y--^ i -- or CAUF. UBRAUY. LOS A ( , M 4 t-f^r bJ o If NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS "THE DUCHESS" AUTHOR OF "PHYW.IS," "PORTIA," ETC. JICK'S SWEETHEART. CHAPTER 1. A DYING sunset, a sloping lawn, a rushing, tumbling atream, a clump of giant firs to the right, odorous garden sweets from the left, two forms in God's own likeness, and a roaring, raging ocean down below all seem blended into one artistic whole, calm, almost motionless, save for the quarreling of the turbulent river and the faint dashing of the waves against the rocks upon the barren coast. Slowly the early summer sun is setting. Pale, with sad regret, ho quits the lovely earth, and prepares to lay down his arms before night's queen. Already Dian's crescent marks the sky faint yet, because so far away, but march- ing ever nearer, nearer, glad with the certainty of victory assured; the happy wind, that all day long has rioted in bower and " pleasaunce faire," has gone to rest; a languor- ous stillness lies on all around; the air is heavy with the breatli of drowsy flowers. "Ah, this dear England!" says a young sweet voice, in a tone of quick delight. "Though I have known it only for a little week, still it seems to me that it, and no other land, means home!" The voice belongs to the prettiest lips in the world, the lips belong to the prettiest girl, a slender thing of about eventeen, with a subtle charm about her difficult to de- scribe, and with a face most sweet, most fair, made up " of every creature's best;" a clear broad brow, clear eyes are hers, and a tender loving mouth on which were writ in plainest print the gentle workings of the innocent soul within. She is lying back in her garden-chair, with a white shawl thrown across kw whiter fcown. There is a little 2130482 4 DICK'S SWEETHEART. touch of languor about her idle hands and her entire pose, a something indefinite to fear in the excessive fairness of her rose-leaf skin; there is indeed a spirituality about her every glance and action, an eagerness, a brightness too great for her fragile frame. Her companion, a tall, arig- tocratic-looking woman of about forty-five, glances at her with some anxiety. "I hope you will be happy here," she says, with a little sigh. " Happy! Oh, that is nothing! I am always happy. And what a sigh, auntie! I believe you are still pining for your mosquitoes and your garlic." The elder woman smiles gently, and pats the small hand extended to her. That she is slave to the owner of that little hand one can see at the first glance. Though ghe is a stern-featured woman, with a face full of possible reservations and certain power, and the lines and marks of long years replete with unutterable grief, there are signs too upon it of natural tendencies bravely repressed, and of self-abnegation that has yet failed to imbitter the strong courageous spirit within. One firm to bear and swift to read and sure to comprehend, she sits here calm- ly with the girl's hand in hers, as though no bitterness from out the cruel past had blanched her soft dark hair. "I wonder what our neighbors will be like?" says the young girl vivaciously. " Do you know any of them?" "Only by hearsay. Your grand-uncle, during his last illness in Florence where, as you know, I went to attend him used to speak of some of them at times, but only casually, and without interest. At Kingmore which, I take it, must be about three miles from this Sir George and Lady Bouverie live with their two sons, and some- where close to them the Ponsonbys of the Hollows; but this is only guesswork. I hardly know where they live, or if they live at all." "Are the Ponsonbys a large family?" " No only father and daughter. Mr. Ponsonby is brother to Lady Bouverie, and comes of a good old family, but a poor one. He is a great scholar, I believe, but rather dreamy, and a book-worm; he reads with young men for the army, or something like that. You see I am p. Httle obscure on all points." " I am glad he has a daughter, at least; I have so sel< DICK'S SWEETHEART. dom had girl friends. I wish, too, Lady Bouverie's fam- ily meant one son and one daughter; don't you?" " I don't think so, my dear. Experience has taught me that young men are preferable to young women one joung woman " fondly "excepted." " Ah, that is because you are such a sad flirt!" says the girl gayly, at which they both laugh without reservation as at some very superior joke. "Alas for one's secret sins; they are sure to find one out!" murmurs the elder woman lightly, running her fin- gers with a lingering fondness through the soft short rings of sunny hair that cover the pretty head so near to her. A little laugh breaks from Dolores. She springs to her feet, and, throwing from her the shawl that has shielded her from the evening breeze, as though somewhat impa- tient of the care lavished upon her, runs eagerly to the garden on her left. Here flowers throng her path. Hav- ing made a delicate raid upon them, she returns again to her aunt's side, and flings herself upon the grass at her feet. Her invasion of the summer garden has borne fruit. She now lies with her head well thrown back against Miss Maturin's knee, admiring, with leisurely grace, the tall white lily in her hand, the sweet result of her assault. " Tell me, auntie," she says presently, raising her eyes to the pale face above her " how long is it since my grand-uncle died?" "Just seventeen years." "Why, his death is as old as my birth!" "Yes." As though a shadow from out the long buried past has come to her with the girl's words, Miss Maturin starts, and a quick frown falls upon her brow. "Seventeen years!" says Dolores. "What a long, long; time! And yet, though he left you this place, you never once came to see it. How unkind of you to hide its beau- ties from me until now! Why did you not come home sooner, and bring me with you?" The shadow deepens on the elder woman's face. "Perhaps I had a fancy for traveling," she says, slowly. " A lasting one.. urMlp't it? But I wonder you could 6 DICK'S SWEETHEART. keep away from this place, knowing that it was so beau- tiful." "I didn't know it; I never saw it until now." " Not when your uncle was alive?" " There is nothing so wonderful in that. He waa always abroad, and we had our own place up in the North." "As nice a home as this?" " No. A bleak, cold, barren place a hateful placef I never wish to see or hear of it again." There is suppressed horror in her tone. * Why? Did my mother die there?" questions the girl softly. " No." Miss Maturin, getting up somewhat abruptly, moves so as to stand behind Dolores' chair, and leans upon the back of it. " Look at that dying sunset," she gays, quickly. " Could anything be more lovely? Mark the clear streaks of orange and crimson such straight pure bars, such " "It is as perfect as all this perfect scene; I feel I can never tire of it. But where did my mother die, auntie? Was it abroad?" " Yes, abroad. Keep that shawl more closely round your chest, Dolores; there is often a chill in these sum- mer winds. What a pretty little shawl it is! Where was it we bought it? Geneva eh?" "No Lucerne. Have you forgotten? It was on just such an evening as this we saw and fell in love with it. But where abroad did my mother die, auntie? In France?" " Yes, in France." Miss Maturin looks round her a little helplessly, as if distressed. " About your grand- uncle," she says rapidly "you were asking me about, him just now, were you not? Such an eccentric old man as he was, but not altogether unlovable. He had his heart set on Italy, though why none of us knew. He had no kin there, no friend, no love, and no special desire for art that I could see; yet he declined to be happy out of Florence. When dying, his greatest consolation was in the thought that his bones would lie there forever." "I can understand him," says the girl dreamily. "To lie forever at rest in stately Florence would have its charm; but, to me. to clituu such tt land as this } near the DICK'S SWEETHEART. 7 waving corn and the scented flowers, with the cool night- wind sighing above my grave, would be a greater happi- ness." " Better live in such a land," says Miss Maturin hastily. " And is this an evening on which to talk of death or the grave?" " You are right. Let us go back, then, to our original topic," acquiesces the girl gayly, with unconscious cruelty. "Tell me about my mother. But come round here to me first, Lallie; I cannot see your face there." Miss Maturin, after a faint hesitation, going back to her seat, turni her face to her niece with a straight but rather forced gaze. "Why not rather talk about our coming life here?" she says. "To-morrow any other time will do for that; but now I want to know something real of my mother. All vou have yet told me is so little, so vague, so shadowy. But to-day, when we have come to her own land, the longing is strong upon me to know more of her. There must be something in the air to-night which compels me to think of her." " There is so little to tell," says Miss Maturin. Her voice has lost its kindly ring, and now sounds constrained and harsh. "A young life cut short in its nineteenth year what should there be of any moment in it?" "Tell me," says the girl, leaning toward her, the soft wind roughening her pretty short hair as she moves, " was her marriage a happy one? Was it " leaning even closer to her, the better to watch her face, in glad expectation of her answer "a love marriage?" But no answer comes to her. A deadly silence seems to have enveloped Miss Maturin. It lasts for quite a minute a long time when two large gray eyes are watch- ing one in puzzled surprise. At length, by a supreme effort, she breaks it. "How can I tell?" she says coldly. "I was not with her at the time; I was in Italy with my uncle. You have surely forgotten?" " But you saw her afterward, when you took me a little baby from her arms?" "From her dying arms yes; but that wag no time for confidences, or thoughts of worldlv love." 8 DICK'S 8WEETHEAE1. "]So tru love can be worldly," says the girl absently; then, with a little playful laugh, " but that I know you would not dare do it," she says, smoothing lightly the hand that lies in hers, " I should say you were trying not to answer me." " Why should I do tkat?" " I don't know ; perhaps why will you never speak of my mother to me, auntie? Is it is it because you did .not love her?" V " Perhaps it is because I loved her too well!" returns Miss Maturin, an ashen tint overspreading her face. She shrinks as she says it, and, stooping, presses upon the girl's slender fingers a tremulous caress. A sudden flood of color springs into Dolores' cheeks, her lips quiver. "Forgive me!" she whispers, slipping one arm round her aunt's neck. "I was cruel to you? It hurts you, I can now see, to speak of her! How could I urge you so? Our dead are always so precious, and I " " It is nothing. Do not distress yourself about it. It is over already. But you are right, child " with a visi- ble effort " it does hurt me to speak of your mother! " "And my father?" timidly. " All are dead all gone," says Miss Maturin, in a clear cold voice. " Let us not bring them to life again. Let the past lie. The present only is our own; let us be content with it. Beloved child " with a sudden excite- ment "think of the glorious sunset, the sky, the sea, the flowers, all that you tell me you love, but never of the years gone by ! " " Dearest, I will think of nothing that can cause you pain; and here, in this happy England, you will forget your early griefs with me to love you; is it not so? You will stay here, auntie? You will not want to wander again?" " I hope not" very quietly; but some piercing thought disturbs the treacherous calm. " I hope," she says again suddenly, with vainly chidden passion, " that nothing will ever happen to drive us from this place of refuge." "Why, auntie, how strangely you say that!" says the girl. "What is it, then?" softly, with the sweetest anxiety. 'Mothing, childl Nothing, my beloved one! Bat, DICK V S SWEETHEART. 9 when one has suffered much, one has doubts even in one's happiest hours." " Must all suffer?" asks Dolores seriously, her eyes full of pitying wonder, not so much for herself, perhaps, as for the world at large. " Nay, not all. Some are more fortunate than others yet all must feel the knife. To some it is blunt, to some sharp and poisoned as a serpent's fang. Many have seem- ingly prosperous lives; but there is always death, my Darling the most prosperous cannot conquer that ! Alas, what a bird of ill omen I am to my own bright bonny bird! But you would have me speak ; and, after all, sweetheart, there is only one grief that can quite rend the heart in twain." "And that ?" The beautiful childish lips are parted, the starry eyes are opened wide. "Is dishonor! But the very breath of it must not come nigh you. It cannot it shall not after all these years! " she exclaims fiercely, but so low that her last words do not reach Dolores' ears. " Dishonor ? Ah, yes, that is what would touch one," she said, thoughtfully. " It shall not toucn you." "No no, of course not; and yet" slipping from her chair down upon her knees, and casting her pretty half- naked arm across Miss Maturin's lap " you speak " glancing at her wistfully " as if it had come near you; and how could it, without touching me?" "I was but imagining a case. Tut, child!" with a swift frown. " Must one never converse except of per- sonalities? Once in a way perforce one wanders afield. And, as for suffering of any sort, what has it to do with you while your old aunt is here to protect you ? Come forget this idle conjecturing ; let us rather think and plan for a happy morrow that shall be but the commencement of many happier ones." CHAPTEE II. " I THINK our new neighbors are likely to prove inter eating," says Lady Bouverie, sweeping her black fan indolently to and fro. * That means they ar either savages or endowed with 10 DICK'S SWEETHEART. rarer attributes than most," returns a young mau who ii busying himself pulling the ears of a black-and-tan ter- rier. Another young man, lounging against the open window, says nothing. It is a sultry afternoon in mid-June heavy, burden- some, because of its unbroken heat. The wind had for- gotten the earth; the roses its lovers are drooping out- side in the garden, the sunflowers, stately and grand in their long stiff beds, are glowing and sighing in vain. "Miss Maturin I thought cold in manner, but aristo- cratic in appearance," goes on Lady Bouverie. " She is of good blood beyond question, the Maturing of Egley, from whom they all come, being quite everything one could desire. They can count as many generations as the ordinary parvenu his years." " Can Miss Maturin count many years?" asks the young man with the terrier, half insolently. "More than you can, certainly. She is about forty or forty-five, I should say." " Alas and alack! And is she the heiress? Are all my fond hopes to be so cruelly dashed? Is there no saving clause? Is she the whole of our new neighbors?" "My dear Bruno, do let Fifa's ears alone; I'm sure she can't like that incessant pulling! No; there is a niece such a pretty creature, all warmth and sunshine, the most extreme contrast to the aunt, who to me appeared really rather forbidding. It seems she the niece is the heiress, as she inherits all her aunt's property, which is consider- able, both here and in the North. A charming girl I thought her." For an instant her eyes wandered to her elder son, loaning idly half in, half out of the window, and appar- ently indifferent to the conversation. His indifference seems at this moment to cause her some annoyance, she frowns slightly, and taps her foot upon the floor with un- mistakable impatience. She is a tall woman of the bony type, with a cold, haughty expression, an eye like an eagle, and a Roman nose. Her lips are as thin as her sympathies, her eyes as colorless as her sentiments. Neither of her sons, except in height, in the least resembles her. They are both tall, well-knit young men, with sufficient good looks to command a Wcond glance, Bruno, the younger, DICK'S SWEETHEART. 11 being a shade darker than Dick, the elder, and perhaps a ehade more companionable to the ordinary acquaintance. " I will take your word for it all," says Bruno. " I feel she is the girl for me! Warmth and sunshine and an heiress who is a beauty is as much as any reasonable fellow can expect. At all events, I shouldn't cavil at it." " I hope you intend to make a long stay in the country now, Kichard," says Lady Bouverie, turning to her elder son and ignoring the frivolity of the younger. "It is quite time you took some little interest in the estate. Your father, as you know, is useless. His library " with a sudden cold sneer " is his kingdom. There he dreams away his life in imaginary worlds '"In moldy novels fancy sees Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.' He fancies there are priceless treasures on those dirty shelves of his." " 'His mind to him a kingdom is,'" quotes Dick Bou- verie, speaking for the first time. " Happy is the man who can retain his fancies however foolish when old age has caught him ! Let my father enjoy his books in peace !" "It is your part to insure him that enjoyment," says Lady Bouverie, with ill-repressed sharpness. "If you attend to the accounts, or at least overlook Watkins now and then,, there is no 1'eason why your father should not molder away with his books, unmolested by words of mine. All servants require a master's eye upon them." "Have you got it, Dick ?"asks Bruno, laughing. "Look at me till I see if I should quail before it. Very poor effect indeed ! If I were yon, 1 should grow one in my fore- head; it would be far more imposing." "I thought you said you were going to the stables, Bruno?" says his mother," regarding him with gome dis- favor. "No; I am going to stay here and listen to you. The people with whom Fifa and I love to associate seldom drop pearls of wisdom from their lips. Do they, Fifa?" to the terrier, who barks a loud "No," and lifts a fore- paw in anxious expectation of another word of recogni- tion. 13 DICK'S SWEETHEART. " I hate farming and Watkins and the country gener- ally," interposes Dick, with a gesture of dislike. "Still, if your duty " " I hate that even more ! What's the matter with Wat- kins ? Why can't he go on alone in his management, as he has done" for years ?" "There isn't anything the matter with him," inter- rupts Bruno, " beyond an oppressive smell of corduroy ! He is quite well no ailment of any sort, as far as I can see." " He grows decidedly careless and in many ways unsat- isfactory," says Lady Bouverie; " he is, in fact, too old for his post. If I had my way, he should be dismissed at once, and a younger, a more competent man put in his place." " But naturally you shrink from discharging one who has served you faithfully for over twenty years," says Dick gravely, flicking a little speck of dust from his waistcoat. A dull color flames into his mother's cheeks. The latent antagonism between her and her elder sou springs into life at his words, and speaks through her angry eyes. "You mistake me!" I shrink at nothing!" she says haughtily. ' It seems a pity," strikes in Bruno judiciously, mark- ing the signs of coming storm, " that my many graces and speaking virtues should have induced my cousin, the admiral, to leave me that little place of mine, or I should have been delighted to give my talents to the overhauling of Watkins. I find him & very attractive old person, and rich in humor when I can understand him. which is sel- dom." "He can do nothing," says Lady Bouverie shortly. "He can he can take snuff!" corrects her younger son mildly. " I'd back him against any one at that. You underrate him, mother. You should at least " reproach fully "be just, and give the man his due." "I hope you mean to give up town this season." says Lady Bouverie, addressing her elder son. "It is now six months since you have been at home; you should spare us a little of vour tim^ It is " coldly " for your own in- terest i*ona X speak, _1 *t vour father's death* you DICK'S SWEETHEAET. 13 things all at sixes and sevens, blame yourself, and remem- ber I warned you." " Well, I'll think it over," returns Dick discontentedly. " You relieve me, however, when you remind me that my carelessness will make only myself a sufferer. By the bye, I'm going clown to the Hollows this afternoon. Any message for Audrey?" " Say I shall be pleased if she will come up and dine with me to-night. I suppose it is only right I should show her some small civility at times," says Lady Bouverie, with a half frown, " although she and I are so totally dis- similar in every way that she perpetually jars upon me. How she can be my niece and still possess her objection- able ways is and always will be to me a mystery. She will expect me of course to ask her here a little, now you and Bruno are at home." " I shall give her your message," returns Dick, moving through the window on to the balcony without. " As you will be passing Greylands," says Lady Bouverie, regarding him calmly, and, speaking with the constrained air of one who is following up an after- thought, "I wish you would call upon Miss Maturin, and tell her I shall send down to-morrow those pelargoniums she spoke of yesterday." "I shall remember," answers Dick, as, with his usual idle step, he goes down the stone stairs to the sward be- neath. " I'm rather glad that old place has got a mistress at last," remarks Bruno pleasantly, as he too rises to pay his long-deferred visit to the stables, or the kennel, or some- where. " Yes; it is an advantage. It is too fine an old house to be let sink into decay, and moneyed people are always to be desired. We are not sufficiently rich ourselves to regard money with disdain, or rather to pretend to do so-, and Richard, when he marries, should think of " She pauses abruptly. "I hope he will not forget my message about those pelargoniums," she concludes, with careful carelessness. " And I hope he will deliver it to the charming niece; don't you?" supplements Bruno innocently, as he strolli out of the room, Fifa at his heels. Meantime Dick, sauntering slowly over the fields to the 14 DICK S SWEETHEART. Hollows, where his cousin lives, with a frown on hisbrovi and an impatient light in his dark blue eyes a light that kindles there all too readily beneath his mother's touch is thinking of many things. It is growing toward evening, and now at last a faint breeze has uprisen, flying inland from the sea cliffs, full of fresh and salty sweetness, to dance merrily among the swaying branches of the trees. It wakes the drowsy birds to sudden life, and thrush and lark and linnet have all come forth to unite in one grand evensong that thrills through wood and vale and bosky dell. On the tennis-ground of the Hollows a girl is standing talking somewhat apathetically to a young man of the washed-out type. Seeing Bouverie advancing from under the limes, she says something to this polite nonentity which sends him racing toward the house. She is a tall girl, with a pretty svelte figure, and a face that would be beyond reproach, but for a certain touch of repressive pride and studied insolence arising from education more than nature that characterizes it. The eyes, large and of a pure hazel, look at one out of a haze of haughty doubt; the chin is determined, the hair of a lustrous brown. Poverty, mingled with the traditions of many generations, has raised this cloud upon a brow that should be possessed of contentment only. Just now she is advancing toward Dick with a firm step and a prepared smile, and a little involuntary curl about her handsome lips. " Ah, my dear cousin you ?" she says, coming slowly up to him, her tone genial, her expression belying her tone. " Why, it is quite six months, I think, since last we met! I hope absence has not lessened your love for me?" Her voice is peculiar clear, distinct, and soft, yet with an echo in it full of mockery that falls upon the heart when the words have passed away. " No," replies Bouverie, taking her proffered hand. "Or increased it?" Here the mockery overrides the softness. "No since you demand the truth," says Bouverie again, not uncivilly, but with an indifference that might well anger any woman. "You are candor itself," declares Miss Ponsonby, with a little laugh and a slight shrug of her rounded shoulders. DICK'S SWEETHEART. 15 " Let me emulate you by telling you what is on mj mind. It is what brought you?" '* A message from my mother principally." "To beg I will hold myself with greater dignity in church of a Sunday, and so set my father's pupils a worthy example?" asks she, with a little tremulous sneer. " Or is it a hope that I have sought to cure myself of my reprehensible habit of using slang words, 'unfit for any lady's use,' and evidently contracted from the aforesaid pupils?" " Neither of these advices has been intrusted to me," says Bouverie coldly. " Why are you always so hard upon my mother?" But, even as he says this in a rather lofty mnnner, he reminds himself that he too has been harboring hard thoughts in his mind during his walk hither. " ' I hate them that my vices telle me, and so do more of us (God wot) than I!' " quotes the girl, with a little disdainful moue. " Whom were you talking to just now as I came up?" asks Bouverie presently. "Was I talking to anybody?" " I certainly fancied so. I fancied too he went round that corner " pointing to it ** as I came in sight." " What an excellent chaperon you would make, Dick I" says his cousin, with suspicious admiration. " One feels positive regret that you should have so few opportunities of exercising your talent. You see " raising her somber eyes with a sudden flash to his "I can't employ you, your mother being more than enough for me. She keeps not only her own eyes, but the eyes of all the neighbor- hood upon my every action." "Still you haven't told me about your new friend," persists Dick, unmoved. " See here he comes! Now" . without lowering his voice " may I know who he is?" "Certainly one of dad's boys." At this " one of dad's boys " stops short, blushes, and looks ineffable things; but, as is his wont, says nothing. " Ah," says Bouverie, his eyes on the limp youth, who IB uneasily shifting his lanky body from foot to foot be- neath his steady gaze, " that is an excellent introduction, no doubt. But I think I should like one a little more formal." 16 DICK'S SWEETHEART. "Too happy, Fm sure!" murmurs " dad's " last boy iu a milk-and-water tone, whilst trying to do impossible things with an eyeglass a late purchase evidently, and dreadfully in the way. "That is nonsense," says Miss Ponsonby, sharply. " No one was ever too happy. However, if it will make you a joyful man to know you once looked on Dick Bou- verie, be joyful. Are you ready for your introduction, Dick? Sir Chicksy Chaucer Mr. Bouverie. Feel any thrill of bliss, Sir Chicksy?" " Could hardly help that, you know so near you- able to see you, you know, and er that !" chirrups Sir Chicksy, with a feeble attempt at gallantry. " You will be able to see me a great deal better if you drop that insane bit of glass," says Miss Ponsonby, calm- ly. " What on earth did you buy it for eh? You have the best sight of any one I know." " Been long in the country, Sir Chicksy? " asks Bou verie, coming to the rescue; but Mies PonjBonby's last re mark has overwhelmed Sir Chicksy and left him speech- less. "Oh, yes, a long time!" says Dick's cousin, answering for her victim. "Ever so long years, I think! You eame last February, didn't you, Sir Chicksy?" " Last April. Seems like yesterday to me," sighs thfe smitten baronet, with a reproachful glance at her. " Very glad indeed to er make your cousin's acquaintance. Any" with a rush " cousin of yours er " Heavy fall. "Any cousin?" says Miss Ponsonby. "Will they all make you 'too happy'? Why, you will be surfeited with gladness! Very good; I'll send word to the lot. By the bye, where is that racket I sent you for a moment since? No? Oh, it must be where I said it was!" "It isn't indeed. Give you my word; I searched for it high and low," declares Sir Chicksy, growing quite warm through fear of her increasing displeasure. " Well, try the pantry. I know I had it in my hand yesterday, when I went there to speak to Mary." " I didn't know you had such an old boy as that on the premises," says Dick, when Sir Chicksy had disappeared once more around the corner, with coat-tails flying. "That is because you have bee BO long away. Yo DICK'S SWEETHEAfiT. 17 and Bruno so seldom visit your home that you giye us time to quite forget you now and then." "Not quite, I hope," protests Dick, politely, but impo- litely too, the want of interest in his face being only too apparent. " Don't trouble yourself to make pretty speeches to me, Dick. I'll let you off," returns she, with a slight shrug and a peculiar smile. " Well, I hope dad's new boy will prove a credit to him," says Bouverie, with the air of one who is laboriously N endeavoring to make conversation. "Like 'dad's' old boy," says a fresh voice coming from behind them, " though misunderstood by all but ' dad ' himself! What, you, Dick, old chap? What good wind has blown you hither?" "A cab and a down train," replies Dick, turning with a friendly smile to the new-comer, a tall young man of about thirty, with a square face, rather cynical lips, and chestnut hair. "How d'ye do, Mr. Vyner, for the second time to-day?" gays Miss Ponsonby, holding out her hand to him it is a beautiful hand, as fair and as cool as a lily. Bouverie stares at her. "I thought Vyner was always Anthony to you?" he says. " So he was " demurely. " But of late " mimicking her aunt's formal tones to perfection "I have striven to conquer that deplorable habit I have fallen into of calling young gentlemen by their Christian names." Both men smile. " My mother sent you her love, and she hopes you wiU iine with her to-night," says Bouverie. " How sweet of her! Are you sure you have delivered your message correctly? Are you certain of the Move* part of it? I think I could do it better. ' Tell Audrey that if sbe will care to dine with me to-night which I greatly doubt, my society being scarcely calculated to suit her I shall be pleased.' Give her my love in return, however, and toll her I am sorry a severe and crushing headache will prevent my coming to Kingmore this evening. "Oh, do come;. J*jn*y M welll" says her cousin. 18 DICK'S SWEETHEART. "Bruno is at home to-night; it won't be quite go slow roi you." " Why," asks Vyner, knocking the ash off his cigar, "is Bruno the one in favor now?" "I confess to a weakness for Bruno," says Audrey. "But indeed" raising her dark eyes to his "you are all so high in my favor, I could not put one before the other. Still no I shall not leave dad to-night." " Happy Sir Chicksy! " murmurs Mr. Vyner inno- cently. " It was dad I spoke of, but, if you will have it so, yes. I shall stay here with him and Sir Chicksy," says the girl, just a little defiantly. " And a very nice entertaining boy he is to stay with," returned Mr. Vyner, with suspicious cordiality. " Having been frequently in his society of late, I may be considered qualified to speak. He is quite an antique in his way a bit of old English, like his name. By the bye, has he in- herited any of the talent of his great namesake. Taken any rides to Canterbury eh? " "No," says Miss Ponsonby rather shortly. She has drawn herself up, and is looking at him with a slight frown on her low brow. " Tastes are unaccountable, we all know," remarks Bouverie carelessly; "yet I should have thought any girl would prefer Bruno to that callow youth I saw just now. " " Remember how often you have told me I am unlike most girls; and to me Sir Chicksy at present is prefera- ble. He is newer, and therefore better fun." "Isn't it hard to know any one?" says Mr. Vyner, with an air of deep surprise. " He doesn't look funny! Sad, I'd call it. Here he is, by Jove, and full of go, aa aiual! " ' He comes, he comes, with his flashing eyes. And his cheek of passion's hue!' " This quotation is most unfortunately apt, as Sir Chicksy comes panting up to them, rubicund as a peony. "I've got it! he says, waving the lost racket triumph- antly above his head and smiling broadly. " Not such a bad messenger, after all am I?" " Bad! The verv baitl " savs Miss Ponsonby. suddenly DICK'S SWEETHEART. Jl nd most unexpectedly bestowing upon him one of hat rare smiles. The smile carries Sir Chicksy into the seventh heaven, where he remains for a considerable time. Not that his goddess follows him thither! She moves a little apart from the three men, and, stooping, picks up a ball or two lying near her on the tennis-court. As she bends and rights herself again, it is impossible not to mark the ex- treme grace and beauty of her lissom figure. She is dressed in a style slightly bizarre, but very pretty; and, though there is nothing about her costume to detract from the careful charm of it, still there is something that suggests the idea that new gowns with her are few and far between. Mr. Vyner's eyes, as she picks up the balls, follow her intently not lovingly simply curiously, and with that air of studying, of striving to master the secret workings of the hearts of those with whom he finds himself in con- tact which distinguishes him. " That's a very pretty gown you have on," he says, presently, without enthusiasm; whereupon Sir Chicksy who has been wildly but vainly endeavoring to float on a conversational sea with Bouverie turns a murderous eye on him. "I'm glad you like it," says Audrey, indifferently; "you will the less soon tire of it. As it is my latest, you are likely to see a good deal of it before it finds a worthy successor." As she makes this candid avowal, she laughs a little bitterly. " ' Long may it wave' then!'"' says Vyner cheerfully. " I must be off!" exclaims Bouverie, looking at his watch. " You won't change your mind, Audrey, and come up to dinner, after all?" He says this earnestly. " And so help you to go through a monotonous even- ing?" returns the girl, carelessly throwing her balls into the air and catching them again. " No " with a shrug - "I would do a few things for you, but not that." Bouverie laughs in spite of himself. " You would have been a help, I confess," he says light- ly. "Will you come to the rescue, Vyner? Does the mater frighten you?" "Your invitation comes too late," says Mr. Vyner, with dignity. " You ofEeJMlfld.iaeJiaLf au hour ago by ignoring 20 DICK'S SWBETHEAET. suy existence. Now I have made up my mind to dint with ' dad ' and Sir Chicksy." " You can't indeed," declares Miss Ponsonby, hurried- ly, letting her balls reach the sward unheeded; "it is qu'te impossible quite!" "Nothing is impossible! I'm all alone at Moorlands this evening; and, as you well know, I can't endure my own society. It is useless your regarding me with that forbidding frown, Miss Ponsonby, because I won't take a denial. I shall appeal to ' dad ' himself if you refuse me a hearing, and he will certainly treat me as I deserve. " "You can not dine to-night!" says Audrey, with em- phasis. " For one thing " coloring warmly through her pale, clear skin " there is only cold mutton for dinner." " Is it a loin?" unmoved. "Yes," unwillingly. " Then I shall stay. If there is one thing for which I have a settled hankering, it is a loin of mutton, cold; be- gides " lowering his voice, " you have so whetted my euriosity about Sir Chicksy, described him in such glow- ing colors as a wit and all that, that I am bent on improv- ing his acquaintance." "You are bent on nothing of the kind!" angrily. " I am indeed. Do you think, if I ask him to Moor- lands for the grouse, he will promise not to shoot himself? By the bye, I may come to dinner, may I not?" " Oh, you can come if you likel returns she, un- graciously. " Then I must go home disconsolate," says Dick, " and listen all through dinner to diatribes against the servants, uttered before their faces, an ordeal greater than which I know not. Good-by, Audrey; I hope this cruelty will be forgiven you. Oh, look here you won't refuse to oome to us on the nineteenth, at least will you?" " To Aunt Maria's dance?" " Yes. It ought to be a success. My mother, poor oul, has taken such pains about it though why she can't go to town in the season, and give her ' At homes ' in a rational manner, I can't conceive." " I shall be at her irrational one, at all events. The Duchess is to be there, is she not? And I quite long to find myself for once face to face with a real live 'big D.' My acquaintance witb^tbem. iu>,tO this has been confined DICK'S SWEETHEABT. 31 to that charming lady in 'Alice in Wonderland* who dandled a pig." " I'm glad ycu'll come," says Dick, " though I won't gwear you will enjoy yourself. My mother believes her- elf irresistible; but I hardly know any one so universally unpopular. Is it her misfortune or her fault?" He is talking now exclusively to Audrey, Mr. Vyner having engaged himself in a desperate argument hope- less of termination with the terrified Sir Chicksy. " Far be it from me to decide so delicate a point," says Miss Ponsoriby, with lowered lids and an untranslatable smile. " Good-evening, Dick, if you must go so soon. You leave at least one regret behind you." " And that is?" " That you can not induce Mr. Vyner to accompany you." "Very poor, very poor indeed!" says Mr. Vyner, with open contempt. " It would take thrice that to make me forego the cold loin and Sir Chicksy." "Oh, I knew the hint would be useless!" retorts Miss Ponsonby, with a contemptuous gesture. "Well, good-by again, sweet coz," says Dick, lightly. " I am off to fulfill a second mission. Let us hope I shall be more successful in that than in my first." " The gods grant it!" returns Audrey, piously. " Where are you going, Dick?" asks Vyner. "To * Castle Dangerous' that is, to Greylands, where Venus embodied lives, as I hear." "Ah! To see Miss Lome! Well, you won't be dig- appointed; she is as lovely as a dream! I saw her yester- day." " A good reason for seeing her again to-day. Walk so far with me, Anthony." " Can't, my clear boy. Must stay here, as I have told you already, to pick up Miss Ponsonby's balls and such sparks of wisdom that fall from the erudite lips of Sir Chicksy. Cultivate the talented at all risks that is an undeviating rule with me." " Till we meet igaiFv ^hen !" says Bouverie, fading wiftly from sigh' 22 DICK'S SWEETHEART. CHAPTER III. A SHORT walk across the sunny meadows brings him to the gates of Greylunds. " Beastly bore, my mother's insisting on my taking a message here, to people of whom I know nothing, nor wish to know," he mutters to himself, as he stands outside the gate, hesitating about demanding admittance. "Freshly painted, by Jove," he says, regarding the decent gate with scorn, "and the grass gone from the avenue! What a difference a brush and a scraper can accomplish ! I hardly know the old place now. What a number of years it is since I went through this gate! Never since old Jasper's time, and never then, I think! A short cut through the high grass and the hanging branches was more in my line at ten! Let's see if I could feel like ten now, and if that idewood" with a half laugh "and that rustic gate leading into the garden, still sniff of paradise." Turning aside from the principal entrance, he follows the road a little higher up until he conies to a wooden stile; springing over this, he finds himself knee-deep in scented clover, with a vision of leafy shade beyond. Reaching the wooded hollow on the left, he plunges into its mystic recesses with a faint return of the old boyish delight in its glories which once held him captive, and even now awakens a thrill of keenest pleasure in his breast. It is short- lived however; years and the world's scorching touch have killed the freshness that could once find joy prolonged in the secrets of mysterious Nature. Even as the perfumed branches press down to bar his path, and myriad forest flowers cry out for notice in the gathering twilight, his mind reverts with an angry im- patience to his mother's last hints and innuendoes. To ask a fellow to spend his entire su aimer buried alive in a hole of a place like this! Could there be anything more unreasonable? But women and reason were two! That he had known to his cost for many a day, be the woman mother, or cousin, or He had told himself before leaving town that he was enacting quite the part of the model son in accediner to DICK'S SWEETHEART. 33 her request that he would be present at her dance on the nineteenth, given in honor of the Duchess, who was a sort of thirty-first cousin of his father. The Duchess, for some inscrutable reason, had elected to go down to her place in Blankshire, about ten miles from Kingmore, at this unholy time, missing her season point-blank, to the astonishment of all her friends. He had indeed felt he had done a good deal in the filial line when he too had gone down to Blankshire, meaning to stay a week or ten days at the outside. And now he linds himself let in for a visit extending over an indefinite period. And what the deuce does he know of accounts or Watkins, or There is that dinner at Richmond to which he is al- most bound, and, autres mceurs, that dance at Lady Mille- fleur's, and the time running short now! Well, a week of accounts ought to mean a good many figures, and this is only the fourteenth, and the last week of June and first of July are never half so bad and and of course "duty "is a beastly word, especially when thrust upon one in that uncompromising fashion; but with a sigh he acknowledges this it means something in the long run; and a man, if he wants to keep straight at all, must have some chart by which to steer. These glimpses into a profound morality bring him to a small rustic gate studded with iron nails which is sunk in a high wall. There are two steps leading up to it, and, as he mounts them and pushes it open, one can see that six more steps must be ascended before the garden beyond is reached. Closing the small gate gently behind him, Bouverie, with a relapse into his former dreamy state born of the old happy days when he was a boy, and their memories springs lightly up the inner steps, and, looking straight before him, sees, not ten paces from him, something that dispels all boyish visions, something most sweet, most fair and rich in grace and beauty 1 A little rose-red hammock swung by silken ropes, a childish form lost in lazy tranquil slumber, with, upon its bosom, a great cluster of pale blossoms that rise and fall with the coming and going of the breath that stirs the heart beneath; a pure blue sky that shows through the netted tangle of the branches overhead, a singing of many birds, the fond murmur of a distant stream, and, over and through all these, the rush of a soft wind, laden heavi- 24 DICK'S SWEETHEAKT. ly with the perfume of the innumerable roses that throng this enchanted corner ? Lightly, too, this scented wind is rocking to and fro the crimson bed ; but still its little, pale, fair occupant lies unconscious. Bouverie, seeing this, his latest, sweetest visioa, moveth not, draws nearer, nearer still, until he is gazing down upon the sleeping marvel so strangely found. Her long dark lashes lie motionless upon her cheek, flushed delicately, her lips are slightly parted ; one arm, half bare, is flung above the shapely head, the other lies languidly lost in part amongst the scattered flowers upon her breast, the slender fingers still sleepily clutch- ing the rosebuds they had been holding when conscious- ness departed. So pure, so fragile seems the sudden vision that Bou- verie, afraid to stir lest the faintest sound should drive it from him forever, stands mute before it, wondering. There is a calm beauty about the tranquil face which fas- cinates him. Unbidden comes to him the thought : " That, as of light the summer sunn6 sheen Passeth the star, right so over measure She fairer is than any creature." Then, all in a moment, as he stands spell-bound fearing to withdraw lest he should disturb her, yet doubting his right to stand here and admire without let, or hinderance, or permission, so fair a thing the soft white lids uprise, and two eyes " sweetest eyes were ever seen " looked calmly into his. Vaguely they look at first, and in nowise coldly, he being as yet but a fragment of the wild dream she has just left : then, with wide lids and growing knowl- edge, she stares at him, and rising on her dainty elbow, lets amazement have full sway, and something else, too, that might perhaps be termed indignant wrath m one with lips and eyes less sweet. "How did you come here?" she asks, in a low, clear voice. There is surprise largely mingled with the grave displeasure in her face. " By this gate," says Dick Bouverie, quailing beneath the severity of those searching eyes. "I used to come into the garden by it long ago, when I was a little fellow, in your your fa -jfoot Uncle's time* I forgot I was trea- paesing." DICK'S SWEETHEART. 25 There is abject humility in his tone and expression; but the lady of the hammock refuses to he softened. " This is my own garden; no one comes here without my permission," she says austerely. "" I 1 might have asked for permission, certainly," sayi Dick vaguely; "but I didn't know. I " " It would have been of no use; I wish to be alone here always," she returns, with distinct meaning. "The .mistake is in part my own, of course; yet I was quite iure I had turned the key in the lock." "No, there was no key at all," says Dick. "But, of course, that is nothing. I should not have come here; I should have remembered I could not come in and out now as I used to do when I was a boy." "Was everybody in this neighborhood in the habit of coming here when he was a boy?" demands she, increasing anger in her eyes. " Oh, no! And some of us were girls then," says Dick demurely, but without daring to smile. She regards him fixedly for a full minute, as though haughtily suspecting him of undue levity, and then, with a sudden, light movement, springs to the ground. "I am Dolores Lome!" ehe says, standing erect before him, with her pretty head updrawn, us though to let him see who is mistress in this territory. Dolores! What a sad little name! With a pang even in this early moment of their acquaintance it is with a distinct pang he feels that in some vague, indefinite fashion the name suits her. "And I am Dick Bouverie," returns he; "and very, very sorry I disturbed you." " I believe that. And now " coldly "you can go if you like." "I don't like. I can't bear to go away without your forgiveness," says Dick, with such earnestness in eyes and yoice as verifies his words and speaks for the depth of his contrition. "Oh, well, you may have that!" she tells him, looking down. " And then if if your name is Dick Bouverie, 1 suppose it was your mother who called here yesterday?" " Did she call?" says Dick, who knows well she did, but, through Tory longing to hear again the low trainanl Toice, pretends ignoraaie. And why has she brought up 26 DICK'S SWEETHEAKT. this question about his mother? Perhaps to soften the cruelty of her dismissal; perhaps oh, goodly thought! to do away with the dismissal altogether! " I think it must have been your mother," remarks Dolores, reflectively, tapping her red lips with her fore- finger in meditative fashion, "a tall woman very tall with I mean that is" quick confusion covering her as she thinks of what she has so nearly said "I mean a very tall woman!" This is distinctly lame. " Your description is perfect a very tall woman, with an enormous nose," said Mr. Bouvene, sublime gravity marking every feature. At this she grows red, and glances at him shyly from un- der her curling lashes, and looks down again, and up again, and finally they both burst out laughing. Laughter with the young is a quick road to friendship; but Dolores is not as yet prepared to hold out the right hand of fellow- ship. She checks her merriment, and stands back from him a little step or two, and clasps her hands behind her. "I think you had better come in and see auntie," she says, with increased dignity " that is, if indeed you meant to pay her a visit this evening" glancing at him suspiciously. "Certainly I meant it. I came here purposely to see her with a message from my mother about pelargoniums." "What about them?" "Well, that's just it, you see," says Dick, with a con- fiding smile. " I haven't the faintest idea. I assure you I knew all about it the moment before before 1 entered this garden; but it is all gone out of my head now. Was she to offer your aunt some, or was your aunt to give her some? She told me she had called, and " "I thought" turning large convicting eyes upon him "you said just now or at least you gave me the impression that you did not know your mother had been here at all?" "Did I? You see there it is again! I have such a wretched memory," says Dick, mournfully. " At least I have now I hadn't this morning! It must be something 4ft the air of your garden." "Don't scold my garden! It hat the sweetest air on DICK'S SWEETHEART. 27 earth," says Dolores, with decision. " And see there is auntie standing in the window! Come to her." With all the demeanor of one escorting a condemned felon to the gibbet she leads him toward the open window of the draw ing- room, where a tall, dark figure can be descried looking in their direction. A few stone steps lead from the terrace to the veranda, and up these per- force Mr. Bouverie follows his captor. " I have brought you a trespasser, auntie," says this last awful personage, slipping her hand within Miss Maturin's arm, and confronting Dick with a menacing air. "I found him in my own grounds, without permission, and" "I think it was I found you," interposes Mr. Bonverie mildly. But his weak attempt at defense is treated with con- tempt. " He could give no proper account of himself," says his jailer sternly, "so I have brought him to you, to do with him as seemeth good in thine eyes." ' Don't be hard on me, Miss Maturin," entreats Dick, advancing. " I have been so browbeaten and generally frowned down already that I have little resistance left in me. I can just barely remember that my name is Bouverie; but, beyond that, my mind is a blank." " Nay, then, I think you have been punished enough," says Miss Maturin, smiling. " Come in, and let us begin our acquaintance under more auspicious circumstances." ''That means under the shadow of the tea-tray," says Miss Lome, saucily, turning upon Dick a sudden bright smile that puts formality and unfriendliness to flight at once and forever. It is a very pretty room they enter, smelling sweetly of gay Indian mattings. Quaint tables and chairs are scat- tered broadcast, aud Persian rugs of divers colors lie here and there. There are two large Sevres bowls filled with nx-es, cream and white and yellow; and a few red, a still fewer blue monsters standing on carved cabinets, with gaping jaws and goggle eyes; some Nankin china; some hideous Hindoo idols; a few choice modern water-colors on the painted walls, and a good many Eastern and European gimcracks of one sort or another mixed up in a charming confusion all over the place. 28 DICK'S SWEETHEART. "And where did you find Dolores?" asks Miss Maturim presently, when she has found out that he does like sugar and is very fond of cream. But he is not allowed to answer. " In my own garden my sanctuary," says the mistress of that sacred spot. " I was in my hammock, breathing the air of heaven, and lost in dreams," with a little quaint dramatic action of the hand " when he came to me." " I'm glad of that glad that you found her resting, I mean," remarks Miss Maturin, tenderly. "She runs about too much, Mr. Bouverie; she overexerts herself. For one moment in the day she will not be still. I have had that hammock put up on purpose for her, that she might take a little rest now and then." *' Miss Lome has not been without rest to-day at least," says Dick. ' ' I found her sound asleep in that self-same hammock." "Asleep! In the open air! Oh, Dolores, I hope not," says her aunt, with quick dismay. " You know how deli- cate your chest is; and to sleep in the open air! Dear child, how careless of you!" "It was but for a little moment" penitently "and indeed I don't know how it happened; but I was lying there blinking at the hot sun as he glanced at me through the rustling leaves, and somehow I lost myself in a day- dream, and a little lulling wind came to me across the roses, and then I knew nothing more until my day-dream became a real one a short one, though, because some kindly fairy whispered to me that an ogre had entered my land; and so I awoke." "An ogre! Alas, Miss Lome, have I deserved all this?" " Well " with sweet relenting " I will confess to you I was going to say a prince; but I didn't think" mis- chievously "you deserved all that!" "If Mr. Bouverie was the one to release you from that treacherous slumber so sure to give you cold I, for one, not only forgive him his trespass, but thank him sincerely for his well-timed arrival," says Miss Maturin. "After all, I believe I am grateful to him too," de- clares Dolores lightly. " My dream was of an evil thing, and I was glad te be rescued from it. Was I" turning DICK'S SWEETHEART. 89 to Bouverie " frowning when you saw me first, as though frightened, or " "No; on the contrary, you seemed to be enjoying the sleep of the just." "I should have looked distressed I think I felt it How " with childish curiosity " did J look then?" "As though you dreamed of heaven," says Bouverie, with such grave and sudden earnestness that it almost seems as if the words come from him without volition on his part. Dolores, as though startled, turns her eyes to his; something she sees there shortens her gaze, and the faint- est tinge of crimson creeps beneath the cream white of her skin. Her long lashes flicker shyly, and then her eyes droop. " She stood, and hung her visage down alow." Bouverie, angry with himself in a vague manner about something he barely understands, looks out of the window upon the fast-falling twilight that is dusking all the land and casting a gray mantle over the pale ocean down below. Meanwhile Miss Maturin who has seen nothing is talking to a disgracefully absent audience. " That is where your dreams should come from," she is saying pleasantly, her heart in her words, her eyes on the cream ewer. " All a pretty maiden's dreams should come straight from the skies." " Mine came from some other place," returns Dolores, whose faint troubled thought has vanished. " It was a cruel vision, so slight, so shadowy, I could not grasp or put it into words even if I would; but still I know it was framed by evil." " Tut, you silly child! What should you have to do with such a word? It should be unknown to you," says Miss Maturin fondly. " Dreams are but reproductions of aur thoughts and actions in one form or another. They are shaped obscurely from our surroundings. Now from what corner of yonr life could you call forth a troubled recollection?" " And yet it oppressed me," says the girl dreamily. " I seemed," slowly putting out one hand, "going going parting: from all I .lovad^-ainkinff into No* I can not 30 DICK'S SWEETHEART. recall it I will not" with a quick shudder "yet I know it prophesied trouble. And your own words, auntie " with a swift glance at her " we must all know ihat, must we not?" " Not all," puts in Bouverie impulsively; yet, as he nays it, a cold wave seems to rush across his heart. Does there in the mysterious future live a day when he shall eee those sofb clear eyes dull with grief's knowledge, those warm red lips pale and cold, the whole fair lovely face haggard with a torment that knows no hope? " Yes all," says Dolores slowly. " Ask auntie." " No, no!" murmurs Miss Maturin nervously. " There is no rule without an exception," declares Dick ayly. " Let you," to Dolores, "be the brilliant one." e laughs; but to any one intimate with him it would be known that his gayety costs him an effort. " My mother, for example, is another. She has had an uncommon good life, taking it altogether; trouble and she, so far, have been anything but friends." "Then her time is yet to come, as is mine," persists Dolores, with a smile that half kills the fatality of her words. "If you get through as much of your life as my motner has of hers without coming to grief, you won't have much to complain of," retorts Bouverie, with a persistence al- most as keen as her own. " 3Tet she can not escape altogether, if there be justice meted out," says the girl, shaking her head prophetically, "and in truth I do not deem her so entirely fortunate. For myself, I should wish my miseries, if they are to be, to come early, so as to have them over before night de- scended. Of your grace," glancing at Bouverie, with a soft laugh, " pray that for me. The worst evil, to my thinking, that could befall me would be to find myself in my old age if, indeed, wnich may not be, that old age be mine cut off from hop and gladness and content. Let Borrow, if it is to be, come to me now, when I am young and strong to bear." "What are you saying, Dolores?" exclaims Miss Mat- urin, rising suddenly from the tiny spindle-legged table on which the tea-tray is set. " What have you to do with sorrow, or pain, or death? Forget such things, and think only of the sun, the flowers, and your friends the DICK'S SWEETHEART. 81 linging-birds! Do not tempt fate to shower upon you iti worst gifts." " That hammock is badly slung. I am sure of it," ays Bouverie lightly. " If Miss Lome is unlike herself to-day I am of course " hesitating " too new an ac- quaintance to mark a difference in her; but, if " " Nay, say what you first intended," interrupts Miss Maturin, giving one of her kindest smiles. " A friend I hope you will be to us." " A certainty leaves no room for hope," returns he gracefully. There is to him an irrepressible charm in the calm, slow tone* and kindly glances of the elder woman a sense of rest, too, and a knowledge of sure help in time of need iu the quiet power of her dark handsome face. " At what shrine did you learn your courtly phrases?" asks Dolores, with a would-be scornful glance. All clouds have vanished from her face; she is again the gay, happy, debonair child of a moment since. " You are a saucy baby!" says Miss Maturin lovingly. " Do not heed her, Mr. Bouverie; but if you have still half an hour or so to spare us, fill your pockets with those biscuits there, and come with us to feed our swans." CHAPTER IV. OUT of the garish day into the cool sweet night, clad with its myriad stars! The windows are all thrown wide, and from within the sound of the plaintive fiddling creeps through them to mingle with the many harmonies that thrill the heart of nature in the dark depths of the sleep- ing garden the rush of tumbling streams, the faint drop of lazy fountains, the sad music of the distant flapping of the waves on the lonely shore. Colored lamps are shed- ding pale tints of red and yellow upon the limbs of the gods and goddesses who are gleaming snow- white in tha moonlight that riots in glade and bower and dell. It is the evening of the nineteenth, and the rooms at Kingmore are filled to overflowing, so are the staircases, so are the flower-decked antechambers and the scented conservatories. The Duchess, who is in an exceptionally gracious mood and Quite on her het Behavior her eldest 32 DICK'S SWEETHEABT. girl having consented to throw away her yonth upon a modern if moldy Croesus has arrived early, and is now making herself charming to every one she knows; and in- deed without meaning it, to many she does not, her glasses being but a snare to her, and her memory for her country acquaintance but short. She is dressed in a mustard-colored gown and a most remarkable but doubtless " distinctly precious" head- gear of daffodils, the originals of which assuredly never grew on earth. She is a huge woman, with a not un~ pleasing face, and quite casts Lady Bouverie, beside whom she is standing, into the shadt by right of her superior proportions. " I can't bear those divided skirts!" she is saying, with great acrimony, directing a severe gaze at a distant corner of the room where a young woman who has found herself unexpectedly alone in her "short division" is wishing herself dead. " The princess is specially hard upon them. But see there" waving her fan toward the doorway " who is that just entering? A charming face charm- ing!" The owner of the charming face, advancing somewhat haughtily up the room, murmurs a cold word or two to Lady Bouverie and then moves on. "What grace what finish!" says the Duchess admir- ingly, whose own daughters have a fatal tendency toward hoydenism. " She is " " My niece," says Lady Bouverie coldly " Audrey Ponsonby. You knew her father my brother I think; but you are so seldom at home that Tdare say you never saw her before." "Well, I think not. I shouldn't have forgotten her if I had," remarks the Duchess pleasantly. " You are fort- unate in possessing so desirable a niece; she must be like a daughter to you." "I am quite content with my sons. ^ have no desire for a daughter; and in no case should I covet Audrey," replies Lady Bouverie stiffly. "Ah" her Grace nods slowly "I have often heard that hazel-eyed people are never very comfortable! But he has a face that would do for Kate Hardcastle very nicely, 01 sven for Lvdia DICK'S SWEETHEAET. 33 She falls a-musing after this curious speech, and follows Audrey's departing figure with thoughtful eyes. " I fear indeed she is more stagey than dignified," says Lady Bouverie, with a subdued sneer. To her the girl is utterly distasteful. There is a certain display of insolence in the very droop of Audrey's lashei, an unexpressed yet open determination to revolt at any moment against the would-be authority of her aunt that is known to Lady Bouverie, and galls her at times more than she would care to acknowledge even to herself. An indomitable will matched against another more in- domitable still breeds ill-will ; and Lady Bouverie, accustomed to carry all before her on her own ground, takes it badly that this motherless child of a girl as poor as she is fractious should decline to lay down her arms before her. Her poverty is in itself a crime, be- cause it is a poverty that rubs itself persistently against Lady Bouverie and claims kinship with her. Unkind fortune made this girl's father her brother; and to have almost at one's gates a brother compelled to educate boys and young men as a means toward gaining his daily bread is as a thorn in the flesh of her whom chance has raised beyond such sordid considerations as the possible non- payment of one's butcher or baker, or the consequences to follow on the spending of a shilling more or less. Had Providence so ordered it that Mr. Ponsonby's lines had been laid in places far remote from Deadmarsh, Lady Bouverie would have felt devoutly grateful; but Provid- ence so far had forgotten to humor her prejudices, and Mr. Ponsonby ground Greek and Latin and conic sections into the ears of his pupils within a mile or so of the sacred precints of Kingmore. Lady Bouverie would gladly have forgotten all thos early beggarly days when she too had struggled with an insufficient income, and had to think many times befort permitting herself the extravagance of a new gown. Those were days in which Sir George then only Mr. Bouverie and a second son, and by no means weighed down with wealth had been considered as a blessed chance of escape from the petty worries of a straitened household; but now well, now she is Lady Bouverie by a fortuitous acci- dent, and even to be reminded of that moneyless unpleas- ant past is hateful to her. She had, by her own exertions 34 DICK'S SWEETHEART. and the aid of Sir George to his everlasting regret, be it said raised herself from her depressing surroundings to a very much higher estate; and now to be reminded of them daily by this insolent girl and her gentle but scarce- ly less aggravating father is bitter indeed to the ambi- tious woman. With eyes askance, she has gone through life glancing at Audrey, the girl's independent ways and .scornful determination to reject all patronage having an- gered the older woman past forgiveness. Indeed Audrey's dislike to her aunt has spread as far as her aunt's sons; and, though to Bruno she grants a half-hearted friend- ship, she is in spirit unjust to Dick. Between her and him there is ever a smoldering feud lively to burst into flame at any moment. Thus unsupported by those who should be her natural protectors, Audrey's strange repellent ways have gained her few friends in the neighborhood. Life in Deadmarsh as this part of the country is called is not easy to the pretty, or to those imbued with that lightest art of nat- ure named coquetry. One must hardly dare here to enjoy one's self without reserve. Laughter must be subdued, originality of speech or thought suppressed, marked action eschewed. To be good is to be decorously dull; there must be no consenting to idle admiration from the oppo- site sex no flaunting of obnoxious fact that this one can command attention where other people's daughters can not. Miss Ponsonby, now and then preferring a pathway of her own, is regarded with great disfavor by her neighbors; and indeed it can not be said that she has in any way sought to propitiate their ill-will, certain caustic words of hers that have been bandied from mouth to mouth having scarcely tended to enhance her popularity. There was, for instance, that saucily veiled hint about Mr. Drum- mond's father, who had undoubtedly had a good deal to do with sugar. " Sweets to the sweet," said Audrey to Mrs. Drummond's bosom-friend the vicar's wife, speaking directly of Mrs. Drummond, with a broader word or two still here and there that left no doubt on the hearer's mind that sugar was the "sweet" more particularly meant. The vicar's wife, Mrs. Dovedale, being of a com- municative turn of mind, and herself of unexceptionable birth her father a fourth baronet had, with much uno- DICK'S SWEETHEART. 35 tion ant. upraising of brows and the greatest delicacy and hesitation, retailed to her friend all that Audrey had said, and a little more; whereon dire hatred for Audrey had sprung to life in Mrs. Drummond's breast. More especially to the matrons, mothers of unmarriage- able girls, is Audrey a bete noire mothers of ugly girls, silent girls, silly girls, who line the walls in pathetic loneliness whilst she dances, or sit in hopeless isolation over dull albums, after dull dinners, watching Audrey with sullen envy where, in some distant part of the room, she is commanding the homage of half a dozen men, each one of whom would think himself doubly fortunate if, by that indescribable movement of the hand which pretty women know, she should draw her skirts aside and grant him the uncomfortable edge of the ottoman on which she may be seated. For those great lambent, hazel eyes, half insolent, half satiric, have a power to charm the ungentler sex that lesser, milder beauties lack. "Is there any hope that I may get a dance from you to-night?" asks Mr. Vyner, emerging from a curtained recess as Audrey passes by on the arm of a young and gal- lant Plunger. For an instant she hesitates; then she says, slowly: " You can have the next," a half tone of unwillingness in the sweet petulance of her voice. "The next is a quadrille. Do you call that a dance?" "No? Better not have it, then." "Half a loaf," suggests he, cheerfully. "Yes, I will have it, though I must consider it the shabbiest bit of dough. Hark to the opening bars! Let us fly from them." She lays her hand mechanically upon his arm, lets a stray indifferent smile wander toward the obliterated Plunger, and finally finds herself in a cool retreat on a velvet lounge, with Mr. Vyner beside her. " You were early to-night," he says, as an introductory opening to the coming tUe-ci-tete. "1 meant to be late," she returns absently; "but Sir Chicksy was dreadfully in earnest. He is young, you see. A dance is still something to him." "A dance with you, I dare say." "Then dad was fidgety, too. He is always in such 36 DICK'S SWEETHEART. excellent time himself " with a short laugh "that ha naturally likes to see others up to the mark as well." "Have I lived to hear you sneer at ' dad '?" asks Vyner, with an assumption of tragic astonishment. A moment later he is sorry for his words. The girl flushes a painful crimson, and for an instant the proud lips quiver. " Sneer at dad!" she cries, with angry haste. " What do you mean?" " I beg your pardon," says Vyner. "Never say that to me again!" exclaims she, with a flash from her handsome eyes. " Do you hear? You are the last who should say it or think it." Then her sud- den grief or passion, whichever it is, dies away, and her face grows even paler than before. " How charming Mrs. Wemyss is looking to-night!" she says, with such calm every-day carelessness as startles him after her late burst of vehemence. " That might be said of half a dozen people of you, for example; it is no great thing to say." " Her costume at least is beyond reproach." "Is it? A little pronounced, perhaps; but of course widows can allow themselves a good deal of license. For my own part, I prefer yours." "Mine!" She glances down at her dress and smiles contemptuously. " Why, this gown is an heirloom!" she says, with a faintly bitter smile. " All the county knows it by this time. No " quickly, as though fearing or guessing some thought of his " dad would give me an- other twenty others if he could; but he can't, simply. We are savages, he and I; we live upon the boys, and even they scarcely suffice us. I don't know why I tell you all this; you knew it so well before you should, having been a boy of dad's yourself once." "And a very grateful boy, too, for a few other things besides the fact that I have escaped from your cannibal clutches whole and entire. But why abuse your personal appearance? I see no one in the room to-night who looks better dressed than you do." " What a pity it is that, to be agreeable, one must so often be a liar!" gays Miss Ponsonby, slowly flicking her fan to and fro. DICK'S SWEETHEART. 37 " What a dear little speech!" returns Vyner; and then he laughs. The water of a small fountain somewhere behind them is dropping musically into its basin; a cool wind is rush- ing through an open window. Miss Ponsonby, still idling prettily with her fan, no doubt appreciates to the full the enjoyment of the moment, because no words fall from her to break its spell. " You have carried me back somehow to the old days," says Vyner, presently. "Just now it seems to me that I can see you again as you used to be when quite a little girl, with long soft hair almost down to your toes, and eyes a great deal too large for your face." "What a fetching picture!" " It was very one seldom sees anything like it now. But, though you were pretty, I don't think you were quite a nice little girl." "No: I know I wasn't to you. How I hate those quadrilles from ' Madame Angot! Don't you?" "You used to tyrannize over me abominably." " That need not trouble you, seeing I can not tyrannize over you now." " ft is not poetical justice, however. To have things properly balanced, I should be able to tyrannize over you by this time." " * Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,' w quotes she, with a cold smile. " You are still a tyrant, then?" " At least I would not submit." "Do you remember that day in the orchard," asks Vy- ner, presently, with a laugh of irrepressible enjoyment, " when I was supposed to be doing Euclid, but was in re- ality stealing apples for you, and ' dad ' came in and caught us? and By Jove, how long ago It all seems now!" " So long that it has entirely slipped from my mem- ory. There were so many boys off and on, and so many of them stole apples for me." " Well, they were pleasant days enough, even though you decline to grant them the small courtesy of a passing remembrance. We were very good friends then, you and I. Do you know" glancing deliberately at her "I think I used to b* *" With jou then?" 38 DICK'S SWEETHEART. "I'm very thankful the folly did not grow beyond the 'then,'" says Miss Ponsonby, raising her lids languidly and gazing at him with a full insolent look. " So am I for some reasons. It would hardly hava suited either of us, would it?" " It would not have suited me, certainly." "Not now; then, at least, you tolerated me. It is ab- surd, almost presumptuous to remember it. But do you know in those by-gone days," says Vyner lightly, " I used to call you my 'little wife ' ? Happy Arcadian days, but very absurd eh?" "Very." Miss Ponsonby, with a fatigued air and an impatient gesture, shuts up her fan and frowns slightly. " How uninteresting you can be at times!" she says. " If, as a boy, you were as dull in your tete a fetes as you now are. no wonder I treated you with scorn!" "Well, but that's just it, you see; I don't think you did scorn me," says Mr. Vyner mildly. At this moment, through the open doorway that leads into the dancing-room, one can see Sir Chicksy Chaucer perambulating aimlessly about. "I don't think I ever saw Chaucer in evening-clothes before," remarks Vyner thoughtfully, seeing she will take no notice of his last speech. " How exceedingly er un- comfortable he looks! They shine, but he doesn't; they are new, I suppose." " And he isn't! You pay him a very great compli- ment; yet six months should make one quite a dear old friend down here, when one is a baronet, unmarried, and with unlimited means." "You see he has kept himself so exceedingly dark for those six months," remonstrates Mr. Vyner. " We have carcely been allowed to see him; now that he has con- descended to emerge into the fuller glare and in his best clothes too we all bow down before him and acknowledge the effect maddening!" "I wonder why you dislike him so?" questioned Miss Ponsonby, with a furious smile. " Far be it from me to dislike such a bright and shining light as he promises his guardian to be," says Mr. Vyner genially. " His name alone should pull him through it is a miracle of art. Is there its rival, 1 wonder P ShakesaejUM lias vyoakly hinted that there is DICK'S SWEETHEART. 39 nothing in a name; but he had never heard of Sir Chicksey's. Surely there is much in it! Some name*, we are told, ' mock destruction; they survive the doom of all creation.' Of such is your friend's; indeed I think, if the poet said it Clicked all creation,' he would have been even nearer the mark." " ' Much wit hath commonly much froth, and 'tis hard to jest and not jeer too,'" quotes Audrey demurely. "And even Sir Chicksy has his uses. See now what a fund of amusement he is to you! How could you exist without such a one upon whom to strike the brilliant matches of pure genius that emanate from you so fre- quently?" " You cover me with confusion," says Mr. Vyner; but he does not look confused. " I should not dare to find amusement in a Chaucer! And besides, you know, I honestly regard Sir Chicksy as a very nice ladylike young man." "I know at least you have always a pretty tongue!" returns Miss Ponsonby, with a pale smile and an angry flash from her beautiful eyes. " I wonder what he is looking for?" says Vyner pres- ently, as Sir Chicksy again passes the doorway, apparently in ea#er search for something. "Is it for you?" "Very likely." "I think he will go mad if left much longer in the dark as to your whereabouts. Are you without mercy? Did you note the expression on his face as he passed just now?" "Did he pass just now?" "Well, you could hardly call it a passing it was a flight." " He will the sooner get to where he is going, then. And why should he go mad?" " Too much learning! You know what a brain he has! Won't you let him see where you are, and so ease the strain a little?" " If you want to go go!" says Miss Ponsonby abruptly. "As for me I shall do very well here. That Sir Chicksy should be looking for me does not concern me." "Your cruelty is barbaric." " Is it a necessity for you to make silly speeches?" aski the girl, with such profound contempt as to waken som 40 DICK'S SWEETHEART. faint amusement in the breast of her companion. " I am not cruel. I simply make it a rule to be happy when possible, at all costs to others." There is something reckless and defiant in her tone as she turns her eyes to his. "A. very sensible sentiment!" returns he blandly; yet there is a note in his voice hardly to be desired. It touches her. " Why phould I consider others?" she asks sharply, noting and resenting it. " Do they consider me? Do the silly fools round here who cull themselves ' society' regard me with even scanty favor? They turn aside from me because they have the money that I laok and I the pedi- gree that they lack. They can't forgive me that last." "I think you might be content with it." " As long as I know poverty, I shall never know con- tent," returns she, in a low voice. " But still that is not it; it is their settled dislike to me, the drawing away of their skirts, as it were, that angers me. They shake their heads and revile me, only because I have a lover or two more than their girls, and because because well " with a frown "because once or twice a recreant knight has deserted their ranks for mine! Do you know what that yellow-haired girl of Mrs. Drummond's called me the other day? 'The recruiting-sergeant,' and all be- cause of Mr. Allonby!" She pales visibly, and tears of passionate mortification rise to her large eyes. " I never spoke to that man twice," she says, "so it wasn't my fault; and, whether or no, he wasn't good enough. But I suppose her hair was too much for him ! They accuse me of making their lovers false. PahS" cries she, with a shrug and a bitter wild little laugh. " I dare say I am not good for much myself; but I'm good for that, any way!" "A proud boast!" says Vyner, carelessly. "Ah! I have no doubt you side with them," she re- joins, biting her lip; "one goes with the stream because it is least trouble. I don't know why I talk to you like this, unless it is that I must say it to somebody." " Thank you," says Vyner. "They dare to be uncivil to me because dad takes pupila I detest that sort of person." DICK'S SWEETHEART. 41 "If so, I wonder that you care so much what 'that ort of person ' may or may not say of you." " That would be the correct feeling, of course, but I have no correct feelings, I think at all events, I do care. Oh, to be rich for once enormously so, I mean to see them all cringe and fawn to me as they do to others, and then spurn them!" " To be rich if that is your highest ambition is surely within your reach. Remember " airily " your face. That is a fortune in itself." " A poor one!" " A rare one." " I would gladly exchange it for a better," she says dis- contedly. " It brings me in but poor returns." " Utilize it then!" counsels Vyner, turning to her with cold deliberation, and gazing straight into the beautiful dissatisfied face beside him. " If, as you say, money is your idol, gain it at aill hazards. Compel your face to do you service." "But how?" asks she, half frowning; her tone is de- fiant, and, as though daring him to answer her question, she raises her eyes resolutely to his. " Try Sir Chicksy," replies he slowly, with an involun- tary curl of the lip. Across the girl's face passes an expression that would have startled him had he seen it. But, as the insult leaves his lips, he withdraws his gaze, and is now looking steadily at the door beyond. Her lids have half closed, her color has faded to an ashen gray, there is something that is almost murderous within the shadow that has fallen on her great gleaming eyes. Sir Chicksy, his boyish foolish face flushed with anxiety, at this instant comes toward her with a fatuous srnile. " I I've been all over the place looking for you," lie ays; " and now " growing melancholy "our waltz is almost over." " You shall have another one to make up loi it," re- turns she, with such unwonted gentleness that the silly lad's heart beats heavily against his breast. " And the next time I must tell you where to find me, so that there need be no disappointment for either of us." She smiles, lays her_kiind ujgott, his arm, and moves 42 DICK'S SWEETHEART. without a backward glance. When she is gone, Vyner rises too, and stretches his arms over his head lazily. ' Well, I was a beast," he says emphatically; " but she deserved it! " The final bars of the last waltz have died away into a sobbing silence. The greater charms of cool conserva- tories and empty corridors have weeded out the ball-room so considerably that now one can see without trouble wh is and who is not present. Dick Bouverie, moving here and there among the crowd, but chiefly on the staircases and in the halls, for reasons best known to himself, at last catches sight of a little fragile figure that sets his heart beating, standing in a distant corner talking to Bruno. It is Dolores. For a long time he has sought her, and now all at once she is there, standing out from all the others, a thing apart, as it seerns to him, smiling, radi- ant. She is clad in a creamy Indian silk, soft and cling- ing, with no sleeves to hide her perfect arms, and great high puffings on her shoulders. So clear is her pure skin that scarce one may say where the gown ends and her fair self begins. Every word and gesture are rounded with soft grace, each glance is full of infinite variety. She is talking gayly to Bruno, with parted lips and shining, happy eyes upraised to his. Then, in a moment, she sees Dick, and she wavers in her speech to Bruno, and the glad eyes send to the elder brother a smile of quick welcome. Battling his way to her through the crowd of matrons, men, and virgins that separates them, Dick comes up to her presently, breathless but victorious. " Why, when did you come ? " he asks, eagerly. " How late you are ! " He has quite forgotten to say, " How d'ye do, Miss Lome ?" or anything of that sort. " It is quite a long time now since we came, isn't it ?" says Dolores, appealing to Bruno. "Half an hour at least ! Late ? Oh, yes, we were late ! Auntie and 1 always are, I think." "How could I have missed you all this time? "says Dick, almost indignantly. "1 have been searching for you up hill and down dale for an hour or more it seems like a week or more, li the truth be told." DICK'S SWEETHEAET. 43 She glances at him quickly, and a little odd expression crosses her face. She opens her lips impulsively, as if to say 8omething,and then repents herself apparently of her inten- tion, for she closes them again without saying anything. But she breaks instead into a faint, low, irrepressible laugh. " What is it ?" asks Dick, who can not take his eyes off her face, and has therefore marked her hesitation. "Nothing," returns she demurely. "Miss Lome wants to tell you, says Bruno mildly, " that to call a search for her up-hill work is rude." "Oh, no no, indeed!" contradicts Miss Lome, shocked, flushing warmly to the very roots of her short Bunny hair. "That was not it at ail ! It was only I merely wanted to say that " She grows hopelessly confused, and her eyes seek the ground. " What ?" asks Dick again gently. " Never mind. Ask me some other time," murmurs she, with an almost childish appeal to him not to press the subject. " Well," he says quickly, " I hope your card is not full yet, though I am so late in finding you. I dare say" laughing " if I had not sought you so diligently, I should have found you long ago. What dance may I have ?" he has taken her programme from her. " Not this," she says " I am engaged to your brother for this but the next, if you will." " And the ninth and the fifteenth ?" anxiously. She looks undecided. "Oh, you will!" pathetically. "They are the only dances vacant. And remember what ill-luck I had in not being able to plead my cause with you at first !" His manner was growing positively servile. "Don't cry, Dick," entreats Bruno; whereupon they all laugh a little. "Miss Lome, if you are going to be unkind to me in this matter, you will have much to answer for," says Dick, persistently. "You would not knowingly consign me to an early grave, would you ?" " Don't mind him, Miss Lome," says Bruno. " He is quite too tough for that sort of thing. Yon take my word for it that the grave won't see him for years to come. 44 DICK'S SWEETHEART. If you put faith in Dick's promises to die, you vr'\\\ be disappointed." " Alas, Mr. Bouverie, that your word should be so un- reliable!" says she mischievously. " You do protest too much, it seemeth me. Fewer words and truer would be better. Have you forgotten 'in muche speeche shine' wanteth not'?" " Well, punish me if you will," says Bouverie; " though ,1 deny my guilt. But understand, at all events, that, if you refuse me those two dances, you leave me with noth- ing to do all night. Think then of the mischief my idle hands are sure to commit!" "Nothing to do? Go and dance with all the others." "There are no others." " No woman in the room but me?" "Not one!" "Oh, Mr. Bouverie! It was true then what your brother hinted about about your veracity?" " 1 maintain," says Bouverie stoutly, but in a low tone, " that for me there is no woman in these rooms to-night save and except yourself." A little smile gathers about her lips. She casts a swift glance at him, and then looks down. Bruno is talking in an interested fashion to some one near them, so that virtually they are alone. " You shall have your dances," she murmurs softly, with an adorable blush. "To thank you is impossible!" says Bouverie. " Now, Dick, do go away!" exclaims Bruno, returning to his charge. "I never saw such a fellow to talk as you are, and Miss Lome and I want to finish our waltz and our conversation, though we have almost forgotten what it was about now. Is my partner the only one in the room that will satisfy you?" "It seems so," says Dick, with a quick glance at Do- lores; then he bows slightly, and moves away with a half- formed intention of bribing the musicians to cut short the waltz now playing. " What a beautiful old house this seems to be!*' says Dolores, when he was gone, gazing round her. " Is that the picture gallery down there?" "Yes. Would jou like to see it by. lamp-light? It is DICK'S SWEETHEART. 45 ratner worth looking at when it is lighted as it is at pres- ent." They go slowly toward it, guided by the clear light that streams from its many lamps within and makes quite a little pathway of yellow glare all along the shining oaken floor. " We've been here, you know, for centuries/' says Bruno, as they move leisurely down the almost deserted gallery " that is not exactly Dick or me, you know, but our people; and there is really nothing in the way of ras- cality we haven't done. We are old enough and disreput- able enough for anything. There that cavalier over there with the villainous squint was hanged for piracy on the high seas; and the one beside him was beheaded for murder in some forgotten reign; and the little innocent simpering thing just behind you poisoned her own hus- band because she wanted to marry some other woman's husband. We have been assassins and swindlers for a sufficient length of time to enable us to call ourselves eminently respectable." " I don't think we have any shameful story in our fami- ly," says Dolores, pondering regretfully. " Then take my word for it, you are not half so worthy of regard as we are," says Bruno, laughing. " Look at that old colonel over there! Isn't he like Dick? He is his great-grand-uncle, I think, or something of that sort." " He is like him certainly." " Dick's a good sort, isn't he?" says Bruno, suddenly, turning to look at her. " A very good sort, I should say," she replies, smiling. "You should not force Miss Lome's hand," murmurs Dick's voice behind them. He looks down at Dolores with an amused glance. " Do listeners hear bad of them- selves? I don't believe it," he says. "This is our dance, Miss Lome, I am glad to know." "So soon!" exclaims Bruno. " Well, that was the shortest waltz lever heard them play!" 'It really was, I think," returns Dick, with an inno- cently thoughtful air. Then Dolores lays her hand upon his arm, and goes down the handsome gallery and into the ball-room with him. As she does so, Sir George Bouverie, who has 46 DICK'S SWEETHEART. draggeu nhu*elf away from hie books to " do the civil " to his cousin, the Duchess, exclaims excitedly; " There now who is that with Dick eh, eh? Who is it eh?" " A most sweet face indeed!" says the Duchess earnestly. "That is Miss Lome the latest acquisition to our society here," answers Lady Bouverie, quite pleasantly for her. "A very pretty one," puts in her Grace. " Because so freeh; a year will spoil her," declares Lady Bouverie, in her insolent fashion. " Meantime I admit she is charming. You remember old Mr. Maturin of Greylands? She is his grand-niece, and an heiress." "Is it much?" asked the Duchess. " She will inherit Greylands, we hear, and a consider- able property in the North, and all her aunt Miss Maturing money, which amounts to a good sum." " A desirable wife for some one," remarks her Grace, smiling; "and what a face and figure for an Ophelia or a " She pauses, as though lost in thought. " I hope she will suit Richard," says Lady Bouverie, in her cold measured tones. " He seems very attentive to her. It is the one sensible move I have ever known him make. Her fortune would be of use to him." " He will certainly be open to congratulations if he gains her," observes the Duchess, who was a handsome woman in her time, and has still a weakness for beauty. " So will she, if she gains him,'' returns Lady Bouverie, with some hauteur, to whom even a Duchess in her own opinion is not a superior. But her Grace, lost in abtruse calculations about a projected theatrical enter- tainment to be given at the Castle to propitiate her engaged girl, does not hear her. Here, in this benighted village, where hope seems hopeless, she has seen two faces full of life and happy possibilities; and, even as she thinks this, she sees the third. " Who is that pretty creature over there with er yes, it is your younger son," she says eagerly "a small woman in a queer gown, but with a face full of life, vigor " " That is Mrs. Wemyss," answers Lady Bouverie, dis- approbation in her tones. " She is a widow, though DICK'S SWEETHEART. 47 not * one indeed' a very frivolous person, and much wanting in respect for her elders. 'Fast Ms, I think, the obnoxious modern word that would best describe her." " A very speaking face. What an excellent ' Constantia Neville' she would make!" says the duchess dreamily. " Is she er anybody? Nowadays education and dress so unite the classes that really one doesn't know to whom one is speaking, and one woman looks quite as well as another; though, after all, why should it not be so?" winds up her Grace, who is a large, soft, liberal-minded fraction of humanity. "She married the Honorable George Wemyss, and her father was Lord Brandrum," explains Lady Bouverie tersely. "Bless me! Is that poor Michael Brandrum's daugh- ter?" says the Duchess, for once forgetting stage effects. "I should have known the eyes. What a ' Lady Teazle' she could be. You must present her to me and your niece and that pretty child, Miss Lome, as well. By the bye, your son seems interested in Mrs. Wemyss." "I think your Grace is at fault there," returns Lady Bouverie coldly. CHAPTER V. '* LOOK at those lamps in the garden beyond; how lovely they are! See " leaning eagerly forward " there are people walking up and down! Oh, why shouldn't we go there too?" Their waltz has come to an end, and they Dolores and Bouverie are standing on the balcony, from which the distant, scented, lighted gardens can be seen. "Why not, indeed?" says Dick. "But first I must get something to wrap round you " looking vaguely about him, east and west. " No, no; I hate being muffled up, and the night is BO warm that I can want nothing." "Still, even pretense is necessary, as I promised your aunt most faithfully to take great care of you. And see some providence has supplied me with the means! Let me cover your neck wilu this." " This " is a white silken. 48 DICK'S SWEETHEART. Indian shawl, with long trailing fringes, which is lying on a couch hard by. "Che sard,, sard," pays Dolores, bending her neck to the yoke. "Now you are like a naiad, a river-nymph," sayg Bouverie, gazing at her with tender admiration when he has wound the shawl round her little form; " and those fringes they are the dropping water." " What a fanciful thought!" returns she, with dainty ecorn, though, in truth, she is right well pleased with the compliment. "And the owner of this shawl " doubt- fully " what shall be said to her?'' "To avoid the saying of anything, let us make our es- cape while it is yet possible," says Bouverie, taking her hand and leading her toward the steps that will bring her to the perfumed gardens. As they go down these steps, some old thought occurs to him. " Why is your aunt so careful of you?" he asks slowly. " Because my mother was delicate," says the girl, paus- ing and looking at him with regretful eyes. " She died very young, you see. But " the regret vanishing, and a saucy smile taking its place " I think the principal rea- son is that auntie would be quite miserable unless she were making a fuss about me." She pauses here, plucks a little bit of ivy from the wall, and then says shyly but anxiously, " You like auntie?" " I could hardly say how much," returns the young man, with such simple heartiness as to convince her of his truth. There is an increased sweetness in her face as she turns it to him. "lam glad of that," she says, "because" naively "I want to like you, and I could not if you and Lallie were not friends." "Lallie "is her pet name for Miss Maturiu. " Well, now you may like me as much as ever you will with a pure heart," returns Bouverie, laughing. As he says this, it occurs to him that it is a very pure heart indeed that is looking at him out of those lovely eyes, " Eyes of deep soft lucent hue, Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be gray." DICK'S SWEETHEART. 49 And yet they are gray too, but dark and tender and loving. They have descended the steps, have passed the ivied wall of the house, and have now entered the garden's en- chanted grounds, where " low and long the shadows creep" over great patches of silvery moonshine to lose themselves in quaint small beds filled full with lily flower* arow. " The moon came down the shining stair Of clouds that fleck the summer sky. She kissed thee, saying, ' Child be fair, And madden men's hearts, even as I. Thou shalt love all things strange and sweet.' " Looking at the pale slender little maiden walking beside him, these words involuntarily come to Bouverie's mind. But silence, born of the beauty of the scene around, has fallen upon them both, and mute as the sleeping nature upon which they gaze, they go through the mists of the night. Then some little movement, some catching of her gown by an enormous rose-bush, kills their silence, and, as though not an instant has flown since his last speech, he says slowly " Do you like me?" "You know it," replies she very kindly, and without hesitation or confusion of any kind. " See here" stop- ping to lay her fingers lightly on his arm " I will tell you something! I like you better than anybody I have met since I came here." A sudden and eager desire to kiss the dainty fingers of this dainty speaker is at this moment conscientiously and valorously overcome by Bouverie." "What? Better than Bruno?" he asks, with an affec- tation of lightness, but with real concern. "Pouf yes!" exclaims she, with a dainty foreign gest- ure and the prettiest shrug of her shoulders. " Yet Bruno is more calculated to please a little light- hearted girl like you than I am a dull fellow like me." " Are you dull?" asks Dolores, raising her dark brows. " Base flatterer!" says Bouverie, with a sudden pleased laugh. " Yes, I am very dull, as you will in time dis- cover." "Ah, well, then" with a quaint sweet glance "I know that dull people^ congenial to me! Yet I do no* 50 DICK'S SWEETHEART. know" archly " that your last little speech altogether pleases me. * Birds of a feather,' say they, ' flock to- gether.' If your company suits me, that proves me dull, too; your suggestion is not over-polite; is it?" "There is another proverb," says he, "about 'ex- tremes meeting/' That should explain my seeming rude- ness; and indeed to be rude to you even in thought would require more courage than I possess Who else in this benighted spot has found favor in your sight? You see, I am only too glad to believe your statement that I have at least a small place in your regard." " Many people; but your Cousin Audrey of all my women-acquaintances, I like her best." "You will find yourself alone in that fancy, I think," says Dick, who does not get on with Miss Ponsonby. "No. Auntie likes her too, and and there are others." "Sir Chicksy, for example" with an irrepressible laugh that is suggestive of mockery. " He is very kind-hearted," says Dolores, with a touch of reproof. " I dare say. I wonder if Audrey means marrying him?" "Oh, no, no!" hastily. " Why that emphatic ' no'? She might do worse." " She might do much better. And why marry him if she does not love him?" " To marry without love is that a crime?" "I think so." " It is committed daily then by very estimable people." " Poor things," says Miss Lome, with a gentle sigh. She seems so in earnest in this speech, to feel so deeply the importance of her subject, that Bouverie's eyes seek hers with a swift and rather distasteful curiosity. " What do you know of love?" he asks, with subdued sharpness. "Why, nothing!" returns she slowly. They have passed over the rustic bridge now, and gone beyond the sound of the laughter and the light fall of footsteps; there is a strange seductive calm on everything, broken only by the rapid rush of the stream as it hurries ever onward. It is the "mid-hour of night, when stars are weep- DICK'S SWEETHEART. 51 ing" and the moon's richest rays are cast upon the earth; there is no chill, no damp in all the air, no touch of death in the glad luxuriance of the sleeping flowers. The bridge is passed, and under the dark myrtles they saunter slowly by grinning fauns and leering satyrs and wood-nymphs slim and coy. And now they have come to another little stream that no bridge spans, a tumbling merry baby of a river that divides them from a fairy-like spot which, because unattainable, seems to them even more desirable than those through which they have been wandering. " I wish we could get across," says Dolores, hesitating on the high bank to look longingly over to where the great amber roses are nodding drowsily beneath Diana's mystic rays. " There is a walk that will take us round to the other side, but it is a good deal higher up," says Bouverie; " and it isn't worth while our trying to find it when one spring will land us where we would be. If you will give me your hand, I think it can be done." She has gathered up the tail of her white gown and thrown it over a bare soft arm that is even whiter; her other arm she stretches out to Bouverie. "But what if I were to jump short?" she says nervously, glancing downward somewhat fearfully at the swift stream dancing so blithely in the moonlight. "Trust yourself to me," answers Bouverie assuringly. The words, as he says them, are simple ones, and really mean nothing; but when they are said, it seems as though an echo of them comes back to him fraught with deepest intent. In the strange future that lies before her, to whom will she trust herself? And, if perchance to some one like him like him how will he discharge his trust? And, if to another His fingers close with sudden half angry vehemence over hers. "Come!" he says; and to himself his voice sounds harsh. She leans toward him, still with her eyes upon the mivd little river beneath. " Oh, it is further than I thought!" she says, drawing back a little. Lightly, but with a certain determination, he slips hig arm round her waist and inclines her toward the stream. 58 DICK'S SWEETHEART. " Now spring!" he says. And then, in another moment, she finds herself stand- ing beside him on the opposite bank, untouched by spraj or running water. " Well, you see, you did trust yourself to me!" he is saying, a certain irrepressible gayety in his tone. He is indeed feeling unaccountably, foolishly glad that at the last moment she has not shrunk from him. "So I did. And, after all, there was no cause for fear!" returns she, smiling. Her hand is still lying within his, clasped firmly. She has perhaps forgotten to withdraw it, and he perhaps is in no hurry to release it. As she stands thus before him, with uplifted chin and laughing eyes and dainty slender figure framed in by yellow roses, she is looking even more than beautiful. "Tell me," he says earnestly, "why you hesitated so long about giving me those two dances when we first met to-night?" " If I hesitated," she answers, looking down, and shyly moving a pebble to and fro with the point of her shoe, " it was not not that I did not mean to give them." " Yet you certainly thought twice before granting them. Were they perhaps intended for some other man?" "Oh, no," quickly, " indeed no! You must not think that!" " I did think it. I felt so sure of it for one moment that I was very near accepting your hesitation as a final refusal, and going away heart-broken." " Oh, well," she says, smiling, "lam glad you thought better of it! If " raising her eyes for an instant to his, with a soft glance " if you had taken me at my word, I should have been " " What?" he asks eagerly. " Disappointed," she replies slowly. " I wish I dared to believe that," says Bouverie. " You may. Why" with a little soft embarrassed laugh, " if I must confess it, I had kept them for you! Now you believe?" "To disbelieve wouH cost me too much. Though * fairy gold be all my guio ' -nil I pr**-'- to think as you would have me DICK'S SWEETHEART. 63 " There is little real faith in all that speech," says Miss Lome, with some slight indignation; then suddenly: " Do you know how long we have been here? Hours, it seems to me. Come, let us return." " There is just one thing more," protests he, detaining her. " What was it you would not say to me before Bruno?" "Before Bruno?" " Yes. I had been telling you of my long and fruitless search for you, when you laughed. I asked you why you laughed; but you would not answer me, and only told me to ask you about it some other time. This is 'some other time.' " "Is it?" " Isn't it?" "What a cross-examiner you would make!" retorts she, with a slight shrug. " Well, let me think about it. I believe " looking down "I am not sure, you know, but I suppose" reluctantly "I was wondering where the necessity was for your searching for me at all." "Ah," says Bouverie something in her tone has bitterly offended him "1 dare say it did seem ludicrous to you my anxiety to find you, I mean! It certainly sounds so, as you put it." "Now 1 have made yon angry!" exclaims she, with im- patient penitence. "And why? Simply because I want a reason for your having given yourself very unnecessary trouble about me." " I should think your instinct might have supplied that reason," replies he coldly. "Perhaps I am without instinct then, because I don't know!" declares she petulantly. "At least, I fail to see why it should not seem strange to me, your wasting an hour or so trying to find me." "If one coula not see by your eyes that that certain things were impossible to you, one might," begins he hastily, and then as hastily checks himself. "Regard my conduct as a folly, then, if you will," he says stiffly. " I am sorry if I have vexed you," says Dolores, look- ing at him strangely. " But yet I meant no uukindness none. And I do not think it is a good thing to loge one's temper about nothing; do you?" "But is it about nothing? Do you think I don't want 64 DICK'S SWEETHEART. you to know to understand!" exclaims he, with some suppressed vehemence. Then he grows suddenly calm again. " If I sought you," he says, with deliberation, " it was because I desired to be with you to see, to hear you. That is plain speaking, at all events, and will pre- rent your being puzzled by me in future, or regarding my conduct as 'strange.' But why did you so regard it? Were there " watching her eagerly "no others in your life to whom your presence meant what it does to me?" " A few perhaps," returns she, with slight hesitation a hesitation he misconstrues. " For ' few ' read ' Legion,' " he says brusquely. " Well, and did all their insane devotion wake mirth within your breast?" "No." She is growing a little nervous now, and the blood is changing rapidly beneath her transparent skin. " Many people have been kind to me," she says, " and I do not think any of them, except you, would have called theif attentions to me ' insanity.' And, as for you, it was not 'mirth' I felt that you should give yourself trouble on my account, but only surprise." Then her manner changes altogether. Her nervousness vanishes, she throws up her little stately head with a proud gesture, and turns her eyes full on his. " To get back to the house, is it nec- essary I should cross the stream again?" she asks calmly, without a trace of anger or any undue coldness yet his heart dies within him. " Not unless you wish it. That path I told you of, before we crossed it, will take you even more quickly to the house." " That is fortunate. I have delayed too long,'* she says quietly, turning away from him. For a little while they are silent as they go along the graveled walk; and then, as though unable longer to ab- stain from expression of his fear, he says, in a low voice full of earnest entreaty: "Let there be no coldness between us twol" "Neither now nor at any other time," she says softly, turning to him with a suddeu friendly smile. SWEETHEART. CHAPTER VI. hours are flying on fleet wings. Already the pale early summer morning is showing about the dark hill- tops. The Duchess has twice yawned distinctly, but, with an estimable good-nature, has forborne from leaving, leat a general break-up should follow on her departure. "Any hope that I may have another dance with you?" asks Vyner, coming face to face with Miss Ponsonby in a doorway. "My card is quite full." She has met his eyes for a moment; but now her own are turned contemptuously aside, and it is certainly the wall beyond ahe addresses as she says this not he. "May I see it?" 'Certainly." She lifts the little scented card to her fan, and waves U idly to and fro; for an instant her half- closed lids, insolently lowered, are raised to let the dark, angry beauty of her eyes be seen. " A pretty programme, is it not?" she says. " May I see the inside of it?" " But why? The inside of one card is quite the same as another." " Not always. And I am anxious to see what is written in yours." " You are anxious, in other words, to see whether I am or am not telling a lie!" returns she, with a soft, scornful laugh. "That is an ugly word I All I want to see is what names are on your card." " There is no dance there for you. In that at least you may believe me." "I believe you always. What you mean is that you refuse to give me a dance." " Is it?" She looks bored, and makes a slight move- ment, as if to go into the ball-room. Sir Chicksy, who is with her, moves too. " I suppose you have given my dance away then," gays Vyner, indifferently, drawing back. " I regret very much you should have seen caue to do so." 56 DICK'S SWEETHKJLKT. " Did I give you another? I had forgotten it. If so, J regret my seeming rudeness," returns she, studied dis- like in her tone. Then she sweeps away from him in her swaying, graceful, insolent fashion, and is lost in thi throng of dancers beyond. " What an insolent air that girl has!" says Mrs. Drum* mond, the sugar merchant's daughter, who, with her dear friend Mrs. Dovedale beside her, has witnessed Audrey's dismissal of Vyner. The speaker is a tall, stout, florid woman with a super- abundance of flesh and a toned vulgarity that breaks its bonds occasionally and asserts itself with a triumphant rush. Her companion, Mrs. Dovedale, is as perfect a contrast to her as she Mrs. Dovedale could possibly de- sire. The vicar's wife is a small, fair, childish, innocent- looking little thing, with forget-me-not eyes and a dimpled chin and remarkably thin lips. From those lips, so daintily curved, fall little speeches now and then so wonderfully spiced, so delicately pointed, so cruelly apt, that few care to provoke them. Time has taught her neighbors to treat this pretty little woman with careful respect. Time has also taught them to detest her cordially. Yet, strange to say, there are few people in all Dead marsh so universally feted as quiet Mrs. Dovedale. " Yes, insolent," repeats Mrs. Drummond, with vigor, turning to her companion for corroboration. " And how Mr. Vyner detests her! I have frequently noticed his positive aversion. Haven't you, dear?" " I'm so wretchedly unremarking!" says Mrs. Dovedale, apologetically. " You will see that when I tell you I have often believed him rather attentive to her than otherwise." She does not really believe this; but the knowledge that Mrs. Drummond looks upon Anthony Vyner as a possible suitor for the hand of her daughter Georgina compels her to say it. " You are indeed wanting in penetration if you could think that," says Mrs. Drummond, with a sour smile " such an uninteresting girl as she is, and so reprehensi- ble in many ways! Why, even her own aunt, dear Lady Bouverie, does not countenance her!" " I think she is afraid cf her," remarks Mrs. Dovodale, with an irrepressible bugii. " But, of course, one can DICK'S SWEETHEART. 6? inderstand that she is a trial. Such shocking form, as you say quite inadrnissable!" "I hate a settled coquette!" declares Mrs. Drummond, whose daughter's lover because of Audrey has proved faithless. Here the conversation suffers a slight break, because of Audrey's approach. She passes without vouchsafing either of them so much as a glance of recognition, disappears into a windowed recess near, and sinks upon a cushioned lounge, "Audrey,," says Bruno Bouverie, coming up to her, " the Duchess has expressed a wish that you should be introduced to her." Audrey flushes. She is out of humor, and indeed in one of her very worst moods. "I have expressed no wish to be introduced to the Duchess," she answers sharply, with a frown; and then ghe grows suddenly pale again, and stands erect and defiant, though inwardly shocked at her discourtesy, as the curtains part, and the Duchess herself comes toward her. " Muse I then sue for your friendship?" asks her Grace, with a smile. "I beg your Grace's pardon," said Audrey, slowly, but with a certain hauteur that belongs to her, and so becomes her. "Your desire to know me must, of course, be regarded as an honor, though the desire itself must forever remain a mystery to me." "Tut, child!" returns the Duchess, with an amused glance. "A fair face is ever an introduction in itself, and that yon carry about with you, whether you will or no." "Did you mark that?" says Mrs. Drnmmond exult- ingly. "She can nob be civil even to her Grace." " Hush! the Duchess is talking again," interrupts Httle Mrs. DovedaJe. "I have, besides, a favor to ask of you," her Grace is saying, in her sweetest manner. " My daughter, Lady Florence, has set her heart on getting up some private theatricals whilst staying down here just a short play or two. Will you help her? We want to get up a little company from among our neighbors neve" with a friendly smile "and tour face tells me you will be a OB DICK'S SWEETHEART. great acquisition to our forces if you will consent to join us." This is the very essence of graciousness, and Mrs. Dovedale, watching her friend closely, can see that her face grows pale as she listens. " Audrey can act most parts, from a dairy-maid to a duchess," declares Bruno, with a little saucy laugh and a glance at her Grace. "Very good, then; she shall illustrate me," decides her Grace, smiling. At this Audrey raises her eyes, and a slow, pretty smile widens her lips. "Oh, no," she says; "but you shall make me the dairymaid, or anything else that pleases you!" "I shall promise you a principal part," returns the Duchess kindly. " And there is a little Miss Lome here to-night, and Mrs. Wemyss, whose father was a very old friend of mine; we must get them to join us too. And you must all three give me the pleasure of your company ** the Castle for a week or so, to get things well together " " Di'd you hear that?" demands Mrs. Dovedale, with unpleasant vivacity. "I heard her," says M:s. Drummond, now grown posi- tively livid. "What a pity she didn't ask Georgina too!" murmurs Mrs. Dovedale. " I have no doubt she would have done so had she been brought beneath her notice," says Mrs. Drummond, with dignity. " Eh oh, I don't think Georgina is beneath her no- tice!" protests Mrs, Dovedale, with generous correction. " Even though she is a Duchess, I don't think" with maddening misapprehension "you need say that." " It will be a terrible thing for you, dear, if this slight' deafness grows on you," says Mrs. Drummond tartly and with ill-suppressed rage. " Georgina is a girl whom the queen might delight to honor. I simply meant that the Duchess was unfortunate enough not to see her. Geor- gina is not a bold girl, like some others I could name; she is not one to push herself forward." " I don't think it was that," returns Mrs. Dovedale mildly. " Indeed I know for a fact that the Duchess did *tie her; she took great notice of her," ' DICK'S SWEETHEART. 59 "Dirt she indeed?" exclaims Mrs. Drummond eagerly. " Ah, she would, no doubt! There is something striking about my girl." " Slie spoke of her. I was standing very near her Uraoe at the time, and could overhear what she said," continues Mrs. Dovedale, with a glance at her friend full of the gentlest encouragement. " Yes and what was it you heard, dear?'* asks Mrs. Drummond with a painful but useless effort to appear indifferent. " She said ' Who is that big girl over there with the hopelessly uninteresting face?' " returns the vicar's wife very sweetly. The color flames into the placid cheeks of her com- panion. She turns venomous eyes upon little Mrs. Dove- dale, only to meet the eyes of that small lady calmly bent on her with an expression in them so open, so guileless, so devoid of harmful intention as to disarm the severest sus- picion. " She could not have meant Georginal" says Mrs. Drummond. "I. think she did, because I heard Lady Bouverie say, in answer, ' That is a person called Miss Drummond.'" The " person " does it! It sounds even worse than all that has gone before, and more humiliating. Mrs. Drum- mond grows limp and loses courage, and literally goes down before it. Alas, alas, will no one ever forget about that sugar? And now the final break-up has come. The Duchess has already gone, the carriages are thinning. Dolores is standing in the hall waiting for hers, whilst Bouverie, with slow care, is wrapping her in her cloak of ruby plush. " Awhile since I said you looked like a fairy; I wonder now how I had the courage," says Bouverie, as he strug- gles manfully with the fastenings. "In that royal color you look like a queen. Must you go? How I hate punc- tual servants! One .moment!" sinking his voice to a lover-like whisper, " May I call to-morrow?" " Of course! It is our day, you know; and and I am sure auntie will be very glad to see you." "That assurance pleases me indeed; but there is an- other that if you could give it would please me infinitely more. Will you be srlad^o seg me?" 60 DICK'S SWEETHEART. " I shall indeed!" She says this very softly and with a shy sweet little blush; then " Good-night" holding out her hand to him. "Good-night. Good-bye." ** Until to-morrow" smiling. "That means to-day," returns he quickly, unmistaka- ble happiness on his handsome face. "But a few hour* lie between now and our next meeting.** " Ah, true I had forgotten that!" There is a touch of real pleasure in her tone which sets his heart beating, and brings to his lips words not more ardent than his thoughts, but expressive of a deeper ten- derness than he has dared yet to show. " A few hours," he repeats unsteadily, "will bring me to you again. And until then, and after, and forever, I shall hold you and you only in my heart." Then the carriage door is closed upon her, and her face is hidden purposely turned from him, as it seems to Bouverie, standing remorsefully upon the stone steps, with the chilly morning air beating upon his uncovered head. What madness prompted him to say so much? Has he frightened her? Has she thought him unpardonably rude? And yet what a small, small portion it was of the passionate feeling that is consuming him! Was she angry? Looking down, he catches sight of a pale little blossom lying at his feet. It was hers; she had worn it close to her bosom to-night! It now is his! As though it were some fair messenger of peace from her to him, he lifts it gladly and carries it in-doors and up to his own room. CHAPTER VII. the upper part of the lawn, near the tennis- ground, a good many rugs and pretty garden-chairs are scattered broadcast. Greylands, lying as it does now in the brilliant June sunshine, is at its best, with its wav- ing trees and its glimpse of the cool green sea, its old grey walls and ivied towers. Dolores, in a huge white hat that makes her look like an overgrown fairy, is moving here and there in pretty restless fashion from one viiitor to another, as though last DICK'S SWEETHEART. 61 night's fatigue and late hours are all mere hallucinations df the brain. Her restlessness is perhaps a little feverish, jier gayety somewhat strained; but none except those who iove her would notice it, and, as for the rest, they vote her manner even more than usually charming to-day. The soft dark circles beneath her eyes only render them more rich in pathetic beauty, the two warm touches of carmine on her cheek but serve to throw out the dazzling fairness of her skin. She is gracious, courteous, sympathetic, as ever, yet always her glance turns to that corner of the grounds whence new-comers may be expected. " She is the very prettiest creature I know," says Mrs. Wemyss, with unaffected admiration, turning to Bruno Bouverie, who is lounging beside her. As a rule, he is always lounging beside her. It is a flirtation of such old standing now between these two quite a year in all that people have almost forgotten to gossip about it and wonder over their tea-cups if it will ever come to anything. Cecily Wemyss is a widow, a very young widow, and a very light-hearted one. Indeed, ever since the death of her husband, her spirits have risen to such an abnormal height that it must be uncharitably believed that she was heartily glad to get rid of him. She is small, dark, piquant, a brunette in effect, pur et simple perhaps not very simple with laughing eyes and merry lips, and hair that finds subjugation difficult. "I dare say," says Bruno. "But of whom are you talking?" " Of Miss Lome." " You are right there n with mild enthusiasm *' she is out and out the prettiest girl I know." " Is sher "The prettiest girl 1" returns Bruno, with careful em phasis. "Ah!" says Mrs. Wemyss. Then she laughs a little, and glances at him from under artfully-lowered lids. " That last was clever," she says. She unfurls an enormous black fan and waves it to and fro, to the great discomfiture of a big bumble-bee, which, made dizzy by the storm thus raised, falls heavily, sleepily into her lap, and begins explorations there amongst her laces. There is a tremulous tranquillity in all the air which soothes the senses and cinders speechlessness no 62 DICK'S SWEETHEART. crime, but rather a necessity. Quivering sunbeams are creeping from flower to flower, the swift stream at the foot of the lawn is making sweetest music as it rushes by its shelving banks, where close to " The river's trembling edge There grow broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white." " Still thinking of the most charming being you know?* murmurs Mrs. Wemyss at last, closing her fan with r little snap, and raising two great lustrous eyes to his. " Yes," says Bruno. " She should be flattered. Five, six nay, seven min- utes and all spent on her." " I have spent more time than that on her without awakening any gratitude within her breast." " It is your modesty that makes yon say that. How can you know what thoughts are stirring in her breast?" "I don't believe any thoughts are stirring there; it is too frozen to admit of movement." " Oh, how you malign her!" " Do I? You should know best!" " Then I will prophesy to you that your wooing if you put sufficient heart into it will prosper." "If you can assure me of that, it is the best news I have heard for many a day; yet I have my doubts." " A true lover always doubts. But why should you believe her ungrateful?" " She looks so." " I don't agree with you. I think she looks only happy," says Mrs. Wemyss, with one swift glance at Dolores, wh is laughing merrily. " That is no good sign." " What!" archly. " Would you have your love al- ways on the very verge of despair? That is so like a man! See how much prettier she looks when laughing." " She is not laughing." "How can you say that? What! Has Cupid indeed made you blind?" "I can not see that she is laughing." " Why, where are your eyes?" " On you," says Bruno. " Oh, then, of course you can't see her I" "I can, indeed." persists Bruno. DICK'S SWEETHEART. 63 " Who?" " We were talking of my love, I think, weren't we?" lays Bruno, with an assumption of meekness, but with the most glaring audacity; whereupon they both laugh. " May the goda grant you sense!" f?ays Mrs. Wemyss, with a little scornful tilting of her chin. " And you a kinder mind. Amen!" returns Bruno. " Already it is too kind. It is well I am not of a jealous disposition." " I would you were a trifle more so; it would betoken deeper feeling." "' Out and out the prettiest thing you knewl' " re- proachfully. "If you believed that nonsensical speech, it didn't seem to affect you much." Still more reproachfully " You would have made me over to her with a light heart. Perhaps it would have been an easy way of getting rid of me." " Whose kingdom is so large that she would seek to rid herself of her best possession?" asks she, in a low tone and with an adorable glance. A little shout Irom the triumphant side of the tennis- court breaks upon their left. Then sides are changed, and the game begins again, the abrupt and uncertain noise of the balls falling pleasantly upon the monotonous Bound of nature. "You two always seem to be the happiest people in the world," says Dolores, coming up to them presently and sinking into a seat near Mrs. Wemyss. "I say, Bruno, where is Dick?" asks Vyner, who has also strolled up to them, more in the wake of Audrey Ponsonby than actually with her. " I can't think," answers Bruno. " Perhaps he didn't mean coming." "He did!" says Audrey, who is looking really beauti- ful, but listless and cold as usual. "He told you so perhaps?" asks Vyner, who seems anx- ious in a lazy sort of way to bridge over the unpleasant- ness of last night. "No," returns Miss Ponsonby uncompromisingly, gas- ing not at him, but at something that is not in the "far, far distance." " The information \ vaeue. but full of interest," re 64 DICK'S SWEETHEART. marks Mr. Vyner, unabashed. " It gires us every hope that he has been foully murdered. Miss Ponsonby, the last person who saw him alive, at precisely thirty-five minutes and twenty-one seconds after three A.M., declares on oath that he was then bent on being here early to-day. Has any one telegraphed to Scotland Yard?" " I shouldn't wonder if our beloved mother had sent him all the way to Horton to make some modest pur- chase," says Bruno. " It would be just like her, consid- ering the day is eighty in the shade." "A warm day, indeed, to go so far as Horton!" gays Dolores, lightly. Yet her face had changed at the mention of Dick. Had he kept away purposely? Had he repented him of those few hurried, honeyed words last night? " Here comes Mrs. Dovedale," says Cecily Wemyss, suddenly, "and with herjidus Achates, of course, in all her war-paint. How I detest that Mrs. Drummond and her Georgie! I never know which is the more objection- able of the two." " Or the three," puts in Bruno. " Mrs. Dovedale is to me as objectionable as the others. Her tongue is sharper than the serpent's tooth. See now how tenderly she smiles upon Miss Maturin. I dare say she has taken her in completely, and made her believe her ' altogether such an one as herself.' ' " That would be a simple task," says Dolores, with a fond glance at Miss Maturin, who is smiling her kindest at the vicar's wife. " Auntie is always sure that every one she meets thinks just as she does." Here the vicar's wife leaves Miss Maturin and goes trip- pingly across the lawn to some one for whom she has a barbed arrow in quiver. She is therefore looking her sweetest; and she has a simple little Pompadour gown on her, and a baby hat that suits her " down to the ground." " How very picturesque and idyllic!" says Vyner, softly. " Dear little saint! I wonder what venom lies beneath that simper?" suggests Mrs. Wemyss. "I would not be Mrs. Harconrt at this moment for a good round crown," declares Bruno which certainly is not much of a sum, but is evidently meant to represent a fabulous amount, the verj roundness of it being a guaran* tee of its imwensitj. DICK'S SWEETHEART. 66 ' She's a nightmare," says Vyner; " but still, I think, can hardly hold comparison with her patron in that re- ipect. Oh for that Mrs. Drummond, and oh for her Georgie! Eh ah! How d'ye do, Mrs. Drnmmond? So glad to see you! Your daughter here to-day?" " Yes, over there," answers the matron, blandly. "I'm sure she would be glad if you would see her through a game of tennis. She plays well excellently well, I may say but she i& so nervous! Quite a child in many ways^ I assure you!" " She looks it," murmurs Vyner, tenderly. " By Jove, here's Chicksy!" exclaims Bruno, when Mrs. Drummond has carried herself off. "'Better late than never!' I wonder who makes his clothes? They are the tightest fit I ever saw!" " He dresses himself very well, I think," says Mrs. Wemyss, who is good-natured. " On the principle that 'fine feathers make fine birds,' Well, he is wise!" says Bruno. "Now, I wonder why on earth he wears that eye- glass?" remarks Mr. Vyner, plaintively. " The very mental anxiety connected with the fixing of it, to say nothing of the injury to his sight, must be terribly wear- ing to his constitution!" " Oh, don't fret about him!" says Bruno with tender anxiety. "I assure you it does him no harm; he always takes it out when he wants to see." " He is very clever, is he not?" asks Dolores, in perfect good faith. " He is very well read, I mean, and likely to take honors and that?" At first there is an astonished silence, and then every one laughs involuntarily, forgetful of manners and all the rest of it. Even Audrey, after a swift, curious glance at Dolores, gives way to low but unrestrained mirth. " There is no knowing what he isn't going to take," says Mr. Vyner, with a swift glance at Audrey: " but, in accordance with his appearance, which is charmingly youthful, I should say measles first, after that mumps, and so on. We should be proud to have such an erudite youth in our midst. Do you feel proud, Mrs. Wemyss?" " I'm too meek a woman for that," laughs Mrs. Wemygg. " Pride and I parted company many a day ago, and I Uve felt much more comfortable ever since." As she 86 DICK'S SWEETHEABT. gays thfe she smiles kindly at Audrey, who is moodily trifling with a large moss-rose. " And, after all, it is quite a shame to laugh at Sir Chicksy, because he has more good points than most of us." "He has indeed," says Bruno. "If you mean his elbows and knees; I never saw a man in all my life so oppressed with them. Why, they are all over him!" " Mrs. Wemyss is right," remarks Vyner, with sus- picious gravity. "Let us cease from evil-speaking. Sir Chicksy is not to be despised. He wears good clothes, has money, a title, and no relations; he is considered clever by one very charming young lady, and is the sworn admirer of another I mention no names, so no actions can be taken and is on the whole a very nice girlish boy. I myself regard him with the very keenest veneratioul Have I summed up all those good points you mentioned, Mrs. Wemyss?" "You laugh! But do you know he reads poetry very well indeed?" says Dolores, who is a tender little soul, with whom the absent are always right. " He came up here the other day and read * Locksley Hall ' for auntie And me, and we were quite pleased." The two men look at her, and perhaps at the same mo- ment the same thought runs through both their minds. At all events it is a very kindly glance she gets from each. " He is fortunate at least in having so sweet a cham- pion," says Vyner gently, with a little graceful bend of the head. " He isn't a bad old chap when all is told," acknowl- edges Bruno, with sudden and most unexpected clemency. " Here come the Montgomerys!" cries Mrs. Wemyss suddenly. "I wonder if there is any one in the county that isn't here? I expect," turning with a genial smile to Dolores, "that this is going to be the one popular house in the neighborhood. Mine used to be the general rendezvous; at least," with a glance at Bruno, "boys found it a useful place in which to air their griefs and joys. But now I give in to your aunt, I cede popularity, all to her. I may as well before I must. You see, sub- mission is more honorable than defeat." " What a cowardly sentiment!" laughs Miss Maturin, who has strolled up to them, her heavier duties being at PA end. She ha? indeed longed secretly at heart to bt DICK'S SWEETHEART. 67 with them for an hour or more, silly youth being alwayg dearer to her than sober age. She lays her hand now on Audrey's shoulder, who is nearest to her. " I hope you will all come here just as often as ever you like," she says kindly, with a comprehensive glance. " Not," laughing, 4< that I have any right to invite you. There," indicating Dolores with a slight wave of the hand, " stands the little mistress of Greylands." " Yes, I am the renl chdtelaine. This is but my slave and vassal," retorts Dolores, saucily, but with the proud- est, fondest smile at Miss Maturin. Slipping her hand within her arm, she presses close to her in a little confid- ing, tender fashion. Here the conversation is interrupted by the approach of servants armed with trays and small round tables, and a happy confusion of tea, curagoa, strawberries and cream, cakes, and brandy and soda. " Nothing like soda after being up all night," says Bruno, cheerfully. " Plain," supplements Mr. Vyner, severely. " I don't think I ever saw so many ugly women together as I saw last night," says Audrey, suddenly, without any preface. " I hate unpresentable people!" " I thought all the women shockingly fagoUes. certain- ly," acquiesces Mrs. Wemyss, with a shrug. " But what will you? Beauty is a rare weed, and the art of dressing up to one's style almost unknown." " I liked that queer-colored gown on the Duchess," eays Dolores. "It was old-fashioned, but somehow it guited her. It was a sort of kindness to her complexion, her choosing that color." " What a speech from you!" exclaims Vyner, opening his eyes. " It only shows that the very sweetest of us can sometimes be severe." " Was that severe?" asks Dolores, coloring. " I didn't mean it. But indeed it occurred to me that that in any- thing but that shade she might not look her best!" At this everybody laughs a little. "A bas Us Jesuitesf" says Bruno, with a downward motion of his hands. " What strikes me about the Duchess is this," sayi Mrs. Wemyss " that she makes me feel myself unreal. I am not Cecily Wemyss to her, but only a ' Violet Melrose ' 18 DICK'S SWEETHEART. or a ' Betsy/ as the case may be. It is fatiguing, and productive of a sort of waking nightmare; to go through fife as a perpetual and actual * Betsy ' would be more than weak woman could endure. I wonder what she is going to do with us when she gets us to the Castle?" " I anticipate the worst," says Bruno, gloomily. " Dick treats the whole thing as an immense joke; but I fear he Will find himself in the wrong box." " Oh, there won't be any boxes!" exclaims Sir Chicksy, kindly, who has just joined them. " Jnst a sort of small theater, you know, and quite a plain stage." "