in bewilderment, then in distress, and then with a broad, bland, satisfied smile. " Two men in one evening ! Now, who is right, Henry ? You or I ? " She pulled a dish of little cakes toward her, and poured out two glasses of champagne. "We must plan our summer journey next," she said. " I have a fancy for. Nord.erney. We could take Hamburg by the way." " Norderney ! Hamburg ! the very night of this dance ! " cried Mr. Frere. " I tell you I cannot afford it. We must not travel this year." " We all need a change," said his wife placidly. " Nell looks very pale. You would not like her to be ill. Her ticket will not come to more than a doctor's bill, and we are obliged to live either here or there." " Then go to Worthing or Aldborough for a fort- night." " No," said Mrs. Frere, with the obstinacy that often teaches a weak nature to act with disastrous effect. " I like the idea of Norderney. I do not feel well, either. I want a change from housekeeping worries. I cannot stand the discomforts of English seaside lodgings. Besides, you need a cheerful holi- day." " What I need is peace of mind," said Mr. Frere. " I want to sleep at night, and not lie awake thinking that you are beggars, and that I am a scoundrel yes, a scoundrel. There is no other name for a man who has a wife and children and yet spends every penny he earns a coward, a scoundrel, a heartless fool and yet, my God ! how can I help it? What can I do ?" 84 tEbe (Srassboppers. He had half risen, and then, after all, had sunk down again, his face ashen gray, his lips twitching with excitement. "You do upset yourself so dreadfully, and me, too," said Mrs. Frere, looking very uncomfortable. " I am sure you give us all we want." " If I die to-night, you may be in the streets." " I wish you would not speak of such awful things. It is so wicked to look forward to the worst. There are troubles enough in the world without creating imaginary ones. If you had not let Hilary go to col- lege she would never have refused Herr Hansen. Now, that is a real misfortune." CHAPTER VIII. DICK'S FOLLY. A DAY or two after the dance Dick suddenly made up his mind to go to Hamburg on business. He carried introductions from Mr. Frere and from Herr Hansen with him, and as he also had friends of his own there, his visit promised to be sociable as well as lucrative. He knew the city, and liked it ; but on this occasion he did not find himself amused. The business hours were satisfactory enough. His work occupied his mind, tired his body, and brought him pleasant signs of success. It was play-time that hung rather heavily on his hands. He felt out of spirits, and anxious about his best friends. He wondered what they were doing, and whether Hilary would marry Herr Hansen. In Hamburg he heard Herr Hansen spoken of with much respect. Dick got tired of his name. He heard it too often, because he saw a good deal of some people called Werner, who were evidently very intimate with Hilary's stout admirer, and quite unsuspicious that he could cast eyes at an English girl. Herr Werner was a flourishing man of business ; his wife had been at school with Mrs. Frere, and still corresponded with her in terms of adjectival affection. They had a large family, most of whom were already married and out in the world. Two daughters remained at home. One was still a schoolgirl ; the other, Olga, had passed her eighteenth birthday and required establishment. Frau Werner encouraged the girl to set her heart on Herr Hansen ; and the girl had been quite docile until Dick appeared, when it .was plain to her mother that she would readily have 85 86 tlbc (Brassboppers. given her heart to him. The quiet, keen-eyed English- man became Olga Werner's hero. She dreamed of him, watched for him, wept for him when he sailed away. The Werners would probably have given him their daughter, if he had asked for her. Modest as his present fortunes were, business men believed in his future. He was known to be honest, able, and hard- working. Dick missed a considerable step to worldly success when he stared so absently at Olga Werner's blue eyes. She would have come to her husband with a dowry ; and an alliance with her would have meant an alliance with some great mercantile houses, as useful to a young trader as the protection of a great political power may be to a little new one. Frau Werner quite thought the match might still take place. She did not feel desperately anxious for it ; she had other strings to her bow, and, on the whole, she preferred a son-in-law of her own nation ; if possible, of her own town. But she liked Dick very well, and she expected that he would eventually come forward. A woman who has married two daughters knows that young men do not always conduct a courtship with the hot, unbroken ardor of romance. Meanwhile Dick returned to London without a suspicion. The Werners were part of Hamburg. Next time business took him there he would see them again as he would see the Jungfernstieg and sail on the Alster in the natural course of things. In London he had other pleasures, and older, closer friends. The first person he wished to see was Mr. Frere. He asked himself whether he could go to the house as usual, though Hilary had rejected him, and he decided that he would. He called there one evening, two or three days after his return, and found Mr. Frere sitting by himself on the veranda. Dick got a fright when he saw him, he looked so ill. " All alone ? " said Dick, looking round. " Yes," said Mr. Frere. " My wife and the girls are at the theater. Arthur Preston is with them." 87 Dick sat down and pulled out his pipe. Mr. Frere was smoking too. An evening paper lay on the table. " All well ? " said Dick. " My wife wants to go to Norderney," replied Mr. Frere. " She says Nell looks pale." " What are you going to do ? " " God knows ! " Mr. Frere spoke as if Dick's question referred to their general prospects, and not merely to a summer holiday. " Why don't you have a talk to Theodore and get something settled ? " said Dick. " Because I haven't a leg to stand on." " I can't believe it. Your knowledge, your experi- ence, your personal acquaintance with both buyers and sellers must be of value. Theodore doesn't care about work nowadays. He wants to go into Parliament and toady the smart people. I should think he needs you as much as you need him." Mr. Frere shook his head, but he said nothing. He seemed to be too much out of spirits to discuss his prospects, and too listless to talk of anything else. Dick took up the evening paper ; his eye had been caught by a big headline about the panic on the Stock Exchange. " That bubble has burst," he said, alluding to the crash of the great firm that had chiefly caused the panic. It was unnecessary to mention the bubble more definitely ; the whole City had roared its name for a week. He looked up, expecting Mr. Frere to make some remark, to join him in righteous denun- ciation, but the older man only sighed. " I know a young fool who got in at the top. He is cleared out. I am very sorry for him," said Dick. " Is he married ? " " No." " Then what does it matter ? If I was alone in the world to-night, I could hold my head up. But how I am to tell my wife and children, Heaven knows." <5rassbopper$. " Tell them what ? " asked Dick, with an uncom- fortable sensation of fear. " I'm cleared out and worse," said Mr. Frere, in a shaky, feeble voice. "Arthur Preston put me on to Fagin's Trust Shares a month ago. There's a call." " How many shares have you got ? " " Four hundred ; and the call is five pounds." " Two thousand pounds ! " said Dick blankly. " I've just been all over the house, estimating the furniture ; but it is old-fashioned. I suppose we must sell it and turn out. I don't know what else we can do. I haven't told my wife yet. But whatever we do, if we sell our beds and our spoons, I can't raise two thousand pounds before the call is due, unless Theodore helps me, and he is the last man in the world I want to ask." " I suppose if you drew two thousand pounds out of the business, you would have nothing much left for your private expenses till Christmas." " Not a farthing. I have been making about three thousand a year, and spending more." Dick was silent for a long time, turning over ways and means. " If you could begin to spend less " " That's what I mean to do, if only Theodore con- sents to renew the partnership," interrupted Mr. Frere. " Sometimes I hope he will I go up and down the suspense is awful. Of course, I have the whole business at my fingers' ends. I should let this house, and go into a much smaller one." " Yes. But how are you going to get this two thousand pounds ? " asked Dick. Ever since he had heard of the new liability, he had been trying to harden his heart against his old friend ; but he did not succeed. When Mr. Frere spoke eagerly, Hilary's likeness to him became apparent. Just now, Dick had seen his face brighten suddenly as hers did sometimes. The father had looked at him as the daughter did, with guileless, consulting eyes. BfCfc'S follg. 89 His question brought the shadows back again, and he felt as if he had spoken with brutal bluntness ; nevertheless, he stuck to his point. " You must get it, you know," he said. " I suppose I can raise it somehow by a bill of sale on the furniture and my profits for the second half of this year." " But what will you all live on here ? " " We shall not be here if the house is let and the furniture sold," said Mr. Frere. " I suppose we must go into lodgings. The girls had better look for situa- tions. Then we shall be ready for next year, when Theodore kicks me out. I suppose I can get a clerk- ship. You will be going ahead soon, Dick ; you must find a corner for me." Dick felt too much perplexed and troubled to smile. He stared at the elms in the garden, and wondered what he could do to help his old friend. He could not afford to lose two thousand pounds, and yet he was slowly making up his mind to run the risk. " You must not sell your furniture and go into lodgings," he said finally. " That would be wretched." " I must do something of the kind," said Mr. Frere. "You can get the money if suppose I back a bill?" Mr. Frere looked at Dick with a swift, vanishing expression of relief. It lit up his face for a moment, and then faded again, leaving it as hunted and weary as before. " My dear boy," he said, " it isn't as if I could meet the bill. How should I pay you back ? " " If you live at a lower rate, you can pay it back gradually." u But how soon ? " " You will go on with Theodore next year," said Dick, nodding his head confidently. " He is too sharp a chap to let you go. He may offer you a fixed share, I suppose oh ! I'm not afraid," 9 Gbe (Srassboppers. " My dear Dick," said Mr. Frere huskily. The young man's belief in him, his cheerful expectations, were as helpful as the actual offer of money. " But it's unfair to you," he resumed. He knew that Dick's resources were slender, and the business demands on them great. " I shan't be spending much myself," said Dick evasively. " I wonder whether I can make my wife under- stand." " Is it necessary ? " " Perhaps not." Dick had no desire that Hilary should hear of the transaction ; and Mr. Frere knew exactly what his wife would say if he told her about it. She would listen inattentively, assure him that business matters were not her province, and observe that her husband never mentioned them at home unless they happened to be disagreeable. The tradesmen had to be paid whether the City was in a good humor or a bad one, and no man could expect his wife to feed the house- hold on nothing, just because some stupid shares went down. If they went down, they would also go up, she supposed. She could not understand why her husband should worry over such an everyday affair. She could not easily reduce their expenses, because at all times she practiced thrift, for the pleasure of it, and because it was her nature. They might give up the Times and take the Standard instead if Mr. Frere pleased ; and give sixpence instead of a shilling to the German band. Mr. Frere had turned dreamily silent while he carried on this imaginary conversation. It was not altogether imaginary. The two suggestions for retrenchment had actually been made by Mrs. Frere last time they talked of money. She could not under- stand why her husband had not accepted them with greater gratitude ; and she had said that her own economical bent must be a very strong one, otherwise it would long ago have been discouraged by Mr, Frere's indifference. Eighteenpence a week saved was three pounds eighteen a year. It would buy Nell gloves. Dick stayed until the ladies returned from the theater. They came out on the veranda and talked about the play. Hilary wore her green gown, and a long pale green cloak with silver clasps. The play had amused her, and she laughed a good deal as she told her father the story. Now and then she turned to Dick with an explanation, an invitation to laugh with her at the joke. He had never seen her in better spirits, and his own rose at the thought of what he had done. His wish had been to make a new home for her, and that had failed. Instead, he was going to prevent her old home from falling to pieces. As he loved her, he was glad to do it, although until she came he had not felt very light-hearted, The risk of loss appeared greater to him than he could admit to Mr. Frere. He thought worse of his old friend's health, and worse of his prospects, than he liked to say. Dick's business conscience pricked him ; his private conscience applauded and encouraged. The two were at war till Hilary came. After all, Dick told himself as he looked at her, if he chose to give up a sum of money for her sake, even though she would not marry him, it was no man's business to call him a fool. All the money he made might have been hers, had she only nodded her pretty head. CHAPTER IX. BAD NEWS ONE hot evening toward the end of August Hilary had taken her books into the garden and was trying to read there. The Freres had not gone to Nor- derney. Indeed, they had not been away at all. For the first time in their lives the girls were spending August in London instead of on a Swiss mountain top, in a German watering-place, or at the English seaside. Every day their mother proposed a journey, and every day their father managed to stave it off. The discussions were interminable, but so far noth- ing had come of them but the acquisition of several new guide-books and a lively European correspond- ence as to terms and suitable accommodation. The girls could not understand why their mother con- sented to this long delay. Everyone they knew had left town long since. Mrs. Theodore and Sophia were at Pontresina. Arthur Preston was on his way to the Dolomites. Dick Lorimer had gone sea-fishing off the Cornish coast. Even the daily papers wrote of mountain, moor, and sea. Hilary had stumbled on a leader this very morning that set her longing for salt breezes, for pine forests, for moorland hills, for anything countrified, instead of the stale, dusty streets outside their garden gate. Even her own home seemed in need of a cleansing air ; at any rate, everyone in it looked jaded and irritable. The Greek play was making little progress. Hilary had taken it into the garden to- night, but she felt languid and disinclined for work, and before she had considered three lines her mother appeared. Hews. 93 " I can't think what makes your father so late," she said. Hilary put down her book and stared absently across the garden. Their usual dinner hour had gone by, and there was no sign yet of Mr. Frere. " Perhaps he went to Cook's to get those return tickets," she suggested. " I'm afraid not, my dear. He said only this morn- ing that he hadn't the money for them. It is really dreadful. We cannot do without a change. He does not see that it is an absolute necessity. I am sure I do not go away for pleasure ; I am always glad to get home again." "I don't understand the sudden difficulty," said Hilary. " Father's circumstances have not altered, have they ? " " That is just what you never know with a business man. You have to guess at their affairs from their tempers. It is very trying. The wife of a man who has a fixed income can cut her coat according to her cloth ; but although I stint and save, as a matter of duty, I always feel that it is trouble thrown away, What is the good of choosing cheap fish for dinner when a single telegram that very day may have lost you thousands ? " " Perhaps father has been losing money," said Hilary. " I dare say. Of course, we have both had our disappointments." She sighed, and Hilary opened her book again. It was in this roundabout way that Mrs. Frere re- proached her daughter over and over again in the twenty-four hours. She could not help feeling that things were going a little wrong. Her prayers to fortune were so modest, and yet they seemed unheard ; that Hilary should marry Herr Hansen, that Arthur should declare himself, that Mr. Frere should keep his health and spirits surely to ask for these events to happen was not to ask for much. They wanted a lucky breeze, and Mrs. Frere wished 94 Gbe <3rassbopper0. she could puff out her cheeks like a cherub, and blow one the right way. It vexed her to see Nell droop, and even fade a little. " Perhaps Arthur will not marry until next year," she said to Hilary. " The Stock Exchange is very flat just now." She often made a remark of this kind to her elder daughter. In some mysterious way it seemed to afford her relief to speak of Nell's marriage to Arthur as a certainty, even while she fretted over its delay. Hilary looked pensively across the lawn at Nell, who was watering a bed of parched geraniums, although the clouds were gathering for rain. " I don't believe much in Arthur," she said. " I can't think why." Hilary was saved for the moment from the difficul- ties of an explanation. A servant came across the lawn to ask whether dinner should be served, and to say that the cook wanted some vanilla for a sauce. Mrs. Frere ordered dinner at once, and went back to the house to get the vanilla out of her store- room. By the time dinner was over the three women felt almost anxious about Mr. Frere. He never stayed in the City to an unusual hour without sending a telegram or a clerk with a message. Why had he not done so to-day ? Besides, he never stayed at his office until ten o'clock. Such a thing had not hap- pened once since they were married, said Mrs. Frere. He had long since given up his club. " Suppose he has been run over? How should we know it ? " inquired his wife. The girls thought someone would be from the hospital to tell them, but they persuaded their mother not to sit at a front window and watch for a hospital messenger. Their father had probably gone to dine in town with a friend. It was contrary to his habits, but not quite impossible. Hilary could remember an occasion when Dick's father had arrived from India, and carried off Mr. Frere from the office to the Caf J3aD flews. 95 Royal. She remembered the telegram coming to explain his absence, " That is what I mean," said Mrs. Frere. " He has always sent a telegram." The evening had grown more and more oppressive. The girls sat out on the veranda, and stared at the black sky. In the heavy silence that heralded a storm every sound outside reached them with unac- customed clearness. Mrs. Frere was too restless to sit down. She listened for her husband's latchkey, and twice went to the door on a false alarm. Very soon it began to lighten, and that increased her uneasiness. The girls were driven back to the draw- ing room, and found it difficult to breathe there. They opened the piano, but a crash of thunder startled them away. Nell had said she would sing, but she could not chirp through a storm like this ; it sounded right over their heads. The rain had not come yet, and between the peals there was a breath- less silence. They heard the postman's knock, and then a fresh flash blinded them for an instant, while the crash of the thunder seemed within the room. " That was a letter," said Hilary, " and no one brings it. I dare say the servants are afraid." She ran into the front hall and took the letter out of the box. It was only a package of patterns for Nell. But as she stood there someone came up the steps and rang, and with a swift dread of bad news, with the wish to intercept it, she opened the door. To her surprise she saw Dick Lorimer standing out- side. He came in. " I thought you were in Cornwall," she said. " I got back three days ago." They shook hands, and then Hilary turned toward the drawing room. " Isn't your father smoking ? " said Dick. " I rather want to see him." He was close to the " library " door, and he stopped there as if he wished to go in. He looked at Hilary for permission to do so. 9 6 " Father has not come home," explained Hilary, " We can't think where he is." ' May I wait for him ? " said Dick. ' Of course. Do you know where he is ? " < No." ' Have you seen him to-day ? " Yes." Hilary noticed that Dick hesitated slightly before he replied. She turned round swiftly and faced him. " Is anything the matter ? " she asked, trying as she spoke to read the truth in his face. What she read there did not reassure her. His eyes were full of pity, and his glance was grave. "Your father has business worries," he said evasively. Hilary did not press her question further. It was impossible to ask Dick for information about her father's affairs ; but she felt uneasy. They went into the drawing room together, and Mrs. Frere asked him what he meant by coming out in the midst of such a storm. He had no plausible answer ready, and as he tried to invent one he saw Hilary staring at him in bewilderment. Luckily the storm came to his aid. When conversation is interrupted once a minute by a clap of thunder it is apt to grow erratic. One flash of lightning was terrible. Nell buried her head in the sofa cushions after it, and Mrs. Frere suggested that they should all adjourn to the " library," where there were closed shutters and thick curtains. As they filed into the hall they heard the rain begin, a sudden heavy downpour driving against the win- dow panes. Mrs. Frere said that the library fire should be lighted, in case her husband came home wet through. This was done. Dick was allowed to smoke. Whisky and mineral waters were placed on the table. The room looked well lighted, warm, and cheerful ; the blaze of the fire was pleasant to see. " It might be a winter evening," said Nell. " This room gets very stuffy in winter, worse than it is to- JBaO flewa. 97 night; but you look like summer, Dick. Anyone can see you have lived in a boat lately. What was the place like ? Would it do for us ? " " It was roughish," said Dick. " You are quite bronzed," said Hilary, looking at him contemplatively. " You make me think of the sea. I know what you have been doing. You have taken your boat into caves, and heard the waves plash against the sides, and then you have come out into the sunshine again ; you have watched the gulls, and you have been drenched by spray ; you have lived on fresh fish and salt air. I wish we could go off to-morrow, anyhow anywhere. London in August is terrible. Let us go off to-morrow, mamma, and get brown and blistered like Dick. I can't think why we are all sitting here to-night." " I am so unhappy about your father," said Mrs. Frere c " Where can he be ? " She had unfastened one corner of the shutters, and, half hidden by the heavy curtain, she stood close to the window on the watch. Hilary felt convinced that Dick was uneasy, too. She knew him too well to be misled by his quiet man- ner. He smoked his pipe ; he filled himself a glass of whisky and Apollinaris ; he sat still in his chair ; but Hilary observed that he listened to every sound outside, and that, in spite of the late hour, he seemed determined to stay on. " I'm afraid you won't get much talk with father when he does come home," she said. " I'm afraid not," said Dick. Their eyes met in conflict. He understood that she wondered why he did not bid good-by and go, and she understood that he meant to stay and give no reason. " It is nearly midnight," said Nell, looking at the clock. " I'm so sleepy." Mrs. Frere heard what the girl said and came away from the window. She begged her daughters to go to bed. Nell consented to do so, but Hilary said that she preferred to sit up. 9 8 tEbe (Srassboppers. "Why do you stay ? " she asked Dick a few minutes later, when they were left to themselves. Nell had gone to bed, and Mrs. Frere was giving some final orders to the servants. Dick looked at her. " I'll go, if you like," he said. " Nonsense, Dick ! You know what I mean. You stay because you think something has gone wrong. What do you fear ? " " I can't tell you," said Dick, after some deliber- ation. " Nothing. I saw your father to-day, and I expect he's all right. He'll be here in a minute, and then I'll go." "I have sent the servants to bed," said Mrs. Frere, coming back into the room. " Your father is sure to have dined." She stood still on the threshold, the door wide open, her hand upraised and pointing behind her toward the hall. " Listen ! What is that ? " she cried. They all three heard a slow, dragging step come as far as the front door, and then shuffle heavily away again out of the garden gate and down the road. " I'll go and see," said Dick. He hurried off, shutting the front door after him ; but the two women opened it, and stood on the top step listening anxiously. There was no traffic in the road at this late hour, and the rain fell quietly now. Hilary could hear Dick overtake the man who had been within their gates a moment since ; she could hear two voices, and then two persons coming slowly back. She ran down the steps, across the small front garden to the road. Dick had just arrived at the near- est gas lamp, and she saw that it was her father cling- ing to his arm. She ran on, unmindful of the rain, and then suddenly stopped short. What ailed her father ? He seemed hardly able to walk. He was drenched with rain and shivering ; his face looked white and wild ; his eyes met hers without interest, almost without recognition. flews. 99 " What has happened ? " she said, under her breath, to Dick. " He has been out in the storm." Hilary caught her father's free hand. It was as cold as ice. When they got to the house and Mrs. Frere saw her husband's condition, she immediately showed great alarm. " What is the matter, Henry ? " she cried. " Come in to the fire. Was it you who came to the door just now and went away again ? " " Yes," said Mr. Frere, with a groan. He let Dick take off his dripping greatcoat, and then he followed his wife into the library. There he sank into a chair and stared silently at the fire, rub- bing his hands all the while, and giving little shiver- ing sighs that terrified his wife. She stood close by and looked at him helplessly. Dick mixed some strong whisky and water, and steadied the glass while Mr. Frere drank it. Hilary wished that she had thought of doing that. " Where have you been ? " said Mrs. Frere, when she had waited some time in vain for her husband to speak. His haggard eyes turned miserably toward his wife. He seemed about to answer her, and then, as if the words choked him, he stopped short and said to Dick : " Tell them. I can't." Dick, looking greatly troubled and perplexed, sat down near his old friend. " You want rest and sleep now," he said. " No need for any explanations to-night." " Yes, yes ; there is ! only I don't know how to do it. That's why I stayed away. I don't know how to tell them." " Don't keep us in suspense, Dick," said Hilary, with a touch of indignation. " Your father is anxious about the future," said the young man, after a pause that showed he found it difficult to begin. He looked almost relieved when Mrs. Frere interrupted him. <5ra0ebopper0. " You'll worry yourself into your grave, if you don't take care, Henry," she urged affectionately. " How could you go wandering about the streets in the rain when you knew we were waiting dinner for you ! I can see by your boots that you have walked for miles through the mud. Tell us what is the matter, and then go to bed. I shan't let you go to the office to- morrow ; you look quite ill. I suppose Mr. Theodore has been losing your money again ; it seems all he can do for the firm. But if he thinks you are going to work yourself to death, and do without your holiday " " You're wrong," said Mr. Frere grimly. " He wants me to have the holiday and not the work. He has told me so to-day." " How nice of him ! " exclaimed Mrs. Frere. " I should never have given him credit for it. Then what are you worrying about ? " Mr. Frere did not reply. His wife looked from him to her daughter, from her to Dick. She caught the alarm in their faces ; she felt that their silence meant no good. " What is it ? " she said, beginning to tremble. Dick felt driven to explain. " Mr. Theodore will not renew the partnership," he said. " He means to carry on the business by himself." He looked at the ground as he spoke, but he felt Mrs. Frere's eyes on him, and he knew that what he said only reached her comprehension by degrees. A heavy, interminable silence followed before she opened her lips. " I always knew he was a scoundrel," she said slowly. Then she leaned over her husband, and the tears gathered in her loving, faded eyes. " Henry ! " she whispered. " Never mind, old heart. We'll get on somehow." Dick had gone to the window, and turned his back on his friends. Hilary had gone close to her father. " I could not come home and tell you," said Mr. Frere. " I cannot bear it. You will starve." Hews. ioi " What did he say to you ? " asked Mrs. Frere. " Did you remind him that you made the business ? I hope you told him what you thought of him." " No," said her husband ; " I asked him to keep me on at a fixed salary." " Oh ! " cried Hilary, and then stopped herself. She looked at her father, and understood in a dim way that he had fallen on his knees before his enemy to beg for his children's bread. He had begged in vain, and his failure had broken him. " But you are so clever, Henry," began his wife. " You can easily begin a new business, or else some- one will give you a thousand a year to manage theirs. We could not live on in this house, and we have the lease for another three years, but " " Is it possible that even now you don't under- stand ? " said Mr. Frere, pressing his hands to his temples with an air of desperation. " We are ruined ruined ! If I get a clerkship, I shall be lucky. My health has gone. I am old. Everything is over for me." He got up and looked tenderly at his wife. "We have been married twenty-one years," he said, " and every day has brought us nearer to this." " We have been very happy for twenty-one years," said Mrs. Frere stanchly. " I wanted to see them again," continued her hus- band. He addressed Dick, and then glanced at his wife and daughter. His tone was almost apologetic, but his eyes were dazed, and he turned silent and troubled, like a man in a fever, who thinks he has spoken a secret thought aloud. Dick felt sure that his old friend had wandered hither and thither that night with the thought of suicide in his mind. " You must rest now," urged the young man. " Let me help you upstairs." Mrs. Frere followed them. Hilary sat down by the fire. Presently Dick returned and sat down beside her. " What will happen ? " said the girl, looking at him with desolate eyes. <5rasgbopper0. " Don't think about it to-night," he answered gently. " You can do nothing, you know." " I know," said Hilary. " I can do nothing. I am only a girl." Dick looked at her rather wistfully, but her eyes did not meet his. She was staring into the fire. " I don't see what you could do, if you were a man," he said, after a time, "unless, of course, you had money." " A man can always make money. A thousand ways are open to him, if he has strength and sense." " Not at an hour's notice. Not without a struggle. I have worked hard for ten years, and I am only just beginning to see my way." " But you can never have felt quite helpless as I do now. I feel like a rat in a trap. There is no escape. You say yourself there is nothing to be done. We shall have to bear it. Suppose father gets no work next year ? He has often told us of men who lost a berth, and could not get another. He used to help them. They were glad to borrow a sovereign ; they had wives and children who were starving at home. Shall we starve ? Oh ! how can it be pos- sible? Surely I have wits enough, and strength enough to earn my bread ? " "You are looking too far forward," said Dick. " Your father will probably find something to do. He is a very clever man of business." " But he looks so ill." " It is no joke for a man to have to tell his wife and children what he has told you to-night. Can you imagine what it cost him ? " " Do you think he has known for a long time ?" " He has feared it for a long time." "Mamma always said things would come right." " They might have done," said Dick. Hilary thought she understood how. If Arthur Preston had declared himself, if she had accepted Herr Hansen or Dick, her father's affairs would not have been desperate. With his two children married JBafc flews. 103 to prosperous men, he could have held his head up as he walked out of his old business, and looked leisurely for some post big enough to support himself and his wife. It need not have been very big. She looked at Dick, and tried to speak, but her heart began to beat so wildly that she could not say a word. She looked away from him and waited, won- dering, in the silence that ensued, whether he saw any signs of the commotion that shook her. He did not come to her aid. "Dick!" she said quite suddenly; "let us help him. I would do anything to help him." She waited one breathless moment for his reply, stared at him as if he had dealt her the most cruel blow, and turned ashen white. He thought she was going to faint, and put out his hands toward her, but she shivered away from him and lay back in her chair with closed eyes. How was this moment ever to be wiped out ? Dick had dimly understood. He had even looked at her with sudden hope, but by that time her eyes were averted, her face had changed from white to flaming red. She did not see the hope rise and die away again as he watched her ; she only felt that his silence thrust her from him, and that while it lasted she was consumed by shame. Every moment seemed to carry her further from her old, familiar friend. It was, after all, a strange young man sitting at her elbow. She had offered herself to him, and he had not responded. The tension became unbearable. She got up. As she did so Mrs. Frere threw the door open and appeared for a moment on the threshold of the room. She could hardly speak. She beckoned Hilary to go with her, and she said to Dick in a dry, choking voice : " A doctor ! He is dying. He is dead." Dick flew. Hilary ran upstairs to the door of her father's room, and then stood still outside it, listening fearfully. She heard him breathe, and went in. He lay on his bed insensible, with glazed, unseeing eyes. 104 Gbe <5ras0bopper0. His wife came back and began to cry bitterly as she hung over him. The sound of her sobs seemed not to reach him ; at any rate he gave no sign. Hilary stood beside the bed and wondered whether this was death. The rain pattered against the window, the room looked just as it had done since she had known it, but every breath her father drew sounded more terrible than the last. Every moment deepened her conviction that he was bidding good-by to life and to them. It was a hundred years since yesterday, when the future had looked so fair. So suddenly do the Furies enter a household, and where they enter they love to stay. CHAPTER X REALITIES No one of ordinary intelligence will refuse to admit that he is mortal ; and yet a great many people behave as if their life in this world would probably be everlasting. Men cherish the most lively affection for their wives and children, and die with their affairs in unpardonable confusion ; women urge their hus- bands to spend an income considerably larger than the capital that would be at their disposal if he died to-morrow, and no one offers to lock these lunatics in asylums, although the harm they do to themselves and others is deeper, more lasting, and more various than the worst that could be wreaked by many a poor creature living under his keeper's eye. But it is not necessary to have a wide or a profound knowledge of human nature to understand that fools are as common as sinners ; and, indeed, the admission of folly is best made, like the confession of sin, on Sundays, in a chorus from which no man's voice is absent. Of course, there are people who think they invari- ably act with wisdom, but they are in an unamiable minority, and need not be taken into account. Most of us have grace enough to blush at some memories. However, there is no doubt that a man's taste in follies, as in dress and furniture, may differ impor- tantly from his neighbor's. You condemn what your friend condones, and what you smile at he refuses to endure. The girl you perceive to be a mere millinery peg he endows with angel's wings, and marries ; but he cannot understand your trick of fetching your guests from the byways. And the most curious part of the matter is, that the millinery peg suits him, and 105 106 tTbe (Sragsboppers. the blatherskite you, for the term of your natural lives. It was truly a merciful fate that made men as various in their likes and dislikes as they are in their fortunes. To some minds it seems impossible that grown-up people should live without any care for the morrow that a man should love his wife and children de- votedly, and yet leave them without daily bread. It seems impossible, even while one's eyes are fixed in wondering amazement on people who lead irresponsi- ble, spendthrift lives ; it is so difficult to believe that a human being can play the butterfly with such satisfac- tion to himself. Of course, the difficulty is made by one's own unsympathetic mind, and does not depend on the rarity or the uncertainty of the facts. In the human world butterflies are exceeding plentiful. Very often they lead a gorgeous, untroubled life ; whether they flourish to the last depends on the weather encountered by the way. There is no doubt 'that the poor, pretty creatures sometimes find them- selves in cruel circumstances. " Winter ! " they have always cried. " Don't talk of it don't think of it ! We do not believe it exists. The days are warm and long, and, like sensible creatures, we enjoy them. What do you say about providing for bad weather ? We have no time to listen or understand. All the flowers in the garden are waiting for us. We love their colors and their perfume. Look at our own colors, how they embellish the summer day." So they flit gayly past you, and you watch and wait un- easily. Then autumn comes, and they shiver ; winter, and they die. And I have never found that the spectacle of their sufferings is made less painful by the reflection that they have brought it all on them- selves. To the victims it assuredly brings no relief. Besides, they deny the impeachment with indignation. Mrs. Frere had certainly helped to bring misfor- tunes on the children and herself. The argument that her husband need not have permitted her to do so will occur to bachelors of both sexes. To married Realttfea. 107 folk its hollowness will be plain. Men who love their wives are so much in their hands for bad or good. " As the husband is, the wife is ! " But a man wrote that. Moreover, the young man from whose lips the saying issued was not married, nor were his thoughts taken up with housekeeping expenses. He was quite in a state of mind to deny their importance. Perhaps you imagine that Mrs. Frere looked back with repentance, and resigned herself to the fruits of her folly. If so, you give her credit for a reasonable- ness of which she has hitherto shown no sign. People who do not expect both to eat and to have their cake are rare. Mrs. Frere would not recognize that she had nibbled with fatal destructiveness at hers. She said it was iniquitous if the widow of a man who had worked as hard and as well as Mr. Frere was not left well provided for. I think she was right. Only most of the iniquity happened to be hers. At first she had only glanced with a foreboding shudder at the troubles ahead. As long as her hus- band lay there, still with some breath of life in him, she could not believe that he would die. Her strength spent itself in watching by him, her thoughts drifted back to a past that led through such dear days to this intolerable end. She did not know how to let him go, how to stay stricken and desolate behind. When she saw the change in his face she stooped and whispered in his unconscious ears that she was with him ; and then, in a moment, as she kissed him, he was gone. She had no time, and hardly the wish, to call the children. He died at dawn, when they were both out of the room. She sat by him, his hand growing cold in hers. Her thoughts traveled to and fro. It seemed such a little while since the first time she had seen him. It was the coming day that looked long. But, of course, the sun never sets on a day that has not broken more hearts than one ; and in the case of a woman who has been as silly as Mrs. Frere most people are inclined to forget her grief and consider io8 her reverses. The girls wept with her. Dick Lori- mer took the management of the funeral off her hands. For a few days the three stricken women were allowed to mourn unmolested, as if the loss of husband and father was the only trouble that had befallen them. But Mrs. Frere's widowhood was hardly a week old when the whole bitterness of her position was made properly clear to her by Mr. Harrison, her husband's solicitor. He called on her the day after the funeral, and, of course, he began with one or two conventional expressions of condolence. It soon became evident, however, that the grief that had worn Mrs. Frere white and wan already was, in his opinion, less important than the financial ruin in which she was deservedly involved. The fact is, Mr. Theodore had prepared him to encounter three silly, unreasonable women, and had urged him to hammer out the truth. Mr. Harrison was also solicitor to the firm, and had its interests truly at heart. Mr. Theo- dore and the firm were now, to all intents and pur- poses, one. " You have always spent every penny your late husband made," he was soon saying. " Last year you spent more. Mr. Frere was in debt to the firm. The business has been crippled for want of funds." " It will be crippled now for want of brains," retorted Mrs. Frere. Mr. Harrison paused, as if to wait for an unmean- ing but troublesome noise to pass away, then he continued : " On your husband's business you have no claim. There would be absolutely no provision for you if, two years ago, I had not luckily persuaded Mr. Frere to insure his life for a thousand pounds. By his will, made at the birth of his first child, his property is in trust for the children, and can only be touched in case of their marriage. The furniture, plate, and linen are yours, and will, of course, sell for something." Mr. Harrison cast an appraising glance round the morning room. Realities. i9 " You must not expect much," he said. " People will hardly buy old furniture nowadays." " Do you mean to say that my husband had no money in the business ? " asked Mrs. Frere. She drew closer to the fire as she spoke. The room in that wet, gloomy weather always felt chilly. " Nothing worth speaking of. A little over two hundred, perhaps. Your debts will probably amount to that." " We have no debts," said Hilary. " Have we, mamma ? " " There are the tradesmen's bills. Every family has tradesmen's bills. They do not like ready money. But what are we to live on, Mr. Harrison ? " " I have not gone into the accounts yet, but I should think there will be nearly fifty pounds a year for you," said Mr. Harrison, getting up to go. Mrs. Frere burst into tears. The lawyer pretended not to see, and walked to the door, a crying woman is even worse company than an angry one, but Hilary stopped him. " Who are my father's executors ? " she asked. " Mr. Theodore and myself." " Mr. Theodore ! " echoed Mrs. Frere in surprise. " Bless me," said Mr. Harrison, turning round again, "didn't you know? Did your husband tell you nothing ? " 44 1 dare say he did, but I never wished to hear about such things. I never have worried about the future. God alone knows what will happen." "Well," said Mr. Harrison, "for my part I knew pretty well what would happen, two years ago, when your husband told me the state of his affairs. The poor man was breaking his heart over them then." " But what are we to do ? " asked Mrs. Frere again. She looked terrified, dazed, appealing. Mr. Harrison shrugged his shoulders. "There are thousands of families in England who live on a pound a week," he said, and then he got away. It is always irritating to observe that people no be (Srassbopperg. who have brought trouble on themselves still hope for help and sympathy. Everyone ought to lie uncom- plainingly on the bed he has made for himself. Mrs. Frere certainly could not expect much sympathy from anyone who knew how foolish she had been. Of course, the girls would tumble into the gutter with her, and that seemed a pity : but they probably took after their mother in vanity and feebleness. At any rate, children must suffer for the sins of their parents. No one but a latter-day unbeliever would object to that law as unjust, and even he would admit that it is, at any rate, in complete and plentiful exercise. His creed and his profession both helped to harden Mr. Harrison's heart. For some time after he had gone the three women sat together and scarcely spoke. The girls had lis- tened in dry-eyed silence. Every word the man uttered wrung youth and hope out of them. They felt scared at being alive. What could they do with life ? how support it ? how satisfy its imperious demands ? A pound a week for the three ! A month ago Arthur had asked Nell if a young couple could begin with five hundred a year, and she had looked very wise and said they might, perhaps, if they lived in a cottage, and were very careful with coals and bread. Hilary had spent a pound a week on odds and ends. She had never managed to pay her dress- maker's bills out of that allowance. What were they to do ? Should they hire a laborer's cottage and live in it ? Thoreau did not spend a pound a week at Walden ; and how often, in the midst of some dull, pompous dinner-party, Hilary's thoughts had flown to that pleasant hut, with the scent of bean flowers com- ing in at the door, and the whippoorwills singing on the stump outside. She saw the deep pond in the for- est ; she saw the spreading pine, the red squirrel, the woodcock with her young, and the turtle-doves at play. " We must find a cottage," she said. " The rent must not exceed half a crown a week. There will be seventeen and six left for other things." "Realities. 1 1 1 But Hilary got no further. Mrs. Frere and Nell stared at her as if they feared she was demented, and she perceived the impossibility of even attempting such a life with them. Indeed, as she looked it in the face, its charm vanished and left a thousand hard- ships behind. How could a few shillings supply three of them with food, warmth, and clothing ? Where would help and medicine come from when they were ill ; wine for her mother, or such costly necessaries as boots, clean linen, meat, and fires ? She stretched out her hands and wondered whether they would ever accomplish the family washing. Her heart sank as she thought of it. She had less muscu- lar strength than most girls of her generation. In a few minutes, after considering one or two of the uppermost details, Hilary came back to the plan that was, of course, the obvious, commonplace one Nell and she must teach. " Yes," she said, " we must teach. I don't know what, and I don't know whom, but that is evidently our career, unless I take to cooking ; but that requires training and skill. I have neither time nor money to spare, so I will teach. In England there are many people who suppose that teaching, like reading and writing, comes by nature. I will persuade some nice Mrs. Dogberry to engage me. You must find Mrs. Verges, Nell. We will send mamma our money. What am I worth ? Shall I only get a comfortable home in a Christian family at first, or will someone give me twelve pounds ? Oh, mamma ! what can you not do with twelve pounds a year ? " The girl tried to laugh, but her mirth was not con- vincing, and she found that Mrs. Frere would not listen to her plans. Part from her girls as well as from her husband ? Hilary might as well suggest that she should part from her heart or her head. Her very life hung on them. Let her children go out among strangers and waste their strength in stuffy schoolrooms expose themselves to slights and snubs grow old before their time, and weary while they were "2 Cbe (Srassboppers. still young she had not educated them for such an existence as that! Hilary could not help reflecting that this was true in more senses than one. Nell, in spite of her little accomplishments, was an ignorant puss ; and she herself had frittered away her time in the desultory fashion that comes so easy to us all. " But what are we to do ? " she said at last. " Here we sit, three live healthy women, hungry three times a day, cold three parts of the year, want- ing clothes to cover us. We can't help being alive, and life means needs. How are we to supply them?" " Do thousands of families live on a pound a week ? " asked Nell, who knew as little about money as most girls of her age and position. " Mrs. Theodore will be glad," cried Mrs. Frere. " She will say it serves us right, even if we die of starvation. And Henry will not know ah ! if he knew my husband my husband ! " " She will not be glad," said Hilary. " She will simply not think of us at all. We shall belong to the disagreeable subjects that she likes to keep out of her mind. She will do what is pretty and proper in the way of a civil note and an occasional invitation, and beyond that we may all go to the devil for anything she cares." She reflected a moment, and then added less bit- terly: " And you can't blame her either. Why should she trouble about us ? " Nell had got up and was standing before a silver- framed mirror, examining her pretty image in the glass. " Am I a disagreeable subject ? " she said, with whimsical melancholy. " I don't look it, do I, Hilary ? " Hilary, who had risen some time before, approached her sister and looked over her shoulder. Their mother, from where she sat, could see both the girls and their reflection. She could not imagine anything prettier, but she could not imagine them torn from Realities, "3 the surroundings in which their loveliness had ripened. She began to cry again. The first person who brought hope and comfort to them that day was Dick. He came straight from the City, and for once helped Mrs. Frere through the hour that as long as she lived was a heavy one. All day she had been used to miss her husband, but between five and six she had listened for his key in the latch. She used to listen now and start at a chance sound. Dick brought his friends a basket of peaches, and the little gift stirred them in away he could hardly under- stand. The City keeps up a pretty fashion of sending little luxuries by the hands of its workers to the women folk at home. Now that the father and husband was dead the Freres had not supposed that anyone would come in at eventide, bringing fruit and flowers. There were early chrysanthemums as well as peaches in Dick's hands. He sat down as if he meant to stay some time, and listened attentively to Mrs. Frere's account of the lawyer's visit. " You have not seen Mr. Theodore ? " he asked. " No," said Mrs. Frere ; " I hope I shall never see him again. I consider that he murdered my husband. The worst villains of all never get within sight of the gallows." Dick had seen Mr. Theodore the day after Mr. Frere's death. He had called at the office, by appoint- ment, late in the afternoon. A memorandum had been found relating to the two thousand pounds paid for Fagin's Trust Shares. Mr. Theodore professed great indignation at discovering that his penniless partner had speculated on the Stock Exchange. Dick said he had been greatly grieved to hear of it too as the speculation had turned out a rotten one. Mr. Theodore explained that even with the help of the life insurance, and after the sale of his household goods, the property left by the deceased would not amount to anything like two thousand pounds. There was a considerable business debt, and probably a large number of private ones When these were met H4 tlbe (Brassboppers. there might be rather more than a thousand pounds left, which the issuer of the bill could, of course, claim. For the rest of the borrowed money Dick would unfortunately be responsible. Dick asked what would become of Mrs. Frere and her daughters, in case every penny they possessed was taken from them. Mr. Theodore said he had no idea. He confessed that the question did not greatly interest him. He had a keen sense of justice, and in his opinion people who could not help themselves were not worthy of help. No man can do more than a little for some of his neighbors, and Mr. Theodore preferred to spend his surplus on deserving objects. Could he sit still and see those ladies driven into a workhouse ? Well, he had read only the other day that workhouse life was most healthy. Besides, in these days, when so many careers are open to women, why should there be any question of lazy subsistence on the public purse ? Why should Mrs. Frere and her children not earn their living as thousands of women, equally spoiled, have had to do ? He would advise them to take situations at once, and not spend an unnecessary day in the house that was actually being supported at Mr. Lorimer's cost. Dick did not lose his temper at once. He used every device he could think of to squeeze a promise of help out of Mr. Theodore, to make him do something for his late partner's widow and children. It was of no avail. The two men had never liked each other, and their old animosity seemed to find fuel at every stage of the discussion. They parted on worse terms than ever. Dick declared that he would meet the bill he had backed and not wring a penny toward it out of the three women on the brink of destitution. Mr. Theodore commended his generosity, with a sneer that made Dick burn to hit out at him. With a somewhat cavalier air he forbade Mr. Theodore to mention the matter to anyone concerned, and he marched out of the office in a tearing rage, feeling more like an ass than a Realities. "S hero. He had interfered and failed. He wished he had never said a word, never gone near the place. He had done more harm than good ; set Theodore's back up, and driven him to swear he would do nothing for those poor women. It was an oath the man would be glad to keep, too. Dick wondered what on earth would become of them. He him- self felt powerless, paralyzed by this coming loss of two thousand pounds. He could not think of mar- riage now. It would be all he could do to carry on his business and live. Dick asked Mrs. Frere whether she had seen Mr. Theodore, because it was, of course, just possible that the rich man had softened his heart and made some sign. His wife might have prevailed with him where Dick had been defeated ; or he might still turn out to have more bark than bite. This is a world of surprises ; but Dick would have been sur- prised out of measure if such a piece of news had greeted him. As it was, he felt that he had known all along how foolish it would be to cherish the faintest hope. While they were sitting together a maid came in with several letters, which she handed to her mistress. One of them bore a German postmark, and Mrs. Frere opened it first. She scanned it hurriedly, ut- tered several mysterious exclamations of surprise and pleasure, and then turned to her daughters, the thin, finely written sheet of paper fluttering in her hands. " It is from your Aunt Bertha," she explained. " She says she will take us all. You see my brother left her pretty well off, though she says she is poor, and in Germany room is not an object. Besides, the closer we three can keep together, the better pleased I shall be ; and don't say you cannot live in Germany before you have tried. You have no idea how delightful Hamburg is. Instead of taking an omnibus to get across the town, you take a steamer, you know. Aunt Bertha says her house is almost in a wood. You remember Aunt Bertha, dears ? " (Brassboppers. "Not very well," said Hilary. "Isn't she rather queer?" " Who is she ? " asked Dick. " I have never even heard of her." " Oh, yes, Dick ; you have. She is the widow of mamma's only brother. They lived in Peru. They stayed with us on their way back, five years ago. I don't remember much about her excepting that she was a curiously silent person. She would sit right through dinner and never open her mouth. Father said she gave him the blues." " Here is her photograph," said Nell, who had fetched an album, and turned over its pages until she found what she wanted. They all bent over it with newly awakened interest. " I should stay in England," said Dick, after a prolonged and silent inspection. " But we can keep together if we accept this in- vitation," said Mrs. Frere. "It seems sent from heaven." Dick glanced at Aunt Bertha's photograph again. "What can we do ? " cried Hilary. " Mr. Harrison says we had better leave this house to-day than to-morrow." " Oh, never mind him ! " said Dick. "But he is right. Every day here costs pounds. You do not understand yet. For each of us, in future, there is not quite a shilling a day. Do you know what a leg of mutton costs ? I don't ; but I have heard that it is a good deal. We want a roof to our heads, and fire, and light. If we go to Aunt Bertha, we shall have breathing time. I can work at German, and get a good situation later on. What can we do here? We can't go about with a barrel organ or sweep a crossing. If we tried to stand in a shop twelve hours a day we should be in a hospital in a month. We might let lodgings, I suppose ? " " Nonsense," said Dick rudely. " You would not make a penny. You are not used to haggle and pilfer." Realities. "7 "We are not used to live on a shilling a day," said Nell. " I should think it wants practice." Dick fumed. It would have pleased him best to take a little house and bring these three women into it ; to work for them and order them as if they were his kin. " You can't go flying about the world by your- selves, with no money and no man to look after you," he said, regardless of Hilary's gathering resentment. " We have no man to look after us," she said, " so there is no choice." " I don't like the plan at all. You hardly know this woman." " She is my brother's widow," sighed Mrs. Frere. " Poor Hans ! she made him very unhappy." "Well," said Dick, "I shall expect you back in a week or two. Have you many friends left in Ham- burg ? " "Certainly," said Mrs. Frere. "There are the Werners and Herr Hansen." Dick looked swiftly at Hilary. Perhaps she would not be back in a week or two. Perhaps Herr Hansen would persuade her to stay in Hamburg altogether. Decidedly this plan of emigration was not one to be encouraged. He got up and went toward the open veranda doors. The garden looked trim and fresh. He stepped outside and considered how he could best lure Hilary to join him there. The tactics he finally adopted were not subtle. He put his head into the room and said : " Hilary, I wish you'd give me some flowers," and directly they were in the garden together he said : " Come and sit in the summer house and talk. I'll help you gather the flowers afterward." They sat down together, and at first found nothing to say. " I thought we were to talk," observed Hilary, after a time. " I don't know where to begin," said Dick. " I hate this Hamburg plan." " I see you do. I don't know why." " Suppose you come to grief there ? " "This is absurd," said Hilary impatiently. "We are three grown-up women. Do you suppose we can't take care of ourselves?" " I don't think you can without money." Hilary was silent. There really seemed nothing to say. Words could not alter the situation, so it seemed foolish to waste them. " You ought to stay here," persisted Dick. Hilary knew nothing of the check to Dick's for- tunes, and she had rather expected him to ask her to marry him there and then. She would have refused indignantly, and told him what she thought of women who married because they needed board and lodging. After the other night it would have afforded her keen satisfaction to refuse him again. Why did he not give her the chance ? Had he changed his mind ? or seen some other girl who pleased him better, accord- ing to the fickle habits of his sex. The idea gave Hilary a pang. She thought she did not want to marry Dick, though ever since the other night she was not as sure of this as she had been, but she was quite positive that she did not want him to marry any- one else. While he remained single he belonged to her in some measure, and the thought of losing him showed her with a flash how much she depended on his affection. Surely she did not love him ? Suppose he suddenly put his arm round her shoulders, and drew her to him? Suppose he kissed her? Would she hate it ? She did not know. Meanwhile Dick fought manfully against his ardent desire to do some such thing as this. He could not marry until he had retrieved his fallen fortunes, so he had determined not to speak of his wishes again just yet. In a little while he might see his way more clearly, and then, if Hilary would consent to engage herself He only half believed in her objections to marriage ; he had a glimmer of hope that he could overcome them. But if she went to Hamburg, Herr Realities. "9 Hansen would have a long innings, with all the advantages of money, social prestige, and actual presence on his side. For Hilary the chance was a magnificent one. Dick could not deny that. But he grudged her to Herr Hansen with his whole heart. " Don't go to Hamburg," he entreated. " Stay here, and let me look after your affairs." Hilary shook her head. When she spoke there was a note of disappointment in her tone. " We must go," she said resolutely. " There is nothing else to do." CHAPTER XI. RATS. " IT is very strange that Arthur has not been to see us," said Mrs. Frere fretfully. " I cannot understand it. I know that he is back, because Dick mentioned having met him more than a week ago. I almost wish we had not accepted Aunt Bertha's invitation. Hamburg is a long way from Kensington, and if once a girl is out of a man's sight ! I suppose we could not have stayed on here even with economy." Mrs. Frere and Hilary were in the morning room on the first floor. They were turning out a cupboard, full of the nondescript rubbish that accumulates from year to year, and from which some persons never like to part. " We are going in such a hurry," continued Mrs. Frere. "We might very well have waited a few weeks." " Every day in this house costs more than we can afford," said Hilary, " and there is nothing to wait for." " You remind me so much of your father, my child. He always took a gloomy view of life. Poor Henry ! " Hilary said nothing. "If Arthur calls before we go, and if he proposes to Nell, I shall certainly not run away to Hamburg," continued Mrs. Frere, in the obstinate voice that is so often heard on the lips of feeble people. " You see my point, Hilary ?" she persisted. " Oh, yes ! " said Hilary rather impatiently, " but I do not think it is a case we need consider." " Why not, pray ? " " Because Arthur evidently avoids the house now." " He has not been back long. He has probably Rats. 121 been very busy. Besides, a man naturally hesitates about making love to a girl the very hour her father dies. I wish you were more just to Arthur." " What is to be done with all these old guide- books ? " " We had better take them with us." "We shall not want them. We shall have no money for traveling." " Well, we can always get new ones." Hilary was still young enough to think that the event which had entirely changed their circumstances would affect their dispositions with equal force. On her own the last few weeks had made an ineffaceable mark. Her whole point of view had shifted, and she still told herself every day that even yet she must look at life from a more modest level. Such a little while ago she had told Dick that money did not trouble her that it was never on her mind. Sud- denly her mind dwelt on it all day ; her sleep was broken by dreams of it at night ; she went to bed worn out with worry, and woke at all hours weary and incapable of rest ; she would not look at the morrow, since the morrow held no pleasant promise ; she tried not to look at the future, for it was wrapped in gloom. To-day she was not suffering from actual want, and for to-day she must henceforward live, thankful if it held no new privations. It was therefore a constant surprise to her to find that their reverses had not affected her mother and Nell in the same real way. They were unhappy, of course, and they sometimes seemed to remember that they were poor. But it never struck them that any day the very necessaries of life might be luxuries beyond their reach. Meat, wine, fire, and comfort- able clothes with these they still supplied themselves in a matter-of-course spirit that filled Hilary with amazement and foreboding. She felt ready to walk straight to an attic in a slum and live on a shilling a day, on bread and water if need be, to die of slow starvation rather than plunge into disgraceful diffi- (Sraseboppers. culties. She sometimes asked herself whether she could live by herself, in this manner, on a third of their income, about seventeen pounds a year, until she got work. But she never thought of it as really possible, because she could not separate her interests from those of her mother and sister. They must sink and swim together. Of course, they must sepa- rate sooner or later, when the two girls went out into the world as governesses. Hilary believed that this time-honored resource for the destitute would only grieve her mother mildly. Mrs. Frere did not wish her children to drudge in schoolrooms, but it would trouble her far more deeply to think of Hilary starv- ing alone in a garret. Meanwhile, all the pleasant details of their old life began to look costly and precious. When she went to bed at night in her pretty room, when the maid came in each morning to bring hot water and let in the light, when she went down to breakfast and saw the table set with flowers, and silver, and dainty food, when she dressed for dinner, she realized with increasing pain that this easy existence was nearly at an end. She could not understand why her mother and sister felt this so faintly. They behaved as if their present troubles were a disagreeable episode. Hilary believed that they would lash and deepen until the victims were submerged. Of the Theodores they had as yet seen nothing. Mr. Harrison acted as go-between in business matters, and Mrs. Theodore had only lately returned from Paris. But one Sunday, in the afternoon of Mrs. Frere's last day in her old home, when she was sitting with her daughters and Dick, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore and Sophia were shown in. Mrs. Theodore was, as usual, the figure of fashion. She wore pale heliotrope ; she carried a parasol of heliotrope chiffon, and as she crossed her feet she showed an elaborate petticoat of silk and lace. Sophia was equally smart, but not equally effective. She sat bolt upright, and looked at people with a self-satisfied simper as vacant as her Rats. "3 conversation, and Mrs. Frere observed at once that she was sunburnt, and that it did not suit her. Near her heavy, swarthy face Hilary and Nell looked like lilies. " I am only just in time, I know," said Mrs. Theo- dore. " Mrs. Preston told me you were off to-day. I have only just come back, you know. Dressmakers are such ruffians. They seem to think time is made for them and no one else. I meant to stay two days in Paris, and I hung about there for ten. So you are really going to spend the winter in Hamburg ! How jolly ! I suppose you'll find all your old friends and relations there ? " " Most of them are dead," said Mrs. Frere. " Oh ! but they'll come to life again. I mean they'll turn up. I am beset by aunts and cousins when I go to Yorkshire. They want me to do shop- ping for them in London the brutes ! I don't think one ought to feel related to cousins. Is Hamburg a very German town ? " " It isn't French or English," said Mrs. Frere. " What a pity ! I wonder whether anyone would be born out of London or Paris, if he could possibly help it. I want to go there some day, though, and hunt up the family pedigree." " There would be no difficulty about that," replied Mrs. Frere. " I remember your grandfather's shop as well as possible. It was a very fine one, built soon after the great fire. I dare say it is still there." " How interesting ! " said Mrs. Theodore. " I should like to have a photograph of it. But my grandfather was a bishop, dear Mrs. Frere." " Was he ? " said Mrs. Frere indifferently. " Did you enjoy Pontresina ? " " Not much. We went to the wrong hotel. It was crowded with Germans." " Couldn't you move to the right one." " No. Quite full. It was a great bore, because several of my friends were there Mrs. Finch-Brassey, and that poor beautiful Mrs. Bremen, who lost her J24 Cbe <5ra08boppers. husband in such a sad way, and the dear Bishop of Butterraere. And there were we dining opposite a creature who put half his knife down his throat, for all the world like a conjuror. Then, of course, Stanley disappointed us at the last moment, and we had to travel to Paris by ourselves. It was most uncom- fortable." " I am afraid my husband died at an inconvenient time," said Mrs. Frere. She perceived that Mrs. Theodore wished to avoid outspoken expressions of condolence, and if her manner had been ever so slightly sympathetic, Mrs. Frere would have forgiven her, though to a German the English reserve in offering spoken condolence after a death is hard to understand. Mrs. Theodore had written a civil letter, and considered that she had done what was proper, which was all she cared to do. But her chatter grated on Mrs. Frere, her fine clothes seemed to flaunt themselves. Even Mrs. Frere's last remark did not penetrate her dense self-complacency. " I wished we had gone away in June," she answered. " Mr. Theodore has had a very trying summer, and even now he says he cannot get a holi- day. Don't you think he looks pale and thin ? " "I had not noticed it." " He does, I assure you. I get quite anxious about him. Of course, he is comparatively a young man. Still, one never knows." Mr. Theodore and Dick had exchanged a few remarks about the weather, and found it uncommonly difficult to sustain a conversation. They accordingly looked toward the ladies, and listened to what went on in their corner of the room. Mrs. Theodore had lowered her voice while she spoke of her husband's health, but he heard all she said and strolled nearer to her. " I don't intend to be killed, I assure you," he said with his washed-out smile. " If you show signs of wanting to ruin me, I shall put one of those advertise- ments in the papers and disclaim your debts," Rats. 125 " I was talking of overwork and not of debts," said his wife. " Oh ! work doesn't kill people," he said, sinking into a chair, as if his muscles would not support him, and crossing his legs ; " anxiety does it." "My husband was killed by overwork and by a shock," said Mrs. Frere, her indignation rising at Mr. Theodore's tone. He looked at her briefly. " Poor man ! " was all he said. Dick felt furious. A silence followed, during which Mrs. Frere's agitation was painfully visible ; and then Sophia Theodore, who had not spoken before, said in her queer, hoarse voice : " Has Arthur Preston been here ? I saw him at the theater last night. He said he was coming to bid you good-by this afternoon." " He has not been here," said Hilary. She saw Nell turn white and then red. " He is going round the world, you know," said Mrs. Theodore. " Yes," observed Sophia ; " I wish he would take me with him." " Sophia ! " said her sister-in-law sharply. " I like traveling," explained Sophia. " I think it is so sensible of him to go now while he has no ties," continued Mrs. Theodore. " A young man ought to see the world." " I don't know that a globe-trotter necessarily sees much of it," said Dick. He perceived that the Freres were concerned to hear of this intended journey. The words were hardly out of his mouth when the young man in question entered the room. Mrs. Frere got up to greet him. She wished that the Theodores would go now, but they did not seem inclined to do so. On the contrary, Mrs. Theodore invited Arthur to sit down near her, and engaged him in conversation. She said that she had a great deal of information to give him, as she had spent a winter in India herself. This went on for some time. Mrs. Theodore <3ras0bopperg. chattered. Arthur listened. The three girls made desultory remarks. The two men, Mr. Theodore and Dick, grew restless ; so did Mrs. Frere. She saw with vexation that the afternoon light shone unbecom- ingly on Nell, exposing more than need be the havoc made by the last few weeks in the girl's good looks. Seen thus, the change was startling. She had grown thin and hollow-eyed ; her color had fled ; her black gown did not suit her. She sat there silently, and hardly glanced at Arthur ; but her mother could see that the child felt his presence in every fiber of her body, and that it cost her an immense effort to make no sign. " Did you know that we were leaving London to- night ? " said Hilary, when at last there was a lull. "Yes," Arthur acknowledged ; " I thought I'd like to say good-by. I'm going away myself directly. When do you come back ? " " Probably never," said Nell, looking straight at him for the first time. " You must come and see us in Hamburg," said Mrs. Frere. " When people leave London they vanish," observed Mrs. Theodore, with a sweeping gesture of her hands. " You had better come back, Mrs. Frere." She got up as she spoke and shook hands with her hostess, said they had made quite a visitation, hoped the journey would not be a cold one, begged the girls to write sometimes and assure their London friends that they were not forgotten. Then she turned to Arthur, and asked him to drive back with them and dine, an invitation which he accepted with promptness and relief. She asked Mr. Lorimer why he never came to see her, but did not wait for his reply. She gave Hilary and Nell each a little peck on one cheek, a familiarity that took them by surprise, and then she rustled out of the room, still chattering to Arthur, as she went downstairs, of a certain tin-lined trunk that she proposed to lend him for the voyage. Directly they were gone Nell burst into tears. She Hats. 127 buried her head in the sofa cushions and sobbed hopelessly. Her mother tried to comfort her. " Come away," said Hilary to Dick. " Come round the garden. I want to bid it good-by." She led the way to a corner she counted especially her own, where she had grown her favorite flowers. She began to gather some, and arranged them in her hands, but Dick felt that her thoughts were with her sister upstairs. " Why are you here, Dick ? " she said suddenly. " Go away. Come for a ten minutes' call and then depart forever. No one will blame you on the contrary." " I never thought much of young Preston," returned Dick. " A selfish cub ! " Hilary was still stooping over the flower-bed, mov- ing slowly from one patch to the next. Dick followed her until they arrived at a garden seat ; then he sat down, thinking of to-morrow afternoon when she would have sped miles away. "I would give you a bunch," she began, holding those she had gathered toward him, " but I know you would put them into a bedroom tumbler half-full of water with all their heads squashed level." " What are you going to do with them?" " Take them with me." She picked some clove carnations, found her bunch over large for one hand already, and sat down next to Dick to rearrange them. " But what is the good ? " she cried dejectedly. " It is like putting a purse into a coffin. I can't really take them or anything else with me. Dick ! you know more of men than I do. What did Arthur's visit mean ? and his journey round the world ? Has he deserted Nell ?" " It looks like it," admitted Dick unwillingly. " I suppose that is what we have to expect of everyone now that we are poor. No one will be glad to see us or wish to have more to do with us than they can help, I think we are wise to leave 128 Gbe <5ra0sbopper0. London. We should have felt the change at every turn seen it reflected on every face." She stopped, considered, and then said, with some compunction, " Except on yours, Dick." " You mustn't be blue," said Dick. " It's no good." " Well," she sighed, " we had better go back to the house. There are several things to do still." " Wait a bit," urged Dick. " You'll write some- times, won't you ? " " Yes, we will write certainly ; but so must you. Of course, there is never anything in a man's letters. Still they will come from England. There will be an English air about them. I believe we shall die of home-sickness over there." " I hope you will be driven back again," said Dick. " We should have to walk back, I think," said Hilary, " unless I find some way of making money." " I shall be over there before Christmas, for a day or two. I shall come and see you." " That will be something to look forward to," said Hilary. Now that the moment of their separation was so near, Dick felt sorely tempted to say a word of his wishes for the future again. Two considerations held him back now, as they had held him on the evening before Mr. Frere died. He did not believe that Hilary's affection for him was more than friendly, and it seemed difficult to him to explain that he could not marry yet awhile. To begin by saying so would be fatuous. To say so, if she accepted him, might lead to awkward explanations. He might vaguely talk of business reverses but he felt sure she would not ac- cept him. Had she not refused him explicitly not so many weeks ago ? Perhaps if Dick had still been in a position to marry this day, or the next, he would have tried his luck again. But as this was impossible, he reasoned that he had better not run the risk of a second rebuff. To-day he must let her wander from 129 him. Perhaps time would bring her back, and in a different frame of mind. They returned to the house together, and found plenty to do for the next two hours. It was depress- ing work to stroll through the stripped, disordered rooms, and imagine what they would look like three days hence, in the hands of an auctioneer. Hilary opened the piano, and played a Prelude of Chopin's that her father had asked for sometimes. Then she knelt down in front of a long dwarf bookcase full of old friends she must leave behind. There were the pink-covered " Waverleys " that had belonged to her grandfather. It was very hard to let them go. The Master of Ravenswood would look at her with unrecog- nizing eyes from newer pages. She could not make friends with a paper-backed Coeur de Lion, or thrill for any other Amy than the one she had always known. And here was the nice old edition of Shakspere. Where else would she find Hamlet and Beatrice and Romeo? Between these dull gray boards she had found them years ago ; and now, with everything else in her old home, they were to be taken from her. When it was nearly time to start she went into her own room to put on her traveling things. This last hour seemed interminable. It would be a relief when the cab came and carried them away. Everything she looked at here, everything she did, gave her pain, and she knew that for her mother the wrench must be more grievous still. Mrs. Frere came in ready dressed while Hilary was pinning on her hat and veil. She had followed one of her children everywhere all through the day. She sat down now and looked about her. " I thought you would go away from this room as a bride," she said sadly. In her own mind she pictured the events of the day she had so greatly wished to see. She beheld Hilary in this very room on her marriage morning, in her marriage robe. She saw the shimmer of satin, and the misty veil, and the wax-like orange flowers ; 1 3 Gbe she saw her later in her traveling gown, pelted with rice by the wedding crowd, taken from her mother's arms by one nearer and dearer still ; she saw her father smile and Nell shed a few tears while she her- self did both. She saw her there to-day, in deep mourning, her father dead, her home in ruins, with no bridegroom at her side, going forth this instant on her mother's helpless arm to suffer privation, to de- pend on charity, to flee from actual want. " Well, mother," said Hilary, " it is time to go. Is Nell ready ? " " Poor Nell ! " said Mrs. Frere. The worst moment was not, as Hilary had expected, the one of going away. On all sides there were matters that required attention and diverted their thoughts. The dreaded moment had come and gone before they had time to reflect that it was there. Dick hurried them into the cab, rushed back for a forgotten trunk, took charge of keys, gave final orders, and drove off with them to Charing Cross. The London streets looked hideously stale and dusty. Perhaps there would be trees and rivers in the foreign land. But as Dick stood on the platform, and watched the train steam out of the station, he wished he could fetch his friends back. To what were the three women going? how many dreary hours awaited them ? into whose clutches might they not stray ? How could creatures incapable of earning money, and having none to spend, ever shift for themselves ? They needed a man's support as distinctly as a child needs the care of a grown-up person. Why had he let them go ? CHAPTER XII. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. WHEN you are young, a journey through a foreign country can hardly fail to entertain you. At any rate, your eyes and ears are busy, and that, if you are out of spirits, is in itself a tonic. Hilary did not sleep much while she traveled, but she looked out of the window. When the dawn broke they were speeding through a Flemish country wrapped in a golden haze, tranquil and strange. The grass was dripping with dew, the cattle stood knee-deep in reedy ponds, leaves fluttered singly and silently from the autumn trees. No men and women were astir yet in the com- fortable-looking homesteads. Hilary felt sorry when the train carried them into a wide-awake world again where everyone was busy. The morning hours be- tween Brussels and Cologne were more tiring than the night had been ; and when at last the Freres reached the old cathedral town, they were glad to rest there for half a day before going on. But at night, when they resumed their journey, Hilary reflected that their halt had cost them dear. Every bookstall, every shop-window, every pedler hawking local wares held bait for Mrs. Frere. What she saw she wanted, like a badly brought-up child, and Nell abetted her. They came back to the station refreshment room with their hands full of photographs and eau de cologne ; they had spent a considerable sum on seeing the hidden treasures of the Dom ; and they proceeded to order a meal that cost at least a week's income. Hilary stared at the stars while her mother and sister slept, and she wondered what they would do when their money was all gone. As she understood their r 3 2 tTbe (Brassboppers. affairs, they owned nothing in the world but their household furniture and one thousand pounds, which would be paid about three months hence by the in- surance office. The furniture was to be sold, and the proceeds would belong to Mrs. Frere, to squander in a week, if she saw fit. She had agreed to leave the money in Mr. Harrison's hands provisionally, and to write for small sums as she needed them. Hilary felt convinced that her mother's applications would be frequent. The insurance money was to be held in trust for Nell and herself until they married or at- tained the age of twenty-five ; and from this source they could reckon on an income of forty pounds a year. Nothing had been forthcoming from the busi- ness. Mr. Frere's claims on the year's profits ceased the day he died. Mr. Theodore had paid his late partner's private bills, and explained, through Mr. Harrison, that even this was more than he need have done. Hilary reckoned that the bills amounted to about two hundred pounds. For their traveling expenses they had been obliged to sell the household silver. Mr. Theodore often said of himself that he was not a philanthropist, and as far as his partner's widow was concerned he made good his words with all the pleasure in life. He did not rob her, but he kept hold of every penny he might by any legal stretch call his. He could trust Mr. Harrison to bluster if Mrs. Frere asked tiresome, addle-headed questions. Mr. Harrison had a most valuable manner ; he could sug- gest jail with a grunt, and penal servitude with a frown, to a woman as timorous and ignorant as Mrs. Frere. He did, in fact, tell the silly lady that the bed she slept on might be taken from her if she showed the least distrust of Mr. Theodore, and after that she held her tongue. Hilary sometimes wondered why a thousand pounds had been left to them. Suppose it had been claimed for a business debt ? what could they have said or done ? They could not fight two hard-headed busi- first Impressions. *33 ness men. It was most unfortunate that their father had not committed their interests to other hands ; but his will had been made many years ago, when Mr. Theodore first came to the office ; he had narrowed and hardened since then. The two partners had drifted further and further apart. Everything had altered except the half-forgotten legal document that, after lying so many years in a cupboard, had suddenly become of paramount importance. It grew colder as they traveled northward, and toward morning a fine rain began to fall. When, at an early hour, they arrived in Hamburg, they felt tired and chilly. At the station no one came forward to meet them, and, after claiming their luggage, they set out for the distant suburb where Frau Lange lived. It was a dreary drive along an interminable road. They passed between lines of inferior shops and of tall, dull houses built in flats. Further on there were spaces not yet covered mere sandy deserts given up to fair booths at stated intervals throughout the year, but empty now, and as ugly as Wormwood Scrubbs. The working population was astir already, and proved more interesting to the English ladies than the land- scape, the women and children were so plainly dressed, so tidily shod. There were servants on their way to market, bare-headed, wearing clean cotton gowns, and carrying large baskets in which to bring back the provisions of the day ; there were soldiers on the march to their barracks ; the cab drivers and the tramcar conductors wore smart uniforms, and looked like government officials ; the postmen walked as if they had been drilled. After driving at a snail's pace for nearly an hour, the Freres found themselves in the main street of a little suburban town. The cab soon turned off into a quieter road that led to a whole colony of detached villas, varying in shape, in size, and in the amount of garden belonging to each. The driver stopped at one of these. The girls looked eagerly out, and their first impression was a pleasant one. They had expected a be 0ra00boppcr0. something worse. The house stood in the midst of a small garden, decorated with large colored glass balls, cheap plaster casts, and a few flowers. It looked clean, and new, and roomy, and as ornate as if a confectioner had designed it. The varnish on the little balconies glistened in the sunshine ; the paint on the outside shutters was as green as grass ; the French windows were all closed. More than this they had not time to observe, because, as the cab stopped, the front door opened, and their aunt appeared on the threshold. Mrs. Frere ran impulsively forward and imprinted a warm kiss on her cheek. Hilary and Nell held themselves ready to do likewise in a somewhat cooler fashion. Frau Lange's appearance gave her nieces a severe shock. It was far less promising than her house. She looked outlandish, unrefined, and bad- tempered. She had come back from Peru thin and sallow. Five years of her native food and climate had changed her into a stout, florid woman. She still wore her back hair in grotesquely elaborate coils, while on either side of her face it was frizzed over pads. Her little black eyes were much smaller in her filled out face than they had been in her hollow- cheeked one. The lines about her mouth those lines we all make for ourselves from day to day said little for her self-control or for her good-humor. She wore an uncouth plaid dressing gown, shabby slippers, and several fine diamond rings. She received her sister-in-law so impassively, she seemed so much less interested in her nieces than in the cab-driver, that the girls thought they might escape without exchang- ing kisses. They offered to shake hands, but their offer was not observed, and they passed beyond their aunt into the house. A moment later Frau Lange had plunged into a lively altercation with the cab- driver. Her impassive manner gave way to one of active indignation. She would not allow him to carry the trunks upstairs unless he first took off his boots. ffirst Impressions. 135 "Why did you bring so many ?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Frere. " It's absurd. When I travel I take one portmanteau." " But we have brought all we possess. We have left nothing at home," replied Mrs. Frere, with an apologetic face. Frau Lange shrugged her shoulders. "You will find it very expensive, if you travel much," she said. " Do you want any of them taken into your bedroom ? " " We should like to have them all there," said Nell. By this time a slovenly looking maid-servant had arrived on the scene, and prepared to help in carrying the luggage upstairs. Frau Lange watched the proc- ess so intently that she probably made the poor creature nervous ; at any rate, the corner of a large trunk was allowed to bump against the wall at an awkward turn of the staircase. In a moment the mistress of the house had darted forward, her tongue unloosed, her hands trembling with anger, as she pointed to the dent made in the wall paper. The girl, she informed her wondering relatives, was the wickedest slut in Germany. None of the many bad servants who had helped to wear out her nerves approached this particular Auguste in thievishness and incompetence. That very morning she had broken one of the best eggcups. Mrs. Frere had better lock up her clothes. Twelve plums were miss- ing from the fruit provided for a tart at to-day's dinner ! Frau Lange had counted them herself the night before. There would not be enough to go round now. But the girl was capable of anything. She was treated like a princess, and yet she had the impudence to grumble because she could not have butter for breakfast. Her mistress never dreamed of eating butter for breakfast, but that made no differ- ence. In these wicked times servants expected luxuries their superiors could not afford for them- selves. Why had Nell sat down on the staircase ? She was in the way there. In Germany people sat J 3 6 Ube (Srassboppers. on chairs. If the cabman saw her he would think she was out of her mind. "We have been traveling for two nights," explained Mrs. Frere. " We are very tired." " I have not slept well either," said Frau Lange. " One may rest as little in bed as on a journey. I am often kept awake by vexation since Auguste has been in my house. However, we had better come up- stairs now. I must take care that they do not scratch the paint on the floors." The Freres followed their hostess to the second story, where they were shown the bedroom allotted to them, and a barely furnished sitting room opening out of it, in which they would all take their meals. The first floor was occupied by the" best "sitting room and by Frau Lange's bedroom. On the ground floor there were only household offices and kitchens. The arrangement seemed curious and inconvenient to the newcomers. " You get your one servant to carry all the meals to the top of the house ! " said Mrs. Frere incau- tiously. Her sister-in-law went on the war-path again directly. The two girls strolled away from her into the bedroom and looked more closely at their new sleeping quarters. They saw three very short, narrow, wooden bedsteads, on each of which lay a large square pillow in a linen pillow-case, trimmed with lace, and marked in the middle with an enormous embroidered monogram. Two of the bedsteads had bright green eider-downs, and the third, a more old-fashioned plumeau as high as a well-shaken feather bed, and covered with checked muslin. There was one linen sheet on each mattress, but there were no top sheets, and no blankets. For their clothes, they saw a huge wooden cupboard ; for their ablutions, one small washstand ; for their vanity, a miserable little mirror hung facing the light. There were two chairs, lace curtains, and no carpet. Presently Mrs. Frere came in, and found her daughters disconsolately sitting on fftrst fmpreeeions. J 37 the floor in front of open trunks. They had only found rows of pegs in the cupboard, and did not know where to put their things away. " I had forgotten some of the details of German life," said Mrs. Frere, going straight to the wash- stand. " There is not a quart of water here. Your aant seemed quite surprised that I wanted any at all. She said that Auguste would not like to put the wash- stand in order more than once a day. I am afraid she is rather peculiar. I wonder who she was. My brother picked her up in Peru, and I have never heard that she has anyone respectable belonging to her. She says she does not know the Werners. I daresay they will not wish to come and see us here. However, we can go to them." " Really, mamma," said Nell, " why did you come and live here ? " " What else were we to do ? It was very kind of her to ask us, you know. Besides, German life is so easy and comfortable." That was Mrs. Frere's formula. Meanwhile, none of the ladies had ever accomplished a toilet under such difficulties. When they felt a little less dusty and disheveled they went into the adjoining room, where they found the midday breakfast awaiting them. It consisted of coffee, eggs, rolls and butter, and it was served in thick white earthenware, placed, without any attempt at precision, on a gray linen cloth. The girls liked it well enough. " What time do you have dinner ? " inquired Mrs. Frere. " When it is cooked," said her sister-in-law. " But have you no fixed time ? " " The fixed time is four, but, of course, if the dishes are not ready, we can't eat them raw." Frau Lange's voice sounded slightly stormy again, as she answered her sister-in-law's second question. The two girls looked at her in bewilderment. How would it be possible to live with anyone who took offense at everything and nothing ? The prospect rassboppers. appalled them already. By way of changing the sub- ject, Hilary got up from table and looked out of the window at the gardens behind the house. " Yours ends with that wall, I suppose," she said to her aunt. " Whose is the big one beyond ? " " Herr Hansen's," said Frau Lange, and turning to her sister-in-law she added, " Hansen, Bopp & Rossler." " Our Herr Hansen ! " cried Mrs. Frere. " O Hilary ! " " What ? " said Frau Lange. " We know Herr Hansen very well," explained Mrs. Frere. " He came to us a great deal when he was in London. I did not know he had a house out here." " A great many rich people live here. It is con- sidered very healthy." " Do you know Herr Hansen ? " asked Nell. " Of course I know him. He is my landlord. Sometimes he comes in the evening, and we make music together." " Oh ! do you play ? " said Hilary with interest. " No. I listen." " Does he know we are here ?" inquired Mrs. Frere. " I have not told him. I never thought that you would really come. When I got your letter I could not believe it. Every day I expected you to write and say you had changed your mind. Until yesterday I did not get your room ready." " But you seemed so anxious to have us," said Mrs. Frere, rather taken aback. " Yes, one writes like that. One has a sheet of paper to fill, and it is so difficult to compose a letter of consolation. After all, we must die, too, some day. Why make such a fuss ? However, we shall try, now that you are here, to live together. You can always go back to England if you do not like it." The girls were nearly asleep all this time, and they scandalized their aunt a good deal by saying that they would now go to bed for a few hours. She had Impressions. 139 never heard of such a thing. Bed in the daytime ! Young girls ought not to know what fatigue meant. It showed the kind of life they had led in London, if, at their age, they were so feeble. What would they do when they came to be fifty ? " This is very exhausting," said Nell, as she lay down on one of the three little bedsteads. " Does she live in a red-hot rage ? " " She has had a sunstroke, you know," said Mrs. Frere, who had followed her daughters. " I wonder what she was like before it," said Hilary. The three weary women slept for several hours, half roused once or twice by the slam of a door, or by the sound of Frau Lange's voice in altercation with Auguste. Their hostess was evidently having a lively afternoon, and at six o'clock, without any cere- mony, she dashed into their room in a state of wild excitement. " I cannot help it," she began. " You see that I am hot and tired, do you not ? I have stood over the fire ever since breakfast, and yet it is not ready. Can you believe that I cut all the beans myself ? " " What is the matter ? " said Mrs. Frere, only half awake, and quite alarmed. " The vegetables are not cooked. It is six o'clock, and at seven Herr Hansen will come and try my new piano. He has sent in a note to say so." " Can't we dine without the vegetables ? " asked Hilary. " Oh ! if you will. There is plenty of cold veal ; but then you will write to all your English friends and say you are starved in Germany." But somehow, by the time dinner appeared, the vegetables were cooked, and formed the main part of the meal. They were stewed with vinegar and sugar, and Nell did not like them. This deeply offended her aunt, who said she could not afford to send to London for a cook. If her niece would not put up with burgherly German fare, what was to be done ? Perhaps Nell objected to raw herrings and I 4 Gbe (Brassboppera. raw ham ? two everyday Hamburg dishes. Nell was discreet enough not to betray, just then, that she would rather go hungry than touch either of them. After dinner Frau Lange led her guests downstairs to the " best " sitting room. She got rather excited when she opened the door and found that Auguste had lighted the lamps without special permission ; but in her anxiety to display the glories of this apart- ment, which evidently contained the treasures of her heart, Auguste's misconduct for once went unre- p roved. There was first a good-sized airy room, with three large double doors, occupying a considerable portion of the wall space. One of these was always set open, and it led into a second smaller room on the south side of the house. The walls and ceilings were cov- ered with paper imitating panels of various costly woods ; the floors were parqueted ; the furniture, all made to match and of a florid design in mahogany, was upholstered with bright magenta reps. In each room there was a sofa against a wall, and an oval table right in front of it. On both tables there were a few illustrated books in ornamental bindings. In each room there was a white porcelain stove, and four straight, narrow windows in a row, blocked by imita- tion india-rubber plants and palms. There was a small piece of carpet at the foot of either sofa, and half a dozen cheap engravings in shiny black frames on the walls. The vases were in pairs, white, pink, or blue, and painted with flowers that in this world do not bloom together. Frau Lange's guests thought everything collected there looked tawdry, comfortless, and antiquated. They did not know what to say when she pointed out each separate attraction, like a guide in a museum, and asked them whether they would ever have guessed that her paneling and her palms were both made of paper. She invited Mrs. Frere to sit beside her on the sofa in the larger of the two rooms. The two girls were about to draw for- ward chairs for themselves, but Frau Lange got into first Impressions. 141 a fluster at once, and explained that in her house each chair had its place, and must not be moved an inch. She would not like Herr Hansen to arrive and find the room in disarray. So Hilary and Nell sat down with their backs close to a wall, and listened while their mother fell to talking to her sister-in-law of their troubles. This seemed to have the effect of an opiate on their aunt. She began to nod. The two girls, directly they thought it safe, got up and slipped out of the room. They did not enjoy sitting still on straight-backed chairs, with nothing to do and nothing to say, like children in disgrace. They went back to the dining room on the top floor. The lamp had been extinguished here, but the full moon shone in at the window. " Shall we walk round the garden ? " said Nell, looking out. " It is quite light and warm. I long for some fresh air." Hilary saw no possible objection, so they fetched their cloaks and went out. They soon arrived at the end of the little garden, which even by moonlight looked untidily kept. They saw a few fruit trees on the patch of long coarse grass, and in the borders, flowers, weeds, and kitchen vegetables growing side by side. They were puzzled, at first, by a sound that seemed to come from a distance, and made itself heard above all other sounds of the still autumn night. " It must be frogs," said Hilary, on reflection. " There is a marsh or pond somewhere near, and it is full of frogs." " Let us look for it," said Nell. " Here is a door that probably leads out into a road." They had come to a low door built in the wall at the end of the garden. Nell tried to open it, but it stuck, and did not move until she pushed against it with her whole weight, then it suddenly flew forward ; if she had not clung to the handle, she would have been thrown to the ground. As it was, she escaped with a grazed elbow and a precipitate lurch into Herr Hansen's garden. He stood there, staring at her and at Hilary, as if he expected them to behave like appa- ritions, and vanish without speaking. " I forgot your garden might be behind the door," said Nell breathlessly, as soon as she had picked her- self up. " We wanted to find the frogs." " Miss Hilary ! Miss Nell ! " cried the astonished man. " It is really you ! In Hamburg ! In Frau Lange's garden ! Do you know her, then ? " " She is our aunt by marriage," explained Hilary, holding out her hand. " We have come to live with her. Didn't she tell you ?" " She told me she expected friends from England, but she did not mention their name," said Herr Han- sen. He did not add that when he last saw Frau Lange she had bemoaned the arrival of three pauper relatives, and at the same time asked him to reduce the rent and put in a new kitchen boiler. He looked at the sisters with interest and compassion. He knew that they had lost their father, and were very poor. " But when you were in London did none of us mention Frau Lange ? " asked Hilary. " No." It was not wonderful. The girls had almost for- gotten her existence until her invitation came, and Mrs. Frere never imagined that her brother's widow would be known to anyone of Herr Hansen's standing. " And she never spoke of us to you, although she knew you came to London ?" " I hardly see Frau Lange twice a year," said Herr Hansen. " Last week I met her in the wood near here, and she asked me to come and tell her whether she has given too much money for her new piano. Before that I had not seen her since Christmas." " She expects you this evening," observed Nell, looking at his costume. Herr Hansen wore a gray alpaca coat, light trousers, a red silk tie, and a Panama hat. " I am on my way there now," he said placidly. " I little thought of meeting you. It is a great pleasure. I hope that you like living in Ger- many." fitet Impressions. 143 The girls explained that they had only arrived that morning, and had been asleep all the afternoon. They had not yet tasted German life to the dregs. As he accompanied them up their own path, they asked him whether in Germany gardens always com- municated with each other, and he assured them that it was quite exceptional. The door they found was one made, many years ago, for the convenience of his grandmother, who used to live in Frau Lange's house. No one troubled to lock it, and no one ever opened it. Herr Hansen hoped that the young ladies would sometimes walk in his garden now and gather his flowers. He was hardly ever there him- self. He preferred Hamburg all through the autumn and winter. Nell said that they would some day pur- sue their search for the frogs. She held up her hand as she spoke, and asked for silence. They all stood still near the house and listened to the chorus of a thousand voices croaking to the night. " I wish storks came to Hamburg," said Hilary dreamily. " My picture of Germany is made up of storks and of old tumble-down roofs with windows in them like eyes, and of narrow streets with cobble- stones and gutters. It is a shock to find these gim- crack villas here." They went back into the house and upstairs, where they found the two ladies still sitting together in a dozy condition. But Frau Lange roused at the sight of Herr Hansen coming into the room behind her nieces. She did not look at all pleased when she heard how they had already met outside the house. She seemed to think it rather improper of the girls to have gone into the garden by themselves, and she reminded them, with emphasis, that they were not in England. Herr Hansen behaved in the most cordial way to Mrs. Frere. He expressed great pleasure at seeing her in Hamburg, and fell into a conversation about various Hamburg families formerly known to her, people he still counted among his friends. He toKl her of their shifting fortunes of those who had been 144 Gbe Grasshoppers. taken, and of those who were left. He said that she must be sure and call on her old friend, Frau Werner, who had several charming daughters and a hospitable house. He inquired after several of the people he had met at Mrs. Frere's dinner table, and, in short, put questions and made suggestions indicative of genuine regard. Frau Lange listened with ill-humor, and made various attempts to divert her guest's attention. At last she got up, threw back the lid of her cottage piano, and invited him to play. Herr Hansen rose heavily from his chair, put down his Panama hat, and went to the piano. He struck a few preliminary chords, and then said to Hilary, " What shall it be ? Beethoven ? Schumann ? " Frau Lange was standing at his elbow, and she answered in her niece's stead. " Play what you please, Herr Hansen," she said. " We know nothing of music ourselves. We shall enjoy whatever you choose to give us." " Your nieces know a good deal about music," he observed dryly, and he started with some numbers from Schumann's " Carnival." He chose those Hilary used to ask for over and over again at home. He ended with the " Davidsbiindler " march. Then he turned to Nell : " Will you not sing ? " he asked. " But what do you think of my piano ? " said Frau Lange hastily. " I consider that it has a fine tone. Of course, it is not a concert grand, but we are not all millionaires." Herr Hansen's fingers wandered lightly over the keys, and he looked ruefully aside at a distant wall. Even the march had sounded thin and wooden on that trumpery instrument. "It is a handsome case," he said at last. "That is a new way of fixing the candlesticks, I believe. Very ingenious. I have not seen it before. Yes. This man must be doing a good business. His pianos are advertised everywhere. Will you not sing something, Miss Nell ? " fffrst Impressions. *45 " English music is trash," said Frau Lange abruptly. " How can you ask for it, Herr Hansen ? Continue to play to us, I beg." Herr Hansen, instead of complying with his hostess' entreaty, rose from the piano and went back to his seat near Mrs. Frere. Nell had naturally made no sign in response to an invitation on which her aunt threw such exceedingly cold water. Frau Lange began a promenade from one end of the room to the other, and her nieces saw, with alarm, that her face had turned crimson again. " I hate the English," she snapped out suddenly. Hilary and Nell looked at each other: " Wherever they go they make themselves ridiculous." "Anyway, they manage to go far," said Nell. " That has always been their policy. They are so selfish and greedy. When I travel I avoid an Eng- lishman as I avoid a mad dog. The sight of their clothes is enough. No one likes them, their manners are so bad." " Germans often confuse Americans and English," said Mrs. Frere, in a peacemaking voice. Her sister- in-law turned on her viciously. " On the contrary, when we see people behaving well we know they are American. As to English- women, all they can do is to read novels and play ' crocket,' while their households go to rack and ruin. I thank Heaven I have no son ; he might want to marry one and break my heart ! " The girls could not help smiling at this unneces- sary burst of gratitude. Herr Hansen muttered something intended as a sedative. He looked very uncomfortable, and not at all pleased. He did not mind finding fault with the English cuisine in a com- pany of flourishing English people uncommonly well- satisfied with themselves, but he would have died rather than say anything disparaging of their country to these unhappy, home-sick women. The arrival of Auguste with a supper tray made an agreeable break in a conversation that was becoming <5ra00boppers. somewhat strained. The supper consisted of micro- scopic sandwiches and slender bottles of Pilsener beer. Everyone gathered round the table to partake of it, but an apparently insurmountable difficulty arose at once. Hilary and Nell did not drink beer. They asl.ed for water instead. Herr Hansen said that Hamburg water was not particularly good. Frau Lange contradicted him. She had never heard a word said against it before, and she drank it unfiltered every day, and considered it incomparably better than any water to be got in London. "Besides," she went on, "in my opinion beer is more wholesome and proper for a young girl than hot brandy and water." The girls stared at her uncomprehendingly. " No Englishwoman would dream of going to bed without a glass of hot brandy and water." " Where have you studied our customs, Aunt Bertha?" said Hilary, laughing. "You did not see us drinking brandy and water when you were in London." " My sister was governess in England for years. She knows English society thoroughly. All the ladies there drink spirits at night. It is the climate. My sister did it, too." " I dare say," said Hilary politely, "but I assure you it is not an universal custom. I have never seen it done," " My sister lived ten years in England. Every night the spirits were brought up, and the whole family drank them with hot water and sugar and lemons. I have never met anyone who knew Eng- land as well as my sister." Hilary and Nell looked at each other. Mrs. Frere sighed. Herr Hansen said good- night. CHAPTER XIII. AN AFTERNOON CALL. THE early breakfast, consisting of coffee and small rolls, was served at eight o'clock. Hilary and Nell liked it better than the other meals, which came at haphazard times, and were often uneatable that is, they liked it as long as they were allowed fresh rolls. But they were hungry every morning and ate a good many, so their aunt soon hit on the expedient of pro- viding stale ones. It was a brilliant idea. Without butter the girls hardly managed one apiece. The second breakfast was eaten at midday. At this meal Frau Lange and her guests shared two hard-boiled eggs, minced small, and a good-sized pot of weak tea. The girls used to get uncomfort- ably hungry before dinner time. Frau Lange said Englishwomen were even greedier than her sister had described them. On Sundays there was always a joint of roast beef for dinner. Hilary and Nell quite looked forward to Sundays, but their aunt carved, and she had to be careful, or the joint would not have lasted long enough. She never bought more than one joint in seven days. Toward the end of the week strange messes were dished up at dinner time. Coarse soups made of beer, or milk, or com- mon fruit ; cheap vegetables smothered in sugar and vinegar ; salads mixed with raw herrings ; great slabs of tasteless curd ; stirabout not unlike English porridge a plentiful supply, in short, of what the girls and their mother could hardly eat, while the plain roast meat for which they hungered was always lacking. At first the sisters treated the diet as a joke ; ate what they could, went empty now and then, i 48 ftbe 6rassbopper0. foraged for themselves as long as they had a penny in their purses ; but even while they made merry they grew thin and colorless. It wrung their mother's heart to see the roses vanish and the hollows in their cheeks become deeper. " I am home-sick for an English leg of mutton," said Nell one morning, when they were waiting for their aunt to come in to the second breakfast. " Don't talk of one," said Hilary. " You'll make me cry." The table was spread, as usual, with a soiled cloth, a black japanned bread-basket full of stale rolls, a small pat of butter, and thick white cups and plates. Presently Frau Lange appeared, still in her dressing gown and the morning-cap that covered her unbrushed hair. She was followed by Auguste, carrying the tea and the dish of minced egg. " Eggs are getting very dear," she said, when Auguste had departed. "They are a halfpenny each." " We should call that very cheap in England," said Mrs. Frere. You would not expect that remark to be a signal for a storm, but it was. Frau Lange burst into a lengthy defense of her housekeeping, accompanied by many allusions to the high current prices and the expense of supporting three hungry guests. "I wish you would let us pay for our board, Bertha," said Mrs. Frere. " I did not like to suggest it when you invited us " " How you harp on that invitation ! " interrupted Frau Lange. " / don't call it good manners to tie persons down to their words in that way. Of course, if you have an impulsive, generous heart you have to pay for it. I have often found that out. I cannot be cold, and hard, and calculating as you are in England. I wish I could." "You should take example by us, Aunt Bertha," said Nell. Her mother sent her a warning glance, and said Bn afternoon Call. 149 again that she would be glad to pay their own expenses. Her sister-in-law must fix on a sum. "You don't suppose I want to make a profit on you ? " shrieked Frau Lange. " You have no idea how expensive everything is in Hamburg, and how Auguste takes advantage of your being here. She is so dreadfully extravagant. Yesterday I had to buy pepper again, and she says your piece of soap is used up directly, and then there is the blacking for your boots. We use the best blacking." " There's nothing mean about me," said Nell, sotto voce. "It is not only the food, you see," continued her aunt ; "and if you think I am a rich woman you are quite mistaken. I am very good-hearted, and when you said you were without a home I offered you one directly, but you cannot expect me to ruin myself on your behalf." You may imagine that the Freres did not enjoy this kind of discussion. Mrs. Frere immediately arranged to pay her sister-in-law a weekly sum that would sound small in English ears, but which, judged by the German standard, was not insufficient. They ought to have had good plain food for it, but Frau Lange's niggardly ways grew worse instead of better as time went on. The spirit of the man who reduced his horse to the last straw evidently inspired her. She could never stint and save quite enough, and when her guests thought they had reached the limits of her parsimony she would still spring some fresh surprise on them. As the severe cold of a German winter overtook them they began to surfer a good deal. Of course, they often considered the possibility of bid- ding their hostess good-by; but the lack of ready money, the greater price of any other establishment, chained them where they were. If it was nasty, it was cheap ; and with their pockets empty, they were driven to make cheapness paramount. What Hilary felt most of all was the want of some corner that she could call her own. The Greek play 6ra00boppcr0. got on very slowly. With her aunt's squabbles in her ears she could not weigh words and turn phrases. The upstairs sitting room was always noisy and close, and when she fled to the bedroom her mother would fidget in and out with that disregard for a young per- son's wishes so often shown by elderly people. She liked Hilary's company, and she had no belief in her ambitions. Besides, when winter really came, it dis- tressed Mrs. Frere to see the child poring over books, with a fur cloak on her shoulders and the temperature two degrees below freezing point. " You have been in three times since breakfast, and it is only one o'clock now," said Hilary, one bitterly cold November day. " Really, Hilary, I must be allowed to come into my own bedroom. I need not disturb you. Just let me get to that table behind your chair. I want the white darning cotton. Why do you load up the table with books in this way? We did not buy it for that purpose. You can't want six books at once. I should think that a person who read with any system would finish one book before she began another. I know I was taught to do so. I see you have two dictionaries open. How can anyone want to find a word in two dictionaries? Dear me, Hilary, look at the thermometer ! You will kill yourself, if you stay here. Why don't you take one of your books into the sitting room and read there ? I am sure no one would speak to you if you asked them not to." " I cannot read there, mamma," said Hilary. " You talk to me, and Aunt Bertha scolds, and Nell plays scales." " Well, my dear, I don't know why you should shut yourself up with your books. It gives your aunt such a bad opinion of you. She thinks you are so idle, you know. Nell has embroidered a table-cloth since she came, but what have you done ? I believe Bertha would be glad if you both helped more in the house ; she gives hints to that effect. She says that when she was a girl she did all the ironing, and she has just an afternoon Call. 15* brought in an immense heap of house linen. Some of it is only rags, and she declares that it must all be mended. I have offered to help, but fine darning tries my eyes, especially at night when that horrid flickering lamp is lighted." " I cannot darn," said Hilary. " If I tried, Aunt Bertha would probably throw it at me, as she did the burned cake at Auguste the other day." " I wonder if there is anything you can do," said Mrs. Frere reflectively, and without a suspicion that her words might give pain. " Your education was very expensive, but it doesn't seem to have been much use." " Just what I say to myself every day," answered Hilary, with some bitterness. " I might get a place as governess in England, but you don't like to hear of that." 41 Let us go into Hamburg this afternoon and pay some calls," said Mrs. Frere. 4< There are several people I have not looked up yet." She always turned the subject as quickly as pos- sible when Hilary spoke of separating from her and going back to England. She knew how home-sick the girls were, but she clung to their company. She could not have faced the empty, joyless days without them. In spite of what Mrs. Frere had said to Mrs. Theo- dore, she had expected to step straight back into her old surroundings, but, of course, the disappointments that a wiser woman would have foreseen awaited her. The elders she remembered with affection had jour- neyed on ; she heard of her contemporaries living with children and grandchildren in distant towns ; to the young folks she was hardly a name. According to the German custom it fell on her, as the newcomer, to take the initiative to seek out those who were likely to receive her with a welcome. They were few and far between, and in some cases the girls thought the welcome hardly came off successfully. After a decorous interval her visits were returned, and there (Brassboppers. communication seemed to stop. Mrs. Frere was hurt and astonished. How many sons and daughters of Hamburg had she not hospitably entertained beneath her husband's roof ? It took months to convince her that such benefits are easily forgot. In reality, her experience was one common to people without much knowledge of character. Those of whom she deserved and expected most held back, while the two or three people who showed her kindness, she had hardly reckoned in her list of persons likely to befriend them. Herr Hansen she could not judge yet. He had been obliged to leave Hamburg on a business journey soon after their arrival, and he was still away. Frau Lange seemed to know no one, although she had been living in her present home for five years. Her complete isolation on the outskirts of that big, crowded city was most striking. No one ever called ; she had no visits to pay ; no man, woman, or child ever broke bread within her doors. This state of things was, of course, partly her own fault. In the neighborhood she passed for a semi-lunatic of miserly habits and violent temper. No one sought her acquaintance. In Hamburg itself she had never crossed a private thresh- old. Her lonely social position was a source of much discontent, and yet she took no sensible steps to better it. She railed at the wicked world ; she resented imaginary slights ; she hated several persons who were hardly conscious of her existence, but these very common manifestations of an evil temper did nothing to mend matters. She had expected Mrs. Frere's friends to hold out their hands to her, but they did not do so. Most of them only had a finger to spare for Mrs. Frere. Hamburg society is provin- cially exclusive. It does not like foreigners ; it shakes its head at artists ; on actors it turns its substantial back. What it likes is solid, well-to-do, long-estab- lished business men. Its aristocracy is mercantile, and you will find that your most distinguished friends there are on visiting terms with the leading shop- keepers and their wives. It is the center of the world, Bn afternoon Call. 153 and only condescends to follow even Paris fashions at a distance, and with modifications of its own. It considers Paris frivolous, London dreary, and Berlin impertinent. Hamburg is never uneasy about itself. It is never on the alert, like a French or an English provincial town, lest any ill-bred person should allude to its geographical position in the provinces. Its con- ceit of itself is immense, and in some degree justifi- able. It really is a pleasant town ; and the most respected artists there are the cooks. The modern part of Hamburg is built round the basin of the Alster, a large, bright lake, one of the chief highroads for passenger traffic. Little steam- boats ply to and fro all day, and in summer they are crowded. From their decks you see the front of Hamburg, row upon row of large new white houses, very handsome, very expensive, very dull. The most flourishing shops and the well-to-do private houses face the water ; but here and there in the great city you may still find tumble-down picturesque old shanties, survivals from the great fire of 1842. Some still surround the market places, some topple toward the canals, some shut in lanes so narrow that you may lean out of an upper floor window and kiss your opposite neighbor at hers. The poorer folk herd under these gabled roofs and at the docks to west- ward, while far down the Elbe, toward the sea, Ham- burg's merchant princes have set their pleasure houses amid splendid gardens and English-looking parks. Mrs. Frere and Hilary were going to call, for the first time, on the Frau Werner of whom Herr Hansen had spoken, and who had received Dick Lorimer so hospitably. The Werners lived on the Jungfernstieg, where shops, hotels, and private houses stand side by side. It is the Piccadilly of Hamburg, and only wealthy men can afford to live there ; but the Werners were very wealthy. They had just returned to Ham- burg for the winter, after an autumn spent in Switzer- land and Italy. Frau Werner and Mrs. Frere were *54 Gbe (Srassboppers. old friends, but they had neither met nor corresponded of late years. " I have not seen Anna since she was married," said Mrs. Frere as she went upstairs to her friend's flat, which was on the first floor. In spite of this reminder, Hilary received a slight shock when she followed her mother into the room. The picture she had formed from Mrs. Frere's reminis- cences was of a young apple-cheeked girl always in the highest spirits, and ready for any fun. A short, stout, gray-haired matron got up to meet them, with a stiff courtesy and a look of surprise. It was not until Mrs. Frere spoke that her manner began to thaw. "Helena Lange ! " she cried, addressing her old acquaintance by her maiden name. " You have altered so that I did not know you ; but I suppose you can say that to me, too ? " Mrs. Frere thought in her own mind that her friend was, if anything, less well preserved than she was her- self ; but then, she reflected, Anna had always been plain and had never known it. Anna used to be like- able but tiresome, because all her geese were swans, and they formed her only topic of conversation. Mrs. Frere soon had an opportunity of discovering that, in this respect, her friend had not altered much. At first Frau Werner surveyed her guests with inquiring, friendly eyes, took their measure as well as she could, and asked them a good many questions about their recent history and their motives for coming to Ham- burg. She did not ask questions that were difficult to answer. Her interest in them was quite genuine and friendly, but it takes both time and knowledge to bridge the gap made by thirty years. " You have two daughters, Helena, only two ? I have five all beautiful. Heaven has blessed me in my children. I must show you the photograph they had taken secretly for my last birthday. It is only my children who have such delightful ideas. Here it is the five daughters, the three sons, the two sons- in-law, and the grandchildren. That is one son-in- Bn afternoon Call. 155 law. He is the handsomest man in Hamburg, except- ing my husband. That is the other. He is the cleverest doctor in the town. Two of my daughters are still at school, but Olga is only a little younger than you, my dear Hilary. Do you sing ? Olga has the most wonderful soprano voice. Perhaps you can sing duets with her ? " " I have no voice," confessed Hilary. " What a pity ! Perhaps you are very domestic. In that case you must know my Martha, who was married this summer. I miss her terribly. She knew every dinner napkin in my possession, and I have a hundred dozen ; and she did all the mending. Some day I will show you the dusters she darned last win- ter. It is like lace, so fine. She has had to wear spectacles ever since, poor child. You must bring both your daughters next time, Helena. Will you join our family dinner next Sunday ? then you will see us all except Kurt, who is at Tubingen. We sit down twenty ever week, because the grandchildren come, and Fritz Hansen when he is in Hamburg. You know him ? When he came back from London, this spring, he told us he had been often at your house." While Hilary listened she looked about her. She was glad to correct her idea of German family life by a peep at a home so unlike the sordid one in which she lived. The windows in this room faced the Alster, and the fine, well-cared-for palms that grew in front of them were not made of paper. Close to some of the windows were seats, and in the most comfort- able corner, near the light, stood Frau Werner's work- table and her special chair. She could put down her embroidery and look straight out across the great lake at the sailing-boats in summer, at the skaters in win- ter, at the twinkling, distant lights every evening after dark. The furniture and decorations of the room were in no way artistic, but everything was solid, comfortable, and well kept. The inevitable sofa, with the table right in front of it, occupied the largest space of wall ; an ugly carpet of good quality covered is 6 Gbe <3rassbopper0. the floor ; none of the knickknacks was tawdry ; the engravings were valuable. In a little room, only separated from this one by a half-drawn portiere, Hilary got a glimpse of a superb landscape in oils. Of course, these people had money, but their home did not proclaim that fact at all loudly. This room, at any rate, was rather quaint and old-fashioned. It reminded Hilary of German pictures, in which all the furniture looks heavy and out of date ; but she could fancy that an orderly, flourishing family had spent year upon year here. "Your daughters must be very fond of fancy-work," said Mrs. Frere, looking at the endless specimens of elaborate embroidery everywhere on view. " They all excel in it," said Frau Werner proudly. " See, on my last birthday, they gave me these." She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, made of fine linen, but which the English girl, with her scrap of cambric, thought big enough for a towel and thick enough for a sheet. In one corner there was a large elaborate monogram. "The four elder ones each did three," continued Frau Werner. " Can you embroider ? But why should I ask ? Undoubtedly you can." " No," said Hilary, " I don't care much for fancy- work." "But, my dear child," exclaimed Frau Werner, evidently scandalized, " what do you do all day ? " " Hilary reads Greek," said Mrs. Frere. "What good does that do her?" inquired Frau Werner. Perhaps she saw that she had asked a ques- tion not very easily answered ; at any rate, she went on rather hurriedly to another subject. " So you have really given up your house in Lon- don ! That surprises me. Well, we both have daughters, and you know what I mean one has wishes for them. Hitherto my hopes have been singularly blessed. Emma's husband we met at Norderney. The first time I saw him I said to my- self, ' Such a one could I wish for a son-in-law,' and Hn Hfternoon Call. 157 before we left they were engaged. A very respect- able old-established firm, you know. With the boys Iam in no hurry, but a girl should marry before she is twenty. Martha's marriage was also a sudden affair. None of my children has ever given me a moment's uneasiness. This summer, it is true, my little Olga lost her heart ; but it may still come right, and I notice that she eats her dinner as usual. If it is not that one, it will be another. We are all in the hands of Providence." Hilary looked out of the window. It was snowing slightly, and getting rapidly dark. In a minute or so they must leave this well-warmed room, trudge through the half-frozen slush to a tramcar, and drive back in the cold to Aunt Bertha's miserable dinner- table. She wished Frau Werner would give them a cup of tea ; but Mrs. Frere got up now, and said that it was impossible for them to wait until Olga came back ; they must get home in good time and they would look forward to seeing all Frau Werner's chil- dren on Sunday at five o'clock. Directly they got downstairs Mrs. Frere complained of being both cold and hungry. She said that before going on they would get a cup of coffee at a confec- tioner's shop on the Neuer Wall, already well known to them. Hilary was nothing loath, although the cost of it weighed on her mind ; but she generally felt half starved nowadays, and the idea of a dainty little meal tempted her sorely. There would be nothing tempting ready for them at home, and the minced eggs served for the midday breakfast had been as highly flavored as a glass of Harrogate water. The ladies had only eaten a little stale bread and butter. If you think a first-rate Hamburg confectioner fills his windows with muffins and raspberry puffs you stand in need of wider views. A foreign confectioner sells cakes that tempt people to eat them. One can- not imagine anyone over the age of twelve buying British buns and tartlets with any expectation of enjoyment. In a Hamburg shop, if you are not hun. is 8 Cbe <5ra0sboppet0. gry, you thank Heaven you are greedy, and fall to. Mrs. Frere and Hilary ordered coffee and Mandel- torte, an ambrosial cake filled up with cream, that tastes of nuts and is colored like heliotrope ; but Mrs. Frere looked preoccupied. " I wonder what Fritz Werner is like," she said reflectively. " He must be thirty." " He was in that photograph," said Hilary. " A little fat man with mutton-chop whiskers and potato nose. Frau Werner pointed him out. She said, 'This is my Fritz. He is considered very distin- guished-looking.' " " I am rather sorry I said anything about your knowing Greek. I have been in England so long I have quite forgotten the German point of view. I am afraid Ahna may think it must affect your house- keeping, and, of course, in a sense she would be right. You never darned my dusters so that the holes looked like lace." " I should think not." " I dare say Martha Werner would have been quite pleased to mend all that linen for Aunt Bertha. I hope Nell has sat down to it this afternoon. Do you think she can put in a patch so that no one can see it ? " Hilary said she thought it more likely that a gar- ment in which Nell had put a patch would be recog- nized a mile away. Neither her sister nor she had ever been taught these fine devices. They had never attempted to darn a stocking until they came to Ger- many, and they had not yet managed even that successfully. " It is very hard," said Mrs. Frere. " In England people want girls to be pretty, and well-dressed, and healthy." Hilary understood the implication underlying her mother's plaint. It is very trying to bring your daughters well up to the standard of one marriage market, and then have them thrust into a foreign one, where quite a different set of qualities is in demand. Bn afternoon Call. 159 " You ought to have some lessons in cooking and darning," continued Mrs. Frere. " I wonder what they would cost ? " Hilary's attention was just then diverted by the sound of a voice well known to her, and she turned her head to see Herr Hansen buying bonbons at the counter. As she did so he looked her way, recog- nized her, and came up to their little table. He had only just come back from St. Petersburg, he said. The Werners expected him to dinner next Sunday, and he could not appear there after a journey with- out bonbons for his godchild, their youngest girl. He hoped Mrs. Frere and her daughters were well. Had they come to town altogether, or were they still staying with Frau Lange? Where was Miss Nell ? " She could not spare the time to come," said Mrs. Frere, " she was so busy darning linen for her aunt." Herr Hansen looked rather surprised. " That does not sound like Miss Nell," he said. " My daughters are very domestic," replied Mrs. Frere. " We do not talk about it quite so much as you do in Germany. In England we think it rather absurd to make a fuss of what must be done as a matter of course. We were just saying how interest- ing it would be to have lessons here in cooking and sewing. Then the girls could judge for themselves which style was superior." " You must not make us out more accomplished than we are," said Hilary. " That would be difficult," said Herr Hansen. Mrs. Frere looked delighted. " When are you coming to see us again, Herr Han- sen ? " she said. He hesitated. " You are still with Frau Lange ? " he observed, and then, without answering Mrs. Frere's question more definitely, he put his bag of bonbons into Hilary's lap. " I will send them to the young lady who is at home darning," he said, lifted his hat, shook hands 160 abe <5rassboppet0, cordially, and edged away to the counter, where he bought a second supply of bonbons before leaving the shop. When Mrs. Frere and her daughter reached home they went straight to their own bedroom. There they found Nell wrapped in eider-downs, and reading a novel. " Well, my dear, what have you been doing all the afternoon ? " said Mrs. Frere. " Oh ! Aunt Bertha asked me to help her mend that house linen." " I told you so," said Mrs. Frere triumphantly to her elder daughter. "Look at that great bag of bon- bons, Nell. Someone sent them to you because you stayed at home to help your aunt." " Who sent them ? " asked Nell quickly. " They are very good ones," she added, as she dipped into the bag. " It was Herr Hansen," said Hilary, who knew her sister would look disappointed when she heard this name instead of the one forever uppermost in her mind. " How much darning did you do, Nell ? " " One pillow-slip." " Really, good darning takes a long time," said Mrs. Frere. " Was Aunt Bertha pleased ? " " She threw it at my head, and yelled at me. What would you darn a linen pillow-slip with, mamma ? " " Fine linen thread, of course." " I did it with crochet cotton. She says it will take her all the evening to unpick. She wouldn't trust me with it again." " I felt sure we were taking those bonbons on false pretenses," said Hilary, with her hand in the bag. CHAPTER XIV. A FAMILY PARTY. THE girls did not know how to dress for the dinner on Sunday, and their mother's advice only bewildered them. She said that when she was a girl no one wore a low-necked gown except at a ball, but that even in Hamburg customs changed. She would advise them to wear their best white summer frocks, only she knew the Werners would be shocked if they appeared in anything but black. Germans were most particular about mourning. They laughed at the English custom of putting it on for second cousins twice removed, and they did not wear as much crape as those elderly females to be met in any London omni- bus, but they would think very little of a girl who doffed her black merino before her father had been dead a year. " Must it literally be merino ? " asked Nell. " If it must, we cannot go at all. The only black gowns we possess are these serges we wear every day and the lace ones we had made in the spring." " They are cut low, and have no sleeves," objected Hilary, for in those days sleeves in evening gowns had been temporarily abolished. " I am sure you need not be ashamed of your neck and arms," said her mother. "But we want to dress suitably," said Hilary. " Don't you think Aunt Bertha would know ? " " Certainly not. She is not in Hamburg society." "Then she probably knows all about it," said Nell. " Isn't there a penny society paper here ? We might afford a penny if we could find out how the senators' wives dress when they eat each other's Kalbsbraten. 1 62 Sbe <5rassboppets. Don't they tell you anywhere here that Frau Bummel- hausen looked very handsome in an exclusive gown of carrot-colored brocade ? " " No, they don't," said Mrs. Frere with a sigh, as if, even in this, she found Hamburg a little behind the times. Hilary reminded her mother that if they must wear black they must choose between the serge gowns and the lace ones. Nell said that settled it. She was not going to face twenty people with a patched sleeve. Mrs. Frere felt divided between her desire to see the girls in evening frocks again and her doubts of such raiment being correct on this occasion. But when they were dressed they looked so charming that she would not, for the world, have altered a ribbon end. Only, as they put on their hats and long warm cloaks, she said nervously, " I hope it is all right. What will you do if every other woman in the room has on a high stuff gown ?" " Oh ! we shall bear it for once, and know better next time," said Nell. Mrs. Frere felt that her children did not take the present hour quite as seriously as it deserved. She had told them a great deal about the Werners and their important social position, but Hilary had hardly listened, and Nell had wondered whether all the men would tuck their napkins into their waistcoats and eat with their knives like Herr Hansen. In imi- tation of that well-bred prince who poured his tea into the saucer when his guest did, she had even gone so far as to practice eating with her knife ; but she found that it was not a habit to be adopted at a moment's notice. It was more difficult to manage than a fork. When they arrived at the Werners' flat they were not taken to a dressing room, but merely assisted to hang their cloaks on a hat-stand close to the outside door. They were then shown into the sitting room they had seen when they called. The lamps were lighted now, and the twenty family guests assembled. Even before the door shut behind them, while they S tfamtlB parts. 163 walked toward their hostess, Mrs. Frere and her daughters saw that the low-necked, sleeveless gowns were wrong, hopelessly wrong. Frau Werner wore a plain short winter walking dress of some woolen material, a large gold brooch, linen collar, cuffs, and two gold bracelets, broad enough for a waist-band. All the other ladies present were dressed in the same style, and the men wore tight black frock-coats, fancy trousers, and colored ties. Perhaps the two English girls were unjust, but they both protested afterward that two foreigners who came to an English dinner in morning dress would not have been stared at as they were all the evening. If they had worn tar and feathers the company could hardly have looked more surprised. Directly the first buzz of greeting and introduction was over Mrs. Frere, who had been led to a place of honor beside her hostess on the sofa, said in a tone of apology, " In England, you know, we dress like that every evening." " Hamburg is not England," said Frau Werner. " We have our own ways." Mrs. Frere was just going to explain that in thirty years of exile her memory of Hamburg ways had grown rusty, but before she could speak Frau Werner had risen to greet another guest. Herr Hansen came in, and was received by everyone with enthusiasm. Hilary could not help reflecting, as she watched his progress through the room, that fate had funnily turned the tables. To-day she felt ridiculously dressed, unknown, stumbling in speech, and of little consequence, while Herr Hansen's clothes looked like other people's, his language was the common one, his presence regarded as an honor, his manner easy and natural. When dinner was announced everyone went in any- how, the elders first, the young ones in their train. Mrs. Frere was invited to take a seat near Herr Werner, a good-humored little man, with a figure that had not been improved by fifty-six years of fat living. On his other side sat his wife. The older and more important 1 64 Gbe (Srassboppets. guests all found places at the upper end of the table, while the young daughters of the house, the grand- children, and their nursery governesses sat at the bottom, nearer to the door. Hilary found herself between Olga Werner, the unmarried daughter of eighteen, and a young man, who was introduced as Herr Kapp, and described as the brother of Frau Werner's eldest son-in-law. The room was long and narrow, like the dining room in a Swiss hotel. It contained no furniture but a narrow table, chairs, and a side-board, on which Hilary saw three brass coffee machines, as bright as if they had been bought yesterday. The table linen was very fine, and embroidered with huge monograms ; the silver was all real and massive. Everything looked spick and span, and yet, considering that the Werners were wealthy, curiously bare and rough. On that endless length of table the only decoration was one vase of artificial flowers, a large glass dish of apple sauce, and several bottles of hock. Before each guest there was a roll, a napkin folded flat as it had come from the wash, two or three wineglasses, and a knife and fork pitched on the cloth crosswise, without pre- cision. There were two waiting maids present in spotless short-sleeved cotton gowns and white caps. Hilary thought them rather unnecessary at first, for she found that Frau Werner's guests waited mainly on themselves. Herr Werner dispensed the soup, and plates of it were passed along from one to the other. Then a fillet of beef arrived, and when the host had cut the whole of it into slices he put a choice one on Mrs. Frere's plate, a second on his wife's, a third on his own ; after that the dish of meat, with accessory dishes of vegetables and salad, wandered step by step right round the table till it arrived, almost empty, at the top again. The maids seemed to do nothing but change the plates, and hand round pickles and preserves at unexpected moments. For instance, when Hilary had just helped herself to the wing of a roast fowl, she saw a tray at her shoulder with several small glass H jfamflB part^. 165 dishes on it, and the one nearest to her contained a turned-out pot of marmalade. " But that is English," said Olga Werner in surprise, when her neighbor let it pass. " Yes," said Hilary, " we eat it for breakfast with toast." " What a horrible custom," said the girl, and she took a large spoonful and ate it directly she had finished her fowl. So Hilary learned her lesson. Contempt for any habit that is " foreign " is a game that two can play at. Therefore, when the cheese came round, and after it a sweet rich pudding, she partook of both, and was thankful. Some of her neighbors were rather shocked when they saw her eat cheese, but they were not sur- prised. Frau Werner had confided to her daughters that she feared Helena's children were " emancipated." Hilary and Nell both understood German, and they listened with interest to the conversation, which was almost entirely about the food and wine. The women present took no conspicuous share in it. Hilary had expected her neighbor, Herr Kapp, to make some effort to entertain her, but he did nothing of the kind. He ate a Gargantuan dinner, and addressed himself between the courses to Herr Hansen opposite. Once or twice he threw a remark to the young English- woman, as unwise people throw a scrap to a dog who begs from them at table, but when Hilary showed a disposition to enlarge upon what he said he seemed to think her rather importunate, as the unwise people think the dog when he begs for more. He asked Hilary whether she had seen much of Hamburg yet, said it was a pity when she replied that she had not, and immediately plunged into a strife raging just then among the men folk as to who purveyed the best oysters in the city. A little later he asked her whether she often went to the theater, was caught before she could speak by the general excitement about the arrival of some fine old Madeira, and when this flagged, turned back to her and inquired where she usually sat 1 66 abe <3ra0sbopper0. in the theater. By this time Hilary had averted her head, and was trying to make friends with Olga Werner. She heard Herr Kapp's question, but she did not trouble to answer it. She felt sure he would not listen because Herr Hansen was describing the excellent midday breakfast he had eaten one Sunday in August at Blankenese. No ghost story would have held his audience so enthralled. Olga Werner was just such a fair-haired, apple- cheeked girl as her mother must have been thirty-five years ago, when Mrs.Frere and she were confirmed on the same day. She had a friendly, healthy young face, but no one except her mother could have called her a beauty. Beside Hilary she looked clumsy in make and gesture, and empty-eyed. She seemed to have no idea of playing hostess by proxy to her foreign guest. When Hilary addressed her she answered amiably, but with as few words as possible. When Hilary let her alone she chattered and giggled to a schoolgirl cousin on her other side. Nell was much better off than her sister. She sat next to Herr Han- sen, and stirred him up until he talked to her. She assured him that she had learned to eat with her knife ; she asked him when he was coming to play on her aunt's piano again ; she thanked him for the bon- bons, and confessed, without contrition, that she had not earned them. After dinner she promised to sing, if he would accompany her. Herr Hansen looked quite pleased, and said he hoped that now Nell and her sister were in Germany they would acquire pro- ficiency in those domestic arts that became their sex better than profound learning. He made the whole of this remark without taking breath. Hilary watched her sister with amusement. Nell could never resist the temptation to charm, and she usually succeeded. Herr Hansen evidently thought her an agreeable young person. When everyone got up from the table and went back to the drawing room he remained at her side. Coffee was served almost immediately, and most of the men present lit cigars. a ffamflB parts. 167 " The German fashion is more comfortable than yours," said Herr Hansen, helping himself from a box offered by Herr Werner's youngest son. " Here we are all together, and we men may smoke as much as we like." " Delightful ! " said Nell, who had a delicate throat, and knew that ten minutes later she would not be able to sing a note. " You smile. You do not agree with me." " I should if I might smoke too," said Nell. " Have you a cigarette ? " The redoubtable Martha, the lady who darned the dusters, heard Nell's question, and felt driven to interfere. She was a solid, phlegmatic looking creature, dressed in black silk. " If my mother heard you, Fraulein, she would be shocked," she said. Nell's eyes gleamed with mischief. She had never really attempted to smoke, but she would not admit as much to this solemn young woman. " Don't you smoke ? " she began innocently, but Frau Martha made a gesture of denial that was almost a bounce in her chair. " But you do in Vienna," added Nell. " I know nothing about Vienna," said Martha stiffly. "When we are not in Hamburg we are in Holstein. We do not vagabond about the world and pick up strange habits. In Hamburg a woman who smokes is not considered respectable." " It was so in England less than fifty years ago," said Nell. " I never understand why. If it is a pleasant habit, why do we let the men keep it all to themselves ?" Frau Martha's eyes grew rounder and rounder, and she moved slightly, as if, thought Nell, she felt inclined to gather her skirts together and flee from such a neighborhood ; but Herr Hansen had listened to this little skirmish with signs of impatience and distress. As soon as he could get in a word, he ingeniously persuaded Nell to confess that neither 1 68 tTbe (Braeeboppers, her sister nor she smoked, and that it was not usual yet for young girls to do so, even in England. He fully agreed with Frau Martha in her reprobation of the habit for women, and he looked pleased when Nell made her peace by saying she supposed tobacco, like many other good things, was meant by nature to be monopolized by men. After this the conversation proceeded very smoothly. Herr Hansen was called away by his host to a game of Skat, but Hilary and Olga came near, and perhaps it was Hilary's reputa- tion as a classical scholar that suggested reminis- cences of learned and " emancipated " women. Olga, who had been in Switzerland and Italy that autumn, told a traveler's tale of a Russian lady doctor who was suspected of wearing real trousers under her skirts, but neither her married sister nor she grew animated until they heard that Hilary had actually been at a university like a man. Then they had a great deal to say in condemnation of such a prac- tice. But as they derived their pictures of university life from what they knew of German " corps " stu- dents, Hilary naturally had a good deal to say too in refutation. She assured Frau Martha that the girls at St. Cyprian's did not have beer orgies or duel- ing bouts, nor did they rampage up and down the university streets in noisy gangs, with wolf hounds at their heels. Frau Martha only half believed her. She said she had lately read an English novel, in which these college girls were shown up as an uncommonly bad lot. Hilary said that no set of people could wholly guard themselves from the tongues of the ignorant and the slanderous, but she thought the foundations of St. Cyprian's were strong enough to resist the attacks made in one or two silly novels ; and she took some pains to describe the studious, orderly life of the place, the care taken for the health and comfort of the girls there, and the pleasant comradeship that existed among them. " I like English people," said Olga Werner. " Yes, I know you do," said her sister. B Tamils parts. 169 Hilary and Nell both felt that a good deal more was implied by these insignificant remarks than met the ear, but they received no further light on them until much later in the evening. Meanwhile, Mrs. Frere had been invited by her hostess to the small inner room, where the two matrons settled down together for a comfortable chat. No one followed them, and Frau Werner, before taking her seat on the sofa, shut the portieres. Mrs. Frere felt rather sorry for this, as it hid her children from view. She liked to see what they were doing, to watch their faces, to compare them, to their great advantage, with everyone else in the world. " Well, Anna," she said very soon, " what do you think of my girls ? " " They seem very highly educated," replied Frau Werner, with a slight air of evasion that did not escape her friend. " In London they were considered pretty," she said, with a sigh. " An artist in our hotel at Nice wished to paint Olga's portrait, but I would not permit it. Would you?" " It depends," said Mrs. Frere vaguely. " There is an English picture called ' The Golden Stairs,' and Hilary might have sat for one of the girls in it. Have you ever heard of Burne Jones ?" " No. We patronize German artists. My husband is very patriotic. He will not even read an English book. He says we ought to encourage home indus- tries. I will show you the picture behind us after- ward. It is by a Dusseldorf man, and considered very fine. I don't care for it myself, because the girl looks melancholy. I like cheerful things about me. Life is so full of real troubles. Besides, her cloak is a red that no one with any taste would wear, but the painting is very well done." " Have you troubles ? " asked Mrs. Frere. " You seem so happy and prosperous so different from me." <3rassbopper0. " Providence has done very well for me, on the whole," admitted Frau Werner, in a tone of self-con- gratulation. " Our children have all lived, and are a constant source of pride and pleasure to us. My hus- band's work has been blessed from the beginning ; but no mother can lie down at night with an easy mind until all her daughters are married. You see there is Olga ready, and Greta coming on." " I think a great deal about my girls, too," said Mrs. Frere, who heard a note of reproach in Anna's voice. " It is not enough to think about it. It is a mother's duty to act for her children. I may say, without vanity, that neither of my elder girls would have married their present husbands if I had not made the matches." " But how do you set about it ? " inquired Mrs. Frere. Frau Werner smiled, and set down her coffee-cup. " From an old friend I need have no secrets," she replied. " Besides, it has probably occurred to you you will have observed that we receive Fritz Hansen as one of ourselves." " But he is a great deal older than Olga," objected Mrs. Frere, as if there had been twenty instead of two years' difference between Olga and her own child. " I have no objection to that," said Frau Werner. " But is anything settled ? Has he proposed for Olga ? " " No. Last winter Olga was still at school, and since then we have been a great deal away from home. I should not speak of my hopes to anyone but you." Mrs. Frere could not refrain from saying, " Of course not, in case they fail." " I have never failed," said Frau Werner. " My daughters are so beautiful, and their father is so generous, the young men run after them. The only difficulty in this case comes from Olga herself. When we were here in July that young Mr. Lorimer you B Tamils parts. *7 l know him, of course Well, he came in and out of the house a great deal. I was very busy at the time. The strawberries were ripe and had to be preserved, and our yearly wash was just over. You can imagine what I had to count, and mend, and put away. You have seen twenty-three clean napkins on the table to- day ; that mounts up at the end of a year. And, in some respects, all men are born blind. Her father never told me she had taken a fancy to this young Englishman until two days before he left. I said at once, ' If she likes him, and you know that his business is good, let her have him.' Des Menschens Wille ist stin Himmelreich. At the same time, I am not fond of foreigners, and I hope no child of mine will ever live in a country where the mistress of the house is afraid to enter her own kitchen." " But did he propose to her ? " asked Mrs. Frere again. " No," said Frau Werner. " I don't know why he hesitated." " He may be attracted elsewhere," suggested Mrs. Frere, who wished that she might astonish her friend by telling her that both men had proposed to Hilary and been rejected ; but she felt some delicacy about doing this, and also some doubts as to whether she would be believed. " Have you looked at Olga ? " was Frau Werner's simple and final reply. Mrs. Frere's thoughts wandered sadly to her own dear children. " I sometimes wish we had stayed in London," she said. " My girls are entirely cut off from their old friends here." " I am always so sorry for girls who lose their posi- tion just when they are of an age to marry," said Frau Werner. " You must be sorry you did not establish them while you still had the chance." " But they are very young still," answered Mrs. Frere. " I have not exactly made up my mind that they will be old maids." " I'm sure I wish you good luck with them," said Frau Werner. Mrs. Frere felt deeply depressed. Her friend seemed to take it for granted that Hilary and Nell were doomed to celibacy by their loss of fortune. She talked as if they were no longer on the lists, as if she did not think of them as possible rivals to Olga ; and her tone was matter of fact, devoid of uneasiness or malice. Mrs. Frere could not flatter herself that Frau Werner meant anything but just what she said. " Hilary would like to find work here," she began, after a pause. " Do you think there is any chance of it?" " I thought she disliked work, and could not do it." " I was not thinking of embroidery," said Mrs. Frere. Frau Werner shook her head. " No one in Germany wants a girl who cannot make herself useful. My eldest daughter, Anna, tried an Englishwoman for her children, and it was the greatest failure. She wanted a cold bath every day, and objected to her bedroom because it had no out- side window ; and when everyone in the house was ironing or dressmaking she would sit with her arms folded and never offer to help." " I should not like Hilary to sleep in a room with- out an outside window," said Mrs. Frere. " A room like that is only fit for boxes or books." " It is not at all fit for books," said Frau Werner. " My son-in-law tried it for his. They got moldy." At this point the ladies were interrupted by sounds proceeding from the larger room that were familiar to Mrs. Frere, but not to her hostess. " It is Nell tuning her banjo," she said. " She thought you would like to hear her sing to it." Frau Werner did not look much enlightened, but she got up and pulled back the portieres, and then Mrs. Frere received some compensation for the bitter moments she had spent since dinner. She saw Nell sitting in the center of the room, the cynosure of all a ffamile parts. *73 eyes. Herr Hansen, with the look of an anxious showman, stood just behind the girl's chair, but when she began to sing his expression of anxiety gradually gave way to a well-satisfied smile. He nodded in time, and seemed as proud as if he had pulled the pretty performer out of his pocket. She sang one or two nigger melodies, quaint, lively, tender, and quite unknown to her present audience. Everyone ap- plauded and asked for more. " It is amusing," said Frau Martha stiffly, " but it is not Beethoven." " Martha always makes such clever criticisms," whispered Frau Werner fondly to her friend. "She has a very clear head." The elder ladies had advanced, and now made part of Nell's audience. Mrs. Frere looked about for her other daughter, without success at first, but presently she saw Hilary half-hidden by a window-curtain, near no one, and with her back to the room. When Nell had finished her second song Olga Werner sat down to the piano, and with praiseworthy patience played a sonata of Mozart's from beginning to end. If Herr Hansen had played it, everyone would have listened in delight, but the child had no music in her. Her touch was heavy ; her time dragged ; she played with effort and without understanding. Her mother and sisters listened in placid contentment. Other people were visibly bored. Mrs. Frere in the middle of the third movement could sit still no longer ; she got up and joined Hilary in her window niche. Behind the heavy curtain they could whisper a word or two unheard. "It is such a pity you don't play or sing," began Mrs. Frere. " Don't you think you could recite a poem or something ? " "What for?" " Well, to make a good impression. What use is it to stand here and stare across the Alster ? That does not show people how intelligent you are." "J should like to sail about on the Alster all 174 Cbe rassboppers. through a summer day," said the girl dreamily. Her mother's reproaches never vexed or disturbed her. They were made in such good faith, and with such an affectionate air. " If you had settled in Hamburg, you might have had a sailing boat of your own," said Mrs. Frere. Hilary's smile was rather a pitiful one in answer to this remark. " I wish Frau Werner would help me to get some teaching," she said, with a sigh. " I want money for new boots. Did you ask her about it ? " " I mentioned it," said Mrs. Frere ; " but don't be in any hurry, Hilary. It will not hurt you to teach a little when the spring comes. In this weather you would only catch cold." All through the rest of the evening, and on her way home, Mrs. Frere assured herself that she would not say a word to her daughters of Frau Werner's matchmaking plans. It would be a breach of confi- dence, and, besides, it is not right to speak expressly of such matters to young girls ; but as they all three brushed their hair and talked over the events of the day, Mrs. Frere's remarks were so full of sudden halts and palpable evasions that her daughters at last felt invited to take some notice of them. " Speak up," said Nell ; " you know you won't sleep till you have told us. Why will Olga Werner not be able to have English lessons from Hilary after Christmas ? " " She will be too busy," replied Mrs. Frere, in an oracular tone. "I suppose you mean she is going to be married," said Hilary. " She is much too young." " I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Frere. " There must be at least twenty-five years between them." " Oh ! " cried the sisters, with irrepressible laughter, " mamma is mating Herr Hansen again." " It is not I this time, dears. However " Go on, mamma." " No, I can't, Let me brush your hair for you, a family partg. *75 Hilary. I can't bear to see you tug at it. Olga's hair is very colorless. Does she speak English well ? " " She seems keen about improving in it," said Hilary, " at least, as far as she can be keen about anything." " Ah ! " said Mrs. Frere, " then she will probably get her own way." " In what ? " " In marriage. It is very strange. If Frau Werner only knew but, of course, I said nothing, nor shall I do so, whatever happens. We cannot blame either of them." The girls looked at each other and laughed again. " Did you know that Dick Lorimer was coming to Hamburg at Christmas ?" inquired their mother. A flash of surprise and alarm passed over Hilary's face. " What has he to do with Olga Werner ? " she asked. " Oh ! Anna prefers a German," said Mrs. Frere. " At the same time, she says that when a girl's heart speaks, it behooves her parents to listen." " What extraordinary conversations you elderly matrons seem to have," observed Hilary, looking decidedly provoked. " I suppose Dick's heart would have to speak in this case, and how does Frau Werner know what it would say ? " " She thinks her daughters are irresistible," said Mrs. Frere with a sigh. " Some mothers are quite infatuated about their children." " I thought all mothers were," said Nell, getting into bed. CHAPTER XV. ON THE ALSTER. TOWARD Christmas Mrs. Frere fell ill. Her sister- in-law attributed it to the ridiculous English habit of opening windows in all seasons and at all hours. Even when the doctor looked grave she talked as if Mrs. Frere had a cold in the head that might be cured by violent exercise. It was really influenza with com- plications. Frau Lange seemed to think herself the chief sufferer, inasmuch as illness gives trouble, how- ever much you neglect the patient. When Hilary had a bad headache she used to hear her aunt scold at the top of her voice over her niece's fussy and malinger- ing ways. Frau Lange resented sickness as a personal affront, an invasion of her privileges. In her own house she liked to monopolize attention. The girls were soon in despair. The food provided was so poor of its kind, and so badly cooked, that Mrs. Frere could seldom eat it. The cheap, sour wine, sent in because the doctor ordered wine, was less strengthening and refreshing than common beer. As long as they had any money left they brought some small dainties to their mother from outside, but they could not afford to buy what she really needed ; and one day, a week before Christmas, the united funds of the family did not amount to five shillings. A little money was still due to them from the sale of their furniture, but Mr. Harrison had that in his keeping, and they could not expect to get it without a trouble- some correspondence. Besides, except for their income of forty pounds, they had nothing else to live on through the coming year. Hilary reckoned that it would, be just enough to satisfy Aunt Bertha's n tbe Sister. 177 demands, and how they were to meet other necessary expenses she did not know. The doctor and the chemist would soon be expecting payment. "We were so extravagant on our journey and when we first came here," she sighed. "We spent money on cabs and on clothes." "I wish we had money to spend on clothes now," said Nell. "I can't go out in the snow because all my boots are in holes." The mother and daughter were in their bedroom, for since Mrs. Frere's illness they had lived in a state of siege. They did everything in the room for them- selves, because Frau Lange said she could not allow Auguste to run the risk of infection. At the same time she expected her nieces to appear at meals; as it was, of course, quite out of question to carry trays to and fro for them as well as for their mother. The girls used to find their aunt red in the face and very sulky, sometimes dressed in black silk and diamonds, sometimes in a flowery violet dressing gown. They never knew from one hour to the other whether she would turn up sweet as honey or furious, bedecked or slovenly, nor was it easy to decide which mood and toilet were least pleasing. "There is none of the wine left that we bought," said Hilary, going to the cupboard and taking out the empty bottle. "You ought to have some with your dinner, and that sour stuff Aunt Bertha gets is no good." ' 'Auguste told me she got it half price because it is damaged," said Nell. "It tastes of mildew and vinegar." "There is lentil soup and sausage for dinner," said Hilary, with disconsolate eyes. "Can you eat that?" Mrs. Frere's eyes were full of tears. She was so weak and ill that she could hardly sit up in the easy- chair lent to her, after much expostulation, by Frau Lange. "If Henry knew that I was ill and had no money 178 ftbe <3ra60boppers. to buy wine or food!" she thought. "I wish I was with him!" Hilary guessed from her mother's face something of what was passing through her mind, and she bent down to kiss her. They were disturbed by a knock at the door and the immediate irruption into the room of Frau Lange, very red and angry-looking. She wore the violet dressing-gown, list slippers, and what her nieces called a night-cap. The sight of Hilary and Nell, trim as daisies, at this early hour was in itself enough to excite her wrath. Their spick-and- span appearance was, she often told them, a sign of the idle lives led by English girls. They were not domesticated. They could not cook and sew, they would not scrub, sweep, wash, and iron, so their house- holds went to rack and ruin. The girls often wished they might say straight out that they had never seen in England a household as slovenly and fussy as her own. This morning, without inquiring after her sister- in-law, Frau Lange burst at once into a whirl of words. "Auguste must clean your room, Helena. Of course, in England rooms are never cleaned. I am a German housewife, and I cannot dress up like a doll when there is work to do." Hilary knew what her aunt's proposal meant. Auguste would take up the mat near Mrs. Frere's bed, the only bit of carpet in the room ; she would then upset a pail of water on the floor, swish about in it with a mop, and come away again, leaving the place as cold and damp as a sepulcher. Mrs. Frere was too weak and ill to move into another room. To chill the atmosphere of this one might be enough to bring on the pneumonia the doctor had with difficulty kept off. Hilary was just going to remonstrate when her aunt, after making a tour of the room, began to speak again : "You are ruining everything. Look at my beautiful table! there is a round mark on it. You have put an eau de cologne bottle down here." "I am very sorry, Aunt Bertha," said Hilary. "I n tbe Bteter. i?9 put the bottle down in a hurry the night mother fainted." "Of course, you can make excuses. A German girl would never do such a thing. She would have been better brought up. How your clothes are lying about! I could look like a fine lady if I did nothing but stare in the glass all day. And you have splashed the wall-paper, and there is my magnificent magenta plumeau on the floor, and Ach ! du lieber, all- machtiger Gott the water-jug is cracked my real English water-jug! No. That is too much. You must pay for it. I shall get out my common crockery for you, and my second-best plumeau; and I will not have another fire here this winter, the dirt and smoke are spoiling everything." "If you forbid the fire to be lighted, I shall ask Dr. Riedel to get mother into a hospital," said Hilary. ' ' I suppose she would be treated with common humanity there." "Oh, no, Hilary," said Mrs. Frere in a weak voice. "I don't want to leave you and Nell." "Let us all go away," said Nell. "We should be better in the Elbe than here." "You take everything so literally," said Frau Lange, who looked quite cowed. Hilary's threat of appealing to the doctor had acted on her rage like a dash of cold water on a flame. She did not want any story to her discredit bruited abroad among neighbors already unkindly aloof. She went out of the room in sulky silence, and a few minutes later Auguste appeared with a basket of wood and a message to say that as the English ladies liked their room dirty they were wel- come to keep it so. Later on in the day Hilary set out to skate on the Alster, which had been frozen for more than a week. Mrs. Frere made a good deal of objection to the expedition. She said that Frau Werner might be sit- ting at her window and see Hilary on the ice without an escort. A few years ago public opinion in Ham- burg had considered skating an improper amusement i8o be <3rassboppers. for ladies. Frau Werner's elder daughters had never been allowed to learn, but on her last birthday Olga had received a pair of skates. The tide of fashion is truly irresistible. When will the young ladies of Hamburg take to golf? Hilary promised not to put on her skates in front of Frau Werner's window. In reality, she had other objects in view than an afternoon's exercise. When she arrived at the Jungfernstieg she went straight to Frau Werner's house and rang at her door. The maid said that her mistress was about to drive out, and then Hilary remembered having seen a handsome carriage and pair waiting below, with a coachman in a blue livery and a broad-brimmed, shiny hat. However, she accepted the maid's invitation to enter and wait in the sitting room. In a few minutes Frau Werner appeared, ready dressed for her drive. Her manner as she welcomed Hilary showed slight surprise, but she signed to the girl to sit down, and asked very cordially after her mother. Hilary explained that her mother had been ill, and was still in a delicate conditon. A pause ensued. Hilary tried to summon up courage and broach her real errand, but her heart beat uncomfort- ably. She had not reckoned on having to speak in a hurry. It was difficult, and would probably be in- effective. Should she wait for a more favorable opportunity? No. If she ran away now, she would feel like a coward when she got home again. She must somehow say what was in her mind. "Frau Werner," she began haltingly, "I am very anxious to get work." Frau Werner looked at her doubtfully. "So your mother told me, my child; but what kind of work can you do?" "I could teach English. I know French pretty well, and some Greek and Latin." "Our girls have no use for Greek and Latin," said Frau Werner. "They learn French and English." n tbe Hteter. 181 "At school. Some take private lessons too, but for that we have old-established teachers. You might advertise, but I fear you would get no answers." "I am very anxious to earn some money," said Hilary, with her eyes on the ground. Frau Werner smoothed her muff and looked unhappy. "It is very difficult," she said, with a sigh. "You have had no training either to teach or do anything useful. In Germany we expect people to understand the work they undertake." "But," persisted Hilary, for she had told herself all the way here that she must be persistent, "but in Germany, as well as in other countries, it must often happen that girls who have not been taught to earn a living are suddenly obliged to do so. What do they do?" "They often go to England," said Frau Werner. "Besides, German girls are not brought up as you have been. They learn everything. My daughters make perfect housekeepers directly they marry, and, besides that, they can paint flowers, and sing, and play, and embroider beautifully, and speak several languages." Hilary sighed. "I must find something to do," she said. "I am sure I could teach little children. I would take great pains with them." "Why do you not take a situation in England?" Hilary explained that her mother did not like the idea of separation from either of her children. Frau Werner pointed out that the career of a private gov- erness would entail separation in any case. She did not believe that Hilary would find an engagement on terms that left her partial freedom. No one she knew employed a daily governess. The system was unknown in Hamburg. Again there was a pause, and Hilary felt that she had probably outstayed her welcome. No one likes their horses to wait long in a hard frost. She got up, 182 ttbe <3rassboppet0. and she saw by the alacrity with which Frau Werner rose too that she had done so none too soon. "Good-by, my dear child. If I hear of anything for you, I will let you know. Meanwhile, I hope you will all have a happy Christmas. On New Year's Eve I expect you here, but don't arrive in ball dresses again. These are not Court circles. We are plain burgherly folk, and like to see young girls simple and joyous. I have so much shopping to do for Christ- mas, I hardly know where to begin. Are you also very busy? Do you embroider in secret for your mother and aunt? Yesterday I saw a light under Olga's door at midnight. I got up to look. This morning she is quite pale and has red eyelids, but I say nothing; when I was a girl I did just the same. Greet your mother for me. I am sorry she was out when I returned her visit. I shall send her a proper invitation for New Year's Eve." Hilary left the house with a heavy heart. She felt that her mission had failed. This was plainly a world in which butterflies are not easily turned into working bees; at any rate the process proved in her case to be slow and mortifying. Did no one want her? Was there really nothing that she could do? She could not afford a long, unfruitful apprenticeship? What could she set her hand to to-day for which anyone on earth would pay her? In London she had heard of girls going on the stage, though they had nothing to recommend them but youth and good looks. Even to her ignorant eyes such a life bristled with difficulties, and she had seen enough of Hamburg to know that it would be as impossible for her to do it here as to dance at a music hall on a tight rope. Quite as impossible, because she could only expect to act as super or chorus girl at first. In spite of her low spirits, Hilary smiled as she thought of the expression with which Frau Werner and Herr Hansen would hear of such an intention on her part. In her opinion, their disap- proval would be justifiable. She shrank fastidiously from the surroundings that would be forced on her On tbe Slater. 183 behind the footlights. It would be more agreeable, she thought, to stand behind a counter, and perhaps a little less shocking to her friends. But she felt sure that no one would consent to buy her services for a long time to come. And she could as ill afford time as money. Even a housemaid or a sewing woman had learned a trade. Hilary could not expect to be trusted with cleaning, mending, or making. Besides, she did not look the part. And a cook was an artist ; so was a dressmaker; so was a milliner. Alas! she had never followed the arts. Thousands of people were on the ice. The main stream of skaters passed between an avenue of booths a mile long booths hurriedly erected for the sale of liquor, rough food, and skates; but this long lane served for a promenade as well as for a rink. Down the middle the skaters glided swiftly a motley crowd. On either side, where the ice was not swept, those who did not skate could walk in comfort and look on. The whole basin of the Alster was frozen hard and sprinkled with people to-day ; some skating by them- selves far away toward the cold, pearly mist on the horizon, some right out in the center of the lake, some crossing to the opposite bank. But the shoal streamed past the booths, and Hilary joined it. She skated straight on away from the city, and looked about her. The air and hard exercise roused her, the lively scene entertained her. She wished that Nell had come. Wherever her eyes fell she saw some- thing new and strange. She met a pair of lovers billing and cooing as if the Alster had been a desert; she saw a young man drop his glove, and the young woman with him pick it up ; she skated for nearly ten minutes within earshot of two officers, who talked like the lieutenants in the Fliegende Blatter. It gave her great pleasure to listen to them. No one molested her, although she looked in vain for other solitary girls of her own age. Many were there in twos and threes, and presently a very unsteady trio came toward her, and nearly tumbled at her feet. She swerved quickly to avoid a collison, halted at the sound of her name, and then recognized Olga Werner for one of the clumsy three. "You can skate!" she said to Hilary, in surprise. "I thought there never was ice in England, but only fog." "There is ice sometimes," said Hilary. "My sister Martha says that in England there is no ice, and no strawberries, and no nightingales." "Since I have been in Germany," said Hilary, "I have heard many things about England that I did not know before." Olga Werner's friends had gone on ahead, and she now looked after them in dismay. She could scarcely stand on her skates, and whenever anyone brushed by her she seized Hilary's arm, and clung tight until the danger was past. "You have come a long way," said Hilary, wonder- ing how it had been managed. They had met far out on the lake, beyond the booths, and at least two miles from Olga's home; but the girl shook her head. "I have only just come," she explained. "I have been spending the day with Martha. She lives close by here. Lili and Toni Petersen were there too, and we said we would skate home together; but now they have gone on so fast, I cannot see them. I always tell Martha they are very disagreeable girls ; but she will not believe me, because they are her husband's nieces. Do you see them?" "No," said Hilary; "but I can take care of you. It is time for me to turn back." "I must not be late either. We dine earlier than usual to-day, because we are going to the theater and it is the 'Gotterdammerung' to-night. That is so long, you know, that trrey begin half an hour sooner. Mr. Lorimer from England is here. He will sit with us in our box." "Dick Lorimer here?" exclaimed Hilary, taken by surprise. "Yes, but only for one day, on his way to Ltibeck, n tbe Slater. 185 where he has business. I forgot that you know him." "He is not skating, then?" "No. This morning he was busy with my father, and this afternoon he has gone to see some friends. Perhaps it is you he has gone to see." "Oh! I wonder if he has," cried Hilary, quicken- ing her pace for a moment, and then recognizing the futility of haste at this late hour. Besides, she could not hurry home unless she left Olga in the lurch, and it was impossible to do that. The girl could not have steered her way through a crowd that got more dense and rather rougher as the working- day came to an end. "He did not tell you he was coming to see us?" she asked, after a little reflection. "I have not seen him yet," said Olga. "He is at a hotel. My mother sent him an invitation to dinner, but he refused it, because he did not know that he would be back in time. He said in his letter that he might even arrive late in the theater." The two girls skated on for a time quite silently. The lights of Hamburg began to gain on the fading light of the winter afternoon. The four steeples came into view again through the cold twilight mist. The gas lamps twinkled in rows all round the Alster, and in irregular points far back behind the windows and the high roofs of the town. The clocks of the four great churches struck the hour, and their chimes rang out across the lake above all the cling-clang made by a brass band and by ten thousand voices. As the twilight deepened men and boys brought flaming torches on the ice, and ran to and fro with them among the skaters, asking for pence ; but there was no dis- order and no horse play at this hour. The girls did not feel afraid, although Olga said that she had never before been out so late by herself. "Well, you are with me now," said Hilary con- solingly. "I suppose I am as old as your sister Martha," 1 86 "But Martha is married," said Olga, in a voice of solemn remonstrance. She was skating hand in hand with Hilary now, and getting on at a reasonable speed, but her companion had to keep a sharp lookout all the while lest a touch should upset them both. Every now and then Olga swayed dangerously, or came to a sudden, baffling halt. She said that her ankles ached. It was after one of these delays that she astonished Hilary by abruptly speaking of Dick Lorimer again. "He is so good-looking, " she said sentimentally. "He has such beautiful eyes. Have you ever noticed that?" "I don't see how anyone could help it who was not blind," said Hilary, half annoyed, half amused. "How long have you known him?" "Oh! all my life." "Really! I shall tell him to-night that we have been skating together. He will be interested. Would you rather live in England or in Germany, Miss Frere?" "In England," said Hilary, with home-sick emphasis. "I would rather live in Hamburg than anywhere. I should have to be excessively fond of a person to follow him into a foreign country. Do you not agree with me? You would not go off with anyone any- where?" "Certainly not," replied Hilary, in whose ears the question sounded superfluous. "Some girls would," said Olga, with a sage air, "to be married, you know." "There are your friends," said Hilary. "If you like, we can easily overtake them." Olga did not look anxious to do so, but she con- sented to quicken her pace until they joined the two deserters again. Perhaps it occurred to her that Hilary was still a long way from home; but, after all, the four girls went on hand in hand. With support on either side, Olga managed to spin forward merrily, so that Hilary would hardly have gained two minutes by n tbe Steter. 187 separating from the rest. She found their chatter out of tune with her own frame of mind. They were full of the coming Christmas, and of the fine presents they were all about to give and receive especially receive. One girl hoped for a pearl necklace ; her sister ex- pected furs, and a new silk gown, and twenty smaller things. Olga Werner said she wanted an opera glass, and a feather fan, and a watch-bracelet, and a muff, and a gold thimble, and several books, and some new music. "You want a good deal," said one of her com- panions. "I shall get all those, and many more," said Olga. "We each make a list, and everyone who gives us presents looks at it. It has to be long long long until in the end one does not know what to write down. Some of my sisters ask for things they do not want much, but I never do that. First, I ask for what I really need, and then I put down books, music, gloves, because those are always useful. What is your plan, Miss Frere?" Hilary made some evasive answer, and soon after bid good-by. These girls made her feel old and heavy- hearted. As she listened to them she could hardly believe that she had ever been pretty, well dressed, and free from care. If she had seen her hair turn gray, she would have felt that it matched her humor. All the way back, while Olga stumbled at her side, and Olga's friends talked nineteen to the dozen, and the roofs and turrets of the great city came more and more clearly into view, one idea pushed itself upper- most in Hilary's mind. She saw no chance of making money, and by hook or by crook, a little money she must have. The doctor had ordered red wine for Mrs. Frere; he had hinted at champagne; even Rhenish red wine cost half a crown a bottle in these northern regions; and there were other demands to meet before the end of the year. There were new boots to get, for instance. Then Auguste, a capitalist in comparison with the ladies whose boots she blacked, 1 88 flfce rassboppers. would expect a handsome tip at Christmas. The tyranny of the festive season presses with greater weight in Germany than in England. Its exigencies had been on Hilary's mind for weeks. Finally, she had resolved to make her appeal for work to Frau Werner; but her hope of success cannot have been very strong, for at the moment of making it she carried in her pocket certain trinkets that in case of failure she meant to try and sell. This ordeal still lay before her, and she shrank from it unspeakably. How silly ! braver and bolder women will say. The trinkets were hers. Why should she hesitate to dis- pose of them in any way she chose? The question is unanswerable. The truth is, Hilary was rather old- fashioned in some of her opinions, and as unbusiness- like as possible. She did not think it disgraceful, under the circumstances, to sell her rings and her watch, but she wondered how she would ever find courage to enter a shop and propose the bargain. Shops were places where you spend money and meet with civility. If she walked into one, and asked to bring money away, she might find herself treated with rudeness ; but even that she had better bear, to such a pass had her fortunes come. She felt strongly tempted to give up her project for to-day, and hurry home on the chance of seeing Dick. When she got to the Jungfernstieg she stood still and looked back at the skaters for a moment, doubtful what she ought to do. She had stayed on the ice until the dusk came, because she thought her errand would be more comfortably done by dark than by day ; but now it was getting unduly late. Ought she to be wandering about the back streets of a foreign town by herself? She had determined that her venture must be made in a back street. All the lamps were lit. Evening had come. It would be grievous to miss Dick. Who knew as well as she that he had eyes? Hilary turned brusquely, and took a step or two toward the corner whence the tramcars started for her suburb; but the Jungfernstieg is not very broad, an4