■ 1 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 TIT 
 
 n, 
 
 MONKS OF THELEMA 
 
 1 fTolicI 
 
 r-Y 
 
 WALTER BESANT and JAMES RICE 
 
 AUTHORS OF 
 
 •' READY-MONEY MORTIBOY," " THE GOLDEK BUTTERFLY," "bYCELIA's ARBCIE,' 
 
 "this son of VULCAN," " MY LITTLE GIRL," "tIIR CASE O? 
 
 UR. LUCRAFT," " WITH HARP AND CROWN," ETC 
 
 /I N E IV EDITION 
 
 H tltJ n 
 
 CIIATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY

 
 PK 
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Here dwell no frowns nor anger ; from these gates 
 Sorrow flies afar." 
 
 Two novices are waiting for the cei'emony of reception. They 
 have been placed side by side upon a seat at the loAver end of 
 the great hall, and have been enjoined to wait in silent medi- 
 tation. The low seat perhaps typifies the stool of repent- 
 ance ; but until the reception is over one hardly likes to 
 speculate on the meaning of things. One of the novices is a 
 man, and the other a girl. Two by two the fraternity have 
 entered into this ark ; and two by two they go out of it. So 
 much only is known to the outer world. The man is about 
 thirty yeai's of age, with bright eyes, and smooth-shaven chin and 
 cheek. If the light was better, you would make out that he 
 has a humorous twinkle in his eyes, and that his lips, which are 
 thin, have got a trick of smiling at nothing — at the memory, 
 the anticipation, the mere imagined umbra of a good thing. 
 This kind of second sight is useful for keeping the spirits at a uni- 
 form temperature, a simmering rather than a bubbling of cheer- 
 fulness. The unhappy people who have it not are melancholy in 
 solitude, rush into any kind of company, often take to drink, 
 commit atrocious crimes while drunk, and hang themselves in 
 prison. Mr. Roger Exton will never, it is very certain, come to 
 this melancholy end. He is extremely thin, and rather tall ; 
 also his face is brown, of that colour which comes of long 
 residence in hot climates. In fact Mr. Exton has but recently 
 returned from Assam, where he has made a fortune — which we 
 hope is ;■, large one — some say by tea, or, according to another 
 school of thinkers, by indigo. The question, still unsettled, be- 
 longa to t:ioso open coutroverbies, like the authorship of
 
 2 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Junius," or the identity of the " Claimant," which vex tha 
 souls of historians and tap-room orators. The only other re- 
 markable points about this novice were that his hair was quito 
 straight, and that, although he was yet, as I have said, not much 
 more than thirty, the corners of his eyes were already provided 
 with a curious and multitudinous collection of crows'-feet, the 
 puckers, lines, spiders' webs and map-like rills of which lent his 
 face an incongruous expression, partly of surprise, partly of 
 humour, partly of ci-aft and subtlety. The rapid years of 
 modern life, though his had been spent in' the quiet of the 
 North-west Provinces, had in his case, instead of tearing the 
 hair off temples and top, or making him prematurely grey, as 
 happens to some shepherds, marked him in this singular 
 fashion. 
 
 The reasons why you cannot see things as clearly as I have 
 described them are that it is past nine o'clock on an evening 
 in July ; that the hall is lighted chiefly by upper windows 
 which form a sort of clerestory ; that most of the glass is 
 painted ; that what amber twilight of a summer evening can 
 get in is caught in the black depths of a fifteenth-century roof, 
 across which stretches a whole forest of timber, a marvel of in- 
 tricate beams ; or falls upon tapestry, carpets, and the dull 
 canvas of portraits which sv/aliow it all up. In the east, 
 behind the pair v/ho wait, is a rose window emblazoned with 
 the arms and crest, repeated in every light, of the great House 
 of Dunlop. Looking straight before them, the expectants 
 could make out nothing at all except black shadows, which 
 might mean instruments of torture. Half way up the wall 
 there ran a rov/ of tiny gas-jets, which had been lighted, but 
 were now turned down to little points of blue flame, pretty to 
 look at, but of no value as illuminators. 
 
 Over their heads was an organ-loft, in which sat a musician 
 playing some soft and melodious sort of prelude. Of course 
 there were lights in the organ-loft ; but there was a curtain 
 behind him, while in front the organ, cased in black v/oodwork 
 of the last century, rich with precious carvings, was capable of 
 absorbing, without reflection, all the light, whether from 
 candles, gas, oxyhydrogcn, electricity, or magnesium wire, 
 which modern science might bring to play upon it. So that no 
 good came out of the organ-loft lights. 
 
 The minutes passed by, but no one came to relieve their 
 meditation and suspense. The soft music, the great dark hall, 
 the strange light in the painted glass, the row of tiny gas-jets, 
 the novelty of the situation, produced a feeling as if they were 
 in a church where the organist's mind was running upon secular 
 things, or else on the stage at the opera waiting for the proces- 
 sion to begin. An odd feeling— such a feeling as must have
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 3 
 
 passed over the minds of a City congregation two centuries and 
 a half ago, when their Puritan ministers took for Church uso 
 the tunes which once dehghted a court, and therefore belonged 
 to the Devil. 
 
 The girl heaved a sigh of suspense, and her companion, who 
 had all this time looked straight before him without daring to 
 break upon the silence, or to look at his partner in this momen- 
 tous ceremony, looked round. This is what he would have seen 
 had the light been stronger ; as it was, the poor man had to 
 content himself with a harmony in twilight. 
 
 She wore, being a young lady who paid the very greatest 
 attention to the subject of dress, as every young lady, outside 
 Girton and Merton, ever should do, some sweet-looking light 
 evening dress, all cloudy with lace and trimmings, set about 
 with every kind of needlework art, looped up, tied round, and 
 adorned in the quaint and pretty fashion of the very last year 
 of grace, eighteen hundred and seventy-five. She wore a moss- 
 rose in her dark hair, and had a simple gold locket hanging 
 round her neck by a light Indian chain. She is tall, and, as is 
 evident from the pose of her figure, she is gracicuse ; she is 
 shapely of limb, as you can see from the white arm which 
 gleams in the twihght ; she has delicately-cut features, in which 
 the lips, as mobile as the tiny wavelets of a brook, dimple and 
 curve at every passing emotion, like the pale lights of an 
 electric battery ; her eyes do most of her talking, and show all 
 her moods— no hypocritical eyes are these — eyes which laugh 
 and cry, are indignant, sorry, petulant, saucy, and pitiful, not 
 in obedience to the will of their mistress whom they betraj', but 
 in accordance with some secret compact made with her heart. 
 Give her a clear-cut nose, rather short than long ; a dainty 
 little coral of an ear, a chin rather pointed, and an oval face — 
 you have, as a whole, a girl who in her face, her figure, the 
 grace of her bearing, would pass for a French girl, and who yet 
 in language and ideas was English. Her godfather called her 
 Eleanor, which proved much too stately a name for her, and so 
 her friends always call her Nelly. Her father, v/hile he breathed 
 these upper airs, was a soldier, and his name was Colonel 
 Despard. 
 
 Taking courage from the sigh, Roger Exton tried to begin a 
 little conversation. 
 
 " They keep us waiting an unconscionable time," be said. 
 *' Are you not tired ?" 
 
 " This is the half -hour for meditation," she replied gravely, 
 " You ought to be meditating." 
 
 " I am," he said, suppressing a strong desire to yawn. " I am 
 meditating." 
 
 1-2
 
 4 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Thon please do not interrupt my meditations," she answered, 
 •with a little light of mischief in her eyes. 
 
 So he "was silent again for a space. 
 
 " Do you happen to kno-\v," the man began again — men are 
 always so impatient — " Do you happen to know what they will 
 do to us in the ceremony of reception ?" 
 
 " Tom — I mean Mr. Caledon, refused to tell me anything 
 about it when I asked him." 
 
 " I hope," he said, fidgeting about, " that there will be no 
 Masonic nonsense ; if there is, I shall go back to the world." 
 
 " I presume," she said, " though I do not know anything 
 about it, really — but I expect that the Sisters will give us the 
 kiss of fraternity, and that " 
 
 " If," he interrupted her — " If we have only got to kiss each 
 other, it would be a ceremony much tov* simple to need all this 
 mystery. After all, most mysteries wrap up something very 
 elementary. They say the IMasons have got nothing to give you 
 but a word and a grip. Tlie kiss of fraternity — that will be 
 very charming." 
 
 He looked as if he thought they might begin at once, before 
 the others came ; but the girl made no reply: and just then the 
 organ, which had dropped into a low whisper of melodious 
 sound, which was rolling and rumbling among the rafters in the 
 roof over their heads, suddenly crashed into a triumphant march. 
 At the same moment, the long row of starlike flame-dots sprang 
 into a brilliant illumination : the double doors at the lower end 
 of the hall, at the side opposite to that where was placed the 
 stool of repentance, were tlung open, and a procession began, at 
 the appearance of which both novices sprang to their feet, as if 
 they were in a church. 
 
 And then, too, the hall became visible, with all its adorn- 
 ments. 
 
 It was a grand old hall which had once belonged to the 
 original Abbey which Henry VIII. presented to the Dunlopwho 
 graced his reign. It was as large as the hall of Hampton Court ; 
 it was lit by a row of windows high up, beneath which hung 
 tapestry, by a large rose window in the east, and a great per- 
 pendicular window in the west. There was a gallery below the 
 rose, and the organ was in a recess of pratique in the wall at the 
 lower end. Along the wall, at the upper, or western, end, was 
 a row of stalls in carved Avoodwork ; the wood was old, but the 
 stalls were new. There were twenty in all, and over each hung 
 a silken banner with a coat of arms. Each was approached by 
 three steps, and each, with its canopy of carved wood, its seat 
 and arms in carved wood, the gay banner above it, and the coat 
 of arms painted and gilded at the back, might have scr^'Otl for 
 the Royal Chapel at Windsor. Between the windows and sbpye
 
 THE MONKS OF THKLEMA. 5 
 
 the tapestry were trr)p!iies of arms, with antlers, and portraits. 
 And on the north side stood the great fireplace, sunk back six 
 feet and more in the wall ; around it were more wood carvings, 
 with shields, bunches of grapes, coats of arms in gold and purple, 
 pilasters and pediments, a very precious piece of carving. There 
 Vt'as a dais along the western end ; on this stood a throne, fitted 
 with a canopy, and overlaid with purple velvet fringed with gold, 
 On the right and loft of the throne stood two chairs in crimson 
 velvet, before each a table ; and on one table were books. In 
 the centre of the hall Avas another table covered with crimson 
 velvet, in front of which was a long cushion as if for kneeling. 
 In front of the candidates for reception was a bar covered with 
 velvet of the same colour. 
 
 The novices took in these arrangements with hasty eyes, and 
 then turned to the procession, which began to file slowly and 
 with fitting solemnity over the polished floor of the long hall. 
 The organ pealed out the march from " Scipio." 
 
 " I haven't heard that," said the man, " since I was at Win- 
 chester ; they used to play it when the judges came to church." 
 
 First there walked a row, in double file, of boys clad in purple 
 surplices, with crimson hoods ; they carried flowers in baskets. 
 After them came twenty young men in long blue robes, tied 
 round the waist with scarlet ropes ; they carried books, which 
 might have been music-books, and these were singing-men and 
 serving-men. After them, at due intervals, came the Brethren 
 and Sisters of the monastery. 
 
 There were eighteen iu all, and they walked two by two, every 
 Brother leading a Sister by the hand. The Sisters were dressed 
 in white, and wore hoods ; but the white dresses were of satin, 
 decorated with all the splendours that needle and thimble can 
 bestow, and the hoods were of crimson, hanging about their 
 necks something like the scarlet hood of a Doctor of Divinity. 
 If the white satin and the crimson hood were worn in obedience 
 to the sumptuarjr customs of the Order, no sumptuary law pro- 
 hibited such other decorations as might suggest themselves to 
 the taste of the wearer. And there were such things in adorn- 
 ment as would require the pen of a poetical AVorth to portray. 
 For some wore diamond sprays, and some ruby necklaces, and 
 others bracelets bright with the furtive smile of opals ; and 
 there were flowers in their hair and in their dresses — long ropes 
 of flowers trailing like living serpents over the contours of their 
 figures, and adown the long train which a page carried for each. 
 As the two novices gazed, there was a gleaming of white arms, 
 and a brightness of sparkling eyes, an overshadowing sense of 
 beauty, as if Venus Victrix for once was showing all that could 
 be shown in grace and loyeliuess, which made tjie brain of one
 
 6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 of those novices to reel, and his feet to stagger ; and the eyes of 
 the other to dilate with longing and wonder. 
 
 " It is too beautiful," she murmvired. " See, there is Tom, and 
 he leads Miranda." 
 
 They were all young and all beautiful, these nine women, 
 except one, who was neither young nor beautiful. She w^as 
 certainly past forty, and raight have been past fifty ; she was 
 portly in figure ; she was dressed more simply than the rest of 
 her Sisters, and she walked with an assumption of stately dig- 
 nity ; but her face was comely still and sweet in expression, 
 though yeai's had effaced the beauty of its lines. The Brother 
 who led her — a young man who had a long silky brown beard 
 and blue ej-es — wore a grave and pre-occupied look, as if he was 
 going to take a prominent part in the function, and was not 
 certain of his part. 
 
 All the Brethren were j^oung, none certainly over thirty ; they 
 were dressed alike in black velvet, of a fashion never seen except 
 perhaps on the stage ; and they, too, v/ore crimson hoods, and a 
 cord of crimson round the waist. 
 
 Last came the Lady Abbess— the Miranda of whom the novice 
 had spoken. She was young, not more than one or two and 
 twenty ; she wore the white satin and the crimson hood, and in 
 addition, she carried a heavy gold chain around her neck, with 
 a jewel hanging from it on her bosom. She, too, by virtue of 
 her office, advanced with much gravity and even solemnity, led 
 by her cavalier. Two pages bore her train, and she was the last 
 in the procession. The doors closed behind her, and a stalwart 
 man clad in white leather and crimson sash stood before the door, 
 sword in hand, as if to guard the meeting from interruption. 
 
 The Brethren and Sisters proceeded to their respective stalls ; 
 the elder Sister was led to the table on the right of the throne, 
 the Brother who conducted her took his place at that on the 
 left ; two stewards ranged themselves beside the two tables, and 
 took up white wands of office ; the boys laid their flowers at the 
 feet of every Sister, and then fell into place in rows below the 
 stalls, while the Lady IMiranda, led by that Brother whom 
 the novice irreverently called Tom, mounted the throne and 
 looked around. Then she touched a bell, and the armed janitor 
 laying down his sword, struck a gong once. The echoes of the 
 gong went rolling and booming among the rafters of the roof, 
 and had not died away before the organ once more began. It 
 was the opening hymn appointed to be sung on the reception oi 
 a pair of novices. 
 
 " You who would take our simple vows, 
 Which I'ause no sorrow after, 
 I5ring with you to tliis holy house, 
 Jfo gillS; but joy and laiigute?.
 
 THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA, 7 
 
 " Oiitsiiie tlie grate, ^vlievc ^vorlillings wdt, 
 Leave envies, cares, and malice. 
 And at our feast, with kindly breast, 
 Prink love from wisdom's chalice. 
 
 "Ko lying face, no scandal base. 
 
 No wliispering tonn^ue is found here} 
 But maid and swain with golden cha'n 
 Of kindliness are bound here. 
 
 •* To charm with mirth, with wit and worth, 
 My Sister, is thy duty ; 
 Bring thou thy share of this good fare, 
 ,Set round with grace and beauty. 
 
 "And thine, O Brother? Ask thy heart 
 lis best response to render ; 
 And in the fray of wit and play. 
 And in the throng of dance and song, 
 Or wlien we walk in sober talk, 
 No borrower be, but lender. 
 
 "Stay, both, or go : free a.ve ye still. 
 So that ye rest contented ; 
 No iSister stays against her will, 
 Though none goes unlamented. 
 
 •'And, last, to sliow where here below 
 True wisdom's only ease is. 
 Read evermore, above our door, 
 
 'Here each does what he pleases.' " 
 
 The first four lines were sung as a solo by a sweet-voiced 
 boy— the first treble, in fact, in the Cathedral choir three or 
 four miles away. The rest was sung as a four-part song by the 
 full choir, which was largely recruited from the Cathedral, not 
 altogether with the sanction of the chapter. But receptions 
 Ti'ere rare. 
 
 When the organ began its prelude, two of the attendants 
 with white wands advanced side by side and bowed before the 
 novices, inviting them to step forward. The man, whose face 
 betokened entire approval so far of the ceremo-nies, offered his 
 hand to the girl, and with as much dignity as plain evening 
 dress allows, which was, he felt, nothing compared with the 
 dignity conferred by the costume of the Brothers, led the new 
 Sister within the bar to the place indicated by the stewards, 
 namely, the small altar-like table. 
 
 Then they listened while the choir sang the hymn. The 
 Brothers and Sisters were standing each in their stall ; the 
 Lady Superior was standing under her canopy. It was like a 
 religious ceremony. 
 
 When the last notes died away, the Lady Superior spoke 
 Eof tly, addressing the Brother at the lovs^ table on her left. 
 
 '* Our orator," she said, " will charge the novices,"
 
 8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 The Brother, who was the man with the blue eyes and brown 
 beard, bowed, and stepped to the right of the throne. 
 
 " Brethren and Sisters," said the Lady Abbess, " be seated." 
 
 " It is our duty," began the orator, " at the reception of every 
 new novice, to set forth the reasons for our existence and the 
 apology for our rites. Listen. We were founded four hundred 
 years ago by a monk of great celebrity and renown. Brother 
 Jean des Entommeures. The code of laws which he laid down 
 for the newly established Order of Thelemites is still main- 
 tained among us, with certain small deviations, due to change 
 in fashion, not in principle. In externals only have we ven- 
 tured to make any alterations. The rules of the Order are few. 
 Thus, whereas in all other monasteries and convents, everything 
 is done by strict rule, and at certain times, we, for our part, 
 have no bells, no clocks, and no rules of daily life. The only 
 bell heard within this convent is that cheerful gong with which 
 we announce the serving of dinner in the refectory. Again, 
 whereas all other monasteries are walled in and kept secluded, 
 our illustrious founder would have no wall around his Abbey ; 
 and, whereas it was formerly the custom to shut up in the con- 
 vents those who, by reason of their lacking wit, comeliness, 
 courage, health, or beauty, were of no use in the outer world, 
 so it was oi'dered by the founder that to the Abbey of Thelema 
 none should be admitted but such women as were fair and of 
 sweet disposition, nor any man but such as was well-conditioned 
 and of good manners. And again, whereas in other convents 
 some are for men and some for women, in this Abbey of The- 
 lema men and women should be admitted to dwell together, in 
 such honourable and seemly wise as befits gentlemen and gentle- 
 women ; and if there were no men, there should be no women. 
 And, as regards the three vows taken by monks and nuns of 
 religion, those assumed by this new fraternity should be also 
 three, but that they should be vows of permission to marry, to 
 be rich, if the Lord will, and to live at liberty. 
 
 " These, with other minor points, were the guiding principles 
 of the Thelemites of old, as they are those of our modern 
 Order. It is presumed, from the silence of history, that the 
 Abbey founded by Brother Jean des Entommeures fell a 
 proy to the troubles which shortly after befell France. The 
 original Abbey perished, leaving the germs and seeds of its 
 principles lying in the hearts of a few. We do not claim an 
 unbroken succession of abbots and abbesses ; but wo main- 
 tain that the ideas first originated with our founder have never 
 died. 
 
 " Here you will find " — the orator's voice deepened — " none 
 of the greater or the lesser enemies to culture and society. 
 The common bawling Cad will not be more rigorously exiled
 
 THE MONKS OF JHELEMA. 9 
 
 from our house than that creeping caterpillar of society, who 
 crawls his ignoble way upwards, destroying the tender leaves 
 of reputation as he goes. The Pretender has never, in any one 
 of his numerous disguises, succeeded in forcing an entrance 
 here. By her Ithuriel wand, the Lady Miranda, our Abbess, 
 detects such, and waves them away. The fair fame of ladies 
 and the honour of men are not defamed by our Brethren. We 
 have no care to climb higher up the social scale. We have no 
 care to fight for more money, and soil our hands with those 
 who wrestle in the dusty arena. We do not fill our halls with 
 lions and those who roar. We are content to admire great men, 
 travellers, authors, and poets, at a distance, where, steeped in 
 the mists of imagination, we think they look larger. We do 
 not wrangle over religion or* expect a new gospel whenever a 
 new magazine is started, whenever a new preacher catches the 
 tawn ear, and whenever a new poet strikes an unaccustomed 
 Btrain. And we are thankful for what we get. 
 
 " Tsewly-elected Sister ! newly-elected Brother ! know that 
 you have been long watched and carefully considered before 
 we took upon ourselves the responsibility of your election. 
 You did not seek election, it was conferred upon you ; you did 
 not ask, it was given. We have found in you sympathy with 
 others, modesty in self-assertion, good breeding, and a suffi- 
 ciency of culture. We have found that you can be happy if 
 ycni are in the atmosphere of happiness ; that you can be 
 sinniiielU withoiit being cynical, that you are fonder of bestow- 
 ing praise than censure, that you love not downcriers, enviers, 
 and backbiters, that you can leave for a time the outer world, 
 jiut aside such ambitions as you have, and while you are here 
 live the life of a grown-up child. We Avelcome you." 
 
 lie descended from the throne, and, advancing to the table, 
 oITc red his hand to the young lady. 
 
 " Eleanor Despard," he said, " at this bar you leave your 
 name and assume another to be known only within our walls. 
 Bi-ethren and Sisters of Thelema, you know this novice ; give 
 her a name." 
 
 The Sister at the right of the throne — the one who was no 
 longer young — called a steward, who took cards in a salver from 
 her and distributed them among the fraternity. There was a 
 little whispering and laughing, but when the steward went 
 round to collect the cards, they were all filled up. 
 
 The list of proposed names was various. One wrote Atalanta, 
 and there was laughter and applause, and Kelly looked sur- 
 prised. Another wrote Maud, " because there is none like her ;" 
 then tSTelly looked at the Brother whom she had called Tom, 
 and smiled. Another proposed Haydee ; but when Sister Des- 
 deniona read out the name of Rosalind, there was a g2neral
 
 lo THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 acclamatioR, and it was clear what lier name was to be. The 
 officiating Brother led her to the Abbess. She mounted the 
 tljree steps and knelt before the throne, while the Abbess bent 
 over her, took her hands in her own, and kissed her lips and 
 forehead. 
 
 " Rise, Sister Rosalind," she said ; " be welcome to our love 
 and sisterhood." 
 
 Then Desdemona beckoned another steward, who came for- 
 ward bearing a train and crimson hood. 
 
 " Sister Rosalind," said the elderly Sister, " I am the registrar 
 of the convent. You must sign your name in our book, and 
 subscribe our vows. They are, as you have heard, three. 
 
 " First, ' I declare that I make no vow against the honourable 
 and desirable condition of wedlock ; that I will not defame the 
 sweet name of love, and that I v/ill never pledge myself to live 
 Blone.' " 
 
 Sister Rosalind blushed prettily and signed this vow, the 
 light dancing in her eyes. 
 
 " The second vow is this : ' Seeing that I'iches give delight to 
 life, and procure the means of culture and joy, I vow to take 
 joyfully whatever wealth the Heavens may send.' " 
 
 Rosalind made no objection to signing this vow also. 
 
 " The third and last vow is as follows : ' I will be bound 
 while in this place by no conventional rules ; in the Abbey of 
 Thelema I vow to live as I please. What honour and gentle- 
 hood permit, that will I do or say.' " 
 
 Rosalind signed the third. 
 
 Then Desdemona produced a box. 
 
 " In this box," she said, " is the ring of fraternity. I put it 
 on the third finger of your left hand. Here also is the collar of 
 the Order ; I place it round your neck. Upon your shoulders I 
 hang tlie mantle and the hood ; around your waist I tie the 
 crimson cord of our fraternity. Kiss me, my Sister ; we are 
 henceforth bound together Cy the vows of Thelema." 
 
 Thus equipped, Sister Rosalind again took the hand of hei 
 leader, and was by him presented solemnly to each Sister in 
 turn, receiving from each the kiss of welcome. 
 
 '' This is a splendid beginning," said the other novice to 
 himself, standing at the bar alone ; " I wish ray turn were 
 come." 
 
 The Brothers did not, however, he noticed with sorrow, 
 salute their new Sister on the lips, but on the hand. 
 
 The presentation finished, the Brother led Sister Rosalind to 
 her stall, over which hung, as over a stall in St. George's Chapel, 
 tlie silken banner wrought with her coat of arms and crest ; 
 and behind the throne two trumpeters blared out a triumphant 
 roar of welcome.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. li 
 
 Then it was tlae torn of the other. 
 
 The orator -went through the same ceremony. First the 
 stewards sent round the cards, and names were suggested. 
 
 There were sevcrah One said Brother Panurge, and another 
 Brother Shandy, and another Brother Touchstone ; and the 
 one on which they finally agreed was Brother Peregrine. 
 
 Contrary to reasonable expectation, the newly-elected Brother 
 Peregrine was not saluted on the lips by the Abbess or by any 
 of the Sisters. As a substitution of that part of the ceremo- 
 nial, he received a hand of each to kiss, and then the trumpeters 
 blew another blast of welcome. 
 
 Just then the organ began again playing softly, like music in 
 a melodrama, while the orator again stood beside the throne, 
 and prepared to speak. 
 
 "Brothers and Sisters," he said, " w^e have this evening ad- 
 mitted two more, a man and a woman, to share our pleasures 
 and our sports. Be kind to them ; be considerate of their 
 weaknesses ; make j^ourselves loved by them ; encourage them 
 in the cultivation of the arts which make our modern Thelema 
 worthy of its illustrious founder, those, namely, of thought for 
 the joy of others, innocent pleasure in the delights which we 
 can offer, and ingenious devices of sport and play. And all of 
 us remember, that as the Egyptians, so we have our skeleton." 
 
 He pointed to the throne. A steward drew back a curtain, 
 and showed, sitting on the same seat as the Abbess, a skeleton 
 crowned, and with a sceptre in its hand. 
 
 " We have this always with us. It saddens joys which else 
 might become a rapture ; it sobers mirth which else might pass 
 all bounds ; it bids us Xwo. wdiile we may. Brethren and Sisters, 
 at each reception this curtain is drawn aside, to remind us of 
 what we may not forget, but do not speak. Lady Abbess, I 
 have spoken." 
 
 He bowed low and retired. 
 
 The Abbess rose slowly. Her white satin, her crimson 
 mantle, her lace, the bright cord round her waist, the spray of 
 diamonds in her hair, her own bright eyes, and sweet grave 
 face, contrasted against the white and crouching skeleton be- 
 side her. 
 
 " My Brothers and Sisters," she said, " there remains but one 
 tiling more ; you have heard that our founder was the illustrious 
 Friar Jean des Entommeures. It is true ; but the creator of 
 that monk, the real designer of our Abbey, was a far greater 
 jnan. Let us drink in solemn silence to the memory of the 
 Master." One of the stewards bore a golden cup to every 
 Brother and Sister, and another filled it with champagne. 
 
 Then the organ pealed and the trumpets brayed, and as the 
 Abbess bowed from the throre. an electric light fell full upon a
 
 12 THE MONKS OF 7 H EL EM A. 
 
 marble bust which Rosalind had not seen before. Ic was on a 
 marble pillar at the end of the hall. It was the bast of the 
 great Master— Francois Rabelais himself— and beneath it were 
 the words in golden letters, 
 
 "F^Y CE que VOULDn.i^." 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 "These deli^jhts if (liou cansh givo. 
 Mil-lb, with thee I mean to hve." 
 
 After the reception, it was only natural that a ball should 
 follow. By the time tlae first guests arrived the throne had been 
 carried away ; the crowned skeleton was removed to the place 
 where such mementoes should be — a cupboard. All the properties 
 of the recent ceremony — the red velvet bar, ths tables and 
 carpets, had been put away out of sight. Only the stalls re- 
 mained, with their beautiful carved work in wood, and these 
 were stripped of cushions, crimson carpets, and banners. The 
 hall, save for the rout-stools, was absolutelv empty ; the orgau- 
 loft was dark, and the band were collected in the music-gallery, 
 which ran along the east .snd of the hall, waiting for the dancing 
 to begin. 
 
 There was no one to receive people ; because none ot the 
 Order were present. But when a thin gathering of guests had 
 arrived, the band struck up the opening quadrille. 
 
 It was not a large ball, because the number of possible invites 
 was limited. Given a country place, four or five miles from a 
 .small Cathedral town, in a district where properties are large 
 and owners few ; given the season of mid- July, the possibilities 
 of selection do not look promising. There was, however, the 
 Vicar, with his wife and three daughters. This particular Vicar, 
 unlike many of his reverend brethren, did not regard social 
 gathenngs, when young people dance, as a Witches' Sabbath of 
 I he Black Forest. He had in his early manhood perpetrated a 
 play, which had been actually brought out, and which ran suc- 
 cessfully for five-and-twenty nights, once a fair run. He had 
 the courage to justify this wickedness by always going to the 
 theatre when he went up to London, and by attendnig officially, 
 as the Vicar of Weyland, whatever was going on in the country. 
 " Why should a man," he was wont to say, '' who has taken 
 orders, pretend to give up one of the joys of the world and keep 
 the rest ? Why should he go to a dinner and decline a dance ? 
 Why should he listen to a concert, ayd refuse to listen to an
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 13 
 
 opera ? Why should he road novels, and refuse to see plays ?'' 
 As a matter of fact he wrote novels himself, i:nder an assumed 
 name. Does he not enjoy a feast still, in spite of his stiff collar ? 
 He was still ready, himself, for any amount of feasting. Does 
 he not laugh at a joke ? He himself laughed much, and made 
 many jokes. He spoke good common sence ; but I do not 
 desire to see the black brigade in theatres, because the step is 
 short from taking a part among the audience, to taking a part 
 in the management, and then to claiming the whole share, so 
 that one shudders to think what the stage might come to. The 
 Vicar's daughters were pretty ; they dressed in simple white 
 frocks, with bright-coloured ribbons; and enjoyed all that could 
 begot in their quiet and innocent lives. Above all they enjoyed 
 an evening like this, when to a delightful dance was added the 
 joy of seeing the latest freak of the Thelema fraternity. There 
 ■n'as a Canon of the neighbouring Cathedral of Athelston, w^hich 
 furnished, besides, a good proportion of the guests. The Canon 
 had a daughter who was jesthetic, dressed in neutral tints, 
 parted her hair on the side, and corrected her neighbours in a 
 low voice when they committed barbarities in art. She was not 
 pretty, but she was full of soul, and she longed to be invited to 
 join the Order. Then there were half a dozen othcers from the 
 depot twenty miles away, and such contributions as the neigh- 
 bouring county houses could furnish. 
 
 " At the last reception," said Lucy Corrington, the Vicar's 
 eldest daughter, to her partner, " when they elected Sister 
 Cecilia — Adela Fairfax, you know — they all wore the costumes 
 of Henry the Eighch. i>«o one ever knows beforehand how they 
 will dress." 
 
 " Are you going to join the Order, Lucy r" asked her partner. 
 
 Lucy shook her pretty head. 
 
 " No ! Papa would not like it. "We are quiet people, and 
 poor people too. We only look on and applaud. They have made 
 the place very lively for us all ; we are grateful, and hope it will 
 last. You will persuade your son to keep it up, won't you, 
 Lord Alwyne ?" 
 
 " As if I had any influence over Alan," said his father, who 
 was indeed Lucy's partner. 
 
 Lord Alwyne Fontaine was the fourth son of the fourth Duke 
 of Brecknock. The red book told everybody what he could not 
 believe, and yet could not deny — that he was fifty-five years of 
 age. How could he be fifty-five ? It was incredible. He was 
 a man of moderate height, rather thin, and he had a face still 
 youthful. His hair had gone off his temples, and was more than 
 a little thin on the top. But these accidents happen to quite 
 young fellows, say of forty, and are not at all to be taken as 
 signs of age. His expression was uniformly one of great good
 
 i4 THE MONKS OP THELEMA. 
 
 humour and content, that of a man wlio had experienced no 
 troubles, managed the cond-ict of life without excess, and yet 
 with no solution in the continuity of pleasure, who had not 
 hardened his heart by enjoyments purely selfish, and who still 
 at five-and-fifty looked around him with as keen an eye as thirty 
 years before ; who was ready to enjoy life, and to enjoy it in 
 the same way as when he began his career. No one ever found 
 Lord Alwyne bored, out of temper, or hlasL No one ever heard 
 him complain. No one ever heard him pour out the malicious 
 theories in which some of his contemporaries rejoiced ; he pos- 
 sessed those most inestimable qualities for a man of wealth, 
 contentment of mind, a good heart, and an excellent digestion. 
 
 " I have not seen Alan yet," he went on. " In fact, I came 
 down chiefly by invitation of Nelly Despard. She wanted me 
 to see her in all her grandeur. When do they come in ?" 
 
 " Directly," said Lucy. " They are never much later than 
 half -past ten. Will not Nelly look beautiful? Here they 
 come." 
 
 In fact, as the clock struck half-past ten, the band, which 
 had just finished a quadrille, burst out into a grand triumphal 
 march ; no other, in fact, than Liszt's " March of the Crusaders." 
 The doors at the end of the hall were flung open, and the Monks 
 and Sisters of Thelema entered in grand procession. 
 
 The guests ranged themselves in double line as the procession 
 advanced, and v.hen it reached the middle of the hall they 
 formed a circle round them. It was not quite the same proces- 
 sion as that of the reception. There were no choir boys or 
 singing men ; there were only tvro stewards. Sister Rosalind, 
 the newly received, came first, after the stewards. She waa 
 dressed now, like all the rest, in white satin. She was led by 
 Brother Lancelot, whom she had called Tom, after the manner 
 of the world ; and she bore herself bravely under the eyes of 
 the multitude, who laughed and clapped their hands. The 
 costumes were the same as at the reception. 
 
 " Let us talk all the scandal we can about them all, Lucy," 
 whispered Lord Alwyno. 
 
 Lucy laughed. 
 
 " For shame ! There is Nelly. Did you ever see any one look 
 BO charming as Nelly ? To be sure, she is always perfectly 
 lovely, with her bright eyes and her beautiful oval face." 
 
 Lucy sighed in thinking of her own chubby cheeks and appio 
 face, whicia she was disposed to deprecate at sight of Nelly'a 
 more unusual style of beauty. 
 
 " See, that is the collar of the Order which she wears round 
 her neck ; and that crimson cord round her waist is the girdle of 
 the Order. They have christened her Sister Rosalind. You 
 know their motto, do you aoi ? ' Fay ce que vouldras ' — Do
 
 THE MO A' res OF THELEMA. 15 
 
 what you please. What a motto for a nun! And tlicn, j-ou 
 know Tom Caledon, who leads her by the hand. Poor Tom ! 
 They call him Brother Lancelot in the Abbey. Everybody 
 knows that he is desperately in love with Nelly, and she cant 
 marry him, poor fellow, because he has no money, or not 
 enough. Everybody is sorry for Tom." 
 
 '■ I dare say Tom will grow out of it," said the man of the 
 world. " Love is a passion which improves with age — loses its 
 fiery character, and grows mellow." 
 
 Lucy looked as if she didn't believe that story, and went on : 
 
 " There is your son, Lord Alwyne, leading Sister Desde- 
 mona." 
 
 " I see him. What is Alan's name in rclig — I mean in the 
 Order ?" 
 
 " They call him Brother Hamlet, I believe, because no one 
 can understand what he vfill do next." 
 
 " A very good name. I am glad the boy has got fun enough 
 in him to enjoy a little fooling. And I am very glad that he 
 is taking care of Desdcmona." 
 
 " Do you know her. Lord Alwyne ?" 
 
 " I remember her coming out at the Ilaymarket thirty years 
 ago, in ' Othello.' She was Clairette Fanshawe. What a lovely 
 Desdemona she made ! And how the men went mad after her ! 
 Poor Clairette ! She threw us all over, and married somo 
 fellow called Dubber, who lived on her salary, and, I believe, 
 used to beat her. Four or five years later, her friends arranged 
 a separation, and she retired from the stage. She has had a sad 
 experience of life, poor Desdemona ! Dubber succumbed to 
 drink." _ 
 
 " She is the directress and designer of all their fetes," Lucy 
 went on. " She is indispensable. And they all do exactly 
 what she orders. The next are Brother Mercutio and Sister 
 Au.drey. They are a handsome couple, and if they could only 
 agree for an hour together, they would marry, I believe. But 
 then they hold opposite opinions on every conceivable subject, 
 and conduct two weekly papers, in which they advocate their 
 own ideas. So that if they mai'ried they would have to give up 
 the very chief pleasure of their lives — to ■wrangle with each 
 other." 
 
 ' Not at all, my dear child," said Lord Alwyne, " not at all. 
 Let me disabuse your mind of that fact. I have known many 
 most excellent people, whose only pleasure after marriage was 
 to quarrel with each other ; and the more heartily the better." 
 
 Lucy shook her head. She preferred her simple faith. 
 
 " There come Brother Benedick and Sister Romola. She ia 
 engaged, I believe, to a man ia India, and he to his cousin who
 
 l6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 is an heiress ; but I should not be surprised to learn— oh ! this 
 is dreadful girls' chatter." 
 
 " I like girls' chatter," said Lord Alwyne. " IMy son has got 
 wisdom enough for the whole family. Go on, Lucy." 
 
 " Well, then — but I will not give you all the idle gossip. In 
 Buch a dull place as this, we talk about each other all the day. 
 The next couple are Bayard and Cordelia. Bayard is a V.O."" 
 
 '' I know him," said Lord Alwyne. 
 
 " Then come Parolles and Silvia. Brother Parolles ii? a 
 Fellow of Lothian College, you know. He is dreadfully clever 
 — much too clever for a girl like me to talk to. We are afraid 
 of speaking in his presence ; and j-et he puts us right very 
 gently, and only as if he was sorry for us. His name is 
 Eondelet." 
 
 " I know him too," said Lord Alwyne. " I met him once at 
 Oxford when Alan was up. Now, see the advantage we old 
 boys have over the young fellows. We don't know any science ; 
 we don't care twopence about the new-fangled things in art ; we 
 prefer comfort to aisthetics in furniture. We have quite cold 
 hearts towards china " 
 
 " But you must let us like china a little," pleaded the girl, 
 
 " And we have no belief in reforming the world. In a word, 
 my dear young lady, we exist only to promote the happiness of 
 car youthful friends of your sex." 
 
 " That is very delightful, I am sure !" she replied. " Well, 
 there go Crichton and Cecilia. He chose his own name, bec.iuse 
 he said he knew nothing and could do nothing. And Cecilia 
 plays. That is Lesmahago, the tall, thin man with the twisted 
 nose ; Una is with him. Then Paris and Hero ; and last the 
 new Brother, Peregrine — isn't he a funny-looking man with his 
 crinkled face ? he looks as if he was going to laugh — leading the 
 Abbess, Miranda. Which is the more beautiful, Miranda or 
 Nelly ?" 
 
 " I should say, Lucy, that for a steady, lasting pattern, war- 
 ranted to wear, Miranda's beauty is superior to Nelly's. For a 
 surprise, Nelly is incomparable." 
 
 " Ah, and then Miranda always looks so queenly. She was 
 born for what she is, the fair chatelaine of a stately palace." 
 
 " Lucy, you must come up to London for a season, if only to 
 rid yourself of a most unusual fault in your sex." 
 
 " What is that, Lord Alwyne ?" 
 
 " You speak well of other girls." 
 
 "Oh! but why should I not ■? Miranda is the most beau- 
 tiful girl I know : she is not like an ordinary girl." 
 
 " She was certainly grand in her robes last night, and h1- / 
 looked her part as well as if she had been all her liiV an Abbfiss. 
 
 *'■ She would not be Abbess at firefc," Lucy went on, " but Mr,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 17 
 
 Dnnlop made it a condition of his lending the Court for the use 
 of the Order." 
 
 " Hamlet has lucid intervals," said Hamlet's father— not yet 
 the ghost. " Tell me who is the new Brother ?" 
 
 " It is Mr. Roger Exton." 
 
 " Roger Exton ! what Exton ?" Lord Alwyne's knowledge 
 of genealogies was extensive and profound, as becomes an idle 
 gentleman of ancient lineage. " There aro Extons of York- 
 shire ; is he one of them ?" 
 
 " I do not know. He has not long come back from India, where 
 I believe he made a fortune. And he has brought out a poem called 
 ' Lalnee and Ramsami, or Love among the Assamese.' I have 
 not read it, because papa will not send for it ; but it is said to 
 be clever." 
 
 " Pity," said Lord Alwyne, " that poets and novelists and 
 such people are not kept under lock and key. The illusion is 
 spoiled when you see them. Can't they go about under false 
 names ?" 
 
 " They are going to dance. See, Miranda goes out with Tom 
 Caledon. She always opens with him, because he is the best 
 dancer in England. I waltzed with him once at the last recep- 
 tion ball O— oh!" 
 
 If there is any more stately dance, any more entirely delight- 
 ful to watch, than the old-fashioned minuet, I should lae glad to 
 hear of it. There is the polonaise : there is a certain rhythmic 
 inarch, whose name I do not know, which one sees on the stage : 
 there is one single figure in the Lancers— the old Greek entre- 
 lacement of hands, right and IvSft, girls one way, the men the 
 other : all three have their beauty. And there is the waltz 
 danced by a couple who know how to dance, who knov/ that 
 the Teutonic rapture is to be got. not out of a senseless scramble 
 and a Dervish-like spin-totum movement, but by the skilful 
 swift cadences of feet and figure, when two pairs of feet and 
 two figures move together, actuated by a single will. But the 
 minuet de la cour is an altogether stately and beautiful dance. 
 There ai'e suggestions in it — the awakening of love, the timidity 
 of the lover, the respect due from cavalier to dame, the homage 
 of the strong to the weak, the courtesy of man to woman — 
 which are beautiful to look at when the thing is done as it was 
 done by the Order, smoothly and perfectly. The best among 
 them, despite years and figure, was Sister Desdeniona, who 
 trod the boards as if they were the stage, and took no more 
 account of the spectators than if they had been so many faces 
 in the stalls, or so many opera-glasses in the dress-circle. 
 
 When the minuet was finished, they h.id a grand quadrille ; 
 and then, forming once more in procession, the fraternity 
 marched down the hall, and disappeared. 
 
 2
 
 l8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 The music struck up a waltz, and the dancing began again. 
 
 Presently the Monks and the Sisters began one by one to 
 come back, this time in ordinary evening dress. The Abbesa 
 did not reappear, nor Brother Hamlet, nor Desdemona ; but 
 most of the others came in quietly, one by one, after they had 
 changed their dross. 
 
 There was a rush for the Sisters. Crafty men, who knew all 
 about the customs on reception-nights, had been careful to fill 
 up only the first dances on the card, keeping the rest free till 
 the Sisters should appear. There could be no doubt in any one's 
 mind that the fair inmates of the Abbey were, for the most 
 part, fairer and much more desirable than the young ladies who 
 were only guests. Not only were the Sisters all young, but they 
 were all beautiful, and represented nearly every conceivable 
 type of beauty. So that, taken together, they were contrasts ; 
 and taken separately, they were models. And they were all 
 young — the united ages of the nine, taking Sister Desdemona 
 out of the reckoning, would not make two hundred years — and 
 yet they were not so young as to be girlish and silly. The 
 charm of the very young lies wholly in innocence, ignorance, 
 And wonder. That soon palls : take in its place the charm of 
 a woman who, a girl still, has acquired the ideas, the culture, 
 the sense, and the esprit which only a year or two of the world 
 can give. It is a charm of which no man ever yet tired. Across 
 the Channel, our unfortunate friends of France can only get it 
 in the young married women. Hence the lamentable tone of 
 their novels, which no doubt represent, not the actual life of 
 Paris, but only Avhat daring novehsts believe, or wish to be, the 
 actual life. 
 
 Certainly no group of ten ladies more delightful than the 
 Sisters of Thelema could be found in England— and if not ia 
 England, certainly nowhere else in the world. They were not 
 united by any bond of common tastes or pursuits, but only by 
 the light chain of gentle breeding and regard for others. Thus, 
 Sister Silvia was a Ritualist, who thought that the oftener you 
 go to church the better it is for your soul, and that Cranmer, 
 Latimer, and Ridley were let oif very, very cheap, with mere 
 roasting. Cecilia, on the other hand, v/as a Catholic, avIio held 
 Ritualism in the contempt which is natural to one of the old 
 creed. But she kept her opinion behind the portals of sight 
 and speech, and did not allow it to be apparent. In the same 
 way, both Silvia and Cecilia lived in amity and perfect love 
 with Romola, who was scientific, had a laboratory, and made 
 really dreadful stinks. By the aid of these she proposed tc 
 carry on a crusade against ecclesiasticalism among her own sex. 
 Una, on the other hand, was artistic. She painted, modelled, 
 sketched ; she had strong ideas on the subjects of form and
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ig 
 
 colour ; she had a tall and slender figure -which lent itself to 
 almost any costume : and she liked heroines of novels to be 
 ivelte, lithe, and lissom. Sister Audrey was a genius. She 
 went to see all the new plays, and she had actually written a 
 play all by herself. It was offered in turn to every manager in 
 London. Their excuses were different, but their unanimity in 
 declining to produce it was as wonderful as it is always upon 
 the stage. For one manager, while regretting his decision very 
 much, said that if it wanted anything, there was a lack of inci- 
 dent ; and another, that the overloading of incident rendered 
 the play too heavy for modern dramatic representation ; a third 
 said that the leading incident was absolutely impossible to be 
 put on any stage ; a fourth, that the leading incident had been 
 done so often as to be quite common and stale ; a fifth, that the 
 dialogue, though natural, was tame ; a sixth, that the cut-and- 
 thrust repartee and epigram with which the dialogue was 
 crammed, gave the whole too laboured an air. And so, with one 
 consent, the managers, lessees, and proprietors refused that play. 
 In revenge, the author, who was an amateur actress, started 
 it in her own company, and represented it whenever she could 
 get a hearing. There was some piquancy at the idea of an amateur 
 play being given by an amateur company, but few of those who 
 saw it once desired to see it again, and even the company re- 
 belled for a time. So that now Sister Audrey had only the 
 reputation of an amateur success to go upon. She was planning 
 a second play on the great Robertsonian model, which, like many 
 other misguided creatures, she imagined to consist in having no 
 story to tell, and to tell it in a series of short barks, with rude- 
 nesses in place of wit. That was not Robertson's method, but 
 she thought it was. A bright, clever girl, who, had she been 
 content to cultivate the art of conversation, as she did the art 
 of writing, would have been priceless. Sister Audrey also wrote 
 novels, for the production of which she used to pay a generous 
 publisher £50 down, and, afterwards, the cost of printing, bind- 
 ing and advertising, multiplied by two. So that she did pretty 
 well in literature. In her novels the heroines always did things 
 just ever so little unconventional, and always had a lover who 
 had, in his early and wild days, been a guardsman. He had an 
 immense brown beard, in which she used to bury her innocent 
 face, while he showered a thousand kisses on her tresses. And 
 he was always punished by marrying the bad girl, who was big 
 and languid, quite heartless, and with a taste for port, so that 
 he lived ever after a remorseful life, haunted by memories of 
 his little Queenie gone broken-hearted. 
 
 Another of the Sisters, Cordelia, yearned to see womankind at 
 work ; broke her heart over committees and meetings for find- 
 ing them proper work ; lamented because none of them wanted 
 
 3—3
 
 20 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 to -novii, and because, after they had put their hands to the 
 plough, most of them turned back and sat down by the fire, 
 nursing babies. This seemed very sad to Cordelia. 
 
 Hero, again — she was a little bright-faced girl, not looking 
 a bit fierce — was a worshipper of " advanced" women. She 
 admired the " courage" of those who get up on platforms 
 and lecture on delicate and dangerous topics ; and she re- 
 fused to listen to the scoffer, when he siiggested that the 
 love of notoriety is with seme people stronger than the sense 
 of shame. 
 
 The least remarkable of the Sisters, so far as her personal 
 history was concerned, was the Abbess. Miranda had no 
 hobbies. And yet she was more popidar than any. This 
 was due to the charm of her manner, Avhich was sympathetic. 
 It is the charm which makes a woman loved as well as ad- 
 mired. Everybody confided in her : she was the confessor of 
 ill the Sisters and a good many of the Brothers. 
 As for these, we shall make their acquaintance later on. 
 All this time the ball is going on. 
 
 Kelly Despard found her card filled up in a few moments, 
 save for two little scratches she makes furtively opposite two 
 waltzes. She was flushed and excited by the strangeness of the 
 whole thing: the reception, the minuet cle la cour, and the ball 
 itself ; but the minuet above all. The reception was cold, 
 comparatively, because there was no audience. For the minuet 
 she had a large and appreciative assemblage. 
 
 Tom Caledon presented himself without any empressemcnt, 
 and quite leisurely. 
 
 " Did you think, Tom," she asked, with a little moue, " did 
 you think that I was going to keep my card waiting till you 
 condescended to ask me ?" 
 
 " All gone, Nell ? Not one left ?" 
 " Suppose I have kept two waltzes waiting for you." 
 " Thank you, Nell ; I knew I could depend upon you. You 
 always were a good fellow. Which are they ?" 
 
 Then she was caught up by her partner, and disappeared from 
 his sight. 
 
 Tom went wandering round the room, good-naturedly talking 
 to chaperons, and asking wall-flowers to dance with him, and 
 presently came his reward — with Nelly. 
 Two o'clock in the morning. 
 
 In the supper-room, Lord Alwyns, the Vicar, and the Pre- 
 bendary. 
 
 " The Church should countenance all innocent amusements," 
 said the dignitary. " Will you have another glass of cham- 
 pagne ?" 
 
 '* That is true," said Lord Alwyne ; " but I have looked in
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 21 
 
 rain for a Bislaop at a Four- in-Hand Meet. It was very pleasant 
 fooling to-night — glad to see Alan in it. I am going to visit 
 him to-morrow at his cottage. Fancy the owner of AVeyland 
 Court living in a labourer's cottage. Fancy a man five and 
 twenty years of age — sweet five and twenty — with Miranda 
 only half a mile away, and this perfect Paradise of Houris in 
 his own house, and yet — can he bo my son ?" 
 
 And at the same time, in another room in the Court, Alan 
 Dunlop, Miranda, and Desdemona. The two ladies are sitting 
 with shawls tied round their heads, at a window, opening to 
 the garden. Alan is standing half in, half out of the room. 
 They have forgotten the fooling, and are talking gravely. 
 
 " And you are not satisfied, Alan ?" asked Miranda. 
 
 "No," he replies, " I am very far indeed from being satisfied; 
 everything is going badly. I believe everything is worse than 
 when I began ; and I fail more and more to enter into their 
 minds. We do not understand each other, and every day, the 
 possibility of understanding each other seems more remote." 
 
 " All this trouble for nothing ? It cannot be, Alan." 
 
 " I fear it is. But it is late, Miranda ; I must go and got 
 three hours' sleep. I have a thatching job to begin at six." 
 
 He left them, and -walked rapidly away across the park. 
 
 Desdemona looked after him and sighed. 
 
 " What a pity," she said, taking a diiferent view to the poet, 
 "that he cannot give — to one — to a woman — that noble heart 
 which he squanders on mankind !" 
 
 But Miranda would not discuss that question. 
 
 " Listen," she said ; " that must be the last waltz. 1 almcst 
 V/ish I had gone back to the hall. But I wanted to talk to Alan 
 quietly. Good-night, dear Desdemona." 
 
 CHAPTER Hi. 
 
 "They swore strange oaths and wovsliippecl at strange shrines; 
 They mocked at whut the vulgar hold for holy : 
 2hey scoffed at teachers, preachers and divines : 
 And taught despair, with cultured melancholy. " 
 
 " The only fault in my son, Alan Dunlop," said his father, " is 
 that he wants youth. He has never been young, and yet he is 
 only five and twenty." 
 
 To want youth is a fault which, with most of us, grows every 
 day more confirmed. It is an incorrigible vice, which only c,et3 
 worse as the years run on. Here indeed we are all miseriibla
 
 22 TtlE MONKS OF THELEMA, 
 
 Kinners, and the greater the sin, that is, the farther off we ara 
 from youth, the greater the sorrow. Which is as it should bo. 
 
 Alan Dunlop as a boy was a dreamer, with a strong physique. 
 This impelled him into action. The way to make a great 
 reformer, is to get a boy whose brain is like a sponge for tho 
 reception of ideas, and like a hot-house for their growth ; but 
 when his physique is of iron, then you may make a bid at a 
 Luther. No use, however, to produce boys whose ideas are 
 magnificent, and temperaments torpid. lie was brought up in 
 the country altogether, at Weyland Court ; and as his mother 
 foolishly thought him delicate, he was educated till eighteen by 
 private tutors, under her own eyes. He was not delicate at all. 
 And one result of his training was, that he learned a great deal 
 more of books than if he had been at Eton ; but had no taste for 
 boys' games, and read immensely. By his father's orders, he 
 was made, when quite a small boy, to ride every day. Riding 
 and walking were his only methods of taking exercise. His 
 father, however, who spent a large part of his time in London, 
 did not otherwise interfere ; and on finding how very different 
 from himself this son of his was likely to turn out, ceased to 
 manifest much interest in his education. It was clear that a 
 boy who would joyfully spend his whole day in reading philo- 
 sophy and history, who delighted to hear conversation on books, 
 and the contents of books, would never have many points in 
 common with himself, who, as he frankly acknowledged, aimed 
 at nothing more elevated than to get out of life whatever plea- 
 sures a cultivated creature can. He found that there are a good 
 many pleasures accessible to the man who has health, a good 
 digestion, and a longish purse ; and he discovered as the years 
 went on, that with the drawback of east wind in the spring, 
 London offers a larger field of amusement than any other spot 
 on the habitable globe. To be sure. Lord Alwyne Fontaine en- 
 joyed exceptional advantages. He was the younger son of a 
 Duke. That gave him social position, without responsibilities. 
 He received an ample younger son's portion. He married a beau- 
 tiful woman — beauty was a necessity in his scheme of life — who 
 was also an heiress. Money was also a necessity in his scheme. 
 With his own fortune, his wife's fortune, and the splendid 
 estate and rent-roll which came to her, there was no obstacle to 
 his gratifying any reasonable wish. On the other hand, he did 
 not go on the turf ; nor did any sharks of the green table dip 
 into his purse ; nor did he bet, save in moderation ; nor did he 
 buy china. 
 
 When his son Alan was eighteen, and on the point of enter- 
 ing Lothian College, Oxford, his wife died. Weyland Court 
 with the broad acres round it passed to the Ron, who took hia
 
 THE MONKS OF THEl.EMA. 23 
 
 mother's name. The v/idower, for his share, had all that was 
 left of his wife's original fortune. 
 
 Then Lord Alwj-ne took chambers in London, and lived there, 
 Beeing little of his son, who paid him dutiful visits at the begin- 
 ning of vacations, if he passed through town, or when he came 
 up to London, not with the frivolous hope of finding amuse- 
 ment and innocent sport in the " little village," as some under- 
 graduates do, but in order to follow out some side-path which 
 led in the direction of culture and light, generally something to 
 do with Art. 
 
 He was a shy, reserved man, while an undergraduate. He 
 joined in none of the ordinary pursuits of the place ; was not 
 seen on the river or in the cricket-field ; apparently did not 
 know the meaning of billiards, and would have shrunk in horror 
 from such a feast as a freshman's supper-party, with songs after 
 it. He rode a good deal, but chiefly in a solitary way. He 
 furnished his rooms w'ith great sumptuousness, and was always 
 changing the furniture for new or old things, as, from time to 
 time, he changed his notions of advanced taste. He read the 
 customary things, but without enthusiasm, and subsequently 
 obtained a " second." He wrote a good deal of verse, and 
 astonished rather than pleased himself by getting the Kcw- 
 digate. 
 
 He was not, however, given over to solitude. On the con- 
 trary, he lived a great deal with his own set. 
 
 This was the set who, in religion, politics, the science of life, 
 and literature, possessed the advanced ideas. It was the 
 " thoughtful" set. This class read Mill, or pretended to ; read 
 Comte, or pretended to ; read Euskin, and talked about putting 
 his ideas in practice ; read — which is the shortest road nowadays 
 to learning — all the reviews on all the new books, so that they 
 could talk as if they had read the books themselves ; stood 
 before pictures in a row for half an hour together, in silence, 
 as if the thoughts that arose in them were too deep for words ; 
 took up an engraving and laid it down with a sigh ; circulated 
 little poems, not unlike the sonnets of Mr. Rossetti, or the 
 earlier poems of Swinburne, to whom indeed they owed their 
 inspiration, which they showed to each other, and carried about 
 as if they were precious, precious things which only they and 
 'heir set were worthy to receive. Mostly the verses turned on 
 events of but little interest in themselves, as for instance one, 
 written by Rondelet himself, mystic and weird, showed how the 
 poet stood beneath an archway during a shower, and saw a girl, 
 who came thei'O for the same purpose, having no umbrella. 
 That was all. That was the pathos of it : she had no um- 
 brella. Some, of course, were on hazardous subjects, the dis- 
 ciples holding the creed, in Gommon with the author of " Jenny,"
 
 24 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 that Art can be worthily bestowed upon any subject whatever. 
 They read, or affected to read, a good deal of certain modern 
 French verse — not Victor Hugo's Men entendu. 
 
 When Alan Dunlop was in his second year, the Great Move- 
 ment of the Nineteenth Century began ; at least, that is what 
 they called it. I believe it was Alan himself who started it. I 
 mean, of course, the project for advancing humanity by digging 
 ditches and making roads. They sallied forth, these pioneers 
 and humanists, spade in hand ; they dug and were not a bit 
 ashamed : in the evening they came home slowly, with backs 
 that ached a great deal, with hands blistered where they were 
 not horny, and with a prodigious appetite, to dine in each 
 other's rooms, talk much about the canons of Art, which they 
 thought they understood, drank vast quantities of claret, spoke 
 judicially on all subjects under the sun, sighed and became 
 melancholy over the little poems of which I have spoken, and 
 lamented the deplorable ignorance of their elders. A. distin- 
 guishing mark indeed of the school was the tender pity with 
 which they regarded the outer world ; another was their con- 
 tempt for all other views of life or things. If they met men 
 who held other views — a thing which will happen to even the 
 most exclusive set — they sought to overwhelm them with a 
 single question — only one. They would look up quickly, when 
 there was a pause, and fire their one question, after the manner 
 of Sokrates, as they spelt his name. They did not look for a 
 reply. Now and then they got one, and were even sometimes 
 held up to public derision by some blatant North-countryman, 
 who not only would keep his own vile Philistine opinion, but 
 also dared to defend it. 
 
 Their leader was Mr. Paul Rondelet, the author of most of 
 the little manuscript poems. He really was almost too highly 
 cultured, so much so that he could not possibly avoid pitying 
 his fellow-creatures. He was rather a tall man, with a droop 
 in his head ; and he had long white fingers, which played plain- 
 tively about his face while he sat. He spoke in a low voice, as 
 if exhausted by the eil'ort of living among humans ; and he 
 spoke with melancholy, as if his superiority were a burden to 
 him ; he affected omniscience ; he talked in a vague way, but a 
 good deal, about the Renaissance — an epoch which his school 
 keep bottled up all for themselves, as if it were to be enjoyed 
 only by the worthy ; he said that we have only one great living 
 poet, Mr. Kossetti ; and one who would be gi'eat if his meaning 
 were not so plain and simple, Mr. Browning. He said also that 
 the greatest master of modern English is Mr. Pater, and that 
 Mr. Whistler is the greatest artist. He shuddered when Chris- 
 tianity was mentioned ; he groaned when any one admired any 
 other modern writer, poet, or painter. As regards politics, ha
 
 The monks oh^ thelema. 25 
 
 thongbt a refined despair the only attitude worthy of a great 
 intellect, and he wished to convey the impression that behind 
 his brow lay infinite possibilities— things— which would make 
 the whole world wonder when they came to be actually done, 
 could he be only — ah ! if only— persuaded to pass from medita- 
 tion to action. He had got a First in the History Tripos, and 
 was a martinet in historical matters ; went into agonies if any 
 one used the word Anglo-Saxon ; grew angry over the Holy 
 Roman Empire ; called Charlemagne, Karl, and Lorraine, Loth- 
 ringen ; spelt his Greek words as in the Greek character, and 
 startled the unwary by talking of Kuros, Thoukudides, Alki- 
 biades, and Korkura ; almost ahead of the most advanced line ; 
 admitted nothing good except in Germany, yet had a secret 
 passion for Zola, Feydeau, Belot, and other writers. He had 
 no money, being the son of a country vicar Avith a living of 
 £500 a year ; and his fellowship would expire unless he took 
 Holy Orders in a very few years. If it had not been for the 
 amazing conceit in expression, in attitude, and in voice, Mr. 
 Eondelet would have been certainly good-looking. _ Nature 
 meant him even to be handsome ; too much culture spoiled that 
 intention. 
 
 It was, as a matter of fact, a school of prigs. The truthful 
 historian cannot deny it. Many of them were unhealthy and 
 even morbid prigs. Some of them are still at Oxford ; but 
 some may now be found in London. They lounge about sales 
 of china and hric-d-lrac, they take afternoon tea at the Club, 
 and they worship at the Grosvenor Gallery. They are not loved 
 by any men that I have come across, but are greatly believed 
 in by certain women. They are always promising to do great 
 things, but nothing ever comes. Meantime, they grow daily 
 sadder and yet more sad over the wretched stuff which the out- 
 gide world, the babbling, eager, fighting world, calls art, poetry, 
 and fiction. 
 
 Alas ! the outside world cares nothing for its prigs ; it goes 
 on being amused ; it refuses any hearing to people who neither 
 amuse nor instruct ; it is, as it ever has been, a world of hu- 
 manity, and not a world of prigs. Things there are which one 
 cannot understand about these young men. What will they be 
 like when they grow old ? Why do they all talk so much about 
 the Renaissance? And will they go on thinldng it a proof of 
 superior intellect to affect the atheist of the Italian scholar 
 type? Surely the 'vrorks of Beccadelli and Filclfo must pall 
 after a time. 
 
 Alan Dunlop was, as an undergraduate, no mean disciple of 
 this academy ; but he had saving qualities. He was in earnest 
 while the other men were mostly playing, and he had the 
 courage of his convictions. He was the last to abandon th^^
 
 26 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 sacred task of digging ditches and making roads, and only care 
 it up when it became quite clear to him that he could do uo 
 more good, single-spaded, to humanity. Then he began to cast 
 about for some other and some better way. Nothing was to be 
 too rough, nothing too difficult ; nothing was to require too hard 
 work, if it only was the best thing to do. 
 
 He remembered, too, that he was wealthy, and, with his friends 
 of the exalted school, began to talk about the responsibility of 
 wealth. It is rare and highly refreshing to find a rich man 
 trying to pass with all his baggage on his back through that 
 narrow archway, intended solely for unladen foot passengers, 
 known as the " Camel's Eye." Many, therefore, were the dis- 
 cussions held among the small circle of intimate philosophers, 
 as to the duties which this responsibility involved. Prigdom 
 was agitated. As none of them had a farthing except Alan, all 
 were agreed on the doctrine of self-sacrifice. The advancement 
 of humanity was to be the aim : the means, so far as one set of 
 most superior spirits could effect, were to be the fortune of the 
 only rich man among them. There were some, Eondelet among 
 them, who went so far as to hint at a general division of the 
 property, so that instead of one, there might be half-a-dozen 
 apostles. Alan Dunlop could not, however, be brought to see 
 things in this light, and it was clearly impossible to ask him to 
 divide in so many words. 
 
 " There is no work," said Eondelet, who would not have gone 
 a step out of his way to pick up a fallen man, " that is not 
 honourable in the cause of humanity." 
 
 " True," murmured a certain weak brother whose faith was 
 small, and who afterwards became that thing which young Ox- 
 ford mostly contemns, a clerical fellow, and a methodical parish 
 curate. " True ; you remember, by the way, how Jerome 
 Paturot, in the sacred cause of humanity, blacked the boots of 
 the fraternity." 
 
 " Of course," Eondelet replied, " one means real work." 
 
 " Blacking boots i& real work, as well as digging ditches. Try 
 it for an hour or two." 
 
 " The thing is," said Dunlop, '•' to find out what is the best 
 work to do, and then to do it, whatever it may be. We have to 
 find out, each for himself, our proper place in the great army, 
 and our work when we get there." 
 
 " One thing at least is certain," said Eondelet loftily ; " it 
 will be ours to conimand." 
 
 " Say, rather," Dunlop replied, " to lead." 
 
 With that conviction, that his business was to lead, he loft 
 Oxford. It was not a bad conviction for a young man to begin 
 the world with. 
 
 His friend, Eondelet, as I havo explained, was fortunate in
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 27 
 
 obtaining a fellowship. He remained behind to lecture, sitting 
 Badly, for this was a sort of thing far below a man of intellect 
 and culture, in the College Chapel ; listening mournfully to the 
 talk of the senior Dons, poor harmless creatures, contented wit! 
 the wisdom of their forefathers ; commenting to undergraduates, 
 on Plato with the melancholy which comes of finding that all 
 modern philosophy and all modern theology are exploded things ; 
 an object of interest to some, and of intense dislike to others. 
 As most of the undergraduates revolted from the new paganism 
 of these young lecturers, and went over to Ritualism, with a 
 tendency to become 'verts, Mr. Rondelet grew sadder. Also it 
 grew daily into a more melancholy subject of reflection with 
 him, that unless he took Holy Orders, unless he became that 
 despicable thing upon which he poured out so many vials of 
 pity and contempt, his fellowship would shortly leave him, and 
 he would actually — he — Rondelet— become penniless. He, with 
 his really cultivated taste for claret, and with a love for little 
 dinners in which dining was exalted to a fine art, and with a 
 taste for all that a young bachelor mostly desires ! 
 
 For it is an extraordinary thing to observe how the superior 
 class, while they can never sufficiently deride and pity the 
 British workman who gets drunk— Tom and 'Arry who go down 
 to Margate brandishing bottles of stout, and the honest British 
 tradesman who when his income expands lets two puddings 
 smoke upon the board — are of all men the least inclined to forego 
 the pleasures of the senses. No anchorites, the prigs of the 
 nineteenth century ; and if they do not drink so much as their 
 ancestors, it is that they have discovered the very much greater 
 pleasui'e to be got by keeping the palate clean, in which we had 
 better all imitate them. 
 
 At two-and-twenty Alan Dunlop returned to Weyland Court, 
 eager to start upon his career as a regenerator of the world. 
 
 How to begin ? 
 
 Miranda, who was now eighteen, and as beautiful as the day, 
 was as eager as himself to witness the rapid strides in the direc- 
 tion of culture about to be made by the peasantry of the place. 
 They held constant council together. The experiment was to 
 be tried by Alan Dunlop on his own people first, and, if suc- 
 cessful, was to be repeated on hers. That was right, because, 
 as a girl, she would not enter personally on the struggle with 
 such vigour or such authority as her friend. She would watch 
 while he worked ; she would make notes and compare, and set 
 forth results. Meantime they had no doubt but that in a short 
 time the manners of ihe people would be raised almost to their 
 own level. 
 
 " Of course they will give up drink, Alan," said Miranda. 
 
 " That must be the first thing. I will begin by becoming a
 
 28 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 teetotaler." Alan said this with a sigh, for like the majority of 
 manlcind, the juice of the grape was pleasant unto him. " We 
 must lead, Miranda." 
 
 "Yes." She too sighed, thinking of champagne at suppers 
 and luncheons. " And smoking too," added Miranda. 
 
 " Yes, I shall burn all my cigar-cases, and turn the smoking- 
 room at the Court into an additional study." This, too, was a 
 sacrifice, because the "school" at Oxford were fond of choice 
 brands, 
 
 " And they must be encouraged to choose subjects of 
 study." 
 
 " Yes," said Alan, " of that we must talk very seriously. 
 V/hat should they study first ?" 
 
 It was decided that they could not do better than begin with 
 the science of Hygiene. 
 
 The two conspirators took a leisurely stroll down the village 
 street, which was half a mile long, with cottages on either 
 Bide. 
 
 There was clearly a good deal of work before this village 
 could become a city of Hygeia, and the hearts of both glowed 
 at the prospect of tough work before them, just as the heart of 
 Hercules must have glowed when he smelt and beheld the 
 Augean stable ; or that of Mr. Gladstone must bound with 
 gladness when ho stands before some more than usually tough 
 monarch of the forest, while crowds are there to witness bus 
 dexterity. 
 
 Miranda Dalmeny, not j-et Abbess of Thelema, was in ona 
 respect like Alan. She was an heiress, and owner of an esi,ate 
 which ma.vched with that of Alan Dunlop. Her father was 
 dead, and by his death she became at once one of the richest 
 girls in a rich county. Her house, far inferior in stately grandeur 
 to Weyland Court, stood on the edge of Weyland Park. It was 
 called Dahneny Hall. Here she lived with her mother, who was 
 an invalid ; a fact which kept her almost entirely in the country. 
 And here, from infancy, she had knoAvn Alan Dunlop. As 
 children they walked, ran, and rode together ; as boy and girl 
 they played, quarrelled, made it up, and told each other all their 
 thoughts. Then came a time when Miranda, more feminiao, 
 retired within l;eiself, and felt no longer the desire to pour con- 
 fidences into Alan's ear. He, however, went on stiU. So that 
 she followed him through his boyish readings ; through the 
 speculations with which he amused his tutor in the critical age 
 of sixteen to eighteen ; and through the realms of imjiossible 
 culture, wliich his imagination, while an undergraduate, reveaJcd 
 to the astonished girl. 
 
 They were, in a way, like brother and sister. And yet — 
 and yet— brothers and sisters may kiss each other with kisses
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 29 
 
 wl'.ich Hooil calls "insipid tilings, like sandwiches of veal." 
 And indeed they do lacl: a something. Brother and sister may 
 know each other's tendencies and motives without being told ; 
 they may tease each other ; they may depend upon each other, 
 ask services of each other, and exact as well as give. Alan 
 Dunlop and Miranda did not kiss each other ; they did not 
 exact any service, nor did they tease each other, nor did they 
 pretend to any knowledge of motive, tendency, or aim in each 
 other. So far they were not brother and sister. Yet they 
 always comforted each other with the thought that such was 
 their relationship. They wrote long letters one to the other, 
 and they had long talks, rides, and evenings together. Weyland 
 Court was a dull great place for a young man to be in all 
 alone ; and he spent most of his time, while in the country, at 
 Dalmeny Hall. 
 
 Alan "began his grand experiment in the advance of humanity 
 with a lecture in the school-room. 
 
 The labourers all came, all listened with the same stolid stare 
 or closed eyes with which they received the Vicar's sermon. 
 The Vicar was there, too ; he sat in the chair and contemplated 
 the audience with a benevolent but incredulous smile. 
 
 When the lecture was over, he began to throw cold water, aa 
 experienced Vicars will, en the young Squire's projects. 
 " It was delightful, Alan, and so true," cried Miranda. 
 " Yes, yes !" said the Vicar. " Did you notice their faces, 
 Weyland ?" 
 
 " Not much ; I was thinking of my subject." _ 
 " I did ; they wore exactly the same expression as they have 
 in church, during the sermon. My dear boy, I have watched 
 them for five and twenty years ; I have tried them with every 
 kind of sermon, and nothing makes any difference with them." 
 Miranda looked as if the appearance of a young prophet 
 would make all the difference. The Vicar understood her look, 
 and smiled. 
 
 The lecture had been on the " Beauty of Cleanliness." It 
 will hardly be believed that next day not one single attempt was 
 made to improve the village, and yet the language of the dis- 
 course was worthy of Ruskin, an imitation, indeed, of that great 
 writer's style. 
 
 This was disheartening. 
 
 The young Squire tried another lecture, and yet another, and 
 a fourth ; yet no outward improvement was visible. 
 
 " You have sown the seed, Alan," said Miranda, consoling 
 him. 
 
 O woman — woman ! when disappointment ri\cks the 
 
 brow ! 
 
 But this was seed which, like mustard and cresrt, ought to
 
 30 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 come up at once if it meant to come up at alL It did not 
 come up. 
 
 " What shall I do ?" Alan asked the Vicar. 
 
 " You are young ; you are anxious to do the best, and you do 
 not see your way. That is all natural. Tell me, Alan, do you 
 think that a three years' residence at Oxford has been quite 
 enough by itself to teach you the great art of managing and 
 leading men ? Believe me, there is no task that a man can pro- 
 pose to himself more mighty, more worthy or more difficult." 
 
 Alan assented to the objection. 
 
 " You think I have begun too soon, then ? Perhaps a year's 
 more reading " 
 
 " Hang the reading, man ! You have begun without compre- 
 hending mankind, Alan. Put away your books, and look around 
 you. AVhenever you are trying to find out how other people 
 look at things, remember that there are a hundred ways of 
 looking a-t everything, and that every one of these ways may be 
 burlesqued and misrepresented, so as to become contemptible to 
 ninety-nine men, but not to the hundredth man. That is the 
 important thing. You've got to consider that hundredth man ; 
 you'll find him always turning up, and he is, I do assure you, 
 "the very deuce and all to manage." 
 
 Alan laughed. 
 
 "And if I were you, my boy, I would travel. See the world. 
 Go by yourself, and forget your theories." 
 
 Alan consulted Miranda. She urged him, because, with 
 womanly insight, she saw that he was yet unripe for the task 
 he had set himself, to take a year of quiet wandering. 
 
 " Travel," the Vicar wrote to Lord Alwyne, " will knock the 
 new-fangled nonsense out of his head." 
 
 It would, in fact, do nothing of the kind ; it would only 
 modify the new-fangled nonsense, and give the traveller new 
 ideas with which to mould his schemes. 
 
 Alan packed up his portmanteau, shook hands with Miranda, 
 and went away by himself. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "Home-keeping youtbs have ever liomoly wits." 
 
 " Once away from England and the new crotchets," repealed 
 the Vicar, " Alan will come round again." 
 
 " Do you think men can grow out of prigdom?" asked Lord 
 Alwyne plaintively.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 31 
 
 " Define me a prig," returned tlie Vicar. 
 
 " Definition requires thought. It is hardly worth the exer- 
 tion." 
 
 Lord Alwyne sat up, and nerved himself for an effort. 
 
 " Yet you recognise a prig when he speaks, just as you know 
 a cad when you see him, and before he speaks. Not only does 
 the prig approach every subject from the point of view peculiar 
 to prigdom, but all prigs speak in the same tone. Do you 
 remember the Oxford prig when we were undergraduates ? He 
 had advanced views, if I remember right, about episcopal autho- 
 rity. He was offensively and ostentatiously earnest, too. But 
 he was mild — our prig was m.ild— compared to the modern 
 creatures among v/hom my unhappy son has thrown away his 
 youth. Let us define a prig as a man who ovei'does everything. 
 He becomes a prig because he is not equal to his assumed 
 position. He is not, for instance, equal to the duties of a 
 critic, and falls back upon unquestioned maxims, which rule his 
 epii;Jons. And the universal maxim among prigs is that no one 
 has a right to be heard outside their own body. I wonder," he 
 went on with a sigh, " I really wonder what unfortunate 
 Oxford has done to be so plagued with prigs. You go to Cam- 
 bridge, and you find them not— at least, I am told they are 
 rai'e. At Oxford there are two or three gathered together in 
 every Common Room." 
 
 " it is the effect of too much cultivation on a weak brain," 
 said the Vicar, " and wears off as men get older. Affectations 
 never last in theology, literature, or art. These young men have 
 nothing new to say, and yet desire greatly to seem to have 
 something new. So they invent a sort of jargon, and call it 
 the only language for the expression of the ' higher thought !' " 
 
 " Yes," said Lord Alwyne, " everything with them is in the 
 comparative degree. There is the higher thought, the nobler 
 aim, the truer method — meaning, I suppose, their own thought, 
 and aim, and method. Well— Avell ! and so you really think, 
 Vicar, that my son will come back improved ; will drop the 
 livery of prigdom, and talk and think like other people," 
 
 " I am sure he will," said the Vicar confidently. 
 
 Alan was away for two years. During this space of time he 
 went all round the world making observations, his object being 
 chiefly to discover how best to lead his fellow-men. 
 
 First he went to Quebec. On the steamer he made the 
 acquaintance of the third officer, a man of great experience, 
 who had once been admiral in command of the fleet of the Imam 
 of Muscat. He resigned his appointment because the Imam 
 refused to rank him higher thau the twenty wives' allowance, 
 whereas he stuck out for sucb superior rank as is granted bjT 
 right to forty wives.
 
 32 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Kot," said the honest felloAV, " that / wanted twenty wives, 
 bless you, nor forty neither, being of opinion that a sailor gets 
 on best when he's got nobody to draw his pay but himself. 
 But the honour of my country was at stake. So I struck my 
 pennant, and came away ; and here I am, aboard the Corsican, 
 third officer in the Dominion Lino. That's a drop from an 
 admiral, ain't it !" 
 
 Alan did not remember to have heard any of the customs 
 peculiar to Muscat, and was surprised to learn that the people 
 were most open to influence, and most easily persuaded. He 
 asked hov/ that influence was maintained. 
 
 "Give your orders," said the ex-admiral. "If they don't 
 carry out them orders, cut their livers out." 
 
 This method, however effective, was clearly impracticable as 
 regarded Alan's own tenants. And yet it seemed to himself by 
 no means unsuitable to the people of Muscat. Why was this ? 
 Why should a thing good for Muscat be bad for England ? 
 He reflected, however, that he had not yet so far schooled him- 
 self in the enthusiasm of humanity as to recognise an equal in 
 every thick-skulled negro or wily Asiatic. So that it could not, 
 really, be good for IMuscat to cut out livers. 
 
 When he got to Quebec he began to make inquiries about the 
 French Canadians. They bore the best character in the world. 
 They were pious, he vras told ; they were sober ; they were in- 
 dustrious ; they were honest ; they were fond parents of a pro- 
 lific ofi:spring. He went among them. After, with great diffi- 
 culty, getting to understand their language — their talk is that 
 of a country district in Normandy, in the seventeenth century 
 — he found out that they were all these things — and more. 
 The more was not so attractive to the stranger. Their con- 
 tentment he found was due to profound ignorance, and their 
 want of enterprise to their contentment. 
 
 " You may lead the people," a priest told him, " with the 
 greatest ease, so long as you do not ask them to receive a single 
 new idea." 
 
 Now what Alan wanted was, to insp'ire his people with the 
 newest of ideas, and with an ardent desire for new ideas. What 
 seemed good for French Canadians was not good for English- 
 men. So he went westward — stopped a few nights at Montreal, 
 which is the place where the English Canuk, the French Cana- 
 dian, the Yankee, the Englishman, the Scotchman, the Irishman, 
 the German, and the Jew meet, and try their sharpness on each 
 other. It is a very promising city, and will some day become 
 •illustrious. But there was little reason for a social philosopher 
 to stay there. He went still westward, and reached Toronto. 
 This was like being at Edinburgh. There, however, he heard of 
 those backwood settlements where the forests have been cleared,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 33 
 
 and the land planted, by men who ■^•ent there axe in hand, and 
 nothing else. It is only a single day's journey to get from the 
 flat shores of Toronto, and the grey waves of Lake Ontario, to 
 the hills and rocks, the lakes, firs, and hemlocks of the back- 
 woods. And there Alan found himself among a people who 
 were not led, but who moved on by themselves, under the guid- 
 ance of their own sense and resolution. This phenomenon / 
 surprised him greatly, and he made copious notes. None, how- 
 ever, of the stalwart farmers could give him any philosophical 
 reasons for the advance of the colony. 
 
 " We send the little ones to school," one of them told him. 
 " We have our singing choirs and our lectures, and our farms to 
 attend to, and we m_ean to push on somehow." 
 
 That is the difference, Alan observed, between the common 
 Englishman and the Canadian. Thelatter means to push on some- 
 how. How to instil that idea into his own people ? He made 
 more notes, and returned to Toronto. Then he went to Niagara 
 and stayed there for a month, meditating ov6r against the mighty 
 Falls, till the echoes of the thiindering river, rolling louder and 
 louder, and the thought of the mass of ever-falling waters 
 growing daily greater and greater, grew too loud and too vast 
 for his brain ; and then he came away. He was perplexed by 
 the contrast of the French Canadians, led by their priests, who 
 never want to move, and the English led by the one thought, 
 that they " mean to push on somehow," which is to them like 
 the cloud of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night. And 
 he tlaought all the time of his own rustics who came like sheep 
 to his lectures, sat like shesp while he delivered them, and went 
 away understanding no more than sheep. 
 
 However, in the States he would certainly learn something. 
 Everybody who is going to try a new social experiment should 
 begin by going to America, if only to strengthen his faith. 
 This, in new social experiments, is apt to be shaken by the fear 
 of ridicule. Anything like a novel adjustment of the relations 
 between capital and labour, landlord and tenant, farmer and 
 labourer, buyer and seller, husband and wife, governor and 
 governed, requires in England such extraordinary courage and 
 confidence that it is absolutely indispensable first to visit a 
 country where new institutions are attempted without such 
 hesitation and fear. New things are tried in America which 
 would be impossible in England, and yet they do not succeed, 
 because, I suppose, the most red-hot reformer becomes Conser- 
 vative when you touch the unwritten laws by which all his 
 ideas are governed unconsciously to himself. 
 
 Alan Dunlop was going, somehow, to reconstruct the whole 
 of the social fabric. He was about to shov/' on the small scale 
 of bis own estates how culture — what his friends called " The 
 
 a
 
 34 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Higlier Culture," sighing when they thought how rare it is— 
 may co-exist with the necessities of the roughest daily toil, and 
 differences in rank or station be recognised by those who are yet 
 all equal in their love of " The Higher Art." It had been hia 
 favourite thesis, disputed by the rest, while still among the 
 prigs, that this was not only possible, but within the comp-ass 
 and power of any one man. 
 
 "Why," he would ask, Vv'ith as much warmth as the fashion 
 of his school allows, " why should a man, because he goes out 
 hedging and ditching, because he carts muck, feeds pigs, even" 
 — he shuddered — " even kills them, be unable to rise to the 
 levels on which We stand ? Can we not im.agine him, when his 
 work is done, sitting with thankful heart in the contemplation 
 of some precious work, over which thought may plunge ever 
 deeper, and never come to the end of all it teaches ?" 
 
 It was generally conceded that the imagination might go so 
 far as to conceive this vision. Then Alan would continue to 
 argue that whatever the mind of man can conceive, the hand of 
 man can execute ; in other words, that the ploughman might be 
 gently and yet rapidly led upward, till his thoughts rested 
 habitually on the highest levels. And this was his mission in 
 life. 
 
 He visited, and examined with the greatest interest, all the 
 new social and religious communities which he could hear of. 
 There were those modern Essenes who have everything in 
 common, and who neither marry nor are given in marriage ; 
 those thinkers who hold that divorce should be granted on the 
 formal request of either party to the contract of that partner- 
 ship, which we English hold to be indissoluble even by common 
 consent of both husband and wife, except for reasons held by 
 law sufficient ; the community who divide the work among 
 each other, and serve it out irrespective of liking or fitness, so 
 that he who would fain be writiug at home has to go out and 
 weed the cabbages or sell the strawberries ; the people who 
 work or are idle just as they please ; the institution — in this he 
 was particularly interested — in which the rude farm-work of 
 the morning is followed by transcendental discussion in the 
 evening. Alan was disappointed here, because he only had one 
 evening to spare for the place, and they asked so much about 
 England that it was bed- time before the philosophy began. 
 Then he visited a community in which emancipated woman 
 ruled subject man, and let him have a rough time, until he 
 either revolted or ran away. And he Vv'ent to see the place 
 Avhere the Elect live together, and dance for the love of the 
 Lord. Then he became acquainted with the doctrines and 
 tenets of vegetarians, egg-and-fruit-arians, wheat-and-corn- 
 arians, and total abstainers. He found a little knot of people
 
 rHE MONKS OF THELEMA. 35 
 
 who would have neither ruler, magistrate, elder, priest, nor 
 clergj^man among them at all, but ruled their affairs for them- 
 selves by a parUament which sits every evening for seven days 
 in the week, and where the talk never ceases. This is the 
 reason why, outside their Parliament House, they are a silent 
 folk. He also visited the Mormons, the Mennonites, and Oneida 
 Creek. And everywhere he made notes. 
 
 In all his researches on the American continent, he was struck 
 with the fact that the people had no leaders ; they seemed to 
 lead themselves. That unhappy country has no heaven-sent 
 and hereditary officers. They have to live without these aids 
 to civilisation ; and it must be owned they seem to get on very 
 well by themselves. But the British labourer requires— he 
 absolutely requires — thought Alan, to be led. And how to 
 load him? How to acquire influence over him? How to be- 
 come his prophet ? How to instil into his mind a purpose ? 
 Thia ireadful difficulty oppressed onr inquiring traveller, fol- 
 lowed him from one country to another, and became at times a 
 sort of Old Man of the Island upon his shoulders. 
 
 " Send him over here, sir," said an American with whom he 
 discussed, Vifithout exposing his own views, the character of the 
 British ploughman ; " send him over here, sir ! He can't sit 
 dov/n and be contented in this climate. Discontent is in the 
 air ; ambition is in the air ; and there are no parish work- 
 houses. What you've done with yotir labourer is this : you've 
 plpaited him in a juicy and fertile country, where the rain and 
 fogs make him crave for drink. He's got a farmer driving him 
 at starvation wages on the one side, and the clergyman's wife 
 and the squire's wife and daughters cockering him up on the 
 other. What with too low wages and too much alms-taking, 
 you've knocked all the man out of him. Here he gets no 
 cockering ; there's no squire, no vicar, no union, and no distri- 
 bution of blankets and flannel. You go home, sir, and try your 
 folk on our tack for fifty years or so." 
 
 That was absurd, when Alan wanted to show his results in 
 five years, or therealaouts. 
 
 " Of course," his American friend went on, "of course it ii 
 absurd to tell you, sir, because you know it already, the main 
 difference between our men and yours." 
 
 " You mean- 
 
 i( 
 
 I mean the land. When you get your yeomen back again, 
 if ever you do, you will find that out. Do you own land, sir ?" 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Then let your men buy it up on easy terms ; and then you 
 leave them alone to work out their own salvation." 
 
 This was a hard saying for a young man who had great pos- 
 Bessions—give up his land, and then leave the people aloao?
 
 36 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 What then was the good of having been a leader in under> 
 graduate advanced circles, and an acknowledged exponent of 
 the Higher Thought ?" 
 
 After his experiences in the Eastern States, he crossed the 
 Continent, and visited California ; there he went to see mining 
 cities, the Yosemite Valley, the City of Sacramento, and the 
 Chinese quarter of San Francisco. There were also the lions. 
 From San Francisco he went to Japan, which he found Angli- 
 cised ; and from Japan he went to Hong Kong. This enabled 
 him to visit the sleepy old city of Macao, where the manners 
 and customs are half of Portugal, half of China, and Canton. 
 The student in social economy cannot get much assistance from 
 the Chinese. A nation who, when they have got a man too 
 lazy, too vicious, too worthless for anything else, make him a 
 priest, may be used by advanced thinkers to point an epigram 
 or illustrate a sneer, but cannot inspire such enthusiasm as 
 leads to admiration. 
 
 Alan completed his journey round the world in the usual 
 way — he went to Calcutta, Delhi, Simla, Cashrnere, and Bombay. 
 He landed at Suez, and after the usual voyage up the Nile and 
 down again, he rode through the Holy Iiand, and thence across 
 Asia Minor to Erzeroum, finishing the whole by travelling from 
 Odessa to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and so home. I hope 
 that he finds the observations he then made on Russian civilisa- 
 tion of use to him at the present juncture. 
 
 It is not given to every young man of three or four and 
 twenty to make this extended survey of humanity in general. 
 The general effect produced on the mind of this traveller was 
 revolutionary. Partly, as the Vicar anticipated, the old things 
 fell away from hitn. He ceased to think in the narrow grooves 
 of exclusive prigdom ; he found that men and women may held 
 different views from himself, and yet be pleasant, and not 
 Philistine ; he saw that a good deal of the Art he had been 
 taught to reverence was but a poor thing, conveying in stiff 
 pretence at ease, weak or well-used thoughts with feebleness of 
 expression ; he understood what a wretched quality is that in- 
 tellectual conceit which he had been accustomed to think a 
 mark of distinction ; and he really did quite succeed in compre- 
 hending that Oxford is not the centre of the universe ; and he 
 left off being sad. Now these were great gains- He wrote to 
 Miranda on his arrival in London : 
 
 " I hope to see you the day after to-morrow. I have an im- 
 mense deal to say, both of the past and the future. I think I 
 have discovered my error in the past, and its remedy for the 
 future. We tried to improve our people by injunction and pre- 
 cept, pointing out methods and rules. That I am convinced is 
 not the best way. They will neither be led nor ordered. But
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 37 
 
 Buppose, Miranda, that one were to walk beside them, work with 
 them, eat with them, play with them, be one of them, and tho- 
 roughly enter into their very thoughts— how would that do ?" 
 
 "How would that do?" echoed Miranda in dismay, as she 
 read the letter. " And what in the world does Alan mean ? Is 
 he going to put on a smock-frcck ?" 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Rich witli the spoils of travel, lioine he cam*." 
 
 AiiAN came home. As a dutiful son he called upon his father, 
 in his chambers. Both were agreeably surprised. The father 
 did not seem to the son so frivolous as he had been, nor did 
 the son appear to the father so weighed down with the respon- 
 sibilities of his position. 
 
 " I congratulate you, Alan," said Lord Alwyne— it was at 
 noon ; the man of the world celebrated his son's return, after the 
 fashion of the world, with a little mid- day luncheon, which he 
 called a breakfast — " I congratulate you, my son. You have 
 seen the world, and shaken oft: your Oxford crotchets." 
 
 " Say, exchanged some of them for new ones, and modified 
 others," said Alan. " AVe were ignorant at Oxford ; but we 
 rsed to search for ideas. If I am changed, however, you are 
 not." 
 
 " I am two years older, which is two years worse. In other 
 respects, I believe I am much the same as when j-ou last saw 
 me. Life has nothing new to offer after fifty ; and it is a good 
 thing to enjoy the same old pleasures. I still find good wine 
 desirable ; I prefer young women to old ; I like cheerful people 
 better than those who weep ; and though the cask is getting 
 low, I am glad to say that it still runs clear." 
 
 His son looked round the room. His father was quite right, 
 and there was no change. The same statuettes, pictuz-es, and 
 books, the same comfortable chairs, the same air of studied and 
 artistic pleasantness about everything, as if the very furniture 
 had to be consulted about its companions. And on the little 
 table in the window, the same pile of letters and invitations ; 
 most of them in feminine handwriting. No change ; and yet 
 he did not find this kind of hfe so entirely frivolous as in the 
 old days, when to think of his father's manner of living was to 
 raifc up the fifth commandment before his eyes like a ghost, 
 with warning gesture. Surely Alan Dunlop had made a great 
 Btep out of pngdom when he arrived at the stage of toleration 
 for a life whirh was not tormented by a sense of responsibility.
 
 38 THE MONKS OF THE L EM A. 
 
 He even envied his father. Not that he would exist in the sama 
 way ; but he envied the happy temper which enables a man to 
 live in the passing moment, and to let each single day begin and 
 end a round of endeavours after happiness. 
 
 " If one may ask, Alan" — his father was lying in one of those 
 chaises l-rpr/ues which give support to the feet, his cigarette-casa 
 was on a little table beside him, with a cup of coffee, and his 
 face, after the excellent breakfast, was more than usually bene- 
 volent — " If one may ask, Alan, about your plans for the future ? 
 Let me see, when you went away it was after proposing to 
 refoiTD the world by means of evening lectures, I believe." 
 
 " Yes," Alan replied, a little shortly ; " I was younger then. 
 The people came, but they thought they were in church, and 
 treated my lecture like a sermon ; that is, thej went to sleep." 
 
 " Just what one would have expected. By the way, your 
 remark is a dangerous one in these Radical times. People 
 might ask, you know, what kind of teachers those have been to 
 whom we have committed the care of the poor, if it is proverbial 
 that sleep and preaching go together." 
 
 Alan laughed. This was one of the few points in which he 
 could agree with his father. Nothing pleases the advanced 
 thinker — say, a thinker of the higher order — than a sneer at the 
 clergy. It is pleasant, I suppose, to feel one's self so much su- 
 perior to the constituted spiritual teachers of the people. 
 
 " Lectures are of no use," Alan went on, " by themselves. "We 
 must not only direct and teach, but we must lead. My next at- 
 tempt will be to lead." 
 
 '' Ye — yes," said his father ; " that sounds well as a general 
 principle. To descend to particulars, now." 
 
 " My project is hardly ripe just yet," Alan replied ; " v.'hen it 
 is in working order, I will ask you to come down and sec it for 
 yourself. Will that do ?" 
 
 " Perfectly, perfectly, Alan. Nothing is more wearisome than 
 a discussion of probabilities. If I find your plan a failure, I can 
 enjoy the luxury, since I know nothing about it beforehand, of 
 swearing that I always knew it to be impracticable. Do not 
 deprive me of that luxury." 
 
 Alan laughed. 
 
 " I am going down to the Court this afternoon," he said, " I 
 shall talk over my schemes with IMiranda, and take her advice." 
 
 " Miranda !" his father's face lit up, as it always did, at the 
 thought of a pretty woman. " Miranda ! She was pretty v*hea 
 you went away ; she is lovely now, and full of fancies. I love a 
 woman to have whims, always loolring out, you know, for tha 
 new gospel. It is delightful to find such a girl. She was up in 
 London last season ; turned the heads of half the young fellows, 
 and all the old ones ; refused a dozen offers, including Professor
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 3^ 
 
 Spectrum, who thought she came to his lectures out of love for 
 him, whereas she came, you see, because she thought physics and 
 chemistry a part of the modern culture. Then she went back 
 to her place in the country ; and I believe she is there still. T 
 will go down, as soon as these confounded east winds disappear, 
 and make love to her myself. I will, Alan, upon my word I 
 will." 
 
 Alan looked as if he hardly approved of this frivolous way of 
 discussing Miranda, and presently went away, whereupon Lord 
 Ahvyne sat down and wrote a letter. 
 
 "Mv DEAR T.TlUAKDA, 
 
 "It is two o'clock in the afternoon. I have written 
 all my letters, had breakfast with Alan, smoked three cigar- 
 ettes, and read all the papers ; what remains, but to write a 
 letter, all about nothing, to the loveliest girl I know ? N.B.— 
 This is not old-fashioned politeness — Regency manners — but 
 the natural right of a man who has kissed you every year, at 
 least once, since you were a baby in arms. You will have seen 
 Alan before you get this letter. Tell me v/hat you think of 
 him. For my own part, I find him greatly improved. He has 
 lost that melancholy which naturally springs from having had 
 such very superior persons for his friends. He is livelier ; he 
 has more feeling for the frivolities of an old man like myself. 
 He is, in a word, much less of a prig than he was Imagine the 
 joy of a father who hates prigs. I am not without hopes that 
 he may yet come to the point of being able to laugh at a good 
 story. 
 
 " bf course, he has a head full of projects, and he will carry 
 them straight to you. I was afraid, at one point of the break- 
 fast, that he was going to confide them to me ; but he refrained, 
 for which I am grateful. I forgot to tell you that he accepted 
 the comfort of my chambers and the little light follies of my 
 conversation without that mute reproachful gaze, which used to 
 make me wonder whether he really was my son, or whether he 
 had been changed at nurse, and belonged, perhaps, to the con- 
 verted carpenter. As, however, his ideas, filtered through your 
 brain, will assume a far more attractive form, I confess I should 
 like you to write me word what they amount to ; and, as I may 
 be allowed to take some interest in his proceedings, I shall ask 
 you to throw all the weight of your good sense in the scale. 
 If he should propose to part with the property for any philan- 
 thropic schemes, I think I would go the length of locking him 
 up in a private lunatic asylum, Avhere they will tickle the soles 
 of his feet with a feather. 
 
 " Writing to you about Alan makes me think of a conversa- 
 tion we had, you and I, that afternoon last year, when you gav9
 
 40 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 up a wliole day to delight an elderly lover of yours "with j^'oni 
 society. You remember the talk, perhaps. We were floating 
 down the river under the Clieveden woods, you and I, in a boat 
 together. I told you what were my greatest hopes. You 
 blushed very prettily, but you said nothing at first, and that 
 elderly lover promised you, at your own request, never to speak 
 of such a thing again ; and never, even in the most distant 
 manner, to suggest such a possibility to Alan. 
 
 " For once — I believe the very first time in all my life — I am 
 going to break a promise made to a lady, and speak to you 
 about ' such a thing ' again. Those hopes have revived again, 
 and are stronger than ever. ' Such a thing ' would make me 
 happy about Alan's future. As for his present, it is not right 
 that a boy of his age, sweet five and twenty, should be chasing 
 a philanthropic will-o'-the-wisp, when all round him, in this de- 
 lightful world, there are flowers to gather, feasts to hold, and 
 the prettiest women that ever were to fall in love with. Life 
 ought to be to him, as it has been to me, one Eden of delight, 
 and he makes it a workshop. Why, he even mentioned your 
 name — yours, without any apparent emotion, without hesitation, 
 blushing, or sinking of the voice. Think of it, when even I, 
 after all my experience, handle the name of Miranda with a 
 kind of awe, as befits that of a goddess. 
 
 "And^-ethe is my son, really. I must inquire about that 
 converted carpenter. Sometimes I feel constrained — pity the 
 sorrows of a poor old man ! — to go straight on my less rheu- 
 matic knee, the right one, and offer you the devotion of the 
 short remainder of an elderly life as the man in the play says, 
 as a substitute for youth, the absence of which no devotion could 
 atone for, and the few fragments of a heart long since torn in 
 pieces by a succession of beautiful and gracious girls, if those 
 fragments are worth picking up ; but, indeed, they are not. 
 
 " I wish I could be sitting with you in your own room, over- 
 looking Weyland Park. I should come disguised as Cupid ; I 
 should bring bow and arrow, and when Alan came along with 
 his long face as full of care as if he were a married pauper, I 
 should let him have a shaft full in the place where his heart 
 ought to be ; but I don't think he has one. 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear Miranda. You know that I am always 
 as actively devoted to your service as age and rheumatism will 
 allow. Write me a long letter, and tell me eyerything.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 41 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Miranda wrote in reply almost by return of post. 
 
 '■Dear Loud Ai/.vyxe, 
 
 "A tliousand thanks for your lettei'. I wish I had a 
 great many more lovers like yonrself, as devoted and as nn- 
 selfish. It is very delightful to have some one to say kind things 
 and make one vain. I wonder if it is as pleasant for you to say 
 them as it is for girls to hear them said. Come down and stay 
 with us if you can make up your mind to a dull house, and only 
 me for a companion. You shall sit in my room all day long if 
 you like, and lookout over Weyland Park, which is very beauti- 
 ful just now ; I think the place grows more beautiful every 
 year. But I will not consent to disguises either as Cupid or any- 
 thing else, and I will accept your devotion without any kneeling. 
 
 " It really was a delightful day that we had together on the 
 river last year, and we mr-st try for another. Only no pleasure 
 seems able to be repeated exactly in the same way. If we were 
 to go there again it would probably rain, or I might be in a bad 
 temper. 
 
 " Alan came to see us as soon as he arrived. I saw him 
 marching across the park, and I will confess to you that I took 
 my opera-glasses in order to have a good look at him, while he 
 was yet afar off. His shoulders have broadened out, and he 
 walks more upright. He has lost that stoop which used to make 
 him look as if he Avas always working out a difficult problem. 
 I think his beard improves him, somehow ; though you do not 
 wear a beard, it makes him look more like you. His eyes, as he 
 walked over the turf, had a far-off look, just as they used to before 
 he Avent to Oxford, and was always dreaming about the future. 
 So I saw he was back again in the world of imagination, and not 
 thinking of nie at all. To you, because Alan and I are and 
 always will be brother and sister, I may confess that I think this 
 brov.'n-beardcd man Avith blue eyes the handsomest man I have 
 ever seen, as he is the most gentle and the most disinterested. 
 
 " When I thought he might be near enough to see me Avith 
 my glasses, I put them down and went out to meet him. He 
 was as glad to greet me as I was to greet him, I think. 
 
 " It Avas six o'clock. Mamma was aa'cII enough to dine with 
 us— it was one of her better days, fortunatol3^ We had a talk 
 in the garden before dinner, and after dinner along talk, he and 
 I alone. 
 
 " Your son is greatly changed, Lord Alwyne ; in some respects 
 completely changed. He looks at everything from a new point
 
 42 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 of view, and I can see that lie has been thinking and studying 
 dnrinpr the whole of his two years' traveh 
 
 " All the old schemes are to be abandoned, and an entirely 
 new plan adopted. I confess that at first I was amazed at his 
 scheme, but I am beginning to believe that it is not only noble, 
 but also feasible. It is, to put it in as fcv/ words as possible, 
 this : There is to be no more lecturing and teaching. That, 
 he says, is proved by experience to be useless. Any one can 
 point the way like a sign-post ; any one can stand on a hill and 
 cry out to the people below to climb up if they can as he has 
 done ; any one can write books full of precious thoughts, if he 
 have them himself ; but you cannot always persuade people to 
 read them. The lower classes, he says, all over the world are 
 exactly alike, except in the United States. They v/ill neither 
 read, listen, nor see, with understanding. They are slaves, not 
 to laws, v/hich touch them very little, but to habit and custom. 
 The only way, therefore, to improve the masses, is to break 
 down the slavery of habit." 
 
 When Lord Alwyne— he was reading this letter at breakfast 
 — got as far as this, he put it down, and heaved a sigh. 
 
 " I asked her to bring him to common-sense, and he has inocu- 
 lated her. Habit and custom ? And a very good thing for the 
 people too. Let their customs be cleanly, their habits pleasant 
 for other people, and their manners civil. What more does the 
 boy want ? Rigmarole !" 
 
 " I am sure vou will agree with Alan so far. In fact, all this 
 is preliminary." 
 
 " Yes," said Lord Alwyno. " I knew that something more 
 
 " How then, asks Alan, is the task of substituting culture and 
 inquiry for sluggish habit to be undertaken ? There is, he 
 says, but one way. By example. He will come down from his 
 high place, descend to their levels, work with them, eat with 
 them, live with them, and endeavour to set the example of the 
 higher life, and to show how that is possible even with the sur- 
 roundings of a cottage, and the pay of a farm labourer. 
 
 " ' Not uliat wo give, but wlijit wo stare : 
 For tlie gift without the giver is bare.' " 
 
 " The De-vil !" This was the reader's interruption. " Now 
 those two will go on fooling the rustics, till the^ '"ake the whole 
 country-side intolerable."
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 43 
 
 " I cannot say," continued Miranda in the letter. " how much I 
 admire a man Who gives himself. That is so much higher a 
 thing — so much nobler— than to give money." 
 
 "If they had my money," said Lord Alwyne, " they might, 
 Lave me with it too, for all I should care. Certainly I sho-.ild 
 not be of much use without it. Go on. my dear Miranda. It 
 is pleasant talking over a breakfast-table." 
 
 " It is like going out to fight for your country." 
 
 " Worse," murmured the reader. "Much worse. IVe dcnfl 
 that, and I ought to knovv^. Except for the trenches, it wasn't 
 bad fun. And at least one didn't live v/ith rustics." 
 
 " Or it is giving up all that one has been accustomed to con- 
 sider bare necessities : abandoning for a time the gentle life." 
 
 " I am glad it is only for a time. And I hope," said Lord 
 Alwyne, " that it will be for a very short time." 
 
 " And it is certainly exposing one's self to the misrepresen- 
 tation and ridicule of people who do not understand you ; to 
 unpopularity in the county " 
 
 " Unpopularity indeed !" cried Lord Alwyne. " Inow I hope 
 to Heaven the boy will not meddle v/ith the Game. Anything 
 but that. And in such a county too !" 
 
 " And possible failure !" 
 
 "Ah! ha!" The reader laughed. " Possible failure ! IIo I 
 ho !" 
 
 " All these Alan will cheerfully face. He must have our 
 support and sympathy, and v\'e must wish him success. 
 " If you would like to hear more details of the plan " 
 
 " I should not," said Lord Alwyne. 
 
 " Come down and stay with us. You might have Weyland 
 Court all to yourself, and even sleep in the haunted room, if 
 you prefer ; but as Alan is entirely occupied with his plans, I 
 think you would see little of him, and would be more comfort- 
 able with us." 
 
 " I most certainly ehould, my dear Miranda," said Lord 
 Alwyne.
 
 44 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 But he liad to postpone his visit, because some one, who had 
 a charming wife, who also had two charming sisters, proposed 
 to him that he should join them, and all go to Egypt togethei*, 
 to escape the English winter. When he returned, it was at the 
 beginning of the London season, and he had so many people to 
 see that he could not possibly get away till July. Finally, it 
 Avas not till Kelly Despard took the vows that he was able to 
 get down to Weyland Court. And by that time Alan's experi- 
 ment v/as a year old. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 •' Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, 
 liound to thy service with unceasing care." 
 
 As Miranda told Lord Alwyne, no time was lost in putting the 
 new plans into execution. 
 
 " Uy acti:ally living among the people," said Alan, with the 
 calmness of conviction, " I shall in a short time succeed in per- 
 suading them to look upon me as one of themselves — a simple 
 fellow-labourer, who has received a better education, and had 
 greater advantages to start Avith. I suppose one cannot hope 
 AvhoUy to eradicate the feeling of caste. And for the present, 
 that seems not quite desirable. It is well, until all have alike 
 the same education, that the better educated, who are also the 
 richer and the more cultivated, sho-uld be looked upon as the 
 natural leaders." 
 
 " Surely. Alan," said IMiranda, " you are by birth as well as 
 education the natural leader of these people ?" 
 
 '' I think I am," he replied, with that far-off look in his blue 
 eyes which belongs to the enthusiast. " I am certain I am ; 
 otherwise there would remain nothing but to sit down in indo- 
 lent ease at Weyland Court, and live the ignoble life of the 
 country squire." 
 
 That is what he called it : the enviable life where there are 
 no duties, no daily mill, and no care for the yearly income, the 
 life of the country gentleman — he called it " that ignoble life." 
 
 " It is a beautiful dream," said Miranda. " And, oh ! Alan, 
 I wish I could rise with you to the belief that the dream will 
 ever become a reality. I want your enthusiasm as well as your 
 self-devotion" 
 
 " It must — it will become a reality, Miranda," he answered, 
 with a fiush of conviction. " I have chanced upon the one 
 thing wanting in all the old schemes. They directed, too lead ; 
 ihey instructed, wc set the example. Our sports, our labours,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 45 
 
 nnr jcys ■u'ill be what theirs should be ; as their life ought to 
 be, so will we try to make ours. In externals, at least, we shall 
 be on the same footing ; as our habits will be, so ought theirs 
 to be." 
 
 Miranda listened with kindling eyes. Her heart beat with 
 sympathetic fire in the presence of this strong and brave nature 
 which dared to follow out a line of its own — the line of right. 
 And she sought in vain for examples in history of others who 
 had thus practically and earnestly devoted themselves to the 
 safety or regeneration of mankind. Marcus Curtius, a leading 
 case, narrowed his self-sacrifice to patriotism ; monks and nuns 
 still further narrow theirs to the advantage of their own in- 
 dividual souls ; curates and parsons, Avho work day and night 
 among the slums, gladly exchange these retreats for the more 
 congenial sphere of country livings ; professional philanthro- 
 pists not unfrequently exaggerate the pecuniary value of their 
 services, and have even been known to help themselves secretly 
 from the treasury : but that a man like Alan Dunlop, with 
 everything at his hand which men crave for, should volunta- 
 rily resign them all, and become a labourer amongst labourers, 
 without hope or prospect of reward, was a thing wholly without 
 parallel. 
 
 They were talking in Miranda's own room at Dalmeny Hall, 
 the place which the young heiress had daintily adorned to suit 
 her own tastes. It was a room on the first floor, which over- 
 looked Weyland Park. It had a south aspect, it was fitted 
 and furnished with everything that is delicate, pretty, artistic, 
 and delightful, from the pictures on the wall to the carpets 
 and the chairs. The time was just before the establishment of 
 the Abbey, when Alan spent most of his leisure-time discussincr 
 things at Dalmeny Hall with the fair chatelaine, who alone of 
 mortals regarded his project with sympathy and interest. It 
 was a retreat kept quiet by an invalid mother, and yet full of 
 liberty to the few who, like Alan Dunlop, Tom Caledon, Des- 
 demona Fanshawe (she had long resumed her maiden name), 
 and others had the entree. Alan believed the more strongly in 
 his own theories when that fair face looked up in his, and he 
 road in those steadfast eyes the loyal faith of recent conversion. 
 
 " A beautiful dream !" she repeated. " The dream of a 
 noble mind. But, oh ! Alan, I cannot bear to think of you 
 breaking your heart against the rocks of ignorance and stu- 
 pidity." 
 
 " Ignorance," he replied, " we can overcome : stupidity may 
 be met with patience. What I fear most is habit. That is the 
 greatest enemy of all progress." 
 
 " But how can you live at the Court and yet live as a labour- 
 ing man ?"
 
 46 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " I shall not live at the Court ; T shall leave it, and tako a 
 house in the village." 
 
 " And never come out of it at all, Alan ? Never come up 
 here to see me ? Not come and dine here, as you do now ?" 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " What T want to do, Miranda, is to live in all respects as a 
 laboui'ing man may, upon his wages. If I come up here to dine, 
 it would be a temptation in the way of luxury. I shall earn, I 
 suppose, a pound or eighteen shillings a week. That will have 
 to do for me. I think you must not ask me to dine here. But 
 I will come up sometimes on Sunday mornings if you like, and 
 report progress." 
 
 Miranda sighed. She was prepared to see her chief friend 
 and adviser resign all — but herself. That was a practical out- 
 come to the new theories of life which she had never contem- 
 plated. Life would be dull indeed without Alan Dunlop to 
 enliven it. 
 
 The requisites of a prophet are, first, to believe in yourself ; 
 secondly, to believe in your theory ; thirdly, to believe in your 
 people. Alan Dunlop possessed all these requisites. As an 
 English gentleman, he had the hereditary belief in himself, so 
 that to stand in the front was, he felt, his proper place. He 
 liad retained this belief, and even strengthened it during the 
 three years at Oxford, and subsequently while travelling round 
 the world. He had thought so long over the duties which rise 
 out of the responsibilities of wealth, that he was by this time 
 as profoundly convinced of his mission as Moses or Mahomet ; 
 and, lastly, he had a firm belief in the latent power of tha 
 common people for imbibing nev/ ideas presented in the right 
 way. 
 
 " Could you, Miranda," ha asked once, in half -hesitating 
 tones, " cotdd you too give up this atmosphere of delicate cul- 
 ture, and change it for that of village life among the villagers?" 
 
 " I could not, Alan," she replied frankly-. " I love to read 
 about noble things and self-sacrifice. It is one of the pleasures 
 of life to feel one's heart glow over some glorious tale. But 
 the details, when one comes to realise them — think of living 
 among the labourers' wives Oh, Alan !" 
 
 " No," he said, with a sigh, " I suppose you could not." 
 
 "Had he proposed to her and been refused?" she thought 
 wheii he went away. " Surely she had not refused him ?" 
 
 '■'■ II y a toujours iin qui aiine et tm qui est climes There vrere 
 once two children. One v/as a boy, and one was a girl. The 
 boj^, who was named Alan Fontaine, was three years older than 
 the girl, who was called Miranda Dalmeny. Their houses were 
 half a mile apart. The boy v/as born at Weyland Court and 
 the girl at Dalmeny IlalL The former stood in a great park,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 47 
 
 the latter in nothing but its own gardens ; but it overlooked 
 Weyland Park ; and the property belonging to its owner was 
 almost as great as that enjoyed by Lord Alwyne Fontaine in 
 right of his wife. Both owners, Alan's mother and Miranda's 
 father, died. The boy and girl became heir and heiress. Alan 
 Fontaine became Alan Dunlop, and for miles on either side of 
 Weyland Park the broad acres of their lands marched side by 
 side. 
 
 They grew up together, shaved the same sympathies, had the 
 same vague yearnings for that glorious future which is the 
 dream of generous youth, when all noble things seem possible, 
 and we are as yet but dimly conscious of that heritage of evil 
 Yv'hich, like Setebos, troubles all. They communicated their 
 thoughts to each other, dwelling always on the plans of the after 
 years. They read in the great library of Weyland Court strange 
 old books wiiich filled their minds v/ith thoughts, not of the 
 nineteenth century ; and they rode about the country together, 
 this ncAV Paul with a new Virginia, talking, thinking, and 
 dreaming poetry, sentiment, and enthusiasm. 
 
 When Miranda was eighteen Alan was twenty- one, and just 
 returning from Oxford. By this time the girl had, after the 
 fashion of her sex at that age, left off telling her thoughts, and 
 kept them locked up in her own brain, waiting and accumulating 
 until the arrival of the man with a right to them. Alan, as men 
 will, went on telling his. 
 
 After his unsuccessful attempt to improve the village by 
 lectures, Alan went away on his journey round the v/orld. It 
 was, at first, very dull for Miranda at the Hall. Then Lord 
 Alwyne persuaded Desdemona to go and stay with her as a sort 
 of com.panion, and she v/ent to town for the season, which was 
 a diversion. At least, it would have been a diversion but for 
 one thing. Her beauty, v/hich was considerable, was naturally 
 enhanced and set off by her income. A girl whose rent-roll is 
 told by thousands is an object of general interest in herself, 
 even if she has a face like a door-knocker. And at first it went 
 to her heart to refuse the young men, who took every oppor- 
 tunity, in conservatories, at dinner- tables, in the park, at garden- 
 parties, at balls, and even in church, to offer their hands and 
 hearts. They were so deeply in earnest, they felt so profoundly 
 the enormous advantages of hanging up their hats in Dalmeny 
 Hall, they had a respect so unfeigned for the beauty, the intel- 
 lect, the desirable qualities of the girl who owned so splendid a 
 property, that poor Miranda felt guilty with shame to herself 
 for being so insensible, when they stammered forth the custom- 
 ary vrords and she had to send them away sorrowful. But when 
 they came in swarms, when the memory of Impecuniosus the 
 First, dismissed with sorrow and some sort of shame, was driven
 
 48 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 away by the advent of Tmpecuniosus tlie Forty-First ; when she 
 had learned all the various methods pursued by men who pro- 
 pose, and experience had taught her the best form of refusal, 
 viz., that which leaves no room for hope, she ceased to pity her 
 suitors, and even began to ridicule them to Desdemona and 
 liord Alwyne ; grew hard-hearted, cvit short the aspirant at the 
 very first words, and sent him away without expressing the 
 least sympathy. Everybody knew and everybody said, that her 
 heart was given to Alan Dunlop, the queer, wild enthusiast of 
 Oxford, who headed the road-makers. Certain it is that her 
 happiest days were those when, from some far-off foreign place, 
 a letter came to her in the well-known handwriting. And 
 equally certain it is that wherever she went, there Vv-as always 
 present the youthful form and face of Lord Alwyne, warding 
 off the undesirable partis, protecting his ward against the wiles 
 of the impecunious. 
 
 In the fulness of time Alan came homo rich with the spoils 
 of all the world. There was no word of love between them 
 before he went away. Among the many hundred letters he 
 wrote from various habitable points upon this sphere, there was 
 no word of love ; and when he came back, there was again no 
 word of love. Miranda said that Alan was a brother to her. 
 Probably Alan might have thought much in the same way of 
 Miranda, with the difference, however, that the fondest brother 
 contemplates the possibility of his sister's marriage without a 
 pang, while Alan never for a moment imagined how he could 
 get on without her. 
 
 Had she actually refused him? A burning spot rose in 
 either cheek as she thought this over. But no ; she remembered 
 all her wooers and their ways. She recalled the signs, which 
 she knew too Avell, of an intention to propose. They were alike 
 in substance, though they differed in detail. There was the 
 ardent but diffident young clerk in the Foreign Office, who laid 
 himself with pitiful abasement at her feet, and there was the 
 proud and penniless peer who confidently proposed the exchange 
 of a title for a rent-roll. But in Alan's question there was 
 nothing of all this ; neither doubt nor anxiety, nor emotion of 
 any kind— only a plain question. 
 
 To live among the wives and daughters of the labourers ! 
 Could she do this ? Not even, she felt, for that which Lord 
 Alwyne had told her in the boat under the Clieveden woods was the 
 one thing which he hoped for his son. Dear old Lord Alwyne ! 
 always so kind and thoughtful. And, oh ! so very fond of 
 saying pretty things to pretty girls. Other pretty girls, Miranda 
 thought, with a little pang of jealousy, would have those 
 pretty things said to them. And what would become of Alan's 
 self-sacrifice ? Would that go on all his life ? Was he to b«
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 49 
 
 Beparated from her by half a mile of park and village, and yet 
 to belong to her no more ? 
 
 As for Alan himself, ho was far indeed from asking for Mi- 
 randa's hand. There had occurred to him for a moment only a 
 beatific vision, in which he and Miranda — brother and sister 
 labourer— should be living in the village among "the people," 
 belonging to them : he to the men, and she to the women, so that 
 while he introduced new ideas and combated old habits among 
 one sex, she might be among the others, inculcating the arts of 
 cleanliness, order, good temper, or the rudiments of that sweet 
 culture which, in a very few years' time, was to make a home of 
 delight in every cottage, and to form a West-end club, except 
 for the drink and luxurious living, and the cigars and the easy- 
 chairs, in every village. But the vision was momentary. It 
 faded before Miranda's resolute reply, and he walked away 
 sorrowful. He would have to fight the battle single-handed. 
 
 Among the farms on his estate was one of three hundred 
 acres, leased by a certain Stephen Bostoclc It was the 
 smallest— it was the lowest-rented, the least productive, and 
 the tenants were the least satisfactory of any upon his estate. 
 He went to Stephen Bostock himself. He pointed out, having 
 ascertained these facts from his agent, that he, Stephen Bostock. 
 was getting deeper every year in the mire, that he had no 
 money, that things were certain to get worse with him 
 instead of better, and then he asked him what he proposed 
 to do. 
 
 Stephen Bostock was a man with a very red face, as many 
 rustics have, and a very long, square chin, as few rustics have. 
 The red face was due to habitual intemperance, whenever he 
 could find the money ; the long, square chin was a mark and a 
 certain proof of cunning, obstinacy, and self-reliance. A long 
 chin means tenacity — a square chin means resource. When you 
 get them both together, you have such a man as Stephen 
 Bostock. 
 
 Stephen Bostock was between forty and fifty years of age. 
 He who has made no money at fifty never will make any. That 
 is why a man of forty-five who has made none begins to grow 
 anxious. Stephen Bostock had nothing in the world except the 
 lease of a farm v/laose rent he could not pay, a dairy whose pro- 
 ceeds kept the house supplied with meat and drink, and a wife 
 and daughter who looked after the dairy, kept- chickens and 
 ducks, and saw that the pigs were fed. lie was a small tenant- 
 farmer, one of the most hopeless class, rapidly becoming rarer, 
 in this realm of England. If the land were their own, they 
 could live on it, thrive on it, work on it, and be happy. 
 But it is not, and so the class deteriorates, starves for a while, 
 becomes bankrupt, either sinks back to the soil, or goen to
 
 so THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 (Janada, where free-lands can be taken up, and men become &i 
 a stroke yeomen, after the fashion of their ancestors. 
 
 " You see, Bostock," said Alan, " things seem getting -worsa 
 instead of better with you." 
 
 " Yes, sir," he replied, " they certainly be. A little ease in the 
 rent, now, might make everything right." 
 
 " ISTo, it would not," Alan went on ; " nothing v/ill make 
 everything right with j-ou. The land is suffering from starva- 
 tion and neglect. You have no stock, and next to no horses. 
 You have got through all your money, whatever that was, and 
 nothing can save you." 
 
 " A good spell o' rainy weather," began Stephen, his mind 
 turning feebly in the direction of turnips. 
 
 " No, no," said the Squire. " Now listen to me, Bostock. 
 Suppose I were to take the lease off your hands — don't speak, 
 but Hsten. Suppose I were to oft'er you to remain where you 
 are, in your own house, not as tenant of the farm, but its 
 bailiff, on a salary ?" 
 
 "Oh!" said Stephen, startled, "on a celery" (he pronounced 
 it so), " and in my own house ! Without rent ? As bailiff ! 
 Ah !" 
 
 " On a salary to be fixed between us." (Stephen resolved 
 that, if it depended on him, it should be fixed pretty high.) 
 " And that you should look after the practical business of the 
 farm, which I intend to work on my own plans : that you 
 should faithfully fulfil your part of the contract ; that is, buy 
 and sell, arrange the rotation of the crops, and direct the labour 
 of the farm, to the best advantage of the proprietor, exactly as 
 if it was your own." 
 
 Here Stephen Bostock, who began by staring hard, compre- 
 hended the position, and that so suddenly, that he was com- 
 pelled to produce a red cotton handkerchief to hide a grin which^ 
 despite every warning of politeness, wozfZr/ spread from ear to ear. 
 
 " A celery ; manage the farm for the Squire ; go on living in 
 the house, rent-free ; buy and sell for the best advantage — ho ! 
 ho !— for the best advantage of the farm." 
 
 It really was too much. 
 
 Was it real ? 
 
 Yes ; before him stood the young Squire with grave and re- 
 solute face, square brows, and solemn blue eyes^eyes which 
 somehow took the grin out of the corners of his mouth, and en- 
 abled him to lay down the pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 " Let me hear it all over again," he said. " I'm slow by- 
 nature, but I'm sure. I am to live, rent free " — that was his 
 own addition — " in the farmhouse. That's the first thing. I'ni 
 slow, but when I tackle a thing, I do tackle that thing. I am to 
 Bell the lease for a consideratiou." Tl)at v/as also his own addition.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 51 
 
 "Not at all," said Alan. "You will not sell the lease ; yt;u 
 will give it to me, to escape bankruptcy." 
 
 Mr. Bostock made a face. Nobody likes the ugly word bank- 
 ruptcy. 
 
 " Well," he said, " you will have your joke, Mr. Dunlop. 
 We'll say that I surrender the lease, not sell it. But I am to 
 get something, I suppose. I am to give up the lease, am I ? 
 And then I am to be bailiff. On a celery. And what might be 
 your opinion of the celery that I should be worth as bailiff to 
 this farm ?" 
 
 " I have hardly thought about it," said Alan. Of course, a 
 hundred a year would have been plenty for such a man. " But 
 we might begin with two hundred." 
 
 '■'■And fifty, if you please, Mr. Dunlop," said Mr. Bostock 
 firmly. " And then we shall be going dirt-cheap — dirt-cheap. 
 Two hundred and fifty, or three hundred. I think I ought to 
 say a celery of four hundred. But, knowing you and your 
 family as I do knov/ you and your family, and having been a 
 tenant for a many years, and my wife once lady's-maid to her 
 ladyship, and all, makes one inclined to cut down the figure." 
 
 " We will say, then, two hundred and fifty," said Alan. He 
 was accustomed to make this sort of compromise, and thought 
 it showed the prudence of a business man. The other con- 
 tractor to an agreement, for instance, whoever he was, invari- 
 ably asked him for three times what he ought to have demanded. 
 Alan conceded twice, and congratulated himself on having 
 shown extraordinary knowledge of the world. Then he offered 
 the wily Bostock two hundred and fifty, when he might have 
 got him for a hundred, 
 
 " Well," Bostock grumbled, " to please you, sir. But we must 
 have the dairy, and a field for the cows and the fowls, and 
 the pigs, and the orchard, jest as at present so arranged.'' 
 
 ''You can have all those," said Alan, ignorantly adding 
 another hundred to the new bailiff's salary. 
 
 " That," said Bostock, " won't make the celery none too high. 
 Besides, the dairy and the pigs is a mere nothink. But there — 
 And when will you begin, sir ?" 
 
 "As soon as I can," said Alan. "I am going"— here he 
 hesitated a little — " to manage this farm on an entii'ely new 
 pi'inciple, of which I will explain the details afterwards. That 
 is, you will manage it, but the results of the farm — the profits — ^ 
 are to be applied on a new principle." 
 
 " I thought, sir," said Bostock — his face lengthened consider- 
 ably at the prospect of the farm being managed on new prin- 
 ciples — " I thought that I v/as to buy and to sell for the be^t 
 advantage of the farm." 
 
 " Why, so you are. That is not what I mean." 
 
 -5—3
 
 53 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Oh !" said Bostock, relieved ; " that is not what you mean, 
 Bir?" 
 
 " Not at all. You will really buy, sell, and do everything. 
 You will be the responsible manager of the farm. The profits, 
 however, deducting your salary first, and the necessary expenses 
 of wages, stock, implements, and so forth, will be divided in 
 certain proportions between myself and the farm labourers and 
 you, as the bailiff." 
 
 Once more Mr. Bostock was obliged to take out that pocket- 
 handkerchief, with which he blew his nose violently, choked, 
 became crimson in the face, blew his nose again, choked again, 
 and finally, resumed his calm. 
 
 " Oh !" he said ; " the profits of the farm, after paying me, 
 the bailiff, and the wages and the necessary expenses, will go to ua 
 all in proper pi'oportions, will they ? Well, sir, that's a most 
 generous and liberal offer on your part. I don't think there's 
 another Squire in all the country, as knows land as you know 
 land — because you've been round the world and must know all 
 the land as is fit to call itself land— no, not a single other Squire 
 alive as would make that proposal. Mr, Dunlop, I'm with you, 
 and if you'll shake the hand of a honest man '' — he held out his 
 horny paw — " there you are." 
 
 Alan took it, almost with tears. 
 
 " I believe you will serve the farm honestly and well, 
 Bostock," he said. 
 
 " I will, sir," replied the new bailiff. " Look round you and 
 see the improvements I've made already with my small means. 
 Why am I a poor man now, and my neighbours rich ? Because 
 I put into that land what they take out of it. Look at the farm 
 implements — you'll buy them at a valuation, of course ; I'll 
 value them for you. Look at the horses and the stock, look at the 
 machines, look at the fields. People come — ah ! for miles round 
 — to visit this farm. It's been in print. Bostock's Farm, they call 
 it. And after all these years, there's the rent unpaid, and — I'm not 
 ashamed to say it, because the money's in the land, not in the 
 bank — I go out of it, and become the bailiff at a salary of two 
 hundred and fifty, paid weeklj^, which is five pounds a week, 
 and a house rent-free, and the dairj' and a field for the cows, and 
 the pigs, and the orchard, and the farm stock at my valuation. 
 Squire, you've got me dirt-cheap, I don't grudge the bar- 
 gain, because my heart's in the work, and I shall have no more 
 trouble about rent, and give my whole mind to the farm. 
 You'll have to spend a little money on the place," he added, 
 waving his hands with the air of one who commands. " But, 
 Lord ! it will all come back to you. Only you Avait till we've 
 been at work for a year or so. A little money here and a little 
 there, a steam-engine here and another there. More cattle,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 53 
 
 more horses. IMr. Dnnlop, I believe," he cried in A burst of 
 enthusiasm, " I believe you'll say, come this day five years, that 
 you never did a better stroke of work in all your life than vrhen 
 you gotME, Stephen Bostock, to be yourbailiff, dirt-cheap. It isn't 
 for me to say who's the best man in all the county. Go to Athel- 
 ston and ask at the farmers' ordinary on market-day. And all I've 
 got to say is — here am I, at your service. Trust everything to 
 me ; let me, Stephen Bostock, buy and sell all by myself for the 
 best advantage of the farm, as you say, Mr. Dunlop, and no 
 questions asked, nor interference, nor anj'thing, and — and then 
 wait for the profits to be divided between you and me and the 
 labourers. It's the labourers," he added, after a pause, " that 
 I think on most, not mj-self, nor you. You've got your rents, 
 Mr. Dunlop. You're a gentleman. I've got my salary — on'y 
 two hundred and fifty, but ' sufficient is enough to a contented 
 mind, and better is a stalled ox with contentment than a dinner of 
 herbs and strife therewith.' But they pore labourers, they've 
 got nothing, only their wages. Well, sir, we'll make it up to 
 them. You and me together, we will," 
 
 There was something contagious in the hearty, though vulgar, 
 enthusiasm of the new bailiff, and Alan shook hands with him 
 with effusion. When the Squire was gone, the bailiff, after 
 watching him carefully across a field and a half, sat down and 
 resumed openly that broad grin which he had before concealed 
 behind the handkerchief. 
 
 " Me to buy and sell," he said. " xhul the two hundred and 
 fifty! ^4??fZ rent free ! And the dairy! And \\\q pigs! And 
 the cows ! And all to the best advantage of the farm. Dammit, 
 it's fine !" he said this critically. '' That's what it is — it"s fine." 
 Ho lay back, and laughed low and long. Then a sudden thought 
 pierced the marrow of his heart, and he sat up again. 
 
 " How long will it last ? One year ? Two years ? Stephen 
 Bostock, my lad, make hay while the sun shines. Buy and sell 
 as much as you can to the best advantage. Ho ! ho !— the best 
 advantage — ha ! ha ! — of the farmer — ho ! ho ! — and the la- 
 bourers — ha! ha! — the labourers! Yar !" He added the last 
 words with the most profound contempt, which it was as well 
 that Alan did not witness. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " That monster, Custom, who all sense dotli eat." 
 
 After this gratifying interview with Farmer Bostock, Alan felt 
 himself warranted in at once proceeding to business. Pending 
 the signing of the agreement, which Xha honest bailiff under-
 
 54 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 took to get drawn up, he began by inviting the labourers on the 
 farm to meet him on Saturday evening at the schools, when, 
 after supper, he proposed to set forth in simple language, cau- 
 tiously abstaining from eloquence or metaphor, his scheme for 
 the advance of the higher civilisation. 
 
 The men were invited to bring their wives, and those of the 
 women whose family ties allowed, accepted with as much readi- 
 ness as the men. Here, it was felt, was a distinct step in 
 advance. On the last occasion when the Squire met them in 
 the schoolroom, he offered them a lecture, and never so much 
 as a glass of beer to wash it down. Now, whatever suffering 
 might be in store for them in the way of speeches, one thing 
 Vt'as quite clear, that there would be compensation in the way 
 of meat and drink. The butcher and the landlord of the 
 Spotted Lion, indeed, were ready to state what amount of com- 
 pensation. 
 
 " The supper," said one of the group in the Spotted Lion, on 
 Friday evening, " is roast beef, and roast mutton, hot, with 
 potatoes and cabbage." 
 
 " Ah !" from all lips sympathetically. 
 
 " And beer. As much beer as we like. None o' your half- 
 pints v/ith young Squire. I seen the Squire's orders in writing." 
 
 " Ah !" — unanimously. 
 
 " Seems a kind of a waste now, don't it?" asked a venerable 
 sage, smoking in the corner. " Saturday night an' all. Might 
 ha' bin here as usual, and had the beer to ourselves, and kep' 
 the beef for Sunday." 
 
 That was true, and feelingly put. 
 
 '• And there's a lecture, AVilliam ?" the ancient sage went on. 
 " Same as two year ago." 
 
 "Ay. There's a lecture. But, L''<rd ! after the beef — and 
 the cabbage— and the beer — what's a lecture ?" 
 
 Alan presided at the supper, supported by the Vicar on his 
 right, and his new bailiff on the left. When every one had 
 eaten as much beef as he possibly could, and the cloth was re- 
 moved, the men v/ere agreeably surprised by the production of 
 pipes, tobacco, and more beer. The place, to be sure, was not 
 what they were accustomed to for smoking purposes, and the 
 tobacco did not possess some of the qualities which they pre- 
 ferred ; but there was always the beer. 
 
 The women began to steal avvay when the pipes were lit, and 
 by the time the room was quite full of smoke and the Squire 
 was choking, there were none but men present. Then Alan 
 rose to make the speech which inaugurated his co-operative 
 farm. 
 
 He saw with a sinking heart that they immediately assumed 
 'bo attitude which long custom at church made them put on
 
 THE MONKS OF ThELEMA. 55 
 
 for the reception of a discourse. That is to say, they leaned 
 back in tiioii* chairs, left ofr talking— some of them put 
 down their pipes out of respect — and with eyes fixed upon the 
 rafters, allowed their thoughts to wander in pleasant fields. 
 There was, to be sure, a freshness in being allowed to drink 
 beer and smoke during a sermon. 
 
 " My friends — " Here there was a general shuffling of legs, 
 as every man helped himself hastily to another glass of gratui- 
 tous beer, the idea emanating from the aged philosopher. It 
 might be — it would certainly be — their last that evening, be- 
 cause no doubt when the sermon was finished they would all be 
 dismissed with the benediction given, so to speak, dry, as on 
 Sunday. 
 
 '■• My friends — " Alan gave them time to recover and began 
 again. " I have asked you here to-night, not, as happened two 
 }'ears ago, to deliver a lecture, but to ask your advice." He 
 jiaused here, and looked round, but on no single face did he 
 discern the least gleam or glimmer of interest. Every man's 
 eyes were steadily fixed on the roof, and every man was quietly 
 but resolutely smoking, his mind, of course, in some more con- 
 genial place. 
 
 This was disheartening. Alan tried again. 
 
 " My friends," he said once more, " I want to ask your advice 
 I stand among you the owner of this land, and the receiver of 
 its rents." 
 
 "Hear! hear!" cried Mr. Bostock ; and at an interruption 
 to uncommon in a sermon, many of the hearers recovered con- 
 sciousness suddenly, and found themselves not in church at all, 
 but in the schoolroom. Then they realised the position, and 
 relapsed again. 
 
 "An owner of land and a receiver of rents," Alan went on, 
 " occupies a position which, I believe, is only beginning to be 
 generally recognised. He incurs responsibilities, in fact, of the 
 most serious kind." 
 
 He paused again. There was no gleam of sympathy in any 
 liingle eye. But that might be the elfect of the tobacco haze. 
 
 " The conditions of agriculture are, in this country," he went 
 on, " very dilierent to those in any of the places I have visited. 
 In all countries except England, men farm their own land. 
 Mostly, i\iQj farm it with their own hands. Here we have not 
 only the owner, a man of capital, but also the tenant farmer, 
 another man of capital, to come between the labourer and the 
 profits of his labour. That is a state of things which we cannot 
 entirely alter, but may modify." 
 
 He stopped again. A low and melodious snore from the end 
 of the table where one of the younger members had fallen asleep, 
 increased his auditors' belief that they were really in church.
 
 56 THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA. 
 
 " An owr.cr of land in England," Alan continued, " is a trustee ; 
 he is a responsible agent ; he holds a large part of the public 
 welfare in his hands. It is his duty to leave no stone unturned 
 in the efEort to secure the largest amount of happiness attain- 
 able by the general mass of mankind." 
 
 He thought that short sentences, delivered slowly, would 
 have the effect of arresting the attention, and though the entire 
 silence (except the single snore) and apparent apathy with 
 which his words had hitherto been received were disheartening, 
 yet he hoped that when he got through his preamble the men 
 would receive his intentions with enthusiasm. 
 
 " I start, therefore, Avith the grand modern principle that 
 labour must be paid a sufficient wage to keep the labourer and 
 his family in health. So far, no doubt, you are all agreed." 
 
 Not a soul made the slightest response. 
 
 " Next, I advance the grand new principle in social economy 
 that the labourers in any enterprise are entitled, in addition to 
 their wages, to a share in the profits." 
 
 "Hear ! hear !" from Mr. Bostock, which brought down the 
 upward-turned faces. When, however, they found that tho 
 sermon was not finished, the faces all went up again. 
 
 " I am about to ask your assistance," Alan went on, " in the 
 establishment of a farm conducted on these and other new 
 principles. I have taken the farm previously held by our friend 
 Mr. Bostock, and have undertaken to put the general manage- 
 ment into his hands as bailiff. The details of this management 
 I leave to you for settlement among yourselves." 
 
 " Hear ! hear !" from Mr. Bostock. 
 
 The faces came down again, and looked wondcringly around 
 them. They were all lost in the sleepy imaginations which 
 belong to sermon-time : they were full of fat mutton and heavy 
 beer : they were not — then — in church : and there was the 
 Squire boomin' away. What was it all about ? 
 
 " I propose that you hold a weekly Parliament in this room, 
 every Saturday night, for the discussion of all and every topic 
 connected with the farm. You will understand that on your 
 own decisions will rest the prosperity of the undertaking and 
 your own chances of profit. 
 
 " As regards the profits of the farm, I shall take for my own 
 share a percentage to represent five per cent, on the marke cable 
 value : the bailiff will receive a salary of two hundred and fifty 
 pounds : your own wages will, of course, have to come out of 
 the annual returns : there will be a percentage ?et aside for wear 
 and tear of farm implements : and then — then — my friends, we 
 shall divide between us all tho remaining profits. I, as the 
 landlord, will take a certain share : the bailiff, as superior officer
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 57 
 
 and manager, his share : the rest ■will be divided among you 
 equally." 
 
 There was not the shghtcst enthusiasm — not the least re- 
 sponse ; all the faces turned swiftly upwards contemplating the 
 rafters— everybody silent out of respect. You don't interrupt 
 a parson in a pulpit by singing out " Hear ! hear !" or any such 
 foolishness. Not at all — you sit and listen, and when he has 
 done you go away. As for what he has said, that is his affair, 
 not yours. 
 
 Alan was a good deal disappointed, but he persevered. 
 
 " You Avill elect your own officers, appoint your own hours of 
 labour, provide for everything by free discussion and voting. 
 For my own part," here he sank his voice and spoke solemnly, 
 because this was the real pith and gist of the whole thing. " I shall 
 ask you to let me become one of yourselves, work with you, eat 
 and drink with you, share your toil as well as your recreation, 
 and contribute from the better chances I have had of acquir- 
 ing knowledge all I can that may be helpful to the new com- 
 munity." 
 
 The faces came down when the voice dropped, because it was 
 thus that the Vicar always ended his sermons. So that all 
 heard the Squire, to their unspeakable astonishment, offering to 
 live with them, work with them, and eat and drink with them. 
 
 " Finally," he said, " I think, considering the advantages 
 that we possess : a bailiff who takes a salary instead of a profit" 
 — liere Stephen Bostock pulled out his pocket-handkerchief to 
 conceal the grin which once more involuntarily played round his 
 honest lips — " a landlord who wants no more than a small per- 
 centage on the value of the farm, and a knot of hard-working, 
 disciplined, and — and — intelligent men like yourselves — I think, 
 I say, that we may begin by raising the wages three shillings all 
 round." 
 
 ITere the Squire sat down, and the men stared at him. 
 
 Three shiUings all round. That they understood, and the 
 fact, once fairly understood, sent their dull blood coursing more 
 swiftly through their veins. Three shillings a week ! Eighteen 
 pints of beer ! But the possibilities of such an increase cannot 
 be grasped in a moment. 
 
 Alan rose again when the emotion had subsided, and pulled 
 out a small bundle of papers. They Avere fly-leaves, on which 
 the principal points of his speech had been printed in clear type 
 and in a few words. He put them upon the table. 
 
 " Now," he said, " let this be the first evening Parliament of 
 the new community ! I leave these papers with you. so that 
 you may understand, by reading them, exactly what it is that I 
 propose, by your help, to institute. We shall now leave you to
 
 58 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 your deliberations. Pray send for any more beer that you may 
 require." 
 
 The Vicar, Mr. Bostock, and the Sqnire gone, the men, alone 
 and comfort.able, looked at each other with mazed and turbid 
 understandings. 
 
 "What did he say, William ?" asked the same old sage who 
 had lamented the loss of a Saturday night and the waste of good 
 beef. 
 
 " Three shillin' a week," replied William. " And the Squire, 
 he'll come and live along of us." 
 
 " We don't want no Squire," growled the blacksmith. 
 
 " And Farmer Bostock he's to be bailiff." 
 
 There was another growl. 
 
 Then William, a young man, spoke again. 
 
 " Squire said we v/as to have what beer we vranted. How 
 much do we want?" 
 
 One suggested a pint all round ; another, and a thirstier, rose 
 to a pint and a half. There were about fifteen men present. 
 William, with a boldness which marked him out for future suc- 
 ce.'s, soared higher. 
 
 " Let's hev' a cask," he eaid. 
 
 As there were fifteen men present, that was about three 
 quarts apiece. The cask was brought, and instantly tapped. 
 The deliberations were conducted as long as it lasted, which was 
 at least three hours,. 
 
 No conclusions were arrived at. But the imagination was let 
 loose upon the Squire's future manner of life, and how his 
 father would like it. 
 
 " William," presently asked the old man, " they papers as the 
 Squire left on the table. AVhat's they for ?" 
 
 "Pipe-lights, gaffer," replied William promptly. 
 
 " Oh ! and very thoughtful of the Squire, too. Reach mo 
 one, William !" 
 
 This, alas ! was the end of the Squire's little tract. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " SlroBjj reasons make strong actions." 
 
 TiTR cottage in which Alan proposed to carry out his project 
 T»as one of the humblest in the village. It consisted of two 
 rooms ; that on the ground- floor opening directly on the little 
 front garden, and paved with stone, was ten feet square and 
 eight feet high. That on the floor above was of the same su- 
 perficial "area, but had a sloping I'oof, so that the cubical con- 
 tents were much smaller. In fact, it was a, room in v.-hich a
 
 THE MONKS OF IHELE.V.A. 59 
 
 man would hesitate to swing a cat, from tlie dreadful uncer- 
 tainty whether the cat might not clutch the walls and turn to 
 rend "him. The room was lighted by a small window containing 
 two panes only. 
 
 " You must have a curtain across the door, Alan," said Mi- 
 randa, inspecting the arrangements. " I will make it for you of 
 gome cheap stuff, so that it may be copied by the village. A 
 flower-box may be put in the window for mignonette and wall- 
 flowers. You may put a little bookcase opposite the window. 
 And, for very comfort's sake, you must have some carpet over 
 the cold stones. I can't very well send j^ou blankets at Christ- 
 mas, Alan, can I ? Let me send you a piece of carpet instead — 
 oh ! Pood serviceable carpet ; Kidderminster, not Turkey carpet 
 at all." 
 
 " I have been thinking," said Alan, *' that one way of getting 
 to understand these people, will be by asking them here and 
 giving them tea, with — with jam, I suppose, and so forth." 
 
 It was not till she was alone that Mu'anda felt a temptation 
 to laugh over the picture of the peasants eating their way to the 
 Higher Culture through piles of jam. They agreed that, as re- 
 gards the furniture, simplicity must be studied first, and that 
 aesthetic effect must be practically made of t^econdary import- 
 ance. They fixed upon a v/ooden arm-chair, a deal table, un- 
 varnished, and two or three conimou strong chairs for the 
 coming visitors who were to eat jam. The bookcase presented 
 difficulties. Should it be fitted for the use of the village, or for 
 that of the Squire ? It was with a sigh that Alan pronounced 
 for the village, and filled it with works on practical husbandry, 
 political economy, agricultural chemistry, and other works known 
 to be in constant demand by English villagers. 
 
 " I must devote my evenings, as v.'cU as my days, Miranda," 
 raid Alan, on the eve of taking up his residence in the village, 
 " to the people. But I shall be able to see j-ou on Sundays." 
 
 " And, Alan, may I come to see you — in the fields ?" 
 
 Alan laughed. 
 
 " You may, if you like. You will find me in a smock-frock. ' 
 
 " A smock-frock ? You, Alan ?'' 
 
 Somehow the question of dress goes home to the feminine 
 mind with greater force and directness than to ourselves. Mi- 
 randa would have preferred seeing her new Crusader cap-a-pie 
 in chain armour. Bat in a smock-frock ! 
 
 Alan laughed. 
 
 " The uniform came home last night," he said. " In the soli' 
 tude of my own chamber I put it on. Stay, JMiranda. Ko one 
 IH about. Suppose I go and put it on again for you." 
 
 He disappeared for a few minutes, and presently returned, 
 disguised as a Britis-'^ labourer. He had on a smock-frock, a
 
 6o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 soft felt hat, leggings, gaiters, and corduroy trousers. He carried 
 a whip in his hand, and wore a red cotton handkerchief tied 
 round his neck. No one knows until he has tried it, how vast 
 a gulf separates these who wear from those who do not wear a 
 collar. 
 
 " Alan !" cried Miranda, in a sort of terror, " I am afraid of 
 you. Is it possible for clothes to make all that difference ? 
 You look exact!;/ like a rustic. Even your own air of distinc- 
 tion, that I was proud of, has disappeared. I believe clothes are 
 live things, after all. To be sure, everything is new, and if you 
 only had a rn.'^e in your buttonhole, you would pass for a vil- 
 lager at the opera. But go away quickly, and change before 
 any of the servants see you. If they do, your authority is 
 lost." 
 
 Alan took possession of his new house with pride mixed with 
 anxiety. Like all genuine entliusiasts, he had very little care 
 about what people said of him. That did not enter into his 
 calculations. The pride arose from the realisation of a di-eam 
 which had lain in his brain for two years and more ; the anxiety 
 from a fear that he migh.t not be strong enough to carry it out. 
 A woman whom he had engaged to wait upon him was in the 
 cottage to receive him. 
 
 " You have got evcrythitg as I ordered ?'' Alan asked. 
 " Breakfast such as the men all take ; things for luncheon — I 
 mean dinner ?" 
 
 Everything, she said, had been provided. Thus assured, Alan 
 dismissed her. 
 
 It was eight o'clock, and a cold rainy evening in October. 
 The fire was burning, and the room was illuminated by a single 
 tallow candle in a brass candlestick. The village was very 
 quiet, and the rain fell outside, pattering upon his doorstep, 
 cheerless. The sensation of being quite alone in a house, even 
 a two-roomed cottage, was chilly. And there was the voluntary 
 deprivation of tobacco, which was to begin from that evening. 
 Abstinence from strong drinks, too, was to commence on the 
 spot. Alan sat and meditated. He tried to picture to himself 
 a village where the people were all cultured, all virtuous, all 
 happy. He tried to lay down for himself laK s to guide his con- 
 versation with the men, his daily toil, and his evenings. But 
 it was an unpropitious time. For the moment he took no joy 
 in his projects. In all undertakings of difficulty, that moment 
 is the most unhappy when it has been resolved upon, and on the 
 eve of commencement, because then the dangers stare you most 
 clearly in the face, and success seems most doubtful. 
 
 Ten o'clock. He was to rise early, and had better go to bed. 
 He climbed the narrow stairs, bumped his head once or twice 
 against the sloping roof, and went to bed, feeling exactly like
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 61 
 
 Alexander Selkirk. He woke in the night choked ■with the con- 
 tined air of the little room. It was dark ; he had no matches, 
 and could not open the window. Witli the aid of a brush he 
 smashed a pane of glass, and having thus established a simple 
 ventilator, went to bed again. 
 
 He awoke at six, an hour late. Then a touch of human 
 ■weakness seized him. He would not begin his farm-work that 
 day. Next day he would be called in time. And he thought, 
 as he was awake, he would get up. No one to bring him hot 
 water, no hot water to bring ; no use in ringing the bell, no bell 
 to ring. He felt more and more like Alexander Selkirk. Alas ! 
 he reHected, no fire lit, and breakfast to be made by himself. 
 
 Downstairs, he threw open the shutter and began, with a 
 foolish shame lest any one should see him — to be sure it was 
 not an occupation which offers, at the first blush, many attrac- 
 tions — to lay the fire. This is not difficult to do, but it requires 
 delicacy in the handling, and there are certain details, such as 
 the sweeping up of the cinders, which, although a part of lionour- 
 able labour, is not the work one would wish to do in public. You 
 have to go on your knees to do ib properly ; no man likes that 
 kind of attitude, unless he is at Wimbledon. The fire kindled, 
 it was necessary to boil the kettle for breakfast. Fortunately, 
 the kettle was full. He had onlj^, therefore, to put it on, lay 
 out the things for breakfast, and take that meal. 
 
 When the fire was lit, he began to feel in better spirits. Of 
 course there would be hardships. That was to be expected. 
 Many sorts of hardships. For instance, was not there a certain 
 — hem ! an earthiness, a mouldy odour about the room, which 
 he had failed to notice the night before ? Perhaps, if he opened 
 the door — he did so ; outside the rain was still pattering on his 
 doorstep, and standing in great pools about the road. Clay 
 soil, stone floor, ground heavy with rain — these were the gene- 
 rators of his mouldiness. He made a menial note anent foun- 
 dations. Good ; the kettle must be nearly boiling now ; let us 
 set out breakfast. 
 
 No table-cloth; bread— where is the butter? where is the 
 milk ; tea ; the teapot ; the sugar — brown sugar. Nothing else ? 
 no bacon ? no kidneys ? nothing else at all ? Do labourers make 
 their breakfast off bread and tea, with brown sugar, and no 
 milk ? Stay. In the corner there is something white hing on 
 a plate. He set this down on the table and contemplated it 
 with dismay. 
 
 Yet he had pledged him? elf to live like the fai'm labourers. 
 
 A piece of cold boiled pork, only the fat, not a morsel of lean 
 — a lump of white, hard, unredeemed fat. Do our agricultural 
 workmen, then, halaitually devour the fat of pigs ? 
 
 He tools: up a knife and fork, resolved to conquer this luxurioui
 
 63 THL MONKS OF IHELEMA. 
 
 distaste for pork fat. He laid it doT7n. Again, and •with the 
 same result. 
 
 Then he sighed. At what a price must his end be attained I 
 Perhaps the kettle was boiling. There were none of the signs 
 — no bubbling and running over. He poured a little into a cup. 
 Heavens ! it was hardly warm. He sat down with some temper ; 
 not the broad facts of disinterested devotion, but these little 
 details worry and annoy one. 
 
 He drew his chair to the side of the fire. If he kept the door 
 open he would catch cold ; if he shut it there was that abomin- 
 able mouldiness. Patience. Let the kettle boil. 
 
 The warmth of the fire, the early hour, the exertion of laying 
 the fire, each of these influences falling singly and together upon 
 him, presently caused his eyes to close. 
 
 The fire having made the kettle to boil, went on, in its zeal 
 to do the work thoroughly, until it had boiled all the water 
 away. Then it got the opportunity, which it never neglects, of 
 burning a hole in the bottom of the kettle. By-and-by the door, 
 which was unfastened, swung gently open, and tne rain began 
 to beat in upon Alan's new carpet. Then a cat, belonging to a 
 neighbouring cottage, crept in softly, and sat down before the 
 fire, pretendmg to have made a mistake about the house. As 
 the sleeper took no notice, she rose and began slowly to explore 
 the x'oom in quest of breakfast for herself, if any were to be had. 
 Nothing in the cupboard, nothing on the floor. On the table a 
 piece of pork fat and a loaf of bread. The cat turned the pork 
 over with her paws, smelt it, and finally, digging her teeth into 
 a corner of the skin, jumped lightly to the ground with it and 
 disappeared. But Alan went on sleeping. 
 
 Then two little boys, of three and four, looked in at the door. 
 I do not know where they came from, but realising the situation 
 — somebody sound asleep, rain and cold outside — they crept in 
 and sat on the carpet before the fire, warming their hands and 
 feet. Presently one of them, the more enterprising one, began 
 to prowl round the room, and espied a sugar-basin. This he 
 stealthily brought to his companion, and both, sitting down be- 
 fore the fire, fell to uj^on the sugar, each keeping one ej-e on 
 the sleeper, without the necessity of speech. When the sugar 
 was quite gone, they gently rose, replaced the empty basin, and 
 crept away on the points of their toes like stage brigands. But 
 still the sleeping man slept on. 
 
 When the children were gone, the rain and wind beat in at 
 the open door at their will without awakening the sleeper. Alan 
 was in the land of dreams. 
 
 Tlien there came along the street an old woman. She was 
 going to buy a loaf. Seeing the door of the cottage open, she 
 looked iaj with the curiosity of her sex, to see how the young
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Gj 
 
 Squire liad furnished it. He was there himself, asleep by t!io 
 fire. Seeing that he really was asleep, and took no manner of 
 notice, she was emboldened to look round the room. From 
 looking about the room to stepping inside out of the rain was 
 but a natural sequence of events. But it was not in the natural 
 order of things that while her eyes watched the face of the 
 sleeper, her right hand, vidiile the accomplice loft held up the 
 apron, should steal forth and convey the loaf beneath that 
 feminine robe proper for concealment. When she v/as gone, 
 Alan's breakfast-table was as bare as Dame Hubbard's cupboard. 
 
 The morning advanced. All the men had long since gone ofE 
 to their work ; but now the wom.en, whose household duties 
 were by this time pretty well accomplished for the day, came 
 cut and began to gossip at the doors. And then the rumour 
 ran from house to house that the Squire was in his cottage, that 
 the cottage door was open, and the Squire was sound asleep in- 
 eide, for all the world to see. 
 
 When Alan awoke, which was about half-past eight, he sat 
 tip in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Before him, gathered to- 
 gether at the open door of his cottage were the whole feminine 
 population, with all the children who could not yet walk. 
 There was the ancient gammer, her face seamed and lined, and 
 her shoulders bent. There was the strong and sturdy house- 
 wife, mother of many, one of whom she was brandisliing. There 
 was the newly married wife, fresh from the wash-tub, the suds 
 3'et lying on her red arms. There was, the mxaiden of blushing 
 sixteen, carrying her infant brother. All v/ere there ; all wero 
 staring with open mouths and eyes, whispering, tittering, and 
 waiting. 
 
 Whenhe satup they started back ; whenhe opened his eyes they 
 ■fled multivious ; so that all he got was a mere sense, or dim 
 half-photograph, of the scene, Avhich might even have been a 
 dream. But he heard tlie rustle of flying skirts and the skurry 
 of reti'eating feet, and he divined what had happened. 
 
 But they ought not to have taken away his loaf, and his pork, 
 ;and his sugar. That was carrying curiosity beyond its legitimate 
 limits. And the fire was out, and the water had boiled away, 
 and there was a great hole burnt in the bottom of the kettle. 
 He looked round him in dismay. Up to the present he had suc- 
 ceeded in nothing but in making himself ridiculous. 
 
 Why is it, he asked, that a man will cheerfully bear insult, 
 ■contempt, and misrepresentation, and yet fall into unphilo- 
 sophic rages when he incurs ridicule ? It was a question to 
 which no answer came. 
 
 Meantime, what was he to do ? 
 
 It was nine o'clock. He was hungry. He would consider 
 this a day lost, and he would go over to Dalmeny Ilall, and ask 
 ■for breakfast.
 
 64 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, >^-^ 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "Metliiiiks it were a happy life, 
 To be no better than a komoly swain." 
 
 " Well, sir," Bailiff Bostock said, " if you really do mean iti> 
 and will take and work with the men Do you mean it- 
 just as you say, and no favour ?" 
 
 " I mean just what I say. I shall begin to-morrow, and am 
 here now to learn my duties for the day." 
 
 Alan was determined there should be no more loss of a day. 
 
 " You can't follow the plough, that wants practice ; and you 
 can't manage the engine, that wants training." 
 
 The bailiff rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 
 
 " There's a st;ick of hay we're going to cut into to-morrow ; but 
 I can't send you up the ladder, atop o' that great stack. Sure as 
 twopence you'd fall down and break something. Can vou drive. 
 Squire ?" 
 
 " Of covirso, I can." 
 
 " Then I'll tell you what you shall do. It is a dirty job, 
 too " 
 
 " Never mind how rough it is." 
 
 " I think you will be able to manage it, for the first job, better 
 than anything else. You come here to-morrow morning, at six 
 sharp, and I'll find you a day's work, never fear." 
 
 With this assurance, Alan was fain to be content. He then 
 proceeded, being thoroughly ashamed of the morning's fiasco, to 
 guard against a repetition of it. With this view, he hired a boy 
 to call him at five sharp, got a ventilator for his bedroom, aa 
 alarum clock, which ho set for five o'clock. He next purchased 
 a new kettle, and provided such materials for breakfast as he 
 could eat, deferring the cold pork until such time as he should 
 become hardened to the bread of affliction. 
 
 It was five o'clock in the afternoon when these arrangements 
 were finally completed. He remembered that he had dinner to 
 get, bought a beefsteak and potatoes, and ijroceeded, with such 
 slender art as was at his command, to grill the former and boil 
 the latter. The potatoes came out hard, but he had eaten horse- 
 beefsteak in America. 
 
 Dinner over he sat down, and spent the evening in calculating 
 how best he could live on eighteen shillings a week, with a little 
 extra at harvest-time— say a guinea, all told. Rent, half-a- 
 crown ; clothes and boots, five pounds a year at least — say two 
 shillings a week. Remained, sixteen shillings and sixpence for 
 everything. Fuel, candles, soap, odds and ends, would carry 
 away half-a-crown of this. iTowteen shillings left for food and
 
 THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. O5 
 
 pavings ; for Al.an was resolute on showing the rustics how to 
 save. Say eighteenpence a clay for food. 
 
 Food. What is food ? Half-a-crown goes at the club for 
 luncheon alone with great ease. He would want, he thouglit, a 
 pound of meat, hali: a dozen potatoes, and a loaf of bread every 
 day. There is eighteenpence gone at once. Tea, coii'ee, sugar, 
 milk, butter, cheese, small groceries : all this had to come out of 
 the odd sixpence. And how much would be left for saving ? 
 Every penny would have to be looked at, every tcaspoonful of 
 tea hesitated over. And then the washing. The male mind 
 dees not at first understand the meaning of this item. Now it 
 occurred to him that unless, in the dead of night, and with 
 barred doors, he did his own washing, this charge would be the 
 last straw to break the camel's back. And j-et, with the was'a- 
 ing before their eyes, the labourers found money to spend at tho 
 Spotted Lion. It must come out of his meat. Overcome with 
 the prospect, Alan folded up his paper and went to bed. 
 
 In the morning he had a beautiful dream. He was v/alking 
 hand in hand with Miranda in a flowery meadow, in whose 
 hedges highly-cultured peasants had planted geraniums, stan- 
 dard and monthly roses, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, dahlias, 
 and the stately hollyhocks, which raised their heads and blos- 
 somed among the hawthorn, honeysuckle, and straggling black- 
 berry. Beneath them, on the banks, flowered mignonette, ver- 
 bena, heliotrope, and all sorts of sweet flowers, growing appa- 
 rently wild. The grass amid which they walked was luxuriant 
 and long, and bright with buttercups and cowslips. Round 
 them, as they walked hand in hand under a sunny sky, sat, 
 walked, or played the villagers, engaged in various occupations, 
 all of which demanded the Higher Culture. For one, clad in a 
 smock-frock, scrupulously clean, was reading Mr. Pater's 
 " Studies of the Renaissance ;" another, similarly attired, was 
 studying Darwin's " Descent of Man ;" another, an older man, 
 was sitting, brow bent, and pencil in hand, with which he made 
 marginalia over Mill's "Political Economy ;" a fourth was com- 
 posing music ; a fifth was collecting specimens in the hedges for 
 a liortus siccus. Of the girls, three were standing together in 
 the attitude of the Graces, only daintily attired, singing part 
 Bongs, with clasped hands ; some were making embroidery for 
 their Sunday frocks, and one was reading Ruskin's " Fors 
 Clavigera " aloud for the benefit of those who embroidered. Of 
 the younger men, one in a corner by himself was declaiming, 
 Shakespeare in hand ; another was airily reading that sweet, and 
 6i)nple, and musical poem called " Sordello," singing from its 
 rippling measures as he brushed away the dew across the upland 
 lawn ; another was correcting the proofs of a Note on the village 
 archajology. which traced +be connectioii of tlie parish pump
 
 66 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 with tlieRomnn occupation — these proofs "were destined for.tlia 
 Academy I another was catching swiftly and deftly with brush 
 and paper the ever-changing effects of cloud and sunshine on 
 the river; the blacksmith wos writing a villanelle ; and the 
 schoolmaster was guessing a double acrostic. The elder ladies, 
 assisted by the oldest inhabitant cf the village, Methusalem PaiT, 
 were engaged in committing to paper the folk-lore of the dis- 
 trict, with a view of sending it to the editor of Mehisine. Among 
 the mdrchen thus set down for the first time was a nursery story 
 of a Pig, a Porcupine, and a Piper, which afterwards became 
 famous, and was traced to the very foot of the Hirnalaj-as, 
 where the inhabitants believed that it descended from Heaven. 
 Just as Alan, in explaining to Miranda the honour and glory 
 which this relic of old-world story v/ould confer upon the village 
 of AVeyland, his dream grew a little troubled. The young men 
 and the maidens got confused before his eyes ; the meadow grew 
 cloudy ; the villagers all seemed to start asunder in terror ; 
 books, pens, pencils, all were thrown aside, and they fled multi- 
 vious with oaths and shrieks, which were not loud and coarse, 
 but loy>^ and cultured. Then the meadow changed itself into a 
 small whitewashed room, there Avas no Miranda at all, and he 
 was lying in his cottage bedroom alone. 
 
 " Ting-a-ring-ting !" — was ever alarum more wildly irritat- 
 ing ? He sprang from his bed and hurled a boot v*duch 
 silenced that alarum for ever. 
 
 Bang, bang, bang ! " Five o'clock, master." That was the 
 boy calling him. He composed his shattered nerves as well aa 
 he could, and proceeded to dress. It was with a mixture of 
 foolish shame and i^ride that he put on his corduroys, button- 
 up waistcoat, and clean white smock ; these assumed, he de- 
 scended the stairs, lit the fire, made his tea, managed to get 
 through a little bre.id and butter — five o'clock is really too 
 early for breakfast — tied his red handkerchief I'ound his neck, 
 put on his soft felt hat, and sallied forth a noAV Don Quixote. 
 He naturally felt uncomfortable in his new garb : that was to 
 be expected. And as he walked rapidly down the village street, 
 along which the labourers were slouching slowly to their work, 
 it was not pleasant to hear the rustics, whose sense of humour 
 is naturally sti'ongest when the point of the epigram refers to 
 their own famihar pursuits, explode as he passed, and choke 
 respectfully. 
 
 In the farmyard, besides the usual belongings, was a cart and 
 horse ready for use, led by a boy. Bailiff Bostock, his own 
 horse ready saddled, was waiting impatiently for Alan. 
 
 '' Now, Squire," he taid, pointing to such a heap as might 
 have cone from the Augean stables, " you see that pile o' muck.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 67 
 
 It's got to be carted to the fields and spread out m littlo 
 piles, same as you've often seen when you go out shooting." 
 
 " I understand," said Alan, his heart warming with the pros- 
 pect of real work ; " it's got to be pitchforked into the cart^, 
 driven to the field, and pitchforked back again. Isn't it bojfi' 
 work, Bailife ?" 
 
 The Bailiff grinned. 
 
 " Ask me that in half an hour," he said, and, jumping into 
 his (.saddle, rode off on the business of the day. 
 
 Alan rolled up the sleeves of his smock, and took up the 
 pitchfork. The boy went behind the cart to grin. The smock- 
 frock was white, and the job was so very, very likely to destroy 
 that whiteness that the boy needs must go behind the cai't to 
 laugh. Had he not been afraid of the Squire he would have 
 toltl him that he should begin by taking off the smock and the 
 gmart waistcoat under it. 
 
 Then the job began. To handle a pitchfork, like other re- 
 sponsible work, requires practice. The crafty pitchforker 
 grasps his instrument at some point experimentally ascertained 
 to be that of least weight and greatest leverage. Had Alan 
 been a Cambridge instead of an Oxford man, he would have 
 known something of such points. But he was ignorant of 
 mechanics, and had to find out for himself. 
 
 Half a dozen times that boy, who should have been on the 
 shafts, assisting at the reception of the stuff, came from behind 
 the shafts, each time to go back again and laugh as noiselessly 
 as he could. Alan heard him, though he condoned the offence, 
 considering the novelty of the thing. 
 
 The first time that boy looked round the cart the Squire was 
 beginning to puff and pant ; the second time he looked, the 
 Squire had pulled off his hat, and his face was shining as the 
 face of one in a Turkish bath ; the third time he had throwr 
 aside his red neckerchief and the perspiration was streaming 
 from his brows. But still the Squire worked on. Never before 
 had that boy seen a cart filled more swiftly. 
 
 "Now, boy," he said good-humouredly, "when you have 
 done laughing you may tell me where we have to take this 
 h)ad." 
 
 The boy essayed to speak, but choked. The situation was 
 altogether too funny. He could only point. 
 
 Alan drove the cart down one lane and up another without 
 nny disaster, the boy following behind him, still grinning as 
 noiselessly as he knew. Then they came to their field, and tho 
 boy pointed to the spot where they had to begin. " This will 
 be easy work," said Alan, mounting the cart. 
 
 The task, indeed, was simple. Only to pitch out the manure 
 in small heaps standing in the cart. 
 
 o— 2
 
 68 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Thn boy went to the horse's head. 
 
 After the first heap was out — rather dexterously, Alan thought 
 ■ — the boy made a remarkable utterance : 
 
 " O— osier !" 
 
 Instantly the cart went on, and Alan, losing his balance, was 
 prostrated into the cart itself, where he lay supine, his legs 
 kicking up. At this sight the boy broke down altogether and 
 laughed, roaring, and bellowing, and weeping with laughter so 
 that the welkin rang. 
 
 Alan got up rather ruefully. To be sure, it was absurd to 
 quarrel with the boy for laughing. And yet the condition of 
 that smock-frock from shoulder to hem ! Could the washing bo 
 included in the fourteen shillings? He pitchforked the second 
 pile out of the cart. 
 
 " O — osier !" cried the boy, and the cart went on. 
 
 This time Alan fell on his hands and face. The front of the 
 smock was now like the back, and the boy, who had a fino 
 sense of humour, sat down on the ground for unreserved enjoy- 
 ment of his laugh. 
 
 " Why the devil," cried the Squire, " can't you tell me when 
 you are going on ?' 
 
 "I did," said the boy ; " I said ' O— osier.' " 
 
 Alan was silent, and resumed his work with greater care to 
 preserve his balance at the word " O — sier." 
 
 Just then the Bailiff rode into the field. 
 
 " Well, Squire," he said, " boys' work— eh ?" 
 
 "Not quite." 
 
 " Had a fall in the muck ? Better have taken ofE your frock 
 and your waistcoat, too. Live and learn, sir. Don't you be too 
 wasteful o' the muck. That stuff's precious. My missus, she 
 says, if the Squire '11 drop in when he's ready for a bite, she'll 
 be honoured." 
 
 " Thank you. Bailiff. I am going to live as the men live." 
 
 " What ha' you got for your dinner, boy ?" 
 
 " Bread and cheese." 
 
 " AVhat has your daddy got ?" 
 
 " Bread and cheese." 
 
 " You see, Squire, bread and cheese won't do for the likes of 
 you. However, you have your own way. Have you got your 
 dinner in your pocket, sir ?" 
 
 " AVhy— no." 
 
 " Now, sir, do you think we can afPord the time for the la- 
 bourer to go all the way home and back again for dinner ?" 
 
 That argument was irresistible, and Alan went to the BailiiT'a 
 house, where he was relieved of the unlucky smock. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock gave him some boiled pork and greens, with a
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 6g 
 
 glass of beer. That was at twelve o'clock : never had ho bsen 
 BO hungry. 
 
 After dinner, he fed the pigs. Then he was set weeding, 
 which the Bailiif thought a light and pleasant occupation for 
 an October afternoon. 
 
 " I can hardly sit up," he wrote to Miranda that evening, 
 " but I must tell you that I have done my first day's work. At 
 present I have had no opportunity of conversing with the men, 
 but that will come in due course, no doubt. My only com- 
 panion to-day has been a boy who laughed the whole time. 
 Oocd-night, Miranda," 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " The mansion's self was vast and venerable : 
 AVitli more of the monastic than bas been 
 Preserved elsewhere : the cloisters still were stable. 
 The cells, too, and refeciory, I ween." 
 
 It is not to be understood that Alan was entirely satisfied with 
 a lonely evening in a two-roomed cottage, or that he ceased 
 altogether his visits at Dalmeny Hall. Occasionally, to be sure, 
 but this was only at the beginning of his career as a peasant, he 
 varied the monotony of the evening by inviting a brother farm- 
 labourer to take supper with him. On these occasions the repast 
 was of a substantial kind, accompanied by coffee, and followed 
 by pipes. But it brought little joy, much less than might have 
 been expected. The beefsteak was eaten with hunger, but in 
 manifest dis-ease ; there was no camaraderie as between fellow- 
 workers in the same noble cause ; the coffee was accepted as a 
 poor substitute for the beer of the Spotted Lion, and conversa- 
 tion flagged. Perhaps, Alan thought, there was some defect in 
 his own mind which checked the sympathy necessary to bring 
 out the full flavour of rustic society, and to enter into its 
 inner soul. Else why should the talk be a series of questions 
 on his part, and of answers on the other, like the Church Cate- 
 chism ? And why should his friend, departing at the earliest 
 hour possible, manifest in his artless features a lively joy that 
 he was now free to seek the shades of the Spotted liion, and 
 pour ffjrth to friendly ears the complaint of a swain who found 
 a supper too dearly bought at the cost of a night with the 
 Squire. 
 
 Once, and only once, Alan ventured within the walls of the 
 tavern. It was in the evening. A full parliament was as- 
 Bembled in the tap-room. Every man had his pipe : every 
 man his mug of beer : the windows were close shut : the 
 lire was burning brightly : the i)etrol'-,ura lamp was turned
 
 70 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 or full : and what -vritli the beer, the tobacco, the smell o^ 
 clothes dr\-ing slowly in the warm room — for outside it was 
 raining — and the petroleum, the stench was like a London fog, 
 inasmuch as it could be seen, felt, and handled almost, as well 
 as tasted. 
 
 "When Alan appeared at the door, clad like themselves in cor- 
 duroys, with red handkerchief round his neck, he observed that 
 the same expression gathered slowly, like a cloud roUing up 
 from the west, upon every face. It was not a pleasant expres- 
 sion. There was astonishment in it : there was also disgust : 
 and there was an attempt to force the perfunctory gi-in of wel- 
 come. For every man felt as if he was a schoolboy, and as if 
 Alan was the master. What right, that expression said aa 
 plainly as looks can speak, what right had the Squire prying 
 there ? As if it was not aggravation enough to have him always 
 about. 
 
 Alan read the expression correctly. But he sat down and en- 
 deavoured to say pleasant things. The things were not received 
 as pleasant things at all, but of quite the opposite kind. And, 
 as no one would talk while he was there, he came away dis- 
 heartened. It was not by the tap-room that he should get at the 
 real heart of England's peasantry. 
 
 As, therefore, the men cared nothing for his society, would 
 rather not have it, and were gtnh with it, as most of us should 
 be had we to spend an evening alone with a duke, and all of us 
 had we to converse with an archangel, Alan fell back upon his 
 own resources, and when he was not devising new things for 
 the improvement of the people, or when he was not too tired 
 physically for further exertion, he began again those visits at 
 Dahneny HaU which were almost a necessity of his daily life. 
 That he prefered the garb of an English gentleman to that of 
 an English labourer goes without saying : and also that it was a 
 rehef beyond the power of words to escape from the narrow limits 
 of his cottage, and find himself in Miranda's room, in the sun- 
 fchine of her presence, away from the sordid and mean conditions 
 Vith which he had surrounded himself. 
 
 At first, all their talk was of the gi'eat experiment and its 
 ehances of success, which were as yet uncertain. But when 
 Miranda had other guests, and her own share of talk with Alan 
 v.as small, he found himself taking interest, as of old, in mun- 
 dane affairs of a general nature. It was hard to say whether 
 he returned to his cottage with renewed vigour or with disgust. 
 Certainly it looked meauer and more sordid every day : certain 
 the details of his work appeared more disagreeable : but, on the 
 other hand, he had the sympathy of Miranda, and after each 
 talk with her, the approval of his soul was more largely bestowed 
 upon the Work of his life as he called it (with a capital AV), be*
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 71 
 
 cause she. too, thought it great, and ■worthy, and commend- 
 able. 
 
 And on Sundays he spent the whole livelcrg day with Mi- 
 randa, grudging the lap-e of every hour. 
 
 In the afternoons, when the morning church, necessary for 
 example's sake to every leader of bucolics, was finished, they 
 would talk. There were the gardens of Dalmeny Hall set 
 about with lawns and flower-beds and shady walks ; there were 
 the splendid elms and rolling turf of Weyland Park : there the 
 banks of the silver Wey winding round meadows, lawns, and 
 among great trees : or there was the great Hall of Weyland 
 Court itself, or there was its library. Alan was a great talker 
 to Miranda alone. To her he talked like Coleridge, in a full, rich 
 torrent, though perhaps he was not so unintelligible. To the 
 rest of the world he was a man of reserve, respected because he 
 had the courage of his opinions, and a great cause of small talk 
 by reason of his crotchets, hobbies, and flights. A man with 
 the mysterious power v.-hich belongs to one who can hold his 
 tongue. Great in the might of silence. 
 
 It was out of these talks that was evolved the Abbey of 
 Thelema. 
 
 It began one afternoon in January, when for once the north 
 wind slept, and a warm west wind, which did not carry rain 
 with it, brought comfort to the buds which made all the under- 
 wood purple, and were already whispering to each other that 
 the spring Avas coming. As they walked along the river-bank, 
 Weyland Court rose at their right, on a low hiU, in lawns 
 Bloping away on svery side. They stood and looked at it. 
 
 " It is a beautiful place, Alan," said Miranda for the thou- 
 sandth time. " What a pity that you cannot live in it still, and 
 carry out your plans in your own place." 
 
 " Not yet, Miranda," he replied ; " not yet for j-ears ; net till 
 a new generation has grown up who can run alone in the path 
 of culture." 
 
 "What can you do with it?" she asked. "It would be a 
 shame to let it." 
 
 " I will never let it." 
 
 " And it seems a shame that no one lives in it." 
 
 The house was in red brick, and stood round a quadrangle 
 open to the south, like one or two courts of the red brick col- 
 leges of Cambridge, say the second court of St. John's, or tho 
 ivy court of Jesus, or the single court, only that is faced with 
 Etone, of pretty Clare, It had a splendid great hall, which we 
 have already seen ; it had a chapel, a library, a long drawing- 
 room, running over the whole ground-floor of one side : it had 
 a garden within the quadrangle : its walls were covered with 
 all kinds of creepers : it had a stately gateway of that orna-
 
 72 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 mcnted iron^vork in which the genius of English art seems mosi 
 to have concentrated itself. On the west and south lay tho 
 great gardens : on the north the view stretched across the park 
 over hundreds of acres of splendid land which, I suppose, ought 
 to be turned into fields arable, but which was rich with wood 
 and coppice and clastic turf. On the east side was planted a 
 thick grove of pines to keep off the English mistral. 
 
 The place was erected for a convent, but never fulfilled the 
 purpose of the founder, because after his death — he had been a 
 stupendous sinner, and thought to patch matters up by found- 
 ing a nunnery — came the dissolution of all the religious orders, 
 and the generous monarch who sent all monks and nuns out 
 into the world, bestowed Weyland Priory, which became Wey- 
 land Court, upon the first Dunlop who had ever received the 
 xujyal favour. 
 
 Then Miranda had an idea. 
 
 " Alan," she said, " we have talked about all kinds of frater- 
 nities, societies, and communities, except one." 
 
 " What is that, Miranda ?" 
 
 " A society where ladies and gentlemen can live together 
 without any aims, either religious, political, or social." 
 
 " Is not that the ideal of modern society ?" 
 
 " But an ideal never reached, Alan. Suppose we formed such 
 a society and placed it at Weyland Court." 
 
 " The Galois and the Galoises were such a society," he re- 
 plied, laughing. "They lived according to their own lights, 
 which I suppose they thought advanced. But I fear we cannot 
 imitate them. Then there was tho Abbey of Thclema, which 
 seems to meet your case." 
 
 " What was the Abbey of Thelema ?" 
 
 " When we get home, I will read you all about it." 
 
 " Then let us go home at once, and you shall read it to us." 
 
 They went home. Desdemona was staying with Miranda, 
 her mother being mere than usually ill. Alan went to the 
 library, found the first volume of Urquhart's Rabelais, and 
 read about the story of the celebrated Abbey, which, as every- 
 body knows, breaks off short at the very beginning, and tells 
 an expectant vrorld nothing more than how the Abbey was 
 started. 
 
 " It is the way with all good things," sighed Miranda. " ^Vhat 
 I always want is to go beyond tlic story ; I want to find out 
 how they got on with their Abbey. Did the Brothers and 
 Sisters fall in love with each other ? Did they go on living 
 together without quarrels and little jealousies?" 
 
 "My dear," said Desdemona the wise, "when the curtain 
 drops, the lovers part, the weeping father diies his eyes, and 
 wo all go home to humdrum supper and bed. That is all to b^
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ti 
 
 got out of going beyond the story. Believe in the happy mo- 
 
 u-ent. The rest is below consideration." 
 
 " Ah !" Miranda replied. " But if it were only possible to 
 have such an Abbey." 
 
 " Why not ?" asked Alan. 
 
 " To collect together a band of men and women who would 
 simply lead the pleasantest life attainable, and n^ver forget 
 that they are gentlemen and gentlewomen." 
 
 "Why not?" repeated Alan. 
 
 " My dear Alan," said Desdemona, " the fact of your ex- 
 traordinary freedom from young men's follies, though you are 
 yourself a mere boy, makes me hopeful that you mean some- 
 thing." 
 
 " I mean," said Alan, " that if you and Miranda could get up 
 such an Abbey, there is Weyland Court for you. First, because 
 it will please Miranda ; and secondly, because while I am trying 
 my experiment in the village, Miranda may try hers with people 
 of culture and see what will come of it." 
 
 "But it will cost unheard-of sums," urged Desdemona. 
 
 " Weyland Court can afford a good deal. It is only keeping 
 open house for a time." 
 
 " Alan !" Miranda clapped her hands. " If you really mean 
 it — but, of course, you always mean what you say. Quick, 
 Desdemona, dear ; let us have pen and paper and begin our 
 new Abbey. Only," she hesitated for a moment, " people would 
 say that it is quite too absurd." 
 
 " People say what they please," said Alan. " Wild words 
 wander here and there. They say I am doing an absurd thing 
 in Avorking on my farm. That is gravely absurd. Suppose we 
 do an absurd thing which shall have no gravity about it at all, 
 but only whimsical, and start our Abbey after the rules laid 
 down by Father Rabelais." 
 
 " Yes, Alan, let us try it ; we have been too grave lately." 
 
 " Then, on one condition, JMiranda. It is that you become 
 the Lady Abbess, and that Desdemona gives us her help in 
 organising the thing." 
 
 " No — no," said Desdemona. " In your own Louse you must 
 be Abbot, Prior, or whatever you call it." 
 
 But Alan was inflexible on this point. He promised to be- 
 come an active-working Brother, so long as it did not interfere 
 v.ith his work in the village ; he would attend regularly, dine 
 fcometimes, take a leading part in the ceremonies, but Miranda 
 must be the chief. 
 
 So it was settled. 
 
 "And for the ceremonies," eaid Miranda, " Desdemona must 
 direct." 
 
 "I will do what I can," said Desdemona. " Of coursCj you
 
 74 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 will have mediEeval things revived. You ought to Lave games 
 riding at the ring, tournament.*, medis3val singing and dancing' 
 and mediaeval dresses. All the Brothers and Sisters will be 
 rich, I suppose." 
 
 " All but Tom Caledon," said Miranda ; " and if we have 
 Tom Caledon, we must have Nelly, and she is not rich at all. 
 But that does not matter." 
 
 " Not at all," said Alan. 
 
 " Ah ! you two," murmured Desdemona. " What a thing 
 for two young people, not one, which always happens, and which 
 is the reason why this world is so lopsided — what a thing, I 
 say, that you can do what you like without thinking of money ! 
 If I could only persuade you to run a theatre on high principles, 
 which would not pay." 
 
 " The Abbey first, dear Desdemona," said Miranda. " And 
 when that is done with, if ever it is, we will have our theatre, 
 and you shall be the manager." 
 
 But Desdemona shook her head. 
 
 " Women ought not to be managers," she said. " They make 
 bad administrators. There is only one man fit to be the dictator 
 of a theatre. And that is— but I will tell j-ou v/hen we start 
 the new house." 
 
 Then they all three went over to "Weyland Court and ex- 
 amined its capabilities. 
 
 " What do you think ?" asked Alan. 
 
 " The hall," said Desdemona, " v.-ill, of course, be the refec- 
 tory, and the ball-room as well. Think of dining habitually in 
 so splendid a hall. The lovely drawing-room, which is like that 
 of Guy's Cliff, only longer and more beautiful, will do for our 
 ordinary evenings ; I see several rooms which v/ill do for 
 breakfast and morning rooms. There are stables ready for 
 fifty horses : the kitchen is fit for a City company "' 
 
 " And rooms," Miranda interrupted, " for as many Brothers 
 and Sisters as we can take in. Shall we have twenty-four 
 Desdemona ? That seems & good round number to bciin 
 with." 
 
 But Desdemona thought twenty v/ould be better, and they 
 resolved on twenty. 
 
 " Every Brother and Sister to have two rooms," the girl went 
 on, warming to her work, " and one room for his or her servant. 
 That makes sixty rooms ; and there are plenty to spare for 
 guests, without counting the three haunted chambers." 
 
 " Oh !" said Alan, " you will have guests ?" 
 
 "Of course," Desdemona answered. "What is the good of 
 shoAving the world how to live if nobcdy comes to see you ? 
 You might just as well act to an empty house." 
 
 *' And v.'ho will you iuvilc tojoin ? ' Alan asked.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 7i 
 
 Miranda threw herself into a chair, and took paper and 
 pen. 
 
 " You, Alan, for one. What name will you talce ? But we 
 will find you one. And you, Desdemona dear, under that name 
 and no other. And I Miranda, because I shall not change my 
 name. That makes three out of the twenty. Then we niu«t 
 ask Adela Fairfax, if only for her beautiful playing. And 
 ]']dith Cambridge, because she is so beautiful and so clever. 
 And perhaps Major Vanbrugh will join us. And then there is 
 Tom Caledon. Oh ! what an Abbey we shall have !" 
 
 So the Abbey was started. And to the County it seemed a 
 more desirable piece of madness than the farm. And nothing 
 gave the world so much satisfaction as the name conferred 
 upon Alan Dunlop. For, as Lucy Corrington told Lord Alwyne, 
 as the Brethren never knew what he would do next, they called 
 him Brother Hamlet. 
 
 " But what, in the name of goodness," asked Sister Desde- 
 mona, " are we to do with the Chapel ?" 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "Wo may oulnm 
 By violent swiftness fliat which wo do run tit, 
 And lose by overrunuiug." 
 
 Meantime, the days crept slowly on with Alan. To rise at 
 dawn, or before it ; to go forth after a hasty breakfast prepared 
 by his own hands, to receive his orders from the Baililf ; to get 
 through the day's work as well as he could, feeling all the time 
 that he was the least efficient labourer of the wliole twelve 
 hands, or even, counting the boys, of the whole twenty-four, 
 employed upon the farm, a useful but humiliating lesson for the 
 yoimg Oxford man who had been trained in the belief that 
 whatever a gentleman put his hand to, he would immediately 
 do better than anybody else ; to wear those confounded cordu- 
 roys, turned up at the ankles ; to meet his friends in such a 
 disguise that they seldom recognised him ; to pass a cavalcade 
 of ladies riding along the road, and to pull his cart — as a carter 
 Alan was perhaps as good as any other man on the estate— -out 
 L'f their way into the ditch ; to work on in a field, conscious 
 that a dozen people were leaning over the gale, come forth on 
 purpose to see the Squire attired as a labouring man, carrying 
 out the teaching of the " Fors Clavigera ;" to acquire an enor- 
 mous appetite at the ungodly hour of eleven, and appease it, 
 sitting in a hedge, with great bunches of cold bacon and bread — ■ 
 actually, cold bacon and bread— P.nd other homely catcs ; to plod
 
 76 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 home at night to his dismal damp cottage, there to light a fire, 
 and brew a solitary tea for himself; and after tea to fight 
 against the physicarfatigue, which seemed to numb all his fa- 
 culties at once ; — this was the life which Alan for the most part 
 led. As regards his work, he found that he made but an indif- 
 ferent labourer ; that his companions, who undoubtedly ex- 
 celled him in practical bucolic art, scofEed at him almost be- 
 fore his face, and that, so far from becoming the friend and 
 confidant of the men, he day by day seemed to be drifting 
 farther from them. It was from no pride or exclusiveness 
 on his part. He fed the pigs, drove the cows, groomed the 
 horses, carted the manure, hedged and ditched, learned to 
 manage the steam plough, taught himself the great Art and 
 Mystery of Thatching, learned a little rough carpentering, 
 tried to shoe a horse, but got kicked, and grubbed up the weeds 
 as patiently as any old man in the village. 
 
 " The busy hours," he said to Miranda, " are doubled by tho 
 solitude. The men, among themselves, talk and make merry 
 after their fashion. What they talk about, or what their jokes 
 between themselves are, Heaven only knows. When I come 
 among them they are suddenly silent. Even the boys are afraid 
 of me." 
 
 " You will understand them," said Miranda, after a time. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " I begin to despair. And in the evening when I should be 
 useful and ready to devise new schemes for their benefit, the 
 weariness is so great, that I sit down in my chair, and half the 
 week, fall fast asleep." 
 
 " And can you live on your wages, Alan ?" 
 
 Here, I regret to say, he positively blushed, because here, ho 
 felt, was the great breakdown of his plan. 
 
 " No, Miranda, with all my economy, I spend exactly double 
 what I earn. I cannot understand it. I began with drinking 
 nothing but water and coffee. Yet one gets so confoundedly 
 hungry. How do they manage it ?'' 
 
 Not only did he begin with coffee and water, but he began by 
 knocking ofi: tobacco. He would no longer smoke. 
 
 " And yet " he said to Miranda, " it made no difference to tho 
 people whether I smoked or whether I did not. They don't 
 seem to care what T do. As for beer, they drink as much as 
 they can get ; and as for tobacco, they smoke as much as tiiey 
 can." 
 
 " Although," said Desdemona, " you have sacrificed your in- 
 terest in Havanna, they retain theirs in Virginia. Why not ?" 
 
 " So I have taken to tobacco again, and I confess I like it." 
 
 "And the total abstinence plan — how does that work?" asked 
 Desdemona,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 77 
 
 *' I have bad to gi TO it up. What is the use of letting the 
 people know that you have given up wine wlien they cleave to 
 their beer ?" 
 
 " Exactly," said Dcsdemona, who could never bo taught to 
 sympathise with the grand experiment. " You gave up your 
 allegiance to the grape of Uordeaux, and you fancied tliey 
 would give up theirs to the barley of the Spotted Lion. Poor 
 enthusiast !" 
 
 " AYell, I have taken to my claret again, now. And, of course, 
 it is absurd to pretend any longer to live within my wages." 
 
 " You have been brought up," said Desdemona the sceptic, 
 "to live as all English gentlemen do ; that is, well. You tried 
 suddenly, and without preparation, to live as no English gentle- 
 men do ; that is, in a minimum. What could 3'ou expect but a 
 breakdown ?" 
 
 " Yes," he said sadly. " It is a breakdown, so far." 
 
 " As your daily diet is dilTercnt from theirs," the woman of 
 experience went on, " so are your thoughts different from their 
 thoughts. Your brain is quickened by education, by generous 
 diet, by freedom from care ; theirs are dulled by no education, 
 by low living, and by constant money anxieties. You have 
 travelled and read ; they know nothing but what they see. My 
 poor Alan, what sort of minds do you propose to understand 
 with all this trouble ?" 
 
 " There is a sense in all men," said Alan, which lies dormant 
 in some, but must be a lingering spark that wants the breath of 
 sympathy to kindle it into flame. It is the spur of all noble 
 actions. I want to light that flame in all their hearts." 
 
 " In your rank," said the actress, " they call it ambition, and 
 it is laudable ; in theirs, it is discontent, and it is a crime. 
 AVould you fly straight in the face of your Church Cate- 
 chism ?"' 
 
 As the days went on, the physical weariness grew less, Alan 
 became stronger ; the pains went out of his legs and arms ; 
 he could stoop over a field and go weeding for hours Avithout 
 suffering ; he acquired, as we have said, an enormous appetite, 
 and, probably because he lived better than the rest of the men, 
 he found himself after a time able to sit up in the evening, work, 
 ■write, and devise things for the good of the village. 
 
 First, he began to look into the doings of the Parliament, 
 which had now held a weekly Saturday evening sitting for soma 
 six weeks. He discovered, on inquiry, that liis orders about pro- 
 viding a good supper, with abundance of beer, had been literally 
 and liberally carried out, but that, as no minutes of proceedings 
 were kept, it was impossible for him to discover what, if any- 
 thing, had been discoursed. What really happened, as he soon 
 found oat, vas, that the men. after pating the supper and
 
 78 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 drinking tho beer, adjourned without any further debate to ths 
 Spotted Lion. 
 
 This discovery sti uck Alan with consternation. lie took 
 blame to himself for the carelessness with which he had left the 
 Parliament to its own duties. He ought, he remembered, to 
 have attended at every meeting, to have presided, suggested 
 topics of discussion, and led. But he had always been so tired. 
 One thing, however, was cleax*. It was not enough to point the 
 way. The rustics required a leader. That he ought to havo 
 knov/n all along. 
 
 Accordingly on the next Saturday evening, the members of 
 the House of Commons received an intimation by means of a 
 flyleaf, that supper would no longer be provided, as it appeared 
 to be a hindrance to deliberation. 
 
 '• You may," Alan wrote, " when you divide your profits from 
 the farm, vote whatever proportion you please to be spent in a 
 weekly supper. Indeed, some such sort of common festal meal, 
 to which the women and children could be admitted, seems 
 most desirable and helpful. But I cannot longer exicourage a 
 feast which I designed as a preliminary to serious talk, and 
 which seems to have been converted into a drinking-bout." 
 
 "What does the Squire mean by this here, William?" asked 
 the oldest inhabitant. 
 
 But William could not explain this unexpected move. It was 
 beyond him. A weekly supper which had lasted for six weeks 
 seemed destined to last for ever. When the men recovered 
 sufficiently to discuss the matter, it was considered as an act of 
 meanness beyond any precedent. 
 
 On the following Saturday, Alan came to the Parliament, 
 bringing with him a bundle of papers for discussion. At the 
 hour of assembling there v/as no one there at all. Presently the 
 cobbler of the village dropped in casually. After him, pro- 
 tending not to be his friend, came in a stranger, who practised 
 the art of cobbling in the cathedral town of Athelston, near 
 Weyland. And then the schoolmaster looked in. The cobbler of 
 Athelston, after a decent pause, rose energetically, and asked 
 Alan if this was a place for freedom of speech. 
 
 " Certainly, my friend," said the young reformer. " We are 
 met together to discuss all points." 
 
 " Then," quoth the cobbler, " I am prepared to prove that 
 there is no God." 
 
 Alan assured hhn that political and social problems, not theo- 
 logical, were the object of the Village Parliament. But he would 
 not be convinced, and after a few withering sarcasms directed 
 against autocrats, aristocrats, and priests, he retired, followed 
 by his friend, the village cobbJer whosecretlj nourished similar
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 79 
 
 persuasions. There is somellimg in the smell of leather which 
 IS fatal to religion. 
 
 There was tlien only the schoolmaster loft. He was a moody 
 discontented man, who chafed at being under the rule of the 
 vicar, and longed for the superior freedom of a school board. 
 Being by right of his profession a superior person, he cherished 
 the companion vices of contempt and envy. These naturally go 
 with superiority ; and he came to the Parliament like some of 
 those Avho go to church, namely, with the intention of scoffing. 
 His intention was gratified, because, as no one came at all, he 
 had the satisfaction of going home and scoffing in his lodgings at 
 the Squire. Alas ! a secret scoff within four walls brings no 
 real satisfaction with it. You must have two to bring out the 
 full flavour of a scoff. Fancy Mephistopheles enjoying a solitary 
 sneer ! That is one reason why hermits are ouch exceediiigly 
 jolly dogs, ever ready for mirth, and credulous to a fault. 
 
 " It is no use," said Alan to the schoolmaster, " not the 
 slightest use bringing forward a measure for discussion when 
 there is no one present but you and me. Let us adjourn the 
 house." 
 
 As they passed the Spotted Lion together they heard the 
 voices of the rustics in high debate. The tap-room was their 
 true House of Pai'liament. 
 
 There was once a good and faithful missionary who, after 
 weeks of unrewarded labour, succeeded one eA^ening in persuad- 
 ing three native boys to mount with him into an upper chamber, 
 there to make inquiry. He naturally began with fervent 
 prayer, and being carried away by fervour, continued this exer- 
 cise aloud, with eyes closed, for the space of forty-five minutes 
 or thereabouts. On opening his eves, this poor labourer found 
 that the three inquirers had stealthily cre^jt away during his 
 uplifting, and were gone. 
 
 Alan felt as sad as my friend the missionary. People who 
 •will not be led, and to whom it is useless to jjoint the way, 
 must be gently pushed or shoved in the right direction — a 
 fruth which Baxter perceived many years ago, and which is 
 illustrated by a well-known tract. Therefore, as self-reform 
 was not to be hoped for, he began to reform the village for 
 them. 
 
 First he opened a shop in the village on the most en- 
 lightened co-operative principle. It was that by which the 
 purchasers divide the profits in proportion to their purchases. 
 Alan first proposed to the village sliopkeeper that she should 
 exchange her shop for the post of manager under the new 
 system. But she was a person of defective imagination, and 
 could not be persuaded to see the advantages of the offer. 
 Alan then issued a tract iu which he explained exactly and
 
 So THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. 
 
 clearly tlie metliod to be followed. Every purchase, with ths 
 name of the purchaser, was to be entered in a book, and at tho 
 close of the year, when the books were made up, the profits 
 were to be divided equitably according to the amount of the 
 purchases. The shop was to be a sort of universal provider. 
 Alan entrusted the management to a young man who promised 
 to give it his undivided care for fifteen shillings a week, rent, 
 fire, and candles. The young man was not pleasant to look 
 upon, but he was highly recommended by his uncle, who had a 
 grocery establishment in AthcLston. He was a Particular 
 Baptist by conviction, and ready to preach if invited. He was 
 only eighteen, and had sandy hair, which, of course, Avas not his 
 fault. 
 
 " We must succeed, Miranda," cried Alan, in a sort of rapture, 
 standing in the newly-opened shop. " We sell everything at ten 
 per cent, over cost price. We sell everything of the best, there will 
 be no adulteration, of course ; we give no credit, and conse- 
 quently have no bad debts. And in our tract we appeal to 
 almost the lowest of all human motives — the desire for gain. 
 It is a system which only has to be stated and understood in 
 order to be adopted at once. Not only will our customers sco 
 that they get their tea and other things cheaper, but better, 
 and in the long-run that they share in the advantages of honest 
 trade. Good tea," — here he clasped the canister to his heart, — 
 " good sugar, good rice, good cheese, good flannel — everything 
 good. Why, the village-shop will regenerate the village. And 
 Miranda, the first step is taken when I have made them discon- 
 tented with their present condition." 
 
 Alan laid in for himself as much tea and groceries as would 
 suffice for ■ten cottages. Then, in his ardour, he ordered his 
 housekeeper at the Coux't to use the village-shop ; persuaded 
 Miranda to drive into the village and order quantities of things 
 which she did not want, all of which wei-e paid for on the spot, 
 and got the Vicarage people to patronise it, so that the shop 
 began with a fair stroke of business. One thing only went to 
 mar the general cheerfulness : none of the villagers went into 
 the shop at all, unless when Alan invited them, and, after ex- 
 plaining at length the principles of co-operation, bought articles 
 of domestic consumption for them, and paid for them on the 
 spot. Then they went away, bearing their pounds of tea, and 
 came no more. The reason was, not onlj' the habit of going 
 day after day in the same way, in the fetters of use and wont, 
 but also a more important reason, that they all had " ticks " at the 
 old village-thop which they could not pay off. Alan's only plan 
 would have been to have shut up the ancient establishment, 
 pay all the debts of tho village and startfair. Even then, there 
 would be some of the nior§ dashing spirits "who would spend
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 8l 
 
 their wages at the Lion, and ask for credit on ttie very next 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 There was a third hindrance to the success of the shop : one 
 which was as vet unsuspected by its promoters. It Avas, that 
 the manager, the sandy-haired young man of the name of 
 Hatchings, was contracting the habit of sitting secretly and 
 by night over the ledgers, not with the lawful desire of esti- 
 mating profit and loss, but with the reprehensible design of 
 cooking the accounts. As nobody interfered with him, and ho 
 gave no receipts, this was not difficult ; and as immunity en- 
 courages the sinner, he soon prepared two ledgers, in one of 
 which he entered faithfully before the eyes of the purchaser 
 any item, and in the other he divided the purcliases by half, or 
 even left them out altogether ; and he put the money into hia 
 pncket, and went off to the city of Athelston every Saturday 
 tvcning. 
 
 " I hope, George," said his uncle, meeting him, " I do hope 
 that you have had a Avarning, and are now going straight." 
 
 "Ah! yah! there you go," replied his nephew, "always 
 throwing a thing into a poor fellow's face. Why don't you go 
 off and tell the Connection ? Why don't you take and 'vriif f/j 
 Squire Dunlop ? Ah ! why don't you ?" 
 
 " If you'd been my son," said the man of virtue, " I'd ha've 
 behaved to you as a parent should — cut your liver out first, and 
 turned you out of the house next." 
 
 Which shows what a useful thing is a testimonial, and how, 
 like charity, it may be made to cover a multitude of sins. 
 
 Exhilarated by the dream of his shop, Alan prepared the way, 
 by another tract, for his next great move ; this was nothing lesa 
 than a direct blow at the Licensed Victuallers' interests. 
 
 " I propose to establish," he said, in the introductory tract 
 which he sent about the village — these were now so numerous 
 that they ceased to interest the village mind at all, any more 
 than the Sunday serniou — " I propose to establish a bar at 
 which only plain and unadulterated beer, sent to the house by 
 the best brewers, shall be sold, with the addition of a very 
 small percentage for management and carriage. The price 
 shall be exactly that which can repay the producer. It will, 
 therefore, cost about half of what you now pay, and will, of 
 course, be infinitely better in quality. Three-fourths of the 
 crime of this country is due, not only to excessive drinking, but 
 to the drinking of bad liquor ; and the same proportion of 
 disease is due to the same shameful cause. My shop will be 
 called the ' Good Liquor Bar.' The beer will be drunk on the 
 spot, or carried away to be consumed among your own families, 
 or while you are following your favourite studies. It will be 
 
 6
 
 82 THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. 
 
 yaid for -vvlien ordered. The bar will be under the same roof. 
 as the shop." 
 
 Mr. Hutchings, fortunately, had a young friend in Athelston 
 ■who, although a sincere Christian and a fellow-member of the 
 Connection, was experienced in the liquor traffic. By his re- 
 commendation the young friend was appointed on probation. 
 He was not nice to look at, any more than his companion, but 
 good looks go for nothing. The two young men lived together, 
 and when the shop and bar were shut, it was pretty to see them 
 innocently making up their double ledgers. On Saturday even- 
 ings they put money in their pockets and went off to Athelstcn 
 together. 
 
 " You see, Miranda," Alan explained, when he was offering 
 her a glass of pure beer in the Good Liquor Bar itself, " you 
 see that if we offer them a room with table and chairs, we only 
 perpetuate the waste of time vv'hich goes on at the public-house 
 over the waj'. As they will not do without beer altogether, 
 which we could wish, perhaps they will learn to use the bar as 
 a house of call, not as a village club. We must wait, however, 
 I suppose, until we have got our reading-room before we shall 
 succeed in getting them to spend the evenings rationally. 
 Already, I think, there are symptoms of a revival ; do you not, 
 Miranda ? I saw one of them reading my last tract this 
 morning." 
 
 " It is the young man they call Will — i — am," said Miranda ; 
 " I saw him too. It was he who ordered in the cask of beer at 
 the first Parliament. No doubt he is thinking how to get some 
 advantage to himself out of the new bar." 
 
 " William has not, to be sure, enlarged "views," said Alan. 
 " In the lower levels the instinct of self-pieservaticn assumes 
 offensively prominent forms." 
 
 " You are looking fagged, Alan," she said in her kindly sym- 
 pathetic way ; " are you taxing your strength too much ?" 
 
 " We had some heavy work this morning. Nothing more. I 
 am a little disheartened sometimes, that is all. Any little thing 
 like the sight of our friend with the tract gives me a little 
 encouragement. And then one gets despondent again." 
 
 Already he was beginning to feel that culture was not to be 
 suddenly and swiftly made admirable in the eyes of Old England's 
 peasantry. 
 
 The Work was, however, as 3'et far from complete. Alan's 
 designs embraced a great deal more than a Co-operative ^hop 
 and a Good Liquor Bar. His next step was to build a Bath 
 House with a Public Laundry attached. There were hot and 
 cold baths, a swimming-bath for men and another for women. 
 This was an expensive business, and one which he never ex- 
 pected to pay the preliminary outlay. But it was part of his
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 83 
 
 Echeme, and in a really eloquent tract lie explained that those 
 \s'ho regard bathing as a Inxury for tho rich, forgot that it is one 
 of the accompaniments of godly living. The institution was to 
 be on the same co-operative principles as the shop and the bar, 
 the profits being divided among the bathers and the washer- 
 women. He began by setting an example of an early mornirg 
 tub to the whole parish. No one followed him. He might as 
 well, indeed, have invited the villagers to sit up to the neck ia 
 a clear fire for half an hour as ask them to take a cold bat!i. 
 Bathing, however, he recognised to be a thing which requires 
 gradual training. 
 
 " The history of bathing," he said to Miranda, " is a curious 
 chapter in that of civilisation. I do not think either Lecky or 
 Buckle has treated it. Once, indeed, Dr. Playfair made the 
 egregious blunder of stating in the House that for a thousand 
 3'ears nobody ever vi'ashed himself. Notliing could be more 
 untrue ; what really happened was that the public bath of tho 
 whole Roman people became a private luxury reserved for the 
 rich among the Westerns. In England and France the nobles 
 never ceased to enjoy the luxury of a bath, and there are plenty 
 of evidences to show that the poor took it when they could get 
 it. But in England the custom fell out, and it is true that for 
 something like a thousand years poor people have ceased to 
 wash themselves. Heaven only knows what ideas may not 
 come in with the return to personal cleanliness." 
 
 When the Bath-rooms were completed, or even before, ha 
 began to convert what had been a Dissenting Chapel into a 
 Free Library and Reading Room. This did not cost much. 
 He fitted bookshelves round the walls, filled them with a selec- 
 tion of a couple of thousand volumes, wdiich he partly chose 
 from the Weyland Court Library, and partly bought from cata- 
 logues, put in a few chairs and a couple of tables, laid out pens 
 and paper, gave orders for certain papers and magazines, and 
 installed a Librarian. 
 
 The Librarian was a pale-faced pupil-teacher, a girl whose 
 delicate constitution would have broken down under the pressure 
 of rough school- work, and to whom the post of custodian of the 
 Library and Reading Room, at a salary of sixty pounds a year, 
 Avas a little heaven. She was. the first convert whom Alan 
 Dunlop made in the village. Like another Cadijah, she was an 
 enthusiast. Mr. Dunlop was her prophet : she read all his 
 tracts and kept supplies of them for her friends ; she absorbed 
 all his theories, and wanted to carry them right through to their 
 logical conclusion ; she preached his doctrines in season and out 
 of season. To her Mr. Dunlop was the greatest thinker, the 
 noblest of men, the wisest of mankind. Needless to add that a 
 tract appeared as soon as the Library and Reading Room opened, 
 
 6 — 2
 
 84 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 pointing out tlie advantages to bo derived from serious study, 
 and tlie enormous superiority of the Reading Room as a place 
 of comfort over the Spotted Lion. 
 
 " And now," said Miranda, when she came with Desdemona 
 to admire the Library, " now, Alan, that you have done every- 
 thing that you can for the villagers, I suppose you will give up 
 living among them and come back again to your own place ?" 
 
 " Evei'ything, Miranda ? I have as yet done next to nothing : 
 if I were to withdraw myself, the whole fabric whi^h I have 
 begun to build up with so much care would at once fall to pieces. 
 Besides, I have only just begun, and there is nothing really 
 completed at all." 
 
 " Well, Alan, go on ; I can sympathise -with you, if I can do 
 nothing else," said Miranda gently. 
 
 They were in the Library, which had been open a week. It 
 ■was in the evening, a fine evening in early January, when the 
 frost was out on the flooded meadows. No one was in the 
 Library but themselves, Desdemona, and the young Librarian, 
 who was gazing with large rapt eyes at her prophet. 
 
 " Go on, Alan. There are only Prudence Driver and our- 
 selves to hear you. Prudence will not gossip in the village. 
 Tell us what you think of doing next." 
 
 " I have not decided quite on the next step. There are so 
 many things to do. Among other plans, I am going to organise 
 for the next winter — not for this— a series of weekly lectures 
 on such scientific subjects as can be made popular. Astronomy, 
 for instance, practical chemistry, and so on — things that can be 
 made interesting by means of oxy-hydrogen slides, diagrams, 
 and experiments. Some of the lectures I shall give myself. 
 Some I shall have to pay for." 
 
 " These will not come out of the profits of the farm, I sup- 
 pose ?" said Desdemona, who really was a Didymus for want of 
 faith. 
 
 ' JNo, it would not be fair ; the lectures will be for the whole 
 village, and will be my own gift to them. Of course they will 
 be free. If only I could get the men out of that wretched 
 habit of abstracting their thoughts the moment one begins to 
 talk. Then I shall have a night-school ; a shed where we can 
 drill the younger men and boys " 
 
 " And, oh ! something for girls, Mr. Dunlop," pleaded the 
 young Librarian. " Everything is done for the boys, and the 
 girls are left to grow up as useless and as frivolous as — as — as 
 their sisters." 
 
 " You shall take the girls under your charge, Prudence," said 
 Alan kindly, " and I will do for them whatever you think best. 
 Consider the thing carefully, and propose something for the 
 girls."
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 85 
 
 " Next," he went on, " I mean to have a Picture find Art 
 Gallery." 
 
 " A picture gallery ? For rustics, Alan ?" Miranda was 
 Amazed, and even Prudence, prepared for any length, gasped. 
 Desdemona sat down and fanned lierEcU", though it was a cold 
 night. 
 
 ^' A Picture and Art Gallery,'' he repeated. " Why should 
 Art belong only to wealthy people ? Are we not to suppose a 
 love of beautiful things — a feeling for form and colour — to exist 
 in the minds of our poor ? Tell me, Prudence, child, what yoa 
 think?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "My father is one of them," she said, ' and my brothers and 
 sisters. I think there is no such love of Art as the books tell 
 us of among them." 
 
 She had the Library all to liersclf, and browsed in it at her 
 will, so that she could speak of books with authority. 
 
 " It is only latent," said Alan. " The contemplation of beau- 
 tiful things will awaken the dormant sense. Lly pictures will 
 be only copies, Miranda, and my collection of other things will 
 be a loan collection, for which 1 shall put all my friends under 
 contribution. Prudence is going to be the fust Curator of the 
 Gallery." 
 
 The girl's eyes sparkled. This was too much happiness. 
 " And then, Miranda,'' Alan went on. " I am going to have 
 festivals and dances for the people. They are stupid because 
 they get no amusements ; they have no amusements because 
 tho?e who have taken charge of them, the clergy, have fostered 
 an idiotic notion that amusements such as people like — those 
 which stir the pulses and light up the eyes and fxll the brain 
 with excitement— are wicked. It is wicked, the people have 
 been taught, to dance. It is wicked to dress up and act ; it is 
 wicked to go to theatres, though, to be sure, our poor folk have 
 got small chances of seeing a play. Now I am going to start in 
 my village a monthly ball for Saturday night, at which the 
 dances will be the same as you have at your own balls — the 
 young people will soon learn them, I believe ; I am going to build 
 a small theatre and run a country company for a month in the 
 year, without thinking whether it will pay ; I am going to en- 
 courage thcra to try acting for themselves as an amusement ; I 
 shall train a band of village musicians, and establish a madrigal 
 club ; I shall hold festival?, to Avhich the people can invite their 
 friends from other villages, and which shall be directed by 
 themselves as soon as they have learned the art of self-govern- 
 ment ; and I am going to organise expeditions to distant places 
 to Loudon, for instance, in order to teach th? people how v/ide
 
 80 THE MONKS GF tllELEMA, 
 
 ihc world is, and how men and women livo in different 
 fashion." 
 
 " That sounds very beautiful, Alan," said Miranda, " if it is 
 feasible. But do you think it is ?" 
 
 " I hope so— I think so. At least we can try it." 
 
 •'' And how long will your experiment take ?" 
 
 " All my life, Miranda," he answered, meeting her look, which 
 had an expression almost of pleading, with an inspired gaze of 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 She left him and drove home, sorrowful. All his life ! To 
 live all the years of his life in that little cottage ; to work every 
 day at rough and thankless farm-work ; to toil every evening 
 for the slow and sluggish folk. Surely even the " Fors Clavi- 
 gera " did not exhort to such self-sacrifice. 
 
 Always, every Sunday, as the vv-eeks went on, Miranda thought 
 Alan more melancholy over his experiment. And there was 
 always the same burden of lament. 
 
 " I cannot enter into their minds, Miranda." 
 
 No talk of giving up the work ; no leaving the plough and 
 turning back ; only confession of failure or of weakness. 
 
 " If I could only understand their minds !" 
 
 The autumn deepened into v/inter ; winter passed away, and 
 spring ; and summer found Alan Dunlop still plodding among 
 the furrows all the day, and working for the rustics all the 
 evening. But hs grew worn and downcast, finding uo fruit of 
 all his toil. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " But none were genh : tlie great hour of union 
 "Was run;; by dinner's kuell : till then all wer« 
 Masters of tlieir own time — or in communion 
 
 Or soliiary as they chose to bear 
 The hours."' 
 
 A MONASTERY which has no fixed rules may yet have certain 
 practices. Among these was one that no Brother or Sister 
 should be called in the morning, unless by special arrangement. 
 The father of this custom was a philosophical Brother vvho held 
 that the time to go to bed is when you can no longer keep your 
 eyes open, and the time to get up when hunger compels you. 
 Naturally, this Brother was alwajs last at breakfast. 
 
 It is not easy, with every desire for innovation, to impro%'a 
 very much on the national custom of breakfast. Some took a 
 cup of cofTce at eight, and breakfasted at eleven in French 
 fashion. One or two, including Desdemona, breakfasted in 
 their own rooci.s. No oue, said Desdemona, onglit to bo ex-
 
 THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA. S? 
 
 pected to bo in good spirits, to say clever tilings, or to be amus- 
 ing in the morning. She added that her experience of life 
 taught her that good temper is not a thing so abundant as to 
 be lavishly squandered over foolish extravagances early in the 
 day, but to be carefully guarded and even hoarded for the even- 
 ing, when it is wanted to crown and complete the day. For 
 this reason she kept her ov/n room. For the rest, separate tea 
 and coitee sets were provided for every one, and they came 
 down at any time, between eight and one or two, which seemed 
 good. 
 
 On the morning after her reception, Nelly appeared at half- 
 pa.st eleven, a little ashamed of herself for lateness. Tom was 
 in the breakfast-room, waiting for her. Miranda had long since 
 gone to Dalmeny Hall. There was a melodious tinkling of 
 music in the corridor as she pai^sed the Sisters' rooms. There 
 v>as a rehearsal of a new two-act piece going on in the theatre ; 
 and there was all the bustle and sound of a big house in full 
 swing for the rest of the day. Only her fellou'-novice. Brother 
 Peregrine, was still at breakfast. Nelly tonk a chair beside him, 
 and Tom began to run about getting her things. 
 
 " Sister Rosalind is not fatigued, I hope V" asked Brother 
 Peregrine, with more anxiety than Tom thought altogether 
 called for. 
 
 " Thank you ; not at all," replied the girl, attacking breakfast 
 with the vigour of twenty ; " I never am tired after a bali 
 What makes me tired is sitting at home with mamma." 
 
 " Still, that must be delightful for her," said Mr. Exton, 
 
 " Not delightful at all, I assure you. We only quarrel. 
 Don't we, Tom, especially when there is some one to quarrel 
 about?" 
 
 Tom laughed, and declined to compromise himself by any 
 statements on Mrs. De?pard's domestic mauxjcrs and customs. 
 Mr. Exton began to draw conclusions. 
 
 "I am very late, Tom," she went on. "Give me some tea, 
 please. We might have had a ride before breakfast. Why did 
 you not send somebody up to call me ?" 
 
 " We will ride after breakfast instead." 
 
 " And now, tell me, what do we do all day in the Abbey ? 
 And how do you amuse the Sisters ?" 
 
 "We all do exactly what we please," said Tom — " the Sisters 
 paint, play music, practise theatricals, consult about dress, ride, 
 walk, — and, in fact, they are perfectly free to act as they think 
 best." 
 
 " Of course," said Nelly, " else I should not have come 
 heie. That was the reward you held out if T would come. 
 There are uo duties, I suppose i do chapel six times a day, iot 
 ir,i lance."
 
 88 THE MONKS oF THELEMA. 
 
 " Absolutely none. Tlisre are not even calls to be mntla 
 Tbe Sisters have decided that they are not bound to return 
 visits Avbile in the Abbey." 
 
 " Now, that is really delightful. All my life long I have been 
 yearning to escape from the round of duties. They were bad 
 enough at school, and most intolerably stupid, but sometimes 
 now I think they seem even far worse. Have j-ou duty letters 
 to write constantly, Mr. Exton ?" 
 
 " Pardon me, Sister Rosalind — Brother Peregrine, I have 
 no duty letters, now that I have left India." 
 
 "Brother Peregrine, then— do you have to drive round in a 
 one-horse brougham leaving cards ? Do you have to remember 
 how long since you have written to people you care nothing 
 about ? Those are my duties. And very, very hard work it is. 
 But now that I am here, Tom, I expect to be amused. What 
 will you do for me ?" 
 
 '' I will ride with you, dance with you, act with you, talk to 
 you, walk with you, and fetch and carry for you." 
 
 " That is very good, and just what I expected," she replied. 
 " And what will you do for me, Mr. Exton ?" 
 
 " Pardon me. Sister Rosalind — Brother Peregrine," he cor- 
 rected again, gravely. 
 
 " Brother Peregrine, then — what will your Brothership do ?" 
 
 " I can do some of the things which Brother Lancelot pro- 
 poses. Perhaps I can do a few which he has not proposed." 
 
 " What are they ? I am very easily amused, co long as I am 
 kept in a good temper ; am I not, Tom ?" 
 
 Tom laughed. 
 
 " Can you be frivolous ?" she asked. " Can you be mis- 
 chievous ? Can you make me laugh ? Tom breaks down just 
 at that point. He can't make me laugh. Can you — can you, 
 Brother Peregrine, become, to please me, Peregrine Pickle ?" 
 
 The face with the myriad crows' feet grew profoundly grave. 
 
 " To be frivolous," taid its OAvner, " v.ithout being silly has 
 been my aim and constant object in lii'c, I studied the art in 
 the North-western Provinces, where there was nothing to dis- 
 tract one. What shall I do ? I can juggle for you. I can 
 tame serpents ; I can make apple-trees grow in the ground 
 before your eyes ; I can swallow swords ; I can make little birds 
 come out of the palm of my hand — " 
 
 " You shall have an evening at the theatre," said Tom, " and 
 show off all your conjuring tricks." 
 
 " I can sing to you, after a fashion ; make songs for you, after 
 a fashion ; play the guitar, too, still after my fashion. I could 
 even do acrobatic tricks, and walk on my hands, or stand on my 
 bead, if that would please you." 
 
 " It would, indeed !" Nelly cried with enthusiasm. " I have
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 89 
 
 Ticver seen a grown man walking on his hands. It would please 
 me very much." 
 
 " Well," interposed tl\c young man she called Tom, ''you are 
 not going to be entirely dependent on us two for your amuse- 
 ments. Let us look at the day's engagements." 
 
 He took a card from a silver stand on the breakfast-table. 
 It was like the menu of a big dinner, being printed in gold 
 letters on coloured card with edging and border- work of very 
 dainty illumination. 
 
 " This is the list of the day's engagements," Tom went on. 
 *' Of coui-ee no one is engaged, really, because here we all do 
 what we please. But there seemed no other word that quite 
 met the case. Desdeniona draws it up for us every day. 
 Sometimes it remains the same for several days together. 
 Sometimes it varies. I will read it to you while you finish 
 breakfast. 
 
 " ' The Abbey of Tiielema. 
 
 " ' Engagements of Tuesday, July 9, 1877. 
 
 " ' 11 A.M. — Brother Bayard will deliver a lecture in the hall 
 on the Eastern Question, and the duty of England at the 
 present juncture. Admission by the western door for the 
 Order.' " 
 
 " At eleven ?" asked Nell}'. " But it is half-past now. And 
 besides,"— she pulled a long face—" one hardly went through 
 the trouble of being received and everything in order to have 
 the privilege of heaving lectures. Is it, after all, only like the 
 Crystal Palace ? 11— Lecture. 12— the Blue Horse. 130— 
 the Band. 2.30— the Burlesque. Tom, I am disappointed. 
 After all, it is useless to expect anything from life but what 
 one has already got." 
 
 " When you have quite finished," said Tom gravely, " you 
 will let me remind you that you have not yet mastered the tirst 
 rudiments of the Order. ' Fay ce que vouldras.' If you feel 
 any yearning to give a lecture, go and give one ; if you want to 
 hear anybody else's lecture, go and attend. I suppose that 
 Brother Bayard has been reading all sorts of pamphlets and 
 papers on the Eastern Question, and has got his head full. It 
 is much better that he should work oil the thing in a lecture, 
 than that he should keep simmering over it, writing a book 
 about it, or troubling the peace of the Abbey with it." 
 
 " Then we need not go to the lecture ?" 
 
 " Certainly not. If you like wo will look in presently and 
 eco how large an audience he has got together. And if you 
 really take an interest in the subject, you ^^ll very likely find it 
 published next Saturday in the Abbey Gazetlc." 
 
 " Have you a newspaper here, then ?"
 
 go THE MONKS OF -IHELEMA. 
 
 " There are three. The Gazette is the official organ, ^vhich 
 generally comes out, unless the editor forgets, on Saturday 
 morning. In the Gazette eveiything is published which the 
 members like to send — verses, love stories, articles, anything." 
 
 "How delightful! May I send something?" Visions of 
 glory floated for a moment before Nelly's eyes. Yes, she, too, 
 would be a poet, and write verses for the Thelema Gazette. 
 
 " I ought to mention one drawback," Tom went on ; " I 
 believe nobody ever reads the Gazette. But, if you send any- 
 thing and tell me of it, 1 11 make a point of reading it." 
 
 " Thank you," said Nelly. " An audience of one doesn't seem 
 much, does it ? I think it must be hardly worth while writing 
 verses for one person." 
 
 Brother Peregrine here remarked that in his opinion that was 
 the chief charm of verse-writing. 
 
 '• Then there are two other papers," Tom continued, " edited 
 and written by two members of the Order, known to ourselves 
 as Brother Benedick and Sister Audrey. Tliey run their novels 
 through the papers, I believe, and Eondelet, whom we call 
 Parolles, because he is all words, contributes leading articles to 
 inculcate the doctrines of the Higher Culture. Nobody reads 
 either of these papers. I forgot to say that you will find their 
 editors in private life most delightful people. In public they 
 squabble." 
 
 "Who is Mr. Rondelet ?" 
 
 " He is a Fellow of Lothian, Oxford." Tom looked as if.he 
 did not care to communicate any more about Rondelet. " Lcl 
 us go on with our engagements for the da v." 
 
 " ' At 12.30— Organ Recital, by Sister Cecilia.' " 
 
 " It is exactly like the Crj-stal Palace," cried Nelly. 
 
 " Only without the people. Fancy having the Palace all to 
 yourself and your own friends ; fancy acting, singing, dancing, 
 just as you liked, without the mob." 
 
 " If I acted," said Nelly, only half convinced, " I should like 
 somebody to be looking at me." 
 
 Tom did not contest the point, but v.ent on : 
 
 " ' At 2.30 P.M.— Polo ia the Park, if the Brothers like to 
 play.' " 
 
 '* I shall go, for one," snid Tom, with brightened eyes. 
 
 " So shall I," said the Brother they called Peregrine. 
 
 " We will play on opposite sides," said Tom, jealous already 
 of the newly-elected Brother. 
 
 IMr. Roger Exton nodded, and went on with the cold beef. 
 
 " ' At 5 P.M. — The Abbess will receive in the Garden.' " 
 
 " I forgot to tell you, Nell, that the Sisters have their own 
 afternoons. There is no necessity to hamper ourselves with 
 the divisions oi the week, and a.s there aa-e now ten of you, wo
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Ql 
 
 Bliall have to give you the tenth day. The days are announced 
 in the mcrning list of engagements. Of course nobody is obliged 
 to go. Mostly we go into the garden at five when it is fine, and 
 find some one there with a table and a teapot." 
 
 " Wlien I have my afternoon, Tom, will you be sure to 
 come ■?" 
 
 " Of course I will." Then their eyes met and dropped with 
 .1 light smile, as if they had memories common to both, and 
 perhaps pleasant. 
 
 "May I come, too, Sister Rosalind?" aslred the man of a 
 thousand crows' feet, noticing the look and smile Avhile he drank 
 
 '' Certainly, Mr. Exton." 
 
 " Brother Peregrine — I beg pardon. Sister Rosalind," he cor- 
 rected gravely for the third time. 
 
 " ' At G P.M. — Carriages will be ready for tho?e who want to 
 drive. Brothers 'vyho want a dog-cart must give early notice at 
 the stables.' " 
 
 " Carriages ?" Nelly asked with a laugh. " Have you any 
 number of carriages?" 
 
 " I '■.hink there are a good many. Alan has half a dozen of 
 various kinds that belong to the place, Miranda has sent over 
 bers, and a good many of the Fraternity have sent down horses 
 and traps of all sorts. So that we can turn out very respect- 
 ably." 
 
 '• I think, Tom," said Nelly, " that if you would go to the 
 Btables and say that you want a dog-cart for six o'clock, you 
 might drive me about and show me the country." 
 
 " ]May I sit behind ?" asked the crow-footed one gently and 
 humbly. 
 
 Tom scowled on him. 
 
 " Certainly you may," said Nelly, " if you like sitting behind." 
 
 " I do like sitting behind — sonietimcs," he replied. 
 
 Then Tom went on with the list. 
 
 " ' At 7.i>0 P.M. — Dinner. Choral night.' That means," he 
 explained, "that the bind will play and the boys will sing. 
 Do you like hearing music and singing during dinner?" 
 
 " I never tried it," the girl replied. " If it was not nois}* 
 music I might like it. One ought to think of one's neighbours 
 &t dinner ; that is the most important rule." 
 
 Mr. Exton said that self-preservation was the first law of 
 life, and that he always thought of eating as the first charac- 
 teristic of dinner. 
 
 " ' At 9.30— Performance of an entirely new and original 
 comedietta in two acts in tlie Theatrs of ths Abbey. Stage 
 mauagcr, -Sifter Der=deaona.' "
 
 93 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 "Ah!" sighecl Nelly; " that all seems very delightful. And 
 what do v,'e do after dinner, Tom ?" 
 
 " Isn't that enough, child ? After that we shall probably 
 meet in the drawing-room. This is like all other drawing- 
 rooms. Somebody sings ; somebody plays ; if a waltz is played, 
 perhaps two or three couples may go round the room as if they 
 Avere waltzing. I can go no farther, Nelly ; your imagination 
 must supply the rest." 
 
 " And do you always live like this ?" She heaved a deep 
 sigh of content. " Always ?" 
 
 '' Yes, while v/e arc in the Abbey." 
 
 " And is no one ever cross ?" 
 
 " Never, unless in their own rooms." 
 
 " Does nobody's mamma ever come down and order somo un- 
 fortunate Sister back again to home and duty ?" 
 
 " No ; that has never happened yet." 
 
 " Do you have guests ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but they are not allowed to get cross either. Every- 
 body in this Abbey is always in the best possible of tempers. 
 It is impossible to be anything but pleasant in this fortress of 
 happiness." 
 
 " Did you — ever — ask — mamma, for instance," — Nelly put 
 this question slowly, as if it was a poser, — " to join the Abbey 
 for a few days ? ' 
 
 " I do not think we have," replied Tom, with a light in his 
 ej-es ; " I cannot ask her for my own part, you know." 
 
 " Well, Tom, until you have asked her, I decline to believe 
 that your Ch;'iteau Gaillard is impregnable. However, if your 
 tempers are always perfect, your days are surely sometimes a 
 little dull. Now, without falling into temper, which is, after 
 all, an ill-bred thing to do, it is quite possible for young persons 
 of my sex to get together and say unkind things about each 
 other. Do the Sisters — oh, Tom, tell me this — do they never 
 show a little— just a little — envy, and hatred, and uncharitable- 
 ness about some one's dress — or — perhaps certain attentions 
 paid to some one ?' 
 
 " I really think, never." 
 
 "Then," said Nelly, rising from the table and putting licr 
 little foot down firmly, " this is a heaven beyond which I never 
 care to go." 
 
 " In the North-west Provinces " began Brother Peregrine. 
 
 " Dees that anecdote," interrupted Nelly, " bear upon the 
 Abbey, or upon juggling, or upon walking on your hands ?'' 
 
 " On the last," he replied, with a certain sadness. 
 
 " Tlien it will wait, I think. Come, Tom, it is getting late. 
 Let us go and see the lecturer." 
 
 " I forgot to say," said Tom, as thfy walked along the corri-
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 93 
 
 dor which led to the hall, " that some of the Sisters have morn- 
 higs. "Would you like to receive in the morning ?" 
 
 " It sounds pleasant. What do you do at a morning recep- 
 tion ?" 
 
 " Nothing. You receive. Any one may call on you in your 
 own cell. They call them cells, but really all are beautit'r.l 
 boudoirs ; and some, Dcsdemona's for instance, are large rooms." 
 
 " But perhaps only one would call." 
 
 " Well, Nelly ?" 
 
 " But, then, it would give rise, perhaps, to wicked tongues." 
 
 " There are no wicked tongues in this place. "We all live as 
 we like ; we never think evil, or speak evil, of each other. ' A 
 perfect trust,' Miranda says, 'is the true ground v/ork for the 
 highest possible form of society.' Give up your worldly ideas 
 and be a true Sister of the Order, and, like your namesake in 
 'As You Like It,' 'forget the condition of your estate, and 
 devise sports.' Let us be happy together while we can, Nelly." 
 
 " Yes, Tom," she replied prettily and humbly, while bis hand 
 sought hers for a moment. 
 
 " What morning will yon havQ ?" Tom asked. '• Let me see — 
 Sunday " 
 
 " Oh ! Tom, you heathen — church on Sunday." 
 
 " Monday — 'Tuesday — Wednesday ; I think no one has a 
 Wednesday, and you can receive between twelve and tv/o." 
 
 " Yes, I see ; all comers. Perhaps only one comer ; what an 
 opening ! And just suppose, Tom, only suppose for a moment 
 that you were that one comer, and that all of a sudden mamma 
 were to arrive, and catch me receiving you all by myself. 
 Oh h !" 
 
 " I don't know, I really do not know, what she could say 
 worse than what she said at Hyde. However, here is the hall- 
 door. Hush ! we must not disturb the lecturer." 
 
 There were no signs of a crowded audience, quite the con- 
 trary ; everything was still and deserted, but they heard the 
 voice of the orator within. Tom pulled a curtain aside, and 
 they looked in. The hall was quite empty. Nobody was there 
 at all, except the lecturer. He was provided with a platform, 
 on which were the usual table, carafe of water, and glass, with 
 a desk for his manuscript. In front of the platform rows of 
 empty seats. The lecturer, who was just finishing, and had 
 indeed arrived at his peroration, was leaning forward over the 
 table on the points of his fingers, while in earnest tones, which 
 echoed and rang along the old hall, he spo'ke. 
 
 " Yes, my friends," he was saying, " all these things point in 
 one direction, and only one. This I have indicated. Standing, 
 as I do, before an audience of thoughtful men and women, 
 deeply penetrated as I am with the responsibility of wordo
 
 94 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 uttered in this place. I cannot but reiterate, in tlie strongest 
 terms, the convictions I have already stated. Shall then, I ask, 
 shall Encjland tamely submit " 
 
 Tom dropped the curtain. 
 
 " Come," he whispered, " we have heard enough. Let us go 
 back. That is the way we inflict our opinions on each other. 
 I lectured the other day myself." 
 
 " Did you, Tom ? What on ?" 
 
 " On the Inconveniences of a Small Income. Nobody camo, 
 indeed I did not expect anybody, and I spoke out like Cicero." 
 
 " Indeed," said Nelly ; " I have always thought, when men 
 will talk politics at dinner, how very pleasant it would be for 
 each man to have said all he had to say by himself for a qua.rter 
 of an hour before dinner. Then we might have rational conver- 
 sation." 
 
 " Your rational conversation, Nell. I like it, though. Tho 
 prettiest prattle in the world to me." 
 
 She looked in his face and laughed. 
 
 " Let me go and put on my habit. That sort of speech i3 
 dangerous, Tom." 
 
 When she returned, she found the horses waiting, and 
 Brother Peregrine mounted too, ready to go with them. 
 
 " I found your horses Avalking about," he said. " May I join 
 j-our ride ?" 
 
 Of course he might, Nelly said. Tom thought it the most 
 confounded impertinence, and rode off in stately sulkiness. 
 
 " Now," he said to himself, " she is going to flirt with the 
 fellow, because he has got ten thousand a year. She's the most 
 heartless, cold-blooded " 
 
 And after the little ride he had pictured to himself, solus 
 rum sold, along the leaf^^ lanes, listening to her pretty talk, so 
 frank, and sometimes so cynical. You can't thoroughly enjoy 
 the talk of a lovely damsel when it is sliared by another fellow, 
 and he a possible rival. As the old ballad says, in verse which 
 means well, but is rugged : 
 
 "Along the way tlicy twain did play, 
 The Friar and the Nun : 
 Ever let twain alone remain 
 For eoinpanie : three is none." 
 
 But the day was bright and the sun warm, and Nelly garo 
 him a good share of talk, so that Tom recovered his temper and 
 came home in that good humour which befits a Brother of 
 Thelema. 
 
 There was no polo after luncheon, because nobody except 
 Tom appeared anxious to play, not even the new Brother, whom 
 Tom found, with a pang of jealousy, surrounded by the Sistei's,
 
 THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA, 95 
 
 doing Indian tricks, to tlieir nnbonnded delight. He made 
 tbem find rings in their poclcet-handkerchiefs, watches in their 
 gloves, and bracelets in their sleeves. Then he called his Indian 
 servant, who brought a bag of little clay balls and sat down 
 before him playing a turn turn, a necessary part, the conjurer 
 explained, of his incantations. He took the little balls in his 
 hand one after the other, and they changed into singing-birds 
 and snakes, which worked round his wrist and made as if they 
 would bite. Then he planted one in a floAver-pot and covered 
 kt with a basket. When he took the basket off for the first 
 time there was a tender little plant ; when he took it off the 
 second time there was a little tree in blossom ; and when he 
 took it off for the third time there was a little tree in full fruit. 
 All this was very delightful, and more delightful still Avhen he 
 took a sword, and vehemently smote, stabbed, and hacked his 
 servant, who had done nothing, and therefore took no hurt. 
 And, lastly, he covered the servant over with a big basket, and 
 when he took that off, behold ! he was gone. 
 
 After the Indian tricks some of them went into the gardens. 
 There was at AVeyland Court a garden which had been con- 
 structed somewhere about the thirteenth century, and remained 
 ever since untouched. It had an immensely high and thick 
 hedge along the north and east sides. It was oblong in shape, 
 and surrounded on all sides by two terraces. You passed by 
 stone steps from the higher terrace to the other ; on the upper 
 v.'as a sun-dial, round whose face was carved a Latin inscrip- 
 tion in old-fashioned characters ; in the middle of the garden 
 was a fountain. It was planted with rosea and with the flowers 
 dear to our grandmothers ; wall-flowers, double stocks, sweet- 
 williams, candytuft, and so forth. All sweet-smelling flowers, 
 but no gaudy beds patterned in uniformity of red and blue and 
 yellow. There were no walks, but grass grew everyv/here be- 
 tween the beds, turf green and well kept, on which on warm 
 mornings one might lie and bask. Ijow seats were here too, 
 on which were spread cushions and soft things of rich colours, 
 which contrasted against the soft green of the turf, and the 
 splendour of the floAvers. Here Miranda held to-day her five 
 o'clock tea, and Avhile some played laAvn tennis and others prac- 
 tised archery, she received those Avho came to talk lazily, lying 
 on the grass or sitting beneath the shade, \Adiile Cecilia sang old 
 French songs to the accompaniment of a zither ; and Nelly's 
 merry laugh, like the ripple of a shallow brook over the pebbles, 
 was music sweeter to one ear at least than all the harmonies 
 that can be produced from zither or from lute. 
 
 The monastic names were a cjhw to some ; to others the 
 names fitted naturally. Tom Caledon, for instance, AA-ho was 
 Brother Lancelot on days of oeremony, was more easily addressed
 
 96 Tllh MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 as Tom. But Desdnmona, Cecilia, and one or two others wor« 
 tlieirname always. Nelly, to those who hadnot known herbefore, 
 was the prettiest and most natural Rosalind in the world. 
 There was something outlandish in Mr. Roger Exton's good- 
 liumonr, quiet persistency, and cleverness which made the whole 
 Brotherhood address him habitually as Peregrine. On the other 
 hand, Rondelet, Alan Dnnlop, and one or two others had mon- 
 astic names which in a way were deceptive, so that these were 
 seldom used. Yon cannot be always calling a man Hamlet, be- 
 cause you do not know what he will do next ; nor Parolles, not 
 because he is a braggart, but because he is all words and talks 
 about everything. 
 
 When the shadows of the July day began to lengthen they 
 gradually left the garden, and went, some driving, some walk- 
 ing. Tom did not take out the dog-cart that day, but strolled 
 with Nelly in the park and through the glorious woods. 
 
 " If mamma knew that you were here, Tom," she whispered, 
 " I should be ordered home at once. What am I to say when I 
 write ? I must tell who is here." 
 
 " Shall I go, Kell ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 _" That would spoil all. I will mention your name in the 
 middle of all the others, instead of first, and write it quite small, 
 and drop a blot upon it. Then, perhaps, she will not notice." 
 
 Poor Tom ! Then he really was first in her mind. 
 
 " And if she says anything, why then, I will tell her you have 
 promised to abstain from foolishness." 
 
 "Foolishness!" echoed Tom, with a sigh. " But we are to 
 have plenty of walks and talks together." 
 
 CHAPTER X.IV. 
 
 " "With evening came the banquet and tbe wine ; 
 Tlio conversazione ; the duet, 
 Attuned by voices more or less divine." 
 
 TiTE dinner-hour was half-past seven, a time fixed by Dosde- 
 mona, as Arhiter Epularum. She said she did not want to turn 
 night into day, and liked to have an evening. Dmner was served 
 in the great hall, ^Yhich made a noble refectory. Not only Des- 
 demona, but one or tv/o of the Brothers exercised steady sur- 
 veillance over the menu, of which the great feature was that it 
 presented every day a dinner which was not only excellent, 
 but also composed of few courses. 
 
 "There are," said Desdcmona, " only two or three countries 
 which have any distinctive dinners. But by judicious seloctioo
 
 THE MONk'6- OF THELEMA. 97 
 
 cf plals we may dine after the fasliion of any country we 
 piease." 
 
 So that sometimes they dined a la Frangaise, and sometimes 
 d VEspagnoh, when they had OUa Podrida ; oi- a I'Arabe, when 
 there was alwaj's a pilhiu ; or a Vlncle when there Avere halE-a- 
 dozen different kinds of currj^, from prawn curry, whicli is the 
 king, prince, and even the emperor of all curries, down to cur- 
 ried vegetables ; or d VA llemande, when they had things of veal 
 with prunes ; or a VAnglaise, when, in addition to other good 
 tilings, there was always a sirloin of beef ; or a V Riisse, or d 
 V Italicnne. As there is no cookery in America, it was impossible, 
 save by the aid of canvas-backs, to dine a V Americaine. A ser- 
 vant stood behind every other guest, and instead of the wine 
 being brought round, every man named what he would take. 
 The table was lit by wax candles only, which shed their soft 
 light upon the flowers and silver. And all round the table stretched 
 the great hall itself, the setting sun still lighting up the glories of 
 the windows, and wrapping in a new splendour the painted 
 glass, the black beams of the roof, and the silken banners of the 
 fraternity. When the sun was set and the day ended, the hall 
 was very dark and black save for the table itself, the lights upon 
 the sideboards, and, on choral nights, the lights for the musicians 
 and the choir. 
 
 Nelly sat between Tom and Brother Peregrine, who occupied 
 his place by right of his age in the Order, which was that of the 
 youngest. She thought she had never before assisted at a ban- 
 quet so delightful and so splendid. Opposite to her was Miranda, 
 at whose right was Alan Dunlop, fresh from the fields, looking 
 grave and even melancholy. Next to him, Desdemona, clad in 
 a robe of heavy satin, looking animated and happy. There was 
 music too, to make the feast more luxurious. The boys who 
 Bang the hymn at the Reception were there, in a sort of stage 
 costume, and the band which played at yesterday's ball, which 
 was, indeed, a company brought down from London expressly for 
 t.he Abbey. They played soft music, old-f a,shioned minuets and 
 gavottes, music selected by Cecilia, which was not intended to 
 fire the blood, nor lead the thoughts into melancholy channels, 
 nor constrain the talkers to give their undivided attention to it ; 
 music of a certain gravity, as becomes dinner music, which should 
 inspire thought, recall memories, but not be sad. And from 
 time to time the boys threw up their fresh young voices into the 
 air in some tuneful old part-song, which fell upon the ears of the 
 guests, bringing a sense of coolness as from the spray of a 
 fountain on a summer noon. Diring was no longer the satisfac- 
 tion of an appetite ; it became the practice of one of the fine 
 arts. And the claret was of the softest, tho hock of the most 
 reductive, tho champagne of the brightest. 
 
 7
 
 98 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 For dress, the men wore a black velvet costume, designed by 
 DesdemoDa herself, though I think Mr. Planche would have 
 recognised it. The sombre black was relieved by the collar of 
 the Order, and the crimson rope Avhich girded every waist. It 
 was a dress which sat well upon men who wei'e young and tall. 
 The Brothers were all young and mostly tall. As for tho 
 Sisters, they wore vv'hat they pleased, and they naturally chose 
 to wear what suited them best. But all had the collar, the 
 hood, and girdle of the Order. Sister Desdemona surrounded 
 her portly person with a magnificent robe of satin, in which 
 she might have played a stage queen. Miranda had soma 
 gauzy and beautiful dress of soft grey, and Nelly wore white. 
 
 " It is like a dream, Tom," said the latter. " It is so splendid 
 as to seem almost wicked. Do you think it is really a dream ? 
 Shall I wake up and find myself in Chester Square again, with 
 mamma exhorting on the sinfulness of dancing three times with 
 a detrimental ?" 
 
 " Especially if his name is Tom Caledon," said that Brotliex*. 
 
 They gave one toast every evening, which Alan, or Brother 
 Hamlet as the Public Orator, gave without speech or ceremony. 
 
 " The Master." 
 
 Then all rose, and murmured as they drank — 
 
 " Fay ce que vouldras." 
 
 The theatre had been built in the last century by a former 
 Dunlop, owner of Weyland Court, after his own designs. The 
 stage was small, but large enough for all ordinary purposes, 
 and especially adapted for drawing-room corned}'. The audito- 
 rium was semicircular, the seats being arranged so that every 
 row was a foot-and-a-half above the one below it, like a Roman 
 theatre. It is an admirable method for sight and hearing, but 
 has the disadvantage of narrowing the number of the audience. 
 The lower seats consisted of easy-chairs, in crimson velvet ; tho 
 upper ones, which were given to the servants, who could bring 
 as many of their own friends as they pleased, were padded 
 benches, with arms and back. The house held about a hundred 
 and eighty or two hundred, and on evenings of performance 
 was generally quite full. It was lit by oil lamps and was 
 candles only, so that the pieces were necessarily of the simpler 
 kind, and no effects of light could ever be attempted. 
 
 Desdemona, by right of her previous profession, was naturally 
 the stage manager. It was she who conducted the rehearsals, 
 drilled the actors separately and together, suggested the by- 
 
 Elay, and sometimes, if s part suited her, went on the stage 
 erself. 
 
 The piece played to-night was a little drawing-room comedy, 
 taken, of course, from the French : time, and therefore dress, 
 the last century ; dialogues sparkling with cleverness, and that
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 99 
 
 kind of epigram whicli only the French dramatists seem able to 
 produce ; which has a point, but yet does not stab ; which dis- 
 ai'ms an enemy, but does not fell him to the ground ; which 
 turns the laugh against him, but does not insult him — in fact, 
 dialogues of the days when men respected each other on account 
 of the appeal to duels. 
 
 It was a very little after-dinner piece and took less than an 
 hour in all, so that one rose from the amusements refreshed 
 and not fatigued, as one generally is by a long evening at the 
 theatre. 
 
 Then they all went back to the drawing-room. It was an 
 old-fashioned room, very long, narrow, and low, running along 
 a whole side of the quadrangular court ; its windows opened 
 out upon lawns ; it was dimly lighted by only a few lamps and 
 candles, and these were shaded so that the rooms would have 
 been almost dark save for the brightly-lit conservatory at one 
 end. 
 
 The evening was all too short. One or two of the Sisters 
 gang and played ; there was talking and, so far as Nelly's prac- 
 tised eye could discern, there was more than one flirtation — at 
 least there were the usual symptoms. 
 
 Peregrine sat by her and began to talk, but his idle woi'da 
 jarred on the girl's ear,?, and seeined out of tune with the 
 beauty of the day and the place. She escaped, and took refuge 
 in the conservatory, where Tom Caledon was sitting with 
 Miranda, Desdemona, and Alan Dunlop. She noticed then 
 how heavy and careworn the j'oung Squire, who was also a 
 farm labourer, was looking. 
 
 " Yon like the Abbey, Nell dear ?" asked Miranda. 
 
 Nelly sank upon a cushion at the feet of the Abbess, and 
 took her hand. 
 
 " It is too wonderful and delicious," she said ; " I feel as if I 
 were in a dream. Miranda, if mamma knew the glorious time 
 I am having here, and — and " — here she glanced at Tom — " and 
 everything, I should be recalled, like an ambassador." 
 
 " it is a great relief to me," said Alan, " coming over here 
 after a rough day and finding myself among you all. My house 
 was never put to so good a pui-pose before." 
 
 " How does your public kitchen get on, Alan ?" asked Mi- 
 randa. 
 
 " Nothing gets on well," he replied gloomily. " We started 
 very well. We had five and forty women cooking their dinners, 
 at the same time. We gave them the materials for the first 
 day, you know — chops and steaks. Next day, when nomate- 
 rials were given, nobody came ; and nobody has been siaca 
 except my own womaUj" 
 
 Miranda sighed, 
 
 7-2 
 
 'O'
 
 loo THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Wliy do you persist in going into the troublesome village, 
 Alan ?" Desdemona murmured from her chair, which was close 
 to some heavily-scented flower, the property of which was to 
 soothe the soul with a sense of luxury and content, and to make 
 it irritable at the thought of struggle, discomfort, or unrest. 
 Else Desdemona was generally the most compassionate and 
 sympathetic of creatures. To be sure, she never could quite 
 sympathise with Alan's schemes, and she lost her patience when 
 she drove out and, as sometimes happened, met him in a smock- 
 frock driving a cart in the lanes. " Why do you go into the 
 troublesome village at all, Alan ?" she asked in such a voice as 
 they acquire who linger too long in lands where it is always 
 afternoon. " Come up and stay for ever here with us, in tlie 
 Abbey of Tlielema. Here you shall be wrapped in silk, and 
 lulled to sleep by soft music : or you shall take your part, 
 acting in the delightful comedies we are always devising. We 
 will make much of you, Alan." 
 
 But he shook his head. 
 
 Then that elderly lady, intoxicated with the perfume, wont 
 on murmuring softly : 
 
 " I take my part in the play and make my points, and it is so 
 like the stage that I look round for applause. Children, I will 
 not be called Desdemona any more. I am in a glorified Bohe- 
 mia — not the place where poets starve and artists borrow half- 
 crowns, and both make love to milliners— but in Shakespeare's 
 Bohemia, where Miranda is Queen, and I am one of the Ladiea- 
 in-Waiting, and this is a Palace in the City of Prague." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 *' It Ti-as a lover and a lass, 
 
 "SVith a hey, and a ho, and a hey ronino." 
 
 " T TiiouG riT, Tom, we were to be Lancelot and Rosalind in the 
 Abbey ?" said Nelly. 
 
 They were in the park, sitting under the shade of a mighty 
 chestnut. Outside, the stillness of a hot summer noon. For 
 once, Tom had the girl all to himself, without the lean and 
 crows'-footed young Nabob, who persistently intruded himself 
 upon his proposed duets with her. Quite alone, she was very 
 pretty that morning, he thought ; prettier, even, than on the 
 evening when, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, she danced 
 the minuet with him in the robes of a Sister. 
 
 Perhaps a corresponding vein of thought was running through 
 her mind, too. Girls do not, I believe, fall in love with men fof
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. loi 
 
 tfaeir beanty, and certainly no one ever called Tom Caledon an 
 Adonis. Adonis is generally pictured as slender, delicate, effemi- 
 nate. Tom was broad-shouldered, strong of limb and sturdy. 
 There was nothing effeminate about his short curly hair, his 
 ruddy cheek, his swiuging stride. " Tom," Nell might have said 
 to herself, " is the best of all the men I know, and the most 
 considerate for me. He is not so clever as Mr. Rondelet : be 
 isn't so full of projects as Mr. Dunlop : he is not so distinguished 
 as Brother Bayard, V.C. ; but he is the best of all the Brothers, 
 
 and I wish — I wish " 
 
 I do not know what she might have wished, because Tom 
 began answering her question very slowly. 
 
 " When we are together, Nell, which is not often, on account 
 of that confounded fellow who haunts you like a shadow, we 
 may foi'get the monastic names." 
 
 "It is not my fault, Tom, that we are not oftener together. 
 I can t tell people to go away and leave you and me alone, 
 can I ?" 
 
 " But you needn't encourage people," he grumbled. 
 "I had a letter from mamma, yesterday," Nelly went on. 
 " She has heard, she says, that a Mr. Roger Exton, who has 
 made a fortune in Assam, is at Weyland Court — she won't give 
 in to calling it the Abbey — and she hints that, so long as I 
 behave properly to Mr. Exton, she v.'ill let mc go on staving 
 here." 
 
 Tom growled. 
 
 " So you see, Tom, if you want to see anything of mc, you 
 bad better make up your mind to tolerate Mr. Exton." 
 " Hang Mr. Exton !' 
 
 " I am sure I should not care if you did. But don't be cross, 
 Tom. Remember you are in the Abbey of Good Temper. 
 Besides, it is not like what you used to be in the good old days. 
 We will be a good deal together if we can. Perhaps," she 
 sighed, " wo shall never get the chance again." 
 
 " Do you like it, Nelly," Tom asked, " being — a good deal 
 together. I mean ?" His face was not so frank and open as his 
 companion's. 
 
 It was a year and a day since he had put a question, similar 
 in import, but perhaps of more special meaning, to the same 
 young lady It was on Ryde Pier, and in the evening, what 
 time the summer waters of the fair Solent stretched broad and 
 smooth on either hand, and the lights of the ships at Spithead, 
 the yachts in the roadstead, and of Southsea, five miles away, 
 made long lines across this ocean lake ; while the summer air 
 was soft and warm ; while the lazy water of the flowing tide 
 lapped at the supports of the jnor and gurgled among the planka 
 below ; while, as they two leaned side by side, looking out
 
 lo:^ THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. 
 
 beyond the pier, and picturing endless happniess, the steps of 
 those who came and went upon the pier dropped unheeded on 
 their ears, and the music of the band was only the setting of 
 the love-song in their hearts. 
 
 A year and a day. Did she, he asked, in faltering tones, did 
 she like him well enough to be always with him ? Ko matter 
 what answer she gave. It was what he hoped, and it filled hi a 
 heart with joy unspeakable, so that the rest of that evening 
 was spent within the gates of Paradise. 
 
 Well, it is a very pleasant place to visit even for a single 
 night, and the memory of it lingers and is a happiness to dwell 
 upon. But, unfortunately, these visits never last long, and in 
 Tom's case he was promptly expelled by a person w^ho, somehow, 
 had the guardianship of his Paradise. The angel with the flaming 
 Bword in this instance took the form of the young lady's mamma. 
 She was a person of commanding presence, great power of speech, 
 trained by long battle with her late lamented warrior-spouse 
 to use winged words like sharp arrows, and, being herself poor 
 and of good family, filled with ambitious hopes for her daughter, 
 so lovely and so sweet. Therefore, when Tom confessed that 
 his income was under seven hundred a year, and that he had no 
 prospects to speak of, or prospects of the vaguest and most un- 
 reliable character, Mrs. Despard allowed wrath to get the better 
 of politeness, and let Tom have it. He must never, under any 
 circumstances, speak of such a thing again. She w'as surprised, 
 she was more than surprised, she was deeply hurt, at what she 
 could call nothing but a breach of confidence. She had trusted 
 him with her daughter, feeling sure that she was safe with on© 
 who had known her from infancy. With his means, his very 
 humble means, the matter was ridiculous and not to be thought 
 of for a moment. Did he know the expenses of housekeeping ? 
 Did he know the cost of bringing up a family ? Had he 
 thought that her daughter, her Eleanor, was to become a com- 
 mon household drudge ? And, finally, she must Avish Mr. 
 Caledon good-morning — for ever. Henceforward they were to 
 meet as strangers. 
 
 So Tom found himself outside the door. It was a facer. 
 And there was no help for it. The energetic widow fcilowed 
 up her onslaught by a letter, in which she said that she should 
 feel more at her ease in Hyde if Tom was out of it ; and that, 
 if he did not see his w^ay to changing his quarters, she should 
 be obliged to sacrifice the rooms which she had taken for two 
 months at eight guineas a week. 
 
 So poor Tom had to go, packed up his portmanteau, and went 
 mooning about by himself on the Continent. He did not enjoy 
 himself much till he came to the Engadine, which was full of 
 Hugby auU Marlborough masters, so that the contemplatioa oi
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 103 
 
 thoir great superiority, and tlie listening to their artless prattle, 
 eoothed his soul and made him think of Mr. Roudelet, the man 
 in v.-hom Alan Dunlop believed. 
 
 A j-ear and a day ; and here he ivas again at the Pearly Gates, 
 and no infuriated mamma as yet in sight. 
 
 " Do you like it, being a good deal together ?" he asked un- 
 grammatically. 
 
 " Yes," she replied frankly and without the least hesitation. 
 " Haven't I told you so over and over again ? Men will never 
 believe what one says. Does it please you, Tom, to hear mo 
 Bay it again ? I do like it, then ; I like it very much ; I like it 
 too much for my peace of mind, Tom. Will that do ?" 
 
 " Oh, Nelly !" cried the enraptured lover. 
 
 " I like being with you better than with anybody else, man, 
 woman, or child, in the whole world. I am sure it ought to bo 
 80. You have known me so long that you are a kind of brother 
 by this time." 
 
 " Brother ! oh !" Tom groaned. 
 
 " Which reminds me " — her manner changed suddenly. While 
 she confessed her " liking " for Toms society, her face was 
 glowing, and her eyes were soft and tearful. She was very 
 near havmg a weak moment, only that stupid Tom was afraid, 
 and let the opportunity for a bit of real love-making gu by. 
 " Which reminds me," she said, suddenly putting on a careless 
 and even a flippant air, " that there are certain thmgs which 
 cannot be talked about." 
 
 " Why not, Nelly ?" 
 
 " Because they are impossible things ; yes, Tom ; quite — 
 quite. Isn't there a rule that the Brothers are not to say foolish 
 things to the Sisters ?" 
 
 " No rule of the kind at all," he said. " In fact I was never 
 in a country-house Avhere so many foolish things are said. To 
 be sure ttie place is full of charming girls." 
 
 " And of course you find it easy to say foolish things to all of 
 them," she said, with the least little delicate shade of real jealousy. 
 
 *' Don't, Nelly ; you know well enough," Tom was again un- 
 grammatical, but perfectly intelligible. 
 
 " This is a world, Tom, as mamma says, in which common 
 sense is wanted. You have only got seven hundred a year. I 
 have got — nothing. Can we — could we — does anybody live on 
 £even hundred a year ?" 
 
 " I believe Dunlop is living on eighteen shillings a week," 
 Tom replied. " But we could, Nelly. I have calculated it all 
 out on paper, and we really could. And you should have ahorse 
 to ride as well." 
 
 " And a season in town ; and a run down to Brighton ; and 
 perhaps six weeks on the Continent ; and you to have your club
 
 I04 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 and hunter— oh ! and my dress, because mamma has always said 
 that she shoukl not consider it her duty to help me after I waa 
 married. Tom, can we do all this on seven hundred a year ? 
 Ask your heart, as they say on the stage." 
 
 Tom was silent for a few moments. 
 
 " But we need not want all this, Nell. "We could live some- 
 how where things are cheap— beef at twopence, and potatoes 
 free— you know ; and we would be "—here he looked queer— 
 " we would be economical, NeU." 
 
 She burst out into a merry laugh. 
 
 " You are a ridiculous boy, Tom. How coidd we be economi- 
 cal ? Isn't the hfe we lead the only hfe we can lead with any 
 pleasure ? And are you not a most extravagant man ? How 
 much do you owe ?" 
 
 " One can't be very extravagant on seven hundred a year," said 
 Tom, with a sigh. " And to think that you of all girls are ready 
 to throw yourself away for money — oh, Xell !" 
 
 " Tom, I've heard that kind of thing said in novels and in 
 plays, over and over again, 1)ut you know in real life it is silly. 
 Lord Methusalem marries little artless Lily, and then the satir- 
 ists talk about it as if it were so awful for Lily. Why, Tom, she 
 isn't artless at all ; she likes it. She knows perfectly •well what 
 she is doing. Am I artless, do you think ?" 
 
 " You look artless, Nelly." 
 
 " You know very w^ell, then, that my looks are a snare. I 
 never had any secrets from you, Tom, "had I? Who knows 
 better than you that I must marry, if I marry at all, a rich 
 man ; and the richer the better ? I suppose that men are not 
 necessarily brutes and bears because they are rich. AVhy, there 
 is Alan Dunlop ; he is rich, and not a brute ; and half-a-dozen of 
 the Brothers ; and lots of others that I know. I really do not 
 see why a rich man should not be as pleasant as a poor one, 
 though he never is in the novels. My husband must be rich, 
 and I only hope with all my heart that he will be pleasant." 
 
 " But it's such a mercenary — I mean — you know what I 
 mean." 
 
 " I know, Tom," said Nell. " If we could do just whatever 
 we liked, there is nothing I should like better than to say ' yes ' 
 to you — just as I did on the dear old pier ; you know that, Tom, 
 don't you?— and go straight away to church, you and I to- 
 gether. Oh ! howliappy I should "feel while the clergyman tied 
 the knot ! And what a rage mamma would be in ! But that is all 
 nonsense. We are born in a rank of life, as the Catechism says, 
 and have to be contented therewith. That is, I suppose, wa 
 must accept our fate and make the best of it. And my fate ia 
 —not Tom Caledon— poor old Tom '.—but somebody or other— 
 L ord Methusalem perhaps. And don't think I shall be miserabla
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 105 
 
 nnd die of a broken heart I I sTiall do nothing of the kind. I 
 shall make a fair bargain. I shall marry a man who will give 
 me a good income, a position, kindness, and — and— perhaps — 
 what you make such a fuss about, Tom" — here she turned red 
 and hesitated, picking at a flower — " what they call — Lovo. And 
 I shall give him all I have got to give — all any woman can give 
 — myself." She stopped for a moment, and ecemed as if she 
 wire tr\ ing to collect her thoughts. " And it will be a bar- 
 gain all to my advantage." 
 
 " What, Nell ? A man gets you, and you think it is a bargain 
 to your advantage ?" 
 
 " Ah ! Tom, you think that girls are artless, you see. That 
 is the mistake that men make. ]\Iy dear Tom, we are miracles 
 of common sense and prudence." 
 
 Tom pulled the most dismal face in the world. 
 
 " Don't, Tom." Nelly laughed and then sighed. " Don't. It's 
 hard enough as it is, not being able to — to have one's own way. 
 You might at least help me." 
 
 " I will, Nell. I declare I will. I promise you that I will not 
 ask impossible things — as you call them. But you must give me 
 something for my promise. You must walk with me, dance 
 with me, and ride with me." 
 
 " I will do all that," said Nelly. "But, Tom, j^ou must not 
 be angry if I— flirt with anybody I like among the Brothers of 
 the Order." 
 
 " I suppose," said Tom ruefully, " that I have no right to say 
 a word, whatever you do. And there are plenty of men here for 
 you to flirt with ; and I suppose I shan't have the chance of 
 edging in a word at all." 
 
 " Certainly not, if it is a disagreeable word," she said. 
 
 Tom got up. 
 
 " There must be something wrong in the management of the 
 world," he said, " when two people like you and me, who are 
 made for each other, can't be married for the want of a few mis- 
 erable dollars. Why, Nell, can you conceive of anything jollier 
 than for you and me to be always together, to do what we like, 
 go where we like, and live as we please ? Do you think you 
 would get tired of me ? To be sure I am not clever." 
 
 She shook her head ; something like a tear came in her ej-e, 
 and she did not look up. 
 
 " I should never get tired of you, Tom. It is the meu who 
 get tired of their wives, not the women of their husl)andh.'' 
 
 •' I wonder, now," said Tom, " whether I couldn't go in for 
 something and make money. There was Maclntyre cf ours, I 
 remember. He went into the Advertising Agency business, and 
 told somebody, who told me, that he was making a thousand a 
 year over it. And there was another man who went into wine
 
 lo6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 on Commission. And another who took to writing. And 
 Tom Bellows went into manure." 
 
 " And I hope he stuck there," said Nelly. " Oh ! Tom, to 
 think that you will ever make anything. You ? There's 
 another point of resemblance between us, Tom, that we are 
 both born to spend, not to save. It is a much happier con- 
 dition of life. And now let us go home for luncheon. Is not 
 that Peregrine coming to meet us ?" 
 
 " I thought he couldn't let us alone very long," growled 
 Tom. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 "So many hours must I tend mj flock, 
 So many liours must I take mj' rest, 
 So many hours must I eonteraplalo, 
 So many hours must I sport myself." 
 
 After nearly a year of continual effort in the village, it waa 
 almost time that some results should be arrived at. And yet 
 the young Reformer's countenance grew darker every day as he 
 looked about for what should have been the fair and smiling 
 harvest of his toil, and found only thg same old weeds. Every 
 one of his projected reforms had been by this time fairly com- 
 menced. The Parliament — the plan of which he had hoped to 
 widen, so as to make it embrace the broad interests of tho 
 AYhole village instead of the comparatively narrow business of 
 a single farm — was a House of empty benches. On the sup- 
 pression of the gratuitous supper the rustics ceased to take any 
 further interest in the proceedings. A show of a weekl3^ con- 
 ference was held, it is true, but it was like the Roman Senate 
 under the Empire, having no power, and being the mere shadow 
 of a name. It consisted, indeed, entirely of a duet between 
 Alan Dunlop, himself, and his bailiff. Perhaps, now and then, 
 the two young men of religious principle who had charge of the 
 Co-operative shop and the Good Liquor Bar, put in a silent ap- 
 pearance. Occasionally, as has already been stated, the meet- 
 ings were attended bj' the saturnine schoolmaster. He showed 
 little enthusiasm for a movement which brought no good to 
 himself. The cobbler of anti-religious sympathies abstained 
 after his first visit. If you could not discuss Atheism, what 
 was the good of Parliament ? He considered all this talk of 
 farm work sheer waste of time, which might much better be 
 devoted to the destruction of Christianity, monarchy, and the 
 aristocracy — to parcelling out the land and introducing com- 
 vuuuibOi, One night the young man they called William cam*
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 10? 
 
 and proposed, with greater liberty of expression than might 
 have been expected of him, a vote for the increase of wages 
 and the decrease of hours, which he supported on the plea that 
 it would afford the labourers time to attend the night-school 
 and the reading-room. But Mr. Bostock made short v/ork of 
 him, so that he came no more. Still the Parliament was kept 
 up, and Prudence Driver entered the minutes regularly, acting 
 as Clerk of the House. Also, Alan always introduced his new 
 ideas first to the House, and then circulated them in the form 
 of tracts. 
 
 In the course of the year quite an extensive literature of 
 tract.s grew up in the village, all v.-ritten entirely by the Squire, 
 and most generously given away for the exclusive use of the 
 people. Among them were — 
 
 The Tract on the Co-operalion of Emiiloycr and Labourer^ with 
 a Tentative Conjecture on the share which the latter ought to 
 have in the Profits. This was the treatise presented to the 
 first sitting of the Parliament, but as it was unfortunately mis- 
 taken for paper provided as pipe-lights, it became immediately 
 out of print. I believe a copy is now as rare as an Editio Prin- 
 ceps of Gargantua. 
 
 The Tract on Total Abstinence which followed, produced the 
 results which such tracts always do. The woman got hold of it 
 and quoted figures. Then came domestic disagreements, and 
 the men, to escape nagging, went to the Spotted Lion, where 
 they agreed on the merits of the Tract, and wondered vrhy no 
 one followed the Squire's example. But the weekly chalks did 
 not grow less. 
 
 The Tract on the Good Liquor League obtained an additional 
 importance from the fact that the landlord of the Spotted Liou 
 thought it was meant as an attack upon himself, particularly 
 when the writer spoke unkindly of treacle, salt, and sugar as 
 additions to beer which ought not to be made. Otherwise this 
 Tract would certainly have fallen flat. 
 
 In the same way the Tract on Co-operation in the Village-sJwp 
 met with no readers except the one village shopkeeper. She, 
 hke the landlord of the Spotted Lion, resented its appearance 
 as aimed directly at herself and her own interests. But her 
 weekly lists of tick did not diminish. 
 
 The Tract on Cleanliness in the Home was kindly and even 
 cheerfully received by the men. They snorted, chuckled, and 
 grinned, wondering what the women would say to it. The 
 wives, however, thought the Squire had best keep to subjects 
 more proper to man-folk, and spoke disrespectfully about 
 meddlers, even throvv'ing out hints on the subject of dish- 
 clouts. 
 
 The Tract on Art m Common Life was. as Alan felt himself
 
 io8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 a liltle above their heads. The beautiful language regaidiiig 
 Common Things, the Blade of Grass, the Tuft of IMoss, the 
 common wild flowers, and the singing of the lark in the sky. 
 fell unresponsive on their hearts. 
 
 The Tract which recommended daily bathing was received 
 with an apathetic silence, which left no room for doubt as to 
 the opinion of the village. 
 
 The Tract about Free Libraries and a Public Eeading-room 
 was considered to concern other people. Probably it had been 
 printed and given out at their doors by mistake. The villagers, 
 anxious not to think their Squire a madman, charitably put this 
 down as the postman's error. 
 
 The Tract on Amusements excited surprise rather than 
 curiosity. They were to dance every week — dancing was an 
 Art strange and forgotten. They Avere to have a theatre — they 
 had never seen a theatre — and a circus and a band of music, 
 and to go out all together for holidays. Like the hoys, and 
 girls, which was degrading. 
 
 The Tract on the Model Cottage, showing how the garden and 
 the pigsty paid the rent and provided the Sunday dinner of 
 beef and cabljage, with the pudding under the gravy, excited 
 aspirations which were as fleeting as vague, and were speedily 
 drowned in beer. It may be confessed that not one single cot- 
 tage grasped the idea that roast beef and Yorkshire pudding 
 were attainable objects. 
 
 The great difficulty was that nobody wanted to read — nobody 
 wanted to change — nobody wanted to improve. The duty of 
 discontent had not been taught these simple rustics. It was 
 sad for Alan to hear in the evening those voices of the real 
 village Parliament raised in clamorous cheerfulness in their tap- 
 room which were silent at his own Assemblies ; it was sad to 
 feel that his tracts fell unheeded on dull and contented ears ; it 
 was sad to meet the Vicar and acknowledge that, so far, he had 
 done no better from his cottage than his reverence from hia 
 pulpit ; or the Vicar's daughters, who respected him mightily 
 and were unfeignedly sorry to learn how things did not advance 
 a bit, and how, the only purchasers at the Co-operative shop 
 were themselves and Miss Dalmeny. Perhaps the failure of 
 his shop and his bar was the saddest thing about the whole ex- 
 periment, because in establishing them he had, as he told 
 Miranda, appealed to the very lowest principle, that of self- 
 interest. Could people be so stupid as not to be alive to their 
 own interest ? Both the excellent young Christians who 
 resided together and administered shop and bar. stood, all day 
 long, at the receipt of custom with brightly varnished beer- 
 handles and polished counters, but had no custom. And jet 
 the tea was good and tlio Hugar good ; and the beer was the
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 109 
 
 briglit and sparkling fluid from Burton, not tlie sugary mess of 
 the Spotted Lion. 
 
 For this stiffnecked generation took kindly to nothing except 
 what was actually given to them. As long as soap was dis- 
 tributed the mothers came to the Public Laundry. When they 
 had to bring their own soap, they preferred the seclusion of 
 home. The men, for their part, gave a ready patronage to the 
 Bar so long as the tap ran free, which was for the first week. 
 During that blissful period every man was allowed a pint in the 
 evening. By this it was intended to cultivate the village palate 
 into a taste for real beer. The pint despatched, it was mourn- 
 ful to see them slouch across the road and enter their accustomed 
 taproom. 
 
 It was almost as painful to visit the Library where Prudence 
 Driver sat every evening alone. Now and then, perhaps, the 
 schoolmaster might look in to borrow a book and exchange 
 gloomy remarks with her. Then he would go out, and the door 
 would bang behind him, and the girl would sit by herself won- 
 dering why people preferred to be ignorant, and endeavouring 
 to master the principles by which her Prophet was guided. 
 Once the shoemaker, already referred to, came with a list of 
 books beginning with Toland and Volney, and ending with 
 Eenan. As none of these works were in the Library, he ex- 
 plained to Prudence that she was an accomplice in the great 
 conspiracy, of which every king, priest, and holder of property 
 was a member, for keeping the people in ignorance. It is im- 
 possiole, however, to satisfy everybody, and when the Primitive 
 Methodist minister of the circuit visited the Library and found 
 the works of certain modern philosophers upon the shelves, he 
 asked the Librarian whether she realised the possession of a 
 Boul, and whether she knew of the punishment allotted to those 
 who wilfully disseminate error. So that it seemed as if nobody 
 was pleased. But the girl had her consolations. Sometimes 
 Mr. Dunlop himself would sit in the reading-room all the 
 evening, and now and then he talked with her over his plans. 
 Sometimes Miss Miranda would call at the Library in the after- 
 noon. And sometimes the young ladies from the Vicarage 
 would come in and run round the shelves like butterflies, 
 brightening up the place. Otherwise Prudence Driver's life 
 was a dull one. 
 
 The Public Laundry and Bath-houses were as deserted as tho 
 Library, 
 
 After the work of nearly a whole year, was there nothing ? 
 
 Yes ; one thing there was. When the Squire, at vast ex- 
 pense, hired a whole circus company and had performances 
 open to all the people— just as if they had been so many ancient 
 Eomans — for nothing, they »ppreciated the act at its highest
 
 no THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 pofisiWe value. Never was any performer more popular than 
 the clown. And yet, in spite of the temporary popularity 
 which accrued to him by reason of the circus, Alan did not feel 
 altogether as if the success of this experiment was a thing, to 
 the student of the Higher Culture, altogether to be admired. 
 It was much as if a great tragedian were to step suddenly, and 
 by no conscious will of his own, into the position of a popular 
 Tom Fool. 
 
 Keenly conscious of this, Alan next got a company of come- 
 dians. They were going about the country playing a piece 
 which had been popular in London. It was not a great piece, 
 not a plav of that lofty ideal which Alan would have preferred 
 to set before his people, but it was something better than tba 
 clown's performance. On the first nigbt the villagers came in 
 a body. They expected another clown. What they saw was a 
 set of men and women in ordinary costume, carrying on and 
 talking just like so many ladies and gentlemen. That was not 
 acting at all. No real interest in it ; no red-hot poker ; no 
 tiimbling down and dislocating limbs ; no spectacle of discom- 
 fiture and suffering such as calls forth at once the mirth of the 
 mstic mind. The next night nobody came but a few children. 
 Clearly, the dramatic instinct was as yet but feeble." 
 
 About this time Alan had a great consultation. It was in 
 Desdemona's " cell,"— a luxurious apartment at the Abbey — on 
 Sunday afternoon. Those who were present at the Conference 
 were besdemona herself, Miranda, Tom Caledon — who was 
 rather short of temper in consequence of discovering that Nelly 
 had gone for a walk with .Mr. Koger Exton — Mr. Eondelet, and 
 Alan himself. 
 
 The Abbey was veiy quiet that afternoon ; the drowsy in- 
 fluence of the midsummer day lay upon all, and made them 
 talk languidly and dreamily. 
 
 " After a year of work," said Alan, lying back in his chair 
 and speaking to the ceiling, " there is nothing." He raised him- 
 self and addressed Miranda. " I told, you, Miranda, at the very 
 outset, that Habit was the great enemy. I begin almost to be- 
 lieve that nr'thing can be done against that deadly enemy." 
 
 Then Mr. Rondelet, standing by the open window, toyed deli- 
 cately with his eye-glass which he half raised twice, and as often 
 dropped. I really believe that he could see as well without it. 
 Then he stroked lais smooth cheek and smiled languidly . 
 
 "You have proclaimed," he said . . . there was always a 
 nttle difficulty about Mr. liondelet's r's, which had a tendency 
 —a tendency only, not a brutal determination — to run them- 
 selves into w%. Mankind are divided in opinion as to whether 
 this is affectation or a congeuitai iniirmity ..." You have pro*
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. m 
 
 claimed," ho said, " the responsibilities of wenlth. You have 
 set an example which may be followed and must be quoted." 
 
 " It will be quoted," said Tom Caledon, who was sitting by 
 Desdemona. " It will be quoted most certainly, but as for 
 being followed " 
 
 " I have made an experiment," said Alan, " in what I believe 
 to be the right method. But the success has not ]38en, I confess, 
 altogether what I could desire. It seems almost impossible to 
 enter into their minds." 
 
 " Perhaps," murmured Desdemona gently — " Perhaps, Alan, 
 they haven't any." 
 
 " And, perhaps," said Mr. Rondelct, " there is still something 
 to be said in favour of the old method of imposing obedience 
 and lajdng down rules. Our ancestors assumed to possess what 
 we cei'tainly do possess — the Higher Intelligence." 
 
 " That is driving, not leading," said Alan. " My principle is 
 the Example. It v^as an old Oxford principle, Eondelet." 
 
 Miranda observed with a sigh, that she had hoped to see some 
 development in the direction of Art. 
 
 It was an unfortunate remark, because the failure of the 
 Picture Gallery was the most conspicuous of all Alan's late 
 defeats. No one, after the first day, cared to go into the Pic- 
 ture Gallery at all. 
 
 " I hoped," said Alan, " that we should make the gallery into 
 a sort of silent and continuous educator. That series of pictures 
 showing the development of manhood from the flint-weaponod 
 
 savage to — to " here he looked at the Fellow of Lothian 
 
 College — " to the highest product of modern civilisation, I 
 thought would become at once a stimulus to the discontent I 
 want to engender." 
 
 " Even the contemplation of the — the Highest Modern Pro- 
 duct failed to interest them ?" asked Mr. Rondelet, with a show 
 of carelessness as if he did not know that in the neglect of the 
 Highest Modern Product ho had himself been neglected. 
 
 " Yes ; they took no interest in the progress of civilisation. 
 Then I had a series to illustrate the History of England. But 
 they cai'ed nothing about the History of England." 
 
 " There were the dances," said Miranda, joining in the chorus 
 of lamentation. " Oh ! I did hope that something would come 
 of the dances. A weekly dance, with an inexpensive supper — 
 a real dance — of quadrilles and waltzes for the people. It 
 Eeemed so delightful. And to think that we should break down 
 from such a trilling cause as boots." 
 
 " Did thej?^," asked Desdemona, languidly, " did they try to 
 waltz in the boots of their working hours ?" 
 
 " Well," said Miranda," the fact is we forgot that detail. On 
 the first night Tom was good enough to giv« us his ^sistance.
 
 U2 THE MONKS OF THE LE 31 A. 
 
 But there was only one girl. Alma Bostock, who could be madtj 
 to go round at all, and she being the daughter of the Bailiff, is, 
 I suppose, a little above the rest. Dancing is extinct among 
 the English peasantry'. It is a lost art." 
 
 " Begin again next winter," said Desdemona. " Provide 
 plenty °of thin shoes, and I will go down and teach them how to 
 dance." 
 
 " You must give them a supper too," Miranda said, " other- 
 wise they will certainly not come. They are like little children, 
 who must be approached by the temptation of something to 
 eat." 
 
 " The night school has to be shut now, Miranda," continued 
 Alan gloomily. " We have been going on for some time with a 
 single pupil, Prudence Driver's brother. I have reason to 
 believe that she bribed him int3 attendance, and that, as she is 
 c.t the end of her resources, he refuses to attend any longer." 
 
 " Then," said Tom, " as you have gone quite through the 
 whole of your projects, and they are all dead failures, I suppose 
 you are ready to come back to civilisation again." 
 
 " And own to failure ?" Alan replied. " Not yet. The last 
 word has not been spoken." 
 
 Then Mr. Rondelet, leaning against the open window-frame 
 and letting his white fingers roam daintily about his smooth 
 cheek, spoke low and in a certain measured accent, as if the 
 warmth and sunshine of the afternoon had entered into his 
 
 BOul. 
 
 " You have shown the way, Dunlop. You have taken the 
 place which an Oxford man of our school was bound to take. 
 You have illustrated what should be and what will be, perhaps, 
 in the fulness of days. You have also shown how immeasurably 
 in advance of the age is that school to which you belong. The 
 common herd now know what it is — the Higher Life. You 
 have done, we think," he spoke as if he was in himself the 
 Common Room of Loildan — " enough for honour. In the cen- 
 turies to come the tale will not be allowed to drop and be for- 
 gotten. It will grow and spread from this little centre of 
 Weyland village till it becomes a great mythus. In the course 
 of the generations, antiquaries will be trying to trace back your 
 legend to the far more remote birth of the Sun-God Fable, and 
 the allegories of Vishnu, Moses, Tammuz, and Apollo. It will 
 be demonstrated that Alan Dunlop's history, as preserved in a 
 fragmentary condition, was an allegory, constructed slowly and 
 bit by bit, of the progress of the year. You will be relegated 
 to the pra3historic period. Treatises will be written to show 
 that your culius existed before Homer, and is referred to in the 
 Iliad ; that it was a branch of the great Aryan family of tra- 
 dition, in spite of tb« inevitable* German scholar who will try to
 
 THE MONKS CI' THELEMA. 113 
 
 maTce yon out Semitic. And -with all the talk no one will be 
 able quite clearly to separate j'ou from Hercules, Samson, or 
 Apollo. You are doomed to become prseliistoric. Round your 
 name will gather proverbs, sayini^s, legends, and miracles. You 
 will be accepted, and even worshipped as the Founder of a new 
 religion ; men will dispute first on the genuineness of the 
 miracles, then on the authenticity of the records ; and lastly, 
 on the broad fact whether you ever really existed or not. In 
 fact, I see very well and clearly pronhesy that everybody in tlie 
 future will have to become Dunlopians or Anti-Dnnlopians, and 
 a High Place for your Worship will be set up in the village of 
 Weyland. So far, at least, you have succeeded." 
 
 Dcsdemona clapped her hands, and even Miranda, who was 
 not always pleased with Mr. Rondelet's I'cmarks, laughed. 
 Alan alone did not seem to appreciate the fulness of the glory 
 prophesied. 
 
 " Another thing you have do:ie," said Tom, the practical, " is 
 that, with your three shillings a week for your farm-labourers, 
 and your free feeds, the whole village has grown fat. I met 
 two men yesterday, once thin, who positively waddle. They 
 now bear before them, like an alderman " 
 
 " And your festivals, Alan," asked Miranda. " Did the last 
 go off well ?" 
 
 Alan hesitated for a momen 
 
 " So far as the children wei-e concerned," he said, " we got on 
 very well. The Vicar was there, with the girls, and we amused 
 them. The women were less easy to please, and I am sorry to 
 say that, owing to some confusion about the orders for beer, the 
 men all got drunk. We left them behind, lying on the roadside 
 in different stages of intoxication." 
 
 " It will be reported," said Mr. Rondelet, " in the mytlius, that 
 the young god was such that those men who gazed upon his 
 face fell to the earth instantly, as if they were drunken with 
 new wine : but that the women followed him singing hymns." 
 
 " AVe went to Weyland Priory," said Alan, unheeding. " I 
 lectured in the ruins, but who knows with what result ?" 
 
 There was silence for a space. And then Mr. Rondelet left 
 the open window and sought a chair which stood in the mids't of 
 the group, just as if ithad been left there for the Master. And 
 laying his chin upon his left hand, in such wise that the fore- 
 finger and the second finger were parted and lay on either side 
 of his mouth, and sitting so that the elbow of tke left arm 
 rested on the chair, he spoke slowly : 
 
 " I have brought myself to think, notwithstanding all the 
 talk we had in Oxford, when we were younger men, Dunlop, 
 that the great men— the giants — of the Renaissance were right 
 in leaving the common herd to their owa devices. They lived 
 
 8
 
 114 THE MONKS OF THhLEMA. 
 
 like go Is, apart and enjoyed by themselves the true pleasures 
 of the Higher Cultiu'e." 
 
 This Fellow of Lothian could never utter a dozen sentences 
 without lugging in the Higher Culture. 
 
 " Had they gone beluw, had they tried to improve, to change 
 the vulgar crowd, they would have lost the cream and glory of 
 life. In these days there is again a small school of Humanists 
 • — ciiiefiy or wholly sprung from Oxford — of whom the world 
 knows little. There i: ore we live by ourselves. Shall we not, 
 then, live /or ourselves ? Perhaps fate — the gods — chance — may 
 throw in the way of one or two " — he looked, perhajDs accident- 
 ally, at Miranda — " a companion, a woman, whose social and 
 sesthetic taste may be our own, and whose lines of Culture maj^ 
 be the same. Wliat more delightful life may be imagined than 
 an atmosphere of Art among a little circle, from which all ig- 
 noble people will be excluded, all contact with the uncultivated 
 hedged out ? This Abbey of Thulema partially, but only pai'- 
 tially " — here he looked at Tom Caledon, as if that young man 
 marred with his broad shoulders and stalwart figure the delicate 
 effeminacies of his ideal — ■" only partially, I say, realises my 
 ideal. So hedged in, our lives would become first a mystery 
 and then an example to the admiring world ; and in this way 
 Culture would be helped by emulation. This, however, 
 Dunlop, is a different method from yours. What do you think, 
 Miss Dalmeny?" 
 
 " Your method seems to me the highest form of selfishness," 
 she replied. 
 
 " But to return to your project, Alan," said Desdemona. 
 " Are you quite sure that you began in the right v/ay ?" 
 
 "I still tliink so," he said. " The fault is with me, not with 
 my method." 
 
 " Everybody who has a method thinks that," said Tom 
 Caledon. " I like having none, and using the world as I find 
 it." 
 
 "The clown of to-day," said Desdemona, "is the clown of 
 yesterday and of tomorrow. But if you really hope to make 
 any change you must begin with the children. And for that 
 purpose you want a woman's help. You must have a vdfe, 
 Alan." 
 
 He gazed intently upon his adviser for a few moments, 
 and was silent. And presently thej' began to talk about other 
 things, and the church bells rang out pleasantly beyond the 
 park, making the soft air of the summer day melodious, 
 And the three men fell to thinking about the same subject, 
 each from a different point of view. For Tom was in love, arid 
 w^anted to carry that sentiment to a legitimate conclusion hy 
 marriage ; and Alan was in earnest, and thought to complete bis
 
 THE MONKS OF TIlELEMA. n\ 
 
 experiment by marriage ; and Mr, Rondelet was in debt, and 
 •wanted to clear off his liabilities, and make himself free from 
 similar annoyances for the future by marriage. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 *' Fn'erulsliip ia constant in all oLlif^r tbiugl 
 Save iu the oflice and afl'uirs of lovo." 
 
 Ai-AN mused over Desdemona's advice for the whole of the 
 next week. His solitary work in the fields made him introspec- 
 tive, and he was beginning to find out reasons for his failure ii\. 
 the defects of his own character. His great defect, of which he 
 was unconscious, was that he lacked that bonhomie which is in- 
 fectious, and spreads from man to man, like a ball which is 
 caught up and thrown from hand to hand. He was a grave 
 man, and to the rustics he appeared as a schoolmaster or as a 
 clergyman, always preaching unpleasant things, to which one 
 had to listen. 
 
 When one of them emei'ged from the Spotted Lion, after a 
 simple half -pint, it was painful to him, especially if he were 
 a rustic of sensitive disposition, to encounter the deep sad 
 eyes and grave face of the Squire. Had Alan been able to meet 
 that backslider with a hearty round of abuse by way of admoni- 
 tion, something might have been effected. But as the case stood 
 to the village, here was the seigneur of the village come down 
 from his high estate, \vithout any apparent motive except that 
 of meddlesomeness, working among them and for them, dressed 
 as one of themselves, leading the saintliest of lives, more 
 laborious in the field than themselves, more abstinent than any 
 baby ; the thing was from the very first disagreeable, and it 
 became in the course of months a matter of profound resent- 
 ment. 
 
 Alan knew that he was personally unpopular among the 
 people, which he attributed to his unfortunate inability " to 
 enter into their minds " ; and as has been seen, he did not 
 scorn to seek advice from his friends. There was a general as- 
 sent among them that it was no use working all day in the 
 fields if none of the men liked to work with him ; that the pro- 
 fession of temperance, if no one followed the example, was 
 foolish ; and that it was a pity to keep on inviting people to be 
 taught who preferred to remain ignorant, or to wash themselves 
 when they preferred the ancient unwashedness^ 
 
 From that point they diverged. The Vicar stuck to the 
 principle that men want ofiicers and orders — not superior com- 
 irades. Miranda thought that the men should have their wagea 
 
 8—2
 
 ii6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 on the condition of attending niglit-scliool, wliich was a woman's 
 ■way of looking at things. l\ir. Rondelet, clinging to his new views 
 invited Alan to give up the whole thing, and leave swine who 
 liked wallowing, to walbw ; "only," he said, "let them have 
 separate sties, a long way from us." And Tom Caledon said 
 that to him it vras foolishness ; that gentlemen should live 
 with gentlemen ; and that in this realm of England people who 
 have the pluck to rise can rise, and even run their sons for the 
 prizes of social position. 
 
 And while he was in this dubiety, and while the cold feeling, 
 which damps all enthusiasm, was beginning to creep over him 
 that he might be making himself ridiculous, and sacrificing 
 youth, wealth, and ease for the sake of making rustics snigger, 
 there came this hint from Desdemona, that with the aid of a 
 wife he might at least do something with the children. Of late 
 he confessed to himself with sorrov/, he had felt strange yearn- 
 ings for the old manner of life ; and there were moments when 
 there flashed across his mind visions splendid and beautiful, 
 in which Miranda was chatelaine of Weyland Court. But to 
 marry : to have a wife who would share in his aims, and strive 
 to realise his ideas : — but then he thought that for such a wife 
 he must look in the class among whom his labour was to lie, No 
 lady could do what he wanted her to do : a lady, indeed, would 
 fail for the same reason and in the same way that he had failed. 
 His wife must be of the lower class by birth ; she must represent 
 their virtues, and be cognisant, by experience, of their failings ; 
 she must be able to reveal their sympathies, and show him the 
 avenues by which to reach their hearts. As for the farm-work, 
 lie would give that up as useless. The evenings of mental prostra- 
 tion after a hard day of pitchforking Avcre a proof that labour of 
 that kind was useless ; and by learning his way to the affections 
 of the people by changing their sentiments towards him so that 
 they should no longer shuffle out of his path, he would be of far 
 greater use than by merely going through tlie form of com- 
 panionship in labour. 
 
 Whom to marry ? He was not a man with a roving eye which 
 lights on beauty here and beauty there. Quite the contrary ; 
 he thought very little of beauty — much less than most young 
 men, whose thoughts, I believe, run a good deal on pretty faces : 
 when he did think of beauty at all it was to illustrate the topic 
 with the face of Miranda. Yet it occurred to him at once that 
 the young woman must be comely. Prudence Driver, for in- 
 stance, who quite sympathised with his views, was out of the 
 question by reason of her unfortunate figure, Avhich was a little 
 twisted. Who, then ? Bud that was a matter of detail, and it 
 would wait. Meantime, he would go over to the Hall, and see 
 Mirancla.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 117 
 
 Fortunately, Dosdcmona was witli her. 
 
 " I have been thinking over what you suggested, Desdeiuona," 
 he said, calmly. 
 
 " AVhat was that ?" _ 
 
 " About having a wife." 
 
 " The man speaks as calmly aa if he were going to bviy a 
 horse, " said Desdcmona. 
 
 " The more I think of it, the more I like the idea," Alan 
 went on. 
 
 " It is an idea," replied Desdemona, " which has commended 
 itself tc all your ancestors ; in fact it is with you an hereditary 
 idea — almost a family trait." 
 
 " We men lack insight," he said, gra.vely. " "VYe do our best, 
 but women surpass us in that sympathetic power of \'ision which 
 pierces the most rugged shell of selfishness and rudeness. You 
 arc quite right ; I must have a wife, and I want your advice." 
 
 " For such a sensible resolve as that. Alan, I will give you as 
 much advice as you can carry away. But had you not better 
 begin by falling in love ?" 
 
 " Oh ! no, not at all. That is not what I mean." 
 
 "But you must, Alan," Desdemona gasped. — "Wasit a dream? 
 Or what did he mean ?" Miranda looked perplexed and pained. 
 
 '' No ; I am not at all likely to fall in love with the person I 
 marry. Esteem and respect, of course, she will look for." 
 
 " But, Alan, what is the meaning ? we do not understand 
 you." 
 
 " I mean that my wife, in order to be the helpmeet that I 
 want must belong to the lower classes, the very lowest " 
 
 "Good heavens!" cried Desdemona, "is the man going to 
 marry a housemaid ?" 
 
 " Not a housemaid necessarily ; though why not ? However, 
 I want to find some poor man's daughter who will understand 
 her class, and help me to enter into their minds." 
 
 "My poor Alan," said Desdemona, "they haven't got any 
 minds. I am sure they haven't." 
 
 She smiled from the superiority of her knowledge. 
 
 "Will you, however, you two friends and allies of mine, the 
 closest and the best, help me to find such a girl ?" 
 
 It was Miranda who made answer. Her face had gone sud- 
 denly pale, and there was a strange light in her eyes. 
 
 " I will help you," she raid, " in everything. If you think this 
 is the wisest thing for you, you will only tell me what I am to 
 do in order to help you." 
 
 " I do not think I can premise, Alan," said Desdemona, slowly. 
 '• This is a very serious step which you propose. And I must 
 think of Lord Alwyne."
 
 ii8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " You see now," said ALan, " ydiy there need be no question 
 of love." 
 
 " But marriage witliout love ? Ah, Alan, you do not kno^7, 
 you cannot guess v/hat that will be." 
 
 " No, Alan," said Miranda. " I should not like you to fall in 
 love with a girl of that class. Of course it is impossible." 
 
 She spoke v/ith the noble scorn which alvi^ays seizes a 
 demoiselle at the mere mention of a possibility of a gentleman 
 falling in love Vi'ith a maid of low degree. And yet she had read 
 of King Cophetua, and the Earl of Burleigh, and Cinderella, 
 and Griselda, and m.any other cases. Young ladies, indeed, 
 seldom fall in love with the sons of gardeners. Pauline and 
 Claude Melnotte do not form a case in point, because poor 
 Pauline was grossly deceived. Therefore they argue that the 
 reverse case is impossible. They should put a few confidential 
 questions to the shop girls, who might surprise them. But, per- 
 haps, on the whole, they had better not. 
 
 "We must not think of love," Miranda repeated. " But you 
 must look for something. Ideas you will not get, nor com- 
 panionship." 
 
 " Not at first. But women are receptive. Com.panionship 
 will come. For the first thing. I want great power of sym- 
 pathy." 
 
 " Cannot Prudence Driver do what you want without ?" 
 
 Miranda could not bring herself to frame the word. 
 Alan shook his head. 
 
 " No," he replied. "She will not do. I want a wife. It is 
 only by the constant companionship of mind with mind that I 
 can hope to bridge over the gulf between myself and my vil- 
 Isgers." 
 
 •' She ought to be pretty, too," Miranda went on. " I should 
 not like to see you married to a perfectly common woman." 
 
 " You will not see me very often," he said ; " after I am mar- 
 ried I have to put my shoulder to the wheel, and I must not 
 look back, nor regret the days of old." 
 
 There was a little bouquet of cut roses lying on the table, 
 which Miranda had brought in from the garden. Alan picked 
 out a bud. '' This is a beautiful bud, Miranda — wear it in your 
 hair to-night. I will dine with the Order. It will not be many 
 times more that you will see me among them." 
 
 " Oh ! Alan." Miranda's eyes filled with tears. She was so 
 stately to all the rest, and to him alone so womanly. " Alan, 
 YOU will not desert me, will you ? AVhat would my life have 
 been — what will it be — without you ?" 
 
 Had there been in the enthusiast's eyes the slightest tou?h of 
 softening, Desdemona would have swiftly and «u.ddenly vanished 
 from the rooia. But there was uct. He did not look in htr
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 119 
 
 eyes, Tvliere love Lay hiding, but visible to him, had not his heart 
 been of stone. He was loolcing far av/ay. 
 
 " I must not be tempted, Mii'anda, even by you. If I marry 
 in the village I shall be tied for life to the village. One must 
 not leave a young wife, even though she has red arm_s." 
 
 Miranda said nothing. The prospect thus suddenly opened 
 vras appalling to her. 
 
 There was silence, and presently Alan rose to go. 
 
 " We are to help you then, Alan," said the artful Desdemona ; 
 '• but if we are to render any real help you must promise not to 
 act hastily, and without consulting us." 
 
 " I promise you," said Alan, " that I will rnarry no one with- 
 out your approval. Docs that content you, Miranda?" 
 
 " It ought to, Alan," she said, smiling rather v/eariiy. " It is 
 very good of you." And then he went avray. 
 
 " "\Ve have got the power of veto, my dear," said Desdemona. 
 '' And we will exercise it." 
 
 Then she got up and shook her voluminous skirts. 
 
 " You GOOSE," she said, addressing no one \>y name. " Oh ! 
 j-ou goose. All men here are geese ; but you — oh ! you are the 
 most goosely goosk. Have you eyes ? have you ears ? have 
 you understanding ?" 
 
 " Desdemona dear !" 
 
 " Miranda, here is a house full of lively, accomplished, and 
 Bweet young ladies. And Alan is a rich, handsome, clever, and 
 pleasant young man. That is all I mean, m.y dear child — that 
 is all. And again aud again I say — oh ! you goose 1 you 
 
 GOOSBl" 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIIL 
 
 "Iilalian Aplirodite, beautiful, 
 Fiesli as the foam new bathed in PapLian wells, 
 With rosy, slender fingers backward drew 
 From her warm brows and bosom, her deep hair 
 Ambrosial, go.lden, round her lucid throat." 
 
 " We must help him, Desdemona," said Miranda. Her cheek 
 was grown suddenly pale, and there was a strange light of paiu 
 in her beautiful eyes, which she lifted heavily as she spoke. 
 " We must help Alan in everything." 
 
 " Except in this, Miranda, which is suicide." 
 
 " It need not be quite so bad as it seems." 
 
 " It is certain to be much worse than it seems, unless," Des- 
 demona murmured, half to herself, " unless we can stop him in 
 time."
 
 I20 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " There must be, somewhere, if only one knew her," Miranda 
 v.'cnt on, " a girl who would coma up to poor Alan's ideal. I 
 have shamefully neglected the poor people, Desdemona, and 
 now this is my punishment." 
 
 " That is nonsense, my dear. It is true that you have not 
 gone poking and prying into cottages, like some ladies. But as 
 to neglect !" 
 
 " She must be, first of all, a good-tempered girl. Good temper 
 is such a very great thing." 
 
 " It depends," said Desdemona, " greatly on the size of the 
 hou&e. Of course, in a cottage good temper is everything. At 
 Dalmeny Hall or the Abbey you might almost dispense with it. 
 Some day I will write an essay on good temper, especially as 
 required for the stage." 
 
 "Good temper, at all events," Miranda M^ent on, "is almost 
 an equivalent for good breeding among poor people." 
 
 " Unfortunately, it generally gees with stupidity," said Des- 
 demona. " But that will be part of my essay." 
 
 " She must not be stupid. And she must have a soft voice. 
 If possible she should have taste in dress. But I suppose wa 
 cannot hope for everything." 
 
 "A lady's-maid," said Desdemona, "would perhaps be the 
 nearest approach to Alan's ideal. Can you not spare him your 
 own ? And, oh ! Miranda, to think that it was my own doing 
 — mine— to put the notion into his dear, queer, cracked brain. 
 What will Lord Alwyne say, when I tell him that it was my 
 suggestion ?" 
 
 It is not an easy thing to find a village girl possessed of those 
 virtues which were thought by Miranda requisite for Alan's 
 wife. Perhaps she looked for too much. Good temper : gentle- 
 ness : the germs of good taste : modesty of deportment : refine- 
 ment in personal habits : ready sympathy : quick wit : and 
 some pretensions to good looks. 
 
 Miranda was not above the weakness of her class, which car> 
 seldom acknowledge beauty below a certain rank. Ladies would 
 have said, for iuftance, and doubtless did say, of Nelson's Emma, 
 that she was a person wlio might be called good-looking by 
 some. — Could all these qualities be found united in one person ? 
 And where was that person ? 
 
 " Let us, like Austria, claim the right to a veto," said Des- 
 demona, " and then we can go on exercising it for the next fifty 
 years or so, until Alan is quite cured of this folly." 
 
 " Can we have a fete in the Park, and invite all the girls from 
 Weyland and the villages round ? Perhaps we shall be able to 
 Boe some one Vv'ho may be thought of." 
 
 This idea seemed promising, and Desdemona began to cos- 
 eider how such a fete cenld be organised.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. \i\ 
 
 First, she thought it might consist exchisively of the girla and 
 young unmarried women of the country-side. True that in no 
 rank of Ufe would maidens look forward with rapture, or even 
 complacency, to a gathering in which there were to be no young 
 people of the opposite sex. That was a drawback. Yet Des- 
 demona thought that by prolonging the festivities till late in 
 the evening, a door would be opened, so to speak, for the young 
 people of t1io opposite sex to meet the maidens, home returning, 
 in the lanes. Desdemona, although cut to the heart to think of 
 assisting at Alan's social suicide, was a kindly person, and 
 thoughtful of her guests' happiness. Then, she thought, inde- 
 pendently of the possibilities of a moonlight ramble home, each 
 sola cum solo, there would be a novelty in the exclusion of 
 lovers, brothers, fathers, mothers, and babies. There should be 
 no children. The youngest girl should be at least sixteen. 
 Every girl in Weyland village and all the neighbouring hamlets 
 within a radius of six miles should be invited to come, and bring 
 with her every other girl of sixteen and upwards whom she 
 might know. 
 
 And then the busy brain of the actress began to contrive 
 means for making the thing into a pageant and a show. She 
 took the Brothers and Sisters, one after the other, into consul- 
 tation separately and together. Tom Caledon, who volunteered 
 to do anything that was asked of him, except kiss-in-the-ring, 
 thought that if the Brethren alone had to amuse these young 
 persons, there might be jealousies. Nelly observed that if that 
 was the arrangement proposed, she should feel it her duty to 
 put on her habit and ride about as a mounted policeman all the 
 day. Miranda was quite sure that the Monks of Thelema 
 might be safely trusted not to flirt with village girls. All the 
 monks present became at once much graver of aspect than was 
 at all natural or usual with them : and Brother Peregrine, in a 
 sepulchral voice, remarked that monks in all ages were notori- 
 ously above suspicion in that respect. Sister Cecilia changed 
 the conversation by asking to be allowed the selection of the 
 music. She was going to have nothing but old English tunes 
 and songs, such as Green Sleeves, LiUibulkro, and so on. The 
 unappreciated novelist suggested a reading, and volunteered to 
 devote the whole afternoon, if necessary, to readings from her 
 ovv'n works. Other offers and suggestions were made, considered, 
 and adopted or dropped, until the thing resolved itself info a 
 grand series of entertainments designed to last the whole of the 
 afternoon and evening. 
 
 The fete was fixed for a Saturday ; it v.-as to be held, if 
 the weather proved fine, in that part of the park which 
 lies between the Court and the little river Wey, which here 
 winds its pretty course, and makes a great tongr.e of land, in
 
 122 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 ■wWcli staTid noble elms and sycamores, and where there is a 
 goodly stretch of sloping grass. The grass, however, was 
 covered with tents and marquees, and was gay with Venetian 
 masts and bunting of every kind, so that it was festive to look 
 at. There were tents for everything, including a theatre and a 
 concert room. The whole of the amusements, except the band 
 and the choir of boys, were personally provided by the members 
 of the Order, who vrere the hosts and hostesses. Only Miranda 
 begged that there should be no waiting on the girls by the 
 Sisfers. That part of school feasts and village festivals, she 
 said, where the ladies go round with plates, and do awkwardly 
 what trained servants do well, spoils the pleasure of the guests 
 by making them feel awkward and ill at ease, and turns hos- 
 pitality into condescension Miranda was one of the very few 
 people who undcrsta.nd how to give. 
 
 The program.me was printed in red and gold on silk, so that 
 every girl might carry away and keep hers as a little memento, 
 just as right-minded men love to keep the mcnuHol good dinners, 
 and turn to them in after years, with mingled feelings of regret 
 for the excellent things eaten, drunk, and said, on those joyous 
 occasions. And it ran as follows — the red and gold are hero 
 unavoidably omitted : 
 
 ABBEY OF TIIELEMA. 
 Floral Games, July 28, 1877. 
 
 To be enacted, represented, and performed for and by the 
 maidens of Wcyland Village and the country round. 
 
 The games will commence at three p.m. But those who 
 arrive earlier will find dinner laid for them in the long marquee 
 at one. The Band will begin to play at two, and will go on, 
 with intermissions, all the day. 
 
 At 3 p.m. — There will be a canoe race on the river between 
 Brother Peregrine and Brother Lancelot. The prize will be 
 permission to bestow a gold locket on any one of the 
 gLiests. 
 
 At 3.30.— The Wizard of Assam. 
 
 At 4 p.m. — A game of Polo, in which the Monks of the Abbey 
 will each worthily play a monkly part. 
 
 At 5 p.m. — There will be a running race for the younger 
 girls. Prize, a new bonnet, to be selected by the winner. 
 
 At 5.30 p.m. — Tea in the long marquee. 
 
 At G.30 p.m. — A Lottery in the Lottery tent. 
 
 At 7.0 p.m. — The performance of a new and original village 
 Comedy, written especially for this entertainment by Sister
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 123 
 
 Desdemona. Music and songs by Sister Cecilia. Tiie clia- 
 ractcrs -svill be sustained by the Brethren and Sisters of tlie 
 Order. 
 
 At 8 p.m. — A concert of old En<;lish music. 
 
 At 8.30 p.m.— Dancing and Lighting of the Lamps. 
 
 At 9 30 p.m.— Slipper in the Long Marquee. 
 
 At 10 p.m.— A Grand Surprise, by Brother Peregrine. 
 
 At 10.30.— Fireworks. 
 
 The guests are invited to enter freely all the tents, especially 
 that of the Gip-y, and that of the Magic Jilirror. 
 
 God Save the Queen. 
 
 This programme looked very pretty indeed, edged round with 
 flowers, and beautifully printed, as I have ?aid, in red and 
 gold. It was presented to every visitor on arriving at the lodge 
 gate. 
 
 There were about a hundred and fifty girls in all. They 
 came from all sorts of places for miles round ; they came on 
 foot ; they came in Fpring-carts ; they came in omnibuses ; 
 they came in vans. They came hours before the time. They 
 came dressed in their very best, and in the happiest mood. But 
 though they knew something of the preparations -which had 
 been made, they vv-ere not prepared for tlie splendour and beauty 
 of the scene which awaited them ; for the Venetian masts, the 
 streaming banners, the bright tents, the music— which began 
 sooner than was advertised, because there were so many who 
 came as early as noon — and the crowd which went to and fro, 
 and gave life to everything. 
 
 There were no men except the servants, for the monks did 
 not appear till the time came for their performances. Ladies 
 there were in plenty, come to see the fete, the real purpose of 
 which was known only to Desdemona and Miranda, but no 
 gentlemen were admitted with them. 
 
 I do not think the rural nymphs lamented the absence 
 of their swains. Some few might, perhaps, have allowed a 
 transitory feeling of regret that so much care on their ap- 
 pearance would have no result in attracting some other girVs 
 young man ; some might have felt that with a bashful lover 
 at one's elbow things v/ould have seemed more complete. 
 But with most there was a feeling that the shepherd swains 
 would certainly have got drunk, as they did at Mr. Dunlop's 
 festival, and so spoiled everything. Fancy a lot of drunken 
 louts among these beautiful tents and flags. 
 
 Village beauty is a flower of not unusual occurrence, aa 
 many of my readers have observed. In Gloucestershire there 
 is a prevalent oval type which soraetimes gives a face of
 
 124 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 P'ng'.ilar sweetness r in Somersetpbire tlio type is squared off, 
 somehow, and when you get a pretty face there it carriers aa 
 expression of something like sidlenness : the Hampshire folk, 
 with their brown hair and round faces, arc sometimes comely : 
 and the Northumbrians, with their long faces, blue eyes, and 
 gentle voices, are often charming. At Weyland Park, which, as 
 everybody knows, is in no one of these counties, the average of 
 village beauty was not, perhaps, very high, but there was plenty 
 of health in the rosy faces, and of vigour in the sturdy arms : 
 considered as the mothers of England's future sons they afforded 
 reason for rejoicing ; but the general type of face was decidedly 
 common. Yet there were exceptions. 
 
 No one among them all who could have guessed the real 
 reason of this lavish preparation for a simple girls' merry- 
 making. To Miranda, no expenditure could be too lavish, so 
 that it was for Alan. With a sorrowful heart she provided this 
 magnificent entertainment as a sort of welcome to his wife ; 
 supposing that his wife was amongst the hundred and fifty 
 country nymphs who graced her feast. 
 
 The Brothers and Sisters dropped in one by one. and fell into 
 the places assigned to them in the programme. The cancc race 
 was paddled on the narrow little river, as tortuous as the Jordan, 
 by Tom Caledon and Brother Peregrine, and it was won by 
 Tom because his adversary, in his extreme eagerness to win, 
 lost his balance and upset, to the I'apturous joy of the assem- 
 blage. But some thought that he upset himself on purpose, in 
 order to prerent the pleasing and interesting spectacle of a figure 
 dripping wet, embellished with duck-weed, and running over the 
 lawns to change flannels. In former days this amusement used 
 always to be provided on Procession-day at Cambridge ; the 
 boats taking it, I believe, in turns to sacrifice themselves on the 
 altar of public derision. 
 
 Sister Desdemona presented Tom Caledon with his prize, a 
 gold locket and the permission to give it to whatever girl he 
 pleased. There was a general flutter among the maidens as he 
 stood like a sultan, the locket in his hand. They stood grouped 
 together in little knots, as if jealous of each other ; and all ej'es 
 were open, all lips parted in eager expectation of his choice. 
 
 There was one girl among them who looked at Tom with 
 a kind of confidence — she alone among them all. She was a 
 fair-haired, blue-eyed girl ; tall, pretty, and of graceful figure. 
 
 " Alma thinks she's going to get it," they murmured. " There's 
 lots piettier than her." Tom, however, did not give it to her. 
 He stepped straight to where, quite in the background, little 
 Prudence Driver, Alan's librarian, stood, little thinking of tha 
 honour that was about to fall upon hei". She was not pretty, 
 uor was sho graceful, but Tom kcew how Miranda regarded
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. I25 
 
 bcr, and he thought to please the Abbess. An angry flush ros3 
 to tlio chock of the gh-1 called Alma, but there v/as no possibility 
 of disputing the award. 
 
 The Polo fell rather flat, although the Brothers played well 
 and with address. Polo docs not powerfully appeal to the 
 village maiden's imagination. 
 
 Then there came the lottery — all prizes and no blanks. The 
 prizes were articles of costume, useful and ornamental. Nelly 
 held the bag, and each girl on drawing her number rushed 
 straight to the lottei\y-tent to see what vras her prize. 
 
 Then came the wizard with his Indian conjuring tricks, 
 which made them breathless with wonder and terror. And all 
 this time the music played under the trees ; and there was the 
 gipsy's tent, in which your fortune was told for nothing and 
 you came out knowing exactly not only what kind of husband 
 you were to have, but also, what Mrs. Harris yearned to extort 
 from Mrs. Gamp, your " number." 
 
 And then — ah ! then — there was the tent of the Magic 
 Mirror. Within, among many curtains, and in a dim twilight, 
 eat an aged white-bearded black man in black robes and wonder- 
 ful hat, who asked your name and your age, and who then in- 
 vited you to behold yourself in a mirror. That was not much to 
 do, but as j'ou looked, your own face disappeared, and behind it 
 came a picture — a scene in your future life. And then this re- 
 markable old man told j-ou things. These must have been dif- 
 ferent, because some of the girls came out with heaving bosoms, 
 glistening eyes, flushed cheeks, and pallid lips, gasping in antici- 
 pation of the promised joy. But some emerged with downcast 
 looks, pale and trembling, their day's enjoyment gone. The 
 prophet was no other than Brother Peregrine himself ; it was 
 no business of any one's that he had with him in the tent a 
 certain " wise woman " who whispered him little secrets about 
 every girl as she came in. She was invisible behind a curtain. 
 I regret to say that the fame of this wonderful sorcerer spread- 
 ing upwards, so to speak, many of the ladies and some of the 
 Sisters sought the tent of the IMagic Mirror. Among these 
 was Nelly, who came out looking sad and disappointed, and 
 when she met Tom sighed and said, " I am so sorry that I went 
 into the tent of the Magic Mirror. Poor Tom !" 
 
 Now Tom knew who was the sorcerer, and he gathered that 
 his rival had taken a mean advantage by means of his magic 
 spells. Therefore he inwardly cursed all necromancers. 
 
 Where was Alan ? Miranda was disappointed at his absence. 
 He had faithfully promised to come — and now evening was ap- 
 proaching and the beauty of the fete was over, but there was 
 uo Alan. 
 
 The play, which wao a light builetta, with village girls and
 
 126 THE MONK'S OF THELEMA. 
 
 pretty songs, was well received, and the concert was endure J. 
 And then they began to dance, for the sun v^^as down now, and 
 the summer twilight was fallen upon the trees and the pai'k, 
 and they were lighting the coloured oil lamps. It was a new 
 Vauxhall, only none of those present could remember the splen- 
 dours of that place. And what with the coloured lights and tha 
 band and the glamour of the whole, a sort of intoxication 
 seized the girls, and they became, in a way, possessed of the 
 Bacchante madness, insomuch that they laughed and sang, and 
 seized each other by the waist and whirled round madly till they 
 fell. And among them all ran in a,nd out that tall thin man, 
 with the lines in his face, whom they called Brother Peregrine, 
 who whispered to one and danced with another and conjured for 
 a little group, all at the same time, and with unflagging ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 As for the rest of the monks, they were dancing with such as 
 knew how to dance, except Mr. Caledon, whom all the girls 
 knew ; and he walked up and down among the lights with Misa 
 Despard, whom they knew as well. And her face was melan- 
 choly. And Miranda moved here and there, always graceful, 
 always queenly, with her little court, consisting of Desdemona, 
 Cecilia, and Mr. Eondelet, happy in her expei'iment but for one 
 thing, that Alan, for whom this entertainment was designed, 
 was not present. 
 
 At ten the supper was served. There was a sort of high 
 table at which sat Miranda, with her court. She was look- 
 ing up and down the long rows of girl-faces before her with 
 a critical but disappointed eye. 
 
 " They giggle dreadfully," she whispered to Desdemona, who 
 was sitting beside her. 
 
 " People who live far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife 
 generally do giggle," Desdemona replied. 
 
 " And I am not at all sure about their temper. Look at that 
 black-haired girl ; should you think she was good-tempered ?" 
 
 " Certainly not," said Desdemona. " I know the sort — short 
 of patience, hasty in wrath, and unreflecting in the matter of 
 punishment. She would box Alan's ears every day till he 
 brought her to Weyland Court." 
 
 " I have looked up and dov/n the rows at the table; bi.I' I 
 can see no one who in the least degree approaches Alan's siujpA* 
 ideal I despair !" 
 
 " So much the better, my dear, because the fancy may pass 
 away. We have always got our right of veto. Just suppose, 
 however, that these girls knew what we know. Fancy the airs, 
 the bridlings, the jealousies with which these Cinderellas would 
 receive the gracious Prince when he came. I suppose, by the 
 ^ay, that he will corae some time this evening ?"
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 12? 
 
 " He said he would. One would think," said Miranda, with 
 a Utile bH.terness, " that hs v;ould feel some httle interest ia 
 the assembly." 
 
 But supper seemed to be over. YvHiat was the surprise pro- 
 mised by Brother Peregrine ? 
 
 He answered the question himself; that is to say, his Indian 
 Bwrvant brought him a small box. With this in his hand, he 
 begged Miranda's permi.ssion to make a little speech. 
 
 " What are you going to do V" she asked. 
 
 " I am going to minister to their vanity," he replied. " lu 
 my experience of the uneducated— only the uneducated portion 
 — of your sex, I have found that to minister to their vanity is 
 to afford them the most lively gratification. I am going to 
 make one girl supremely happy, two or three madly envious, 
 and the rest proud of their sex and of themselves." 
 
 He took Miranda's permission for granted, and advanced to 
 the front, facing the long tables at v/hich the girls had taken 
 Bupper. 
 
 " Girls," he said, holding solemnly before him the mysterious 
 box, " I promised you a surprise with which to close the day. 
 It is here, in this' box. In the days when the old gods pre- 
 tended to govern the world, and made such a mess of it that 
 we have been ever since occupied in setting things to rights 
 which they blundered over, there was once a banquet — not so 
 good a banquet as this at which we have just assisted, but still 
 a creditable feed. And while the gods were sitting over their 
 wine and the goddesses looking at each other's dresses " 
 — the girls began to wonder what on earth all thir; unintel- 
 ligible patter meant — "some one, v/ho shall be nameless, 
 threw among the assemblage a golden apple— a golden apple," 
 he repeated, " on which was inscribed, ' For the Fairest.' The 
 adjudgment of this apple produced great disasters to the 
 human race, which mattered nothing to her who received it, 
 because she scored a distinct triumph over her rivals. This 
 preamble brings me to the box. Trumpeters, if you please." 
 
 The two trumpeters of the Abbey, who had meanwhile 
 stationed themselves at either side of the speaker, but on a 
 lower step, blew a great and sonorous blast. 
 
 " This golden apple," the orator went on, " supposed to have 
 been quite lost for many thousands of years, has been miracu- 
 lously preserved to the present day. It is in my possession ; it 
 is in this box. I am about to restore it to its original use. 
 Trumpeters, if you please." 
 
 While they blew again, the attention of the girls being now 
 thoroughly aroused and their interest excited to the highest 
 point, Brother J'eregrine opcaed the box, and took out, eub-
 
 i28 tHE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 pended by & silver chain, an apple, wrought, or cocming to be 
 wrought, in solid gold. 
 
 He handed this to his Indian servant, who, bearing it re- 
 verently on a cushion, passed down the lanes of the girls, 
 allowing them to hold it in their hands, to weigh it, and to gaze 
 at it. The dark Indian, with his turban and white tunic, the 
 silver chain and the golden apple, and the mystery of the whole 
 thing, filled all hearts with a trembling eagerness. 
 
 "That apple," continued Brother Peregrine, "is ofPered to 
 the fairest of you all. The ladies of the Abbey of Thelema do 
 not propose to enter into competition. It is for their guests 
 alone that this gift is olVercd. Point me out the fairest." 
 
 There was first a dead silence, and then a confused hubbub 
 of tongues, bat no one was proposed. 
 
 " Tiiis will not do," said Tom Caledon. " Let them separate 
 into committees and vote." 
 
 It was difficult, but was effected at last by the process of 
 dividing them into groups of ten, and making them select the 
 two prettiest girls from among themselves. This reduced the 
 number of candidates from a hundred and fifty to thirty. The 
 tliirty were then ranged in a row, while their less fortunate 
 sisters sat behind, silent, and devoured by irrepressible envy. 
 
 " The number must be still further reduced," said Brother 
 Peregrine. " I must have three presented to me, among whom 
 I shall choose the fairest." 
 
 Again Tom Caledon managed the business. He gave them 
 voting-papers and collected their votes. 
 
 There were thirty voters. 
 
 When the papers were unfolded it was found that there were 
 thirty nominations. 
 
 It thus became apparent that every girl had voted for her- 
 self. 
 
 This was discouraging, but Tom began again, offering each 
 girl two votes. 
 
 The result of this method was that there was a distinct and 
 large majority in favour of three girls, whom Tom Caledon 
 placed before the giver of the apple, in a row, and then re- 
 tired. 
 
 It was an impressive scene. 
 
 On the platform stood Brother Peregrine — tall, tlhin, with a 
 smile in his eyes, though his lips were firm. Below him his 
 Indian servant, bearing the apple and the chain on a cushion. 
 At either hand the gorgeous trumpeters. Behind, the ladies 
 and the Brethren of the Abbey. The three girls standing 
 trcm]jling with ill-disguised impatifnoe, edging away involun- 
 tarily from each other like guilty persons. And behind, tha 
 crowd of girls pressing, swaying, laughing and whispering
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 129 
 
 " Tiicy avo all (livee pretty," whispered Miranda to Nelly ; 
 " and all three in difi'erent styles." 
 
 The first was a tall girl, with perfectly black hair and plenty of 
 it, done in a careless kind of knot which allowed — though that 
 was perhaps the effect of dancing — one or two braids to fall upon 
 her neck. She carried her head in queenly fashion, and looked 
 straight before her into the face of the man who represented 
 the shepherd of Mount Ida, with a pair of full lustrous black 
 eyes, which were what some ladies might call bold. Her features 
 were regular : her mouth was rather large, and her figure full. 
 Her limbs were large, and of generous contour. She was Black 
 Bess — her Chrissom name was Pamela, but everybody always 
 called her Black Bess — the daughter of the blacksmith. She was 
 the girl of whom Desdemona had said that, if Alan's choice fell 
 upon her, she would box his ears every day until he took her 
 to reign at Weyland Court. And she looked it. As for for- 
 warding his schemes in the village, or laying herself out for 
 the Higher Culture, whatever intentions in this direction she 
 might start with, the end of those intentions was apparent. 
 
 She wore white muslin with cherry- coloured ribbons, which 
 would have been in excellent taste, and suited her shape and 
 complexion, but for an unlucky yellow sash which revealed the 
 imperfectly-educated taste, and made Miranda shudder. In 
 her hand she carried her hat by the ribbons, and her face ex- 
 pressed the eagerness of tumultuous hope. 
 
 Next to her, the second of the chosen three, was a girl not 
 quite so tall as Black Bess, but with a figure as commanding 
 and a look as queenly. She had brown hair and hazel eyes, 
 but the eyes w^ere as cold as those of Black Bess were full and 
 lustrous. Her hair was piled and rolled upon her head so that 
 it resembled a helmet. Her features were more prominent 
 than those of her rival, and had a certain hardness in them. 
 Also her chin was a little too long and square, and her forehead 
 a little too high. She wore a dress of some soft lavender 
 colour, without any ribbons, but a rosebud at her neck, and 
 another in her hair. And she, too, carried her hat by its 
 ribbons. 
 
 " See," whispered Miranda. " She has taste. But what a 
 cold expression !" 
 
 She was a nymph from a neighbouring village ; Black Bes"? 
 and the third were Weyland girls. 
 
 The third, indeed, was no other than the bailiff's daughter, 
 Alma Bostock. She was less in stature than the other two, but 
 as graceful in figure, and far more lissom. She was a buxom, 
 healthy-looking damsel, about eighteen years of age, with light- 
 blue eyes, and light-brown hair which fell behind her and over 
 
 9
 
 I30 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 her shoulders in an abundant cascade : she had a rosy cheelj 
 and a white forehead : she had red and pouting lips, with a 
 little dimple in either corner : her nose was just a little — per- 
 haps — tip-tilted. She had thrown aside her hat, and was stand- 
 ing with clasped hands and trembling figure, her eyes fixed 
 eagerly on the golden apple, mad to win the prize of Beauty. 
 She, like Black Bess, was dressed in white, but she had blue 
 ribbons, and there was nothing whatever to mar the simple 
 taste of her costume. Indeed her mother, the ex-lady's maid, 
 superintended it personally, and made her discard every scrap 
 of colour, out of all the ribbons which Alma wished to wear, 
 except the simple blue. So that of all the girls at the fete, 
 there was only one, the tall, brown-haired damsel beside her, 
 who was so well and tastefully attired. 
 
 And then Brother Peregrine, taking the prize from his ser- 
 vant — at which act the eyes of the Chosen Three lit up suddenly, 
 and became wistful — dangled it thoughtfully before them for a 
 few moments, and then began, slowly and with hesitation to 
 speak. 
 
 " I am not Paris," ho said. The elected wondered what ho 
 meant, while the Monks and Sisters of Thelema pressed more 
 closely behind him, wondering what would happen ; Miranda 
 vexed that Alan was not there, and yet half afraid that if he 
 came ho might take some sort of fancy to one of the Three. 
 " I am not Paris, the shepherd of Mount Ida. Nor is this, 
 irrdeed, the mountain. And Avhat I hold in my hand is not, I 
 am sure, an Apple of Discord. You, my very lovely young 
 friends " — here he cast an eye upon Nelly, on whose face there 
 might have been seen a half -amused, half-contemptuous glance, 
 as if nobody under the rank of a lady could be called lovely — 
 " are not goddesses, it is true. You are not Here : nor you 
 Athene ; nor you, pretty damsel with the light-brown hair, 
 Aphrodite. Yet, at this important juncture, I feel as if you 
 were, respectively, those three divinities." 
 
 He stepped down from his position of vantage. 
 
 " Let me try the chain upon the neck of each," he &aid. 
 '• Advance, maid of the ebon locks and lustrous eyes." 
 
 Black Bess understood the look, though the language was 
 too fine for her, and stepped forward promptly. 
 
 "Let us see," said Brother Peregrine, " how the chain looks 
 round your neck." He threw it over her neck, and, as he did 
 so, whispered quickly : " What will you give me for it ?" 
 
 " I will teach you," whispered the half -gipsy girl, hotly and 
 eagerly, "how to wire hares and pheasants, how to cheat at 
 cards, so that no one shall know how — oh ! I've taught lots of 
 men — and how to tell fortunes, and steal away girls' hearts."
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. i^i 
 
 He laughed, took the chain from her neck, and called the 
 next one. 
 
 '' What will you give me," he asked, " if I let you have the 
 apple ?" 
 
 Perhaps she had heard the former question, and had time to 
 make up an answer. 
 
 "I will tell you," she whispered, "what girls talk about — 
 ladies too — and what they want, and then you will never be 
 afraid of your wife, and rule your own house." 
 
 It was an odd thing for a village girl to say ; but perhaps she 
 had read books. 
 
 '' It is the truest wisdom," Brother Peregrine murmured in 
 reply. " And if knowing your wife was the first step to ruling 
 her, one might be tempted. But I have known husbands who 
 knew their wives quite thoroughly, and yet v/ere ruled by 
 them." 
 
 He took the chain from her neck, and called the third girl. 
 
 " What will you give me for it ?" he whispered, as he put 
 it on. 
 
 " Give me the apple and the chain," she whispered, with 
 quivering lips. " Give them to m.e, and I will give you as 
 many kisses as you like." 
 
 Brother Peregrine, with a virtuous frown, took off the chain, 
 and returned to his platform. The excitement was at its 
 highest. 
 
 " It is mine," he said, " to award the prize. I have seen the 
 three candidates, I have spoken to them ; I have, before you 
 all, tried them. Girls, I wish there were three golden apples. 
 But there is only one. And a precedent has been laid down 
 for us. Like the Ideean shepherd, I adjudge the prize — to 
 Aphrodite." 
 
 He stepped down, and laid the chain once more round the 
 neck of Alma Bostock. 
 
 The other two girls, without a word, turned away, and, with 
 heavily-laden eyes, pressed through the crowd, and so into the 
 outer night. Under the trees, beyond the light of the coloured 
 lamps, they spoke to each other. 
 
 " What did she promise to give him ?" asked Black Bess, 
 with heaving bosom and parted hps. 
 
 " I don't know — I don't care. A Cat," replied the other. 
 
 Then they separated by the space of two yards and a half, 
 and, sitting down upon the grass, broke into sobbings and cries. 
 
 But v/ithin the marquee it was the hour of Alma's triumph. 
 There was a murmur of approbation as Brother Peregrine sus- 
 pended the chain round her neck. Indeed, she was the prettiest, 
 and, at that moment, as she stood there, her eyes brightened, 
 her cheek flushed, the silver chain round her neck, the goldea 
 
 9-2
 
 132 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 apple at her heaving breast, every eye upon her, the hands of 
 all applauding, her whole frame swaying beneath the excite- 
 ment and victory of the moment, Alan Dunlop entered the 
 marquee. Miranda, Nelly, and Desdemona, with the other 
 Sisters, were stepping from the platform to congratulate the 
 victor ; the band was striking up a triumphant march ; the 
 girls were all laughing and talking together. Alan concluded, 
 rashly, that the whole thing had been got up by Miranda for 
 his own benefit. In this sweet-faced village girl, the queen of 
 the festival, he saw the maiden whom Miranda had chosen for 
 himself, and he caught her hand with effusion. 
 
 "Miranda," he whispered, with the deepest feeling, "you 
 have found for me the girl I have been in search of. I thank 
 you — for a wife." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 The man's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 " All is lost, my dear," cried Desdemona when the fete waa 
 over, and the pair were sitting alone at midnight in Desdemona's 
 cell. " All seems lost, that is ; because while there is no 
 wedding-ring there is hope. But to think that we have fooled 
 away our right of veto !" 
 
 Miranda could only sigh. 
 
 " The sight of that girl, looking really beautiful, for a girl in 
 her position," continued the elder lady, making the usual reser- 
 vation, " finished the man." 
 
 " And he thinks," said Miranda bitterly, " that I got up the 
 whole scene for the sake of advising him 1 I even to dream of 
 his marrying Alma Bostock !" 
 
 " It has been all my doing !" Desdemona said in sorrowful 
 accents. " All mine. I told him he ought to marry ; I devised 
 the fete. I arranged the Surprise with Brother Peregrine. I 
 only am to blame. And yet, it is fate." 
 
 Then Miranda began to take comfort out of what comfort 
 remained. 
 
 " After all," she said, " if he is going to marry a country girl, 
 he might easily do worse. Alma Bostock will never rise to hia 
 level, but she may be sympathetic ; and perhaps she will respect 
 him. Oh ! Desdemona, it is a poor consolation, this ' may-be.' 
 And I feel that I cannot any longer sympathise with Alan." 
 
 " No ; that would be difficult indeed. A man may make 
 mistakes of all kinds ; he may even go and live in a village and 
 pretend to be a farm-labourer ; but the mistake of such a
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 133 
 
 marriage he may not make, for Society will never forgive that 
 kind of mistalvc. A bad marriage " 
 
 Here she stopped, and was silent, thinking, perhaps, of her 
 own married life. 
 
 " There ought," she went on, " to be special juries, composed 
 entirely of married men — and they should be gentlemen, not 
 greengrocers — to consider cases of mistakes in marriage ; and 
 divorce should be granted as the only relief. Poor dear Alan ! 
 Poor mad Hamlet ! Go to bed, my dear Ophelia, and sleep with 
 happy dreams, while I think how I can alter the last act of the 
 play," and turn it into ' All's Well that Ends Well.' " 
 
 And when the next day Lord Alwyne came on a visit to the 
 Abbey, Desdemona received him in fear, not daring to tell of 
 the impending trouble. He began to talk at once about his 
 Eon. 
 
 " I have seen Alan sitting in a labourer's cottage, with a stone 
 floor and a deal table. I have also seen him masquerading in a 
 smock-frock, with a cart. And after that, Desdemona, I felt 
 that there was no further room for astonishment whatever the 
 misguided boy might do. It is not a pleasant thing, however, 
 for an old-fashioned father to see his son's name flourishing in 
 the papers. The other day they had a special column and a 
 half devoted to an account of a visit to Weyland, and an inter- 
 view with the shepherd Squire, as they v/ere pleased to call 
 Alan." 
 
 Desdemona could say nothing in solace, because what was 
 coming was a gi'eat deal worse than what had gone before. And 
 they talked of other things. 
 
 In fact, Alan came over without delay to communicate his 
 intentions to his father. It was filial of him ; and I suppose 
 there were still some remains of ancient prejudice as regards 
 rank and caste about him, because he approached the subject 
 with some hesitation. 
 
 " I fear," he said to his father, " that you have no sympathy 
 with my present mode of life." 
 
 " Why. no, Alan, I certainly have not." 
 
 Desdemona was present ; in fact, the interview took place in 
 her " cell," where she and Lord Alwyne had been holding an 
 animated conversation over certain m.emories of old days— the 
 days when she was 3'oung, when there were little suppers after 
 the performance, and little dinners at Richmond on Sunday 
 evenings. Alan's sudden appearance, with liis grave face and 
 Bolemn eyes, rudely disturbed this harmonious duct of reminis- 
 cence. 
 
 " No, Alan," his father repeated, " I have never attempted 
 the necessary effort at pumping up sympathy for you ; it would
 
 134 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 require too great an exertion : but I pity you, my dear boy. I 
 find I can manage so much without fatigue." 
 
 Alan smiled. He could afford to be pitied ; but he could not 
 afford to fail and be ridiculed. 
 
 " Perhaps you will pity me more when I tell you what I am 
 going to do next." 
 
 " I don't think I could," said Lord Alwyne lazily. " All my 
 available pity, now that my old friends and I have to pity each 
 other for the loss of youth, is yours already. There is only a 
 certain amount of pity in every man's constitution. Men differ 
 in this respect, however, as they differ in v/eight. You may try, 
 if you like, Alan." 
 
 " I have been long thinking upon the best way to bridge over 
 the gulf which divides me from the mind of the labouring 
 classes." 
 
 " I thought you had answered it by jumping into the gulf, 
 just as young Parisians, who think that everything is finished, 
 jump into the Seine. But if that did not do " 
 
 " It did not quite. In fact, I have had to confess lately that 
 my experiment has in some respects been a failure." 
 
 " Aha ! Kow I am really glad to learn that. I am interested 
 this time. Then, Alan, I hope that you will give up masquerad- 
 ing as the homely swain, and come back to our arms as the 
 country gentleman again. Desdemona and Miranda will for- 
 give you, and all shall be forgotten. We will never allude to 
 the dreadful past again." 
 
 Alan shook his head. 
 
 " Not yet, sir, I think. Most likely not at all ; because I am 
 now going to commit myself to an act which is also experi- 
 mental, and yet, if it fails, can never be undone." 
 
 " That sounds very serious. Do you know what he means, 
 Desdemona '?'' 
 
 " I am afraid I know too well." 
 
 " In fact," continued Alan, not facing his father's eyes, but 
 uneasily playing with the ornaments on the mantelshelf, " I 
 have come to the conclusion that the only way for one class to 
 understand another is for them to intermarry." 
 
 " I see," said Lord Alwyne slowlj^, while a look of pain and 
 disappointment crossed his face. " I see — and you propose — 
 yourself — to intermarry with the class Vv'hich is the lowest. Is 
 that so?" 
 
 " That is what I mean." 
 
 " Do you wish to introduce this as a general practice or t 
 illustrate in your own case how the theory works ?'' 
 
 " I live in the way I think best for carrying out my own ideas, ' 
 said Alan, with a little pride. " Others may follow me or not,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 135 
 
 as tlbey may tbink best. I am only sorry that my proceedinga 
 must shock your feelings." 
 
 " Nothing shocks me," said Lord Alwyne untruthfully ; " I 
 am too old to be shocked by anything. And, besides, your idea 
 is not a new one. Royal houses have often bridged over the 
 gulf by marriage — morganatic. By means of the femala 
 branches, indeed, all ranks of society must have been by this 
 time thoroughly understood by the higher class. But, pray go 
 on." 
 
 " I am perfectly serious," said his son. " To intermarry with 
 a family of the soil will be to create new sympathies, and 
 establish ties which may lead to all sorts of valuable results. 
 "We v.rill suppose that I am married to — to a girl of this village, 
 poor, of course, but creditably brought up by respectable parents, 
 endowed with as much mother- wit as any of her superiors, able 
 to give me her experience in dealing with the class from which 
 she sprang. ..." 
 
 " The situation is novel," said Lord Alwyne ; "but I doubt 
 if my imagination can follow it in all its consequences. . . ." 
 
 " Well, but will it not afford me opportunities such as I 
 could gain in no other way, of influencing the villagers ? They 
 will look on me as one of themselves : I shall be their cousin, 
 their brother . . . You think this wild enthusiasm, I suppose ?" 
 he said in an altered voice. 
 
 " No, my son, not at all ; I think nothing. You have the 
 advantage of me by thirty years. That is a great pull to begin 
 with. I shall not try to understand where the modern ideas 
 come from, nor whither they tend. It might make me un- 
 comfortable. It might even make me v/ant to follow you, and, 
 like Don Quixote, go a-shepherding in my old age. That would 
 be detestable. But I confess I am interested. Let us see ; 
 you marrj' this girl. You are therefore the cousin of half the 
 village at once. That will, as the first obvious consequence, 
 enable them to borrow money of you. You will live here, at 
 your own place ?" 
 
 "No; I shall live in the village. Only I shall get a more 
 comfortable place than I am in at present." 
 
 " That will be in some respects better. As to jovx wife's 
 relations, now : they would be free of the house ?" 
 
 " Surely ; that is part of my purpose. It would be an 
 education for them to see how a household may be simply con- 
 ducted on principles of the best taste." 
 
 " In case of a dinner-party, now, or an evening- " 
 
 " We should give no dinner-parties." 
 
 "I was only thinking," said Lord Alwyne softly, "of an 
 elementary difficulty — that of evening dress. Excell.-^ufe as your
 
 136 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 new relations would be in all the relations of life, I supposo 
 that a dress-coat is not considered necessary in their circle ?" 
 
 " Surely," said Alan, " in such a matter as this we need not 
 stop to discuss evening dress." 
 
 " Indeed, no. As the poet says : 
 
 " ' The rank is but (lie guinea stamp, 
 The man's the gowd for a' that.' 
 
 The matter only occurred to me in thinking of what your own 
 prejudices might be. Mere prejudices. In smock-frock or 
 evening dress, what is a man yiit a man ?" 
 
 Alan moved uneasily. 
 
 " Evening dress — evening dress," he repeated. ""What liavo 
 we any more to do with evening dress ?" 
 
 '' Your wife will be able to receive," pursued his father, " at 
 five o'clock tea. Desdemona, you will describe to me by letter^ 
 I am sure, how the Sisters of Thelema got on with, the gentle — 
 I mean the employes in smock-frocks. It will be almost like a 
 scene from the opera . . . By the way, Alan, at such receptions 
 the smocks are clean, I suppose ?'' 
 
 " My dear father, I am serious." 
 
 " So am I, my son — so am I. Never more so, I assure you." 
 
 Lord Alwyne's words were genial enough, but his manner 
 was cold. Alan knew without these symptoms what his f athers 
 reception of his grand project would be. 
 
 " And when you return to the Hall, with your wife, whom 
 you will have trained by that time in your cottage to the out- 
 ward semblance, and perhaps the bearing, of a lady — what will 
 you do then about the relations ? By that time, though, they 
 too will have adopted the manners of polite society, and will be 
 able, I suppose, to hold their own at a dinner or a ball. We 
 shall have the smock-frock in society at last." 
 
 Alan made a gesture of impatience. He was thinking of the 
 pi'esent, and here v/as his father making suppositions about the 
 future. 
 
 " I shall never go back to the Hall," he said with decision. 
 " My life is devoted to the village." 
 
 " Yes : that is noble. But what about the children ? I s-jp- 
 pose we may contemplate that possibility ? You cannot lcav3 
 Weyland Court to any one but your eldest son. He will, I 
 suppose, be trained to occupy his position as a gentleman !" 
 
 Alan refused to contemplate the possibility of children at all. 
 Children would complicate his proposed arrangements alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Then Lord Alwyne summed up. 
 
 He lay back, resting his eyes on fhe comely proportions of
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. lyi 
 
 Desdcmoria, and speaking languidly, as if, wliicli was the capo, 
 the busincc3 was beginning to bore him too much to talk 
 about it. 
 
 " Of course, Alan, you know, without my telling you, what 
 must be my feelings as regards this project. In the benighted 
 days of my youth I was taught that by birth, by education, and 
 perhaps by the inheritance of those qualities which pushed ray 
 fathers to the front and kept them there, I was one of tlie 
 natural leaders of the people, I chose my line, as my elder 
 brother chose his ; and while he very properly accepted the 
 position of politician, a sacrifice which must require a great 
 deal of resolution, I, for my part, preferred to become a leader 
 in society. Up to the present I have seen no reason to regret 
 my choice. The country never had better statesmen or better 
 soldiers than when they all came from one class. And I think 
 it never will again have better, because our men have nothing 
 to gain, either in money or rank. The other classes may pro- 
 duce poets, novelists, artists, lawyers— all sorts of worthy and 
 delightful people — but has not yet produced great adminis- 
 trators or great generals. And, in my opinion, that comes of 
 descent. For work which requires a cool head and unflinching 
 courage in the storms of unpopularity or ill-success you want a 
 man who inherits those qualities. That is my simple creed, 
 Alan. The Fontaines have been to the front ifor six hundred 
 years or thereabouts. The Dunlops, your mother's people, 
 iiave been country gentlemen, knights, and soldiers for as long. 
 And all the time we have kept on intermarrying. We have 
 kept to our own class. You will marry out of it. For my 
 own part, I do not wish to bridge over the gulf between my- 
 self and my servants ; I would rather let that gulf remain. 
 The country allows those to rise who are strong enough to rise. 
 Let the weak stay where they are." 
 
 " Social economy " began Alan. 
 
 " My dear boy, let us not begin with social economy. It will 
 teach us nothing. "VVe will discuss this affair no longer. Hence- 
 forward, Alan, I shall be very glad to see you, personally, in 
 London, but I can come to Weyland Court no more after you 
 are married." 
 
 " I am sorry ; I am deeply sorry to pain you, sir," said Alan ; 
 *' but when higher duty than that of deference to your wishes 
 
 falls upon me " 
 
 " Very well , Alan," his father interrupted him. " "We under- 
 stand each other, which is quite enough. Go your own way, 
 and forget the old notions, if you please. But I cannot go 
 along with you. Shake hands, my boy ; we l;ave not quarrelled, 
 aad do not intend to." 
 Alan went away, his face rendered tadder. Out in the pari*
 
 138 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Lis eyes suddenly lit up, and he raised his head. Was he think- 
 ing of that bright and blooming girl who stood before them all 
 ia the marquee, the light of the lamps upon her face, her lips 
 parted, her bosom heaving, her eyes dancing with pride and 
 joy while Brother Peregrine gave her the golden apple ? It is 
 quite possible. Man is but man. Even Aristotle, as everybody 
 who has read the "Lay of Aristotle" knows, succumbed to a 
 pretty face. And as Alan proposed to marry her, he was dans 
 son droit in letting his thoughts run upon his future wife. But 
 perhaps, after all, he was thinking how Miranda would approve 
 of this additional self-sacrifice. 
 
 When he was gone. Lord Alwjme turned to Cesdemona, 
 I'aising his hands before his face, palms outward. It is the 
 gesture of sorrow, disappointment, or disgust. 
 
 "Poor Alan!" he said — "poor boy! All his fine theories 
 have come down to this ; to live in a cottage, work as a common 
 labourer, and marry a labouring man's daughter. I always 
 told my wife that bringing him up at home would be his ruin. 
 Marry a labourer's daughter ! — bridge over the gulf ! — oh ! 
 Desdemona, for the first time in my life I regret that we are 
 not in France, before the Kevolution, and that I cannot get a 
 letfre de cachet." 
 
 " He is not married yet," said the actress. 
 
 *' Not yet ; but he will be married before long." 
 
 " I say he is not married yet." 
 
 " Do you mean, Desdemona, to hold out hopes ?" 
 
 " I do," she said. " I will tell you nothing more : but I have 
 hopes, and I shall set to work." 
 
 Lord Alwyne reflected. 
 
 '• I will not ask now," he said. " I would rather not know. 
 I cannot plot against my son. But, Desdemona, in memory of 
 our long friendship, help me if you can." 
 
 She did not answer for a while, sitting in thought. Pre- 
 sently her clear eyes became heavy with tears. 
 
 " Ours has been a long friendship, Lord Alwyne," she said, 
 " and it is my greatest pleasure to think about it. It is thirty 
 years since first you stood by the young actress and protected 
 her vcputation against cruel attacks that were made upon me, 
 and are always made on women of my profession. I am grate- 
 ful for that. And it is five and twenty j'ears since when, iu 
 my day of trouble, there was no one in the world but you who 
 had the courage to take me away from it, and to do it openly, 
 so that no one could throw a stone. As dear as my honour is 
 to me, Lord Alwyne, so deep is my gratitude to you." 
 
 Meantime in Alan's brain was ringing the name of the girl 
 he had seen last night, her face lit up and surrounded as by a 
 nebula of joy and pride.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 139 
 
 "AlmaBostock" 
 
 And while the name went clanging in his brain, he began to 
 think of his future father-in-law. The outlook in that direc- 
 tion was not promising. 
 
 " He is crafty," said Common Sense. 
 
 " He is not a man of broad views, but hard-working," said 
 Enthusiasm. 
 
 "You suspect his honesty," said Common Sense. 
 
 " That is because I am growing suspicious," replied En- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 " He thinks bad beer and you think fine claret," said Common 
 Sense. 
 
 " Then we will teach him a liking for claret," said Enthu- 
 Biasm. 
 
 And so on, cari'ying on the conversation for a mile and a 
 half, until all that could be said against the worthy Bailiff had 
 been said, and the result remained that if ever there was a 
 fitting subject for the operation of example, precept, and ex- 
 hortation in the direction of the Higher Culture, Bailiff Bostock 
 was that special subject. And he could be got at readily by 
 means of his daughter, Alma Bostock ! Now that the idea of 
 marriage was assuming a concrete form instead of a vague and 
 shadowy umbra, like a ghost to look at and quite as terrifying, 
 it did not seem so dreadful a business. When Panurge was 
 sutlering from those cruel doubts of his concerning marriage, 
 he had no one, so far as we have been informed, in his eye. 
 Kow Alma Bostock appeared to Alan the very girl made to his 
 hand. There must be, he had always said, some approach to 
 delicacy in his wife. This he could hardly expect to find in the 
 coarse and red-handed daughter of a ploughman. His wife 
 must belong to the class among whom he was about to live. 
 Alma's father was but a step removed, while her mother was 
 herself the daughter of a cottager. Here he m.ade a great mis- 
 take. Bailiff Bostock considered himself much more than a 
 step above the labourer. Just as the Queen must find it diffi- 
 cult to understand, even with the help of Miss Yonge's novels, 
 the little distinctions of middle life — how the chemist is a 
 greater man than the grocer : how the smallest professional 
 man keeps apart from trade : how the curate cannot break 
 bread with a retailer — so Alan Dunlop did not understand that 
 his Bailiff stood upon a platform a great deal higher than his 
 labourers, and that Alma, v.hatever she might do, would cer- 
 tainly not be likely to sympathise with the rustics. 
 
 Alma Bostock was the one girl in the village who would do 
 lor him — of that he was quite certain. All the rest were coarse, 
 commonplace, repulsive. 
 
 \1% spent an agitated evening, wandering into the library
 
 I p THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 and out of it, talking in a purposeless way Avith Prudence, his 
 librarian. There "wns no one else there, of course. 
 
 " Prudence, you nii^st be lonely, sitting here every evening, 
 and no one coming here but yourself." 
 
 " No, sir, not very lonely ; I've got the books." 
 
 " We must find some one to come here a good deal, and 
 brighten-up things for you." 
 
 He was thinking in some vague way how Alma would set the 
 example of spending an evening or two every week among the 
 books, and how that example would spread. The next morning, 
 instead of going ofE to the farm work, he put on the ordinary- 
 habiliments of an English gentleman, and went over to the 
 farm house. 
 
 It was nine o'clock when he started. Miranda, he thought 
 with a pang, reflecting how his marriage would separate him 
 from her, was at that moment taking breakfast— probably at 
 the Abbey. The members of the Order would be dropping in 
 one by one in their lazy fashion. There would be devising of 
 plans for the day, talking over all the things which rejoice "cul- 
 tivated men and women ; and all in the pleasant softness of 
 ease, and art, and luxury. And he was going to cut himself off 
 at one stroke from this Castle of Indolence. Was it yet too 
 late ? Yes : the experiment must be tried : his long-maturod 
 scheme for the regeneration of mankind must be carried out to 
 the very end. Farewell, Thelema : farewell, Desdemona : fare- 
 _w(ili, Miranda. For here he was at the garden-gate, and there, 
 in the garden, was the very girl whom he came to woo. 
 
 1 think that even Miranda, Nelly, and Desdemona, jealous as 
 they are of conceding beauty to women of the lower class, would 
 have acknowledged that Alma Bostock, standing in the garden, 
 made a pretty picture in the morning sunlight. It was a long, 
 narrow garden, sloping down the hill on which the house stood. 
 On either side was an orchard, and stray apple-trees were stand- 
 ing in the garden itself. These were old, and covered with 
 yellow lichen, which contrasted with the dark branches, and 
 the light green leaves. Pehind the garden v/as the farm-house, 
 a picturesque and gabled red brick house, with ivy climbing over 
 one end of it, and throwing arms round the angles so as to 
 embrace the whole house. Facing the garden, a window on 
 either side, was a broad and ma'^sive porch of wood-Avork, round 
 which the creepers clung and clambered. The garden was 
 planted with gooseberry-bushes, currant-bushes, raspberry- 
 canes, and strawberry beds. There was a narrow walk in it 
 from the porch to the garden-gate, bordered with box, and 
 behind the box an edging of flowers— such as gilly-flower, double 
 stocks, sweet-william, candytuft. Venus's looking-glass, London 
 pride, and mignonette— the kind of flowers which require least
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 141 
 
 gfirdening ; and there vcre a few standard roses close to the 
 house itself. Under the apple-trees, with the soft light of the 
 sunshine broken up into a thousand fragments by the dancing 
 leaves before it fell upon her, stood Alma herself. She was out 
 there to gather red currants, and she had a basket on her arm 
 for the purpose ; but she was not gathering currants at all, only 
 standing with head bare, and thrown back, gazing into the dis- 
 tance, lost in meditation. 
 
 Alan thought of certain lines of poetry, aiid his heart softened 
 towards the damsel. She looked dainty all over. Her head 
 was shapely and her profile clear ; her dress fitted her pretty 
 figure perfectly ; in fact, her mother, formerly lady's-maid to 
 Alan's mother, made it for her. And it was of a soft grey 
 colour, which suited the light greenery of the apple leaves. One 
 of her arms was bare : and it was not a red and blowsy arm- 
 not at all — it was as white as any arm could be, and as well 
 shaped. And on either side of the garden lay the orchard, with 
 little glades of sunlight and of shade. While Alan looked, the 
 girl tied a handkerchief over her head, which set her face in a 
 ■white frame, and made her look ten times as pretty. So pretty 
 a girl, Alan thought, could not be other than bright and sym- 
 pathetic, and quick to feel and to respond. Besides, was she not 
 the selection and choice of Miranda ? 
 
 As for Alma, indeed, opinions among her acquaintance were 
 divided. For her enemies, who were the young women of the 
 place, declared that she Vv^as deceitful and treacherous. Tliey 
 also said that she was by no means so pretty as she thought 
 herself. The young men of the place, on the other hand — 
 curious what diversity of opinion may exist in the smallest 
 village— declared that there was nobody so pretty as Alma 
 Bostock. The only objection they had to her was that she held 
 her head so high and made believe to be a lady. 
 
 Meantime, she stood beneath the trees, a very pretty picti;re. 
 Did a painter want to draw the ideal country girl, engaged in 
 the ideal country occupation, he would find no more charming 
 picture than that of Alma in the garden, with her basket ready to 
 hold the ripe red -currants. 
 
 A very pretty picture, and a suggestive picture. Alan's 
 thoughts flew with a rush to the Arcadian life he had imagined, 
 which would, with the help of Ahna, begin as soon as the 
 wedding bells should ring. 
 
 Ho lifted the latch, opened the gavden-door, and stepped ir 
 to begin his wooing
 
 142 THh MONKS OF THELEMA 
 
 CTTA.PTER XX. 
 
 " Her disposition slie inlierits, wliicli mates fair gifts fairer." 
 
 Al.ma Bostock saw Mr. Dunlop open tlie gate and walk up 
 the path without any othei' emotion than a little surprise that 
 he should be without his contemptible smock-frock. She held 
 him in small respect, considering his self-denying life as a proof 
 of mere feebleness of brain ; but he was undoubtedly a man to 
 whom outward respect was due, as the fountain and source of 
 the family well-being. There was perhaps another reason why 
 she regarded Alan with some contempt. It is well known in her 
 class, and among her sex, that gentlemen, of whatever rank, are 
 not insensible to the attractions of pretty girls, even when of 
 lov/ly birth. Alma had good reasons for knowing this fact. 
 Only a week before, Mr. Caledon, meeting her in a shady lane, 
 while she was balancing a basket on her head, bet her a sovereign 
 that he couldn't kiss her lips without the basket falling off. He 
 lost the bet. And Mr. Roger Exton, the gentleman who gave 
 her the golden apple — made her Beauty-Laureate— the funny 
 man with the lines about bis face, walked home with her 
 through the park, when Lliss Miranda and the ladies had gone 
 away, and insisted on payment of the promised reward. But 
 from Mr. Dunlop, who was so much about the place, no atten- 
 tion of that or any other kind. No use being the prettiest girl 
 in the village, if you get no compliments by it. ]\light as well 
 be the ugliest. Mr. Dunlop had eyes for nobody, they said, but 
 Miss IMiranda. And yet in no hurry to put up the banns. 
 
 If it had been Tom Caledon marching up the path. Alma 
 would have smiled and nodded gaily, sure of a talk and a laugh. 
 As it was only Mr. Dunlop, she made a salutation of ceremony, 
 which was by no means too graceful. 
 
 Alans thoughts were quite simple. 
 
 " She is good-looking," he might have said. "A little awk- 
 Vv'ard, which teaching will cure. I wish she would not drop a 
 ciu'tsey. She looks appreciative, as well as pretty. She must 
 be sympathetic and ready, otherwise Miranda would never have 
 selected her. Of course, I am not the least in love v/ith her. 
 How could one be, after Jliranda ?" 
 
 " Good-morning, Alma," he said, taking off his hat, as to a 
 3'oung lady. Alma thought this cold and ceremonious, but quite 
 charactei'istic of the Squire. " I came over to see you by your- 
 self. Are you alone ?" 
 
 " To see me, gir ?" she asked with wonder. " Yes, I am 
 alone. IMother's gone a-marketing, and father's about the placo 
 Romewhore."
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 143 
 
 ''' Alone. Then we can talk, you and I ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." Alma, at sight of those solemtj eyes gazing in- 
 tently and earnestly in her face, felt her ancient respect for Mr. 
 Diinlop increase rapidly, until it almost amounted to terror. 
 " Yes, sir. There is no one here. Will you come in out of tho 
 hot sun ? Father '11 be in for dinner, and I'll give him your 
 
 message." 
 
 " My message is altogether for yourself, Alma. 1 ou may tell 
 your father afterwards if you like." 
 
 What on earth was he going to say ? Could that rash fellow, 
 Harry, who promised to tell nobody anything, have gone talk- 
 ing to the Squire ? It must be Harry ; and what a rage father 
 would be in ! Certainly, Harry's position in society was not 
 that which could be expected of one who would mate with a 
 Bostock. 
 
 With these misgivings, Alma led the way into the best room, 
 the apartment reserved wholly for visitors of distinction. It 
 was a room of small dimensions ; what, however, it lacked in 
 Epace it made up in stiffness, like some small dame of dignified 
 and upright bearing, decked in antique bravery. The table 
 had a dozen keepsakes, and such light reading, ranged round it. 
 There were slippery horse-hair chairs, on which no one could 
 sit, unless he held on by the back of the next chair ; and a 
 horse-hair sofa, ou which if any one had ever tried to recline, 
 needs must that he repent it afterwards. And the artificial 
 flowers on the mantelshelf, and the vases of thirty years ago, 
 and the cheap German prints, and the coldness of the room, 
 whose windows were never opened, struck Alan's heart with a 
 chill. And yet what a room might this be made when the 
 principles of the Higher Culture should have taken root ! On 
 the right of the window, the pretty wooden porch, covered with 
 its creepers ; on the left, a little lawn, with standard roses ; 
 and beyond, the greenery of the orchard. A room whose win- 
 dows should open to the ground, which should be hung with 
 light draperies, and painted in green and grey, and furnished in 
 black, with just a little china. The girl herself, Alan thought 
 ■would set off the picture, were she but dressed to correspond 
 Avith the furniture. 
 
 " What is it, Mr. Dunlop ?" 
 
 He recovered himself, and looked at her again with a curious 
 gaze, half of inquiry, half of hesitation, which frightened her. 
 He could not, really, have seen Tom Caledon— no ; that was 
 impossible. And no business of his if he had. It mmt be 
 Harry. 
 
 " Won't father do as well, Mr. Dunlop ?" 
 
 " No," he rephed, •' he will not do nearly as well." 
 
 He sat down, but the treacherous nature of the horsehair
 
 144 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 chair cansecl Iiim lo abandon this attempt in confusion. Then 
 they both remained standing, rather awkwardly, Alan beside 
 the table and Alma by the window. 
 
 " You know," he went on, " what I am endeavouring to effect 
 in this village — and I hope my work has your sj-mpathy, and 
 that you understand its great aim — to increase the love for 
 Culture and the practices of the Higher Life. Your father 
 lends me his cordial aid " — here Alma turned away her face to 
 hide a smile. " You have seen me at work for a good many 
 months. And you have seen, I dare say, that my efforts, so far, 
 have been a failure." 
 
 " Well, sir," said Alma, " I always did say that for the Squiro 
 to put on a smock-frock like a common labourer and go a-hay- 
 malcing, and reaping, and hedging with a passel o' village boys 
 was a thing I couldn't hold with. And mother said the same ; 
 said my lady would ha' blushed red to see the day. Father, he 
 only said, ' Let him alone.' That's all father ever said. But 
 he's that deep, is father." 
 
 "Yes," Alan went on, "we have not succeeded veiy well, he 
 thinks. Your mother and you were right so far as you under- 
 stood. And your father, in his rough way, was also right in 
 saying, ' Let him alone.' It is what I expected of him. How- 
 ever, I have found out at last the main cause of my failure, and 
 it is this. Alma — alone and single-handed I cannot do much in 
 the direction of Culture. I can only set an example which 
 may or may not be followed. If I am married now ; if I am 
 married to a girl who understood the classes among whom I 
 labour — don't you see, Alma? — I should be working double, 
 not single. Do you begin to understand ?" 
 
 Not at first. She looked wonderingly in his face. Then, all 
 of a sudden, she did understand, and first she turned red and 
 then ashy pale. Could it be ? "Was she in her senses ? And 
 the Squire, too ? And never so miich as a chuck uiider the chin 
 from him to give her warning of what he intended. 
 
 "I will repeat," he said, "I want to find a girl who under- 
 stands as I never can really understand, the classes among whom 
 I work. I want her to marry me in order that I may work 
 with double my present efficiency. I want her to join with me 
 in learning what is best, teaching what is best, practising what 
 is best, and showing by our own example, plain for all to sec, 
 the life that belongs to the higher civilisation." 
 
 It could not be. But yet — but yet — things looked like it. 
 If the Squire did not mean that, what could the Squire mean ? 
 
 " Will you," he added, " will you marry me. Alma ?" 
 
 There was no possible mistake about that invitation. Five 
 words most unmistakable. As Alma looked at Alan with 
 frightened, wo»der-BU'icken eyeB, so looked Semel^ when Ze"»
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 145 
 
 proclaimed his love and told her who he was. So also, but with 
 the sheepishness natural to his sex, young Anchises gazed upon 
 the white-lirabed Thetis when she astonished him by stealing 
 up along the golden sands, dripping wet, resplendent in her 
 beauty and radiant with her newborn love. So looked the 
 beggar maid when she left her barrel organ and received from 
 King Cophetua, not a royal penny with a royal pat upon her 
 fair cheek, but instead a golden wedding-ring, or the offer of 
 one, when the monarch, in robe and crown, stepped from his 
 throne to meet and greet her on her way The age of that 
 monarch is nowhere mentioned, but it must have been very 
 advanced, and his rash act was doubtless speedily followed by 
 deposition and consignment to the County Asylum. 
 
 Alma did not answer — she could not answer — perhaps think- 
 ing of Harry. But she looked him straight in the face and 
 tried to understand this wonderful proposal. 
 
 In two minutes you can get through a good deal of thinking. 
 
 What in the world would Harry saj^ ? 
 
 Sweet passages — many passages sweet and tender — had gone 
 on between Harry and herself. Would he take it crying, or 
 would he take it swearing ? 
 
 Then the thought of Weyland Court. Oh— h ! 
 
 She would be mistress of that beautiful place, where her 
 mother, always full of its glories, had been lady's-maid. She 
 would be the lady — with a carriage to drive in and horses to 
 ride — the equal of ]\Iiss Dalmeny, the superior of Miss Despard. 
 And what would Harry say when she drove by resplendent in 
 Bilk and satin ? 
 
 Help in his work ? What did Mr. Dunlop mean by that ? 
 
 " Well, Alma, what do you say ?" 
 
 " I don't know what to say," she replied ; " I'm struck of a 
 heap." 
 
 Alan shuddered. " Struck of a heap !" But then the train- 
 ing had not begun. 
 
 " Miss Dalmeny did not prepare you for this proposal ? I 
 thought that she had spoken to you about it." 
 
 " Miss Dalmeny !" She opened her blue eyes wider. " Whj', 
 what in the world should Miss Dalmeny want you to marry me 
 for ? And everybody saj-s that you and she are as good as 
 handfasted, a'ready." 
 
 Really, this young woman vrould require a good deal of 
 training. 
 
 " Never mmd Miss Dalmeny, then, but consider what I pro- 
 pose. Will you marry me ?" 
 
 " It caiHt be real," said Alma, scared out of her wita. 
 
 How different from Tom Caledon, and, indeed, all the gentle- 
 men with whom she was acquainted. A laugh and a compli- 
 
 10
 
 146 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 ment : a Idnd word or perhaps, if no one was witliln siglit, s 
 kiss — ■vviiich, in young ladies of Alma's position of life, is neitiicr 
 here nor there, a mere unconsidered trifle. But to stand there 
 cold and quiet, playing with his Vvatch-chain and waiting for an 
 answer ! 
 
 " It carUt be real," she repeated, turning the corners of her 
 apron in her fingers. 
 
 This may be objected to as a trick of the stage, but all tricks 
 of the stage come originally from life outside the house, and 
 some old fashions linger ; therefore. Alma being, as she subse- 
 quently described it, in a quandary, the like of which she had 
 never before experienced, turned the corners of her apron in 
 her fingers. 
 
 " I thought you had received some intimation," Alan went 
 on, feeling a little pity for' the embarrassment of the girl. " I 
 do not come to you, as you see, professing passionate love. 
 That is not at all my motive in offering you marriage. You 
 may, however, depend on receiving all possible kindness and 
 consideration. And I do not invite you to a life of luxpry and 
 ease. By no means. You will go on living just as you do now, 
 only with more attention to externals." 
 
 She did not understand one single syllable that he said. 
 " Marry her, and go on living as she was accustomed to 
 live?" 
 
 "What I want in a wife especially is advice, sympathy, 
 help. She will supplement my own deficiencies of knowledge. 
 I want her to be always at my hand, suggesting the one 
 right way and preventing all the wrong ways. I want her, in 
 fact, to be the Lieutenant in my work. Can you do this, 
 Alma ? Can you be this to me V" 
 
 She gazed at him in mere stupid bewilderment. Give him 
 — Mr. Dunlop — advice? Give him — the Squire — sympathy? 
 She thought sympathy meant pitying people who are unlucky 
 enough to have fevers, rheumatism, or prison fare. What did 
 he want sympathy for ? And then to give him help ? 
 
 Perhaps he was cracked. People in the village did whisper 
 that the young Squire must have a soft place in his head. To 
 be sure, if he had come like a lover should — 
 
 ". . . . tho young man, ho comes dancing, 
 With a ' How do you do, my dear P' " — 
 
 if he had told her that because she was such a very pretty girl, 
 and because her eyes were so blue, her lips so rosy, her cheeks 
 BO soft, and because she had won the golden apple, which vras 
 a clear proof of her superiority, and because she must, being 
 BO beautiful, necessarily be good in proportion, therefore he 
 had fallen madly in love with he?: : then, indeed, she would hava
 
 .THE MO.\KS Of THELEMA 14) 
 
 believed entirely in his sanity. But to march gravely into the 
 house, to look at her as if he was a schoolmaster and she a pupil 
 who had done wrong things, with those solemn eyes of his, and 
 then to say that he wanted to marry her in order to get 
 assistance in his work — why, the man must be gone clean 
 Btark staring mad. 
 
 Marry her and go on living as she had been living ? Churn- 
 ing butter, perhaps. Oh ! yes, and she IMistress of Weyland 
 Court. Likely ! And milking cov/s— and she with her best 
 frock on every day. Or darning stockings — and she Avith silk 
 ones. Picking red currants — and she with a dozen servants. 
 And perhaps making the beds. Very likely. Work, sha 
 imagined, meant this kind of work, and nothing else. He must 
 be mad, 
 
 " Come, Alma," said Alan, who had been listening patiently, 
 " what do you say ?" 
 
 " I don't know," she replied with hesitation, " about help- 
 ing in your work. But I've always been used to house-work, 
 and I suppose I should be able to learn what you wanted me 
 to learn. Only, I don't understand. But you don't really mean 
 it, Mr. Dunlop ? It's only some of your fine gentleman's fun." 
 
 The idea of Alan Dunlop ever having manifested any fine 
 gentleman's fun in his life ! 
 
 " You can't mean it," she went on. " Up at the Court, with 
 all those beautiful Sisters to pick and choose from." Alma's 
 notions of Alan's irresistible charms might have pleased a vainer 
 man, but he received the words with a shudder. Fancy 
 " picking and choosing " among such girls as Sisters Miranda, 
 Eosalind, Cecilia, and the rest. " There's Miss Despard, as 
 beautiful as beautiful. Or there's Miss Miranda herself, like 
 a queen. And yet j'ou come to me and tell me you want to 
 marry me." 
 
 Was then the Droit du Seigneur ever in force in this country? 
 It never once occurred to Alma that she could refuse so won- 
 derful and surprising a proposal. 
 
 To be sure the position was remarkable. 
 
 " You do not quite understand as yet. Alma," said Alan, 
 gravely. " With these young ladies there has been no question 
 of marriage. And I propose this — this union — in the hope 
 and belief that by forming new ties — I am afraid, however, 
 that I cannot make you entirely comprehend my views all 
 at once. Trust yourself to me, Alma, and I think you will 
 never have reason to regret your consent." 
 
 He held out his hand and she took it. The manners of the 
 upper classes are singularly cold. How different from Harry ! 
 Why, only last night, when he took leave after a stealthy and 
 hurried interview at the gardea-gate, had he not, with his arm 
 
 10-2
 
 148 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 round her waist, given her kisses twain — fair and honest Inss^ 
 — one on either cheek ? Did gentlefolk never kiss each other ? 
 If Miss Miranda had said yes, would he not have kissed her ? A 
 pang of jealousy crossed the girl's heart. She was not good 
 enough, then, to be kissed ? 
 
 " Wewill meet again to-morrow, Alma," said her suitor, ''There 
 is a great deal to be talked over. For the present, good-bye." 
 
 He was gone, and she, though, with the slender power of 
 imagination at her command, she found it difficult to believe, 
 was actually betrothed to Mr. Dunlop, the owner of Weyland 
 Court. 
 
 Alma sat down on the least slippery of the chairs and tried 
 to realise what it all meant. She would certainly have a car- 
 riage — she would certainly have servants — she would certainly 
 not do a stroke of work herself. She would be a grand lady — ■ 
 
 she would go about with Miss Dal ; no, she hardly thought 
 
 she should care to see very much of Miss Dalmeny. And what 
 did Mr. Dunlop mean by asking her whether Miss Dalmeny had 
 prepared her for the proposal ? Then she knew all about it, and 
 not one word of kindness from her the night before, when Mr. 
 Exton gave her the golden apple. She was good enough to 
 marry Mr. Dunlop, but not good enough to be spoken to by 
 Miss Dalmeny. Yery well, then, some day — and here she began 
 to dream of impossible revenge, a safety-valve for small natures. 
 She could not understand it. What would her father say ? 
 What would her mother say ? What would Harry say ? What 
 would all the world say ? 
 
 Then, for a brief space, imaginary Rapture, Joy, Triumph, 
 while the wedding bells rang, and outside the church the coach- 
 and-four waited, the gallant sjteeds tossing impatient necks, and 
 the tag-rag — including the bold-faced gipsy thing, the black- 
 smith's daughter, who dared contest the golden apple with her 
 — stood and watched and envied. 
 
 Then, for a longer space, a sinking and sadness of heart. 
 What would Harry say ? She had attracted, during her brief 
 span of nineteen years, as many suitors as, in that short period, 
 a maiden may. Young gentlemen who knew her had not dis- 
 dained to pay her those attentions which please them and hurt 
 nobody. There had been farmers' sons — in fact, there were 
 still farmers' sons, because no one was ever dismissed. But for 
 a permanency, there was Hariy. 
 
 He was a gamekeeper. One of Mr. Dunlop's gamekeepers. 
 Would he still continue. Alma wondered, to game-keep for the 
 Squire when she was married to him ? He was a tall, stalwart, 
 handsome young fellow of two and twenty, and he loved tho 
 girl with a passion which she could neitlier understand nor 
 return. What maiden of Alma Rostock's nature can return the
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 149 
 
 passion of a man who lores her? As well ask the shallow rip- 
 pling lake to reflect in all its strength and glory the splendour 
 of the sun. He believed in her love as an honest man should. 
 His blood would have boiled had he known of these passages 
 to which we have been constrained, sorrowfully, to allude, with 
 Tom Caledon, Mr. Exton, and others. Of them he knew nothing. 
 To him the girl was a pearl among maidens, full of sweet and 
 lofty thoughts, too high for him, who was one of nature's own 
 gentlemen, and as incapable of a meanness as any peer of noble 
 lineage. He made her his idol, his goddess. He saved and 
 economised for her, paring down tobacco to the lowest point 
 compatible with a pipe a day, cutting oft' beer, and living at the 
 lowest, so that he might save money to buy furniture and make 
 his Alma comfortable. He would have Hked nothing better 
 than to wrap her in swan's-down and leave her no work to do 
 but to sit warm and comfortable while he worked for her. And 
 all this Alma knew. 
 
 That was the gamekeeper's idea of love and marriage : the 
 wife was to be cosseted up and cared for by others. She was 
 to sit warm and comfortable while her husband did what the 
 Americans call the " chores." Her place was to look happy 
 while she was petted and made much of. Well, that is a kind 
 of duty, Alma thought, which most girls find to come pretty 
 easy. 
 
 On the other hand, the Squire's idea about wedlock seemed to 
 be that his wife was to do great quantities of work — perhaps 
 the washing and the mangling. No doubt he must be cracked. 
 Still, he had the good sense, Alma thought, to come to the 
 prettiest girl in all the country-side. Also, though she was 
 young and artless, the thought did occur to her that when once 
 they were married, marriage being a tie impossible to dissolve, 
 the wife might fairly sit down and refuse to do anything, after 
 which the Squire would have to keep her, as the Squire's wife 
 ought to be kept, in idleness. 
 
 But what in the world would Harry say ? He was a masterful 
 man, and he was strong. Suppose he and the Squire were to 
 fight about her. Such things had been. Alma's heart glowed 
 within her, as she pictured such a battle as she had read about 
 —all for her — she herself looking on from a safe distance. And 
 yet Mr. Mill tries to persuade us that woman's influence haf 
 always made in the direction of peace. 
 
 Suddenly she became aware that it was half-past twelve 
 o'clock. Simultaneously with the striking of the clock arrived 
 lier mother. 
 
 She was hot : she was a little out of temper : she was dig« 
 appointed with her marketing. 
 
 '• Ahna !" she cri^d. " You hcr§ ?"
 
 ISO THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 In point of fact. Alma ought to have been in the kitchen, 
 
 Avhere the potatoes were still waiting to be washed and peeled, 
 and all sorts of culinary operations were already overdue. And 
 to find her daughter actually sitting down in the best room m 
 the morning was revolutionary, simply. 
 
 " Yes, mother," she replied meekly ; " I am here." 
 
 " And where are the currants ?" 
 
 " I haven't picked them." 
 
 There was something peculiar about the tone of Alma's Toioe. 
 Generally, she was extremely obedient, having been rendered 
 so, like Shagpat, of immortal memorj^, by reason of thwacks. 
 But to-day, without being exactly mutinous, she was calmly 
 superior. 
 
 " I have not picked them," she said. A bare statement of the 
 fact. 
 
 " Oh ! and what in the world have you been doing, then ?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Of all replies that Alma could have made, this was the most 
 astounding. Had she been pert, which often happened ; had 
 she been saucy, which was not unusual ; had she been rude, 
 which happened both when she was pert and when she was 
 saucy, an answer would have been found ; but that she should 
 calmly and without excuse state that she had done nothing, 
 was beyond all ]\Irs. Bostock's experience of girls, and she had 
 bad a long and painful experience. 
 
 She gasped. 
 
 " And the potatoes ?" 
 
 " I haven't touched them. I haven't been into the kitchen 
 at all." 
 
 " And the cabbage ?" 
 
 " I don't know nothing about the cabbage." 
 
 " And the beef ?" 
 
 " I haven't touched the beef. I tell you I haven't been into 
 the kitchen this morning since breakfast." 
 
 "Alma Bostock," said her mother calmly, but with despair, 
 '■ are you mad ?" 
 
 " No, mother." 
 
 " Has father been carrying on ? Have you up and sauced 
 your father, child ?" 
 
 " No. I haven't seen father ; and I don't want." 
 
 " Then what's the matter with the girl ? Is she gone out of 
 her senses with last night's tom-foolery ?'' 
 
 " No, mother. It isn"t that." 
 
 Just then returned her father. He, too, was out of temper, 
 because things had not gone altogether right in the matter of 
 buying and selling tha*^^ morning. It was nothing connected 
 with Alan's interests. Quue the contrary. Only a coii;ji manqui
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 151 
 
 of his owQ, a little transaction in wliich plain honesty for once 
 would have done better than chicanery. 
 
 " Now what's this ?" he asked abruptly, seeing the elements 
 of a domestic row. 
 
 " I don't know what ever in the world has come over Alma," 
 said her mother. " Been sitting down, if you please — sitting 
 down — here— here — all the morning, and done nothing ! You'd 
 better come back in an hour's time, father. There can't be no 
 dinner till then. No potatoes peeled, no cabbage washed, and 
 the beef not in the pot ; and my young lady sitting on the sofa, 
 as grand as you please, doing nothing." 
 
 Bailiff Bostock banged his riding- whip on the table so that 
 the window- frames rattled and every individual keepsake on the 
 table jumped into the air with alarm. 
 
 " Now, you— go up to your own room," he said. " Hanged if 
 3'ou were a couple of years younger if I v/ouldn't lay this whip 
 over your shoulders. Get out of my sight, I say, lest I do it 
 now." 
 
 Alma meekly obeyed. But as she mounted the stairs there 
 was a twinkle in her eye and a dimple at the ends of her lips 
 which showed the anticipation of a little gamiC of table-turning, 
 of quite a supernatural kind, in the immediate future. Her 
 mother saw both twinkle and dimple, and returned to her 
 kitchen deeply marvelling what manner of thing had happened 
 unto her daughter. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " Then a most astomsliing tiling htippcncd." 
 
 VicTOE Ktroo. 
 
 The bailiff banged about the room like a bluebottle against a 
 pane of glass, swearing at large. His wife, used to these illus- 
 trations of temper, went on peeling the potatoes. 
 
 " I can't think," she said quietly, " what ever can have come 
 to Alma. Who ever heard tell of such a thing before ?" 
 
 " I know what is going to come to her," rephed Alma's father 
 grimly, " if it ever happens again." 
 
 Then there was a pause, after which, observing that if dinner 
 was not ready in half-an-hour, he would perpetrate mysterious 
 horrors, the bailiff retreated. 
 
 Alma remained upstairs. 
 
 Presently her mother called her. There was no answer. 
 Then she ran up and tried the door, which was locked and 
 bolted. 
 
 '* Oome down this minute, Alma."
 
 I5» THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Shan't," the young lady replied. 
 
 " Come down before your father comes home. Ele won't 
 take any more notice." 
 
 •' Shan't," Alma replied again. 
 
 " Come, child. Don't make your father mad." 
 
 " Father," she said, " may get as mad as he likes. I mean to 
 stay here till he comes upstairs and begs my pardon." 
 
 " Then, my lady," said Mrs. Bostock, " you'll have to stay 
 pretty long." There was no reply, and Mrs. Bostock returned 
 to her potatoes. 
 
 The bailiff walked down his garden in angry mood. From 
 the garden-gate, looking down the road, you could see the be- 
 ginning of the village. He leaned over the rail and looked up 
 and down. 
 
 Things were not going so well as, with his opportunities, ha 
 had a right to expect. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year, 
 and the buying and the selling, meant other possibilities. There 
 was, for instance, a little commission on which he had fully cal- 
 culated. The other party, to the ineffable disgrace of humanity, 
 had that very morning disclaimed the transaction, and refused 
 to part with the ten per cent. Tliis disgusted the bailiff, and 
 predisposed him for wrath. Alma's strange forgetfulness was, 
 therefore, like a spark to a mine. After exploding he left the 
 house, and leaning over his garden-gate, brooded as a deeply- 
 injured man for a few minutes, and then, half mechanically, 
 opened the gate and strolled along the road in the direction of 
 the village. 
 
 It was a bright and beautiful day in July, the sun lying hot 
 and strong upon the fields, turning the green corn into yellow, 
 and doing all sorts of fancy painting with apples, pears, and 
 peaches. The bailiff, who wanted a great deal more culture 
 before he could get the right grip of nature's beauties, walked, 
 growling to himself, with the intention, I believe, of taking a 
 glass of beer, as a snack before dinner, at the Spotted Lion. 
 But as he passed the Squire's cottage, he was hailed by the 
 tenant. 
 
 " Come in, Bostock," cried Alan. " You are the very man I 
 wanted to sec." 
 
 The bailiff growled again, and swore melodiously between his 
 teeth ; but he obeyed the invitation. 
 
 Alan was writing, but he put aside his pen, and turned his 
 chair from the table, 
 
 "Now, then," he said. "I was coming up to see you this 
 afternoon, to say what I hav^e to say." He rested his head on 
 his hand, and his elbow on the arm of his chair, looking at the 
 bailiff in his meditative way. Bostock thought he looked at 
 him reproachfully, and began to wonder if anything had come
 
 THE MOXKS OF 2'IIELEMA. 153 
 
 out. It is always disagreeable to be afraid of something coming 
 out. In the case of gentlemen like IMr. Bostock, too, there are 
 BO many things which one is anxious to keep in obscurity. 
 
 " Well, sir ?" he said, feeling hot and uncomfortable. 
 
 " Pray take a chair, Bostock. We will leave the door open 
 for coolness. First of all, about the farm." 
 
 " What about the farm ?" 
 
 " Well : we are not doing well with it. You can see that by 
 your own accounts. Can you recommend anything ?" 
 
 The bailiff thought that accounts are things over which a 
 Christian compiler may rejoice, inasmuch as they may tell a 
 different tale to him who writes them and to him who reads. 
 But he did not say so. 
 
 " I am disappointed, I confess, with the result. I hoped 
 that there would be a margin of profit ; but we are sinking 
 deeper and deeper." 
 
 " Well, sir, you see there's all the charges you made on it at 
 first : the machinery, and the rise of wage, and all. And then 
 it is but a small farm.. If you really want to make money — 
 what a gentleman like you would call money — by farming, farm 
 large. Get two or three of your innns, run 'em into one, and 
 make me — there, now, that's the only v/ay — make me bailiff of 
 the whole." 
 
 Alan allowed this suggestion to fall to the ground. 
 
 " You may strike one of your labourers off the roll, Bostock. 
 I have decided that I have done all I can by my year's work 
 upon the farm. If I have failed to make myself a friend of 
 the men, which is, I am sorry to say, the case, I have learned 
 what a rough and hard life they have, and how difficult it is to 
 move in the direction of culture men whose days are spent in 
 labour. That is something. Where I am most disappointed is 
 that I cannot get any nearer co them." 
 
 " You're quite near oumgh," said the bailiff. 
 
 " The men shun me : they will not work with me if they can 
 help it. Even with the boys I make no headway. They look 
 upon me with some sort of dislike." 
 
 " That lot," said Mr. Bostock, by way of consolation, " would 
 dislike the Devil himself." 
 
 " Well, the end of it is that I withdraw from the field-work. 
 There is plenty to do here : I have to arrange my amusements 
 for the winter, get the Art Gallery in order, make anotlier 
 attempt at night-school? — plenty to do. But I am gciug to 
 take a very serious step." 
 
 Mr. Bostock turned pale. Not going to dismiss the bailiff ? 
 
 " In order to enter fully into the mind of the people, to sym- 
 pathise with them, to understand my own failure up to tl^e 
 present point, and guard against more and grrater failure, I
 
 154 THE MONKi^ OF THELEMA. 
 
 must have a wife. She must be herself a daughter of the class, 
 or near to the class, among whom my life is to be spent ; and 
 ehe must be ready to enter into my views, and help me in my 
 ■work." 
 
 Mr. Bostock stared with all his eyes. What the deuce did all 
 this mean ? 
 
 " In so important a matter — because I cannot pretend to be 
 actuated by the — the usual motives in seeking a wife — I took 
 the advice of friends. They have pointed out to me the girl 
 who seems to possess most of the requirements for the position. 
 That girl is " 
 
 '• Not Black Bess, daughter of the blacksmith !" cried the 
 bailiff, in alarm ; for the blacksmith and he were not friends. 
 
 '' No— not that young woman," Alan replied, with a smile. 
 " In fact, Bostock, it is — your daughter." 
 
 '' My gal ? Mine ?" This time he jumped out of his chair 
 with excitement. For in a moment that crafty brain saw the 
 boundless possibilities of the position. For himself, ease and 
 comfort assured for life : no more necessity for paltry cheateries : 
 the luxury of virtue attainable without an effort : and even if 
 awkward things did come out, the certainty that they would be 
 smoothed over. 
 
 " Yours, Bostock." 
 
 " My gal !" he repeated slowly. " Mine !" 
 
 He opened his lips and gasped. This was indeed a Providen- 
 tial go. 
 
 " You are not joking, Mr. Dunlop ?" 
 
 " You ought to know by this time, Bostock, that I am not in 
 the habit of joking." 
 
 This was quite true. No one ever knew Alan Dunlop make 
 a joke. He would as soon have stood upon his head. 
 
 " I have already spoken to Alma about it — in fact, I spoke to 
 her this morning. She has consented to become my wife on 
 the terms I propose, to join in my Avork among the village 
 people, and raise them, with herself, to the higher levels." 
 
 " Oh !" Bostock became more and more bewildered. The 
 young lady whom he threatened Avith his horsewhip half an- 
 hour before was already, then, the betrothed of Squire Dunlop. 
 " Oh ! You have spoken to my gal," he added, slowly, " and 
 my gal has con-icnted. Ha !" 
 
 " I hope you have no objection, Bostock." 
 
 " Well, sir," he replied with dignity, " I don't see any objec- 
 tion, if Alma's willing. That gal was born to raise herself — wa 
 see it in her from the beginning. And she has a feeling 'art. 
 Like her father, she has a feeling 'art." 
 
 " Very well, Bostock. I will go over aud see her again tO' 
 morrow icoruing."
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 155 
 
 " Wlut will Lord Alwyne say, sir ?" 
 
 " My father never interferes with my scheme of life," said 
 Alan. 
 
 He nodded his head and returned to his writing, as if that 
 interview was over. 
 
 Mr. Bostock hastened home with a very different air from 
 that with which he had set out. And when he entered the 
 kitchen, which was at the very moment when his wife was 
 dishing the potatoes and setting-out the dinner, he came in 
 whisthng and singing, like unto a jocund swain of Arcady. 
 
 " Why, Stephen, what's come over you now ?" His wife 
 thought that he might have had some slight touch of sunstroke, 
 or some sort of fever. But no ; it was not sunstroke, nor fever. 
 Joy, as w^e know, does not kill. " You whistling and singing ! 
 &nd Alma why, all the world's gone mad !" 
 
 " Where is my little gal ?" he asked, with emphatic affection, 
 rubbing his hands togetlier. " Where is my httle gal ?" 
 
 " Where should she be, an idle hussy, but where you sent her 
 — in her bedroom sulking ?" 
 
 " Ah, we are but purblind mortals, wife." He filled and 
 drank a glass of beer. " Only purblind mortals in the day of 
 our wrath " — this was Scriptural — " and no man knovreth what 
 a talk with the Squire may bring forth. My little gal is up- 
 stairs, in her bedroom, is she ? Well, it's a warm day, and she'll 
 be cool and comfortable there. Go and tell her to come down 
 and kiss her daddy. You and me will peel the potatoes ; she 
 shall sit on the sofy in the best room and look pretty." 
 
 Was the man stark staring mad ? 
 
 " My gal. Alma!" he sighed sentimentally. "Mind, wife, I 
 always did say that gal •would be a credit to us. And a feeling 
 'art." 
 
 " If you did say that, Stephen, you said it behmd my back. 
 Feeling heart ? Yes, after a bit o' ribbon and a ruif. Alma 
 ■VFon't come down, she says, unless you go upstairs and beg her 
 pardon." 
 
 '•At any other time," said her father, rising with alacrity, "at 
 
 any other time but this, I'd see Alma d d first, and_ break 
 
 my stick over her shoulders afterwards. Now, my dear, it's my 
 turn to sing small ; very small we must both sing now." 
 
 "Why, what has happened, Stephen?" 
 
 Stephen did not reply, but climbed heavily upstairs. 
 
 "Alma," she heard him cry in honeyed tones. "Alma, my 
 little girl, come out and kiss your daddy." 
 
 "Say 'I beg your pardon,'" cried Alma shrilly, from tha 
 safety of her own room. 
 
 Mrv, Bostock laughed with the incredulity of Sars^j.
 
 IS6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Alma," said her father. " I beg youi 
 pardon, my little gal ; come out and kiss your loving dad." 
 
 The door was instantly opened, and there was a sound as of a 
 paternal embrace, and a kiss upon the forehead. And then they 
 came downstairs together, the father with his arm round his 
 girl's waist. 
 
 " Lord !" said Mr. Bostock, "if I'd only a-known it. But there, 
 you see, you said nothing. That was your artfulness. Kiss me 
 again, pretty." 
 
 " Now, Bostock," said his bewildered wife, " when you've 
 done carrying on like a Tom-fool in a show, p'r'aps you'll sit 
 down and eat your dinner." 
 
 " Dinner !" cried the baiUff, " what's dinner at such a mo- 
 ment ? We ought to be drinking champagne wine. And we 
 shall, too ; only you wait. Alma, tell your mother all about it. 
 No— I will. This gal o' mine," — he laid his broad hand upon 
 her head, and the triumph of the moment was to Alma almost 
 as delightful as the triumph of the golden apple, — " this gal o' 
 mine, who takes after her father for sweetness of disposition, is 
 going to marry no less a nobleman than Mr. Dunlop— there !" 
 
 Tableau ! 
 
 But Mrs. Bostock said, when sh« had recovered something of 
 her tranquillity, that it seemed to her an unnatural thing, and 
 one which,_if brought to her late lady's knowledge, would make 
 her turn in her grave. This aristocratic platform was the 
 result of having been a lady's-maid. Beth the bailiff and hia 
 daughter despised it. 
 
 How Mr. Bostock spent the afternoon in sui-veying the land, 
 which he already re£-arded with the eye of a proprietor ; how 
 he saw himself, not bailiff of the smallest and least productive 
 farm on the estate, but stewai'd of half-a-dozen farms rolled 
 into one ; how he revelled in anticipations of large balances at 
 the bank; how he puiYed himself up with the sense of his 
 newly-born greatness— these things belong to the chapters of 
 Paralipomena. And if every novel had these chapters pub- 
 lished in addition to its own, the world would not be wide 
 enough to contain the literature of fiction. To the same chapter 
 belong the flatness of the afternoon for Alma, and the mixture 
 of pride and disgust which fell upon the soul of her mother. 
 
 In the evening, after sunset, the girl slipped out unobserved. 
 ITcr father had just lit his pipe and her mother the lamp. One 
 was sitting over needlework, the other over a book of accounts. 
 It was quite usual for her to go out in the evening, and neither 
 made any remark. 
 
 She slipped down the long garden-path as fast as her feet 
 would carry her. At the gardc*ir-gate she looked up and down 
 the voad. Presently, a tall form came quietly along in the
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 157 
 
 twillglit. It was tliat of Harry, the gamekeeper. Slie opened 
 the gate, and he came in, following her across the beds to tho 
 orchard at the side, where they could talk without fear of de- 
 tection. This, in fact, was their trysting-place. 
 
 " I heard," said Harry, " about the fooling of the gold thing. 
 Don't you turn your head with vanity, Alma. Not but you 
 deserve it better than Black Bess, and if you like it, why — there 
 — it don't matter to me." 
 
 He has got his arm round her waist, and is a tall young 
 fellow, looking handsome and well-set-up in his rough game- 
 keeper's dress. 
 
 " No, and nothing will ever matter to you any more, Harry," 
 toid the girl. 
 
 "Why, what has happened. Alma ?" 
 
 " Oh *! Harry, you and me can't ever marry now." 
 
 "Why not? 'Cause of father? Who cares for your 
 father?" 
 
 " No, not because of father — worse than that — 'cause of tho 
 Squire, Mr. Dunlop." 
 
 " What's he got to do with you and me. Alma ?" 
 
 " A good deal, Harry. He pays your wages, which is what 
 he has to do with you. And he has asked me to marry him." 
 
 " You ! Almn,— you ! To marry the Squire !" 
 
 Even the bailiff's astonishment was not greater thaa honest 
 Harry Cardew's. 
 
 " You, Alma ?" 
 
 " He will have it, Harry. I can't help myself. Besides, 
 though I like you the best, and you knov/ that very well, it is a 
 grand thing to marry the Squire. And if I was to say ' no,' 
 there's all the rest to pick and choose from. For he's determined, 
 
 be says, to marry in the village, so as to get to understand 
 
 there — I don't know." 
 
 Harry was staggered. He was prepared for almost any other 
 kind of blow. That the bailiff would not consent he knew 
 already ; but Alma had promised, with every vow that the girl 
 knew, fidelity to him. She would keep company with no one 
 but him : how, then, about the Vi^alk through the woods with 
 Mr. Exton ? The young man trusted her, as is the way with 
 loyal young men. And now she was asked in marriage by the 
 Squire — of all men in the world. Did Bobckah, Avhen the great 
 sheikh's messengers bore her away, leave behind her some 
 mourning swain of Padan-Aram ? 
 
 " What did your father say ?" asked Harry. 
 
 " Father's proud. Been kissing and hugging me all day 
 long," Alma replied. 
 
 " What would your father say if you told him you liked me 
 best ?"
 
 158 ' THE MOMKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Father 'ud beat me to a mash," said the girl with the 
 Btraightforwardness of conviction. 
 
 " So he would — so he would. Bostock's handy with his stick, 
 'cept when a man's about. Well, you ain't married yet, my 
 beauty. You go on easy and quiet. Dou't you fret. When 
 the right time comes, we'll see." 
 
 " Why, what would you do, Harry ?" 
 
 " Never you mind, pretty. I've got your promise and the 
 broken sixpence. G-o on fooling round with the Squire a bit 
 longer, if you like — let your father make what he can out of 
 him while the sun lasts, for it won't last long. And when it 
 comes to a wedding, it'll be Harry Cardew and Alma Bostock, 
 not the Squire at all. So there, now." 
 
 There was an air of strength and certainty about her lover 
 ■which w^as not unpleasing. And the way in "which, putting his 
 arms r )und her, and kissing her at odd intervals, he assumed that 
 she belonged to him, was at once terrifying and delightful. It 
 would never do to miss the chance of Weyland Court, for al- 
 though Mr. Dunlop said something foolish about work in the 
 village, that was nonsense, and she intended to live as the wife 
 of tlie Squire ought to live, in idlesse at the Court. On the other 
 hand there would be the dreadful trouble of a husband of whom 
 she v.'af? afraid. Far better the man who held her in his arms, the 
 handsome, stalwart Harry, as brave as a lion and as strong. 
 
 " So there. Alma, my gal," he said, "and now, good-night. I've 
 got to think over it, somehow. If I must speak to Mr. Dunlop, 
 I shall tell him everything. But I shall see. Keep up your 
 C<^(irage, my dear." 
 
 Pie left her, and she returned to the house. 
 
 Her father was drinking brandy and water. 
 
 " Where have you been. Alma ?" asked her mother. 
 
 "Into the garden for my basket," she replied, using a figure 
 of speech common among young women, but not inculcated in 
 any of the copybooks, called the suppressio ve7'i. She had, in 
 fact, brought back a basket. 
 
 " Your mother," said Mr. Bostock, " says it isn't natural. I 
 suppose flesh and blood isn't natural next, nor a pretty girl isn't 
 natural. To me, now, it only shows what a straight man Mr. 
 Dunlop is. What a man ! As I said the very first day when ho 
 made me his bailiff. ' He is a man,' I said, ' as knows a man when 
 he sees a man.' First, he says to himself, ' I want a bailiff. Where 
 shall I find that bailiff ? Where am I to go for honesty and 
 hard work ? Stephen Bostock,' he says, ' is that man,' Next, 
 he says, ' I want a wife — not a fal-lal fine lady, but a honest 
 wife. Where shall I find that wife ? Alma, daughter of 
 Stephen Bostock, is the girl for me,' he says ; ' my bailiff's gal, 
 She takes after her father and has a feeling 'art.' "
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 159 
 
 ITo looked round the room triumphantly, after quoting this 
 doi;ble illustration of his employer's remarkable acuteness. 
 
 " Going into the garden after your basket," he echoed, after a 
 pause. " Next year youll be sending your footman into the 
 garden after your basket. See how different men are from 
 ■women," he observed. " Mr. Danlop wants a wife. He takes his 
 bailiff's daughter. Now if I had a boy, do you think Miss 
 Miranda would marry Idvif 
 
 " I am quite sure," said his Vv'ife, " that she wouldn't be such 
 a fool.". 
 
 " No. she wouldn't. Gar ! it's their cussed pride." 
 
 They left him alone presently, and he drank more brandy- 
 and-water, considering how this new relationship could be turned 
 to the best advantage. He saw many ways. As he considered 
 each in its turn, his face assumed the varying expression of 
 conceit, selfishness, cunning, and extraordmary satisfaction. 
 
 He sat up in his chair and slapped his leg, a resonant slap, 
 which woke up Alma l^ing in the room above, and made Harry 
 the gamekeeper, a mile off, think there was a shot in the pre- 
 serves. 
 
 " It's fine J" bs ejacuiatad. " Dammit — it's fine 1" 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " 'th.Cf eay, best men are mculcied out of faults P* 
 
 So Alan Dunlop became engaged. 
 
 Events of great magnitude are seldom long before they meet 
 with the trumpet of Fame. It need not be detailed how the 
 intelligence was received at the Spotted Lion : how the thing, 
 whispered at first from ear to ear, was speedily proclaimed upon 
 the housetops : how, finall}', the London pajaers got hold of it, 
 and sent specials down to write sensation columns on the Wey- 
 land Experiment. 
 
 The members of the Order, for their part, received the newa 
 with unfeigned disgust. There could be no longer any doubt as 
 to Hamlet's madness. A man may give up all that makes life 
 desirable and go to work in a smock-frock, and yet tot be mad. 
 A man may fancy that he will be able to educate the British 
 peasantry into a love for culture, and yet not be mad. Dubious 
 and ill-defined as is the borderland between sanity and its oppo- 
 site — multitudinous as are the men who cannot quite see things 
 *s other men see them — there can be no doubt as to which side 
 he belongs who, being a gentleman, actually proposes to marry 
 % village girl, without the prsteEce of passion, and solely in order
 
 i6o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. . 
 
 to carry out an experiment. The opinions of the fraternity, 
 variously expressed, amounted, therefore, to this, that Alan 
 Duulop must be mad. The spirit of the Order, which requires 
 affection and service to be given by knight to demoiselle, and not 
 to fiUette or chambriere, was infringed. It was lese-majeste — • 
 high treason against Love. And to the Sisters, though none ex- 
 pressed the feeling in words, it seemed a cruel slight towards 
 their Abbess. 
 
 Naturally it was Miranda who first talked about it. The 
 Sisters, or a good many of them, were collected in Desdemona's 
 cell, which was, as we know, a great place of morning resort ; 
 chiefly because its occupant sat there over what she was pleased 
 to call her work, which was chiefly the devising amusements for 
 the Abbey, and because she never minded interruption. 
 
 " I have known," said Miranda in her quiet and straight- 
 forward manner, seeming to be aware of the thought that lay 
 in every mind — " I have known for some time what has been 
 in Alan Dunlop's mind ; and it is a great unhappiness to me, 
 because, of course, he has al'.vays been a great deal to me, a part 
 of my life." 
 
 Desdemona, from the depths of her easy-chair, murmured 
 lightly : 
 
 " Henceforth, let us acknowledge that Hamlet is really mad. 
 To have been with Miranda all these years, and not to have 
 fallen in love Avith her, is alone enough to prove it. Has he 
 made love to any of you, my dears ?" 
 
 No : there had been no sign of flirtation, no indication of the 
 slightest tendency in that direction towards any of them. Their 
 pretty heads shook with unanimous sadness — call it rather pity 
 — that one so handsome and so admirable from every other 
 point of view should be so cold. 
 
 " Confirmatory evidence," said Desdemona. " He has been 
 insensible to the single beauty of Miranda when he was alone 
 with her, and to the collective beauty of the Order. Oh ! he is 
 quite, quite mad. And yet we love our Hamlet." 
 
 " No," said Miranda, " Alan is not at all mad : he is only an 
 enthusiast : he has chosen a path full of difficulties, and ho 
 does not always see his way plainly. I fear he has made a 
 grave mistake." 
 
 Said Desdemona : " But he is not married yet." She said it 
 with emphasis. 
 
 " Unfortunately," Miranda went on, " it was partly my fault. 
 Alan asked me to recommend him the best — or the least objec- 
 tionable — of the village girls. Of course I could not conscien- 
 tiously recommend him any one really, but I undertook the task, 
 in the hope that he would see the dreadful mistake he was going 
 to make. And then, the other day, wlieu Mr. Exton had his
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. iCi 
 
 unfortunate ' Judgment of Paris,' just after he had awarded the 
 prize to Ahna Bostock, and at the very moment when she was 
 standing before us all, looking her very best in the first flush 
 of her triumph, Alan came in, and jumped at once to the con- 
 clusion that there was the girl I had selected for his wife." 
 
 " And now," said Cecilia, with a sigh, " I suppose we shall have 
 to disperse ourselves. There is an end of the Abbey of Thelema. 
 Where else can the Order find so glorious a home, and so splendid 
 an organ ?" 
 
 " Where else," sighed another, "shall v/e find so complete a 
 theatre ?" 
 
 " Where else," asked Nelly, " shall we find such a free and 
 happy life?" 
 
 " And a Park like Wejland Park ?" 
 
 " And gardens like those of Weyland Court ?" 
 
 " And such an owner of all, such an Amphitryon," said Dc.-- 
 demona, " as Alan Dunlop. Hamlet, with all his fancies, is the 
 best of all the Brothers. But, my children, go on enjoying youth 
 and pleasure. The Abbey is not dissolved yet : the Seigneur of 
 Weyland is not yet married." 
 
 "Desdemona," said Nelly, " j-ou said that before : you mean 
 something : you are raising false hopes. You prophesy what 
 you wish. Wicked woman ! Alan must keep his word of 
 honour." 
 
 " I am a prophet," replied the actress, " by reason of my age 
 and sex. You will all become prophets in time, especially if you 
 learn the art of foretelling by your own sufferings, which 
 Heaven forbid. I read the future — some futures — like a 
 printed book. Alan will not be married to the Bostock girl. 
 Are yon all satisfied ?" 
 
 "Not quite," said Nelly, the most superstitious of woman- 
 kind. " Tell us more about him. AVill he ever marry at all ? 
 Will he give up his crotchets ? Will he settle down and be 
 happy like the rest of the world?" 
 
 Desdemona shook her head. 
 
 " Do you not know," she said, " that the Oracle would never 
 give more than one reply at a time." 
 
 " Then, tell me something about myself," said the girl. 
 
 " Look out of the vrindow," replied the Pythoness, " and see 
 your fate." 
 
 Nelly looked, and returned blushing. 
 " What have you seen, my child ?" 
 
 " Tom Caledon lying on the grass ; and he saw me, and 
 waved his hand. And Mr. Exton was walking away into th*? 
 Park." 
 " That is your fate, my dear."
 
 1 62 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 All the other Sisters laughed, and Nelly asl;cd no moro 
 questions. 
 
 Alan did not appear that night, nor for several nights, at 
 dinner. When he did, his manner was constrained. No one 
 congratulated him : no one asked him any questions. Only 
 Desdemona sought to speak with him secretly. 
 
 " I think," she said, when she found an opportunity, " I think, 
 for my part, that a man's happiness is the very first considera- 
 tion in life." 
 
 This was a proposition which could not be allowed to pass un^ 
 challenged by a man who had deliberately throv/n avv^ay his own 
 chance of happiness. 
 
 " I know what you think, Alan," she went on. " That I am 
 a selfish old woman. Perhaps I am. I see no good, for in- 
 stance, in your self-sacrifice. You were born to set an ex- 
 ample." 
 
 " And I do set an example, I think," he replied grimlj'. 
 
 " Yes : the awful example. It was foolish enough to fancy 
 that these clods would begin to long for culture because you 
 went to live among them. You see they do not. But it is far 
 worse to imagine that they will be any the better for your 
 marrjdng among them." 
 
 " It is my hope," said Alan, a little stiffly, " that they will. 
 It seems to me the only chance of understanding them." 
 
 " If I wanted to understand farm-labourers," said Desdemona, 
 " which I do not, I should get at their minds by comparison. 
 You drink a glass of wine critically ; they gulp beer greedily. 
 You make dining one of the Fine Arts : they eat where and 
 how they can. You think of other people beside yourself, of 
 great questions and lofty things : they think of themselves and 
 the soil. As you rise in the scale you shake off more and moro 
 of the animal. As you descend, you put on more and more." 
 
 But Alan shook his head. 
 
 " Then there is another thing," Desdemona went on with he? 
 pleading. " If yon marry this girl with the view of using her 
 insight and experience to help out your own, v/hat does she 
 marry you for ?" 
 
 Really, Alan could not say why she was going to marry him. 
 Now he came to face the question, he perceived suddenly that it 
 might be on account of his great possessions. 
 
 " Is it for love, Alan ?" 
 
 " No, I suppose not — at least, I have not pretended to any 
 love on my joart." 
 
 " Is it in the hope of furthering j'our projects ?" 
 
 " It is on the understariding that my ideas are to be studied 
 and furthered if possible." 
 
 " The lower you go," Desdemona went on, " the lc;s do
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 163 
 
 people care about efforts which are based on ideas. They can 
 understand a pair of blankets or piece of beef. Chai'ity to them 
 means immediate help. What sympathy you expect to find in 
 such a girl I cannot think." 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 She went on relentlessly. 
 
 " Another thing, again. Alma Bostock does not belong to the 
 rank of labourers." 
 
 " I see very little distance betv\-een a small tenant-farmer, 
 who is now my bailiff, and one of his labourers." 
 
 " You do not," she replied, " but Alma does. She sees a great 
 deal. Alan, before the eyes of all English girls of the lower 
 ranks there floats for ever a vision of rapturous splendour. 
 They dream that a prince, a beautiful youth with vast possessions, 
 is coming to marry them, and that they ^rill go away with him 
 to bliss unspeakable. Too often, the prince does actually come, 
 and makes love to them. And they do go av/ay with him — but 
 not to marriage or to bliss, poor things. Alma's eyes are dazzled. 
 No use for you to protest that in marrying her you want her to 
 be your Lieutenant, that you intend to live down in the village 
 among the people. They are not her people ; she has risen a 
 little above them : she will rise to your level, if she can. She 
 will have her eyes fixed upon Weyland Court. As you have 
 made her your wife, you must make her a lady. And then you 
 will bring to your old home, not the worthy successor of your 
 mother, no queenly chatelaine like Miranda, no sweet and beau- 
 tiful girl like Nelly, but a companion who is no companion, a 
 woman miserable because she has got her ambition, and is not 
 satisfied because she is out of her place " 
 
 " Stop, Desdemona," said Alan. " I have pledged my word. 
 All these things may be as you say. It will be my business to 
 fight against them." 
 
 He left her, and presently struck gloomily across the Park, 
 homewards. Ever since the day when he offered himself to the 
 village maiden, he had been tormented by a doubt worse than 
 that of Panurge. Said Panurge, " Shall I marry ? Shall I 
 marry not ?" Said Alan, " I must marry. Have I been a fool, 
 or have I not ? And if I have, then what an amazing fool !" 
 
 For of these late days a vision of quite another kind had 
 crossed his mind. It began with that touch of Alma's hand 
 when it lay in his. She was to be his v/ife : her hand was there 
 in token of her promised word. It was a soft hand, and small, 
 although it did all sorts of household work ; but Alan did not 
 think of its softness. It was, somehow, the wrong hand. It 
 <vas a hand which had no business with him or his. When he 
 talked with her the same feeling came over him. He was talk- 
 ing to the wrong woman. His v>'ords fell into her mind like 
 
 li— 2
 
 i64 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 water poured into the vessels of tlie daughters of Danaus, bo- 
 cause it passed away and made no impression. The wrong 
 woman. And if so, Avho was the right woman ? If so, how 
 could there be any other woman to fdi that place but IMiranda ? 
 
 When it was too late, when he had given his promise to an- 
 other, he found what Miranda had always been to him — the only 
 woman in the world. 
 
 " A man's ovm happiness the chief thing to look after," Des- 
 demona had said. And his duty to set an example in the con- 
 duct of life. Was it, then, altogether a mistake ? Was his 
 self-imposed mission, his apostleship of culture, v/holly a great 
 mistake ? Was he, instead of a martyr, only an ass ? 
 
 I think it would be difficult for a preacher, an apostle, or a 
 prophet to propose to one's self a more disquieting question. 
 Suppose Brigham Young in his old age had been troubled with 
 doubts : suppose the Pope were to have misgivings about Pro- 
 testantism : suppose Mr. Spurgeon were to become convinced 
 that the right thing was the Establishment : suppose Mr. Ruskin 
 doubting whether he had not better tear up everything he has 
 written since the " Stones of Venice" : suppose Mohammed at 
 the close of his career wondering whether he had not done 
 infinite mischief : suppose the Archbishop of Canterbury be- 
 coming a Ritualist : suppose Jlr. Gladstone beginning to stone 
 the priests. Such a revolution was going on in poor Alan's 
 brain. Was he a confessor for the faith, was he a young man 
 who had generously sacrificed himself in the pursuit of a noble 
 cause, or was he — alas ! — was he only an ass ? 
 
 The owls in the trees hooted at him as he passed a oross the 
 silent Park. " To-whoo ! to-whoo ! What an ass you are ! 
 To-whoo !" The wind in his face whispered it in his ears as 
 he passed : " Ass ! ass ! ass !" And a low voice in the distance 
 murmured unceasingly as he vrent along : " lie might have had 
 Miranda — Ass !" He got back to his cottage — how grim and 
 mean it looked, with its stone floor and its pine-wood table ! — 
 and found a letter from Alma. 
 
 "My dear feend"— (after all, it made very little mattes 
 whether she spelled properly or not. Philanthropy, marriage, 
 harmony, mutual respect, are things beyond the power of bad 
 spelling to touch) — " My dear fkend, — I have read the book 
 which you lent me quite through. I will give it back to you to- 
 morrow. I think I should like a storey-book better, if you will 
 find me one. Father sends his love. 
 
 " Your affecshunate 
 
 "Alma." 
 
 Well : he taught her to call him her friend : she Imd read the
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. i6c 
 
 book— cnc of Ilusldii's shorter works ; it -was natural that sho 
 B>:ould like a story-book better than an essay ; and it was also 
 pleasant that she should add, in her artless way, the love of her 
 lather. Stephen Bostock's love, and yet .... oh ! the wrong 
 hand, the wrong voice, the wrong woman. 
 
 He went to bed, and lay awake, thinking sadly of the future 
 which stretched before him. He saw himself carrying a burden 
 growing daily heavier. He saw the sweet eyes of Miranda 
 resting upon him with sympathy, but they gradually sank out 
 of sight and disappeared. And then he was left quite alone 
 with his burden, which was a live woman, struggling and fight- 
 ing with him, and crying to go to Weyland Court. 
 
 iDesdemona, for her part, began to think that in her pro- 
 fessional career she had assisted at the construction of many a 
 good drama of which the plot did not promise to be half so 
 good as this story of Alan and IMiranda. She had suggested 
 many an ingenious situation, striking tableau, and astonishing 
 denouracnt which the author had carried out in the book, and 
 she on the boards. Now she had a plot to work out, the issues 
 of which concerned the happiness of two people at least, not 
 counting Alma. 
 
 To prophesy is all very well ; but suppose it depends upon 
 the prophet to bring about the fulfilment ? Then it becomes 
 embarrassing. "What move should she take ? Presently a 
 thought occurred to her. It was as yet quite in the rough, but 
 it was worth following up. And she sent for Tom Caledon, 
 because he knew everybody and their history. 
 
 "iSTow, Tom," she said, " I want to have a confidential talk 
 with you. Sit down, be patient, and tell me the exact truth, 
 or help me to find it." 
 
 " Is it anything about Nelly and me ?" asked Tom guiltily. 
 
 " No, egotistical boy — always thinking of yourself —it is not. 
 It is about a much more important couple — about Alan and 
 Miranda." 
 
 " Why — Alan is engaged to Alma Bostock." 
 
 " Please do not interrupt. The sagacity of men, when they 
 do sometimes attempt to understand things, is sometimes too 
 dreadful. Listen, I want to know all about Alma Bostock." 
 
 " All about Alma Bostock," Tom repeated ; " as if anybody 
 could ever know all about a girl." 
 
 " Do not be cynical, Tom. Men may learn quite as much 
 about girls as is good for them to know. Let women have their 
 little secrets if they like. However, I want to find out as mauy 
 of Miss Alma Bostock's as I can." 
 
 " That seems an extensive order." 
 
 " First, what do you know about her ?" 
 
 '' Well, it's a good many years since I have been knocking
 
 l66 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 about this part of the country, and I kno-w most of the people 
 
 in it " 
 
 " Dear me ! cannot the man come to the point at once ? Do 
 you know Alma Bostock well ?" 
 
 " Pretty well." Tom smiled. " Pretty well — I have spoken 
 to her." 
 
 " Now tell me, Tom, what sort of a girl is she ?" 
 
 " Ccmely," said Tom, " not to say alarmingly pretty. Alan 
 has got one of the village beauties." 
 
 "Ah !" said Desdemona. " I suppose the other two are that 
 black-haired young person whom we saw in the tent last Avcek, 
 and the statuesque-looking girl. Beauties of a kind : but, Tom, 
 do you think it right — I ask you — to use the same word to 
 describe Nelly Despard and Alma Bostock ?" 
 
 " Never mind," said Tom, waiving the question. And indeed 
 it must be owned that the masculine mind is far more catholic 
 and comprehensive as regards beauty than the feminine. We 
 need not be ostentatiously proud, however, of this superiority. 
 " Never mind that," said Tom. " She is a pretty girl." 
 
 " Is she — I don't say a good girl — of course she is a good girl." 
 Desdemona paused a moment, as if she would receive with resig- 
 nation an assurance to the contrary effect. " Of course she is a 
 good girl," she repeated with emphasis, as such assurance did not 
 come. " But is she a girl with any self-respect or dignity ?" 
 
 Tom tried to look sei'ious, but broke down and allowed a little 
 smile to play about the corners of his mouth. 
 
 " Then I am to suppose that she is not," Desdemona said 
 sharply. 
 
 " Indeed, I said nothing of the kind." 
 
 " Some girls of that class," his examiner went on with great 
 persistency, " allow young gentlemen to kiss them. At least, I 
 have heard rumours to that effect." 
 
 Here Tom fairly burst into a laugh. 
 
 " Oh !" said Desdemona. " Then I suppose that you are one 
 of those who have already kissed this village maiden. Now, 
 don't beat about the bush, Tom, but tell me everything." 
 
 " You really must not ask everj'thing. I appeal to your 
 generosity, Desdemona." 
 
 " I have none when the interests of Alan Dunlop are at stake. 
 Tell me all, Tom." 
 
 " Well, then, if you must know I wonder what Nelly 
 
 would say " 
 
 " Nelly shall not know." 
 
 " If you do meet a pretty girl in a shady lane, and you do 
 take toll as you pass — an innocent toll that really does no harm 
 to anybody " 
 
 "A country girl is only a toy to amuse a gentleman." said
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 167 
 
 Desdcmona a little bitterly. " Go on, Tom Caledon. Has tliig 
 toll been often demanded and paid ?" 
 
 " Pretty often, I dare say," be replied, with unblushing 
 effrontery, 
 
 " I suppose whenever you met her. Shameful !" 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " if you come to that, Desdemona, I should 
 like to know what you would have done if you had met her 
 dancing along the way with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and 
 her curls as gay as the flowers in June ?" 
 
 "I should have boxed her ears," said the lady calmly. "I 
 should certainly like to box her ears. A girl who lets one man 
 kiss her will, of course, let a dozen. One understands that. 
 But about herself — is she clever ?" 
 
 " I should say no." 
 
 " Has she any education ?" 
 
 " I should say none. Eeads and writes. Reads loTe-stories 
 and writes love-letters, no doubt, to Harry." 
 
 "What!" shrieked Desdemona. "Writes love-letters? To 
 Harry ?" 
 
 " She used to, I know, because Harry, who is as good a fellow 
 as ever stepped, has often shown them to me. But, of course, 
 she has left off now, and given Alan the benefit of all her 
 thoughts." 
 
 " I see." 
 
 Desdemona relapsed into silence. She was turning things 
 over in her mind. This revelation about Harry was just the 
 thing she wanted. 
 
 Tom went rambling on : 
 
 " She is good about the house, I believe : makes butter, looks 
 after the cheese, and the cream, and the eggs— all that sort of 
 thing. I've been in her dairy when her father and mother were 
 away on market-day. It was quite Arcadian, I assure you. 
 Made a fellow feel like a sliepherd." 
 
 " Thank you, Tom ; you have told me quite enough," said 
 Desdemona. " That is another remarkably stupid thing about 
 men — that they never know when to stop when they do begin 
 confessing. I suppose it comes of the amazing opinion they 
 always have of their own importance. Do you know if she is 
 fond of running about in the evening, or does she stay at 
 home ?" 
 
 " Why," said Tom, " of course she likes running about in the 
 evening — they all do. She used to get out, on one excuse or the 
 other, and meet Harry at the bottom of the garden every night. 
 I dare say she stays at home now, and listens to Alan. I should 
 like to see him, with his solemn blue eyes, preaching to poor 
 little Alma about the great and glorious mission she has to 
 fulfil, while old Bostock pretends to enjoy the talk, thinking
 
 168 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 how to make something more out of it for himself. Perhaps 
 poor old Harry is crying his eyes out at the bottom of the 
 garden. He's just the sort of man to take things of this sort 
 seriously ; and if you've got nothing more to ask me, Des- 
 demona, I will go and find him out, and see how he doei 
 take it." 
 
 Tom rose and took his hat. 
 
 " One moment, Tom," said Desdemona : " who is he, this 
 Harry ?" 
 
 " Why, Cardew, one of Alan's gamekeepers, of course. Every- 
 body calls him Hariy, and there can't be two Harrys about the 
 place." 
 
 " What sort of man is he ?" 
 
 " A tall, handsome man, about my height, but better-looking, 
 and stronger. Just the sort of fellow to catch a girl's fancy." 
 
 " Yes ; and is she the girl to keep a fancy in her head when 
 once she has got one ?" 
 
 " That I can hardly say. You see, Dcsdemona, my acquaint- 
 ance with Alma Bostock is limited to the — the — little trifles I 
 have communicated to you. Need I express a hope that they 
 will not be mentioned before certain ears polite ? I mean that 
 perhaps Nelly, not to say Miranda, might not think the better 
 of me. Now you, I know, will forgive these little trespasses, 
 the knowledge of which lias been, so to speak, wrung from mo 
 by a pressure equal to wild horses." 
 
 " I shall not talk about them, Tom. Of course, it is of no 
 use asking you to abstain in future from — taking toll ?" 
 
 " On the contrary, as regards Alma," said Tom lightly, " all 
 the use in the world ; she belongs to Alan now." 
 
 " And before, she belonged to Harry the gamekeeper. Poor 
 Harry !" 
 
 " \Vell, but Harry did not know ; and what the eye does not 
 see, the heart does not grieve for." 
 
 " Poor Harry ! — again. But nov/, Tom, we come to the really 
 serious part of the business. Do you like the idea of this 
 marriage ?" 
 
 " Like it ! No ! bat I am not Alan's keeper." 
 
 " Then will you help me to prevent it ?" 
 
 " I would help you if I could, Desdemona." 
 
 Tom became serious, and sat down again. 
 
 " 1' course Alma is quite unworthy of him." 
 
 " We must look about us then, and invent something." 
 
 " Shall we take Nelly into confidence ?" 
 
 " Tom, your weakness as regards that young lady is unworthy 
 of you. The fewer in our confidence the better. You and I 
 are the only two to begin Avith. Later on, perhaps, wo may let 
 gamekeeper Harry join us."
 
 THE MONKS QF THELEMA. 169 
 
 " Harry ? Well, I leave it all to you. Only Nelly would 
 have enjoj'ecl it so much." 
 
 "Nelly is charming as she is pretty. But Nelly might enjoy 
 it so much as to share her pleasure in the plan with somebody 
 else. You must confine your confidence to me, if you please." 
 
 "Very well," said Tom, "though how you are going to 
 manage things I cannot understand." 
 
 Desdemona rose from her chair, and began to walk about the 
 room. 
 
 " I never thought you would understand," she replied, at one 
 of the turns upon the stage. 
 
 She still preserved her stage manner — right to left, left to 
 riglit— and swept her skirts behind her with a touch of the 
 hand, as she turned in her old familiar stage style. 
 
 " You see— stand up, sir, before the footlights, and face the 
 audience — we are noAv at the end of Act the First, and this is 
 the situation. Alan Dunlop is engaged to x\lmaBostock, being 
 himself in love with Miranda." 
 
 " In love with Miranda ? How do you know that ?" 
 
 " Because I am a prophetess — before the audience — and when 
 the curtain is down I am a dramatist. But it is true, Tom ; 
 and Miranda, though she will not confess it to herself, is in love 
 with Alan. Your friend Harry is already engaged to this village 
 maiden, who may be represented on the stage as artless and in- 
 nocent. In real life she is vain, foolish and designing, and 
 Harry would be well rid of her. The girl herself, afraid of her 
 stalwart rustic, afraid of her greedy and grasping father, afraid 
 of her gentleman suitor, does not know what to do. The curtain 
 falls upon the situation. Even the critics, who have left off 
 applauding since poor old Jolm Oxenford retired, are pleased 
 with the tableau which ends the First Act, and the people are 
 mad for what follows." 
 
 " And what does follow ?" 
 
 " That we must devise for ourselves — you and I." 
 
 " But I am not a dramatist, Desdemona. I don't believe I 
 could write a play to save my life." 
 
 " You miglit, my dear Tom ; but it would be a shocking bad 
 one. All you have to do is to follow my instructions. It is a 
 very strong comedy. The first act is, beyond everything, effec- 
 tive. It remains with us to improve upon it in the second and 
 third. Up to the present I only half see my way to the second. 
 And as to the third, all I see as yet is a wedding. There will 
 be bells, bat not for Alan and the village beauty ; and a pro- 
 cession, but Alma will not occupy the leading place in it — at 
 least, not the place she contemplates " 
 
 " You are such a clever Avoman, Desdemona," said Tom, " that 
 I should think you might construct another drama out of Nelly
 
 I70 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 and me, and make it end, like the first, in a procession "witb bells 
 in which that fellow Ex ton shall not occupy the position he ap- 
 parently contemplates." 
 
 " The old-fashioned plan was the best, Tom. The lover ran 
 away with the girl, and made it up with her father after- 
 wards." 
 
 Tom sighed and withdrew. 
 
 Desdemona sat down and reflectetl 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 "We look before and after. 
 And pine for what is not." 
 
 The keeper, yonng Harry Cardew, was spending a warm after- 
 noon in the congenial gloom of his own cottage, where, with his 
 chin in his hand, and his elbow on the arm of his chair, he 
 meditated in great bitterness. The rich man with exceeding 
 many flocks and herds had come and stolen the one thing which 
 was his, the little ewe-lamb. And he did not see how he should 
 be able to get her back out of the hands of the spoiler. 
 
 Harry Cardew lives in this cottage alone. It was his father's 
 before him, and his grandfather's before that— for he comes of 
 a race of keepers. There is a floor of brick : the low ceiling, 
 black with smoke and age, is crossed with a square beam of oak : 
 his gun stands beside him as if ready for immediate use — you 
 may notice that the shoulder of his coat shows the rubbing of 
 the gun : the furniture is like the ceiling for blackness, but it 
 is strong and good. There are evidences everywhere of the 
 keeper's trade : skins, dressed and prepared, of cats, foxes, 
 squirrels, and even otters : there are feathers of birds : a box 
 of handy tools : there is a new iron mole-trap : and if you look 
 out of the open window you will see nailed against the wall of 
 the kennel rows of slaughtered vermin and carrion — weasel, 
 stoat, and polecat, kite and crow. Harry's dog, a sympathetic 
 creature, albeit young and longing to be out in the fields, sits 
 before him, Avatching his master with anxious eyes. 
 
 Presently the lovesick swain looked up as he heard a footstep 
 and saw Mr. Caledon leaping over the little streamlet which raa 
 twenty yards in front of his door. 
 
 Tom looked about, and presently poked his head into th9 
 door and peered round in the dark. 
 
 " You there, Harry ?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Tom. Come i!i~I'm hero."
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 171 
 
 Tom sat down in silence, and pulled out liis cigar-case and 
 began to smoke for company. 
 
 " You've heard the news, Harry ?" he asked presently. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Tom," the keeper replied with a sigh. " I've heard 
 as much news as will do me for a long time." 
 
 Then there was silence again. 
 
 " We broke the sixpence together ; see, Mr. Tom." He 
 pulled out a black ribbon with the token suspended from it. 
 " Here's my half, I wonder what she's done with hers." 
 
 " Have you seen her since Mr. Dunlop first spoke to her ?" 
 
 " Yes ;' I seen her the very night he done it. She came out 
 and met me. Well, you know, Mr. Tom, as a man will, I 
 bounced ; swore Mr. Dnnlop should never marrj' her, nor no 
 man but me should have her. But when I came away it was 
 tairable hard on me. For bounce as I may, I can't see no way 
 out of it." 
 
 Again Tom found the best course to be silence. 
 
 ■' For suppose," Harry continued — " suppose I was to up and 
 tell the Squire everything. How would that be ? Either he'd 
 send Alma away in a rage for deceiving of him — which deceit it 
 is — or he'd maybe half believe, and then it would be bad for 
 her and worse for me ever after, because of that half belief." 
 
 " That seems true enough," said Tom. 
 
 " Besides, there's another thing. Alma, she's kept on with 
 me secret for a year and more. Nobody guessed it ; nobody 
 suspected it. Do you think it would be fair on the gal to split 
 upon her, and ruin her beautiful chances ?" 
 
 " Well, no," said Tom. " From your point of view it would 
 not ; and that seems a gentleman's point of view. But you 
 don't want the marriage to come off ?" 
 
 " Of course I don't, sir." 
 
 " And you don't see your way to preventing it by telling the 
 Squire ? Certainly some one else ought to tell him. You are 
 not the only one, Harry, who would like to see the thing 
 stopped. Lord Ahvyne is one, I am another, the ladies at the 
 Court would all rejoice to see it broken off. We shall do what 
 we can. Keep up a good heart." 
 
 " I know Mr. Dunlop," said Harry. "When his word is once 
 passed, there he abides. No, sir, it's no good. He has said he 
 would marry Alma, and he will — even if he knew that on the 
 very first night of her engagement she came out to meet and kiss 
 an old lover in the orchard ; even if he were to find out her father 
 in his tricks ; even if he knew that all the village laughs at him 
 and his carryings on for their good. Nothing Avould turn Mr. 
 Alan from his word. Lord help you, Mr. Tom, I know him 
 better than you. He's only a year younger than me. Many'a 
 the time we've been out in this wood looking for eggs — ah 1 little
 
 172 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 did we think then. Listen, Mr. Tom ; 1 11 tell yon what 
 happened last night, because I must tell some one. I was down 
 there coming up from the village under the trees, where the path 
 leads from the Park. It was twelve o'clock. I'd got my gun. 
 There was no one about, and I heard footsteps on the gravel. 
 It was pretty dark under the trees, but light enough beyond, and 
 I saw the Squire walking fast over the gravel. Presently ho 
 came under the trees, and then he sat down en a log, quite still, 
 thinking. He was within a couple of yards of me, and the devil 
 came into my head. One shot and Alma would be free. No 
 one to see me, no one to suspect nie ; because my place last 
 night was on t'other side in these preserves. One shot. Lord ! 
 it looked for a minute as if it was nothing — just nothing — to 
 put the piece to your shoulder and pull the trigger." 
 
 Harry paused and wiped his brow. 
 
 " Lord forbid I should ever be so near murder again ! And 
 while I might have done it — while the fit was on me, like — Mr. 
 Alan got up, and went on his way home." 
 
 Tom laid his hand on his shoulder kindly. 
 
 " Don't have any more whisperings with the devil, Harry. They 
 are dangerous things. Thank God no mischief came of that 
 colloquy. Tell me, Harry, do you think she Avas fond of you?" 
 
 " What do we know, Mr. Tom ? They say they are fond of 
 us, and we believe them. It is all we have to go upon. If they 
 tell lies, we can't help ourselves. If they carry on with 
 gentlemen, we don't know." 
 
 Tom blushed, thinking guiltily of that little innccent toll we 
 know of. 
 
 " If they say one thing to our faces and another behind our 
 backs, what can we do ? She said she was fond of me. There ! 
 I don't think gals know what a man's fondness means. They 
 like to be made much of ; and if one man isn't there, another '11 
 do just as Avell. I don"t blame 'em, poor things. Tliey don't 
 know no better, and they can't understand a man's feelings." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Tom bitterly, thinking how most likely 
 Nelly at this very moment was accepting the attentions of Mr. 
 Exton. " I believe you are quite right, Harry — they don't 
 understand. You are not the only man who can't marry "he 
 girl he loves." 
 
 " I suppose not," said Harry. "Why, there's yourself, Mr 
 Tom. Lord ! I could never say a word about it to you before, 
 but now it seems as if we were both in a boat together." 
 
 " Ay, Harry. I'm too poor, you know." 
 
 " What I shall do," said Harry, " is this. I shall wait on hero 
 till they're married ; then I shall get out of the way. Alma lets 
 me see her nov/, when it doesn't do much harm. But she's that 
 hold upon me. Mr. Tom, that if she was to lift up her finger tc
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 173 
 
 me when she was a married woman I should ron after, her whe- 
 ther it was to the orchard of the farm or the garden of the Court. 
 And think what a scandal and a wickedness that would be." 
 
 " Yes," said Tom, " that v/ould be throwing more fat in the 
 fire with a vengeance. You had better get out of the place, 
 Harry, if you can make up your mind to go. And if Nelly 
 becomes Mrs. Exton, I believe I will go to America with you. 
 We can smoke pipes together, and swear at things in compan3^" 
 
 So they sat enjoying the luxury of gh^om all the afternoon, 
 till Harry, looking at his watch, said he must go see after his 
 young birds, and Tom lounged slowly away through the fir 
 plantations that bordered Weyland Park on the east, in which 
 lay the keeper's solitary cottage. 
 
 He was gloomy enough about himself, for there could be no 
 doubt now of Exton's intentions concerning Nelly. He haunted 
 her : he followed her about : he seemed to claim some sort of 
 possession of her which made Tom grind his teeth with rage. 
 And he was sorry about his honest friend the keeper. He knev/ 
 better than poor Harry what a shallow and frivolous young 
 person this girl was on whom such a strength of atfection and 
 trust was lavislicd : he knew, too, what a dead failure her 
 marriage with Alan would be, how utterly incapable she would 
 prove of understanding or drying to understand the nobleness of 
 his plans. So that in any case the outlook was dark. Just then, 
 however, he was ready to view everything with foreboding eyes. 
 
 He told Desdemona something of Harry's trouble, and let out 
 accidentally, because this intriguing dame pumped him as 
 cleverly as a cross-examining counsel, that Alma had gone out 
 to meet her lover on the very day of her engagement with Alan. 
 
 " The Second Act," said Desdemona, triumphant, " I consider 
 to be as good as finished. And it ends well. However, there 
 is the Third, which is always the most dinicult." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 "EHo aiina tnieux pour s'en faire conteP 
 Pietcr I'oi-cille aus fleurcttes da dinble 
 Que d'etre femmo et non pas coquetcr." 
 
 And it was then that the awful row occurred between Tom and 
 Nelly which led to that Court of Love, the history of which has 
 never till now been properly narrated. 
 
 It was in the morning, after breakfast ; in fact, in the morn- 
 ing-room. No one was there but themselves. 
 
 " It makes me look ridiculous, Tom," she said, " to have you 
 following me round with that doleful face."
 
 174 THE MONKS OF THELRMA. 
 
 " Whose fault is it if I am doleful ?" he asked. 
 
 " Nobodj^'s, except your own. You promised when I cain^ 
 
 that there should be no foolishness, and yet " She stopped, 
 
 with a look half of fun, half of vexation : " and yet, if I so much 
 as go out for a ride with Mr. Exton — and he rides very well " 
 
 " Learned to ride of an acrobat, I believe," said Tom. 
 
 " You think only acrobats can ride better than j'ou. Oh, 
 Tom ! what a very conceited thing to say ! I believe too," she 
 added thoughtfully, " that it is unchristian. But it is not only 
 riding. Whatever I do, if Mr. Exton is with me, you come t^^o 
 with your gloomy face, and spoil the sport." 
 
 " I dare say. I am not very jolly." 
 
 " i'he Sisters called you wrongly. They called you Brothei 
 Lancelot. It should have been Brother Killjoy. Yv^hat harm 
 does Mr. Exton do to you ?" 
 
 " Every harm." 
 
 " Because he does his best to please me ?' 
 
 " No : not that." 
 
 " Because he is a pleasant and amusing compamon »" 
 
 " No ; nor that." 
 
 "Then what, Tom?" 
 
 " As if you did not know, Nelly. Because it all means that 
 he is ready to fall in love with you." 
 
 " Indeed, sir. Pray cannot a man " 
 
 " Don't, Nell ! What is sport to you is death to me !" 
 
 " I knew a Tom Caledon once," she said, picldng a rose to 
 pieces, " who did not grow sulky whenever I — chose — to — flirt 
 a little v,'ith another man." 
 
 " And I knew a Nelly Despard once," he replied, " who when 
 I asked her not to flirt with that other man, desisted, and kept 
 her hand in by flirting with me. That was a great deal 
 pleasantcr, Nelly." 
 
 " So it was, Tom, I confess," she said, " much pleasanter for 
 both of us ; but then we were boy and girl." 
 
 " Two years ago." 
 
 "Now I am one and twenty and you are six ana twenty, and 
 we must think seriously about things." 
 
 " That means that Exton has got ten thousand a year." 
 
 " Mamma says so," said Nelly, demurely. 
 
 " Oh ! mamma has been writing about him again, has she ?" 
 
 " Do you actually suppose," asked the girl, with big eyes, 
 " that mamma would let me stay here v/ith no chaperon but 
 Desdemona, without so much as finding out v/ho was here ? She 
 knows everyhodij^ and she has learned from some one hov/ things 
 are going on. I do not know who that some one is, but she is 
 a true friend, Tom, to you as well as to me " . 
 
 " IIow do you know that ?"
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 175 
 
 " Because, Tom, mamma -writes me as follovrs." She took 
 out the letter and read a portion of it — " ' braided with point- 
 lace,' — no, that is not it — here it is — ' Ai:d I am very glad, my 
 dear child, truly glad to find that you have given up your foolish 
 partiality for that penniless boy' — you, Tom— 'and are now 
 making good use of time which, though once wickedly thrown 
 away upon an adventurer' — you, Tom — ' may now be employed 
 to the very best advantage. Mr. Exton, who is at the Abbey, 
 and who, I rejoice to hear, quite appreciates my dear child, is 
 said to have at least ten thousand a year. This may be exag- 
 geration, but it points in the right direction. No doubt the 
 other young man ' — you, Tom — ' has consoled himself with 
 some other girl.' There, Tom, what do you think of that ?" 
 
 Tom laughed. 
 
 " But it is barren comfort, Nelly," he said. " You soothe me 
 and stroke me down, and then you go oif to carry on with 
 Exton." 
 
 " ' Go ofE to carry on,' " she repeated. " What very remark- 
 able English ! Do you think the old Tom would have said such 
 a thing?" 
 
 " Perhaps not, Nelly. The old Tom was a fool. He thought 
 
 that when a girl said she loved him " 
 
 _ " It was on Ryde Pier ; it was ten o'clock and a moonlight 
 night, and the band was playing ; and the waters were smooth, 
 and there w^ere the lights on the yachts — and — and it was a new 
 thing ; and it was an unfair advantage to take." 
 
 " But you meant it then, Nell ?" 
 
 She could not help it : she had that way with her. She lifted 
 her soft heavy eyes, and met his. 
 
 " Yes, Tom, I meant it." 
 
 " And you mean it still ?" he caught her hand. " Oh ! Nelly, 
 Bay you mean it still." 
 
 " i can't say it ; not as you mean it, Tom, for oh ! I am so 
 much— so very much wiser. Two years ago I was only nineteen. 
 I had been out for four or five months. I believed that mutton 
 and beef grew on trees, I think. 1 had some lingering notion, 
 though mamma did her best to eradicate it, that every well- 
 dressed, handsome, pleasant man — like you, Tom — had plenty 
 of money. Ah me ! what a pleasant dream ! Why could it not 
 last ?" She paused and collected herself. " And then came 
 along a pleasant man— you, Tom — and stole away my heart. 
 When it was gone I found out that it was sheer robbery on your 
 part, and not exchange, as it ought to have been " 
 
 " Exchange ! Could you not take mine for yours ?" 
 
 " Ah ! Tom, that is the masculine error. The true exchange 
 is — for a girl's heart, or hand, which is generally the same thing 
 —an establishmei^t. And that you could not give me."
 
 176 THE MONKS OF THRLEMA. 
 
 " I've said over and over again that if eeven hundred a 
 year " 
 
 " No, Tom, it won't do. Mamma is quite right. For the 
 first year, while the wedding presents are fresh, and the unpaid- 
 f or furniture new, no doubt we might get along. But, oh ! the 
 misery of being in perpetual debt." 
 
 " And so I am thrown over, and that fellow Exton, with a 
 face crinkled like a savoy cabbage, is chosen instead." 
 
 "Not chosen, Tom. lie chooses me, perhaps. I do not 
 choose him. I take him ; I say yes to him, Avhen j-ou know I 
 would rather say yes to some one else." 
 
 " Go on, Nelly,'' he replied sullenly. " Drive mo half mad by 
 confessing one thing and doing another. Tell me plainly, do 
 you love him ?" 
 
 " Whom ?" 
 
 " Why, Exton, of course." 
 
 " No — of course." 
 
 " And yet— what are girls made of ?" 
 
 " Sugar and spice, Tom, and all that's nice. // faut vivrt. 
 When mamma dies there will be next to nothing for this poor 
 child ; while mamma lives there is not too much. This young 
 lady has been brought up in ideas of what is comme il faut. 
 She likes riding, she likes amusements, she likes balls and 
 dinners, garden-parties and dances. She would like, if she 
 married, to see a steady prospect of making the most out of 
 life. Now you can't make much, as a general rule, with seven 
 hundred a year.'' 
 
 Tom groaned. He was bound to admit that j-ou cannot. 
 What thirty years ago would have been considered a fair 
 younger son's portion, is now a miserable pittance, regarded 
 from a matrimonial point of view. Tom was a younger son's 
 only son, and seven hundred a year was considered in the family 
 as a plentiful allowance for such a position. 
 
 " Could I have believed two years ago that Nelly would have 
 been so worldly-minded ?" 
 
 " Could I have believed two years ago that Tom would have 
 been so Quixotic ?" 
 
 After this double question there was silence — Tom walking 
 backwards and forwarcls, Nelly sitting on a couch pulling flowers 
 to pieces with an angry flush in her cheek. Woman-like, she 
 was ready to give in and own that she v,"as wrong ; and woman- 
 like, she could not forbear from the strife of words, the contest 
 for the last word. 
 
 '' You take his presents," said Tom, like an accusing angel. 
 
 "I have taken yours," replied Nelly ; as much as to say that 
 the two cases wer« equal.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 177 
 
 "Yea; but j-ou let me tell you that I lovcQ you," Tom 
 plendcJ. 
 
 " What has that got to do with it ? Perhaps Mr. Exton has 
 told me the same thing." 
 
 " And you have listened ? You let him make love to you 
 after all that has passed between us ?" 
 
 " Two years ago, Tom. And, as I said before, a moonlight 
 evening on Ryde Pier in August is hardly the time for a young 
 maiden of nineteen to make any violent resistance. And, do 
 you know, I think you have hardly any right, have you, to ob- 
 ject to what Mr. Exton says to me ?" 
 
 As a matter of fact, Mr. Exton had not declared love to her 
 at all, and it was a very strange thing, considering the oppor- 
 tunities he ha-i, that he did not. Nelly, more than half afraid, 
 expected some sort of declai-ation every day. 
 
 Eight ? Tom had no right. Nelly knew that this was her 
 trump card, her dagger which stabbed Tom to the heart. He 
 had no right ! 
 
 " Poor Tom !" she said, timidly looking up at him. " Poor 
 Tom ! It is a shame to say such things." 
 
 " Say what you like," he cried. " Henceforth there is an end. 
 Flirt, coquette as much as you please. Be all smiles to one 
 man and honey-sweet to another, and mean nothing to either. 
 That is the way of all womankind, I suppose. I've done with 
 you, Miss Despai'd." 
 
 He hurried away with the step of desperation. 
 
 Nelly shook her head with a smile, and as she performed this 
 act of incredulity, a tear dropped from her eyes upon her cheek, 
 and glittered in the warm light. 
 
 And then the hated rival appeared — no other than Mr. Roger 
 Exton himself. 
 
 " They are going to have a meeting of their Madrigal Union 
 in the garden. Will you come ? I met Tom Caledon going 
 away in a hurry. Have you quarrelled ?" 
 
 " I never quarrel with Tom," said Nelly proudly. 
 
 " He looked agitated. Poor Brother Lancelot ! I felt for 
 him. What, I thought, if she were to treat me in the same 
 cruel fashion ?" 
 
 She went with him to the garden, and he spread a cloth on 
 the grass, and laid himself leisurely at her feet, just about a 
 yard from them, in fact. He wore a straw hat and a complete 
 suit of white, and looked absolutely cool. 
 
 " They've got iced-cup indoors somewhere," he said ; " but I 
 remembered that you like the garden in the morning, so I left 
 the cup, and got the madrigal people to come here. What a 
 perfectly charming old garden it is ! Reminds me ot a place I 
 once saw in Nepaul. It wants half-an-hour to the meeting. 
 
 12
 
 178 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Half-an-honr to ourselves in this delicious atmosphere, "witli 
 that mignonette bed within easy hail, Tom Caledou gone off in 
 disgrace, and the opportunity of telling you, Nelly, what a per- 
 fectly charming girl you are." 
 
 That was all he told her. What an extraordinary thing that 
 he did not propose ! 
 
 Tom blundered in his flight upon Desdemona, who stopped 
 him and made him give her his arm. He was furious, and she 
 saw it, guessing the cause ; but she let him alone, waiting till 
 he should speak. 
 
 This was not until he reached her room, when he sat down, 
 and ejaculated reproaches upon womankind in general. 
 
 " That means," said Desdemona, " that you have quarrelled 
 with Nelly." 
 
 Tom declared that nothing, nothing in the world, would in- 
 duce him ever to speak to Nelly again ; that she was heartlesa 
 and worldly ; that she took presents from two men at the same 
 time ; and so on. 
 
 Desdemona heard him to the end. 
 
 " This seems to me," she said, " to come under one of the 
 leading cases and precedents of the Assises d' Amour. I ehall 
 refer it to Miranda, and we will have a Court of Love." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " The Sheplierds and tlie Nymplis were soeu 
 Pleading before the Cyprian Queen." 
 
 The Court of Love was summoned by order of the Abbess, 
 
 As this, curiously enough, was the first of such Courts which 
 had been held in England since the days of the lamented Queen 
 Eleanour of Provence, Desdemona was extremely anxious that 
 it should be held with as much external splendour as the 
 resources of the Abbey would admit, and that its procedure 
 should show no diminution in the knowledge, practices, and 
 authority of the Golden Code. It might not, she said, become 
 a leading case : there had been other causes tried at which 
 points of more' vital interest were at stake ; but the case of 
 Lancelot v. Rosalind would, she was sure, prove one of no small 
 importance. And its externals, she promised, should be in every 
 way worthy of the issue to be decided. 
 
 As no one except the plaintiff, the defendant, and Desdemona 
 herself, kncAV the least in the world what this issue was : as 
 most people, outside the Abbey at least, regarded the impending 
 trial as a sort of amateur breach of promise case, and wondered 
 how Nelly Despard or any other girl could— 2i most meamog
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 179 
 
 phrase, full of all insinuation, accusation, envy, and jealousy : 
 and as it was rapidly spread abroad that the preparations were on 
 a scale of unusual magnificence : as no one was old enough to 
 remember the Courts of Queen Eleanour : as even in the Abbey 
 the performers had very little idea what the show would be 
 like — there was great, even extraordinary excitement over tlio 
 impending Court. 
 
 It was called for five o'clock in the afternoon, and v;as to bo 
 held in the ancient garden of the Abbey, which, as has already 
 been stated, consisted of an oblong lawn, planted with roses and 
 flower-beds, and surrounded on all sides by two terraces. It 
 was also protected from north and east winds by a high and 
 extremely thick hedge, lying open to the more genial influences 
 of south'^ and Avest. There Avas no great elm in the garden, 
 beneath which, as was de rigueur in the old gieux sous Vorme, the 
 grandes dames de-par le ??io?zo'e might shelter themselves, while they 
 heard the pleadings, from the scorching sun of July ; but there 
 was over the northern end a great walnut, as stately as any of 
 those which adorn the shaven lawns of Cambridge. In front of 
 the walnut stood a fountain, and beyond the fountain was the 
 old sun-dial. The garden itself was kept apart for the Court, 
 but on the terraces a long awning had been rigged up, under 
 which were ranged roAvs of chairs for the spectators, because in 
 the Abbey of Thelema there Avas nothing done which was not 
 open to all the world. No hiding of lights behind bushels in 
 that monastery, if you please. So far it is very, very unlike the 
 cages of the He Sonnante, the birds in which, as the good cure 
 of Meudon tells us, began life by being mourners at funerals. 
 If the doings of Sister Rosalind, or any other Sister, were to be 
 dragged into the open light of a Court of Law, that Sister 
 would like the Court to be as numerously attended as possible. 
 On this ground the fair defendant had no cause for complaint. 
 As regards the ceremonies, they were imreservedly entrusted to 
 the care of Desdemona ; the Brethren who were to take part 
 were content with learning each his own role and place, and to 
 leave the rest to their stage manager. There was not even a 
 dress rehearsal : there was not even a full undress rehearsal : 
 there were only a few interviews between the dictatress and her 
 company. She had the working up of all the details : she had 
 to contrive the costumes, the properties, the tableaux, and the 
 grouping. This, indeed, was her great delight. She drcAV little 
 pictures of her Court Avhile yet it had no existence outside her 
 brain ; she sat in the quaint old garden and peopled it Avith the 
 puppets of her imagination : AA'hen everything and everybody 
 had their proper place on the lawn and she had draAvn her plan 
 of the whole, she began by instructing the servants and ushers of 
 iiie Court ; then she took the boys, who helped in the choir and 
 
 l?-2
 
 i8o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 acted as pages for the Functions, into the garden, and with the 
 aid of a few chairs taught them exactly where they were to 
 stand, and how they were to pose : then she drew up a pLan of 
 the action of her piece, with full stage directions for every- 
 body ; and had this copied, recopied, and corrected till sho 
 was perfectly satisfied. Then sho distributed the parts. And 
 then she sat down and heaved a great sigh and thanked the 
 fates that an excellent piece was set afoot. 
 
 The principal part of a play may seem to an outsider to be the 
 words. Not at all : the actor knows very well that the words 
 are only introduced to set off the situations ; and that many 
 most excellent plays, especially those written for the Mediteval 
 stage, consisted of nothing but situations when they left the 
 dramatist's hand the words being left entirely to the mother- 
 wit of the players. In fact, they were all " gag ;" and, as every- 
 body knows, the situation is the only difficult thing to find. 
 
 " You have to plead your cause in person," Desdemona said 
 to Tom Caledon, concluding her instructions. " Very well : 
 plead it eloquently. On your pleading as you open the case will 
 greatly depend the success of the piece — of course, I mean the 
 success of your cause." 
 
 " Desdemona, I am too stupid. I carUt write a speech. You 
 must write it for me," said Tom. " And it seems such a shame 
 accusing Nelly." 
 
 Sister Rosalind's advocate was Brother Peregrine. He asked 
 for no help except access to the ancient constitutions and code 
 of Love, which Desdemona readily gave him. 
 
 As for the costumes, they were, out of respect to the memory 
 of Queen Eleanour, deceased, those of the twelfth century, and 
 were designed by Desdemona in consultation with certain ex- 
 perienced persons, lent by Mr. Hollingshead, from the Gaiety 
 Theatre. Those of the ladies were made out of what appeared 
 to them the best imitation possible of the favourite materials 
 of the period, which, as everybody knows, were samite, siglaton, 
 and sandal. A full description of the dresses appeared in the 
 Qmcn the following week. It was written by a lady for ladies, 
 and those who wish for precise details may refer to that paper. 
 (Speaking from a masculine, but not, it is hoped, an unobservant 
 point of view, I should say in general terms that the dresses 
 fitted tightly to the figure, after the present graceful fashion j 
 but were not drawn in at the feet, so as to make the wearers 
 appear unable to walk with freedom. The hair was worn in 
 long and flowing tresses or else gathered up in a net, but not 
 the ugly net which we remember to have teen in youth and 
 sometimes yet see on ladies of a certain rank of life, "those who 
 dwell around the New Cut, Leather Lane, or the High Street, 
 VVhitechapel. On the head v.'as worn a square coronet of gold,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 181 
 
 and the Sisters were wrapped in crimson mantles, falling over 
 the soft grey dress beneath. Their shoes were long and pointed, 
 looped up with chains, and with low heels : their gloves were 
 gauntlets, with any number of buttons, were grey like the 
 dresses, and covered more than half the arm. 
 
 As for the men, the colours of their tunics were more various, 
 because each chose what liked him best ; they, too, wore long 
 mantles or cloaks, which had capuchons ; they carried daggers 
 in their belts, and their shoes, like those of the Sisters, were 
 long, with points looped up to the knee. They wore no swords, 
 things which six hundred years ago belonged to the heavy 
 armour, and were only put on for outdoor use. Within doors, 
 if you wanted to stick anything into a friend over a bottle, or a 
 game of chess, the dagger was much handier. 
 
 As regards both Brothers and Sisters, they were so practised 
 in hals mas(?if/s, theatricals, and frivolities of such kinds, that they 
 had arrived at the singular and enviable power of moving about 
 in any costume with the air of belonging to it. It was acting 
 without effort. 
 
 An hour before five all the chairs on the terraces were occu- 
 pied. There was a party from the Vicarage ; a few men 
 brought down from town by Lord Alwyne ; a party from the 
 city of Athelston, and people from the country houses round, 
 who all came by invitation. And about half-past four the 
 Thelemites began one by one to drop in, till the garden space in 
 the centre was crowded with them, with the ushers, the servants 
 of the Court, and the page-boys. 
 
 " I should like," said Lucy Corringtoa to Lord Alwyne, " to 
 Lave lived in the twelfth century." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Best enjoy the present, Lucy. It would have been all over 
 Bix hundred years ago — think of that !" 
 
 It was, however, a very pretty and novel spectacle. Beneath 
 the umbrageous foliage of the walnut-tree stood the Throne, a 
 canopied seat on a platform, covered with crimson velvet. Chairs, 
 also crimson covered, stood at either side of the Throne on the 
 platform, for the Sisters who were to act as jury or assessors. 
 The Sisters themselves were among the Brothers in vrhat may 
 be called the body of the Court. Below the Throne was the 
 table of the Clerk to the Court, Sister Desdemona, and in front 
 of her table two stools for the Assistant-Clerks. A table, 
 covered witii parchments, great inkstands and quill pens, was 
 placed between the fountain and the throne ; and at the right 
 hand and the left stood two small desks or pulpits for tlio 
 counsel in the case, while the fair defendant was to be placed in 
 a low chair of red velvet beside her advocate. All the Abbey 
 servants were there, dressed for the part — both those who regu-
 
 1 82 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 larly performed in the festivals and others, of -whom it was 
 suspected that Desdemona imported them for the occasion aa 
 trained supers. The band was at the lower end of the garden 
 discoursing sweet music, and with them stood, or lounged, the 
 boys, whom Desdemona had attired daintil}' in tiglit tunics. 
 They were so well trained that they could look at each other 
 Avithout grinning, and could stand or lie about upon the grass in 
 perfect unconsciousness that they were not assisting, in the 
 heart of the twelfth century, at a serious and solemn trial 
 before the High Court of Love. And the fountain sparkled 
 in the sunshine ; and the summer air was heavy with the 
 perfume of flowers ; and the Brethren were young ; and the 
 Sisters fair. 
 
 Not all the members of the Order were there. Brothers 
 Lancelot and Peregrine ; Sisters Miranda, Desdemona, and 
 Eosalind were absent ; that was natural, as they were the 
 principal actors in the case to be tried. Also, Alan Dunlop 
 was absent. He, poor man, was engaged in the village, giving 
 his usual afternoon lesson in social economy to xllma Bostock. 
 While he talked, she, who would much rather have been 
 milking the cows, or making the butter, or gathering ripe 
 gooseberries, or stealing a surreptitious talk with Harry, or 
 even granting an interview to Tom Caledon, listened with "lack- 
 lustre eye and lips that ever and anon drooped v/ith the sem- 
 blance of a yawn, to a cascade of words which had no meaning, 
 not the shadow of a meaning, to her. They had, however, to 
 be endured to gratify this extraordinary lover, who, somehoAv, 
 seemed to take pleasure in pouring them out. And while the 
 girl's thoughts wandered av/ay from the discourse, it must be 
 owned that her fiancee himself was thinking hov/ very, very 
 much pleasanter it would have been to s^Dend the day assisting 
 at the Court of Love. 
 
 Another Brother of the Order was absent. It was Mr. Paul 
 Rondelet. He said, on being invited by Desdemona, that he 
 should have liked much to take his part, but that it had already 
 been decided by the greatest German authority that there never 
 were such things as Courts of Love ; that all the contemporary 
 poets and painters were in a league to mystify people and to 
 make a pretence for posterity about a code of laws which did 
 not exist ; and that— here he laid his head plaintively on one 
 side — he must consider the Common Room of Lothian and hia 
 own reputation. There might be Oxford men present. It is a 
 special mark of the great and illustrious school of Prigs, that, 
 in virtue of being so much in advance of other people, they 
 always know exactly how much has been discovered and de^ 
 cided in history, literature, and art. For them the dernier mot 
 has always been said, and generally by one whom the Priga
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 183 
 
 have consented to honour. So Mr. Eondelet remained aloof, 
 and stayed at home in the Abbey, shaping a new poem, in -which 
 a young man — it might have been himself — laments his exceed- 
 ing great wisdom, which shuts him out from love, friendship, 
 and the ordinary ambitions of life, deprives him of the consola- 
 tions of religion, and leaves him alone, save perhaps for the 
 Common Room of Lothian. He sent this poem to his friends, 
 a.nd they still carry it about with them, for it is as yet unpub- 
 lished, cuddled up tight to their hearts. The show proceeded 
 in spite of these two absent Brothers. 
 
 At a quarter to five the band stopped playing, and s?iut their 
 books. Then there was a little movement, and a rustle, and an 
 expectant whisper. Only fifteen minutes to wait. And it 
 seemed quite natural and in keeping with the character of the 
 piece when Sister Cecilia, taking a zither, as good a substitute 
 for a lute as can be devised, sang, sitting on the grass-bank, 
 while the long branches of the walnut made -a greenery above 
 her head, the " Ballad of Blinded Love " : 
 
 "Love goes singing along tlie way : 
 
 ' Men have blinded and covered my eyes; 
 J liave no nifrht and I linve no day, 
 Dark is the road and black the skies.' 
 Then Love laughs and fleers as he flies : 
 ' See the maidens who've looked on me, 
 
 Sitting in sorrow with tears and sighs ; 
 Better have let Love's eyes go free.' 
 
 " Still, he has ears : and where the gay 
 Songs and laughter of girls arise 
 (Music as sweet as flowers in May) 
 
 Straight to their hearts Love's arrow flies J 
 Then the music of laughter dies : 
 Farewell song and innocent glee. 
 ' Not my lauit,' the archer cries, 
 ' Better have let Love's eyes go free." 
 
 " I^ot Love's fault : and who shall sny, 
 
 Could we but leave him his pretty cyoa, 
 Whom he would spare of the maidens gay. 
 
 Whom he would leave in llio girlish guise P 
 
 Yet 'twere pity should beauty's sighs 
 Cause hev flowers ungatliered be : 
 
 With silken bandage cover his eyeSj 
 Never let that hoy's sight go free. 
 
 ENVOI. 
 
 " Prince, the shaft of his arrow flies 
 
 Straight to the heart of her and thee. 
 Take no pity, although he cries, 
 
 ' Better have let Love's eyes go free.' " 
 
 Hardly had she finished the last bars of the ballad, when five 
 struck from the Abbey clock, and, at the moment, the trumpets
 
 i84 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 blared a note of warning, and every one eprang to his feet. 
 " Oyez, oyez !" cried the usher ; " silence for the Court.'' 
 
 First came the javelin-men, armed with long pikes and dressed 
 in leathern jerkins, with straw round their legs instead of 
 stockings. _ Desdemona afterwards prided herself on her fidelity 
 in the detail of the straw, but Miranda thought it looked un- 
 tidy. After the javelin men came the clerks and people of the 
 long robe, bearing papers. These wore the square cap of office, 
 and the black gown with full sleeves. After the lawyers came, 
 similarly attired in black, Tom Caledon, the Brother who waa 
 to act as plaintiff. Two clerks came after him, bearing the 
 yieces tie conviction on a cushion — gloves, flowers, ribbons, and 
 perfume. And then, leading Ja helle accusce by the hand, came 
 Brother Peregrine, also disguised as an advocate. He had as- 
 sumed an air of the greatest sympathy, as if so much unmerited 
 misfortune called forth the tenderest pity ; he seemed to watch 
 every step of his client, and to be ready at any moment to catch 
 her in hia arms if she should faint away. Xelly, who thus came 
 to answer the charge of Icse-majcste against Love, was wrapped 
 from head to foot in a long cloak of grey silk, the hood of v/hich 
 fell over her face, so that nothing was visible save when, now 
 and again, she half lifted it to snatch a hasty glance at the Court 
 and perhaps to see what people thought of the effect. That, 
 indeed, produced by her grey robe, her drooping head, and 
 her slender graceful figure, was entirely one of innocence 
 wrongfully defamed, and conscious of virtue. After the ac- 
 cused came the secretaries of the Court, and these were fol- 
 lowed by Desdemona, who vrore, for the occasion, such an 
 expression as she had once imparted in her youthful and 
 lovely days to the advocate Portia, and such a robe as the 
 one which had in that representation enwrapped her charms. 
 She was the Clerk of the Court. Lastly, her train borne by 
 two pages, and led by Brother Bayard, the most courtly of 
 the Brethren, came Miranda herself, supreme Judge and 
 President of the Court of Love. She mounted the platform, 
 and then, standing erect and statuesque, her clear and noble fea- 
 tures touched with the soft reflection from the crimson canopy, 
 and her tall figure standing out against the setting of greenery 
 behind her, like Diana among her maidens, she looked round 
 for a moment, smiled, and took her seat. 
 
 All were now in their places. In the chairs round the Throne 
 sat the Sisters expectant ; at their feet lay the page-boys, who 
 were the messengers of the Court ; at the tables sat the clerks, 
 secretaries, and the lawyers, turning over the pages of the great 
 volumes bound in vellum, and making industrious notes. Sister 
 Rosalind, the defendant, was in her place, beside her counsel ; 
 and Brother Lancelot, who wore, to tell the truth, a shame-
 
 THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA. iSs 
 
 faood and even a downcast look, as if he was in a false position 
 and f(.>lt it, was at his desk opposite laer. 
 
 When the Court was seated, there was another blare of trum- 
 pets, and the usher cried again, " Ojez, oyez ! silence for the 
 Court." 
 
 Then Desdemona rose solemnly, a parchment in her hand. 
 
 " Let the defendant stand," ordered the Judge. 
 
 Brother Peregrine, in a mere ecstasy of sympathy, offered his 
 Land to the victim ; at sight of which Tom forgot that he was 
 plaintiff, and rushed from his post too to offer assistance. The 
 Court, except Desdemona, who thought this very irregular, and 
 Miranda, who would not lower the dignity of her position by so 
 much as a smile, laughed aloud at this accident. But Sister 
 Ivosalind, pulling her hood lower over her face, took the hand 
 of her own counsel without the least recognition of the plaintiff's 
 proffered aid. And Tom retreated to his place in confusion. 
 
 Desdemona read the charge. 
 
 " Sister Bcsalind," she began in deep and sonorous tones, and 
 ■with that clear accent which only long practice on the stage 
 seems able to give — "Sister Rosalind, you stand before the Lady 
 Miranda, President of this most venerable Court of Love, 
 charged by the honourable and worthy Brother Lancelot, Monk 
 of the Order of Thelema, with liaving wantonly, maliciously, 
 ■wilfully, and perversely infringed the code of laws which governs 
 the hearts of the young and the courteous, in that you have 
 both openly and secretly, before the eyes of the Brothers and 
 Sisters, or in the retreat of garden or conservatory, accepted 
 and received those presents, tokens of affection and attentions, 
 both those ordinary — such as every knight, damoiseau, and Bro- 
 ther of Thelema is bound to bestow upon every damoiselle and 
 Sister of the Order — and those extraordinary, such as with loj^al 
 Buit, service and devotion, one alone should render unto one. Do 
 you, Sister Rosalind, plead guilty to this charge, or not guilty?" 
 
 Sister Rosalind, for answer, threw back her hood, and stood 
 bareheaded before them all. "With her soft eyes, which lifted for 
 a moment to look round upon the Court and the audience on the 
 terrace, her fair and delicate cheek and the half-parted lips which 
 seemed as if they could plead more eloquently than any advo- 
 cate, she cari-ied away the sympathies of all. Phryne obtained 
 a verdict by her beauty, without a word. So Sister Rosalind, 
 by the mere unveiling of her face, would at once, but for the 
 stern exigencies of the law, have been unanimously acquitted. 
 There was a murmur of admiration from the audience on the 
 terrace, and then. Lord Alwyne leading the way, a rapturous 
 burst of applause, which was instantly checked hy the Court, 
 who threatened to hear the case with closed doors, so to speak, 
 on the repetition of such unseemly interruption.
 
 1 86 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 "My client," said Peregrine, "my calumniated client," tere 
 his voice broke down as if with a sob, " pleads not guilty, ac- 
 cording to the Code of Love. And she desires also to set up a 
 counter charge against the plaintiff in the case. Brother Lance- 
 lot, in that, being attached to her and an aspirant for her 
 favours, he has shown himself of late days of melancholy and 
 morose disposition, and while he was formerly gay, cheerful, 
 and of a hght heart, so that it was pleasant to accept his suit 
 and service, he has now become sad and desponding, an offence 
 contrary to all known and recognised devoirs of a lover. And 
 she begs that the two charges may be tried together." 
 
 This startling charge, accompanied as it was by a reproachful 
 look from the defendant, disconcerted Brother Lancelot exceed- 
 ingly, insomuch that his eyes remained staring wide open, and 
 his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. The Court smiled, 
 and Sister Desdemona, recognising in this stroke a touch of real 
 genius, nodded approvingly to Brother Peregrine. 
 
 Then Miranda spoke. 
 
 " It is within my learned brother's right," she said, _ " to set 
 up a counter-charge, and the Court will not fail to insist upon 
 giving the charge full weight. Meantime, we will proceed with 
 the original case as it stands set forth upon the roll. Brother 
 Lancelot, you will call your witnesses." 
 
 But the counsel for the defence again spr?,ng to his feet. 
 
 " I am instructed by my client— my most deeply injured client 
 —to admit the truth of the facts alleged. She has accepted the 
 presents and the service of more than one Brother of this 
 illustrious Order. ~\y Lady and Sisters-assistant, we admit, not 
 as a fault, but rather as a virtue, that the facts are such as my 
 learned Brother Lancelot has alleged in his plaint. I myself, 
 my Lady, if for one moment I may be allov/ed to forget — no, 
 not to forget my most needlessly persecuted client, which would 
 be impossible—but to associate my poor personality w'ith t«hia 
 admission, own before you all that "l myself, humble as I stand, 
 have been allowed to offer a faint tribute to this incomparable 
 shrine of beauty and of grace. She has worn flowers in her 
 hair Avhich these unworthy fingers have gathered in this garden 
 of Thelema and in its conservatories ; she has honoured me and 
 conferred a new beauty on those flowers by wearing them in 
 
 lier hair ; she has accepted gloves of me, gloves " here the 
 
 speaker clasped his hands and gazed heavenward, " gloves— sixes 
 — and honoured the giver by wearing these sixes— small si^ces — 
 at our dances. My client has nothing to conceal, nothing that 
 need not be told openly. We may, therefore, my Lady and 
 Sisters-assistant of this honourable Court, enable my learned 
 Brother to do without witnesses and to proceed at once with hia
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 1S7 
 
 vain and impotent attempt to substantiate his cbai'ge by appeal 
 to ancient cand prescriptive law." 
 
 Brother Peregrine yat down after this fling at his opponent. 
 
 Sister Rosalind pulled the hood lower over her face and 
 resumed her seat. 
 
 There was a silence of great expectation when Brother 
 Lancelot rose to his feet, and after fumbling among his papers 
 began, in a voice of great trepidation and hesitancy, Avhich 
 gradually disappeared as he warmed to his work, his speech for 
 the prosecution. 
 
 " My Lady and worshipful Sisters-assistant of this illustrious 
 Court, it has been the laudable practice among all loyal followers 
 of honourable Love to discuss among themselves whatever points 
 of difficulty may arise in the relations of lovers to one another. 
 Thus we find in the Reports, meagre as these documents are, of 
 the jeux 2'>arlis lines of conduct laid down to meet almost every 
 conceivable case, however knotty. These friendly discussions 
 served to supplement and emphasise the Golden Code much as 
 precedents in English law do grace, garnish, and sometimes 
 obscure the mere letter of the law which lies behind them. Of 
 such a nature was that famous discussion on the question 
 whether, if a knight loves a lady, he ought rather to see her 
 dead than married to another ? Such, again, w^as the case 
 argued before a noble company of knights, dames, and demoi- 
 selles, whether a certain knight was justified in accepting an 
 offer made to him by a lady that she would belong wholly to 
 him provided first she might be allowed a clear twelvemonth of 
 flirtation. And such, to quote a third case, was the memorable 
 inquiry into the reason Avhy the eld, and therefore the experi- 
 enced, are generally neglected ; while the young, and therefore 
 the inexperienced, are preferred. Had the present case before 
 the Court been of such a nature as to admit of its decision by a 
 jeu x>cirti or by formal committee of arbitration, I should have 
 preferred that course. But that is not so, and I am therefore 
 prepared, most unwillingly, to prove that a Sister of our Order, 
 a Sister to whom my own devotion has been ofi'ercd and freely 
 given, has infringed the miraculous Code which has been, and 
 will ever continue to be, the foundation of constitutional 
 Love." 
 
 He paused, while one of his clerks handed him a prodigious 
 roil of parchment. 
 
 " I now, my Lady, proceed to refer to the articles Vvrhich I 
 maintain to have been infringed by our Sister the defendant in 
 this suit. I shall be happy to furnish my learned Brother " — 
 Tom was pluckinsr up his courage — " with a copy of these 
 Btatutes and ordinances, so that he may correct me if I quote 
 tliem wrongly, and at the same time lead him to reflect whethef
 
 1 88 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 CYon at the last moment he may not feel it his duty to ad'V'ist 
 his fair client to throw herself upon the mercy of the Court." 
 
 Here Brother Peregrine sprang to his feet and bowed courte- 
 ously. 
 
 " I thank my learned Brother. I need, however, no copy of 
 the Code. It is implanted here." 
 
 He smote the place where he supposed his heart to be and sa t 
 down. 
 
 " I will then," continued the counsel for the prosecution, " I 
 will at once refer the Court and the Laflies-assistant to the very 
 third Law — of such vital importance did this great principle seem 
 to the supernatural framers of the Code. In the very third Law 
 we have it enunciated m the clearest terms ' Nemo dvplici amore 
 ligari j'otcst.' That is to say, no one, either knight or dame, 
 damoiscau or damoisellc, can be bound by the chains of a two- 
 fold alYection. The object of a lady's preference may perhaps 
 be changed ; one can imagine the case of a damoiselle after being 
 attracted by supposed virtues in a new friend — reverting with 
 pleasure to the proved and tried chevalier who has obeyed her 
 behests, it may be, for years " — here there was a murmur cf 
 sympathj', every one present being perfectly acquainted with 
 Tom's sad history. 
 
 Brother Peregrine looked round sharply, as much as to say. 
 " Let no one be led astray by any feeling of sentiment. I will 
 make mincemeat of him directly." 
 
 " This, I say, one can comprehend, and in such a case the de- 
 votion of the previously favoured lover would be declined with 
 such courtesy as becomes a gentlewoman. But let this Court 
 picture to themselves a case in which a lady shall look with 
 equal favour on the prayers of one and the sighs of another, 
 shall smile on one with the same kindness as on the other, and 
 ask whether both in letter and in spirit the third article of the 
 Code would not be flagrantly contravened ? And such a case it 
 is vv'hich my sense of duty now obliges me to bring before your 
 attention. I am aware — that is, I can anticipate, that my learned 
 Brother for the defence will attempt to rely upon the Thirty- 
 first Article — imam fceminam nihil profdhet d duohus amari — 
 nothing prevents the lady from having two lovers at once. No 
 one, I am sure, would be surprised to hear that the Sister 
 Rosalind had as many lovera as there are men who have seen 
 her." 
 
 Here the defendant lifted up a corner of her veil and be. 
 Btowed a smile upon the counaol. The audience laughed, and 
 Desdcmona was about to call attention to this breach of official 
 etiquette, when Tom pi'oceeded with his speech. 
 
 " That clause, I contend, has nothing to do with the charga
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 189 
 
 The facts, as the Court hfvs been infcrmed, are not denied, but, 
 admitted. My learned Brother Las confessed " 
 
 Here Brother Peregrine sprang to his feet. 
 
 " I cannot allow the word confessed to pass unchallenged. 
 My Lady, I have confessed nothing. Confession implies guilt. 
 Where there has been no sin there can be no confession. We 
 accept statements, but Ave do not confess." 
 
 " Let us say, tlien," continued Tom, " that he has accepted 
 my statements. He has, in fact, accepted the statement that 
 Sister Rosalind received the service and the presents of two 
 aspirants. He has informed the Court that he has himself 
 offered gloves — small sixes — which were graciously received. I 
 too have offered gloves — also small sixes. It has been my 
 pride, as well as his, to see those sixes worn at our dances and 
 in our drives and rides, I too have offered the flowers of 
 Thelema to her who is to me the choicest and fairest flower in 
 this our garden of all delights. My incense has been burnt at 
 that shrine, my vows have been laid before that altar, as well 
 as his. If my learned Brother accepts statements, he must 
 accept them in their fulness : they are not to be glossed over, 
 cleared away, or pared down to a mere nothing at all. The 
 Court must give these facts their full significance. It amounts 
 to this, that the defendant in this action has received with equal 
 favour the pretensions of those who follow her with an equal 
 — no, that cannot be — not an equal affection. No personal feel- 
 ing of rancour or jealousy, no unworthy desire for notoriety, 
 fame, or revenge, has prompted me in bringing about this im- 
 portant trial. It has been appointed by yourself, my Lady, 
 acting on the counsels of the experienced Clerk of this Court. 
 You will, with your Sisters-assistant, give the case a calm and 
 impartial consideration ; you will remember the dangers which 
 lurk behind the infringement of these Laws ; you will act so as 
 to preserve intact the Republic of Thelema ; you will give no 
 encouragement to conduct which might implant in the midst of 
 this happy retreat the seeds of jealousies, envies, and distrac- 
 tions, such as would make our Abbey no better than the outer 
 world ; you will prevent this generation of false hopes, this 
 building up of delusive confidences, with the unhappiness of the 
 final destruction of a faith built upon the sand. These things 
 are not unreal. You will, my Lady, call upon your Sisters- 
 assistant to ask their own hearts as well as the Code of Love. 
 No Code, indeed, ever yet was invented which could meet the 
 exigencies of every case. As regards the counter-charge, I 
 confess I was not prepared for it. I may, perhaps, set an ex- 
 ample to my learned Brother, by at once throwing myself upon 
 the mercies of the Court. I confess, and do not deny, that 
 there have been times when disappointment or grief at th<3
 
 X90 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 conduct of my mistress lias prevented the possibility o£ that 
 cheerful demeanour and gaiety of heart which are the duty of 
 every aspirant to Love. To this charge I plead guilty, and 
 urge in extenuation the grievous provocation which I have re- 
 ceived. 
 
 " Ladies of this most honourable Court " — the advocate raised 
 his head, v;hich he had dropped in shame during the last few 
 sentences, and looked ai'ound with a proud and confident bear- 
 ing — " I leave my case fearlessly in your hands, confident that 
 justice will be done, and, although I am sare that it is unneces- 
 sary, I venture beforehand to recommend the defendant to 
 your favourable merciful consideration. She is young, as you 
 all know ; she is beautiful, as you all know ; she is charming, as 
 you will all agree ; she is gracious and winning, even among the 
 gracious and winning ladies of this illustrious House of The- 
 lema. On these grounds, ladies, and on these alone, I pray 
 that her offence may be condoned, and that she escape with, 
 such an admonition as our Lady Abbess may think fit to besto-w 
 upon her." 
 
 Brother Lancelot, who acquitted himself at the end of his 
 speech far better than at the beginning, sat down. There was 
 just that touch of real personal feeling in his peroration which 
 gave the trial, even for those among the spectators who had 
 small sympathy Avith the Code of Love, a genuine interest. It 
 was clear that poor Tom, who, indeed, never disguised the fact, 
 was in real love with Nelly, whatever might be the feeling of 
 the other man. There was a murmur among the people in the 
 terrace which broke into loud applause. 
 
 " Si — lence !" cried the usher. " Silence in the Court." 
 
 Miranda here remarked that it was the second time this un- 
 seemly manifestation of feeling had been repressed ; that if it 
 occurred again, she should commit the whole of the visitor's for 
 contempt of Court, without the power of appeal. She re- 
 minded the offenders that such a sentence entailed their exclu- 
 sion from the Abbey, and their confinement in the large prison 
 of the outer world, among quite disagreeable and even vulgar 
 people, until they should be purged of their contempt. A 
 shudder, visible to the naked eye, ran through the crowded 
 chairs at this dreadful threat. 
 
 Miranda then invited the counsel for the defence to say what 
 he had to say. 
 
 Brother Peregrine rose immediately, and after pulling his 
 gown well over his shoulders, adjusting his square cap, and clear- 
 ing his throat, assumed a pose which was rather one of defiance 
 than of appeal, and began his oration without notes of any 
 kind, with a rapid volubility in strong contrast to the hesitation 
 and difficulty with which hia opponent began his speech. I am
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. if)i 
 
 inclined to believe that Tom's speech was written for him by 
 Desdemona, but tJjat lie altered and amended the close. On the 
 other hand, Brother Peregrine's address was undoubtedly all his 
 own. There was a cold glitter about it which held the atten- 
 tion, but it was forensic to the last degree, and lacked the 
 personality and feeling which characterised the speech for tho 
 prosecution. 
 
 " I stand here," he said, in an easy rapid way which showed 
 how little the responsibility of the position weighed upon him — 
 " I stand here engaged in the most arduous, because the most 
 responsible, of all tasks. I defend a lady from a charge which, 
 in this illustrious Abbey of Thelema, might almost be construed 
 into an imputation — my learned Brother need not rush into 
 denials — I say almost an imputation upon a reijutation as de- 
 servedly spotless as the white evening dress in which my client 
 wins all hearts. My learned Brother, whoso conscience, I re- 
 joiced to observe, overcame the recklessness with which he 
 started, so that from an accuser he became an advocate, rightly 
 mentioned one or two leading cases decided long ago in the 
 Courts of our ancestors. It is interesting and, indeed, instruc- 
 tive, to be reminded of these leading cases, even although they 
 have no bearing upon the case before the Court. Still, it is well 
 to know that those who plead in these Courts are learned in the 
 law. But my learned Brother omitted to mention those cases 
 which actually bear upon the question before us. Ladies and 
 most honourable Sisters, we must not for a moment allow our- 
 selves to lose sight of the fact that the point raised touches 
 every one of you. Nothing can be more important, no cases 
 have been more frequent, than those v.diich concern the 
 conduct of a lady towai'ds her lover or lovers. It has been 
 asked, for instance, whether the lover should prefer that the 
 lady should first kiss him, or that he should first kiss the 
 lady. The question is one on which much discussion could 
 even now be raised, and doubtless there would be differences of 
 opinion. It has been asked — and this is a question which ac- 
 tually touches the present case" — here Brother Peregrine 
 looked at his papers and picked one out from the handful which 
 he held — " It has been asked whether, if a lady has to listen to 
 a tale of love which she is about to refuse, she is justified in 
 hearing her lover to an end, or whether, in justice, she should 
 cut him short in the beginning ? I need not i-emind your Lady- 
 bhip and the Court that the decision in this case was in favour 
 tf hearing the poor man to an end. And I humbly submit that 
 the decision was guided partly out of respect to that instinct of 
 kindness in woman's heart which naturally prompts to the 
 hearing of all that could bo urged, and partly, if one may veu-
 
 192 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 turft to say so in such a presence, from a natural desire to know 
 hov/ this man in particular would put his points." 
 
 Here the Court smiled, as if both the President and the 
 Sisters-assistant had large experience in such matters. 
 
 " First, tlicn. Ladies and Sisters of the Honourable Order of 
 Thelema, ought a demoiselle to have two lovers ? Surely ; 
 that is granted by the very first laws in our Code. But, my 
 learned friend may say, she ought to show favour to one only. 
 In the end, I grant. That is the real point at issue between 
 us. In the end. Up to the present, my client, my fair, my 
 beautiful, my much-injured client, has only granted the simple 
 favour of receiving such slight attentions, such little presents 
 of flowers or ribbons or gloves as belong to the general usages 
 of society and the broader and less conventional customs of 
 Thelema. In the end, I say. But at present we are only be- 
 ginning. My learned Brother, like myself, is, as one may say, 
 in the humility of early love. What says the trouveresse .* 
 
 " ' Humbly that lover oiiglit to spoalc. 
 Who favour from his love doth seek.' 
 
 My contention " 
 
 " Do you," interrupted Miranda — "Do you confine yourcelf 
 to the Code ?" 
 
 " I do," replied the learned counsel. " But the Code is 
 illustrated, explained and annotated by the jeux-jiartis, as my 
 learned Brother has already explained. Still, if one must 
 abandon precedents and fall back upon the letter of the law, I 
 will, if you please, take the Code itself, and prove, clause by 
 clause, if necessary, that my injured, my deeply injured client, 
 has confined her operations, if I may so use the word, strictly 
 within the limits of the Code " 
 
 Here he received, from one of his clerks, a document in 
 official writing. 
 
 " I was about to remark," he went on, " when I was inter- 
 rupted by my clerk, that the Code itself will triumphantlj' bear 
 out my client, and prove that she has been no traitor to those 
 glorious laws of love which must, to the crack of doom, rule 
 every lover in gentlehood. Let me take the second — Qui non 
 celat amare nonpotest. ' He — or she — who cannot keep secret 
 cannot love.' Why, here is, in itself , sufficient ground to acquit 
 my client honourably. We will grant, if you please, that my 
 client has a secret preference for one — not necessarily the one 
 whom she has known longest — of the two aspirants. What 
 better justification for accepting the service of both, than the 
 fact that she has a secret preference for one ?" 
 
 Here the orator paused while one of his clerks poured him out 
 a glass of water, and while he looked round, expectant of
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 193 
 
 applause. There was a murmur, which mi^^ht have meant 
 ap])lanse an>»l might have meant astonishment. Tom, at his 
 desk, looked disgusted. It seemed as if the wind was being taken 
 out of his sails altogether. 
 
 "The third clause," the counsel continued, " is ' Nemoduplici 
 potest amoro ligari ' — ' No one can be bound by a twofold love.' 
 Well, my Lady and Sisters of this Honourable House, although 
 my learned Brother based his whole ai-gument upon this one 
 clause, the force of which I readily concede to him, as a matter 
 of fact, it has no bearing whatever upon the question. For, if 
 you will consider, the charge is that the lady has accepted 
 presents and service from two aspirants at the sam.e time. That 
 is so. We grant it. Does it follow that she is bound by a two- 
 fold love — that she has professed to entertain a preference for 
 both ? Ladies of Thclema, as one of the two men, I empha- 
 tically deny it." 
 
 Here Brother Lancelot arose with flushing cheeks, and asked 
 whether his learned Brother vras to be understood as speaking 
 from his own knowledge, and as conveying to the Court the 
 information that he himself. Brother Peregrine, was "egarded by 
 Sister Rosalind with no preference whatever ? 
 
 The defendant was here observed to smile. 
 
 The counsel for the defence made reply, softly : 
 
 " I speak from information given by the defendant herself. 
 I do not dare to go beyond that information. It may be, un- 
 happily for me, that Sister Rosalind has a preference for my 
 learned Brother, or had before this case came on. That may 
 be so, although there is not a tittle of evidence to submit before 
 the Court for or against that supposition. It is only when the 
 lady has accepted a lover in title as well as his simple offerings, 
 that she can be said at all amove ligari, to be bound in love. 
 But as yet the Sister Rosalind has bestowed that title on no one; 
 therefore, I maintain, she can in no sense be said m be dujylici 
 amore ligari, bound by a double love. 
 
 " This point established, I pass on to another clause which, 
 tis I shall show clearly and distinctly, makes in my favour. It 
 is written in the fourth Article : ' Semper amorem minui vel 
 cresci constat ' — ' Always must love increase or be diminished,' 
 What more rational course for my fair client to adopt than, 
 before pronouncing finally in his favour or against him, to 
 allow his passion to increase, or if it will not bear the test of 
 patience, to see it diminish, and meanwhile to gratify him, or 
 both of them, or any number of them, not one Brother only, 
 but saving the duty and devotion owed to you, most honourable 
 Ladies of the Court and Sisters of Thelema, not one Brother 
 only, I say, but all the Brothers together ? 
 
 " Let me pass over a few clauses which, without anyingenuity. 
 
 13
 
 194 THE MONKS OF THELEAfA. 
 
 could be shov/n to be so many fair and just arguments for my 
 client, whose cause, however, is so simple that she wants no 
 clause of the Code except those which at once commend them- 
 selves to all. I refer you, therefore, at once to the twelfth Law : 
 ' Amor semper consuevit ab avaritite doraiciliis exulari ' — ' Love 
 is banished from the abodes of avarice.' " 
 
 Here Brother Lancelot sprang to his feet. 
 
 " I protest," he cried hotly, "I protest against this attempt to 
 introduce an unworthy motive. Notliing, I am convinced " 
 
 The Lady President leaned forward, and interrupted him. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind, Brother Lancelot," she said, " could 
 be imputed to you, and no one could believe that you had or 
 could impute unworthy motives to the defendant. The Court, 
 indeed, is astonished that the counsel for the defence could 
 think it necessary even to allude to this clause in connection 
 with the case." 
 
 " If my learned Brother," said Brother Peregrine gently, 
 " had heard me to the end, he would have been spared the 
 necessity for his protest. Nothing was farther from my 
 intentions than to connect the vulgar vice of avarice with him 
 or with my client. It was in another sense : the avarice which 
 would grudge the smallest favours bestowed on others, the 
 avarice which is akin to jealousy, the avarice which belongs to a 
 too sensitive organisation, and which Avould make of love an 
 absolute servitude, the avarice which is a sentiment contrary to 
 the .spirit of this illustrious House of Thelema ; it is concerning 
 that avarice that I would have spoken, but I refrain. Better 
 omit some things which might be said than incur the chance of 
 misconception or misrepresentation." 
 
 The advocate shook his head and sighed sadly, as if tho 
 stupidity of the other counsel was the subject of grave pity. 
 Then he went on again. All this time the defendant, sitting 
 Avrapped in her long robe of grey, wore her hood drawn entirely 
 over her head, so that no parb of her face could be seen. 
 
 " Let us proceed, and now I shall be brief. It is written 
 again in the thii-teenth Article : ' Amor raro consuevit durare 
 vulgatis' — ' Love seldom lingers when 'tis told.' Ladies, what 
 more cogent reason for my client to disguise her preference, to 
 procrastinate, to keep all aspirants in doubt while secretly in- 
 clining to one ? In this case there are two, both Brothers of 
 this noble House of Thelema, both ready to devote themselves 
 assiduously to this one damoi.-elle. Why should she wish her 
 choice to be divulgated, if indeed she has already chosen ? 
 
 " I will, however, leave this point, and call your attention to 
 the twenty-fourth clause of the Code, which in a very remark- 
 able manner bears upon the case before the Court. " Verua 
 araaus nihil beatum credit nisi quod cogitct amanti placrre'—
 
 THE MONKS Of THELEMA. 195 
 
 ' The true lover believes nothing but what he believes will plciiso 
 the lady.' The true lover ! Mark those words. Has it, I ask. 
 pleased my deeply-injured client to be the subject of this im- 
 portant trial, to have it even insinuated that she has infringed 
 the Code of Love ? The true lover !" 
 
 Here Brother Lancelot sprang to his feet, and was about to 
 protest, when the Court ordered him to have patience. 
 
 " I will now only call your attention to two more clauses," 
 continued tlie counsel for the defence. " In the twenty-sixth 
 Article we read: ' Amor nihil posset leviter amore denegari '— 
 ' Love cannot lightly be denied of love.' My Lady Abbess and 
 Sisters of this Honourable House, what are we to think of a 
 Brother v.'ho is so lightly turned away from Love " 
 
 " I AM NOT !'" shouted Tom, springing to his feet in a real rage. 
 
 This time there was irresistible applause ; and even Sister 
 Rosalind half raised her veil as if to give her opponent one look 
 of gratitude. 
 
 " Si — lence in the Court !" cried the usher. 
 
 Miranda did not reprove this manifestation, and Brother 
 Peregrine, whose myriad crows'-feet seemed to twinkle all over, 
 and whose eyes lightened up at the interruption as if in hope of 
 a good battle of words, threw his gown behind him and stood 
 defiant. 
 
 But Tom sat down, and the applause ceased, and the Court 
 awaited the continuation of the speech, 
 
 " What shall we say," he asked, " of one who, because his mis- 
 tress accepts the service of others, thinks there is nothing left 
 for him but to go away and weep ? Lastly, ladies, I adduce, 
 without a word of cominent — because my learned Brother has 
 already dwelt too long upon this clause, from his own erroneous 
 point of view — I adduce, and beg you most carefully to re- 
 member, the thirty-first Article, in which it is asserted that 
 ' Unam foeminam nihil prohibet a duobus amari' — 'Nothing 
 prevents a damoiselle from being loved by two men.' What, 
 indeed ! — or by fifty ? And what is this case before us but an 
 exact and literal illustration of the commandment ? In acting, 
 as she has wisely chosen to act, my client, I maintain, has proved 
 herself as learned in the constitution of Love as she is, by her 
 nature and her loveliness, one of Love's fairest priestesses. 
 
 " My Lady Abbess and Sisters of this Honourable House, I 
 have said what seemed to my poor understanding the best to ba 
 said. If I have failed, which I cannot believe, in conveying to 
 you, not only the legal aspect of the case, which is clear, but also 
 "what may be called the moral aspect — I have failed if I have not 
 convinced you of the innocence of my client, even in thought. 
 My learned Brother has invited you to find against her, and to 
 mitigate the penalty. I, for my part, invito you to find for her,
 
 196 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 and to allow her all the honours of a triumphant success. To 
 his eulogium I have nothing to add. You, who value the free- 
 dom of your sex — you, who estimate rightly the value of the 
 Code by which your conduct is guided, will accord to my 
 client a fair, an honourable, and a complete acquittal." 
 
 Brother Peregrine sat down amid dead silence. There was 
 no applause at all. His speech vras brilliant, eloquent, and bril- 
 liantly delivered. But it lacked, what characterised Tom's less 
 ambitious effort, reality of feeling. It was theatrical, therefore 
 the effect was cold. 
 
 Miranda asked if the counsel for the prosecution had any- 
 thing to say in reply. 
 
 Brother Lancelot said that a great deal might be spoken in 
 answer to his learned Brother, but that he should not inflict a 
 second speech needlessly upon the Court. He contended only 
 that his original argum.ents remained untouched ; that the 
 adroit attempt of the counsel for the defence to turn a legal 
 argument into a personal attack had clearly failed ; that the 
 clauses which he ingeniously twisted and turned to suit his case 
 had nothing really to do with it ; that in the interests of order, 
 and in the maintenance of that true freedom which was the 
 pride and glory of Thelema, he prayed a conviction, but asked 
 for mitigation of penalty. 
 
 Then he sat down, and the Court proceeded to dehberate. 
 
 The case, which had been begun almost as a burlesque, or at 
 least as an unreal revival of an ancient custom, was now, owing to 
 the pleadings on either side, assuming a very real interest to the 
 spectators. It was clear that the feelings of one of the speakers 
 were very real indeed. Of that there could be no doubt ; and as 
 everybody knew perfectly well that poor Tom was only unsuc- 
 cessful on account of his poverty, and as it was suspected that the 
 fair defendant was as ready to make her open choice of Tom as 
 he was to offer his suit and service, and as there appeared in the 
 speech of Brother Peregrine a ring of flippancy, as if he was 
 only showing his cleverness, the sympathies of the audience were 
 entirely with the prosecution. Meantime, the Sisters crowded 
 round the Throne, conferred with the President in whispers, and 
 then there was an awful paxise. 
 
 The colloquy lasted a quarter of an hour, during which every- 
 body on the terrace talked in whispers. 
 
 And then there was a general rustle of dresses and movement 
 among the chairs, because the conference of the Sisters was 
 over, and they were I'cturning to their chairs. But the pages 
 who had been lying at their feet were standing now behind 
 them, and the javelin-men were gathered behind the Throne, 
 and the trumpeters were on either side of the President, and 
 vhe clerks were collecting all the papers.
 
 THE MONKS OF TilELEMA. 197 
 
 Miranda rose, and all the Court ■vrith her. Sister Kosaiind 
 advanced a step and stood before the coun-crB desk. At tha 
 first words of the President she tlirevv back her hood and stood 
 as before, pale, beautiful, and resigned. 
 
 " Sister Rosalind," said the Judge, in the clear full tones of 
 her fine contralto. " Sister Rosalind, the Court has considered 
 the case, with the assistance of the Ladies of Thelema ; we are 
 xmanimously of opinion that the continuous acceptance of 
 flowers, gloves, or ribbons from more than one aspirant is a 
 thing contrary to the Code of Love. We, therefore, find that 
 you have been guilty of an infringement of the law. At the 
 same time, the Court is equally unanimous in finding that you 
 have been led into this infringement by no unworthy motive, 
 and that your fair reputation remains unsullied. The penalty 
 inflicted by the Court is that you receive an admonition, in 
 such terms as his courtesy will allow, from the prosecutor in 
 the case. Brother Lancelot himself. And it is the pleasure of 
 this Court that the admonition be privately administered in 
 this gai'den. Before the Court rises, I have to invite our 
 friends" (Miranda looked round the terrace, full of spectators) 
 " to the Refectory of the Abbey. Hospitality has ever been 
 the duty of monastic orders, and here there is no jour maif] re.'^ 
 
 She stepped down from her Throne. The trumpets blew : 
 the band struck up a march : the pages lifted her train : 
 Brother Bayard gave her his hand, and similarly escorted, the 
 Sisters followed. After them marched Desdemona herself, her 
 brow knitted with legal problems. Then came clerks, javelin- 
 men, and the usher of the Court. 
 
 The spectators left the terrace and crowded after the proccs- 
 fiion, which made straight for the great hall. 
 
 Nobody was left but Brother Lancelot and Sister Rosalind, 
 ■who was waiting for her admonition. The garden was quite 
 empty : not a servant, not a page, was there to see. 
 
 " Oh ! Tom," she cried, throwing ofE the cloak and clapping 
 her hands. " It was lovely ; it was something to live for. 
 What can I do for you for your beautiful speech ? It was ten 
 times as good as Mr. Exton's — and because you meant it all," 
 she added softly. 
 
 " Nelly," said the admonitor, taking her hands, " you know 
 what I want you to give me." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "It cannot be . . . Poor old Tom . . . Poor Nelly." 
 
 " Then you do love me — Nell— just a little ?" 
 
 It wanted but this last touch. 
 
 " Ask me no more, for at a breath I jield," 
 lie had her two hands iu hiSj and, as he spoke, he dr^w hei
 
 iqS the monks of thelema. 
 
 gently, so that, without suspecting, her cheek met his cheek, 
 and her lips met his lips. 
 
 "Tom! Tom!" she cried. 
 
 " Do you love me, then ; do you love me, Noll ?" he per. 
 eisted. 
 
 " Tom — you know I do." 
 
 " And not that other fellow at all ?" 
 
 " No, Tom ; not at all. Only you." 
 
 This was a pretty kind of admonition to bestow upon a peni- 
 tent which followed this declaration. 
 
 All that need be said, so far as details go, is that the admoni- 
 tion lasted but a moment — fleeting indeed are all the joys of 
 life — and then she forced her hands from his grasp, and drew 
 back with a cry and a start. 
 
 " Oh ! Tom. And it can never be. Because I have got to 
 marry the other man. No ; it is no use. Mamma says so. 
 She writes to me to-day; she says that nothing else would per- 
 suade her to let me remain in this place, where one of the 
 Brothers, a gentleman by birth, wears a smock-frock, and has 
 set the irreligious and unchristian example of marrying a dairy- 
 maid. ' No one,' she says, ' can tell whose principles may not 
 be subverted by this awful act of wickedness.' And I am only 
 to wait until Mr. Exton proposes, and then to go home at 
 once." 
 
 " Oh ! And you think, Nell, that he looks like«^like pro- 
 posing ■?" 
 
 " I am sure of it, Tom, I am sorry to say." 
 
 " And you think you will marry him ?" 
 
 "Yes. i must." 
 
 " Oh !" He dug his heel in the turf, and said savagely, 
 " You must. We shall see." 
 
 When Tom led Nelly to her place in the Refectory, five 
 minutes later, she had thrown off the grey mantle and hood, as 
 he had discarded the black gown and square cap ; and she was 
 dressed, like the other Sisters, in complete twelfth century cos- 
 tume — armour. Brother Peregrine called it. She looked bright 
 and pleased ; but some of the guests, including Lord Alwyne, 
 thought there was the trace of a tear upon her cheek. How- 
 ever, the music was playing, and the feast was going on merrily, 
 and the champagne was flowing, and there were so many de- 
 lightful girls round him, that Lord Alwyne had no time to 
 look more closely. 
 
 " This is delightful," he said to Desdemona, next to whom he 
 was sitting. " This brings back one's youth : this reminds one 
 of the past. It is like a dream to see so many lovely girls all 
 together in the same place. There is no place like this Abbey 
 of yours :
 
 7 HE MONKS OF THELEMA. 199 
 
 " ' Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, 
 
 The power of beauty I remember yet.' 
 
 I am lilfe La Fontaine. I bask in their smiles when I can no 
 longer win their hearts. "Where are my glasses ? Ah ! glasses 
 — hon jour, lunettes, adieu, fillettes, as the Frenchman said. A 
 man's day is done when he v/ants glasses to see fair eyes." 
 
 " And your son ?" 
 
 " Graveairs is teaching political economy to his dairymaid. 
 I think, Desdemona, that I should have iiked myself to ad- 
 minister that admonition to Nelly all alone in the garden. But 
 no doubt Tom did it with more solemnity. And the rogue 
 looks as if it had not been an unpleasant task. I shall ask 
 Xelly, presently, to tell me in what terms he bestowed the ad- 
 monition. What would her mother have said ?" 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " ' Awav,' she ciicd, ' grave beart and solemn sighs I 
 Kiss and be merry : preacb tbe sermon after. 
 Give me tbe careless dance and twinkling eyes : 
 
 Let me be wooed ■with kisses, songs, and laughter.' " 
 
 Alma's delirium of triumph reached its climax on the Sunday 
 morning when, in self-conscious grandeur, she ambled up the 
 aisle behind her mother. Alan was not in the church, being, as 
 his fiancee presently reflected with a jealous pang, most likely 
 with Miss Dalmeny. This circumstance, however, was perhaps 
 fortunate, because even Alan's loyalty might hardly have stood 
 the test of that triumphal march up the aisle, that tossing of 
 the head which made his betrothed an object of envy to a few, 
 and of sniggering contempt to many. Those who most envied, 
 longed, and bitterly reproached the partiality of fate, were 
 especially the tAvo young ladies who just missed the golden 
 apple. What had they done that Alma alone should be singled 
 out for this special good fortune ? As for those Sisters of the 
 Order who were attending the service, feelings of quite peculiar 
 wonder and pity for their unfortunate Brother passed across 
 their minds and hindered their devotions. 
 
 Harry was not at church either, a fact which Alma speedily 
 ascertained by looking for him in his visual place. _ She was 
 sorry for that, too. She felt that she could have enjoyed fur- 
 tively contemplating his black looks. The girl was dressed in 
 a simple stuff, which Alan asked her mother, whose taste he 
 could trust, to buy for her. She resented the simplicity of the 
 costume, which she would have preferred, I think, made up in 
 red velvet) the splendiour of which would have increased the
 
 200 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 envy of otlicr maidens, and she resented certain enforced re- 
 strictions as to ribbons, of which she would have liked an 
 assortment in various colours. But she had the sense to give 
 way, on the hint from her mother that Mr. Dunlop would prefet 
 a quiet dress. 
 
 " You've got," said her mother severely, " to try and be a 
 lady — to look at, I mean — if you can. I've never intfcrfered with 
 your bits of finery, though raany's the time it's gone to my 
 heart to see a gell of mine go about for all the world like a gipsy 
 wench round a may-pole. But I know what Mr. Dunlop is 
 used to, and you've got to take my advice now. Lord ! Lord ! 
 What an unnatural thing it is, to be sure !" 
 
 " As if I was the only girl in the world that a gentleman has 
 fallen in love with." 
 
 " Fallen in love !" echoed her mother. " Fallen in love, 
 indeed ! And with you ! Why, what's your good looks com- 
 pared to Miss Miranda or Miss JSTelly or any of the young ladies 
 at the Court ? And what's your silly saucy ways compared 
 with their beautiful talk ? And what sort of manners have you 
 got, I should like to know, compared with theirs ? Fallen in 
 love ! It's all a part of the poor young gentleman's craziness." 
 
 She Avent about her work, this unnatural mother, with lips 
 that moved in silent talk, because she was greatly disturbed iu 
 her mind. It seemed to her honest soul like treachery towards 
 the memory of her dead mistress. And, as she told Alma, sho 
 knew ladies, and she knew the waj^s that gentlemen are used to. 
 
 '* Your manners !" she went on, piling it up— this sort of 
 truth-hearing is really very painful. " Whatever in the world 
 Irlr. Dunlop will say rdien he sees you sit at your dinner, I don't 
 know. You take your victuals — well, you take 'em like your 
 father. And I can't say wor?e for you." 
 
 " You had better tell father so," returned Alma. " But, 
 mother, now," she put on her coaxing way, " if you'll tell me, 
 little by little, you know, because I can't learn it all at onco, 
 what I'll have to alter, 111 try. I really will. And you should 
 like to see me a real lady, shouldn't you ?" 
 
 But Mrs. Bostock shook her head. 
 
 " I shall never see that," she said. " Ladies are born and 
 bred, not ma'ie to order. Lord bless you, child, you'll never 
 make more tlian a tin-kettle lady." 
 
 This was not the opinion of her father, who accepted the 
 position as one due to the singular merit of his daughter and 
 the fact of his own training. The Bailiff, in fact, spent hia 
 time, now, chiefly in self-la,udation. He assumed the importance 
 which seemed to befit the post of the Squire's father-in-law. 
 He went to market and talked loudly of his son-in-law : he 
 more than hinted at important changes about to be made in the
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 20: 
 
 management of the estates : and he patronised those large 
 tenants to whom he had before been servile. 
 
 Needless to say that the voice of popular opinion, as expressed 
 by the tenan'-3, was that the Squire, of Avhose sanity there had 
 long been grievous doubt, was now gone stark-staring mad. 
 Some among them wanted to get up a deputation to Lord 
 Alwyne asking for advice and assistance ; but this fell through. 
 
 Alma's hours of triumph were fewer than those which her 
 father enjoyed. To sit in church and feel that the eyes of 
 Weyland maidenhood were on you, with looks of envy and 
 longing, was grand. But during the long week, the six days of 
 labour, there was no such soul-ennobling solace to be got. All 
 day long, the future mistress of Weyland Court went on Avith 
 her accustomed labour : milked the cows and fed the fowls ; 
 made the butter and peeled the potatoes. 
 
 " I thought," she said to her mother, " that you wanted me 
 to be a lady. Ladies don't scour milk-pans." 
 
 " If ladies don't scour milk-pans,'' replied the woman of 
 experience, " they do something else. If you didn't do the 
 housework, you'd sit with your hands in your lap, or you'd go 
 out and get into mischief. That's not the way to be a lady. 
 Talk o' you gells ! You think that a lady's got nothing to do 
 but lazy away her idle time. I haven't patience with you. And 
 you to marry a gentleman !'' 
 
 Before this unlucky engagement Mrs. Bostock had got on 
 fairly well with her daughter. There were skirmishes, dexterous 
 exchanges of rapier-thrusts between tongues as sharp as steel, 
 in which one gave and the other took, or the reverse, with equal 
 readiness. And neither bore malice. Also, both stood side by 
 side against the common enemy. Stephen Bostock, as parent 
 and husband, was alternately morose and ferocious. In the 
 former mood he had to be met with silence or short answers ; in 
 the latter he had to be stood up to. When he was meditating 
 schemes of plunder he was morose : when his schemes failed, 
 which generally happened, because success in roguery requires 
 as much acuteness as success in honest undertakings, he became 
 ferocious. And on those occasions it would have been delightful 
 for the bystander, were there any, to witness hov/, by full facers 
 from his wife and half-aside " cheek " from his daughter, the 
 unhappy man would be goaded into rages which left nothing to 
 be desired except a victim. " Very handy," as Harry Cardew 
 observed — " Very handy he was, 'cept when there was a man 
 about." But of late years he had abstained, probably from fear 
 of the consequences, from actually carrying his threats into 
 execution and beating his offspring into a mash. 
 
 Things had gone badly with the Bostocks until the head of 
 the house was appointed Baililf, Then, things went better.
 
 202 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 As it was easy to cheat the Squire, and operations of quite an 
 extensive character be§an with the very commencement, gloomy 
 moroseness became the silence of thoughtful reflection, and 
 habitual ferocity was softened into the occasional " damn." But, 
 in this sudden and unexpected access of good fortune, the 
 chances of Harry Cardew sank lower and lower. The honest 
 gamekeeper found himself more and more unwelcome at the 
 farmhouse, until one day, a few months before Alma's engage- 
 ment, he was informed in no measured terms by the Bailiff, 
 that a young man of like calling and social position with him- 
 self could by no means be accepted as a candidate for his 
 daughter's hand. The Bailiii put his point in coarse but vigorous 
 English. It made a short sentence, and it left no possible room 
 for doubt or mistake. He weakened it by a threat of personal 
 violence which, addressed to the young giant before him from 
 one so puffy and out of condition as himself, was ludicrous ; 
 but the rule, as lawyers say, was absolute. Harry must cease 
 his visits. 
 
 And presently came this rosy, this sapphire-and-amaranth- 
 tinted position of things ; when the Bailiffs daughter, not of 
 Islington but of Weyland, was actually engaged to be married 
 to the Squire and the son of the Squire. Then it was that 
 Stephen Bostock assumed the airs of superiority which so riled 
 and offended the farmers. Then it was that he became all at 
 once the loving, even the doating, father. Then it was that he 
 walked the fields in the evening revolving gi'eat dreams of agri- 
 cultural rule. Then it was that he looked through the veil 
 which generally hides the misty ways of futurity, and saw him- 
 self, Stephen Bostock, living in great splendour, held in much 
 honour of all men, drinking quantities of brandy and water 
 among a circle of worshippers, and smoking a pipe among other 
 pipes, r.U of which were myrrh and frankincense offered to him- 
 self, the wise, the crafty, the successful Bostock. Then it was 
 that he began to fondle, to caress, and to cuddle his only child, 
 until his endearments became painful, even insuft'erable, to the 
 young lady ; and she would run away and hide herself to got 
 out of his way. And then it was that he discovered that his 
 M'ife, whom he had hitherto reverenced as a person intimately 
 acquainted, through her experience as lady's-maid, with the 
 habits, customs, and predilections of the aristocracy, v/as really 
 nothing better than a shallow pretender to this kind of know- 
 ledge, because she objected, from the very beginning, to bar 
 daughter's engagement with the Squire. 
 
 " You may swear, Stephen," she would say, what time Alma 
 was in bed and her husband was contemplating things through 
 the rosy light which comes of the third or fourth tumbler of 
 grog — " You may swear, Stephen, as much as you like. And
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 203 
 
 what a man would do without swearing, smoking, and drinking, 
 the Lord only knows. Swearing can't make things different ; 
 and it's unnatural. It's unnatural, I say." 
 
 Vv^lien Stephen first found his appropriate adjective for the 
 situation, he slapped his leg in rejoicing. When Mrs. Bostock 
 found hers, she cut the thread with which she was working — 
 being a woman who was perpetually sewing — with a sharper 
 snap than usual. 
 
 Stephen swore again, but with a murmurous tone of satis- 
 faction, because the light upon the future was growing more 
 roseate, more beautiful. 
 
 " A son-in-law," he said, " as is the Squire of this great 
 state ; a son-in-law worth — ah ! — his twenty thousand a year ; 
 a son-in-law as is, between you and me, wife, a little loose in 
 the upper story ; that kind o' son-in-law doesn't grow on every 
 bush, and is to be encouraged when he does come. Encouraged 
 he shall be. Fooled he shall be, if I can fool him. And hen- 
 pecked he will be, for sure and certain, when our Alma once gets 
 her tongue free, and her tail well up, and lier claws out. And 
 as regards wild cats, I will say that, for a wild cat, once you 
 wake her up, there's no gell in all Weyland like my gell." 
 
 " Yes," said her mother, " she's the Bostock temper. As for 
 my family, we're that meek " 
 
 '' You are," replied the husband, finishing his tumbler : " you're 
 
 as meek as the Irish pig " He did not explain this allusion, 
 
 which remains obscure. 
 
 It will be seen that these influences were not the highest or 
 the most promising which could be brought to bear on the mind 
 of a young woman about to marry a young man oppressed with 
 great possessions. But Alma had been brought up under them, 
 and knew no other. It will also be seen that the outlook to 
 Alan, in search of a helpm.eet, would have seemed to him, had 
 he known as much as we know, sufficiently dark. 
 
 All day long spent in household and dairy labour : and then, 
 alas ! all the evening to be got throutrh with her unintellisiible 
 lover. Poor Alma ! Poor bride-elect ! They talked and walked, 
 these fine July evenings, chiefly in the garden of the farm, that 
 long strip of ground planted with raspberry-canes and goose- 
 berry-bushes, and walled on either hand by an apple orchard. 
 In the dusk and sweet summer twilight tliey walked up and 
 down the narrow walk, arm in arm, while Alan discoursed and 
 Alma tried to listen, failed to understand, and let her thoughts 
 run off on Harry. More than once she saw the unlucky game- 
 keeper at the garden gate, looking wistfully into the garden like 
 the Peri into Paradise, and her heart leaped up, and it wanted 
 but a word, a beckoning, a gesture from her humble lover to 
 make her dare all, throw down the ring of King Cophetua, and
 
 204 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 rush to the place whet'e she would fain be, the arms of the mas 
 who knew her for what she was, and did not beheve her to be a 
 saint. 
 
 For really, poor Mr. Dunlop was too unbearable. 
 
 Does any girl, could any girl, like being improved after hot 
 engagement or her marriage ? I once knew a man who was 
 very, very intellectual. He was quite familiar with everything 
 that is lofty, abstruse, and unintelligible ; he read his Fort- 
 nightly with more regularity than he read his Bible ; he lived, 
 so to speak, and found his nourishment entirely in the Higher 
 Criticism ; Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer were far, far be- 
 hind him ; and yet he used to clasp his two hands across his 
 massive brow, and say that what we want — meaning mankind 
 at large, including himsrelf— is More Brain Power. This man 
 married a wife, and resolved, as he told all his friends, upon 
 moulding her. Many men have resolved upon moulding their 
 wives, and have not discovered until too late that their wives 
 have moulded them. My friend began very much as Alan 
 Dunlop began, only mutatis mutandis. He did not lecture her, 
 or teach her. He got her a ticket for the British Museum 
 Library, took her there, and looked out useful books for her to 
 I'ead— Mill, Bain, and Spencer, the elementary prophets. No 
 one, of course, will be surprised to hear the end of this mourn- 
 ful reminiscence. The young wife made the acquaintance of a 
 young man who sat next to her, and was engaged at a low wage 
 in the Translation Department of the eminent publishers, 
 Messrs. Roguepogue, Gulchit, and Co. I believe he Avas weak 
 in French, and used to ask his fair neighbour for help in diffi- 
 cult passages. One day they went out at luncheon-time together. 
 Neither of them returned their books, and neither of them ever 
 came back again. And there was great unpleasantness after- 
 wards. 
 
 Similarly, there is the well-known case of the aesthetic man 
 — one is almost ashamed to quote it — who Manted to train his 
 wife in true principles of Art, and used to carry her about to 
 Picture Galleries and make her sit for hours in front of Martyrs 
 and Saints going to be tortured, till she grew at last to take a 
 savage and unchristian pleasure in thinking that those heads 
 with the golden halos held on one side and those figures stuck 
 out ecclesiastically stilt', v/ould shortly be roasting at the stake. 
 She revenged herself by dressing one night, when they were 
 dining with quite awfully festhetic people in a costume of red, 
 green, and yellow. Her husband caught sight of it in the 
 middle of dinner. They carried him away, and his wife went 
 with him. Just as he rallied and came round, he saw it again. 
 In his weak condition, it was too much. She is a widow now, 
 with no taste at all for Ai't. 
 Alan Dunlop, rapidly discoverin/j that his future wife was
 
 THE MONKS OB THELEMA. 205 
 
 not as yet quite the young person he had dreamed of, resolved, 
 hke our friends, the Intellectual and the Artistic Prigs, to 
 " mould " his wife. 
 
 He moulded her in two waj-s. 
 
 First, he lent her books to read. 
 
 The books he chose were those to which he owed, he thought, 
 the ideas which most governed his own life. Among these 
 were Ruskin's Ti\-o Paths, the Sesame and Lilies, and a selection 
 from the Fors Clarigera. He forgot that what a man takes 
 away from a book is precisely what he brings to it, only that 
 much developed, that his mind is like the soil already planted, 
 digged about for air and light, and weeded of fahe notions. 
 Alma, poor girl, brought nothing to the study of the Fers but 
 a blank mind. She understood no single word. First, she did 
 try to read the books : read on, page after page, although the 
 words had no meaning, and, when she put the volumes down, 
 left nothing behind them but a sort of blurr, haze, and bad 
 dream of meaningless sentences which seemed to follow her, to 
 whisper their gibberish in her ear, and to haunt her dreams at 
 night like devils and ghosts. That plan would clearly never do. 
 Then she hit upon another. She would learn a bit and try to 
 repeat it, to show that she really had read the v/hole. This 
 succeeded tolerably the first evening, but on the second she 
 broke down suddenly and horribly, collapsed, went off into non- 
 sense, and finally foundered altogether. 
 
 The second method adopted by Alaa was to lecture his 
 fiancee. 
 
 He spent hours every day in expounding the elementary 
 principles of Lis philosophy, and he hoped that she would 
 readily grasp the science in which women are supposed to have 
 done so much — social and political economy. He hoped that 
 she would become a second Harriet Martineau. As a matter of 
 fact, I believe that the success of women in Political Economy 
 is due to their acceptance of unproved theories as if they were 
 truths demonstrated beyond all doubt. By this method they 
 have built up a structure which spiteful people say will go to 
 nieces in the first gale of wind. However, Alma listened, and 
 understood nothing. The lecturer went on, but his words 
 poured into her ears while her thoughts were far away. 
 
 And then there followed a very curious state of things. 
 
 While Alan talked. Alma allov/ed her thoughts to w^ande^ 
 away. She listened mechanically, prepared to smile and mur- 
 mur when his voice ceased for a moment. Now, after the first 
 preamble with which Alan opened up the subject of his engage- 
 ment and exposed his reasons, he took it for granted that Alma 
 understood exactly why he wanted to marry her and how they 
 were to live. Alma, who bad forgotten all about the preamble,
 
 2o6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 w'.iich she never understood, looked on her marriage as elevation 
 to the rank of a lady, dreamed continually of Weyland Court, 
 a-nd let Alan go on talking of their future in his obscure man- 
 ner without interruption. That she was to go on living in the 
 village would have seemed too absurd. Far better brave all 
 and marry Harry Cardew. 
 
 But what a lover ! And what an engagement ! And never 
 a kiss, never a hand-squeeze, never the least sigh ; only a grave 
 " How do you do, Alma ?" or " Good-night, Alma," with a cold 
 shake of the hand and a look of those deep, grave, blue eyes, 
 which always when they met her own made the country girl 
 tremble and shake to think of long days and nights to be spent 
 always beneath their solemn, almost reproachful gaze. 
 
 What a lover ! What an engagement ! And, oh ! bliss — to 
 run out for five minutes only, when Mr. Dunlop was gone, to 
 meet Harry in the orchard, and he with his arm round her 
 waist like a man, and ready with his hone&t old lips upon her 
 cheek. And, ah ! Heaven ! if her father, or her mother, or 
 Mr. Dunlop himself should ever know ! 
 
 After the political economy Alan proceeded to the difficulties 
 which more immediately occupied him, connected with the re- 
 form of the lower classes. He gave her a lecture on temper- 
 ance, which was not needed because her father, no doubt from 
 the higherst of motives, had frequently enacted the Helot 
 before her ; and, like all women of her class, she regarded 
 drink with the loathing that comes of experience. Then he 
 spoke of woman's influence over other women. 
 
 Alma regarded this as a question of authority. Had she 
 been placed over half a hundred maids, she would have ruled 
 them ail, or known the reason why ; and she failed to compre- 
 hend what Alan meant when he talked beautifully about the 
 common bond of womanhood, and the sweetness of woman's 
 sympathy with other women. Alma thought of Black Bess, 
 and regretted that she was not strong enough to shake her, be- 
 cause she knew that young person to be harbouring thoughts of 
 malice and revenge against herself. 
 
 Alan went on to talk of the sympathies of class with class, 
 of the natural tendency of human nature to form itself into 
 Btrata, of the difficulties of passing from one to the other. 
 Alma thought that she herself would pass with the greatest 
 ease from the lower to the higher — and of the helpful nature 
 of alliances formed between members of one and another. " He 
 is really quite mad," thought the girl. And he tried to draw a 
 picture of a pair living together, devoted like any Comtist to 
 the enthusiasm of Humanity : working out problems in civilisa- 
 tion, leading upwards to the Higher Culture whole droves oi 
 emock-frocks, navvies, roughs, 'whose principal delights thereto
 
 THE MONKS OF l^HELEMA. 207 
 
 fore had been beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, leaning against 
 poshs, and kicking their wives. 
 
 " Harry," cried Alma one evening, after nearly a week of this_ 
 " he most drives me mad, he does ! Either he talks like a 
 schoolmaster, or else he talks like a parson in a pulpit. He's not 
 like a man. Preach ? Every day and all day. And goodness 
 gracious only knows what he says. What does he take me for ?" 
 
 "Heart up, pretty," said Harry. "Heart up. He shan't 
 have you. Never you fear." 
 
 " Ah !" she sighed sentimentally. " I should like to be mis- 
 tress of Weyland Court. That would be grand, if he wasn't 
 there too. A.nd yet to have him always looking at me with 
 these solemn eyes of his, as if — well — as if he was going to 
 begin another sermon ; it's hardly worth it, Harry. And after 
 all, everybody must like a man better than a preaching doll. 
 And true love — oh ! Harry — what a thing that is to read about 
 in the story-books !" 
 
 " Ay — Alma — it is. True Love will wash, as the song says !" 
 
 " And then — " she burst into a low laugh — " only think, 
 Harry, what a rage father would be in. He'd go round — how 
 he would go round ! And he couldn't beat me to a mash, as he 
 used to say he would, because — " 
 
 " Because," said Harry, huskily, " I'd beat any man to a hun- 
 dred mashes as offered to raise his hand again my little girl." 
 
 CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 ""We may lire so happy tlicra 
 That the spirits of the air, 
 Envying lis, may even entice 
 To our healing paradise 
 The polluting multitude." 
 
 Miranda allowed a fortnight to pass after Alan's engagement 
 before she drove over to make a closer acquaintance with the 
 young lady, her future sister-in-law, as she began to say to her- 
 self. Mrs. Bostock was a friend of many years' standing, but 
 with her daughter Miranda had but little intercourse, and with 
 the great Stephen Bostock, her husband, none at all. It was 
 therefore lucky that when she drove over to the farm, the 
 Bailiff, whose approaching connection with the Great caused him 
 to assume overwhelming airs, graces, and ease of familiarity, was 
 out on the farm, bullying the labourers. Alma, too, was down in 
 the village on some quest of her own, and Mrs. Bostock alone 
 Was in the place to receive her visitor. 
 Bhe was ashamed aud confused, this es-ladj's maid. It
 
 2o8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 seemed a dreadful thing to her that Miss IMiranda, of all peopU 
 in the world, should come to her house under the circumstances. 
 For, like everybody else, she regarded her daughter as one about 
 to step into the place long reserved for Miss Dalmeny. 
 
 " Oh ! dear, Miss Miranda," she cried. " Is it you ? Come 
 in, do. And I more than half ashamed to look you in the face. 
 Let him walk the pony into the shade. And where will you 
 sit ? In the porch ? Well, it is fresh and airy here, with the 
 flowers and all. And how well you are looking, and what a 
 lovely frock you've got on ! But you always were as beautiful 
 as flowers in May." 
 
 " Perhaps the fine feathers make a fine bird, Mrs. Bostock." 
 
 But Mrs. Bostock shook her head. 
 
 " No," she said. " That's what they say, but it's nonsense. 'Tis 
 but a jay in peacock's plumes, all done and ended. That's what 
 I say to Alma : ' Trick yourself out,' I say, 'just as you like,' 
 It's what I say to Bostock, and it makes him mad. ' Put what 
 you like on the gell,' I say, ' and she's Alma Bostock still.' 
 
 Lady ? Not a bit of a lady. You might " her eyes wandered 
 
 from the flower to the vegetable garden. " You might as well 
 plant a onion in the flower-bed and think you'll get a tulip." 
 
 " I came to see you on purpose about Alma." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock, a little relieved by the declaration of sentiments 
 which, she felt, did her credit in Miranda's eyes, sat down in the 
 porch opposite her visitor with folded hands. It was a pretty 
 little rustic porch, with roses and honeysuckle climbing about 
 the sides, like a cottage-porch on the stage. 
 
 " Yes," Miranda repeated ; " I came to see you about Alma, 
 now that she is going to be a kind of sister-in-law." 
 
 " No, Miss Miranda, I won't have that said. There's shame 
 and foolishness ah'eady in letting her marry Master Alan to 
 gratify a whim. Don't let her never say that she's your 
 sister-in-law. Sister, indeed ! I'd sister her. And nothing 
 but misery before him." 
 
 This way of looking at things disconcerted Miranda, who had 
 expected a sort of apologetic triumph. 
 
 " Why misery ?" she asked. 
 
 " For every reason. Miss Miranda," said Mrs. Bostock. " First, 
 Mr. Dunlop don't care for the gell, not as a gell should be cared 
 for ; and second, the gell don't care for him. And if that 
 wasn't enough, I ask you what pleasure in life can he have Avith 
 a gell who isn't a lady ? And nothing will make her a lady 
 neither." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock spoke from her experience of gentlefolk, and 
 what she said was true enough, as JMiranda very well knew. 
 
 "But the case is unusual," she pleaded. "Alan wants to 
 marry a girl v/ho "will help him in his plans of life. Surely.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 209 
 
 Mrs. Bost3ck, you must own that be is the most disinterested 
 and the noblest of men." 
 
 " StufP an' nonsense !" replied the Bailiff's wife. " Let poor 
 people alona to worry through in their own way. And as for 
 Alma helping him, if ever she is his wife, which I can't believe 
 will ever be, so unnatural it is, she won't stir her little finger 
 for anybody but herself. And as for joining in this, that, and 
 the other, all she thinks about now, day and night, is to be 
 mistress of Weyland Court. And if it wasn't for that I don't 
 believe even her father would make her marry him." 
 
 " Oh ! but, Mrs. Bostock. Your own daughter !" 
 
 " If a mother don't know her ovv'n child, no one knows her. 
 Alma's growed up at my a[)ron- strings, and I know her ways 
 There's only one thing for har, and that's a strong man whom 
 slie will be afraid of. She's afraid of Mr. Dunlop, in a wa«7 ; 
 but not the way I mean ; and when she's got over her shyness 
 v/ith him, she'll begin her tricks. Why, already, she's deceived 
 him at every turn." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " He gives her books to read. She pretends to read them. 
 She learns little bits and says them by heart, so as to make him 
 think that she has read them all. Deep ? There's no telling 
 how deep the gell is. After all, we were all gells once, and 
 many's the time I've told a fib to my lady when I ran out for a 
 minute, to meet my Stephen in the stable-yard. But then I 
 was not going to stick myself up for a lady." 
 
 There was a certain amount of personal jealousy in Mrs. 
 Bostock's feelings. She had hitherto prided herself in her 
 lady's-maid's position and the knowledge it gave her of gentle- 
 folks' ways. Now, this superiority, as soon as her daughter 
 was promoted to the actual position of a lady, would be reft 
 from her. Also, she had a genuine feeling that the honour of 
 the Dunlop family was impugned by this mesalliance. Keedless 
 to repeat that her husband sympathised with neither of these 
 feelings, but, on the contrary, used violent language on what 
 he was pleased to consider the unnatural attitude of a mother. 
 
 It was not pleasant for JMiranda to hear that the girl on whom 
 Alan built such hopes was beginning with little deceptions. 
 
 " But, Mrs. Bostock," she said, trying to make an excuse, 
 " Alma is very young, and we must make allowances. She 
 docs not understand that it would be better to tell him clearly 
 that the books are at present too hard for her. She will find 
 out, presently, that it is best to have no concealment from 
 him." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock sniffed, and tossed her head. 
 
 " You young ladies," she said, " little know. What with shifts 
 and straits, and bad temper, and violent ways, most gells go ou 
 
 14
 
 210 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 
 
 for ever with some deception or anotlier. Sometimes I wonder 
 if I was ever so sly. And they think that no one sees through 
 them." 
 
 " It is because they do not know," said Miranda, " how much 
 better it always is to be perfectly and entirely open with every- 
 body." 
 
 " It's their nature to," said Mrs. Bostock. 
 
 " But you must let me do what I can," Miranda continued. 
 " If Alma will let me be her friend, one may do a great deal 
 more by talking, and — and by example, than by finding fault. 
 I want to help her for the sake of Alan, you knoAv, entirely." 
 
 " Yes, Miss Mira.nda, I do know. And after being with him 
 for so many years like— like -" 
 
 " Like brother and sister." 
 
 " Like brother and sister together, it must be nothing short 
 of dreadful to see him take up with our Alma." 
 
 " Not quite dreadful," said Miranda kindly. " Of course we 
 should all have preferred to see him marry in his own rank." 
 
 " And Lord Alwyne, too ! Poor dear gentleman !" sighed 
 Mrs. Bostock with real sympathy. " But there — here's Alma 
 coming home with the fal-lals she went out to buy." 
 
 Alma pushed open the garden-gate and tripped up the walk 
 with her light elastic step. 
 
 " She is a pretty girl," Miranda said, watching her from the 
 porch. 
 
 Pretty she certainly was. And this afternoon she looked 
 animated, happy, and bright, with a flush in her cheek and a 
 light in her eye. She had, indeed, succeeded in squeezing a 
 sovereign out of her mother — part of certain money entrusted to 
 Mrs. Bostock by Alan for her behalf — and had gone to the village 
 shop to get the fal-lals imported especially for her from Athel- 
 ston. On the way she had met Black Bess and interchanged a 
 few compliments, in which she felt herself to have the supe- 
 riority. Had Alan heard these remarks, he would not have felt 
 happier. She wore the grey stuff dress with blue ribbons which 
 her mother had made for her ; she had a light straw hat upon 
 her head, and her long bright hair lay in curls and waves over 
 her shoulders. 
 
 I regret to say that at sight of Miranda the light went out 
 of Alma's eyes, the smiles from her lips, the brightness from 
 her forehead. She turned quite pale, save for an angry red 
 spot in either cheek. This was the real lady, the lady whom 
 she could ape but never imitate, the lady whoni her mother held 
 up to her as the impossible standard, and Mr. Dunlop as the 
 standard to which he would have her attain. She was sick of 
 Miss Dalmeny's name. " Miranda," said Mr. Dunlop, " thinks 
 60 and so ;" or, " Miranda wouid. I believe., advise you in such
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 211 
 
 a •way ;" or, " Miranda would like you to act in this ov the other 
 W'.ay." Always at school, always engaged upon a hopeless copy, 
 of which Miss Dalmeny was the model. 
 
 And only five minutes before Black Bess had taunted her 
 with the accusation that, though engaged to marry Mr. Dunlop, 
 everybody knew that ]\Iiss Dalmeny was the only woman he 
 truly loved, as she, poor Alma, would surely find out to her cost, 
 when it was too late. And she added, this kind and friendly 
 maiden, that she sincerely pitied her, and had done, ever since 
 she persuaded Mr. Exton, by promising she only knew what, to 
 give her the golden apple. 
 
 Therefore it is quite comprehensible that Alma was not 
 delighted to see Miranda, or desirous of forming a close alliance 
 with her. 
 
 " How do you do. Alma ?" said Miranda, keeping her hand 
 for a little. " I would not come for a few days after I heard of 
 your engagement, because I wanted you to feel a little settled 
 first. I hope we shall be very good friends." 
 
 " Alma should be proud and grateful," said her mother. 
 
 Alma said nothing. Miranda saw by the gleam of her eyes 
 that she Vfas neither proud nor grateful, only, for some reason of 
 her own, resentful. But Miranda was not to be beaten. What 
 reason had the girl to be resentful ? 
 
 " I am going into the village to the library, Alma," she said. 
 " Will you turn back and come with me ? Unless you are tired. 
 We shall find Alan there, very likely." 
 
 " I am not at all tired," said Alma reluctantly, because she 
 neither wanted to see Alan herself, nor did she want Miranda 
 to see him alone. " I will go back with you." 
 
 She tossed her paper package on the bench and turned to 
 walk down the garden path, leading the way in a sullen and 
 defiant manner, not pretty at all, nor significant of the Higher 
 Culture. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock shook her head. 
 
 " Jealousy, that is," she said. "Alma's jealous of you. Miss 
 Miranda. Well— to think that I should live to see my daughter 
 ealous of Miss Dalmeny !" 
 
 It was not pride, but in sorrow that she spoke. 
 
 Alma volunteered no remark on the way to the library, but 
 she was glad to see in the distance Black Bess herself at an open 
 window, watching her as she walked side by side with Miss 
 Dalmeny. There were, then, compensations. It was something 
 to walk side by side with the only woman — and she a lady — 
 whom Mr. Dunlop truly loved, and to feel that she would not 
 let him. Miranda tried to set the girl at her ease, but in vain, 
 Alma was sulky and awkward. 
 
 14-2
 
 212 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Will you come to Dalmeny Hall, and stay with me, Alma ?'^ 
 she asked. 
 
 " Stay with you, Miss Miranda ?" Alma opened her eyes 
 wide. 
 
 •' Yes ; we are very quiet at the Hall, if you do not mind that. 
 I must make your acquaintance now, and we must be very 
 good friends for the future." 
 
 Alma murmured something in reply, she hardly knew what. 
 She was walking with Miss Dalmeny. Black Bess was watch- 
 ing her with envy and all uncharitableness, which was like 
 blackberry jam to her heart, and Miss Dalmeny was inviting 
 her to stay at the Hall. 
 
 To stay at the Hall ! To be sure, there would be something 
 truly awful in the way of perpetual good manners to put up 
 with, and how ladies and gentlemen can endure to be always on 
 tiptoe was beyond poor Alma's comprehension. But then the 
 grandeur : to think how her father would go round like a 
 turkeycock in the farmyard, with swelling breast and head 
 erect, proclaiming that his girl was at Dalmeny Hall ! Perhaps 
 she had been wrong to be so full of jealousy and sulkiness. 
 Perhaps Miss Dalmeny meant well after all ; very likely she 
 ■thought that, as she could not have Alan for herself, it would 
 be well to make friends with those who could. 
 
 Perhaps, too, she had not grasped the whole possibilities of 
 the situation. As she walked demurely by the side of the 
 young lady she became conscious of the extraordinary difference 
 between her own frock and Miss Dalmeny 's costume. And 
 without realising that to wear such a costume required an 
 education, she at once began to build dreams in her own mind 
 of how such a dress, with such a hat and such gloves, should be 
 her own. No doubt at sight of them Black Bess would fairly 
 burst with spite. 
 
 In the midst of this pleasing dream they arrived at the 
 Library. 
 
 Of course it was not to be expected that anybody would be 
 there on this hot July afternoon, when the boys and girls were 
 sleepily droning to the master in the school, the schoolmaster 
 was sleepily droning to the boys and girls, the cobbler was 
 falling asleep over his work and his latest work on Atheism, 
 the very labourers in the fields — it was just before the harvest — 
 were sleepily contemplating the golden grain about to fall 
 beneath their sickles, and even the Bailiff was sleepily musing 
 on the greatness of the future. All the world was sleepy, all 
 the world was at rest, and the white walls of the Library — the 
 ex-Dissenting Chapel — looked thirsty, hot, and unin\-iting. 
 Two habitues, however, were within it, the usual two — Alan 
 Dunlop, reading and making notes &,t the table, which, by
 
 THE MONKS UF THELEMA. 213 
 
 constant use, he had made his own ; and Prudence Driver, tho 
 librarian. She, poor thinj, was en^a^cd in a statistical return 
 — Alan Dunlop was as exigcant in the matter of statistical 
 returns as the Education Department. She was carefully 
 extracting from her book the solid crumbs of comfort : such afj 
 that an inquirer had taken Euclid from the shelves once during 
 the year — she omitted to mention tliat he brought the 
 philosopher back in five minutes with an apology : she noted 
 down the gratifying fact that Mill's Works had been twice 
 taken from the shelves, once knocked down by accident, and 
 once asked for by mistake ; she found, to her joy, that inquiries 
 had been made (by the Squire, but she did not say so) after 
 Darwin, Carlyle, Tennyson, Froudc, Huxley, Freeman, 
 Swinburne, IMorris, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer, and ' 
 Alexander Bain ; that Robert Browning's latest poems had 
 been taken down — by the Vicarage girls, though this did not 
 appear ; and that works not in the librarj', such as Volney, 
 Toland, Voltaire's Dictionnaire Pldlosophique, Clarke's Critical 
 Review, and such, had been asked after more than once. In 
 fact, it was the cobbler, who, whenever he was a little drunk, 
 used to drop in and terrify the girl by demanding these and 
 other atheistical productions. As for the remaining books in 
 request, they were vain and frivolous things, novels, story- 
 books, travel books, anything but such as inform the intellect 
 and advance knowledge. And yet, when Prudence Driver's 
 sheet of returns was complete, it was such as a statistical 
 IMember of Parliament would have contemplated with the 
 keenest satisfaction. " Can we," he might have asked, " can 
 we any longer speak of the backward state of our village 
 education, when in a small place of five hundred inhabitants 
 such a return is possible? What do we see? Euclid, Mill, 
 Bain, Spencer, Carlyle, Huxley, DaL-win, Arnold, and Tennyson 
 iu eager request ; Volney, Toland, and Voltaire asked for— 
 what would honourable members wish for more, even in the 
 Bodleian or the University Library of Cambridge ?" 
 
 The quiet, pale-faced girl, who alone, with Miranda, believed 
 in the young Reformer, looked up eagerly as the visitors entered 
 the library. Perhaps it might be some new convert to the glories 
 of self -culture, somebody really wanting to read Mill. No. It 
 was ]Mi-s Miranda, and with her— Alma. At sight of her Pru- 
 «ience Driver resumed her task, a set gloom suddenly developing 
 on her, face. Alma Bostock represented the one false, the 
 fatally Vc o move taken by Mr. Dunlop. Her instinct told her 
 that there Tould be nothing in common between her Prophet 
 and a girl whose character and conduct were of the most 
 frivolous. And here was IMiss Miranda r.ctuslly walking about 
 with her ! Did they not know, then ?
 
 214 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " You, Miranda, and Alma ! And together ! This is vei*y 
 kind, Miranda," cried Alan, starting from his chair. " What 
 brings you here ?" 
 
 " I was calling on Alma, and we thought we would come down 
 here and find you out," Miranda replied, speaking for Alma as 
 well as herself. " We wanted to know how you are getting 
 on?" 
 
 " I am getting on badly," said Alan. " There is no possible 
 doubt on that point. But we shall do better presently, shall 
 we not. Alma ?" 
 
 Alma looked up and smiled, but not with her eyes. Prudence 
 Driver noticed, w.th a pang of wrath, that there was no sympa- 
 thy in her look. How could a man be fooled by such a girl ! 
 She dug her pen into the ink, and went on with her statistics. 
 " ' Swiss Family Robinson,' six times taken out ; ' Robinson 
 Crusoe,' eight times ; ' Pilgrim's Progress/ twenty times ;" and 
 BO on. 
 
 " I have quite decided on giving up the field-work," said 
 Alan, " After nearly a year of it, I think I may claim to have 
 tried by actual experience all that a farm labourer has to do." 
 
 " And about the eighteen shillings a week, Alan ?" asked 
 Miranda, smiling. 
 
 "Well" — he smiled too; it was the one of his failures of 
 which he was least ashamed — " there is a great deficit in the ac- 
 counts. Look, I have actually spent five and twenty shillings a 
 week." He drew a paper from his pocket-book, which he 
 handed to Miranda, who looked at it and passed it to Alma. 
 
 *' And yet, you see, the item of beer does not enter into tho 
 account at all." 
 
 " They have cheated you," said Alma, rather grimly. Pru- 
 dence Driver started. How could Alma know what she had 
 long suspected ? She forgot that she was a little stay-at- 
 home, while Alma went about and beard the truth. 
 
 " Who has cheated me ?" asked Alan. 
 
 " Everybody has cheated you. The butcher, the baker, the 
 grocer, the milkman, the boj-s at the store. They all charge you 
 double what they charge us, and they give you bad weight. Why, 
 we have all known that ever since you came here. What did 
 you expect, Mr. Dunlop ?" 
 
 " Is it possible ? I have always trusted what they say." Ha 
 spoke in a helpless way. "Do you mean. Alma, that everybody 
 in the village is dishonest ?" 
 
 " Everybody," she replied, calmly. She would have added, 
 " And my father the worst of all ;" but she dreaded the paternal 
 wrath. " Everybody," said Alma. 
 
 " This, Miranda," observed the Reformer, "only shows ons 
 practical and very useful side of our engagement. Alma can
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 215 
 
 begin her career of usefulness by putting a stop to thesa 
 wretched little rogueries. She will make them feel how utterly 
 degrading are their cheating ways. What can be done with 
 people who steal ? The Higher Culture necessitates, as a mere 
 foundation, the possession, not only of simple honesty, but also 
 that of Honour— the Principle which in the Modern School re- 
 places or supplements Religion." 
 
 " But, Alan," said Miranda, " it is dreadful to think that you 
 have been cheated all these months, and have been starving 
 yourself to keep within an impossible allowance." 
 
 He shook his head. " I have not been starving, because I 
 have exceeded my allowance by something like six and twenty 
 pounds, which means ten shillings a week," 
 
 "What is the Village Parliament doing all the time, Alan ?'' 
 asked Miranda. 
 
 " We have closed it. Nobody came after the supper was sup- 
 pressed, and so we were obliged to dissolve sine die. Do not ask 
 me about anything, Miranda. All has been one great failure, 
 even the Co-operative Store and the Good Liquor Bar. Would 
 you believe that the people prefer to buy their groceries at the 
 village shop, v/here they are dearer and adulterated, and their 
 beer at the Spotted Lion, where it is mixed with sugar and 
 treacle and all sorts of stuff, instead of the pure Allsopp we sell 
 at the Good Liquor Bar ?" 
 
 " It seems stupid beyond all belief," said Miranda. 
 "No it isn't," interposed Alma, in her half-sullen way. "It 
 isn't stupid at all." 
 
 " What do you mean, Alma ?" asked Alan. 
 " I mean that just as you are cheated by the butcher and the 
 baker, so you are cheated by your shopmen." 
 " HoAV do you know that. Alma ?" 
 
 " I know it — because I know it." It was not her business to 
 tell Mr. Dunlop that she had heard the character of the tv»fo 
 young men in Athelston, that she knew how they carried on be- 
 tween Saturday and Monday, and that her father made an open 
 scoff, every day, of the shameless way in whi«h those noble twin 
 institutions v/ere conducted. 
 
 " But in vvdiatway — how can they cheat 3'OU?"Alan asked, 
 " They have orders to put every order dov/n in a book. The 
 profits are to be divided among those who purchase in propor- 
 tion to their purchases." 
 
 " Profits !" Alma laughed derisively. 
 " Please explain. Alma." 
 
 " One of them sands the sugar, mixes the tea with sloe-leaves, 
 and waters the tobacco. The other waters the beer, and makes 
 a sort of mess — T don't know how — with the porter. And then 
 they don't put down what is bought. Bless you, do you think
 
 2i6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 our people are going to be so particular as to see tlieir orders 
 entered in a book ? So it isn't a bit cheaper, and nothing 
 is a bit better than at the shop over the way. There, Misa 
 Miranda !" ■ 
 
 She hurled her shot as if it was a matter of deep personal 
 concern with Miss Dalmeny that the shop should go well. 
 
 "And every Saturday," she continued, "both those precious 
 boys go off to Athelston together." 
 
 " To see their relations ?" said Alan. " I know." 
 
 " No, to get drunk and smoke at a harmonic meeting. Blcsg 
 you, everybody knows it. They've been seen there, times and 
 times." 
 
 This ■Was pleasant intelligenco. 
 
 Prudence Driver, meantime, had left her work, and creeping 
 round in her noiseless way, stood behind Alan's chair. 
 
 " No, Alma Bostock," she said, " everybody does not know it. 
 / do not. None of my own people know it. If it is true, hew 
 do you know it ?"' 
 
 " That doesn't signify," she replied. " Let Mr. Dunlop look 
 into the books, and he will see." 
 
 The fact was, of course, that Bailiff Bostock, having to deal 
 officially with the store, very early discovered the wrong-doing, 
 set a trap, caught the offenders, used them for his own purpose, 
 and made no secret of what he had done at home. 
 
 " It feels," said Alan, stretching out his hands helplessly, " as 
 if one was surrounded by inextricable meshes. Ignorance and 
 habit is expected, Miranda. But I hadn't, I confess, bargained 
 for dishonesty." 
 
 " Then," said Alma, " you bought a pig in a poke." 
 
 It is, to be sure, a homely proverb, but perhaps there was no 
 absolute necessity for Alan to shudder, or for Miranda to con- 
 template steadily the point of her parasol. ^Vorse things might 
 be — have been — said by young ladies of country education. 
 Yet it did seem, even to Prudence Driver, as if there was a 
 certain incongruity in Mr. Dunlop's bride talking of pigs in a 
 poke. 
 
 Then Alma, feeling really as if there was no longer any 
 reason to be afraid either of her betrothed, or of Miss Dalmeny, 
 so long as she could communicate these startling items of in- 
 telligence, sat boldly on the table, with her feet dangling, and 
 her hands on either side clasping the table-edge, and, all uncon- 
 scious that she was, even to Prudence Driver, a very personifi- 
 cation of ungracefulness — to be sure, Prudence read books and 
 had opinions — went on wdth those startling revelations, which 
 gave her so great a superiority to Miss Dalmeny, who knew 
 nothing. 
 
 " What did you expect ?" she said. " Lord 1 -what could you
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 217 
 
 expect ? You get a lot of farm labourers -^ these common 
 farm labourers — and you give them supper and beer, as mucli 
 supper and beer as they bleed, and you told them to discuss and 
 become a Parliament. AVhat did they do ? What could you 
 expect them to do ? They drank all the beer, and when theie 
 was no more, they went away home. You went to work among 
 them in a smock-frock, which is a thing no gentleman ever 
 dreamed of doing before. They only lauglied at you. I've stood in 
 a corner of the field a dozen times and watched them lauc'hin!' 
 
 O O 
 
 at 3'ou. Here's your Library. Who comes to it ? Nobody. 
 There's your Bath-room and Laundry. Who uses it ? Nobodj-. 
 Catch iltmi washing themselves. They never did such a thing 
 in all their lives. There's your Art Gallery. Does anybody 
 ever go to see the pictures ? Ask Prudence Driver." 
 
 The curator held down her head. The charge was too true. 
 
 " You had a theatre here, and a circus. They went to them, 
 so long as you paid. When they had to pay for themselves, 
 they went to the Spotted Lion. And as for your village festi- 
 vals, they went to get the drink." 
 
 All this was hard to bear. And yet Alan felt that it was all 
 literal fact, and he tried to find comfort in the thought that his 
 future wife knew exactly what had happened. 
 
 "Is it all true, Prudence '?" asked Miranda. " Do you, also, 
 know all these things '?" 
 
 " All, except about the cheating," the librarian replied. 
 " And how Alma Bostock knows that, if it is true, I cant 
 say." 
 
 ■' And it doesn't signify, if you could say," retorted Alma, in 
 her least amiable tone. 
 
 " One thing I can do at once," said Alan, rising. " I can go 
 and get the accounts of the store and the bar, and have them 
 investigated. Good-bye, Miranda. Go home, Alma, and don't 
 tell any one else what you have told me. Does not this, too, 
 Miranda, show that I was justified ? You see, at the very be- 
 ginning, Alma puts her finger on the weak places of my 
 system." 
 
 What he meant was, that the fact of Alma being up to all 
 the wickedness which had been flourishing at his expense 
 showed his own prudence in choosing a wife from her class, 
 and her fitness in thus being able to read the ways of the 
 people. He left the Library and strode ofL' quickly to the 
 store, which, with the bar, weie quite at the other end of the 
 village. 
 
 Observe how custom makes people careless. It was a very 
 hot afternoon ; there seemed not the least chance that any one 
 would want to buy anything, and the young men in charge of 
 the two departments, after their one o'clock meal, fell both fast
 
 2i8 The Monks gf thelema, 
 
 asleep, one on each side of the table in the back office. But the 
 safe, in which the account-books were kept, was Avide open, 
 Alan, seeing the boys asleep, and the safe open, hesitated a 
 little. Then, reflecting that the account-books were his own, 
 he seized them all, four in number, and carried them back with 
 him to the Library. 
 
 There was no one there at all, now, except the librarian. 
 
 " Prudence," he said, " do you know book-keeping ?" 
 
 " A little," she rephcd. 
 
 " Then let us shut up the Library for the day and go into 
 :he books, as well as we can, together." 
 
 It was five o'clock T,'hen the two young men awoke, yawned, 
 stretched themselves, and complained of being athirst. One of 
 them proceeded to take such steps as might result in tea ; the 
 other strolled lazily into the shop. 
 
 The next minute he rushed back with a pallid face and 
 shaking hands. 
 
 " Good Lord, 'Arry ! the safe's open, and the books are 
 gone !" 
 
 That was the dreadful fact. . 
 
 They looked at each other in mute horror for a brief space. 
 Tea, sleepiness, and thirst were all alike forgotten in that su- 
 preme moment, when they suddenly realised that they were 
 found out. 
 
 " What shall we do, Jeremiah ?" asked Harry. He was pot- 
 boy, and the gentleman with the Scriptural name, who was, as 
 we have before explained, a Particular Baptist, was clerk to the 
 store. 
 
 " Step it," said Jeremiah curtly. " It don't matter who's 
 got the books. Whoeve.v it is, v.e're done for. Step it." 
 
 " Where ?" asked Harry. 
 
 " Anywhei'es," said Jeremiah, " except Athelston way." 
 
 He went to the till and extracted such small sums as were in 
 it. These he put in his own pocket, leaving nothing for his 
 friend. 
 
 •' Now," he said, " I'm a-going for a few minutes' walk, I am. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 He went out of the door, stood a moment in the brilliant 
 sunshine, and then, turning to the left, disappeared. 
 
 Harry, I'cmaining alone, was seized with so great a trembling, 
 that he Avas fain to draw himself a pint and a half of beer and 
 take that straight down. Then he felt in his pockets. Eighteen- 
 pence. Then he realised the selfishness of Jeremiah in taking 
 all the contents of the till. Truly, they were not much. And 
 then, putting on his hat, he too wont out into the sunshine and 
 look a turn across the fields. 
 
 I^. is sufficient hero to say of these two young men that
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 219 
 
 neither has yet returned to Woyland ; that one of them, Harry, 
 ■\vho realxy was not sncb a bad sort to begin with, has repented, 
 and now wears the Queen's scarlet with credit. Of Jeremiah, I 
 only learned the other day by accident that he has recently been 
 seen at certain suburban meetings, laying the odds with free- 
 dom. I hope he will succeed. 
 
 As for Prudence, it was not very long before she was enabled 
 to point out that there were two sets of books kept ; that the 
 purchases set down in one varied from one- half to one-fifth of 
 those set down in the other ; and that, latterly, save in the case 
 of the Squire himself, or Miss Dalmeny, nothing at all v.'as set 
 down in either book. The conclusion was obvious. 
 
 Alan went into Athelston and saw the police inspector. But 
 when the civil power arrived, the birds were flown, and it only 
 remained to put up the shutters. This, alas ! was the end of 
 the AVeyland Co-operation Store, and the Weyland Good Liquor 
 League. 
 
 •*o' 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 " You speak of the people 
 
 As if jou were a fjod to punish, noS 
 A man of their iuiiruiity. " 
 
 Mr. Paul Roxdelet, Fellow of Lothian, was growing daily 
 more and more ill at ease. It was borne in upon him with an 
 ever-increasing persistency, as the voice of a warning which 
 would not be silenced, that in a brief three months, unless he 
 took orders in the interval, he would be— it cost him agonies 
 to put the situation into words — actually without an incom.e ! 
 He would be absolutely penniless. He would have to work for 
 the daily bread which had, hitherto, always come to him without 
 his even asking for it, unless, as an unclergraduate, at perfunc- 
 tory College Chapel ; he, to whom the light bondage of a College 
 Lectureship was too great a burden, whose haughty soul dis- 
 dained the fetters of stipulated work, however slight, v/ould 
 positively have to descend into the arena and do his utmost, like 
 <iuite common mortals, to earn his dinner. 
 
 "Earn " — horrid word ! As if he were a labourer, or an arti- 
 ean, or an apprentice, or a tradesman. Earn ! 
 
 And he the leader, the acknowledged leader of a Party ; 
 almost the youngest, quite the most promising, the most hopeful 
 of all the Oxford Parties. The old High Church people had 
 bad their innings, and were long ago played out ; the Broad 
 Cliurch never had any real charm at logical Oxford ; the Low 
 tell out of the running long, long ago ; there remained for hia
 
 220 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 day ihe Ritualists, the Scoffers, the Sneerers,the Know-nothings, 
 the Comtists, and the New Pagans. 
 
 The Ritualists began well, but somehow — I think it was that 
 some of the older men belonged to the party, and so the younger 
 men could not pride themselves on the superior intellect of 
 rising genius — they have not succeeded in attracting the more 
 thoughtful part of young Oxford. Mr. Paul Rondelet speedily 
 found out that it was one sign of superiority to speak of there 
 with a contemptuous pity : not the lofty scorn with which the 
 remnant of the Evangelical party, which have no Art and care 
 little about Culture, are spoken of, but still with a pity which 
 has in it a strong element of contempt. He therefore passed 
 through the stages of scoffer, in which stage none but coarse- 
 minded persons remain ; of sneerer — to shine as a sneerer very 
 peculiar and most disagreeable gifts are specially required ; of 
 Comtist, with whom some find rest and solace for the soul ; of 
 Know-nothing — these are a most attractive set of despairing 
 young men ; and of New Pagans. 
 
 Everybody knows that Mr. Paul Rondelet was one of the 
 leaders in New Paganism. He called himself, sadly, an Ag- 
 nostic, but he was in reality a New Pagan. Agnosticism 11^ a 
 cloak which may wrap all kinds of disciples. Go ask the Nine- 
 teenth Ccntvrii, or the Contemporary , or even the poor old laggard, 
 the Forirdghtbj , to define an Agnostic. 
 
 He was an Agnostic by profession, and he spoke sadly of In- 
 finite Silences, as if he was their original discoverer. But, in 
 reality, he was a New Pagan. It was, indeed, a delightful thing 
 to sit with the select few, the profane vulgar not being ad- 
 mitted, to feel that one possessed the real secret of the Dionysiac 
 myth ; to bring to one's bosom the whole truth about DemeteT ; 
 to know, in a manner only underatood by priests and the ini- 
 tiated of old, the divine Aphrodite and the many-breasted 
 Diana ; to recognise, almost in secret conclave, that all these, 
 with Isis and Horus, Samson, and many others, meant nothing 
 but the worship of the Sun and the Year in its seasons : so that, 
 to those who rightly read the myths, all religion means nothing 
 but the worship of summer and winter, the awaking and the 
 sleep of life, so that there is really no reason at all, according 
 to the New Pagan, why we should not return to the kindly, 
 genial, and beneficent old Gods. 
 
 The Modern Prig, if ho is of the advanced order, belongs, as 
 a matter of course, to some such school. He gets, that is, an 
 far to the front as he can. He adopts the newest vague G ospel, 
 and holds it, for the time, with the tenacity of a martyr clinging 
 to his creed. And he poses, having pride in the situation, as I 
 fear many an early martyr did. For the essential and leading 
 characteristic of 1 he Prig is that he believos himself in advance
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 221 
 
 of his aiijO, and very, very far in advance of his fattier and 
 gi'andfathers. But nothing certain, nothinij^ dogmatic. There- 
 fore Mr. Paul Rondelet had trained himself not only to look 
 with a tolerant contempt, because some form of religion is good 
 for common people, on the reverent crowds pouring in and out 
 of the sanctuaries, but also to regard with scorn the blatant 
 prophets of Atheism who bawl their intolerance on Sundays 
 across the wilds of Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common. 
 This naturally led among all the members of his set to their 
 looking upon one who, being actually an Oxfoixl man — had he 
 been of Cambridge it would have been more possible, but 
 equally degrading — had taken upon him Holy Orders with a 
 bitterness of loathing and wonder which surpassed everything. 
 It was, therefore, a situation full of irony that he should find 
 himself compelled to become that hated thing, a clerical Fellow, 
 or to lose, at one fell swoop, the whole of his income. 
 
 In three months his fellowship would come to an end. He 
 felt like Dr. Faustus when he was approaching the last few 
 days of his last year. Worse than any devil to Mr. Paul 
 Rondelet was the Red Spectre of Poverty. 
 
 And to his school some kind of magnificence ia living ia 
 absolutely essential. 
 
 That was easily obtained at Oxford, where, as a fellow, he 
 had rooms and other allowances. But out of it, away from 
 those monastic groves, where was he to find the necessary- 
 belongings of the Higher Life ? 
 
 There was an ignominy, too, about pecuniary diificulties. He 
 had always talked of money as if he had no necessity of thinking 
 about it, ignoring the exiguity of the paternal income ; he had 
 set a tone of contempt for money to two generations at least of 
 undergraduates ; he had steadily maintained that Art, of all 
 kinds, was to be pursued for the sake of Art alone, and for no 
 advantages of lucre which might follow the successful practice of 
 Art ; he had taught his disciples to contemplate serenely, like 
 the disembodied Cicero, the struggles and rivalries of the lower 
 classes. And after this, it Avould be his lot— ah ! hard and 
 thankless lot — to go down into the labour market with the rest, 
 like a rustic at a statute fair, and wait to be asked what he 
 could do and for what wage he would be hired. 
 
 What, indeed, could he do V 
 
 In reality the class of young men to which Mr. Paul Rondelet 
 belonged possess a marketable value quite out of all proportion 
 to their own opinion. They read, as I have said, all the reviews, 
 particularly those written in the newest jargon. They criticise 
 scornfully, from the loftiest platform, productions of the day 
 ^vrittcn by men who toil and give their best, mindful as much 
 of their audience na of thnr Art. Fortunately these lofty
 
 222 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 criticisms do not often get into print, for the class of Editorc 
 
 who love Prigs is very small. And when they essay to write, 
 those friends of their set receive with amazement and disap- 
 pointment the first-fruits, which ought to be the brightest and 
 best, of a genius which they have revered. Alas ! the looked- 
 for result turns out to be common thought wrapped in 
 pretentious jargon, and, amid the boastful trappings of 
 pretence, they discern with difficulty a vein so slender that 
 hardly it can be seen to glitter in the brightest sunshine. Vast, 
 indeed, is the difference between performance and promise. 
 
 What had Paul Rondelet to offer ? 
 
 There was in his desk a little portfolio full of manuscript 
 poems — they looked very pi'etty, written in his small, clear, and 
 carefully eccentric handwriting on the thick cream note-paper 
 which he affected. He and his friends believed that they had 
 in them the true ring of original genius. Would they sell, if 
 they were bound up ':' He was fain to reply that they would 
 not. It required an education to admire them, and the world 
 was not yet ripe for such superior work. Among these was 
 one, in especial, very dear to himself and his friends, called 
 Aspasia's Apology. It was a sort of sequel or companion to a 
 certain well-known and charming London lyric by Mr. Rossetti, 
 and was even more realistic than the work of that master. 
 Then there were a few sonnets which, though he loved to read 
 them and his friends cuddled them, would, he felt, require so 
 much toning down that their distinctive excellencies would be 
 lost ; and there were some odes whose severe classicalism 
 limited their popularity to a very small set. On the whole, the 
 probable value of his copyright in these poems was small. 
 
 But he might write articles in the more advanced of the 
 magazines. He had once — he rem^embered with what pains and 
 labour — written an article for the Contemporary, which the 
 editor had declined with thanks, and yet it was clothed in the 
 very finest new English, quite equal to Mr. Pater in his highest 
 flights, and expressed the innermost convictions of his school. 
 He swore then that he would never write again, unless for 
 an audience who should invite him in terms of abject request. 
 He would wait till the whole world should thrill and yearn for 
 his coming. 
 
 He might teach, take pupils, give lectures. But that meant 
 self-assertion, bawling in the market-place, joining in the 
 struggle of competition. How could he, Paul Rondelet, stoop 
 to assert what everybody ought to know, that he was the 
 greatest of modern teachers, the noblest and best of philosophic 
 lecturers ? 
 
 Would they give him something in the Government service ? 
 A Poor Law Commissionership, a Permanent Under Secretary-
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 223 
 
 sliip, a Commissionersliip in Lunacy, any little thing of that sort 
 •would do, just to provide the necessaries of life, which includq^ 
 of course, a modicum of fair claret. But how to get such a 
 post ? We are not yet arrived at that consummation of sound 
 political economy when our rulers shall all be philosophers, and 
 anxious only to appoint philosophers ; we are as yet still in the 
 gloomy stage of interest, influence, favouritism. It is still 
 possible for men like Mr. Paul Eondelet to stay out in the cold. 
 And Mr. Paul Rondelet possessed absolutely no interest at all. 
 
 He who works for pav is a servant. He who has no money 
 must work for pay. Therefore Mr. Paul Rondelet was con- 
 demned to be a servant. And he had aspired in his foolish 
 dream to independence. 
 
 And again, he was in debt. The burden of debt is generally 
 borne by Oxford men with great composure. Some there are, who 
 like Panurge, argue in favour of debt as a healthy condition of 
 life : I will not repeat their arguments, which are indeed some- 
 what threadbare by this time. The only argument worth 
 quoting is that which asserts that without the stimulus of debt, 
 the lazy man remaineth lazy. In Mr. Rondelet's case, debt was 
 no stimulus at all, but only an irritant. This morning he had 
 received, for instance, two or three most disagreeable letters 
 from ungrateful people, whom he had long honoured with his 
 custom, asking for money. Money indeed ! And his fellowship 
 to expire in three months. 
 
 These sad thoughts occurred to him after luncheon. The 
 rest of the Monks and Sisters having gone about their monkish 
 devices, he retired to the library with these missives, to think. 
 He thought the thing over from every possible point of view. 
 
 And at last an inspiration came to him. The method of the 
 House of Hapsburg. Tu,felix Austria, nube. 
 
 He could no longer remain in the dark library ; he must 
 think this over in the open. He sought the solitude of the 
 mediteval garden, and sat down to see what he might make of 
 this new thought. 
 
 It was better than wi-iting for papers and magazines ; better 
 than painfully elaborating books — better than lecturing ; better 
 than anything. In the home of some woman — wealthy, young, 
 beautiful, not insen-ible to the charms of the Higher Culture, 
 open to ideas, willing to be led rather than wishing to lead, 
 v/ith a proper respect for one who had taken a First in History 
 Schools— could such a Avoman be found, he might find shelter 
 from the strife of humanity ; might even forget that he was 
 allied with that struggling and eager band at all. Could such a 
 woman be found ? She was found : she was here ; she was 
 in his presence ; she wh,s walking in the garden ; she was coming 
 to meet him. Her name was Miranda Dalraeny. He sprang to
 
 224 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 his feet and felt as if he conld hold out his arms to meet her, 
 even as Adam met his blushing Eve. Ever since the news ol 
 Alan Dunlop's engagement, this idea had been floating vaguely 
 through the mind of Mr. Rondelet. Now it assumed, all at 
 once, the character of a resolution. He would marry the owner 
 of Dalmeuy Hall. Alan was out of the way; there was no 
 other rival ; he would secure this heiress for himself. 
 
 Now Miranda was not an admirer of this Follow of Lothian. 
 On the contrary, she thought him conceited and did not like 
 his airs. 
 
 " He will not join in our amusements," she said to Desde- 
 mona with a little bitterness. " It must be a great misfortune 
 to be superior to the ordinary pleasures of mankind. He cer- 
 tainly neitlier sings nor dances, nor acts, nor talks well. All is 
 sadness with him, as if with sorrow over one painful deficiencv 
 in Culture." 
 
 "It is the new manner, my dear," said Desdemona. "Just 
 as some men about town affect to be hlase and worn out— fancy 
 Lord Alwyne pretending to be worn out !— so the highly su- 
 perior school aflect to be governed by so lofty a standard of 
 criticism as to be incapable of finding amusement or pleasure in 
 any of the ordinary things. I do not like Mr. Rondelet. 
 Rightly did we call him Brother ParoUes — words, words, 
 words." ' ' 
 
 " They must spoil the world a good deal for themselves," 
 said Miranda. " On that account they are very greatly to bo 
 pitied." 
 
 " Ye?," replied the lady of experience. " They want men 
 made for themselves ; they want women made for themselves ; 
 they want to be appreciated at their own estimate of them- 
 selves, and they do not want to be asked to do anything to 
 justify that estimate." 
 
 But Mr. Rondelet did not know of this conversation. 
 
 Miranda greeted him with her quiet smile, and sat beside 
 him on the garden bench, which was by this time of the after- 
 noon well within the shade of the great walnut-tree. 
 
 " I have been to-day to see Alan Dunlop's fMiicee" she said. 
 •' Have you seen her ?" 
 
 " Once." Mr. Rondelet shuddered. " She was shelling green 
 peas in the porch, and I saw her deliberately eating a raw 
 pod. Could one marry a person who is capable of eating raw 
 pods ?" 
 
 Miranda laughed. 
 _ " Your delicacy, ' she said, " springs from ignorance. I be- 
 lieve the shells of green peas are sweet. Surely you used to 
 think so when you were a boy." 
 
 " Ah I" sighed Mr. Rondelet j " I have made it my constant
 
 THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA. 225 
 
 endeavour, since I went up to Oxford, to forget all that one 
 vised to do or think as a boy. It would be terrible, indeed, to 
 be forced to remember the dreadful things that one did in that 
 Ktage of existence." 
 
 " Really ! Was your boyhood, do you think, more — more 
 repulsive than most ?" 
 
 " No ; not that." Mr. Rondelet shook his head. " Not that. 
 Less so, I should think, because even at the tenderest age one 
 had gleams and glimpses of better things. And one remembers 
 despising other boys for their rough savage ways and clinging 
 to the lower forms of life." 
 
 " Do you mean that when you sucked sweeties you dreamed 
 of fine claret ?" 
 
 Tiiis was the question by way of metaphor which Mr. 
 Rondelet hardly expected. 
 
 " Scarcely," he murmured. " The imaginings of a boy take no 
 concrete forms. Only one yearns from the very first after the 
 Golden Age, which seems then so possible, and now so far off. 
 T/hat I mean is— Miss Dalmeny, I am sure you will understand 
 me. I have watched for a long time the fine genius of appreciative 
 sympathy latent in your brain — what I mean is, that children 
 of finer clay than their compeers are touched very early in life 
 T.ith that divine discontent which marks the soul of the Higher 
 Culture." 
 
 " Really !" said Miranda. " You interest me, Mr. Rondelet. 
 Do you say — a divine discontent ?" 
 
 " Yes. All discontent is divine. Even that which leads to 
 ambitious aims and elevates the grocer's son, by means of the 
 Church, to the Episcopal Bench. That, too, which fires the 
 blood of the rustic and impels him — it is a reminiscence of the 
 great Aryan wave of emigration — to move westward ; that 
 which prompts the student to an examination of the things that 
 are, and that which leads the scholar to despair of the things 
 that are to be." 
 
 I believe he was quoting something he had read and remem- 
 bered, but he said it slowly, as if it was his own, 
 
 "And you, Mr. Rondelet, despair of the — the things that are 
 to be ?" 
 
 •' Not openly. Pray do not quote me. The Common Room 
 of Lothian has not yet pronounced all its views. We have re- 
 snlved in silence upon many important topics. I should be 
 doing, perhaps, incalculable mischief if I were prematurely to 
 disclose to the world the views of the Lothian Common 
 Room." 
 
 Miranda was staggered by so much modesty. Did he really 
 believe that the world cared one farthing for the views of tha 
 Common Room of Lothian ? He did ; he really did. 
 
 15
 
 226 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " When one lives," lie went on to say, Lis long fingers playing 
 sadly over liis smooth cheek, " in the centre of the Higher 
 Thought, one is apt to forget how misapprehension may ba 
 wrought by a premature statement. The world waits for 
 Oxford to speak. Oxford waits for Lothian." 
 
 He stopped short, as if for Miranda herself to complete the 
 speech, by saying : "And Lothian waits for Rondelet." 
 
 Again Miranda was staggered. It was almost too much 
 to think that she was actually conversing with one on v/hose 
 utterances the world waited. 
 
 " You used to be a friend of Alan Dunlop's," she went on, 
 after a pause, " when he was an undergraduate ?" 
 
 "Yes." His finger went back to his cheek, while with the 
 other hand he stuck into his eye the glass v/liich ivould not 
 remain there. " Yes, we were friends. Dunlop was a man of 
 considerable insight, up to a certain point. Then he would go 
 off in the direction of practical sociology. I, with a few others, 
 remained faithful followers of our theory, and continued to 
 work it out to its logical conclusions, so that we have now ad- 
 vanced to a point where as yet, I believe, we have — there are 
 only two or three of us — no disciples at all. We stand on a 
 level by ourselves. Alan is left far, very far behind us : we 
 only may speak boldly to each other what from others we would 
 fain hide," 
 
 Again the measured sentence seemed a quotation. 
 " That must be a very great thing," said Miranda, wondering 
 what their new levels were like, with just a suspicion that they 
 had something heretical to do with marriage, religion, philan- 
 thropy, and other good things. 
 
 " I can hardly," the Philosophe? continued, " explain to you 
 the conclusions — not theories, but irrefragable conclusions — of 
 the newest school of Modern Philosophy. Sufilce it to say, that 
 as the religions of the world have all been proved to have been 
 based on false historical foundations, so its social economy, 
 resting on the family, as the basis, is fatally unsound, and must, 
 as a preliminary step, be entirely remodelled." 
 
 " Oh !" said Miranda, wondering whether this sort of talkwaa 
 quite proper, " and Alan does not agree with you ?" 
 
 " He did not follow us so far. He has probably never con- 
 sidered our present position. We — the more advanced set — 
 chanced, after he left us, to discover that our previous maxims, 
 many of them similar to those of the well-known philanthropic 
 school, had to be reconsidered and finally abandoned. Alan, 
 poor fellow, remains in the mire of philanthropy. We, on tho 
 higher levels, have arrived at the grand Law that the moro 
 desirable life is the life per se, the life of example to those who 
 know how to read it, but oi unconscious example ; the life iu
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. irj 
 
 wbich Art and Culture have tlie chief — nay, the sole place ; and 
 in wnich the herd, the vulgar, low-bred, and offensive herd, are 
 left to swill as swine, tended by each other, just as they 
 please. If they choose to raise their eyes, they may see walking 
 before them in sweetness and light the great examples of the 
 
 age " 
 
 " Yourselves ?" 
 
 " Ourselves ; always, you see, before their eyes. As fo? the 
 ignorant and the vulgar, we let them alone. That is best for 
 them. We neither help them, nor look at them, nor care about 
 them. Those among them who are worthy will rise ; those 
 vvho are not will remain where they are, grovelling and wallow- 
 ing in their sties like pigs. Do you not pity poor Alan Dunlop, 
 Miss Dalmeny ?" 
 
 " I think I do, indeed," she replied ; but her thoughts were 
 not his. 
 
 Then she lifted her head quickly. 
 
 " That is a strange view of Ufe, Mr. Rondelet. I think I 
 hardly follow you quite. Is it not selfish— rather selfish ?" 
 
 " Quite selfish," he replied, delighted, and with a httle flourish 
 of the long fingers about either side of his face. " Quite, quite 
 selfish._ That is the secret of the new Morals. That is what 
 we desire to teach — the new virtue of Pure Selfishness. Every 
 man must find out the Higher Life and live it, regardless of 
 others, all to himself." 
 
 " All to himself," she murmured. 
 
 " Nay, not quite all," Mr. Rondelet interposed, with a little 
 blush which became him mightily, and made him for a moment 
 look like one of the vulgar herd. " Not quite all. The perfect 
 man lives with and for the perfect woman." 
 
 " Oh !" said Miranda, " I began to think you were more than 
 human." 
 
 At this point, Miranda, detecting a tendency on the part of 
 Mr. Rondelet's left hand to leave his cheek, over the smooth 
 surface of which his long white fingers had been delicately 
 wandering, and move downwards in the direction of her own 
 hand, got up from tlie garden-bench and began to walk across 
 the grass. He rose and followed her. 
 
 " Indeed," he said, " that is not so. We aim at being more 
 perfectly human than the rest. Our lives should be two-fold^ 
 it is, of course, an absurdity to speak of married people being 
 one. The only difficulty with us " — here he sighed and became 
 plaintive — " is that of finding the fittest mate." 
 
 " That, indeed," said Miranda, " would be difiicult. For, 
 suppose you found the fittest mate, how would you persuade 
 her that you really belonged — for I suppose she would have to 
 be as selfish as vourselves— that you really belonged to your 
 
 15-2
 
 228 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 
 
 fcigli levels. Of course you would not expect in a purely selfish 
 person anything like faith or imagination. T am afraid you 
 would have to descend a little from your height." 
 
 " By conversation " he began. 
 
 " Talk is deceptive. I think you must first do something. 
 You would have to demonstrate your superiority by writing, 
 preaching, or teaching. Till then, Mr. Rondelet," — she sprang 
 quickly up the steps which led to the torrace, — " till then I 
 fear your life will be one of lonely and unappreciated Sel- 
 fishness." 
 
 She left him alone in the garden. 
 
 He was only half-satisfied with the conversation. To be sure, 
 he had unfolded something of the new philosophy and allowed 
 Miranda to guess at something of his purpose, but her manner 
 of using the word Selfish lacked reverence. She spoke of Sel- 
 fishness after the manner of the common herd. That was dis- 
 heartening. On the other hand, she did give him advice, which 
 always means taking a certain amount of interest. She advised 
 him to do something. 
 
 Why not? He would write a paper which should at one 
 stroke make him famous : he would write on the wretchedness 
 of living at all under the conditions by which life is suiTounded: 
 he would show that life, with special reservations for men of 
 his own school, is not worth having at all. 
 
 His imagination seized hold of the topic, he fancied Miranda 
 reading it aloud, he fancied all the papers quoting it, he fancied 
 the undergraduates looking at him as he walked down the 
 High, he fancied the paper crammed with the deepest thought, 
 wrapped in the most scholarly language, and flashing with epi- 
 gram. Then he went hastily, his brain afire, to look at the 
 magazines, and choose the one most suited for his article. 
 Cruel mockery of Fate ! It was already done in the l^iueieenth 
 Century ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 "Or 1 am mad, or else tins is a dream." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock continued to take the same gloomy view of Alma's 
 wonderful fortune. Instead of rejoicing with her husband, and 
 holding up her head as she did, she went about downcast and 
 murmuring, instead of thanking Heaven. She said it was un- 
 natural ; she laughed to scorn her daughter's earnest efi:'orts to 
 make herself a lady ; slie even went so far as to declare that it 
 was a flying in the face fif Providence. 
 
 There is only one manner of meeting with opposition possible to 
 men whose powers of utterance are not equal to their powers of
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 229 
 
 indignation. Everybody knows that method : most women have 
 experienced its force, and can testify to the remarkable lack of 
 results which follows its exhibition. What one " damn," in fact, 
 cannot effect, fifty cannot. Yet a certain artistic pride in rising 
 to the occasion carries on the swearer. But even after tho 
 greatest pi'ovocation, followed by the most extraordinary efforts, 
 you always feel, as a merchant skipper once complained to me 
 with tears in his eyes, after swearing till the topmasts trembled, 
 that yon have hardly done justice to the subject. The Bailiff 
 did his best, poor man ; and yet his wife remained obdurate. 
 
 No one sympathised with her, except, perhaps, Miranda, to 
 ■whom she poured out her soul. 
 
 " IIow fhould the girl be fit," asked her mother, "to be a 
 gentleman's wife ? It isn't from her father that she'd learn 
 the soft ways that Master Alan had been used to, that's quite 
 certain. Then he'll turn round some day and blame me for it 
 — me, his mother's own maid, as held him in my arms before ho 
 vras a day old !' 
 
 '_' But Alma looks soft and gentle." said Miranda ; " and I am 
 quite sure that Alan would nc%'er impute any blame to you." 
 
 JMrs. Bostock spread out her hands aud nodded her head. 
 
 " Soft and gentle ?" she echoed. " Miss Miranda, a cat is soft 
 and gentle ; but a cat has got a temper". OiJy a cat has man- 
 ners ; which," she added, after a pause, " my daughter hasn't 
 got." 
 
 " Bostock," she went on, " thinks it will boa fine thing for 
 him. So it will, no doubt. Alma thinks it will be a fine thing 
 to sham grand lady. Well, until she tires of it, no doubt it will 
 be. Instead of learning her gratitude and duty to her husband 
 — instead of trying to see how she can prevent being a shame 
 and disgrace to him — .she goes into the village and flaunts round, 
 trying to make that blacksmith's girl burst with spite, while 
 her father goes to Athelston market and makes believe he's 
 equal to the biggest farmer in the place." 
 
 This was a gloomy, but a true picture. 
 
 " And no taste in dress," the ex-lady's maid went on. " Any- 
 thing that's got a colour in it : here a bit of red, and there a bit 
 of yellow. _ It makes me ashamed, I declare. Miss Miranda ; just 
 to see you in that lovely pearl-grey, so cool and sweet this hot 
 morning, is a rest for weary eyes. There ! you always had, 
 next to my lady, the true eye for colour. That is born with, a 
 ■woman." 
 
 ^ Then Miranda took the step which she had been meditating 
 Bince the first news of the engagement. It was not a thing 
 which gave her any pleasure ; quite the contrary. It gave her 
 a great deal of pain ; it was a step which would keep before 
 her eyes a subject on which she was compelled to think — Alan'a
 
 230 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 engagement and his fiand-e ! In fact, she asked Mrs. Bostock 
 to send Alma to Dalmeny Hall, to stay with herself until tho 
 wedding. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock hesitated. 
 
 " Would Mrs. Dalmeny Uke it ?" 
 
 " My mother is almost entirely confined to her own rood. 
 Alma will see little or nothing of her." 
 
 " And tlie ladies of TVeyland Court ?" 
 
 " Alma will probablysee none of them," said Miranda, smiling. 
 " We shall not make her a Sister of our Monastery." 
 
 " It's more than kind of you, Miss Miranda, and I know it is 
 all for Mr. Alan's sake. The banns are to be put up next Sun- 
 day, and her tilings to be got ready and all. But I can manage 
 better without her, and up there with you she will be out of mis- 
 chief, and learning nothing but what's good." 
 
 " Out of mischief, at least," said Miranda. 
 
 " Unless you're a lady, and can make your daughter a lady," 
 said Mrs. Bostock, " it's a dreadful difficult thing to bring up a 
 girl. Full of deceit they are, and cunning as no one would be- 
 lieve. Look as innocent, too, if you trust their looks, which I 
 don't, nor wouldn't let one of them go out o' sight for five 
 minutes. Even now, while I'm here, I shouldn't wonder if 
 
 Alma isn't carrying on with But she shan't say I made 
 
 mischief," concluded the good woman, as if her whole discourse 
 had tended to the praise and honour of her daughter. 
 
 Alma was not " carrj-ing on" with anyone. She was harm- 
 lessly employed before the biggest looking-glass in the house, 
 practising the art of walking as she had seen Miss Nelly walk, 
 with her long skirts gathered up in the left hand, and a parasol 
 in the right. She worked very hard at this imitation, and really 
 succeeded in producing a fair caricature. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that, so far, Alma's only gratification 
 in her engagement was this kind of exercise. Whatever else 
 would happen to her, whatever " rows" — this young lady con- 
 fidently expected rows — with her husband, whatever defiance or 
 disobedience she would have to exhibit, one thing was quite cer- 
 tain, that she should be a lady. She would have her servants 
 and her carriage ; she would have as many dresses, and as fine, 
 as she wished. 
 
 Her only gratification — worse than that, her only consolation ! 
 The prospect of actual marriage Avith that grave and solemn 
 man, full of books and things beyond all comprehension, was 
 becoming daily more repugnant. She was not a girl of strong 
 will ; she was afraid of her father, of Mr. Uunlop, and of Harry. 
 She was afraid of all three, and she could not bear to think of 
 the consequences which might follow whatever line she adopted. 
 As for the grandeur of the thing, the poor girl was already des'
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 231 
 
 ^htsinnvJe. Grandeur -vvitla perpetual company manners vaa 
 not, she felt, worth the fuss people made about it. All ver^' 
 well to flaunt in the face of Black Bess, and the like of her ; 
 but a gene when one is alone, or surrounded by those very 
 R^earying companions, stiff manners and incomprehensible talk. 
 
 Three weeks before the wedding. A good deal may be done 
 in three weeks, did one only know the right thing to do. A clear 
 run of three weeks, which she had hoped to use for some 
 good purpose, to be devised by Harry, at home. And now she 
 was to give up this precious interval of liberty, and spend it in 
 learning company manners at Dalmeny Hall— company manners 
 all day long, and no relaxation. 
 
 And she had begun, in her foolish and irrational jealousy, to 
 hate Miss Dalmeny, whom, in former days, she had only envied. 
 The younj^ lady represented all that her betrothed regarded 
 as perfect in womanhood. Can a girl be expected to fall in love 
 with some one else's ideal — her engaged lover"s ideal — of what 
 she herself might be ? It is not in hum.an nature. 
 
 She dared not yet show her animosity. Once married, she 
 thought, Miss Dalmeny should see of what a spirit she could be 
 Only, when Alan talked of Miranda, she set her lips together 
 and was silent; and when Miranda came to see her, she hung 
 her pretty head and became sulky. 
 
 Miranda saw the feeling, and partly guessed its cause. 
 
 It was impossible for Alma to refuse an invitation at which 
 Alan was rejoiced beyond measure, and her father gratified, 
 because it seemed, to his amazing conceit, as if the v/hole world 
 was ready to acknowledge the fitness of the match. 
 
 " My little gell," he said, rubbing his great red hands together, 
 and assuming an expression of gratified vanity, which made 
 Alma long to spring to her feet aud box his ears for him — it is 
 understood that young ladies with such fathers as Stephen 
 Bostock accept the Fifth Commandment with a breadth of view 
 which allows large deductions — '' my little gell is to be received 
 at Dalmeny Hall. She is not to walk there, if ycu please, nor 
 is she to go in by the back way " 
 
 " Like her mother," interposed Mrs. Bostock. 
 
 " She T/ill be drove there by Miss Miranda herself," resumed 
 her husband. " She will be bowed down before and scraped 
 unto by the footmen, aud the butler, and the coachman, and the 
 lady's-maid. She will be made a lady before Mr. Alan makes 
 her a lady." 
 
 " I wish being a lady wasn't all company manners," sighed 
 Alma. 
 
 " Think of the grandeur !" said her father. " Think of setting 
 alone on your ov/n sofj^ at Weyland Court — because that's all 
 nonsense what Mr. Alan talks— a^vl receiving your father when
 
 232 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 he calls to soe you. Yon will be grateful then to your father 
 for being such a father, as it does a geil credit to take after." 
 
 Miranda drove her pony carriage to the farm to take her. 
 She saw that the girl was unwilling to come, and she guessed, 
 from the red spot in her cheeks and her lowering look, that 
 there had been some difference of opinion betv.een her and her 
 mother. In fact, there had been a row royal, the details of 
 which present nothing remarkable. The contention of Mrs. 
 Bostock, had the matter been calmly argued, was that her 
 daughter's disinclination to spend the three weeks before her 
 wedding at Dalmeny Hall was another proof of her unfitness to 
 rise to the greatness which was thrust upon her. Nothing but 
 a natural love for low life and conversation, such as her father's, 
 could account for her wish to refuse the invitation. Alma 
 would have pleaded, had not temper got the better of reason, 
 that he might have allowed her to enjoy in her own way the last 
 three weeks of her liberty. 
 
 The controversy, warmly maintained on either side, was 
 raging at its height when Miss Dalraeny's ponies were seen 
 coming up the road from the village. Both disputants instantly 
 became silent. 
 
 Very little was said when Alma left her home, and scant was 
 the leave-taking she bestowed upon her parent. But her heart 
 tank when the thought came upon her that she was leaving the 
 old life altogether, never to come back to it, and that for the 
 future it would be always company manners. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock watched the carriage drive away. She, too, felt 
 a heart-sinking. Her daughter was gone. 
 
 " A son is a son (ill he maiTies a wifo, 
 A daughter's a daughter all her life." 
 
 It was not BO in her case. She knew that, lady or not, there 
 Would be a space between her and Alma more widening as she 
 acquired new ideas, and began to understand how a lady thinks 
 of things. And spite of her temper, her craft, and her subtlety, 
 the good woman was fond of her daughter. Now Alma was 
 gone, she would be left alone with her Stephen, and he with 
 the thirst for bvandy-and-water growing upon him. What 
 difference did a little quarrel, however fierce, make for mother 
 or daughter ? 
 
 Alma preserved her silence and sulkiness during their short 
 drive to Dalmeny Hall. It made her worse to observe that 
 Black Bess was not in the village to watch her driving in state 
 with Miss Dalmeny. 
 
 Miranda took her to her own room, a pretty little room, 
 furnished with luxury to which the Bailiff's daughter was 
 wholly unaccustomed. The aspect of the dainty white curtains,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELElMA. 233 
 
 the pretty Fi'onch bed, the sofa, the toilet-table, the great glasa, 
 took away her breath, but it did not take away her sullcineps. 
 She reflected tiiat all these pretty things meant company manners 
 — why, oh ! why, cannot people have nice things, and yet live 
 anyhow ? — and she hardened her heart. 
 
 •' This is your room, Alma," said Miranda. " I hope you will 
 be happy Avith us." 
 
 Alma sat on the bed, and began to pull off her gloves, pulling 
 at them with jerks. 
 
 " You dout really want me," she said slowly, glancing fur- 
 tively at her hostess, for she was dreadfully afraid. " You don't 
 really want me here at all. You only want to teach mc manners. 
 You want to improve me before I am married, that's all." 
 
 It was quite true, but not a thing which need be said openly. 
 
 " Come, Alma," said Miranda, kindly : "you are going to marry 
 Alan. Is not that reason enough for our being friends ?" 
 
 But Alma went on pouting and grumbling. 
 
 " That's all very well, and if I hadn't been going to many INIr. 
 Dunlop, of course j-ou wouldn't have noticed me no more than 
 the dirt beneath j-our feet. I know that. But it's all nonsense 
 wanting to be friends. You think you can teach me how to 
 behave so as he shan't be ashamed of me. Very well, then. 
 I always thought, till I was engaged to a gentleman, that I 
 knew as well as anybody. But I know now that I don't. Mr. 
 Dunlop, he's always saying that there's nobody like you in all 
 the world." Here Miranda blushed violentlj\ " Why didn't 
 he ask you to marry him, then, instead of me ? I'm to imitate 
 you if I can, he says. Then mother keeps nagging — says I'm 
 not fit to sit at table with gentlefolks. It isn't my fault. "VVhy 
 did she not teach me ? She ought, because she knows, though 
 father doesn't." 
 
 " Manners," said Miranda, " are chiefly a matter of good 
 feeling." 
 
 Here she was quite wrcng. In my limited p'llgrimage, I have 
 met abundant examples of men pos'^essing excellent hearts and 
 the kindest dispositions, Avho seemed to regard a plate as a 
 trough. I am not at present thinking of the coiumis voyageura 
 •whom you meet at French country-town tahles-d'lwte, because 
 their hearts are not commonly considered to be in the most 
 desirable place. 
 
 Then Miranda took Alma's red hand — it was shapely and 
 BDiall — in her own white fingers, and pressed it kindly. 
 " Come, my dear, we will improve each other." 
 
 They had luncheon together and alone. In the afternoon 
 they sat in Miranda's cool morning-room, which looked upon 
 the shady garden, and while the bees droned heavily outside 
 among the flowers, and the light breeze rustled among tba
 
 234 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 leaves, and the heavy scent of summer floated throngh the opon 
 windows, Miranda told the girl something — she did not trust 
 herself to tell her all — of Alan's life. 
 
 " And so yoxv see, my dear, his whole life, from the very first, 
 as soon as he understood that he was born to wealth, has been 
 an endeavour to find out hoAV best to use that wealth, not for 
 any personal advantage or glory, but for the good of others. 
 And while other rich men have contented themselves with 
 giving money, speaking on platforms, and leaving secretaries to 
 do the work, he put his theories into practice, and has always 
 worked himself instead of paying others to work. He has 
 thought out the kind of life which he believes will be of the 
 greatest benefit, and he has lived that life. I think, Alma, that 
 there is no man living who has so much courage and strength 
 of will as Alan." 
 
 " Yes," said Alma thoughtfully. " Father always did say 
 that he was more cracked than any man he'd ever come acro;:s. 
 And I suppose he is." 
 
 Tills was not quite Miranda's position, but she let it pass. 
 
 '" To live among the people as one of themselves, to live as 
 they live, to eat among them, sleep among them, and to show 
 them how the higher life is possible even for the poorest, surely, 
 Alma, that is a very noble thing to do." 
 
 Alma looked as if she should again like to quote her father, 
 but would refrain. Those who dwell habitually among the 
 lower sorts acquire an insight into the baser side of human 
 nature which, perhaps, compensates for the accompanying in- 
 credulity as to noble or disinterested actions. 
 
 Alma did not quote Mr. Bostock, but she laughed, being on 
 this subject as incredulous as Sarai. 
 
 "After all, what good has he done the villagers with his 
 notions?" she asked. 
 
 "Who can tell?" replied Miranda. "You cannot sow the 
 Bced altogether in vain. Some good he must have done." 
 
 " He hasn't then," said Alma triumphantly. " Not one bit 
 of good. If I wasn't afraid of him, I'd tell him so myself. 
 You might, because yo^ are not going to marry him, and have 
 no call to be afraid." 
 
 Miranda shuddered. Was this girl, chosen on purpose to 
 carry on Alan's schemes, going to begin by openly deriding 
 them? 
 
 Alma lay back in her ea,sy-chair — in spite of company man- 
 ners, the chair was delicious — and went on with her criticism 
 of Alan's doings. 
 
 " Stuff and rubbish it all is, and stuff and rubbish I've called 
 it all along. There was the Village Parliament. When the 
 beer stopped, that stopped. Ketone single discussion was held
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 233 
 
 there. Oniv the usual talk about pigs and beer — same as in 
 the Spotted'^Lion. Then there v,-as the shop, where everybody 
 ■was to have little books, and put down what they bought, and 
 have a profit in it at the end of the year. As if the people 
 would take that trouble ! And there was no credit, until the 
 boys gave credit, contrary to orders. And then there was the 
 Good Liquor Bar, Avhere the beer was to be sold cheap, and the 
 best. Why, they used to water the beer, those two boys, and 
 unless they'd given credit, too, no one would have ever had a 
 glass there. And you know how both the boys have run away 
 with all the money, and ]Mr. Dunlop's found out that they kept 
 a double set of books." 
 
 "Yes," said Miranda. " It is such a pity that dishonesty 
 must be taken into account in every plan." 
 
 " All the village knew about it— at least, all the women. 
 Then the men on father's farm got three shillings a week 
 extra. That makes all the other men jealous. For do you 
 think that the men took the money home to their wives t* _ IS'ot 
 they, nor wouldn't if it had been thirty shillings. Spent it all, 
 every drop, in beer." 
 
 She almost rose to the level of righteous indignation as she 
 made these revelations. 
 
 " And the Library ! That makes a nice place for Prudence 
 Driver. She— and a nasty little cat she is— tried to get Mr. 
 Dunlop to listen to her tales and gossip. Well, v/e shall icc 
 before long." 
 
 Miranda began to feel very uncomfortable indeed. The 
 young lady was revealing the seamy side to her character. 
 
 "And the 15aths ! As if those beer-drinking louts ever 
 wanted to wash. It's too ridiculous. Well, I hope Mr. Dan- 
 lop's had enough of his foolishness now. I'm afraid to tell 
 him. But I hope you will, Miss Dalmcny." 
 
 "We will grant," said Miranda, with a feehng of hopeless- 
 ness, because the girl could not even feel respect for Alan's 
 self-sacrifice—" we will grant that some of the experiments 
 have not been successful. You, however, Alma, are his last 
 experiment. It depends upon yourself whether you will be 
 successful." 
 
 " Oh ! yes," sighed the girl wearilj'. " He's always talking, 
 but I can't understand, and sometimes I listen and sometimes I 
 don't. Said once he wanted to marry me in order to enter 
 more fully into their minds. Their minds, indeed ! As if that 
 would help him. I always thought men married girls because 
 they loved them— and never a word, not one single syllable 
 about love. How would you like it, JMiss Dalmeny V" 
 
 Miranda could not help it. The feeling was unworthv. but
 
 236 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 her heavy lieart did lift a little at the thought that Alan had 
 made no pretence of love to this girl. 
 
 " Then he lends me books. Books abont all sorts of things. 
 Books so stupid that you would think no one would ever be 
 fouiid to read them." 
 
 " But j-ou do read them ?" 
 
 " Oh ! I pretend, you know. I tried to, first of all, but \\ 
 was no use ; and then, because I saw he liked it, I took to pre- 
 tending," 
 
 This she confessed with the perfect confidence that amon^ 
 persons of her own sex such little deceptions are laudable when 
 found expedient. 
 
 And so the truth was at last ascertained by Miranda, The 
 girl, in spite of all Alan's preachings, which had fallen upon 
 unlistening ears, was wholly unprepared for the life designed 
 for her, and perfectly ignorant of her suitor's designs. 
 
 What was to be done ? She was afraid to tell Alan, and she 
 shrank from telling Alma. Then she sent a note to Desdcmona, 
 asking her to come to her help. Desdemona came to dinner, 
 and after dinner — which Alma thought a most tedious and ab- 
 surdly ceremonious affair — Miranda played and sang a little, 
 while Desdemona talked to Alma. 
 
 She talked artfully, this craftiest of comedians. She con- 
 gratulated Alma on her success of the Golden Apple, which she 
 insinuated was the means by which her splendid subsequent 
 success had been brought about. And when Alma, who found 
 in her a person much more sympathetic than Miss Dalmeny, at 
 once plunged into her private grievances at being deprived of 
 the usual accompaniments of courting, Desdemona murmured 
 in tones of real feeling, " Dear ! dear me ! bow very sad ! and 
 how very strange !" 
 
 And then she added, as if the thing made Alan's coldness 
 conspicuously disgraceful : 
 
 " And when, too, he is going to make you sacrifice yourself in 
 that dreadful way !'•' 
 
 " What dreadful way ?" asked Alma. 
 
 " Why, my dear child, after your marriage." 
 
 " After my marriage. What do you mean, Jlrs. Fanshawe ?" 
 
 "Why, my dear, what do you think you will do when you are 
 married ?" 
 
 Miranda heard the question, and went on playing softly. 
 
 " Why . . . live at Weyland Court, to be sure ; and have 
 carriages and servants, and be a lady." 
 
 " But that is not at all what you will do," said Desdemona, 
 ^ Has not Alan told you ?" 
 
 Alma's face grew white. 
 
 " You will never live at Weyland Court at all," said Dcsde-
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 237 
 
 mona, slowly and icil3\ " The Court will be Ipt to other people. 
 You will have no carriages and no servants : you will live in 
 tlie village among the people : you will work as you do now : 
 you will lead the same homely life that you have always led, 
 only simpler : yet it will be necessary, for your husband's sake, 
 that you make yourself a lady. It will be your lifelong busi- 
 ness to show the villagers how a cottage woman may be a 
 lady." 
 
 Alma gasped. 
 
 '' Is this the meaning of all his talks that I never listened 
 to ?'' She sprang to her feet and clasped her hands. " Oh ! I 
 am cheated — I am cheated ! And why did he pick me out for 
 sucli foolery ?" 
 
 " Because," said Miranda, leaving the piano and looking her 
 sternly in the face, " because Alan thinks that he has found a 
 woman who will enter into his noble plans, and help him to carry 
 them out. Because he trusts entirely in your loyalty and truth, 
 Alma. And because he thinks that you, too, desire a life which 
 shall be one of self-sacrifice, and yet most beautiful and holy 
 for him and for you." 
 
 But Alma broke out into passionate crying and sobbing. 
 She asked if this was to be the end of her fine engagement, that 
 everybody was to laugh at her, that she was to be worse off 
 than Black Bess, and her vredding only land her among the 
 wash-tubs of the rustics. She was a practical young lady, and 
 life in a cottage without a servant suggested wash-tubs as the 
 prominent feature. And then, in an uncontrollable rage, she 
 sprang to her feet, and cried : 
 
 " I might have had Harry Cardew, and he's a man, and not a 
 milksop." 
 
 And then she sat down again in her chair, and sobbed again. 
 
 Presently she plucked up her spirits a little, left off ci-ying, 
 and stated calmly her intention of going to bed, to avoid being 
 laughed at any more. 
 
 No opposition was made to this proposal, except a faintly 
 deprecatory remark by Miranda, to the effect that they were 
 very far from laughing at her. 
 
 When she was gone, the two ladies looked at each other. 
 
 " My dear Desdemona," said Miranda, " va^ heart is very 
 heavy for poor Alan." 
 
 " He is not married yet," said Desdemona. Really, that was 
 getting a formula of hers. 
 
 Miranda, presently, instead of going to her own room, sought 
 Alma's. The poor girl had cried herself to sleep, and lay with 
 her tear-stained cheek on her open hand — a picture for a 
 painter. Alma in repose, A-lma asleep. Alma motionless, waa 
 like a possible Greuze. You thought, as you looked at th«
 
 238 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 parted lips and the closed eyes, what the face would be like 
 v.'Iien the lips were parted for a smile, and the eyes were dancing 
 with delight or languid with love. But when the lips ioer& 
 parted for a smile, it was generally a giggle or a feminine sneer 
 — when the eyes were dancing with delight, it was joy at an- 
 other's misfortunes ; and if they were ever soft and languid 
 with love, it was not when they looked in the face of Alan 
 Dunlop, but in that of Gramekeeper Harry. For Alma Avas all 
 her fond mother painted her: a young lady of unpolished 
 manners and low views of life. 
 
 Miranda set down her candle, and sat awhile looking at the 
 girl wlio had robbed her of the one man she could ever love. It 
 seemed cruel. He Avould not, and did not, pretend to love this 
 village maiden : she made no pretence of any sort of affection 
 for him. She didn't even regard him with respect. She thought 
 him cracked. She did not understand, even now, what he wanted 
 her for ; there was not the smallest possibility that she would 
 ever rise to understanding him. She was no helpmeet for him, 
 and he, with his enthusiasm and simple loyalty, was no fit hus- 
 band for her. But Miranda could do nothing. 
 
 Presently, the light awakened Alma, who sat up, startled, and 
 seeing INIiranda, began to cry again, partly because she was 
 rather ashamed of her recent outbreak. 
 
 " My poor child," said Miranda, taking her hand and sitting 
 down beside her ; " I am so sorry. I thought you knev/ the 
 whole of Alan's designs." 
 
 " I di — didn't listen," she said. " It all seemed so stupid, and 
 oh ! I did think I should be made a lady." 
 
 " So you will. Alma, if you choose to be a lady. No one could 
 live with Alan Dunlop without becoming nobler and better. 
 My dear, there is nothing to cry about. You will have the best 
 husband in the world, and he will smooth your path for yon. It 
 will be your happy task to show the villagers the beauty of a 
 modest life. Alma, you will be envied in the long run, far more 
 than if you were going to Weyland Court to live in idleness. 
 You will think of things in this way, won't you ?" 
 
 " 111 try to," said Alma. " But, oh ! he's cheated me." 
 
 Miranda stole away. " He " was no doubt Alan, and it was a 
 bad omen of the future when she prefaced her promised medita- 
 tions on the Higher Life with the observation that her guide 
 and leader had cheated her. 
 
 Next day, Gamekeeper Harry received, by hand, two letters. 
 This greatly astonished him, as he was not in the habit of main- 
 taining a correspondence with any one. The first, written in a 
 fine Italian hand which was diihcult for the honest fellow to 
 read, was given him by a footman in the Thelema livery. It 
 was signed " Clairette Faashawe " — I think I have already
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 23; 
 
 alluded distantly to the fact that Sister Desdemona's marriage 
 having proved a failure, she had long since resumed her maiden 
 name with the marriage prefix— and asked him simply to call 
 Upon the writer at the Abbey that same afternoon, if possible. 
 lie accepted the appointment by word of mouth with the foot- 
 man. 
 
 The other letter was brought by a boy — in fact, the son of an 
 under-gardener. He drew it from the inside of his cap, and 
 gave it to Harry with a show of great secresy. 
 
 " Oh ! Harry," the letter began. It was written in a hand 
 which was legible, but yet not clerkly. " Oh ! Harry — such a 
 revelation as you little dream of! and what to do — with Mr. 
 Dunlop on one side and Miss Miranda on another, both at me 
 like printed books, and Mrs. Desdy Moner, as they call her, who 
 was nothing but a painted actress and glories in it, with her 
 scornful ways about my not going to Weyland Court after all. 
 I don't know what to do nor where to turn. So if you can 
 help me, and mean to, now's the time. And I'll try to be at 
 the little gate at the end of tlie garden — that v/hich Mr. Dunlop 
 ahvays uses, and it opens on the park — at nine o'clock ; and do 
 you be there, too, punctual. To think of living in the village 
 alongside of Ehick Bess, and she to come out and laugh all day 
 long, and me to go on slaving worse than at home. 
 
 " Your miserble true love, 
 
 "Alma." 
 
 Said Gamekeeper Harry to Hoberfc the boy : " You tell her, 
 boy, that I've read the letter and I'll be there." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX, 
 
 " ' Are you g^ing to be a fool P' asked George. 
 
 " ' Of course I am not going to be a fool,' answered tlie young woman." 
 
 Teollope. 
 
 Before six the next morning Alma awoke according to usual 
 custom. It took her a few moments to remember everything, 
 that she was in one of the rooms of Dalmeny Hall, the scene of 
 last night, her tears and disappointment. But the knowledge 
 came all too quickly, and she sprang from the bed and began to 
 dress herself swiftly. 
 
 Then she sat down to the table, where the thoughtful 
 Miranda had provided pens and paper, and dashed off the letter 
 T/e know of already with the ease of a practised pen and the im- 
 petuosity of a war correspondent. 
 
 Then she recollected that it waa only half aa hour's walk to
 
 240 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 the village of Weyland across the park, that she could get ther9_ 
 see her father at his breakfast, lay the whole horrid truth before 
 him, and be back again at the Hall before IMiss Dalmeny came 
 down. She slipped down the stairs as lightly as Godiva ; the 
 house was silent and shut up. The great front doors were locked 
 and bari'ed, and the shutters up, and the door which led into the 
 garden was closed in the same manner, She made her way into 
 one of the rooms — she did not know which — on the ground- 
 floor, and managed with some difficulty to open the shutters. 
 The window looked out upon the garden, and on the lawn was 
 a boy whom &he knew, an under-gardener's son, sweeping and 
 tidying up. 
 
 " Robert !" she cried, in a loud whisper. 
 
 Robert looked up, and saw, to his amazement. Alma Bostock. 
 
 •• Robert, I want to get out, and the doors are locked. Bring 
 me a ladder, or the steps, or something." 
 
 The window was about eight feet from the ground. Robert 
 brought her his short gardener's ladder, and the young lady, 
 with much agility, proceeded to get out of the window and to 
 descend. Seen from the outside, it looked like an elopement. 
 
 " Now, Robert," she said, " you go up the ladder and shut the 
 window. They will think the shutters were left open by 
 accident, and if anybody asks you about me, you didn't see me 
 go out of the house, mind." 
 
 " I mind," said the boy, grinning. 
 
 " And, Robert," she went on, hesitating, " can I trust you, 
 Robert ?" 
 
 He grinned again. 
 
 " I want you to take a letter for me, to Harry Cardew, You 
 know where to find him ?'' 
 
 " I know," said the boy. 
 
 " Then here is the letter. Let no one see you give it him. 
 Hide it in the lining of your cap — so ! — and I'll give you the 
 very first shilling I get." 
 
 " I'll take it safe and quiet," said the boy, stoutlj^ 
 
 She sped down the garden, out by the garden gate, and I'an 
 as fast as she could across the dewy grass of the park. Nobody 
 was there but the deer, who thought it a shame that they 
 should be disturbed so early in the morning, and looked at her 
 as indignantly as the natural benignity of their eyes enabled 
 them, refusing entirely to get up and scamper away, as thoy 
 Avould do later on. 
 
 Fortunately, there was no necessity to go through the village, 
 80 that she was seen by no one : and she reached the farm 
 before her father— who in these days of fatness was growing 
 late in his habits — had left the house on his early round. And 
 she was so early, that it was yet au hour from their breakfast.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 241 
 
 She rushed in, breathless and exhausted, wi'^h eager eyes, aa 
 if something dreadful had happened ; so inn<;h so, that her 
 mother was fain to sit down and gasp, and he r father stayed 
 his hand which was grasping his hat. 
 
 " Alma !" 
 
 " Yes, father," she replied with short gasps. " Yes, mother : 
 well may you say ' Alma !' Oh ! the things I've d 'scovered. Oh ! 
 the plots and the conspiracies !" 
 
 The Bailiff turned very pale. Had anything happened, then ? 
 Was the match, on which, to him, everything depended, in 
 danger ? Had these plots anything to do with him ? 
 
 " We've been nicely fooled, all of us. Oh ! nicely fooled. 
 And you, too, father," added Alma, " wise as you think 
 yourself." 
 
 " Who's been a fooling of me ?" asked Mr. Bostock, pro- 
 ceeding, in general terms familiar to his daughter, to state the 
 certain fate of the one who made a fool of Stephen Bostock. 
 
 " Mr. Dunlop, and Miss Dalmeny with him. They're them 
 that have fooled us all," ci'ied Alma, bx'eathless. " What do you 
 think he wants to marry me for ?" 
 
 " To make you his wife, I suppose," said her father. " That's 
 what most men want, and a most uncommon stupid want it is." 
 
 " Ah !" his wife echoed, " for once you're right, Stephen." 
 
 "Then it isn't," said Alma ; " and you're jusit wrong. He 
 doesn't want to make me his wife a bit ; that is, he won't make 
 me a lady." 
 
 "Nobody ever thought he would. Alma," said her mother, 
 staunch to her principles. 
 
 " He can't help it. Alma," said her father. " Tlie wife of the 
 Squire must be a lady : she's a lady by position. When a 
 woman marries she takes the rank of her husband. When I 
 married you " — he nodded to his wife, formerly ]ad3''s-maid — 
 " you took my position." 
 
 It was one of the minor results of the new allowance that the 
 Bailiff had taken to consider himself a man of high, and even 
 dignified, social position. 
 
 " That was fine promotion," said his wife. " Go on. Alma.'" 
 
 " You don't understand — neither of you understand. I 
 thought I was going to be Mrs. Dunlop in proper style up at 
 the Court and all. Well, it seems he's been explaining to me 
 ever since we were engaged what he meant. It isn't that a bit. 
 But I've been that stujiid, as I wouldn't understand one word 
 he said, and the more he said, the less I understood. It was 
 Miss Miranda who told me the truth last night. Ah ! father, 
 you and your fine plans indeed !" 
 
 " What the devil is it, then ?" 
 It's this. I am not to go to the Court at all — I am never to 
 
 16
 
 242 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 go there. I'm to be kept hidden away down here in the villag®. 
 I'm to live in a pigstj^, like what Mr. Dunlop has lived in for a 
 year. We're to have no servants — no nothing. I'm to do all 
 the work all day long, and listen to him talking all the evening. 
 Father, he'll drive me mad ! What with the work and tha 
 talk, I shall go cracked !" 
 
 She shook her pretty head tragically, and sat down on one of 
 the wooden kitchen chairs with a desperate sigh. 
 
 " But you will be married," said her father, thinking ox 
 himself. " You'll be married to the Squire. You can't well 
 get over that. Mr. Dunlop will be my son-in-law." 
 
 " And no fine dresses, and no pony-carriages, and nothing 
 grand at all ! And I'm to make friends with all the women in 
 the village, and show them how they ought to live ; and I shall 
 be as poor as any of them, because we shall live on five-and- 
 twenty shillings a week. Mothex", I'd rather come back home 
 and work in the dairy again." 
 
 " So you shall," said her mother, " and welcome. I always 
 said it was unnaturaJ '" 
 
 "You keep yoiir oar out of it," Mr. Bostock observed to hia 
 wife, with firmness, " and let me think this out a bit." 
 
 He sat in his arm-chair, his stick between his legs, and 
 thought it out for ten minutes. 
 
 " I remember now," he murmured, " the Squire did talk about 
 setting examples and that sort of stuff. He's full of soft places, 
 is the Squire." 
 
 Then he relapsed into hard thinking. 
 
 Meantime the mother looked blankly at her daughter. It 
 was hard enough to realise that her lady's son could positively 
 prefer her Alma to Miss Miranda. It was still harder to under- 
 stand why he wanted her to live with him in a cottage after the 
 manner of the rustics, in order to set an example. Did not 
 Miss Miranda set an example to all the world of a beautiful 
 young lady leading the most beautiful of lives ! What else did 
 he want ? 
 
 " And what," the girl went on with choking voice — " what 
 will Black Bess say? And what will Prudence Driver say ? 
 — the nasty, spiteful, little, twisted thing ! And what will all 
 of them say ?" 
 
 " As for that," said Mrs. Bostock, " I suppose they will say 
 just what they like. You can't tie tongues. It isn't that as I 
 care about ; nor it isn't that as your father thinks about." 
 
 " No," said Alma, who had taken the bit between her teeth 
 altogether since her engagement, and now permitted herself to 
 criticise her parents with the greatest freedom. " All you care 
 about is to stop the wedding if you can. You think your own 
 daughter is a disgrace to Mr. Duulop. In all the story-books I
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ^43 
 
 ever read yet, I never heard of a mother spiting her own 
 daughter. Step-mothers a-plenty, but never a real mother. 
 You ought to be ashamed of yourself, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock began what would have proved too long a 
 speech for insertion in these pages, but she was interrupted' by 
 her daughter, who now turned with vehemence upon her 
 father. 
 
 " And as for you," she cried, with such force that the thinker, 
 who was resting his chin on the stick, having closed his eyes 
 for greater abstraction, sprang erect in his chair, and gazed at 
 her with open mouth — " as for you, what you care about is to 
 call Mr. Alan your son-in-law, and squeeze all you can out of 
 him. I'm to marry the man for you to get his money." 
 
 Mr. Bostock, recovering his self-possession, remarked that, as 
 a general rule, sauce is the mother of sorrow, and cheek the 
 parent of repentance ; but that in this particular case his 
 daughter's provocations being such as they were, he was pre- 
 pared to overlook her breach of the Fifth Commandment, of 
 which, when she fully understood a fond father's projects and 
 counsel, she would repent upon her bended knees. That is, he 
 said words to that effect in the Bostockian tongue. After 
 which he relapsed into silence, and Vt'ent on considering the 
 situation. 
 
 It seems extraordinary that not one of these good people 
 should before this have realised the true position of things. 
 Alma, however, heard the truth from Alan's lips once, and 
 once only, and then she was too confused to understand. Later 
 on, when Alan repeated in general terms, again and again, his 
 plan of life, the girl was not listening, Mrs. Bostock had never 
 heard the truth at all. The Bailiff understood only — we must 
 remember that he too, for private reasons, was confused on the 
 first hearing of the statement — that Alan was going to give up 
 actual farm-work. And this being the case, there seemed really 
 no reason at all why he should not go back and live in his own 
 great house. 
 
 And now Alma's greatness was to be shorn of all but barren 
 honour. And what for himself ? Mr. Bostock went on medi- 
 tating. 
 
 " What's the good of being the Squire's wife," asked Alma, 
 " if I'm to be his kitchen drudge as well ? Thank you for 
 nothing. I'll stay at home, and let him marry Black Bess if he 
 likes. I won't marry him at all." 
 
 Then Mr. Bostock, having arrived at a definite conclusion, 
 slowly untwisted his right leg, which he had twined round the 
 left calf, raised himself in his chair, and gazed steadfastly and 
 in silence on his daughter. 
 
 Then he rose, took hat and stick, and spoke. 
 
 iS-2
 
 244 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Yon'll take a little walk with me, Alma," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock saw that the parental advice would be such aA 
 she would not approve, but it was no use for her to interfere, 
 and she was silent. 
 
 Outside the house her father thus addressed Alma : 
 
 " The Squire is a-going to marry you, my gell. He will live, 
 he says, down in the village, along with the farm-labourers, you 
 and him together. Gar ! in a cottage where you will do all the 
 housework. He's mad enough to want that, and obstinate 
 enough for anything. But there's one thing he has for- 
 gotten." 
 
 " What's that, father ?" 
 
 " When he asked for you, I told him you took after j'our 
 father. But I didn't tell him that my gell had got a temper of 
 her own, like her father. She is not one to be put upon, nor is 
 she one to be deprived of her rights." 
 
 " But I'm so afraid of him." 
 
 " Ta, ta ! afraid of your husband, and you a Bostock? 
 You'll sort him once you get the use of your tongue, free as 
 you have been accustomed to have it in your humble 'omc. 
 Lord ! I see it all reeling out straight before me. First, the 
 church, then the cottage ; that may last a week, or a fortnight, 
 according as you feel your way and get your freedom. Then, 
 one morning, j-ou sit down and fold your arms, and you says, 
 ' Take me to Weyland Court,' you says ; ' that's the place 
 where I belong, and that's the place where I mean to go.' He 
 begins to talk, you put on your bonnet, and you walk up to 
 Weyland Court, willy-nilly, whether he comes or whether he 
 stays behind, and you sit down there, and there you stay. You 
 send for your old father, and he will come and back you up. 
 Do you think he can drag you out of your own house ? Not a 
 bit of it." 
 
 " But he doesn't love me u bit, and he's head over ears with 
 Miss Dalmeny." 
 
 " Love ! Stuff and rubbish ! Now, look here. Alma. Don't 
 naix up foolishness. You've got to marry him. I can't afford 
 to let the chance go. If you prefer the work'us, say so, and go 
 there — you and your mother. Love ! What's love, if you've 
 got your carriage and pair ? What's love, when you can walk 
 up to the church a-Sundays with the folks scraping a-both 
 sides ? What's love, when you can have a new silk gownd 
 every day ? What's love, with no more ti'ouble about money ? 
 Gar ! you and your love !" 
 
 Alma had nothing to say to this. 
 
 " And now, my gell," resumed her father, " you just go 
 straight back to the Hall, and you'll get there before breakfast, 
 and go on as meek as a kitten with them all ; and if they show
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 245 
 
 their pride, remember that your time is coming. And your 
 father's to give you away in the churcli, and to back you up 
 when you do sit in your own house and laugh at 'em all. As for 
 they lazy Monks, we'll soon send them about their business." 
 
 Thus dismissed, the girl walked slowly back to the Hall. 
 What her father said was just. She might, by being bold at 
 the right moment, assert herself, and reign at Weyland Court. 
 On the other hand, she did not feel confidence in her own 
 powers, and she was, besides, profoundly humiliated. She 
 wanted I'evenge, and she did not comprehend, as her father 
 saw, that her most efficacious revenge, as well as her wisest 
 plan, would be to marry Alan first, and upset all his plans after- 
 wards. 
 
 She got back before breakfast, and found Miranda in the 
 garden. She told her hostess that she had run across the Park 
 to see her mother. 
 
 After breakfast, she sat in Miranda's room, with one of Alan's 
 selected books in her hand, and pretended to read. 
 
 As was this room, so she supposed, were all the rooms of 
 Weyland Court. It would be pleasant to sit in such rooms, to 
 roam from one to the other, to feel herself the mistress. 
 Pleasant, that is, if Mr. Dunlop was not there too. Pleasant, 
 if you could slip into the garden and meet Harry Cardew. And 
 here her heart fell low, because, as she reflected, after she was 
 married, she would never, never see Harry any more. 
 
 In her way — her sliallow way — Alma was certainly in love 
 with this man. He had taken her fancy : and to think of giving 
 him up, and taking in his place the grave and solemn gentleman 
 with the soft, cold manners, the deep and earnest eyes, whose 
 very word fell upon her like a reproach ! Then her heart har- 
 dened, and Weyland Court, with all its glories, seemed a poor 
 return for life spent with such a man. 
 
 Presently', looking up from her book, into whose pages shu 
 was gazing while she worked out these problems, she saw that 
 she was alone. Miranda had left her. Alma tossed the book 
 away, and began impatiently to wander round the room. First 
 she looked at herself in the mirrors, of which there were two ; 
 then she looked at the books and the pretty things on the tables; 
 and then she went to the window and began to yawn. Did 
 ladies do nothing all day but sit over books V 
 
 While she was still yawning, the door opened, and the lady 
 3hey called Desdemona appeared. She was in walking-dress, 
 having just come over from the Abbey, and as Alma looked at 
 her, she felt as if she was at last looking into the face of a real 
 friend. 
 
 Desdemona's face was capable of expressing every passion at 
 will, but chiefly she excelled in conveying the emotion of sym
 
 246 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 pathy. Her face this morning expressed sympathy in abundant 
 measure. Sympathy beamed from the pose of her head — a littlo 
 thrown back, because Alma was a little taller than herself, and 
 a little thrown on one side — from the softened eyes, from the 
 parted lips, and from the two hands, which were held out to 
 greet the village maid. I have never seen any actress who 
 equalled Desdemona in the expression of pure, friendly, womanly 
 sympathy. 
 
 " Oh ! my dear," she began, taking both Alma's hands and 
 squeezing them softly, " my dear, I was so sorry for you last 
 night, so very sorry. How I felt for your sad position. And 
 to think that he never told you ! And we knew it all the time. 
 What a pity ! Oh ! dear, dear ! what a pity !" 
 
 " Perhaps he told me, but I was not listening." 
 
 " Such a pity ! It seems so very hard upon you. What is 
 the good of marrying a rich man if you have to be a poor 
 woman ?" 
 
 " Why, that's juat what I told mother this morning," said 
 Alma eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, and to think, oh ! to think " — Desdemona's manner 
 beame sympathetic to the highest degree, and she almost wept 
 with sympathy, and her voice trembled — " to think that you 
 should have to listen to him, whatever he says, as soon a? you 
 are married !" 
 
 Alma groaned. 
 
 _ " And men— oh ! my dear, I know them well— are so fasti- 
 dious, You will have to do all the work of the house, make the 
 beds, wash the linen, scrub the floors, scour the pots, cook the 
 dinner, serve the breakfast and the tea, wash up the cups, and 
 all : and he will expect the manner — I mean the appearance — 
 and dress of a lady with it all. My poor dear ! no lady could 
 do it. It is not to be expected." 
 
 " Of course not," said Alma ; " but you are the first person 
 to fmd it out. Miss Dalmeny, I suppose, thinks it's as easy as 
 easy." 
 
 " Miss Dalmeny does not know anything, my dear," said the 
 perfidious Desdemona, v,-ith almost a gush of sympathy. " And 
 then, in addition to all that, you will have to go about among 
 the labourers' wives and make friends of them. That will be a 
 very hard thing to do, for I am sure, my dear, such a pretty and 
 well-mannered girl as yourself has never had much to do with 
 that class of people," 
 
 *' Indeed," said Alma, "I always despised the whole lot. 
 Black Bess is no better than a labourer's daughter, and half a 
 gipsy too." 
 
 " There it is, you see ; that is the pity of it. And then you 
 will have to read the books v/hich your husband will choose for
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 247 
 
 yon, because when yon are married, you will not be able to 
 pretond any more to have read his selections. Really, my poor 
 Alma, I pity you from my vei'y soul." 
 
 Alma resented this a little. 
 
 " At all events," said Alma, " there will be lots to envy me, 
 and think I'm a lucky girl." 
 
 "Those," said Desdemona gravely, "will be the people who 
 do not know what we know. The worst of it is that Alan is so 
 obstinate. Nothing, for instance, would ever persuade him to 
 bring yoa up to Wevland Court. He is fixed upon the village 
 life." 
 
 " But suppose," said Alma meaningly, " supx)Ose that I were 
 to go over there and say I was going to remain there." 
 
 This was rather a facer. 
 
 " My dear," said Desdemona, " after a pause of a few mo- 
 ments, " that would be impossible, because Weyland Court is 
 let— to the Monks of Thelema." 
 
 Then Alma gave way altogether. Her father's scheme, then, 
 was entirely unfeasible. She felt cold and faint. 
 
 " It will be quiet for you in the village. Dull, I am afraid. 
 No amusements. Miranda says she will call upon you, but yoa 
 cannot make yourself happy with an occasional call." 
 
 Alma turned white with jealousy — that meaningless jealousy 
 c£ hers. 
 
 " You see," her motherly adviser went on, " I want you to 
 know and understand everything. That is best, to begin with 
 a right understanding, is it not ? AVell, you can never be to 
 Alan Dunlop what Miranda has been to him. No one can. Had 
 it not been for his philanthropic schemes, he would have cer- 
 tainly married her. She is, indeed, the one woman in the world 
 who knows him thoroughly, and, under other circumstances, 
 ought to be his wife. So, my poor dear, you will have to content 
 yourself with the second place— or, perhaps, as he has many 
 other friends in the Abbey, even with a much lower place in 
 his affections. Of course, he will be personally kind to you. 
 Gentlemen do not beat or swear at their wives." 
 
 " You mean," said Alma, her eyes glittering with suppressed 
 fury, " that I am to be nothing in my own house, and that 
 my husband is to think more of Miss Dalmeny than of his 
 wife." 
 
 " Why, of course. We all know tliat. What can one expect, 
 after his long friendship with Miranda ? I suppose he has never 
 even pretended to make love to you, my dear ?" 
 
 " No," replied Alma, gloomily ; " he never has. He is as cold 
 as an icicle." 
 
 " He doea not kiss you, I suppose, or say silly things to you, 
 as other men do to their sweethearts ?"
 
 248 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " He has never kissed me. He isn't a bit like other men." 
 
 " Dear me ! dear me !" sighed Desdemona. " What a dreadful 
 thing to have such a sweetheart ! As well have none. And 
 you, too, a girl who knows how men fall in love." Desdemona 
 added this meaningly, and Alma flushed a ruby red. " Did 
 Harry Cardew ever leave you of an evening without a kiss ?" 
 
 " What do you know about Harry Cardew ?" 
 
 " Everything, my dear. And not only Harry, but gentlemen, 
 too. Did not Mr. Caledon once meet you in the lane and offer 
 to kiss you ? Did Mr. Exton take you through the park that 
 night when you won the Golden Apple, without the same 
 ceremony ? My dear, I am a witch ; I know everything. You 
 need not try to hide anything from me. I could tell you the 
 past, and I can tell you the future. So you see, Mr. Dunlop 
 does not love you, else he would kiss you, just as other 
 gentlemen have done. Tell me, my dear child," — here her 
 voice grew persuasive, and she took the girl's hand in her own 
 soft palm and stroked it — " tell me, do you loant to marry him ?" 
 
 " No," said Alma, " I don't. But I must — I must — cause of 
 father." 
 
 " Let me look at the lines of your hand." Desdemona took 
 the pretty little hand in hers, and began to examine it curiously. 
 '• I am a conjurer. I know all about palmistry. Um — um— um 
 — this is a very strange hand." 
 
 " What is it ?" cried Alma, superstitious, as other maidens be. 
 
 " Have you ever had your hand examined by gipsies ?" 
 
 " Only once," said Alma, " and it was all nonsense." 
 
 " But this ib' not nonsense. Dear me ! Really ! The most 
 curious thing /" 
 
 " Oh ! do tel7 me," cried Alma. 
 
 " My dear, if it had not been for what has happened, you 
 would think I was inventing. Now look at your own band. 
 What does that line mean across the middle ?" 
 
 " I am sure I don't know." 
 
 " A marriage interrupted. And what does that line mean 
 under the ball of the thumb ? But, of course, you do not 
 know. A long and happy life. And those lines round the 
 third finger ? Children and grandchildren. ]\Iy dear, you will 
 be a happy wife and a happy mother ; and yet . . . and yet 
 ... I do not think it will be in the way you think. I ■wonder, 
 now, if you have a pack of cards anywhere." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know." 
 
 " There ought to be," said Desdemona, looking about. Pro* 
 Bently she opened ths drawers of a Japanese cabinet. " Ah I 
 here are Bome." Alma could hardly be expected to know thct
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 249 
 
 sLe had put them there, arranged for use, that very morning, 
 
 " Let's see what the cards say." 
 
 Alma looked on breathlessly while the conjurer dealt, ar- 
 ranged, and laid her cards in rows, quite after the fashion 
 approved among wise wonen. 
 
 " A brown man," she said, dropping out her sentences as if the 
 cards called for them, " a man with curly hair : a man with 
 rosy cheeks : a tall man : a young man : wedding bells and a 
 wedding ring : a cross : this card looks like a father's anger : 
 this . . . what is this ? Your mother does not seem angry. A 
 poor man, too, but riches in the background. My dear, can you 
 explain it all to me ?" 
 
 " It's Harry Cardew," said Alma, eagerly. " It can't be no 
 one else." 
 
 " Is it now ? You see, my deai', we cannot read names. We 
 can only tell events. And what does all this mean, do you 
 think ? Cards and the lines on your hand cannot tell lies, either 
 together or separately." 
 
 " I don't know. All I can say is, the banns are up." 
 
 " Yes ; but there is many a slip, you know. And Harry ?" 
 
 " Well ... but you'll tell Miss Dalmeny." 
 
 " Indeed, I will not." 
 
 " Then I will try to meet Harry some evening, and ask him 
 can he do anything ? Because, whatever father says, I can t 
 abide the thing, and I won't." 
 
 " You are right in one thing, my dear. Have a spirit and a 
 will of your own. I always did say for my own part that a wife 
 should be a man's one thought. Now, there's Miranda and 
 Alan— there they are in the garden at this moment." Alma 
 looked out, and saw them walking over the lawns in eager con- 
 verse, and her little heart was like to burst with jealousy. " A 
 pretty pair, are they not ? After all, though, it would be a 
 pity to spoil Alan's philanthropic sims, just because he's in love 
 with Miranda. 
 
 Alma tossed her head. 
 
 *' It isn't his philanthropy that I care for," she said ; " not 
 one straw. It's onlj' father, who wants to get things for himself 
 out of his son-in-law," 
 
 Here, however, the lady they called Desdemona broke olf the 
 conversation by sitting down to the piano and beginning a song, 
 She had a sweet, strong contralto, and she knew how to 
 enunciate her words, so that Alma understood them, and her 
 heart began to glow within her. 
 
 For Desdemona began to sing a song of a faithful pair of 
 lovers, who were to be separated by paternal decree and the 
 maiden given to another ; but that they ran away, like Keats'a
 
 £50 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 young lady, on the very eve of the wedding, and did not appear 
 again until Holy Church had fairly made them one. 
 
 It was a beautiful song, and sung with the clear intonation 
 which stage practice gives. Also, oddly enough, there was a 
 personal application in the song to her own case, a thing she had 
 never noticed in hymns, which were the kind of songs most 
 familiar to her. 
 
 " How should you like, Alma," murmured the temptress, 
 turning on the piano-stool, " how should you like to be carried 
 away by your own true love ?" 
 
 "Ah!" said Alma. 
 
 " What a splendid revenge !" cried the actress. She sprang 
 from her feet and began to act. By what witchery, what en- 
 chantment, did the girl read in the face of the actress, in her 
 gestures, in her eyes, the whole of a single scene ? "A revenge 
 indeed. Your father waiting in the church : your betrothed at 
 the altar :" — her hands v/ere spread out, her head erect, her eyes 
 fixed, while Alma bent before her, mesmerised, unable to lift her 
 gaze from Desdemona's face, with parted lips and heaving breast 
 — " your bridesmaids wondering where you are : the clergyman 
 with the book : the organist tired of playing : the people all 
 wondering and waiting. Then— a sound of wheels .... it is 
 the bride. How beautiful she looks !— almost as beautiful as 
 you. Alma, my dear. But she is on the arm of another man. 
 Heavens ! it is the rival. The people press and crowd. The 
 men whisper : the girls laugh and envy her : true love has won 
 again. You can go, avaricious father — go — and count your 
 gold." She acted all this with energy. " You can go, baffled 
 suitor — yoii who looked to make your profit out of the bride you 
 never loved — And you — all you who pray to see true love 
 rewarded, come out with us and dance upon the village green. 
 . . . What a scene ! Can you not picture it ? Oh ! Alma, 
 Alma, my beautiful Alma !" 
 
 It was a simple trap, but set with subtlety. Any lesa 
 direct method would have roused Alma's suspicions. Now, 
 however, the simple cottage girl, entranced by this bewildering 
 picture, intoxicated by Desdemona's praises, overcome by so 
 much sympathy and so much kindness, yielded herself a ready 
 victim to the actress's blandishments, and fell into those fat and 
 comfortable arms and on that ample bosom which lay open and 
 invited the fond embrace. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " A tall and proper man," 
 
 It was with curiosity that Desdemona awaited the young game* 
 keeper, who had taken the fancy of this village girl. Doubtless.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 251 
 
 BOTiie clumsy rustic, half a step removed tibove tlie clods of the 
 soil : some bashful, grinning swain, who might be drawn with 
 his finger in his mouth, to convey a faithful impression of his 
 character. Well, she saw a rustic certainly, and yet one of the 
 most magnificent men she had ever looked upon, the comeliest, 
 the straightest, and the strongest. His cheeks were ruddy like 
 David's, his hair was curly like Absalom's, only he avoided that 
 excessive length which led to Absalom's untimely end ; his eye 
 as keen as that of the last Mohican. 
 
 Desdemona rose out of respect to such splendid humanity. 
 And then, to the honest young giant's amazement, she murmured, 
 still looking at him : 
 
 " There be some women, Silviua, Lad they marked Mia 
 In parcels, as I did, would have gone near 
 To lull in love with him." 
 
 And she said aloud, 
 
 " Shake hands with me, Mr. Cardew ; I think you are a very 
 handsome man." 
 
 Harry bowed respectfully, but he did not accept the invitation 
 to shake hands. And then Desdemona discovered that this 
 handsome man was perfectly self-possessed and had perfect 
 manners. Her experience of gamekeepers was naturally small, 
 but her knowledge of human nature should have taught her 
 that men who live alone in the woods, watching the habits of 
 creatures, and whose work brings them into close contact with 
 gentlemen, would be likely to acquire a fine manner. 
 
 Harry, then, bowed gravely when this lady told him he was 
 handsome. He knew the fact already : he had experienced this 
 kind of attack on his personal vanity more than once : but, 
 though it is undoubtedly better to be good-looking than ugly, 
 good looks will not keep off poachers, nor will staring at your- 
 self in a glass keep down vermin. Harry was not altogether 
 without imagination, but he devoted all his available play of 
 fancy, all that was imaginative and unpractical in his composi- 
 tion, to Alma. 
 
 "I wanted to see you," said Desdemona, "about Alma 
 Bostock." 
 
 " About Alma Bostock ?" 
 
 " I have learned from Mr. Caledon, who knows you, I be- 
 lieve " 
 
 Harry smiled. " Yes, madam, I know Mr. Tom very well. 
 Almost as w^ell as I know Mr. Alan." 
 
 " That you and Alma were, until her engagement with Mr. 
 Dunlop, attached to each other." 
 
 " Yes, madam," said Harry, quietly j that is so. And we arg 
 attached still."
 
 252 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " And you hoped to marry her ?" 
 
 " Surely," said Harry, " surely, we did think and hope so." 
 
 The quiet self-possession of this young man, and his modest 
 way of answering, struck Desdemona with a little confusion. 
 
 " Pray do not consider me impertinent. I assure you that I 
 am for many reasons most desirous of helping Alma in thia 
 matter." 
 
 "No one can help me. Nothing can be done now," said 
 Harry. " Alma's going to marry Mr. Alan, and there's an end." 
 
 *' And you ? What will you do ?" 
 
 " I shall emigrate," he replied. "I've saved a little money, 
 and I shall go out to Canada." 
 
 Desdemona was silent for a while. 
 
 " Does Mr. Dunlop know ?" 
 
 Harry shook his head. 
 
 " Unless Alma's told him, he can't know. Because there'i 
 only we two, and Mr. Tom Caledon, and now you, who know 
 anything about it." 
 
 " Would it not do good to tell him ?"' 
 
 " I think not, madam," replied Harry, slowly. " I've turned 
 that thought over in my mind all ways, day and night, to try 
 and get at the right thing ; and I've made up my mind that if 
 Mr. Alan hears of it from any one except Alma herself, he'll be 
 set against her, may be, for deceiving of him. Let things be." 
 
 " And you have decided to do nothing ?" 
 
 " Nothing," he said. " There was hope while Alma was at 
 home. I didn't know, but I used to think, when she came out 
 to meet me in the orchard at night, when he was gone, that I 
 should somehow try and find a way. And Mr. Tom, he came 
 and talked it over with me ; but the days went on, and I 
 couldn't hit on any plan. And now. Miss Dalmeny has got her 
 up at the Hall, and will show her the pleasant ways of living 
 like a lady, and fill her head with notions, so as nothing can be 
 done." 
 
 '* I think that you are wrong ; something may yet be done. 
 Now, Mr. Cardew, what I want to make quite clear to you is 
 that those who love Alma and those who love Mr. Alan — of 
 whom I am sure you are one " 
 
 " Yes," said Harry, " there's no one like Mr. Alan, except 
 Mr. Tom, perhaps." 
 
 " All of us, then, have got to do what we can to prevent thig 
 marriage." 
 
 " But the banns are put up." 
 
 " That does not matter. For many reasons, I cannot ask 
 Lord Alwyne, or Miss Dalmeny, or any of the ladies here, to 
 do anything, but I have seen Mr. Caledon, and he will join me,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 253 
 
 Rnd we will both work our best for you to break ofiE the mar 
 riacte, and you must give us your help." 
 
 Harry looked puzzled. 
 
 " You do not understand ? Then let me explain something. 
 Alma finds out at last what we have known all along, that Mr. 
 Dunlop wants her to marry him solely in order to carry out 
 certain plans and theories of his ; that he means her not to live 
 at Weyland Court at all, but in a little cottage among the farm 
 labourers, as he himself has been living, and to work among 
 them as he has worked. Stop " — for Harry was about to speak 
 — " Mr. Dunlop, for his part, believes that she understands his 
 views, that she will gladly follow in his steps, and help him 
 with all her heart to enter into the minds of the villagers, 
 understand them, and show them the real Christian life." 
 
 Here Harry laughed with derisive pity. 
 
 " Alma, for fear of her father, dares say nothing. Mr. Dun- 
 lop, who is. of course, entirely honourable, will keep his engage- 
 ment, even if he finds out the truth about her. I need not tell 
 you that the prospect before both is of the darkest and most 
 unhappy kind — for Mr. Dunlop disappointment and humilia- 
 tion ; for Alma " 
 
 Here she was silent. 
 
 " Yes," said Harry gravely ; " I've seen it all along. For 
 Alma it will be worse." 
 
 " Then let us prevent it." 
 
 Harry only looked incredulous. How to prevent a wedding 
 of which the banns were already put up ? The thing was not 
 in nature. 
 
 " Will you let me tell you a little story ?" 
 
 Desdemona told a little story. 
 
 It was a story of the same genre as that little scene which she 
 acted for Alma. She acted this as well, but in a different way, 
 for to Alma she was melodramatic, exaggerated, exuberant ; 
 but to this man of finer mould, she was concentrated, quiet, and 
 intense. He was not externally carried away, as Alma. He 
 did not lean forward with glistening eye and parted lips, but 
 his cheek gi-ew pale, and his lips trembled. Indeed, it was a 
 story very much more to the purpose than any related by Sir. 
 Barlow to Masters Sandford and Merton. 
 
 " And," said Desdemona, coming to an end, " it is not as if 
 we were inviting you to join in a conspiracy against Mr. Dan- 
 lop's happiness, or against Alma's. Whatever is the result, so 
 far as Mr. Dunlop is concerned, you will have prevented him 
 from a step which would have ruined his future." 
 
 " It seems like a dream," said Harry. 
 
 " And, perhaps," continued Desdemona, " if those friends sc 
 arrange matters as that this wedding does not take place, every-
 
 254 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 body who knows who those friends were would hold theJt 
 tongues if necessary." 
 
 " Surely," said Harry, " that is the least they could do." 
 
 " Then we quite understand ourselves," Desdemona continued. 
 "You will hold yourself in readiness to act some time within 
 the next fortnight. Above all, secrecy." 
 
 " It seems like a dream," said Harry. " Mr, Dunlop, he'd 
 never forgive me." 
 
 " Perhaps not," replied Desdemona ; " and if he does not, 
 there are other people in the world. You will not ofEend Lord 
 Alwyne, I am sure, nor Mr. Tom, nor myself." 
 
 Harry stood musing for a little. Then he collected himself. 
 
 " I am to see her to-night," he said, "at the end of the garden 
 of the Hall." 
 
 "By appointment?" asked Desdemona, a little taken aback — 
 the artful little creature. 
 
 " Yes, madam, at her request. What am I to say to her ?" 
 
 Desdemona could have wished him to tell Alma that she was 
 a cunning and crafty little animal, thus beginning the very first 
 day of her stay with a secret appointment. But she re- 
 frained. 
 
 " Tell her as little as you can. Only let her know that you 
 alone will be able to stop the marriage, if she keeps quiet and 
 tells no one. And go on meeting her. I will do all I can to 
 make the meetings easier for her, and unsuspected by Miss 
 Dalmeny. And now, my friend, good-bye. Shake hands, in 
 token of confidence." 
 
 Harry bowed, and extended his brown fist with a blush which 
 became him. 
 
 " I like you," said Desdemona, "and I will show my liking by 
 giving you an old woman's advice. It is only useful for mar- 
 ried men. My advice is no good for bachelors and selfish people 
 like them. Do not, then, begin your married life by thinking 
 j^our wife an angel. If you do, you will be disappointed. Re- 
 member that she is a woman, and though, perhaps, a good deal 
 better than yourself, with a woman's vanities and weaknesses. 
 Remember that. Also, don't humble yourself. Remember 
 that if she has her points, you have yours. And what a 
 woman likes is a husband who rules her ; never forget that. 
 She looks for guidance, and if you don't guide her, some other 
 man may. And begin in your home-life as you mean to go on. 
 And do not trust her blindly, because there are some women 
 who go on better if they feel that they are running in harness, 
 with an eye to watch, and a hand upon the rein. One thing 
 more. Remember that all women, like all men, are most ea&ily 
 kej>t in good temper by praise administered with judgmeufc 
 Shall you remembei all this ?"
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 255 
 
 "I will try," said Harry. "At all events, I see what you 
 mean. Alma isn't a goddess, but I think I can make her into 
 a good wife for me." 
 
 Desdemona sat down and considered carefully. 
 
 " It cannot be wrong," she thought. " Alan will be cleared 
 of this entanglement. He will marry Miranda. Alma, the poor 
 little shallow Alma, will marry the man who has fascinated her, 
 and no one will be harmed — except, perhaps, that man himself. 
 What a splendid m.an it is ! And he may not be harmed. Alma 
 is not up to his elbow in intellect and goodness ; yet he is 
 strong, and will rule. When a man can rule in his own house, 
 very little harm comes to it. They will all bless and laud con- 
 tinually the name of Desdemona. 
 
 And then, her fancy wandering back, she sat for a long time 
 thinking of the past, in which Alan's father was a good deal 
 mixed up. 
 
 This was at three in the afternoon. Harry walked across the 
 Park and inspected certain spots where he suspected wires, 
 certain traps where he looked for stoats, killed two vipers, shot 
 a kite, and took other steps in the gamekeeping interests. This 
 bi'ought him to five. Then he made his tea, which took longer 
 in the making than in the drinking. Then he took a pipe, and 
 considered with a certain elation, dashed with soitow, the events 
 of the day. Had his thoughts been written down, they might 
 have taken some such shape as the following : " I am the 
 servant of Mr. Alan, and I am going to take away Mi*. Alan's 
 wife that was to have been. But he took away mine that was to 
 have been. And it would be a sin and a shame to let the wedding 
 ever take place. Alma would be wretched, and Mr. Alan dis- 
 appointed. "When he can't marry Alma, he will go back to the 
 young lady he always ought to have married — Miss Dalmeny. 
 
 " As for me, Mr. Alan will never forgive me. I shall lose 
 ■mj place, and that is worth a great deal more than I am ever 
 likely to make oif a small farm in Canada. But Lord Alwyne 
 Tviil be pleased. One would go a long way to please Lord 
 Alwyne : and him our best friend always before Mr. Alan camo 
 of age. And Mr. Tom will be pleased. One would like to 
 please Mr. Tom. I think that everybody will be pleased. 
 
 " Except Bostock. But Bostock has had a whole year's 
 steady run with the Squire, cheating him at every turn, as all 
 the wcidd knows ; he ought to be content. I suppose he ex- 
 pected to go on cheating all his life. No, Bostock, you are not 
 going to be the Squire's fa{her-in-law ; and it will be worth — 
 well, worth Mr. Alan's displeasure to see your rage, when you 
 find the prize slipped out of your fingers, and yourself nothing 
 but bailiff still, with the accounts to make up. 
 
 " And as for Alma . . . well . . . Alma ia what the Lord
 
 256 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 
 
 made her . . . and if one is in love with Alma, why trouble 
 one's liead aboi;t Alma's little faults ? The lady meant well, 
 no doubt, and gave excellent advice, which if a man would 
 always follow, he'd keep clear of many a pitfall. Poor little 
 Alma!'\ 
 
 All this thinking brought him to half-past eight, and then, 
 mindful of his assignation, he took his gun and strolled leisurely 
 in the direction of the Park. It was half an hour's walk to the 
 garden-gate where Alma was to meet him. Presently, at the 
 point nearest to Weyland Court, there came slowly along in the 
 twilight a pair, hand in hand. 
 
 They were Mr. Tom and Miss Nelly, and they looked sad. 
 
 Harry took off his hat respectfully. 
 
 " Well, Harry," said Tom, putting on a cheerful air, " what 
 news?" 
 
 Nelly went on alone, trailing her parasol in the grass. 
 
 " I've seen Mrs, Fanshawe, sir — the lady they call Sister 
 Desdemona." 
 
 " Yes— yes." 
 
 " And I've come to an understanding with her. I'm to depend 
 en the help of friends, and take the word when the word is 
 given to me." 
 
 " All right, Harry, all right. I shall not forget. Have yon 
 seen Alma lately ?" 
 
 " Not since she came to Dalmeny Hall, sir." 
 
 This meant, not for four and twenty hours, and Harry hardly 
 thought it necessary to explain that he was on his way to meet 
 her. 
 
 " Have you talked it over with her yet ?" Tom went on. 
 
 Harry shook his head. Just then Nelly turned back, and 
 joined Tom again. 
 
 " Girls," he said, " are girls. That means, begging your 
 pardon. Miss Despard, because I am not talking of ladies, that 
 girls of our class like admiration and ease, and sitting by the 
 file, warm. Therefore, when Mr. Dunlop asked Alma, she 
 thought at once that he admired her more than the young ladies 
 of the Abbey. That turned her brain. And then she thought 
 it was to be all sitting by the fire, with her feet on the fender. 
 And that attracted her too. So that we can't altogether blame 
 Alma, Mr. Tom." 
 
 Harry spoke wistfully, touched his hat, and went on his way. 
 
 Then Nelly, who had been hanging her head, burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh ! Tom, every word comes home to me. / like to be 
 chosen out of all the rest. / like to look forward to a life of 
 ease and comfort, 'with ray feet on the fender.' Oh! it's
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 257 
 
 ghameful — it's sliameful ! But ho'sv to get out of it. Pity me, 
 Tom." 
 
 The " revelations " v/hicTi Alma made to lior lover were con- 
 veyed ■with the dramatic energy which characterises young 
 women of the lower class all over the world, when narrating 
 their wrongs. She was furious with everybody : with Miranda 
 for telling her the truth — " She knew it all along, Harry, and 
 was only laughing at me in her stand-off way :" with Alan, for 
 not telling lier before — he had told her dozens of times, only 
 she was not listening : with her mother, for rejoicing that her 
 daughter would not be stuck up for the dei'ision of all as a fine 
 lady : with her father, for not instantly declaring that the honour 
 of the Bostocks demanded a breaking off of the alliance : with 
 herself, for having been so fooled : and, above all, prospectively, 
 with Black Bess, for the advantages which this new complication 
 might give her. Nor was her anger appeased at all either by 
 the very hearty kiss which her lover bestowed upon her by way 
 of greeting, nor by that which followed the conclusion of her 
 tirade. 
 
 She looked prettier as she stood there, worked up into a royal 
 roge, than even on that night — to be sure Harry was not there 
 — when she stood triumphant before the assembled multitude, 
 bearing round her neck the chain of the Golden Apple. I do 
 not think, now one tries to remember, that an irate Venus has 
 ever been painted. She smiles, she sprawls, she laughs, she 
 leers, she is Venus Victrix, Venus Triumphant, Venus the com- 
 peller of hearts, Venus folloY^'ed by a troop of abject, grovelling 
 men, but she is never, I believe, Venus in a royal rage. And 
 yet, when one thinks of her uncongenial husband, worse for her 
 than Alan Duulop would be for Alma, one may be sure that 
 there were moments in which her patience gave way, and she 
 sought the relief of attitudes, gestures, and invectives such as 
 one would fain see painted and written. Heavens ! Vv'^hat a 
 divine subject — Venus in a Rage ! Methinks I see the heaving 
 bosom, the parted lips, the bright and glorious eyes charged with 
 the lightnings of scorn and wrath, the thunders of the brow, the 
 tresses flying in disorder — it is a subject beyond the powers of 
 mortal painter. 
 
 " And now, what's to do, Harry ?" she asked. 
 
 She had exhibited a copiousness of language and a display of 
 imaginative colouring to help out details, in themselves, perhaps, 
 unpromising, which did her infinite credit ; and now, her stoiy 
 told, she stood quivering still with her wrath. 
 
 " First," said Harry, " first, tell me true — you were proud 
 that day when Mr. Alan asked you to marry him ?" 
 
 " Yes," she replied, " I was proud. Woidda't any girl be 
 proud when the Squire come courting her ? And Miss Miranda 
 
 17
 
 258 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 fcnd all the beautiful young ladies at the Abbey after him ia 
 vain. Why, Harry, ii wouldn't be in nature not to be proud, 
 when all the others wei-e made envious." 
 
 " And you didn't ask whether he was in love with you ?" 
 
 " No, I didn't. He said something about it to begin v/ith, 
 bat then — who knows what he says or what ho means? If a 
 man doesn't love a girl, what's the use of his manning her ?" 
 
 " And now you find he doesn't, and you know he wants you 
 for his o^vn experiments, you'd cry off if you could. Think 
 careful what you say, Alma. IMore depends than you know." 
 
 " I would cry oif," she replied, " and rrelcome, only for 
 father. To live in a cottage, and do all the work myself, and 
 have that man with his everlasting talk all day and all night 
 about the house— why, it would be better to stay at home with 
 father, and that's not too lively." 
 
 " Never mind father," Harry replied huskily, because this 
 was a very important question whicli he v/as aboat to put ; 
 " never mind father. Look here. Alma— once for all — and 
 make an end of it. WI!1 you have me? No fooling this 
 time." 
 
 " What do you mean, Harry ?" There was a light of hope, 
 if not of responsive iGva, in Alma"? evea. '' Wb»t«»ver do you 
 mean ?" 
 
 "I mean what I say. And this time you must mean -what 
 you say. Say No, and I'll go away and never trouble you nor 
 yours no more. Say Yes, and we'll laugh at them all yet." 
 
 " But T/hat do you mean, Harry ?" 
 
 " What I say. Promise to marry me, and I'll manage it 
 somehow. I shan't tell you what I'm doing. There shall bo no 
 chance of your letting out secrets. But I'll manage : I tell you 
 I know how." 
 
 " Then, Harry," she said, firmly, " I'll say Yes, and joyful, if 
 only to get I'id of Squire Sobersides. And nov/ , I suppose," 
 she added, with a little natural jealousy, " he'll take and marry 
 Miss Miranda. Then they can preach to each other, and much 
 joy may they have." 
 
 Clearly Miss Bostock was as yet unfitted for the professed 
 practice of the Higher Culture. 
 
 " And what are you going to do, Harry ? Won't yoia tell 
 your OAvn Alma, as loves you true ?" 
 
 By this time the fond gamekeeper had encircled the waist 
 of tins twice-betrothed nymph. But he was not to be wheedled. 
 
 " Never you mind what I'm doing. What you've got to do ia 
 just to sit at home, here, quiet. You wait patient, and say 
 nothing till I give the word, and then you do exactly what I tell 
 you, v/ithout letting out a word to anybody." 
 
 " And how will yon send mo v/ord, Harry ?"
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 259 
 
 " By a messengei'," he replied ni3^sterionsly. " Never mind 
 trlio that messenger is. IIc'll tell you. And you may know him, 
 and you trust him, and do what he tells you." 
 
 This was i-omantic. This was a conspiracy. Alma felt the 
 delicious excitement of a secret intrigue creep over her. 
 
 " But you've no time to lose, Harry. The banus were up 
 last Sunday, only three weeks before the day." 
 
 " Plenty of time. Will you be patient and quiet, even if you 
 don't hear from me till the very day before ?" 
 
 She promised ag;iin. 
 
 " As for your father, we'll make him go round like a bubbling 
 turkey-cock, and as red in the gills. And as for Mr. Dunlop— 
 well— I'm sorry for Mr. Alan. But it's all for his own good," 
 said Harry, cheering up. " He's like David, when he wanted to 
 take away that single ewe lamb of his neighbour's, and the 
 prophet came and prevented of him doing it." 
 
 As a gamekeeper, Harry's opportunities of going to church 
 were limited, as everybody knovv^s that Sunday morning is the 
 gamekeeper's most busy and anxious time. This fact fully ac- 
 counts for the curious mess he made of his Bible history. 
 
 *' Did him good, that prophet," he repeated. 
 
 " Ah ! but, Harry, Mr. Dunlop '11 never forgive you." 
 
 " Let him forgive or not, as he likes," said Harry. " We'll go 
 to Canada. I'd aslief go there and farm my ov/n bit o' land, 
 as stay here watching for poachers and destroying of vermin." 
 
 " And what will they all say ? Oh— h !" said Alma, with a 
 long sigh of delight at the prospect of assisting in an adventure. 
 
 " Folks v.dll talk," said Harry ; " and they may talk about us, 
 if they like, just the same as about other people. Good-night, 
 my pretty. You do just v^hat I say, and heart up." 
 
 CHxiPTER XXXII. 
 
 " Think women love to matcli with men, 
 And not to live so like a saint." 
 
 It was a fact, this engagement, because the banns were put up 
 in church, argued the people. Banns cannot lie. Bostock 
 might very well lie ; Alma herself might lie ; but banns are 
 not to be disputed. Therefore the country-side became con- 
 vinced that the Squire of Weyland was really going to marry 
 the Bailiff s daughter, an event as wonderful as that historic 
 parallel of Islington, and the thing could be discussed as if it 
 had already taken place. They knew not, they could rtot 
 understand, these simple rustics, that the marriage was but a 
 trap set by their Seigneur to catch the sunbeam of their hearts. 
 
 17-2
 
 26o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Had they known that fact they would have regarded the pro- 
 ceeding with the contempt which characterised the prevalent 
 attitude of mind towards the Squire. 
 
 " He's not been that good to the village," said the young man 
 they called William, to the cobbler of advanced thought, " as 
 the village had a right to expect from the way he began. They 
 suppers, now, they was good while they lasted — as much beer 
 as you like, and all — why was they left off ? And the Parlia- 
 ment, where we was to meet and talk, why was that left off ?" 
 
 " Meanness," said the cobbler. " Because we wanted to 
 defend our liberties. Ah ! because we wouldn't be put upon 
 with lies no longer ; because some among us wanted to ask 
 questions." 
 
 " And the Bar — what call had he to set up a tap ?" asked 
 'William. " Who wanted his tap, when we'd got our own ? 
 And then made us buy it." 
 
 " Gave away the beer, too, at first," growled the cobbler. 
 " They'd make slaves and chains of us all again, they would — 
 him and his lot." 
 
 " P'r'aps he'll go back to the Court, now he's married, and let 
 us bide by ourselves," said William. " We don't want no 
 Bailiff's daughters along of us ; nor no Squire's neither." 
 
 " P'r'aps hell go on as he has a-been going on, corrupting the 
 minds of them as has otherwise the will to ' read, mark, and in- 
 wardly digest,' " said the cobbler, thinking of the Atheistic 
 publications which he had been unable to procure in the 
 Library. 
 
 The Bailiff occupied a position so much higher than their 
 own, that the engagement was not considered in the same light 
 as by those who stood at Alan's end of the social ladder. Any- 
 thing which was likely to remove this uncomfortable Squire 
 from their midst was felt to be a relief. Is not that day the 
 happiest in life when the schoolboy steps forth from the tutelage 
 of masters ? Would any one like to be always at work under 
 sui'veillance ? Why then expect it of the British peasant ? 
 
 There was one face, however, Avhich grew sadder daily, in. 
 thinking of the future — the face of Prudence Driver, the 
 librarian. Alan's schemes might have failed, but he remained 
 to her the best and noblest of men, while Alma Bostock con- 
 tinued to be the shallowest and vainest of women. This pale- 
 faced little reader of books knew how to read the natures of 
 men and Avomen. Not wholly out of her books, but by mother 
 v/it, had she acquired this power. A mian may read and read, 
 and yet remain a fool . Many do. 
 
 Prudence knew Alma, and loved her not ; she knew her 
 antecedents ■, and she was certain that the girl would bring her 
 prophet neither help nor sympathy nor encouragement. And^
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 361 
 
 of course, she had long known that Alma disliked her, and 
 would perhaps prejudice Mr. Dunlop against her. Alma might, 
 even, Prudence shuddered to think, cause her to lose her pleasant 
 place and its sixty pounds a year. In any case, no more even- 
 ings spent all alone with him, while he unfolded his plans and 
 revealed the manner of life which he would fain see in his village. 
 No more would the poor girl's heart glow and her pulse quicken 
 while he spoke of culture and sweetness spreading through the 
 labourers' cottages. All that beautiful dream should hence- 
 forth be an impossibility, because Alma would throw the cold 
 water of indifference on the project. 
 
 " I would have," Alan said one night — it was tha peroration 
 of a long discourse which he delivered walking about the 
 library, for the instruction of Prudence alone^" I would have 
 the whole day of labour converted into one long poem — a pro- 
 cession of things and thoughts precious and beautiful. The 
 labourer should be reminded at daybreak, as he went forth and 
 watched the mists creep up the hillside, and the trees thereon 
 bathed in the mysterious cloud and sunlight of Turner's land- 
 scapes — copies of which he would have studied in our picture- 
 gallery ; as he stepped along the way, the awaking of life, the 
 twittering of the birds, the crowing of the cocks, should put 
 into his head verses which had been taught him, sung to him, 
 or recited to him at our public evenings. He would shout, 
 then, in his joy. And he would watch the flowers by the way- 
 side with a new and affectionate interest ; he would beguile 
 the way with examining the mosses, grasses, and wild vegeta- 
 tion of the hedge ; his eyes would be trained for all kinds of 
 observation ; he would have a mind awakened to a sense of 
 progress in everything, so that the old conservatism of the 
 peasantry, with habit, the rooted enemy of progress, should be 
 destroyed in him. He would no longer do the day's work as a 
 machine, but as an intelligent artist, trying how it should be 
 done most efficiently. And on his return, he would find a clean 
 and bright cottage, a wife who would talk to him and for him. 
 A meal cooked at our public kitchen, clean clothes washed at 
 our public laundry, children taught at our public school, and 
 nearly every evening something to do, to hear, to enjoy, which 
 should break the monotony of the week. Music in every 
 house ; books, joy, and education, where there is now nothing 
 but squalor, dirt, and beer. All these things I see before us, 
 Prudence." 
 
 Prudence remembered every word. 
 
 "What part of it would be achieved now, when he was about 
 to clog his feet with an unsympathetic and indifferent wifo ? 
 If things were hard to accomplish before, they would be tenfold 
 ^a hard to accomplish in the future.
 
 262 THE MONKS OF THBLEMA, 
 
 " Things hard to accomplish ?" 
 
 Prudence reflected, with dismay, that as yet nothing had 
 been accomplished at all, except the general feeling of dis- 
 content. The people did not want to be meddled with, and 
 Mr. Dunlop appeared to them in the light of a mere meddler 
 and a muddler*. 
 
 Worse than all this, she saw, she and Miranda alone, that 
 Alan was not happy. 
 
 In fact, during the three weeks of publishing the banns, 
 Alan's face grew more sombre every day. 
 
 For he felt, though this was a tiling he would not acknowledge 
 even to himself, that his marriage would probably be a great 
 mistake. 
 
 To feel in this way, oven about an ordinary marriage, such a 
 marriage as any couple might contract for their own solace, is 
 indeed a melancholy way of entering upon the holj' bond of 
 matrimony ; to feel in this way when, as in Alan's case, marriage 
 i:^ intended to advance some grv'^at end, is more than melancholy, 
 it is almost desperate. His word was pledged ; he v>'as, there- 
 fore, bound to f nlfil his part of the contract. And yet . . . and 
 yet ... it was the wrong woman ; he knew it now, it was the 
 v/rong Moman. Nor was there any other woman in the v/orld 
 with whom he could mate happily, save only Miranda. 
 
 When he found Alma alone in the pretty garden, among the 
 rugged old apple-trees, it seemed to him, a dreamer as v.'ell as 
 an enthusiast — to be sure, it is impossible to be the one without 
 the other — that the future of things looked rosy aud sunshiny. 
 She smiled and nodded, if she did not answer, when he asked 
 her questions. If she did not interrupt him by any questions of 
 her own ; if she never showed any impatience to begin her 
 ministrations among the poor, but rather put off his own sug- 
 gestion that her work in the village homes might be usefully 
 .set in hand at once ; if she gave him no further insight, as yet, 
 into the minds of the people than he already had — it was, he 
 said to him.self , because she was nev/ and strange to the posi- 
 tion ; that she was as yet only a learner ; that she was shy and 
 nervous. He was ready to make all excuses for her — so long as 
 she was at home in her own garden, pretty of her kind, a flower 
 among the common flowers. 
 
 At Dalmeny Hall it was different. She sat beside Miranda, 
 and it was like a wild rose beside a camellia, or a daisy beside a 
 tulip, or a russet apple beside a peach. The fac3 was common 
 compared with Mirand-a's : her voice was strident compared with 
 Miranda's, which was gentle without being too low ; her eyes, 
 bright and anim.ated as they seemed at her own home, where there 
 were no others to compare them with, looked shallow compared
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 263 
 
 with those deep orbs of Miranda's, the -windows of a brain full of 
 knowledge and noble thought ; her expression, in Vv-hich conld be 
 read clearlj', even by Alan, successive moods of shyness, boredom, 
 and sullenness, pained and alarmed him. For what would the 
 future be like, if these things were obvious in the present ? and 
 what should be done in the dry, if these things were done in the 
 green ? 
 
 Miranda did all she could to make the girl at homo and at 
 ease ; yet every day saw Alma more sullen, more silent, more 
 reserved w'ith "her. Perhaps Miranda would have succeeded 
 better had not the custom grown up during this fortnight of 
 Desdemona seeking Alma every day, and encouraging her to 
 confide in her motherly bosom. This Alma did ; she could 
 not help herself ; such sj mpathy was too attractive. At first 
 she trembled, thinking that her confidences would be carried to 
 Miss Dalmen3^ But as nothing was carried, slic grew more and 
 more unreserved, and finally bared nearly the whole truth. 
 Every day,she confessed, v/as more irksome toherup in this grand 
 house. She grew tired of wandering about the garden ; she was 
 tired of w'alking about the rooms ; she could not do work such 
 as ladies do ; she could not play ; she took no interest in books 
 or reading ; she had nothing to talk about with Miss Dalmeny ; 
 she did not care one bit about the things Miss Dalmeny tried to 
 interest her in— cottagers and their ways. And oh ! the dreary 
 evenings when Mr. Dunlop came, looking as if he was going to a 
 funeral ; and when he sat with her, or walked with her, talking, 
 talking for ever, as if the more he talked the more likely she 
 would be to understand what had gone before. 
 
 But not a word, as yet, to Desdemona of what she had pro- 
 mised Harry. 
 
 Then Desdemona, in her warm and sympathetic way, would 
 croon over her, and pat her cheek, teUing her how pretty she 
 was, wondering why Alan was so blind to beauty, commiserating 
 her afresh for the sorrows of her lot, and holding forth on the 
 obstinacy of Mr. Dunlop, who, she said, had never been known 
 to abandon a scheme or confess himself beaten, so that, even 
 ■when he found that Alma v/as not fitted to be the cottagers' 
 friend, guide, example, and model, as well as his own servant-of- 
 all-work, he would go on to the end of his life, or of hers, which 
 would probably not be a long life, with unrelenting tenacity 
 of purpose. 
 
 Alma shuddered at ths prospect ; and then she thought of 
 Harrv and his promise. 
 
 " I'm not married yet," she said, after Desdemona had ex- 
 hausted herself in drawing the gloomy teri'ors of her future. 
 
 " No, my dear," said Desdemona, "no ; that is very true, and 
 yc-t." she added, sorrowfully, " the banns have been put up
 
 364 THE MONKS OF THELEMA 
 
 twice, and there seems no escape for you. Y/hat a pity ! wli»l 
 a pity ! And you so pretty ; and Harry Cardew such a hanu • 
 some young fellow. You'd have made the handsomest couple 
 ever seen. And Miss Dalmeny would have taken such a fancy 
 to you, under any other circumstances. Of course you can't 
 expect her to like you very much now, considering all things." 
 
 "_ No," said Alma, "of course I can't. No girls, not even 
 ladies, like another girl for taking away their sweethearts, I sup- 
 pose. But I wish mother would let me go home and stay 
 there."' She sighed drearily. Even the society of her father 
 seemed more congenial than the frigid atmosphere of Dalmeny 
 Hall. 
 
 "Better stay here, my dear," said Desdemona. " Do you 
 know I keep thinking of that line in your hand — the interrupted 
 marriage line ; the long and happy wedded life ; how can that 
 be ? And yet the hand never lies." 
 
 With such artful talk did this crafty lady corrupt Alma's 
 simple mind. The girl fell into the trap like a silly wild bird. 
 Fate, she said to hertclf , ordered her to follow Harry, when he 
 should give the word. 
 
 For a fortnight no word came. Then on the Sunday of the 
 third and last publication of the banns, Mr. Caledon met her in 
 the gardens of the Hall. It was in the evening, and Mr. 
 Dunlop was gone. She v/as thinking how much she should like 
 to go to the garden-gate and find Harry waiting for her, when 
 she heard a manly heel upon the gravel, and looked up, and in 
 the twilight saw and knew Tom Caledon. 
 
 " I've got a message for you. Alma," he said. " I had to give 
 it to you all alone, with no one in hearing." 
 
 " Is it— is it — from Harry ?" she asked. 
 
 _ " Yes ; it is from Harry. It is a very simple message ; I met 
 him to-day, and he asked me to tell you to keep up your heart. 
 That is all." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Tom." The girl looked humbkd. She 
 had lost her old pride of carriage, being every moment made 
 keenly conscious of her inferiority to Miss Dalmeny ; and tlic 
 intrigue in which she was engaged made her guilty and uneasy. 
 Suppose, after all, that Harry should fail. And what did he 
 mean to do ? 
 
 Alan, for his part, was not without v/arnings of the future in 
 store for him — warnings, that is, other than hip secret misgivingb 
 and the pricks of conscience. 
 
 He had an anonymous correspondent ; a person apparently of 
 the opposite sex, though the Avriting was epicene in character, 
 and might have belonged to a member of either sex. 
 
 Alan read these letters, which began to come to him, like 
 many blessings, too lete. Had he acted upon tliem, indeed, he
 
 fHE MONKS OF THELEMA. 265 
 
 fi-onld have liad to stay the banns after the first putting up. 
 He felt himself — it was not a feeling of undisguised pleasure- 
 already married. The burden of his wife Avas upon him. He 
 seemed to have found out, though as yet he did not put his 
 discovery into Avords, that so far from being a helpmeet, she 
 would become a hindrance ; and that entrance into the minds of 
 the people appeared to bo as far off as the entrance into Hamath 
 continued to be to the children of Israel. 
 
 And so the anonymous letters, some coming by post, and 
 others pushed under the door by night, came upon him like a 
 new scourge. Was it necessary, he thought, that he should 
 know all the previous life of Alma — how she had flirted with 
 this man, been kissed by that, been engaged to a gamekeeper of 
 his own, and had walked through the woods at eve with a 
 Brother of the Abbey ? To be sure, none of the allegations 
 amounted to very much ; but v/hen the mind is occupied and 
 agitated these things sting. Again, he might have been foolish 
 in entrusting too much power to a man of whom he only knew 
 that he had been on the point of becoming bankrupt. But what 
 good did it do him to be told that his bailiff was a common 
 cheat and rogue ; that he was going to marry the daughter of a 
 man who rendered false accounts, bought cheap and sold dear, 
 and entered the converse in his books ; who was notoriously 
 making a long purse out of his transactions for the farm ; who 
 was a byword and a proverb for dishonesty and cunning ? 
 
 These things did no good, but quite the contrary. Alan read 
 them all, cursed the Avriters, put the letters into the fire, and 
 then brooded over the contents. He would not say anything 
 about them, even to Miranda ; an anonymous slanderer is always 
 pretty safe from any kind of punishment ; and yet it must be 
 owned that anonymous slanders are grievous things to receive. 
 Alan read them and remembered them. 
 
 And then little things recurred to him which he had heard 
 before and forgotten or taken no heed of. He remembered 
 meeting Alma one day, when he hardly knew T»'ho she was, 
 walking in a coppice Avith Harry Cardev/, his old friend and 
 young gamekeeper. Alma blushed, and Alan, who was thinking 
 about the grand march of the Higher Culture, just rashly 
 concluded that here was another case of rus^hing into premature 
 wedlock, and went on his way. Also he had heard Tom 
 Caledon talking lightly of Alma's beauty, and thought nothing 
 of it. And now those anonymous letters accused her of flirting 
 with half-a-dozen men at once ; he would marry a girl who had 
 been kissed — the writer declared he had seen the deed perpe- 
 trated — by Tom Caledon, and presumedly by his gamekeeper 
 and a dozen other young fellows. That was not a pleasaut 
 thing to read.
 
 266 THE MONKS QF THELEMA. 
 
 As for the letters, thoy were written by one person ; he — oi 
 ehe— spelled imperfectly, and wrote a large and massive hand, 
 covering a good ;?eal of paper. The letters, like those of 
 Junius, greatest and most detestable of slanderers, waxed in 
 intensity as they proceeded, until t'he latest were models of 
 invective and innuendo. The last which came to his hands wag 
 dated on the Sunday when the banns had been put up for the 
 tliird time. It began with the following delicious morceau. 
 
 " Oh ! you pore fool. To think that it's cum to this. You 
 and Alma Bostock called at church for the third and last time, 
 and after all I've told you. Can't yon believe ? Then send for 
 Harry, send for Mr; Caledon, if he'll tell the terewth, which 
 isn't likely, being a gentleman ; send for Alma's mother, and 
 ast them all, and see what they say. Is it for her looks ? Why, 
 she isn't a patch upon the blacksmith's daughter "—could the 
 letter have been written by that young lady ? — " not a patch 
 upon her for good looks, and yet you never turned so much as a 
 eye upon her. But you are that blind." 
 
 _ And then the letter proceeded in the usual strain of accusa- 
 tion and libel. Of courfe Alan y\'as ashamed of reading these 
 things ; and still more ashamed cf being annoj'ed by^them. 
 The philosopher, we know, v/ould never be annoyed oven by 
 anonymous post-cards, which reflected upon the morals of his 
 female relations and were read by the delighted inhabitants of 
 his kitchen before he received them. The philosopher would 
 rejoice, perhaps, at the thought that cook, housemaid, parlour- 
 maid, and nursery-maid have read these libels, believe in them, 
 will repeat them joyfully, and will exaggerate them. 
 
 Alan was probably not a philosopher, because the constant 
 arrival of these letters did not make his countenance more 
 cheerful when he went up to see Alma in the evening. 
 
 His gloom communicated itself to Miranda. She found it 
 hard any longer to believe in a girl who could not cultivate 
 enthusiasm for Alan. She was dejected and unhappy. She 
 went little to the Abbey during these weeks ; she lost interest 
 in the place wherein she was wont to delight. Her cheek grew 
 pale and her eyes heavy. She was kind to Alma, but she ceased 
 her endeavours to interest her in the things Avhich her husband 
 v/ould look for. Alma, for- her part, became sullen and silent, 
 restless in the house, and restless in the garden, where she 
 walked for hours. She did not go again to the farm, and when 
 her mother came, received her with a coldne; s which was worse 
 than any of her ancient insubordination. Desdemona alone 
 preserved a demeanour of cheerfulness even beyond that to 
 which her friends were accustomed to see in her 
 
 Therefore, during these three weeks v/hen the banns were 
 being published, aud wbil-a the man and the woman about ta
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 267 
 
 take upon themselves indissoluble and lifelong vows should 
 have been growing to know each other more and more, they were 
 drifting apart. Alan was every day more sombre, colder, more 
 of a schoolmaster, and less of a lover. Alma every day more 
 silent, le^s prodigal of her smiles, more reserved, and — a thing 
 patent to her^iawce and of very unpleasing omen — more sullen. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 "There's nouglit in Ibis bad world like sympathy; 
 "Tis so becoming to the soul and face ; 
 Sets to sol'l music tlio liannonious sigb, 
 
 And robos sweet f'riendsbip iu a Brussels lace." 
 
 Meantime, there seemed, to Desdemona's observant ej'es, to be 
 growing up in the Abbey a kind of restlessness. Unquiet be- 
 tokens change. Was it, she asked, that the Monks and Sisters 
 were tired of the Abbey or of each other ? No ; she made in- 
 quiries, and found that the general feeling was quite in the 
 contrary direction. The place appeared to them still a most 
 delightful haven. Yet there was a certain sadness prevalent. 
 Could this melancholy be a contagious disorder token from one 
 or two afflicted members ? Nelly, for instance, had obviously 
 been pale of face and sad of aspect for some time past. She 
 seemed to take a comparatively feeble interest in the m.atter of 
 dress : she was known on more than one occasion to skut her- 
 self up alone in her own cell for hours ; her delight in riding, 
 dancing, talking, acting, singing, lav/n-tennis, and all the plea- 
 sures in which she was once foremost, was no longer what it 
 had been. Doubtless, in her case, the cause was in some way 
 to be attributed to Tom Caledon. They must have quarrelled ; 
 otherwise, why did they avoid each other ? "vVhy did they look 
 at each other guiltily, as people do who have a secret betv/een 
 them ? To be sure, Desdemona could not know the nature of 
 that admonition which Tom pronounced after th<3 Court of 
 Love. And that was all their secret. 
 
 As for Tom Caledon himself, he too was grown melancholy 
 In these bad days he mooned — he who had been the most com- 
 panionable of men, who had ever fled from the solitude of self 
 as eagerly as any murderer of ancient story — he who was for- 
 merly never out of spirits, never ixv^A of laughing w'.th those v/ho 
 laughed, and singing, metaphorically, with those who sang, was 
 grown as melancholy as Jaques in the Forest of Arden 
 
 " Perhaps," said Desdemona — she was sitting in her own ca- 
 pacious cell, and Miranda was with her ; Mr. Paul Rondelet 
 was also with them — he was seen a erood deal with Miranda
 
 268 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 during these days— "Perhaps, Miranda, the presence of twa 
 perpetuall}^ wet blankets, such as Tom and Nelly, lias im- 
 perceptibly saddened our refectory and diawing-room. Blankets 
 which will not dry, however long you hang them out, would 
 sadden even the Laundry of Momue." 
 
 Paul Rondelet was leaning against the mantelshelf, a position 
 v.hich he affected because — he was no more free from personal 
 vanity than yourself, my readers, although so advanced in 
 thought — it showed to advantage his slender figure, and allowed 
 the folds of the tightly-buttoned frock which he always wore 
 to fall gracefully. He looked up languidly, and began to stroke 
 his smooth cheek with great sadness, while he let fall from an 
 overcharged soul the following utterance : 
 
 " ]Momus is the only one of the gods who is distinctly vulgar. 
 How depressing is mirth ! How degrading it is to watch a laugh- 
 ing audience — a mere mob with uncontrolled facial muscles ! 
 Momus is the god of music-halls." 
 
 *' Cheerfulness is not mirth," said Miranda quietly ; " but you 
 are sad yourself, Desdemona." 
 
 " I am," she rej^lied, clasping her hands, " I am. It is quite 
 true ; I am encumbered with my Third Act." 
 
 " And I," said Miranda the straightforward, " am sad for 
 Alan's sake." 
 
 " But you, Mr. Rondelet " — Dssdemona turned to the Thinker, 
 whom she loved at all times to bring out — " you, too, are melan- 
 choly. You neglect your monastic vows ; you seldom appear 
 at the refectory ; you contribute nothing to the general happi- 
 ness ; you are visible at times, talking by yourself, with knitted 
 brows. Is this to be explained ?" 
 
 Paul Rondelet lifted his white brow and played with his 
 eye-glass, and sighed. Then he gazed for a moment at Mi- 
 randa. 
 
 Had he told the exact truth, he would have confessed that 
 his debts worried him, that his anxiety about the future was 
 very great. In fact, that he was entirely absorbed in the worry 
 of liis duns and the trouble of having no income at all in the 
 immediate future. But he did not tell the truth. When facta 
 are vulgar, truth-seekers like Paul Rondelet avoid them. 
 
 " The conduct of life," he said grandlj^, ''is a problem so vast. 
 BO momentous, that there is not always room for pleasant fri- 
 volitieSj even for those of this little society. These are tho 
 trifles of a vacation. When serious thoughts obtrude, them- 
 selves " 
 
 " I see," said Desdemona, interrupting ruthlessl}^ " Why not 
 write them down, and have done with them?" 
 Paul Rondelet shook his head. 
 *' You are accustomed to interpret men's thought?," hg said,
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, i6§ 
 
 " you can give life and action to words ; but j^ou do not know 
 by what mental efforts — what agonies of travail — those words 
 were produced." 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Desdemona most unfeelingly. "I sup- 
 pose small men suffer in their attempt to say things well. 
 Shakespeare, Shelley, and Byron do not seem to have endured 
 these threes." 
 
 Small men ! Oh, this fatal lack of appreciation ! 
 
 There was a cloud upon the whole Abbey. The sadness waa 
 not confined to the three or four named above ; it was, with 
 one exception, general. While Nelly lingered alone in her cell, 
 while Tom Caledon rode or walked moodily in the lanes, while Mr. 
 Paul Rondelet was seen to go alone with agitated steps, so that 
 those who beheld thought that he was grappling with some 
 new and brilliant thing in verse, the whole fraternity seemed 
 drifting into a constrained self-consciousness most foreign to 
 the character of the Order. 
 
 Nobody now went off in happy solitude to lecture an empty 
 hall ; the three journals of the Abbey appeared at more ir- 
 regular intervals ; Cecilia gave no concerts ; nobody translated 
 a new play ; nobody invented a new amusement. Instead of 
 general conversation, there was a marked tendency to go about 
 in pairs. And when there was any singing at all, which was 
 not every evening, as of old, it ganerally took the form of a 
 duet. 
 
 What had befallen the Abbey ? 
 
 There Avas, as I have said, one exception : Brother Peregrine 
 alone was cheerful. Nothing ever interfered with a cheerful- 
 ness which at this juncture was unsympathetic; neither rainy 
 weather, nor the general depression of the Brethren, nor even 
 the sadness of Nelly, whom he continued to follow like a 
 shadow. And yet, though he was alwaj's with her, though the 
 Sisters wondered whether Nelly had accepted him, and while 
 she wondered why he was silent. Brother Peregrine had not 
 spoken the expected words. 
 
 To the rest it seemed as if the Court of Love, the Judgment 
 of Paris, and all their masques, sports, dances, and entertain- 
 ments, were become part and parcel of a happy past, which 
 would never return again. Brother Peregrine alone was the 
 same as he had always been. He alone was unconscious of the 
 general disconient. This was due to his eminently unsympa- 
 thetic character. He came to the Abbey with the purely selfish 
 design of getting as much pleasure out of so novel a society as 
 possible. He got a great deal. When he told stories, or did 
 Indian tricks, or performed feats on horseback, which he had 
 learned in Indif^-, the Sisters of the Order laughed and ap- 
 plauded , it was ho who devised pageants, suggested things to
 
 z-jQ THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 DesdeiDona, and improved on her ideas. Thns, the Judgment 
 of Paris was his doing, and he acted, as Ave irno'iv, as Sister 
 Rosalind's counsel in the Court oE Love. Wliile he could bask 
 in the sunlight of fair eyes, delight in the music of girls' 
 laughter, drink good wine, sit at feasts, listen to music, and be 
 himself an active part in the promotion of all modern forms of 
 conviviality, he was happy. He was exactly like the illustrious 
 Panurge, in one respect, in being entirely without sympathy. 
 You knew him, therefore, as well the first day as the fiftieth ; 
 there was nothing to be got out of him except what he ofi;ered 
 at first. Had he put his creed into words, it would have been 
 something like this : 
 
 " Everybody wants to enjoy life. I mean to, whether other 
 people do or not ; I take whatever good the gods send, and 
 mean to use it for myself ; if people wrong me, or annoy me by 
 suffering, pain, or complaint, I go av/ay, or else I take no notice 
 of them." 
 
 The Abbey was an excellent place for such a man, because 
 in no other place w^ere the ways of life so smooth. And a 
 man of such a temperament would be very long in discovering 
 what Desdcmona, with her quick eympathies, felt as soon as it 
 began — the growing constraint. 
 
 For, of course, the Brethren •3.\\\ the 6utf-3 rr"o not gn'r-f, 
 to sit down and cry or sulk, as is the wont of the outer world. 
 There was neither growling nor grumbling in the Abbey, unless 
 it were in each member's cell. Brother Peregrine noted 
 nothing, because there was no outward change. If Nelly's 
 cheek was pale, she listened to him still, and he followed her as 
 before. 
 
 If the Order, generally, Tras depressed, there were still the 
 functions — guest night, choral night, theatre, concert, dancing, 
 all were duly celebrated. The Lady Abbess presided at the 
 refectory, Desdernona performed her duties as directress of 
 ceremonies, and the only difference was that the sparkle had 
 gone out of the Avine — it was gone flat. This they all per- 
 ceived, except Brother Peregrine, who still thought the goblet 
 as mousseux and as brilliant as before. 
 
 The climax was reached when they attem.pted one of thei? 
 old costume balls, which had been a sort of sj>edalit4 of the 
 Abbey. They got as many guests to fill their rooms as they 
 could bring together ; but — it Avas not possible to disguise the 
 truth — it fell flat. The guests went aAA'ay early ; there A^as 
 little spirit in the dancing ; and the chief actors, who ought 
 to have thrown life into it— the Monks and Sisters— were 
 languid. 
 
 Next evening, affce:e dinscrj irbea they wci'e all collected is
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 271 
 
 the drawing- room, Desdemona lifted up her voice and asked 
 
 tearfully : 
 
 " Wiiat is it, children ? Is the wins of life already run down 
 to the lees?" 
 
 No one answered, but the Sisters gathered round her as if 
 ♦hey looked to her for help. 
 
 " Are there no more cakes and ale ?" she went on. " Every- 
 thing fails. Can the Abbey — our Abbey of Tlielema — be a 
 failure ?" 
 
 " No — no," they declared unanimously. 
 
 " Are you happy here, my dears ?" she asked the Sisters. 
 
 They looked at one another, blushed with one consent for 
 some reason of their own unexplained, and then murmured that 
 they had never been so happy before, and never could be hap- 
 pier in the future. 
 
 Brother Peregrine remarked that he himself felt perfectly, 
 monastically happy. Indeed, he looked it, standing before 
 them all, with his thin figure, his complacent smile, and his 
 wonderful absence of any appreciation of the situation. Under 
 any circumstances, if Brother Peregrine himself had no personal 
 care he would have looked equally happy. 
 
 Desdemona contemplated him with a little wonder. Was 
 the man perfectly self-contained ? Even Paul Rondelet's 
 philosophy of separation did not rise to these heights of blind- 
 ness. 
 
 " If you are perfectly happy," said Desdemona sharply, " you 
 are not monastically happy. Perhaps, on the other hand, you 
 deserve to be pitied." 
 
 " Let us invent something," said Peregrine cheerfully, as if a 
 fillip of that kind would restore happiness, just as certain ladiois 
 fly to little suppers with something hot in order to soothe the 
 wounded spirit. " Plas everybody lectured?" 
 
 He looked round radiantly, conveying his belief that a iectura 
 was the one thing wanting. 
 
 No one would hear of lectures. 
 
 " I have learned a new conjuring trick," he went on. " Would 
 ^7ou lilce to see that ?" . 
 
 '* I think," said Desdemona, " that the present situation will 
 not ba improved by tricks." 
 
 " When the knights and ladies of the Middle Ages," Brother 
 Peregrine went on, nothing daunted, " were shut up in their 
 castles for the winter, they used to amuss themselves " 
 
 " Movlt tristement,'" said Desdemona. 
 
 " With games. Sotietimes they played hot-cockles, the laws 
 of which I dare say we could recover if we tried ; or blind 
 man's buff, which you would perhaps rather not play ; or touch 
 me last, which I can fancy might be made as graceful a pastima
 
 272 THE MONfCS OF TMELEMA. 
 
 as lawn tennis. Then there was the game of gabe, at which 
 everybody tried to out-braj^ everybody else ; and the favouritfl 
 game of le roij ne mcnt pas, at which everybody had to answel 
 truthfully whatever questions were asked. There were to 
 be no reservations ; the answers were to bo absolutely truth- 
 ful." 
 
 "I should think," said Desdemona, " that your games must 
 have been almost maddening in their stupidity. I would as 
 soon suggest to the Abbey that we should amuse ourselves at 
 houts rimes. Will you play something, Cecilia ?" 
 
 She went to the piano and began to play some melancholy 
 yearning music, such as might fall upon sad souls with a sym- 
 pathetic strain. 
 
 Desdemona listened and refiected. All this dejection and 
 constraint could not arise from disgust at Brother Hamlet's 
 madness, or from sympathy with Tom Caledon. Sympathy 
 there was, no doubt. Everybody liked Tom Disgust there 
 was, no doubt. Everybody Avas indignant with Alan. But 
 that all the springs of joy should be devoured by the dis- 
 appointment of one Brother, and the crotchets of another, 
 seemed absurd. And suddenly a thought came into her 
 mind, 
 
 Desdemona caught it and smiled. Then she looked round 
 the room and smiled again. 
 
 Cecilia was playing her melancholy music ; the Sisters were 
 listening, pensive ; the Brothers stood or sat about among them 
 in silence. Tom Caledon was in one window, looking gloomily 
 upon the twilight garden ; Nelly was in another, pulling a rose 
 to pieces. On the faces of all, except of two, there was in 
 different degrees a similar expression, one of constraint, per- 
 haps of impatience, and perhaj^s of hope. 
 
 Of course the two excei^tions were Brother Peregrine and 
 Paul Rondelet. When the former, who had no taste for music, 
 was cut short by Desdemona, he retreated to a table at the other 
 end of the long room, where, with a perfectly happy face, he 
 found a book of burlesques, and read it with appreciation. 
 Paul Rondelet entered the drawing-room just as Cecilia began 
 to play. He, too, having no real ear for music, though he 
 talked much of the Higher Music, and held Wagner among his 
 gods, retired to the same part of the room as the Brother whom 
 most he disliked. Here he found Mr. Pater's volume on the 
 Renaissance, with which, while the followirig scene was enacted, 
 he refreshed his soul. 
 
 " As for Peregrine," said Desdemona to herself, looking at 
 his perfectly happy and perfectly unsympathetic face, " that 
 man may have escaped from some great unhappiness, such as a 
 eonvict's prison, or eomething as bad, so that everything else
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 273 
 
 eeems joy ; or he may be a perfectly selfish person, incapable of 
 seeing beyond the outward forms, or— which I hope is not the 
 case— he may have secured Nelly, and so chuckles easily over his 
 own future." 
 
 Then she looked at the other man. Either ]\Ir. Tater had 
 madesome remark which displeased Paul Eondelet, or he was 
 thinking of something unpleasant unconnected with that author. 
 "As for that man," thought Desdemona, "there is something 
 wrong with him. To be sure, he never ought to have been a 
 Monk at all. He has an anxious look. Perhaps he is in debt. 
 It requires a man of a much higher stamp than that poor fellow 
 to bear up against debt. Or £ome one may have derided hia 
 poetry." 
 
 It will be seen that Desdemona was not very far wrong in 
 any of her conjectures. But then she was a witch, a sorceress. 
 
 " As for the rest," she continued to herself, " they are all 
 afflicted with the same malady. It is not eimui^ it is not bore- 
 dom, it is not anxiety. AVhat can it be but one thing ?" 
 
 And, as before, the sweetest and most gratified of smiles 
 played about her comely face, 
 
 " Of course," she said aloud, so that all started, " I knew it 
 ■would come, sooner or later. At least, I ought to have known, 
 but did not think, being quite a stupid old woman. And now it 
 has come.'' 
 
 " What do you mean, dear Desdemona ?" asked Cecilia, stop- 
 ping her music. 
 
 " My dear," said Desdemona, " be good enough to stop that 
 melancholy strain, which only expresses your own mood, and 
 perhaps that of a few others, but not mine at all. I am an out- 
 sider, by reason of age and experience. Will you play for me 
 only, and for nobody else, a grand triumphal march ?" 
 
 Cecilia obeyed, and straightway the air was filled with the 
 trumpet-notes of triumph, the rejoicings of a multitude, the 
 hymns of those who praise, and the shouts of those who offer 
 thanks. Presently the hearts of the pensive Sisterhood rose 
 with the music ; soft eyes brightened ; closed lips parted ; 
 drooping heads were uplifted. When Desdemona presently 
 looked round, Tom Caledon had joined Nelly in her window, and 
 both looked happy. The Brothers and the Sisters were in 
 groups and pairs. Only there was a change, she thought, be- 
 cause there was a touch of solemnity in all the masculine eyes, 
 and of a certain veiled and happy triumph under the drooping 
 feminine lids, as if this was no ordinary evening. Brother 
 Peregrine, unmoved by the exultation, as he had been by the 
 melancholy of the music, sat cheerfully smiling over his odd 
 volume of burlesques. So, too, unmoved by music of despondency 
 or triumph, sat the disciple cf Wagner and the Higher Music, Mv. 
 
 Id
 
 274 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Paul Rondolet, brooding over his cares. Music had no charms 
 to make him forget his duns. 
 
 The music stopped with a final rapture, as if human joy could 
 CO further find expression. 
 
 Desdemona began, then, the speech, which more than any- 
 thing else has endeared her to the hearts of those who listened. 
 She had ever been the guiding spirit of the Abbey. It was she, 
 we know, who invented their pageants and varied their enter- 
 tainments. It was she who delighted the girls with her wisdom, 
 her experience, and her sympathy. It was she who took care 
 that the right Brother was told off for the right Sister ; it was 
 she who on occasion knew, better than any one, even better than 
 ^Miranda, how to throw such a spirit into the Abbey as prevented 
 it from becoming a mere place of idle amusement. To her 
 they owed everything. But after this evening they agreed tliat 
 their previous debt of gratitude was multiplied tenfold, and 
 that they were bankrupt, one and all, in thanks. At least every- 
 body said so, except Paul Eondelet and Brother Peregrine. 
 
 " The Abbey of Thelema, my dear Sisters," this benevolent 
 person began, comfortably leaning back in the softest of arm- 
 chairs, her feet upon a footstool, her hands clasped comfortably 
 in her lap, her face, just within the light of a shaded lamp, while 
 two or three of thtj Sisters were lying at her feet, and the rest 
 were grouped round her, and while the Brothers inclined a re- 
 spectful ear — " The Abbey of Thelema was constituted to con- 
 tain no Sisters but such as v.-ere young, comely, of good birth, 
 and gracious manners. So far, v/ith the exception of one, who 
 is but a servant of the rest and an elderly woman — myself, my 
 dears— the intentions of the Founder have been strictly carried 
 out. I would he were here to-day in person to see how fair to 
 look upon, and how gracious of demeanour, are the present 
 Sisters of Thelema. And it was to contain no Monks but such 
 as W'Cre also young, well bred, and of good repute. The Bro- 
 thers are older at admission than they were at the first founda- 
 tion, just as the undergraduates of the Universities are older at 
 admission than they were five hundred years ago. Also the first 
 Abbey was designed as the school of gentlehood ; ours is an 
 Abbey in which, like that of Fontevrault, the Monks and Sisters 
 are already trained in the ways of the gentle life. But I wish 
 that the Founder were here to-day to see what a goodly assem- 
 blage of Brothers we have to carry out his intentions. Tho 
 Monks and Nuns of the old Thelema, as of ours, wore to be 
 bound by no conventual fetters ; so far from that, as you know, 
 they were bound to respect the vows which other Monks and 
 Nuns officially deride. It was even contemplated by the 
 Founder that the unrestrained society of knightly youth and 
 gentle demoiselle would ine^/itably result — in honourable love ;
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 27^ 
 
 and lie sliowed in his dream how they would go forth as from a 
 Bacred Ark, in pairs, to spread throughout the world the blessings 
 of gentleness and good-breeding." 
 
 Here Desdemona stopped, conscious of a "sensation" among 
 her audience. She lowered the light at her elbow, and the dis- 
 creet Tom Caledon, who, with Nelly, had joined the group and 
 was now listening, thoughtfully lowered another lamp, Avhich 
 stood on a table at hand. Then there was a soft religious light, 
 except at the other end of the long drawing-room, where Brother 
 Peregrine was still chuckling over his burlesque, and Mr. Paul 
 Roudelet was still grinding his teeth over his private troubles, 
 or else over JNIr. Pater's sweet and intelligible English. 
 
 " My children," Desdemona went on, in a lowered voice, "I 
 have seen what has fallen upon this Abbey. Why should we 
 hope to escape what, in his great wisdom, our Founder foresaw 
 would happen ? What have we done that we should go on pro- 
 longing indefinitely the simple joys which belong to the play- 
 time of life ? In all our pageants and in all our pleasures we 
 have but been playing at happiness ; preparing for the future as a 
 schoolboy prepares himself in the playing-field for the battle- 
 field. I think that this your play-time, and my great joy as one 
 of the audience, is nearly over : t think that it is time to bring 
 it to a close. Not altogether : other Abbeys of Thelema will 
 be raised for other Monks and Sisters ; we shall remain friends, 
 and meet and greet each other ; but ours, in its old form, will 
 soon be as a memory." 
 
 No one spoke in reply. 
 
 " Tell me, dear Sisters — nay, dear children — that all is as it 
 should be. There are no jealousies in the Abbey V" 
 
 " None," they murmured. 
 
 "Then the will of the Founder has been fairly carried out, 
 and we may prophesy the closing of our Abbey with joy and 
 congratulation. Tell me when you like, and as much as you 
 like, to-morrow, my children. To-night we will have cheerful 
 looks and happy "hearts again, though the play is well-nigh 
 finished." 
 
 She raised the light again. Tom disengaged his hands— what 
 was it held them ? — and turned up his lamp. 
 
 " To-day is Tuesday," said Desdemona, rising. " I announce 
 a solemn banquet, a guest night, a choral night, a full-dress 
 monastic night, for Saturday. I beheve there will be no danc - 
 ing, or singing, or any other amusement at all that day. Let 
 us have as many guests as we can muster." 
 
 " But it is the day of Alan's wedding," said Miranda. 
 
 '' My dear Miranda," Desdemona rephed, with the slightest 
 touch of asperity, " I have several times observed that Alan ia 
 not man-xed yet."' 
 
 18-2
 
 276 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " It is the day," said Nelly, " when mamma wishes me to r& 
 tm'u to Chester Square." 
 
 " My dear Nelly," said Desdemona, still with asperity, " do not 
 make difficulties. You have not gone to Chester Square yet. 
 Perhaps you will not go on that day at all." 
 
 There was an inharmonious chuckle from the other end of the 
 room. Brother Peregrine had come to a very funny part. It 
 seemed as if he was chuckling in reply to Desdemona, 
 
 Nelly looked at him and shuddered ; but no one spoke. 
 
 "On Saturday," Desdemona went on, "we will have a full 
 meeting, even if it be our last. Till then, my children, be happy 
 with each other." 
 
 Cecilia took her zither and touched the chords. 
 
 "May I sing," she asked, "the 'Rondeau of the Land of 
 Cocaigno' ?'"' It was prophetic of the Abbey of Thelema. 
 
 " In the land of Cocaigne, where travellers tell. 
 All delighta and merriments dwell, 
 Love, and joy, and music, and mirth. 
 Loss of trouble, and lack of dearth — 
 There I found me a magic well, 
 Deep in the greenest depths of a doll, 
 Lined vpith moss, and edged with shell, 
 
 Precious above all springs of the earth. 
 In the land of Cocaigne. 
 I drank of the waters ; straight there fell 
 Behind me, each with the clang of a knell. 
 The days of grief : Love sprang to birth. 
 Laden with gifts of gladness and worth, 
 And singing a song of a wedding-bell 
 
 In the land of Cocaigne." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 " She is a woman, therefore may be wooed." 
 
 If the other Brothers of the Order were contemplating marriaga 
 Avith the ardour of lovers, Mr. Paul Rondelet was considering 
 that condition of life, as calmly as his creditors would allow him, 
 as a haven of refuge. His position was really unequalled iu 
 history, Addison, to be sure, endured a temporary period of 
 poverty ; but Paul Rondelet was about to face destitution. Iu 
 another short half year he would be without an income — abso- 
 lutely without any money at all ; already every other post 
 brought letters from once trustful tradesmen, some openly 
 threatening, some darkly hinting at legal proceedings. Think 
 of the absurdity of the thing. A man actually in the very van 
 and forefront of modern culture : a man with a f oUo'ving of his
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 277 
 
 own : a leading member of the Advanced Sclicol : a man so ex- 
 alted above his fellows that he could afford to feel pity, a gentle 
 pity — cot contempt or exasperation at all — with those who still 
 belieyed in Christianity, patriotism, the old ideas about poetry 
 or art : a man so skilled in the jargon of Art criticism, that 
 people forgot to ask whether he knew a good picture when he saw 
 one, and accepted on his dictum lean and skinny Avomen, with 
 red hair and sad faces, as the highest flights of modern art ; so 
 apt with the jargon of modern poetic criticism, that people only 
 gasped and supposed that, after all, knock-kneed spasms of un- 
 real rapture or crack-jaw dithyrambs, where nonsense pretended 
 to be profundity incapable of articulate speech — was the real, 
 and hitherto undiscovered poetry — so apt, also, with the latest 
 book jargon, that it required a cool head to discover that he 
 seldom read a new book at all. Such a man was positively 
 going out into the cold and unsympathetic world without ao 
 income. 
 
 England is not like tbe East : you cannot wander from village 
 to village, another Mohammed, with your following of listeners, 
 living on the dates, rice, pillau, olives, figs, and bread, offered 
 freely to all travellers ; nor is it like that France of six hundred 
 years ago, when an Abelard could retire into the country and 
 pitch a philosophic tent, surrounded by thirty thousand disci- 
 ples. 
 
 Faint thoughts did cross the mind of Paul Rondelet that he, 
 too, might set up his own lecture tent, say on Salisbury Plain, 
 whither the undergraduates might flock, for the sake of the 
 Higher Culture. But no : it was a dream— a dream. 
 
 It was already three weeks since he first made up his mind that 
 Miranda should be his wife ; since, in fact, he heard that Alan 
 was resolved upon his matrimonial suicide. There were, most 
 certainly, other Sisters in the Abbey desirable for beauty, and 
 not wholly destitute of culture or of money. But Miranda 
 alone seemed to this leader of modern thought wholly worthy 
 to wear his name. She appeared to appreciate him, which he 
 felt could not be said of all the other ladies ; she was undeni- 
 ably beautiful ; she was possessed of many broad acres. Her 
 beauty was of a kind which Paul Rondelet felt he would ad- 
 mire more in his own wife than in other people's. For it was 
 not the beauty lauded by his own school. She was not lithe, 
 lissom, and serpentine ; she had none of the grace of the 
 leopardess about her ; her eye was lit by no baleful fires of 
 passion . she was not skinny or bony ; she did not writhe as 
 ehe walked ; she was not sad-avised ; nor was her hair like 
 unto that of the painted dames in the Grosvenor Gallery, or of 
 the yellow-haired Somanli who greets the traveller at Aden ; it 
 was not yellow tow at all. And in dress she made fashion her
 
 278 THE MONKS Of THELEMA. 
 
 slave instead of her mistress. SliQ was not, in short, either in 
 appearance, in dress, or in manner, at all like unto the self-con- 
 scious young woman who follows the newest fashions of self- 
 conscious and priggish modern art. 
 
 Paul Rondelet felt that he should be proud of her. It must 
 be said of him, the Master, the Poet, the man of Taste, the 
 Prophet of Higher Culture, the fastidious Paul Rondelet, be- 
 fore whose decision, as his school considered, artists trembled, 
 that he had chosen a companion worthy of himself. 
 
 Above all things, the man of Higher Culture is a critic. Aa 
 his wines, his engravings, his chairs, his bookbinding, his water- 
 colours, his dinners, his little Sunday morning breakfasts, must 
 all be perfect, so must his wife be perfect. Now, Paul Ronde- 
 let felt that he could visit Oxford proudly with Miranda, or, 
 better still, make of Dalmeny Hall a perfect home, an improved 
 Oxford, a college without the uncongenial element. 
 
 He went over to the house in order to examine for himself 
 its capabilities. True, it was not like Weyland Court — very 
 few houses are— but still there were great things to be done 
 with Dalmeny Hall, by one who knew how to work. Two or 
 three rooms, he thought, v/ould lend themselves with peculiar 
 readiness to the modern Nobler Treatment. One might even 
 be converted into a peacock-room. All of them, with right 
 paper, right fireplaces, right cabinets, right china, right Har- 
 monies in Blue or Brown, right chairs, and right tables, might 
 be converted into apartments, in which even the most advanced 
 would find pleasure. Life, he thought, might be made philo- 
 sophically perfect at Dalmeny Hall. Certain modifications 
 would be made : he could not allow Desdemona, a person who 
 pretended to no sympathy with him or his school, to consider, 
 as she did at present, the house her own. Miranda herself 
 would require in some respects a certain amount of moulding 
 before she became perfectly imbued with the newest ideas. It 
 was unfortunate for her, he considered, that Alan Dunlop, who 
 had exercised so great an influence over her, left Oxford before 
 the opinions of the school arrived at their full development ; 
 that is to say, before they quite grasped the doctrines that 
 patriotism is a mark of Philistinism — the true counti-y of every 
 philosopher being the world — religion a pitiable survival of the 
 Dark Ages : all the art, architecture, music, and poetry of the 
 last three hundred years — except, perhaps, the architecture of 
 Queen Anne — a wretched exhibition of ignorance, bad taste, 
 and vulgarity. When Alan went away they had only arrived 
 at the stage of looking on whatever pleases the majority of 
 mankind with contempt, pity, and suspicion. 
 
 But he should mould her : he should be able, through her 
 very admiration of himself, to inspire a desire for higher levels
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 279 
 
 of thought. Together, while poor Alan, mated to his rustic 
 beauty, worked his heart out in a hopeless endeavour, they too, 
 he thought, should present to high and low the admirable spec- 
 tacle of the pei-fect Olympian life. 
 
 It was difficult to get an opportunity of finding Miranda 
 alone. Paul Rondelet — I think I have remarked that all tlio 
 members of his school spoke of him as Paul Rondelet, not as 
 Rondelet, or Mr. Rondelet, but plain Paul, as one speaks of 
 Burne Jones, Julius Caesar, and other illustrious men — sought 
 in vain for many following days. It Avas partly that quest of 
 an opportunity which drove him to wander ceaselessly in the 
 gardens, in the courts of the Abbey, and in the park between 
 Weyland Court and Dalmeny Hall. 
 
 Desdemona, who watched everything, marked his uncertain 
 steps and wondered. 
 
 " Another trouble," said Miranda to Desdemona. 
 But she did not look troubled. 
 " What is it, dear ?" 
 
 " It is Mr. Rondelet," she replied calmly. " Ho is going to 
 offer me his hand." 
 
 "My dear Miranda!" Desdemona cried, in some alarm. 
 " Pray, be careful. He is a young man to whom it will be ne- 
 cessary to speak very plainly. But you may be mistaken." 
 
 " Not at all, I am quite sure. Remember that I have had 
 experience. It interests me a good deal now to watch the be- 
 ginnings of these things." 
 
 Miranda sat down, and went on with her sxperlence. 
 " I grew to discern their intentions almost as soon as they 
 formed the idea in tlicir own minds. Tlien I used to study the 
 development, and, when the time came, I was perfectly pre- 
 pared with my answer. And I cannot be mistaken in Mr. 
 Rondelet. All he wants is an opportunity." 
 " And will you give him one ?" 
 
 " I think I must. It is always better to get these things over. 
 Poor Mr. Rondelet ! I dare say he spared mc out of considera- 
 tion to Alan, until that— that engagement. It was good of 
 him." 
 
 " It would have been better to have spared you altogether. 
 "My dear, Mr. Rondelet is poor, and I am rich," said Mi- 
 randa. " He shall have his opportunity.'" 
 
 In fact, she gave him an opportunity the very next day. 
 He found her in her own garden alone. Alma had been with 
 her, unwilling, and had just escaped, leaving ]Miranda saddened 
 at the hopelessness of getting at the better side of the girl, who 
 continued to remain dull, apathetic, and reserved. In fact 
 Bhe was thinking, day and niyht, of nothing but the splendid 
 ftM/r dt forci which Harry was about to perform for her deliver-
 
 28o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 ance. The knowledge of this coming event enabled her to be 
 less careful about hiding her discontent and sulkiness, so that 
 Bhe was by no means an agreeable companion. 
 
 When Paul Rondelet came upon Miranda, there was a look 
 of languor and fatigue in her face, but her cheek brightened 
 Avith a quick flush when she saw him walking delicately across 
 the grass, putting up and dropping hrs eye-glass. Her eyes lit 
 up, but her lips set themselves firm— she was going to hear and 
 to reply to a proposal, unless, as had happened in other cases, 
 he would, at the last moment, become nervous. 
 
 Such was not Paul Rondclet's intention. He had been look- 
 ing at the case to himself, for some days past, from as many 
 points of view as Mr. Browning loves to contemplate a murder. 
 It would be said that he married for money. To be sure, had 
 Dalmeny Hall belonged to himself, he would not have fettered 
 himself with a wife. His school do not greatly love matrimony ; 
 on the other hand, he might fairly urge that he brought his 
 wife a fair equivalent for her fortune ; and though he was not 
 her equal either in birth — his grandfather belonged to the pre- 
 historic period, and was only conjectural — or in wealth, he wa3 
 a leader in the most advanced school of Oxford. 
 
 If Oxford, as all true Oxonians believe, and would suffer 
 lingering tortures rather than give up, leads the thought of 
 the world, then, confessedly, Lothian leads Oxford, and Paul 
 Rondelet led, or thought he led, Lothian. Therefore, Paul 
 Rondelet led the world. 
 
 "You may have observed. Miss Dalmeny," — I\riranda noticed 
 that there was not a bit of love in his face — "You may have 
 observed " — here he let fall his eye-glass, and put it up twice — 
 " that I have of late endeavoured to convey to you an idea of 
 the feelings which — which " 
 
 " Not at all," said Miranda, untruthfully. " Pray sit down, 
 Mr. Rondelet, and tell me what you mean." 
 
 " Let me," he said, sitting down at one end of the garden- 
 seat, Miranda occupying the other ; " let me put the case from 
 our own — I mean the Higher Modern— point of view. Our 
 school have arrived at this theory, that it is useless and even 
 mischievous to attempt to promote culture. Especially is it 
 mischievous when such efforts lead to personally interesting 
 one's self with the lower classes. They are led, among other 
 things, to believe that they are not entirely deserving of scorn. 
 Therefore, we have decided on a return to the principles of 
 the Renaissance." 
 
 " Really," said Miranda, looking at him with a little amuso- 
 ment in her eyes. This infinite condescension at the same time 
 uritated her. 
 •' Our plan of life is— separation. We leave the vulgar herd
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. sSl 
 
 entirely to themselves ; and wo live alone, among our own set, 
 on our own level." 
 
 " Will not that be very dull ? Should you admit the Monka 
 and Sisters of Thelema?" 
 
 Paul Rondelet hesitated, and dropped his glass : then he re- 
 placed it, with a sigh. 
 
 " I fear not. Perhaps one or two. But, Miss Dalmeny, the 
 higher life cannot be dull. It has too many resources. It is 
 great, though perhaps the vulgar cannot know its greatness ; it 
 is memorable and precious, though it is spent apart from man- 
 kind. We care nothing about our reputation among men. We 
 belong to the lower levels in no way — the poor may help the 
 poor, we shall not help them at all, or vex our souls about them. 
 We arc no longer English, or French, or Russian, or German ; 
 •we are no longer Catholics or Anglicans, or anything : we pro- 
 pose to divest ourselves of any, even the slightest, interest in 
 their religions, their politics, or their aims ; we are alone among 
 ourselves, the Higher Humanity." 
 
 " Oh !" said Miranda again. " And what are we, then ? I 
 always thought, in my conceit, that I belonged by birth and 
 education to the Higher Humanity." 
 Paul Rondelet shook his head sadly. 
 
 " Alas ! no," he said ; " I would that we could acknowledge 
 your right to rank with Us. It is not a matter of birth, but 
 one of culture. The Higher Humanity consists entirely of the 
 best intellects trained in the best school. The men can only, 
 therefore, be Oxford men, and presumably of Lothian." 
 
 " And the women — oh ! IMr. Rondelet — I should so much like 
 to see the women of the Higher Humanity." 
 
 Was she laughing at him, or was this genuine enthusiasm ? 
 " The women," he said, " either the wives of the men, or their 
 disciples, must be trained by the men." 
 " And must they, too, be great scholars ?" 
 " Nay," he replied kindly. " What we look for in women is 
 the Higher Receptivity " — it really was exasperating that Paul 
 Rondelet wanted everything of the higher order — " The Higher 
 Receptivity, coupled with real and natural taste, hatred for de- 
 basement, especially in Art, a love for Form, an eye for the 
 Beautiful, and a positive ardour to rise above prejudise. One 
 of us was recently engaged, for instance, to a lady who seemed 
 in every way adapted for his wife . . ." 
 
 " Was he a leader in the Advanced School ?" 
 
 "He was a — a — , in fact, one of the leaders." Paul Rondelet 
 
 ppoke as if there was in reality one leader only — himself. 
 
 " After training her carefully in the Separation Doctrine, my 
 
 friend had the uahappincss of actually seeing her come ^nt of a
 
 282 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 cottage ■vrlere she had been personally mixing with women cl 
 the lowest grade, and giving them things to eat." 
 
 " How very dreadful !" 
 
 " Yes. He confided the case to me. He said that he had 
 passed over in silence her practice of going to church, because 
 old habits linger. But this was too much for his patience. She 
 had to be told in delicate but firm language that the engagement 
 was broken off. The sequel showed that w^e were right." 
 
 " What was that ?" 
 
 " Instead of sorrowing over her failure to reach the Higher 
 Level, this unhappy girl said that she was already tired of it, 
 and shortly afterwards actually married a Clerical Fellow !" 
 
 " What a shocking thing !" said Miranda, deeply interested in 
 this anecdote. 
 
 Paul Rondelet had been speaking with great solemnity, 
 because all this was part of the Higher Level, and meant to 
 prepare Miranda. 
 
 Now he began to speak more solemnly still. 
 
 " You have seen us, Miss Dalmeny," he went on. " At lea^t 
 you have seen m.e — one of our School. It has been my privilege 
 to make your acquaintance in the Abbey of Thelema — a place, 
 so to speak, of half culture. There are, that is, the elements of 
 the Higher Culture, prevented from full development by such 
 members as Caledon and others " 
 
 " My very dear friends," said Miranda. 
 
 " Pardon me. I am speaking only from the — from my own 
 point of view. No doubt, most worthy people. However, I 
 have fancied, Miss Dalmeny, that in you I have seen the possi- 
 bility of arriving at the Higher Level " — Miranda thought that 
 this man was really the greatest of all Prigs she had ever seen. 
 " In fact," he added, v/ith a quiet smile, " one is never mis- 
 tnkon in these matters, and I am sure you are worthy of such 
 elevation." 
 
 '■ Keailv, IMr. Rondelet, I ought to be very much gratified." 
 
 " Not at all ; we learn discernment in the Higher Criticism. 
 I saw those qualities in you from the beginning. But I have 
 reflected, and Miss Dalmeny, if you will accept me as your 
 guide to the regions of the Higher Thought, we will together 
 tread those levels, and make of life a grand harmonious poem, 
 of which not one word shall be intelligible to the Common 
 Herd. Its very metre, its very rhythm, shall be unintelligible 
 to them." 
 
 " If you please, Mr. Rondelet, leave the language of allegory, 
 and tell me, in that of the Common Herd, what it is you ask 
 me to do ?" 
 
 He turned red. After this magnificent overture, leading to a
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 283 
 
 Bnort aria of extraordinary novelty, to be asked to clotho hia 
 meaning in plain English — it was humiliating." 
 
 " I mean," he explained, after a gulp of dissatisfaction, and 
 dropping his eye-glass once — " I mean, Miss Dalmeny, will you 
 marry me ?" 
 
 " Oh h !" Miranda did not blush, or tremble, or gasp, or 
 
 faint, or manifest any single sign of surprise or confusion. It 
 was as if she had been asked to go for a drive. " You ask me 
 if I will marry you. That is a very important question to put, 
 and 1 must have a little time to answer it. No — do not say any 
 more at present. We shall meet in the evening as if this talk 
 had- not been held. Good-morning, Mr. Rondelet." 
 
 She rose in her queenly fashion and walked across the lawn 
 to the house, leaving him confused and uncertain. 
 
 Had she appreciated him ? Did she realise what he brought 
 to her? He reflected with satisfaction that his method of 
 approaching the subject had at least the m.erit of novelty. 
 Certainly, very few women had ever been invited to contem- 
 plate matrimony in such a manner. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 "He's armed witliout who's innorent within." 
 
 Three daj-s before the wedding, Harrv made no sign and sent 
 no message to Alma. But she had faith. It could not be that 
 a man like her Harry, backed as he was by Mr. Caledon, would 
 fail her. She was perfectly certain that all would be well, and 
 she waited in patience, no longer trying to please, and careless 
 about pretending to be a lady. 
 
 In fact, the conspirators were not idle. Tom went to town, 
 in order to obtain what Desdemona called the most important 
 of the_ properties— the special license. The clergyman was 
 found in an old friend of Tom's, who consented, on learning the 
 whole circumstances, to perform the ceremony. The plot was, 
 in fact, completely worked out, and, as Desdemona said, nothing 
 remained but to hope that the situations would go off without 
 any hitch. 
 
 On Wednesday, things being in this forward state, Desdemona 
 and Tom walked across the park to the gamekeeper's cottage„ 
 It was empty, but the door stood open— a proof that the owner 
 was not very far away— and the two entered the little room with 
 its smoked and blackened rafters, which seemed dark after the 
 blinding sunhght, and sat down to await Harry's return. 
 
 " This is like plunging into a cave to concert a robbery with 
 B baud of brigands,'' said Desdemona, taking Harry "s wooden
 
 284 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 arm chair. " In fact, I never felt so much like a conspirator be-' 
 fore, not even on the stage. And as for the stage, the illusion 
 is all in the front. . . . Tom," she resumed, after a pause, " I dc 
 not hke it at all." 
 
 " Nor do I," Tom confessed. 
 
 " I can see you do not. ' How in the looks doth conscious guilt 
 appear.' If it were only not for Lord Alwyne and JMiranda — -'' 
 
 " It does seem hard," said Tom, " that a fellow can't .be 
 allowed to malce himself a fool in his own way." 
 
 " That is not the way to put it at all," said Desdemona, rousing 
 herself for an apology. " Let me put it so that we shall be able 
 to comfort ourselves with noble motives. All wicked people do 
 that, you know. Fancy the pious rapture of Guy Fawkes just 
 before he was going to light the match ; think of the approval 
 which the conscience of Ravaillac must have bestowed upon 
 him on the king's coach coming in sight. Let us apply the 
 same balms to our own case. People may say — people who 
 don't understand motives — tiiat we two were Alan's most inti- 
 mate and trusted friends, and that, notwithstanding, we de- 
 liberately conspired together to frustrate his most cherished 
 project." 
 
 " I think, Desdemona," said Tom, " that you must have 
 learned the art of comforting a sinner from the Book of Job. 
 To be sure, people may say that ; but you forget that we 
 haven't been found out yet. And Harry won't tell." 
 
 " It will come out some day," said Desdemona, gloomil}'. 
 " Crimes like ours always do come out. I shall very likely 
 reveal the secret on my death-bed. That will be a bad job for 
 you. Or else you will go mad with the suspicion that I may 
 some day tell, take me to a secret place in a forest, push me 
 down a deep well, and drop big stones on my head. I shall 
 creep out when you are gone, nothing the worse except for a 
 bump as big as a cricket-ball on my skull, and a broken leg ; 
 and I shall creep after you, taking revenge in separate lumps as 
 the opportunity offers. When I have got all the revenge that 
 a Christian woman wants, I shall disclose myself, and you will 
 die — under the lime-light, repentant, slowly, and to the music 
 of the stringed instruments." 
 
 "Thank you," said Tom. "Now, tell me, please, how W8 
 ought to put it to ourselves." 
 
 " Thus," said the actress. " This extravagance of Alan affects 
 others beside himself. The result of the step he proposes would 
 be so disastrous that at any cost it must be prevented. He does 
 not know the girl he is going to marry ; he has conceived an 
 entirely wrong impression of her character. His father, my old 
 friend " 
 
 " And mine." said Tom, feeling comfcri in that reflection.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 285 
 
 " Will be deeply grateful to ns. INIiranda will be gratefuL 
 After a time, Alan will be grateful ; and as for the rest of the 
 world, why — il y a dcs reprochcs qui loucnt." 
 
 " Yes — and — Harry ? Do you think he will be grateful after 
 a time, too ? ' asked Tom. " You see, Desdemona, your estimate 
 of the young lady's character is not a high one." 
 
 " Grateful ? Well, in a way. The man's in love with her. 
 He does not, in his heart, believe that she is a bit better than 
 the majority of women in her class. But just now it is good 
 for him to think so. Depend upon it, Tom, it is not a bad 
 thing for a man to find out that his wife is no better a human 
 creature than himself, probably not so good." 
 
 " Desdemona," said Tom, " don't be hard on your sex." 
 
 "I am not," she replied ; "I am only just. Do you think 
 Xelly an angel ?" 
 
 " Yes," he said stoutly, " I do, and I don't want any other 
 kind of angel. People my paradise with one angel, and let her 
 be Nelly, with all her moods and wilfulness, just as she is. I 
 shall be satisfied." 
 
 " You are a good fellow, Tom, and you deserve her. Pity 
 that while you were about it, you could not have made that 
 little document in your pocket a transferable ticket. We 
 might then, at the very last moment, change the names from 
 Harry and Alma to Tom and Nelly." 
 
 He shook his head sadly. 
 
 " The good old days !" she lamented. " Oh for a postchaise 
 and four, and Gretna Green ! or for a Fleet parson ! What 
 opportunities our ancestors had !" 
 
 *' You can get a special license now," said Tom : " costs five 
 guineas — that is what I've got for Harry." 
 
 " It is the one thing they have left us. Then, Tom, if you do 
 not immediately — but here comes the third conspirator." 
 
 Tom explained to Harry that he had gone to London in order 
 to obtain, through certain legal persons, a document which 
 made it possible for him and Alma to get married to each other. 
 And then he handed him the precious epistle. 
 
 " And with this bit o' paper," said Harry, doubtfully, " it is 
 lawful for Alma and me to marry ?" 
 
 He turned it all ways to catch the light, and blushed to think 
 of the solicitude of the greatest persons in the realm after his 
 welfare. 
 
 " And now," said Desdemona, " when shall we marry them ?" 
 
 " The sooner the better," said Harry. " If there's going to 
 be words, best have them over." 
 
 He was thinking of Bostock, but it seemed almost as if he 
 was thinking of future matrimonial jars. 
 
 " We might manage oa Friday," said Tom. " I am afraid ii
 
 286 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 is too late to avranj^e for to-morrow. My friend the curate will 
 «lo it on any day. After the marriage you can drive to Dalmeny 
 Hall, and then send for Mr. Dunlop and have it out. You can 
 tackle the Bailiff afterwards." 
 
 " Ay," said Harry ; " I'm not afeared of tlie Bailiff. There'll 
 be a vast of sv,'earing, and that's all. Bailiff Bostock knows 
 me. It is the Squire I am afeard on. He'll take it hard : me 
 in old servant, and — there — once almost a friend I v.'as, when 
 vv'o wei'e both boys." 
 
 " You are a friend of his still, Harry," said Tom. " "When 
 he understands that it was your own bride he was going to take, 
 it will all come right. But perhaps just at first there may be 
 some sort of shindy." 
 
 •' It cannot be on Friday," said Desdemona. " I remember 
 now that Alma's wedding-dress is not to be ready till Friday 
 afternoon. The poor girl must wear her fine frock, if only for 
 once. You must arrange, Tom, to get the ceremony over and 
 to drive back to the Hall before they ought to be starting for 
 church. That, I think, will be the most effective as well as the 
 most considerate way of leading up to the situation. It is not 
 bad, as dramas go." She sprang from her chair, alert and 
 active, and became again an actress. " A rehearsal. Stand 
 there, Harry, as far back as the footlights — I mean the fender — 
 will allow. Miranda and I are grouped here in an attitude of 
 sympathetic expectation." (Here her face suddenly assumed a 
 look of such deep sympathy, that Tom burst out laughing, and 
 Harry was confounded.) " Alan is in the centre, up the stage ; 
 on your arm, Harry, is Alma." (Harry involuntarily glanced at 
 his manly arm, as if Alma might really, by some magic of this 
 wonderful lady, be there, but she was not.) " She is in her 
 beautiful wedding frock and bonnet ; she is looking shy and a 
 little frightened, but so pretty that she has engaged the sym- 
 pathies of the whole house. Alan, taken by surprise, moves a 
 half-step forward ; Miranda and I, surprised and wondering, 
 take a half-step nearer him ; we murmur our astonishment ; 
 Miranda, who is statuesque, and therefore does not gesticulate, 
 turns her eyes mutely upon Alma ; I, who am, or was thirty 
 years ago, mvjnonne, hold up my hands — it is a very effective 
 gesture, if done naturally ; and then, Tom (I am afraid I mxisi 
 put you in the last scene, and concealment will be im. possible), 
 you step forward — oh, Tom !" here she betrayed a little irrita- 
 tion because Tom, instead of throwing himself into the situation, 
 was actually grinning), " why canH you act a little ? You step 
 forward easily and quietly — you make a point, because your 
 knowledge is the key of the whole situation — and you say, 
 taking Alma by tho hand, ' Alan, let me present to you- -Harrj
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 2S7 
 
 Cardew's wife !' Now, that is i-eally a very telling situation, 
 if you could only tliinK of it." 
 
 " I did not think of the situation,'' said Tom. 
 
 " No, you silly boy, you did not." Desdemona sat down 
 again, and put off the actress. " If people would only think of 
 the situation, and how it would look on the stage, none of the 
 silly things, and onl_v the picturesquely wicked things, would bo 
 done. ' All the world's a stage.' Yes ; and there is always an 
 audience. And none of us ever play our little part without some 
 to applaud and some to hiss. They are a sympathetic audience, 
 and they express their feelings vigorously. Dear me ! he does 
 not think of the situation. Live, Harry Cardew, as if you were 
 always on the boards — walk, talk, think, as if you were speaking 
 before the theatre. Do you understand ?" 
 
 The honest gamekeeper did not. He had never seen a theatre. 
 
 " However," continued Desdemona, " we are preparing the 
 last scene of a comedy which will be numerously attended, and 
 keenly criticised, so to speak ; we must not spoil it by care- 
 lessness in the final tableau. We must make all we can out of 
 it. As for you, Harry, you will be a hero for a few days. And 
 you, Tom, must make up your mind to criticism. Play your 
 part boldly. Make your mark in the last act. In the evening 
 there will be a grand Function in the Abbey, at which you, too, 
 ought to be a hero." 
 
 "And the row with Bostock?" asked Harry, who believed 
 that this lady was able to control the future exactly ; "has 
 your ladyship fixed when and where that is to come off ?" 
 
 "No; m fact, I quite forgot that detail. But it does not 
 matter so much, as it will not probably get into the papers. A 
 mere piece of by-play, an episode. It ought, perhaps, to come 
 befoi'e the last situation ; but, after ail, it does not greatly 
 signify. I suppose the farmer is certain to use language of the 
 strongest." 
 
 " After all — saving your ladyship's presence — what," askad 
 Harry, " what matters a few damns ?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Desdemona, quoting Bob Acres. "They 
 have had their day. And now, Harry, take great care of the 
 document. We sh-xll tell Alma — not to-morrow, but on Friday. 
 Forhaps a hint to-morrow will keep up her spirits." 
 
 " He is much too good for her," said Desdemona ; " but lam 
 in hopes it will turn out woii. There is one great point ir 
 favour of their happiness." 
 
 " What is that ?" 
 
 " She is afraid of him," said Desdemona, student of woman- 
 kind. " A wholesome terro? of her husband, with such a girl,
 
 288 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 goes n long way. She will feel that she has got a man to rula 
 her." 
 
 At the Abbey they found that Lord Ahvyne had arrived. 
 He was, in fact, sitting with a bevy of Sisters. Nothing, he was 
 wont to say, more effectually removes the cares of the world or 
 makes a man forget his own age, sooner than the society of 
 young and beautiful ladies. He ought to have been born ia the 
 seventeenth century, and basked in the gardens of Vaux, or 
 beneath the smiles of the ladies who charmed away the declining 
 years of La Fontaine. When Desdemona's tea was taken to 
 her cell. Lord Alwyne came with it, and the fraternity, even 
 including Miranda, abstained from entering that pleasant retreat, 
 because they knev/ that the talk would be serious and would 
 turn on Alan. 
 
 " I found myself growing anxious," Lord Alwyne said. " I 
 hoped to learn that you had done something, that something 
 had been done by somebod}% somehow, to break it off. But the 
 days passed by, and no letter came. And so — and so I have 
 come down to learn the worst : of course, nothing can happen 
 now to stop it." He looked wistfully at Dosdemona. " It is 
 too late now." 
 
 " Why, there are three whole days before us. This is Wed- 
 nesday. What may not happen in three days ?" 
 
 " Desdemona, have you anything to tell me ?" 
 
 "Nothing, Lord Alwyne." She kept her eyes down, so that 
 he should not read her secret there. " Nothing," she repeated. 
 
 " But there will be something ?" 
 
 " Who knows ? There are yet three days, and at all events 
 we may repeat what I said a month ago — they are not married 
 
 yet." 
 
 " Then I may hope ? Desdemona, have mercy." 
 
 She looked up, and saw on the face of her old friend a pained 
 and anxious expression which she had never before seen. No 
 man had ever spent a more uniformly happy, cheerful, and yet 
 unselfish life. It seemed as if this spoiled son of fortune 
 naturally attracted the friendship of those only who were for- 
 tunate in their destinies as well as in their dispositions. Mis- 
 fortune never fell upon him or upon his friends. It gave 
 Desdemona a shock to see that his face, as bright at fifty- five 
 as at twenty-five, was capable of the unhappiness which Las 
 generally quite distorted the features of men at that age. 
 
 " My dear old friend," she cried, " what am I to say ? I 
 cannot bear to see you suffer. Have more than hope. Have 
 confidence." 
 
 He took her hand and raised it to his lips with a courtesy 
 more than Castiliau.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 289 
 
 " I ask no move, Desdcmona, Tell me anotlier time what 
 you liave done." 
 
 " You will have to thank Tom Caledon," she rei3lied. " It is 
 he, and a third person who is indispensable, whom you will have 
 to thank." 
 
 " Tell me no more, Desdemona. "What thanks of miue could 
 equal this se''vice ? Tell me no more." 
 
 He was more deeply moved than Desdemona had ever seen 
 him. 
 
 " I have been making myself wretched about the boy," he 
 said, walking up and down the room. " It was bad enough to 
 read of his doings with a pitchfci-k and a cart : it would make 
 the most good-tempered man angry to be asked in the clubs 
 about the Shepherd Squire, his son ; but that only hurt Alan 
 himself. Far worse to think that he wa"> going to commit the — 
 the CRIME of marrying a dairymaid." 
 
 "I suppose," said Desdemona, "that it is natural for you to 
 think most of the mesalliance : I dare say I should myself, if I 
 had any ancestors. What I have thought of most is the terrible 
 mistake of linking himself for life v.'ith such a girl, when he 
 might have had — even Miranda, perhaps. You cannot expect 
 me quite to enter into your own point of view." 
 
 " I do not defend myself, Desdemona," said the man of a 
 long line, with humility, as if he felt the inferiority of his posi- 
 tion. " It is part of our nature, the pride of birth. Alan ought 
 to have had it from both sides. I taught him, from the first, to 
 be proud of the race from which he sprung. I used to show 
 him the family tree, and talk to him about his predecessors, till 
 I feared I was making him as proud of his descent as a Mont 
 morenci or a Courtenay. In my own case, the result of eucli 
 teaching was a determination to keep the stream as pure as I 
 found it, or not to marry at all. With him the result is, that it 
 does not matter how much mud he pours in, provided he can carry 
 out an experiment. He fools away his children's pride for a 
 hobby. To do this wrong to his children seems to me, I own, 
 even a worse crime than to forget his ancestors." 
 
 " I see," said Desdemona," Avhat I call a misfortune you call a 
 crime." 
 
 " Every misfortune springs from a crime, my dear Desde 
 mona," said Lord Alwyne, sententiously. '' This anxiety has 
 n.ade me feel ten years older ; and when I thought I had lost 
 my son I rejoiced, for the first time, to feel older.'' 
 
 " You will find him again, dear Lord Alv/yne," she said softly, 
 " in a few days. In fact, on Saturday. Remain with us till 
 ^lien. Perhaps it will be as well that you should not meet him, 
 unless he hears that you have arrived. And reckon confidently 
 on going home in ease of mind, and raady to commence again 
 
 Id
 
 290 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 that pleasant life of yours which has no duties and no carea, but 
 only friendships." 
 
 Tie took her hand again, and pressed it almost like a lover. 
 
 " Always the same, kind Desdemona," he said ; " Clairetto 
 Fanshawe Vv'as the best woman, as well as the best and prettiest 
 actress, that ever trod the stage. Do you think, Claire tte " — it 
 was twenty 3'ears since he had called her Clairette — " do you 
 think that we really made the most of our youth while it lasted ? 
 Did we, cVune main mmagere, as the French poet advises, get 
 the sweetness out of every moment. To be sure the memory of 
 mine is very pleasant. I cannot have wasted very much of it." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Desdemona, smiling — she had spent the 
 greater part of her youth in hard study, un 1 the rest in bitter 
 matrimonial trouble with a drunkai'd — " perhaps one lost a day 
 here and there, particularly vv'hen there Vv'as work to do. It is 
 unpardonable in a woman to waste her youth, because there is 
 such a very little of it. But as for men, their youth seems to 
 last as long as they please. You are young still, as you always 
 have been. To be sure, your position was a singularly happy 
 one." 
 
 " It was," said Lord Alwyne ; " but you are wrong, Desde- 
 mona, in supposing that my life had no duties. My duty was 
 to lead the idle life, so that it might seem desirable. Other 
 people, hard-working people, learned to look upon it as the one 
 for which they ought to train their sons. But it wants money : 
 thiCrefore these hard-working people worked harder. Thus I 
 helped to develop the national industry, and, therefore, the 
 national prosperity. That is a very noble thing to reflect upon. 
 Desdemona, I have been an exam.ple and a stimulus. And yei 
 you say that I have had no duties." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 " Oh ! bill mo leap, ratlier than marry Pans, 
 From off the battlements of yonder tower." 
 
 Brother Peregrine's suit resembled, by reason of its length, 
 a suit in Chancery. It never made any progress. He always 
 carried the same cheerful smile in his crowsfooted eyes, always 
 appeared in the same imperturbable good-humour. He never 
 seemed to notice whether the girl to whom he attached himself 
 was pleased to have him about her or not, being one of those 
 happy persons who practised, though from a different motive, 
 the same cult of selfishness preached by Paul Rondelet. Ha 
 was a man who would play with a child till it cried, when he 
 would put the plaything down and go away to find another.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 291 
 
 His business was to r.mu?o himself—" What is my land to one 
 who is home from India, but a delightful garden full of plea- 
 sures ?" The society of this beautiful and coquettish girl, full 
 of odd moods and as changeable as a day in April, was pleasant 
 to him — what did he care whether he was pleasant to her ? He 
 congratulated himself on his superiority to Tom, because he saM" 
 so much more of her, 
 
 But no progress. Plenty of compliments, pretty speechea 
 without end ; little presents of things from India, such as tiger- 
 claw brooches, fans of scented wood, glass bottles gilded outside 
 and filled vvith a tiny thread of precious essence, filigree work 
 in silver, tiny chains of gold, bangles rudely worked— all these 
 things accepted as part o' his wooing. But the fatal words, 
 which she feared and yet wished to have done with, so that there 
 should be a final end with poor Tom — these did not come. 
 
 There was plenty of opportunity. Never was a place so 
 admirably adapted for the interchange of such confidences as th« 
 Abbey of Thelema, with its corridors, cells, gardens, and wooded 
 park. And at this juncture everybody seemed busily occupied 
 in whispering secrets. What did the man mean ? The situation, 
 too, was becoming ridiculous ; all the world — that is, the monastic 
 world— watched it with interest. Also Mrs. Despard seemed, 
 by her letters, to have some uneasy suspicion that all was not 
 right. She even threatened to visit the Abbey herself, if only 
 to expostulate, while yet there was time, with Alan Dunlop on 
 his infatuated and suicidal intention. Most of her letters, in 
 whole or in part, found their way to Tom — either they were read 
 to him, or the contents were imparted to him in conversation. 
 
 " If she does come here, Tom," said Nelly, " which Heaven 
 forbid, two things will happen immediately. You will have to 
 leave the Abbey the day before her arrival, and — and — that 
 other event will be settled at once." 
 
 " You mean " said Tom. 
 
 '■ There is no occasion, Tom, to put everything into words." 
 
 Tom became silent. 
 
 " I think I have put too much into words already. 1 
 ■wonder," she went on, " whether j^ou like me the better or the 
 worse for telling you truthfully ?" 
 
 " Everything, Nelly," said Tom, hoarsely, " makes me like you 
 better every day." 
 
 "I could not, after your beautiful speech at the Court of Love, 
 which went right to my heart, Tom — I could not bear you to 
 think that I was only flirting with you all the time. I liked you 
 too well. Poor Tom ! Do manj^ other girls like you too ?" 
 
 " They don't tell me so if they do. But of course they don't. 
 How girls ever do like men, I do not know." 
 
 " It is because they ai'^ not men," said the damsel wisely 
 
 13-2
 
 ?92 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Peoplvi would call it unmaidenly, I suppose, to toll a man — 
 ■what I have told you — particularly -u'lien the man ■wants to 
 marry you, and you can't marry him. But you don't think it 
 unmaidenly, do you ?" 
 
 " As if you could do anything but what is sweet and good, 
 Nell ! But you cannot know how much " 
 
 " Hush, Tom ; don't put that into words — don't ; it only 
 makes us both unhappy." 
 
 " Of course, I know," said Tom, rnef ally. "I am next door 
 to a pauper, and so are you, poor girl ; and wc are both expen- 
 eive people ; and there would be debts and things." 
 
 " Debts and borrowing, Tom, and not being able to payback; 
 and going on the Continent, and living in lodgings, and staying 
 with people who would invite us, to save money. How should 
 you like that ?" 
 
 " You always think of the -worst, Nelly. There's Sponger, 
 formerly of Ours, does that. Got two hundred a year ; goes 
 everywhere, and is seen everywhere ; stays with people. They 
 say he disappears for two months every year, when he is sup- 
 posed to go to Whitechapel and sweep a crossing where sailors 
 are free with their coppers, I believe " 
 
 Nelly interrupted this amusing anecdote. 
 
 " That is like you, Tom. Just as I was getting into a com- 
 fortable crying mood, when nothing else does me so much good 
 as a little sympathy, you spoil it all by one of your stupid 
 stories. What do I care about Sponger of Ours ?" 
 
 " I thought you were talking about staying with people." 
 
 " Is the story about Sponger one of the stories which the old 
 novels used to tell us kept the mess-room in a roar ? If so, a 
 mess-room must be an extremely tiresome place." 
 
 This conversation took place on Wednesday afternoon. In 
 the evening, to please Lord Alwyne, Desdemona improvised a 
 little costume party, in which everybody appeared in some 
 Watteau-like dress, which was very charming to the Sisters, and 
 mightily became such of the Monks as were well-favoured. 
 They danced minuets and such things as such shepherds and 
 shepherdesses would have loved. Brother Peregrine led out 
 Nelly for a performance of this stately old dance ; they went 
 through it with great solemnity. 
 
 " Are they engaged ?" asked Cecilia, watching them. 
 
 " I cannot tell, my dear," said Desdemona. " The man is a 
 riddle. Nelly does not look at him the least as a girl generally 
 looks on an accepted lover. What does it mean ?" 
 
 " I had a letter to-day," Cecilia went on, "from Mrs. Despard. 
 She says that Alan's conduct has alarmed her so much that she 
 thinks of coming to take her daughter home. I suppose she 
 thinks that we are going to follow Alan's example, and marrj?
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 293 
 
 fehe dairyman s jon, as he is engaged to the dairyman's daughter. 
 It will be a great loss to us." 
 
 "Greater changes are going to happen," said Desdemona. 
 " Am I blind ? AVhen do j'ou go, my child V" 
 
 Cecilia blushed prettily. She was a very charming girl, and 
 her little idyl of love had gone on quite smoothly, else I would 
 have tola the story. The commonplace lot is the happiest ; yet 
 it does not read with much interest. 
 
 " John " she began. 
 
 " Brother Bayard," said Desdemona. " I shall always know 
 him by that name." 
 
 " Wants to take me away at once ; but I shall insist on wait- 
 ing till the autumn." 
 
 *' May you be happy, my dear !" 
 
 " ' You Lave consented to cveafe again, 
 
 That Adam called ' the happiest of men.' " 
 
 Cecilia laughed. 
 
 " What you said the other night accelerated things. Desde- 
 mona, I should not be surprised if you were to receive a great 
 many confidences before long." 
 
 " And no jealousies among the Sisters ?" 
 
 " Not one. We are all to be happy alike." 
 
 " That is as it should be," said Desdemona ; " and that is the 
 true end of the Abbey of Thelema." 
 
 '• Only we are sorry for poor Tom, and for Miranda, and for 
 Alan. We had hoped that Miranda " 
 
 " Alan is not married yet," said Desdemona. 
 
 ^Meantime, Nelly observed that her partner was feverishly 
 excited and nervous. His performance in the dance was far 
 below his usual form, and for the first time since she had 
 made his acquaintance he was not smiling. That looked 
 ominous. 
 
 " I have been," he whispered, in agitated accents, when the 
 dance was finished — " I have been in the Garden of Eden for 
 three months, thanks to you. Let me have a quarter of an houi 
 alone with you to-morrow. Can it be that I am to take a fare- 
 well at the gates of Paradise ?" 
 
 " I will meet you in the breakfast-room at noon, to-morrow," 
 said Nelly quietly. 
 
 Farewell at the gates of Paradise ? Was the man really be- 
 ginning to affect that self-depreciation which to girls not in love 
 seems so absurd, and to girls who are in love is so delightful ? 
 lie could not be in love as Tom was — not in that fond, foolish 
 way at least ; there would be no sentiment, she said to herself, 
 on either side. Then why begin with nonsense about farpwell r
 
 294 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Certainly there would be no sentiment ; she ■would accept bira, 
 of course, as she had told Tom all along. It would be a bar- 
 gain between them ; he would have a wife of whom Nelly waa 
 quite certain he would be proud ; she would get as good a 
 house as she wanted, a husband comme il faut., an establishment 
 of the kind to which she aspired in her most sensible moments, 
 and a husband wlio had his good points and was amusing. It 
 would have been better, doubtless, to have a Tom Caledon, 
 ■with whom one could quarrel and make it up again, whom one 
 could trust altogether and tell everything to, "who would look 
 after one if there was any trouble. 
 
 But, after all, a real society husband, a life of society with 
 people of society, must be the best in the long-run. Nelly felt 
 that she should look -vvell at her cwn table and in her own 
 drawing-room ; her husband would talk cleverly ; she would be 
 tranquilly and completely happy. And as for Tom, why of 
 course he would very soon forget her, and find somebody else — 
 she hoped with money to keep him going. Poor Tom ! 
 
 A life in the world against a human life ; & sequence of 
 colourless years against the sweet alternations of cloud and 
 sunshine, mist and clear sky, which go with a marriage for 
 love ; a folloAving of seasons, in which, year after year, social 
 success grows to seem a less desirable thing, against the blessed 
 recurrence of times sacred to all sorts of tender memories — 
 was this the thing which Nelly had desired, and was going to 
 accept, consciously ? 
 
 I suppose it was her mother's teaching, whose book was 
 
 '■ The eleventh commnnclment, 
 Which flajs, ' Thou shalt not marrj unless well.' " 
 
 That sweet womanly side of her character — the readiness to 
 love aud be loved — had been brought out by Tom, and yet it 
 seemed, as an active force, povt'erless against the instructions of 
 her childhood. It had been awakened by one brief erratic 
 ramble into the realm of Nature — that evening on Ryde pier 
 ■ — after which poor Nelly thought she had returned to the 
 dominion of common sense. She hid nothing from Tom ; she 
 was as confiding as Virginia to Paul ; but it did not occur to 
 her that her decision, now that a decision was left to her, could 
 possibly be other than that indicated by her mother. 
 
 She said that it was Fate. Just as the charity boy knows 
 that it is perfectly useless, as ■well as unchristian, to envy the 
 Prince who rides past him on his own pony, so the girl, Nelly, 
 had learned, who has no dot may as well make up her mind at 
 once that she cannot hope to follow the natural inclinations of 
 her heart, and choose her o^vva husband for herself. She must
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, sr,t 
 
 wait lo bo cliosen, in this Babylonian marriage market, by tlia 
 rich. 
 
 As for the other Sisters of the Abbey, they were all por- 
 tioned, and could do as they pleased. Therefore Nelly looked 
 ■with eyes of natural envy on this Sister, who could listen to 
 the suit of a penniless ofRcer ; and on that, who, rich herself, 
 was going to take for better or for worse, and oh ! how very 
 much for better, a love-sick youth richer than herself. For 
 them, the life of pleasantness, the life of which we all dream, 
 the life which is not rendered sordid by money cares, and mean 
 by debts, and paltry in being bound and cabined by the iron 
 walls of necessity, the life of ease had been attained. Men 
 work for it ; giving it to wives and daughters by early rising, late 
 lying down, burning the candle at both ends, and dying at 
 fifty. Is their lot worse than that of women who, to obtain 
 it, marry, and faithfully observe the covenant of marriage with 
 men v.iiom, under other circumstances, they would not have 
 preferred ? 
 
 Nelly would have preferred Tom, There was no doubt 
 about that, none. But if she could not marry Tom, being so 
 very much enamoured of the paths of pleasantness, why, then, 
 she must marry Mr. Exton; and he seemed a cheerful creature, 
 full of admiration of her, and, doubtless, in his way, which was 
 very unlike the way of Tom, in love with her. 
 
 Perhaps as Nelly laid her fair head upon the pillow that 
 night her thoughts took up some sad, defensive attitude. But 
 her pulse beat no faster, and her sleep was not broken by the 
 thought of the morrov/. 
 
 The pleasant breakfast-room, which looked upon the inner 
 court of the Abbey, was quite deserted at noon, when Nelly 
 arrived to keep her appointment. Mr. Exton did not keep her 
 waiting. 
 
 She sat down before a window, and waited, with a little flush 
 npon her cheek. 
 
 " How pretty you are !" sighed Brother Peregrine. 
 
 His eyes were more curiously crowsfooted than ever, and 
 they had the strangest look in them— a look the meaning of 
 which was difficult to make out. 
 
 Somehow, Nelly thought there was some sort of shame in 
 them, only Brother Peregrine was surely the last person in the 
 world to manifest that sort of emotion. Besides, what was 
 there to be ashamed of ? 
 
 " I think that you are growing prettier every day." 
 
 His face, covered with its multitudinous crows'-feet, seemed 
 forced into a smile ; but there was no mirth in his eyes. He 
 had said much the same sort of thing a good many times
 
 296 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 before, but bad never got beyond tbat kind of general statc« 
 ment. 
 
 " Do you tliink it altogether right," asked Nelly, looking him 
 straight in the face, " to say that sort of thing ?" 
 
 " But that wasn't what I wanted to say," said the Brother, 
 with considerable hesitation, " I — I — I am going to leave the 
 Abbey to-day. I have just written a letter of farewell to tha 
 Order, and sent it to Desdemona ■'' 
 
 " Going to leave the Abbey, and why ?" 
 
 " Because I must," he replied gloomily. " Because, although 
 tliese limbs seem free, I wear the chains of slavery. Because I 
 am called away." 
 
 This was a very mj-sterious beginning. 
 
 " You talk as if you were going to the end of the world." 
 
 '• I wish I were. But I am only going to London." 
 
 •'Is that such a very dreadful place? To be sure, at thia 
 time of year, there will be nobody to talk to." 
 
 "I have had — the — the most delightful time," Brother 
 Peregrine went on, nervously ; " and entirely through you. I 
 shall never, certainly never, forget the walks, and drives, and 
 tallcs you have given me. They have left the most charming 
 recollection in my mind. I do not believe there is a sweeter 
 girl than yourself in all the world — alas !" 
 
 He heaved the most melancholy sigh. 
 
 What could he mean ? Leave recollections in his mind ? 
 Then, after all, he was not, perhaps, going to ■ 
 
 Nelly sat quite silent. Her checks had grown pale suddenly, 
 and in her head were a dozen thoughts battling to take shape 
 in her brain. 
 
 " Will you remember me, with a little regret ?" he asked. 
 ■' To be sure I cannot ask for more — a man in my awful position 
 ought not to ask for so much " 
 
 " When you explain yourself," said Nelly ; " when I under- 
 stand what yoijr awful position is, I shall be better able to talk 
 to you." 
 
 " I have told you I am sent for." 
 
 " Who has sent for you ?" 
 
 "My wife," he replied, simply. 
 
 His wife ! 
 
 " She has just arrived from India, with all the children. She 
 is at the Langham Hotel. She writes to me that unless I go to 
 her at once, she will come to me." 
 
 Nelly gazed at him with eyes of wonder. The man waa 
 shaking and trembling. 
 
 " You don't quite understand what that means," he went on. 
 " Perhaps when I tell you that my wife is a — a — Eurasian, irt 
 fftctj with more of the tar than of the lily in her complexion, and
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 29? 
 
 that the children take after their mother in complexion and 
 temper, you may begin to understand that I was not particularly 
 anxious "to talk about my marriage." 
 
 " And so you pretended to be an unmarried man," said Nelly, 
 a little bitterly. 
 
 " No one ever asked me if I was married," he said. " If thej 
 had, I dare say I should have confessed. She is much oldei 
 than myself, and she has a temper. She is also jealous. Very 
 jealous she is. T!ic children have tempers, too, and have been 
 spoiled by their mother. They are not pleasant children at all " 
 
 " AVaa this all you had to say to me ?" 
 
 Nelly rose and stood at the window, 
 
 " Yes, I think so. Just to thank you for your kindness, and 
 to express a hope that you will not forget this summer." 
 
 "No, I am not likely to forget this summer," she replied, 
 with a touch of bitterness in her tone ; " not at all likely. Nor 
 shall I readily forget you, Mr. Exton." 
 
 " Your advocate in the great case of Lancelot versus Rosalind," 
 he said. " You will remember me by that, you know." 
 
 " I shall remember you," she said, " without thinking of the 
 Cour d' Amour. And now, good-bye." 
 
 She held out her hand coldly. He bent over it, and would 
 have kissed it, but she drew it back. 
 
 " No, Mr. Exton. Think of your wife. By the way, you are 
 going to London ? Mamma is, I believe, in town for a few 
 days. Will you call upon her? She would like to make Mrs. 
 Exton's acquaintance, I am sure. She might tell Mrs. Exton. 
 too, more than jou would be likely to remember about the 
 Abbey of Thelema. Mamma's address is No. 81, Chester 
 Square, You will be sure to call, Avill you not ? Good-bye. I 
 am sorry to hear that you are " 
 
 " Married ?" he asked. 
 
 " No, not at all. ... I am glad to hear that your wife 
 has arrived. Husband and wife ought to be together. I 
 am only sorry that we shall lose you. I can write to mamma, 
 then, that you will call upon her to-morrow. It is No. 81, 
 Chester Squai'e. Do not forget. Good-bye, Mr. Exton." 
 
 With these words, the sting of which he hardly comprehended, 
 but which, as Nelly intended, he would discover when that call 
 was actually made, she left him, and, without looking to right 
 or left, mounted the stairs and sought the privacy of her own 
 cell. 
 
 There she sat down, and, with pale cheek and hardened eyes, 
 tried to understand the position of things. She was bitterly 
 humiliated ; she was ashamed ; angry with her mother, angry 
 with herself, fiercely angry with the man who had played with 
 and deceived her. How sould she face the Sisters, all of them
 
 298 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 in the possession of a suitor about whom there -was no mystery 
 and no deception? Should she tell the wliole story to every- 
 body ? Would it not be better to go on and make no sign ? 
 But some one she must tell. Desdcmona would hear her story 
 with sympathy ; so would Miranda ; so would .... and 
 here there came a knock at her door. It was no other than 
 Tom Caledon. 
 
 "Your reception-morning, Nell," he said avrkwardly. "I 
 come as a simple caller. But what is it, Nelly ? You look pale. 
 
 Has that fellow Exton — has he " 
 
 " He has said good-bye to n)3, Tom." 
 
 " "What ? You have refused him, then ? Oh ! Nell, tell me." 
 "No, Tom, it is worse than that. I went prepared to accept 
 him .... and he did not . . . make the offer I expected. He 
 is gone, Tom." 
 
 " Has the fellow been playing all the time, then ?" _ 
 " Not quite. I think he has been enjoying himself in his owa 
 ■vray, without thinking how he might compromise me. But ha 
 is a married man, Tom. That is all. A married man. And 
 his wife has ordered hira home." 
 " A married man ?" 
 
 " He says so. About such a trifle "—she laughed bitterly— 
 
 " men do not generally tell lies, I suppose. He spoke very 
 
 prettily about my kindness ; and so I asked him, out of pure 
 
 gratitude, Tom, to go to Chester Square and call upon mamma." 
 
 Tom stared blankly. 
 
 " Then he has imposed upon all of ua." 
 
 " That does not matter, Tom. I am the only person to' be 
 pitied — or blamed. I, who have been allowed to stay down 
 here on the condition that I was to— to throw myself in his 
 way, to attract him, to please him, to court him if necessary. 
 I, who was to pose before him like a dancing girl, to listen to 
 his idle talk, always to be pleasant to him. Oh ! it is shameful 
 — it is shameful !" 
 
 She stamped her little foot and wrung her hands, and the 
 tears came into her eyes. 
 
 " I never thought 'before what it Vv^as like— this angling for 
 rich men. What must they think of us ? What can you think 
 of me, Tom ?" 
 
 " You know very well what I think of you, Nelly." 
 " Now I must go back to town, and it will all begin over 
 again, as soon as mamma has found some one else. Go away, 
 T'om ; don't think of me any more, I am only an adventuress. 
 I am unworthy that you should be kind to me. I shall leave 
 this sweet place, with all the Brothers and Sisters, and dear 
 Miranda and Desdemona— oh ! the beautiful home of rest-'
 
 THE MO:\'KS OF THELEMA, 299 
 
 and go back agciin to il;e world, and fight among otlier adven- 
 turesses." 
 
 " No, Nelly, no," cried Tom. And "wliile she sank her head 
 into her hands his arms were round her. " No, Nelly, darling. 
 I will not let you. Stay here ; stay with me, and we will take 
 our chance. Never mind the world, Nell ; we will give up the 
 things that only rich people can do. Stay Avith me, my darling." 
 
 " Oh ! Tom — Tom— will you take me ? And now ? — you 
 ought to have more self-respect, Tom : now — after all that is 
 passed ?" 
 
 '• This is real happiness, Tom," she said, looking up in his 
 face, with her full, deep eyes. " There can be no happineis 
 like this." 
 
 And so passed half-an-hour. 
 
 Then Nell};- said that they must come back to the world, and 
 that meant punishing Mr. Exton, in the first place. 
 
 " As I have sent him to call upon mamma," she said, " I must 
 prepare mamma's mind for his visit." 
 
 She wrote the shortest of letters. 
 
 "Dear Mamma, 
 
 " Mr. Exton will call upon you to-morrow. ] lope yon 
 will be at homo, 
 
 " Your affectionate daughter, 
 
 " Eleanor." 
 
 J^ There, Tom i" she said, with a mischievous light in her eye. 
 " Ion see, that commits me to nothing, and it will lead mamma 
 to think a great deal. The explosion, when she finds out, will 
 be like a torpedo. I really think that I have punished poor 
 Brother Peregrine enough."- 
 
 This business despatched, Tom began upon another. 
 
 " Nelly," he said, " will you do exactly what I ask you ?" 
 
 " Exactly, Tom," she said. 
 
 "No one, not even Desdemona, is to know it." 
 
 " No one, Tom." 
 
 Then he whispered in her ear for a few minutes. First slie 
 stared at him with all her eyes ; then she blushed ; then she 
 laughed ; and then she trembled. 
 
 " Oh ! Tom, it is delightful. But what idll mamma say ?" 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVll. 
 
 " Can these things be ? or arc visions about ?" 
 
 It was on Thursday afternoon that Miranda asked IMr. Rondo- 
 let to meet her in Desdemona's cell. 
 
 He came with a curious sense of agitation. It was hardly
 
 30& THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 possible that she should refuse him ; and yet — why had she not 
 accepted him at once ? What need to deliberate for four and 
 twenty hours over what might just as well have been decided 
 on the spot ? terhaps, however, it was the way of young 
 ladies, a class with whom Paul Eondelet, in spite of his 
 monastic vows, had but little sympathy. 
 
 Had he overheard the conversation which took place between 
 Desdemona and Miranda, he would have been more agitated. 
 
 " No," Miranda was saying. " You need not be in the least 
 alarmed, Desdemona, I am not going to hold out any hopes. 
 And this, I trust " — she heaved a deep sigh — " will be the last 
 of my courtiers." 
 
 Desdemona lifted her great soft eyes lazily : she was lying, as 
 usual, in her comfortable chaise longue, with a few costume 
 designs in her lap, and laughed noiselessly. 
 
 " I should have dismissed him on the spot," Miranda went on, 
 " but his condescension and conceit were so amazing that they 
 irritated me. It is an ignoble thing to confess, but I longed to 
 box his ears." 
 
 " My dear Miranda," said Desdemona, " I sincerely wish you 
 had. Most young men, and especially young men of Advanced 
 Thought, would be all the better for a box on the ears." 
 
 And just then the candidate for her hand and fortune 
 tppeared. 
 
 He was elaborately got up : a studied simplicity reigned in 
 his neat and faultless dress, his grey kid gloves, the hat which 
 was not too new and yet not shabby, the plain black silk ribbon 
 which did duty for a tie. Even his smooth cheeks, his tiny 
 moustache, his dark hair parted down the middle with an 
 ambrosial curl, half an inch long over his white brow, spoke of 
 quintessential taste. 
 
 " Pray sit down, Mr. Rondelet," said Desdemona the hostess. 
 " Take the chair nearest the china. I know it soothes you to be 
 near blue china. Miranda has asked me to be present, if you 
 do not object." 
 
 " Miss Dalmeny's wishes are commands," he said, feeling more 
 uneasy. But perhaps she was going to take him at his word 
 and enter upon a betrothal with the calm which marks the 
 truly philosophic spirit. After all she ivould be worthy of 
 him. 
 
 " I have been thinking, Mr. Rondelet," said Miranda slowly, 
 turning a paper-knife between her fingers, and looking at her 
 suitor with more of a critical eye than he liked to see. It is all 
 very well to be a critic, but no critic likes to be criticised. She 
 was looking, too, calm and self-possessed, as if she was perfectly 
 mistress of the situation. " I have been thinking over what you 
 eaid. You assu^ied, you may remember, as a ground for your
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 301 
 
 request, a superiority over the ordinary run of educated men- 
 over our Monks of Thelema, for instance. But I have reflected, 
 however, that I was asked to take that on your own assurance. 
 Would you mind telling me how you can prove this superi- 
 ority ?" ^ 
 
 _ Proof ? Proof of his superiority ? Paul Rondelet dropped 
 his eye-glass and drew a long breath of amazement. Then he 
 put it up again, and flushed a rosy red. Did she actually want 
 him to bring testimonials, like a candidate for a place ? 
 
 " I am Paul llondelct," he said proudly — " Paul Rondelet of 
 Lothian. I should have thought that was enough." 
 , "We live here," said Miranda, " so far from Oxford, and are 
 so little connected with the circles where people think, that I am 
 afraid I must ask you for a little more information." Her voice 
 •was steady and her manner calm, but in her eyes there was a light 
 •which boded ill for her suitor. " I ha^i'e no doubt at all that 
 you are incontestaoly in the front. Only I should hke to know 
 how 3-0U got there." 
 
 Paul Rondelet was silent. Tliis was an awkward turn of 
 things. What reply could he make ? 
 
 " For instance," Miranda went on pitilessly, " have you written 
 "woi'ks of scholarship?" 
 
 " No," said Paul, very red and uneasy, " I leave grammar to 
 echoolmasters." 
 
 _ " Then there is Art," she continued. " The women of your 
 higher levels, you say, are to possess an instinctive love for Art, 
 but are to be trained by the men. Do you paint ?" 
 
 Paul Rondelet, whose lips were very dry by this time, and his 
 hands trembling, shook his head. He did not paint. 
 
 " Then ho^w could you train me, supposing I possessed this 
 instinct ?" 
 
 " I should instruct you on the principles of Art and its highest 
 expression," said the superior youth. 
 
 " Yes — yes. You -ft-ould show me beautiful pictures. But I 
 have already, we will suppose, the instinct of Art, and could 
 find them out for myself. And all that you could tell me I have 
 in my library already." 
 
 " The new school, the Higher School," he interrupted plead- 
 ingly, " requires itsown language to express its new teaching." 
 
 '• I know," she said, " I have translated some of the language 
 of the New School into English, and I find its disciples to be on 
 no higher a level, as I think, than my old authorities. I have 
 Ruskin, at least, whom I can understand. And Eastlake, and 
 Wornum, and Jameson, and old Sir Joshua. However, there 
 are other things. You have ■written novels, perhaps ?" 
 
 He shuddered Could a man of Lis standing condescend to
 
 302 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 write a novel, to pander to the tjiate of the vulgar herd -v^ho read 
 Buch things ? 
 
 " You are a dramatist, then ?" 
 
 " The British Drama is dead," he replied in a hollow voice. 
 
 " Perhaps it is only sleeping. Perhaps some day a man will 
 awaken it," she said. " But thei-e is poetry ; we know that you 
 write verses. Are you a poet acknowledged by the world ?" 
 
 This was dreadful. He had piil^lished nothing. And yet 
 there were those little poems, which his friends carried in their 
 bosoms, over which he had spent so many hours. But most 
 certainly he could not show these to a lady so little advanced in 
 the principles of his school. 
 
 " Then, Mr. Rondelet," said Miranda, " I am at a loss to know 
 on what grounds your claims for superiority rest." 
 
 This was a decisive question. It demanded decision. Eat 
 Rondelet rose from the chair in which he had endured this 
 cross-examination with as much dignity as he oould assume. 
 Standing gives a speaker a certain advantage, 
 
 " I will endeavour to explain," he said. 
 
 " Oh ! Miranda," cooed Dcsdemona in the softest and most 
 sympathetic of murmurs. " Mr. Rondelet will explain. Oh 
 yes ; one always declared that he w^as really a superior man. 
 One felt tnat if you wanted to know anything, you only had to 
 ask him. How charming of him to explain !" 
 
 But Paul Rondelet thought he detected the faintest possible 
 sarcasm in her accents, and he hated Desdemona for the moment 
 with a hate inextinguishable. 
 
 " You have placed me, doubtless unintentionally, in an ex- 
 ceedingly difficult position," he said, with an artificial smile. 
 " Such a superiority as you imagine, Miss Dalmeny, I did not 
 claim. You misunderstood me." 
 
 "Oh! Miranda," purred Desdemona, "Y''ou misunderstood 
 him." 
 
 " "What I meant was this," he said. " I belong to the school 
 which possesses the Higher Criticism." 
 
 " Oh 1" sa,id Desdemona, clasping her hands. 
 
 Paul Rondelet began to hate this woman woi'se than ever. 
 
 " Our standard of Art is different from, and far above, that 
 recognised by the world ; we have our own canons ; we write 
 for each other in our own language ; we speak for each other. 
 It is not our business to produce, but if we do produce, it ia 
 after many years of thought, and whether it is only a small 
 essay, or a single sheaf of sonnets, it is a production which 
 marks an epoch in the development of Art." 
 
 " Are there many of these productions yet before the world ?" 
 pursued Miranda.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 303 
 
 " As yet, none. Some are carried about by ourselves for ous 
 own delight." 
 
 Miranda put down lier paper-knife. Ilerfacc was quite Lard 
 and stern. 
 
 " You are a critic. Really, Mr. Eondelet, I never before 
 heard so singular a proposal. You offer me, in return for my 
 band, to impart to me — the Higher Criticism." 
 
 Looked at in this cold, passionless way, the proposal did not 
 indeed appear attractive even to the proposer. 
 
 " What else can you give me, Mr. Rondclet, beside the cold air 
 of the Higher Levels ? Do you love me ?'' 
 
 She asked this question iu a business-like manner, which was 
 at the same time most irritating. Never before in ail his life 
 had Paul Rondelet felt himself ridiculous. 
 
 " I thought," he said, " that you were superior to the vulgar 
 the vulgar " 
 
 Here Miranda interrupted him. 
 
 " The vulgar desire of being loved by my husband ? Not at 
 all, Mr. Rondelet, I assui'e you. I should, on the other hand, 
 expect it." 
 
 '' In the common sense of the word," he went on stammering. 
 
 " I suppose • But it is impossible for a man of my school to 
 
 affect more than the esteem which one cultivated mind feels for 
 another." 
 
 " I am glad you have told me the exact truth," she said. 
 " One likes to find respect for the truth even on your height. 
 But tell me more, Mr. Rondelet. Do you wish to marry ma 
 only because you esteem me, or is there any other motive ?" 
 
 He hesitated, dropped his eye-glass, blushed, and lost his head 
 altoaether. At this moment, standing limp and shattered before 
 his interrogator, Paul Rondelet of Lothian looked like a guilty 
 schoolboy. 
 
 " Are you rich, Mr. Rondelet ?" 
 
 " I — I — I am not," he replied. 
 
 " You have your Fellowship, I believe. Is that all ?" 
 
 " That is all," said Paul Rondelet. 
 
 lie felt more limp, more like a guilty schoolboy, as he an- 
 swered these questions. 
 
 " And v/hen that ceases, you will have nothing. I heard frota 
 Alan that it vv^ould cease in a few months." 
 
 " Y^es," said Paul Rondelet. 
 
 " And after ?" 
 
 ^ I do not know," 
 
 " Do you think it worthy of a member of your school to look 
 on marriage as a means of maintaining himself in ease ?" 
 
 " It is not thatj" he replied eagerly — •* uot that — I mean — not
 
 304 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 — -altogotlicr Lliat. It is true tliat — in fact — any man might look 
 forwai'J to — to " 
 
 " Come, Mr. Rondelet," said Miranda, " I am sure this con- 
 versation is painful to you. Let us stop. As for my answer, 
 you may readily guess it." 
 
 He hung his head, and tried in vain to put up his eye-glass. 
 
 " Let us be friends, Mr. Eondelet," she went on, holding out 
 her hand. 
 
 He took it feebly. 
 
 " You will yet show the world that you have ability apart 
 from the — the Higher Criticism, I am sure. Besides, a leader 
 ought to teach." 
 
 " That is not our creed," murmured Paul Rondelet, trying to 
 reassert himself ; " we live our own life to ourselves. Let 
 others see it, and imitate us if they can." 
 
 "But how, with no income, will you live the life? Can 
 criticism, even of the highest, provide you with what you have 
 taught yourself to consider necessaries ? Must you not think 
 how you will live any life at all ?" 
 
 " I do not know," groaned the unfortunate man. 
 
 •' Will you write for the papers ?" 
 
 He shuddered. 
 
 " Am I to give my thoughts to the vulgar herd to read over 
 their breakfast ?" 
 
 It was no use being angry with the man. His conceit was 
 sublime. But Miranda spoke with impatience. 
 
 " There is no common herd. We are all men and women to- 
 gether. Believe me, Mr. Rondelet, you have lived too long in 
 Oxford. The air of Lothian College is unwholesome. Go out 
 of it at once, and fight among the rest, and do your little to 
 help the world along. God knows we want all the help we can 
 
 get." 
 
 He only stared in a helpless way. 
 
 " Your level ?" she asked, with a little laugh. "You will find it 
 where you find your strength. Perhaps, some day, when other 
 people are ready to place you above them, j-ou will be ashamed 
 of ever thinking yourself on a higher level than the rest. Your 
 school ? That is a paltry and a selfish school which begins with 
 scorn for the ignorant. The common herd ?" — she stamped her 
 foot with impatience — " why, we are all one common herd to- 
 gether : some richer, some poorer, and some a little stronger, 
 A nd there is only one hope for the world, that men and women 
 help each other, as Alan Dunlop has set himself to help hia 
 people." 
 
 The tears came into her eyes for a moment, but she brushed 
 them away, and made a gesture of dismissal. Tha crushed Fel-
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 305 
 
 low of Lothian obeyed the gesture, and without n word with- 
 drew. 
 
 ]\Iiranda remained where she stood for a few moments, silent, 
 tearful. 
 
 " I compared him with Alan," she said. " Oh ! the Ullh 
 creature that he showed beside our glorious Alan !" 
 
 "You are a queen, Miranda," said Desdemona, " and Alan 
 is " 
 
 " What is Alan ?" she asked, with a little laugh. 
 
 *' He is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIt 
 
 " Sinful brotlicr, parL in peace." 
 
 On that Thursday evening when Refectory bell rang, it was dis- 
 covered that no fewer than four of the Brothers v/ere absent, 
 an event remarkable in the chronicles of the Abbey. 
 
 Alan Dunlop, who, during this week, his last of celibacy, 
 naturally devoted his evenings entirely to his bride, was one. 
 His father was present, however — no unworthy substitute. Tom 
 Caledon was absent too. "Where was Tom ? 
 
 Everybody quite naturally looked to Nelly. 
 
 " Tom has gone to town on business," said Nelly, quietly. 
 
 Then, without any apparent reason, she blushed deeply, so 
 that the monastic fraternity smiled. 
 
 Mr. Paul Rondelet was absent. The reason of this was that 
 he was perfecting a grand scheme which he proposed to lay be- 
 fore Alan immediately. Also, his interest in the Abbey had 
 greatly diminished since Miranda's few plain words. 
 
 And where was Brother Peregrine— the man who had been so 
 useful in keeping things going, who had been everywhere at 
 once, and was Desdemona's right-hand man for invention, as 
 Tom Caledon had been for execution ? "Where was Brother 
 Peregrine, vrho had been for three months the devoted follower 
 of Nelly ? Had she refused him ? 
 
 " After dinner," said Desdemona, " I will tell you what has 
 become of Brother Peregrine." 
 
 " I have," she said, when the inner man had been refreshed, 
 and there was nothing on the table but claret and fruit — " I 
 have to read a very sad letter. The Order of Thelema has been 
 imposed upon. You will all be sorry to Icarn that Brother 
 Peregrine has traded upon our credulity, and intruded himself 
 upon us under false pretences." 
 
 There was considerable sensation. Desdemona, with the 
 deliberation acquired on the stage, proceeded slowly to unfold a 
 
 20
 
 3o6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 letter and lay it open. You know Iiow they do it; a qmck 
 movement of the hand breaks the seal ; a look np to the first 
 circle expi'esses expectation, terror, or joy ; the letter is torn 
 from the envelope ; that is thrown to the ground ; both hands 
 are used to unfold it, and one smooths it out. Then, with 
 another glance, but at the pit this time, the letter is brought to 
 the focus of the eye and read slowly. 
 
 That is the stage method. Desdemona could not help adopt- 
 ing it under the present circumstances. She read it with a 
 running commentary : 
 
 " ' Dear Sister Desdemona ' — he has the audacity to call me 
 sister after what has happened !—' For tlie last time, before 
 laying aside the monastic garb, which I never ought to have as- 
 sumed, I venture to address you by a title under which you will 
 always be remembered by me' — I dare say he will remember all 
 of us by our monastic names — the wretch ! — ' I am not, I confess 
 with shame, legally entitled to the status and jDOsition under the 
 pretence of which I took your vows. By the statutes, the Abbey 
 receives none but the unmarried'" — here there v/as a general 
 movement of surprise — " ' except in your own case ' — and I am 
 a widow," said Desdemona. — " ' Such an exception I knew could 
 not be made in my own case ; it would have been idle to ask or 
 expect it. And yet the truth was, and is, that I have the mis- 
 fortune of being a married man.' " 
 
 There was a profoimd sensation. One or two laughed — they 
 were of the masculine order. The Sisters looked indignant. 
 Cecilia said it was shameful, and asked what punishment could 
 be inflicted on such a monk. 
 
 " He is not only a false pretender," she cried, " but he is 
 unfaithful to his vows, because ho derides the state of matri- 
 mony." 
 
 Then Nelly's sweet voice was lifted up, and everybody felt 
 that she had a special right to be heard. 
 
 " Yes," she said, ■' it is quite true. He told me so himself thig 
 morning. You all thought he was paying his addresses to me. 
 So did I. So did Tom. It made him jealous." 
 
 " Yes," said Miranda, " we all know that. But can wo punish 
 him, and how ?" 
 
 " I have punished him already," said Nelly, 
 
 She blushed, and kept her eyes on her plate. 
 
 " I think you will all imderstand when I tell you that I have 
 made him promise to call upon mamma," she murmured. " He 
 will call to-morrow morning." 
 
 They looked at one another and smiled. Everybody at once 
 concluded that things would be made unpleasant for this sia*ul 
 Brother. 
 
 Then Desdemona w^nt on reading the letter :
 
 7 HE MONKS OF THELEMA. y:ri 
 
 *• ' I have the misfoi'tune of beinfr a married man My wifo 
 and children, whom I leff^ in India, her native country, have 
 now arrived, and are at the Langham Hotel. She has found 
 out my address, most unfortunately, and v/rites me word that 
 unless I return to London instantly, she will come down here. 
 To spare the Order a visit from that lady, I am on the point of 
 returning to town without loss of time. 
 
 " ' "Will you kindly assure the Fraternity that, while I feel 
 that nothing can possibly excuse my conduct, I shall always re- 
 joice in the deception which enabled me to enjoy three most 
 delightful months ? The Sisters are more charming than, with 
 my unfortunate experience, seemed possible for ladies ; wedlock 
 
 under such circumstances would not, I feel convinced but 
 
 I have no right to speak of such things. If they are disposed 
 to be angry with me, they may perhaps rellect upon my situa- 
 tion, and accord me their pity. 
 
 " I bid farewell to the Abbey with the deepest regret. As 
 my wife proposes to remain in England for the education of 
 her children, I shall return to India immediately. Indeed, I 
 have already taken steps, by means of the Submarine Telegraph 
 Company, to ensure the reception of an urgent message calling 
 me back by the next boat, to look after my estates. I shall there- 
 fore reside in Assam vmtil my family shall have completed their 
 education, and, with their mother, return to India. I hope, 
 then, to get back to England. I may explain, if anybody is 
 curious about my history, that the plantation is very large and 
 lucrative, and that it was originally her own. 
 
 " ' Your sorrowful aud afflicted Brother, 
 
 " ' Peregrine.' " 
 
 A Resolution was passed that Brother Peregrine's name should 
 be erased without further delay from the list of the Fraternity ; 
 and that he should no more be mentioned in any of their Func- 
 tions or Rejoicings. But there was some sympathy expressed ; 
 and, perhaps, had the Brother pleaded his own defence in person, 
 he might have obtained forgiveness. 
 
 But there would be few more Functions. The end of tho 
 Abbey — of this particular branch of the Order of Thelema — 
 was rapidly approaching, though no one realised it except Des- 
 demona. 
 
 In all the histories of human communities which I have read, 
 this of the Abbey of Thelema is the only one in which petty 
 jealousies, ambitions, and desire to rule have found no placa 
 Miranda was absolute Queen ; Desdemona was Prime Minister, 
 or First Vizier ; she was also Directress of Ceremonies. Alan, 
 by universal consent, acted as Orator ; while Brother Bayard, 
 the stately, was with equal unanimity appointed Herald, whea 
 
 20—2
 
 j68 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 ever a splendid person of that description was requirtd. Tlicre 
 -were no committees, no governing bodies, no elections, nothing 
 to raise ambitious hopes or revolutionary designs. 
 
 It would be worth the while of Club Committees to imitate 
 the constitution of the Abbey. There must be some clubs 
 where more is thought of the candidate himself than of his 
 subscription. In the Abbey of Thelema were none of those 
 who disturb and vex club life — among those who talked were 
 neither down-criers, nor slanderers, nor stabbers in the back ; 
 none were jealous one of the other — none were anxious that 
 his neighbour should fail — there were no petty ambitions — 
 there was no talk of money or desire of kv^oq. Could we get 
 such a club in London — could we keep it in its original purity 
 — could we ensure the retirement of a discordant member— wo 
 should call into existence the means of making the most de- 
 spondent of philosophers find joy in life. 
 
 '■ It is a delightful place, Desdemona," said Lord Ahyyne , 
 " but, unless an experienced eye is Avrong, there will shortly be 
 many changes. They go when they marry, do they not, your 
 Brothers and Sisters ?" 
 
 " Alas ! yes," sighed Desdemona. " The Monastic vows do 
 not contemplate continued residence. And the wedding ring 
 takes a Sister into the outer world." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 *' Hie est a«t misquam qnod qiiEerimus." 
 
 Mr. Paul Rondelet was refused, with a plainness of speech 
 tvhich left no room for doubt. He was indignant, he was 
 humiliated ; but it was absurd to suppose that the ignorance 
 of a girl was to make him disbelieve in himself. Not at all. 
 What he was before Miranda treated him v/ith such unworthy 
 estimate, such he was still. Was he, Paul Rondelet of Lothian, 
 to be cast down because Miss Dalmeny, a mere country girl, did 
 not know who and what he was ? Certainly not ; he was sad- 
 dened, naturally. 
 
 Perhaps he had thought that his reputation extended even to 
 BO low a stratum of culture as that of the Abbey ; perhaps ho 
 had hoped that the name of Rondelet was known in wider 
 circles. It was a pity, a grievous pity, he thought. He might 
 haVB made a charming homo, on the newest principles, of Dal- 
 meny Hall ; he Avas eminently a man to grace, as it had never 
 before been graced, the position of country squire ; and that 
 might have been his position had Miranda taken him on his 
 own estimate, without wanting to measure him by the ordinary
 
 rH£. MONKS OF THELEMA. 309 
 
 fctaiidards of what he had done. What he had done, indeed I 
 What he had thought, would have been the proper question. 
 IJut until Research is endowed, he felt, with sadness, men like 
 himself have no proper chance. 
 
 Meantime, he set to work with vigour to elaborate an idea 
 ■which was at once to ensure his immortality and to prove his 
 greatness. No doubt, there was a touch of 7-uncime, a desire to 
 show Miranda what kind of man she had contemptuously re- 
 fused. He dined in his own cell, read over his scheme by the 
 rosy light of a bottle of Chateau Laffitte, gave it the finishing 
 touches, and at nine o'clock sallied forth, manuscript in pocket, 
 in seai'ch of Alan Danlop. 
 
 His idea was based, financially speaking, en the grand fact 
 that Alan was rich. Kich men are needful for the help of 
 those who are poor. To submit an idea to a rich man, provided- 
 Le be capable of receiving an idea, is to do him the great ser- 
 vice of making him use his wealth. Alan was eminently recep- 
 tive of ideas. And Paul Rondelet marvelled that he had neg- 
 lected to exploiter this wealthy mine during so many years. 
 His own disciple, almost — his admirer, always — one who be- 
 lieved in him— it was absurd to think of going out into poverty 
 with Alan at his back. 
 
 He made his way to the Shepherd Squire's comfortless cottage, 
 and waited there for his arrival. 
 
 Nothing was changed in the cottage since that first day when 
 Alan went to sleep by the fire, and awoke to find his breakfast 
 stolen. There was the wooden chair beside the deal table, the 
 shelf of books, the stack of papei's, the cupboard door open, 
 showing the common china and the materials for making tea, 
 bread and butter, and other simple accessories of a hermit's 
 life. The kettle was on the hob, though the fire v/as not lit ; 
 and a couple of candlesticks stood upon the mantelshelf. 
 
 Paul Rondelet lit the candles, sat, and waited. This cottage 
 life, he remembered, was one of the dreams of a certain stag'e 
 in his own development. He thought how, in their ardent 
 youth, they had taken their claret in Alan's rooms, which looked 
 over the stately college gardens, and discus.-ad the life of self- 
 Bacrifice which was to regenerate the world. There were a 
 dozen who formed their little set of theorists. Out of them all 
 r.ne alone was found to carry theories into practice, and realise 
 a dream. What about hinuclf ? AVhat about the rest? It 
 was not enough to say that tbcy were men who had to make 
 an income for themselves. He could no longer comprehend 
 the attitude of mind which made such a dream as that former 
 one possible. He had grown out of it, he said. He had sunk 
 beneath it, conscience whispered ; bat then the Advanced 
 School does not believe in conscience. And the rest V They
 
 3IO THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 
 
 were all at work : practising at the Bar, writing, fcacnTng, evoa 
 — melancholy thought ! — curates and parish priests. 
 
 What he conld no longer understand was the nobleness of the 
 tature which thus simply converted theory into practice, and 
 ibecame what the others only talked about. What he failed ta 
 BOB was, that, living in slothful ease, which he mistook for 
 intellectual activity, ho had lost the power to conceive any 
 more, far less to execute, the noble dreams of his youth. 
 
 He sat and wondered. Six years before, his heart would 
 have burned within him, and his spirit would have mounted 
 upv/ards, to join that of Alan Dunlop. Now he only wondered. 
 
 Presently Alan came. His manner was listless, his face was 
 haggard. Alma had been more than usually unreceptive that 
 evening. She had been sulky ; she had returned rude and 
 short answers ; she had tried his patience almost beyond his 
 strength. Ilis father, too, he had learned, was at the Abbey, 
 and he did not dare go to sec him, lest in his tell-tale face, or 
 by his tell-tale tongue, it should be discovered that he had 
 made a great and terrible mistake, beyond the power of au 
 honourable man to alter. 
 
 " You here, Rondelet ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have been v.aiting for you. Let lis have a talk, 
 Alan." 
 
 Paul Rondelet produced his roll of papers, while Alan, with 
 rather a weary sigh, took down a pipe from the mantle-shelf, 
 filled it, and sat listlessly on his deal table. 
 
 " Go on, Rondelet ; I am listening." 
 
 Paul Rondelet began, with a little nervousness unusual to 
 bim, to expound his pi'ojcct. Had Alan cared to read between 
 the lines, his speech would have been as follows : 
 
 '■ I am driven to the necessity of doing something for myself ; 
 in a few months I shall have no income. I can find no way of 
 fighting as men generally do fight. I can discern no likely 
 popularity in what will fall from my pen. I want to get, 
 somehow or other, endowment. You are a very rich man. You 
 fchall endow me." 
 
 What he really said at the finish was this : 
 
 " I will leave the Prospectus with you. I shall be able to 
 find a publisher — on commission— easily. It is a crying shame 
 that a magazine purel}^ devoted to the followers of the Higher 
 Culture does not exist." 
 
 " There are the Contemporary^ the Forinirjldly^ the JSJincteenih 
 Century y 
 
 " My dear Dunlop !" — he held up his hands — " pray do not 
 think that we are going to occupy that level. We shall have 
 none but our own circle as readers, writers, and supporters." 
 
 " Will vou depend en names V"
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 311 
 
 " On some names, yes. Not on the names of ex-Premiers ; 
 only on the names of those who are men of mark among our- 
 Belves." 
 
 ■' But — do you think it will pay ?" 
 
 " Not at first, I suppose — eventually. And that brings me to 
 the next point. I have drawn up a note of expenses. I put 
 Myself down as editor, with eight hundred pounds a year. You 
 do not think that excessive, Dunlop ?" 
 
 " Surely not, for a man of your calibre." 
 
 " The rest of the estimate you can go into at your leisure. I 
 want you, as the most advanced of our wealthy men, tc 
 guarantee— to guarantee," he repeated, with an anxious flush 
 of his cheek, " not to give, the expenses of the first year. 
 Whatever loss there may be, if any, will be repaid from the 
 subsequent profits." 
 
 Alan received this proposition in silence. Only he stroked 
 his beard and pulled at his pipe. His domestic experiments 
 had already cost him so much that he was loath to incur fresh 
 responsibilities. 
 
 " To guarantee, not to give," repeated Paul Rondelet, 
 glancing at his face uneasily. " Consider," he went on. " We, 
 who set an example in our lives, should also set an example in 
 our writings. It is not preaching that we want, but the acted 
 life." That was just what Alan, in a difEerent way, had always 
 maintained. " Let the lower herd, the crowd, see how we live, 
 read what we write, and learn what we think." 
 
 " Y-yes," said Alan doubtfully ; " and the probable amount 
 of the guarantee — what one might be asked to pay, month by 
 month '?" 
 
 " That," said Mr. Eondelet, airily, "is impossible for me to 
 Bay. Perhaps a thousand in the course of the year. Perhaps 
 a little more. AVe shall have, of course, a great quantity of 
 advertisements to fall back upon. I have no doubt that we shall 
 rapidly acquire a circulation. People want guidance : we shall 
 guide them : they want io know what to think — we shall for- 
 mulate their thoughts ; what to read — we shall publish a list 
 of selected articles." 
 
 " That sounds possible," said Alan, softening. 
 
 " You and I, my dear Alan," went on the tempter, " will be 
 registered joint proprietors. You shall {?nd the money : I will 
 find the staff. You shall start us : I will be the editor. And 
 we will share the profits," 
 
 " Yes. 1 was to share the profits of my farm ; but there are 
 none " 
 
 '• There will be, m this magazine. Fancy a monthly journal 
 without a trace of Philistinism in it. Positively no habitant of 
 the liow Country allowed to write in it. The Higher Thought
 
 312 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 demands a style of its own. There have been articles, I own, 
 in the FortnvjMhj^ especially written by members of our owtt 
 school, ■which none but ourselves could possibly understand. 
 Picture to yourself a paper absolutely unintelligible save to 
 the disciples of the Is'ew School As for the other things, what 
 can be expected from magazines which allow Bishops, Deans, 
 Professors, and people of that sort to contribute ?" 
 
 Paul Rondelet shook his head sadly, as if the lowest depth 
 must be reached when you come to Bishops. Alan was shake.:, 
 but not convinced. Sitting as he was among the ruins of his 
 own schemes, he was naturally not anxious to promote new 
 ones. And yet, the old influence of Paul Rondelet was over 
 him still. He still believed that this man was a power. The 
 first and the lifelong heroes are those of school and college. It 
 is sad, indeed, when chance brings one face to face, in after 
 years, with the great and gallant Captain of the school, to find 
 that he is, after all, no greater than j-ourself , and, in fact, rather 
 a mean sort of person. Xext to the school hero comes he who 
 was a hero among undergraduates. Alan believed formerly in 
 that bright, clever, and conceited scholar who assumed every 
 kind of knowledge, and talked like a Socrates. It was difficult 
 not to believe in him still. He reflected that this would be his 
 chance : he thought that it would be a great thing to let Ron- 
 delet prove his greatness to the outer world. 
 
 " I will guarantee the expense," he said at last, " for one 
 year." 
 
 Paul Rondelet, shortly afterwards, stepped out of his Fellow- 
 ship with ease of mind. The magazine was started. 
 
 It was exactly a year ago. It ran for nearly a year ; it con- 
 tained the Poem of the Sorrowful Young Man ; The Sonnet to 
 Burne Jones ; papers by Paul Rondelet on the Orphic Myth, on 
 the Bishops of the Renaissance, on certain obscure French 
 poets, on the Modern School of English Painting, on the Italian 
 Women of the Fifteenth Century, on the Fall of the Church, 
 and other papers. Nobody except " the Circle " bought that 
 magazine ; nobody advertised in it. And after ten months, for 
 very shame, the publishers advised ^Ir. Dunlop to pay the editor 
 nis salary for the year and stop it. Paul Rondelet now writes 
 for the Daily Press. He contributes leaders to a penny paper. 
 He glories in this occupation. It is not writing for the common 
 herd any longer ; it is '' swaying the masses." His articles may 
 be known by frequent quotations, not from the poets loved by 
 the world, but from modern writers, such as Morris and 
 Rossetti ; by references to French writers not generally known 
 to mankind, such as Catulle Mendes, Baudelaire, and Theodore 
 de Banville ; by the easy omniscience which is at home among 
 prc-historic men, or among the scholars of the Renaissanco oi
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 313 
 
 ^th the Darwinians ; by an absolute inability to enter -nitb 
 sympathy into any phase of real life ; and by an irrepressible 
 ti-'oc of superiority. "Whatever he eajs. this writer is always 
 Paul Eondclct of Lothian. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 " Novr the iiigLts are all passed over 
 Of our dreaming, dreams that lioT» 
 In a mist of lair, false things, 
 Nights afloat on wide wan wing*," 
 
 The day before the wedding. 
 
 In his two-roomed cottage, Alan awoke with the feeling of 
 gratitude that he should only have one more night in that un- 
 comfortable lean-to. The house which he had decided on 
 occupying contained four rooms, and they were larger. 
 
 It was meant as a surprise for Alma : the furniture was 
 ordered and ready, waiting to be sent down : it was the furni- 
 ture of the Future : it came from an establishment recentlv 
 started by two young ladies, one of whom was a distinguished 
 alumnus of Gix'ton. They had solemn ej-es and touzly hair, and 
 dressed to match their green and grey papers. 
 
 "I want furniture," said Alan, a little overwhelmed at being 
 received by two figures which looked as if they had stepped 
 straight down fi'om the walls of the Grosvenor ; " I want 
 cottage furniture, which shall be beautiful as vrell as fit for its 
 purpose." 
 
 " Furniture," suggested one, " which shall be a model and a 
 lesson." 
 
 "Furniture," echoed the other lady-upholsterer, "which shall 
 be in harmom-, not in contrast, with woodland nature." 
 
 " And it ought to be cheap," said Alan, " if it is to represent 
 the ideal cottage furniture." 
 
 This suggestion, however, met with no response. The two- 
 pair solemn eyes glared coldl}' upon the purchaser at the mention 
 of cheapncfs. 
 
 '* V\'e will furnish your cottage for you," said one with 
 severity. ""When our designs are completed we will let yoa 
 know. Good-morning." 
 
 Alan left the presence of these Parnassian cabinet-makers with 
 humbled heart. 
 
 What a lovely cottage they would have made but for circtim- 
 stances which caused the dispersion of the things they had got 
 together ! It would have been divinely beautiful The windows 
 "rere to have diamond panes, iu grisaille, to open on hinges : tUe
 
 314 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 rooms, esch with a dado, were to be papered and painted in 
 grey and green : Dutch tiles were to adorn the stoves, and Ihe 
 fenders were of brass : no carpets, of course, but matting in 
 wonderful designs : cabinets for the inexpensive blue and white 
 china : chairs in black wood and rush, with tables to corres 
 pond. 
 
 That cottage, for reasons to be detailed, was never furnished. 
 The two touzly-haired, solemn-eyed prophetesses of domestic 
 art were obliged to content themselves with sending in their 
 bill. This document caused Alan's strong frame to shiver and 
 tremble as shivers the mighty oak under the cold breath that 
 comes before a temi^est. 
 
 Early in the morning Alan paid a visit to his betrothed. He 
 came bearing gifts. They were plain and substantial things, 
 such as the girl could not be expected to like — books, strong 
 stuff for frocks, everything but what she wanted, a laugh and a 
 kiss, and the promise that she should be a lady. 
 
 As for laughing — if the bridegroom was so solGmn, what, in 
 Heaven's name, would be the husband ? 
 
 " Alma," he began, after a frigid touch of the fingers, and in 
 sepulchral tones, " tell me, are you in the least degree dis- 
 trustful of what you are going to do ?" 
 
 " Oh ! no," she replied, with a little laugh, which jarred upon 
 him. She was thinking, indeed, of something else that she waa 
 going to do. " Not at all." 
 
 " It is not an easy part that you have undertaken. Some- 
 times, my poor child, I think it is too heavy a task for you." 
 
 " I shall manage it," she said, still thinking of the other 
 task. 
 
 " We will at once re-open the Public Laundry, the Public 
 Kitchen, the Public Baths, tho Good Liquor Bar, and the Co- 
 operative Store ; we will start, on a new plan, the Village 
 Parliament, and we will improve the Library and the Picture 
 Gallery. Next winter we will have the weekly dances begun 
 again, and we will make another attempt at a theatre." 
 
 " Yes," she said, with a curious smile, " all that will be very 
 pleasant." 
 
 " Your duty," he went on, " will place you always in tho 
 company of the wives and girls." 
 
 " To be sure," said Alma, " if they like to follow my example, 
 they can." An example, she thought, which would bo one not 
 entirely contemplated by her lover. 
 
 " We will have," he went on, " a quiet fortnight together by 
 the sea-side, just to mature our plans and formulate our line of 
 action." 
 
 " Yes," said Alma, wondering what on earth he meant by 
 form -ila ting a line of action. However, it would not matter.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 315 
 
 He gave hei*, before he went away, a final rhiime of hia 
 theories on social economy, which lasted for two hours. And 
 tlien, to her great delight, he departed, promising to return in 
 the evening. 
 
 I regret to state that as he closed the door, Alma so far 
 retraced her steps in civilisation as to spring to her feet and 
 . . . make a face at him. Quite like a vulgar Sunday-school 
 girl. 
 
 Alan was anxious now to have the thing over, and to begin 
 the new life on which he staked so much. As for marriage, he 
 confessed to himself that he was marrying the wrong woman. 
 But the only right woman was Miranda, and she could not be 
 expected to live as Alma was going to live. The thing to do 
 was to drown selfish regrets and inclinations, and to persuade 
 his wife to act her part boldly and hopefully. Would Alma do 
 that ? 
 
 When he was gone, other visitors came. 
 
 First it was Tom Caledon. He had returned from town by 
 the earliest train, and was more than commonly cheerful, 
 
 " All is going well, Alma," he said. " Are we quite alone 
 here ?" 
 
 " Yes ; Miss Miranda leaves me here to talk to Mr. Duulop." 
 
 " Then . . . are you quite sure you can keep a secret ?" 
 
 " Girls," said Alma, with a little toss of her pretty head, 
 " keep their own secrets. It's other people's they tell." 
 
 This remark will be found, on investigation, to contain the 
 whole of feminine philosophy. 
 
 " Then, my dear child, you look really much too pretty for 
 Harry Cardew " 
 
 '• Oh ! Mr. Caledon . . . don't." 
 
 " I will tell you what you are to do. Get up and be dressed 
 by six. Come dov.aistairs — you will find the back door open 
 for you — at the garden-gate Harry will be v/aitiug for you, and 
 I shall have the cart iu the road. You are sure you under- 
 Gtand ?" 
 
 " Quite sure," said Alma, repeating tiie lesson. 
 
 " One of the ladies of the Abbey " — here Tom turned very 
 red — " will be with me. She is going too." 
 
 " Not the lady they call Desdemona ? I should like her to 
 
 go." 
 
 '' No. Not Sister Desdemona. In fact it is ... it is Miss 
 Despard." 
 
 "I know Miss Nelly," said Alma. "I like her better thaa 
 Miss Miranda. And I've seen her cry once." 
 
 A'V^hat she meant was, that this little touch of human weakness 
 seemed to bring Nelly nearer to herself. The queenly Miranda, 
 she thought, could not cry.
 
 3i6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Caleclon," Alma went on excitedly, " now it is 
 coming I don't know how I feel. And to think of Sir. Dunloiju 
 long face when he hears of it — and father's rage when he hears. 
 He ! he ! he !" 
 
 "Yes," said Tom, with a queer smile, "there is plenty U 
 think about. However, yon think of your own triumph, Alma, 
 Think of the people gaping when j'ou get down — you and 
 Harry— arm in arm ; and when the vicar asks for the bride, and 
 you will say, ' Thank you, Mr. Corringtou, you are an hour 
 too late.' " 
 
 " And shall we ?" Alma asked, with eager eyea and parted 
 lips. " Shall we ?" 
 
 " To be sure we shall. Good-bye till to-morrow. Alma." 
 
 And then her mother came to see her. 
 
 "Bostock," she said, with the calmness of despair, "is blind 
 drunk. He was drunk last night olf brandy, and he's drunk 
 this afternoon off hot gin-and- water a top of beer. What I 
 shall do with Bostock now you are gone is more than I can tell. 
 Dreadful, he carries on. Says he won't be safe till to-morrow. 
 Cries when the drink's in him. AVhat's the man got to be safe 
 about ?" 
 
 " I suppose, mother," said Alma the astute, " that he's got into 
 a mess with his accounts You know father never can keep his 
 accounts the same as other people." 
 
 This was a kindly way of putting the fact that Pero Bostock,, 
 not for the first time, had been cheating. 
 
 " And to think, Alma," her mother went on, " to think that 
 you are going to marry the Squire. Where's your wedding- 
 dress, girl ?" 
 
 " Mi.ss Dalmeny gave it me," said Alma, lumping up. " Come 
 to my bedroom, mother, and see me try it en." She led tlie 
 way, with a little softening of her eyes as she thought of Harry, 
 find a twinkle as she thought of Mr. Dunlop, " Won't Black 
 Be?s be in a rage to-morrow !" 
 
 Then there was putting on and discussion of the wedding- 
 dress, which was a present from Miranda. And then, after 
 judicious criticism from the ex-lady's-maid, Alma resumed her 
 morning frock, and Mrs. Bostock, seating herself ir. the easy 
 chair, while her daughter sat upon the bed, commenced a lecture 
 on the duties of a married woman. 
 
 I am very sorry that there is no room for this masterly dis- 
 course. It was marked by the solid good sense and by tho 
 practical experience which distinguished Mrs. Bostock, Tho 
 conclusion was as follows : 
 
 " As for his notions about living in a cottage and setting an 
 example, and that, don't put up your face against them at tho 
 beginning. Say that jou are setting an example. Then you
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 317 
 
 eit dovm jind bide. When he's satisfied that no good will conio 
 of an example -haven't / been setting one for two and twenty 
 years ? — he'll give it up. Only you bide, and you'll live at 
 Weyland Court like a lady. Like a lady," she repeated, with 
 dignified sadness, " because a real lady j'ou never can be." 
 
 "Nor don't v.ant," said Alma, swinging her feet, as she sat on 
 the edge of the bed, in a manner that went to her mother g 
 heart. 
 
 " But you must try, so as not to make people laugh at you." 
 
 Here Alma was seized with a fit of irrepressible laughing. It 
 ■went on so long that it nearly became hysterical. 
 
 "I can't help it, mother," she said at last, partially recovering 
 herself, " I can't help it, not if I was in church I couldn't. 
 Lord ! how everybody will look to-morrow !" 
 
 " Well, they know what to look for." 
 
 " Oh ! no, they don't," cried Alma, laughing agp.in. And I 
 really do think that if her mother had pressed her. Alma would 
 there and then have disclosed the whole plot, and ruined every- 
 thing. Because the thing which tickled her was the thought of 
 Alan's solemn face and the consternation of her father. 
 
 Then her mother left her, promising to be in good time at 
 the church, and, above all, to see that Bostock did not " take " 
 anything before the ceremony. She herself, she said, had bought 
 a new gown, and her husband a new suit complete, for the occa- 
 sion. The former she described at length, and was proceeding 
 to describe her husband's coat, when Alma again burst out into 
 an uncontrollable fit of laughing, insomuch that her mother was 
 fain to give her a glass cf cold water, undo her stays, and pat 
 her on the back. 
 
 At luncheon there was co one but Miranda, before whom the 
 girl was generally afraid to talk, and when she did, talked in 
 bursts and talked too much, as is the way with shy people. But 
 this morning Alma felt a little less afraid. She was conscious 
 that in a very few hours Miss Dalmeny would regard her with 
 changed, perhaps grateful feelings. This made her bold in 
 speech. 
 
 " Do you think, Miss Dalmeny, that I am fitter to be a gentle- 
 man's wife than I was three weeks ago ?" 
 
 Miranda hesitated. 
 
 " But I know you don't," Alma went on, " and you believe 
 that Mr. Dunlop's gone and made a mistake." 
 
 " That depends on yourself, Alma," said Miranda 
 
 The bride elect shook her head. 
 
 " No, it all depends on him. lie asked me. I didn't want to 
 marry him. And I never did fancy him. As for his caring; 
 about me, why he thinks mors of your glove than of all me pul 
 together."
 
 3i8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 " But it is too late, Alma, to talk like that," said poor l^.Iiranda, 
 with a blush. " You must think of nothing nov/ but your 
 husband's happiness." 
 
 Alma tossed hei' head and laughed. Thinking of Alan's long 
 face on the morrow, she very nearly had another hysterical 
 fit. 
 
 In the afternoon Desdemona drove over from the Abbey, 
 ostensibly to see Alma's wedding-dress. 
 
 " I know all about it, my dear," murmured Des^ emona in her 
 sympathetic way, taking both the girl's hands in her own. 
 " Tom Caledon has told me all about it. You will drive over 
 to Athelston early and be married. And then you will drive 
 back, under Harry Cardew's protection." 
 
 " Will you be there to see ?" cried Alma, her eyes flashing. 
 
 " Surely I will. I always intended to be there to see. No'\f , 
 my dear, don't oversleep yourself. You are to get up at six and 
 be quite ready." 
 
 " I must put on my wedding frock," said Alma eagerly. 
 
 " Of course, and here " — Desdemona opened a bundle and 
 took out a long grey cloak — " here is something to put over it. 
 I have thought that perhaps you might be met on your way by 
 people coming from Athelston and recognised. Tha4 would not 
 do. So I have brought you a thick veil : mind you wear 
 it in double folds until you are inside the chui'ch. And now, 
 my dear, I think there is nothing else that I wanted to say, 
 except " — here she produced a little box in white paper — " ex- 
 cept these earrings, which I hope you will wear to be married 
 in, from myself, and this necklace from Miss Despard. And 
 oh ! my dear child " — Desdemona's large eyes grew soft, and 
 her voice, oh ! so sympathetic — " I do so hope you will be happy, 
 with the real man, the real man, of your own choice." 
 
 Alma was left before the glass trying on cloak, hood, neck- 
 lace, and eardrops. She looked, she thought, too pretty to be 8 
 gamekeeper's wife. But that was being a lady, a rich, luxurious, 
 and do-nothing fine lady, compared with living down in the vil- 
 lage, doing your own washing, tallcing unintelligible sermons all 
 the evening, and never, never to be out of the way of that grave 
 face and those solemn searching eyes, always looking for the 
 fruits of wisdom which Alma's little brain could never produce. 
 
 In the evening Alan came again, sat with her for two hours, 
 and prosed to so awful an extent that the girl, whose nerves 
 were for the time none of the strongest, had great diiTiculty ia 
 restraining the hereditary temper. It was fortunate that she 
 overcame the temptation to spring to her feet, box her lover's 
 ears and tell him the whole story. 
 
 She did not, and was rewarded on his departur* by his present 
 of a gold watch and chain. She was so exasperated by his pic-
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Jig 
 
 tnft&s of their coining felicity among the village ^TasIl-tubs that 
 she hardly thanked him for it. 
 
 Finally, at ten o'clock Alma was able to go to her own roonx 
 and make hei" arrangements for the morning. 
 
 These were simple. She laid ont her wedding di'ess, put the 
 trinkets and watcla on the table so that she should not forget 
 them, and laid her head upon the pillow in happy anticipation of 
 the morrow. 
 
 Tn the conservatory of the Abbey stood Tom and Nelly. 
 There might have been other pairs in that extensive and 
 beautiful house of flowers, but this couple were apart apparently 
 examining a splendid palm. But they held each other by the 
 hand in a manner quite unbecoming the dignity of botany. 
 
 " To-morrow morning, Nelly," murmured Tom, looking more 
 foolish than one would have believed possible in any man. 
 
 " To-morrow morning, Tom," murmured Nelly, raising her 
 lustrous eyes to meet his, and looking softly, sweetly, and sym- 
 pathetically beautiful. Why under these circiimstances does 
 man always look like an ass, and woman like an angel ? I know 
 of nothing to make a bridegroom assume the expression of a 
 fool, or a bride that of a superior being. 
 
 Then Nelly produced a letter. 
 
 " See, Tom," she said, her eyes brimming with malice and yet 
 her lips a little trembling : " this letter came this morning. 
 And I think that, as Desdemona would say, it looks like im- 
 proving the situation. Listen. 
 
 " ' Dear Eleanour ' — I suppose you hardy knew, you ignorant 
 Tom, that my real name is Eleanour. Papa always called me 
 Nelly, though — ' I can hardly tell you how greatly I have been 
 shocked by a discovery made yesterday evening. I am only aston- 
 ished that you with your opportunities did not find it out before. 
 I at once wrote a letter to you enjoining immediate return home, 
 but it was then too late for the evening post ' — what Inck, Tom ! 
 ' My discovery was that this Mr. Roger Exton is actually a 
 maiTied man. A more heartless case of deliberate deception I 
 have never known. He has been everywhere supposed to be un- 
 married ; he has been taken to meet dozens of girls ; he was called 
 the Assam Nabob ; he was received with the consideration due to 
 a man who is at once rich and comparatively young and unmar- 
 ried. Your Aunt Mildred ' — she has daughters, too, Tom — ' dis- 
 covered it, and immediately communicated the news to me. He 
 is married to a half-caste, not a Eanee, a Begum, or an Indian 
 person covered with diamonds whom one would be proud to 
 take out in the evening, but of quite common mercantile extrac- 
 tion, probably a Heathen. Wickedness and selfishness of thia 
 kind make one despair of hucis^ nature. And this very iiici-»^
 
 330 THE MONKS OF JHELEMA. 
 
 ing, the villain had the effrontery to call npon me. I hope and 
 believe ' — think upon this, Tom — ' that I behaved as an offended 
 English mother should. I do not ilnnh he will venture here 
 again. Meantime, through this impostor's arts, you have lost 
 the whole of the summer, and I am afraid got yourself talked 
 about ' — I am afraid I shall be, Tom, if I have not already. 
 ' I am, however, going to Hastings, and shall take AVeyland 
 Court on my way there You can be ready to leave that place, 
 which I am very sorry you ever saw, on Saturday. I shall stop 
 at Athelston, and drive over to take you away.' Only just in 
 time, Tom." ' 
 
 " Plenty of time," said Tom. 
 
 " Poor mamma ! I am soiT^/for her ; and she was so ambi- 
 tious for me too, Tom. I wonder what she will say. Are you 
 afraid ? Papa once said, after he lost money at Newmarket, 
 that there were moments when she was scathing in her wrath." 
 
 Last scene of this anxious day. 
 
 It is eleven o'clock. Tom has stolen away from the Abbey, 
 and has sought Alan in his cottage. 
 
 He found him restless and anxious, pacing the narrow limits 
 of his little room. 
 
 " I came — I came," Tom stammered, "to wish you happiness." 
 
 "Thank you," said Alan shortly, and continued his promenade. 
 
 " I wonder if you feel happy," Tom went ou. 
 
 " No, I do not," said Alan, more shortly. 
 
 " Do you think that you have made a mistake ? Alan, per- 
 haps it is not too late even now." 
 
 " I cannot discuss it, Tom. Mistake or not, it is made. Too 
 late now for anything." 
 
 " I am sorry," said Tom. " And if it were not too late, 
 Alan ?" 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 " Go, wnken Juliet ; {^o and trim hor up : 
 Make haste : the bridegroom be is come ali'oady." ' 
 
 The first person to rise at Dalmeny Hall on the wedding- 
 morning was the bride. Alma Bostock sprang from her bc-d, 
 rosy-fingered as Aurora, while the clock was striking five. She 
 had one short hour for the most important toilette she would 
 ever make. She was accustomed to rapidity in these things^ 
 however, and it wanted yet a quarter to six when she stood be- 
 fore the cheval glass — of which she will ever after retain a 
 longing memory— complete in all her bridal glories, attired for 
 tb« greatest event in a woman's life, and ejaculating with a
 
 THE MONKS OF ThELE.IfA, 321. 
 
 pasp something like Jack Horner, " Oh ! what a pretty girl I 
 am !" 
 
 Her dress -was a pearl-grey 'mushn costume, a real lady's 
 dress, with trimmings such as she had only heretofore seen in 
 the drapers' shops at Athelston. A few red ribbons, Alma 
 thought, would have im^proved the dress, but doubtless her 
 mother knew best, and she had decided against them. To be 
 sure, Alma had a fine rosy cheek of her own, and could dispense 
 -with more colour. Round her neck was a white lace fichu, real 
 lace, also part of a proper lady's dress. Her bonnet was of 
 white silk, a marvel and a wonder of a bonnet, the like of which 
 Alma had never even dreamed of ; her gloves, of pale lavender, 
 had five buttons on each wrist, and each additional button went 
 straight to Alma's heart. She had on the earrings which Des- 
 demona gave her, and the necklace which Miss Despavd gave 
 
 her, and the watch and chain which Mr. Dunlop gave her the 
 
 last were superfluous, but Alma could hardly be expected to 
 knoAv that. 
 
 So attired, she stood before the glass and cried aloud, "What 
 a pretty girl I am !" 
 
 Outside, the morning sunshine of August lay upon the garden 
 and the park, and had already dried up the morning dew ; below 
 her window the gardener's boy sharpened his scythe musically, 
 and then began again his low and gentle sh — sh — sh over the 
 lawn ; in the woods and coppice behind the garden there was 
 the late song of the blackbird, the carol of the thrush, the 
 melancholy coo of the wood-pigeon : as she opened the window 
 there poured in a breeze laden with all kinds of perfumes from 
 the garden. 
 
 These things were habitual to her ; she noticed none of 
 them, just as the Oreads and Dryads, the Wood-nj^mphs, 
 Fountain-nymphs, and Mountain-nymphs, who lived habitually 
 amid the most beautiful scenery, took no notice of it. At least 
 we may suppose so, because they have passed away without so 
 much as a line of poetry to indicate their joy in flowers, leaves, 
 epingtide, and summer. 
 
 The gracious influences of the morning air, the recollection of 
 Miranda's kindness, the tliought of Alan Dunlop's pain, the know- 
 ledge of her father's reliance in their mai-riage to suit his own 
 purpose, had no weight with Alma. She took no heed of them. 
 She thought only that she loved Harry, who was a real man ; 
 that her father's discomfiture would be a sight to see, and Mr. 
 Dunlop's long face most comical and surprising thing to wit- 
 ness ; and oh ! to get away from that grave face ; to be no 
 longer haunted with unintelligible sermons. At any cost she 
 thought, even at the cost of marrying a poor man. But Harry 
 Cardew had money saved, and, as Harry said, they could go to 
 
 21
 
 322 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 Canada, buy a piece of land, and farm it for themselves. She 
 would be no poorer than she had been ; and, as for her father's 
 nonsense about his being a gamekeeper, everybody respected 
 Harry far more, she knew very well, than they respected 
 Stephen Bostock. 
 
 Alma did not look very far ahead. Had she desired what 
 Chaucer thought women love most — power — she would have 
 taken Alan. For she could have ruled him by a terrible weapon 
 which she possessed, whose force she did not know, her coarse 
 and violent temper. Scenes which to her meant nothing would 
 have been death to him. He would have conceded anything to 
 escape tortui-e of ear and eye, while Alma would be merely en- 
 joying the freedom of her tongue. 
 
 But in marrying Harry she was marrying her master. This 
 she knew in some vague way. She feared Mr. Dunlop because 
 he was a gentleman ; she feai'ed Harry — only in this case the 
 fear was not a terrible but a delightful thing — because he was 
 strong, and because he was masterful. 
 
 It was six o'clock. Alma took one final lingering gaze of ad- 
 miration in the glass, huddled on the long cloak, tied the blue 
 veil in many folds over her bonnet a V Americaine, and thus 
 disf^uised, opened the door cautiously. 
 
 Kot a soul Avas stirring in the house. She slid down the 
 stairs as noiselessly as Godiva, stepped cautiously to the garden 
 door, in which, according to promise, she found the key, opened 
 it, and so out into the garden. 
 
 Her heart was beating fast now. She was actually carrying 
 her dream of revenge into effect. As she closed the door be- 
 cind her, it seemed as if she was cutting off the last chance of 
 reconsideration. She thought with a little sinking of the heart 
 of what might have been, Vv'eyland Court, ladyhood, carriages, 
 endless frocks. But then — that grave and solemn man ; and no 
 Weyland Court at all certain, but only misery in a labourer's 
 cottage. She set her lips with determination, and ran down 
 the steps. 
 
 On the lawn the under-gardener Robert looked up and grinned 
 Burprise. 
 
 " Good-morning, Robert," said Alma with great sweetness. 
 " If you see Miss Dalmeny, will you tell her that I have gone 
 to see my mother ?" 
 
 " I'll tell her," said Robert. 
 
 " And you are going to the wedding, Rebert ?" 
 
 He was — everybody was going there : all the world was 
 going, Robert among them. 
 
 She laughed lightly, and ran down the garden walk. Outsidff 
 the little gate she found Harry Cardew waiting for her, and 
 looked up in his face laughing for fun.
 
 7IIE MOAK'3 UP 'jHELEMA.. 323- 
 
 ^Ttfen are so difTerent from women. There was no mirth at 
 all in his face, but a grave sadness, which disappointed her. 
 But he took her in his arms and kissed her through the veil. 
 She noticed, too, that he was smartened up ; had on what ap- 
 peared to be an entirely new suit, in which he did not appear 
 at ease. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said—" I'm main sorry for Master Alan. It 
 gecTis a poor return for all these years, and me to have gone 
 fibout in the woods with him when we was both boys and all." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Alma, "I'd better go back and wait in my 
 room till ten o'clock." 
 
 "Ko," said Harry grimly. "I've got you this time, Master 
 Alan or not ; and 111 keep you. Come along, Alma. There's 
 only one who loves you that truly os dare all to have you." 
 
 Masterfulness such as this takes a girl's breath away. How- 
 ever, Alma came out that fin© morning on purpose to be run 
 away with. 
 
 From the garden-gate to the road was a matter of a hundred 
 yards or so. Alma looked back a dozen times, pi-etending fear 
 of pursuit. Haii-y marched on disdainful. It would have 
 been a strong band of pursuers to balk him of his bride when 
 he had got so far. 
 
 Then they crossed the stile and v^'ere in the road. 
 
 " Mr. Tom said he'd meet us hereabouts," said Harry, " at 
 six." 
 
 It was not the high-road from Weyland to Athclston, but a 
 winding little by-way, once a bridle-read for pack-horses, cattle, 
 and pedestrians, before the days of high-roads and coaches — a 
 by-way arched over and shaded with trees — a way on which 
 there was little chance of meeting any of the Weyland people. 
 
 As Harry spoke, Tom came di'ivmg along the road. 
 
 He was in a dog- cart. Beside him, dressed in simple morning 
 hat and summer jacket, was Miss Despard. 
 
 Nelly jumped down and ran to greet Alma, kissing heron 
 both cheeks, to her great wonder. 
 
 " My dear child," she cried, " we are both in exactly the 
 feame case." What did she mean ? " Jump up, quick, lest they 
 run after us and catch us. No " — for Alma was about to 
 mount behind — " you sit in the front beside Tom ; and, for 
 Heaven's sake, keep your veil down. It would never do for 
 you to be recognised." 
 
 This arrangement effected, they drove on, and Alma observed 
 that Mr. Caledon was as grave and subdued as her Harry — a 
 '■♦cry remarkable circumstance. Tom, indeed, spoke hardly- at 
 all during the drive ; only he said to Alma once, in jerks : 
 
 " I saw Mr. Dunlop last night. Did not tell him what W3« 
 going to happen. Very good thing we stopped it." 
 
 21-2
 
 324 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 *' Father wanted it," said Alma, who was now horriblj 
 frightened. 
 
 Harry, behind, did not vohmteer one single word to Nelly 
 Probably he was afraid of ladies. Alma was much the moro 
 finely dressed of the two, and j-et, somehow, he had no fear of 
 her. Fine feathers, he I'eflected, being a naturalist, make fii)** 
 birds, but they do not make lady-birds. 
 
 It was half -past seven when they drove through the streett 
 of Athelston, clattering over the cobbled stones of the quiet 
 old cathedral town, which was beginning to get itself awakened. 
 But the shops were not open, and only the servants were at the 
 street doors. 
 
 Tom drove to the stable-yard of the hotel, and handed over 
 the trap to a boy. 
 
 " Now, Harry," he said, " Miss Despard and I are going to 
 do exactly the same thing as you and Alma. Let us make our 
 way to the church." 
 
 Not one of the little party spoke as they walked along the 
 empty streets. Both the girls were inclined to cry, and the 
 men looked as if they were marching to battle. 
 
 The church was a great solitude : nobody in it but the verger 
 and an old woman, one of those ancient dames who are to be 
 found attached to every church all over the world, who never 
 grow older, and were certainly never young. They pass their 
 days in the church ; they regard it as a private place of resi- 
 dence, subject only to periodical invasion from the outside 
 world. Some of them, I dai'e say, sleep in the church a» 
 well. 
 
 Alma stojDped to untie her veil and throw off her cloak. 
 Then she took Harry's arm and walked after Tom and Nelly 
 as proudly in her splendid dress as if she was under a thousand 
 eyes. 
 
 As they reached the altar, a clergyman came out of the 
 vestry, the clerk got within the rails, the verger stood in 
 readiness to give away the bride, and the marriage ritua! 
 began. 
 
 In Nelly's cheeks was a spot of burning red ; her eyes wero 
 downcast, and she trembled. Alma's eyes glittered bright and 
 hard ; she did not tremble, but she thought of the awful Row 
 that was going to happen ; she pictured Alan waiting for her 
 at the altar of "VVeyland Church, [jrave and solemn ; and she 
 almost began to giggle again, when she ought to have been 
 listening to the words of the service. 
 
 " For better, for worse." Thoir hands were joined, thcisr 
 vtmon consecrated, thei^ marriage actually accomplished. 
 
 It was all over, then Tom and Harry Cardew were now, juj
 
 THE MONKS OF IHhLEMA. 325 
 
 the Prayer-Book reminded them at the close of the service, like 
 Peter the Apostle, who was " himself a married man." 
 
 They went into the vestry and signed the registers. Thomas 
 Aubrey Caledon, bachelor, and Eleanor Despard, spinster. 
 Harry Cardew, bachelor, and Alma Bostock, spinster. It took 
 ten minutes to get through these formalities, the two brides 
 looking furtively at each other, wondering if it was really true, 
 and feeling the ring upon their fingers. 
 
 "Now," said Tom, distributing largesse quite beyond his 
 income to all the minor actors in the drama, " Now, my dear 
 wife"— Nelly started and gasped — " and Alma, as, I suppose, 
 we have none of us had any breakfast, and we have got a good 
 deal to get through this morning, let us go back to the hotel." 
 
 Here they presently found a royal breakfast, though I fear 
 scant justice was done to it by the brides. And when Tom 
 poured out the champagne and drank to his wife and to Alma, 
 and when Harry, the shamefaced Harry, raised his glass to his 
 wife and said, " Your health, Alma, my dear, and my true 
 service to you, Mrs. Caledon," Nelly fairly broke down and 
 burst into tears. She was joined by Alma, partly for sympathy 
 and partly because she, too, was agitated by the .singled emo- 
 tions of joy, terror, and misgiving. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 "Next morn, betimes, the bi'ide was missingi 
 Tlie mother screamed, the father chid, 
 ' Where can this idle weaeh be hid ?' " 
 
 Desdemona, on the fatal morning, invited herself to breakfast 
 at the Hall. When she arrived at nine, Miranda was already 
 in the breakfast-room. Alma, needless to say, had not yet 
 appeared. 
 
 " She is naturally a long time dressing." 
 
 " Quite naturally," said Desdemona, unblushing. 
 
 At a quarter-past nine Miranda went in search of her. 
 There was no Alma in the room at all. Perhaps she was in the 
 garden. 
 
 On inquiry, under-gardener Robert deposed that at six o'clock 
 or thereabouts Miss Alma came into the garden and said she 
 was going to her mother. 
 
 " It shows very proper feeling," said Miranda. 
 
 " It does," said Desdemona. By this time she was quita 
 hardened. 
 
 Alan was coming for his bride at ten, and at half-past ten 
 the wedding was to take place There was therefore no tinae
 
 326 THE MONKS Of THELEMA. 
 
 to be lost. ]\Iiranda sent a pony-carriage to \,Y\n^ her bacft 
 immediately. Then Alan came before his time. He was palo 
 and nervous ; his look was heavy and grave. Miranda's ej-es 
 filled with involuntary tears as slie met him. 
 
 And then began the wedding-bells, clashing and pealing. 
 They heard them, too, the runaways, driving back to Weyland, 
 on the road just outside Athelston — clang, clash, clang. Joy- 
 bells to greet the brides. Clang, clash— and every belKstriking 
 upon Alan's nerves like the hammer of a torturer. Clang, 
 clash. Desdemona shrank into the recess of the oriel window' 
 thinking of what had happened. The bells made her tremble' 
 lest the grand coup should have failed. Clang, clash— and at 
 the Abbey the Monks of Thelema looked mournfully at each 
 other, to think of such a wilful throwing away of a man, and 
 the Sisters shed tears, and Lord Ahvyne rose hastily from the 
 breakfast-table and sought solitude, for his faith in JDesdemona 
 was sorely tried. 
 
 Clang, clash, clang, and all the village and the people from 
 the country-side, rich and poor, gentle and simple, are gathering 
 in the church and crowding in the churchyard. Among them 
 are Black Bess and that other girl who assisted at the Judgment 
 of Paris, their hearts bursting with jealousy at the great fortune 
 that had befallen her who carried olf the golden apple. 
 
 The Abbey of Thelema was not without representatives. All 
 the Sisters arrived soon after this, accompanied by some of the 
 Monks. They sent their band, which was stationed on the 
 village green, outside the churchyard, to discourse triumphal 
 music. They provided bunting and Venetian masts to make 
 the village gay. Also, they had erected a vast marquee, in 
 which all the villagers were to-be regaled with beef and pies 
 and beer at noon, and again at nine, at the charges of the Abbey. 
 In the evening there were to be fire-works. All was joy eave 
 in the village Library, where the librarian, little thin pale-faced 
 Prudence, sat in a corner quiet alone among her books, weeping 
 for the future of her Prophet, the best and noblest of all 
 prophets. 
 
 The church was full and the churchyard overflowing and the 
 village green thronged, when, at about twenty minutes past ten, 
 the father of the bride made his appearance. It was the 
 proudest moment of his life. He was accompanied, of course, 
 by Mrs. Bostock. Alma, it was understood, would be brought 
 to the church — a departure from ordinary rule — by the bride- 
 groom and Miss Dalmeny, who would act as bridesmaid. Mr. 
 Caledon, it was also whispered, would be best-man. Harry 
 Cardew, said Black Bess, showed his good sense by staying 
 away. Mrs. Bostock wore her new dress, looking ra'tbei 
 ashamed of her prominent position. Her husband, on the other
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 327 
 
 band, attired in a large brown coat with a fancy waistcoat, the 
 e;arb, he considered, of the well-to-do farmer, bore hiiiibelf 
 bravely. He had studied his expression before a looking-glass. 
 It conveyed, though he did not mean all of it, a curious mixture 
 of pride, cunning, humility, and self-satisfaction. He wished 
 his expression to say, as clearly as waggling head, half-closed 
 eye, and projecting chin could speak, " Behold in me, ladies and 
 gentlemen, a man whom merit alone has raised to this dizzy 
 height of greatness." 
 
 Then the bells clashed and clanged their loudest : and tht 
 band on the village green played in emulation of the bells : and 
 everybody began to look at the clock and to expect the bride. 
 
 Half- past ten. The vicar was already in the vestry, attired 
 in his robes : they had made a lane in the churchyard, along 
 ■wiiich the bridal procession should pass : children were there 
 with baskets full of roses to strew before the feet of the bride. 
 
 A quarter to eleven. Why did they not come '? 
 
 Tea minutes to eleven. There was a sound of wheels out- 
 Bide : the bells suddenly stopped : the band was silent : and 
 then there was a great shout : and everybody stood up : and 
 the vicar came from the vestry and passed within the altar 
 rails. 
 
 Well ! why did they not come into the church ? 
 
 The reason was, that although the bride was there, she had 
 not come with the bridegroom, nor in the manner expected. 
 
 Another shout, and then the people in the church who were 
 nearest the door began to slip out : they were followed by those 
 nearest to them, and so on, until the church was finally deserted, 
 except by Mr. and Mrs. Bostock and the vicar. Outside there 
 was a great clamour, with laughing and shouting. 
 
 " Whatever can have happened, Stephen ?" whispered his 
 wife. 
 
 " Nothing can't have happened." said her husband, sitting 
 down doggedly. 
 
 Then Mrs. JBostock saw Mr. Caledon walking rapidly up the 
 aisle, and she knew that something had happened. 
 
 Tom went first to the vicar, to whom he whispered a few 
 words, which had the effect of inducing his reverence to retire 
 immediately to the vestry. Then Tom turned to the Bailiff. 
 
 " Whatever has happened, Mr. Caledon ?" cried the poor wife, 
 m dire apprehension. 
 
 "Nothing, I tell you," interrupted her husband, with a pallid 
 face. " Nothing can't have happened. They've all gone outside 
 to see my beautiful little gell. That's what his happened. 
 You and your happening !" 
 
 " Your daughter, Mr. Bostock," said Tom gravely, '' ie already 
 married !"
 
 328 THE MONKS 01 TSJELEMA. 
 
 Mrs. Eoslock knew instantly to whom. Her husband gazed 
 stupidly. He did not comprehend at all. 
 
 " She was married this morning at Athelston. I was present. 
 She was married to Harry Cardew, the gamekeeper." 
 
 Tom felt pity for the man. He knew — evei'ybody knew — 
 that Bostock was a vulgar cheat who had intended to exploiter 
 Alan as much as he could. Yet no one could behold the look 
 ■of livid despair which fell upon the Bailiff's face without pity. 
 No matter what his deserts were : his sufferings at that moment 
 were too great for him to bear. 
 
 It was well that Alma did not witness the despair which she 
 had bi'ought upon her father. 
 
 He did not speak : he did not swear : be only sat down and 
 gasped, his eyes staring wide, his mouth open ; his red cheeks 
 grew suddenly pale. 
 
 " Go away, Mr. Caledon," said his wife gently. " Keep her 
 out of her father's sight. Go away. Don't stay here." 
 
 Tom left them. 
 
 '' Come, Stephen," she said, " let us go out by the vestry and 
 get home." 
 
 He only moaned. 
 
 " Stephen, come." 
 
 He made no reply. She sat beside him, patient, e:^pectant. 
 Half an hour passed. Then he shivered and pulled himself 
 together. 
 
 "Ruin," he said, "ruin and disgrace. That's what it 
 means." He wiped his clammy brow, and rose up, his hands 
 shakirg as he stood. 
 
 " I shall go home." 
 
 He marched straight down the aisle, followed by his wife. 
 Outside, the villagers and their friends were all on the gi'een 
 and in the street, talking and laughing. Their laughter was 
 bushed as they made way for the stricken man, who walked 
 heavily leaning on his stick, and the shamefaced woman who 
 talked beside her husband. 
 
 "When he reached home, he put the pony in his light cart, 
 went into the room which he used as an office, collected all the 
 farm books and placed them in the cart. 
 
 " I shall not be home to-night," he said, *• but FIJ ■RTite jon 
 a letter." 
 
 He drove away, and Mrs. Bostock, left alone and fearful, sat 
 down and cried. 
 
 The Bailiff drove to Athelston, visited the bank, and drew 
 oat all the money then standing to his name, belonging partly 
 to himself and partly to the farm. He then took the next traiu 
 to London. 
 
 IVo letters arrived from bim tbs nezt dav. That addra wd
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 329 
 
 to Hie Squire began -with condolences. He pitied, he said, the 
 misfortune which had befallen him, and lamented the wicked- 
 ness to which he bad fallen a victim. As regarded his daugh- 
 ter's husband, he supposed that Mr. Dunlop could do nothing 
 less than instantly deprive the villain of his post and drive him 
 from the estate ; and he expressed a fervent hope that the joint 
 career of bride and bridegroom would shortly end in a ditch by 
 death from inanition. For himself he begged a holiday of ; 
 month or so, to recruit his shattered nerves. He had take . 
 Tvith him, he went on to say, the farm books, so as not to \ 
 idle during this vacation, and in order to present them on h*.? 
 return as accurate as he could wish to see. To his wife he 
 wrote simply that he didn't intend to return for a spell. 
 
 He has not yet returned : nor have the books been sent back : 
 nor does any one know why all the money was taken from the 
 bank. 
 
 Alma's coup was so far a failure, that she did not see her 
 father's face. But it was magnificent to stand on the village 
 green beside her Harry, dressed as she was, with all her fin« 
 presents glittering upon her, and to watch in the crowd, as 
 envious as she could wish, Black Bess herself and that other 
 girl. It was great grandeur, too, that beside her stood her 
 Bister-bride, the newly-made Mrs. Caledon. 
 
 If she had married a gamekeeper, she had jilted a squire : it 
 was done under the protection and wing of one of the ladies of 
 the Abbey : and as no one yet knew that Miss Despard had also 
 that morning " changed her condition," all the sympathy, all 
 the glory, was for herself. 
 
 Then Tom came out of the church : they mounted into their 
 places again, and drove away through the Venetian masts and 
 among the waving flags, while the band struck up a wedding 
 march, and all the people shouted and laughed and waved their 
 caps. 
 
 This time to Dalmeny Hall. 
 
 Alma was again disappointed. Mr. Caledon invited Harry 
 and herself to wait in one of the morning-rooms^ while he sought 
 Alan. 
 
 He found him with Miranda and Desdemona. They were 
 waiting. Something must have happened, because the bells, 
 which had ceased for a while, had again burst forth in maddea- 
 ing peals. 
 
 " Alan," he said, with hesitation — " Alan, I wonder if you 
 Vill forgive me." 
 
 " What is it, Tom ?" cried Miranda, springing to her feet 
 Desdemona only smiled. 
 
 " I told you last night, Alan, that I was sorry that you 
 thought it too late to break off your engagement. I am hero
 
 330 THE MOISiKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 this morning to tell you that it is too late now for }ou to marry 
 Alma." 
 
 " Why is it too late ?" asked Alan. 
 
 " Because she is already mairied," replied Tom. " She waa 
 married this morning — I was present — to Harry Cardew." 
 
 " My gamekeeper ?" 
 
 " And her former lover." 
 
 " Her former lover ? Could not some one have told me?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " I could," said Desdemona boldly, " or Tom. But Harry 
 insisted that we should not. We devised, Tom and I between 
 us, this means of rescuing you and the girl from sorrow and 
 misery. No one else knew." 
 
 " Yes," said Nelly, who had joined them, " I knew. Tom 
 told me last night." 
 
 " Why did not Alma tell me ?" 
 
 "Because she was afraid of you," said Tom ; "because her 
 father was mad to have the match for his own ends : be- 
 cause " 
 
 " Well," said Alan, " never mind the reasons. Where are 
 they ?" 
 
 " They are in the breakfast-room." 
 
 " I should not like to see them," said Alan. " I think it 
 would be better not. Go, Tom, and tell Harry — and Alma too 
 — that had I known the truth, this . . . this confusion would 
 have been avoided. Tell him, too, that I desire he will take a 
 month's holiday away from the place." 
 
 " Will you forgive us, Alan?" asked Desdemona. 
 
 He looked round him with a strange air of relief. And as he 
 stood there trying to realise what had befallen him, he smiled 
 as a thought struck him. 
 
 " It is too ridiculous," he said, taking her profTered hand. " I 
 suppose I ought to be the best laughcd-at man in all England. 
 Tom, the people were to have a big feed to-day. Do not let 
 that be stopped. Send word that they arc to drink the health 
 of tlic bride and bridegroom. Alma and Harry Cardew." 
 
 " Then we are forgiven ?" said Desdemona again. 
 
 There was no time for Alan to reply, for the door opened — 
 
 " ]Mrs. Despard and Lord Ahvyne Fontaine." 
 
 " I rejoice," said Mrs. Despard — she was a tall lady, of reso- 
 lute figure, Roman nose, long chin, and manly bearing — not the 
 least like Nelly — " I rejoice — kiss me. my dear ;" this was to 
 Nelly, who dutifully greeted her parent, and then retired, 
 trembling, to the contiguity of Tom — " that I arrive at a 
 moment when wc all ought to rejoice. I have just heard, "hit. 
 Dunlop, that your un-Christian design has been frustrated." 
 
 ** Yes," said Alan simpJv-
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 331 
 
 "How do you do, Miranda?" — Mrs. Despard ignored Desde- 
 mona and Tom altogether. "I think, however, that one ex- 
 ample in the — so-called— Abbey is enough. I am come to take 
 my daughter a"way. Are you ready, Eleanour ?" 
 
 At any other time Nelly would have replied that she was 
 quite ready, even though nothing at all had been packed. Now 
 she fell back, literally, upon Tom, who, with his arm round her 
 v/aist, stepped to the front. 
 
 " Nelly is not ready, Mrs. Despard." 
 
 "What, sir!" 
 
 " You come a couple of hours too late. We were married 
 this morning, Nelly and I, at eight o'clock, in the parish church 
 of Athelston." 
 
 They were all startled, especially Desdemona, who really had 
 known nothing of this. 
 
 " Eleanour," cried Mrs. Despard, turning very red, " is this 
 true?"_ 
 
 " Quite true, mamma," said Nelly, trembling. 
 
 " You knew of this, Miranda ? ' 
 
 '•'• No, indeed," said Miranda ; " this is the first I have heard 
 of it." 
 
 Tom looked to be " scathed," like the late lamented Colonel. 
 Nothing of the kind. Mrs. Despard was not equal to an emer- 
 gency of such magnitude. She only dropped her head for a 
 few moments into her handkerchief, as if she were in church, 
 and then lifting it, mildly remarked : 
 
 " I have been much to blame. I might have known that a 
 place with no regular chaperon " — she turned an icy glance 
 upon Desdemona — " where the owner of the house was dis- 
 gracing himself by an engagement with a milkmaid " — she was 
 warming up, Nelly thought — " where he set the example of 
 living in a smock-frock, on cold boiled pork " 
 
 " No," said Alan, smiling ; " I deny the cold boiled porlc." 
 
 " Whei'e one of the guests — I will not call them Brothers, 
 after the blasphemous fashion of the place — was a married man 
 pretending to be a bachelor ; when another was . . . was " — 
 here her eyes met those of Tom, and her language assumed 
 greater elevation — " the penniless and unprincipled adventurer 
 who once before endeavoured to shipwreck my daughter's hap- 
 piness , . . considering, I say, these things, I have principally 
 myself to blame. Eleanour, when I can forgive you, I will 
 write to you. Lord Alwyne, would you kindly take me to my 
 carriage?" 
 
 Well, they were all a little scathed— from Desdemona to 
 Nelly. But Miranda rushed for her, so to speak, and the 
 kissing and the hand-shaking, and the good-wishes went far to
 
 332 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 dry poor Nelly's tears, and make her look forward with a cheerful 
 hope to the day of forgiveness. 
 
 This day was materially accelerated by Lord Alwyne. 
 
 " Your attitude, my dear madam," he said, with much show 
 of sympathy, on the stairs, " is entirely what we should have 
 expected of you. Indeed, I would not, if I may advise, be too 
 ready to forgive my dear little friend, your daughter. Dis- 
 obedience to parents is greatly prevalent among us. Think of 
 my son Alan." 
 
 " It is. Lord Alwyne," she said with a sob, " it is ; but aftoF 
 »1I my plans for her success ! But you knew her father. She 
 inherits the Colonel's yielding disposition." 
 
 " Too true," moaned Lord Alwyne — they were now at the 
 carriage-door. " Meanwhile, my dear madam, I may tell you 
 that Tom Caledon, your son-in-law, has this day conferred a 
 service on the Fontaines which it will be difficult to repay. He 
 has kept the dairymaid out of the family. If there is any one 
 single post left in the country which a minister can give away, 
 and for which there is no competitive examination, I shall ask 
 for that post for him. I write to-day to the Duke, my brother, 
 tjUing him all." 
 
 " Position and income," said Mrs. Despard, visibly softening, 
 " can ill replace a daughter's confidence and trust. You know 
 not. Lord Alwyne, a mother's feelings." 
 
 The influence of the head of the House of Fontaine, when 
 the Conservatives are in, is very great. Tliey did say that the 
 appointment of Tom Caledon to that Commissionership was a 
 job. I do not know. As no one ever proposed that I should 
 have the place for myself, I am prepared to believe that Tom 
 is quite as able to discharge tlie duties as any of the hundred 
 men who wanted it. At all events he is there, and I am sure 
 that the official twelve hundred a year added to his own modest 
 income will go a long way towards reconciling his mother-in- 
 law with her daughter. 
 
 There was a beautiful scene in the marquee ; Tom Caledon, 
 without Nelh% stood at the head of the table, glass in hand. 
 At his right, Alma, in her wedding-dress ; beside her, her hus- 
 band, shamefaced ; behind her, murmuring sympathy and 
 support, Desdemona ; all the village at the tables, whereon aro 
 the remnants of the pies. Men and women, boys and girls, all 
 are there — the young man they call Will-i-am, old Methuselah 
 Parr, the cobbler, the schoolmaster. Black Bess, and Prudence 
 Driver, looking happy again. In the doorways some of th^ 
 ladies of the Abbey ; the vicar and his daughters; Lord Alwyne 
 und strangers.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 333 
 
 " Hoalth !" shouts Tom Caledon ; " health and happiness to 
 Harry Cardew and his wife !" 
 
 " Tell me, Miranda," said Alan, when they were left alone, 
 " are you as pleased as the rest with the finish of my engage- 
 msnt ?" 
 
 " Yes, Alan," she replied frankly. 
 
 " I must not make a mistake a second time," he said ; " For- 
 tune never forgives a second blunder." 
 
 " Xo," said Miranda, smiling, and not immediately seeing the 
 drift of this observation. 
 
 " Cut," he said, holding out both his hands, " there is only 
 one way of preventing that folly. Miranda, will you help me ?'- 
 
 Who after this could ever say that Miranda was cold, or Alau 
 frigid ? 
 
 I should like to explain that Alma, so far, has been a model 
 ■wife. To be sure she is horribly afraid of her husband, who, 
 now that he has given up gamekeeping and taken Bostock's 
 farm, is more masterful than ever. Her mother lives with her ; 
 and her mother's counsels, seeing that Harry is so steady a hus- 
 band, make in the direction of obedience. Ha,rry, perhaps, 
 remembers Desdemona's advice. 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST. 
 
 "Cras amet qtii nunquam amavit, 
 Quique amavit, cras amet." 
 
 That evening, while the villagers rejoiced in unlimited beer, 
 and danced after their fashion upon the village green : and 
 while the unwonted rocket brought the flush of rapture to the 
 village beauty's cheek ; while Black Bess, with the other who 
 had missed the apple, consoled themselves with the though* 
 that after all she, meaning Alma, had only married a game 
 keeper, thei'e was high revelling at the Abbey. Here Desde 
 mona improvised what she called a Farewell Chapter. Th 
 nature of the ceremonies which attended a Function of the 
 Order has already been indicated. This, however, surpassed all 
 previous ceremonies. After the opening rites with the organ, 
 Sister Desdemona presented to the Abbess, Brother Lancelot 
 and Sister Rosalind, as two members of the Order about to quit 
 the convent on entering into the holy state of wedlock— a case, 
 she pointed out, already provided for by the Founder. Then 
 Desdemona read in the Groat Book of Ritual the following 
 passage :
 
 334 THE MONKS OF T-RELEMA. 
 
 *' ' Wlieref ore, should the time come when any Brother of the 
 Abbey has a mind to go out of it, he may carry with him one 
 of tlie Sistei's, namely her who has already accepted him as her 
 Bervant, and they shall be mai'ried together. And let all the 
 ■world know that if they have formerly lived in the Abbey in 
 devotion and amity, still more shall they contin'ie that love in 
 marriage ; and they shall love each other to the end of their 
 days as much as on the first day of their wedding.' 
 
 " It is in reliance on this rule, my Lady," said Desdemona, 
 ignoring the fact that Tom and Nelly were already, and secretly, 
 married, " that our Brother and our Sister seek the permission 
 of the Order to leave the Abbey." 
 
 Miranda, with great dignity, asked if any Brother or Sister 
 had reason to allege why this permission should not be granted. 
 
 After an interval, she deputed the Public Orator to speak for 
 her. 
 
 Brother Hamlet, who spoke with great hesitation, which waa 
 naturally attributed to the contretemps of the morning, pro- 
 nounced tlie farewell oration prescribed, he said, though no one 
 bad ever heard of it before, by the Rules of the Order of 
 Thelema. I can only find room for the peroration : 
 
 " Lastly, Brother Lancelot and Sister Rosalind, you have 
 leard the gracious words of our Founder. Go forth from the 
 Abbey with the congratulations and wishes of those to whom 
 you have been indeed brother and sister : may your love con- 
 tinue and grow : forget not ever the Abbey of Thelema : re- 
 member in the outer world the teaching of the Order : teach 
 those who come after that to gentlehood and courtesy there is 
 no law but one, " Fay ce que voulclras.'' Do what honour bids." 
 
 He ceased. Sister Desdemona stepped from her desk and 
 solemnly received from the pair, who stood before the Lady 
 Abbess, the hood, the gown, and the crimson cord of the 
 Fraternity. Two of the Sisters, as Nelly resigned these monastic 
 badges, robed her from head to foot in a bridal veil. 
 
 Then the band began a low prelude, and the choir sang tba 
 Farewell Song : 
 
 "You, ■wlio have leamed and understood 
 
 The master's rules that bind us, 
 And chosen, as the eliiefostgood, 
 
 The end that he designed us; 
 W^ho hand-in-band before us stand 
 
 In sober guise not fiction : 
 Take, ere you part, from heart to hearty 
 
 This Chapter's benediction, 
 
 " Think, Brother, wbom our Sister cliosa 
 Her servant in devotion, 
 Love's service never flngs but grows 
 Deep ?s the deepest ocean.
 
 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 535 
 
 To thee wo trust lior, tauj^ht ^iiq knovr, 
 
 lu this, the Master's CuUegi', 
 Btil! to obey hor lord, ■while tliou 
 
 Shalt still thy Queen acknowledge). 
 
 •' With tears wo greet thoc. Sister sweei. 
 
 Lady of grace and beauty. 
 To whom love draws by nature's ];iwc, 
 
 AV'^hoso service is but duty. 
 3e thine to make the wedded life, 
 
 As this our cloister, sunny. 
 Be mistress still as well as wife, 
 
 Be every moon of honey. 
 
 " So fond farewells : thy vacant cells 
 Await a fit successor, 
 For Eosalind needs must we find 
 No meaner and no lesser, 
 
 •' Farewell, farewell : go forth in poacd 
 
 To sweet and happy living ; 
 . Let flowers grow your feet below 
 Your path be bright with hope and light; 
 Lot sunshine stay beside your way — 
 Your years one long thanksgiving." 
 
 The clioir ceased. Then, as the last bars pealetS and echoed 
 among the black rafters of the roof, the Public Orator took 
 Nelly by the hand and led her to the throne of the Abbess. 
 Miranda raised the bridal veil, and gave her Sister the farewell 
 kiss. Tears stood in her eyes, and Nelly was crying quite freely 
 and naturally. Each of the Sisters in turn kissed the bi'ide, and 
 the Brothers kissed her hand. Then a similar ceremony — 
 mutatis mutandis — was undergone by Tom, Brother Lancelot no 
 longer. Then they waited a moment while a procession formed, 
 and then the organ struck up the wedding march, and the 
 Chapter was finished. First, marched the stewards and clerks ■ 
 of the Order, followed by the choir. Then followed, two 
 by tAVo, the fraternity of Thelema. Then came pages bearing 
 on crimson cushions the gifts of the Monks and Sisters to the 
 bride — the notice was so short that they could give her nothing 
 more than jewels and trinkets, but these made a pretty shov. 
 The wedded pair walked next ; and last, followed only by the 
 pages who bore her train, came Miranda, led by Alan. 
 
 As they passed the bust of the JMaster, the electric light fell 
 full upon the kindly features and the wise smile, and on his lips 
 seemed to play the words which were written in gold below : 
 
 "fay ce que vouldras." 
 
 The dinner which followed was graced by as many guests as 
 could be got together at a short notice. Tom sat next to Mi-
 
 33d THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 
 
 randa, beside him his bride ; next to her, Lord Alwyne, in great 
 contentment, looking, as he told everybody himself, ten years 
 younger. Alan sat next to Miranda ; opposite her, Desdemona. 
 As for Nelly, she had left off crying, and was now, so far from 
 being cast down by the maternal wrath, shyly but radiantly 
 happy. It was a quiet banquet ; the band played wedding 
 music selected by Cecilia, the boys sang four-part songs which 
 bore upon love's triumphs ; yet all the Brothers looked con- 
 strained. There were only two exceptions. Tom, whose honest 
 face betokened gratification of the liveliest kind, and Alan, who 
 was transformed. 
 
 Yes ; the heavy pained look was gone from his brow ; his 
 deep eyes were lit with a new and strange light ; his face was 
 wreathed with smiles. 
 
 "Daddy Graveairs," said his father, after gazing furtively at 
 him, " is reflecting that h"^. is well rid of the dairymaid. I think 
 we shall not see much more of the smock-frock. Gad ! the 
 fellow is only five-a^d-twenty or so yet. What an age ! And 
 what a rollicking yoi.ngster he will be at fifty !" 
 
 It was Lord Alwyne who proposed the health of the bride 
 and bridegroom. He surpassed himself. 
 
 Then came Desdemona's turn. It seemed as if nobody could 
 be so happy as Desdemona looked. Her portly form as well as 
 her comely face seemed, to use a bold figure, wreathed in smiles. 
 In fact, she had a communication to make of such uncommon: 
 interest that she might be e?^cused for feeling happy. 
 
 She rose, when the time came and begged to be allowed to 
 say something. 
 
 She had longfelt an inward satisfaction, she said, in marking the 
 rise, progi'ess, and development of those warmer feelings which 
 such an atmosphere as that of the Abbey was certain to generate. 
 In this case she had observed with peculiar gratification that the 
 interests she was watching advanced with a smoothness only 
 possible in the calm retirement of a monastery. Also that there 
 were no discords, no harsh notes to clash with the general har- 
 mony ; no one was jealous or envious of another ; each with 
 each,damoiseau with damoiselle, was free, unhindered, to advance 
 his own suit. " And now," said Desdemona expansively, "these 
 suits have all been advanced, they have all prospered " — here 
 there was a general sensation — " and I am enabled to announce 
 that this Abbey of Thelema will before long cease to exist, be- 
 cause the end proposed by its original Founder has been alread7 
 attained. 
 
 " My friends. Brother Bayard is engaged to Sister Cecilia." 
 
 Here there was great cheering. 
 
 " Brother Benedict is engaged to Sister Audry." 
 
 At =iach name there was a loud burst of applause.
 
 THE MONKS Of THELEMA. 337 
 
 They were aJI engaged, every one. And though there was ono 
 Sister beside Desdemona for whom there would be no Monk of 
 the Order, in consequence of the expulsion of Brother Peregrine 
 and the defection of Paul Rondelet, yet even that loss, which 
 might have caused a discord, was met by an engagemen*" 
 with one of the outer world. There yet remained, however 
 Miranda. 
 
 " And lastly, dear Sisters and friends," said Desdemona, " be- 
 fore I make my final announcement, let us drop a tear together 
 over the Abbey we have loved so well. The highest happiness, 
 as our Founder thought, is to be bound by no rules but those of 
 gentlehood ; to own no obligations but those which spring of 
 culture, good breeding, and sweet dispositions ; to do what we 
 will for a space within these walls ; to be an example to one an- 
 other of sympathy, thought for others, and good temper. Alas ! 
 my friends, the Abbey is no more. We have held our last 
 Function ; we must now dissolve. 
 
 " ' Brief as the lightning in the collyed night. 
 And ere a man hath power to say, Behold ! 
 The jaws of darkness do detour it up : 
 So quick bright things come to conclusion.' 
 
 But now for my last announcement. Brother Hamlet, my Bro- 
 thers and Sisters " — everybody looked at Alan — " is Brother 
 Hamlet no more ; that Brother whom we loved, but whoso 
 erratic courses we deplored, must have changed his name had 
 the Abbey continued. What name could he have taken but — 
 Brother Ferdinand ?" — here Miranda blushed very sweetly. 
 "But he is Alan still, and he ha3 found, O my Sisters, he has 
 found the only woman in the world who is fit to mate with him. 
 
 " ' For several virtues 
 Have I liked several women : never any 
 With so full soul, but some defect in her 
 Did quarrel wilh the noblest grace she owned. 
 And put it to the foil : but she — O she 1 — 
 So perfect and so peerless, is created 
 Of every creature's best — ' " 
 
 The actress ceased to act ; she loved all the Sisters, but sbo 
 loved Miranda most ; her voice broke, and she sat down, burying 
 her face in her hands. 
 
 It was at eleven o'clock that they all sallied forth to bid God 
 speed to bride and bridegroom. They were to ride to the quiet 
 place, fifteen miles away, where they were to spend their honey- 
 
 22
 
 J38 2 HE MONkS OF' l^HELEMA. 
 
 moon. Tom lifts his bride into the saddle, springs into his 
 own, and with a storm of cheers and good wishes, they clatter 
 together down the avenue of the Abbey, two black figures 
 against the bright moonlight, and disappear in the dark shadows 
 oi Vne trees. 
 
 va^ Kwn. 
 
 EIU-INO AND SONS, rRIXIFIIS, CUILDFOnD,
 
 THIS LIFE is the GREAT SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
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 CAUTION.— Examuie each Bottle, and 
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 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below. 
 
 IOM-1 1-50(2555)470 remington rand inc. 20
 
 PR 
 4104 
 
 M74 
 1892 
 
 ^A 000 365 782