BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX." 
 
 From the North British Review. 
 
 She attempts to show how the trials, perplexities, joys, sorrows, la- 
 bors, and successes of life deepen or wither the character according to 
 its inward bent. 
 
 She cares to teach, not how dishonesty is always plunging men into 
 infinitely more complicated external difficulties than it would in real life, 
 but how any continued insincerity gradually darkens and corrupts the 
 very life-springs of the mind ; not how all events conspire to crush an 
 unreal being who is to be the " example " of the story, but how every 
 event, adverse or fortunate, tends to strengthen and expand a high mind, 
 and to break the springs of a selfish or merely weak and self-indulgent 
 nature. 
 
 She does not limit herself to domestic conversations, and the mere 
 shock of character on character ; she includes a large range of events 
 the influence of worldly successes and failures the risks of commercial 
 enterprises the power of social position in short, the various elements 
 of a wider economy than that generally admitted into a tale. 
 
 She has a true respect for her work, and never permits herself to 
 " make books," and yet she has evidently very great facility in making 
 them. 
 
 There are few writers who have exhibited a more marked progress, 
 whether in freedom of touch or in depth of purpose, than the authoress 
 of "The Ogilvies" and "John Halifax." 
 
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 THE 
 
 WOMAN'S KINGDOM 
 
 A LOVE STORY. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN," "HANNAH," "A BRAVE LADY," 
 
 "MISTRESS AND MAID," "OLIVE," "THE OGILVIES," 
 
 "THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY," &c., &c. 
 
 " Queens you must always be : queens to your lovers ; queens to your husbands 
 and your sons ; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But, alas ! you 
 are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while 
 you abdicate it in the greatest !" JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 1872.
 
 $ e b u a t i o n : 
 
 TO 
 
 MONA MARGARET PATON. 
 
 My little girl ! sweet uncrowned queen 
 
 Of a fair kingdom, dim and far ; 
 Whose budding life 'neath rosy screen 
 Scarce recognizes yet, I ween, 
 
 What lives of other women are ; 
 
 Child, when the burden we lay down, 
 
 Thy tender hands must lift and bear ; 
 The household sceptre and love-crown, 
 Green-wreathed, or hung with dead leaves brown- 
 Take courage. Both are holy wear. 
 
 Better to love than to be loved : 
 
 Better to serve, and serving guide, 
 Than wait, with idle oars unproved, 
 And flapping sail by each breath moved, 
 The turning of life's solemn tide. 
 
 Live, work, and love ; as Heaven assign 
 For heaven, or man, thy sacred part ; 
 
 Ancestress of a noble line, 
 
 Or calm in maidenly decline ; 
 
 But keep till death the woman's heart.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Queens you must always be: Queens to your lovers: Queens to your 
 Imsbands and your sons : Queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. 
 
 But, alas ! You are too often idle and careless Queens, grasping at 
 
 majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest" JOHN 
 RUSKIN. 
 
 THE TWO BISTEB8. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " OH, Edna, I am so tired ! And this is the very dullest 
 place in all the world !" 
 
 " Do you think so, dear ? And yet it was the place you 
 specially wanted to go to." 
 
 A2
 
 10 TUK WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Edna spoke in the soothing yet cheerful tone which all 
 people that is, people like Edna Kenderdine instinctive- 
 ly use towards an invalid ; and, laying down her work 
 she rarely was without some sort of work in her tiny hands 
 looked tenderly and anxiously at her sister. For they 
 were twin-sisters; though, as sometimes happens with 
 twins, so excessively unlike that they would scarcely have 
 been supposed akin at all. 
 
 " You know, Letty dear, that as soon as you began to 
 get better the Isle of Wight was the place you fancied for 
 a change." 
 
 " Yes ; but we might have found many a nicer spot in 
 the Isle of Wight than this Ryde, for instance, where 
 there are plenty of houses, and a good pier, and probably 
 an esplanade. Oh, how I used to enjoy the Brighton es- 
 planade in the days when I was a little girl, and we were 
 rich and happy !" 
 
 " Were we happy then ? I don't remember. But I 
 know I have been quite as happy since." 
 
 " You always are happy," returned the invalid, with a 
 vexed air. "I think nothing in the world would make 
 you miserable." 
 
 Edna winced a little, but she was sitting in the shadow 
 of the window-curtain, and was not seen. " Come, come," 
 she said, "it is of no use quarrelling with me because I will 
 not see the black side of things; time enough for that 
 when we go home to Kensington. Here we are, out on a 
 holiday, with beautiful weather, comfortable lodgings, no 
 school to teach, and nothing in the wide world to do but 
 to amuse ourselves." 
 
 "Amuse ourselves! How can we? We don't know a 
 soul here. In-doors there is nothing to do, and nobody to 
 come and see us ; and out-of-doors there is not a creature 
 to look at or to speak to." 
 
 " I thought we wanted to get out of the way of our fel- 
 low-creatures. Besides, they would not care for us just 
 now. It is not every lodging-house, even, that would 
 have taken us in, and we lately out of scarlet-fever." 
 
 "We need not have told that,"
 
 THK WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 11 
 
 " Oh, Letty ! we must have told." 
 
 "Edna, you are so ridiculously conscientious! I have 
 no patience with you !" 
 
 Edna made no reply ; indeed, it was useless replying to 
 the poor convalescent, whose thin face betrayed that she 
 was at the precise stage of recovery when every thing jars 
 against the irritable nerves, and the sickly, morbid fancy 
 changes its moods twenty times a day. Otherwise, to peo- 
 ple in the somewhat dreary position of these two young 
 school-mistresses driven from their labors in the midst of 
 the half-year by a dangerous fever which had compelled 
 the shutting up of the school, brought the one sister near- 
 ly to death's-door, and the other not far from it by the 
 fatigue of sick-nursing even to them the parlor they sat 
 in was not uncheerful. It was very neat and clean, and it 
 had a large bay-window looking out on a verandah ; beyond 
 that a little garden ; farther, a narrow strip of bright, 
 green, grassy cliff, fringed with a low hedge, where the 
 "white-blossomed sloe" was in full glory, and a pair of 
 robin-redbreasts were building and singing all the day 
 long. Below, at the cliffs foot, the unseen sea was heard 
 to tumble and roll with a noisy murmur ; but far away in 
 the distance it spread itself out in sleepy stillness, shim- 
 mering and glancing in the sunshine of early spring. The 
 sight of it might well have gladdened many a dull heart ; 
 and the breath of it, which came in salt and fresh, though 
 not cold, through the half-open window, might have given 
 health to many a sick soul, as well as body granting that 
 soul to be one of those whom Nature can comfort. It is 
 not every one whom she can. 
 
 Poor Letty was not of those thus comforted. Her eyes 
 looked as sad as ever, and there was a sharp, metallic ring 
 in her voice as she said : 
 
 "I can't imagine, Edna, why you make so much fuss 
 about the fever. You would drive every body away from 
 us as if we had had the plague. This morning I overheard 
 you insisting that the gentleman who wants the opposite 
 parlor should be told distinctly what had been the matter 
 with me. It is very foolish, when I am quite well now."
 
 12 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 "Yes, dear, quite well, thank God !" returned Edna, 
 soothingly. "And the gentleman said he was not in the 
 least afraid ; besides, he was a doctor." 
 
 " Was he, indeed ? A real gentleman, then !" 
 
 " Supposing that a doctor is and he certainly ought to 
 be a real gentleman." 
 
 " Nonsense ! I mean a professional man ; not one of 
 those horrid shop-keepers whose children we have to teach 
 how I hate them all ! And we must go back and be- 
 gin again after midsummer. Oh, Edna, I wish I were 
 dead!" 
 
 " I don't, and I doubt if you do not just this very min- 
 ute. For there is your dinner coming in and you like 
 fish, and you declared you were so frightfully hungry." 
 
 " You are always making fun of me," said the sick sis- 
 ter, half plaintively. Nevertheless she yielded to the in- 
 fluence of that soft, caressing, and yet encouraging tone; 
 her gloomy looks relaxed into a faint smile, and she fell to 
 her simple invalid meal of fried sole and rice-pudding with 
 an appetite that proved she was really getting well, in 
 spite of her despondency and fretfulness. Edna sat by 
 her and ate her own cold mutton with an equal relish ; 
 and then the sisters began to talk again. 
 
 " So, after to-day, we shall not be the only lodgers in 
 the house. How very annoying !" 
 
 "I don't think the new-comers will harm us much. 
 They are likely to be as quiet as ourselves. Besides, they 
 will have a fellow-feeling for us. One of them is also an 
 invalid, and a great deal worse than you, Letty." 
 
 "The doctor?" 
 
 " No ; his brother, whom he has brought here for change 
 of air." 
 
 " Did you see them ? Really, you might have told me 
 all this before. I should have been so glad of any thing 
 to interest me. And you seem to have inquired all about 
 them." 
 
 " Of course I did. It was very important to us whom 
 we had in the next parlor, and probably to them also, in 
 the young man's sickly state. I dare say the brother took
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 13 
 
 i 
 
 as much pains as I did to find out all about his opposite 
 neighbors." 
 
 " Did you see him ?" 
 
 " No ; except his back, which was rather round, and the 
 coat very shabby at the shoulders." 
 
 " He isn't a gentleman, then ?" 
 
 " I can't tell. If he happened to be a poor gentleman, 
 why should not his coat be shabby at the shoulders ?" 
 
 " I don't like poverty," said Letty, with a slight shrug ; 
 and drawing round her the soft, rich shawl, relic of the 
 " happy " days she regretted, when the little twins were 
 expected to be co-heiresses, and not school-mistresses. 
 Those days were dim enough now. The orphans had been 
 brought up for governesses, and had gone out as govern- 
 esses, until difficulties arising, from Letty's extreme beauty 
 on the one hand, and Edna's fond clinging to her sister on 
 the other, they had resolved to make themselves a home 
 by setting up one of those middle-class day-schools which 
 are so plentiful in the immediate suburbs of London. It 
 had done well, on the whole ; at least it had sufficed to 
 maintain them. They were still young women only 
 twenty-six though both, Edna especially, had a certain 
 air of formality and authority which all school-mistresses 
 seem gradually to acquire. But they were, as could be 
 seen at a glance, well-bred, well-educated women ; and, be- 
 sides, Letitia was one of those remarkably handsome per- 
 sons of whom one scarcely sees half a dozen in a lifetime, 
 and about whose beauty there can not be two opinions. 
 You might not fancy her style ; you might have some 
 ideal of your own quite contrary to it ; but if you had 
 eyes in your head you must acknowledge that she was 
 beautiful, and would remain so, more or less, to the last 
 day of her life. Hers was a combination very rarely to 
 be met with ; of form and color, figure and face enough 
 completely to satisfy the artist-eye, and indicate to the 
 poetical imagination plenty of loveliness spiritual beneath 
 the loveliness external. Even her illness had scarcely 
 clouded it; and with her tall figure shrouded in shawls, 
 'her magnificent brown hair cut short under a cap, and her
 
 14 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 graceful hands, white and wasted, lying on her lap, she 
 was " interesting " to the last degree. 
 
 Indeed, to tell the truth, Letty Kenderdine's beauty had 
 been the real hindrance to her governess-ship. Wher- 
 ever she went every body fell in love with her. Mothers 
 dreaded her for their grown-up sons ; weak-minded wives 
 were uneasy concerning their husbands. Not that Letty 
 was the least to blame; she was so used to admiration 
 that she took it all quite calmly. Too cold for passion, 
 too practical for philandering, there was no fear of her ex- 
 citing any unlawful jealousies; and as for regular love- 
 affairs, though she generally had one or more on hand, it 
 was a very mild form of the article. She never "com- 
 mitted " herself. She might have married twenty times 
 over poor tutors, country clergymen, and struggling men 
 of business ; even a few younger sons of good families : 
 but she had, as she said, a dislike to poverty, especially 
 matrimonial poverty. 
 
 "Will the flame that you're so rich in 
 Light a fire in the kitchen, 
 Or the little god of love turn the spit, spit, spit?" 
 
 was the burden of her sweet, smiling refusals, which sent 
 her lovers away twice as mad as they came. But, though 
 she smiled, Letty never relented. 
 
 So, though she had been once or twice on the brink of 
 an engagement, she had never fallen over the precipice ; 
 and as she confided all her difficulties to Edna, and Edna 
 (who had never any of her own) helped her out of them, 
 they came to nothing worse than "difficulties." True, 
 they had lost her a situation or two, and, indeed, had de- 
 termined Edna to the point which she carried out as she 
 did most of her determinations, in her own quiet way 
 the setting up of a school ; but they never weighed seri- 
 ously upon either sister's mind. Only sometimes, when 
 the school duties were hard, Letty would sigh over the 
 comparatively easy days when she was residing in " high " 
 families, well-treated, as somehow she always had been, for 
 there was a grace and dignity in her which compelled re-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 15 
 
 spectful treatment. She would regret the lost luxuries 
 a carriage to drive in and a park to walk in with her pu- 
 pils, large rooms, plenty of servants, and dainty feeding 
 recapitulating all the good things she used to have, bal- 
 ancing them against the ill things she had now, until she 
 fancied she had made a change for the worse ; complained 
 that her present life was not half so pleasant as that of 
 a resident governess, and lamented pathetically over the 
 cause of all what she called "my unfortunate appear- 
 ance." 
 
 Still the fact was patent neither to be sighed down nor 
 laughed down and it had a laughable side Letty was 
 much too handsome for a governess. Too handsome, in- 
 deed, for most of the useful purposes of life. She could 
 not pass anywhere unnoticed ; to send her out shopping 
 was a thing difficult enough, and as for her taking a walk 
 alone in pleasant Kensington Gardens, or the lonely Bromp- 
 ton Road, it was a thing quite impossible. Edna often said, 
 with a queer mixture of perplexity and pride, that her beau- 
 tiful sister was as much trouble to her as any baby. And, 
 invalid as Letty now was, it must be confessed that net 
 without a secret alarm had Edna heard of and made in- 
 quiries about the impending lodgers. 
 
 Letty half guessed this, though she was not very vain ; 
 for she had long become used to her " unfortunate appear- 
 ance;" and, besides, your superlatively handsome people 
 generally take their universally-acknowledged honors as 
 composedly as a millionaire takes his money, or a poet- 
 laureate his crown. When, after Edna's communication 
 respecting the gentleman's shabby shoulders, the two sis- 
 ters' eyes met, Letty broke into an actual smile. 
 
 "How old is he? Are you afraid that something will 
 happen ?" 
 
 " Perhaps. Something of that sort always is happening, 
 you know," said Edna, dolefully ; and then both sisters burst 
 out laughing, which quite restored Letty's good-humor. 
 
 " Come, dear, don't be alarmed. He will not fall in love 
 with me I'm getting too ugly and too old. And as for 
 myself, no harm will come to me. I don't like shabbiness,
 
 1C TUB WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 and of all people alive, the person I should least like to 
 marry would be a doctor. Only fancy having one's hus- 
 band at every body's beck and call out at all hours, day 
 and night ; never able to take me to a party or give me 
 a party at home without being fetched away in the middle 
 of it ; going to all sorts of nasty places and nasty people ; 
 bringing home fevers, and small-pox, and the like oh ! 
 what a dreadful life !" 
 
 " Do you think so ?" said Edna. " Why, when I was a 
 girl I used to fancy that had I been a boy, and could 
 choose my profession, of all professions I should choose a 
 doctor's. There is something in it so grand, and yet so 
 useful. He has so much power in his hands. Such un- 
 limited influence over souls as well as bodies. Of course it 
 would be a hard life nothing smooth or pleasant about it 
 but it would be a life full of interest, with endless oppor- 
 tunities of usefulness. I don't mean merely of saving peo- 
 ple's lives, but of putting their lives right, both mentally 
 and physically, as nobody x but a doctor can do. Hardly 
 even a clergyman could come so near my ideal of the per- 
 fect existence ' he went about doing good.' " 
 
 Edna spoke earnestly, as sometimes, though not often, 
 she was roused to speak, and then her plain little face 
 lighted up, and her tiny form took an unwonted grace and 
 dignity. Plain as she was as noticeably so as her sister 
 was handsome there was a certain character about her 
 in her small firm mouth, and babyish yet determined lit- 
 tle chin in her quick motions and active ways, and es- 
 pecially in her hands, the only decided beauty she pos- 
 sessed which, though they flitted hither and thither, light 
 as snow-flakes and pretty as rose-leaves, had an air of 
 strength, purpose, and practicability which indicated fully 
 what she was this merry, busy-bee-like little woman 
 
 who 
 
 "Gathered honey all the day 
 From every opening flower;" 
 
 but yet, on occasions, could be the very soul of the house- 
 hold the referee, and judge, and decisive voice in all mat- 
 ters, great or small.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 17 
 
 "Edna, you are preaching me quite a sermon," said 
 Letty, yawning. "And I really don't deserve it. Did I 
 ever say I wouldn't marry a doctor ? even this very doc- 
 tor of yours, if he wishes it particularly. I am sure," she 
 added, plaintively, with an anxious glance towards the 
 mirror, " it is time I should make up my mind to marry 
 somebody. Another illness like the last would altogether 
 destroy my appearance." 
 
 " What nonsense you talk !" 
 
 " No, it isn't nonsense," said Letty, with a queer hu- 
 mility. " It is all very well for you, who are clever and 
 can talk, and do things prettily and practically, and make 
 yourself happy in your own way, so that, indeed, it is little 
 matter whether you are ever married or not. But if any 
 body marries me, it will be only^for my appearance. I 
 must make my hay while the sun shines. Heigh-ho! I 
 wish something would happen something to amuse us in 
 this dull place. Do tell me a little more about the new 
 lodgers." 
 
 "I have nothing to tell ; and besides there they are !" 
 
 At that moment, coming round the corner of the house 
 (the Misses Kenderdine's parlor-window had to be passed 
 in reaching the front door), appeared a porter and two 
 portmanteaus, and immediately afterwards a Bath chair. 
 Therein sat a figure so muffled up, in spite of the sun- 
 shiny day, as to awaken a feeling of compassion in any be- 
 holder. 
 
 " Do come away, Letty. It is the sick brother. He 
 may not like to be looked at." 
 
 "But I must look at him. I have not had the least 
 thing to interest me all day. Don't be cross. He shall 
 not see me. I will hide behind the window-curtains." 
 
 And curiosity quite overcoming her languor, she left 
 her easy-chair, and crouched down in a very uncomfortable 
 attitude to watch the proceedings outside. 
 
 " Do come and look too, Edna. I wonder is he a man 
 or a boy ? He has got no whiskers, and he is so very thin. 
 He looks a walking skeleton beside his stout brother. Do 
 saj 7 if that big, awkward man is the brother, the doctor,
 
 18 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 I mean, whom you are so extremely anxious for me to 
 marry." 
 
 " Letty, what foolishness !" 
 
 " Well, I'll promise to think about him if he ever gives 
 me the chance. He does look like a gentleman, in spite 
 of his shabby coat. But, as for the other, you need not 
 be alarmed about him. He seems to have one foot in the 
 grave already. Just come and peep at him. No one can 
 see you, I am sure." 
 
 Edna looked she hardly knew why, unless out of pure 
 compassion. It was a face that any woman's heart, old or 
 young, would have melted over white, wan, with heavy 
 circles under the large eyes, and a drawn look of perma- 
 nent pain round the mouth. One of those faces, so deli- 
 cately outlined, so almost feminine in contour, as to make 
 one say, instinctively, "He must be very like his mother," 
 and to wish likewise that he might always have his moth- 
 er or his wife close at hand to take care of him. For it 
 was undoubtedly one of those sensitive yet passionate 
 faces which indicate a temperament that requires inces- 
 sant taking care of the care that only a woman can take. 
 Though the big brother seemed tender enough. He 
 wrapped him, and lifted him, and talked to him gently, as 
 if he had been a child. Something touchingly child-like 
 the poetic nature is always young was in the poor fel- 
 low's looks, as he wearily obeyed ; doing all he was told 
 to do, though every movement seemed a pain. 
 
 " I wonder what his illness has been," said Edna, won 
 into a sympathy that deadened even her sense of proprie- 
 ty. " Not consumption, I fancy. I should rather say he 
 was just recovering from rheumatic fever." 
 
 " Never mind his illness. What do you think of himself ?" 
 
 " I think it is one of the most interesting faces I ever 
 saw. But if ever I saw death written in a face Poor 
 fellow and so young, too!" 
 
 " Not much above twenty, certainly." 
 
 "There, he has turned, and is looking right in at our 
 window. Come away you must come, or he will cer- 
 tainly sec you, Lctty !"
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 19 
 
 It was too late. He had seen her; for the poor sensi- 
 tive youth started violently, and a sudden flush came over 
 his wan cheek. He drew back hastily, and pulled his fur 
 cap closer down over his face. 
 
 Edna rose quickly and shut the Venetian blind. " It is 
 cruel absolutely cruel to stare at a person who is in 
 that sickly, nervous state. How angry I should have 
 been if any body had done it to you when you were ill ! 
 and I am certain he saw you." 
 
 " POOK FELLOW AND 8O YOUNG, TOO !" 
 
 "Never mind: the sight is not so very dreadful; it 
 won't kill him, probably," laughed Letty, whose spirits 
 had quite risen under this unwonted excitement. "Per- 
 haps it will even do him good, if he wants amusement as 
 much as I do ; and he need not excite your sisterly fears : 
 he won't fall in love with me. He is too ill to think of 
 any body but himself." 
 
 " Poor fellow !" again said Edna, with a sigh. 
 
 She was too well accustomed to her sister's light talk to 
 take it seriously, or indeed to heed it at all. People cease 
 to notice the idiosyncrasies of those they have been accus-
 
 20 THE WOMAN 8 KINGDOM. 
 
 tomed to all their life. Probably, if any other young 
 woman had talked as Letty did, Edna would have disliked 
 it extremely; but she did not mind Letty it was her 
 way. Besides, she was her sister her own flesh and 
 blood, and the two loved one another dearly. 
 
 Shortly the slight bustle in the hall subsided, the Bath 
 chair was wheeled empty away, and a confusion of foot- 
 steps outside indicated that the sick man was being car- 
 ried up stairs by the brother; then the house sank into 
 silence. 
 
 Edna drew up the blind, and stood gazing out medita- 
 tively upon the sunshiny sea. 
 
 " What are you thinking of?" Letty asked. 
 
 " Of that poor fellow, and whether this place will do 
 him any good whether he will live or die." 
 
 " The latter seems most likely." 
 
 " Yes ; and it seems to me so sad, especially " and her 
 voice sank a little " especially since, thank God ! we 
 have passed through our time of terror and are safe again. 
 So very sad, with every thing outside bright and happy ; 
 trees budding, birds singing, the sky smiling all over, and 
 the sea smiling back at it again, as if there was no such 
 thing as death in the world. How the brother's heart 
 must ache through it all !" 
 
 " The big brother the doctor you mean ?" 
 
 "Yes; and, being a doctor, he must hnow the truth 
 that is, if it is to be if the young man is not likely to 
 recover." 
 
 " Yet the doctor seems cheerful enough. As it sounded 
 outside in the hall, I thought I never heard a more cheer- 
 ful voice." 
 
 "People often speak cheerfully they are obliged to 
 learn to do it when " Here Edna suddenly stopped. 
 It was not wise to enlighten Letty, still an invalid, upon 
 her own sad sick-room experience. "But things may be 
 more hopeful than we suppose. Nevertheless, I am very 
 sorry for our new neighbors for them both." 
 
 " So am I. We must ask the landlady all about them 
 when she brings in ten."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 21 
 
 But though, in her extreme dearth of outside interests, 
 Letty's curiosity became so irresistible that she hurried 
 on the tea by half an hour, her inquiries resulted in very 
 little. 
 
 Mrs. Williams knew no more of her new inmates than 
 most sea-side landladies do of their lodgers. The gentle- 
 men had come from the inn ; they were named Stedman 
 Dr. and Mr. Stedman and she rather thought they 
 were from London. "As the ladies also lived in London, 
 perhaps they might know something about them," sug- 
 gested the simple island woman, who was quite as eager 
 to get as to give information, for she owned to being rath- 
 er sorry she had taken them in. 
 
 "Why Tasked Edna. 
 
 "I do believe the young gentleman is only brought here 
 to die; and death is such a bad thing to happen in any 
 lodgings." 
 
 " Nay, we will hope for the best. This fine, pure air 
 may restore him. See how strong my sister is getting." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, miss ; and so I told his brother. I wished 
 he could have seen how wonderfully the young lady had 
 picked up since she came. And he said, 'Yes, she didn't 
 look a bit like an invalid now.' " 
 
 " Had he seen me ?" asked Letty, half smiling. 
 
 " I don't know, miss ; but he has got sharp, noticeable 
 eyes real doctor's eyes." 
 
 " Oh !" said Letty, and subsided into silence. 
 
 "Does he seem very anxious about his sick brother?" 
 Edna inquired. 
 
 "Ay, sometimes, to judge by his look. But he talks 
 quite cheerful-like. Just hark ! you can hear 'em a-laugh- 
 ing together now." 
 
 " How I wish we had any thing to make us laugh !" 
 sighed Letty, when the door closed ; and the important 
 event of tea being over, she relapsed into her former dull- 
 ness, leaned back again in her easy-chair, letting her hands 
 fall drearily on her lap such soft, handsome, idle, helpless 
 hands. 
 
 " Shall I read ?" said Edna, with an anxious glance at
 
 22 
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 the clock. It was 
 too late to go out, 
 and it was many 
 oh ! so many hours 
 till bed-time. 
 
 " You know I 
 never cared for 
 reading, especial- 
 ly poetry books, 
 which are all you 
 brought with us." 
 "Shall I try to 
 get a novel from 
 the library ?" 
 
 " Threepence a 
 volume, and you'll 
 grumble at the ex- 
 travagance, and I 
 shall be sure to go 
 to sleep over it too. 
 Well, I think I will 
 lie down and sleep 
 a little, for I am so 
 tired I don't know 
 what to do." 
 
 She rose, walked once or twice across the room, looking 
 most majestic in her long, soft, flowing draperies for it 
 was twenty years ago, and women's draperies were both 
 graceful and majestic then: with her large lovely form 
 and classical face she was the personification of Tenny- 
 son's line 
 
 "A daughter of the gods: divinely tall, 
 
 And most divinely fair." 
 
 And when she lay down, she idealized the common horse- 
 hair lodging-house sofa by an outline most artistically 
 beautiful fit for a sleeping Dido or dying Cleopatra. 
 Such women nature makes rarely, very rarely ; queens of 
 beauty, crowned or uncrowned, who instinctively take 
 their places in the tournament of life, and "rain influ- 
 
 A. DATJGHTEB OF TUB GODS.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 23 
 
 ence," whether consciously or not, to an almost fearful ex- 
 tent upon us weak mortals, especially men mortals, who, 
 even the best of them, are always prone to reconstrue the 
 dogma that the good is necessarily the beautiful, and to 
 presuppose the highest beauty to be the highest good. 
 
 But this is wandering into metaphysics, of which, how- 
 ever she might be the cause of them in others, there cer- 
 tainly was no trace in Letty Kenderdine. She lay down 
 and made herself comfortable, or rather was made com- 
 fortable by her sister, with shawls and pillows ; then she 
 fell sound asleep, like any other mortal woman, breathing 
 so peacefully and deeply that, if it would not utterly de- 
 stroy the romance about her, I feel bound to confess she 
 almost snored. 
 
 Edna sat beside her till certain of her repose, and then 
 crept softly away. Not for idleness, and not for pleasure, 
 though the sweet evening tempted her sorely, with its 
 sunset of rose and gray, its fresh sea-breeze, and, as is 
 found along most of the south coast of England, and, es- 
 pecially the Isle of Wight, its delicious mingling of sea 
 and country pleasures. Above the lapping of the tide on 
 the beach below was heard the good-night warble of the 
 robins and the deep note of the thrash ; and besides the 
 salt sea smell there was an atmosphere of trees budding 
 and flowers blossoming, giving a sense of vague delight, 
 and tender foreboding of some unknown joy. 
 
 It touched Edna ; she could not tell why, except that 
 she loved the spring, and this was the first April she had 
 spent out of London for several years; scarcely since 
 those dimly-remembered years of their country house in 
 Hampshire, which, to her, balanced Letty's memories of 
 the Brighton esplanade. One had been the summer, the 
 other the winter residence of the rich merchant, who, ab- 
 sorbed in money-making, and losing fortune and life to- 
 gether, had left no remembrances to his motherless twin- 
 girls but these. 
 
 They recurred at times, each in their turn, and to each 
 sister according to her nature. To Edna at this moment 
 came a rush of the old child-life the pony she rode a
 
 24 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 
 
 pretty little gentle thing, loved like a human companion ; 
 a certain stream, which danced through a primrose wood, 
 and over which dragon-flies used to skim, and where end- 
 less handfuls of king-cups grew ; an upland meadow, yel- 
 low with cowslips Edna could smell the odor of it yet. 
 
 " How I should like to make another cowslip-ball ! I 
 believe I could do it as well as ever. I wonder if cow- 
 slips grow anywhere about here !" 
 
 And then she smiled at the silliness of a school-mistress 
 wanting to make cowslip-balls, and wondered at the fool- 
 ish feeling which came over her in her monotonous life; 
 and why it was that, just rising up out of the long strain 
 of anxiety, her heart was conscious of a sudden rebound 
 a wild longing after happiness: not merely the busy con- 
 tent of her level life, but actual happiness. In picturing 
 it, though it was very vague too and formless, she, how- 
 ever, did not picture the usual sort of happiness which 
 comes most natural at her age. Unlike her sister, no lov- 
 ers had ever troubled Edna's repose. In the dull city 
 family where she had been governess ever since leaving 
 school no such things were ever thought of; besides, Edna 
 was plain, and knew it felt it too perhaps all the keener 
 for her sister's beauty and her own intense admiration of 
 the same. No ; Edna Kenderdine was not a marrying 
 woman. She herself was convinced she would be an old 
 maid, and had laid her plans accordingly ; and mapped 
 out her future life with a quiet acquiescence in, and yet a 
 full recognition of alas ! what woman was ever without 
 that ? its sad imperfectness. 
 
 Thus her ideal of happiness was not love, or, at least, not 
 consciously, and certainly not love on her own account. 
 This golden dream this seeming height of complete 
 felicity was thought of with reference to Letty alone. 
 For herself, she hardly knew what she wanted ; perhaps 
 a better school, more pupils, and these of a higher class, 
 for it was hard and thankless work trying to make lit- 
 tle common girls into little gentlewomen. Or possibly 
 though to that El Dorado Edna scarcely dared to lift her 
 eyes some extraordinary windfall of fortune a legacy,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 25 
 
 or the like which would forever lift her out of the neces- 
 sity of keeping school at all, and enable her to set up a 
 cottage in the country ever so small, she did not care, so 
 that it was only in the country, and had a garden to it, 
 and fields around it, where she might do as she liked all 
 day long, without being haunted by the necessity of 
 school-teaching, or by that dread of the future, of break- 
 ing down helpless in the midst of her career, which, since 
 the fever time, had often painfully pursued her. She her- 
 self, though not exactly ill, had been very much enfee- 
 bled ; and probably it was this weak condition of body 
 which made the little woman mentally less brave than 
 usual ; caused her to long, with a sore yearning, not mere- 
 ly to be sheltered from evil, but to have her dull life turn- 
 ed into brightness by some absolute tangible good. 
 
 So, while Letty slept the sound, healthy sleep of which 
 her easy temperament never made any difficulty Edna 
 stood looking out on the twilight sea, still thinking 
 thinking till the tears came into her eyes, and rolled 
 slowly down. 
 
 They were soon wiped away not dashed off, but qui- 
 etly wiped away with a resolute hand. She could not 
 have repressed them, they would have choked her; but 
 she could help indulging in them, taking a sentimental 
 pleasure over them, or exalting them into a real grief. 
 Alas ! she knew what real grief was when Letty was at 
 the crisis of scarlet-fever. 
 
 " No ! I'll not cry it's wicked ! What have I to cry 
 about ? when my sister is nearly well, and we shall -be 
 able to gather the school together very soon, and mean- 
 time we have enough money to last us, and no other 
 cares. There is much more to be thankful for than afraid 
 of. And now, before she wakes, let me see exactly how 
 we stand." 
 
 She took her little writing-desk to the window, that she 
 might catch the utmost of the fading light, and with one 
 anxious glance at the sofa, set herself to a piece of work 
 which always fidgeted Letty the balancing of her week- 
 ly accounts. Nominally the sisters. kept these week and 
 
 B
 
 26 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 week about; but Letty's week was always behindhand, 
 and caused her such distress that gradually Edna took 
 the whole upon herself a very small whole; a ledger 
 that a man and a millionaire, or even a petty merchant, 
 would have laughed at, and wondered how it could pos- 
 sibly make the womanish head ache and the womanish 
 heart beat, as it did many a time. For Edna was no 
 genius at arithmetic ; besides, hers was not the amateur 
 masculine arithmetic, worked upon paper, in thousands 
 and tens of thousands, though the total, be it loss or gain, 
 affects little the current expenses of daily life since in 
 this strange commercial world of ours a man may risk or 
 lose a quarter of a million, or go through a bankruptcy or 
 two, yet still keep his carriage, and eat his diurnal dinner 
 -just as handsome a dinner as ever though oftentimes 
 the appetite brought to it must be small. 
 
 But Edna's arithmetic was a different thing. To her a 
 balance on the one side or other of that tiny page implied 
 an easy mind and a gay heart, or else well, it implied 
 want of needful clothes, of household comforts, perhaps 
 even of sufficient food. Only want the sacrifice of 
 things pleasant and desirable. That other alternative, 
 debt, in all its agonies, humiliation, and terrors, these 
 poor school-mistresses knew not: never would be likely 
 to know, since, opposite as their characters were, the two 
 Misses Kenderdine had one grand point in common they 
 would have starved rather than have owed any man a 
 half-penny. 
 
 So poor little Edna sat at her task; and it was a task, 
 for she did not like it any more than she liked school- 
 teaching ; but Letty liked it still less than she, and since 
 it had inevitably to be done, of course Edna had to do it. 
 This was the law of their life together, and always had 
 been. 
 
 She sat, her head propped on her two hands, quite ab- 
 sorbed. Pathetically so, for she could not make her ac- 
 counts meet ; there was a half-crown gone a-missing some- 
 where; and a half-crown was an important sum to her, 
 poor thing ! Not for itself, but for what it represented
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 27 
 
 a fortnight's butter, or a pair of gloves for Letty, or some- 
 thing else that otherwise would require to be done with- 
 out. She racked her brains to remember how she had 
 spent it, added up the conflicting columns of figures again 
 and again, and counted and re-counted the contents of her 
 two purses one for current coin, the other the grand re- 
 ceptacle of the family income. 
 
 Vain, vain ! Poor Edna could not make matters right. 
 Her head burned, her brow throbbed she pushed her 
 hair back from it with trembling fingers she was very 
 nearly crying. 
 
 It was a small thing a silly thing almost; but then 
 she had been weakened by anxiety and fatigue, and do 
 what she could, the future rose up before her darker, and 
 reasonably darker than it had ever done before. What if 
 the pupils, scared by fever, should not readily return? 
 What if she and her sister were to be left with a house on 
 their hands, the rent to be paid, the servant to be kept, 
 and nothing to do it with? That morbid dread of the fu- 
 ture that bitter sense of helplessness and forlornness 
 which all working-women have at times, came upon Edna, 
 and made her think with a strange momentary envy of 
 the women who did not work, who had brothers and fa- 
 thers to work for them, or at least to help them with the 
 help that a man, and only a man, can give. 
 
 And then looking up, for the first time for many min- 
 utes, Edna became aware of two eyes watching her, rest- 
 ing on her with such an expression of kindliness and pity, 
 the sort of half-amused pity that a man would show to a 
 troubled and perplexed child, that this poor child she 
 was strangely young still in many ways looked fearless- 
 ly back into them, almost with a sort of appeal, as if the 
 observer had been an authorized friend, who could have 
 helped her did he choose. But the moment after she 
 drew back, exceedingly annoyed ; and the gazer also drew 
 back, made a slight apologetic half-bow, then blushed vio- 
 lently all over his face, as if conscious that he had been 
 doing a most unwarrantable and ungentlemanly thing, rose 
 from his bench by the window, and walked hastily away.
 
 28 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 As he turned, by the broad stooping shoulders and well- 
 worn coat rather than by the face, which she had not seen 
 until now, being so attracted by the face of the invalid 
 brother, Edna recognized the doctor, Dr. Stedman. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THIS will be a thorough "love" story. I do not pre- 
 tend to make it any thing else. There are other things in 
 life besides love; but every body who has lived at all 
 knows that love is the very heart of life, the pivot upon 
 which its whole machinery turns; without which no hu- 
 man existence can be complete, and with which, However 
 broken and worn in part, it can still go on working some- 
 how, and working to a comparative useful and cheerful 
 end. 
 
 An author once wrote a book of which the heroine was 
 supposed to be painted from a real living woman, whose 
 relations were rather pleased than not at the accidental 
 resemblance. " Only," said they, with dignified decorum, 
 " in one point the likeness fails ; our Anastasia was never 
 in love with any body." " Then," replied the amused au- 
 thor, " I certainly can not have painted her, for she would 
 have been of no use to me ; such an abnormal specimen of 
 humanity is not a woman at all." 
 
 No. A life without love in it must of necessity be an 
 imperfect, an unnatural life. The love may be happy or 
 unhappy, noble or ignoble, requited or unrequited ; but it 
 must be, or have been, there. Love absolute. Not mere- 
 ly the tie of blood, the bond of friendship, the many close 
 affections which make existence sweet ; but the one, clos- 
 est of all, the love between man and woman which is the 
 root of the family life, and the family life is the key to 
 half the mysteries of the universe. 
 
 And so, without disguise of purpose, and rather glorying 
 in the folly, if folly it be, I confess this to be a mere love- 
 tale, nothing more. No grand " purpose " in it, no dra- 
 matic effects scarcely even a " story ;" but a few pages
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 29 
 
 out of the book of daily life, the outside of which looks oft- 
 en so common and plain; and the inside but One only 
 reads that. 
 
 Under Mrs. Williams's commonplace unconscious roof 
 were gathered these four young people, strangers to one 
 another, and ignorant of their mutual and individual des- 
 tinies, afterwards to become so inextricably mingled, tan- 
 gled, and crossed. The like continually happens ; in fact 
 it must, in most cases, necessarily happen. The first 
 chance-meeting, or what appears chance ; the first indiffer- 
 ent word or hap-hazard incident from these things do al- 
 most all love-stories date. For in all true marriages now, 
 as in Eden, the man and woman do not deliberately seek, 
 but are brought to one another ; happy those who after- 
 wards can recognize that the hand which led his Eve to 
 Adam was that of an invisible God ! 
 
 But this only comes afterwards. No sentimental pre- 
 monitions weighed on the hearts of any of these, the two 
 young men and two young women, who had, each and all, 
 their own lives to live, their own separate cares and joys. 
 For even if blessed with the closest bonds of fraternity, 
 every soul is more or less alone, or feels so, till the magic 
 other soul appears, which, if fate allows, shall remove soli- 
 tude forever. There may or may not be a truth in the 
 doctrine of love at first sight, but it is, like the doctrine 
 of instantaneous conversion, too rarely experienced to be 
 much believed in. Ordinary men and women walk blind- 
 fold to the very verge of their fate, nor recognize it as fate 
 till it is long past. Which fact ought to be, to both young 
 folks and their guardians, at once a consolation and a 
 warning. 
 
 Edna, when, immediately after the doctor's disappear- 
 ance, the entrance of candles awakened Letty, told her sis- 
 ter frankly, and with considerable amusement, of the stead- 
 fast stare which for the moment had annoyed her. 
 
 "At least, I should have been annoyed had it been you, 
 Letty. But with me of course it meant nothing ; merely 
 a little harmless curiosity. Certainly, as Mrs. Williams 
 says, he has thorough 'doctor's eyes.' They seem able
 
 30 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 to see every thing. As a doctor ought to see, you 
 know." 
 
 "And what color were they, and what sort of a face was 
 it altogether?" 
 
 " I really can not tell. A nice, kindly sort of face, and 
 that is all I know." 
 
 "But, Edna, if I am to marry him you ought to know. 
 So look hard next time, and tell me exactly what he is 
 like." 
 
 " Very well," said Edna, laughing ; thankful for any 
 little joke that lightened the heavy depression which was 
 the hardest thing to contend with in Letty's present state. 
 And then she took to her work and forgot all about it. 
 Not until, after putting her sister to bed, she came down 
 again for one quiet hour, to do some needful sewing, and 
 institute a last and finally successful search among the odd 
 corners of her tired brain for the missing half-crown, did 
 Edna remember the doctor or his inquisitive stare. 
 
 " I wonder if he noticed what I was doing, and whether 
 he thought me silly, or was sorry for me. Perhaps he is 
 good at arithmetic. Well, if there could be any advan- 
 tage in having a man belonging to one, it would be to 
 help in adding up one's weekly accounts. I shall advise 
 Letty to make that proviso in her marriage settlement." 
 
 While the sisters thus summarily dismissed the question 
 of their new neighbors, their neighbors scarcely thought 
 of them at all. Dr. Stedman sat by his brother's bedside, 
 trying by every means he could think of to make the weary 
 evening slip by, without forestalling the burden of the 
 still heavier night. He talked ; he read a little out of an 
 old Times first the solid leaders, and then a criticism on 
 the pictures forthcoming in the Royal Academy Exhibi- 
 tion, till, seeing the latter excited his patient too much, he 
 ingeniously shortened it, and went back to the heavy de- 
 bates and other masculine portions of the newspaper. But 
 in all he did, and earnestly as he tried to do it, there was 
 something a little clumsy, like a man and one who is al- 
 together a man not accustomed to women's society and 
 influence. There was nothing rough or untender about
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 31 
 
 him ; nay, there was exceeding gentleness in his eyes and 
 voice ; he tried to do his very best ; but he did it with a 
 certain awkwardness that no invalid could help feeling in 
 some degree, especially such a nervous invalid as this. 
 
 The two brothers were very unlike as unlike as the 
 two sisters who sat below stairs. And yet there was a 
 curious " family " expression ; the kindred blood peeping 
 out, pleadingly, amidst all dissimilarities of character and 
 temperament. The younger was dark ; the elder fair. 
 The features were not unlike, but in one face delicate and 
 regular; in the other, large and rugged. The younger 
 had apparently lived altogether the student's life ; while 
 the elder had been knocked about the world, receiving 
 many a hard hit, and learning, in self-preservation, to give 
 a hard hit back again if necessary. Besides, an occasional 
 contraction of the brow, and a slight projection of the un- 
 der lip, showed that the doctor had what is called " a tem- 
 per of his own ;" while his brother's expression was alto- 
 gether sweet, gentle, and sensitive to the last degree. 
 
 As he lay back on his pillow for he had been put to 
 bed immediately you might have taken him for a boy of 
 seventeen, until, looking closer into the thin face, you 
 read there the deeper lines which rarely come under the 
 quarter-century which marks the first epoch in a man's 
 life. No; though boyish, he was not a boy; and though 
 delicate-looking, not effeminate. His was the tempera- 
 ment which we so ardently admire in youth, so deeply 
 pity in maturer years the poetic temperament half mas- 
 culine, half feminine capable of both a man's passion and 
 a woman's suffering. Such men are, as circumstances 
 make them, the angels, the demons, or the martyrs of this 
 world. 
 
 He lay restless, but trying hard to be patient till the 
 light failed and his brother ceased the reading, which was 
 not specially interesting, being done in a slightly formal 
 and monotonous voice, like that of a person unaccustomed 
 to, and not particularly enjoying the occupation. 
 
 "That will do, Will. It's really very good of you to 
 stay in-doors with me all this evening ; but I don't like it.
 
 32 THE WOMANS KINGDOM. 
 
 I wish you would go out. Off with you to the beach. Is 
 there a good beach here ?" 
 
 "A very fine one. You shall see it by-and-by." 
 
 " Nay, my Bath chair could never get down these steep 
 cliffs." 
 
 " Do you think I mean you to spend all your days in a 
 Bath chair, Julius, lad ?" 
 
 "Ah, "Will, shall I ever do without it ? Tell me, do you 
 really, candidly, in your honest heart you're almost too 
 honest for a doctor, old boy believe that I shall ever 
 walk again ?" 
 
 The doctor turned and gave him a pat on the shoulder 
 his young brother, five or six years younger than him- 
 self, which fact had made such a vital difference once, and 
 the fatherly habits of it remained still. There was a cu- 
 rious twitching of his mouth, which, though large and 
 firm, had much lurking softness of expression. He paused 
 a minute before speaking, and then said, earnestly : 
 
 " Yes, I do, Julius. Not that I know it for certain ; but 
 I believe it. You may never be quite as strong as you 
 have been ; rheumatic fever always leaves behind great 
 delicacy in many ways ; but I have known cases worse 
 than yours which ended in complete recovery." 
 
 " I wish mine may be, if only for your sake. What a 
 trouble I must have been to you ! to say nothing of ex- 
 pense. And you just starting for yourself too." 
 
 " Well, lad, it didn't matter it was only for myself. 
 If I'd had a wife, now, or half a dozen brats. But I had 
 nobody not a single 'responsibility' except you." 
 
 "And what a heavy responsibility I have been ! Ever 
 since you were fifteen I must have given you trouble with- 
 out end." 
 
 " Pleasure, too, and a deal of fun the fun of laughing 
 at you and your vagaries, though I couldn't laugh you out 
 of them. Come, don't be taking a melancholy view of 
 things. Let's be jolly." 
 
 But the mirth came ponderously out of the big fellow, 
 whose natural expression was evidently grave an enemy 
 might have called it saturnine. And Dr. William Sted-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 33 
 
 man looked like a man who was not likely to go through 
 the world without making some enemies, if only from the 
 very honesty which his brother spoke of, and a slight want 
 of pliability not of sympathy, but of the power of show- 
 ing it which made him a strong contrast to his brother, 
 besides occasionally jarring with him, as brothers do jar 
 against brothers, sisters against sisters, friends against 
 friends not meaning it, but inevitably doing it. 
 
 " I can't be jolly, Will," said Julius, turning away. 
 " You couldn't, if you had my pains. Ah me ! they're be- 
 ginning again they always do at night. I think Dante 
 Avould have invented a new torment for his Inferno if he 
 had ever had rheumatic fever. How mad I was to sit that 
 week painting in the snow !" 
 
 " Let by-gones be by-gones, Julius. Never recall the 
 past except to mend the future. That's my maxim, and 
 I stick to it, though I. am a stupid fellow you're the 
 bright one of us two." 
 
 "And what good has my brightness done me? Here 
 I am, tied by the leg, my profession stopped so far as it 
 ever was a profession, for you know nobody ever bought 
 my pictures. If it had not been for you, Will, what would 
 have become of me ? And what will become of me now ? 
 Well, I don't care." 
 
 " 'Don't care' was hanged," said the elder brother, sen- 
 tentiously ; " and you'll be hung, and well hung, I hope,.in 
 the Royal Academy next year." 
 
 The threadbare joke, so solemnly put forward and 
 laughed at with childish enjoyment, effected its purpose 
 in turning the morbid current of the sick man's thoughts. 
 His mercurial and easily-caught fancy, which even illness 
 could not destroy, took another direction, and he began 
 planning what he should do when he got well the next 
 picture he should paint, and where he should paint it. 
 His hopes were much lower than his ambitions, for his 
 bias had been towards high art, only his finances made 
 it impossible to follow it. And, perhaps, his talent it 
 scarcely reached genius was more of the appreciative 
 than the creative kind. Yet he loved his art as well as he 
 
 B2
 
 34 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 loved any thing, and in talking about it he almost forgot 
 his pains. 
 
 " If I could only get well," he said, " or even a little 
 better, I might find in this pretty country some nice usable 
 bits, and make sketches for my next year's work. Per- 
 haps I might do a sea-piece : some small thing, with fig- 
 ures in it a fisherman or a child. One could study from 
 the life here without ruination to one's pocket, as it used 
 to be in London. And, by-the-bye, I saw to-day a splendid 
 head, real Greek, nearly as fine as the Clytie." 
 
 " Where ?" 
 
 " Here at the parlor-window?' 
 
 The elder brother smiled. "You are always discover- 
 ing goddesses at parlor-windows, and finding them very 
 common mortals after all." 
 
 " Oh, I have done with that nonsense," said Julius, with 
 a vexed air; adding, rather sentimentally, "my day is 
 over I shall never fall in love again." 
 
 " Not till the next time. But this head ? I conclude it 
 was alive, and had a woman belonging to it ?" 
 
 " Probably, though I only saw the head. Are there any 
 lodgers here besides oui-selves ?" 
 
 " Two ladies possibly young ladies ; but I really did 
 not think of asking. I never was a ladies' man, you know. 
 Shall I make inquiries on your account, young Lothario?" 
 
 " Well, you might, for I should like a chance of seeing 
 tjiat head again. It would paint admirably. I only wish 
 I had the luck of doing it when I get well." 
 
 "When I get well" the sad, pathetic sentence often 
 uttered, often listened to, though both speaker and listener 
 know by instinctive foreboding that the "when" means 
 " never." Dr. Stedman might have shared this feeling in 
 spite of his firm " I believe it" of ten minutes before, for 
 in the twilight his grave face looked graver still. Never- 
 theless, he -carefully maintained the cheerful, even jocular 
 tone of his conversation with his brother. 
 
 " You might ask the favor of taking her likeness. I am 
 sure the'young lady could not refuse. No young ladies 
 e$er do. Female vanity and your own attractions seem
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 35 
 
 to fill your port-folio wherever you go. But to-morrow 
 I'll try to get a look myself at this new angel of yours." 
 
 " No, there is nothing angelic about her face ; not much, 
 even, that is spiritual. It is thorough mortal beauty ; not 
 unlike the Clytie, as I said. It would paint well as an 
 Ariadne or a Dido j only there is not enough depth of sad- 
 ness in it." 
 
 " Perhaps she is not a sad-minded young woman." 
 
 " I really don't know, or care. What nonsense it ia 
 our talking about women ! "We can't afford to fall in love 
 or marry at least I can't." 
 
 "Nor I neither," said the doctor, gravely. "And I did 
 not mean to talk any nonsense about these two young 
 women if young they are for the landlady told me they 
 had just come out of gi'eat trouble being school-mistress- 
 es, with their school broken up, and one sister nearly dying 
 through scarlet-fever." 
 
 " That isn't so bad as rheumatic fever. I remember 
 rather enjoying it, because I was allowed to read novels 
 all the time. Which sister had it ? the Clytie one ? That 
 rare type of beauty runs in families. Perhaps the other 
 has a good head too." 
 
 " I don't think she has." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I suspect I saw her just before I came up stairs 
 to you a little, pale, anxious-looking thing not at all a 
 beauty sitting adding up her accounts. Very small ac- 
 counts they were, seemingly ; yet she seemed terribly trou- 
 bled over them. She must be very poor or very stupid 
 women always are stupid over arithmetic. And yet she 
 did not look quite a fool, either." 
 
 "How closely you must have watched her!" 
 
 " I am afraid I did, for at first I thought her only a little 
 girl, she was so small ; and I wondered what the creature 
 could be so busy about. But I soon found she was a wom- 
 an, and an anxious-faced little woman too. Most likely 
 these two school-mistresses are as poor as we are; and, if 
 so, I am sorry for them, being only women." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Julius, absently; but he seemed to
 
 36 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 weary of the conversation, and soon became absorbed in 
 his own suffering. Over him had evidently grown the in- 
 voluntary selfishness of sickness, which Letty Kenderdine 
 had referred to ; probably because she herself understood 
 it only too well. But her sufferings were nothing to those 
 of this poor young fellow, racked in every joint, and 
 with a physical organization the very worst to bear pain. 
 Nervous, sensitive, excitable ; adding to present torment 
 by both the recollection of the past and the dread of the 
 future ; exquisitely susceptible to both his own pains and 
 the grief and anxiety they caused to others, yet unable to 
 control himself so as in any way to lessen the burden of 
 them ; terrified at imaginary sufferings, a little exagger- 
 ating the real ones which were sharp enough the inva- 
 lid was a pitiable sight, and most difficult to deal with by 
 any nurse. 
 
 But the one he had was very patient marvellously so 
 for a man. For hours, until long after midnight for 
 Edna told her sister afterwards she had heard his step 
 overhead at about two in the morning did the stout, 
 healthy brother, who evidently possessed in the strongest 
 degree the mens sana in corpore sano, devote himself to 
 the younger one, trying every possible means to alleviate 
 his sufferings; and when all failed, sitting down by his 
 bedside, almost like a woman and a mother, saying noth- 
 ing, simply enduring ; or, at most, holding the poor fel- 
 low's hand with a firm clasp, which, in its mingled strength 
 and tenderness, might have imparted courage to go through 
 any amount of physical pain nay, have led even to the 
 entrance of that valley of the shadow of death which we 
 must all one day pass through, and alone. 
 
 Help, as far as mortal help could go, William Stedman 
 'was the one to give ; not in words, but in a certain atmos- 
 phere of quiet strength, or rather, in that highest expres- 
 sion of strength which we call fortitude. It seems easy to 
 bear with fortitude another person's sufferings ; but that 
 is, to some natures, the very sharpest pang of all. And 
 with something of the same expression on his face as once 
 (Julius reminded him of the anecdote about one in the
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 37 
 
 morning), in their first school, he had gone up to the mas- 
 ter and begged to be flogged instead of Julius did Wil- 
 liam Stedman sit by his brother's bedside till the parox- 
 ysms of pain abated. It was not till nearly daylight that, 
 the sufferer being at length quietly asleep, the doctor 
 threw himself, dressed as he was, on the hearth-rug before 
 the fire, and slept also suddenly, soundly, and yet light- 
 ly ; the sleep of a sailor or a mastiff dog. 
 
 Morning broke smilingly over the sea an April morn- 
 ing, breezy and bright ; and Edna, who had not slept well 
 not nearly so well as Letty being disturbed first by 
 the noises overhead, and then kept wakeful by her own 
 anxious thoughts, which, compulsorily repressed in day- 
 time, always took their revenge at night Edna Kender- 
 dine welcomed it gladly. Weary of sleeplessness, she rose 
 early, and looking out of her window, she saw a man's fig- 
 ure pacing up and down the green cliff between her and 
 the sea-line. Not a very stylish figure still in the old 
 coat and older wide-awake hat ; but it was tall, broad, and 
 manly. He walked, his hands folded somewhat ungrace- 
 fully behind him, with a strong and resolute step, looking 
 about him sometimes, but oftener with his head bent, 
 thinking. Undoubtedly it was the doctor. 
 
 Edna watched him with some curiosity. He must have 
 been up all night, she knew ; and as she had herself lain 
 awake, listening to the accidental footfall, the poking of 
 the fire, and all those sick-room noises which in the dead 
 silence sound so ominous and melancholy in a house, even 
 to one who has no personal stake in the matter, she had 
 felt much sympathy for him. She was reminded keenly 
 of her own sad vigils over poor Letty, and wondered how 
 a man contrived to get through the same sort of thing. 
 To a woman and a sister nursing came natural ; but with 
 a man it must be quite different. She speculated vaguely 
 upon what sort of men the brothers were, and whether 
 they were as much attached to one another as she and 
 Letty. And she watched with a vague, involuntary inter- 
 est the big man who kept striding up and down, refresh- 
 ing himself after his weary night-watch ; and when at last
 
 38 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM 
 
 he came in and disappeared, probably to his solitary break- 
 fast, she thought, in her practical, feminine soul, what a 
 dreary breakfast it must be; no one to make the tea, or 
 see that the eggs were boiled properly, or do any of those 
 tender duties which help to make the day begin cheerily, 
 and in which this little woman took an especial pleasure. 
 
 As she busied herself in doing them for Letty, who was 
 always the last down stairs, Edna could not forbear asking 
 Mrs. Williams how the sick lodger was this morning. 
 
 "Rather bad, miss. Better now ; but was very bad all 
 night, his brother says ; and he has just started off to 
 Ryde to get him some new physic." 
 
 "To Ryde that is nine miles off!" 
 
 " Yes ; but there was no help for it, he said. He in- 
 quired the short way across country, and meant to walk 
 it, and be back as soon as he could. I asked him about 
 dinner ; but he left that all to me. Oh, miss, how helpless 
 these men-folk be ! He only begged me to look after his 
 brother." 
 
 " Is the brother keeping his room ?" 
 
 "No; he dressed him and carried him down stairs, just 
 like a baby, before he went out. Poor gentleman, it's a 
 heavy handful for him ; and him with no wife or mother 
 or sister to help him ; for I asked, and he said no, they had 
 none ; no relations in the world but their two selves." 
 
 " No more have we ; but then women are so much more 
 used to sickness than men are, and more helpful," said 
 Edna. Yet, as she recalled her own sense of helplessness 
 and entire desolation when she and Letty were landed in 
 this very room, wet and weary, one chill, rainy afternoon, 
 and the fire smoked, and Letty cried, and finally went into 
 hysterics, she felt a sensation of pity for her neighbors 
 those " helpless men-folk," as Mrs. Williams called them, 
 who, under similar circumstances, were even worse off 
 than women. 
 
 " How is the poor fellow now ?" she asked. " Have you 
 been in again to look at him ? He should not be left long 
 alone." 
 
 " But, miss, where am I to get the time ? And, besides,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 39 
 
 he don't like it. Whenever I go in and ask if I can do any 
 thing for him, he just shakes his head and turns his face 
 back again into the pillow. And I don't think any thing 
 will do him much good; he isn't long for this world. I 
 wish I hadn't taken 'em ; and if I can get 'em out at the 
 week's end not meaning to inconvenience and hoping 
 they will get as good lodgings elsewhere, which no doubt 
 they will" 
 
 " You wouldn't do it, Mrs. Williams," said Edna, smil- 
 ing, and turning upon her those good, sweet eyes, which, 
 Miss Kenderdine's pupils declared, " frightened " all the 
 naughtiness out of them. 
 
 The landlady smiled too. "Well, miss, maybe I 
 wouldn't ; for I feels sorry for the poor gentleman ; and 
 I once had a boy of my own that would have been about 
 as old as him. I'll do what I can, though he is grumpy 
 and won't speak; and that ain't pleasant, is it, miss?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 This little conversation, like all the small trivialities of 
 their life, Edna retailed for Letty's edification, and both 
 sisters talked the matter over threadbare, as people in sea- 
 side lodgings and out on a holiday have a trick of doing ; 
 for holiday-making to busy people is sometimes very hard 
 work. They even, with a mixture of curiosity and real 
 compassion, left their parlor-door open, in order to listen 
 for and communicate to Mrs. Williams the slightest move- 
 ment in the parlor opposite, where the sick man lay so 
 helpless, so forlorn, that the kindly hearts of those two 
 young women certainly of one of them forgot that he 
 was a man, and a young man, and wished they could do 
 him any good. 
 
 But, of course, under the circumstances, it would, as Let- 
 ty declared, be the height of indecorum; they, unmarried 
 ladies and school-mistresses, with their credit and dignity 
 at stake, how could they take the slightest notice of a 
 young man, be he ever so ill ? 
 
 " Yet I wish we could," said Edna. " It seems so heart- 
 less to a fellow-creature to let him lie there hour after 
 hour. If we might go in and speak to him, or send him
 
 40 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 a book to read, I can't believe it could be so very im- 
 proper." 
 
 And when they came back from their morning stroll she 
 lingered compassionately in front of the closed window 
 and drawn-down blind behind which the sick man lay, ig- 
 norant of, or indifferent to, all the glad sights and sounds 
 abroad the breezy sea, the pleasant country, rejoicing in 
 this blessed spring morning. 
 
 "Do come in," sharply said Letty, who had in some 
 things a keener sense of the outward proprieties than 
 Edna. " Don't be nonsensical and sentimental. It would 
 never do for us to encourage, even in the smallest degree, 
 these two young men, who are certainly poor, and, for all 
 we know, may be scarcely respectable. I won't allow it, 
 sister." 
 
 And she passed hastily the opposite door, which Edna 
 was shocked to see was not quite closed, and walked into 
 their own, with Letty's own dignified step and air of 
 queenly grace, which, wherever she went, slew men, young 
 and old, in indiscriminate massacre. 
 
 She was certainly a rare woman, Letitia Kenderdine 
 one that, met anywhere or anyhow, would make one feel 
 that there might have been some truth in the old stories 
 about Helen of Troy, Cleopatra of Egypt, and such like 
 ancient queens of history and fable, who rode rampant 
 over the necks of men, and whose deadly beauty proved a 
 fire-brand wherever it was thrown. 
 
 " Yes," replied Edna, as she took off her sister's hat and 
 shawl, and noticed what a delicate rose-color was grow- 
 ing on the sea-freshened cheek, and how the old brightness 
 was returning to the lustrous eyes. " You are quite right, 
 Letty, dear. It would never do for us to take any notice 
 of our neighbors, unless, indeed, they were at the very last 
 extremity, which is not likely to happen." 
 
 " Certainly not ; and even if it did, I must say I think 
 we ought not to trouble ourselves about them. We have 
 quite enough cares of our own without taking upon our- 
 selves the burden of other people's." 
 
 This was only too true. Edna was silenced.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 41 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 " L'HOMME propose, et Dieu dispose," is a saying so trite 
 as to be not worth saying at all were not its awful so- 
 lemnity, in mercy as often as in retribution, forced upon 
 us by every day's history; more especially in those sort 
 of histories of which this is openly one love-stories. 
 How many brimming cups slip from the lip, according to 
 the old proverb ! how many more, which worldly or cruel 
 hands have tried to dash aside, are nevertheless taken and 
 guided by far diviner and safer hands, and made into a 
 draught of life all the sweeter for delay ! And in lesser 
 instances than these, what a curious path Fate oftentimes 
 seems to make for mortal feet, leading them exactly whith- 
 er they have resolved not to go, and shutting up against 
 them those ways which seemed so clear and plain ! 
 
 For some days Fate appeared to be doing nothing as 
 regarded these four young persons but sitting invisibly 
 at their mutual threshold with her hands crossed, and 
 weaving no web whatever for their entanglement. They 
 went out and came in but their going and coming 
 chanced to be at different hours ; they never caught sight 
 of one another. Edna, moved by her kindly heart, every 
 morning made a few civil inquiries of Mrs. Williams after 
 the invalid ; but Letty, seeing that no interesting episode 
 was likely to occur, ceased to care at all about the new- 
 comers. Indeed, as she was now rapidly getting well, 
 blooming into more than her ordinary beauty in the reju- 
 venescence that sometimes takes place after a severe ill- 
 ness, how could she be expected to trouble herself about a 
 sick young man in a Bath chair, and a stout brother who 
 was wholly absorbed in taking care of him ? Except for 
 Edna, and her occasional inquiries and remarks concerning 
 them, Letty would almost have forgotten their existence. 
 
 But Fate had not forgotten. One morning the grim
 
 42 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 unseen Woman in the door-way rose up and began her 
 work. 
 
 The " last extremity " of which Edna had spoken sud- 
 denly occurred. 
 
 They had seen Dr. Stedman start off, stick in hand, for 
 his evening walk across the cliffs which was the only 
 recreation he seemed to indulge in he took it while his 
 brother slept, Mrs. Williams said, between twilight and 
 bedtime ; otherwise he rarely left him for an hour. This 
 night it was an unfortunate absence. He had scarcely 
 been gone ten minutes when the landlady rushed into the 
 Misses Kenderdine's parlor in a state of great alarm. 
 
 " Oh ! Miss Edna, would you come ? You're used to 
 illness, and I don't know what's the matter. He's dead, 
 or dying, or something, and his brother's away. Please 
 come ! this minute or it may be too late." 
 
 " Don't go !" cried Letty. " Mrs. Williams, it's impos- 
 sible impertinent of you to ask it. She can't go." 
 
 But Edna had already gone without a word. 
 
 She was not surprised at the landlady's fright. One of 
 those affections of the heart which so often follow rheu- 
 matic fever had attacked the young man ; very suddenly, 
 as it seemed. He lay not on the sofa, but on the floor, 
 as if he had slipped down there, all huddled up, with his 
 hands clenched, and his face like a dead man's face. So 
 like, that Letty, who, after a minute, had, in spite of 
 her opposition, followed her sister, thought he really was 
 dead ; and, having a nervous horror of death, and sickness, 
 and all kinds of physical unpleasantnesses, had shrunk back 
 again into their own sitting-room, and shut the door. 
 
 Edna knelt down and lifted the passive head on to her 
 lap. She forgot it was a young man's head ; she scarcely 
 even saw that it was beautiful a poet's face, like that of 
 Shelley or Keats. She only recognized that he was a sick 
 human creature who lay there needing her utmost help; 
 and, without a second thought, she gave it. She would 
 have given it just the same to the ugliest, coarsest laborer 
 who had been brought injured to her door, and have shrunk 
 as little from dirt and wounds as she did now from the
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 43 
 
 grace of the curly black hair and the gleam of the white 
 throat, which she hastily laid bare to give him a chance 
 of breath. 
 
 " No, he is not dead, Mrs. Williams. I can feel his heart 
 beat. He has only fainted. Bring me some smelling-salts 
 and a glass of water." 
 
 Her simple restoratives took effect the patient soon 
 opened his eyes. 
 
 " Go into our room ; tell my sister to send me a glass 
 ' of wine," whispered she ; and the frightened woman at 
 once obeyed. 
 
 But the glass was held to his lips in vain. "Don't 
 trouble me," said the poor fellow, faintly, and half-uncon- 
 scious still. " Don't, Will ! I'm dying I would rather 
 die." 
 
 " You are not dying, and we can not allow it," said Edna 
 from behind. " Drink this, and you will be better pres- 
 ently." 
 
 Instinctively he obeyed the cheerful, imperative voice, 
 and then, coming more clearly to his senses, tried to dis- 
 cover whence it came, and who was holding him. 
 
 No vision of beauty ; no princess succoring a wounded 
 knight ; or queen of fairies bending over King Arthur at 
 the margin of the celebrated lake ; nothing at all roman- 
 tic, or calculated to fix a young man's imagination at once 
 and forever. Only a little woman a rather plain little 
 woman too who smiled down upon him. very kindly, 
 but without the slightest confusion or hesitation ; no more 
 than if she had been his aunt or his grandmother. He 
 did not even think her a young woman not then for his 
 faculties were confused ; the only fact he was sensible of 
 was her womanliness and kindliness. 
 
 The conversation between them was also as common- 
 place as it could be. 
 
 " You are very good, madam ; I am sorry to have 
 troubled you and all these women," looking round on 
 Mrs. Williams and the servant with an ill-concealed ex- 
 pression of annoyance. " I am quite well now." 
 
 " You will be presently. But please don't talk. Drink
 
 44 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 this, and then lie down again on your sofa till your broth- 
 er comes back. Will he be long ?" 
 
 She had scarcely said it before the brother himself ap- 
 peared. He stood a minute at the parlor-door. To say 
 he looked astonished at the scene before him is needless; 
 but his penetrating eye seemed to take it all in at a glance. 
 
 "Don't move, Julius. I understand. I wish I had not 
 gone out," said he ; and kneeling beside him, felt his pulse 
 and heart. N 
 
 " Never mind, Will ; I am better now. Mrs. Williams 
 looked after me ; and this lady, you see." 
 
 "Mrs. Williams fetched me, knowing I was accustomed 
 to illness," explained Edna, simply, as she resigned her post 
 to the doctor and rose to her feet. " I do not think it was 
 worse than a fainting-fit, and he is much better now." 
 
 " So I see. Thank you. We are both of us exceeding- 
 ly indebted to you for your kindness," said Dr. Stedman, 
 rather formally, but in a manner which proved he was as 
 Edna had said every doctor ought to be really a gentle- 
 man. And then, taking advantage of his complete absorp- 
 tion in his brother's state to the exclusion of all standers- 
 by, she quietly slipped out of the room ; thereby escaping 
 all further thanks, explanations, or civilities. 
 
 Letty, having recovered from her fright, and being re- 
 assured that there was not that dreadful thing " death in 
 the house," nor likely to be at present, became, as was nat- 
 ural, mightily interested in the episode which had taken 
 place in the opposite parlor. 
 
 " Quite a scene in a play. You must have felt like a 
 heroine of romance, Edna." 
 
 " Indeed I didn't ; only rather awkward and uncomfort- 
 able that is, if I felt any thing at all, which I am not 
 sure I did, at the time. He was a very sad sight, that 
 poor young fellow. Fainting in the reality is not half so 
 picturesque as they make it on the stage and in books. 
 Besides, I fear it is only an indication of worse things. 
 Heart-disease almost invariably follows rheumatic fever. 
 I know that." 
 
 " Of course. You know every thing," said Letty, with
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 45 
 
 the slight sharpness of tone which was occasionally heard 
 in her voice, and startled a stranger by the exceeding con- 
 trast it formed to her beautiful classical face. " But, for 
 all you say, it was a charming adventure. A sick young 
 man lying unconscious, with his head in your lap, and his 
 brother coming in and finding you in that romantic at- 
 titude." 
 
 " Nonsense !" cried Edna ; a slight color, half shame- 
 faced, half-indignant, rising in her honest cheek. 
 
 " It isn't nonsense at all. It's very interesting. And 
 pray tell me every word they said to you. They ought 
 to have overwhelmed you with gratitude ; and one or 
 both brothers both would be better ought to fall in 
 love with you on the spot. The result rivalry, jealousy, 
 fury, and fratricide. Oh ! what fun ! To have two broth- 
 ers in love with one lady at the same time ! I wonder it 
 never happened to me ; but perhaps it may some day." 
 
 " I earnestly hope not," said Edna. 
 
 But at the same time a horrible foreboding entered her 
 mind concerning these two brothers, who must inevitably 
 live under the same roof with Letty for some days, possi- 
 bly weeks ; who would have many opportunities of seeing 
 her and nobody ever looked at the beautiful Letty who 
 did not look again immediately. For her charms were 
 not those recondite and variable ones of expression and 
 intellect ; they were patent on the surface attractive at 
 once to the most refined and the coarsest masculine eyes. 
 Hitherto no young man had ever cast the merest glance 
 upon Letty Kendcrdine without trying to pursue the ac- 
 quaintance ; and the anxious sister began to wish that her 
 own sympathies had not led her into that act of kindly 
 civility which might prove the "open, sesame" to a hun- 
 dred civilities more, were the opposite lodgers so inclined. 
 Should it appear likely, she determined to make a dead 
 stand of opposition, and not allow the least loop-hole 
 through which they could push their way to any further 
 acquaintance. 
 
 This determination, however, she wisely kept to herself; 
 for in Letty's last little love-aifair they two had held di-
 
 46 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 vided opinions, and, with all her affection for her sister, 
 she had begun to find that sisters do not necessarily think 
 alike. Their twelvemonths' living together, after an al- 
 most total separation since their school-days, had taught 
 Edna this fact one of the sad facts which all human be- 
 ings have to learn that every one of us is, more or less, 
 intensely alone. Before marriage ay, and after any but 
 the very happiest marriage absolutely and inevitably 
 algne. 
 
 " Don't speak so seriously," said Letty, laughing. " You 
 are not vexed with me ?" 
 
 " Oh no !" 
 
 Where, indeed, was the use of being vexed with her? 
 or of arguing the point with her? Edna knew that if she 
 were to talk to her sister till doomsday she could no more 
 make her understand her own feelings on this subject than 
 if she were preaching to a blind man on the subject of 
 colors. To Letty love merely meant marriage, and mar- 
 riage meant a nice house, a respectable, good sort of man 
 as master to it probably, a carriage ; and at any rate as 
 many handsome clothes as she could possibly desire. She 
 did not overlook the pleasantness of the preliminary stage 
 of love-making, but then she had already gone through 
 that, in degree ; in truth, her lovers had of late become to 
 her more of a worry than an amusement, and she was now 
 disposed' to take a thoroughly sensible and practical view 
 of things. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was in her a lurking love of admira- 
 tion per se, without ulterior possibilities, which had grown 
 by what it fed on and there was no lack of provender in 
 Letty's case, for every man she met admired her. Also, 
 she had in her a spice of feminine contradictoriness, which, 
 had she discovered any lack of admiration, would* have 
 roused her to buckle all her beauty's armor on, and reme- 
 dy it, thus marring, by one fortuitous glance or smile, all 
 her sister's sage precautions. 
 
 Edna knew this ; knew it by the way in which, while 
 protesting that she hoped no further acquaintance with 
 the two Stedmans would ensue through this very impru-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 47 
 
 dent step on Edna's part, she talked all evening about 
 them, and insisted on hearing every particular concerning 
 them : what they did, said, and looked like ; what sort of 
 a parlor they had, whether it was very untidy and bache- 
 lor-like. 
 
 " For, of course, neither of them is married, though the 
 doctor is old enough to be ; but doctors never can afford 
 to settle early, especially in London. These people live in 
 London, don't they ?" 
 
 " I really don't know. I have never inquired." 
 
 " Do inquire, then ; for if Dr. Stedman should take it 
 into his head to call and it would be the least thing he 
 could do, in acknowledgment of your kindness to his 
 brother" 
 
 " Oh, I hope not." 
 
 " So do I ; for it might turn out exceedingly " Letty 
 cast a half-amused glance at herself in the mirror " ex- 
 ceedingly awkward for him, poor fellow; of course, it 
 couldn't affect me. Though big and rough as he is, you 
 say he seems decidedly the most interesting of the two. 
 And depend upon it, Edna, if we should happen to make 
 acquaintance with these two brothers, he is the one that 
 will fall in love with me." 
 
 "Why do you think so?" asked Edna, internally re- 
 solving that, if she could possibly prevent it, the poor 
 honest-looking doctor should be saved from that dire ca- 
 lamity. 
 
 " Why ? Because he's ugly, and I'm well, I'm not ex- 
 actly ugly, you know ; and I always notice that plain peo- 
 ple are certain to fall in love with me probably just by 
 the law of contrast. For the same reason you'll tell me, 
 I suppose, that I ought to marry some very wise, grave 
 fellow, possibly such an one as this doctor of yours, who 
 would altogether look after me, take me in and do for 
 me admire me excessively, no doubt, but still save me 
 all trouble of thinking and acting for myself. Heigh-ho ! 
 what a comfort that would be !" 
 
 "It really would !" said Edna, seriously, and then could 
 not help smiling, for the hundredth time, at Letty's very
 
 48 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 
 
 matter-of-fact style of discussing her loves and her lovers. 
 Her extreme candor was her redeeming point. She was 
 not a wise woman, but she was certainly not a hypocrite. 
 No need to fear that with Letty Kenderdine it would be 
 " all for love and the world well lost," or that if she mar- 
 ried she would make otherwise than what even Belgravian 
 mothers would call " a very good marriage," and after- 
 wards strictly do her duty to her husband and society, or 
 rather to society first, and then, so far as was practicable, 
 to her husband. And, Edna sometimes thought, judging 
 by the sort of lovers that came after Letty, with whose 
 characters and feelings she, Edna, was fully conversant 
 for her sister had no reticence whatever concerning them 
 men marry for no higher, perhaps even a lower, motive. 
 " I am rather glad," said she, suddenly, apropos of noth- 
 ing, " certainly more glad than sorry, that I shall be an 
 old maid." 
 
 " Well, as I always said, you will be an extremely hap- 
 py one," returned Letty ; " and you ought to be thankful 
 to be saved from all the difficulties which fall to my lot. 
 There ! don't you hear the opposite door opening ? He is 
 stopping in the lobby speaking to Mrs. Williams. Of 
 course, I knew what would come of all this. I was cer- 
 tain the young man would call." 
 
 But, in spite of Letty's tone of indignation, her counte- 
 nance fell considerably when the doctor did not call, but 
 shut his sitting-room door again immediately, apparently 
 without taking the slightest interest in, or manifesting the 
 smallest desire to communicate with, his fair neighbor. 
 And another night fell, and another day rolled on, bright, 
 sunshiny, calm ; it was most glorious weather ; just the 
 " fullness of the spring," when 
 
 "A young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love;" 
 
 and still Fate sat motionless at the threshold nor ap- 
 proached a step nearer to make these young hearts beat or 
 tremble with premonitions of their destiny. 
 
 It was not until the last evening of the week, and three 
 days after Edna's act of unacknowledged, and, Letty de-
 
 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 49 
 
 clared, quite unappreciated kindness, that the four in- 
 mates of Mrs. Williams's lodgings really met, face to face, 
 in a rencontre unplanned, unexpected, and impossible to 
 be avoided on either side. Yet it came about naturally 
 enough, and at the most likely place the garden gate. 
 
 Just as the two sisters were setting out for the latest 
 of their three daily strolls, and the doctor was bringing 
 his brother home from his, the Bath chair stopped the 
 way. Letty, walking in advance, as she usually did, being 
 now as restless for going out as she had formerly been lan- 
 guid and lazy in stopping in, came suddenly in front of her 
 fellow-invalid. 
 
 She drew back as has been said, Letty had an instinct- 
 ive shrinking from any kind of suffering and Julius, lift- 
 ing up his heavy eyes, saw this tall, beautiful woman 
 standing with one hand on the wicket gate, and her hat in 
 the other, for she rather liked to go bareheaded in the sea- 
 breeze. Now it freshened her cheek and brightened her 
 eyes, until she seemed a vision of health as well as beauty 
 in the sight of the sick man, who was turning homeward 
 after a long afternoon's stroll, weary of himself, of life, of 
 every thing. 
 
 His artistic eye was caught at once ; he recognized her 
 with a look of admiration that no woman could mistake ; 
 though it puzzled Letty Kenderdine a little, being differ- 
 ent from the bold, open stare she was so well used to. It 
 was a look, respectful and yet critical ; as calmly observ- 
 ant as if she had been a statue or a picture, not a living 
 woman at all, and he bent upon investigating her good 
 and bad points, and appraising her value. Yet it was a 
 gaze of extreme delight, though delight of a purely artistic 
 kind the pleasure of looking at a lovely thing ; the recog- 
 nition, open and free, of that good gift beauty ; when, or 
 how, or upon whomsoever bestowed. Therefore it was a 
 gaze that no gentleman need have blushed to give, nor 
 any lady to receive ; even Edna, who, coming behind her 
 sister, met and noticed it fully, could not take offense at it. 
 
 And at sight of Edna the sickly face broke out into a 
 smile. 
 
 C
 
 50 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " It is you. I hoped I should see you again. I wanted 
 to thank you for your kindness to me the other day. I 
 told Will Here, Will, I want you." 
 
 Dr. Stedman, who had been pushing the Bath chair 
 from behind, also stood gazing intently at the beautiful 
 vision, which, indeed, no man with eyes could possibly 
 turn away from. 
 
 " Will, do come and thank this lady I forget her name; 
 indeed, I don't think I ever heard it." 
 
 This was a hint which Edna did not take ; but, to her 
 surprise, it was unnecessary. 
 
 " Miss Kenderdine, I believe " (and he had got the name 
 quite pat and correct, which strangers seldom did), said 
 the doctor, taking off his hat, and showing short, crisp, 
 brown locks, curling tight round what would, ere many 
 years, be a bald crown. " My brother and I are glad to 
 have an opportunity of thanking you for your kindness 
 that day. It made a strong impression on him; he has 
 talked of you ever since." 
 
 "Yes, indeed; it was such a charitable thing for a 
 stranger to do to a poor sick fellow like me," added Julius, 
 looking up with a simplicity that had something almost 
 child-like in it. " Such a frank, generous, womanly thing ! 
 I told Will he ought to go in and thank you for it, but he 
 wouldn't ; he is such a shy fellow, this brother of mine." 
 
 " Julius, pray we are detaining these ladies." 
 
 But Julius never took any hints, and often said and did 
 things which nobody else would ever think of; and yet, 
 coming from him, they were done in such a pleasant way 
 as never to vex any body. 
 
 " Nonsense ! we are not stiff in our manners here : we 
 are at the sea-side ; and then I am an invalid, and must be 
 humored, must I not, Miss Kenderdine? You don't mind 
 my detaining you here for two minutes, just to thank you?" 
 
 "No," said Edna, smiling. She wondered afterwards 
 that she had responded so frankly to the young man's 
 greeting, and allowed so unresistingly the introduction 
 which soon brought them all to speaking terms, and drew 
 Letty also into the quartette who, for the next five min-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 51 
 
 utes or so, paused to talk over the garden gate. But, as 
 she was forced to confess when in their walk afterwards 
 Letty reproved her, laying all the blame upon her, what- 
 ever happened she could not help it. There was a charm 
 about Julius Stedman which made every body do as he 
 wished, and he evidently wished exceedingly to make ac- 
 quaintance with these two young ladies. Not an unnatu- 
 ral wish in any man, especially in dull sea-side lodgings. 
 
 So he detained them as long as he civilly could, chatting 
 freely to the one, and gazing silently at the other the 
 owner of that wonderful Clytie face. He put himself, with 
 his unquestioned prerogative of illness, much more forward 
 than his brother though the doctor, too, talked a little, 
 and looked also ; if not with the open-eyed admiration of 
 Julius, with a keen, sharp investigation, as if he were tak- 
 ing the measure, less artistically than morally, of this love- 
 ly woman. 
 
 Nevertheless or, perhaps, consequently the conversa- 
 tion that went on was trivial enough : about the sea, the 
 fine coast, the lovely spring sunset, and the charming 
 weather they had had these tw r o days. 
 
 "Yes, I like it," said Julius, in reply to Edna's question. 
 "It warms me through and through this glorious sun- 
 shine ! I am sure it would make me well if it lasted ; but 
 nothing ever does last in this world." 
 
 "You will speak more cheerfully by-and-by," said Edna. 
 " I was pleased at this change of weather, because I knew 
 it would do you and all sick people so much good." 
 
 " How kind of you to think of me at all !" returned Julius, 
 gratefully. "I am sure you must be a very nice woman." 
 
 " Must I ?" Edna laughed, and then blushed a little, to 
 find herself speaking so familiarly not only with strangers, 
 but with the very strangers whom she had determined to 
 keep at arm's-length under all circumstances. But then 
 the familiarity was only with her Edna, to whom it sig- 
 nified little. Neither of the brothers had addressed Let- 
 ty, nor offered her any attention beyond a respectful bow; 
 and Letty had drawn herself up with considerable hau- 
 teur, adding to the natural majesty of her beauty a sort
 
 52 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 of "fall-in-love-if-you-dare" aspect, which, to some young 
 men, might have been an additional attraction, but which 
 did not seem to affect fatally either of these two. 
 
 They looked at her; with admiration certainly, as any 
 young men might nay, must have done would have 
 been fools and blind not to have done ; but that was all. 
 At first sight neither seemed disposed to throw himself 
 prone under the wheels of Letty's Juggernaut chariot; 
 which fact relieved Edna's mind exceedingly. 
 
 So, after some few minutes of a conversation equally un- 
 embarrassed and uninteresting, the young people parted 
 where they stood, all four shaking hands over the gate, 
 Julius grasping Edna's with a grateful pressure that 
 would decidedly have startled her, had she not recog- 
 nized by instinct the impulsive temperament of the young 
 man. Besides, she was utterly devoid of self-conscious 
 vanity, and accustomed to think of her own relation to 
 the opposite sex as one that precluded any special atten- 
 tions. Her personal experience of men had been solely in 
 the character of confidante to Letty's lovers. She used to 
 say, laughing, " She was born to be every body's sister, 
 or every body's maiden aunt." 
 
 And so the ice was broken between these four young 
 people, so strangely thrown together in this solitary place, 
 and under circumstances when the world and its restric- 
 tions whether needed or needless were, for the time be- 
 ing, more or less set aside. They met, simply as four hu- 
 man beings, through blind chance, as it seemed, and whol- 
 ly ignorant that the innocent wicket gate, held open so 
 gracefully by Letty's hand for the Bath chair to pass 
 through, was to them an opening into that enchanted gar- 
 den which is entered but once. "Which most of us nay, 
 confess it ! all of us dream about continually before en- 
 tering ; and passing out of even for happier Edens sel- 
 dom leave without a sigh of regret. For it is the one rift 
 of heaven which makes all heaven appear possible ; the 
 ecstasy of hope and faith, out of which grows the Love 
 which is our strongest mortal instinct and intimation of 
 immortality.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IT is an undoubted fact, that when that event happens, 
 the most vital in human life the first meeting of two per- 
 sons who are to influence one another's character and des- 
 tinies in the closest manner, for good or ill, happiness or 
 misery, nay, even for virtue or crime the sky does not 
 fall, no ominous signs appear in the outside world ; nay, 
 the parties concerned, poor puppets as they are, or seem 
 to be, are usually quite unconscious of what has befallen 
 them, and eat, drink, and sleep just as composedly as ever. 
 
 Thus the two Misses Kenderdine, after shaking hands 
 with the two Stedmans over the gate, went calmly on 
 their usual stroll along the cliffs, discussing in feminine 
 fashion their new acquaintances, and speculating about 
 them with an indifference that was perfectly sincere ; for 
 though these school-mistresses were young enough to have 
 the natural lot and future of womanhood running a good 
 deal in their heads, especially at holiday time, when they 
 had no more serious business in hand, and Letty's contin- 
 ual "difficulties" always kept the subject alive, still they 
 were neither of them silly school-girls, in love with every 
 man they met, or fancying every man in love with them. 
 Letty, perhaps, had a slight tendency in the latter direc- 
 tion, which her experience rather justified than not ; but 
 Edna was free from all such folly, or only regarded the ques- 
 tion of love and matrimony in its relation to her sister. 
 
 So they discussed freely and openly the two young men. 
 
 Edna had been most interested in the invalid, as was 
 natural ; her heart warmed towards every kind of suffer- 
 ing ; while her sister had chiefly noticed the big healthy- 
 looking brother, who was evidently " a man with no non- 
 sense about him," by which Letty meant no sentiment ; for 
 she, who had been haunted by sentimental swains, poets 
 addressing verses to her, and artists imploring to sketch 
 her portrait, disliked sentiment above all things.
 
 54 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Besides, this doctor does really seem a gentleman, in 
 spite of his shabby coat. He might be spruced up into a 
 very good-looking fellow if he had somebody to see after 
 him. You are quite sure he is not married, Edna ? And 
 where did you say he lived ? I wonder if it is in a respect- 
 able street, and what sort of a practice he has got." 
 
 "Letty," cried Edna, turning sharply round, half amused, 
 half angry, "you are not surely going to " 
 
 " No, you foolish child ; not being quite a simpleton. I 
 am not surely going to to marry him your friend with 
 the shabby coat. Nor even to let him fall in love with 
 me, if I can help it. But if he does, you can't blame me. 
 It's all my unfortunate appearance." 
 
 Edna attempted no reply where was the use of it? 
 Indeed she shrank back into total silence, as was her habit 
 when the sense of painful incongruity between herself and 
 her sister, their thoughts, motives, and actions, rose up more 
 strongly than usual. She wished there was no such thing 
 as falling in love as Letty put it or that Letty would 
 fall in love honestly and sincerely, once for all, with some 
 good man she began not to care much who it was, if he 
 were only good marry him and have done with it. These 
 perpetual " little affairs " of her sister's could not go on for- 
 ever. Edna was rather weary of them ; and wished, more 
 earnestly than she liked to express, that she could see Let- 
 ty " settled" fairly sheltered under the wing of a worthy 
 husband who would at once rule her and love her pet her 
 and take care of her ; for indeed she needed taking care 
 of more than most women of six-and-twenty. Perhaps Dr. 
 Stedman might be the very sort of man to do this. He 
 looked like it. There was a steadfast honesty of purpose 
 in his eyes, and a firmness about his mouth, which seemed 
 to imply sterling worth. But, though a good man, his ex- 
 pression was not exactly that of an amiable man ; and Let- 
 ty was a person likely to try a husband's temper consider- 
 ably at times. Besides, what if he were poor? Indeed 
 the fact seemed self-evident. A poor man as she said 
 herself, and Edna confessed the truth of this would never 
 do for Letty Kenderdine.
 
 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 55 
 
 Edna's thoughts had galloped on thus far in a perfect 
 steeple-chase of fancy, when she suddenly pulled up, re- 
 flecting how exceedingly ridiculous it was. She almost 
 despised herself for speculating thus on so slender a foun- 
 dation, or no foundation at all, and bent her whole atten- 
 tion to the outer world. 
 
 Every thing was so beautiful in the still evening the 
 sea as calm as the sky, and the cliff-swallows skimming 
 airily between both. Even Letty, whose thoughts there 
 is no need to follow, for she never thought much or long 
 about any thing, noticed them, and called them " pretty 
 little things ;" while Edna, who had a great love for birds, 
 watched them with a curious tenderness the creatures 
 that came so far from over the waters guided unerringly 
 to make their nests here ; as (Edna still firmly believed 
 in her deepest heart, though her twelvemonths' life with 
 Letty had somewhat shaken the out-works of that girlish 
 faith) Heaven guides all true lovers that are to be husband 
 and wife leads them from farthest corners of the world, 
 through storm and trial, danger and death, to their own 
 appointed home in one another's arms. 
 
 So she left her sister's lot her own she never thought 
 of in wiser hands than hers ; trusting that He who mated 
 the swallows and brought them hither from across the 
 seas, and made them so content and happy, hovering about 
 in the spring twilight, would in time bring Letty a good 
 husband, and relieve her sisterly heart from the only real 
 cai-e it had the unknown future of this beautiful, half- 
 foolish, half-worldly-wise woman, who, though her very 
 flesh and blood, was so unlike herself that it puzzled Edna 
 daily more and more both to understand her and to guide 
 her. 
 
 The two sisters went back to their dull lodgings, which, 
 in common with all lodgings, looked especially dull and 
 unhome-like at this hour. They sat down to their innocent 
 milk supper, and the one glass of wine which Letty still in- 
 dulged in, as a last relic of invalidism, though saying each 
 day she would give it up. And then they settled them- 
 selves to sewing, at least Edna did, Letty declaring she
 
 56 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 never could sew with the poor light of two mould candles. 
 She amused herself with lying on the sofa and talking, or 
 chatting, the sort of desultory chat which people who live 
 together naturally fall into it is only strangers who main- 
 tain " conversation." Besides, Letty's talk was never con- 
 versation ; it rarely rose beyond ordinary facts or person- 
 alities ; generally of a trivial kind. Clytie-like though her 
 lips were, they did not drop pearls and diamonds ; but then 
 they never dropped toads and adders. She was exceeding- 
 ly good-natured, and never said sharp or unkind things 
 of any body ; in this having the advantage of Edna, who 
 sometimes felt sorely tempted to be severe and satirical, 
 then blamed herself, and took refuge in mild generalities, 
 as now. 
 
 The two brothers would have been more amused than 
 flattered had they known that on this momentous evening 
 of their first rencontre with the two young ladies, which 
 meeting had conveyed to both an impression of undefined 
 pleasantness, as the society of all good women ought to 
 give to every good man, their fair neighbors' conversation 
 was, from the time of re-entering the house, strictly on the 
 subject of clothes. 
 
 " Alas !" Letty broke out, almost as soon as supper was 
 over, declaring the matter had been on her mind all day 
 the spring weather was coming on fast, and they had only 
 their winter garments with them, and no possibility of 
 getting more. 
 
 " For we can't buy every thing new, and our last sum- 
 mer's things are locked up at home; and besides, I almost 
 forget what we have." 
 
 " Nothing very much, I fear." 
 
 " We never have," said Letty, in a melancholy voice. 
 "When I was in situations I was obliged to dress well; 
 but now ? Just think, Edna, to-morrow is Sunday, and we 
 have only our brow'n bonnets and our winter cloaks ; and 
 it will likely be as hot as to-day, and the sunshine will 
 show all their shabbiness. It is very provoking; nay, it 
 it is exceedingly hard." 
 
 " It is hard, especially for you, Letty."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 57 
 
 And Edna glanced at her beautiful sister, upon whom 
 any thing looked well; yet w r hose beauty would have 
 borne the most magnificent setting off that wealth could 
 furnish. How splendid she would have looked in silks, 
 laces, and jewels the prizes that in all ages there have 
 been found women ready to sell their souls for! Was 
 Letty one of these ? Edna could not believe it. Yet she 
 knew well that dress, and the lack of it, was a much se- 
 verer trial to her sister than to herself that Letty actu- 
 ally suffered, mentally and morally, from a worn-out shawl 
 or an old-fashioned bonnet ; while as to herself, so long 
 as she was neat and clean, and had colors matching no 
 blues and greens, pinks and scarlets, which poverty com- 
 pelled to be worn together it did not materially affect 
 her happiness, whether she had on a silk dress or a cot- 
 ton one. 
 
 This catastrophe of the winter bonnets was annoying ; 
 but it was a small annoyance not worth fretting about, 
 when they had so many more important cares, and many 
 a blessing likewise. Her mind, which had been wander- 
 ing alternately back to the house and the school to which 
 in a short time they must return, and dwelling on a few 
 pleasant fancies left by the evening walk, felt suddenly 
 dragged down into the narrow ways of ordinary life 
 made narrower than they need to be by this hopeless way 
 of looking at them. She did not like it ; for, monotonous 
 and commonplace as her life had been ever since she 
 was twelve years old first school life, then governess 
 life in a dull country city family, there was in this young 
 school-mistress's soul a something which always felt like 
 a little bird that would stretch its wings, feeling sure 
 
 o / o 
 
 there must be a wide empyrean waiting for it somewhere. 
 In her long pauses over her needle-work this little bird 
 usually sat pluming its feathers and singing to itself, till 
 some chance word of Letty's silenced it as was wisest 
 and best. For Letty would not have understood the little 
 bird at all. 
 
 Edna fastened its cage-door, and determined to make 
 the best of things. 
 
 C2
 
 58 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. , 
 
 " Yes, as you say, it is hard ; but be patient this one 
 Sunday, and before the next I will see what can be done. 
 Suppose I take the coach to Ryde, and choose two plain 
 straw bonnets and trim them myself with green, perhaps. 
 You always look so well in green. Then we should be 
 quite respectable while here, and they would last us as 
 second-best all summer." 
 
 Letty brightened up amazingly. "That is a capital 
 thought, Edna. You are the very cleverest girl ! I al- 
 ways said, and I will say it, a great deal cleverer than I 
 am, if the men could only find it out." 
 
 " They never will, and I don't want them," said Edna, 
 laughing. "And now let us come to bed, for it is quite 
 time." 
 
 As the sisters passed up stairs, both cast a glance on 
 the shut parlor-door opposite, behind which was complete 
 silence, as usual of evenings. The brothers did not seem 
 to have such long tongues as the sisters. 
 
 "I wonder how they contrive* te amuse themselves, 
 these two young fellows," said Letty, yawning. " I hope 
 they are not as dull as we are sometimes." 
 
 " Men never are dull, I suppose," replied Edna, in her 
 glorious maiden ignorance. "They have always some- 
 thing to do, and that alone makes people cheerful. Be- 
 sides, they don't dwell on trivial things, as we do ; their 
 minds are larger and clearer at least, the best of them 
 must be so," she corrected herself, reflecting that she was 
 speaking more out of her ideal than her actual experience 
 of the race. And with a feeling of weariness at the small- 
 ness into which her daily gossip with Letty sometimes de- 
 generated, Edna thought she would really like, just for a 
 change, to have a good, sensible talk with a man. She 
 wondered what those two men down stairs talked about 
 when they were alone, and whether their chief conversa- 
 tion, corresponding with that in the next parlor, was on 
 the subject of clothes. And the idea of Dr. Stedman dis- 
 cussing the shape of his new hat, or Mr. Stedman becom- 
 ing confidential with his brother on the question of coats 
 and trowsers, proved so irresistibly ludicrous that Edna
 
 THE WOMAN'S KIXGDOM. 59 
 
 burst into one of her hearty fits of laughter her first 
 since Letty was ill which did her so much good that she 
 was sound asleep in five minutes. 
 
 And what of the two men fated to influence, and be in- 
 fluenced by, these two young women, in the way that hu- 
 man lives do act and react upon one another, in a manner 
 so mysterious that all precautions often seem idle all 
 plans vain all determinations null and void and yet we 
 still go on working, planning, and resolving deliberately 
 laying out the pattern of our own and others' future, of 
 which we can neither forecast, nor control, nor, alas ! re- 
 call, one single day. 
 
 They did not talk over their neighbors ; it is not man's 
 way, or not the way of such men as, with all their faults, 
 these two Stedmans were honest young fellows, from 
 whom neither sin nor folly had rubbed off the bloom of 
 their youth, or led them to think and talk of women as, 
 God forgive them! men sometimes do men, who were 
 born of women, who onfce hung as innocent babies at some 
 woman's breast. 
 
 They came in-doors, Julius with evident reluctance. 
 
 " Why didn't you give me another turn on the cliff, 
 "Will ? I wanted two or three more minutes to study that 
 head." 
 
 " Miss Kenderdine's ?" 
 
 " Isn't it grand, now ? Bring me my sketch-book, and 
 I'll have a try at the profile. Finest profile I ever saw. 
 It might be useful some day, when I get well." 
 
 " You'll be well sooner than you think, old boy." 
 
 And that was literally all which passed concerning the 
 two sisters. 
 
 The brothers spent their tjpual silent evening, Julius 
 drawing, and William immersed in a heap of medical liter- 
 ature which lay on a table in the corner, into whijjpd^ 
 plunged at every possible opportunity. For he knew that 
 time was money to him, in these early days when he had 
 more leisure than fees ; and besides, he had a genuine love 
 of acquiring knowledge, all the stronger, perhaps, that he 
 was of too cautious, modest, and self-distrustful a tempera-
 
 60 THE AVOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 merit to strike out brilliant ideas of his own. But he had 
 the faculty, perhaps safer for ultimate success, of acquir- 
 ing and assimilating the ideas of other men. And conse- 
 quently he had a keen delight in what is called "hard 
 reading." 
 
 His head, as he bent it over the chaotic mass of books, 
 had a finer expression than its ordinary one, which was a 
 little heavy, and sometimes a little cross. But both these 
 expressions originated in a sort of undeveloped look he 
 had, as if in him the perceptive and the practical had been 
 well cultivated, while the fancy lay dormant. A strong 
 contrast to that sweet, sensitive, poetic head of his broth- 
 er's, where the balance lay in precisely the opposite direc- 
 tion. Any superficial observer would have wondered how 
 they got on together at all, except for the patent fact that 
 people sometimes fit into one another precisely because 
 they differ, when the difference is only difference and not 
 contrariety. 
 
 " There ! I think I've got it at last !" 
 
 " Got what ?" said the doctor, rousing himself and rub- 
 bing his fingers through his short curly locks till they 
 stood out all round his head like a chevaux defrise. 
 
 "That profile, of course. Come over and tell me if you 
 think it like. Pretty well, I think, for a study done from 
 memory. I must get her to sit to me. Will, couldn't 
 you manage it somehow? Couldn't you cultivate their 
 acquaintance?" 
 
 " I ? Nonsense I I never knew what to say to women." 
 
 " Then how, in the name of fortune, do you mean to 
 make yourself into a London physician ? If a doctor can't 
 be sweet to women he never earns even salt to his por- 
 ridge." 
 
 "As probably I never may. And then I'll keep on be- 
 ing a poor hospital doctor, or doing a large practice gratis, 
 as I do now." 
 
 "More's the pity." 
 
 "Not at all. It is practice. And it saves one fiom 
 rusting to death, or eating one's heart out in disappoint- 
 ment before the good time comes, as I suppose it will
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 61 
 
 come some time. And now give me your sketch to look 
 at." 
 
 He examined it minutely, deliberately rather than en- 
 thusiastically, taking exception to certain points of feature 
 both in it and the original, but, on the whole, very lauda- 
 tory of both. 
 
 Still, Julius put up the port-folio half dissatisfied. 
 
 "You are so confoundedly cool about things. Why, 
 Will, it's the finest subject I ever had. A perfectly cor- 
 rect face. Not a feature out of its place, and the coloring 
 glorious. What a blessing to have such a model always 
 at hand ! I could understand Raffaelle's carrying off the 
 Fornarina, and Andrea del Sarto marrying his beautiful 
 Lucrezia, if only for convenience." 
 
 " You scape-grace !" cried the elder brother, laughing. 
 " If I thought you were going to make a fool of yourself " 
 
 " No, no ; my fool-days are done. I'm nothing but an 
 artist now. Don't make a mock of me, Will ! a poor, 
 helpless fellow that can't even walk across a room." 
 
 " Yes, you could if you tried. I told you so yesterday. 
 Will you try ?" 
 
 Julius shook his head. " That was always your motto 
 ' Try !' You should paint it on your carriage when you 
 hunt up the Heralds' College to get arms for your two- 
 horse brougham, in which you come to visit me in a two- 
 pair back in Clipstone Street, or Kensal Green Cemetery. 
 I don't know which, and don't much care." 
 
 The elder brother turned away. He was used to these 
 sort of speeches hardened to them, indeed; yet they 
 could not fail slightly to affect him still, with the sort of 
 feeling half pity, half something less tender than pity 
 with which we are prone to regard weaknesses that we 
 ourselves can only by an effort comprehend. 
 
 " Well ! in the mean time, as to your walking. I have 
 often told you, Julius, some of your ailments are purely 
 nervous. I mean, not exactly imaginary," seeing that 
 Julius winced, "but in the nerves. And the nerves are 
 queer things, my boy: very much guided by the will, 
 which is a queerer thing yet."
 
 62 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " What do you mean ? That I could walk if I tried ?" 
 
 " Not precisely. But that if you were forced to walk 
 if some strong impulse came say a fire in the house, 
 and you were compelled to escape for your life you would 
 find you could do it. At least that is my opinion." 
 
 " Opinions are free, of course. I wish for your sake I 
 could gratify you, William. I would not then be detain- 
 ing you here from your practice, your profession, and all 
 the enjoyments of your life, in waiting upon a miserable 
 fellow who had much better be in his grave." 
 
 The quick, irritable pride the readiness to take offense 
 William Stedman was familiar with these vagaries too. 
 But the next minute they were gone, as they always were. 
 In the sweet nature no bitterness ever lingered long. Ju- 
 lius held out his hand to his brother with a child-like ex- 
 pression of penitence. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Will. You're the best old fellow 
 alive. Give me your hand, and I'll try to walk, or at least 
 to stand." 
 
 "That's right." 
 
 " Will itwill it be very painful?" 
 
 The doctor hesitated; and as he looked at his brother 
 there came into his face that deep tenderness wholly a 
 man's tenderness which none but strong men ever feel, 
 and rarely feel except to women. 
 
 " Painful, lad ? Yes, it may be painful. I am afraid it 
 will be, at first. I wish I could bear it for you. Which 
 is a silly speech, because I can't. Still, won't you try ?" 
 
 " I will with somebody to help me." 
 
 Ay, that was the key to his whole nature that sensi- 
 tive, loving, delicate nature. He could do almost any 
 thing with somebody to help him; without that, nothing. 
 
 The brother held out a steady hand; and then slowly, 
 shrinkingly, trembling all over with nervous apprehension, 
 Julius tried to raise himself in his chair and stand upon 
 his stiff limbs. So far he succeeded ; but when he at- 
 tempted to move them, the pain, or the dread of pain, was 
 too much for him. He fell back white and exhausted. 
 
 " It won't do, Will ; it won't do."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 63 
 
 " Not this time. Wait a few minutes, and then " 
 
 " Must I try again ? Oh, couldn't you be kind to me, 
 and let me rest ?" said the poor fellow, piteously. 
 
 " If I did, it would not be real kindness. Let me talk 
 to you a little common sense you're not an invalid now, 
 nor a baby either. Will you listen to me ?" 
 
 Julius opened his eyes from the sofa where his brother 
 had tenderly laid him down, and saw Will sitting on the 
 table opposite, playing with a paper-cutter, but keenly ob- 
 servant all the while. 
 
 " Yes, I'll listen. But it will be useless ; you can't give 
 me my legs again. Oh, Will, it's easy for you to speak 
 such a big, strong, healthy fellow as you are ! And I was 
 the same once, or nearly so, till I threw my health away. 
 It's too late now." 
 
 " Too late, at twenty-five ? Bosh ! Look here, lad. As 
 I told you before, a doctor has a pretty severe handful 
 with fellows like you. He has to fight against two things 
 the reality and the imagination. You are ill enough, I 
 know at least, you were when you were down with that 
 rheumatic fever." 
 
 " By George, I was ill ! Never suifered such a horrible 
 pain in all my life. Don't tell me that was fancy." 
 
 " No ; but the pain has left you now. Your last bad at- 
 tack was the night you came here. I do not believe you 
 will have any more. Your feet don't swell now ; your 
 joints are supple ; in fact, your legs are as sound as my 
 own. Yet there you sit, and let them stiffen day by day; 
 or rather, I'm such a fool as to let you, because I happen 
 to be brother as well as doctor. Once for all, Julius, do 
 you wish to be a cripple for life ?" 
 
 " No. Oh, my God, no !" replied Julius, with a shudder. 
 
 " Then try once more, before it is too late, and you real- 
 ly do lose the use of your limbs. Walk, if only three steps, 
 to prove to yourself that walking is possible." 
 
 Julius shook his head mournfully. 
 
 " It is possible," cried Will, almost angry with earnest- 
 ness. " On my honor as a doctor, there is no physical rea- 
 son why you should not walk. I am sure of it."
 
 64 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Of course it is only my ' fancy,' which you are always 
 throwing in my teeth. I suppose I could jump up this 
 minute and run a hurdle-race across the cliff for your 
 amusement. I only wish I could, that's all ! If you are 
 right and of course you always are right what an aw- 
 ful humbug I must be !" 
 
 " I never said that I never thought it," replied the el- 
 der brother, very patiently far more patiently than his 
 looks would have given reason to expect. "You are no 
 humbug: no more than was a certain patient of mine, 
 who fancied he could not use his right arm; went about 
 with it in a sling; won unlimited sympathy; learned to 
 write with his left hand ; for he was an author, poor fel- 
 low!" 
 
 "Ah ! according to you, half the ' poor fellows ' in the 
 world are either authors or artists." 
 
 " He would come to me," William went on, " with the 
 saddest complaints and the most hopeless forebodings 
 about his arm. Yet if I got him into an argument, and 
 made him forget it, he would slip it out of the sling, and 
 clench and flourish it in his own excitable manner ; nay, I 
 have seen him hammer it on the table as orators do. And 
 when I smiled he would suddenly recollect himself, pull a 
 pitiful face, and slip it back into its sling as helpless as 
 ever." 
 
 " The hypocrite !" 
 
 " Not a bit no more a hypocrite than you or I. He was 
 an exceedingly honest, good fellow, but he was afflicted 
 with nerves. He had not the sense to fight against them 
 manfully at first, till afterwards they mastered him. He 
 had a great dread of pain : his imagination was so vivid, 
 and he yielded to it so entirely, that at last he could not 
 distinguish between what he felt and what he feared, un- 
 til his fancies became only too sad realities." 
 
 "How did he end?" said Julius, roused out of the con- 
 templation of himself and his own sufferings, 
 
 " I can not tell, for I lost sight of him." 
 
 "But how do you think he would end?" 
 
 William was startled by the excessive earnestness of
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 65 
 
 the question. "I could not say indeed, I should hardly 
 like to speculate. In such cases, these delusions are only 
 the beginning of the end." 
 
 "Isn't it a strange thing," said Julius, after a long pause, 
 " that we none of us know, have not the dimmest idea how 
 we may end ? Here you and I sit, two brothers, brought 
 up together, or nearly so ; living together, with one and 
 the same interest, and well, old fellow 1 with a decent 
 amount of what folk call brotherly love yet how shall 
 we both end ?" 
 
 He put his thin hand on William's arm and looked at 
 him, or rather looked beyond him into vacant space, with 
 that expression of sad foreboding constantly seen in faces 
 like his, which is at once cause and effect, prevision and 
 fulfillment. 
 
 But it fell harmlessly on the unsuperstitious doctor. 
 
 " How shall we end ? I trust, lad, as we began to- 
 gether. And that is as much as either of us knows, or 
 ought to know. I don't like to look far ahead myself; it 
 does no good, and is often very silly. Come, we both have 
 preached quite enough, let us practise a little. Will you 
 walk back to your arm-chair?" 
 
 "You are the most obstinate, determined fellow. I do 
 think, if I were lying dead, you would coolly walk in with 
 your galvanic battery to galvanize me to life again." 
 
 "Perhaps I should, because I should never believe you 
 dead. Fellows of your temperament take a vast deal of 
 killing. Besides, I don't want you to be killed. There's 
 a deal before you yet." Will Stedman can never set the 
 Thames on fire, but perhaps Julius Stedman may." 
 
 Julius again shook his head, but smiled, and made an 
 effort to rise. 
 
 " Give me your hand, Will. It's just like learning to 
 walk again, as if I were a baby. And you did teach me 
 to walk then, you know. You'll have to do it again now." 
 
 " Very well. Here is a finger ; now toddle away, and 
 don't be frightened, you old baby." 
 
 Julius tried, walked two or three steps with difficulty, 
 and many an expression of suffering, then he succumbed.
 
 66 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " I can't, Will, I can't do it ; or, at least, it isn't worth 
 the pain 'Lejeu ne vautpas la chandellej as I used to say 
 so often. It wasn't true then; it is now. Never mind 
 me : let me be a cripple for life, or let me die." 
 
 "Neither the one thing nor the other. It isn't likely, 
 and I'll not allow it. Cheer up, my boy ! You've made 
 a beginning, and that was all I wanted. You have had 
 plenty of exercise for to-night, and now for a sound sleep 
 till morning." 
 
 So saying he took his brother up in his arms, lifting the 
 thin, slight figure as easily as if it had been a woman or a 
 child, and carried him off to bed. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A BRIGHT, cheery, sunshiny Sunday morning, such a Sun- 
 day as makes every honest heart glad, down to the young 
 'prentice-boy who sings, in that pleasant old English song 
 
 "Of all the days throughout the week 
 
 I dearly love but one day, 
 And that's the day that comes. between 
 
 The Saturday and Monday: 
 For then I'm dress'd in all my best 
 To walk abroad with Sally." 
 
 And though not dressed in all her best, and having no one 
 (save Edna) to walk abroad with, even Letty Kenderdine 
 enjoyed this Sunday ; ay, though she had to attire herself 
 for church in the obnoxious brown- bonnet and well-worn 
 cloak the cloak of two winters. But under it her tall 
 figure, now lithe and upright with renewed health, looked 
 so exceedingly graceful, and above the brown bonnet- 
 strings, carefully tied, bloomed such apple-blossom cheeks, 
 that when she saw herself in the glass even Letty was con- 
 tented. Perhaps all the more so because her beauty had 
 not been quite unbeheld. 
 
 Passing through the hall, Dr. Stedman, who chanced to 
 open his door at the same moment, had bowed to her with 
 a courteous "good-morning," not pausing to say more;
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 67 
 
 though she declared to Edna he looked as if he should 
 have liked it, and she was certain he -blushed. However, 
 he had given the mere salutation and walked rapidly on 
 ahead, till the sisters lost sight of him. 
 
 " Very good manners. He evidently does not wish to 
 intrude," observed Letty. 
 
 "No gentleman would," said Edna, "unless quite sure 
 that we desired his company." 
 
 " I wonder where he is going ? Probably to church 
 so you see he must be quite respectable." 
 
 A little lurking devil in Edna's spirit inclined her to be- 
 gin and argue that question, and prove how many bad 
 people went to church, and how many good people con- 
 scientiously staid away ; but she restrained it, and soon 
 forgot the evil spirit in the delicious calm of their walk, 
 through lanes green with budding hedge-leaves and sweet 
 with the scent of primroses, to the tiny old village church. 
 Such a contrast it was to their London church so differ- 
 ent was this day to their terrible London Sundays, with 
 the incessant stream of feet pattering along the dusty, 
 glaring pavement, church-goers and holiday-makers all 
 hurrying on to their worship, their amusement, or their 
 vice, with much the same countenance, and perhaps with 
 not such a vital difference in their hearts ! Edna often 
 used to think so, and then rebuked herself for her unchar- 
 itableness. 
 
 But, in truth, she hated London she hated, above all 
 things, London Sundays. Her Sundays here, in the gray 
 little church, with a green vision of the outside wOrld 
 showing through its unpainted windows and open door, 
 recalled to her the>sweet peaceful Sabbaths of her child- 
 hood, when she was a little country girl in Hampshire, and 
 was taken across fields and woods to just such a village 
 church as this. As she sat there, in the free seats (which 
 Letty did not like at all), there came back into her head a 
 poem which, in her dreary school-days at St. John's Wood, 
 she had learned, and the school-mistress had reproved her 
 because there was " love " in it. But Edna had fancied 
 it because there was in it a feeling like those country Sun-
 
 68 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 days ; and oh ! how unlike the Sunday at St. John's Wood ! 
 It was something abtmt 
 
 " There the green lane descends, 
 Through which I walked to church with thee, 
 O gentlest of my friends ! 
 
 "The shadow of the linden-trees 
 
 Lay moving on the grass, 
 Between them and the moving boughs, 
 A shadow, thou didst pass. 
 
 "Thy dress was like the lilies, 
 
 And thy heart was pure as they: 
 One of God's holy messengers 
 Did walk with me that day." 
 
 And so on, and so on sweet stray verses, which all the 
 service long " beat time to nothing " in Edna's brain. A 
 strangely simple, yet acute and tenacious brain a strange- 
 ly young heart, that in the midst of all its cares could go 
 back upon lots of silly childish poetry. Yet she did so, 
 and recalled the exact state of mind she was in when she 
 learned it poor little sixteen-year-old girl, brimming over 
 with romantic dreams, none of which had ever come true. 
 No, not one ; nor did she expect it now ; yet they were to 
 this day vivid as ever. And as, with a half-comical appli- 
 cation to the present, her fancy went over the lines 
 
 "Long was the good man's sermon, 
 
 But it seemed not so to me; 
 For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, 
 And still I thought of thee. 
 
 "Long was the prayer he uttered, 
 
 Yet it seemed not so to me; 
 For in my heart I prayed with him, 
 And still I thought of thee." 
 
 she still felt, as she remembered to have done then, that 
 it would be the summit of earthly happiness to go peace- 
 fully to church just such a village church as this, and on 
 just such a summer Sunday morning and sit there, with 
 the beloved of one's heart, worshipping and loving, with
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 69 
 
 the prayer that has its root in love, and the love that is 
 worth nothing unless it is a perpetual prayer. 
 
 " What a dear little church this is !" she whispered to 
 her sister as they went out. 
 
 "Very; but a rather common congregation. I saw 
 scarcely any one above the class of farmers, except in the 
 rectory pew. And did you notice a bonnet there straw, 
 with a green trimming and a wreath of pink daisies all 
 round the face ? That is how I should like my bonnet, 
 Edna. Please, remember." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " Dr. Stedman did go to church. He sat just behind us. 
 Didn't you see him?" 
 
 " No. In truth, I had forgotten all about him." 
 
 " Hush ! there he is." 
 
 He might have overheard the remark, for he passed close 
 by the sisters, passed again with only a bow not mani- 
 festing the slightest intention of stopping and speaking, 
 like the rest of the congregation, who lingered in friendly 
 groups all the way between the church-porch and the lich- 
 gate. Presently his. long strides took him far away down 
 the road. 
 
 " What very odd manners !" remarked Letty, a little an- 
 noyed. 
 
 " I think they are the manners of a gentleman who has 
 the sense not to intrude upon two ladies who have neither 
 father nor brother to make his acquaintance desirable or 
 even possible," said Edna, determined to hold to her res- 
 olution, and allow no loop-hole of civility through which 
 the enemy might assault their little encampment, and 
 bring about that passage of arms for which Letty was evi- 
 dently accoutring herself making ready for a tournament 
 which, in Edna's mind, was either foolish child's play, or 
 a battle royal for life and death. 
 
 Not that any idea of so serious a crisis struck her on 
 that bright Sunday morning. She simply thought that 
 her sister wanted a bit of flirtation, and was resolute she 
 should not have it. At which Letty sulked a little all the 
 afternoon, and spent a long, leisurely, lazy Sunday, with-
 
 70 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 out referring again to either Doctor Stedman or bis 
 brother. 
 
 After tea she insisted she was strong enough to go to 
 church a second time, but recalled her wish when she 
 looked out on the sweet Sabbath evening. " We'll take a 
 walk instead, if you are not too good, Edna." 
 
 Edna was not in the least too good. She longed to be 
 out in the green lanes, enjoying the birds' Sunday hymns, 
 and the incense of the Sunday flowers, and the uplifting 
 of the elm-trees' tall arms, in a dumb thanksgiving for 
 being again clothed with leaves : all creatures, great and 
 small, seeming to feel themselves happier and merrier on 
 a Sunday than on any common day. So she brought 
 down Letty's hat deposing the obnoxious brown bonnet 
 wrapped her up well in a warm shawl, and went out 
 with her, having first cast a glance to see if the opposite 
 door were shut. It was, and the blinds were down. The 
 brothers seemed seldom or never to go out of evenings. 
 
 The sisters crossed the threshold with light steps and 
 lighter hearts. But as they did so the grim invisible 
 Woman, sitting there, laughed at them, knowing she had 
 her will not they. 
 
 And what of the two divided from them by just a wall 
 on this momentous, monotonous Sunday the two young 
 men, about whom, whether they thought or not, they said 
 nothing ? 
 
 Julius Stedman had been terribly depressed all day. 
 There came upon him one of those moody fits to which, 
 even in health, he had been subject, and which now were 
 so severe as to try to the utmost both body and mind ; and 
 the cloud did not lift off for hours. Except during church- 
 time, his brother never left him, but hovered about him 
 with a tenderness, less brotherly than sisterly, alternately 
 reasoning and jesting, reproving and persuading, but all in 
 vain. He lay silent, shutting out daylight and cheerful- 
 ness, refusing to do any thing, or to suffer any thing to be 
 done for him. At last, apropos of nothing that William 
 could discover, unless it was the ringing of the bells and 
 the closing of the hall-door, indicating the departure of
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 71 
 
 somebody to evening church, Julius said, " I should like to 
 go out." 
 
 The doctor remonstrated. It was late the dew would 
 soon be falling. 
 
 " What do I care? What need I care? It will do me 
 no harm. Or if it did, what matter? You can't cure me, 
 Will, with your cleverness. You had better kill me off 
 quick." 
 
 " How ? Mention the easiest way." 
 
 "Oh, any thing. I hate this shilly-shally work one 
 day better, the next day worse. Your prognostications 
 were all wrong. This place does not cure me, and never 
 will." 
 
 " Shall we go back to London ?" 
 
 " Horrible ! No. Besides, didn't you tell me you want- 
 ed a fortnight's quiet reading before your hospital lectures 
 began?" 
 
 " I'll manage about that, if you would like to go home. 
 In fact, though it isn't much of a home we have, I think 
 we should be better off there than here." 
 
 Then, with the contrariness of sickness, Julius veered 
 round, and argued energetically, almost irritably, on the 
 other side. 
 
 Dr. Stedman could not repress his annoyance. He was 
 a man who always knew his own mind, and his brother's 
 indecision tried him severely. 
 
 " Have it which way you like," he said, sharply. " You 
 are as bad to deal with as any woman. Stay or go which 
 you choose ; only let me know, that I may take my meas- 
 ures accordingly." 
 
 "As bad as a woman," repeated Julius, mournfully. 
 " Yes, I suppose I am. Not half a man, and never shall 
 be. Ah ! I wish I had some woman about me ; she would 
 pity me ; she would understand me. Nay, Will, don't 
 look savage. I didn't mean to vex you." 
 
 " Nor did you vex me ; so don't be fancying that among 
 other nonsense," returned Will, with some impatience. 
 " Just let us try to have an ounce of common sense be- 
 tween us. The larger matters we can settle to-morrow.
 
 72 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 At present the question is, Will you or will you not go out 
 this evening ? Say yes, and I'll go and fetch the chair." 
 
 " Thank you. But it's late, and it's Sunday evening." 
 
 " Pshaw !" The doctor rose, searched for his hat, and 
 was off in a minute. 
 
 In ten minutes more the brothers were out on the cliffs, 
 in their accustomed mode of progression, along the famil- 
 iar way. Doubtless, a weary life for them both ; an un- 
 natural life for two young men, in the very flower of their 
 age, and both in the most critical time of their career ; a 
 time when to most men every week, every day is of mo- 
 ment as regards their future. Yet here they were, passing 
 it in compulsory idleness. No wonder both were silent, 
 and that the lovely evening did not steal into their hearts 
 as it did into those of the two young women. Nay, their 
 forced companionship seemed to throw the brothers wider 
 apart than it had done the sisters. True, Will and Julius 
 never quarrelled, as Letty and Edna sometimes did burst- 
 ing into a thunder-storm of words, ending in tears and kiss- 
 es of reconciliation womanish but safe. On the contra- 
 ry, each fortified himself behind his masculine armor of 
 steely reticence, smooth and cold, feeling all the while that 
 within it he was a dull fellow a solitary fellow even 
 with his own brother beside him. Such lonely moments 
 come to all people before marriage (Heaven help them 
 if they come after marriage!) and it would be well if 
 brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, recognized this 
 fact as a law of God and necessity that all the love of 
 duty never makes up for the love of choice. 
 
 What poor Julius was thinking of as he sat, helplessly 
 propelled along, and looked listlessly on the sweet land- 
 scape that he had neither strength nor heart to paint 
 what William felt as he expended in pushing the Bath- 
 chair the manly strength that would have enjoyed a good 
 twenty-mile walk across the island, geologizing, botaniz- 
 ing, and what not must remain alike unknown. Certain- 
 ly, neither brother communicated his feelings to the other. 
 They were uncommonly dull company this evening, and 
 that was the truth of it.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 73 
 
 The cliffs were deserted all the good people at church. 
 Only, just as they were returning home, Julius pointed out 
 two figures standing on the cliff-top, sharp against the sky. 
 
 " Two ladies, I think they are a very tall one and a 
 very short one." 
 
 "It is probably the Misses Kenderdine. They were 
 out, for I saw their door open as we passed." 
 
 "Hurry back then, Will. Don't let us meet them. 
 They will only look at me with their confounded pity. I 
 hate being pitied. Make haste !" 
 
 The doctor did his best, but there were some steep lit- 
 tle ascents and descents which required all his skill and 
 strength. In one of these his pilotage failed. In turning 
 past a large stone the wheel came off, and the chair top- 
 pled over, landing its occupant ignominiously on the grass. 
 
 A slight, almost ridiculous accident, if it had not hap- 
 pened to an invalid, and to such a nervous invalid as Julius 
 Stedman. As it was, his brother was seriously alarmed. 
 But Julius, whose state could never be counted on with 
 certainty for five minutes at a time, seemed to- take his 
 disaster easily enough. Nay, the little excitement roused 
 his mobile temperament into healthy vitality. He sat on 
 the grass, perfectly unhurt, and laughing heartily. 
 
 " I never knew such a ' spill.' Done as cleverly as if 
 you had done it on purpose perhaps to attract the atten- 
 tion of those ladies. They evidently think we have had a 
 frightful accident. See how they are running to the res- 
 cue that is, the little one ; the other is too majestic to 
 run. She stalks down, Juno-like, to offer her benign aid 
 to me, miserable mortal ! And, by Juno, what a gait she 
 has ! Never did I see such a handsome creature ! No, I 
 thank you, Miss Kenderdine," added he, when, a second 
 time led away by her impulse of kindness, Edna came 
 hastily down to the scene of disaster. " No, I'm not killed 
 -*-not this time. But I seem always destined to fall into 
 sudden misfortune and have you appearing to me as my 
 guardian angel." 
 
 Edna did not laugh, for she caught sight of Dr. Sted 
 man's anxious face, and guessed at once that the position 
 
 D
 
 74 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 of affairs was rather serious the chair useless, no carriage 
 attainable, the dews beginning to fall heavily, and they on 
 the cliff-top, at least a quarter of a mile from home, with 
 an invalid who could not walk a step, and was too heavy 
 to be carried. 
 
 " What is to be done ?" said she, in a low tone, to the 
 elder brother, while the younger, oblivious of his disaster, 
 became absorbed in conversation with Letty, who, arriving 
 stately and slowly, had just begun to hope, with conde- 
 scending interest, that he had not hurt himself. "I see 
 how things are. What must we do?" repeated Edna, in un- 
 conscious fraternity. " Shall I run and fetch assistance ?" 
 
 " No ; it would only annoy him. Besides, there is no 
 need. We must get him to walk home. I know he could 
 walk if he tried." 
 
 Edna looked amazed a little indignant. 
 
 "You think me cruel, I know; but we doctors are 
 obliged to be so to some sort of patients. And it is the 
 real truth. He is quite capable of walking a short dis- 
 tance, and I shall be rather thankful for any thing that 
 forces him to acknowledge it. Am I very hard-hearted, 
 Miss Kenderdine ?" 
 
 " I can not say. I suppose you know best." 
 
 This little conversation was carried on in confidence 
 over the broken wheel, but there was no time for discus- 
 sion. Every minute the air grew more chill and the grass 
 more dewy ; the tide was rising, and the wind that came 
 in with it began to blow freshly from over the sea. To 
 healthy people it was delicious intoxicating in its pure 
 saltness ; but to the invalid, though apparently he did not 
 notice it, being engaged talking to Letty, who was sym- 
 pathizing with him in the most charming manner to a 
 person in Julius Stedman's condition, Edna felt that it 
 might be most dangerous. 
 
 "We must get him home somehow at once, and I see 
 but one way," said the doctor, with a professional air, de- 
 cisive and dictatorial, which at any other time would have 
 amused Edna. " Will you help me, Miss Kenderdine ? If 
 I support him on one side, will you let him lean on you at
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 75 
 
 the other? I am sorry to trouble you very sorry; but 
 it is a case of emergency. And if, as you said, you are ac- 
 customed to sick-nursing " 
 
 " Yes ; and I think I can do this. I have almost carried 
 Letty many a time. Though I am small, I am very strong." 
 
 " I can see that." 
 
 " But how will you persuade him to walk ?" 
 
 "Will you suggest it? It might come better, coming 
 from a stranger. Try, please ; for we have not a minute 
 to lose." 
 
 Nobody knew exactly how it was done probably by 
 the invalid's being taken by surprise, and left no chance 
 of refusing ; but it was done. Between his two support- 
 ers Julius was marched remorselessly on, half in jest, half 
 in earnest, across the smooth down. And then, no doubt, 
 it was rather pleasant to be assisted in his steps by one 
 charming girl, and have his progress watched and encour- 
 aged by another. Be that as it may, Julius did walk, with 
 the assistance of his brother and Miss Kenderdine, the 
 whole quarter of a mile; and when he reached the garden 
 gate, so far from being exhausted, as they had expected, he 
 turned, with his countenance all beaming 
 
 " How cleverly I have done it ! I do think I shall get 
 back the use of my limbs. Will said so but I never be- 
 lieved him. I say, old fellow, don't be too conceited but 
 you were right, after all." 
 
 The doctor smiled. Edna saw something in his face 
 that touched her even more than the delighted excitement 
 in that of the invalid. 
 
 " Oh, if you knew what it feels like !" said Julius to Edna. 
 " To have been tied and bound for weeks to that chair to 
 feel as if one should never walk any more ; and now, I do 
 believe, if you would let me, I could walk quite alone." 
 
 " Try," said the doctor, composedly. 
 
 " Oh, do try !" cried Edna, eagerly. 
 
 The young man did try, and succeeded. Very tottering 
 steps they were, and not many of them, for his brother 
 would not allow it ; but he did really walk alone and un- 
 assisted. And only those who know what it is to be de-
 
 76 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 prived for a season of the power of locomotion, or of any 
 power which we use so commonly and thanklessly that we 
 need to lose it before we fully recognize its blessing, can 
 understand the ecstasy which lit up every feature of the 
 poor fellow's face, and was reflected in the faces round 
 about him. 
 
 " I declare I am just like a baby a baby first learning 
 to walk," said Julius, viewing first one leg and then the 
 other patting them and looking down upon them as if 
 they were quite new acquaintances or lately -recovered 
 friends. " Don't laugh at me, please, you two young la- 
 dies. Will, there, won't ; he knows I always was a sim- 
 pleton. And then I have been so ill, and the future has 
 looked so terrible. Don't laugh at me." 
 
 " We are not laughing," said Letty, whose good-nature 
 had really been roused so much so as to forget herself, 
 her " unfortunate appearance," and the sense of dignified 
 propriety due to both, in the warm human interest of the 
 moment. "Indeed, we are exceedingly glad to see you 
 better are we not, sister ?" 
 
 But Edna was so moved that she was actually crying. 
 
 " How good you are !" said Julius, taking her hand and 
 pressing it warmly. While the whole four stood silent, 
 something they knew not what seemed to come creep- 
 ing round them like an atmosphere of peace, and kindli- 
 ness, and mutual sympathy compelling them into friend- 
 liness, whether they willed it or not. And as they stood 
 at the front door, the soft, gray, misty twilight was draw- 
 ing a veil over the sea, and the robin-redbreast, from his 
 nest at the cliff's edge, gave one or two good-night war- 
 bles over his mate and his little ones, and the first star 
 came out, large and bright, in the zenith. This sunshiny 
 Sunday was making a good end. 
 
 " Come in, now," said the doctor, for nobody seemed dis- 
 d to stir. "At least, we must. Julius, say good-night, 
 with many thanks, to these two ladies. Are you quite 
 warm, lad? I wish I had ordered a fire." 
 
 " Ours is lit," said Edna ; and, with a glance at her sister, 
 she did on the impulse of the moment what seemed a sim-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 77 
 
 pie thing enough, yet was the very last thing which, an 
 hour ago, she would have thought of doing the thing of 
 all others she had determined not to do she invited the 
 brothers into their parlor. 
 
 "It will prevent all danger of a chill," said the little 
 woman, turning to Dr. Stedman with quite a grandmother- 
 ly air. "Your room will be warm in half an hour; and 
 meantime he can lie down. We have a capital sofa; in- 
 deed, Mrs. Williams told us it was better than yours, and 
 we offered to exchange." 
 
 " Do not think of such a thing," said Julius. " I shall 
 soon be well ; indeed, I feel myself well now. It is aston- 
 ishing what good this evening has done me ; or rather, not 
 astonishing a little society cheers one up so much. Well, 
 I may go in and sit by that nice blazing fire ?" 
 
 " By all means, since these ladies are so kind." 
 
 The doctor helped his brother in, made him comfortable 
 on the sofa (" and how cleverly he did it too wouldn't he 
 be uncommonly good to his wife, that great big fellow !" 
 remarked Letty afterwards), and then was about depart- 
 ing, as if he hesitated to consider any one but Julius in- 
 cluded in the invitation. 
 
 Letty said, in her most stately but most fascinating man- 
 ner, " she hoped Dr. Stedman would remain." So he re- 
 mained. 
 
 It was the first evening they ever spent together these 
 four ; indeed, it could scarcely be called an evening, for Dr. 
 Stedman carried his brother away remorselessly at the half- 
 hour's end. Its incidents were unimportant, and its con- 
 versation trivial, as is usually the case with first acquaint- 
 ance. Only in books, seldom or never in real life, do 
 youths and maidens dash into the Romeo-and-Juliet pas- 
 sion of the instant. Nowadays people even young peo- 
 ple rarely fall in love ; they walk into it deliberately and 
 open-eyed, or slip into it gradually unawares. It is all one. 
 
 "Come he slow, or come he fast, 
 It is but Love that comes at last." 
 
 The only notable fact in the evening's entertainment
 
 78 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 was that, ere he sat down, Dr. Stedman pointedly took out 
 his card and laid it before the sisters. 
 
 "I think, Julius, before we intrude upon these ladies' 
 hospitality, we ought to tell them who and what we are. 
 Miss Kenderdine, rny brother is an artist, and I am a doc- 
 tor. There are only we two ; our parents are long dead, 
 and we never had a sister. We live at Kensington, where 
 I have taken the practice of the late Dr. Young." 
 
 " We knew Dr. Young," replied Edna, with very con- 
 siderable relief; " and we heard he had a high opinion of 
 the gentleman who afterwards succeeded him. That must 
 have been yourself?" 
 
 Dr. Stedman bowed. " Then," he added, smiling, and in 
 his smile the not quite good-tempered look before spoken 
 of certainly disappeared " then I may be considered to 
 have given in our certificates of character ?" 
 
 " Not mine," observed Julius from the sofa. " I may be 
 a most awful scape-grace for all these ladies know ; a ne'er- 
 do-weel, hanging round the neck of my respectable brother 
 like a millstone on an old man of the sea ; a poor artist 
 disreputable, as most poor artists are. Nobody can expect 
 the luxury of a character unless he is rich ; and I am as 
 poor as a church mouse, I assure you, Miss Kenderdine. 
 All our money came to Will there ; his grandfather's pet 
 he was, and he left him his heir, but he halves it all with 
 me, and " 
 
 " Julius, what nonsense you are talking !" 
 
 " I always do talk nonsense when I'm happy ; and I am 
 so happy to-night I can't think what has come over me. 
 So now you know all about us, Miss Kenderdine ; and you 
 may either make friends of us or not, as you choose." 
 1 " Say, rather, acquaintance ; friendship does not come 
 all in a minute," said the doctor, regarding his brother, 
 who sat looking so handsome and bright, pleasant and 
 lovable, with something of the expression, deprecating yet 
 proud, with which a parent regards a spoiled child, for 
 whom he feels bound to apologize, but can not quite see 
 the necessity, and thinks every body must secretly be in 
 as admiring an attitude as he himself. In fact, the big
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 79 
 
 brother's evident admiration of the sickly one struck the 
 sisters as something quite funny if it were not so touch- 
 ing and so unusual in its way. 
 
 " Well, then we being two lonely brothers, and they 
 two sisters, thrown together in this not too lively abode 
 will they kindly permit our acquaintance, after the pat- 
 tern of Queen Elizabeth's celebrated letter ' Yours as 
 you demean yourselves, Edna Kenderdine and ? I have 
 not heard your sister's Christian name." 
 
 " Letty Letitia," said the owner of it, looking .down- 
 ward. 
 
 This was the only information vouchsafed to the two 
 guests by their hostesses. As Letty said, after they were 
 gone, the two brothers, who were evidently gentlemen, 
 must have seen at a glance that she and her sister were 
 gentlewomen; and any further facts were quite unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 Edna thought so too; still, with her exceeding candor, 
 and perhaps a lurking pride, she would have liked them 
 the doctor especially to know that Letty and herself 
 were only school-mistresses. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHY do people take to loving one another or liking, 
 the customary and safe preliminary to loving ? And how 
 does the love first come ? Through what mysterious proc- 
 ess do young folks pass, by steps rapid or slow, according 
 to circumstances and their own idiosyncrasy, out of the 
 common world the quiet, colorless, everyday world into 
 that strange new paradise from which there is no return- 
 ing ? No, none ! We may be driven out of it by an an- 
 gel with a flaming sword out into the wilderness, which 
 we have to till and keep, changing its thorns and thistles 
 into a respectable ordinary garden we may pass out of 
 it, calmly and happily, into a new earth safe and sweet, 
 and homelike ; but this particular paradise is never found 
 asrain never re-entered more.
 
 80 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Why should it be? All life is a mere progression a 
 pressing on and on ; and death itself we Christians be- 
 lieve but a higher development into more perfect life. 
 Yet as nothing good is ever lost, or wholly forgotten, one 
 can imagine even a disembodied spirit sitting glorious be- 
 fore the great white throne, recalling with a tender sweet- 
 ness the 'old earthly heaven which was first created by that 
 strange state of mind- that intoxicating idealization of 
 all things within as without, as if every thing were beheld 
 with new eyes the eyes of a creature new-bound ; the 
 condition which silly folk call being " in love." 
 
 It has its sillinesses no one will deny ; its weaknesses 
 and madnesses ; but it has its divine side too, chiefly be- 
 cause then, and not till then, comes the complete absorption 
 of self into some other being dearer and better, higher and 
 nobler than one's self, or imagined so ; which is the foun- 
 dation of every thing divine in human nature. If men or 
 women are ever good at all ever heroic, unselfish, self- 
 denying they will be so when they first fall in love ; and 
 if the love be worthy, that goodness will take root and 
 grow. As a tree is known by its fruits, so a noble love, 
 be it happy or unhappy, ennobles a whole life. And I 
 think no friends no parents especially if they are real 
 friends, real parents, true as tender, generous as wise, can 
 see two young people standing at the enchanted gate 
 without a prayerful thankfulness ay, thankfulness. For 
 it is the gate of life to them, whatever be the end. 
 
 Neither friends nor kindred stood by these four to watch 
 or warn them, to help or to hinder their footsteps, in enter- 
 ing this unknown paradise; they walked into it deliber- 
 ately, day by day and hour by hour, from that first Sun- 
 day night when Julius Stedman lay on the Misses Ken- 
 derdiue's sofa, talking to one and gazing at the other, 
 with all his heart both in his lips and eyes. 
 
 He was the grand foundation of the acquaintance, the 
 corner-stone which seemed to make it all safe and right 
 and natural. The saci'edness of sickness was upon him 
 and around him ; for after the exertion of that night he 
 fell back considerably, and for some days made his brother
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 81 
 
 and his friends in the anxiety they grew into friends 
 very miserable about him. The Misses Kenderdine were 
 by no means strong-minded women, to fly in the face of 
 the world, and make acquaintance with, or suffer them- 
 selves to be made acquaintances by, any stray young man 
 they happened to meet. They had a keen sense of deco- 
 rum ; but then it was the decorum of true womanliness, the 
 pure simplicity of soul which sees no harm in things not 
 really harmful ; the sweet dignity of maidenhood, which, 
 feeling that, known or unknown, met or unmet, there can 
 be to any woman but one man alive who is a possible 
 husband, regards the rest of the sex with a gentle kind- 
 ness a placid indifference nothing more. 
 
 At least such was Edna's condition, and by the strong 
 influence of her character she turned Letty into the same, 
 or an imitation of the same, for the time being. After a 
 long consultation between themselves, the sisters agreed 
 that it would be ridiculous in them to stand aloof from 
 the poor sick fellow in the next room, and his grave, anx- 
 ious brother, who seemed wholly absorbed in nursing him, 
 because these happened to be young men, and they them- 
 selves young women ; and no regular introduction in soci- 
 ety had taken place between them. 
 
 "But we know all about them, nevertheless," argued 
 Edna. "I quite well remember that when I was urged 
 to send for Dr. Young to you, and found he had died sud- 
 denly, his successor was very highly recommended. It 
 must have been the same Dr. Stedman. Had I sent, and 
 had he attended you in the fever, how very funny it would 
 have been !" 
 
 " Yes, indeed. Suppose we tell him what a near escape 
 he had of either killing or curing me !" 
 
 " I think not, dear. As you say, there is no necessity 
 for them to know any thing about us. I do not mean 
 even to tell them that we live at Kensington ; but it is a 
 satisfaction to know something about Dr. Stedman, and it 
 warrants us in being kind and civil a little to that poor 
 sick lad he looks no more than a lad. And how very ill 
 he seemed this morning !" 
 
 D2
 
 82 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 So Edna reasoned with herself, most simply and sin- 
 cerely; as she drifted they all drifted into that frank 
 association, which, the first barrier being broken, was sure 
 to come to people living in the same house, having noth- 
 ing in the wide world to do but to go out and come in, 
 and watch each other's goings out and comings in, inno- 
 cently enough; but yet with a certain interest that ap- 
 peared to waken up into new life the whole party, espe- 
 cially the invalids. 
 
 For Letty was a little of an invalid again. She took a 
 slight chill; and Dr. Stedman prescribed for her in a very 
 reticent, formal, but still pleasant and friendly way, which 
 further helped on the intimacy between them. And as 
 for Edna, her chief friend, as she openly declared, was 
 Julius. He tdok to her suddenly and completely, with a 
 kind of child-like dependence, so affectionately persistent 
 that there was no withstanding it. Soon it became quite 
 natural for him to send for her in to sit with him when 
 his brother went out, to beg her to accompany them and 
 " see that nothing happened to them " in the daily walk 
 that Will shortly began to insist upon, first round the 
 garden, and gradually lengthening, to the 'total abolition 
 of the Bath-chair. He talked and jested with her alter- 
 nately, for she was a merry as well as earnest little wom- 
 an ; he tyrannized over her, making her see to his little 
 comforts, which she did in quite a motherly, or, rather, as 
 he declared, a "grandmotherly" way; sometimes he even 
 presumed to tease her, but all in such frank, boyish, and 
 yet perfectly gentlemanly fashion, that the result was in- 
 evitable Edna grew exceedingly fond of him. 
 
 " Fond of" is the word that gentle tenderness which 
 almost invariably, though not always, precludes the pos- 
 sibility of any thing more. 
 
 This firm alliance, open and free, between Julius and 
 Edna, made things progress amazingly, and threw the two 
 others together more than Letty's sister would, a week 
 ago, have dared to risk. But then Dr. Stedman, the more 
 she knew of him, seemed the more unlikely to fall into 
 the ranks of Letty's victims, being exceedingly sedate and
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 83 
 
 middle-aged for his years, and apparently not at all dis- 
 posed to make the best of his opportunities. He would 
 walk by Letty's side for hours without detaching her 
 from the others, or talking to her very much himself; 
 lie seemed to like looking at her as any man might, and 
 that was all. Obviously he was incapable of flirtation, 
 did not seem to understand what it meant, carried on all 
 conversations with the sisters in the most open, grave, and 
 courteous earnest ; as Letty declared, it would have been 
 quite impossible for her to set up a flirtation with him, 
 even had she tried. 
 
 To do her justice, she did not try. She too was sub- 
 dued by the shadow of heavy sickness, which she had so 
 lately escaped, and which still hung over the two brothers. 
 Her sympathy was aroused ; she thought iess of herself 
 and her charms, and was consequently more charming .than 
 she had ever been in her life. 
 
 Did the young men see and feel it ? This extraordinary 
 fascination, half of soul, half of sense, which breathes in 
 the very atmosphere of a beautiful woma", if she has any 
 thing womanly in her at all. And Letty had a good deal. 
 There was in her not a particle of ill-nature, that "envy, 
 malice, and all uncharitableness," which women have some- 
 times sore need to pray against. She was always gentle 
 and lady-like, and extremely sweet-tempered. If, taken 
 altogether, her character was chiefly made up of negatives, 
 her beauty was a thing so positive that it supplied all de- 
 ficiencies, at least for a long time. In the eyes of men, 
 probably for always. 
 
 Julius had his wish, and made sketches innumerable, 
 sometimes open, sometimes surreptitious, of her flexible 
 figure and lovely face. Of evenings he used to repeat 
 them from memory, and make compositions out of them. 
 Dr. Stedman was called out of his medical researches for 
 endless criticism upon Miss Kenderdine they always 
 called her Miss Kenderdine, and her sister Miss Edna, 
 though why, nobody knew as the gardener's daughter, 
 
 "Gowned in pure white that fitted to the shape, 
 Holding a branch to fix it back,"
 
 84 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Miss Kenderdine in mediaeval costume, as Kreimhild in the 
 Niebelungenlied, and Miss Kenderdine with her hat off, 
 and sea-weeds in her hair, standing with the tide rolling 
 in upon her feet, musing pensively with head bent forward 
 a veritable Ariadne of Naxos. 
 
 " That's the best, I think," said Will, whose comments 
 were always sharp, short, and decisive. 
 
 " I think so too," replied the other, lingering over his 
 work with an artist's delight. " There is a wonderful deal 
 of the Ariadne in her face naturally." 
 
 " Yes. The features are of the true Greek type sensu- 
 ous without being sensual, pleasure-loving, but not coarse. 
 She ought to marry a rich man, and then she would do 
 uncommonly well."" 
 
 " Probably ; so would most women," said Julius, with 
 some sharpness. 
 
 Will did not notice that, but still gazed in keen criti- 
 cism on the sketch. 
 
 "Ay, it's like her; a true Ariadne face that, Theseus 
 lost, would take up very comfortably with Bacchus." 
 
 " Horrible !" cried the artist. " I never knew such a 
 matter-of-fact, abominably blunt fellow as you. You 
 might as well say that if Miss Kenderdine were disap- 
 pointed in love she would take to drinking." 
 
 " She might. I have seen some terrible cases of female 
 Bacchants under similar circumstances. But I beg your 
 pa'rdon. You need not tell her I said so. Besides, she is 
 never likely to be disappointed in love," added the doctor, 
 as he put down the sketch-book, and ceased the conversation. 
 
 It was the only conversation that during the first fort- 
 night the brothers held concerning their new acquaint- 
 ances. Indeed, there was not time, for, excepting the late 
 working hours after nine or ten o'clock scarcely an 
 hour passed when the occupants of the two parlors did 
 not meet, or sit waiting, expectant of the chance of meet- 
 ing. Not that any walks or talks were purposely or sys- 
 tematically planned still they always seemed to come 
 about, and at length both sides seemed to make reasons 
 or excuses for them.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 85 
 
 " We are just a lot of children out on a holiday," said 
 Julius one day, when they were all sitting eating their 
 combined lunch on a primrose bank, with larks singing 
 madly overhead, the salt wind freshening all their faces, 
 and far away the outline of white cliffs and blue sea 
 stretching into infinite brightness infinite peace. "Just 
 mere children, Miss Edna, and oh, do let us enjoy our- 
 selves as such. We shall have hard enough work when 
 we get home." 
 
 " That is true," said Edna, with a half sigh ; and she too 
 gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment. 
 
 None the less enjoyable that it was, strangely enough, 
 the first time in their lives that these two young women 
 had had any frank association with men good, pleasant, 
 clever men. To Letty the opposite sex had always come 
 in the form of lovers not always satisfactory, especially 
 in the amazing plurality with which they had blessed Le- 
 titia Kenderdine ; while Edna knew nothing about men at 
 all. That cheerful, frank intercourse social, moral, and 
 intellectual which, within limits, does both sexes a world 
 of good, was to her not only a novelty, but an exceeding 
 pleasure. She was not a stupid woman indeed it some- 
 times dawned upon her that she might have a few brains 
 of her own, since she could so readily enter into the talk 
 of these two men, who both, in their way, were undoubt- 
 edly clever men thoughtful, original, and with no folly 
 or coarseness about them, such as would at once have re- 
 pelled these maidenly gentlewomen. Neither of the broth- 
 ers attempted in the slightest degree to make love to Let- 
 ty, and both treated Edna with a grateful politeness, a 
 true heart courtesy, that did her own heart good. For, 
 she argued to herself, it was not like the civilities shown 
 to Letty ; it must be sincere, since it was shown to a poor, 
 plain little school-mistress. She had taken care to let 
 their new friends know they were only school-mistresses, 
 teaching tradesmen's daughters in a London suburb so 
 much, no more ; and she had noticed with approbation 
 that neither brother had made the slightest further in- 
 quiry; nor had their respective positions in life, or pe-
 
 86 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 cuniary affairs, or family connections, been again refer- 
 red to. 
 
 Thus they spent day after day, these four young peo- 
 ple, in as complete an Arcadia as if there were no such a 
 place as the common, working-day world, no sound of 
 which ever reached them. This little Isle of Wight, 
 which was not then what it is now, but far simpler, far 
 lonelier, far lovelier though it is lovely yet might have 
 been an enchanted island of the sea an Atlantis, such as 
 weary mariners sailed after in vain where no one toiled 
 and no one suffered ; no one hated, or quarrelled, or be- 
 trayed ; but all within was as sweet and peaceful as with- 
 out, and where these young people seemed to live a life as 
 innocent as the birds, and as peaceful as the primroses. 
 
 Letty even forgot her new bonnet, Edna never took that 
 expedition to Ryde ; it seemed a pity to waste a day there- 
 on ; and for two Sundays more the sisters went contentedly 
 to church in their winter's clothes. But it was spring in 
 both their hearts all the while. ,- 
 
 This was, they agreed, the most wonderful spring they 
 had ever seen. The primroses were so large; the hya- 
 cinths so innumerable and intensely blue, and the trees 
 came into leaf with such especial luxuriance all in a min- 
 ute, as it seemed ; some days you could almost see them 
 growing. The twenty-ninth of May the oaks were full 
 enough to shelter a moderate-sized King Charles ; and on 
 a certain country walk Edna discussed eagerly with Julius 
 that celebrated historical fact, w r hich he had tried to illus- 
 trate by a large cartoon in the previous year's exhibition 
 at Westminster Hall. 
 
 " Did you compete for the prizes ?" she asked, walking 
 along by his side, while the others went on ahead, this 
 being their usual way, because Letty disliked being hin- 
 dered with Julius's still feeble steps. 
 
 " I tried, but I failed. I always do fail, somehow." 
 
 " That is hard. I wonder why it should be so, when you 
 are so very clever," said Edna, innocently. 
 
 "Perhaps other people Will especially think me clev- 
 erer than I am. I don't know how it is," added he, mourn-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 7 
 
 fully, "but I always seem to miss the exact point of suc- 
 cess. I get near it, but I never touch it. I am afraid my 
 life has been always will be a failure." 
 
 "Many lives are, that do not show it outside," replied 
 Edna, more sadly than her wont. For she too, on that 
 sunshiny day, with all things luring her to enjoyment, had 
 become slightly conscious of something lacking. Did the 
 others feel it, she wondered ? Was Letty, there, as happy 
 as she looked, when stopping with Dr. Stedman on the 
 summit of the steep cliff, up which she herself had man- 
 aged to climb with Julius, indulging him with the fancy 
 that he was helping her, while, in reality, she supported 
 him a common fiction. 
 
 "My brother and your sister have got on ahead of 
 us," said Julius, pausing, breathless. " They seem capital 
 friends. He admires her extremely, as, indeed, every body 
 must do. She is the most beautiful person we ever saw." 
 
 " Yes ; all people say that. I am quite used to hearing 
 it now." 
 
 " Of course you are, which must be my apology for mak- 
 ing the remark. The fact is so patent that it ceases to bo 
 either a compliment or an impertinence." 
 
 " It would never be an impertinence, said as you say it," 
 replied Edna, gently, for she saw that the young man was 
 a little annoyed in some way. " Yet, I will confess, you 
 are the first person whom I ever heard call my sister hand- 
 some without its making me angry." 
 
 " What an odd observation to make ! How it might be 
 misinterpreted !" 
 
 " How ? That it meant I was jealous of her ? Oh, how 
 very funny ! What an altogether ridiculous idea ! Me 
 jealous of my sister because she is so beautiful, while I 
 myself am well " 
 
 " Never mind what you are," interrupted Julius, blush- 
 ing, for he felt he was treading on the very bounds of in- 
 civility. 
 
 " Oh, but I do mind a little. I confess I should like to 
 have been handsome, too. But as it can't be, it can't be ; 
 and I have now grown quite used to being plain."
 
 88 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Julius was fairly puzzled. It had been his trial, and a 
 not inconsiderable one, in his acquaintance, or friendship, 
 or whatever it was, with this sweet little woman, that she 
 was so plain. To his keen artist eye her want of com- 
 plexion, of feature, and general brilliancy of effect, was 
 sometimes really annoying. She would have been so at- 
 tractive, so original, so altogether charming if only she 
 had been a very little prettier. 
 
 Of course he would not betray this, and yet he did not 
 like to tell an untruth, or to pay a silly compliment, which 
 the candid Edna could at once have discovered and scorned. 
 A bright thought struck him, and he compromised with it. 
 
 "Plain, are you? Every body doesn't think so; Will 
 doesn't. The very first night he saw you, when you sat 
 adding up your accounts, he told me what a nice face you 
 had." 
 
 " Did he ? I am sure I am very much obliged to him." 
 
 "And your sister?" continued Julius, still watching the 
 other two with an intentness that might have seemed pe- 
 culiar had not Edna now become accustomed to his artist 
 way of staring " quite in the way of business," as he took 
 care to explain. " What does your sister think of Will ?" 
 
 " I really can not tell," replied Edna, smiling. " In truth 
 I have not the slightest idea." 
 
 She might have added once she thought she would, 
 and then despised herself for such an unsisterly betrayal 
 that Letty's thoughts did not much matter, as she was 
 not in the habit of thinking long or seriously about any 
 thing. So she held her tongue, and the brotherly earnest- 
 ness of her companion's next speech shamed her still more. 
 
 "I hope she likes him; she ought you both ought, for 
 I am sure he likes you, which is a great deal to say for 
 Will, as he does not usually get on with young ladies. 
 Yet he is a wonderfully good fellow, Miss Edna ; a fine 
 fellow in every way, as you would say if you knew him." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it." 
 
 " Brothers don't often pull together as well as we do, 
 yet we are very unlike, and I have tried him not a little. 
 When I get strong if I ever do get strong "
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 89 
 
 " You certainly will. Dr. Stedraan said so to me only 
 yesterday." 
 
 " What was he saying about me ? You see, Will and I 
 don't talk much either of or to one another, and I should 
 like to know what he could find to say." 
 
 Edna hesitated a moment whether or not to repeat this, 
 the only bit of confidence that had ever passed between 
 herself and the doctor, and which had at once amazed and 
 puzzled her for the time : it seemed so very uncalled for. 
 Then she thought she would tell it, for it could do no pos- 
 sible harm out of its anxious brotherly affectionateness. 
 And it might even do good, by rousing Julius out of that 
 languid indifference to the future, that loose grasp of life, 
 with its duties and pleasures alike, which was such a sad, 
 nay, a fatal thing to see in a young man of his age. 
 
 " It was very little your brother said ; only he told me 
 his firm conviction that you had no real disease or feeble- 
 ness of coustitxition. You would be all right if you could 
 once be roused out of your melancholy and moody fits by 
 any strong feeling of any kind : made to take care of your 
 health, work hard, though not too hard, and finally marry 
 and settle." 
 
 " Did he say that ? Did he want me to marry ?" 
 
 " Very much indeed," replied Edna, laughing. " No 
 match-making mother was ever more earnest on the sub- 
 ject. He said that a good wife would be the best blessing 
 that could- happen to you, and the sooner it happened the 
 better." 
 
 " Were those his words? Exceedingly obliged to him !" 
 
 From the tone Edna could hardly tell whether the young 
 man was pleased or vexed, but he blushed extremely : so 
 much so that she began to blush too, and to question with- 
 in herself whether she had not gone a little too far, and in 
 her sublime grandmotherly indifference had overstepped 
 the boundary of maidenly propriety. But at this instant 
 the other two returned, and the conversation became gen- 
 eral. 
 
 Edna was glad Dr. Stedman had called hers "a nice 
 face." It showed that he liked her, and she had rather
 
 90 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 thought the contrary. Scarcely from any expression or 
 non-expression of the fact, but because he did not seem a 
 person who would easily like any body : but once liking, 
 his fidelity would be sure for life. Or so at least fancied 
 Edna in her simple speculations upon character, in which 
 she was fond of indulging as most people are who do not 
 take very much trouble in thinking about themselves. 
 She must think about something, and not being given to 
 lofty musings or abstract cogitations, she thought about 
 her neighbors ; and, for the remainder of that walk, about 
 that special neighbor who had been her first acquaintance 
 of the two ; since Dr. Stedman had more than once de- 
 clared, when they were jesting on the subject, that his ac- 
 quaintance with the sisters dated from the moment when 
 he had been moved to such deep sympathy by Miss Edna's 
 arithmetical woes. 
 
 She was glad he liked her, for she liked him ; his keen 
 intelligence, less brilliant than Julius's, but solid, thor- 
 ough, and clear ; his honesty of speech and simple unpre- 
 tending goodness especially his unvarying goodness to 
 his brother, over whom his anxiety and his patience 
 seemed endless; and Edna could understand it all.. In 
 the few private talks she and Dr. Stedman had together, 
 their conversation seemed naturally to turn upon the near- 
 est subject to both their hearts their respective sister 
 and brother. 
 
 Was he falling in love with Letty, or fearing Julius 
 would do so? Either chance was possible, and yet im- 
 probable ; nay, in the frank pleasure of their intercourse, 
 Edna had almost ceased to dread either catastrophe. Now, 
 as they turned homeward along the cliff, she noticed that 
 Dr. Stedman looked exceedingly thoughtful almost sad 
 that he either walked beside Letty, or, when she was 
 walking with his brother, he followed her continually with 
 his eyes. 
 
 No wonder. Edna thought she had never seen her sis- 
 ter so irresistibly attractive. If half the men in the world 
 were on their knees at Letty's feet, it would have scarcely 
 been unnatural. And yet and yet
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 91 
 
 Edna did not like to own it to herself it seemed so un- 
 kind, unsisterly; still, if, as a perfectly unprejudiced per- 
 son, she had been asked, was Letty the sort of girl likely to 
 carry away captive Dr. Stedman, she should have said no. 
 She should have thought a man with his deep nature 
 would have looked deeper, expected more. With all her 
 love for Letty, Letty would have been the last person in 
 the world whom, had she been a man, she, Edna, would 
 have fallen in love with ; if Dr. Stedman had done so, she 
 was a little surprised and it must be confessed just a 
 trifle disappointed. 
 
 Chiefly so, she argued internally, because she felt cer- 
 tain that Letty would never look at him, and then it might 
 turn out such an unlucky business altogether the worst 
 yet ; for the doctor was not a person to take things easily, 
 or to be played fast and loose with, as was unfortunately 
 rather Letty's way. Edna felt by instinct that he would 
 never be made a slave of much more likely a tyrant. 
 And if he should be very miserable break his heart per- 
 haps that is, supposing men ever do break their hearts 
 for love Edna would have been so very sorry for him. 
 
 She watched him closely all the road home. She did 
 not even ask him to come in to tea, as both brothers 
 seemed half to expect, and as had been done more than 
 once before the quartette started together for their even- 
 ing ramble. Nevertheless, one was arranged to look at 
 a wreck which had been washed ashore the previous winter, 
 and which Julius wished to make into a sketch for a pos- 
 sible picture. And though there was some slight opposi- 
 tion from Edna, who thought the walk would be too long 
 for Letty, and from Dr. Stedman, for the same reason as 
 I'egarded his brother, Julius was obstinate, and carried his 
 point. 
 
 So they parted ; for the brief parting of an hour or two, 
 which scarcely seemed such at all. 
 
 Letty threw off her hat and lay down, with both her 
 arms over her head, in an attitude exquisitely lovely. 
 
 " I am quite tired, Edna ; that doctor of yours does take 
 such gigantic strides, and he talks on such solid subjects,
 
 92 
 
 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 
 
 it quite makes one's head ache to follow him. I wonder 
 why he chose me to walk with, and not you ; but these 
 wise men like silly women. I told him so. At least I 
 owned I was silly ; but of course he didn't believe it." 
 " Of course not. But what was he talking about ?" 
 "Oh, nothing particular," said Letty, with a slightly 
 conscious air. " Men all talk alike to me, I fancy." 
 Edna asked no more questions. 
 
 DOCTOR BTEDMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " WILL, do you mean to sit over your books all evening ? 
 Because if you do I'll not wait for you any longer, but 
 take myself off at once." 
 
 " Where ? Why, were you waiting ?" 
 
 " Don't pretend that you have forgotten." Julius spoke 
 with some of his old irritability. " We were to walk as 
 far as the wreck ; and imless we start in good time the 
 tide will have risen, and we shall not be able to pass the 
 point ; which would be uncomfortable for ladies."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 93 
 
 " Did the ladies decide to go ? I thought Miss Edna 
 rather objected." 
 
 "Miss Edna's objections were overruled. I arranged 
 the matter." 
 
 Will smiled. 
 
 " Yes I did. I'll not have her and you always getting 
 your own way. I must have mine sometimes. I'm not 
 your patient now, Will, and I have just as much right to 
 enjoy myself as you have." 
 
 " Did any body say you hadn't, my boy ? Who hinders 
 you ? Carry out any plans you fancy, provided they do 
 you no harm." 
 
 The doctor rose, put a mark in his book, and prepared 
 to clear his " rubbish " away. 
 
 " So, Will, you are going. I thought you would go, 
 though you made believe to be so indifferent about it." 
 
 The elder brother flushed up, for there was an under- 
 tone of rudeness in the younger's speech not exactly pleas- 
 ant. But Will was too well accustomed to the painful ir- 
 ritability of illness to take much heed of it. He only said : 
 
 " For many reasons, I don't consider the expedition very 
 wise ; but if these young ladies are determined to go, they 
 will be all the better for having a man to take care of them." 
 
 "They will have one in any case. I am going. No 
 need for you to trouble yourself concerning them." 
 
 The sharpness of this speech made Dr. Stedman turn 
 round. He was not a man of many words, nor yet a very 
 sensitive man that is, he felt deep things deeply and 
 strongly, but the small annoyances of life passed harmless- 
 ly over him. He had always had something else to think 
 about than himself, and the way people treated him. For 
 this reason he often did not even see when Julius was an- 
 noyed ; but he did now, and turned upon the brother a 
 full, frank, good-natured smile. 
 
 "What are yon vexed about, lad? Do you want to 
 have your friends all to yourself? If so, I'll stay at home 
 and read. I dare say Miss Edna " 
 
 " Stop there. Yes, Will, I am vexed with you, and I 
 have good reason to be."
 
 94 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Out with it, then." 
 
 "What business had you to go talking to Miss Edna 
 about me ? Why open up to her my weaknesses and fol- 
 lies, which nobody knows but you, and you only too much? 
 Why should these two girls for whom, mind you, I care 
 not a straw, except that they are pleasant companions be 
 taught to criticise me and pity me ?" 
 
 "Pity you?" 
 
 " Of course they do a poor fellow with not a half-pen- 
 ny of money, and no health to earn it wholly dependent 
 upon you." 
 
 " That is not quite true." 
 
 " Yes, it is ; and they must despise me any girls would. 
 There are times when I despise myself." 
 
 This outburst was so sudden, vehement, and inconse- 
 quent, as it seemed, that Will Stedman, though tolerably 
 used to the like, scarcely knew what to answer. When he 
 did, he spoke gently, as to a passionate child who was talk- 
 ing at random. 
 
 "Indeed, Julius, I had no thought of annoying you in 
 what I said, which was, in truth, very little ; and I felt I 
 was saying it to a friend of yours, who was quite welcome 
 to repeat it to you if she chose." 
 
 " But why talk to her at all about me ? What are my 
 concerns to her? If a friend, she isn't an old friend. 
 Three weeks ago we had neither of us set eyes on either 
 of these women. I wish we never had. I wish to Heaven 
 we never had !" 
 
 Will replied a little seriously : 
 
 "I can not exactly see the reason of that. They are 
 both pleasant enough, and, so far as we can judge, very 
 excellent women." 
 
 " I hate your excellent women !" 
 
 " You don't hate these, though, I am sure of that, lad," 
 said the doctor, smiling. " Be content ; I have done you 
 no harm. I said not a word against you to Miss Edna 
 quite the contrary." 
 
 " But, I repeat, why speak of me at all ?" 
 
 "Perhaps I had my own reasons."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 95 
 
 " What are they ? I insist upon knowing !" and Julius 
 rose and walked up to his brother with a dramatic air. 
 
 Will was comparing his watch with the clock on the 
 mantel-piece. He paused to wind up and set both before 
 he replied : 
 
 " Since you compel me to speak and perhaps after all 
 it's best it has struck me more than once, Julius, that 
 you would very well like and, moreover, it would not be 
 a bad thing for you to spend your life, as you have pret- 
 ty well spent the last fortnight, with such a sweet, good, 
 sensible little woman as Edna Kenderdine." 
 
 Julius threw himself back into his chair, and burst into 
 shouts of laughter. 
 
 "Was that it? And so you were saying a good word 
 for me to her ! What a splendid idea ! You are the queer- 
 est old fellow that ever was." 
 
 "But, Julius--" 
 
 "Don't interrupt. Do let me have my laugh out. It's 
 the best joke I've ever heard. You dear old boy ! What 
 on earth have I ever done or said to make you take such a 
 ridiculous notion into your head ?" 
 
 The doctor looked a little bewildered. 
 
 " It did not seem to me so ridiculous ; and, at any rate, 
 it is hardly civil to the lady to suppose so. She is about 
 your own age perhaps a year older ; but that would not 
 signify much. She is healthy, bright, active, clever " 
 
 " But oh, so plain ! Now, Will, in the name of common 
 sense, do you think I ever could fall in love with a plain 
 woman ?" 
 
 The child-like directness and solemnity of the appeal 
 broke down Will's gravity ; he, too, laughed heartily. 
 
 " Never mind. I've made a mistake, that's all. I don't 
 know whether I'm glad or sorry. But still, it is a mistake; 
 and I beg your pardon Miss Edna's too for mixing her 
 name in such talk. I am certain no idea of the kind has 
 ever entered her head." 
 
 " I trust not nay, I am sure not," replied Julius, warm- 
 ly. " She's not an atom of a flirt quite different from any 
 girl I ever knew the best, kindliest, sweetest little soul.
 
 96 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 
 
 But I would as soon think of marrying her or, indeed, of 
 marrying any body " 
 
 " Wait till your time comes. Meanwhile, shake hands, 
 and forget all this nonsense. Only, if ever you do fall 
 seriously in love, come and tell it to your brother. He'll 
 help you." 
 
 " Will he ?" said Julius, eagerly. 
 
 But at that moment, sweeping past the window, plainly 
 visible beneath the half-drawn Venetian blind, came the 
 violet folds of Letty Kenderdine's well-known gown 
 the much-abused winter gown which had in its old age 
 been complimented, and sketched, and painted, as making 
 the loveliest bit of color, and the most charming drapery 
 imaginable. 
 
 " There they are : we must not keep them waiting," 
 said Dr. Stedman, as he took his hat and went out at once 
 to the sisters. 
 
 The three sat talking very merrily on the bench at the 
 cliff edge for several minutes, till finding Julius did not 
 appear, his brother went in to look for him. He had 
 started off alone, leaving word that they were not to wait 
 he might possibly join them on their return. 
 
 "Perhaps he wants to make a sketch or two alone," 
 said the doctor, apologetically. "We will go without 
 him." 
 
 " Certainly," said Letty, who was a little tenacious of 
 the disrespect of delay. " Dr. Stedman, your brother is a 
 most peculiar person ; and I can never understand pecul- 
 iar people." 
 
 " He is peculiar in the sense of being much better than 
 other people," replied the doctor, who whatever he might 
 say to Julius never allowed a word to be said against 
 him, which idiosyncrasy at once amused and touched Edna. 
 With the new idea she had taken concerning him, she re- 
 solved to watch William Stedman rather closely, and when, 
 before they had gone half a mile, Julius turned up, and 
 attached himself very determinedly, not to her side, but 
 her sisters, she fell into the arrangement with satisfaction. 
 It would give her opportunities of observing more nar-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 97 
 
 rowly this big, quiet, grave man, who was not nearly so 
 easy to read as his volatile, impulsive, but clever, affection- 
 ate brother. 
 
 So they descended the steep cliffs, and walked along 
 underneath, just below high-water mark, where the wet 
 sand was solid to their feet : a little party of two and 
 two, close enough to make neither seem like a 'tdte-d-tete, 
 and yet sufficiently far apart to give to each a sense of 
 voluntary companionship. But the conversation of nei- 
 ther seemed very serious ; for Letty's gay laugh was con- 
 tinually heard, and Edna made, ever and anon, sundry 
 darts from her companion's side to certain fascinating isl- 
 ands, formed by deeper channels intersecting the damp 
 sand, and which had to be crossed through pools of shal- 
 low sea- water, crisped by the wind into wavelets pretty 
 as a baby's curls. Edna could not resist them; but 
 whenever Dr. Stedman fell into silence which he did 
 pretty often she quitted him, and ran with the pleasure 
 of a child to stand on one or other of these sand islands, 
 and watch the long white rollers creeping in, each after 
 each, as the tide kept steadily advancing upon the soli- 
 tary shore. 
 
 Very solitary it was, with the boundless sea before, and 
 the perpendicular wall of cliff behind, and not an object to 
 break the loneliness of the scene, except that loneliest 
 thing of all the stranded ship. She lay there, fixed on 
 the rock where she had struck, with the waves gradually 
 reaching her and breaking over her, as they had done 
 night and day, at every tide, for six months. 
 
 Julius regarded her with his melancholy poet's eyes. 
 
 " How sad she looks-. that ship ! Like a lost life." 
 
 " And what a fine ship she must have been ! How very 
 stupid of the sailors to go so near the rocks !" 
 
 " How very stupid of any body to do any thing which 
 is not the best and wisest thing to do ! Yet we all do it 
 sometimes, Miss Kenderdine." 
 
 " Eh, Mr. Stedman ? Just say that again, for I did not 
 quite understand. You do say such clever tilings, you 
 know." 
 
 E
 
 98 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " That was not clever, so I need not say it again. In- 
 deed I'd better hold my tongue," replied Julius, looking 
 full at Letty Kenderdine, with the sudden thirst of a man 
 who is looking for perfection, has been looking for it all 
 his days, and can not find it. And Letty, with those blue 
 eyes of hers the sort of azure blue, large and limpid, 
 which look so like heaven, except for a certain want of 
 depth in them, discoverable not suddenly, but gradually 
 
 Letty 
 
 " Gave a side glance and looked down," 
 
 in her long-accustomed way, thinking of nothing in par- 
 ticular, unjess it was that the evening was coining on, 
 misty and gray, and the sands were wet, and she had only 
 her thin boots on. 
 
 She meant no harm, poor girl ! t She was so accustomed 
 to be admired, to have every body looking at her as 
 Julius Stedman looked now, that it neither touched nor 
 startled her, nor affected her in any way especially as 
 the look was only momentary; and the young man re- 
 turned immediately to his ordinary lively talk the chat- 
 ter of society in which he was much more au fait than 
 his brother, and which Letty could respond to much more 
 easily. Indeed she had felt the change of companionship 
 to-night rather an advantage, and had exerted herself to 
 be agreeable accordingly. Though no one could say she 
 smiled on one brother more sweetly than on the other; 
 for it was not her habit either to feel or to show prefer- 
 ence. She just went smiling on, like the full round moon, 
 on all the world alike, as she had nothing to do but to 
 smile. Did any hapless wight fall, moon-struck who was 
 to blame ? Surely not Letitia Kenderdine. 
 
 And, meanwhile, Edna too had been enjoying herself 
 very much, in a most harmless way, clambering over little 
 rocks, and trampling on sea-weed the bladders of which 
 "go pop," as the children say, when you set your feet 
 upon them a proceeding which, I grieve to say, had 
 amused this young school-mistress as much as if she had 
 been one of her own pupils. Finally, by Dr. Stednian's as- 
 sistance for the rocks were slippery, and she was often
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 99 
 
 glad of a helping hand she gained the farthermost and 
 most attractive sand island, and stood there, with her hat 
 off, letting the wind blow in her face, for the sake of 
 health and freshness ; she was not solicitous about bloom 
 or complexion. 
 
 Yet Edna was not uncomely. There was a fairy grace 
 about her tiny figure, and an unaffected enjoyment in her 
 whole mien, which made her interesting even beside her 
 beautiful sister. While she was looking at the sea, Dr. 
 Stedman stood and looked at her, with a keen observation 
 inquisitive, and yet approving approving rather than 
 admiring ; not at all the look he gave to Letty. And yet, 
 perhaps, any woman, who was a real woman, would rather 
 have had it of the two. 
 
 " You seem to enjoy yourself very much, Miss Edna. 
 It does one good to see any person past childhood who 
 has the faculty of being so thoroughly happy." 
 
 " Did I look happy ? Yes, I think I am : all the more 
 so because my happiness, my sea-side pleasure, I mean, 
 will not last long. *I want to get the utmost out of it I 
 can, for we go home in three days." 
 
 " So soon ? When did you settle that ?" 
 
 "At tea-time to-day. We must go, for we have spent 
 all our money, and worn out all our clothes. Besides, it 
 is time we were at home." 
 
 "Have you taken all precautions about fumigating, 
 whitewashing, etc., that I suggested ?" (For she had told 
 him about the fever, and asked his advice, professionally.) 
 
 " Yes ; our house is quite safe now, and ready for us. 
 And most of our pupils have promised to come back. We 
 shall be in harness again directly after the holidays. Ah !" 
 she sighed, hardly knowing why, except that she could 
 not help it, " I have need to be happy while I can. We 
 have a rather hard life at home." 
 
 " Is it so ?" Then, after a pause, " Forgive me for ask- 
 ing, but have you no father living, no brothers? Are 
 there only you two ?" 
 
 " Only us two." 
 
 " It is a hard life, then. I have seen enough of the world
 
 100 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 to feel keenly for helpless women left to earn their liveli- 
 hood. If I had had a sister I would have been so good to 
 her." 
 
 " I am sure you would," said Edna, involuntarily. And 
 then she drew back uneasily. Was it possible that he 
 could be thinking of her in that light as a sister by mar- 
 riage, who might one day take the place of a sister by 
 blood? Was that the reason he was so specially kind to 
 her? 
 
 She could not have told why but she did not quite like 
 the idea, and her next speech was a little sharp, even 
 though sincere. 
 
 "Yet, on the other hand, however kind a brother may 
 be, it is great weakness and selfishness in a sister to hang 
 helplessly upon him draining his income, preventing him 
 from marrying, and so on. If I had ten brothers, I think 
 I would rather work till I dropped than I would be de- 
 pendent on any one of them." 
 
 "Would you ? But would that be quite right ?" 
 
 " Yes, I think it would be right for me, at least. I 
 don't judge others. Let all decide for themselves their 
 own affairs, but, as for me, if I felt I was a burden upon 
 any mortal man father, brother, or well, perhaps hus- 
 bands are different, I have never thought much about that 
 I believe it would drive me frantic." 
 
 " You independent little lady !" said Dr. Stedman, laugh- 
 ing outright. "And yet I beg your pardon," he added, 
 seriously. "I quite agree with you. I don't see why a 
 woman should be helpless and idle any more than a man. 
 And a woman who, if she has to earn her daily bread, sets 
 bravely to work and does it, without shrinking, without 
 complaining, has my most entire respect and esteem." 
 
 " Thank you," said Edna, and her heart warmed, and 
 the fierceness that was rising there sank down again. She 
 felt that she had found a friend, or the possibility of one, 
 did circumstances ever occur to bring them any nearer 
 than now. Which, however, was not probable, since, as 
 to these Stedmans, she had determined that when they 
 parted they parted ; that this brief intimacy, which had
 
 THE WOMAN'S KiNGDok. 101 
 
 been so pleasant while it lasted, should become on both 
 sides as completely ended as a dream. Indeed, it would 
 be nothing else. The sort of association which seemed so 
 friendly and natural here, would, in their Kensington life, 
 be utterly impossible. 
 
 " Things are hard enough even for us men," said Dr. 
 Stedman, taking up the thread of conversation where Edna 
 had dropped it. " Work of any sort is so difficult to ob- 
 tain. There is my brother, now. He drifted into the ca- 
 reer of an artist almost by necessity, because to get any 
 employment such as he desired and was fitted for was 
 nearly impossible. Even I, who, unlike him, have had the 
 advantage of being regularly educated for a profession 
 would you believe it ? I have been in practice three years 
 and have hardly made a hundred pounds. If I had not 
 had a private income small enough, but just sufficient to 
 keep Julius and me in bread and cheese I think we must 
 have starved." 
 
 " So he has told me. He says he owes you every thing 
 more than he can ever repay." 
 
 " He talks great nonsense. Poor fellow ! if Re has been 
 unsuccessful it has neither been through idleness nor ex- 
 travagance. But he has probably told you all about him- 
 self. And you, I find, have told him what I yesterday 
 said to you concerning him." 
 
 "Was I wrong?" 
 
 " Oh no. If it had been a secret I should have said so, 
 and you would have kept it. You look like a woman who 
 could keep a secret. If I ever have one I will trust you." 
 
 What did he mean? Further hints on the matter of 
 sisterhood? Edna earnestly hoped not. Perhaps the 
 fatal time had passed over, since the people who fell in love 
 with Letty usually proposed to her suddenly in two or 
 three days. Now Dr. Stedman had been with her a whole 
 fortnight every day and all day long and, so far as Edna 
 knew, nothing had happened. If the sisters went away on 
 Thursday nothing might happen at all. 
 
 She dismissed her fears and went on with her talk, in 
 which the two others soon joined the pleasant, desultory
 
 102 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 talk, half earnest, half badinage, of four young people al- 
 lied by no special tie of kindred or friendship, bound only 
 by circumstance and mutual attraction that easy liking 
 which had not as yet passed into the individual appropria- 
 tion which, with the keen delights of love, creates also its 
 bitter jealousies. In short, they stood, all of them, on the 
 narrow boundary -line of those two conditions of being 
 which make hapless mortals especially men either the 
 best or the worst company in the world. 
 
 They strolled along the shore, sometimes two and two, 
 sometime falling into a long line of four, conversing rather 
 than looking around them for there was nothing attract- 
 ive in the evening. A dull, gray sky, and a smooth, leaden- 
 colored sea, had succeeded those wonderful effects of even- 
 ing light which they had night after night admired so 
 much ; yet still they went on walking and talking, enjoy- 
 ing each other's company, and not noticing much beyond, 
 until Dr. Stedman suddenly stopped. 
 
 " Julius, look there ; the tide is nearly round the point. 
 We must turn back at once." 
 
 Letty gave a little scream. " Oh, what will happen ! 
 Why did we go on so far? Edna, how could you " 
 
 " It was not your sister's fault,' 7 said Dr. Stedman, catch- 
 ing the little scream and coming anxiously over to Letty's 
 side. " I was to blame ; I ought to have noticed how far 
 on the tide was." 
 
 " But oh, what will happen ? Edna, Edna !" cried Letty, 
 wringing her hands. 
 
 " Nothing will happen, I trust, beyond our getting our 
 feet wet. Perhaps not that, if we walk on fast. Will 
 you take my arm?" 
 
 "No, mine," said Julius, eagerly, and his brother drew 
 back. 
 
 " Do not be alarmed, Miss Edna ; but indeed I see you 
 are not," said the doctor, striding on, while she kept pace 
 with him as well as she could with her little, short steps. 
 " We two will just walk on as fast as we can. There is 
 no real danger. At worst we shall only get a good wet- 
 ting ; but that would be very bad for our invalids."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 103 
 
 " Very bad. Letty Mr. Stedman please come on as 
 fast as you can." 
 
 " Will !" shouted out Julius, "is it spring or neap tide ?" 
 
 " I do not know ; only get on. Don't lag behind." 
 
 " Get on yourself, and leave us alone." 
 
 " That isn't your habit, I'm sure, Miss Edna," said Will 
 Stedman. 
 
 " What isn't my habit ?" 
 
 " To get*bn by yourself and leave others to get on alone, 
 as my brother has just advised my doing." 
 
 " Oh, he did not know what he was saying." 
 
 This was all that passed between them, as walking as 
 rapidly as they could, though often turning uneasily back 
 to watch the other two, the elder brother and sister reached 
 the point where a " race," that is, a line of rocks reaching 
 right up to the cliff, made the sea more turbulent, and 
 where the cliff itself, jutting out a considerable way, caused 
 the distance between it and high-water mark to be scarce- 
 ly more than a foot in spring-tides nothing at all. It 
 was not exactly a dangerous place not in calm weather 
 like this. At most, a wade up to the knees would have 
 carried a wayfarer safely beyond the point; but still it 
 was an uncomfortable place to pass, and when Dr. Stedman 
 and Edna reached it, they found the worst had come to 
 the worst there was no passage remaining, or merely a 
 foot or two left bare,.temporarily, at each ebb of the wave. 
 
 There were no breakers, certainly ; nothing more threat- 
 ening than the long slow curves of tide that came cream- 
 ing in, each with a white fringe of foam, over the smooth 
 sand ; but whenever they met not sand but rocks, they 
 became fiercer, and dashed themselves about in a way that 
 looked any thing but agreeable, and rendered footing 
 among the sea- weed and sharp stones extremely difficult. 
 
 Edna and Dr. Stedman exchanged looks uneasy enough. 
 
 " You see ?" 
 
 " Yes, I see. It is very unfortunate." 
 
 " Will she be frightened, think you ? Your sister, I 
 mean. She seems a timid person." 
 . " Rather, and she dislikes getting wet. How fast the
 
 104 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 tide comes in ! Is there no chance of climbing a little 
 way up the cliff?" 
 
 " No, the cliffs are perpendicular. Look for yourself." 
 
 But the doctor looked uneasily back, his mind full of the 
 other two. 
 
 "How slow they are ! If they had only been here now 
 we might cross at once, and escape with merely wet feet. 
 There would be just time. Julius !" he shouted, impatient- 
 ly " Julius, do come on !" 
 
 " He can not," Edna said, gently. " Remember, he can 
 not walk like you." 
 
 " Thank you ; you are always thoughtful. No ; I sup- 
 pose there is no help for it. We may as well sit down 
 and wait." He sat down, but started up again immedi- 
 ately. " I beg your pardon, Miss Edna, but would you 
 like to go on ? I can easily take you past the point, and 
 return again for them. Will you come ?" 
 
 " No, oh no." And she, too, sat down on the nearest 
 stone ; for she was very tired. 
 
 It was full five minutes before Julius and Letty reached 
 the point, and by that time the sea was tumbling noisily 
 against the very foot of the cliff. Julius at once saw the 
 position of things and turned anxiously to his brother. 
 
 " Will, this is dreadful ! Not for us, but for these ladies. 
 What shall we do ?" 
 
 Letty caught at once the infection of fear. 
 
 " What is so dreadful ? Oh, I see. Those waves, those 
 waves! they have overtaken us. I shall be drowned! 
 Oh, Dr. Stedman, tell me am I going to be drowned ?" 
 
 And she left Julius's arm and clutched the doctor's, her 
 beautiful features pallid and distorted with fear. Also 
 with something else besides fear, which shows plainly 
 enough in most faces at a critical moment like this, when 
 there awakes either the instinct of self-preservation, said 
 to be nature's first law, or a far diviner instinct, which is 
 not always yet, thank God ! it is often also human 
 nature. 
 
 Dr. Stedman was an acute man. No true doctor can 
 well be otherwise. He said little, but he observed much.
 
 THK WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 105 
 
 Now, as he looked fixedly down upon the lovely face a 
 curious change came over his own. More than once, with- 
 out replying, he heard the piteous cry sharp even to 
 querulousness "Shall I be drowned?" and then gently 
 released himself from Letty's hold. 
 
 " My dear Miss Kenderdine, if any were drowned, there 
 would be four. But I assure you nothing so tragical is 
 likely to happen. Look at the line of sea-weed all along 
 the shore ; that is high-water mark ; farther the tide will 
 not advance." 
 
 " But the point the point." 
 
 " Even at the point the water is not more than six inches 
 deep. It could not drown you." 
 
 " But it will spoil my boots, my dress every thing. 
 Oh, Edna, how could you be so foolish as to let us come?" 
 
 Edna, indeed, did feel and look very conscience-smitten, 
 till Dr. Stedman said, rather abruptly, 
 
 " There is no use regretting it, or scolding one another ; 
 we were all equally to blame. Don't let us waste time 
 now in chattering about it." 
 
 " No, indeed. Let us get home as quickly as we can. 
 Letty, take hold of me, and try to wade through." 
 
 But Letty, tall as she was, shrank in childish terror from 
 the troubled waters, and several more precious minutes 
 were wasted in conquering her fears, and finding the eas- 
 iest passage for her across the sands. Meantime the line 
 of sea-weed began to be touched nay, drifted ominously 
 higher and higher by each advancing wave, until Dr. Sted- 
 man noticed it. 
 
 " Look !" he said in an under-tone to Edna ; " last tide 
 may have been neap, but this is evidently a spring-tide. 
 It makes a great difference. We must go on without los- 
 ing more time. How shall we divide?" 
 
 "I'll help Letty." 
 
 " No, that is scarcely safe two women togethei*. Shall 
 I take your sister, and you my brother? You can assist 
 him best ! Poor fellow ! this is more dangerous for him 
 than for any of us. Julius !" he called out, " don't waste 
 more time ; take Miss Edna and start." 
 
 E2
 
 106 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Julius turned sharply upon his brother : 
 
 "Excuse me, but we have already made our plans. 
 Come, Miss Kenderdine." 
 
 Will Stedman once more drew back, and would not in- 
 terfere, but he looked seriously uneasy. 
 
 "What must be done?" he said again to Edna. "I 
 wanted you to walk with Julius. She can not take care 
 of him she is too timid. She will only hang helplessly 
 upon him, and drag him back when he ought to get on as 
 fast as possible." 
 
 " Is there danger real danger ?" 
 
 " Not of drowning, as your sister thinks" with a slight 
 curl of the not too amiable mouth " but of my brother's 
 getting so wet and exhausted that his illness may return. 
 Look ! he is staggering now, the tide runs so strong. 
 What can I do ?" 
 
 " Go and help them. Get them safe home first." 
 
 " But you ?" 
 
 " I can not cross by myself. I see that," said Edna, 
 looking with a natural shiver of dread at the now fast-ris- 
 ing waves. " But I can stay here. I should not be afraid, 
 even if I had to wait till the tide turas." 
 
 " That will be midnight. No, about eleven, I think." 
 
 " Even so, no harm will come to me ; I can walk up and 
 down this beach, or else I could clamber to that ledge on 
 the cliff where the cliff-swallows are building. The high- 
 est tide could not reach me there. I'll try it. Good-bye." 
 
 She spoke cheerfully, reaching out her hand. Dr. Sted- 
 man grasped it warmly. 
 
 " You are the bravest and most unselfish little woman I 
 ever knew." 
 
 "Then you can not have known many," said she, laugh- 
 ing; for, somehow, her courage rose. "Now, without an- 
 other word, go." 
 
 He went, but returned again in a minute to find poor 
 Edna clambering painfully to her .ledge in the rock. He 
 helped her up as well as he could, then she again urged 
 him to leave her. 
 
 " I can not. It seems so wrong quite cruel."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 107 
 
 " It is not cruel it is only right. You and I are far the 
 strongest. We must take care of those two." 
 
 " I have taken care of him all my life, poor fellow !" 
 
 " That I can well believe. Hark ! is Letty screaming ? 
 Oh, Dr. Stedraan, never mind me. For pity's sake go and 
 help them safe home." 
 
 " I will," said he, " and then I'll come back for you in a 
 boat, if possible, only let me see you safe. One step more. 
 Put your hand on my shoulder. You're all right now?" 
 
 " Quite right, and really very comfortable, considering." 
 
 "This will make you more so, and I don't need it." 
 
 He took off his coat and threw it up to her, striding off 
 before she had time to refuse. 
 
 "Miss Edna !" and to her great uneasiness she saw him 
 looking back once more. " You'll not be frightened ?" 
 
 " Not a bit. Oh, please go !" 
 
 " Very well, 1 am really going now. But I'll never for- 
 get this day." 
 
 Edna thought the same. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EDNA sat on her ledge of rock, to the great discomfiture 
 of the cliff-swallows, for a length of time that appeared to 
 her indefinite. She had no means of measuring it, for the 
 very simple reason that the sisters had only one reliable 
 watch between them, and, when it gave her no trouble, 
 Letty usually wore it. Now, in her long, weary vigil, Ed- 
 na's mind kept turning regretfully and with a childish 
 pertinacity to this watch, and wishing she had had the 
 courage she did think of so doing once, and hesitated 
 to borrow Dr. Stedman's. It would have been some con- 
 solation, and a sort of companion to her, during the hour 
 or two she should still have to wait before the tide went 
 down. That .was, supposing Dr. Stedman found it impos- 
 sible to get the boat ; which, when the evening began to 
 close in, and still there was no sign of him, she thought 
 must have been the case.
 
 108 
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 EUNA WAITING. 
 
 She was not exactly alarmed : she knew that the high- 
 est spring-tide could never reach the ledge where she sat 
 where the birds' marvellous instinct had placed their 
 nests. Her position was safe enough, but it was terribly 
 lonely ; and when night came rapidly on, and she ceased 
 to distinguish any thing except the momentary flashes of 
 foam over the sea for the wind had risen, and the white 
 horses had begun to appear she felt sadly forlorn nay, 
 forsaken. The swallows ceased their fluttering and chat- 
 tering, and becoming accustomed to her motionless pres- 
 ence, settled down to roost ; soon the only sound she heard 
 was the waves breaking against the cliff beneath her feet. 
 She seemed to hear them quite close below her: so the 
 spring-tide must have been a high one ; and she felt thank- 
 ful for this little nook of safety damp and comfortless as
 
 THE WOMAJSl's KINGDOM. 109 
 
 it was : growing more so, since, with the darkness, a slight 
 rain began to fall. 
 
 Edna drew Dr. Stedman's coat over her shoulders, as 
 some slight protection to her poor little shivering, solitary 
 self: thinking gratefully how good it was of him to leave 
 it, and hoping earnestly he had got home safely, even 
 though in ignominious and discreditable shirt-sleeves. 
 And, amidst all her dreariness, she laughed aloud to think 
 how funny he would look, and how scandalized Letty 
 would be, to see him in such an ungentlemanly plight, 
 and especially to walk with him through the village. 
 But while she laughed the moral courage of the thing 
 touched her. It was not every gentleman who would 
 thus have made himself appear ridiculous in a lady's eyes 
 for the "sake of pure kindness. 
 
 And then, in the weary want of something to occupy 
 her mind and to pass the time away, she fell into vague 
 speculations as to how all this was to end: whether Dr. 
 Stedman really wished to marry Letty; whether Letty 
 would have him if he asked her. One week would show; 
 since, after Thursday, circumstances would be so complete- 
 ly changed with them all that their acquaintanceship must, 
 if mere acquaintance, die a natural death. No " gentle- 
 men visitors " could be allowed by the two young school- 
 mistresses ; so that even though the Stedmans lived with- 
 in a mile of them which fact Edna knew, though they 
 were not aware she knew it still they were not very like- 
 ly to meet. People in and near London often pass years 
 without meeting, even though living in the next street. 
 And if so if this association, just as it was growing quite 
 pleasant, were thus abruptly to end would she be glad 
 or sorry ? 
 
 Edna asked herself the question more than once. She 
 could not answer it, even to her own truthful heart. She 
 really did not know. 
 
 But she soon ceased to trouble herself about that or 
 any thing ; for there came upon her a feeling of intense 
 cold, also let it not disgrace her in poetical eyes, this 
 healthy - framed and healthy -minded little woman! of
 
 110 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 equally intense hunger: during which she had a vision of 
 the bread-and-cheese and beer lying on the parlor-table, 
 so vivid and tantalizing that she could have cried. She 
 began to agree with Dr. Stedman that it was rather cruel 
 to have left her here at least for so long so much long- 
 er than she had anticipated. 
 
 Surely they had all got home safe by this time. Noth- 
 ing had happened nothing was likely to happen ; for she 
 had seen them with her own eyes cross safely the perilous 
 point and enter upon the stretch of level sand. With a 
 slightly sad feeling she had watched the three black fig- 
 ures moving on two together and one a little apart 
 till they vanished behind a turn in the cliff. Beyond that 
 nothing could be safer, though it was a good long walk. 
 
 "And that young man is weak still," thought Edna, 
 compassionately. " Of course he could not walk quickly ; 
 and Letty never can. Besides, when she learned I was 
 left behind she might have been unwilling to go home 
 without me." 
 
 But while making this excuse to herself Edna-'s candid 
 mind rejected it as a fiction. She knew well that, with 
 all her good-nature, Letty was not given to self-denial : 
 being one of those theoretically-virtuous people who are 
 content to leave their heroisms to be acted out by some 
 one else. But the doctor: he was a man a courageous 
 and kindly man, too. He surely would never leave a 
 poor, weak woman to spend the night upon this dreary 
 ledge of rock. 
 
 " He said he would bring a boat ; but he may not be 
 able to get one, or to pilot it in this darkness and among 
 all these rocks. It would not be safe." And this thought 
 conquered all her personal uneasiness. " Oh, I hope he will 
 not try it. Suppose he did, and something were to hap- 
 pen to him ! I wish I had told him I would wait till the 
 tide went down. Rather than any risk to him I would 
 have sat here till daylight." 
 
 And with a kind of vague terror of " something happen- 
 ing " such terror as she had never felt concerning any 
 one except Letty nay, with her very slightly, for in their
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. Ill 
 
 dull, peaceful lives had occurred none of those sudden 
 tragedies which startle life out of its even course, and 
 take away forever the sense of security against fate 
 Edna sat and listened for the sound of oars, of voices of 
 any thing ; straining her ears in the intense stillness until 
 the sensation became actual pain. 
 
 But she heard nothing except the lap-lap of the tide go- 
 ing down either it was going down, for it sounded faint- 
 er every minute, or else she herself was sinking into a 
 state of sleepy exhaustion, more dangerous than any dan- 
 ger yet. For if she fainted or dropped asleep she might 
 fall from her narrow seat and be seriously hurt. She' 
 thought, should he come and find her there, lying just at 
 his feet, with a limb broken, or otherwise injured, how 
 veiy sorry Dr. Stedman would be ! 
 
 All these fancies came and went, in every form of ex- 
 aggeration, till poor Edna began to fancy her wits were 
 leaving her. She drew -herself as far back against the 
 rock as possible, crouching down like a child, leaned her 
 head back, and quietly cried. Then excessive drowsiness 
 came over her : she must, for some minutes at least, have 
 actually fallen asleep. 
 
 She was roused by hearing herself called : in her con- 
 fused state she could not think where or by whom ; and 
 her tongue was paralyzed and her limbs frozen just as if 
 she had the nightmare. 
 
 "Miss Edna Miss Edna!" the shouting went on, till 
 the cliffs echoed with it. " Where are you ? Do answer 
 only one word !" 
 
 Then the voice ceased, and a light like a glow-worm be- 
 gan to wander up and down the rocks below. Edna tried 
 to call, but could not make herself heard. The whole 
 thing seemed a kind of fever-dream. 
 
 At length, sitting where she was, she felt a warm hand 
 touch her. She uttered a little cry. 
 
 " You are alive," some one said. " Thank God !" 
 
 Though she knew it was Dr. Stedman, and tried her ut- 
 most to appear the brave little woman he had called her, 
 Edna's strength failed. She could not answer a word. But
 
 112 THE WOMAN'S KIXGDOM. 
 
 fell into a violent fit of sobbing, in the which the doctor 
 soothed her as if she had been a child. 
 
 "There now. Never mind crying it will be a re- 
 lief. You are quite safe now ; I have come to fetch you 
 home. Oh, if I could but have got back here a little 
 sooner !" 
 
 And then Edna was sufficiently her natural self to ask 
 eagerly if no harm had befallen Letty or his brother if 
 they were both safe at home ? 
 
 " Yes, quite safe. But it was a long business. Twice I 
 thought Julius would have broken down entirely." 
 
 " And my sister ?" 
 
 " Your sister is perfectly well, only a good deal fright- 
 ened." 
 
 " Was she very uneasy about me ?" 
 
 " Not overwhelmingly so," said Will Stedman, with that 
 slight hardness, approaching even to sarcasm, which came 
 occasionally into his voice as well as his manner, giving 
 the impression that if very good he was not always very 
 amiable. "But come! we are losing time; and I have to 
 get you safe home now. I have no boat. I was delayed ; 
 they were so long in reaching home that when I went after 
 a boat the water was too shallow to make it available 
 the men refused it." 
 
 " How did you come, then ?" 
 
 " I waded. But the tide is down now. We may easily 
 walk that is, if you can walk. Try." 
 
 Edna stretched her poor cramped limbs, and attempted 
 to descend. But she grew dizzy; her footing altogether 
 failed her. 
 
 "I can't stand," she said, helplessly. "You will have to 
 leave me here till morning." 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 " Oh no ! Indeed, I don't much mind." 
 
 For in her state of utter exhaustion any thing even to 
 lie down there and die seemed easier than to be forced 
 to make a single effort more. 
 
 "Miss Edna," said the doctor, with all the doctor in his 
 tone calm, firm, authoritative " you can not stay here.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 113 
 
 You must be got home somehow. If you can not walk, I 
 must carry you." 
 
 Then Edna made a violent effort, and succeeded in crawl- 
 ing, with both hands and feet, down the cliff-side to the 
 level sands. But as soon as she stood upright and at- 
 tempted to walk, her head swam round and consciousness 
 quite left her. She remembered nothing more till she 
 found herself lying on the sofa in their own parlor, oppo- 
 site a blazing tire, with Letty only Letty sitting beside 
 her. 
 
 " Mrs. Williams ! oh, Mrs. Williams ! come here ! She's 
 quite herself now. My sister my dear little twin-sister ! 
 Oh, Edna, I thought you were dead. I have been near 
 breaking my heart about you." 
 
 And Letty hugged and kissed her, and hung over her, 
 and gave her all manner of things to eat, to drink, and to 
 smell at with an affection the genuineness of which was 
 beyond all doubt. For Letty was no shajn ; she had a 
 real heart, so far as it went, and that was why Edna loved 
 her. All the better that it was a keen-eyed love, which 
 never looked for what it could not find, and had the sense 
 not to exact from the large, splendid, open-bosomed Gloire 
 de Dijon^ the rich depths of perfume that lie hidden in the 
 red moss-rose. 
 
 "Yes, Letty dear, I must have frightened you very 
 much," said she, clinging to her sister, and trying to re- 
 call, bit by bit, what had happened. " It must have been 
 a terrible suspense for you. But indeed I could not help 
 it. It was impossible for me to get home. How did I 
 ever get home at all ?" 
 
 "I don't know, except that Dr. Stedman brought you. 
 You were quite insensible when he carried you in, and he 
 had a deal of trouble to bring you to. Oh, it was such a 
 comfort to have a doctor in the house ! and he was so 
 kind !" 
 
 "Where is he now?" And as Edna tried to raise her 
 head a faint color came into her white face. 
 
 "He has just gone away. He said it was much better 
 that, when you came to yourself, you should find nobody
 
 114 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 beside you but me that he had to sit up reading till 
 about three in the morning ; and if you were worse I was 
 to send for him not otherwise. He told me not to fright- 
 en myself or you. He was not uneasy about you at all ; 
 you would soon recover, you were such an exceedingly 
 healthy person. Indeed, Edna, he must be a very clever 
 doctor : he seemed to understand you as if he had known 
 you all your life." 
 
 Edna smiled, but she felt too weak to talk. "And you 
 how did you get home ?" 
 
 "Oh, it was terrible business. I was so frightened. 
 And that young Julius Stedman he was no help at all. 
 He is but a poor stick of a fellow for all practical pur- 
 poses, and gets cross at the least thing. Still, when we 
 reached home, and his brother started off again to fetch 
 you, he was very kind also." 
 
 " I am sure he would be." 
 
 " He sat with me all the time we were waiting for you ; 
 I sent for Mrs. Williams, so it was quite proper but, in- 
 deed, I was too miserable to 'think much about propriety. 
 I only thought, What if you were drowned, and I were to 
 lose my dear little sister my best friend in all this world ? 
 Oh, Edna, Edna !" 
 
 And once again Letty kissed and embraced her, shed- 
 ding oceans of tears honest tears. 
 
 Mrs. Williams, too, put her apron to her eyes. She had 
 grown " mighty fond " (she declared afterwards) of these 
 two young ladies. She was certain they were real ladies, 
 though they had only one bottle of wine in the cupboard, 
 and their living was as plain as plain could be. So she, 
 too, worthy woman! shed a few glad tears over Miss 
 Edna's recovery, until Edna declared it was enough to 
 make a person quite conceited to be thought so much of. 
 And then, being still in a weak and confused state, she 
 suffered herself to be carried off' to bed by Mrs. Williams 
 and Letty. 
 
 It was a novelty for Edna to be taken care of. Either 
 she was very healthy though so fragile-looking or she 
 did not think much about her own health, which is often
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 115 
 
 the best method of securing it ; but for years such a thing 
 had not happened to her as to lie in bed till noon, and 
 have Letty waiting upon her. It was rather pleasant 
 than otherwise for an hour or two, until Letty began to 
 weary a little of her unwonted duties, and Edna of the 
 dignity of invalidism. So she rose, and, though still feel- 
 ing dizzy and strange, crept down stairs and settled her- 
 self in her usual place, with her work-basket beside her. 
 
 There Dr. Stedman found her, when, having sent a pre- 
 liminary message through Mrs. Williams, he came, in the 
 course of the afternoon, to visit his patient. 
 
 His patient he seemed determined to consider her. He 
 entered the room with a due air of mental gravity nay, 
 a little more formal than his customary manner touched 
 her pulse, and asked a few unimportant questions, after 
 a fashion which quite removed the slight awkwardness 
 which Edna felt, and was painfully conscious she showed, 
 towards him. 
 
 "Yes, she will soon be quite well," said he, turning to 
 Letty. " Your sister is thin and delicate-looking, Miss 
 Kenderdine, but she will take a great deal of killing, she 
 has such a thoroughly pure constitution. You need not 
 be in the least alarmed about her. Still, I will just look 
 after her for a day or two, professionally I mean in an 
 amateur professional way if she will allow me." 
 
 Letty was overflowing with thanks. Edna remained 
 silent. She disliked being Dr. Stedman's, or indeed any 
 doctor's patient; but her position would have been still 
 more difficult had he appeared to-day in the character of 
 her brave preserver, who had waded through the stormy 
 billows like a Norse hero, and carried her back in his 
 arms as she now was sure he had carried her, for he 
 could have got her home in no other way. But he had 
 said nothing about this, and, apparently, nobody had ask- 
 ed him. Nor did he refer to it now, for which reserve 
 Edna was very grateful. She would not have known 
 what to say, nor how to thank him, but his delicate silence 
 on the matter made all things easy. 
 
 Likewise Letty, who was not given to penetrate too
 
 116 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 deeply below the surface of things, seemed blessed with a 
 most fortunate lack of inquisitiveness. She made no ref- 
 erence to last night, but sat talking sweetly to the doctor 
 in the character of affectionate nurse and sister, looking 
 the while so exquisitely lovely that Julius, who, on his 
 brother's suggestion, had been invited in to see Edna, was 
 driven to beg permission to make a sketch of her on the 
 spot, in the character of a guardian angel 
 
 Nobody objected for the young artist was treated like 
 a spoiled child by them all. And, as it was a wet day 
 so wet that nobody could think of going out, and every 
 body would be dull enough in-doors they agreed to share 
 their dullness and spend the afternoon together; for, as 
 some one suggested, their time was drawing short now. 
 
 So Julius brought in his sketch-book and fell to work. 
 After a long discussion as to what sort of an angel Miss 
 Kenderdine was to be made into, it was finally decided 
 that she would do exactly as one of the Scandinavian Val- 
 kyriae, who wait in the halls of Odin to receive the souls 
 of the departed slain. 
 
 " Is that the business of guardian angels ?" asked Will 
 Stedman. " I should have thought they would have done 
 better in taking care of the living than making a fuss over 
 the dead." 
 
 Julius looked annoyed. " Pray excuse Will, Miss Ken- 
 derdine. He is not at all poetical ; he always takes a mat- 
 ter-of-fact view of things. Now, just the head bent, with 
 a pitying sort of expression, if you can manage it. Thank 
 you that will do exactly." 
 
 And Julius, with that keen, eager, thirsty look, which 
 for the last few days had begun to dawn in his face, gazed 
 at Letty Kenderdine, who smiled as usual, calm and moon- 
 like. Even as Andrea del Sarto's Lucrezia might have 
 smiled on him, and as dozens more as lovely women to 
 the end of time will continue to smile, maddeningly, upon 
 the two types of men with whom such charms are all-pow- 
 erful the sensualist, who cares for mere beauty, and it 
 alone ; the poet, who out of his own nature idealizes phys- 
 ical perfectness into the perfection of the soul.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 117 
 
 But there is a third type which unites both these. 
 Was it to this that William Stedraan belonged ? that is, 
 in his real heart, though his eyes might have been tempo- 
 rarily no wiser than his neighbors'. 
 
 He seemed a little changed in his manner since yester- 
 day graver, and yet franker and freer. He made no at- 
 tempt to interfere with his brother's complete engross- 
 ment of Letty, though he watched the two very closely at 
 intervals. This Edna saw, and drew her own conclusions 
 therefrom; but they were erroneous conclusions. Never- 
 theless, they made her resolve more strongly than ever 
 that with next Thursday this intimacy should entirely 
 cease. That one or both of these brothers should fall in 
 love with Letty was a catastrophe to be avoided, if possi- 
 ble. They were two good men, she was sure of that, and 
 they should neither of them suffer if she could help it. 
 No : just two days more, and the acquaintance with the 
 Stedmans should come to a natural and fitting close. 
 
 This being decided, Edna threw herself unresistingly into 
 the pleasures of it while it lasted. For it was a pleasure 
 she had ceased to doubt that. No good, simple-hearted, 
 sensible woman could help enjoying the society of two 
 such men, each so different, and yet each acting as a set- 
 off to the other. Julius, when he flung himself into con- 
 versation, was not only clever but brilliant ; William said 
 little, but whatever he did say, he said it to the point. 
 True, as his brother had accused him, he did now and then 
 take a matter-of-fact view of things; but his matter-of- 
 factness was neither stupid nor commonplace. He might 
 be slow, or obstinate, or hard to please, but he was not a 
 fool not a bit of it ; in spite of his grave and solid tem- 
 perament, most people would have considered him an ex- 
 ceedingly clever man, in his own undemonstrative way. 
 
 So Edna thought. And since he chose to talk to her, 
 she talked to him back again, and enjoyed the exercise. 
 For there could hardly have been a greater contrast than 
 these two. Edna Kenderdine, though so quiet, was not a 
 passive, scarcely even a calm woman. Whatever she felt, 
 she felt acutely. Life and energy, feeling and passion,
 
 118 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 quivered through every movement of her small frame, 
 every feature of her plain but sensitive and spiritual face 
 more so to-day than usual, through the excitement left 
 behind by her last night's peril. Also by another sort of 
 excitement, for which she could not at all account, but 
 which seemed to make her whole being thrill like a harp 
 newly tuned, which the lightest touch causes to tremble 
 into music. 
 
 She could not think how it was : she ought to have been 
 miserable, leaving that pleasant place to go back to Lon- 
 don, and work, and endless anxieties. Yet she was not 
 miserable ; nay, she felt strangely happy during the whole 
 of this day, wet as it was, and through great part of the 
 next day except the hour or two that she occupied in 
 packing. 
 
 There, in the solitude of her own room for Letty, 
 whose back was quite too long for packing, was sitting on 
 the bench outside, between the two Stedmans poor Edna 
 felt just a little sad and dull. They had had such a hap- 
 py time, and it was now over, or nearly over: ay, forever ! 
 such times do not return. People say they will, and 
 plan renewed meetings of the same sort ; but these seldom 
 come about, or if they do, things are different. Edna, in 
 her level existence, had not known enough either of happi- 
 ness or misery to feel keenly the irrecoverableness of the 
 past; still she had sense enough to acknowledge that a 
 time such as she and Letty had had for the last fortnight, 
 so exceptional in its circumstances and its utter unworld- 
 liness of contentment, was never likely to occur twice in 
 their lives. 
 
 First, because two hard-working, solitary women were 
 never likely again to be thrown into such close yet perfectly 
 harmless and blameless relations with two such young men 
 as the Stedmans thorough gentlemen, refined in act and 
 word, never by the slightest shadow of a shade crossing 
 the boundary of those polite and chivalric attentions which 
 every man may honorably pay to every woman ; men, too, 
 whom they could so heartily respect, who apparently led a 
 life as pure and simple as their own. At this time it was
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 119 
 
 with the young men, as with the young women, such an in- 
 nocently idle life. When they met again, if they ever did 
 meet, they would all be in the whirl of London, absorbed 
 in work the restless, jarring, selfish work of the world 
 in which they might both seem and be quite different sort 
 of people, both in themselves and to one another. 
 
 So thought Edna, as she hastened her packing in order 
 to go down to the others who did not seem to want her 
 much, she fancied. Still, she wanted them : there were 
 several things she would like still to talk about to Dr. 
 Stedman, and why should she not talk to him as long as 
 she could ? 
 
 As she closed her trunk the heavy fall of the lid felt like 
 closing a bright chapter in her existence. She had an in- 
 stinct that such seasons do not come often, and that when 
 they do they are brief as bright. She did not weep this 
 cheerful-hearted Edna, who had, and was always likely to 
 have, enough to do and to think of to keep her from un- 
 necessary grieving. She locked her box, having placed in- 
 side it the little mementos they were carrying home a 
 pebble which Letty had picked up on the beach, supposed 
 to contain the possibility of a valuable brooch, if they could 
 afford to have it cut and set; a piece of some queer sort 
 of sea-weed which Dr. Stedman had given her, telling her 
 that, if hung up in a dry place, it would prove a faithful 
 barometer for months and years; also, pressed between 
 her blotting-book's leaves, the very biggest of primroses, 
 a full inch in diameter, which she had gathered in a com- 
 petition with Julius Stedman. All these trifles, and a few 
 more, which were nobody's business but her own, she locked 
 up fast : but as she did so Edna sighed. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN this love-tale I find I am telling the story of the 
 women more than of the men which is not unnatural. 
 
 But, in truth, of the men there is as yet little to be told. 
 Their passion had not arrived at the demonstrative stage.
 
 120 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Every thing they did was done quite as usual. No doubt 
 they seized every opportunity of joining their fair neigh- 
 bors watched them out and in; met them constantly on 
 the cliff and down the shore ; contrived in short, by some 
 means or other, to spend with them nearly the whole of 
 the last three days ; but beyond this they did not go. And 
 even this was done by tacit understanding, without prior 
 arrangements. Men are much more delicately reticent in 
 love-affairs than women. Many women, even good women, 
 will chatter mercilessly about things which a man would 
 scorn to reveal, and think himself a brute to pry into. 
 
 On the Wednesday night the brothers had sat till ten 
 o'clock in the Misses Kenderdiue's parlor the visits were 
 always there. On no account would the sisters have pen- 
 etrated into that bachelor sanctum, of which, in its chaos of 
 bachelor untidiness, they had sometimes caught a glimpse 
 through the open door to Edna's pity and Letty's disdain. 
 The young men themselves felt the contrast between their 
 masculine chamber of horrors and the feminine sitting- 
 room opposite, which, humble and bare as it was, looked 
 always cheerful, neat, and nice. 
 
 " What a muddle we do live in, to be sure !" said Will, 
 when they returned this last evening to their own parlor. 
 But he sat down to his books, and Julius to his drawing, 
 and there they both worked away till nearly midnight, 
 without exchanging ten words. 
 
 At length Will rose and suggested his brother's going 
 to bed. 
 
 " We have to be up early to-morrow, you know." 
 
 " Have we ?" 
 
 Will smiled. "Didn't I hear you settling with the 
 Misses Kenderdine to see them off by the coach? It 
 starts at seven A.M." 
 
 "I said I would go; but that does not imply your 
 going." 
 
 " Oh, I should like to go and see the last of them," said 
 Will. 
 
 " It may not be the last. There is no necessity it should 
 be. They live in London, and so do we."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGBOLT. 121 
 
 
 
 " Do you know their address ?" Will asked, abruptly. 
 
 " No. Do you ?" / 
 
 " Certainly not. They did not tell me, and I should have 
 thought it a great piece of impertinence to inquire." 
 
 " Should you ? Perhaps you are right. I assure you I 
 have never asked them though I intended to ask to-mor- 
 row. But one wouldn't do the ungentlemanly thing on 
 any account. So I suppose, if they give us no special in- 
 vitation to call on them, they will drift away like all the 
 pleasant things in this world, and we shall never see them 
 more." 
 
 Julius spoke sentimentally nay, dolefully ; but with a 
 complete resignation of himself to fate, as was his charac- 
 ter. He never struggled much against any thing. 
 
 Will moved restlessly among his books piling and re- 
 piling them in a vain effort at order. At last he let them 
 be, and lifting up his head, looked his brother steadily in 
 the face. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose at seven to-morrow morning we shall 
 see the last of them. And I think it ought to be so." 
 
 " Why ?" said Julius, sharply, taking at once the opposi- 
 tion side, as was also his character. 
 
 Dr. Stedman paused a minute before speaking, and the 
 blood rose in his rugged brown face as he spoke. 
 
 "Because, Julius, in plain English, two young men can 
 not go on in this sort of free-and-easy way with two young 
 women at least, not in any place but here, and not here 
 for very long without getting talked about, Avhich would 
 be very unpleasant. For the men it doesn't matter, of 
 course, which makes it all the more incumbent on us to be 
 careful over the women." 
 
 " Careful ! What nonsense !" 
 
 "No, it isn't nonsense, though perhaps my speaking 
 about it may be. But I've had it on my mind to speak, 
 and it's better out than in." 
 
 " Very well, then. Preach away." 
 
 And Julius stretched himself along the sofa, his arms 
 over his head, listening with a half-vexed, half-contemptu- 
 ous air. 
 
 F
 
 122 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 * 
 
 "Well, lad," said Will, stoutly, "I think that for a man, 
 because he likes a girl's society, to daunder after her and 
 hang on to her apron-strings till he gets her and himself 
 talked about, is a piece of most arrant folly not to say 
 knavery ; for he gets all the fun and she all the harm. It's 
 selfishness cowardly selfishness and I won't do it ! You 
 may, if you choose ; but I won't do it !" 
 
 " Do what ?" said Julius, with an irritable and most irri- 
 tating laugh. " What's the use of blazing up and striking 
 your hand on the table as if you were striking me which, 
 perhaps, is what you're after ? Come on, then !" 
 
 " Do you suppose I'm an idiot ?" 
 
 " Or I either ? What harm have I done ? Was I going 
 to offer myself on the spot to either of your fair friends ? 
 A pretty offer it would be ! A fellow who has not a half- 
 penny to bless himself with. Why, she'd kick me out of 
 doors, and serve me right, too. No no !" and Julius 
 laughed again very bitterly : " I know women better than 
 that. Pray compose yourself, Will. I'm not going to be 
 a downright fool." 
 
 "You quite mistake me," said Will, gravely. "Any 
 man has a right to ask the love of any woman even if he 
 hasn't a half-penny. But he has no right to pay her ten- 
 der attentions, and set people gossiping about her, and 
 perhaps make her fancy he likes her, when he either does 
 not like her, or doesn't see his way clear to marry her. 
 It's not to be done, lad not to be done." 
 
 "And have I any intention of doing it? You foolish 
 old fellow what crotchets you take up ! Why hang it 
 if I had never flirted more than I have here " 
 
 " I hate flirting," broke in Will, tearing a sheet of fools- 
 cap violently in two. " Women may like it ; but men 
 ought to have more sense. What's the use of philander- 
 ing and fooling when you mean nothing, and it all ends in 
 sheer waste of time ? If ever I marry, I vow I'll go up to 
 the woman and say, * Mary ' or ' Molly ' " 
 
 " Her name is Molly, then ? That's information." 
 
 "I mean, I'd ask her point-blank to marry me. If she 
 said ' Yes ' well and good."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 123 
 
 "And if ' No?' " said Julius, with a keen look. 
 
 " I'd walk off, and never trouble her more. If a girl 
 doesn't know her own mind, she isn't worth asking cer- 
 tainly not asking twice. She never would be asked twice 
 by me." 
 
 " Wait till your time comes as you once said to your 
 obedient, humble servant. Go on, Will. I'm waiting for 
 another sermon, please. Plenty more where that last 
 came from, I know." 
 
 Julius seemed determined to turn the whole into a 
 laughing matter; and at last his brother was fain to 
 laugh too. 
 
 "One might as well preach to a post it always was 
 so, and always will be ! Come, I've said my say, and it's 
 done. Let us dismiss the subject." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," replied Julius, who, with his other 
 womanish peculiarities, had a most provoking habit of 
 liking to have the last word; "only just tell a fellow 
 what you are driving at. What do you want us to do 
 about these girls ? Shut ourselves up in our rooms, and 
 stare at them from behind the key-hole without ever dar- 
 ing to bid them good-bye ?" 
 
 "Rubbish! We'll just meet them, as you said, at the 
 coach, wish them a pleasant journey, and there it ends." 
 
 " Does it ?" said Julius, half to himself; while his soft, 
 sad look wandered into vacancy, and he leaned his arm 
 behind his head, in his favorite listless attitude, in which 
 there was something affected and something real; his 
 small, slight figure, dark, meagre face, and brilliant eyes, 
 making equally natural to him both languor and energy. 
 A true Southern temperament made up of contrarieties, 
 if not contradictions, and never to be reckoned on long to- 
 gether in any way. 
 
 But he ceased to argue, either in jest or earnest; and 
 soon the two brothers parted for the night ; quite amica- 
 bly as, after all their little warfares, they were in the 
 habit of doing ; for neither of them were of the sullen 
 sort ; and, besides, Will had a doctrine learned at the 
 big public school where he had been educated, fighting
 
 124 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 his way of necessity from bottom to top that sometimes 
 after a good honest battle, in which either speaks his 
 mind, men, as well as boys, are all the better friends. 
 
 Julius went to bed. But far into the small hours Will's 
 candle burned in the parlor below, as was his habit when- 
 ever he had spent a specially idle day. 
 
 Edna, too, sat up late, for to her always fell the domes- 
 tic cares of packing, arranging, and settling every thing. 
 Not that Letty did not try to help her; but she helped 
 her so badly that it was double trouble every thing had 
 to be done over again. Letty's unconscious, good-humor- 
 ed incapacity was one of the things which tried her sister 
 most, and caused her to hope that whenever the of-course- 
 certain husband did appeal', he might be a man sensible 
 and practical, and sufficiently rich to make his wife inde- 
 pendent of those petty worries which a cleverer and 
 braver woman would breast and swim through, and per- 
 haps even gain strength and energy from the struggle. 
 
 As it was, whenever they had any thing to do or to suf- 
 fer, Edna's first thought was, how to get Letty out of the 
 way. She had sent her to bed early, and, creeping in tired 
 beside her, was only too thankful to find her sound asleep. 
 And Letty slept still when in the gray dawn of the morn- 
 ing Edna woke, with the consciousness that something had 
 to be done, or something was going to happen, which came 
 with a sharp shock upon her the minute she opened her eyes. 
 
 She took her watch to the window to see the time cor- 
 rectly, and stood gazing out upon the sea, which lay so 
 lonely and quiet dim and gray just brightened in the 
 eastward by those few faint streaks in the sky which 
 showed where the sun would rise ere long. 
 
 A strange unquietness came into Edna's spirit hither- 
 to as placid as that sea before the sun rose a sense of 
 trouble, of regret, for which she could not account. For 
 though she was of course sorry to leave this place, still 
 she might come back again some day. And now she was 
 going home with Letty quite strong again, and herself 
 also ready to begin their work anew. Why should she 
 grieve ? She ought to be very glad and thankful.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 125 
 
 Perhaps she was only tired with the excitement of last 
 night when the two Stedmans had staid later and talked 
 more than usual ; pleasant, refreshing talk, such as clever, 
 good men can make with good, and not stupid women ; 
 talk difficult to be detailed afterwards, if indeed any con- 
 versation written down does not seem as tame and lifeless 
 as yesterday's gathered roses. But it had left a sweet 
 aroma behind it, and while it lasted it had made Edna 
 feel happy, like a creature long pent up in horrible cities, 
 who is set free upon its native mountain, and led cheerily 
 up the bright hill-side, at every step breathing a fresher 
 and purer air; at every glance seeing around prospects 
 wider and fairer; the sort of companionship, in short, 
 which makes one think the better of one's self because 
 one can appreciate it and enjoy it. How keenly she had 
 enjoyed it Edna knew. 
 
 And now, with a slight spasm or constriction of the 
 heart, she recognized that it was all over, that this morn- 
 ing was the very last day. She should probably never 
 meet the Stedmans more. 
 
 She was not " in love." She did not for a moment fan- 
 cy herself in love with either of them, being no longer of 
 that unripe age when girls think it fine to be in love with 
 somebody ; but she was conscious that all was not right 
 with her; that the past had been a delicious time, and 
 that she began to look forward to her school-life, and her 
 home-life, alone with Letty, with a sense of vacancy and 
 dreariness almost amounting to dread. Be sorry for her, 
 you who can understand this state of mind ! And ye who 
 can not why, she had need to be sorry for you ! 
 
 She stood looking at the sombre sea at the smiling, 
 hopeful dawn, then went back to her bed, and, hiding her 
 face in the pillow, wept a few tears. But there was no 
 time for crying or for sleeping ; she had still a great deal 
 to do, and they must leave soon after six ; so, early as it 
 was, she rose. 
 
 Her neighbors were early stirring too, though it was, 
 after all, Will who accomplished this, rousing his brother 
 into sufficient energy to be in time. The impulse of over-
 
 126 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 night had faded out, and Julius now seemed very indiffer- 
 ent whether or not he wished the sisters good-bye. 
 
 "If we are never to see them again, what does it matter 
 to see them now?" said he, carelessly. "Or, indeed, what 
 does it matter in any case ? Women only care for fellows 
 with lots of money." 
 
 "In one sense, perhaps the matrimonial ; but I thought 
 we had decided that this was not the sense in which your 
 civilities were to be construed." 
 
 "Our civilities, Will. You have been quite as sweet 
 upon them as I have." 
 
 "Then there is no reason why our civilities should not 
 be continued to the end. Get your hat, man, and let us 
 start to the coach-office." 
 
 " Now ?" 
 
 " Yes, now. We are better out of the way here. We'll 
 not bother them with any last words." 
 
 And the doctor, who looked a little jaded, as if he had 
 sat up most of the night which indeed he had contrived 
 to stay out, and keep his brother out, on the breezy cliffs 
 during the half hour that there was any chance of stair- 
 case meetings, or interference, for good or ill, with the 
 proceedings of the Misses Kenderdine. But all this half 
 hour the young men never once referred to their friends 
 or regretted their departure. They lounged about, read 
 the newspaper, and talked politics a little, until, suddenly 
 taking out his watch, Will said : 
 
 "Now, if we mean to be in time, we had better be off 
 at once." 
 
 They walked up to the coach-offioe. In those days, and 
 at that early season of the year, there, was only a diurnal 
 coach which passed through the village, taking up any 
 chance passenger by the way. It was just the usual old- 
 fashioned stage, with outside and inside places, and was 
 rarely full ; still, to-day, as it came lumbering up the hilly 
 street, it looked to be so. 
 
 " Suppose they can't get seats," suggested Julius. 
 
 "Not impossible. I wish I had suggested their book- 
 ing places over-night."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 127 
 
 Small, trivial sentences about such a trivial thing ! 
 save that all the manifold machinery of life hangs pivoted 
 upon trifles. 
 
 The brothers found the two sisters standing waiting 
 amidst a conglomeration of boxes, at which Julius shrugged 
 his shoulders and winked aside at Will in thankful bach- 
 elorhood. But the four met and shook hands as usual, 
 just as if they were starting for their conjoint walk this 
 merry, sunshiny, breezy morning. 
 
 " What a fine day ! I am glad you have good weather 
 for your journey. We thought we might be allowed to 
 come and see you off. Can we be of any use, Miss Ken- 
 derdine ?" 
 
 Dr. Stedman addressed himself to Letty, who looked 
 nervous and fidgety. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you. It is so troublesome, travel- 
 ling ; especially without a gentleman to take care of us. 
 Edna, are you sure the boxes are all right? Did you 
 count them ? Two trunks, one bonnet-box, one " 
 
 " Yes, all are right. Don't vex yourself, dear," said 
 Edna, in her soft sotto voce, and then she was aware that 
 Dr. Stedman turned to look at her earnestly, more ear- 
 nestly than usual. 
 
 " Let me help you ! you are carrying such a heap of 
 cloaks and things, and you look so tired. Are you able 
 for the journey to-day ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, quite able. Besides, we must go." 
 
 Will made no reply, but he took her burdens from her, 
 arranged her packages, and stood silently beside her till 
 the coach came up. 
 
 Julius too, his languor and indifference dispersed as if 
 by magic, placed himself close to the blooming Letty, pay- 
 ing her his final politenesses with remarkable empressement. 
 
 " Yes, I am sorry to leave this place," she said, in an- 
 swer to his question. " We have had a pleasant time ; 
 and we are going back to horrid school-work. I hate it." 
 
 "No wonder. Still, your pupils are somewhat to be 
 envied." 
 
 " Eh ?" said Letty, not detecting the compliment, her
 
 128 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 mind being divided between Julius, the boxes, and the 
 approaching coach. "Look, Edna, it is quite full. We 
 shall have to go inside nay, the inside is full too. What 
 must we do ? Oh, Edna, what must we do ?" 
 
 "It was my fault," said Will Stedman. "I ought to 
 have told you it was better to secure places. Coachman, 
 is there no chance whatever for these ladies ?" 
 
 Coachman shook his head, remorseless as Fate ; and 
 Fate, laughing from under the coach-wheels, and making 
 mouths at them from the dickey, set at naught all the ex- 
 cellent schemes of these four young people. 
 
 The two sisters regarded each other in mute consterna- 
 tion. 
 
 " How very, very foolish I was !" said Edna, in extreme 
 vexation. " Can nothing be done ? Dr. Stedman, will 
 you think for us ? We must go home to-day." 
 
 " Po'-chay, ma'am po'-chay to Hyde," suggested the 
 landlord. 
 
 " How much would that cost ?" 
 
 A serious sum was named. Edna looked at and counted 
 her money. No, it was not to be done. She saw Dr. Sted- 
 man watching her, and blushed crimson. 
 
 He came near her, and said, almost in a whisper, " Ex- 
 cuse me, but at a journey's end one sometimes runs short. 
 If" 
 
 Edna shook her head, and set her little mouth together, 
 firm as Fate whom she fancied she was thus resisting : at 
 which Dr. Stedman blushed as deeply as herself, and retired. 
 
 There was no help for it. Several boats crossed daily 
 from Ryde ; but to get to Hyde from this out-of-the-way 
 place was the difficulty. 
 
 " No, Letty," said Edna, " not being able to travel about 
 in post-chaises, we must e'en put up with our misfortune. 
 We can go by the coach to-morrow morning. I dare say 
 Mrs. Williams will take us in for one night more. Things 
 might be worse, you see." 
 
 But as she watched the coach roll away, Edna, though 
 she spoke cheerfully, looked a great deal more annoyed 
 and troubled than her sister did ; and Dr. Stedman saw it.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 129 
 
 " You have a tell-tale face," said he. " This has vexed 
 you very much, I perceive." 
 
 " Of course it has. Many reasons made it important for 
 us to go home." 
 
 " Your sister takes it easy enough, apparently." 
 
 " She always " and Edna stopped herself. Why should 
 she be discussing Letty with a stranger with any body ? 
 
 " I beg pardon," said Dr. Stedmau, abruptly, and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 But when they had all escaped out of the condolences 
 of the little crowd round the inn-door, and were ignomin- 
 iously retracing their steps to Mrs. Williams's lodgings, he 
 overtook them, breathless. 
 
 " Stop, Miss Edna. I have found a way out of your dif- 
 ficulties. There will be a post-chaise here at noon, bring- 
 ing a wedding-couple from Ryde. It will take you the 
 return-journey for merely coach-fare. If you cross at once 
 you will be able to start from Portsmouth to London to- 
 night. Will that do ?" 
 
 " Admirable," said Edna, turning back. "Let me go 
 and settle it at once." 
 
 " It is settled I took the liberty of settling it with the 
 landlord, whom I know. Always provided you were sat- 
 isfied. Are you?" 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " Thank you. And now you have only to repay me the 
 coach-fare inside places for two," said the doctor, holding 
 out his hand with a smile. 
 
 Edna laughingly and, as it occurred to her long after, 
 most unsuspiciously, gave him the money ; and he walked 
 on beside her, receiving silently her expressions of grati- 
 tude. She did indeed feel grateful. It was so new to her 
 to have the burdens of daily life thus taken oif her, and in 
 such a considerate way, simply a man doing a man's part 
 of kindness to a woman nothing more. It made her re- 
 member his words: "If I had had a sister I would have 
 been so good to her." Though while Edna recalled them, 
 there was a strange sting in the remembrance. 
 
 A.t the familiar door they all stopped, rather awkward- 
 F2
 
 130 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 ly, till Dr. Stedman said, with something beyond his usual 
 formality : 
 
 " I wonder, Julius, if these ladies would consider it pre- 
 sumption in us to offer them our bachelor hospitality for 
 the next few hours ? It might be more convenient, and 
 they would at least get a dinner." 
 
 " Oh, they must they must," cried Julius. " Say you 
 will, Miss Edna," and he caught hold of her hand in his 
 boyish, affectionate way. " Come and dine with us ; it 
 will be such fun. And we will go a long walk before 
 then. Oh, I am so much obliged to Fate and that grim 
 coachman ! We'll have such a jolly day !" 
 
 He was evidently in a state of considerable excitement, 
 which relieved itself in almost puerile pranks, and inces- 
 sant flow of talk, and a pettish assertion of his own will, 
 which was, as Edna declared, " exactly like a baby." Nev- 
 ertheless, she and the others only laughed, and gave way 
 to him. 
 
 Evidentty the catastrophe about the coach had pro- 
 duced in none of the little party any permanent depres- 
 sion ; and it was with almost exuberant spirits that they 
 prepared to make the very most of this sweet, stolen day 
 all the sweeter, Julius insisted, because it was stolen a 
 clear robbery out of the treasure-house of Destiny, who 
 had not many such. 
 
 "At least not for us," added he, with the dash of mel- 
 ancholy which ran through his merriest moods. "So I'll 
 take the residuum' of my pleasures as I used to take the 
 spoonful of sugar at the bottom of an emptied coffee-cup, 
 which I was always told it was such ill-manners to touch, 
 though it was the best bit of the draught. And yet we 
 have had a good draught of happiness this fortnight 
 have we not, Miss Edna? Our coffee of life was thor- 
 oughly well-made strong and clear, with plenty of milk 
 in it." 
 
 "The milk of human kindness?" 
 
 "Yes; and some water too. We had only too much 
 water on Monday night. But I beg your pardon." For 
 Edna still turned pale, and then red, whenever there was
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 131 
 
 the slightest allusion to her painful adventure; so that 
 now all reference to it had tacitly ceased. 
 
 " I think," said Dr. Stedman, " since our friends have 
 gained an extra day of sea-air they had better make use 
 of it. So come away all of you down to the shore." 
 
 There they wandered for hours, as merry as children, 
 tossing the shingle at one another, or entombing them- 
 selves in it as they sat; writing names and sentences with 
 umbrella-sticks on the sand, or building out of it castles 
 and moats for the incoming tide first to fill and then to 
 wash away. Some mixture of seriousness there was ; for 
 sea-side folly has always a touch of solemnity in it; and 
 there is but a step between the babyish pranks on the sand 
 and the awfulness of the silent ocean beyond. But still, 
 whatever they did, or whatever they talked about, these 
 four were very happy. It was a day one of those single, 
 separate days which stamp themselves upon the memory 
 for years, both from their heavenly beauty, externally, and 
 their moral atmosphere of pleasantness and peace. A day 
 never to be forgotten in its innocent Arcadian enjoyment, 
 to which all things seemed natural; and they themselves 
 felt not like modern work-a-day men and women, but crea- 
 tures of some perfectly ideal world shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses of some long-past golden age. 
 
 They dined, nevertheless upon cold mutton and suet 
 dumplings, which was the best Mrs. Williams could pro- 
 vide ; and they dined heartily and merrily. It might have 
 been a Kttle " incorrect," this bachelor entertainment to 
 two young maiden ladies. In the midst of the meal a 
 grave doubt of this struck Edna ; but it was a merry meal, 
 for all that, with not one bit of sentiment about it, or re- 
 gret that it was the first and last. For still, with all their 
 mutual friendliness, the sisters withheld their address, and 
 the brothers were too courteous to ask for it. 
 
 Suddenly, in midst of the gayety, Dr. Stedman said, " It 
 is nearly three. Your carriage will be at the door ir 
 five minutes." And for that five minutes every body was 
 rather silent. 
 
 Edna sat at the window, taking a farewell look at the
 
 132 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 beautiful sea; and Dr. Stedman came and looked at it 
 with her. 
 
 " You are better now than in the morning, I hope ?" 
 
 "Yes, the salt air always does me good." 
 
 "It will be very late before you reach home to-night. 
 Are you afraid ?" 
 
 " Oh no." 
 
 " You seem afraid of nothing." 
 
 " Not of many things outside things. Why should I 
 be ? And it would do no good. I am not like a careful- 
 ly-guarded young lady ; I am a poor school-mistress, who, 
 whether she likes it or not, must face the world." 
 
 " Do you find that very hard ?" 
 
 "Sometimes only sometimes; for I am young and 
 strong, and not given to despondency. It may be other- 
 wise when I get older." 
 
 And a vague cloud came over Edna as she spoke ; a fear 
 that it not only might but would be thus ; that the days 
 would come when her strength would fail, and her courage 
 sink, beaten down ; when she would be dull, weary, lonely, 
 and old. 
 
 "Are you afraid of growing old?" said Dr. Stedman 
 again. " I am a little." 
 
 " Why should you be ?" said Edna, forgetting the ques- 
 tion in the confession, and turning to look inquiringly at 
 him. " Old age can have no terrors for you. A man is 
 so different from a woman." 
 
 " He is horribly different in some things. Miss 
 Edna I would give the whole world if I were more like 
 you." 
 
 These words, spoken in a tone that seemed at once ap- 
 pealing, apologizing nay, almost caressing, so low and 
 soft was it, quivered through Edna from head to foot. 
 But before she had time to answer or think of answering, 
 
 O' 
 
 the post-chaise was at the door a goodly equipage all 
 in its bridal splendor white favors and all. 
 
 Letty jumped up in delight. " Oh, how nice ! We shall 
 get to Ryde so comfortably. And think of our starting 
 from the very door. So kind of you to order it, Dr. Sted-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 133 
 
 man. It is almost as good as if we had our own carriage. 
 Ah, Edna ! shall we ever have our own carriage ?" 
 
 " Possibly I should say not improbably," said Dr. Sted- 
 man, dryly, as he handed the beautiful woman, with care- 
 ful courtesy, to the chaise, which she seemed to step into 
 as if she were born to a carriage. 
 
 Julius hung back, and made his adieux with a cynical 
 air. 
 
 " Mrs. Williams thinks the white favors a lucky omen, 
 Miss Kenderdine. She hopes to see one or both of you 
 two young ladies back again ere long in a similar equi- 
 page. I trust the owner may be a duke at least." 
 
 " Eh ?" said Letty, not comprehending, but smiling still. 
 
 " Mrs. Williams says, next time you come here, she hopes 
 it will be in your own carriage, and married to some rich 
 gentleman possibly a duke." 
 
 Letty bridled. " Oh, Mr. Stedman, you are so funny ! 
 Good-bye !" 
 
 So they parted all four with the smile on their lips, 
 shaking hands cordially, and keeping up their jests even 
 to the last moment ; expressing all manner of mutual good 
 wishes, but not a hint or hope of future meetings. They 
 parted as completely as two ships that had crossed one 
 another's track in the mid-ocean paused alongside for a 
 short space of kindly greeting then divided, steadily and 
 finally, to sail on round the world their several and oppo- 
 site ways. 
 
 Edna knew it must be thus that it was best it should 
 be. Some instinct, forestalling experience, warned her of 
 the fact proved fatally by how many wrecked lives ! 
 that men ought to be nothing to women, and women noth- 
 ing to men, except in the merest ordinary friendship un- 
 less they are either akin by blood, or deliberately choose 
 one another in love and marriage: that all so-called "Pla- 
 tonic attachments," sentimental compromises which try to 
 steer clear of both, and institute pseudo-relations which 
 nature never meant, almost always end in misery blame- 
 less, but still heart-deep, life-long misery. Edna wished to 
 avoid every thing of the kind both for herself and her
 
 134 TUB WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 sister. Nothing had happened ; nobody had proposed to 
 Letty, and she was thankful thus peacefully, friendly, and 
 kindly to close all associations with the Stedmans. 
 
 Yes, they had parted just as (she said this to herself 
 again and again during the long drive) just as she most 
 desired them all to part like ships on the ocean, never to 
 sail in company again. Still, she felt that for some days 
 to come her own little vessel would sail rather drearily, 
 and flap its canvas idly in the breeze, scarcely noticing 
 whether oi 1 not there was sunshine on the sea, which look- 
 ed so limitless, and yet which she must cross and cross 
 alone. 
 
 " I wonder," she thought to herself, " which of us will 
 grow old the fastest or live the longest Dr. Stedman 
 or I?" 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 KENSINGTON twenty years ago was not like the Ken- 
 sington of to-day. It seemed much quieter and farther 
 from London. No great Exhibitions had beaten down the 
 smooth grass of Hyde Park and stamped out the green 
 lanes of Brompton, which then formed a barrier between 
 " the old court suburb," as Leigh Hunt tenderly calls it, 
 and the metropolitan vortex. Down the long, dusty miles 
 of the Knightsbridge road crawled a few uncomfortable 
 omnibuses forming the chief communication with Lon- 
 don except for those fortunate people who had carriages 
 of their own. Consequently, to middle-class respectabili- 
 ty, Kensington was a rather retired place. Townified, cer- 
 tainly, but then its queer winding streets, its old-estab- 
 lished shops and old-fashioned houses, above all, its palace 
 and ancient church, gave it a dignified quaintness which 
 half atoned for the want of the country. And but a little 
 way beyond it were many ruralities : lanes and gardens, 
 haunted by larks in the day-time and nightingales at eve ; 
 here and there a real field not yet become a brick-field ; 
 and several "lovers' walks," where, between the tall hedge
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 135 
 
 of May or wild roses, young people thus circumstanced 
 might exchange a kiss safely and unobserved. 
 
 About half a mile from where the Misses Kenderdine 
 lived was a canal, along the banks of which ran a slip of 
 waste ground, where bloomed as if by stealth many a real 
 country flower : bind-weed the little pink creeping sort 
 and the large white one, that in late summer mounts the 
 hedges and stars them with its dazzling, short-lived bells ; 
 abundance of those flowers which grow on commons and 
 waste ground bright yellow hawk-weed, and the delicate 
 primrose-tinted kind ; with various tiny plants, pleasant 
 enough to observant eyes, and of which there used to be 
 plenty in these regions, till London, gradually growing, 
 has forced them to give place to coarser weeds. 
 
 To this place Edna often came, between or after school- 
 hours, to fancy herself in the country and get a breath of 
 air, for the sisters' house was somewhat small and close. 
 Not that it was an ugly house; creepers, jasmine, and 
 grape-vine half covered it, and it was open, front and back, 
 to a view of market-gardens. Nobody can find it now 
 it has been completely swept from the face of the earth ; 
 pulled down and built upon, with all its surroundings. 
 Year by year genteel terraces and squares are growing 
 where the cabbages acres of them once grew. So if I 
 say, with the lingering tenderness that its inhabitants also 
 learned to speak of it, that it was not an ugly house, 
 there is no one who can contradict me. 
 
 It boasted three stories, of two rooms each, the most im- 
 portant of which were the sitting-room, the drawing-room 
 above, made into a school-room, and a large (or they called 
 it large) bedroom overhead, where the two sisters slept. 
 Thus, at a glance, may be seen their small establishment, 
 of which the only other inmates besides themselves were 
 one servant and a cat. A very microscopic, maidenly es- 
 tablishment, simple even to poverty, and yet it had its 
 happiness to Edna at least ifor it was their own. Every 
 atom of furniture had been bought with their own money 
 bought and paid for which is more than can be said of 
 many magnificent mansions. Every corner, from attic to
 
 136 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 basement, was theirs to do with as they liked. And to 
 these governesses, who had lived for years in other peo- 
 ple's houses, any nook they could call their own and do 
 what they chose in, possessed a certain charm, of which 
 the novelty was not even yet exhausted. In this nest of 
 theirs, narrow as it was, the two sisters had not been un- 
 happy Edna especially had been the merriest little bird 
 till now. 
 
 It chanced that after the pleasant spring came a very 
 hot summer; weeks of settled drought. By August the 
 leaves were almost burnt off the trees, and .the dusty, lan- 
 guid air that seemed to creep, or rather to stagnate, over 
 the lanes and market-gardens, and the line of road be- 
 tween Kensington town and Holland House, was almost 
 stifling, even at twilight, when Edna insisted on their go- 
 ing out, just for health's sake. 
 
 "Oh, Edna," Letty would say, drearily, as she crawled 
 along the heated pavement and looked up at the hand- 
 some houses, nearly all with closed windows "every 
 body is gone out of town. Why can't we go too? It's 
 very hard for us to be teaching school here when all the 
 world is away at the sea-side. I wish we were there also. 
 Don't you?" 
 
 " No," replied Edna. " One holiday is enough for one 
 year. No." 
 
 But she knew she was telling a falsehood ; that in her 
 heart of hearts she had a frantic longing for the sight of 
 the sea, for the sound and smell of briny waters, lapping 
 on shingle and sand, for even a handful of sea-weeds, damp, 
 salt, and living not like that poor dead mummy of a sea- 
 weed that still hung up in a corner of the room, though 
 Letty had begged her more than once to take it down, it 
 looked so " nasty," for its meteorological powers had sig- 
 nally failed. Yet still she let it hang there a thing that 
 had missed its destiny, and was of no mortal use to any 
 body except as a memento.of a very pleasant time. 
 
 That pleasant time had passed out of all memories. 
 Even Letty scarcely mentioned it now three months 
 was far too long for Letty to remember any thing or any
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 137 
 
 body. At first she had found home extremely dull, had 
 talked incessantly of the Isle of Wight and of the two 
 Stedmans, wondering whether they had come home if 
 when they did come they would make any effort to renew 
 the acquaintance. 
 
 "It would be possible, nay, easy, to find out our ad- 
 dress, for our boxes were marked ' Kensington,' and there 
 is the post-office to inquire at. If I were they I would 
 hunt us out, and call. In which case, Edna, you know, 
 we must be polite to them. They might mean nothing." 
 
 " Probably not. What would you wish them to 
 mean ?" 
 
 " How sharp you are with me ! Of course, if Dr. Sted- 
 man did call upon us two single ladies, he could have but 
 one intention in doing so. Not that he ever gave me any 
 reason to suppose any thing," added Letty, looking down 
 with her half smile, that implied an expectation of be- 
 ing contradicted in her assertion. But no contradiction 
 came. 
 
 " Of course, a man so poorly circumstanced couldn't be 
 expected to come forward at once ; but then you see " 
 
 Edna would see nothing. Every time the conversation 
 took this turn she resolutely avoided it: to speak her 
 mind, or to open her Heart to this her only sister, became 
 every day more impossible. Not that there was less af- 
 fection between them, but there was a clearer perception 
 and a sadder acceptance of the great difference in thought 
 and feeling, which sometimes happens that alienation of 
 nature which no nearness of blood can atone for, or pre- 
 vent, or cure. 
 
 Sometimes, when in the long bright June evenings Let- 
 ty persisted in walking out regularly not down the act- 
 ual street where Dr. Stedman lived (Edna knew it well, 
 and kept half a mile from it always), but up and down 
 the long green alleys of Kensington Gardens, looking 
 round at every corner, and fancying every tall figure or 
 two figures, a taller and a shorter must surely be the 
 two Stedinans the patient elder sister would grow ex- 
 cessively irritable, and then Letty, who was invariably
 
 138 THE AV OMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 good-tempered, would wonder at her, and fear she was 
 not well, and pet her and caress her in a fashion harder to 
 bear than the interminable talkativeness. 
 
 But when week after week crept by, and the Stedmans 
 gave no sign, Letty's interest in her lost admirer or ad- 
 mirers died out. Besides, school-time began, and the 
 small worries of the present completely extinguished the 
 past. Then, when her sister seemed quite to have for- 
 gotten them, poor Edna's memory of those happy sea-side 
 days woke up with a vividness quite horrible in its pain, 
 and in its sharp consciousness of what that pain was, whence 
 it arose, and to what it tended. 
 
 I will tell no untruth about my poor Edna, nor make 
 any pretenses concerning her, which she herself would 
 have been the first to scorn. I believe that no woman, 
 gifted with common sense and common feeling, ever " falls 
 in love," as the phrase is, without knowing it: at least 
 not when the love comes suddenly, and for one who here- 
 tofore has been a stranger, so that no gradual previous re- 
 lations of intimacy have disguised the true state of things 
 for a while, as sometimes occurs. She may refuse to ac- 
 knowledge the fact, even to herself; but she knows it 
 knows it at the very core of her heart in all its sweet- 
 ness, and in all its bitterness too. 
 
 Long before those three months had gone by, Edna 
 Kenderdine, who had met so few men, and had never taken 
 the smallest interest in any man, began to find out that 
 she was never likely again to meet such an one as Dr. Wil- 
 liam Stedman never likely, in all her future life, to have 
 such a happy fortnight as that she spent in the Isle of 
 Wight, when her anxiety for her sister was over, and she 
 and Letty were roaming about the sweet country and 
 pleasant sea-shore, and meeting the two Stedmans every 
 day and all day long. 
 
 Only a fortnight fourteen days a short time on which 
 to build or to wreck a life's happiness ; yet many have 
 done it before now, and will do it again. Fate sometimes 
 compresses into a few days the events and experience of 
 years. People love in divers ways, and marry under in-
 
 THE WOMAN S KINGDOM. 139 
 
 finitely varied circumstances, concerning which no person 
 can judge, or has a right to judge, any other; yet there is 
 but one true love leading to the one perfect marriage, or 
 else leading through dark and thorny yet sacred ways to 
 that perpetual virginity of heart and life which is only 
 second to marriage in its holiness and happiness. 
 
 This love had come to Edna, and she knew it. 
 
 She did not fall into romantic ecstasies of joy or grief 
 over it, though let not even these be condemned ; they are 
 natural in the time of passionate youth the Juliet-time. 
 But Edna was a woman not a girl, though her heart was 
 as fresh as if she were sixteen. She said nothing she 
 betrayed nothing; externally she was the school-mistress 
 only; but within she was conscious of the great change 
 which only comes once in a lifetime, and after which no 
 woman is ever quite the same again. 
 
 Of her lover or her love, a tenderer and nobler name 
 she did not sit and think all day long her days were too 
 busy for that ; but she thought of him in every idle or sol- 
 itary minute, and often when neither idle nor alone ; till 
 day by day she learned to mingle him in all her doings 
 and all her dreams. Him the one "him" in the world 
 to her now, whom by a magic sympathy she seemed al- 
 ready to understand, faults and all, better than any other 
 human being she had ever met. 
 
 For she did not think Dr. Stedman faultless; she had 
 seen in him a good many things she would have liked dif- 
 ferent, and had to apologize for shortcomings of temper, 
 roughness, and hardness, which seemed the result of cir- 
 cumstances. Still he was himself drawn to her, or rather 
 she to him, by a strange attraction, and, as a whole, very 
 near her ideal of what a man should be. 
 
 But it is idle reasoning about such things, and soon 
 Edna ceased to reason, and was content only to feel. All 
 the stronger because in her intense humility it never oc- 
 curred to her that the feeling could be reciprocated. She 
 accepted with a strong, silent courage the lot which had 
 befallen her a great misfortune, some would say. But 
 she did not call it so, though she recognized to the full its
 
 140 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 sadness, hopelessness, and no, she was not so cowardly 
 as to add, its humiliation. 
 
 She had done nothing wrong in loving, even though she 
 loved a man who had never asked her to marry him, who 
 had apparently no intention of asking her, whom, in all 
 human probability, she would never meet again. Well, 
 let it be so ; she had met, for once in her life, the man who 
 she felt could have satisfied her whole heart, reason, con- 
 science whom, had he asked her, she would have married, 
 and whom otherwise she would remember tenderly to the 
 day of her death. This is, next to a thoroughly happy 
 marriage, the best lot which can befall any woman. 
 
 I linger over Edna Kenderdine because I like to linger 
 over her, just here: the picture of a woman who is brave 
 enough to love, unloved, the best and highest ; embodied 
 to her, as it was to her mother Eve, in a man. For Mil- 
 ton's celebrated line, 
 
 "He for God only, she for God in him," 
 
 is so far true that no woman can love either lover or hus- 
 band perfectly, unless in a sense she sees God in him, 
 and sees in him, beyond herself, the desire for God only. 
 And if so, her love is neither an unhappy nor an unfortu- 
 nate love, however it may end. 
 
 One fact proved incidentally how utterly removed from 
 the selfishness of all personal feeling was this ideal ad- 
 miration, this self-existent, up-looking, and outloving love 
 which had taken such sudden and strong hold of Edna's 
 heart, and after lurking there awhile, sprung up, forced 
 into being not by the sunshine of hope, but by the warm 
 darkness of complete though quiet despair. The possibil- 
 ity which Letty's vanity had taken for granted of Dr. 
 Stedman's attentions being to herself, awoke in her sister's 
 mind no jealousy or dread indeed no sensation of any 
 kind. In those early days when she was so ignorantly 
 happy Edna had thought the matter over in all its bear- 
 ings, and set it aside as a mistake. For had he really fall- 
 en in love, there was no reason why he should not have 
 spoken, nor why afterwards he should not have hunted
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 141 
 
 Letty out and followed her to the world's end. Edna 
 thought, if she were a man, she would have done so. She 
 could imagine no hinderance strong 'enough to prevent a 
 man who really loved a woman from seeking her out, 
 wooing her, and carrying her off triumphant like one of 
 the old Paladins in face of all the world. 
 
 Yet all these three months William Stedman had lived 
 close by them, and given no sign of his existence. There- 
 fore, of course, there was but one conclusion to be drawn. 
 Letty, she supposed, had come to it likewise, or else had 
 forgotten the whole matter Letty could so easily forget ! 
 
 Still, this summer was a dull time with poor Letty Ken- 
 derdine. After the fever, pupils were naturally slow of 
 returning; the sisters were likely to be very poor this 
 half year. Edna did not care much for the fact ; but she 
 tried to make things as easy as she could to Letty, whom 
 want of money always affected keenly with a hundred 
 small wants and petty humiliations, which her sister, if 
 unable to sympathize with, felt heartily sorry for. She 
 taxed her ingenuity to lighten Letty's school-duties, and 
 out of school to invent inexpensive amusements for her ; 
 but still the dullness remained. Only dullness; certainly 
 not disappointed love, for Letty spoke more than once of 
 accepting her latest offer from an Australian sheep-farmer, 
 once the boy-brother of one of her pupils, whose ardent 
 admiration had gone so far as to entreat her to come out 
 to Geelong and marry him. And so Edna, who, in her 
 simplicity, could not conceive the possibility of liking one 
 man, and in the remotest degree contemplating marriage 
 with another, became quite satisfied as to the state of her 
 sister's affections. 
 
 Thus they went on, teaching school daily, and spending 
 the time as well as they could after school-hours, gener- 
 ally in the arduous duty of making ends meet, until the 
 leaves which had budded out in that happy, merry spring- 
 time in the Isle of Wight began to change color, wither, 
 and fade. 
 
 " How fast the year slips by !" said Letty, drearily, one 
 half-holiday when she sat at the window, with nothing to
 
 142 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 do but to look over the long flat of market-gardens, and 
 wish she was anywhere but where she was. " I declare, 
 to-day is the last day of the band playing in Kensington 
 Gardens, and we have never yet been to hear it. It is 
 your fault, Edna. Why wouldn't you let us go ?" 
 
 The question was not easy to answer. There was, of 
 course, the obvious reason that Letty was too beautiful a 
 person to promenade much in so public a place without 
 father or brother; but Edna's conscience told her this was 
 not the only reason why she had so persistently resisted 
 such a very harmless amusement. 
 
 She knew quite well, that if by walking twenty miles 
 she could, herself unseen, have caught one glimpse of Wil- 
 liam Stedman resting her weary, thirsting eyes on his 
 brown face, which might not be handsome, yet was so 
 manly, gentle, honest, and good she would eagerly have 
 done it. That even the dim remote possibility of seeing 
 him his tall, sturdy, erect figure, turning round some 
 street corner a common Kensington street sanctified to 
 her even those dusty pavements and ugly roads. Some- 
 times the craving only to know that he was alive alive 
 and well pursuing his duties, which she knew were so 
 close to his heart, working at his profession, and carrying 
 out nobly his useful, beneficent life, without the remotest 
 thought of herself, came upon poor Edna with a force that 
 was almost maddening in its pain. But, at the same time, 
 the chance of really seeing him, of meeting face to face, 
 and being obliged to bow, or to shake hands and speak to 
 him, in the visible flesh him of whom she thought night 
 and day was to her an apprehension almost amounting 
 to terror. The mere thought of it often, in her walks, 
 made her heart stand still a minute, and then go on beat- 
 ing so violently that she scarcely knew where she was or 
 what she was doing. Therefore she had contrived al- 
 ways to avoid that band promenade, where Kensington 
 young men might naturally take an afternoon lounge, and 
 where Julius Stedman had once said he was rather fond 
 of going. 
 
 But this day Letty was so persistent, that, with a kind
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 143 
 
 of fear lest her secret reason should be betrayed, Edna 
 ceased resistance, and they went. 
 
 Only, however, for one or two turns, during which she 
 looked straight before her, and deported herself as grimly 
 as possible towards the fops and fashionable idlers who 
 never failed to stare at the tall beautiful woman and her 
 unobtrusive companion. Only two turns ; but even these 
 were one too many. At the second, Fate came, dead front, 
 to meet the sisters. 
 
 " There they are ! Don't look, Edna ; don't let them 
 fancy we see them ; but there are the two Stedmans." 
 
 Edna's heart gave a wild leap, every thing seemed turn- 
 ing round and round for a minute, then she gathered up 
 her senses, and recovered her strong self-control, which 
 had never failed her yet. Happily, her veil was down ; 
 but Letty's careless eyes roved everywhere rather than 
 to her sister's face. Had it been different, still Edna \vould 
 have been safe. Usually tears and blushes came readily 
 to that sensitive little face, which changed its expression 
 half a dozen times in a minute ; but when any thing smote 
 her hard, Edna neither blushed nor wept, but grew per- 
 fectly white, and as quiet as a stone. She did so now. 
 
 " The Stedmans, is it ? You are right, Letty, we will 
 not look. They are not likely to see us. They are pass- 
 ing on." 
 
 And they did pass on, their attention being caught by 
 some acquaintance on the other side of the promenade, to 
 whom they stood talking for some time. 
 
 That while, the eyes Dr. Stedman did not see the sad, 
 fond, lingering eyes had seen him vividly, distinctly ; 
 had noticed that he was a good deal thinner, paler, graver 
 very unlike his former self; until in talking he chanced 
 to smile, and then Edna recognized it again fully the 
 face stamped indelibly upon her memory. 
 
 Perceiving he was fully occupied, and that there was 
 no possibility of his noticing her, she looked at him once 
 again, with a quiet, sad feeling " God bless him ; no man 
 is any the worse for a woman's loving him" and turned 
 away.
 
 144 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 As soon as she could she lured Letty out of the crowd 
 into one of those green alleys that abound in Kensington 
 Gardens, in sight of the queer old red brick palace, with 
 its Dutch garden, where, long ago, the courtiers of Wil- 
 liam and Mary, and the maids of honor of Queen Anne, 
 and the first two Georges, may have strolled and coquet- 
 ted and made love the old, old story ! In their long- 
 effaced footsteps walked the lovely Letty Kenderdine, as 
 fair as any of them, and talking, perhaps, not greater non- 
 sense than they had talked. 
 
 " Well, I must say it was strange," said she. " It only 
 shows how easily men forget. To pass me by within a 
 few yards, and never even see me !" 
 
 " They were talking to some gentlemen." 
 
 " Oh, but people, always see those they want to see. 
 Perhaps I ought to have bowed. You know they could 
 not come and peak to us unless we bowed first. And 
 how nice and gentlemanly they both looked, especially 
 Julius ! Really Julius is a very handsome young fellow, 
 now he is quite well. I suppose he is quite well by this 
 time." 
 
 "He looked so." And Edna felt glad partly for his 
 own sake, but more for his brother's. That anxiety at 
 least was over. And then she let her imagination wander 
 wildly as to what could be the secret trouble which 
 showed plainly on Dr. Stedman's face, and had altered 
 him so much. The desperate longing to comfort him, to 
 take part of his burden, whatever it might be, came upon 
 her, sad and sore. 
 
 So much so, that she never heard footsteps behind, nor 
 guessed what was going to happen, until Letty called out 
 in her loud whisper : 
 
 " Goodness me ! There they are." 
 
 And at an angle of the path the two brothers and two 
 sisters met, face to face, abruptly and unexpectedly, so as 
 to make non-recognition, or the half-recognition of a for- 
 mal bow, impossible. They were all evidently taken by 
 surprise. Involuntarily they stopped and shook hands. 
 Not without a certain awkwardness in the greeting, prob-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 145 
 
 ably caused by the suddenness of their rencontre ; but af- 
 ter the first minute it passed off. In spite of all the good 
 resolutions on both sides, every body seemed unfeignedly 
 glad to meet. 
 
 The two young men turned back with them in the old 
 familiar way ; Julius by Edna, Dr. Stedman by Letty, 
 until with some slight excuse Julius crossed over to the 
 latter, and his brother fell behind with Edna. Thus they 
 went, walking slowly, the whole way up the broad walk 
 to the Bayswater Gate. The younger brother and sister 
 began laughing and talking immediately, Julius making 
 himself agreeable in his old light way, as if it were but 
 yesterday that he had carried on the same pleasant badi- 
 nage on the Isle of Wight shore ; but the two others were 
 rather silent. 
 
 Dr. Stedman asked Edna a few questions as to her sis- 
 ter's health and her own ; if they had had no return of 
 scarlet-fever in the house, and if their pupils had come 
 back ; to all of which she replied quietly, briefly, and cate- 
 gorically; then he seemed to have nothing more to say. 
 And, far in the distance, they heard the faint sound of 
 the band playing, and one or two straggling groups of 
 gayly-dressed people passed them, chattering and flirting 
 a great contrast to this quiet, silent pair. 
 
 Very silent, very quiet outside, but beneath that ? 
 
 Many people might call it wrong for an unsought wom- 
 an a tender, sweet, reticent maiden to feel as Edna felt, 
 walking along beside him who, she now knew, was the 
 lord of all her life. But there was no wrong in her heart. 
 She had no hope of being wooed or married by Dr. Sted- 
 man ; she only loved him. She only felt that it was 
 heaven to be near him to catch again the sound of his 
 voice to rest again in the protection of his honest good- 
 ness. Oh that protection ! the one thing a woman needs 
 even a woman so brave as Edna Kenderdine. As for 
 herself, she thought if she could only serve him, tend him, 
 do him good in any way ; ay, in the pathetic way of some 
 ballad-heroine she had read of making the house ready 
 for his bride, and helping to rear and cherish his children
 
 146 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 it would have been not hard, but happy to have done 
 it; for he seemed, now she saw him again, just as hereto- 
 fore unlike all others, simplest, noblest, best ; truest man 
 and most perfect gentleman one worth living for worth 
 dying for. 
 
 She idealized him a little : women always do that ; but 
 William Stedman was a great deal that she believed 5 and 
 for her idealizing, perhaps it did no harm. Men so loved 
 not seldom grow to be as good as the fond women believe 
 them. 
 
 At the Bayswater Gate Dr. Stedman paused. 
 
 " This is our best way home. Will you come, Julius ?" 
 
 " Certainly not ; I have not half talked out my talk. 
 Do you turn? Then so shall we with your permission, 
 Miss Kenderdine." 
 
 .Letty bowed a smiling assent. After her long fast from 
 flirtation she was all graciousness, even to the " boy " Ju- 
 lius, as she persisted in considering him, though he was 
 exactly her own age. So the two couples strolled back 
 again to the palace, and then across the grass to the little 
 gate which led to Kensington High Street. 
 
 "Here we really must take our leave," said William 
 Stedmap, decisively. " I have an appointment ; and be- 
 sides, Julius " he added half a dozen inaudible words, 
 which his brother did not answer, but turned sharply 
 away. 
 
 Then Edna came forward, very dignified. This little 
 woman could be dignified when she chose, in spite of her 
 few inches. 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Stedman, we will not trouble you to ac- 
 company us any farther. We have a call to make in Ken- 
 sington. Good-bye." 
 
 She held out her hand first to Julius, and then to his 
 brother. 
 
 " Well, that is the coolest dismissal," said the for- 
 mer. " Must it be ? Do you really agree to it, Miss 
 Letty?" 
 
 But Miss Letty was making elaborate adieux to Dr. 
 Stedman, and did not hear. Besides, she very rarely con-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 147 
 
 tradicted Edna. Her easy nature always yielded to the 
 stronger will; it was least trouble. But when they had 
 really parted from their cavaliers she was a little cross. 
 
 " Why on earth were you so peremptory, Edna ? They 
 wanted to see us home." 
 
 "Did they?' 5 
 
 "At least Julius did. And why not? It would have 
 been rather amusing. If we ever meet them again, and 
 perhaps we may, for Mr. Stedman says they always take 
 their constitutional in Kensington Gardens we ought to 
 treat them a little more civilly, and let them see us home 
 if they desire it." 
 
 Edna replied not, but the small mouth set itself close- 
 ly together. No. Letty might say what she liked fan- 
 cy what she chose, but this should not be. Dr. Stedman 
 should never think that either she or her sister were girls 
 ready to meet the first advances of any idle youth. Love 
 was no disgrace ; it did nobody any harm; but the feeble 
 pretense of it flirtation or philandering was a thing 
 which this woman, pure and true, yet passionate-hearted, 
 utterly scorned. If the Stedmans wanted to marry Letty 
 either of them they must come and ask for her as a 
 man should ask and is a coward if he dare not ask under 
 any circumstances. 
 
 Letty always Letty. That the object of their admi- 
 ration could be any other when Letty was by did not 
 occur to Edna. And when Letty took her bonnet off, and 
 shook back her bright fair hair, and looked into the glass 
 with her eyes glittering with the novel excitement of the 
 day, Edna thought the universal admiration her sister ex- 
 cited was not wonderful. If Dr. Stedman shared it if 
 that was the cause of his silence and evident preoccupa- 
 tion well ! 
 
 Edna stood a minute to face this thought. She was 
 alone. Letty had gone down stairs, all smiles and excite- 
 ment ; at least, as much excitement as she was capable 
 of quite another woman after the afternoon's adventure, 
 which was such a pleasant break in their dull life. Was 
 it only that, or did she really care for one or other of the
 
 148 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Stedmans ? And if one of them really asked her, would 
 Letty marry him ? 
 
 Such a possibility might occur. The man Edna loved 
 might marry another, and that other her own sister : a 
 supposition maddening enough to many nay, most wom- 
 en. Even to this gentle little woman it gave the same 
 sudden " stound " which had come to her several times 
 lately. She closed her eyes, drew a long hard breath, 
 tried to stifle the choking in her throat, and to view her 
 position calmly. 
 
 Jealousy, in any of its ordinary forms, did not aifect her ; 
 her nature was too single, too entirely free from both van- 
 ity and self-consciousness. No wound could come to her 
 through either of these points nothing except simple sor- 
 row, the agony of lost love. Besides, she was accustomed 
 to view things in the plain daylight, without any of those 
 distorted refractions to which egotistic people are subject. 
 She saw that in such a case as hers there are but two ways 
 open to any woman. If she loves a man and he does not 
 love her, to give him up may be a horrible pang and loss, 
 but it can not be termed a sacrifice she resigns what she 
 never had. But if he does love her and she knows it, she 
 is bound to marry him, though twenty other women loved 
 him, and broke their hearts in losing him. He is not theirs, 
 but hers ; and to have her for his wife is his right and her 
 duty. And in this world are so many contradictory views 
 of duty and exaggerated notions of rights, so many false 
 sacrifices and renunciations weak even to wickedness, that 
 it is but fair sometimes to uphold the right of love love 
 sole, absolute, and paramount, firmly holding its own, and 
 submitting to nothing and no one except the laws of God 
 and righteousness. 
 
 " Yes," Edna whispered to herself as she sat down, feel- 
 ing strangely weak and yet strong, and looked through the 
 open window across the market-gardens, and down Love 
 Lane, where in the August evening more than one pair of 
 figures lovers, of course might be seen slowly strolling. 
 " Yes, it is all clear enough, plain enough. Possibly we 
 shall never meet him again I hope not. But if we do, if
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 149 
 
 he loves Letty, marries Letty " she paused " of course, 
 I never say one word. He only does right, and she does 
 right too what I should have done myself. If he loved 
 rne, and I knew it, I would hold to him in spite of Letty, 
 in spite of the whole world hold to him till death !" 
 
 Involuntarily, her right hand closed over the other hand. 
 Ay, small and fragile as it was, it was a hand that any one 
 could see would hold, faithfully and firm, till death. 
 
 Oh that among us poor, wavering women, driven about 
 by every wind of fancy, prejudice, weakness, or folly, there 
 were more such hands ! They would keep back many a 
 man from sinking into the gulf of perdition. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " I'VE done it ! I've tracked them as cleverly as if I 
 were a bee-hunter on the American prairies. I've found 
 their house such a little one, in such a shabby neighbor- 
 hood. No wonder they didn't like us to know it. I say, 
 Will, don't you hear?" 
 
 " Yes," growled Will, who had just come in from a se- 
 vere day's work, as his brother had done from a severe 
 day's play. They were eating conjointly their final meal, 
 half tea, half supper, roughly laid out and roughly served, 
 in the dining-room, which was the one well-furnished apart- 
 ment of the doctor's large, empty house a good house in 
 a good street, which as a doctor he was obliged to have, 
 and had contrived to make externally comfortable for his 
 patients when they should come. But beyond this con- 
 sulting-room all was dreariness the dreariness of raw 
 newness, which is much worse than that of ancient dilapi- 
 dation. 
 
 William Stedman was wearied and dull, but Julius 
 seemed in high spirits, insisting on talking and being list- 
 ened to. 
 
 " I tell you I have found out where they live, though 
 they were so confoundedly secret about it. It's a tiny 
 house in one of the lanes beyond Kensington. They must
 
 150 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 be poor enough poorer even than they seemed. But 
 there they certainly live, and I vow I'll go and pay them 
 a call to-morrow," 
 
 " Pshaw ! don't make a fool of yourself." 
 
 "Make a fool of myself! You're uncommonly civil to- 
 day ! Pray, may I ask in what way would it be making 
 a fool of myself? I like women's society, and these two 
 are the very jolliest young women I ever " 
 
 Will jumped up as if he had been shot. " Hold your 
 tongue ! you'd better !" cried he, violently ; and then, 
 catching his brother's look of utter amazement, he sud- 
 denly reined himself in, and, with a sort of laugh, begged 
 Julius's pardon. 
 
 " Well you may ! Why, what has come over you, 
 Will ? What on earth have I said or done amiss ?" 
 
 " Nothing decidedly nothing. Except that you might 
 speak a little more respectfully of these friends of yours. 
 And I do think, as I told you before you went, that it was 
 hardly right, hardly gentlemanly, to hunt them out, when 
 they so evidently wished to conceal from us where they 
 lived. Just consider, we know nothing at all, in reality, 
 concerning them, except their names." 
 
 "And themselves, which is a good deal. I flatter my- 
 self I know one of them, at least, pretty well. Miss Edna 
 and I were capital friands, though I wasn't sweet upon 
 her, as you thought I was. She's a very nice girl, but 
 she's not to my taste exactly." 
 
 Will poured himself out his last cup of weak tea and 
 answered nothing. 
 
 " Come now, be reasonable, old fellow. You're my eld- 
 er brother, and I don't like to go against you. Why are 
 you so fierce at me for wishing to keep up our acquaint- 
 ance a perfectly harmless, indifferent acquaintance with 
 the two Misses Kenderdiue ?" 
 
 " They evidently do not wish it." 
 
 " Oh, trust me for that," said Julius, with a laugh. " I 
 know women's ways rather better than you. They only 
 wanted to be followed tracked down, like bee-hunting, 
 as I said ; and very amusing work it is, and rather clever-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 151 
 
 ly I've done it. To-morrow I mean to knock boldly at 
 their door such a little door, only fit for a little fellow 
 like me, so you needn't try it send in my card, and re- 
 quest permission to pay my respects." 
 
 "And what is to come of it?" 
 
 " Nothing ; at least nothing in particular. Just a little 
 bit of harmless amusement." 
 
 "Amusement !" 
 
 " Why should I not have amusement. Nay, don't look 
 as if you'd eat me up. Only consider what a dull life 
 we lead, especially at this time of year. We're not bad 
 enough, or rich enough, to do things jollily. I'd really 
 like to be a good boy, if I could find out a house to visit 
 at, a family house with nice girls in it, where I could go 
 to tea sometimes. I'd do it, I assure you, as soberly and 
 respectably as if I were my own great-grandmother." 
 
 "And that is your intention with regard to these la- 
 dies?" 
 
 " What other intention could I have ? You may think 
 of marrying, old boy, if you like. You have a profession, 
 a house, and a settled income of two hundred a year; but 
 as for me bah !" 
 
 "We can neither of us think of marrying just yet," said 
 the elder brother, gravely. " It would be an act of insan- 
 ity or worse scoundrelism, to take a young girl and 
 plunge her into a life of grinding poverty. But even that, 
 I think, would be lesser scoundrelism than to intrude on 
 the privacy of twd young ladies who have neither parents 
 nor brothers; to cultivate their acquaintance or friend- 
 ship, as you choose to call it but we couldn't be friends, 
 it isn't in human nature. It would end in making them 
 think, and other people say, we were their lovers ; and 
 then we must sheer off and leave them." 
 
 " Well, and if so ? It would have been jolly fun while 
 it lasted." 
 
 Dr. Stedmau turned upon his brother with blazing eyes. 
 " You're joking you know you are. For me, I may be 
 a very bad fellow I don't think much of myself, anyhow; 
 but I'm not such a scamp as that. And as long as I am
 
 152 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 your elder brother, and have the slightest influence over 
 you, I'll hinder you from being one. You will seriously 
 offend me, Julius, if you carry out your plan of visiting 
 these two young ladies." 
 
 Will spoke quietly, the almost unnatural quietness of 
 some smothered feeling or passion : with him a feeling was 
 a passion, or it was nothing. He was not a merely intel- 
 lectual man, or a sentimental man : it needed but to look at 
 him to perceive that in him the full human tide of life ran 
 strongly and deeply the more deeply because so com- 
 pletely held in restraint. His measured words, his steady 
 step for he had risen, and was walking up and down the 
 room indicated faintly what lay concealed below. 
 
 But Julius did not notice it. Either he was too pre- 
 occupied by his own concerns, or else this was a novel de- 
 velopment of his brother which he did not understand. 
 He only said, lightly : 
 
 "You are very kind, but I don't consider myself a 
 scamp, not just yet; even though, in spite of my elder 
 brother, I do certainly intend to call upon the Misses Ken- 
 derdine to-morrow." 
 
 It would have been a pity had Edna seen what Dr. Sted- 
 man next did Dr. Stedman, her calm, gentle, wise hero 
 exalted by her foolish love into all that a man should be. 
 Nothing could excuse it, though it might be accounted for 
 by the long under-current of mental struggle that must 
 have gone on within him, before that last touch caused it 
 to burst its boundaries, and forced him completely beyond 
 his self-control. It was a wrong thing, and a ridiculous 
 thing to do, but he did it : he seized his brother by the 
 collar and shook him, as a furious big dog shakes a little 
 one, which he must punish, but will not injure ; then let 
 him go, and leaned breathless against the wall. 
 
 Julius rose up, not furious, but smouldering in the white 
 heat of passion which he so seldom showed. 
 
 " You shall repent this," he said. " I don't know wheth- 
 er you're mad or drunk, or what, but you shall repent it. 
 I'll leave you now : you're not fit for civil men's com- 
 pany; but to-morrow Good-night."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 153 
 
 Julius had the best of it, and knew he had. Sometimes, 
 though not many times, during their lives, the two broth- 
 ers had quarrelled most brothers do : and then general- 
 ly the stronger and better-governed nature had won. But 
 now they seemed to have changefl characters, and the 
 lighter and more superficial one carried the day. 
 
 " I have been a fool," muttered Will, as his brother de- 
 liberately lit a chamber candle, and passed him by, unob- 
 servant, or else regardless, of the hand which was half ex- 
 tended the old affectionate, brotherly hand. Will drew 
 it back immediately. 
 
 " Good-night," said Julius again, very stiffly, and walked 
 out of the room. 
 
 Bitterly humbled and shamed, with the bitterest, per- 
 haps the only shame an honest man can ever feel the re- 
 proaches of his own conscience Will sat down, wrapping 
 his arms on the table, and laying his head upon them in an 
 attitude of complete dejection. There he remained nearly 
 motionless, for a long time. The last faint glimmering of 
 an August sunset crept into the room and crept out again, 
 leaving behind a dull twilight, almost darkness. Then the 
 lamp-lighter's quick step was heard through the open win- 
 dow, as he went down the dreary emptiness of a London 
 evening street, and flashed upon it gleam after gleam of 
 lighted gas-lamps, till at last he reached the one opposite 
 Dr. Stedman's window; it suddenly brightened up the 
 room, throwing fantastic patterns through the window- 
 curtains on the opposite wall. 
 
 Will Stedman sprung up as if he had been asleep and 
 the light had suddenly wakened him. 
 
 " What a fool I have been !" he said aloud. " What a " 
 Forgive him, gentle souls of gentle women, if he used 
 stronger language than I care to record. He was only a 
 man, and he was hard bestead. " I wonder what Julius 
 thought of me ! what any one would think ! Who would 
 believe I could have done such a contemptible thing? 
 How she would despise me !" 
 
 She? So the man had succumbed at last. Passion had 
 taken hold of him : that passion which, seizing one like 
 
 do
 
 154 THE w OMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 William Stedman, completely masters him turns his 
 whole nature either to sweetness or bitterness. How had 
 this come about, and for what woman ? For that is the 
 great test, the one fearful risk of a man's life. A woman 
 will sometimes idealise a very inferior man, until her love 
 for him, aojd her patience with him, exalt him into some- 
 thing better than he originally was, and her into little short 
 of an angel; but a man almost invariably drops to the 
 level of the woman he is in love with. He can not raise 
 her, but she can almost unlimitedly deteriorate him. Why 
 this should be, Heaven knows, but so it constantly is. We 
 have but to look around us with ordinary observation in 
 order to see that a man's destiny, more than even a wom- 
 an's, depends far less upon the good or ill fortune of his 
 wooing, than upon the sort of woman with whom he falls 
 in love. 
 
 That William Stedman was a man to choose strongly, 
 firmly, and irrevocably, no one who knew him, if ever so 
 little, could doubt. That, having chosen, his character 
 would be modified to a momentous extent by the object 
 of his love, and that, once gaining him, she would have al- 
 most unlimited influence over him was a fact also patent, 
 for it belonged to common human nature. Not that he 
 was a weak man, or a sensualist, to be led by an iron chain 
 hid under passion's roses his thirty years of brave and 
 virtuous life furnished a sufficient denial to both supposi- 
 tions. But his affections were very strong, and hitherto 
 had been wholly undivided. He had no intimate friend, 
 and not one relative living, except the brother whom he 
 had guarded and guided all his days, in a way less broth- 
 erly than fatherly. Still, Julius had often been a great 
 anxiety to him more anxiety than pleasure ; and besides, 
 there comes a time in a man's life in all lives when ties, 
 not only of instinct and duty, but of personal election, are 
 necessary for happiness ; when, in short, no tie satisfies, ex- 
 cept the one which God himself made to be the root of all. 
 
 Was it so with William Stedman this good brother; 
 this eager, active worker in the world, who, as yet, did 
 more for it than it had ever done for him, though he lived
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 155 
 
 in hopes that if he fought on steadily there was a good 
 time coming? Had fate suddenly met him in his busy 
 life, caught him round a corner, grappled with him and 
 bound him, throwing him into the reckless bitterness, the 
 angry, dissatisfied craving of a man who feels the key-note 
 wanting in his existence who misses the soft, sweet har- 
 mony that would resolve all its discords into peace the 
 quiet blessedness which nothing ever gives to a man's life 
 except a woman's love ? 
 
 William Stedman's good angel standing behind him that 
 night might well have wept over him, so unlovely and 
 unlovable he seemed. But angelic wisdom would have 
 known also that it was only the upboiling of the chaos 
 out of which was soon to arise a perfect world. 
 
 He paced his dining-room his well-furnished but ugly 
 and dreary dining-room till he was thoroughly wearied ; 
 and he had had a long day of hospital work besides ; yet 
 still the restless spirit was not half taken out of him. Then 
 he went and listened on the staircase, but from Julius's 
 room came no sound. 
 
 " What do I want with him, or he with me ? Probably 
 he is fast asleep, and has forgotten it all. Nothing ever 
 makes much impression on him for long. Why should I 
 sacrifice myself? He will be just as happy in any other 
 house as in mine ; and, besides, he might come here often. 
 He would, if this house were made pretty and pleasant 
 as a woman could make it. They are as poor as we are 
 thank God for that ! Yet what a difference there used to 
 be between their parlor and ours ! How neat her work- 
 basket was ! and how she used to stick little bits of flow- 
 ers here and there about the room !" 
 
 While he thought, the man's hard features softened. 
 
 " She wouldn't let me be savage with Julius. She al- 
 ways had a kind word to say for him, poor fellow ! She 
 would be a good sister to him, I know. He liked her, too, 
 and I was such a fool as to think that Almost as great 
 a fool as I was for a day or two over the beauty of the 
 other one. Pshaw ! mere flesh and blood bones and epi- 
 dermis. But my darling ; my little bright, active, loving
 
 156 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 darling ! she is all spiritual : makes me believe in spirit 
 without the flesh. No death could kill her, or the love 
 that lives in her. Oh, my God, if I had it for mine !" 
 
 A great convulsion came over his face, and his thoughts 
 (which were altogether silent he was not a person to 
 stamp about and soliloquize) came to an abrupt stop then 
 ran rampant in a wild riot. At last he gathered them up 
 together, and formed them into a resolution strong and 
 clear. 
 
 "I will have her; at least I'll try my best to get her. 
 I am driven to it, whether or no. As for prudence hang 
 prudence ! And with regard to honor well, perhaps it's 
 as honorable to speak out at once as to hold my tongue 
 for another year or two, and let Julius go philandering 
 after them, vexing and fretting her, and setting people 
 talking besides ; while if she were engaged to me openly 
 and fairly mine nobody could say one word. Only let 
 any one dare, that's all !" 
 
 He clenched his fist and struck it with such force against 
 the table that he actually hurt himself, and then laughed 
 at his own exceeding silliness. 
 
 "I'll take a walk and think the matter over. I shall 
 get quiet then. But I must send the household to bed. 
 How late it is ! She would not have been so forgetful of 
 other people." And after shouting down the stairs to 
 the old man and woman who formed his sole establishment 
 one to attend upon patients, and the other to see to the 
 comfortless comforts of the two young bachelors Dr. 
 Stedman closed his hall-door with a bang, and set off at a 
 quick pace anywhere. 
 
 His feet carried him to a place where he had very often 
 walked this summer, but never in daylight ; mostly, as 
 now, taking it on his way home from night visits in that 
 poor neighborhood which lay close by, whence, no doubt, 
 the scarlet-fever came. Not a wholesome spot, especially 
 in late summer and autumn, when the air was heavy with 
 decaying vegetation. Yet to the end of his days William 
 Stedman thought there was something pleasant in the 
 faint moist odor, half perfume, of jasmine, clematis, and
 
 I 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 157 
 
 the like, and half composed of scents much less sweet, 
 which came through the brilliant harvest moonlight, as 
 he walked along under black shadowing trees and stirless 
 hedges, past the Misses Kenderdine's door. 
 
 He knew it well enough had discovered it long ago 
 though he had allowed his brother to take such a world 
 of pains to find it ; but he walked rapidly past it, and not 
 till he was some distance off did he turn round to watch 
 it, as men in love will stand and watch the casket that 
 holds their jewel, to the end of time. 
 
 For he was in love deeply, desperately as rarely 
 happens to a man twice in a lifetime. Perhaps all the 
 deeper because, like Romeo with his Rosaline, there had 
 previously appeared and vanished the phantom of a mock 
 sun. It sometimes flashed upon him, this deep-hearted, 
 high-minded, and somewhat exacting man, who in midst 
 of all his passion never let his reason go what a different 
 kind of love his would have been had it been placed on 
 mere outside beauty like Letty Kenderdine's ! 
 
 "My little darling! my bright, active, unselfish little 
 darling ! you are not plain to me. You are all sweet, all 
 lovely !" and he opened his arms and closed them again 
 over his breast as if he still felt her there, as on the stormy 
 night when he carried her home insensible that night 
 when he vowed in his heart that no other woman but her- 
 self would he ever marry. 
 
 Let us look at him tenderly this man who had no 
 mother or sister, none of those, holy influences which are 
 often almost as blessed as that of a wife, if rightly and 
 wisely and unselfishly used. But he had, as he said, noth- 
 ing ; and he felt his nature hardening and corrupting, and 
 a kind of hopeless cynicism stealing over him. 
 
 " Oh, save me !" he cried, almost aloud, for the corner 
 where he stood was as desolate as if he had been in a 
 wilderness. " Save me from myself! Make a man of me ! 
 You could if you only knew it if you only knew how 
 bad I am, and how I want you to make me good, my little 
 darling !" 
 
 And then and there he took his resolve, leaning on a
 
 158 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 railing where many a lover must have leaned before, for it 
 was all engraved with rough, letters in twos and twos, 
 encircled in rings or true-lovers' knots. Ah, to think 
 what has become of the owners of those initials now ! 
 How many broken troth-plights, and death-partings, and 
 marriages more fatal than deaths! Yet still then and 
 there William Stedman resigned himself to the common 
 lot, and made up his mind that he would risk his all on a 
 brief yes or no from a woman's lips. 
 
 The poor old railing has long been broken down, and 
 there is a range of handsome houses, in which you can pay 
 morning calls and go to evening parties on the quiet spot 
 where the lovers used to linger. But I think more than 
 one person still living remembers it tenderly, and thanks 
 God that William Stedman had strength and courage to 
 take his destiny, and another's also, into his own hands, 
 after the fashion of those four lines which every hon- 
 est man would do well to repeat to himself when he goes 
 a-wooing : 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 Who dares not put it to the touch, 
 
 And win or lose it all." 
 
 After that decision the doctor walked home with steadier 
 feet and a bolder heart. He let himself in at his own door 
 with a feeling that, come what would, he was master there 
 master of himself, and, in measure, of his fortunes ; as a 
 man always is who has courage to look his difficulties in 
 the face, and push his way through them with a firm, 
 steadfast hand. 
 
 To that singleness of purpose to the consciousness 
 that, in acting as he had determined to act, there was in 
 his heart no mean intent, no thought which a good man 
 need wish to hide, or a good woman blush to look at he 
 trusted the success of his suit. And if it failed why, 
 he was not the first man to whom such a thing had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 Though when he imagined the possibility nay, proba- 
 bility, for his humility made him think it very probable
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 159 
 
 of his love being rejected, he felt as a man would not will- 
 ingly feel twice in a lifetime. 
 
 * Dr. Stedman was no coward ; and yet when he lit his 
 lamp, took out his desk, and fairly sat down to it, his hand 
 shook like a leaf. 
 
 The letter consisted only of a few lines he could not 
 write more. Some men take refuge in pen and paper, and 
 revel therein ; their thoughts and feelings flow out and 
 generally evaporate also in the most charming sentences, 
 which, even under the deepest emotion, it is a relief to 
 them to write, and a pride in having written. But Wil- 
 liam Stedman was of another sort. To express his feel- 
 ings at all was very difficult to him to write them, and 
 see them written, staring back at him in terrible black 
 and white, was impossible. Therefore this letter, the first 
 love-letter he ever wrote, was of the very briefest and 
 most formal kind : 
 
 "DEAR MADAM, Will you do me the honor to read 
 this in private and alone ? 
 
 " My brother has just told me he has discovered where 
 you live, and means to call upon you. May I be allowed 
 to do so first ? I have but one reason for this, and one 
 apology for the presumption of proposing it ; that I con- 
 sider neither my brother nor myself have any right to in- 
 trude upon you as mere acquaintances. And besides, a 
 mere acquaintance I could never willingly be to you. 
 
 "You and I know one another pretty well: we shall 
 never know one another any better unless I dare to ask 
 you one question Could you, after any amount of patient 
 waiting on my part, and for the sake of a love of which I 
 can not speak consent to be my wife ? 
 
 " To-morrow is Saturday. If, during the day, only one 
 line comes to me by post, I will be with you on Sunday. 
 If I may not come but then I know you will answer me 
 quickly ; you would not keep in needless torture any crea- 
 ture living. Yours faithfully, 
 
 "WILLIAM STEDMAN. 
 
 "Miss EDNA KENDERDINE."
 
 160 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Yes, that was the name her name. He wrote it firmly 
 enough. The die was cast, and now he must meet either 
 fortune ; and he thought he could. He did not even re- 
 read his letter, or speculate upon whether or not it was a 
 good letter, or the sort of letter to effect its end ; for, even 
 in the midst of his delirium of passion, he had sense enough 
 to see that a woman who, in so momentous a crisis, could 
 lay weight upon accidental forms of phrase or mistakes of 
 expression, was not a woman to be much desired. One 
 doubt alone he had would she show her sister the letter ? 
 and if so, what would Letty say, and how might she influ- 
 ence Edna with regard to him ? 
 
 But shortly he cast this perplexity also aside. A woman 
 who, in such a case, could be influenced by sister or friend 
 or even parent who could not ask herself the simple 
 question, " Do I love him, or do I not love him ?" and an- 
 swer it herself, without referring the decision to any hu- 
 man being such a woman might be good enough in her 
 way, but she was not Edna Kenderdine not the woman 
 whom a man like William Stedman would ever care to 
 marry. 
 
 Saying this to himself, and staying himself therewith a 
 little ay, even in the full tide and torrent of his passion 
 he closed and sealed his letter ; then, with a vague dread 
 of trusting himself with it till the morning, he went out 
 again into the dark streets, and posted it with his own 
 hand. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 THE postman was by no means a daily visitor at the 
 Misses Kenderdine's door. It is a fact amusing or mel- 
 ancholy, according as one takes it that society in the 
 aggregate does not very much run after resident govern- 
 esses or poor school-mistresses; that they are not likely 
 to be inundated with correspondence or haunted with in- 
 vitations. Of course, under no circumstances are young, 
 good, and lady-like women quite without friends or ac- 
 quaintances ; such loneliness would argue a degree of un-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 161 
 
 lovingness, or nnlovableness, of which certainly no one 
 could accuse the Misses Kenderdine. But this is a busy 
 and a self-engrossed world ; it has quite enough to do with 
 its own affairs ; and it likes to get the full value for all it 
 bestows. The sisters, who had so little to give it, had not 
 been troubled with any overplus of its affection. Still 
 there were, in different parts of the country, a few house- 
 holds who liked and remembered the Kenderdines; and 
 even at Kensington there were some houses where they 
 occasionally visited, or went to one of those evening par- 
 ties which in London middle-class society take the place 
 of the countrified, old-fashioned " going out to tea." 
 
 They were expecting one of these invitations ; so the 
 postmark's red coat gleaming against the green hedge of 
 Love Lane attracted Letty's attention, and his knock roused 
 her to jump up and take in the letter. Edna allowed her 
 to go. She herself had not felt well all the day; the 
 morning school had been an unusual burden to her, and, 
 now it was over, she took refuge in her favorite American 
 rocking-chair a present from an old pupil and rocked 
 and rocked, as if in that soothing motion the uneasy feel- 
 ing in mind and body half-weariness^half-restlessness 
 would pass away. Though she knew all the while it 
 would not ; that there it was, and she must bear it, as 
 many another woman had borne it before her the dull 
 heart-ache, the hopeless want. These sorrows do come, 
 and they conquer even the bravest sometimes. May He 
 who ordained love to be the crown of life have pity on all 
 those to whom it comes only as a crown of thorns, or who 
 have to endure the blankness of its absence the agony 
 of its loss ! Both can be endured, and comfort will come 
 at length, but the torture is terrible while it lagts. Edna 
 endured it but in a small measure, and for a short time ; 
 yet the pang was sharp enough to make her, till the end 
 of her days, feel unutterable pity and tenderness over 
 those whom the world smiles over as " disappointed in 
 love" those from whose lives God has seen fit to omit 
 life's first and best blessing ; or else, though this is a lesser 
 grief, to give it and take it away.
 
 162 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 She was sitting listlessly rocking, not thinking much 
 about any thing, when Letty re-entered with the letter. 
 
 " It is for you, dear. What a funny hand ! a lawyer's 
 hand, I should say. Who can be writing to you, Edna ?" 
 
 " I don't know," said Edna, indifferently, and then, catch- 
 ing a glimpse of the letter, checked herself, with a startled 
 consciousness that she did know, or at any rate guess ; 
 that locked up in her desk in a hidden corner she had a 
 small fragment of the very same handwriting a most un- 
 important fragment memoranda about trains, etc., for 
 their railway journey; but still there it was, kept like a 
 ti'easure, secreted like a sin. 
 
 " Miss Edna Kenderdine," read Letty, detaining the let- 
 ter and examining it. " Then it must be from a stranger. 
 A friend would know, of course, that you were Miss Ken- 
 derdine. Shall I open it for you, dear ?" 
 
 " No," said Edna, and an unaccountable impulse made 
 her snatch it and turn away with it turn away from her 
 sister, her dear sister, from whom she had not a secret in 
 the world. At the first sentence she started, glanced at 
 the signature, and then put the letter in her pocket, flush- 
 ing scarlet. 
 
 Letty looked amazed. " What is the matter with you ? 
 Is it a love-letter ? Do say !" 
 
 " It begins like a business letter, and the writer wishes 
 me to read it in private and alone," said Edna, forcing her 
 white lips she felt, with a terrified consciousness, how 
 very white she must be turning now to utter the exact, 
 formal truth. 
 
 " Oh, very well," replied Letty, a little vexed, but too 
 sweet-tempered to retain vexation long. 
 
 She sat down composedly and finished her dinner lin- 
 gering a good while over the pudding Letty liked pud- 
 dings and all good things ; while Edna sat, with the letter 
 in her pocket, as quiet and almost as silent as if she were 
 made of marble, for a quarter of an hour. Then Letty 
 rose. 
 
 " Now I'll go into the kitchen, for I want to iron out 
 my muslin dress. In the mean time you can read in peace
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 your wonderful letter. You'll tell me about it afterwards, 
 Edna, dear." 
 
 Touched by her sister's gentleness Edna returned a 
 smiling "Thank you," and tried to look as usual while 
 the dinner was being cleared away. But her head was 
 whirling and her pulse beating fast so fast that when she 
 at last took the letter out and opened it the lines swam 
 before her eyes. She had only strength enough to creep 
 noiselessly up to her room at the top of the house, shut 
 herself in, and lock the door. 
 
 There let her be. We will not look at her, nor inquire 
 into what she felt or did. Women, at least, can under- 
 itand. 
 
 Letty's muslin dress had, happily, a good many frills 
 and flounces, and took a long time in ironing. Not that 
 Letty grumbled at that : she had great pleasure in her 
 clothes, and was the last person to treat them lightly or 
 disrespectfully, or to complain of any trouble they cost her. 
 This dress especially always engrossed so much of her at- 
 tention and affection, that it is doubtful whether she once 
 let her mind stray from it to such commonplace facts as 
 business letters. And when it was done, she was good- 
 natured enough to recollect that while she had the things 
 about she might as well iron Edna's dress. She went 
 up stairs to fetch it, when, to her surprise, she found the 
 door locked. 
 
 " I will come presently," answered a very low voice from 
 within. 
 
 "But your dress, Edna. I want to iron out your new 
 muslin dress." 
 
 "Thank you, dear. Never mind. I will be down 
 presently." 
 
 " It was a love-letter, then !" pondered Letty to herself 
 as she descended. "I am sure it was. But who in the 
 wide world can have fallen in love with Edna? Poor 
 Edna!" 
 
 "Poor Edna!" Rich Edna! rich in the utmos*t wealth 
 that Heaven can give to mortal woman ! Oh, when there 
 is so much sadness in this woi'ld so much despised love
 
 164 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 unrequited love unworthy love surely the one bliss 
 of love deserved and love returned ought to outweigh all 
 else, and stand firm and sure, whatever outside cares may 
 lay siege to it. They can not touch the citadel where the 
 two hearts the one double heart has intrenched itself, 
 safe and at rest forever. 
 
 Edna's "love" hopelessly and dearly beloved had 
 become her lover. He wished to make her his wife. Her 
 solitary days were done : she stood on the threshold of a 
 new life in a new world. Never, until through the gate 
 of death she should enter on the world everlasting, would 
 there come to her such another hour as that first hour af- 
 ter she read William Stedman's letter. 
 
 Half an hour after to so long a space extended her 
 "presently" Edna Kenderdine crept down stairs, and 
 then crept on, still quietly, into her sister's arms. 
 
 " Kiss me, Letty ! There are only we two." 
 
 In a few words strangely few it seemed, and as if the 
 whole thing we^e quite natural and known beforehand 
 Edna told her happy secret, and the sisters embraced one 
 another and wept together, the harmless tears that women 
 are sure to shed, and are not women at all if they do not 
 shed, on these occasions. 
 
 At first Letty was considerably surprised pei'haps a 
 little more than surprised but she had the good taste and 
 good feeling not to say overmuch on this head, and not to 
 refer, even in the most passing way, to certain remarks of 
 her own during the last two days, which must have been, 
 to say the least, rather annoying to remember. But if 
 Letty was a little disappointed and humiliated and it 
 was scarcely in human nature that she should not be 
 after having so confidently placed herself and Dr. Stedman 
 in the position of the Irish ballad couplet : 
 
 "Did ye ever hear of Captain Baxter, 
 Whom Miss Biddy refused afore he axed her?" 
 
 her vanity was too innocent, and her nature too easy, to bear 
 offense long. After the first surprise was over, her congrat- 
 ulations were given with sufficient warmth and sincerity.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 165 
 
 " Well, Edna dear, you know I always liked him, and I 
 dare say I shall find him a very good brother-in-law ; and 
 really it will be rather convenient to have a man in the 
 family. But to think that after all the offers I have had, 
 you should be the first to get married, or, anyhow, en- 
 gaged. Who would ever have, expected such a thing !" 
 
 " Who would, indeed !" said Edna, in all simplicity, and 
 with a sense almost of contrition for the fact. 
 
 " Well, never mind !" answered Letty, consolingly ; " I 
 am sure I hope you will be very happy ; and as for me " 
 she paused and sighed " I should not wonder if I were 
 left an old maid after all, in spite of my appearance." 
 Which catastrophe, so dolefully prognosticated, would 
 have awakened a smile yesterday ; but to-day Edna could 
 not smile. Though her joy was only an hour old, it was 
 so intense, so perfect, that it seemed to absorb the whole 
 of life, as if she knew not how she had ever lived without 
 it. Thinking of her sister who had it not who did not 
 even comprehend what it was she felt so sorry that she 
 couldhave wept over her. 
 
 But Letty's next words dispelled this tender regret. 
 
 "Still, Edna, if I were you, I would not be in any hur- 
 ry to give the young man his answer. And in the mean 
 time we will make some inquiries as to what sort of a 
 practice he has whether he is likely to be in a position 
 to marry soon and so on. Certainly it is by no means 
 so good a match as I myself should have expected to 
 make ; but then you are different I mean your ideas of 
 things are much humbler than mine. Didn't somebody 
 once say you had quite a genius for poverty ?" 
 
 "He said it," and Edna hung her head, blushing; then 
 lifted it up with a bright, proud, peaceful smile " yes, he 
 said it one day on the shore. He knew me even then, and 
 understood me, thank God." 
 
 And there came befdre her a vision c*f her life to come 
 
 
 
 not an easy one ; not that of a woman who slips into 
 marriage to " better herself," as servants say to attain 
 ease, and luxury, and position, and all the benefits which 
 " a good marriage " is supposed to confer. Hers would
 
 166 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 be a life in which every energy would be tested, every 
 ' j5ower put to use which would exact unlimited patience, 
 self-denial, courage, strength ; the life, in short, of a wom- 
 an who does not care to be a man's toy and ornament, but 
 desires rather to be his helpmeet supplying all he needs, 
 as he supplies all she needs, teaching her through the ne- 
 cessities of every day how to fulfill the perfect law of love 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 Edna knew she should have a hard life. Though Dr. 
 Stedman was still tolerably ignorant about their circum- 
 stances, he had taken good care to inform her every thing 
 about his own. She was well aware that he was poor 
 proud also perhaps on account of the poverty. She 
 guessed, with her quick-sighted love, that his temper was 
 not the sweetest in the world though she could find ex- 
 cuses for that. But she believed in him she honored 
 him, for she had never seen any thing in him that was not 
 worthy of honor ; and, last little fact of all, which included 
 all the rest, she loved him. 
 
 Letty watched her a minute with that happy smile on 
 her face. " Well, Edna dear, if you are satisfied, so am I. 
 It is, of course, your own affair entirely. I would only ad- 
 vise you to take time." 
 
 " Certainly I shall. It is sure to be a long engagement." 
 
 Letty shook her head pathetically. " Ah ! if there is 
 one thing more than another which I should object to, it 
 is a long engagement. It wears a girl to death, and cuts 
 off all her chances elsewhere. And suppose, in the mean 
 time, she should receive a better offer ?" 
 
 Edna dngpped her sister's hand. " Letty, we had better 
 talk no more. If we talked to everlasting I could never 
 make you understand." 
 
 She spoke sharply, almost angrily ; and then, seeing no 
 anger, only mild amazement on Letty's beautiful face, she 
 repented. With 4he yearning that every woman must 
 have at this crisis in her life to fall on some other wom- 
 an's neck and ask for a little love a little sympathy on 
 the new strange path she had just entered she turned 
 back again to her sister, who kissed her once more.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 167 
 
 "Really now, I did not mean to vex you, Edna. Of 
 course you know your own mind you always did; and 
 had your own way, too, in every thing I'll tell him so, 
 and frighten him." 
 
 Edna smiled. 
 
 "And what does he say to you? Do show me your 
 love-letter I always showed you all mine !" 
 
 But this was a different thing quite. Edna closed her 
 little hand fiercely over it her one possession, foretaste 
 of her infinite wealth to come. It was hers all her own, 
 and the whole world should neither pry into it, nor steal 
 it, nor share it. 
 
 " Well, never mind. You always were a queer girl," 
 said Letty, patiently. " But at least you'll tell me when 
 he is coming here. This is Saturday I suppose he will 
 want to come to tea on Sunday ?" 
 
 And so the misty, beautiful, wondrous dream condensed 
 itself into a living commonplace reality. There was a 
 note written, which consisted of the brief word " come," 
 naming the day and hour. This was sent by their serv- 
 ant, who looked much astonished, and hoped nobody was 
 ill and wanting the doctor; and then the two sisters sat 
 down side by side, for even Letty was silent a while. 
 
 At last, however, she could hold her tongue no longer, 
 but began talking in her smoothly-flowing inconsequent 
 way. 
 
 " I wonder what sort of a house he lives in, and whether 
 
 7 
 
 it is well furnished. Of course we can't go and see it 
 would not be proper; but I will try and find out. And 
 this house of ours I suppose it will have to be given up. 
 No man would like his wife to go on keeping school. He 
 would never let her work if he could help it : in such a 
 common way too. Ah, Edna, you are the lucky woman, 
 after all ! I wish J had somebody to work for me." 
 
 " Do you ?" said Edna, absently. 
 
 " Oh, how nice it must be ! To have nothing to do all 
 day long, and every thing pretty about one, and perhaps 
 a carriage to ride in, and no trouble at all. Heigh-ho ! I 
 wish I were married too, though it shouldn't be to any
 
 168 
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 HALF JOY, HALF 6OBEOVV. 
 
 - 
 
 body like Dr. Stedman. But, my dear, since it is to be, 
 and you are fond of him, and, as I have said, you are your 
 own mistress, and must please yourself, do just tell me 
 what you think about things. In the first place, what 
 ought your wedding-dress to be ?" 
 
 " Hush," Edna whispered. " Please don't talk any more. 
 I can't bear it." And then she threw herself into her sis-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 169 
 
 ter's arms, and cried passionately half for joy, half for 
 sorrow. So the day ended the day of days which closed 
 up forever one portion of the sisters' lives : a day, to Letty, 
 scarcely different from any other, but to Edna like that 
 first day which marked the creation of a new world. 
 
 She scarcely slept all night ; still, she rose and went to 
 church as usual. She was neither afraid nor ashamed. 
 She knew the Great Searcher of hearts would not punish 
 her because in every thanksgiving was a thought of him^ 
 and every prayer was a prayer for two. She walked home 
 with her sister through the green lane Letty vaguely 
 wondering what church Dr. Stedman attended she hoped 
 he did go to church regularly somewhere, for nothing made 
 a man look so respectable, especially if he were a doctor. 
 Edna had a sweet composure of mien a gentle dignity 
 such as had never been seen in her before ; inasmuch as 
 more than one stray acquaintance told her " how well she 
 was looking." At which she felt so glad. 
 
 But during the afternoon the long still Sunday after- 
 noon with the warm jasmine -scented air creeping in 
 through the half-closed Venetian blinds, some of her nerv- 
 ousness returned, her quick restless movements, her little 
 abruptnesses of speech. She went about from room to 
 room, but could not sit long anywhere. 
 
 Letty watched her with a condescending interest, rath- 
 er trying to bear. " It's natural, dear, quite natural. I 
 used to feel the same myself when one of them was com- 
 ing. Dear me ! what a long time ago it seems since any 
 body came to see me ! But even one's sister's lover is 
 better than none. I hope you will settle with Dr. Sted- 
 man to come every Sunday. And he might sometimes 
 bring his brother with him, for it will be desperately dull 
 for me, you know. Well, I declare ! Punctuality's very 
 self! For it is just five minutes to six, and I am sure I 
 see a gentleman striding down Love Lane. I'll run down 
 stairs and open the door ; shall I, Edna ?" 
 
 Edna assented, but she could not utter a word more. 
 She stood at her window the window where she was 
 fond of sitting, and had sat so many an hour, and dreamed 
 
 H
 
 170 
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 so many a maiden- 
 dream. She watch- 
 ed him coming, a 
 tall figure, strong 
 and active, walk- 
 ing firmly, with- 
 out pauses or hes- 
 itation, and though 
 sometimes turning 
 the head round 
 to glance Edna 
 guessed whither ! 
 There he was, the 
 ruler of her life, her 
 friend, her lover, 
 some day to be her 
 husband. He was 
 COMING - coming to assume 
 
 his rights, to assert his sovereignty. A momentary vague 
 terror smote her, a fear as to the unknown future, a tender 
 regret for the peaceful, maidenly, solitary days left behind, 
 and then her heart recognized its master and went forth 
 to meet him ; not gleefully, with timbrels and dances, but 
 veiled and gentle, grave and meek ; contented and ready 
 to obey him, " Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling 
 him lord." 
 
 Edna long remembered, in years when it was a comfort 
 to have it to remember, how exceedingly good Letty was 
 that day ; how she went down herself to welcome Dr. 
 Stedman, and behaved to him as he told Edna afterwards 
 in a way so womanly, friendly, and sisterly that it took 
 away all his awkwardness ; and by the time another little 
 light footstep was heard on the stairs he was found sit- 
 ting as quietly as if he had sat there every Sunday for 
 years in the great arm-chair by the window, with his 
 face pale indeed, but radiant with the light of happiness, 
 the one only happiness which ever gives that look, turned 
 towards the opening door. 
 It opened, and Edna came in.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 171 
 
 I have said this little woman was not beautiful, not even 
 pretty; but there was a lovesomeness about her her 
 neat, small, airy figure, her harmonious movements, and 
 her dainty hands which often grew into absolute love- 
 liness at least would, in the eyes of any man who had 
 the sense to love her, and prize her at her worth. Woman 
 as she was all woman she was 
 
 "Yet a spirit too, and bright, 
 And something of an angel light." 
 
 And as this man this big, tall, and, it might once have 
 been, rather rough man looked at her, standing in the 
 door-way in her lilac muslin dress, his whole soul came 
 into his eyes. Though there was in him a mingled ex- 
 pression of dread, as if expecting that while he gazed her 
 wings would grow, and she would fly away from him. 
 
 He rose, and advanced a step forward ; then he and the 
 lilac angel shook hands humanly in a most common- 
 place fashion. After which Letty, with astonishing tact, 
 discovered the immediate necessity of " seeing about tea," 
 and disappeared. 
 
 There are those who despise small rooms and homely 
 furniture to whom Love is nothing except he comes 
 dressed in fine clothes, and inhabiting splendid drawing- 
 rooms. Of course, under such circumstances, when Pov- 
 erty enters in at the door, the said Love will surely fly 
 out at the window. He has been far too much accustomed 
 to think of himself and his own ease. Undeniably it is 
 very pleasant to be rich, to inhabit handsome houses, and 
 be dressed in elegant clothes ; and there is^a kind of love 
 so purely external, selfish, and self-seeking, that it can not 
 exist unless it has also these things. But the true love is 
 something far, far beyond. And Edna, when William Sted- 
 man took her in his arms just herself and nothing more 
 in her common muslin gown, with no attractive sur- 
 roundings, for the parlor was small and humble as well 
 could be asking her if she could love him, and if she 
 were afraid to be a poor man's wife Edna knew what 
 that true love was.
 
 172 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 They sat long talking, and he told her every thing, in- 
 cluding a little confession which perhaps every man would 
 not have made ; but this man was so conscientiously hon- 
 est that he could not have been happy without making it 
 that his first passing fancy had been for her beautiful 
 sister. 
 
 "And I like her still I shall always like her," added he 
 with an earnest simplicity that made Edna smile, and as- 
 sured her more than ever of the love that was far deeper 
 than all telling. "And before you get anxious about it, I 
 wish to say one thing Letty shall never leave you, if you 
 do not wish it, and I will always be good to her. Who 
 could help it? She is so charming to look at so sweet- 
 tempered so kindly. I like her exceedingly; but as for 
 loving " 
 
 Edna gave one shy inquiring glance into the passionate 
 face ; then, in the strange familiarity sacred as sweet 
 which one little hour had brought about between them, 
 she laid her head upon his shoulder, saying, gently, 
 
 " I am not afraid. I know you will never love any body 
 but me." 
 
 And when at last Letty came in, after a most lengthy 
 and benevolent rattling of the door-handle, William Sted- 
 man went up to her and kissed her like a brother. 
 
 " It is all settled, and you are to live with us. We never 
 mean to part with you except to somebody better than 
 ourselves." 
 
 Thus quietly,,m his brief, masculine way, he cleared off 
 the only weight on Edna's mind in the only way in which 
 it could be done. And as she looked up to Rim with grate- 
 ful eyes, loving him all the dearer because of the tender- 
 ness he showed to her own flesh and blood, he inly vowed 
 that he would never let her know how, in resigning his 
 first great happiness of a married home all to themselves, 
 he had made a very great sacrifice. 
 
 Letty thanked him, not with overmuch emotion, for she 
 was so used to be first considered, that she took it quite 
 naturally. Then, with a little commonplace quizzing not 
 ill-meant but rather inappropriate she sat down in Edna's
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 173 
 
 place to pour out tea and enjoy the distinction of enter- 
 taining " the man of the family." 
 
 When the meal was ended, Dr. Stedman, in the aforesaid 
 capacity, which he accepted in a cheery and contented 
 manner, proposed that they should at once enter upon the 
 question of ways and means. 
 
 " Which means being married, I suppose ?" laughed 
 Letty. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, with a deep blush, and then dashed 
 at the subject abruptly and desperately. " I do not wish 
 to wait not a day after I get a hospital appointment 
 which I have been long trying for, and have now a good 
 chance of. With that and my profession we could live. 
 And Julius, he will have enough to live upon too." 
 
 "Will he live with you? Then how can I?" asked Let- 
 ty, bridling up with a sudden fit of propriety. 
 
 " No, not with us," was the answer, strong, decisive, al- 
 most angry. "As she knows," glancing at Edna, " there 
 is two hundred a year which, if necessary, he can have 
 part or whole ; but I will not have him living with me. 
 Two men in one house would never do;" and then he told, 
 cursorily, the " slight difference " so he called it which 
 he had had with his brother, and how he had not seen him 
 since, Julius having gone next morning on a painting ex- 
 pedition. 
 
 Edna looked grave, but Letty listened with considerable 
 amusement. "And so Julius I may say 'Julius,' as he 
 will be my half-brother-in-law, you know wanted to come 
 and see us, and you prevented him ? And if this quarrel 
 had not happened you would not have written ? Perhaps 
 you would never have made up your mind to ask Edna 
 at all?" 
 
 The silly woman had hit upon something like a truth, 
 or near enough thereto to vex the man a little. 
 
 " I assure you, Miss Letty but excuse my explaining. 
 Your sister knows all." 
 
 Yes, Edna did know all the pride all the pain the 
 struggle between duty and passion the difficulty of de- 
 termining right from wrong honor from cowardliness
 
 174 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 rashness from fearless faith. Many a man has gone through 
 the like before his marriage the woman neither under- 
 standing it nor pitying it ; but Edna did both. She laid 
 her little hand on his 
 
 " No need to explain, I am quite satisfied." 
 
 "And Julius?" persisted -Letty, who was beginning to 
 find second-hand felicity a little uninteresting. " Does he 
 know of all this between Edna and you ?" 
 
 " No ; but when he returns on Monday I shall tell him." 
 
 "And what will he say?" 
 
 " I think he will say, as a brother should 'It's all right. 
 Be happy in your own way.' " 
 
 "But if he does not?" said Edna, tremulously. 
 
 William Stedman looked vexed. Perhaps he knew his 
 brother better than she did, or was less accustomed than 
 she was to think of others. 
 
 "I do not contemplate any such impertinent interference 
 on his part. But if so, it can make no difference to me. 
 When a man of my age chooses his wife, no other man, 
 not even his own brother, has a right to say a word. Ju- 
 lius had better not ; I would not stand it." 
 
 He spoke loudly, like a man not used to talk with or to 
 listen to women ; a man who, right or wrong, liked to have 
 his own way. Truly he was far from perfect, this chosen 
 of Edna's heart. Yet he had a heart too, and a conscience, 
 and both these would have understood her momentary 
 start the slight shadow which troubled her happy face. 
 But though the happiness lessened the peace remained, 
 and the love which had created both. 
 
 " I think," she said, very gently, " that Julius is too gen- 
 erous to make us unhappy. He may be vexed at first, hav- 
 ing had you all his life and only you like Letty and me 
 here. But perhaps he is not quite so good as my Letty." 
 
 And thinking of her gentle sister, and contrasting their 
 ways with the fierce ways of these two men lover and 
 brother, with whom her lot was to be bound up for life 
 Edna trembled a little ; but the next minute she despised 
 herself for her cowardice. What was love worth if it 
 could not bear a little pain ? In the darkening twilight
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 175 
 
 she loosened not, but rather strengthened, her clasp of Wil- 
 liam Stedman's hand ; and as he went on talking, princi- 
 pally to Letty, and about common things, the size and 
 arrangements of his house, and his means of furnishing, it, 
 his good angel might have heard that the man's voice grew 
 softer and sweeter every minute. Already there was steal- 
 ing into him that influence, mysterious as holy, which, with- 
 out any assertion on their part any parade of rights or 
 complaints of wrong makes all women Christian wom- 
 en if they so choose it, the queens of the world. Already 
 the future queen had entered into her kingdom. 
 
 He was still talking, being left respectfully by these in- 
 experienced maidens to take the man's part of explaining 
 and deciding every thing, when there came a knock to the 
 door, so sudden and startling, in that quiet Sunday even- 
 ing, that the little house seemed actually to reel. 
 
 " Probably some one for me," said Dr. Stedman. " I left 
 word at home where I might be found if wanted ; a doctor 
 is always liable to be summoned, you know. It is not an 
 easy life for him or for his household," added he, with a 
 slightly shy and yet happy smile. 
 
 " Oh," cried Letty, " I wouldn't marry a doctor upon any 
 account, as I always said to Edna" whose conscious blush 
 showed how completely the good advice had been thrown 
 away. 
 
 But just this minute the front-door was opened, and the 
 voice of a man, hurried and eager, was heard inquiring 
 for the Misses ISj|derdine ; also, in not too gentle tones, 
 whether Dr. Stedman was here? 
 
 "It is Julius," said Letty. But what happened next is 
 serious enough to require another chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JULIUS STEDMAN entered the parlor in a rather excited 
 state. Not with wine that was a temptation impossible 
 to the pure-living, refined young artist ; but his excitement 
 was of a kind peculiar to the artistic and nervous temper-
 
 176 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 ament, and might easily have been mistaken for that of 
 drink. His face was flushed, his motions abrupt, his speech 
 unnaturally loud and fast, and as he stood shading his eyes 
 from the sudden dazzle of the lamp-light, even his appear- 
 ance spoke against him ; for his dress was dusty, his long 
 hair disorderly, and his whole exterior very far below that 
 standard of personal elegance uay, dandyism which was 
 a strong characteristic of Julius Stedman. 
 
 He bowed to Letty, who was the first to advance to- 
 wards him. 
 
 "I am ashamed, Miss Kenderdine, of intruding at this 
 unseemly hour ; but my brother ah, there you are ! I 
 have found you out at last ;" and he darted over to the 
 doctor's chair. " You're a pretty fellow, Will ; a nice el- 
 der brother ! a proper person to lecture a younger one, 
 and teach him the way he should, go a good, honest, gen- 
 erous, candid " 
 
 " Julius !" cried Will, catching him by the arm, and 
 speaking almost in a whisper, "command yourself. You 
 forget these ladies." 
 
 " Not at all !" And there was no abatement in the 
 shrill, furious voice. " I have the highest respect for 
 these ladies. And out of my respect, as soon as I came 
 home (unexpectedly of course, like a fool that I was, to 
 make it up with you), and found where you were gone, I 
 came after you I came, just to tell them the plain truth. 
 Miss Kenderdine, this brother of mine, who comes sneak- 
 ing here on the sly " 
 
 " Julius !" Not a whisper now, but thundered out in 
 violent passion ; then controlling himself, Will added, "Ju- 
 lius, you are under an entire and ridiculous mistake. Ei- 
 ther leave this house with me instantly, or sit down and 
 listen to my explanation." 
 
 " Listen ! explanation !" repeated Julius, and looked 
 bewildered from one to the other of the three whom he 
 had found sitting together so familiarly and happily in 
 the pleasant little parlor. 
 
 " Yes," said Will, laying his hand firmly and kindly on 
 his brother's shoulder, "I will explain every thing: there
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 177 
 
 is no reason now why I should not. I objected to your 
 visiting here, because you had no right to come; and your 
 coming was an injury to these ladies, and would have ex- 
 posed them to all kinds of unpleasant remarks. But with 
 me it is different. I came here to-day and it is my first 
 visit, I assure you with a distinct right, and in a recog- 
 nized character. Julius, I am going to give you a sister." 
 
 "A sister!" The young man turned frightfully pale, 
 and his eyes sought which face was it ? Letty's. Then, 
 as with the strength of despair, he forced himself to speak. 
 
 " Tell me tell me quick ! This is sosudden !" 
 
 " Not sudden in reality it only seems so," said William, 
 smiling ; " and you like her very much you know she will 
 make you a good sister. Shake hands with him, Edna." 
 
 "Edna is it Edna?" And then, either out of his own 
 natural impulsiveness, or in the reaction from a still strong- 
 er excitement, Julius darted forward, and instead of shak- 
 ing hands, kissed her warmly. " I beg your pardon ; but 
 I can't help it. Oh, you dear little woman so it's you, is 
 it? you that have all but brought about a quarrel be- 
 tween Will and me the first we ever had in our lives." 
 
 "And the last, I trust," said Will, cheerily, submitting 
 to have his hand almost shaken off. 
 
 " Never mind never mind, now, old fellow. All's well 
 that ends well. I give you joy. I'm quite content. She 
 will be the best little sister in all the world. Shake hands 
 again, Edna let's shake hands all round." 
 
 But when he came to Letty, he stopped point-blank. 
 
 Letty extended her long fingers in a dignified manner, 
 and smiled her benign smile alike to all upon the 
 flushed, passionate young face. 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Stedman, this makes you and me a sort 
 of half-brother-and-sister-in-law. I am quite willing. I 
 hope we shall always be very good friends just like 
 brother and sister, indeed." 
 
 " Thank you," was the answer, and the young man's ex- 
 cited mood sank into quietness, nay, into more than quiet- 
 ness sadness. But this was nothing uncommon with Ju- 
 lius Stedman, who, after one of his fits of high spirits,- gen- 
 
 H2
 
 178 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 erally fell into a corresponding fit of gravity and melan- 
 choly. 
 
 This, or perhaps his mere presence as an extraneous ele- 
 ment in what had been such a peaceful trio for, in these 
 early days of betrothal, sometimes an easy negative third 
 rather adds to than takes away from the new-found and 
 still unfamiliar happiness made the evening not quite so 
 pleasant as before. In vain "Will, with most creditable 
 persistency, maintained conversation, and Edna by a great 
 effort shook off her shyness, and, taking her place as host- 
 ess, presided at sapper endeavoring to be especially at- 
 tentive to Julius, and give him a foretaste of the good sis- 
 ter she intended to be. For in the midst of all her own 
 joy her heart warmed to him this moody, variable, affec- 
 tionate, lovable fellow, who seemed, as so many young 
 men do, like a goodly ship with little ballast, the success 
 of whose whole voyage depended upon what kind of hand 
 should take the helm. Besides, though she knew it was 
 womanish and ridiculous, she could not help having a sort 
 of pity for any body who had lived with William Sted- 
 man for so long, and would not now live with him much 
 longer. She could afford to be exceedingly kind and for- 
 giving to poor Julius. 
 
 Still the cloud did not pass away, and in spite of every 
 body's faint efforts to disperse it except Letty's, who was 
 not acute enough to see any thing, and went talking on in 
 the most charmingly unconscious and inappropriate way 
 the awkwardness so spread itself, that it was quite a re- 
 lief when the little quartette broke up. Dr. Stedman pro- 
 posed leaving, and then stood with Edna at the window, 
 talking for ever "so long between themselves; while Letty, 
 with a nod and a wink, went into the passage, beckoning 
 Julius to follow her. 
 
 " We're terribly in the way we two," said she, laugh- 
 ing. " I am afraid, on future Sundays, we shall have to 
 retire to the kitchen that is, if you persist in coming to 
 take care of your brother when he goes a-courting. But 
 it will be very dull for you with only stupid me." 
 
 " Only you !" said Julius, gazing at her as she stood
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 179 
 
 loaning against the lobby wall, seeming to illumine the 
 whole place, poor and small as it was, with her wonderful 
 beauty. " Only you !" 
 
 And Letty looked down, not unconscious of his admira- 
 tion, and perhaps feeling just sufficiently ill-used by fate 
 as to think herself justified in appropriating and enjoying 
 it that is, if she ever thought at all ; or thought ten 
 minutes in advance of the present moment. 
 
 "I suppose those two are very happy," said Julius, at 
 length, with a glance in the direction of the silent parlor. 
 
 " Oh, of course. Every body is very happy at first 
 that is I suppose so. Not that I know from experience." 
 
 Julius regarded her with piercing eyes, and then laughed, 
 half carelessly, half cynically. 
 
 " Oh, you and I are old stagers, I suppose. We will 
 not reveal the secrets of the prison-house. Probably, be- 
 ing in love is like being in prison." 
 
 " Eh ?" said Letty, puzzled, and then added, confiden- 
 tially : " I don't like to hear you mention prisons. I hope 
 your brother is not in debt so many young men are now- 
 adays. Is he in sufficiently good circumstances to warrant 
 his marriage ? Not that I would say a word against it. 
 Of course my sister knows her own mind, and acts as she 
 thinks right; she always did. But will they not be very 
 poor? And it is such a dreadful thing to be poor." 
 
 "A cursed thing!" And there was a gleam, almost a 
 glare, in those wild, bright eyes of Julius Stedman, as he 
 fixed them on the beautiful creature before him. A crea- 
 ture whom some fortunate man say an Eastern sultan, or 
 a Western duke might have eagerly bought, the one with 
 a ring, the other with a given number of piastres, and car- 
 ried off to be robed in silks and hung with diamonds 
 laden with every gift possible, except that which, perhaps, 
 after all, she might not care for, or only as it was accom- 
 panied by these other things his heart. "Yes, poverty 
 is a dreadful thing. There I quite agree with you, Miss 
 Kenderdine." 
 
 " You might as well call me Letty, and so get our rela- 
 tions clear at once," said Letty, coquettishly.
 
 180 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you, Letty," and he seized her hand. 
 
 " I mean our brother and sisterly relations," said Letty, 
 drawing back, upon which Julius apologized, and also drew 
 back immediately. 
 
 "As you were saying," observed he, after a pause, dur- 
 ing which the low murmur of talking within came mad- 
 deningly to his ears, "those two, our brother and sister, 
 regarded by our wiser eyes, are simply a pair of fools. 
 My brother's certain income, since you so prudently ask 
 it, is only two hundred a year. Besides that he may 
 make another two hundred by his profession, which comes 
 to four hundred altogether. And four hundred a year is, 
 of course, to a woman, downright poverty. I myself think 
 Will is insane to dream of marrying." 
 
 " What did you say, my boy ?" cried Will, coming be- 
 hind him, with a radiant light on his face, though it looked 
 thin and worn still, " insane, am I ? Why, it's Julius, and 
 not I that deserves a lunatic asylum. He has been in love, 
 off and on, ever since he was fifteen, and never found any 
 body good enough to please him for a month together. 
 Wait, man ! Wait till you have found the right woman, 
 and have won her, too !" 
 
 "Ah, wait," said Edna, softly, as in a pretty demure 
 sisterly fashion she put both her hands into those of her 
 future brother, and then took them away to remove some 
 stray dust that disfigured his coat-sleeve ; " wait till that 
 good time comes. And she will be so happy, and so very 
 fond of you." 
 
 " Bless you, my little sister," said Julius, in a choked 
 voice, as he suddenly bent down and put his lips to Edna's 
 hand. "No, he's not mad, he's a lucky fellow, that scamp 
 there. And he has had a comfortless life of late, I know 
 that ; and I have not helped to make it more comfortable. 
 Perhaps we shall both be the better, we jolly young bach- 
 elors, for having a woman to keep us in order. Though 
 you'll find me a tough customer, I warn you of that, Miss 
 Edna." 
 
 " Never mind. I'll take you just as you are, and make 
 the best of you."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 181 
 
 With which light jest the two sisters sent the two 
 brothers out under the narrow jasmine-scented door-way 
 out into the brilliant harvest moonlight, so dazzling 
 white that it smote one almost with a sense of chill. 
 
 Will put his arm through his brother's, and they walked 
 on a considerable way before either spoke. At last Julius 
 took the initiative. 
 
 " Well, old fellow, this is a pretty go ! Catch a weasel 
 asleep! I certainly have been that unfortunate animal. 
 I had no more idea that any game of this sort was afoot 
 than than the man in the moon, who perhaps has more 
 to do with such things than we suspect. Of course, love is 
 only a fit of temporary or permanent insanity. By-the-by, 
 what a precious fool I was near making of myself to-night !" 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Oh, in several ways; but it doesn't matter now. I've 
 come out safe and scot-free. And pray, how long is it 
 since you made up your mind to marry that little thing ?" 
 
 Will winced. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, but she is such a little thing; 
 though, I own, the best little woman imaginable ; and has 
 such neat pretty ways about a house even such a shabby 
 house as theirs looks cozy with her in it. How jolly com- 
 fortable she'll make us I mean you ; for, of course, I shall 
 have to turn out." 
 
 Will said nothing neither yes nor no. He felt upon him 
 that cowardice, purely masculine, which always shrinks 
 from doing any thing unpleasant. He wished he had had 
 Edna beside him, to put, as plainly as his own common 
 sense put it, the fact that a man has no right to lay upon 
 his wife more burdens than she can bear; and that with 
 his changeful, moody ways, his erratic habits, and his gen- 
 eral Bohemian tendencies, Julius was, with all his lovable- 
 ness, about the last inmate likely either to be happy him- 
 self, or to make others happy, in a married home. That 
 is, unless the home were his very own, and the mistress of 
 it had over him the influence which was the only influence 
 that would keep Julius safe that of a passionately-loved 
 and loving wife.
 
 182 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 All this Will thought, but could not explain. There- 
 fore his only refuge was silence. 
 
 " Yes, it's all right," said Julius, somewhat coldly ; " and 
 quite natural too. I don't blame you. You have done a 
 deal for me, Will : more than any brother, or many a fa- 
 ther, would have done. I'll never forget it. And I dare 
 say I shall be able to shift for myself somehow." 
 
 "There will be plenty of time, my dear fellow," an- 
 swered Will, in rather a husky voice. "I shall not be 
 married until I get something quite certain to start with 
 probably that appointment which you know I have been 
 after so long. And then I shall be able to pay over to 
 you, in whole or part, for as long as you require it, the 
 other half of grandfather's money." 
 
 " Will, you don't mean that ?" 
 
 " Yes, I do. In truth, she was so sore about you, and 
 especially your being ' turned out,' as she called it, that 
 she would not have had me without my promising that 
 arrangement, which will make our marriage, whenever it 
 does take place, none the worse for any body." 
 
 "But" 
 
 " It's no use arguing with a woman, especially one who 
 won't talk only act. Edna is quite determined. Indeed 
 I may say I have purchased her at the alarming sacrifice 
 of two hundred a year, payable quarterly " 
 
 " Will !" cried Julius, stopping suddenly, and looking 
 his brother full in the face. The moonlight showed his 
 own, which was full of emotion. " You're a pretty pair, 
 you and she six of one and half a dozen of the other. I 
 see it all now. Give her my love. No; I'll take it to 
 her myself. For me, I've been a selfish, luxurious rascal 
 all my life ; but I'll turn over a new leaf, hang me if I 
 won't ! I'll take an oath against light kid gloves, and 
 rings, and operas. I'll dress like an old-clothesman, and 
 feed like a day-laborer. And I'll work by George, won't 
 I work !" 
 
 "That's right, lad," said the elder brother, cheerily. 
 "And you'll find it all the better when, some day, you 
 have to work for two. Meantime, instead of the 'family
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 183 
 
 house' you wanted to visit at, you'll have a brother's 
 home always to come to. And she will make it so bright, 
 as you say. Besides, Letty will be there," continued 
 Will, dashing at this fact with a desperate haste, uncer- 
 tain how it might be taken. 
 
 Julius did start, very uneasily. "Is she to live with 
 you ?" 
 
 "Yes; there was no other way. As must be obvious 
 enough, Letty is not the person to be left to live alone." 
 
 " No," said Julius, concisely. 
 
 "I doubt whether she will like living with us, for we 
 shall have a hard struggle to make ends meet, at any 
 rate for the first few years ; and she is not well fitted for 
 poverty Letty, I mean." 
 
 Julius was silent. 
 
 " But in that case, if she got tired of us, she could easily 
 return to her old life as a resident governess, which she 
 often regrets still unless, in the mean time, some young 
 fellow snaps her up, which is far from improbable. Her 
 sister says she has had lovers without end, as was to be 
 expected ; but none of them were good enough for her. 
 Edna hopes, when she does marry, it will be some nice, 
 good fellow, with plenty of patience and heaps of money. 
 Letty would never be happy unless she lived in clover 
 and cotton-wool. Poor Letty ! It's well for me that my 
 Edna is different." 
 
 William Stedman must have been strangely blind per- 
 haps that little word " my " produced the blindness, and 
 carried his thoughts involuntarily away not to have no- 
 ticed how dumb grew his talkative brother ; how he walk- 
 ed on fiercely and fast, swinging his cane, and slashing at 
 the hedges in a nervous, excitable way, as they threaded 
 the narrow lanes, which were so pretty twenty years ago, 
 but are now vanishing fast, in the streets, and squares, and 
 "gardens' 1 of Campden Hill. At last Julius said, with 
 that sudden change from earnestness to frivolity which 
 was too common in him to cause Will any surprise 
 
 " Nevertheless, it's odd that you, and not I, should be 
 the fool or the madman for you certainly are both to
 
 184 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 commit matrimony. Catch me giving up my freedom, 
 my jolly, idle life, to tie myself to any woman's apron- 
 strings ! You'd better think twice of it: eh, old fellow? 
 Edna's a good girl I don't deny that; and likes you I 
 suppose ; she'd be an ass if she didn't. But is there a girl 
 alive who would go on caring for a man unless he had lots 
 of money could give her all she wanted ? and they're al- 
 ways wanting something. All alike, all alike ; and a pre- 
 cious lot they are, too. So 
 
 'I'd be a bachelor born in a bower,'" 
 
 carolled the young fellow, startling the green lanes and a 
 solitary policeman with the then popular tune of " I'd be 
 a butterfly," and inventing a doggerel parody to it, which 
 was, to say the least, rather inappropriate that quiet Sun- 
 day night. 
 
 " You are not yourself, Ju," said William. " You have 
 got overtired. Didn't you say you had walked fifteen 
 miles to-day? That was far too much. I shall have to 
 keep a sharp look-out after you, even when we have a sep- 
 arate establishment." 
 
 And the elder brother, out of his deep heaven of peace, 
 looked tenderly upon the foolish fellow who did not un- 
 derstand what peace was, who was making a mock of it, 
 and trying, like so many other skeptics, driven into skep- 
 ticism less by nature than circumstances, to believe that 
 to be non-existent which was only non-beheld. 
 
 Then the two Stedmans, with their bachelor latch-key, 
 entered their dull, dark, close house, which breathed the 
 very atmosphere of dreariness and disorder. Julius went 
 up to bed almost immediately; but William sat long in 
 his empty dining-room, peopling it with wondrous visions, 
 brightening it with hearth-light and lamp-light, and, above 
 all, the perpetual light of a woman's smile the smile 
 which happy love brings to a woman's lips, never to be 
 wholly lost from them until they are set in that last, love- 
 liest peace upon which the coffin-lid closes which seems 
 to say even to mourning husband or children, " Be con- 
 tent I am loving you still with God."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 185 
 
 William Stedman had to-day seen, beyond a doubt, this 
 love in his betrothed's face; and he felt by that in his 
 own heart that it would be his until death. 
 
 He knew, as well as his brother did, that he should be 
 poor enough, probably for years ; that, with most men, to 
 marry upon his prospects would be the height of madness. 
 But then they were men who had not learned, like himself, 
 the calm self-denial which disarms poverty of half its dan- 
 gers, half its dread, because holding as its best things the 
 things which money can neither give nor take away; be- 
 ing far too proud for the ordinary petty pride of being 
 afraid to seem what one is, if that happens to be a little 
 inferior to one's neighbors. True, he had never starved, 
 never been in debt ; for neither alternative often happens 
 to an unmarried man who has ordinary health, honesty, 
 and brains at least, if it does, he has usually only him- 
 self to blame. But William Stedman had been poor, very 
 poor; he had known how hard it is to go on wearing a 
 threadbare coat because you have not five pounds to spare 
 for a new one ; how harder still to crave for many an ac- 
 cidental luxury which you know you have no right to in- 
 dulge in. And perhaps, hardest of all, to associate with 
 people who, in all but money, are fairly your equals; and 
 who never suspect, or never pause to think, how your ev- 
 ery penny is as momentous as their pounds. In short, 
 he had learned, in the many wholesome but painful ways 
 that early poverty teaches, the best lesson that any young 
 man can learn to control and deny himself. 
 
 Therefore, fitter than most men was he to enter upon 
 that " holy estate," which, perhaps, derives its very holi- 
 ness from the fact that it requires from both man and wom- 
 an infinite and never-ending self-denial teaching, as noth- 
 ing else can teach, that complete absorption of self into 
 another, which is the key-stone and summit of true hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Possibly William Stedman did not say all these things 
 to himself, for he was not much given to preaching or to 
 self-examination in truth, he never had time for it ; but 
 he felt them in a dim, nebulous way ; he " took stock of
 
 186 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 himself," so to speak, as to whether he was fit for the life 
 which lay before him fit to be trusted with the happiness 
 of a sweet, fond, ignorant, innocent woman ; whether he 
 had strength for her sake to go on with hard work and 
 little pleasure, to place his enjoyments in inward rather 
 than outward things, and to renounce very much that to 
 most young men Julius, for instance would be what he 
 to himself had jestingly termed, like the linen-drapers' ad- 
 vertisements, an " alarming sacrifice." 
 
 He was not afraid, for he knew Edna was not. He 
 knew that whatever he had to give up in the world with- 
 out would be made up by the world within. That this 
 little woman would come in on his cheerless, untidy hearth 
 like a good fairy, reducing chaos to order, and charming 
 away gloom and dullness by her bright, sweet ways. Be- 
 sides that, he felt that with her direct simplicity, her un- 
 worldly tone of thought, her divine instinct for right and 
 truth, she would come and sit in his heart like a conscience 
 a blessing as well as a delight, making him better as 
 well as happier, and happier just because he was better. 
 
 " God has been very kind to me far kinder than I de- 
 served," said the young man to himself, thinking, in his 
 happiness, more than he often found time to think, of the 
 Source whence all happiness flows. And his heart melted 
 within him ; and the long pent-up storm of headlong pas- 
 sion, and frantic pride, and bitter self-distrust which had 
 raged within him for weeks and months, and had come to 
 a climax two days ago, when he felt himself driven mad 
 by the sound of a voice and the touch of a little ignorant 
 hand all this calmed itself down into a most blessed 
 quiet, like a summer evening after a thunder-shower, when 
 every thing is so perfumy, fresh, and green, and the flow- 
 ers are lifting up their heads, and the birds sing doubly 
 loud and clear, even though the large-leaved trees are still 
 dropping as more than one great, heavy drop fell, in this 
 sacred solitude, from William Stedman's eyes. 
 
 They came from a sudden thought which darted across 
 him the thought, not of Edna, but of his mother. He 
 scarcely remembered her he was only seven years old
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 187 
 
 when she died; but he knew she was a very good woman; 
 and he had kept up all his life this faint, shadowy remem- 
 brance with a sort of silent idolatry which had begun then 
 in his childish yet tenaciously faithful heart. 
 
 He wondered whether she had any knowledge of what 
 had happened to him to-day, and whether she would have 
 been satisfied with the wife he had chosen ; and he thought, 
 the next time he saw Edna, he would tell her all these his 
 childish recollections, and take her instead of pearls and 
 diamonds, which she altogether refused to accept from 
 him, the simple guard-ring which had belonged to his 
 mother. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IT was now fully ten months since William Stedman 
 and Edna Kenderdine had plighted that promise which, 
 when made deliberately, wisely, and justifiably on both 
 sides, should be held as inviolable as the subsequent vow 
 before the altar that is, if the love, which is its only 
 righteous foundation, lasts. Otherwise, the best wisdom 
 is that which Edna sometimes gave in answer to Letty's 
 murmurings of the misery of long engagements, and the 
 advantage of keeping "free." "When he wishes to be 
 free, he is free. The moment he ceases to love me, let 
 him go !" 
 
 But this contingency did not seem likely to happen. 
 Though the promise had been made conditionally that is, 
 he had told her, in his deep humility, that when she found 
 out all the bad things in him, she might break it at any 
 time, and he should not blame her still she found out all 
 the bad things, and she did not break it. Perhaps he too 
 discovered certain little earthly specks in his angel's white 
 wings, just enough to keep her from flying away from him, 
 and survived the discovery. For two people, who expect 
 to find one another all perfection, must be taught such 
 wholesome lessons; and doubtless these lovers had to 
 learn them. But they had the sense to keep both their
 
 188 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 experience and their mode of acquiring it strictly to them- 
 selves. 
 
 "You two never quarrel," Letty would say sometimes, 
 half puzzled, half vexed. " I thought lovers always quar- 
 relled. I am sure I squabbled continually with all mine." 
 
 At which Edna smiled, and only smiled. Her sister's 
 unconscious plurals precluded all argument. As well rea- 
 son with the Grand Turk on the Christian law of marriage 
 as talk to poor Letty of the mysterious law of love. 
 
 And yet she was most kind, most good-natured an ever 
 welcome and convenient third in the various week-day 
 walks, and meetings for " sight-seeing," which Dr. Stedmau 
 contrived to steal out of his busy life, and add to those 
 blessed Sundays which he spent with his betrothed, heal- 
 ing thereby all the cares and worries of the seven days 
 past. And he was so good to Letty ; he took such pains 
 that she should never be forgotten in any pleasure which 
 could be given her, that she liked Will very much. But 
 still she moaned sometimes Letty rather enjoyed moan- 
 ing over the probable length of Edna's engagement, and 
 the misfortune of her marrying a poor man. 
 
 " For talk as you like, my dear," she sometimes oracu- 
 larly said, " I am cei'tain you would be a deal happier in 
 an elegant house, with a carriage to drive in, and plenty 
 of good society. And don't look so indignant I dare 
 say he would love you better men always do, you know 
 if you were a little better dressed." 
 
 But Edna only smiled, and smoothed out her pretty cot- 
 tons and muslins as carefully as if they were silks and sat- 
 ins. Perhaps Heaven had mercifully given her a tempera- 
 ment that did not much care for luxuries, except those of 
 Heaven's providing, common and free as air and sunshine 
 such as cleanliness, order, simplicity, and harmony. And 
 then she was so happy, for God had sent her heart's desire. 
 She sang over her daily work like an April thrush in a 
 thorn-tree, building its nest through rain and shine. Let- 
 ty complained bitterly of the delay which made school- 
 _ keeping still necessary; Dr. Stedman openly grumbled at 
 the school and all belonging to it ; and often behaved ex-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 189 
 
 cecdingly badly, and very like a man; but Edna was as 
 gay as a lark, and never swerved from her firm determina- 
 tion not to be married till a small certainty made the mar- 
 riage prudent as regarded them all. She declared she 
 would work steadily on, like a brave independent little 
 woman as she was, till the very day of her marriage. 
 
 " For," she said once, with her sweet, earnest face lifted 
 up to the clouded one of her lover, " I see no pleasure, and 
 no dignity either, in idleness. If you had not loved me I 
 should have been a working-woman to the end of my days, 
 and have worked cheerily too. When you can work for 
 me, I'll work no more. But if you ever needed it, and I 
 could do it, I would fall to work again, and you should not 
 hinder me ! I'd begin once more to teach my little butch- 
 ers and bakers and candlestick-makers, and think myself 
 honored in the duty." 
 
 And then the strong man would catch her in his arms, 
 and thank God he had chosen a woman who, in the count- 
 less troubles that man's lot is heir to, would neither be 
 selfish nor cowardly, a burden nor a snare; but, under her 
 soft meekness, would carry about with her a spirit fearless 
 as his own. 
 
 After much delay the long-hoped-for hospital appoint- 
 ment was given and given to some one else. William 
 told this news to Edna one dark night coming through 
 the green lanes home from church told it briefly, almost 
 sharply ; which showed how deep was his disappointment. 
 She only pressed his arm, and said : 
 
 "Never mind. We are young still. It is said to be 
 good to bear the yoke in one's youth." 
 
 " Yes, if it is not so heavy as to make one humpbacked 
 for life," answered Dr. Stedman, with a laugh, tuneless and 
 hard ; then, stopping under the next gas-lamp, he saw 
 Edna was crying his poor Edna, whose life was no easier 
 than his own ! In the next dark place they came to, he 
 turned and clasped her to his heart, with all the bitterness 
 melted out of it, but with a passion of yearning that even 
 she could not understand. After that they spoke of the 
 lost hospital appointment no more.
 
 190 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Then, too, Julius fell into a very unsatisfactory state, 
 physical and moral, which, even if Will had not confided 
 it to her, Edna was too sharp-eyed not to see. He looked 
 wretchedly ill, was often moody and out of temper ; took 
 vehement fits of work, and corresponding fits of despond- 
 ent idleness. Whether it was that the home he was soon 
 to quit lost even its small attractions for him, or from 
 some other nameless fancy, but Julius became more erratic 
 than ever: in his comings and goings entirely unreliable, 
 save on those Sundays when, whether invited or not, he 
 always presented himself with his brother at the Misses 
 Kenderdine's door. 
 
 There might have been a pleasanter guest; for some- 
 times he sat whole evenings, like a cloud of gloom, by the 
 cheerful fireside; or else startled the whole party by his 
 unnatural flow of spirits. They bore with him every 
 body always did bear with Julius. And these lovers had 
 a quality not universal among people in their circum- 
 stances their own happiness made them very patient 
 with those who had none. Besides, Julius was not al- 
 ways a dead weight upon Edna and Will ; with astonish- 
 ing tact he always contrived, early or late, to escape to 
 the kitchen-fire, which, the servant being absent at church, 
 was faithfully presided over by Letty's favorite cat, large 
 and lovely as herself and by Letty. There he and Letty 
 shared each other's companionship for hours. 
 
 What resulted was sure to result, even if the two eld- 
 ers, for once in their lives sufficiently so self-engrossed as 
 to be oblivious of others, had seen what they did not see 
 until too late to prevent that is, supposing they had any 
 right to prevent it. 
 
 Letty too she should not, at this point, be blamed too 
 severely. She was like many another woman, not wicked, 
 only weak. It was very pleasant to her to be adored, and 
 it would be to nine out of ten of the women who read 
 about her in these pages girls who are taught from ear- 
 liest maidenhood that the grand aim of life is to be loved 
 rather than to love. She did not at all dislike who 
 would? after her dull week's work, to have, for some
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 191 
 
 hours every Sunday, those passionate eyes following her 
 about wherever she moved, that eager breath hanging on 
 every word she uttered, whether silly or wise ; those looks, 
 which said as plainly as woi'ds could say sometimes 
 joking, sometimes earnestly, when he glanced at the lovers 
 " Never mind them, I live only for you." Only looks. 
 Julius never committed himself never said a syllable 
 which, to use Letty's phrase afterwards, could be " taken 
 hold of." As for flirting, of course she was well used to 
 " that sort of thing ;" but this was admiration of a novel 
 kind persistent, permanent, and yet kept so safely with- 
 in limits, and under the shadow of their approaching re- 
 lationship, or connection, or whatever they chose to call 
 it that if at any time during the winter and spring Letty 
 had been asked the direct question, which she never was 
 asked " Is Julius Stedman making love to you ?" she 
 would have answered, without any falsehood that is, not 
 in her notion of falsehood " Oh dear, no ! not the least in 
 the world." 
 
 And yet all the while she was maddening him with her 
 beauty, bewildering him with her caprices sometimes 
 warm, sometimes cold ; having little quarrels, and making 
 it up again ; assuming the tenderest " sisterly " confidence, 
 and then sliding off again into perfect coldness and unap- 
 proachable civility. Doing it all half consciously, half un- 
 consciously ; aware of her power, and liking to exercise it 
 up to a certain extent an extent that gave herself no in- 
 convenience. But once, when the thrushes were singing 
 on the budding trees of Kensington Gardens, as they 
 walked there of evenings and again, on the first day of 
 the Royal Academy, when Julius took them all in great 
 pride to see his first well-hung picture, and Letty looked 
 so beaming and beautiful that every body turned to stare 
 at her then, seeing certain alarming symptoms in Julius, 
 she drew in her horns, and was exceedingly cold and cau- 
 tious for a day or two. " For," she reasoned to herself, 
 and long afterwards repeated the reasons to Edna, " what 
 was I to do with the young man? He hadn't a half- 
 penny."
 
 192 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Quite right, Letty Kenderdine not a half-penny ! only 
 a man's heart, or worse, a man's soul, to be lost or won, 
 according as a woman chooses. But that, in these days, 
 and with many people, is quite 'immaterial. 
 
 It was a day rather momentous that first Monday in 
 May when Julius learned his picture was hung. Will 
 had decided with Edna that they must all go to see it, 
 and the sisters had a wild struggle after sudden spring 
 bonnets, to be assumed at a few hours' notice ; " for," said 
 Letty, " we can't go at all unless we go respectable." And 
 possibly William Stedman thought a little beyond respect- 
 ability the happy face circled with white daisies under a 
 round-brimmed straw bonnet such as was the fashion 
 then which smiled beside him, so delighted in the brief 
 holiday with him. For Letty Letty always looked beau- 
 tiful. She was a picture in herself. But, as fate so often 
 balances things, she did not care half so much about the 
 pictures as Edna did ; nor, handsome as it was, did her 
 face look half so beaming as that one from whence Wil- 
 liam Stedman learned to see mysteries of loveliness which 
 had never come upon his darkened mind before. There 
 was in him just enough of the poetic nature to wish he 
 had more of it, and to be tenderly reverential towards the 
 beloved woman who had it, and whom he thought so in- 
 finitely superior to himself. While she, who knew herself 
 to have so many faults, to be at times so fierce and hasty, 
 passionate and unwise, held a different opinion. 
 
 They examined the pictures, none of which Edna liked 
 better than Julius's own the landscape about which she 
 had heard so much painted as Julius dared to paint, and, 
 in that anti-Pre-Raphaelite time, was greatly despised for 
 painting from absolute nature, instead of nature diluted 
 throughfaded OldMasters Claudes,Poussins,and Salvator 
 Rosas each a degree farther off from reality than the last. 
 
 " Yes," said Julius, a gleam of hope lighting up his mel- 
 ancholy eyes, as they followed a stray sunbeam which 
 kindled in deeper beauty his beautiful work; "this year I 
 think I have not wasted my time. Perhaps I may end in 
 being an artist, after all."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 193 
 
 " Were you thinking of being any thing else ?" asked 
 Edna, surprised. 
 
 Julius blushed slightly. " Oh, I think of so many things. 
 A painter never makes money, and I want money terri- 
 bly. But let us look at the pictures, Letty." She was 
 hanging on his arm, piloted carefully through the crowd. 
 " You were admiring that portrait's velvet gown here is 
 another well-painted bit of velvet for you, and a bit of 
 sentiment too a girl taking a thorn out of a boy's finger. 
 What a mildly determined air she has ! she won't let him 
 go, though he winces at the pain just like a man, and 
 just like a woman. The old story. She is beginning to 
 hurt him even at seven years old." 
 
 " She ought to hurt him, nor be afraid of hurting him, 
 if she can take the thorn away," said Edna, gently. 
 
 " Listen, Will ! Now you see what lies before you ! 
 Bravo ! Who wouldn't rather be a bachelor, if all men's 
 wives are to be ready with needle and penknife to wound 
 their spouses of course, entirely for their good. Heigh- 
 ho ! What say you, Letty ?" 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; what were you talking about ?" 
 replied Letty, whose attention had been wholly distracted 
 by a charming bonnet which she was most anxious Edna 
 should see and imitate. But Edna was absorbed in a 
 picture which she never saw after that day, and never 
 even knew whose it was; but it fastened itself upon her 
 memory, to be revived, even after many years, like invisi- 
 ble color, which some magic touch makes fresh as ever. 
 
 It was called "In another Man's Garden," and was 
 simply a suburban cottage-door, painted with the in- 
 tense realism then altogether pooh-poohed and despised. 
 Thereat also modern and real, down to coat, hat, and 
 stick stood a young man, bidding the cheery morning 
 adieu to his wife and child before going to business a 
 happy, intensely happy little group, safely shut inside the 
 rose-trellised walls. While outside, leaning against the 
 gate, was a solitary figure a broken-down, dust-stained, 
 shabby man gazing with mournful yearning into "an- 
 other man's garden."
 
 194 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Edna looked at her betrothed, then at the picture ; and 
 her eyes filled with tears. She could not help it. She 
 understood it all so well. So out of his deep content 
 did he. 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said William, as if he were speaking of 
 a real person. 
 
 " Oh, that's me !" cried Julius, with a short laugh. " I 
 thought you would recognize the likeness. The painter 
 is a friend of mine. He asked me to sit, and thought I 
 looked the character to perfection. Do I, Letty ?" 
 
 " What, the gentlemanly young man in the garden ?" 
 
 " No ; the blackguard outside. That was the charac- 
 ter I personated. I got quite used to my battered old hat, 
 and stockingless shoes, and coat all rags and tatters." 
 
 " Did you really put on these things ? Oh, how nasty 
 of you !" said Letty, turning away in great disgust. 
 
 The artist laughed again, more bitterly than before. 
 " Then if I ever appear as a returned convict, or a repent- 
 ant prodigal, it's of no use my coming to you, Letty ?" 
 
 "Julius ! how can you talk of things so very shocking? 
 It makes me quite miserable." 
 
 Here Letty gave and Edna caught, startling her into 
 uneasy suspicion one of those sidelong, downcast looks, 
 which might well delude a man into that mad passion 
 which, for the rest of the afternoon, gleamed in every fea- 
 ture of Julius Stedman's face, as he followed her like her 
 shadow, and seemed only to live upon her smile. 
 
 ."Something will surely happen; and oh, I wonder I 
 wonder what " thought Edna, very anxiously ; longing 
 for the next Sunday, when she would have a quiet hour 
 to lay all her anxieties upon the wise, tender, manly heart 
 which was her comfort in all her troubles now. 
 
 But as yet there was no chance of a quiet word with 
 William, for the four came home to Kensington ignomin- 
 iously in an omnibus, to Letty's unconcealed dismay. 
 
 "Ah," sighed she, "how nice it would be if Dr. Stedmau 
 kept his brougham, like so many London doctors I do so 
 like a carriage !" At which Will laughed, but Julius looked 
 dark and sad for the whole journey.
 
 TUE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 195 
 
 It was a recognized rule that the Stedmans should only 
 be received on a Sunday, so the four young people parted 
 at the Misses Kenderdine's gate, and Edna and Letty sat 
 down to their late tea, very tired both of them one a lit- 
 tle cross, and the other just a little weary-hearted. 
 
 Edna could bear her own burdens their own burdens, 
 she and William together; but she thought, if an added 
 weight were to come, and such a serious anxiety as a love- 
 affair or marriage engagement between Letty and Julius 
 must inevitably be, however it might end, her cares would 
 be heavy indeed ; for neither of these two were the sort of 
 people capable of bearing their own troubles, to say noth- 
 ing of lightening other people's. 
 
 As she looked at Letty, so handsome and so helpless, 
 and thought of Julius, who had turned from the door in 
 one of his sad, sullen fits, painful and yet pathetic as those 
 of a naughty child, Edna felt her courage give way, and 
 her heart sink with that strange foreboding of evil which 
 comes sometimes, we know not how or why. Without 
 saying a word to Letty it would have been neither deli- 
 cate nor wise she pondered over the whole question, till 
 at last, utterly bewildered, it settled itself into her one 
 grand refuge for all distresses "I will tell it to William 
 next Sunday." And, comforting as this thought was, it 
 brought also a vague longing for the time when their life 
 would be all Sundays, when they would be continually 
 together. With it came a fear the fear that will come 
 with deep love lest something should come between 
 them. Only, to their faith and constancy, nothing could 
 come but death ; and that she did not fear, for it would 
 only be falling, as David wished to fall, into the hands of 
 God the same God who had already made them so happy. 
 
 " Yes, we have been happy very happy, and I am very, 
 very thankful !" thought poor Edna, and her serenity re- 
 turned the unchangeable peace of those who have the 
 blessedness of being able to recognize their blessings. 
 
 Tired as she was, she took out her work and was sitting 
 let us boldly confess it mending a large basketful of 
 stockings, when there came a knock at the front door.
 
 196 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Letty started up from the sofa. 
 
 "That's William's knock I know it is. Oh, what can 
 have happened !" 
 
 " Nothing to be frightened at," said William, who was 
 in the room almost as soon as she spoke. Good news, 
 not ill, were written on his face. " I beg your pardon. I 
 could not help coming." He shut the door behind him, 
 and then, regardless of her sister's presence, clasped Edna 
 tight in his arms. "It has come at last come at last, 
 thank God !" And in an ecstasy of joy which betrayed 
 how sharp had been the unacknowledged suffering, he 
 kissed again and again his betrothed wife then went 
 over and kissed Letty, and bade her wish him joy. 
 
 Presently, when he was sufficiently calm for a consecu- 
 tive statement to be got out of him, Dr. Stedman told the 
 great news strangely little it would seem to some people, 
 yet to these two was enough to uplift them into perfect 
 felicity. 
 
 It was one of those bits of " good luck " he called it 
 nothing more, and always protested he had done nothing 
 to win it which occasionally turn the tide of a man's 
 fortune by giving him, at the outset of his career, that 
 slight impetus of help without which a fair start is nearly 
 impracticable. A great lady, and good as great, who had 
 been interested in Dr. Stedman's incessant labors among 
 the poor, had offered him a permanent appointment as 
 physician to a charitable institution which she had found- 
 ed and principally supported. His salary was to be 300, 
 and, by-and-by, 400 a year a solid foundation of annual 
 income; while the work could not interfere with his prac- 
 tice, but would rather give him opportunities for that 
 continual study of his profession which a doctor so much 
 needs, and which, at the begining of his career, he finds so 
 difficult to obtain. Thus the lady, a far-sighted and gen- 
 erous woman, in securing his services, benefited both sides, 
 and in doing a prudent did also a kindly deed. 
 
 " I wish she knew all the happiness she has given us !" 
 said Edna, trembling and agitated; while Letty, as was 
 her wont under all novel and exciting circumstances, be-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 197 
 
 gan to cry. In fact, they all shed an honest tear or two, 
 and then they sat down together Edna close by William, 
 holding Letty's hand on the other side to try and realize 
 the sudden bliss this unexpected change in all their af- 
 fairs. 
 
 " Does Julius know ?" asked Edna, anxiously. 
 
 " No the letter came after he had gone out. You know 
 he almost always does go out of evenings. But it will be 
 a brighter home for him to come to when you are there 
 and Letty." 
 
 William said this in all simplicity, as Edna at once per- 
 ceived ; and his evident unconsciousness of the idea which 
 had lately entered her mind shook Edna's faith in her own 
 quickness of perception. If William were quite at ease 
 concerning his brother, why should she perplex herself oi' 
 perplex him by speaking of this matter of Julius and Let- 
 ty ? So, for the present, she let it slip by ; and when Let- 
 ty benevolently quitted the room, and left her alone with 
 her lover, she forgot every thing, as lovers do. 
 
 Forgive them, if so be there is any need of forgiveness. 
 Life is so sho'rt, so changeful, so full of infinite chances of 
 grief and loss, who would grudge to any body a little love, 
 a little happiness? These two were ready to take both 
 the sweet and the bitter, the evil and the good, believing 
 that both come alike by the Father's will. Yet who can 
 wonder that, as they sat together, knowing they were go- 
 ing to be married not exactly " to-morrow," as Dr. Sted- 
 man had ingeniously suggested, but within a few weeks 
 and that, come weal or woe, they would never more be 
 parted, it was surely pardonable if, for a while, they for- 
 got every body but themselves. 
 
 "And you are not afraid to begin life with me to be a 
 poor man's wife ? for it will be that, Edna. I can't dress 
 you any better than this" touching tenderly her gray 
 merino gown ; " and the carriage Letty wants, it may be 
 years before I can give it you, if ever. Oh, my love, am 
 I harming you ? In marrying you now at once, while I 
 have still only just enough for us to live upon, am I doing 
 you any wrong ?"
 
 198 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Wrong !" she cried, as she clung round his neck for 
 a minute, and then drew back, looking at him with the 
 brightest face the most radiant, and yet half-indignant 
 eyes. "Wrong! you are showing me the utmost love, 
 and paying me the chiefest honor that a man can give to 
 a woman. You are taking me at your life's beginning, 
 that we may begin it together. That is the right thing. 
 Don't be afraid, William. I'll help you I know I can, for 
 I am not a coward, and I have you. Oh ! if men were 
 more like you, had your courage, your faith, there would 
 not be so many broken-hearted women in the world." 
 
 " And there would not be so many bad, ruined men, I 
 think, if women were more like my Edna." 
 
 So talked these two foolishly, no doubt, and with a 
 vicarious self-laudation which is very much the habit of 
 lovers. And yet there was truth at the bottom of it a 
 truth which, day by day, as she and Letty busied them- 
 selves every spare hour in those innocent wedding prepara- 
 tions which every honest heart, either of friend or stranger, 
 can not help taking pleasure in, forced itself deeper and 
 deeper upon Edna's heart. No worldly show was there 
 no hiding with splendid outside formalities the hollow- 
 ness within : she was going to be, as William said, a poor 
 man's wife ; and expensive clothes and extravagant out- 
 lay of any sort would be merely ridiculous ; but Edna pre- 
 pared herself for her great change with all the happy- 
 heartedness that a bride should have, a bride who knows 
 that down to the lowest depth of her soul is not a feeling 
 that need be hidden, not a thought that God and her hus- 
 band may not see. 
 
 One little thing made her sorry. Julius did not come 
 to see her ; indeed, he had taken himself off on an artistic 
 tour in Wales, to be " out of the way," he alleged ; but 
 he wrote, after a few days' delay, an affectionate congrat- 
 ulatory letter, and asked her to seek out for him bachelor 
 lodgings as close as possible to their own house, where 
 he meant to be exceedingly jolly, and inflict himself upon 
 them several times a week. And he sent her, as a wed- 
 ding present, a lovely portrait of Letty, composed out of
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 199 
 
 the many studies he had made of her face, which he said, 
 briefly, "he knew by heart." At which remark Letty 
 blushed a little, and pouted a little, saying it was "im- 
 pertinent;" but was exceedingly gratified to look at her 
 own exquisite portrait, and hear every body admire it and 
 say how very like it was. 
 
 So fled the time, long, and yet how short dwindling 
 first into weeks and then into days, until the last break- 
 ing-up day came, and the two young school-mistresses, not 
 without a few sincere tears, sent away their little pupils 
 forever. After that there was only one more Sunday left 
 for the Stedmans to come to tea in the old way, which 
 for nearly a year had gone on now, and brought with it 
 so much of peace and pleasure. No more now of those 
 " courting days," which are said by some to be the happi- 
 est, by others the most miserable of their lives. Probably 
 the real truth lies between both these facts, and that the- 
 happiness or misery is according as the lovers create it 
 for themselves. Life is not all joy neither God nor man 
 can make it so ; but it may be made all love. And love, 
 that infinite and endless blessing, had been held out from 
 heaven to these two, Edna and William ; they had had 
 eyes to see it, strength to grasp it, faith to cling to it. 
 They had cause to be glad arid thankful, and so they were. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DR. STEDMAN came alone to spend his last Sunday with 
 his bride and her sister. Julius had returned home and 
 promised to come, but changed his mind and disappeared 
 for the day. 
 
 " He is so constantly changing his mind and plans, that 
 I hardly know what to make of him. I do wish he had 
 a wife of his own," said the elder brother, with a sigh. 
 "But a sister will be better than nothing: you must be 
 very good to him, Edna," 
 
 " I will," said Edna, in her quiet way. And then they 
 all spent together contentedly, yet half solemnly the
 
 200 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 last Sunday of so many Sundays, the last which would 
 ever see them as they were. It hardly seemed real this 
 great change and it had come about so naturally that 
 they felt none of the agitation and excitement which a 
 marriage brings. No one made any unnecessary fuss; 
 and even when Letty took Dr. Stedman up stairs to see 
 the bridal finery the white muslin dresses and white 
 bonnets gloriously displayed he only said, " Very pret- 
 ty," and came down looking happy, indeed, but rather 
 grave. 
 
 Indeed they were all three a little subdued, and, ar- 
 rangements being now completed for the wedding was 
 fixed for Tuesday they had little or nothing to talk 
 about. Tea over, they were sinking into a rather sombre 
 silence, when, to their amazement, Julius appeared. 
 
 The sisters had never seen him since the day of the Ex- 
 .hibition, and the welcome they gave him was hearty and 
 warm. He received it with eager happiness. 
 
 "Yes; I thought I would come, if only to have p, last 
 look at Edna Kenderdine. Though -I know I am fright- 
 fully in the way: not wanted never shall be wanted 
 anywhere by any body !" 
 
 " Oh, Julius !" said Edna, reproachfully ; then, without 
 more words, she busied herself in getting him tea, and all 
 those creature comforts which a man sorely needs, espe- 
 cially when he comes in worn and worried as Julius did. 
 After the first flush of excitement had faded, she saw, and 
 was shocked to see, how great was the change in him 
 during these few weeks. He had grown exceedingly thin, 
 and had at times a restless, hunted look, as of a man pur- 
 sued by one relentless idea which he vainly tries to mas- 
 ter, but which conquers him against his will. He was 
 quieted a little, however, during the tea and talk, and re- 
 covered his old self so charming, brotherly, and kind. 
 
 William Stedman looked on, pleased and smiling, but 
 he said nothing. Nor did Letty, which was a still more 
 remarkable fact; and when Julius, having accomplished 
 his usual aim by asserting volubly, to every body's great 
 amusement, that he must retire to the kitchen, as his sole
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 201 
 
 purpose in paying this final visit was to take a farew. 11 
 sketch of it and the cat, disappeared, Letty drew herself 
 up with dignity, and, instead of accorapanyir.^ him, went 
 up stairs. Whence, however, she was soon heard to de- 
 scend, Letty being one of those people who prefer any 
 body's company to their own. 
 
 " I hope she will be kind to him, even though he has 
 neglected you and her a little of late," said William, in- 
 nocently. "I do trust they will get on well together 
 our brother and sister. They ought, for there is such a 
 deal of good in poor Julius. He shows it, by being so 
 very fond of you. He told me last night, when I was 
 urging him to end his nonsensical flirtations and get hon- 
 estly engaged to some nice girl, that he would, if only I 
 could find him such a girl as my Edna." 
 
 Edna laughed. 
 
 "Do you know he once made me half jealous I mean 
 when I began to want you myself, and fancied he did the 
 same. Now, little Conscience, if it had been so, what 
 ought I to have done ? Given you up to my brother, eh ?" 
 
 Edna's light laugh ceased. She thought a minute, and 
 then said, seriously, " No ; if you loved me, and I loved 
 you, you ought to have married me in spite of all the 
 world." 
 
 So talked they half merry, half grave recalling their 
 past, or planning their future, and then scarcely talking at 
 all content with the simple fact of being together. 
 
 Meantime, in the kitchen there was also comparative 
 silence. Not the talking and laughing which generally 
 went on between Letty and Julius, who always ridiculed 
 the extreme soberness of " the folks in love." Just a low 
 murmur of conversation sometimes, and then long pauses 
 so long that even the betrothed pair in the next room 
 noticed it at last. 
 
 " I wonder if the sketch is finished. Shall we go and 
 see, William?" 
 
 "Not yet please not just yet. I must leave early this 
 evening, and you will not let me come to-morrow. But 
 after to-morrow you will never get rid of me." 
 
 12
 
 202 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Never, all my life ! I am so " sorry, a coquette 
 would have said ; but Edna, wholly true, had not a spark 
 of coquetry in her, first or last. She said " glad." 
 
 " Thank you, my blessing of blessings !" And then 
 they talked no more. 
 
 But when at length Edna, with a certain uneasy feeling 
 that she could not get rid of, though she kept it strictly 
 to herself, wondering at the long stillness, went to see, she 
 found Julius sitting all by himself over the fire, which, out 
 of its dull, burnt-out hollow, threw occasional sparks of 
 flame, giving a ghostly look to the neat kitchen, as neat 
 and pretty almost as a parloi*, which Julius used to say 
 was "the finest room in the house." He was so absorbed 
 that, till Edna touched him on the shoulder, he did not 
 notice her entrance. 
 
 " Where is the sketch, Julius ?" asked Will. 
 
 "And where is my sister?" 
 
 " Gone up stairs. Hey, Will ! is that you, man ? I'm 
 going home." 
 
 " Not this minute ; not before supper," pleaded Edna. 
 
 " Supper ! I've had mine. I've ' supped full of horrors,' 
 like Macbeth. Now, ' to bed to bed to bed !' Edna, 
 couldn't you give a poor fellow something to make him 
 sleep forever ?" 
 
 " Ju," said Will, " what is the matter with you ? You're 
 half asleep now, I think ; wake up, man !" 
 
 "1 will," cried Julius, springing to his feet with a vio- 
 lent gesture. " I have been asleep ; but I'm awake now. 
 Give me my hat; I'll take a walk and come back to my 
 senses, and to supper likewise, if you please, Miss Edna." 
 
 But he never appeared. Letty came down stairs flushed 
 and uncomfortable-looking, and to William's jesting ques- 
 tion if she and Julius had been quarrelling, gave an answer 
 so sharp that Dr. Stedman said no more. Silently, un- 
 easily, ended the last evening of so many merry evenings 
 which they had spent in that little house, every corner of 
 which Edna felt she should love to the end of her days. 
 
 Yet, as she stood at the door on the solemn dark night 
 for it had been raining heavily, and there was not a
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 203 
 
 star visible even 
 though her hand 
 was clasped in her 
 lover's, and his safe 
 arm round her, a 
 weight of forebod- 
 ing sadness gath- 
 ered over her. 
 
 " Oh, William, 
 if trouble should 
 come !" 
 
 " We will bear it, 
 whatever it is, to- 
 gether." 
 
 And when he 
 said that, and drew 
 her closer, and she 
 felt the beating of 
 his warm, living, 
 loving heart, so 
 tender and so true, 
 she knew that- she 
 could bear it. 
 
 After Dr. Sted- 
 man was gone, Let- 
 ty called Edna into the kitchen Letty still flushed, and 
 full of the excitement of a secret. 
 
 "Don't be running off the very minute you have sent 
 your lover away. You might have some little sympathy 
 with other people's love-affairs mine, for instance." 
 
 "Oh, Letty!" 
 
 "Yes, you need not look so shocked. It has just come 
 to that. I knew it would. I have been afraid of it for 
 ever so long. Very provoking. A wretched business al- 
 together. How could the poor fellow be such a goose ! 
 though I suppose he'couldn't help it." 
 
 And Letty tried to look grave, while a furtive, gratified 
 smile twinkled round the corners of her mouth. 
 
 "But you could have helped it, if it is as I suspect," 
 
 FOUEilODLNGS.
 
 204 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 cried Edna, greatly distressed. " How could you let him 
 do it ? For of course it is Julius poor Julius !" 
 
 Letty nodded. "I promised not to tell any body, and 
 of course I won't. You will notice, I have never men- 
 tioned his name, and I never told you of it, though I have 
 suspected it for months. Poor fellow, he is desperately 
 fond of me." 
 
 " Oh, Letty !" 
 
 Edna could not say another word. She saw, as in an 
 ominous vision, Julius's face, as he snatched up his hat 
 and rushed from the house a wild, fierce, maddened face 
 full of that overwhelming passion, a compound of the 
 senses and the imagination, which sometimes seizes upon 
 a young man : whom, having played at love throughout 
 his first fantastic youth, it takes hold of at last in terrible 
 earnest, either making or marring him for the rest of his 
 life. For Julius was one of those weak, loving natures 
 who must cling to somebody, be in love with somebody. 
 And he had fallen in love with Letty, the very last per- 
 son, any third party would say, whom he ought to choose. 
 But third parties are not infallible, and Edna snatched at 
 a fragment of comfort and hope. 
 
 " Surely, Letty, you like Julius ?" 
 
 " Like him ? Oh yes ; very much in a sisterly way. I 
 told him so. I promised to be the best sister possible to 
 him, as I always have been, I am sure. But as to marry- 
 ing him, that is quite another thing. Why he has not a 
 halfpenny but what he earns, and he will never earn much 
 geniuses never do. He will be poor all his life. And, 
 oh dear me, Edna," shrugging her shoulders with a trick 
 she had learned at her Paris pension, "you know I have 
 had quite enough of poverty." 
 
 " But you might wait." 
 
 " Wait till my appearance was all gone. He is an art- 
 ist, and has an eye for that, I know," said Letty, with the 
 pathetic intuition which sometimes dawned through all 
 her silliness, of favor being deceitful, and beauty vain 
 " Wait till I got old and ugly, and couldn't enjoy good- 
 fortune when it came? Oh no, Edna! that would never
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 205 
 
 do. Better even for the young man himself that I won't 
 marry him. And yet he is frantically in love with me 
 he is, indeed. I had no idea there was so much earnest- 
 ness in him about any thing till now. Would you be- 
 lieve, he almost frightened me." 
 
 And Letty, sitting at the kitchen -fire, meditatively 
 warmed her lovely foot, glancing round half triumphant- 
 ly, half pensively at her sister, whose heart slowly, slowly 
 sank, heavy as lead. For vainly she sought in those beau- 
 tiful eyes some trace of the feeling call it love, nay, pas- 
 sion, if you will which, however sad, however unfortu- 
 nate, when earnestly and honestly felt, ennobles any wom- 
 an ; while that other side of it the weak pleasure of con- 
 quest, the petty egotistical vanity of being loved only 
 deteriorates and degrades.
 
 206 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " Oh, how blind, how careless I have been !" cried Edna, 
 almost in a sob. "And you, Letty, you have been play- 
 ing with edged tools you know you have. That poor fel- 
 low ! And you guessed it all, yet you let it go on. How 
 could you ! But it is not quite too late. Perhaps you don't 
 know your own mind perhaps you really love him?" 
 
 Letty laughed. " How should I know ? Certainly not 
 in your sort of love. I'm very fond of him, and I told 
 him so, as a sister. For any thing else but it's no use 
 thinking of that, as you must see; for us to be engaged, 
 Julius and me, would, in our circumstances, be ridiculous 
 perfectly ridiculous." 
 
 Edna answered, with a strange harshness, which she re- 
 pented afterwards, or would have done but that Letty did 
 not seem to perceive it at all, " I think you are right. It 
 would be even worse than ridiculous. When Julius is my 
 brother, I shall warn him that the most fatal thing he 
 could do would be to marry my sister Letty." 
 
 " Yes," said Letty, composedly misapprehending, " I con- 
 sidered that point also. Two brothers marrying two sis- 
 ters rarely get on together. And then there would be the 
 difficulty of the money-matters ; for Julius said he only 
 wished me to be engaged to him ; he would never think 
 of marrying me till he had an income of his own, and was 
 quite independent of his brother. And I couldn't wait 
 I really couldn't, you know. So it is a great deal better 
 as it is. Of course he will get over it ; men always do," 
 added Letty, looking as if she were comfortably persuaded 
 to the conti'ary. "After all, it has been a little excite- 
 ment. One isn't quite an old woman yet, I see." 
 
 And then, scarcely observing Edna's dead silence, Letty 
 unbound her great golden sheaves of hair, and, while she 
 brushed and combed them, chattered unceasingly of Julius 
 all he had said, all he had done ; his frantic pleadings, 
 his bitter despair; till Edna thinking of the heart that 
 would bleed for every wound of Julius's, the heart whose 
 every emotion she kept sacredly to herself, and always 
 would have done, whether she had loved him or not Edna 
 started up in a passion of wrath, and grief, and shame.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 207 
 
 " Letty, hold your tongue ! I won't hear you ! the last 
 time you talked like this I was a girl, and I did not un- 
 derstand it did not mind it. Now I do. I say you have 
 done a wicked thing. Every woman who thinks a man 
 loves her, and lets him go on loving her till he asks her to 
 marry him, and then gives him No a cold, prudent, heart- 
 less No does a wicked thing. I am ashamed of you, 
 though you are my own sister. I am bitterly ashamed of 
 you." 
 
 Letty opened her eyes in the utmost astonishment. She 
 did not get angry ; it would have been almost a comfort 
 if she had done so ; but she sulked a little, and then melt- 
 ed into tears. 
 
 " I couldn't help it, and you have no right to scold me. 
 It was partly your fault ; you should not have left us so 
 much together, or you should have spoken to me before- 
 hand. I always listen to what you say, Edna. You are 
 very, very unkind ; but now you are happy and going to 
 be married, it does not matter what becomes of me." 
 
 And so, with that strange tyranny of weakness to which 
 the strongest often mournfully succumb, she softened her 
 sister's heart towards her, and, despite her common sense, 
 her conscience, her bitter, bitter grief for Julius and Jul- 
 ius's brother, Edna kissed Letty, and scolded her, as she 
 called it, no more. 
 
 Instead she talked to her, seriously and tenderly, of 
 things concerning which she had often talked before, till 
 she gave it up as hopeless. But now her reasoning was 
 not, as then, out of theories which Letty had always set 
 aside as "romantic," "impossible." She spoke of what 
 she knew out of her own blessed experience of tne sa- 
 credness of love, given or received ; the wickedness of tri- 
 fling with it ; the awful responsibility it was things once 
 dimly di'eamed of by Edna Kenderdine, but now seen by 
 William Stedman's bride, with a fatal vividness and a pas- 
 sionate intensity of belief that made her fearless either of 
 ridicule or contradiction : determined to speak out, wheth- 
 er listened to or not. 
 
 Letty did listen as she said, she generally listened to
 
 208 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Edna at the time ; and this time, either through the ex- 
 citement of the evening or because she was really touched 
 by Julius's devotion, she listened with an expression of 
 earnestness which made Edna almost believe she under- 
 stood it all. 
 
 "What you say may be very true, Edna I am sure I 
 hope it is only you seem to fancy love is the only thing 
 in life. Now I think there are many other things." 
 
 "So there are; but love is the first, the best, the root 
 and crown of all the rest. And more for men even than 
 women. If that goes wrong with them every thing goes 
 wrong. Oh, Letty, take care !" 
 
 " Nonsense ! what must I take care of? It isn't my 
 fault that men fall in love with me." 
 
 "No; but it is your fault if you treat them in such a 
 way that they never believe in love again that they de- 
 spise it and despise you." 
 
 " Will Julius despise me, do you suppose? I hope not !" 
 
 "Then behave to him so that, whatever you make him 
 suffer, he may still respect you. I don't know what has 
 been how far you have gone on with him ; but oh, Letty, 
 from this time be very careful how you treat him !" 
 
 " Bless us !" said Letty, half crossly, half laughing, " how 
 seriously you do take it ! I might be going to murder the 
 young man." 
 
 " You do murder him, in reality, when you trifle with 
 him play fast and loose, warm and cold, as I have seen 
 you do with some people. Don't do it with him it will 
 be the ruin of him. Oh, Letty !" and she grasped her 
 sister's hand in an agony of entreaty "for my sake, for 
 William's sake, take care !" 
 
 " What on earth am I to take care of? As if Julius 
 were the first man that ever was crossed in love. He 
 must just get over it." 
 
 " Yes ; but how ? We women don't understand. We 
 can but break our hearts; but they they turn wicked. 
 If Julius does, I shall blame you." 
 
 Letty looked uneasy. 
 
 "I am very sorry. I am sure I did not mean an}' harm,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 209 
 
 and I hope none will come, for it would be extremely un- 
 pleasant. But what am I to do ? It is the most uncom- 
 fortable thing. Oh ! I wish I had never been brought into 
 it. I wish you were not going to marry William Stedman, 
 or that somebody was going to marry me some suita- 
 ble man, with plenty of money, who would take me quite 
 away out of all these troubles." 
 
 " Then you do not care not one atom for Julius." 
 
 " Oh yes, I do I like him very much. I dare say I 
 shall never get any one to be so fond of me again. I 
 would take him to-morrow if he had a tolerable income, 
 or a chance of getting on in the world. But he has none; 
 and, as I told you, I can't wait so he must go." 
 
 " Clearly," said Edna, setting her firm little mouth to- 
 gether, not without a curl of contempt in it, and rising 
 to light her candle and go to bed. 
 
 " Oh, stop a minute do help me ! Tell me how I am 
 to manage it all. What do you mean by my treating Jul- 
 ius so as to do him no harm, and to make him respect me ?" 
 
 Edna paused to think. Unto her, in her brimming hap- 
 piness of contented love, Julius's lot seemed bitter to an 
 almost exaggerated degree. She mourned for him from 
 the very depth of her heart, yet she could not, she dared 
 not, urge Letty to accept him. She knew that "love 
 bidden is love forbidden ;" and that far safer for Julius 
 would be a short, sharp blow, and over, than the tortur- 
 ing suspense of uncertainty and indecision. 
 
 " I hardly know what to advise, except that you must 
 meet him as seldom as possible. I will manage that. But 
 when you do meet, though you need not be unkind to 
 him still you must never let him doubt your mind. You 
 must not waver; you must keep firm, Letty as firm as a 
 rock." 
 
 And then the impossibility of firmness to that weak, 
 vain, pleasure-loving nature, which always did the easiest 
 thing at the time, without much regard to consequences, 
 forced itself upon Edna with a mouriful foreboding. Yet, 
 for a little while, Letty's evident sincerity gave her hopf . 
 
 " I will do every thing you tell me ; I will, indeed," said
 
 210 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 she, her ever-ready tears flowing down apace. " Poor Jul- 
 ius ! I am so sorry for him so sorry if this makes you 
 and William unhappy. For, of course, you will tell Wil- 
 liam, though I wish you wouldn't." 
 
 Nevertheless, Letty's looks betrayed a sort of satisfac- 
 tion that William was obliged to be told. 
 
 " Yes, I shall tell William. Oh, my poor William !" 
 sighed Edna to herself, knowing how keen would be the 
 pain to that tender heart, in whom the best love of all 
 only made all other affections the stronger. " Letty, we 
 can't help what is past, but you must do what is right 
 now ; you must make William respect you, ay, and Julius 
 too, even though you refuse him. I don't know it of my- 
 self thank God ! nobody ever loved me but William 
 still, I am sure it is quite possible for a good woman to 
 turn her rejected lover into her truest friend that is, if 
 he had nothing to blame her for except rejecting him. 
 But we will talk no more now. Let us go to bed, sister. 
 Oh, my sister ! my only sister !" 
 
 Worn out with all the emotion of the day, Edna threw 
 her arms round Letty's neck, and they clung together 
 like sisters, in whom no difference of character could 
 break the tie of blood at least not yet. And then they 
 went to sleep in peace together. 
 
 All next day the day before the wedding Letty went 
 about the house with a very sad and serious face, though 
 it brightened up occasionally especially at sight of any 
 thing in the shape of clothes. And when she tried on her 
 own dress a costume so tasteful and becoming, that she 
 looked fit to be brides-maid to a queen instead of to that 
 dainty, white-robed, yet plain little woman, who was to 
 William Stedman all his heart's desire Letty's spirits 
 rose amazingly. 
 
 " I wonder if there will be any body to look at us ; it 
 is a shame to waste all these pretty things upon the par- 
 son and the clerk, and old Mr. Marchmont" a city mer- 
 chant, whose house had been Edna's only situation as resi- 
 dent governess, and w r ho, in default of nearer friends, had 
 claimed the pleasure of giving her away.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 211 
 
 " Except Julius if Julius comes," said Edna, gravely. 
 
 Letty looked a little conscience-smitten. "He is sure 
 to come he told me he should. He did not wish Wil- 
 liam to find out any thing, and, besides, it would be his last 
 look of me. He means to go abroad to Switzerland, I 
 think. Poor fellow ! I am really very sorry for him," 
 added Letty, as she glanced in the glass, and could not 
 who could ? help smiling complacently at the charming 
 image reflected there. 
 
 But Edna said nothing, and shortly afterwards went 
 out of the room. 
 
 Strange ! she could not have believed it of any body 
 else, yet any one who knew her unselfish nature might 
 have believed it of her ; but Edna, even on her marriage- 
 eve, thought less of herself and her own feelings than of 
 poor Julius. Do what she would, she could not get him 
 out of her mind. The contrast between him and the rest 
 William and she going off together on a marriage-tour 
 to their old haunts in the Isle of Wight; Letty taken to 
 a cheerful visit in the Marchmonts' luxurious home, where, 
 among those wealthy, but rather dull city people, she, 
 with her beauty and her familiarity with " high families," 
 was very popular; and forlorn Julius left alone to bear 
 his grief how he might all this smote Edna with exceed- 
 ing pain. She was one of those who find it hard to be 
 happy when others are not ; who would have leaned over 
 the edge of paradise itself to drop bitter tears upon the 
 poor souls in purgatory. And when, towards evening 
 the last day of her maiden life she left Letty, still busy 
 about some trifling adornment, and started on a quiet, 
 solitary stroll, to consider what was to be done, and how 
 and when she should tell the sad secret to William, she 
 felt so unhappy that she could hardly believe to-morrow 
 was her wedding-day. 
 
 Nevertheless, she walked on, trying to compose herself 
 by walking, when she heard footsteps behind her, light, 
 quick, and hurried, and, turning round, saw Julius. 
 
 She looked in his face, and he in hers, and both under- 
 stood that each knew all. She put out her hand to him,
 
 212 
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 JULIUS AND EDNA. 
 
 lie grasped it hard, and then turned away. They walked 
 along side by side for some distance before either spoke. 
 When Julius did, his voice was hollow and unnatural. 
 
 "I have been hanging about here all day. You know 
 why ; she would be sure to tell you. She promised not, 
 but of course she did. Women always do." 
 
 " Yes, she told me." 
 
 " Well, I don't blame her. Perhaps, if I had told you
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 213 
 
 myself before now, I might have been saved all this. You 
 knew her mind ?" 
 
 " No," said Edna, firmly, afraid lest his eager question- 
 ing might betray her into any admission that might lead 
 him astray, " I could have told you nothing, for I had not 
 a suspicion of such a thing till last night I mean, till just 
 lately." 
 
 " You did suspect, then ? You thought she cared for 
 me ?" said Julius, eagerly. " You must have seen I cared 
 for her? More fool I! But it's over now. Women are 
 all alike all alike." 
 
 "Julius," said Edna, appealingly, and her soft eyes 
 brimmed over. For he was so changed, even in those 
 few hours so haggard and wild-looking, with neglected 
 dress and excited manner. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; no, you are different. I know 
 Will has found his good angel, as he deserved. I de- 
 served nothing and got it. Edna, you once told me to 
 wait till my time came. It has come, from the minute I 
 first saw her beautiful face through the lodging-house win- 
 dow. It was a madness jquite a madness. If ever the 
 devil comes to a man as an angel of light as the Bible 
 says he does come, you know he came to me in the shape 
 of your sister Letty." 
 
 " Hush !" said Edna, putting her arm through his, and 
 drawing him on, for his loud voice and violent manner had 
 caught the notice of a stray passer-by. " Come with me : 
 I am going a walk, and you can tell me every thing." 
 
 " Every thing ?" 
 
 " Yes, every thing," said Edna, with firmness, for he was 
 so past all self-control that it became necessary. " You 
 need not mind speaking to me I never chatter to any 
 body. Besides, to-morrow I shall be your own sister 
 William's wife." 
 
 " William's wife ! Oh, happy, happy Will ! But you'll 
 promise not to tell him, not till after to-morrow ? And 
 you'll see how I'll behave. He shall guess nothing, for it 
 would vex him so. Dear old Will ! I'm right glad he is 
 happy. Lucky, lucky Will !"
 
 214 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Edna could not speak for crying. Her tears seemed 
 to calm her companion in some degree. He pressed her 
 hand. 
 
 " Are you so very sorry for me, you good little woman ? 
 Then you think there is no hope ?" 
 
 Edna shook her head in a silent negative. She dared 
 not do otherwise. For, knowing her sister as she did 
 and seeing Julius now in the new light in which his pas- 
 sion had shown him the expression she had used last 
 night of "playing with edged tools" but faintly expressed 
 the danger of any trifling. Foolish Letty ! she might as 
 safely emulate the juggler's tricks of swallowing fire, or 
 tossing up and catching gleaming daggers, as attempt, 
 with her. weak, womanish, uncomprehending nature, her 
 small caprices and coquettish arts, to deal with such a 
 man as Julius Stedman. Well might she say she was 
 "frightened of him." Edna almost was. Never before 
 had she witnessed the desperate agony of thwarted love, 
 as shown in one who was capable, by fits, of self-repression 
 but of self-government had none. What passed between 
 her and Julius for the next thr.ee minutes Edna hid in the 
 deepest, darkest recesses of her pitying heart; she never 
 betrayed it, not even to William. 
 
 At length she said, softly, " Tell me how it happened. 
 How came you to care for Letty, or to fancy Letty cared 
 for you?" 
 
 " Fancy! It was no fancy. You know better than that. 
 She must have told you ? No ? Then I'll not tell. I'll not 
 be such an ungentlemanly wretch as to tell. I was mis- 
 taken that's all. But, Edna I'm not a conceited ass, I 
 hope. And when a girl lets you talk to her, sit by her, 
 hold her hand, kiss her " 
 
 Edna started, and then Julius also drew back in bitter 
 shame. 
 
 " I was a coward to say it ; but no matter. It was no 
 harm : only ' sisterly.' She told me so. No blame to her, 
 of course. Only, Edna, mind this, if a girl wants to send a 
 young fellow to hell, body and soul, bid her treat him ' as 
 a sister.' "
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 215 
 
 Edna walked on, sadly silent. Mad as his words were, 
 there was truth at the bottom of them, though much might 
 be said on the other side. For Julius implied, though he 
 did not actually own, how this passion had come upon him 
 fierce as retributive justice when he was first amusing 
 himself, as he had often done before, with that tender phi- 
 landering, half love, half friendship, saying nothing, yet im- 
 plying every thing, by which so many a young man has 
 broken the heart, and blighted the life of a young, foolish, 
 innocent girl, who would only have laid to his charge the 
 pathetic lament of Ophelia when Hamlet says, "I did 
 love you dearly once /" and she answers, "Indeed, my lord, 
 you made me believe so" 
 
 Yet two wrongs can never make a right : Letty was in- 
 excusable. And the worst of it was, she would never 
 be conscious that she needed excusing. But the mischief 
 was done. Here was this young man, to whom a strong, 
 real passion for a good woman, however hopeless, would 
 have been salutary might have shaken him out of his 
 frivolities and follies, and awakened him to that new and 
 holier life which elevates a man, less by possession than 
 by striving after the nobleness which deserves to possess 
 but, trifled with by such a girl as Letty, he would sink 
 lower and lower whither? For there are no depths of 
 depravity to which a man may not fall, from whose heart 
 and lips come the bitter cry which startled Edna many a 
 time during their miserable walk " They are all alike 
 all alike. I will never believe in any woman more." 
 
 " But," she said at last, " you will believe in men. By- 
 and-by you will come and talk to William. He will help 
 you. Why," she said, trying at last playfulness, when all 
 serious arguments failed, " you are not the first man who 
 was refused and got over it, married somebody else, and 
 lived happy ever afterwards. Even Shakspeare says, ' Men 
 have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.' " 
 
 Julius laughed angrily. "No; I shall not die. You 
 may tell Will that, if he cares about it." 
 
 " You know he does. It would break his heart both 
 our hearts if you broke yours. But you will not. You
 
 216 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 will yet find a far sweeter woman, a far more suitable 
 wife, than my sister Letty." 
 
 " Suitable ? Yes, that was the word she used. It was 
 not a ' suitable ' marriage that is, I could not give her a 
 carriage and pair, and a house in Belgravia. Nor, indeed, 
 could I marry her at all just yet. I could only love her, 
 and she did not care for that. Edna" and he turned 
 fiercely round " Edna, I'd honor the meanest milliner-girl 
 to whom I came with only a wedding-ring, or perhaps with 
 no ring at all, and said, 'Love me' (if she did love, and 
 some of them do, poor things !), more than your fine lady 
 who will accept any body, no matter who, so that she is 
 well married. But it isn't marriage at all ; it's " 
 
 " Be silent," interrupted Edna, in her clear, firm voice, 
 severely sweet as Milton makes that of his angels. "You 
 are speaking of what you do not understand. You only 
 see half a truth. Because one side of a thing is wicked, 
 does it make the other good ? There are people like 
 what you say who marry in unholiness, or who love, 
 omitting marriage, in equal unholiness ; but there are oth- 
 ers who love with all their hearts, and marry because they 
 love, like William and me. Come to us; we will take 
 care of you. We will not let you ' go wrong.' " 
 
 " You can't help it." 
 
 " No ; but you can. Julius, a man may be grievously 
 injured by a woman ; but if he lets himself be ruined by 
 her, he is one of two things either a coward or a fool. 
 You are neither ; you are a man. Be a man, and bear it." 
 
 He turned towai'ds her, the sweet woman, so loved, so 
 happy; who out of all her happiness could spai'e thought 
 and sympathy for others for his miserable self. She 
 stood, looking up at him with her pale, tear-stained, eager 
 face, through which, in midst of all her grief, gleamed that 
 hopeful courage which women often possess so much more 
 than men, given to them, perhaps, that they may the better 
 help men. The strong spiritual attraction mastered Jul- 
 ius in spite of himself. 
 
 " You are an angel !" he said, in a broken voice. " I 
 think, if any thing could save me from going to the devil,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 217 
 
 it would be my sister Edna. Tell Letty no, tell her 
 nothing. Tell William" 
 
 " What ?" asked Edna, seeing he hesitated. 
 
 "Every thing; I had rather he knew it. Tell him" 
 with a feeble smile "tell him to-morrow afternoon. 
 And then say, he need not vex himself, for I shall go to 
 Switzerland to-morrow night to work hard and trouble 
 nobody. And, mind you, nobody need trouble themselves 
 about me, since I shall come to no harm for three months 
 I promise you that." 
 
 "And afterwards?" 
 
 " God knows !" 
 
 "Yes," Edna answered, reverently. "God does know. 
 And He never tries any one of us more than we can bear. 
 Now, walk with me to the end of the lane. Then go 
 straight home." 
 
 Julius obeyed, with out the slightest resistance, and with 
 the gentleness of a child. 
 
 Next morning, quite early for they were to start at 
 once, there being no wedding breakfast with Letty look- 
 ing charming as brides-maid, though a little nervous and 
 agitated, but not unbecomingly so ; with Julius as best 
 man, very handsome, well dressed, and agreeable, but, on 
 the whole, more absorbed in attention to the bride than to 
 the brides-maid, which fact much surprised Letty's warm 
 admirer, old Mr. Marchmont next morning, William and 
 Edna were married. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A DARK wet November night or evening ; but it look- 
 ed like night, for the houses were all shuttered up, and 
 there was no light except the gas-lamps, and the one red 
 doctor's lamp, to break the dreariness of the long, monoto- 
 nous, shopless street, where every house was so exactly 
 like another outside at least. Within what an im- 
 measurable difierence ! 
 
 What is it makes a house bright ? pleasant to go to to 
 
 K
 
 218 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 stay in even to think about, so that even if fate totally 
 annihilates it we recall tenderly for years its atmosphere 
 of peace, cheerfulness, loving-kindness nay, its outside 
 features down to the very pictures on the walls, the pat- 
 tern of the papering, the position of the furnitui'e ? While 
 other houses we shiver at the remembrance of them, and 
 the dreary days we spent in them days of dullness, misery, 
 or strife these houses we would not revisit for the world ! 
 
 Why ? If a house with fair possibilities of home com- 
 fort is thoroughly comfortless if there is within it a reck- 
 less impossibility of getting things done in the right way 
 or at the right time or if, on the contrary, it is conducted 
 with a terrible regularity, so that an uninvited guest or an 
 extempore meal sends a shock throughout the whole abode 
 if the servants never keep their places long and the 
 gentlemen of the family are prone to be " out of even- 
 ings " who is to blame ? 
 
 Almost invariably the women of the family. The men 
 make or mar its outside fortunes ; but its internal comfort 
 lies in the women's hands alone. And until women feel 
 this recognize at once their power and their duties it 
 is idle for them to chatter about their rights. Men may 
 be bad enough out-of-doors ; but their influence is limited 
 and external. It is women who are in reality either the 
 salvation or the destruction of a household. 
 
 Dr. Stedman's household had done with its bachelor 
 freedom, and passed into feminine sway a sway more 
 complete than in most ; and yet there are many profes- 
 sional men who, like a doctor, are so engrossed by outside 
 toil that they are obliged to leave every thing else to their 
 wives. Well for them if, like William Stedman, they have 
 married a woman who is fit not only to obey, but to rule. 
 Especially so when, as in this case, there are few appliances 
 of wealth to aid her no skilled servants, no well-appoint- 
 ed and well-furnished establishment; but one which re- 
 quires, in every point, not only the mistress's head, but 
 her eye, and often her hand. 
 
 Thus, in the drawing-room, where Edna sat sewing, al- 
 ways sewing, and, for a wonder, Letty was sewing too,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 219 
 
 MEB. WILLIAM bTEDMA.N. 
 
 there was a combination of old things and new ; the fur- 
 nishing being accomplished by means of devices which 
 would have shocked a respectable and expensive up- 
 holsterer. Yet the general effect was neat and pretty ; an 
 ordinary eye would have discovered no deficiencies, and 
 a good heart, even if discovering them, would have been 
 touched by, rather than have laughed at, these pathetic 
 incongruities. 
 
 The mistress was not unlike her house ; carefully, though 
 any thing but richly, dressed ; still she was dressed for 
 dinner, with her soft hair all smooth, and her laces drop- 
 ping daintily over the little busy hands. Some people 
 said and not untruly that Edna had grown a deal pret- 
 tier since her marriage. Yet she was worn and thin, as if 
 she had a rather anxious life ; but there was no anxiety in 
 her eyes at this moment nothing but perfect content 
 perfect rest. 
 
 She listened patiently, though with a far-away look, as 
 if she only heard half of it to Letty's incessant stream of 
 rather fretful talk about the inconveniences of the estab- 
 lishment.
 
 220 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " I am sure I am quite glad to do all I can, and be of 
 use in the house; but there seems no end to all we have 
 to do, Edna. It's much harder work than keeping school, 
 I think." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Edna, smiling; for there was some 
 truth in Letty's complainings. Dr. Stedman, in his bach- 
 elor helplessness, had been compelled to marry first and 
 " settle" afterwards ; and the settling cost more trouble 
 and money also than they had calculated on. Happily, 
 there was Edna's share in the good- will of the school 
 Letty's being conscientiously invested for herself; still, as 
 William, like the sisters, held strongly to the only safe 
 rule for poor people of never buying what he could not 
 at once pay for the difficulties of furnishing were not 
 small ; and it required all Edna's cleverness to reduce ex- 
 traneous expenses, and make sixpence go as far as six- 
 pence honestly would. Thus the first few months of their 
 married life were not easy. 
 
 None the more so because Letty shared them. All peo- 
 ple make mistakes sometimes ; and Edna and William soon 
 discovered that for a young couple to have the constant 
 presence of even the least obnoxious "third party "is not 
 to be desired. Poor Letty ! they tried to keep her from 
 suspecting this, and to make the best of it, till the change 
 which she already began to talk about and long for name- 
 ly, going out again as a governess should arrive ; but 
 still she helped to make the first six months of her broth- 
 er and sister's marriage the most difficult portion of their 
 lives. 
 
 Nevertheless they were happy blessed as two people 
 must be who love with all their hearts, and trust each 
 other from the inmost depths of their souls. That their 
 life was all smooth I do not aver; but it was like what 
 learned men tell us of the great ocean the storms only 
 troubled its surface, and came from extraneous agencies, 
 such as no life is free from; in its deepest depths was a 
 perpetual calm. , 
 
 Calmness, perhaps, was the strongest characteristic of 
 Edna's face now. She had been a restless little woman
 
 THE WOMAN'S KIXGDOM. 221 
 
 heretofore easily moved, ready to catch each flitting 
 shade of pleasure or of pain ; now she had learned the 
 self-control which every human being must learn who has 
 another human being to care for bound by the only tie 
 which entirely takes away the solitude of individuality. 
 This fact alone made a difference wider than had before 
 existed between her and Letty, and it made her also very 
 patient with Letty. 
 
 She heard all the grumblings giving an occasional 
 gentle reply till a loud knock thrilled through the silent 
 house the master's knock. 
 
 " There he is !" 
 
 And Edna ran down stairs to open the door to William 
 a foolish custom which Letty always condemned de- 
 claring she wouldn't do it to her husband ; it spoiled one's 
 collar and one's hair, and gave far too much trouble ! Un- 
 comprehending Letty ! 
 
 So William's first greeting at his own door was always 
 his wife's face bright and gay, with all the worry smooth- 
 ed out of it and the anxiety banished he had enough of 
 both outside. 
 
 "All right, my darling?" 
 
 "Yes; quite right." 
 
 " I'll go up and change my clothes. I have just come 
 from the hospital. Then we'll have dinner." 
 
 A doctor's wife has a hard life, as Edna found. Yet 
 there was something grand in it, even in its dangers; 
 something heroic enough to touch her sense of the ideal, 
 which in this little woman was very strong. Continually 
 there was much to be done, and as much more to be suf- 
 fered silently and without appeal. When Edna first 
 married, and realized all that her husband went through 
 daily and hourly, she found it very hard to bear. It was 
 an agony to her every time he entered a fever-ward, and 
 was sent for to those dens of misery and crime where a 
 doctor is often the only messenger of good that ever 
 comes. But now she bore all quietly. She knew his life 
 was in God's hands that he must do his duty, and she 
 hers, which was to help rather than to hinder him. Yet
 
 222 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 often when she saw other wives whose husbands went into 
 no danger, were exhausted by no hard work, and William 
 came home, as to-day, utterly worn out, so that the smile 
 with which he always met her only lasted a moment the 
 sinking at her heart returned, the deadly fear or wild out- 
 cry of prayer that all who love can understand. 
 
 But she said nothing; and when she took the foot of 
 her husband's dinner-table, it was with the cheerful face 
 that a wife ought to wear, and which does more good 
 than food or warmth to a weary man. 
 
 " Oh, this is such a pleasant room !" said Dr. Stedman, 
 looking round it with a sense of infinite rest, and comfort, 
 and relief. " I am glad I have not to go out again. It is 
 such a wretched night outside. I hope Julius will wait 
 in Paris, and not be thinking of crossing till the weather 
 alters. There is his letter, Edna, which came to-day. He 
 speaks of being in London soon." 
 
 This was said looking at his wife, but not overlooking 
 her sister, who maintained a demure silence. 
 
 To Letty William had never spoken one word on the 
 subject of Julius, nor indeed very many to Edna. He had 
 heard all, of course, and been deeply moved ; but after- 
 wards, with a man's sharp cutting of many Gordian knots 
 which women wear their lives out in untying, he had dis- 
 posed of that painful domestic complication by simply 
 saying: 
 
 " What is done can not be undone. We shall not mend 
 it by talking about it, and we may make it much worse. 
 Let us say no more, and it will all gradually slip by." 
 
 Nor was he cold or hard to Letty ; perhaps, man-like, 
 he was ready to find excuses for a woman and a woman 
 so beautiful. Whatever he felt on the subject, he had 
 only shown his feelings by writing long, and unfailingly 
 punctual, letters to Julius, with a persistency rather rare 
 in a man and a brother. And now with that good com- 
 mon sense of his, which never made unnecessary fuss about 
 any thing he just mentioned, in an oif-hand way, the fact 
 of Julius's coming home. 
 
 "He comes home rather prosperous too. He has just
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 223 
 
 sold a large picture to your friend Mr. Marchmont, Let- 
 ty." 
 
 " I am sure I am very glad to hear it," answered Letty, 
 looking down. 
 
 " And he sends me back honest fellow ! his quarter's 
 allowance, saying he can well do without it, better than 
 we ; which is partly true, Edna, my dear." 
 
 " We'll keep it for him, in case he wants it," said Edna, 
 kindly. " What has he been doing lately?" 
 
 "Read, and you will see. He and the Marchmonts 
 seem to get on capitally. He has shown them Paris, and 
 speaks a good deal of them ; thinking of them much as 
 you do worthy, kindly people, with heaps of money and 
 not too much of brains except, perhaps, your pupil, Miss 
 Lily, who he says is so pretty." 
 
 " Lily Marchmont pretty ?" cried Letty. " I never 
 heard such nonsense ! Why, she is a mere roly-poly dot ; 
 as red as a cherry, and as round as a ball. What can 
 Julius be thinking of? Is he falling in love with her? 
 But, indeed, I should be very glad to hear of any thing 
 of the kind," added Letty, with a sudden accession of de- 
 mureness. 
 
 "So should I," replied her brother-in-law, gravely. 
 " Nothing in this world would make me more glad than 
 to see Julius married happily married. He is the best 
 fellow I know, and would be better still if he had a wife 
 just such a wife as mine." 
 
 And, with eyes overflowing with love, William glanced 
 across the table to the sweet face that was all his sun- 
 shine, all his delight. Yet, just as in her case towards 
 him, the joy was not without its attendant pain. 
 
 " You are looking pale, my wife ; you have been over- 
 tiring yourself." 
 
 " A little. I was in town to-day. I was obliged to go." 
 
 "Those horrid omnibuses ! Oh, I wisii I could give you 
 a carriage ! Do you know, sister Letty, I am seriously 
 thinking of following your constant advice, and starting a 
 brougham, which people say is a sine qua non in the suc- 
 cess of a doctor commencing practice ; it makes such an
 
 224 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 excellent impression. Suppose I try it ? Only you must 
 be sure not to tell the mistress. She would be so exceed- 
 ingly displeased." 
 
 He laughed while he spoke, and gave a glance over to 
 Edna half joking, half anxious as if feeling his way, and 
 seeing how the land lay. Was "the mistress" grown 
 such an alarming little person, after all ? 
 
 She smiled, but said not a word. Letty dashed eagerly 
 into the question. 
 
 " I am sure Edna would never be so foolish as to object 
 to any thing that was for your advantage. Besides, a 
 carriage would be such a great convenience to us. You 
 might have it all the day, and we could use it of evenings 
 instead of a nasty cab, which always spoils one's dresses. 
 And how grand it would sound ' Dr. Stedman's carriage 
 stops the way ' at theatres and evening parties !" 
 
 " That implies you have both to go to. But I dare say 
 you would. If I started a brougham, people would think 
 I had no end of practice, which would create more. The 
 world always worships the rising sun. Yes, perhaps it 
 might be an advisable investment," added William, chang- 
 ing from his satirical tone to that of prudent worldliness, 
 which agreed ill with his honest voice and mien. 
 
 " Not so much an investment as a speculation, since at 
 present we have no money to pay for it," said Edna, gently. 
 
 " No more have half the world that rides in carriages. 
 Yet how content it looks, and how comfortable its car- 
 riages are 1" 
 
 " Very comfortable," said Letty, " and, if carefully lined, 
 always so clean and nice for one's clothes." 
 
 " And consciences," added William, with a light laugh ; 
 "which I see, by her looks, is what Edna is thinking 
 of What ! another message ? Have I got to go out 
 again to-night ?" 
 
 And he rose, not looking particularly glad ; but when 
 he opened the letter he showed uncontrollable surprise 
 and delight. 
 
 " Who would have thought it ? While I was speaking 
 about him, Julius was close at hand. Bid the messenger
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 225 
 
 wait; he shall have an answer in a few minutes. Yes, 
 Edna, you had better show it to Letty." 
 
 For Letty, not wholly unmoved, had come to look over 
 her sister's shoulder at the few words which explained how 
 Julius had just come in from Paris, and was at a coffee- 
 house close by, where he said he would be glad to see his 
 brother. 
 
 " Of course you will go to him at once, dear?" 
 
 " Certainly. Poor fellow, how very glad I am !" 
 
 And William's eyes were shining, and his fatigue all 
 vanished. Then, suddenly, his countenance changed. 
 
 " I forgot I really quite forgot for the minute ; but, 
 Edna? no, I suppose that is not to be thought of. Yet 
 it's hard that I can not fetch my own brother at once to 
 my house. Of course nobody is to blame. Yet it is very 
 sad very annoying." 
 
 Dr. Stedman did not often speak so irritably, as well as 
 sorrowfully. Edna knew not what to say. Letty drew 
 herself up with a dignified air. 
 
 " I assure you, William, if out of consideration for me " 
 
 " No ; I'm not considering you at all," was the blunt 
 answer. "I am considering my brother, Letty. I have 
 never named this matter to you before, and do not sup- 
 pose I am blaming you now; you had a right to give 
 Julius any answer you pleased. Moreover, I have every 
 reason to believe that he has quite ' got over it,' as you 
 women say, and would no more mind meeting you than 
 any other lady of his acquaintance." 
 
 " I am sure I am delighted to hear it." 
 
 " Only, if you do meet," continued William, pointedly, 
 "it must be clearly understood that you meet only as 
 acquaintances." 
 
 "Certainly," replied Letty, tossing her head, and retiring 
 to the other end of the room, while the husband and wife 
 consulted together in an undertone. At last Edna came 
 up to her sister. 
 
 "Letty, should you object to Julius coming here for a 
 day or two that is, if he will come if William can bring 
 him back with him ? It would make William so happy." 
 
 K2
 
 226 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 Then for goodness' sake do it ! Really nobody hinders 
 you. I don't. I am sure it is very hard for me to be the 
 cause of family dissension. I will set you all free by-and- 
 by. I will go away and be a governess as soon as ever I 
 can." And Letty began to weep. 
 
 William was touched. " Come," he said, laying his hand 
 affectionately on her shoulder, "don't be foolish, Letty. 
 Don't let us be making miseries where none exist, or ex- 
 aggerating any little difficulties that we have. Rather let 
 us try to get through them. If you never cared for Julius, 
 and Julius has ceased to care for you, there can be no pos- 
 sible objection to your meeting, or to his coming here. 
 Shall I say so, and ask him to come ?" 
 
 Letty brightened up at once. " Do, for I am sure it 
 would be the very best plan. There is plenty of room in 
 the house, you know. Besides, we are rather dull Edna 
 and I with you away so much. And Julius used to be 
 so very amusing." 
 
 So William departed ; and after half an hour of rather 
 anxious expectation, the two sisters welcomed the two 
 brothers, in changed relations certainly, but with all the 
 warmth and cordiality of yore. And then William and 
 Julius stood on the hearth together, the elder with his 
 arm on the younger's shoulder, and regarding him with 
 eyes out of which beamed the old affection the old ad- 
 miration. 
 
 The brothers had always been strikingly dissimilar, but 
 now the dissimilarity was particularly plain not so much 
 in face as in the difference which character and circum- 
 stances make in outward appearance, which increases rap- 
 idly as people grow older. Nothing could be a greater 
 contrast to the hard-working doctor than the fashionable 
 young artist who laughed and talked so fast, with more 
 than his former brilliancy ; greeted every body, compli- 
 mented every body; admired the house, and paid the ten- 
 derest attentions to its mistress. 
 
 "You have grown quite a foreigner. I should hardly 
 have known you, Julius," said Edna. " There is scarcely 
 a bit of your own old self left in you."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 227 
 
 " Perhaps not, and all the better," answered he ; then 
 added, gayly, " but I don't see the least change indeed, I 
 should not like any change in my little sister. I hope 
 she means to be as good as ever to me ?" 
 
 " No fear of that," said William, looking from one to 
 the other in great content, and really almost forgetting 
 Letty, who, on her part, took very little notice of the rest, 
 but remained aloof in stately dignity. 
 
 Nor did Julius take any special notice of her, or man- 
 ifest any agitation at meeting her; in fact, the whole 
 thing passed over so very quickly and quietly that Edna 
 almost smiled to think of what an anxiety it had been to 
 her and William. Glad as she was, it gave her a certain 
 sad feeling of the mutability of all things, and especially 
 of men's love in general lightly won, lightly lost. Was 
 every man's love so, except her own William's ? 
 
 " No," she said to herself, as she watched the brilliant 
 Julius, the beautiful Letty both equally self-controlled 
 and self-satisfied. " No, we need not be in the least afraid. 
 Nothing will happen." 
 
 Undoubtedly it was a relief and a great pleasure to 
 spend such a merry evening. Julius gave endless ac- 
 counts of his continental life, where he seemed to have 
 made good use of his time in bringing back sketches in- 
 numerable, and in making acquaintance with foreign art- 
 ists of note of whom he talked a great deal. He spoke 
 also kindly, though with an undertone of sarcasm, of his 
 rich and stupid patron, Mr. Marchmont. 
 
 " You saw a good deal of the Marchmonts ?" observed 
 Edna. 
 
 " Yes, they needed me, and I needed them ; so we made 
 it mutually convenient." 
 
 " And you call Lily Marchmont pretty ?" here broke in 
 Letty, irresistibly. " I never heard of such a thing ! Lily 
 Marchmont pretty !" 
 
 "Are not all young ladies pretty just as all young 
 men are estimable when they are rich?" said Julius, 
 laughing. 
 
 Letty drew back and spoke no more.
 
 228 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 But as, in the course of conversation, Julius made as 
 much fun of the young lady as he did of her respectable 
 papa, Edna thought there was not much to be hoped for 
 in his praise of Miss Lily Marchmont. 
 
 In truth, glad as she was to see him gladder still to see 
 her husband's happiness in his return there was some- 
 thing about Julius which inexpressibly pained Edna. No 
 human creature ever stands still; we all either advance or 
 deteriorate, and Julius had not advanced either in ear- 
 nestness, or simplicity, or manliness. Externally, his refine- 
 ment had degenerated into the air of the petit maitre the 
 man who placed the happiness of his existence on the set 
 of a collar or the wave of a curl ; while his conversation, 
 lively and amusing as it was, flitted from subject to sub- 
 ject with the lightness of a mind which had come to the 
 bitter conclusion that there is nothing in life worth seri- 
 ously thinking of. He was not unaffectionate, and yet his 
 very afiectionateness saddened her; it showed how much 
 there was in him that had never had fair play, and how 
 his best self had been stunted and blighted till it had shot 
 out, by force of circumstances, into a far smaller and more 
 ignoble self than Nature had intended. Of course, a strong 
 character would have controlled circumstances; but who 
 is always strong ? Clever and charming as he was, Edna 
 felt something very like actual pity for Julius. 
 
 He refused to stay in his brother's house, alleging that his 
 ways were not their ways they were married, and he was 
 a gay young bachelor he should scandalize them all ; but 
 he commissioned Edna to procure him lodgings close by. 
 
 " Such lodgings as I troubled you about once before, 
 only the trouble was all wasted, like other things," said 
 he. And this was the only reference he made, even in the 
 remotest degree, to any thing of the past. Of the future 
 he talked as little. Indeed, he seemed to live wholly the 
 life of the present. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
 we die." As for his passionate love for Letty, he seemed 
 to have quite forgotten it. But there is an oblivion which 
 is worse for a man than the sharpest remembrance. 
 
 "Yes," said William's wife, as, Julius having left, and
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 229 
 
 Letty having gone to bed immediately, her husband came 
 and sat beside her at their fireside " yes, we might have 
 spared ourselves all anxiety about Julius. Oh, William, 
 how seldom does love last long with any body !" 
 
 " You did not surely wish this to last, you most unrea- 
 sonable and contradictory little woman? You must feel 
 it is far better ended ?" 
 
 "I suppose so. And yet " Edna was half ashamed 
 to own it, but she was conscious that in the depth of her 
 foolish, faithful heart she should have respected Julius 
 much more if he had not in six little months ay, it was 
 this very day six months that he had poured out to her 
 compassionate ear all the agony of his passion so com- 
 pletely "got over" it. 
 
 She sat down by her husband's side for the one quiet 
 half hour when the master and mistress of the household 
 were left to themselves, to discuss the affairs of to-day, 
 and arrange for those of to-morrow. Although so short a 
 time married, Edna and William had already dropped into 
 the practical ways of " old married people," whose love 
 demonstrates itself more often by deeds than words by 
 giving one another pleasure, and saving one another pain ; 
 which latter, in their busy and hard life, was not. the light- 
 est portion of the duty. Neither ever dwelt much upon 
 any thing that must needs be a sore subject to the other, 
 and so a few more words ended the matter of Julius. It 
 was William's decided opinion that their brother and sis- 
 ter should be left as much as possible to themselves not 
 thrown together more than could be helped, but still nei- 
 ther watched nor controlled. 
 
 " For," said he, " we really have no right to control them, 
 or to interfere with them in the smallest degree. If there 
 is one decision in life which ought to be left exclusively 
 to the two concerned, it is the question of marriage. If I 
 had a dozen sons and daughters" Edna half smiled, 
 faintly coloring " I would give them all liberty to choose 
 any body they liked ; only taking care to bring them up 
 so that they would choose rightly in a manner worthy 
 of themselves and of me."
 
 230 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " What an admirable sentiment, and so oracular, it ought 
 to be printed in a book," answered Edna, laughing. Wil- 
 liam laughed too at his own energetic preaching. 
 
 " But now," said he, " I am going to preachify in ear- 
 nest ; and, my darling, it is about a very serious thing, 
 which you must give all your wise little mind to, and tell 
 me what you really think about it. I want to set up a 
 carriage." 
 
 He said it a little hesitatingly, between jest and earnest. 
 Edna looked up. 
 
 " You don't mean it, William ? You are only jesting 
 with me ?" 
 
 " Not in the least. I mean what I say, as I am rather 
 in the habit of doing," and the dominant hardness which 
 was in his nature, as it is in the nature of every strong 
 man, betrayed itself a little. ."I have been thinking of 
 the matter ever so long, and it is an experiment I feel 
 strongly inclined to try." 
 
 Edna was silent. 
 
 "Something must be done, for my practice is no better 
 than it was two years ago, except for my fixed salary, 
 which, of course, we have need to be thankful for. Still, 
 I want to get on ; to make a handsome income ; to give 
 you every thing you need." 
 
 "That is not very much," said Edna, softly. 
 
 " I know it. You are a careful wife, my love. But our 
 lot is somewhat hard." 
 
 " We knew it would be hard." 
 
 " Yes, but I want to alter things to make a desperate 
 effort to get on. This is a plan which many young doc- 
 tors try. Some, indeed, say that nothing can be done 
 without it. It is like setting a tub to catch a whale 
 baiting with one's last trout for a big salmon, as we used 
 to do in my glorious fishing days of old. Ah, I never go 
 a fishing now. Never shall again, I suppose." 
 
 " I wish it was different," said Edna, sadly. " You get 
 no holidays, and I don't know when you will. They are 
 among the pleasant things you have lost through marry- 
 ing."
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 231 
 
 " My darling !" But there is no need to particularize 
 William's answer, or what he thought of the loss and the 
 gain. "And now," said he, at last, "let us go back to 
 practical things. This carriage " 
 
 He met somewhat uneasily his wife's fond, grave, ques- 
 tioning eyes. 
 
 "Yes, this carriage. Do you really require it? For 
 the sake of your health, I mean ? You are often very 
 much worn out, William ?" 
 
 " But not with walking ; I wish I were ! I wisb-.I had 
 enough of patients to wear me out. No, Edna, I can not 
 conscientiously say I require a carnage, but I want it, just 
 for the look of the thing. We must meet the world, with 
 its own weapons ; if it insists upon being a humbug, why, 
 I suppose we must be humbugs too. Don't you see ?" 
 
 " I am afraid I don't." 
 
 Dr. Stedman laughed, not his own joyous, frank laugh, 
 but one more like Julius's. "Oh, you are such an inno- 
 cent, my darling. Why, many a fashionable doctor, now 
 earning thousands, has started upon nothing, and lived 
 upon credit for the first two or three years. Just make 
 people believe you have a large practice, and you get it. 
 Patients flock to you one after the other, like sheep. That 
 ' sawbones ' in the funny tale by some young fellow 
 named Dickens, which you read last night who sent his 
 boy about delivering unordered medicines, and had him- 
 self fetched out of church every Sunday on imaginary 
 messages, had not a bad notion of the right w r ay of get- 
 ting on in the world." 
 
 "The right way, William?" 
 
 " Well, the best way the cleverest way." 
 
 " But the honest way ?" 
 
 "I was not talking of honesty." 
 
 Edna regarded her husband keenly. Like every mar- 
 ried woman, she had to learn that there is much in mascu- 
 line nature difficult to understand ; not necessarily bad, 
 only incomprehensible. As, no doubt, William Stedman 
 had before now found out that his angel was a very wom- 
 an, full of manv little womanish faults that his larger na-
 
 232 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 ture required to be patient with. It was good for both 
 so to be taught humility. 
 
 "Don't let us discuss this matter to-night," said Edna, 
 rather sadly. " Do let it rest." 
 
 "No, it can not rest. You do not see women never 
 can that a man, if he has any pluck in him, will not sit 
 quiet under ill-fortune. He must get on in the world, by 
 fair means or foul. But this is no 'foul' means. It is 
 only doing, for the sake of expediency, a thing which, 
 perhaps, one does not quite like. Yet " 
 
 "But how can you do it at all? Keeping a carriage, 
 you say, will cost two hundred a year, and we have, alto- 
 gether, only five hundred a year to live upon." 
 
 " Yes, but in plain English, Edna, we must strain a 
 point, and do it upon credit." 
 
 "Upon credit!" 
 
 "I see you don't like that, neither do.I; but there is no 
 other way." 
 
 "No way to get on in the world without making peo- 
 ple believe we are 'better off than we really are, in the 
 chance of becoming what we pretend to be ?" 
 
 " You put the matter with an ugly plainness, consider- 
 ing how many people do it, and think nothing of it. Why, 
 half London lives beyond its income peers, ministers of 
 the crown, professional and business men why not a poor, 
 struggling doctor?" 
 
 "Why not? if he can bend his pride, and reconcile his 
 conscience to such a life," said Edna, with ah, let us con- 
 fess it a slight thrill of scorn in her clear voice. " Only 
 I should despise him so much that I should not like his 
 name to be Doctor William Stedman !" 
 
 Will sprung up. He was more than annoyed angry; 
 with that sudden wrath which has its origin in sundry in- 
 ward twinges, that sometimes hint to a man he is not quite 
 so much in the right as he tries to believe himself to be. 
 He walked up and down his dining-room, much displeased. 
 
 Let us give him his due. He was a very good man, 
 and a truly good man is, in some things, better than any 
 woman, because he has so much more temptation to be
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 233 
 
 otherwise. But the best man alive, who is compelled to 
 knock about in the world, receiving and giving many a 
 hard thump sometimes, finds it not easy to preserve quite 
 unstained that instinctive, ideal sense of right and wrong 
 which seems to be set in every good woman's breast, like 
 a deep, still pool in a virgin forest. Happy the man who 
 can always come to its pure, safe brink, and find heaven, 
 and nothing but heaven, reflected there ! 
 
 It was not in William Stedman's nature long to bear 
 anger against any one, least of all against his wife. They 
 differed occasionally, as any two human beings must dif- 
 fer, but they never quarrelled ; for the bitterness which 
 turns mere diversity of opinion into personal disputes was 
 to them absolutely unknown. After a time Dr. Stedman 
 stopped in his rapid walk. 
 
 "William," said Edna, "come over here and explain 
 what you mean, and I will try to understand it better. 
 You must not be vexed with me for saying what I think." 
 
 " Certainly not. I told you, when I married you, that 
 I wanted a thinking, feeling, rational, companionable wife, 
 not a Circassian slave. A man must be either a fool or a 
 tyrant who likes a woman to be his slave." 
 
 "And I am afraid I could never have been a slave, even 
 to you," replied Edna, laughing, with her old gayety; 
 "because I should first have despised you, then rebelled 
 against you, and finally I believe I should have run away 
 from you. But I won't do that, William not just yet !" 
 
 She put her arms round his neck, and looked at him with 
 eyes loving enough to have melted a heart of stone. She 
 might be a very fierce little woman still : undoubtedly she 
 was impulsive and irrational sometimes ; but she loved him. 
 
 Dr. Stedman sat down again, and began to explain, re- 
 peating, though not quite so forcibly as at first, the many 
 advantages of meeting the world on its own ground, and 
 of guiding one's conduct by that intermediate rule be- 
 tween right and wrong the law of expediency. No 
 doubt all he said was very wise ; but he did not seem to 
 say it with his heart in it, and there was an undertone of 
 sarcasm which pained Edna much.
 
 234 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 " I wonder," said she, " whether all the world is a sham 
 and the encourager of shams?" 
 
 " Or the dupe of them ? It's a melancholy truth, Edna ; 
 but I do believe my only chance of getting a good practice 
 is by pretending to have it already. Then, no doubt, I 
 should soon become a successful physician." 
 
 " And if so, would you really enjoy it ? Would you not' 
 rather despise the success that had been obtained by a 
 lie?" 
 
 William started. 
 
 " You are awfully severe. Who spoke of telling lies ?" 
 
 "An acted lie is just the same as a spoken one. And 
 to spend money when you have it not, and do not know 
 when you may have it, is nearly as bad as theft. Oh, Wil- 
 liam, I can't do it ! I can't reconcile my conscience to it. 
 You must act as you choose I have no right to prevent 
 you. Don't ask me ever to put my foot into your grand 
 carriage, or to enjoy the prosperity that was purchased by 
 a deception a cheat !" 
 
 She spoke vehemently the tears gushing from her eyes, 
 and then she clung to her husband and begged his pardon. 
 
 " I have said it wrongly violently ; I know I have ; but 
 still I have said the truth. Oh, please listen to it ! I want 
 to be proud of you, William. I am so proud of you the 
 one man in the world that I am thankful to have for my 
 husband and my " 
 
 Edna stopped. Moved by some strong emotion, she hid 
 her face, and began to tremble exceedingly. 
 
 William took her closer to him. 
 
 "What is the matter with you? My darling, what is 
 wrong ?" 
 
 " Nothing is wrong. Oh no ! Only, will you listen to 
 me?" 
 
 "Yes; say your say." 
 
 She repeated it in quiet words this time, and Dr. Sted- 
 man listened also quietly; for he was too wise a man to 
 be unreasonable. 
 
 "There, now, you speak like a rational woman," said he, 
 smiling, " and you don't use bad language to your has-
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 235 
 
 band, for it was very bad, Edna, my dear. 'Liar' and 
 ' thief I think you called me, or nearly so." 
 
 "Oh, William!" 
 
 " Well, I'm not quite that at present. And, my dar- 
 ling, I own there is some little truth in what you say. I 
 am afraid I should not care for any success that was not 
 fairly earned without need of resorting to a single sham. 
 And if it did not come if I failed to make a practice af- 
 ter all, and found myself fathoms deep in debt, like some 
 poor wretches I know " 
 
 " Still, that is not the question. I was not arguing as 
 to consequences. Dearest husband, don't do this, I be- 
 seech you, but only because it is 1 not right to do it." 
 
 William paused a little half thoughtful, half amused; 
 then he said, with a smile 
 
 "Well, then, I won't. But, my little woman, if you 
 have to trudge on your two poor feet all your life-long, 
 remember it's not my fault. Now kiss and be friends." 
 
 Ay, they were "friends." Neither goddess and wor- 
 shipper tyrant and slave simply and equally friends. 
 
 "And now tell me, Edna, what you were going to say 
 just now when you broke oif so abruptly, and got into 
 such a state of agitation as I never saw before? You 
 foolish little woman ! Why were you so fierce with me?" 
 
 " Because I did not want you to do any thing not quite 
 right, or that you might afterwards be ashamed of, since 
 you will have to think not only of ourselves, but " her 
 voice fell and her hand drooped " of more than ourselves. 
 Because next summer, please God, if He keeps me safe 
 and alive " 
 
 She threw herself on her husband's bosom in a passion 
 of tears, and he guessed all. 
 
 "I was afraid to tell you," Edna said, after a long si- 
 lence, " you had so much anxiety, and this will add to it. 
 I know it must. Are you afraid ? Are you sorry ?" 
 
 " Sorry !" the young man cried, with all his soul in his 
 eyes, as he clasped his wife to his heart. " I sorry ? Let 
 us thank God !"
 
 236 
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IT was in sunshiny summer weather like those days in 
 the Isle of Wight when she was first married, that Edna's 
 little baby came to her. The same evening there came 
 to the tall elm-tree in their little bit of garden a black- 
 bird, who, like Southey's thrush, took up his abode there, 
 and sung morning, noon, and night his rich, loud, con- 
 tented song to the mother, as she lay, a " happy prisoner," 
 with her first-born by her side. In after-days, Edna never 
 heard a blackbird's note without remembering that time, 
 and its ecstasy of restful joy. 
 
 What need to write about it? a joy common as day- 
 light yet ever fresh : to the queen who gives an heir to 
 millions, or the poor toiler in field or mill who brings only 
 a new claimant for the inheritance of labor and poverty. 
 But upon neither does the unknown future look with an- 
 gry eye the present is all in all. So it was with Edna. 
 Her eldest son was born amidst considerable straitness of 
 means and many anxieties ; his mother made him no cost- 
 ly baby-clothes, nor welcomed him in a grand nursery,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 237 
 
 with every device of fantastic love : she only took him in 
 her arms and rejoiced over him as the Hebrew women 
 rejoiced of old her man-child, her gift from the Lord. 
 
 And William Stedman the young man thrown igno- 
 rantly and unthinkingly, as most young men are, into the 
 mystery and responsibility of fatherhood how did he feel? 
 
 Whatever he felt, he said little : he was not in the habit 
 of saying much except to his wife. Nor, at first, did he 
 take very much notice of the small creature in whom his 
 own face was so funnily reproduced. But he never forgot 
 something repeated to him by his sister-in-law during a 
 certain fearful half hour when his wife lay, half conscious, 
 her life hanging on a thread " Tell William to be a real 
 father to my poor baby." 
 
 Many a time, when nobody saw him, Dr. Stedman 
 would creep in and look at his boy, a grave tender look, 
 as if he were pondering on the future his son's and his 
 own with infinite humility, yet without dread. More 
 sadly wise than Edna in worldly things, and not having 
 no man has that natural instinct for children which 
 makes them a pure joy, and, at first, nothing else : yet it 
 was clear that he too was striving to take up the conjoint 
 burden of parenthood accepting both its pleasantness 
 and its pain; and so was likely to become worthy oh, 
 how few men are ! of being a father. 
 
 Letty did not understand her sister's felicity at all. She 
 thought the baby would be a great trouble and a great 
 expense, when they had cares enough already. She won- 
 dered how people could be so foolish as to marry unless 
 they had every thing nice and comfortable about them 
 as was far from the case here, especially of late, when 
 double work had fallen upon poor Letty's elegant shoul- 
 ders. She had more than once declared that if ever a 
 baby was born she would look out for a situation, and re- 
 lieve her brother-in-law from the burden of her mainte- 
 nance, and herself from the alarming duties of a maiden 
 aunt. But Letty always talked of things much oftener 
 than she did them ; and besides But it is useless at- 
 tempting to analyze her motives ; probably for the simple
 
 238 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 reason that she had no motives at all. As she said one 
 day to Julius, who all this winter and spring had kept 
 coming and going, sometimes absenting himself for weeks, 
 then again appearing every evening at his brother's house, 
 to sit with Edna and Letty, though he paid the latter no 
 particular attention "What did it matter where she 
 went or what she did ? nobody cared about her she was 
 a solitary creature, and therefore quite free." 
 
 The evening she gave utterance to this pathetic senti- 
 ment Aunt Letty was a very lovely object to behold. 
 She had taken the baby ; for, though not enthusiastic over 
 it, she was a woman still, and liked to nurse it and " cud- 
 dle " it sometimes. As it lay asleep on her shoulder, with 
 one of its tiny hands clutching her finger, and her other 
 hand supporting it, she looked not unlike one of Rafiaelle's 
 Madonnas. 
 
 "Stop a minute just as you are; I want to sketch 
 you," said Julius, rousing himself from a long gaze not 
 at the baby, for whom, though it was his namesake, Uncle 
 Julius had testified no exuberant admiration. But still, it 
 being safely asleep, he continued sitting with Letty in the 
 drawing-room, as he had got into a habit of doing of even- 
 ings, since Edna's disappearance up stairs. 
 
 " Dear me, Julius, I should think you were quite tired 
 of taking my likeness ; but Edna will be in raptures if 
 you draw the baby."- 
 
 Julius curled his satirical lip more satirical and less 
 sweet than it once was, and then said, with a certain com- 
 punction, "Oh, very well; I'd do much to please Edna, 
 the dearest little woman that ever was born. How she 
 puts up with a fellow like me is more than I can tell. I 
 think that night I walked our street with Will, and we 
 did not know but that she might slip away from us before 
 the morning, I would almost have given my life for poor 
 Edna's." 
 
 The voice was so full of feeling, that Aunt Letty open- 
 ed her eyes wide to stare at Uncle Julius only to stare ; 
 the penetrating, yet loving gleam of sympathy was not in 
 those large beautiful orbs of hers.
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 239 
 
 UNCLE AND AUNT. 
 
 " Not that my life would have been much of a gift," 
 added Julius. " It is of little value now to me or to any 
 body. Once, perhaps, and under different circumstances, 
 it might have been." 
 
 Letty dropped her eyes. It was the first time her re- 
 jected lover had made any reference to those "circum- 
 stances," though she had sometimes tried, a little coquet-
 
 240 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 tishly, to find out whether he remembered them or not. 
 For it was provoking, to say the least of it, that he should 
 so quickly have overcome a passion which he had vowed 
 would be eternal that he could see her Letty in all 
 her fascinations, weekly, daily, if he so wished, and yet be 
 as apparently indifferent to her as he was to the many 
 other young ladies of his acquaintance, whom he was al- 
 ways talking about and criticising, as probably he criti- 
 cised her to them in return. The idea rather vexed Letty. 
 
 She, and even his own brother, knew little of Julius's 
 life beyond what they saw when he made his erratic ap- 
 pearances and disappearances. Now, as of old, all his 
 brother's friends were his, but only a small proportion of 
 his friends were also his brother's. Julius cultivated a 
 class of intimacies which William had never cared much 
 for, and now cared less the floating spin-drift of literary, 
 artistic, and semi-theatrical society clever men, and not 
 bad men, at least nobody much knew whether they were 
 bad or good, and certainly nobody much cared, brains be- 
 ing of far greater use and at a far higher premium than 
 morals. With this set, lounging about during the day, 
 and meeting of nights at various well-known symposia 
 of men only men, and not their wives, even if they had 
 any Julius spent much of his time. But he never 
 brought these friends to his brother's house, or, indeed, 
 said much about them, except that they were "such jolly 
 clever fellows so excessively amusing." 
 
 Amusement was, however, not his whole pursuit. He 
 sometimes took vehement fits of work, which lasted a day 
 or -two, perhaps a week or two; then he would throw up 
 his picture, in whatever stage it was, and devote himself 
 to every form of ingenious idling. In short, he was slow- 
 ly drifting into that desultory, useless existence, grasping 
 at every thing and taking a firm hold of nothing, which, 
 without any actual vice, is the very opposite of that calm, 
 pure life laborious and full of labor's reward which is 
 the making of a real man. 
 
 And its effects were 1 already beginning to be painfully 
 apparent. Sallow cheeks, restless eyes, hand shaking and
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 241 
 
 nervous ; brightening up towards night, but of mornings, 
 as he confessed, utterly good for nothing except to lounge 
 and smoke, or lie and sleep in thankful torpor all these 
 signs foreboded fatally for poor Julius. His brother be- 
 gan to doctor him for " dyspepsia ;" but Edna, less learned, 
 yet clearer-eyed, detected a something more a sickness 
 of the soul, far sadder, and more difficult of cure. 
 
 He who had no one to. think of but himself, who earned 
 a tolerable livelihood which he spent wholly upon himself, 
 was beginning to look older and more anxious than his 
 brother, with all his burdens. 
 
 Now, while Letty and Julius were talking lightly down 
 stairs, in Edna's room overhead was a grave silence. Wil- 
 liam, coming in to spend a quiet hour beside his wife's sofa, 
 had fallen dead asleep through sheer weariness. And Edna 
 was watching him as Letty watched his brother, but with, 
 oh ! what a sort of different gaze ! The difference which 
 always had been, and would be to the last eyes that said 
 honestly, "I love you;" and the coquettish, down-drop- 
 ped glance that inquired selfishly, " I wonder how much 
 you love me ?" 
 
 Women are often attracted by their opposites in men, 
 and perhaps some woman, bright and wise, with large pa- 
 tience, and courage enough to sustain both herself and 
 him, might have loved deeply and understood thoroughly 
 this Julius Stedman. But Letty beautiful Letty was 
 not that sort of woman. Therefore, while he made his last 
 remark about his life being of no value to any body, she 
 only sat and looked at him. 
 
 " Yes, mine is a wasted life, Letty. I shall end like that 
 stranded ship on the Isle of Wight shore; you remem- 
 ber it?" 
 
 " Nonsense !" said Letty, blushing a little. " Or if it is 
 so, it will be your own fault. You artists are always so 
 miserably poor." 
 
 " Some of us do pretty well, though, if we run after titled 
 patrons and high society. Or, if we happen to be especial- 
 ly fascinating, we marry rich wives, and " 
 
 "Perhaps that is what you are thinking of doing?" in- 
 
 L
 
 242 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 
 
 terrupted Letty, with some acrimony. " Indeed it struck 
 me there was more than met the eye in a hint Mrs. March- 
 mont gave me to-day, as I dare say Mr. Marchmont has 
 given to you." 
 
 "What?" asked Julius, eagerly. 
 
 " That, if you liked to change your career, he thought 
 so well of you, and of your extreme cleverness for every 
 thing business included that he would take you into 
 their house at once ; first as a clerk, and then as a partner." 
 
 '"Marchmont and Stedman, indigo -planters!' How 
 grand it would sound ! What an enviable position !" 
 said Julius, satirically ; though not confessing whether or 
 not the news had come upon him for the first time. 
 
 " Very enviable indeed," said Letty, gravely ; " and es- 
 pecially with Miss Lily Marchmont to share it." 
 
 Julius winced, but turned it off with a laugh. 
 
 " Lily Marchmont poor Lily ! A nice creature ! if she 
 were only a little taller, and not quite so fat." 
 
 " She is getting as thin as a shadow now, at any rate," 
 said Letty, in much annoyance. " But it is no use speak- 
 ing to you, or trying to get any thing out of you, Julius. 
 Indeed you're not worth thinking about." 
 
 "I was not aware you ever did me the honor to think 
 about me at all." 
 
 " Oh yes," returned Letty, with an air of sweet simplici- 
 ty. "Who could help it, when you are always here, and 
 every body is so fond of you, and makes such a fuss over 
 you ? Edna told me that if any thing had happened to 
 her, you were to come back and live here again. I was to 
 tell you that she depended upon you to take care of and 
 comfort William.-" 
 
 " Poor Edna dear Edna to fancy I could comfort 
 any body ! But this is ridiculous !" added he, abruptly. 
 " Here are Edna and Will, both as jolly as possible, and 
 that young rascal besides, to carry down the ugly name 
 of Stedman to remotest ages. Every body is all right 
 except me and as to what becomes of me, who cares ? 
 Not a soul in this mortal world. But I beg your pardon, 
 and I am wasting your time. Just move your right hand,
 
 THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. 263 
 
 
 
 The rich merchant's only child had fallen in love with 
 the poor artist, frantically, desperately, and held to him 
 with a persistent passion' that, being concealed, came in 
 time to sap the very springs of life. In fact, she was dying 
 merry, rosy-faced Lily Marchmont dying literally of a 
 broken heart. How far Julius \*as to blame nobody could 
 say: he himself declared that he was not that he had 
 never made love to her, never intended such a thing. And 
 when at last Lily's secret being discovered her misera- 
 ble parents betrayed it to him, and made him this propo- 
 sal for her sake, he declined it. Whatever he had done, 
 he did the right thing now. He was too honorable to de- 
 grade a woman by marrying her for mere pity, when he 
 felt not an atom of love. 
 
 " You did right," said Will, with energy. "And all this 
 was going on, and we knew nothing you kept it so close. 
 What you must have suffered, my poor fellow !" 
 
 " Never mind me ; there's another I think of much more. 
 Poor little thing ! God forgive me all the misery I have 
 caused her !" And could she have seen Julius then, Lily 
 might have felt herself half avenged. 
 
 " Does she know about Letty ?" 
 
 "Yes; I told her clear and plain. It was the only 
 honest thing to do. But it signifies little now ; she is dy- 
 ing ; and before she dies she wants her parents to adopt 
 me as a son to take me into the house of business, either 
 in London or Calcutta only fancy my going out to Cal- 
 cutta ! first as a clerk, with a rising salary, and then as a 
 partner. She settled it all, poor girl, and her father came 
 and implored me to accept. But I never thought of it, not 
 for one minute, till they told Letty, and Letty urged me to 
 agree. She has no scruples about poor little Lily." 
 
 "And Lily?" 
 
 " Lily only thinks of Letty that is, of me through her. 
 She wants me to be happy with Letty when she is gone. 
 Oh, it's a queer world !" 
 
 Will thought so too, as he recalled the merry little girl, 
 whose governess his wife had been, who had now and then 
 come to his house, and whom he knew Edna was fond of