THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
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 CECIL CASTLEMAINE^S GAGE, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 

 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE, 
 
 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER STORIES. 
 
 By "OUIDA," 
 
 AIITHOa OF "n>AUA," " STRATHMORE," «'CHA[n)OS," "OBAJVYIU^ 
 DS VIQNE," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
 189G,
 
 C3Z 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TuE PuBLiSHEES have the pleasure of offering to 
 the many admirers of the writings of " Ouida," the 
 present volume of Contributions, which have appeared 
 from time to time in the leading Journals of Europe, 
 and which have recently been collected and revised by 
 the author, for publication in book-form. 
 
 They have also in press, to be speedily published, 
 another similar volume of tales, from the same pen, 
 togetlibx with an unpublished romance entitled 
 "Under Two Flags." 
 
 Our editions of Ouida's Works are published by 
 express arrangement with the author; and any other 
 editions that may anpear in the American market will 
 be issued in violation of the courtesies usually ex- 
 tended both to authors and publishers. 
 
 Philadelphia, May, 18G7. 
 
 (Tii) 
 
 < f\ 
 
 ""> O ''"" (~~^ it 
 
 •^t;^oa:
 
 PAGB 
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE; oe, The Story op a 
 
 Broidebed Shield 11 
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS; or, Our 
 
 Maltese Peerage 37 
 
 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; or, The Worries of 
 A Chaperone. — In Three Seasons : — 
 
 Season the First. — The Eligible 84 
 
 Season the Second. — The Ogre 121 
 
 Season the Third. — The Climax 164 
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE ; or, Pendant to a Pas- 
 tel BY La Tour... 211 
 
 I. The First Morning 212 
 
 n. The Second Morning 218 
 
 IIL Midnight 227 
 
 "DEADLY DASH." A Story told on the Off Day 235 
 
 (ix)
 
 2 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE GENERAL'S MATCH-MAKING; oe, Coaches and 
 
 CousiNSHiP 265 
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD; ok, A Doubled-down 
 
 Leaj in a Man's Life 306 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR ; ok, Not at all a 
 
 Pkofkk Pekson 339 
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE : Pendant to a Por- 
 trait BT MiONABD 368
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE STORY OF A BROIDERED SHIELD, 
 
 fECIL CASTLEMAINE was the beauty of her 
 county and her line, the handsomest of all tlie 
 handsome women that had graced her race, when 
 she moved, a century and a half ago, down the stately 
 staircase, and through the gilded and tapestried halls of 
 Lilliesford. The Town had run mad after her, and her 
 face levelled politics, and was cited as admiringly by the 
 Whigs at St. James's as by the Tories at the Cocoa-tree, 
 by the beaux and Mohocks at Garraway's as by the 
 alumni at the Grecian, by the wits at Will's as by the 
 fops at Ozinda's. 
 
 Wherever she went, whether to the Haymarket or the 
 Opera, to the 'Change for a fan or the palace for a state 
 ball, to Drury Lane to see Pastoral Philips's dreary 
 dilution of Racine, or to some fair chief of her faction 
 for basset and ombre, she was surrounded by the best 
 men of her time, and hated by Whig beauties witli viru- 
 lent wrath, for she was a Tory to the backbone, indeed a 
 Jacobite at heart ; worshipped Bolingbroke, detested 
 MaWborough and Eugene, believed in all the horrors of 
 tne programme said to have been plotted by the Whigs 
 for the anniversary show of 1711, and was thought to 
 have prompted the satire on those fair politicians who
 
 12 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 are disguised as Rosalinda and Nigranilla iu the 81st 
 paper of the Spectator. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine was the greatest beauty of her day, 
 lovelier still at four-and-twenty than she had been at seveu- 
 teeu, unwedded, though the highest coronets in the land 
 had been offered to her ; far above the coquetteries and 
 miuauderies of her friends, far above imitation of the affec- 
 tations of " Lady Betty Medley's skuttle," or need of prac- 
 tising the Fan exercise ; haughty, peerless, radiant, unwon 
 — nay, more — untouched ; for the finest gentleman on the 
 town could not flatter himself that he had ever stirred the 
 slightest trace of interest in her, nor boast, as he stood in 
 the inner circle at the Chocolate-house (unless, indeed, he 
 lied more impudently than Tom Wharton himself), that he 
 had ever been honored by a glance of encouragement from 
 the Earl's daughter. She was too proud to cheapen her- 
 self with coquetry, too fastidious to care for her conquests 
 over those who whispered to her through Nicolini's song, 
 vied to have the privilege of carrying her fan, drove past 
 her windows in Soho Square, crowded about her in St. 
 James's Park, paid court even to her little spaniel Inda- 
 mara, and, to catch but a glimpse of her brocaded train 
 as it swept a ball-room floor, would leave even their play 
 at the Groom Porter's, Mrs. Oldfield in the green-room, 
 a night hunt with Mohun and their brother Mohocks, a 
 circle of wits gathered " within the steam of the coffee- 
 pot" at Will's, a dinner at Halifax's, a supper at Boling- 
 broke's, — whatever, according to their several tastes, made 
 their best entertainment and was hardest to quit. 
 
 The highest suitors of the day sought her smile and 
 sued for her hand ; men left the Court and the Mall to 
 join the Flanders army before the lines at Bouchain lesa 
 for loyal love of England than hopeless love of Cecil 
 Castlemaine. Her father vainly urged her not to fling 
 away offers that all the women at St. James's envied her. 
 She was untouched and unwon, and when her friends, the
 
 CECIL CASTLEiMAINE'S GAGE. 13 
 
 court beauties, the fine ladies, the coquettes of quality, 
 rallied her on her coldness (envying her her conquests), 
 she would smile her slight proud smile and bow her 
 stately head. "Perhaps she was cold; she might be; 
 they were personnable men ? Oh yes ! she had nothing 
 to say against them. His Grace of Belamour ? — A pretty 
 wit, without doubt. Lord Millamont? — Diverting, but 
 a coxcomb. He had beautiful hands ; it was a pity he 
 was always thinking of them ! Sir Gage Rivers ? — As 
 obsequious a lover as the man in the * Way of the World,' 
 Dut she had heard he was very boastful and facetious at 
 women over his chocolate at Ozinda's. The Earl of 
 Argent? — A gallant soldier, surely, but whatever he 
 might protest, no mistress would ever rival with him the 
 dice at the Groom Porter's. Lord Philip Bellairs ? — A 
 proper gentleman ; no fault in him ; a bel esprit and an 
 elegant courtier ; pleased many, no doubt, but he did not 
 please her overmuch. Perhaps her taste was too finical, 
 or her character too cold, as they said. She preferred it 
 should be so. When you were content it were folly to 
 seek a change. For her part, she failed to comprehend 
 how women could stoop to flutter their fans and choose 
 their ribbons, and rack their tirewomen's brains for new 
 pulvillios, and lappets, and devices, and practise their 
 curtsy and recovery before their pier-glass, for no better 
 aim or stake than to draw the glance and win the praise 
 of men for whom they cared nothing. A woman who 
 had the eloquence of beauty and a true pride should 
 be above heed for such affectations, pleasure in such 
 applause ! " 
 
 So she would put them all aside and turn the tables ou 
 her friends, and go on her own way, proud, peerless, Gecil 
 Castlemaine, conquering and unconquered ; and Steele 
 must have had her name in his thoughts, and honored it 
 heartily and sincerely, when he wrote one Tuesday, on 
 the 21st of October, under the domino of his Church Co- 
 2
 
 14 CECIL castlemaine's gage 
 
 quet.te, " I say I do honor to those who can be coquette* 
 and are not such, but I despise all who would be so, and, 
 in despair of arriving at it themselves, hate and vilify all 
 those who can." A definition justly drawn by his keen, 
 quick graver, though doubtless it only excited the ire of, 
 and was entirely lost upon, those who read the paper over 
 their dish of bohea, or over their toilette, while they 
 shifted a patch for an hour before they could determine 
 it, or regretted the loss of ten guineas at crimp. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of the Town : when 
 she sat at Drury Lane on the Tory side of the house, the 
 devoutest admirer of Oldfield or Mrs. Porter scarcely 
 heard a Avord of the Heroic Daughter, or the Amorous 
 Widow, and the " beau fullest of his own dear self" for- 
 got his silver-fringed gloves, his medallion snuff-box, his 
 knotted cravat, his clouded cane, the slaughter that he 
 planned to do, from gazing at her where she sat as though 
 she were reigning sovereign at St. James's, the Castle- 
 maine diamonds flashing crescent-like above her brow. 
 At church and court, at park and assembly, there were 
 none who could eclipse that haughty gentlewoman ; there- 
 fore her fond women friends who had caressed her so 
 warmly and so gracefully, and pulled her to pieces behind 
 her back, if they could, so eagerly over their dainty cups 
 of tea in an afternoon visit, were glad, one and all, when 
 on " Barnabybright," Anglice, the 22d (then the 11th) 
 of June, the great Castlemaine chariot, with its three 
 herons blazoned on its coroneted panels, its laced liveries 
 and gilded harness, rolled over the heavy, ill-made roads 
 down into the country in almost princely pomp, the peas- 
 ants pouring out from the wayside cottages to stare at my 
 lord's coach. 
 
 It was said in the town that a portly divine, who wore 
 his scarf as one of the chaplains to the Earl of Castle- 
 maine, had prattled somewhat indiscreetly at Child's of 
 his patron's politics ; that certain cipher letters had
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE. l5 
 
 passed the Channel enclosed in chocolate-cakes as soon aa 
 French goods wei'e again imported after the peace of 
 Utrecht ; that gentlemen in high places were strongly 
 suspected of mischievous designs against the tranquillity 
 of the country and government; that the Earl had, 
 among others, received a friendly hint from a relative in 
 power to absent himself for a while from the court where he 
 was not best trusted, and the town where an incautious 
 word might be picked up and lead to Tower Hill, and 
 amuse himself at his goodly castle of Lilliesford, where 
 the red deer would not spy upon him, and the dark beech- 
 woods would tell no tales. And the ladies of quality, her 
 dear friends and sisters, were glad when they heard it as 
 they punted at basset and fluttered their fans compla- 
 cently. They would have the field for themselves, for a 
 season, while Cecil Castlemaine was immured in her 
 manor of Lilliesford ; would be free of her beauty to 
 eclipse them at the next birthday, be quit of their most 
 dreaded rival, their most omnipotent leader of fashion - 
 and they rejoiced at the whisper of the cipher letter, the 
 damaging gossipry of the Whig coffee-houses, the bad 
 repute into which my Lord Earl had grown at St. 
 James's, at the misfortune of their friend, in a word, as 
 human nature, masculine or feminine, will ever do — to 
 its shame be it spoken — unless the fomes peccati be more 
 completely wrung out of it than it ever has been since the 
 angel Gabriel performed that work of purification on the 
 infant Mahomet. 
 
 It was the June of the year '15, and the coming dis- 
 affection was seething and boiling secretly among the 
 Tories ; the impeachment of Ormond and Bolingbroke 
 had strengthened the distaste to the new-come Hanove- 
 rian pack, their attainder had been the blast of air needed 
 to excite the smouldering wood to flame, the gentlemen 
 of that party in the South began to grow impatient of the 
 intrusion of the distant German branch, to think lovingly
 
 16 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 3f the old legitimate line, and to feel something of the 
 chafing irritation of the gentlemen of the North, who 
 were fretting like stag-hounds held in leash. 
 
 Envoys passed to and fro between St. Germain, and 
 Jacobite nobles, priests of the church that had fallen out 
 oT favor and was typified as the Scarlet "Woman by a 
 rival who, though successful, was still bitter, plotted with 
 ecclesiastical relish in the task ; letters were conveyed in 
 rolls of innocent lace, plans were forwarded in frosted 
 confections, messages were passed in invisible cipher that 
 defied investigation. The times were dangerous ; full of 
 plot and counterplot, of risk and danger, of fomenting 
 projects and hidden disaflfection — times in which men, 
 living habitually over mines, learned to like the uncer- 
 tainty, and to think life flavorless without the chance of 
 losing it any hour ; and things being in this state, the 
 Earl of Castlemaine deemed it prudent to take the coun- 
 sel of his friend in power, and retire from London for a 
 while, perhaps for the safety of his own person, perhaps 
 for the advancement of his cause, either of which were 
 easier insured at his seat in the western counties than 
 amidst the Whigs of the capital. 
 
 The castle of Lilliesford was bowered in the thick 
 woods of the western counties, a giant pile built by Nor- 
 man masons. Troops of deer herded under the gold- 
 green beechen boughs, the sunlight glistened through the 
 aisles of the trees, and quivered down on to the thick 
 moss, and ferns, and tangled grass that grew under the 
 park woodlands ; the water-lilies clustered on the river, 
 and the swans " floated double, swan and shadow," under 
 the leaves that swept into the water; then, when Cecil 
 Castlemaine came down to share her father's retirement, 
 as now, when her name and titles on the gold plate of a 
 coffin that lies with others of her race in the mausoleum 
 across the park, where winter snows and summer sun- 
 rays are alike to those who sleep within, is all that, tells
 
 CECIL castlemaine's oaoe. 17 
 
 at Lilliesford of the loveliest womau of her time who once 
 reiffned there us mistress. 
 
 The country was in its glad green midsummer beauty, 
 and the musk-rosebuds bloomed in profuse luxuriance 
 over the chill marble of the terraces, and scattered tlieir 
 delicate odorous petals in fragrant showers on the sward 
 of the lawns, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to what 
 she termed her exile. The morning was fair and cloud- 
 less, its sunbeams piercing through the darkest glades in 
 the woodlands, the thickftst shroud of the ivy, the deep- 
 est-hued pane of the muilioned windows, as she passed 
 down the great staircase where lords and gentlewomen of 
 her race gazed on her from the canvas of Lely and Jarae- 
 sone, Bourdain and Vandyke, crossed the hall with her 
 dainty step, so stately yet so light, and standing by the 
 window of her own bower- room, was lured out on to the 
 terrace overlooking the west side of the park. 
 
 She made such a picture as Vandyke would have liked 
 to paint, Avith her golden glow upon her, and the musk- 
 roses clustering about her round the pilasters of marble — ■ 
 the white chill marble to w^hich Belamour and many other 
 of her lovers of the court and town had often likened her. 
 Vandyke would have lingered lovingly on the hand that 
 rested on her stag-hound's head, would have caught her 
 air of court-like grace and dignity, would have painted 
 with delighted fidelity her deep azure eyes, her proud 
 brow, her delicate lips arched haughtily like a cupid's 
 bow, would have picked out every fold of her sweeping 
 train, every play of light on her silken skirts, every dainty 
 tracery of her point- lace. Yet even painted by Sir An- 
 thony, that perfect master of art and of elegance, though 
 more finished it could have hardly been more faithful, 
 more instinct with grace, and life, and dignity, than a 
 sketch drawn of her shortly after that time by one who 
 loved her well, which is still hanging in the gallery at 
 2* li 
 
 1
 
 i8 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 Lilliesford, lighted up by the afternoon sun when it 
 streams in through the western windows. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine stood on the terrace looking over the 
 lawns and gardens through the opening vistas of meeting 
 boughs and interlaced leaves to the woods and hills be- 
 yond, fused in a soft mist of green and purple, with her 
 hand lying carelessly on her hound's broad head. She 
 was a zealous Tory, a skilled politician, and her thoughts 
 were busy with the hopes and fears, the chances for and 
 against, of a cause that lay near her heart, but whose 
 plans were yet immature, whose first blow was yet un- 
 struck, and whose well-wishers were sanguine of a success 
 they had not yet hazarded, though they hardly ventured 
 to whisper to each other their previous designs and desires. 
 Her thoughts were far away, and she hardly heeded the 
 beauty round her, musing on schemes and projects dear 
 to her party, that would imperil the Castlemaine coronet, 
 but would serve the only royal house the Castlemaine line 
 had ever in their hearts acknowledged. 
 
 She had regretted leaving the Town, moreover ; a 
 leader of the mode, a wit, a woman of the world, she 
 missed her accustomed sphere; she w^as no pastoral 
 Phyllis, no country-born Mistress Fiddy, to pass her time 
 in provincial pleasures, in making cordial waters, in 
 tending her beau-pots, in preserving her fallen rose- 
 leaves, in inspecting the confections in the still-room ; as 
 little was she able, like many fine ladies when in simi- 
 lar exile, to while it away by scolding her tirewomen, and 
 sorting a suit of ribbons, in ordering a set of gilded leather 
 hangings from Chelsea for the state chambers, and yawn- 
 ing over chocolate in her bed till mid-day. She regretted 
 leaving the Town, not for Belamour, nor Argent, nor any 
 of those Avho vainly hoped, as they glanced at the little 
 mirror in the lids of their snuft-boxes, that they might 
 have graven themselves, Avere it ever so faintly, in her 
 thoughts ; but for the wits, the pleasures, the choice
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE's OAQE. 13 
 
 clique, the accustomed circle to which she was so used, 
 the courtly, brilliant town-life where she was wont to 
 reign. 
 
 So she stood on the terrace the first morning of her 
 exile, her thoughts far away, with the loyal gentlemen of 
 the North, and the banished court at St. Germain, the 
 lids drooping proudly over her haughty eyes, and her lipg 
 half parted with a faint smile of trium])h -n the visions 
 limned by ambition and imagination, wJiii« the wind 
 softly stirred the rich lace of her bodice, and her fingers 
 lay lightly, yet firmly, on the head of her stag-hound. 
 She looked up at last as she heard the ring of a horse's 
 hoofs, and saw a sorrel, covered with dust and foam, spurred 
 up the avenue, which, rounding past the terrace, swept 
 on to the front entrance; the sorrel looked wellnigh 
 spent, and his rider somewhat worn and languid, as a 
 man might do with justice who had been in boot and 
 saddle twenty-four hours at the stretch, scarce stopping 
 for a stoup of Avine; but he lifted his hat, and bowed 
 down to his saddle-bow as he passed her. 
 
 " Was it the long-looked-for messenger with definitb 
 news from St. Germain ? " wondered Lady Cecil, as her 
 hound gave out a deep-tongued bay of anger at the 
 stranger. She went back into her bower-room, and toyed 
 absently with her flowered handkerchief, broidering a 
 stalk to a violet-leaf, and wondering what additional 
 hope the horseman might have brought to strengthen the 
 good Cause, till her servants brought word that his Lord- 
 ship prayed the pleasure of her presence in the octagon- 
 room. Whereat she rose, and swept through the long 
 corridors, entered the octagon-room, the sunbeams gather- 
 ing about her rich dress as they passed through the 
 Btained-glass oriels, and saluted the new-comer, when her 
 father presented him to her as their trusty and welcome 
 friend and envoy. Sir Fulke Ravensworth, with her care- 
 less dignity and (jucenly grace, that nameless air which
 
 20 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 was too highly bred to be condescension, but markedly 
 and proudly repelled familiarity, and signed a pale of 
 distance beyond which none must intrude. 
 
 The new-comer was a tall and handsome man, of noble 
 presence, bronzed by foreign suns, pale and jaded just 
 now with hard riding, while his dark silver-laced suit 
 was splashed and covered with dust ; but as he bowed low 
 to her, critical Cecil Castlemaine saw that not Belamour 
 himself could have better grace, not my Lord Millamon.. 
 courtlier mien nor whiter hands, and listened with gra- 
 cious air to what her father unfolded to her of his mis- 
 Bion from St. Germain, whither he had come, at great 
 personal risk, in many disguises, and at breathless speed, 
 to place in their hands a precious letter in cipher from 
 James Stuart to his well-beloved and loyal subject Her- 
 bert George, Earl of Castlemaine. A letter spoken of 
 with closed doors and in low whispers, loyal as was the 
 household, supreme as the Earl ruled over his domains 
 of Lilliesford, for these were times when men mistrusted 
 those of their own blood, and when the very figures on 
 the tapestry seemed instinct with life to spy and betray 
 — when they almost feared the silk that tied a missive 
 should babble of its contents, and the hound that slept 
 beside them should read and tell their thoughts. 
 
 To leave Lilliesford would be danger to the Envoy and 
 danger to the Cause ; to stay as guest was to disarm sus- 
 picion. The messenger who had brought such priceless 
 news must rest within the shelter of his roof; too much 
 were risked by returning to the French coast yet a while, 
 or even by joining Mar or Derwentwater, so the Earl en- 
 forced his will upon the Envoy., and the Envoy thanked 
 him and accepted. 
 
 Perchance the beauty, Avhose eyes he had seen lighten 
 and proud brow flush as she read the royal greeting and 
 injunction, made a sojourn near her presence not distaste- 
 ful ; perchance he cared little where he stayed till the
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE's GAGE. 21 
 
 dawning time of action and of rising should arrive, when 
 he should take the field and fight till life or death for the 
 " White Rose and the long heads of hair." He was a 
 soldier of fortune, a poor gentleman with no patrimony 
 hut his name, no chance of distinction save by his sword ; 
 sworn to a cause whose star was set forever ; for many 
 years his life li^d been of changing adventure and shift- 
 ing chances, now fighting with Berwick at Almanza, now 
 risking his life in some delicate and dangerous errand for 
 James Stuart that could not have been trusted so well to 
 any other officer about St. Germain ; gallant to rashness, 
 yet with much of the acumen of the diplomatist, he was 
 invaluable to his Court and Cause, but, Stuart-like, men- 
 like, they hastened to employ, but ever forgot to reward I 
 
 Lady Cecil missed her town-life, and did not over-favor 
 her exile in the western counties. To note down on her 
 Mather's tablets the drowsy homilies droned out by the 
 chaplain on a Sabbath noon, to play at crambo, to talk 
 with her tirewomen of new washes for the skin, to pass her 
 hours away in knotting? — she, whom Steele might have 
 writ of when he drew his character of Eudoxia, could 
 wile her exile with none of these inanities ; neither could 
 she consort with gentry who seemed to her little better 
 than the boors of a country wake, who had never heard 
 of Mr. Spectator and knew nothing of Mr. Cowley, 
 countrywomen whose ambition was in their cowslip 
 wines, fox-hunters more ignorant and uncouth than the 
 dumb brutes they followed. 
 
 Who was there for miles around with whom she could 
 Btoop to associate, with whom she cared to exchange a 
 word ? Madam from the vicarage, in her grogram, learned 
 in syrups, salves, and possets ? Country Lady Bouutifuls, 
 with gossip of the village and the poultry-yard ? Provincial 
 Peeresses, who had never been to London since Queen 
 Anne's coronation? A squirearchy, who knew of no 
 music save the concert of their stop-hounds, no court save
 
 22 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 the court of the county assize, no literature unless by 
 miracle 't were Tarleton's Jests ? None such as these could 
 cross the inlaid oak parquet of Lilliesford, and be ushered 
 into the presence of Cecil Castlemaine. 
 
 So the presence of the Chevalier's messenger was not 
 altogether unwelcome and distasteful to her. She saw him 
 but little, merely conversing at table with him with that 
 distant and dignified courtesy which marked her out from 
 the light, free, inconsequent manners in vogue with other 
 women of quality of her time ; the air which had chilled 
 half the softest things even on Belamour's lips, and kept 
 the vainest coxcomb hesitating and abashed. 
 
 But by degrees she observed that the Envoy was a man 
 who had lived in many countries and in many courts, was 
 well versed in the tongues of France and Italy and Spain — 
 in their belles-lettres too, moreover — and had served his 
 apprenticeship to good comjDany in the salons of Versailles, 
 in the audience-room of the Vatican, at the receptions of 
 the Duchess du Maine, and with the banished family at 
 St. Germain. He spoke with a high and sanguine spirit 
 of the troublous times approaching and the beloved 
 Cause whose crisis was at hand, which chimed in with 
 her humor better than the flippancies of Belamour, the 
 airy nothings of Millamont. He was but a soldier of 
 fortune, a poor gentleman who, named to her in the 
 town, would have had never a word, and would have been 
 unnoted amidst the crowding beaux who clustered round 
 to hold her fan and hear how she had been pleasured 
 with the drolleries of Gh'ief d la Mode. But down in the 
 western counties she deigned to listen to the Prince's 
 officer, to smile — a smile beautiful when it came on her 
 proud lips, as the play of light on the opals of her jewelled 
 stomacher — nay, even to be amused when he spoke of the 
 women of foreign courts, to be interested when he told, 
 which was but reluctantly, of his own perils, escapes, and 
 adventures, to discourse with him, riding home under the
 
 CECIL CASTLEMATNE'S GAGE. 2S 
 
 beech avenues from hawking, or standing on the western 
 terrace at curfew to watch the sunset, of many things on 
 vhich the nobles of the Mall and the gentlemen about St, 
 James's had never been allowed to share her opinions. For 
 Lady Cecil was deeply read (unusually deeply for her day, 
 since fine ladies of her rank and fashion mostly contented 
 themselves with skimming a romance of Scuderi's, or an 
 act of Aurungzehe) ; but she rarely spoke of those things, 
 save perchance now and then to Mr. Addison. 
 
 Fulke Ravensworth never flattered her, moreover, and 
 flattery was a honeyed confection of which she had long 
 been cloyed ; he even praised boldly before lier other 
 women of beauty and grace whom he had seen at Ver- 
 sailles, at Sceaux, and at St. Germain ; neither did he defer 
 to her perpetually, but where he differed would combat her 
 sentiments courteously but firmly. Though a soldier anr 
 a man of action, he had an admirable skill at the limner's 
 art ; could read to her the Divina Commedia, or the 
 comedies of Lope da' Vega, and transfer crabbed Latin 
 and abstruse Greek into elegant English for her pleasures 
 and though a beggared gentleman of most precarious for- 
 tunes, he would speak of life and its chances, of the Cause 
 and its perils, with a daring which she found preferable 
 to the lisped languor of the men of the town, who had no 
 better campaigns than laying siege to a prude, cared for 
 no other weapons than their toilettes and suuff'-boxes, and 
 sought no other excitement than a coup d' eclat with the 
 lion-tumblers. 
 
 On the whole, through these long midsummer days, 
 Lady Cecil found the Envoy from St. Germain a com- 
 panion that did not suit her ill, sought less the solitude of 
 her bower-room, and listened graciously to him in the long 
 twilight hours, while the evening dews gathered in the 
 cups of the musk-roses, and the star-rays began to quiver 
 on the water-lilies floating on the river below, that mur- 
 mured along, with endless song, under the beechen-boughs.
 
 24 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 A certain softness stole over her, relaxing the cold hauteur 
 of which Belamour had so often complained, giving a 
 nameless charm, supplying a nameless something, lacking 
 before, in the beauty of The Castleraaine. 
 
 She would stroke, half sadly, the smooth feathers of her 
 tartaret falcon Gabrielle when Fulke Ravensworth brought 
 her the bird from the ostreger's wrist, with its azure velvet 
 hood, and silver bells and jesses. She would wonder, aa 
 she glanced through Corneille or Congreve, Philips or 
 Petrarca, what it was, this passion of love, of which they 
 all treated, on which they all turned, no matter how dif- 
 ferent their strain. And now and then would come over 
 her cheek and brow a faint fitful wavering flush, delicate 
 and changing as the flush from the rose-hued reflexions 
 of western clouds on a statue of Pharos marble, and then 
 she would start and rouse herself, and wonder what she 
 ailed, and groAV once more haughty, calm, stately, daz- 
 zling, but chill as the Castlemaine diamonds that she wore. 
 
 So the summer-time passed, and the autumn came, the 
 corn-lands brown with harvest, the hazel-copses strewn 
 with fallen nuts, the beech-leaves turning into reddened 
 gold. As the wheat ripened but to meet the sickle, as the 
 nuts grew but to fall, as the leaves turned to gold but to 
 wither, so the sanguine hopes, the fond ambitions of men, 
 strengthened and matured only to fade into disappoint- 
 ment and destruction ! Four months had sped by since 
 the Prince's messenger had come to Lilliesford — months 
 that had gone swiftly with him as some sweet delicious 
 dream ; and the time had come when he had orders to 
 ride north, secretly and swiftly, speak with Mr. Forster 
 and other gentlemen concerned in the meditated rising, 
 and convey despatches and instructions to the Earl of 
 Mar ; for Prince James was projecting soon to join hia 
 loyal adherents in Scotland, and the critical moment was 
 close at hand, the moment when, to Fulke Ravensworth's 
 high and sanguine courage, victory seemed certain ; fail-
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE's GAGE. 25 
 
 ure, if no treachery marred, no dissension weakened, im- 
 possible ; the moment to which he looked for honor, suc- 
 cess, distinction, that should give him claim and title to 
 aspire — where f Strong man, cool soldier though he was, 
 he shrank from drawing his fancied future out from the 
 golden haze of immature hope, lest he should see it wither 
 upon closer sight. He was but a landless adventurer, 
 with nothing but his sword and his honor, and kings he 
 knew were slow to pay back benefits, or recollect the 
 hands that hewed them free passage to their thrones. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine stood within the window of her 
 bower-room, the red light of the October sun glittering 
 on her gold-broidered skirt and her corsage sewn with 
 opals and emeralds ; her hand was pressed lightly on her 
 bosom, as though some pain were throbbing there ; it was 
 new this unrest, this weariness, this vague weight that 
 hung upon her ; it was the perils of their Cause, she told 
 herself; the risks her father ran: it Avas weak, childish, 
 unworthy a Castlemaine ! Still the pain throbbed there. 
 
 Her hound, asleep beside her, raised his head with a 
 low growl as a step intruded on the sanctity of the bower- 
 room, then composed himself again to slumber, satisfied it 
 was no foe. His mistress turned slowly ; she knew the 
 horses waited ; she had shunned this ceremony of fare- 
 well, and never thought any would be bold enough to 
 venture here without permission sought and gained. 
 
 " Lady Cecil, I could not go upon my Avay without one 
 word of parting. Pardon me if I have been too rash to 
 dcek it here." 
 
 Why was it that his brief frank words ever pleased her 
 better than Belamour's most honeyed phrases, Millamont's 
 Buavest periods ? She scarcely could have told, save that 
 there were in them an earnestness and truth new and rare 
 to her ear and to her heart. 
 
 She pressed her hand closer on the opals — the jewels 
 of calamity — and smiled:
 
 26 CECIL castlematne's gage, 
 
 "Assuredly I wish you God speed, Sir Fulke, and safo 
 issue from all perils." 
 
 He bowed low ; then raised himself to his fullest height, 
 and stood beside her, w^atching the light play upon the 
 opals : 
 
 " That is all you vouchsafe me ? " 
 
 "^Allf It is as much as you would claim, sir, is it not? 
 It is more than I would say to many." 
 
 " Your pardon — it is more than I should claim if pru- 
 dence were ever by, if reason always ruled ! I have no 
 right to ask for, seek for, even Avish for, more ; such peti- 
 tions may only be addressed by men of wealth and of 
 high title; a landless soldier should have no pride to 
 sting, no heart to wound ; they are the prerogative of a 
 happier fortune." 
 
 Her lips turned white, but she answered haughtily ; tnu 
 crimson light flashing in her jewels, heirlooms priceless 
 and hereditary, like her beauty and her pride : 
 
 " This is strange language, sir ! I fail to apprehend 
 
 you." 
 
 " You have never thought that I ran a danger deadlier 
 than that which I have ever risked on any field ? You 
 have never guessed that I have had the madness, the pre- 
 sumption, the crime — it may be in your eyes — to love 
 you." 
 
 The color flushed to her face, crimsoning even her brow, 
 nnd then fled back. Her first instinct was insulted pride 
 — a beggared gentleman, a landless soldier, spoke to her 
 of love! — of love! — which Belamour had barely had 
 courage to whisper of; which none had dared to sue of 
 her in return. He had ventured to feel this for her ! he 
 had ventured to speak of this to her! 
 
 The Envoy saw the rising resentment, the pride spoken 
 in every line of her delicate face, and stopped her as she 
 would have spoken. 
 
 "Wait! I know all you would reply. You think it
 
 CECIL CASTLEMATNE'S GAGE. 27 
 
 infinite daring, presumption that merits highest re- 
 proof '' 
 
 "Since you divined so justly, it were pity you sub- 
 jected yourself and me to this most useless, most unex- 
 pected interview. Why " 
 
 "Why? Because, perchance, in this life you will see 
 my face no more, and you will think gently, mercifully 
 of my offence (if offence it be to love you more than life, 
 and only less than honor), when you know that I have 
 fallen for the Cause, with your name in my heart, held 
 only the dearer because never on my lips ! Sincere love 
 can be no insult to whomsoever profllered ; Elizabeth 
 Stuart saw no shame to her in the devotion of William 
 Craven ! " 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine stood in the crimson glory of the 
 autumn sunset, her head erect, hei pride unshaken, but 
 her heart stirred strangely and unwontedly. It smote 
 the one with bitter pain, to think a penniless exile should 
 thus dare to speak of Avhat princes and dukes had almost 
 feared to whisper; Avhat had she done — what had she 
 said, to give him license for such liberty ? It stirred the 
 other with a tremulous warmth, a vague, sweet pleasure, 
 that were never visitants there before ; but that she 
 Bcouted instantly as weakness, folly, debasement, in the 
 Last of the Castlemaines. 
 
 He saw well enough what passed within her, what made 
 her eyes so troubled, yet her brow and lips so proudly set, 
 and he bent nearer towards her, the great love that was 
 in him trembling in his voice : 
 
 " Lady Cecil, hear me ! If in the coming struggle I 
 win distinction, honor, rank — if victory come to us, and 
 the King Ave serve remember me in his prosperity as he 
 does now in his adversity — if I can meet you hereafter 
 with tidings of triumph and success, my name made one 
 \Thich England breathes with praise and pride, honors 
 f,flined such as even you will deem worthy of your line —
 
 28 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 then — then — will you let me speak of what ydu refuse 
 to hearken to now — then may I come to you, and seek 
 a gentler answer ? " 
 
 She looked for a moment upon his face, as it bent to- 
 wards her in the- radiance of the sunset light, the hope 
 that hopes all things glistening in his eyes, the high-souled 
 daring of a gallant and sanguine spirit flushing his fore- 
 head, the loud throbs of his heart audible in the stillness 
 around ; and her proud eyes grew softer, her lips quiv- 
 ej*ed for an instant. 
 
 Then she turned towards him with queenly grace : 
 
 "Fes/" 
 
 It was spoken with stately dignity, though scarce above 
 her breath ; but the hue that wavered in her cheek was 
 but the lovelier, for the pride that would not let her eyes 
 droop nor her tears rise, would not let her utter one softer 
 word. That one word cost her much. That single utter- 
 ance was much from Cecil Castlemaine. 
 
 Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a delicate, costly toy 
 of lace, embroidered with her shield and chifire; he 
 stooped and raised it, and thrust it in his breast to 
 treasure it there. 
 
 " If I fail, I send this back in token that I renounce 
 all hope ; if I can come to you with honor and with fame, 
 this shall be my gage that I may speak, that you will 
 listen?" 
 
 She bowed her noble head, ever held haughtily, aa 
 though every crown of Europe had a right to circle it ; 
 his hot lips lingered for a moment on her hand ; then 
 Cecil Castlemaine stood alone in the window of her bower- 
 room, her hand pressed again upon the opals under which 
 her heart was beating with a dull, weary pain, looking 
 out over the landscape, Avhere the golden leaves were 
 falling fast, and the river, tossing sadly dead branches 
 on its waves, was bemoaning in plaintive language the 
 Bummer days gone by.
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAQll 29 
 
 Two months came and went, the beech-Loughs, black 
 and sear, creaked in the bleak December winds that 
 sighed through frozen ferns and over the couches of shiv- 
 ering deer, the snow drifted up on the marble terrace, and 
 icedrops clung where the warm rosy petals of the musk- 
 rosebuds had nestled. Across the country came terrible 
 ■whispers that struck the hearts of men of loyal faith to 
 the White Rose with a bolt of ice-cold terror and despair. 
 Messengers riding in hot haste, open-mouthed peasants 
 gossiping by the village forge, horsemen who tarried for 
 a breathless rest at alehouse-doors, Whig divines who 
 returned thanks for God's most gracious mercy in vouch- 
 safing victory to the strong, all told the tale, all spread 
 the news of the drawn battle of Sheriff-Muir, of the sur- 
 render under Preston walls, of the flight of Prince James. 
 The tidings came one by one to Lilliesford, where my 
 Lord Earl was holding himself in readiness to co-operate 
 with the gentlemen of the North to set up the royal 
 standard, broidered by his daughter's hands, in the west- 
 ern counties, and proclaim James III. " sovereign lord 
 and king of the realms of Great Britain and Ireland." 
 The tidings came to Lilliesford, and Cecil Castlemaino 
 clenched her white jewelled hands in passionate anguish 
 that a Stuart should have fled before the traitor of Argyll, 
 instead of dying with his face towards the rebel crew ; 
 that men had lived who could choose surrender instead 
 of heroic death ; that she had not been there, at Preston, 
 to shame them with a woman's reading of courage and of 
 loyalty, and show them how to fall Avith a doomed city 
 rather than yield captive to a foe ! 
 
 Perhaps amidst htir grief for her Prince and for his 
 Cause mingled — as the deadliest thought of all — a 
 memory of a bright proud face, that had bent towards 
 her with tender love and touching grace a month before, 
 and that might now be lying pale and cold, turned 
 upwards to the winter stars, on the field of Sherifi-JMuir.
 
 30 CECIL castlemaine's gage. 
 
 A year rolled by. Twelve months had fled since the 
 gilded carriage of the Castlemaiues, with the lordly bla- 
 zonmeut upon its panels, its princely retinue and stately 
 pomp, had come down into the western counties. The 
 bones were crumbling white in the coffins in the Tower, 
 and the skulls over Temple-bar had bleached white in 
 winter snows and spring-tide suns ; Kenmuir b«d gone to 
 a sleep that knew no wakening, and DerAventwater had 
 laid his fair young head down for a thankless cause ; the 
 heather bloomed over the mounds of de«d on the plains 
 of Sheriff-Muir, and the yellow gorse blossomed under 
 the city walls of Preston. 
 
 Another summer had dawned, bright and laughing, 
 over England ; none the less fair for human lives laid 
 doAvn, for human hopes crushed out ; daisies powdering 
 the turf sodden with human blood, birds carolling their 
 song over graves of heaped-up dead. The musk-roses 
 tossed their delicate heads again amidst the marble pilas- 
 ters, and the hawthorn-boughs shook their fragrant buds 
 into the river at Lilliesford, the purple hills lay wrapped 
 in sunny mist, and hyacinth-bells mingled Avith the tan- 
 gled grass and fern under the woodland shades, where the 
 red deer nestled happily. Herons plumed their silvery 
 wings doAA'n by the Avater-side, SAvalloAVS circled in sultry 
 air above the great bell-toAver, and Avood-pigeons cooed 
 with soft love-notes among the leafy branches. Yet the 
 Countess of Castlemaine, last of her race, sole OAvner of 
 the lands that spread around her, stood on the rose-ter- 
 race, finding no joy in the sunlight about her, no melody 
 in the song of the birds. 
 
 She was the last of her name ; her father, broken- 
 hearted at the news from Dumblain and Preston, had 
 died the very day after his lodgment in the ToAver. There 
 was no heir male of his line, and the title had passed to 
 his daughter ; there had been thoughts of confiscation 
 and attainder, but others, uukuowu to her, solicited what
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE's GAGE. 31 
 
 ehe scorned to ask for herself, and the greed of the hungry 
 " Hanoverian pack " spared the lands and the revenues of 
 Lilliesford. In haughty pride, in lonely mourning, the 
 fairest beauty of the Court and Town withdrew again to 
 the solitude of her western counties, and tarried there, 
 dwelling amidst her women and her almost regal house- 
 hold, in the sacred solitude of grief, Avherein none might 
 intrude. Proud Cecil Castlemaine was yet prouder than 
 of yore; alone, sorrowing for her ruined Cause and exiled 
 King, she would hold converse with none of those who 
 had had a hand in drawing down the disastrous fate she 
 mourned, and only her staghound could have seen the 
 weariness upon her face when she bent down to him, or 
 Gabrielle the falcon felt her hand tremble when it stroked 
 her folded wings. She stood on the terrace, looking over 
 her spreading lands, not the water-lilies on the river below 
 whiter than her lips, pressed painfully together. Perhaps 
 Bhe repented of certain words, sjjokcn to one Avhom now 
 she Avould never again behold — perhaps she thought of 
 that delicate toy that was to have been brought back in 
 victory and hope, that now might lie stained and stiftened 
 with blood next a lifeless heart, for never a Avord in the 
 tAvelve months gone by had there come to Lilliesford as 
 tidings of Fulke KavensAvorth. 
 
 Her pride was dear to her, dearer than aught else ; she 
 had spoken as Avas her right to speak, she had done Avhat 
 became a Castlemaine ; it Avould have been Aveakness to 
 have acted otherwise ; Avhat Avas he — a landless soldier — 
 that he should have dared as he had dared ? Yet the 
 sables she Avore Avere not solely for the dead Earl, not 
 solely for the lost Stuarts the hot mist that Avould blind 
 the eyes of Cecil Castlemaine, as hours swelled to days, 
 and days to months, and she — the flattered beauty of the 
 Court and Town — stayed in self-chosen solitude in her 
 halls of Lilliesford, still unwedded and unwon. 
 
 The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the
 
 32 CECIL CASTLEiMAINE's GAGE. 
 
 sunny beauty of the nioruing but weighed with heavier 
 Badness on her heart ; the song of the birds, the busy hum 
 of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell round her 
 pet ftiwn's neck, as it darted from her side under the 
 drooping boughs — nrnie touched an answering chord of 
 gladness in her. She stood looking over her stretching 
 woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she heard no 
 step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush 
 of the deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, 
 sprang up from his hiding-place under the beechen 
 branches, and stood on the terrace before her, craving her 
 pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned, bend- 
 ing on him that glance which had made the over-bold 
 glance of princes fall abashed. The boy was but a little 
 tatterdemalion to have ventured thus abruptly into the 
 presence of the Countess of Castlemaine ; still it was with 
 Bome touch of a page's grace that he bowed before her. 
 
 *' Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me 
 watch for you, tliough I watched till midnight." 
 
 "Your master?" 
 
 A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, 
 rose to her face for an instant, then faded as suddenly. 
 The boy did not notice her words, but went on in an eager 
 whisper, glancing anxiously round, as a hare would glance 
 fearing the hunters. 
 
 "And told me when I saw you not to speak his name, 
 but only to give you this as his gage, that though all else 
 is lost he has not forgot his honor nor your will." 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out 
 her hand and took it — her own costly toy of cambric and 
 lace, with her broiflered shield and coronet. 
 
 " Your master ! Then — he lives ? " 
 
 " Lady, he bade me say no more. Y ou have his mes- 
 Fage ; I must tell no further." 
 
 She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow- 
 white hand, yet one that held him u- in a clasp of steoL
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE. 33 
 
 " Child ! answer me at your peril ! Tell me of hira 
 whom you call your master. Tell me all — quick — 
 quick!" 
 
 "You are his friend?" 
 
 " His friend ? My Heaven ! Speak on ! " 
 
 " He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest 
 anger ; but if you are his friend, I sure may speak what 
 you should know without me. It is a poor friend, lady, 
 who has need to ask whether another be dead or living ! " 
 
 The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess's blanched 
 face, she signed him on with impetuous command ; she 
 was unused to disobedience, and the child's words cut her 
 to the quick. 
 
 " Sir Fulke sails for the French coast to-morrow night," 
 the boy Avent on, in tremulous haste. " He was left for 
 dead — our men ran one way, and Argyll's men the other 
 — on the field of Sheriti-Muir ; and sure if he had not 
 been strong indeed, he would have died that awful night, 
 untended, on the bleak moor, with the winds roaring 
 round him, and his life ebbing away. He was not one of 
 those who j?ecZ ; you know that of him if you know aught. 
 We got him away before dawn, Donald and I, and hid 
 hira in a shieling ; he Avas in the fever then, and knew 
 nothing that was done to him, only he kept that bit of 
 lace in his hand for Aveeks and weeks, and would not let 
 us stir it from his grasp. What magic there was in it we 
 wondered often, but 'twas a magic, mayhap, that got hira 
 well at last; it was an even chance but that he'd died, 
 God bless him ! though we did what best we could. We've 
 been wandering in the Highlands all the year, hiding 
 here and tarrying there. Sir Fulke sets no count upon 
 his life. Sure I think he thanks us little for getting hira 
 through the fever of the wounds, but he could not have 
 borne to be pinioned, you know, lady, like a thief, and 
 hung up by the brutes of Whigs, as a butcher hangs sheep 
 in the shambles! The worst of the danger's over —
 
 34 CECIL castlemaitjje's gage. 
 
 they 've had their fill of the slaughter ; hut we sail to- 
 morrow night for the French coast — England's no place 
 for my master." 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine let go her hold upon the boy, and 
 her hand closed convulsively upon the dainty handker- 
 chief — her gage sent so faithfully back to her ! 
 
 The child looked upon her face ; perchance, in his mas- 
 ter's delirium, he had caught some knowledge of the stoiy 
 that hung to that broidered toy. 
 
 " If you are his friend, madame, doubtless you have 
 some last word to send him?" 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine, whom nothing moved, whom nothing 
 softened, bowed her head at the simple question, her heart 
 wrestling sorely, her lips set together in unswerving pride, 
 a mist before her haughty eyes, the broidered shield upon 
 her handkerchief — the shield of her stately and unyield- 
 ing race — pressed close against her breast. 
 
 "You have no word for him, lady?" 
 
 Her lips parted ; she signed him away. Was this child 
 to see her yielding to such weakness ? Had she, Countess 
 of Castlemaine, no better pride, no better strength, no 
 better power of resolve, than this ? 
 
 The boy lingered. 
 
 ** I will tell Sir Fulke then, lady, that the ruined have 
 no friends?" 
 
 Whiter and prouder still grew the delicate beauty of 
 her face ; she raised her stately head, haughtily as she 
 had used to glance over a glittering Court, where each 
 voice murmured praise of her loveliness and reproach of 
 her coldness ; and placed the fragile toy of lace back in 
 the boy's hands. 
 
 " Go, seek your master, and give him this in gage thai 
 their calamity makes friends more dear to us than theli 
 success. Go, he will know its meaning ! " 
 
 In place of the noon chimes the curfew was ringing
 
 CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE. 35 
 
 from the bell-tower, the swallows were gone to roost 
 amidst the ivy, and the herons slept with their heads 
 under their silvery wings among the rushes by the river- 
 side, the ferns and wild hyacinths were damp with even- 
 ing dew, and the summer starlight glistened amidst \he 
 quivering woodland leaves. There was the silence of 
 coming night over the vast forest glades, and no sound 
 broke the stillness, save the song of the grasshopper stir- 
 ring the tangled grasses, or the sweet low sigh of the west 
 wind fanning the bells of the flowers. Cecil Castlemaine 
 stood once more on the rose-terrace, shrouded in the dense 
 twilight shade flung from above by the beech-boughs, 
 waiting, listening, catching every rustle of the leaves, 
 every tremor of the heads of the roses, yet hearing noth- 
 ing in the stillness around but the quick, uncertain throbs 
 of her heart beating like the wing of a caged bird under 
 its costly lace. Pride was forgotten at length, and she 
 only remembered — fear and love. 
 
 In the silence and the solitude came a step that she 
 knew, came a presence that she felt. She bowed her head 
 upon her hands ; it was new to her this weakness, this 
 terror, this anguish of joy ; she sought to calm herself, to 
 steel herself, to summon back her pride, her strength ; she 
 scorned herself for it all ! 
 
 His hand touched her, his voice fell on her ear once 
 more, eager, breathless, broken. 
 
 " Cecil ! Cecil ! is this true ? Is my ruin thrice blessed, 
 or am I mad, and dream of heaven?" 
 
 She lifted her head and looked at him with her old 
 proud glance, her lips trembling with words that all hei 
 pride could not summon into speech ; then her eyes filled 
 with warm, blinding tears, and softened to new beauty ; 
 — scarce louder than the sigh of the wind among the 
 tlower-bells came her words to Fulke Ravensworth's ear, 
 as her royal head bowed on his breast. 
 
 " Stay, stay ! Or, if you fly, your exile shall be ray 
 exile, your danger my danger ! "
 
 36 CECIL castlemaine's aAGe.. 
 
 The kci-chief is a treasured heirloom to her descend- 
 ants now, and fair women of her race, who inherit from 
 her her azure eyes and her queenly grace, will recall how 
 the proudest Countess of their Line loved a ruined gen- 
 tleman so well that she was Avedded to him at even, in 
 her private chapel, at the hour of his greatest peril, his 
 lowest fortune, and went with him across the seas till 
 friendly intercession in high places gained them royal 
 permission to dwell again at Lilliesford unmolested. And 
 how it was ever noticeable to those who murmured at her 
 coldness and her pride, that Cecil Castlemaine, cold and 
 negligent as of yore to all the world beside, would seek 
 her husband's smile, and love to meet his eyes, and cher- 
 ish her beauty for his sake, and be restless in his absence, 
 even for the short span of a day, with a softer and more 
 clinging tenderness than was found in many weaker, 
 many humbler women. 
 
 They are gone now the men and women of that genera- 
 tion, and their voices come only to us through the faint 
 echo of their written words. In summer nights the old 
 beech-trees toss their leaves in the silvery light of the 
 stars, and the river flows on unchanged, with the cease- 
 less, mournful burden of its mystic song, the same now 
 as in the midsummer of a century and a half ago. The 
 cobweb handkerchief lies before me with its broidered 
 shield ; the same now as long years since, when it was 
 treasured close in a soldier's breast, and held by him 
 dearer than all save his honor and his word. So, things 
 pulseless and passionless endure, and human life passes 
 away as swiftly as a song dies off from the air — as quickly 
 succeeded, and as quickly foi-got ! Rousard's refrain 's 
 the refrain of our lives : 
 
 Le temps s'en va, Ic temps s'en va, ma dame! 
 Las! le temps, non; mais nous nous, en allongl
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS 
 
 OUR MALTESE PEERAGE. 
 
 ILL first things are voted the best : first kisses, 
 first toga virilis, first hair of the first whisker ; 
 first speeches are often so superior that members 
 subside after making them, fearful of eclipsing them- 
 selves ; first money won at play must always be best, as 
 it is always the dearest bought ; and first wives are always 
 so super-excellent, that, if a man lose one, he is gener- 
 ally as fearful of hazarding a second as a trout of biting 
 twice. 
 
 But of all first things commend me to one's first uni- 
 form. No matter that we get sick of harness, and get 
 into mufti as soon as we can now ; there is no more ex- 
 quisite pleasure than the first sight of one's self in shako 
 and sabrctasche. How we survey ourselves in the glass, 
 and ring for hot water, ^ that the handsome housemaid 
 may see us in all our glory, and lounge accidentally into 
 our sisters' schoolroom, that the governess, who is nice- 
 looking and rather flirty, may go down on the spot before 
 us and our scarlet and gold, cluiins and buttons ! One's 
 first uniform ! Oh ! the exquisite sensation locked up for 
 us in that first box from Sagnarelli, or Bond Street! 
 
 I remember my first uniform. I was eighteen — as raw 
 a young cub as you could want to sec. I had not been 
 4 ( 37 )
 
 38 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 licked into shape by a public school, whose tongue may 
 be rough, but cleans off' grievances and nonsense better 
 chan anything else. I had been in that hotbed of effem- 
 inacy, Church principles and weak tea, a Private Tutor's, 
 where mamma's darlings are wrapped up, and stuffed with 
 a little Terence and Horace to show grand at home ; and 
 upon my life I do believe my sister Julia, aged thirteen, 
 was more wide awake and up to life than I was, when 
 the governor, an old rector, who always put me in mind 
 of the Vicar of Wakefield, got me gazetted to as crack a 
 r.orps as any in the Line. 
 
 The — th (familiarly known in the Service as the 
 " Dare Devils," from old Peninsular deeds) were just then 
 at Malta, and with, among other trifles, a chest protector 
 from my father, and a recipe for milk-arrowroot from 
 my Aunt Matilda who lived in a constant state of catarrh 
 and of cure for the same, tumbled across the Bay of Bis- 
 cay, and found myself in Byron's confounded " little 
 military hot-house," where most military men, some time 
 or other, have roasted themselves to death, climbing its 
 hilly streets, flirting with its Valetta belles, drinking Bass 
 in its hot verandas, yawning with ennui in its palace, 
 cursing its sirocco, and being done by its Jew sharpers. 
 
 From a private tutor's to a crack mess at Malta ! — 
 from a convent to a casino could hardly be a greater 
 change. Just at first I was as much astray as a young 
 pup taken into a stubble-field, and wondering what the 
 deuce he is to do there; but as it is a pup's nature to 
 sniff at birds and start them, so is it a boy's nature to 
 snatch at the champagne of life as soon as he cat(;he3 
 sight of it, though you may have brought him up on 
 water from his cradle. I took to it, at least, like a re- 
 triever to water-ducks, though I was green enough to be 
 a first-rate butt for many a da}'", and the practical jokes 
 I had passed on me would have furnished the T'.mes with 
 C)od for crushers on " The Shocking State of the Army'*
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. id 
 
 for a twelveniontli. My chief friend and ally, tormentor 
 and initiator, was a little fellow, Cosmo Grandison ; in 
 Ours he was " Little Grand " to everybody, from thft 
 Colonel to the baggage-women. He wa3 seventeen, and 
 had joined about a year. What a pretty boy he was, 
 too ! All the fair ones in Valetta, from his Excellency's 
 wife to our washerwomen, admired that boy, and spoilt 
 him and petted him, and I do not believe there was a man 
 of Ours who would liave had heart to sit in court-martial 
 on Little Grand if he had broken every one of the 
 Queen's regulations, and set every General Order at defi- 
 ance, I think I see him now — he was new to Malta ab 
 I, having just landed with the Dare Devils, en route from 
 India to Portsmouth — as he sat one day on the table in 
 the mess-room as cool as a cucumber, in spite of the broil- 
 ing sun, smoking, and swinging his legs, and settling his 
 forage-cap on one side of his head, as pretty-looking, 
 plucky, impudent a young monkey as ever piqued him- 
 self on being an old hand, and a knowing bird not to bo 
 caught by any chaff however ingeniously prepared. 
 
 "Simon," began Little Grand (my "St. John," first 
 barbarized by Mr. Pope for the convenience of his dac- 
 tyles and hexameters into Sinjin, being further barbarized 
 by this little imp into Simon) — " Simon, do you want to 
 see the finest Avoman in this confounded little pepper-box ? 
 You're no judge ol a woman, though, you muff — taste 
 been warped, perhaps, by constant contemplation of that 
 virgin Aunt Minerva — Matilda, is it ? all the same." 
 
 "Hang your chafi'," said I; "you'd make one out a 
 fool." 
 
 "Precisely, my dear Simon; just what you arc!" re- 
 sponded Little Grand, pleasantly. " Bless your heart, 
 I've been engaged to half a dozen women since I joined, 
 A man can hardly help it, you see; they've such a way 
 of drawing you on, you don't like to disappoint them, 
 poor little dears, and so you compromise yourself out of
 
 #0 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 sheer benevolence. There's such a run on a handsome 
 man — it's a great bore. Sometimes I think I shall shave 
 my head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina 
 did. Poor fellow, I feel for him ! Well, Simon, you 
 don't seem curious to know who my beauty is?" 
 
 " One of those Mitchell girls of the Twenty-first ? You 
 waltzed with 'em all night ; but they 're too tall for you, 
 Grand." 
 
 "The Mitchell girls!" ejaculated he, with supreme 
 Bcorn. " Great maypoles ! they go about with the Fusi- 
 liers like a pair of colors. On every ball-room battle- 
 field one's safe to see them flaunting away, and as every- 
 body has a shot at 'em, their hearts must be pretty well 
 riddled into holes by this time. No, mine's rather higher 
 game than that. My mother's brother-in-law's aunt's 
 sister's cousin's cousin once removed was Viscount Twad- 
 dle, and I don't go anything lower than the Peerage." 
 
 "What, is it somebody you've met at his Excellency's?" 
 
 "Wrong again, beloved Simon. It's nobody I've met 
 at old Stars and Garters', though his lady-wife could no 
 more do without me than without her sal volatile and 
 flirtations. No, s/te don't go there ; she's too high for that 
 sort of thing — sick of it. After all the European 
 Courts, Malta must be rather small and slow. I was 
 introduced to her yesterday, and," continued Little 
 Grand, more solemnly than was his wont, " I do assure 
 you she's superb, divine; and I'm not very easy to 
 please." 
 
 "What's her name?" I asked, rather impressed with 
 this view of a lady too high for old Stars and Garters, as 
 wc irreverently termed her Majesty's representative in 
 her island of INIalta. 
 
 Little Grand took his pipe out of his lips to correct me 
 with more dignity. 
 
 "Her title, my dear Simon, is the Marchioness St 
 Julian."
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCUI0NES8. 41 
 
 "Is that an English peerage, Grand?" 
 
 *' Hum ! What ! Oh yes, of course ! What else 
 ehoukl it be, you owl ! " 
 
 Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was 
 .silent, and he went on, growing more impressive at each 
 phrase : 
 
 •' She is splendid, really ! And I 'm a very difficile 
 fellow, you know; but such hair, such eyes, one doesn't 
 see every day in those sun-di-ied Mitchells or those little 
 pink Bovilliers. Well, yesterday, after that confounded 
 luncheon (how I hate all those complimentary affairs ! — 
 one can't enjoy the truffles for talking to the ladies, nor 
 enjoy the ladies for discussing the truffles), I Avent for a 
 ride with Conran out to Villa Neponte. I left him there, 
 and went down to see the overland steamers come in. 
 While I was waiting, I got into talk, somehow or other, 
 with a very agreeable, gentleman-like fellow, who asked 
 me if I'd only just come to Malta, and all that sort of 
 thing — you know the introductory style of action — till 
 we got quite good friends, and he told me he was living 
 outside this wretched little hole at the Casa di Fiori, and 
 said — wasn't it civil of him? — said he should be very 
 happy to see me if I 'd call any time. He gave me his 
 card — Lord Adolphus Fitzhervey — and a man with him 
 called him ' Dolph.' As good luck had it, my weed went 
 out just while we were talking, and Fitzhervey was mon- 
 strously pleasant, searched all over him for a fusee, 
 couldn't find one, and asked me to go up with him to the 
 Casa di Fiori and get a light. Of course I did, and he 
 and I and Guatamara had some sherbet and a smoke 
 together, and then he introduced me to the Marchioness 
 St. Julian, his sister — by Jove! such a magnificent 
 woman, Simon, you never saw one like her, I'll wager. 
 She was uncommonly agreeable, too, and such a smile, my 
 boy! She seemed to like me wonderfully — not rare that, 
 though, you'll say — and asked me to go and take coffee 
 4*
 
 42 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 there to-night after mess, and bring one of my chuma 
 with me ; and as I like to show you life, young one, and 
 your taste wants improving after Aunt Minerva, you may 
 come, if you like. Hallo ! there's Coni-an. I say, don't 
 tell him. I don't Avant any poaching on my manor." 
 
 Conran came in at that minute ; he was then a Brevet- 
 Major and Captain in Ours, and one of the older men 
 who spoilt Little Grand in one way, as much as the 
 women did in another. He was a fine, powerful fellow, 
 with eyes like an eagle's, and pluck like a lion's ; he had a 
 grave look, and had been of late more silent and self- 
 reticent than the other roistering, debonnair, light-hearted 
 " Dare Devils ; " but though, perhaps, tired of the wild 
 escapades which reputation had once attributed to him, 
 was always the most lenient to the boy's monkey tricks, 
 and always the one to whom he went if his larks had cost 
 him too dear, or if he was in a scrape from which he saw 
 no exit. Coni'an had recently come in for a good deal 
 of money, and there were few bright eyes in Malta that 
 would not have smiled kindly on him ; but he did not 
 care much for any of them. There was some talk of a 
 love-affair before he went to India, that was the cause of 
 his hard-heartedness, though I must say he did not look 
 much like a victim to the grande passion, in my ideas, 
 which were drawn from valentines and odes in the " Wo- 
 man, thou fond and fair deceiver" style; in love that 
 turnc'd its collars down and let its hair go uncut and 
 refused to eat, and recovered with a rapidity proportionate 
 to its ostentation ; and I did not know that, if a man has 
 lost his treasure, he may mourn it so deeply that he may 
 refuse to run about like Harpagon, crying for his cassette 
 to an audience that only laughs at his miseries. 
 
 " Well, young ones," said Conran, as he came in and 
 threw down his cap and whip, " here you are, spending 
 your hours in pipes and bad wine. What a blessing it is 
 to have a palate that isn't blase, and that will swallow all
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND I (IE MARCUI0NES8. 43 
 
 wine just because it is wine ! That Sv)utli African f]^oes 
 down with better relish, Little Grand, than you'll find in 
 Chilteau Margaux ten years hence. As soon ?,s one begins 
 to want touching up with olives, one's real gusto is gone." 
 
 " Hang olives, sir ! they're beastly," said Little Grund ; 
 "and I don't care who pretends they're not. Olives are 
 like sermons and wives, everybody makes a Avry fiice, and 
 would rather be excused 'em, Major ; but it 's the custom 
 to call 'em good things, and so men bolt 'em in com- 
 plaisance, and while they hate the salt-water flavor, des- 
 cant on the delicious rose taste ! " 
 
 " Quite true, Little Grand ! but one takes olives to 
 enhance the wine ; and so, perhaps, other men's sermons 
 make one enjoy one's racier novel, and other men's wives 
 make one appreciate one's liberty still better. Don't 
 abuse olives ; you '11 want them figuratively and literally 
 before you've done either drinking or living!" 
 
 "Oh! confound it. Major," cried Little Grand, "I do 
 hope and trust a spent ball may have the kindness to 
 double me up and finish me ofi* before then." 
 
 " You 're not philosophic, my boy." 
 
 " Thank Heaven, no ! " ejaculated Little Grand, piously. 
 " I 've an uncle, a very great philosopher, beats all the 
 sages hollow, from Bion to Buckle, and writes in the 
 Metaphysical Quarterly, but I'll be shot if he don't spend 
 so much time in trying to puzzle out what life is, that all 
 his has slipped away without his having lived one bit. 
 When I was staying with him one Christmas, he began 
 boring me with a frightful theory on the non-existence of 
 matter. I couldn't stand that, so I cut him short, and 
 get him down to the luncheon-table; and while he was 
 full swing with a Strasbourg p4te and Comet hock, I 
 stopped him and asked him if, with them in his mouth, 
 he believed in matter or not ? He was shut up, of course ; 
 bless your soul, those theorists always are, if you're down 
 upon 'em with a little fact ! "
 
 44 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 "Such as a Strasbourg pdte ? — that is an unanswerable 
 argument Avith most men, I believe," said Conran, who 
 liked to hear the boy chatter. " What are you going to 
 do with yourself to-night. Grand ? " 
 
 "I am going to — ar — hum — to a friend of mine," 
 said Little Grand, less glibly than usual. 
 
 " Very well ; I only asked, because I would have taken 
 you to Mrs. Fortescue's with me; they're having some 
 a<;ting proverbs (horrible exertion in this oven of a place, 
 with the thermometer at a hundred and twenty degrees); 
 but if you've better sport it's no matter. Take care what 
 friends you make, though, Grand ; you '11 find some Mal- 
 tese acquaintances very costly." 
 
 " Thank you. I should say I can take care of myself," 
 replied Little Grand, with immeasurable scorn and 
 dignity. 
 
 Conran laughed, struck him across the shoulders with 
 his whip, stroked his own moustaches, and went out again, 
 whistling one of Verdi's airs. 
 
 " I don't Avant him bothering, you know," explained 
 Little Grand ; " she 's such a deuced magnificent woman ! " 
 
 She was a magnificent woman, this Eudoxia Adelaida, 
 Marchioness St. Julian ; and proud enough Littlf^ Grand 
 ind I felt when we had that soft, jewelled hand held out 
 to us, and that bewitching smile beamed upon us, and 
 that joyous presence dazzling in our eyes, as Ave sat in 
 the drawing-room of that Casa di Fiori. She Avas about 
 chirty-five, I should say (boys alAA'ays Avorship those who 
 might have been schoolfelloAvs of their mothers), tall and 
 (Stately, and imposing, Avith the most beautiful pink and 
 white skin, with a fine set of teeth, raven hair, and eyes 
 tinted most exquisitely. Oh ! she Avas magnificent, our 
 Marchioness St. Julian! Into Avhat unutterable insig- 
 nificance, Avhat miserable, Avashcd-out shadows sank 
 Stars and Garters' lady, and the Mitchell girls, and all 
 the belles of La Valetta, Avhom Ave hadn't thought so very 
 bad-look in '_>■ before.
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 4i 
 
 There was a young creature sitting a little out of the 
 radiance of light, reading ; but we had no eyes for any- 
 body except the Marchioness St. Julian. We were in 
 such high society, too ; there was her brother. Lord 
 Adolphus, and his bosom Pylades, the Baron Guatamara; 
 and there was a big fellow, with hooked nose and very 
 curly hair, who was introduced to us as the Prince of 
 Oraugia Magnolia ; and a little wiry fellow, with bits of 
 red and blue ribbon, and a star or two in his button-hole, 
 who was M. le Due de Saint-Jeu. We were quite dazzled 
 with the coruscations of so much aristocracy, especially 
 when they talked across to each other — so familiarly, 
 too — of Johnnie (that was Lord Russell), and Pam, and 
 "old Buck" (my godfather Buckingham, Lord Adol- 
 phus explained to us), and Montpensier and old Join- 
 ville ; and chatted of when they dined at the Tuileries, 
 and stayed at Compiegne, and hunted at Belvoir, and 
 spent Christmas at Holcombe or Longleat. We were in 
 such high society ! How contemptible appeared Mrs. 
 Maberly's and the Fortescue soirees ; how infinitesimally 
 email grew Charlie Ruthven, and Harry Villiers, and 
 Grey and Albany, and all the other young fellows who 
 thought it such great guns to be au mieux with little 
 Graziella, or invited to Sir George Dashaway's. We 
 were a cut above those things now — rather! 
 
 That splendid Marchioness ! There was a head for a 
 coronet, if you like ! And how benign she was ! Grand 
 sat on the couch beside her, and I on an ottoman on her 
 left, and she leaned back in her magnificent toilette, 
 flirting her fan like a Castiliun, and flashing upon us her 
 superb eyes from behind it ; not speaking very much, but 
 showing her white teeth in scores of heavenly smiles, till 
 Ivittle Grand, the blase man of seventeen, and I the raw 
 Moses of private tutelage, both felt that we had never 
 come across anything like this ; never, in fact, seen a 
 woman v/orth a glance before.
 
 46 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCniONE88. 
 
 She listened to us — or rather to him; I was too awe* 
 Btruck to advance much beyond monosyllables — and 
 laughed at him, and smiled encouragingly on my gauche- 
 rie (and when a boy is gauche, how ready he is to worship 
 such a helping hand ! ), and beamed upon us both with 
 an cfTulgence compared with which the radiance of Helen, 
 Galatea, CEnone, Messalina, Lais, and all the legendary 
 beauties one reads about, must have been what the rail- 
 way night-lamps that never burn are to the prismatic 
 luminaries of Cremorne. They Avere all uncommonly 
 pleasant, all except the girl who was reading, whom they 
 introduced as the Signorina da' Guari, a Tuscan, and 
 daughter to Orangia Magnolia, with one of those marvel- 
 lously beautiful faces that one sees in the most splendid 
 painters' models of the Campagna, who never lifted her 
 head scarcely, though Guatamara and Saint-Jeu did their 
 best to make her. But all the others were wonderfully 
 agreeable, and quite fete'd Little Grand and me, at which, 
 they being more than double our age, and seemingly at 
 home alike with Belgravia and Newmarket, the Fau- 
 bourg and the Pytchley, we felt to grow at least a foot 
 each in the aroma of this Casa di Fiori. 
 
 " This is rather stupid, Doxie," began Lord Adolphus, 
 addressing his sister ; " not much entertainment for our 
 guests. What do you say to a game of vingt-et-un, eh, 
 Mr. Grandison?" 
 
 Little Grand fixed his blue eyes on the Marchioness, an;, 
 eaid he should be very happy, but, as for entertainment — 
 he wanted no other. 
 
 " No compliments, T^eii^ avii," laughed the Marchioness, 
 with a dainty blow of her fan. " Yes, Dolph, have vingt- 
 et-un, or music, or anything you like. Sing us some- 
 thing, Lucrezia." 
 
 The Italian girl thus addressed looked up with a pa»- 
 gionate, haughty flush, and answered, with wonderfully 
 little courtesy I considered, "I shall not sing to-night."
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 47 
 
 "Are you unwell, fairest friend?" asked the Due de 
 Saint-Jeu, bending his little wiry figure over her. 
 
 She shrank away from him, and drew back, a hot color 
 in her cheeks, 
 
 " Siguore, I did not address you." 
 
 The Marchioness looked angry, if those divine eyes 
 could look anything so mortal. However, she shrugged 
 her shoulders. 
 
 " Well, my dear Lucrezia, we can't make you sing, of 
 course, if you won't. I, for my part, always do any little 
 thing I can to amuse anybody ; if I fail, I fail ; I have 
 done my best, and my friends will appreciate the effort, 
 if not the result. No, my dear Prince, do not tease her," 
 said the Marchioness to Orangia Magnolia, who was argu- 
 ing, I thought, somewhat imperatively for such a well-bred 
 9 ud courtly man, with Lucrezia ; " we will have vingt- 
 3t-un, and Lucrezia will give us the delight of her voice 
 some other evening, I dare say." 
 
 We had vingt-et-un ; the Marchioness would not play, 
 but she sat in her rose velvet arm-chair, just behind Lit- 
 tle Grand, putting in pretty little speeches, and questions, 
 and bagatelles, and calling attention to the gambols of 
 her darling greyhound Cupidon, and tapping Little Gx'and 
 with her fan, till, I believe, he neither knew how the 
 game went, nor what money he lost ; and I, gazing at her, 
 and cursing him for his facile tongue, never noticed my 
 uaturels, could n't have said what the maximum was if 
 you had paid me for it, and might, for anything I knew 
 to the contrary, have been seeing my life slip away with 
 each card as Balzac's hero with the Peau de Chagrin. 
 Then we had sherbet, and wine, and cognac for those 
 who preferred it ; and the Marchioness gave us permis- 
 sion to smoke, and took a dainty hookah with an amber 
 mouthpiece for her own use (divine she did look, too, 
 with that hookah between her ruby lips !) ; and the 
 smoke, and the cognac, and the smiles, unloosed our
 
 48 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 tongues, and we spake like very great donkeys, I dare 
 Bay, but I 'm sure with not a tenth part the wisdom that 
 Balaam's ass developed in his brief and pithy con- 
 versation. 
 
 However great the bosh we talked, though, we found 
 very lenient auditors. Fitzhervey and Guatamara 
 laughed at all our witticisms ; the Prince of Orangia 
 Magnolia joined in with a " Per Baccho ! " and a " Bravo ! " 
 and little Saint-Jeu wheezed, and gave a faint echo of 
 "Mon Dieu!" and "Tres bien, tres bien, vraiment!" and 
 the Marchioness St. Julian laughed too, and joined in our 
 nonsense, and, what was much more, bent a willing ear 
 to our compliments, no matter how florid ; and Saint-Jeu 
 told us a story or two, more amusing than covime il fatit. 
 at which the Marchioness tried to look grave, and did 
 look shocked, but laughed for all that behind her fan ; 
 and Lucrezia da' Guari sat in shadow, as still and as 
 silent as the Parian Euphrosyne on the console, though 
 her passionate eyes and expressive face looked the very 
 antipodes of silence and statuetteism, as she flashed half- 
 shy, half-scornful, looks upon us. 
 
 If the first part of the evening had been delightful, 
 this was something like Paradise ! It was such high 
 society! and with just dash enough of Mabille and cou- 
 lisses laisseraller to give it piquancy. How different was 
 the pleasantry and freedom of these real aristos, after the 
 humdrum dinners and horrid bores of dances that those 
 snobs of Maberlys, and Fortescues, and Mitchells, made 
 believe to call Society ! 
 
 What with the wine, and the smoke, and the smiles, I 
 was n't quite clear as to whether I saw twenty horses' heads 
 or one when I was fairly into saddle, and riding back to 
 the town, just as the first dawn was rising. Aphrodite- 
 like, from the far blue waves of the Mediterranean. 
 Little Grand was better seasoned, but even he was dizzy
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MAUCHIONESS 49 
 
 with the parting words of the Marchioness, which had 
 softly breathed the delicious passport, "Come to-morrow." 
 
 " By Jupiter ! " swore Little Grand, obliged to givo 
 lelief to his feelings — "by Jupiter, Simon! did you ever 
 see such a glorious, enchanting, divine, delicious, adorable 
 creature ? Faugh ! who could look at those Mitchell 
 girls after her ? Such eyes ! such a smile ! such a figure ! 
 Talk of a coronet ! no imperial crown would be half good 
 enough for her ! And how pleasant those fellows are ! I 
 like that little chatfy chap, the Duke ; what a slap-up 
 story that was about the bal de I'Opera. And Fitzher- 
 vey, too ; there 's something uncommonly thorough-bred 
 about him, ain't there? And Guatamara's an immensely 
 jolly fellow. Ah, my boy ! that 's something like society ; 
 all the ease and freedom of real rank ; no nonsense about 
 them, as there is about snobs. I say, what wouldn't the 
 other fellows give to be in our luck ? I think even Con- 
 ran would warm up about hez". But, Simon, she 's deucedly 
 taken with me — she is, upon my word ; and she knows 
 how to show it you, too ! By George ! one could die for 
 a woman like that — eh ?" 
 
 " Die ! " I echoed, while my horse stumbled along up 
 the hilly road, and I swayed forward, pretty nearly over 
 his head, while poetry rushed to my lips, and electric 
 sparks danced before my eyes : 
 
 " To die for those we love! oli, tberc is power 
 In the true heart, and pride, and joy, for this 
 It is to live without the vanished light 
 That strength is needed!" 
 
 "But I'll be shot if it shall be vanished light," re- 
 turned Little Grand ; " it don't look much like it yet. 
 The light's only just lit, 'tis n't likely it's going out again 
 directly; but she is a stunner ! and " 
 
 "A stunner!" I shouted ; "she's much more than that 
 — she's an angel, and I'll he much obliged to you to call 
 6 D
 
 50 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 her by her right name, sir. She's a beautiful, noble, 
 loving woman ; the most perfect of all Nature's master- 
 works. She is divine, sir, and you and I are not worthy 
 merely to kiss the hem of her garment." 
 
 "Ain't we, though? I don't care much about kissing 
 her dress ; it's silk, and I don't know that I should derive 
 much pleasure from pressing my lips on its texture; but 
 her cheek " 
 
 " Her cheek is like the Catherine pear, 
 The side that's next the sun ! " 
 
 I shouted, as my horse went down in a rut. "She's like 
 Venus rising from the sea-shell ; she 's like Aurora, when 
 she came down on the first ray of the dawn to Tithonus; 
 she's like Briseis " 
 
 "Bother classics! she's like herself, and beats 'em all 
 hollow. She's the finest creature ever seen on earth, and 
 I should like to see the man who 'd dare to say she wasn't. 
 And — I say, Simon — liow much did you lose to-night f" 
 
 From sublimest heights I tumbled straight to bathos. 
 The cold Avater of Grand's query quenched my poetry, 
 extinguished ray electric lights, and sobered me like a 
 douche bath. 
 
 " I don't know," I answered, with a sense of awe ana 
 horror stealing over me ; " but I had a pony in my waist- 
 coat-pocket that the governor had just sent me ; Guata- 
 mara changed it for me, and — I've only sixpence left!" 
 
 " Old boy," said Little Grand to me, the next morning, 
 after early parade, " come in my room, and let 's make up 
 some despatches to the governors. You see," he con- 
 tinued, five minutes after, — "you see, we're both of us 
 pretty well cleared out; I've only got half a pony, and 
 you haven't a couple of fivers left. Now you know they 
 evidently play rather high at the Casa di Fiori ; do every- 
 thing en prince, like nobs who 've Barclays at their back : 
 and one mustn't hang fire; horrid shabby that would
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCniONESS. 51 
 
 look. Besides, fancy seeming mean before her! So I've 
 been thinking that, though governors are a screwy lot 
 generally, if we put it to 'em clearly the sort of set we 've 
 got into, and show 'em that we can't help, now that we 
 are at Rome, doing as the Romans do, I should say they 
 could hardly help bleeding a little — eh? Now, listen 
 how I 've put it. My old boy has a weakness for titles ; 
 he married my mother on the relationship to Viscount 
 Twaddles (who doesn't know of her existence; but who 
 does to talk about as ' our cousin'), and he'd eat up miles 
 of dirt for a chance of coming to a strawberry-leaf; so I 
 think this will touch him up beautifully. Listen ! am't 
 I sublimely respectful? 'I'm sure, my dear father, you 
 will be delighted to learn, that by wonderful luck, or 
 rather I ought to say Providence, I have fallen on my 
 feet in Malta, and got introduced to the very highest' 
 (wait ! let me stick a dash under very) — * the very highest 
 society here. They are quite tip-top. To show you what 
 style, I need only mention Lord A. Fitzhervey, the Baron 
 Guatamara, and the Marchioness St. Julian, as among 
 my kindest friends. They have been yachting in the 
 Levant, and are now staying in Malta : they are all most 
 kind to me ; and I know you will appreciate the intellec- 
 tual advantages that such contact must afford me ; at the 
 same time you will understand that I can hardly enter 
 such circles as a snob, and you will wish your son to com- 
 port himself as a gentleman ; but gentlemanizing comes 
 uncommon dear, I can tell you, with all the care in the 
 world : and if you could let me have another couple of 
 liundred, I should vote you' — a what, Simon? — 'an out- 
 and-out brick' is the sensible style, but I suppose 'the 
 best and kindest of parents' is the filial dodge, eh? 
 There! 'With fond love to mamma and Florie, ever 
 your affectionate son, Cosmo Grandison,' Bravo ! that's 
 prime; that'll bring the yellows down, I take it. Here, 
 old fellow, copy it to your governor; you couldn't have
 
 52 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 a more stunning effusion — short, and to the purpose, as 
 cabinet councils ought to be, and ain't. Fire away, my 
 juvenile." 
 
 I did fire away ; only I, of a more impressionable and 
 poetic nature than Little Grand, gave a certain vent to 
 my feelings in expatiating on the beauty, grace, conde- 
 scension, &c., &c., of the Marchioness to my mother ; I 
 did not mention the grivois stories, the brandy, and the 
 liookah : I was quite sure they were the sign of that deli- 
 cious ease and disregard of snobbish etiquette and con- 
 venances peculiar to the "Upper Ten," but I thought the 
 poor people at home, in vicarage seclusion, would be too 
 out of the world to full)' appreciate such revelations of 
 our creme de la creme; besides, my governor had James's 
 own detestation of the divine weed, and considered that 
 men who "made chimneys of their mouths" might just 
 as well have the mark of the Beast at once. 
 
 Little Grand and I were hard-up for cash, and e7i at- 
 tendant the governors' replies and remittances, we had 
 recourse to the tender mercies and leather bags of napo- 
 leons, ducats, florins, and doubloons of a certain Spanish 
 Jew, one Balthazar Miraflores, a shrivelled-skinned, 
 weezing old cove, who was " most happy to lent anytink 
 10 his tear young shentlesmen, but, by Got ! he was as 
 poor as Job, he was indeed ! " Whether Job ever lent 
 money out on interest or not, I can't say ; perhaps he did, 
 aa in the finish he ended with having quadrupled his 
 cattle and lands, and all his goods — a knack usurers 
 preserve in full force to this day ; but all I can say is, 
 that if he was not poorer than Mr. Miraflores, he was not 
 much to be pitied, for he, miserly old shark, lived in his 
 dark, dirty hole, like a crocodile embedded in Nile mud, 
 and crushed the bones of all unwary adventurers who 
 came within range of his great bristling jaws. 
 
 Money, howeve-, Little Grand and I got out of him in 
 plenty, only for a little bit of paper in exchange; and at
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 53 
 
 that time we didn't know that though the paper tax 
 would be repealed at last, there would remain, as long as 
 youths are green and old birds cunning, a heavy and a 
 bitter tax on certain bits of paper to which one's hand is 
 put, which Mr. Gladstone, though he achieve the hercu- 
 lean task of making draymen take kindly to vin ordi- 
 naire, and the popping of champagne corks a familiar 
 sound by cottage-hearths, will never be able to include in 
 his budgets, to come among the Taxes that are Repealed ! 
 
 Well, we had our money from old Balthazar that 
 morning, and Ave played with it again that night up at 
 the Casa di Fieri. Loo this time, by way of change. 
 Saint-Jeu said he always thought it well to change your 
 game as you change your loves : constancy, whether to 
 cards or women, was most fatiguing. We liked Saint-Jeu 
 very much, we thought him such a funny fellow. They 
 said they did not care to play much — of course they 
 did n't, when Guatamara had had ecarte with the Grand- 
 Duke of Chaffsandlarksteiu at half a million a side, and 
 Lord Dolph had broken the bank at Homburg "just for 
 fun — no fun to old Blanc, who farms it, though, you 
 know." But the Marchioness, who was doubly gracious 
 that night, told them they must play, because it amused 
 her ehers petits amis. Besides, she said, in her pretty, 
 imperious way, she liked to see it — it amused her. After 
 that, of course, there Avas no more hesitation; doAvn we 
 sat, and young Heavystone Avith us. 
 
 The evening before av« had happened to mention him, 
 said he was a felloAv of no end of tin, though as stupid an 
 owl as ever spelt his OAvn name Avrong when he passed a 
 military examination, and the Marchioness, recalling the 
 name, said she remembered his father, and asked us to 
 bring him to see her ; Avhich Ave did, fearing no rival in 
 " old Heavy." 
 
 So doAvn we three sat, and had the evening before over 
 again, Avith the cards, and the smiles, and Aviles of our 
 5*
 
 54 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 divinity, and Saint-Jeu's stories and Fitzhervey's cognac 
 and cigars ; with this difference, that we found loo more 
 exciting than vingt-et-un. They played it so fast, too, it 
 was like a breathless heat for the Goodwood Cup, and the 
 Marchioness watched it, leaning alternately over Grand'c, 
 and Heavy's, and my chair, and saying, with such naive 
 delight, " Oh, do take miss, Cosmo ; I would risk it if I 
 w^ere you, Mr. Heavystone ; pray don't let my naughty 
 brother win everything," that I 'd have defied the stiffest 
 of the Stagyrites or the chilliest of Calvin ists to have 
 kept their head cool with that syren voice in their ear. 
 
 And La Lucrezia sat, as she had sat the night before, 
 by the open window, still and silent, the Cape jasmines 
 and Southern creepers framing her in a soft moonlight 
 picture, contrast enough to the brilliantly lighted room, 
 echoing with laughter at Saint-Jeu's stories, perfumed 
 with Cubas and narghiles, and shrining the magnificent, 
 full-blown, jewelled beauty of our Marchioness St. Julian, 
 with which we were as rapidly, as madly, as unreason- 
 ingly, and as sentimentally in love as any boys of seven- 
 teen or eighteen ever could be. What greater latitude, 
 you will exclaim, recalling certain buried-away episodes 
 of your hobbedehoyism, when you addressed Latin dis- 
 tichs to that hazel-eyed Hebe who presided over oyster 
 patties and water ices at the pastrycook's in Eton ; or 
 ruined your governor's young plantations cutting the 
 name of Adeliza Mary, your cousin, at this day a portly 
 person in velvet and point, whom you can now call, with 
 a thanksgiving in the stead of the olden tremor, Mrs. 
 Hector M'Cutchin ? Yes, we were in love in a couple of 
 evenings. Little Grand vehemently and unpoetically, I 
 shyly and sentimentally, according to our temperaments, 
 and as the fair Emily stirred feud between the two Noble 
 Kinsmen, so the Marchioness St. Julian began to sow 
 seeds of jealousy and detestation between us, sworn allies 
 as we were. But " le veritable amant ne connait point
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 55 
 
 d'amis," and as soon as we began to grow jealous of each 
 other, Little Grand could have kicked me to the devil, 
 and I could have kicked him with the greatest pleasure 
 in life. 
 
 But I was shy, Little Grand was blessed with all the 
 audacity imaginable ; the consequence was, that when our 
 horses came round, and the Maltese who acted as cherub 
 was going to close the gates of Paradise upon us, he man- 
 aged to slip into the Marchioness's boudoir to get a tete- 
 a-tete farewell, while I strode up and down the veranda, 
 not heeding Saint-Jeu, who was telling me a tale, to 
 which, in any other saner moments, I should have lis- 
 tened greedily, but longing to execute on Little Grand 
 some fierce and terrible vengeance, to which the vendetta 
 should be baby's play. Saint-Jeu left me to put his arm 
 over Heavy's shoulder, and tell him if ever he came to 
 Paris he should be transported to receive him at the 
 Hotel de Millefleurs, and present him at the Tuileries ; 
 and I stood swearing to myself, and breaking off sprays 
 of the veranda creepers, when T heard somebody say, 
 very softly and low, — 
 
 " Signore, come here a moment." 
 
 It was that sweetly pretty mute whom we had barely 
 noticed, absorbed as we were in the worship of our ma- 
 turer idol, leaning out of the window, her cheeks flushed, 
 her lips parted, her eyes sad and anxious. Of course I 
 went to her, surprised at her waking up so suddenly to 
 any interest in me. She put her hand on my coat-sleeve, 
 and drew me down towards her. 
 
 " Listen to me a moment. I hardly know how to warn 
 you, and yet I must. I cannot sit quietly by and see you 
 and your young friends being deceived as so many have 
 been before you. Do not come here again — do not " 
 
 " Figlia mia! are you not afraid of the night-air?" 
 Baid the Prince of Orangia Magnolia, just behind us. 
 
 His words were kind, but there was a nasty glitter in
 
 66 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 his eyes. Lucrezia answered him in passionate Italian 
 — of which I had no knowledge — with such fire in her 
 eyes, such haughty gesticulation, and such a torrent of 
 words, that I really began to think, pretty soft little dear 
 as she looked, that she must positively be a trifle out of 
 her mind, her silence before, and her queer speech to me, 
 seemed such odd behavior for a young lady in such high 
 society. She was turning to me again when Little Grand 
 came out into the veranda, looking flushed, proud, and 
 self-complaisant, as such a winner and slayer of women 
 would do. My hand clenched on the jasmine, I thirsted 
 to spring on him as he stood there with his provoking, 
 self-contented smile, and his confounded coxcombical air, 
 and his cursed fair curls — my hair was dust-colored and 
 as rebellious as porcupine-quills — and wash out in his 
 
 blood or mine A touch of a soft hand thrilled through 
 
 my every nerve and fibre : the Marchioness was there, 
 and signed me to her. Lucrezia, Little Grand, and all 
 the rest of the universe vanished from my mind at the 
 lightning of that angel smile and the rustle of that 
 moire-antique dress. She beckoned me to her into the 
 empty drawing-room. 
 
 "Augustus" (I never thought my name could sound so 
 Bweet before), " tell me, what was my niece Lucrezia say- 
 ing to you just now?" 
 
 Now I had a sad habit of telling the truth ; it was au 
 out-of-the-world custom taught me, among other old- 
 fashioned things, at home, though I soon found how in- 
 convenient a betise modern society considers it; and I 
 blurted the truth out here, not distinctly or gracefully, 
 though, as Little Grand would have done, for I w'as in 
 that state of exaltation ordinarily expressed as not know- 
 ing whether one is standing in one's Wellingtons or not. 
 
 The Marchioness sighed. 
 
 "Ah, did she say that? Poor dear girl ! She dislikes 
 me so much, it is quite an hallucination, and yet, O
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 57 
 
 Augustus, I have been to her like an elder sister, like a 
 mother. Imagine how it grieves me," and the Marchion- 
 ess shed some tears — pearls of price, thought I, worthy 
 to di-op from angel eyes — "it is a bitter sorrow to me, 
 but, poor darling ! she is not responsible." 
 
 She touched her veiny temple significantly as she spcke, 
 and I understood, and felt tremendously shocked at it, 
 that the young, fair Italian girl was a fierce and cruel 
 maniac, who had the heart (oh ! most extraordinary mad- 
 ness did it seem to me ; if / had lost my senses I could 
 never have harmed her !) to hate, absolutely hate, the 
 noblest, tenderest, most beautiful of women ! 
 
 " I never alluded to it to any one," continued the Mar- 
 chioness. " Guatamara and Saint-Jeu, though such inti- 
 mate friends, are ignorant of it. I would rather have 
 any one think ever so badly of me, than reveal to them 
 the cruel misfortune of my sweet Lucrezia 
 
 How noble she looked as she spoke ! 
 
 " But you, Augustus, you," and she smiled upon me till 
 I grew as dizzy as after my first taste of milk-punch, " I 
 have not the courage to let you go ofi" with any bad im- 
 pression of me. I have known you a very little while, it 
 is true — but a few hours, indeed — yet there are affinities 
 of heart and soul which overstep the bounds of time, and, 
 laughing at the chill ties of ordinary custom, make stran- 
 gers dearer than old friends " 
 
 The room revolved round me, the lights danced up and 
 down, my heart beat like Thor's hammer, and my pulse 
 went as fast as a favorite saving the distance. She speak- 
 ing so to me ! My senses whirled round and round like 
 fifty tliousand witches on a Walpurgis Night, and down 
 I went on my knees before my magnificent idol, raving 
 away I could n't tell you what now — the essence of 
 everything I'd ever read, from Ovid to Alexander Smith. 
 It must have been something frightful to hear, though 
 Heaven knows I meant it earnestly enough. Suddenly I
 
 68 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 was pulled up with a jerk, as one throws an unbroken colt 
 back on his haunches in the middle of his iirst start. J 
 thought I heard a laugh. 
 
 She started up too. " Hush ! another time ! "We may 
 be overheard." And drawing her dress from my hands, 
 which grasped it as agonizingly as a cockney grasps his 
 saddle-bow, holding on for dear life over the Burton or 
 Tedworth country, she stooped kindly over me, and 
 floated away before I was recovered from the exquisite 
 delirium of ray ecstatic trance. 
 
 She loved me ! This superb creature loved me ! There 
 was not a doubt of it ; and how I got back to the bar- 
 racks that night in my heavenly state of mind I could 
 never have told. All I know is, that Grand and I never 
 spoke a word, by tacit consent, all the way back ; that I 
 felt a fiendish delight when I saw his proud triumphant 
 
 air, and thought how little he guessed, poor fellow! 
 
 And that Dream of One Fair Woman was as superior 
 in rapture to the " Dream of Fair Women " as Tokay to 
 the "Fine Fruity Port" that results from damsons and a 
 decoction of sloes ! 
 
 The next day there was a grand affair in Malta to re- 
 ceive some foreign Prince, whose name I do not remem- 
 ber now, who called on us en route to England Of 
 course all the troops turned out, and there was an inspec- 
 tion of us, and a grand luncheon and dinner, and ball, 
 and all that sort of thing, which a month before I should 
 have considered prime fun, but which now, as it kept me 
 out of my paradise, I thought the most miserable bore 
 that could possibly have chanced. 
 
 "I say," said Heavy to me as I was getting into harness 
 — "I say, don't you wonder Fitzhervey and the Mar- 
 chioness ain't coming to the palace to-day ? One would 
 have thought Old Stars and Garters would have been 
 sure to ask them." 
 
 "Ask them? I should say so," I returned, with im-
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 59 
 
 measurable disdain. "Of course he asked them ; but she 
 told me she should n't come, last night. She is so tired 
 of such things. She came yachting with Fitzhervey 
 Bolely to try and have a little quiet. She says people 
 never give her a moment's rest when she is in Paris or 
 London. She was sorry to disappoint Stars and Garters, 
 but I don't think she likes his wife much : she don't con- 
 sider her good ton." 
 
 On which information Heavy lapsed into a state of pro- 
 foundest awe and wonderment, it having been one of his 
 articles of faith, for the month that we had been in Malta, 
 that the palace people were exalted demigods, whom it 
 was only permissible to worship from a distance, and a 
 very respectful distance too. Heavy had lost some twenty 
 odd pounds the night before — of course we lost, young 
 hands as we were, unaccustomed to the society of that 
 entertaining gentleman, Pam — and had grumbled not a 
 little at the loss of his gold bobs. But now I could see 
 that such a contemptibly pecuniary matter was clean 
 gone from his memory, and that he would have thought 
 the world well lost for the honor of playing cards with 
 people who could afford to disappoint Old Stars and 
 Garters. 
 
 The inspection was over at last ; and if any other than 
 Conran had been my senior officer, I should have come 
 off badly, in all probability, for the abominable manner 
 in which I went through my evolutions. The day came 
 to an end somehow or other, though I began to think it 
 never would, the luncheon was ended, the bigwigs were 
 taking their sieste, or otherwise occupied, and I, trusting 
 to my absence not being noticed, tore off as hard as man 
 can who has Cupid for liis Pegasus. With a bouquet as 
 large as a drum-head, clasped round with a ])racelet, 
 about which I had many doubts as to the propriety of 
 offering to the possessor of such jewelry as the Marchion- 
 ess must have, yet on which I thought I might venture after
 
 60 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 the scene of last night, I was soon on the veranda of the 
 Casa di Fiori, and my natural shyness being stimulated 
 into a distant resemblance of Little Grand's enviable 
 brass, seeing the windows of the drawing-room open, I 
 pushed aside the green Venetians and entered noiselessly. 
 The room did not look a quarter so inviting as the night 
 before, though it was left in precisely a similar state. I 
 do not know how it was, but those cards lying about on 
 the floor, those sconces with the wax run down and drip- 
 ping over them, those emptied caraffes that had diffused an 
 odor not yet dissipated, those tables and velvet couches 
 all d tort et d, travers, did not look so very inviting after 
 all, and even to my unsophisticated senses, scarcely 
 seemed fit for a Peeress. 
 
 There was nobody in the room, and I walked through 
 it towards the boudoir ; from the open door I saw Fitz- 
 hei'vey, Guatamara, and my Marchioness — but oh ! what 
 horror unutterable! doing — que pensez-vonsf Drinking 
 bottled porter ! — and drinking bottled porter in a. peignoir 
 not of the cleanliest, and with raven tresses not of the 
 neatest ! 
 
 Only fancy! she, that divine, spirituelle creature, who 
 had talked but a few hours before of the affinity of souls, 
 to have come down, like any ordinary woman, to Guin- 
 ness's stout, and a checked dressing-gown and unbrushed 
 locks ! To find your prophet without his silver veil, or 
 your Leila dead drowned in a sack, or your Guinevere 
 flown over Avith Sir Lancelot to Boulogne, or your long- 
 esteemed Griselda gone oflT with your cockaded Jeames, 
 is nothing to the torture, the unutterable anguish, of see- 
 ing your angel, your divinity, your bright particular star, 
 your halloAved Arabian rose, come down to — Bottled 
 Porter ! Do not talk to me of Dorc, sir, or Mr. Martin's 
 pictures ; their horrors dwindle into insignificance com- 
 pared with the horror of finding an intimate liaison be- 
 tween one's first love and Bottled Porter I
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 61 
 
 In my first dim, unutterable anguish, I should have 
 turned and fled ; but my syren's voice had not lost all its 
 power, despite the stout and dirty dressing-gown, for 
 she was a very handsome woman, and could stand such 
 things as well as anybody. She came towards me, with 
 her softest smile, glancing at the bracelet on the bou juet, 
 apologizing slightly for her neglige: — "I am so indolent. 
 I only dress for those I care to please — and I never hoped 
 to see you to-day." In short, magnetizing me over again, 
 and smoothing down my outraged sensibilities, till I 
 ended by becoming almost blind {quite I could not man- 
 age) to the checked rohe de chavibre and the unbrushed 
 bandeaux, by offering her my braceleted bouquet, which 
 was very graciously accepted, and even by sharing the 
 atrocious London porter, "that horrid stufl^"," she called 
 it, "how I hate it! but it is the only thing Sir Benjamin 
 Brodie allows me, I am so very delicate, you know, juy 
 sensibilities so frightfully acute!" 
 
 I had not twenty minutes to stay, having to be back at 
 the barracks, or risk a reprimand, which, happily, the 
 checked peignoir had cooled me sufficiently to enable me 
 to recollect. So I took my farewell — one not unlike 
 Medora's and Conrad's, Fitzhervey and Guatamara hav- 
 ing kindly, withdrawn as soon as the bottled jDorter was 
 finished — and I went out of the house in a very blissful 
 state, despite Guinness and the unwelcome demi-toilette, 
 which did not accord with F.ugene Sue's and the Pailor 
 Library's description of the general getting-up and stun- 
 ning appearance of heroines and peeresses, " reclining, in 
 robes of cloud-like tissue and folds of the richest lace, on 
 a cabriole couch of amber velvet, while the air was 
 filled with the voluptuous perfume of the flower-children 
 of the South, and music from unseen choristers lulled the 
 senses with its divinest harmony," &c., &c., &c. 
 
 Bottled porter and a checked dressing-gown ! Say 
 what you like, sirs, it takes a very strong passion to over- 
 6
 
 f>2 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 come those. I have heard men ascribe the waning of their 
 affections after the honeymoon to the constant sight of 
 their wives — whom before they had only seen making 
 papa's coffee with an angelic air and a toilette tiree d 
 quatre epingles — everlastingly coming down too late for 
 breakfast in a dressing-gown ; and, upon my soul, if ever 
 T marry, which Heaven in pitiful mercy forfend ! and my 
 wife make her appearance in one of those confounded 
 peignoirs, I will give that much-run-after and deeply-to- 
 be-pitied public character, the Divorce Judge, some more 
 work to do — I will, upon my honor. 
 
 However, the peignoir had not iced me enough that 
 time to prevent my tumbling out of the house in as deli- 
 cious an ecstasy as if I had been eating some of Monte 
 Cristo's " hatchis." As I went out, not looking before 
 me, I came bang against the chest of somebody else, who, 
 not admiring the rencontre, hit my cap over my eyes, and 
 exclaimed, in not the most courtly manner you will ac- 
 knowledge, " You cursed owl, take that, then ! What 
 are you doing here, I should like to know?" 
 
 " Confound your impudence ! " I retorted, as soon as 
 my ocular powers were restored, and I saw the blue eyes, 
 fair curls, and smart figure of my ancient lolaiis, now my 
 bitterest foe — "confound your impertinence! what are 
 you doing here ? you mean." 
 
 " Take care, and don't ask questions about what doesn't 
 concern you," returned Little Grand, with a laugh — a 
 most irritating laugh. There are times when such cachin- 
 nations sting one's ears more than a volley of oaths. 
 " Go home and mind your own business, my chicken. 
 You are a green bird, and nobody minds you, but still 
 you '11 find it as well not to come poaching on other men'a 
 
 manors." 
 
 " Other men's manors ! Mine, if you please," I shouted. 
 
 so mad with him I could have floored him where he stood. 
 
 "Phew!" laughed Little Grand, screwing up his lips
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE M ARCIIIONEbS. fi'6 
 
 into a contemptuous whistle, * you 've been drinking too 
 much Bass, my daisy; 'tis n't good for young heads — 
 can't stand it. Go home, innocent." 
 
 The insult, the disdainful tone, froze my blood. My 
 heart swelled with a sense of outraged dignity and injured 
 manhood. With a conviction of my immeasurable supe- 
 riority of position, as the beloved of that divine creature, 
 I emancipated myself from the certain sort of slavery ] 
 was generally in to Little Grand, and spoke as I con- 
 ceived it to be the habit of gentlemen whose honor had 
 been wounded to speak. 
 
 *' Mr. Grandison, you will pay for this insult. I shall 
 expect satisfaction." 
 
 Little Grand laughed again — absolutely grinned, the 
 audacious young imp — and he twelve months younger 
 than I, too ! 
 
 " Certainly, sir. If you wish to be made a target of, 1 
 shall be delighted to oblige you. I can't keep ladies 
 waiting. It is always Place aux dames ! with me ; so, for 
 the present, good morning ! " 
 
 And ofl' went the young coxcomb into the Casa di 
 Fiori, and I, only consoled by the reflection of the dif- 
 ferent reception he would rc.ceive to what mine had been 
 (he had a bracelcted bouquet, too, the young pretentious 
 puppy ! ), started off again, assuaging my lacerated feel- 
 ings with the delicious word of Satisfaction. I felt my- 
 self immeasurably raised above the heads of every other 
 man in Malta — a perfect hero of romance; in fact, fit tc 
 figure in my beloved Alexandre's most highly-wrought 
 yellow-papered roman, with a duel on my hands, and the 
 love of a magnificent creature like my Eudoxia Adelaida. 
 She had become Eudoxia Adelaida to me now, and I had 
 forgiven, if not forgotten, the dirty dressing-gown : the 
 bottled porter lay, of course, at Brodic's door. If he 
 would condemn spiritual forms of life and light to the 
 common realistic aliments of horrible barmaids and dray-
 
 64 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 men, she could not help it, nor I either. If angels come 
 down to earth, and are separated from their natural nour- 
 ishment of manna and nectar, they must take what they 
 can get, even though it be so coarse and sublunary a 
 thing as Guinness's XXX, must they not, sir ? Yes, I 
 felt very exalte with my affair of honor and my affair of 
 the heart, Little Grand for my foe, and my Marchioness 
 for a love. I never stopped to remember that I might be 
 smashing with frightful recklessness the Sixth and the 
 Seventh Commandments. If Little Grand got shot, he 
 must thank himself; he should not have insulted me; 
 and if there was a Marquis St. Julian, why — I pitied 
 him, poor fellov/! that Vi'as all. 
 
 Full of these sublime sensations — grown at least three 
 feet in my varnished boots — I lounged into the ball-room, 
 feeling supreme pity for ensigns who were chattering 
 round the door, admiring those poor, pale garrison girls. 
 They had not a duel and a Marchioness ; they did not 
 know what beauty meant — what life was ! 
 
 I did not dance — I was above that sort of thing now 
 — there was not a woman worth the trouble in the room ; 
 and about the second waltz I saw my would-be rival 
 talking to Ruthven, a fellow in Ours. Little Grand did 
 not look glum or dispirited, as he ought to have done 
 after the interview he must have had ; but probably that 
 was the boy's brass. He would never look beaten if you 
 had hit him till he was black and blue. Presently Ruth- 
 ven came up to me. He was not over-used to his busi- 
 ness, for he began the opening chapter in rather school- 
 boy fashion. 
 
 " Hallo, Gus ! so you and Little Grand have been fall- 
 ing out. Why don't you settle it Avith a little mill? A 
 va.st deal better than pistols. Duels always seem to me 
 no fun. Two men stand up like fools, and " 
 
 " Mr. Ruthven," said I, very haughtily, " if your prin- 
 cipal desires to apologize "
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 65 
 
 "Apologize! Bless your soul, no ! But- 
 
 *' Then," said I, cutting him uncommonly short indeed, 
 ** you can have no necessity to address yourself to me, and 
 I beg to refer you to my friend and second, Mr. Heavy- 
 stone." 
 
 Wherewith I bowed, turned on my heel, and left him. 
 
 I did not sleep that night, though I tried hard, because 
 I thought it the correct thing for heroes to sleep sweetly 
 till the clock strikes the hour of their duel, execution, 
 &c., or whatever it may hap. Egmont slept, Argyle 
 slept, Philippe Egalite, scores of them, but I could not. 
 Not that I funked it, thank Heaven — I never had a 
 touch of that — but because I was in such a delicious 
 state of excitement, self-admiration, and heroism, which 
 had not cooled when I found myself walking down to the 
 appointed place by the beach with poor old Heavy, who 
 was intensely impressed by being charged with about five 
 quires of the best cream-laid, to be given to the Mar- 
 chioness in case I fell. Little Grand and Ruthven came 
 on the ground at almost the same moment. Little Grand 
 eminently jaunty and most confoundedly handsome. Wo 
 took off our caps with distant ceremony ; the Castilian 
 hidalgos were never more stateiy ; but, then, what Knights 
 of the Round Table ever splintered spears for such a 
 woman ? 
 
 The paces were measured, the pistols taken out of their 
 case. We were just placed, and Ruthven, with a hand- 
 kerchief in his hand, had just enumerated, in awful 
 accents, "One ! two ! " — the " three ! " yet hovered on his 
 lips, when we heard a laugh — the tli'rd laugh that had 
 chilled iny blood in twenty-four hours. Somebody's hand 
 was laid on Little Grand's shoulder, and Co^u-un'a voice, 
 interrupted the whole thing. 
 
 " Hallo, young ones ! what farce is this?" 
 
 *• Farce, sir ! " retorted Little Grand, hotly — "Oireo? 
 
 It is no farce. It is an affair of houor, and " 
 
 6* E
 
 66 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 " Dou't make me laugh, my dear boy," smiled Conran; 
 " it is so much too warm for such an exertion. Pray, why 
 are you and your once sworn friend making popinjays of 
 each other?" 
 
 " Mr. Grandison has grossly insulted me," I began, 
 " and I demand satisfaction. I Avill not stir from the 
 ground without it, and " 
 
 " You sha'n't," shouted Little Grand. " Do you dare 
 to pretend I want to funk, you little contemptible " 
 
 Though it was too warm, Conran went off into a fit of 
 laughter. 
 
 I dare say our sublimity had a comic touch in it of 
 which we never dreamt. " My dear boys, pray don't, it 
 is too fatiguing. Come, Grand, what is it all about?" 
 
 " I deny your right to question me. Major," retorted 
 Little Grand, in a fury. " What have you to do with it? 
 I mean to punish that young owl yonder — who didn't 
 know how to drink anything but milk-and-water, did n't 
 know how to say bo! to a goose, till I taught him — for 
 very abominable impertinence, and I '11 " 
 
 " My impertinence ! I like that ! " I shouted. " It is 
 your unwarrantable, overbearing self-conceit, that makes 
 you the laughing-stock of all the mess, which " 
 
 " Silence ! " said Conran's still stern voice, which sub- 
 dued us into involuntary respect. " No more of this non- 
 sense ! Put up those pistols, Ruthven. You are two hot- 
 headed, silly boys, who don't know for what you are quar- 
 relling. Live a few years longer, and you won't be so 
 eager to get into hot water, and put cartridges into your 
 best friends. No, I shall not hear any more about it. If 
 you do not instantly give me your words of honor not to 
 attempt to repeat this folly, as your senior officer I shall 
 put you under arrest for six weeks." 
 
 O Alexandre Dumas! — O Monte Cristo! — O heroes 
 of yellow paper and pluck invincible ! I ask pardon of 
 your shades ; I must record the fact, lowering and melan-
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCIIIONEBS, 67 
 
 choly as it is, that before our senior officer our hermsm 
 melted like Vanille ice in the sun, our glories tumbled 
 to the ground like twelfth-cake ornaments under children's 
 fingers, and before the threat of arrest the lions lay down 
 like lambs. 
 
 Conran sent us back, humbled, sulky, and crestfallen, 
 and resumed his solitary patrol upon the beach, where, be- 
 fore the sun was fairly up, he was having a shot at curlews. 
 But if he was a little stern, he was no less kind-hearted ; 
 and in the afternoon of that day, while he lay, after his 
 siesta, smoking on his little bed, I unburdened myself to 
 him. He did not laugh at me, though I saw a quizzical 
 smile under his black moustaches. 
 
 "What is your divinity's name?" he asked, when I had 
 finished. 
 
 " Eudoxia Adelaida, Marchioness St. Julian." 
 
 " The Marchioness St. Julian ! Oh ! " 
 
 "Do you know her?" I inquired, somewhat perplexed 
 by his tone. 
 
 He smiled straight out this time. 
 
 " I don't know her, but there are a good many Peeresses 
 in Malta and Gibraltar, and along the line of the Pacific, 
 as ray brother Ned, in the Bellsarius, will tell you. I 
 could count two score such of my acquaintance off at this 
 minute." 
 
 I wondered what he meant. I dare say he knew all 
 the Peerage ; but that had nothing to do with me, and I 
 thought it strange that all the Duchesses, and Countesses, 
 and Baronesses should quit their country-seats and town« 
 houses to locate themselves along the line of the Pacific. 
 
 " She 's a fine woman, St. John?" he went on. 
 
 "Fine!" I reiterated, bursting into a panegyric, with 
 which I won't bore you as I bored him. 
 
 " Well, you 're going there to-night, you say ; take me 
 with you, and we '11 see what I think of your Marchioness." 
 
 I looked at his fine figure and features, recalled certain
 
 68 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 tales of his conquests, remembered that he knew French, 
 Italian, German, and Spanish, but, not being very able to 
 refuse, acquiesced with a reluctance I could not entirely 
 conceal. Conran, however, did not perceive it, and after 
 mess took his cap, and went with me to the Casa di Fiori. 
 
 The rooms were all right again, my Marchioness was 
 en grande tenue, amber silk, black lace, diamonds, and all 
 that sort of style. Fitzhervey and the other men were in 
 evening dress, drinking coffee ; there was not a trace of 
 bottled porter anywhere, and it was all very brilliant and 
 presentable. The Marchioness St. Julian rose with the 
 warmest effusion, her dazzling white teeth showing in the 
 sunniest of smiles, and both hands outstretched. 
 
 "Augustus, ble7i aime, you are rather " 
 
 " Late," I suppose she was going to say, but she stopped 
 dead short, her teeth remained parted in a stereotypei 
 smile, a blankness of dismay came over her luminous eyes. 
 She caught sight of Conran, and I imagined I heard a very 
 low-breathed " Curse the fellow ! " from courteous Lord 
 Dolph. Conran came forward, however, as if he did not 
 notice it ; there was only that queer smile lurking under 
 his moustaches. I introduced him to them, and the 
 Marchioness smiled again, and Fitzhervey almost resumed 
 his wonted extreme urbanity. But they were somehow or 
 other wonderfully ill at ease — wonderfully, for people in 
 such high society ; and I was ill at ease too, from being 
 only able to attribute Eudoxia Adelaida's evident con- 
 sternation at the sight of Conran to his having been some 
 time or other an old love of hers. "Ah!" thought I, 
 grinding my teeth, " that comes of loving a woman older 
 than one's self." 
 
 The Major, however, seemed the only one who enjoyed 
 himself. The Marchioness was beaming on him graciously, 
 though her ruffled feathers were not quite smoothed down, 
 and he was sitting by her with an intense amusement in 
 his eyes, alternately talking to her about Stars and Gar-
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 69 
 
 ters, whom, by her answers, she did not seem to know so 
 very intimately after all, and chatting with Fitzhervey 
 about hunting, who, for a man that had hunted over every 
 country, according to his own account, seemed to confuse 
 Tom Edge with Tom Smith, the Burton with the Tedworth, 
 a bullfinch with an ox-rail, in queer style, under Conran's 
 cross-questioning. We had been in the room about teu 
 minutes, when a voice, rich, low, sweet, rang out from 
 some inner room, singing the glorious " Inflammatus." 
 How strange it sounded in the Casa di Fiori ! 
 
 Conran started, the dark blood rose over the clear 
 bronze of his cheek. He turned sharply on to the Mar- 
 chioness. " Good Heaven ! whose voice is that ? " 
 
 " My niece's," she answered, staring at him, and touch- 
 ing a hand-bell. " I will ask her to come and sing to us 
 nearer. She has really a lovely voice." 
 
 Conran grew pale again, and sat watching the door with 
 the most extraordinary anxiety. Some minutes went by ; 
 then Lucrezia entered, with the same haughty reserve 
 which her soft young face always wore when with her aunt. 
 It changed, though, when her glance fell on Conran, into 
 the wildest rapture I ever saw on any countenance. He 
 fixed his eyes on her with the look Little Grand says he 's 
 seen him wear in a battle — a contemptuous smile quiver- 
 ing on his face. 
 
 " Sing us something, Lucrezia dear," began the Mar- 
 chioness. " You should n't be like the nightingales, and 
 give your music only to night and solitude." 
 
 Lucrezia seemed not to hear her. She had never taken 
 her eyes off Conran, and she went, as dreamily as that 
 dear little Amina in the " Sonnambula," to her seat under 
 the jasmines in the window. For a few minutes Conran, 
 who did n't seem to care two straws what the society in 
 general thought of him, took his leave, to the relief, ap- 
 parently, of Fitzhervey and Guatamara, 
 
 As lie went across the veranda — that memorable ve-
 
 TO LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCUIONESS. 
 
 randa! — I sitting in dudgeon near the other window, 
 while Fitzhervey was proposing ecarte to Heavy, whom 
 we had found there on our entrance, and the Marchioness 
 had vanished into her boudoir for a moment, I saw the 
 Roman girl spring out after him, and catch hold of his 
 arm : 
 
 "Victor! Victor! for pity's sake! — I never thought 
 we should meet like this ! " 
 
 "Nor did I." 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! you will kill me. In mercy, say some 
 kinder words ! " 
 
 " I can say nothing that it would be courteous to yon 
 to say." 
 
 I could n't have been as inflexible, Avhatever her sins 
 might have been, with her hands clasped on me, and her 
 face raised so close to mine. Lucrezia's voice changed to 
 a piteous wail : 
 
 " You love me no longer, then ?" 
 
 "Love!" said Conrau, fiercely — "love! How dare 
 you speak to me of love ? I held you to be fond, inno- 
 cent, true as Heaven ; as such, you w^ere dearer to me than 
 life — as dear as honor. I loved you with as deep a pas- 
 sion as ever a man knew — Heaven help me ! I love you 
 now 1 How am I rewarded ? By finding you the com- 
 panion of blackguards, the associate of swindlers, one of 
 the arch-intrigantes who lead on youths to ruin with base 
 smiles and devilish arts. Then you dare talk to me of 
 love!" 
 
 With those passionate words he threw her off him. She 
 fell at his feet with a low moan. He either did not hear, 
 or did not heed it ; and I, bewildered by what I heard, 
 mechanically went and lifted her from the ground. Lu- 
 crezia had not fainted, but she looked so wild, that I be- 
 lieved the Marchioness, and set her down as mad ; but 
 then Conran must be mad as well,' which seemed too in- 
 credible a thing for me to swallow — our cool Major mad J
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 71 
 
 "Where does lie live?" asked Lucrezia of me, iu a 
 Dreathless whisper. 
 
 "He? Who?" 
 
 "Victor — your officer — Siguor Conran." 
 
 "AVhy, he lives iu Valetta, of course." 
 
 "Caul find him there?" 
 
 " I dare say, if you want him. 
 
 "Want him! Oh, Santa Maria! is not his absence 
 death? Can I find him?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I dare say. Anybody will show you Con- 
 ran's rooms." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 With that, this mysterious young lady left me, and I 
 turned in through the window again. Heavy and the 
 men were playing at lansquenet, that most perilous, rapid, 
 and bewitching of all the resistless Card Circes. There 
 was no Marchioness, and having done it once with impu- 
 nity, I thought I might do it again, and lifted the am- 
 ber curtain that divided the boudoir from the drawing- 
 room. What did I behold ? Oh ! torture unexampled ! 
 Oh! fiendish agony ! There was Little Grand — self-con- 
 ceited, insulting, impertinent, abominable, unendurable 
 Little Grand — on the amber satin couch, with the Mar- 
 chioness leaning her head on his shoulder, and looking up 
 m his thrice-confounded face with her most adorable 
 smile, my smile, that had beamed, and, as I thought, 
 beamed only upon me ! 
 
 If Mephistopheles had been by to tempt me, I would 
 have sold my soul to have wreaked vengeance on them 
 both. Neither saw me, thank Heaven ! and I had self- 
 possession enough not to give them the cruel triumph of 
 witnessing my anguish. I withdrew in silence, dropped 
 the curtain, and rushed to bury my wrongs and sorrows 
 in the friendly bosom of the gentle night. It was my first 
 love, and I had made a fool of myself. Tiie two are 
 synonymous.
 
 72 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 How I reached the barracks I never knew. All the 
 night long I sat watching the stars out, raving to them 
 of Eudoxia Adelaida, and cursing in plentiful anathemas 
 my late Orestes. How should I bear his impudent grin 
 every mortal night of my life across the mess-table? I 
 tore up into shreds about a ream of paper, inscribed with 
 tender sonnets to my faithless idol. I trampled into fifty 
 thousand shreds a rosette off her dress, for Avhich, fool-like, 
 I had begged the day before. I smashed the looking- 
 glass, which could only show me the image of a pitiful 
 donkey. I called on Heaven to redress my wrongs. Oh ! 
 curse it ! never was a fellow at once so utterly done for 
 and so utterly done brown ! 
 
 And in the vicarage, as I learnt afterwards, when my 
 letter was received at home, there was great glorification 
 and jileasure. My mother and the girls were enraptured 
 at the high society darling Gussy was moving in ; " but 
 then, you know, mamma, dear Gussy's manners are so 
 gentle, so gentleman-like, they are sure to please wherever 
 he goes!" Wherewith my mother cried, and dried her 
 eyes, and cried again, over that abominable letter copied 
 from Little Grand's, and smelling of vilest tobacco. 
 
 Then entered a rectoress of a neighboring parish, to 
 •whom my mother and the girls related with innocent ex- 
 ultation of my grand friends at Malta ; how Lord A- 
 Fitzhervey was my sworn ally, and the Marchioness St. 
 Julian had quite taken me under her wing. And the 
 rectoress, having a son of her own, who was not doing 
 anything so grand at Cambridge, but principally sotting 
 beer at a Cherryhinton public, smiled and was wrathful, 
 and said to her lord at dinner: 
 
 "My dear, did you ever hear of a Marchioness St 
 Julian?" 
 
 "No, my love, I believe not ---never." 
 
 " Is there one in the peerage?" 
 
 "C3.n't say, my dear. Look in Burke,"
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 73 
 
 So the rectoress got Burke and closed it, after deliber- 
 ate inspection, with malignant satisfaction. 
 
 " I thought not. How ridiculous those St. Johns are 
 about that ugly boy Augustus. As if Tom were not 
 worth a hundred of him ! " 
 
 I was too occupied with my own miseries then to think 
 about Conran and Lucrezia, though some time after I 
 heard all about it. It seems, that, a year before, Conran 
 was on leave in Kome, and at Eome, loitering about the 
 Campagna one day, he made a chance acquaintance with 
 an Italian girl, by getting some flowers for her she had 
 tried to reach and could not. She was young, enthusias- 
 tic, intensely interesting, and had only an old Roman 
 nurse, deaf as a post and purblind, with her. The girl 
 was Lucrezia da Guari, and Lucrezia was lovely as one 
 of htr own myrtle or orange flowers. Somehow or other 
 Conran went there the next day, and the next, and the 
 next, and so on for a good many days, and always found 
 Lucrezia. Now, Conran had at bottom a touch of un- 
 stirred romance, and, moreover, his own idea of w'hat 
 sort of woman he could love. Something in this un- 
 trained yet winning Campagna flower answered to both. 
 He was old enough lo trust his own discernment, and, 
 after a month or two's walks and talks, Conran, one of 
 the proudest men going, offered himself and his name to 
 a Roman girl of whom he knew nothing, except that she 
 seemed to care for him as he had had a fancy to be cared 
 for all his life. It was a deucedly romantic thing — how- 
 ever, he did it! Lucrezia had told him her father was a 
 military officer, but somehow or other this father never 
 came to light, and when he called at their house — or 
 rather rooms — Conran always found him out, which he 
 thought queer, but, on the whole, rather providential, and 
 he set the accident down to a foreigner's roaming habits. 
 
 The day Conran had really gone the length of offering 
 to make an unknown Italian his wife, he went, for tho
 
 74 LTTTLE GBAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 first time in the evening, to Da Guari's house. The ser- 
 vant showed him in unannounced to a brightly-lighted 
 chamber, reeking with Avine and smoke, where a dozen 
 men were playing tx'ente et quarante at an amateur bank, 
 and two or three others were gathered round what he had 
 believed his own fair and pure Campagna flower. He 
 understood it all ; he turned away with a curse upon him. 
 He wanted love and innocence ; adventuresses he could 
 have by the score, and he was sick to death of them. From 
 that hour he never saw her again till he met her at the 
 Casa di Fieri. 
 
 The next day I went to Conran while he was break- 
 fasting, and unburdened my mind to him. He looked ill 
 and haggard, but he listened to me very kindly, though he 
 spoke of the people at the Casa di Fieri in a hard, brief, 
 curious manner. 
 
 " Plenty have been taken in like you, Gus," he said 
 " I was, years agOj in my youth, when I joined the Army. 
 There are scores of such women, as I told you, down the 
 line of the Pacific, and about here ; anywhere, in fact, 
 where the army and navy give them fresh pigeons to be 
 gulled. They take titles that sound grand in boys ' ears, 
 and fascinate them till they 've won all their money, and 
 then — send them to the dogs. Your Marchioness St, 
 Julian's real name is Sarah Briggs." 
 
 I gave an involuntary shriek. Sarah Briggs finished 
 me. It was the death-stroke, that could never be got 
 over. 
 
 " She was a ballet-girl in London," continued Conran ; 
 " then, when she was sixteen, married that Fitzhervey, 
 alias Briggs, alias Smith, alias what you please, and set 
 up in her present more lucrative em2)loyment with her 
 three or four confederates. Saint-Jeu Avas expelled from 
 Paris for keeping a hell in the Chauss^e d'Antin, Fitz- 
 hervey was a leg at Newmarket, Orangia Magnolia a 
 lawyer's clerk, who was had up for forgery, Guataniara is
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 75 
 
 — by another name — a scoundrel of Rome. There is 
 the history of your Maltese Peerage, Gussy. Well, 
 you '11 be wider awake next time. Wait, there is some- 
 body at my door. Stay here a moment, I '11 come back 
 to you." 
 
 Accordingly, I stayed in his bedroom, where I had 
 found him writing, and he Avent into his sitting-room, of 
 which, from the dimiuutiveuess of his domicile, I com- 
 manded a full view, sit where I would. What was my 
 astonishment to see Lucrezia ! I went to his bedroom 
 door ; it was locked from the outside, so I perforce re- 
 mained where I was, to, nolens volens, witness the finish 
 of last night's interview. 
 
 Stern to the last extent and deadly pale, Conran stood, 
 too surprised to speak, and most probably at a loss for 
 words. 
 
 Lucrezia came up to him nevertheless with the aban- 
 donment of youth and southern blood. 
 
 " Victor ! Victor ! let me speak to you. You shall 
 listen ; you shall not judge me unheard." 
 
 " Signorina, I have judged you by only too ample 
 evidence." 
 
 He had recovered himself now, and was as cool as 
 needs be. 
 
 " I deny it. But you love me still ? " 
 
 "Love you? More shame on me! A laugh, a com- 
 pliment, a caress, a cashmere, is as much as such women 
 as you are worth. Love becomes ridiculous named in 
 the same breath with you." 
 
 She caught hold of his hand and crushed it in both her 
 own. 
 
 "Kill me if you will. Death would have no sting 
 from your hand, but never speak such words to me." 
 
 His voice trembled. 
 
 " How can I choose but speak them ? You know that 
 I believed you in Italy, and how on that belief I oifered
 
 76 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCniONESS, 
 
 you my name — a name never yet stained, never yet held 
 unworthy. I lost you, to find you in society which 
 stamped you for ever. A lovely fiend, holding raw boys 
 enchained, that your associates might rifle their purses 
 with marked cards and cogged dice. I hoped to have 
 found a diamond, without spot or flaw. I discovered my 
 error too late ; it was only glass, which all men were free 
 to pick up and trample on at their pleasure." 
 
 He tried to wrench his hand away, but she would not 
 let it go. 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! listen to me first. If you once thought 
 me worthy of your love, you may, surely, now accord me 
 pity. I shall not trouble you long. After this, you need 
 see me no more. I am going back to my old convent. 
 You and the world will soon forget me, but I shall re- 
 member you, and pray for you, as dearer than my own 
 soul." 
 
 Conran's head was bent down now, and his voice was 
 thick, as he answered briefly, 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 This scene half consoled me for Eudoxia Adelaida — 
 (I mean, O Heavens, Sarah Briggs!) — it was so exquis- 
 itely romantic, and Conran and Lucrezia would n't have 
 done at all badly for Monte Cristo and that dear little 
 Haidee. I was fearfully poetic in those days. 
 
 " When I met you in Rome," Lucrezia went on, in 
 obedience to his injunction, " two years ago, you remem-r 
 ber I had only left my convent and lived with my father 
 but a month or two. I told you he was an officer. I 
 only said what I had been told, and I knew no more than 
 you that he was the keeper of a gambling-house." 
 
 She shuddered as she paused, and leaned her forehead 
 on Conran's hand. He did not repulse her, and she con- 
 tinued, in her broken, simple English : 
 
 "The evening you promised me what I should have 
 needed to have been an angel to be worthy of — your love
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 77 
 
 and your name — that very evening, when I reached 
 home, my father bade me dress for a soiree he was going 
 to give. I obeyed him, of course. I knew nothing but 
 what he told me, and I went down, to find a dozen young 
 nobles and a few Englishmen drinking and playing on a 
 table covered with green cloth. Some few of them came 
 up to me, but I felt frightened ; their looks, their tones, 
 their florid compliments, were so different to yours. But 
 my father kept his eye on me, and would not let me 
 leave. While they were leaning over my chair, and 
 whispering in my ear, you came to the door of the salon, 
 and I went towards you, and you looked cold, and harsh, 
 as I had never seen you before, and put me aside, and 
 turned away without a word. Oh, Victor ! why did you 
 not kill me then? Death would have been kindness. 
 Your Othello was kinder to Desdemona ; he slew her — 
 he did not leave her. From that hour I never saw you, 
 and from that hour my father persecuted me because I 
 would never join in his schemes, nor enter his vile gaming- 
 rooms. Yet I have lived with him, because I could not 
 get away. I have been too carefully watched. We 
 Italians are not free, like your happy English girls. A 
 few weeks ago we were compelled to leave Rome, the 
 young Contino di Firenze had been stilettoed leaving my 
 father's rooms, and he could stay in Italy no longer. We 
 came here, and joined that hateful woman, who calls her- 
 self Marchioness St. Julian ; and, because she could not 
 bend me to her will, gives out that I am her niece, and 
 mad ! I wonder I am not mad, Victor. I wish hearts 
 would break, as the romancers make them ; but how long 
 one suffers and lives on ! Oh, my love, my soul, my life, 
 only say that you believe me, and look kindly at me once 
 again, then I will never trouble you again, I will only 
 pray for you. But believe me, Victor. The Mothei 
 Superior of my convent will tell you it is the truth that 
 7*
 
 78 LITTLE GRAND AND TOE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 T speak. Oh, for the love of Heaven, believe me ! Be- 
 lieve me or I shall die ! " 
 
 It was not in the nature of man to resist her ; there 
 was truth in the girl's voice and face, if ever truth walked 
 abroad on earth. And Conran did believe her, and told 
 her so in a few unconnected words, lifting her up in his 
 arms, and vowing, with most unrighteous oaths, that hei 
 father should never have power to persecute her again as 
 long as he himself lived to shelter and take care of her. 
 
 I Avas so interested in my Monte Cristo and Haidee (it 
 was so like a chapter out of a book), that I entirely forgot 
 my durance vile, and my novel and excessively disgrace- 
 ful, though enforced, occupation of spy ; and there I 
 stayed, alternating between my interest in them and my 
 agonies at the revelations concerning my Eudoxia Adel- 
 aida — oh, hang it! I mean Sarah Briggs — till, after a 
 most confounded long time, Conran saw fit to take Lu- 
 orezia off, to get asylum for her with the Colonel's wife 
 ^or a day or two, that " those fools might not misconstrue 
 her." By which comprehensive epithet he, I suppose, 
 politely designated " Ours." 
 
 Then I went my ways to my own room, and there I 
 found a scented, mauve-hued, creamy billet-doux, in un- 
 common bad handwriting, though, from my miserable 
 Eudoxia Adelaida to the " friend and lover of her soul." 
 Confound the woman! — how I swore at that daintily- 
 perfumed and most vilely-scrawled letter. To think that 
 where that beautiful signature stretched from one side to 
 ihe other — "Eudoxia Adelaida St. Julian" — there 
 ougld to have been that short, vile, low-bred, hideous, 
 Billingsgate cognomen of "Sarah Briggs!" 
 
 In the note she reproached me — the wretched hypO' 
 crite! — for my departure the previous night, " without 
 one farewell to your Eudoxia, O cruel Augustus ! " and 
 asked me to give her a rendezvous at some vineyards 
 lying a little way oft' the Casa di Fiori, on the road to
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. T9 
 
 Melita. Now, being a foolish boy, and regarding myself 
 as having been loved and wronged, whereas I had only 
 been playing the very common role of pigeon, I could not 
 resist the temptation of going, just to take one last look 
 of that fair, cruel face, and upbraid her with being the 
 first to sow the fatal seeds of lifelong mistrust and misery 
 in my only too fond and faithful, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 So, at the appointed hour, just when the sun was set- 
 ting over the far-away Spanish shore, and the hush of 
 night was sinking over the little, rocky, peppery, mili- 
 tary-thick, Mediterranean isle, I found myself en rowfe to 
 the vineyards ; which, till I came to Malta, had been one 
 of my delusions. Idea picturing them in wreaths and 
 avenues. Reality proving them hop-sticks and parched 
 earth. I drew near ; it was quite dark now, the sun had 
 gone to sleep under the blue waves, and the moon was 
 not yet up. Though I knew she was Sarah Briggs, and 
 an adventuress who had made game of me, two facts that 
 one would fancy might chill the passion out of anybody, 
 so mad was I about that woman, that, if I had met her 
 then and there, I should have let her wheedle me over, 
 and gone back to the Casa di Fiori with her and been 
 fleeced again : I am sure I should, sir, and so would you, 
 if, at eighteen, new to life, you had fallen in with Eudox 
 
 pshaw! — with Sarah Briggs, my Marchioness St. 
 
 Julian. 
 
 I drew near the vineyards : my heart beat thick, I could 
 not see, but I was certain I heard the rustle of her dress, 
 caught the perfume of her hair. All her sins vanished : 
 how could I upbraid her, though she were three times 
 over Sarah Briggs ? Yes, she was coming ; I felt her 
 near; an electric thrill rushed through me as soul met 
 Boul. I heard a murmured " Dearest, sweetest ! " I felt 
 the warm clasp of two arms, but — a cold row of undress 
 waistcoat-buttons came against my face, and a voice I 
 knew too well cried out, as I rebounded from him, im- 
 pelled thereto by a not gentle kick, —
 
 80 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 " The devil ! get out ! Who the deuce are you ?' 
 
 We both stopped for breath. At that minute up rose 
 the silver moon, and in its tell-tale rays we glared on one 
 another, I and Little Grand. 
 
 That silence was sublime : the pause between Beetho- 
 ven's andante allegro — the second before the Spanish 
 bull rushes upon the torreador. 
 
 " You little miserable Avretch ! " burst out Grand, slowly 
 and terribly; "you little, mean, sneaking, spying, con- 
 temptible milksop ! I should like to know what you mean 
 by bringing out your ugly phiz at this hour, when you 
 used to be afraid of stirring out for fear of nurse's bogies ? 
 And to dare to come lurking after me ! " 
 
 " After you, Mr. Grandison ! " I repeated, with gran- 
 diloquence. " Really you put too much importance on 
 your own movements, I came by appointment to meet 
 the Marchioness St. Julian, whom, I presume, as you are 
 well acquainted with her, you know in her real name of 
 Sarah Briggs, and to " 
 
 "Sarah Briggs! — you come by appointment?" stam- 
 mered Little Grand. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; if you disbelieve my word of honor, I will 
 condescend to show you my invitation." 
 
 " You little ape ! " swore Grand, coming back to his 
 previous wrath ; " it is a lie, a most abominable, unwar- 
 rantable lie ! I came by appointment, sir ; you did no 
 such thing. Look there ! " 
 
 And he flaunted before my eyes in the moonlight the 
 fac-simile of my letter, verbatim copy, save that in hia 
 Cosmo was put in the stead of Augustus. 
 
 " Look there ! " said I, giving him mine. 
 
 Little Grand snatched it, read it over once, twice, thrice, 
 then drooped his head, with a burning color in his face, 
 and was silent. 
 
 The " knowing hand " was done ! 
 
 We were both of us uncommonly quiet for ten minutes ; 
 neither of us liked to be the first to give in.
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE rl ARCniONESS. 81 
 
 At last Little Grand looked up and held out his hand, 
 no more nonsense about him now. 
 
 " Simon, you and I have been two great fools ; we can't 
 chaff one another. She's a cursed actress, and — let's 
 make it up, old boy." 
 
 We made it up accordingly — when Little Grand wa« 
 not conceited he was a very jolly fellow — and then I 
 gave him my whole key to the mysteries, intricacies, and 
 charms of our Casa di Fiori. We could not chaff one 
 another, but poor Little Grand was pitiably sore then, and 
 for long afterwards. He, the " old bird," the cool hand, 
 the sharp one of Ours, to have been done brown, to be the 
 joke of the mess, the laugh of all the men, down to the 
 weest drummer-boy ! Poor Little Grand ! He was too 
 done up to swagger, too thoroughly angry with himself to 
 swear at anybody else. He only whispered to me, " Why 
 the dickens could she want you and me to meet our- 
 selves?" 
 
 " To give us a finishing hoax, I suppose," I suggested. 
 
 Little Grand drew his cap over his eyes, and hung his 
 head down in abject humiliation. 
 
 " I suppose so. What fools we have been, Simon ! 
 And, I say, I 've borrowed three hundred of old Mira- 
 flores, and it 's all gone up at that devilish Casa ; and 
 how I shall get it from the governor, Heaven knows, for 
 I don't." 
 
 " I 'm in the same pickle. Grand," I groaned. " I 've 
 given that old rascal notes of hand for two hundred 
 pounds, and, if it don't drop from the clouds, I shall never 
 pay it. Oh, I say, Grand, love comes deucedly expensive." 
 
 "Ah !" said he, with a sympathetic shiver, " think what 
 a pair of hunters we might have had for the money ! " 
 With which disnuil and remorseful remembrance the old 
 bird, who had l)cen trapped like a young pigeon, swore 
 mightily, and withdrew into humbled and disgusted 
 eilence.
 
 82 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. 
 
 Next morning we heard, to our comfort — what lots of 
 people there always are to tell us how to lock our stable- 
 door when our solitary mare has been stolen — that, with a 
 gentle hint from the police, the Marchioness St. Julian, 
 with her confreres, had taken wing to the Ionian Isles, 
 where, at Corfu or Cephalonia, they will re-erect the Casa 
 di Fiori, and glide gently on again from vingt-et-un to loo, 
 and from loo to lansquenet, under eyes as young and 
 blinded as our own. They went without Lucrezia. Con- 
 ran took her into his own hands. Any other man in the 
 regiment would have been pretty well ridiculed at taking 
 a bride out of the Cara di Fiori ; but the statements made 
 by the high-born Abbess of her Roman convert were so 
 clear, and so to the girl's honor, and he had such a way 
 of holding his own, of keeping off liberties from himself 
 and anything belonging to him, and was, moreover, known 
 to be of such fastidious honor, that his young wife was 
 received as if she had been a Princess in her own right. 
 With her respected parent Conran had a brief interview 
 previous to his flight from Malta, in which, with a few 
 gentle hints, he showed that worthy it would be wiser to 
 leave his daughter unmolested for the future, and I doubt 
 if Mr. Orangia Magnolia, alias Pepe Guari, would know 
 his own child in the joyous, graceful, daintily-dressed 
 mistress of Conran's handsome Parisian establishment. 
 
 Little Grand and I suffered cruelly. "VVe were the butts 
 of the mess for many a long month afterwards, when 
 every idiot's tongue asked us on every side after the health 
 of the Marchioness St. Julian ? when we were going to 
 teach them lansquenet? how often we heard from the 
 aristocratic members of the Maltese Peerage? with like 
 delightful pleasantries, which the questioners deemed high 
 wit. We paid for it, too, to that arch old screw Baltha- 
 zar ; but I doubt very much if the money were not Avell 
 lost, and the experience well gained. It cured me of my 
 rawness and Little Grand of his self-conceit, the only
 
 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCUIONESS. 83 
 
 thing that had before spoilt that good-hearted, quick- 
 tempered, and clever-brained little fellow. Oh, Pater 
 and Materfaniilias, disturb not yourselves so unnecessarily 
 al)out the crop of wild oats which your young ones are 
 sowing broadcast. Those wild oats often spring from a 
 good field of high spirit, hot courage, and thoughtless 
 generosity, that are the sign and basis of nobler virtues 
 to come, and from them very often rise two goodly plauta 
 — Experience and Discernment.
 
 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE. 
 
 IN THREE SEASONS. 
 SEASOJif THE FIRST. THE ELIGIBLE. 
 
 [NE of the kiiidest-natured persons that I ever 
 knew on this earth, where kind people are as rare 
 as bhtck eagles or red deer, is Helena, Countess 
 of Maraoout, nee De Boncoeur. She has foibles, she has 
 weaknesses — who amongst us has not? — she will wear 
 her dresses accolletees, though she 's sixty, if Burke tells 
 us truth ; sne will rouge and practise a thousand other 
 little toileue tricks , but they are surely innocent, since 
 they deceive nobody ; and if you wait for a woman who 
 has no artifices, I am afraid you shall have to forswear 
 the sex in toto, my friends, and come growling back to 
 your Diogenes' tub in the Albany, with your lantern still 
 lit every day of your lives. 
 
 Lady Marabout is a very charming j)erson. As for 
 her weaknesses, she is all the nicer for them, to my taste. 
 I like people with weaknesses myself; those without them 
 do look so dreadfully scornfully and unsympathizingly 
 upon one from the altitude of their sujieriority, de toute 
 la hauteur de sa betise, as a witty Frenchman says. Hu- 
 uianity was born with weaknesses. If 1 were a beggar, I 
 
 (84)
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 85 
 
 might hope for a coin from a man with some; a man 
 without any, I know, would shut up his porte-monnaie, 
 with an intensified click, to make me feel trebly enviotis, 
 and consign me to D 15 and his truncheon, on the score 
 of vagrancy. 
 
 Lady Marabout is a very charming person, despite her 
 little foibles, and she gives very pleasant little dinners, 
 both at her house in Lowndes Square and in her jointure 
 villa at Twickenham, where the bad odors of Thames are 
 drowned in the fragrance of the geraniums, piled in great 
 heaps of red, white, and variegated blossom in the flower- 
 beds on the lawn. She has been married twice, but has 
 only one son, by her first union — Carruthers, of the 
 Guards — a very good fellow, whom his mother thinks 
 perfection, though if she did know certain scenes in her 
 adored Philip's life, the good lady might hesitate before 
 she endowed her son with all the cardinal virtues as she 
 does at the present moment. She has no daughters, 
 therefore you will wonder to hear that the prime misery, 
 burden, discomfort, and worry of her life is chaperonage. 
 But so it is. 
 
 Lady Marabout is the essence of good nature; she 
 can't say No : that unpleasant negative monosyllable was 
 never heard to issue from her full, smiling, kind-looking 
 lips : she is in a high position, she has an extensive circle, 
 thanks to her own family and those of the baronet and 
 peer she successively espoused ; and some sister, or cousin, 
 or friend, is incessantly hunting her up to bring out their 
 girls, and sell them well off* out of hand ; young ladies 
 being goods extremely likely to hang 07i hand now- 
 adays. 
 
 " Of all troubles, the troubles of a chaperone are the 
 greatest," said Lady Marabout to me at the wedding 
 dojeimer of one of her protegees. " In the first place, one 
 looks on at others' campaigns instead of conducting them 
 one's self; secondly, it brings back one's own bright days 
 8
 
 86 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 to see the young things' smiles and blushes, like that 
 girl's just now (I do hope she'll be happy !) ; and thirdly, 
 one has all the responsibility, and gets all the blame if 
 anything goes wrong. I'll never chaperone anybody 
 again now I have got rid of Leila." 
 
 So does Lady Marabout say twenty times ; yet has she 
 invariably some young lady under her wing, whose rela- 
 tives are defunct, or invalided, or in India, or out of 
 society somehow ; and we all of us call her house The 
 Yard, and her (among ourselves) not Lady Marabout 
 but Lady Tattersall. The worries she has in her chape- 
 rone's office would fill a folio, specially as her heart in- 
 clines to the encouragement of romance, but her reason 
 to the banishment thereof; and while her tenderness suf- 
 fers if she thwarts her protegees' leanings, her conscience 
 gives her neuralgic twinges if she abets them to unwise 
 matches while under her dragonnage. 
 
 "What's the matter, mother?" asked Carruthers, one 
 morning. He's very fond of his mother, and will never 
 let any one laugh at her in his hearing. 
 
 " Matter ? Everything ! " replied Lady Marabout, 
 concisely and comprehensively, as she sat on the sofa in 
 her boudoir, with her white ringed hands and her bien 
 conserve look, and her kindly pleasant eyes and her rich 
 dress ; one could see what a pretty woman she has been, 
 and that Carruthers may thank her for his good looks. 
 " To begin with, Felicie has been so stupid as to marry ; 
 married the greengrocer (whom she will ruin in a week !), 
 and has left me to the mercies of a stupid woman who 
 puts pink with cerise, mauve with magenta, and sky-blue 
 with azureline, and has no recommendation except that 
 she is as ugly as the Medusa, and so will not tempt you 
 to " 
 
 " Make love to her, as I did to Marie," laughed Car- 
 ruthers. "Marie was a pretty little dear; it was very 
 severe in you to send her away."
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 81 
 
 Ladv jNIarabout tried hard to look severe and condemn 
 natory, but failed signally, nature had formed the smooth 
 brow and the kindly eyes in far too soft a mould. 
 
 " Don't jest about it, Philip ; you know it was a great 
 pain, annoyance, and scandal to me. Well ! Felicie is 
 gone, and Oakes was seen pawning some of my Mechlin 
 the other day, so I have been obliged to discharge her ; 
 and tliey both of them suited me so well ! Then Bijou 
 is ill, poor little pet " 
 
 " With repletion of chicken panada ? " 
 
 " No ; Bijou is n't such a gourmet. You judge him by 
 yourself, I suppose ; men always do ! Then Lady Haut- 
 ton told me last night that you were the wildest man on 
 town, and at forty " 
 
 "You think I ought to raiiger? Sol will, my dear 
 mother, some day; but at present I am — so very com- 
 fortable ; it would be a pity to alter ! What pains one's 
 friends are always at to tell unpalatable things ; if they 
 would but be only half so eager to tell us the pleasant 
 ones ! I shall expect you to cut Lady Hautton if she 
 speak badly of me. I can't aflbrd to lose your worship, 
 mother ! " 
 
 " My worship ? How conceited you are, Philip ! A3 
 for Lady Hautton, I believe she does dislike you, because 
 you did not engage yourself to Adelina, and were selected 
 aide-de-camp to her Majesty, instead of Hautton ; still, I 
 am afraid she spoke too nearly the truth." 
 
 " Perhaps Marie has entered her service and told tales." 
 
 But Lady Marabout would n't laugh, she always looks 
 very grave about Marie. 
 
 " My worst trouble," she began hastily, " is that your 
 aunt Honiton is too ill to come to town ; no chance of her 
 being well enough to come at all this season ; and of 
 course the charge of Valencia has devolved on me. You 
 know how I hate chaperoning, and I did so \\o^e. I should 
 be free this year ; besides, Valencia is a great responsi-
 
 88 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 bility, very great ; a girl of so much beauty always is ; 
 there will be sure to be so many men about her at once, 
 and your aunt will expect me to marry her so very well. 
 It is excessively annoying," 
 
 " My poor dear mother ! " cried Carruthers. " I grant 
 you are an object of pity. You are everlastingly having 
 young fillies sent you to break in, and they want such a 
 tight hand on the ribbons." 
 
 "And a tight hand, as you call it, I never had, and 
 never shall have," sighed Lady Marabout. "Valencia 
 will be no trouble to me on that score, however ; she has 
 been admirably educated, knows all that is due to her 
 position, and will never give me a moment's anxiety by 
 any imprudence or inadvertence. But she is excessively 
 handsome, and a beauty is a great responsibility when 
 she first comes out." 
 
 " Val was always a handsome child, if I remember. I 
 dare say she is a beauty now. When is she coming up ? 
 because I '11 tell the men to mark the house and keep 
 clear of it," laughed Carruthers. " You 're a dreadfully 
 dangerous person, mother ; you have always the best-look- 
 ing girl in town with you. Fulke Nugent says if he should 
 ever want such a thing as a wife when he comes into the 
 title, he shall take a look at the Marabout Yearlinga 
 Sale." 
 
 " Abominably rude of you and your friends to talk me 
 over in your turf slang ! I wish you would come and bid 
 at the sale, Philip; I should like to see you married — ■ 
 well married, of course." 
 
 " My beloved mother! " cried Carruthers. " Leave me 
 in peace, if you please, and catch the others if you can. 
 There 'a Goodey, now ; every chaperone and debutante in 
 London has set traps for him for the last I don't know 
 how many years; would n't he do for Valencia?" 
 
 " Goodwood ? Of course he would ; he would do f^r any 
 one ; the Dukedom 's the oldest in the peerage. Good-
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 89 
 
 wood is highly eligible. Thank you for reminding me, 
 Philip. Since Valencia is coming, I must do my best for 
 her." Which phrase meant with Lady Marabout that 
 she must be very lynx-eyed as to settlements, and a per- 
 fect dragon to all detrimental connections, must frown 
 with Medusa severity on all horrors of younger sons, and 
 advocate with all the weight of personal experience the 
 advantage and agremens of a good position, in all of which 
 practicalities she generally broke down, Avith humiliation 
 unspeakable, immediately her heart was enlisted and her 
 sympathies appealed to on the enemy's side. She sighed, 
 played with her bracelets thoughtfully, and then, heroi- 
 cally resigning herself to her impending fate, brightened 
 up a little, and asked her son to go and choose a new 
 pair of carriage-horses for her. 
 
 To look at Lady Marabout as she sat in her amber 
 satin couch that morning, pleasant, smiling, well-dressed, 
 well-looking, with the grace of good birth and the sunni- 
 ness of good nature plainly written on her smooth brow 
 and her kindly eyes, and wealth — delicious little god! — 
 stamping itself all about her, from the diamond rings on 
 her soft white fingers to the broidered shoe on the feet, 
 of whose smallness she was still proud, one might have 
 ignorantly imagined her to be the most happy, enviable, 
 well-conditioned, easy-going dowager in the United King- 
 dom. But appearances are deceptive, and if we believe 
 what she constantly asserted. Lady Marabout was very 
 nearly worn into her grave by a thousand troubles ; 
 her almshouses, whose roofs would eternally blow off 
 with each high wind ; her dogs, whom she would over- 
 feed ; her ladies' maids, who were only hired to steal, tease, 
 or scandalize her ; the begging letter-writers, who distilled 
 tears from her eyes and sovereigns from her purse, let 
 Carruthers disclose their hypocrisies as he might; the 
 bolder begging-letters, written by hon. sees., and headed 
 by names with long handles, belonging to Pillars of the 
 8»
 
 LADY MARABOUT S TROUBLES. 
 
 State and Lights of the Church, which compelled her to 
 make a miserable choice between a straitened income or a 
 remorseful conscience — tormented, in fine, with worries 
 small and large, from her ferns, on Avhich she spent a 
 large fortune, and who drooped maliciously in their glass 
 (!ases, with an ill-natured obstinacy characteristic of 
 desperately-courted individuals, whether of the floral or 
 the human world, to those marriageable young ladies 
 whom she took under her wing to usher into the great 
 world, and who were certain to run counter to her wishes 
 and overthrow her j:)lans, to marry ill, or not marry at all, 
 or do something or other to throw discredit on her chape- 
 roning abilities. She was, she assured us, petrie with 
 worries, small and large, specially as she was so eminently 
 sunny, affable, and radiant a looking person, that all the 
 world took their troubles to her, selected her as their con- 
 fidante, and made her the repository of their annoyances ; 
 but her climax of misery was to be compelled to chape- 
 rone, and as a petition for some debutante to be intrusted 
 to her care was invariably made each season, and " No" 
 was a monosyllable into which her lips utterly refused to 
 form themselves, each season did her life become a bur- 
 den to her. There was never any rest for the soul of 
 Helena, Countess of Marabout, till her house in Lowndes 
 Square was shut up, and her charges off her hand, and she 
 could return in peace to her jointure-villa at Twicken- 
 ham, or to Carruthers' old Hall of Deepdene, and among 
 her flowers, her birds, and her hobbies, throw oflT for a 
 while the weary burden of her worries as a chaperone. 
 
 " Valencia will give me little trouble, I hope. So ad- 
 mirably brought-up a girl, and so handsome as she is, will 
 be sure to marry soon, and marry well," thought Lady 
 Marabout, self-congratulatorily, as she dressed for dinner 
 the day of her niece's arrival in town, running over men- 
 tally the qualifications and attractions of Valencia Valle- 
 tort, while Folicie's successor, Mademoiselle Despreaux,
 
 LADY marabout's TEOUBLES. 91 
 
 whose crime was then to put pink with cerise, mauve with 
 magenta, and sky-blue with azureline, gave the finishing 
 touches to her toilette — "Valencia will give me no 
 trouble ; she has all the De Boncceur beauty, with the 
 Valletort dignity. AVho would do for her? Let me see; 
 eligible men are not abundant, and those that are eligible 
 are shy of being marked as Philip would say — perhaps 
 from being hunted so much, poor things ! There is Fulke 
 Nugent, heir to a barony, and his father is ninety — very 
 rich, too — he would do; and Philip's friend, Caradoc, 
 poor, I know, but their Earldom 's the oldest peerage 
 patent. There is Eyre Lee, too ; I don't much like the 
 man, supercilious and empty-headed ; still he 's an unob- 
 jectionable alliance. And there is Goodwood. Every 
 one has tried for Goodwood, and failed. I should like 
 Valencia to win him ; he is decidedly the most eligible 
 man in town. I will invite him to dinner. If he is not 
 attracted by Valencia's beauty, nothing can attract him 
 
 Despreaux ! comme vous etes bete ! Otez ces panaches, 
 
 de grace ! " 
 
 "Valencia will give me no trouble ; she will marry at 
 once," thought Lady Marabout again, looking across the 
 dinner-table at her niece. 
 
 If any young patrician might be likely to marry at 
 once, it was the Hon. Valencia Valletort ; she was, to the 
 most critical, a beauty : her figure was perfect, her fea- 
 tures were perfect, and if you complained that her large 
 glorious eyes were a trifle too changeless in expression, 
 that her cheek, exquisitely independent of Marechale 
 powder, Blanc de Perle, and liquid rouge, though it was, 
 rarely varied with her thoughts and feelings, why, you 
 were very exacting, my good fellow, and should remem- 
 ber that nothing is quite perfect on the face of the earth 
 ' — not even a racer or a woman — and that whether you 
 bid at the Marabout yearling sales or the RawcliflSe, if 
 you wish to be pleased you 'd better leave a hypercritical
 
 92 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 spirit behind you, and not expect to get all points to your 
 liking. The best filly will have something faulty in 
 temper or breeding, symmetry or pace, for your friend 
 Jack Martingale to have the fun of pointing out to you 
 when your money is paid and the filly in your stall ; and 
 your wife will have the same, only Martingale will point 
 her flaws out behind your back, and only hint them to 
 you with an all-expressive " Not allowed to smoke in the 
 dining-room ?to«).^" "A little bit of a flirt, madame — 
 n'est-ce pas, Charlie?" " Reins kept rather tight, eh, old 
 fellow ? " or something equally ambiguous, significant, and 
 unpleasant. 
 
 " I must consider, Philip, I have brought out the beauty 
 of the season," said Lady Marabout to Carruthers, eying 
 her niece as she danced at her first ball at the Dowager- 
 Duchess of Amandine's, and beginning to brighten uj 
 little under the weight of her responsibilities. 
 
 " I think you have, mother. Val 's indisputably hand- 
 some. You must tell her to make play with Goodwood or 
 Nugent." 
 
 Lady Marabout unfurled her fan, and indignantly in- 
 terrupted him : 
 
 "My dear Philip! do you suppose I would teach Va- 
 lencia, or any girl under my charge, to lay herself out for 
 any man, whoever or whatever it might be? I trust 
 your cousin would not stoop to use such manoeuvres, did 
 I even stoop to counsel them. Depend upon it, Philip, 
 it is precisely those women who try to * make play,' as 
 you call it, with your sex that fail most to charm them. 
 It is abominable the way in which you men talk, as if we 
 all hunted you down, and would drive you to St. George's 
 nolens volens!" 
 
 "So you would, mother," laughed Carruthers. "We 
 'eligible men' have a harder life of it than rabbits in a 
 warren, with a dozen beagles after them. From the minute 
 we 're of age we 're beset with traps for the unwary, and
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES, 93 
 
 the spring-guns are so dexterously covered with an invit- 
 ing, innocent-looking turf of courtesies and hospitalities 
 that it 's next to a moral impossibility to escape them, let 
 one retire into one's self, keep to monosyllables through all 
 the courses of all the dinners and all the turns of all the 
 valses, and avoid everything ' compromising,' as one may. 
 I've suffered, and can tell you. I suffer still, though I 
 believe and hope they are beginning to look on me as an 
 incurable, given over to the clubs, the coulisses, and the 
 cover-side. There 's a fellow that 's known still more of 
 the jyeines fortes et dures than I. Goodwood 's coming to 
 ask for an introduction to Val, I would bet." 
 
 He was coming for that purpose, and, though Lady 
 Marabout had so scornfully and sincerely repudiated her 
 son's counsel relative to making play with Goodwood, 
 blandly ignorant of her owii weaknesses like a good many 
 other people. Lady Marabout was not above a glow of 
 chaperone gratification when she saw the glance of admi- 
 ration which the Pet Eligible of the season bestowed on 
 Valencia Valletort. Goodwood was a good-looking fellow 
 — a clever fellow — though possibly he shone best alone 
 at a mess luncheon, in a chat driving to Hornsey Wood, 
 round the fire in a smoking-room, on a yacht deck, or any- 
 where where ladies of the titled world were not encoun- 
 tered, he having become afraid of them by dint of much 
 persecution, as any October partridge of a setter's nose. 
 He was passably good-looking, ordinarily clever, a very 
 good fellow as I say, and — he was elder son of his Grace 
 of Doncaster, which fact would have made him the de- 
 sired of every unit of the beau sexe, had he been hideous 
 as the Veiled Prophet or Brutal Gilles de Rayes. The 
 Beauty often loves the Beast in our day, as in the days 
 of fairy lore. We see that beloved story of our petticoat 
 days not seldom acted out, and when there is no pos.-<ibil- 
 ity of personal transmogrification and amelioration for 
 the Beast moreover; only — the Beauty has always had
 
 94 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 whispered in her little ear the title she will win, and the 
 revenues she will gain, and the cloth of gold she will wear, 
 if she caresses Bruin the enamoured, swears his ugly head 
 is god-like, and vows fidelity unswerving ! 
 
 Goodwood was no uncouth Bruin, and he had straw- 
 berry-leaves in his gift ; none of your lacquered, or ormolu, 
 or silver-gilt coronets, such as are cast about nowadays 
 with a liberality that reminds one of flinging a handful of 
 halfpence from a balcony, where the nimblest beggar is 
 first to get the prize ; but of the purest and best gold ; and 
 Goodwood had been tried for accordingly by every woman 
 he came across for the last dozen years. Women of every 
 style and every order had primed all their rifles, and had 
 their shot at him, and done their best to make a centre 
 and score themselves as winner: belles and bas bleus, 
 bewitching widow^s and budding debutantes, fast young 
 ladies who tried to capture him in the hunting-field by 
 clearing a bullfinch ; saintly young ladies, who illumi- 
 nated missals, and hinted they would like to take his con- 
 version in hand ; brilliant women, who talked at him all 
 through a long rainy day, when Perthshire was flooded, 
 and the black -foAvl unattainable; showy women, who 
 pos^'d for him whole evenings in their opera-boxes, whole 
 mornings in their boudoir — all styles and orders had set 
 at him, till he had sometimes sworn in his haste that all 
 women were man-traps, and that he wished to Heaven he 
 were a younger son in the Foreign Ofiice, or a poor devil 
 in the Line, or anything, rather than what he was ; the 
 Pet Eligible of his day. 
 
 " Goodwood is certainly struck with her," thought Lady 
 Marabout, as Despreaux disrobed her that night, running 
 over with a retrogressive glance Valencia Valletort's suc- 
 cesses at her first ball. " Very much struck, indeed, I 
 should say. I will issue cards for another ' At Home.' 
 As for ' making play ' with him, as Philip terms it, of 
 course that is only a man's nonsense. Valencia will nee<^
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 95 
 
 none of those trickeries, I trust; still, if is any one's duty 
 to make the best alliance possible for such a girl, and — 
 dear Adeliza Avould be very pleased." 
 
 With which amiable remembrance of her sister (whom, 
 conceiving it her duty to love. Lady Marabout persuaded 
 herself that she did love, from a common feminine opti- 
 cism that there 's an eleventh commandment which makes 
 it compulsory to be attached to relatives n'miporte of 
 whatever degree of disagreeability, though Lady Honiton 
 was about the most odious hypochondriac going, in a per- 
 petual state of unremitting battle Avith the whole outer 
 world in general, and allopathists, homoeopathists, and 
 hydropathists in especial), the most amiable lady in all 
 Christendom bade Despreaux bring up her cup of cofi'ee 
 an hour earlier in the morning, she had so much to do ! 
 asked if Bijou had had some panada set down by his 
 basket in case he wanted something to take in the night ; 
 wished her maid good night, and laid her head on her 
 pillow as the dawn streamed through the shutters, already 
 settling what bridal presents she should give her niece 
 Valencia, when she became present Marchioness of Good- 
 wood and prospective Duchess of Doncaster before the 
 altar rails of St. George's. 
 
 " That 's a decidedly handsome girl, that cousin of yours, 
 Phil," said Goodwood, on the pavement before her Grace 
 of Amandine's, in Grosveuor Place, at the same hour that 
 night. 
 
 " I think she is counted like me! " said Carruthers. "Of 
 course she's handsome ; hasn't she De Boncceur blood in 
 her, my good fellow ? We 're all of us good-looking, always 
 have been, thank God ! If you 're inclined to sacrifice 
 Goodwood, now's your time, and ray mother '11 be de 
 lighted. She 's brought out about half a million of de- 
 butantes, I should say, in her time, and all of 'em have 
 gone wrong, somehow ; would n't go off at all, like damp 
 gunpowder, or would go off loo (juick in the w'rong direc-
 
 96 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 tion, like a volunteer's rifle charge ; married ignominiously, 
 or married obstiuately, or never excited pity in the breast 
 of any man, but had to retire to single-blessedness in the 
 country, console themselves with piety and an harmonium, 
 and spread nets for young clerical victims. Give her a 
 triumph at last, and let her have glory for once, as a 
 chaperone, in catching you!" 
 
 Goodwood gave a little shiver, and tried to light a 
 Manilla, which utterly refused to take light, for the 
 twelfth time in half a minute. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! If the Templars' Order were ex- 
 tant, would n't I take the vows and bless them ! What an 
 unspeakable comfort and protection that white cross would 
 be to us, Phil, if we could stick it on our coats, and know 
 it would say to every woman that looked at us, ' No go, 
 my pretty little dears — not to be caught!' Marriage ! I 
 can't remember any time that that word was n't my bug- 
 bear. When I was but a little chicken, some four years 
 old, I distinctly remember, when I was playing with little 
 Ida Keane on the terrace, hearing her mother simper to 
 mine, ' Perhaps darling Goodwood may marry my little 
 Ida some day, who knows ?' I never would play with Ida 
 afterwards ; instinct preserved me ; she 's six or seven-and- 
 thirty now, and weighs ten stone, I 'm positive. Why wo7i't 
 they let us alone ? The way journalists and dowagers, the 
 fellows who Avant to write a taking article, and the women 
 who want to get rid of a taking daughter, all badger us, in 
 public and private, about marriage just now, is abominable, 
 on my life ; the affair 's ours, 1 should say, not theirs, and 
 to marry is n't the ultimatum of a man's existence, nor 
 anything like it." 
 
 " I hope not ! It 's more like the extinguisher. Good 
 night, old fellow." And Carruthers drove away in his 
 hansom, while Goodwood got into his night-brougham, 
 thinking that for the sake of the title, the evil (nuptial) 
 day viust come, sooner or later, but dashed off to forget
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 97 
 
 the disagreeable obligation over the supper-table of the 
 most sparkling empress of the demi-monde. 
 
 Lady Marabout had her wish ; she brought out the belle 
 of the season, and when a little time had slipped by, when 
 the Hon. Val had been presented at the first Drawing- 
 room, and shone there despite the worry, muddle, and 
 squeeze incidental to that royal and fashionable ceremony, 
 and she had gathered second-hand from her son what was 
 said in the clubs relative to this new specimen of the 
 Valletort beauty, she began to be happier under her duties 
 than she had ever been before, and wrote letters to " dear- 
 est Adeliza," brimful of superlative adjectives and genuine 
 warmth. 
 
 " Valencia will do me credit : I shall see her engaged 
 before the end of June ; she will have only to choose," 
 Lady Mai-about would say to herself some twenty times 
 in the pauses of the morning concerts, the morning parties, 
 the bazaar committees, the toilette consultations, the au- 
 diences to religious beggars, whose name was Legion and 
 rapacity unmeasured, the mass of unanswered correspond- 
 ence whose debt lay as heavily on Lady Marabout as his 
 chains on a convict, and were about as little likely to be 
 knocked off, and all the other things innumerable that 
 made her life in the season one teetotum whirl of small 
 worries and sunshiny cares, from the moment she began 
 her day, with her earliest cup of Mocha softened with 
 cream from that pet dairy of hers at Ferndittou, where;, 
 according to Lady Marabout, the cows were constantly 
 in articulo mortis, but the milk invariably richer than 
 anywhere else, an agricultural anomaly which presented 
 no difficulties to her reason. Like all women, she loved 
 paradoxes, defied logic recklessly, and would clear at a 
 bound a chasm of solecisms that would have kept Plato 
 in difficulties about crossing it, and in doubt about the 
 strength of his jumpiug-pole, all his life long. 
 
 " She will do me great cred't," the semi-consoled cha- 
 9 a
 
 98 -LADY MAivABOUT'S TROUBLES. 
 
 perone would say to herself with self-congratulatory relief; 
 unci if Lady Marabout thought now and then, " I wish she 
 were a trifle — a trifle more — demonstrative," she in- 
 stantly checked such an ungrateful and hypercritical 
 Avish, and remembered that a heart is a highy treacher- 
 ous and unadvisable possession for any yourg lady, and 
 a most happy omission in her anatomy, though Lady 
 Marabout had, she would confess to herself on occasions 
 with great self-reproach, an unworthy and lingering Aveak- 
 ness for that contraband article, for which she scorned and 
 scolded herself with the very worst success. 
 
 Lady Marabout had a heart herself; to it she had had 
 to date the greatest worries, troubles, imprudences, and 
 vexations of her life ; she had had to thank it for nothing, 
 and to dislike it for much ; it had made her grieve most 
 absurdly for other people's griefs ; it had given her a 
 hundred unphilosophical pangs at philosophic ingratitude 
 from people who wanted her no longer ; it had teased, 
 worried, and plagued her all her life long, had often in- 
 terfered in the most meddling and inconvenient manner 
 between her and her reason, her comfort and her pru- 
 dence ; and yet she had a weakness for the same detri- 
 mental organ in other people — a weakness of which she 
 could no more have cured herself than of her belief in 
 the detection-defying powers of liquid rouge, the potenti- 
 ality of a Liliputian night-bolt against an army of bur- 
 glars, the miraculous properties of sal volatile, the efficacy 
 of sermons, and such-like articles of faith common to 
 feminine orthodoxy. A weakness of which she never felt 
 more ignominiously convicted and more secretly ashamed 
 than in the presence of Miss Valletort, that young lady 
 having a lofty and magnificent disdain for all such follies, 
 quite unattainable to ordinary mortals, which oppressed 
 Lady Marabout with a humiliating sense of inferiority to 
 her niece of eighteen summers. " So admirably educated 1 
 so admirably l)rought up!" she would say to herself over
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 99 
 
 and over again, and if heretic suggestions that the stiffeat 
 trained flowers are not always the best, that the upright 
 and spotless arum-lily isn't so fragrant as the careless, 
 brilliant, tangled clematis; that rose-boughs, tossing free 
 in sunshine and liberty, beat hollow the most carefully- 
 pruned standard that ever won a medal at Regent's Park, 
 with such-like allegories, arising from contemplation of 
 her conservatory or her balcony flowers, would present 
 themselves, Lady Marabout repressed them dutifully, and 
 gratefully thought how many pounds' weight lighter be- 
 came the weary burden of a chaperone's responsibilities 
 when the onerous charge had been educated " on the best 
 system." 
 
 "Goodwood's attentions are serious, Philip, say what 
 you like," said the Countess to her son, as determinedly 
 as a theologian states his pet points with wool in his ears, 
 that he may not hear any Satan-inspired, rational, and 
 mathematical disproval of them, with which you may 
 rashly seek to soil his tympana and smash his arguments 
 — " Goodwood's attentions are serious, Philip, say what 
 you like," said her ladyship, at a morning party at Kew, 
 eating her Neapolitan ice, complacently glancing at the 
 "most eligible alliance of the season," who was throwing 
 the balls at lawn-billiards, and talking betAveen whiles to 
 the Hon. Val with praiseworthy and promising animation. 
 
 " Serious indeed, mother, if they tend matrimony-wards ! " 
 smiled Can-uthers. " It 's a very serious time indeed for 
 unwary sparrows Avhen they lend an ear to the call-bird, 
 and think about hopping on to the lime-twigs. I should 
 think it 's from a sense of compunction for the net you 've 
 led us into, that you all particularize our attentions, when- 
 ever they point near St. George's, by that very suggestive 
 little adjective ' serious ! ' Yes, I am half afraid poor 
 Goodey is a little touched. He threw over our Derby 
 sweepstakes up at Hornsey Wood yesterday to go and 
 stifle himself in Willis's rooms at your bazaar, and buy
 
 100 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 a guinea cup of Souchong from Valencia ; and, consid- 
 ering he 's one of the best shots in England, I don't think 
 you could have a more conclusive, if you could have a more 
 poetic, proof of devoted renunciation. I'd fifty times 
 rather get a spear in my side, a la Ivanhoe, for a woman 
 than give up a Pigeon-match, a Cup-day, or a Field- 
 night!" 
 
 "You'll never do either!" laughed Lady Marabout, 
 who made it one of her chief troubles that her son would 
 not marry, chiefly, probably, because if he had married 
 she would have been miserable, and thought no woman 
 good enough for him, would have been jealous of his 
 wife's share of his heart, and supremely wretched, I have 
 no doubt, at his throwing himself away, as she would have 
 thought it, had his handkerchief lighted on a Princess 
 born, lovely as Galatea, and blessed with Venus's cestus. 
 
 " Never, plaise d Dieu ! " responded her son, piously over 
 his ice; "but if Goodwood 's serious, what 's Cardonnel? 
 He 's lost his head, if you like, after the Valletort beauty." 
 
 " Major Cardonnel !" said Lady Marabout, hastily. 
 "Oh no, I don't think so. I hope not — I trust not." 
 
 " Why so ? He 's one of the finest fellows in the 
 Service." 
 
 " I dare say ; but you see, my dear Philip, he 's not 
 — not — desirable." 
 
 Carruthers stroked his moustaches and laughed : 
 
 "Fie, fie, mother! if all other Belgraviennes are Mam- 
 mon-worshippers, I thought you tept clear of the pagan- 
 ism. X thought your freedom from it was the only touch 
 by which you Avere n't * purely feminine,' as the lady nov- 
 elists say of their pet bits of chill propriety." 
 
 " Worship Mammon ! Heaven forbid ! " ejaculated 
 Lady Marabout. "But there are duties, you see, my 
 dear ; your friend is a very delightful man, to be sure ; I 
 like him excessively, and if Valencia felt any great pref* 
 erence for him "
 
 LADY marabout's VROUBLES. 101 
 
 "You'd feel it your duty to counsel her to throw him 
 over for Goodwood." 
 
 " I never said so, Philip," interrupted Lady Marabout, 
 with as near an approach to asperity as she could achieve, 
 which approach was less like vinegar than most people's 
 best honey. 
 
 " But you implied it. What are ' duties ' else, and why 
 is poor Cardonnel ' not desirable ' ? " 
 
 Lady Marabout played a little tattoo with her spoon in 
 perplexity. 
 
 " My dear Philip, you know as well as I do what I 
 mean. One might think you were a boy of twenty to 
 hear you!" 
 
 " My dear mother, like all disputants, when beaten in 
 argument and driven into a corner, you resort to vitupera- 
 tion of your opponent!" laughed Carruthers, as he left 
 her and lounged away to pick up the stick with which 
 pretty Flora Elmers had just knocked the pipe out of 
 Aunt Sally's head on to the velvet lawn of Lady Georgo 
 Frangipane's dower-house, leaving his mother by no means 
 tranquillized by his suggestions. 
 
 " Dear me!" thought Lady Marabout, uneasily, as she 
 conversed with the Dowager-Countess of Patchouli on the 
 respective beauties of two new pelargonium seedlings, the 
 Leucadia and the Beatrice, for which her gardener had 
 won prizes the day before at the Regent's Park Show — 
 " dear me ! why is there invariably this sort of cross- 
 purposes in everything? It will be so grievous to lose 
 Goodwood (and he is decidedly struck with her ; when he 
 bought that rosebud yesterday of her at the bazaar, and 
 put it in the breast of his waistcoat, I heard what he said, 
 and it was no nonsense, no mere flirting complaisance 
 either) — it would be so grievous to lose him ; and yet if 
 Valencia really care for Cardonnel — and sometimes I 
 almost fancy she does — I shouldn't know which way 
 to advise. I thought it would be odd if a season could 
 0*
 
 102 LADY MARABOUT'B TROUBLES. 
 
 pass quielly without ray having some worry of this sort! 
 With fifty men always about Valencia, as they are, how 
 can I be responsible for any mischief that may happen, 
 though, to hear Philip talk, one would really imagine it 
 was my fault that they lost their heads, as he calls it ! As 
 if a forty-horse steam-power could stop a man when he's 
 once off down the incline into love ! The more you try 
 to pull him back the more impetus you give him to go 
 headlong down. I wish Goodwood would propose, and 
 we could settle the affair definitively. It is singular, but 
 she has had no offers hardly witli all her beauty. It is 
 very singular, in my first season I had almost as many as 
 I had names on my tablets at Al mack's. But men don't 
 marry now, they say. Perhaps 'tis n't to be wondered at, 
 though I would n't allow it to Philip. Poor things! they 
 lose a very great many pleasant tilings by it, and get 
 nothing, I 'm sure, nine times out of ten, except increased 
 expenses and unwelcome worries. I don't think I would 
 have married if I 'd been a man, though I 'd never admit 
 it, of course, to one of them. There are plenty of women 
 who know too much of their own sex ever to wonder that 
 a man does n't marry, though of course Ave don't say so; 
 'twould n't be to our interest. Sculptors might as well 
 preach iconoclasm, or wine-merchants tee-totalism, as 
 women misoganism, however little in our hearts we may 
 marvel at it. Oh, my dear Lady Patchouli ! you praise 
 the Leucadia too kindly — you do indeed — but if you 
 really think so much of it, let me send you some slips. I 
 shall be most happy, and Fentou will be only too proud ; 
 it is his favorite seedling." 
 
 Carruthers was quite right. One fellow at least had lost 
 his head after the beauty of the season, and he was Car- 
 donnel, of the — Lancers, as fine a fellow, as Philip said, 
 as any in the Queen's, but a dreadful detrimental in the 
 eyes of all chaperones, because he was but the fourth son 
 of one of the poorest peers in the United Kingdom, a fact
 
 LADY MARABOLI'S TROUBLES. 103 
 
 which gave him an regis from all assaults matrimo- 
 nial, and a freedom from all smiles and wiles, traps and 
 gins, whic-h Goodwood was ac-custome:l to tell him he bit- 
 terly envied him, and on which Cardonnel had fervently 
 congratulated himself, till he came under the fire of the 
 Hon. Val's large luminous eyes one night, when he was 
 levelling his glass from his stall at Lady Marabout's box, 
 to take a look at the new belle, as advised to do by that 
 most fastidious female critic, Vane Steinberg. Valencia 
 Valletort's luminous eyes had gleamed that night under 
 their lashes, and pierced through the lenses of his lorgnon. 
 He saw her, and saw nothing but her afterwards, as men 
 looking on the sun keep it on their retina to the damage 
 and exclusion of all other objects. 
 
 Physical beauty, even when it is a little bit soulless, is 
 an admirable weapon for instantaneous slaughter, and the 
 trained and pruned standard roses show a very effective 
 mass of bloom ; though, as Lady Marabout's floral tastes 
 and exj^eriences told her, they don't give one the lasting 
 pleasure that a careless bough of wild rose will do, with 
 its untutored grace and its natural fragrance. With the 
 standard you see we keep in the artificial air of the hor- 
 ticultural tent, and are never touched out of it for a sec- 
 ond ; its perfume seems akin to a bouquet, and its destiny 
 is, we are sure, to a parterre. The wild-rose fragrance 
 breathes of the hill-side and the woodlands, and brings 
 back to us soft touches of memory, of youth, of a fiiirer 
 life and a purer air than that in which we are living now. 
 
 The Hon. Val did 7iot have as many ofl'ers as her aunt 
 and chaperone had on the first flush of her pride in her 
 anticipated. Young ladies, educated on the " best sys- 
 tems," are apt to be a trifle wearisome, and don't, some- 
 how or other, take so well as the sedulous efforts of their 
 pruners and trainers — the rareiied moral atmosphere of 
 the conservatories, in which they ai'e carefully screened 
 from ordinary air, and the anxiety evinced lest the flower
 
 104 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 should ever forget itself, and sway naturally in the wind 
 — deserve. But Cardonnel had gone mad after her, Ihat 
 perfect face of hers had done for him ; and whatever Good- 
 wood might be, he was serious — he positively haunted the 
 young beauty like her own shadow — he was leaning ou 
 the rails every morning of his life that she took her early 
 lide — he sent her bouquets as lavishly as if he 'd been a 
 nursery gardener. By some species of private surveil- 
 lance, or lover's clairvoyance, he knew beforehand where 
 she would go, and was at the concert, fete, morning party, 
 bazaar, or whatever it happened to be, as surely as was 
 Lady Marabout herself Poor Cardonnel was serious, and 
 fiercely fearful of his all-powerful and entirely eligible 
 rival ; thougli greater friends than he and Goodwood had 
 been, before this girl's face appeared on the world of Bel- 
 gravia, never lounged arm-in-arm into Pratt's, or strolled 
 down the " sweet shady side of Pall-Mall." 
 
 Goodwood's attentions were very marked, too, even to 
 eyes less willing to construe them so than Lady Marabout's. 
 Goodwood himself, if chaffed on the subject, vouchsafed 
 nothing ; laughed, stroked his moustaches, or puffed his 
 cigar, if he happened to have that blessed resource in all 
 difficulties, and comforter under all embarrassments, be- 
 tween his lips at the moment ; but decidedly he sought 
 Valencia Valletort more, or, to speak more correctly, he 
 shunned her less than he 'd ever done any other young 
 lady, and one or two Sunday mornings — mirahile dictu! 
 — he was positively seen at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, in 
 the seat behind Lady Marabout's sittings. A fact which, 
 combining as it did a brace of miracles at once, of early 
 rising and unusual piety, set every Belgravienne in that 
 fashionable sanctuary watching over the top of her illu- 
 minated prayer-book, to the utter destruction of her hopes 
 and interruption of her orisons. 
 
 Dowagers began to tremble behind their fans, young 
 ladies to quake over their bouquets ; the topic was eagerly
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. lOo 
 
 discussed by every woman from Clarges Street to Lowndes 
 Square ; their Graces of Doncaster smiled well pleased on 
 Valencia — she was unquestionable blood, and they so 
 A'ished dear Goodwood to settle ! There was whispered an 
 awful whisper to the whole female world; whispered over 
 matutinal chocolate, and luncheon Strasbourg p^tes, ball- 
 supper Moets', and demi-monde-supper Silleri, over Vane 
 Steinberg's cigar and Eulalie Rosiere's cigarette, over the 
 Morning Post in the clubs, and Le Follet in the boudoir, 
 that — the Pet Eligible would — marry! That the Pet 
 Prophecy of universal smash was going to be fulfilled 
 could hardly have occasioned greater consternation. 
 
 The soul of Lady Marabout had been disquieted ever 
 since her son's suggestions at Lady George Frangipane's 
 morning party, and she began t<T> worry : for herself, for 
 Valencia, for Goodwood, for Cardonnel, for her responsi- 
 bilities in general, and for her "dearest Adeliza's" alter- 
 nate opinions of her duenna qualifications in particular. 
 Lady Marabout had an intense wish, an innocent wish 
 enough, as innocent and very similar in its way to that 
 of an Eton boy to make a centre at a rifle-contest, viz., to 
 win the Marquis of Goodwood ; innocent, surely, for 
 though neither the rifle prize nor the Pet Eligible could 
 be won without mortification unspeakable to a host of 
 unsuccessful aspirants, if we decree that sort of thing 
 sinful and selfish, as everything natural seems to me to 
 get decreed nowadays, we may as well shut up at once ; 
 if we may not try for the top of the pole, why erect poles 
 at all, monsieur? If we must not do our best to pass 
 our friend and brother, we must give up climbing for- 
 ever, and go on all fours placably with Don and Pontos. 
 
 Everybody has his ambition : one sighs for the Wool- 
 sack, another for the Hunt Cup ; somebody longs to be 
 First Minister, somebody else pines to be first dancer ; ono 
 man plumes himself on a new fish-sauce, another on a fresh 
 reform bill ; A. thirsts to get a single brief, B. for the time
 
 lOG LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 when he shall be worried with no briefs at all ; C. sets his 
 hopes on being the acrobat at Cremorne, D. on being the 
 acrobat of the Tuileries ; fat bacon is Hodge the hedger's 
 summum honum, and Johannisberg pur is mine ; Empe- 
 docles thinks notoriety everything, and Diogenes thinks 
 quiet everything — each has his own reading of ambition, 
 and Lady Marabout had hers; the Duchess of Doncaster 
 thirsted for the Garter for her husband, Lady Elmers's 
 pride was to possess the smallest terrier that ever took 
 daisy tea and was carried in a monkey-muff, her Grace of 
 Amandine slaved night and day to bring her party in and 
 throw the ministry out. Lady Marabout sighed but for 
 one thing — to win the Pet Eligible of the season, and give 
 eclat for once to one phase of her chaperone's existence. 
 
 Things were nicely in train. Goodwood was beginning 
 to bite at that very handsome fly the Hon.Val,and prom- 
 ised to be hooked and landed without much difficulty 
 before long, and placed, hopelessly for him, triumphantly 
 for her, in the lime-basket of matrimony. Things were 
 beautifully in train, and Lady Marabout was for once flat- 
 tering herself she should float pleasantly through an un- 
 rufiled and successful season, when Carruthers poured the 
 one drop of aviari aliquid into her champagne-cup by his 
 suggestion of Cardonnel's doom. And then Lady INIara- 
 bout began to worry. 
 
 She who could not endure to see a fly hurt or a flower 
 pulled needlessly, had nothing for it but to worry for Car 
 donnel's destiny, and puzzle over the divided duties which 
 Carruthers had hinted to her. To reject the one man be- 
 cause he was not well off" did seem to her conscience, un- 
 comfortably awakened by Phil's innuendoes, something 
 more mercenary than she quite liked to look at; yet to 
 throw over the other, future Duke of Doncaster, the eligi- 
 ble, the darling, the yearned-for of all May Fair and Bel- 
 gravia, seemed nothing short of madness to inculcate to 
 Valencia ; a positive treason to that poor absent, trusting,
 
 LADY MARAB0;JT'S TROUBLES. 107 
 
 " (iearest Adeliza," who, after the visions epistolarily 
 spread out before her, would utterly refuse to be comforted 
 if Goodwood any way failed to become her son-in-law, 
 and, moreover, the heaviest blow to Lady Marabout her- 
 self that the raei'ciless axe of that brutal headsman Con- 
 tretemps could deal her. 
 
 " I do not know really what to du or what to advise," 
 would Lady Marabout say to herself over and over again 
 (so disturbed by her onerous burden of responsibilities 
 that she would let Despreaux arrange the most outrageous 
 coiffures, and, never noticing them, go out to dinner with 
 emeralds on blue velvet, or something as shocking to 
 feminine nerves in her temporary aberration), forgetting 
 one very great point, which, remembered, would have 
 saved her all trouble, that nobody asked her to do any- 
 thing, and not a soul requested her advice. " But Good- 
 wood is decidedly won, and Goodwood must not be lost ; 
 in our position we owe something to society," she would 
 invariably conclude these mental debates ; which last 
 phase, being of a vagueness and obscure application that 
 might have matched it with any Queen's speech or elec- 
 tioual address upon record, was a mysterious balm to 
 Lady Marabout's soul, and spoke volumes to her, if a 
 trifle hazy to you and to me. 
 
 But Lady Marabout, if she was a little bit of a sophist, 
 had not worn her eye-glass all these years without being 
 keen-sighted on some subjects, and, though perfectly sat- 
 isfied with her niece's conduct with Goodwood, saw certain 
 symptoms which made her tremble lest the detrimental 
 Lancer should have won greater odds than the eligible 
 Marquis. 
 
 "Arthur Cardonnel is excessively handsome! Such 
 very good style! Isn't it a pity they're all so poor! 
 His father played away everything — literally everything. 
 The sons have no more to marry upon, any one of them, 
 than if they were three crossing-sweepers," said her lady-
 
 108 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 ship, carelessly, driving home from St. Paul's one Sunday 
 morning. 
 
 And, watching the effect of her stray arrow, she had 
 beheld an actual flush on the beauty's fair, impassive 
 cheek, and had positively heard a smothered sigh from 
 an admirably brought-up heart, no more given ordinarily 
 to such weaknesses than the diamond-studded heart pen- 
 dent from her bracelet, the belle's heart and the bracelet's 
 aeai-t being both formed alike, to fetch their price, apd 
 Did 10 do no more: — power of volition would have been 
 as inconvenient in, and interfered as greatly with, the 
 sale of one as of the other. 
 
 " She does like him ! " sighed Lady Marabout over thai 
 Sabbath's luncheon wines. "It's always my fate — ■ 
 always ; and Goodwood, never won before, will be thrown 
 — actually thrown — away, as if he were the younger son 
 of a Nobody ! " which horrible waste was so terrible to 
 her imagination that Lady Marabout could positively 
 have shed tears at the bare prospect, and might have shed 
 them, too, if the Hon. Val, the butler, two footmen, and 
 a page had not inconveniently happened to be in the room 
 at the time, so that she was driven to restrain her feelings 
 and drink some Amontillado instead. Lady Marabout 
 is not the first i)erson by a good many who has had to 
 smile over sherry with a breaking heart. Ah ! lips have 
 quivered as they laughed over Chambertin, and trembled 
 as they touched the bowl of a champagne-glass. Wine 
 has assisted at many a joyous festa enough, but some that 
 has been drunk in gayety has caught gleams, in the 
 eyes of the drinkers, of salt water brighter than its 
 brightest sparkles : water that no other eyes can see. 
 Because we may drink Badminton laughingly when the 
 j^aze of Society the Non-Syrapathctic is on us, do you 
 think we must never have tasted any more bitter dregs? 
 Va-t'en, becasse ! where have you lived ? Nero does Tiot 
 always fiddle while Rome is burning from utter heartless*
 
 iiADY marabout's troubles. 109 
 
 ness, believe me, but rather — sometimes, perhaps — bo- 
 cause his heart is aching ! 
 
 "Goodwood viJ. propose to-night, I fancy, he is so 
 very attentive," thought Lady Marabout, sitting with her 
 sister chaperones on the cosy causeuses of a mansion in 
 Carlton Terrace, at one of the last balls of the departing 
 season. " I never saw dear Valencia look better, and 
 
 certainly her waltzing is Ah! good evening. Major 
 
 Cardonnel ! Very warm to-night, is it not ? I shall be 
 so glad when I am down again at Fernditton. Town, in 
 the first week of July, is really not habitable." 
 
 And she furled her fan, and smiled on him with her 
 pleasant eyes, and couldn't help wishing he hadn't been 
 on the Marchioness Rondeletia's visiting list, he was such 
 a detrimental, and he was ten times handsomer than 
 Goodwood ! 
 
 " Will Miss Valletort leave you soon?" asked Cardon- 
 nel, sitting down by her. 
 
 ^'Ah! monsieur, vous etes Id ! " thought Lady Marabout, 
 as she answered, like a guarded diplomatist as she was, 
 that it was not all settled at present what her niece's post- 
 season destiny would be, whether Devon or Fernditton, or 
 the Spas, with her mother. Lady Honiton ; and then 
 unfurled her fan again, and chatted about Baden and her 
 own indecision as to whether she should go there this 
 September. 
 
 " May I ask you a question, and will you pardon me 
 for its plainness ? " asked Cardonnel, when she'd exhausted 
 Baden's desirable and non-desirable points. 
 
 Lady Marabout shuddered as she bent her head, and 
 thought, "The creature is never going to confide in mel 
 He will win me over if he do, he looks so like his mother I 
 And what shall I say to Adeliza ! " 
 
 " Is your niece engaged to Goodwood or not?" 
 
 If ever a little fib was tempting to any lady, from Eve 
 downward, it was l(imptiug to Lady Maraboat now 1 A 
 10
 
 110 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 falseliood would settle everything, send Cardonnel off the 
 field, and clear all possibility of losing the " best match 
 of the season." Besides, if not engaged to Goodwood 
 actually to-night, Val would be, if she liked, to-morrow, 
 or the next day, or before the week was over at the fur- 
 thest — would it be such a falsehood after all ? She colored, 
 she fidgeted her fan, she longed for the little fib ! — how 
 terribly tempting it looked ! But Lady Marabout is a 
 bad hand at prevarication, and she hates a lie, and she 
 answered bravely, with a regretful twinge, " Engaged ? 
 No; not " 
 
 "Not vet! Thank God!" 
 
 Lady Marabout stared at him and at the words mut- 
 tered under his moustaches : 
 
 "Eeally, Major Cardonnel, I do not see why you " 
 
 "Should thank Heaven for it? Yet I do — it is a re- 
 prieve. Lady Marabout, you and my mother were close 
 friends ; will you listen to me for a second, while we are 
 not overheard? That I have loved your niece — had the 
 madness to love her, if you will — you cannot but have 
 seen ; that she has given me some reasonable encourage- 
 ment it is no coxcombry to say, though I have known 
 from the first what a powerful rival I had against me ; 
 but that Valencia loves me and does not love him, I be- 
 lieve — nay, I knoiv. I have said nothing decided to her; 
 when all hangs on a single die we shrink from hazarding 
 the throw. But I must know my fate to-night. If she 
 come to you — as girls will, I believe, sometimes — for 
 countenance and counsel, will you stand my friend? — 
 will you, for the sake of my friendship with your son, 
 your friendship with my mother, su})port my cause, and 
 uphold what I believe Valencia's heart will say in my 
 favor?" 
 
 Lady Marabout was silent : no Andalusian ever wor- 
 ried her fan more ceaselessly in coquetry than she did in
 
 uADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES. Ill 
 
 perplexity. Her heart was appealed to, and when that 
 was enlisted, Lady Marabout was lost ! 
 
 "But — but — ray dear Major Cardonnel, you are 
 
 aware " she began, and stopped. I should suppose 
 
 it may be a little awkward to tell a man to his face he is 
 " not desirable !" 
 
 " I am aware that I cannot match with Goodwood ? I 
 am ; but I know, also, that Goodwood's love cannot match 
 with mine, and that your niece's affection is not his. That 
 lie may win her I know women too well not to fear, there- 
 fore I ask you to be my friend. If she refuse me, Avill 
 you plead for me? — if she ask for counsel, will you give 
 such as your own heart dictates (I ask no other) — and, 
 will you remember that on Valencia's answer will rest 
 the fate of a man's lifetime?" 
 
 He rose and left her, but the sound of his voice rang 
 in Lady Marabout's ears, and the tears welled into her 
 eyes : " Dear, dear ! how like he looked to his poor dear 
 mother ! But what a position to place me in ! Am I 
 never to have any 2:)eace?" 
 
 Not at this ball, at any rate. Of all the worried chape- 
 rones and distracted duennas who hid their anxieties 
 under pleasant smiles or affable lethargy, none were a 
 quarter so miserable as Helena, Lady Marabout. Her 
 heart and her head were enlisted on opposite sides ; her 
 wishes pulled one way, her sympathies another ; her sense 
 of justice to Cardonnel urged her to one side, her sense 
 of duty to "dearest Adeliza" urged her to the other; 
 her pride longed for one alliance, her heart yearned for 
 the other. Cardonnel had confided in her and appealed 
 to her ; sequitur, Lady Marabout's honor would not allow 
 her to go against him : yet, it Avas nothing short of gross- 
 est treachery to poor Adeliza, down there in Devon, ex- 
 pecting every day to congratulate her daughter on a 
 prospective duchy won, to counsel Valencia to take one
 
 112 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 of these beggared Cardonnels, and, besides — to lose all 
 her own laurels, to lose the capture of Goodwood ! 
 
 No Guelphs and Ghibelins, no Royalists and Imperial- 
 ists, ever fought so hard as Lady Marabout's divided 
 duties. 
 
 "Valencia, Major Cardonnel spoke to me to-night," 
 began that best-hearted and most badgered of ladies, as 
 Bhe sat before her dressing-room fire that night, alone 
 with her niece. 
 
 Valencia smiled slightly, and a faint idea crossed Lady 
 Marabout's mind that Valencia's smile was hardly a 
 i:>leasant one, a trifle too much like the play of moon- 
 beams on ice. 
 
 •* He spoke to me about you." 
 
 "Lideed!" 
 
 •'Perhaps you can guess, my dear, what he said?" 
 
 "I am no clairvoyante, aunt;" and Miss Val yawned 
 a little, and held out one of her long slender feet to ad- 
 mire it. 
 
 •' Every woman, my love, becomes half a clairvoyante 
 when she is in love," said Lady Marabout, a little bit 
 impatiently ; she had n't been brought up on the best 
 systems herself, and though she admired the refrigera- 
 tion (on principle), it irritated her just a little now and 
 then. "Did he — did he say anything to you to-night?" 
 
 " Oh yes !" 
 
 "And what did you answer him, my love?" 
 
 " What would you advise me?" 
 
 Lady Marabout sighed, coughed, played nervously with 
 the tassels of her peignoir, crumpled Bijou's ears with a 
 reckless disregard to that ])riceless pet's feelings, and 
 wished herself at the bottom of the Serpentine. Car- 
 donnel had trusted her, she couldn't desert him; poor 
 dear Adeliza had trusted her, she couldn't betray /ter; 
 what waa right to one would be wrong to the other, and 
 to reconcile her divided duties was a Danaid's laboi.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 113 
 
 For months she had worried her life out lest her advice 
 should be asked, and now the climax Avas come, and 
 asked it was. 
 
 " What a horrible position ! " thought Lady Marabout. 
 
 She waited and hesitated till the pendule had ticked 
 off' sixty seconds, then she summoned her courage and 
 spoke : 
 
 " My dear, advice in such matters is often very harm- 
 ful, and always very useless; plenty of people have asked 
 my counsel, but I never knew any of them take it unless 
 it chanced to chime in with their fancy. A woman's best 
 adviser is her own heart, specially on such a subject as 
 this. But before I give my opinion, may I ask if you 
 have accepted him?" 
 
 Lady Marabout's heart throbbed quick and fast as sh« 
 put the momentous question, with an agitation for which 
 she would have blushed before her admirably nonchalante 
 niece ; but the tug of war was coming, and if Goodwood 
 should be lost ! 
 
 *' You have accepted him?" she asked again. 
 
 "No! I — refused him." 
 
 The delicate rose went out of the Hon. Val's cheeks 
 for once, and she breathed quickly and shortly. 
 
 Goodwood was not lost then ! 
 
 Was she sorry — was she glad? Lady Marabout hardly 
 knew ; like Wellington, she felt the next saddest thing 
 after a defeat is a victory. 
 
 " But you love him, Valencia? " she asked, half ashamed 
 of suggesting such weakness, to this glorious beauty. 
 
 The Hon. Val unclasped her necklet as if it were a 
 cluiin, choking her, and her face grew white and set : the 
 coldest will feel on occasion, and all have some tender 
 place that can wince at the touch. 
 
 " Perhai)s ; but such folly is best put aside at once. Cer- 
 tainly I prefer him to others, but to accept him would 
 have been madness, absurdity. I told him so!" 
 10* H
 
 114 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 " You told him so ! If you had the heart to do so, 
 Valencia, he has not lost much in losing you ! " burst in 
 Lady Marabout, her indignation getting the better of her 
 judgment, and her heart, as usual, giving the coup de 
 grace to her reason. " I am shocked at you ! Every 
 tender-hearted woman feels regret for affection she is 
 obliged to repulse, even when she does not return it ; and 
 you, who love this man " 
 
 "Would you have had me accept him, aunt?" 
 
 " Yes," cried Lady Marabout, firmly, forgetting every 
 vestige of " duty," and every possibility of dear Adeliza's 
 vengeance, " if you love him, I would, decidedly. When 
 I married my dear Philip's father, he was what Cardonnel 
 is, a cavalry man, as far off his family title then as Car- 
 donnel is off his now." 
 
 " The more reason I should not imitate your impru- 
 dence, my dear aunt ; death might not carry off the in- 
 termediate heirs quite so courteously in this ease ! No, I 
 refused Major Cardonnel, and I did rightly ; I should 
 have repented it by now had I accepted him. There is 
 nothing more silly than to be led away by romance. You 
 De BoncoBurs are romantic, you know ; we Valletorts are 
 happily free from the weakness. I am very tired, aunt, 
 so good night." 
 
 The Hon. Val went, the waxlight she carried shedding 
 a paler shade on her handsome face, whiter and more 
 set than usual, but held more proudly, as if it already 
 wore the Doncaster coronet ; and Lady Marabout sighed 
 as she rang for her maid. 
 
 " Of course she acted wisely, and I ought to be very 
 pleased ; but that poor dear fellow ! — his eyes are so lite 
 his mother's ! " 
 
 " I congratulate you, mother, on a clear field. You 've 
 Bent poor Arthur off very nicely," said Carruthers, the 
 next morning, paying his general visit in her boudoir be- 
 fbr-j the day began, which is much the same time in Towu
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 115 
 
 as in Greenland, and commences, whatever almanacs 
 may say, about two or half-past I'.M. " Cardonnel left 
 this morning for Heaven knows where, and is going to 
 exchange, Shelleto tells me, into the — th, which is ordered 
 to Bengal, so he won't trouble yon much more. When 
 shall I be allowed to congratulate my cousin as the future 
 Duchess of Doncaster?" 
 
 " Pray, don't tease me, Philip. I 've been vexed enough 
 about your friend. When he came to me this morning, 
 and asked me if there was no hope, and I was obliged to 
 tell him there was none, I felt wretched," said Lady Mar- 
 about, as nearly pettishly as she ever said anything ; "but 
 I am really not responsible, not in the least. Besides, 
 even you must admit that Goodwood is a much more 
 desirable alliance, and if Valencia had accepted Cardon- 
 nel, pray what would all Belgravia have said ? Why, 
 that, disappointed of Goodwood, she took the other out of 
 pure pique ! We owe something to society, Philip, and 
 Homething to ourselves." 
 
 Carruthers laughed : 
 
 " Ah, my dear mother, you women will never be worth 
 all you ought to be till you leave off kowtow-ing to 'what 
 will be said,' and learn to defy that terrible oligarchy of 
 the Qu'en dira-t-on?" 
 
 "When will Goodwood propose?" wondered Lady 
 Marabout, fifty times a day, and Valencia Valletort 
 wondered too. Whitebait was being eaten, and yachts 
 being fitted, manned, and victualled, outstanding Ascot 
 debts were being settled, and outstanding bills were being 
 passed hurriedly through St. Stephen's ; all theclockA\oik 
 of the season was being wound up for the last time pre- 
 vious to a long standstill, and going at a deuce of a pace, 
 as if longing to run down, and give its million wheels 
 and levers peace; while everybody who'd anything to 
 settle, whether monetary or matrimonial, personal or 
 political, was making up his mind about it and getting it
 
 IIG LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 off his hands, and some men were being pulled up b^ 
 wide-awake Jews to see what they were " made of," while 
 others wei-e pulled up by adroit dowagers to know what 
 they had " meant" before the accounts of the season were 
 scored out and settled. "Had Goodwood proposed?" 
 asked all Belgravia. " Why had n't Goodwood pro- 
 posed?" asked Lady Marabout and Valencia. Twenty 
 most favorable opportunities for the performance of that 
 ceremony had Lady Marabout made for him " acciden- 
 tally on purpose " the last fortnight ; each of those times 
 she had fancied the precious iish hooked and landed, and 
 each time she had seen him, free from the hook, floating 
 on the surface of society. 
 
 " He must speak definitely to-morrow," thought Lady 
 Marabout. But the larvae of to-morrow burst into the 
 butterfly of to-day, and to-day passed into the chrysalis 
 «f yesterday, and Goodwood was always very nearly 
 caught, and never quite ! 
 
 " Come up-stairs, Philip; I want to show you a little 
 Paul Potter I bought the other day," said Lady Mara- 
 bout one morning, returning from a shopping expedition 
 to Regent Street, meeting her son at her own door just 
 descending from his tilbury. " Lord Goodw-ood calling, 
 did you say, Soames? Oh, very well." 
 
 And Lady Marabout floated up the staircase, but 
 signed to her footman to open the door, not of the draw- 
 ing-room, but of her own boudoir. 
 
 "The Potter is in my own room, Philip; you must 
 come in here if you wish to see it," said that adroit lady, 
 for the benefit of Soames. But when the door was shut, 
 Lady Marabout lowered her voice confidentially : " The 
 Potter isn't here, dear; I had it hung in the little cab- 
 inet through the drawing-rooms, but I don't wish to go 
 ip there for a few moments — you understand." 
 
 Carruthers threw himself in a chair, and laughed till 
 ae dogs Bijou, Bonbon, and Pandore all burked in a 
 furious coiic<irt.
 
 LADY marabout's TROTTBLES. V 
 
 " I understand ! So Goody 's positively coming to th. 
 point up there, is he?" 
 
 " No doubt he is," said Lady Marabout, reprovingly. 
 " Why else should he come in when I was not at home? 
 There is nothing extraordinary in it. The only thing I 
 have wondered at is his having delayed so long." 
 
 " If a man had to hang himself, would you wonder he 
 put off pulling the bolt?" 
 
 " I don't see any point in your jests at all ! " returned 
 Lady Marabout. " There is nothing ridiculous in win- 
 ning such a girl as Valencia." 
 
 " No ; but the question here is not of winning her, but 
 of buying her. The price is a little high — a ducal cor- 
 onet and splendid settlements, a wedding-ring and bond- 
 age for life ; but he will buy her, nevertheless. Cardonnel 
 could n't pay the first half of the price, and so he was 
 swept out of the auction-room. You are shocked, moiher T 
 Ah, truth is shocking sometimes, and always maladroit ; 
 one oughtn't to bring it into ladies' boudoirs." 
 
 *' Hold your tongue, Philip ! I will not have you so 
 satirical. Where do you take it from ? Not from me, I 
 am sure ! Hark ! there is Goodwood going ! That is his 
 step on the stairs, I think ! Dear me, Philip, I wish you 
 sympathized with me a little more, for I do feel happy, 
 and I can't help it ; dear Adeliza will be so gratified." 
 
 " My dear mother, I '11 do my best to be sympathetic,, 
 I '11 go and congratulate Goodwood as he gets in his cab, 
 if you fancy I ought ; but, you see, if I were in Dahomey 
 beholding the head of my best friend coming oflT, I 
 could n't quite get up the amount of sympathy in their 
 pleasure at the refreshing sight the Dahomites might 
 expect from me, and so " 
 
 But Lady Marabout missed the comparison of herself 
 to a Dahomite, for she had opened the door and was 
 crossing to the drawing-rooms, her eyes bright, her step 
 elastic, her heart exultant at the triumph of her man(cu-
 
 118 LADY marabout's TROUBLES, 
 
 vres. The Hon. Val was playing with some ferns in an 
 ^tagfere at the bottom of the farthest room, and responded 
 to the kiss her aunt bestowed on her about as much as if 
 she had been one of the statuettes on the consoles. 
 
 "Well, love, what did he say f" asked Lady Mara- 
 bout, breathlessly, with eager delight and confident 
 anticipation. 
 
 Like drops of ice on warm rose-leaves fell each word 
 of the intensely chill and slightly sulky response on Lady 
 Marabout's heart. 
 
 " He said that he goes to Cowes to-morrow for the 
 Royal Yacht Squadron dinner, and then on in the Ana- 
 dyomene to the Spitzbergen coast for walruses. He left a 
 P. P. C. card for you." 
 
 " Walruses!" shrieked Lady Marabout. 
 
 " Walruses," responded the Hon. Val. 
 
 "And said no more than that?" 
 
 " No more than that ! " 
 
 The Pet Eligible had flown off uncaught after all! 
 Lady Marabout needed no further explanation — tout fut 
 dit. They were both silent and paralyzed. Do you sup- 
 pose Pompey and Cornelia had much need of words when 
 they met at Lesbos after the horrible deroute of Pharsalia ? 
 
 " I 'm in your mother's blackest books for ever, Phil," 
 said Goodwood to Carruthers in the express to Southamp- 
 ton for the R. Y. C. Squadron Regatta of that year, " but 
 I can't help it. It 's no good to badger us into marriage; 
 it only makes us double, and run to earth. I was near 
 compromising myself with your cousin, I grant, but the 
 thing that chilled me was, she 's too studied. It 's all got 
 up beforehand, and goes upon clockwork, and it don't 
 interest one accordingly ; the mechanism's perfect, but we 
 know when it will raise its hand, and move its eyes, and 
 bow its head, and when we 've looked at its beauty once 
 we get tired of it. That 's the fault in Valencia, and in
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 119 
 
 iscores of them, and as long as they wojit be natural, why, 
 tliey can't have much chance with us ! " 
 
 Which piece of advice Carruthers, when he next saw 
 his mother, riipeated to her, for the edification of all future 
 debutantes, adding a small sermon of his own : 
 
 " My dear mother, I ask you, is it to be expected that 
 we can marry just to oblige women and please the news- 
 papers? Would you have me marched off to Hanover 
 iSquare because it would be a kindness to take one of Lady 
 Elmers' marriageable daughters, or because a leading 
 journal fills up an empty column with farcical lamenta- 
 tion on our dislike to the bondage? Of course you 
 would n't ; yet, for no better reasons, you 'd have chained 
 poor Goodwood, if you could have caught him. Whether 
 a man likes to marry or not is certainly his own private 
 bu.siness, though just now it's made a popular 2:)ublic dis- 
 cussion. Do you wonder that we shirk the institution ? 
 If we have not fortune, marriage cramps our energies, 
 our resources, our ambitions, loads us with petty cares, 
 and trebles our anxieties. To one who rises with such a 
 burden on his shoulders, how many sink down in ob- 
 scurity, who, but for the leaden weight of pecuniary diffi- 
 culties with which marriage has laden their feet, might 
 have climbed the highest round in the social ladder? On 
 the other side, if we have fortune, if Ave have the unhappy 
 happiness to be eligible, is it wonderful that we are not 
 flattered by the worship of young ladies who love us for 
 what we shall give them, that we don't feel exactly hon- 
 ored by being courted for what we are worth, and that 
 we 're not over-willing to give up our liberty to oblige 
 those who look on us only as good speculations ? What 
 think you, eh?" 
 
 Lady Marabout looked up and shook her head mourn- 
 fully: 
 
 " My dear Philip, you are right. I see it — I don't dis- 
 pute it ; but when a thing becomes personal, you know
 
 120 LADY marabout's TROUBLES, 
 
 j)hilosophy becomes difficult. I have such letters from 
 poor dear Adeliza — such letters! Of course she thinks 
 it is all my fault, and I believe she will break entirely 
 with me. It is so verv shocking. You see all Belg-ravia 
 coupled their names, and the very day that he Avent off 
 to Cowes in that heartless, abominable manner, if an 
 announcement of the alliance as arranged did not posi- 
 tively appear in the Court Circnlar! It did indeed! 1 
 am sure Anne Hautton was at the bottom of it ; it Avould 
 be just like her. Perhaps poor Valencia cannot be 
 pitied after her treatment of Cardonnel, but it is very hard 
 on me." 
 
 Lady Marabout is right : when a thing becomes per- 
 sonal, philosophy becomes difficult. When your gun 
 misses fire, and a fine cock bird whirrs up from the covert 
 and takes wing unharmed, never to swell the number of 
 your triumphs and the size of your game-bag, could you 
 by any chance find it in your soul to sympathize with the 
 bird's gratification at your mortification and its own good 
 luck ? I fancy not.
 
 
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 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE. 
 
 IN THREE SEASONS. 
 SEASON THE SECOND. THE OGRE. 
 
 BF there be one class I dislike more than another, 
 it is that class ; and if there be one person in 
 town I utterly detest, it is that man ! " said oin* 
 friend Lady Marabout, with much unction, one morning, 
 to an audience consisting of Bijou, Bonbon, and Bandore, 
 a cockatoo, an Angora cat, and a young lady sitting in a 
 rocking-chair, reading the magazines of the month. The 
 dogs barked, the cockatoo screamed, the cat purred, a 
 vehement affirmative, the human auditor looked up, and 
 laughed : 
 
 " What is the class, Lady Marabout, may I ask ? " 
 " Those clever, detestable, idle, good-for-nothing, fash- 
 ionable, worthless men about town, who have not a penny 
 to their fortune, and spend a thousand a year on gloves 
 and scented tobacco — who are seen at everybody's house, 
 and never at their own — who drive horses fit for a Duke's 
 stud, and have n't money enough to keep a donkey on 
 thistles — who have handsome faces and brazen consciences 
 — who are positively leaders of ton, and yet are glad to 
 write feuillctons before the world is up to pay tlioir stall 
 V (11^1)
 
 X22 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 at the Opera — who give a guinea for a bouquet, and 
 can't pay a shilling of their just debts, — I detest the 
 class, my dear ! " 
 
 " So it seems. Lady Marabout. I never heard you so 
 vehement. And who is the particular scapegoat of this 
 type of sinners ? " 
 
 " Chandos Cheveley." 
 
 " Chandos Cheveley? Is n't he that magnificent man 
 Sir Philip introduced to me at the Amandines' breakfast 
 yesterday? Why, Lady Marabout, his figure alone 
 mio-ht outbalance a multitude of sins ! " 
 
 " He is handsome enough. Did Philiji introduce him 
 to you, my dear ? I wonder ! It was very careless of him. 
 But men are so thoughtless ; they will know anybody 
 themselves, and they think we may do the same. The 
 men called here while we were driving this morning. I 
 am glad we were out : he very seldom comes to my house." 
 
 " But why is he so dreadful ? The Amandines are tre- 
 mendously exclusive, I thought." 
 
 " Oh, he goes everywhere ! No party is comi:)lete with- 
 out Chandos Cheveley, and I have heard that at Septem- 
 ber or Christmas he has more invitations than he could 
 possibly accept ; but he is a most objectionable man, all 
 the same — a man every one dreads to see come near her 
 daughters. He has extreme fascination of manner, but 
 he has not a farthing ! How he lives, dresses, drives the 
 horses he does, is one of those miracles of London men's 
 lives which we can never hope to puzzle out. Philip says 
 he likes him, but Philip never speaks ill of anybody, ex- 
 cept a woman now and then, who teases him ; but the 
 man is my detestation — has been for years. I was an- 
 noyed to see his card : it is the first time he has called 
 this season. He knows I can't endure his class or him." 
 
 With which Lady Marabout wound up a very unusu- 
 ally lengthy and uncharitable disquisition, length and 
 uncharitableness being both out of her line; and Lady
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 123 
 
 Cecil Ormsby rolled her handkerchief into a ball, threw 
 it across the room for Bonbon, the spaniel puppy, and 
 laughed till the cockatoo screamed with delight: 
 
 " Dear Lady Marabout, do forgive me, but it is such 
 fun to hear you positively, for once, malicious! "Who is 
 your Horror, genealogically speaking? this terrible — 
 what's his name? — Chandos Cheveley?" 
 
 " The younger son of a younger son of one of the Mar- 
 quises of Danvers, I believe, my dear ; an idle man about 
 town, you know, with not a sou to be idle upon, who sets 
 the fashion, but never pays his tailor. I am never mali- 
 cious, I hope, but I do consider men of that stamp very 
 objectionable." 
 
 " But what is Sir Philip but a man about town?" 
 
 " My son ! Of course he is a man about town. My 
 dear, what else should he be? But if Philip likes to 
 lounge all his days away in a club-window, he has a per- 
 fect right; he has fortune. Chandos Cheveley is not 
 worth a farthing, and yet yawns away his day in White's 
 as if he were a millionnaire ; the one can support his far 
 niente, the other cannot. There are gradations in every- 
 thing, my love, but in nothing more than among the men, 
 of the same set and the same style, whom one sees in 
 Pall-Mall." 
 
 " There are chestnut horses and horse-chestnuts, cheva- 
 liers and chevaliers d'industrie, rois and rois d'Yvetot, 
 Carrutherses and Chandos Cheveleys ! " laughed Lady 
 Cecil. " I understand, Lady Marabout. II y a femmes 
 et femmes — men about town and men about town. I 
 shall learn all the classes and distinctions soon. But how 
 is one to know the sheep that may be let into the fold 
 from the wolves in sheej^'s clothing, that must be ke])t 
 out of it? Your Ogre is really very distinguished- 
 looking." 
 
 "Distinguished? Oh yes, my love; but the most dis- 
 tinguished men arc the most objectionable sometimes. I
 
 124 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 assure you, my dear Cecil, I have seen an elder son whom 
 sometimes I could hardly have told from his own valet, 
 and a younger of the same family with the style of a 
 D'Orsay. Why, did I not this very winter, when I went 
 to stay at Rochdale, take Fitzbreguet himself, whom I 
 had not chanced to see since he was a child, for one of 
 the men out of livery, and bid him bring Bijou's basket 
 out of the carriage. I did indeed — / who hate such 
 mistakes more than any one ! And Lionel, his second 
 brother, has the beauty of an Apollo and the air noble to 
 perfection. One often sees it ; it 's through the doctrine 
 of compensation, I suppose, but it 's very perplexing, and 
 causes endless einbrouillements." 
 
 " When the mammas fall in love with Lor-d Fitz's 
 coronet, and the daughters with Lord Lionel's face, I 
 suppose?" interpolated Lady Cecil. 
 
 " Exactly so, dear. As for knowing the sheep from the 
 wolves, as you call them," went on Lady Marabout, sort- 
 ing her embroidery silks, " you may very soon know more 
 of Chandos Cheveley's class — (this Magenta braid is good 
 for nothing ; it 's a beautiful color, but it fades imme- 
 diately) — you meet them in the country at all fast houses, 
 as they call them nowadays, like the Amandines' ; they 
 are constantly invited, because they are so amusing, or so 
 dead a shot, or so good a whip, and live on their invita- 
 tions, because they have no locale of their own. You see, 
 all the women worth nothing admire, and all the women 
 worth anything shun, them. They have a dozen accom- 
 plishments, and not a single reliable quality ; a hundred 
 houses open to them, and not a shooting-box of their own 
 property or rental. You will meet this Chandos Cheveley 
 everywhere, for instance, as though he were somebody de- 
 sirable. You will see him in his club-window, as though 
 he were born only to read the papers ; in the Kide, mounted 
 on a ra>ch better animal than Fitzbreguet, though the one 
 pays treble the price he ought, and the other, I dare say,
 
 LADY MAUABOUT's TROUBLES. 125 
 
 no price at all ; at Ascot, on Amandine's or Goodwood's 
 drag, made as much of among them all as if he were an 
 heir-apparent to the throne ; and yet, my love, that man 
 hasn't a penny, lives Heaven knows where, and how he 
 gets money to keep his cab and buy his gloves is, as I say, 
 one of those mysteries of settling days, whist-tables, peri- 
 odical writing, Baden coups de bonheur, and such-like foun- 
 tains of such men's fortunes which we can never hope to 
 penetrate — and very little we should benefit if we could ! 
 My dearest Cecil! if it is not ten minutes to five! We 
 must go and drive at once." 
 
 Lady Ormsby was a great pet of Lady Marabout's ; she 
 
 had been so from a child ; so much so, that when, the year 
 
 after Valencia Valletort's discomfiture (a discomfiture so 
 
 heavy and so public, that that young beauty was seized 
 
 with a fit of filial devotion, attended her mamma to Nice, 
 
 and figured not in Belgravia the ensuing season, and even 
 
 Lady Marabout's temper had been slightly soured by it, as 
 
 you perceive), another terrible charge was shifted on her 
 
 shoulders by an appeal from the guardians of the late Earl 
 
 of Rosediamond's daughter for her to be brought out under 
 
 the Marabout wing, she had consented, and surrendered 
 
 herself to be again a martyr to responsibility for the sake 
 
 of Cecil and Cecil's lost mother. The young lady was a 
 
 beauty ; she was worse, she was an heiress ; she was worse 
 
 still, she was saucy, wayward, and notable for a strong will 
 
 of her own — a more dangerous young thorough-bred was 
 
 never brought to a gentler Rarey ; and yet she was the 
 
 first charge of this nature that Lady Marabout had ever 
 
 accepted in the whole course of her life with no misgivings 
 
 and with absolute pleasure. First, she was very fond of 
 
 Cecil Ormsby; secondly, she longed to efface her miserable 
 
 failure with Valencia by a brilliant success, which should 
 
 light up all the gloom of her past of chaperonage ; thirdly, 
 
 she had a sweet and long-cherished diplomacy nestling in 
 
 her heart to throw her sou and Lord Iloscdiamoud'a 
 
 11*
 
 136 LADY MARABOUTS TROUBLES. 
 
 daughter together, for the eventual ensnaring and fettering 
 of Carruthers, which policy nothing could favor so "well 
 as having the Aveapon for that deadly purpose in her own 
 house through April, May, and June. 
 
 Cecil Ormsby was a beauty and an heiress — spirited, 
 sarcastic, brilliant, wilful, very proud ; altogether, a more 
 spirited young filly never needed a tight hand on the 
 ribbons, a light but a firm seat, and a temperate though 
 judicious use of the curb to make her endure being ridden 
 at all, even over the most level grass countries of life. 
 And yet, for the reasons just mentioned. Lady Marabout, 
 who never had a tight hand upon anything, who is to be 
 thrown in a moment by any wilful kick or determined 
 plunge, who is utterly at the mercy of any filly that 
 chooses to take the bit between her own teeth and bolt 
 off, and is entirely incapable of using the curb, even to 
 the most ill-natured and ill-trained Shetland that ever 
 deserved to have its mouth sawed, — Lady Marabout 
 undertook the jockeyship without fear. 
 
 " I dare say you wonder, after my grief with Valencia, 
 that I have consented to bring another girl out, but when 
 I heard it was poor Rosediamond's wish — his dying wish, 
 one may almost say — that Cecil should make her debut 
 with me, what was I to do, my dear?" she explained, 
 half apologetically, to Carruthers, when the question was 
 first agitated. Perhaps, too. Lady Marabout had in her 
 heart been slightly sickened of perfectly trained young 
 ladies brought up on the best systems, and admitted to 
 herself that the pets of the foreign houses may not be the 
 most attractive flowers after all. 
 
 So Lady Cecil Ormsby was installed in Lowndes 
 Square, and though she Avas the inheritor of her mother's 
 wealth, which was considerable, and possessor of hcir own 
 wit and beauty, which were not inconsiderable either, and 
 therefore a prize to fortune-hunters and a lure to niisoga- 
 mists, as Lady Marabout knew very well how lo keep the
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 127 
 
 first off, and had her pet project of numbering her refrac- 
 tory son among the converted second, she rather congrat- 
 ulated herself than otherwise in having the pleasure and 
 eclat of introducing her ; and men voted the Mara])out 
 Yearlings Sale of that season, since it comprised Kose- 
 diamond's handsome daughter, as dangerous as a horse- 
 dealer's auction to a young greenhorn, or a draper's 
 " sale, Avithout reserve, at enormous sacrifice," to a lady 
 with a soul on bargains bent. 
 
 " How very odd ! Just as we have been talking of 
 him, there is that man again ! I must bow to him, I sup- 
 pose; though if there be a person I dislike " said 
 
 Lady Marabout, giving a frigid little bond of her hetid 
 as her barouche, with its dashing roans, rolled from her 
 door, and a tilbury passed them, driving slowly through 
 the square. 
 
 Cecil Ormsby bowed to its occupant with less severity, 
 and laughed under the sheltering shadow of her white 
 parasol-fringe. 
 
 " The Ogre has a very pretty trap, though, Lady IMar- 
 about, and the most delicious gray horse in it! Such 
 good action ! " 
 
 " If its action is good, my love, I dare say it is more 
 than could be said of its master's actions. He is going 
 to call on that Mrs. Marechale, very probably ; he was 
 always there last season." 
 
 And Lady Marabout shook her head and looked grave, 
 which, combined with the ever-damnatory demonstrative 
 conjunction, blackened Mrs. Marechale's moral character 
 as much as Lady Marabout could blacken any one's, she 
 loving as little to soil her own fingers and her neighbors' 
 reputations with the indelible Italian chalk of scandal as 
 any lady 1 know; being given, on the contrary, when 
 compelled to draw any little social croquis of a back- 
 biting nature, to sketch them in as lightly as she could, 
 take out as many lights as possible, and rub in the shad-
 
 128 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 ows with a very chary and pitying hand, except, indeed, 
 when she took the portrait of such an Ogre as Chandog 
 Cheveley, when I can't say she was quite so merciful, 
 specially Avhen policy and prejudice combined to suggest 
 that it would be best (and not unjust) to use the blackest 
 Conte crayons obtainable. 
 
 The subject of it would not have denied the correct- 
 ness of the silhouette Lady Marabout had snipped out 
 for the edification of Lady Cecil, had he caught a glimpse 
 of it : he had no habitation, nor was ever likely to have 
 any, save a bachelor's suite in a back street ; he had been 
 an idle man for the last twenty years, with not a sou to 
 be idle upon ; the springs of his very precarious fortunes, 
 his pursuits, habits, reputation, ways and means, were all 
 much what she had described them ; yet he set the fashion 
 much oftener than Goodwood, and dukes and millionnaires 
 would follow the style of his tie, or the shape of his hat ; 
 he moved in the most brilliant circles as Court Circulars 
 have it, and all the best houses were open to him. At 
 his Grace of Amandine's, staying there for the shooting, 
 he would alter the stud, find fault with the claret, arrange 
 a Drive for deer in the forest, and flirt with her Grace 
 herself, as though, as Lady Marabout averred, he had 
 been Heir-apparent or Prince Regent, who honored the 
 Castle by his mere presence. Amandine all the while 
 swearing by every Avord he spoke, thinking nothing well 
 done without Cheveley, and submitting to be set aside in 
 his own Castle, with the greatest gratification at the 
 extinction. 
 
 But that Chandos Cheveley was not worth a farthing, 
 that he was but a Bohemian on a brilliant scale, that any 
 day he might disappear from that society where he now 
 glittered, never to reappear, everybody knew ; how ho 
 floated there as he did, kept his cab and his man, paid 
 for his stall at the Opera, his club fees, and all the other 
 trifles that won't wait, was an eternal puzzle to every one
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 129 
 
 ignorant of how expensively one may live upon nothing 
 if one just gets the knack, and of how far a fashionable 
 reputation, like a cake of chocolate, will go to support 
 life when nothing more substantial is obtainable. Lady 
 Marabout had sketched him correctly enough, allowing 
 for a little politic bitterness thrown in to counteract Car- 
 ruthers's thoughtlessness in having introduced him to 
 Rosediamond's daughter (that priceless treasure for whom 
 Lady Marabout would fain have had a guard of Janissa- 
 ries, if they would not have been likely to look singular 
 and come expensive) ; and ladies of the Marabout class 
 did look upon him as an Ogre, guarded their daughters 
 from his approach at a ball as carefully, if not as demon- 
 stratively, as any duck its ducklings from the approach 
 of a water-rat, did not ask him to their dinners, and 
 bowed to him chUlily in the Ring. Others regarded him 
 as harmless, from his perfect pennilessness ; what danger 
 was there in the fascinations of a man whom all Bel- 
 gravia knew had n't money enough to buy dog-skin 
 gloves, though he always wore the best Paris lavender 
 kid? While others, the pretty married women chiefly, 
 from her Grace of Amandine downwards to Mrs. Mare- 
 chalc, of Lowndes Square, flirted with him, fearfully, 
 and considered Chandos Cheveley what nobody ever suc- 
 ceeded in disproving him, the most agreeable man on 
 town, with the finest figure, the best style, and the most 
 perfect bow, to be seen in the Park any day between 
 March and July. But then, as Lady Marabout remarked 
 on a subsequent occasion, a figure, a style, and a bow are 
 admirable and enviable things, but they 're not among 
 the cardinal virtues, and don't do to live upon ; and 
 though they 're very good buoys to float one on the smooth 
 sparkling sea of society, if there come a storm, one may 
 go down, despite them, and become helpless prey to the 
 Bharks waiting below. 
 
 "Philip certainly admiras her very much ; he said the 
 
 I
 
 130 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 other day there was sometliing in her, and that means a 
 great deal from him," thought Lady Marabout, compla- 
 cently, as she and Cecil Ormsby were wending their way 
 through some crowded rooms. " Of course T shall not 
 influence Cecil towards him ; it would not be honorable 
 to do so, since she might look for a higher title than my 
 son's ; still, if it should so fall out, nothing would give 
 me greater pleasure, and really nothing would seem more 
 natural with a little judicious manage " 
 
 "May I have the honor of this valse with you?" was 
 spoken in, though not to. Lady Marabout's ear. It was 
 a soft, a rich, a melodious voice enough, and yet Lady 
 Marabout would rather have heard the hiss of a Cobra 
 Capella, for the footmen might have caught the serpent 
 and carried it off from Cecil Ormsby's vicinity, and she 
 could n't very well tell them to rid the reception-cham- 
 bers of Chandos Cheveley. 
 
 Lady Marabout vainly tried to catch Cecil's eye, and 
 warn her of the propriety of an utter and entire repudi- 
 ation of the valse in question, if there were no "engaged" 
 producible to softly chill the hopes and repulse the ad- 
 vances of the aspirant ; but Lady Cecil's soul was obsti- 
 nately bent saltatory-wards ; her chaperone's ocular tele- 
 gram Avas lost upon her, and only caught by the last 
 person who should have seen it, who read the message off 
 the wires to his own amusement, but naturally was not 
 magnanimous enough to pass it on. 
 
 " I ought to have warned her never to dance with that 
 detestable man. If I could but have caught her eye even 
 now ! " thought Lady Marabout, restlessly. The capella 
 would have been much the more endurable of the two ; 
 the serpent could n't have passed its arm round Kose- 
 diaraond's priceless daughter and whirled her down the 
 ball-room to the music of Coote and Timney's band, as 
 Chandos Cheveley Avas now doing.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 131 
 
 " Why did yoii not ask her for that waltz, Philip?" cried 
 the good lady, almost petulantly. 
 
 Carruthers opened his eyes wide. 
 
 " My dear mother, you know I never dance ! I come 
 to balls to oblige my hostesses and look at the women, but 
 not to carry a seven-stone weight of tulle illusion and white 
 satin, going at express pace, with the thermometer at 80 
 deg., and a dense crowd jostling one at every turn in the 
 circle. Bien oblige ! that 's not my idea of pleasure ; if 
 it were the Pyrrhic dance, now, or the Tarantella, or the 
 Bolero, under a Castilian chestnut-tree " 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! You might have danced for once, 
 just to have kept her from Chandos Cheveley." 
 
 " From the best waltzer in London ? Not so selfish. 
 Ask Amandine's wife if women don't like to dance with 
 that fellow ! " 
 
 "I should be very sorry to mention his name to her, or 
 any of her set," responded Lady Marabout, getting upon 
 certain virtuous stilts of her own, which she was given to 
 mount on rare occasion and at distant intervals, always 
 finding them very uncomfortable and unsuitable elevations, 
 and being as glad to cast them ofi'as a traveller to kick 
 off" the echasses he has had to strap on over the sandy 
 plains of the Landes. 
 
 "What could possess you to introduce him to Cecil, 
 Philip ? It was careless, silly, unlike you ; you know how 
 I dislike men of his — his — objectionable stamp," sighed 
 Lady Marabout, the white and gold namesakes in her 
 coiflTure softly trembling a gentle sigh in the perfumy 
 zephyr raised by the rotatory whirl of the waltzers, among 
 whom she watched with a horrible fascination, as one 
 watches a tiger being pugged out of its lair, or a deserter 
 being led out to be shot, Chandos Cheveley, waltzing 
 Rosediamond's priceless daughter down the ball-room. 
 
 " He is so dreadfully handsome ! I wonder why it is 
 that men and women, who have no fortune but their faces.
 
 132 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 will lie so dangerously, so obstinately, so provokingly at- 
 tractive as one sees them so often ! " thought Lady Mara- 
 bout, determining to beat an immediate retreat from the 
 present salons, since they were infested by the presence of 
 her Ogre, to Lady Hautton's house in Wilton Crescent. 
 
 Lady Hautton headed charitable bazaars, belonged to 
 the Cummingite nebulse, visited Homes and Hospitals 
 (floating to the bedside of luckless feminine patients to 
 read out divers edifying passages, whose effect must have 
 been somewhat neutralized to the hearers, one would im- 
 agine, by the envy-inspiring rustle of her silks, the flash 
 of her rings, and the chimes of her bracelets, chains, and 
 chatelaine), looked on the " Amandine set " as lost souls, 
 and hence "did not know" Chandos Cheveley — a fact 
 which, though the Marabout and Hautton antagonism was 
 patent to all Belgravia, served to endear her all at once 
 to her foe ; Lady Marabout, like a good many other 
 people, being content to sink personal resentment, and 
 make a truce with the infidels for the sake of enjoying a 
 mutual antipathy — that closest of all links of union! 
 
 Lady Marabout and Lady Hautton were foes, but they 
 were dear Helena and dear Anne, all the same ; dined at 
 each other's tables, and smiled in each other's faces. 
 They might be private foes, but they were public friends; 
 and Lady Marabout beat a discreet retreat to the Hautton's 
 salons — "so many engagements" is so useful a plea! — 
 and from the Hautton she passed on to a ball at the Duke 
 of Doncaster's ; and, as at both, if Lady Cecil Ormsby 
 did not move " a goddess from above," she moved a bril- 
 liant, sparkling, nonchalante, dangerous beauty, with 
 Bome of her sex's faults, all her sex's witcheries, and 
 more than her sex's mischief, holding her own royally, 
 saucily, and proudly, and Chandos Cheveley was encoun- 
 tered no more, but happily detained at petit souper in a 
 certain Section of the French Embassy, Lady Marabout 
 drove homewards, in the gray of the morning, relieved,
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 133 
 
 complacent, and gratified, dozing deliciously, till she was 
 woke up with a start. 
 
 " Lady Marabout, what a splendid waltzer your Ogre, 
 Chandos Cheveley, is ! " 
 
 Lady Marabout opened her eyes with a jerk that set her 
 feathers trembling, her diamonds scintillating, and her 
 bracelets ringing an astonished little carillon. 
 
 " My love, how you fright(»ued me ! " 
 
 Cecil Ormsby laughed — a gay, joyous laugh, innocent 
 of having disturbed a doze, a lapse into human weakness of 
 which her chaperone never permitted herself to plead guilty 
 
 "Frightened you, did I? Why, your hete noire is as 
 terrible to you as Coeur de Lion to the Saracen children, 
 or Black Douglas to the Lovv^land ! And, really, I can't 
 see anything terrible in him ; he is excessively brilliant 
 and agreeable, has something worth hearing to say to you, 
 and his waltzing is !" 
 
 Lady Cecil Ormsby had not a word in her repertory - 
 though it was an enthusiastic and comprehensive one, and 
 embraced five languages — sufficiently commendatory to 
 finish her sentence. 
 
 " I dare say, dear ! I never denied, or heard denied, 
 his having every accomplishment under the sun. The 
 only pity is, he has nothing more substantial ! " returned 
 Lady Marabout, a little bit tartly for her lips, only used 
 to the softest (and most genuine) milk of roses. 
 
 Lord Rosediamond's daughter laughed a little mourn- 
 fully, and played Avith her fan. 
 
 " Poor man ! Brilliant and beggared, fashionable and 
 friendless, courted and cashiered — a sad destiny ! Do you 
 know. Lady Marabout, I have half a mind to champion 
 your Ogre ! " 
 
 " My love, don't talk nonsense ! " said Lady Marabout, 
 hastily, at which Lady Cecil only laughed still more softly 
 and gayly again, and sprung down as the carriage stoppefl 
 in L(yWndes Square.
 
 134 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 " Rosediaraond's daughter 's deucedly handsome, eh, 
 Cheveley ? I saw you waltzing with her last night," said 
 Goodwood at Lord's the next morning, watching a match 
 between the Household Cavalry and the Zingari Eleven. 
 
 "Yes, she is the best thing we have seen for some time," 
 said Cheveley, glancing round to see if the Marabout 
 liveries were on the ground. 
 
 " Don't let the Amandine or little Marechale hear you 
 say so, or you '11 have a deuce of a row," laughed Good- 
 wood. "She's worth a good deal, too; she's all her 
 mother's property, and that's something, I know. The 
 deaths in her family have kept her back two years or more, 
 but now she is out, I dare say Lady Tattersall will put her 
 up high in the market." 
 
 " No doubt. Why don't you make the investment — 
 she's much more attractive than that Valletort ice statue 
 who hooked you so nearly last year ? Fortescue 's out! 
 Well done, little Jimmy ! Ah ! there 's the Marabout 
 carriage. I am as unwelcome to that good lady, I know, 
 as if I were Quasimodo or Quilp, and as much to be 
 shunned, in her estimation, as Vidocq, armed to the teeth ; 
 nevertheless, I shall go and talk to them, if only in re- 
 venge for the telegraphic warning of * dangerous' she shot 
 at Lady Cecil last night when I asked her to waltz. Good- 
 wood, don't you envy me my hapj^y immunity from traps 
 matrimonial?" 
 
 "There is that man again — how provoking! I Avish 
 we had not come to see Philip's return match. He ia 
 positively coming up to talk to us," thought Lady Mara- 
 bout, restlessly, as her Ogre lifted his hat to her. In vain 
 did she do her best to look severe, to look frigid, to chill 
 him with a withering " good morning," (a little word, 
 capable, if you notice, of expressing every gradation in 
 feeling, from the nadir of delighted intimacy to the zero 
 of rebuking frigidity ;) her coldest ice was as warm as a 
 piue-upple ice that has been melting all day under a re-
 
 LAiy marabout's troubles. 135 
 
 freshment tent at a horticultural fete? Her role was not 
 chilliness, and never could be; she would have beamed 
 benign on a headsman who had led her out to instant de- 
 capitation, and been no more able to help it than a peach 
 to help its bloom or a claret its bouquet. She did her 
 utmost to freeze Chandos Cheveley, but either she failed 
 feignally, or he, being blessed with the brazen conscience 
 she had attributed to him, was steeled to all the tacit 
 repulses of her looks, for he leant against the barouche- 
 door, let her freeze him away as she might, and chatted to 
 Cecil Ormsby, " positively," Lady Marabout remarked to 
 that safest confidante, herself, " positively as if the man 
 had been welcome at ray house for the last ten years ! If 
 CqcW would but second me, he couldn't doit; but she will 
 smile and talk with him just as though he were Goodwood 
 or Fitzbreguet ! It is very disagreeable to be forced against 
 one's will like this into countenancing such a very objec- 
 tionable person ; and yet what can one do ? " 
 
 Which query she could by no means satisfactorily 
 answer herself, being a regular female Nerva for clemency, 
 utterly incapable of the severity with which that stern 
 Catiline, Lady Hautton, would have signed the unwelcome 
 intruder out of the way in a brace of seconds. And 
 under Nerva's gentle rule, though Nerva was longing 
 with all her heart to have the courage to call the lictors 
 and say, "Away with him!" Cheveley leant against the 
 door of the carriage unmolested, though decidedly unde- 
 sired by one of its occupants, talked to by Lady Cecil, 
 possibly because she found him as agreeable as her Grace 
 of Amandine and Lillia Marechale had done before her, 
 possibly only from that rule of contrariety which is such 
 a pet motor-power with her sex ; and Lady Marabout 
 reclined among her cushions, tucked up in her tiger-skin 
 in precisely that state of mind in which Fuscli said to his 
 wife, " Swear, my dear, you don't know how much good 
 it will dci you," dreading in herself the possible advent
 
 136 LAD? MARABODT« TROUBLES. 
 
 of the Hautton carnage, for that ancient enemy and 
 rigid pietist, of whose keen tongue and eminent virtue 
 she always stood secretly in awe, to see this worthless and 
 utterly objectionable member of that fast, graceless, and 
 "very incorrect" Amandine set, absolutely en sentinelle 
 at the door of her barouche ! 
 
 Does your best friend ever come when you want him 
 most? Doesn't your worst foe always come when you 
 want him least? Of course, at that juncture, the Hauttou 
 carriage came on the ground (Hauttou was one of the 
 Zingari Club, and maternal interest brought her foe to 
 Lord's as it had brought herself), and the Hautton eye- 
 glass, significantly and surprisedly raised, said as distinctly 
 to Lady Marabout, as though elfishly endowed with vocal 
 powers, "You allow that man acquaintance with Kose- 
 diamond's daughter ! " Lady Marabout was stung to the 
 soul by the deserved rebuke, but she did n't know how on 
 earth to get rid of the sinner ! There he leaned, calmly, 
 nonchalantly, determinedly, as if he were absolutely wel- 
 come ; and Lady Cecil talked on to him as if he were 
 absolutely welcome too. 
 
 Lady Marabout felt branded in the eyes of all Belgra- 
 via to have Chandos Cheveley at her carriage-door, the 
 most objectionable man of all his most objectionable class. 
 " It is very strange ! " she thought. " I have seen that 
 man about town the last five-and-twenty years — ever since 
 he was a mere boy, taken up and petted by Adeline Pat- 
 chouli for some piece of witty Brummelian impudence 
 he said to her on his first introduction — and he has never 
 nought my acquaintance before, but always seemed to be 
 quite aware of my dislike to him and all his set. It is 
 very grievous he should have chosen the very season I 
 have poor dear Rosediamond's daughter with me ; but 
 it is always my fate — if a thing can happen to annoy me 
 it always will ! " 
 
 With which Lady Marabout, getting fairly distracted
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 137 
 
 under the iron hand of adverse fate, and the ruthletj^j sur- 
 veillance of the Hautton glass, invented un impromptu 
 necessity for immediate shopping at Lewis and Allonby's, 
 and drove off the ground at the sole moment of interest 
 the match possessed for her — viz., -when Carruthers was 
 rattling down Hautton's stumps, and getting innings in- 
 numerable for the Household. 
 
 "Mais ce n'est que le premier pas qui covite;" the old 
 proverb 's so true we wear it threadbare with repeating it! 
 Lady Marabout might as well have stayed on Lord's 
 ground, and not lacerated her feelings by leaving at the 
 very hour of the Household Cavalry's triumphs, for any 
 good that she did thereby. The Hautton eye-glass had 
 lighted on Chandos Cheveley, and Chandos Cheveley's 
 eye-glass on Rosediamond's daughter; — and Cecil Ormsby 
 arched her eyebrows, and gave her parasol a little impa- 
 tient shake as they quitted Lord's. 
 
 " Lady Marabout, I never could have believed you ill- 
 natured ; you interrupted my ball last night, and my con- 
 versation this morning ! I shall scold you if you ever do 
 so again. And now tell me (as curiosity is a weakness 
 incidental to all women, no woman ought to refuse to 
 relieve it in another) why are you so prejudiced against 
 that very handsome, and very amusing person ? " 
 
 " Prejudiced, my dear child ! I am not in the least pre- 
 judiced," returned Lady Marabout. (Nobody ever ad- 
 mitted to a prejudice that I ever heard. It's a plant 
 that grows in all gardens, and is sedulously matted up, 
 watered, and strengthened ; but invariably disavowed by 
 its sturdiest cultivators.) "As for Chandos Cheveley, 
 I merely mentioned to you what all town knows about 
 him ; and the dislike I have to his class is one of principle, 
 not of prejudice." 
 
 Lady Cecil made a moue mutine: 
 
 "Oh, Lady Marabout! if you go to 'principle,' tout 
 Mf merdu ! ' Principle ' has been made to bear the ouu? 
 12 *
 
 Io8 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 of every private pique since the worid began, and has had 
 to answer for more cruelties and injustice than any word 
 in the kmguage. The Romans flung the Christians to 
 the lions ' on principle,' and the Europeans slew the Ma- 
 homedans ' on principle,' and ' principle ' lighted the au- 
 tos-da-fe, and signed to the tormentor to give a turn more 
 to the rack ! Please don't appeal to anything so severe 
 and hypocritical. Come, what are the Ogre's sins?" 
 
 Lady Marabout laughed, despite the subject. 
 
 " Do you think I am a compiler of such catalogues, 
 my love ? Pray do not let us talk any more about Chan- 
 dos Cheveley, he is very little worth it ; all I say to you 
 is, be as cool to him as you can, without rudeness, of 
 course. I am never at home when he calls, and were I 
 you, I would be always engaged when he asks you to waltz ; 
 his acquaintance can in no way benefit you." 
 
 Lady Cecil gave a little haughty toss of her head, and 
 lay back in the barouche. 
 
 " I will judge of that ! I am not made for fetters of 
 any kind, you know, and I like to choose my own ac- 
 quaintance as well as to choose my own dresses. I can- 
 not obey you either this evening, for he asked me to put 
 him on my ta]>lets for the first waltz at Lord Anisette's 
 ball, and I consented. I had no ' engaged ' ready, unless 
 I had had a falsehood ready too, and you would n't counsel 
 that, Lady Marabout, I am very sure?" 
 
 With which straightforward and perplexing question 
 Cecil Ormsby successfully silenced her chaperone, by 
 planting her in that disagreeable position known as be- 
 tween the horns of a dilemma ; and Lady Marabout, 
 shrinking alike from the responsibility of counselling a 
 " necessary equivocation," as society politely terms its in- 
 dispensable lies, and the responsibility of allowing Cecil 
 acquaintance with the " very worst " of the Amandine set, 
 sighed, wondered envyingly how Anne Hautton would act 
 in her place, and almost began to wish somebody else had
 
 Lli-DY marabout's TROUBLES. 139 
 
 had the onerous stewardship of that brilliant and price- 
 less jewel, Rosediamond's daughter, now that the jewel 
 threatened to be possessed with a will of its own: — the 
 greatest possible flaw in a gem of pure water, which they 
 only want to scintillate brilliantly among the bijouterie 
 of society, and let itself be placed passively in the setting 
 most suitable for it, that can be conceived in the eyes of 
 lady lapidaries intrusted with its sale. 
 
 " It is very odd," thought Lady Marabout ; " she seems 
 to have taken a much greater fancy to that odious man 
 than to Philip, or Goodwood, or Fitz, or any one of the 
 men who admire her so much. I suppose I always am to 
 be worried in this sort of way ! However, there can be 
 no real danger ; Chandos Cheveley is the merest butterfly 
 flirt, and with all his faults none ever accused him of 
 fortune-hunting. Still, they say he is wonderfully fasci- 
 nating, and certainly he has the most beautiful voice I 
 ever heard ; and if Cecil should ever like him at all, I 
 could never forgive myself, and what should I say to 
 General Ormsby?" 
 
 The General, Cecil's uncle and guardian, is one of the 
 best-humored, best-tempered, and most laissez-faire men 
 in the Service, but was, for all that, a perpetual dead 
 weight on Lady Marabout's mind just then, for was not 
 he the person to whom, at the end of the season, she 
 would have to render up account of the successes and 
 the shortcomings of her chaperone's career ? 
 
 " Do you think of proposing Chandos Cheveley as a 
 suitable alliance for Cecil Ormsby, my dear Helena?" 
 asked Lady Hautton, with that smile which was felt to 
 be considerably worse than strychnine by her foes and 
 victims, at a house in Grosvenor Place, that night. 
 
 "God forbid!" prayed Lady Marabout, mentally, as 
 she joined in the Hautton laugh, and shivered under the 
 stab of the Hautton sneer, which was an excessively sharp 
 one. Lady Hautton being one of a rather numerous class
 
 140 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 of eminent Christians, so panoplied in the armoi of right- 
 eousness that they can tread, without feeling it, on the 
 tender feet of others. 
 
 The evening was spoiled to Lady Marabout ; she felt 
 morally and guiltily responsible for an unpardonable 
 indiscretion : — with that man waltzing with Cecil Ormsby, 
 her "graceful, graceless, gracious Grace" of Amandine 
 visibly irritated with jealousy at the sight, and Anne 
 Hautton whispering behind her fan with acidulated sig- 
 nificance. Lady Marabout had never been more miser- 
 able in her life ! She heard on all sides admiration of 
 Rosediamond's daughter ; she was gratified by seeing 
 Goodwood, Fitzbreguet, Fulke Nugent, every eligible 
 man in the room, suing for a place on her tablets ; she 
 had the delight of beholding Carruthers positively join 
 the negligent beauty's train ; and yet the night was a 
 night of purgatory to Lady Marabout, for Chandos 
 Cheveley had his first waltz, and several after it, and the 
 Amandine set were there to gossip, and the Hautton 
 clique to be shocked, at it. 
 
 "Soames, tell Mason, whe3 Mr. Chandos Cheveley 
 calls, I am not at home," said Lady Marabout at 
 breakfast. 
 
 "Yes, my lady," said Soames, who treasured up the 
 order, and told it to Mr. Chandos Cheveley 's man at the 
 first opportunity, though, greatly to his honor, we must 
 admit, he did 7iot imitate the mild formula of fib, and 
 tell his mistress her claret was not corked when it was so 
 incontestably. 
 
 Cecil Ormsby lifted her head and looked across the 
 table at her hostess, and the steady gaze of those violet 
 eyes, which were Rosediamond's daughter's best weapons 
 of war, so discomposed Lady Marabout, that she forgot 
 herself sufiiciently to proffer Bijou a piece of bread, an 
 unparalleled insult, which that canine Sybarite did not 
 forget all day long.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 141 
 
 " Not at home, sir," said Mason, as duly directed, when 
 Cheveley's cab pulled up, a week or two after the general 
 order, at the door. 
 
 Cheveley smiled to himself as his gray had her head 
 turned, and the wheel grated off the trottoir, Avhile he 
 lifted his hat to Cecil Ormsby, just visible between the 
 amber curtains and above the balcony flowers of one of 
 the windows of the drawing-room — quite visible enough 
 for her return smile and bow to be seen in the street by 
 Cheveley, in the room by Lady Marabout. 
 
 " Some of Lady Tattersall's generalship ! " he thought, 
 as the gray trotted out of the square. " Well 1 I have 
 no business there. Cecil Ormsby is not her Grace of 
 Amandine, nor little Marechale, and the good lady is 
 quite right to brand me 'dangerous' to her charge, and 
 pronounce me ' inadmissible ' to her footman. I 've very 
 little title to resent her verdict." 
 
 " My dearest Cecil, whatever possessed you to bow to 
 that man!" cried Lady Marabout, in direst distress. 
 
 " Is it not customary to bow to one's acquaintances — I 
 thought it was ?" asked Lady Cecil, with demure mischief. 
 
 " But, my dear, from a window ! — and when Mason is 
 Baying we are not at home ! " 
 
 " That is n't Mason's fib, or Mason's fault. Lady Mara- 
 bout ! " suggested Cecil, with wicked emphasis. 
 
 " There is no falsehood or fault at all anywhere — 
 everybody knows well enough what ' not at home ' means," 
 returned Lady Marabout, almost pettishly. 
 
 "Oh yes," laughed the young lady, saucily. "It 
 means ' I am at home and sitting in my drawing-room, 
 but I shall not rise to receive you, bwause you are not 
 worth the trouble.' It 's a polite cut direct, and a hon- 
 eyed rudeness — a bitter almond wrapped up in a sugar 
 dragee, like a good many other bonbons handed about in 
 society." 
 
 " My dear Cecil, you have some very strange ideas ;
 
 142 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 you will get called satirical if you don't take care," said 
 Lady Marabout, nervously. 
 
 Cecil Ormsby's tone worried her, and made her feel 
 something as she felt when she had a restive, half-broken 
 pair of horses in her carriage, for the direction of whose 
 next plunge or next kick nobody could answer. 
 
 "And if I be — what then?" 
 
 "My dear child, you could not anyhow get a more 
 disadvantageous reputation ! It may amuse gentlemen, 
 though it frightens half them; but it offends all women 
 irremediably. You see, there are so few whom it doesn't 
 hit somewhere," returned Lady Marabout, quite innocent 
 of the neat satire of her own last sentence. 
 
 Cecil Ormsby laughed, and threw herself down by her 
 chaperone's side : 
 
 " Never mind : I can bear their enmity ; it is a greater 
 compliment than their liking. The women whom women 
 love are always quiet, colorless, inoffensive — foils. Lady 
 Marabout, tell me, Avhy did you give that general order 
 to Mason?" 
 
 " I have told you before, my dear. Because I have no 
 wish to know Mr. Chandos Cheveley," returned Lady 
 Marabout, as stiffly as she could say anything. " It is, as 
 I said, not from prejudice, but from prin " 
 
 " Lady Marabout, if you use that word again, I will 
 drive to uncle Ormsby's rooms in the Albany and stay 
 with him for the season ; I will, positively ! I am sure 
 all the gentlemen there will be delighted to have my so- 
 ciety ! Pray, what are your Ogre's crimes ? Did you 
 ever hear anything dishonorable, mean, ungenerous, at- 
 tributed to him ? Did you ever hear he broke his word, 
 or failed to act like a gentleman, or was a defaulter at 
 any settling day?" 
 
 Lady Marabout required some explanation of what a 
 defaulter at a settling day might be, and, on receiving it,
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 143 
 
 was compelled to confess that she never had hcaid any- 
 thing of that kind imputed to Chandos Chevele}'- . 
 
 " Of course I have not, my dear. The man is a gen- 
 tleman, everybody knows, however idle and improvident 
 a one. If he could be accused of anything of that kind, 
 he would not belong to such clubs, and associate with 
 such men as he does. Besides, Philip would not know 
 him ; certainly would not think well of him, which I 
 confess he does. But that is not at all the question." 
 
 "Ne vous en deplaise, I think it very much and very 
 entirely the question," returned Lady Cecil, with a toss 
 of her haughty little head. " If you can bring nothing 
 in evidence against a man, it is not right to send him to 
 the galleys and mark him ' Format.' " 
 
 "My dear Cecil, there is plenty in evidence against 
 him," said Lady Marabout, Avith a mental back glance to 
 certain stories told of the " Amandine set," " though not 
 of that kind. A man may be perfectly unexceptionable 
 in his conduct with his men friends, but very objection- 
 able acquaintance for us to seek, all the same." 
 
 "Ah, I see! Lord Goodwood may bet, and flirt, and 
 lounge his days away, and be as fast a man as he likes, 
 and it is all right ; but if Mr. Cheveley does the same, it 
 is all wrong, because he is not worth forgiving." 
 
 " Naturally it is," returned Lady Marabout, seriously 
 and naively. "But how very oddly you put things, my 
 love; and why you should interest yourself in this man, 
 when everything I tell you is to his disadvantage, I 
 cannot imagine." 
 
 A remark that showed Lady Marabout a skilful tac- 
 tician, insomuch as it silenced Cecil — a performance 
 rather difilcult of accomplishment. 
 
 " I an very glad I gave the order to Mason," thought 
 that good lady. " I only wish we did not meet the man 
 in society ; but it is im})ossible to help that. We are all 
 cards of one pack, and get shufllcd together, whether w<*
 
 144 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 like it or not. I wish Philip would pay her more atten- 
 tion ; he admires her, I can see, and he can make any 
 woman like him in ten days when he takes the trouble; 
 but he is so tiresome ! She would be exactly suited to 
 him; she has all he would exact — beauty, talent, good 
 blood, and even fortune, though that he would not need. 
 The alliance would be a great happiness to me. Well, he 
 dines hei'e to-night, and he gives that concert at his bar- 
 racks to-morrow morning, purely to please Cecil, I am 
 sure. I think it may be brought about with careful man- 
 agement." 
 
 AVith which pleasant reflection she went to drive in 
 the Ring, thinking that her maternal and duenna duties 
 would be alike well fulfilled, and her chaperone's career 
 well finished, if by any amount of tact, intrigue, finesses, 
 and diplomacy she could live to see Cecil Ormsby sign 
 herself Cecil Carruthers. 
 
 " If that man were only out of town ! " she thought, 
 as Cheveley passed them in Amandine's mail-phaeton at 
 the turn. 
 
 Lady Marabout might wish Cheveley were out of town 
 • — and wish it devoutly she did — but she wasn't very likely 
 to have her desire gratified till the general migration 
 should carry him off in its tide to the deck of a yacht, a 
 lodge in the Highlands, a German Kursaal, or any one 
 of those myriad " good houses " where nobody was so 
 welcome as he, the best shot, the best seat, the best wit, 
 the best billiard-player, the best whist-player, and the 
 best authority on all fashionable topics, of any man in 
 England. Cheveley used to aver that he liked Lady 
 Marabout, though she detested him ; nay, that he liked 
 her for her detestation ; he said it was cordial, sincere, 
 and refreshing, therefore a treat in the world of Belgravia; 
 Btill, he didn't like her so well as to leave Town in the 
 middle of May to oblige her ; and though he took her 
 hint as it was meant, and pulled up his hansom no more
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 145 
 
 at her door, he met her Jind Roscdiiimoiur.s daughter at din- 
 ners, balls, concerts, morning-parties innumerable. He 
 saw them in the Ring ; he was seen by them at the Opera ; 
 he came across them constantly in the gyration of London 
 life. Night after night Lady Cecil persisted in writing 
 his name in her tablets; evening after evening a bizarre 
 fate worried Lady Marabout, by patting him on tlie lei't 
 hand of her priceless charge at a dinner-party. Day after 
 day all the harmony of a concert was marred to her ear 
 by seeing her Ogre talking of Beethoven and Mozart, 
 chamber music and bravura music in Cecil's : morning 
 after morning gall was poured into her luncheon sherry, 
 and wormwood mingled in her vol-au-vent, by being told, 
 ■with frank mischief, by her desired daughter-in-law, that 
 she " had seen Mr. Cheveley leaning on the rails, smok- 
 ing," when she had taken her after-breakfast canter. 
 
 " Chandos Cheveley getting up before noon ! He must 
 mean something unusual ! " thought her chaperone. 
 
 " Helena has set her heart on securing Cecil Ormsby for 
 Carruthers. I hope she may succeed better than she did 
 with poor Goodwood last season," laughed Lady Hautton, 
 with her inimitable sneer, glancing at the young lady in 
 question at a bazaar in Willis's Rooms, selling rosebuds 
 for anything she liked to ask for them, and cigars tied up 
 with blue ribbon a guinea the half-dozen, at the Marabout 
 stall. Lady Hautton has just been paying a charitable 
 visit to St. Cecilia's Refuge, of which she was head pa- 
 troness, where, having floated in with much benignity, 
 been worshipped by a select little toady troop, adminis- 
 tered spiritual consolation with admirable condescension, 
 and distributed illuminated texts for the adornment of 
 the walls and i-efreshment of the souls, she was naturally 
 in a Christian frame of mind towards her .'leighbors. 
 Lady Marabout caught the naiiark — as she was intended. 
 to do — and thought it not quite a i)leasant one ; but, my 
 good sir, did you ever know those estimable people, who 
 ]3 . K
 
 146 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 spend all their time fitting themselves for another worlds 
 ever take the trouble to make themselves decently agree- 
 able in the present one ? The little pleasant courtesies, 
 affabilities, generosities, and kindnesses, that rub the edge 
 off the flint-stones of the Via Dolorosa, are quite beneath 
 the attention of Mary the Saint, and only get attended to 
 by Martha the Worldly, poor butterfly thing ! who is fit 
 for nothing more serviceable and profitable ! 
 
 Lady Marabout had set her heart on Cecil Ormsby's 
 filling that post of honor — of which no living woman 
 was deserving in her opinion — that of "Philip's wife;" 
 an individual who had been, for so many years, a fond 
 ideal, a haunting anxiety, and a dreaded rival, en meme 
 temps, to her imagination. She was a little bit of a 
 match-maker: she had, over and over again, arranged 
 the most admirable and suitable alliances ; alliances that 
 would have shamed the scepticism of the world in general, 
 as to the desirability of the holy bonds, and brought every 
 refractory man to the steps of St. George's ; alliances, 
 that would have come off with the greatest eclat, but for 
 one trifling hindrance and difiiculty — namely, the people 
 most necessary to the arrangements could never by any 
 chance be brought to view them in the same light, and 
 were certain to give her diplomacy the croc-en-jambe at 
 the very moment of its culminating glory and finishing 
 finesses. She was a little bit of a match-maker — most 
 kind-hearted women are ; the tinder they play with is 
 much better left alone, but they don't remember that! 
 Like children in a forest, they think they '11 light a pretty 
 bright fire, just for fun, and never remember what a 
 seared, dreary waste that fire may make, or what a prairie 
 conflagration it may stretch into before it's stopped. 
 
 " Cecil Ormsby is a terrible flirt," said Lady Hautton, 
 to another lady, glancing at the rapid sale of the rosebuds 
 and cigars, the bunches of violets and the sprays of lilies 
 of the valley, in which that brilliant beauty was do'ug
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 147 
 
 8ucli thriving business at such extravagant profits, while 
 the five Ladies Hautton presided solemnly over articles 
 of gorgeous splendor, which threatened to be left on 
 hand, and go in a tombola, as ignomiuiously as a beauty 
 after half a dozen seasons, left unwooed and unwou, 
 goes to the pele-mele raffle of German Bad society, and 
 is sold off at the finish to an unknown of the Line, or a 
 Civil Service fellow, with five hundred a year. 
 
 " Was Cecil a flirt ? " wondered Lady Marabout. Lady 
 Marabout was fain to confess to herself that she thought 
 she was — nay, that she hoped she was. If it was n't flirt- 
 ing, that way in which she smiled on Chandos Cheveley, 
 sold him cigarettes, laughed with him over the ices and 
 nectarines he fetched her, and positively invested him with 
 the cordon d'honneur of a little bouquet of Fairy roses, 
 for which twenty men sued, and he (give Satan his due) 
 did not even ask — if it wasn't flirting, what xvas itf 
 Lady Marabout shivered at the suggestion ; and thougl 
 she was, on principle, excessively severe on flirting, she 
 could be very glad of what she did n't approve, when it 
 aided her, on occasion — like most other people — and 
 would so far have agreed with Talleyrand, as to welcome 
 the worst crime (of coquetry) as far less a sin than the 
 unpardonable blunder of encouraging an Ogre ! 
 
 " I can't send Cecil away from the stall, as if she were 
 a naughty child, and I can't order the man out of Willis's 
 Rooms," thought that unhappy and fatally-worried lady, 
 as she presided behind her stall, an emphatic witness of 
 the truth of the poeticism that " grief smiles and gives 
 no sign," insomuch as she looked the fairest, sunniest, 
 best-looking, and best-tempered Dowager that ever 
 shrouded herself in Chantilly lace. 
 
 "I do think those ineligible, detrimental, objectionable 
 persons ought not to be let loose on society as they are," 
 she pondered ; "let them have their clubs and their mess 
 breakfasts, their Ascot and their Newmarket, their lana-
 
 148 LADY MABABOUT's TROUBLES. 
 
 fjuenet parties and their handicap pigeon matches, if they 
 like; but to have them come amongst us as they do, 
 asked everywhere if they happen to have good blood and 
 good style, free to v/altz and flirt and sing, and show all 
 sorts of attention to marriageable girls, while all the while 
 they are no more available for anything serious than if 
 they were club stewards or cabmen — creatures that live 
 on their fashionable aroma, and can't afford to buy the 
 very bottles of bouquets on their toilette-tables — fast 
 men, too, who, knowing they can never marry themselves, 
 make a practice of turning marriage into ridicule, and 
 help to set all the rich men more dead against it than 
 they are, — to have them come promiscuously among the 
 very best people, with nothing to distinguish them as 
 dangerous, or label them as 'ought to be avoided,' — it's 
 dreadful ! it 's a social evil ! it ought to be remedied ! 
 They muzzle dogs in June, why can't they label Ogres in 
 the season? I mustn't send poor little Bijou out for a 
 walk in Kensington Gardens without a string, these men 
 ought not to go about in society without restriction : a 
 snap of Bijou's does n't do half such mischief as a smile 
 of theirs!" 
 
 And Lady Marabout chatted across the stall to his 
 Grace of Doncaster, and entrapped him into purchases 
 of fitting ducal prodigality, and smiled on scores of people 
 she did n't know, in pleasant j^^o tempore expediency that 
 had, like most expediency in our day, its ultimate goal in 
 their purses and pockets, and longed for some select gen- 
 darmerie to clear Willis's Rooms of her Cobra Capclla, 
 and kept an eye all the while on Cecil Ormsby — Cecil, 
 selling off everything on the stall by sheer force of her 
 bright violet eyes, receiving ten-pound notes for guinea 
 trifles, making her Bourse rise as high as she iiked, 
 courted for a spray of mignonette as entreatingly as ever 
 Law was courted in the Rue Quincampoix for Mississippi 
 ijcrip, served by a Curps d'Elite, in whom she had actually
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 149 
 
 enlisted Carrutliers, Goodwood, Fulke Nugent, Fitzbre- 
 guet, and plenty of the most desirable and most desired 
 men in town, yet of which — oh the obstinacy of women! 
 she had actually made Chandos Cheveley, with those 
 wicked little Fairy roses in his coat, positively the cap- 
 tain and the chief! 
 
 "It is enough to break one's heart!" thought Lady 
 Marabout, wincing under the Hautton glance, which she 
 saw only the plainer because she ivould n't see it at all, 
 and which said with horrible distinctness, " There is that 
 man, who can hardly keep his own cab, who floats on 
 society like a pleasure-boat, without rudder, ballast, or 
 anchors, of whom I have told you, in virtuous indigna- 
 tion and Christian charity, fifty thousand naughty stories, 
 who visits that wicked, notorious little Marechale, who 
 belongs to the Amandine set, who is everything that he 
 ought not and nothing that he ought to be, who has n't 
 a penny he does n't make by a well-made betting-book oi 
 a dashed-off magazine article, — there he is flirting all 
 day at your own stall with Rosediamond's daughter, and 
 you have n't the savoir faire, the strength of will, the tact, 
 the proper feeling, to stop it ! " 
 
 To all of which charges Lady Marabout humbly bent 
 her head, metaphorically speaking, and wTithed, in secret, 
 under the glance of her ancient enemy, while she talked 
 and laughed with the Duke of Doncaster. C. Petronius, 
 talking epicureanisms and witicisms, while the life-blood 
 was ebbing away at every breath, was nothing to the suf- 
 fering and the fortitude of Helena, Lady Marabout, turn- 
 ing a smiling, sunny, tranquil countenance to the world 
 in front of her stall, while that world could see Chandos 
 Cheveley admitted behind it! 
 
 *'I must do something to stop this!" thought Lady 
 Marabout, with the desperation of a Charlotte Corday. 
 
 "Is Cheveley going in for the Ormsby tin?" said 
 Amandine to p]yre Lee. "Best thing he could do, eh? 
 13*
 
 150 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 But Lady Tattersall and the trustees would cut up rough, 
 I am afraid." 
 
 " What does Chandos mean with that daughter of 
 Rosediamond's?" wondered her Grace, annoyedly. She 
 had had him some time in her own rose chains, and when 
 ladies have driven a lover long in that sort of harness, 
 they could double-thong him with all the might of their 
 little hands, if they fancy he is trying to break away, 
 
 " Is Chandos Cheveley turning fortune-hunter ? I sup- 
 pose he would like Lady Cecil's money to pay off his 
 Ascot losses," said Mrs. Marechale, with a malicious 
 laugh. At Ascot, the day before, he had not gone near 
 her carriage ; the year before he had driven her down in 
 her mail-phaetou : what would there be too black to say 
 of him nowf 
 
 " I must do something to stop this ! " determined Lady 
 Marabout, driving homewards, and glancing at Cecil 
 Ormsby, as that young lady lay back in the carriage, a 
 little grave and dreamy after her day's campaign — signs 
 of the times terrifically ominous to her chaperone, skilled 
 in reading such meteorological omens. But how was the 
 drag to be put on the wheel ? That momentous question 
 absorbed Lady Marabout through her toilette that even- 
 ing, pursued her to dinner, haunted her through two soi- 
 rees, kept her wide awake all night, woke up with her to 
 her early coffee, and flavored the potted tongue and the 
 volaille k la Richelieu she took for her breakfast. " I 
 can't turn the man out of town, and I can't tell people 
 to strike him off their visiting-lists, and I can't shut 
 Cecil and myself up in this house as if it were a convent, 
 and, as to speaking to her, it is not the slightest use. She 
 has such a way of putting things that one can never deny 
 their truth, or reason them away, as one can with other 
 girls. Fond as I am of her, she 's fearfully difficult to 
 manage. Still I owe it as a sacred duty to poor Rose- 
 diamond and the General, who says he places such im-
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES 151 
 
 plicit confidence in me, to interfere. It is my duty ; it 
 can't be helped. I must speak to Chandos Cheveley him- 
 self. I have no right to consult my own scruples Avhen 
 so much is at stake," valorously determined Lady Mara- 
 bout, resolved to follow stern moral rules, and, when right 
 was right, to let " le diable prendre le fruit." 
 
 To be a perfect woman of the world, I take it, ladies 
 must weed out early in life all such little contemptible 
 weaknesses as a dislike to wounding other j)eople ; and 
 a perfect woman of the world, therefore, Lady Marabout 
 was not, and never would be. Nohow could she acquire 
 Anne Hautton's invaluable sneer — nohow could she 
 imitate that estimable pietist's delightful way of dropping 
 little icy-barbed sentences, under which I have known the 
 bravest to shrink, frozen, out of her path. Lady Mara- 
 bout was grieved if she broke the head off a flower need- 
 lessly, and she could not cure herself of the same linger- 
 ing folly in disliking to say a thing that pained anybody ; 
 it is incidental to the De Boncoeur blood — CaiTUthers 
 inherits it — and I have seen fellows spared through it, 
 whom he could else have withered into the depths of their 
 boots by one of his satirical Kots. So she did not go to 
 her task of speaking to Chandos Cheveley, armed at all 
 points for the encounter, and taking pleasure in feeling 
 the edge of her rapier, as Lady Hautton would have 
 done. The Cobra was dangerous, and must be crushed, 
 but Lady Marabout did not very much relish setting her 
 heel on it ; it was a glittering, terrible, much-to-be-feared, 
 and much-to-be-abused serpent, — but it might feel all the 
 same, you ?ee. 
 
 " I dislike the man on principle, but I don't want to 
 pain him," she thought, sighing for the Hautton stern 
 ftavoir faire and Achilles impenetrability, and goading 
 herself on with the remembrance of duty and General 
 <)rmsby, when the opportunity she had resolved to seek 
 presented itself accidentally at a breakfast at Ladv
 
 152 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 George Frangipane's toy villa at Fulham, and she found 
 herself comparatively alone in the rose-garden with 
 Cheveley, for once without Cecil's terrible violet eyes 
 upon her. 
 
 " Will you allow me a few words with you, Mr. Cheve- 
 ley?" she asked, in her blandest manner — the kindly 
 hypocrite ! 
 
 The blow must be dealt, but it might as well be soft- 
 ened with a few chloroform fumes, and not struck sav- 
 agely with an iron-spiked mace. 
 
 Cheveley raised his eyes. 
 
 " With me ? With the greatest pleasure ! " 
 
 " He is a mere fortune-hunter. I will not spare him, I 
 am resolved," determined Lady Marabout, as she toyed 
 with her parasol-handle, remarked incidentally how un- 
 equalled Lady George was in roses, especially in the tea- 
 rose, and dealt blow No. 1. " Mr. Cheveley, I am going 
 to speak to you very frankly. I consider frankness in all 
 things best, myself " 
 
 Cheveley bowed, and smiled slightly. 
 
 " I wish he would answer, it would make it so much 
 easier ; he will only look at one with those eyes of his, 
 and certainly they are splendid ! " thought Lady Mara- 
 bout, as she went on quickly, on the same principle as the 
 Chasseurs Indiens approach an abattis at double-quick. 
 " When Lord Kosediamond died last year he left, as 
 probably you are aware, his daughter in my sole care ; it 
 was a great responsibility — very great — and I feel, of 
 course, that I shall have to answer to him for ray dis- 
 charge of it." 
 
 Lady Marabout did n't say whether Rosediamond was 
 accustomed to visit her per medium, and hear her account 
 of her stewardship nightly through a table-claw ; but we 
 must suppose that he was. Cheveley bowed again, and 
 did n't inquire, not being spiritually interested. 
 
 "Why won't he answer?" thought Lady Marabout.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 153 
 
 " That I have not been blind to your very marked atten- 
 tion to my dear Cecil, I think you must be aware, Mr. 
 Cheveley, and it is on that subject, indeed, that I " 
 
 " Wished to speak to me ? I understand ! " said Cheve- 
 ley as she paused, with that faint smile, half sad, half 
 proud, that perplexed Lady Marabout. " You are about 
 to insinuate to me gently that those attentions have been 
 exceedingly distasteful to you, exceedingly unacceptable 
 in me ; you would remind me that Lady Cecil Ormsby is 
 a beauty and an heiress, and that I am a fortune-hunter, 
 whose designs are seen through and motives found out ; 
 you would hint to me that our intercourse must cease : is 
 it not so?" 
 
 Lady Marabout, cursed with that obstinate, ill-bred, 
 unextinguishable weakness for truth incidental and ever 
 fatal to the De Boncceurs, could n't say that it was not 
 what she was going to observe to him, but it was exceed- 
 ingly unpleasant, now it was put in such plain, uncompli- 
 mentary terms, to admit to the man's face that she was 
 about to tell him he was a mercenary schemer, whose 
 attentions only sprang from a lawless passion for the 
 beaux yeux of Cecil's cassette. 
 
 She would have told him all that, and much more, with 
 greatest dignity and effect, if he had n't anticipated her ; 
 but to have her weapon parried before it was fairly out 
 of its sheath unnerved her arm at the outset. 
 
 "What would Anne Hautton do? Dear me! there 
 never was anybody perpetually placed in such wretched 
 positions as I am ! " thought Lady Marabout, as she 
 played with her parasol, and murmured something not very 
 clear relative to " responsibility " and " not desirable," 
 two words as infallibly a part of Lady Marabout's stock 
 in trade as a sneer at the "swells" is of Punch's. How 
 she sighed for some cold, nonchalant, bitter sentence, such 
 as the Hautton repertoire could have supplied ! how she 
 scorned herself for her own weakness and lack of severity I
 
 154 LADY marabout's TROUBLES, 
 
 But she would not have relished hurting a burglar's feel- 
 ings, though she had seen him in the very act of stealing 
 her jewel-boxes, by taxing him with the tlieft ; and though 
 the Ogre must be crushed, the crushing began to give 
 Lady Marabout neuralgic twinges. She was no more 
 able to say the stern things she had rehearsed and resolved 
 upon, than she was able to stab him with her j^arasol, or 
 strangle him with her handkerchief. 
 
 " I guessed rightly what you were about to say to me?" 
 said Cheveley, who seemed somehow or other to have taken 
 all the talk into his own hands, and to have become the 
 master of the position. " I thought so. I do not wonder 
 at your construction ; I cannot blame you for your resolu- 
 tion. Lady Cecil has some considerable fortune, they say ; 
 it is very natural that you should have imagined a man 
 like myself, with no wealth save a good name, which only 
 serves to make lack of wealth more conspicuous, incapa- 
 ble of seeking her society for any better, higher, more 
 disinterested motive than that of her money ; it was not 
 charitable, perhaps, to decide unhesitatingly that it was 
 impossible I could be drawn to her by any other attrac- 
 tion, that it was imperative I must be dead to everything 
 in her that gives her a nobler and a higher charm ; but 
 it was very natural, and one learns never to hope for 
 the miracle of a charitable judgment, even from Lady 
 Marabout!" 
 
 " My dear Mr. Cheveley, indeed you mistake ! " began 
 Lady Marabout, restlessly. That was a little bit of a 
 story, he did n't mistake at all ; but Lady Marabout, col- 
 lapsing like an india-rubber ball under the prick of a 
 sarcasm, shivered all over at his words, his voice, his slight 
 sad smile. " The man is as dreadful as Cecil," she 
 thought; "he puts things so horribly clearly!" 
 
 " Mistake ? I do not think I do. You have thought 
 all this, and very naturally ; but now hear me for a mo. 
 ment. I have sought Lady Cecil's society, that is perfectly
 
 LADY MARABOUTS TROUBLES. 155 
 
 true ; we have been thrown together in society, very often 
 accidentally ; sometimes, I admit, through my own seeking. 
 Few meu could be with her and be steeled against her. I 
 have been Avith her too much ; but I sought her at lirst 
 carelessly, then irresistibly and unconsciously, never with 
 the motive you attribute to me. I am not as utterly 
 beggared as you deem me, but neither am I entirely barren 
 of honor. Believe me, Lady Marabout, my pride alone 
 would be amply sufficient to raise a barrier between me 
 and Cecil stronger than any that could be opposed to me 
 by others. Yesterday I casually overheard words from 
 Amandine which showed me that society, like you, has 
 put but one construction on the attention I have paid her 
 — a construction I might have foreseen had I not been 
 unconsciously fascinated, and forgetful, for the time, of 
 the infallible whispers of my kind friends. Her fortune, 
 I know, was never numbered among her attractions for 
 me ; so little, that now that Amandine's careless words 
 have reminded me of the verdict of society, I shall 
 neither seek her nor see her again. Scores of men marry 
 women for their money, and their money alone, but I am 
 not one of them ; with my own precarious fortunes, onlv 
 escaping ruin because I am not rich enough to tempt ruin. 
 I would never take advantage of any interest I may have 
 excited in her, to speak to her of a passion that the world 
 would tell her was only another name for avarice and 
 selfishness. I dare not trust myself with her longer, 
 perhaps. I am no god to answer for my self-control ; 
 l)ut you need not fear; I will never seek her love — never 
 even tell lier of mine. I shall leave town to-morrow; 
 what / may suffer matters not. Lady Cecil is safe from 
 lue ! Whatever you may have heard of my faults, follies, 
 or vices, none ever told you, I think, that I b>'oke my 
 werd?" 
 
 " And when the man said that, my dear Philiji., I assure
 
 156 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 you I felt as guilty as if I had done him some horrible 
 wrong ; he stood there with his head up, looking at me 
 with his sad proud eyes — and they are beautiful ! — till, 
 positively, I could almost have cried — I could, indeed, 
 for though I don't like him on principle, I could n't help 
 pitying him," said Lady Marabout, in a subsequent rela- 
 tion of the scene to her son, " Was n't it a terrible posi- 
 tion ? I was as near as possible forgetting everything due 
 to poor Rosediamond, and saying to him that I believed 
 Cecil liked him and would never like anybody else, but, 
 thank Heaven! I remembered myself, and checked my- 
 self in time. If it had been anybody but Chandos Cheve- 
 ley, I should really have admired him, he spoke so 
 nobly ! When he lifted his hat and left me, though I 
 ought to have been glad (and I ivas glad, of course) that 
 Cecil would be free from the society of anybody so ob- 
 jectionable and so dangerous, I felt wretched for him — I 
 did indeed. It is so hard always to be placed in such 
 miserable positions ! " 
 
 By which you will perceive that the triumphant crush- 
 ing of Lady Marabout's Cobra did n't afford her the un- 
 mixed gratification she had anticipated. 
 
 " I have done what was my duty to poor Rosediamond, 
 and what General Ormsby's confidence merited," she sol- 
 aced herself that day, feeling uncomfortably and cause- 
 lessly guilty, she hardly knew why, when she saw Chan- 
 dos Cheveley keeping sedulously with the " Amandine 
 set," and read in Cecil's tell-tale face wonder, perplexity, 
 and regret thereat, till the Frangipane fete came to an 
 end. She had appeased the manes of the late Rosedia- 
 mond, who, to her imagination, always appeared sitting 
 up aloft keeping watch over the discharge of her chape- 
 rone's duties, but she had a secret and horrible dread that 
 she had excited the wrath of Rosediamond's daughter. 
 She had driven her Ogre off the scene, it is true, but 
 she could not feel that she had altogether come off the
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 157 
 
 b(jst in the contest. Anne Hautton had congratulated 
 her, indeed, on having " acted with decision at last," bui 
 then she had marred it all by asking if Carruthers was 
 likely to be engaged to Cecil '? And Lady Marabout had 
 been forced to confess he was not ; Philip, when pressed 
 by her that very morning to be a little attentive to Cecil, 
 having shaken his head and laughed : 
 
 "She's a bewitching creature, mother, but she don't 
 bewitch me .' You know what Shakspeare says of wooing, 
 wedding, and repentance. I ' ve no fancy for the inseparable 
 trio ! " 
 
 Altogether, Lady Marabout was far from peace and tran- 
 quillity, though the Cobra was crushed, as she drove away 
 from the Frangipane breakfast, and she was little nearer 
 them when Cecil turned her eyes upon her with a question 
 worse to Lady Marabout's ear than the roar of a Lancaster 
 battery. 
 
 " What have you said to him ?" 
 
 "My dear Cecil! What have I said to wliom?" re- 
 turned Lady Marabout, with Machiavellian surprise. 
 
 "You know well enough, Lady Marabout! What have 
 you said to him — to Mr. Cheveley?" 
 
 Cecil's impetuosity invariably knocked Lady Marabout 
 down at one blow, as a ball knocks down the pegs at lawn 
 billiards. She rallied after the shock, but not successfully, 
 and tried at coldness and decision, as recommended by 
 Hautton prescriptions. 
 
 " My dear Cecil, I have said to him what I think it my 
 duty to say to him. Responsible as I am for you " 
 
 " Responsible for me. Lady Marabout ? Indeed you are 
 not. I am responsible for myself!" interrupted Lady 
 Cecil, with that haughty arch of her eyebrows and that 
 flush on her face before which Lady Marabout was power- 
 less. " W^hat have you said to him ? I will know ! " 
 
 " I said very little to him, indeed, my dear ; he said it 
 all himself."
 
 158 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 " What did he say himself?" 
 
 "I must tell her — she is so dreadfully persistent," 
 thought the unhappy and badgered Peeress ; and tell her 
 she did, being a means of lessening tlie young lady's inter- 
 est in the subject of discussion as little judicious as she 
 could well have hit upon. 
 
 Lady Cecil listened, silent for once, shading her face 
 with her parasol, shading the tears that gathered on her 
 lashes and rolled down her delicate flushed cheeks, at the 
 recital of Chandos Cheveley's words, from her chaperone's 
 sight. 
 
 Lady Marabout gathered courage from the tranquillity 
 with which her recital was heard. 
 
 " You see, my love, Chandos Cheveley's own honor 
 points in the same direction with my judgment," she 
 wound up, in conclusion. " He has acted rightly at last, 
 I allow, and if you — if you have for the moment felt a 
 tinge of warmer interest in him — if you have been taken 
 by the fascination of his manner, and invested him with a 
 young girl's romance, you will soon see with us how infi- 
 nitely better it is that you should part, and how impossible 
 it is that " 
 
 Lady Cecil's eyes flashed such fire through their tears, 
 that Lady Marabout stopped, collapsed and paralyzed. 
 
 " It is by such advice as that you repay his nobility, 
 his generosity, his honor! — it is by such words as those 
 you reward him for acting as not one man in a hundred 
 would have acted ! Hush, hush. Lady Marabout, I thought 
 better of you ! " 
 
 "Good Heavens! xvhere will it endf" thought Lady 
 Marabout, distractedly, as Rosediamond'sAvayward daugh- 
 ter s])rang down at the door with a flush in her face, and 
 a contemptuous auger in her eyes, that made Bijou, jump 
 ing on her, stop, stare, and whine in canine dismay. 
 
 " And I fancied she was listening passively ! " thought 
 Lady Marabout.
 
 LADY MAUxVIJOUt's TROUBLES. 159 
 
 " Well ! the man is gone to-day, that is one comfort. I 
 am very thankful I acted as I did," reasoned that ever- 
 worried lady in her boudoir the next morning. " I am 
 afraid Cecil is really very fond of him, there were such 
 black shadows under her eyes at breakfast, poor child ! 
 But it is much better as it is — much better. I should 
 never have held up my head again if I had allowed her to 
 make such a disadvantageous alliance. I can hardly beai: 
 to think of what would have been said, even now the dangei 
 is over!" 
 
 While Lady Marabout was thus comforting herself ovei 
 her embroidery silks, Cecil Ormsby was pacing into the 
 Park, with old Twitters the groom ten yards behind her, 
 taking her early ride before the world was up — it was only 
 eleven o'clock ; Cecil had been used to early rising, and 
 would never leave it off, having discovered some recipe that 
 made her independent of ordinary mortals' quantum of 
 sleep. 
 
 " Surely he will be here this morning to see me for the 
 last time," thought that young lady, as she paced up the 
 New Ride under the Kensington Gardens trees, with her 
 heart beating quickly under the gold aiglettes of her riding- 
 jacket. 
 
 "I must see her once more, and then " thought 
 
 Chandos Cheveley, as he leaned against the rails, smoking, 
 as he had done scores of mornings before. His man had 
 packed his things ; his hansom was waiting at the gates 
 to take him to the station, and his portmanteau was let- 
 tered " Ischl." He had only come to take one last look 
 of the face that haunted him as no other had ever suc- 
 ceeded in doing. The ring of a horse's hoof i'ell on his 
 ear. There she came, on her roan hack, with the suu 
 glancing off her chestnut hair. He looked up to bow to 
 her as she passed on, lor the Ride had never been a ren- 
 dezvous for more tlum a boAV (Cecil's insurrectionary 
 tactics had alwavs been carried on before Lady Mara-
 
 160 LADY MARABOUT S TROUBLES. 
 
 bout's face), but the roan was pulled up by him that 
 morning for the very first time, and Cecil's eyes fell on 
 him tlirough their lashes. 
 
 " Mr. Cheveley — is it true you are going out of town?" 
 " Quite true." 
 
 If her voice quivered as she asked the question, he 
 barely kept his own from doing the same as he answered it. 
 " Will you bo gone long?" 
 " Till next season, at earliest." 
 
 His promise to Lady Marabout was hard to keep ! He 
 would not have trusted his strength if he had known she 
 would have done more than canter on with her usual bow 
 and smile. 
 
 Cecil was silent. The groom waited like a statue his 
 ten yards behind them. She played with her reins ner- 
 vously, the color coming and going painfully in her face. 
 " Lady Marabout told me of — of some conversation you 
 had with her yesterday?" 
 
 Low as the words were, Cheveley heard them, and his 
 hand, as it lay on the rails, shook like a girl's. 
 
 Cecil was silent again ; she looked at him, her eyes full 
 of unshed tears, as the color burned in her face, and she 
 drooped her head almost to a level with her hands as they 
 played with the reins. 
 
 "She told me — you " 
 
 She stopped again. Cecil was new to making proposals, 
 though not to rejecting them. Cheveley set his teeth to 
 keep in the words that rushed to his lips, and Cecil saw 
 the struggle as she bent her head lower and lower to the 
 saddle, and twisted the reins into a Gordian knot. 
 
 " Do you — must we — why should " 
 
 Fragmentary monosyllables enough, but sufficient to fell 
 his strength. 
 
 " For God's sake do not tempt me ! " he muttered. " You 
 
 little know " 
 
 " 1 knuw all ! " she whispered softly.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 161 
 
 "You cannot! My worthless life! — my honor! I 
 could not take such a sacrifice, I would not ! " 
 
 "But — if my peace " 
 
 She could not end her phrase, yet it said enough ; — his 
 hand closed on hers. 
 
 " Your peace ! Good God ! in my hands ! I stay ; 
 then — let the world say what it likes ! " 
 
 " Drive back ; I have changed my mind about going 
 abroad to-day," said Cheveley, as he got into his hansom 
 at Albert Gate. 
 
 " How soon she has got over it ! Girls do," thought 
 Lady Marabout, as Cecil Ormsby came in from her ride 
 with the brightest bloom on her cheeks a June breeze ever 
 fanned there. She laid her hat on the table, flung her 
 gauntlets at Bijou, and threw herself on her knees by Lady 
 Marabout, a saucy smile on her face, though her lashes 
 were wet. 
 
 " Dear Lady Marabout, I can forgive you now, but you 
 will never forgive me ! " 
 
 Lady Marabout turned white as her point-lace cap, 
 gave a little gasp of paralyzed terror, and pushed back 
 her chair as though a shell had exploded on the hearth-rug. 
 
 " Cecil ! Good Heaven ! — you don't mean " 
 
 " Yes I do," said Cecil, with a fresh access of color, 
 and a low, soft laugh. 
 
 Lady Marabout gasped again for breath : 
 
 "General Ormsby!" was all she could ejaculate. 
 
 "General Ormsby? What of him? Did you evei 
 know uncle Johnnie refuse to please me? And if my 
 money be to interfere with my happiness, and not pro- 
 mote it, as I conceive it its duty and purpose to do, why, 
 I am of age in July, you know, and I shall make a deed 
 of gift of it all to the Soldiers' Home or the Wellington 
 College, and there is only one person who will care for 
 me then." 
 
 14* L
 
 162 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 Lady Cecil was quite capable of carrying lier threat 
 into execution, and Lady Cecil had her own way accord- 
 ingly, as she had had it from her babyhood. 
 
 " I shall never hold up my head again ! And what a 
 horrible triumph for Anne Hautton ! I am always the 
 victim — always!" said Lady Marabout, that day two 
 months, when the last guest at Cecil Ormsby's wedding 
 dejeuner had rolled away from the house. " A girl who 
 might have married anybody, Philip ; she refused twenty 
 oilers this season — she did, indeed ! It is heart-breaking, 
 say what you like ; you need n't laugh, it is. Why did I 
 offer them Fernditton for this month, you say, if I didn't 
 countenance the alliance? Nonsense! that is nothing to 
 the purpose. Of course, I seemed to countenance it to a 
 degree, for Cecil's sake, and I admire Chandos Cheveley, 
 I confess (at least I should do, if I did n't dislike his class 
 on principle) ; but, say what you like, Philip, it is the 
 most terrible thing that could have happened for vie. 
 Tliose men ought to be labelled, or muzzled, or done some^ 
 thing with, and not be let loose on society as they are. 
 He has a noble nature, you say. I don't say anything 
 against his nature ! She worships him ? Well, I know 
 she does. What is that to the point ? He will make her 
 happy ? I am sure he will. He has the gentlest way 
 with her possible. But how does that console me? Think 
 what you feel when an outsider, as you call it, beats all 
 the favorites, upsets all your betting-books, and carries 
 off the Doncaster Cup, and then realize, if you 've any 
 humanity in you, what we feel under such a trial as thia 
 is to me! Only to think what Anne Hautton will 
 always say I " 
 
 Lady Marabout is not the only person to whom the 
 first thought, the most dreaded ghost, the ghastliest skel- 
 eton, the direst aggravation, the sharpest dagger- thrust.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 163 
 
 under all troubles, is the remembrance of that one omnip- 
 otent Ogre — "Qu'en dira-t-on?" 
 
 " Laugh at her, mother," counselled Carruthers ; and, 
 amis lecteurs, I pass on his advice to you as the best and 
 sole bowstring for strangling the ogre in question, whici' 
 is the grimmest we have in all Bogeydom.
 
 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE WORRIES OF A CIIAPERONE. 
 
 IN THREE SEASONS. 
 SEASON THE THIRD. THE CLIMAX. 
 
 |Y dear Philip, the most unfortunate thing has 
 happened," said Lady Marabout, one morning • 
 " really the greatest contretemps that could have 
 occurred. I suppose I never am to be quiet ! " 
 
 " What 's the row now, madre carissima ?" asked her son. 
 
 " It is no row, but it is an annoyance. You have heard 
 me speak of my poor dear friend Mrs. Montolieu ; you 
 know she married unhappily, poor thing, to a dreadful 
 creature, something in a West India regiment — nobody 
 at all. It is very odd, and it is very wrong, and there 
 must be a great mistake somewhere, but certainly most 
 marriages are unhapjDy." 
 
 " And yet you are always recommending the institu- 
 tion ! What an extraordinary obstinacy and opticism, 
 my dear mother ! I suppose you do it on the same prin- 
 ciple as nurses recommend children nasty medicines, or 
 as old Levett used to tender me dry biscuit sans confiture: 
 * 'Tis n't so nice as marmalade, I know, Master Philip, but 
 then, dear, it 's so wholesome ! ' " 
 
 (164)
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 166 
 
 "Hold your tongue, Philip," cried Lady Marabout; 
 " I don't mean it in that sense at all, and you know I 
 don't. If poor Lilla Montolieu is unhappy, I am sure it 
 is all her abominable odious husband's fault ; she is the 
 sweetest creature possible. But she has a daughter, and 
 concerning that daughter she wrote to me about a month 
 ago, and — I never was more vexed in my life — she 
 wants me to bring her out this season." 
 
 "A victim again! My poor dear mother, you certainly 
 deserve a Belgravian testimonial ; you shall have a statue 
 set up in Lowndes Square commemorative of the heroic 
 endurance of a chaperone's existence, subscribed for 
 gratefully by the girls you married well, and peuitenti- 
 ally by the girls you could n't marry at all." 
 
 Lady Marabout laughed a little, but sighed again : 
 
 " ' It is fun to you, but it is death to me' " 
 
 "As the women say when we flirt with them," interpo- 
 lated Carruthers. 
 
 " You see, poor dear Lilla did n't know what to do. 
 There she is, in that miserable island with the unpro- 
 nounceable name that the man is governor of; shut out 
 of all society, with nobody to marry this girl to if she 
 had her there, except their secretary, or a West Indian 
 planter. Of course, no mother would ruin her daughter's 
 prospects, and take her into such an out-of-the-world 
 corner. She knew no one so well as myself, and so to me 
 she applied. She is the sweetest ci*eature ! I would do 
 anything to oblige or please her, but I can't help being 
 very sorry she has pounced upon me. And I don't the 
 least know what this girl is like, not even whether she is 
 presentable. I dare say she was petted and spoiled iu 
 that lazy, luxurious, tropical life when she was little, and 
 she has been brought up the last few years in a convent 
 iu France, the very last education I should choose for a 
 girl. Fancy, if I should find her an ignorant, unformed 
 hoydeu, or a lethargic, overgrown child, or an artificial
 
 H56 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 Frencli girl, who goes to confession every day, and car- 
 ries on twenty undiscoverable love affairs — fancy, if she 
 should be ugly, or awkward, or brusque, or gauche, as 
 ten to one she will be — fancy, if I find her utterly unpre- 
 sentable! — what in the world shall I do?" 
 
 "Decline her," suggested Carruthers. "I wouldn't 
 have a horse put in my tilbury that I 'd never seen, and 
 risk driving a spavined, wall-eyed, underbred brute 
 through the Park ; and I suppose the ignominy of the 
 d6but would be to you much what the ignominy of such 
 a turn-out would be to me." 
 
 " Decline her ? I can't, my dear Philip ! I agreed to 
 have her a mouth ago. I have never seen you to tell you 
 till now, you know ; you 've been so sworn to Newmarket 
 all through the Spring Meetings. Decline her? she comes 
 to-night ! " 
 
 " Comes to-night ?" laughed Carruthers. " All is lost, 
 then. We shall see the Countess of Marabout moving 
 through London society with a West Indian, who has a 
 skin like Othello ; has as much idea of manners as a house- 
 maid that suddenly turns out an heiress, and is invited by 
 people to whom she yesterday carried up their hot water ; 
 reflects indelible disgrace on her chaperone by gaucheries 
 unparalleled ; throws glass or silver missiles at Soames's 
 head when he does n't wait upon her at luncheon to 
 her liking, as she has been accustomed to do at the 
 negroes " 
 
 " Philip, pray don't!" cried Lady Marabout, piteously 
 
 " Or, we shall welcome under the Marabout wing » 
 young lady fresh from convent walls and pension nair^ 
 flirtations, who astonishes a dinner-party by only taking 
 the first course, on the score of jours maigres and con- 
 scientious scruples ; who is visited by reverends peres from 
 Farm Street, and fills your drawing-room with High 
 Church curates, whom she tries to draw over from their 
 'mother's' to their 'sister's' open arms; who goes every
 
 LAHV marabout's trolbles. 167 
 
 day to early morning mass instead of taking an early 
 morning canter, and who, when invited to sing at a soiree 
 musicale, begins 'Sancta Maria adorata!'" 
 
 " Philip, don't ! " cried Lady Marabout. " Bark at him, 
 Bijou, the heartless man! It is as likely as not little 
 Montolieu may realize one of your horrible sketches. Ah, 
 Philip, you don't know what the worries of a chaperone 
 are!"' 
 
 "Thank Pleaven, no!" laughed Carruthers. 
 
 " It is easy to make a joke of it, and very tempting, I 
 dare say — one's woes always are amusing to other people, 
 they don't feel the smart themselves, and only laugh at the 
 grimace it forces from one — but I can tell you, Philip, it is 
 anything put a pleasant prospect to have to go about iu 
 society with a girl one may be ashamed of! — I don't know 
 anything more trying ; I would as soon wear paste dia- 
 monds as introduce a girl that is not perfectly good style." 
 
 " But why not have thought of all this in time? " 
 
 Lady Marabout sank back in her chair, and curled 
 Bijou's ears, with a sigh. 
 
 " My dear Pliilip, if everybody always thought of things 
 in time, would there be any follies committed at all ? It 's 
 precisely because repentance comes too late, that repentance 
 is such a horrible wasp, with such a merciless sting. Besides, 
 could I refuse poor Lilla Montolieu, unhappy as she is with 
 that bear of a man?" 
 
 " I never felt more anxious in my life," thought Lady 
 Marabout, as she sat before the fire in her drawing-room — 
 it was a chilly April day — stirring the cream into her pre^ 
 prandial cup of tea, resting one of her small satin-slippered 
 feet on Bijou's back, while the firelight sparkled on the 
 Dresden figures, the statuettes, the fifty thousand costly 
 trifles, in which the Marabout rooms equalled any iu Bel- 
 gravia. " J never felt more anxious — not on any of Philip's 
 dreadful yachting expeditions, nor even when he went that 
 perilous exploring tour in Lo xYi-a bia Deserta, I do think. If
 
 IBS LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 she should be unpresentable — and then poor dear Lilla's 
 was not much of a match, and the girl will not have a 
 sou, she tells me frankly ; I can hardly hope to do any- 
 thing for her. There is one thing, she will not be a re- 
 sponsibility like Valencia or Cecil, and what would have 
 been a bad match for them will be a good one for her. 
 She must accept the first offer made her, if she have any 
 at all, which will be very doubtful ; few Benedicts bow 
 to Beatrices nowadays, unless Beatrice is a good 'invest- 
 ment,' as they call it. She will soon be here. That is the 
 carriage now stopped, I do think. How anxious I feel ! 
 Keally it can't be Avorse for a Turkish bridegroom never 
 to see his wife's face till after the ceremony than it is for 
 one not to have seen a girl till one has to introduce her. 
 Tf she should n't be good style ! " 
 
 And Lady Marabout's heart palpitated, possibly pro- 
 phetically, as she set down her little Sevres cup and rose 
 out of her arm-chair, with Bijou shaking his silver collar 
 and bells, to welcome the new inmate of Lowndes Square, 
 with her sunny smile and her kindly voice, and her soft 
 beaming eyes, which, as I have often stated, would have 
 made Lady Marabout look amiable at an Abruzzi bandit 
 who had demanded her purse, or an executioner who had 
 led her out to capital punishment, and now made her ra- 
 diate, warm and bright, on a guest whose advent she 
 dreaded. Hypocrisy, you say. Not a bit of it ! Hypoc- 
 risy may be eminently courteous, but take my word for it, 
 it's never cordial! There are natures who throw such 
 golden rays around them naturally, as there are others 
 who think brusquerie and acidity cardinal virtues, and 
 deal them out as points of conscience ; are there not sun- 
 beams that shine kindly alike ou fragrant violet tufts and 
 barren brambles, velvet lawns and muddy trottoirs ? are 
 there not hail-clouds that send jagged points of ice on all 
 the world pele-m(51e, as mercilessly on the broken rose as 
 on the granite boulder ?
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 169 
 
 " She is good style, thank Heaven ! " thought Lady 
 Marabout, as she went forward, with her white soft hands, 
 their jewels flashing in the light, outstretched in welcome. 
 " My dear child, how much you are like your mother I 
 You must let me be fond of you for her sake, first, and 
 then — for your own !" 
 
 The conventional thought did not make the cordial ut- 
 terance insincere. The two ran in couples — we often 
 drive such pairs, every one of us — and if they entail in- 
 sincerity, Veritas, vale ! 
 
 " Madre mia, I called to inquire if you have survived 
 the anxiety of last night, and to know what ji'ewwe sa^ivage 
 or fair religieuse you may have had sent you for the gal- 
 vanizing of Belgravia?" said Carruthers, paying his ac- 
 customed visit in his mother's boudoir, and throwing 
 macaroons at Bijou's nose. 
 
 " My dear Philip, I hardly know ; she puzzles me. She 's 
 what, if she were a man, I should classify as a detrimental." 
 
 " Is she awkward?" 
 
 " Not in the least. Perfect manners, wherever she 
 learned them." 
 
 "Brusque?" 
 
 " Soft as a gazelle. Very like her mother." 
 
 " Brown ? " 
 
 " Fair as that statuette, with a beautiful bloom ; lovely 
 gold hair, too, and hazel eyes." 
 
 " What are the shortcomings, then?" 
 
 " There are none ; and it 's that that puzzles me. She's 
 been six years in that convent, and yet, I do assure you, 
 hor style is perfect. She 's hardly eighteen, but she 's the 
 air of the best society. She is — a — well, almost nobody, 
 as people rank now, you know, for poor dear Lilla's mar- 
 riage was not what slie should have made, but the girl 
 might be a royal duke's daughter for manner." 
 
 " A premature artificial /emme dumondef Bah ! nothing 
 more odious," said Cai'ruthers, poising a macaroon on Pan« 
 15
 
 no LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 dore's nose. "Make ready! — present! — fire! Thero's a 
 good dog ! " 
 
 " No, nothing of that sort : very natural, frank, viva- 
 cious. Nothing artificial about her ; very charming in- 
 deed! But she might be a young Countess, the queen of 
 a monde rather than a young girl just out of a French 
 convent ; and, you know, my dear Philip, that sort of wit 
 and nonchalance may be admirable for Cecil Cheveley, 
 assured of her position, but they 're dangerous to a gii-1 
 like this Flora Montolieu : they will make people remark 
 her and ask who she is, and try to pull her to pieces, if 
 they don't find her somebody they dare not hit. I would 
 much rather she Avere of the general pattern, pleasing, but 
 nothing remarkable, well-bred, but nothing to envy, thor- 
 oughly educated, but monosyllabic in society ; such a 
 girl as that passes among all the rest, suits mediocre men 
 (and the majority of men are mediocre, you know, my 
 dear Philip), and pleases women because she is a nice girl, 
 and no rival ; but this little Montolieu " 
 
 And Lady Marabout sighed with a prescience of com- 
 ing troubles, while Carruthers laughed and rose. 
 
 " Will worry your life out ! I must go, for I have to 
 sit in court-martial at two (for a mere trifle, a deuced bore 
 to us, but le service oblige!), so I shall escape introduction 
 to your little Montolieu to-day. Why will you fill your 
 house with girls, my dear mother? — it is fifty times more 
 agreeable when you are reigning alone. Henceforth, I. 
 can't come in to lunch with you without going through 
 the formula of a mild flirtation — women think you so ill- 
 natured if you don't flirt a little with them, that amiable 
 men like myself have n't strength of mind to refuse. You 
 should keep your house an open sanctuary for me, when 
 you know I 've no other in London except when I retreat 
 into White's and the IT. S. ! " 
 
 " She puzzles me ! " pondered Lady Marabout, as Des- 
 preaux disroljed her that night. "I always am to b»
 
 LA.DY marabout's TROUBLES. 171 
 
 puzzled, I think ! I never ca7i have one of those quiet, 
 mediocre, well-mannered, remarkable-for-nothing girls, 
 who have no idiosyncrasies and give nobody any trouble; 
 one marries them safely to some second-rate man; nobody 
 admires them, and nobody dislikes them ; they 're to so- 
 ciety what neutral tint is among body-colors, or rather 
 what grays are among dresses, inoffensive, unimpeachable, 
 always look ladylike, but never look brilliant ; colorless 
 dresses are very useful, and so are characterless girls; and 
 I dare say the draper would tell us the grays in the long 
 run are the easiest to sell, as the girls are to marry ; tlicy 
 please the commonplace taste of the generality, and do 
 for every-day wear ! Flcra Montolieu puzzles me ; she 
 is very charming, very striking, very lovable, but she 
 puzzles me ! I have a presentiment that that child will 
 give me a world of anxiety, an infinitude of trouble !" 
 
 And Lady Marabout laid her head on her pillow, not 
 the happier that Flora Montolieu was lying asleep in the 
 room next her, dreaming of the wild-vine shadows and 
 the night-blooming flowers of her native tropics, under the 
 rose-curtains of her new home in Lowndes Square, already 
 a burden on the soul and a responsibility on the mind of 
 that home's most genial and generous mistress. 
 
 " If she were a man, I should certainly call her a detri- 
 mental," said Lady Marabout, after a more deliberate 
 study of her charge. "You know, my dear Philip, the 
 sort of man one calls detrimental ; attractive enough to 
 do a great deal of damage, and ineligible enough to nuike 
 the damage very unacceptable: handsome and winning, 
 but a younger son, or a something nobody wants ; a de- 
 lightful flirtation, but a terrible alliance ; you know what 
 I mean ! Well, that is just what this little Montolieu is 
 m our sex ; I am quite sure it is what she will be consid- 
 ered ; and if it be bad for a man, it is very much worse 
 for a woman ! Everybody will admire her, and nobody 
 will marry her; I have a presentiment of it!"
 
 172 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 With which prophetical melange of the glorious and 
 the inglorious for her charge's coming career, Lady Mar- 
 about sighed, and gave a little shiver, such as 
 
 Sous des maux ignores nous fait g^mir d'avance, 
 
 as Delphine Gay Avell phrased it. And she floated out 
 of her boudoir to the dining-room for luncheon, at which 
 unformal and pleasant meal Carruthers chanced to stay, 
 criticise a new dry sherry, and take a look at this un- 
 salable young filly of the Marabout Yearling Sales. 
 
 " I don't know about her being detrimental, mother, 
 nor about her being little ; she is more than middle 
 height," laughed he ; " but I vow she is the prettiest 
 thing you 've had in your list for some time. You 've 
 had much greater beauties, you say ? Well, perhaps so ; 
 but I bet you any money she will make a sensation." 
 
 " I 'm sure she will," reiterated Lady Marabout, de- 
 spairingly. " I have no doubt she will have a brilliant sea- 
 son ; there is something very piquante, taking, and un- 
 common about her ; but who will marry her at the end 
 of it?" 
 
 Carruthers shouted with laughter. 
 
 " Heaven forbid that I should attempt to prophesy ! I 
 would undertake as readily to say who '11 be the owner of 
 the winner of the Oaks ten years hence ! I can tell you 
 who won't " 
 
 " Yourself ; because you '11 never marry anybody at 
 all," cried Lady Marabout. "Well ! I must say I should 
 not wash you to renounce your misogamistic notions here. 
 The Montolieus are not at all what you should look for ; 
 and a child like Flora would be excessively ill suited to 
 you. If I could see you married, as I should desire, to 
 some woman of weight and dignity, five or six-and-twenty, 
 fit for you in every way " 
 
 " De grace, de grace ! My dear mother, the mere sketch 
 will kill me, if you insist on finishing it ! Be reasonable!
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 173 
 
 Can anything be more comfortable, more tranquil, than I 
 am now ? I swing through life in a rocking-chair ; if I 'm 
 a trifle bored now and then, it 's my heaviest trial, I float 
 as pleasantly on the waves of London life, in ray way, as 
 the lotus-eaters of poetry on the Ganges in theirs ; aad 
 you 'd have the barbarity to introduce into my complacent 
 o.xistence the sting of matrimony, the phosphorus of 
 Hymen's torch, the symbolical serpent of a wedding-ring? 
 — for shame ! " 
 
 Lady Marabout laughed despite herself, and the sol- 
 emnity, in her eyes, of the subject. 
 
 " I should like to see you happily married, for all that, 
 though I quite despair of it now ; but perhaps you are 
 right." 
 
 " Of course I am right ! Adam was tranquil and un- 
 worried till fate sent him a wife, and he was typical of the 
 destinies of his descendants. Those who are wise, take 
 warning ; those who are not, neglect it and repent. Lady 
 Hautton et C" are very fond of twisting scriptural ob- 
 scurities into ' types.' There 's a type plain as day, and 
 salutary to mankind, if detrimental to women ! " 
 
 " Philip, you are abominable ! don't be so wicked I " 
 cried Lady Marabout, enjoying it all the more because 
 she was a little shocked at it, as your best women will on 
 occasion; human nature is human nature everywhere, 
 and the female heart gives pleasurable little pulses at the 
 sight of forbidden fruits now, as in the days of Eve. 
 
 " Who 's that Miss Montolieu with your mother this 
 year, Phil?" dozens of men asked Carruthers, that season, 
 across the mess-table, in the smoking-room of the Guards, 
 in the Ride or the Ring, in the doorways of ball-rooms, or 
 anywhere where such-like questions are asked and new 
 pretty women discussed. 
 
 "What is it in her that takes so astonishingly?" won- 
 dered Lady Marabout, who is, like most women, orthodox 
 on all points, loving things by rule, worrying if they go 
 15*
 
 174 LADY marabout's TROUBLES, 
 
 out of the customary routine, and was, therefore, quite 
 incapable of reconciling herself to so revolutionary a fact 
 as a young lady being admired who was not a beauty, and 
 sought Avhile she was detrimental in every way. It was 
 " out of the general rule," and your orthodox people hate 
 anything "out of the general run," as they hate their 
 prosperous friends : the force of hatred can no further 
 go ! Floi*a Montolieu's crime in Belgravia was much akin 
 to the Bonapartes' crimes to the Bourbons. Thrones 
 must be filled legitimately, if not worthily, in the eyes 
 of the orthodox people, and this Petit Caporal of Lady 
 Marabout's had no business to reign where the Hereditary 
 Princesses and all the other noble lines failed to sway the 
 sceptre. Lady Marabout, belonging to the noble lines 
 herself, agreed in her heart with them, and felt a little 
 bit guilty to have introduced this democratic and unwel- 
 come element in society. 
 
 Flora Moutolieu " took," as people say of bubble com- 
 panies, meaning that they will pleasantly ruin a million 
 or two: or of new fashions, meaning that they will be- 
 come general with the many and, sequitur, unwearable 
 with the few. She had the brilliance and grace of one 
 of her own tropical flowers, with something piquante and 
 attractive about her that one had to leave nameless, but 
 that was all the more charming for that very fact perhaps; 
 full of life and animation, but soft as a gazelle, as her 
 chaperone averred ; not characterless, as Lady Marabout 
 fondly desired (on the same principle, I suppose, as a 
 timid whip likes a horse as spiritless as a riding-school 
 hack), but gifted Avith plenty of very marked character, 
 80 much, indeed, that it rather puzzled her cameride. 
 
 " Girls should n't have marked character ; they should 
 be clay that one can mould, not a self-chiselled statuette, 
 that will only go into its own niche, and won't go into 
 any other. This little Montolieu would make just smch 
 a woman as Vittoria Colonna or Madame de Sable, but
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 175 
 
 one doesn't Avant those qualities in a girl, who '3 but a 
 single little car in the wheat-sheaf of society, and whom 
 one wants to marry off, but can't expect to marry well. 
 Her poor mother, of course, will look to me to do something 
 advantageous for her, and I verily believe she is that sort 
 of girl that will let me do nothing," thought Lady Mar- 
 about, already beginning to worry, as she talked to Lady 
 George Frangipane at a breakfast in Palace Gardens, 
 and watched Flora Montolieu, with Carruthers on her 
 left and Goodwood on her right, amusing them both, to 
 all semblance, and holding her own to the Lady Hautton's 
 despite, who held their own so excessively chillily and 
 loftily that no ordinary mortals cared to approach them, 
 but, beholding them, thought involuntarily of the stately 
 icebergs off the Spitzbergen coast, only that the icebergs 
 could melt or explode when their time came, and the 
 time was never known when the Hautton surface could 
 be moved to anger or melt to any sunshine whatever. 
 At least, whether their maids or their mother ever beheld 
 the first of the phenomena, far be it from me to say, but 
 the world never saw either. 
 
 " Well, Miss Montolieu, how do you like our life here?" 
 Carruthers was asking. " Which is preferable — Belgra- 
 via or St. Denis?" 
 
 " Oh, Belgravia, decidedly," laughed Lady Marabout's 
 charge. " I think your life charming. All change, ex- 
 citement, gayety, who would not like it?" 
 
 "Nobody — that is not fresh to it?" 
 
 " Fresh to it? Ah! are you one of the class Avho find 
 no beauty in anything unless it is new ? If so, do not 
 charge the blame on to the thing, as your tone implies ; 
 take it rather to yourself and your own fickleness." 
 
 "Perhaps I do," smiled Carruthers. "But whether 
 one's self or ' the thing ' is to blame, the result 's much the 
 game — satiety! Wait till you have had two or three 
 seasons, and them tell me if you find this mill-wheel rou-
 
 176 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 tine, these circus gyrations, so delightful ! We are the 
 performing stud, who go round and round in the hippo- 
 drome, day after day for show, till Ave are sick of the 
 whole programme, knowing our white stars are but a 
 daub of paint, and our gay spangles only tinfoil. You 
 are a little pony just joined to the troupe, and just pleased 
 with the glitter of the arena. Wait till you 've had a 
 few years of it before you say whether going through the 
 same hoops and passing over the same sawdust is so very 
 amusing." 
 
 " If I do not, I shall desert the troupe, and form a cir- 
 cus of my own less mechanical and more enjoyable." 
 
 "II faut sonffrir pour etre belle, ilfaut souffrir encore 
 plus pour etrecL la mode!" said Goodwood, on her right, 
 while Lady Egidia Hautton thought, " How bold that 
 little Montolieu is!" and her sister. Lady Feodorowna, 
 wondered what her cousin Goodwood could see there. 
 
 " I do not see the necessity," interrupted Flora, " and 1 
 certainly would never bow to the ' il faut.' I would make 
 fashion follow me ; I would not follow fashion." (" That 
 child talks as though she were the Duchess of Amandine;" 
 thought Lady Marabout, catching fragmentary portions 
 across the table, the Marabout oral and oracular organs 
 being always conveniently multiplied when she was armed 
 cap a pie as a chaperone.) " Sir Philip, you talk as if 
 you belonged to the * nothing-is-new, and nothing-is-true, 
 and it-don't-signify ' class. I should have thought you 
 were above the nil admirari affectation." 
 
 " He admires, as we all do, when we find something 
 chat compels our homage," said Goodwood, with an em- 
 phasis that would have made the hearts of any of the 
 Hereditary Princesses palpitate with gratification, but 
 at which the ungrateful Petit Caporal only glanced at 
 him a little surpriscdly with her large hazel eyes, as 
 though she by no means saw the point of the speech. 
 
 Carruthers laughed :
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 177 
 
 *' Nil admirari ? Oh no. I enjoy life, but then it is 
 thanks to the clubs, my yacht, my cigar-case, my stud, 
 a thousand tilings, — not thanks at all to Belgravia." 
 
 " Com2)linientary to the Belgraviennes ! " cried Flora, 
 with a shrug of her shoulders. " They have not kno\vj> 
 how to amuse you, then ?" 
 
 " Ladies never do amuse us ! " sighed Carruthers. " Ihnt 
 pis pour nous !" 
 
 "Are you going to Lady Patchouli's this evening?" 
 asked Goodwood. 
 
 " I believe we are. I think Lady Marabout said so," 
 
 " Then I shall exert myself, and go too. It will be a 
 terrible bore — balls always are. But to waltz with you 
 I will tiy to encounter it!" 
 
 Flora Montolieu arched her eyebrows, and gave him a 
 little disdainful glance. 
 
 "Lord Goodwood, do not be so sure that I shall waltz 
 at all with you. If you take vanity for wit, / caunnfr. 
 accept discourtesy as compliment ! " 
 
 "Well hit, little lady!" thought Carruthers, with a 
 mental bravissima. 
 
 " What a speech ! " thought Lady Marabout, across the 
 table, as shocked as though a footman had dropped a 
 cascade of iced hock over her. 
 
 "You got it for once. Goodwood," laughed Carruthers, 
 as they drove away in his tilbury. " You never had such 
 a sharp brush as that." 
 
 " By Jove, no ! Positively it was quite a new sensation 
 — refreshing, indeed ! One grows so tired of the women 
 who agree with one eternally. She 's charming, on my 
 word. Who is she, Phil ? In an heraldic sense, I mean." 
 
 "My dear child, Avhat could possess you to answer 
 Lord Goodwood like that?" cried Lady Marabout, as her 
 barouche rolled down Palace Gardens. 
 
 " Possess me ? The Demon of Mischief, I suppose." 
 
 "But, my love, it was a wonderful compliment from 
 him ! "
 
 nS LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 " Was it ? I do not see any compliment in those vain, 
 impertinent, Brummelian amour-propreisms. I must coin 
 the word, there is no good one to express it." 
 
 " But, my dear Flora, you know he is the Marquis of 
 Goodwood, the Duke of Doncaster's son ! It is not as if 
 he Avere a boy in the Lancers, or an unfledged petit viaitre 
 from the Foreign Office " 
 
 " Were he her Majesty's son, he should not gratify his 
 vanity at my expense ! If he expected me to be flattered 
 by his condescension, he mistook me very much. He has 
 been allowed to adopt that tone, I suppose ; but from a 
 man to a woman a chivalrous courtesy is due, though the 
 man be an emperor." 
 
 "Perhaps so — of course; but that is their tone nowa- 
 days, my love, and you cannot alter it. I always say the 
 Regency-men inaugurated it, and their sons and grand- 
 sons out-Herod Herod. But to turn a tide, or be a wit 
 with impunity, a woman wants to occupy a prominent and 
 unassailable position. Were you the Duchess of Aman- 
 dine, you might say that sort of thing, but a young girl 
 just out must not — indeed she must not! The Hauttons 
 heard you, and the Hauttons are very merciless people; 
 perfectly bred themselves, and pitiless on the least in- 
 fringement of the convenances. Besides, ten to one you 
 may have gained Goodwood's ill-will ; and he is a man 
 whose Avord has immense weight, I assure you." 
 
 " I do not see anything remarkable in him to give him 
 weight," said the literal and unimpressible little Monto- 
 lieu. " He is a commonplace person to my taste, neither 
 so brilliant nor so handsome by a great deal as many 
 gentlemen I see — as Sir Philip, for instance. Lady Mara- 
 bout?" 
 
 "As my son? No, ray love, he is not; very few men 
 have Philip's talents and person," said Lady Marabout, 
 consciously mollified and propitiated, but going on, never- 
 theless, with a Sparlan impartiality highly laudable
 
 L-ADY marabout's TROUBLES. 179 
 
 "Goodwood's rank, however, is much higher than Philip's 
 (at least it stands so, though really the Carruthers are by- 
 far the older, dating as far back as Ethelbert II., while 
 the Doncaster family are literally unknown till the four- 
 teenth century, when Gervaise d'Ascotte received the 
 ac lade before Ascalon from Godfrey de Bouillon) ; Good- 
 wood lias great weight, my dear, in the best circles. A 
 compliment from him is a great compliment to any wo- 
 man, and the sort of answer you gave him " 
 
 " Must have been a great treat to him, dear Lady Mara- 
 bout, if every one is in the habit of kow-towing before 
 him. Princes, you know, are never so happy as when 
 they can have a little bit of nature ; and my speech must 
 have been as refreshing to Lord Goodwood as the breath 
 of his Bearnese breezes and the freedom of his Pyrenean 
 forests were to Henri Quatre after the court etiquette and 
 the formal ceremonial of Paris." 
 
 "I don't know about its being a treat to him, my dear; 
 it was more likely to be a shower-bath. And your illus- 
 tration is n't to the point. The Bearnese breezes were 
 Henri Quatre's native air, and might be pleasant to him ; 
 but the figurative ones are not Goodwood's, and I am sure 
 cannot please him." 
 
 " But, Lady Marabout, I do not want to please him ! " 
 persisted the young lady, 2)erversely. " I don't care in 
 the least what he thinks, or what he says of me ! " 
 
 "Dear me, how oddly things go!" thought Lady Mar- 
 about. " There was Valencia, one of the proudest girls 
 in England, his equal in every way, an acknowledged 
 beauty, who would have said the dust on the trottoir was 
 diamonds, and worn turquoises on azureline, or emeralds 
 on rose, I verily believe, if such opticisms and gaucheries 
 had been Goodwood's taste; and here is this child — for 
 whom the utmost one can do will be to secure a younger 
 son out of the Civil Service, or a country member — can- 
 not be made tc see that he is of an atom more inqiortanco
 
 180 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 than Soames or Mason, and treats him with downright 
 nonchalant indifference. What odd anomalies one sees 
 in evervthins;!" 
 
 " Who is that young lady with you this season ? " Lady 
 Hautton asked, smiling that acidulated smile with which 
 that amiable saint always puts long questions to you of 
 which she knows the answer would he peine forte et dure. 
 " Not the daughter of that horrid John Montolieu, who 
 did all sorts of dreadful things, and was put into a West 
 India regiment ? Indeed! that man? Dear me! Mar- 
 ried Ihe sister of your incumbent at Fernditton? Ah, 
 really ! — very singular ! But how do you come to have 
 brought out the daughter?" 
 
 At all of which remarks Lady Marabout winced, and 
 felt painfully guilty of a gross democratic dereliction 
 from legitimate and beaten paths, conscious of having 
 sinned heavily in the eyes of the world and Lady Hautton, 
 by bringing within the sacred precincts of Belgravia the 
 daughter of a mauvais siijet in a West India corps and a 
 sister of a perpetual curate. The world was a terrible 
 dragon to Lady Marabout ; to her imagination it always 
 appeared an incarnated and omniscient bugbear, Argus- 
 eyed, and with all its hundred eyes relentlessly fixed on 
 her, spying out each item of her shortcomings, every lit- 
 tle flaw in the JNIarabout diamonds, any spur-made tear 
 in her Honiton flounces, any crease in her train at a 
 Drawing-room, any lese-majeste against the royal rule of 
 conventionalities, any glissade on the polished oak floor 
 of society, though like a good many other people she 
 often worried herself needlessly ; the flaws, tears, creases, 
 high treasons, and false glissades being fifty to one too 
 infinitesimal or too unimportant to society for one of the 
 hundred eyes (vigilant and unwinking though I grant 
 they are) to take note of them. The Avorld was a terrible 
 bugbear to Lady Marabout, and its special impei'sonation 
 was Aune Hautton. She disliked Anne Hautton ; she
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 181 
 
 didn't esteem her; she knew her to be a narrow, censo- 
 rious, prejudiced, and strongly malicious lady ; but she 
 was the personification of the World to Lady Marabout, 
 and had weight and terror in consequence. Lady Mara- 
 bout is not the first person who has burnt incense and 
 bowed in fear before a little miserable clay image she cor- 
 dially despised, for no better reason — for the self-same 
 reason, indeed. 
 
 "She evidently thinks I ought not to have brought 
 Flora out; and perhaps I should n't ; though, poor little 
 thing, it seems very hard she may not enjoy society — fitted 
 for society, too, as she is — just because her father is in a 
 West Lidia regiment, and poor Lilla was only a clergy- 
 man's daughter. Goodwood really seems to admire her. 
 I can never forgive him for his heartless flirtation with 
 Valencia ; but if he ivere to be won by a Montolieu, what 
 would the Hauttons say ?" 
 
 And sitting against the wall, with others of her sister- 
 hood, at a ball, a glorious and golden vision rose up before 
 Lady Marabout's eyes. 
 
 If the unknown, unwelcome, revolutionary little Mon- 
 tolieu should go in and win where the Lady Plauttong 
 had tried and failed through five seasons — if this little 
 tropical flower should be promoted to the Doncaster con- 
 servatory, where all the stately stephanotises of the 
 peerage had vainly aspired to bloom — if this Petit Ca- 
 poral should be crowned with the Doncaster diadem, 
 that all the legitimate rulers had uselessly schemed to 
 place on their brows! The soul of Lady Marabout rose 
 elastic at the bare prospect — it would be a great triumph 
 for a chaperone as for a general to conquer a valuable 
 position with a handful of boy recruits. 
 
 If it should be! Anne Hautton would have nothinj; 
 to say after that! 
 
 And Lady Marabout, though she was the most amiable 
 lady in Christendom, was not exempt froji a feeling of 
 16
 
 182 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 longing for a stone to roll to the door of her enemy'a 
 stronghold, or a flourish of trumpets to silence the boast- 
 ful and triumphant fanfare that was perpetually sounding 
 at sight of her defeats from her opponent's ramparts. 
 
 Wild, visionary, guiltily scheming, sinfully revolution- 
 ary seemed such a project in her eyes. Still, how tempt- 
 ing ! It would be a terrible blow to Valencia, who 'd 
 tried for Goodwood fruitlessly, to be eclipsed by this un- 
 known Flora ; it would be a terrible blow to their Graces 
 of Doncaster, who held nobody good enough, heraldically 
 speaking, for their heir-apparent, to see him give the best 
 coronet in England to a bewitching little interloper, sans 
 money, birth, or rank. " They would n't like it, of course; 
 I shouldn't like it for Philip, for instance, though she's 
 a very sweet little thing ; all the Ascottes would be very 
 vexed, and all the Valletorts would never forgive it; but 
 it would be such a triumph over Anne Hautton ! " pon- 
 dered Lady Marabout, and the last clause carried the day. 
 Did you ever know private pique fail to carry the day over 
 public charity ? 
 
 And Lady Marabout glanced with a glow of prospective 
 triumph, which, though erring to her Order, was delicious 
 to her individuality, at Goodwood waltzing with the little 
 Montolieu a suspicious number of times, while Lady Egi- 
 dia Hautton was condemned to his young brother, Setou 
 Ascotte, and Lady Feodorowna danced positively with 
 nobody better than their own county member, originally 
 a scion of Goodwood's bankers ! Could the force of 
 liumiliation further go ? Lady Hautton sat smiling and 
 chatting, but the tiara on her temples was a figuratire 
 thorn crown, and Othello's occupation was gone. When 
 a lady's daughters are dancing with an unavailable cadet 
 of twenty, and a parvenu, only acceptable in the last ex- 
 tremities of despair, what good is it for her to watch tho 
 smiles and construe the attentions ? 
 
 " W<? shall see who triumphs now," thought Lady Ma«
 
 LADY MARABOL'T'S TROUBLES 183 
 
 rabout, 'nitli a glow of pleasure, for which her heart re- 
 proached her a moment afterwards. " It is very wrong," 
 she thought ; " if those poor girls don't marry, one ought 
 to pity them ; and as for her — going through five seasons, 
 with a fresh burden of responsibility leaving the school- 
 room, and added on your hands each year, must sour the 
 sweetest temper ; it would do mine, I am sure. I dare 
 say, if I had had daughters, I should have been ten times 
 more worried even than I am." 
 
 Which she would have been, undoubtedly, and the eli- 
 gibles on her visiting-list ten times more too ! Men 
 would n't have voted the Marabout dinners and soirees so 
 pleasant as they did, under the sway of that sunshiny 
 hostess, if there had been Lady Maudes and Lady Marys 
 to exact attention, and lay mines under the Auxerre car- 
 pets, and man-traps among the epergne flowers of Lowndes 
 Square. Nor would Lady Marabout have been the same ; 
 the sunshine could n't have shone so brightly, nor the 
 milk of roses flowed so mildly under the weight and wear 
 of marriageable but unmarried daughters ; the sunshine 
 would have been fitful, the milk of roses curdled at best. 
 And no wonder ! Those poor women ! they have so much 
 to go through in the world, and play but such a monot- 
 onous role, taken at its most brilliant and best, from first 
 to last, from cradle to grave, from the berceaunettes in 
 which they commence their existence to the mausoleum 
 in which they finish it. If they do get a little bit soured 
 when they have finished their own game, and have to sit 
 at the card-tables, wide awake however weary, vigilant 
 however drowsy, alert however bored to death, superin- 
 tending the hands of the fresh players, surreptitiously 
 suggesting means for securing the tricks, keeping a 
 dragon's eye out for revokes, and bearing all the brunt 
 of the blame if the rubber be lost — if they do get a lit- 
 tle bit soured, who can, after all, greatly wonder?" 
 
 " That 's a very brilliant little thing, that girl Montolieu/'
 
 184 LADY marabout's TROUBLES 
 
 eaid Goodwood, driving over to Hornsey "Wood, the morn* 
 ing after, with Carruthers and some other men, in hia 
 drag. 
 
 "A deuced pretty waltzer !" said St. Lys, of the Bays; 
 " turn her round in a square foot." 
 
 "And looks very well in the saddle; sits her horse 
 better than any woman in the Ride, except Rosalie 
 Rosifere, and as she came from the Cirque Olympique 
 originally, one don't count Aer," said Fulke Nugent. " I 
 do like a woman to ride well, I must say. I promised 
 your mother to take a look at the Marabout Yearling 
 Sale, Phil, if ever I wanted the never-desirable and ever- 
 burdensome article she has to offer, and if anything could 
 tempt me to pay the price she asks, I think it would be 
 that charming Montolieu." 
 
 " She 's the best thing Lady Tattersall ever had on 
 hand," said Goodwood, drawing his whip over his off- 
 wheel er's back. "You know, Phil — gently, gently, 
 Coronet! — what spoilt your handsome cousin was, as I 
 said, that it was all mechanism ; perfect mechanism, I 
 admit, but all artificial, prearranged, put together, wound 
 up to smile in this place, bow in that, and frown in the 
 other ; clockwork every inch of it ! Now — so-ho, 
 Zouave ! confound you, wonH you be quiet ? — little Mon- 
 tolieu has n't a bit of artifice about her ; 'tis n't only that 
 you don't know what she 's going to say, but that she 
 does n't either ; and whether it 's a smile or a frown, a 
 jest or a reproof, it 's what the moment brings out, not 
 what 's planned beforehand." 
 
 " The hard hit you had the other day seems to have 
 piqued your interest," said Carruthers, smoothing a loose 
 leaf of his Manilla. 
 
 " Naturally. The girl did n't care a button about my 
 compliment (I only said it to try her), and the plucky 
 answer she gave me amused me immensely. Anything
 
 LADY MARABOUT S TROUBLES. 185 
 
 unartificial and frank is as refreshing as hock-and-seltzer 
 after a field-day — one likes it, don't you know?" 
 
 " Wonderfully eloquent you are, Goody. If you come 
 out like that in St. Stephen's, we sha'n't know you, and 
 the ministerialists will look down in the mouth with a 
 vengeance ! " 
 
 " Don't be satirical, Phil ! If I admire Mademoiselle 
 Flora, what is it to you, pray?" 
 
 " Nothing at all," said Carruthers, with unnecessary 
 rapidity of enunciation. 
 
 " My love, what are you going to wear to-night ? The 
 Bishop of Bonviveur is coming. He was a college friend 
 of your poor uncle's ; knew your dear mother before she 
 married. I want you to look your very best and charm 
 him, as you certainly do most people," said Lady Mara- 
 bout. Adroit intriguer ! The bishop was going, sans 
 doute ; the bishop loved good wine, good dinners, and good 
 society, and found all three in Lowndes Square, but the 
 bishop was entirely unavailable for purposes matrimonial, 
 having had three wives, and being held tight in hand by a 
 fourth ; however, a bishop is a convenient piece to cover 
 your king, in chess, and the bishop served admirably just 
 then in Lady Marabout's moves as a locum tenens for 
 Goodwood. Flora Montolieu, in her innocence, made 
 herself look her prettiest for her mother's old friend, and 
 Flora Montolieu was conveniently ready, looking her 
 prettiest, for her chaperone's pet-eligible, when Goodwood 
 — who hated to dine anywhere in London except at the 
 clubs, the Castle, or the Guards' mess, and was as difficult 
 to get for your dinners as birds'-nests soup or Tokay 
 pur — entered the Marabout drawing-rooms. 
 
 "Anne Hautton will see he dined here to-night, in the 
 Morning Post to-morrow morning, and she will know 
 Flora must attract him very unusually. What will she, 
 and Egidia, and Foodorowna say?" thought Lady Mara- 
 Dout, with a glow of pleasure, which she was conscious
 
 186 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 waa uncharitable and sinful, and yet couldn't repress, let 
 her try how she might. 
 
 In scheming for the future Duke of Doncaster for John 
 Montolieu's daughter, she felt much as democratically and 
 treasonably guilty to her order as a prince of the blood 
 might feel heading a Chartist emeute ; but then, suppose 
 the Chartist row was that Prince's sole chance of crushing 
 an odious foe, as it was the only chance for her to 
 humiliate the Hautton, don't you think it might look 
 tempting ? Judge nobody, my good sir, till you 've been 
 in similar circumstances yourself — a golden rule, which 
 might with advantage employ those illuminating colors 
 with which ladies employ so much of their time just now. 
 Remembering it, they might hold their white hands from 
 flinging those sharp flinty stones, that surely suit them so 
 ill, and that soil their fingers in one way quite as much 
 as they soil the victim's bowed head in another? Illumi- 
 nate the motto, mesdames and demoiselles ! Perhaps you 
 will do that — on a smalt ground, with a gold Persian 
 arabesque round, and impossible flowers twined in and 
 out of the letters ; but, remember it ! — pardon ! It were 
 asking too much. 
 
 "My dear Philip, did you notice how very marked 
 Goodwood's attentions were to Flora last night?" asked 
 Lady Marabout, the morning after, in one of her most 
 sunshiny and radiant moods, as Carruthers paid her his 
 general matutinal call in her boudoir. 
 
 "Marked?" 
 
 " Yes, marked ! Why do you repeat it in that tone ? 
 If they were marked, there is nothing to be ridiculed tliat 
 I see. They were very marked, indeed, especially for 
 him; he's such an unimpressible, never-show-any thing 
 man. I wonder you did not notice it ! " 
 
 "My dear mother!" said Carruthers, a little im- 
 patiently, brushing up the Angora cat's ruflf" the wrong 
 way with his cane, " do you suppose I pass my evenings
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 187 
 
 noticing the attentions other men may see fit to pay to 
 young ladies ? " 
 
 " Well — don't be impatient. You ne ver used to be," 
 said Lady Marabout. " If you were in my place just for 
 a night or two, or any other chaperone's, you 'd be more 
 full of pity. But people never will sympathize with any- 
 thing that doesn't touch themselves. The only chords 
 that strike the key-note in anybody is the chord that 
 sounds 'self;' and that is the reason why the world is as 
 full of crash and tumult as Beethoven's ' Storm.' " 
 
 " Quite right, my dear mother ! " 
 
 " Of course it 's quite right. I always think you have 
 a great deal of sympathy for a man, Philip, even for 
 people you don't harmonize with — (you could sympathize 
 with that child Flora, yesterday, in her rapturous delight 
 at seeing that Coccoloba Uvifera in the Patchouli conser- 
 vatory, because it reminded her of her West Indian 
 home, and you care nothing whatever about flowers, nor 
 yet about the West Indies, I should suppose) — but you 
 never will sympathize with me. You know how many 
 disappointments and grievances and vexations of every 
 kind I have had the last ten, twenty, ay, thirty, forty 
 seasons — ever since I had to chaperone your aunt 
 Eleanore, almost as soon as I was married, and was woi- 
 ried, more than anybody ever was worried, by her coquet- 
 teries and her inconsistencies and her vacillations — so 
 badly as she married, too, at the last! Those flirting 
 beauties so often do; they throw away a hundred ad- 
 mirable chances and put up with a wretched dernier res- 
 sort; — let a thousanil salmon break away from the line 
 out of their carelessness, and end by being glad to land 
 a little minnow. I don't know when I have iit been wor- 
 ried by chaperoning. Flora Montolieu is a great anxiety, 
 a great difficulty, little detrimental that she is ! " 
 
 " Detrimental ! What an odd word you choose for her." 
 
 " I don't choose it for her ; she is it," returned Lady 
 Marabout, decidedly.
 
 188 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 "How SO?" 
 
 " How so ! Why, my dear Philip, I told you the very 
 first day she came. How so ! when she is Johu Mon- 
 tolieu's daughter, when she has no birth to speak of, and 
 not a farthing to her fortune." 
 
 " If she were Jack Ketch's daughter, you could not 
 speak much worse. Her high-breeding might do credit 
 to a Palace ; I only wish one found it in all Palaces ! 
 and I never knew you before measure people by their 
 money." 
 
 " My dear Philip, no more I do, I can't bear you when 
 you speak in that tone ; it 's so hard and sarcastic, and 
 unlike you. / don't know what you mean either. I 
 should have thought a man of the world like yourself 
 knew well enough what I intend when I saj Ilora is a 
 detrimental. She has a sweet temper, very clever, very 
 lively, very charming, as any one knows by the number 
 of men that crowd about her, but a detrimental she 
 is " 
 
 "Poor little heart!" muttered Carruthers in his beard, 
 too low for his mother to hear. 
 
 " — And yet I am quite positive that if she herself act 
 judiciously, and it is well managed for her, Goodwood 
 may be won before the season is over," concluded Lady 
 Marabout. 
 
 Carruthers, not feeling much interest, it is presumed, in 
 the exclusively feminine pursuit of match-making, re- 
 turned no answer, but played with Bijou's ssilver bells, 
 and twisted his own tawny moustaches. 
 
 " I am quite positive it may be, if properly managed," 
 reiterated Lady Marabout. "You might second me a 
 little, Philip." 
 
 " I? Good Heavens ! my dear mother, what are you 
 thinking of? I would sooner turn torreador, and throw 
 lassos over bulls at Madrid, than help you to fling nup- 
 tial cables over poor devils in Belgravia. Twenty to one ?
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 189 
 
 I 'in going to the Yard to look at a bay filly of Cope 
 Fielden's, and then on to a mess-luncheon of the Bays." 
 
 "Must you go?" said his mother, looking lovingly on 
 him. " You look tired, Philip. Don't you feel M-ell ? " 
 
 " Perfectly ; but Cambridge had us out over those con- 
 founded WormAvood Scrubs this morning, and three hours 
 in this June sun, in our harness, makes one swear. If it 
 were a sharp brush, it would put life into one ; as it is, it 
 only inspires one with an intense suffering from boredom, 
 and an intense desire for hock and seltzer." 
 
 "I am very glad you haven't a sharp brush, as you 
 call it, for all that," said Lady Marabout. " It might be 
 very pleasant to you, Philip, but it wouldn't be quite so 
 much so to me. I Avish you Avould stay to luncheon." 
 
 " Not to-day, thanks ; I have so many engagements." 
 
 " You have been very good in coming to see me this 
 season — even better than usual. It is very good of you, 
 with all your amusements and distractions. You have 
 given me a great many days this month," said Lady Mara- 
 bout, gratefully. " Anne Hautton sees nothing of Haut- 
 ton, she says, except at a distance in Pall-Mall or the 
 Park, all the season through. Fancy if I saAv no more 
 of you ! Do you knoAV, Philip, I am almost reconciled to 
 your never marrying. I have never seen anybody I 
 should like at all for you, unless you had chosen Cecil 
 Ormsby — Cecil Cheveley I mean ; and I am sure I should 
 be very jealous of your wife if you had one. I couldn't 
 help it!" 
 
 " Rest tranquil, my dear mother ; you Avill ncA'-er be 
 put to the test ! " said Carruthers, Avith a laugh, as he bid 
 her good morning. 
 
 " Perhaps it is best he should n't marry : I begin to 
 think so," mused Lady Marabout, as the door closed on 
 him. " I used to wish it very much for some things. He 
 Ls the last of his name, and it seems a pity ; there ought 
 to be an luiir for Deepdene ; but still marriage is such a
 
 190 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 lottery (he is right enough there, though I don't admit it 
 to him : it 's a tombola where there is one prize to a mil- 
 lion of blanks ; one can't help seeing that, though, on 
 principle, I never allow it to him or any of his men), and 
 if Philip had any woman who did n't appreciate him, or 
 didn't understand him, or didn't make him happy, how 
 wretched / should be! I have often pictured Philip's 
 wife to myself, I have often idealized the sort of woman 
 I should like to see him marry, but it 's very improbable 
 I shall ever meet my ideal realized ; one never does ! 
 And, after all, whenever I have fancied, years ago, he 
 might be falling in love, I have always felt a horrible 
 dread lest she shouldn't be worthy of him — a jealous 
 fear of her that I could not conquer. It 's much better as 
 it is ; there is no woman good enough for him." 
 
 With which compliment to Carruthers at her sex's ex- 
 pense Lady Marabout returned to weaving her Y>et pro- 
 jected toils for the ensnaring of Goodwood, for whom 
 also, if asked, I dare say the Duchess of Doncaster would 
 have averred on her part, looking through her maternal 
 Claude glasses, no woman was good enough either. When 
 ladies have daughters to marry, men always present to 
 their imaginations a battalion of worthless, decalogue- 
 smashing, utterly unreliable individuals, amongst whom 
 there is not one fit to be trusted or fit to be chosen ; but 
 when their sons are the candidates for the holy bond, they 
 view all women through the same foggy and non-embel- 
 lishing medium, which, if it does not speak very much 
 for their unprejudiced discernment, at least speaks to the 
 oft-disputed fact of the equality of merit in the sexes, 
 and would make it appear that, in vulgar parlance, there 
 must be six of the one and half a dozen of the other. 
 
 " Flora, soft and careless, and rebellious as she looks, 
 is ambitious, and has set her heart on winning Goodwood, 
 I do believe, as much as ever poor Valencia did. True, 
 she takes a dilfereut plan of action, as Philip would call
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 191 
 
 it, and treats him with gay nonclialante indifference, which 
 certainly seems to pique him more than ever my poor 
 niece's beauty and quiet deference to his opinions did ; 
 but that is because she reads him better, and knows more 
 cleverly how to rouse him. She has set her heart on win- 
 ning Goodwood, I am certain, ambitious as it seems. How 
 eagerly she looked out for the Blues yesterday at that 
 Ilyde Park inspection — though I am sure Goodwood 
 does not look half so handsome as Philip does in harness, 
 as they call it ; Philip is so much the finer man ! I Avill 
 just sound her to-day — or to-night as we come back from 
 the opera," thought Lady Marabout, one morning. 
 
 Things were moving to the very best of her expecta- 
 tions. Learning experience from manifold failures, Lady 
 Marabout had laid her plans this time with a dexterity 
 that defied discomfiture : seconded by both the parties 
 primarily necessary to the accomplishment of her ma- 
 nceuvres, with only a little outer-world opposition to give 
 it piquancy and excitement, she felt that she might defy 
 the fates to checkmate her here. This should be her 
 Marathon and Lemnos, which, simply reverted to, should 
 be sufficient to secure her immunity from the attacks of 
 any feminine Xantippus who should try to rake up her 
 failures and tarnish her glory. To win Goodwood with a 
 nobody's daughter would be a feat as wonderful in its 
 way as for Miltiades to have passed " in a single day and 
 with a north wind," as Oracle exacted, to the conquest of 
 the Pelasgian Isles ; and Lady Marabout longed to do it, 
 as you, my good sir, may have longed in your day to take 
 a king in check with your only available pawn, or win 
 one of the ribands of the turf with a little filly that 
 seemed to general judges scarcely calculated to be in the 
 first flight at the Chester Consolation Scramble. 
 
 Things Avore beautifully in train ; it even began to dawn 
 on the perceptions of the ITauttons, usually very slow to 
 open to anything revolutionary and unwelcome. Her
 
 192 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 Grace of Doncaster, a large, lethargic, somnolent dow- 
 ager, rarely awake to anything but the interests and res- 
 toration of the old ultra-Tory party in a Utopia always 
 dreamed of and never realized, like many other Utoi)ias 
 political and poetical, public and personal, had turned 
 her eyes on Flora Moutoiieu, and asked her sou the ques- 
 tion inevitable, "Who is she?" to Avhich Goodwood had 
 replied with a devil-may-care recklessness and a headlong 
 indefiniteness which grated on her Grace's ears, and im- 
 parted her no information whatever: "One of Lady 
 Tattersall's yearlings, and the most charming creature I 
 ever met. You know that ? Why did you ask me, then ? 
 You know all I do, and all I care to do!" — a remark 
 that made the Duchess wish her very dear and personal 
 friend, Lady Marabout, were comfortably and snugly in- 
 terred in the mausoleum of Fern Ditton, rather than alive 
 in the flesh in Belgravia, chaperoning young ladies whom 
 nobody knew, and who were not to be found in any of 
 Sir E. Burke's triad of volumes. 
 
 Belgravia, and her sister Mayfair, wondered at it, and 
 talked over it, raked up the parental Montolieu lineage 
 mercilessly, and found out, from the Bishop of Bonviveur 
 and Sauceblanche, that the uncle on the distafl' side had 
 been only a Tug at Eton, and had lived and died at Fern 
 Ditton a perpetual curate and nothing else — not even a 
 dean, not even a rector! Goodwood could nH be serious, 
 settled the coteries. But the more hints, innuendoes, 
 questions, and adroitly concealed but simply suggested 
 animadversion Lady Marabout received, the greater was 
 her glory, the warmer her complacency, when she saw her 
 Little Montolieu, who was not little at all, leading, as she 
 undoubtedly did lead, the most desired eligible of the day 
 captive in her chains, sent bouquets by him, begged for 
 waltzes l)y him, followed by him at the Ride, riveting his 
 lorgnon at the Opera, monopolizing his attention — though, 
 clever little intriguer, .she knew too well how to pique him 
 ever to let him monoj)olize hens.
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 193 
 
 "She certainly makes play, as Philip would call it 
 admirably with Goodwood," said Lady Marabout, admir- 
 ingly, at a morning party, stirring a cup of Orange Pekoe, 
 yet with a certain irrepressible feeling that she should 
 almost prefer so very young a girl not to be quite so adroit 
 a schemer at seventeen. " That indifference and non- 
 chalance is the very thing to pique and retain such a 
 courted fastidious creature as Goodwood ; and she knows 
 it, too. Now a clumsy casual observer might even fancy 
 t^iat she liked some others — even you, Philip, for instance 
 
 — much better; she talks to you much more, appeals to 
 you twice as often, positively teases you to stop and lunch 
 or come to dinner here, and really told you the other 
 night at the Opera she missed you when you did n't come 
 in the morning ; but to anybody who kno)f,vs anything of 
 the world, it is easy enough to see which way her inclina- 
 tions (yes, I do hope it is inclination as well as ambition 
 
 — I am not one of those who advocate pure viariages de 
 convenance; I don't think them right, indeed, though 
 they are undoubtedly very expedient sometimes) turn. I 
 do not think anybody ever could prove me to have erred 
 in my quick-sightedness in those affairs. I may have 
 been occasionally mistaken in other things, or been the 
 victim of adverse and unforeseen circumstances which 
 were beyond my control, and betrayed me ; but I know 
 no one can read a girl's heart more quickly and surely 
 than I, or a man's either, for that matter." 
 
 " Oh, we all know you are a clairvoyante in heart 
 episodes, my dear mother ; they are the one business of 
 your life ! " smiled Carruthers, setting down his ice, and 
 lounging across the lawn to a group of cedars, where 
 Flora Montolicu stood playing at cnKpiet, and who, like 
 a scheming adventuress, as she was, immediately verified 
 Lady Marabout's words, and piqued Goodwood a entrance 
 by avowing herself tired of the game, and entering with 
 animated verve into the prophecies for Ascot with Car- 
 17 N
 
 194 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 ruthers, wliose bay filly Sunbeam, sister to Wild-Falcon, 
 was entered to run for the Queen's Cup. 
 
 " AVhat an odd smile that was of Philip's," thought 
 Lady Marabout, left to herself and her Orange Pekoe. 
 " He has been very intimate with Goodwood ever since 
 they joined the Blues, cornets together, three-and-twenty 
 years ago ; surely he can't have heard him drop anything 
 that would make him fancy he was not serious f " 
 
 An idle fear, which Lady Marabout dismissed con- 
 temptuously from her mind when she saw how entirely 
 Goodwood — in defiance of the Hauttons' sneer, the drowsy 
 Duchess's unconcealed frown, all the comments sure to be 
 excited in feminine minds, and all the chaff" likely to be 
 elicited from masculine lips at the mess-table, and in the 
 U. S., and in the Guards' box before the curtain Avent up 
 for the ballet — vowed himself to the service of the little 
 detrimental throughout that morning party, and spoke a 
 temporary adieu, whose tenderness, if she did not exactly 
 catch. Lady Marabout could at least construe, as he pulled 
 up the tiger-skin over Flora's dainty dress, before the Mar- 
 about carriage rolled down the Fulham Road to town. 
 At which tenderness of farewell Carruthers — steeled to 
 all such weaknesses himself — gave a disdainful glance 
 and a contemptuous twist of his moustaches, as he stood 
 by the door talking to his mother. 
 
 " You too, Phil ? " said Goodwood, with a laugh, as the 
 carriage rolled away. 
 
 Carruthers stared at him haughtily, as he will stare at 
 his best friends if they touch his private concerns mor^ 
 nearly than he likes ; a stare which said disdainfully, " 1 
 don't understand you," and thereby told the only lie to 
 which Carruthers ever stooped in the whole course of hi? 
 existence. 
 
 Goodwood laughed again. 
 
 " If you poach on my manor here, I shall kill you 
 Phil ; 80 gare d voiis ! "
 
 LA>.Y marabout's TROUBLES. 195 
 
 " You are in an enigmatical mood to-day ! I can't say 
 I see much wit in your riddles," said Carruthers, with 
 his grandest and most contemptuous air, as he lit his 
 Havana. 
 
 '* Confound that fellow ! I 'd rather have had any other 
 man in London for a rival ! Twenty and more years ago 
 how he cut me out with that handsome Virginie Peaude- 
 rose, that we were both such mad boys after in Paris. 
 However, it will be odd if / can't win the day here. A 
 Goodwood rejected — pooh! There isn't a woman in 
 England that would do it!" thought Goodwood, as he 
 drove down the Fulham Road. 
 
 " ' His manor ! ' Who 's told him it 's his ? And if it 
 be, what is that to me?" thought Carruthers, as he got 
 into his tilbury. " Philip, you 're not a fool, like the rest 
 of them, I hope ? You 've not forsworn yourself surely ? 
 Pshaw ! — nonsense ! — impossible I " 
 
 " Certainly she has something very charming about her. 
 If I were a man I don't think I could resist her," thought 
 Lady Marabout, as she sat in her box in the grand tier, 
 tenth from the Queen's, moving her fan slowly, lifting 
 her lorgnon now and then, listening vaguely to the music 
 of the second act of the " Barbiere," for probably about 
 the two hundredth time in her life, and looking at Flora 
 Montolieu, sitting opposite to her. 
 
 " The women are eternally asking me who she is. 1 
 don't care a hang who, but she 's the prettiest thing in 
 London," said Fulke Nugent, which was the Avarmest 
 praise that any living man about town remembered to 
 have heard fall from his lips, which limited themselves 
 religiously to one legitimate laudation, which is a super- 
 lative nowadays, though Mr. Lindley Murray, if alive, 
 wouldn't, perhaps, receive or recognize it as such: "Not 
 bad-looking." 
 
 "It isn't who a woman is, it's what she is, that's the 
 question, I take it," said Goodwood, as he left the Guards' 
 box to visit the Marabout.
 
 196 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 " JJy George ! " laughed Nugeut to Carruthers, "Goodey 
 muijt be serious, eh, Phil ? He don't care a button for 
 little Bibi ; he don't care even for Zerliua. When the 
 ballet begins, I verily believe he 's thinking less of the 
 women before him than of the woman who has left the 
 house ; and if a fellow can give more ominous signs of 
 being 'serious,' as the women phrase it, I don't knoy 'em, 
 do you?" 
 
 " I don't know much about that sort of thing at all ! " 
 muttered Carruthers, as he went out to follow Goodwood 
 to the Marabout box. 
 
 That is an old, old story, that of the fair Emily stir- 
 ring feud between Palaraon and Arcite. It has been 
 acted out many a time since Beaumont and Fletcher lived 
 and wrote their twin-thoughts and won their twin laurels; 
 but the bars that shut the kinsmen in their prison-walls, 
 the ivy-leaves that filled in the rents of their prison- 
 rtones, were not more entirely and blissfully innocent of 
 the feud going on within, and the battle foaming near 
 them, than the calm, complacent soul of Lady Marabout 
 was of the rivalry going on close beside her for the sake 
 of little Montolieu. 
 
 She certainly thought Philip made himself specially 
 brilliant and agreeable that night; but then that was 
 nothing new, he was famous for talking well, and liked 
 his mother enough not seldom to shower out for her some 
 of his very best things ; certainly she thought Goodwood 
 did not shine by the contrast, and looked, to use an undig- 
 nified word, rather cross than otherwise ; but then nobody 
 did shine beside Philip, and she knew a reason that made 
 Goodwood pardonably cross at the undesired presence of 
 his oldest and dearest chum. Even she almost wished 
 Philip away. If the presence of her idolized son could 
 have been unwelcome to her at any time, it was so that 
 night. 
 
 " It is n't like Philip to monopolize her so. he who has
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 197 
 
 BO much tact usually, and cares nothing for girls himself," 
 thought Lady Marabout ; " he must do it for mischief, 
 and yet that is n't like him at all ; it 's very tiresome, at 
 any rate." 
 
 And with that skilful diplomacy in such matters, on 
 which, if it was sometimes overthrown. Lady Marabout 
 not unjustly plumed herself, she dexterously entangled 
 Carruthers in conversation, and during the crash of one 
 of the choruses whispered, as he bent forward to pick up 
 her fan, which she had let drop, 
 
 " Leave Flora a little to Goodwood ; he has a right — 
 he spoke decisively to her to-day." 
 
 Carruthers bowed his head, and stooped lower for the fan. 
 He left her accordingly to Goodwood till the curtain 
 fell after the last act of the " Barbiere ;" and Lady Mar- 
 about congratulated herself on her own adroitness. 
 " There is nothing like a little tact," she thought ; " what 
 would society be without the guiding genius of tact, I 
 wonder ? One dreadful Donnybrook Fair ! " 
 
 But, someway or other, despite all her tact, or because 
 her son inherited that valuable quality in a triple measure 
 to herself, someway, it was Goodwood who led her to her 
 carriage, and Carruthers who led the little Montolieu. 
 
 " Terribly bete of Philip ; how very unlike him ! " 
 mused Lady Marabout, as she gathered her burnous round 
 her. 
 
 Carruthers talked and laughed as he led Flora Mon- 
 tolieu through the passages, more gayly, perhaps, than 
 usual. 
 
 " My mother has told me some news to-night, Misa 
 Montolieu," he said, carelessly. "Am I premature in 
 proffering you my congratulations? But even if I be so, 
 you will not refuse the privilege to an old friend — to a 
 very sincere friend — and will allow me to be the first to 
 wish you happiness?" 
 Lady Marabout's carriage stopped the way. Flora
 
 198 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES. 
 
 Montolieu colored, looked full at him, and went to it, 
 without having time to answer his congratulations, in 
 which the keenest-sighted hearer would have failed to 
 detect anything beyond every-day friendship and genuine 
 indifference. The most truthful men will make the most 
 consummate actors when spurred up to it. 
 
 " My dear child, you look ill to-night ; I am glad you 
 have no engagements," said Lady Marabout, as she sat 
 down before the dressing-room fire, toasting her little 
 satin-shod foot — she has a weakness for fire even in the 
 hottest weather — while Flora Montolieu lay back in a 
 low chair, crushing the roses mercilessly. " You do feel 
 well ? I should not have thought so, your face looks so 
 flushed, and your eyes so preteruaturally dark. Perhaps 
 it is the late hours ; you were not used to them in France, 
 of course, and it must be such a change to this life from 
 your unvarying conventual routine at St. Denis. My love, 
 what was it Lord Goodwood said to you to-day?" 
 
 " Do not speak to me of him, Lady Marabout, I hate 
 his name ! " 
 
 Lady Marabout started with an astonishment that 
 nearly upset the cup of coffee she was sipping. 
 
 " Hate his name ? My dearest Flora, why, in Heaven's 
 name?" 
 
 Flora did not answer ; she pulled the roses off her hair 
 as though they had been infected with Brinvilliers' poison. 
 
 "What has he done?" 
 
 "He has done nothing ! " 
 
 " Who has done anything, then ?" 
 
 " Oh, no one — no one has done anything, but — I am 
 sick of Lord Goodwood's name — tired of it!" 
 
 Lady Marabout sat almost speechless with surprise 
 
 "Tired of it, my dear Flora?" 
 
 Little Montolieu laughed : 
 
 " Well, tired of it, perhaps from hearing him praised 
 BO often, as the Athenian trader grew sick of Aristides,
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 199 
 
 And the Jacobin of Washington's name. Is it unpardon- 
 ably heterodox to say so?" 
 
 Lady Marabout stirred her coffee in perplexity : 
 
 " My dear child, pray don't speak in that way ; that '3 
 like Philip's lone when he is enigmatical and sarcastic, 
 and worries me. I really cannot in the least understand 
 you about Lord Goodwood, it is quite incomprehensible 
 to me. I thought I overheard him to-day at Lady 
 George's concert speak very definitely to you indeed, and 
 when he was interrupted by the Duchess before you could 
 give him his reply, I thought I heard him say he should 
 call to-morrow morning to know your ultimate decision. 
 Was I right?" 
 
 " Quite right." 
 
 "He really proposed marriage to you to-day?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And yet you say you are sick of his name?" 
 
 "Does it follow, imperatively, Lady Marabout, that 
 because the Sultan throws his handkerchief, it must be 
 picked up with humility and thanksgiving?" asked Flora 
 Montolieu, furling and unfurling her fan with an im- 
 patient rapidity that threatened entire destruction of its 
 ivory and feathers, with their Watteau-like group elabo- 
 rately painted on them — as pretty a toy of the kind as 
 could be got for money, Avhich had been given her by Cai'- 
 ruthers one day in payment of some little bagatelle of a bet. 
 
 " Sultan ! — Humility ! " repeated Lady Marabout, 
 scarcely crediting her senses. " My dear Flora, do you 
 know what you are saying? You must be jesting! There 
 is not a woman in England who would be insensible to 
 the honor of Goodwood's proposals. You are jesting, 
 Flora!" 
 
 " T am not, indeed ! " 
 
 " You mean to say, you could positively think oi' reject- 
 ing him !" cried Lady Marabout, rising from her cliair in 
 the intensity of her amazement, convinced that she was 
 the victim of some horrible hallucinatiou.
 
 200 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 " Why should it surprise you if I did?" 
 
 " Why?" repeated Lady Marabout, indignantly. "Do 
 you ask me why f You must be a child, indeed, or a 
 consummate actress, to put such a question ; excuse me, 
 my dear, if I speak a little strongly : you perfectly be- 
 wilder me, and I confess I cannot see your motives or 
 your meaning in the least. You have made a conquest 
 such as the proudest women in the peerage have vainly 
 tried to make ; you have one of the highest titles in the 
 country offered to you ; you have won a man whom every- 
 body declared would never be won ; you have done this, 
 pardon me, without either birth or foi'tune on your own 
 side, and then you speak of rejecting Goodwood — Good- 
 wood, of all the men in England ! You cannot be serious, 
 Flora, or, if you are, you must be mad !" 
 
 Lady Marabout spoke more hotly than Lady Marabout 
 had ever spoken in all her life. Goodwood absolutely 
 won — Goodwood absolutely "come to the point" — the 
 crowning humiliation of the Hauttons positively within 
 her grasp — her Marathon and Lemnos actually gained ! 
 and all to be lost and flung away by the unaccountable 
 caprice of a wayward child ! It was sufficient to exasper- 
 ate a saint, and a saint Lady Marabout never pretendeci 
 to be. 
 
 Flora Montolieu toyed recklessly with her fan. 
 
 "You told Sir Philip this evening, I think, of " 
 
 "I hinted it to him, my dear — yes. Philip has known 
 all along how much I desired it, and as GoodW'Ood is one 
 of his oldest and most favorite friends, I knew it would 
 give him sincere pleasure both for my sake and Good- 
 wood's, and yours too, for I think Philip likes you as 
 much as he ever does any young girl — better, indeed; 
 and I could not imagine — I could not dream for an 
 instant — that there was any doubt of your acceptation, as, 
 indeed, there cannot be. You have been jesting to worry 
 me, Flora!"
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 20i 
 
 Little Montolieu rose, threw her fan aside, as if ita 
 ivory stems had been liot iron, and leaned against the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 " You advise me to accept Lord Goodwood, then, Lady- 
 Marabout ? " 
 
 " My love, if you need my advice, certainly ! — such an 
 alliance will never be proffered to you again ; the brilliant 
 position it will place you in I surely have no need to point 
 out ! " returned Lady Marabout. " The little hypocrite ! " 
 she mused, angrily, " as if her own mind were not fully 
 made up — as if any girl in Europe would hesitate over 
 accepting the Doncaster coronet — as if a nameless Mon- 
 tolieu could doubt for a moment her own delight at being 
 created Marchioness of Goodwood ! Such a triumph as 
 that — why I would n't credit any woman who pretended 
 she was n't dazzled by it ! " 
 
 " I thought you did not approve of marriages of con- 
 venience?" 
 
 Lady Marabout played a tattoo — slightly perplexed 
 tattoo — with her spoon in her Sevres saucer. 
 
 " No more I do, my dear — that is, under some circum- 
 stances ; it is impossible to lay down a fixed rule for 
 everything! Marriages of convenience — well, perhaps 
 not ; but as I understand these words, they mean a mere 
 business affair, arranged as they are in France, without 
 the slightest regard to the inclinations of either ; merely 
 regarding whether the incidents of fortune, birth, and 
 station are equal and suitable. Marriages de convenance 
 are when a parvenu barters his gold for good blood, or 
 where an ancienne j)rince8se mends her fortune with a 
 nouveau riche, profound indifference, meanwhile, on each 
 Bide. I do not call this so ; decidedly not ! Goodwood 
 must be very deeply attached to you to have forgotten 
 his detestation of marriage, and laid such a title as his at 
 your feet. Have you any idea of the weight of the Dukes 
 of Doncaster in the country? Have you any notion of
 
 202 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 what their rent-roll is? Have you any conception of 
 their enormous influence, their very high place, the mag- 
 nificence of their seats ? Helmsley almost equals Windsor ! 
 All these are yours if you will ; and you affect to hesi- 
 tate " 
 
 " To let Lord Goodwood buy me ! " 
 
 "Buy you? Your phraseology is as strange as my 
 rfou's!" 
 
 " To a(;cept him only for the coronet and the rent-roll, 
 his position and his Helmsley, seems not a very grateful 
 and flattering return for his preference ? " 
 
 " I do not see that at all, said Lady Marabout, irritably. 
 Is there anything more annoying than to have unwelcome 
 truths thrust in our teeth ? " It is not as though he were 
 odious to you — a hideous man, a coarse man, a cruel man, 
 whose very presence repelled you. Goodwood is a man 
 quite attractive enough to merit some regard, independent 
 of his position ; you have an affectionate nature, you 
 would soon grow attached to him " 
 
 Flora Montolieu shook her head. 
 
 "And, in fact," she went on, warming with her subject, 
 and speaking all the more determinedly because she was 
 speaking a little against her conscience, and wholly for 
 her inclinations, " my dear Flora, if you need persuasion 
 — which you must pardon me if I doubt your doing in 
 your heart, for I cannot credit any woman as being in- 
 sensible to the suit of a future Duke of Doncaster, or 
 invulnerable to the honor it does her — if you need per- 
 suasion, I should think I need only refer to the happiness 
 it will afford your poor dear mother, amidst her many 
 trials, to hear of so brilliant a triumph for you. You are 
 proud — Goodwood will place you in a position where 
 pride may be indulged with impunity, nay, with advan- 
 tage. Y^ou are ambitious — what can flatter your ambition 
 more than such an offer. You are clever — as Goodwood's 
 wife you may lead society like Madame de Kambouillet
 
 LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES. 203 
 
 or immerse yourself in political intrigue like the Duchess 
 of Devonshire. It is an offer which places within your 
 reach everything most dazzling and attractive, and it ia 
 one, my dear Flora, which you must forgive me if I say 
 a young girl of obscure rank, as rank goes, and no fortune 
 whatever, should pause before she lightly rejects. You 
 cannot afford to be fastidious as if you were an heiress or 
 a lady-in-your-own-right." 
 
 That was as ill-natured a thing as the best-natured lady 
 in Christendom ever said on the spur of self-interest, and 
 it stung Flora Montolieu more than her hostess dreamed. 
 
 The color flushed into her face and her eyes flashed. 
 
 " You have said sufficient, Lady Marabout. I accept 
 the Marquis to-morrow ! " 
 
 And taking up her fan and her opera-cloak, leaving 
 the discarded roses unheeded on the floor, she bade her 
 chaperone good-night, and floated out of the dressing- 
 room, while Lady Marabout sat stirring the cream in a 
 second cup of coffee, a good deal puzzled, a little awed by 
 the odd turn affairs had taken, with a slight feeling of 
 guilt for her own share in the transaction, an uncomfort- 
 able dread lest the day should ever come when Flora 
 should reproach her for having persuaded her into the 
 marriage, a comfortable conviction that nothing but good 
 could come of such a brilliant and enviable alliance, and, 
 above all other conflicting feelings, one delicious, domi- 
 nant, glorified security of triumph over the Hauttons, 
 zn^re et filles. 
 
 But when morning dawned, Lady Marabout's horizon 
 seemed cleared of all clouds, and only radiant with un- 
 shadowed sunshine. Goodwood was coming, and coming 
 to be accepted. 
 
 She seemed already to read the newspaper paragra])hs 
 announcing his capture and Flora's conquest, already to 
 hear the Ilauttons' enforced congratulations, already to 
 see the nuptial l)arty gathered round the altar rail of St.
 
 204 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 George's. Lady Marabout had never felt in a sunnier, 
 more light-hearted mood, never more completely at peace 
 with herself and all the world as she sat in her boudoir 
 at her writing-table, penning a letter which began : 
 
 " My dearest Lilla, — What happiness it gives me 
 to congratulate you on the brilliant future opening to 
 your sweet Flora " 
 
 And which would have continued, no doubt, with 
 similar eloquence if it had not been interrupted by 
 Soames opening the door and announcing " Sir Philip 
 Carruthers," who walked in, touched his mother's brow 
 with his moustaches, and went to stand on the hearth with 
 his arm on the mantelpiece. 
 
 " My dear Philip, you never congratulated me last 
 night; pray do so now !" cried Lady Marabout, delight- 
 edly, wiping her pen on the pennon, which a small ormolu 
 knight obligingly carried for that useful purpose. Ladies 
 always wipe their pens as religiously as they bolt their 
 bedroom doors, believe in cosmetics, and go to church on 
 a Sunday. 
 
 " Was your news of last night true, then?" asked Car- 
 ruthers, bending forwards to roll Bijou on its back with 
 his foot. 
 
 " That Goodwood had spoken definitively to her? Per- 
 fectly. He proposed to her yesterday at the Frangipane 
 concert — not at the concert, of course, but afterwards, 
 when tliey were alone for a moment in the conservatories. 
 The Duchess interrupted them — did it on purpose — and 
 he had only time to whisper hurriedly he should come 
 this morning to hear his fate. I dare say he felt tolerably 
 secure of it. Last night I naturally spoke to Flora about 
 it. Oddly enough, she seemed positively to think at first 
 of rejecting him — rejecting him! — only fiincy the mad- 
 ness! Between ourselves, I don't think she cares any- 
 thing about him, but with su'li an alliance as that, of
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 205 
 
 course I felt it my bounden duty to counsel her as 
 Btrongly as I could to accept the unequalled position it 
 proffered her. Indeed, it could have been only a girl's 
 waywardness, a child's caprice to pretend to hesitate, for 
 she is very ambitious and very clever, and I would never 
 believe that any woman — and she less than any — would 
 be proof against such dazzling prospects. It would be 
 absurd, you know, Philip. Whether it was hypocrisy or 
 a real reluctance, because she does n't feel for him the 
 idealic love she dreams of, I don't know, but I put it 
 before her in a way that plainly showed her all the bril- 
 liance of the proffered position, and before she bade me 
 good night, I had vanquished all her scruples, if she had 
 any, and I am able to say " 
 
 "Good God, what have you done?" 
 
 " Done ? " re-echoed Lady Marabout, vaguely terrified. 
 " Certainly I persuaded her to accept him. She has ac- 
 cepted him probably ; he is here now ! I should have 
 been a strange person indeed to let any young girl in my 
 charge rashly refuse such an offer." 
 
 " You induced her to accept him ! God forgive you ! " 
 
 Lady Marabout turned T^al^ as death, and gazed at him 
 with undefinable terror • 
 
 "Philip! You do not mean " 
 
 " Great Heavens ! have you never seen, mother ?" 
 
 He leaned his arms on the marble, with his forehead 
 bowed upon them, and Lady Marabout gazed at him still, 
 as a bird at a basilisk. 
 
 "Philip, Philip! what have I done? How could I 
 tell?" she murmured, distractedly, tears welling into her 
 eyes. " If I had only known ! But how could I dream 
 that child had any fascination for you? How could I 
 fancy " 
 
 " Hush ! No, you are in no way to blame. You could 
 flot know it. /barely knew it till last night," he answered, 
 
 gently. 
 
 18
 
 206 LADY MARAuOUt's TROUBLES. 
 
 ** Philip loves her, and I have made her marry Good* 
 wood ! " thought Lady Marabout, agonized, remorseful, 
 conscience-struck, heart-broken in a thousand ways at 
 once. The climax of her woes was reached, life had no 
 greater bitterness for her left ; her son loved, and loved 
 the last Avoman in England she would have had him love; 
 that woman was given to another, and she had been the 
 instrument of wrecking the life to save or serve which she 
 would have laid down her own in glad and instant sacri- 
 fice ! Lady Marabout bowed her head under a grief, 
 before which the worries so great before, the schemes but 
 so lately so precious, the small triumphs just now so all- 
 absorbing, shrank away into their due insignificance. 
 Philip suffering, and suffering through her ! Self glided 
 far away from Lady Marabout's memory then, and she 
 hated herself, more fiercely than the gentle-hearted soul 
 had ever hated any foe, for her own criminal share in 
 bringing down this unforeseen terrific blow on her beloved 
 one's head. 
 
 "Philip, my dearest, what can I do?" she cried, dis- 
 tractedly ; " if I had thought — if I had guessed " 
 
 " Do nothing. A woman who could give herself to a 
 man whom she did not love should be no wife of mine, 
 let me suffer what I might." 
 
 " But I persuaded her, Philip! Mine is the blame !" 
 
 His lips quivered painfully : 
 
 " Had she cared for me as — I may have fancied, she 
 had not been so easy to persuade ! She has much force 
 of character, Avhere she wills. He is here now, you say ; 
 I cannot risk meeting him just yet. Leave me for a little 
 while ; leave me — I am best alone." 
 
 Gentle though he always was to her, his mother knew 
 him too well ever to dispute his will, and the most bitter 
 tears Lady Marabout had ever known, ready as she was 
 to weep for other people's woes, and rarely as she had 
 to weep for any of her own, choked her utterance and
 
 ^ADY marabout's TROUBLES. 207 
 
 uJ Hided her eyes as she obeyed and ch)sed the door on 
 his solitude. Philip — her idolized Philip — that ever 
 her house should have sheltered this creature to bring a 
 curse upon him ! that ever she should have brought this 
 tropical flower to poison the air for the only one dear to 
 her! 
 
 " I am justly punished," thought Lady Marabout, 
 humbly and penitentially — " justly. I thought wickedly 
 of Anne Hautton. I did not do as I would be done by. 
 I longed to enjoy their mortification. I advised Flora 
 against my own conscience and against hers. I am justly 
 chastised ! But that he should suffer through me, that 
 my fault has fallen on his head, that my Philip, my 
 noble Philip, should love and not be loved, and that / 
 have brought it on him Good Heaven ! what is that ?" 
 
 " That " was a man Avhom her eyes, being misty with 
 tears, Lady Marabout had brushed against, as she ascended 
 the staircase, ere she perceived him, and who, passing on 
 with a muttered apology, was down in the hall and out 
 of the door Mason held open before she had recovered 
 the shock of the rencontre, much before she had a possi- 
 bility of recognizing him through the mist aforesaid. 
 
 A fear, a hope, a joy, a dread, one so woven with 
 another there was no disentangling them, sprang up like 
 a ray of light in Lady Marabout's heart — a possibility 
 dawned in her: to be rejected as an impossibility? Lady 
 Marabout crossed the ante-room, her heart throbbing 
 tumultuously, spurred on to noble atonement and reckless 
 self-sacrifice, if fate allowed them. 
 
 She opened the drawing-room door ; Flora Montolieu 
 was alone. 
 
 " Flora, you have seen Goodwood ? " 
 
 She turned, her own face as pale and her own eyes as 
 dim as Lady Marabout's. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 *' You have refused him ?"
 
 208 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 
 
 Flora Montolieu misconstrued her chaperont.'s eager- 
 ness, and answered haughtily enough : 
 
 " I have told him that indifference would be too poor 
 a return for his affections to insult him with it, and that 
 I would not do him the injury of repaying his trust by 
 falsehood and deception. I meant what I said to you 
 last night ; I said it on the spur of pain, indignation, no 
 matter what ; but I could not keep my word when the 
 trial came." 
 
 Lady Marabout bent down and kissed her, with a fer- 
 vent gratitude that not a little bewildered the recipient. 
 
 " My dear child ! thank God ! little as I thought to say 
 60. Flora, tell me, you love some one else?" 
 
 "Lady Marabout, you have no right " 
 
 "Yes, I have a right — the strongest right! Is not 
 that other my son ?" 
 
 Flora Montolieu looked up, then dropped her head and 
 burst into tears — tears that Lady Marabout soothed then, 
 tears that Carruthers soothed, yet more effectually still, 
 five minutes afterwards. 
 
 " That / should have sued that little Montolieu, and 
 sued to her for Philip ! " mused Lady Marabout. " It is 
 very odd. Perhaps I get used to being crossed and dis- 
 appointed and trampled on in every way and by every- 
 body ; but certainly, though it is most contrary to my 
 wishes, though a child like that is the last person I should 
 ever have chosen or dreamt of as Philip's wife, though it 
 is a great pain to me, and Anne Hautton of course will 
 be delighted to rake up everything she can about the 
 Montolieus, and it is heart-breaking when one thinks how 
 a Carruthers viir/ht marry, how the Carruthers always 
 have married, rarely any but ladies in their own right for 
 countless generations, still it is very odd, but I certainly 
 feel happier than ever I did in my life, annoyed as I am 
 and grieved as I am. It is heart-breaking (that horrid
 
 LADY marabout's TROUBLES. 209 
 
 John Montolieu ! I wonder what rehxtiou one stands in 
 legally to the father of one's son's wife; I will ask Sir 
 Fitzroy Kelley ; not that the Montolieus are likely to 
 come to England) — it is very sad when one thinks whom 
 Philip might have married ; and yet she certainly is in- 
 finitely charming, and she really apj)reciates and under- 
 stands him. If it were not for what Anne Hautton will 
 always say, I could really be pleased ! To think what 
 an anxious hope, what a dreaded ideal, Philip's wife has 
 always been to me ; and now, just as I had got reconciled 
 to his determined bachelor preferences, and had grown to 
 argue with him that it was best he should n't marry, he 
 goes and falls in love with this child ! Everything is at 
 cross-purposes in life, I think! There is only one thing 
 I am resolved upon — I will never chaperone anybody 
 again." 
 
 And she kept her vow. None can christen her Lady 
 Tattersall any longer with point, for there are no yearling 
 sales in that house in Lowndes Square, Avhatever there be 
 in the other domiciles of that fashionable quarter. Lady 
 Marabout has shaken that burden off her shoulders, and 
 moves in blissful solitude and tripled serenity through 
 Belgravia, relieved of responsibility, and wearing her 
 years as lightly, losing the odd trick at her whist as 
 sunnily, and beaming on the world in general as radiantly 
 as any dowager in the English Peerage. 
 
 That she was fully reconciled to Carruthers's change of 
 resolve was shown in the fact that when Anne Hautton 
 turned to her, on the evening of his marriage-day, after 
 the dinner to which Lady Marabout had bidden all her 
 friends, and a good nuiuy of her foes, with an amiable 
 murmur : 
 
 " I am .«o grieved for you, dearest Helena — I know 
 what your disappointment must be ! — what should / feel 
 
 if Hautton Your beUc-fiUe is charming, certainly, 
 
 very lovely ; but then — such a connection ! You have 
 lb* u
 
 210 LADY marabout's TKOUBLES 
 
 my deepest sympathies ! I always told you how wrong 
 you were when you fjxncied Goodwood admired little 
 Montolieu — I beg her pardon, I mean Lady Carrutheis 
 — but you will give your imagination such reins ! " 
 
 Lady Marabout smiled, calmly and amusedly, felt no 
 pang, and — thought of Philip. 
 
 I take it things must be very rose-colored with us when 
 we can smile sincerely on our enemies, and defeat tl At 
 Btings simply because we feel them not.
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE ; 
 
 PENDANT TO A PASTEL BY LA TOUR. 
 
 HAVE, among others hanging on my wall, a 
 pastel of La Tour's ; of the artist-lover of Julie 
 Fel, of the monarch of pastel listes, the touch of 
 whose crayons was a " brevet of wit and of beauty," and 
 on whose easel bloomed afresh the laughing eyes, the 
 brilliant tints, the rose-hued lips of all the loveliest women 
 of the "Rfegne Galant," from the princesses of the Blood 
 of the House of Bourbon to the princesses of the green- 
 room of the Comedie-Francaise. Painted in the days of 
 Louis Quinze, the light of more than a century having 
 fallen on its soft colors to fade and blot them with the icy 
 brush of time, my pastel is still fresh, still eloquent. The 
 genius that created it is gone — gone the beauty that in- 
 spired it — but the picture is deathless ! It shows me the 
 face of a woman, of a beautiful woman, else, be sure she 
 would not have been honored by the crayons of La Tour ; 
 her full Southern lips are parted with a smile of triumph ; 
 a chef-d'oeuvre of coquetry, a head-dress of lace and 
 pearls and little bouquets of roses is on her unpowdered 
 hair, which is arranged much like Julie Fel's herself in 
 the portrait that hangs, if I remember right, at the Mu- 
 see de Saint Qucntin ; and her large eyes are glancing at 
 you with languor, malice, victory, all commingled. At 
 the back of tlie jjicture is written "JNIHc. Tliaigelic Du- 
 
 inarsais;" the letters are faded undye'lluw, but the pastel 
 
 (-11 j
 
 212 A 8TUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 is living and laughing yet, through the divine touch of 
 the genius of La Tour. With its perfume of dead glories, 
 with its odor of the Beau Siecle, the pastel hangs on my 
 wall, living relic of a buried age, and sometimes in my 
 mournful moments the full laughing lips of my pastel 
 will part, and breathe, and speak to me of the distant 
 past, when Thargelie Dumarsais saw all Paris at her feet, 
 and was not humbled then as now by being only valued 
 and remembered for the sake of the talent of La Tour. 
 My beautiful pastel gives me many confidences. I will 
 betray one to you — a single leaf from a life of the eigh- 
 teenth century. 
 
 THE FIRST MORNING. 
 
 In the heart of Lorraine, nestled down among its woods, 
 stood an old chateau that might have been the chateau of 
 the Sleeping Beauty of fairy fame, so sequestered it stood 
 amidst its trees chained together by fragrant fetters of 
 honeysuckle and wild vine, so undisturbed slept the morn- 
 ing shadows on the wild thyme that covered the turf, so 
 unbroken was the silence in which tlie leaves barely stirred, 
 and the birds folded their wings and hushed their song till 
 the heat of the noonday should be passed. Beyond the 
 purple hills stretching up in the soft haze of distance in 
 the same province of laughing, luxurious, sunlit Lorraine, 
 was Luneville, the Luneville of Stanislaus, Montesquieu, 
 of Voltaire, of Henault, of Boufflers, a Versailles in 
 miniature, even possessing a perfect replica of Pompadour 
 in its own pretty pagan of a Marquise. Within a few 
 leagues was Luneville, but the echo of its mots and mad- 
 rigals did not reach over the hills, did not profane the 
 sunny air, did not mingle with the vintage-song of the 
 vine-dressers, the silver babble of the woodland brook, 
 the hushed chant of the Ave Maria, the vesper bells
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 21& 
 
 chimed from the churches and monasteries, which made 
 the Side music known or heard in this little valley of 
 Lorraine. 
 
 The chateau of Grande Charmille stood nestled in its 
 woods, gray, lonely, still, silent as death, yet not gloomy, 
 for white pigeons circled above its pointed towers, brilliant 
 drafron-flies fluttered above the broken basin of the fouu- 
 tain that sang as gayly as it rippled among the thyme as 
 though it fell into a marble cup, and bees hummed their 
 busy happy buzz among the jessamine that clung to its 
 ivy-covered walls — walls built long before Lorraine had 
 ceased to be a kingdom and a power, long before a craven 
 and effeminated Valois had dared to kick the dead body 
 of a slaughtered Guise. Not gloomy with the golden 
 light of a summer noon playing amidst the tangled boughs 
 and on the silvered lichens ; not gloomy, for under the 
 elm-boughs on the broken stone steps that led to the 
 fountain, her feet half buried in violet-roots and wild 
 thyme, leaning her head on her hand, as she looked 
 into the water, where the birds flew down to drink, and 
 fluttered their wings fearless of her presence, was a 
 young girl of sixteen — and if women sometimes darken 
 lives, it must be allowed that they always illumine land- 
 scapes ! 
 
 Aline, when Boufflers saw her in the spring morning, 
 in all the grace of youth and beauty, unconscious of 
 themselves, made not a prettier picture than this young 
 dreamer under the elm-boughs of the Lorraine woods, as 
 she bent over the water, watching it bubble and splash 
 from the fountain-spout, and hide itself with a rippling 
 murmur under the broad green reeds and the leaves of 
 the water-lily. She was a charming picture : a brunette 
 with long ebon tresses, with her lashes drooping over her 
 black, languid, almond-shaped eyes, a smile on her half- 
 pouted lips, and all the innocence and dawning beauty 
 of her sixteen years about her, while she sat on the
 
 214 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 broken steps, now brushing the water-drops off the violets, 
 now weaving the reeds into a pretty, useless toy, now 
 beckoning the birds that came to peck on the rose-sprays 
 beside her. 
 
 " Favette ! where are your dreams?" 
 
 Favette, the young naiad of the Lorraine elm-woods, 
 looked up, the plait of rushes dropping from her hands, 
 and a warm sudden blush tinging her cheeks and brow 
 with a tint like that on the damask rose-leaves that had 
 fallen into the water, and floated there like delicate shells. 
 
 "Mon Dieu, Monsieur Leon ! how you frightened me ! " 
 
 And like a startled fawn, or a young bird glancing 
 round at a rustle amidst the leaves, Favette sprang up, 
 half shy, half smiling, all her treasures gathered from 
 the woods — of flowers, of mosses, of berries, of feathery 
 grasses, of long ivy-sprays — falling from her lap on to 
 the turf in unheeded disorder. 
 
 " / frightened you, Favette ? Surely not. Are you 
 sorry to see me, then ? " 
 
 " Sorry ? Oh no. Monsieur Leon ! " and Favette glanced 
 through her thick curled lashes, slyly yet archly, and 
 began to braid again her plait of rushes. 
 
 " Come, tell me, then, what and whom were you dream- 
 ing of, ma mie, as you looked down into the water ? Tell 
 me, Favette. You have no secrets from your playmate, 
 your friend, your brother?" 
 
 Favette shook her head, smiling, and plaited her rushes 
 all wrong, the blush on her cheeks as bright as that on 
 the cups of the rose-leaves that the wind shook down in 
 a fresh shower into the brook. 
 
 "Come, tell me, mignonne. Was it — of me?" 
 
 " Of you ? Well , perhaps — yes ! " 
 
 It was first love that whispered in Favette's pretty voice 
 those three little words ; it was first love that answered in 
 his, as he threw himself down on the violet-tufted turf at 
 her feet, as BouflBers at Aline's.
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QITINZE. 215 
 
 " All, Favette, so should it be ! foi- every liope, every 
 dream, every thought of 7nine, is centred in and colored 
 by you." 
 
 " Yet you can leave me to-day," pouted Favette, with 
 a sigh an-d a 7noue mutine, and gathering tears in her 
 large gazelle eyes. 
 
 " Leave you ? Would to Heaven I were not forced ! 
 But against a king's will what power has a subject ? None 
 are too great, none are too lowly, to be touched by that 
 iron hand if they provoke its grasp. Vincennes yawns 
 for those Avho dare to think, For-l'Eveque for those who 
 dare to jest. Monsieur de Voltaire was sent to the Bas- 
 tille for merely defending a truth and his own honor 
 against De Rohan-Chabot. Who am I, that I should 
 look for better grace ? " 
 
 Favette struck him, with her plaited rushes, a reproach- 
 ful little blow. 
 
 " Monsieur Vincennes — Monsieur Voltaire — who are 
 they ? I know nothing of those stupid people ! " 
 
 He smiled, and fondly stroked her hair : 
 
 " Little darling ! The one is a prison that manacles 
 the deadly crimes of Free Speech and Free Thought; 
 the other, a man who has suffered for both, but loves 
 both still, and will, sooner or later, help to give both to 
 the world " 
 
 " Ah, you think of your studies, of your ambitions, of 
 your great heroes ! You think nothing of me, save to 
 call me a little darling. You are cruel, Monsieur Leon ! " 
 
 And Favette twisted her hand from his grasp with 
 petulant sorrow, and dashed away her tears — the teai-s 
 of sixteen — as bright and free from bitterness as the 
 water-drops on the violet-bells. 
 
 " / cruel — and to you ! My heart must indeed be 
 badly echoed by my lips, if you have cause to fancy so a 
 single moment. Cruel to you ? Favette, Favette ! is a 
 man ever cruel to the dearest thing in his life, the dearest
 
 216 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUTNZE. 
 
 name in his thoughts ? If I smiled I meant no sneer ; 1 
 love you as you are, mignonne ; the picture is so fair, one 
 touch added, or one touch effaced, would mar the whole 
 in iny eyes. I love you as you are ! with no knowledge 
 hut what the good sisters teach you in their convent soli- 
 tude, and what the songs of the birds, the voices of the 
 flowers, whisper to you of their woodland lore. I love 
 you as you are ! Every morning when I am far away 
 from you, and from Lorraine, I shall think of you gather- 
 ing the summer roses, calling the birds about you, bend- 
 ing over the fountain to see it mirror your own beauty ; 
 every evening I shall think of you leaning from the 
 window, chanting softly to yourself the Ora pro nobis, 
 while the shadows deepen, and the stars we have so often 
 watched together come out above the pine-hills. Favette, 
 Favette ! exile will have the bitterness of death to me : 
 to give me strength to bear it, tell me that you love me 
 more dearly than as the brother you have always called 
 me ; that you will so love me when I shall be no longer 
 here beside you, but shall have to trust to memory and 
 fidelity to guard for me in absence the priceless treasure 
 of your heart?" 
 
 Favette's head drooped, and her hands played nervously 
 with the now torn and twisted braid of rushes : he saw 
 her heart beat under its muslin corsage, like a bee caught 
 and caged in the white leaves of a lily ; and she glanced 
 at him under her lashes with a touch of naive coquetry. 
 
 " If I tell you so, what gage have I, Monsieur Leon, 
 that, a few months gone by, you will even remember it? 
 In those magnificent cities you will soon forget Lorraine ; 
 with the grandes dames of the courts you will soon cease 
 to care for Favette?" 
 
 " Look in my eyes, Favette, they alone can answer you 
 as I would answer ! Till we meet again none shall sup- 
 plant you for an hour, none rob you of one thought ; you 
 have my first love, you will have my last. Favette, you 
 believe me?"
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 217 
 
 "Yes — I believe!" murmured Favette, resting her 
 large eyes fondly on him. " We will meet as we part, 
 though you ai'e the swallow, free to take flight over the 
 seas to foreign lands, and I am the violet, that must stay 
 where it is rooted in the Lorraine woods ! " 
 
 "Accept the augury," he whispered, resting his lipa 
 upon her low smooth brow. " Does not the swallow ever 
 return to the violet, holding it fairer than all the gaudy 
 tropical flowers that may have tempted him to rest on the 
 wing and delay his homeward flight ? Does not the violet 
 ever welcome him the same, in its timid winning spring- 
 tide loveliness, when he returns to, as when he quitted, 
 the only home he loves ? Believe the augury, Favette ; 
 we shall meet as we part ! " 
 
 And they believed the augury, as they believed in life, 
 in love, in faith ; they who were beginning all, and had 
 proved none of the treacherous triad ! 
 
 What had he dreamed of in his solitary ancestral wood* 
 fairer than this Lorraine violet, that had grown up with 
 him, side by side, since he, a boy of twelve, gathered 
 heaths from the clefts of the rocks that the little child 
 of six years old cried for and could not reach ? What 
 had she seen that she loved half so well as M. le Cheva- 
 lier from the Castle, whom her uncle, the Cure, held as 
 his dearest and most brilliant pupil, whose eyes always 
 looked so lovingly into hers, and whose voice was always 
 lavishing fond names on his petite Favette ? 
 
 They believed the augury, and were happy even in the 
 sweet sorrow of parting — sorrow that they had never 
 known before — as they sat together in the morning sun- 
 light, while the water bubbled among the violet tufts, 
 among the grasses and wild thyme, and the dragon-flies 
 fluttered their green and gold and purple wings amidst 
 the tendrils of the vines, and the rose-leaves, drifted 
 gently by the wind, floated down the brook, till they were 
 lost in deepening shadow under the drooping boughs.
 
 218 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SECOND MORNING. 
 
 " Savez-vous que Favart va ecrire une nouvelle comedie 
 — La Chercheuse d'Esprit?" 
 
 " Vraiment ? II doit bien ecrire cela, car il s'occupe 
 toujours a le chercher, et n'arrive jamais a le trouver!" 
 
 The mot had true feminine malice, but the lips that spoke 
 it were so handsome, that had even poor Favart himself, 
 the poet-pastrycook who composed operas and comedies 
 while he made meringues and fanfreluches, and dreamed 
 of libretti while he whisked the cream for a supper, been 
 within hearing, they would have taken the smart from 
 the sting ; and, as it was, the hit only caused echoes of 
 Boftly-tuned laughter, for the slightest word of those lips 
 it was the fashion through Paris just then to bow to, 
 applaud, and re-echo. 
 
 Before her Psyche, shrouded in cobweb lace, powdered 
 by Martini, gleaming with pearls and emeralds, scented 
 with most delicate amber, making her morning toilette, 
 and receiving her morning levee according to the fashion 
 of the day, sat the brilliant satirist of poor Favart, The 
 ruelle was crowded ; three marshals, De Richelieu, Low- 
 endal, and Maurice de Saxe ; a prince, De Soubise ; a 
 poet, Claude Dorat ; an abbe, Voisenon ; a centenarian, 
 Saint-Aulaire ; peers uncounted, De Bi^vre, De Caylus, 
 De Villars, D'Etissac, Duras, D' Argenson — a crowd of 
 others — surrounded and superintended her toilette, in a 
 glittering troop of courtiers and gentlemen. Dames 
 d'atours (for she had her maids of honor as well as Marie 
 Leczinska) handed her her fiacons of perfume, or her 
 numberless notes, on gold salvers, chased by Reveil ; the 
 ermine beneath her feet, humbly sent by the Russian 
 ambassador — far superior to v»rhat the Czarina sent to 
 Madame de Mailly — had cost two thousand louis ; her
 
 A STUDf A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 219 
 
 bedroom outshone in luxury any at Versailles, Clioisy, or 
 La Muette, with its Venetian glass, its medallions of 
 Fragonard, its plaques of Sevres, its landscapes of Wat- 
 teau, framed in the carved and gilded wainscoting, its 
 Chinese lamps, swinging by garlands of roses, its laugh- 
 ing Cupids, buried under flowers, painted in fresco above 
 the alcove, its hangings of velvet, of silk, of lace ; and 
 its cabinets, its screens, its bonbonnieres, its jewel-boxes, 
 were costly as those of the Marquises de Pompadour or 
 De Prie. 
 
 Who Avas she ? — a Princess of the Blood, a Duchess 
 of France, a mistress of the King ? 
 
 Lords of the chamber obeyed her wishes, ministers 
 signed lettres de cachet at her instance ; " ces messieurs," 
 la Queue de la Regence, had their rendezvous at her sup- 
 pers ; she had a country villa that eclipsed Trianon ; she 
 had fetes that outshone the fetes at Versailles ; she had a 
 " droit de chasse " in one of the royal districts ; she had 
 the first place on the easels of Coypel, Lancret, Pater, 
 Vanloo, La Tour ; the first place in the butterfly odas of 
 Crebillon le Gai, Claude Dorat ; Voisenon. 
 
 Who was she? — the Queen of France? No; much 
 more — the Queen of Paris! 
 
 She was Tharg^lie Dumarsais ; matchless as Claire 
 Clairon, beautiful as Madeleine Gaussin, resistless as 
 Sophie Arnould, great as Adrienne Lecouvreur. She 
 was a Power in France — for was she not the Empress 
 of the Comedie ? If Madame Lenormand d'Etioles ruled 
 the government at Versailles, Mademoiselle Thargelie 
 Dumarsais ruled the world at Paris ; and if the King's 
 favorite could sign her enemies, by a smile, to the Bas- 
 tille, the Court's favorite could sign hers, by a frown, to 
 For-l'Eveque. 
 
 The foye-*" was nightly filled while she played in Zaire, 
 or Poiyeucte, or Les Folies Amoureuses, with a court of 
 princes and poets, marshals and marquises, beaux esprits
 
 220 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 and abbes galants ; and mighty nobles strewed with bou- 
 quets the path from her carriage to the coulisses ; bouquets 
 she trod on with nonchalant dignity, as though flowers 
 only bloomed to have the honor of dying under her foot. 
 Louis Quinze smilingly humored her caprices, content 
 to wait until it was her pleasure to play at his private 
 theatre ; dukes, marquises, viscounts, chevaliers, vied Avho 
 should ruin himself most magnificently and most utterly 
 for her; and lovers the most brilliant and the most flat- 
 tering, from Richelieu, Roi de Ruelles, to Dorat, poet of 
 boudoir-graces and court-Sapphos, left the titled beauties 
 of Versailles for the self-crowned Empress of the Fran- 
 9ais. She had all Paris for her chentela, from Versailles 
 to the Caveau ; for even the women she deposed, the 
 actors she braved, the journalists she consigned to For- 
 I'Eveque, dared not raise their voice against the idol of 
 the hour. A Queen of France ? Bah ! Pray what could 
 Marie Leczinska, the pale, dull pietist, singing canticles 
 in her private chapel, compare for power, for sway, for 
 courtiers, for brilliant sovereignty, for unrivalled triumph, 
 with Thargelie Dumarsais, the Queen of the Theatre? 
 
 Ravishingly beautiful looked the matchless acti-ess as 
 she sat before her Psyche, flashing oeillades on the bril- 
 liant group who made every added aigrette, every addi- 
 tio«al bouquet of the coiffure, every little mouche, every 
 touch to the already perfect toilette, occasion for flattering 
 simile and soft-breathed compliment ; ravishingly beau- 
 tiful, as she laughed at Maurice de Saxe, or made a dis- 
 dainful moue at an impromptu couplet of Dorat's, or gave 
 a blow of her fan to Richelieu, or asked Saint-Aulaire 
 what he thought of Vanloo's portrait of her as Rodugune; 
 ravishingly beautiful, with her charms that disdained 
 alike rouge and marechale powder, and were matchless 
 by force of their own coloring, form, and voluptuous lan- 
 guor, when, her toilette finished, followed by her glitter- 
 ing crowd, she let Richelieu lead her to his carriage.
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUiS QUINZE. 221 
 
 There was a review of Guards on the plain at Sablona 
 that morning, a fete afterwards, at which she would be 
 Burrounded by the most brilliant staff of an army of No- 
 blesse, and Richelieu was at that moment the most favored 
 of her troop of lovers. M. le Due, as every one knows, 
 never sued at court or coulisse in vain, and the love of 
 Thargelie Dumarsais, though perhaps with a stronger 
 touch of romance in it than was often found in the atmos- 
 phere of the foyer, was, like the love of her time and her 
 class, as inconstant and vivacious, now settling here, now 
 lighting there, as any butterfly that fluttered among the 
 limes at Trianon. Did not the jest-loving jmrterre ever 
 ealute with gay laughter two lines in a bagatelle-comedy 
 of the hour — 
 
 Oui I'Amour pjipillonne, sans entraves, a son gr6 ; 
 Charg^ longtemps de fers, de soie meiue, il niourrait! — 
 
 when spoken by Thargelie Dumarsais — laughter that 
 hailed her as head-priestess of her pleasant creed, in a 
 city and a century where the creed was universal ? 
 
 "Ah, bonjour! You have not seen her before, have 
 you, semi-Englishman? You have found nothing like 
 her in the foggy isles, I wager you fifty louis !" cried one 
 of Thargelie Dumarsais's court, the Marquis de la Thoril- 
 liere, meeting a friend of his who had arrived in Paris 
 only the day before, M. le Chevalier de Tallemont des 
 Reaux, as Richelieu's cortege rolled away, and the ^lar- 
 quis crossed to his own carriage. 
 
 "Her? Whom? I have not been in Paris for six 
 years, you know. What can I tell of its idols, as I 
 remember of old that they change every hour?" 
 
 " True ! but, bon Dieu ! not to know la Dumarsais ! 
 What it must be to have been buried in those benighted 
 Britannic Isles ! Did you not see her in Richelieu'.s 
 
 carriage?" 
 It)*
 
 222 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 "No. I saw a carriage driving off with such an escort 
 and such fracas, that I thought it could belong to nobody 
 less than to Madame Lenormand d'Etioles; but I did not 
 observe it any further. Who is this beauty I ought to 
 have seen?" 
 
 " Thargelie Dumarsais, for whom we are all ruining 
 ourselves with the prettiest grace in the world, and for 
 whom you will do the same when you have been once to 
 the Fran9ais ; that is, if you have the good fortune to 
 attract her eyes and please her fancy, which you may do, 
 for the fogs have agreed with you, Leon ! — I should not 
 wonder if you become the fashion, and set the women 
 raving of you as ' leur zer zevalier ! ' " 
 
 " Thanks for the prophecy, but I shall not stay long 
 enough to fulfil it, and steal your myrtle crowns. I leave 
 again to-morrow." 
 
 " Leave f Sapristi ! See what it is to have become 
 half English, and imbibed a taste for spleen and solitude ! 
 Have you written another satire, or have you learned such 
 barbarism as to dislike Paris ? " 
 
 " Neither ; but I leave for Lorraine to-morrow. It is 
 five years since I saw my old pine-woods." 
 
 " Dame ! it is ten years since I saw the Avilds of Bre- 
 tagne, and I will take good care it shall be a hundred 
 before I see them again. Hors de Paris, c^est hors du 
 monde. Come with me to La Dumarsais's petit souper to- 
 night, and you will soon change your mind." 
 
 " My good Armand, you have not been an exile, as I 
 have ; you little know how I long for the very scent of 
 the leaves, the very smell of the earth at Grande Char- 
 niille ! But bah ! I talk in Hebrew to you. You have 
 been lounging away your days in titled beauties, petits 
 salons, making butterfly verses, learning their broidery, 
 their lisp, and their perfumes, talking to their parrots, 
 and using their cosmctiqucs, till you care for no air but
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 223 
 
 what is musk-scented ! But what of this Dumarsais of 
 yours — does she equal Lecouvreur?" 
 
 "Eclipses her! — with Paris as with Maurice de Saxe. 
 Thargelie Dumarsais is superb, mon cher — unequalled, 
 unrivalled ! We have had nothing like her for beauty, 
 for grace, for talent, nor, pardieu ! for extravagance ! 
 She ruined me last year in a couple of months. Richelieu 
 is in favor just now — with what woman is he not? 
 Thargelie is very fond of the Marshals of France ! Saxe 
 is fettered to her hand and foot, and the Duchesse de 
 Bouillon hates her as rancorously as she does Adrienne. 
 Come and see her play Phedre to-night, and you will re- 
 nounce Lorraine. I will take you to supper with her 
 afterwards ; she Avill permit any friend of mine entry, and 
 then, generous man that I am, I shall have put you en 
 chemin to sun yourself in her smiles and ingratiate your- 
 self in her favor. Don't give me too much credit for the 
 virtue though, for I confess I should like to see Richelieu 
 supplanted." 
 
 " Does his reign threaten to last long, then ? " 
 The Marquis shrugged his shoulders, and gave his 
 badine an expressive whisk. 
 
 "Dieu salt ! we are not prophets in Paris. It would be 
 as easy to say where that weathercock may have veered 
 to-morrow, as to predict where la Dumarsais's love may 
 have lighted ere a month ! Where are you going, may 
 I ask?" 
 
 " To see Lucille de Verdreuil. I knew her at Lune- 
 ville ; she and Madame de Boufflers were warm frieudft. 
 till Stanislaus, I believe, found Lucille's eyes lovelier 
 than Madame la Marquise deemed fit, and then they 
 quarrelled, as women ever do, with virulence in exact 
 proportion to the ardor of their fricndaliip." 
 
 "As the women quarrel at Clioi.sy for notre maitre ! 
 They will be friends again when l)oth have lost the game, 
 like Jjouise do Mailly and the Duchesse de ClialeuurouK.
 
 224 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 The poor Duchess ! Fitz-James and Maurepas, ChtLtillon 
 and Bouillon, Rochefoucauld and le Pere Perussot, all 
 together, were too strong for her. All the gossip of that 
 Metz affair reached you across the water, I suppose? 
 Those pests of Jesuits ! if they want him to be their Very 
 Christian King, and to cure him of his worship of Cu- 
 ])idon, they will have to pull down all the stones of La 
 Muette and the Pare aux Cerfs! What good is it to kill 
 one poor woman when women are as plentiful as roses at 
 Versailles ? And now let me drive you to Madame de 
 Vaudreuil ; if she do not convert you from your fancy 
 for Lorraine this morning, Thargelie Dumarsais will 
 to-night." 
 
 " Mon zer zevalier, Paris est ado'able ! Vous n^etes pas 
 se'ieiix en voulant le quitter, zen suis sure ! " cried the 
 Comtesse de Vaudreuil, in the pretty lisp of the day, a 
 charming little blonde, patched and powdered, nestled in 
 a chair before a fire of perfumed wood, teasing her mon- 
 key Zulme with a fan of Pater's, and giving a pretty 
 little sign of contempt and disbelief with some sprays of 
 jessamine employed in the chastisement of offenders more 
 responsible and quite as audacious as Zulme. 
 
 Her companion, her " zer zevalier," was a young man 
 of seven-and-twent)% with a countenance frank, engaging, 
 nobly cast, far more serious, far more thoughtful in its 
 expression, than was often seen in that laughing and 
 mocking age. Exiled when a mere boy for a satirical 
 pamphlet which had provoked the wrath of the Censeur 
 Royal, and might have cost him the Bastille but for in- 
 tercession from Luneville, he had passed his youth less in 
 pleasure than in those philosophical and political prob- 
 lems then beginning to agitate a few minds ; which were 
 developed later on in the " Encyclopedic," later still in 
 the Assemblee Nationale. Voltaire and Helvetius had 
 spoken well of him at Madame de Geoffrin's ; Claudine 
 de Tcncin had introduced him the night before in her
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 225 
 
 brilliaui salons ; the veteran Fonteuelle had said to him, 
 " 3fonsieur, covime censeur royal je refusal mon approba- 
 tion a voire brochure; comme homme libreje vous en Jell- 
 cite" — all that circle was prepared to receive him well, 
 the young Chevalier de Tallemont might make a felicitous 
 season in Paris if he chose, with the romance of his exile 
 about him, and Madame de Vaudreuil smiling kindly on 
 him. 
 
 " The country ! " she cried ; " the country is all very 
 charming in eclogues and pastorals, but out of them it is 
 a desert of ennui ! What can you mean, Leon, by leav- 
 ing Paris to-morrow ? Ah, mechant, there must be some- 
 thing we do not see, some love besides that of the Lor- 
 raine woods ! " 
 
 "Madame, is there not my father?" 
 
 " Bien zoli ! But at your age men are not so filial. 
 There is some other reason — but what ? Any love you 
 had there five years ago has hardly any attractions now. 
 Five years ! Ma foi, five months is an eternity that kills 
 the warmest passion ! " 
 
 " May there not be some love, madame, that time only 
 strengthens?" 
 
 " I never heard of it if there be. It would be a very 
 dreary affair, I should fancy, smouldering, smouldering 
 on and on like an ill-lit fii-c. Nobody would thank you 
 for it, mon cher. Acre .' Come, what is your secret? Tell 
 it me." 
 
 Leon de Tallemont smiled ; the smile of a man who 
 has happy thoughts, and is indifferent to ridicule. 
 
 " Madame, one can refuse you nothing! My secret? 
 It is a very sim]>le one. The greatest pang of my t^i- 
 forced exile was the ])arliug from one I loved ; the great- 
 est joy of my return is that I return to her." 
 
 " Bon Dieu ! comme c'est drole ! Here is a man talkinir 
 to me of love, and of a love not felt for me!'' thouirht 
 Madame la Comtesse, giving him a soft glance of her 
 
 P
 
 226 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 beautiful blue eyes. " You are a very strange man. You 
 have lived out of France till you have grown wretchedly 
 serious and eccentric. Loved this woman for five years ? 
 Leon ! Leon ! you are telling me a fairy tale. Who is 
 she, this enchantress ? She must have some mysterious 
 magic. Tell me — quick!" 
 
 " She is no enchantress, madame, and she has no magic 
 save the simple one of having ever been very dear to me. 
 We grew up together at Grande Charmille ; she was the 
 orphan niece of the Priest, a fond, innocent, laughing 
 child, fresh and fair, and as untouched by a breath of 
 impure air as any of the violets in the valley. She was 
 scarcely out of the years of childhood when I left her, 
 with beauty whose sweetest grace of all was its own un- 
 consciousness. Through my five long years of exile I 
 have remembered Favette as I saw her last under the 
 elm-boughs in the summer light, her eyes dim with the 
 tears of our parting, her young heart heaving with its 
 first grief. I have loved her too well for others to have 
 i:)ower to eflface or to supplant her ; of her only have I 
 thought, of her only have I dreamed, holding her but the 
 dearer as the years grew further from the hour of our 
 separation, nearer to the hour of our reunion. I have 
 heard no word of her since we parted ; but of Avhat value 
 is love without trust and fidelity in trial ? The beauty 
 of her childhood may have merged into the beauty of 
 womanhood, but I fear no other change in Favette. As 
 we parted so we vowed to meet, and I believe in her love 
 as in my own. I know that I shall find my Lorraine 
 violet without stain or soil. Madame, Favette is still 
 dearer to me now, Heaven help me, than five years ago. 
 Five years — five years — true! it is an eternity! Yet 
 the bitterness of the j^ast has faded for ever from me noiu, 
 and I only see — the future ! " 
 
 Madame de Vaudreuil listened in silence ; his words 
 stirred in her chords long untouched, never heard amidst
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 227 
 
 the mots, the madrigals, the laughter of her world of 
 Paris, Versailles, and Choisy. She struck him u little 
 blow with her jessamine-sprays, with a mist gathering 
 over her lovely blue eyes. 
 
 "Hush, hush, Leon! you speak in a tongue unknowu 
 here. A word of the heart amongst us sounds a word of 
 a Gaulois out of fashion — forbidden!" 
 
 III. 
 
 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The Fran9ais was crowded. Tharg6lie Dumarsais, 
 great in Electre, Chim^ne, Ines, as in " Ninette d la Coxir," 
 " Les Moissonneurs" or "Annette et lAibin," was playing 
 in " Fhedre." Louis Quinze was present, with all the 
 powdered marquises, the titled wits, the glittering gentle- 
 men of the Court of Versailles ; but no presence stayed 
 the shout of adoration with which the parterre welcomed 
 the idol of the hour, and Louis le Bien-airae (des femmes!) 
 himself added his royal quota to the ovation, and threw 
 at her feet a diamond, superb as any in his regalia. It 
 was whispered that the Most Christian King was grow- 
 ing envious of his favorite's favor with la Dumarsais, and 
 would, ere long, supersede him. 
 
 The foyer was filled with princes of the blood, mar- 
 shals of France, dukes, marquises, the elite of her troop 
 of lovers ; lords and gentlemen crowded the passages, 
 flinging their bouquets for her carpet as she passed ; and 
 poor scholars, young poets, youths without a sou — amongst 
 them Diderot, Gilbert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau — pressed 
 forward to catch a glimpse, by the light of the links, of 
 this beauty, on which only the eyes of grands seigneurs 
 who could dress Cupidon in a court habit parfile d'or 
 were allowed to gaze closely, as she left the Franc^ais, 
 after her unmatched and uninterrupted triumphs, and
 
 228 A STUDY /» LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 went to her carriage with Richelieu. The suppers of 
 Thargclie Dumarsais were renowned througli Paris ; thoy 
 equalled in magnificence the suppers of the Regency, 
 rivalled them for license, and surpassed them for wit. 
 All the world might flock to her fetes where she undis- 
 guisedly sought to surpass the lavishness of Versailles, 
 even by having showers of silver flung from her windows 
 to the people in the streets below ; but to her soupers d 
 huis clos only a chosen few were admitted, and men would 
 speak of having supped with la Dumarsais as boastfully 
 as women of having supped with the King at Choisy. 
 
 " What you have lost in not seeing her play Phedre f 
 Helvetius would have excused you ; all the talk of his 
 isalons is not worth one glance at la Dumarsais. Mon 
 ami ! you will be converted to Paris when once you have 
 seen her," said the Marquis de la Thorilliere, as his car- 
 riitge stopped in the Chaussee d'Antin. 
 
 Leon de Tallemont laughed, and thought of the eyes 
 that would brighten at his glance, and the heart that 
 would beat against his own once more under the vine 
 shadows of Lorraine. No new magic, however seductive, 
 should have strength to shake his allegiance to that Mem- 
 ory . and, true to his violet in Lorraine, he defied the 
 Queen of the Foyer. 
 
 " We are late, but that is always a more pardonable 
 fault than to be too early," said the Marquis, as they were 
 ushered across the vestibule, through several salons, into 
 the supj)er-roora, hung with rich tapestries of " Les 
 Nymphes au Bain," "Diane Chasseresse," and "Apollon 
 et Daphne ; " with gilded consoles, and rosewood buflets, 
 enamelled with medallion groups, and crowded with 
 Sevres and porcelaine de Saxe, while Venetian mirrors at 
 each end of the salle reflected the table, with its wines, 
 and fruits, and flowers, its gold dishes and Bohemian 
 glass. The air was heavily perfumed, and vibrating with 
 laughter. The guests were Richelieu, Bievre, Saxe,
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 229 
 
 D'Etissac, Montcrif, and lovely Marie Camargo, tin. 
 queen of the coulisses who introduced the " short skirts " 
 of the ballet, and upheld her innovation so stauchly 
 amidst the outcries of scandalized Jansenists and journal- 
 ists. But even Marie Camargo herself paled — and would 
 have paled even had she been, what she was not, in the 
 first flush of her youth — before the superb beauty, the 
 languid voluptuousness, the sensuous grace, the southern 
 eyes, the full lips, like the open leaves of a damask rose, 
 melting yet mocking, of the most beautiful and most 
 notorious woman of a day in which beauty and notoriety 
 were rife, the woman with the diamond of Louis Quinze 
 sparkling in the light upon her bosom, whom Versaill'^a 
 and Paris hailed as Thargelie Dumarsais. 
 
 The air, scented with amber, rang with the gay echoes 
 of a stanza of Dorat's, chanted by Marie Camargo ; the 
 " Cupids and Bacchantes," painted in the panels of Sevres, 
 seemed to laugh in sympathy with the revel over which 
 they presided ; the light flashed on the King's diamond, 
 to which Richelieu pointed, with a wicked whisper ; for 
 the Marshal was getting tired of his own reign, and his 
 master might pay his court when he would. Thargelie 
 Dumarsais, more beautiful still at her petit souper than 
 at her petit lever, with her hair crowned with roses, true 
 flowers of Venus that might have crowned Aspasia, 
 looked up laughingly as her lacqueys ushered in le Mar- 
 quis de la Thorilliere and le Chevalier de Tallemont. 
 
 " M. le Marquis," cried the actress, " you are late ! It 
 is an impertinence forbidden at my court. I shall sup in 
 future with barred doors, like M. d'Orleans ; then all you 
 late-comers " 
 
 Through the scented air, through the echoing laughter, 
 stopping her own words, broke a startled bitter cry : 
 
 " 3fon Dicu, c'est Favette!" 
 
 Thar<r6lie Dumarsais shrank back in her rose velvet 
 fauteuil as though the blow of a dagger had struck her ; 
 20
 
 *i'iO A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 the color fled from her lips, and underneath the delicate 
 rouge on her cheeks ; her hand trembled as it grasped the 
 King's aigrette. 
 
 " Favette — Fa vette ! Who calls me that ? " 
 
 It was a forgotten name, the name of a bygone life 
 that fell on her ear with a strange familiar chime, break 
 ing in on the wit, the license, the laughter of her mid- 
 night supper, as the subdued and mournful sound of ves- 
 per bells might fall upon the wild refrains and noisy 
 drinking-songs of bacchanalian melody. 
 
 A surprised silence fell upon the group, the laughter 
 hushed, the voices stopped ; it was a strange interruption 
 for a midnight supper. Thargelie Dumarsais involun- 
 tarily rose, her lips white, her eyes fixed, her hand clasped 
 convulsively on the King's diamond. A vague, speech- 
 less terror held mastery over her, an awe she could not 
 shake ofi' had fastened upon her, as though the dead had 
 risen irom their graves, and come thither to rebuke her 
 for the past forgotten, the innocence lost. The roses in 
 her hair, the flowers of revel, touched a cheek blanched 
 as though she beheld some unearthly thing, and the hand 
 that lay on the royal jewel shook and trembled. 
 
 "Favette? Favette?" she echoed again. "It is so 
 many years since I heard that name ! " 
 
 Her guests sat silent still, comprehending nothing of 
 this single name which had such power to move and 
 Btartle her. Richelieu alone, leaning back in his chair, 
 leisurely picked out one of his brandy-cherries, and waited 
 as a man waits for the next scene at a theatre : 
 
 " Is it an unexpected tragedy, or an arranged comedy, 
 ma chere ? Ought one to cry or to laugh ? Give me the 
 mot d'ordre ! " 
 
 His words broke the spell, and called Thargelie Dumar- 
 sais back to the world about her. Actress by profession 
 and Ijy nature, she rallied with a laugh, putting out her 
 jewelled hand with a languid glance from her long 
 aliuond-shaj)ed eyes.
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 231 
 
 "A friend of early years, my dear Due, that is all. 
 A-li, Monsieur de Tallemont. what a strange rencontre! 
 When did you come to Paris? I scarcely knew you at 
 the first moment ; you have so long been an exile, one 
 may pardonably be startled by your apparition, and take 
 you for a ghost ! I suppose you never dreamed of meet- 
 ing Favette Fontanie under my noni de theatre f Ah ! 
 how we change, do we not, Leon ? Time is so short, we 
 have no time to stand still ! Marie, ma chere, give Mon- 
 sieur le Chevalier a seat beside you — he cannot be hap- 
 pier placed ! " 
 
 Leon de Tallemont heard not a word that she spoke ; 
 he stood like a man stunned and paralyzed by a sudden 
 and violent blow, his head bowed, a mortal pallor chang- 
 ing his face to the hues of death, the features that were a 
 moment before bright, laughing, and careless, now set in 
 mute and rigid anguish. 
 
 " Favette ! Favette ! " he murmured, hoarsely, in the 
 vague dreamy agony with which a man calls wildly and 
 futilely on the beloved dead to come back to him from 
 the silence and horror of the grave. 
 
 " Peste ! " laughed Richelieu. " This cast-off lover 
 seems a strange fellow ! Does he not know that absent 
 peojile have never the presumption to dream of keeping 
 their places, but learn to give them graciously up! — • 
 shall I teach him the lesson ? If he have his sixteen 
 quarterings, a prick of my sword will soon punish his 
 impudence ! " 
 
 The jeer fell unheeded on L6on de Tallemont's ear ; 
 had he heard it, the flipi^ant sneer would have had no 
 power to sting him then. Regardless of the men around 
 the supper-table, he grasped Thargelie Dumarsais's hands 
 in his : 
 
 " This is how we meet!" 
 
 She shrank away from his glance, terrified, she scarce 
 knew why, at the mute anguish upon his face.
 
 232 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 Perhaps for a moment she realized how utterly she had 
 abused the love and wrecked the life of this man ; per- 
 haps with his voice came back to her thronging thoughts 
 of guileless days, memories ringing through the haze of 
 years, as distant chimes ring over the water from lands 
 we have quitted, reaching us when we have floated far 
 away out to sea — memories of an innocent and untroubled 
 life, when she had watched the woodland flowers open to 
 the morning sun, and listened to the song of the brooks 
 murmuring over the violet roots, and heard the sweet 
 evening song of the birds rise to heaven under the deep 
 vine shadows of Lorraine. 
 
 One inoraent she was silent, her eyes falling, troubled 
 and guilty, beneath his gaze ; then she looked up, laugh- 
 ing gayly, and flashing on him her languid lustrous glance. 
 
 " You look like a somnambulist, -ynon ami ! Did no- 
 body ever tell you, then, how Mme. de la Vrilliere carried 
 me off" from Lorraine, and brought me in her train to 
 Paris, till, when Favette Fontanie was tired of being pet- 
 ted like the spaniel, the monkey, and the parrot, she broke 
 away from Madame la Marquise, and made, after a little 
 probation at the Foire St. Laurent, her appearance at the 
 Fran9ais as Thargelie Dumarsais? Allans done! have I 
 lost ray beauty, that you look at me thus ? You should 
 be reminding me of the proverb, ' On revient toujours d 
 ses premiers amours !' Surely, Thargelie Dumarsais will 
 be as attractive to teach such a lesson as that little peasant 
 girl, Favette, used to be ? Bah, Leon ! Can I not love 
 you as well again in Paris as I once loved you at Grande 
 Charmille ? And — who knows ? — perhaps I will ! " 
 
 She leaned towards him ; her breath fanning his cheek, 
 her scented hair brushing his lips, her lustrous eyes meet- 
 ing his with eloquent meaning, her lips parted with the 
 resistless witchery of that melting and seductive sourire 
 iTamour to which they were so admirably trained. He 
 gazed down on her, breathless, sileuce-strickeu — gazed
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 233 
 
 down on the sorcei-ess beauty to which the innocent love- 
 liness of his Lorraine flower had changed. Was thia 
 woman, with the rouge upon her cheeks, the crimson roses 
 in her hair, the mockiug light in her eyes, the wicked 
 laugh on her lips, the diamond glittering like a serpent's 
 eye in her bosom — was she the guileless child he had left 
 weeping, on the broken steps of the fountain, tears as 
 pure as the dew in the violet-bells, with the summer sun- 
 light streaming round her, and no shade on her young 
 brow darker than the fleeting shadow flung from above 
 ijy the vine-leaves? A cry broke once more from his lips: 
 
 " Would to God I had died before to-night ! " 
 
 Then he lifted his head, with a smile upon his face — a 
 smile that touched and vaguely terrified all those who 
 saw it — the smile of a breaking heart. 
 
 " I thank you for your proffered embraces, but / am 
 faithful. I love but one, and I have lost her ; Favette is 
 dead ! I know nothiug of Thargelie Dumarsais, the 
 dourtesan." 
 
 He bowed low to her and left her — never to see her 
 face again. 
 
 A silence fell on those he had quitted, even upon 
 Richelieu ; perhaps even he realized that all beauty, faith, 
 and joy were stricken from this man's life; and — reality 
 of feeling was an exile so universally banished from the 
 gay salons of the Dix-huitieme >Siecle, that its intrusion 
 awed them as by the unwonted presence of some ghostly 
 visitant. 
 
 Thargelie Dumarsais sat silent — her thoughts had 
 flown away once more from her brilliant supper-chamber 
 to the fountain at Grande Charmille : she was seeing thr 
 dragon-flies flutter among the elm-boughs, and the water 
 ripple over the wild thyme ; she was feeling the old 
 priest's good-night kiss upon her brow, and her own hymn 
 rise and mingle with the chant oi" the vesper choir; sho 
 was hearing the song of the forest-birds echo in the Lor- 
 20^
 
 234 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE. 
 
 raino woods, and a fond voice whisper to her, " Fear not, 
 Favctte ! — we shall meet as we part ! " 
 
 Richelieu took up his Dresden saucer of cherries once 
 more with a burst of laughter. 
 
 ^'Voild un drole! — this fellow takes things seriously. 
 What fools there are in this world ! It will be a charm- 
 ing little story for Versailles. Dieu ! how Louis will 
 laugh when I tell it him ! I fear though, ma cherie, 
 that the 'friend of your childhood' will make you lose 
 your reputation by his impolite epithets ! " 
 
 "When one has nothing, one can lose nothing — eh, 
 ma chere?" laughed Marie Camargo. " Monsieur le Due, 
 she does not hear us " 
 
 "'No, rinfidele!" cried 'Richelieu. "Mademoiselle! 1 
 see plainly you love this rude lover of bygone days better 
 than you do us ! — is it not the truth ?" 
 
 " Chut ! nobody asks for truths in a polite age ! " 
 laughed Thargelie Dumarsais, shaking off unwelcome 
 memories once for all, and looking down at the King's 
 diamond gleaming in the light — the diamond that pro- 
 phesied to her the triumph of the King's love. 
 
 " Naturally," added La Camargo. " My friend, I shall 
 die with envy of your glorious jewel. Dieu.' comtne il 
 briller'
 
 DEADLY DASH." 
 
 A STORY TOLD ON THE OFF DAY. 
 
 [N the off-day after the Derby everybody, except 
 the great winners, is, it will be generally ad- 
 mitted, the resigned prey to a certain gentle 
 sadness, not to say melancholy, that will only dissipate 
 itself under a prolonged regimen of S. and B., seidlitz 
 well dashed with Amontillado, or certain heavenly West 
 Indian decoctions; — this indisposition, I would suggest, 
 we should call, delicately and dubiously, Epsomitis. It 
 will serve to describe innumerable forms and degrees of 
 the reactionary malady. 
 
 There is the severest shape of all, " dead money," that 
 covers four figures, dropped irretrievably, and lost to the 
 " milkers ; " lost always you say because of a cough, or 
 l)ecause of a close finish, or because of something dark, or 
 because of a strain in the practising gallops, or because 
 of a couple of brutes that cannoned just at the start ; and 
 never, of course, because the horse you had fancied was 
 sheerly and simply only fit for a plater. There is the 
 second severe form, when you awake with a cheerful ex- 
 pectation of a summons for driving " at twelve miles an 
 hour" (as if that wasn't moderate and discreet!), and for 
 thereby smashing a greengrocer's cart into the middle of 
 next week, and running a waggonette into an omnibus, 
 as you came back from the Downs, of which you have 
 no more i cmembrancc than that there was a crash, and a 
 
 (2^5)
 
 236 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 tsmash, and a woman's screams, and a man's " d- ^-n the 
 swells ! " and a tintamarre of roaring conductor and bel- 
 lowing greengrocer, and infuriated females, through which 
 you dashed somehow with a cheer — more shame for you 
 — and a most inappropriate I'Africaine chorus from the 
 men on your drag. There is the milder form, which is 
 only the rueful recollection of seeing, in a wild ecstasy, 
 the chestnut with the white blaze sweep with his superb 
 stride to the front, and of having, in your moment of 
 rapturous gratitude to the red and blue, rushed, uninten- 
 tionally, during the discussion of Fortnum and Mason's 
 hamper, into a promise to take Euphrosyne Brown to 
 Baden in August, where you know very well she will cost 
 you more than all your sums netted through Gladiateur. 
 There are the slenderer touches of the malady, which give 
 you, over your breakfast cofiee, a certain dolorous medita- 
 tion as to how you could have been such a fool as to have 
 placed all your trust in Danebury, or to have put in a 
 hole through Spring Cottage just what your yacht costs 
 for three months ; which makes you wonder why on earth 
 you took that lot of actresses on to the hill, and threw 
 money enough away on them in those wages of idiotcy 
 (or wages of sin, as your uncle the dean would translate 
 it), of cashmeres, eau de Cologne, gloves, and bracelets, 
 to have purchased those two weight-carriers oifered you 
 at £600 the pair, and dirt-cheap at that ; or which makes 
 you only dully and headachily conscious that you drank 
 champagne up on the box-seat as if you were a young 
 fellow from Eton, and now pay for the juvenile folly, as 
 you know you deserve to do, when that beautiful white 
 Burgundy at your club, or your own cool perfect claret 
 at home, seems to stare you in the face and ask, " Why 
 did you crack all those bottles of Dry on the Downs?" 
 
 There are symptoms and varieties innumerable of the 
 malady that I propose shall be known henceforward as 
 Epsomitis ; therefore, the off-day finds everybody more or
 
 DEADLY DASH. 237 
 
 less slightly done-up and mournful. Twenty-four hours 
 and the Oaks, if properly prepared for by a strictly 
 medicinal course of brules-gueules, as the Chasseurs say, 
 smoked pcrseveringly, will bring all patients round on 
 the Friday ; but during the twenty-four hours a sense 
 that all on and off the course is vanity and vexation of 
 spirit will generally and somnolently predominate in the 
 universal and fashionable disease of Epsomitis. 
 
 One ofF-day, after the magnificent victory of Monarque'a 
 unrivalled son, an acquaintance of mine, suffering con- 
 siderably from these symptoms, sought my philosophy and 
 my prescriptions. A very sharp irritant for Epsomitis 
 may be administered in the form of " I told you so ? It 's 
 all your own fault!" But this species of blister and 
 douche bath combined is rarely given unless the patient 
 be mad enough to let his wife, if he unluckily have one, 
 learn what ails him. As far as I was concerned, I was 
 much too sympathetic "with the sufferer to be down upon 
 him with the triumphant reminder that I had cautioned 
 him all along not to place his trust in Russley. I, instead, 
 prescribed him cool wines, and led him on to talk of other 
 people's misfortunes, the very best way to get reconciled 
 with your own. We talked of old times, of old memories, 
 of old acquaintance, in the twilight, between Derby and 
 Oaks. We got a little melancholy ; too much champagne 
 is always productive on the morrow of a gently sentimen- 
 tal tinge, and a man is always inclined to look on the 
 world as a desert when he has the conviction that he him- 
 self has been made a fool in it. Among other names, 
 that of Deadly Dash came up between us. What had 
 become of him ? I did not know ; he did. He told me ; 
 and I will tell it here, for the story is of the past now. 
 
 " Deadly Dash ! What a shot he was ! Never missed," 
 said my friend, whose own gun is known well enough at 
 Hornsey-wood House ; therewith falling into a reverie, 
 tinged with the Jacques-like gloom of Epsomitis in ita
 
 238 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 Beverest form, from which he awoke to tell me slowly, be- 
 tween long draughts of iced drinks, what I write now. I 
 alter his tale in nothing, save in filling in with words the 
 gaps and blanks that he made, all-eloquent in his halting 
 oratory, by meditative, plaintive, moralizing puffs from 
 his tonic, the hrule gueiile, and an occasional appeal to 
 my imagination in the customary formula of "Oh, 
 bother! — you understand — all the rest of it you know," 
 which, though it tells everything over claret, is not so 
 clear a mode of relation in type. For all else here the 
 story is as he gave it to me. 
 
 " Deadly Dash ! " It was a fatal sounding sobriquet, 
 and had a fatal fascination for many, for me as Avell as 
 the rest, when I was in my salad days and joined the old 
 — th, amongst whose Light Dragoons, it was so signally 
 and ominously famous. The nickname had a wide sig- 
 nificance ; "Ae always kills," was said with twofold truth, 
 in twofold meaning of Dash; in a barriere duel he would 
 wheel lightly, aim carelessly, and send the ball straight 
 as any arrow through heart or lung, just as he fancied, in 
 the neatest style anybody could dream of; and in an in- 
 trigue he took just the same measures, and hit as invaria- 
 bly with the self-same skill and the self-same indifference. 
 " He always kills " applied equally to either kind of affair, 
 and got him his sobriquet, which he received with as 
 laughing an equanimity as a riding man gets the Gilt 
 Vase, or a " lover of the leash " the Ravensworth Stakes, 
 or the Puppy Cup and Goblet. He was proud of it, and 
 had only one regret, that he lived in the dead days of the 
 duel, and could only go out when he was on French soil. 
 In dare-devilry of every sort he out-Heroded Herod, and 
 distanced any who were mad enough to try the pace with 
 him in that steeple-chase commonly called " going to the 
 bad." It was a miracle how often he used to reach the 
 stage of " complete ruin " that the Prince de Soubise once
 
 DEADLY DASn. 239 
 
 sighed for as an nnattainable paradise ; and picked him- 
 self up again, without a hair turned, as one may say, and 
 started off with as fresh a pace as though nothing had 
 knocked him over. Other men got his speed sometimes ; 
 but nobody coukl ever equal his stay. For an " out and 
 out goer " there was nobody like Deadly Dash ; and 
 though only a Captain of Horse, with few " expectations," 
 he did what Dukes daren't have done, and lived at a 
 faster rate than all the elder sons in the kingdom put 
 together. Dash had the best bow and the brightest wits, 
 the lightest morals and the heaviest debts of any sabrexir 
 in the Service ; very unscrupulous fellows were staggered 
 at Ms devil-me-care vices ; and as for reputation, — "a 
 deuced pleasant fellow. Dash," they used to say at the 
 Curragh, in the Guards' Club, at Thatched House anniver- 
 Bary dinners, in North Indian cantonments, in Brighton 
 barrack-rooms, or in any of the many places where Deadly 
 Dash was a household word ; " a very pleasant fellow ; no 
 end ' fit ' always, best fun in life over the olives when you 
 get him in humor ; shoot you dead though next morning, 
 if he want, and you be handy for him in a neat snug lit- 
 tle Bad ; make some devil of a viot on you too afterwards, 
 just as pleasantly as if he were offering you a Lopez to 
 smoke!" 
 
 Now, that was just the sort of celebrity that made m'- 
 mad to see the owner of it; there wasn't a living being, 
 except that year's favorite out of the Whitewall establish- 
 ment, that I was half so eager to look at, or so reverent 
 when I thought of, as " the Killer." I was very young 
 then. I had gone through a classic course of yellow cov- 
 ers from Jeffs' and Kolandi's, and I had a vague impres- 
 sion that a man who had had a dozen barridre afiairs 
 abroad, and been " enj'ant" to every lovely lionne of his 
 day, must of necessity be like the heroes of Delphine 
 Demireps' novels, who had each of them always a " je ne 
 sais qnoi dc farouche et de fier dans ses grands yeux noirs,
 
 240 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 et toute la revelation d'une ame usee, mais doininee par- 
 des passions encore inepuisables, eerite sur son sombre 
 et pale visage," &c., &c., in the Demireps' most telling 
 style. 
 
 I don't know quite what I expected to see in the Killer, 
 but I think it was a sort of compound of Monte Christo, 
 Mephistopheles, and Murat mixed in one; what I did see 
 was a slight delicate man with a face as fair and soft as a 
 girl's, the gentlest possible manners, and a laugh like 
 music. Deadly Dash had led a life as bad as he could 
 lead, had lit his cigar without a tremor in the wrist, on 
 many gray mornings, while his adversary lay dying hard 
 among the red rank grasses, had gamed so deep twenty- 
 four hours at a stretch that the most reckless galerie in 
 Europe held their breath to watch his play ; had had a 
 tongue of silver for his intrigues and a nerve of steel for 
 his vendetta ; had lived in reckless rioting and drunk 
 deep ; but the Demirep would not have had him at any 
 price in her romance ; he looked so simply and quietly 
 thorough-bred, he was so utterly guiltless of all her ortho- 
 dox traits. The gentlest of mortals was Deadly Dash ; 
 when you first heard his sweet silvery voice, and his 
 laughter as light and airy as a woman's, you would never 
 believe how often abroad there a dead man had been left 
 to get stiff and cold among the clotted herbage, while the 
 Killer went out of the town by the early express, smok- 
 ing and reading the " Charivari," and sipping some cold 
 Cura9oa punch out of his flask. 
 
 " Of course ! " growled a man to me once in the Guards' 
 smoking-room, an order of the Scots Fusilleers to Mon- 
 treal having turned him misanthrope. " Did Mephisto- 
 pheles ever come out in full harness, with horns and tail 
 complete, eh ? Not such a fool. He looked like a gen- 
 tleman, and talked like a wit. Would the most dunder- 
 headed Cain in Christendom, I should be glad to know, 
 be such an ass as to go about town with the brand ou his
 
 DEADLY DASn. 241 
 
 forehead, when lie could turn down Bond Street any day 
 and get a dash of the ladies' pearl powder ? Who ever 
 shoivs anything now, my good fellow ? Not that Dash 
 'paints,' to give the deuce his due — except himself a 
 little blacker even than he is ; he don't cant ; he could u't 
 cant; not to save his life, I believe. But as to his be- 
 witching you, almost as bad as he does the women, I know 
 ail about that. I used to swear by him till " 
 
 "Till what?" 
 
 " Till he cut a brother of mine out with Eachel, and 
 shot him in the woods of Chautilly for flaring-up rough 
 at the rivalry. Charlie was rather a good fellow, and 
 Dash and I did n't speak after that, you see. Great bore ; 
 bosh too, perhaps. Dash brews the best Cura9oa punch 
 in Europe, and if he name you the winning mount for the 
 Grauby, you may let the talent damn you as they like. 
 Still you know as he killed Charlie, — " and the Guards- 
 man stuck a great cheroot in his mouth, in doubt as to 
 whether, after all, it was n't humbug, and an uncalled-for 
 sacrifice, rather scenic and sentimental, to drop an ex- 
 pert at Cura^oa brew, and a sure prophet for Croxton 
 Park, just because in a legitimate fashion he had potted 
 your brother and relieved your entail ; — on the whole, a 
 friendly act rather than otherwise ? " Keep clear of the 
 Killer, though, young one," he added, as he sauntered 
 out. " He 's like that cheetah cub of Berkeley's ; soft as 
 silk, you know, patte de velours, and what d'ye call 'em, 
 and all the rest of it, but deucedly deadly to deal with." 
 
 I did know : it was the eternal refrain that was heard 
 on all sides ; from the wily Jews through whose meshes 
 he slipped ; the unhappy duns who were done by him ; 
 the beauties who were bewitched by him ; the hosts and 
 husbands who, having him down for the pheasants, found 
 him poacli other ])reservc's than those of the cover-sides; 
 the women who had their characters shattered by a sil- 
 very sneer from a voice that was as soft, in its murdeioua
 
 242 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 slander, as in its equally murderous wooing ; and all the 
 rest, who, in some shape or another, owed ruin to that 
 Apollo Apollyon — Deadly Dash. Ruin which at last 
 became so wide and so deep, that even vice began to look 
 virtuous when his name was mentioned (vice always does 
 when she thinks you are reaHv cleared out), and men of 
 his own corps and his own club began to get shy of hav- 
 ing the Killer's arm linked in theirs too often down Pall 
 Mail, for its wrist was terrilily steady in either Hazard, 
 whether of the yard of green table or the twenty yards 
 of green turf. 
 
 At last the crisis came : the Killer killed one too many; 
 a Russian Prince in the Bois de Vincennes, in a quarrel 
 about a pretty wretched little chorus-singer of the Cafe 
 Alcazar, who took their fancies both at once. The mondcs 
 thought it terribly wicked, not the deed you know, but 
 the audacity of a cavalry man's having potted a Very 
 Serene High Mightiness. In a Duke, all these crimes 
 and crimcons, though as scarlet, would have been held 
 but the crimson gold-dotted fruit adorning the strawberry- 
 leaves ; Deadly Dash, a Light Dragoon whose name was 
 signed to plenty of " floating little bills," could not bid 
 high enough to purchase his pardon from society, which 
 says to its sinners with austere front of virtue, " Oblivion 
 cannot be hired, — unless," adds Society, dropping to 
 mellowest murmur her whisper, " unless you can give us 
 a premium ! " So Dash, with a certain irresistible though 
 private pressure upon him from the Horse Guards — sent 
 in his papers to sell. What had been done so often could 
 not now be done again ; the first steeple-chaser in the 
 Service could not at last even save his stake, but was 
 finally, irretrievably, struck out. 
 
 Certainly the fellow was a bad fellow, and deserved his 
 crash so far; he had no scruples, and no conscience; he 
 spared neither woman nor man ; of remorse he had never 
 felt a twiii-u', and if you were in his path he would i)ii'k
 
 DEADLY DASH. 243 
 
 you off some way or other as indifferently as if you were 
 one of the pigeons at Hornsey. And yet, he had been 
 kind to me, though I was a young one; with his own 
 variable Free Lance sort of liberality, the man would 
 give his last sou to get you out of any difficulty, and 
 would carry off your mistress, or beggar you at chickeu- 
 hazard, with the self-same pleasant air the next day : and 
 I could not help being sorry that things had come to this 
 pass with him. He shot so superbly ! Put him Avhere 
 you would, in a Avarm corner while the bouquets of 
 pheasants were told off; in a punt, while a square half- 
 mile of wild-ducks whirred up from the marshes ; m a 
 dark forest alley in Transylvania, while the great boar 
 rushed down through the twilight, foaming blood and 
 roaring fury ; in a still Indian night with the only target 
 here and there a dusky head diving amidst the jhow 
 jungle three hundred yards away : put him where you 
 would, he was such a magnificent shot ! The sins of a 
 Frankenstein should not have lost such a marksman as 
 Deadly Dash to the Service. 
 
 But the authorities thought otherwise ; they were not 
 open to the fact, that the man who had been out in more 
 harriere affairs, and had won more Grand Military stakes 
 than any other, should, by all laws of war-policy, have 
 had his blackest transgressions forgiven him, till he could 
 have been turned to account against Ghoorkas, Maories, 
 or Caffres. The authorities instead, made him send in 
 his papers, not knowing the grand knack of turning a 
 scamp into a hero — a process that requires some genius 
 and some clairvoyance in the manipulator, — and Deadly 
 Dash, with his lightest and airiest laugh, steamed down 
 channel one late autumn night, marked, disgraced, and 
 outlawed, for creditors by the score were after him, know- 
 ing very well that he and his old gay lawless life, and his 
 own wild pleasant world, and his old lands yonder in the 
 green heart of the grass countries that had gone rood by
 
 244 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 rood to tlie Hebrews, were all divorced for ever with a 
 great gulf between them that could never close. 
 
 So he dropped out of the Service, out of the country, 
 out of remembrance, out of regret ; nobody said a De 
 Profundis over him, and some men breathed the freer. 
 We can rarely be sure of any who will be sorry to miss 
 us ; but we can always be certain of some to be glad we 
 are gone. And in the Killer's case these last were legion. 
 Here and there were one or two who owed him a wayward, 
 inconstant bizarre fit of generosity ; but there were on 
 the other hand hundreds who owed him nothing less than 
 entire ruin. 
 
 So Deadly Dash went with nobody to regret him and 
 nobody to think of him for a second, after the nine hours' 
 wonder in the clubs and the mess-rooms t^iat his levanting 
 " under a cloud " occasioned ; and so the old sobriquet, 
 that had used to have so signal a notoriety, dropped out 
 of men's mouths and was forgotten. Where he was gone 
 no one knew ; and to be sure no one asked. Metaphori- 
 cally, he was gone to the devil ; and when a man takes 
 that little tour, if he furnish talk for a day he has had 
 very distinguished and lengthened obsequies as friendship 
 goes in this world. Now and then in the course of half- 
 a-dozen years I remembered him, when I looked up at 
 the head of a Eoyal over my mantelpiece, with thirteen 
 points, that he had stalked once in Ayrshire and given 
 to me ; but nobody else gave a thought to the Killer. 
 Time passed, and whether he had been killed fighting in 
 Chili or Bolivia, shot himself at Homburg, become 
 Mussulman and entered the Sultan's army, gone to fight 
 with the Kabyles and Bedouins, turned brigand for the 
 Neapolitan Bourbons, or sunk downward by the old well- 
 worn stage, so sadly and so often travelled, into an ad- 
 venturer living by the skill of his ecart6 and the dread 
 surety of his shot, we did not know ; Ave did not care.
 
 DEADLY DASH. 245 
 
 When society has given a man the sack, it mottery un- 
 commonly little whether he has given himself a shroud. 
 
 Seven or eight years after the name of Deadly Dash 
 had ceased to be heard among cavalry men, and quoted 
 on all things " horsey," whether of the flat or of the ridge 
 and furrow, I was in the Confederate States, on leave for 
 a six months' tour there. It was after Lee's raid across 
 the border and the days of Gettysburg!!. I had run the 
 blockade in a fast-built clipper, and pushed on at once 
 into the heart of Virginia, to be in the full heat of what- 
 ever should come on the cards ; cutting the cities rather, 
 and keeping as much as I could to the camps and the 
 woods, for I wanted to see the real thing in the rough. 
 In my relish for adventure, however, I was a trifle, as it 
 proved, too foolhardy. 
 
 Starting alone one day to cross the thirty miles or so 
 that parted me from the encampment of some Virginian 
 Horse, with no other companions than a very Aveedy- 
 looking steel gray, and a brace of revolvers, I fairly " lost 
 tracks," and had not a notion of my way out of a wilder- 
 ness of morass and forest, all glowing with the scarlet 
 and the green of the Indian summer. Here and there 
 were beautiful wild pools and lakes shut in by dense vege- 
 tation, so dense, that at noon it was dark as twilight, and 
 great tablelands of rock jutted out black and rugged in 
 place? ; but chiefly as far as was to be seen stretched the 
 deep entangled woodland, with nothing else to break it, 
 brooding quietly over square leagues of swamp. The 
 orioles wera singing their sweetest, wildest music over- 
 head ; sign of war there was none, save to be sure, now 
 and then when I came on a black, arid circle, where a 
 few charred timbers showed where a hut had been burnt 
 down and deserted, or my horse shied and snorted uneasily, 
 and half stumbled over some shapeless log on the ground 
 ■—a log that when you looked closer was the swollen 
 
 ■21*
 
 246 DEADLY DASH, 
 
 shattered body of a man who had died hard, with the 
 grasses wrenched up in his fingers that the ants had eaten 
 bare, and the hollows of his eyes staring open where the 
 carrion birds had plucked the eyeballs out. And near 
 hmi there were sure to be, half sunk in swamp, or cleaned 
 to skeletons by the eagles and hawks, five, or ten, or 
 twenty more, lying nameless and unburied there, where 
 they had fallen in some scuffle with pickets, or some stray 
 cavalry skirmish, to be told off as " missing," and to be 
 thought of no more. These groups I came upon more 
 than once rotting among the rich Virginian soil, while 
 the scarlet and purple weight of blossoming boughs 
 swayed above, and the bright insect life fluttered hum- 
 ming around them ; they were the only highway marks 
 through the wooded wilderness. 
 
 So lonely was it mile after mile, and so little notion 
 had I of either the way in or the way out, that the hallalif 
 of a boar-hunt, or the sweet melloAv tongues of the hount^s 
 when they have found in the coverts at home, were nevei 
 brighter music to me than the sharp crack of rifles and 
 the long sullen roll of musketry as they suddenly broke 
 the silence, while I rode along, firing from the west that 
 lay on my left. The gray, used to powder, pointed his 
 ears and quickened his pace. Though a weedy, fiddle- 
 headed beast, his speed was not bad, and I rattled him 
 over the ground, crashing through undergrowth and 
 wading through pools, with all my blood up at the tune 
 of those ringing cheery shots ; the roar growing louder 
 and louder with every moment, and the sulphur scent of 
 the smoke borne stronger and stronger down on the wind, 
 till the horse broke j^ele-mele through a network of para- 
 sites ; dashed downward along a slope of dank herbage, 
 slipping at every step, and with his hind legs tucked 
 under him ; and shot, like a run-in for a race, on to a 
 green plateau, where the skirmish was going on in hot 
 earnest.
 
 DEADLY DASn. 247 
 
 A glance tcld me how the land lay. A handful of 
 Southern troojiers held their own Avith tremendous diffi- 
 culty against three divisions of Federal infantry, whom 
 they had unexpectedly encountered, as the latter were 
 marching across the plateau with some batteries of foot 
 artillery, — the odds were probably scarcely less than five 
 to one. The Southerners were fighting magnificently, as 
 firm in their close square of four hundred as the Consular 
 Guard at Marengo, but so surrounded by the Northern 
 host, that they looked like a little island circled round 
 by raging breakers. Glancing down on the plain as my 
 horse scoured and slid along the incline, the nucleus of 
 Southerners looked hopelessly lost amidst the belching 
 fire and pressing columns of the enemy. The whole was 
 eurrounded and hidden by the whirling clouds of dust 
 and smoke that swirled above in a white heavy mist ; but 
 through this the sabres flashed, the horses' heads reared, 
 maddened and foam-covered, like so many bas-reliefs of 
 Bucephalus, the lean rifle-barrels glittered, and for a 
 moment I saw the Southern leader, steady as a rock in 
 the centre, hewing like a trooper right and left, and with 
 a gray heron's feather floating from his sombrero, a signal 
 that seemed as well known and as closely followed as the 
 enowy plume of Murat. 
 
 To have looked on at this and not have taken a share 
 in it, one would have been a stone, not a man, and much 
 less a cavalry-man ; I need not tell you that I smashed 
 the gray across the plateau, hurled him into the thick of 
 the melee, dashed somehow through the Federal ranks, 
 and was near the gray plume and fighting for the Old 
 Dominion before you could have shouted a stave of 
 "Dixie." I was a "non-combatant," I was a "neutral" 
 ■ — delicate Anglo-euphemism for coward, friend to neither 
 and traitor to both ! — I was on a tour of olwervation, and 
 had no business to fire a shot for one or the other perhaps, 
 but T forgot all that, and with the bridle in my teeth and
 
 248 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 a pistol in each hand, I rode down to give one blo^^' th>3 
 more for the weak side. 
 
 How superbly that Gray Feather fought ! — keeping hia 
 men well up round him, though saddle after saddle was 
 emptied, and horse after horse tore riderless out of tho 
 ranks, or reeled over on their heads, spurting blood, ho 
 sat like a statue, he fought like a Titan, his sabre seemed 
 flashing unceasingly in the air, so often was it raised to 
 come down again like lightning through a sword-arm, or 
 lay open a skull to the brains ; the shots ploughed up the 
 earth round him, and rattled like hail through the aii*, a 
 score of balls were aimed at him alone, a score of sabre.s 
 crossed his own ; but he was cool as St. Lawrence ice, and 
 laid the men dead in struggling heaps under his charger's 
 hoofs : only to fight near the man was a glorious intoxica- 
 tion ; you seemed to " breathe blood" till you got drunk 
 with it. 
 
 The four hundred had been mowed down to two; I did 
 as good work as I could, having wrenched a sword out of 
 some dead trooper's hand ; but I was only one, and the 
 Northerners counted by thousands. Come out of it alive 
 I never expected to do ; but I vow it was the happiest 
 day of my life — the pace was so splendidly fast! The 
 Gray Feather at last glanced anxiously around ; his men 
 stuck like death to him, ready to be hewed down one by 
 one, and die game ; his teeth were set tight, and his eyes 
 had a flash in them like steel. " Charge ! and cut 
 through ! " he shouted, his voice rolling out like a clarion, 
 giving an order that it seemed could be followed by 
 nothing short of supernatural aid. The Southrons thought 
 othersvise ; they only heard to obey ; they closed up as 
 steadily as though they were a squadron on parade, 
 despite the great gaps between them of dying chargers, 
 and of heaped-up killed and wounded, that broke their 
 ranks like so much piled stones and timber ; they halted 
 a moment, the murderous fire raking them right and left,
 
 DEADLY DASn. 249 
 
 front and rear; then, -with that dense mass of troops 
 round them, they cliarged ; shivered the first line that 
 wedged them in ; pierced by sheer force of impetus the 
 columns that opened fire in their path ; wrenched them- 
 selves through as through the steel jaws of a trap, and 
 swept out on to the green level of the open plateau, with 
 a wild rallying Virginian shout that rings in my ears 
 now ! 
 
 I have been in a good many hot things in my time ; 
 but I never knew anything that for pace and long odds 
 could be anything near to that. 
 
 I had kept with them through the charge with no 
 other scratch than a shoulder cut ; and I had been close 
 to their chief through it all. When we were clean out on 
 the plains beyond pursuit — for the Union-men had not a 
 squadron of cavalry, though their guns at long range 
 belched a storm in our wake — he turned in his saddle 
 without checking his mare's thundering gallop, and 
 levelled his rifle that was slung at his side. " I '11 have 
 the General, anyhow," he said, quietly taking aim — still 
 without checking his speed — at the knot of staff-officers 
 that now were scarce more than specks in a blurred mass 
 of mist. He fired ; and the centre figure in that indistinct 
 and fast-vanishing group fell from the saddle, while the 
 yell of fury that the wind faintly floated nearer told us 
 that the shot had been deadly. The Gray Feather 
 laughed, a careless airy laugh of triumph, while he 
 swept on at topmost pace ; a little more, and we should 
 dive down into the dark aisles of grand forest-trees and 
 cavernous ravines of timber roads, safe from all jiursuit; 
 a second, and we should reach the green core of the safe 
 and silent woods, the cool shelter of mountain-backed 
 lakes, the sure refuge of tangled coverts. It was a guinea 
 to a shilling that we gained it; it was all but won; a 
 m'jment's straight run-in, and we should have it! But 
 that moment was not to be ours.
 
 250 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 Out of the narrow cleft of a valley on the left, all 
 Bcreened with hanging tumbled foliage, and dark as death, 
 there poured suddenly across our front a dense body of 
 Federal troopers and Horse Artillery, two thousand 
 strong at the least, full gallop, to join the main army. 
 We were surrounded in a second, in a second overpowered 
 by sheer strength of numbers ; only two hundred of us, 
 many sorely wounded, and on mounts that were jaded 
 and ridden out of all pace, let us fight as we would, what 
 could we do against fresh and picked soldiers, swarming 
 down on us like a swarm of hornets, while in our rear 
 was the main body through which we had just cut our 
 way? That the little desperate band "died hard," I need 
 not say ; but the vast weight of the fresh squadrons pressed 
 our little knot in as if between the jaws of a trap, crush- 
 ing it like grain between two iron weights. The Gray 
 Feather fought like all the Knights of the E-ouud Table 
 merged in one, till he streamed with blood from head to 
 foot, and his sabre was hacked and bent like an ash-stick, 
 as did a man near him, a tall superb Virginian, hand- 
 some as any Vandyke or Velasquez picture. At last both 
 the Gray Feather and he went down, not by death — it 
 would not come to them — but literally hurled out of their 
 stirrup-leathers by crowding scores who poured on them, 
 hamstrung or shot their horses, and made them them- 
 selves prisoners — not, however, till the assailants lay 
 heaped ten deep about their slaughtered chargers. For 
 myself, a blow from a sabre, a second afterwards, felled 
 nie like so much wood. I saw a whirling blaze of sun, a 
 confused circling eddy of dizzy color, forked flames, and 
 flashes of light, and I knew no more, till I opened my 
 eyes in a dark, square, unhealthy wooden chamber, with 
 a dreamy but settled conviction that I was dead, and in 
 the family vault, far away under the green old elms of 
 Warwickshire, with the rooks cawing above my head. 
 
 As the delusion dissipated and the mists cleared, J saw
 
 DEADLY DASH. 251 
 
 tKrough the uncertain light a face that was strangely 
 but vaguely familiar to me, connected somehow with inco- 
 herent memories of life at home, and yet unknown to me. 
 It was bronzed deeply, bearded, with Hakes of gray 
 among the fairness of the hair, much aged, much Avorn, 
 scarred and stained just now with the blood of undressed 
 wounds and the dust of the combat, for there was no one 
 merciful enough there to bring a stoup of water ; it was 
 rougher, darker, sterner, and yet, with it all, nobler, too, 
 than the face that I had known. I lay and stared 
 blankly at it : it was the face of the Southern Leader of 
 the morning, who sat now, on a pile of straw, looking 
 wearily out to the dying sun, one amongst a group of 
 twenty, prisoners all, like myself. I moved, and he 
 turned his eyes on me ; they had laid me down there as a 
 " gone 'coon," and were amazed to see me come to life 
 again. As our eyes met I knew him — he was Deadly 
 Dash. 
 
 The old name left my lips with a shout as strong as a 
 half-killed nuin can give. It seemed so sti-angc to meet 
 him there, captives together in the Unionists' hands! It 
 struck him with a sharp shock. England and he had 
 been divorced so long. I saw the blood leap to his fore- 
 head, and the light into his glance ; then, with a single 
 stride, he reached the straw I lay on, holding my hands 
 in his, looking on me with the kindly eyes that had used 
 to make me like the Killer, and greeting me with a 
 warmth that was only damped and durkened by regret 
 that my battle done for fair Virginia had laid me low, a 
 prisoner with himself, and that we should meet thus, in 
 so sharp an hour of adversity, with nothing before us but 
 the Capitol, the Carroll prison, or worse. Yet thus we 
 did meet once more and I knew at last what had been 
 the fate of Deadiy Dash, whom England had outlawed 
 as a scoundrel, and the New World had found a hero. 
 
 Thougli suffin-ing almost equally himself, he tended me
 
 252 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 with the kindliest sympathy ; he came out of his own cai-t 
 to ponder how possible it might be to get me eventual 
 freedom as a tourist and a mere accidental sharer in the 
 fray ; he was interested to hear all that I would tell him 
 of my own affairs and of his old friends in England, but 
 of himself he would not speak ; he simply said he had 
 been fighting for the Confederacy ever since the war had 
 begun ; and I saw that he strove in vain to shake off a 
 deep heart-broken gloom that seemed to have settled on 
 him, doubtless, as I thought, from the cruel defeat of the 
 noon, and the hopeless captivity into which he, the most 
 restless and the most daring soldier that ever saw service, 
 was now flung. 
 
 I noticed, too, that every now and then while he sat 
 beside me, talking low — for there were sentinels both in 
 and out the rude outhouse of the farm that had been 
 turned into our temporary prison — his eyes wandered to 
 the gallant Virginian who had been felled down with 
 himself, and who, covered like himself with blood and 
 dust, and with his broken left arm hanging shattered, lay 
 on the bare earth in a far-off corner motionless and silent, 
 with his lips pressed tight under their long black mous- 
 taches, and such a mute unutterable agony in his eyes as 
 I never saw in any human face, though I have seen deaths 
 enough in the field and the sick-ward. The rest of the 
 Confederate captives were more ordinary men (although 
 from none was a single word of lament ever wrenched) ; 
 but this superb Virginian excited my interest, and I 
 asked his name, in that sort of languid curiosity at pass- 
 ins: things which comes with weakness, of the Killer, 
 whose glance so incessantly wandered towards him. 
 
 " Stuart Lane," he answered, curtly, and added no 
 more ; but if I ever saw in this world hatred, passionate, 
 ungovernable, and intense, I saw it in the Killer's look 
 as his glance flashed once more on to the motionless form 
 of the handsomest, bravest, and most dauntless oflicer of
 
 DEADLY DASn. 253 
 
 his gallant regiment that he had seen cut to pieces there 
 on that accursed plateau. 
 
 "A major of yours?" I asked him. "Ah, I tliought 
 so ; he fought magnificently. How wretched he looks, 
 though he is too proud to show it ! " 
 
 "He is thinking of — of his bride. He married three 
 weeks ago." 
 
 The words were simple enough, and spoken very quietly ; 
 but there was an unsteadiness, as of great effort, over 
 them ; and the heel of his heavy spurred jack-boot 
 crashed into the dry mud with a grinding crush, as though 
 it trod terrible memories down. Was it a woman who 
 was between these two comrades in arms and companions 
 in adversity ? I wondered if it were so, even in that mo- 
 ment of keen and heavy anxiety for us all, as I looked at 
 the face that bent very kindly over the straw to which a 
 shot in the knee and a deep though not dangerous shoul- 
 der-wound bound me. It was very different to the face 
 of eight or nine years before — l)rowner, harder, graver 
 far ; and yet there was a look as if " sorrow had passed 
 by there," and swept the old heartlessness and gay cal- 
 lousness away, burning them out in its fires. 
 
 Silence fell over us in that wretched outshed where we 
 were huddled together. I was hot with incipient fever, 
 and growing light-headed enough, though I knew what 
 passed before me, to speak to Dash once or twice in a 
 dreamy idea that we were in the Shires watching the 
 run-in for the "Soldiers' Blue Riband." The minutes 
 dragged very drearily as the day wore itself away. There 
 were the sullen monotonous tramj) of the sentinels to and 
 fro, and, from without, the neighing of horses, the bugle 
 calls, the roll of the drums, the challenge of outposts — 
 all the varied, endless sounds of a camp ; for the furm- 
 hoi.se in whose shed we were thrown was the licad-quar- 
 tcrs pro tan. of the Federal General who comnuimled the 
 Divisions that had cost the Killer's handful of Hoisf so 
 22
 
 254 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 fearfully dear. We were prisoners, and escape was im- 
 possible. All arms of course had been removed from us ; 
 most, like myself, were too disabled by wounds to have 
 been able to avail ourselves of escape had it been possible ; 
 and the guard was doubled both in and out the shed ; 
 there was nothing before any of us but the certainty of 
 imprisonment in all its horrors in some fixr-off fortress or 
 obscure jail. There was the possible chance that, since 
 certain officers on whom the Northerners set great store 
 had lately fallen into Southern hands, an exchange might 
 be effected ; yet, on the other side, graver apprehensions 
 still existed, since Ave knew that the General into whose 
 camp we had been brought had proclaimed his deliberate 
 purpose of shooting the three next Secessionist officers 
 Avho fell into his power, in requital for three of his own 
 officers who had been shot, or were said to have been shot, 
 by a Southern raider. We knew very well that, the 
 threat made, it would be executed ; and each of us, as 
 the sun sank gradually down through the hot skies that 
 were purple and stormy after the burning day, knew, too, 
 that it might never rise again to greet our sight. None 
 of us would have heeded whether a ball would hit or 
 miss us in the open, in a fair fight, in a man-to-man strug- 
 gle ; but the boldest and most careless amidst us felt it 
 very bitter to die like dogs, to die as prisoners. 
 
 Even Deadly Dash, coolest, most hardened, most devil- 
 may-care of soldiers and of sinners, sat with his gaze 
 fastened on the slowly sinking light in the west with the 
 shadow of a great pain upon his face, while every now 
 and then his glance wandered to Stuart Lane, and a 
 quick, irrepressible shudder shook him Avhenever it did 
 so. The Virginian never moved ; no sign of any sort 
 escaped him ; but the passionate misery that looked out 
 of his eyes I never saw equalled, except, perhaps, in the 
 eyes of a stag that I once shot in Wallachia, and that 
 looked up with just such a look before it died. He was
 
 DEADLY DASH. 255 
 
 thinking, no doubt, of the ■woman he loved — wooed 
 amidst danger, won amidst eahimity, scarcely possessed 
 ere lost for ever; — thinking of her })roud beauty, of her 
 bridal caress, that would never again touch his lips, of 
 her fair life that would perish witli the destruction of his. 
 
 Exhaustion from the loss of blood made everything 
 pass dreamily, and yet with extraordinary clearness, 
 before me. I felt in a Avakening dream, and had no sense 
 whatever of actual existence, and yet the Avhole scene Avas 
 so intensely vital and vivid to me, that it seemed burned 
 into my very brain itself It Avas like the phantasmago- 
 ria of delirium, utterly impalpable, but yet intensely real. 
 I had no poAver to act or resist, but I seemed to have ten 
 tinies redoubled j^OAver to see and hear and feel ; I Avas 
 aAvare of all that passed, Avith a hundredfold more sus- 
 ceptibility to it than I ever felt in health. I remember a 
 total impossibility that came on me to decide Avhethcr I 
 Avas dreaming or Avas actually awake. Twilight fell, 
 night came ; there Avas a change of sentries, and a light, 
 set up in a bottle, shed a flickering, feeble, yelloAV gleam 
 over the interior of the shed, on the dark Kembrandt 
 faces of the Southerners and on the steel of the guards' 
 bayonets. And I recollect that the Killer, Avho sat by the 
 tossed straAv on Avhich they had flung me, laughed the old. 
 loAV, SAveet, half-insolent laugh that I had knoAvn so Avell 
 in early days. "IlJ'aut sovffrir pour etre beau! We are 
 picturesque, at any rate, (juite Salvatoresque ! Little 
 Dickey Avould make a good thing of us if he could paint 
 us noAA'. He is alive, I suppose?" 
 
 I answered him I belic^ve in the aflinnative; but the 
 name of that little Bohemian of the lirush, Avho had used 
 to be our butt and proterje in Enr;land, added a haze the 
 more to my senses. By this time I had difficulty to hold 
 together the thread of hoAV, and Avhen, and Avhy I had 
 thus mot again tiie face that h:)okc(l out on me so strangely 
 I'amiiiaily iu the dull, .-iickly trembling uf the feelule light
 
 256 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 of this black, noisome shed in the heart of Federal Divi- 
 eions. 
 
 Through that haze I heard the challenge of the sen- 
 tries ; I saw a soldier prod with his bayonet a young lad 
 who had fainted from haemorrhage, and whom he swore 
 at for shamming. I was conscious of the entrance of a 
 group of officers, whom I knew afterwards to be the 
 Northern General and his staff, who came to look at 
 their captives. I knew, but only dreamily still, that 
 these men were the holders of our fate, and would decide 
 on it then and there. I felt a listless indifference, utter 
 and opium-like, as to what became of me, and I remem- 
 ber that Stuart Lane, and Dash himself, rose together, and 
 stood looking with a serene and haughty disdain down on 
 the conquerors Avho held their lives in the balance — 
 without a trace of pain upon their faces now. I remem- 
 ber how like they looked to stags that turn at bay ; like 
 the stags, outnumbered, hunted down, with the blood of 
 open wounds and the dust of the long chase on them ; 
 but, like the deer, too, uncowed, and game to the finish. 
 
 Very soon their doom was given. Seven were to be 
 sent back with a flag of truce to be exchanged for the 
 seven Federal officers they wanted out of the Southern- 
 ers' hands, ten were to be transmitted to the prisons of 
 the North, — three were to be shot at day-dawn in the 
 reprisal before named. The chances of life and of death 
 were to be drawn for by lottery, and at once. 
 
 Not a sound escaped the Vii'ginians, and not a muscle 
 of their English Leader's face moved : the prisoners, to a 
 man, heard impassively, with a grave and silent dignity, 
 that they were to throw the die in hazard, with death for 
 the croupier and life for the stake. 
 
 The General and his staff waited to amuse themselves 
 with personally watching the turns of this new Rouge et 
 Noir ; gambling in lives was a little refreshing change
 
 DEADLY DASn. 251 
 
 that sultry, dreary, dun-colored night, camped amongst 
 burnt-out farms and wasted corn-lands. 
 
 Slips of paper, with " exchange," " death," and " im- 
 prisonment" written on them in the numbers needed, 
 were made ready, rolled up, and tossed into an empty 
 canteen ; each man was required to come forward and 
 draw, I alone excepted because I was an officer of the 
 British Army. I remember passionately arguing that 
 they had no right to exempt me, since I had been in the 
 fray, and had killed three men on my own hook, and 
 would have killed thirty more had I had the chance ; but 
 I was perhaps incoherent in the fever that was fast seizing 
 all my limbs from the rack of undressed wounds ; at any 
 rate, the Northerners took no heed, save to force me into 
 silence, and the drawing began. As long as I live I shall 
 see that night in remembrance with hideous distinctness: 
 the low blackened shed with its foetid odors from the 
 cattle lately foddered there ; the yellow light flaring dully 
 here and there ; the glisten of the cruel rifles ; the heaps 
 of straw and hay soaked with clotted blood ; the group 
 of Union Officers standing near the doorway ; and the 
 war-worn indomitable faces of the Southerners, with the 
 fairer head and slighter form of their English chief 
 standing out slightly in front of all. 
 
 The Conscription of Death commenced ; a Federal 
 private took the paper from each man as he drew it, and 
 read the word of destiny aloud. Not one amongst them 
 faltered or paused one moment; each went, — even those 
 most exhausted, most in agony, — with a calm and steady 
 step, as they Avould have marched up to take the Flag of 
 the Stars and Bars from Lee or Loiigstrect. Not one 
 waited a second's breath before he plunged his hand into 
 the fatal lottery. 
 
 Deadly Dash was the first called : there was not one 
 shadow of anxiety upon his face ; it was calm without 
 effort, careless witliout bravado, simj)ly, entirely indiff'cr- 
 .22 ♦ R
 
 25S DEADLY DASH. 
 
 ent. Tliey took his paper aud read the words of safety 
 and of .ifc — "Exchange." Then, for one instant, a glory 
 of hope flashed like the sun into his eyes — to die the 
 next ; aie utterly. 
 
 Three followed him, and they all drew the fiat for 
 detention ; the fifth called was Stuart Lane. 
 
 Let him have suffered as he would, he gave no sign of 
 it now ; he approached with his firm, bold cavaliy step, 
 and his head haughtily lifted ; the proud, fiery, dauntless 
 Cavalier of ideal and of romance. Without a tremor in 
 his Avrist he drew his paper out and gave it. 
 
 One word alone fell distinct on the silence like the hiss 
 of a shot through the night — "Death!" 
 
 He bowed his head slightly as if in assent, and stepped 
 backward — still without a sign. 
 
 His English chief gave him one look, — it was that of 
 merciless exultation, of brutal joy, of dark, Cain-like, 
 murderous hate ; but it passed, passed quickly : Dash's 
 head sank on his chest, and on his face there was the 
 shadow, I think, of a terrible struggle — the shadow, I 
 know, of a great remorse. He strove with his longing 
 greed for this man's destruction ; he knew that he thirsted 
 to see him die. 
 
 The Virginian stood erect and silent : a single night 
 and the strong and gallant life, the ardent passions, the 
 chivalrous courage to do and dare, and the love that was 
 in its first fond hours would all be quenched in him as 
 though they had never been ; but he was a soldier, and 
 he gave no sign that his death-warrant was not as dear to 
 him as his bridal-night had been. Even his conquerors 
 cast one glance of admiration on him ; it was only his 
 leader who felt for him no pang of reverence and pity. 
 
 The lottery continued ; the hazard was played out ; life 
 and death were scattered at reckless chance amidst the 
 tAventy who were the playthings of that awful gaming ; 
 all had been done in perfect silence on the part of thy
 
 DEADLY DASn. 3£9 
 
 condemned ; not one seemed to think or to feel for him- 
 self, and in those who were sent out to their grave not a 
 grudge lingered against their comrades of happier fortune. 
 Deadly Dash, whose fate was release, alone stood with his 
 head sunk, thoughtful and weary. 
 
 The three condemned to execution were remanded to 
 separate and solitary confinement, treated already as 
 felons for that one short night which alone remained to 
 them. As his guards removed hira, Stuart Lane paused 
 slightly, and signed to his chief to approach him ; he held 
 out his hand to Dash, and his voice was very low, though 
 it came to my ear where they stood beside me : " We were 
 rivals once, but we may be friends 7iow. As you have 
 loved her, be pitiful to her when you tell her of my 
 death, — God knows it may be hers ! As you have loved 
 her, feel what it is to die without one last look on her 
 face!" 
 
 Then, and then only, his bronze cheek grew white as a 
 woman's, and his whole frame shook with one great silent 
 sob ; his guard forced him on, and his listener had made 
 him no promise, no farewell ; neither had he taken hia 
 hand. He had heard in silence, with a dark and evil 
 gloom alone upon him. 
 
 The Federal General sharply summoned him from his 
 musing, as the chief of those to be exchanged on the 
 morrow under a white flag of parley ; there were matters 
 to be stated to and to be arranged with him. 
 
 " I will only see you alone. General," he ansAvered 
 curtly. 
 
 The Northerner stared startled, and casting a glance 
 over the redoubtable leader of horse, whose gray feather 
 had become known and dreaded, thought of possible 
 assassination. Deadly Dash laughed his old light, ironic, 
 contemptuous laugh. 
 
 " A wounded unarmed man can scarcely kill you I
 
 260 DEADLY DASn. 
 
 Have as many of your staff about you as you please, but 
 let none of my Virginians be present at our interview." 
 
 The Northerners thought he intended to desert to them, 
 or betray some movement of importance, and assented ; 
 and he went out with them from the cattle-shed into the 
 hot, stormy night, and the Southerners who were con- 
 demned to death and detention looked after him with a 
 long, wistful, dog-like look. They had been with him in 
 60 many spirit-stirring days and nights of peril, and they 
 knew that never would they meet again. He had not 
 given one of them a word of adieu ; he had killed too 
 many to be touched by his soldiers' loss. Who could 
 expect pity from Deadly Dash ? 
 
 An hour passed ; I was removed under a guard to a 
 somewhat better lodging in the granary, where a surgeon 
 hastily dressed my wounds, and left me on a rough pallet 
 with a jug of water at my side, and the sentinel for my 
 only watcher, bidding me " sleep." Sleep ! I could not 
 have slept for my ransom. Though life had hardened 
 me, and made me sometimes, as I fear, callous enough, I 
 could not forget those who were to die when the sun rose ; 
 si)ecially, I could not forget that gallant Virginian to 
 whom life was so precious, yet who gave himself with so 
 calm a fortitude to his fate. The rivalry, I thought, must 
 be deep and cruel, to make the man from whom he had 
 won what they both loved turn from him in hatred, even 
 in such extremity as his. On the brink of a comrade's 
 grave, feud might surely have been forgotten ? 
 
 All that had just passed was reeling deliriously through 
 my brain, and I was panting in the sheer irritation and 
 exhaustion of gunshot wounds, when through the gloom 
 Dash entered the granary, closely guarded, but allowed 
 to be with me on account of our common country. Never 
 was I more thankful to see a familiar face from home 
 than to see his through the long watches of tliat burning, 
 heavy, interminable night. He refused to rest; he sat
 
 DEADLY DASH. 261 
 
 by me, tending me as gently as a woman, though he was 
 suffering acutely himself from the injuries received in the 
 course of the day ; he watched me unweariedly, though 
 often and often his gaze and his thoughts wandered far 
 from me, as he looked out through the open granary door, 
 past the form of the sentinel, out to the starry solemn 
 fckies, the deep woods, and the dark silent land over which 
 the stars were brooding, large and clear. 
 
 Was he thinking of the Virginian whose life would die 
 out for ever, with the fading of those stars, or of the wo- 
 man whom he had lost, whose love was the doomed sol- 
 dier's, and would never be his own, though the grave 
 closed over his rival with the morrow's sun '? Dreamily, 
 half unconsciously, in the excitement of fever, I asked 
 him of her of whom I knew nothing: 
 
 " Did you love that woman so well ? " 
 
 His eyes were still fixed on the distant darkening skies, 
 and he answered quietly, as though rather to his own 
 thoughts than my words, — " Yes : I love her — as I never 
 loved in that old life in England ; as we never love but 
 once, I think." 
 
 "And she?" 
 
 "And she — has but one thought in the world — him." 
 
 His voice, as he answered, now grated with dull, drag- 
 ging misery over the words. 
 
 " Had she so much beauty that she touched you like 
 this?" 
 
 He smiled slightly, a faint, mournful smile, unutter- 
 ably sad. 
 
 " Yes ; she is very lovely, but her beauty is the least 
 rare charm. She is a woman for whom a man would live 
 his greatest, and if he cannot live for her — may — die." 
 
 The utterance was very slow, and seemed to lie on me 
 like a hand on my lips compelling me to silence ; he had 
 forgotten all, except his memory of her, and where he sat 
 with his eyes lixcd outward on the drifting clouds that
 
 262 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 floated across the stars, I saw his lips quiver once, and 1 
 heard him murmur half aloud : " My darling ! My dar- 
 ling! You will know how I loved you then " 
 
 And the silence was never broken between us, but he 
 eat motionless thus all the hours through, looking out at 
 the deep still woods, and the serene and lustrous skies, 
 till the first beams of the sun shone over the hills in the 
 east, and I shuddered, where I lay, at its light; — for I 
 knew it was the signal of death. 
 
 Then he arose, and bent towards me, and the kindly 
 eyes of old looked down on mine. 
 
 " Dear old fellow, the General expects me at dawn. I 
 must leave you just now ; say good-bye." 
 
 His hand closed on mine, he looked on me one moment 
 longer, a little lingeringly, a little wistfully, then he 
 turned and went out with his guard ; went out into the 
 young day that was just breaking on the world. 
 
 I watched his shadow as it faded, and I saw that the 
 sun had risen wholly ; and I thought of those who were 
 to die with the morning light. 
 
 All was very calm for a while ; then the beat of a drum 
 rolled through the quiet of the dawn, and the measured 
 tramp of armed men sounded audibly ; my heart stood 
 still, my lips felt parched, — I knew the errand of that 
 column marching so slowly across the parched turf A 
 little while longer yet, and I heard the sharp ring of the 
 ramrods being withdrawn, and the dull echo of the charge 
 being rammed down : with a single leap, as though the 
 bullets were through me, 1 sprang, weak as I was, from 
 my wretched pallet, and staggered to the open doorway, 
 leaning there against the entrance powerless and spell- 
 bound. I saw the file of soldiers loading ; I saw tho 
 empty coffin-shells; I saw three men standing bound, 
 their forms distinct against the clear, bright haze of 
 morning, and the fresh foliage of the woods. Two of 
 them were Virginians, but the tliird was not Stuart Lan<^
 
 DEADLY DASH. 2fiS 
 
 With a ^reat cry I sprang forward, but the guards 
 seized my arms and held me, lielpless as a woman, in 
 their gripe. He whom we had called Deadly Dash heard, 
 and looked up and smiled. His face was tranquil and 
 full of light, as though the pure peace of the day shone 
 there. 
 
 The gripe of the sentinels held me as if in fetters of 
 iron ; the world seemed to rock and reel under me, a sea 
 of blood seemed eddying before my eyes ; the young day 
 was dawning, and murder was done in its early hours, 
 and I was held there to look on, — its witness, yet power- 
 less to arrest it !• I heard the formula — so hideous then ! 
 — " Make ready ! " — " Present ! " — " Fire ! " I saw the 
 lontj line of steel tubes belch out their smoke and flame 
 I heard the sullen echo of the report roll down from the 
 mountains above. When the mist cleared away, the 
 three figures stood no longer clear against the sunlight ; 
 they had fallen. 
 
 With the mad violence of desperation I wrenched my- 
 self from my guards, and staggered to him w'here he lay ; 
 he was not quite dead yet ; the balls had passed through 
 his lungs, but he breathed still ; his eyes were unclosed, 
 and the gleam of a last farewell came in them. He 
 smiled slightly, faintly once more. 
 
 " She will know how I loved her now. Tell her I died 
 for her," he said softly, while his gaze looked upwards to 
 the golden sun-rays rising in the east. 
 
 And with these words life passed away, the smile still 
 lingering gently on his lips ; — and I knew no more, for I 
 fell like a man stunned down by him where he was 
 stretched beside the grave that they had hewn for him 
 ere he was yet dead. 
 
 I knew when I saw him there, as well as I knew hy 
 detail long after, that he had offered his life for Stuart 
 Lane's, and that it had been accepted; the Virginian,
 
 264 DEADLY DASH. 
 
 ignorant of the sacrifice made for him, had been sent to 
 the Southern lines during the night, told by the North- 
 erners that he was pardoned on his parole to return in hia 
 stead a distinguished Federal officer lately captured by 
 him. He knew nothing, dreamt nothing, of the exchange 
 by which his life was given back to the woman who loved 
 him, Avhen his English Leader died in his place as the sun 
 rose over the fresh summer world, never again to rise for 
 those whose death-shot rang sullen and shrill through its 
 silence. 
 
 So Deadly Dash died, and his grave is nameless and 
 unknown there under the shadow of the great Virginian 
 forests. He was outlawed, condemned, exiled, and the 
 world would see no good in him ; sins were on him 
 heavily, and vices lay darkly at his door ; but when I 
 think of that grave in the South where the grass grows so 
 rankly now, and only the wild deer pauses, I doubt if 
 there was not that in him which may well shame the 
 best amongst us. We never knew him justly till he 
 j)erished there. 
 
 And my friend who told me this said no more, but took 
 up his brule-gueule regretfully. The story is given as he 
 gave it, and the States could whisper from the depths of 
 their silent woods many tales of sacrifice as generous, of 
 fortitude as great. That when he had related it he was 
 something ashamed of having felt it so much, is true; and 
 you must refer the unusual weakness, as he did, to the 
 fact that he told it on the off-day of the Derby, after 
 having put a cracker on Wild Charley. A sufficient 
 apology for any number of frailties !
 
 THE GENERAL'S MATCH-MAKING- 
 
 OR, 
 
 COACHES AND COUSINSHIP. 
 
 jiriERE the devil shall I go this Long? Paris 
 is too hot ; the inside of my adorable Chilteau 
 des Fleurs would give one a lively idea of the 
 feelings of eels in a frying-pan. Kome 's only fit to melt 
 down puffy cardinals, as jocks set themselves before the 
 kitchen fire preparatory to the Spring Meetings. In 
 Switzerland there 's nothing fit to eat. Spain might be 
 the ticket — the Andalusians are a good-looking lot, but 
 they have n't a notion of beer. Scotland I dare n't enter, 
 because I know I should get married under their rascally 
 laws. I 'd go to the Bads, but the V. P.'s fillies say they 
 mean to do 'em this summer, and I won't risk meeting 
 them if I know it ; the baits they set to catch the unsus- 
 pecting are quite frightful. Where the devil shall I go ? 
 
 So spoke Sydenham Morton, whilom Captain of Eton, 
 now, in due course, having passed up to Kings, discussing 
 ham-pie and audit, devils and coffee, while the June sun 
 streamed through the large oriel windows. 
 
 " To the devil, I fear, if you only find your proper 
 fraternity," said a man, coming in. Oak was never 
 sported by Sydie, except when he was rattling certain 
 little squares of ivory in boxes lined with green felt. 
 
 ^■' Ah, Mr. Keanc, is that you ? Come in." 
 
 The permission was needless, insomuch as Keane was 
 already in and down on a rocking-chair. 
 
 23 (265)
 
 266 THE general's matcii-makinq. 
 
 "One o'clock, and only just begun your breakfast! I 
 have finished more than half my day's work." 
 
 " I dare say," answered Sydie ; " but one shining light 
 like you, monseigneur, is enough for a college. Why 
 should I exert myself? I swore I had n't four marks a 
 year, and I 've my fellowship for telling the furbelow. 
 We all go in for the dolce here except you, and you 're 
 such a patent machine for turning out Q.E.D.s by the 
 dozen, that you can no more help working than the bed- 
 maker can help taking my tea and saying the cat did it, 
 and ' May she never be forgiven if she ever so much as 
 looked at that there blessed lock.' I say, find a Q.E.D. 
 for me, to the most vexatious problem, where I 'm to go 
 tliis Long ? " 
 
 " Go a quiet reading tour ; mark out a regular plan, 
 and travel somewhere rugged and lonely, with not a 
 crinoline, or a trout-stream, or a pack of hounds within a 
 hundred miles ; the middle of Stonehenge, for example, 
 or with the lighthouse men out at the Smalls or Eddy- 
 stone. You 'd do Avonders when you came back, Sydie. 
 
 Sydie shook his head and puffed gravely at his pipe. 
 
 " Thank you, sir. Cramming 's not my line. As for 
 history, I don't see anything particularly interesting in 
 the blackguardisms of men all dust and ashes and gela- 
 tine now ; if I were the Prince of Wales, I might think it 
 my duty to inquire into the characters of my grand- 
 fathers ; but not being that individual, I find the Derby 
 list much more suited to my genius. As for the classics, 
 they won't help me to ask for my dinner at Tortoni's, noi 
 to ingratiate myself with the women at the Maison Doree; 
 and I prefer following Ovid's counsels, and enjoying the 
 Falernian of life represented in these days by milk-punch, 
 to plodding through the De Ofticiis. As for mathematics, 
 it may be something very grand to draw triangles and 
 circles till A meets B because C is as long as D ; but I 
 know, when I did the same opei'utiou in chalk when I
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 267 
 
 was a s. .lall actor on the nursery floor, my nurse (who 
 might have gone along with the barbarian who stuck 
 Archimedes) called me an idle brat. Well, I say, about 
 the Long ? Whei'e are you going, most grave and reverent 
 seignior ? " 
 
 " Where there are no impertinent boys, if there be such 
 d paradise on earth," rejoined Keane, lighting his pipe. 
 •* I go to my moor, of course, for the 12th, but until then 
 r have n't made up my mind. I think I shall scamper 
 over South America ; I want freshening up, and I 've a 
 great fancy to see those buried cities, not to mention a 
 chance of buffalo hunting." 
 
 " Travelling 's such a bore," interrupted Sydie, stretch- 
 ing himself out like an india-rubber tube. " Talk of the 
 cherub that 's always sitting up aloft to "watch over poo** 
 Jack, there are always ten thousand demons watching 
 over the life of any luckless ^othen ; there are the 
 custom-house men, whose natural prey he becomes, and 
 the hotel-keepers, who fasten on him to suck his life- 
 blood, and there are the mosquitoes, and other things less 
 minute but not less agonizing ; and there are guides and 
 muleteers, and waiters and ciceroni — oli, hang it! travel- 
 ling's a dreadful bore, if it were only for the inevitable 
 widow with four daughters whom you 've danced with 
 once at a charity ball, who rushes up to you on the 
 Boulevards or a Rhine steamer, and tacks herself on to 
 you, and whom it 's well for you if you can shake oft' 
 when you scatter the dust of the city from the sole of 
 your foot." 
 
 "You can't chatter, can you?" 
 
 "Yes; my franum was happily cut when I was a baby. 
 Fancy what a loss the world would have endured if it 
 had n't been ! " said Sydie, lazily shutting his half-closed 
 blue eyes. " I say, the governor has been bothering my 
 life out to go down to St. Crucis; he's an old brick, you 
 know, and has the prunest dry in the kingdom. I wiah
 
 268 THE general's match-making. 
 
 you'd come, will you? There's capital fishing and 
 cricketing, and you 'd keep me company. Do. You shall 
 have the best mount in the kingdom, and the General 
 will do you no end of good on Hippocrate's rule — con- 
 trarieties cure contrarieties." 
 
 " I '11 think about it ; but you know I prefer solitude 
 generally ; misanthropical, I admit, but decidedly lucky 
 for me, as my companions through life will always be my 
 ink-stand, my terrier, and my papers. I have never 
 wished for any other yet, and I hope I never shall. Are 
 you going to smoke and drink audit on that sofa all day ?" 
 
 "No," answered Sydie, "I'm going to take a turn at 
 beer and Brown's for a change. Well, I shall take you 
 down with me on Tuesday, sir, so that 's settled." 
 
 Keane laughed, and after some few words on the busi- 
 ness that had brought him thither, went across the quad 
 to his own rooms to plunge into the intricacies of Fourrier 
 and Laplace, or give the vigor of his brain to stuffing 
 some young goose's empty head, or cramming some idle 
 young dog with ballast enough to carry him through the 
 shoals and quicksands of his Greats. 
 
 Gerald Keane was a mathematical Coach, and had 
 taken high honors — a rare thing for a Kingsman to do, 
 for are they not, by their own confession, the laziest dis- 
 ciples of the dolce in the whole of Granta, invariably 
 bumped and caught out, and from sheer idleness letting 
 other men beat Lord's and shame the Oxford Eleven, and 
 graduate with Double Firsts, while they lie perdus in the 
 shades of Holy Henry ? Keane, however, was the one ex- 
 ception to the rule. He was dreadfully wild, as ladies 
 say, for his first term or two, though equally eloquent at 
 tlie Union ; then his family exulting in the accuracies of 
 their ])rophecies regarding his worth lessness, and some- 
 body else daring him to go in for honors, his pluck waa 
 put up, and he set himself to work to show them all what 
 he could do if he chose. Once roused to jiut out his pow-
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 269 
 
 ers, he liked using them ; the hother of the training over, 
 it is no trouble to keep place as stroke-oar ; and now men 
 pointed him out in the Senate House, and at the Senio.' 
 Fellows' table, and he bid fair to rank with the writer on 
 Jasher and the author of the Inductive Sciences. 
 
 People called him very cold. It was popularly averred 
 that he had no more feeling than Eoubilliac's or Thor- 
 waldsen's statues ; but as he was a great favorite with the 
 under-grads, and always good-natured to them, there were 
 a few men who doubted the theory, though he never tried 
 to refute or dispute it. 
 
 Of all the youn^ fellows, the one Keane liked the best, 
 and to whom he was kindest, was Sydenham Morton — 
 Sydie to everybody in Granta, from the little fleuriste op- 
 posite in King's Parade, to the V. P.'s wife, who petted 
 him because his uncle was a millionnaire — the dearest 
 fellow in the world, according to all the Cambridge young 
 ladies — the darling of all the milliner and confectioner 
 girls in Trumpington Street and Petty Cury — the best 
 chap going among the kindred spirits, who got gated, and 
 lectured, and rusticated for skying over to Newmarket, or 
 pommelling bargees, or taking a lark over at Cherry hiu- 
 ton — the best-dressed, fastest, and most charming of Cau- 
 tabs, as he himself would gravely assure you. 
 
 They were totally dissimilar, and far asunder in posi- 
 tion ; but an affair on the slope of the Matterhorn, when 
 the boy had saved the elder man's life, had riveted attach- 
 ment between them, and bridged over the diflerence of 
 their academical rank. 
 
 The Commencement came and went, Avith its speecheb, 
 and its II.K.H. Chancellor, and its pretty women gliding 
 among the elms of Neville's Court (poor Leslie Ellis's 
 daily haunt), filling the grim benches of the Senate 
 House, and flitting past the carved benches of King's 
 Chapel. Granta was henceforth a desert to all Cambridge 
 Delles ; they could walk down Trumpington Street without
 
 270 THE general's match-making. 
 
 meeting a score of little straw hats, and Trumping./ 
 Street became as odious as Sahara ; the " darling BacLs 
 were free to them, and, of course, they who, by all rela 
 tioiis, from those of Genesis to those of Vanity Fair, have 
 never cared, save for fruit defendu, saw nothing to admire 
 in the trees, and grass, and river, minus outriggers and 
 collegians. There was a general exodus : Masters' red 
 hoods. Fellows Commoners' gold-lace, Fellows' gown and 
 mortar boards, morning chapel surplices, and under-grads' 
 straw-hats and cutaway coats, all vanished from court and 
 library, street and cloister. Cambridge was empty ; the 
 married Dons and their families went off to country- 
 houses or Rhine steamers ; Fellows went touring with 
 views to medioeval architecture, Roman remains, Greek 
 inscriptions, Paris laisser aller, or Norwegian fishing, ac- 
 cording to their tastes and habits ; under-grads scattered 
 themselves over the face of the globe, and were to be 
 found in knots of two or three calling for stout in Ve- 
 four's, kicking up a row with Austrian gendarmerie, 
 chalking up effigies of Bomba on Italian walls, striding 
 up every mountain from Skiddaw to the Pic du Midi, 
 burrowing like rabbits in a warren for reading purposes 
 on Dartmoor, kissing sunny-haired Grctchens in German 
 hostelries, swinging through the Vaterland with knap- 
 sacks and sticks, doing a walking tour — in fact, swarm- 
 ing everywhere with their impossible French and hearty 
 voices, and lithe English muscle, Granta marked on them 
 as distinctly as an M.B. waistcoat marks an Anglican, or 
 utter ignorance of modern politics a " great classic." 
 
 Cambridge had emptied itself of the scores of naughty 
 boys that lie in the arms of Mater, and on Tuesday Keauo 
 and Sydie were shaking and rattling over those dreadful 
 nervous Eastern Counties tenders, through that picturesque 
 and beautiful country that does permutations with such 
 laudable perseverance on pollards, feus, and flats — flats,
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 271 
 
 fens, and pollards — at the snail's pace that, according to 
 the E.G.R., we must believe to be " express." 
 
 " I wrote and told the governor you w^ere coming down 
 with me, sir," said Sydie, hanging up his hat. " I did n't 
 tell him what a trouble I had to make you throw over 
 South America for a fortnight, and come and taste hia 
 curry at the Beeches. You '11 like the old boy ; he 's as 
 hot and choleric, and as genial and good-hearted, as any 
 old brick that ever walked. He was born as sweet-tem- 
 pered and soft-mouthed as mamma when an eldest son 
 waltzes twice with Adeliza, and the pepper 's been put into 
 him by the curry-powder, the gentlemanlike transportation, 
 and the unlimited command over black devils, enjoyed by 
 gentlemen of the H.E.I.C.S." 
 
 " A nabob uncle," thought Keane. " Oh, I see, yellow, 
 dyspeptic, always boring one with ' How to govern India,' 
 and recollections of ' When I served with Napier.' What 
 a fool I was to let Sydie persuade me to go. A month in 
 Lima and the Pampas would be much pleasantcr." 
 
 " He came over last year," continued Sydie, in blissful 
 ignorance, " and bought the Beeches, a very jolly place, 
 only he 's crammed it with everything anybody suggested, 
 and tried anything that any farmer recommended, so 
 that the house and the estate present a peculiar compen- 
 dium of all theories of architecture, and a general exhi- 
 bition of all sorts of tastes. He 's his hobbies ; pouncing 
 on and apprehending small boys is one of 'em, for which 
 practice he is endeared to the youth of St. Crucis as the 
 'old cove,' the ' Injian devil,' and like affectionate cogno- 
 mens. But the Genei'al's weak point is me — me and 
 little Fay." 
 
 "His mare, I suppose?" 
 
 "His mare! — bless my heart, no! — his mare!" And 
 Sydie lay back, and laughed silently. " His mare ! By 
 George ! what would she say ? She 's a good deal too 
 lively a young lady to run in harness for anybody, though
 
 272 THE general's matcii-makinq. 
 
 she 's soft-mouthed enough when she 's led. Mare ! No, 
 Fay's his niece — my cousin. Her father and my father 
 went to glory when we were botli smalls, and left us in 
 legacy to the General, and a pretty pot of money the 
 legacy has cost him." 
 
 " Your cousin, indeed ! The name 's more like a mare's 
 than a girl's," answered Keane, thinking to himself "A 
 cousin ! I just wish I 'd known that. One of those Indian 
 girls, I bet, tanned brown as a berry, flirts a outrance, has 
 run the gauntlet of all the Calcutta balls, been engaged 
 to men in all the Arms, talks horridly broad Anglo-In- 
 dian-English. I know the style." 
 
 The engine screamed, and pulled up at the St. Crucis 
 station, some seventy miles farther on, lying in the midst 
 of Creswickian landscapes, with woodlands, and cottages, 
 and sweet fresh stretches of meadow-land, such as do one's 
 heart good after hard days and late nights in dust and 
 gaslight. 
 
 " Deuced fine points," said Sydie, taking the ribbons of 
 a high-stepping bay that had brought one of the neatest 
 possible traps to take him and Keane to the Beeches, and 
 epringing, in all his glory, to the box, than which no im- 
 perial throne could have offered to him one-half so de- 
 lightful a seat. " Governor never keeps screws. What 
 a crying shame we 're not allowed to keep the sorriest 
 hack at King's. That comes of gentlemen slipping into 
 shoes that were meant for beggars. Hallo, there are the 
 old beech-trees ; I vow I can almost taste the curry and 
 dry from looking at them." 
 
 In dashed the bay through the park-gates, sending the 
 Bhingle flying up in sma)l simoons, and the rooks cawing 
 in supreme surprise from their nests in the branches of 
 the beech-trees. 
 
 " Hallo, my ancient, how are you ?" began Sydie to the 
 butler, while that stately person expanded into a smih; of 
 welcome. " Down, dog, down ! 'Pon my life, the old
 
 THE general's match-making. 21'6 
 
 place looks very jolly. What have you hung all that 
 arraoi up for; — to make believe our ancestors chvelt in 
 these marble hulls ? How devilish dusty I am. Where 's 
 the General ? Did u't know we were coming till next 
 train. Fay ! Fay ! where are you ? Ashton, where 'k 
 Miss Morton ? " 
 
 " Here, Sydie dear," cried the young lady in question, 
 rushing across the hall with the most ecstatic delight, 
 and throwing herself into the Cantab's arras, who re- 
 ceived her with no less cordiality, and kissed her straight- 
 way, regardless of the presence of Keane, the butler, and 
 Harris. 
 
 " Oh, Sydie," began the young lady, breathlessly, " I 'm 
 so delighted you 're come. There 's the archery fete, and 
 a picnic at Shallowton, and an election ball over at 
 Coverdale, and I want you to dance with me, and to try 
 the new billiard-table, and to come and see my aviary, 
 and to teach me pistol-shooting (because Julia Dupuis 
 can shoot splendidly, and talks of joining the Rifles), and 
 to show me how to do Euclid, and to amuse me, and to 
 play ^Yith me, and to tell me which is the prettiest of 
 
 Snowdrop's pups to be saved, and to " She stopped 
 
 suddenly, and dropped from enthusiastic tirade to sub- 
 dued surprise, as she caught sight of Keane for the first 
 time. " Oh, Sydie, why did you not introduce me to your 
 friend ? How rude I have been ! " 
 
 " Mr. Keane, my cousin, the torment of my existence, 
 Miss Morton in public. Little Fay in private life. There, 
 you know one another now. I can't say any more. Do 
 tell me where the governor is." 
 
 "Mr. Keane, what can you think of me?" cried Fay. 
 " Any friend of Sydenham's is most welcome to the 
 Beeclies, and my uncle will scold me frightfully for giving 
 you such a reception. Please do forgive me, I was so 
 deliglited to see my cousin." 
 
 " Which I can fully enter into, having a weakness for
 
 2Y4 THE general's match making. 
 
 SyJie myself," smiled Keane. "I am sure he is very 
 fortunate in being the cause of such an excuse." 
 
 Keane said it par complaisance, but rather carelessly ; 
 young ladies, as a class, being one of his aversions. He 
 looked at Fay Morton, however, and saw she was not an 
 Indianized girl after all. She was not yellow, but, au 
 contraire, had waving fair hair, long dark eyes, and a 
 mischievous, sunny face — 
 
 A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
 And sweet as English air could make her. 
 
 "Where's the governor. Fay?" reiterated Sydie. 
 
 " Here, my dear boy. Thought of your old uncle the 
 first thing, Sydie ? God bless my soul, how well you look ! 
 Confound you, why did n't you tell me what train you 
 were coming by ? Devil take you, Ashton, why 's there 
 no fire in the hall ? Thought it was warm, did you ? 
 Hum ! more fool you then." 
 
 " Uncle dear," said Miss Fay, " here is Sydie's friend, 
 Mr. Keane ; you are being as rude as I have been." 
 
 The General, at this conjuration, swung sharp round, 
 a stout, hale, handsome old fellow, with gray moustaches 
 and a high color, holding a spade in his hand and clad in 
 a linen coat. 
 
 " Bless my soul, sir," cried the General, shaking Keane's 
 hand with the greatest possible energy, " charmed to see 
 you — delighted, 'pon my honor ; only hope you 're come 
 to stay till Christmas ; there are plenty of bachelors' dens. 
 Devil take me ! of what was I tliinking ? I was pleased 
 to see that boy, I suppose. More fool I, you '11 say, a 
 lazy, good-for-notliing young dog like him. Don't let me 
 keep you standing in the hall. Cursed cold, is n't it ? and 
 there 's Little Fay in muslin ! Ashton, send some hot 
 
 water into the west room for Mr. — Mr. Confound 
 
 you, Sydie, wliy didn't you tell — I mean introduce me? 
 — l\Ti-. Keane. Luncheon will be on the table in ten
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 2T5 
 
 minutes. Like curry, Mr. Keane? There, get along, 
 Sydie, you foolish boy; you can talk to Fay after 
 luncheon." 
 
 " vSydie," whispered Fay, an hour before dinner, when 
 she had teased the Cantab's life out of hi in till he had 
 consented to pronounce judgment on the puppies, " what 
 a splendid head that man has you brought with you ; 
 he 'd do for Plato, with that grand calm brow and lofty 
 unapproachable look. AVho is he?" 
 
 " The greatest philosopher of modern times," responded 
 her cousin, solemnly. " A condensation of Solon, Thales, 
 Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero, Lucullus, Bion, Theophrastes, 
 and Co. ; such a giant of mathematical knowledge, and 
 all other knowledge, too, that every day, when he passes 
 under Bacon's Gate, we are afraid the old legend Avill 
 come to pass, and it will tumble down as flat as a pan- 
 cake ; a homage to him, but a loss to Cambridge." 
 
 " Nonsense," said Miss Fay, impatiently. " (I like that 
 sweet little thing with the black nose best, dear.) Who 
 is he? What is he? How old is he? What 's his name? 
 Where does he live?" 
 
 " Gently, young woman," cried Sydie. " He is Tutor 
 and Fellow of King's, and a great gun besides ; he 's 
 some twenty-five years older than you. His name on the 
 rolls is Gerald, I believe, and he dwells in the shadow of 
 Mater, beyond the reach of my coroet ; for Avhich fact, 
 not being musically inclined, he is barbarian enough to 
 return thanks daily in chapel." 
 
 " I am sorry he is come. It was stupid of you to bring 
 him." 
 
 " Wherefore, ma cousine ? Are you afraid of him ? 
 You needn't be. Young ladies are too insignificant 
 atoms of creation for him to criticise. He'll no more 
 expect sense from you than from Snowdrop and hci 
 pups." 
 
 "Afraid!" repeated Fay, with extreme indignation.
 
 276 THE geneual's matcii-makino. 
 
 " I should like to see any man of whom I should feel 
 afraid ! If he does n't like fun and nonsense, I pity 
 him ; but if he despise me ever so much for it, I shall 
 enjoy myself before him, and in spite of him. I was 
 fiorry you brought him, because he will take you away 
 when I want you all to myself; and he looks so haughty, 
 that " 
 
 "You are afraid of him, Fay, and won't own it." 
 
 " I am not,^' reiterated Fay, impetuously ; " and I will 
 smoke a cigar with him after dinner, to show you I am 
 not one bit." 
 
 " I bet you six pair of gloves you do no such thing, 
 young lady." 
 
 " Done. Do keep the one with a black nose, Sydie ; 
 and yet that little liver-colored darling is too pretty to be 
 killed. Suppose we save them all ? Snowdrop will be 
 so pleased." 
 
 Whereon Fay kissed all the little snub noses with the 
 deepest affection, and was caught in the act by Keanc and 
 the General. 
 
 " There 's that child with her arms full of dogs," said 
 the General, beaming with satisfaction at sight of his 
 niece. "She's a little, spoilt, wilful thing. She's an old 
 bachelor's pet, and you must make allowances. I call 
 her the fairy of the Beeches, God bless her ! She nursed 
 me last winter, when I was at death's door from these 
 cursed cold winds, sir, better than Miss Nightingale 
 could have done. What a devilish climate it is; never 
 two days alike. I don't wonder Englishwomen are such 
 icicles, poor things ; they 're frostbitten from their cradle 
 upwards." 
 
 "India warms them up, General, doesn't it?" 
 
 The General shook with laughter. 
 
 " To be sure, to be sure ; if prudery 's the fashion, 
 they '11 wear it, sir, as they would patches or hair-powder; 
 but they 're always uncommonly glad to leave it off and
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKTNG. 277 
 
 lock it out of sight when they can. What do you think 
 of the kennels ? I say, Sydie, confound you, why did you 
 bring down any traps with you ? Have n't room for 'em , 
 not for one. Could n't cram a tilbury into the coach- 
 house." 
 
 " A trap, governor?" said Sydie, straightening his back 
 after examination of the pups ; " can't keep even a wall- 
 eyed cab-horse ; wish I could." 
 
 " Where 's your drag, then ? " demanded the General. 
 
 "My drag? Don't I just wish I had one, to offer my 
 bosom friend the V. P. a seat on the box. Calvert, of 
 Trinity, tooled us over in his to the Spring Meetings, and 
 his grays are the sweetest pair of goers — the leaders espe- 
 cially — that ever you saw in harness. We came back 
 'cross country, to get in time for hall, and a pretty mess 
 we made of it, for we broke the axle, and lamed the off- 
 wheeler, and " 
 
 " But, God bless my soul," stormed the General, excited 
 beyond measure, "you wrote me word you were going to 
 bring a drag down with you, and of course I supposed 
 you meant what you said, and I had Harris in about it, 
 and he swore the coach-house was as full of traps as ever 
 it could hold, so I had my tax-cart and Fay's phaeton 
 turned into one of the stalls, and then, after all, it comes 
 out you 've never brought it ! Devil take you, Sydie, why 
 can't you be more thoughtful " 
 
 " But, my dear governor " 
 
 "Nonsense; don't talk to me!" cried the General, try- 
 ing to work himself into a passion, and diving into the 
 recesses of six separate pockets one after another. " Look 
 hei'e, sir, I suppose you '11 believe your own words ? Heve 
 it is in black and white. — 'P. S. I shall bring my Coach 
 down with me.' There, what do you say now? Con- 
 found you, what are you laughing at? / don't see any- 
 thing to laugh at. In my day, young fellows did n't 
 make fools of old men in this way. Bless my soul, why 
 24
 
 278 THE GENERAL'S MATCH-MAKING. 
 
 the de^il Jon't you leave off laughing, and talk a little 
 common sense ? The thing 's plain enough. — ' P. S. I 
 shall bring my Coach down with me.' " 
 
 "So I have," said Sydie, screaming with laughter. 
 " Look at him — he 's a first-rate Coach, too ! Wheels 
 always oiled, and ready for any road ; always going up 
 hill, and never caught coming down ; started at a devil 
 of a pace, and now keeps ahead of all other vehicles on 
 all highways. A first-class Coach, that will tool me 
 through the tortuous lanes and treacherous pitfalls of the 
 Greats with flying colors. My Coach ! Bravo, General ! 
 that 's the best bit of fun I 've had since I dressed up like 
 Sophonisba Briggs, and led the V. P. a dance all round 
 the quad, every hair on his head standing erect in his 
 virtuous indignation at the awful morals of his college." 
 
 "Eh, what?" grunted the General, light beginning to 
 dawn upon him. "Do you mean Mr. Keane? Hum! 
 how 's one to be up to all your confounded slang ? How 
 could I know? Devil take you, Sydie, why can't you 
 write common English ? You young fellows talk as bad 
 jargon as Sepoys. You 're sure I 'm delighted to see you, 
 Mr. Keane, though I did make the mistake." 
 
 "Thank you, General," said Keane; "but it's rather 
 cool of you. Master Sydie, to have forced me on to your 
 uncle's hands Avithout his wish or his leave." 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," swore the General, with vehe- 
 ment cordiality. " I gave him carte blanche to ask Avhom 
 he would, and unexpected guests are always most wel- 
 come ; not that you were unexpected though, for I 'd told 
 that boy to be su .'e and bring somebody down here " 
 
 " And have had the tax-cart and my phaeton turned 
 out to make comfortable quarters for him," said Miss 
 Fay, with a glance at The Coach to see how he took 
 chaff, " and I only hope Mr, Keane mav like his accom- 
 modation." 
 
 " Perhaps, Miss Morton," said Keane, smiling, " I shall
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 279 
 
 like it so Avell that you will have to say to nie as jwor 
 Voltaire to his troublesome abbe, ' Dou Quichotte prenait 
 les auberges pour les chdteaux, mais vous avez pris les 
 chiteaux pour les auberges.' " 
 
 " Tiresome man," thought Fay. " I wish Sydie had u't 
 brought him here ; but I shall do as I always do, however 
 grand and supercilious he may look. He has lived 
 among all those men and books till he has grown as cold 
 as granite. What a pity it is peoi)le don't enjoy exist- 
 ence as I do!" 
 
 " You are thinking, Miss Morton," said Keane, as he 
 walked on beside her, w'ith an amused glance at her face, 
 which was expressive enough of her thoughts, " that if 
 your uncle is glad to see me, you arc not, and that Sydio 
 was very stupid not to bring down one of his kindred 
 
 spirits instead of Don't disclaim it now; you should 
 
 veil your face if you wish your thoughts not to be read." 
 
 " I was not going to disclaim it," said Fay, quickly 
 looking up at him with a rapid glance, half penitence, 
 half irritation. " I always tell the truth ; but I was not 
 thinking exactly that; I don't want any of Sydie's 
 friends — I detest boys — but I certainly teas thinking 
 that as you look down on everything that we all delight 
 in, I fancied you and the Beeches will hardly agree. If 
 I am rude, you must not be angry ; you wanted me to tell 
 you the truth." 
 
 Keane smiled again. 
 
 " Do I look down on the things you delight in ? 1 
 hardly know enough of you, as we have only addressed 
 about six syllables to each other, to be able to judge what 
 you like and what you don't like ; but certainly I must 
 admit, that caressing the little round heads of those pup- 
 pies yonder, which seemed to afford you such extreme 
 rai)ture, would not be any source of remarkable gratifica- 
 tion to me." 
 
 Fay looked up at him and laughed.
 
 280 THE general's match-making. 
 
 " Well, I am fond of animals as you are fond of books. 
 Is it not an open question whether the live dog or sheep- 
 skin is not as good as the dead Morocco or Russian 
 leather?" 
 
 " Is it an open question, wliether Macaulay's or Arago's 
 brain weighs no more than a cat's or a puppy's?" 
 
 " Brain ! " said impudent little Fay ; " are your great 
 men always as honest and as faithful as my poor little 
 SnoAvdrop ? I have an idea that Sheridan's brains were 
 often obscured by brandy ; that Richelieu had the weak- 
 ness to be prouder of his bad poems than his magnificenr. 
 policies ; and that Pope and Byron had the folly to be 
 more tenacious of a glance at their physical defect than 
 an onslaught on their noblest works. I could mention a 
 good many other instances where brain was not always a 
 voucher for corresponding strength of character." 
 
 Keane was surprised to hear a sensible speech from this 
 volatile little puss, and honored her by answering her 
 seriously. 
 
 " Say, rather, Miss Morton, that those to whom many 
 temptations fall should have many excuses made. Where 
 the brain preponderates, excelling in creative faculty and 
 rapid thought, there will the sensibilities be proportion- 
 ately acute. The vivacity and vigorous life which pro- 
 duced the rapid flow of Sheridan's eloquence led him into 
 the dissipation which made him end his days in a spung- 
 inij-house. Men of cooler minds and natures must not 
 presume to judge him. They had not his temptation ; 
 they cannot judge of his fault. Richelieu, in all px'oba- 
 bility, amused himself with his verses as he amused 
 himself with his white kitten and its cork, as a delasse- 
 ment; had he piqued himself upon his poetry, as they say, 
 he would have turned poetaster instead of politician. As 
 for the other two, you must remember that Pope's deform- 
 ity made him a subject of ridicule to the woman he was 
 fool enough to worship, and Byron, poor fellow, was over-
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 28« 
 
 susceptible on all points, or he would scarcely have 
 allowed the venomed arrows from the Scotch Reviewers 
 to Avound him, nor would he have cared for the desertion 
 of a wife who was to him like ice to fire. When you are 
 older, you will learn that it is very dangerous and unjust 
 to say this thing is right, that wrong, that feeling wise, or 
 this foolish ; for all temperaments are different, and the 
 same circumstances may produce very different effects. 
 Your puppies will grow up with dissimilar characters ; 
 how much more so, then, must men?" 
 
 Miss Fay was quiet for a minute, then she flashed her 
 mischievous eyes on him. 
 
 " Certainly ; but then, by your own admission, you 
 have no right to decide that your love for mathematics is 
 wise, and my love for Snowdrop foolish ; it may be quite 
 au contraire. Perhaps, after all, I may have * chosen the 
 better part.' " 
 
 "Fay, go in and dress for dinner," interrupted the 
 General, trotting up ; " your tongue Avould run on forever 
 if nobody stopped it ; you 're no exception to your sex on 
 that point. Is she?" 
 
 Keane laughed. 
 
 "Perhaps Miss Morton's frsenum, like Sydie's, was cut 
 too far in her infancy, and therefore she has been ' un- 
 bridled ' ever since." 
 
 "In all things!" cried little Fay. "Nobody has put 
 the curb on me yet, and nobody ever shall." 
 
 " Don't be too sure. Fay," cried Sydie. " Rarey does 
 wonders with the wildest fillies. Somebody may bring 
 you down on your knees yet." 
 
 " You '11 have to see to that, Sydie," laughed the 
 General. " Come, get along, child, to your toilette. I 
 never have my soup cold and my curry overdone. To 
 wait for his dinner is a stretch of good nature, and 
 patience that ought not to be expected of any man." 
 
 The soup was not colrl nor the curry overdone, and the 
 24*
 
 282 THE general's match-making. 
 
 dinner was pleasant enough, in the long dining-room, with 
 the June sun streaming in through its bay-windows from 
 out the brilliant-colored garden, and the walls echoing 
 with the laughter of Sydie and his cousin, the young lady 
 keeping true to her avowal of " not caring for Plato's 
 presence." " Plato," however, listened quietly, peeling 
 his peaches with tranquil amusement ; for if the girl 
 talked nonsense, it was clever nonsense, as rare, by the 
 way, and quite as refreshing as true wit. 
 
 " My gloves are safe ; you 're too afraid of him, Fay," 
 whispered Sydie, bending forwards to give her some haut- 
 boys. 
 
 "Am I?" cried Miss Fay, with a moue of supreme con- 
 tempt. Neither the whisper nor the moue escaped Keane, 
 as he talked with the governor on model drainage. 
 
 " Where 's my hookah. Fay ?" asked the General, after 
 dessert. " Get it, will you, my pet?" 
 
 " Voila ! " cried Miss Fay, lifting the narghile from the 
 sideboard. Then taking some cigars off the mantelpiece, 
 she put one in her own mouth, struck a fusee, and, hand- 
 ing the case to Keane, said, with a saucy smile in her 
 Boft bright eyes, though, to tell the truth, she was a little 
 bit afraid of taking liberties with him : 
 
 " If you are not above such a sublunary indulgence, 
 will you have a cigar with me?" 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure," said Keane, with a grave 
 bow ; " and if you would like to further rival George 
 Sand, I shall be very happy to give you the address of 
 my tailor." 
 
 " Thank you exceedingly ; but as long as crinoline is 
 the type of tlie sex that are a little lower than the angels, 
 and ribbon-ties the seal of those but a trifle better than 
 Mephistopheles, I don't think I will change it," responded 
 Little Fay, contemptuously, as she threw herself down on 
 a couch with an indignant defiant glance, and puffed at 
 her Manilla."
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 283 
 
 " I hate him, Sydie," said the little lady, vehemently, 
 that night. 
 
 "Do you, dear?" ansAvered the Cantab; "you see, 
 you 've never had anybody to be afraid of, or had any 
 man neglect you before." 
 
 " He may neglect me if he please, I am sure I do not 
 care," rejoined Fay, disdainfully ; "only I do wish, Sydie, 
 that you had never brought him here to make us all 
 uncomfortable." 
 
 " He don't make me uncomfortable, quite otherwise ; 
 nor yet the governor ; you 're the only victim. Fay." 
 
 Fay saw little enough of Keane for the next week or 
 two. He was out all day with Sydie trout-fishing, or 
 walking over his farms with the General, or sitting in the 
 study reading, and writing his articles for the Cambridge 
 Journal, LeonviUes Mathematical Journal, or the Wedmin- 
 ster Review. But when she was with him, there was no 
 mischief within her reach that Miss Fay did not perpe- 
 trate. Keane, to tease her, would condemn — so seriously 
 that she believed him — all that she loved the best; he 
 would tell her that he admired quiet, domestic women ; 
 that he thought girls should be very subdued and retiring; 
 that they should work well, and not care much for 
 society ; at all of which, being her extreme antipodes, 
 Little Fay would be vehemently wrathful. She would 
 get on her pony without any saddle in her evening dress, 
 and ride him at the five-bar gate in the stable-yard ; she 
 would put on Sydie's smoking-cap, and look very pretty 
 in it, and take a Queen's on the divan of the smoking- 
 room, reading Bell's Life, and asking Keane how much 
 lie would bet on the Oct(jber ; she would spend all the 
 morning making wreaths of roses, dressing herself and 
 the puppies up in them, inquiring if it was not a laudable 
 and industrious occupation. There was no nonsense or 
 mischief Fay would not imagine and forthwith commit, 
 and anything they wanted her not to do she would do
 
 2S4 THE (JENEUAI/S MATOII-MAKINO 
 
 straightway, even to the imperilling of her own life and 
 limb. She tried hard to irritate or rouse " Plato," as she 
 called him, but Plato was not to be moved, and treated 
 her as a spoilt child, whom he alone had sense enough to 
 resist. 
 
 " It will be great folly for you to attempt it, Miss 
 Morton. Those horses are not fit to be driven by any 
 one, much less by a woman," said Keane, quietly, one 
 morning. 
 
 They were in the stable-yard, and chanced to be alone 
 when a new purchase of the governor's — two scarcely 
 broken-in thorough-bred colts — were brought with a new 
 mail-phaeton into the yard, and Miss Fay forthwith 
 announced her resolution of driving them round the 
 avenue. The groom that came with them told her they 
 were almost more than he could manage, their own coach- 
 man begged and implored, Keane reasoned quietly, all to 
 no purpose. The rosebud had put out its little wilful 
 thorns; Keane's words added fuel to the fire. Up she 
 sprang, looking the daintiest morsel imaginable perched 
 up on that very exalted box-seat, told the horrified groom 
 to mount behind, and started thera off, lifting her hat 
 with a graceful bow to " Plato," who stood watching the 
 phaeton with his arras folded and his cigar in his mouth. 
 
 Soon after, he started in the contrary direction, for the 
 avenue circled the Beeches in an oval of four miles, and 
 he knew he should meet her coming back. He strolled 
 along under the pleasant shadow of the great trees, 
 enjoying the sunset and the fresh air, and capable of 
 enjoying them still more but for an inward misgiving. 
 His presentiment was not without its grounds. He had 
 walked about a mile and a half round the avenue, when 
 a cloud of dust told him what was up, and in the distance 
 came the thorough-breds, broken away as he had prophe- 
 sied, tearing along with the bits Ijetween their teeth, 
 Little Fay keeping gallantly hold of the ribbons, but as
 
 THE general's MATCII-ISIA KI NU. 285 
 
 powerless over the colts no.v they had got their heads as 
 the groom leaning from the back seat. 
 
 On came the phaeton, bu.uping, rattling, oscillating:^ 
 threatening every second to be turned over, Keano 
 caught one glance of Fay's faco, resolute and pale, and 
 of her little hands grasping the libbons, till they were 
 cut and bleeding with the strain. Ihere was nothing for 
 it but to stand straight in the animals' path, catch their 
 heads, and throw them back on their haunches. Luckily, 
 his muscles were like iron — luckily, too, the colts had 
 come a long w^ay, and were not fresh. He stood like a 
 rock, and checked them ; running a very close risk of 
 dislocating his arms with the shock, but saving little Fay 
 from destruction. The colts stood trembling, the groom 
 jumped out and caught the reins, Keane amused himself 
 silently with the mingled penitence, vexation, shame, and 
 rebellion visible in the little lady's face. 
 
 " Well," said he, quietly, "as you were so desirous of 
 breaking your neck, will you ever forgive me for defeat- 
 ing your purpose?" 
 
 " Pray don't ! " cried Fay, passionately. " I do thank 
 you so much for saving my life ; I think it so generous 
 and brave of you to have rescued me at such risk to 
 yourself. I feel that I can never be grateful enough to 
 you, but don't talk in that way. I know it was silly and 
 self-willed of me." 
 
 " It was ; that fact is obvious." 
 
 " Then I shall make it more so," cried Miss Fay, with 
 her old wilfulness. " I do feel very grateful, and I would 
 tell you so, if you would let me; but if you think it has 
 made me afraid, you arc quite Avrong, and so you shall 
 see." 
 
 And before he could interfere, or do more than mechan- 
 ically spring up after her, she had caught the reins from 
 the groom, and started the trembling colts ofl" again. But 
 Keane ])Ut his hand on the ribbouri.
 
 286 THE general's match-making. 
 
 " Foolish child ; are you 'nad ? " he said, so gravely 
 yet so gently that Fay let them go, and let him drive her 
 back to the stable-yard, w)-.tere she sprang out, and rushed 
 away to her own room, terrified the governor with a few 
 vehement sentences, wliich gave him a vague idea that 
 Keane was murdered and both Fay's legs broken, and 
 then had a private cry all to herself, with her arms round 
 Snowdrop's neck, curled up in one of the drawing-room 
 windows, where she had not been long when the General 
 and Keane passed through, not noticing her, hidden as 
 she was, in curtains, cushions, and flowers. 
 
 " She 's a little wilful thing, Keane," the General was 
 saying, " but you must n't think the worse of her for 
 that." 
 
 " I don't. I am sick of those conventional young 
 ladies who agree with everything one says to them — who 
 keep all the frowns for mothers and servants, and are as 
 serene as a cloudless sky abroad, smile blandly on all 
 alike, and have n't an opinion of their own." 
 
 " Fay 's plenty of opinions of her own," chuckled the 
 General ; " and she tells 'em pretty freely, too. Bless 
 the child, she 's not ashamed of any of her thoughts, and 
 never will be." 
 
 " I hope not. Your little niece can do things that no 
 other young lady could, and they are so pretty in her, 
 that it would be a thousand pities for her to grow one 
 atom less natural and wilful. Grapes growing wild are 
 charming — grapes trained to a stake are ruined. I as- 
 sure you, if I were you, I would not scold her for driving 
 those colts to-day. High spirits and love of fun led her 
 on, and the courage and presence of mind she displayed 
 are too rare among her sex for us to do right in checking 
 them." 
 
 " To be sure, to be sure," assented the governor, glee- 
 fully. " God bless the child, she 's one among a thou- 
 sand, sir. Cognac, not milk aud water. There 's the 
 diuucr-bell ; confound it."
 
 THE general's match-making. 287 
 
 Whereat the General made his exit, and Kcane also ; 
 and Fay kissed the spaniel with even more passionate 
 attachment than ordinary. 
 
 "Ah, Snowdrop, I don't hate him any more; he is a 
 darling ! " 
 
 One glowing August morning Keane was in the study 
 pondering whether he would go to his moor or not. The 
 General had besought him to stay. His gamekeeper 
 wrote him that it was a horribly bad rainy season in In- 
 vernessshire ; the trout and the rabbits were very good 
 sport in a mild way here. Altogether, Keane felt half 
 disposed to keep where he was, when a shadow fell acToss 
 his paper ; and, as he looked up, he saw in the open win- 
 dow the English rosebud. 
 
 " Is it not one of the open questions, Mr, Keane," 
 asked Fay, " whether it is very wise to spend all this 
 glorious morning shut out of the sight of the sun-rays 
 and the scent of the flowers?" 
 
 " How have you been spending it, then ? " 
 
 " Putting bouquets in all the rooms, cleaning my 
 aviary, talking to the puppies, and reading Jocelyn under 
 the limes in the shrubberies — all very puerile, but all 
 very pleasant. Perhaps if you descended to a lazy day 
 like that now and then, you might be none the worse!" 
 
 " Is that a challenge ? Will you take me under the 
 limes?" 
 
 " No, indeed ! I do not admit men who despise them 
 to my gardens of Armida, any more than you would 
 admit me into your Schools. I have as great a scorn for 
 a skeptic as you have for a tyro." 
 
 " Pardon me. I have no scorn for a tyro. But you 
 would not come to the Accademe ; you dislike * Plato ' 
 too much." 
 
 Fay looked up at him half nhyly, half mischievously. 
 
 " Yes, I do dislike you, when you look down on me iis 
 Richelieu might have looked down on his kitten."
 
 288 TUE general's match-making. 
 
 " Liking to see its play ? " said Keane, half sadly. 
 "Contrastiug its gay insouciance with his own toil and 
 turmoil, regretting, jierhaps, the time when trifles made 
 his joy as they did his kitten's ? If I were to look on 
 you so, there would not be much to offend you." 
 
 " You do not think so of me, or you would speak to 
 me as if I were an intelligent being, not a silly little 
 thing." 
 
 " How do you know I think you silly ? " 
 
 " Because you think all women so." 
 
 " Perhaps ; but then you should rather try to redeem 
 me from my error in doctrine. Come, let us sign a treaty 
 of peace. Take me under the limes. I want some fresh 
 air after writing all day; and in payment I will teach 
 you Euclid, as you vainly beseeched your cousin to do 
 yesterday." 
 
 " Will you ? " cried Fay, eagerly. Then she threw back 
 her head. " I never am won by bribes." 
 
 " Nor yet by threats ? What a difficult young lady 
 you are. Come, show me your shrubbery sanctum now 
 you have invaded mine." 
 
 The English rosebud laid aside its wilful thorns, and 
 Fay, a little less afraid of her Plato, and therefore a 
 little less defiant to him, led him over the grounds, filled 
 his hands with flowers, showed him her aviary, read some 
 of Jocelyn to him, to show him, she said, that Lamartine 
 was better than the CEdipus in Coloneus, and thought, as 
 tshe dressed for dinner, " I wonder if he does despise me 
 — he has- such a beautiful face, if he were not so haughty 
 and cold!" 
 
 The next day Keane gave her an hour of Euclid in the 
 study. Certainly The Coach had never had such a pretty 
 pupil ; and he wished every dull head he had to cram was 
 as intelligent as this fair-haired one. Fay was quick and 
 clever; she was stimulated, moreover, by his decree con- 
 cerning the stupidity of all women ; she really worked us
 
 THE general's MATCn-MAKINO. 269 
 
 hard as any young man studying for degrees when they 
 supposed her fast asleep in bed, and she got over the Pon« 
 Asinorum in a style that fairly astonished her tutor. 
 
 The Coach did not dislike his occupation either ; it did 
 Kim good, after his life of solitude and study, something 
 as the kitten and cork did Richelieu good after his cabi- 
 nets and councils ; and Little Fay, with her flowers and 
 fun, mischief and impudence, and that winning wilful- 
 ness which it amused him gradually to tame down, unbent 
 the chillness which had grown upon him. He was the 
 better for it, as a man after hard study or practice is the 
 better for some fresh sea-breezes, and some days of care- 
 less dolce, 
 
 " Well, Fay, have you had another poor devil flinging 
 himself at your feet by means of a postage-stamp?" said 
 Sydie one morning at breakfast. " You can't disguise 
 anything from me, your most interested, anxious, and 
 near and dear relative. Whenever the governor looks 
 particularly stormy I see the signs of the times, that if 1 
 do not forthwith remove your dangerously attractive 
 person, all the bricks, spooneys, swells, and do-nothings 
 in the county will speedily fill the Hanwell wards to 
 overflowing." 
 
 " Don't talk such nonsense, Sydie," said Fay, impa- 
 tiently, with a glance at Keane, as she handed him his 
 chocolate. 
 
 "Ah! deuce take the fellows," chuckled the General. 
 " Love, devotion, admiration ! What a lot of stufi' they 
 do write. I wonder if Fay were a little beggar, how 
 much of it all would stand the test? But we know a 
 trick worth two of that. Try those sardines, Keane. 
 House is let. Fay — eh? House is let; nobody need 
 apply. Ha, ha ! " 
 
 And the General took some more curry, laughing till 
 he was purple, while Fay blushed scarlet, a trick of which 
 25 T
 
 290 THE general's MATCn-MAKINQ. 
 
 she was rarely guilty ; Sydie smiled, and Keane picked 
 out his sardines with calm deliberation. 
 
 " Hallo ! God bless my soul ! " burst forth the General 
 again. " Devil take me ! I '11 be hanged if I stand it ! 
 Confound 'em all ! I do call it hard for a man not to be 
 able to sit at his breakfast in peace. Good Heavens ! 
 what will come to the country, if all those little devils 
 grow up to be food for Calcraft ? He 's actually pulling 
 tlie bark off the trees, as I live ! Excuse me, I can't sit 
 still and see it." 
 
 "Wherewith the General bolted from his chair, darted 
 through the window, upsetting three dogs, two kittens, and 
 a stand of flowers in his exit, and bolted breathlessly 
 across the park with the poker in his hand. 
 
 " Bless his old heart ! Ain't he a brick ? " shouted Sydie. 
 " Do excuse me, Fay, I must go and hear him blow up 
 that boy sky-high, and give him a shilling for tuck after- 
 wards ; it will be so rich." 
 
 The Cantab made his exit, and Fay busied herself calm- 
 ing the kittens' minds, and restoring the dethroned gera- 
 niums. Keane read his Times for ten minutes, then 
 looked up. 
 
 " Miss Morton, where is your tongue ? I have not heard 
 it for a quarter of an hour, a miracle that has never hap- 
 pened in the two months I have been at the Beeches." 
 
 " You do not want to hear it." 
 
 " What ! am I in mauvais odeur again ?" smiled Keane. 
 " I thought we were good friends. Have you found the 
 Q. E. D. to the problem I gave you ? " 
 
 " To be sure ! " cried Fay, exultantly. And kneeling 
 down by him, she went through the whole thing in ex- 
 ceeding triumph. 
 
 " You are a good child," said her tutor, smiling, in him- 
 self amazed at this volatile little thing's capacity for 
 mathematics. " I think you will be able to take your de- 
 gree, if you like. Come, do you hate me now. Fay?"
 
 THE general's MATCn-MAKIN-Q. 291 
 
 "No," said Fay, a little shyly. "I never hated you, I 
 always admired you ; but I was afraid of you, though I 
 would never confess it to Sydie." 
 
 " Never be afraid of me," said Keane, putting his hand 
 on hers as it lay on the arm of his chair. " You have no 
 cause. You can do things few girls can ; but they are 
 pretty in you, where they might be — not so pretty in 
 others. I like them at the least. You are very fond of 
 your cousin, are you not ? " 
 
 " Of Sydie ? Oh, I love him dearly ! " 
 
 Keane took his hand away, and rose, as the General 
 trotted in : 
 
 " God bless my soul, Keane, how warm it is ! Con- 
 foundedly hot without one's hat, I can tell you. Had my 
 walk all for nothing, too. That cursed little idiot wa« u't 
 trespassing after all. Stephen had set him to spud out 
 the daisies, and I 'd thrashed the boy before I 'd listen t-) 
 him. Devil take him ! " 
 
 August went out and September came in, and Keane 
 stayed on at the Beeches. They were pleasant days to 
 ihem all, knocking over the partridges right and left, en- 
 joying a cold luncheon under the luxuriant hedges, and 
 going home for a dinner, full of laughter, and talk, and 
 good cookery; and Fay's songs afterwards, as wild and 
 sweet in their way as a goldfinch's on a hawthorn spray. 
 
 "You like Little Fay, don't you, Keane?" said the 
 General, as they went home one evening. 
 
 Keane looked startled for a second. 
 
 " Of course," he said, rather haughtily. " That Miss 
 Morton is very charming every one must admit." 
 
 " Bless her little heart ! She 's a wild little filly, Keane , 
 but she '11 go better and truer than your quiet broken-in 
 ones, who wear the harness so respectably, and are so 
 wicked and vicious in their own minds. And what do 
 you think of my boy ? " asked the General, pointing to 
 Svdie, who was in front. " How does he stand at Cam- 
 bri ge?'
 
 292 THE (lENERAL'S MATGII-MAKl NO. 
 
 " Sydie ? Oh, he 's a nice young fellow. He is a great 
 favorite there, and he is — the best things he can be — 
 generous, sweet-tempered, and honorable " 
 
 "To be sure," echoed the General, rubbing his hands. 
 " He 's a dear boy — a very dear boy. They 're both ex- 
 actly all I wished them to be, dear children ; and I must 
 say I am delighted to see 'em carrying out the plan I had 
 always made for 'em from their childhood." 
 
 " Being what, General, may I ask?" 
 
 " Why, any one can see, as plain as a pikestaff, that 
 they 're in love with each other," said the General, glow- 
 ing with satisfaction ; " and I mean them to be married 
 and happy. They dote on each other, Keane, and I sha'n't 
 put any obstacles in their way. Youth 's short enough, 
 Heaven knows ; let 'em enjoy it, say I, it don't come back 
 again. Don't say anything to him about it ; I want to 
 have some fun with him. They 've settled it all, of course, 
 long ago ; but he has n't confided in me, the sly dog. 
 Trust an old campaigner, though, for twigging an affaire 
 de cxur. Bless them both, they make me feel a boy 
 again. We '11 have a gay wedding, Keane ; mind you 
 come down for it. I dare say it '11 be at Christmas." 
 
 Keane walked along, drawing his cap over his eyes. 
 The sun was setting full in his face. 
 
 "Well, what sport?" cried Fay, running up to them. 
 
 " Pretty fair," said Keane, coldly, as he passed her. 
 
 It was an hour before the. dinner-bell rang. Then he 
 came down cold and calm, particularly brilliant in con- 
 versation, more courteous, perhaps, to her than ever, but 
 the frost had gathered round him that the sunny atmos- 
 phere of the Beeches had melted ; and Fay, though she 
 tried to tease, and to coax, and to win him, could not 
 dissipate it. She felt him an immeasurable distance from 
 her again. He was a learned, haughty, grave philoso- 
 pher, and she a little naughty child. 
 
 As Keane went up-stairs that night, he heard Sydie 
 talking in the hall.
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 293 
 
 " Yes, my ^vol■shipped Fay, I shall be intensely and 
 utterly miserable away from tlie light of your eyes ; but, 
 nevertheless, I must go and see Kingslake from John's 
 next Tuesday, because I 've promised ; and let one idolize 
 your divine self ever so much, one can't give up one's 
 larks, you know." 
 
 Keane ground his teeth with a bitter sigh and a fierce 
 oath. 
 
 " Little Fay, I would have loved you more tenderly 
 than that!" 
 
 He went in and threw himself on his bed, not to sleep. 
 For the first time for many years he could not summon 
 sleep at his will. He had gone on petting her and 
 amusing himself, thinking of her only as a winning, way- 
 ward child. Now he woke with a shock to discover, too 
 jate, that she had stolen from him unawares the heart he 
 had so long refused to any woman. With his high intel- 
 lect and calm philosophy, after his years spent in severe 
 science and cold solitude, the hot well-springs of passion 
 had broken loose again. He longed to take her bright 
 life into his own grave and cheerless one ; he longed to 
 feel her warm young heart beat with his own, icebound 
 for so many years ; but Little Fay was never to be his. 
 
 In the bedroom next to him the General sat, with his 
 feet in his slippers and his dressing-gown round him, 
 smoking his last cheroot before a roaring fire, chuckling 
 complacently over his own thoughts. 
 
 " To be sure, we '11 have a very gay wedding, such as 
 the county has n't seen in all its blessed days," he mut- 
 tered, with supreme satisfaction. "Sydie shall have this 
 place. What do I want with a great town of a house 
 like this, big enough for a barrack ? I '11 take that shoot- 
 ing-box that's to let four miles off; that'll be plenty 
 large enough for me and my old chums to smoke in and 
 chat over bygone times, and it will do our hearts good — 
 freshen us up a ])it to see those young things enJDying 
 25*
 
 294 THE general's match-making. 
 
 themselves. My Little Fay will be the prettiest bride 
 that ever was seen. Silly young things to suppose I don't 
 see through them. Trust an old soldier ! However, love 
 is blind, they say. How could they have helped falling 
 in love with one another ? and who 'd have the heart to 
 part 'em, I should like to know?" 
 
 Keane stayed that day ; the next, receiving a letter 
 which afforded a true though a slight excuse to return to 
 Cambridge, he went, the General, Fay, and Sydie be- 
 lieving him gone only for a few days, he knowing that 
 he would never set foot in the Beeches again. He went 
 back to his rooms, whose dark monastic gloom in the 
 dull October day seemed to close round him like an iron 
 shroud. Here, with his books, his papers, his treasures 
 of intellect, science and art, his " mind a kingdom " to 
 him, he had spent many a happy day, with his brain 
 growing only clearer and clearer as he followed out a 
 close reasoning or clenched a subtle analysis. Now, for 
 the sake of a mischievous child but half his age, he 
 shuddered as he entered. 
 
 " Well, my dear boy," began the General one day after 
 dinner," I 've seen your game, though you thought I did n't. 
 How do you know, you young dog, that I shall give my 
 consent?" 
 
 " Oh, bother, governor, I know you will," cried Sydie, 
 aghast ; " because, you see, if you let me have a few cool 
 hundreds I can give the men such slap-up wines — and it 's 
 my last year, General." 
 
 "You sly dog!" chuckled the governor, "I'm not 
 talking of your wine-merchant, and you know I 'm not, 
 Master Sydie. It 's no good playing hide-and-seek with 
 me; I can always see through a milestone when Cupid is 
 behind it ; and there 's no need to beat round the bush 
 with me, my boy. I never gave my assent to anything 
 with greater delight in my life; I've always meant you 
 to marry Fay, and "
 
 THE general's MATCII-MAKINQ. 295 
 
 " Marry Fay ! " shouted Sydie. " Good Heavens ! gov- 
 ernor, what next?" And the Cantab threw himself 
 hack and laughed till he cried, and Snowdrop and her 
 pups barked furiously in a concert of excited sympathy. 
 
 "Why, sir, why? — Avhy, because — devil take you, 
 By die — I don't know what you are laughing at, do you?" 
 cried the General, starting out of his chair. 
 
 " Yes, I do, governor ; you 're laboring under a most 
 delicious delusion." 
 
 "Delusion! — eh? — what? Why, bless my soul, I 
 don't think you know what you are saying, Sydie," 
 stormed the General. 
 
 " Yes I do ; you 've an idea — how you got it into your 
 head Heaven knows, but there it is — you've an idea that 
 Fay and I are in love with one another ; and I assure you 
 you were never more mistaken in your life." 
 
 Seeing the General standing bolt upright staring at 
 him, and looking decidedly apocleptic, Sydie made the 
 matter a little clearer. 
 
 " Fay and I would do a good deal to oblige you, my 
 beloved governor, if we could get up the steam a little, 
 but I 'm afraid we really cannot. Love ain't in one's own 
 hands, you see, but a skittish mare, that gets her head, 
 and takes the bit between her teeth, and bolts off with 
 you Avherever she likes. Is it possible that two peo})le 
 who broke each other's toys, and teased each other's lives 
 out, and caught the measles of each other, from their 
 cradle upwards, should fall in love with each other when 
 they grow up ? Besides, I don't intend to marry for the 
 next twenty years, if I can help it. I could n't afford a 
 milliner's bill to my tailor's, and I shoidd be ruined for 
 lile if I merged my bright jiarticular star of a self into a 
 respectable, lark-shunning, bill-paying, shabby-hatted, 
 iamily man. Good Heavens, what a train of horrors 
 comes with ilic bare idea ! "
 
 296 THE general's match-making. 
 
 " Do )'ou mean to say, sir, you won't marry your 
 cousin?" shouted the General. 
 
 "Bless your dear old heart, wo, governor — ten times 
 over, no ! I would n't marry anybody, not for half the 
 universe." 
 
 " Then I've done with you, sir — I wash my hands of 
 you!" shouted the General, tearing up and down the 
 room in a quick march, more beneficial to his feelings 
 than his carpet. " You are an ungrateful, unprincipled, 
 shameless young man, and are no more worthy of the 
 affection and the interest I 've been fool enough to waste 
 on you than a tom-cat. You 're tm abominably selfish, 
 ungrateful, unnatural boy ; and though you are poor 
 Phil's son, I will tell you my mind, sir ; and I must say 
 I think your conduct with your cousin, making love to 
 her — desperate love to her — winning her aflections, poor 
 unhappy child, and then making a jest of her and treating 
 it with a laugh, is disgraceful, sir — disgraceful, do you 
 hear?" 
 
 " Yes, I hear, General," cried Sydie, convulsed with 
 laughter ; " but Fay cares no more for me than for those 
 geraniums. We are fond of one another, in a cool, 
 cousinly sort of way, but " 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " stormed the General. " Don't 
 dare to say another word to me about it. You know well 
 enough that it has been the one delight of my life, and 
 if you 'd had any respect or right feeling in you, you 'd 
 marry her to-morrow." 
 
 " She would n't be a party to that. Few women are 
 blind to my manifold attractions ; but Fay's one of 'em. 
 Look here, governor," said Sydie, laying his hand affec- 
 tionately on the General's shoulder, " did it never occur 
 to you that though the pretty castle 's knocked down, 
 there may be much nicer bricks left to build a new one ? 
 Can't you see that Fay does n't care two buttons about
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKINO. 297 
 
 me, but cares a good many diamond studs about some- 
 body else?" 
 
 " Nothing has occurred to me but that you and she are 
 two heartless, selfish, ungrateful chits. Hold your tongue, 
 sir!" 
 
 'But, General " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, sir ; don't talk to me, I tell you. 
 In love with somebody else ? I should like to see him 
 «how his face here. Somebody she 's talked to for five 
 minutes at a race-ball, and proposed to her in a corner, 
 thinking to get some of my money. Some swindler, or 
 Italian refugee, or blackleg, I '11 be bound — taken her in, 
 made her think him an angel, and will persuade her to 
 run away with him. I '11 set the police round the house 
 — I '11 send her to school in Paris. What fools men are 
 to have anything to do with women at all ! You seem in 
 their confidence ; who 's the fellow ? " 
 
 "A man very like a swindler or a blackleg — Keane!" 
 " Keane ! " shouted the General, pausing in the middle 
 of his frantic march. 
 
 " Keane," responded Sydie. 
 
 " Keane ! " shouted the General again. " God bless my 
 soul, she might as well have fallen in love with the man 
 in the moon. Why could n't she like the person I 'd 
 chosen for her?" 
 
 " If one can't guide the mare one's self, 'tis n't likely the 
 governors can for one," muttered Sydie, 
 
 " Poor dear child ! fallen in love with a man who don't 
 care a button for her, eh ? Humph ! — that 's always the 
 way with women — lose the good chances, and fling them- 
 selves at a man's feet who cares no more for their tom- 
 foolery of worship than he cares for the blacking on his 
 boots. Devil take young people, what a torment they 
 are! The ungrateful little jade, how dare she go and 
 smash all my plans like that? and if 1 ever set my heart 
 on anything, 1 set it on that match. Keane! he'll no
 
 298 THE general's match-making. 
 
 more love anybody than the stone cherubs on the terrace. 
 He 's a splendid head, but his heart 's every atom as cold 
 as granite. Love her ? Not a bit of it. When I told 
 him you were going to marry her (I thought you would, 
 and so you will, too, if you 've the slightest particle of 
 gratitude or common sense in either of you), he listened 
 as quietly and as calmly as if he had been one of the men 
 in armor in the hall. Love, indeed ! To the devil with 
 love, say I ! It's the head and root of everything that's 
 mischievous and bad." 
 
 " Wait a bit, uncle," cried Sydie ; " you told him all 
 about your previous match-making, eh ? And did n't he 
 go off like a shot two days after, when we meant him to 
 stay on a month longer? Can't you put two and two 
 together, my once wide-awake governor ? 'Tis n't such a 
 difficult operation." 
 
 " No, I can't," shouted the General : " I don't know 
 anything, I don't see anything, I don't believe in any- 
 thing, I hate everybody and everything, I tell you ; and 
 I 'm a great fool for having ever set my heart on any plan 
 that wanted a woman's concurrence — 
 
 For if slie will she will, you may depend on 't, 
 
 And if she won't she won't, and there 's an end on 't." 
 
 Wherewith the General stuck his wide-awake on 
 fiercely, and darted out of the bay-window to cool him- 
 self. Half way across the lawn, he turned sharp round, 
 and came back again. 
 
 " Sydie, do you fancy Keane cares a straw for that 
 child?" 
 
 " I can't say. It 's possible." 
 
 " Humph ! Well, can't you go and see ? That 's come 
 of those mathematical lessons. What a fool I was to 
 allow her to be so much with him ! " growled the General, 
 with many grunts and half-audible oaths, swinging round
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 299 
 
 again, and trotting through the window as hot and pep- 
 pery as his own idolized curry. 
 
 Keane was sitting writing in his rooms at King's some 
 few days after. The backs looked dismal with their 
 leafless, sepia-colored trees ; the streets were full of sloppy 
 mud and dripping under-grads' umbrellas ; his own room 
 looked sombre and dark, without any sunshine on its 
 heavy oak bookcases, and massive library-table, and dark 
 lironzes. His pen moved quickly, his head was bent over 
 tlu^ paper, his mouth sternly set, and his forehead paler 
 and more severe than ever. The gloom in his chambers 
 had gathered round him himself, when his door was burst 
 open, and Sydie dashed in and threw himself down in a 
 green leather arm-chair. 
 
 " Well, sir, here am I back again. Just met the V. P. 
 in the quad, and he was so enchanted at seeing me, that 
 he kissed me on both cheeks, flung off" his gown, tossed 
 up his cap, and performed a pas d'extase on the spot. 
 Is n't it delightful to be so beloved ? Granta looks very 
 delicious to-day, I must say — about as refreshing and 
 lively as an acidulated spinster going district-visiting in 
 a snow-storm. And how are you, most noble lord?" 
 
 " Pretty well." 
 
 " Only that ? Thought you were all muscle and iron. 
 I say. What do you think the governor has been saying 
 tome?" 
 
 "How can I tell?" 
 
 " Tell ! No, I should not have guessed it if I 'd tried 
 for a hundred years ! By George ! nothing less than that 
 I should marry Fay. What do you think of that, sir?" 
 
 Keane traced Greek unconsciously on the margin of 
 his Times. For the life of him, with all his self-command, 
 he could not have answered. 
 
 "Marry Fay! /.'" shouted Sydie. "Ye gods, what 
 an idea ! I never Avas so astonished in all ray days. 
 Marry Little Fay! — fhe governor must be mad, y<»u 
 know.
 
 300 THE general's matcii-makinq. 
 
 " You will not marry your cousin ? " asked Keane, tran- 
 quilly, though the rapid glance and involuntary start did 
 not escape Sydie's quick eyes. 
 
 " Marry ! 1 1 By George, no ! She would n't have me, 
 and I 'm sure I would n't have her. She is a dear little 
 monkey, and I 'm very fond of her, but I would n't put 
 the halter round my neck for any woman going. I don't 
 like vexing the General, but it would be really too great 
 a sacrifice merely to oblige him." 
 
 "She cares nothing for you, then?" 
 
 " Nothing ? Well, I don't know. Yes, in a measure, 
 she does. If I should be taken home on a hurdle one 
 fine morning, she 'd shed some cousinly tears over my 
 inanimate body ; but as for the other thing, not one bit of 
 it. 'Tis n't likely. We 're a great deal too like one 
 another, too full of devilry and carelessness, to assimilate. 
 Isn't it the delicious contrast and fiz of the sparkling 
 acid of divine lemons with the contrariety of the fiery 
 spirit of beloved rum that makes the delectable union 
 known and worshipped in our symposia under the blissful 
 name of punch? Marry Little Fay! By Jove, if all 
 the governor's match-making was founded on no better 
 reasons for success, it is a small marvel that he 's a 
 bachelor now ! By George, it 's time for hall ! " 
 
 And the Cantab took himself off", congratulating him- 
 self on the adroit manner in which he had cut the Gor- 
 dian knot that the General had muddled up so inex- 
 plicably in his unpropitious match-making. 
 
 Keane lay back in his chair some minutes, very still ; 
 then he rose to dine in hall, pushing away his books and 
 papers, as if throwing aside with them a dull and heavy 
 weight. The robins sang in the leafless backs, the sim 
 shone out on the sloppy streets ; the youth he thought 
 gone for ever was come back to him. Oh, strange stale 
 story of Hercules and Omphale, old as the hills, and as 
 eternal! Hercules goes on in his strength slaying bin
 
 THE general's MATCII-MAKINO. iO\ 
 
 hydra and his Laomedou for many years, but he comes 
 at last, whether he like it or not, to his Omphale, at 
 whose feet he is content to sit and spin long golden 
 threads of pleasure and of passion, while his lion's skin 
 Is motheaten and his club rots away. 
 
 Little Fay sat curled up on the study hearth-rug, read- 
 ing a book her late guest had left behind him — a very 
 light and entertaining volume, being Delolme " On the 
 Constitution," but which she preferred, I suppose, to 
 "What Will He Do With It?" or the " Feuilles d'Au- 
 tomne," for the sake of that clear autograph, " Gerald 
 Keane, King's Coll.," on its fly-leaf. A pretty picture 
 she made, with her handsome spaniels ; and she was so 
 intent on what she was reading — the fly-leaf, by the 
 way — that she never heard the opening of the door, till 
 a hand drew away her book. Then Fay started up, 
 oversetting the puppies one over another, radiant and 
 breathless. 
 
 Keane took her hands and drew her near him. 
 
 "You do not hate me now, then ?" 
 
 Fay put her head on one side with her old wilfulness. 
 
 "Yes, I do — when you go away without any notice, 
 and hardly bid me good-bye. You would not have left 
 one of your men pupils so unceremoniously." 
 
 Keane smiled involuntarily, and drew her closer. 
 
 " If you do not hate me, will you go a step farther — 
 and love me? Little Fay, my own darling, will you 
 come and brighten my life? It has been a saddened and 
 a stern one, but it shall never throw a shade on yours." 
 
 The wild little filly was conqiiered — at last, she came 
 to hand docile and subdued, and acknowledged her 
 master. She loved him, and told him so with that frank- 
 ness and fondness which would have covered faults fur 
 more glaring and weighty than Little Fay's. 
 
 " But you must never be afraid of me," whispered 
 Keane, some time after. 
 26
 
 302 THE general's match-making. 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 " And you do not wish Sydie had never brought me 
 here to make you all uncomfortable?" 
 
 " Ob, please don't ! " cried Fay, plaintively. " I was a 
 child then, and I did not know what I said." 
 
 " ' Then,' being three months ago, may I ask what you 
 are now ? " 
 
 " A child still in knowledge, but your child," whispered 
 Fay, lifting her face to his, " to be petted and spoiled, 
 and never found fault with, remember ! " 
 
 " My little darling, who would have the heart to find 
 fault with you, whatever your sins?" 
 
 " God bless my soul, what 's this ? " cried a voice in the 
 doorway. 
 
 There stood the General in wide-awake and shooting- 
 coat, w'ith a spade in one hand and a watering-pot iii the 
 other, too astonished to keep his amazement to himself. 
 Fay would fain have turned and fled, but Keane smiled, 
 kept one arm round her, and stretched out his hand to 
 the governor. 
 
 " General, I came once uninvited, and I am come again. 
 Will you forgive me ? I have a great deal to say to you, 
 but I must ask you one question first of all. Will you 
 give me your treasure?" 
 
 "Eh! humph! What? Well — I suppose — yes," 
 ejaculated the General, breathless from the combined 
 eifects of amazement and excessive and vehement garden- 
 ing. " But, bless my soul, Keane, I should as soon have 
 thought of one of the stone cherubs, or that bronze 
 Milton. Never mind, one lives and learns. Mind? 
 Devil take me, what am I talking about? I don't mind 
 at all ; I 'm very happy, only I 'd set my heart on — you 
 know what. More fool I. Fay, you little imp, come here. 
 Are you fairly broken in by Keane, then ? " 
 
 " Yes," said INIiss Fay, with her old mischief, but a uqw 
 blush, " as he has promised never to use the curb."
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 303 
 
 "God bless you, then, my little pet," cried the General, 
 kissing her some fifty times. Then he laughed till ho 
 cried, and dried his eyes and laughed again, and grunted, 
 and growled, and shook both Keanc's hands vehemently. 
 " I was a great foul, sir, and I dare say you 've managed 
 much better. I did set my heart on the boy, you know, 
 but it can't be helped now, and I don't wish it should. 
 Be kind to her, that 's all ; for though she may n't bear 
 the curb, the whip from anybody slie cares about would 
 break her heart. She's a dear child, Keane — a very 
 dear child. Be kind to her, that 's all." 
 
 On the evening of January 13th, beginning the Lent 
 Term, Mr. Sydenham Morton sat in his own rooms with 
 half a dozen spirits like himself, a delicious aroma sur- 
 rounding them of Maryland and rum-punch, and a rapid 
 flow of talk making its way through the dense atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
 " To think of Granite Keane being caught ! " shouted 
 one young fellow. " I should as soon have thought of 
 the Pyramids walking over to the Sphinx, and marrying 
 her." 
 
 " Poor devil ! I pity him," sneered Henley of Trinity, 
 aged nineteen. 
 
 "He don't require much pity, my dear fellow; I think 
 he 's pretty comfortable," rejoined Sydie. " He did, to be 
 sure, when he was trying to beat sense into your brain- 
 box, but that 's over for the present." 
 
 "Come, tell us about the wedding," said Somerset of 
 King's. " 1 was sorry I could n't go down." 
 
 "Well," began Sydie, stretching his legs and putting 
 down his pipe, "she — the she was dressed in white tulle 
 and " 
 
 " Bother the dress. Go ahead ! " 
 
 " The dress was no bother, it was the one subject in 
 life to the women. You nmst listen to the dress, because
 
 304 THE general's MATCn-MAKINO. 
 
 I asked the prettiest girl there for the description of it to 
 enlighten your minds, and it was harder to learn than six 
 books of Horace. The bridesmaids wore tarlatane a la 
 Princesse Stephanie, trois jupes bouillonnees, jupe dessous 
 de sole glacee, guirlandes couleur des yeux imperiaux 
 d'Eugenie, corsets decolletes garnis de ruches de ruban 
 du " 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, hold your tongue ! " cried Somer- 
 set. " That jargon 's worse than the Yahoos'. The dead 
 languages are bad enough to learn, but women's living 
 language of fashion is ten hundred times worse. The 
 twelve girls were dressed in blue and white, and thought 
 themselves angels — we understand. Cut along." 
 
 " Gunter was prime," continued Sydie, " and the gov- 
 ernor was prime, too — splendid old buck ; only when he 
 gave her away he was very near saying, ' Devil take it ! ' 
 which might have had a novel, but hardly a solemn, 
 effect. Little Fay was delightful — for all the world like 
 a bit of incarnated sunshine. Keane was granite all 
 over, excejit his eyes, and they were lava ; if we had n't, 
 for our own preservation, let him put her in a carriage 
 and started 'em off, he might have become dangerous, 
 after the manner of Etna, ice outside and red-hot coals 
 within. Tlie bridesmaids tears must have washed the 
 church for a week, and made it rather a damp affair. 
 One would scarcely think women were so anxious to 
 marry, to judge from the amount of grief they get up at 
 a friend's sacrifice. It looks uncommonly like envy ; 
 but it is n't, we 're sure ! The ball was like most other 
 balls : alternate Avaltzing and flirtation, a vast lot of non- 
 sense talked, and a vast lot of champagne drunk — Cupid 
 running about in every direction, and a tremendous run 
 on all the amatory poets — Browning and Tennyson 
 being worked as hard as cab-horses, and used up pretty 
 much as those quadrupeds — dandies suffering self-in- 
 flicted torture from tight boots, and saying, like Cranmer,
 
 THE general's MATCH-MAKING. 305 
 
 when he held his hand in the fire, that it was rather 
 agreeable than otherwise, considering it drew admiration 
 ■ — spurs getting entangled in ladies' dresses, and ladies 
 making use thereof for a display of amial)ility, which the 
 dragoons are very much mistaken if they fancied con- 
 tinued into private life — girls believing all the pretty 
 things said to them — men going home and laughing at 
 them all — wallflowers very black, women engaged ten 
 deep very sunshiny — the governor very glorious, and 
 ray noble self very fascinating. And now," said Sydie, 
 taking up his pipe, " pass the punch, old boy, and never 
 Bay I can't talk ! "
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 A DOUBLED-DOWN LEAF IN A MAN'S LIFE. 
 
 WAS dining with a friend, in his house on the 
 Lung' Arno (he fills, never mind what, post 
 in the British Legation), where I was passing 
 an autumn month. The night was oppressively hot ; a 
 still, sultry sky brooded over the city, and the stars shin- 
 ing out from a purple mist on to the Campanile near, and 
 the slopes of Bellosguardo in the distance. It was in- 
 tensely hot ; not all the iced wines on his table could 
 remove the oppressive warmth of the evening air, which 
 made both him and me think of evenings we had spent 
 together in the voluptuous lassitude of the East, in days 
 gone by, when we had travelled there, fresh to life, to 
 new impressions, to all that gives " greenness to the grass, 
 and glory to the flower." 
 
 The Arno ran on under its bridge, and we leaned out 
 of the balcony where we were sitting and smoking, while 
 I tossed over, without thinking much of what I was doing, 
 a portfolio of his sketches. Position has lost for art many 
 good artists since Sir George Beaumont: my friend is 
 one of them ; his sketches are masterly ; and had he been 
 a vagrant Bohemian instead of an English peer, there 
 might have been pictures on the walls of the R. A. to 
 console one for the meretricious daubs and pet vulgarities 
 of nursery episodes, hideous babies, and third-class car- 
 riage iuLeriurs, \vliicli make one's accustomed aiuuuii 
 
 ( 30G )
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 307 
 
 visit to the rooms that once saw the beauties of Reynolds, 
 and Wilson, and Lawrence, a positive martyrdom to any- 
 body of decent refinement and educated taste. The port- 
 folio stood near me, and I took out a sketch or two now 
 and then between the pauses of our conversation, looking 
 lazily up the river, while the moonlight shone on Dante's 
 city, that so long forgot, and has, so late, remembered 
 him. 
 
 " Ah ! what a pretty face this is ! Who 's the origi- 
 nal?" I asked him, drawing out a female head, done 
 with great finish in pastel, under Avhich was v.'ritten, in 
 his own hand, " Florelle." It was a face of great beauty, 
 with a low Greek brow and bronze-dark hair, and those 
 large, soft, liquid eyes that you only see in a Southern, 
 and that looked at you from the sketch with an earnest, 
 wistful regard, half childlike, half impassioned. He 
 looked up, glanced at the sketch, and stretched out his 
 hand hastily, but I held it away from him. " I want to 
 look at it ; it is a beautiful head ; I wish we had the 
 original here now. Who is she ? " 
 
 As I spoke — holding the sketch up Avhere the light 
 from the room within fell on what I had no doubt was a 
 likeness of some fair face that had beguiled his time in 
 days gone by, a souvenir of one of his loves more lasting 
 than souvenirs of such episodes in one's life often are, if 
 merely trusted to that inconstant capricieuse. Memory, — - 
 I miffht have hit him with a bullet rather than asked 
 him about a mere etude a deux crayons, for he shuddered, 
 and draidc off some white Hermitage quickly. 
 
 " I had forgotten that was in the portfolio," he said, 
 hurriedly, as he took it from me and put it behind him, 
 with its f^ice against the wall, as though it had been the 
 sketch of a Medusa. 
 
 " What do you take it away for? I had not half done 
 looking at it. Who is the original ? " 
 
 " One I dun't care to mention."
 
 308 THE STORY OP A CRAYON-UEAD. 
 
 "Because?" 
 
 " Because the sight of that picture gives me a twinge 
 jfwhat I ought to be hardened against — regret." 
 
 " Regret ! Is any woman worth that ? " 
 
 " She was." 
 
 " I don't believe it ; and I fancied you and I thought 
 alike on such points. Of all the women for whom we 
 feel twinges of conscience or self-reproach in melancholy 
 moments, how many loved us f Moralists and poets sen- 
 timentalize over it, and make it a stalking-horse whereby 
 to magnify our sins and consign us more utterly to perdi- 
 tion, while they do for themselves a little bit of poetic 
 morality cheaply; but in reality there are uncommonly 
 few women who can love, to begin with, and in the 
 second, vanity, avarice, jealousy, desires for pretty toi- 
 lettes, one or other, or all combined, have quite as much 
 to do with their 'sacrifice' for us as anything." 
 
 "Quite true; but — there are women and women, per- 
 haps, and it was not of that sort of regret that I spoke." 
 
 "Of what sort, then?" 
 
 He made me no reply : he broke the ash off his Manilla, 
 and smoked silently some moments, leaning over the 
 balcony and watching the monotonous flow of the Arno, 
 with deeper gloom on his face than I remembered to have 
 seen there any time before. I was sorry I had chanced to 
 light upon a sketch that had brought him back such 
 painful recollections of whatever kind they might be, 
 and I smoked too, sending the perfumed tobacco out into 
 the still sultry night that was brooding over Florence. 
 
 "Of what sort?" said he, abruptly, after some minutes' 
 l^ause. " Shall I tell you ? Then you can tell me Avhether 
 I was a fool who made one grand mistake, or a sensible 
 man of the world who kept himself from a grand folly. 
 I have been often in doubt myself." 
 
 He leaned back, his face in shadow, so that I could not 
 see it, while the Aruo's ebb and Qow was juuking mourn-
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 309 
 
 fill river-musio under our windows, — while the purple 
 glories of the summer night deepened round Giotto's 
 Tower, where, in centuries past, the Immortal of Florence 
 had sat dreaming of the Paradise, the mortals passing by- 
 whispering him as " the man who had seen hell," and the 
 light within the room shone on the olives and grapes, the 
 cut-glass and silver claret-jugs, the crimson Montepul- 
 ciano and the white Hermitage, on the table, as he told 
 me the story of the head in crayons. 
 
 " Two years ago I went into the south of France. I 
 
 was charge d' Affaires at then, you remember, and 
 
 the climate had told upon me. I was not over-well, and 
 somebody recommended me the waters of Eaux Bonnes. 
 The waters I put little faith in, but in the air of the 
 Pyrenees, in the change from diplomacy to a life en rase 
 campagne, I put much, and I went to Eaux Bonnes 
 accordingly, for July and August, with a vow to forswear 
 any society I might find at the baths — I had had only 
 too much of society as it was — and to spend my days in 
 the mountains with my sketching-block and my gun. 
 But I did not like Eaux Bonnes ; it was intensely warm. 
 There were several people who knew me really ; no end 
 of others Avho got hold of my name, and wanted me to 
 join their riding-parties, and balls, and picnics. That 
 was not what I wanted, so I left the place and went on to 
 Luz, hoping to find solitude there. That valley of Luz — ■ 
 you know it? — is it not as lovely as any artist's dream of 
 Arcadia, in the evening, wlien the sunset light has passed 
 ofl' the meadows and corn-lands of the lower valley, and 
 just lingers golden and rosy on the crests of the moun- 
 tains, while the glow-worms are coming out among the 
 grasses, and the lights are being lit in the little home- 
 steads nestling among tlicir orchards one above another 
 on tlie hill-sides, and its hundred streams are rushing 
 down the mountains and under the trees, foaming, and 
 tum1)ling, and rejoicing on their way! When I have
 
 310 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 had my fill of ambition and of pleasure, I shall go and 
 live at Luz, I think. 
 
 " When ! Well ! you are quite right to repeat it ironi- 
 cally ; that time will never come, I dare say, and why- 
 should it? I am not the stuff to cogitate away my years 
 in country solitudes. If prizes are worth winning, they 
 are worth working for till one's death ; a man should 
 never give up the field while he has life left in him. 
 Well ! I went to Luz, and spent a pleasant week or so 
 there, knocking over a few chamois or izards, or sketch- 
 ing on the sides of the Pic du Midi, or Tourmalet, but 
 chiefly lying about under the great beech-trees in the 
 shade, listening to the tinkle of the sheep-bells, like an 
 idle fellow, as I meant to be for the time I had allotted 
 myself One day " 
 
 He stopped and blew some whiffs from his Manilla into 
 the air. He seemed to linger over the prelude to his 
 story, and shrink from going on with the story itself, I 
 thought ; and he smothered a sigh as he raised himself. 
 
 " How warm the night is ; we shall have a tempest. 
 Reach me that wine, there 's a good fellow. No, not the 
 Amontillado, the Chateau Margaux, please; one can't 
 drink hot dry wines such a night as this. But to satisfy 
 your curiosity about this crayon study. — One day I 
 thought I would go to Gavarnie. I had heard a good 
 deal, of course, about the great marble wall, and the 
 mighty waterfalls, the rocks of Marbore, and the Breche 
 de Roland, but, as it chanced, I had never been up to the 
 Cercle, nor, indeed, in that part of the Midi at all, so I 
 went. The gods favored me, I remember ; there were no 
 mists, the sun was brilliant, and the great amphitheatre 
 was for once unobscured ; the white marble flashing brown 
 and purple, rose and golden, in the light ; the cascades 
 tumbling and leaping down into the gigantic basin ; the 
 vast plains of snow glittering in the sunshine ; the twin 
 rocks standing in the clear air, straight and fluted as any
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 311 
 
 two Corinthinn columns hewn and chiselled by man. 
 Good Heaven ! before a scene like Gavarnic, what true 
 artist must not fling away his colors and his ])rusl)cs in 
 despair and disgust with his own puerility and impo- 
 tence? What can be transferred to canvas of such a 
 scene as that? What does the best beauty of Claude, the 
 grandest sublimity of Salvator, the greatest power of 
 Poussin, look beside Nature when she reigns as she reigns 
 at Gavarnie? I am an art worshipper, as you know: but 
 there are times in my life, places on earth, that make me 
 ready to renounce art for ever ! 
 
 "The day was beautiful, and thinking I knew the 
 country pretty well, I took no guides. I hate them when 
 I can possibly dispense with them. But the mi.st .soon 
 swooped down over the Cercle, and I began to wish I had 
 had one when I turned my horse's head back again. You 
 know the route, of course ? Through the Chaos — Heaven 
 knows it is deserving of its name; — down the break-neck 
 little bridle-path, along the Gave, and over the Scia 
 bridge to St. Sauveur. You know it ? Then you know 
 that it is much easier to break your neck down it tlian to 
 find your Avay by it, though by some hazard I did not 
 break my neck, nor the animal's knees either, but man- 
 aged to get over the bridge without falling into the tor- 
 rent, and to pick my wa}'' safely down into more level 
 ground ; once there, I thought I should easily enough find 
 my Avay to St. Sauveur, but I was mistaken : the mists 
 had spread over the valley, a heavy storm had come up, 
 and, somehow or other, I lost the way, and could not tell 
 where I was, whether St. Sauveur was to the left or the 
 right, behind me or in front of me. The horse, a misera- 
 ble little Pyren(»an beast, was too frightened by the light- 
 ning to take the matter into his hands as he had clone on 
 the road through the Chaos, and I saw nothing ibr it l)ut 
 to surrender and come to grief in any way the elements 
 best pleased ; swearing at myself for not having stayed
 
 312 THE STORF OP A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 at the inn at Gavarnie or Gedre ; wishing myself at the 
 vilest mountain auberge that ever sheltered men and 
 mules pele-mele ; and calling myself hard names for not 
 having listened to my landlady's dissuasions of that morn- 
 ing as I left her door, from my project of going to 
 Gavarnie without a guide, which seemed to her the acme 
 of all she had ever known or heard of English strangers' 
 fooleries. The storm only increased, the great black 
 rocks echoing the roll of the thunder, and the Gave lash- 
 ing itself into fury in its narrow bed ; happily I was on 
 decently level ground, and the horse being, I suppose, 
 tolerably used to storms like it, I pushed him on at last, 
 by dint of blows and conjurations combined, to where, in 
 the flashes of the lightning, I saw what looked to me like 
 the outline of a homestead : it stood in a cleft between 
 two shelving sides of rock, and a narrow bridle-path led 
 up to it, through high yews and a tangled wilderness of 
 rhododendrons, boxwood, and birch — one of those green 
 slopes so common in the Pyrenees, that look in full sun- 
 light doubly bright and Arcadian-like, from the contrast 
 of the dark, bare, perpendicular rocks that shut them in. 
 I could see but little of its beauty then in the fog that 
 shrouded both it and me, but I saw the shape and sem- 
 blance of a house, and urging the horse up the ascent, 
 thundered on its gate-panels with my whip-handle till the 
 rocks round echoed. 
 
 " There was no answer, and I knocked a little louder, 
 if possible, than before. I was wet to the skin with that 
 wretched storm, and swore not mildly at the inhospitable 
 roof that would not admit me under it. I knocked again, 
 inclined to pick up a piece of granite and beat the panel 
 in ; and at last a face — an old woman's weather-beaten 
 face, but with black southern eyes that had lost little of 
 their fire with age — looked through a grating at me and 
 asked me what I wanted. 
 
 " ' I want shelter if you can give it me,' I answered hei.
 
 THE STORY OF A CRA YON-IIEAD. 313 
 
 'I have lost my Avay coming from Gavarnie, and am 
 drenched through. I will pay you liberally if you will 
 give me an asylum till the weather clears.' 
 
 " Her eyes blazed like coals through the little grille. 
 
 "*M'sieu, we take no money here — have you mistaken 
 it for an inn ? Come in if you want shelter, in Heaven's 
 name ! The Holy Virgin forbid we should refuse refuge 
 to any ! ' 
 
 "And she crossed herself and uttered some conjurations 
 to Mary to protect them from all wolves in sheep's clothing, 
 and guard their dwelling from all harm, by which I sup- 
 pose she thought I spoke fairly and looked harmless, but 
 might possibly be a thief or an assassin, or both in one. 
 She unlocked the gate, and calling to a boy to take my 
 horse into a shed, admitted me under a covered passage- 
 way into the house, which looked like part, and a very 
 ruined part, too, of what had probably been, in the times 
 of Henri-Quatre and his grandfather, a feudal chateau 
 fenced in by natural ramparts from the rocks that sur- 
 rounded it, shutting in the green slope on which it stood, 
 with only one egress, the path through which I had 
 ascended, into the level plain below. She marshalled me 
 through this covered way into an interior passage, dark 
 and vaulted, cheerless enough, and opened a low oak door, 
 ushering me into a chamber, bare, gloomy, yet with some- 
 thing of lost grandeur and past state lingering about its 
 great hearth, its massive walls, its stained windows, and 
 its ragged tapestry hangings. The woman went up to one 
 of the windows and spoke with a gentleness to which I 
 should have never thought her voice could have been 
 attuned with its harsh patois. 
 
 " ' Mou enfant, v'la un m'sieu etranger qui vient cher- 
 cher un abri pour un petit peu. Veux-tu lui parler?' 
 
 " The young girl she spoke to turned, rose, and, coming 
 forward, bade me welcome with the grace, simplicity, and 
 the naive freedom from embarrassment of a child, ' >oking 
 z1
 
 314 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 U}) in my face with her soft clear eyes. She was like — 
 No matter! you have seen that crayon-head, it is but a 
 portrayal of a face whose expression Raphael and Sasso- 
 ferrato themselves would have failed to render in its 
 earnest, innocent, elevated regard. She was very young — 
 
 Standing with reluctant feet 
 Where the brook and river meet — 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet. 
 
 Good Heavens, I am quoting poetry ! what will you think 
 of me, to have gone back to the Wertherian and Tenny- 
 sonian days so far as to repeat a triplet of Longfellow's ? 
 No man quotes tJiose jDoets after his salad days, except in 
 a moment of weakness. Caramba! why has one any 
 weaknesses at all ? we ought not to have any ; we live in 
 an atmosphere that would kill them all if they were not 
 as obstinate and indestructible as all other weeds whose 
 seeds will linger and peer up and spoil the ground, let one 
 root them out ever so ! I owed you an apology for that 
 lapse into Longfellow, and I have made it. Am I to go 
 on with this story ? " 
 
 He laughed as he sjioke, and his laugh was by no 
 means heartfelt. I told him to go on, and he lighted 
 another Manilla and obeyed me, while the Arno mur- 
 mured on its way, and the dusky, sultry clouds brooded 
 nearer the earth, and the lights were lit in the distant 
 windows of the palace of the Marchese Acqua d'Oro, that 
 fairest of Florentines, who rouges so indiscriminately and 
 flirts her fan so inimitably, to one of whose balls we were 
 going that night. 
 
 He settled himself back in his chair, with his face 
 darkened again by the shadow cast on it from the pillar 
 of the balcony ; and took his cigar out of his mouth. 
 
 " She looked incongruous in that bare and gloomy 
 room, out of place with it, and out of keej^ing with the 
 old woman — a French peasant-woman, weather-beaten
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 315 
 
 and bronzed, such as you see any day by the score riding 
 to market or sitting knitting at their cottage-doors. It 
 was impossible that the girl could be either daugliter or 
 grand-daughter, or any relation at all to her. In that 
 room she looked more as one of these myrtles might do, 
 set dov/n in the stifling gloomy horrors of a London street 
 than anything else, save that in certain traces about the 
 chamber, as I told you, there were relics of a faded 
 grandeur which harmonized better with her. I can see 
 her now, as she stood there with a strange foreign grace, 
 an indescribable patrician delicacy mingled with extreme 
 youthfulness and naivete, like an old picture in costume, 
 like one of Raphael's child-angels in face — poor little 
 Florelle ! 
 
 "'You Avould stay till the storm is over, monsieur? 
 you are welcome to shelter if you will,' she said, coming 
 forward to me timidly yet frankly. ' Cazot tells me you 
 are a stranger, and our mountain storms are dangerous 
 if you have no guide.' 
 
 " I did not know who Cazot was, but I presumed her 
 to be the old woman, Avho seemed to be portress, mistress, 
 domestic, cameriste, and all else in her single person, but 
 I thanked her for her permitted shelter, and accepted her 
 invitation to remain till the weather had cleared, as you 
 can imagine. When you have lost your way, any asylum 
 is grateful, however desolate and tumble-down. They 
 made me welcome, she and the old peasant-woman, with 
 that simple, unstrained, and unostentatious hospitality 
 which is, after all, the true essence of good breeding, and 
 o:^ which your parvenu knows nothing, when he keeps 
 you waiting, and shows you that you are come at an 
 inapropos moment, in his fussy fear lest everytliing 
 should not be comme il faut to do due credit to hhn. Old 
 Cazot set before me some simple refreshment, a grillade 
 de chdtaignes, some maize and milk, and a dish of trout 
 just caught in the Gave below, while I looked at my
 
 316 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 chiltelaine, marvelling how that young and delicate crea 
 ture could come to be shut up with an old peasant on a 
 remote hill-side. I did my best to draw her out and learn 
 her history ; she was shy at first of a complete stranger, 
 as was but natural, but I spoke of Garvarnie, of the 
 beauty of the Pyrenees, or Tourmalet, and the Lac Bleu, 
 and, warming with enthusiasm for her birthplace, the girl 
 forgot that I was a foreign tourist, unknown to her, and 
 indebted to her for an hour's shelter, and before my im- 
 promptu supper was over I had drawn from her, by a few 
 questions which she was too much of a child and had too 
 little to conceal not to answer with a child's ingenuousness, 
 the whole of her short history, and the explanation of her 
 anomalous position. Her name was Florelle de I'Heris, 
 a name once powerful enough among the nobles of the 
 Midi, and the old woman, Madame Cazot, was her father's 
 foster-sister. Of her family, beggared in common with 
 the best aristocracy of France, none were now left; they 
 had dwindled and fallen away, till of the once great 
 house of L'Heris this child remained alone its representa- 
 tive : her mother had died in her infancy, and her father, 
 either too idle or too broken-hearted to care to retrieve 
 his fortunes, lived the life of a hermit among these ruins 
 where I now found his daughter, educating her himself 
 till his death, which occurred when she was only twelve 
 years old, leaving her to poverty and obscurity, and such 
 protection and companionship as her old nurse Cazot 
 could afford her. Such was the story Florelle de I'Heris 
 told me as I sat there that evening waiting till the clouds 
 should clear and the mists roll off enough to let me go to 
 St. Sauveur — a story told simply and pathetically, and 
 which Cazot, sitting knitting in a corner, added to by a 
 hundred gesticulations, expletives, appeals to the Virgin, 
 and prolix addenda, glad, I dare say, of any ncAV confi- 
 dent, and disposed to regard me with gratitude for my 
 sincere praises of her fried trout. It was a story which
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 317 
 
 seemed to me to suit the delicate beauty of the flower I 
 had found in the wilderness, and read more like a chapter 
 of some versified novelette, like 'Lucille,' than a bond 
 fide page out of the book of one's actual life, especially 
 in a life like mine, of essentially material pleasures and 
 emphatically substantial and palpable ambitions. But 
 there are odd stories in real life! — strange pathetic ones, 
 too — stranger, often, than those that found the plot and 
 underplot of a novel or the basis of a poem ; but when 
 such men as I come across them they startle us, they look 
 bizarre and unlike all the other leaves of the book that 
 glitter with worldly aphorisms, plilosophical maxims, and 
 pungent egotisms, and we would fain cut them out ; they 
 have the ring of that Arcadia whose golden gates shut 
 on us when we outgrew boyhood, and in which, en 
 revanche, we have sworn ever since to disbelieve — keep- 
 ing our word sometimes, perhaps to our own hindrance — 
 Heaven knows ! 
 
 " I stayed as long as I could that evening, till the weather 
 had cleared up so long, and the sun was shining again so 
 indisputably, that I had no longer any excuse to linger 
 in the dark-tapestried room, with the chestnuts sputtering 
 among the wood-ashes, and Madame Cazot's needles click- 
 ing one continual refrain, and the soft gazelle eyes of my 
 young chsVtelaine glancing from my sketches to me with 
 that mixture of shyness and fearlessness, innocence and 
 candor, which gave so great a charm to her manner. She 
 was a new study to me, both for my palette and my mind 
 — a pretty fresh toy to amuse me while I should stay in 
 the Midi. I was not going to leave Avithout making sure 
 of a permission to return. I wanted to have that face 
 among my pastels, and when I had thanked her for her 
 Rhelter and her welcome, I told her my name, and asked 
 her leave to come again where I had been so kindly re- 
 ceived. 
 
 "'Come again, monsieur? Certainly, if you care t(»
 
 318 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 come. But you will find it a long way from Luz, I fear,' 
 she said, naively, looking up at me with her large clear 
 fawn-like eyes — eyes so cloudle6s and untroubled then — 
 as she let me take her hand, and bade me adieu et bonsoir. 
 
 " I reassured her on that score, you can fancy, and left 
 her standing in the deep-embrasured window, a great stag- 
 hound at her feet, and the setting sun, all the brighter for 
 its past eclipse, bathing her in light. I can always see 
 
 her in memory as I saw her then, poor child ! Faugh I 
 
 How hot the night is ! Can't we get more air anyhow ? 
 
 " ' If you come again up here, m'sieu, you will be tlie 
 first visitor the Nid de I'Aigle has seen for four years,' 
 said old Cazot, as she showed me out through the dusky- 
 vaulted passage. She was a cheerful, garrulous old 
 woman, strong in her devotion to the De I'Heris of the 
 bygone past ; stronger even yet in her love for their single 
 orphan representative of the beggared present. ' Visitors ! 
 Is it likely we should have any, m'sieu ? Those that would 
 suit me would be bad company for Ma'amselle Florelle, 
 and those that should seek her never do. I recollect the 
 time, m'sieu, when the highest in all the departments Avere 
 glad to come to the bidding of a De I'Heris ; but genera- 
 tions have gone since then, and lands and gold gone too, 
 and, if you cannot feast them, what care people for you? 
 That is true in the Pyrenees, m'sieu, as well as in the rest 
 of the world. I have not lived eighty years without find- 
 ing out that. If my child yonder were the heiress of the 
 De I'Heris, there would be plenty to court and seek her ; 
 ])ut she lives in these poor broken-down ruins with me, an 
 old peasant woman, to care for her as best I can, and not 
 a soul take^ heed of her save the holy women at the con- 
 vent, where, maybe, she will seek refuge at last ! ' 
 
 " She let me out at the gate where I had thundered for 
 admittance two hours before, and, giving her my thanks 
 for her hospitality — money she would not take — I wished 
 her good day, and rode down the bridle-path to St. Sauvcur,
 
 THE STORY OF A CllA YON-IIEAD. iilV) 
 
 and onwards to Luz, thinking at intervals of that fair 
 young life that had just sprung up, and was already des- 
 tined to wither away its bloom in a convent. Any destiny 
 would be better to proffer to her than that. She interested 
 me already by her childlike loveliness and her strange 
 solitude of position, and I thought she would while away 
 some of the long summer hours during my stay in the 
 Midi when I was tired of chamois and palette, and my 
 lazy dolce under the beech-wood shades. At any rate, 
 she Avas newer and more charming than the belles of Eaux 
 Bonnes. 
 
 " The next morning I remembered her permission and 
 my promise, and I rode out through the town again, up 
 the mountain-road, to the Nid de I'Aigle ; glad of any- 
 thing that gave me an amusement and a pursuit. I never 
 Avholly appreciate the far niente, I think ; perhaps I have 
 lived too entirely in the world — and a world ultra-cold 
 and courtly, too — to retain much patience for the med- 
 itative life, the life of trees and woods, sermons in stones, 
 and monologues in mountains. I am a restless, am- 
 bitious man ; I must have a pursuit, be it of a great 
 aim or a small, or I grow weary, and my time hangs 
 heavily on hand. Already having found Florelle de 
 I'Heris among these hills reconciled me more to my ^ro 
 tempo banishment from society, excitement, and pleasure, 
 and I thanked my good "fortune for having lighted upon 
 her. She Avas very lovely, and I always care more for 
 the physical than the intellectual charms of any Avoman. 
 I do not share some men's visionary requirements on their 
 mental score ; I ask but material beauty, and am content 
 Avith it. 
 
 " I rode up to the Nid de I'Aigle : by a clearer light it 
 stood on a spot of great picturesqueness, and before the 
 I'nry of the rcA^olutionary peasantry had destroyed what 
 was the then habitabk; and stately chAteau, must have 
 been a i)lace of considerable extent and beauty, au 1 in
 
 320 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 the feudal times, fenced in by the natural ramparts of its 
 ehelving rocks, no doubt all but impregnable. There 
 were but a few ruins now that held together and had a 
 roof over them — the part where Madame Cazot and the 
 last of the De I'Heris lived ; it was perfectly solitary ; 
 there was nothing to be heard round it but the foaming 
 of the river, the music of the sheep-bells from the flocks 
 that fed in the clefts and on the slopes of grass-land, and 
 the shout of some shepherd-boy from the path below ; but 
 it was as beautiful a spot as any in the Pyrenees, with its 
 overhanging beech-woods, its wilderness of wild-flowers, 
 its rocks covered wdth that soft gray moss whose tint defies 
 one to repeat it in oil or water colors, and its larches and 
 beeches drooping over into the waters of the Gave. In 
 such a home, with no companions save her father, old 
 Cazot, and her great stag-hound, and, occasionally, the 
 quiet recluses of St. Marie Purificatrice, with everything 
 to feed her native poetry and susceptibility, and nothing 
 to teach her anything of the actual and ordinary world, 
 it were inevitable that the character of Florelle should 
 take its coloring from the scenes around her, and that she 
 ishould grow up singularly childlike, imaginative, and 
 innocent of all that in any other life she would unavoid- 
 ably have known. Well educated she was, through her 
 father and the nuns, but it was a semi-religious and pecu- 
 liar education, of which the chief literature had been the 
 legendary and sacred poetry of France and Spain, the 
 chief amusement copying the illuminated missals lent her 
 by the nuns, or joining in the choral services of the con- 
 vent ; an education that taught her nothing of the world 
 from which she was shut out, and encouraged all that was 
 eelf-devoted, visionary, and fervid in her nature, leaving 
 her at seventeen as unconscious of evil as the youngest 
 child. I despair of making you imagine what Florelle 
 then was. Had I never met her, I should have believed 
 in her as little as yourself, and would have discredit*^
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD 32l 
 
 the existence of so poetic a creation out of tlie world of 
 fiction ; her ethereal delicacy, her sunny gayety when any- 
 thing amused her, her intense sensitiveness, pained in a 
 moment by a harsh word, pleased as soon by a kind one, 
 her innocence of all the blots and cruelties, artifices and 
 evils, of that world beyond her Nid de I'Aigle, made a 
 character strangely new to me, and strangely winning, 
 but which to you I despair of portraying : I could not 
 have imagined it. Had I never seen her, and had I met 
 witli it in the pages of a novel, I should have put it aside 
 as a graceful but impossible conception of romance. 
 
 " I went up that day to the Nid de I'Aigle, and Florelle 
 received me with pleasure ; perhaps Madame Cazot had 
 instilled into her some scepticism that ' a grand seigneur,' 
 as the Avoman was pleased to term me, would trouble him- 
 self to ride up the mountains from Luz mei'ely to repeat 
 his thanks for an hour's shelter and a supper of roasted 
 chestnuts. She was a simple-minded, good-hearted old 
 woman, who had lived all her life among the rocks and 
 rivers of the Hautes-Pyrenees, her longest excursion a 
 market-day to Luz or Bagneres. She looked on her 
 young mistress and charge as a child — in truth, Florelle 
 was but little more — and thought my visit paid simply 
 from gratitude and courtesy, never dreaming of attrib- 
 uting it to ' cette beaute hereditaire des L'Heris,' which 
 she was proud of boasting was an inalienable heirloom to 
 the family. 
 
 " I often repeated my visits ; so often, that in a week 
 or so the old ruined chAteau grew a natural resort in the 
 long summer days, and Florelle watched for my coming 
 from the deep-arched window where I had seen her first, 
 or from under the boughs of the great copper beech that 
 grew before the gate, and looked for me as regularly as 
 though I were to spend my lifetime in the valley of Luz, 
 Pour child ! 1 never told her n)y title, but I taught her 
 to call me l)y my christian name. It used to sound very 
 
 V 
 
 /
 
 322 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 pretty when she said it, with her long Southern pronun- 
 ciation — prettier than it ever sounds now from the lipa 
 of Beatrice Acqua d'Oro yonder, in her softest moments, 
 when she plays at sentiment. She had great natural 
 talent for art, hitherto uncultivated, of course, save by 
 such instructions as one of the women at the convent, 
 skilful at illuminating, had occasionally given her. I 
 amused myself with teaching her to transfer to paper and 
 canvas the scenery she loved so passionately. I spent 
 many hours training this talent of hers that was of very 
 unusual calibre, and, with due culture, might have ranked 
 her w'ith Elisabetta Sii'ani or Eosa Bonheur. Sitting 
 with her in the old room, or under the beech-trees, or by 
 the side of the torrente that tore down the rocks into the 
 Gave, it pleased me to draw out her unsullied thoughts, 
 to spread her mind out before me like a book — a pure 
 book enough, God knows, with not even a stain of the 
 world upon it — to make her eyes glisten and glow and 
 dilate, to fill them with tears or laughter at my will, to 
 wake up her young life from its unconscious, untroubled, 
 childish repose to a new happiness, a new pain, which she 
 felt but could not translate, which dawned in her face for 
 me, but never spoke in its true language to her, ignorant 
 then of its very name — it amused me. Bah ! our amuse- 
 ments are cruel sometimes, and costly too ! 
 
 " It was at that time I took the head in pastels which 
 you have seen, and she asked me, in innocent admiration 
 of its loveliness, if she was indeed like that? — This night 
 is awfully oppressive. Is there water in that carafe? la 
 it iced ? Push it to me. Thank you. 
 
 " I was always welcome at the Nid de I'Aigle. Old Ca- 
 zot, with the instinct of servants who have lived with 
 people of birth till they are as proud of their master's 
 heraldry as though it were their own, discerned that I 
 was of the same rank as her adored House of De I'Heria 
 — if indeed she admitted any equal to them — and with
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 323 
 
 all the cheery familiarity of a Frenchwoman treated me 
 with punctilious deference, being as thoroughly imbued 
 with respect and adoration for the aristocracy as any of 
 those who died for the white lilies in the Place de la 
 Revolution. And Florelle — Florelle watched for me, 
 and counted her hours by those I spent with her. You 
 are sure I had not read and played with women's hearts 
 so long — women, too, with a thousand veils and evasions 
 and artifices, of which she was in pure ignorance even of 
 the existence — without having this heart, young, unworn, 
 and unoccupied, under my power at once, plastic to mould 
 as wax, ready to receive any impressions at my hands, 
 and moulded easily to my will. Florelle had read no 
 love stories to help her to translate this new life to which 
 I awoke her, or to put her on her guard against it. I 
 went there often, every day at last, teaching my pupil the 
 art which she was only too glad and too eager to learn, 
 stirring her vivid imagination with descriptions of that 
 brilliant outside world, of Avhose pleasures, gayeties and 
 pursuits she was as ignorant as any little gentian flower 
 on the rocks ; keeping her spell-bound with glimpses of 
 its life, which looked to her like fairyland, bizarre bal 
 masque though it be to us ; and pleasing myself with 
 awakening new thoughts, new impressions, new emotions, 
 which swept over her tell-tale face like the lights and 
 shades over meadow-land as the sun fades on and off it. 
 She was a new study, a new amusement to me, after the 
 women of our world, and I beguiled my time with her^ 
 not thoughtlessly, as I might have done, not too hastily, 
 as I should have done ten years before, but pleased with 
 my new amusement, and more charmed with Florelle than 
 1 at first knew, though I confess I soon wished to mak** 
 her love me, and soon tried my best to make her do 60 — • 
 an easy task when one has had some practice in the rose- 
 hued atmosphere of the boudoir, among the most diflicile 
 and the most brilliant coquettes of Europe! Florelle,
 
 324 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 with a i:ature singularly loving, and a mind singularly 
 imaginative, with ]io rival for me even in her fancy, sooii 
 lavished on me all the love of which her i]nj)assioned anu 
 poetic character was capable. She did not know it, but 
 I did. She loved me, poor child ! — love more pure, u '- 
 Belfish, and fond than I ever won before, than I shall over 
 win again. 
 
 " Basta ! why need you have lighted on that crayon- 
 head, and make me rake up this story ? I loathe looking 
 at the past. AVhat good ever comes of it ? A wise man 
 lives only in his present. * La vita h appunto una me- 
 moria, una speranza, un punto,' writes the fool of a poet, 
 as though the bygone memories and the unrealized hopes 
 were worth a straw ! It is that very present ' instant ' 
 that he despises which is available, and in Avhich, when 
 we are in our senses, we absorb ourselves, knowing that 
 that alone will yield a fruit worth having. What are 
 the fruits of the others ? only Dead Sea apples that 
 crumble into ash. 
 
 " I knew that Florelle loved me ; that I, and I alone, 
 filled both her imagination and her heart. I would not 
 precipitately startle her into any avowal of it. I liked 
 to see it dawn in her face and gleam in her eyes, guile- 
 lessly and unconsciously. It was a new pleasure to me, a 
 new charm in that book of Woman of which I had 
 thought I knew every phase, and had exhausted every 
 reading. I taught Florelle to love me, but I would not 
 give her a name to my teaching till she found it herself. 
 I returned it? O yes, I loved her, selfishly, as most 
 people, men or women, do love, let them say what they 
 will; very selfishly, perhaps — a love that was beneath 
 her — a love for which, had she seen into my heart, she 
 might have disdained and hated me, if her soft nature 
 could have been moved to so fierce a thing as hate — a 
 love that sought its own gratification, and thought nothing 
 of her welfiire — a love not worthy of her, as I sometimes 
 felt then, as I believe now.
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HLAD. 325 
 
 " I had been about six weeks in the Pyrenees since the 
 day I lost myself en route from Gavarnie ; most of t!ie 
 days I had spent three or four hours, often more, at the 
 Nid de I'Aigle, giving my painting lessons to Florelle, or 
 being guided by her among the beech-wooded and moun- 
 tain passes near her home. The dreariest fens and Hats 
 luiglit have gathered interest from such a guide, and the 
 glorious beauties of the Midi, well suited to her, gained 
 additional poetry from her impassioned love for them, 
 and her fond knowledge of all their legends, superstitions, 
 histories, and associated memories, gathered from the oral 
 lore of the peasantry, the cradle songs of Madame Cazot, 
 and the stories of the old chronicles of the South. Heav- 
 ens ! Avhat a wealth of imagination, talent, genius, lay in 
 her if / had not destroyed it ! 
 
 "At length the time drew near when ray so-called 
 sojourn at the Baths must end. One day Florelle and 
 I were out sketching, as usual ; she sat under one of the 
 great beeches, within a few feet of one of the cascades 
 that fell into the Gave du Pan, and I lay on the grass by 
 her, looking into those clear gazelle eyes that met mine 
 so brightly and trustfully, watching the progress of her 
 brush, and throwing twigs and stones into the spray of 
 the torrent, I can remember the place as though it were 
 yesterday, the splash of the foam over the rocks, the 
 tinkle of the sheep-bells from the hills, the scent of the 
 wild flowers growing round, the glowing golden light that 
 spread over the woodlands, touching even the distant 
 crest of Mount Aigu and the Pic du Midi. Strange how 
 some scenes will stamp themselves on the camera of the 
 brain never to be effaced, let one try all that one may. 
 
 " There, that morning, I, for the first time since we had 
 met, spoke of leaving Luz, and of going back to that life 
 which I had so often amused her by describing. Happy 
 in her present, ignorant of how soon the scenes so familiar 
 and dear to her would tire and pal) ou me, and infinitely 
 
 /■■
 
 326 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 too much of a child to have looked beyond, or speculated 
 upon anything which I had not spoken of to her, it had 
 not presented itself to her that this sort of life could not 
 go on for ever ; that even she would not reconcile me long 
 to the banishment from my own world, and that in the 
 nature of things we must either become more to each other 
 than we were now, or part as strangers, whom chance had 
 thrown together for a little time. She loved me, but, as I 
 say, so innocently and uncalculatingly, that she never knew 
 it till I spoke of leaving her ; then she grew very pale, 
 her eyes filled with tears, and shunned mine for the first 
 time, and, as an anatomist watches the quiver of pain in 
 his victim, so I watched the sufl^ering of mine. It was 
 her first taste of the bitterness of life, and while 1 in- 
 flicted the pain I smiled at it, pleased in my egotism to see 
 the power I had over her. It was cruel, I grant it, but 
 in confessing it I only confess to what nine out of ten men 
 have felt, though they may conceal or deny it. 
 
 " ' You will miss me, Florelle ? ' I asked her. She looked 
 at me reproachfully, wistfully, piteously, the sort of look 
 I have seen in the eyes of a dying deer ; too bewildered by 
 this sudden mention of my departure to answer in words. 
 No answer was needed with eyes so eloquent as hers, but 
 I repeated it again. I knew I gave pain, but I knew, too, 
 I should soon console her. Her lips quivered, and the 
 tears gathered in her eyes ; she had not known enough of 
 Borrow to have learnt to dissemble it. I asked her if she 
 loved me so much that she was unwilling to bid me faro- 
 well. For the first time her eyes sank beneath mine, and 
 a hot painful color flushed over her face. Poor child ! if 
 ever I have been loved by any woman, I was loved by her. 
 Then I woke her heart from its innocent peaceful rest, 
 with words that 'spoke a language utterly new to her. I 
 gketched to lier a life with me that made her cheeks 
 glow, and her lips quiver, and her eyes grow dark. She 
 was lovelier in those moments than any art couhl ever
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. S27 
 
 attempt to picture! She loved me, and I made her tell 
 me so over and over again. She put her fate unhesitat- 
 ingly into my hands, and rejoiced in the passion I vowed 
 her, little understanding how selfishly I sought her, little 
 thinking, in her ignorance of the evil of the world, that 
 while she rejoiced in the fondness I lavished on her, and 
 worshipped me as though I were some superior unerring 
 godlike being, she was to me only a new toy, only a pur- 
 suit of the hour, a plaything, too, of which I foresaw I 
 should tire ! Is n't it Benjamin Constant who says, ' Mal- 
 heureux I'homme qui, dans le commencement d'un amour, 
 prevoit avec une precision cruelle I'heure oii il en sera 
 lasse ' ? 
 
 " As it happened, I had made that morning an appoint- 
 ment in Luz with some men I knew, who happened to be 
 passing through it, and had stopped there that day to go 
 up the Pic du Midi the next, so that I could spend only 
 an hour or two with Florelle. I took her to her home, 
 parted with her for a few hours, and went down the path. 
 I remember how she stood looking after me under the 
 heavy gray stone-work of the gateway, the tendrils of the 
 ivy hanging down and touching her hair that glistened in 
 the sunshine as she smiled me her adieux. My words had 
 translated, for the first time, all the newly-dawned emo- 
 tions that had lately stirred in her heart, while she knew 
 not their name. 
 
 " I soon lost sight of her through a sharp turn of the 
 bridle-path round the rocks, and went on my way think- 
 ing of my new love, of how completely I held the threads 
 of her fate in my hands, and how entirely it lay in my 
 power to touch the chords of her young heart into acute 
 pain or into as acute pleasure with one word of mine — 
 of how utterly I could mould her charactcir, her life, her 
 fate, whether for happiness or misery, at my will. I loved 
 her well enough, if only for her unusual beauty, to feel 
 triumph at my entire power, and to feel a tinge of her
 
 228 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 own poetry anrl tenderness of feeling stirring in nie as I 
 ■went on under the green, drooping, fanlike boughs of the 
 pines, thinking of Florelle de I'Heris. 
 
 *" M'sieu ! permettez-moi vous parle un p'tit mot?' 
 
 " Madame Cazot's patois made me look up, almost 
 startled for the moment, though there was nothing aston- 
 ishing in her appearance there, in her accustomed spot 
 under the shade of a mountain-ash and a great boulder 
 of rock, occupied at her usual task, washing linen in the 
 Gave, as it foamed and rushed over its stones. She raised 
 herself from her work and looked up at me, shading her 
 eyes from the light — a sunburnt, wrinkled, hardy old 
 woman, with her scarlet capulet, her blue cloth jacket, 
 and her brown woollen petticoat, so strange a contrast to 
 the figure I had lately left under the gateway of the Nid 
 de I'Aigle, that it was difficult to believe them even of the 
 same sex or country. 
 
 " She spoke with extreme deference, as she always did, 
 but so earnestly, that I looked at her in surprise, and 
 stopped to hear what it might be she had to say. She 
 was but a peasant woman, but she had a certain dignity 
 of manner for all that, caught, no doubt, from her long 
 service with, and her pi*ide in, the De I'Heris. 
 
 " ' M'sieu, I have no right, perhaps, to address you ; you 
 are a grand seigneur, and I but a poor peasant woman. 
 Nevertheless, I must speak. I have a charge to which I 
 shall have to answer in the other world to God and to my 
 master. M'sieu, pardon me what I say, but you love 
 Ma'amselle Florelle?' 
 
 " I stai'ed at the woman, astonished at her interference 
 and annoyed at her presumption, and motioned her aside 
 with my stick. But she placed herself in the path — a 
 narrow path — on which two people could not have stood 
 without one or other going into the Gave, and stopped me 
 resolutely and respectfully, shading her eyes from the 
 sun, and looking steadily at n:v face.
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-UEAD. 329 
 
 "'M'sieu, a little while ago, in the gateway yonder, 
 ^•hcn you parted with Ma'amselle Florelle, I was coming 
 nut l>ehind you to bring my linen to the river, and I saw 
 you take her in your arms and kiss her many times, and 
 whisper to her that you would come again " ce soir ! " 
 Then, m'sieu, I knew that you must love my little lady, 
 or, at least, must have made her love you. I have 
 thought her — living always with her — but a beajitiftil 
 child still ; but you have found her a beautiful woman, 
 and loved her, or taught her love, m'sieu. Pardon me if 
 I wrong your honor, but my master left her in my charge, 
 and I am an ignorant old peasant, ill fitted for such a 
 trust ; but is this love of yours such as the Sieur de 
 I'Heris, were he now on earth, would put his hand in 
 your own and thank you for, or is it such that he would 
 wash out its insult in your blood or his ?' 
 
 " Her words amazed me for a moment, first at the pre- 
 sumption of an interference of which I had never dreamt, 
 next at the iron firmness with which this old woman, 
 nothing daunted, spoke as though the blood of a race of 
 kings ran in her veins. I laughed a little at the absurd- 
 ity of this cross-questioning from her to me, and not 
 choosing to bandy words with her, bade her move aside ; 
 but her eyes blazed like fire ; she stood firm as the earth 
 itself. 
 
 " ' M'sieu, answer me ! You love Ma'amselle Florelle 
 — you have asked her in marriage?" 
 
 " I smiled involuntarily : 
 
 " ' My good woman, men of my class don't marry every 
 pretty face they meet ; we are not so fund of the institu- 
 tion. You mean well, I know ; at the same time, you 
 are deucedly impertinent, and I am not accustomed to 
 interference. Have the goodness to let me pass, if you 
 please.' 
 
 " But she would not move. She folded her arms across 
 her chest, quivering from head to foot with pas.^-ion, her 
 28*
 
 830 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD. 
 
 dcep-sct eyes flashing like coals under her bushy eye- 
 brows. 
 
 " ' M'sieu, I understand you well enough. The house 
 of the L'Heris is fallen, ruined, and beggared, and you 
 deem dishonor vaay approach it unrebuked and unre- 
 venged. Listen to me, m'sieu ; I am but a woman, it is 
 true, and old, but I swore by Heaven and Our Lady to 
 the Sieur de I'Heris, Avhen he lay dying yonder, years 
 ago, that I would serve the child he left, as my forefathers 
 had served his in peace and war for centuries, and keep 
 and guard her as best I might dearer than my own heart's 
 blood. Listen to me. Before this love of yours shall 
 breathe another word into her ear to scorch and sully it; 
 liefore your lips shall ever meet hers again ; before you 
 say again to a De I'Heris poor and powerless, what you 
 would never have dared to say to a De I'Heris rich and 
 powerful, I will defend her as the eagles by the Nid de 
 I'Aigle defend tlieir young. You shall only reach her 
 across my dead body ! ' 
 
 " She spoke with the vehemence and passionate gesti- 
 culation of a Southern ; in her patois, it is true, and with 
 rude eloquence, but there was an odd timbre of pathos in 
 her voice, harsh though it was, and a certain wild dignity 
 about her through the very earnestness and passion that 
 inspired her. I told her she was mad, and would have 
 put her out of my path, but, planting herself before me, 
 she laid hold of my arm so firmly that I could not have 
 pushed forwards without violence, which I would not 
 have used to a woman, and a woman, moreover, as old a? 
 she was. 
 
 " ' Listen to one word more, m'sieu. I know not what 
 title you may bear in your own country, but I saw a 
 coronet upon your handkerchief the other day, and I can 
 tell you are a grand seigneur- — you have the air of it, the 
 manner. M'sieu, you can have many women to love you 
 caunot you spare this one? you must have many plea
 
 THE SrORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 331 
 
 sures, pursuits, enjoyments in your world, can you not 
 leave me this single treasure? Think, m'sieu! If 
 Ma'amselle Fiorelle loves you now, she will love you onl^ 
 the dearer as years go on ; and you, you will tire of her, 
 weary of her, want change, fresh beauty, new excite- 
 ment — you must know that you Avill, or why should you 
 shrink from the bondage of marriage? — you Avill weary 
 of her; you will neglect her first and desert her after- 
 wards ; what will be the child's life then f Think ! You 
 have done her cruel harm enough now with your wooing 
 words, why will you do her more ? What is your love 
 beside hers ? If you have heart or conscience, you cannot 
 dare to contrast them together ; she would give up every- 
 thing for you, and you would give up nothing ! M'sieu, 
 Fiorelle is not like the women of your world ; she is iniio 
 cent of evil as the holy saints ; those who meet her should 
 guard her from the knowledge, and not lead her to it. 
 Were the Sieur De I'Heris living now, were her House 
 powerful as I have known them, would you have dared or 
 dreamt of seeking her as you do now? M'sieu, he who 
 wrongs trust, betrays hospitality, and takes advantage of 
 that very purity, guilelessness, and want of due protec- 
 tion which should be the best and strongest appeal to 
 every man of chivalry and honor — he, whoever he bo, 
 the De I'Heris would have held, as what he is. a cow^ard ! 
 Will you not now have pity upon the child, and let her go? ' 
 " I have seldom been moved in, never been swayed 
 from, any pursuit or any purpose, whether of love, or 
 pleasure, or ambition ; but something in old Cazot's words 
 stirred me strangely, more strangely still from the daring 
 and singularity of the speaker. Her intense love for 
 her young charge gave her pathos, eloquence, and even a 
 certain rude majesty, as she spoke ; her bronzed wrinkl-ed 
 features worked with emotions she could not n^press, and 
 hot tears fell over her hard cheeks. I felt that what she 
 said was true ; that as surely as the night follows the day
 
 332 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 would weariness of it succeed to my love for Florelle, 
 that to the hospitality I had so readily received I had, in 
 truth, given but an ill return, and that I had deliberately 
 taken advantage of the very ignorance of the world and 
 faith in me which should have most appealed to my 
 honor. I knew that what she said was true, and this 
 epithet of * coward ' hit me harder from the lips of a 
 woman, on whom her sex would not let me avenge it, 
 with whom ray conscience would not let me dispute it, 
 than it would have done from any man. /called a cow- 
 ard by an old peasant woman ! absurd idea enough, was n't 
 it? It is a more absurd one still that I could not listen 
 to her unmoved, that her words touched me — how or why 
 I could not have told — stirred up in me something of 
 weakness, unselfishness, or chivalrousness — I know not 
 what exactly — that prompted me for once to give up my 
 own egotistical evanescent passions and act to Florelle as 
 though all the males of her house were on earth to make 
 me render account of my acts. At old Cazot's Avords I 
 shrank for once from my own motives and my own desires, 
 shrank from classing Florelle with the cocottes of my 
 world, from bringing her down to their level and 
 their life. 
 
 " 'You Avill have pity on her, m'sieu, and go?' asked 
 old Cazot, more softly, as she looked in my face. 
 
 " I did not answer her, but put her aside out of my way, 
 went down the mountain-path to where my horse was left 
 cropping the grass on the level ground beneath a plane- 
 tree, and rode at a gallop into Luz without looking back 
 at the gray-turreted ruins of the Nid de I'Aigle. 
 
 " And I left Luz that night without seeing Florelle de 
 I'Heris again — a tardy kindness — one, perhaps, as cruel 
 as the cruelty from which old Cazot had protected her. 
 Don't you think I was a fool, indeed, for once in my life, 
 to listen to an old woman's prating? Call me so if you 
 like, I shall not dispute it; we hardly know when wc are
 
 THE STORY OP A CRAYON-UEAD. 333 
 
 fools, and when wise men ! Well ! I have not been much 
 given to such weaknesses. 
 
 "I left Luz, sending a letter tu Florelle, in which I 
 bade her farewell, and entreated her to forget me — an 
 entreaty which, while I made it, I felt would not be 
 obeyed — one which, in the selfishness of ray heart, I dare 
 say, I hoped might not be. I went back to my old diplo- 
 matic and social life, to my customary pursuits, amuse- 
 ments, and ambitions, turning over the leaf of my life 
 that contained my sojourn in the Pyrenees, as you turn 
 over the page of a romance to which you will never recur. 
 I led the same life, occupied myself with my old ambi- 
 tions, and enjoyed my old pleasures ; but I could not 
 forget Florelle as wholly as I wished and tried to do. I 
 had not usually been troubled with such memories ; if 
 unwelcome, I could generally thrust them aside ; but 
 Florelle I did not forget; the more I saw of other women 
 the sweeter and brighter seemed by contrast her sensitive, 
 delicate nature, unsullied by the world, and unstained by 
 artifice and falsehood. The longer time went on, the 
 more I regretted having given her up — perhaps on no 
 better principle than that on which a child cares most for 
 the toy he cannot have ; perhaps because, away from her, 
 I realized I had lost the purest and the strongest love I 
 had ever won. In the whirl of my customary life I some- 
 times wondered how she had received my letter, and how 
 far the iron had burnt into her young heart — wondered 
 if she had joined the Sisters of Sainte Marie Purificatrice, 
 or still led her solitary life among the rocks and beech- 
 woods of Nid de I'Aigle. I often thought of her, little 
 as the life I led was conducive to regretful or romantic 
 thoughts. At length my desire to see her again grew 
 ungovernable. 1 had never been in the habit of refusing 
 myself what I wished ; a man is a fool who does, if his 
 wishes are in any degree attainable. And at the end of 
 the season I went over to Paris, auJ down again once
 
 334 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 more into the Midi. I reached Luz, lying in the warm 
 golden Pyrenean light as I had left it, and took once 
 more the old familiar road up the hills to the Nid de 
 I'Aigle. There had been no outward change from the 
 year that had flown by ; there drooped the fan-like 
 branches of the pines ; there rushed the Gave over its 
 rocky bed ; there came the silvery sheep-bell chimes 
 down the mountain-sides ; there, over hill and wood, 
 streamed the mellow glories of the Southern sunlight. 
 There is something unutterably painful in the sight of 
 any place after one's lengthened absence, wearing the 
 same smile, lying in the same sunlight. I rode on, 
 picturing the flush of gladness that would dawn in Flo- 
 relle's face at the sight of me, thinking tliat Mme. Cazot 
 should not part me from her again, even, I thought, as I 
 saw the old gray turrets above the beech-woods, if I paid 
 old Cazot's exacted penalty of marriage! I loved Flo- 
 relle more deeply than I had done twelve months before. 
 * L'absence allument les grandes passions et eteignent lea 
 petites,' they say. It had been the reverse with me. 
 
 " I rode up the bridle-path and passed through the old 
 gateway. There was an unusual stillness about the place; 
 nothing but the roar of the torrent near, and the songs of 
 the birds in the branches speaking in the summer air. 
 My impatience to see Florelle, or to hear her, grew un- 
 governable. The door stood open. I groped my way 
 through the passage and pushed open the door of the old 
 room. Under the oriel window, where I had seen her 
 first, she lay on a little couch. I saw her again — but 
 how ! My God ! to the day of my death I shall never 
 forget her face as I saw it then ; it was turned from 
 me, and her hair streamed over her pillows, but as 
 the sunlight fell upon it, I knew well enough what was 
 written there. Old Cazot, sitting by the bed with her 
 head on her arms, looked up, and came towards me, 
 forcing me back.
 
 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 335 
 
 " ' You are come at last, to see her die. Look on your 
 work — look well at it — and then go; with my curse upon 
 you!' 
 
 " I shook off her grasp, and forcing my way towards 
 the window, threw myself down by Florelle's bed ; till 
 then I never knew how well I loved her. My voice awoke 
 her from her sleep, and, with a wild cry of joy, she started 
 up, weak as she was, and threw her arms round my neck, 
 clinging to me with her little hands, and crying to me 
 deliriously not to leave her while she lived — to stay with 
 her till death should take her; where had I been so long? 
 why had I come so late? So late! — those piteous words! 
 As I held her in my arms, unconscious from the shock, 
 and saw the pitiless marks that disease, the most hopeless 
 and the most cruel, had made on the face that I had left 
 fair, bright, and full of life as any child's, I felt the full 
 bitterness of that piteous reproach, ' Why had I come so 
 late?' 
 
 " What need to tell you more. Florelle de I'Heris was 
 dying, and I had killed her. The child that I had loved 
 so selfishly had loved me with all the concentrated ten- 
 derness of her isolated and impassioned nature ; the letter 
 I wrote bidding her farewell had given her her death- 
 blow. They told me that from the day she received that 
 letter everything lost its interest for her. She Avould sit 
 for hours looking down the road to Luz, as though watch- 
 ing wearily for one who never came, or kneeling before 
 the pictures I had left as before some altar, praying to 
 Heaven to take care of me, and bless me, and let her see 
 me once again before she died. Consumjjtion had killed 
 her mother in her youth ; during the chill winter at the 
 Nid de I'Aigle the hereditary disease settled upon her. 
 When I found her she was dying fast. All the medical 
 aid, all the alleviations, luxuries, resources, that money 
 could procure, to ward off the death I would have given 
 twenty years of my life to avert, I lavished on her. but
 
 336 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-IIEAD. 
 
 they were useless; for my consolation they told me that, 
 used a few months earlier, they would have saved her! 
 She lingered three weeks, fading away like a flower 
 gathered before its fullest bloom. Each day was torture 
 to me. I knew enough of the disease to know from the 
 first there was no hope for her or me. Those long terrible 
 night-hours, when she lay with her head upon my shoul- 
 der, and her little hot thin hands in mine, while I listened, 
 uncertain whether every breath was not the last, or 
 whether life was not already fled ! By God ! I cannot 
 think of them ! 
 
 One of those long summer nights Florelle died ; happy 
 with me, loving and forgiving me to the last; speaking 
 to the last of that reunion in which she, in her innocent 
 faith, believed and hoped, according to the promise of her 
 creed ! — died with her hands clasped round my neck, and 
 her eyes looking up to mine, till the last ray of light was 
 quenched in them — died while the morning dawn rose in 
 the east and cast a golden radiance on her face, the herald 
 of a day to which she never awoke ! " 
 
 There was a dead silence between us ; the Arno splashed 
 against the wall below, murmuring its eternal song be- 
 neath its bridge, while the dark heavy clouds drifted over 
 the sky with a sullen roll of thunder. He lay back in 
 his chair, the deep shadow of the balcony pillar hiding 
 his face from me, and his voice quivered painfully as he 
 spoke the last words of his story. He was silent for many 
 minutes, and so was I, regretting that my careless ques- 
 tion had unfolded a page out of his life's history written 
 in characters so jminful to him. Such skeletons dwell in 
 the hearts of most ; hands need be tender that disentomb 
 them and drag out to daylight ashes so mournful and so 
 grievous, guarded so tenaciously, hidden so jealously. 
 Each of us is tender over his own, but who does not think
 
 THE STOKY OP A CRAYON-IIEAD. 331 
 
 his brother's fit subject for jest, for gibe, foi mocking 
 dance of death ? 
 
 He raised himself with a laugh, but his lips looked 
 white as death as he drank down a draught of the Her- 
 mitage. 
 
 "Well! ^vhat say you: is the maxim right, y-a-t-il 
 femvies etfevmes ? Caramba ! why need you have pitched 
 upon that portfolio? — There are the lights in the Acqua 
 d'Oro's palace; avc must go, or we shall get into dis- 
 grace." 
 
 We went, and Beatrice Acqua d'Oro talked very ardent 
 Italian to him, and the Comtesse Bois de Sandal re- 
 marked to me what a brilliant and successful man Lord 
 
 was, but how unimpressionable ! — as cold and as 
 
 glittering as ice. Nothing had ever made him /eeZ, she 
 was quite certain, pretty complimentary nonsense though 
 lie often talked. What would the Marchesa and the 
 Comtesse have said, I wonder, had I told them of that 
 little grave under the Pyrenean beech-woods? So much 
 does the world know of any of us ! In the lives of all 
 men are doubled-down pages written on in secret, folded 
 out of sight, forgotten as they make other entries in the 
 diary, and never read by their fellows, only glanced at 
 by themselves in some midnight hour of solitude. 
 
 Basta! they are painful reading, my friends. Don't 
 you find them so? Let us leave the skeletons in the 
 closet, the pictures in the portfolio, the doubled-down 
 pages in the locked diary, and go to Beatrice Acqua 
 d'Oro's, where the lights are burning gayly. What is 
 Madame Bois do Sandal, nee Dashwood, singing in the 
 music room ? 
 
 Tlic tender grace of a ilay tliat is dead 
 "Will never come back to me ! 
 
 That is the burden of many songs sung in this world, 
 for some dead llowers strew most paths, and grass grows 
 29 W
 
 338 THE STORY OF A CRAYON-nEAD. 
 
 over myriad graves, and many leaves are folded down in 
 many lives, I fear. And — retrospection is very idle, my 
 good fellow, and regret is as bad as the tic, and flirting is 
 deucedly pleasant; the white Hermitage we drank to- 
 night is gone, we know, hut are there no other bottles left 
 of wine every whit as good ? Shall W'S waste our time 
 sighing after spilt lees ? Surely not. And yet — ah me! 
 — the dead fragrance of those vines that yielded us the 
 golden nectar of our youth !
 
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 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYIl; 
 
 OR, 
 
 " NOT AT ALL A PROPER PERSON." 
 
 ON AMI, do you consider the possession of sis- 
 ters an agreeable addition to anybody's exist- 
 ence? I hold it very intensely the reverse. 
 Who puts a man down so spitefully as his sisters ? Who 
 refuses so obstinately to see any good in the Nazarene 
 they have known from their nurseries ? Wlio snubs him 
 so contumaciously, when he's a little chap in jackets and 
 they young ladies already out ? AVho worries him so 
 pertinaciously to marry their pet friend, " who has ten 
 thousand a year, dear ! Red hair ? I 'm sure she has 
 not ! It 's the most lovely auburn ! But you never see 
 any beauty in refined women ! " Who, if you incline 
 lowards a pretty little ineligible, rakes up so laboriously 
 every scrap of gossip detrimental to her, and pours into 
 your ear the delightful intelligence that she has been 
 engaged to Powell of the Grays, is a shocking flirt, wears 
 false teeth, is full five years older than she says she is, 
 and has most objectionable connections? Who, I should 
 like to know, does any and all of these things, my good 
 fellow, so amiably and unremittingly as your sisters? 
 till — some day of grace, perhaps — you make a telling 
 speech at St. Stephen's, and fling a second-hand aroma of 
 distinction upon them ; or marry a co-heiress and hidy- 
 in-hcr-own-right, and they raffolciit of that charming 
 creature, speculating on the dcbirabilily of b;iiig invitcU
 
 340 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D AZYR. 
 
 to your house wlien the men are down for September. 
 Then, what a clear follow you become! they always were 
 so fond of you ! a little wild ! oh, yes ! but they are so 
 glad you are changed, and think more seriously now ! it 
 was only from a real interest in your welfare that they 
 used to grieve, &c., &c. 
 
 My sisters were my natural enemies, I remember, when 
 I was in the daisy age and exposed to their thraldom ; 
 they were so blandly superior, so ineffably condescending, 
 and wielded, with such smiling dexterity, that feminine 
 power of torture known familiarly as " nagging ! " Now, 
 of course, they leave me in peace ; but from my earliest 
 to my emancipated years they were my natural enemies. 
 I might occasionally excite the enmity, it is possible. I 
 remember, when I was aged eight, covering Constance, a 
 stately brunette, with a mortifying amount of confusion, 
 by asking her, as she welcomed a visitor with effusion, 
 why she said she was delighted to see her when she had 
 cried " There 's that odious woman again ! " as Ave saw the 
 carriage drive up. I have a criminal recollection of 
 taking Gwendolina's fan, fresh from Howell and James's, 
 and stripping it of its gold-powdered down before her 
 face ere she could rush to its rescue, as an invaluable 
 medium in the manufacture of mayflies. I also have a 
 dim and guilty recollection of saying to the Hon. George 
 Cursitt, standing then in the interesting position of my 
 prospective brother-in-law, " Mr. Cursitt, Agneta does n't 
 care one straw for you. I heard her saying so last night 
 to Con ; and that if you were n't so near the title, she 
 would never have accepted you ;" which revelation inop- 
 portunely brought that desirable alliance to an end, and 
 Olympian thunders on my culprit's head. 
 
 I had my sins, doubtless, but they were more than 
 avenged on me ; my sisters were my natural enemies, and 
 I never knew of any man's who weren't so, more or less. 
 Ah' my good sirs, those domesticities are all of tiieiu
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 3^1 
 
 horrid bores, and how any man, happily and thrice 
 blessedly free from them, can take the very v/orst of them 
 voluntarily on his head by the Gate of Marriage (which 
 differs thus remarkably from a certain Gate at Jerusalem, 
 that at the one the camels kneel down to be lightened of 
 all their burdens ere they can pass through it; at the 
 other, the poor human animal kneels down to be loaded 
 with all his ere he is permitted to enter), does pass my 
 comprehension, I confess. I might amply avenge the 
 injuries of my boyhood received from mesdemoiselles mes 
 smirs. Could I not tell Gwendolina of the pot of money 
 dropped by her caro sposo over the Cesarewitch Stakes? 
 Could I not intimate to Agneta where her Right Honor- 
 able lord and master spent the small hours last night, 
 when popularly supposed to be nodding on the Treasury 
 benches in the service of the state? Could I not rend 
 the pride of Constance, by casually asking monsieur her 
 husband, as I sip her coffee in her drawing-room this 
 evening, who was that very pretty blonde with him at the 
 Crystal Palace yesterday ? the blonde being as well known 
 about town as any other star of the demi-monde. Of 
 course I could : but I am magnanimous ; I can toci 
 thoroughly sympathize with those poor fellows. My 
 vengeance would recoil on innocent heads, so I am mag- 
 nanimous and silent. 
 
 My sisters have long ceased to be mesdemoiselles, they 
 have become mesdames, in that transforming crucible of 
 marriage in which, assuredly, all that glitters is not gold, 
 but in which much is swamped, and crushed, and fused 
 with uncongenial metal, and from which the elixir of 
 happiness but rarely exhales, whatever feminine al- 
 cliemists, who patronize the hymeneal furnace, may 
 choose to assure us to the contrary. My sisters are in- 
 disputably very fine women, and develop in full bloom 
 all those essential qualities which their moral and mental 
 trainers sedulously instilled into them when they were 
 20*
 
 342 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 
 
 limited to the school-room and thorough-bass, Garcia and 
 an " expurgated " Shakspeare, the society of Mademoiselle 
 Colletraonte and Frtiulein von Engel, and the occasional 
 refection of a mild, religious, respectably-twaddling fiction 
 of the milk-and-water, pious-tendency, nursery-chronicling, 
 and grammar-disregarding class, nowadays indited for 
 the mental improvement of a commonplace generation 
 in general, and growing young ladies in particular. My 
 sistei'S are women of the world to perfection ; indeed, for 
 talent in refrigerating with a glance ; in expressing dis- 
 dain of a toilette or a ton by an upraised eyebrow ; in 
 assuming a various impenetrable plait-il ? expression at a 
 moment's notice; in sweeping past intimate friends with 
 a charming unconsciousness of their existence, when such 
 unconsciousness is expedient or desirable ; in reducing an 
 unwished-for intruder into an instantaneous and agonizing 
 sense of his own de trop-ism and insignificance — in all 
 such accomplishments and acquirements necessary to 
 existence in all proper worlds, I think they may be 
 matched with the best-bred lady to be found any day, 
 from April to August, between Berkeley Square and 
 Wilton Crescent. Constance, now Lady Marechale, is of 
 a saintly turn, and touched with fashionable fanaticism, 
 pets evangelical bishops and ragged school-boys, drives to 
 special services, and is called our noble and Christian 
 patroness by physicians and hon. sees., holds doctrinal 
 points and strong tracts, mixed together in equal propor- 
 tion, an infallible chloride of lime for the disinfectance 
 of our polluted globe, and appears to receive celestial 
 telegrams of indisputable veracity and charming acri- 
 mony concerning the destiny of the vengeful contents of 
 the Seven Vials. Agneta, now Mrs. Albany Protocol, ia 
 a Cabinet Ministress, and a second Duchesse de Longue- 
 ville (in her own estimation at the least) ; is " strengthen- 
 ing her party" when she issues her dinner invitations, 
 whispers awfully of a "crisis" when even penny-paper
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ d'aZYR. 343 
 
 leaders can't get up a breeze, and spends her existence in 
 " pushing" poor Protocol, who, thorough Englishman that 
 he is, considers it a point of honor to stand still in all 
 paths with pi'aiseworthy Britannic obstinacy and opticism. 
 Gv.-cndolina, now Lady Frederic Farniente, is a butterfly 
 of fashion, has delicate health, aftects dilettanteism, is 
 interested by nothing, has many other charming minau- 
 deries, and lives in an exclusive circle — so tremendously 
 exclusive, indeed, that it is possible she may at last draw 
 the cordon sanitaire so very tight, that she will be left alone 
 with the pretty woman her mirrors reflect. 
 
 They have each of them attained to what the world 
 calls a "good position" — an eminence the world dearly 
 reveres ; if you can climb to it, do ; never mind what dirt 
 may cling to your feet, or what you may chance to pull 
 down in your ascent, no questions will be asked you at 
 the top, when you wave your flag victoriously from a 
 olateau at a good elevation. They haven't all their am- 
 bitions — who has? If a fresh Alexander conquered the 
 world he would fret out his life for a standing-place to be 
 dble to try Archimedes' little experiment on his newly- 
 won globe. Lady Marechale dies for entrance to certain 
 salons which are closed to her ; she is but a Baronet's 
 wife, and, though so heavenly-minded, has some weak- 
 nesses of earth. Mrs. Protocol grieves because she thinks 
 a grateful country ought to wreathe her lord's brow with 
 laurels — Anglice, strawberry-leaves — and the country 
 remains ungrateful, and the brows bare. Lady Frederic 
 frets because her foe and rival. Lady Maria Fitz-Sachet, 
 has footmen an inch taller than her own. They have n't 
 all their ambitions satisfied. We are too occupied with 
 kicking our dear friends and neighbors down off" the rounds 
 of the social ladder to advance ourselves always perhaps 
 as entirely as we otherwise might do. But still they 
 occupy " unexceptionable positions," and fi*om those forti- 
 tied and impregnable citadels are very severe upon thoso
 
 344 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ d'aZYR. 
 
 who are not, and very jealous of those who are, s:milarlv 
 favored by fortune. When St. Peter lets ladies through 
 the celestial portals, he '11 never please them unless he 
 locks out all their acquaintance, and indulges them with 
 a gratifying peep at the rejected candidates. 
 
 The triad regard each other after the manner of ladies ; 
 that is to say, Lady Marechale holds Mrs. Protocol and 
 Lady Frederic " frivolous and worldly ; " Lady Frederic 
 gives them both one little supercilious expressive epithet, 
 "j}recieuses;" Mrs. Protocol considers Lady Marechale a 
 " pharisee," and Lady Frederic a " butterfly ; " — in a word, 
 there is that charming family love to one another which 
 ladies so delight to evince, that I suppose wc must excuse 
 them for it on the plea that 
 
 'Tis their nature to ! 
 
 which Dr. Watts puts forward so amiably and grammat- 
 ically in excuse for the bellicose propensities of the canine 
 race, but which is never remembered by priest or layman 
 in extenuation of the human. 
 
 They dislike one another — relatives always do — still, 
 the three Arms will combine their Plorse, Line, and Field 
 Batteries in a common cause and against a common enemy ; 
 the Saint, the Politician, and the Butterfly have several 
 rallying-points in common, and when it comes to the ques- 
 tion of extinguishing an ineligible, of combining a sneer 
 with a smile, of blending the unexceptionably-courteous 
 with the indescribably-contemptuous, of calmly shutting 
 their doors to those who won't aggrandize them, and 
 blandly throwing them open to those who will, it would be 
 an invidious task to give the golden apple, and decide 
 which of the three ladies most distinguishes herself in 
 Buch social prowess. 
 
 Need I say that I don't see very much of them? — severe 
 strictures on society in general, with moral platitudes, 
 over the luncheon wines at Lady Marechale's ; discourse
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYU. 345 
 
 redolent of blue-books, Avith viiulictive hits at Protocol 
 and myself for our disinclination to accept a " mission," 
 and our levity of life and opinions at " a period so full of 
 social revolutions and wide-spread agitation as the pres- 
 ent," through the soup and fish at Agneta's ; softly hissed 
 acerbities and languidly yawned satires on the prettiest 
 women of my acquaintance, over the coffee at Lady Fred- 
 eric's ; are none of them particularly inviting or alluring. 
 And as they or similar conversational confections are in- 
 variably included in each of the three ladies' entertain- 
 ments en petit covilte, it is n't wonderful if I forswear their 
 drawing-rooms. Chores dames, you complain, and your 
 chosen defenders for you, that men don't aflect your soci- 
 ety nowadays save and except when making love to you. 
 It isn't our fault, indeed: you bore us, and — what can 
 we do? — we shrink as naturally and pardonably from 
 voluntary boretlom as from any other volimtary suffering, 
 and shirk an air redolent of ennui from the same principle 
 as we do an air redolent of diphtheria. Self-preservation 
 is a law of nature, and female society consists too exclu- 
 sively of milk-and-water, dashed here and there with citric 
 acid of malice, to be either a recherche or refreshing bev- 
 erage to palates that have tasted warmer spices or more 
 wholesome tonics. 
 
 So I don't see much of my triad of sisters unless acci- 
 dentally, but last August I encountered them by chance 
 at Vicq d'Azyr. Do you knoAV Vicq d'Azyr ? No ? All 
 right? when it is known universally it will be spoilt; it 
 will soon be fashionable, dyspeptic, artificial, like the 
 crowds that will flock to it ; its warm, bubbling springs 
 will be gathered into long upright glasses, and quaffed by 
 yellow-visaged groups; brass bands will bray where now 
 the thrushes, orioles, and nightingales have the woodlands 
 to themselves ; cavalcades of hired hacks will cut up it*i 
 thyme-covered turf, and young ladies will sketch in tor- 
 tured outline and miyerablo washes the glorious sweep of
 
 346 THE BEAUTY OF VTCQ D'AZYR. 
 
 its mountains, the crimson tints of its forests, the rush of 
 its tumbling torrents, the golden gleam of its sjuthern 
 sun. Vicq d'Azyr will be a Spa, and will be spoilt ; dys- 
 pepsia and bronchia, vanities and flirtations, cares and 
 conquests, physicians and intrigantes, real marchionesses 
 puffing under asthma, fictitious marquises strewing chaff 
 for pigeons, monde and demi-monde, grandes dames and 
 dames d'industrie will float into it, a mighty army of 
 butterflies with a locust power of destruction: Vicq d'Azyr 
 will be no more, and in its stead we shall have — a Fash- 
 ionable Bath. Vicq d'Azyr, however, is free yet from the 
 hand of tlie spoiler, and is charming — its vine-clad hills 
 stretching up in sunny slopes ; its little homesteads nes- 
 tling on the mountains' sides among the pines that load 
 the air with their rich heavy perfume ; its torrents foam- 
 ing down the ravines, flinging their snowy spray far over 
 the bows of arbutus and mountain-ash that bend across 
 the brinks of their rushing courses ; its dark-eyed peasant 
 girls that dance at sunset under the linden-trees like living 
 incarnations of Florian's pastorals ; its sultry brilliant 
 summer nights, when all is still, when the birds are sleep- 
 ing among the ilex-leaves, and the wind barely stirs the 
 tangled boughs of the woodland ; when night is down on 
 the mountains, wrapping hill and valley, crag and forest 
 in one soft purple mist, and the silence around is only 
 broken by the mystic music of the rushing waters, the 
 soft whirr of the night-birds' wings, or the distant chime 
 
 of a village clock faintly tolling through the air : 
 
 Caramba, messieurs ! I beg your pardon ! I don't know 
 why I poetize on Vicq d'Azyr. / went there to slay, 
 not to sketch, with a rifle, not with a stylus, to kill 
 izzards and chamois, not to indite a poem a la mode, 
 with double-barrelled adjectives, no metre, and a " pur- 
 pose ; " nor to add my quota to the luckless loaded walls 
 of the Academy by a pre-Raphaelite landscape of ar- 
 senical green, with the effete trammels of perspective
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 34T 
 
 gallantry disregarded, and trees like Dr. Syntax's wife, 
 " roundabout and rather squat," with just two-dozen-and- 
 seven leaves apiece for liberal allowance. I went to Vicq 
 d'Azyr, amongst other places, last August, for chamois- 
 hunting with Dunbar, of the Queen's Bays, taking up our 
 abode at the Toison d'Or, whither all artists, tourists, men 
 who come for the sport, women who come for its scenery, 
 or invalids who come for its waters (whose properties, 
 miserabile dictu ! are just being discovered as a panacea 
 for every human ill — from a migraine to an "incurable 
 pulmonary affliction "), seek accommodation if they can 
 have it, since it is the only hotel in the place, though a 
 very good one ; is adorned with a balcony running round 
 the house, twined and buried in honeysuckle and wild 
 clematis, which enchants young ladies into instant pro- 
 motion of it into their sketch-books ; and gives you, wliat 
 is of rather more importance, and what makes you ready 
 to admire the clematis when, under gastronomic exaspera- 
 tion, you might swear at it as a harbor for tarantule — 
 an omelette, I assure you, wellnigh as well cooked as you 
 liave it at Mivart's or Meurice's. 
 
 At the Toison d'Or we took up our abode, and at the 
 Toison d'Or we encountered my two elder sisters, Con- 
 stance and Agneta, travelling for once on the same road, 
 as they had left Paris together, and were together going 
 on to the fashionable capital of a fashionable little toy 
 duchy on the other side of the Khine, when they should 
 have finished with the wilder beauties and more unknown 
 charms of Vicq d'Azyr and its environs. Each lady had 
 her little train of husband, courier, valet, lady's-maid, 
 small dog, and giant jewel-box. I have put the list in 
 the inverse ratio of their importance, I believe. Your 
 husband versus your jewel-box? Of course, my dear 
 madam; absurd! What's the value of a little simple 
 gold ring against a dozen glittering circlets of diamonds, 
 emeralds, rubies, and garnets ?
 
 348 TnE BEAUTY OF VICQ d'aZYR. 
 
 Each lady was bent on recruiting herself at Vicq d'Azyr 
 after the toils of the season, and of shining ajyr^s with all 
 the brilliance that a fair share of beauty, good positions, 
 and money, fairly entitled them to expect, at the little 
 Court of — we will call it Lemongenseidlitz — denomi- 
 nated by its charming Duchess, Princess Helena of Lem- 
 ongenseidlitz-Phizzstrelitz, the loveliest and most volage 
 v>f all minor royalties. Each lady was strongly opposed 
 to whatever the other wished ; each thought the weather 
 "sultry "when the other thought it "chilly," and vice 
 versa. Each considered her own ailments " unheard-of 
 suffering, dear! — I could never make any one feel !" &c. 
 &c. — and assured you, with mild disdain, that the other's 
 malady was " purely nervous, entirely exaggerated, but 
 she ivlll dwell on it so much, poor darling!" Each re- 
 lated to you how admirably they would have travelled if 
 her counsel had been followed, and described how the 
 other would take the direction of everything, would con- 
 fuse poor Chauderlos, the courier, till he hardly knew 
 where he was, and would take the night express out of 
 jjure unkiuduess, just because she knew how ill it always 
 made her (the speaker) feel to be torn across any country 
 the whole night at that dreadful pace ; each was dissatis- 
 fied with everything, pleased with nothing, and bored, as 
 became ladies of good degree ; each found the sun too 
 hot or the wind too cold, the mists too damp or the air 
 too dry, and both combined their forces to worry their 
 Jadies'-maids, find fault with the viands, drive their lords 
 to tlie registering of an oath never to travel with women 
 again, welcome us benignly, since they thought we might 
 amuse them, and smile their sunniest on Dunbar — he's 
 heir-prospective to the Gwynne Marquisate, and Lady 
 Manjueterie, the Saint, is not above keeping one eye open 
 for worldly distinctions, while Mrs. Albany Protocol, 
 though a Radical, is, like certain others of the ultra- 
 Liberal party, not above a personal kow-towing before
 
 THE BEAUTY OE VICQ D'AZYB. 34J 
 
 those " ridiculous and ought-to-be exploded conservative 
 institutions" — Rank and Title. 
 
 At the Toisou d'Or, I say, when, after knocking over 
 izzards ad libitum in another part of the district, wc de- 
 scended one evening into the valley where Vicq d'AzjT 
 lies nestled in the sunset light, with the pretty vendan- 
 geuses trooping down from the sloping vineyards, and 
 the cattle winding homewards down the hill-side paths, 
 and the vesper-bells softly chiming from the convent- 
 tower rising yonder above its woods of linden and acacia 
 — at the Toison d'Or, just alighting with the respective 
 suites aforesaid, and all those portable embarrassments 
 of books, tiger-skin rugs, flacons of bouquet, travelling- 
 bags warranted to carry any and everything that the most 
 fastidious can require en route from Piccadilly to Peru, 
 with which ladies do love to encumber and embitter their 
 own persons and their companions' lives, we met, as I 
 have told you, mesdames nies soeurs. 
 
 "What! Dear me, how Tcry singular ! Never should 
 have dreamt of meeting you ; so much too quiet a place, 
 I should have thought. No Kursaal heref Come for 
 sport — oh ! Take Spes, will you ! Poor little dear, he's 
 been barking the whole way because he could n't see out 
 of the window. Ah, Major Dunbar, charmed to see you! 
 What an amusing rencontre, is it not ? " And Lady Mare- 
 chale, slightly out of temper for so eminent a Christian 
 at the commencement of her greeting, smoothed down 
 her ruffled feathers and turned smilingly on Dunbar. I 
 have said he will be one day Marquis of Gwynne. 
 
 " By George, old fellow ! yow in this out-of-the-way 
 place! That's all right. Sport good, here? Glad to 
 hear it. The deuce take me, if ever I am lured into 
 travelling in n. partle carree again." 
 
 And Marechale raised l;is eyebrows, and whispered 
 confidentially to me stronger language than I may com*
 
 350 THE BEAUTY OP VICQ D'AZYE. 
 
 mit to print, though, considering his provocation, it was 
 surely as pardonable as Uncle Toby's. 
 
 " The thing I dislike in this sort of hotels and places is 
 the admixture of people with whom one is obliged to 
 come in contact," said Constance, putting up her glass as 
 she entered the long low room where the humble table 
 d'hote of the Toison d'Or Avas spread. Lady Marechale 
 talks sweetly of the equality of persons in the sight of 
 Heaven, but I never heard her recognize the same ujjou 
 the soil of earth. 
 
 " Exactly ! One may encounter such very objection- 
 able characters ! I wished to dine in our own apart- 
 ments, but Albany said no ; and he is so positive, you 
 know ! This place seems miserably primitive," responded 
 Agneta. Mrs. Protocol pets Rouges and Republicans of 
 every country, talks liberalism like a feminine Sieyes or 
 John Bright, projects a Reform Bill that shall bear the 
 strongest possible family resemblance to the Decrets du 4 
 Aout, and considers " social distinctions odious between 
 man and man ; " but her practice is scarcely consistent 
 with her theory, seeing that she is about as tenacious and 
 resentful of objectionable contact as a sea-anemone. 
 
 " Who is that, I wonder ? " Avhispered Lady Marechale, 
 acidulating herself in readiness, after the custom of Eng- 
 lish ladies when catching sight of a stranger whom they 
 " don't know." 
 
 "I wonder! All alone — how very queer!" echoed 
 Mrs. Protocol, drawing her black lace shawl around her, 
 with that peculiar movement which announces a woman's 
 prescience of something antagonistic to her, that is to be 
 repelled d'avance, as surely as a hedgehog's transfer of 
 itself into a prickly ball denotes a sense of a coming 
 enemy, and a need of caution and self-protection. 
 
 " Who is that deucedly handsome woman?" whispered 
 Marechale to me. 
 
 " What a charming creature!" echoed Dunbar.
 
 THE BEAUTY OP VICQ d'aZYR. 351 
 
 The person referred to was the only woman at the table 
 d'hote besides my sisters — a sister-tourist, probably; a 
 handsome — nay more, a beautiful woman, about eiglit- 
 and-twenty, distinguished-looking, brilliant, with a figure 
 voluptuously perfect as was ever the Princess Borghese's. 
 To say a woman looks a lady, means nothing in our day. 
 " That young lady will wait on you, sir," says the shop- 
 man, referring to the shopwoman who will show you your 
 gloves. " Hand the 'errings to that lady, Joe," you hear 
 a fishmonger cry, as you pass his shop-door, referring by 
 his epithet to some Mrs. Gamp or Betsy Priggs in search 
 of that piscatory cheer at his stall. Heaven forbid we 
 should give the abused and degenerate title to any womai 
 deserving of the name ! Generalize a thing, and it i- 
 vulgar. "A gentleman of my acquaintance," say* 
 Spriggs, an auctioneer and house-agent, to Smith, a col- 
 lector of the water-rate. " A man I know," says Pur- 
 sang, one of the Cabinet, to Greville Tempest, who is heir 
 to a Dukedom, and has intermarried with a royal house. 
 The reason is plain enough. Spriggs thinks it necessary 
 to inform Smith, who otherwise might remain ignorant 
 of so signal a fact, that he actually does know a gentle- 
 man, or rather what he terms such. Pursang knows that 
 Tempest would never suspect him of being lie with men 
 who were anything elsej the one is proud of the fine Eng- 
 lish, the other is content with the simple phrase ! Heaven 
 forbid, I say, we should, nowadays, call any woman a 
 lady who is veritably such ; let us fall back on the digni- 
 fied, definitive, courtly last-century-name of gentlewoman. 
 I should be glad to see that name revived ; it draws a line 
 that snobbissimi cannot pass, and has a grand simplicity 
 about it that will not attract Spriggs, Smith, and Spark, 
 and Mesdamcs S., leurs femmes! 
 
 Our sister-tourist, then, at the Toison d'Or, looked, to 
 my eyes at the least, much more than a " lady," she 
 looked an aristocralc jvsqu'au bout dcs oiKjica, a beautiful.
 
 352 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D AZYR. 
 
 brilliant, dazzling brunette, with lovely hazel eyes, flash- 
 ing like a tartaret falcon's under their arched pencilled 
 eyebrows, quite an unhoped godsend in Vicq d'Azyr, 
 where only stragglers resort as yet, though — alas for my 
 Arcadia — my sister's pet physician, who sent them 
 thither, is about, I believe, to publish a work, entitled 
 " The Water-Spring in the Wilderness ; or, A Scamper 
 through Spots Unknown," which will do a little adver- 
 tising of himself opportunely, and send hundreds next 
 season to invade the wild woodlands and sunny valleys 
 he inhumanly drags forth into the gas-glare of the world. 
 
 The brilliant hazel eyes were opposite to me at dinner, 
 and were, I confess, more attractive to me than the stewed 
 pigeons, the crisp frog-legs, and the other viands prepared 
 by the (considering we were in the heart of one of the 
 most remote provinces) really not bad cook of the Toison 
 d'Or. Lady Martchale and Mrs. Protocol honored her 
 Avith that stare by which one woman knows so well how 
 to destroy the reputation of another without speech ; they 
 had taken her measurement by some method of feminine 
 geometry unknown to us, and the result was apparently 
 not favorable to her, for over the countenances of the two 
 ladies gathered that expression of stiff dignity and virtu- 
 ous disdain, in the assuming of which, as I have observed 
 before, they are inimitable proficients. " Evidently not 
 a proper person ! " was written on every one of their lin- 
 eaments. Constance and Agneta had made up their 
 minds with celerity and decision as to her social status, 
 with, it is to be presumed, that unerring instinct which 
 leads their sex to a conclusion so instantaneously, that, 
 according to a philosopher, a woman will be at the top of 
 the staircase of Reasoning by a single spring, while a 
 man is toiling slowly up the first few steps. 
 
 " You are intending to remain here some days, ma- 
 dame?" asked the fair stranger, with a charming smile, 
 of Lady Miirechale — a pleasant little overture to chance
 
 T«E BEAUTY OF VICQ D'aZYR. 353 
 
 ephemeral acquaintance, such as a table d'hotv) surely 
 well Mranants. 
 
 But the pleasant little overture was one to which Lady 
 Marechale was far too English to respond. With that 
 inimitable breeding for which our countrymen and wo- 
 men are continental) y renowned, she bent her head with 
 stately stiffness, indulged herself with a haughty stare at 
 the offender, and turned to Agneta, to murmur in Eng- 
 lish her disgust with the cuisine of the really unoffending 
 Toison d'Or. 
 
 " Poor Spes would eat nothing. Fenton must make 
 him some panada. But perhaps there was nothing better 
 than goat's milk in the house ! What could Dr. Berkeley 
 be thinking of? He described the place quite as though 
 it were a second Meurice's or Badischer Hof!" 
 
 A look of amusement glanced into the sparkling, yet 
 languid eyes of my opposite neighbor. 
 
 " English ! " she murmured to herself, with an almost 
 imperceptible but sufficiently scornful elevation of her 
 arched eyebrows, and a slight smile, just showing her 
 white teeth, as I addressed her in French ; and she an- 
 swered me with the ease, the aplomb, the ever suave 
 courtesy of a woman of the world, with that polish which 
 gives the most common subjects a brilliance never their 
 own, and that vivacity which confers on the merest ti-ifles 
 a spell to amuse and to charm. She Avas certainly a very 
 lovely creature, and a very charming one, too ; frank, 
 animated, witty, with the tone of a woman who has seen 
 the world and knows it. Dunbar adored her, at first 
 sight ; he is an infhimmable fellow, and has been ignited 
 a thousand times at far less provocation. Marechale pre- 
 pared for himself fifty conjugal orations by the reckless- 
 ness with which, under the very eyes of madame, he de- 
 voted himself to another woman. Even Albany Protocol, 
 dull, somnolent, and superior to such weaknesses, as be- 
 conif^s a president of many boards and a chairman of 
 30* y
 
 354 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR 
 
 many committees, opened his eyes and glanced at her; 
 and some young Cantabs and artists at the other end of 
 the table stopped their own conversation, envying Dunbar 
 and myself, I believe, for our juxtaposition with the belle 
 inconnue ; while my sisters sat trifling Avith the wing of a 
 pigeon, in voluntary starvation (they would have had 
 nothing to complain of, you see, if they had suffered 
 themselves to dine well !), with strong disapprobation 
 marked upon their lineaments, of this lovely vivacious 
 unknown, whoever she might be, talking exclusively to 
 each other, with a certain expression of sarcastic disdain 
 and offended virtue, hinting far more forcibly than words 
 that they thought already the " very worst " of her. 
 
 So severe, indeed, did they look, that Dunbar, who is a 
 good-natured fellow, and thinks — and thinks justly — 
 that Constance and Agneta are very fine women, left me 
 to discuss, Hoffmann, Heine, and the rest of Germany's 
 satirical poets, with my opposite neighbor, and endeavored 
 to thaw my sisters ; a very difficult matter when once 
 those ladies are iced. He tried Paris, but only elicited a 
 monosyllabic remark concerning its weather; he tried 
 Vicq d'Azyr, and was rewarded for his trouble by a with- 
 ering sarcasm on the unlucky Toison d'Or ; he tried chit- 
 chat on mutual acquaintances, and the unhappy people 
 he chanced to name were severally dismissed with a cut- 
 ting satire appended to each. Lady Marechale and Mrs. 
 Protocol were in one of those freezing and unassailable 
 moods in which they sealed a truce with one another, 
 and, combining their forces against a common foe, dealt 
 out sharp, spherical, hard-hitting little bullets of speech 
 from behind the abatis in which they intrenched them- 
 Belves. 
 
 At last he, in despair, tried Leraongenseidlitz, and the 
 ladies thawed slightly — their anticipations from that 
 fashionable little quarter were couleur de rose. They 
 would meet their people of the best moude, all their
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ d'aZYR. 355 
 
 dearest — that is of course their most fashionable — ■ 
 friends ; the dear Duchess of Frangipane, the Millaraonta 
 those charming people, M. le Marquis de Croix-et-Cordon, 
 Sir Henry Fullmger, Mrs. Merivale-Delafield, were all 
 there ; that delightful person, too, the Graf von Rosenliiu, 
 who amused them so much at Baden last year, was, as of 
 course Dunbar knew. Master of the Horse to the Prince 
 of Lemongenseidlitz-Phizzstrelitz; they would be well re- 
 ceived at the Court. Which last thing, however, they 
 did not say, though they might imply, and assuredly fully 
 thought it ; since Lady Marechale already pictured her- 
 self gently awakening his Serene Highness to the spirit- 
 ual darkness of his soul in legitimatizing gaming-tables 
 in his duchy, and Mrs. Protocol already beheld herself 
 ".loseted with his First Minister, giving that venerable 
 Metternich lessons in political economy, and developing 
 to him a system for filling his beggared treasury to over- 
 flowing, without taxing the people a kreutzer — a problem 
 which, though it might have perplexed Kaunitz, Colbert, 
 Pitt, Malesherbes, Talleyrand, and Palmerston put to- 
 gether, offered not the slightest difficulty to her enterpris- 
 ing intellect. Have I not said that Sherlock states 
 women are at the top of the staircase while we are toiling 
 up the first few steps ? 
 
 " The Duchess — Princess Helene is a lovely woman, I 
 think. Winton saw her at the Tuileries last winter, and 
 raved about her beauty," said Dunbar, finding he had hit 
 at last on an acceptable subject, and pursuing it Avith 
 mure zeal than discretion ; for if there be one thing, I 
 take it, more indiscreet than another, it is to praise 
 woman to woman. 
 
 Constance coughed and Agneta smiled, and both as- 
 sented. " Oh yes — very lovely, they believed ! " 
 
 " And very lively — up to everything, I think I have 
 heard," went on Dunbar, blandly, unconscious of the 
 muauing of cough, smile, and as.-scnt.
 
 . 856 VHE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 
 
 "Very lively!" sighed tlie Saint. 
 
 " Very lively ! " smiled the Politician 
 
 " As gay a woman as Marie Antoinette," continued 
 Dunbar, too intent on the truffles to pay en meme temps 
 much heed to the subject he was discussing. " She 's 
 copied the Trianon, hasn't she? — has fetes and pastorals 
 there, acts in comedies herself, shakes off etiquette and 
 ceremonial as much as she can, and all that sort of thing, 
 I believe?" 
 
 Lady Marechale leaned back in her chair, the severe 
 virtue and dignified censure of a British matron and a 
 modern Lucretia expressed in both attitude and counte- 
 nance. 
 
 "A second Marie Antoinette? — too truly and unfor- 
 tunately so, I have heard ! Levity in any station suffi- 
 ciently reprehensible, but when exhibited in the persons 
 of those whom a higher power has placed in exalted 
 positions, it is most deeply to be deplored. The evil and 
 contagion of its example become incalculable ; and even 
 when, which I believe her excusers are wont to assert of 
 Princess Helene, it is merely traceable to an over-gayety 
 of spirit and an over-carelessness of comment and cen- 
 sure, it should be remembered that we are enjoined to 
 abstain from every appearance of evil ! " 
 
 With which Constance shook out her phylacteries, 
 rejDresented by the thirty -guinea bracade-silk folds of her 
 skirt (a dress I heard her describe as " very plain ! — ser- 
 viceable for travelling "), and glanced at my opposite 
 neighbor with a look which said, " You are evidently not 
 a proper person, but you hear for once what a proper 
 person thinks ! " 
 
 Our charming companion did hear it, for she apparently 
 understood English very well. She laughed a little — a 
 sweet, low, ringing laugh — (I was rather in love with 
 her, I must say — -l am still) — and spoke with a slight 
 pretty accent.
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ d'aZYR. 35T 
 
 " True, madarae ! but ah ! what a pity your St. Paul 
 did not advise, too, that people should not go by appear- 
 ances, and think evil where evil is not ! " 
 
 Lady Mar^chale gave stare number two with a curl of 
 her lip, and bent her head stiffly. 
 
 " What a very strange person!" she observed to Ag- 
 neta, in a murmur, meant, like a stage aside, to be duly 
 heard and appreciated by the audience. And yet my 
 gisters are thought very admirably bred women, tool 
 But then, a woman alone — a foreigner, a stranger — ■ 
 surely no one would exact courtesy to such, from " ladies 
 of position ? " 
 
 " Have you ever seen Princess Hel^ne, the Duchess of 
 Lemongenseidlitz, may I ask?" Marechale inquired, has- 
 tily, to cover his wife's sneer. He 's a very good fellow, 
 and finds the constant and inevitable society of a saint 
 slightly trying, and a very heavy chastisement for a few 
 words sillily said one morning in St. George's. 
 
 " I have seen her, monsieur — yes ! " 
 
 " And is she a second Marie Antoinette ? " 
 
 She laughed gayly, showing her beautiful white teeth, 
 
 "Ah, bah, monsieur! many would say that is a great 
 deal too good a comparison for her ! A second Louise de 
 Savoie — a second Duchesse de Chevreuse — nay, a second 
 Lucrezia Borgia, some would tell you. She likes pleasure 
 — 'vho does not, though, except those with whom * lea 
 raisins sont trop verts et bons pour des goujats?' " 
 
 " What an insufierably bold person 1 " murmured Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " Very disagreeable to meet this style of people ! " re- 
 turned Agneta. 
 
 And both stiffened themselves with a little more starch; 
 and we know that British wheats produce the stifl'est 
 starch in the world 1 
 
 " Who, indeed ! " cried Marechale, regardless of ma- 
 dame's frown. " You know this for truth, then, of Princess 
 Helfene?"
 
 S58 THE BEAUTY OF VTCQ D'aZYR. 
 
 "Ah, ball, monsieur! who knows anything for truth?" 
 laughed the lovely brunette. " The world dislikes truth 
 BO much, it is obliged to hide itself in out-of-the-way 
 corners, and very rarely comes to light. Nobody knows 
 the truth about her. Some think her, as you say, a second 
 Marie Antoinette, who is surrendered to dissipation and 
 levity, cares for nothing, and would dance and laugh 
 over the dead bodies of the people. Others judge her as 
 others judged Marie Antoinette ; discredit the gossip, and 
 think she is but a lively woman, who laughs at forms, 
 likes to amuse herself, and does not see why a court 
 should be a prison ! The world likes the darker picture 
 best ; let it have it ! I do not suppose it will break her 
 heart ! " 
 
 And the fair stranger laughed so sweetly, that every 
 man at the dinner-table fell in love with her on the spot ; 
 and Lady Marechale and Mrs. Protocol sat throughout 
 the remainder of the meal in frozen dignity and unbreak- 
 able silence, while the lovely brunette talked with and 
 smiled on us all with enchanting gayety, wit, and abandon, 
 chatting on all sorts of topics of the day. 
 
 Dinner over, she was the first to rise from the table, 
 and bowed to us with exquisite grace and that charming 
 smile of hers, of which the sweetest rays fell upon me, I 
 swear, whether you consider the oath an emanation of 
 personal vanity or not, my good sir. My sisters returned 
 her bow and her good evening to them with that pointed 
 stare which says so plainly, " You are not my equal, how 
 »lare you insult me by a courtesy ? " 
 
 And scarcely had we begun to sip our coffee up-stairs 
 in the apartments Chanderlos had secured for the miladies 
 Anglaises, than the duo upon her began as the two ladies 
 Bat with Spes between them on a sofa beside one of the 
 windows opening on the balcony that ran round the 
 house. A chance inadvertent assent of Dunbar's, k propos 
 of-— oh, sin unpardonable! — the beauty of the incognita's
 
 THE BE.'V UTY OF VICQ D'aZYR. 359 
 
 eyes, touched the vabe and unloosened the hot springs 
 that were seething below in silence. "A handsome 
 woman! — oh yes, a gentleman's beauty, I dare say! — 
 but a very odd person ! " commenced Mrs. Protocol. 
 " A very strange person ! " assented Mrs. Marechale, 
 " Very free manners ! " added Agneta. " Quite French ! " 
 chorused Constance. "She has diamond rings — paste, 
 no doubt!" said the Politician. "And rouges — the 
 color 's much too lovely to be natural ! " sneered the 
 Saint. "Paints her eyebrows, too!" "Not a doubt — 
 and tints her lashes!" "An adventuress, I should say!" 
 "Or worse!" "Evidently not a proper person!" "Cer- 
 tainly not!" 
 
 Through the soft mellow air, hushed into evening 
 silence, the words reached me, as I walked through the 
 window on to the balcony, and stood sipping my coCt.e 
 and looking lazily over the landscape wrapped in suh«TL;£ 
 haze, over the valley where the twilight shadows -Vyuxo 
 deepening, and the mountains that were steeped yet xh m 
 rose-hued golden radiance from the rays that had luh » 
 behind them. 
 
 " My dear ladies," I cried, involuntarily, " can't yo\ 
 find anything a little more kindly to say of a strangei 
 who has never done you any harm, and who, fifty to one, 
 will never cross your path again ? " 
 
 " Bravo ! " echoed Marechale, who has never gone as 
 quietly in the matrimonial break as Protocol, and indeed 
 will never be thoroughly broken in — "bravo! women are 
 always studying to make themselves attractive; it's a 
 pity they don't put down among the items a trifle of 
 generosity and charity, it would embellish them wonder- 
 fully." 
 
 Lady Marechale beat an injured tattoo with the spoon 
 on her saucer, and leaned back with the air of a martyr, 
 and drawing in her lips with a smile, whose inimitable 
 Bueer any lady might have envied — it was quite price- 
 less!
 
 360 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 
 
 " It is the first time, Sir George, I should presume, that 
 a husband and a brother were ever heard to unite in up- 
 braiding a wife and a sister with her disinclination to 
 associate with, or her averseness to countenance, an im- 
 proper person ! " 
 
 " An improper person ! " I cr ed. " But, ray dear Con- 
 stance, who ever told you that this lady you are so des- 
 perately bitter upon has any fault at all, save the worst 
 fault in her own sex's eyes — that of beauty? I see 
 nothing in her; her manners are perfect; her tone " 
 
 " You must pardon me if I decline taking your verdict 
 on so delicate a question," interrupted Lady Marechale, 
 with withering satire. " Very possibly you see nothing 
 objectionable in her — nothing, at least, that yo\i would 
 call so! Your views and mine are sufficiently different 
 on every subject, and the women with whom I believe 
 you have chiefly associated are not those who are calcu- 
 lated to give you very much appreciation for the more 
 refined classes of our sex ! Very possibly the person in 
 question is what you, and Sir George too, perhaps, find 
 charming ; but you must excuse me if I really cannot, to 
 oblige you, stoop to countenance any one whom my intui- 
 tion and my knowledge of the world both declare so veiy 
 evidently what she should not be. She will endeavor, 
 most probably, if she remain here, to push herself into 
 our acquaintance, but if you and my husband should 
 choose to insult us by favoring her efforts, Agneta and I, 
 happily, can guard ourselves from the objectionable com- 
 panionship into which those who should be our protectors 
 would wish to force us ! " 
 
 With which Lady Marechale, with a little more mar- 
 tyrdom and an air of extreme dignity, had recourse to 
 her fiacon of Viola Montana, and sank among the sofa 
 cushions, a model of outraged and Spartan virtue. I set 
 down my coffee-cup, and lounged out again to the peace 
 of the balemy; Marechale shrugged his shoulders, rose^
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 361 
 
 and followed me. Lo! on the part of the balcony that 
 ran under her windows, leaning on its balustrade, her 
 white hand, white as the flowers, playing with the cle- 
 matis tendrils, the " paste " diamond flashing in the last 
 rays of the setting sun, stood our "dame d'industrie — or 
 worse!" She was but a few feet farther on; she must 
 have heard Lady Marechale's and Mrs. Protocol's duo on 
 her demerits ; she had heard it, without doubt, for she 
 was laughing gayly and joyously, laughter that sparkled 
 all over her riante face and flashed in her bright falcon 
 eyes. Laughing still, she signed me to her. I need not 
 say that the sign was obeyed. 
 
 " Chivalrous knight, I thank you ! You are a Bayard 
 of chivalry ; you defend the absent ! What a miracle, mon 
 Dieu ! Tell your friends from me not to speak so loudly 
 when their windows are open ; and, for yourself, rest as- 
 sured your words of this evening will not be forgotten." 
 
 " I am happy, indeed, if I have been fortunate enough 
 to obtain a chance remembrance, but do not give me too 
 much praise for so simple a service ; the clumsiest Cimou 
 would be stirred into chivalry under such inspiration as I 
 had " 
 
 The beautiful hazel eyes flashed smilingly on me under 
 their lashes. ( Those lashes tinted ! Heaven forgive the 
 malice of women !) She broke ofl" a sprig of the clematis, 
 with its long slender leaves and fragrant starry flowers, 
 and gave it to me. 
 
 *' Tenez, mon ami, if ever you see me again, show me that 
 faded flower, and I shall remember this evening at Vicq 
 d'Azyr. Nay, do not flatter yourself — do not thrust it in 
 your breast ; it is no gage d'amour ! it is only a reward for 
 loyal service, and a souvenir to refresh my own memory, 
 which is treacherous sometimes, though not in gratitude 
 to those who serve me. Adieu, mon Bayard — et bonsoirl" 
 
 But I retained the hand that had given me my clematis- 
 Bpray. 
 
 31
 
 3G2 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 
 
 " Meet you again ! But will not that be to-morrow ? If I 
 am not to see you, as your words threaten, till the clematis 
 be faded and myself forgotten, let me at least, I beseech 
 you, know where, who, by what name " 
 
 She drew her hand away w'th something of a proud, 
 surprised gesture ; then she laughed again that sweet, ring- 
 ing, mocking laugh : 
 
 "No, no, Bayard, it is too much to ask ! Leave the fu- 
 ture to hazard ; it is always the best philosophy. An revoir I 
 Adieu — perhaps for a day, perhaps for a century ! " 
 
 And the bewitching mystery floated away from me and 
 through the open window of her room. You will imagine 
 that my "intuition" did not lead me to the conclusion to 
 which Lady Marechale's led her, or assuredly should I 
 have followed the donor of the clematis, despite her pro- 
 hibition Even with my "intuition" pointing where it 
 did, I am not sure what I might have done if, in her salon, 
 I had not caught sight of a valet and a lady's maid in 
 waiting with her coffee, and they are not such spectators 
 as one generally selects. «, 
 
 The servants closed her windows and drew down their 
 Venetian l)linds, and I returned to my coffee. Whether the 
 two ladies within had overheard her conversation as she 
 had heard theirs, I cannot say, but they looked trebly 
 refrigerated, had congealed themselves into the chilliest 
 human ice that is imaginable, and comported themselves 
 towards me fully as distantly as though I had brought 
 a dozen ballet-girls in to dinner with them, or introduced 
 them to my choicest acquaintance from the Chiteau des 
 Fleurs. 
 
 "A man's taste is so pitiably low!" remarked Lady 
 Marechale, in her favorite stage aside to Mrs. Protocol; 
 to which that other lady responded, "Disgracefully so!" 
 
 Who was my lovely unknoAvn with the bright falcon 
 eyes and the charming laugh, with her strange freedom that 
 yet was not, somehow, free, and her strange fascination? I
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ d'aZYR. 363 
 
 bade my man ask Clianderlos her name — couriers know 
 ever}tliing generally — but neither Mills nor Chanderlos 
 gave me any information. The people of the house did 
 not know, or said they did not; they only knew she had 
 servants in attendance who came with her, who revealed 
 nothing, and paid any price for the best of everything. 
 Are impertinent questions ever asked where money is 
 plentiful? 
 
 I was dressing the next morning something later than 
 usual, when I heard the roll of a carriage in the court- 
 yard below. I looked through the half-open persiennes 
 with a semi-presentiment that it was my sweet foreigner 
 who was leaving ere I could presume on my clematis or 
 improve our acquaintance. True enough, she it was, leav- 
 ing Vicq d'Azyr in a travelling-carriage, with handsome 
 roans and servants in imperial-blue liveries. Who the 
 deuce could she be? 
 
 "Well, Constance," said I, as I bade Lady Marechale 
 good morning, "your bete noire won't 'press herself into 
 your acquaintance,' as you were dreading last night, and 
 won't excite Marechale and me to any more high treason. 
 Won't you chant a Te Deum ? She left this morning." 
 
 "So I perceived," answered Lady Marechale, frigidly; 
 by which I suppose she had not been above the weakness 
 of looking through her persiennes. 
 
 " What a pity you and Agucta agitated yourselves with 
 such unnecessary alarm! It must have cost you a great 
 deal of eau-de-Cologne and sal-volatile, I am afraid, last 
 night. Do you think she contaminated the air of the 
 salle-a-manger, because I will order Mills to throw some 
 disinfectant about before you go down?" 
 
 "I have no inclination to jest upon a person of that 
 stamp," rejoined Lady Marechale, with immense dignity, 
 settling her turquoise wristband-studs. 
 
 "'That stamp of persons!' What! Do you think she 
 is an aaveuturess, an intrigante, 'or worse' still, then? I
 
 364 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ DA'ZYR 
 
 hoped her dashing equipage might have done something 
 towards cleansing her character. Wealth is a universal 
 purifier generally." 
 
 "Flippant impertinence!" murmured Lady Marechale, 
 disgustedly, to Mrs. Protocol, as she swept onwards down 
 the staircase, not deigning me a glance, much less a re- 
 sponse, stiffening herself with a little extra starch of 
 Lucretian virtue and British -matronly dignity, which 
 did not grow limp again throughout breakfast, while she 
 found fault with the chocolate, considered the petits pains 
 execrable, condemned the sardines as uneatable, petted 
 Spes, kept Marechale and me at Coventry, and sighed 
 over their enforced incarceration, by Dr. Berkeley's 
 orders, in Vicq d'Azyr, that kept them in this stupid 
 place away from Lemongenseidlitz. 
 
 Their anticipations from Lemongenseidlitz were charm- 
 ingly golden and rose-tinted. They looked forward to 
 consolidating their friendship with the dear Duchess in 
 its balmy air, to improving a passing acquaintance into 
 an intimate one Avith that charming person the Baroness 
 Liebenfrauenmilch, Mistress of the Robes to Princess 
 Helfene, and to being very intimate at the Court, while 
 the Pullingers (their bosom-friends and very dear rivals) 
 would be simply presented, and remain in chagrin, unin- 
 vited to the state balls and palace festivities. And what 
 more delightful than that last clause? for what sauce 
 invented, from Careme to Soyer, flavors our own plats so 
 deliciously, I should like to know, as thinking that our 
 beloved next-door neighbor is doomed to a very dry cutlet? 
 
 As Perette, in a humbler fashion, built visions from the 
 pot of milk, so mesdames mes sceurs, from the glittering 
 court and capital of Lemongenseidlitz, erected brilliant 
 chAteaux en Espagne of all their sayings and doings in 
 that fashionable little city whither they were bound, and 
 into which they had so many invaluable passports. They 
 were impatient to be journeying from our humble, solitary
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 365 
 
 valley, and after a month of Vicq d'Azyr, tliey departed 
 for their golden land, and I went with them, as I had 
 slain izzards almost ad nauseam, and Dunbar's expiration 
 of leave had taken him back to Dublin. 
 
 It was five o'clock when we reached its Reidenscher Hof, 
 nine when we had finished dinner. It was stupid work 
 yawning over coffee and Galignani. What was to be done ? 
 Marechale proposed the Opera, and for the first time in his 
 life was unopposed by his wife. Constance was in a suave, 
 benignant mood ; she was thinking of her Graf von Ro- 
 senlau, of the Pullingers, and of the sweet, adroit manner 
 in which she would — when she had captivated him and 
 could profiler such hints — awaken his Serene Highness 
 to a sense of his moral guilt in not bringing to instant 
 capital punishment every agent in those Satanus-farmed 
 banks that throve throughout his duchy. Lady Marechale 
 and Mrs. Protocol assented, and to the little miniature 
 gayly-decorated Opera House we drove. They were in the 
 middle of the second act of "Ernani." "Ernani" was 
 stale to us all, and we naturally lorgne'd the boxes in lieu 
 of the stage. I had turned my glass on the left-hand 
 Htage-box, and was going steadily round, when a faint cry 
 of dismay, alarm, amazement, horror, broke, muffled and 
 low, from mesdames mes sceurs. Their lorgnons were riv- 
 eted on one spot ; their cheeks were blanched ; their hands 
 were tremulous; if they had beheld a spiritual visitant, 
 no consternation more profound, more intense, could have 
 seized both with its iron hand. My sisters ton! the cliil- 
 liest, the calmest, the most impenetrable, the most unas- 
 sailable of mortals ! 
 
 " And we called her, in her hearing, not a proper per- 
 son?" gasped Lady Marechale. 
 
 "We thought her a lorette! an intrigante! a dame 
 d'industrie!" echoed Mrs. Protocol. 
 
 " Who wore i)aste jewels ! " 
 
 •' Who came from the Rue Breda ! " 
 31*
 
 366 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 
 
 " Who wanted to know U8 ! " 
 
 " Whom we would n't know ! " 
 
 I turned my Voiglitlander where their Voightlanders 
 turned ; there, in the royal box, leaning back in the fau- 
 teuil that marked her rank, there, with her ' lovely hazel 
 eyes, her witching smile, her radiant beauty, matchless 
 as the pearls gleaming above her broAV, there sat the 
 *' adventuress — or worse ! " of Vicq d'Azyr ; the " evi- 
 dently a not proper person" of my discerning sisters — 
 H.S.H. Princess Helene, Grand-Duchess of Lemongen- 
 seidlitz-Phizzstrelitz ! Great Heavens ! how had we never 
 guessed her before? How had we never divined her 
 identity? How had Ave never remembered all we had 
 heard of her love of laisser-aller, her taste for adventure, 
 her delight in travelling, when she could, unattended and 
 incognita ? How had we never put this and that together, 
 and penetrated the metamorphosis? 
 
 "And I called her not a proper j)er son / " gasped Lady 
 Marechale, again shrinking back behind the azure cur- 
 tains ; the projectiles she had shot with such vindictive 
 severity, such delighted acrimony, from the murderous 
 mortar of malice, recoiling back upon her head for once, 
 and crushing her to powder. What reception would they 
 have now at the Court ? Von Rosenliiu would be power- 
 less ; the Pullingers themselves would be better off! 
 Perette's pot of milk was smashed and spilt! "Adieu, 
 veau, vache, cochon, couvee ! " 
 
 When the pitcher lies shivered into fragments, and the 
 milk is spilt, you know, poor Perette's dreams are shivered 
 and spilt with them. " I have not seen you at the palace 
 yet?" asked her Grace of Frangipane. " We do not see 
 you at the Court, mesdames?" asked M.de la Croix-et-Cor- 
 dons. " How did it happen you Avere not at the Duchess's 
 ball last night?" asked "those odious Pullingers." And 
 what had my sister to say in reply ? My clematis secured
 
 THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR. 
 
 36t 
 
 me a charming reception — how charming I don't feel 
 called upon to reveal — ^^but Princess Heleue, with that 
 calm dignity which easily replaced, when she chose, her 
 witching abandon, turned the tables upon her detractors, 
 and taught them how dangerous it may be to speak ill— 
 of the wrong people. 
 
 #«?^^
 
 A. STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE; 
 
 PENDANT TO A PORTRAIT BY MIGNARD. 
 
 |HE was surpassingly fair, Madame la Marquise. 
 Mignard's portraits of her may fully rival hia 
 far-famed Portrait aux Amours. One of them 
 has her painted as Venus Victrix, in the fashion of the 
 day ; one of them, as herself, as Leontine Opportune de 
 Vivonne de Rennecourt, Marquise de la Riviere, with her 
 crfeve-coeurs, and her diamonds, and her gay smile, showing 
 her teeth, white and gleaming as the pearls mingled with 
 her curls a la mode Montespan. Not Louise de la Beaume- 
 le-Blanc, when the elm-boughs of St. Germain fii-st flung 
 their shadow on her golden head, before it bent for the 
 Carmelite veil before the altar in the Rue St. Jacques; 
 not Henriette d'Augleterre, when she listened to the trou- 
 veres' romances sung under her balcony at St. Cloud, 
 before her young life was quenched by the hand oi Morel 
 and the order of Monsieur; not Athenais de Morlemart, 
 when the liveries of lapis lazuli blue dashed through the 
 streets of Paris, and the outriders cleared her path with 
 their whips, before the game was lost, and the iron spikes 
 were fastened inside the Montespan bracelets ; — none of 
 them, her contemporaries and acquaintances, eclipsed in 
 loveliness Madame la Marquise. Had she but been fair 
 instead of dark, the brown Bourbon eyes would have 
 fallen on her of a surety ; she would have outshone the 
 lapis lazuli liveries witli a royal guard of scarlet and 
 
 (308)
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 360 
 
 gokl, and her friend Athenais would have hated her as 
 that fair lady hated "la sotte Fontanges" and "Saint 
 Maintenon ; " for their sex, in all ages, have remembered 
 the sage's precept, " Love as though you will one day 
 hate," and invariably carry about with them, ready for 
 Deed, a little essence of the acid of Malice, to sour in an 
 instant the sugared cream of their loves and their friend- 
 ships, if occasion rise up and the storm-cloud of rivalry 
 loom in the horizon. 
 
 She was a beauty, Madame la Marquise, and she knew 
 it, as she leaned out over the balcony of her chateau of 
 Petite Foret, that lay close to Clagny, under the shadow 
 of the wood of Ville d'Avree, outside the gates of Ver- 
 sailles, looking down on her bosquets, gardens, and ter- 
 races designed by Le Notre ; for though she was alone, 
 and there was nothing but her little dog Osmin to admire 
 her white skin, and her dark eyes, and her beautiful 
 hands and arms, and her diamond pendants that glittered 
 in the moonlight, she smiled, her flashing triumphant 
 smile, as she whispered to herself, "He is mine — mine! 
 Bah! how can he help himself?" and pressed the ruby 
 agraffe on her bosom with the look of a woman who 
 knew no resistance, and brooked no reluctance to worship 
 at her shrine. 
 
 Nothing ever opposed Madame la Marquise, and life 
 went smoothly on with her. If Bossuet ever reproved her, 
 it Avas in those anathdmes caches sous des fleurs d'oranger 
 in which that politic priest knew how to deal when expe- 
 dient, however haughty and relentless to the world in 
 general. M. le Marquis was not a savage eccentricity like 
 M. de Pardaillon de Gondran, would never have dreamt 
 of imitating the eccentricity of going into mourning, but 
 if the Bourbon eye had fallen on his wife, would have 
 said, like a loyal peer of France, that all his household 
 treasures were the King's. Disagreeables fled before the 
 scintillations of her smiles, as the crowd fled before her 
 
 Y
 
 370 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 gilded carriage and her Flanders horses ; and if ever a 
 little fit of piety once in a while came over her, and Con- 
 science whispered a mal a propos w'ord in her delicate ear, 
 she would give an enamelled lamp to Sainte Marie Re- 
 paratrice, by the advice of the Comtesse de Soubise and 
 the Princesse de Monaco (who did such expiatory things 
 themselves, and knew the comfort they afibrded), and 
 emerge from her repentance one of the most radiant of all 
 the brilliant butterflies that fluttered their gorgeous wings 
 in the Jardin de Flore under the sunny skies of Ver- 
 sailles. 
 
 The moonlight glittered on the fountains, falling wuth 
 measured splash into their marble basins ; the lime-leaves, 
 faintly stirred by the sultry breezes, perfumed the night 
 with their voluptuous fragrance, and the roses, twining 
 round the carved and gilded balustrade, shook oflf their 
 bowed head drops of dew, that gleamed brightly as the 
 diamonds among tlie curls of the woman who leaned 
 above, resting her delicate rouged cheek on her jewelled 
 hand, alone — a very rare circumstance with the Marquise 
 de la Riviere. Osmin did not admire the rare solitude, 
 for he rattled his silver bells and barked — an Italian 
 greyhound's shrill, fretful bark — as his quick ears caught 
 the distant sound of steps coming swiftly over the turf 
 below, and his mistress smiled as she patted his head : 
 
 "Ah, Osmin! — here he is?" 
 
 A man came out from under the heavy shadow of lime 
 sand chestnuts, whose darkness the moon's rays had no 
 power to pierce, crossed the lawn just under the balcony, 
 and, coming up the terrace-steps, stood near her — a man, 
 young, fair, handsome, whose age and form the uniform 
 of a Capta'n of the Guards would have suited far better 
 than the dark robes of a priest, which he wore ; his lips 
 were pressed closely together, and his face was pale with 
 a pallor that consorted painfully with the warm passion- 
 ate gleam of his eyes.
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 371 
 
 " So ! You are late in obeying my commands, mou- 
 sjeur ! 
 
 Surely no other man in France would have stood silent 
 beside her, under the spell of her dazzling glances, with 
 such a picture before him as Madame la Marquise, in her 
 azure silk and her point d'Angleterre, with her diamond 
 pendants shaking among her hair, and her arched eye- 
 brows lifted imperiously ! But he did ; his lips pressed 
 closer, his eyes gleaming brighter. She changed her tone ; 
 it was soft, seductive, reproachful, and the smile on her 
 lips was tender — as tender as it ever could be with the 
 mockery that always lay under it ; and it broke at last 
 the spell that bound him, as she whispered, " Ah ! Gaston, 
 you love me no longer ! " 
 
 " Not love you ? God ! " 
 
 They were but five words, but they told Madame la 
 Marquise of a passion such as she had never roused, 
 despite all her fascinations and intrigues, in the lovers 
 that crowded round her in the salons within, or at Ver- 
 sailles, over the trees yonder, where love was gallantry, 
 and all was light comedy, with nothing so foolish as 
 tragedy known. 
 
 He clasped her hands so closely that the sharp points 
 of the diamond rings cut his own, though he felt them 
 not. 
 
 " Not love you ? Great Heaven ! Not love you ? Near 
 you, I forget my oath, my vows, my God! — I forget all, 
 save you, whom I adore, as, till I met you, I adored my 
 Church. Torture endured with you were dearer than 
 Paradise won alone! Once with you, I have no strength, 
 you bow me to your will as the wind bows the lime-leaf 
 Oh ! woman, woman ! could you have no mercy, that with 
 crowds round you daily worshipping your slightest smile, 
 you must needs bow me down before your glance, as you 
 bow those who have no oaths to bind them, no need to 
 scourge themselves in midnight solitude for the mere crimo
 
 372 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 of Thought ? Had you no mercy, that with all hearts 
 yours, you must have mine to sear it and destroy it? 
 Have you not lives enough vowed to you, that you seek 
 to blast mine for ever ? I was content, untrouljled, till 
 I met you ; no woman's glance stirred my heart, no 
 woman's eyes haunted my vigils, no woman's voice came 
 in memory between my soul and prayer ! What devil 
 tempted you to throw your spells over me — could you 
 not leave one man in peace?" 
 
 "Ah bah! the tempted love the game of temptation 
 generally full as well as the tempters ! " thought JMadame 
 la Marquise, with an inward laugh. 
 
 Wh)"^ did she allow such language to go unrebuked ? 
 Why did she, to Avhom none dared to breathe any but 
 words the most polished, and love vows the most honeyed, 
 permit herself to be addressed in such a strain ? Possibly 
 it was very new to her, such energy as this, and such an 
 outbreak of passion amused her. At any rate she only 
 drew her hands away, and her brilliant brown eyes filled 
 with tears ; — tears were to be had at Versailles when 
 needed, even her friend Montespan knew hov/ to use them 
 as the worst weapons against the artillery of the Eveque 
 de Comdom — and her heart heaved under the filmy lace. 
 
 "Ah, Gaston ! what words ! ' What devil tempted me ? * 
 I know scarcely whether love be angel or devil ; he seems 
 either or both ! But you love me little, unless in that 
 name you recognize a plea for every madness and every 
 thought ! " 
 
 The scarlet blood flushed over his face, and his eyes 
 shone and gleamed like fire, while he clenched his hands 
 in a mortal anguish. 
 
 " Angel or devil ? Ay ! which, indeed ! The one when 
 it comes to us, the other when it leaves us ! You have 
 roused love in me I shall bear to my grave ; but what 
 gage have I that you give it me back ? How do I know 
 but that even now you are trifling with me, mocking at
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 373 
 
 me, smiling at the beardless priest who is unlearned in all 
 the gay gallantries of libertine churchmen and soldierly 
 courtiers ? My Heaven ! how know, as I stand beside 
 you, whether you pity or disdain me, love or scorn me ? " 
 
 The passionate words broke in a torrent from his lips, 
 stirred the stillness of the summer eve with a fiery anguish 
 little akin to it. 
 
 "Do I not love you?" 
 
 Her answer was simple ; but as Leontine de Rennecourt 
 spoke it, leaning her cheek against his breast, with her 
 eyes dazzling as the diamonds in her hair, looking up into 
 his by the light of the stars, they had an eloquence far 
 more dangerous than speech, and delirious to the senses 
 as magician's perfumes. His lips lingered on hers, and 
 felt the loud fast throbs of the heart she had won as he 
 bent over her, pressing her closer and closer to him — 
 vanquished and conquered, as men in all ages and of all 
 creeds have been vanquished and conquered by women, 
 all other thoughts fleeing away into oblivion, all fears 
 dying out, all vows forgotten in the warm, living life of 
 passion and of joy, that, for the first time in a brief life, 
 flooded his heart with its golden voluptuous light. 
 
 " You love me ? So be it," he murmured ; " but beware 
 what you do, my life lies in your hands, and you must 
 be mine till death part us ! " 
 
 " Till my fancy change rather ! " thought IVIadame la 
 Marquise, as she put her jewelled hand on his lips, her 
 hair softly brushing his cheek, with a touch as soft, and 
 an odor as sweet, as the leaves of one of the roses 
 twining below. 
 
 Two men strolling below under the limes of Petite 
 Foret — discussing the last scandals of Versailles, talking 
 of the ascendency of La Fontanges, of the Spanish dress 
 his Majesty had reassumed to please her, of the Briuvil- 
 liers' Poudre de Succession, of the new chiteau given to 
 Pferc de la Chaise, of D'Aubigny's last extravagance and 
 82
 
 374 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 Lauzuu's last mot, and the last gossip about Bossuet and 
 Mademoiselle de Maul^on, and all the chit-chat of that 
 varied day, glittering with wit and prolific of poison — 
 glanced up to the balcony by the light of the stars. 
 
 " That cursed priest ! " muttered the younger, le Vicorate 
 de Saint-Elix, as he struck the head off a lily with his 
 delicate cane. 
 
 " In a fool's paradise ! Ah-ha ! Madame la Marquise ! " 
 laughed the other — the old Due de Clos-Vougeot — taking 
 a chocolate sweetmeat out of his emerald-studded bonbon- 
 niere as they walked on, while the lime-blossoms shook 
 off in the summer night wind and dropped dead on the 
 grass beneath, laughing at the story of the box D'Artag- 
 uau had found in Lauzun's rooms when he seized his 
 papers, containing the portraits of sixty women of high 
 degree who had worshipped the resistless Captain of the 
 Guard, with critical and historical notices penned under 
 each ; notices D'Artagnan and his aide could not help 
 indiscreetly retailing, in despite of the Bourbon command 
 of secrecy — secrecy so necessary where sixty beauties and 
 saints were involved ! 
 
 "A fool's paradise!" said the Due de Clos-Vougeot, 
 tapping his bonbonniere, enamelled by Petitot : the Due 
 was old, and knew women well, and knew the value and 
 length of a paradise dependent on that most fickle of 
 butterflies — female fidelity ; he had heard Ninon de 
 Lenclos try to persuade Scarron's wife to become a co- 
 quette, and Scarron's wife in turn beseech Ninon to dis- 
 continue her coquetteries ; had seen that, however different 
 their theories and j^ractice, the result was the same ; and 
 already guessed right, that if Paris had been universally 
 won by the one, its monarch would eventually be won by 
 the other. 
 
 " A fool's paradise ! " 
 
 The courtier was right, but the priest, had he heard 
 cira, would never have believed; his heaven shone iu
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 3T5 
 
 those dazzling eyes : till the eyes closed in death, his 
 heaven was safe ! He had never loved, he had seen 
 nothing of women ; he had come straight from the monas- 
 tic gloom of a Dominican abbey, in the very heart of the 
 South, down in Languedoc, where costly missals were his 
 only idol, and rigid pietists, profoundly ignorant of the 
 ways and thoughts of their brethren of Paris, had reared 
 him up in anchorite rigidity, and scourged his mind with 
 iron philosophies and stoic-like doctrines of self-mortifica- 
 tion that would have repudiated the sophistries and 
 ingenuities of Sanchez, Escobar, and Mascarenhas, as 
 suggestions of the very Master of Evil himself From 
 the ascetic gloom of that Languedoc convent he had been 
 brought straight, by superior will, into the glare of the 
 life at Versailles, that brilliant, gorgeous, sparkling, 
 bizarre life, scintillating with wit, brimful of intrigue, 
 crowded with the men and women who formed the Court 
 of that age and the History of the next ; where he found 
 every churchman an abbe galant, and heard those who 
 performed the mass jest at it with those who attended it ; 
 where he found no lines marked of right and wrong, but 
 saw them all fused in a gay, tangled web of two court 
 colors — Expediency and Pleasure. A life that dazzled 
 and tired his eyes, as the glitter of lights in a room dazzles 
 and tires the eyes of a man who comes suddenly in from 
 the dark night air, till he grew giddy and sick, and in 
 the midst of the gilded salons, or soft confessions of titled 
 sinners, would ask himself if indeed he could be the same 
 man who had sat calm and grave with the mellow sun 
 streaming in on his missal-page in the monastic gloom of 
 the Languedoc abbey but so few brief months before, 
 when all this world of Versailles was unknown ? The 
 same man? Truly not — never again the same, since 
 Madame la Marquise had l)ent her brown eyes upon him, 
 been amused with his singular diHerence from all those 
 around her, had loved him as women loved at Versailles,
 
 370 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 and bovved him down to her feet, before he guessed tne 
 name of the forbidden language that stirred in his heart 
 and rushed to his lips, untaught and unbidden. 
 
 "A fool's paradise !" said the Due, sagaciously tapping 
 his gold bonbonnifere. But many a paradise like it has 
 dawned and faded, before and since the Versailles of Louis 
 Quatorze. 
 
 He loved, and Madame la Marquise loved him. Through 
 one brief tumult of struggle he passed : struggle between 
 the creed of the Dominican abbey, where no sin would 
 have been held so thrice accursed, so unpardonable, so 
 deserving of the scourge and the stake as this — and the 
 creed of the Bourbon Court, where churchmen's gallantries 
 were every-day gossip ; where the Abbe de Rauce, ere he 
 founded the saintly gloom of La Trappe, scandalized 
 town and court as much as Lauzun ; where the Pere de 
 la Chaise smiled complacently on La Fontanges' ascend- 
 ancy ; where three nobles rushed to pick up the handker- 
 chief of that royal confessor, who washed out with holy 
 water the royal indiscretions, as you wash off grains of 
 dust with perfumed water ; where the great and saintly 
 Bishop of Condom could be checked in a rebuking ha- 
 rangue, and have the tables turned on him by a mischiev- 
 ous reference to Mademoiselle de Mauleon ; where life 
 was intrigue for churchmen and laymen alike, and where 
 the abbe's rochet and the cardinal's scarlet covered the 
 same vices as were openly blazoned on the gold aiglettes 
 of the Garde du Corps and the costly lace of the Cham- 
 bellan du Roi. A storm, brief and violent as the summer 
 storms that raged over Versailles, was roused between the 
 conflicting thoughts at war within him, between the prin- 
 ciples deeply rooted from long habit and stern belief, and 
 the passions sprung up unbidden with the sudden growth 
 and gorgeous glow of a tropical flower — a storm, brief 
 and violent, a struggle, ended that night, when he stood 
 on the balcony with the woman he loved, felt her lips
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 377 
 
 upon his, and bowed down to her feet delirious and 
 strength less. 
 
 "I have won my wager with Adeline; I have van- 
 quished mon beau De Launay," thought Madame la Mar- 
 quise, smiling, two days after, as she sat, eu neglige, iu 
 her broidered chair, pulling Osmin's ears, and stirring 
 the frothy chocolate handed to her by her negro, Azor, 
 brought over in the suite of the African embassy from 
 Ardra, full of monkeyish espieglerie, and covered with 
 gems — a priceless dwarf, black as ink, and but two feet 
 high, who could match any day with the Queen's little 
 Moor. " He amuses me with his vows of eternal love. 
 Eternal love? — how de trop we should find it, here in 
 Versailles ! But it is amusing enough to play at for a 
 eeason. No, that is not half enough — he adores! This 
 poor Gaston ! " 
 
 So in the salons of Versailles, and in the world, where 
 Ninon reigned, by the Court ladies, while they loitered 
 in the new-made gardens of Marly, among other similar 
 things jested of was this ncAV amour of Madame de la 
 Riviere for the young Pere de Launay. " She was always 
 eccentric, and he was very handsome, and would have 
 charming manners if he were not so grave and so silent," 
 the women averred ; while the young nobles swore that 
 these meddling churchmen had always the best luck, 
 whether in amatory conquest, or on fat lands and rich 
 revenues. What the Priest of Languedoc thought a love 
 that would outlast life, and repay him for peace of con- 
 science and heaven both lost, was only one of the passing 
 bubbles of gossip and scandal floating for an hour, amidst 
 myriads like it, on the glittering, fast-rushing, diamond- 
 bright waters of life at Versailles ! 
 
 A new existence had dawned for him ; far away in the 
 dim dusky vista of forgotten things, though in reality 
 barely distant a few short months, lay the old life in 
 Languedoc, vague and unremembered as a passed dream ;
 
 S7S A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 with its calm routine, its monastic silence, its unvai*^ing 
 alternations of study and prayer, its iron-bound thoughts, 
 its rigid creed. It had sunk away as the peaceful gray 
 twilight of a summer's night sinks away before the fiery 
 burst of an artificial illumination, and a new life had 
 dawned for him, radiant, tumultuous, conflicting, delicious 
 — that dazzled his eyes with the magnificence of bound- 
 less riches and unrestricted extravagance ; that charmed 
 his intellect with the witty coruscations, the polished 
 esprit, of an age unsurpassed for genius, grace, and wit ; 
 and that swayed alike his heart, his imagination, and hia 
 passions with the subtle intoxication of this syren of Love, 
 whose forbidden song had never before, in faintest echo, 
 fallen on his ear. 
 
 Far away in the dim, lifeless, pulseless past, sank the 
 memory of the old Dominican abbey, of all it had taught 
 him, of all it had exacted, in its iron, stoical, merciless 
 creed. A new life had arisen for him, and Gaston de 
 Launay, waking from the semi-slumber of the living 
 death he had endured in Languedoc, and liked because 
 he knew no other, was happy — happy as a prisoner is in 
 the wild delight with which he welcomes the sunlight 
 after lengthened imprisonment, happy as an opium-eater 
 is in the delicious delirium that succeeds the lulling soft- 
 ness of the opiate. 
 
 " He loves me, poor Gaston ! Bah ! But how strangely 
 he talks ! If love were this fiery, changeless, earnest 
 thing with us that it is with him, w'hat in the world should 
 we do with it? We should have to get a lettre de cachet 
 for it, and forbid it the Court; send it in exile to Pignerol, 
 as they have just done Lauzun, Love in earnest? We 
 should lose the best spice for our wine, the best toy for 
 our games, and, mon Dieu ! what embroilments there 
 would be! Love in earnest ? Bagatelle! Louise de la 
 Valliere shows us the folly of that; but for its Quixot- 
 isms she would now be at Yaujours, instead of burled
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 3t9 
 
 alive in -that Rue St. Jacques, with nothing to do but to 
 weep for * Louison,' count her beads, and listen to M. de 
 Condom's merciless eloquence ! Like the king, 
 
 J'aimc qu'on m'aime, mais avec de I'csprit. 
 
 People have no right to reproach each other with incon- 
 stancy ; one's caprices are not in one's own keeping ; and 
 one can no more help where one's fancy blows, than that 
 lime-leaf can help where the breeze chooses to waft it. 
 But poor Gaston! how make him comprehend that?" 
 thought Madame la Marquise, as she turned, and smiled, 
 and held out her warm, jewelled hands, and listened once 
 again to the words of the man who was in her power as 
 utterly as the bird in the power of the snake when it has 
 once looked up into the fatal eyes that lure it on to its 
 doom. 
 
 "You will love me ever?" he would ask, resting his 
 lips on her white low brow. 
 
 "Ever!" would softly answer Madame la Marquise. 
 
 And her lover believed her : should his deity lie ? He 
 believed her ! What did he, fresh from the solitude of 
 his monastery, gloomy and severe as that of the Trappist 
 abbey, with its perpetual silence, its lowered glances, its 
 shrouded faces, its ever-present " memento mori," know 
 of women's faith, of women's love, of the sense in which 
 they meant that vow "for ever"? He believed her, and 
 never asked what would be at the end of a path strewn 
 with such odorous flowers. Alone, it is true, in moments 
 when he paused to think, he stood aghast at the abyss 
 into which he had fallen, at the sin into which, a few 
 months before, haughty and stern in virtue against the 
 temptation that had never entered his path, he would 
 have defied devils in legion to have lured him, yet into 
 which he had now plunged at the mere smile of a woman! 
 Out of her presence, out of her spells, standing by him- 
 self under the same skies that had biooded over his days
 
 S8U A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 of peace in Languedoc, back on his heart, with a sicken 
 ing anguish, would come the weight of his sin ; the bur- 
 den of his broken oaths, the scorch of that curse eternal 
 which, by his creed, he held drawn down on him here 
 and hereafter; and Gaston de Launay would struggle 
 again against this idolatrous passion, which had come 
 with its fell delusion betwixt him and his God ; struggle 
 — vainly, idly — struggle, only to hug closer the sin he 
 loved while he loathed ; only to drink deeper of the 
 draught whose voluptuous perfume was poison ; only to 
 forget all, forsake all, dare ail, at one whisper of her 
 voice, one glance of her eyes, one touch of the lips whose 
 caress he held would be bought by a curse through 
 eternity. 
 
 Few women love aught " for ever," save, perchance, 
 diamonds, lace, and their own beauty, and Madame la 
 Marquise was not one of those few; certainly not — she 
 had no desire to make herself singular in her generation, 
 and could set fashions much more likely to find disciples, 
 without reverting to anything so eccentric, plebeian, and 
 out of date. Love one for ever ! She would have thought 
 it as terrible waste of her fascinations, as for a jewel to 
 shine in the solitude of its case, looked on by only one 
 pair of eyes, or for a priceless enamel, by Petitot, to be 
 only worn next the heart, shrouded away from the light 
 of day, hidden under the folds of linen and lace. 
 
 " Love one for ever?" — Madame la Marquise laughed 
 ttt the thought, as she stood dressed for a ball, after assist- 
 ing at the representation of a certain tragedy, called 
 "Berenice" (in which Mesdames Deshoulieres and De 
 Sevigne, despite their esprit, alone of all Paris and the 
 Court could see no beauty), and glanced in the mirror at 
 her radiant face, her delicate skin, her raven curls, with 
 their pendants shaking, her snow-white arms, and her 
 costly dress of the newest mode, its stomacher gleaming
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 383 
 
 one mass of gems. " Love one for ever ? The droll idea^ 
 Is it not enough that I have loved him once?" 
 
 It was more than enough for his rivals, who bitterly 
 envied him ; courtly abbes, with polished smiles, and 
 young chanoines, with scented curls and velvet toques, 
 courtiers, who piqued themselves on reputations only 
 second to Lauzun's, and men of the world, who laughed 
 at this new caprice of Madame la Marquise, alike bore 
 no good will to this Languedoc priest, and gave him a 
 significant sneer, or a compliment that roused his blood 
 to fire, and stung him far worse than more open insult, 
 when they met in the salons, or crossed in the corridors, 
 at Versailles or Petite Foret. 
 
 "■ Those men ! those men ! Should he ever lose her to 
 any one of them?" he would think over and over again, 
 clenching his hand, in impotent agony of passion that he 
 had not the sword and the license of a soldier to strike 
 them on the lips with his glove for the smile with which 
 they dared to speak her name ; to make them wash out 
 in blood under the trees, before the sun was up, the laugh, 
 the mot, the delicate satire, which were worse to bear 
 than a blow to the man who could not avenge them. 
 
 " Pardieu ! Madame must be very unusually faithful 
 to her handsome Priest ; she has smiled on no other for 
 two months ! What unparalleled fidelity ! " said the 
 V^icomte de Saint-Elix, with petulant irritation. 
 
 "Jealous, Leonce?" laughed the old Due, whom he 
 spoke to, tapping the medallion portrait on his bonbon- 
 niere. " Take comfort : when the weather has been so 
 long fixed, it is always near a change. Ah ! M. de Lau- 
 nay overhears ! He looks as if he would slay us. Very 
 unchristian in a priest ! " 
 
 Gaston de Launay overheard, as he stood by a croisee 
 at Petite Foret, playing with Osmin — he liked even the 
 dog, since the hand he loved so often lay on its slender 
 neck, and toyed with its silver chain. And, sworn as he
 
 382 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE, 
 
 was to the service of his Church, sole mistress as his 
 Church had been, till Leontine de Rennecourt's eyes had 
 lured him to his desertion of her, apostate in his own eyes 
 as such a thought confessed him to have grown, he now 
 loathed the garb of a priest, that bound his hands from 
 vengeance, and made him powerless before insult as a 
 woman. Fierce, ruthless longing for revenge upon theso 
 men seized on him ; devilish desires, the germ of which 
 till that hour he never dreamt slumbered within him, 
 woke up into dangerous, vigorous life. Had he lived in 
 the world, its politic reserve, its courtly sneer, its light 
 gallantries, that passed the time and flattered amour-pro- 
 pre, its dissimulated hate that smiled while plotting, and 
 killed with poisoned bonbons, would never have been 
 learnt by him ; and having long lived out of it, having 
 been suddenly plunged into its whirl, not guessing its 
 springs, ignorant of its diplomacies, its suave lies, termed 
 good breeding, its legeres philosophies, he knew nothing 
 of the wisdom with which its wise men forsook their loves 
 and concealed their hatreds. Both passions now sprung 
 up in him at one birth, both the stronger for the long 
 years in which a chill, artificial, but unbroken calm, had 
 chained his very nature down, and fettered into an iron 
 monotony, an unnatural and colorless tranquillity, a char- 
 acter originally impetuous and vivid, as the frosts of a 
 winter chill into one cold, even, glassy surface, the rapids 
 of a tumultuous river. With the same force and strength 
 with which, in the old days in Languedoc, he had idol- 
 ized and served his Church, sparing himself no mortifica- 
 tion, believing every iota of her creed, carrying out her 
 slifi'htest rule with merciless self-examination, so — the 
 tide once turned the other way — so the priest now loved, 
 so he now hated. 
 
 "He is growing exigeant, jealous, presuming; he 
 am\ises me no longer — he wearies. I must give him his 
 conge," thought Madame la Marquise. " This play at
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 383 
 
 eternal passion is very amusing for a while, but, like all 
 thincrs, jrets tiresome when it has lasted some time. What 
 does not ? Poor Gaston, it is his provincial ideas, but lie 
 will soon rub such off, and find, like us all, that sincerity 
 is troublesome, ever de trop, and never profitable. Ho 
 loves me — but bah! so does Saint-Elix, so do they all, 
 and a jealous husband like M. de Nesmond, le drole! 
 could scarcely be worse than my young De Launay is 
 growing!" 
 
 And Madame la Marquise glanced at her face in the 
 mirror, and wished she knew Madame de Maintenon's 
 secret for the Breuvage Indien ; wished she had one of 
 the clefs de faveur to admit her to the Grande Salle du 
 Parlement ; wished she had tlie couronne d'Affrippine 
 her friend Athenais had just shown her ; wished Le Brun 
 were not now occupied on the ceiling of the King's Grande 
 Galerie, and were free to paint the frescoes of her own 
 new-built chapel ; wished a thousand unattainable things, 
 as spoilt children of fortune will do, and swept down her 
 chateau staircase a little out of temj^er — she could not 
 have told why — to receive her guests at a fete given in 
 honor of the marriage of Mademoiselle de Blois and the 
 Prince de Conti. 
 
 There was the young Comte de Vermandois, who would 
 recognize in the Dauphin no superiority save that of his 
 '*frere aine;" there was " le petit bossu" Prince Eugene, 
 then soliciting the rochet of a Bishop, and equally rid- 
 iculed when he sought a post in the army ; there was M. 
 de Lonvois, who had just signed the order for the Dra*"-- 
 onadcs ; there was the Palatine de Baviere, with her Ger- 
 man brusquerie, who had just clumsily tried to insult 
 Madame de Montespan by coming into the salon with a 
 great turnspit, led by a similar ribbon and called by the 
 same name, in ridicule of tlie pet Montespan poodle; 
 there was La Montespan herself, with her lovely gold 
 hair, her dove's eyes, and her serpcnt'ji tongue ; there v.at*
 
 884 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 Madame de Sevigne and Madame de Grignan, the Duch- 
 esse de Richelieu and the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres ; 
 there was Bussy Rabutiu and Hamilton. Who was there 
 not that was brilliant, that was distinguished, that was 
 high in rank and famed in wit at the fete of Madame la 
 Marquise? — Madame la Marquise, who floated through 
 the crowd that glittered in her salon and gardens, who 
 laughed and smiled, showing her dazzling white teeth, 
 who had a little Cupid gleaming with jewels (emblematic 
 enough of Cupid as he was known at Versailles) to pre- 
 sent the Princesse de Conti with a bridal bouquet whose 
 flowers were of pearls and whose leaves were of emeralds; 
 who piqued herself that the magnificence of her fete was 
 scarcely eclipsed by His Majesty himself; who yielded 
 the palm neither to La Valliere's lovely daughter, nor tc 
 her friend Athenais, nor to any one of the beauties who 
 shone with them, and whose likeness by Mignard laughed 
 down from the wall where it hung, matchless double of 
 her own matchless self. 
 
 The Priest of Languedoc watched her, the relentless 
 fangs of passion gnawing his heart, as the wolf the Spar- 
 tan. For the first time he was forgotten ! His idol 
 passed him carelessly, gave him no glance, no smile, but 
 lavished a thousand coquetteries on Saint-Elix, on De 
 Rohan-Soubise, on the boy Vermandois, — on any who 
 sought them. Once he addressed her. Madame la Mar- 
 quise shrugged her snow-white shoulders, and arched her 
 eyebrows with petulant irritation, and turned to laugh 
 gayly at Saint-Elix, who was amusing her, and La Montes- 
 pan, and Madame de Thianges, with some gay mischiev- 
 ous scandal concerning Madame de Lesdiguieres and the 
 Archbishop of Paris ; for scandals, if not wholly new, 
 are ever diverting when concerning an enemy, especially 
 when dressed and served up with the piquant sauce 
 of wit 
 
 " I no longer then, madame, lead a dog's life in jealousy
 
 A STUDY X LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 385 
 
 of this priest?" whispered Saint-Elix, after other whis- 
 pers, in the ear of Madame la Marquise. The Vicomte 
 adored her, not truly in Languedoc fashion, but very 
 warmly — a la mode de Versailles. 
 
 The Marquise laughed. 
 
 " Perhaps not ! You know I bet Mme. de Montevreau 
 tibat I would conquer him. I have won now. Hush! 
 He is close. There will be a tragedy, mon ami!" 
 
 " M. le Vicomte, if you have the honor of a noble, the 
 heart of a man, you fight me to-night. I seek no shelter 
 under my cloth ! " 
 
 Saint-Elix turned as he heard the words, laughed 
 scornfully, and signed the speaker away with an insolent 
 sneer : 
 
 " Bah ! Reverend P^re ! we do not fight with women 
 and churchmen ! " 
 
 The fete was ended at last, the lights that had gleamed 
 among the limes and chestnuts had died out, the gardens 
 and salons were emptied and silent, the little Cupid had 
 laid aside his weighty jewelled wings, the carriages with 
 their gorgeous liveries, their outriders, and their guards 
 of honor, had rolled from the gates of Petite Foret to 
 the Palace of Versailles. Madame la Marquise stood 
 alone once more in the balcony of her salons, leaning her 
 white arms on its gilded balustrade, looking down on to 
 the gardens beneath, silvered with the breaking light of 
 the dawn, smiling, her white teeth gleaming between her 
 parted rose-hued lips, and thinking — of what? Who 
 shall say? 
 
 Still, still as death lay the gardens below, that an hour 
 ago had been peopled with a glittering crowd, re-echoing 
 with music, laughter, witty response, words of intrigue. 
 Where the lights had shone on diamonds and pearl- 
 broidered trains, on softly rouged cheeks, and gold-laced 
 coats, on jewelled swords and broideries of gold, the gray 
 hue of the breaking day now only fell on the silvered 
 33 Z
 
 386 A STUDY A LA LOIJIS QUATORZE. 
 
 leaves of the limes, the turf wet with dew, the drooped 
 heads of the Provence roses ; and Madame la Marquise, 
 standing alone, started as a step through the salon within 
 broke the silence. 
 
 " Madame, will you permit me a word now f " 
 
 Gaston de Launay took her hands off the balustrade, 
 and held them tight in his, while his voice sounded, even 
 in his own ears, strangely calm, yet strangely harsh : 
 
 "Madame, you love me no longer?" 
 
 " Monsieur, I do not answer questions put to me in such 
 a manner." 
 
 She would have drawn her hands away, but he held 
 them in a fierce grasp till her rings cut his skin, as they 
 had done once before. 
 
 " No trifling ! Answer — yes or no ! " 
 
 " Well ! * no,' then, monsieur. Since you will have the 
 truth, do not blame me if you find it uncomplimentary 
 and unacceptable." 
 
 He let go her hands and reeled back, staggered, as if 
 struck by a shot. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! it is true — you love me no longer ! And 
 you tell it me thus ! " 
 
 Madame la Marquise, for an instant, was silenced and 
 touched ; for the words were uttered with the faint cry of 
 a man in agony, and she saw, even by the dim twilight 
 of dawn, bow livid his lips turned, how ashy gray grew 
 the hue of his face. But she smiled, playing with 
 Osmin's new collar of pearls and coral. 
 
 "Tell it you 'thus'? I would not have told it you 
 •thus,' monsieur, if you had been content with a hint, and 
 had not evinced so strong a desire for candor undisguised ; 
 but if people will not comprehend a delicate suggestion, 
 they must be wounded by plainer truths — it is their own 
 fault. Did you think I was like a little sheph(?rdess in a 
 pastoral, to play the childish game of constancy without
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZB. 387 
 
 variations ? Had you presumption enough to fancy you 
 could amuse me for ever " 
 
 He stopped her, his voice broken and hoarse, as he 
 gasped for breath. 
 
 "Silence! Woman, have you no mercy ? For you — 
 for such as you — I have flung away heaven, steeped 
 myself in sin, lost my church, my peace, my all — for- 
 feital all right to the reverence of my fellows, all hope 
 for the smile of my God I For you — for such as you — 
 I have become a traitor, a hypocrite, an apostate, whose 
 prayers are insults, whose professions are lies, whose oaths 
 are perjury ! At your smile, I have flung away eternity ; 
 for your kiss, I have risked my life here, my life here- 
 after ; for your love, I held no price too vast to pay : 
 weighed with it, honor, faith, heaven, all seemed value- 
 less — all were forgotten ! You lured me from tranquil 
 calm, you broke in on the days of peace which but for 
 you were unbroken still, you haunted my prayers, you 
 placed yourself between Heaven and me, you planned to 
 conquer my anchorite's pride, you wagered you would 
 lure me from my priestly vows, and yet you have so little 
 mercy, that when your bet is won, when your amusement 
 grows stale, when the victory grows valueless, you can 
 turn on me with words like these without one self- 
 reproach ? " 
 
 " Ma foi, monsieur 1 it is you who may reproach your- 
 self, not I," cried his hearer, insolently. "Are you so 
 very provincial still, that you are ignorant that when a 
 lover has ceased to please he has to blame his own lack 
 of power to retain any love he may have won, and is far 
 too well-bred to utter a complaint? Your language is 
 very new to me. Most men, monsieur, would be grateful 
 for my slightest preference ; I permit none to rebuke me 
 for either giving or withdrawing it." 
 
 The eyes of Madame la Marquise sparkled angrily, and 
 the smile on her lips was a deadly one, full of irony, full
 
 388 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 of malice. As he beheld it, the scales fell at last from 
 the eyes of Gaston de Launay, and he saw what this 
 woman was whom he had worshipped with such mad, 
 blind, idolatrous passion. 
 
 He bowed his head with a low, broken moan, as a man 
 stunned by a mortal blow ; while Madame la Marquise 
 stood playing with the pearl-and-coral chain, and smiling 
 the malicious and mischievous smile that showed her 
 white teeth, as they are shown in the portrait by 
 Mignard. 
 
 " Comme les hommes sont Jous I " laughed Madame la 
 Marquise. 
 
 He lifted his eyes, and looked at her as she stood in 
 the faint light of the dawn, with her rich dress, her gleam- 
 ing diamonds, her wicked smile, her matchless beauty ; 
 and the passion in him broke out in a bitter cry : 
 
 " God help me ! My sin has brought home its curse ! " 
 
 He bent over her, his burning lips scorching her own 
 like fire, holding her in one last embrace, that clasped 
 her in a vice of iron she had no power to break. 
 
 "Angel! devil! temptress! This for what I have 
 deemed thee — that for what thou art ! " 
 
 He flung her from him with unconscious violence, and 
 left her — lying where she fell. 
 
 The gray silvery dawn rose, and broke into the warmth 
 and sunlight of a summer day ; the deer nestled in their 
 couches under the chequered shadows of the woodlands 
 round, and the morning chimes were rung in musical 
 carillons from the campanile of the chateau; the Pro- 
 vence roses tossed their delicate heads, joyously shaking 
 the dew off their scented petals ; the blossoms of the limea 
 fell in a fragrant shower on the turf below, and the boughs, 
 swayed softly by the wind, brushed their leaves against 
 the sparkling waters of the fountains; the woods and 
 gardens of Petite Foret lay, bright and laughing, in the
 
 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. 389 
 
 mellow sunlight of the new day to which the world was 
 waking. And with his face turned up to the sky, clasped 
 in his hand a medallion enamel on which was painted the 
 head of a woman, the grass and ferns where he had fallen 
 stained crimson with his life-blood, lay a dead man, while 
 in his bosom nestled a little dog, moaning piteous, plain- 
 tive cries, and vainly seeking its best to wake him to the 
 day that for him would never dawn. 
 
 When her household, trembling, spread the news that 
 the dead priest had been found lying under the limes, 
 slain by his own hand, and it reached Madame la Mar- 
 quise in her private chambers, she was startled, shocked, 
 wept, hiding her radiant eyes in her broidered handker- 
 chief, and called Azor, and bade him bring her her flask 
 of scented waters, and bathed her eyes, and turned them 
 dazzling bright on Saint-Elix, and stirred her chocolate 
 and asked the news. " Onpeut etre emtce auz larvies et 
 aimer le chocolat," thought Madame la Marquise, with her 
 friend Montespan; — while, without, under the waving 
 shadow of the linden-boughs, with the sunlight streaming 
 round him, the little dog nestling in his breast, refusing 
 to be comforted, lay the man whom she had murdered. 
 
 The portrait of Mignard still hangs on the walls of the 
 chateau, and in its radiant colors Madame la Marquise 
 still lives, fair type of her age, smiling her victorious 
 smile, with the diamonds shining among her hair, and 
 her brilliant eyes flashing defiance, irony, and coquetry 
 as of yore, when she reigned amidst the beauties of Ver- 
 sailles; — and in the gardens beyond, in the summer 
 nights, the lime-boughs softly shake their fragrant flowera 
 on the turf, and the moonlight falls in hushed and mourn- 
 ful calm, streaming through the network of the boughs 
 on to the tangled mass of violets and ferns that has grown 
 up in rank luxuriance over the spot where Gaston de 
 Launay died.
 
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 Countess Erika's Apprenticeship By Ossip Schubin. 
 
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 In the vSchillingscourt By E. Marlitt. 
 
 Countess Gisela By E. Marlitt. 
 
 At the Councillor's By E. Marlitt. 
 
 The Second Wife By E. Marlitt. 
 
 The Old Mam'selle's Secret By E. Marlitt. 
 
 Gold Elsie By E. Marlitt. 
 
 The Little Moorland PrincI'^ss By E. Marlitt. 
 
 " Mrs. A. L. Wister, through her many translations of novels from the Ger- 
 man, has established a reputation of the highest order for literary judgment, and for 
 % long time her name upon the title-page of such a translation has been a sufficient 
 guarantee to the lovers of fiction of a pure and elevating character, that the novel 
 would be a cherished home favorite. This faith in Mrs. Wister is fully justified by 
 the fart that among her more than thirty translations that have been published by 
 Lippincott's there has not been a single ilisappoinlmeiu. And to the exijuisite 
 judgment of selection is to be added the rare excellence of her translatit>ns, which 
 has commanded the admiration of literary and linguistic scholars." — lioston JJovu 
 Journnl. 
 
 j. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
 
 , By Marie Corelli. 
 
 Cameos. 
 
 Ten Short Stories. l2mo. Cloth, $l.oo. 
 
 The surprising versatility of Marie Corelli has never been better displayed tham 
 in this varied group of short stories which run the whole gamut of feeling, senti- 
 ment, and purpose known to contemporary fiction. Appearing as they do almost 
 simultaneously with " The Sorrows of Satan," that wonderful romance of nine- 
 teenth-century life which is the theme of the day, alike in England and America, 
 they serve to mark the tenderness, the love of human sentiment, and the sympathy 
 for human suffering which are naturally less emphasized in the more powerful and 
 concentrated novel. 
 
 The Sorrows of Satan : 
 
 Or, The Strange Experience of one Geoffrey Tempest, 
 
 Millionaire. 
 
 A Romance. With frontispiece by Van Schaick. l2mo. Cloth, ^1.50. 
 
 *' There is very little in common between this story and ' Barabbas.' In ' The 
 Sorrows of Satan' Miss Corelli wields a much more vigorous pen. She is full of her 
 purpose. Dear me, how she scathes English society ! She exposes the low life of 
 nigfi life with a ruthless pen. The sins of the fashionable world made even Satan 
 sad ; they were more than he could bear, poor man ! The book is lively reading, 
 and will be read in England with an eager curiosity."" — Chicago Tribune- 
 
 Barabbas. 
 
 A Dream of the World's Tragedy. 
 l2mo. Cloth, ^i.oo. 
 
 " A book which aroused in some quarters more violent hostility than any book 
 of recent years. By most secular critics the authoress was accused of bad taste, 
 bad art, and gross blasphemy ; but, in curious contrast, most religious papers 
 acknowledged the reverence of treatment and the dignity of conception which 
 aharacterized the work." — London AthencEUin. 
 
 Vendetta ; 
 
 Or, The Story of One Forgotten. 
 
 l2rao. Cloth, J^l.oo. 
 
 " It is a thrilling and irresistibly charming book." — Baltimore American. 
 
 " The story is Italian, the time 1884, and the precise stage of the acts, Naples, 
 during the last visit.ntion of the cholera. A romance, but a romance of reality. No 
 mind of man can imagine incidents so wonderful, so amazing as those of actual 
 occurrence. While the story is exciting, and must be read through when once 
 begun, it furnishes a. vivid and impressive picture of Italian hie and morals." — 
 tiyasllitigton National Republican. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
 
 By Capt. Chas. King, U.S.A. 
 
 Under Fire, illustrated. The Colonel's Daughter, illustrated. 
 Marion's Faith, illustrated. Captain Blake, illustrated. 
 Foes in Ambush. (Paper, 50 cents.) 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, gi.25. 
 
 Waring's Peril. Trials of a Staff Officer. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, jSi.oo. 
 
 Kitty's Conquest. 
 
 Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories. 
 Laramie ; or, The Queen of Bedlam. 
 The Deserter, and From the Ranks. 
 Two Soldiers, and Dunraven Ranch. 
 A Soldier's Secret, and An Army Portia. 
 Captain Close, and Sergeant Croesus. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, gi.oo; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 " From the lowest soldier to the highest officer, from the servant to 
 the master, there is not a character in any of Captain King's novels 
 that is not wholly in Iceeping with expressed sentiments. There is 
 not a movement made on the field, not a break from the ranks, not an 
 offence against the military code of discipline, and hardly a heart- 
 beat that escapes his watchfulness." — Boston IJcrald. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
 
 By Amelie Rives. 
 
 Barbara Dering, 
 
 A Sequel to "The Quick or the Dead?" 
 
 i2mo. Qoth, ;gi,25. 
 
 "' The book is brilliantly written from the stand-point of a young woman of 
 observation, experience, feeling, and strong convictions. Her characters are true to 
 life."— S'/f. Paul Dispatch. 
 
 " The conversations of the principal characters are full of that power which 
 the editors of the Atlantic and of Harper's Monthly found in Miss Rives's work 
 in the early days of her writing." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 The Quick or the Dead ? 
 
 l2mo. Cloth, ^i.oo. 
 
 " No s'.ory ever published in this country created more stir and controversy 
 than this one. By many the work has been pronounced a masterpiece of genius." 
 — Baltimore News. 
 
 " 'The Quick or the Dead?" " says the New York Herald, "has made 
 a deeper impression on oiu- American literature than any work of fiction since 
 ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' " 
 
 The Witness of the Sun. 
 
 l2mo. Cloth, ^i.oa 
 
 " That Miss Rives has been thought worthy of recognition at the hands of 
 critics North and South is the strongest evidence of the fact she has done something 
 out of the common, and we will preface whatever we have to write by saying that 
 we are not among the least of her admirers." — Chicago Times. 
 
 " The novel is exciting, notably in its concluding chapters, and it shows re- 
 markable facility in literary expression, especially in the dialogue." — Boston 
 Gazette. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
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